While a huge proponent of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 8th edition, I am not and have not been a fan of the rules for 40K for a long time– since 1996 or so actually. The last edition I played was 4th–just a one off, but the last edition I played a LOT was 2nd edition from back in 1993. This is the edition that spawned GW’s new style of boxed games rather than just the big hardback books and miniatures. The plastics were crap, but the rules are IMO the best and were used in both 40K, Necromunda and Gorkamorka: at testament to the strength of the platform. Subsequent versions of 40K, while solving the “herohammer” problem 2nd edition definitely has, added in the less desirable ” every game is just a mob of infantry in close combat in the middle” and “my entire army was destroyed by ordinance because I didn’t roll well for the first turn” issues that I just couldn’t abide.
So we got a game in of 2nd edition last night and it was good fun, while I prefer EPIC from this era, 40k is much faster to set up and play than the 6mm behemoth. Thousand points of Marines vs Eldar (and there weren’t many marines for that point value for sure). The game played fast and the rules, dusty as they were, played SOLID. It mattered where the individual models were on the table and what weapons they had and what sort of cover they had– and while there was some close combat, it was not the defining factor of the game. Here’s a shot of the predator vs Avatar with Blind grenade spots roaming around. Needless to say, with tons of chances to hurt the Avatar with shooting, the Predator did not hold up once the king of the Eldar got into close combat with it.
I promised myself to play Warhammer a full ten times before writing a review of the new edition and it happened, the review, which you are reading, and ten games (fourteen actually). Finally after months of waiting, I can spout off about how much I love the current edition. I love it so much I now (shockingly) have three armies for the game. I wanted to get a second so I could play with people that don’t own anything and I got a deal on a third that I simply could not pass up (my main is Beastmen, second Dark Elves, and last Chaos). One could say I am all in on this version, so if this review seems a bit of self-justification that’s because it certainly is, gods damn it. Note, that reviewing a game like Condotierre or King of Tokyo after 10 plays means a few hours of play here and there, reviewing and edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battle after fourteen plays means 50+ hours at the table throwing vats worth of dice and probably 30+ more hours teaking an army list or ten, painting and priming and building a rather massive army of toy soldiers (if you can call packs of slavering, rapine goat-men soldiers).
A wave of unpainted goblins assault the partially painted undead and fully painted dwarfs.
To frame this review, I have to relay the shameful nerd path I have traveled in the hobby. It’s not very different than many people who were closeted nerds in their youth during the nerd-harsh 80’s–but I have to say I’ve always played GW’s big games rather casually and vastly preferred the skirmish games to the big fuckall table spreads like the current 40K and WFB. I started playing WFB just after junior highschool, around the same time Warhammer 40K first edition came out. After saving for and buying the rather expensive 3rd edition hardcover, I dabbled in the game and got a few of the miniature box sets (rudlugs armored orcs, etc) that were around at the time, but never really played a ton because, quite simply, there was no way to afford enough lead to put out a decent sized army like the pretty pictures in the book. Even in this early time, some of GW’s first plastics had come out, and while a few of the sculpts were OK, they didn’t stand up visually against the lead that was out at the time (this has drastically changed). We did get in a few games, mostly with our old Grenadier D&D miniatures (which had also been used for a battle using the ancient and comparatively rubbish TSR Chainmail/Swords and Spells rules) and a handful of citadel chaos warriors.
While Warhammer Fantasy Battle proper was an unrequited love in High School, both because I was trying to eschew the kids stuff like D&D and gaming altogether (this failed after only a few weeks in 1987 after I found out almost the ENTIRE wrestling team not only had played D&D but wanted to again RIGHT FUCKING NOW!). I didn’t get into the game hardcore until college when the Realm of Chaos supplement books hit the shelves. This introduced a variant of play where you start with a small force of maybe 8-12 fighters and then slowly grew a warband as you fight battles against friends min a narrative campaign, eventually to gain daemon-hood from one of the fickle and capricious chaos gods. We chewed through many weekends (and a lot of class time) grinding through short, decisive skirmish battles in a long campaign where dozens of warbands would be rolled under the dirt and new ones arise. Notably, only one champion made it to the highest “honor” during the campaign. The rest either croaked or became slathering, mindless spawn. Great times, but that’s most of the Warhammer I’ve played, well, until now.
