I was too busy working on a commission, copying out the stats for my old Mordheim warband, and generally being a domestic man of mystery to really play, so Hark and Blackheart threw down and I took photos and heckled.  Hark had my box of Uruk-Hai Scouts and Saruman, Blackheart took a Nazgul, Taskmaster, 18 Mordor Orcs, 5 Morgul Knights and no bows whatsoever.

The game was much closer than the slideshow perhaps indicates; both forces were one model away from breaking on the turn when Saruman was felled, and if Hark had passed a few more Courage checks to engage the Nazgul (particularly Saruman’s, as he fled into the perfect position to be charged – I’m sorry to say she did that on my advice, rather than retain full control over the Wizard and let his minions do the dying) the last turn could have been very different.

Hark says:

i thought that was pretty damn close, considering i was a baby player and Blackheart wasn’t.  What kept me in the game was the inability of my archers to die – they just took a hell of a beating.  What got me out of it was theterrifyingon the Nazgul and the Morgul Knights.  i generally failed or passed those pretty spectacularly.  The Taskmaster’s a bit of a bastard, making things not cost Might points – why does he get to tell the rules to go away?

When i first laid it down, Blackheart’s army looked more spiky and evil than mine, and bigger, but when it came to the crunch, i could attack some people and do some damage.  The Uruk-Hai were generally quite good, with the exception of their bows, which were just made of cheese.  Very accurate cheese – i could hit everyone with my Babybels, but I was still just hitting them with Babybels.  Needs more crossbow.  It needs a second Hero too, so that it’s not down to Saruman to wade in and do all the good stuff, and so that he doesn’t have to chuck his Might away on doing all the hard work.

Looking at it myself, I’m quite glad I scored a cheap Lurtz on eBay the other day.  I’m also looking at adding some Berserkers (who laugh at Courage checks), and replacing the Uruk-Hai archers (who are wasting their good fighting stats on those rubbish Orc bows) with Dunlendings (who have the same 4+ to hit but more range and less temptation to start hitting things).  Drop Saruman and the Uruks with bows, add Lurtz, a Dunlending Chieftain, and top up with Dunlending archers, job’s done.

I’ll be buying the Fallen Realms book at some stage, too, since Blackheart insists on more-or-less even points matches, and Hark keeps looking lustily at those Easterlings.  It’s a hard life.

The Order of the Black Cross were Sylvania’s token, tiny circle of Knights Templar.  Like everything else about Sylvania, they were a poor showing in the centuries before Vlad, with a mediocre record in the joust and a minimal presence in the great Crusades against Araby and occupied Estalia.  Even the ominous and looming Castle Templehof (Sylvanians are not an imaginative folk when it comes to names) was of note more for its architectural extravagance and extensive catacombs than its strategic solidity.

Lord Ruthven, current Grand Master of the Order and Regent of Templehof (pictured, central), first emerged as a Vampire to watch in the year 2004 IC.  Among the minor scions of von Carstein sent to Mordheim, Ruthven acquired a killer reputation as a hunter, duellist and seriously tough bastard.  He defeated bands of Skaven, Dwarfs and Elves, sent much wyrdstone back to Drakenhof, and was rewarded with a captaincy in the Order of the Black Cross, where he served during Vlad’s attempt to seize the Imperial throne.

After the death of Vlad, Pieter von Carstein was made Grand Master of the Order and led it in a series of disastrous battles, culminating in Pieter’s destruction at the walls of Nuln. His under-estimated and under-appreciated trophy wife Emmanuelle, Countess of Templehof, knowing that Konrad would never accept her as leader of the Order, nominated Ruthven as her general, regent, and coffin-warmer instead.  Alas, all good things must come to an end; in this case, at the infamous Night Siege, where Emmanuelle was permanently put to rest, and Ruthven lost an eye to a Dwarf rune-axe during a doomed effort to sally out and meet the Dwarfs head-on.

The Order was broken, and Ruthven spent the remainder of Konrad’s reign in disgrace, seething with fury at the incompetents who had failed so drastically to succeed his old master.  Indeed, when Mannfred first rode out to Templehof to re-establish the order, Ruthven led what few troops remained against him, convinced the new Count was just another unworthy successor.  Mannfred was wounded (and annoyed), Ruthven apparently killed, and the Order dropped out of history for nearly two hundred years…

In the absence of the Order the Castle Templehof became more and more decrepit, eventually being occupied by a pair of lesser Vampires: the scholarly and deceitful Carmilla, a distant descendant of the von Carsteins, and the treacherous freelance knight Sir Francis Varney.  Quickly enslaving the scruffy Sylvanian nobility (the house von Wellmitz) who occupied the castle and its fiefdom, each Vampire raised a modest portion of the Order’s troops for their own purposes. Carmilla was racing against Grey Seer Makkiavelli for control of southern Sylvania’s warpstone deposits, while Varney allied with Vardek Crom, the Conqueror in some half-baked scheme of Terrible Vengeance Against The Empire.  They do that, when they’re young.

At Carmilla’s behest, the necromancers Rosenkratz and Guildenstern** (left and right) used the warpstone she’d accumulated to undo the Dwarf rune-wards placed around the Castle, and raise the entire Order to do her bidding.  As planned, they saturated the castle and its environs with dark magic, but discovered that some older, greater presence was hi-jacking their great spell of reanimation…

In attempting to resurrect the entire Order, the necromancers had drawn the spirit of its Grand Master back into consciousness, and in providing so much raw necromantic power, they had given him the means to restore his body.  Lord Ruthven returned at once to his castle, rapidly established a Vampiric pecking order, and, after Carmilla explained exactly what had happened in the substantial chunk of history he’d slept through, sent a lengthy apology and a pledge of fealty to Drakenhof.

The Order is not yet at full fighting strength. Much of the power accumulated to resurrect them was inadvertently squandered on restoring Ruthven, and so the hunt is on for sources of great and greater power, dark wizards of more skill, new vampire knights to join Ruthven’s inner circle. The Grand Master believes Mannfred capable of fulfilling Vlad’s dream, and establishing the Empire of the Dead.  When he does, the Order will be there to protect and serve the Vampire Emperor, and this time they will not fail…

Thanks to Blas de Lezo on warhammer-empire.com for the scan (WD 291, I believe?). No thanks at all to Steven Savile.

* – my current sensibilities are leading me to amass previous iterations of the Warhammer rules and army books, so I can play Oldhammer; dabbling with third edition, returning to my beloved sixth and the General’s Compendium, and taking the odd stab at eighth under GM-controlled conditions or in a lax, points-matches-are-for-suckers kind of way. Did you know I owned every iteration of the Vampire Counts book before I sold them, like a fool?  Or that the first one was the only thing I ever wanted enough to Advance Order?

Anyway, a few notes on how the story’s going to work. The basic principle is that not every game counts. Games that could feasibly happen within the army’s stomping ground, i.e. the Old World, do: games that don’t, don’t. If it fits into the narrative, it fits in, if it doesn’t, I’m not going to force the situation.

** – I don’t know whether to stick with these names or name all my evil wizards after my favourite medieval/Renaissance demonologists.  Yes, I have favourite medieval/Renaissance demonologists.  No, I’m not sorry.

AD&D had a ‘save vs. X’ mechanic, where X = something specific like ‘instant death’, ‘petrification’, ‘magic wands’.  You’d have a number that you needed to roll in order to save your character from instant death, petrification or joining the Magic Circle, and if you happened to be a DM and want to make up a new mechanic you’d either be folding it into an extant category or making up a sixth, or seventh, or umpty-fourth one.

In one of its Fundamentally Good Moves, d20 did away with this system and introduced generic saving throws instead.  Fortitude was used to save against stuff like poison, diseases, frostbite and so on, Reflex for things you could dodge or grab onto or otherwise cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof your way around, and Will for things that made your character behave in a manner other than that of your choosing (very approximately). Unfortunately, in one of its Frequent Bloaty Design Choices, third edition also introduced scaling difficulty for saving throws. My compleynt with these be two-folde.

Firstly, they remove agency from the players.  If the players know what they need to roll they are inherently more invested in the rolling and the assemblage of modifiers onto that roll via play choices than if they are forever looking to me to ask if a fourteen is good or not in this case, in that case, in the other case, and then forgetting and having to ask me again next round.

This should indicate something about the players I have available.  I’m sure yours can remember all the DCs for common actions off the top of their heads.  Mine cannot.  I offer as evidence the ease and fluidity of “eights nines and tens are good” vs the “how many do I roll?” aspect of our Vampire games.  The less maths and the less remembering we have to do, the better.

Secondly, it’s another bastard number that I have to remember and take into account and either look up or make up when some player decides to do something I hadn’t pre-determined the DC for. Yes we have screens for that, I know, but I’d still rather not be wasting my spoons on numbers when I’m running the game and need to keep the NPC voices distinct and tactically out-wit the five devious brains gathered on the other side of the screen.

This should indicate something about the kind of GM I am, etcetera etcetera, go up two paragraphs.

When I first sat down to actually run D&D rather than playing in one of its computerised incarnations or having someone else make all the complicated decisions for me, I had to come up with my own way of doing it that’s sort of halfway between the two.  It has the single set target number that I like from AD&D (incidentally, I had a bolt-from-the-blue moment last week where I suddenly ‘got’ THAC0) and it has the variable-by-character-statistic one-mechanic-fits-all approach that I like from d20.

How I do it now is ‘save with’.  You have a saving throw number, you have these stat-based modifiers.  Say you’re dodging a fireball – save with DEX.  Roll a d20, add your DEX modifier, knock off any modifiers I feel like imposing, compare to your always-the-same saving throw number, job done.  Resisting an attempt at Mental Domination?  Save with CHA (force of personality).  Fear?  WIS.  Poison?  CON.  Cthulhuesque ‘sanity’ damage?  Save with INT (the group I ran for over Christmas called it the Protective Rationalisation save).

That was at Christmas.  Now, the other day I had a revelation.  Squirrel and I were chatting about the upcoming AD&D rerelease (he’s well pleased) and the topic of THAC0 came up and… bugger me if it didn’t suddenly make sense, in the context of this thinking about saves and the changes made by d20.  In d20 the target number is external, part of what your character is trying to do.  In AD&D the target number is internal, part of what your character can do, and so everything that affects what your character can do exists as a modifier to that internalised target number – including armour class.

It was learning to see AC as a modifier rather than a target that made the difference.  Now I want to do attacks like I do saves.  One ‘attack roll’ number, and you ‘attack with’ a given stat depending on what you’re trying to do. STR for hitting, DEX for shooting, INT or WIS for spells, CHA for psionics and undead turning.  I have yet to find a way of attacking someone with CON, but I’m working on it. Roll yer d20, add or subtract stat modifier and target’s armour class, compare to the target number on your sheet, bosh.  Or not bosh, if you miss.

This also works well for skill-type rolls if they’re needed – if it’s something that’s contested against another character you both roll attacks and if one of you hits and the other doesn’t, whoever hits gets what they want.  Both hit – contest goes on, ratchet up tension with narration.  Both miss – something happens that breaks the contest up.  If it’s not contested, the save mechanic is used, ’cause all that matters there is if the one person passes or fails.

If I were to get all mechanistic about the terms I’d call them the Active and Passive rolls – ‘attacks’ are Active and involve doing things unto others, ‘saves’ are Passive and involve having things done unto you.  ‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ are not terribly interesting or memorable terms to describe bits of character sheet though, so ‘attack’ and ‘save’ it remains.

So Hark’s been reading about drow, and now she wants to negotiate the problems of ‘evil races’ in a world where everyone’s pretty vile to everyone else, and matriarchy, and diaspora, and religious competition.  Basically she wants to play a game set in the Underdark, for reasons which I think are interesting, so I’ve been thinking about drow and what I can do with them vis-a-vis integrating them into the world I’m building for D&D purposes.

What I don’t want is the Tolkenian baggage of Regular Elves to go with my Dark Elves, so I’m rolling with an idea I had some years ago (before I went off on this NO FUCKING ELVES, DWARVES OR HOBBITS kick) and modifying it.  The original idea was this: elves are extinct.

Elves can interbreed with humans, and as societies (mainly human) have expanded into their traditional holdings, the elves have discovered that there are other kinds of incorporation too.  They have moved in, bred in and otherwise gotten in with humans to the point that there is no-one left with pure elvish ancestry, and that elvish culture largely consists of selling elaborately hand-crafted silver-and-feather gew-gaws to rustics and easily confused travellers (plus a few ruined, abandoned cities in the deep forests, inhabited by ghosts and bad memories).  There are such things as half-elves, individuals where the elvish blood runs truer than elsewhere, but aside from excellent night vision, pointy ears and a greater than natural aptitude for magic (perhaps the Illusionist could be made available to them as a class?), there is little difference.

That was the original idea.  Now, the revision.

Elves are extinct – on the surface.  As other societies expanded, the ancient domains of the elves were subsumed.  The elves who did not integrate with humans and eventually reduce down to half-breeds (perhaps because there were none to integrate with – I’m starting to get a feel for different continents and regions here) struggled to adapt, and were driven further and further into the barely-habitable wildernesses.  Eventually, some of the larger tribes who’d been driven to the right parts of the world moved underground, to scratch a bare and bitter existence that they still found preferable to their surface-dwelling years, largely because they had chosen it.

They delved deep.  They were forgotten.  They awoke strange, ancient powers and bargained with them.  They were changed.

And that’s where drow come from in whatever-the-hell-I’m-calling-this-world.  They consider themselves the noble and pure survivors of the true elven race – they detest surface-dwellers, particularly the blood-traitors who bred in with humans rather than stay pure – they are a bunch of arrogant, xenophobic, isolationist survivalists, whose culture is preoccupied with living up to its own legacy, staying pure.  Of course, from their point of view, they were driven into becoming what they are because it was that or dwindle away into a polluted mockery of their former selves.  The irony of their current situation is lost on most of them.

Perhaps they are trying to reconquer the surface world.  Perhaps they just want it to leave them alone.  Perhaps their new gods drive them to do strange and terrible things, or perhaps they do them out of spite.  Perhaps they can be bargained with – perhaps not.  They are a capricious lot anyway, and there are different houses, in different parts of the world, and different, competing monotheist cults among them.  What one house wants may not be what another wants.

That’s… interesting enough to warrant their presence, I feel.  I still don’t want to put bloody dwarves in it though.

Let’s get on with it then.

Given the number of ways in which you can force a turnover on yourself in Blood Bowl – pretty much everything you have to roll dice for has at least a one in six chance of prematurely ending your turn – the basic tactical approach should be fairly obvious.

