Treemen Beat Everthing! Skitterleap Day 1

So today was day 1 of the Skitterleap warhammer fantasy tournament, held in wellington. There were 3 games played today with 2 more planned for tomorrow. I bought my wood elves and was fairly confident. Without further ado lets get into the games.

Game 1 Dave Appleby

Game 1 was dawn attack (ugh) against a Skaven (Urrrgh) Plague monk list (Urrrrrgh) with Lord Skrolk, a skaven lord level special character who turns plague monks into core troops. Now what with my list being so shooting heavy one if its main ploys was to cause panic checks. However plague monks have frenzy and are as such immune to psychology, so i had to either beat the monks in combat or kill every last one of them. And i didn't succeed in killing them all. This was a case of too many targets. David's list contained (target wise) two big blocks of Plague monks, a doom wheel, a Hell Pit Abomination, two units of gutter runners and a unit of Plague Censer Bearers. So my three units of twenty archers were hard pressed. The Treemen/Kin were also hard pressed to hold the line and often found themselves in difficult combats. However it wasnt all bad, my Treeman Ancient (Mr Huggy) managed to kill Lord Skrolk (who helpfully took a wound off himself with a miscast) before being murdered by the plague furnace that was in Lord Skrolks unit. One of the other Treeman was reduced to one wound and then went to last two rounds of combat against the second big plague monk unit. In the end i lost with David taking 17 points and me taking 3. David was a very pleasant opponent who was very polite while he murdered my wood land loving elves.

Game 2 Mark Stanton

It was round 2 against Mark Stanton, having faced him in CTA and lost. However this time was different. It was Blood and Glory (which didn't matter as neither one of us broke the other, again) and the deployment for this scenario was strange. Mark had placed two units of three Beasts of Nurgle and twenty Plaguebearers on the right flank and in response i placed two Treemen and three Treekin on the same flank. And that flank won me the game. Mr Huggy took the centre and soloed twenty Plaguebearers and a Herald (who he challenged and murdered) which gave plenty of time for the Treemen/Kin to take care of their flank. After they had finished with that flank the two remaining Treemen went on to mop up what was left, which wasn't much. Everything worked for me in this game with the pinnacle being twenty glade guard shooting off a demon prince. In the end it was a 15-5 to me. Mark was once again a great opponent.

Game 3 Bo Paterson 

This was both my first game against lizardmen (ever) and my first game of watchtower (ever). And both those things helped to make this game a crushing defeat. While i did claim the watchtower early Bo quickly took it with a super buffed up unit of temple guard. And he then went on to hold said tower for the rest of the game. Other events of note included Mr Huggy getting reduced to one wound from a amber spear, both of our level 4 wizards being reduced to level 1 and loosing 3 spells, the Stegadon Ancient being killed  by stand and shoot strangleroots, and the hail of doom arrow being destroyed before it could fire. IN the end Bo held the watchtower and wiped out all but twenty glade guard. A well deserved  20-0 to a very good and polite opponent.

I will leave you now with images from day 1 of skitterleap. Tomorrows first game will be battle for the pass (yaay) against Andrew Stanton (the second time facing him). Until next time.

Rex "I Love Trees" Foote

Alternate Game Workshop Models: Mantic Games

As we all know Games Workshops products aren't cheap, in fact the term "outrageously expensive" could be used to describe some of the price tags for their models. And this causes a dilemma for those of us who want to play Warhammer and Warhammer 40k: Do we bite the bullet, take out a small mortgage and buy Games Workshop's products? Or do we look elsewhere for cheaper models that can be used in Games Workshops systems? 

For a while now i have been promoting and buying models from other companies for my Warhammer armies. Unfortunately there isn't a big market out there for alternate Wood Elf models, but having decided to do Vampire Counts as my second Warhammer army this gave me the opportunity to do a army whose majority of models would be from other companies, and as you may have guessed from the title of this post the company that i have chosen to buy the bulk of this army from is Mantic Games.

Now i have already sung praise for Mantic in a earlier post however the argument was made that Mantic's models weren't as detailed as Games Workshops, and that the detail of Games Workshops models in some way justified their cost. In this post i aim to shine some light on  Mantic's models and make the argument that the quality of Games Workshops models in no way goes to justify the ludicrous cost of its products.

I will start by comparing Mantic Skeletons to  Games Workshop Skeletons. Below is a image of the two products in question.

Games Workshop

Mantic Games (Resin)

Now the Games Workshop Skeletons are bigger, and are easier to convert, where as the Mantic Skeletons are smaller and, while they can be converted, are not as easy to convert. In terms of model detail and quality i would say that they are both fairly equal. However to do a fair and full comparison we need to see the model components on their sprues.

Mantic Command Sprue

Mantic Standard Sprue

Games Workshop Sprue (Standard + Command)

Now just by looking at the sprue you can see that Games Workshop have the upper hand in model flexibility. However Mantic's Sprues have more extra bits (undead dog,heads, tomb stones etc) and are easier to assemble. Looking at the two companies versions of the same unit in a vacuum there isn't really a "Better" or "Worse" choice. If you want more flexibility when assembling your models buy Games Workshop. If you want more bits and a more uniform stance for your models buy Mantic. But once you bring price back into the picture Mantic wins hands down 20-0. I have already gone on before about the price of Mantic and Games Workshop skeletons but i will simply restate that 48 dollars will buy you 10 Games Workshop skeletons whereas 45 dollars will buy you 40 Mantic skeletons (from Slaves to Painting at any rate).

