Final Hour of The Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter

The Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter, produced by Printable Scenery, is in its last 60 minutes and has passed 100k. For those who don’t know the Kickstarter gives you files which you can use with your 3d printer to create your own wargaming and Table Top RPG terrain.

While this Kickstarter has already broken every expectation and they could easily reach 103 or even 105K at the rate they are going. If you have ever wanted to back this KS, now is the time, you can find the link to to Kickstarter here

Printable Scenery's Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter

Disclamier: I know both Matt and Nick, the people behind the Apocalypse Ruins Kickstarter. They are my friends and as such any argument i make as to why you should support this Kickstarter would be suspect, after all my bias is clear. So i wont make any arguments, instead i will simply show you some of the terrain produced thus far by 3D Printable Terrain.

Why Narrative Battle Reports Matter and the Golden D6

For a while now the only type of battle reports i have been willing to write have been Narrative Battle Reports as i found i liked the story telling potential of battle reports far more than reporting on what happened in the game from a rules point of view. Also it gives me a excuses to create stories in settings that i have come to cherish.

Although GW may think they are done with i still have many tales to tell of battles and wars in the WHFB World

Another reason why i do Narrative battle reports over standard battle reports is that there is a trend online to brush aside the lore and settings of war games in favour of pure rules analysis, when was time you saw lore mentioned in a codex/army review? This issues is addressed in a far more elegant and detailed post on the blog "The Good, the Bad and the Insulting and i recommend anyone reading this post to go and give it read. By writing narrative battle reports i hope to rekindle interesting in the lore and settings of the wargames we play, because lets face it its the settings and lore that makes the factions and armies we like and don't like.




At current count i have published 10 narrative battle reports:




Cowardly Elves: Warhammer Fantasy

The Forrest Must be Fed: Warhammer Fantasy 

A Pyrrhic Victory: Warhammer Fantasy 

Let Xenos Kill Xenos: Warhammer 40k

Feet First: Firestorm Planetfall

Operation Blindstrike Part 1: Firestorm Armada

Operation Blindstrike Part 2: Firestorm Planetfall 

For Dramos: Firestorm Armada

A Lesson in Soldiering: Firestorm Planetfall

The Hunt Begins: Warhammer 40k

And i have plans for many more ranging across a variety of different settings and scales.  In addition to this i am now also writing Narrative Battle reports for the Online Hobby Magazine The Golden D6. My relationship with this magazine and its editor started when "The Forrest Must Be Fed" was republished in issue one. If anyone is interested in checking out issue one or any subsequent issue you can follow the link in the side bar or this one.

I do have more narrative battle reports in the works so if you have enjoyed the ones i have produced so far then you are in luck. Until next time.

Rex

Not On Top

I am not a fan of Age of Sigmar but thats putting it mildly, i think AOS is a awful joke given at the expense of the WHFB player and fan base. So when i see that Age of Sigmar is not one of the products in Mighty Ape's Top 10 Best Selling Wargaming products i do simile a little and that simile grows when i see that there are no AOS products in Mighty Ape's top 100 Best Selling Wargaming Products. What is in that top 100 list you ask, well.....

Kings of War 2nd Edition Gamer's Rulebook

Kings of War Paladin Regiment

Kings of War 2nd Edition Deluxe Game Edition

Warhammer Garden of Morr

Warhammer Arcane Ruins

Star Wars X-Wing Core Set

Short Story: Heroes

She gazed out from the bridge of the starship into the darkness of space, and the pulsing red wound of the Eye of Terror that dominated most of her view.  As she gazed upon it she felt despair growing within her, how could a galaxy divided by war and hate hope to stop the relentless advance of Chaos, a power that feed on conflict and division. So focused was she on her thoughts that she failed to hear the foot steps of her master coming up behind her and she started slightly as he spoke:

"Tell me Allira, what is on your mind?"

"I was considering how hard the task before us is. Chaos feeds on war, conflict and division but those are the things most common in our galaxy"

She turned to him as she finished, tearing her gaze away from the Eye and looking instead upon her master. The old Farseer had his helmet off which allowed her to see him simile at her response.