Don’t roll dice.

I’m serious.  The secret to winning games of Blood Bowl is to roll as few dice as physically possible during your own turn, and to stack modifiers on your opponent’s die rolls in order to maximise the chances of them turning over.  You do that by wrapping tackle zones around enemy models – marking them, is what I believe they call it – and lining up yours so they offer assists to each other and become harder to block.

However, you’ll have to roll some dice sooner or later.  It’s a rare and fluky game where your models can grab the ball on the opponent’s turn (dud passes, interceptions and models falling over and dropping the ball can all give it away but the odds are against the ball ending up safely in the hands of one of your dudes).  This means that sooner or later you’ll have to get hold of it and move it up the pitch, ideally through a route that’s been cleared of enemy tackle zones so that your ball carrier doesn’t have to Dodge, risking falling over and dropping the ball automatically.

How you go about doing this varies depending on what your team has available.  Strategery (team selection) defines tic-tacs (sensible choices during play), although personal preference goes the other way and influences strategic choices (the way you like to play should have some influence on your choice of team, i.e. you pick something that’s good at what you like to do).

SO.  How do teams go about being good?

Human teams are generalists.  Unspectacular in the statistics department, barring a couple of decent Move Allowances and a high Agility on their Catchers (balanced out by said Catchers’ mediocre Strength and Armour Value), their great strength is controlling the rolls of a few die rolls every turn.  Their Throwers can reroll their AG roll for picking up and catching the ball, their Catchers can reroll theirs for dodging and catching it, and their Blitzers have the vital Block skill that means they can block an opposition model and only have a one in six chance per die of falling over while doing it.  Linemen lend assists, drop tackle zones on opposing models and can in a pinch attempt a positional model’s job with the team’s re-rolls (bought during construction).  Their only unreliable player is the Ogre, and even he is the most reliable Big Guy (large hulking monster drafted into a team to provide extra muscle) in the game, with a trifling one in six chance of standing around scratching himself for a turn and a credible AG stat.

A Human team has access to four Blitzers, four Catchers, two Throwers, and mid-priced re-roll tokens.  They can be tailored to throw out several reliable Blocks a turn, or have a variety of angles for passes available, and still have some spare bodies to mark up opponents – but they need to line up some assists and layer some zones in order to deal with particularly strong or agile opponents, ’cause those base line stats are almost entirely average.

An Orc team is superficially similar to the Humans; their Blitzers, Throwers and Linemen are identical apart from trading a point of MA for a point of AV.  The Black Orc, however, is the exact antithesis of the Human Catcher: slow, strong, tough, but with a lousy AG that makes it very unlikely that they’ll pick up the ball or get very far if they have to dodge past anyone.  Furthermore, they can field four Black Orcs and four Blitzers if they want to, and still only two Throwers.  Some variants of the game allow them a Troll (like an Ogre, but less agile, less reliable and even harder to injure) and some Goblins (very very good at dodging, but not very strong and very easy to hurt).

Orcs are what hardened Blood Bowl players call a bashy team.  They don’t move too fast and none of them are exactly brilliant at catching, but they have a potential eight reliable blocks per turn and Goblins are surprisingly hard to knock down when defending in blocks (Dodge means there’s only a one in six chance per die of them being knocked down if an enemy tries to block them).  The typical Orc strategy is to grab the ball with a Thrower, form a tight block or ‘cage’ around him with the other Orcs, and then batter downfield, moving into contact with enemy models and letting them knock themselves over trying to Block their way into the cage.  At a pinch, Goblins can get into position to receive a pass, but they’re not especially reliable and will probably need a team re-roll to make the catch.  Chaos, Undead and Norscans also play the bashy game (the Norse are particularly interesting as they’re a bashy team with lousy AV and ST stats, relying on their skills and cheap re-rolls to manage the risks of single die blocks).

Other teams win by playing the running game.  The Skaven are the absolute masters of this, having four models with high MA (9!), high AG (4!) and Dodge (free re-rolls!).  Get the ball to one of those and pelt it down-field – the high MA means moving around tackle zones rather than through them becomes possible, the high AG makes picking up, catching and dodging more reliable, and the Dodge is insurance.  Most running-game teams have another string to their bow: Amazons and Wood Elves come with reliable passes built in, while others display signs of bashiness, like the Dark Elf, Necromantic and Lizardmen teams.

Some teams are cheaty teams -made up of not-very-good models that has some way to bend the rules in its favour.  Consider, if you will, the Goblin.  The Goblin is a weedy little runt who’s not really good at anything apart from running away from things.  Even the presence of two hulking great Trolls in the Goblin team roster should not fill you with confidence, given that Trolls are slow and stupid.  However, the Goblins come packing… extras.  Goblin teams can sneak four models onto the pitch carrying SECRET WEAPONS.  Chainsaws, pogo sticks, bombs and giant spiky balls on chains are all part of the Goblin armoury.

When your blitz can carve through Chaos Warrior armour like it’s not there, your runner can jump clean over enemy tackle zones, and you can break cages wide open by bombing out the ball carrier and everyone in contact with him, having terrible stats doesn’t necessarily matter – especially not when your re-rolls are so cheap that you can just about scrape through the actually-scoring-touchdowns bit provided there’s nobody left on the pitch to stop you.

And some teams are just Halflings, who are rubbish.

Anyway, that’s four teams, including the two in the starter box, and a brief consideration of their playstyles.  Next time: league play.

I don’t own an iPhone or Android and probably never will (I don’t like, or work well with, touchscreens) so I don’t, personally, give a toss about War Room.  I think it’s an awesome idea for them that are riding the wave of progress and it’s the sort of thing that I think tabletop gaming needs to embrace so long as it doesn’t become the only way to play (see previous re: touchscreens).

The IKRPG? A few years ago I’d have been mad excited, but I think I’m more interested in inventing an industrial fantasy world of my own that draws on the Iron Kingdoms and other influences than I am in playing in the Iron Kingdoms themselves, and in a generic system I already own rather than one specifically built for One Company’s Vision that I have to buy another book to get.  Good luck to ‘em though, it’s a good setting and people have been waiting long enough.

As for Colossals… I have a comment that I’ve been wanting to make but that I’m having trouble articulating without it descending into entitled whining, or something that can easily be misinterpreted or dismissed as such. Still not quite sure I’ve managed to work out what I want to say and say it yet, but the closest I’ve come was yet another conversation with Lex at stupid-o-clock in the morning.

[05:30:33] Von: So. Colossals.

[05:30:51] Von: I confess myself unsurprised but weirdly uninspired.

[05:30:55] Lexington: Quite…colossal?

[05:31:03] Lexington: Indeed. I’ve got mixed feelings.

[05:31:16] Von: I’m mentally filing this away under ‘great, so I can’t just say “I don’t want to play your disposable income arms race” like I can with 40K.’

[05:31:28] Von: See, I have no problems with big stupid expensive powerful stuff that I can’t afford.

[05:31:55] Von: But I like there being brackets within a game system that mean I can avoid having to play games where someone else can afford access to certain rules and capabilities, and I can’t.

[05:32:43] Von: It’s not even about winning, it’s just about being able to do the same sort of stuff on the same sort of level.

[05:32:47] Von: Play the same game.

[05:33:55] Lexington: Indeed.

[05:34:11] Lexington: I’ve no idea how these will fall within that spectrum.

[05:34:18] Lexington: As I understand, Battle Engines are…okay?

[05:34:29] Lexington: Certainly not must-haves.

[05:34:50] Lexington: But this is more “there is a class of model I cannot afford, and others can bring with regularity.”

[05:34:52] Lexington: Yes?

[05:35:05] Lexington: Thus blocking you from access to a whole class of game object?

[05:37:12] Von: Yes.

[05:37:31] Von: And unlike 40K, there isn’t a variant of the game where it’s socially appropriate to [ask for the playing field to be levelled].

[05:37:38] Lexington: Indeed.

[05:37:41] Von: I haven’t been told to Play Like I Have A Pair in years, mind.

[05:38:08] Von: But there’s that underlying ‘everything can play against everything else’ ethos that [to me] suggests wanting a negotiated experience is somehow missing the point of the game?

[05:41:50] Von: It’s just that there are some people for whom ‘owning your game experience’ is ‘taking your lumps’ and not ‘straining the lumps out as if this were custard’.

[05:42:01] Von: And that in my experience Warmahordes is attractive to those people.

[05:42:35] Von: And that may explain why I’ve been more about GW than usual lately, because at least I feel comfortable saying “no, I don’t really want to play Storm of Magic, unless someone has some Tomb Kings I can borrow.”

If you can afford a Titan and I can’t, that’s groovy, you are by luck or judgement better off than I am and I don’t resent you for that too much provided you remember that I’m poor and don’t rub my nose in it. I certainly don’t resent GW for selling you an awesome model, not if you can afford it and want to buy it. We can still play 40K and there’s a stricture and structure in the rules of the game that makes it okay for me to say “can we not play Apocalypse?” and for that to be the end of the argument.

I don’t see that option in Warmahordes, beyond asking for a 15 or 25 point game, which has its own problems given the scene’s focus on 50 point tournaments and prep games for ‘em.  It’s not part of the game’s mechanics or ethos, and that makes initiating the conversation a bit hard.*

This wouldn’t be a problem but for one thing. The scale of Warmahordes is creeping up and up – more than ever, it’s an army-scale games with skirmish-scale mechanics.  Bigger, more expensive, harder-to-store-and-transport models** are becoming the norm.  It’s “mech is king” 40K all over again.  The rules don’t matter – I accepted that mech was king within about a month of 40K.5 coming out. What matters is this:

Another of the games that my friends play is becoming a game that I can’t play in the same way, on the same level, that they do. That makes me sad. I don’t like being left out, and I’m not overly keen on being reminded that I’m poor. It’s the old dilemma facing the frugal gamer who wants to actually, y’know, play and enjoy playing games…

But what gives me the right to drag other people down to my level? They can afford these shiny toys, and they want to play with them, and they want to play their tournament prep games, and that means they want to be playing with people who are engaging with the game on the level that they are. I’m not entitled to say ‘stop having fun, I can’t keep up!’… right?

* – I’m not a complete Martin, I swear. If you’ve read my roleplaying posts you’ll understand that I can actually invent and negotiate. It’s just initiating that’s the hard part. This is why I like to play games – because they’re an easy introduction to people and I’m scared of introducing myself. Interacting is fine, it’s just that initial “I don’t know you and know of no reason you’d want to know me” bit that’s terrifying.

** – this may sound like a tangent but it’s really not, not if you can’t afford a car. There’s an upper limit on the amount of stuff you can carry on a bike, a bus, or glomming a lift in someone’s car. This is less of an issue if you’re able to host games in your house. I can just about fit a 4′x4′ board into Schloss Von, with some terrain that… let’s be blunt here… isn’t up to the challenge of true-line-of-sight games with big looming models in them..

This is because I’ve been waiting for a parcel, from a far-off land.  That parcel arrived today and contained something I never thought I’d lay eyes on again…

I’ve got my old army back!

Well, most of it.  The Heresy Ghouls and dodgy Dire Wolves were sold off before the rest, while the ‘Varghulf’ (zombie Griffon) and Bat Swarms (Warhammer Quest bats crowding onto 40mm bases) have been nicked off with in the three years they’ve been away, which is irritating – but the stuff I care about and can’t easily replace or rebuild is all present and in more or less the state it was in when I left it!

The downside is they’re in the state they were when I left them.  Some of these paintjobs – in fact, scratch that, nearly all these paintjobs – are embarrassingly bad, with my “get it on the board quick sharp” methods having not extended to “and looking like I’ve made an effort would be nice too”.  The conversions are, well, the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who hadn’t done any hobby for a couple of years and hadn’t done much other than ‘build it, paint it, play it’ before that.

They are rubbish, really.  BUT THEY’RE MINE.  And now I have them back, and I can make them… better.

A unit of forty Zombies, kitbashed with Empire Militia.  Back in the day these were Sylvanian Levy and consequently have a bias towards spears, halberds and various farm implements that could be either, although I couldn’t resist the odd zombie armed with a blunderbuss or his own severed leg.

I have two units of twenty-five Skeletons, too.  Only about half of them have shields (the rest are former crossbow-toting Militia, whose loss I still keenly feel); one unit has spears, the other has painstakingly accumulated swords and shields.  I think they’re going to run together into one big unit, but I’m not sure which weapon to go for.

Grave Guard!  These are the old metal Foot Reiksgard, and there are twenty-seven of them.  Originally there were several different builds for this unit, different sizes and weapon combinations, but from here on in it’s great weapons all the way along (I’ve removed the eight or so shields to avoid confusion).

The Order of the Black Cross, or the Black Knight Fun Bus, depending on which side of them you’re on.  Twelve distressed and damaged Empire Knights, whose ooky-spooky cotton wool cobwebby dry icey stuff has long since fallen off.  Notoriously inept on the table too, and not just because I occasionally forgot they were there…

Emmanuelle the Banshee, and behind her, her spectral associates, who I am unable to refrain from dubbing ‘the Black Monks of St. Herod’.  That Blackadder marathon the other day was a mistake, I see that now.  Anyway, they’re the last models I painted for the army, and it shows; they’re almost satisfactory!

The Necromantic brigade.  I think that fellow at the back was going to be a spellcasting alternative Vampire Lord, but now he can go back to being a Master Necromancer, once I’ve tidied up that rather hamfisted attempt to dispose of his topknot (as is only right and proper).

And finally, the titular Vampire Counts!  Front and centre, Lord Ruthven, Grand Master of the Order of the Black Cross; Mannfred von Carstein (not the dreadful spiky baldy one, the proper one); the Countess Marianna Chevaux (could never quite decide what to name her so let’s call her what GW did); and you can’t see Varney the Battle Standard Bearer, which is good, because he’s really badly painted.

There’s a lot of work to be done on bringing these up to speed and up to snuff.

I can’t wait.

So!  Blood Bowl.

Blood Bowl is a board game which very approximately simulates American football gone Warhammer.  Heaven alone knows why.  It’s presented as a ‘beer and pretzels’ game and it’s certainly fun to play that way, but it also rewards the cruel, relentless tactical-mechanics approach (rather better than most of Games Workshop’s systems do).

The game is played between two players, on a pitch (board) made up of squares (I’ve never bothered to count how many).  Each has a team comprised of up to sixteen models, of whom no more than eleven can be on the pitch at any given time.  The rest, if they’re there, are reserves, and you’re going to need them, because – being a Warhammer game – Blood Bowl is not just about scoring points, but about simulating violence in a healthy, if slightly nerdy, fictional context.

