SPQR on the move

Well a friend of mine and I decided to get a game in of WAB yesterday given that both of us are free due to the holiday season.  We had a Roman Civil war day when we played.  He brought his usual small century of heavily armoured veterans Legionaries as the bulk of his army whereas I have large blocks of regulars.  We are virtually about even as far as unit numbers goes concerning centuries.  We mostly use barbarian screens now a days for the rest of our point allotment, and I have a pair of scorpios that do some damage when they feel like it.  I did add a new trick to my game in that I brought Barbarian Light Calvary.  He also brought two war bands of barbarians. 

He usually does a good job routing my armies, however I was able to get more than a few shots in with my regulars and was able to end up with a minor loss this time according to my calculation.  You have no idea how much a +1 makes a difference in armour saves and hits until you play him a few times like we do.  On top of that, my light calvary did what I wanted them to which was to harass his skirmish line, and my scorpios were able to actually knock out some legionaries.  

All in all it was a good day and we both exclaimed how we missed playing each other and that we should start planning more games.  I did not take any pictures or took notes so I cannot really make a full battle report of note.  Next time I will promise to make some notes at the least. 

Alternative Systems: Hostile Realms (Piquet)

I wanted to do a review of this system for a while.  Hostile Realms is a fantasy version of the regular game made by the company called Piquet.  Their website is here for anyone who wants to see it for themselves.  This is a game that uses a card based system to determine the flow of the game, in that a deck of cards is used to determine who and what is eligible to go for that turn.  For anyone who has played BattleMasters, I think that you get the gist as to how it works.  Also there is a system of pips as well to control the times.  I would imagine that you roll dice to determine how much of a different unit is allowed to function.  I have not looked at the cards, nor at the book as a whole to make a better description. 

It does sound like an interesting game and it does remind me a lot of BattleMasters from 20 years ago.  However, my experience over the last 20 years since playing BattleMaster has altered my view of war gaming in general.  I have a problem when it comes to a deck of turn card are being used in a war game. 

1:  Integrity:  While I would never would or have done it in BattleMasters, I can see someone literally stack the deck against an opponent.  Be that as it may, I would not be surprised that some people may do this.  Call me cynical, but I believe that a dice roll is harder to control or cheat with as opposed to a deck of cards.  I am not sure if this is a communal deck that is used, which would be my estimate but that is even worse in my mind.

2:  Portability:  While a deck of turn cards may not be that heavy or cumbersome, it is another damn thing that I am already toting and prone to forget as well.  I have a hard enough time remembering my measuring tape, what makes anyone think that I will remember to keep a deck of cards handy. 

3:  Sensibility:  This is not Magic:The Gathering or any other card game.  Perhaps that I am just biased on this issue but I just don't want to include cards into my war gaming.

4:  Necessity:  I honestly think that I can find a better way to do things than with a deck of cards that determine which does what.  I do like a concept of activation rolls or a more inclusive use of dice rolls to determine morale, fatigue, and competence.  A deck of cards is just too out there for my taste. 

Despite all of this that still stands for the reason why I don't like this part of the game system, I did read through the reasoning that the author produced to explain what they are doing.  He did point out why they used a card system, and honestly I do understand some of his points that he has.  Primarily what he is trying to do is to add randomness in to a gaming system that is more realistic than what is out there.  It is one of those things where I think that there is just a better way to do things than add a deck of cards to the mix.

Honestly it is one of those issues where I just don't want to spend a total for $40 to find out if I am right or wrong.  While I reserve the right to put it back on the list if I do end up playing a few games and actually like it I am taking it off of my list of alternative games systems which stands as follows:

List of Fantasy Game Systems:
1: Reaper Warlord
2: Kings of War (Mantic)*
3: Fantasy Warriors (Miltron)*
4: Armies of Arcana
5: Mighty Armies (Rebel Miniatures)
6: Hostile Realms(Piquet Master Rules)
7: Songs of Blades and Heroes
8: Rally Around the King
9: 100 Kingdoms*
10: For the Masses (Majestic 12)
11: No Quarter
12: War Engine/Shockforce
13: Pride of Lions
14: Battle Systems 2 ed.

