Do you feel it?

The simplest question in the world can sometimes be the hardest..

How did you get into the armies you play?  I have many armies and tried many more, but there's always some that sticks to my heart.  You know, the armies that you constantly go back to and prefer over the ones you bought on a whim.  You gotta FEEL the army to really get into it.

So the question once again is.. did you feel your army before getting it?

I'm asking because I'm in sort of a pickle.  I didn't invest a lot into VC yet, but I'm not feeling them the same way I felt about High Elves.

New Year's Resolution

Hey guys, hope everybody had a nice New Year.  I look forward to 2012 for a number of reasons, some of which are personal and I'll share them with you now.  Don't worry, this is all minis related and I promise you you won't be disappointed.

First, a sad realization:  I have plateaued as a minis gamer and in a bad way.  To categorize myself in a nut shell:  I love list building, playing the game and putting models together.  I hate painting, thinking about fluff or anything else really.

Now it's time for me to tell a story:

Something like 4 years ago, I played my first game of 40K at the gaming company I work at now.  I played a slightly older chap who used to work at GW and he had the most beautifully painted army I'd ever seen.  I was almost embarrassed to pull out my completely unpainted miniatures that I just put together.  This was back when 5th Ed. was still young and I just got my hands on some new Space Marines.  Long story short:  I tabled him by turn 2.  He turns, looks at me and says:  "Larry, I give up.  I'm not having any fun."  This is probably the saddest thing I have ever heard.  To me, everything was going perfectly:  Shrike Infiltrated and charged where he needed to, my Drop Pods came down and unloaded their Dreadnoughts precisely where I wanted them, my Sternguard arrived the next turn and annihilated their intended target... everything was perfect - from a strategic and tactical point of view.  However, one thing was not perfect:  My opponent was not having fun.  I was having fun because I view myself as a great general with a ton of experience.  That's what happens when you play the hobby and focus on its gaming aspects for the last 11 years.  Sure, I have painted armies before and had my shares of fluff discussions, but gaming is my specialty and what I do best.  I remember this story perfectly and vividly because it is the hallmark of where I failed as a minis player.

Another story:  A month or two ago, I played a friend of mine who is also considered a casual player.  He likes to paint a lot and I swear to God he builds the worst lists I've ever seen.  He's one of those one-a-list players but his models blows mine out of the water in terms of presentation.  Now, I'm playing with Dark Eldar, another completely unpainted army because I spend all my time building and playing these armies instead of anything else.  The gist of this story is that I've already "calmed" down as a competitive player.  I purposely took no Venoms, no special characters, no min-maxed Dark Lances (even though I still had 3 Ravagers), Wyches without FNP Haemonculi and no Wracks or Beasts.  Basically, I played what I viewed as "optimal but fair".  Sadly, I greatly outplayed my opponent and a day later an email goes out to my gaming group labeling me as a power gamer.  This is what prompted that post about FW model because my friend actually wants to take a Achilles vs. me just so he has a chance.  Sadness again.

Just recently:  I played a Warhammer Fantasy game, High Elves vs. Daemons.  I saw my opponent playing Kairos a previous game before and I asked him before we played if he was taking Kairos.  The reason why I asked is because if he was, I was going to take Teclis to combat him.  I have never done this, ever, in 11 years of wargaming.  I used to take whatever I want, whoever I want, whenever I want and never gave my opponents any ands, ifs or buts.  But hey, times are changing and I'm getting older.  Moving on:  After hearing what Teclis could do, my new friend says he'll take a normal chicken lord instead and then I asked him if I can take the Book of Hoeth.  Not even a special character, but now I'm asking if he's OK with an item.  I never thought this day would happen, never.  Anyways, we play the game I max out on my tactical acumen.  My Eagles redirected accordingly, I played superb and I'm basically way ahead of him.  Out of sheer sympathy, I let him rear charge my Spears after I opted to flee with my Eagle instead of just letting my Eagle redirect.  The reason is because I want him to kill something.. anything.

