The Games that Define Us - Re-post

This is an old post of mine, from 2012, that I just re-read. It made me think, again, about the influences in my games as well as how Rhys has been influenced as he grows up with gaming.

The idea is to talk about ten games that define you as a gamer.  Some interesting things have come out of it.  More North American gamers seem to have gotten in through RPGs, whereas the UK gamers seem to have come into it through GW.

In my case, I definitely follow the trend, coming to GW late in my gaming life.  There are some on my list that I have not seen anywhere else.  Others seem to be on every list.

Entry 8 - 7th Challenge - A mix of models and some go backs.

This entry is an eclectic mix of models that have been getting bits of paint here and there and were close to finished. I like to keep spare models on the painting desk to soak up the bits of paint that are left after working on a unit. At a certain point they reach critical mass and I just finish them off.

The first entry does not count for today. It's the Celt unit from a week (2 weeks?) ago. I went back and finished the backs of the shields, since if I don't do it now it'll never happen.

Dwarf Warrior Throng

This is another Ebay find. In addition to wanting one of each elite Dwarf regiment I wanted to fill out the ranks of the regulars. For this I needed more warriors and this regiment was another steal; $15 dollars for twenty, assembled and mostly primed.

A fully painted rank and file Dwarf Regiment. We're getting places now.

Dwarf Thunderers - Ebay repaints

I recently spent some time on Ebay filling in some blanks in my Warhammer Dwarf army. While I was mainly looking for the elite infantry regiments I found a few deals on other models that I couldn't pass up.

This first regiment is ten of the metal Thunderers. I love these models and just had to have them when I saw them for a reasonable price.

The business end of Dwarfen fury.

Entry 2 - 7th Challenge - 1 Dwarf Lord

This entry is a single Dwarf Lord from GW. He was painted to accompany the two units and two artillery pieces that I finished right before the Challenge. The units were Ebay re-paints so wouldn't count and the artillery were sitting there mocking me and needed to be done.

I had not planned on painting this guy but I pulled him out to use in role playing and he is such a handsome model that I just had to throw him in.

Dwarf Artillery

Before the challenge started I finished up two dwarf artillery pieces. I'm not sure why I didn't wait for the Challenge and I also am not sure why I didn't paint the crews for them at the same time.

Dwarf Flame Canon

Nostalgia bonus entry for 5th AHPC - 28mm goblin spider chariot

This is my entry for the first bonus round of the 6th annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge - Nostalgia.

I wasn't sure what to paint for this bonus round, and honestly had decided to give it a pass. Over the last week I've been reading through people's end of year/beginning of year posts (I love 'em). As I was preparing my own, something came to fruition in my tiny little brain. The death of Warhammer this year had made me (and many others) sad. It got me thinking to when I first started formal wargaming, with GW and Warhammer 6th Edition.

Entry 3 - Challenge - Bonus round: Cold

The first bonus round was themed: Cold.  These are each worth 50 points but, more importantly, are where you see some of the very best work in the challenge.  Competitors will often build dioramas and put extra love and attention into these entries.  I'm ahead of schedule this year so I had time to spend a bit more

This one was so obvious to me that I just had to go with it.  Villains and cold together made me think of a Dark Elf Cold One Knight.  The model is one of GW’s better efforts.  These are a huge improvement over the old models.  

Warhammer Wood Elves

Here are the pictures of the Wood Elf army I recently received as a gift/bequest.  There is not a lot to it, and no paint on it at all.  This leaves me with questions and opportunities.  For a couple of reasons, it's very important to get this army just right.

The full army.

A late Christmas gift

The other day my friend asked me to come over after work.  I always make time for this particular friend, and so headed straight there.  When I arrived he said that he had my Christmas present for me.  On his kitchen table was his Warhammer Chaos army.

That's five units of Chaos warriors and four units of Marauders.  

Four month plan +

There's a lot I want to do this year, since I'm trying everything that catches my fancy for twelve months.  I've called it the year of rules but I'm also dabbling in scales, mediums and genres.  The only real rule I have is that all of my gaming activities have to be games.

