Wargames & Stuff

Expand or Die

2012-02-09T18:58:00.003Z

Since the announcement, via video clip, that Privateer Press would be producing 'collosal' War Jacks for War Machine, opinion has been divided over whether this is an exciting new development or a evidence of the Games Workshop-isation of the Company. Sceptical voices have been making whispers of Apocalypse.

I don't feel particularly strongly either way, I have dabbled in War Machine and Hordes, but am not a heavy collector of either. However, the announcement is interesting to me because it says something about the nature and development of Fantasy wargames over time.

For some years now Games Workshop have been locked in an endless cycle of renewal, with new editions every five years or so and the refreshing of their armies in order to keep up momentum. They release the occasional genuinely new miniature, but the bulk of them are now new versions of existing miniatures. Their current goal seems to be to re-release as much as possible in plastic.

Since Third edition, each version of Warhammer has managed to reach a state of near completeness by the time its next edition is due. Which is to say that pretty much all the miniatures and army books have been available and there has been no strict requirement for GW to produce anything more. No edition has been perfect, but then no game is. The new editions are driven now by marketing concerns, the need to have something apparently new to sell each month.

This has generally been perceived as the behaviour of a cynical, greedy company artificially creating demand while steadily inflating its prices in order to exploit its customer base. Certainly Games Workshop has behaved badly enough over the years to justify much of the hostility towards them. However, I think there is more than a touch of desperation about their current position.

Wargames are like Empires: only strong while expanding. There is a constant need for new material, rules and miniatures to retain the interest of the customer base. That isn't to say there is no interest in older models, but a company that has nothing new to offer can all too easily drift off the radar.

When a game is first starting out there is an active need for new models and rules from both companies and players, but as the game ages additional material starts to become a barrier to entry. Privateer Press's approach has been to periodically produce new rulebooks with new rules for all its factions, but that meant by the end of first edition War Machine that a player needed to buy five rule books to get all the rules for the initial four factions.

New models can be similarly problematic. The more that are produced the more the initial enthusiasts can collect, but new players are faced with increasingly more choices and experienced opponents who have much larger armies. Meanwhile, it becomes more difficult for games shops to dedicate the space to display the full range. Plus there is the difficulty of coming up with a constant stream of new ideas.

In the face of this, wargame companies have essentially three options:

Soldier on regardless, producing more and rules and models and risk putting off potential new players.
Sweep everything clean, starting over or focusing on a new game, and alienate existing player.
Something of a fudge, release a new edition tweaking some of the rules problems that have been discovered and produce new, hopefully better, versions of existing models.

After Thirty years of Warhammer and twenty five of Warhammer 40,000 Games Workshop are trapped inexorably in stage 3, with new editions every few years that add less and less each time.

At the time I started out with Games Workshop, they were just starting to reach this point. Warhammer 40,000 was still developing in new and unexpected directions, but Warhammer was stagnant. A few new Chaos models appeared, but, essentially, the game and miniature range was complete. For the first two years after I started, essentially nothing new appeared for Warhammer and, at least among my friends, no-one paid it any attention to it at all. Then fourth edition appeared and interest picked up. Suddenly all my friends were collecting Warhammer armies, and every new army book prompted some-one to start a new army. Given the results it's hardly surprising GW have repeated the tactic.

I find the situation with Privateer Press intriguing because they have clearly tried option 3 recently with the new editions of War Machine and Hordes. but thanks to prompt and rapid army book releases have found themselves quite quickly back where they started. Now they seem to be trying tactic 1, keep producing new and exciting models and hope that new players are intrigued and not overwhelmed.

I am not making any judgement about either company, but it is fascinating to me that ultimately all successful wargames must end up in the same place.

Re-forging the Ring - Updated

2012-01-30T06:28:00.003Z

After a period of rumours, the news is officially out that Games Workshop is re-releasing its Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. With the Hobbit movies on the way that this would happen sooner or later is hardly surprising, though GW's rapid move suggests they want everything sorted out and in place well before the official Hobbit miniatures are due for release.

One interesting shift is that War of the Ring is, apparently, to be more or less dropped from sale. Shuffled off into the Specialist games hinterland with the focus on the old Strategy Battle Game. Presumably GW have concluded that it has run its course, whether that means it failed or simply that they had gotten as much out of it as they could is less certain.

The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game has actually been a remarkably stable rule set by wargaming standards, let alone GW's. Technically it is still on its First edition. Although three rule books were released in quick succession, one for each movie, these were really just expansions of the original rules rather than new editions. The current rulebook essentially consolidated the same rules with only a few small tweaks, has been around for seven years and is not due to be replaced now. As far as I am concerned this is very much a good thing as the essential rules work well at what they are designed to do and don't need re-writing for the sake of it.

That said, I am much less enamoured of the new that the current run of source books is due to be droppped, with the exception of the Lord of the Rings Journey books, and replaced with five "army books" covering the major forces of Middle Earth. I am sure some people will welcome the news, particularly Rohan or Isengard players who have been left without a dedicated supplement since the release of the new edition. And the existing books are hardly a coherent collection, some focus on regions, others on conflicts and some on armies or races.

However, the move to, what sounds like, a more Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 model of army books, albeit ones that cover more than one army list, is, I think, unfortunate and threatens to undermine some of the unique characteristics of Lord of the Rings as a game in contrast to its Warhammer counterparts.

As a relatively rare licensed war game, LOTR is set in a world that was not created to be a wargaming back drop. It is not a world of eternal warfare in which neatly defined races, each with their own distinct armies can be neatly picked out and pitted against one another. The story of Middle Earth is one of intermitant warfare, punctuated by conflicts between specific forces and nations. What that means is that certain combinations of armies never fought one another and others fought only briefly. The full army of Isengard, for example, was only ever employed in one battle, Helm's Deep.

Of course some players, quite reasonably, ignore this. They take their favourite armies and fight against one another without consideration for the background or history that inspired them. And their is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, others, including myself, prefer their games to be grounded in the setting, preferring to play games that recreate battles that Tolkein described, or ones consistent with the world he created.

In some senses LOTR is actually more like an historical wargame than a fantasy one. Like an historical game it attempts to reflect defined conflicts that were defined outside of the company producing the game without consideration for its use as a game. Both use a wide variety of army lists, many of which blur together, covering a long period of history. Also, as with some historical armies, some LOTR armies are drawn very firmly from the source material, while others are more speculative, based on only partial accounts.

The other feature that sets LOTR apart from Games Workshop's other games was that it was designed specifically to support scenario-based gaming with heavly unbalanced forces. The Hero rules were written so that namd characters would behave quite differently from regular troops and that the most powerful characters from the books, Gandalf, Aragorn etc, could fight single-handedly against a horde of nameless enemies. In that sense, LOTR is entirely unlike an historical game.

The three supplements that most supported this approach, and which are, thankfully, still being kept in print, are the three Journey books that cover the three volumes of the Lord of the Rings. The Fellowship of the Ring supplement, in particular, is one of my favourite gaming supplements, because it combines rules, scenarios and scenery building workshops and presents them in the order that they are needed. This means it is possible to work your way through the book from start to finish preparing models and scenery as you need them for the scenarios. Of course some compromises have to be made to suit the narrative of the source material. So it is necessary to tackle the comples Weathertop project quite early on.

Sadly, Games Workshop quickly abandoned this approach with their supplements not based directly on the books. After Fall of the Necromancer scenery building ws dropped and scenarios became less and less important. By the time of the Mordor supplement, Games Workshop had even abandoned location or conflict based supplements, creating what was, in effect, an army book.

And sadly, that is where we find ourselves now. Five supplements books are to be released covering the different LOTR armies. These are themed not by conflict, narrative or location, but simply by sticking the armies that seem most similar together. So we have one for Men, one for Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits, one for Mordor, one for Moria and Angmar and one for all the other evil armies (or the fallen realms, as they are calling them). The design of these books is looking less than inspiring, with single stills from the Movies on standard blue covers. They will, at least, contain scenarios, but it is hard to escape the feeling that this is an attempt to produce Warhammer style army books to allow gamers to pick armies to agreed points values and with only a limited interest in the Middle-Earth back drop.

I can't help but feel that this is another missed opportunity from a company unwilling to be creative or take risks any more. Despite War of the Ring not proving successful enough to keep going as a mainstream game, Games Workshop still seem determined to Warhmmer-ise LOTR. This requires them to play down all the elements that make it distinct from Warhammer, a setting not designed for Wargaming, unbalanced narrative scenarios, a strong role for heroic characters and a game that could be played very comfortably at a number of scales.

Time will tell whether this move proves to be a success or not, but, personally, far from rekindling an interest in the game, all they have managed to do is put me off it.

Update

Since writing the above, Games Workshop have released some more information about the new books on their blog.

I'm not very reassured by this. The scenarios are welcome, but the examples they cite are either generic or essentially re-prints. The new army list format also seems to add an unneeded layer of complication to what was a very simple system. It is now a requirement to include one hero for every 0-12 regular fighters. It isn't a major restriction, but it does feel unnecessary. Why add a restriction where none is needed?

Presentation Problems

2012-01-25T22:02:00.000Z

With so many more of my Infinity models painted I have been turning my attention the actual game. Despite having had the miniatures for over a year I have only managed one game so far, with My Little Brother, and we got a lot of the rules wrong. I have in mind to try a practice game against myself in order to get my head fully around the rules and so I have been re-reading the rule book.

Infinity: the Game has attracted considerable praise from some quarters and it certainly has a number of distinctive features that particularly suit it's small scale approach to future warfare. That said, it also has a significant flaw. It's not that the rules are poor, but they are extremely hard to follow.

This sort of criticism inevitably attaches to games that have been translated from their native language. The wargames industry being far enough from the mainstream that they have to communicate by email, it can't always afford the highest quality localisation. That said, in my experience, a translated rule book, though often featuring a few linguistic quirks, can, on occasion, be even better explained than rule books in their native language if only because of the need to be precise. Confrontation 3rd edition and Anima Tactics have both struck me as rule books that do an excellent job of presenting the rules in a clear fashion.

Despite their success with Confrontation, Rackham also managed to produce one of the worst written rule books I have ever seen, for their skirmish board game Hybrid. To give an example of how poor this book was each miniature in the game had a single 'Natural value' that was used to determine most of their actions. Although it was possible to make an educated guess, it took an errata in the games expansion to spell out where to find this number on the miniatures stat cards. For anyone with a copy who actually wants to play Hybrid I would recommend exploring Board Game Geek to find example of the rules re-written by fans into something passing for coherent.

However, Hybrid's faults are not a problem of translation but of presentation. The book simply fails to clearly spell out how they work, relying on players to fill in gaps the writers have neglected to explain. This is a problem for all rule books, not simply translated ones.

Turning our attention to rules written in English, not simply translated into it, I have written before about the tendency of modern Games Workshop to gloss over crucial rules questions that need answering in an attempt to shorten the text. In contrast, the DBA/DBM/HOTT school of thought relies on hyper-precise sentences that, while covering absolutely every possible circumstance, practically require a degree in Logic to unpick. For example:

An element in front combat with an enemy flank or rear edge, or aiding an attack on a stronghold, disregards the outcome listed below, but recoils if a friendly element in contact with the enemy's front recoils, flees or is destroyed or enscorcelled.

Infinity's problem is somewhat unusual. It is all about layout. A very strange problem as throughout the extensive background sections the various sections and sub sections are clearly labelled and divided. But when it comes to the rules, tiny text is seperated by less than explicit headings. One section blurs into the next and figuring out where to find the actual rule you are looking for is extremely difficult. When reading the rules through from start to finish this is not so much of a problem, though small text can cause eye strain and some sentences require a couple of read throughs to sink in. But when trying to find what you're looking for in the middle of a game you are lost, stuck in a rules Antarctica with no compass, no map and no frame of reference.

Warhammer 8th edition gives whole, clearly differentiated, chapters with massive page headings to the different phases of a turn. In contrast, the only think separating shooting from close combat in the Infinity rule book is a one line header in capitals, not even in bold. And this is one of the better labelled sections. Trying to find the rules for a specific key word listed by a model's profile is all but impossible (though when you find the right section it is at least ordered alphabetically) and made worse by the fact that certain common words, the difference between Impetuous and Non-Impetuous models, is somewhere else entirely. A somewhere else that doesn't appear to be in a section, orphaned and free floating by itself.

The above page spread is taken from the free PDF version available online, the colours are different and the book says "Rules" and not "Reglas", but the layout is the same. We have Damage as a heading and a sub-heading, though the heading is hardly clearly labelled. Bold is used for first emphasis and these lines often stand out better than the titles. Then we have the apparently random use of bullet points in the second column and the paragraph first line indentations that serve no useful purpose at all.

What this says to me is that a good, even great, rules set can be seriously harmed by being conveyed poorly. This can be because of bad writing, bad translation or simply poor presentation. Reading the Infinity rules end to end is not so bad, but as reference work to be used in the game it is hopeless. When trying to play you want to minimise time spent rummaging through rules and the worst possible outcome is not being able to find a rule at all.

In the case of Infinity is could have been fixed so easily. Use bigger and bolder headings, make better use of bold and bullet points, make text larger and clearer and include an index, if only for the rules section. The contents page is, at least, better laid out and does help, but only if what your looking for has its own heading.

I will persevere with Infinity, the rules, setting and models are too strong a draw, but Corvus Belli have done themselves no favours with the way they have presented them.

From my painting table

2012-01-15T11:53:00.000Z

I have had two major painting projects on the go since just before Christmas, both of which will be revealed in due course. But for today I wanted to talk about Infinity.

Infinity's Anime/Manga aesthetic and hi-tech Sci-Fi look have appealed for some time. I have actually have two decent-sized forces, one for the Nomads and one for Yu Jing, but I haven't really know how to go about painting them and they have been sitting around neglected. In December of 2011, I finally figured out how to proceed and here are the results: 5/6 of the Japanese Sectorial Army starter box.

The aesthetics of Infinity is quite different from that of most other games I have played. Just about everything is armoured, but not in the huge bulky style of GW Space Marines. They are very intricate designs with a lot overlapping areas and narrow gaps between armour plates. My general painting style has been to paint each large area in a different colour, but that doesn't really work when there are no large areas.

I am used to painting areas of cloth, which need multiple levels of highlighting to pick out the changes in colour over raised and recessed areas. But here we have a lot of essentially flat, smooth areas sitting next to one another. Limited opportunity for highlighting, but I needed a way to pick out the differences in areas.

Still, painting a new style of model encouraged me to try some new techniques. I ended up limiting my highlights, and using a lot of ink washes. I have used them before, but sparingly, usually on faces or rusty armour. I have never been able to get them to work well, often making models look dirty or disappearing entirely after a few highlights.

Here, though, they worked perfectly, picking out the details on the armour and differentiating the different areas nicely.

My second painting experiment was to try Games Workshop foundation paints. I had decided on a yellow colour scheme for my Kempetai and Keisotsu Butai. I was inspired by a video game, see if you can guess which. I have always struggled to paint yellow before. It doesn't paint over black undercoats at all and, when used over white, often seems to come out very glossy and unreal. But the GW foundation worked perfectly over my black undercoat and I am very pleased with the results.

What can we learn from D&D?

2012-01-12T18:49:00.001Z

So Wizards of the Coast have announced a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Although not a wargame as such, Dungeons & Dragons is very much a descendant of the same tradition and it has influenced and been influenced by wargames. Plus there is considerable overlap in the audiences for wargaming and roleplaying (and of course in the early days Games Workshop was the UK distributor of D&D).

It's fair to say that 4th edition D&D divided its fan base (and slightly less fair to say that it actively sought to alienate them). It was a radical departure from its predecessors and many of its innovations were, supposedly, focused on the fans of PC MMORPGS. The goal was, apparently, to introduce a new audience to the game, though it also succeeded in driving much of the existing fan base away.

The announcement of the new edition has been seen many of 4th editions harshest critics as an admission of defeat. Certainly the statement "we want this to be a version of the game that embraces the entirety of D&D’s history" suggests a reaching out to those players of earlier editions put off by 4th. There seems to be a genuine desire to get back the players that 4th edition lost.

The interesting question, and the one relevant to wargaming, that this raises for me is who exactly Wizards of the Coast should be trying to attract with their new edition. Should a new edition focus on existing players or should they cast the net wide in attempt to grow their market?

I have seen some argue that WOTC should be trying to appeal to a more mainstream audience and even that they should be looking at the same players as Cluedo or Monopoly. This strikes me as ambitious to the point of foolhardy, but if roleplaying is in decline, what else can be done attempt to attract new players?

The problem for roleplaying is that there was once a time, during the very early years of D&D, when it was avowedly mainstream, particularly in the US. D&D was available in high street shops, appeared on television and lead to spin offs like the D&D cartoon and range of action figures. There is still a part of the fanbase, and probably within Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro as well, that hearkens back to that time and even feels that it could be achieved again if the game were only marketed correctly.

It's hard to know whether roleplaying really can be a mainstream pass time or whether it is a fad in slow but irrevocable decline. As a pass time it has only existed for thirty five years or so, the blink of an eye in historical terms.

Wargaming never had Roleplaying's main stream appeal, but has had a longer and more stable history. That said, much of the concerns of Wargame publishers mirror those of WOTC. Do they appeal to an existing fan base or risk trying to grow the industry? Chasing an established fan base may be more secure, but can lead to companies competing for ever smaller slices of what may be a shrinking pie.

In contrast, one of many criticisms levelled at Games Workshop has been that they chase new players and ignore, or are even hostile to, veterans. This is part of the reason why, in the UK at least, so many wargamers start with GW, but can bite them badly, as happened when Pokemon certainly took a huge chunk out of their market or when the Lord of the Rings bubble burst and they suddenly found they had a much smaller fan base than they thought.

I don't have any answers to these questions, but I will be watching the development of fifth edition D&D with interest to see what lessons, if any, can be learned by the Wargaming industry.

What do I get out of Wargaming?

2012-01-04T14:03:00.000Z

I have been reading a lot of discussion of late about randomness in wargaming and in Warhammer 8th edition in particular. There is a school of thought that 8th edition has introduced so much randomness into the game that all, or most, tactical skill has been lost to the detriment of the gaming experience.

I was particularly intrigued by this blog post which suggests that the randomness may be a leveller attempting to eliminate the disparity between experienced and inexperienced gamers, thus making for a more rewarding experience for younger gamers.

A few days ago I finally got round to playing some Warhammer 8th edition with my little brother, who had taken the opportunity at Christmas to get his Ogre army up to speed. For my part, I had recently indulged myself by grabbing an Arachnarok and so was in a position to field 2500 points of Goblins against his Ogres.

There was certainly no shortage of randomness over the course of the game. There was the moment when my Night Goblin Great Shaman killed himself with a poisoned mushroom on the last turn, having previously suffered another wound due to dodgy mushrooms and one because of a miscast. Then there was the Ogre Iron Blaster misfiring and taking itself out of the game for two turns. Or the Ogre Slaughtermaster losing control of the great maw which subsequently ate two of his own Ogres. With nine fanatics in play randomness was certainly in evidence there, most spectacularly when a unit of nine Ogre Ironguts, including a Tyrant, charged through two fanatics, only to lose the subsequent combat because of the goblins superior rank bonus, unexpectedly break and flee through the same fanatics killing all of them except the Tyrant.

I'm not really sure how much tactical skill was really in evidence, be we had an absolute blast playing it. In fact it was a lot more fun than the game of Malifaux we played two days earlier. To be fair, we were both trying out new factions and MLB got the hang of his a lot faster than I did. The end result was pretty one-sided, but hats off to him, he won fair and square. To a large extent, this was a less enjoyable experience simply because we had to spend so much time checking the rules.

Another highly enjoyable Christmas diversion was the Lego game Heroica, probably the most random game of all. A simplified dungeon crawl experience, essentially a race to the end of a dungeon, were everything is determined with single dice rolls. Heroica has been floating around the wargaming blogosphere and has received much praise because of its simplicity and accessibility.

The point about all of this, is that the amount of enjoyment I get from a game is not proportionate to the amount of control I have.

I can certainly understand the complaints of more competitive and tournament focused gamers of Warhammer 8th edition, but it is isn't a perspective I can share. For me, I am getting something entirely different from the experience.

I came to Wargaming at about the same time as Roleplaying and while I could never properly interest my friends in Dungeons & Dragons, wargaming proved to be more popular. For me, much of the enjoyment now comes form army building, painting and the creation of some kind of narrative in my gaming.

My recent forays into Realms of Chaos taps into a similar idea. There is far more fun to be had creating champions and warbands and telling their story than in any kind of competitive engagement. Especially when the generation of warbands is so random and straight forward competition so, necessarily, unfair.

All of which serves to explain how I was able to extract such straight forward enjoyment from my post-Christmas Warhammer. I am simply not a competitive person and wasn't in it for the tactical contest, it was more fun to line up my troops, direct them as best I could and watch the carnage unfold, regardless of outcome.

While Games Workshop's new spirit of randomness may be off-putting to many, and I can fully understand their complaints, for me it adds, rather than detracts, from the enjoyment.

Something of a Review of 2011

2012-01-01T18:55:00.004Z

It has been quite a productive year for me in wargames terms. I got a few games played, a lot of miniatures painted and a a lot more blog posts written and even read. I haven't quite hit my once a week target for new blog posts, but I've been not far off and a lot more prolific than last year.

This time last year, I put forward some predictions about where wargaming was going in 2011. With the year at an end, it's time to investigate and see how many, if any, I got right:

First the Games Workshop specific predictions

A rush new edition of Warhammer 40,000 or LOTR. I had this wrong, but perhaps not by much judging by the rumours of a new Warhammer 40,000 edition to come next year.
Previews of the Hobbit miniatures. Not yet, but I put that down more to film production issues than a lack of willing on Games Workshop's part. We'll see them before too long.
Jervis Johnson to leave Games Workshop. Just straight wrong here. Not that I am entirely sorry to be wrong. Jervis is a great games designer and it's good that GW still have someone of his talent.
Warhammer Historical to be closed down. Also still here, for the moment at least.

So 0 out of 4 and no points for nearlies.

On to the more general hobby predictions.

Pirates to be big in 2011. Well the new Pirates of the Carribean movie sank without trace and although Cutlass and Freebooters fate are still going strong I can't say it was a big year for Pirates. In my defence, I wasn't the only one to get that wrong. Games Workshop sank money and effort into Dreadfleet only for copies to be littering the shelves come Christmas.
Loads more historical plastics. Maybe not loads, but Warlord, Wargames Factory and Victrix and still churning them out and Fire Forge Games have announced the Teutonic Knights.
More generic plastics. Sadly none that I've noticed. Though Wargames Factory's, frankly less than impressive, range of Trenchcoat Sci-Fi infantry continues to grow.
Osprey to announce at least one new set of Wargaming rules. Yes I had this one right. Tomorrow's War is out and Field of Glory Napoleonic is on the way.

So 2 out of 4, maybe 2 and a half if you're feeling generous. It seems I am slightly better at predicting general trends than the actions of Games Workshop, but mostly that I suck at predictions.

Given that, I have decided to only make predictions that are incredibly unlikely to come true so that, in the unlikely event that I turn out to be right, I will look like some kind of prophet and can found my own religion.

With that in mind here are my predictions for 2012:

Games Workshop realise that constant price rises are failing to grow the hobby and cut all their prices in an attempt to stem the tide of their inevitable decline.
A massive rise in the price of oil and an unexpected drop in the price of tin reverses the prices of metal and plastic models and makes all companies producing plastics look like idiots.
Absolutely no-one produces a fantasy or sci-fi skirmish game for the whole of 2012.
The candidates from the next series of the Apprentice are forced to choose wargame products and sell them at Salute 2012.

2012 has actually been quite an eventful year for wargaming. Games Workshop finally abandoned metal in favour of Resin, sorry Fine Cast, which divided the community, mostly because the roll out was a complete cock up. However, they weren't the first to see the high cost of metal as potentially fatal, Mantic and Black Scorpion have both made the switch to Resin.

The trend towards skirmish games continued and the subject matters diversified, giving us the renaissance era Carnevale and the Japanese inspired Bushido. With the size of this market, I start to wonder how many of these games will make it to 2013. At the same time, Gripping Beast and Tomahawk studios launched the highly characterful Saga Dark Age skirmish rules, suggesting that even the Historical community may be moving towards small scale games.

Games Workshop's pushed bigger and bigger monsters for Warhammer, culminating in Storm of Magic, a supplement that pushed big plastic beasties for everyone and which boasted a colour pallette inspired by a primary school art class. Their less than successful foray into naval wargaming has been mentioned above.

Subdued

Mantic finally launched Warpath, a futuristic sci-fantasy wargame in no way similar to Warhammer 40,000. They expected a lot from fans, offering pre-orders before any models were even seen. The Forge Fathers, when they arrived looked okay, but the Marauders used the Fantasy Orcs sprues as a base and suffered criticism for looking unlike the concept sketches and featuring too few poses. That said, the early images of the Corporation models look stunning. At the same time, Dwarf Kings Hold proved to be a massive hit, showing that their is still a market for quick play self contained games.

Overall, a year of diversity and contradictions. The rise in metal prices pushed up the prices of models and forced the switch to new production models. All highly favourable for skirmish games. At the same time, the rise and rise of plastic continued unabated, and Mantic and Games Workshop continued to go their own way pushing for bigger and bigger games. If anything gamers are now spoiled for choice with more games and models than ever before, more easily available through the Internet then ever before, even if some companies really need to sort out the websites.

2012 promises to be a busy year for me. I still have a number of projects left over from 2011. This time last year I was only working three days a week, which at least gave me plenty of time to paint. Now I have more money and less time. That said, I have my hobby room the way I want it and have actually been getting on with things. All going well I should have a few new things to show off soon, more pictures, hopefully more battle reports and, once I get my act together, more posts on old White Dwarfs. So watch this space and Happy New Year.

