Painting: Chaos Defiler, Chaos Rhino

I bring to you for the first time in a while a long overdue painting blog. These are additions to the Khornate Chaos Space Marine army I started last year. And a bit of a rant as well, but more on that later...

Daemonic posession might just give it the edge...

OK to start us of we've got a Chaos Space Marine Rhino. This wasn't actually planned; how it came about was that just after Games Workshop released 6th Edition 40K, I turned up at GW to participate in a 400pt tournament. I took my Chaos and my new Space Marine army as well which I have yet to show you guys so get ready. Now the Space Marine stuff I had, but for the Chaos Space Marine stuff I needed a Rhino to make a 400pt list so I got to the shop early and bought this, and painted near enough all of it in the morning apart from the heads and that on the spikes running across the top of it. I painted it pretty much the same way as I painted the Bezerkers; copious amounts of Mechrite Red and Gold painted from Brown. I was pleased with the muck and dust coming up the sides, done with Khemri Brown and Denheb Stone, but I was less pleased when I noticed that I hadn't done it on the back. Ah well, there's always the next one. The detail on the heads were probably my favourite bits to paint, to be honest; I'm getting better at doing that! You can't see it on the photos but I've painted the Space Marine head as though he was from the Black Consuls chapter that I'm painting up as well; the last time I painted a Space Marine head it was Dark Angels and I didn't want to do that again what with Dark Vengeance out now, so I chose a colour to offset the Red: Black. On the whole I think it came out pretty well.

Where were the lascannons?

And then there was this hulking monstrosity. I painted the Defiler in the same way although I found I did have to go over it in Mechrite Red again after I'd painted all the metal. It made a more solid coat of paint which was great. I didn't go into a lot of detail with this one; the metal bits were metal, the brass bits were brass and everything else was either red or my attempt at obsidian; black highlighted with grey. I avoided weathering effects because I honestly couldn't see how to apply them to this. Neither of these models are my best painting job ever, but I never said they were. To be honest, painting tanks is not my favourite part of collecting an army; I think I find infantry models more fun now that I'm actually getting quite good at it. I just haven't got the experience in painting larger models like this. Still, I have to start somewhere, and for what I'm going to be using them for (gaming, largely,) they work as well as they needed. They'd certainly get me into the Throne of Skulls tournament, though I doubt I'd win any awards for best looking army!

Which brings me on to something that's been annoying me about a lot of the models I've been buying, particularly for 40K. You plan an army list, you look at your codex, you equip your squads and vehicles in the optimum configuration... only to find that THE WEAPONS DON'T APPEAR IN THE BOX!!!

This has happened a few times over the models I've been building. The original plan for the Scout army, for example, was to give one of the sergeants a Power Fist. It's allowed in the rules, but the Scout models don't come with power fists. The Khorne Bezerkers that I painted last year, I wanted to give them Power Axes (now that 6th edition makes a distinction between Power Axes and other weapons, I'm very glad I made this decision,) and Plasma Pistols, but you can do neither out of the box, even with the Skull Champion. And then there was the Defiler, for which the original plan was to have a Twin-Linked Lascannon for the right arm. Except when I opened the box THERE WAS NO BLOODY LASCANNON! So instead I'm stuck with the Reaper Autocannon instead, which thinking about it would probably be more useful for supporting infantry charges, but it's still not what I wanted!

Now I know what you're thinking: "Well, why don't you convert it?" Yes, except that what with the Defiler being the only substantial vehicle in my army at this point, there's nothing to convert it from. The only thing I can think to do is if I were to drop another £35 on a Predator, and stick the turret with the Twin-Linked Lascannon on it onto the arm. Which would render the Predator completely redundant since the turret would then be on the Defiler. No chance in Hell, would be my answer to that. Same with the Space Marine Scouts; I'd have to spend more money on a box of Space Marines just to get the Power Fist out of it - assuming it comes with one - and to be honest it would probably have been better employed on the Space Marines anyway. The Bezerkers I actually did convert from Ork parts, and that worked reasonably well, but I'll need to find a way to get hold of a plasma pistol before I paint the next lot or I won't be able to equip them properly.

Of course, I know why it's happened - the rules that allow those weapon options were written after the box was designed. I don't know what you were allowed to do with a Defiler before the current edition of the codex came out but if the designers had no reason to put a lascannon in there, they wouldn't have put one in, and they're not going to redesign the whole box just because of a change in the rules. With the Scouts I'd suggest it's pretty much the same story. The Bezerkers are a bit of a funny one; those models were designed for 2nd edition (the frame of the Sprue says 1994, which even by GW standards is an old model) and while aesthetically at least they work as well as they need to, the fact that they've not had an update for nearly 20 years means that they're currently lacking in a lot of the equipment that is allowed in the rules.

Nonetheless, I'm going to be urinated if the Chaos Vindicator I've ordered doesn't have the Havoc Launchers in there, since every vehicle in my army has them. Not quite as urinated as I would have been if I hadn't got a couple of Havoc launchers left over from the Rhinos I made for my previous Chaos army, but urinated nonetheless. Apart from that, there's not really a lot more to this army as I'll be painting it in pretty much the same way so unless something really amazing happens with the Vindicators, this will be the last you'll hear from them until they're ready for the table...

See you then.

Dark Vengeance: Wow, I didn't see that coming!

So, Games Workshop have come up with their new boxed set for 40K...

I had hoped to bring a picture to you at this point but all I'm getting from Blogger is Invalid Server Response so google it if you're interested.

