Colours 2023 - Newbury Race Course Sat 09 Sep 23

Well for a start finding the right car park at Newbury Race Course is not easy.  And visiting the alternatives means fighting your way back onto the main trunk route through the town each time.  But I suspect most people research the location a little more rigourously rather than follow the 'race course' signs.  Like that'd work ! 

The following is full of wild generalisations in order to make an arguement, it's not intended to be a dig at a certain demographic (within which I'd probably be counted) or even a certain games system: it's just my perception.

Anyway, I went to meet Admiral Drax, who is now to found contributing to Wargames, Strategy and Soldiers.  So he goes to a lot of these as part of his contribution.  Newbury is an hour south for me and quite a trek north for him, so the chance to meet at Colours 23 seemed to serendipitous to pass up.

But you're here for the show, so a few words about that.  I managed some snaps, the first groups were two very impressive Vietnam tables, one out in the boonies centered on the downed Huey and one set in Siagon itself.  The detailing on the Siagon table in particular were worthy of a diorama, let alone being used as wargaming scenary.  

The ground floor was packed with stands for vendors, but I have perviously learned by lesson when it comes to these shows, invariably something bought here is never used or ends up being passed on, so the only thing I did buy was a book.  For research.  

I have noticed that prices for things have generally increased.  Which makes things pricey for me and I'm not badly off.  If I was me of even ten years ago then a single purchase or two might be ok, but I couldn't afford a new game system/army/whatever.  This is relevant for my later diatribe.

The clientele was overwhelmingly white, male and at least middle aged.  Which is perhaps not a surprise, as we noted at the time, these are the people with the cash resources to fund a pricey hobby like this in the first place, the time resource to actually build and paint their armies and tables and the space resource to store all of the this stuff and also get it all out and play with it.

This in and of itself is not neccessary a problem.  As long as there are more old white men coming into the hobby to replace those who get too old (or just keel over).  But that might be a problem in the future, it is almost certain that those people have been wargaming for decades, so didn't enter the hobby as 'around retirement age'.  ie twenty years ago, the demographic of a historically based wargaming event like this would have included a significant tranche of persons twenty years younger than those present in 2023.  The average age of the historical wargamer would have been lower. Fight me.

40K, as we all know is specifically targeted and marketed at new players, who tend to be in their teens.  People who might ot might not explore wargaming more generally, who might or might not wargame consistently thoughout their lives and who might or not 'leave the hobby' for years or even decades and then return.  And the constantly changing meta encourages behaviour like having the prime army for each edition or update of the rules, rather then what we see in hisotrical wargaming where the same army might be used in multiple rulesets or formats.  So the paradigm within which the games are played is different.  And some people might struggle with that.  If you start a conversation with someone about 40K they will assume that you're both talking about the latest edition.

So then there's the general state of society and the economy (stoopid).  The next potential generations of wargamers for this type of thing are much much less likely to have the resources (money, time and space) as the current players, even when they get to the same point in their lives, perhaps they will be short on one of these at least.  

So given the likely constraints on their future resources, the 40K paradigm of  'sell your army and get another one each time the rules change' makes sense: less space, some ROI.  You only have to look at ebay each time there's a new edition or new flavour of the month codex.

This constant churn is possibly the antithisis of historical wargaming.  Your ECW army might be good for multiple rule sets and be used for more than one depending on what type of game you want to play that day.  And by adding in or leaving out cerrtain units you could use most the ECW army in the Wars of Spanish Succession or even 30 Years War.  A markedly different paradigm and one suited to the more available time and space for it as well as the cash to acquire it in the first place. 

So perhaps in the future there is going to be less appetite for historical wargames, new wargamers are not moving into it: I see the evidence of that everytime I visit one of these.  Salute (not been for years) has a much stronger SciFi and Fantasy vibe and has much broader demographic.  It's still almost all male, still almost all white, but there is a much broader age range.  And there are historical wargames there.  And historical wargamers (still oldies) so it superficially looks like 'wargaming' as a healthy future.

But I would contend that what is seen at events like Salute is not the real picture, that events like Colours show that there is very real chance that historical wargaming in the form it currently has (and it's a great time for the hobby with new manufacturers of just about everything and 3D printing as well) is unlikely to survive another twenty years.  It's just seems not to be getting new players.

Do I think its doomed ?  Amongst all the new stuff there is a lot to appeal to those who are fed up with the revolving door nature of 40K - a host of new games in short play, skirmish format based on commando raids, weird WW2, Dr Who, Blakes 7, Flash Gordon and so on. Currently a lot of these games appeal to certain demographic (Dr Who, Blakes 7, Space 1999 and so on certainly date us all to between Quatermass and the Pit and Star Wars).  But products like the Star Wars games, like the GoT game by CMON and others which may follow on might just be enough to spark some interest in historical gaming and keep it alive. 
 

bacck to place holding

I was getting tired of the KS question, so here's more photos from the archives:

Freebooter's fate masquarade figure done as Mandrake for me by PVP:

Old School Sentinels (from Admiral Drax) done as Blood Pact by Raven's Nest Painting:

Random Imperial Shrine city picture:

Antenocti's Zebu as Police Cruisers done by Golem:

Death Riders (Uhlans) holding the center ground somewhere:

I need to get my hobby night back, it's been taken over by ballet, guides and the shopping delivery (all whilst Mrs Z is at Rock Choir). 