Blood in the Badlands

2011-12-13T13:57:00.000Z

A week or so back I picked up Blood in the Badlands, Games Workshop's new Warhammer supplement, more on a whim than anything else, but I have been pretty distracted and it has taken me a while to gather my thoughts.

It's an unusual book, billed as a set of campaign rules, but it also covers fighting underground and provides siege rules for the first time since 6th edition. I was half expecting something like the old Generals Compendium, a mix of rules and articles none of which quite fitted into a coherent supplement. It is a bit like that but not quite.

Basically, the White Dwarf staff ran a campaign set in the eponymous Badlands region of the Warhammer World and this is an account of it, along with the rules they used. At heart its not very different than the kind of "campaign chronicle" that any gaming group might put together except for being nicely bound and illustrated with colour photographs. It's an unusual way for Games Workshop to present a set of rules, essentially introducing them with examples in the form of battle reports and accounts from the players. It's also quite a good way to stagger the rules, with certain elements only coming into play as the campaign evolves.

In a strange way this reminds me of the old Realms of Chaos books, or of Warlord's Black Powder and Hail Caesar rules, not in terms of tone and content, but more in the sense that this provides a tool box of ideas that players can dip into as it suits them, taking what they like and discarding the rest. It is certainly possible to play the campaign as written using everything and background to the Badlands is included, but equally players can simply take inspiration from it and develop their own rules using the book as a pointer as to the kind of problems they will need to solve.

The rules are also enjoyably personal, with elements that clearly only apply to the team's own campaign. For example, the siege rules include a specific over the top Skaven artillery piece clearly converted by one of the players. I don't think the intent is to give the Skaven a specific advantage so much as to inspire players to develop their own custom rules.

The only real draw back to the book is the price, which at £20 seems rather high for the amount of content. I suspect I have mostly paid for full colour pictures and hard back binding. Though, in its defence I think it benefits more from being well illustrated than from the recent Warhammer Army books as illustration is a large part of the point of the book.

Overall, I am rather fond of this. It won't be to everyone's tastes, especially if you prefer rules to be highly rigorous and complete. And I don't know how much of it I will actually use as yet, but I still think there is a fair bit here of interest. More than that though, I enjoy the concept and style of presentation. It feels like a book about gaming rather than simply one to sell games and these days, from Games Workshop, that is quite refreshing.

The Psychology of Nurgle

2011-11-30T13:44:00.001Z

Having written a general view of the Tamurkhan book, I wanted to write a more substantial post on the subject of its titular character, the Nurgle Lord Tamurkhan himself. It's an idea that has been germinating for a while and I wanted to devote the time time and space needed to do it justice.

I was interested in Tamurkhan, the character, from early on because he is a Nurgle special character and Nurgle has always seemed poorly represented by special characters. There were none at all in 4th edition and the Fifth edition Champions of Chaos there was only one, Valnir the Reaper, a hero level character who was effectively an undead Marauder. In the latest edition, while each of the other powers got a Lord level character of their own, Nurgle only has the relatively uninspiring Festus the Leach Lord, a low level Sorcerer. In Warhammer 40,000 there is Typhus a spectacular model that always seemed, to me, lacking in personality. With all that in mind, I was keen to see what Forge World came up with.

Tamurkhan is a fantastically (in both senses of the word) horrible concept. A giant, sentient maggot who eats is way into the flesh of a host victim before using its decaying body as a vehicle to drag itself around. In the game this is represented by a decidedly inconvenient rule that allows him to latch on to his killer and potential use him as a new host. This is decidedly nasty and interesting, but essentially from the outside. The concept of being driven around by your killer as your body rots is ghastly and even more so for Tamurkhan's first host, a Slaanesh champion, whose good looks and bejewelled armour slowly decay over time much to Tamurkhan's amusement.

The problem is that all of this horror is from the perspective of the observer. We never get a sense of the personality of motivation of Tamurkhan himself, he remains completely effusive. At heart he is a monster who does monstrous things because he is monstrous. And while there can be some mileage in this kind of nihilistic antagonist the best villains, in my opinion, are those whose motivations you can sympathise with or at least understand. The horribly misguided are much more interesting than the merely horrible.

This is a common problem for Nurgle characters in general and on the surface this is understandable. If given a choice of Chaos Gods to serve why chose the one who makes your intestines rot out of your stomach? It is for that reason that Nurgle followers are often presented as lunatics and death fetishists.

But I think that is a rather tragic misreading of the Chaos God. For a better understanding of Nurgle, we have to turn all the way back to Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned.

"The living know that they will die, and many know that they will live with disease or other torment, yet they drive that knowledge into a corner of their minds and keep it pinioned there with all manner of dreams and activity. Nurgle is the embodiment of that knowledge and of the unconscious response to it of the hidden fear of disease and decay, and of the power of life which that fear generates." (Realms of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, Rick Priestly and Bryan Ansell, page 12)

This sums up Nurgle's and, by extension, his Champion's motivation. Essentially contradictory, like all Chaos characters, they are individuals who deny or even ignore their hideous appearance in favour of their hugely charismatic minds. Unwilling to face their inevitable decay they simply ignore it. Nurgle is less the Chaos God of decay than the God of human attitude to it, namely denial.

This is how we need to understand Nurgle Champions. Champions of Khorne are blood grazed slaughterers and Slaanesh self-indulgent narcisists, easy. Tzeentch Champions are more complex, but at heart they are weak or ambitious individuals looking to change their fate for the better. Nurgle, Tzeentch's opposite number, is about denying or fighting change. If Tzeentch Champions are the weak wanting to be strong, Nurgle Champions are the strong not wanting to be weak. This need not mean they are struck down with disease. Disease is simply representative of wider decay and collapse which is inevitable in all human activity. Nurgle champions have something, whether it is health, wealth, strength, intelligence or even family, that they desperately want to protect and are unable to do so.

This is why, for me, the most effective Nurgle character was the Death Guard Primarch Mortarion. Faced with a disease even his legendary endurance couldn't resist, he turned to Nurgle in desperation to preserve his and his legions lives, or some semblance of them. In the long run it probably went worse for them than death, but this is the heart of Chaos, entering into a bargain whose long term consequences can only be terrible.

This is why when I invented a background for my randomly generated Nurgle Champion, Rolf Hurtziger, I made him an embittered Mercenary Captain, cast down by Chaos and forced into a pact with Nurgle as no-one else would take him.

As for Tamurkhan, it wouldn't be hard to make him a more interesting and convincing character. At heart he is a physically weak and deformed being who needs to latch onto a host to survive. But each host has a limited duration as it inevitably decays around him. This is never really touched on in the narrative, in fact it says that Tamurkhan held onto the body of the Ogre Tyrant too long and this started to effect his mind. More effective would be to make Tamurkhan desperate needing an endless succession of new hosts in order to survive.

Physically feeble, totally dependent, parasitic and yet charismatic enough to hold together a disparate Chaos Horde, to me this is more interesting that a simple monster.

Tamurkhan - A Review

2011-11-27T13:51:00.000Z

I managed to get my hands on a copy of Forge World's Tamurkhan book, on Wednesday. I only popped into the local Games Workshop during my lunch break for a pot of Gryphon Sepia, so this was something of an unexpected purchase.

To be fair, it wasn't entirely on a whim, I had been meaning to get the book sooner or later, I just hadn't anticipated seeing it in my local Games Workshop. As a Chaos Warrior player, the books interest is obvious, but my principle reason for forking out £45 was to get my hands on the new Chaos Dwarf rules. Back in the days of Warhammer 5th edition I had a pretty substantial army and was quite keen to dig it out again. Especially as the Forge World models so far released are not too far removed from their old aesthetic.

The book is presented as being written by Alan Bligh, with an original story by Bligh and Rick Priestly. This is as much of a credit as Priestly gets in the book and its hard to determine how much of his original idea made it into the finished draft before his sudden departure from GW. The rumours talked about Tamurkhan being the first in a series of "alternate future" Warhammer books, chronicling a time when Chaos finally destroys the world. Apparently, Tamurkhan was to be the first of four books each dealing with a different Chaos Champion, one for each God, in a different part of the world.

There was some resistance to this idea, notably from non-Chaos Players, because it put so much focus on Chaos. I am not sure I agree. Quite apart from the fact the Chaos is now considered to be three seperate armies, thus justifying three books, this concept hearkens back to the old idea that Chaos permeates every aspect of the Warhammer world; it's great unifying theme if you like. Given that Tamurkhan manages to cover Chaos, Chaos Dwarfs and the Empire, it's easy to see how the subsequent books could have given space for an ally and an enemy army in addition to Chaos. Imagine a book about a Slaanesh Champion making common course with the Elves to assault Ulthuan, a Khorne champion recruiting greenskins before rampaging across the Dwarf strongholds or a Tzeentchian champion allying with Skaven in an underground assault on Bretonnia.

As it is, Tamurkhan presents a pretty conventional narrative, in which a Chaos Champion rampages out of the north, recruits an army of suitably unpleasant allies, destroys a few opponents to prove his bad-assness and attacks the Empire where he is defeated. We've seen it before in a few different army books, Tamurkhan just takes longer to tell the story and its hard not to see it as a missed opportunity.

That said, Tamurkhan does a good job of translating its central narrative into a Campaign system and a series of scenarios. The campaign system is nicely open-ended, allowing for multiple players and a wide range of armies. Despite its official status as the story of Tamurkhan it's easy to see it being used to tell the story of any Chaos Warlord. The scenarios are a suitably quirky bunch and, for the most part, don't demand too much of players miniature collection. Whether or not I manage to mount a whole campaign, I can see myself getting some value out of them.

Also on offer are rules for building a huge Chaos Horde containing units from the Warriors, Daemons and Beastmen army lists. Although it's fairly easy to do this without the official rules, there are, nevertheless, a few interesting ideas here. Including Antagonistic units, who may prove unreliable, and the dangerous possibility of attracting the Scorn of Chaos and having to roll on a chart to determine a negative effect. The general is declared the Paragaon with a number of different types available depending on the Champions Mark of Chaos (or not) and there own special rules.

The core of the book, and its obvious reason for existing in the first place, are the new rules for the various Forge World models. These are divided into three sections, Chaos, Empire and Chaos Dwarfs. The first two sections are simply new units and characters for the existing armies. Chaos gets eight new options:
Tamurkhan;
Sayl the Faithless (a Sorcerer accompanied by a Chaos Spawn);
Kayzk the Befouled (a champion on a rot beast who allows Chaos Knights to ride Rot Beasts);
Chaos Siege Giant;
Plague Toads;
Pox Riders (Plague Bearers riding the Plague Toads);
Bile Trolls;
and the Chaos War Mammoth, getting its own proper rules after being part of the Forge World range for years.
The Plague Ogres that Forgeworld also released don't get full rules of their own and so, presumably, should be used as regular Chaos Ogres with the mark of Nurgle.

The Empire selection is made up mostly of Special characters, including a Lord on a Demi Gryph (like a Griffin without wings), an Amethyst Wizard on a Dragon, a Mercenary captain and two hero choices that allow you to upgrade your infantry. The last option is the Marienburg land ship, a huge war machine and a nice alternative to the Steam Tank.

But the most important part of the whole book for me is the final section which presents the Chaos Dwarf army list. I was quite pleased with this overall. For a start, just about everything from my old Chaos Dwarf army has an analogue in the new, so using the list presents no problem. About the only thing left out is the old Hobgoblin bolt thrower. The new Dread Quake mortar and Shrieker rockets are just the old Earthshaker cannon and Death Rocket by new names, my Chaos Dwarf warriors can be used as Infernal Guard, which have options for Great Weapons and Blunderbusses, and the Bull Centaurs and Hobgoblins are included.

The list includes:
Sorcerer Prophets (Lord and Sorcerer Lord combined into one, they can ride a Great Taurus, a Bale Taurus or a Lammasu);
Heroes (Chaos Dwarf, Bull Centaur and Hobgoblin);
Daemonsmith (Level 1/2 Wizard);
Infernal Guard (Expensive infantry with Great Weapons, Blunderbusses or Fireglaives - a fire throwing halberd);
Hobgoblins (they can have daggers so can be represented by the old sneaky gitz models);
Bull Centaurs;
Shrieker Rockets;
Magma Cannon (a new short range cannon thing);
Iron Daemon (Steam powered, cannon covered land train that can tow the other war machines);
Dread Quake Mortar;
K'Dai (Daemonic constructs, no models as yet);
Hobgoblin Wolf Riders;
Siege Giant;
Hell Cannon (the same one from the Warriors of Chaos list).

I'm not sure I would want to build a whole army from scratch at Forge World prices, but I may pick up one or two of the newer items. I certainly think it would be possible to mix Mantic's Abyssal Dwarfs with the Forge World models comfortably. Also included is a small selection of Magic items and the Law of Hashut, which gives the Chaos Dwarf Sorcerers a distinctive quality of their own.

I'm not sure how balanced the army list will be, the Infernal Guard seem very expensive in points and some of the warmachines are more than a little extreme. Also, annoyingly, the Lammasu is allowed as a mount for a Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer Prophet, but if you want the rules you have to buy the Storm of Magic book. This feels pretty cheap given that you have to fork out £45 for the Tamurkhan book. At least the Great Taurus rules are included.

The book is extremely lushly presented, with a red leather effect cover, full colour throughout and illustrated in a suitably grim and moody style. However, the book is marred by a number of simple errors. For example, the Infernal Guard Champion is called a Deathmask, but in the army list it states that "the Overseer may be equipped with a pistol..." A relic of the earlie experimental rules where the champion was called an Overseer.

The special character Drazhoath the Ashen rides Cinderbreath. In the bestiary it states that Cinderbreath is a Bale Taurus, but in the army lists notes that he has a stronger breath attack and an enhanced profile. But is you compare Cinderbreath's profile to a regular Bale Taurus there is no difference.

Then there's the repeated references to the Chaos Dwarfs being usable as part of aforementioned Great Host of Chaos, but no rules to do so. Or the odd way that the rules for Blunderbusses are listed under Chaos Dwarfs, but the rules for Fire Glaives under Infernal Guard even though only the latter can use either weapon. Or the odd repetition of the generic Chaos Dwarf rules Resolute, Relentless and Contempt under the Chaos Dwarf bestiary and the general army rules. I could go on.

Six people are credited as proof readers at the end of the book, so there is really no excuse for this kind of sloppiness, especially given the price you have to pay for the book.

In summary a very lushly produced book that is let down by silly mistakes and a lack of ambition. What we have is a fairly standard Warhammer saga with the rules for a few nice models and some extra bits and bobs. Would I recommend it? I'm not sure it matters. If you want to play Chaos Dwarfs or use any of the associated Forge World models than these are the only rules you are going to get. I will probably get some value out of it and probably more than I would have from a standard army book. But, for the price I paid, I can't help feeling this was a wasted opportunity.

Dreadfleet - Second ship completed

2011-11-15T14:02:00.008Z

I have finished painting the Bloody Reaver (queue joke about the bloody Reaver that only works if you can here my tone of voice) and boy is it a strange looking beast. I made the comment in my last post that it was the one ship in Dreadfleet that I don't think quite works and that's all the more apparent when it's finished and put together.

It's the front part that's the biggest problem. I get the idea of a floating castle protected by the hulks of wrecked ships, but what is going on with the weird rocky outcrop at the front. Is it a natural feature? Dragged along with the castle? Or has Noctilus bent the front half out of the water and, if so, why? And what is going on with the boney sea serpent sculpture thing, is it really just there to hold up the sail?

Speaking of sails, the ones sticking out of the castle don't work for me. They are just too big. I know the Heldenhammer's sails are bigger, but that looks like a real battle ship scaled up and exaggerated. By having the sails stick out of a castle it draws attention to how ludicrously massive they must be. For a start, where do you get that much cloth? And how do you stitch on a skull that big. Just the letters in "Bloody Reaver" must be several time the height of a man. Or is the whole thing another magical effect? Not to mention the question of why a magically transported floating castle should be wind powered in the first place?

Given that I spent my last post arguing in favour of less realism in fantasy, this argument could look hypocritical or even contradictory. However, this isn't really about realism, so much as whether something looks good.

I remember a similar argument when these were released:

Comments were made about the weirdly bulging muscles, the fur that looks more like dead leaves, the strangely flat 'hooves' and the utterly un-bull-like faces. Many responded that they didn't have to be realistic, that these were fantasy creatures and they didn't have to look like bulls.

But while Fantasy creatures don't have to follow the laws of physics, they do have to follow the laws of aesthetics. Put simply, those models looked rubbish. Yes Fantasy should depart from reality, but it makes sense to use reality as a base. Its not hard to take real world concepts like a well muscled man and the head of bull and combine them. But when your design looks nothing like any real world creature of thing they end result is just jarring.

The Bloody Reaver isn't as bad as the Minotaurs, but elements of it look wrong. Why the huge sails? Why the odd rocky outcrop? Why do the wrecked ships suddenly stop? Rather than being strange and uncanny it just looks a bit wrong, like too many odd elements thrown together. So, overall, not the best piece of design.

On the plus side is the most complex ship in the game by a mile and with it done and out of the way, everything else feels a lot more manageable.

Dreadfleet - One ship down

2011-11-13T18:57:00.006Z

I actually managed to get some painting done this weekend. With the Heldenhammer complete, I got started out the monstrously fiddly Bloody Reaver. With these two painted I will have enough painted ships to try out the first scenario from Dreadfleet.

The Heldenhammer stands proud on the painting table
over the partially painted pieces of the Bloody Reaver

I've not painted a model ship before and am really quite pleased with the results. Lots of flat surfaces which are tough to highlight and the sail detail was a nightmare. It is so finally cast that you can end up burying it in plaint if you're not careful, a lesson I have learned for the Reaver. It's certainly not up to professional standards, but it is one of the best models I have personally painted.

The overally Dreadfleet aesthetic has been quite controversial, but I rather like the diverse little collection of ships. The Bloody Reaver is probably the weakest. The concept is good, a floating castle with a hull made up of the wrecked remains of its opponents, a properly undead ship. But the model seems to give up half way; quite literally as the rear of the ship is right, but the front end has a strange rocky outcrop sticking out to no good purpose. It isn't clear whether the boney lizard thing is a sculpture or a actual bones and the way the rock curves up is just odd.

But some of the other sculpts are wonderful. The Shadewraith is a marvel of sculpting and casting technology, Grimnir's Thunder is absolutely everything a dwarf ship should be and I love the use of the Elementals on the Flaming Scimitar. To my mind this is what fantasy sculpting should be. If I'm gaming in a fantasy world I want some evidence of that fact. This is why I never got into Uncharted Seas. The ships are perfectly well sculpted, but they seem too mundane and the ships of one fleet often look the same as each other but on a different scale. Not all the ships in Dreadfleet work, but there is imagination behind all of them.

I was reading this blog post the other day on old John Blanche art, and the author notes that the Warhammer world of old was often depicted as a truly unnatural place, where the laws of nature and physics don't work quite as they do in ours. For all of its tiresome obsession with putting skulls on everything, modern Games Workshop seems to be tapping into that idea in Dreadfleet. Everything from the ships, to the Islands, to the Sea Scape itself has been designed to be strange and uncanny.

Similarly, the background section of Warhammer Third edition states:

"Although similar to Europe in general outline, the Old World is larger..."

"The largest mountains in the Old World are the Worlds Edge Mountains which delineate its eastern edge - the tallest of these peaks climb almost five thousand feet above the plains below."

"The grandiose scale of the mountain ranges is matched by that of the largest rivers... Of these the Reik, Sannez, Grismerie, Brienne and Morceauz are so vast that they are navigable by sea-going ships for much of their length."

In a world built on this scale, a Battleship carrying a cathedral or a floating castle seems feasible. There are fantasy worlds that, although interesting in the own right, are essentially like alien worlds. They follow the same essential rules as our own, but are simply populated with alien races and cultures. Whatever you might say against the Warhammer world, it certainly was a truly fantastic place and Dreadfleet follows that tradition.

Underwhelmed by Warpath

2011-11-11T13:46:00.004Z

So after months of build up Mantic has finally released Warpath. One thing you can't say is that they've failed to generate sufficient buzz. The release strategy has a been a master piece of slowly released data. You might quibble over the final product, but not with the way the release has been managed. And yet I find myself unlikely to start on Warpath any time soon.

Regular readers of this blog (I think there may actually be some now) may have realised that I have a fair bit of time for Mantic. I applaud their ambition and am glad to see a company attempt to take on Games Workshop at their own game (in more ways than one). I have generally found their miniatures to be well sculpted and good value. In spite of this I have not invested in Kings of War, at least not yet.

The reason for this had little to do with the quality or value of the product and more that it felt like more of the same. After nearly twenty years of Warhammer, I don't have much enthusiasm for starting on another army of generic fantasy types, however, cheap or well sculpted. So far I have acquired Dwarf Kings hold and left it at that.

Warpath, however, was of greater interest. I have been a Warhammer 40,000 player in the past, but not with anything like the same dedication. I have one fully painted army and a few scraps of others. Also, Warhammer 40,000 is a much more distinctive setting and, while they share the same Fantasy in Space, concept Warpath does seem to be aiming for a different style. What we know of their humans is that they represent ruthless capitalists rather than excessively gothic, bigoted, religious fanatics. So, initial impressions were good.

I have not been put off, as some people had, by the discovery that the Orx sprues are essentially Orc sprues with different arms. This isn't exactly a selling point, especially as the Orcs sprue offers only three different bodies, but isn't a deal breaker either.

When Mantic first started out, they released their first miniatures with no game of any kind. Kings of War had a logo and that was that. The miniatures were co-opted for Warhammer, mostly, and any other game players liked. The releases trickled out steadily, Undead followed Elves, and then Dwarves. It wasn't until the last release that we saw any game rules at all. By this point all the major armies had several plastic boxes. When the Kings of War starter set appeared, it came with two substantial armies and was followed by army boxes that put Games Workshop's battalions to shame.

In contrast, with Warpath the rules were out months before the models. We know that eight armies are planned and we have a good sense of what's going in them. The first of the Forge Fathers and Marauders have been released, but so far there isn't much. It's at this point that Mantic have put out a starter box and two starter armies.

Compare and contrast the Kings of War dwarf army box with the Warpath Forge Fathers box. The former has 85 infantry figures and 2 artillery pieces, the latter 30 figures and 2 artillery pieces (admittedly, huge artillery pieces). The former is a really stunning amount of figures for the price, the latter is a decent deal. The story is the same with the Marauders. The Orcs get 84 figures, the Orx get 50 and 2 vehicles.

A good part of the reason for this is the inclusion of resin-plastic figures in the Warpath boxes. While the small number of releases so far mean would mean that including more plastic would mean much less variety. But the contrast is still striking and presents a very different idea of the game. Both are meant to be based around big armies, but while Kings of War makes a big army look achievable, for Warpath it much more of a challenge.

Putting it simply, I was expecting to be wowed by Mantics Warpath starter sets. So far I haven't been wowed. They look like decent value, but that's all. And to really grab me from the word go Warpath needed to be more than decent.

Too Many Projects

2011-11-09T19:25:00.003Z

I have simply too much on the go at the moment, and with Warfare Reading coming up in just over a week it's set to get worse before it gets better. A quick rundown:

Bushido
I managed to get all my initial figures painted, but then GCT released Aiko and Gorilla, and now I have two more to do.

Anima Tactics
I have generally been pretty good with these guys, getting them painted not long after purchase. But a general slowing of releases lulled me into a false sense of security and before I knew it I had five to do.

Helldorado
I got the Immortals boxed set at Salute for a ludicrous £10, only just got around to assembling it.

Infinity
One model done so far. I like the colour scheme, but still a dozen to go.

Malifaux
I have two Masters plus warbands unpainted.

Horde of the Things
I painted my Fantasy Chinese army a while back, but I still have a Goblin army and another Fantasy East Asian army to do. Warfare Reading marks a year since I started this project.

More Warhammer
In spite of myself I succumbed to lure of new and cheap(ish) models and my Chaos army is set to get bigger.

Dreadfleet
Yes I am a mug, but I couldn't resist the little ships. One down, so far, nine to go.

Normans and Saxons
The real nightmare, I got these at Salute and so far have one unit a quarter done.

The curse of the wargamer is too have either too little money or too little time. During an unpleasant period of unemployment I managed to get my Warhammer Chaos army done (job hunting in the morning painting in the afternoon), but these days I only seem to skirt around the edges. It doesn't help that the lure of new models is always so strong and that lovely new model you picked up at the convention rapidly looks dull and lifeless next to the new shiny thing.

In some ways its like comfort eating. Frustrated at your lack of progress you compensate and indulge in new toys which makes the problem worse. Still, with Summer well and truly over and no more holidays to distract me, maybe I can get down to some regular painting.

That said, I am updating this blog right now when I could be painting

Bushido - A Review

2011-11-07T22:39:00.001Z

I've mentioned Bushido, from GCT studios before. It's one of the most recent of the 'Boutique games', a rather nice term I picked up from RobH at the Miniature Page, for the recent trend for small scale skirmish games with comparatively expensive but characterful models. Bushido is based in a fantasy version of Medieval Japan and its four factions take their inspiration from Japanese History and Mythology, but with a somewhat Manga/Anime inspired aesthetic.

I always planned to write a review of the game once I had a chance to paint some models and play a game. Yesterday my little brother and I tried out the game with my Temple of Rokan taking on his Cult of Yurei.

Master Ekusa

I have already written with approval at the GCT approach of producing starter sets complete with rules and dice. Each miniature also has a card summarising their stats and special abilities.

The rules don't really present any truly original elements, but combine a number of features I have seen in previous games. The basic activation sequence is reminiscent of Malifaux. Players alternate activating models and each one has two action points to spend. Actions can be simple or complex using one or two action points respectively. A slightly unusual rule is that models only carry out one action at a time, potentially acting twice in each turn.