Fourth Edition, the edition rightly-deemed “Herohammer,” really set the bar high for production values and components to help you play. Gone were the big hardcover rulebooks (for a time that is) replaced by a big box with lots of plastic guys and softcover rulebooks, all the templates you need, magic item cards for everything rather than having to dig around in a book for them, and tons and tons of dice. However, even from cursory plays, it was obvious that the rules were really about decking out a hero that can destroy armies all by themselves and started the system down the path of a highly competitive game that people would focus play at tournaments and leagues of one off games. Rather than some scenario concocted with what miniatures you have, or a narrative campaign like Chaos Warbands, two guys get together with armies balanced out by points and fighting it out for the win. This was to be what Warhammer is all about from this point on: single, competitive battles with pre-made armies, usually just a slugathon rather than any type of scenario. Though I played a few dozen times, the game headed in a direction I didn’t want to go (and I still couldn’t afford to put an army on the table really, deciding to eat, however meagerly, instead). Yet 4th was the ‘break out’ edition, and tons of people played and love it. Additional distractions from GW at this time were Epic 40K and Necromunda– along with 3rd edition Blood Bowl, so while I was playing a lot of GW stuff, it wasn’t Warhammer.
I ignored 5th edition (what with Blood Bowl 3rd edition, Necromunda and Mordheim around at the same time, who needed it?). After Mordheim fizzled out (our campaign went from 22 people to 6 or so in less than a month and that wasn’t due to anything but the rules being not too good), and with the release of Warhammer Fantasty Battle 6th edition I started officially! on my beastman army—and I really did want to play the normal, non-skirmish way that all the other dudes played–actually taking the time to put together a big army rather than a bunch of ragged bands of (unpainted) chaos warriors. I picked up the main book and the army book for the Beasts and gave a run at painting on a regular schedule, but just couldn’t keep the momentum of painting and buying figs to get enough to the table. Going from painting a few figs a year to a row of 50+ was quite daunting, especially since I refused to play the game with anything unpainted.
7th edition came so fast due to real life I barely noticed and it seemed only for the hardcore tournament players anyway and really just an update of 6th– and then came 8th in 2010, down from the heights of Nottingham to us gamers, what is, in my humble and rather inexperienced opinion, the best iteration of the game so far with the best production values for books and miniatures I’ve seen out of GW. At a time in life where I have a couple kids, a pretty demanding job and just general “I have responsibilities now” chaos, I knew it would be a tough row to hoe trying to even find time to paint, let alone play a game– but THIS is the edition to set aside severely limited freetime for. The hardback book is nothing short of incredible (and shockingly priced at 80$), with absolutely lavish illustration, photography, graphic design and content. Granted, as a rulebook, it’s a heavy fucker to carry around, but it’s easy to find the pages you need to find via the index– it’s just that well over half the book you will simply not need during any given game as most of the book is not the rules at all, but page upon page of backstory stuff, illustration, and a giant painting showcase. None of this stuff about the book quality and photography would matter if the rules themselves sucked–but they don’t and here’s why: from 7th to 8th the designers made some fundamental changes to the game, some subtle, some drastic, to make the game flat out more fun. Now, 6th edition was fun with getting rid of the herohammer a bit, hell 4th was a great time until people were able to ‘break’ the game a few months in– but 8th blows them all away and while the reasons in the rules are below, the core reason is simply this: they let Jervis Johnson all over it and he made it more fun than it’s ever been.
