Eulogy to 2011 (or some such time)

It has been said, on many an occasion, on more than one medium (TWF counts as a medium, right?), and by at least three people (including myself), that we are in a Golden Age of Warhammer.

Not being one that likes to contradict myself (ok, who am I kidding?), I obviously have to agree with the general statement.

Almost all (and arguably all the ones that matter) armies have been given a new 8^th edition hardback army book in a never-before-seen flurry of release activity. There are FAQs that deal with most of the main issues in the game (sure, they feel like they are from a bygone era, but still, they are there). Paints… well, paints are paints, but there seem to be a lot of those around too.

Game balance continues to improve. An ever increasing number of UK events are, or as close as we are likely to see, ‘no comp’ – or at least, they are when the armies hit the table, the majority of comps focusing on army builds rather than game mechanics. Events of such scale as to be the envy of the international Fantasy world sell out in literally seconds. Clubs appear to be growing all over the place in the former gaming vacuum that is the first city of this fair isle.

I should be dancing through the rain in boundless joy at the state of things (a sentiment robbed of some thrust by unusually nice weather in London today).

At yet, I find myself wistful, longing for what is no more.

Do I think that the early days of 8^th were without problems? Not at all. The combination of 8^th ed mechanics and latter day 7^th ed book power creep was a terrifying thing to behold. Was every book even close to equal? Not even close.

Is this simply a case of me sulking that my two chosen books did not receive exciting revamps, but rather dull (though arguably effective) face paint? Perhaps, this could well be it, but I do not think so.

No – I look at the armies upon the scene now and feel a twinge of despair.

Taken as collective and you would not be surprised to see them all in a bizarre convention that simultaneously attracted Panzer Division reenactors, “Build a Deathstar” Kickstarter pledgees and Orlando Bloom fetishists. Sure, the second one would be rather cool, but I worry about the first and last.

The big draw of 8^th edition is that it enables armies to feel more like armies. This is in every single way a good thing. Unfortunately we now appear to be moving away from this.

MSU (for a fortnightly definition of the term, check out The Bad Dice Podcast) armies were unique (or at least, different) and interesting because they were, quite simply, relatively rare. Working out how to deal with them whilst also gearing up to take on several combat units was a fantastic list-building challenge.

Now I look upon the armies at clubs, tournaments and online and the overall theme is apparent:

• Dark Elf armies are all Curry-esque in their fast cav goodness.
• High Elf armies are all Swedish-esque (or whoever it is taking credit for that list this week) blocks of stubborn immune to magic gunlines.
• Empire Elector Counts are frantically lending each other the keys to their Steam Tanks in some Teutonic swingers party somewhere (Jack has that effect on people it seems – I read somewhere GW have sold out of Steam Tanks). Those that lose out on Tank fun console themselves in silky sheets whilst cuddling 1+ armour.
• Daemon armies delighted everyone with the wane of Nurgle, only to be replaced by an and endless tide of Terry-esque (or Ben or Russ-esque) MSU gunline goodness.
• Every Warriors of Chaos player seems to have read the book, and taken the obvious stuff, and yes, that is MSU.
• Every Orc and Goblin army is a Ben-esque gunline that prides itself on being much more effective at doing this than Dwarfs.

Gosh darn it, even VC are getting into the MSU action these days.

Now, I am talking in generalities. I appreciate that not everyone who uses such an army is doing so because someone relatively well known in the world of internet forums/podcasts has done so before. I also fully appreciate that some of these people use them because they enjoy it.

But…

I miss infantry. And not “50 White Lions with Banner of World Dragon and 50 Archers” infantry. I miss infantry armies.

I miss Orc units Waaaghing into combat. I miss WS10 Ghouls. I miss Frenzied Corsairs. I miss (though I shudder to say it) Bloodletters. I miss Black Guard. I miss Skrox units. I miss Grave Guard. I miss magical VC charges. I miss Wood Elves being able to shoot stuff off because it had less armour and moved slower. Hell, I even miss 12 dice Mindrazor.

Most of all though, I miss that short sliver of time when most people did not know what was going on and all sorts of things made the table.

When did all the armies become so homogenous? Can anything be done about it?

A certain Craig person who was briefly famous when there was a rankings system in existence broke the mould of the Skaven book, and then Skaven left the scene, leaving the “RatStar” as the “norm”. That was probably the last great escape attempt we have seen. Maybe Sweeting’s “BigBossStar” would count, but even then, the rest of the list is a gunline. 

Comp may well be the answer. Scenarios too, if they managed to make something truly different, but very few of these alter the basic army builds we see everywhere. Even the potential cure of blonde and handsome Viking comp quickly settles into the norm after one go around. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, the SCGT comp has on the scene, especially if this year it is borrowed by more events. It does ask the question of how much you want to play the comp roulette. All my lists are in the 0-1 Comp Point mark. I know people only looking at 8+. This implies there will be some notable variation to be seen.

We shall see, and we can only hope.

Do I blame anyone for this? Not really.

We like to compete.