Yumi

In addition to the standard actions, which include the usual attacks, movement, charging and few special ones such as aim, is the Ki mechanism. This is somewhat similar to Anima Tactic's action point system. Characters recover a number of Ki points each turn and they can be held from turn to turn, though each character has a maximum reserve. Ki points can be spent on special Ki feats, which can be anything from special attacks, buffs or debuffs or healing effects. Ki feats can be simple, complex or free. The simple and complex feats require the spending of actions, but free feats can be used at any time, even when the model isn't active.

The combat system is based on a series of opposed dice rolls. Players roll a number of dice equal to a stat such as Ki, Combat or Ranged combat and compare their highest roll. In the event of a draw additional dice are taken into account. In combat an element familiar to players of Confrontation 2nd or 3rd edition comes into play. Players can assign dice to attack or defence. All dice are rolled together, but opposing attack and defence dice are compared. This adds a small tactical element to the combat phase.

Kenko

In addition to stats and feats, each character has a number of key words corresponding to general special rules. These can be quite numerous and keeping track can be quite difficult, though Bushido is by no means the worst offender here (*cough*Malifaux*cough*) and, fortunately, most rules are only a sentence or two long.

For our first game, MLB and myself used only the contents of the starter sets, my temple of Rokan and MLB's Cult of Yurei. Rokan are martial artist monks, supported by peasants and lead by Master Ekusa riding on a turtle. In contrast the Cult is made up of Zombies and spirits and lead by the Necromancer/Puppet Master Kato. The match up ended up not being very fair. The Cult seems to be quite a fiddly faction to play, relying on fear rules and Kato's ability to raise new zombies and keep the others from dying. The Temple proved to be quite straight forward with two very strong combatants in the Martial artists Kenko and Yumi. The peasants are weak fighters, but use their bodyguard rule to protect the other monks, while Master Ekusa is a hugely effective disruptor able to prevent all hostile actions within a particular radius and having a nasty Ki-based attack that can prevent an enemy from acting.

One odd element is that are no stats for strength or toughness. Weapons can provide strength bonuses and number of wounds provides a kind of resilience, but these are, in practice, not as important as the number of combat dice rolled. The key determinant of damage is success level, the difference between the attackers die and the defenders. What this means, is that a character with a high combat stat will be generally good at fighting across the board and it is not easy to differentiate between a skilled but weak fighter and a clumsy but strong one.

Ichiro and Atsuko, Peasants of Rokan

There are a lot of distinct processes and rules to keep track of, particularly the keywords and MLB forgot about fear several times. However, most of the processes are quite straightforward and there are some clever mechanisms, such as turning the character cards to keep track of whether a character has activated. We will play again, but I suspect the Cult will prove more effective as MLB gets a better handle on their special rules.

One thing that is definite is that the miniatures are well sculpted and distinctive and the game world suitably different from other Boutique games. Definitely worth further investment of time and energy.

White Dwarf 157

2011-11-07T20:45:00.000Z

This issue marks a definite break from the previous ones. A transition point on a journey, albeit a fuzzily defined one. The cover image was also used at the front cover of the first Orc and Goblin army book, which says something about the direction of travel.

I should emphasise that I have no knowledge of what was actually going in Games Workshop studio at the time these issues were produced, but my sense is that when I first started out collecting, miniatures were being produced and rules written without a clear sense of how they would be distributed. A number of experimental rules articles found their way into White Dwarf without much of a sense of where they ultimately belonged. At its most extreme, this lead to a compilation of White Dwarf articles being the official source for most Warhammer 40,000 army lists. Even when books were planned, for example Realms of Chaos or the Warhammer 40,000 Ork books, they often read more like a collection of articles than a single, coherent work.

By White Dwarf 157, this had started to change. Games Workshop started producing complete, coherent rules supplements with all the rules needed for a particular army. This often meant producing rules for models not yet released. This transition was a staggered process that actually began with second edition Epic released at the same time as White Dwarf 141. These supplements were boxes rather than books and covered two armies each, but they were the first attempt at a coherent set of army list supplements, where every supplement was in the same format. Warhammer 4th edition followed in White Dwarf 153 and Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition in White Dwarf 166. To me, this transition marks the beginning of modern Games Workshop, though there were still a great number to come.

I have written about the subject of rules distribution before and regard this increased coherence as generally a good thing, but there were definite drawbacks. One was the change in White Dwarf. New rules articles had been its bread and butter. As the army book started to appear, White Dwarf shifted from printing new and experimental rules to reprinting pages from just released or soon to be released army books.

The transition is very marked in White Dwarf 157, which, remarkably, has only four substantial articles, though this is probably because two of them take up over twenty pages each. The first of these big articles is the new Space Wolf army list for Warhammer 40,000 first edition. In many respects, this feels very much like a WD article of old. Lots of experimental new material, with no sense of where it would ultimately end up. It is also notable that the army card concept we saw in White Dwarf 145 had already been abandoned. Despite the article's retro feel, it was probably released because the Space Wolves were being developed for 2nd edition WD only nine months away.

The article itself is interesting read, but mostly because most of the key elements of the current Space Wolf army are already present - Blood Claws, Grey Hunters, Long Fangs and Wolf Guard are all familiar to modern players. It shows how strong a concept the Space Wolf army was.

The second article stands in stark contrast. The Grand Theogonist rules were reprinted straight from the Empire army book, enlivened only by illustrations of the new model. While it might have inspired a few new players, the article is of little real value as anyone likely to use it would need or already own the army book.

Following this is an 'Eavy Metal article on painting the Grand Theogonist and other models shown this issue. 'Eavy Metal was also changing. In previous issues it had shown models from the team's personal collections, whatever they were working on, or the works of other talented painters. But now it had become a showcase for newly released models.

The final article is yet another break with tradition. My first encounter, in this series, with a battle report. They had appeared sporadically before, the first (I believe) was in White Dwarf 107, but from 153 they became a regular feature. This sort of article made ideal White Dwarf content. Highly visual, it provides a good introduction to new players, a good showcase of armies and tactics for more experienced players and potentially ideas for players own game. Also, although Games Workshop printed a few compilation books and put some in army books, they really work better as magazine content. With rules becoming less important this article was a good way to fill twenty pages.
This report saw the Empire vs the Greenskins and highlights some new models. It also showed that the new spirit of organised professionalism hadn't quite reached army production as the Greenskins had only one unit of Orcs, despite featuring an Orc Warlord, and is made up mostly of Goblins, some in some not very viable units - there are only 5 netters and clubbers for instance. Meanwhile, the Empire fields two units of Knights, the new War Altar and a War Wagon.

This Battle Report is notable for another reason: the apparently accidental creation of a special character. Games Workshop had just released an Orc Shaman on a War Wyvern, but this was not a very valuable model tactically as Orc Shamans had to stay close to Orc units to benefit from their special rules. As a way round this problem, the model is recast as an Orc Warlord and equipped with the Crown of Sorcery, then a generic magic item making its user a level 3 Wizard. The idea stuck and Azhag has been a special character ever since. This in spite of a not very impressive performance in this battle. He got himself killed in turn 2 charging into the smaller of the two Imperial Knight units unsupported.

The rest of the battle manages to be reasonably interesting, as the Goblins put up a surprisingly good fight, putting a good part of the Empire army to flight. But in the end they get bogged down in unwinnable combats. The Empire general, then White Dwarf editor Robin Dews, concedes in his notes that he won mostly by look, though the limited choices available to Jervis Johnson, as the Orc General must have played a part.

So, very much an issue that marks a change from what went before. The magazine is glossier, with far more colour pages and more professional produced. But also seems to have less useful content than before.

Random Factors

2011-10-30T18:25:00.000Z

There has been a lot of discussion, much of it highly critical, about Games Workshop's new game, Dreadfleet. The bulk of the criticism seems to have been focused on the extent to which the game is dominated by random factors, leaving the outcome of the game too dependent on the roll of a dice. I don't want to get into the Dreadfleet debate at the moment as I haven't played it yet, but the discussion did get me thinking about randomness in gaming.

There currently exists a theoretical dividing line between looser, friendlier, 'beer and pretzels' rules and more competitive games. The latter being considered a genuine contest of skill with rigorous rules and less scope for randomness to play a part. The odd thing is, that if you want to design a contest of skill you probably couldn't find a worse field of human endeavor to base it on than warfare.

Lets take a look at one significant example, the Battle of Sekigahara, the largest Samurai battle in history which saw over 160,000 men take the field. On one side was Tokugawa Ieyasu, future founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate that would rule Japan for 200 years. On the other, Ishida Mitsunari, loyal defender of the Toyetomi family, that of the Toyetomi Hideyoshi previous ruler of Japan, Toyetomi Hideyoshi and his young son Hideyori. At stake, nothing less than the future of the country.

Despite the stakes and the historical impact that echoed down the centuries to this day (For example, Tokyo only became the capital of Japan because of this battle) very little hinged on military tactics on the the day. Mitsunari had the slightly stronger position on the high ground, but what swung the battle in Ieyasu's favour was that a good proportion of Mitsunari's army refused to move when ordered or actively switched sides. A lot of this had to do with Mitsunari's personality, he was disliked and distrusted by his own side and had insulted several high ranking supporters, and much due to Ieyasu's political maneuvering before hand, but in the end the battle was decided by events outside of the field.

The point illustrated by this battle, is that so much of the outcome on the day is beyond the General's control, at least once they take to the field. Sekigahara is a nightmare to recreate as a wargame because the betrayals either have to be predictable, in which case the Mitsunari player is at a disadvantage but is able to plan for the betrayals in a way that the historical Mitsunari could not, or the betrayals are determined randomly, in which case the outcome is largely out of the control of the players. Sekigahara is a particularly good example of the outcome of a battle being determined by chance, but it is scarcely unique.

A while back, I read a post on a message board in which a gamer complained about the the command and control rules in Black Powder. The crux of the complaint was that real General's don't roll dice to determine if their orders will be carried out. The point missed was that these rules simulate, in an abstract way, the extent to which a general's orders can be lost, misunderstood or simply not followed. There are abundant examples. The Charge of the Light Brigade is probably the most famous example of orders being misinterpreted. Another, less well known example is Agincourt. Although remembered as the famous defeat of the flower of French chivalry by English Archers, what is less well known is that the French general could see it coming. Unfortunately for him, as he had born a commoner elevated to his rank by skill rather than birth, his orders were largely ignored by his Knights.

In the end the outcome of many battles is down to luck, by which I mean the chance collision of uncontrollable factors. To be a good simulation of warfare, a good wargame needs to reflect this. This applies to command and control, but also to troop performance. When committing his forces the general should know that unit x will defeat unit y 9 times out of 10, but also that unit y will be triumphant 1 in 10 times and, crucially, have no way of knowing if this is one of those times. Good generalship is often about gambling with the most favourable odds, not certainties.

It is worth remembering that real generals didn't do this for fun or as an attempt simply to prove their tactical skill. Mitsunari and Ieyasu were in contest for control of Japan. Sekigahara was about contesting the forces they could marshall. There was no use afterwards complaining that the rules were unfair.

Of course, making a wargame a realistic simulation of warfare is not the same thing as making it a good game. This is why some famous historical battles are better to wargame than others. It is also why most wargames tend to allow both players roughly equal forces or skew the victory conditions to make it a contest of skill. Historical Generals didn't fight for fun and wargamers don't play to contest the fate of nations. If Dreadfleet is a terrible game (and I mean if) then arguing that its realistic is no defence.

However, it is still worth considering that adding random elements to a wargame may make it more realistic, rather than less.

White Dwarf Retrospective - 145 January 1992

2011-10-16T19:39:00.001+01:00

The front cover of White Dwarf 145 comes as something of a shock, the main logo has been displaced to make way for the logos of HeroQuest and Space Crusade. I have written about HeroQuest before and Space Crusade was its Warhammer 40,000 inspired equivalent, in which players took control of squads of Space Marines battling Orks. Chaos Space Marines and Chaos Androids (the fore-runners of the Necrons). This was White Dwarf's second special issue dedicated to these more mainstream board games (the first being 134). It seems like a smart piece of marketing. The prominent logos could entice younger fans of the game while existing Games Workshop players could expand the games with a wider range of miniatures.

The Space Crusade article is particular elaborate, featuring a five part campaign with rules for Genestealer Hybrids, Terminators and Librarians. Given that Space Crusade had no system for psychic powers, the inclusion of psychic power cards for all the marine players, albeit ones you have to cut out or photocopy, is particularly ambitious. On the down-side, to make full use of the rules you are going to need a lot of models. One mission requires you to replace all the Orks with Genestealer Hybrids. With that in mind, its hard to see who this is aimed. Younger players would have to buy a lot of new models to play the missions, while the only players likely to have the required miniatures already would probably have a copy of Space Hulk and play that instead.

The HeroQuest article is rather better in my view. It consists of a two part quest called the Eyes of Chaos. It is illustrated with some imposing pictures of metal Games Workshop Ogres, but was released hot on the heels of the HeroQuest expansion 'Against the Ogre Horde' which featured seven plastic Ogres, so plenty of existing players would have the necessary models. The only truly new character is a Bretonnian Knight on foot, not a particularly challenging character to proxy. In fact I gave the Eyes of Chaos a go at the time of its release, but never player the Space Crusade rules at all.

The Eyes of Chaos for HeroQuest

In a clever piece of synergy, the issue also contains a version of Eyes of Chaos for Advanced HeroQuest, Games Workshops more complex HeroQuest spin off. The latter may not have offered the straight forward fun of HeroQuest, but had a number of enjoyable features, including its random dungeon generator tables, and was well supported in White Dwarf.

and again for Advanced HeroQuest

Moving on from the HeroQuest and Space Crusade material, the issue also features an article on Dragon Masters. This was a slightly odd game, written by Ian Livingstone one of Games Workshop's co-founders who ultimately went on to found video games company Eidos. He had long since left Games Workshop by the time the game was released and it feels like a product of a much earlier time in the companies history.

A self contained board game in which players took on the roles of rival High Elf lords sending out armies to explore a map board, it had the rather interesting mechanic of counters that were placed in each space face down and flipped over when an army entered the space to show what they encountered. This article provides a series of new counters to expand the game. A nice stand alone expansion that sadly has the drawback that, in a time before downloads and scanners, the new counters would have stood out a mile next to the professional printed counter-parts from the main game.

New Counter rules for Dragon Master

The final article is a new army list for Tyranids in Warhammer 40,000. It says something about the way Games Workshop has developed as a marketing machine that this article is weirdly low key, almost an after-thought.

It does feature an intriguing new idea. The whole list is printed on cards, or rather on paper intended to be cut out or photo-copied and used as cards, with background and images on one side and rules on the other. I suspect this idea was inspired by the recently release 2nd edition Epic which also used card-based army selection to good effect. It certainly pre-dates the modern fad for card-supported miniature rules and it is intriguing to imagine a world with army card decks instead of books. They would have been easier to refer to mid game, if trickier to read and store, and also would have allowed the seemless introduction of new units. Sadly this was not to be and the idea was never used again.

Army Cards - an idea that never caught on

The army list itself is a bit of a hodge-podge seemingly put together from existing models with as few totally new elements as possible. Some elements will be familiar to modern players, even if the models have changed, Tyranid Warriors, Genestealers, Termagents and Carnifex (the last two called Hunter-slayers and Screamer-Killers). Also present are Genestealer Hybrids, brood brothers, the Patriarch and the Magus. In fact, there is enough Genestealer elements here to comfortably put together a Genestealer cult army without recourse to Tyranid specific elements at all. Then there is the rather odd inclusion of Squig hordes which are apparently Tyranid-modified Orks, Zoats, effectively armadillo centaurs imported from Warhammer 3rd edition, and Mind Slaves, really an excuse to import chaos space marines and others into the list.

So ultimately, a decidedly bitty army list and one that doesn't seem to have much of a coherent plan behind it, except, perhaps, to put together an army with as little recourse to new models as possible.

This was an unusual and slightly special issue, but we still haven't moved very far from the format of White Dwarf we have seen so far. The bulk of the magazine, and all the key articles, are new, experimental rules for a variety of games. Much of the magazine is black and white with a few colour pages only. However, although not readily apparent from this issue, Games Workshop was starting to change in a way that would seriously impact White Dwarf as we will begin to see from the next issue in our tour.

Startup Costs

2011-09-27T06:22:00.000+01:00

In my last post I mentioned that I had bought some models for Bushido, from GCT games, a fantasy skirmish game set in a version of Medieval Japan.

Although by no means its strongest attraction, one element that drew me to it was its nicely constructed starter sets. As well as containing five or six models, it also included dice, cards and, tucked away at the back, a full set of rules. GCT games had already been handing out these small-sized rule books at the event so I came away with two copies. It was quite gratifying to see a skirmish game with a complete rule book included like this and it made me think of the late Rackham and Confrontation second edition.

Confrontation was Rackham's fantasy skirmish game, which was on to its second edition by the time it really started to make waves in the UK. This was also the time I started playing. At the time, Confrontations distribution method was highly original. Each blister back or box came with cards which contained all the rules for the models. This was a novelty at the time, miniature rules on cards were still a new thing, but Rackham took it to extremes by never printing the rules for the miniatures anywhere but on the cards, there were no Army Books until Rackham made its foray into pre-painted plastic. Also each blister came bundled with a mini-rulebook. Most models included Confrontation, the basic rules for moving and fighting, but Wizards and Clerics came with Divination and Incantation, which provided rules for magic and faith, artillery included Fortification and some characters Incarnation, which gave the rules for ongoing campaigns.

The great advantage of this approach was that you could buy a few blisters of models and be confident of having all the rules you needed to play. The points values of the models were printed on the cards, which were visible through the packaging, so you could even have a good idea of how many points you were getting.

Sadly, this all came to an end when third edition was released. Although, in many respects superior to its predecessor, the rules now came in a lushly produced hard back rulebook costing £15. The rules booklets that came with the figures were relegated to starter rules.

It has always surprised me that more games don't follow the Confrontation 2nd edition approach. Starter sets, like Bushido's, are common enough, but these generally come with 'starter rule' if any at all, with the bulk of the came relegated to a large, usually hardback, book.

As far as I can see, there are two principle motivations for producing a set of game rules. One is a belief in the rules themselves. That is to say, that the writer(s) have an excellent idea for an enjoyable game, or even a particular rules mechanic, or they see an area not well catered for by existing rules and produce a set to meet that need. This seems to be the main motivation behind a lot of historical rules writing, where the rule publishers are often different from the miniature makers, but also appears to be the case for many stand alone fantasy and sci-fi rules sets.

The other motivation, is to support a range of miniatures. In this case the miniature concept comes first, and the rules exist to justify the miniatures. That isn't to say that the rules are not well thought through or simply an after thought, but it is the miniatures that drive the game. Games Workshop have been open about this for years: the purpose of the rules is to sell miniatures. But I also suspect that it is true of a number of high concept fantasy and skirmish games, such as Malifaux, Helldorado and Infinity. In the case of Anima Tactics, I know that it is a spin off of an RPG and that the principle motivation behind the game was to create a miniature game set in that world.

When looking at this second motivation, it seems to me that a rule book simply represents a barrier to entry. If your goal is to get people buying miniatures and playing with them, then you want to minimise any additional start up costs. The great advantage of the Confrontation 2nd edition approach was that you could buy a few blisters packs and get started. If you have to buy a rulebook first, then that's money you can't spend on miniatures. Warhammer now requires a rule book and an army book meaning that the start up cost, before any miniatures are put down, is close to £70. But this is less noticeable in a mass battle game, where the number of miniatures required is large and you would expect to spend some time collecting before you can play a full sized game. With some skirmish games we have ended up in the bizarre situation where you can spend as much, or even more, on the rules than the miniatures. When a significant selling point of your game is that it is quick and easy to pick up and play, why do anything to slow it down?

It's possible that there is serious money to be made in rulebooks. I'm not really sure where to find data on this, but it may be that the cost of rulebooks provides a valuable supplement to the income of miniature companies. Though I do wonder if the profit is offset by the cost of potential players who never get into the game in the first place.

Another potential justification is the need for background material. While there are some games based on existing IP, the majority of Fantasy and Sci-Fi games are set in their own unique world. If you want customers to invest in the miniatures you need them to invest in the game world. If this is your goal, then pages of flavour text and illustrations is obviously likely to be of benefit. In this scenario, if you sell the players on the rulebook, you sell them on the game.

But while players may drawn into a game by its flavour text and imagery, we often want very different things during a game. Hundreds of pages of non-rules material can be a serious pain when you just want to look up the rules. Wyrd games seem to have realised that, hence their decision to release a background free 'rules manual' half the size of their full rulebook.

This is an area where I think GCT games have been very smart with Bushido. They have kept their background material and illustrations to a minimum within the rulebook, but put a considerable amount of material on their website. There are short stories and illustrations for every faction and, so far, they have seen frequent updates. They are not the first company to do this, Mantic has been trying it for one, but they seem to be doing a better job than most.

This was one area where Confrontation 2 fell down. The Rackham website was never as extensive as it might have been and players had to turn to Cry Havoc, their quarterly magazine, for more background information. Releasing a regular magazine is beyond the resources of most game companies, but updating a website is increasingly easy. With all that in mind, I am watching GCT with interest and wondering who else may follow their lead.

Colours at Newbury Racecourse - A Show Report

2011-09-21T06:45:00.001+01:00

Before we start, apologies for the poor quality of the pictures. I forgot to take my regular camera so these were taken with my IPhone.

Colours, hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Society, has been always a show that I thought was too far away and too small to be worth the effort. This only goes to show my poor geography skills as I discovered earlier this year that it was only two short train journeys away and so, with My Little Brother in tow, I set out to see what it had to offer.

Colours certainly takes place at a slightly unusual venue. Rather than the more common school hall, convention centre of leisure complex it takes place at Newbury race course. Or rather one of the substantial hospitality buildings set up to watch the races. It certainly provides ample space, but in a building designed for height and view rather. The end effect is three long and thin floors. In fact it was rather like taking a conventional hall, slicing it in three and stacking the three bits on top of one another with quite a lot of stairs in between. This still left plenty of room for games and stands, but did leave a few rather squeezed. Simple Miniature games had inadvisedly brought an extra stand up display rack which meant getting to their stall was like squeezing down a narrow alley. Atmospheric, but not very convenient.

The Venue - in its rain-soaked glory

I had thought of Colours as medium-sized show, but that probably comes from comparison with Salute which is insanely massive. In fact it was quite big, with over 70 traders in attendance including plenty of familiar local faces but also a few bigger names like Warlord and West Wind. I was surprised not to see Mantic, as they had sent a stand to the much smaller Valhalla earlier in the year. But there was no shortage of their products on offer. In fact the bigger companies may have suffered on the day as they generally stick to official prices while stands all around undercut them. Why pay full price for Warlord miniatures when you can save a couple of pounds by walking to the stand next door?

The show format put the traders at bottom, working up to a level of half traders, half games and then to games, tournaments and the bring and buy, with a few exceptions for contrary traders putting on demo games, like West Wind showing off Mercs and GCT demoing Bushido (of which more below). I thought the layout worked quite well, allowing you to get your shopping out of the way before ascending a few (well quite a lot) stairs to play some games.

I went along with no fixed purchasing plans and allowed myself to get lost in the ranges on offer. GCT games and Bushido caught my eye. I had been vaguely aware of them from news items on TMP and TGN, but never paid very much attention. They were another fantasy skirmish game and I had plenty. Sadly a good display demonstrated that you can never have too many games and their fantasy take on Medieval Japan was an immediate draw. Both MLB and myself left satisfied with a starter pack each to try.

Gaming wise there was a good mix of Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi games and also of participation and demo games, though there seemed to be fewer quick 'pick up' games then I have seen at other shows. Many of the participation games seemed quite long runners requiring you to dedicate an hour or two of your time. Though perhaps this was more about timing and I simply missed the shorter games.

A few games caught my eye. Crooked Dice's 7TV demo looked impressive and quirky as always. 7TV uses the same basic engine as their previous Doctor Who miniature game, but with a theme based around cult TV shows and films from the 60s to the 80s, like the Avengers and James Bond at its camp height. The rules make reference to episodes and cast, rather than games and armies. It also has the advantage of needing no licence and so they can actually sell it, unlike the Doctor Who game which remains determinedly unofficial.

This set up saw a team of heroes face a villainous alliance in their lair in a dormant volcano (where else). Obviously a great deal of work had gone into the board, with the obligatory giant missile and the little yellow helicopter a particular highlight.

MLB and myself spent enjoyable hour with the RAF Wargames Association playing a Stargate themed games searching for missing scientists in an ancient Egyptian temple. The scenery for this came from a Playmobil set purchased on Ebay which shows that you don't need to spend ages on bespoke terrain to produce a good looking game.

A couple of other demo games stood out from the crowd. A stone age people hunting mammoths scenario by Lincombe Barn Wargames Society featured some striking mammoth models and well made fire templates. And I finally saw a game based around the opening scene of Gangs of New York by Maidenhead and District Gamers, something I have been wanting to see since I first saw the film.

On a side note, the food on offer was also slightly better than normal for a show of this size. Taking advantage of the Race course catering facilities there was a range of pasties and paninis, albeit with a long queue, and a licensed bar. Definitely a perk for some gamers, though as a non-drinker not so important for me.

Overall an enjoyable show with a good range of traders and games. My only regret being that I missed it in previous years.

Realms of Chaos Battle Report 2 - The Battle of Bogwurst

2011-09-05T13:52:00.012+01:00

Having gathered a band of followers, Rolf made for the village of Bogwurst. He knew that the village was weakly defended and would be an ideal place to gather supplies. But as the warband approached the village, smouldering fire and the smell of blood revealed that Rolf was not the first to have this idea.

The village was abandoned, its population fled or killed. In the village square a band of drunken chaos thugs danced around a hastily constructed pyre, onto which a man in ragged robes had been tied. The Thugs danced around in a drunken frenzy. Even bound, gagged and helpless Rolf could sense the touch of chaos on their victim.

