Games Workshop is Really Not Your Friend

For many reader's their response to the title of this post will be "Thank you captain obvious", however GWs most recent anti consumer move (the one that inspired this post) should really hammer that line home. Let me make it clear: Games Workshop doesn't like you, it doesn't value you as a customer, it doesn't care about you and it certainly doesn't respect you, all we (the legions of people who buy things from GW) are revenue flow to Games Workshop. Revenue flow that can be condensed to at will, talked to as if we were stupid and above all we are the kind of revenue flow  whose reactions to GW's moves are completely ignored.

No doubt many of you will be wondering what sparked that decidedly dark and grim opening paragraph, allow me to explain. Today i was linked to an in depth article that did a excellent job of explaining GW's recent move to try and limit the sale of its products to only Games Workshop stores. If they succeeded then, in Australia, stores similar to Mighty Ape, Slave to Painting and The Hobby Store would not be able to sell GW products any more meaning no more discounted GW product, and considering that GW already has raised the Aus (and NZ) price of its product to ridiculous heights already it will only make things worse for Australian GW hobbyists .

Caring Complaints

Often i see posts decrying people who complain bout things that GW does, and that doesn't sit right with me. Sure there are people who "Love to Hate" GW and will pointless nit pick at everything GW does just for the fun of it. But most of the people who complain about things that GW do are doing so because (i think) they care about WHFB and Wh40k.

You really do need at least 1 picture per post, and this is the most relevant one i could find....

The Dice Odyssey 2013-2014 Stats

What with the one year anniversary of the Dice Odyssey having come and gone (the first post was on the 18/6/2013) i have decided to start a yearly tradition where, around the 18 of June, i will do a post covering the important stats of the past 365 days, so lets get to it, starting with:

Page Views

Total number of page views: 34,770

Month with the most page views: 7618 (this is probably due to my coverage of the Wood Elf release during this month)

Most Viewed Post:  Pierce the Armour! Wood Elf Review Part 1 with 2220 views

Top 3 Non Wood Elf Realated Posts:

1.  The Non Wood Elf Post with 701 views
2.  Mantic Games Vs Gamework Shop with 332 views
3.  The EA of Wargaming with 218 views

The Rumour Conundrum

According to the rumours we should expect WHFB 9th Edition in September, or we should expect it to be discontinued in December, or we should expect it to be replaced by a Mordhiem like skirmish game, or we should expect 9th edition in 2015. All of the above are rumours i have heard regarding the future of WHFB. From the outset i want to make clear that i think it highly likely that WHFB will get a 9th edition and find it highly unlikely that WHFB will be disconnected. I believe WHFB is in fact growing, its player base swelling with every new army book and GW would have to be declared insane if they dropped it. The point of this post is to address several issues all at once. Firstly i want to take a look at the state of rumours about GW's release schedule, why are there so many rumours about the same thing and how can we possibly tell a false rumour from a true one. Then i want to address the rumours/view that WHFB is a game system in decline, that its player base is dwindling and try to show that this is not the case. Finally i want to talk about 9th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles, what i hope to see i the new edition and what i think is likely to be in it. So grab a mug of your favourite hot beverage, sit back and read on.

Dont let its age deceive you, its not dead yet.

The Liebster Awards

Late last week i noticed that a fair few blogs i follow had all done posts about something called a Liebster Award. For those unaware the Liebster Award is a way of promoting small blogs, the way the Liebster Award does this is that when your blog is nominated for the award you nominated a number of other blogs who you feel deserved the extra attention and the way you nominate another blog is by commenting on one of their posts, telling them you have nominated their blog and provide them a link back to your post about the award.

The award in all its glory

I have been nominated once by the Grumpy Guardsman over at Cadia's Creed and once more by Herman over at Wargames Obsession. I would like to thank both Grumpy (who often provides the counter opinion to my own on GW, and is as such a joy to read for healthy debate is a sign of a healthy community) and Herman (who i know from the Kapiti Wargames Club and is a wonderful person in general) for nominating my humble blog. Now for my nominations, i have 11 blogs to nominate so lets get going.

The Imperial Patrol
Jayden has designed a blog that is easy to read, and has been able to articulate his views and opinions on issues regarding 6/7th ed 40k extremely well. He cover Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy, Flames of War and a few other systems.

A Blog of Blood and Bones
I first met Nick via a email exchange that occurred a while back, during this email conversation i was linked to his blog, and i was impressed by what i saw. Nick has recently converted from 40k to Fantasy and started a Vampire Count army, he is a very good painter and convertor and i would advise that all fans of the Vampire Count army check out his blog.

Scions and Supplements

The Scion codex has released to much fanfare (I refuse to call it by its Latin name as I don’t speak Latin and as such have issues pronouncing it). Imperial Guard players seem to like it, but I don’t. The scion squads look nice, the taurox looks like the boxiest box that ever drove out of the box factory, and that’s about it model wise. The entire release is 2 kits and 77 (NZD) dollar codex. Really just a entrée before the main meal of the new IG book.

Box wheels, box grill, box windows, box powered

So what is my issue with the entrée? My issue is that I see this as a money grab, it’s a 40k army with 2 HQ choices, 1 troops choice and 2 fast attack options (40k players feel free to correct me if I am wrong). It needs allies to function as a army which means you need to have 2 army books and 2 armies just to make it work. Also there is a typo, not a lore typo or flavour text typo but a rules typo. Apparently in the wargear section of the rules the Hotshot lasgun has gets hot, yet in the reference it isn’t. Now which one is it? Scions players will now have weeks, maybe even months of confusion before GW releases a FAQ to correct a mistake that shouldn’t have been in the book to begin with.