On another note I have just received Armies of Arcana and once I have my other reading backlog caught up it is next in line for me to review.  From what I have looked at as I was flipping through the book, it looks very interesting to me.  I know that I have been a "Negative Nancy" on the past few reviews that I have done.  Hopefully this will be different in my next review. 

St. Crispin's Day.

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

 - William Shakespear (King Henry V)

Given the significance of this day over the years, for those who are away from home in the service of the republic, (or for the queen) please stay safe as possible.

Inflation: Warhammer Style

First off, I don't want to make this a rant about the prices and break my promise on bashing GW.  I will get to the details on that later.  I wanted to talk about model inflation that we as war gamers experience from edition to edition when it comes to how our models stack up.   I was inspired by a few posts done a few months back that discussed the inflation that their armies have experienced from circa 1999 to now.  We can thank the blogger, The Army Collector, for the inspiration here.  Let me explain what I mean by Model Inflation and then proceed with an example.  It was something that interested me given my professional experience being in the financial world. 

What is Model Inflation:

The best and most plainly spoken definition that I have ever heard for Inflation is that "Your money buys less now than before."  This can be on the supply side of the price i.e. drought, production failures, etc., as well as on the demand side usually in the form the fact that there is more currency and thus more people who want to buy the item.  We usually see demand side inflation when a central bank "prints more money" for the economy.  Despite my academic credentials in Finance, it took me years after school to see this and understand this.  There is also Deflation which is the opposite event.  A rare event, however, it is known to happen even in our time.  The Housing market has experienced deflation in the United States over the past five years for example on the supply side, as well as a central bank reducing the amount of currency in an economy on the demand side.

For the usual gamer we experience price hikes, which we all are painfully aware of, however there is a bit of inflation that existing models experience over the years in that the models are worth less in points over the editions than when they were originally bought. Usually from the switchover from edition to edition your models have smaller point costs.  This usually has been a rather silent cost that no one really complains about on places like Warseer or B.O.L.S. yet can be just as expensive as the usual price hikes.  What I have bought in the 4th edition to play Warhammer, cannot be as extensive of an army in today's edition.(or as many people like to say "in today's money")  This is what I call model inflation.  Allow me to provide an example.

Applied Model Inflation:

Now I have a very good example to see the difference in my Dwarf army book from back in the 4th.(pictured above)  In the book there was a scenario called "Battle at The East Gate of Karak Eight Peaks."  It was a scenario for everyone to get a flavor for the game and the army.  In short, there was two forces lead by General level characters that totaled up to 3000 pts.  A force being besieged and one force relieving the besieged force, opposed by Orc and Goblin forces that are separated based on the four sides of the table that totaled 3000 as well.  The scenario is that the relieving Dwarf Force is being ambushed by the Orcs and Goblins.  The scenario is based on if the Dwarves can break out of the ambush and if not can the besieged Dwarf force get there in time to relieve the relief force. 

Included in the chapter is a suggested army list for the scenario.  A very useful piece of information to determine how GW was making you calculate your armies.  With that force I took the list and tried to match it to the best of my ability with what I could be able to make with the 6.5th edition army book for Dwarves that is still the current army book. (Pictured Below)

I had a few problems with matching exactly list for list.  Unfortunately there were more toys and choices that Dwarves had back then and that made a difference in my calculation.  A Dwarf character was able to take something called the Master Rune of Death, (I don't know why they did not bring it back as a Killing Blow rule!) Runesmith's could take more toys back in the 4th, and Hammerers could elect to not take Great Weapons.  For that I could not make as accurate of an army list as I had wished.  However I believe that I did get close to it.  What I have as follows is a table of the base points for each unit and the differences:

Dwarf Inflation Sheet
Unit	4ed Points	Amendments	8ed Points	% Reduced
King Belegar's Force
Dwarf Lord	505		266	0.53
Longbeards	227		165	0.73
Thunderers	260		244	0.94
Crossbows	278		212	0.76
Total Force	1270		887	0.70
Lord Duregar's Force
Dwarf Lord	410		326	0.80
Army Battle Standard	206		125	0.61
Runesmith	246		145	0.59
Dragon Slayer			115
Slayers	368		114	0.62
Hammerers	222	20	154	0.64
Warriors	271		200	0.74
Total Force	1723		1179	0.68
Total Army	2993	3013	2066	0.69

The total army back then was 2993 but I had to add 20 pts. for the Hammerers to have Great Weapons to bring it up to 3013.  I also gave the top Dwarf Lord a Master Rune of Kragg the Grim in exchange for the Master Rune of Death.  The total army in today's edition is 2066, over 30% reduction of points.  Needless to say there are great differences in what kind of army that I could put together now as opposed to back then using the same models.  I would also point out that this army would be illegal at this point level.  Given the 8th edition rules, you would need to play a larger game to fit the characters in. 

The biggest difference is in the magic items.  We are spending over 1300 points on characters alone in this list, and that is not counting champions which were part of the character allotment back then.  The majority of those points were spent on magic items and not on the character themselves.  If you ever wonder why they called 4th edition hero-hammer, this may answer it for you.  I also calculated how many models in this army which is quite striking as well.  There were 43 in each contingent for a total of 86 models for this army. 

Now it may be just me but an army of 86 feels rather small to me now as it did back then.  Also the units were very small as well.  The Slayers (including Dragon Slayer), Hammerers, and Longbeards were 10 models each.  The missile troops were 16 each, and the warriors came up to 20.  Ironically there were no musicians however everyone had a standard.  Given the lack of troops in the 4th edition list, I was rather glad for the inflation when I came back in the 6th edition.  They actually felt like actual armies rather than just your character and a few beer buddies and hangers on. 

Honestly I could see doing a 3K game using this scenario very easily and I wished I that I was able to find a willing Orc and Goblin opponent to play this with.  However the army that I would be using for this would be more like 140 models or so easily and using two lords.  I would not specifically say that we are going to get significantly more inflation down the line in this magnitude.  Magic items would be what I would be looking at if that happens again.  Given that I am only really interested in playing with 6th edition rules, I really don't care how much inflation happens in subsequent edition. 

A Year of Blogging in Retrospect.

Today marks the first full year that I have been blogging about my miniature hobby.  First and foremost I would like to thank every one of you that read my blog.  Without you I would have quit a long time ago.  I encourage all of you to comment whenever and wherever you can on here.  I do like the feedback. 

Looking back I have moved quite a bit from where I was back then in more ways that you guys can imagine on several fronts.  First and foremost I have sold off a lot of models that I thought that I really would like, but in retrospect I am glad that I sold those miniatures and not just for the money.  I have found several new manufactures, as well as new gaming systems that I am still deliberating over a good alternative game system. 

It is my hope that all of you who read this blog enjoy the content on here.  Here is to another year of blogging about our Tiny Legions. 

Becoming an Incurrable Collector

Everyone who reads this proabably is a collector of minatures in some form or fashion.  However I doubt that most people consider themselves purely a collector without any of the gaming dimensions involved in the hobby.  I for one was one of those people for years.  There was one person who on a forum stated that they were just there to collect the miniatures.  I thought that he was nuts in just collecting for the sake of collecting.

Now-a-days, I tend to see more of his point.  A few weeks ago, I took an inventory of what I still have after selling several armies from my WFB collection.  I would have to say that what I have left over is really more of a collection rather than a set of armies.  I still have my dwarf army pictured here, which I don't plan to sell or get rid of ever.  It has just too much sentemental value to me.  Along with that I do have enough for a High Elf, Empire, and Beastmen army, but overall everything else is just some odds and ends from the lines of Chaos, Vampire Counts, Bretonnians, Dark and Wood Elves, and Orcs and Goblins that I have refused to sell as of now.  Now that I am still holding on to these models, I am thinking that I have more or less passed into being a collector more than anything else with my WFB miniatures.