Hmm, pulled out a lot of stops with this one, I see! OK first point straight off the bat: I think the models look fantastic. I really do. There's been several releases over the last four years where Games Workshop have made their one-off models to go in boxed sets like these something quite spectacular; the detail on the Space Hulk models was awesome, and the ships in Dreadfleet looked very good, conceptually at least, even if the game turned out to be a huge let-down. But putting them in the boxed set for 40K was actually a really good idea. Compare it to Black Reach, which had some exclusive models in there, but with the exception of the Deffkoptas there was nothing in that box that you couldn't get in one of the currently exisiting boxes, except for the Dreadnought and that only needed converting, and you see what I mean - THESE are the models you're going to get in THIS box.

I was also surprised, as regular readers of my blog (both of you) will know, to see Chaos Space Marines in the boxed set. As Chaos are fundementally similar to Space Marines in many ways, it wouldn't exactly make for an interesting battle if both armies appeared in the boxed set, having to do the same things to shoot, wound, assault etc... but they've made a good job of getting around that, as I'll discuss in a minute. I was convinced it was going to be one of the Xenos armies, but while we're here, you might as well enjoy it. Dark Angels, of course, appeared on the cover of the new Paint Sets and the Rulebook, so it shouldn't be news to anyone that they appeared in Dark Vengeance.

So what models are they? Take a look at the video...

http://youtu.be/hG70lTjCZZA

Rather than go through each unit one by one, which would be little more than a running commentary on the video and would bore myself and all my readers who'd probably only get as far as the second paragraph, I'm just going to give you a run through my first impressions.

What I like about Dark Vengeance

• Thematically, I'm expecting a lot of depth to this. All the boxed sets up until now have been Space Marines vs Xenos army, straightforward good guys vs bad guys, all well and good. But simply by changing the Space Marine chapter to Dark Angels, and throwing Chaos Space Marines in there, we've got an army that's essentially good but will act ruthlessly to persue their goals, and a villianous army based on betrayal, so there's a lot more going on here than simply Alien vs Man.
• The models are gorgeous. I doubt there'll be much flexibility in their assembly - that's never the point of boxed sets - but the fact that they've put a lot of character into even the Tactical Marines means that they'll be a joy to paint and will look great on the gaming table. They really do capture the essence of what it means to be a Space Marine, or a follower of Chaos.
• The Chaos models were a bit of a curveball for reasons I mentioned above. However, watch the video again and see what they've got in there. Chosen! As far as I know there have never been specific models for Chosen Chaos Space Marines before, then they go and put this lot out. I am a fan of what's happening right now. Chaos Cultists, there's a distinct feeling of "about fucking time!" Cultists have long been under the radar in 40K. They appear in the Imperial Armour books, and are used quite heavily in some of the novels, but there's never been specific models for them before now so they've had to be converted from Imperial Guard if you wanted to use them; they've certainly not appeared in the Chaos Codex before now. This will be a welcome addition to the armies of Chaos, though I am a little concerned with how, if at all, they will interfere with my army lists when they release the new Chaos Codex. Which they'll have to do because even without the cultists you've got the Helbrute. This I think is going to replace the Chaos Dreadnought, and not a moment too soon. I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all works; it's kind of ironic that the Chaos Lord in there is just about the least interesting model for me, though his epic design more than makes up for it.
• Where Chaos have their new models, there is a lot of variety in the Dark Angels side of things. Tactical Marines, Deathwing Terminators, Ravenwing Bikes, a Commander and a Librarian, it surpasses (just) Black Reach in the variety of models on offer here.

However, there's always stuff to pick holes in...

What I don't like about Dark Vengeance

• I don't want to turn this into a rant about the crass marketing tactics that Games Workshop often employ, but you are going to need A LOT of paints to paint this set properly. Unless you really know what you're doing with mixing colours, a Hobby Starter Set won't be enough any more. The Dark Angels alone have 4 different colours of armour, and that's before you start painting weapons and faces. The amount of detail on the Chaos models won't be easy to paint properly either. Now I'm not going to have too much of a problem with this, because I've got most of the paints and I'm confident enough in my painting now to be able to do a barely passable job on most of these models. But for a box that purports to be the entry into the hobby, there's a lot of complexity in the painting going on that might be just a little too much for a 10 year old kid getting into the hobby for the first time. Apart from anything else, you're going to have to drop a lot of money on paints...
• Still no terrain! What's the matter with you? Wargames need terrain and that isn't being provided in the boxed set! The opportunities for a new piece of terrain to go with this lot were there and they haven't taken it. Again for a full hobbyist, this won't be a problem as most will either have their own terrain already or will play in a place that has, but for someone looking for a game to play at home...
• The price, that was always going to come up in the end. When Black Reach first came out I remember selling it for £40. Games Workshop are asking for £65 for the limited edition with a couple of other models in there, which they may drop down to £60 when they're all gone, I don't know. But the fact remains that they're expecting me to pay £25 more for this game than I did for the last one. I do consider this quite harsh!

But of course the main issue here is, am I going to buy it?

Probably.

But not yet. There's not a lot of money around at the moment. Basically because I work for DPA and I'm paid on supply, I only get paid at the end of the month for the work I did in the previous one. Which in August is nothing. Which is what they'll pay me. So I'm expected to survive from now until the end of October on whatever they're paying me for July, which won't be a lot because I didn't work the whole month. I will therefore almost certainly miss the limited edition, not that I'm particularly fussed about that. I'm a gamer first and painter second, though you wouldn't know it for how much of both of those things I do in proportion to the other, so extra HQ choices and more stuff for me to paint is not going to sell it for me.

On the other hand those Chaos models are great and there will be a guide in the book that tells me how to use them; I'd love to get my hands on that, even if it will all be in the new Chaos Codex, who knows when that's going to be? Sooner than I thought, most likely, because of the new models, but we will see. I've got a birthday coming up, so...

So, overall pleased with my first impressions for the boxed set. Probably not going to go for the rest of the stuff that goes with it though. Dice and Tape Measures I have, a figure case would be a complete waste of money as they will all happily fit in a regular one after a bit of work with scissors, and the game tie-in novels invariably turn out to be rubbish.

