Rumors

Hey folks, before I begin this article I just want to say one thing: I suck at updating and posting, I know. With that out of the way I want to talk about something I don't normally weigh in on, internet rumors. We all look at them on various sites such as Bell of Lost Souls or Faeit 212 (my personal preference) and often times we get some pretty outlandish rumors filtering through from various sources. Recently Natfka has been reporting some strange rumblings about the future of GW as a company and the direction Warhammer Fantasy will be taking in the future. Let me state for the record that I have nothing but respect for Natfka. He reports the rumors and clearly states what each article is about. He doesn't pretend to report the rumors he posts as the gospel truth and corrects himself where applicable. What set  me off on this rant was what I saw today regarding changes to GW stores, mainly mass closures, in Europe, and the elimination of support for no less than FOUR Warhammer Fantasy armies. Check out the site and read the rumors and comments for yourself http://natfka.blogspot.com/ .

Now I am certainly no financial expert nor do I have any intimate knowledge of how corporate GW works. I am simply a fan who has been in the hobby for over a decade and who has had the pleasure of visiting hobby stores outside the U.S. What strikes me as bogus about this whole rumor set is the incredibly drastic nature of it. I could see possibly closing a few stores, but to eliminate your company stores on in not one, but two major European markets? I find this to be highly suspect. In July of 2013 I had the pleasure of visiting several GW stores in France, namely GW Clermont-Ferrand and GW Paris 15e. I also follow both of these stores on Facebook. GW has a pretty heavy foot print in Paris with at least four or five stores across the city. I went to both French stores on "off" days (not the weekend) and both stores had people in to game and paint as well as customers making purchases. I know that this is in no way representative of what their profits are, but it wasn't like the stores were dead. I can't imagine that Germany is any different. I am sure we all have seen the GW financial report that came out a few days ago. I think a lot of these rumors stem from people who are either trolling or hate GW for whatever reason yet still enjoy frequenting forums about the hobby. What I do find more plausible is what some have suggested, and that is a merger in regional management into a centralized management in the UK for Europe.

Regarding the rumors about Fantasy I really can't say much other than I find them very hard to believe. Eliminating support for four armies is a radical move to say the least. A lot of rumors and discussions have been floating around the web about the direction Fantasy will take. Some have said that a new edition is in the works that will include all of the army lists in the core rule book while others have said that armies with "similar themes" will be rolled into single books (Empire and Bretonia into a single book for example). I find all of this talk of merger a bit hard to swallow. In the case of The Empire and Bretonia you have two very culturally and technologically different civilizations with The Empire being a late medieval/renaissance Holy Roman Empire and Bretonia being very clearly feudal France. The same can be said for the three Elven factions and the undead as well. The only thing I could see making sense for a merger would be the factions of Chaos. If they rolled Warriors, Daemons, and Beastmen into one giant book I wouldn't feel so bad about dropping $50.

So where am I going with all of this rambling?

 Well I don't really know. I guess my point is to be careful what you believe on the web.

Been a while....

Howdy folks,

Well it has been a while but I am back to do some blogging again. Since I last wrote I have been there has been a lot going on, both hobby wise and in my everyday life. Over the summer I had the opportunity to go back to France to do some archaeological work. Not only was this an amazing time with some great excavations, but I was lucky enough to scope out some hobby goodness while in Clermont-Ferrand and Paris. Needless to say I will be reporting my findings in a future article. I also have moved into a new apartment/condo/thing and I have a pretty awesome set up for hobby activities now. In the realm of hobby a lot of great stuff has come out over the past few months. The biggest things for me have been the new Space Marines and the Dark Elves. With the new Marines I have decided to do a small force of a codex related chapter, the Iron Snakes in this case. I will be doing a review for the Marines and Dark Elves and new models like I have done for the High Elves and Dark Angels in the past. I hope to have some cool stuff for you folks in the near future, that is if I can get off my busy yet lazy ass to write!