World Book Day

It's world book day, so here we go again.  I blew ~£30 on this.  And I'm not too sure about it being VFM or not.

Let's address the production values bit first:  The Horus Heresy books are being knocked out for anything from £70 to £90ish.  These are high end art.  If you go to a a bookshop which does High End fine arts books and find something with comparable production values then the FW books actually don't seem too bad in terms of cash price.

But the hardbacked mainstream GW Codices, whilst lavishly illustrated on quality paperstock etc do seem to be a slightly cynical way of cashing in.  The older softbacked books were perfectly adequate for a table top wargame.  And quite frankly, if the rate of issue and re-issue is just going to continue to rise then surely going the other way, making the product more accessible as the rate of refresh accelerates would be better for the customer (and hence long term better for the producer ?)

I'll point you to Bolt Action - Admiral Drax recently showed me a book he'd picked up which seemed beautifully produced, illustrated and laid out and was immediately engaging and certainly up to the job of being a wargaming rule book.  Like the older codices.  Go figure.

So from 2003 I reveal this:

                                              

So we are supposed to accept that the events in the new book run directly on from the events in the 2003 book.  And to fair, all of the elements are there: the various SM Chapters are represented; the Imperial Guard appear to have been thinned down to a few Cadian formations, which is disappointing.  Name checking different Guard formations always raises a smile here, one of the best bits of EoT is the list of units on each side, which in itself spawned more then one thread of fluff which we all now know and love etc.

In the new book the writing centres around the three new character pieces which, in as much as any 40K character ever can be, are adequately brought to life in furtherance of the narrative.  A diminishing cast of SM Characters are given bit roles.  Which is a subject for a whole new post.  The narrative itself is obviously a scene setter for some future development in the 40K canon (I hope that wasn't a spoiler).

Did I enjoy it ?  Not really - the battles are all huge cataclysmic events where no one on either side ever seems to need to reload, run out of loo roll, catch 40 winks or display any other Maslowian frailty, the like of which we know actually wins and looses wars.  I know that that its just a game and that that game is a piece exchange table top game of over the top heroes and gribbly beasts.  But.  It's contextual basis is a human society, albeit hopelessly distopian.

So one or two lines where the defenders retreat to the under ground, sub pylon catacombs where they rest and re-arm and behave like a beleaguered army would have that little bit of depth - similarly having a line about the vast hordes of renegades scavenging the ruins for food (which the Black Crusade did not bring with them because they don't care that their minions starve) instead of actually assaulting the Imperial positions would also have added depth, character and believablity to what is otherwise quite a dry account of events.

That the Eldar wait until the last Imperial Forces are not a threat to them before effecting a rescue is entirely consistent, bravo !

There is a clear purpose and intent to both of these books - the EoT book introduced the Cadian Shock Troops and Kasarkin AND gave a background and reason d'etre for people to use their existing Imperial, chaos and Eldar armies - it provided a pattern for the few years of 'world campaigns' which followed on from this, Medusa V et al.  What it left out was as important as what it included.  It was clearly inspiration for gamers and hobbyists.  Inspiration derived from a few lists and half a dozen tenuously connected pieces of prose which might not have written specifically for this publication, just include because they were good (?)

The fall of Cadia book does more and different things - it advances the entire 40K narrative - the Eldar get a new god, the Imperium get a Primarch and Chaos actually win something.  Making all of those previously random Black Crusades be about destroying the pylons is an interesting maguffin to explain the apparent waste of the last 10000 years by Abaddon and his homies.  And of course it promotes sales of the three new Character models as well as the armies mentioned therein.  And I think that's how the book reads - it was written with these purposes in mind - if you have a Dark Angel, Imperial Fist or Black Templar army then this book gives you immediate licence to be involved.  If you wanted an excuse to start a Mechanicum army, here it is.  Excetera for the other armies mentioned.

So I think this is reason that the book is a bit flat, ever so slightly missing the viscerality of that piece from EoT where the Commissar is talking about training with a Cadian Youth Army Platoon or the Aspect Warrior goes into the Avatar Chamber and does not come out again.  The 'whole narrative' thingy feels forced in a way that the previously stand alone articles within the older books did not.

Well, that was a mistake.

I joined a military modelling graveyard (trading page) on Facebook.  Whilst this does not sound like a disaster, it did prove to be a bit naughty in that I ended up breaking my rules of procurement.  I actually only brought a book through it.  A book about tanks for $5US.

But, seeing all of those models there ("Will only ship to continental US" cropped up a bit too often, but you can't have everything...) inspired me to fish around for the bits to do another project which has really inspired me.

