Confessions of a Lapsed Gamer; A bit of a rant or is this just whinging?

So here we are.  ‘Return to the Old World’ is out and was so hyped that it sold out quickly.  On the Website.  From GW.  In my local game shop you can still find the box set as well as rule books.  That said, there has been a lot of interest in OW and I am wondering if that is mainly from the aforementioned hype or has the game filled a niche that opened with the failure, my words, of Age of Sigmar to pull in an audience of fantasy players?  AoS has disappeared from the game tables at the store though it is well stocked on the shelves.  It’s equally rare to see some of the other games, like Shadespire, on the tables.  It could be something unique but I doubt it.

Now, I have been in the shop and watched a few games of OW and looked through the rulebook and army lists and it is the 9th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles that should have been in 2015.  The lists are very much the same.  The armies that were in the old WHFB are there for the most part.  Those that are missing would be address in a set of free downloads from GW.  The game mechanics are the same and if you played WHFB you can play almost from the start.  The biggest change is the magic system and to be honest, the magic needed to be revised but this is rather nice to see.  Yes, there is also the base size changes and I will blather on about that later in this but overall it is a slick production and looks good.  It is laid out much like the old rulebooks and has a good table of contents.

The box set, if you can find it, is a good starter but the armies they chose perplex me.  The Tomb Kings were quite popular but the Bretonnians were not, from my memories, a ‘main’ army.  The minis were, and still are nice, but a bit bland to me.  The big box editions would be High Elves/Goblins for 4th Ed., Bretonnian/Lizardmen in 5th, Empire/Orks in 6th, Dwarf/Goblins in 7th and High Elves/Skaven in 8th.  The Brets were due and upgrade in the 5th ed as were the Lizards but they were never seemed to be that popular.  Certainly the Elves, all flavors, the Empire and the OnGs were on the most frequent played list.  Oddly the Chaos forces were played often in the shop but only the human worshippers are in the main lists.  Skaven are not, the Dark Elves, Lizards, Vampire Counts, Ogres, Demon armies and Chaos Dwarfs are left out of the main lists too.  I think that it is a good thing to add but why not all the army lists?  No fluff or anything, but would the loss of $30 for each army book, $50 for the Forces of Fantasy/Ravening Hordes, I guess.  Add on to that the $70 for the rulebook, it adds up fast.  

The fact that you can’t buy any of the factions except for the Bretts and TKs  from the GW website (if they even have it, most are sold out) is another mystery to me.  It supports my point that this is a way to pull the more avid gamers of the old game back in.  I mean I have armies for the Empire, Dwarfs and High Elves along with a good amount of OnGs and some odd and ends of other factions.  Makes me also wonder that on the AoS page the only army there that works for OW are the Dark Elves and they are a ‘legend’ army!  It looks like the planning was sketchy for making the OW an important adjunct game.  So, with that you know that GW does not allow .stl files nor can you use 3D printed models if it is a GW sponsored event.  So, where the hell are you gonna get minis if you don’t want to play Bretts or desiccated skellies you are SOL.  

The last thing I want to talk about are the basic conventions of the game.  You Infantry is now on a 25mm base rather than the original 20mm.  It wouldn’t be an issue if you are starting a new army to play.  After all that is what is in the box.  No, it is that the old bases are no longer valid.  So what do you do with your dwarf army that you’ve had for years?  Rebase?  That’s not gonna happen.  Special movement trays that space the minis out to ‘regulation’ width.  Could be costly but really isn’t what I want to do either.  BTW, if you order 25mm square bases from GW you’ll drop $50 for 100 and that is without shipping costs, or taxes.  Go to Amazon and order them as they will be a quarter of the costs and they are on Prime so no shipping.   

Now I know that this has come across as a pretty negative commentary and it has it’s bitter points but it is nice to see a low fantasy army back on the table and the rule set seems tight and fun.  Most commentators on the interwebs have said that and who am I to argue.  The folks that are playing it in the shop say the same thing.  I have softened somewhat on my feelings about the game.  I will say that I like it better than say Kings of War (it is a good game also) and some of the other rank and flank games that have come out.  That attitude probably speaks to the sense of nostalgia I hold for WHFB.  Does this mean I am gonna dabble in Return?  No, I don’t really think so.  The cost puts me off but who knows?  Maybe if it actually gets a second edition I may take another look.