First: any stuff can kill any other stuff. If GW learned one thing from Rackham’s Confrontation, it’s that it’s important that every model on the table can pose a threat. This is a huge change from earlier editions. Essentially, from 4th edtion on, you had stuff on the table that could not be hurt at all by most other stuff on the table. Picture a bunch of goblins are running around with spears. We all know goblins are terrible in combat, run away a lot and generally get stomped, eviscerated, eaten, boiled, and basically harvested like bilious green wheat. However, goblin players bring a lot of goblins to any dust-up, so many that for every 20 or so you mulch, 40 more are there to poke you or net you and scream insults. In older editions of Warhammer, no matter how many goblins were out there, they were not going to be able to hurt your pimped out dark elf lord on a black dragon– even with the best rolling, they couldn’t touch him. The lord could fly around without a care in the world if the table was filled with just goblins–essentially they became tar pits that he could get stuck in for a period of time murdering them, but they weren’t dangerous to him or his gods damn dragon at all. In 8th edition, it’s the dark elf lord that’s afraid of the masses of goblins. If he doesn’t position and plan right, he has a good chance of getting swarmed and trampled by little green hobnails because GW added this simple rule: a 6 always hits and a 6 always wounds. That means no matter how badass you are, you have a 3% chance with every attack of having to take an armour save, no matter how high your weapon skill or toughness. When you are rolling dump-trucks worth of dice, as goblin units are wont to do, that 3% happens a LOT. Even with a 2+ armor save and a ward save of some kind, death can come quick to the heroes.
Second: charging distance is randomized. A huge, simple and most welcome change, one that will be with the game probably forever after. Charges are now 2D6+movement. So dwarves with their short little leggys can charge minimum of 5 inches (their max before was 6) and maximum of 15 inches on boxcars. In older editions, units had a fixed charge range, usually double their movement. This meant that people had to be very precise about when they charged and positioned. This took a long time and it wasn’t very fun. Random charge distance makes things crazy fun. This was the rule change that when I saw it, I had to buy and play the new edition. Along with number three below, while the games may not be shorter, you are spending your time on the fun stuff and not the boring stuff. This is key.
Third: you can measure everything at any time. Another positive thing about randomizing charges is that it allowed the designers to simply let the players measure every single distance they want at any time. Want to see how close your archers have to move to be in range of the pumpwagon? Measure away! Want to check your distances before declaring a charge? Well you better! This just cuts down a lot of the fiddling around with units and positioning stuff and painful guess work. For measurements before 8th edition, I would set up my armies and then measure out the table– memorizing little landmarks like the side of a bush or a shadow on the table and such so that I knew that from X wall to Y scratch in the table it was 6″, etc. This was just not that fun and felt beardy as hell when you are placing dice on the table and not moving them to mark off distances…
Fourth: the poor bloody infantry is king. This is something 40K already had figured out: people like to see big close in dust-ups between big groups of models. Battles are decided by positioning, tactics, magic usage, dicerolling all as part of getting your best infantry units winning combats against your opponents infantry units. Games come down to one or two big blocks of guys hacking at each other and that’s why people want to play, so they made it king and called it a day. Sure heroes are important, but they are so much better in the midst of some crazy combat than fighting alone. Can my 9 minotaurs stomp their way through 60 goblins before being perforated? Can my horde of bestigor sustain the horrific casualties from the initiative 6 black guard to attack back with their slow but powerful great weapons? Because infantry fights in huge units in 8th edition and has massive advantages over any unit that is unranked (such as the dread lord on a black dragon listed above), infantry dominates the battlefield: as it should be since the tactics around infantry positioning, movement and when to charge should be the meat of this type of game. What changed? Hordes (see below), the fact that the second rank can lend a supporting attack to the front rank fighters, even on the charge the fight is in initiative order and finally, the ranks behind the front can step up where there are fallen to continue the fight ( so no more charging units wiping out front ranks of units with no retaliation that turn).
Fifth: Hordes! Hordes are units with 10-model frontage. All this rule allows is another rank to add supporting attacks (so you need a minimum of 30 models to get the most out of a horde formation). Normally the front rank gets their attacks, plus the second rank can lay in a single supporting attack (with the exception of monstrous infantry that get more). With a horde, your unit will get two ranks of supporting attacks. This is a great example of a simple rules change that has massive effects on the game. The Hordes rule particularly combines with the “any stuff can kill any other stuff” above to help make the game a game of infantry fighting and not ‘my guy on the dragon kills everything without a scratch’ fighting. You want to throw your Hydras up against a 40+ goblin horde with spears, the outcome is going to be one stone dead hydra while the infantry unit is still probably viable. Combine an assault by some Dark elf spearmen with the hydra supporting or hitting the flank of the goblins, and you have what the game is all about.