As Rolf considered his next move, a second band of chaos followers approached from the other side of the town. Five were men dressed in similar ragged robes to the sacrificial victims, five more were dwarves in armour, their leader carrying a large and ornate sword. Rolf made his decision, if this warband wanted this man, then clearly he was a prize worth taking.

Rolf ordered his warband to advance, quickly pushing past the drunken thugs who put up little resistance. From the other side, the enemy warband did the same. But as one of the thugs stumbled towards the lead dwarf he swung out his sword. As the sword touched the man there was a wailing hiss and his body shrivelled away to nothing. As if in response to his leader, one of the robed humans, who Rolf could now see had no skin on his face, stretched out a finger and let loose a bolt of lightning. Two more men collapsed in a pile of smoking ash.

Seeing that their rivals wielded magic, Rolf was daunted, but even more determined. He sent the Orcs to meet the lead dwarf, while the beastmen secured their captive. Rolf's warband reached the pyre first and the beastmen braved the flames to secure their prize. Rolf prepared himself to meet the ragged cultists, but then a second bolt of lightning leapt out and Rolf was struck down, his body crackling with energy.

With their leader fallen, the Beastmen and Orcs faltered, but the lead Beastmen, who carried Rolf's banner, bellowed a cry of defiance, hoisted his captive onto his shoulders and lead his comrades away. The Orcs braced themselves to receive the charge of the Dwarf champion. He launched himself forward his blade dancing, but the Orcs held out. However, when they struck back, they found their spear points deflected. His black skin was was harder than iron. Despite their resistance, the Orcs were slowly pushed back.

As the Beastmen retreated, the cultists saw their chance and attacked from the rear. But the beastmen disdainfully received their charge cutting down one of the cultists. Shocked by the strength of the resistance, the cultists panicked and fled. The Beastmen ignored them and marched on. The dwarves pursued, but were unable to keep pace. It seemed that Rolf's warband might claim victory after all. But then, the sorcerer hurled two more bolts of lightning and two beastmen fell. At the same time, the dwarf champion hacked through the leg of one Orc and skewered another on the point of his blade. Like the Chaos Thug before, the life was drained out of the Orc's body leaving an empty husk. Seeing the comrade subject to such a grizzly fate, the Orcs nerve gave and they fled.

The Beastman leader was not so easily bowed. Hoisting his captive he made a break for the trees at the edge of the village. Two more lightning bolts followed him, but the beastman was gone into the woods.

* * * * *

Rolf awoke to the sight of his beastman follower standing over him. It explained, in its guttural tone, that he had fled into the woods with his captive, that the rival warband had pursued but had been unable to find him. He had returned to the village and gathered up the scattered Orcs and beastmen. Despite being knocked out, the bolt of lightning had left Rolf scorched but unharmed. He gave a quiet prayer to his God for protecting him.

With his warband recovered Rolf turned his attention to his prisoner. The man was battered, but alive, but still gave Rolf a look of defiant hatred. Rolf was confused, but then he saw the twisting S shaped rune on the pendent around his neck. Somehow Rolf recognised it and hated it. Then his beastmen follower hissed a word “Tzeentch” with utter contempt and Rolf realised his prisoner was a champion of an rival God. Rolf smiled.

He tortured and killed his prisoner with sadistic glee and with a final contemptuous sneer, Rolf beheaded the man. The body fell and lay still. But then the body started to shake and convulse. Rolf stepped back as it exploded into a pile of offal and filth. Still it shook, rising up into a bloated, slug-like shape crowned by a mass of tentacles. The vile thing bounded forward toward Rolf. He backed away, but then the creature leaped towards him, licking him with its putrid Tongue like an affectionate hunting hound.

Preventing the rescue of a follower of Tzeentch was a worthy deed for a Champion of Nurgle, but to risk his life to capture and kill the champion himself had caught the attention of his God who had gifted him with one of his own Beasts. Rolf, as a champion, was quite unaffected by the creatures paralysing poisons. For his loyalty and dedication to his master his Beastman follower was rewarded with a tentacle arm like his master.

Gathering up his battered followers, Rolf made to leave Bogwurst, only to be disturbed by the lumbering arrival of a Dragon-Ogre, attracted by Sorcerer's lightning. Rolf readied himself for another fight, but the Dragon-Ogre, recognising a Chaos Champion, pledged himself to Rolf.

Casualties: 1 Orc killed, 1 serious leg injury.

Reward: Beast of Nurgle

Booty: None

Followers Reward: Chaos Attribute (Tentacle arm) for a Beastman

New Followers: 1 Dragon Ogre

* * * * *

This was my second battle using the Realms of Chaos rules against My Little Brother and we were each using our second warbands. This was not a prospect to which I was greatly looking forward, largely because MLB's other warband is crazy. He managed to roll up a Level 10 Chaos Dwarf Sorcerer and decided to make him a follower of Tzeentch. This gave him a randomly generated Magic item, which turned out to be Daemon Sword (it started out as having a Daemon Prince sealed inside it but we agreed this was going a bit far and down-graded it to a Pink Horror).

So far so overpowered, but worse was to come. Tzeentchian champions get D3 chaos attributes instead of 1, and MLB rolled 3. His first two were the harmlessly ineffective big ears and black skin, but he rolled metal body for his third, giving his champion a strength and toughness of 6 and AN IMMUNITY TO NON-MAGICAL WEAPONS! His Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill were halved but this was largely compensated for by the Daemon Sword. Given that nothing in my warband could even hurt this guy this was not going to be an easy challenge.

With all that in mind, we settled on a scenario were I had a hope of achieving something. We selected a scenario from the Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned book in which the two warbands have to compete to rescue a captured cultist coven leader from a band of drunken beastmen. I didn't have the beastmen to spare, but had no shortage of plastic chaos marauders, so we decided to substitute them. We decided that the coven leader was part of the same cult as MLB's cultists and so would be a Tzeentchian.

Unsurprisingly my warband was pretty badly massacred. But thanks to taking a more direct route to my goal I managed to get the coven leader first. Had it gone the other way I wouldn't have stood a chance of getting him off MLB's warband. My Beastmen performed stirlingly, surviving a rear charge, breaking the cultists and passing a leadership test so they weren't compelled to pursue (which would have taken them in the wrong direction). To cap it all, the standard bearer passed a panic test when two of his colleagues were taken out by lightning bolts from MLB's Cultist Magus and made it into the woods.

The Orcs also did well, given they were fighting an enemy they couldn't hurt. Poor old Rolf was the real loser, taken out without a fight and not even being able to claim the Victory Points for 'Surviving the Battle on the Winning side.'

Post battle I was extraordinarily lucky. Despite losing all but two of my warband I suffered only one fatality and one injury (an Orc with a severely injured leg who I may 'retire' as he will slow down the whole unit). Even Rolf escaped unscathed, gaining his first reward and a Dragon Ogre follower. Given his impressive performance winning the day, I had to pass my follower reward onto the beastman survivor. Now I just have to get my hands on a Beast of Nurgle.

White Dwarf Retrospective - 133 January 1991

2011-09-04T11:18:00.000+01:00

My second look back on old White Dwarfs takes us to January of 1991 and WD 133. The front cover this time depicts the Blood Angels, lead by a ridiculously shiny gold armoured Captain, who would go on to be the inspiration for the special characters Commander Dante and Captain Tycho. Though not as popular as 121's cover, this image did do double duty as the front cover of the Warhammer 40,000 compilation (see here).

The overall feel of the magazine had not changed greatly in 12 months. We still have mostly two colour articles, largely focused on new rules with little over arching theme and little coverage of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Though the exclusively rule-based articles of WD 121 have been supplemented here by a rather useful 'Modelling Workshop' article on Fences and hedge rows. Modelling workshop had been running for some months, but had been focused on larger or more elaborate projects like barns, cottages, ruined temples, etc. So an article on something more straightforward was very welcome. The end result is well illustrated and easy to follow. Definitely of use even to modern players.

A surprisingly large proportion of the rest of the issue is devoted to the rules for Mek-boys for the Space Ork army. Since the preview in WD 121 the Orks had received a considerable amount of new material, much of which would ultimately end up in their two supplement books "'Ere we Go" and "Freebooterz". Having printed an army list, vehicle rules and rules for most basic troop types, WD had turned its attention to more and more obscure rules. Given their current role within the Ork army, basic characters with access to slightly specialised equipment, the first edition rules for the Mek boys are remarkable, both in quantity and quality.

The article provides a set of malfunction cards that the opposing player can play on the Ork army to represents the unreliability of their equipment. Each Mekboy in the Ork army provides a mekboy card that can cancel out he malfunction. On the face of it this is a fun little 'game within a game' but when you consider that several different ork troop types had similar amounts of special rules you can imagine how complex playing an Ork army could be. The second part of the rules is devoted to the Shokk Attack gun, a weapon still around today that propels snotlings through Warp Space at the enemy. The rules include two large tables used to determine what happens when Snotlings appear inside vehicles or battle suits (such as Terminators) and the amount of detail given to each entry gives a good indication of how much fun the designers must have had designing these rules. For example:

It feels like the designers were a little out of control, creating rules that were great fun to write and read, but cumbersome to play. When you consider that Mek Boys are one small part of one army, and that other Ork units were given rules every bit as elaborate I imagine the fun would wear off quickly during an actual game. At the age of 11 I spent ages reading through the Ork rules, but rarely put them into practice in anything but the most basic way.

The next most substantial article is devoted to new metal parts for Epic Titans and serves as a good reminder of how Epic's status has declined from once being the third core game. The article had obviously been produced to coincide with the release of the new pieces, and shows that even in the early 1990s WD content could be dictated by the release of the month. That said, as marketing strategies go this is fairly half-arsed. The rules were never published anywhere else, leaving players without this issue scuppered (at least until the release of Epic 2nd edition only 8 months later).

Showing off the new metal Titan parts. The Orks look badly outgunned.

A few quick Space Hulk missions fill up some space and provide a little more usable content, but the most unusual element, to modern eyes, are the four pages devoted to special offer armies.

Two of them are for Warhammer Fantasy armies from Marauder miniatures. Three armies are on offer, Dark Elves, Orcs and Dwarves. At the other end of the magazine, there are two pages of special offers for 1,000 point Ork armies, six in total, one for each clan. These armies vary in price from £80 at most to as little as £30. What is striking is not only the dramatic price difference between then and now, but how much larger armies seem to have gotten. The Warhammer armies are all perfectly playable at 2,000 points each, but the Orc one, for example has only four infantry units of only 20 models each (2 of which are Goblins) and four war machines. Its hard to imagine White Dwarf presenting an army that size now, let alone selling it. The Dwarf and Dark Elf armies contain units of 10 models, barely viable now, while the Ork army uses mobs of 5 Orks. Part of the increasing cost of the Games Workshop hobby is not just more expensive models but the insistence on fielding more of them, an attitude reinforced in White Dwarf which now seems to operate a minimum army size of 3,000 points.

So, after White Dwarf 121, 133 is more of the same. Lots of rules, no coherent theme and some shockingly cheap armies. But, little did I know at the time, a price rise was on the horizon, the first of many, it will be interesting to see were we go in a years time.

Battle of the Sarcophagus

2011-08-22T06:39:00.001+01:00

Drawn by a source of magical power, Saargash's warband made their way through the forest until they came to a clearing. In the centre was a ruined and crumbling mausoleum decorated with Slaanesh runes and icons. Their path had been guided by Slaanesh himself. But Saargash's elation turned, exquisitely, to anger as he saw that another warband had arrived first.

Saargash beheld the strange site of a Dark Elf warrior bearing the rune of Nurgle.

“Back away,” the Champion called out. “We have no quarrel, but this find is ours.”

“Slaanesh protects and rewards his own,” Saargash called back.

“So be it,” was the Dark Elf's response.

A pack of ghouls crawled out from the Temple. Bellowing a challenge, Saargash's brothers charged forward, cutting down ghouls left and right. The ghouls were easily defeated and scattered, capering back into the Temple. Saargash's brothers pursued into the Temple, but before he could call them back, a goat headed sorcerer stepped out from the ruins. A ball of fire leaped from his hands, striking Saargash's brother Rahm in the chest. He fell to the ground. Skurn bellowed in anger as the Dark Elf climbed back to the ruins to face him.

Seeing his brother outnumbered and with himself and his beastmen still some distance away, Saargash used his power to call down a mystic mist, obscuring the temple. The rest of the warband rushed to the ruins, but, by the time they reached it, the Champion and Sorcerer had fled.

Saargash commanded his beastmen to open the sarcophagus and they were engulfed in a cloud of dust. Stepping out from the ruins, still clad in the tattered remains of his robes, was an undead Sorcerer of Slaanesh. It shrieked out an inhuman cry and struck at one of the beastmen, who staggered back. But they stood firm. Saargash leaped forward and struck the creature twice with his blades. It collapsed in a pile of dust and bones. As the champion collapsed, Saargash snatched up his sword, which glowed with Chaos Power.

Holding the sword aloft in triumph, Saargash smiled as Slaanesh bestowed a new reward. A musky perfume emanated from his body, binding to his will all who dared approach. Skurn and Rahm, who had not been badly hurt, were also rewarded with spears scavenged from the wreckage and new emotions: a fierce hatred of men and dwarfs.

Reward: Musk

Booty: 2 Spears, Chaos Weapon (Magic Thief and Swiftness)

Followers Reward: Chaos Attribute (Irrational hatred) for the Centaurs

New Followers: None

* * *

Saargash's warband, fully assembled and painted

This was the first test of the Realms of Chaos rules and my randomly generated warband and saw Saargash Champion of Slaanesh take on my little brother's decidedly eccentric Nurgle warband, lead by a Dark Elf Champion and consisting of a unit of Ghouls and a Chaos Sorcerer with the head of a Goat. I won't write about it in too much detail in case he decides to write about it on his own blog, but if he does I will add a link.

We had decided to play a scenario from the Lost and the Damned book which saw our two warbands contesting control of an ancient sarcophagus. MLB won the dice roll which put him in control of it at the start of the game. He sent his Ghouls out ahead, trying to use nearby swamps as cover. Unfortunately for him, he underestimated the reach of my Centaurs who charged and quickly sent the Ghouls scattering (they break automatically if defeated in combat).

At this point we hit some difficulty with the rules. In third edition Warhammer, fleeing units are not wiped out of caught, they just keep running with the enemy getting a free strike against them. However, it was less than clear whether both units kept running each turn or only in their own. Rather than pursue one remaining ghoul all the way across the table, I elected to take a leadership test and hold my centaurs back. However, this left them dangerously exposed in the middle of the ruined tower that housed the sarcophagus. MLB's Wizard immediately blasted one with a fireball taking him out of the game.

Although I was in the stronger position, I was concerned about losing both centaurs and was pretty sure that the Dark Elf Champion could do some serious damage to me even if I was confident of beating him. So I dropped a mystic mist on to the tower, blocking all line of sight for three turns. At this point MLB decided discretion was the better part of valour and we agreed his warband could slip away.

With the battlefield mine I could open the sarcophagus and roll on the random table to see what it contained. Unfortunately, I was immediately attacked by an Undead Chaos Champion. We randomly generated the champion, who turned out to be another Slaaneshi Sorcerer, and gave him one reward and one attribute, which ironically turned out to be skull face. Fortunately years of undeath had taken its toll and Saargash was able to take him out. This landed me a free magic weapon with two chaos properties - magic thief which absorbs the power of other weapons and swiftness which boosts initiative.

Saargash also got enough victory points to roll for his first Chaos Reward. I initially got Chaos Armour, but decided this was a bit mundane, so I refused it in favour of rolling on the Gifts of Slaanesh table .His first reward: Musk, which forces enemies to pass a Will Power test before they can attack him. Though its biggest bonus was that I wouldn't have to convert Saargash to use it. My centaurs also generated a new chaos attribute and irrational hatred, though the one hit by the fireball suffered a chest wound and lost a point of toughness. I will have to model a burn in someway. Sadly, I didn't get any new followers this time.

One aspect of this style of campaign gaming is how much more you worry about losing models. I have been playing one off games for so long that the thought of preserving my troops for future battles didn't occur. In retrospect, I was foolish to leave my centaurs so exposed. On the other hand, MLB was seriously lucky in that none of his Ghouls suffered any permanent injuries.

Mantic, Games Workshop and Substitute miniatures

2011-08-12T07:43:00.000+01:00

An editorial on Tabletop Gaming news has had me thinking. The article talks about the virtues of Mantic Games 'non-competitive' approach to wargaming, producing models than can easily be substituted for existing Games Workshop ones and allowing you to produce armies compatible with both companies games. Its a good article, but what I found fascinating was some of the comments below. Most notably:

Please show me one single model that they’ve produced that isn’t a direct analogue of a Games Workshop model. I don’t see Mantic making anything other than a token effort to produce a set of rules so their lawyers can point to them and say “Look – we’re not trying to horn in on Games Workshop’s IP – honest!” They’ve put no effort into producing any sort of background or context for the miniatures, and definitely haven’t come up with any new concepts of their own as far as miniature design.

From Guinny. I'm going to take a look at this, not to pick on him specifically, but because it neatly reflects and attitude I've seen before and because its an interesting point of discussion. I've seen this attitude a lot, suggesting that Mantic are attempting to rip off Games Workshop and suggesting that there is something unethical or immoral in their approach.

Firstly, its worth noting that Games Workshop are not exactly slow to send out cease and desist orders when they feel their IP is being infringed. That Mantic have been left alone suggests that Games Workshop don't feel they have any kind of case on this score.

While it is probably true that most, if not all, of Mantic's releases can be substituted for similar Games Workshop ones, its worth looking at exactly what they are producing: heavy armoured dwarfs, elves with bows, Orc warriors, skeletons, zombies, ghouls, vampires. All of these are standard fantasy types, you could just as easily accuse them of ripping off Dungeons & Dragons. If they really were stealing Games Workshop's IP you would expect to see copies of their more distinctive creations. Where are the Gyrocopters? The Varghulf? The Arachnarok? The closest they get is the Abyssal Dwarfs, and that's more filling a niche that Games Workshop set up and have largely abandoned.

The supreme irony for me, though, is that producing models of standard fantasy archetypes is exactly where Games Workshop started and I regard this as very much a good thing.

Wargaming remains a niche hobby, while Fantasy and Science Fiction are very broad genres. Only the most successful and visible properties are every likely to be licensed for official wargames, which is why we have games for Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and little else. The advantage of producing a game based on archetypes, or even cliches, is that players can bring whatever they want to the game. Warhammer is a world that takes many of the high fantasy stereotypes popularised by Tolkein and developed by his imitators, and adds in gothic horror and a concept of Chaos that owes a debt to Michael Moorcock and H P Lovecraft. If you are a high fantasy fan, its not hard to take your favourite novel, comic or film and use it as inspiration for your Warhammer army.

For the most part companies seeking to carve out a niche within the niche of Fantasy Wargaming have tended to either reinterpret the archetypes (Chronopia, Confrontaion) or actively move away from them (Malifaux, Wargods, Anima Tactics). Mantic are different, in that they have decided that they can do the archetypes as well as Games Workshop or better.

That said, Games Workshop are hardly unique. Wargames Foundry, Wargames Factory, Renegade and Black Hat miniatures all have ranges of fairly traditional fantasy models, and thats just off the top of my head. The difference is that these ranges are one among many and don't have the profile of Mantic. Consequently they avoid the charge of 'ripping off' Games Workshop. Not to mention Avatars of War, which is far more explicitly aimed at Games Workshop players than are Mantic.

There's a venerable tradition in producing miniatures and games that can 'substitute' for a wide variety of source material not lucky enough to have a licensed game of its own. I am a fan of anime and manga, and there is a not insubstantial overlap between wargamers and that particular community. However, Japan has no home grown wargames industry at all, surprising when you consider the enthusiasm for model kits and miniature figures. Consequently, there are almost no licensed wargames based on Japanese IP, Privateer Press' Voltron is the only example I can think of. This has left a gap in the market for companies 'inspired' by the manga/anime aesthetic, notably Anima Tactics and Soda Pop miniatures.

Some companies have gone much further to attract the attention of gamers seeking unlicensed products - Doctor Who is a case in point. Black Tree Design still has a range based on the 'classic series' that ran between 1963 and 1996, but the only miniatures based on the recent series were produced by Character Options, who produce the Doctor Who action figures, and were clearly aimed at children. They were small and not well detailed, though plenty of gamers have gotten good mileage out of their Daleks and Cybermen. However, the free, unofficial Doctor Who miniature game remains available to download and both Heresy and Crooked Dice have a range of figures that in no way resemble the Doctor, his allies or enemies.

But the crucial question raised by the above comment is 'would we want it any other way?' I can understand why Games Workshop might have an issue with Mantic games, though they couldn't easily criticise without being accused of hypocrisy, but why would gamers? If you don't like what Mantic has to offer fine. Games Workshop products are still widely available. But surely all gamers benefit from an industry that is able to produce unlicensed substitutes for expensive or non-existent products?

In answer to a question...

2011-08-10T06:45:00.000+01:00

My last post attracted a rather interesting comment from Itinerant:

"I've got a question that doesn't have much to do with your entry. But I couldn't find an email for you...and I suppose it's a reflection type of question. Anyway,

I've only played WWII mini gaming and a couple of Future War Commander. The whole fantasy side of things (and Samurai) fascinate me. However, I must say that I don't understand the appeal to the style of gaming. Moving big blocks of troops for optimal position, then moving together for melee (close combat, etc) and then withdraw or take ground. It seems some what stale...

I'm not quite sure and I must be wrong, because fantasy and ancient battles is pretty popular so there must be more to it.

Can you tell me what appeals to you about this style of gaming vs more mobile shooting style of modern/sci fi gaming?"

I hope Itinerant will forgive me, but given that it was off topic and it raises an interesting question I thought I would attempt to give it enough space to tackle properly. The question made me think more about what makes motivates me to play certain types of games, though I'm not sure the answer will be very helpful.

For me wargaming has always been about the miniatures and the concepts first and foremost. I started out as a Games Workshop player and what attracted me to their games and miniatures was a combination of their imagery and the way that was presented in the miniatures. The Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 universes were always strikingly visual places with a kind of dark excitement that appealed to a teenage mind.

I started out as a Warhammer 40,000 player, because my friends were. My first armies were for Warhammer 40,000. I came to Warhammer somewhat later, largely because I felt I was missing out by ignoring a whole other range of miniatures. I bought the rulebook without having even tried a game, the notion of whether or not I might like it never really entered my head.

So if asked the question "what appeals to you about this style of gaming?" the answer is nothing. Which is to say, it wasn't this style of gaming that appealed to me, it was a desire to collect, paint and use a certain style of miniature.

This has always been my approach to wargaming - Fantasy, Sci-Fi or Historical. If I see a particular miniature or a particular image that appeals to me I will buy it and build an army around it. My choice of units is based more around finding a particular miniature of concept appealing, rather than any tactical consideration. I can often find myself acquiring a large number of miniatures without thinking about how they might work on the table, because that has always been a secondary concern.

Not that this is necessarily a sensible approach. I have found myself acquiring a large number of miniatures for games I hardly play because, when I finally got round to looking at them, I found I didn't like the rules.

Strangely, I also have very little interest in miniatures that don't belong to a specific game. Although, these days, I am more a collector and painter than player I still prefer to collect armies rather than individual miniatures.

None of this is terribly helpful if you want to know the appeal of formation heavy, mass battle historical and fantasy games. So, with that in mind, I have tried to consider what it is about games like Warhammer that have kept me playing while others have fallen by the way side.

There is a simple visual appeal in seeing rank upon rank of troops lined up. Even if at 28mm scale units of miniatures are far smaller than any historical one, the effect of ranking them together in blocks serves to make them look larger and more imposing. There is a sense in which a ranked up army looks more ready to take on the world. But fundamentally, this is still an aesthetic consideration.

All I can say is that I had never drawn a sharp distinction between ranked up fantasy and ancient wargaming and modern and sci-fi wargaming. All wargaming is fundamentally about maneuvering groups of troops into the most advantageous position, attempting to bring force to bear at your opponent's weak points. Nor is it necessarily the case that modern/sci-fi gaming is more mobile. While individual troops may have more freedom of position, due to the looser formation requirements, games can bogged down in protracted fire fights in which neither side attempts to approach the other.

So I don't have a simple answer to the question. All I can say is that the differences between ancient/fantasy and modern/sci-fi wargaming have never really mattered to me and that is the appeal of miniatures and concepts that bring me to a game more than the rules.

Change for the Better?

2011-07-17T10:07:00.001+01:00

In my previous post, looking at an old issue White Dwarf, I commented on the lack of material for new players and the way in which most articles were mysterious, even impenetrable, to anyone not already steeped in Games Workshop background lore. This has lead me to reflect a little on my entry into the wargaming hobby and Games Workshop in particular.

Back in the 1990s there were fewer Games Workshop stores about, but still plenty, and, once I had discovered White Dwarf it wasn't hard to track one down. My first experiences were simulatenously enthralling and baffling. Whilst Games Workshop of old did maintain gaming and painting tables to support players, the carefully pitched sales routines with intro games were still well into the future. Games Workshop was also a much more diverse company selling a number of gaming systems: Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000; Space Hulk; Epic; Advanced HeroQuest; Blood Bowl; Dark Future. Even Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, board games like Talisman and Dungeon Quest, and the child friendly troll games had space within the store and, usually, a range of miniatures to go with them. There was no easy division of the store in Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and Lord of the Rings.

It didn't help that branding was also more diverse. Each individual race for Warhammer or Warhammer 40,000 had its own blister pack design, with separate designs for Epic and Blood Bowl, also broken down by race. Boxed sets, though usually strikingly designed, were similarly diverse, with only small references to games systems and logos unique to that particular box. Often they would have rules references on the back of the boxes that referred to earlier editions of the games, which further added to the confusion.

The rules were also not well organised. Most games were sold as boxed sets, with the notable exception of the big two, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000, both of which were sold as rule books. For Warhammer there was also the Warhammer Armies book, which contained all the army lists for 3rd edition except individual Chaos Powers (which were in Realms of Chaos), so getting started wasn't too hard. Warhammer 40,000, in contrast, was a mess.