"It is such a shame to see the young turn to despair and hopelessness. Things are not so bleak as they appear"

"Aren't they? While the races of the galaxy fight each other the Dark Gods grow strong. Each mortal life lost only weakens those who would stand against Chaos while their own numbers grow each day"

The Farseer was silent for a moment before taking out the pouch that contained his runes.

"Tell me who wins wars"

"Armies"

"Yes armies do win wars, but what are armies made up of ?"

"Soliders"

"Yes, soldiers. Individuals who, for whatever reason, joined an army and played a part in winning a war"

As he finished his sentence he sat down on the bridge's floor and cast his runes.

"Come Allira and see what things soldiers can do"

She sat opposite him and saw.

The Tales That Really Matter

Previously i have talked about how i listen to a series of online Roleplays done by a twitch streamer called JP, and i have wanted to write more about the shows he produces for the Rollplay Series but what with the upheaval caused by Age of Sigmar this post has been delayed several times. However recently on Rollplay Swansong (a Sci-fi themed Roleplay about being a crew on a space ship, similar to the Rouge Trader RP produced by Fantasy Flight) there was a episode that served as excellent inspiration. With spoiling anything in the episode there were several moments were i felt fear for a player character, so much so that i stopped what i was doing at the time to just stare at the screen and nervously what for each dice roll to show up. To top this all off the show ended in a touching bittersweet way, and i wanted to write a post  to in some way explain why the shows evoke emotional responses as well as urging any readers who are unaware of the series to go and start watching them, you will only benefit from doing so.

Tournaments For All

There is a stereotype that exists in the wargaming community that annoys me. It paints people who like going to tournaments as people who will always bring the cheesiest lists and will always go for "The Win at all Costs" strategies regardless of how fun the game is for their opponent. Ever since i started back in this hobby in June of 2013 i have been going to tournaments and my experience so far has been the complete opposite. In all the tournament games i have played my opponents have always been friendly and considerate regardless of how well they wanted to place at the end of the event.

One of the best games of WHFB i have ever played was a game of Watchtower at a Tournament

Age of Sigmar Army List Advice from GW

Edit: The PDF is unofficial, however its still a way to create army in AOS, which is better than what we had before.

This happened today.

Raging Against The Rage

One of the most interesting responses to the Age of Sigmar release has been from the people who like and support the game and what makes these responses interesting is how many of them are aggressive and snarky. The defenders of the game seem almost offended by the negative response to the game and thats where they lose me. Sure feel free to like the game but to attack those who don't like goes too far.

Right now every WHFB fan has good justification to feel pissed as the game they liked/loved had been scraped in favor of a kid friendly game littered with holes and flaws (a surprising amount of the for a game with 4 pages of core rules), its not like WHFB fans are being unreasonable when they slam AOS and decry it. And thats why i say that when the defenders of AOS attack those who don't like it they go to far, fans of WHFB have every right to vent at the demise of the game they enjoyed. Of course the same goes for people who don't like the game attacking those who do. Its perfectly alright to like the game and no one should come under attack for simply liking the game.

After The Launch

Age of Sigmar has arrived and has disappointed many people, i myself only ended up not feeling too down by posting the ridiculous "Talk to your models for bonuses" rules to this very blog. However now the humour is gone and i feel just kinda annoyed, i dont wont to focus on it but GW basically scraped a game that people liked and replaced it with a game that very few people like, all while not talking to their customers about what they wanted. In the aftermath i have seen negative review after negative review slam the game for being a shallow dice fest with none of the tactical depth that 8th edition had. I have read the rules myself and can find very little to interest me in them, what we were given is 4 pages of a game children could play which is great for children but not so great for the rest of us.

And Now GW Will Troll You

The Warscrolls for Age of Sigmar are out, and..........well see for yourself

I will add more as i find them, behold the new Age of Pisstaking!!!

What a Week

This post has had many false starts, however i think i now have a proper way to start it. Warhammer Fantasy is dead and in its place is an unbalanced, model focused skirmish game with free rules. That is my summary of the week so far in terms of GW news. Before i go on i just want to say this wont be a angry ranting anti GW post, enough people are doing that right now that i dont feel the need to but also i dont want to, not this time.