Players take turns (sixteen turns each, divided into two halves) to move their little metal sportsbeasties around the pitch, and use dice (special six-sided ones with pictures on called Block dice) to simulate said little sportsbeasties energetically pummeling each other.  Conventional six sided dice are used for other things, like determining the after-effects of said pummelling on the recipients, whether the sportsbeasties fall over and hurt themselves while trying to run faster or dodge around an opponent, and occasionally even for picking up, passing and catching the ball (for which there’s a little model as well).

Like other games with which the gentle reader may be familiar, models have characteristics that determine how good they are at doing various things in the game.  Move Allowance (MA) shows how many squares they can move in a turn without hurting themselves, Strength (ST) how good they are at hitting other players, Agility (AG) how good they are at running fast, dodging, picking up, throwing and suchlike, and Armour Value (AV) how hard they are to hurt.  Models also have skills, which make them more (or, occasionally, less) capable at movement, blocking, agility-shenanigans or not being hurt.

Each team has a variety of different models that can be part of it (at least two per team).  Some of these are positional, named for their counterparts in American football: there are Blitzers (who are fast precision hitters), Blockers (who are slow, strong and tough), Runners (fast and nimble), Throwers (guess), Catchers (ditto) and Linemen (ordinary blokes) available to many teams.  There used to be other positions, like Kickers, but those have mostly been folded into other mechanics now.

The, umm, less conventional (more Warhammer, less American football) teams have either fantasy-type names for models who roughly correspond to conventional positions (in my Undead team, Wights are basically Blitzers, Ghouls are Runners, Mummies are Blockers and Skeletons and Zombies are two slightly different types of Lineman), or fantasy-type names that don’t (in a Chaos team, the Minotaur is a big Blitzer but the Chaos Warriors and Beastmen don’t really have set positions).

Let’s have a look at a couple of models.

On the left we have a Human Lineman – MA6, ST3, AG3, AV8, no skills.  He’s pretty average.  Not brilliant at anything much.  Run of the mill.  On the right there, we have a Human Blitzer.  He has a MA of 7, the same ST, AG and AV, and the Block skill, which makes him less likely to be knocked down when he has a little tussle with another model.

This Black Orc Blocker, meanwhile, is packing MA4, ST4, AG2, AV9 and no skills.  So he’s slow, and he can’t dodge or handle the ball as well, but he’s stronger and tougher than either of the Humans.

Right, so that’s models.  What can models do?

Well, at the start of a game, you flip a coin to see who’s kicking and who’s receiving.  The kicking player sets up their players on the pitch, and then the receiving player does the same.

See that line down the middle?  That’s the line of scrimmage.  There have to be three models from each team on that line when the teams are set up.  See those long, thin bits that are marked out at the top and bottom (actually the left and right if the board’s set up properly, silly Frugal Dave…)?  Side zones.  You can only set up two of your models in each of your side zones.  The long thin bits at either end are the End Zones.  That’s where the ball has to go (whilst in the hands of a model from your team) if you want to score.

The kicking player puts the ball somewhere in the receiving player’s half of the board, and then it scatters (you use an eight-sided die, a six-sided die and a funky template to resolve that).  Then the receving player gets to do stuff with their models, ideally trying to have one of them pick up the ball.

Basically, models can either block (hit another model in an adjacent square) or move (a number of squares equal to their MA).  They can try to go further but it might not work. [mechanics corrected here, this parenthesis = honesty notice, admission of error] To do that the player has to roll a die – on a one, the model falls over in the square it’s trying to move into.  Models can usually try do do that (‘s called Going For It) twice.

If they move through a square with the ball in it, they can try and pick it up.   That needs dice.  The number you need to roll to have a model pick up the ball is defined by the model’s AG stat (it’s like Ballistic Skill in Warhammer or 40K, in fact I think it uses the same subtract-your-stat-from-seven formula, albeit with lots of modifiers to make some things easier or harder), so we call it an AG roll.  If they move through (not into, but out of) a square adjacent to a model from the other team, you have to make a Dodge roll for that model (again, it’s a single die with a target number based off 7-AG) or it gets tripped up and falls flat on its face in the square it’s trying to move to.

That adjacent-square-to-your-model thing is important; it’s called a Tackle Zone.  All models project a Tackle Zone, and while in an enemy model’s Tackle Zone, your models suffer modifiers to all their AG rolls and have to make Dodge rolls (based off AG) in order to move without falling over.  That’s why Blocking is important.

Pick one of your models.  Pick an opposition model adjacent to them.  Compare their ST scores.  If yours is higher, you roll two Block dice, and get to pick which result applies.  If yours is lower, you still roll two Block dice, but your opponent gets to pick which result applies.  If one model has more than double the other’s ST, three dice are rolled.  If the ST scores are the same, one die is rolled.  Oh, and models who are in the players’ Tackle Zones modify the ST stats up and down… oh, look, let me give you an example.

Say that Black Orc from earlier wants to Block the Human Blitzer.  He’s ST4, the Blitzer is ST3, so the Orc player rolls two Block dice and chooses which one to use.  But wait!  There’s a Human Lineman standing there, and the Black Orc is in his Tackle Zone!  That’s called an Assist, and it adds one to the Blitzer’s ST, meaning their ST stats are equal, and the Orc player only gets to roll one die.

So he rolls his die, and up comes this picture of a skull.  That’s bad.  The Black Orc would fall over.  But wait!  The Orc player has bought some re-rolls for his team (counters that you can trade in to reroll any set of dice, and that replenish at the start of the second half).  So the Orc player re-rolls and gets a skull and a little explosion sort of overlaying each other.  That means they both fall down – that’s better.  Oh, no.  Wait.  The Blitzer has the Block skill, which means he doesn’t fall down when that ‘both down’ result comes up.  Sucks to be the Black Orc, I guess.

Sucks to be the Orc player too, to be honest, because if one of your models falls down, or loses the ball, your turn ends.  It’s called a Turnover.  Turnovers suck.  You also get them for failing to move your turn counter at the start of a turn (Illegal Procedure).  This is a really harsh mechanic that’s open to a lot of abuse (can you move your counter before I can say “IcallIllegalProcedure”?  How about “IllegalProcedure”, or “IP”?), but it’s important because the number of turns in a half has to be strictly regulated for the game to stay fair (since there are so many ways for a turn to end prematurely and capitalising on or recovering from turnovers forms much of the game’s tactical depth).

You’re still a cockbag if you call IP in the same breath as saying “your turn” though.

Anyway.  What else can models do?  Well, one model per turn can Blitz.  That means they move so that an opposition model is in their Tackle Zone, and then they can trade in a square of movement to make a Block roll, and then they can keep moving if they want to.  That’s quite important, it helps get your Tackle Zones into the opposition’s grill and make them more likely to botch rolls and cause Turnovers for their player.

One model per turn can foul an opposing model that happens to be next to them and happens to be knocked down.  Oh yes!  Injuries!  I forgot that.  If one of your models gets knocked down, the other player gets to make an Injury roll for them – two dice (with some modifiers from models’ skills, assists and suchlike), and if they beat the knocked down model’s AV stat, they get to roll two dice against another chart – most of the time this will just knock them down, but it might stun them (you put the model face down, it turns over to face up in your next turn, then it gets to stand up in the turn after that, so it’s basically ‘miss a go’), knock them out (moving them off the board, although they may get to come back – 50/50 chance every time the teams are set up), injure them (out for the rest of the match) or even KILL THEM DEAD on a double six.

One model per turn can also try to Pass the ball, if they have it.  This uses a gurt big plastic ruler thing (which determines how long the pass is, and therefore how difficult, therefore what modifiers apply to the pass), and two AG rolls.  One for the throwing player, who has to aim the pass properly, and one for the catching player, who has to… umm…  catch it.  Passing is quite a risky ploy as you have to roll two dice to do it, and there are modifiers on making long passes before you even start factoring in Tackle Zones.  Oh, and if the ruler crosses an opposition model’s Tackle Zone, that model can try to intercept the pass (it’s not likely, but it does happen).  Jervis Johnson, who wrote the game, likes passing even though he knows that, tactically speaking, it’s a Turnover waiting to happen (cf. White Dwarf, January 2012).

Silly Jervis.  We’ll forgive him though, ’cause Blood Bowl’s awesome.

Anyway, through a combination of moving, picking up, Blocking opposition models out of the way, passing if necessary, and occasionally being superbly lucky on theirDodge rolls, the receiving player tries to have one of their models, with the ball, move into the kicking player’s end zone, which scores a Touchdown for them (and is an immediate Turnover).  Well, if they manage to lose the ball, and the kicking player’s models can pick it up and move to the receving player’s end zone, they might score.  (My Vampires do this a lot.)

Then you both set up your teams again, whoever scored becomes the kicking player, and you keep going until you’ve played eight turns.  At that point you swap sides; whoever was the kicking player at the start is now the receiving player, and you play eight more turns, and whoever has the most Touchdowns at the end of the second half is the winner!

In terms of gameplay, that’s it.  There’s a bit more to it than that, though.  We still need to talk about the differences between teams, the basics of good tic-tacs, and above all, about leagues (because Blood Bowl leagues are awesome) and long-term strategery.  HOWEVER, this post is now as long as my Ph.D. proposal and only marginally easier to read, so I’ll come back and talk about those things some other time.  Peace out.

Lords                                440 / 563

Slann Mage-Priest: 440
- The Becalming Cogitation
- The Focused Rumination
- Army Standard
- Divine Plaque of Protection
- Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
- Standard of Discipline
Lore of Light.  Always.

Heroes                                236 / 563

Saurus Scar-Veteran: 118
- light armour and shield
- Sword of the Hornet

Saurus Scar-Veteran: 118
- light armour and shield
- Sword of Swift Slaying

Core                                1104 > 563

24 Saurus Warriors: 294
- full command

24 Saurus Warriors: 294
- full command

12 Skink Skirmishers: 90
- Brave

12 Skink Skirmishers: 90
- Brave

12 Skink Skirmishers: 84

12 Skink Skirmishers: 84

12 Skink Skirmishers: 84

12 Skink Skirmishers: 84

Special                            470 / 1126

Stegadon: 235

Stegadon: 235

GRAND TOTAL                            2250 / 2250

The basic plan goes ‘bunker Slann in Skink Skirmisher unit, laugh at BS-based shooting and rely on a 2+ Ward and Look Out Sir to deal with the rest, then cast Light spells and commence grinding’.  I’d like a Skink Priest in there to project the ranged attack spells ideally, but it’s not essential as the Slann’s main role is to put Speed of Light, Birona’s Timewarp or Pha’s Protection up, dispel enemy magic and anchor the line.  Any zapping he does is gravy.

The rest of the Skinks, meanwhile, provide hard cover for the Saurus (I don’t expect anyone to waste their shots on Skinks) or loiter on the flanks and run up into dart-spitting range of things that need darts spat at them.  I don’t have the greatest track record with Multiple Shots, but it’s cheaper than buying them all javelins and pretending they have shields (which they don’t).

The hammers are the two Saurus units with the Scar-Vets (who rather enjoy the Lore of Light’s Initiative bonuses, striking first with re-rolls and all) and the two Stegadons, who might conceivably form a flanking tag team or even hang back, fire their Giant Bows a couple of times, and then barge into stuff the Saurus are fighting.  Or just get shot at.  The Saurus will be set up to either side of the Slann to guarantee re-rolls on their Leadership tests and contact with the precious Lore of Light spells, while the Stegadons may in theory be allowed to wander off together or may lurk outside, on the edge of the Slann’s 12″ radius.

Apropos of nothing, I’m also impressed that I can fit a decent Slann (one Discipline, army standard, Cupped Hands and Divine Plaque) into 1500 points.  It fills me with malevolent glee, frankly.

I realised, the other day, that there’s a definite shift in all my games that occurs at around the fifth session of play.  Before then, PCs tend to be ordered about by NPCs, with player agency governing how things are done rather than what things are done.  After then, players tend to have settled in a bit more, to have an idea of what the game world is like, to have developed their ideas about Who The Big Bads Are and Who’s Not Totally Evil and their own interests in things that I have (most likely) made up largely on the spur of the moment.  At that point the gears change; the players decide where to go and what to do and I tend to let them make their own enemies.  If they’ve decided someone’s the villain, then they’ll treat ‘em like that no matter what I do, so I might as well roll with it.  If they’ve decided they want something, my job is to put things in the way of that, ideally other things that they’re interested in.

I’m just not sure if that’s the Right Way to start.  It smacks of railroading a bit, and that’s Wrong, right?  Except… I tend to think a good poke in one direction starts a long-running game off very nicely.  The poke can be resisted immediately, with the ‘no we don’t want to do that let’s do this instead’, but it’s still achieved the goal of getting the players to do something instead of experience analysis paralysis or fart around with no sense of goal or urgency.  Even telling an NPC to fuck off is a start.

Here’s a comment that I made on a recent Von Show that (I hope) will show what I’m on about.

Say the characters begin at Point A, with their goal being to get to Point Z. At every point between A and Z where their failure to continue would a) be exciting and b) not immediately stop the game altogether, there is a chance of something going awry.

Whether or not that chance can actually totally derail them and send them off to Point $ instead is a question of GM style and group preference. Some people will say it’s the GM’s responsibility to make sure that players get what they want. Some people will say it’s the GM’s responsibility to let things fall where they may – stupid players don’t get what they want – and some people will say it’s the GM’s responsibility NOT to present situations where there’s only one way through from A to Z and any deviation from that is strictly slapped down.

I say that a game where things can’t go totally awry is not challenging and thus not fun, and that a game where the players’ cock-ups or the GM’s sudden bursts of inspiration can totally change what’s going on is fun and inventive and rewards player choices and agency far more than some sense that sooner or later they’ll get to where they want to go, and that where they want to go will remain constant.

For instance, I’m running Dark Ages Vampire at the moment. The game started on the first day of the Siege of Constantinople; player characters haven’t met yet (not everyone’s played Vampire before, some people have had bad experiences, I want to ease them into roleplaying a vampire and using the rules and work out what they enjoy in the game before I dump loads of plot hooks and decisions and stuff on them). First thing one of ‘em does is skip town – he don’t wanna fight in no siege.