If you create a list and people copy it, that’s  flattering. You have little recourse to complain (unless someone figures out a way to patent any of it…). If you see a cool idea you want to do not doing it because it has been done is stupid on the face of it.

And feel good that, whatever goes on, we are better off than 40k.

In the meantime, I am going to keep it real and go Old Skool.

And take Dwellers.

An aside

Several longer articles are in the works (including a recap of the incredibly fun Bjorn Teams event) – life and work conspiring to prevent their completion. So I thought I would fill time with thoughts as they strike me. Whilst they strike me, before I can censor myself…

Until next time

Raf

US Masters - Lists and Matchups

 

Seriously, eagles are bad ass

History has shown us many things, and chief amongst them is that Americans, the fine citizens of that colonial backwater we really didn’t want all that much (it’s long commute, and have you seen their internet trolls?!) are often late to the party. When they do decided to get in on the fun though, they do it big, loud and proud – Stars, Stripes and Kim Jong Il puppets all to the fore.

(Seriously, I have been to Amercian college football games with over 100,000 people. At my university the only people that came up to watch our hung over players play were their put-upon girlfriends and the homeless chap who was using the changing rooms to keep out of the rain. They really don’t do things by halves).

Another thing that should be clear to the interested observer (though, to be honest, interest is really not required) is that our American cousins have strong views on… well, everything really (I personally think there may be a direct correlation to the sheer number of lawyers that seem to play this game over there). So when the news seeped out to this side of that dark grey iceberg-strewn pond we call the Atlantic that someone was going to put on a Masters event, a couple of things set me thinking… How the hell would they pull this off? Just how good are these guys? On a scale of cool to mega-cool, how cool would this be?

Oh, and would the North East secede from the United States as a direct result of this?

How Jerry got this off the ground I will never know – I think he probably had some goons (Amercians have goons, right?) in the background banging heads together. How could they possibly get such disparate regions and their play styles to agree on how to play at such an event is beyond me. And yes, I am aware it was a long, painful process – David over at Garagehammer did some fantastic coverage in the lead up to this (if for some reason you don’t listen, check over there ->). This being America of course, disagreements and disputes were not kept hidden away from the children and servants, but shared with the world in all its glory.

We laugh at some of the UK internet trolls over here - nice chaps (and girl) really in the most part. But damn, our red white and blue cousins (OK, that doesn’t work as a descriptive term – I am NOT talking about the French or the Kiwis – or even, for that matter, the Cubans or the Norwegians) take the gloves off when it comes to typing on internet forums. Saying that though, no lesser a judge of character than our current UK Master tells me there are uniformly nice people, so I take his word for it – just makes the reading all the more fun.

So, putting all that aside, Jerry and his goons have pulled it off. 5 different areas of the mighty United States are sending 10 hand picked warriors (OK, gamers, this is not the Van Damme’s Blood Sport) to go and play for the title of Master. There will be tears, there will be ragequits (online at least, if not at the event) and maybe the odd beer and bro-hug. Each region has the right to decide how their representatives will qualify, just adding to the confusing awesomeness of the whole thing. I am not entirely sure how they all did it to be honest – mixture of event winners, doing well in qualifying events, mixing table top success with acceptable personalities – I am sure a whole treatise could be written to analyse which is the more effective way of doing things.

Not content with putting on this event, Jerry went out and looked to shackle social media to do its thing, and working with Chad over at OnceBitten360 (seriously, a fantastically good YouTube channel the more I look at it, the more I love it check it out if you haven’t already - https://www.youtube.com/user/OnceBitten360 ) he decided on a novel way of doing the matchups for this – recording (live, as it turned out) video chat with online personalities the matchups and some thoughts on the games and anything else that occurred to the participants. Clearly February is when a lot of the ‘personalities’ are hibernating, because he got me to kick this off (alongside *actual* personalities Ben Curry (who unfortunately had to pull out and was replaced, handily, with another chap called Ben), Dan Heelan and the American powerhouse Joe Rodgers.

Our various ramblings on the topic can be seen on the channel. I especially recommend the ones I am not on! 

So, what did the players bring to the party?

Rocking in with my favourite points total (2500) and using Swedish Comp with a 0-20 spread(!) (with points differential capped at 800 points) and a few adjustments to the “rulebook” (cue wild cheering, sullen resentment and swearwords, depending on where you are) version of the game (infinite hills, two characters allowed Look Out Sirs vs everyone’s favourite spells), what would they do?

Being a list-loving geek macho man the anticipation was getting to me.

Now, I wanted to write about each matchup. But a lot of that will be going over what the show said. And time is running out. So, for now, please find below the matchups and lists of the 50 greatest players in the greatest country on this ere damn planet (other opinions are also available :) ). If I get the time, I will pick on some of my favourites and go into more detail (SPOLIER ALERT: this would definitely include Donovan’s list!)

Good luck to all the guys - there can be only one!

Should probably have a picture of a immortal Scottish chap with a French accent here... but they say you should always leave them wanting more....

Until next time,

Raf