It was a busy week. I got a lot done and played my first game of Warhammer 8th edition. I began the week by finishing base coating my Warhammer trees. I then got the first coat of dark brown paint on them. Two more, dry brushed, coats and the trunks will be done. After that it is down to the bases and, finally, the leaves. I have nine trees to do all told. These need to be done for September for the Mayhem in the Mountains LotR tournament we are hosting at Collectormania.
The next thing to be done was base coating my Sorylian fleet for Firestorm Armada. I hit them with Army Painter Desert Yellow primer. They will be bleached bone and some shade of blue, as yet undecided. Bleached bone is my favorite color and seems to end up in most of my armies somewhere. The bases and flight stands are black. I need to drill a hole in the end of the bases and in the ships and glue a pin into the base. Magnets and other such attachment methods all sound nice but are too much work at this point.
The next project was assembly on my M10 3" GMC Tank Destroyer Platoon for Flames of War. This involved cleaning and gluing two M10's two jeeps and an M20 utility scout car. There are crews for all vehicles and two dismounted carbine teams. I still need to clean the flash off of the crews and mount the carbine teams on their bases. That will happen at the same time as the infantry company gets stuck to theirs.
The third project of the week was making my new Faramir, Prince of Ithilien. I don't like the new model very much. I also didn't think a lot of the mounted model of my mounted Faramir blister. Easy fix. I glued the shield from a Warrior of Numenor to the mounted Faramir model. Boom! Bob's your uncle. Done.
In preparation for Fantasy 8th edition, which I am super excited about, by the way, I borrowed the book from the shop and read through the rules. As I went I compiled a list of changes from 7th. 14 pages later I had a PDF we could use, down at the shop, to learn the new rules. I also listed out the new spells so we can all plan our armies when we don't have access to the book. Magic items will be next, if I can borrow it again.
We played a 1500 point game. I didn't use any magic items, and Jud only used the ones from the High Elf book. We left the special terrain rules out of it but we rolled for the scenario and got the one where you deploy a foot apart at an angle and roll to see which units will come on as reinforcements.
Jud brought High Elves. A unit of five or six Dragon Riders with Musician and Standard but no champion. Two units of Spear Elves, one of 20 and one larger. A big unit of archers and a unit of 20 Lothern Sea Guard. He had one dispell scroll on his Level 2 fire mage, who was his general. He also had a mounted BSB with the +D6 to CR banner, which he put in with the Dragon Princes.
I had my Empire. One unit of 25 swords, full command, with a ten handgunner detachment and a 12 swordsman detachment. One unit of 25 spears full command with ten crossbows and 12 swords. One unit of five Knights with great weapons, banner and musician, one unit of five pistoliers with musician and outrider with repeater pistol. Artillery was a great canon, mortar and Hellstorm. My heroes were a General of the Empire with full plate, shield and pistol, a mounted BSB and a level 2 with the lore of life.
He had to leave his seaguard off. I lost my BSB and cannon.
Here are my impressions. This is a completely new game. I loved it. Movement is about the same but the phase is easier to understand. All charge stuff happens at once now. In my experience people usually moved their chargers when they declared them. Now that is how it is supposed to work. Random charges are something that I was not really all that worried or excited about. After the first game I have decided that I like them a lot. They add to the phase. Before, I just had to know how far eight inches was. Now I can take the chance and go for that 16 inch charge if I'm feeling lucky.
Magic is AWESOME! This is great stuff. I love the winds of magic. I love the new lores. I love everything about this. Our two level 2's got spells off, they affected the game. They were viable but not overpowering. My support spells were critical at times. His damage spells killed a bunch of dudes. His double six killed half of his archer unit.
Shooting is about the same but my warmachines were really good. I usually made most of my guesses, and you still have to be good at placing the first spot for the canon and Hellstorm, but I killed a lot of elves with artillery. True line of sight was a pain in the ass, just as I thought it would be, and added nothing to the game. I do not like this rule.
Close combat was wildly different. You beat me by 12, my leadership is 9 with the general in there and I'm stubborn with the BSB. I'll just stick around for the rest of the game, thanks.
You won combat with your Dragon Princes? Wait, they're not going to run off the table for the rest of the game? They're going to reform and get a charge off next turn? Crap.
It goes on and on. Being able to move through terrain was great. We had a bunch. It was tactical. It didn't stop the game. It looked great.
My detachments play completely differently in this edition. I ran 3x3 CC detachments all through 7th. Now, with 5 wide and at least two ranks to take away ranks, they are a lot more vulnerable. I am going to have to give some serious thought to how to make them work.
The game was fast and fun and, TLoS aside, I liked every single rule. I love 8th edition.
