This past Sunday I got a hold of some older fantasy minis. I knew these were coming my way for a couple of weeks though most of them were unseen before I received them. But now I have a slight issue, open them or not? it almost seems wrong to me. These have been in their little plastic and cardboard tombs for 20+ years now, when these were sealed up I had never even heard of miniatures gaming (I started much later than most of you). Somehow opening them feels just plain wrong.
I love these minis, not only do they look 100 times better than 90% of
the stuff available today but the citadel packaging is amazing, it is so
bright and colorful and each faction having its own unique package
really makes them feel unique. I will most likely add the skaven to the army I have in progress. The dwarfs however are another story, I love these sculpts, I wish I could get enough of them to make an entire army even if it never saw the field of battle it would still be worth it. However I will have to settle for the few I have and maybe a few more will find their way to me so I can paint them up and display them in my case.
I will be sure to share pictures of the individual sculpts once I crack open their tombs.
As I am holding back on Flames of war until I see the Version 3 rules I have been working on a a Warhammer fantasy skaven army. I am sure I have said this here before but I find it somewhat disturbing that I have these fantasy armies and I have never played the game. I see minis I like and I buy them, I plan armies, I plan out how I would use them on the field, yet I don't even know for sure how the rules work. I have someone who is going to teach me how to play fantasy sometime but I don't know for sure when that will be. of course I wouldn't be me if I didn't get sidetracked from this project just like the rest of them.
So last night I went over to one of the local game shops and quickly got sidetracked from my skaven. I was given a demo game of warmachine by one of the local press gangers, as usual I cant remember his name. I was confused by most of the mechanics as they are so far off from what I am used to but I was impressed by the unique rules some models had. I played as khador, I had a warcaster and 2 warjacks, I remember the warcaster was soascha and one of the jacks was a kodiak, I dont remember what the other jack was. The kodiak had the ability to pick up an enemy and throw it which I thought was awesome even though it got slaughtered before it was able to pull of such a move but my warcaster was able to freeze the entire enemy force in place and she then charged up to the enemy warcaster and basically beat the hell out of him while he was frozen solid and couldn't do anything. the almost cinimatic quality of the game made me grin and I am now building a small Khador force of my own. The game apealed to me for a number of reasons but 2 of the big ones is the chance to play something other than Flames of war as there is a thriving group of players here as well as the chance that maybe as I get to know some of these other local gamers I can interest a few more people in Flames as well.
I will try to get some pictures of both the growing saken horde and the warmachine force as soon as I can find my camera.
Christmas has come and gone this year, this means the end of the year looms all to close. 2011 was another year of started projects left sitting on shelves half done, as most years are for me. I want to try to finish some of these lost projects in 2012, as I always intend to, but never seem to. Of course the big news ending this year is the upcoming 3rd edition Flames of War rules next year. and here is the video announcing the new rules, although I am sure everyone interested has seen it already.
This announcement has left me quite excited and looking forward to re learning my favorite game. On the other hand not knowing what changes are in store leaves me wondering if I should even bother trying to come up with any new list ideas, I have no idea what may be getting better or worse and that doesn't make me want to put to much effort into working on any of my models right now.
Of course if I am not working on my Flames stuff I need something to do and that leaves me with 3 Warhammer Fantasy armies that have been begging for my attention. I don't play Warhammer but I have a good sized Empire army that is mostly built and primed but otherwise generally unpainted, a small Dwarf army which is still in its boxes and a few Skaven models which have been added to this Christmas Thanks to my wife buying me the current Starter box. Somehow I think it's time to get these models painted so I think I will work on either getting some of these empire troops painted or get a skaven horde going while I wait for the new Flames of War rules.
I havent had much to share lately. After finishing the french I was working on I have kind of stepped back from painting Fow and have been working on a few side projects, none of which are moving any too quickly, and reading some books.
There has been a lot of talk about a new version of FoW coming soon, I have basically ignored this for awhile and not thought about it too much. The Eastern front late war compilation books which should be available today have had me thinking more about it however. There is a big change to The soviet national rules with a new version of the Hen and chicks rules, link to the new rules for anyone who hasent seen them yet. I have tried the new rules and so far I like them when using T-34's, though I haven't played it with any other affected units yet. This change got me thinking though, a change this big however has to lead towards something bigger yet. Could these books which are replacing a set of books the newest of which is barely over a year old be a way of bringing the lists in line with a new version of the core rules? Though there is nothing official at this point it does seem that a certain distributor has a new rule book listed as pre-release and I have heard that there is a small advertisement in the newest issue of Wargames Illustrated which indicates that a small V3 rulebook will be available this coming February . I for one am looking forward to re learning the rules and seeing how big or small the rules changes are.
