WFB Tournament Commentary Game One

This was Game one of the tournament that I described in the post here. Unfortunately, I did not take any notes, so I won't be giving you a play-by-play. Having said that it has been about a month ago, and the games are pretty set in my mind and I did take quite a few pictures in the first two games, and I sort of trailed off on the pictures in game three.  It ended up being a long day, but that is for another post.  

 My army that I brought was as follows:

Characters:

Lord(Lord of Pain): HW, GA, S: Runes: M. Rune of Swiftness, Rune of Fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Stone, M. Rune of Spite

Thane: HW, BSB, LA: Runes: Gromril, Resistance

Runesmith(Runesmith of Pain): HW, GA,S: Runes: Rune of Fury, Rune of Cleaving, Rune of Stone, Rune of Spell Breaking

Runesmith: HW, HA, GW: Runes: Rune of Spell Breaking(X2)

 

Core:

Dwarf Warriors (X24) HW, HA, S FC

Dwarf Warriors (X24) HW, HA, S Vet, Mus

Dwarf Warriors (X10) GW, HW, HA, S

Dwarf Warriors (X10) GW, HW, HA, S

Crossbowmen (x10)

Crossbowmen(x10)

Miners (X12) vet

 

Special:

Ironbreakers (X24) FC

Cannon - Rune of Forging

Bolt Thrower - Rune of Penetrating, Fire

Bolt Thrower - Rune of Penetrating

 

Rare:

Organ Gun

 

Game 1:

 

The setup of the game was a take and hold an objective scenario basically the same as scenario 5 of the BRB, but with one major difference. Instead of the deployment zones on the long edge of the table, we had them on the short edge of the table. The were deeper deployment zones, so I only needed the 12" to get to the center of the table. I was playing against an opponent who brought up a very old set of Orc and Goblins from back in the 70's of Ral Partha fame. Here is what we had at deployment:

 

My Deployment:

and I left this out, but I have my miners to the side.

 

His Deployment:

Turn 1:

My opponent had a hard time understanding how the magic rules work it seemed as I had to help him out in determining what he needed to do in order to setup the spells for his shamen.(always a bad idea to ask the dwarf player on this) Once I got that sorted, we rolled for turns and I think that I made him go first. First turn was pretty booring, just moving to the objective. My opponent decided to take his massive unit of trolls and a Giant through the woods for the rest of the game. He had limited magic through. He did drop a rock with his Rock 'Lobba on one of my warriors unit and they fled due in horror. With the General in the unit no less.

I had no problem rallying the fleeing unit of warriors. I guess that they found their balls again. Other than that, I right hooked with with my Ironbreakers towards the objective. Filled in with my GW detachment where the warriors were to begin with. I also moved up the rest of my army. I returned fire at the Rock 'Lobba and hit a crew member. My bolt throwers did some damage to some rank and file(Black orcs?) and I tried to hit at troll with my other one. Green one was the non flaming BT BTW. Crossbows took pot shots at the orcs that they could see. Pretty standard so far.

 

Turn 2:

My opponent kept moving the same routes as before. I don't recall much magic happening this turn either, but I believe that he got of one of his magic missiles and took out a warrior on my other larger unit. His magic was pretty tepid with what I brought to the game. His Rock 'Lobba viered off to the side after trying to destroy my organ gun.

I rolled to get my Miners into combat, which happened no sweat. I posted them up on the flank and got them behind the trolls. I continued to move my unit up with my GW detachment approaching the objective. Ironbreakers continuing with their right hook oblique on the flank. Warriors with the general moving fast to catch up to the rest of the line. My whole right flank got ready to take on the trolls and Giant. I continued to shoot at the Rock 'Lobba with my cannon and I started to score some hits with it, but not enough to kill the damn thing. My Organ gun started to open up but I believe that I misfired on this turn on it. No damage, just miss the turn. My Bolt Thrower killed a Troll and started to whittle down his forces along with my Crossbowmen.