Happy gaming folks!

I will leave you with some photos of what I have been up to lately:

And here is a photo from one of the sites I got to excavate in France.

The above photo shows part of a Medieval house. 

Painters block

So I was in a bit of a hobby slump so I had to get creative on how to get out of it. So after being all inspired with chaos and getting in to the shop to game with people, i got busy and couldnt game anymore and i am saving my monies for a nice new comp rig so no new models so I wasnt inspired anymore. I wasnt painting, i wasnt working on army builds, i wasnt drawing or reading any BL books I wasnt doing anything GW related, I wasnt even posting to you good readers.

Well I moved into a new apartment, really effing close to GW atlanta. so i decided to inspire myself.

almost everything

And before you ask, yes I did, new place plenty of room, no roommate, girlfriend or mom to make this awkward so i went for it. and you know what it worked.

My favorite part of warhammer has always been being the field general and just setting up my troops in formations. So here I took every army I have and almost every model i have and put it out there, so this is a conglomeration of high elves, dwarves, skaven, lizardmen, tomb kings and chaos warriors. So i deployed these as one big ass army, i would say around 10k points, probably more. all the cav on one flank, all the monsters on the other. skirmishers in the front, heavies behind, solid blocks behind and big blocks in the rear, with missles and heavy weapons generally on the flanks with characters scattered around. yes yes yes this would not be a good strategy for a gw battle but i like it because of the idea that this is how an army would fight if this stuff was real. I am a bit light on cav and missiles.

so this is almost everything, i have the old imrik on dragon model somewhere, some saurus cav also mia, an ushabti, tomb scropion, and a salamander that need to be made, plus a few other odds and ends that were too broke to make it on the field. But i enjoyed the exercise, it really allowed me to review my forces, and notice what i need to buy, some armies are character heavy or lite, others are combat heavy others are basically only multiwound. But it worked this got me at least momentarily inspired. I had a few boxes laying around i hadnt built, which is highly highly unusual for me, built 16 marauders and 14 skinks in a few hours(pictures dont have these new guys), went through and clipped the bits from the boxes i have bought the last couple months; and i also repaired a lot of my casualties from travel over the years, so overall i think this was good for me.

if anybody wants I will kinda go through everything i have here, not points but just listing, here is what made it in this row, and why i put this unit with this group and not another. I will make it a post, maybe start with general of list of what is where, then make a posting on each "area" of my army and the whys associated. I know the blog is a bit weak right now, but I dont have internet at my apt so i cant post there, and bob has wandered over to france for a while. so just let me know if anybody wants to know more on my overall collection. and also i really want to play a "empty ALL the boxes" battle. like i said new apartment so i can do whateva i want, maybe bob and i will duke it out before he heads back for his 12th or something year of college (a bit of an exaggeration but he is getting kinda van Wilder).

A Trip Down Memory Lane

 Hey folks, Bob here with some random rumblings for you. Recent internet issues have set me back a bit on writing so I am going to have to play catch up over the next week or so. Anyways the theme of today's post is some random stuff I found while at my folk's place. I recently did some rearranging of the living room hobby bookshelf and ran across some gems I had forgotten about as well as a surprise unopened kit from many moons ago. Before I begin in ernest I leave you with the following image and disclaimer as to the content and nature of this article. Enjoy!

Me in 40 or so years

WARNING!!! Random thoughts and observations incoming! Be prepared for talk of "back in the day" and other such rose tinted mutterings. Reader discretion is advised. Proceed at your own risk.

 Alright gentle reader, now that the disclaimer is out of the way I will now get to the crux of the article. So the random kit I found was an unopened box of Eldar Guardians from way back in 3rd edition. Check out the price on this sucker, $30 for a box of sixteen models.Now before you roll your eyes and go "great, another rant about GW price policies and how evil they are" stick with me. Everyone and their brother hates how much it costs to buy GW kits these days. "Back in the day" you could get a box of almost double the number of models for less than today. That isn't what was totally surprising to me. What was surprising to me was a different little sticker on the box.