There was no consistency at all to the way rulebooks were presented. The majority of army lists started out as White Dwarf articles which were later collected into two books: the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium and the Warhammer 40,000 compilation. The former had lists for Space Marines, Squats and Imperial Guard, the latter Eldar and Genestealers, though it also had supplemental material for the Space Marines. The Orks were strangely well supported, with two huge, hardback rule books: "'Ere we Go" and "Freebooterz". Chaos was, again, covered by the Realms books. Then the designers started tinkering with the basic rules of Warhammer 40,000 without releasing a new edition. They rewrote the vehicle rules and released the Vehicle manual to cover the changes, then they rewrote the close combat and many of the weapon rules and released the Combat manual. By the end of 1st edition the only rules you would actually use the main rulebook for were movement.

Then there was the packing of the models, which often failed to reflect the way they were used in games. For example, Eldar Aspect Warriors were fielded in strict squads of five (except Dark Reapers who got three), initially this was how they were sold, but Games Workshop then started selling them in packs of four. Exarchs, meanwhile, were sold in packs of two identical models. The packs were much cheaper back then, but you were still left with redundant models you couldn't use. Warhammer was little better, I once bought a goblin regiment pack containing 12 models. It was a bargain at the time, but while most of the models had swords and shields, four were equipped with bows, rendering them unusable as a single regiment.

The problem for new players was that it wasn't clear where you should start. There were too many games and no clear advice, not even an introductory leaflet. I'm sure the store staff would have assisted me had I asked, and I'm sure plenty did. But the staff did not, at that time, trained to approach new gamers and ease them in.

Things started to change as Games Workshop introduced fourth edition Warhammer and second edition Warhammer 40,000. They started to move to consistent branding, focused on easy to read rules with good introductory rules and realigned their supplements to focus on individual armies. Things weren't perfect, they still sold Warhammer infantry in packs of four, with command groups in threes, making it unnecessarily hard to put together a regiment, and some models described in army lists weren't released until sixth or even seventh edition, but, at last, there was a clear path for the new player. It's probably no coincidence that it was then that Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 really took off with my friends, who had been reluctant participants at best until then.

Of course, in retrospect, it was also the point for many that Games Workshop started to go downhill. The diversity and creative freedom, as well as a White Dwarf magazine with useful hobby material, started to drift away. Arguably GW went too far in the opposite direction, focusing on an endless cycle of new players at the expense of the veterans.

It's not just Games Workshop that has changed of course. The industry as a whole has become more focused and, I would argue, more professional. As technology has advanced, graphic design has gotten easier and rulebooks are better printed and presented than before. Most fantasy and sci-fi games offer starter sets of one sort or another and starter rules have become easily available through the Internet. Historical wargaming also seems more accessible now, with more appealing rule books and companies more willing to provide starter armies. The internet is naturally a first port of call for the budding new wargamer.

I have been wallowing in nostalgia a bit these last few weeks. Don't get me wrong, it has been enormously enjoyable to revisit old White Dwarfs and rule books as I prepare my Chaos Warbands, but it is easy to slip on Rose-tinted spectacles. The hobby has changed greatly in the last twenty years and it would be a mistake to ignore the positives and focus on the negative. One thing I can say, is that it is easier to start out as a wargamer than ever before.

White Dwarf Retrospective - 121 January 1990

2011-07-03T12:09:00.005+01:00

Today's post heralds the start of a new semi-regular feature (I hope). As I have mentioned a few times before, my Chaos Warband building has had me looking back over old White Dwarfs looking for images and inspiration. The amount that the magazine has changed over the time is striking, but what surprised me is how much I had forgotten about how it used to be when I first started collecting. With that in mind, I am going to take a close look at one issue a year until I reach the end of my collection and see if I can chart the changes as they emerge.

For my first issue I will be looking at the very first issue of White Dwarf I ever bought, issue 121 dated January 1990. This makes the magazine a little over 21 and old enough to drink in America, making me feel extremely old. Back in 1990 it cost the princely sum of £1.50. The cover image, by David Gallagher, reflects one of the main features, a preview of new Warhammer 40,000 Ork models and rules, and depicts two Ork warbands meeting accidentally and violently. It became a very well used image, appearing on the front cover of the plastic Space Orks boxed set, the Epic Ork Invasion set and the cover of the Ork rule book 'Ere We Go.

Starting at the beginning of the magazine, one of the most striking things is the absence of a list of new miniatures and prices. Instead, almost at the start of the magazine, is a listing of Games Workshop stores (a very short list) and after a few pages of adverts we reach the preview page = Culture shock. This very wordy column offers information about expansions for Space Hulk, Epic and Bloodbowl as well as Games Workshops slightly bizarre foray into Heavy Metal music production with a news item about the band Bolt Thrower. The feel is very haphazard, with Games Workshop willing to talk about products still some time from release, in contrast to their modern emphasis on controlled news access.

The major news preview comes later in the magazine however with an 8 page preview of new Ork models and the 'Waagh the Orks' background book for Warhammer 40,000. By modern standards, its quite an odd preview. There are no detailed design notes, information about rules or anything approaching a release schedule. It doesn't even focus solely on one game, with material about Epic mixed in with Warhammer 40,000. Games Workshop appear to be previewing a change of aesthetic to their orks more than anything else.

Introduction to the new Orks

There is a lot of new rules material in this issue, much of which is White Dwarf specific, not a preview for a new game or supplement. The major preview material is 'the Gifts and Magic of Nurgle' article which would be reproduced exactly in the Realms of Chaos: the Lost and the Damned book, but it would be usable to any player with a copy of Slaves to Darkness and keen to start a Nurgle warband. In addition to this we have a quest for Advanced HeroQuest, the more 'advanced' dungeon-crawl spin-off to HeroQuest which I have written about before, rules for Chaos Terminators in Space Hulk (the first of a two part article) and one part of an ongoing series for Warhammer fantasy Roleplay. The last details part of the city of Marienburg and was intended to be collected into a supplement, but was ultimately never completed (the Marienburg supplement released years later by HogsHead publishing contained different material). This was not uncommon for Games Workshop at the time who would often release material in White Dwarf before collecting it together, sometimes they didn't get round to releasing the full collection.

The 'Eavy Metal pages, a show case for painted models, seems quite chaotically assembled, with pictures of whatever the studio painters have been working on regardless of any consistent theme. There are a few images of soon to be released miniatures, but these are almost thrown away, mixed in as they are with conversions and already available models A particular highlight is a page of heavily converted Titans by John Blanche. Also of interest is the two pages of dense text given over to explaining how the miniatures were painted and converted. Even if it mostly just describes the colours used, it is still welcome and helps to elevate the pages above simple eye candy. The 2D counterpart to 'Eavy Metal is Illuminations, a 4 page article given over to showing off the art work of Kev Walker which, perhaps surprisingly, is entirely black and white.

The Lack of colour throughout is quite jarring. Most of the magazine, and all of rules material is in black and white, including half the Ork preview. Colour is reserved for where it is most necessary, Eavy Metal and, no not Illuminations, but adverts. It seems very odd to see non-Games Workshop adverts in White Dwarf, even if they are decidedly unusual - a play by mail roleplaying for example. This issue also features two large double-page ads for Talisman and Bloodbowl. These are actually useful introductions to the games and available materials, but were sadly not used again in the magazine.

This is unfortunate as there is very little for new players. At time I was enamoured by the Ork preview and spent ages pouring over rules and tables in Realms of Chaos without having a clue what they were for. It was a good thing for Games Workshop that I had this mind-set, because there is nothing to ease in the new players or introduce the games. This would not be so bad these days, when Games Workshop stores are fully geared up to introduce new players to the hobby, but back in the early 1990s Games Workshop stores were slightly baffling and intimidating places for new players.

So in summary, the issue contains lots of useful rules content for several different games so there was probably something of interest to most players. On the other hand, diversity of games material means that you would have to be pretty committed to Games Workshops full range of products to get use out of all of it. Also, as valuable as the content is to an experienced player, it is actively confusing to a new one. While it may have been my introduction to Games Workshop hobby, it was a somewhat confusing one to say the least.

Make do and mend

2011-06-21T22:04:00.001+01:00

One side-effect of revisiting the old Realms of Chaos warband rules is that I have found myself trawling through back issues of White Dwarf looking for examples of warbands and models. The process has been illuminating about the way in which the wargaming hobby and Games Workshop in particular have changed over the years. The most obvious difference being the price.

Back when I started gaming in 1990, Games Workshop charged a standard £2.99 for a metal blister pack which contained, on average, 3-5 metal models. It didn't take very long for them to put up their prices, within a year they were £3.99 a pack, but even then it seems ludicrously cheap by modern standards. First issue of White Dwarf I ever bought contained a special offer deal for a 2,000 point Dark Elf army. This deal got you 84 metal models for £50. A modern Dark Elf battalion boxed set now costs £60 and gets you 53 plastic models.

It's actually very difficult to say with certainty how much something has increased in cost in real terms. Inflation has a huge effect as does the price of certain raw materials. Another factor is changes to game rules. I may be wrong, but my impression is that armies have gotten bigger since the 1990s (while points costs have gotten lowwer) which effects the overall cost of collecting an army quite apart from the cost of the individual models.

I bring all this up, not as a way to bash Games Workshop for putting up the prices, but because it made me remember my early experiences gaming. For a while now I have been commenting on blogs and message boards expressing my view that GW are in danger of pricing their customers out of the market, particularly given that their market is mostly teenagers. Oddly, looking at these old prices has lead me to revise my view.

The £50 army looks like a good deal to modern eyes, but the thing is, I couldn't afford it and neither could any of my friends. Maybe if we saved pocket money for months, but that wasn't going to happen. We used to buy models in fits and starts where we could and, like most teenage boys with limited patience, our focus was on low cost high impact models. It's no wonder Games Workshop started focusing on special characters, for a few pounds you could buy a single model as powerful as most units.

When my friends and I first started playing we used to improvise, using experimental rules from White Dwarf, proxying models, ignoring minimums and maximums, all so we could get in a game. In the early days we didn't even have the right dice and used to employ spinners or rolling odd number of six-siders to get the effects we needed.

Back then GW didn't produce much in the way of scenery, a few trees and fences, but certainly not the big plastic boxes of today. But if they had I doubt we would have bought much of it. Why spend money on scenery that you can spend on models? So we used anything to hand: books, video cases, polystyrene packaging and lego trees. I remember one memorable game of Warhammer 40,000 in which Eldar took on Space Marines in a 'Mountain Pass' made from the gap between the sofa and the coffee table. I even played one opponent whose Tyranid army was two-thirds paper counters.

My point is that for teenagers everything is too expensive, from video games to trainers. Miniatures are no different. Most teenagers have no source of income beyond their parents it didn't stop us then and I doubt it would now. While I would have jumped at Mantic Games cheap plastics had an equivalent existed, high prices were not going to push me out of the hobby.

It's a point that adult gamers can easily forget. Games Workshop may be at the pinnacle of high priced miniature companies (and I emphasise may), but this is an expensive hobby across the board, expensive in both money and time. It takes a level of dedication and commitment, possibly even a touch of obsession, to make something of it in the first place. The teenage audience that Games Workshop focuses on has this in spades, even if it doesn't have much money. I had forgotten just how keen I was to get my miniatures and get in a game, even if I couldn't afford to spend the kind of money I do now. With all that in mind, I wonder how badly Games Workshop's prices really will effect their audience? Perhaps, as long as they keep the quality up, price is less important than I thought.

Chaos Warband 2 - Saargash Warpscarred

2011-06-12T10:32:00.008+01:00

In a tiny backwater on the edge of the Empire, a poor farmer's wife gave birth to a baby boy with a single eye in the centre of his forehead. Terrified of the taint of Chaos and the consequences to herself and her family she begged her husband to take the child and dispose of it. Her husband agreed, taking the baby into the forest, but when the moment came he found he couldn't bring himself to murder his son. Instead he abandoned it, reasoning that nature would take its course and offering a silent prayer to any watching God. The prayer was answered..

A Chaos centaur, hunting in the forest stumbled across the infant. A helpless human child would normally be no more than an easy meal for a centaur, but this one saw the child's single eye and recognised him as a gift from the Chaos Gods. He took the child back to his tribe where he was raised among the Centaurs as one of their own, naming him Saargash (meaning gift of fate or fortune).

As the child grew he displayed signs of magical power and the Centaur's counted themselves blessed. Taking Slaanesh as his patron he assisted the Centaurs in the raiding. However, spoiled by his Centaur 'parents' he became increasingly arrogant and vain, demanding the other Centaurs treat him as a superior and provide him with tributes and gifts. Many of his tribe resented this, but more troublesome was his frequent attacks on human settlements, born from a desire for vengeance against his true parents. With Saargash drawing unwanted attention, many started to speak out against him.

Open conflict was only avoided when Saargash announced his intention to leave the tribe and seek his fortune as a Champion of Slaanesh. Secretly, he had long tired of the Centaurs limited ambitions. Two of his centaur 'brothers' joined him in his quest and formed the first members of his warband.

Saargash's first destination was a clearing inhabited by a small band of beastmen. The Centaur's had had dealings with them before, trading plunder for alcohol and weapons that the centaurs were too clumsy to construct themselves. Saargash intended to trade for supplies, but when he approached the camp a more sinister idea came to mind.

With his centaur brothers in front, acting as bodyguards, Saargash strode into the clearing chanting arcane words and raising his hands in strange and obscure gestures. The confused beastmen rose to their feet ready for attack, but then something strange happened. The beastmen started to dance around the clearing in a stupor. They dropped their weapons and ignore Saargash and his warband. As the dance reached a crescendo, Saargash's brother stepped forwards and thrust his spear into their leader's heart. The dance ended immediately. The Beastmen, confused and leaderless, saw that Saargash was a mighty champion and falling to their knees submitted to him. Saargash simply smiled.

The Warband of Saargash Warpscarred – Champion of Slaanesh

Saargash Warpscarred – Champion of Slaanesh (Level 15 Human Wizard)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
4	5	1	4	4	3	4	1	9+2	9+2	9+2	10+3

Chaos Attributes: One Eye

Magic Level: 2

Power Level: 23
Spells: Level 1: Acqueisance, Cure Light Injury, Hammerhand,
Level 2: Pavane of Slaanesh, Mystic Mist, Cause Panic

Equipment: 2 swords

2 Centaurs

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
8	3	4	4	3	2	3	2	7	7	7	7

Equipment: Hand weapons, Shields

Saving Throw: 6+

5 Beastmen

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
4	4	3	3	4	2	3	1	7	6	7	6

Equipment: Hand Weapons and Shields. 1 carries a banner, 1 carries a drum.
Saving Throw: 6+

After I had written up the details of my last warband, it occurred to me that I hadn't written anything about the process that created it. I had forgotten that just because I had a copy of Realms of Chaos to hand, it doesn't mean everyone did. So for this warband I will explain how it was created.

I started with my champion and rolled on the Starting profiles table. This got me a human, hardly surprising as this is the most common result though Chaos Dwarves and Dark Elves are also a strong possibility. Having generated a human, I rolled again to find out what type and got lucky rolling up a Level 15 Wizard. The level 15 refers to the number of bonus points added to the standard human profile, so my wizard has a total of 15 bonuses.

Next I chose my patron God. As a wizard, Khorne was right out and I already had a champion of Nurgle. Tzeentch would have been an obvious choice for a Wizard, but my little brother had generated a Tzeentch warband so I decided on Slaanesh. My choice of patron determined my champion's Mark of Chaos, for Slaanesh this got me a +1 bonus to my champions willpower and a random chaos attribute. For the latter, I had to roll on the gargantuan d1000 Chaos attribute table and got 1 eye. This doesn't do much except reduce his ballistic skill, but at least he didn't lose a leg or an arm.

My next step was to generate starting equipment, as a level 15 wizard my champion got d6+2 points to spend, but I only got 3. As a Wizard, my champion couldn't use armour or a shield without reducing his ability to cast spells, so I simply bought him two hand weapons so he could benefit from an extra attack. Finally, I generated my Champions magic points and spells. A level 15 wizard can cast up to level 2 spells, and has three at each level. I had to take the level 1 and 2 Slaanesh spells and then picked a selection from the Battle Magic list that seemed interesting.

With my champion generated, I had to roll for his followers. My first roll got me d4 centaurs. I rolled a 2. This left me with an unusual warband, a human wizard leading a pair of centaurs and it took me some time to think up a background story that made sense. I was inspired by a passage in the Realms of Chaos section on beastmen that described how mutant children are sometimes abandoned by their parents and raised by beastmen. If beastmen could do it, why not centaurs and so Saargash Warpscarred was born.

A little while after this my brother and I decided we would give our champions two rolls on the followers table as this would make for more interesting battles. My second roll got me 5 beastmen who automatically got a standard and a musician.

Saargash's warband ready for painting

For the body of Saargash Warpscarred I used an Empire Flagellant, my brother and I had acquired a box as he had ended up with 4 Chaos Cultists as his starting followers. The torn and bedraggled robes seemed to suit a champion who had grown up in a forest and probably had to scavenge and make his own clothes. I replaced the weapons with two swords from my Beastmen box. As a Champion of Slaanesh, I wanted Saargash to start out reasonably good-looking so I used a spare head from the Bretonnian Knight boxed set, using greenstuff to cover up his eyes and add a new one to his forehead.

The warband was fairly simple to put together. I already had a beastman boxed set and used spare parts from the Chaos Marauder warband to give them a standard and a musician. For the Centaurs I decided to use Centigors, grabbing two from Games Workshop mail order before they convert them to finecast.

Chaos Warband 1 - Rolf Hurtziger

2011-06-05T17:11:00.006+01:00

Rolf Hurtziger was a member of mercenary band plying its wares in the Northern Empire and Kislev. He was a physically large and powerful fighter, the Regimental Champion and first into the fray in every battle. Celebrated by his colleagues he was secure in his position. This was to change.

Following an encounter with a group of Northern Bandits, Rolf woke one morning to find his arms covered in marks. At first he took them for sores and feared he was coming down with a nasty disease, but on closer inspection he realised he was covered in tiny suckers. Fearful of his comrades reactions he covered his arms and tried to carry on as before. But the changes were to continue, the bones in his arms softened, the joints disappeared allowing him to flex them in all directions. When his fingers shrank away into his hands he could no longer keep his mutation concealed.

His comrades caught him sneaking away from a battle and at first assumed he was deserting. Pursued, Rolf panicked and, finding he could still grip his sword in his tentacle arms, killed three of his former friends before he knew what he was doing. Chased by his own band, Witch Hunters and Imperial troops, Rolf fled into the Drakwald forest..

Abandoned and starving, Rolf cursed fate, his former comrades and the Gods that had abandoned him. He defiantly vowed he would serve any God who restored him to his former place. His call was answered by the Chaos God Nurgle, his pain dulled and his skin took on a sickly pallor.

Still lost and alone, Rolf blundered through the Forest until he came across a small band of Beastmen. Rolf drew his sword expecting to fight, but the Beastmen recognised a Champion marked by a Chaos God and pledged their allegiance to him, becoming the first of his followers.

Leading his new followers into the depths of the forest, Rolf encountered a small group of Orc scavengers camping out after raiding a merchant caravan. Rolf had faced Orcs before and knew how best to handle them. Approaching their leader he bellowed out a challenge. An angry armoured Orc with two massive cleavers faced him. Armed with an axe given by his Beastmen followers, Rolf slew the Champion, his tentacle arms giving him a longer reach and range of motion.

Standing over the body, Rolf expected the Orcs to flee, but they seemed uncertain. Recognising Rolf as an aspiring champion of Chaos and seeing his Beastmen followers, they threw down the weapons and pledged to join his warband. Rolf gave a silent prayer to his new God for guiding him to these new followers.

The Warband of Rolf Hurtziger – Champion of Nurgle

Rolf Hurtziger - Champion of Nurgle (Level 5 Human Hero)

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
4	4	4	4	4	1	4	2	7	7	7	7

Chaos Attributes: Tentacle Arms (2)

Fear Points: 1

Equipment: Sword, Light Armour

Saving Throw: 6+

3 Beastmen

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
4	4	3	3	4	2	3	1	7	6	7	6

Equipment: Hand Weapons and Shields. 1 carries a banner, 1 carries a warhorn.

Saving Throw: 6+

6 Orcs

M	WS	BS	S	T	W	I	A	LD	INT	CL	WP
4	3	3	3	4	1	2	1	7	5	7	7

Equipment: Spears, Hand Weapons, Light Armour and Shields

Saving Throw: 5+

Rolf's warband, assembled but unpainted

The Warband of Rolf Hurtziger was my first randomly generated warband. Everything was randomly generated, though MLB agreed to let me fudge the rolls I got for the Orcs, swapping war boars for spears.

Rolf's body, cloak and upper arms, are a spare Gripping Beast plastic Saxon. One major advantage of the Gripping Beast box sets is I ended up with a few spare parts. His tentacle arms are bit box pieces, probably from the plastic Chaos Spawn box. His head was a spare Bretonnian Man-at-Arms, who I thought had a suitably grim look. Finally, I got the axe and pendant from the Marauder Horsemen box, the latter covering up a rather inappropriate Crucifix on the original miniature.

Rolf's warband needed little converting. The Beastmen are from the current GW Beastman Gor box, which seems a lot more reasonably priced when you only need a handful. I swapped out their banner, which seemed a little large for such a small warband, for a spare from the Chaos Marauder box. The Orcs are veterans of Warhammer 3rd edition; they originally came from the Ruglud's armoured Orcs boxed set, which still exists today in a somewhat different form. These were the first Orcs for my original 3rd edition Orc army and have fought with me through 4th and 5th edition, though I never got around to painting them. The 3rd edition aesthetic and battered armour seemed to suit a Nurgle warband.

A painted Rolf, ready for battle

A Brief look at Realms of Chaos

2011-06-05T17:01:00.001+01:00

Back in early 1990s, Games Workshop's production of supplements for its core games was not nearly as straightforward as it is today. Now each army has its own army book released along with most of the miniatures for that army. Back then things were a touch more haphazard. Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition was not too complex, the majority of the games army lists were included in the single source book Warhammer Armies. Warhammer 40,000 players, however, had a more difficult time. Each army list was published first in White Dwarf, the majority of which were collected into two best of collections the Warhammer 40,000 compendium and the Warhammer 40,000 compilation. The Orks were lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view and got two huge source books 'Ere We Go and Freebooters. In addition to this, 40K received two supplement books revising the rules for vehicles and weapons.

Front cover of Slaves to Darkness

It was in this context that the Realms of Chaos books appeared. If it isn't now, back then Chaos was certainly regarded as the defining idea of the Warhammer and Warhammer 40K games, as well as being the concept that linked them together. Realms of Chaos was Games Workshops attempt to provide the definitive sourcebook to describe Chaos in all its forms and across its games. It was released in two huge hardback volumes, subtitled Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned, costing a hefty (for then) £18 each. They covered Warhammer, Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Interestingly, rather than split the books by game system, Games Workshop chose to divide them by Chaos Power. Slaves to Darkness focused on Khorne and Slaanesh, the Lost and the Damned on Nurgle and Tzeentch.

As well as rules for Daemons, Chaos Magic, Chaos Weapons and army lists for both games, the books provided extensive rules for randomly generating Chaos Champions and their Warbands. These could be added to your armies, or used as the basis for a Campaign pitting champion against champion in a quest for Daemonhood. This was an early example of a campaign system that saw players lead small groups of miniatures that gained experience over time and foreshadowed the systems used by Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Gorkamorka and Mordheim.

The rules were certainly complex and not always well explained. Champions were randomly generated, received randomly generated followers, fought battles and gained further followers and Chaos rewards. Slave to Darkness outlined the system, but didn't do a great job of it. A two page diagram intended to explain it visually ended up making it more confusing.

See, simple!

It was left to the Lost and the Damned to really run with the idea, simplifying and clarifying the basic rules as well as updating the followers table. It also included new rules for Beastmen, Minotaur, Centaur and even Dragon Ogre champions and a series of random scenarios, concepts and locations for games. The rules strongly encourage using a Games Master to moderate proceedings, which was probably sensible as the rules were decidedly rough and ready and little attempt was made to explain how such small 'armies' worked in the context of a game designed to accommodate large forces.

Front Cover of the Lost and the Damned

The rules read very much like a tool box that players can dip into and use, picking and choosing what elements they like and ignoring what they don't. In that way they mirror Warlord games Black Powder and Hail Caesar, though Rick Priestly was only credited as contributor on the first volume and co-writer of the second.

One of most enjoyable aspects of the rules for me is how glorious random it all is. Games Workshop of old loved d100 tables and there are plenty of them: a table for randomly generating starting champions (mostly humans, but allowing Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarves and a range of strange possibilities including Gnomes, Vampires, Halflings and Werewolves); tables for randomly generating followers, with separate tables for Minotaurs and Beastmen; tables for magic items; tables for Chaos rewards (plus one for each God); Chaos weapon tables; a table to determine the features of a randomly generated daemon prince; and best of all a d1000 table for Chaos attributes, a range of mutations from tentacles arms, cloven hooves and beaks, to invisible, walking head and growing a futuristic weapon out of your arm. Following the tables exactly would have meant hacking your models to pieces every few games to produce new conversions.

It's also completely unbalanced and unfair. Although the tables skew towards weaker followers and champions it is entirely possible to see a starting warband lead by a Level 25 Minotaur Champion (Warhammer 3rd edition ranked champions in levels from 5 to 25) with two dragons facing an ordinary human with a single goblin armed with a stick. This is another reason why a Games Master is all but mandatory. But to some extent this fits the concept. Chaos is inherently random and random isn't fair.

Another interesting thing is that the rigid distinction between armies present in modern Warhammer does not exist here. It is perfectly possible to see Goblins, Orcs, Dark Elves and Skaven join a warband. Even halflings and Vampires can get in on the act. This reinforces the idea that Chaos prevails throughout Warhammer world touching all races and that anyone can pledge themselves to a Chaos god. Chaos armies and warbands united by religion, not race and Chaos is a concept that touches the whole Warhammer world.