Let me know what you think....

Lord of the Rings: 20/8/2012

This was part of Simon's campaign where I found my forces of Harad - now with the same number of bows as spears - taking on my old friend Jaques' Spirit force, lead by the Witch King of Angmar. I'd elected to attack Jaques because he was getting a little too close to my territory for comfort...

Now that I'd added the extra models to my army I had some 21 models to bring to the fight. Jaques had 9. We both rolled the same mission, which was to kill 75% of one another's forces. As I only had to kill 7 models in order to do this, I definitely had the advantage of numbers. However, armies with small numbers tend to have high defence, and this army was no exception; I think the lowest defence was 6. I deployed my army in a bow line that would have allowed me to volley fire should I wish, made sure I was within 24" of Jaques' line, and began...

There was a ruined building in the middle of the board which I fully expected Jaques to take. I also knew that his army was far better in combat than mine so I elected to take a 'Stand and Shoot' approach. My rolling was, as ever, abysmal, and after 2 turns of concentrated fire I only managed to take down 1 of the spirits. I was not tempted to try a volley fire; maybe if Jaques had more numbers I might have tried that but as his high defence meant that I was going to have to be very lucky to score a wound, I saw no sense in making it even harder for me to hit than it already was. Still, one was down. There was just the rather pressing matter of the Witch King approaching me...

I really don't know as much as I should about what the Ringwraiths are capable of, but I knew that the Witch King could do me some serious harm if I allowed him to get close enough. I therefore turned my attentions, and my bows, over to him; moving back 3 inches per turn and pouring shot after shot into hi,. Whether it was tactically a mistake to do this I don't know, but even without my archers missing almost every shot they made, his defence of 8 made him almost impossible to hurt once I hit. I did manage it a couple of times, but Jaques made use of his Might and Fate points to keep the Ringwraith alive long enough to get close enough to start using his spells.



The Witch King: he will MAUL your shit...

And this is where it really started to get nasty. Ringwraiths have a spell called Sap Will. If they cast it on a character with Will points, the effect of the spell is that it reduces that character's will points down to 0. It doesn't usually do any direct damage to the character, but it does leave them unable to resist more damaging magic attacks later on. If Ringwraiths start casting it on each other, the effect can be devastating. Remember that Ringwraiths need at least 1 point of Will to remain in the game; if they're ever reduced to 0 they're removed as a casualty. If the spell is cast on a Ringwraith - which Jaques did to me, twice - and you don't manage to resist it, then all you can do is use however many Will points you failed the roll by to bring the resist roll up to where you need it. As you can imagine, it did not go particularly well for me. I responded with Black Dart - I only needed to wound him once now to finish him off - but I'd forgotten that as Black Dart is a magical attack, he can resist it with Will points, of which the Witch King has a lot. He succesfully cast Sap Will on me one more time and as I was down to 1 will point by then, I lost the Betrayer and the special rule he confered on my bows.

While all this was going on Jaques had been slowly moving his Spirits out of the cover of the ruins towards me. They have a special rule which allows them to command my models if they fail a Courage check, and with the Witch King so near, this was an almost certainty. He seperated the components of my army apart, and destroyed them piecemeal with the Ringwraith and the Spirits. I called time on the game a couple of turns after my force broke and handed the game to Jaques.

So, what went wrong?

Well, I can blame it all on bad luck but the fact of the matter is I was in way over my head taking on Jaques. My army just wasn't strong enough to match his power. Strategically, the lessons I had learned last week did the job, but with such a high defence and my army having to take courage checks if they wanted to charge anything at all in the army, it was always going to be an uphill struggle for me.

Nonetheless, there are a couple of things I might need to think about should such a situation arise again:

1. I set a lot of store by destroying the Ringwraith, and that wasn't necessarily the best thing to do. Even with their high defence, the Spirits would have been easier to destroy than the Ringwraith and as I needed to take out 7 of them to win the game, my efforts might have been better directed there. Granted, they were in cover, and the Witch King would have blocked my line of sight to at least some of them, but it might have tipped the battle in my favour, or at least made that last combat less painful.
2. Regardless of whether I attacked the Ringwraith or the Spirits, two turns in was not the time to change tac. I needed to commit to one or the other right from the start in order to get the job done. If I'd attacked the Witch King straight away I'd have had another two turns of shooting at him before he got close enough to use his powers; I don't know if it would have made much difference but all the Will points in the world won't help you if I've shot you to pieces before you get a chance to use them. (Unless you're running The Undying.)
3. I also need to be far more aware of what it means to cast the different spells in the game. I really needed to know what Sap Will did, and got in with that first. Then again, would that really have helped? A wizard's duel between Ringwraiths is basically going to be a battle of attrition, with the prize going to the Ringwraith with the highest Will Points, in this case the Witch King. Probably would have been better to take on the Witch King purely with conventional weapons

Basically, I think that battle was going to come down to whosever Ringwraith was still alive by the the end of the game. Jaques needed his to keep my Courage down to allow his Spirits to use their command rules, I needed mine because that was basically the only thing in my army that had a hope of hurting the Spirits.

Lessons learned, and there are battles still to be had. Not next week though. As it's Bank Holiday Monday, the shop will close at 6 so there'll be no campaign that night. Maybe the week after...

Roleplaying Games: Which Edition? Which Game?

It's a little bit funny that for all the things I really ought to be doing today, I choose at 11.55am to do the thing that's probably the least useful to me out of all of them and write a blog. Probably me at my most typical, if I'm perfectly honest.

It's so hard to get a game in; who cares what edition it is when you do?