Turn 3:

My opponent once again moved forward, trying to keep all units together as all of his monsters were walking in the woods. He reformed his Wolf Riders to get ready to engage my Miners. Another magic missile on the same Warrior unit that I failed a dispel roll on. His Rock Lobba once again did no damage.

From there I continued moving forward with my General's Warriors, and GW detachment in the center to claim the objective. My Ironbreakers still doing their right hook. I move up with my Miners on the wolves, and my right flank still holding and guarding the forest with all of his monsters. Ever present for a flanking charge, I made sure that my BSB unit is maximizing the frontage that he is in. I destroy the Rock 'Lobba with my cannon. My Organ Gun takes some damage on his orcs in the center. Both Bolt throwers hit nothing, and my Crossbowmen did some damage to his center units.

Turn 4:

My opponent charges with his Giant against my other GW Detachment. I proceed to panic with my Crossbowmen and Bolt Thrower. Ironically my GW detachment were in it to win it. Likewise with my BSB unit. Its good to have the General nearby. He also charged his wolf riders into my unit of Miners. They held and took the charge. Everything else was creaping up to the objective. I was able to roll well and fully stopped his magic this turn burning the last of my Dispel runes on my Runesmith of Pain in the Ironbreakers. My GW detachment stood no chance against this Giant, fled and was run down by the Giant. My Miners put up a good fight but eventually had to run and was run down by the Wolf Riders off the board.

 

From there I continued my plan of attack. I reformed my BSB unit to get into the fight more as I was worried less of the trolls, as they look to be bogged down in the trees for the rest of the game. I continued to advance with my General's unit and my Ironbreakers to the objective. I opened up on the Giant with both my Cannon and Organ Gun. I managed to nuke it completely. I continued to whittle down the center with my crossbows left and my Bolt Thrower did land a hit and took out a few of the far left flank unit which were Black Orcs.

Turn 5:

We were on the last turn as our TO was calling time on us. He managed to bring more of his units closer to the objective, got his Wolf Riders back on the board, and continued to have his trolls bogged down in the forest. No real magic to write about at this juncture. He did not do any charges on his round that I recall. I was not able to take any more pictures as we were focusing on the land round.

At my turn I did charge with my Ironbreakers unit on the flank to his Black Orcs. I managed to take him out with copious CR on my side and good CC from my runesmith in the unit.

The end of the game you calculate who is within the halo of the objective and t and I had over 500 points worth of units with my Generals unit and the detachment of GW close enough to the objective. He had nothing close enough to counter my points. It was one sided, but not as much as it could have been with more points camped around the objective like I could have had.

To be continued for Game Two...

Dusting Off My WFB Books Again

 

So I went to this tournament last weekend. It was quite a day trip from here in Charlotte, but that was due to the back roads to get there. I took a different route going home that lent me a faster trip home, I thought, but regardless it was about two hours to and from.

As far as the hobby store goes, it was nice location. Right in the middle of Aberdeen, NC which is a small town right between Pinehurst and what used to be called Ft. Bragg. It is right off of US1 and a little history of US1 is that it was the first highway stretching from Maine to the Florida Keys in the US. First established in 1025 and most of the buildings around town look to be built around that time period. There was obviously a lot of military around town but overall it was a nice sleepy old town in NC like what you would imagine Mayberry to be.

Hit Points Hobbies appears to have been located in one of these older buildings from before the war.(WWII) I got that impression form the hardware in the bathroom. The lock on the door was an odd chain lock that locked vertical with a "T" connection and two spigot's one for hot and one for cold water in the sink. Honestly I find that to be a novelty these days so I was ok with it. The shop has the usual game products, but instead of what I normally see with comic books, they had a whole room of video games. It was kind of like an arcade but only for more modern games with consoles hooked up to TV's. It was to a varying degree as far as which edition they had available. So you may find something like a Playstation 4 or 3 there instead of the newer editions for instance. I am not into console gaming so I cant tell just by the look. One other big thing that they were doing there that was different was that they offered a 3D printing service there. You could see the printers in one of the small side rooms that they had. They also had a few paint stations for someone to work on some models as well as I would assume advanced tools like an airbrush.