But the 'bits', ie suitable (perhaps 1/48th ?) kits at the right price (a kit on offer for $10US sounds good, but if the postage is another $15US, then a kit from a UK supplier for £18 is a winner...) meant that I wound up sourcing the kits from UK suppliers.  Which in turn meant that I could get two, so that there would be two of these lovely fliers for when I wanted them.

So, instead of a bargain I wound up buying two lots of suitable donor kits.  Broken rules are still broken rules even when the kits are at a reasonable price.

Far worse was joining the 'Death Korps of Krieg' trading page.  Obviously this was almost immediately a disaster.  I've left that group as well, but only after squandering an insensible amount.

The brick of scrutiny wasn't beeeg enough.

Large random collection of DKK stuff.

There is stuff here in it's raw, virginal, untouched state.  And some stuff which needs an awful lot of TLC.  There's possibly half of the (needing a new uniform) riflemen needing over half of their rifles repaired.  I didn't need any of this, it was just there at the right price.  Appalling decision making on my part - tut tut, should know better at your age, Zzzzz.  So the new stuff was ok priced but came from Sweden, so postage, although not outragous, but was still a cost.  And the other stuff, prepaid, was collected and turns out to need repair (although that Vanquisher needs no work, I'm keeping it).

So I'm now keeping away from interest-cum-trading sites on social media.  Hopefully this me actually learning from experience.  It's bloody taken long enough.

Harumph.

If you click on this it'll be four and half minutes of your life you won't get back.

Its a quick view of Devos IV - ie my garage, not the actual imaginary planet.

It (the garage) just needs tidying up, eventually there'll be space to work - I just need to make a bit of room to manoeuvre.



This is not meant to sound like sour grapes - but I do find that most of the figure cases, there are one or two minis who actually belong in a different cases.  Obviously the answer will be to set up all three tables and actually parade them (thus allowing the orphans to return to their families).

Black Library Audio Books

  

I've got one, "Black and Red" (I know, I can see it too) which is about SoB being called in to assess a world's piety immediately after first contact.

Anyway, the voice actors do the best they can and the direction is what it is and it's all a bit, er, how I would have wanted it to sound had I produced it in 1982.  Lots of forced reaction and caricature with a predictable shoot out at the end.  Now the idea behind the audio book was a good, solid premise for a Grim Dark story.  But it could have been a bigger story, in a book and been quite the piece, instead of being crammed onto one planet in an audio book.  Jus' sayin'.

So they're now offering this:

Which I am really interest in - I really quite liked 'Flight of the Eisenthing'.  Any way.  Here's the rub; I have almost no time in my life to listen to things (really  listen, I mean.  The radio may be on the background, but that's background stuff).   Whereas I do read.  I'd like this as a book.  Or books.  Or e-book or e-books.  And having been disappointed by 'Black and Red' I'm not really in the place where I'm gonna blow £50+ on a punt that this might not be as awful.

Another thing is the way in which I consume my hobby product - bit of weird language there, but I hope you get what I mean.  I would want this to sit on my shelf, with the other books I like.  Not be crammed and lost in with the Jason Donovan and Take That CDs.  Oh well, £50 saved, I suppose.

Do I have a point ?  Not really, just sharing an opinion.

OBTW, Astrubel Vect has a facebook page !  Who knew ?

Godzilla (spoilers !)

Happy Friday 13th !  I'm writing this on Wed 04 Jun 14 - my last night away on the project I'm leaving this week - new job soon (same employer). Ok, so this post technically contains spoilers if you have not already seen this spring's Godzilla film.  But, 'onest 'injun', none of them are surprises.




I came across this:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/4-Big-Godzilla-Problems-We-Need-Address-43069.html

Now, don't misunderstand my criticism for dislike. This criticism is criticism as in criticism, not as in criticism, kapeesh ?

Good.

The modern US military have, I expect, an uneasy relationship with Hollywood. Hollywood wants to depict aircraft carriers and other hardware, the film (any film, not just this one) involves a lead character who is an officer in the services.  Hollywood shows US servicemen in a fantastic light, performing super human feats of endurance above and beyond the call of duty, for all the best of intentions.  And the hardware is often shown off to good effect as well.  In this film in particular, the US military's ability to throw together a HALO insertion of a SF platoon plus attached hero at what we supposed to believe is an hour or twos notice gives a favourable impression of a capacity that Uncle Sam wants everyone to believe is as easy as it seems in the film.

However, the poor ol' US military is more often than not depicted as deploying in a tactically naive manner.  In this film, the US Navy crams all of it's assets into the space more usually covered by an infantry platoon and parks it's major assets directly in the path of a large hostile entity.  Navies of the world have had the capacity to engage targets over the horizon since WW2.  I suspect that the real first act of a carrier group would be to ensure that there was an appropriate amount of space between themselves and the thing they were shadowing.  ie at least 22 miles, not 22 meters.

And the poor ol' SF Squad sent into the the bush on Hawaii on a recon mission are shown in (what in wargaming terms would be base to base contact) close proximity to something that was just about to be targeted with a tommahawk or airstrike.  So there are nice shots of men running away from explosions for the film makers, but really, there should be no one anywhere near there.  If the enemy has a particularly effective EMP weapon, does any really think that any modern air force is going to fill the sky with enough F22 Raptors that it'll look like Raptor rain when it goes off ?