For one, this is not a spiritual funk that I'm in.  It's true, I've been inactive from minis and this might be one of the reasons.  Years of dedicated gaming has made me a great general, but for what?  I hardly make mistakes, I know the ins and out of my army and my list is battle-hardened and optimized.  There is no competition, I don't attend any tournies anymore because people are assholes but in turn, I'm viewed as one because of my gaming apparatus.  At the same time, I still feel the need for competition and I'm an elitist regardless of what I do.  When I see unimaginative and poorly-tuned lists, I think to myself why.  When I see poorly executed maneuvers without any consideration for the future, I think why.  When I see 5 marines charge a full squad of Wyches and Archon instead of getting back in their Rhino and running away, I think why.  "Why" is the definition of self-proclaimed superiority and the personal view of an elitist when you constantly question other people.

I think for this new year, I want to break the mold of asking why but rather ask:  Why not?  I spoke to a friend today and asked him what I should do.  He's an older gentlemen and has tons of experience with minis gaming and I know he can tell me something.  Maybe the reason the guy charged 5 marines into a full squad of Wyches is because he wanted to see something epic.  However tactically-flawed or outrageous, he just wanted a story in the lines of:  The Space Marine Sergeant punched the Archon through the face with his Power Fist.  Maybe the poorly designed lists I see are people who don't care winning (at all) and all they care about is physically portraying the different spices of life, sprinkled in the form of toy miniatures.  Maybe people misplay and make tactical errors because they are not as experienced as I am, someone who has tread thousands of battlefields in the fantasy-past and space-driven future.

I've offered for other people to build my lists, I've sacrificed units just so I can say I lost something and I've asked for my opponent's permission to play things.  My new year's resolution is to simply:  Play the beer and pretzels game the game was intend to be played.  I'm still going to blog about the competitive aspects of gaming and share all my knowledge about becoming a better general, but I want to do it with one important message:  Make sure you and your opponents are having fun.

Some VC brainstorming

Needless to say, I'm really excited about Vampire Counts in January.  I have boxes and boxes of stuff stored away waiting for this day (Jan 14th).  As if I don't have enough stuff already, the new stuff looks amazing.  I think it's time I start brainstorming on what kind of things I'll be taking in my 8th Ed. Vampires army.

First thing's first:  I will be taking a fighty killy lord over a spellcasting one.  There is nothing more boring than a bunker lord sitting behind his units spamming spells.  I want some 6th Ed. Killing Blow, +1S on the charge killer or some 7th Ed. Infinite Hatred + Red Fury.  From the latest rumor mill, it appears that Vamp Lords will be able to hit WS9 by taking the Dreadknight upgrade.  Since we have no idea what else is available, I'm hoping it'll be similar to what 7th Ed has now.  Sadly, I don't think Bloodlines will be back from what I've read so far.

I have no idea how I'm gonna deliver this bad boy yet, but it's either going to be Zombie Dragon, Blood Knights, Black Knights or Grave Guard.  At this moment, I'm leaning towards the Zombie Dragon and Blood Knights.  From the White Dwarf BR, it appears that Blood Knights went down in points, costing ~250 points for 5 of them with Full Command.  Also confirmed is the Banner of Blood Keep, so that's always a good thing to give your dudes ranged insurance.

My supporting heroes will definitely be a BSB and some supporting Necromancer casters.  Depending on how the Vampire Lords are priced with gear, I may or may not take a Master Necro.  Hopefully the magic items stay decent and not overpriced so I can take a bound item or two.

The core of my army will probably be made out of Skeletons and Ghouls.  Even though the Ghouls went up to 10ppm, I'm still going to take them.  A part of me hopes they added some benefits to warrant the price increase, but I can see myself taking a block of 40 in horde formation and a 30-strong skeleton bunker as my necro cage.  If the rumored 5ppm for Skeletons is right, we're looking at 180 points for 30 in Full Command.  Also, Screaming Banner is back so maybe add a War Banner for those Skeletons and call it a day.

What gets interesting is the rest of the army.  Say I want to spend big on the lord, big on the heroes and min core, we're looking at ~1250 spent so far (and that's really way maxed out).  That gives us roughly the same amount of points to play with for the various other things in the army.  What are those things?  You can basically pick 2-3 of these below..

Big block of Grave Guard + Banner of Barrows?
Big block of Blood Knights w/ Banner of Blood Keep?
Big block of Black Knights + Banner of Barrows?
2x Terrorgheists + Lord on Zombie Dragon?
A bunch of Corpse Carts to refresh ASF everywhere?

A supporting unit of Hexwraiths is a must I would think..
For some reason, the Coven Throne and the other thing don't appeal to me...