This year I'm deliberately being a gaming magpie.

The Games that Define Us

An interesting tide is sweeping our small section of the blogosphere.  I refuse to use the M word (meme, there I did it, but only this once).  It started with the Frontline Gamer, whose blog I've pimped out before.  Several others have done it as well.  The topic has been bubbling around in my mind for a couple of weeks now, and it's finally germinated into something.

The idea is to talk about ten games that define you as a gamer.  Some interesting things have come out of it.  More North American gamers seem to have gotten in through RPGs, whereas the UK gamers seem to have come into it through GW.

In my case, I definitely follow the trend, coming to GW late in my gaming life.  There are some on my list that I have not seen anywhere else.  Others seem to be on every list.

More on 8th edition Warhammer

I have played three more games of 8th Edition Warhammer since my last post.  It just gets better and better.  I got in two 1000 point games and a 1500 pointer.

The first 1000 points was against demons.  It was my first time playing them since they got their own book.  Things were going pretty well until the Blue Scribe got behind my line and got off the Vortex spell.  Half of my army died in that one round, including General "I always roll once worse than what I need and now I'm dead" who will not be missed.

After that the game was pretty much over.

The next game was against High Elves.  Rob had a big block (30?) of Lothern Sea Guard, some archers and some swordmasters, all lead by a mage.  I dropped a perfect shot on him from my Rocket battery and killed all but one LSG and the mage.  That was the first shot of my second turn.  Game over.  Now we all understand why big blocks my not be a no-brainer.  They probably still have their place, but there is a lot to be said for redundancy.

The third game was 1500 points vs Autret and his Vampire Counts.  My dice were a little bit above average, his were crap.  I channeled an extra dice in five times during the game.  I had a couple of turns where I had more dispel dice than he had casting dice, which is very bad for VC.

This was my first game against VC as well.  They were just as hard as I expected.  They also died really fast to my light spells.  Shooting in two ranks was awesome.  My cannon killed one of his vampires on the first shot of the game, which didn't help him out all.  His dire wolves got a first turn charge (he went second) on my mortar, in a building and wiped it, then failed four of five difficult terrain tests and lost all but one dog. 

I learned a lot more about the rules and about VC.  I also got to teach another person the new rules, so we have five or six people who have played them now.

This weekend we will be running some events to get everyone going on them, so it should be a fun time and a great way to get even more people to play.

Accomlished this week.

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.

Slow hobby time

I have not been doing much with the hobby this month.  I am currently looking for a new job and that is taking most of my free time and what's left of my energy at the end of the day.

I have been following the rumors about Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition.  I have to admit, I'm very excited.  It sounds to me like the changes will be very interesting.

I have been happy with 7th Edition, by and large.  There are a couple of things I hate, the terrain rules first and foremost.  I hate the fact that, for most units, touching terrain is the end of the game.  Ranked units just come to a complete standstill when they get in to terrain.  Most of the other things people don't like don't bother me all that much.

Having said that, I am looking forward to the changes.  A percentage cap on characters would be great.  Even if, as rumored it is 25%.  I like this a lot better than the number cap.  Four vampire counts characters are not equal to four goblin characters.  The points cost doesn't make up for the fact that you only have those four slots to get whatever you need for your army.  I also don't like hero-hammer so this works for me on many levels.

This cap will also lead to more troops on the table.  I hate 16 model armies.  An army should look like an army.  Some people don't agree, but that's ok.  They're playing a different game than I am and not with me.

Random charges seems to be getting a lot of internet ink right now.  I'm ok with this too.  It makes things a little bit less certain, which is good.  There are plenty of "realistic" reasons why this rule works and it will not be nearly as critical if the rumored rules for casualties are true.

The new casualty rules are rumored to be that the first two ranks get to fight.  This is regardless of how many models get killed.  Casualties are taken off of the back and if you have two full ranks when this is done they all get to fight.  This means that getting the charge loses some of the importance that it used to have.  It also means that normal infantry might actually be of some use in the game for something other than supporting a character.

There are others, too many to recount here.  Warseer has pages and pages  of threads about this.  All in all, I think the summer is going to be a great time for Warhammer and I couldn't be more excited.