Overall it I thought that it was a fine store to visit. The general atmosphere and people working the store were nice folks. They do have a store cat so if you are allergic to cats, you are SOL. The cat smell was not bad, but it was faintly there. It makes the store smell more of a home rather than a store, and certainly better than some of the stores that I have been in. I guess that a new coat of paint and an annual cleaning would make things better but not by much. Here is their website with a picture section:

https://www.hitpointhobbies.com/

As far as the tournament goes, it was pretty decently run. All of us were rusty as hell in both playing games, but the TO did a good job in resolving disputes and such events. They kept us on track and got us to finish in a reasonable time in the evening. I have may be two critiques of the tournament management.

One was that they insisted that we use communal dice rather than your own. It is not a big deal to me, but who in the hell is the asshole who loads their dice to win at WFB? But who knows they may be down to that level. Another problem with it was that, the dice was weird colors so not easy to read. If this really is a problem, then I would suggest weighing the dice blocks of people and demand that we use Chessex dice, or if necessary give everyone a block of Chessex to use for the day. They had no problem with my artillery and scatter dice however.

The second was that on my last game my opponent and I were on the same table that we played our games on before. Meaning that he played game one and three on the same table and I played game two and three on the same table. It may not have been possible, but getting us on another table would have been nice.

This is their first time running a WFB tournament in a long time, so as far as hiccups goes, it was pretty small. I guess that they put this one out there to plan just as it was posted. They are planning a new event some time in January or February, and they promised that they will get to planning that a lot more sooner than they did this one, so I guess that they are working on it how. They also had trophies where one was a 3D printed dice tower.

The players were nice to play with. Almost all of us had lunch together at a brewery, and had a great conversation about painting over beer and burgers. Definitely about half were either current or former military, no surprise given the vicinity of the base. Overall I recommend the event that they put on.

Commentary on GW

So I have been pre-occupied with my new endeavor at Classic Hammer for the past year.  Back then I commented that Age of Sigmar will be a massive disappointment.  I will say that the jury is still out, but when you go to a game that is overtly a marketing ploy you are going to have all but a few people buy their product.  There was always that issue with what GW produced (the only exception is WAB books) but this was heightened to an extreme thanks to our friends in Nottingham.  Can we hire Bob the Dinosaur to give them corporate wedgies yet?

So GW is sinking further into decline.  Mark my words you will know that GW is in their death spiral when they make a Space Marine movie. 

Alternative System: Fantasy Warriors

Well last weekend I managed to read through a new rules system called "Fantasy Warriors."  I is a game system that was originally created by Nick Lund of Grenadier Models, back in 1990.  These days a company called Mirliton has the rules as a free PDF.  You can get them here.  While they do have some additions, the rules really have not changed that much since when they were originally created. 

For starters I would have to say that Mirliton is very kind for doing this.  It is in the same thing as Mantic does with their rules, which is another system that I want to review as well.  I do like some of Mirliton miniatures out there, but not a whole lot of them.  Just a different style to what I like to see in a Model, I guess. 

How it works:

When putting together an army in Fantasy Warriors, you do things that are rather different than what I have seen in other systems.  You establish a command structure in your army and  break up your army in commands.  You have the main character as a warchief, which functions as the primary commander for the army, and is eligible to have his own command of troops.  After that you have battle leaders who are subordinate to the warchief but lead their own commands.  I didn't see any specific rules against a warchief commanding the whole army, however, I can see how that can get the army into trouble in this system.  Obviously a change in what people are accustomed to these days. 

The units are organized differently which effect their functioning through the game in that you have elite, veteran, average, poor and unpredictable as a quality, and than a type of disciplined, tribal, fanatic, and stupid.  The characters are rather different as well in that some characters can be bought that really only augment someone like a battle leader or warchief.  For instance a Battle Standard Bearer is just one guy that augments the battle leader, rather than being a separate character as in Warhammer Fantasy.  There are also more variety of characters that can be bought. 

