Topic of the Week: Banning Compendium Scrolls

War Room Episode 2: Catching Up

So it's been a while...ok, it's been like 9 months since the first episode, but hey real life happens. In this episode I talk about what I've been up to and my impressions of Age of Sigmar post-General's Handbook.

Age of Sigmar Matched Play - First Impressions

Today my wife and I played our first game of Age of Sigmar. It's been on the To-Do list for quite a while, but what continuously stopped it from occurring is that without a point structure, how could I ensure that we had a game that would be enjoyable?

My wife isn't a serious wargamer by any means, she enjoys playing games, and enjoys beating me at them, but doesn't really have the interest in creating her own list. I could create the list myself, but which comp system should I use? Which unique comp pack rules? I just wish there was something that didn't take so much footwork...

...then came the General's Handbook...

This book resolved all of the points of contention that I had with Age of Sigmar, including all of the community created comp systems that people came out for it. The matched play gives you an easy way to come to the table with relatively balanced forces and at a scale that makes Age of Sigmar thoroughly enjoyable. 

Here were our armies:

Daemons (played by my wife)

Daemon Princess of Slaanesh

Herald of Slaanesh

Soul Grinder

10 Daemonettes

10 Bloodletters

6 Screamers of Tzeentch

TOTAL = 1000pts

Bretonnians (played by myself)

Bretonnian Lord

Paladin Standard Bearer

16 Knights of the Realm

10 Mounted Yeomen

16 Men-At-Arms

TOTAL = 980pts

Our forces deployed into line ready to capture the other's objective.

The scenario that we played was the first one out of the General's Handbook: Take and Hold. The gist of the scenario is that you hold onto your objective while trying to take your opponents. What makes it interesting is that you instantly win a major victory if you can accomplish holding both objectives at the end of your turn. You hold an objective by having at least 5 models within 6" of the objective while not having any enemy models present.

Battle Round 1

I won the first turn, moved the mounted yeomen up on the right flank and supported them with the paladin, thus giving them a 3+ to hit in shooting and close combat. The big block of knights moved up and the peasants sat on the objective. The shooting did pretty well, I believe killing a Screamer.

Daemons followed by surging towards me, the Screamers going into the Mounted Yeomen and the Soul Grinder charging into the Knights of the Realm (KotR). The Mounted Yeomen and the KotR suffered a few casualties, putting some respective hurt on their opponents as well. No one fled due to battleshock tests. 

Battle Round 2

I won initiative again for the second battle round and thought I'd try to be clever and do some retreating. The Bretonnians really shine on the charge, and it seems if you can move them in and out of combats, they'd really shine. So I retreated my KotR out of combat from the Soul Grinder and moved my Men-At-Arms along with my Bretonnian Lord in to deal with him. The Mounted Yeomen also retreated back while my Paladin Standard Bearer moved in to hold the line. 

It's at this point that I realized that I had made a vital mistake. When I moved the Men-At-Arms up, I didn't move my KotR close enough to the objective to at least contest it. I had left my objective open for the taking! My wife didn't miss my mistake either... 

The Bretonnian Lord and Men-At-Arms really did some work on the Soul Grinder, bringing the total wounds on him to 14, only 2 wounds away from killing it. The Paladin held his own against the Screamers, but was on death's door.

On my wife's turn she rushed her Daemonettes and Daemon Princess forward towards my unguarded objective, even rolling a 6 on her Daemonettes run move. The Soul Grinder died at the hand of my Lord as my Paladin fell beneath a wave of slashing Screamers. 

Battle Round 3

My wife won the initiative. Ran her Daemonettes forward and was able to control my objective while her Bloodletters held her own. There was nothing that I could do.

GAME OVER. Win for the Daemons. 

Now there are some that might look at this and say that it came down to who won the initiative for Battle Round 3, but really, it's my own stupidity that lost me the game. Had I just made sure I had a knight within 6" of the objective I would have been fine, but I didn't. I made a mistake and my opponent capitalized. 

We decided to play another game using the same lists. For the second game we played Gifts from the Heavens scenario. In this scenario there are two objectives that fall from the sky during each player's hero phase in battle round 2. Where they might land is random, but it will be somewhere in one of the 2'x2' sections on your table-half. At the end of each of your turns, for each objective that you control, you gain as many points as the battle round it currently is. For example, at the end of your turn in battle round 2, if you control one objective you would score 2 points (if you had 2 objectives, you would score 4 points). 

Battle Round 1

I again move my Mounted Yeomen up on the right flank, supported by the Paladin, hoping to destroy the Daemonettes in my first turn. Everyone else stayed still. I didn't want to get caught out and charged again like I had in the last game. The Yeomen shot, killed 4 Daemonettes, and then failed to roll high enough to charge anything....uh oh...

