My Discovery of the Day

I believe I found this site through Twitter, but I can't remember exactly.  I followed a link and ended up on the Painted Legions website.  This is a site for commissioned miniature painting, but also includes a fair set of painting, modelling and basing tutorials.  There is not a huge number of them yet, but hopefully, they will continue to build their library.

The tutorials that are there are pretty good and detailed enough to be able to follow yourself.  I recommend giving it a look.

Oh, and their logo looks like the Ottawa Senators logo.  If you're a hockey fan you'll see it right away.

Games Workshop Annual Report

I spent some time this morning looking through the Games Workshop Annual Report.  Now, I do not profess to be an accountant or business guru.  I can simply read and make inferences.  I'd like to jot down a few of the things that jumped out for me upon a first read of the report.

Sales and Profits are Down

Total sales for GW were down nearly 3% from last year.  Most notable were Australia (down 11.8%), UK (down 6.3%) and North America (down 4.8%).  It appears that the rage quit in Australia has really taken its toll on GW sales in that continent.  I'm sure the massive sales that were being done by UK online retailers did not help their numbers down under either.  We may be looking at one of the main reasons for GW changing its terms of trade for UK online retailers.  I speculate that a combination of competition and the poor economic climate in North America (especially the US) led to those sales drops.

GW is still profitable.  Through cost cutting and streamlining their business GW profits only slipped slightly.  GW still made a pre-tax profit of 15.4 million pounds (just over $25 million USD).  GW is not a huge operation by any means.

Focus on Hobby Centres

A large part of the CEO's Commentary focused on Hobby Centres.  GW has introduced systems and programs to improve manager recruitment and performance at their Hobby Centres around the world.  GW wants to make the Hobby Centres the place where they grow their business.  The CEO states that most people find out about the hobby through word of mouth and they want to push the process with their Hobby Centres. Customer service is also a push for all Hobby Centres.

Oh, and GW has discovered Facebook.  All Hobby Centres will get their own Facebook page so they can better communicate with the local gaming community regarding events, etc.  Better late than never I guess.

Finecast

Finecast was a big move for the company.  The CEO's Report contained nearly a full page on Finecast.  GW felt that with metal, "the optimum level of quality with that material has now been achieved."  So, a combination of higher quality (in detail and sculpts), the inexorable rise in commodity prices, and their experiences with Forge World, led to the change to Finecast.  The process was two years in the making.  GW claims a 97% quality rate in the changeover.  I have no idea what standard they were using to measure "quality".  

In short, this was a major initiative for the company and consumed major resources.

Warhammer Fantasy

The previous edition of Warhammer was under performing in sales, especially compared to 40K.  GW was not getting a good enough return on the investment in product development in the Fantasy system.  This may explain the slow pace of army book releases and new miniatures during 7th.  Fantasy wasn't paying its way!  The launch of 8th edition was meant to redress the balance between 40K and Fantasy.  The CEO states that GW will "continue their support for this revitalised game system".

Well, that's what I noticed.  Let's face it, a teacher on summer vacation has too much time on his hands.

Warmachine Crowd Sourcing

I just finished a minimum unit of Exemplar Errants for my budding PoM force.  The Errants are the first thing I have painted outside of the battle box.  I am going to be looking for bigger battles in the near future as the little battle box games have run their course.  I'm ready to learn how units work and interact with other models on the board.

That's where the crowd sourcing comes in.  I have very limited experience with Warmachine in general and PoM in particular.  I'm going to list what I have and have anyone that actually reads this blog let me know if there is anything absolutely essential that I don't have yet. I've just been buying stuff willy nilly off of eBay. I'd kind of like to focus my spending on what I need. 

I am planning on sticking with pKreoss for a little while longer until I've got him figured out, then I'll probably get into the eFeora that I picked up.  I have a fairly aggressive play style.  I am also a read and react kind of player rather than mapping out everything turns in advance.

Current Holdings:

Casters
pKreoss
eFeora

Jacks
Avatar of Menoth
Crusader
Crusader/Vanquisher/Templar (magnetized heavy jack kit)
Repenter
Revenger

Units
Exemplar Errants - max unit

Solos
Exemplar Errant Senechal
Vassal
Vassal Mechanik


Lost in Postal Limbo
Choir of Menoth
Exemplar Errant UA

Well, drop me a comment if you can offer me some guidance.