Excellent News!!!!

Mordheim is being made into a video game! This is some of the best news i have heard this year as Mordheim was my favorite GW game when i was going to college. It is being made by Focus interactive who made the Blood Bowl PC game (Very Good) and Space Hulk PC game (Average). Below is the link to their web page and screenshots of the game, enjoy.

Focus Interactive Webpage

The Morale Issue

The way the 40k and Fantasy deal with leadership and morale are similar and yet both affect their respective systems is vastly different. In 40k i have observed that morale has little to no impact where as in fantasy a failed leadership test can loose you the game.

Both systems have the same basic mechanic, all morale related tests (be they fear, terror, panic or break tests) require the player the roll 2d6 and compare the results to the model in question's Leadership value, if the die result is equal to or under the LD value the test is passed and all remains normal and if the die result is over the LD value then  the test has been failed and the unit/model suffers the consequences (usually running away).

NZTC Misc Photos

During the NZTC i took many photos some of which i used in my write up of the event, however i didnt use them all and have decided to present the rest here in this post. Enjoy.

The Problem with Wood Elves.......

.......Is that the book is just too dammed nice. After my complete pasting at the NZTC i took some time to reflect, by myself and with others, upon what was wrong with the Wood Elf book, besides it being written for 6th edition. My conclusion is that the Wood Elf book is trying so hard to balanced, it actively restricts combos of items and units that were broken in 6th but are now common place.

One of the last softback army books

Monthly V.S Weekly

Today it has appeared that the final week of February will see the release of the Imperial Knights, Imperial fist supplement and Legion of the Dammed supplement. This disproves the earlier predictions that the Imperial knights would get the whole month of March, which i always thought was a bit weird after all why would a single new unit option get a whole months of all to itself release wise.

The Knight in question, essentially a mini titan

2013 in Review

2013 is almost over and this makes it a good time to take a thoughtful look back over the year that was.

Another year done and dusted

2013 was the year i returned to warhammer and wargaming as a whole. During 2012 wargaming had fallen by the wayside for me, i had a low paying job and no way to get to the various gaming clubs around the country. In contrast 2013 started with me joining the Kapiti Wargames Club, which for the first half of the year was the Kapiti Warhammer 40k and Roleplay club for me. Then the glorious month of June came around, and with it a new job, new salary and a restart of my Warhammer Fantasy command with the Wood Elves. It also saw me start this blog, which has grown quite substantially from its small beginnings. 

The Beauty of Fantasy

Fantasy has always been my favourite genre of book, movie and video game. It has a quality to that has drawn me in and captured my attention. Depth, Wisdom, Hope, Beauty and Courage, these are all things i find in Fantasy.

Skyrim is one of my most loved Fantasy games, its beauty is spectacular.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"

Some of you may have noticed that the blog has changed names over night. This was done to reflect that fact that i am no longer the sole poster to this blog. The new name "The Dice Odyssey" sums up pretty much every game of warhammer and 40k ever played and was chosen by myself and my fellow authors. Hopefully it sticks

As always comments and criticism of both the name and new layout are welcome

Until next time
Rex

Another Author joins

Today i am pleased to announce another new author to my blog, his name is Ethan Hurndell, a Eldar player at my local gaming club. For as long as i have known him he has played Eldar (and nothing else), he has stuck with the eldar through the good times (any game since the new codex) and the bad (and game with the old codex since the first 6th ed codex was released). He is a good sport and player who has quite a impressive collection with models from across the years. I look forward to seeing what he posts.
Until next time
Rex

A New Author Joins

Within the last few hours i have invited and welcomed a new author to my blog. His name is Jayden Howell and is a friend and regular Warhammer 40k opponent at my local club, he currently plays and collects eldar but has also done imperial guard and sisters of battle.

He is incredibly good at 40k and to my knowledge hasnt lost a game in some time. I look forward to seeing what he posts.
Until next time
Rex

The Begining

Greetings and welcome to the very first post of Madhamster's domain (so called because Runicmadhamster's Domain wouldn't fit) here i will talk about whats going on for me in the Warhammer hobby. Recently i returned to the hobby after a 2 year hiatus and bought i a Warriors of Chaos Army with the new book. After doing well in my first few games i decided that this just wouldn't do,sold that army and bought a wood elf army. Way back when i first was introduced to warhammer my first purchase was a box of 8 old style glade guard, and my first White Dwarf was a ancient edition that covered the 5th edition wood elf release. So i decided that my return to the hobby should be with the army that first caught my eye. Since starting this army i have amassed a fair few of the woodland folk. Here is the Army list where it currently stands:



Lords

Spellweaver
Level 4 with Divination Orb and GlamourWeave
305 points

Heroes

Noble BSB
Hail of Doom Arrow
140 points

Spellsinger
Level 2 with Ruby Ring of Ruin and Dispel scroll
175

Core

2x10 Glade Guard with Musician
264 points

1x14 Glade Guard with Musician
180 points

2x16 Glade Guard with Musician
408 points

8 Glade Riders with Musician
201 points

11 dryads
132 points

Special

10 Wardancers, full command
201 points

Rare

2xTreemen
507 points

Grand total:  2434 points

That is the standard list i play at my local club. Speaking of which i am currently taking part in The Coming of Tamurkhan. There are 6 players total and last week we had round one where i faced a empire army in a 2450 point game. I will make a post about that at some point in the future.

Thank you for reading, i will try and post again soon(ish)

Rex