Cannons

I played a 2000 point game of Warhammer this weekend.  My empire against my friend Rob's High Elves.  It was a great game, very tactical, lots of back and forth and lots of cinematic moments.  I forgot to take pictures of course.

What struck me was how great my cannons were.  I was using a list that I had tooled up to fight a HE Dragon lord list.  Two canons, Arch Lector, Warrior Priest and Battle Wizard.  Lots of dispels.  Rob plays a, mostly, infantry list.  he had one unit of eight Silver Helms with his general in it.  The point being, finally, that my list was not really a list I would normally play with.

The two cannons were the stars of the battle.  They killed a bolt thrower, his level 1 mage, his general and the hero of the Silver Helms and a chariot.  They also absorbed turn after turn of fire from two units of ten archers and two bolt throwers.  The only hero they didn't kill was his level 4 mage, who was killed by one turn of fire by eighteen of my archers, (three detachments of seven, one of which had taken some casualties).

The other thing that struck me was just how well his spearmen stood up.  These are a much maligned unit on the web.  Everyone hates them.  I found them to be pretty bad ass.  Once they got stuck in they just stayed there.  It helped that they were in the flank of my swordsmen, and that they were fighting empire swordsmen, but all the same, they did their job.  If Rob could have gotten his cavalry into that unit as well it would have been all over.

It was a great game and it reminded me that cannons work best in pairs.

Warhammer Warbands

I am running a Warhammer Warbands escalation league down at the local shop.  We are playing for four months.  We started in January at 200 points.  We are increasing the points by 50 every two weeks.  The original plan was to go up 100 points per month but everyone wants to play bigger games.

The first month was all training games.  The vast majority of the players had not played fantasy before.  This is why I am running the league, to suck them in.  Rumors say that there will be a new edition of the rules this summer.  Because of this, no one wants to buy the rules. 

This last Saturday was the first "real" game.  We are keeping score now.  We had 24 people show up.  We had about 16 the first weekend, 12 the second weekend and nine last weekend.  That is better than I expected, and some people are playing during the week.

Some people were complaining that they were getting burned out, so I may push the next session back to the end of the month.  That will give people more time to collect and paint. 

I am very pleased with how well the league is going.  There has been a lot of interest.  Lots of new armies are being started, not just to the low, warbands, points levels either.  People are liking the game and looking at it as a viable alternative to 40k, which is the major game at the shop.  I hope that we will have five or six people who are eager to play on a regular basis by the time we are done.

I have also learned that people are much more likely to play a game if someone takes the time to organize things and provide some structure.  I'll keep this is mind for the future, when things start to run down.

Tanks

I got my FoW tanks assembled.  They were quite easy as they are the starter set tanks.  Super glue the barrels onto the turrets of the Shermans.  Super glue the barrels into the divot on the front of the StuG's.  Done.  Bob's your uncle.

I am going to like the 15mm scale I think.  The tanks are awesome and the infantry are ok.  Mainly, I can have a LOT of each.  This is a good scale for WWII as you can fight some good sized fights. 

I also like that you can have a good looking table.  There is no real way to do this with Warhammer because the terrain rules are so bad.  Terrain brings most units to a screaming halt, so putting it on just means you can't really play in that area.  In FoW, on the other hand, terrain does not bring the entire game to a screeching halt.  You can build a great looking, diorama quality, table to play on.  I am looking forward to that.  A lot.  I love terrain.

Warhammer Warbands

We played the second round of our Warhammer warbands league yesterday.  We had fourteen players.  The games are very small, only 250 points yesterday.  When we play again in two weeks they will be 300.

I started this league because there were only three of us who played Warhammer at the store.  I gave a lot of thought to the best way to get people to play and decided to give this a try.  The response has been a lot better than I had hoped.  Over twenty people have signed up and we had sixteen the first day and fourteen the second.  There have also been a lot of games during the week.

The nice thing about Warbands is that you start off small.  We began at 200 points.  This gives people the who are just beginning to try out Warhammer without a huge investment in time and money.  One or two units and, perhaps, a hero and you can start playing.  This size force is also less intimidating to get painted, though it is not a requirement that everything be painted to play.