And the next thing is the apex predator aspect of the film.  Now here's the thing; I am untrained in the ways of predators and prey animals.  However, I offer the following observations from my own meandering experience.  Wasps preying on spiders is the only instance I know of where a terrestial predator preys upon another; however it happens in the sea a lot.  Nonetheless, mostly to reduce the risk to themselves, predators don't usually prey on others.  But this is a film, so meh.

On to the defining part of predation.  The predator eats the prey. There, that's it. The rest of the prey animals flee the apex predator.  Now there are exceptions here; lions and hyenas might fight but usually break off if they find themselves loosing.  It would have to be a particularly harsh set of circumstances that result in a fight to the death.  So if what we see in this film is supposed to be a lion and hyenas, why bang on about apex predators so much ?  It just leads to the expectation that Godzilla wants to eat the MUTO.   And if it is for territorial dominance (and therefore access to resources) where is the conflict ?  MUTOs eat nuclear missiles and Godzilla doesn't eat, so what are they fighting over ?

Sorry for this, but that much worse film, Pacific Rim, which, lets face it, was awful, actually had a much, much better raison d'etre.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” Edmund Burke

Now, I know that some of you think, possibly quite rightly, that I overthink 40K sometimes.

If this blog focussed more on my Eldar warhost, then it wouldn't contain quite so many musings on the fluff and how and why the imperium might work.  But when you think about the factors involved in trying to launch an army through the warp, to fight a war somewhere else in space, things get sort of involved very quickly - more of this in another post later, perhaps.

My Eldar warhost contains a lot of killy stuff.  No combat engineers, no tiers of command, no regimental bands, no divisional creche or baker; just corsairs, aspect warriors, some token guardians and fistloads of seers to hold it altogether. So there's not too much to contemplate - they're Eldar, like the fluff - like Mr Thorpe's well realised but sometimes awkwardly writted books.

But the Imperial Guard demand, by their very nature, a little more consideration, especially considering their delivery system - the Imperial Navy, the DM and ultimately, the wider imperium itself.  Now, these are people (albeit made up ones).  And people exhibit different behaviours, some of which we can understand, if not relate to...

Anyway.  Morality popped up again - first the Laughing Ferret suggest that we be more circumspect when using certain words (whose meaning is actually derogatory or pertaining to vice) and then Col Gravis asked if we really need or want some of the female sculpts that are being offered.  But some of them manage the trick of being quite demure whilst still being somewhat attractive.

I did notice that no-one commented on the Gionvudar Massacre.

In reply to Col Gravis I alluded to the idea that perhaps given the actual unpleasantness of warfare in 40K, an army of over sexualised soldiers is perhaps not such a great evil.

For those of you who have not given it much thought; the whole fluff of 40K is a war of extermination; the Eldar are out for themselves, the Necrons want to kill all living things, the Orks just want to fight everyone, the 'Nids will just eat everything and the various bits of the imperium will turn in on themselves whenever there is no external enemy to face.


The SoB, BT, OH and iggies and beakies who have seen too much (and they all have) will wipe out civilian populations without a second thought.  The High Lords might care, but do not even possess the wherewithal to do anything different.  There is no Geneva Convention, no Queensbury Rules.  Flame-throwers, poison gas, chainswords and other things that we would think of as barbaric are workaday options in 40K.

The great enemy is just the icing on the cake.  Eldar, Ork, Nid, Cron and Tau are clearly the alien.  Xenoforms are an obvious rival and itching to continue with the payback for the Great Crusade.  But it seems inevitable that the greatest threat is from other humans.  And knowing that there is no quarter to be had from any enemy, none would ever be offered.  No mercy, no remorse.

If war in 40K arrives at a planet, then worrying about refugees is not really a concern of any of 40K's usual suspects.  Iggies might be disposed to offer succour, but only if they have resources to spare and no orders to the contrary. Everybody else either sees them as an inconvenience or prey.

40K is not a 'nice' game, none of the protagonists are worthy of absolution, redemption, acclaim or hero worship; they are all criminals either by act or omission.  It is a dirty, pitiless time.  (Don't worry, I haven't forgotten that it's fictional).  We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, gaining pleasure from playing with such bloodsoaked toys.

So.  What's my point ?  If Admiral Drax can score a small victory by fielding an ethnically diverse army, if Col Gravis can score a small victory fielding non-sexualised female iggies, If any of us avoid using popular but technically obscene terms in conversation; then perhaps we should.

What this does not mean is that humancentric armies should suddenly start going on humanitarian relief missions.  Exodite warlords will not suddenly start sparing colonists who maintain their claims in the face of the Eldar's older ones.  Orks will not suddenly by-pass undefended cities just because they are not offering a fight.  Changing the behaviour of 40K arhcitypes is not what I meant.