The Mounted Yeomen got charged by the Screamers, Daemonettes, and the Daemon Princess. Yeah, not good. When there was a lull in the fighting only 2 Yeomen were left standing, and they decided that they had seen enough and fled the field. 

Battle Round 2

I won the initiative. My objective fell out of the sky and landed on my right flank (just behind where my Yeomen were massacred). I moved my block of KotR, which were holding my center, to attack all the Daemons that were concentrated there. The Bret Lord moved towards the right. The Men-At-Arms, which were on my left, moved towards the center as well. The Paladin made his charge against the Daemons on my right, which would allow me to re-roll my charge distance with my KotR (they were about 9 away). I failed...twice.

The Daemons objective fell on her right flank (my left) and she quickly moved her Bloodletters over to capture it. The rest of the Daemons moved towards my own and engaged the KotR. This time I at least had some knights there were within 6", but not enough to hold it myself. The slaughter began. Daemons began to vanish and knights began to drop. My wife scores 2 victory points. 

Battle Round 3-4

I try to kill the Daemons as quickly as I could, but in the end fell short. I ended up killing all of the Screamers and the Daemon Princess, but not before they could reduce my KotR to a meager 2 knights with the Bretonnian Lord standing nearby. My Men-At-Arms, which decided that they were men enough to take on a group of Bloodletters, were turned into a bloody pile of mush by the Soul Grinder as they were making away to that objective. At the beginning of my turn on battle round 4 I decided that my Bretonnians had enough and conceded defeat, as I no longer had the models to capture an objective. That is, unless my wife wanted to kill all of my models. She graciously allowed me to flee the field of battle with the 3 brave men that had survived her onslaught.

GAME OVER. Daemon victory...again. 9 - 0.

Wrap Up

In all we both had a great time playing Age of Sigmar. The game provided some interesting tactical gameplay in a decent amount of time, allowing us to play two games instead of just one. I really like the model count that you get with the Matched Play rules. It's enough to give you tactical flexibility, but limiting so that you're not forced to take every model in your collection. That was one of the issues that I found with some of the comp systems that were floating around prior to the General's Handbook being released. In some of them I would have to take more than what I fielded in my 2500pt 8th Edition army. That is not the case at all with the points we've been given in the General's Handbook. I'd say they hit the scale of the game right on the head. 

Asking my wife which game she prefers between Kings of War and Age of Sigmar (she played a game of Kings of War with me earlier this year) she said that she preferred Age of Sigmar. When I asked why she said that she enjoyed the tempo at which the game played and liked that she was able to get in there and start tearing up my troops fairly quickly.

For the time being if I demonstrate any wargames to friends that are not already miniature wargamers, I'll be showing them Age of Sigmar.

Miniature Versitality

Something that has become incredibly important to me over the years is that I get as much out of my models as I possibly can. How many games can I use my miniatures for? How should I base my miniatures so that I can use them to their maximum potential?

The rise of this concern for me personally is due to the following:

• Increased competition for hobby budget (starting a family will do this to you)
• Game systems disappearing or being abandoned (I'm looking at you Games Workshop)
• Investment of time assembling/painting miniatures

I'm sure that all of you can at least relate to one of those points. But who cares? If you want to play a different game, you  might as well just throw out all of your current miniatures and buy miniatures for that new games.

Right?

Well, I'm telling you that you really don't have to. If you have models that are suitable for multiple game systems, there really is no need to purchase new miniatures. In fact, my advice would be to purchase miniatures that can easily translate into multiple game systems.

For example, here is a brief list of games that I can use a few of my miniatures for:

Fireforge Miniatures Foot Sergeants: Warhammer Fantasy (Bretonnians), Age of Sigmar (Bretonnians), Lion Rampant, Warhammer Ancient Battles, Kings of War, really...any game set in the medieval period, so a countless number of games.

Games Workshop Dwarf Warriors: Warhammer Fantasy, Age of Sigmar, Kings of War, Dragon Rampant, Frostgrave, and any other game that has a typical fantasy trope race such as dwarves. Ultimately dwarf miniatures are more limited than Fireforge Miniatures Foot Sergeants.

Dropzone Commander PHR Ares Walker: Dropzone Commander

Essentially when I purchase more historical medieval miniatures I can use them for a lot more games than if I purchased miniatures that are specific to a certain game. My investment into purchasing that miniature is safer.

Basing also plays a part, but not as significant as the miniature itself. The reason why it's not as important is because you can always rebase a miniature. It's just a matter of time investment and perhaps some resources if you need to buy new bases...but it can be done, it's just really annoying. If your miniature is based in such a way that it can be used for multiple games, then it's just that much more flexible.