Ah the good ole days of $30 kits that were actually kind of worth it

 Check out this little dude. A batch code number. What is this you may be asking? Well it is an obvious indicator of quality control, or at least an attempt at it. Now don't get me wrong, GW has always been great to me about replacing messed up models and stuff, but I really wish they would do a bit more quality control on the front end (couch cough Finecast cough cough).

Holy quality control Batman!

Okay so first out of the book shelf is a little book called "The Empire at War". It is a purely background supliment that covers five major battles in the history of the Empire from the first Battle of Blackfire Pass through the Battle of the Gates of Kislev and the Battle of Hel Fenn. It is written from the perspective of a retired Empire Marshal who wants to recount five types of battles and the tactics behind them for future generations. Each battle in the book centers around a theme such as encirclement, firepower, ambush etc. It is a great background book filled with rich descriptions of the battles and famous regiments that participated in them. The illustrations are great and highlight the actual movements of regiments during the battles phase by phase.

I really wish GW would do more books like this. They are great resources for ideas for campaigns or themes for armies. I also love reading more about pivotal battles in the history of the Warhammer world and the 40k universe.

Next up is a cool little book called "Xenology". This is a great book written from the perspective of an Ordo Xenos operative investigating a distress signal from an Inquisition research facility and reading some of the reports of the researchers as he goes along. I think the most important aspect of the book is that it gives us a deeper look at the often mentioned but never shown Hrud as well as a few other previously unmentioned/not shown xenos species. It is full of cool dissection drawings and interesting pieces of lore about each major species.

The last book I have for you today is my favorite of the lot. It is "The Sabbat Worlds Crusade" and it is of course based on the best selling Gaunt's Ghosts series from the Black Library. If anyone is looking for a series to start then by all means pick up the first Ghosts omnibus and the Eisenhorn trilogy, both by Dan Abnett. He is by far the best author writing for BL and his books never disappoint. This book focuses on the beginning of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade which took place in the mid 700s M41. What I love most about the Ghosts series is that it focuses on the Guard and has them fighting Chaos foot soldiers. It presents an Imperial war against Chaos how it would most likely be in terms of actual lore and background. Traitor Marines play a very small role compared to the massed ranks of human Chaos followers. The Crusade book gives the reader a glimpse at events eluded to in the Ghosts books during the pivotal early years of the Crusade and goes up to the events of the first four or five Ghosts books. I would LOVE to see an updated version of this book that brings events up to the most current Ghosts book. The action in the current Ghosts books focuses on the regiment and the actions of a single crusade army group while there are three other active fronts in the war.

Well that didn't turn out to rant laden or nostalgia heavy after all. Next up on the to do list of articles will likely be one of several things, a look at the new Eldar codex, what I have been building/painting lately, or a discussion about some different 28mm models from some emerging companies. I will do my level best to get another article out by Wednesday the 26 of June. I will be heading to France on the 27th for several weeks to do some archaeology and have some fun. I plan to go to at least one GW store while I am over there, most likely in Paris but possibly in the city of Clermont-Ferrand near where I will be working and living. So stay tuned and as always happy gaming!

Was it Worth It?

Today I would like to talk a little about painting. The question I would like to raise is how much painting is worth it? We see pics all of the time of the Heavy Metal Team and others who obviously spend hours/days painting every single model. I ask is it worth spending that much time on every model for the everyday guy.

 My first instinct is no, I might spend a lot of time painting certain models like this guy. but there is no way i am spending nearly that much time on non character models. I might spend an hour or two on average model, that is more than enough time to clean assemble, base coat and get several good layers and maybe a layer of wash, or a highlight. thats it.

 For me I am more interested in playing the game than making sure my models look amazing. So there is no way you can convince me to spend more time on my normal troops. Even playing against other people in an actual GW store has done very little to boost my desire on spending more time on said models.