The challenge is ours as players.  The action lies with us to behave with a degree of integrity; to display virtue where it might not always be the easiest way. And perhaps it doesn't stop at the gaming table, does it ?

Of course, if I just played this as a game, with pieces, in stead of buying into the background, it wouldn't matter...

Another 'I don't get it' on : Bell of Lost Souls: Historical Wargaming and the Average Gamer

Warhammer 40k, Fantasy, Wargames & Miniatures News: Bell of Lost Souls: Historical Wargaming and the Average Gamer: Everyone at one time or another has seen a fantastic historical wargaming table and said "what if".  But why is making the j...

Yes, it's a police crusier.  Probably an unarmed Tauros with four seats, but we'll sort it out. Possibly the first time it gets shot at. 

So there's a post where someone just doesn't get historical wargaming.  Hummm.

The parameters for (for instance) WW2 wargaming mean that there are already fliers in most games and superheavies are generally limited to Naval Bombardment; there will be no weird shit added to army lists unless you start playing Weird WW2.  Like 40K, there is a table, an army lists and a points value.  And people who are going to play these games (beit FoW or 40K) will be interested in the background.

What do I think ?  I think a tabletop wargame is a tabletop wargame.  In the same way that an RPG is an RPG.  The people I play either of these with tend not to vary.  So essentially we play the same game each time, regardless of genre or ruleset.

So I do get that someone might not get it. 'It' in this case being the games I play in. But I think it's phenomenally unlikely that I will find myself at a table with someone who doesn't get 'it' is hugely divorced from my gaming experience - the one I'm happy with.  I am also perfectly OK that the original poster would possibly be horrified with the way I/we approach 40K and may well feel that we arn't really playing 40K at all (I am imagining the look of disbelief as I pull out the WH and BT Codecies).  Whereas those I have met and ending up killing and being killed by through the really quite wonderful medium of bloggin' seem to have got something close to what they expected when they made planetfall on Devos IV.

So a whole load of talk about 'should/are superheavies be allowed in 40K ?' is a bit of a non-question as far as I am concerned.  Same with flyers; If you turn up here an want superheavies and fliers, then we'll have 'em.  If you don't then we won't.  And if I've got an idea for a specific scenario, then let me talk you into it - you'll go down in history, on Devos IV at least.

Oh well.  Each to their own, eh ?

7th Edition

Ooooh.  Post 400.

I've got three four fourtykay rool buks.  Hereafter referred to as BRB and a number.

I like BRB4 - it's got kill team and build your own terrain; possibly the last shred of the DIY hobby postulated in BRB1.

BRB1 (Rogue Trader) actually states that there arn't that many SciFi minis on the market (there weren't) and that you should use them from whatever source you could find them.  Yep, just in case you weren't a teenager in the early 80's Games Workshop told you to use things from other makers.

BRB5, then is the one I played most of (a whole four or five games), but is clearly a progression from the BRB4.  But doesn't have the same sense of freikriegspeil as BRB4.  (There probably was no sense of freikreigspeil at all, it's just I hadn't played forty kay for eighteen years...)

BRB6 is something more of an art piece.  They have set out to make it eye candy and fill it with figure porn.  Which again, is what the Apocalypse revision does.  It does appear to have been proof read though, which is something at least.

But at an average of two and half games per edition, this aspect of the "hobby" (and no, big game company, spending a lot on your products to satisfy my scifi gaming needs is not 'a hobby', it is shopping) is, over time, giving a poorer and poorer return on investment.  The basic turn sequence and BS3 needing a 4 or more to hit don't change.

I'd like to point you to this post on the Responsible One's blog, where he talks about why some of us might keep harpin' on about an older ruleset.  He's got a point.  But it's not that I think that older rules are better, I could never be arsed to learn them at all.

So I might just stop updating (BRBs - I'm gonna keep bloggin' as long as you keep reading).  If you wanna pop round for a game of 4ed, 5ed or 6ed.  Or even RT, that's fine with me.  Heck, those of you who have had the pleasure can confirm to anyone else that I'm not really gonna notice which rules are being used.

I might buy future codices and other products.  As far as I can see, all the previous edition codices still work with the basic mechanics, so I can't see any great problems.  Please don't view this as sour grapes; Most of you know that I'm a collector with a megalomanical desire to have my own 40K world and write it('s wars) up in detail.  The rules are a point of reference for me, not a mechanism to be exploited or defeated in order to win a game - yeah, winning would be nice, but the Devos IV war will be won by the side who spend the most blood and treasure, not the side with the best statline.

This is my hobby and I'm happy to share with anyone who expresses an interest.  I work quite hard to earn my own treasure to indulge myself with, so I'll do what I want with it.

Now, just so we're clear: I do enjoy playing, and understand that the rules inform and shape that experience and so on.  But the important word for me there is experience, as in I am participating in something with a friend or two or three for the purposes of having fun.  Which is rule number 1, remember.