There’s my two cents.  As always, don’t just take my commentary as gospel!  Go and look at the game and see if it is appealing to you.  This is a hobby not a life and death decision.  For myself the only thing I want from the TKs is Settra the Imperishable, Supreme Ruler of Khemri.  The only Tomb King to flip Nagash off with the immortal quote; ‘Settra does not serve!  SETTRA RULES!’ 

Confessions of a Lapsed Gamer; 2023 in review or do we need to do this?

What a year!  I have painted 86 minis so far this year.  I noticed that, over the course of the year, there were a number of changes going on with the hobby and I have seen some trends forming.  Fewer companies make minis from different forms of white metal and more multipart styrene or thermoplastic.  Then there is the growing number of 3D printed minis out there that are available online as .stl’s or fully printed minis out there.  Most are comparable with the more traditional methods of miniature creation.  It is also reflected in the number that I have painted this year and are waiting for their turn on the table.  I bought new games and a ton of minis that you’ll see in later missives.  It was also a year that the ‘Magic Bin’ was gotten into quite a bit.  

Catalyst Game Labs.  The most minis I painted this year came from Catalyst Game Labs for BattleTech.  Only a few were from force box sets.  Mostly were from Salvage Boxes of individual Mechs but I did buy the Wolf’s Dragoon Assault Star twice and got them all painted.  Love the Timber Wolf from that box.  They are organized into, depending on the faction, into Lances or Stars.  I also bought the ‘Alpha Strike’ game and the Counters Pack expansion.  I have written a couple blogs about the BT games and the minis.  Love them and want more.  The total is 33.

Clan Mechs; Marauder IIc, Linebacker, Timberwolf, Howler

IS Mechs; Banshee, Grasshopper, Wolfhound, Axman

Games Workshop. Few of the 22 GW minis that got painted this year were ‘new’ as 21 came from the bin.  I got a fever for finishing my dwarf army and painted all the crossbow dwarfs I had.  The rest of the GW minis were, well, impulse painting.  Two are really from Marauder but that goes without saying.  So there was a hornsman for the old Bugman’s Rangers Regiment, the original one from 1984.  Then eight pewter dwarf crossbows.  Three for the WHFB Empire army, an ancient Man at Arms, a Fighter Command Champion and Citizen (from Marauder) and a fully armoured Captain.  An old Goblin music that was sitting in the bin for decades.  A WHQ Elf Ranger and a mounted Dark Elf with a crossbow. Six for 40K, two old Chaos Raptors (for the Night Lords) Two Veteran Sgts (Raven Guard and Scythes of the Emperor), One original Plastic Genestealer (First edition Space Hulk), and One Librarian in Phobos Armour for the Dark Angels army.  Total of 22

Dwarf Crossbows and Hornsman

Musician, Man at Arms, Captain, Champion

Scythes of the Emperor, Raven Guard

Original Genestealer, Primaris Librarian

Reaper Miniatures.  Reaper is always on my list of minis.  It is one of those ‘go to’ companies that still make a number of fantasy archetypes that you need in RPG and dungeon crawls.  I know that I tend to go on about the casting, the customer service and the sculptors but this is a great company to work with.  Eight of them were pewter castings (7 from the Dark Heaven line and one from WarLord) and the other eight are plastics from the numerous ‘Bones’ lines.  Not all are fantasy, most are, but there are a couple that are not.  I had the most fun with Tianalise the Bog Witch as I made a nice little diorama base.  The ‘Dungeoneer Sophie’ was a close second.  The Punkin’ Headed Bugbear was the longest on the table.  Not keen on the figure once I started it.   I was probably the most disappointed in Nasithe mini, well not the mini itself but rather the effort I put into painting her didn’t really satisfy.  For fun though I painted the Rocky Dragon brush holder.  Nothing like a little red dragon sitting on your paint table.  Total Reaper 16

Nadia of the Blade (1st and 2nd Sculpt), Tristan Loremistress, Eli Quicknight

Dungeoneer Sophie, Terezinya, Jolie, Tianalise the Bog Witch

Casiatta Anti-Paladin, Nasithe, Punkin’ Head Bugbear

Theris Vinson, Femme Fatale

3D Printed minis.  Well, this was a hard one to really quantify.  I painted a ‘Black Widow’ but in the white costume.  Just liked something different for her.  I also played with some resin to fill the 50mm lipped base.  Wanted it to look like she was in an office building of some sort.  Two Captain Americas with the original shield.  And three fantasy ‘office workers’.  They were fun and a nice diversion from the norm.  Total of 6.