WHFB 8th Edition: One Year Later

I was sitting around listening to HeelanHammer's retrospective on the first year of 8th edition last night.  It made me think of that time last year when I was watching the Beasts of War videos and my mailbox for the new rule book.  Then, I was stuck waiting for the club to start up in the fall in order to get a game in.  Meanwhile, Australia had decided to rage quit before I had even played the darned thing.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a long time Warhammer player.  I was actually one of those people that walked by the Games Workshop store and sneered at the "nerds" hunched over their painting inside.  It wasn't until almost two years ago that I embraced my inner nerd and took Warhammer out for a spin.  Mike, otherwise known as FBRoundup, lent me the first Horus Heresy book and I dug the story.  I dabbled in 40K for a small game or two, but the aesthetics of the game didn't appeal to me.  Mike is a missionary on a mission to convert the world to WHFB, and he pointed me in that direction.  I loved the minis and picked the High Elves and am still painting that damned army to this day.

While I loved the minis, I must say that I hated playing 7th edition.  The fiddly mechanics and the byzantine movement/charging rules gave me a headache when I played.  I reluctantly played when Mike asked.  I much preferred to stay at home and paint the minis.  I predict that if 8th edition had been in the same vein as 7th, I would be playing Warmachine/Hordes now instead.

I love the flow of 8th edition.  I love the more intuitive way the rules work.  Much as Dan Heelan said, the rules generally make sense if one puts some common sense toward it.  Of course it has it's problems.  No rules set survives being played unscathed.  But generally, I picked up the rules and nuances of 8th much faster than I ever did 7th.

I also like the fact that due to magic or a giant melee, the game's momentum can swing wildly during the course of a game.  A player is rarely out of the game until the very end.  I also like the magic phase and how it can lead to those wild swings of momentum.  I like the fact that the game has gone from preplanning your phases and an emphasis on estimating distances to risk management and adaptation to a given situation.

I find that to play 8th, you need to take the whole thing with a pinch of salt.  There is always the possibility that you will be Dwellered/Purple Sunned/etc. in the first turn and you just have to laugh it off and realize that as in real life, bad things happen to good people sometimes.

In conclusion, I am very, very pleased with 8th edition and credit it with keeping me in the hobby and playing the game far more often.  To those rage quiters, change is hard, but usually worth it in the end.

2500 pts High Elves vs. Skaven

This battle actually occurred a week ago.  I  am sometimes a little lax on the blog update thing.  I'll do my best to remember what exactly happened.

 This was only my second time playing Skaven.  Our local Skaven player doesn't play often and doesn't run any of the filth, so this was going to be a learning experience.  I was warned ahead of time that Ken was bringing a hard list and I warned him that I wanted to try out my dragon for the first time.  I knew that taking a dragon would not be an ideal choice due to the inevitable warp lightning cannon, but I really wanted to put that bad boy to work.

Lists:

Skaven:
Warlord on Bone Breaker, Warlock enhanced weapon, Talisman of Preservation
Greyseer, Warpstone Tokens, Power Stones
Plague Furnace, Plague Priest, Dispell Scroll
28 Plague Monks, Full Command, Plague Banner
Chieftan x2
30 Stormvermin, Full Command
50 Clan Rats, Full Command
25 Clan Rats, Full Command
40 Slaves, Musician
4 Rat Ogres
Warp Lightining Cannon
Hell Pit Abomination
Doomwheel

High Elves:
Prince, Moon Dragon, Enchanted Shield, Vambraces of Defence, Crown of Command
Noble, BSB, Banner of the World Dragon
Mage, Level 2, Sigil of Asuryan, Lore of Death
Mage, Level 2, Silver Wand, Opel Amulet, Ironcurse Icon
20 Archers, Musician
20 Archers, Musician
21 Spearmen, Musician, Banner
21 Spearmen, Musician, Banner
Great Eagle x2
21 Swordmasters of Hoeth, Musician, Banner, Banner of Sorcery
5 Dragon Princes, Musician, Banner
Bolt Thrower

Ken deployed in a pretty spread out manner, which suited me just fine.  Also, he placed the furnace on the far flank.  If he had placed it centrally, I would have had a world of trouble dealing with it.

I deployed centrally and tried to keep my force fairly tightly together.  I have found in the past that I spread out too much and even with the great movement of the elves, I leave a few units hanging in the wind.  Also, we have mostly been playing 1500 point games at the club due to time constraints and it was difficult placing so many units and not blocking myself in. 

Ken got first turn and promptly cast Warp Storm, I think it's called.  It is the spell that grounds flyers and gives a -1 to shooting.  This threw a spanner in the works for me.  I found that I had two eagles that were deployed in front of other units that could only move 2".  This created a terrible bottleneck and left me basically sitting around for a turn.  The dragon was pooched as well, because he couldn't get out from behind the troops in front of him. I really wanted to get him into the A-bomb.  Ken shot at the Swordmasters and pulled a rank off of them.


My turn one was uneventful.  My magic was either ineffective or dispelled and my shooting did nothing to speak of.