OK this somewhat follows on from the Bitter Veterans post I made last week, and was inspired by a YouTube video from a Youtuber I've been following called Andrew, AKA DawnForgedCast. He's done a lot of really interesting posts about Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying games over the past year and it's always a pleasure to watch. This particular time he was talking about the question of what edition of what game you're supposed to be playing, given the hostility some gamers have towards editions of the game other than the one they actually play.

Here's the video: http://youtu.be/zKcYXMJ8tVs

But if you can't be bothered to click the link, here are his main points, paraphrased according to my interpretation of them. His comments refer to North America rather than the rest of the world, but apart from the religious fanatics which doesn't appear to happen on the same level, I can't imagine the situation is that much different here in the UK, obviously relative to the size of the countries:

• There is a lot of divide and hostility towards different games, and different editions of games. Many people will settle on one game or one edition and refuse to play or even try any others.
• Out of all the people in America, only a very small percantage of them - some 2 million people - actually play tabletop roleplaying games. (He's gone on sales figures here so the number of people who actually play might have been a bit higher than he suggests, but not much.)
• Out of those 2 million people, 1 third of them play Pathfinder, 1 third play Dungeons and Dragons and 1 third play other games, e.g. Shadowrun.
• Out of the third that play Dungeons and Dragons, about half of them stick to 4th edition and the others stick to other editions.
• Given that Andrew plays Pathfinder, this gives him approximately 650,000 people in America to play with.
• He then goes on to explain that given his own limitations, the number of people he could actually play with are quite small.
• Given all this, why are the very small number of people who actually play games like this spending so much time and energy arguing over what to play, or what edition of the game to play? Surely it's hard enough to get a game together in the first place without it falling apart over disagreements to editions...
• As an afterthought, he then adds that about 30-40% of the people who don't play are actually against such games exisiting at all for religious reasons. So when more people are against it than actually play, why are the people who do play bickering about edtions etc?

By Andrew's own admission the actual data is innaccurate and could have been a little better researched, but he was doing this to make a point, not give an accurate view on the gaming world today.

Which is good, because I think he actually makes a really good point there. I don't find it easy to get a game of Dungeons and Dragons or anything like that going, and a lot of it is to do with conceptions of what game I should and shouldn't be playing.

So, to turn this in to my point, here's a list of preferences that I would like to see when I'm playing Role Playing Games:

• I'd like it to either be Pathfinder or D&D 4th.
• I'd like the players to be in Dudley or the surrounding areas.
• I don't want to play with anybody under the age of 18
• I'd like to have a full compliment of players (4 or 5 people.) I'd also like some continuity - mid/long term adventures and campaigns.
• I can't usually make Thursday Nights, and I can't do weekends either.

If I stick rigidly to this, then out of the very small percentage of people who play in the UK, I've written off:

• Everybody who doesn't play D&D 4th or Pathfinder,
• Everybody who doesn't live in Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton, Walsall or West Birmingham,
• Everybody under the age of 18
• Small/solo adventures.
• 4 out of the 7 days in the week.

Now there are reasons for all of these limitations I've imposed upon myself:

• I have the rules for Pathfinder and D&D 4th, and they are still being supported by their respective designers and publishers. I'm not all that willing to spend even more money than I already have on another game that I've only got a small chance of ever being able to play!
• I do a lot of miles in my car already and it's not exactly eco friendly. That and journeys take time that I don't necessarily have. I don't think I should have to trave for miles and miles to get an experience that I ought to be able to get far more locally.
• Because I teach guitar for Dudley Performing Arts, I have to be very careful about social contact with people under the age of 18. I'd have to be absolutely crystal clear about who they are, how they know me, whether their parents know where they are and what they're doing, do they have consent etc. It sounds brutal, but the fact is that even the most innocent of intentions can turn into an allegation if interpreted incorrectly, and if that happens, it will come up on any future CRB check even if it is disproved. Which would pretty much destroy any hope I've got of getting a job.
• Not being funny but part of the reason the games are so good is when you use the combined abilities of the group to achieve something that can't be done alone. Plus when you're trying to come up with solo adventures you're severely restricted to what you can put in there in terms of challenges; anything but the most basic monsters and traps will result in TPK (Total Party Kill) before the adventure's even got started, so I'd prefer more players rather than less.
• Thursdays I go to Black Country Role Playing Society in Blackheath, and every other weekend I see my girlfriend, who isn't interested in Roleplaying and also lives 90 miles away so it's very impractical to get anything going on a weekend.

However, the practical upshot of all this is that after nearly a year of trying to organise a game, all I've managed to do for any length of time is have Dave around for a solo adventure; we've both run games for each other. Not that we haven't tried to get a larger group together, but:

• Most of my friends would rather eat broken glass coated with cyanide than get involved with wargaming/roleplaying, (seriously, I'm embarrased even to ask them,)
• The majority of people I know who do play tabletop RPGs are either dead against D&D 4th, meet on days I can't do, or both,
• Out of the two exceptions to this, one came for a little while and then flaked out after a couple of weeks due to other commitments,
• The other is Dave.

Dave's been trying to get some people involved in it as well, and he knows enough people to do it but they all manage to come up with reasons why they can't make it that night or whatever.

Now, I mentionted BCRPS that I've been going to for about a year and a half now. This is basically ways I've got of making it happen, and in fact was the first roleplaying group I got involved with. They're not shy of new members, but because it's a group of 20-30 people, they do have to organise it accordingly to make sure everybody can play. The games run on an 8-week rotational basis and different games with different players/settings/GMs are organised each rotation, so that people are not stuck indefinitely in 1 game. It's a good way of getting games in that you're not used to. So far I've tried Pathfinder, Leagues of Adventure (based on Ubiquity,) Traveller, Star Wars, Shadowrun, Savage Worlds and Call of Cuthulu. Some I've enjoyed more than others but I've never not enjoyed it. However it does mean that it's almost impossible to get any kind of continuity with the games or play at higher levels than 1 to about 3; they're all either seperate adventures or if they are part of a campaign, it's not easy to get the campaign going beyond the first adventure because even if you do run it later, most of your players will be comitted to other games by then.