Six (and this is the last one, I promise): Terrain does stuff. Almost every game of Warhammer 8th will have some crazy-ass magical terrain that has an effect on play, sometimes drastic, sometimes not. Phantom towers shoot out bolts of lightning into anything nearby, altars give every unit within range blood rage, and mysterious forests have random effects only discovered when entered by troops. One could say this just adds whimsy and randomness, but it creates a bevy of critical tactical decisions that can be the key to victory. Unlike mob-swarm 40K, unit placement and movement is everything in WFB, so tactics and placement around terrain that benefits or hurts your army is huge. The eleventh game I played had a Dwarf Brewhouse right smack in the middle of the table, giving anyone nearby “Stubborn.” Since I was up against Lizardmen who had a unit that was innately Stubborn, fighting around the dwarf brewhouse nullified that advantage because we all had it.
Games Workshop has had almost three decades to work out the kinks with Warhammer Fantasy Battle and with this ruleset, it shows a change in the ideas behind the game moving away from something akin to controlled, balanced play and far more into the fantasy world of Warhammer with all it’s insanity and things getting sucked into the void at the worst times (for you anyway!). While good tactics, placement and unit counters will win you the day, there is so much randomness in the game , and yet so much focus on having a balanced army, that I can see where it would put people off that are used to older editions. For me, it all adds up to big death and big fun. This is the best big miniature game out there.
Part 1 of a 3 part series with each of the Epic rulesets (Epic40k, Epic Armageddon, NetEpic). This one is with the ‘failed’ version from 1997: Epic 40K. With reading, I think these are the best set of rules for Epic family, but we’ll see when we bust out the more recent rules which is the best on the table. This is the first time I’ve busted out my 6mm stuff in over 15 years!
Ugh. I felt like I painted a lot in December but I didn’t get much done in reality. I meant to get my Bestigor out the door but I only ended up completing three Gor, one Bestigor and my second Chariot (which has a bestigor on it). I couldn’t complete the riders in time for the new year but got close so finished those up last night. The bestigor is a bit messed up. He’s pinned to the floor of the chariot but his left foot is off the ground. Not really noticable but still not ideal. I had to put the driver quite a bit forward but I feel that worked out pretty well.
This January, now half way gone already, is all Bestigor– IF I can keep my dirty dirty paws off my old Epic 40K stuff. I started improving a couple of infantry stands here and there and it turned into fixing up 22 stands of infantry from their rather dismal 1992 paint jobs, and that took a lot of work.
see the floaty foot?crap I can see one of the ears wasn't painted...
We made it. Great to see everyone that was in town for the week between Xmas and New Years and we had a bit of a gaming deluge, though it cost a shocking amount of sleep to pull off. I’m hoping someday in the future the fruit of my loins learn how nice it is for them to sleep in. When you’re thanking your lucky stars that you don’t have to get up until 6:30AM on a day you have off, that’s pretty sad.
There's a hand size difference here.
Yesterday was our first annual Cosmic Encounter tournament on New Year’s day. We had 9 players and split into two tables, the winners of which moved on to a final at the champions table. The first two games had two shared wins so the final was a four person instead of five.
The final was Tripler, Fungus, Bully, and the Mercenary. The Fungus won the day with an attack on the Bully with four huge stacks of fungaloided ships. Appropriately, Fungus was played by the notorious JP Duvall. He shared a win in the preliminary and then convinced everyone in the final that they should only try to win it alone and only he was able to pull it off. Hopefully everyone had fun and had good eats and got to talk a lot of trash. I thought we should have a best of the worst game for the losers, but we ended up playing Dragon Lairds instead.