A bad GM would have made it impossible for him to get out, because the game’s set in Constantinople dammit. A slightly less bad GM would have done what I did – have him meet his vampire sire on the road instead. This is still ‘not good GMing’ in some people’s books: to them, “you WILL meet this character no matter where you go or what you do” means the player’s choice has no meaning, because whatever they do they’ll still end up in the same situation. The Right Way to do it, according to them, would be to let that player’s decisions follow through and make up another totally different vampire for that player character to meet, as a result of their decision, and maybe that player would avoid that vampire too…

At least I followed through on the player’s decision to leave the city, and while the PC’s vampire daddy has been putting the ‘fluence on him to persuade him into going where vampire daddy wants to go, he’s *realised* this in the last session and the quality of game is improved by that. He’s invested in and bonded with this NPC who he’s found out has been manipulating him, and now he’s deciding what to do about that. And he’s doing this in a location that I made up in case any players wanted their characters to leave the city (actually it’s one of three; one for each player character. I’m always ready, me!), and he got there by a route of his own choosing with a strategy he devised and that I had to improvise for.

Meanwhile, I have another player who’s realising that the vampire world is much much bigger than what their character’s sire has seen fit to tell them, and they’re playing out that finding-their-own-destiny I’ll-hang-with-these-infidels-if-I-want-to bit with another PC, also an NPC that I’d built and waited to deploy until a player choice led them to a place where that NPC might legitimately be found. Their character’s goal started off as ‘help my sire defend our people!’ and now it’s turning into ‘wait, my sire’s using this whole siege thing to achieve her nasty petty little agenda and these guys who are supposed to be my enemies seem to actually be doing what I thought we were doing’ and it’ll no doubt be something totally different in three sessions’ time. The player’s goals are in flux, all the time, as they (through their character) discover more about the world.

Frankly, if that’s ‘bad GMing’ just because NPCs called the shots for a few weeks and I palette-swapped one important one to somewhere where he’d improve the game, I’m not losing any sleep over it.

“Should GW have changed Heinrich Kemmler’s name?”

I don’t think it could have hurt. I’ll be honest, the Himmler connection didn’t occur to me until someone on the blogs pointed it out in the last year or two, and while I acknowledge it as a problem, I’m not sure the reference is as big, embedded as deeply in the historical Himmler and representing him as directly as people make it out to be (is it just a phonetically similar name picked to enhance Kemmler’s villain-cred? it’s definitely why I didn’t catch it…), and… well, I don’t want to say ‘storm in a teacup’ because I think there IS a legitimate problem here, but how big a problem is it? It’s a shock, but is it a fairly superficial reference, is it even as deep as the historical cheap shot of having an inquisitor named Torquemada?

These are largely rhetorical questions. Answering them would be the work of a potentially full and fascinating research piece, which I may in all honesty write, but answering them isn’t the issue here.  The issue is whether what I think of Kemmler is important, and why it’s not – though it is important that someone think, and that I think about what they think (savvy?).

It’d have been the work of a few minutes to simply have the character have forgotten his name, which tallies with and reinforces the effect of his years of deranged wandering – whoever he was before he struck his pact with Nagash, now he is simply the Lichemaster. Much less problematic, arguably more sinister, and not a gapingly huge retcon. You’d get complaints, from the sort of people who feel that respect for the established canon (*nerdy snort*) is more important than issues of taste, privilege and historical respect, but fuck ‘em, that’s a position born of the same unexamined privilege that causes problems like these in the first place (“it doesn’t affect me so it’s not a problem for anyone” being the unconscious, unacknowledged response) and catering to or defending that sort of attitude isn’t on. It doesn’t affect me – but I lose nothing by changing it and nobody loses anything of real importance by changing it.

"I don't give a toss what you call me. I'm a fictional character, dammit!"

“Is it ok to want to play the villain?”

I… think so? I’ve done it a lot and I’d honestly hope I’m not that un-okay a person?

I think there’s a way of doing it tactfully and in keeping with the fantasy genre (playing a villain with roots and sources in fiction rather than history) and I think there’s a scale on which it’s acceptable to do it (which falls short of the unqualified, uncritical glee with which I’ve often seen it done).

The issue is more whether you play a villain in a way which validates their choices by uncritically representing them, or which highlights their choices as part of a time and place where monstrous people could do the things they do and find an easy excuse to hand. Nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks “moo hoo ha ha, what evil shall I do today?”, that’s a shit villain or a comedy one. A ‘real’ villain, a rounded villain, thinks and believes that what they’re doing is right.

The challenge lies in representing that without condoning it and that needs a more extensive ‘text’ than I think many gamers produce with their characters’ and armies’ actions. Most of the time it’s just “he does this” or worse “I do this”, and we don’t stop to engage in the kind of qualification that might happen in a novel, for instance, where those actions can be contextualised and commented on and critiqued by the authorial voice, or the thoughts of the character explored in the kind of detail that – doesn’t vindicate them, but explains them, highlights the differences in morality and ethics that make that character think they’re in the right. Perhaps the games we play don’t have room for responsible storytelling, or perhaps we don’t feel the need for it (cf. unexamined privilege, previous)…

Quickly, my minions, cross-reference!

“Is the entire act of playing wargames an endorsement of violence?”

Tacitly, yes. If we really wanted to live in a world without grand-scale violence we would not enjoy representations of it so much. We are part of the problem. We are not the biggest part of the problem, we are (as H. G. Wells argued) a more reasonable approach to the problem that at least allows people to deflect their tendencies to violent conquest into a medium where real people don’t get hurt and killed, but in terms of ideology and representation and perpetuating a culture in which wars can happen… yeah, we’re part of that.

We exercise our privilege, our ‘right’ to be problematic and not to face problems that don’t affect us, every time we line up our pieces and play a game (not to mention every time we buy a hobby product, every time we spend time playing a game instead of directly resisting the ills of the real world and pressing to engage them). Being aware of that doesn’t make it not a problem, either. Neither does feeling guilty about it, but doing nothing.

I really value the trend towards charity tournaments that’s appearing in some gaming communities (I’m not going to talk about which because I don’t want this to turn into a less-privileged-than-thou argument ‘twixt company fanboys), because at least it’s an effort to offset the whole issue that playing wargames is an act of privileged indolence by having it do some good for a right cause. Throwing our money at charities to quiet our consciences and tell ourselves we’re doing the Right Thing isn’t enough by any stretch of the imagination.  It doesn’t address the root causes, the problems with the world that mean those charities need to exist.  It does, however, at least mean we’re doing something better with our hobby time than just playing games in perfect isolation.

China Mieville, in the interview ‘Fantasy and Revolution‘, argues that politically nuanced genre fiction has depth, has resonance, and is worth writing as an investigation of ideas, what he calls ‘sleight of mind’, thinking about worlds in which societies and policies have different contexts and different constraints – thought experiments from which something about the real world can be read back. He also argues that that’s no substitute for direct, real political action. I sort of feel the same way about gaming.

You can game thoughtfully and for a just cause. That doesn’t mean you’re excused from voting, and THAT doesn’t excuse you from actually breathing down your elected representatives’ necks and actually making them do the job they were allegedly selected to do, merely as a start, and THAT doesn’t excuse you from going out and doing something yourself… but doing any of those things at all is better than not doing them. I’d rather people thought about the things they play and the worlds they play them in and how those worlds tell us things about people in this one… than not thought.

We can do that and still have fun, says N. K. Jemisin, and I quite agree.  I’m not saying we need to live in a joyless world where endless, ceaseless political activity is the only thing we permit ourselves to do until all wrongs are righted and all institutions of exploitation and power-concentration done away with.  I’m saying that anything’s better than nothing.  I’m saying that it starts with thinking about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.  I’m saying that we need to give a shit about Heinrich Kemmler, even if it doesn’t affect us in the slightest (and it doesn’t me).

And for the record, I still like the model, and the character – but I think I’ll be calling him the Lichemaster.  Doesn’t hurt anyone to be tactful, after all.

1. If you had to pick a single invention in a game you were most proud of what would it be?

The semi-sentient steeped-in-necromancy ever-so-helpful crematorium in that one Mage game. This one’s my favourite not because it’s my cleverest idea but because it gave said necromancer’s player the chance to roleplay her little socks off… and she did.

2. When was the last time you GMed?

Earlier this month, I think?  Lost track of time a bit…

3. When was the last time you played?

Last year sometime… probably summer, August or early September.

4. Give us a one-sentence pitch for an adventure you haven’t run but would like to.

Prince of the Realm frogmarches your entire village into newly-discovered tomb to clear traps, guardians &c.

5. What do you do while you wait for players to do things?

Attend to the other players whose characters aren’t with them. Think of things for players to do. Wonder if it’s worth my while flicking through the location photos on my hard drive. Drink tea.

6. What, if anything, do you eat while you play?

Whatever’s around. That’s why I try not to have snacks around while GMin’.

7. Do you find GMing physically exhausting?

Difficult to say since I’m a chronic Morning Person and doing anything at all after about six/seven pip emma is quite wearying for me. I don’t think it is, unless I’m really going overboard with an NPC.

8. What was the last interesting (to you, anyway) thing you remember a PC you were running doing?

Engineering a brilliant escape strategy for the entire party and then being ordered to forget it. And having to obey, because he was a droid.

9. Do your players take your serious setting and make it unserious? Vice versa? Neither?

Occasionally. I don’t think I’ve ever run for a group that takes things ultra-seriously but sometimes I’ve had to invert the tone of a game pretty rapidly as it becomes clear that the players are more into lulz than I was expecting.

10. What do you do with goblins?

Goblins are a playable race. They replace halflings, who are shit.

11. What was the last non-RPG thing you saw that you converted into game material (background, setting, trap, etc.)?

A photo of a Greek monastery on a mountaintop.

12. What’s the funniest table moment you can remember right now?

The looks on my Star Wars group’s faces when they realised my droid character’s restraining bolt had gone AWOL.

13. What was the last game book you looked at–aside from things you referenced in a game–why were you looking at it?

Err, probably the Vampire Counts army book for Warhammer and I was looking for an illustration.

14. Who’s your idea of the perfect RPG illustrator?

Hoo, fuck. Depends on the game, for one thing. If it’s something a bit cute and innocent, Ursula Vernon (I’d kill to have a Mouse Guard book illustrated by Vernon).  If it’s more grimdark, then Mark Gibbons for monster illustrations, John Blanche for places, border art, section separators and other book-functionings, and Steve Argyle for any full-colour stuff that wants doing. I do of course mean the learned Dr. Shiny.

15. Does your game ever make your players genuinely afraid?

Sometimes. When I’m having a particularly good day. My record is one player sleeping with the lights on for a week. The current group are either harder to shock, or just more prone to cathartic fits of the giggles at opportune moments – I’m not sure which.

16. What was the best time you ever had running an adventure you didn’t write?

We Be Goblins!

17. What would be the ideal physical set up to run a game in?

Big table for playing on, side tables for food, chairs that are comfy but make you sit up straight, and no interruptions barring emergencies. Those are the only givens. Anything else would vary by game.

18. If you had to think of the two most disparate games or game products that you like what would they be?

I… don’t know. I haven’t really thought about disparities, barring ‘stuff I like’ or ‘stuff I don’t like’. I suppose that D&D.4 demo adventure I own is unlike pretty much anything else on the shelf…

19. If you had to think of the most disparate influences overall on your game, what would they be?

A seminar I went to on industrial ruins as post-industrial monuments, a photograph of a woman asleep on the floor out in a loft full of packing crates, and the Eastern Orthodox Wiki.

20. As a GM, what kind of player do you want at your table?

One that’ll take an interest in the game world and meet that world on its own terms.

21. What’s a real life experience you’ve translated into game terms?

I met this lovely girl in a cafe once who was turned into a long-running (and less lovely) Mage NPC. I don’t remember much about her now, except that she was called Stephanie andwas a Wiccan who actually had an opinion on Alex Sanders.

22. Is there an RPG product that you wish existed but doesn’t?

The rest of the Backswords and Bucklers line, but I’ll live.

23. Is there anyone you know who you talk about RPGs with who doesn’t play? How do those conversations go?

Depends if they’re interested or not. If they’re not asking questions the conversations tend toward the short. I still find myself weirdly unable to tell rather than show what roleplaying is.

So, the peanut gallery spoke and I took Mortenebra down to Chimera in Brierley Hill for a bash around.  Before we start, can I just say that Chimera’s rather a lovely little venue?  It’s in a repurposed old-fashioned pub, and the Hardcore tournament was played in the old lounge bar, lending everything a snug, well-matured and gentlemanly air, fresh with the delicate scent of tea and the sounds of endless, ceaseless, merciless Jimmy-baiting.

Anyway.  Event report.  Read on.

I drew Robbie D and his Khador wall for the first round. In fact, ‘wall’ is doing Robbie a disservice; there are in fact two walls, one behind the other, as his Journeyman League experiences convinced him Man-o-War Shocktroopers aren’t quite that tough and that having something to hide them behind wouldn’t go entirely amiss.

This was a pretty textbook game for me; as Robbie’s ‘jacks advanced past that ruin you can see in the photo, the Deathjack bunged an opportunistic Void Gate down that prevented Sorscha allocating them any focus in her second turn.  They waddled forward regardless, using grenades and the Rain of Death to clear out my Bile Thrall chaff for Sorscha to Wind Rush, charg… no, wait, she was too far back behind those Men-O-War, she’ll have to Boundless Charge herself, which left her with two focus to try and down Mortenebra with.

She did get Critical Freeze off, and the Icy Gaze to boot, but Mortenebra shook it off, cast Terminal Velocity and had the Deathjack charge, all Spectral and Steely as it was, across the ruin into the space so nicely cleared by a few Purges killing Robbie’s War Dog and the stationary Bile Thralls that were in its way.  With Sorscha on no focus and the Deathjack receiving free boosts even DEF18 couldn’t save her and the Deathjack ate her soul.  Turn two kill, second fastest in the first round.

I wasn’t looking forward to this.

A board with no LoS-blocking terrain, I have a medium-based ‘caster, and he’s running Sloan and a Hunter.  Joy, rapture, and bliss which cannot be counted upon one’s fingers.  He’d picked sides so I knew I’d be going first, and so I figured this was going to go one of two ways.  Either he’d kill me in turn one – very possible given how hard it was going to be to hide Mortenebra from the Hunter – or he wouldn’t and I’d have one turn to nobble Sloan before the inevitable turn two kill-shot came in.

He didn’t kill Mortenebra on turn one.  Since I’d camped most of her focus she ended the turn on five health boxes, and the Hunter’s balls were hanging out in the path of two Helldivers.  All I had to do was Purge on the Hunter a few times to whittle it down so a Helldiver could nobble it in one; that would trigger Overrun, which I could use to move the Nightmare to a position where it could realistically go Ghostly and charge Sloane.