On top of more and different characters, there are rules where you are eligible to scout and determine table sides and who has the option of going first.  These are basically dice roles, however, using units designed for scouting can augment that roll.  The catch 22 is that the scouting unit must be held back at the edge of the table basically when you start, and the whole command must scot, which is one of the reasons for multiple commands.  They also have rules for day and night combat which can be effected in this phase as well. 

Fantasy Warriors is a game that is a phase based rules system, like Armies of Arcana in that you do both sides phase before you move to the next phase of the turn.  The various different phases that you and your opponent move through in a turn in order are threat, shooting, movement, combat, new order, influence, and command test.  Most of these are pretty obvious phases of the turn.  I have a hard time believing that anyone who reads this needs to have the shooting phase explained to them, along with combat, and movement.  They have their own idiosyncrasies that make them different from other systems, and it depends on what you are looking for in a system as to whether you like them or not.  I will point out that to hit and wound are similar to Warhammer but your dice throw is modified by a few more factors.  The other phases of threat, new orders, influence, and command test do stand for a more in depth explanation. 

Before I get to that, I believe that one of the concepts of the system that needs to be explained first and foremost in that every unit has more or less a standing order once they begin the game that they are ordered to carry out.  They are attack, hold, and oppose.  Attack is basically like a unit with Frenzy in Warhammer in that the unit will always move to combat, multiple combats are not allowed in this game.  Hold obviously is an order where a unit will stay and defend their one spot, and react any opposing force once they are attacked.  Oppose appears to be more like an order of harassment where a unit is mobile and basically under your general control.  These orders can change once they are in contact with the enemy ranging from basically a counter attack to running away.  There is no official fleeing the unit is just removed from combat.  When you get the new order phase there is the time where you can re-evaluate the order that the unit has and change the standing order.  Of course it requires a dice roll and can be influenced by the commanders at hand. 

At the start of the turn, you have a threat phase, which is basically a psychology test to see if the unit is going to continue with their orders or route.  This can be modified by any number of factors. 

The influence Phase is where the battle leaders can step in and shore up a unit that is going to be removed from combat in the next turn. 

The command test is more or less a test on the individual parts of the army to see if they route when the battle is going bad from what I gather.  This is where separating commands is good in that one command can collapse while the others are still active. 

I am sure that I am missing some things but this is the gist of the game. 

Final Thoughts

I would have to say that this game is very clunky in terms of game play, and most likely considered by some as outdated.  Personally I find it an interesting game system and I would be interested in playing it.  However I would not put it on a as my most favorite games just yet.  This may change after I play it but there is a lot that I did not go over still even though we are at over 1000 words right now.  There is a lot of content and charts that are harder to memorize than what you have in Warhammer, and that is a worry.  Hard to believe but I found a game system more convoluted and complicated than Warhammer ever was. 

Modeling Philosophy: Handling Doppelgangers in your army.

Over the past two months or so I have been very busy with other parts of my life and little for me to write anything down here.  Apologies for that, but I have not been resting on my laurels.  I have had a few games of 40K as well as find and buying up some 4th edition GW Fantasy Orcs.  In my recent forays into collecting these classic GW models, I have come across a few models that are multiples of each other.  That is rather normal given the ranges, however, my attempt is to avoid using the same model over and over again in your army.  It does tend to get redundant as well as boring painting the same damn guy.  In addition that it just is not what I want to collect in an army.  Of course I have a lot less of a problem if I can find no two alike guys for each regiment at least.  I can deal with a few of the same model in an army as opposed to a few of the same in each unit.  I can always say that there is "that guy" in each unit.  This comes to the concept of handling doppelgangers in your army.  I think that we do have a few trick depending on which kind of army that we are dealing with.