Original Capt A’s and Widow

Trixli Goblin Business Woman, Ogrra Orc CEO, Stacy Succubus Office Worker

Warlord Games.  So, I bought a mystery box and a number of sprues this year from Warlord.  Took me awhile to get any painted.  I had a number of mini boxes from ‘Mystic Americas’ that I was sure what to do with.  I bit the bullet and painted five Seneca archers and got them up to a table top level of paint.  Just kept reminding myself of using them in a game of ‘Pulp!’ or Oathmark.  I could probably use them in other games.  They are nice minis but I have more that I have gotten excited to paint that will appear in next years review.  Total of 5

Atomic Mass Games.  I painted two.  One, Captain America as he looked in the comics for almost 60 years for Marvel Crisis Protocol.  One from Star Wars:Legions the NightSister Asajj Ventress.  Now I understand that I used to love Marvel and Star Wars but I have some sort of mental block on painting the minis from both games.  No Idea why.  Maybe next year I’ll have more done.  I was very frustrated while painting Ventress.  Couldn’t get the face marking right.  So I just finished her, based her and sealed her.  

Foundry.  There are those companies that you want to have in your collection and Foundry is one of them.  I painted one of the last Valkyries in the bin; Rota, She Who Causes Turmoil.   She painted herself as most Foundry minis seem to do.  I need to find a place in the US that sells Foundry and get some of their minis.  Total of 1.

Mantic Games.  One, yep only one.  From the Lilly Booster pack for The Walking Dead: All Out War comes Smitty.  He is a denizen of the Woodbury group and killed Billy Greene during the Prison battle.  He will also be appearing in any other game I can fit him into.

Smitty

SO there you go.  86 minis done and on the shelf.  A few more than last year but who’s counting?  It was a decent year with minis that ran from fantasy to post-apoc and back again.  I have been over long in writing this but I will probably break some of these into more detail in the future.  

Happy New Year!

Confessions of a Lapsed Gamer; The Big Bang Boom or How Long is Six Inches?

The wagon moved along the road that passed through the open town lands.  The sun shining on the green fields that were at the start of the growing season.  Family steadings and villages passed.  Guthlaf was riding in the back listening to Gisha chat with the girl, Bemia.  He shook his head in amazement.  Gisha never seemed to want to talk to the ‘lesser races’ about anything but there she sat next to the girl chuckling at Bemia’s jokes and sharing stories.  ‘Almost there, about another hour or so’ Bemia looked over her shoulder and said and then returned to her conversation.  The idea that her mother was a respectable owner of a large Inn rather than the thief that he knew years ago was a surprise.  What she described was really a small village as there was a blacksmith, farriers, a brewery and more.  The caravans stopped there within a long day’s march to the city they had just left.  Guthlaf dozed in the sun and let the time slip by.

I have very few ‘Special’ units for the Empire and less ‘Rare’ ones, more on that later in this.  I have proxied the Reiksguard Foot in as Greatswords for years but I am now painting up some proper Zwiehanders for whatever game I want to use them in.  They are probably the most ‘Germanic’ looking miniature soldiers in the Empire Army as they are sculpted to look exactly like those veteran Landesknechts and considering they were from the hands of the Perry Brothers it should not come as a surprise to anyone.  But then I don’t have any that are painted to show off so I will move on.

Plastic Cannon

For the special units that I do have painted that I always take to the table are the Great Cannon and Mortar.  First the Great Cannon is really a large direct fire weapon that you can, if you’re good with guessing ranges, break whole units and kill monsters with one shot.  In some editions you can also make them into large shotguns.  They are quite scary to march on and if you can bounce your cannon balls properly.  The same goes for the mortar but instead of putting a large metal or stone ball through a unit but rather putting a bomb in the middle of a formation.  They are truly weapons of mass destruction.  There is an entry in the main rules for a smaller cannon, the cannon used by the Dwarfs actually, but I use an old cannon from the old Battle Masters game (1992) from Milton Bradley and GW.  It fits quite nicely with the army.  I tend to look at that if I am in a smaller game and can use the point saving somewhere else.

