Slaaneshi Score

On the weekend I was lucky enough to win a Trademe auction for 30 Juan Diaz Daemonettes that local Sam Whitt had alerted me to. I was really happy with the price -$96NZD including courier.

The seller said that he'd to rough in a little extra given a few arms were missing. Imagine my surprise when I opened the parcel to find six Diaz Daemonettes on Steeds (4 NIB) and a Dark Elf Chariot chassis.

Score!

I now have over 100 of the Diaz nettes

Games Workshop Purchasing

It’s been awhile since I’ve had a post on Games Workshop pricing. As we are all aware two and a half years ago games workshop put in place an embargo on UK retailers selling product outside the European Union.

Presumably the aim of this was to get ROW gamers to buy their GW product from their local supplier, preferably their Games Workshop Hobby centre.

For me, the upshot of this policy has been threefold. Firstly, I tend to buy less Games Workshop product. In the past I would happily drop significant sums buying the latest release albeit from a UK internet retailer. Now I am more likely to buy alternative figures – particularly Mierce and Kromlech – or Forgeworld (still GW but not embargo) or old metal GW figures (eBay/Trade Me). Overall I’d suggest my Games Workshop purchases have fallen by 80% over the two and a half year period. Secondly, my trips to my local Hobby Centre have got less and less. Over the past few years Games Workshop’s direct influence on the hobby of a veteran gamer has decreased as they focused their marketing activities on the new gamer. Whereas previously I’d direct a certain percentage of my purchases through the shop now with the advent of digital products there is little need for me to go in and get new books on the day of release. These were generally accompanied by hobby supply purchases, the odd new model or the must-have purchase; I’ve now got well and truly out of the habit.

The third thing has been to source what Games Workshop product I did buy from offshore sellers who generally offered a 30-45% discount (including postage charges). For eighteen months this was through US bits resellers who sold complete sprues. However eventually stock problems and US postal price hikes have made that less palatable. Enter NZ Post. Who would have though the NZ postal service would accommodate local gamer needs. I now own postal addresses in both the UK and the US and can access UK pricing once again. Sure GW has belatedly realised Asia-pacific pricing is out of whack and insulated us from recent price increases – see cross border relativity of Lizardmen and Dark Elves compared to earlier releases – but using UK retailers I can source my GW product from the UK for 65-75% of retail (depending on volume).

Of course all this comes at a price. And that price is instant gratification. Purchases take around 3 weeks to arrive but this has an upside as well. Gone are the impulse purchases I use to make. Now I generally wait until I have sufficient product I need and then place an order.

That’s not to say that there isn’t a niche for a local supplier willing to split the difference between offshore pricing and full NZRRP.

Yankee Doodle Dandy - The US FAQ

The US are having their first Masters this year.

The scoring system sounds like a trainwreck - five rounds unbridled Swedish Comp with your comp score counting as sixth game - but I suspect that's what you get with 5 different regions trying to settle on a system.

However they have also developed an "American FAQ" to address grey areas in the game. Again this is probably needed given the different communities.

You can read the FAQ here

I've only given it a brief perusal but it seems a pretty solid document. I've noticed at least one answer that is incorrect so I'll give it a more thorough reading over the next few days.

The Masters - Phoney War

Masters lists are due in this weekend and we are already seeing an outbreak of the Phoney War.

All sorts of games are being played on Twitter and by email, as the more insecure Masters participants try to get a handle on what the weekend holds for them. This is most obvious in the Masters rookies who – let’s face it – are just happy to get a ticket to the dance. In their most honest moments I’m sure they visit dark places where they know they will be in for a number of sound beatings over the weekend.

So we have pictures posted on Twitter of WIP models for an army not being taken. We have numerous builds being discussed trying to bluff people into thinking that some weird unit or build is being contemplated. There is talk of borrowing armies some of which they’ve never run (Tip: it will neither increase nor decrease your chances). Personally, I had 3-4 emails and 2-3 DMs from people looking to borrow armies or individual units. All this in a sad attempt to try and determine the machinations of Chez Dunn or to construct a bluff in the hope that they will be taken seriously. One particularly sad individual has asked to borrow models for three different armies such is his clear confusion ahead of list submission.

Then we have the Mathhammer battles going on if Unit A meets unit B on a hill, in a storm etc etc etc

Perhaps the saddest are the pleas on twitter and by email to regular visitors to the Dunn-geon to find out what armies they’ve faced.

Sad, sad, sad.

In the end there is only one palatable truth….It doesn’t matter what you bring!

Space Wolves - A Re-Think

A few of you may have picked up from previous posts that I am not a great fan of the misguided followers of the corpse-god. Ever since I first played 40k I’ve had a really dislike of Imperium forces (although those with long memories may recall my first army was Black Templars). I started the game when 70% of forces were Power-Armoured and at least 90% of those were loyalist – primarily Dark Angels, Blood Angels and Space Wolves.

Remember Your Flea Collar & Worm Tablets

A lot of my early games were against Hagen Kerr and his Space Wolves. I have lost count of how many times Plaguelord Colthrax and the Noiselord, Challis Drant mercilessly crushed Haakon Ironwolf and his motley pack underfoot. Seriously it must have been hundreds of times. About once in fifty games I’d let Haakon get a narrow victory and that would keep Hagen interested for another year of merciless bashings from the Death Guard and Emperor’s Children. Aaaah, fun times. Oh course it all had to end and the Destroyer in this case was Gav Thorpe and his bastard-child, 4th Ed Codex Chaos Space Marines – more accurately described as Chaos Allsorts.