Anyway, following in the footsteps of the laughing ferret and Mr lee and standing on the shoulders of the Mordian 7th, It did occur to me to celebrate my 400th post with a giveaway.  But it would be a case of  'just leave a comment' and I would then go through the motions of randomly selecting one and then just pick my favourite anyway*.  And all the stuff I have is half started projects anyway. 

*See ?  my blog, my rules.

Making a moral point with your blog.

It's late August and Mr Lee is signposting people to a particular post on Laughing Ferret's blog because the chuckling Mustelid has hit the milestone of 300,000 views or something.

Anyway, the entry conditions are to promote the post and signpost Laughing Ferret's blog.  He makes a couple of points as he describes the criteria for entry.

One point he makes is that you don't have to be a follower using blogger as he is aware that some people follow by email and some just lurk or browse.  So he doesn't want people to change the way they use the interweb just 'cause he says so.  Which on a moments reflection I think is an enlightened outlook that ought to catch on.  But it might not as *we* internet users in general, are getting more and more used to being channeled into certain behaviours.

huge deleted rant 

Ahem.  The sort of behaviours I was really alluding to are things like accepting cookies.  When it first broke that cookies existed and what they were for, what they did, people would read the cookie acceptance piece on a website.  Now we largely don't.  We just click it without reading it.  Which has to be a mistake.  The last time eye toons updated, did you read the whole thing (again) or did you just 'accept' the new terms and conditions.  Similarly, the point made by Laughing Ferret - there are other ways to get your interweb without using google's blogger - lots of people use wordpress for example.  But a lot of people (me included) prolly started using blogger just because everyone else does.

Now I know that cookies can be turned off and I do have that IXthingy as my default search engine and am aware that my blog can be imported wholesale into wordpress and so on.  But that's not my point.  My point is that we should all think a little more carefully, perhaps, rather than just accepting every T&C that the interweb throws at us.

And harking back to the title of this post, I'll point you to Laughing Ferret's little exposition on the increasing use of the word 'pimp' as an adjective.  Such use of the word might be etymologically correct, but similarly, his interpolation of the word's use as noun and adjective is at once insightful and his stance on its use, morally courageous.

Well done, Laughing Ferret, I raise my blog hat to you.

Eldar Codex review (no, really, it is)

You might not remember this post.  As it was some time ago.  I rambled at some length about what I'd like for the new Eldar codex.

Just an opinion, but I like the new wraithguard models.  Very nice.  Ta muchly, Mr Goodwin.

Things that I wanted have made it into the new codex:

Pop up attacks from all of our skimmers.  No, but Battle Focus basically gives us pop infantry unless we're tactically inept.  In which case it's my fault that we Eldar get wiped out.  Happy with that

High flying.  No, but with the new flyer rules this is sort of out of the window; I suppose that effectively being able to deep strike Falcons and Serpents is a tiny bit fromage-ical.  Not unhappy, as my Prism can shoot your back passage from my deployment zone and, being Prism, can also interrogate all of your emails. 

Web portal.  No, but we can have DE allies and quite frankly, its the witches and incubi that I want to web portal into your face anyway.  Happy with that

Storm Guardians   Goddem.  Happy with that

Augment as a Warlock power  Nope.  And my precious Runes have been nerf'd as well.  But, there is a new Farseer whirling dervish power - Farseers in HTH, using this power, will duff you up, be prepared.  And a lot of the warlock powers can be applied in either in a positive or negative way, which is nice; using the same both ways in one encounter (ie with two warlocks) could really influence the outcome.  And the system is not too difficult to use.  Happy with that.   Expect super Seer Councils in Apoc. 

Camelioline Scorpions  Not exactly, but stealth, Infiltrate and move through cover will do, cheers.  Happy with that. 

Wraithguard split into Assasin (CC) and Executioner (warp cannon)  Goddem.  Happy with that.  New names, too, although I cannot see what was wrong with the old ones. 

Waithseer (ie a Wraithlord with Farseer powers - obviously not affected by wraithsight)  He arrived in IA ten.  Happy with that. 


So.  My Seer Council has to be happy with all of that.  The background didn't change, altering history and writing out whole chunks, so that's OK, even if we didn't get much new.

We did get this:



The Wraith Knight is vvvery popular on t'interwebs, far more so than the Riptide.  Do I like it ?  Nah, the head looks too small.  Also, the Eldar are and ancient race and dropping in something that seems this winningish, it seems a little puzzling that it's never been seen before.  
The Wraith Knight is vvvery popular on t'interwebs, far more so than the Riptide.  Do I like it ?  Nah, the head looks too small.  Also, the Eldar are and ancient race and dropping in something that seems this winningish, it seems a little puzzling that it's never been seen before.  



And a wraith flyer (OK, I can see that, fluffily) and an interceptor (hurrah !).  The Hemlock looks a bit odd, but at least these things look like the person designing them had heard the word 'aerodynamic' at some point. 



Mordian 7th is knockin' up an Alatoic army very fast, get over to his blog and see it before it disappears into the webway to harass someone.  So, yeah, some mini-porn out there.  And it's been like Andrews Powders to Fritz, so WOSH is back on, coming to a Siam Hainn Army near you soon. 