The other nice thing about a league is that people can try a whole bunch of different units and tactics before they buy a lot of models.  It has been interesting to watch people pick units that they think will be great and then to see how they work on the table.  A lot of players are discovering that the unit either isn't all that they hoped or that it doesn't fit their play style.

The bad thing about Warbands is that the armies are not designed to work at this level at all.  Everyone has been playing in the spirit of the warbands rules, ie, it is for fun.  Everyone also sees how much better their army could be if they had more points.

I actually think this is a good thing.  In dating and hobby organization it is always a good idea to leave em wanting more.  If they are thinking about how great it would be to be able to play with more points, then they will want to play bigger games, which means they want to play Warhammer, which is why I did this in the first place.

This league is just for fun.  No money involved.  That gives me the opportunity to modify it as we go along.  I have already increased point levels once.  Yesterday was supposed to be 200pts, not 250.  I also decided that we would just play for the first month.  No league points or anything like that.  In the future I can increase the points, or even push us up into small Warhammer sized games rather than large Warbands games.  We'll see where the community sits on that but I am pretty sure that, model collections allowing, that is where everyone would like to go.

Of all of the players signed up only four or five have played before and they may be the only ones who have the rule book.  The rumor mill is pretty sure that 8th Edition of the Warhammer rules will be coming out this summer so no one is willing to fork out the $$$$ for the rule book.  There are still quite a few instances where people are surprised by the rules, usually to their detriment.  There have also been a lot of people having trouble because the rules are similar to 40K but not the same.

Now that we have had a couple of practice weekends I think we will be able to really get rolling next month.  I'm very pleased with the whole thing.  It has been well worth the time and effort on my part.

Warhammer

Warhammer Fantasy Battles is my first love with minis. This is the game that sucked me into the hobby. I love the background, the fluff. I love the armies, the rules, the community. I love the collecting.

I have been collecting Warhammer since 2002. I have a LOT of models. These games all use points to set up a battle. 2000-2250 is the normal point size for this game. smaller points will go more quickly, larger will last longer.

The biggest game I played at approx 120,000 points on the table. The table was eight feet across and sixteen feet long. For those following along at home, that's 128 square feet of playing room. We had both sides completely full of models with more off the table. It took 16 of us twelve hours to play the game half way through. I wouldn't want to play that way every day, but it was fun that time.

Empire is my main army. I like the idea of ordinary men and women trying to survive in a world full of giant monsters, demons, teaming hordes of rats and green skins and angry gods warping the very structure of the universe. This is an underdog army. Just the way I like it.

I have alot of empire. I probably have around 12,000 points. I will NEED to add some more this summer when new models come out. I am very good with this army. My friends won't play against it any more. I am pulling some of the other armies off the shelf to take them for a drive and see how they go.

My second army is Orcs & Goblins. This army has a huge variety of troop types and some rules that introduce randomness. This is not an army to play if you can't stand to watch your best laid plans go to hell because your troops decided to dust it up with each other in the middle of a battle.

I have a lot of these guys too, though not every unit, the way I do with Empire. I have only played these guys a couple of times. Right now I am trying to suck a buddy into the game and he is learning with these guys. I wish me luck. The hobby needs new blood and I need new oponents.

I also have legal, playable High Elves, Dark Elves and Dwarves. All three of these are limited in unit types, unit strength and heros, but I can put 2000 pt armies of each on the table. I have not played the Dwarfs at all yet. I have a couple of games with the HE's. They are sickeningly good. I just started my first game with Dark Elves, first turn, had to put it on hold due to sickness.

With the purchase of a battalion set and a couple of heros I have enough models to make a Brettonian, Lizard Men and Skaven army. One of these days, when someone expresses an interest in trying them or I don't have anything to buy for any of my other armies I will expand these. Actually I may bring the skaven up this year when the new book comes out.

This game takes way too much of my time, thoughts and money. I wish I got to play more, but at least I have my toy soldiers to stare at, paint and push around on the table.