I spent a whole minute lining up those ruddy Bile Thralls to get three good Purges on the Hunter, then something distracted me, possibly the prospect of an unclaimed bacon sandwich.  When I turned back I started layering up the Power Boosts and Overruns on the Helldiver and… oh, crud.  I was so cross that I forgot the Combine had ranged attacks and could have maybe blasted a few bits off the Hunter, enough for two Helldivers to potentially do the job (they couldn’t charge, too many un-Purged Thralls in the way).  I ran Deathjack into Chris’ heavies and Nightmare (using the move bonus from having Prey on the Hunter) into Sloan, but I managed to miss the free strike and she capped Mortenebra with her second shot of the game.

Frankly, that was embarrassing; I basically brainfarted that game away and Chris has been waiting for a bash with me for about six months now, too.  I’ll have to give him a rematch next time I’m in Ross, ’cause that just wasn’t good enough for either of us.  I’ll also have to rip off his practice of jotting down DEF and ARM values of everything he wants to kill during the free minute of thinking time at the start of the turn, ’cause that’ll help with situations like the one that came up next…

Damn.  I’ve spent nine months dodging Dave P, he’s a scary man with several Best In Faction and top three finishes for his Menoth and now he’s managed to lose a game (it must happen sometimes, I suppose) so he’s in my bracket and he’s running the same ‘caster as me.

We both had the feeling this was either going to be very boring or very quick, as most of our Mortenebras’ abilities wouldn’t be triggering on anything but the three Sirens on the board.  Dave was courteous enough to point out that he had Stealth on everything, and so I ran most of my army sideways on turn one, trying to get out of the way of that wall of Slayers so I wouldn’t have to fight all of them.  He had to run in three ‘jacks to scrap the Nightmare and his central Slayers and Reaper were spread out in optimum Purge position – dice -5 on all those rolls?  I’ll risk it for a biscuit.

Unfortunately I dropped my brain again (it’s possible that I wasn’t really trying with this one, given that Dave and I are pretty much at opposite ends of the skill ladder) and didn’t either Recalibrate or strip Spectral Steel off Dave’s Deathjack, so nothing was significantly damaged.  Worse, I’d have needed to activate my entire army to have a realistic chance of stopping his and that just wasn’t going to happen even with the extension.  As it was I timed out before I could immobilise his Deathjack or Death Chill anything and that was all she wrote, as his Deathjack wandered over to Mortenebra and slapped her upside the face.

I’m still not convinced by Mortenebra’s Tier 3 or 4 (I like chaff and Pistol Wraiths and the Combine too much), but I do feel like I’ve gleaned some knowledge about Hardcore.  A good Hardcore list is one that doesn’t need to activate everything to win – it has one turn to get into position and get the defences up, and then it can rely on having so many potential threats that the opponent simply doesn’t have time to stop everything.  I still think ten Slayers is a silly gimmick but I see the underlying principle behind the build now.

That said, I don’t think my list was all that bad, really.  The second game was a failure of tactics (player) rather than strategy (list), and the third might have been marginally improved had I just considered the order of doing things a bit better (perhaps it should have gone feat > mass Purge with rerolls > charge Combine into his Deathjack to try and make a Seether instead of blocking them off with Helldivers like an eejit > see what happens?).  I doubt I’d have had time to do all that though, so the principle still stands – the list is good until it’s forced to time out.

Last week, I said there were a few things that the book needed to provide if it was to make a meaningful difference to how the army worked and played in eighth edition:

1. A meaningful presence in movement, magic, shooting and combat phases.
2. Less dependence on or more insurance against the magic phase, with ref: dice screw, exploding generals and needing more in the magic phase than Necromancy can offer.
3. Genuine strategic and thematic options, derived from True Core choices that aren’t M4 melee-only blocks.
4. An understanding that autobreaking from Fear is gone, and that Vampire Counts can’t rely on Psychology as a win condition now that it’s less effective and easier to resist.
5. Bloodlines in the background, genuine options in the rules.

Now, my initial reading is always a ‘read for squee’, and then I go back and actually think about things.  I have to go and play Warmachine today, so I only have time for the very superficial only-read-it-once thoughts which I reserve the right to redact once the squee has worn off.

1.  Meaningful movement, magic, shooting and combat.  Phil giveth, and he taketh away.  There’s a greater variety of movements available (more flyers, more ethereal stuff, more cavalry, monstrous infantry) but the skirmishing Wraiths have gone, marching has become the province of units near the general or vampires and only vampires (i.e. not the units they lead), and you can’t Vanhel’s Danse models into combat any more.  Shooting has improved; not as much as I’d like, but I’ll take greatly increased numbers of Banshee screams over nothing at all.  Combat… there are more Vampire units and thus more good statlines, plus a few interesting buffs to the chaff like Wolves and Bats, so we’ll see.  Qualified improvement.

2.  Okay, I have to admit, the magic’s an improvement.  The Lore of the Vampires still does what it used to do, the difference is that it does it to more units at once from one cast, rather than spamming the same spell seventeen times, and more key buffs have been moved onto other pieces (like the Corpse Cart radiating Always Strikes First).  Debuffing is now an option with the Lore of Shadows available to Vampire Lords.  Several new powers, particularly Master of the Black Art, help with magic management, the Master Necromancer is back and offering a cheap high-level caster general who doesn’t have the ‘but I have a combat statline’ problem that Vampires do, there are some sexy Bound Spells that add some extra-Lore capabilities, and the new Mortis Engine… in theory offers magical support, but I can’t get away from the size of it, its lack of an excellent save, and the sneaking suspicion that it’ll be dead by turn two and blow up in the middle of my army, presenting such an inviting target that no amount of priority-manipulation can make it less of one.  HOWEVER, the death of the general is no longer such a big thing as another wizard with the Lore of the Vampires can take over after one round of crumbling checks have been completed.  I wasn’t expecting that… which is an improvement.

3. Dire Wolves are True Core again.  That’s all I wanted and that’s what I got.  Bats and Corpse Carts have cleared off into Special, which is one way of dealing with the problem.  I’m not saying I’ll take 500 points of Dire Wolves or anything, I’m not stupid, but the 500 points of M4 infantry problem has been partly mitigated.  A shame Ghouls can’t Vanguard any more, but again, giveth and taketh away… now, the Master Necromancer, the presence of Wraiths and Banshees in two sections and the expanded Special options do suggest builds that wouldn’t have been possible before, and I’m quite tempted by a Dark Elf style monster-mash too, so I got my wish for an improvement here.

4. The new Vampire Counts have some interesting ways to make you fail your Leadership tests, making it harder for you to hit them and more likely that you’ll run away if they beat you.  That’s cool.  It’s not the dead cert that auto-breaking used to be, but with the renewed appeal of fighting Vampires (“oh, you killed him.  That’s fine, this Necromancer’s actually the general…”) and some new models with acceptable fighting stats, it looks like there may be some unlife in the old dog yet.  Qualified improvement.

5. Yep.  The special characters are all von Carsteins or allies thereof, which I’m sure has some people reaching for their pitchforks and flaming torches, but a) they were here first, they are Warhammer’s signature Vampires, and b) it’s not like the Blood Dragons and Lahmians don’t get mentions and signature units, and the Strigoi are sufficiently different from other Vampires to get a statline of their own.  I do feel a bit sorry for the poor old Necrarchs, who you could blink and miss in the current book, and whose shtick as Nagash’s last true followers has been usurped by Mannfred and Kemmler, and whose tactical role is occupied by the Master Necromancer now.  Nevertheless, the book is very clear that your Vampire’s surname and ancestry are not limitations on what you can have in your army unless you want them to be, and that’s the way I like it.  Besides, Kemmler’s in it.  Improvement just for that.

Not an unqualified fulfilment of my every desire, but some quiet improvements that make me interested in playing the army again: which is good, because I’ll be playing them anyway, come what may.  You may remember that I’ve dribbled on about my original Vampire Counts army once or twice before, and that I do rather miss them?  Their new owner has offered to sell them back.  I’ve accepted.  There is no way in hell that I’m not playing that army when it returns.  The end.  The fact that I think this book is better than the last one is gravy.

Perhaps it’ll taste nice with these words I’m eating?

What I haven’t mentioned is how much bloody fun it is.

The five minute turn limit means the analysis paralysis that normally grips me can’t be allowed to set in – it’s keep going forward, don’t get killed, make a mistake and live with it.  Not having any time to umm and aah about things or regret errors of judgement is remarkably liberating, and I’d be really looking forward to Sunday’s 50 pointer down at Chimera, which I haven’t found time to visit just yet, were it not for one small thing: the lists I was thinking about taking are rubbish.

Well, not rubbish, that’s wrong, it’s just that eSkarre Shooty Solo Spam is a big list with a lot of utility pieces in it that rewards being thought about and considered.  In testing against Stu H’s Skorne I came close to timing out on every turn and my target priority went totally to shit (having to run a temporarily invulnerable Pistol Wraith into the middle of his army and not having time to shoot Naaresh in the back of the head when he had one fury point left was especially low).

I want to take something simple and brutal without too many activations in it.  Options include:

Master Necrotech Mortenebra (*4pts)
* Defiler (5pts)
* Helldiver (3pts)
* Helldiver (3pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
* Nightmare (10pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

Now, this isn’t a Tier List.  Why isn’t it a Tier List?  Because I want Nightmare  and the Wraiths in it, that’s why.  Wraiths can plug out key infantry models that are in my way or Death Chill heavies that I don’t want to deal with, while the Combine provide me with a free upkeep and a few more ranged attacks, which the list would otherwise be rather short on.  Biles are nice easy chaff clearance that either run or move and hit things automatically (nice and quick to activate), and the kill condition comes from a helljack (Ghostly and Overrun to position them) wailing on something ideally knocked down by a Helldiver.  Problems: the list can’t really look after Mortenebra in any way.  I may swap the Combine for a unit of Bloodgorgers just so I have some Tough medium bases to screen her with.

Alternatively, there’s always…

Iron Lich Asphyxious (*6pts)
* Cankerworm (5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
* Seether (9pts)
* Slayer (6pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

Ordinarily I’d go for a Tier list but the trouble with those is that once I’ve hit Tier 4 (for 25 points) I have no idea what to spend the rest of the points on; I only own three helljacks that can be taken in a Scavengers list, and 25 points of infantry would take too long to activate or just sit there and not contribute anything.  Instead, I’ve gone for a list where I can prioritise and say ‘no, those just need to run and engage this turn’ or ‘no, they can stand still, this turn is for riding Soulhunters through the army and eating the enemy backfield’.

This ‘un deals with heavies by sending the Deathjack, Cankerworm or Seether at them, with infantry by either machine-gunning them with Breath of Corruption or just ignoring them and having the Soulhunters ride right through to get to the good stuff, has the Wraith just in case I need to stall with Death Chill or plug a solo, and a spare Slayer to stand in front of Asphyxious and go in for a punch-up if it has to.  Enough decent-sized bases to block line of sight and I know everything in it pretty well; The Iron Lich is straightforward and brutal and I’ve been playing him since the year dot, which might make him a solid bet.

Your thoughts?  I have until noon, Greenwich Meridian Time, on Saturday to make my mind up.  Poll on the top right.  Speak yer piece!

Okay, first things first: they look pretty damn cool, yes.  The Shell Case has a short video released by GW in which the new models are waved about, and apart from a couple of familiar ‘how the hell am I supposed to get this into base to base contact with ranked enemies’ form-over-function situations which have been par for the course with this miniature range since the last book they’ll do very nicely.

I won’t let myself get excited until I have the book in my hot sweaty little hands, though, ’cause the Vampire Counts present something of a challenge to developers.

They have certain innate limitations derived from How The Undead Work In Warhammer, to whit:

1. WS and I stats behind the curve on everything that isn’t a Vampire.  They don’t fight well.
2. Limited mobility without a Vampire nearby.  The poor Ld of the Vampire Heroes mean they can’t resist pursuit opportunities too well and have trouble executing reforms.  Adding Wight Kings to compensate for that reduces the points free for Vampires.  They don’t move well.
3. Dependence on magic (the most unreliable phase of the game) to counteract these weaknesses.  They need to cast well.
4. Crumbling if the Vampire General dies.  The Vampire General is also one of the mobile, hard-hitting, spell-slinging key pieces that make them not shite, therefore making him a single point of failure (I’ve won games after losing my Vampire General, but only when I’ve either already inflicted overwhelming damage before losing him, or through luck/favourable terrain setups).

Furthermore, they have additional limitations placed on them by How The Vampire Counts Background Says They Work.

1. No conventional shooting, which means mid-range threat projection is displaced onto the spellcasters, who already have ‘casting support spells’ and ‘not dying’ on their plates.
2. Not as good at magic as High Elves, Daemons, Dark Elves, Lizardmen… in other words, they’re dependent on one thing to make them go, and they’re not even the best there is at doing it.

The previous book is very much a seventh edition book, and the errata process was not kind to it, in three significant ways.

1. All ‘True Core’ (i.e. Core choices that count toward your 25% minimum spend) are M4 melee only infantry with all the usual undead drawbacks.
2. Being able to spam single die spells is not as impressive when there’s a one in three chance that doing so will stall out your strategically and tactically vital wizard for a turn, and your little wizards are very easy for big wizards to dispel (Necromancers don’t like casting against level 4 wizards, no they don’t).
3. Fear is not the tense throw-in-resources-if-I-win-just-one-round-that’s-enough game that it used to be; now it’s both easier to resist (Army Standard re-rolls, no chance to auto-break) and less helpful (enemy needs fours or fives to hit if they fail their test, rather than flat rate sixes, a double sting given that they’ll still be striking first unless there are some unreliable buffs up).**  Given that the Vampire Counts were built to play that ‘just one round won and I’ll have ‘em!’ game, that’s frustrating.

So, they really really really need a new book, if only because there is lingering baggage from seventh edition that’s holding the army back.  I’m just not sure how much of the baggage is actually going to be addressed, given that so much of it is dictated by the game’s background rather than little incidental questions like ‘does this army have enough meaningful strategic choices and tactical options available to it to make it fun for the intelligent player in anything other than a “shove it over the board and hope for the best” kind of way?’

I’m also… damn, there’s no way of saying this without it sounding like fanboy hate… I don’t have masses of confidence in Phil Kelly when it comes to ‘evil’ books.  See, Mr. Kelly seems to like bad guys as barbarian hordes.  No tech, no resilience, no redundancy, no mid-range – waves of guys, ploughing across the field, bringing their knives to a gunfight and hoping vests can stop bullets.  The best Vampire Counts list ever written was Mat Ward’s Army of Sylvania list; Mr. Ward understood that a breadth of Core choices that fulfilled different purposes was good, that being able to restore wounds to those units or summon new ones whatever they were was also good, that having a meaningful presence in all phases of the game turn was vital to making an army interesting and rewarding and, all right, competitively viable.