Army choice is something that I think can make a difference.  For instance any army that is either an undead army or fully armored army, as in Chaos Warriors, I believe that it should not that big of an issue.  I would still try to avoid redundancy when possible, but a skeleton is a skeleton.  They are by design uniform in appearance.  Zombies can be an issue, but can be overcome through creativity.   In the same idea, with uniform units like Elves, that are all kitted with the same uniform and helmet, I think that even in that situation it works.  Given that I am working on Space marines right now, I have to say thank god for power armor and helmets.

Painting may help out as well, but mainly for humanoids.  Basically changing the hair color is what makes the difference more or less.  This is something that should be used sparingly, however.  From my experience with my dwarves, even when you paint a face and beard a different color, they still seem redundant even with different bodies on them.  Thus the problem with flowing hair in my mind.  It makes the job harder to avoid doppelgangers, in my humble opinion.

Different manufacturers is a very good way in handling doppelgangers in my experience.  The hard part is finding a suitable manufacturer that is comparable to your collection.  With humans, I think that you can get away with a lot with the multitude of historical manufacturers out there, depending on what your tolerance is.  I have no problem with difference in height, however if they are supposed to be the same build, I expect them to be the same build.  I am not looking for freakishly shaped hands or very thin guys.  Basically I am not looking for Romans to look like these guys when the norm for every other manufacturer's Romans is as tall as the Dwarf's feather:

 

 

With all of this in mind I have come to a bit of a dilemma in some fashion.  The Orcs that I have been collecting have a good range, however, I seem to be having trouble finding a good variety on some units like the classic black orcs pictured here.  Some of these tricks will not work.  Painting is not an option, nor is their any other manufacturer's that I think will look comparable to these characters.(although I may be persuaded)  They don't have enough armor to hid behind like other models, so I guess that I need to be more creative with these characters, or do something like put them into regular units and find something else for Black Orcs if I must have Black Orcs.  Needless to say there is more for me to ponder with this army as I am collecting them.  Of course my knowledge on the orcs is rather scant during that time, so there may be more GW figs out there than what The Stuff of Legends has in their archive.  I believe that I have already found one big-un that is undocumented by these guys so hope springs eternal for the Black Orcs.  

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. 

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.

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 to Middle Earth once again.

Well I have to point out that a fellow blogger by the name of Der Feldmarschall gave me this tid bit earlier this week in the following post. 

http://derfeldmarschall.blogspot.com/2011/12/hobbit-unexpected-journey-movie-trailer.html

Thanks a bunch for posting this DF.  Now as a Dwarf guy, you would assume that The Hobbit is right in my wheel house.  Unfortunally stereotypes tend to be right right and this is no exception. The Hobbit, and for that matter LOTR as well, is in my opinion an example of classic fantasy literature ranking up there with Grimm's Fairytales, and even though both of these books may be considered to be geared toward the younger crowd I tend to think that they are still great reads for us adults.  I get a lot more out of these works now than when I was younger, and I can understand the richness of these works. 

Now let me comment about the movie.  While I do like the LOTR movies so much that I have the full DVD set, there are several glaring omissions that I wish that they would have kept in the movie, like the clensing of the shire for one.  I understand that they had a time issue, but some of the issues that I have with the movie do change the storyline that provides a larger message rather than just fantasy entertainment.  The Hobbit had much fewer messages in the book, however the movies are supposed to take a broader view of what was happening in Middle Earth at the time.  I am really looking forward to seeing this movie, and from what I see it will tie into the LOTR movies quite neatly.  All in all it looks like a great movie so far and I look forward to seeing it, which will hopefully introduce a lot of the Dwarven culture to us that we see from the books.  For those who want a link take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTSoD4BBCJc

As a side note the singing of the Dwarves in the movie is much better than the cartoon from back in 1977.  I thought that those damn songs were too childish when I was 6, let alone now.