I wont be getting into the Age of Sigmar, i dont have the time, money or will to start playing a skirmish game made from the corpse of WHFB. In all likelihood i will be playing games of 8th edition WHFB with my Beastmen and Kings of War 2nd edition with my Beastmen (because Mantic is a great company that has released beta rules for Betasmen in KOW, and every WHFB unit has a  profile in this beta list, they did this for Skaven and Dogs of War as well). There have been a few posts here and there from people who have played games of AOS and from what i have heard the game doesn't interest me, to me Mordheim sounds like a better skirmish game than AOS and if i wanted to play it i could just use my Wood Elves or Beastmen for Warbands.

This is Getting Old

Over on Plastic Krak Jossy has written a post about some of the information to be gleaned from the recent White Dwarf, i read this post and got sort of fed up. I posted a comment venting my frustration about GW's "Fan Dance" of hints and rumours, here is what i wrote

I don't general swear online (even pseudo swear) but it is a sign of  my annoyance with the company. I am tired of the way the release of the Age of Sigmar has been handled, i am annoyed that we, the customers, still know very little about the game, we don't know the general scale, the mechanics, if AOS is even the main game, we know very little and seeing GW do nothing but a but fan dance of hints and whispers and getting peoples hopes up that maybe, just maybe massed battle WHFB isn't dead is just too annoying. I was ready to give up on AOS and just stikc with 8th because it looked like a skirmish game but now i don't know. Maybe there will still be a new version of massed WHFB but if there is GW wont  say, but instead of saying nothing they speak in hints and rumours, not confirming or denying anything and its getting old.

I have always been hopeful that massed battle WHFB will survive the End Times but i don't like how its been confirmed/not confirmed, right  now i just want to know for sure but GW would rather tease the announcement out, word by word rather than just tell us. Until next time.
Rex

The Dread of the Unknown

Throughout fiction one of my favourite types of factions are the ones that the other factions in the setting have no idea about. These “Unknown Factions” will usually pursue their own goals/agendas , which remain a mystery to the other factions, while simply killing anyone or thing that gets in their way. The White Walkers from Game of Thrones are a perfect example of this, you don’t know what they want, what their plans are or why they are marching south and all you do know is that kill anyone else that gets in their way. This gives the White Walkers an extra element of dread.

In my view it comes down to the fact that if you know nothing about a faction then there is no way to reach a non violent end to hostilities with them. Oddly enough this doesn’t give factions whose motivations you understand but who still refuses to comprise or come to peace talks that extra element of dread. Take Archaeon from WHFB as a good example of this, we know what he wants (the destruction of the warhammer world) and why he wants it (anger towards the Empire and the Church of Sigmar after reading a unsettling “Truth”) and we also know that he won’t comprise and nothing short of the destruction of Empire and the Warhammer world will satisfy him but that still doesn’t make him a terrifying opponent. While reading the End Times I saw him more as a determined leader of a very powerful army, I understood his motivation and this understanding removed that extra element of dread that not understanding him or being able to relate to him (he was a human after all) would have generated.

Despite all his power and his amassed armies he is still only human

Broadening the Topics

I have decided to broaden the range of topics I talk about on this blog. This is mainly fuelled by my growing lack of interest in what GW is doing and my reaction to the recent pricing for the 10 man assault marine box captures this perfectly. The box is priced at 166 NZD for ten models and a while ago this would have provoked me to write a whole post it, however now all it managed to provoke is mild apathy. We all know GW’s prices are bad and GW’s prices will continue to be bad as long as we buy stuff from them, that’s my whole view on the Assault Marine box price tag.
 
This growing apathy towards GW is proving positive though as it is fuelling my interest in a long term passion of mine, the Fantasy genre. I have always loved Fantasy as a genre of entertainment and have always found fantasy settings more interesting than historical, sic-fi or any other “Type” of fictional setting for a video game, war game, book, movie, TV show etc. And with my interest in GW waning I have found my interest in the Fantasy genre growing, I spent all of the recent long weekend playing The Witcher 3 and enjoyed every minute of, I found the main and side quests to be far more engrossing and interesting than anything GW ever put out for WHFB.

So expect to see posts about different fantasy related forms of entertainment in the near future, I have several posts about The Witcher 3 already in the works. This is not to say that there will be no wargaming related post, there will be as I still like playing WHFB and 40k but there will be broader range of things talked about. Until next time.