Well, that's just the way it works with those guys, and between that and not playing, I know which I would rather have. So simply by getting rid of 2 of those limitations I mentioned earlier (the choice of games and the continuity) I can ensure that I'll usually play at least something every week. And since most people I know think this sort of thing is a complete waste of time anyway, or if they don't they certainly have no interest in being involved with it, that's got to count for something.

Now I understand that certain games may be better for some demographics than others. If you've been roleplaying for a while then I get why you'd probably like Pathfinder or Cuthulu better than the current edition of D&D, and that's fine. I wouldn't necessarily unleash a complete beginner on either game, and in fact I'm in the early stages of coming up with some D&D adventures that beginners can play and enjoy without getting bogged down by too many rules, another blog for another time. But people who say things like 'I only play 3.5,' or 'D&D 4th is crap,' are only further dividing what is a very small hobby. From what I've seen of the various different games, a lot of the enjoyment comes from your approach to it as players/Game Masters anyway.

This applies to Wargaming as well by the way - I've been with Games Workshop for 13 years but I would be open to trying something a little bit different in the right spirit.

So - you know who you are - try something a bit different! Try and enjoy it instead of looking for reasons why you won't. You might be surprised.

Lord of the Rings, 13/8/2012

It had been a long time since I'd played a proper game of Lord of the Rings, and as Simon is running a campaign in the shop now is probably a really good time to try to get some games in. As much as I would like to have made this post a little more colourful, unfortunately I forgot my camera so I couldn't get any shots of the battle. Also I'm going to avoid mentioning the name of my opponent, who was quite young and inexperienced, and needed a bit of help with the rules to the game.

Because of the way the battles are organised, what we had was 300 points my army of Harad taking on a similar sized army of Goblins of Moria. Our objectives were different; my Harad had to kill more than 75% of the goblin army, whereas the Goblins had to kill the commander of my army, The Betrayer. My army consisted of several bows, quite a few spearmen, a captain, a banner and a couple of Serpent Guard. Under the advice of Simon, the goblins were all Blackshields, they had with them a shaman, a troll and a warg marauder. Terrain consisted of a Realm of Battle Hill on my side of the board, and a group of trees somewhere in the middle; this was to have some serious consequences on the outcome of the battle.

The Betrayer - Not my model; the GW promo pics.

The army list was, in and of itself, worrying - with the majority of the models in the Goblin army being defence 6 and my highest strength not much higher than 3, this was going to be a tough nut to crack. What worried me more was their objective: Ringwraiths have to use their Will points to be fully effective, but if they run out - remember, they lose one Will point every time they get into a fight - they are banished and effectively destroyed. With the destruction of my commander being the Goblin's objective, putting the responsibility for staying alive on a Ringwraith is a very risky business indeed.

For that reason I decided to make the best use I could find of the defensive position on the hill; spearmen in front to take the inevitable charge, bowmen on the hilltop where they had a good vantage point, Betrayer behind them to make the best use of the Master of Poisons rule. Here came my first mistake of the game - I decided to drop the spearmen down the hill to the slope running down. My idea was to meet the Goblin army head on. Quite apart from the fact that I failed a jump roll and sent one of the spearmen tumbling to his death, it didn't make much tactical sense either since I could now no longer make use of the defensive position afforded by the hill. Still, it freed up some some room for the later battle.

My opponent surprised me by marching his army towards me. Given that my objective was to kill 75% of his models, and the Harad rules for bows (they're allowed to take half their army with bows rather than the usual third) making an advance close to suicide, he'd have been better of skirting around the edge of the trees, which would have forced me to take the battle to him. As it turned out it didn't affect matters too much because my shooting was absolutely atrocious, and on the few occasions when I did manage to hit something, I almost always failed my wound rolls.

This all changed when for some reason my opponent stuck his Warg Marauder out in front. Despite the fact that the lower defence actually shouldn't have made a difference (strength 2 bows need a 6 to wound against defence 5 or 6) I managed to dispatch it pretty quickly. The goblins were proving problematic, as my opponent had also cast Fury on them giving them a '6+ save' against taking a wound, which he was extraordinarily lucky with. The practical upshot of all of this was when the battle lines finally met, we hadn't been able to do much to each other's armies. This was going to be a long battle...

The battle itself wasn't all that interesting. The goblin's low skill gave me the upper hand in combat, but my warrior's low strength made them horribly ineffective. There were times when I was very glad of my banner - Harad are all but useless without it - but they very rarely rolled high enough on the Strike roll to kill many goblins. It truly was a battle of attrition.

Things got bit more interesting when the Cave Troll of all things snuck around the battle lines and made a break for the Betrayer. Despite his entourage of bowmen actually doing more damage to each other than they did to the troll, the Ringwraith managed to Black Dart the troll enough times to kill it. At that point, the battle was over; all it was going to be after that was a long hard slog with each other's infantry. If it had gone on, I think I would probably have won it simply by having my commander at the back rather than the front. However, as my opponent had run out of time, we had to call it a draw at that point.

The result is that I now have an extra 25 points to add to my army. How will I change the list? Read on...

After every battle, it pays to reflect for a few moments on what you could and should have done differently. I've already mentioned my mistake in abandoning my defensive position. Also, and I keep forgetting to do this with Harad, there is absolutely no point in deploying my spearmen ahead of the bowmen. The whole point of spears it to use them as supporting weapons. Bowmen are all but useless as archers once the battle lines meet, but all Haradrim Warriors have hand weapons by default. So by deploying my spearmen behind them, I've effectively doubled the amount of attacks I can bring to a combat, which might just give me a better edge than a one-on-one slugfest that I got involved with in that last battle. They have no better defence to bring to the battle so I may as well.