Alternative Systems: Summary

Yet again on my sojourn from GW I have taken another step away from GW this week.  Given my post on comtemplating different manufactureres, (located here) I went looking for other manufactureres this week.  In addition to finding a few notable manufactureres that do interesting fantasy models, I also saw one manufacturer that has their own rules.  Now I know about Reaper so this was no specific suprise, but it got me thinking what else is out there that is an alternative to Games Workshop's rules. 

I took a trip to The Miniature Pages, and found a few posts of people asking the same question as I was.  Apparently, I am not the only one contemplating this.  The four posts that I found are the following:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=231833
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=232273
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=233715
http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=222852

After going through all of them I found the following systems as the answers to what is the alternative to GW's Warhammer Fantasy Battle:

List of Fantasy Game Systems:
1: Warhammer Fantasy Battle (Games Workshop)
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: Hordes of the Things*
9: 100 Kingdoms*
10: For the Masses (Majestic 12)
11: No Quarter
12: War Engine/Shockforce
13: Pride of Lions
14: Impetus*
15: Battle Systems 2 ed.
16: Rally Around the King
17: Reaper Warlord

* Free online rules

I may have missed one or two, but I think that I got them all.  Now I fully do admit that I am biased toward the 6th edition so much that a perfect world would be the combination of WFB-6 and WAB.  Given that, if I am impressed enough with a new system, then it is something notable for me.  From what I have been reading on the posts, some of these very much may not be what I am looking for based on the descriptions that some people have put up.

To me I would equate it to buying a car when you have brand loyality prevalent in your decision.  It is not that much of a suprise to me given that we invest a lot into this hobby.  Think of all of the time spend on reading through rules, painting miniatures, let alone the cost of the models.  So I am sure that I will be doing quite a few posts after I go through some of the rule sets.  Of course I am going to try out the free online ones first, and preferably get a game or two in to see how it feels as you play it along with the core rules review.  Even though the free ones are first in line, I have noticed that almost all of these rules are insanely cheaper than Games Workshop.  When I say cheap, I mean the most expensive ruleset so far including most armylists is cheaper than what the going rate is for the old paperback books after the price hikes of late.  Yet another example of GW's hubris. 

What is it you are looking for?

I believe that I should provide some attributes on what exactly that I am looking for.  Some of this may change and perhaps added as I go through the systems.  There may be a deal breaker that I dont know of just yet.  For right now, here is the following attributes that I am looking for:

1: 28mm model based game single bases.  I really don't want to rebase my dwarf army into large group bases. 

2: Same variety of units as what I am currently used to .  I want everything from monsters and warmachines to lowly infantry. 

3:  Robust magic, but not overpowering magic.  Odd from a dwarf player, but I have no problem with magic as long as it is not game-winning as it can be now in the 8th. 

4:  Close combat is incremental, and not all or nothing.  I like how I can take a few models off of my unit and not specifically loose the whole unit when I loose a combat.  It is anticlimatic to me when I just take a unit away.  Even when I loose that unit eventually I get the 300 feel of the combat. 

5:  Dice only and preferably only D6 dice.  If I really wanted a card game I would play texas hold-em.  and if I want a DXX dice game, I would proabably play DnD. 

6:  Main line company level game.  I am not looking to play games where a unit is a batallion, nor am I looking for my faction to have 20 models.  Skirmish games is a different analysis and deserves different parameters.  Note, I have no problems with skirmish units. 

7:  Must have atleast the standard fantasy factions that we all know and love.  I dont want to see fishmen with no elves in sight. 

8:  None of the annoyances of the current version of WFB.  I dont see how I can elaborate further. 

As stated before, the list will most likely grow as I go through a few of these and determine what I like and dont like.  I will try to have a running ranking to see what I like given what I have already gone through.  I have already downloaded a few of these rules, and I can tell some differences.  Some are over 20 years old, and will not ever change.  Some are just coming out and will be subject to change.  Having clunky rules is not a problem with me, which should not be suprised given my penchant for the 6th edition.  Truth be told I am interested in seeing what is out there exactly.