With that, I am now figuring out what to do with these models.  Well for starters I do plan to get some of these painted for the sake of display if anything.  I have no idea if they will ever see the light of a gaming table, but I really dont care any more.  I am ever looking for a new system that will work with these guys.  I believe that my Empire and Bretonninas may end up on a gaming table, but most likely they will be facing the hordes of humans rather than something more from the realm of fantasy, and in a historical set of rules. 

What few miniatures that I do buy now are mostly the older metal models as stated here more or less.  Most of the older models just have the classic look that I want to collect.  It may be that it is a bit of nostalgia creeping in, but I guess that it is the way of a collector to look for something more esoteric and something that is no longer made any more.  As ever I am suprised to how great the older GW metal models are holding up compared to what we have now.  I am waiting on John Larroquette to reconstitute his "Incurrable Collectors" show and knock on my door. 

I have to say that the guy at White Knight has a great idea in filling out a collection of models by making his own.  Some of his models are great, whereas some are just not my style.  There are a few ranges from GW that I wished that they went further with, but did not.  WH's idea is something that I may think about at some point in time when I am better at sculpting than now.  I doubt that I will ever get to a point where I can be as good as he is, but it is a minor dream right now I guess. 

Alternative Systemes Review: Horde of the Things and Impetus

In my attempt to find an alternate gaming system to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I have started reading through some of them when I can find a free online system, or read through their online introduction.  There are around 16 gaming systems from my previous post, (located here for reference) which is a lot to go through.  Therefore I am going to winnow out a few that I know are not going to be what I am looking for. 

Well I went through most of the gaming system called Horde of the Things (HOTT), and it is a game that is more align with Warmaster than Warhammer.  The authors of HOTT are the ones who also created De Bellis Antiquitatis (DBA) and De Bellis Multitudinis (DBM), and thus run very similarly to these ancient games.  The rules can be found here a little bit down the page, and for personal use only.  DBA, DBM, HOTT and Warmaster are all games where stands are use to represent your troops, most likely units that are of battallion strength or larger.  Given that I am not intersted in playing a game right now that uses stands to represents regiments of troops, I am not going to spend a whole lot of time evaluating those type of systemes when I see them. 

These rules may be an interesting alternative to Warmaster, however I am not that much into Warmaster and thus am not really into playing anything like it.  I am sure that these are great system's to play, and I like some of the original ideas about the game, but I don't have that much interest in playing with these systems.  They are brands of gin when I am a scotch drinker.  Impetus also falls into this category as well and thus is something that I will most likely not be intersted in playing.  So that is two gaming systems that I can take off of the list right now that I will proabably not be evaluating to the level of test gaming. 

Of course this is only what I have read, and I know that most people think that this is rather harsh to do to a game system.  Problem is that if I dont have interest in the system, how can I sell someone to play a game that I really don't care to play.  However the list is by far an extensive and distinguished list. 

List of Fantasy Game Systems:
1: Reaper Warlord
2: Kings of War (Mantic)*
3: Fantasy Warriors (Miltron)*
4: Armies of Arcana
5: Mighty Armies (Rebel Miniatures)
6: Hostile Realms(Piquet Master Rules)
7: Songs of Blades and Heroes
8:  Rally Around the King
9: 100 Kingdoms*
10: For the Masses (Majestic 12)
11: No Quarter
12: War Engine/Shockforce
13: Pride of Lions
14:  Battle Systems 2 ed.

There are a few others that I have gone through initially and some look great while some are proabably not going to be ones that I am intersted in.  Of course I will post my thoughts on these systems as I go thorugh them.

My problem with Finecast

I have heard the horror stories as every one else has about fine cast.  They are prone to melting in the trunk of your car.  They are riddled with bubbles so much that GW made their own liquid filler that you have to buy. (I would call that insult to injury)  They come with bent items and given the strenght of the material are prone to breakage.  The obvious cheaper material of finecast yet more expensive cost of them.  All of these issues would normally would detract me from buying the miniatures.  However I originally thought that they dont effect me nearly as much as they would have in the past.  Mainly due to the fact that I am not buying anything new from the lines. 