That being the case, I'm going to use my extra points to compliment this, and try to design an army that has at least as many bows as close combat orientated troops. The effectiveness of the bows depends on luck as much as anything else, but I can find other uses for them...

In the campaign, I've got a long way to go to catch up with the people who are already ahead, but that's not going to stop me trying. If I come across Simon or Jaques, it's going to be a painful battle as they are absolutely brutal players, but I will at least try to make a game of it as they're nice kids, Simon in particular has gone to a lot of trouble to organise this so I think I owe him a game.

See you next Monday, hopefully!

Bitter Veterans

OK normally I'm not one for moaning about people on my blog. It's not something I've done since I used to do gig reviews; in all honesty I'm not a fan of receiving the backlash that comes with saying negative things about people. It rarely came up because I was never nasty about it, but the few times it did knocked my confidence quite a bit.

However, with the games I've been involved with in the last sort of year and a half, and some of the conversations I've had with people, there is a demographic with which I find my patience rapidly receding into the dark and spite-filled hole from whence it came. That demographic is what I've now come to recognise as 'Bitter Veterans,' and since there are quite a few of this sort of people around and I know many in person, I'm in quite a strong postition to say I'm not talking about anybody in particular here. When I refer to specific conversations I'm not going to use names, most of them ought to know who they are and if they've got a problem with what I'm saying, well, maybe they should think about the reasons why I'm saying it and be a bit more careful what they're saying in future.

So what is a 'Bitter Veteran?' Let's start with Veteran shall we - I don't really know what characteristics you need to be able to call yourself a veteran but I tend to find they're people who've been doing the hobbies for a long time and are particularly good at playing the game or painting the models where applicable, or both. Now I've been doing the Games Workshop hobby on and off for half my lifetime and I don't think I'm much good at either painting or gaming, and I don't consider myself a veteran for that reason. So it's a subjective matter as much as anything else.

I'm afraid that my attitude towards veterans isn't always kind, and this is largely to do with the time I spent working for Games Workshop. A lot of the reason it caused me so much anxiety was that I always had to make a terrific effort to go up to people and talk to them, and particularly if I knew those people didn't want me talking to them. With veterans, I'd say this was the case about 80% of the time. Understandable to a degree - I know the GW staff come on too strong sometimes, and it can put people off going in to the shop at all so it's not surprising that veterans don't always think too kindly of the GW staff either. But what I really didn't like when they would say things like "I've been doing this longer than you've been alive," as though I'm not going to find that the slightest bit condescending. The worst one I had was when I worked in the Walsall store, which at that time was packed with veterans who didn't think I had the right to be telling them anything at all and that I should just let them get on with it. Every single time I worked in that shop I closed up wishing I didn't work for the company, it was horrible. The specific incident I'm talking about was when one person I'd never seen before but was clearly a hobbyist - he knew everyone in the shop and had a certain 'look' about him - came into the shop to either buy a model or pick up a mail order, I can't quite remember which. When I handed over whatever it was I asked him if he'd got all his clippers, glue, paints etc, a perfectly reasonable question that I would have asked anyone who'd brought a model. He gave me a look of bitter amusement then looked back into the shop, saying to everyone something to the general effect of "He's asking me if I've got clippers and glue?" There's something about being treated like a pile of dog mess that still resonates with me, years later.

Now to avoid tarring everybody with the same brush, some veterans are actually really nice people when I get talking to them. Most of the ex-staffers I'd happily sit and talk to for hours. A lot of the regulars who went into the Dudley store when I worked there I have no problem with. Even one or two of the tournament players, with whom I usually entertain very little patience indeed, escaped my prejudice because they had no problem with talking to me and understood what needed to be considered in a shop environment. And it's those people whose names and company and remember as being the good bit about working for GW.

So, moving on. Bitter Veterans, what are they? Well, for a start, applying everything I've just said about veterans, bitter veterans are miserable buggers who don't really enjoy the hobby anymore and think that nobody else should either. Everybody's story is different, but the pattern rarely varies: At some point, the game company they have been following for years and years and years have done something, said something, or heaven forbid release a new version of their game, the bitter veteran isn't happy with it and on principle decides to boycott the game, the company and all who play it. The reason they annoy me so much is that they've somehow got the idea that just because they think that something is rubbish, that means that no one else is allowed to enjoy it either.

And what better time to see them cropping up like boils on a backside than after Games Workshop release 6th Edition of 40K? One particular conversation I saw on Facebook yesterday involved one person wanting to sell something like 27,000 points worth of Tau because the new rules didn't fit his tactics, and he'll never play the game again. Now I can understand that some of the new rules don't fit all the armies quite as well as they did before, but to be brutally honset this nothing more than a bitter veteran having a strop. A few holes in his comments to pick out straight away:

1. The Tau codex was designed for 4th edition. Of course it's not going to work as well with 6th; that shouldn't be news to anyone.
2. That being the case, Tau are probably going to get an update in the mid term future, where they'll be resdesigned to work just as well as they ever did, if not better.
3. In the meantime, if you have 27,000 points of an army and can't find SOMETHING that works in the new edition of the game then you probably shouldn't be playing it anyway. Be honest, when did you last play a game?

So yeah, go ahead and sell everything you've spent all that time and money building up just because you're not happy with a change in the rules that alters the way you use the army in the game. Really clever decision, that.

