Salute Number Ten

Another Salute, the UK's biggest wargaming show, has been and gone and it only occurred to me on the day that this would be my tenth. My first was in 2006 and I have been to every one since.

Cloudships of Mars Salute 2006

In last year's post, I described Salute as "a pop-up wargaming superstore that trades for only one day each year." I still think that's an accurate description, but I don't think it's a negative thing. Salute is essentially a trade show, but one that gives small producers and traders representing what is, still, a very niche hobby the chance to reach the largest possible audience. At the same time, it gives hobbyists a chance to buy products they would struggle to find anywhere else.

But ten shows has left me wondering if their have been any major trends or developments? My Salute 2006 experience was dominated by Privateer Press who had just launched Hordes and had a huge stand set up at the front of the show to reflect that. Also present was Wizkids games, producers of Heroclix and other pre-painted miniatures with dials in their bases. Despite their medium-sized stand, their foot print was greatly increased by row upon row of demo games.

 SF30 Salute 2009

Both were largely absent from Salute 2015. Privateer press long ago gave up running a personal stand, although their miniatures are still represented by a number of traders. Since being sold by their parent company Topps, Wizkids has become smaller and more US focused, and their presence at Salute has dwindled.

Games Workshop too has given up running their own stand. They are clearly comfortably represented by independent traders and it is unlikely they ever did much business given the amount of discounted Games Workshop products available elsewhere. Forge World was left to fly the Games Workshop flag, and was still doing well this year, although they had eliminated their usual disorganised mob in favour of an orderly, if extremely long, queue.

Lego Star Wars Salute 2010

In contrast, independent trader Wayland games have seen their presence expand year on year to the point where they are essentially running a their own wall-less games shop from the centre of the Excel centre, offering proper checkouts, carry bags and the chance to pay with plastic, a dangerous temptation for many wargamers.

This year, however, they were challenged by the Troll Trader who were offering a similar open-plan shopping experience, combined with even sharper discounts and an extensive range of bargain bins.

Trebuchet Salute 2013

If there is a trend here, it is the character of the show has shifted from being dominated by big producers to the larger independent traders. That is not to say that producers do not have a presence. A great number including, but not limited to, Perry Miniatures, Heresy Miniature, Hasslefree Miniatures, West Wind productions, GCT Studios, Crooked Dice and Warlord games, have been attending Salute for years meeting enthusiasts and diligently plugging their latest games.

But the biggest players, by which I mean those with the largest footprint and the most visible presence have shifted. With Games Workshop and the largest US companies gone, the place has been taken by traders, but they can only offer what the producers supply. Wayland and the Troll trader may get the bulk of the business, but the shopping experience is likely to be brief. If this gives the small producers more time to actively engage with their customers this may be no bad thing.

Stingray Salute 2015

One significant shift made only this year was the change to the Salute grand prize. Previously this had been a raffle held at the end of the day in which a random ticket would be drawn and the winner given a large prize of Salute vouchers. This had the effect of keeping a lot of attendees at the show until they end and ensured that a large crowd gathered for the shows gaming and painting awards.

This year, the prize draw was replaced with golden tickets hidden in three of the shows goody bags. The winners, and the much larger number of losers, knew where they stood much earlier in the day,  but it removed one incentive to stay to the end. Whether this lead to a tailing off as they day progressed I don't know, because for the first time in ten years, I didn't stay until the end.

The Psychology of Nurgle

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

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.