 I love how this model turned out and would gladly do it again. In fact I will be spending more time on this lovely guy. and i think it is worth it but like i said minimal effort on the bulk of the army. I want to get my army ready to fight, not ready to go on parade.

 so for me its all about a judicial use of my time and effort. I have limited time and a limited care-ability. I will spend more time on armies and units that i play a lot. if i just get a model or unit or army because i felt like it I wont paint that much of it.

so in the end it depends. I understand the appeal of making a beautiful model, but its not for me. I would love to hear your opinions on to paint or not to paint; admit it you knew that was coming.

Comments from the Peanut Gallery

Hello internets, I know it has been a while but hopefully you will take me back

I am going to spend this post adding my comments to Bob's post like the lazy sob I am.

As I have said before I have been out of the game for a while, so I didn't have the last high elf book, however like Bob my first army was the high elves, but I dont love them that much anymore. I dont know anything about the lore updates or changes, except it seems that they always get less and less with each version. However one thing I noticed that was interesting that I personally didnt know before was the implication of the Witch King causing division in the elves before he tried to walk through some fire. But anyway.

A few general points on the army list. Why take silver helms? for the cost the dragon princes are better and worth the 6pts increased cost imo. Then also I have trouble valiadating cav in this army. Elves are an army of balance, if you dont have it you probably wont win. You need to win every phase to win the game. Movement, yours guys are 5s vs everybody 4s. Magic, once again imo the elves get to much of a boost and should win this phase easy if you take a high level mage or 2 2s. Shooting, the elves should win this too with cheaper bolt throwers and new sisters. Combat, here there is so much goodness to be had i dont know what to choose. Because of how expensive the army is by the time I get what I like in the army it is already too big and cant win a fight. So because of points I have a difficult time justifying a dragon prince over a swordmaster, I could go into all types of numbers but i wont. So I have found myself with a completely infantry army because of how many good choices the elves have. The phoenixes are the main hanging point, i cant decide if i like them or not. Do i like them enough to drop a block of inf in an already small army? Will they do enough damage to justify the points or are they just the cannon magnets for this army. I cant decide but I am taking one, I am going with the fire one because of points, coming back to life (especially with a dead rider) and the model itself. The frost phoenix is the corniest looking model i have seen from gw. Those snow flakes made me say no. On other models: phoenix guard look awesome, griffons suck model wise (see empire squatting chicken if you need anymore proof) dont like dragon prince models, reminds me of blood knights from vampire counts, especially all in red as the are often depicted. Sisters look ok, shadow warriors I like the 'faceless' masks but overall the models make me a little uncomfortable. white lions look pretty cool but i never fielded them so i dont have an expert opinion on them. Still dont like the dragon launching off the rock look. and I will go ahead and say i really dont like any aspect of the skycutters, enough said there.

I will say I am surprized they didnt add any monsterous cav, and i can here you over the bandwidth NO i didnt read much of the rumor mill so i was expecting gw to remain to form and give the high elves some questionable new unit of heavy cav. my money was on white lions on big ass white lions or dragon princes on drakes/small dragons. I can also say i am extremely surprized in the number of magic items they have. more than 6 woohooo. it actually takes the 3 pages to get them all on there, and if you count the everqueen options that another 1/4 of a page or about how much other armies have.

Further on the sea helm, first off stupid name you already have SILVER HELMS no need to get confusing, and the only reason to take this way over priced model, worse than noble but more expensive, is for the reform as Bob mentioned but if you are taking him for that you are taking him because you are planning on getting charged in the flank or rear, so taking him for me equals planning to fail. annointed of assuryan only reason to take is for the phoenix and the +1 on coming back to life. loremaster is way to expensive to use in combat, and is too good at combat to sit back and cast spells. so for plus 45 pts you can buy a worse mage, or for plus 90pts you can buy a worse fighter. you can equip your prince with a great weapon heavy armor and a 15pt talisman and have a better fighter for 60ish points less. so a no to the loremaster. handmaiden yes, stick her in the sisters unit stick them on an edge and have them shoot up all the small units trying to flank you, and against the bad guys the -2 to armor is nothing to sneeze at. enough to take a +1 to +3 armor, and failing on a 1 AND a 2 is a lot better than just a 1.