Turn two saw my Swordmasters get into the unit of slaves and wreck them.  The slaves did nothing back and even with steadfast blew up in my face, luckily not doing too much damage to the squishy elves.  The A-bomb got within a couple of inches of a unit of spearmen, so I charged it to save the impact hits.  The dirty little elves actually did a wound on the ugly beastie and the A-bomb squished a fair few elves, but they were left with a couple of ranks so were steadfast and held.  The dragon got in behind the A-bomb for a charge next turn.

Lucky for me, Ken's magic didn't do much this turn and he used the cannon to shoot at my bolt thrower instead of the dragon.  In retrospect, I'm sure he would do that differently if he could do it over.  In my magic phase I got spirit leach off on the chieftan in the unit of Stormvermin and killed him dead.   Shooting again did nothing.

Turn three saw the Dreaded 13 spell make an appearance.  Ken cast the spell on my unit of arches that my fire mage and fled to.  The spell went off irresistibly and turned the whole batch into Clan Rats.  I was very "disappointed" at this point.  Ken also got the doomwheel into the flank of the dragon before he could charge the A-bomb.  His cannon again targeted the bolt thrower and did nothing.

The Swordmasters charged the Stormvermin and after seeing the beat down on the slaves, Ken chose to flee, while I restrained.  The doomwheel did a wound to both the rider and dragon, but misfired and couldn't get a good lick on the unit.  The elf did nothing to the wheel, but the dragon smashed it flat.  Amazingly, the spearmen held out for another turn and did another two wounds!  They also had a rank left so were still steadfast and held even after the beating they were taking.  In the magic phase, Spirit Leech took out the Plague Priest on the furnace.

Turn four saw the A-bomb finally finish off the pesky spearmen and turn to face the dragon.  The Rat Ogres charged the remaining unit of spearmen.  Their hero challenged the mage and she wisely went to the back where she wouldn't be dead.  The spearmen put the hurt on the Rat Ogres and made them run away.  The Stormvermin just kept running.  The clan rats only managed to take a wound off of the eagle and it stuck around.

Magic for me did nothing this turn as Spirit Leech was dispelled and I didn't feel like blowing my last mage up, so didn't force the issue.  The died, but had eagle held up the big unit of Clan Rats so the Swordmasters could get the charge in.  The Swordmasters took a big chunk out of the Clan Rats with minimal losses in return.  The Clan Rats were steadfast, however.  The dragon finished off the job the spearmen had started and killed the A-bomb after taking another two wounds.  Shooting again does nothing.

Turn five saw the Stormvermin run off the table without ever seeing combat.  The Clan rats took another sh*t kicking from the Swordmasters, and after a good leadership roll and subsequent reform,  were still steadfast, but not by much.  During the magic phase, the Dreaded 13th struck again.  Ken rolled a mitt full of dice including those gained from a warp stone.  He rolled five sixes!  My unit of spearmen were devastated, but not removed.  My caster survived to fight on.  Ken rolled poorly for his miscast and ended up smashing most of the rest of the Clan Rat hoard and a bunch of the Greyseer's unit.  The Greyseer rolled over 3 and lived to fight on as well.  The Rat Ogres rallied and turned to face the Dragon Princes that had been shadow boxing with the furnace all game.

In my turn, the Dragon Princes charged the Rat Ogre unit and did well, but alas, I couldn't pass an armour save to spar my life and lost three models.  The Swordmasters cleared out the remaining Clan Rats from the hoard, and the dragon charged the Greyseer's unit.  However, the furnace was trundling toward that combat.  The mage and her few spearmen swift reformed to face the furnace.  I cast five dice at Purple Sun and got it off irresistibly.  The sun went through the furnace and a bunch of the Plague Monks.  We were unsure how to handle the furnace's test for the Purple Sun.  After consulting the rules, we decided to use the stats of the crew.  If we did this wrong, I'd love to hear how it should be done for next time.  Anyway, the furnace went poof and so did a chunk of the monks.

We called the game after the end of turn five due to lateness and that fact that it was mostly a cleanup operation after that.  This was a very fun game with the momentum swinging widely several times throughout the game (as often happens in 8th).  I know Ken and I made lots of tactical errors, but that's all part of the learning curve.

Storm of Magic and Wrath

The past few weeks have seen a couple of new books have been released for two of the more popular wargames which just happen to be the two wargames I play.

Storm of Magic

First, Games Workshop released Storm of Magic.  I've read about this expansion in White Dwarf, heard about it on various podcasts and have actually taken a look at the book.  The book itself is very nice.  There are lots of colour illustrations and the physical construction of the book is very clever.  The cover opens up just to the right of the spine in order to show off the nifty spinner on the inside cover.