I saw this quite a lot with the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy as well, a lot of people who I knew from the shop - I'd not long left, at that point - wanting to sell their armies because they don't like the new edition of the game, their armies don't work, or whatever. Now, I'm not being funny, but if your current army doesn't work, it can't be that much of a tall order to find something that does? I shouldn't imagine that it would be much more of a job than coming up with an army list that will work better in the game, and buying another couple of units if you need to? I'm not sure how many Warhammer armies get an update in one gaming iteration - I've never really sat Warhammer out from one edition to the next so I don't actually know when a lot of the current army books were published - but chances are, if your army is that bad for the current edition of Warhammer, an update can't be far away? And GW have more freedom to do this with Warhammer than they do with 40K because they aren't restricted to lavishing so much attention on Space Marines...

Now I've seen a blog from FrontlineGamer - well worth a read - who is quite adamant about his dislike of the current edition of Warhammer Fantasy. Initial reading of his blog might make him come across as the kind of veteran that I wouldn't necessarily enjoy talking to while I worked for GW. But looking a little deeper and you discover that his opinions are formed not by taking the popular opinion, or by looking at the rulebook and deciding he hates it, but by road-testing it and actually playing some games. Reading his coverage on Warhammer, he did actually give the new edition a go and found that he didn't enjoy it because of the way the game plays. Now to me, that's fair enough, for two reasons:

1. He's formed an opinion on something more solid than arrogant wishful thinking
2. At no point during any of his reviews does he instuct that people do not play the game; he recognises that others have their own opinions and reviews are there to form and assist opinions, not instruct. So he's never said "None of you must ever play Warhammer 8th!"

I see it in other games as well, and if you want to see a spawning ground for bitter veterans look no further than Dungeons and Dragons. My word, that game divides opinion like no other. Spend 10 minutes on Youtube, guarantee you'll find someone's posted a rant to the general effect of (dorky scene kid voice) "Oh wow dude, like, no one can play D&D 4th because it's, like, totally retarded, and it's all about the combat and not about the roleplaying, and it's destroyed everything that Dungeons and Dragons is supposed to be about, and it's like, whoa..." and his mate standing next to him going "Schyeah, whoa..." No wonder I find it so hard to get a game in, if even its own demographic aren't prepared to take the game for what it is and give it a go.

I could go on, but... Basically, I find conversations with bitter veterans uncomfortable, claustrophobic and infuriating. It's ironic that they voice their opinions about games so strongly as they are the people I am least likely to listen to. Because at the end of the day, I can't help but think that most of them are moaning for it's own sake; they like to have a bit of a whinge, and because they're not enjoying something quite as much as they did before they think that none of the rest of us are allowed to enjoy it either.

Now, I'm not exactly rushing to Games Workshop or Wizards of the Coast's aid here. They're the more popular companies for roleplaying and wargames and are easy to pick on. I know GW has made some appalling decisions in the last few years that I don't agree with, but funnily enough I'm still coming back to them after 13 years... Because the plain fact is that with the popularity of their games still outstripping their competition by quite a long way, this is where the new hobbyists/gamers/roleplayers are going to come from. And by refusing to get involved in anything new, all they're doing is stifling themselves from the evolution of their own hobby. Change is going to happen - it has to. Otherwise the companies that make the games will stagnate, fold completely and you'll be left with all you've got now. It will never change, and you'll be stuck playing the same game for however long it takes you to get fed up with it.

In the spirit of this, I sometimes find myself in a position of responisbility when I'm running games; it's up to me to make sure that everybody's having a good time so that they'll come back and have another go; I'll talk about that another time.

So yeah. Not a fan of bitter veterans.

Now I've avoided saying what I think about the new edition of 40K because that's something for another blog I think. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can get some new painting blogs and some commentary on my armies out. Until then, ciao, hope you've enjoyed my thankfully rare rant and I'll see y'all again soon.

What's New for 6th Edition 40K

Been a while since I've posted! I burned out doing the Dungeons and Dragons blogs, and I haven't done much else in gaming for a while so I've not really had all that much to say. Today, however...

Been thinking a lot about the new edition of 40K out next week. I went in to Workshop today as it happens, and they gave me a card with the date on, I won't be going in. Not being funny, but even if I did want to go in on a day where they were releasing a new game so that you can't move for the amount of people in there, I am otherwise occupied that day! However, I have been thinking about what changes they're going to make, not necessarily with the rules, I've covered that already, but with what they're going to release, in what order, and why.

Well if they follow the pattern for the last edition, we're looking at a new rulebook next week, and sometime in September they're going to release a new boxed set for it. This leads to the inevitable speculation about what they're going to put in there. Obviously it'll include Space Marines, you can't not have Space Marines in a 40K boxed set, though the paint set that I understand has already been released is suggesting very strongly that it will be the Dark Angels who feature in the boxed set this time. Nothing wrong with that; Ultramarines have been in the last 2 boxed sets, so it won't hurt to show some love to the other chapters! (As far as I know, the boxed sets for 2nd and 3rd edition weren't based on any specific chapters of Space Marines, though the Blood Angels and Black Templars featured on their respective cover art.)

So, what's the other side going to be? Well, I'll tell you what it won't be: Imperial Guard, Grey Knights or Sisters of Battle. Thematically, the game needs to be straightforward 'Good vs Evil,' and while a lot of the rich drama in 40K includes the imperium of man fighting against itself for various different reasons, themes like this are things you can immerse yourself in when you're hooked, not when you're just getting into it. Ultimately, 40K is about Mankind's struggle for survival in a hostile galaxy, so it needs to be good guys vs bad guys, not good guys vs good guys with different ideas.

Nor will it be Chaos Space Marines. This is more to do with the rules than anything else, as Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines work in pretty much the same way. If you look at the stat line of both, the only real differences are that Space Marines have They Shall Know No Fear, whereas Chaos have a slightly higher leadership value. They still move in much the same way, they both need 3+ to hit when shooting, and will wound on 4+, they'll both get 4+ to hit and 4+ to wound in close combat and both get a save of 3+.