The Fury of the Asur

For those who may not have guessed the subject of this post from the title I am going to be talking about the newest edition of the High Elves for Warhammer Fantasy. The children of Ulthuan have a very special place in my heart as they were the first army I started collecting way back in the mists of time (aka 2002). I have consistantly enjoyed playing them and collecting them and that certainly hasn't changed with the launch of the new book. So without further blathering lets take a look at the lore and unit background sections of the book.

So for the lore section of the book we get a brief intro to who the High Elves are and some of their ancient history. Not much new here so lets get right into the section with new information. Up next is a description of the ten realms of Ulthuan as well as a few text boxes highlighting some notable locations on the island. Most of the provinces get some additions to their history and character, most notably Ellyrion, Cothique, and Caledor. Following up on the heels of the ten realms is a much expanded section detailing the events of the reigns of all the Phoenix Kings. Interspersed in this section are text boxes detailing Elven mortuary practices and some interesting information about the realm of the Elven gods and what happens to the souls of the Elves after death. Being someone who enjoys the lore of the game I found this section very enjoyable. Of course the current Phoenix King, Finubar the Seafarer, gets the most attention and is the subject of a much more detailed history and new additions to the more "current" lore (i.e. stuff that happens leading up to the Great Chaos War and after). I won't go into much detail here but suffice to say that the High Elves get some love as far as being shown to kick some major ass outside of Ulthuan. I would have to say that The Sack of Marienburg and The Shadow of Nagashizzar are my favorite entries.





Alright so lets hit the next section and finish out on the army list. After the lore sections comes The Glittering Host part of the book (i.e. the unit backgrounds). First off we come to the army special rules. Martial Prowess is now army wide so expect an extra rank of attacks from almost all models in the army now. Valor of Ages is also still included. Lileath's Blessing, formerly something confined to the lore of mages, is now a tangible benefit in the form of +1 to casting attempts for High Magic. Fireborn is an interesting new addition as it provides models with this rule a 2+ ward against flaming attacks. Ithilmar barding remains the same and the Lion Cloak stays the same except for a clarification that it only works against non magical shooting. Dragon Armour gets a little bump in the form of a 6+ ward and the Fireborn rule. Lastly we come to my favorite addition, Arrows of Isha and the Bow of Avelorn. Both of these apply to the new Sisters of Avelorn unit making them a S4, magical, flaming, volley firing, -1 to armor saves against units from the Forces of Destruction unit of awesome. The range of 24" on the bow isn't ideal but makes for an awesome support unit.

Such an odd pose

Really not much has changed on the previously established units. Gone is Speed of Asuryan and in it's place we have army wide Always Strikes First. Loremasters  of Hoeth make an interesting addition to the army in the capacity of a magic wielding hero version of a Swordmaster (aka a bad ass) He gets to wear heavy armor and knows all of the signature spells of the eight lores of magic. I will be picking one up for sure. Oh I almost forgot, Swordmasters now have a 6+ ward against shooting attacks. The new hero unit for the Sea Guard, the Sea Helm, is an okay addition. His Naval Discipline rule allows for a free reform on a passed leadership test as a charge reaction (assuming you didn't elect to Stand and Shoot, or Flee). While this could be very useful under certain circumstances it sort of defeats the purpose of the Sea Guard having bows to Stand and Shoot. The new Skycutter chariot isn't really anything special in my humble opinion. The army already has things to fill this role better.