I have decided to go for older models on average for most of my armies that I do still collect, so I should not care about finecast, and I really don't care.  Everything that I collect for my fantasy armies will be from an older edition to match more easily historical miniatures.  However I am not just collecting only fantasy miniatures.  I am still in 40K a little bit, and with the new edition I will proabably will be playing that more often than not.  The problem that I have with GW is that instead of re-vamping new miniatures with finecast so we collectors know which model has which material, they have taken existing sculpts and casted them in finecast as well, as with these guys that I was going to add to my army:

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440176a&prodId=prod1160097a&rootCatGameStyle=

This is what I really dont like what GW has done with their policies.  I can understand using finecast on new sculpts, but this really casues trouble as to what exactly you are buying on the secondary market.  Along with that I have been informed that stripping off paint from finecast is a chore and most likely will ruin your model.  Usually you may have to worry that someone is giving you a counterfit sculpt from time to time made from this material, but here GW has done it for you.  Now if I want to make sure that I am getting the model made out of the right material, I have to see them stripped.  I have to say thank you for making my life harder GW.  Ironically I really can't afford to be one right now, but in the event that I do become a customer once again, it will be of the classic editions and not of any of this crappy finecast that GW seems to think is the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I will still buy the plastic units from time to time, albeit sparingly.

As promised I am trying to limit my rants on GW from now on so this will have to do for the next six months.  I will try to make it to the end of the year folks, I will really try.  Hopefully I will have some good things to say about 40K when I get the rulebook.  So far it sounds like a game that I may be interested in.

Fathers and Sportsmanship

Well today is Father's day here in the States, and I have been contemplating the different gifts that a father can bestow on their children.  A father is not just the guy that makes sure that the power bill is paid on time but from my experience has the ability to get you to the other side of adulthood, and offer a perspective that a mother on average is unable to fulfill, even after you reach adulthood.  One of the big areas that I see fathers affecting their children with is sportsmanship.  Regardless of an athletic sport or just moving chess pieces, sportsmanship is crucial to most past times and for that matter most of life. 

Now I did play little league baseball and soccer when I was a kid, and I enjoyed playing baseball.  However I did not follow through with it afterwards in life.  I was more interested in camping, hunting and fishing more than general athletics and I lettered in Band in High School. (Lettering in Football would not have been hard for me at my school actually.  It was a terrible team when I was there and I was a tuba player in Marching Band, and some on the tuba line did quit and joined the defensive line while was there.)  I did play Lacrosse in college which was just out of pure fun.  I cared less if we lost and I was on teams that we did, but the fun of hitting someone else with a stick legally outweighed the score of the game, when we were keeping score.   I still watch a fair amount of sports but where I really learned sportsmanship was when I was playing board games with my Father.  Most specifically this:

That's right, my first foray into war gaming was Axis and Allies.  I remember many a game played by the two of us.  I learned the most about sportsmanship from these games than any other place.  My father would soundly beat me every time for the most part.  I would range from being in tears all the way to snippy at times playing him.  Here is the difference though.  Mom hated the game, but she would always ask how we did.  After every loss she would give my dad a cross look, as if telling him "Let him win for once."  He would reply verbally "He is getting good, I almost lost to him today."

I can't tell you how glad that he would always play to win and actively beat me.  It taught me humility and most importantly to be gracious in victory like he always was.  One thing that I did not learn was to be more gracious with rules disputes.  I really do have a hard time being amenable when I am disputing a rule that I know is right.  Since then I have shown frustration quite a few times after a game which I do regret quite a bit in retrospect, but I don't consider myself a bad sport, and given the atmosphere it can be different for me.  I take tournaments not nearly as seriously as campaigns for example.  Which leads me to the bad sportsman out there.

I certainly do understand being frustrated and short with people at times, and I very much try to avoid it at all costs.  However as this thread from Warseer shows there are people who really needed to be taught good sportsmanship:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?339929-Physical-aggression-and-fighting-in-a-GW-or-flgs

I would assume that most of these stories are crap, but like many stories that are too absurd to be true, I am sure that there is a kernel of truth to be sure.  I have seen dice being thrown, I have seen people who have packed up in a huff, and I have seen people carry on a rare occasion.  I can tell you that my father would not have put up with that crap at all from me.  People are people and you do eventually find a few jerks in your life.  Hopefully they do learn what good sportsmanship is and practice it, but I do wish that they had a father figure like mine who would have taught them good sportsmanship practices.