The focus of the new release seems to be on shiny new toys rather than addressing the fundamental issues of fitting the existing Vampire Counts into eighth edition Warhammer, and giving them a sense of strategic vitality and tactical nuance that rewards the intelligent player without punishing people who just want to line their toy soldiers up and charge.  It looks like a patch where a redesign is needed.

Mind you, as usual, I want GW to prove me wrong, ’cause I do love me some undead.  Not all of the issues even need to be resolved; some of them, like the ‘Vampire or Wight’ choice are good design, forcing you to choose between mobility or control.  The single-point-of-failure thing is part of how the army works and managing the risk-vs-reward aspect of the Vampire General is genuinely fun – but an army with a single point of failure that’s full of other things that make Stelek angry is doomed, because armies with too many weaknesses are not fun.  Here’s one more list, just to show you what I want from the new book.  Any three of these things would do, but less than two and I feel the army will still have too many fundamental issues to stand up.

1. A meaningful presence in movement, magic, shooting and combat phases.  Doesn’t have to be brilliant, I’d settle for Skeleton Crossbowmen again (long range, good S, offset by low mobility and lousy BS).
2. Either greater insurance against the unreliable and dangerous eighth edition magic phase, or less dependence on it.  At the very least, something that influences the number of dice available in every turn, and something that mitigates Miscasts on the General.  Continued access to Big Red Rulebook Lores is also essential in this department as Necromancy can’t address everything that needs addressing in six spells.
3. Genuine strategic and thematic options, derived from True Core choices that aren’t M4 melee-only blocks.  Skirmishing Ghouls, Skeleton Crossbowmen and Dire Wolves that count toward the 25%, guys, that’s all it’ll take.
4. An understanding that autobreaking from Fear is gone, and that Vampire Counts can’t rely on Psychology as a win condition now that it’s less effective and easier to resist.
5. Oh, and while we’re on the subject, no Bloodlines as a rules mechanic.  They were prescriptive brain-shackles for people who can’t make representative choices.  I like the current book’s approach to that; Bloodlines in the background, genuine options in the rules.  Nothing says you can’t do a Lahmian but nothing says all Lahmians are the same.  That’s awesome.  More of that please.

And yet… despite everything… I am a little bit excited.

* – I understand why Dire Wolves and Bat Swarms didn’t count in seventh edition – it was a bit too easy to spend 150 points on filling your Core slots with fifteen disposable Wolves and then move on to the Black Knight Fun Buses – but surely with the ‘slots’ system gone we could have had that limitation lifted?  There are more incentives now to take things that aren’t Dire Wolves, for one, and for two, I’d love to do an army of, say, undead knights and their hunting hounds, or werewolves that happen to use the VC rules.  I still don’t quite understand why Corpse Carts don’t count; that’s a lot of potential buffing being thrown out but the key word is potential – they’re low-Power Bound spells or abilities that require semi-careful positioning to accomplish.

** – again, I understand why; the auto-break if outnumbered thing from sixth and seventh editions was very very frustrating to people who didn’t play Vampire Counts armies and I’m glad that it’s changed.  My point is that the Vampire Counts need to be changed in order to account for the new way in which Fear works, because they were built with the old Fear mechanics as a fundamental principle.  At the moment, they’re a house built on church foundations – they don’t fit and they could fall over at any second.

During the festive gaming glut, which was sufficiently hectic enough to provide me with post-fodder for at least the next few weeks, Hark and I played a good few games of varying ilks, among them the aforementioned LotR SBG (that’s a terrible name).  Oddly, she rather enjoyed it – she took a force of Mordor Orcs, led by Grishnakh and accompanied by the customary Troll (Hark likes Trolls) against Blackheart’s Rohirrim, led by the increasingly unfortunate Eomer.

The game seemed to go fairly well, with lots of Orcs getting squashed and Grishnakh proving that he shouldn’t be underestimated as he chopped up a few Rohirrim.  Oh, and Eomer got squashed by the Troll.  This amused me – for some reason I like seeing Eomer get squashed by things, sent off in a hysterical blubbering fit or otherwise interfered with – and it seemed to please Hark as well:

i thought it was fun!  It was a lot less complicated than the game of Warmachine i played or the games of Warhammer that i’ve seen played.  When my Troll first moved into battle, it was LIEK WHOA!  ‘Cause when we started off my Orcs were a bit weak, with just one hit, and his guys were all ‘heh heh’ with the two hits, but it was obvious when the Troll moved in that i had a real chance at mashing the Rohirrim off the board.

The upshot of it all’s that we’ve been watching the films (we’d be reading the books but we only have the one copy and our reading speeds don’t match in the slightest, and anyway I’m halfway through…) and looking at the models and scheming various schemes.  Given that Hark likes both Trolls and Goblins and is partial to at least three members of the Fellowship I’ve suggested getting her the Mines of Moria box for her birthday, which seems to be going down well.

i like the look of the Mines of Moria.  i suspect it’s possibly going to be a bit uneven, and it might be a bit like ‘all these Goblins do the same thing and the Cave Troll does it a bit better’, but ‘here’s the Fellowship and they do exciting things’.  i suppose that’s good for a trainee game, ’cause you can be all “i hit it – BOOM” or “i do magical sparkly things and excitement!” and swap between the two to decide which you prefer.  i’d like to stick with the Goblins, but i’d like to add some slightly more exciting stuff to them – or at least i’d like to stick with the Evil side, i have to say.  It’s a shame i can’t have Legolas and Gimli in an Evil army, though…

Obviously i would be building up to my eventual Dark Queen: Army of Feminism (TM): Galadriel in her battle corset, Arwen, all the female Orc captains* I can lay my paws on, Easterlings** and Half-Trolls in bikinis***…

* – some of the Orcs in the third film are fairly obviously being played by women.

** – of course they’re girls – look at the eye makeup when they show up in The Two Towers!

*** – i just like Half-Trolls, okay?

How this fits in with my plans for the game (because I do have them, oh yes) remains to be seen.  I definitely still want to do my Uruk-Hai because Saruman’s the only sane man in Middle-Earth and because Blackheart hates them, and those are good reasons to do anything.  In the past I’ve not been too sure what to do with a Good army, though, but if Hark’s going for the Goblins I might do something unprecedented and rock the Dwarves (with a V, as Prof. Tolkien intended).  That does mean I’ll have plumped for two quite ponderous infantry-heavy forces, though… I dunno how much of an issue that’s going to be.  Maybe I’ll show some disrespect to Prof. Tolkien and run an Isengard Troll and some Warg Riders?

Let’s consider those New Year’s Resolutions again, in the cold light of day.

GAME OVER will be going onto an ‘every three days’ schedule and I will only be checking YOUR blog, whatever it may be, on days when I’m doing a GAME OVER update.  That frees up the three or four hours (small, of the morning, when my stupid sleep pattern has kicked in) I normally waste on reading blogs to actually Do Hobby.  I won’t necessarily always Do Hobby at five in the morning every morning but I’ll be doing some every day, and to make sure that I actually DO Do Hobby every single day, I’ve signed up for Project 365.  The most recent image will be appearing over there in the sidebar and you should click through it to see the archive if you’re that way inclined.

Other stuff I want to do this year and will have to write down so I remember and publicly commit to it:

• more Brave New Worlds (RPG worldbuilding)
• WFB.8 advanced rules readthrough (and something about the Vampire Counts when they show up)
• Blood Bowl for Beginners (because docbungle asked me to)
• my thoughts on Necron Troops (because TKE asked me to)
• more Gaming Curriculum (maybe, I’m a bit burned out on education theory at the moment)

As is known, I don’t like posting about blogging and blogging alone, so here’s a picture of my workspace and a Necron Monolith to keep you all amused.

Robbie, the former owner of my Necron army, painted this one ‘factory fresh’, unlike the actual ‘crons, who are all dark and oily (he informs me it’s black primer, Boltgun Metal drybrush and Flesh Wash over the top… but I must have missed a bit somewhere ’cause the Tomb Canoptek Spyder I did yesterday came out looking much brighter than the Warriors.  It didn’t look quite right next to them so I covered it in the same artist’s ink jollop mix that I used to stain my trees when I made those.  I think it might look a bit too muddy now, but that might just be the harsh flourescent light.  I also think it needs a bit more Charnovokhiness about it (read: more blue and gold detailing) but I struggle to think of anywhere to put it.  Stupid cyclopean architecture.

This year, at best guess, I have probably spent about £500 on gaming. I am going to spend less than £500 on gaming next year. I am not going to set myself a defined figure to feel guilty about, but I am going to spend less.

I’ve got some New Year’s Resolutions to make. I am going to make some buildings to go on that battlefield, and I’m not going to buy any new miniatures until those buildings are done and look good. I am also not going to buy any new miniatures until all the Dark Elves, and all the Skorne, and all the Tyranids, and all the Cryx, are painted, AND I am only going to buy one new thing at a time.

So, in other words, if I buy a new unit for one army, that’s got to be built, painted, used and played out… and I’m not going to rush off and have four projects on the go all at once.

And here’s how it went…

I DID spend much less than £500 on gaming this year (I think it can’t have been much more than £200 including event fees and transport). Success!

I still haven’t made a single building, although I have collected a quagmire of parts for them. I have bought many new miniatures. Failure!

The Dark Elves and the Skorne (the Regret of the year, maybe, as I like everything about them except painting them) and the Tyranids are all gone, although the Cryx are all painted and most of the Circle are. The Necrons were bought before the Lizardmen were done and the Lizardmen were bought before the Circle were done. Fail-cake!

I still have four projects on the go at once. I think that was a dud resolution to start with though. I like playing lots of different things, and this year I have played (for example) every RPG rules set I own except Savage Worlds.

So that’s, what, Von’s Willpower 1 – Seductive Games Industry 2, with one goal disallowed? I’ve had worse. It’s been fun. I’ve been able to work through some things, too.

All this actual RPGin’ means I’ve finally ascertained which of the games I own are actually worth carting around books for. Dark Heresy and the IKRPG books have gone to a better place (and I hope Robbie enjoys them) while D&D, AFF and Vampire have been judged and found worthy (although next time I’m going to flat-out run Requiem because old-WoD combat gives me tension headaches).

I play more board games than I did last year; I also play less WoW. My interest in the game finally petered out as I was dragging Laestrygone up to level 85 and realising that, now that my little Undead Warlock is done and dusted and the thematic interest I had in the Scourge more or less resolved with the end of Wrath, I basically don’t give a toss about Azeroth any more. Played through the new Undead levelling experience, liked it, but don’t feel hugely compelled to play anything else at the moment. This isn’t a ragequit, this is a rest – I may come back or I may not, but I won’t be driving toward the endgame like I was last year. Instead, I bought a bunch of good old games from Good Old Games.com and have been messing about in those when I have trapped time and no available friends.

Damned if I know what the new year will bring; I might well be moving yet again, might be taking up a new job or a PhD. That’s why I’m reluctant to make too many, y’know, resolutions for what may well be dubbed the Year of Documented Buggery if Shiny has his way… but here are some things I’d sort of like to have done by the time 2013 hoves into view.

• play more Magic, since I have a modern deck now.
• take my Cryx to a major event (SmogCon, the Masters, a Hardcore heat…).
• build more terrain (the docks, at least one building, some scrap piles, and some cyclopean multi-purpose crap that will suit some of my other armies).
• keep up the regular playing of RPGs.
• hang on to a non-Cryx army for twelve months…
• spend more time doing hobby and playing games and less time on the blogs.

This last means a few changes are going to be made. I’m not turning into one of those ‘post about X on Y date’ scheduley-type bloggers or anything, but I’m going to take the general post-something-every-three-days approach that I’ve been taking a bit further, and say that if a post ain’t due I ain’t hanging around on the Internet reading about other people’s accomplishments. That and scaling back the guest slot commitments to just the Show on Saturdays should help to keep my time more usefully directed.

For instance, there’s my Magic deck. Well, my old Magic deck. My very old Magic deck, which I borrowed from a friend who happened to have a stash of Tempest-era cards lying around. Seventy-five cards, mono-green, and I lost my first five games with it on the trot through hopeless mana-screw and overcomplex mechanics that my aging brain, unexposed to the Magic system for eight years, misplayed appallingly. I sat down with the deck, went through it, and removed everything that I didn’t understand the tactical applications of, everything that felt too situational, and everything that wasn’t anything special, just generic creatures with generic stats. That pared it back to fifty-seven cards, so I added a few fun situational bits back in to meet the sixty-card standard. Clearing out the chaff here, involves selecting elements to remove, and one or two to restore.

Ironically, I now have a shiny new starter deck from the 2012 core set. Came with a booster pack. I’ve already swapped a few bits in and out – identifying what doesn’t have a use, to me, and replacing it with things that do.

All I'll say is, it's got one of these in it.

Then there’s Herr Doktor Shiny, and his Tau army. He’s been having some trouble with his Tau army, which came­ to a head in a situation not entirely dissimilar to this one.­ Now, it can’t be denied that a dual-Solar-Pulse build is not going to make yr. average Tau player the happiest of bunnies, but it also can’t be denied that Shiny’s army is, well, all over the place. Units tend to fight their enemies one-on-one, to scatter all over the board, and seldom supplement one another’s capacities in any sort of defined plan.

One hesitates to say ‘ur doin it rong’ to one’s longest-serving friend, but there you go. We’ve had a long conversation about redundancy, concentration of fire, the importance of not overestimating the assault phase and suppression vs. elimination roles for units; I’ve had a flick through the Tau book and looked for units that can split fire and units that are better off combining it. It’s mostly been duplicating stuff that Shiny already runs – he can pick a decent unit, it’s fielding it more than once that he seems to have trouble with – and choosing which of his existing units are best left to games larger than those he’s in the habit of playing. Clearing out the chaff here, involves selecting elements from an existing collection and planning a few duplications to make.

And finally, there’s the small matter of my dice problem. “What dice problem?” ask I, but Hark insists that I have one. I am hardly drowning in d6s or anything, but I do have a few discrete sets of dice and I have ordered some custom dice for my Necron army. I’d previously ordered a set of thirty-six, a full dice block in two colours like the red and green ones I use with my Lizardmen, but then I a) had that conversation with Hark and b) read this, and it set me to thinking about the chaos of dice and counters and cards and books that tends to accumulate around me when I play games. Most of those are called for by the rules system – Warmachine requires that various things be tracked with cards and tokens, for instance – but that doesn’t mean I can’t do something to reduce the amount of clutter that’s around my table and my head while I’m playing. The upshot of it is that I’ve tried to stop the chaff appearing at all; I’ve ordered five blue dice, three green and two gold, and they’ll be riding in the figure case with the ‘crons. We’ll see if that works, and if the principle can be applied sideways to my Lizardmen.