Depending on what they change about the Grave Guard and Banner of Barrows, I'm leaning towards 2x Terrorgheist + Lord on Zombie Dragon.  Either that, or I'll run the Lord in a large unit of Blood Knights w/ Banner of Blood Keep.  Points willing, I think I'll have enough for a small unit of Hexwraiths just to flank and harass.

Some VC rumors

UPDATED: 1:36pm 12-29-11

Completely true. Local newsagent had the white dwarf, and I've been having a good read. Invocation of Nehek affects all friendly units in its radius of 6"/12"/18", depending on the power level.

The Corpse Cart gives all units within 6" ASF until your next magic phase if it is the target of a Vampire spell - including the AoE of Invocation. This is specifically stated. Imaging say, 3 units of Skeletons or even Grave Guard, with 2 Corpse Carts between them, and a Necromancer or two in there throwing out Invocation every turn. Skeletons/Grave Guard with permanent ASF.

Raise Dead can raise either Zombies or Skeletons.

A few other tidbits.

Necromancers can take an upgrade called Master of the Dead. The only way to add models to a Skeleton unit raised with Raise Dead is with a Necromancer with Master of the Dead.

Ghouls are 10 points. A unit of 40 with a Ghast in one of the sample lists was 410 points.

Banner of the Blood Keep is one of the returning banners, and grants a 4+ ward save to shooting attacks.

There appear to be 3 different vampire types. Vampire lord, Vampire, Strigoi Ghoul King. This is mentioned in the new rules for Vampire Counts pacts for Storm of magic, they specifically name the lord choices you can take, and it is those 3 and Master Necromancer. They don't mention at all what makes a Strigoi Ghoul King different, though it might have something to do with Hatred and Poison, as Phil Kelly pointed out in the GW website Terrorgeist designers notes.

I also may be reading too much into it, but there's some hints towards Ghouls not being able to be reinforced through Invocation of Nehek. Don't quote me on this, it's not outright stated, just whenever they talk about raising models, Ghouls are the only unit not mentioned, as well as in the Lahmian sample list they say 'with 40 models, it ensures there will be enough left when they reach the enemy' or sometihng to that effect.

A Vampire Lord with death knight is WS 9. Looks like Vampire Lords are getting ridiculous stats again.

Master Necromancers can be the general. They specifically state this. It's possible to make an army completely lacking vampires.

They make a subtle mention about 'when the general dies, the army starts to crumble until another powerful character can regain control.' Seems like you can replace the general with a powerful Necromancer or other Vampire caster somehow if the general dies.

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Another batch of input... (from reading through the WD at the store today)

Where should we start ?

Lore of the Vampires

Signature Spell is definitely Invocation of Nehek - on the most fundamental level it can restore "D6 + caster's Wizard level" of Wounds to friendly Undead unit within 6". Boosted version has 12" range, as well as 18" ones.

Other spells includes Raise Dead, Vanhel's Danse Macabre, Curse of Years, Gaze of Nagash, and Wind of Death

Lore attribute: When the spell from the Lore of the Vampires is succefully casted, the wizard or any undead models within 12" restores 1 wound.
Rules tidbits:

All Vampire has rule called "Hunger" - You get to roll a D6 when the vampire kills one or more models in combat, on a 6 you recovers one wound. (Vlad with Blood Drinker pass the roll on 4+)

Also Vampire, including vampiric creatures "such as" Varghulf and Vargheist, can march. So Vargheist will be able to move 20" per turn almost all the time. (not sure if Varghulf can also fly)

Vampiric Powers: (not all of them, just those mentioned in WD)
Flying Horror - give the vampire ability to fly (unsure)
Dread Knight - ability to boost WS (don't know how - but a Vampire Llord with Dread Knight has WS of 9)
Quickblood - gains ASF
Master of the Black Arts - get to re-roll one D6 for the Winds of Magic.
Dark Acolyte - add D3 to the total number of models raised by Nehek.
Red Fury - should be about the same. (unsure)

New units:

Coven Throne
- Basically a chariot mount for your Lord.
- Is a Large target with S5 T5 5W and 5+ save.
- has Spectral Steed rules (can move 8"), Undead, Vampiric, ASF (only for Handmaiden who has 2 S5 Attacks)
- has Random Attacks (2D6) at S3 from the spirit horde.
- Has Ward Save of 4+
- Battle of Wills (before the first enemy rolls to hit against the character or the Throne, both player roll a D6 and add their LD value. Has effects based on the difference of the score)
* no effect (0 or less)
* suffer -1WS/BS
* the enemy must re-roll successful To Hits
* each model in the enemy unit strike each other (only 1 attack per model)
- Has Bound Spell (lvl3) allowing the Throne (and all of its crew) to re-roll either To Hit or To Wound rolls.