Bashing GW is just getting too easy.

While in the process of moving, I noticed that I have sold over half of my collection that I had in boxes.  The good news is that hopefully those miniatures will see the light of day with someone who will appreciate them.  The bad news is that I am compelled to sell them as opposed to using them for what I originally was planning for them.  I guess that is a good thing that I sold all of my current models given my lack of enthusiam for the game and the company in general.  This is really for both 40K and WFB. 

I could write several articles as to how I hate what the current management have done to a company that I have liked and have done business with in the past.  Looking at the bloggers that I do follow, there is plenty of people who have what seems no end in sight of rants ranging from the failings of finecast to the annual June price hike from the wisemen in Nottingham.  I am sure that there will be plenty more to come in the future. 

However that is getting to be booring for me overall.  I have tried to limit the "I hate GW" rants on this blog for the most part as of late.  Don't get me wrong, I have a bevy of complaints about GW, including their foray into finecast which I really have been silent about.(which I may still do a Finecast rant for several reasons)  I may do a rant from time to time, but I have other issues to deal with now-a-days than the obscene prices and the apparent lack of quality and service that you get from GW.  The only hope is that the current management get sacked and a massive re-organization of the company.  I may start paying more attention after that if it ever happens. 

Perhaps this is my real life interfering with my hobby life.  Right now I am focused on other issues and my other hobby that I can do actually.  As of right now I really can't even paint unless I figure out a new arraingment at my new place.

Eulogy of Warhammer Ancient Battle.

It is with great sadness that Games Workshop has announced that Warhammer Ancient Battles has passed into the realm of used book stores.  Warhammer Ancient Battle was originally published in 1998 as a stand alone game using most of the rules from Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  The original creators of the game was the Jervis Johnson, Rick Priestley, Michael and Allen Perry.  While very similar to Warhammer Fantasy in game mechanics it had its own flavour and made it a more enjoyable experience by using experimental rules that actually worked well for the game.  I was once told that it was sort of a pet project of the four creators.  It had no miniature support yet sold well enough to last for 14 years and only needed one new edition and a retouch in between.  Not to mention a series of supplements for the various periods that were not covered in the basic rulebook.  It was killed in an apparent car accident when the driver drove Warhammer Ancient Battles off of the cliff.  Ironically everyone else survived. 

Warhammer Ancient Battle is preceeded in death by several less than stellar game systems and several that paved the way for Warhammer Ancient Battles to become the rules that it is.  While the original creators are still alive and kicking, most of them have left Games Workshop, to lead other pursuits.  Warhammer Ancient Battle will be missed by the many fans of the game.  Most hurt will be the gamers that have been waiting on their particular supplement of choice to be created as promised.  Those who are happy with what they have should play the game with honor.  I know that I will.

Woodies Comparison

Finally some content that I want to put on here.  I took a few pictures of what I have left of my Wood Elves.  I did sell the majority of my collection a few months back unfortunatelly.  It is an army that I do have interest and want to collect once again, but there are a problem with that proposition, the older models is what I most likely going to collect.

Now that metal is getting hard to come by for any new models from GW I am going to be buying second hand no matter what I do.  I will put a post on my thoughts on finecast in its own post later on, but lets just say that I am not fond of the idea, and it is not just the obvious.  Honestly if I want to start collecting once again I will most likely put together an army with older models mainly due to their character.

Nevertheless, here are the comparison shots of the two different editions that I have.  I believe that I have 4th/5th metal Wood Elves and 6/7th plastic Wood Elves. 

The first set has two standard new archers, and one metal archer and one kneeling scout>

From the Front:

The second set has two new plastic models, with one metal archer and one scout that is running:

From the Front:







As I have said earler I do tend to like the older metal models with their character.  I believe that the older metal models do have a lot of depth in their range.  Last time that I checked it was atleast a dozen of the standard archers for them. 