All this chaff management has come just in time for the announcement of a new Vampire Counts range.  Sigh.  I seem to be drifting back into my old undead-crazed ways and frankly I’m not sure I have the energy to resist.  Let’s hope I get one of the jobs I’ve applied for, eh?

System: Hordes
Faction: Circle Orboros
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Tiers: 0

Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)

Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)

This ‘ere’s my go-to Circle Orboros list, which was built out of the stuff Mr. Bandwagon swapped me for my Skorne back when.  It’s very much a ‘do the best you can with what you’ve got’ list that I’ve been slowly adding more bits and bobs to in order to try and do better with (vis. Gorax and Stones).  However, I have as yet only won one game with it despite having been playing it or variants on it for a while now, so I thought that breaking it down and seeing what does what and talking about it might help me think about it and work out what I’m doing wrong.

A’right.  I’ll start simple.  The Wolf Riders’ job is in theory to Prey the enemy chaff and use those three attacks each to try and clear the field a bit for the other stuff to move around in.  In practice I tend to get a bit ambitious and end up Preying casters and beasts and other things the Wolf Riders can’t really hurt; they also spend a lot of time moving in from the flanks and getting tied up by whatever the opposition has going on out there.

Shifting Stones!  Well, the Stones went in because I kept having problems on Kaya’s feat turn; either she or Laris were ending up activated in the wrong order and stranded somewhere they didn’t need to be.  Moving Laris out first so that his bark-node could get Dog Pile onto a key target meant he’d already activated after Kaya and so couldn’t be pulled back with her feat; using Kaya first meant she needed to get up front in order to cast Dog Pile and was limited to the same lines of sight as her battlegroup, limiting the spell’s utility.  The Stones enable me to port Laris upfield, activate Kaya, arc Dog Pile, feat, and then either send Laris in on the attack or just Spirit Shift him back to her side in relative safety (if I have some reason not to advance with him, like a lurking heavy with Admonition and Counter Charge nearby).  The Keeper is a point filler who extends their teleporting footprint, brings a bit of extra knockdown fun, and adds Stealth, hopefully keeping all three Stones alive until my second turn when it’s usually feat time.

The Druids are in there to protect Kaya from spellfire death with Counter Magic, to open lanes with Vortex Bolts, and to be honest that’s more or less it.  Could I stand to lose them?  I’m loath to consider it – they are very good at what they do but is what they do really necessary?  I’ve never lost Kaya to spells and in theory I have lots of ways to bypass the enemy already…

I’m much more happy with the battlegroup.  The Pureblood’s spray attack is in theory very nice but I seldom accomplish much with it; he’s much more fun running around passing out Ghostly to the Feral or nobbling Incorporeal foes with his animus or just warping for STR and going to town on whatever he can reach.

The Feral was my unquestioned star of the show even before the Gorax arrived to take him to the limit.  With Forced Evolution and the +2 ARM warp effect he was surprisingly hard to shift; with Ghostly or Warp Speed, he could cover a lot of ground; with Warp Strength and the aforementioned Forced Evolution he could really dish out the pain.  Now add +2 MAT and STR onto that and you realise why I won’t leave home without him; he’s just so damn flexible, especially with access to Ghostly from the Pureblood.

The Gorax, oh my.  Even if all he ever does in a game is cast Primal on the two Warpwolves he’s done something useful, and he’s not bad as a follow-up beast if I shift Forced Evolution and Primal onto him.  In theory, he’s also the victim of any transfers that need to be made, although he tends to end up running too hot for that.

Laris, in many ways, has been the weak link; while he’s not bad with Forced Evolution on him, like a Deathripper that’s got three Focus built in, I usually have better things to do with buffs and I’m more worried about pulling him back to keep Kaya’s defensive buffs ticking over nicely.  I sometimes wonder if I’m not underusing him somehow; should he and Kaya be getting stuck in more, should buffs be being layered onto him to turn this named light into something that bites like a heavy?

And then there’s Kaya, who I cover last largely because she was picked last.  I just wanted a warlock who would close the collection off and make some nice tidy 15, 25 and 35 point lists.  I really like Dog Pile in a build that has two potentially Ghostly heavies aboard, Shadow Pack has yet to let me down while it’s been up, and Forced Evolution is a wonderful stacking buff on the Warpwolves.  In theory, she’s quite hard to hit in melee, as long as Laris is beside her… but why can’t she quite cut the mustard?

Partly it’s a question of target priority.  Pointing Dog Pile at casters too early in the game rather than using it and her feat to wipe out enemy heavies and pull my own to safety, relying on the later game advantage this secures me.  I’ve become hooked on turn two and three kills after playing Cryx – weird as this sounds, Kaya seems more suited to a longer game, with the kill coming on turn three or four.  Partly it’s been not having anywhere safe to keep her, pulling things back to screen her when they could be left out there as major threats that need to be dealt with before the enemy comes to Kaya and diverts force from attacks on her person.  But is it something else?

I’m not sure it’s the list.  The list has a lot of tech and I don’t, instinctively, feel it’s missing anything.  I’m sure it’s me.  I am thinking about working toward a Theme list using most of the same stuff, but I’m not sure I need to.

System: Hordes
Faction: epic Kaya – Call of the Wild
Casters: 1/1
Points: 35/35
Tiers: 4

Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (8pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (8pts)

Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
* Druid of Orboros Overseer (2pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Warpborn Skinwalkers (Leader and 2 Grunts) (5pts)
Druid Wilder (2pts)

Buggered if I know, really.  Help a chap out here?

They came at us out of the north… ghosts, ghosts in the machines.  Green lights in the dark.  Metal men with faces like death.  They didn’t speak.  No chance to negotiate, no offer of surrender. They’ve cracked every building open – metal shattered like clay.  They kill people, but they leave the machines standing.  I can hear them moving down below.  There can’t be a dozen of us left alive.  They don’t want us.  They want the refinery.  I don’t know why. If you’re hearing this, don’t send help.  There’s no-one here to help.  Don’t avenge us.  No fight in us – nothing worth avenging.  If you’re coming… you’re coming to destroy the fuel.  That’s what they’re here for.  Don’t let them get it. They’re on the stairs.  I don’t have much time.  Domina, salve nos…

+++ TRANSMISSION ENDS +++ +++ RECEIVED ASTROTELEPATHIC DUCT: SW-AWE +++ +++ SPACE WOLVES CHAPTER +++ +++ DIVERTING SQUADRON CLAWS OF RUSS +++ +++ DESTINATION: JANNERIA PRIME +++ +++ OBJECTIVE: ENGAGE AND DESTROY +++

Von’s Crons                1000

Destroyer Lord            125

10 Warriors                   130
10 Warriors                   130
10 Warriors                   130

3 Wraiths     *                150
whip coils
particle casters
2 Destroyers                    80
4 Scarab Swarms          180

Canoptek Spyder            75
twin-linked particle beamer

* – yes yes yes I know.  Should have done a line-by-line like I did with WFB.8 core rules.  The ‘crons book is surprisingly strict in the restrictions it does have, vis. usages of ‘one’ and ‘any’ in army list entries.  Not like they could hit anything with the casters anyway…

In a game this small I couldn’t be doing with expensive Royal Courts and Phaerons; the Warriors are just bodies on the board, there to camp one objective and, if necessary, shoot enemies off nearby ones while the fast stuff goes a-hunting.  S6 guns should be enough to see off any vehicles I’m likely to encounter and the Destroyer Lord or Scarabs can always go after any AV14 that does show up.  The Destroyers are ablative wounds, pure and simple; the Spyder gives me another ranged tank cracker and maybe a couple of extra Scarab bases, whose job it is to tie up and whittle down anything that can stand up to a sustained gaussing.  The Wraiths are maybe slightly overequipped, but I wanted a few more decent S guns and striking first with Necrons seems like something to be relished where it can be achieved.

Awesome Mike’s Hairy Herberts    980?*

Wolf Priest                                                           120
Terminator armour
(joins Wolf Guard unit)
(Preferred Enemy: Infantry)

5 Wolf Guard                                                       230
Terminator armour
4 pairs of wolf claws
1 heavy flamer (joins Blood Claws)

10 Grey Hunters                                                180
2 meltaguns
power fist
Rhino                                                                       35

15 Blood Claws                                                  250
2 flamers
power fist

Predator Annihilator                                      165
twin-linked lascannons
lascannon sponsons

* – there are 20 points unaccounted for in Mike’s list, probably spent on upgrades that never saw the light of day.  Maybe his vehicles had Extra Armour or something? Or I can’t count.  That’s always a possibility.

In lieu of Awesome Mike’s thought process, which I assume went “pick units from pre-existing roster for a small game which I haven’t really planned for”, have this small excerpt of pre-game banter instead:

“Well, I was quietly confident, but then I saw the Space Wolves book in your case…”
“I went for character with mine.”
“You can do that and still win.  That’s pretty much why it’s a good book.”

Deployment

Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Spearhead

“Okay, so this is the one with two objectives…”
“Ah, the draw mission!”
“Not always!”

Mike won the roll-off and chose to set up first.

The Scarab Swarm deployed right behind the building, intending to buzz through it.  For some reason the precise implications of ‘beasts, not flying things’ hadn’t quite sunk in for me.

I failed to seize the initiative and thanked the Triarch Mike hadn’t brought any big nasty templates.

Turn One

Largely uneventful.  The Wolf Guard plodded forward, the Rhino drove through four walls and parked up by the building with the Scarabs in it, and the Predator zapped two Warriors.  It didn’t stick.  The Scarabs didn’t even manage to climb the building walls and settled for running around the outside, now five strong after the Spyder strained out a new base; the Wraiths, Spyder and Destroyers failed to put a dent in the Rhino; and the Warriors shot up a couple of Terminators.  Mike isn’t very good at passing 2+ saves, it seems.  The Wraiths similarly failed to accomplish anything in assault (in their defence, rolling sixes to hit is hard), and I braced myself for unpleasantness.

Turn Two

Mike’s Predator backed up a bit and shot a Destroyer.  Unimpressed at having its paintwork blistered, it decided that the Reanimation Protocols could go hang; the living would just have to wipe themselves out.

The Rhino sped forward again, disgorging its cargo of Grey Hunters into the woods harbouring my objective.  Anyway, they blasted three Necron Warriors from the squad camping out in the woods, one of whom stood back up and made a rude gesture at them.

The surviving Terminators, meanwhile, made for the Wraiths.

“Initiative 1.”
“Yeah, I thought I’d strike first.”
“No, you’re Initiative 1.  Whip coils.”
“Ah.”

Mike continued his run of poor 2+ saves and two Terminators were rendered unto dust, while the Wolf Priest fumed and swore and couldn’t actually hurt the Wraiths, although he didn’t take any wounds for Fearlessness.  I pretended I was playing Lord of the Rings and surrounded the Priest.  Well, it looks nice.

Taking the bull by the horns, I set my back to the wall, my shoulder to the wheel, my nose to the grindstone and my knuckles to the ground.  After a quick trip to the osteopath, a splash of TCP on the injured parts, and an inconclusive animal rights case, we got on with the game.  My Warriors combined arms to blast a few Grey Hunters, the Spyder missed the Rhino right in front of it and nobbled a couple of Grey Hunters instead (heigh ho), while the Destroyer Lord decided that hiding in a shed wasn’t going to scour the pestilence of organic life from the cosmos any time soon and that chopping up Blood Claws was better than waiting for a lane to the Predator that would never come.

Note the cunningly placed ablative Destroyer, getting hit by power fists so that his Lord and master might survive a turn.  Maybe.  Mindshackle Scarabs could be a laugh here.  Between them they chopped up a Blood Claw or two but the Destroyer, as predicted, was smushed.  Meanwhile, the Canoptek Spyder gave up on shooting and elected to investigate possible uses for this claw-like appendage on its other arm.

There then followed a short break while Mike did his job.

The Scarab discovered that claws make good can openers, and that space-diesel is quite flammable.  The six inch explosion failed to nobble any Warriors, but I’m pretty sure it killed another Grey Hunter.  Mike, to his credit, did not say a bad word.

Finally, the Scarabs piled onto the Wolf Priest, intending to rip his armour off him with a few Entropic Strikes.  Twenty-five attacks (apparently they could all attack him, because the ones at the back were within two inches of the ones in front, or some such) and not a single wounding hit – not that it mattered as Mike failed his armour saves against the Wraiths’ attacks and the Priest had some science done on him.  The Necrons consolidated into the open, since nobody but the Predator was going to be shooting this turn and it’s not like the Wraiths cared whether they were in cover or not.  Mike still didn’t say any bad words.  That GW training must be doing him good.

Turn Three

The Grey Hunters let rip with their pistols, toasted a few brave little toasters with their meltaguns, and charged into the Warriors holding my objective.

With predictable results.

Elsewhere, the Predator backed up and zapped a Scarab base (which Mike says he shouldn’t have done; if he’d have shot three times he might have managed three), and the Blood Claws piled into the Destroyer Lord.  Alas, while the Wolf Guard did bash some nonessential components off with his power fist, the Lord chopped up two more Claws and hung in there.

The view at the top of my turn looked pretty good.  Although I didn’t technically hold any objectives, I had a cunning plan to get them back.  I told Mike of this, and do you know what he said?

“If your cunning plan is ‘shoot them to death’, mate, it ain’t that cunning.”

He doesn’t credit me with nearly enough imagination.

The two surviving Warrior squads performed a sort of sideways shuffle, clearing a space for the Spyder to close in without having to take any difficult terrain tests.  Between the particle beamer (which finally hit what the Spyder had pointed it at) and the forty Gauss shots, all the Grey Hunters were reduced to tinned spam.  Without the tins.

On the other side of the board, the Scarabs headed Predwards, while the Wraiths announced that difficult terrain was for suckers, and loomed ominously over both the Blood Claws and Mike’s objective.

The Wraiths barged in, crucially stripping the Initiative scores off some of the Blood Claws fighting the Destroyer Lord.  He accounted for three, the Wraiths for four or five more; while the Wolf Guard finished off the Destroyer Lord with his power fist, it proved to be Not Enough, and the Space Wolves legged it.  The Lord failed to reanimate himself and the Wraiths consolidated onto Mike’s objective.

Finally, the Scarabs remembered where their running claws were, and chewed the front off Mike’s Predator.  Reducing AV13 to AV4?  Good times.