Mortis Engine
- Is a Rare Choice
- Same stats as for the Throne (S5 T5 W5 Sv5+)
- has 2D6 attacks at S3 from the spirit horde
- Undead, Terror, Spectral Steed, and Regeneration
- can make Ghostly Howl attack.
- can take upgrade, allowing any wizards casting spell from the Lore of the Vampires to get +2 to their casting attempt. (ANY) miscast wizards rolls twice on the table and have the opponent choose the result)
- The Reliquary (at the start of your turn, roll 2D6 and add the current turn number - until the start of its next turn, all friendly Undead units within this number of range gains +1 bonus to their Regeneration, 6+ if they don't have any, to a maximum of 4+. Also, all enemy units within this range suffers D6 hits at the strength equal to the turn number.

- Also has some penalties if removed from play - by damaging every units within a random range at the strength equal to the current turn number)


Master Necromancer
- New Lord choice (ie. better Necromancer)

- Banshees and Cairn Wraith are now Hero

Hexwraiths (special)
- Fast Cavalry with Ethereal (yes!) that can inflict automatic S5 hits on unit that it moved through.

Vargheist (special)
- Flying Monstrous Infantry that has Fly, Frenzy, and 3A.

Crypt Horrors (special)
- Monstrous Infantry unit with M6 S4 T5 I2 W3 A3, has Poisoned Attacks, Regeneration 5+, and Undead.

I think that's all I've seen in the WD...

BTW, Heinrich Kemmler is back in finecast (and in the book) for sure. But on the original sculpt, no new miniature for him. (at least for now)


Seeing lots of people wondering if the Bloodline is back in the book.
Honestly, I'm not sure as it's not specifically mentioned rule-wise.

Cheers,
ZAlpha


Hmm... let's see...

Skeletons....should be A LOT cheaper.
(40 Skellies with Full Command for less than 240 points.  )

Crypt Ghouls... definitely a bit more expensive.

Zombies... even cheaper than the current one.

Fell Bats... cheaper.

Corpse Cart.... almost the same (but goes Special)

Black Knights.... cheaper.

Spirit Host... cheaper as well.

Varghulf... remains the same.

Dire Wolf....should be exactly the same.

The rule is not clear whether the Vampire can give the unit he/she joined march move. However, the article clearly says that only "the General of the army, usually a Vampire of incredible age and power, is mighty enough to pass on this ability to other Undead units within 12" of him"

For the corpse cart... hmm I'm not sure I understand it correctly - but I think when you target a Lore of Vampire spells at the Corpse Cart (or if it is within area of effect of spells such as Invocation of Nehek <-- this is what's written in WD) all freindly undead within 6" of the Corpse Cart affected by the spell will benefit from Always Strike First until the start of your next Magic Phase.

You don't expect Ethereal Fast Cavalry to be that cheap, don't you?

Based on the demo list posted in WD, I think they may be almost as expensive as Dragon Princes of Caledor.


@LotusCorgi

I see only Musician and Standard for Zombies.
No rules for recasting spells mentioned in WD.

Merry Christmas Vampire Counts!

Got a whole bunch of pics from the latest White Dwarf.

Check out all the Vampire Count goodness!

Merry Christmas everybody :)

Research: War of the Ring

I guess this can be inspired because of the new Hobbit trailer, but this is more for personal research.

My friends tell me War of the Ring is herohammer 40K + simplified Warhammer Fantasy.  Since I have no experience with the LotR or WotR, I was wondering if you guys can explain the game to me.  I have the rulebook and I've been reading it over.. but I kinda ran into a problem area.

I've read this maybe 30 times and I'm either tired, illiterate or a mix of both, but I can't make any sense out of this:

Take a look at the To Hit mechanism for shooting in this game.

The example they gave was that a few companies of Galadrim Archers shot at some orcs.  They generated 22 shots.

then they lost me...