Metal Cannon

I have two Great Cannons in the army.  One is lead and the other is plastic.  With another metal and two more plastic ones waiting in the bin to assemble and paint.  They are fairly straight forward minis and can be assembled without a lot of thought.  The metal cannon ‘Nuln’s Judgement’ was the first part of what I hoped would be the Grand Battery of my army.  The plastic is from the 6th edition box and named ‘Wrath of Sigmar’ was more of a good thing.  It destroyed a Wood Elf dragon and Mage in one shot.  Heady day indeed.  Together they work as a team that will give you ranges from the first shot and allow you to hammer those Chaos Warriors to pieces.  Put them on elevations that allow you to fire over your battle line or on a flank with some protection.  Enemy fliers will be all over them if you don’t.  NEVER put them in your battle line unless you have to.  In a battle line they could be charged directly or have their field of fire obscured by friendly units.

Mortar

Mortars work very differently from cannon but they are quite useful especially against horde armies.  Put them near enough to the cannons to assist you in range estimation but not so close to get caught in a misfire incident.  I have one painted and four more in the bin.  All are from the fourth edition era and are very basic.  They were, like their historical counterparts, in a simple base/cradle to hold the ‘pot’ and emplaced directly on ground.  A later game mortar would be wheeled but I didn’t like the way it looked.  Keep in mind that it has a Minimum range of 12 inches and a maximum of 48 inches.  That 12in dead zone is important to remember when the enemy is in danger close.  That’s why you load your nearby cannon with grape.  As they are far more in need of a good range guess it is better to fire the cannons and increase the chance of a hit.  To be blunt, there is a historical precedent for using the fire of nearby engines to gain the range on a given target.  

Hellblaster 1

Now I’d like to talk about the only Rare unit I have on the table and the only war engine I put in the battle line:  The incredible Von MienKopt’s Whirling Cavalcade of Death, or as the laymen put it, the Hellblaster Volley Gun.  I remember taking one to battle, watching it destroy every enemy unit I fired at until it misfired on the last turn of the game.  I immediately went and bought a second one to increase that firepower.  Do I really need two?  No.  I wanted them.  Bet your tuckus, putting one of those on a flank will have your enemy shying away but two, well that is what a tactician would call a ‘denied flank’.  It is the only engine that I put into a battle line side by side with a small regiment for security. 

Hellblaster 2

I also look at magic as a support weapon along the lines of war engines in the game.  The ‘magic system’ changed quite a bit over the 5 or six editions, main editions that is, but the human mages were more restricted than some other factions.  The wizards in the army come from various editions.  Most from the 3rd edition but there are a couple from 4th.  I try to take a Lord and a couple battle mages.  The lord is a heavy hitter with numerous spells and the ability to reach out and touch the enemy.  The lesser mages are there to protect and dispel.  Anything beyond that is gravy.  I don’t mount them on horses but I have some unpainted ones and probably will see how they would work in a game.  The later editions of the game would almost do away with half of the Colleges of Magic, from my observations, so my old minis came back to the table as I could just name them to this faction or that.  

3rd Edition Wizards

After re-reading this I realized that this is all about the artillery of my army.  Empire Armies are about firepower to whittle down opponents in the idea that the weakened units will not push an attack and will be vulnerable to counter attack.  In conjunction with the detachment rules that make the infantry deadly in the defense, well, the Empire army (if played well) is a handful on the tabletop.  IF the ideas introduced in 4th to 6th editions remain in the new game I would probably look closer at the rules.  

Later Wizards

Guthlaf sat in a well appointed office in the Inn’s large main building.  ‘The Bard’s Repose’ was as Bemia described.  It was a small village that was close to the Royal Road and was close enough to a navigable water course to have a small landing for river commerce.  It was quite the operation.  Elswyth was no longer the waspish thief he’d adventured with almost two decades ago.  Now she was stocky with graying hair but he had no doubt that she could still be deadly with the short sword that hung from her left hip.  She sat at a large desk looking at the pair.  Gisha stood next to the small window that looked out onto the front yard of the inn.  She too was impressed with the size of the place.  ‘So,’ Guthlaf said, ‘What do you need from us?’