Today was Warhammer madness. I got in a 3 man game with my beastmen vs the Vampire Counts and Lizardmen at 3000 points per side which meant I had to put every model I owned on the table (so many still sadly unpainted). We rolled ‘Battle for the Pass’ so the board was cramped like craze with no real flanks to speak of. My beastmen ambush was useless, but I managed to pull out a win due to a very very stubborn and extremely pissed off Gor unit that started 50 in number and ended the game with a mere nine after trashing a unit of Blood Knights, a Skink/Kroxigor mixed unit and some grave guard that were ineffective on the flank. The highlights of the game include both of my ‘flanks’ evaporating as beastmen ran away at the sight of Chaos Hounds being spanked in combat, the Stegadon getting sucked down into a Pit of Shades (after the dispell dice came up one short!) and Skinks taking out a razorgor and my Giant in the same turn (gahhh!). Lord Lobo may post a battle report so I don’t want to go into too much detail but it was quite a butchers bill. After 10 games or so with the Beasts, my tactical advice is to–no matter what–get stuck in as fast as possible– don’t mill about at all, and don’t let a few units of zombies get in the way– if you hit tarpits– HIT them and move on. The beasts insane close combat prowess will likely carry the day if you can get them into touch. If your opponent feels like they were randomly punched in the face on the bus when playing your beastmen, you’re doing it right.
3000 points of beasts playing short sides is a dangerous affair if you table edges aren't blocked off...
As of last night I am officially on Xmas vacation. This means GAMING. I got in a game of Agricola and Dreamblade last night with my buddy JP who has the pleasure of having worked quite a large chunk of the last few years on that little game we call Skyrim. I pumped him for information which he was happy to give since the game was OUT– a far cry from last year when we couldn’t get him to say anything about this new ES game.
It looks like we’re going to get in on the most vicious of all games during the off week: Republic of Rome and try out the new fangled (not that it hasn’t been out for awhile) Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition. What’s more, a big game of Cosmic Encounter is in the works as well. I promise to post something stupid every day about what ever sort of nerd crap we are all doing. I know I will be trying to plow through my beastmen army, but I started getting an interest again in EPIC 40K and pulled out all that old stuff to give it a painting improvement before hopefully getting in a game. If anyone wants to read a run down of the sad epic (pun intended) of this failed game: read here. It wasn’t because it was not a great design, it was because no one would give it a chance that played the old version.
As for useless and redundant blog posts, I also want to give a run down of 2011’s games that were great and those that were disappointments. We have had the greatest deluge of AAA class titles in human history this Fall, and there just won’t be a year like this for probably another decade.. but I digress. Vacation. Nerdery. Drinking. Yes!
Oh yeah– bad weather and back to painting is in full swing (albeit Skyrim and Saints Row 3). I did a paint test model for my bestigor unit and here it is. Mostly this post is to list out all the colors so I don’t forget what I used. I’m going to do 3 metal treatments and probably another skin treatment to mix up the look of the unit. I want especially to do the bestigor’s snouts black like the cover of the book, but didn’t do it on the test model. Note, I got ripped off by a guy on ebay selling bestigor bits and so his body is actually from the new Gor kit. Except for a couple places on the upper body, it looks totally fine– though the normal bestigor have armored (and sweet lovin’) thighs.
in Progress
Horns: deneb stone washed with delvan mud and highlighted with deneb stone and skull white. This is from WD and worked out really well.
Skin: same as always: Dark Flesh, Vermin brown, Vermin brown + bronzed flesh (a discontinued color at this point)
Metal: Tin bitz, drybrush boltgun metal generously, drybrush silver a bit and wash with Vallejo Smoke with a lot of water – this gave a great weathering
Fur: not happy with it on this guy but here it is: beastial brown washed with delvan mud, highlighted with Snakebite leather and then snakebite + a bit of bronzed flesh.
Axe handle: scorched brown washed with black ink + delvan mud, highlighted a tiny bit with bleached bone
Leather: black as a base color, highlighted with snakebite leather and edge highlighted with deneb stone with a final wash of delvan mud. This is another WD recipe– on paper that should look like shit but it works out awesome on some parts.