Contrast that with what we've got now in Assault on Black Reach, where Space Marines and Orks have substantially different stat lines and fight completely differently, and you start to see my point. If they go ahead and put Chaos in the boxed set, they'll have a situation where it actually won't matter which side you're playing because they both fight in the same way. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; Space Marines vs Chaos battles are always bloody and really good fun, but in a boxed set designed to get people into the hobby, you need that differentiation. People have got to feel a substantial difference when playing the two different sides. I would imagine they'd leave Necrons out of the boxed set as well, for much the same reason.

This leaves Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Orks and Tryanids. Out of this lot we can write off Orks straight aways as they were in Assault on Black Reach; even Games Workshop wouldn't be so stupid as to release a boxed set that is so fundementally similar to the last one that their currently existing fanbase feel cheated. (Or at least, more cheated than they already do.) Tryanids and Dark Eldar have already featured in boxed sets as well; that doesn't necessarily mean they won't get featured again, but... I'd quite like to see the Eldar in there, if I'm honest. I think they're a race that's not seen a lot of light over the last few years, and are different enough from Space Marines to get a challenging experience of playing the opposite army if it comes to it.

Oh, and put some scenery in there as well, please. I've already covered this so I won't go into it too much but I still maintain that this is all that's been missing from AoBR.

So with the boxed set out of the way, what's next?

Surely any of the Space Marine chapters could use this?

Well, again if GW follow the regular pattern there'll be a new Space Marines codex out not long after; it'll be 2008 all over again. There's the obvious reason for it - once again, it's Space Marines, you can't not do Space Marines - but also Space Marines have now added a lot of flyers to their roster that don't feature in the current codex. I remember when the Stormraven came out and a lot of people were thinking, 'what, so you can only use it if you collect Blood Angels?'  And while the Storm Talons look good, currently you'll only be able to use them if you've got the current edition of White Dwarf in which they're featured. Of course, this update could be done with a PDF, so what other changes will they make to the Space Marines in the next codex? Over to you...

Let's see these in their own box...

For pretty much the same reason I would expect an update for the Orks in the not too distant future; their new flyers will need some new rules printed in a codex on general release. Oh, and while we're on the subject, can we have Deffkoptas out on general release as well? I really didn't want to have to buy several copies of Black Reach in order to use more than 3 of them in the army. When you think about the extra customisation options that come with the Ork vehicle kits these days, quite frankly I'm astounded they haven't done this already, but hey - it was their own game plan and they stuck to it!

Of course with Orks, GW have the added incentive that they haven't had an update since 4th edition. Actually, if they time an Ork release for early next year, not only will they be able to use that 'Januwhaaarrggghhyyy' pun again, but also there couldn't really be a better time for a new Ork codex. I think in 5th edition 40k, the Orks worked pretty much as well as they needed to. In 6th, they might need a bit more of a going over depending on how the rules change, and as the archetypical 'bad guy' army for 40K, I don't think we'll have to wait too long for a new codex.

How long have we been wating for an update to this?

Beyond that, it's difficult to say for certain. However, if it's true that they're putting Dark Angels in the new boxed set, or even if it isn't, I don't think we're too far away from a new Dark Angels codex. GW re-released most of the other non-Ultarmarines-based Space Marine armies throughout 5th edition, Dark Angels and Black Templars missed out on that to a degree but I think an update will be on the cards, if not for this year then certainly throughout the 6th edition of 40K.

Of course, there are some Space Marine chapters that have never really had their own codex. Imperial Fists, for example, Raven Guard or Iron Hands. I can sort of see the reason for this - making an army based on these chapters is really more about who and what you have in the army rather than any special rules to apply across an entire chapter. I think that's why the current Space Marine codex relies on the Chapter Tactics special rules. What do you think? Would you like to see new codexes for these armies? Or will this open too many 'power creep' doors?

Anyone else think it's time for an update?

Then there are the other armies that haven't had an update since 4th edition; Chaos, Tau and Eldar. Well if they put any of those in the boxed set (see earlier comments) then I doubt we'll be far away from a new codex as well. Now I don't know so much about Eldar but there were definitely some rules in the Tau and Chaos codex that were designed for 4th edition and work just a little bit too well in 5th. The CSM Dreadnought, for example, and which by the way is long overdue for a new model, can have a Plasma Cannon attached to it for 10 points. (With just about everything else that can use this weapon it would be about 30/40 points depending on what you were attaching it to.) Sounds horrible, until you remember that the Chaos codex was written for 4th edition when there was still such as thing as a partial hit. I suppose it makes up for it by the fact that there's a very real possibility you'll start to fry your own men with it, and also I'm pretty sure it's the only thing in the Chaos army that can use a Plasma Cannon, but it's still pretty cheap.

But the indisputable fact is that that all 3 of those armies need an update. Apart from anything else, GW have been introducing a lot of flyers into the more recent 40K armies, and Eldar and Tau's use of Anti-Grav technology lends itself to this perfectly. If GW follow the pattern I've predicted, then updates for these armies will be part of the mid-long term plan for the new edition of 40K. I hope it happens sooner rather than later though, because Necrons and Dark Eldar were screaming for an update near enough all the way through 5th edition and only really got one in the closing stages of the iteration. I just hope these armies get done before GW feel the need to release the Tryanids codex again. And Sisters of Battle need a proper update, with some new models and a proper codex. There's not much going for them at the moment and they've been missing out!

Anything else? I'm pretty sure, once enough of the armies have got Flyers, there'll be a Cites of Death/Planetstrike style expansion for 40K using mainly flyers. And why not? Dogfighting in the 40K Universe? Hell yeah, we'll have some of that! Bombing runs across an installation? Yeah, let's blow some shit up! Wow, that could work really well, and I'll be very surprised if this doesn't happen to one degree or another.

All in all, some exciting times for 40K. But hey, we need to see if the new rules are any good first. See you soon...