When I first started collecting Games Workshop models, Slaves to Darkness had been released but the Lost and the Damned was still on its way. At that time, the first port of call for any Games Workshop news was always White Dwarf and extracts from the new book were printed regularly. Long before I even knew what Warhammer was, I knew what Realms of Chaos was and the concept of randomly generating and building warbands fascinated me.

With modern Games Workshop miniatures having gotten so expensive now seems like the perfect time to return to a way of playing Warhammer that requires only a small number of models and that can be built in increments.

With that in mind, my little brother and I have dug out the rules and have been rolling up random warbands in earnest in preparation for a new campaign. We have made some slight tweaks to the rules to, hopefully, make a more interesting campaign. Each starting Champion gets two rolls on the followers table instead of one, this is because one character and one unit each does not make for a very interesting game. We also agreed to re-roll ridiculously extreme results, a rule we had to follow very quickly when MLB's first champion managed to generate a sword with a Daemon Prince trapped inside it.

In many ways, the Chaos Warband system is ideally suited for modern Games Workshop models. Plastic miniatures are more easily converted than metal, come in multiple pieces and, mostly, provide plenty of spare bits for conversions. I've accumulated a pretty substantial 'bitz box' over the years, which makes it easy to put together a few warbands. With the price of miniatures constantly rising, a small, skirmish game seems far more appealing than mass-battle Warhammer. Expect to see more posts on our progress soon.

Thanks for all your support

2011-05-23T23:01:00.001+01:00

For some time there has been discussion in the online Wargaming community about the lack of support for Warhammer Ancient Battles from Games Workshop of late. This has only escalated since the sudden arrival of the Ancient rules boom, with fans of Hail Caesar and Clash of Empires keen to declare WAB dead and gone.

During the early years of WAB, it was well supported by range of supplement books that generally choose a particular era or conflict as a theme and provided background, scenarios and Army books. This proved to be an eclectic mix, with supplements chosen seemingly by whatever subject an author felt like doing. But they were much loved by the wargaming community due to their high production values and comprehensive detail. Since Forge World took over the running of Warhammer Historical. Since the much delayed release of WAB 2.0 there has been now further support. This has, understandably, lead to much grumbling.

Interestingly, there has been strong opinions expressed that the further support from Games Workshop really doesn't matter. This does not seem to be motivated by any great love of GW, but more by a belief that a rule set does not require continuous support to be viable.

I find myself personally divided. I own a copy of WAB 1st edition, but have never really played. I toyed with the rules when I first started looking into Samurai, but was put off by lack of a dedicated supplement. The long promised (and unfortunately named) Divine Wind has been endlessly delayed. This is the essence of the WAB problem, the extent to which the lack of support bothers you is dependent on whether the supplement you want has been released.

This raises the question of why we as gamers want "support"from games producers. If the rules work use them. The key is the extent to which the game is complete. We don't hear demands for further support of Warhammer: English Civil War, because rules and army lists are all in the book. Field of Glory similarly saw a complete set of army book released and then the supplements stopped with no sign of complaint. DBM is similarly complete in its four comprehensive army list supplements.

It's instructive to contrast Games Workshop's approach WAB with its approach to Warhammer Fantasy. Here we have a game that could do with a good deal less support. There has been a complete set of rules and army lists since 2nd edition twenty years ago. And apart from the addition and loss of a small number of armies, everything released since has been a re-jig of everything that came before. The latest trend is full colour hard back books.

If anything it would be nice if the company stopped producing new army books. Most players have no desire to buy a new book and reorganise their army every four or five years. Wargaming is not computing, there is no need to update rules to keep up with technological change. The only motivation for the endless cycle of re-releases is a need to sustain interest in a product that has already been completed. Interest in Warhammer waned when GW stopped new releases.

This leaves gamers and game producers in conflict. Popular and successful gamers justify a rapid run of releases, which means they run their course quickly and interest has to be artificially sustained with unasked for releases. In contrast, less popular or niche games see slow and incomplete support stretched out over a period of years.

So what does this tell us? Possibly that gamers will always want what they don't have or that the commercial interests of games companies will always conflict with their customers, but mostly that Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer Ancient Battles need to swap players.

I go, you activate

2011-05-16T21:46:00.002+01:00

When Mantic Games released its Kings of War rules there were complaints from some quarters about its use of the IGOUGO turn sequence. The phrase, an abbreviation of "I go, you go" refers to a game in which one player takes a turn moving, shooting and fighting with their miniatures and then the other player does the same. This is contrasted with something that might be called "alternating activation" in which one player chooses a miniature and does something with it, then the other player, then back to the first and so on until the turn is over.*

IGOUGO has been criticised for being unrealistic as it does not allow players to respond to their opponents actions and because the 'passive player' has to wait for long periods of time before being able to do anything. These long waiting periods can make IGOUGO seem dull or jerky in contrast to AA's fluidity or dynamism. There is even a tendency to regard IGOUGO as slightly old fashion or out of date, a complaint that was leveled at Kings of War and at each edition of Warhammer that continues to use it. When Privateer Press announced their new big battle supplement for War Machine, stating that it would use AA, many applauded it as a step forward. As though the move represented a progressive shift, instead of a simple rules choice.

Alternating activation often goes along with the abandonment the of traditional turn sequence. Specific movement, shooting and fighting phases are usually lost in favour of allowing units to move, shoot and fight when they are activated, before another model does the same. One notable exception was Rackham's Confrontation, which used AA in its movement phase, before having separate shooting and close combat phases afterwards.

AA is very common for skirmish games, possibly because the quick back and forth between players better mirrors a dual or brawl than the careful maneuvering the characterises a big battle. There are, however, some big battle games that use this approach. Games Workshop's Epic Armageddon is one example and soon War Machine will follow. However, one aspect of large scale battles that is not easily modeled by AA is co-ordinated attacks.

In a game that uses IGOUGO game, with the turn divided into stages, it is easy to have one unit or miniature attack another and then be joined by a supporting ally. The actual combat resolution doesn't happen until later allowing multiple units to join the attack. This is much more difficult to model in AA. If one unit or character activates at a time, with no separate phases, then one unit completes its attack before another can join. It is possible to have combat engagements last over several activations, but this requires the initial attacker to survive the first attack.

Imagine a situation in which two weak units attack a stronger one. In IGOUGO they can both engage and the combat is worked out in one go. In AA, the first unit has two attack and survive a potential counter attack before its ally joins it.

There are ways around this problem. Malifaux has a companion rule that allows some groups of models to activate together, for example. However, these are generally compromises or fudges that work around the natural flow of the rules and arguably undermine the fluidity of Alternating Activation.

The point is that AA feels more fluid and sometimes more real, because the way the miniatures or units activate feels closer to simultaneous. However, the fact that allies cannot easily act in concert undermines that by demonstrating that it is still turn-based. Wargaming is necessarily a fudge that does its best to simulate the effect of real warfare whilst allowing players to actually play a game. Ultimately, Alternating Activation is as much a compromise as IGOUGO, they just have different strengths. Alternating Activation simulates the back and forth of combat, IGOUGO is better for co-ordinating strategies and careful maneuvering.

*This is a slight simplification as many games that use some variation of AA have a mechanism that allows one player to activate two or more miniatures or units in sequence. Broadly we are talking about a system in which one player gets to activate some, but not all, of their models and then the other does.

Game Retrospective - Space Marine

2011-05-09T22:04:00.001+01:00

My very first set of wargame miniatures for anything at all was a set of 6mm Ork Raiders purchased from Games Workshop mail order (as it was known back then) in 1990. I was attracted by the promise of hundreds of Orks and dozens of battlewagons and hadn't fully realised the implications of the scale. When they arrived I was slightly disappointed by their small size, but I quickly forgot this when I lined them up in ranks on the table (not very Orky, but I was new to the game).

Games Workshop players with long memories may remember that before Lord of the Rings came along, there was another 'third core game'. A 6mm battle game set in Warhammer 40,000 universe, it went by different names, but generally referred to as Epic, a term used by Games Workshop to describe scale in a canny piece of marketing. The first edition consisted of two games Adeptus Titanicus, a game of giant robot Titans and Space Marine which introduced infantry and tanks. But the version of the game that made the most impression on me was the second edition.

Also released as Space Marine (GW knew what its audience liked even then), it was a game of infantry companies, tank divisions and vast war machines like the Titans. Infantry were mounted five to a base and tanks appeared in squadrons of three or more. The appeal of Epic to a teenager in the 1990s was obvious and diverse. For a start, infantry was produced entirely in plastic at a time when vast majority of models were metal. Getting hundreds of models for the cost of a couple of weeks pocket money was hugely tempting. Then there was scale. Warhammer 40,000 might see one or two tanks a side, in Epic there would be dozens and even the smallest game was huge in scope.

Second edition Epic had deceptively simple rules. It used an alternating activation system, still unusual in GW games, with players moving and shooting with whole formations at a time. Troops profile and weapons were all recorded on one stat line. Shooting generally consisted of a roll to hit and, if opponent was lucky, they got a saving throw modified by attackers weapon. Most infantry got none. Some weapons, referred to as Barrage weapons, used templates. The whole formations barrage points were totaled up and the higher the score more templates used and the more damage done. For close combat, every model had a close assault factor (CAF). Each player rolled 2 dice added CAF and highest score won. The only additional complication was war machines, such as Titans, which used a targetting grid and damage charts depending on where you hit.

The games other innovation was order counters. Players placed them face down next to formations at start of turn. They were fairly basic with only three different types: First Fire, Charge and Advance. The choice of order determined the actions available to the formation. First Fire allowed units to shoot with increased effectiveness but prevented them moving. Charge meant you couldn't shoot, but moved fast and could enter close combat. Advance was a compromise with normal movement and shooting. The orders did not have a huge impact on the units behavior, but failing to place them prevented the unit moving and left them shooting with reduced effect. This forced the player to pay attention to his units and what he intended to with them at the start of the turn.

My favourite feature of Space Marine was its army selection system which used army cards instead of an army list. Players selected army cards, paid their points and received the units listed on the card. There were three main types of card, Company, Support and Special. The core of your army would be company cards, representing large formation such as a Space Marine company or an Ork horde, usually consisting of several squads and some kind of command unit or units. For each company card you took you could have up to five support cars, generally a single squad or one large tank. You could have one special card for each company, these would be characters and big stuff like Titans. All points costs were divisible by fifty, so totalling up your points was quick and simple.

Army cards also showed the break point, how many units had to be destroyed to force the formation to fall back, and victory points, the number of victory points your opponent got when you did it. This Neatly combined moral and victory rules with the army lists.

There were some variation in the use of Army Cards for different armies. Ork support cards added to their company formations making for vast mega formations with massive break points worth large amounts of victory points. This made Ork army powerful and durable, but few in number and prone to sudden collapse. Chaos replaced all cards with Greater Daemon and Minion cards. Each Greater Daemon had to have 3-5 minion cards. This added some character to the army while still keeping the lists straight forward and largely consistent.

So in principle a straight-forward and simple game, but in practice this was not quite true. Three main supplements were produced to accompany the game - Armies of the Imperium, Renegades and Warlords, each with the rules and cards for two armies. Each expansion introduced new troop types and almost all of them had special rules unique to them, even if it was as simple as restricting the units choice of orders. Some of these were a lot of fun such as the Ork Dragster, which featured a force field that bounced enemy attacks in a random direction and Eldar Wave Serpents which used a special template for shoving enemy units out of the way. The upshot of this was a game that was quirky and characterful but became bogged down in special rule interactions and the need to reference different books.

After all the supplements and models had been released, Space Marine plodded on two or three years supported in White Dwarf with one or two articles a month. It was very much the third game, but still one of Games Workshop's big three. This was to change with the release of Titan Legions.

Titan Legions had been intended to be a fourth supplement, but was delayed time and again, swelling up with new rules as it did so until it became an entirely new game. Andy Chambers, in his designers notes, lamented that focus of Epic had shifted from Titans to infantry and tanks. Titan Legions was attempt to address the balance. The game was not a new edition, but an expansion of the existing rules with some tightening up and the introduction of some new unit types. It introduced titan companies, large formations of three titans that acted as company cards and reintroduced the Knights, one man Titans that had been around in Epic first edition.

So far so good, but more was to come. As with all Games Workshop games of the period, Titan Legions came in a big box with lots of new plastic miniatures. These included the massive Emperor Class Imperator Titan and the Ork Mega Gargant. These cost as much as a small army (the Imperator was 2250 points) and brought in whole new level of Complexity to game. Each one had two card templates, one a hugely complicated damage location chart plus damage tables and second to track crew, damage and effects of weapons.

This was point where complexity of second edition Epic reached critical mass. It didn't help that only Orks and Imperials had access to Titans in this class, leaving other armies looking underpowered. Then Introduction of new army, Tyranid, with a whole new set of, hexagonal, army cards complicated matters further. There was still a lot of fun to be had with the game, but without self limiting their army lists players could become horribly bogged down in special rules.

The game had become unwieldy. But at the same time the universe described by Epic had diverged from its Warhammer 40,000 parent. Both were supposed to be set in the same universe, but armies and models often bore little relationship to one another, many Epic miniatures had been designed based on a much earlier edition of the game. A new edition was inevitable, and most players accepted it, but when it happened it was not well handled

For a start, Games Workshop took 2nd edition Epic off the shelves months before the release of 3rd edition. When 3rd edition did come they rebooted the whole range with almost entirely new models. These were some of the most spectacularly detailed sculpts they ever produced, but they were expensive, the first range cast entirely in lead free white metal. They also changed the packaging, the late 2nd edition blisters had contained pictures of the painted models, the new packs looked like a collection of semi-identifiable blobs. Then there was the infantry. Epic Infantry had traditional been based on 20x20mm squares in a cross pattern, like the 5 on a six sided dice. Now they were based in a line on 40x10mm strips. There was no strict requirement to re-base, bu the alternative was to have an inconsistently based army or use nothing but old style infantry. The decision added an unnecessary complication for existing players.

Finally the rules. After the over-complication of second edition, third's simplification was welcome. And the rules contained a lot of new ideas to like. The concept of blast markers was introduced. These markers were placed on formations when they suffered casualties, but also when they came under fire at all and reflected the suppressing effects of fire. A formation was broken when it had more blast markers than units. Plus the markers in the box were card explosions which had the effect of making the unit look as if it were truly under fire.

But the new rules also dramatically changed way units worked. What had been quirky and grungy, became abstract. Most infantry in any one army were the same except for one or two simple special generic special rules. Units were now abstracted into formations which fought as a collected group. For example, shooting was carried out by totalling up the fire power values of an entire formation and cross referencing on a table to find how many dice to roll.

As unit rules got simpler and more abstract army lists got more complicated. Instead of the elegant card system, formations became hugely complex custom creations. Army lists had multiple types with multiple options that could be built up from scratch. The idea was to create a number of custom formations and record them on the supplied record sheets. But this required considerable advance work and could be baffling to new players.

Although embraced by many, particularly games designers, third edition was such a radical shift from its predecessor and from other Games Workshop games that it is hardly surprising that it was never fully accepted. It received far less White Dwarf coverage than second edition and ultimately shuffled off into the wilderness as a never well supported 'Specialist Game.'

The story of 4th edition Epic, also known as Epic Armageddon, is a little better known. A strong rules set developed by Jervis Johnson, the original designer of first edition, was boosted by considerable assistance from online play testers. It was a synthesis of the strongest elements of 2nd and 3rd simplifying formations and giving units individual stats, but keeping blast markers. The new edition warmly received by the player community, but just as it was taking off Games Workshop hit major financial difficulties and the game was all but abandoned, with only the Imperial, Orks and Eldar armies released. Since then, a dedicated group of online fans have updated rules and produced new army lists, while the models are still available from the Games Workshop website (for now at least). But essentially Epic Armageddon feels like a half-finished game.

Although in many ways Fourth edition is the best and most elegant Epic rule set, I will always have a special fondness for the second edition. It was the version of the game I first built armies for and played the most. But more than that, it was the version of the game that could stand proudly as the third Games Workshop core game.

Totally addicted to base

2011-05-01T20:56:00.001+01:00

When a player of predominantly Fantasy or Sci-Fi games shifts their attention to historical gaming they quickly become familiar with the question of basing. For the fantasy and sci-fi gamer this largely a non-issue as most miniatures are tied to a specific game and come supplied with the appropriate sized round, square or even hexagonal base. In the case of Malifaux and War Machine base size is even part of the miniatures stat line. For more generic miniatures it is more open, but for the most part fantasy gets square and sci-fi gets round.*

It can come as something of a shock to open up your first box of insanely cheap historical plastics and find either no bases or a sheet of bases of mixed sizes and shapes. This is certainly a hidden cost for the historical gamer, though still a very small one given the price difference between fantasy and historical miniatures.

The problem stems from a lack of consistency in how different rule sets expect models to be based. This isn't simply a question of size and shape, but also the number of models assigned to each base. This is usually a question of the smallest game element that can be removed at a time. For Warhammer (Ancient Battles or English Civil War) single models can be removed, and so models often need to be based singly. The DBM/Fields of Glory family uses 'elements' bases with consistent widths (40mm or 60mm depending on scale) and varying depth with 2 or more miniatures on each depending on type. For Impetus a unit is a single element and some spectacular examples of diorama style unit basing can be found with a bit of googling. Scale also plays a part, 6 or 10mm models are usually multi-based, for 15mm and larger it can vary considerably.

Of course it isn't even that simple. The requirements of moving dozens or hundreds of models around a table mean that many players prefer to multi-base their models regardless of scale. There is a long and venerable tradition of placing 4 28mm models on a square base and then marking them with dice as casualties are removed or keeping a small pool of single based models to show them.

Different rule sets tend to emphasise different aspects of basing. For Warhammer, each individual has a consistently sized base (20x20mm for infantry, 2x50mm for cavalry) with units varying in width and depth depending on the number of models. For the DBM family, base width is consistent, and depth and the number of figures varies according to type.

In practice, the rules may not always be as strict as they seem at first. Field of Glory lists the number of figures to a base as a maximum, so in principle you can line up 3 20x20mm based figures and call it an element. This works fine if you keep track of what element is what and don't lose track of which figures go together. The problem, is that in FOG and DBM the number of figures on a base is often used as determinant of type. The only difference between regular and irregular infantry may be that the former has four models per base and the latter three. This is not an insurmountable problem, but does add an additional complication if you figures aren't based according to the regulations as you have to find another way to record the different types.

With a number of new historical rule sets coming onto the market at pretty much the same time, all are vying for the attention of existing gamers. Basing is an issue, as no player wants to have to re-base their armies to play a new game and it seems to have become compulsory to advertise your game as having no rigid basing rules even if this is not strictly the case.

Clash of Empires, for instance, is keen to emphasise that its basing standards are only recommendations. The problem is that, like Warhammer, the number of attacks a unit makes against its enemy is determined by the number of models in contact. This puts models on larger bases (or at least ones with wider base space per model) at a significant disadvantage. Fortunately, the rules do have a way around the problem.

Working out how many models may fight can become a bit confusing, especially when two opposing player use different base sizes for their miniatures. If in doubt, refer back to the recommended base sizes, remembering to apply the concept that models in corner to corner contact will fight. For example, a unit of cavalry 6-wide has a frontage of 150mm and is fighting a unit of infantry. Just divide the cavalry's frontage by the opponent's individual base size (discarding any remainder) and add 2 to determine the number of models in contact. (Clash of Empires, p56)

I particularly like the use of the word 'just.' This is certainly perfectly doable, but it is not trivial, particularly in the middle of a game. Nor is it indicative of a game where "the base sizes are not critical to game play."(Clash of Empires, p8). The problem is that, as much as the rule writers may want basing not to matter, when the position of a model relative to its opponent has an impact on game play it does matter like it or not.

Of all the new rule sets, Hail Caesar probably has the best claim to be able to say that basing is not really important, because its smallest element is the unit. That is to say, individual models are not removed as casualties, casualties are recorded but the unit is destroyed in one go. The number of dice rolled by a unit in combat is determined by unit type and starting size, not by models in contact.

Hail Caesar does use unit width and depth to determine unit size, a rather abstract concept defined as standard, large, small and tiny. The width is imprecise and the number of models that should fill that width is up to the players to determine, and need not strictly be consistent. If one player wants their models mounted on 25x25mm bases and the other by 20x20mm bases it doesn't matter as long as all standard sized units have roughly the same width. Having said that, if you have you Roman Legionnaires based to Field of Glory standard you will need 12 Legionnaires to fill the width that a Warhammer-based army can fill with 9, which means FOG players are going to have to have rather more models to field the same sized army as their opponent.

Of course you could fix the number of models and fudge the difference between unit widths as long as it isn't too crazy. You would have to ensure that a particularly wide unit didn't get attacked in the front by two enemy units that were meant to be the same size as it. The bigger problem is terrain. A smaller unit is simply easy to manoeuvre through narrow gaps than a bigger one. To keep things fair players would have to look at gaps between scenery or at area terrain (such as woods) and decide in advance whether they are wide enough for a standard sized unit.

Most of these problems only really exist if players are following different basing standards. If bases are consistent then it rarely matters if they are 5mm wider than the rule book recommends. But these small issues can add up and armies based in a way inconsistent with the guide lines in the rule book invariably add an unwelcome obstacle to the smooth running of a game. Basing is an issue for historical gamers that rarely exists in fantasy and sci-fi gaming. And, unfortunately, rules writers can't simply stop it being an issue by declaring that it isn't on the back of the rule book.

*Hordes of the Things is the major exception to the Sci-Fi and Fantasy basing rules, following a similar system to DBA and DBM, but it is unusual in this respect.

Marketing matters

2011-04-25T10:29:00.000+01:00

Since acquiring the Helldorado game system, Cipher Studios seems to have been a bit overloaded and haven't been releasing their Anima Tactics figures at the usual pace. Previously they had put out two or three figures a month, but in the last month this has slipped. The lack of figures and announcements of new figures has lead to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the Anima fan community.This was relieved somewhat by the recent announcement of two new figures on Cipher's blog and forums.

Personally I was glad of the break. I already have plenty of other models to paint and no shortage of Anima Tactics figures to game with. What I did find interesting was how little time it took before vocal members of the message board community started worrying that the game was and before long no-one will play it. The ironic twist was that similar complaints have been made about Cipher's handling of Helldorado, with delays to the release of English rulebook being accused of doing untold harm to the game (despite English rules still available here).

I kind of get that people are worried about investing in a game that isn't going to last. It can be a pain having a box full of models and no-one to play against. But the speed of reaction seems excessive. Anima Tactics has plenty of models for all factions even Black Sun, the most recently released. There's plenty to keep the game going without a constant schedule of releases. It seems that a few too many sudden deaths of different games have left wargamers a little jumpy to see the least. Though it may also be that wargamers are a little too trained to believe marketing.

For a time, during Warhammer 6th and 7th edition, Games Workshop tried to release all models for an army at same time as they released the army book, with maybe a couple of special characters left out. Given that their previous schedule had consisted of releasing models whenever they felt like it and that some units never appeared, this was a huge improvement. Fast forward a few years and the strategy changed, they would release some models with the army book and then wait to release more a few months later. This was spun as 'not waiting for a new army book before releasing new models', but it really meant not supplying all the models at the same time as the book.

What surprised me was level of enthusiasm for this plan from gamers.

"Hooray I don't have to wait for new army book for new models!" They cried.

"All they're doing is stagger releasing, not supplying anything new," I felt like yelling.

Plus, if all the models from the book are available, why does it matter if there aren't any more releases? You can still buy them six months later. It's as though people had thought that they couldn't buy a model more than a month old.

Privateer Press got much praise for the release of a cheap rule book for War Machine with rules for all models and factions. But then they followed it up with a new book, which cost more, and had more rules for all factions. Then again. And again. By time of the new edition, you needed five books for full rules for each faction. But again, several gamers seemed happy about this. "

"Yay, new releases, I don't have to wait ages for new models."

"But you still have the same number of models. And now you have to buy five rule books."

It wasn't so bad for players who had followed the game from the start, but it was pretty off-putting for new players or those who had lost track to be confronted by so many expansions. And before someone points out that under the new edition, Privateer Press have separate army books for each faction, they have admitted this is only a stop gap to get old models working with the new rules. The rules for every faction books have started up again.

I get that all gamers have an interest in their preferred game doing well. But it seems to have reached a stage where gamers confuse what is good for the game with what is good for them personally. Yes I want my games to do well, but I also want it to cost me as little as possible and to not have to spend out money every month on new models just to keep up. Also, new releases are not always a good thing, sometimes it can be nice to switch projects and not have a huge backlog of models and supplements to catch up with when you return to an old game.

So, in conclusion, I can live without new Anima Tactics figures for a month or so, don't care exactly when Games Workshop releases new models and would be more inclined to play War Machine if I didn't have to buy every supplement book to keep up.

The big Salute Review 2011

2011-04-17T21:57:00.027+01:00

After all the months of build up the big event, Salute, has been and gone. Very much the biggest event in the wargaming calendar, with so many traders and games that putting together a coherent summary is a near impossible task. While the South London Warlords always have a theme (this year the American Civil War) it is always very loosely applied. There is little sense of unity and no prevailing impression. Also, I am a long way from being a professional photographer and others will provide better photo summaries, such as Joe Dever.

Most people approach Salute with a particular focus, whether it is shopping, gaming or even trying to record the event. But focusing on one tends to be detrimental to others. You can't spend all your time shopping and get a good sense of the games. I was buying this year and so didn't spend as much time gaming as I might have liked.

With all that in mind, I won't try to describe the show as a whole, but will will try to convey a few key impressions.