Still not impressed with the hardback codex though. 

Business Plan ?

White Dwarf, natch. 

I caught this interesting article about WD over at the Artificer's Workshop (pretty ladies in power armour).  Which raised some interesting questions about the content of WD and what it's for.  Obviously the answer is 'to advertise the miniature range', we know that.  But as previously discussed, WD could be so much more.  There may well be opinion led articles by Johnson and Vetok (to borrow Artificer's phrase), but this is barely enough to warrant the description 'magazine' rather than 'advert'.

White Dwarf. 

I picked up the Eldar issue (because it has the Eldar in it) and quite frankly, If I played WHFB or LotR, I would be a bit disappointed, to say the least.  I know that a lot of discourse on various subjects is available online, and that these days, many many people are online almost all the time.  However, comma, if someone has bought WD then they are looking for something to look at whilst not on line (they might be on a rural bus service, or fishing on the Amazon* or something).  

So there are things you get with a real comic, but not on a smart phone.  In WD's case this manifests itself almost entirely as huge carefully staged pictures. It seems that precious little else is included; Content for the games system not being featured is minimal and the wise words of two GW stalwarts are not enough or varied enough to warrant shelling out the cash.

The Amazon.  Not an online retailer.

Just my opinion, you understand.  

Just my two'penneth for subjects:  Mr Johnson on the subject of financial investment vs return in relation to balancing your hobby against the expense of the rest of your life(style). 
Mr Vetock on an actual campaign background; the fact that logisitics and travel are going to be the defining factors in intersellar warfare and that in terms of concentration of force, Astartes strike forces are a one shot wonder. 

Col Killgore.  Everyone's favourite Apoc General !

Anyway, on to Apoc, which was the substance of the WD that Artificer reviewed: He asked who the Apoc formations were actually aimed at.  Well, me, obviously.  I would buy the IG formations and some of the Eldar ones as well.  In fact, when the Apoc formations dried up within 18 months of the first release, I was surprised.  I hadn't imagined that Apoc formations wouldn't be on offer forever; after all, the suppliment was not going to be withdrawn or anything. Anyway, I am on record as saying that I would be putting my hand in my pocket, were the Apoc formations ever to be released again. 

However, this is predicated on the not unreasonable premise that the apoc formations would be competitively priced. The prices they are listed at are (for example) 10 x RRP. Which is not really helpful; If I want to Fist the Emperor, I'm still going to buy ten LRMBT from Wayland, not one Emperor's Fist from GW*. 

Even at 10%, people would begin to think twice about that.

The other thought that was crystalised by brief contemplation of these diverse but connected things is the overall GW strategy; The Deamon Hunter and Witch Hunter codices have been replaced by Grey Knights and Sisters of Perpetual PMT - Inquisitor (the large scale game) is not supported and Necromunda, Mordheim, Epic, BFG and the various lines of interesting IG have all now gone the way of the dodo.  Without as much as a whisper in WD;  If you wanted some interesting things to talk about, these would have been interesting.   

Anyway, as I have said before, GW is going to do what GW is going to do regardless of my opinions and what I personally want from the hobby.  I will continue crafting what I see as an interesting exposition of an IG based campaign, trying to drag in ideas and so on from fellow hobbyists.  So no change there.  

But, with Kickstarter and alternative manufacturers increasing providing what I am looking for, And GW increasingly not providing anything I want (yeah, the Wraithknight may well be a nicely constructed game winning model, but that's not why I'm playing.  And it's head is still too small), their share of my hobby pennies looks set to diminish. 

*For anyone who has forgotten (or never knew), the Amazon has been a river since north and south America collided, and only been an online retailer for a few years. 

*unless in this particular instance all of the IG Apoc formation purchases include a vehicle accessory sprue; which would be over £75 off.  Which would be good, were it to be true, [telephones GW] Nah, no accessory sprues in there, just the new got-less-bits Leman Russ.  

The Imperial way of war.

A huge mob of IG.

Interesting article here http://pathfinder-devilin.blogspot.com/2011/12/40k-6th-edition-what-needs-fixing.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FCFmrO+%28Pathfinder%29 about 'improving' 40K. Suneokun's ideas about the FOC and adjusting army lists for flufftastic reasons are good, IMHO.

The way he mentions the manner in which (and he uses the blood angles as his example) an army chooses to deploy itself is rarely as contrived as the normal 40k pick up game seems to make it.

For instance: the majority of campaigns against the Great Enemy are fought against the heretics and renegades of the traitor guard types - the Vraksians, Blood Pact, Sons of Sek and all of their jolly bunch of chums. Now, as hobbyists we do have options for heads and other parts to build these armies out of, but considering that this is the one major fighting force in the 40K universe that all of the other armies are fighting all of the time, they are supported only by Forge World ?!?! Shurely some mistake.

