Turning to the Dark Side

(Fitting given the Sci-Fi Theme)


I haven't talked much about my 40K collection, or much of anything for that matter in the past three months.  That damn real life again.  40K was not a game that interested me much when I was younger.  I am not much of a fan of the Genre when it comes to what we have in the Media.  It is something that really didn't appeal to me.  I do like the classical movies like the original Star Wars, Dune, and of course this. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8nPhsfYS5U


Recently what has driven me towards Sci-Fi is the Honor Harrington Series.  For those who don't know, it is basically like reading CF Forester interplanetary.  So that is my hook that opens up my mind to the Genre as of late.  Over the past few months I have been playing about half of a dozen games of 40K.  Space Marines are the army that I am currently playing with a Crimson Fist theme and play style.  After these games there are some issues that I have with the current edition of the game, however I would say that overall it is a system that I am liking more than Fantasy.  I won't belabor my disappointment with the 8th edition, since that has been expounded on in an earlier post. 

I espoused long ago that I would take my lessons of the past and limit my scope of what and how I do my purchases.  I do plan to keep that pledge with my space marines for the most part.  I have about 2/3 of a company that I am working on now.  I don't plan on getting anything new until all of this is up and running for Space Marines.  In addition to that, I am setting aside some time in my busy life right now to get some painting done.  Given how slow I am of a painter as well as the summer being as busy as it has ever been for me, it will certainly not happen overnight.  I will be posting my progress with this army.

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.  

New Games with Old friends

Well it has been a slow month for me so far with my miniature hobby.  However I was able to get a game in of 40K using the 6th edition last Sunday.  It is my first game and while interesting, we had a lot of distractions so it was not a great game to gauge whether it is an edition that I am fond of yet.  We were playing a 1K game and it took us over 4 hours to play.  One of the main distractions is that an old friend of mine dropped by the store that I have not seen in a few years. 

Honestly I was thinking of him as of late and wondering where had he been and if I should try to contact him.  It is kind of a chance encounter like what you read in the appendix of the LOTR with Gandalf and Thorin.  My fellow Roman antagonist for WAB told me last month that he was rather incognito due to real life issues that are occupying his time.  I know that he was not a fan of the current edition of WFB as I am, and had really not been active in any of the forums that he and I would frequent online.  As of late however he has been on TMP, so at least I know that he is still alive. 

My old friend and I of course struck up a conversation about 40K and WFB.  One of the topics of conversation was also the idea of trying to get together to play 6th edition once in a while, since we still had the capabilities to play the game.  Not to leave my opponent out in the cold, but he knew my old friend well and they conferred over an idea for a 40K apoc. game in the future. All in all it was a pleasant afternoon and needless to say I was glad to get out of the house for the time.  It is my hope that some good ole 6th edition game are on my horizon. 

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.