The reason why I will NEVER rebase any of my fantasy miniatures for Age of Sigmar is because if I retain them on squares I can play older versions of Warhammer Fantasy, Kings of War, and any other skirmish game (since in most, if not all, skirmish games the base really does not matter). As soon as I rebase them on circle bases I lose that ability to easily use them in ranked up games. True, you can just put them on a special movement base, but that requires specialized movement bases which goes against the guiding principle of this article.

So after that wall of text, why should you care about miniature versatility? It's something that will save you money, save you time, and thus give you more money and time to enjoy this hobby! It's something to keep in the back of your mind when you're looking at getting into a new miniatures game, or even when looking to purchase miniatures for a game you already play.

War Room Episode 1: Introductions

Over the years I've appreciated listening to podcasts about wargaming, so I figured it's neigh time to start my own. This isn't going to be nearly as grand or complex as others that are on the interwebs, it's mainly going to be myself rambling about the hobby and what I might be up to at the moment.

This is completely unedited, so hopefully it isn't too harsh on the ears. Hopefully in time it will get smoother.

Hobby Update #2

I started I working on painting my Questing Knights and have managed to get 2 of them completely finished...alas my steam for Age of Sigmar seems to have faltered. These models are incredibly fun to paint, but they do take a while. Below are some pictures of the Questing Knight Champion.

So the hobby winds have shifted and I'm now pumped up to start working on some dropzone commander models! I was able to assemble and fully magnetize the PHR starter that I picked up and have even gotten the base coat of paint down on all of the Scourge vehicles from the starter box. I really do love the airbrush...makes painting go so much quicker. The plan is to paint up the UCM and the Scourge so I can start demoing some games. Perhaps I'll start working on the PHR, but we'll see where hobby winds blow then.

For the Scourge, since they look very crustacean like, I used the following picture for inspiration.

Here are some WIP photos of the Scourge. I'm going to try to take some nicer photos of the Scourge and UCM forces when they're all done.

I've also purchased the DBA 3.0. Fantastic set of rules. If you have any interest in historical warfare I'd urge you to pick this book up. For me the selling points are that the game plays quickly, you don't need hundreds of models, an army is incredibly affordable, and you still get that big battle feel. Other than the 28 mm figures I have already any further big battle games I only really want to play them in 15mm. Otherwise it's skirmish games for me at 28mm. And the only skirmish game I'm truly interested in at the moment is SAGA.

Age of Sigmar is fun...but it just doesn't quite do it for me. Perhaps I'll elaborate on that more in a different post though.

Hope you all have a good one! Until next time!

Hobby Update #1

I thought I'd write a post about what I've been up to hobby wise lately. I've been a little all over the place, but it's been keeping me going!

Bretonnian Knights
I finished this Knight of the Realm that I had started months ago. I had all the base layers down, so it didn't take long to finish him up. He just needs some static grass added to the base and he'll be completely done.

Of my knight errant command I only have the musician left. Yes, I know some people used the hawk signifying the champion, but when I saw it I thought this would make a great hunting/messaging bird! So he should get finished up here in the next couple of weeks.

Medieval Infantry

I plan on using these models in several different game systems. They can be Battle Pilgrims in Age of Sigmar, fierce foot or foot sergeants in Lion Rampant, a unit of Crusader Warriors in SAGA. I choose to paint up 12 for now, because that's the unit size for infantry in Lion Rampant. These are Foot Serjeants from Fireforge Miniatures. Pretty good models and fantastic value. I decided to also purchase the shield transfers for these guys. Perhaps I'll do a review on the transfers at a later date, but I have mixed feelings about them. I think the next batch I do will turn out better though.

Dragon

This is a Reaper Bones dragon that I'm currently working on. This is both my first Bones model, the first model I used a lot of airbrush work on, and my first experimentation with oil washes. So a lot of firsts for me! The pictures below below show what the dragon looked like before I gloss varnished it for the oil wash. All the green layers and yellow layers were all done with an airbrush. The smaller details like eyes, mouth, horns/claws were done by normal brush. The plan is that I'm pretty much finished with the layers, and I'll put down the final shading via oil wash. We'll see how it turns out!

Dropzone Commander

I picked up the starter box for the PHR! So now I have the starer armies for PHR, UCM, and the Scourge! I'm incredibly excited about this game and love how it plays out. Seems very tactical and the rules are pretty tight. The fact that you can also destroy buildings is just fantastic. Now I just need to find the 2-player starter set in the garage! We recently moved so there are still lots of things in boxes. Somewhere in the garage there's a box with my 2-player Dropzone Commander starter box, unopened GW daemons, and Dropzone Commander rules. Once I find it I'm probably going to start using that airbrush to pump out those starter armies! 

That's it for now. Told you that I've been all over the place!

Hope you guys have a good one! We'll see how much I got done in my next Hobby Update.