From what I've read the rules for Storm of Magic sound interesting enough.  Lots of monsters and crazy amounts of magic brought to bear in order to capture and keep arcane fulcrums.  But, here's my problem.  The book is just shy of $60.  It's not a very big book and the rules only take up maybe 20-30 pages.  The rest of the book is filled with "scrolls of binding".  So, essentially the book beyond the first quarter of pages is a giant bestiary.  $60 is a lot of my hobby money to spend on some fancy pictures of monsters and their stat lines.

My second problem with SoM is the fact that the game is centred around massive monsters.  While this may seem great, I am relatively new to the hobby and to play this game would necessitate purchasing several relatively expensive monster models that I would only use to play SoM.  What happens (as I expect it will) when after the initial buzz wears off, people don't really want to play SoM very much anymore?  I am left with a bunch of monsters sitting on my shelf.  Frankly, I'm not that impressed with the monsters so far and can't see myself buying them just for the pleasure of painting them.

At this point, I think I'll be giving SoM a pass.  The think is, I don't play Warhammer enough to need a different variant.  I play a maximum of once a week and regular Warhammer is fine to fill that few hours.  I wish they would just get back to publishing army books in a timely manner.

 Wrath

 Wrath is the supplement/expansion for Warmachine.  I'll be honest when I say that I'm not sure how this thing works.  I am very new to Warmachine and I'm not sure what the point of the new book is.  I've been told that Wrath doesn't contain any new rules, but merely new fiction and models and their stats.  I've explained in an earlier post that fluff doesn't really float my boat.  So, I wonder if I need to spend the $31.50 for a bunch of stories that I may or may not read.  That's three ebooks that in my opinion are almost guaranteed to have better writing and stories than a game manual.  It would be great to be able to check out the stats of the new models for my faction and the other factions as well.  But, that's a lot of money for that peek.


In short, I'm undecided on Wrath.  Unfortunately, I was not able to have a look at it at my "local" hobby shop that stocks Privateer Press ("local" is two hours away).  Hopefully, a local player that has more money to spend on hobby than I do will pick it up and I can get a good look at it before I make my decision.

Menoth vs. Cryx

I had another battle box game last night at the club.  It's been a while since I've played Warmachine, so it took a while to get back into the rhythm of the game.  We both have been playing WHFB for the last month or so and we both wanted to move all of our models and then shoot and then fight. We also had to keep reminding each other that pre-measuring was not cool.

Mike decided to try and see how his little devils would do on the flanks.  Against this I kept my 'jacks in a fairly small group in the centre of the field.  During the course of the game, we both learned that you have to be careful when putting your 'jacks out on the flank.  Warjacks don't do too much if you can't put focus on them.  It's also easy to over extend yourself.

Mike managed to do some minor damage on my Crusader before the big fella smashed the little devil (I don't know what they're called) to pieces in one turn.  His heavy then made a combo attack on my Revenger and toasted him when he rolled triple sixes for damage.  I could say that I sacrificed the 'jack for strategic reasons, but at best it was a murky plan in my head.  With the heavy occupied and the two little devils out on the flanks I popped my feat and then shot up the middle and behind him with my Repenter and set Denny on fire.  I will admit that I rolled well for damage and I almost toasted her that turn.  Then when the next turn started the fire got Denny for sure.

It was another learning experience.  My willingness to run up the middle and force the play left Mike's light 'jacks out of position and forced him to react.  I'm not usually that type of player, but I thought I'd take a sip of the page 5 Kool Aid.

If Canada Post can ever find my Choir of Menoth then I can start to play some bigger games.  Hopefully, the next report will be of one of those games.

Hobby Room Makeover

When we moved into this house last year, there was a lot going on.  Jen was recovering from her horse riding accident, the bathroom floor needed to be ripped out and replaced down to the subfloor immediately, lots of painting, the usual unpacking and an invasion of in-laws.  With all of that going on, my man cave stayed just the way it was.  I moved in and really didn't do anything to it for the past year.  I haven't hung anything on the wall put in any new furniture. 

Well, all of that changed yesterday.  My first (of many) projects during summer vacation is to give the man cave a face lift.  I moved everything out and painted it white.  It sounds lame, but I have a vision.  I just hope I have the skill and patience to  make it happen.  I'm looking into some new furniture and some interesting fixtures to add to the cave.  I'll update as the project progresses.  Unless it looks like hell, in which case you'll never hear another word about it again.

It's Hobby Time!

Well, my in-laws have returned home and school is done for another year.  That means that it's finally hobby time again.  I had to take a bit of a hiatus based on the two aforementioned events.  Now I'm going to be painting and the man cave this weekend and actually trying to make it look like my room instead of a spare room under the stairs.

Look forward to more frequent future posts, now that the storm has passed.