It is still something that I want to think on and something that I am not planning on doing any time soon however. 

Back from the land of the (working?) stiffs!

Most sincere apologies for taking this long to update my blog.  Unforutnatelly, I have still been pre occupied with a bevy things going in the real world.(imagine that)  Really I have not had much in the form of anything to talk about that was gaming related lately so why waiste anyones time with a useless post, like one of these.   

I do have a few posts that I want to put together, the first being another comparison shot that I promised from a while back, which will be posted up tomorrow.  The month of May looks like it is going to be another busy time for me as well, but I will make sure that I don't take three months until my next post. 

Still alive here.

My apologies for not posting over the past month.  With the new year came with it a new job so my primary focus has been to get settled down with that.  Unfortunatelly my hobbies suffered from it.  You gotta do what you gotta do in these times.  The only real thing that I have done with my hobby was to sell off a lot of my miniatures that I had boxed away.  It has basically paid most of my bills this past month which is a good thing that I was able to take care of that, but sad to see them go and also sad to realize that I had that many models and not one assembled and painted. 

On another note I am going to be planning a few games with friends to test out a few other game systems.  I think that I will be starting with Kings of War and Fantasy Warriors to start.  They seem to have compatible armies for my willing oppoants right now, and something that we can easily set up with the armies that we have.  As far as the other game systems out there, I am working on a short list of games that I want to try out first.  They are mainly the free online games out there so that I dont have to buy the book right now.  Hopefully I can get a few games in this month and be able to write up a review specifically on one of the two mentioned above. 

2012 Goals

Right, well I decided to join in the band wagon and point out a few of my goals that I plan to do in 2012 for my hobby.  Some are as used as weight loss is for New Year Resolutions, some however are admittingly out there.  Without further ado here they are:

1:  Get painting again and paint over 100 miniatures to standard and varnished:  This one is proabably the mose widely used goal/resolution for hobby players out there.  I really did a terrible job on this front where I only painted basically 8 models to this standard this year.  To top that, I only had 34 models that I even started from priming which I really dont count as a painting stage.  This is one that I really need to work on.  I really want to start 100 miniatures and paint to completion not just work on the odd 26 models that I have yet to do. Needless to say I have some work to do. 

2:  Settle on one or two Fantasy game systems:  I am still evaluating a lot of game systems out there, and I have not had a Fantasy game since my post on alternative fantasy game systems.(posted here)  I have gone through a few of the free systems out there and to be honest, I did find one that was interesting to me.  There is also a few that I need to scratch off of the list mainly due to it breaking one of the rules that I set out to use already. 

3:  Sell minaitures that I will never build:  I have a lot of models still in their boxes, a shocking development to all who read this.  As stated before in my previous post about dwarves, (posted here) I have decided to sell all of my newer Dwarves that I have in inventory.  Tonight I pulled out some of my other bins that I store my boxes, and I see quite a few more boxes that I can see selling as well.  I will need the money for bills, and unfortunatelly I think that some projects that I had that were technically not on the list of "decomissioned" may find themselves on the list.  Damn it!

4:  Continue to look at different manufacturers:  While I am always looking for cheaper models, I am also looking for a variety of models so that I dont have the same damn miniature in the unit.  I see this happen a lot in WAB where you have an army that has several different manufacturers throughout the army that have the same dimensions.  I am trying to do this with what I currently have with my Empire troops, and likewise any future WAB armies that I think will work with both Fantasy and Middle Ages.  Although I have plenty of troops for a large Empire army, some rank and file variety within my army is a good thing, especially with my metal greatswords for instance. 

5:  Play more games:  I really only played two games of both WAB and 40K throughout this past year.  I really need to get out more to say the least. 

I would have to say that five goals for this year should be enough for the year.  I am not trying to make anything grandious right now in my hobby.  I want to take things easy until I have a good graps what I plan to be doing with my hobby.  I guess that it means that I will not be making anything from my castlemolds that take half of a table... unless I really want to for kicks.