Dreadfleet - One ship down

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.