Rex

A Whole Lotta Words

Usually when I write a post I try and have the title get across what the post is about in the shortest and most word efficient way possible (“Is Warhammer Dying” and “2014 in Review” being 2 examples), unfortunately for this post that’s not possible because the subject of the post, my current view on GW, doesn’t translate well to a short and informative title.

Qutting GW games is very hard, and I mean quitting 100%. If you have a fully painted army and have enjoyed the games of either WHFB or 40k you have played so far it’s very hard to give it up entirely and go play either other wargames or find a new hobby. This is something I have noticed recently when reflecting on my occasional bouts of anti GW anger because on two of those occasions I have decided to give up on all GW games and go play something else yet here I am with 1 40k army, 2 Fantasy armies, a regular Monday night game of WHFB as well as other games of 40k/Fantasy throughout the week. I think the reason this happens is that I enjoy the games that GW puts out, WHFB is still my number one wargame and 40k is a good fun game, and that my enjoyment of the game is constant where as my anger towards GW is temporary as anger usually tends to be. And I think the same is true for many people who feel angry towards GW, they feel anger (maybe even rage) towards GW for whatever stupid move GW did at the time but the as time goes on maybe they play some 40k/WHFB or maybe they reflect on the fun they have had playing GW games in the past and slowly they come back to the hobby. To me the only way you really quit GW games for good is by selling all your armies and books there by making it very difficult to play a GW game without first investing huge amount of money and time getting an army up to scratch.

Is Warhammer Fantasy a Dying Game?

Well, is it? This is a interesting question for me as I am a big fan of WHFB and have played it since I started wargaming as a hobby, and I have enjoyed it for as long. There seems to be a persistent view online that WHFB is a dead game with a declining player base and sales are far below that of 40k.In other words it has become a dead weight for GW. The people who make this argument base it on 3 key points

1: On the forums the WHFB sections is less active than the 40k section 2: Their local gaming scene has less WHFB players than 40k players 3: GW gives more time to 40k than WHFB

As you can see there is no solid evidence in that list, and before accusations of me Straw manning the argument start to fly my way these really are the 3 main points that keep coming back up in these debates when I have them with people online, they never cite solid evidence like sales figures, they never quote GW Store Managers saying that WHFB is a dead game whose sales are awfully low.

My issue with the idea that WHFB is a dying game and is a dead weight for GW is that there is no solid evidence presented to back up this claim. I like WHFB, I have played it for 10 years and still rate it as my top wargame so when people tell me that is a failure for GW and that is dying and should be dropped I want to see more than speculation and assumptions backing that claim up.

The Two Game Solution

Recent WHFB 9th ed rumours have suggest that we will see 2 versions of 9th ed WHFB, one skirmish game and one massed battles game. To me this is a smart move for GW as it allows people who love both WHFB and massed battles to continue playing Warhammer and using their armies as they behave them now in massed battles, it also allows people who love skirmish games a way to play skirmish warhammer using a office rules set. And with the apparent popularity of skirmish games it will bring new players into WHFB and make GW more money while at the same time keeping WHFB what it always has been and not pissing off people who like WHFB as it is now (and as it has been for the past 8 editions).

A Step In The Right Direction: Codex Craftworld

If you follow the rumour mill as closely as i do the you would have heard of Codex Craftworld. When it first surfaced this rumour was confusing as it appeared to be the new Eldar Codex, which was confusing because Eldar already have a 7rh Ed Codex and its still pretty good. However recent fresh rumours seem to indicate that its a sort of supplement codex that will allow Eldar players to play a army from one of the main Eldar Craftwolrds. This had already been tried once before in 3rd Edition 40k with the "Mini Codex" Craftwolrd Eldar.

The 3rd Edition Craftworld Eldar Codex

Whats Going On????

Today the pre-orders for the Skitarii Codex went up. Being somewhat interested in this army i went and took a look and was surprised by one very key detail

A Sign of the Apocalypse? You Decide

This is a big surprise as to date all Wh40k codexs are 98 NZD by they supplement codexes, the Harlequin Codex or the Scion Codex. Unfortunately the new units boxes are still 92 NZD for 5 but still, 57 NZD for a codex is definitely progress. Will we see more of it? I dont know but for now this is good enough. Until next time.
Rex