Distancing

Today's post is more of an admin update.  Similar to many people throughout the western world, I am operating under a COVID-19 driven government "lockdown" order.  In some ways I am fortunate as much of my work is digital and can be done from my kitchen table.

The biggest impacts are that I am now spending 9+ hours per day in the same 3 m2 space, even if I context switch from work to hobby time.  It is why I bring it up here.  I am jealous of those who have been able to take a few closed in days and spend them diving into modeling and painting.

Last week's progress on the pair of Marauders is below.  They are excellent at maintaining appropriate distancing.

The big difference is what they carry

Holiday Calm before a Storm?

Washed Squad

Over the past weeks, I had a lull in hobby activities for a variety of reasons from a weekend away to space being taken for baking.

I have put in some time working on the second squad of World Eaters and spent the second half of 27 Dec playing Dystopian Wars.   I got two games in, the first in which Prussians destroyed me and the second in which an alliance between the Prussians and Danes defeated Italy and China.

As I go into the new year, I am glad to have a gaming group to spend downtime with and a wife who allows me to escape for
long hours on the weekend to game.  My primary project will be completing the World Eaters ahead. However, looming on the horizon is the challenge of painting Roboute Guilliman before my brother visits in April, which will need to be preceded by at least a single squad of Ultramarines.   Throw in a mix of potential additions to my Danish fleet and it should be a very full next 12-15 weeks!

Prussia/Danish fleets prepare to engage the Italian/Chinese alliance

Learning to Off-Load Unused Minis

BFG I am selling!

When a person has been playing miniature games for almost 20 years, you end up collecting lots of models.  Many of these languish in boxes until you finally pull them out to work on them and add them to your finished collection.  Others end up not being used for a number of reasons.

A little over 10-years ago, I was building out my collection for some dying games, chiefly Epic Armageddon (EA) and Battlefleet Gothic (BFG).  This effort led me to buy from numerous sources to complete my growing forces.  It also resulted in me buying more than I ended up needing as projects would complete with no push to expand.

More Danes Coming

KoD Surface Assault Group

I am glad I delayed ordering more Dystopian Wars.  As I mentioned in my last post about Dystopian Wars, I was going to expand my Danes with some Prussian Lend-Lease units.  However, with the announcement of the new box pictured here, I am happily holding off to pick it up instead.

The addition of the Asgard Heavy Battle Carrier with its Tyr Assault Boats and four Magni Assault Airships will be far more interesting than any Lend-Lease units I might have acquired.

Dwarfs in Age of Sigmar

I mentioned in my first impressions of the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar rules, that I would take out my Dwarf collection and build some armies from the models I have.  I am going to focus on three ways of building an Age of Sigmar list.  The first I call the "Rule of Cool."  I went through my collection and pulled out some of what I think are the coolest models (and thus models that others will likely purchase).  The second will be fielding a War Scroll organization, maybe two!  The last I will walk through and build a list using the Azyr Composition guide put out there by the Louisville, Kentucky wargaming community.

In discussions with my local group, the opinion has been expressed that the old armies/modelsare likely to be under powered and even with well-intentioned carry-over rules are likely to not perform or be as fun as playing Age of Sigmar with models and forces designed for the game.  Initially, this really only is the Stormcast Eternals or Khrone Bloodbound. I suspect there will be a steady release of forces over the next six months.

Age of Sigmar: First Impressions Part 2

Last entry, I commented on the first two pages of the rules for Warhammer Age of Sigmar.  This covered the army selection, table setup, deployment, and victory conditions.  Now onto the actual game mechanics of models moving, hitting each other, etc.  But before we can even do that, there is the matter of figuring out who goes first each round.

Age of Sigmar: First Impressions Part 1

Looks epic!

Before even delving into the rules/changes, I am not enamored with the direction Games Workshop has taken the Warhammer Fantasy world.  I and others in the community felt the impending reset coming almost a year in advance and feared for the investment we had made in our armies.  I stopped working on Dwarfs as it became clear that a reset was coming.  Thus far the new rules are less than inspiring.

Add to this that I have watched what happens to Games Workshop ranges and systems when the company ceases supporting the models/game - it becomes incredibly niche and unplayed.  It is next to impossible to get a new player interested in a game that has near zero company support (see Epic, Battlefleet Gothic, Necromunda, Aeronautica Imperialis, Warmaster, etc).

All of this makes me incredibly skeptical of this direction.

Codex Eldar: Craftworlds Discussion

Army for Armies on Parade

The new Codex Eldar: Craftworlds is interesting to say the least.  The armylist I have been working towards for about a year has become cheaper points wise.  I added Harlequins to fill out the list from ~1700 points (without Illic Nightspear) to 2000 points. Now, the army with the Codex Eldar: Harlequins Cast of Players formation is 1850 points!  Illic Nightspear will bring it back up to 2000 points. The list however has a not insignificant point sink in the Phoenix fighter-bomber.  All of this is a long way of saying that the new Eldar are cheaper and deadlier than before.

Second Storm, failing to match colors

Both completed, very different blues

This weekend, I decided to complete my second Landspeeder Storm for my Ultramarines Scout detachment.  It had been built and base coated months previously and was on the side waiting for completion.  However, I ran into an immediate problem.  Most of my Ultramarines were painted using the old paint range and in a very straightforward scheme.  I could not get the two to match, despite several different layer attempts.

Formations in 40k

Cast of Players in progress

Formations have been around since Apoc v1 (released 2007).  However, it is only really in the past year that formations have entered into the core game of 40k and been getting smaller.  While large Apoc formations are still there (see the Grey Knights single formation), it is far more interesting to me to consider the impact of medium (<1,000 pts) and small formations (<500 pts), like Cast of Players for the new Harelquins.  These allow someone to complement an existing army with a different set of models and potentially bring something very different from their main army to the table-top.

Affording Agency

Sorry, no new models worked on the past two weeks - in adequate motivation and horrible discipline. But I wanted to discuss the importance of ensuring all players in a game have a sense of agency.  It also is a chance to vent.

Agency: 3. action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect.

Importantly, when I lose a game I want to have lost because I failed at something I could correct - short of total army book/codex change!  The only way to fix a loss should not be to scrap an army and start over with a "better" army.

This means identifying tactical errors - poor deployment or committing the wrong unit to combat - or even identifying holes in the army list - a few more Gyrocopters or a unit of Hammers instead of Slayers.  If a loss is assured even if the game goes perfectly, then it is not going to be a fun game for anyone.

OOP Games - Aeronautica, Gothic & Epic

Circling for the kill, 12 Sep 2014

Friday, I took my Aeronautica Imperialis (AI) to my FLGS and introduced the game to two other individuals who were not playing Pathfinder.  Played about 1.5 games until the store had to close.

Both really enjoyed the game.   AI has a fairly straightforward rules set and special rules can be kept at a minimum.  When AI came out, I picked up all the models necessary to play all the small games. Thus I have a wide range of choices to put on the table top.

Sadly, Forgeworld supported AI for only a short-while and when Games Workshop closed down Specialist Games and Battlefleet Gothic (BFG) & Epic Armageddon (EA) with it five to six years ago.  At the time, AI had only been around about two years.