Oh well, getting back to the point: It is entirely conceivable that armies are organised in ways other than as presented in the various codices. For instance the Black Guardians of Ulthwe are a 'professional army' without being aspect warriors. This could be reflected, not just in the fluff and the statlines, but in the way they are organised as well; armed and equipped as soldiers (equal to the aspect warriors) rather than militia (vanilla guardians). They might have snipers, D cannon teams, jump troops, squad special weapons, odd squad sizes (squads of five that can mob up and split off as ordered during the game).

Most SM are described as being deployed as a 'strike force', deploying from a space ship, rarely something as grandeous as a battle barge (which seem to be reserved for multi SM Company actions). So the SM Strike Force Commander has a limited amount of material with which to complete his mission. He can get fuel, water, food etc from worlds en route. He may be able to request munitions from the Deptmento (although I can see that ending in tears). Essentially he has a very small force (of admittedly, super human genetic freaks in powered armour), with a finite amount of material with which to complete his mission. Once he is out of special 'won't-fit-IG-ammo' rockets for his missile launcher, his bolt is blown, game over, pack up and go home. They may be super tuf, but they are not war winners. If you want some individual dead, one or two objectives taken, psychos for a forlorn hope for something like that, then yes, the SM are your men. If you want to win a whole war and hold the ground you capture, you need the IG.

The Departmento launches IG armies into campaigns, usually with a huge logistical tail. There are departmento labour corps to conduct civil engineering works and supply and maintain the fighting end. There are supply chains stretching back tens of worlds, all focussed on the eventual aim of allowing the pointy bit to do its job. All of this is a huge effort and does take a long time to set in motion. In galactic terms it is not strategically agile (although this does not mean that individual IG armies cannot locally be agile; just that they are tied to their supply chain). IG win wars. If the High Lords send a serious IG army to your world, they will win.

So there is your campaign basis: the SM player is not allowed to replace any casualties he takes. At all. The IG player, like the 'nids, always has the endless wave replacement rule going. This 'realism' could be extended to other armies. Although I have no idea how.

Echoes in the warp

I don't know if you picked this up first hand. I've picked it up from Pathfinder. It has the pathos and sadness of Dolly Parton's "I will always love you". Perhaps.

http://thefrontlinegamer.blogspot.com/2011/09/is-imperium-metaphor-for-games-workshop.html

If you havn't read it, give it a go.

Sticking my head above the parapet

The idea of putting out a Codex in WD has a certain appeal. However it has its drawbacks as well. I bought the WD with the first part of the SoB Codex in it. It is not as robust as a proper codex and will not last as long, even if I resist the urge to rip the pages out. Also it appears to only be six or eight pages (can't be bothered to get up and look, sorry) which means that the whole thing will be less than twenty pages (?) So it would seem unreasonable to expect the sophisication one would ususally associate with a 40K codex.

I never wanted a SoB army. They always seemed a little to up their own arses for me. I imagined Eisenhorn or Ravenor type bands, supported by ISTs. Perhaps even Jaq Draco, although I may be going back a bit too far...

Anyway, the point was that, equipped with the Witch Hunter codex, you could build a proper Ordo Hereticus warband or an army of power armoured breasts. Now, I havn't seen the second part of the WD codex, but it does look awfully slanted towards SoB, rather than being something that could elegantly allow one to field a Hereticus warband without any of Sisters of Perpetual PMT. Ho hum.

Yes I am just shooting my mouth off prematurely, but this is the interweb, after all.

Angry Birds, indeed.

Thunderer WIP

Vindicator bits in a LRMBT hull. No doubt someone has done it before, but that's ok, its not like any of GWs IP is actually original in itself is it ?



There were a few fit issues and some bits and peices could have been done better. For instance where the shell winch sits on its arm, the plasticard plate obviously looks like it should be braced or supported. But I'll do this one and her sisters up to a point before going mad on detail that I might not be able to reproduce.



I'm a bit stuck with the cupola. It will have to be an iggy one for continuity's sake, but it'll need cutting down to a level to allow it to sit on the vindicator hull top. Also for the next ones I intend to cut out the louvred plate to allow the extractor fans to be recessed lower in the hull.




This should show the butchered iggy dozer blade now relegated to being the mount for the siege shield. I don't know about fitting seige shields to the next two, but more about this below.

Why Thunderers ?

Generally speaking, the turrets on LRMBT are too small for their armourments. For scale and layout, they resemble early WW2 russian tank turrets. In the 1980s, GW obviously decided that if they put a proper scale gun in their LRMBT, then it would constantly be getting broken, which resulted in the 'normal' battle cannon having the dimensions of a howitzer or petard.

Which means that the LR Demolisher is just ridiculous. If you have the chance, hold the shell from a vinicator up against a demolisher turret. See ? I know that it's all made up and therefore doesn't matter, but still.

So the only sensible configuration for a Demolisher is for the demolisher cannon to be hull mounted. A turret mounted laser cannon, whose ammunition supply amounts to a HV cable, is a far more sensible proposition.

But FW have published rules for the Fundara and this little project will leave me with a couple of spare LRMBT turrets for the next project, so the thing you see above is what I'm working on.

The others may get a mine plow and a ditching beam/fascine; all good engineering things for combat engineer assets.