2011 seems to be the year when every company is legally obliged to release a set of Ancients rules. At Salute Hail Caesar from Warlord went head to head with Great Escape Game's Clash of Empires, while Scarab miniatures were demoing War and Conquest. I had already preordered Clash of Empires. Hail Caesar intrigued, particularly due to its lack of army lists and Rick Priestly's writing, but it seems better suited to very large armies and large tables.

Both seemed to be doing well. COE was probably helped by being available from a good number of traders. I got mine from Gripping Beast as they were handing out a free diorama of a Roman Centurion fighting a Dacian soldier and they were running very short by the end of the show. For Hail Caesar you seemed to have to go the source, but Warlord apparently ran out by the end of the show.

Swayed by Conquest Game's and Gripping Beasts's plastics, I had decided to build armies of Saxons and Normans. This also had the advantage that they would be usable in Gripping Beast's and Tomahawk's forthcoming Saga rules for Dark Age skirmishes. The game was being demoed at Salute and has an intriguing set of rules involving special Saga dice that determine permissable based on a battle board that is specific to the forces being used. It also apparently designed to scale up to bigger games.

Also being demoed was Mantic Games Dwarf Kings Hold, a new dungeon crawl game that uses their existing plastic Undead and Dwarves, although the version on display was a touch different than usual, using three ups for a giant sized game. The game itself uses a counter-based activation system. Dwarves get four counters a turn, the Undead start with three but only get one new one a turn. However, the Undead counters allow up to four skeletons to be activated at once. The effect is that the Dwarves generally have more options, but the Undead are better positioned to plan ahead, and have to use superior numbers to bring down the dwarves who hit harder. I have to say I was pretty terrible as the Undead, getting comprehensively smashed by my little brother, but it was an enjoyably straight forward and quick playing experience, unlike some dungeon crawl games I have played. I could see it as a good way to end a gaming session or fill in a bit of spare time.

I always like to watch the Doctor Who games that Crooked Dice put on. The rules are unofficial and so free to download with most of the miniatures being improvised or unofficial look alikes. Crooked dice's game mixed their own models with Heresy's and Haslefree's to create what would have been the most convaluted episodes ever, with Daleks, the Master, Autons and Gas Mask children taking on the Doctor, the Time Agents and Winston Churchill.

Meanwhile, at pride of place at the front of the hall the Daleks were invading the Tomb of the Cybermen, in a large scale participation game with custom rules and figures made from, sadly out of production, die cast figures.

UPDATE I have since been informed that the models are not out of production, not sure why I got the from.

The last game I wanted to talk about was Cthuleudo, half Call of Cthulhu and half Cluedo and entirely mad. Apparently highly involved, it evidently went on for hour and a half. Even though I didn't get to play, the board was packed with detail, both ranging from Chulhu statues to hidden Daleks.

So Salute is over for another year and hopefully the miniatures acquired will last until the next one. I have stacks of new plastic Saxons and Normans to paint, not to mention Dr Who, Helldorado and Infinity all of which will have time for at a later date.

Fairy Meat - a retrospective

2011-04-11T20:12:00.000+01:00

As it has been two months since my HeroQuest retrospective I think it's time for another, although this one is less a look at an old favourite and more a look at a game I never quite got around to playing.

Fairy Meat was produced by Kenzer & Co, a US company better known for their roleplaying products and probably best known for the long running RPG themed comic Knights of the Dinner Table. Fairy Meat represented a rare foray for them into wargaming. Written by Scott Leaton, it had one unique selling point: Fairy Meat was billed as a 1:1 scale wargame, that is to say the 'miniatures' were life size.

Themed around battling groups of fairies who would not only kill but eat one another to restore health, Fairy Meat had its tongue well and truly in its cheek from the front cover, depicting a classical fairy chewing on the arm of a rival (this particular fairy would suffer a number of grizzly fates on the covers of the subsequent supplement books). The tone continued with a byline that credited two fictional characters (from the KODT comic) and went on to list suggestions as to where to play the game ("A local forest preserve", "that filthy mess you call a bedroom") and where not to ("The middle of the road", "Prison(unless you're already there)"). Fairy Meat was not a game that could be taken very seriously.

The 32 page rulebook was printed in two tone colour with fairly cheap stapled binding, but it did come with a series of card inserts, including counters and record cards. It also included a set of cut out fairy stand ups and cardboard wings to stick to your existing miniatures, suggesting that Kenzer and Co did not initially intend to produce a range of miniatures of their own. The rules themselves contained a number of innovative ideas. Included using a deck of playing cards instead of dice and the idea that kill and life points (essentially attack and defence) doubled as wounds, with fairies converting each into 'meat' when injured, meaning that the fairy's fighting ability diminished as it was injured. It's most enjoyably quirky feature was the ability to regenerate life by eating other fairies. On death a fairy was replaced by their meat counters which could be collected and fought over by other fairies (friends or enemies).

The book was quickly followed by range of miniatures. The first batch of fairies were well enough sculpted and demonstrated a good range of the fairy weapons, but suffered from someone bland facial expressions and a lack of character. The second range of five were a substantial improvement with a quirky, cartoony appearance a range of gleeful facial expressions.

A much fun as the first book was, the real fun came with the first supplement, Clockwork Stomp. This introduced the Gnomes: Physically slow and lacking kill points (leaving them unable to fight hand to hand) Gnomes were rendered effective by their range of lethal hardware including the Torcheon (Flamethrower), Hand Cannon, Riddlegun and the legendary Chain Killer Auto Cannon. They could also be kitted out with bionic parts and be accompanied by cyborg clock fairies. And they were huge, more than twice the height of a fairy and considerably more bulky.

In common with a number of Kenzer and Co products (and to be fair those of many small publishers) there was a sense that you were paying a lot for relatively low production values. The rulebooks 32 pages cost me £16.99, back in 2000, more than the Malifaux rulebook today. The miniatures also seemed expensive in their day, fairies were £3 each and the Gnomes a hefty £16.99. Having said that, the latter weigh a ton being almost solid metal and it is inconceivable that they would cost so little today. They did, however, suffer badly from flash and some truly horrible mould lines and I had to do considerable work with greenstuff to fill some conspicuous gaps.

Kenzer and Co introduced the game with a promo comic strip in KODT that saw several of the regular characters playing the game. Having been a fanatical KODT fan for some time I snapped it up from my Friendly Local Game Shop along with the first batch of miniatures in spite of the expense. However, a lack of further support from the FLGS limited by options and the game languished for a while. was to pick it up again (from a different shop) after Kenzer released the excellent (and far better value) starter set which contained starter rules, two supplements (including Clockwork Stomp), the second batch of fairies and a bunch of extra counters.

My first Gnome was another quick buy from the FLGS, but my second and third came, oddly, from a holiday in Washington DC, where I scooped them out of the Bargain bin of a game shop in Georgetown for $10 a piece, reasoning, correctly that I would never get another opportunity.

Unfortunately, models have languished unpainted ever since on my "plan to do something with eventually" list. Well I finally got round to it, painting up seven fairies and two Gnomes (almost). It's long overdue, but hopefully I will soon get a chance to put a sadly overlooked and refreshingly quirky game to the test.

Sadly, Kenzer and Co have long since stopped producing the miniatures and getting hold of them can be tough, but the rules are still available in PDF form both directly from Kenzer and Co and from RPG now, so if anyone fancies converting some miniatures and having a go they still can.

Abandoning Metal

2011-04-03T10:47:00.000+01:00

A few days ago another miniature company, Heresy miniatures, announced that it was putting up its prices. This is becoming all too common, particularly in the UK where the rising cost of metal has been accompanied by a hike in VAT which has hit particularly hard.

I have to give Heresy considerable credit for taking the time to fully explain the reasons for these increase and to note that the cost of metal used is at £23.75 per KG. The consequence of this was that much of the discussion on the miniature page was sympathetic, even supportive. It is worth noting, however, that Heresy are still trying to keep prices as low as possible understanding that there are limits to how much people will pay for a miniature no matter how justified. This lead one poster, by the name of JoeKGusher to speculate that there might come a point when we look back on this time as a golden age of miniature production as we play with paper chits.

It's a very strong statement, but it did lead me to think back on how miniature gaming has changed in the last few years, particularly when looking at Fantasy and Science Fiction. Games Workshop have always been in the business of selling large scale, mass-battle games, but if we look at the rest of the industry there appears to have been a shift. Five or Six years ago two of the biggest non-GW players were Rackham with Confrontation and Ragnarok and Privateer Press with War Machine. The former produced a skirmish game that was intended to provide a bridge to a larger scale game, the latter was designed to scale up to almost Warhammer size.

If we look today at the Fantasy and Science Fiction games being produced we find Malifaux, Anima Tactics, Helldorado, Infinity all skirmish games with no pretension at being anything bigger. Other than GW, the only company pushing a mass battle game is Mantic who are focused on ultra-cheap plastics. The new norm appears to be metals for skirmish games with no more than a dozen miniatures aside and plastic for mass battles with metal used for personalities and resin for big things.

We haven't quite gotten to that stage with Historical miniatures, but that is very much the direction of travel. More and more plastic historicals are being produced, and companies like Warlord are increasingly using metal only for specialists, characters and extra parts. It has always been cheaper to produce historical miniatures than fantasy and science fiction, which may support metal for a while longer, but if the price of metal continues to rise then plastic may be the only choice. Historical miniature companies are by no means immune to rising costs in any case and a number have put their prices up.

So the future of wargaming is looking to be plastics for mass battles and metals only for skirmishing and personalities. In a few years time it is likely that the bulk of most people's armies will be plastic.

UPDATE

Since I wrote the above, rumours have been all over the Internet about Games Workshop giving up on selling metal models. The details are unclear, and vary from a temporary hault in production, to switching to resin, to making metal miniatures available only through direct sales. Games Workshop have said, as yet, nothing.

If this any truth in this, I can't see them dropping all metal miniatures at a stroke or shifting to resin. There are too many armies that are dependent on metal miniatures, if only for characters, to make a dropping all metal are viable proposition. At the same time, GW's target market of young teenagers, many of whom will have never played a wargame before, makes a shift to a toxic substance that would require warning labels and leave their products unable to bare the European toy safety kite mark impractical.

If it does happen, I suspect the most likely result would be a shift to plastic/resin similar to the stuff that Mantic and Privateer Press use. This has the virtue of being cheaper than metal, but holds detail well and is not actually toxic.

Either way, this does seem to support my view that for mass battle games, metal may be dying off, though I am surprised to see it being apparently abandoned even for character models.

Conspicuous Consumption

2011-03-28T01:46:00.000+01:00

My Salute tickets have arrived. For those who don't know, Salute is the South London Warlords gaming club's annual show and one of the biggest Wargaming events on the UK calendar. It might not have quite the size and attendance figures of Games Workshop's Games Day, but it more than compensates by the sheer number and range of traders. There are companies that do Salute and nothing else and miniatures that can only be bought at Salute or on the web.

I tend to schedule my miniature buying around shows. Despite my advocacy of the Internet as a means for wargaming companies to communicate and sell directly to their customers, I actually rarely buy any miniatures online. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but it may be that when confronted with a limitless range of miniatures and a credit card it is all too easy to go a bit crazy and spend far more than I can afford.

The shows are useful because they set a natural limit on what you can buy. Most traders don't accept credit cards, so it is easy to set a budget for yourself simply buy taking a limited amount of funds. Plus, you can only buy what the traders bring with them.

Consequently, I make most of my wargaming purchases at certain key points in the year and plan my collecting and gaming around them. There are four of five major events in the year when I accumulate a large volume of models.

In spite of these limits, I still seem to end up with more models than I can do anything with. Last year's Salute was all about Malifaux and the English Civil War. My Malifaux models (or at least the ones I bought last year) have been painted and used, but my ECW figures remain unpainted and unassembled. Not that I regret the purchase, I still fully intend to paint up my Royalists and get in a game. I simply have more models than I can paint of use.

This hobby supplies few opportunities for instant gratification. Unlike most Sport, our hobby requires considerable preperation and unlike other collections (such as stamps or action figures) the act of purchase is not the end of the endeavour. Once we have our miniatures we still have a great deal to do before we are ready to display or use them.

I didn't use to like painting. This was a combination of the amount of time it took and my lack of satisfaction with the results I achieved. This has changed a great deal, I now find it quite relaxing and satisfying, but it is still very time consuming and requires a good deal of effort.

This is also somewhat true of gaming. Although I enjoy the gaming experience, it takes a great deal of time to set up and put away and requires a good deal of concentration over a period of time. Sometimes the energy required to do it just isn't there.

Buying new miniatures is the closest to instant gratification we can get in this hobby. A new miniature of box of miniatures is full of possibility, detached from the requirements of time and effort needed to extract value from them. We can look a box and fool ourselves into thinking that beautifully painted display images are exactly what will come tumbling out of the box. Consequently we can easily accumulate more than we can use. I don't really need Salute, I still have plenty of projects to be getting on with and yet the acquisition is good part of the fun.

Is there a solution to this? Probably not. As much as I can tell myself that I need no new miniatures, but I still want them, I am still excited by them. There will still be a pile of unpainted and unassembled miniatures for some time to come.

The Decline of the FLGS?

2011-03-20T10:14:00.001Z

A thread started by GHQonline on the Miniature Page started me thinking about local games shops.

The "Friendly Local Games Shop" (FLGS) has long been seen as the hub of the gaming community. It is seen as a place where gamers can get together to talk about their hobby, share interests, promote new games and even play in the shops that provide gaming space. For that reason, they are looked on with much greater fondness than conventional shops.

The decline and even death of the FLGS has been a common discussion point in wargaming for some years now. In recent years, a good deal of the blame has been piled on heavy discounting online retailers. The argument being that these operations can afford to undercut FLGS because they don't have to cover the cost of running a "brick and mortar" shop. But such online operations are unable to provide the auxiliary services, game rooms and such, that a traditional FLGS does. The decline of the FLGS in favour of the online retailer is regarded as bad for the hobby as a whole.

It is fFor that reason that some companies provide incentives and support specifically for FLGS at the expense of online retailers. The recent spat between Battlefront and Maelstrom games was sparked by Battlefronts insistence that Malestrom could not offer the level of discount it did (a situation complicated by the fact that Malestrom runs a substantial brick and mortar operation).

However, the FLGS decline has been a theme in Wargaming since at least the 1990s (and possibly longer, my memory stretches back only so far), long before online retailing was any kind of issue. In UK this had a lot to do with Games Workshop who converted their general games stores into Games Workshop specific ones selling only Games Workshop products, before rapidly colonising the rest of the UK. As a consequence, almost every moderate sized town in the UK has a games shop, but the vast majority of these are Games Workshop, a sad development for those of us whose interests stretch a little wider.

The difficulty faced by the FLGS may have less to do with the challenge of online retailing and more to do with the difficulty making a profit of a niche industry in a competitive environment. A problem made all the more acute by the limited space most FLGS have to work with. It's all very well expecting gamers to support their FLGS, but that can be difficult if they don't offer the product you want. I buy almost all my Anima Tactics figures from one shop, but, for various reasons, they don't stock Malifaux, which means for those figures I have to go elsewhere. I can understand why they choose to prioritise those lines that sell best, but that doesn't help the customer wanting something else.

The thing is that there was a time when that would have been it. Either I find a FLGS that stocks the figures I want or I'm done and have to buy what's available. At least in the world of online retail, I can go elsewhere. Yes there are the shows and conventions which broaden out range of companies available, but strongly suspect these have grown in popularity since Internet made them so much easier to publicise.

It is now possible for small company, that can't sell to a FLGS, to go straight to the customer via the Internet. This is better for gamers who have a wider range of games and miniatures to choose from. Strangely, while the rise of the Internet has been bad for the small business when the small business is an FLGS, it has been a boon for small businesses that produce games and miniatures.

The FLGS still has a great deal to offer, and it would be a terrible shame to see them die out. But they have always struggled. I'm not convinced the Internet has been as harmful to them as is some times said, and if it has I still prefer the current state of the wargaming industry to the times before the Internet.

Tipping the Scale

2011-03-12T21:18:00.001Z

A while back I wrote a post in which I commented on the price and perceived value of Games Workshop's miniatures versus other company's. Eventually, I concluded that the price of a model was less important than it's value within a game. I have been trying to come up with a way to quantify this and rate various different games.

Today, I'm going to write about 'scalability.'

This can be defined as how easy it is to start and collect miniatures for a particular game, or how scalable it is. I will subdivide it into three areas:

1. How much does it cost to get enough bits (miniatures, rules, scenery) to play the game?
2. How much does it cost to add a new element to your army/ gang/ crew/ squad?
3. How big can the game get?

When I refer to cost, I don't just mean in purely financial terms, but also the time cost in collecting assembling and painting the necessary miniatures.

A game with good scalability allows you to start from nothing and expand your collection as far and as fast as you like.

The first element is the most straightforward - how much does it cost to start playing? How many models do you need and how much will you have to pay for them? As I have mentioned a few times before, Warhammer has high start up costs. You now have to spend over £60 on rulebooks, never mind the miniatures. Games Workshop has attempted to soften this with a high value starter set containing as many plastic models as can be sensibly squeezed between two sheets of cardboard. But this is of limited value if you don't plan to collect the armies included in the starter set. Mantic's Kings of War does a good job in reducing the cost of the models, but still scores quite low in this area because of the amount of time you have to spend painting them.

In contrast, skirmish games like Malifaux, Helldorado, Anima Tactics or Infinity can be played with as few as two or three models and a decent sized force may be no more than half a dozen. Anima and Infinity have expensive rule books, but both compensate with free downloadable startup rules (which actually cut out very little of the detail in the main books). So, while individual metal miniatures may be a lot pricier than plastics, you need very few to play the game and can devote more time and effort to making each one look that bit better.

Warmachine and Hordes, although based on larger armies than the skirmish games, make good use of starter sets and quick start rules to draw players in. It is at least possible to play a game with the contents of two starter sets, even if these games are a bit limited in tactical options.

My second criteria is slightly harder to explain, but in essence it's about how much it costs to add a new element to your army or force. By an element I mean the basic number of models that has to be added to an army to make it viable. In Anima Tactics or Malifaux that will usually be a single figure, but in Warhammer you need a whole unit. Anima Tactics and Malifaux miniatures cost a lot, but each one operates as a separate individual within the game, in contrast Warhammer and Kings of War use models in groups.

What this means is that although Games Workshop and Mantic's models are comparatively cheap, you need to buy them in large numbers. For Warhammer you now need two or three boxes , costing £30 - £45. For Anima, you can have a miniature for £8 and have it assembled, painted and on the gaming table the next day. So although the cost of a Warhammer miniature is lower, so is its value in the game. This means that Anima scores higher on criteria 2 than Warhammer.

Warmachine and Hordes sit somewhere in between. They sell units in boxes, which means one box usually gets you one unit, but the boxes are often very expensive at £30 or more (though the UK does seem to suffer due to the exchange rate here).

My final criteria is how big a game can get. How well does it support large armies? Or at what point does it become pointless to buy any more models? This is where the Games Workshop games, and Kings of War score highly. Games can get very big, very easily without becoming unweildy and Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 even have rules specifically to support extra big games.

Most skirmish games start to become unweildy when they get beyond twenty or thirty models, creating a natural cap in your collection where models can only be swapped not added to your force.

So skirmish games tend to score well for criteria 1 and 2, while mass battle Warhammer scores better for 3. Warmachine and Hordes score moderately well on 1 and 3, but not so well for 2 and sit as something as a compromise.

Companies have tried several ways to address the scalability problem. One approach is to produce 2 or more games to cover different scales of conflict. Games Workshop have tried it with the Lord of the Rings strategy battle game and War of the Ring and the late Rackham, famously, had Confrontation and Ragnarok. The idea is that you start with the skirmish game and, as your collection grows, you naturally progress to mass battles.

The problem with this approach, is that skirmish games tend to require only 1 or 2 of any individual miniature, while mass battle games require units, usually of at least five, if not ten or twenty. This means that the progression is rarely natural. Looking at Lord of the Rings, 1 or 2 plastic boxes is likely to give you as many of one particular trooper as your likely to need for the strategy battle game, but for War of the Rings 4 - 6 is more realistic. Meaning that you will probably have to double the size of your collection to make it viable for War of the Ring. This is simply not a natural progression.

So, what is my point here? Well essentially, creating wargame rules is a compromise and creating a game that scales well is very difficult. Games Workshop plays to its strengths by pushing bigger and bigger armies, while the skirmish games listed above are newer and benefit from a pool of players who still have plenty of models to get before they exhaust the possibilities of the smaller scale. In the end, perfect scalability may be impossible and it a company has to make the most of the rules they have.

Taste and Decency

2011-03-01T06:49:00.001Z

This blog post will be something of an unfocused ramble. I have had a number of thoughts on a particular subject, but not really a coherent line of argument. This post will be more about raising questions than answering them and I will have to apologise in advance for not reaching any definite conclusions.

Some readers may be aware that I have been building a fantasy Chinese army for Hordes of the Things. My goal is to build several armies all capable of battling one another in a Fantasy world loosely based on Medieval East Asia, much in the same way that the Warhammer world is based on late Medieval Europe.

With that in mind I toyed with several different ideas for armies. In particular, I wanted a fantasy analogue for the Mongolian hordes of Genghis Khan that swept through Asia and Europe during the 13th centuary. Games Workshop had done two ranges of Hobgoblins in the past that had a very Mongolian look, with similar armour, weapons and facial hair, but they are long since out of production and not easy to find. Instead, I decided to use Games Workshops current range of Fantasy Goblin Wolf Riders, as they were easier to obtain, relatively inexpensive and still had a number of design details that echoed the Mongolians, such as their hats and shields. The fact that I could do an entire army of wolf riders was also pretty appealing.

Having gotten hold of my first wolf riders, I decided to try and make them look a bit more like the classical image of the Mongolian army by adding some moustaches and beards with green stuff. It was only when sticking bits of green stuff to their faces that the thought occurred to me that this could be taken in a different way than I was intending. I was always planning to post pictures of these on my blog and it has left me wondering what people might think. Could my sticking green stuff on goblins to make them look 'Mongolian' be taken to mean that I thought Mongolians look like Goblins? Or that all it takes to make a Mongolian is a droopy moustache? Worse, what if this really did say something about my subconscious attitude to Mongolian culture?

This was probably a huge over-reaction and I doubt anyone would be sensitive enough to take offence. My army was inspired by Mongolian culture, but not meant to say anything about it. Readers would understand that.

However, this whole line of thought was disconcerting to me, because I was bringing ideas and attitudes to my wargaming that I usually leave outside. As a self-consciously 'woolly liberal' I spend a fair bit of time on blogs and messages boards getting unnecessarily irritated by people's casually prejudice and racism, and self examine my own beliefs, opinions and attitudes for signs of prejudice. If anything, wargaming is an antidote to this, an area that is just for fun, where I can leave political debates behind.

But once I had started thinking in this way I couldn't easily stop and it made me think some more about other 'odd' aspects of wargaming.

Take the example of the Nazis, largely regarded as one of most evil regimes in history.* Yet, plenty of us have no qualms about collecting armies of World War 2 Germans. What does this say about us? Does it say anything? Somehow the regime has developed a kind of pop culture split personality, where the are regarded as some of the worst criminals in history and simultaneously pulp fiction baddies. This is not unique to wargaming, but is also present in film and video games.

I have a German army for Secrets of the Third Reich in which World War 2 Germans rub shoulders with Vampires and Werewolves. This does not mean I sympathise with their ideology even the smallest amount. I only collect that army because my little brother wanted to collect Brits. But I wonder how I would feel if, say, a Jewish person who had relatives who died in Holocaust saw them. Would I defend them? Would I feel the need to?

My Grandfather fought in World War 2 and was heavily involved in operation Market Garden. My Dad still has photos to prove it. I have seen battles in which he was involved made into wargaming scenarios. I'm not really into World War 2 historical games, but if I were, how would I feel about recreating those battles? Would I include a model of my grandfather? Would that be disrespectful? Or would it be more disrespectful to leave him out?

That's a conflict still in living memory. But what about conflicts still going on? Osprey is publishing 'Force on Force', a set rules for modern warfare from Ambush Alley. The Assault Group and Black Scorpion make US and British troops and Insurgents. Isn't it a bit odd to be turning conflict in which people still dying into game? What would you say to relatives of soldiers? I don't think these companies mean to offend, or are doing anything morally wrong, again, when I think about it in this way, it just feels odd.

Our hobby involves simulating conflicts in which thousands or millions died. Is that weird? True, the history of the world would have been a lot less bloody if conflicts had been resolved with wargaming instead of war. But they weren't. Does our hobby trivialise this? Or is it just a bit of fun? Is treating it as a bit of fun distasteful?

It would be too strong to talk about bringing questions of morality into wargaming. I don't think any of these questions are serious enough to warrant the term. But maybe taste and decency? Would that be appropriate? I raise all this stuff only because my slightly silly wobble over my 'Mongolian' Goblins made me think about wargaming from a different perspective.

As I said at the start, I don't have any conclusions to draw, just a bunch of questions. Including the question 'Does any of this even matter?' I can't pretend to have an answer to that. All I can say, is that it has made me think.

*I would say the most evil but that would probably start an argument with someone siting Stalin's precise casualty count and begin a debate begins over numbers versus intent, so suffice it to say if we listed worst regimes in history they would be near the top.

A few musings about Battlefront and Maelstrom

2011-02-28T20:58:00.000Z

You may have already read the news that Battlefront, makers of Flames of War, have dropped Maelstrom games as a supplier. This news was followed up by statement from Maelstrom confirming what many people had already suspected, that this was a dispute about the level of discount offered by Maelstrom. This has raised some interesting question as to whether Battlefronts actions could be considered price fixing which is illegal in the UK.

I'm not going to comment on the legal question, there are plenty of amateur lawyers on the Internet already. But I did find the dispute interesting both because it has divided gamers and because it's not a clear cut argument at all.