Meh

Next up is the Sisters of Avelorn and their hero character the Handmaiden of the Everqueen. Old gamers will recognize the Handmaiden from back in the day. As stated earlier, the Sisters are my favorite unit addition. The have good stats for shooting and sticking a Handmaiden in the unit gives them Quick to Fire. The new Anointed of Asuryan is a very mediocre addition. Basically the only reason to take one would be as a rider for a phoenix or if you really want a unit to be Immune to Psychology and have a 6+ ward, so meh. Now as per every other army the Elves have a something big and monsterous and on a chariot base in the form of two kinds of phoenix. Now I won't go into too much detail on these units as much of their info has been discussed in White Dwarf and across the net. Personally I like both varieties of phoenix and will likely pick up one of each. Lastly we come to characters. Most everyone stays the same (except Teclis who got hit with the nerf bat a bit). The inclusion of the Everqueen is an interesting choice lore wise. She has a character back in the day then she stayed home for two editions of the book. This new version of her is worth picking up in my opinion. She is very much a magical support character with the ability to mix and match spells from the lores of Life, Light, and High Magic in any combination of two of the lores. Taking her also opens up two magic items that are pretty good.

My favorite new unit

Lets round this post out with a discussion of the army list, magic items, and High Magic. Army list wise we generally see a reduction in unit points across the board as a general theme. Bolt throwers get the largest single reduction at a whopping 30 points. Force Organization wise we see Silver Helms and Reavers moving to Core. Special remains largely the same and Rare gets the two phoenixes and the Sisters. Character mount options now include Tiranoc Chariots, Great Eagles, and Griffons with the two birds having upgrade options of various flavors. High Magic gets a whole bunch of renamed spells and changes.

First of all the lore attribute grants a stackable ward save for the caster and the unit he/she is in. We also get two signature spells in the form of Drain Magic and Soul Quench. Drain Magic is pretty handy to have. It basically ends any Remains in Play spells on a unit or, when boosted, all units within 18". Soul Quench is basically Fury of Khaine but with a boost option. All of the spells are useful. Apotheosis is a healing spell, Hand of Glory is a stat boost, Walk Between Worlds is now pretty awesome as it makes the unit Ethereal until the end of phase and allows it to make a move up to 10". Tempest is a AoE S3 template hit that causes a -1 To Hit modifier on a unit it wounds. Arcane Unforging basically blows up a magic item and Fiery Convocation is basically Flames of the Phoenix without a strength increase per turn. Lastly in the magic items section we have most of the popular items making a return (i.e. Blade of Leaping Gold, Star Lance, Book of Hoeth, and the Banner of the World Dragon) with various tweaks to them. The two new additions are the Shield of the Merwyrm and Moranion's Wayshard. The Shield bumps a models parry save to 4+ if he/she isn't using a two handed weapon and the Wayshard grants the Ambushers special rule and to a unit of Archers or Spearmen up to 30 strong.

So what do I think of the book over all? It is very solid with some nice changes. The new units are really hit or miss for me overall. The magic is pretty sweet and army wide Martial Prowess is awesome. I would have liked to see a slightly larger point drop in Spearmen and Sea Guard but that isn't that big of a deal weighed against the whole. Before I sign off I want to talk very briefly about the Uniforms and Heraldry book that also came out.

 As a lore nerd and someone with a background in historical wargamming I love that GW is publishing these books. I wish every army that it could be applied to, Fantasy and 40K, should get one of these. The one for the High Elves gives a greatly expanded selection of runes and their meaning as well as a look at the hierarchy of the Elven gods. Each realm of Ulthuan as well as the defensive gates gets a section showing uniforms and heraldry as does the Phoenix Guard and Swordmasters. Several notable regiments are highlighted for possible recreation as well. My one big complaint about the book is that the faces of the Elves look god awful, especially the Sisters of Avelorn. If that was the quality they were shooting for I would have much preferred only the uniforms to be presented.

Alright folks, cheers and happy gaming!!