Base: absolute key to every miniature looking good. If you’re going to be anal about something, the base is it. Bestial brown over black (important as black forms the lowest highlight, drybrushed heavily with snakebite leather, then again pretty heavy with bleached bone with a wee bit of static grass glued on here or there. Make sure to do the flat sides of the base in at least 2 coats of bestial brown to get a good finish.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with it– it’s not awesomely great, and while the Bestigor are the best heavy infantry in Warhammer 8th edition, he’s still just a rank and file. What you can’t see here is that his left arm is poorly attached to the axe hand and looks atrocious if you look up close on that side. However in a unit ranked up, this will be totally invisible.
completed angry beast with his buddies in the back waiting for their turn
Well the weather has turned to pure shite and so instead of going outside and getting fresh air and exercise, it’s the season for sitting in a dank basement doing stuff, and I have no more excuses for not working on the hairy beasts (well except for kids, work and Skyrim). Last night I completed my first unit for Warhammer Fantasy Battle ever by actually painting up my first unit base–and it was a big one– 50 gor with a hero, champion and standard bearer on 25mm bases. As you can see, I have a couple extra musicians in there so I have to paint up a few more rank and file to replace them, but it doesn’t change the fact that I can slap this giant unit of beastmen on the table complete with a painted and flocked unit base.
very very angry and rapinesque are they
The base itself is from Gale Force 9 that I picked up this summer at Gencon. While solid in construction, it is slightly warped (nothing you can notice without looking really close, and I chalk that up to this being probably the biggest unit base they have, though Skaven players run slave units of 80-100 so this is not all that big of a unit). Hopefully having this weight of lead on it will flatten it out a bit because as you can see, this unit spans the history of GW’s beastmen with some of the mid 80’s models interspersed with the 5th edition “these guys look too small to have 2 wounds” to the excellent 6th edition kit. In the front rank is an old Minotaur from the 80’s. You can see how small he was compared to the new kit.
As much of a triumph as this is, it’s still just the beginning. Behind these lads is a unit of 30 bestigor (the big boys!) and I’ve got a spawn, a giant, 65 ungor, another Razorgor and a chariot to paint up in addition to building a herdstone to rape the Magic phase. As slow as I paint, it’s going to take years to get it all done…but at least I have this in the can!
from the top (and yes I see the flagrant mold line--ugh)
I actually made it to the Con this year, family in tow just off a weekend+ of strep throat for me and the missus as well as my car getting totaled in a t-bone on the way to work. We were crossing our fingers up to the last minute that the one uninfected shorty in the family would stay healthy and she did: in her body at least. After 5-6 hours at Gencon, I will never be sure if she’ll be right again. As any attendee is well aware, some of the things viewed there can never, ever be unseen. There was one moment of almost-regret when, while being dragged through the morass in the dealer hall by her and her cousin, we essayed into a dank waft a malodor the likes of which neither of their young, unblanched olfactory organs had experienced before. While I winced and imagined the sort of lifestyle choices that accompanied such a reek, they just pushed on, dragging me to whatever corner of the dealer hall their fancy took them.
Saturday I was free from the burdens of unprotected sex and I while I missed the Shadowfist world championship by 23 minutes, it gave me ample time to wander around and get some demos and shop. Here are some of the results I can remember.
Ventura: new game by Fantasy Flight dealing with the Condotierre period in Italy. Interesting take on the whole ‘hexes make up the board’ mechanic that Nexus Ops, Kings and Things and Twilight Imperium use. You draw and lay the tiles nearest your own controlled area, so the board builds out form a conflicted center. All and all, an easy, fairly elegant area control game that I would have picked up immediately had the price point not been… drum roll please: 80$ ! That’s what I would expect to pay for a big box hobby game like Descent or Ikusa. While it seemed like a good game, the price point is going to crush it.
Blood Bowl League Manager: An insta-buy when it comes out, this was the belle of the ball for me. I was highly skeptical they would be able to pull this off, and they did! It’s a little deck building a bit of bluffing, some luck and the most important part: they integrated the block dice really well into the whole game mechanic. Essentially, you have a deck of your players and you play them on different games that make up a season. It’s abstracted but essentially represents you pulling out all the stops for a game with a player position for whatever effect in that game. If you have more strength than the opponent for each game, you win and get whatever benefits the game provides. This could be more player cards, some team special abilities or special coaches (or just fan factor). Whoever has the most fan factor at the end of the league wins. Looks like it can scale with players and really easy to play a short game or a really long campaign. Can’t wait to get my hands on this one. FF ran out of their 300 copies on Friday morning, or so I heard. Damn.