With five Space Wolves left on the board, surrounded by assorted Canoptek nastiness and running for the hills, Mike called it a day.

Necron Victory!

I can’t fault my game too much – I did win, after all – although the Scarabs spent a bit too long buzzing around behind that building and I think they’d have been better tasked with swarming up the midfield, having an extra base added every turn, and preventing the Rhino from going where it wanted to go.  I’m not overly impressed with the Destroyers either, although I suppose they did do their job of delivering the Destroyer Lord into a position where he could tie up those flame templates for a few turns and help clear Mike’s objective.

The trouble with playing staff members is you can never be sure they aren’t making sure you win in order to encourage you.  I’ve known Mike for years and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t do that to me, but you never know…  Anyway, I feel Mike’s list was a bit unfocused and lacking in redundancy, and I’m not sure why he felt the need to rush the Grey Hunters in ahead of the Terminators, or disembark them when he did – it’s not like they could assault anything that turn and lurking inside the Rhino might have saved them from a turn’s gauss flaying.  As a result, I was able to concentrate two or three of my units on each one of his and that was pretty much the end of that.  That said, he was arrestingly unlucky to lose all four Terminators by the second turn (I didn’t force him to take a stupendous number of armour saves – evidently enough, but not that many) and if they’d made it into my Warriors I could probably have kissed them goodbye.

Mike reckons Necrons must be his nemesis – he’s yet to beat them since the new book came out.  Personally I think that’s karma for all those years of lining up four Dispel dice in front of my Army of Sylvania and informing me that I can just take my Grave Markers off the board (okay, so he only took the +3 auto-dispel Rune combo once, but I still hated playing his super-tough, utterly fearless Dwarfs with my poor skelliegogs), but I’m sure he’ll get me next time.  In closing, have this picture of Awesome Mike’s self-insertion fantasy persona -

- and have yourself a merry little midwinter festival too.

Lexington
Hee. GladosCron.

Von
Mm-hmm. She’s doing science on the people who are still alive. Well, technically she’s causing science to be done on them, but that doesn’t scan.

Lexington
Khee.
I still really don’t much care for the Necron re-do, but your direction with it is spiff. :D

Von
I see it as a jumping-off point.

Lexington
Indeed, it is. Just a sort of shoddily-constructed on, in my mind. You can still do a nice dive, even if it’s off a pier crafted from driftwood, rubber nails and popsicle sticks.
I dug the old Necron/C’Tan fluff. Seems like there was definitely a chance to simply expand it, rather than obliterate it all.

Von
Mmm. I mean, there’s room to keep it on, as I and others have been saying.
Doesn’t take much in the way of fanficcer’s imagination to come up with ‘my Necron Lord is still loyal to the C’Tan and takes orders from his Shard’.

Lexington
Oh, it’s not that. I’ve got zero interest in making a Necron army either way. It’s more that they took a race with a motivation, then gave it none.
The Necrons really have no pressing need to do anything anymore.

Von
Ye-ss.
Qualified yes.

Lexington
They don’t need resources, they don’t need power, they don’t need anything.

Von
So we come back to what they want:
Their Empire back.
To serve their Star God masters.
To free themselves from the legacy of their Star God masters.
To establish their dynasty as the definitive Necron paradigm.
To finish off the Eldar out of sheer *spite*.

Lexington
Right, but they don’t have that as a necessary motivation as a race. You can make it such, but as given, the Necrons just aren’t well-motivated.

Von
Oh yeah, I agree with that.
You have to think up some compelling reason WHY your Necrons are doing what they’re doing. Some people won’t care, and will just play the army anyway. Some people will care, and will do the less than thirty seconds of thinking involved in coming up with something the ‘crons want to do.

Lexington
They still have their empires, such as they are, the Lords still have absolute power over their subjects, they don’t breed, they don’t need more space, or, seemingly, more resources…

Von
Yeah. And to make them interesting the player has to take something away.
I… find it hard to be disappointed in a construction which awards agency over the army’s motivations to the player. Player agency > alles, really.

Lexington
Oh, that’s fine. I love player agency and space to create. It’s just that what it means for the galaxy is that the majority of Necrons just sorta…exist. Or they *all* have some individual reason to put themselves and their resources at risk all the time in massively destructive wars. Both chafe, y’know?
Like, the Imperium fights wars for all the same reason humans have always fought wars
The Eldar fight for survival.
The Orks fight, realistically, for the same reasons humans do, but also have the part where they love to do it anyway.
The Tyranids need a meal.
Etc.

Von
And the Necrons fight because they’re bored. Or because there are members of lesser species poking around their tombs. Or because a particular tomb world *is* short of something. I mean, the majority of humans ‘just sort of exist’.
In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there HAS to be stuff other than War.

Lexington
Oh, totally. But the Imperium has a warmachine, for the purpose of expanding human territory due to an ever-expanding need for resources and security.

Von
Does the Imperium expand? I suppose it must. Terraforming, isolated worlds, new colonies. Replacements for destroyed colonies.

Lexington
That’s the goal, in theory.

Von
It’s just not all that well flagged. [Since the overwhelming theme of the Imperium is 'stagnation for survival's sake', and we get the impression that all the expanding happened long, long ago.]
Cf. Infinity for an example of that done right, I suppose, shame it’s so human-centric.
(apropos of nothing: would I like Infinity more without the Combined Army?)

Lexington
Whereas the Necrons are a wholly militarized society (as much as they have a society anymore), for the purpose of…what?

Von
Whatever purpose we give them. We step into the narrative and we give it motive. I get that you’re disappointed with the null that exists if we don’t do that.

Lexington
Right. They don’t make sense *except* as exceptions to a standard that…doesn’t make sense. :P

Von
40K is not without those.
And to be honest, I always, always scale down when I’m thinking about 40K. If I can find a reason for *my* Necrons to be doing stuff, honestly, the universe beyond their horizons can go hang until there’s a reason for them to go there: because the universe itself is vast, and abstract, and absurd. It’s the little spaces where things that make sense happen, and that’s what I pay attention to. Otherwise I rather suspect I wouldn’t be able to interface with it in any meaningful way, because honestly? 40K is stupid.

[I'd have gone on to qualify this remark with the whole 'ONLY WAR' thing at its heart, the sense of perpetual conflict justified by static, unchanging agendas.  It works to justify gameplay between any two armies and that's what it needs to do, so it's not bad - but it relies on the suspension of the logical faculties to do it. Think about it in terms of real, breathing universes, and it's stupid. Grand and hilarious and not without worth, but still stupid.]

Lexington
Well, stupid in its totality, maybe, but it has an internal logic and mechanisms that make sense on the surface. You know what humans, Orks, Tau and Eldar are doing when they’re not at war. The Necrons are really, as far as we know, nothing *but* a big military that really doesn’t have a lot of useful military objectives outside of Lord X’s bizarre whims.

Von
Or whatever else a given force has. Fair enough.

Lexington
Right.
There’s a lot of space given, but I don’t see them as any more inherently interesting than they were before.

Von
I just don’t see that totality ever mattering as there will always be some reason for a given clutch, or whatever the collective noun for Necrons is (catafalque?), to do something. And there will, I think, always be reasons.
I mean, as it stands, a tomb world wakes up, and it’s either got a problem or a desire. That’s them occupied for a bit. And I think, in a universe as full of potential nemeses, more things to go wrong, discoveries of how much has changed in all those millennia, ancient feuds with survivor species like Orks and Eldar, archeotech of the Old Ones, rogue C’Tan shards being unleashed by meddling explorers and, when all else fails, another dynasty who are gunning for you after what Lord X said about their Sharontek, as it were… in that kind of universe there are so many exceptions that the norm may never matter.

Although they ARE presented as so numerous that they might all wake up, and that might prove me wrong. That’s an issue, I admit. The implied numbers of them.

Lexington
Right. It feels patchy, though. There’s a goal (make the Necrons about the Necrons!), but no real attempt to tie it in with the rest of a functioning sci-fi universe. So we have a lot of individual Necron Lords, all doing their individual Necron Lord things, but as a race, they’re just lacking.

Von
A few points, which should not be taken to represent an overall disagreement:
- that’s only an issue if the setting is running with racial identities and agendas as monocultures, which to be fair is the way 40K has worked thus far. The Necrons may represent a slightly more mature world-building exercise in which it’s understood that a species/race/ethnicity will not share common motivations.
- you could say the same thing about Orks, to a point, in that the Orks are a morass of individual Ork Warlords going about their Orky business. Although what is classed as Orky business is rather better defined than Necronny business.
- the attempts to tie it in with the rest of the universe, re: the timeline, are the most egregiously irritating bit for me, ’cause there was a chance to do something clever there, and I feel it was missed. Keeping Sanctuary 101 as the first point of Imperial contact, and having all previous encounters involve non-human species, thus underscoring how… selectively-sighted… the Imperium is.

Lexington
I think your first point is a tad undermined by the *lack* of maturity of the examples we’re given of individual Necrons. ;)
In the book, I mean. That’s just a fun lil’ potshot, though.

I see your point, but I think that doesn’t really mesh with what feels natural in worldbuilding. Even if we have a lot of different cultural and social understandings, there’s certain…I dunno, “macro-factors” that motivate human conflict throughout forever. Resources, security and power, mostly. You can apply those to every other race in 40K. Even Chaos is fighting for etheric resources, in a sense. There’s lots of space *within* that, but large organizations in conflict are in conflict for reasons that are historically identifiable.

The Necrons are positioned as a race that’s as defined by conflict as any other, but they have nothing *motivating* that conflict. However, without war, there’s just no reason for like 90% of Necron society to exist. They’re all warriors, for the most part. I love when 40K fiction moves away from the tabletop, but there’s nothing like that even hinted at in the Necron book.

Von
I can dig that as a legitimate objection.
Without the GrimDark, they’re nothing.

Lexington
Right.
It actually reminded me of this great article Aaron Diaz wrote about comics-making.

Von
Although I’d argue that a species without macro-factors is quite an interesting sci-fi concept.
What do you do if you’re the species who has everything?

Lexington
Indeed.
I don’t think it’d slot well into 40K, but it’s an idea that’s sort of applied in John Scalzi’s “Old Man’s War” books.

Von
That article is the boss, by the way – I think it’s very rare that we notice, say, cinematography, unless it’s either really good or egregiously bad, i.e. if it’s in some way distinguishable from experience – that’s assuming a realist bit of cine-text, obviously.

Lexington
Indeed. I love Diaz’ work like crazy.
See how I think it applies to this situation?

Von
Again, a qualified yes.
I think you’re arguing that there needs to be *some* kind of macro-factor, so that even the Necrons who aren’t motivated by it feel like part of the overall Necrondom, as it were. Because if they aren’t, you notice the absence of something that’s present everywhere else. Like, if they still had ‘kill ‘em all’ as the default setting, the characters who prefer ‘do science on ‘em’ or ‘conquer ‘em all’ would be more distinct and interesting, and the others would have some meaningful reason for being what they are.

Lexington
Indeed. To some extent, it’s also that while the non-fightin’ part of 40K isn’t touched on much, we at least know it exists. We see hints. It’s around. That gives the universe depth. For the Necrons, it’s never touched on, and as far as we’re led to believe, it literally doesn’t exists. What you see on the tabletop is literally what you get, for their society.

Von
Because when they’re not on the tabletop, they’re plugged in back in the tomb. Fast asleep. Waiting for the next fight.

Lexington
Which, since they lack any general reason to *be* on that tabletop, feels very strange and ill-conceived. All of 40K’s just an excuse to put models on a table and roll dice, but the Necrons feel like a much flimsier one.

Von
I quite like that as a metaphor for the models…

Anyway, I still think there are issues here that we didn’t quite get around to in our discussion of les affaires necronique, and those are the matters of scale and textuality.  The macro-needs that Lex is on about operate on a species-wide or faction-wide scale, and I think there’s a distinction between what a species needs (survive and reproduce, in essence) and what a faction needs.  Factions are armies, or nations, or empires – and factions are, I think, too easily equated with species when we think about 40K. The Imperium and the Eldar notwithstanding, everything is confined to a single book, and that single book creates a sort of totality to the faction.

All Orks are in one book, therefore all Orks are the same, wanting the same things, needing the same things. No. On a faction scale, a given Ork tribe or clan or warband wants something specific. They might be strapped for a given resource, they might want to move to a new planet, they might want to start a fight so the Nobz don’t start getting ambitious, whatever. The only needs common to every Ork everywhere are the need to survive, reproduce and (since they’re Orks) fight stuff. That’s all that exists on the very grandest of macro-scales, and everything else – every other reason for YOUR Ork army to be fighting the battles that it’s fighting – operates further down.

Considering Necrons on that same species level: what do they need? They can be attacked, presumably defeated, their secrets plundered and their tombs sealed, so survival is a concern for them (although the concern that I had about BILLIONS OF NECRONS comes up here again). They don’t reproduce, admittedly, so Lex isn’t wrong by any means, they do have less uniting factors as a species. Left to their own devices, they could just continue existing, fighting off any attackers but otherwise minding their own Necron business.

They don’t, though, because when you move down to the faction level, you’re dealing with individual dynasties, with motivations of their own that derive from the situation they’re in. Motivations like territory and power and resources are things needed in order to meet the species’ macro-need (survive) which operate at the factional level (because they’re held, or withheld, by other dynasties or factions from other species).

The Necrons are just like everyone else at the level where it matters. They’re a species with one shared need, but no credible sentient species acts as one, or shares anything but the most basic goals (c.f. the entire span of human history). We expect non-humans to be different. In the specifically GW case, I think that’s because they have one book apiece and that creates a false expectation of totality. In the broader case, in which GW’s work is embedded, there’s a whole lot of Planet of Hats nonsense to deal with: there’s a whole world of genre fiction out there which fails to draw distinctions between species and faction for anything that isn’t human and represents the alien, the Other, as a monolith, denying it the plurality of cultures and histories and agendas that makes our species worth writing about.

GW have avoided that with the Necrons, creating them in such a way that plurality is the only justification for doing anything with them at all. Better yet, they’ve obliged the thinking player to generate plurality by giving their own personal Necrons some reason to venture out of the tombs in order to play the game. From that, we can think backwards, define what our Necrons do when they’re not fighting for that agenda.

Necron society, and Necron motivation, emerge backward from the objectives we define for our tabletop Necrons. Now, you can’t read further back to a totality of Necron society that applies to the whole species from that, true – but I’ll argue until I’m blue in the face that no fictional society that’s worth exploring can be reduced back to any species-wide motive more complex than ‘survival’.  So there.