Now some may say "Rex! The detail of Games Workshops models is why they are priced so high, the product is better therefore the price is higher". To that i would say keep in mind how these models (and Spures) are made. A prototype model is sculpted which is then used to create a mold into which boiling plastic is poured thus making the sprues (and mold lines) which Games Workshop then sells. Its not like Games Workshop employes teams of highly skilled sculptors to craft each sprue. If that was the case then i may not be so eager to slam Games Workshops high prices. But this is not the case and so the high quality of Games Workshops models is irrelevant when debating the price of the models.

I once read that Games Workshops current CEO stated that his company's goal was to sell quality goods at a profit. That and that alone is why Games Workshops prices are so high. And while it is undeniable that Games Workshops models are of very good quality they simply are not worth their retail price.

I hope you found this post informative and helpful. I do plan to look in depth into quite a few companies whose models can be used in both warhammer and warhammer 40k. Untill next time.

Rex "I love trees" Foote

We interrupt your normal programming......

I have long internally debate about if i should post non war gaming related content to this blog. Yes it is my blog but my audience comes here expecting war gaming related content and i am more than happy to provide that.  However after coming home from work today i looked at my youtube subscriptions to see a video that, after watching, i decided i had to talk about.

I play video games, in my spare time when i am not working, eating, sleeping, painting, going out to see friends or war gaming. And in order to avoid spending 90 or so dollars on a bad video game i have subscribed to a YouTube channel called TotalBiscuit (A professional video game reviewer) who has saved me from buying many games that looked good on paper (or in this case game trailers). When i got back home today i saw the below video in my subscription list and, interested by the title i decided to take a look, i will allow Mr Biscuit to explain further.

Now i think we can all agree that, regardless if we play video games or not, we all find reviews of things we are interested in, be they warhammer army books, movies, T.V shows or video games, useful. And the idea that a company could remove a negative review at whim reflects badly on both that company and the site that hosted the video. So i echo TotalBiscuit's call to spread the word about this, and who knows, perhaps the video may be allowed to be re uploaded and continue to save people money.

I dont plan to do many of these non warhammer related posts but i felt that the subject in this case was important enough to warrant it and video games and wargaming aren't that different and many of those who war game also play video games and visa versa.

Normal programing will resume after this post, that will certainly include my report on Skitter leap and my showcasing of my new Treeman Ancient (go Wood Elves). Until next time.

Rex "I Love Trees" Foote

Wood Elf Rumours and Skitterleap Lists

Recently a rumour thread for wood elves popped up on Warseer, since the wood elf book was bought out in September 2005 (and the fact that wood elves are hands down my favourite fantasy army and so i take any and all chances to talk about them) any news/ rumours is good news at this stage. Now the rumours themselves were first found on a Spanish site and translated to English, so some of the sentences structures may not make sense.

Wood Elf Warseer Rumors

ASF for all elves
Eye of the falcon:elves only,reroll 1 to hit,only shooting Forest spirits:instability,magic attacks,5+ inv,harmony with the woods Elven bows:quick to fire,+1str,1 extra rank
Searath:HtH wepon,+1 str,lance i guess +1 AS ( going by the nam it's weapon eternal guards have right now after all)

Glade guard:elven bow/eye of the falcon
Eternal guard:S4,Searath,Ld 8
Glade riders:=
Dryads:fighting forms
Warhawk riders:eye of the falcon,lance,elfic bow Riders of Kurnous:Searath,Ld 8,Str 4,A2 (no idea if the come directly on stags)
Treekin: Forest Spirit,=
Bansees: Forest Spirit,wail (breath attack),terror
Eagle's claw:= (this makes me think these are simply great eagles and he confused the name with the high elves' ballista )
Wardancers:= save for a few changes that i don't know
Waywatchers:forest spirits,elven bow
Treeman:= i believe
Hot-tempered millenarian:eternal hatred,don't know what else. 

So there are a few things there that catch my eye, first is the eye of the falcon rule, which would allow wood elves to re roll 1s on shooting to hit rolls. This rule seems to in keeping in line with the High Elves and Dark Elves Marital and Murderous Prowess, and would be fairly useful, it would allow a few more shots to find their mark, nothing too game changing or over powered.

The next item of interest is the Elven bow, which here is listed as +1 Strength ( i assume that means they are strength 4), quick to fire and 1 extra rank (Fire in one extra rank). This is overall an improvement on the old glade guard long bow, mostly due to being able to always stand and shoot (thank you quick to fire). The fire in 1 extra rank sounds good but i am skeptical of its usefulness, i have never felt the need to deploy my glade guard in anything other than 2 ranks but other wood elf players may find this addition useful.

The list of unit ideas is interesting, bringing back Dryad fighting forms would be useful, esspically if they bring back the old Dryad forms from the 5th ed Wood Elf book. Perhaps the 2 biggest things to note here would be that waywacthers may gain both forest spirit and elven bows, making them actually useful. The second point is the last item on that list, Hot-tempered millenarian:eternal hatred. The Folks on Warseer seem to think that Hot-tempered millenarian means Treeman Ancient. Giving Treeman Ancients Hatred would be yet another reason to take one of these mighty characters.

At the end of the day these rumors have no real evidence to back them up, but are still interesting non the less and cold have a sliver of truth to them, hopefully.

Now the Skitterleap Lists, what a interesting set of lists. A lot of special characters, no dwarfs, no empire, no tomb kings, Throgg appears twice (apparently chaos has discovered cloning), there are two Bretonnia players. I personally am relived that the dwarfs and empire didnt show up which means less cannons (flaming and otherwise) to deal with. I think its going to be a interesting weekend, there are no lists that jump out at me as lists that would too difficult for me to beat, overall i think its going to be good. 

Until next time
Rex "I Love Trees" Foote