Battleground are seen by many as the company who have "Games Workshopped" World War 2, by being a one stop shop for their customers, supplying rules, miniatures, dice, scenery and paints. This has lead to some treating them as a new 'Evil Empire'. That they are apparently trying to restrict sellers from discounting their products feels like a very Games Workshop move.

Of course plenty of gamers defend Games Workshop and Battlefront as simply being businesses that are justified in trying to maximise their profit margin by what ever means they can.

At the same time, there were plenty of gamers ready to condemn Maelstrom as a ruthless Internet retailer undercutting brick and mortar stores. An argument undermined by the discovery that Maelstrom operate their own brick and mortar store with a substantial gaming venue attached.

So have a dispute between one of the larger miniature manufacturers and a retailer that sits somewhere between brick and mortar store and a discount internet retailer. It has been argued that Maelstrom are being unprofessional by letting this all out in public, while ignoring Battlefronts questionable decision to announce the dropping of Maelstrom without talking to them first. Then we've had others arguing that other manufacturers of World War 2 models are some how exploiting Flames of Wars rule sets. From a purely selfish perspective, it's in the interests of gamers to be able to buy their models at the lowest possible price, but not if that harms the ability of the maufacturer to do business.

So there are no clear cut answers. If you view things from a purely business perspective, then this is simply a legal question with both sides doing what they can to increase their profits. If you take a more romantic view then it's not clear whether it's more appropriate to support the manufacturer or the seller. So, a far from clear cut case.

One Book to Rule them All

2011-02-26T15:53:00.000Z

The Arrival of a new army book for Warhammer Orcs & Goblins has been met with much excitement and a little cynicism. It's the first new book for Warhammer 8th edition and the first printed in full colour and hard back. I have seen the book up close and it's certainly lushly printed and produced (although the large format, light page count gives in the feel of a Christmas annual). One advantage of hard back is that you can leave the book open on a particular page without having to break the spine. At the same time the price has gone up from £17.50 to £22.50, making it Games Workshop's most expensive army book ever, a price certain to be matched by future books.

While all this has been going on, Mantic Games have released the army list for their new range of Abyssal Dwarves. It's one page long and can be downloaded for free from their website.

If I stopped writing here and left the obvious implication hanging then I would fully expect a raft of comments from people telling me how much they like big shiny rulebooks, how they add to the gaming experience and they love reading through the background drooling over the pictures, not to mention the lovely new book smell that can never be reproduced in a download.*

There is no denying the appeal of a nicely produced rule book. Enough of my treasured wargaming memories are tied up in the thrill of pooring over page after page of charts and tables, evocative world descriptions and endless pictures of battles I can only dream of recreating. I still remember devouring every last page of the 4th edition Warhammer Armies: Orcs & Goblins, right down to the mail order catalogue pages in the back. I acknowledge that, to some extent, my cynicism about the new book stems from the fact that this is the fourth Orc & Goblin army book to be released since I started playing Warhammer and for me, very little of the material is entirely new.

But at same time, I have tried to consider things from the perspective of a new player. In order to start an Orc & Goblin army in Warhammer 8th edition you have to spend £67.50 before you even get a single miniature on the table (£45 for the rulebook £22.50 for the Army book). In contrast, Kings of War, Mantic's game, is available for free and a printed copy is handed out with any reasonably substantial purchase.

I find myself wondering how I would feel if I had just started gaming now. Mantic have nothing as evocative as the Warhammer world background to draw on, their background consists of a few paragraphs on a website and a couple of magazine articles, nor do they have anything that matches the sheer impact of the Arachnarok Spider. But you need a lot of models before you can use the Spider in a game, and with Mantic I get a lot of models for my money and don't have to spend anything on rules.

I think of my little brother, just turned 15. He loves rulebooks, devouring them with enthusiasm I can't match any more. He falls asleep reading through them. But he owns almost none. Of the many games he plays, Anima Tactics, Infinity, Malifaux, Secrets of the Third Reich, the only books he bought himself are his Warhammer Army books and he had to be pushed hard to get those. Otherwise, he borrows my copies. Why? Because if he has the £15, £20, £30 or even £45 required for a rulebook, he'd rather spend it on models.

Of course, not every 15 year old has access to the library of a 31 year wargames addict, but I do wonder how many of them would make the calculation outlined above if given the choice (not to mention how many would just say forget it and buy a new X-Box game). Might their be some logic in a two tear rule distribution system. GW already includes cut down rule book in the Isle of Blood starter set, would their be some sense in making that available separately?

I don't think the era of the nice shiny rulebook is over by any means. But given Games Workshop's explicit focus on the younger end of the Wargaming market, it's method of distributing rules seems to belong to an earlier age.

*Actually I fully expect to get these comments anyway. If I wanted people to read what I had written before commenting I wouldn't be writing on the Internet.

Heroquest - A Retrospective

2011-02-20T10:15:00.000Z

Today I want to do something a little different and write about a game that was a huge influence on my early years as a gamer - HeroQuest. If this blog post works I might do more a long a similar line.

Heroquest was a co-production between Games Workshop and MB games that first appeared in UK in 1989. A dungeon crawl game that saw a party of adventurers descend into the depths to battle Orcs, Goblins and Skeletons. Games Workshop supplied the miniatures, game world and atmosphere while MB got it onto the shelves of Woolworths, Tescos and Argos.

At the time, the Roleplaying boom wasn long over in UK and Games Workshop was following a policy of not explicitly advertising its products. Games Workshop stores were dark and slightly forbidding places, unfriendly to new comers and youngsters and the only contact with Games Workshop outside of stores was the sporadic availability of White Dwarf in WH Smiths. So HeroQuest appearing in mainstream stores and, more startlingly, in TV ads had a huge impact on a generation of potential gamers. So much so that I know no gamer of my generation who didn't own or play it at one time or another. It was not the first Dungeon Crawl game, but was one of the most successful.

It's easy to see why it had an impact. The box is suitably grim depiction of High Fantasy with a seriously angry Barbarian showing off up front while his compatriots go toe-toe with Orcs and Zombies while a Skull faced sorcerer and Chaos Warrior advance from the right.

Inside its interesting to observe the mix of influences from mainstream board games, wargames and roleplaying. It's dice are red and gold wood and would look more at home in a snakes and ladders set. But it also includes what is essentially a GM's screen, for the Evil Wizard Player who controls the monsters.

Looking back on the rules its surprising how simple they are. Up to four players control the heroes - a classic combo of Barbarian, Wizard, Dwarf and Elf, and another the monsters, this player is also responsible for laying out the dungeon. During their turn players can move, attack and search for treasure or traps and secret passages. Combat is resolved by means of special combat dice. While searching for traps or passages has no random roll, if they're there you find them and treasure is resolved by a random draw from a deck of cards. Interestingly, hero movement is determined by roll of 2 6-sided dice, a possible concession to more conventional boargames, though monster movement is set by a number on the monsters profile card. In the basic set no Monster has more than 1 body point, so there is little record keeping. The only other complication is Magic spells, printed on cards and shared between the Wizard and Elf.

Interesting detail is that the Dwarf is taken from the White Dwarf logo of the time and the miniature follows the illustration quite closely, making it one of the earliest White Dwarf miniatures.

The game has a couple of interesting features. First is the inclusion of model furniture. This mostly doesn't do anything except take up space in dungeon, but adds greatly to texture of the dungeon, giving it the feel of something lived in and not just collection of monsters in rooms. Also, rather than use a series of seperate board sections, the dungeon is one big board. Doors and rock markers used to control access to parts of it so the whole board is rarely used in one quest.

A big advantage of the standardised board is that it allows quests to be printed on a double page of the Quest book with the Map on top and notes on the bottom. Notes are kept simple, so theres is little need to flip back and forth through rule book. Though ocassionally rules were left a touch loose requiring some intepretation from the Evil Wizard player as to how they work.

There is no experience system as such. Players can collect treasure and buy equipment and completing three quests nets them a 500 gold piece bonus, but that's it. No character advancement, no levels just more gear.

Despite this, I know of some copies of HeroQuest that languished in the box because owners couldn't get their head around concept. In days when most board games were variations of scrabble or monopoly easy to see how something like this could be confusing. And it's easy to understand why MB and Games Workshop kept the rules as basic as they did.

It was not my first encounter with Games Workshop. That came from a friend's older brother who had a copy of White Dwarf and a first edition Blood Bowl. So when HeroQuest came along I recognised the miniatures. Nor was it the first set of miniatures I owned. Another friend got the game first and I went looking for other miniatures stumbling across a few random selections before getting round to buying HeroQuest itself. But it was the first set of miniatures I painted and the first game of it's type I really played. And I really did play it, working my way through the whole of the basic quest book and the Return of the Witch Lord expansion over the course of a weekend with friends.

That said, it also started a grand tradition for me and wargaming - buying miniatures and expansions I never got round to using. I owned all the expansions for HeroQuest available in UK, but only played through one. I spent days drawing out new quest maps in squared paper exercise book, but played few of them. Much of the excitement came from reading through the rule books and imagining the possibilities.

My copy is a touch battered, but still in half decent condition. The miniatures fared less well, many being hacked to bits for conversion parts in more short-sighted days, while others suffered from being left on floor of living room and were variously stepped on or kicked.

The appeal of HeroQuest is easy to see. It provided an easy entry point for young gamers who could practice the concepts of the roleplaying and wargaming without being bogged down in complex or inpenetrable rules. It gave players the start of miniature collection and a game they could get into with a minimum of fuss. For me, it was effectively a 'gateway game' prompting me to try more complex games and to investigate the world of Games Workshop and wargaming.

Its impact was huge, for myself and many others. It not only got us into wargaming, but allowed Games Workshop to dip a toe into a more mainstream world. It lead to the appearance of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 in Argos and combat cards and plastic boxed sets in Tesco during the early 1990s. For many gamers it was the start of the wargaming hobby and for that reason alone it deserves to be remembered.

Can miniatures look too good?

2011-02-13T22:25:00.000Z

This is post is largely about Games Workshop. Sorry, I haven't written about them in a while and I don't want this to turn into a rant, but I do have a point to make that won't sound like mindless griping and is somewhat applicable to Wargaming in general.

Anyway, disclaimer over. When you open up a wargame rule book you usually find it stuffed full of glossy photographs of stunningly painted miniatures and scenery. There are exceptions to this rule, mostly at the 'grungier' end of the market where costs are low and rules are more important than production, but generally nice colour photos predominate. The lush images are partly about justifying the cost of expensive full colour or hardback books and partly because wargaming is a very visual hobby and it's as well to show it at its spectacular best.

When I started out in wargaming, White Dwarf was similarly filled with images to excite the imagination of the new wargamer. Then I tried painting a model myself. It would be an understatement to say I was disappointed in the results.

It didn't help that back then there were fewer useful guides for new painters and that hobby staff were not as friendly or welcoming as now. But the truth is the majority of people do not take naturally to miniature painting. The techniques are abstract and take some learning, you need a steady hand, a keen eye and lots of patience. Some people have this naturally, but the majority do not. The consequence of this is that early miniature painting can be a dispiriting experience. I honestly felt at the start that I was ruining my figures by painting them and it took me a long time, a good five or six years, before I could produce models I felt happy to put on a gaming table.

In the face of this, the hundreds of photographs of beautifully painted models that festoon the rule books and magazines, not to mention the display cabinets of Games Workshop and local hobby shops, can be positively dispiriting. A reminder that you simply do not measure up. Not to mention the time and effort involved in painting a whole army. The bulk of my teenage friends played games with largely unpainted armies simply because we preferred to spend time gaming rather than paint.

Interestingly, during the early 2000s, Games Workshop went through a phase of publishing pictures, in rule books and White Dwarf, of less than spectacular models. Veterans may remember seeing pictures of rules designer turned novelist Gav Thorpe's dwarfs and Inquisitor models in White Dwarf, which could kindly be described as poor. At the same time, White Dwarf started to show case more unusual, quirky and personal armies, some painted well, some badly, but the emphasis was on the range and variety of gamers and armies out there.

At the same time, Games Workshop started to push concepts like 40K in 40 minutes and battle patrols, rules to allow for smaller games during lunch breaks. The idea was that the size of the game was less important than that you were playing at all.

Years pass and things change. Look at a recent issue of White Dwarf and the quirky armies have gone, the painting is all master standard and battle reports consist of taking the entirety of one studio army and setting it against another. Games Workshop are pushing legendary battles and Warhammer Apocalypse. Take a look at the Warhammer rule book, there are still scenarios for smaller battles, but a huge pull out section is devoted to the kind of legendary scale battle that few if any gamers can even aspire to play.

At the same time, Warhammer 8th edition has increased the power of infantry and introduced the Horde rule, pushing the idea that infantry units should be bigger and more numerous.

All of this sends a message, not explicitly in the rules, but subconsciously in the kind of promotional imagery and material they produce. The message is that Wargames are played with big, extremely well painted armies on lushly made custom gaming tables with expensive plastic scenery.

Games Workshop seem to be the only company pushing big battles, but most companies are using pictures of ever more elaborately painted models and well made scenery, either scratch built of purchased.

At one level this all makes perfect sense. Every company wants to present its miniatures in the best possible light and Games Workshop are keen to encourage big battles to encourage big spending. But I find myself wondering if this could back fire, particularly when marketed at younger gamers without the resources to construct big armies or the ability to paint them to a standard with which they are happy. Not that this will affect everyone, there will still be gamers keen to just put together what they can and get in a game, but I wonder if a certain proportion of potential gamers are being put off before they've got started.

One antidote to this lies in the online gaming community where images of more averagely painted miniatures sit on blogs and message forums and digital photos after action reports are replete with unpainted or simply undercoated miniatures. The Internet is becoming a haven for the average gamer. It's as well to remember that not everyone has the resources of a small company or the painting skills of a Golden Demon champion.

I'm not saying that companies should stop showing pictures of beautiful miniatures and scenery. But it would be nice to see the more average gamer represented. Games Workshop did it before for a while and could do so again. It doesn't hurt to remind people that this is a hobby about taking part, just showing up ready to game, and there is no reason why promotional material shouldn't reflect that.

The Goblins are coming

2011-02-08T17:15:00.000Z

Having completed the first batch of models for my Fantasy Chinese army, I needed some suitable opponents for them to face. The Song dynasty famously faced off against the Mongol empire of Genghis Khan and so I wanted a suitable fantasy analogue for them.

Rather than just get some historical Mongolians and add a few fantasy elements, I decided to take a leaf out of Games Workshop's book. Back in the days of Warhammer 3rd edition and briefly during 5th edition as part of the Dogs of War army, Hobgoblins were presented as Mongolian in character. I didn't have any of those models lying around, but I could convert some Goblin wolf riders. And so the mighty Horde of the Goblin Khan was born.

These are my first two elements, they count as Riders in HOTT. All the Goblins in the army will be mounted, in keeping with the Mongolian theme and the majority will be riders. I also plan to include a few elements of Heavy cavalry, who will be counted as Knights and a few other surprises.

I wanted the Goblins to have quite a gritty, earthy look, rather than the bright day-glo colours favoured by Games Workshop, so I painted their clothes in brown and gave them a dark green skin tone. The moustaches were added using green stuff to try and give them a more Mongolian look. In retrospect I think they've become a little too dark and I will try to add a splash of colour on later elements, but overall I'm quite pleased with the results.

With the Goblins started, I also have my last element done for my Fantasy Chinese - Monks, who count as clerics in HOTT. These are from Black Hat miniatures.

Two Models of doing business with Models

2011-02-06T00:11:00.000Z

There seems to be a rise in the number of games companies offering generic sci-fi and fantasy miniatures. That is to say, miniatures not tied to a particular game world or with no particular rules set in mind. Some are offering alternatives miniatures for an existing IP, usually Games Workshop. Mantic Games started off like this, before developing Kings of War, but there are others such as Gribbly miniatures or Avatars of War that offer good alternatives to the miniatures GW produce.

Also on the increase are companies offering unofficial lookalikes of characters from TV, films and comics. Examples include, the 'not' Doctor Who miniatures produced by Heresy and Crooked Dice or Harby from Haslefree miniatures who in no way resembles Hellboy or Marv from Sin City. The newly arrived Elodie Mae offer miniatures for fans of anime, manga and Japanese video games. There are also a number of 'not' Buffys, 'not' Lara Crofts and 'not' Jack Sparrows for the gamer who wants to game with an unlicensed IP.

Then there are the companies that produce miniatures with no particular IP in mind and without wishing to produce an entire range, simply supplying miniatures that can be used in a number of different games. Heresy have a large range here, as do Haslefree, with Pig Iron productions supplying Sci-Fi. This isn't even close to an exhaustive list.

Part of this rise can in part be put down to the Internet which has enabled small 'garage' companies to become even more prevalent in the industry than before. Thanks to the ease of marketing and selling to customers through websites there is no longer a need to sell an entire range of models to a Games Store. The rise of generic rule systems has also been helped by the Internet, thanks to the possibility of PDF sales. This in turn increases the appeal of generic miniatures no tied to a specific game as they can always be Incorporated into a generic rule set. Word of Mouth has become more powerful as a marketing tool thanks to the growth of message forums, social networking, blogs and sites like coolminiornot.

But at the same time a very different trend has developed for highly specialised games with a very specific appeal. I have mentioned Anima Tactics before. This is a fantasy game with an aesthetic inspired by Manga and Anime in which most miniatures are specific individuals. The game is skirmish based, requires very few miniatures to play and it is unlikely that most players will buy more than one of most models. Then there is Malifaux, Wyrd Games fantasy/ si-fi/ horror/ wild west/ steam punk/ Victoriana skirmish game with a distinctive card based rule set intended to reflect it's bizarre hybrid setting. And this is just the tip of the Ice burg.

So how is that the industry appears to be trending in two directions simultaneously? Both more generic and more specific? Oddly, I think this is all linked. The same interconnectedness between customers and producers that allows companies to survive with a small range of miniatures also allows games with very niche to find their audience.

There may only be a handful of potential Malifaux or Anima Tactics fans compared with a more traditional fantasy game like Warhammer, but in the Internet world it is possible for Wyrd Games and Cipher Studios to reach all, or at very least most of them. A smaller market can still support a game if that market is reached more efficiently. And this is more practical in a world where the Internet is so prevalent. It's not by accident that Cipher Studios has worked so hard to release Anima and Helldorado in so many languages at once, they know that there audience is diverse and wide spread and they want to reach all of them.

So the Internet allows and indeed encourages companies to both specialise and generalise. Both ways of doing business can work well.

Missing the Point

2011-01-30T11:30:00.000Z

A few weeks back I wrote about the contrast between the very tightly written, tournament focused rules of Field of Glory and DBMM and the looser style favoured by Rick Priestly in Black Powder and Hail Caesar. Today I want to return to that theme but focus on a particular aspect of it - point values.

There is a tendency in the tradition of the more narrative focused, more loosely written games like Hail Caesar and Black Powder to be quite down on points based systems for army selections. Rick Preistly seems to be quite down on it in the interviews I've read, equating it with Tournament and Competitive play specifically. In fact Preistly is not particulary keen on army lists at all.

"we will do them as players feel they need them - in reality there's no surviving evidence to make these judgements but dedicated researchers have given us the WAB and FOG army lists and people feel they need them." (Miniature Wargames 333, January 2011)

Its interesting that Jervis Johnson, the Black Powder co-writer, also tried to limit the use of points in Epic: Armageddon for Games Workshop, creating tournament specific lists and leaving large numbers of older miniatures with rules but no points values.

The rather wonderful free Doctor Who Miniature Game also left out points values, justifying it with this statement

Points values are not given for models in the DWMG. This has been a subject of much debate, but my final word is that I think that balancing games with a fixed points limit on models limits creativity and encourages tournament style play. Most scenarios for the game involve mismatched forces – true to the episodes themselves – with victory usually obtainable by achieving specific conditions in each game.

I quote this statement because it sums up the view of many about points-based systems, that they encourage competitive, tournament style play and are not suitable for looser, narrative based games.

I'm not sure that I agree. I think it would be true if players expected points to provide a perfectly balanced rating system such that armies of equal points would always be of equal effectiveness on the table. But in practice I think gamers are more nuanced than that. Points values are there to provided a rough ready reckoner such that two players can quickly rustle up to armies and, 9 times out of 10, play a reasonably fair and balanced game.

But why should this be so important? As the statement from DWMG says, not all encounters will be between balanced forces. In real life armies are rarely of equal size or effectiveness. But the crucial thing to understand here is that these are Wargames, the Game element is as crucial as the War and in a game both sides need a reasonable chance of victory in order to keep it interesting.

I'm not saying that games have to be scrupulously fair or that players should enter into them with a 'win at all costs' attitude. I am saying that games in which players are pitted against one another require both sides to attempt to win and to have a chance of doing so in order to keep things interesting. Of course fair play and good humour is important, particularly in friendly games, but there is little enjoyment in playing a passive opponent or in being beaten without even the possibility of being able to fight back.

So where do points values fit into all this? Well, points values give players a ready reckoner for wants constitutes a balanced scenario. This is important if you want to make sure that both players have a roughly equal chance of success and helps to avoid a one sided game.

That isn't to say that all scenarios should involve forces of equal size or strength. There has been a Warhammer scenario since 5th edition called last stand in which one side has twice the points of the other and the underdogs only roll is to keep at least one unit alive until the end of the game, gaining a big victory point bonus for doing so. It is possible to tweak relative points values to allow for more unequal encounters or to handicap more experienced players.

The point that sometimes seems to be forgotten by games designers is that not everyone is like them. Which is to say, not everyone has a great deal of experience creating balanced scenarios and judging the strength of armies. Some years ago I was introducing a friend to a new skirmish game. I had two lots of models, one were supposed to be elite troopers the other raw recruits so I devised a basic scenario in which the raws outnumbered the elites 2 to 1 figuring this would be balanced. The elites got slaughtered, clearly because I had overestimated the effect of troop quality. This is the draw back of having no mechanism to help players judge the relative strength of the troops.

Of course not all points systems are fair and balanced and mistakes happen. But points can still do a lot of good in helping players to devise more interesting games.

The dangers of too much enthusiasm

2011-01-22T18:35:00.000Z

It's interesting that when someone criticises a product, be it a car, a DVD player, a games console or a washing machine there will almost always be someone else ready to loudly defend it. This is not really surprising, our purchases say a great deal about our taste and judgement and when an item we have purchased, and enjoyed, is criticised it feels like a criticism of ourselves.

In the gaming community this phenomenon is even more acute. People put an enormous amount of themselves into their hobby, selecting and painting miniatures, devising scenarios and playing games. It's for that reason that I and so many others publicise our hobby on a blog. We want to share our interests with others.

Games companies rely on this passion. Extracting value from a roleplaying game or a miniature requires a lot of time an effort. There is little immediate gratification and the collection of plastic, metal and cardboard that spills out of a box, at first glance, never lives up to the promise of the examples on the box. Until the miniatures are painted, the rules read, the players assembled there is little value in the product. Value requires effort and effort requires enthusiasm and passion.

It is for this reason that so many games companies encourage a community or like minded hobbyists to develop. The game requires other players, but more than that it requires enthusiasm and encouragement. In recent years the principle tactic has been to set up message boards and forums, but it has been going on for years by encouraging gamers to support their Local Games shop, attending conventions and, in the case of Games Workshop, through it's own chain of stores.

The draw back of encouraging this kind of enthusiasm is what can happen when it's turned against the company.

Part of the problem for Games companies is that image projected of them are small, very personal operations created by a single hobbyist or a small group with a dream of making their job their hobby. No-one with sense gets into the gaming industry hoping to make a fortune, most hope to make enough money that they don't have to do another job to supplement their income. The rise of the Internet has only increased this perception as more and more garage companies appear selling direct to the consumer. The direct engagement of so many companies with the customers through conventions and forums increases this view.

This works well as a marketing technique. Customers like to feel they are dealing with real people and not faceless corporations. Gamers are more likely to spend more money if they can see it going to a real person and a fellow hobbyist and can accept higher costs more readily when they trust that they are the result of increased costs and not greed.

The problem is that what may seem like a sensible business decision or transaction to a company can be perceived as betrayal by the fans. One of the early examples was when Citadel miniatures bought out Games Workshop and shifted it from a distributor and seller of a wide variety of games to specifically producing and promoting miniature games. The Roleplaying craze was on the wane and the decision might have made good business sense, but this was small consolation for the players of the abandoned games.

There have been numerous examples since. Rackham's abandonment of metal models in favour of pre-painted plastic, Wizards of the Coast shifting its focus to collectible card games and every new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Every controversial decision angers a new group of fans and one 'betrayal' can leave someone bitter and suspicious of all games companies.

Two recent examples bear this out. I previously mentioned Wyrd Games program to replace the cards for Malifaux with the new revised versions. This program sparked some discussion on their message board. Most contributors saw it as a generous gesture by a company trying not to rip-off its fans. But there were a few who questioned every aspect of the program, in particular the decision to run it only between January and March 2011. One person in particular seemed excessively concerned that someone might accidentally acquire an earlier card after the deadline and demanded all manner of expensive plans including stickers on boxes and lists mailed to games shops in order to rectify what he saw as a terrible injustice. When it was pointed out that the cost of his solution would be prohibitive he accused the company of not caring about gamers.

A second incident occurred just recently when Wargames Factory announced a change of ownership. I'm not going to go into the ins and outs of the situation at this point (though there is certainly a blog post in it), but there has been much bitterness and acrimony from the old owners and from customers, with many announcing a boycott of Wargames Factory's products unless the old owners are restored.

I'm in no position to say if the old owners were treated unfairly or not, but the willingness of customers to stand by the old owners says something about the loyalty of gamers to a company or an individual and their willingness to make purchasing decisions based on that loyalty.

Passion, enthusiasm and customer loyalty is the backbone of the gaming hobby. But as long as companies rely on players seeing them as more than just a business supplying a product, the more danger that former fans will become mortal enemies.

Games companies need to consider carefully the danger of alienating fans. But more than that, gamers need to distance their enthusiasm for a game or a range of miniatures from the company producing it or risk being hurt by their hobby.