So the Space Wolves bring back a mix of memories – crushing victories but also mind-numbingly boring stories of how Haakon Ironwolf once made nine 4+ Invulnerable Saves in a row, the dreadful fluff with pseudo-Viking trappings etc. I hadn’t given Space Wolves much thought lately until working through the Horus Heresy series I read “Prospero Burns”. It was okay but I never understood the attraction of large hairy men sitting around in saunas, getting drunk and eating raw meat. And I certainly didn’t want to read chapters of it. Recently I started listening to the audiobook version and I can say that it is the only HH audiobook I have given up on. Translated to audible form it was truly dire and dragged forever.

Given this history you can probably understand my reluctance when I started the latest HH book, “The Unremembered Empire”. Early on a squad of Space Wolves appear and I thought “Oh no, here we go again”. However it got me thinking about the figures that Forgeworld will produce when they get to the Space Wolves. I think they could be quite cool if they follow the description that Dan Abnett has portrayed in the book. No, not enough that I’d ever buy them but enough to at least make me interested in fighting them.

Abnett makes much of their feral nature. They sit on their haunches crunching on bones and whetting their knives. If Forgeworld could capture this aspect rather than the GW Space Vikings it would be great. The squad members are described as wearing laced leather masks, furs and almanner of totems and talismans. However the key would be the posing of the models. It would be great to see a departure from the normal SM poses and have a feral, animalistic force that captures the barely civilised nature of the corpse-god’s attack dogs. Certainly it would be a departure and I believe it is probably a step too far for most loyalist apologists but at least it would make them interesting.

Go on Forgeworld, take a step in the right direction!

Winter is Coming!

Unfortunately the Golden Summer is over. This year has seen a sustained release of Warhammer Army Books that have injected continued life and interest into the game. We’ve seen Warriors of Chaos, Daemons of Chaos, High Elves, Lizardmen and finally Dark Elves released. I’m not a huge fan of High Elves, in fact I despise the pointy-eared gits, but it is nice to have an updated book that at least gives us new units to crush. Also given the significant boost they have received – still denied by PEG apologists – it is now a challenging and more rewarding crushing of their hopes and dreams.

It's Going To Be A Hard Year Rat Brothers

But from here on in it is all downhill. The next three books are assumed to be Dwarfs, Wood Elves and Bretonnians (oh that GW would just release them as a single book called Warhammer Insignificant Armies for People Who Like to Whine About How bad Their Lot Is. Yes I know this might be a little hard on Bret players but seriously who cares). Brace yourself for 6-9 months of incessant grumbling from the handful of people interested in these armies.

It is so depressing thinking how these releases will sour what has been a great time for Warhammer. I wish I could just fast forward to the release of new Skaven and Beastmen books.

First Draft of ETC 2014 Comp Pack

For those of you interested, here is the first draft of the ETC Comp Pack.

It has been posted for comment by the various teams

Special Character Poll Results

Yesterday I posted up a poll to see what locals thought on the inclusion of Special Characters in the FOB-Lite Comp System.

Over the intervening twenty four hour period 21 people posted a preference in the Comments section. The results can be summarised thus:

Ban Special Characters Outright - 7 votes

Allow All Special Characters with No Restrictions - 7 votes

Allow Special Characters but with some Specific Bans/Restrictions - 7 votes

I can't say I'm surprised. I did not expect there to be universal agreement. It is interesting just how distributed the responses were. The evenness of the outcome in relation to the spectrum of options shows how divergent people's opinions are on the subject.

Currently the FOB-Lite Comp System steers a path along the middle ground allowing virtually all Special Characters but with some specific restrictions and nothing in the survey response suggests to me that it should steer away from that course.

Obviously that is the course with most grey areas as it is not as objective as banning or allowing them all. I can still see some unhappy people as their particular favourite or nemesis has  restrictions placed or removed from them.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. It was an interesting exercise.

6th Annual New Zealand Masters WHFB Field Confirmed

The field for the 6th NZ Masters for WHFB has been finalised.

2012 Master - Tom Dunn (Wellington)
#1 - Pete Dunn (Wellington)
#2 - Ross Hillier-Jones (Tauranga)
#3 - Dan Butler (Hamilton)
#4 - Sam Whitt (Otaki)
#6 - Sam Campbell (Kapiti)
#8 - Peter Williamson (Masterton)
#9 - Hamish Gordon (Kapiti)
#10 - James Brown (Auckland)
#11 - Rory Finnemore (Auckland)
#12 - Richard Barby (Auckland)
#15 - Locky Reid (Wellington)

Nobody has every won the Masters twice. No #1 Ranked Player has won Masters.

Ross, Sam C, Hamish, James and Richard are at their first Masters.

Good mix of players from around the North Island. The Kapiti club have done well to get two players there in essentially their first year of play.

Time For a Tournament Terrain Tidy-Up

I’m home alone this weekend – well the four cats will be keeping me company – and I’m going to use the time to put assemble a whole array of terrain that is still sitting unbuilt.

First there are three Tabletop World buildings to put together, then a Games Workshop Fortified Manor House and a Witchfate Torr. I also have a series of sets of Warlord Games Ruined Farmhouses that I am going to build. Finally there is a Garden of Morr, a Citadel Wood and some Arcane Ruins. I am hoping that Saturday will see them all built and undercoated. Once this is done, I can work them across my painting desk over coming months. They all need to be finished ahead of the NZTC but I would like to get them done for “Ruination” in January.

The following weekend I have Vermintide but on the Sunday I am going to take the opportunity to have a repair session on my existing tournament terrain. Most of it is kept in large plastic bins and so it does get knocked around a little bit when being transported, set up and stowed away. However, now the tournament season has finished I think it can be repaired and put away ready for next year with the investment of 8-10 hours.

I must say that I’m lucky with the local tournament community who take great care of the terrain at events. Breakages are minimal and easily fixed.