So a Galadrim Archer has a Fight value of 5/3+.  The 2nd value represents their skill with a bow.  So using that aiming bonus chart they provided, it means that each company does that number of attacks (8 attacks per company), plus 2 more attacks because it's 5(5 is base number for everything apparently)-3 = +2 bonus die (so 10 total).  So 2 companies of Galadrim Archers with direct LoS generates 20 shots  and if there's 2 more companies behind them, they generate 2 more (1 die for each "supporting" company).  That's 22 dice total.

OK, so looking at the 3+ value of their ranged skill, then looked at their example of "to hit chart", it seems to me they skipped "to hit" all together and just moved onto wounding?  (strength is strength and defense would be toughness).

I'm pretty confused.  I guess hits only add attack dice and you only roll to see if it wounds or not?

Anywho, the rest of the game looks pretty straight forward:

• 1k battles looks like a 1500 point game from the size of stuff
• FOC looks really streamlined and easy to figure out with common and rare choices
• Charges have a smaller degree of random because it's just D6 + 2,4,6,8 depending on what kind of model you are
• LoS like WHFB but there's less emphasis on pivots and turning (even more so than 8th)
• Magic is not like 8th ed. WHFB but more like 6-7th ed., which I like, a lot
• Herohammer elements with epic heroes doing epic and heroic abilities
• From the looks of it, it looks like this game should be very scenario based or else people are just going to push models forward and crash into things

Did I miss anything?  Now to figure out this combat system...

40K vs. Fantasy by region

I'll lead this off with a link to my favorite site of all, Warseer.  (I'm banned from there btw)

Then I'll post something that loveless said somewhere on the first page:

On the subject of why 40K is played more in the USA than Fantasy.. it's because..

loveless
We Americans like our automatic weapons, missiles, and tanks. Fantasy is lacking a bit in that department.

That said, I think the biggest issue with Fantasy around here is still the rank-and-file nature of it.

"I need to buy how many boxes to make one unit?" compared to smaller box counts in 40K and Warmachine. Honestly, I'm not sure why GW packages WHFB the way they do - they throw out 10-man boxes for WHFB when a standard unit size is going to be 20+ in most cases.

40K has its own packaging problems, but they're less apparent, IMO. A 5-man Terminator squad is perfectly usable, even if the max size is 10. The 5-man Troop/Elite boxes are questionable, but are often bulkier than equivalents in WHFB. It's odd to say, but I feel like I'm getting more bang for my buck when I'm working on $60 of 40K vs. $60 of Fantasy (notable exception: plastic Zombie Dragon - worth every penny).

The other thing that springs to mind is the widespread knowledge of the Dawn of War and Space Marine games. GW has struggled to license out a good, positively memorable WHFB-based game. W:AR was (is?) quaint at best and a useless exercise in PvP at worst. The RTS version of Fantasy (Mark of Chaos?) never seemed to catch on.

Personally, I like WHFB (especially 8th), but I have trouble painting (let alone buying) 200+ plastic rats or 100+ plastic undead when a square piece of cardboard does the same thing - 50%+ of those models are just glorified wound counters.

With 40K, if I buy 10 Necron Immortals, all 10 have a definite chance to contribute to my army's rate of fire and damage output. 10 Terminators means 10 bruisers who have a damn good chance of getting stuck into a combat and individually wrecking face.

I think you get more of a personal connection with 40K models - you can really go to town with posing and conversions and single Troop models. Your opponents can learn to fear Brother Nero, the tactical marine firing a bolter in one hand and a bolt pistol in the other because he managed to pick the last wounds off the Ork Warboss after the rest of his squad died. Hell, back at the beginning of 4th, I had one particular Arco-flagellant that had accomplished such ridiculous feats of murder that he quickly became the go-to target for my regular opponents.

With Fantasy, the most "locally renown" models were Lord and Hero choices - the troops and such were just meaningless placeholders while Wizards blew them away and heroes cut through them with the Enchanted Sword of Truthiness. Skeleton #27 isn't very likely to stand out from his fellows, nor is High Elf Spearman Ellisyr or Ork Boy Grum Toothcracka.

Fantasy often feels like you're just moving blocks around while 40K can feel like an interactive war movie (and there are games that do it a lot better than 40K, as well!).



What do you guys think about this?