Rune Age: Another new one from Fantasy Flight. I half-heartedly tried to get into a demo of this but after looking over someone’s shoulder and seeing how Dominion-esque it was, I took a pass. Some will like this a lot. Unless someone says it’s not like Dominion at all, I’ll take a pass on this one.
Talisman Dragons: it was there, but after the 10 hours worth of games a few weeks back, I was just not ready to pick this up yet. Definite purchase, just later in the Fall.
Shopping. I was tentatively looking for some Dreamblade stuff and it was found only at one booth and fairly expensive. I missed last year’s con, but there was plenty around in 2009 to be had, mostly for a song. It’s a solid area-control miniatures game and with the figures super cheap, no reason not to pick up a bunch. As they ramp up in price; not so much.
AT-43 was also on my list, and I found one booth with a couple of very cheap items I needed, and another booth with a bunch that was half off retail, but still expensive for my tastes. Again in 2009 there was a ton to be had (mostly due to Fantasy Flight’s liquidation) but that well has very much dried up. AT-43 is an excellent game and I’m quite close to having a Therian and Red Block army of some size to meddle with. Along with AT-43 is the old 3.5 Confrontation stuff– amazing minatures for the most part and one booth had a bunch, but they just didn’t have anything I really needed. I may be kicking myself someday for not breaking the bank picking some of it up. The main issue is, I paint so slowly the stuff will sit in boxes for a decade before a brush hits it at all.
Warhammer: I found a booth that had TONS of bits and I will be hitting that every year that they make it. I would literally spend the whole con going through their shit. They didn’t have anything exceptionally old, but had a mess of stuff for any and all of the big box GW games (Necromunda, Blood Bowl, BFG, Man O War, etc).
Sadly, I didn’t buy a single ‘new’ game to say, like most years, “a ha! I got this at Gencon, we must play!” This is due to blood bowl league manager being sold out and Ventura– well 80$ was just too much to spend.
"I'm not sure what that smell was my childe, let's move on quick!"
Shadowfist. Though I missed the nationals Saturday morning, I did make it to the invite-only tournament for past tournament winners, which started right after the morning tournament final concluded after a 4 hour final! I was able to pull out the win after getting a tie in my first game, winning my second game after a long slough (thank you petroglyphs!) and winning in short order the three man final. In the final against ascended and architects (least that’s what I saw), I started strong and got a High Noon face off using a foundation character (thank you Yellow Senshi Chamber!) and a ring of gates out (protecting from stuff going back into my hand which my deck hates). The Ascended player laid out bull market (5 power to all players) as a response to the end of my turn, allowing me the power to lay out a site and be at play and take for my next turn. Then he announced that he had gotten all Feng Shui in his draw. Now, getting all Feng Shui at a time like that really sucks, but to announce it in the final of a tournament–it basically said to both myself and the other player that he was pretty much out of denial cards and we needed to go for the win. The Architect player to my right brought out some little stuff, but couldn’t take a site (thank you Final Brawl!) and after gaining 4 power in addition to the 5 from the Bull Market, I was able to lay out a foundation character, a Big Brusier and have a power left for a confucian stability to stop the inevitable zzzzzap (which came in the form of an Op Killdeer). Going for the win, the brusier got redirected onto a 9 body site (he’s only 8 fighting) , but my foundation character’s damage was redirected onto that 9-body site via the yellow senshi chamber, reducing it to a feastable number for the big brusier, for which the table had no answer. All in all, I got real lucky with my draws and was able to capitalize on both the bad luck of the other players as well as some mistakes on their part.
After winning this and the Wisconsin state championship this year after many years of tournaments of just barely not making it into the finals, I’m looking at a long decade or so of getting my ass handed to me in competitive play as I well deserve. Bring it!
