Elves and dwarves

Here you have some troops arriving fresh from the painting table. Twelve elven spearmen and 8 dwarf warriors. Lots more coming up!

Acá tenemos algunas tropas recién salidas de la mesa de pintura. Doce lanceros elfos y 8 guerreros enanos. Y mucho más próximamente.

Next up, some hard hitting troops. Six orcs and 8 dwarves, all with 2 handed weapons, and an orc captain and standard bearer conversions.

Para la próxima tenemos algunas tropas que pegan duro. Seis orcos y 8 enanos, todos con armas a dos manos, y unas conversiones de capitán y estandarte para los orcos.

 

Sad revisit.

I’ve played Warhammer Fantasy before. In fact, I started with 5th edition, played all through 6th, which was a very good experience, and left a few months before 7th reached the shelves.

Just out of curiosity I decided to revisit the game, so I gave the “new” rulebook a look (it’s a fact that a new edition is just around the corner). What a strange experience.

There are minor tweaks and redesign, but most of the changes I see are like band-aids. Trying to patch the game from strange interpretations from the past. Looking at it with fresh eyes, it seems like a very (I mean VERY) outdated game. It’s gotten to a point where there’s no trace of elegance, where rules clash and collide making a very complex game but in a bad way. Feels like the old Middle-earth Roleplaying Game based on Runequest. It’s clunky, heavy, a total mess.

I’ve read the also “new” 40K edition, and loved lots of the redesign they did. That’s only on the basic rulebook though, since the actual game is still played alone, on the army lists front with the special rules and points, rather than on the tabletop.

Fantasy however has covered holes all over. That’s the way it felt reading it (and noticing the slight changes from 6th). I also read that some army books are coming out with the new edition in mind, and the simple fact that an army book can be compatible with the actual game until the next one comes out says that there won’t be any real redesign.

I love the Warhammer world, I like the figures and the armies. But the game is just like a rusty set of gears, making lots of noise and going slow. I was considering getting into it again, even just to play some warband style games with my old armies, but it just feels wrong.

Guess I’m a spoiled brat now, playing GW’s masterpiece (LotR SBG), some amazing THW’s games and hopefully the War of the Ring game that has collected so much praise soon.

Still, I wish both Warhammer and 40K had a real redesign. It is time to get them to the next level somehow, update them.

ES:

He jugado Warhammer Fantasy. De hecho, empecé con 5ta edición, jugué toda la 6ta y me encantó, y dejé unos meses antes de que apareciera la 7ma.

Solo por curiosidad decidí revisitar el juego, así que le pegué una leída al “nuevo” reglamento (ya no tan nuevo, sobre todo con los rumores de la nueva edición a punto de llegar). Y fue una experiencia rara.

Hay cambios sutiles y menores, pero la mayoría parecen parches, curitas sobre las heridad. Parece que todos los esfuerzos fueron a “reparar” el juego debido a las estúpidas interpretaciones de las reglas que se hicieron en el pasado. Leyéndolo con nuevos ojos, parece un juego muy muy antiguo. Ya no queda nada de elegancia, y las reglas chocan y se amontonan con tontas excepciones, creando un juego complejo, pero de mala manera. Se siente como el viejo MERP. Torpe, pesado, un quilombo.

Ya he leído el “nuevo” 40K también, y me encantaron muchos de los rediseños que hicieron. Aunque eso se aplica solo al manual básico, ya que el juego sigue jugándose en solitario, al armar las listas de ejército con los puntos y las reglas especiales, en lugar de en la mesa de juego.

Pero Fantasy parece una rueda recauchutada. Así se sintió al leerlo y notar los pequeños cambios con respecto a 6ta. Leí por ahí que algunos libros de ejército están por salir con la nueva edición en mente, y si estos libros son compatibles con esta edición hasta que salga la nueva, significa que no va a haber ningún resideño real de las reglas.

Me encanta el mundo de Warhammer. Me gustan las figuras y los ejércitos. Pero el juego se siente como un montón de engranajes oxidados. Ruidosos y lentos. Todavía me causa gracia cuando los fanáticos consideran que es un juego de gran táctica y estrategia comparado con otros. Por un momento consideré volver a Fantasy, aunque sea para jugar warbands con mis antiguos ejércitos, pero realmente se siente feo.

Supongo que soy un malcriado ahora, jugando el mejor juego de GW (LotR), algunos excelentes juegos de THW y pronto el alabado War of the Ring.

Pero realmente me gustaría que tanto Fantasy como 40K tuvieran un verdadero rediseño de sus mecánicas. Es hora de modernizarlos definitivamente.

 

Striders and Lurtzs.

Here you have some Aragorn models, and a couple of Lurtz variants. I like painting characters in batches, so they all look like the same guy in the end.

Next up, finally some troops! A dozen elf spearmen, and 8 dwarf warriors.

 

Fun stuff.

Been playing some Isildur’s Bane recently. So much fun. Of course, most of the credit goes to the amazing original game, but the solo hack creates a very interesting game.

It’s far from total chaos, yet really detaches you from favoring any force. And best of all, let’s you put nicely painted toys on the table whenever you feel like it.

 

Charge!

Here you have them, the riders of Middle-earth. Finally leaving the painting table and into the gaming board. Also, the last warriors of Minas Tirith from The Two Towers set.

Theoden, Eomer, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and two warg riders. The warriors fight on foot.

Next up, five more Aragorns (why? would you have any less?) and two different Lurtz models.

 

Art!

This is truly art.

Found in Steve´s blog. Go check the wonderful pictures now.

Oh yeah, figures in the project sidebar coming up. I swear.

 

Isildur´s Bane

I recently finished the first draft of Isildur´s Bane, my LotR SBG hack to play solitaire. I´m releasing this plain text version with the hopes of receiving some feedback, be it playtesting or just notes on typos and grammar. Remember English is not my native tongue, but I wrote the game this way to appeal to the most people for the time being.

If you are interested, download it here.

Contact information in the Designer´s notes. And of course, all feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

Skirmish in Osgiliath

This scenario is the first one from the RotK rulebook. It´s a skirmish in the ruins of Osgiliath. It´s made to be played with the figures that come in the boxed game, but I´ve yet to paint the 24 orcs, so we changed the Evil forces as per a points match guidelines.

The forces on the Good side were 24 warriors of Minas Tirith (8 spear and shield, 8 archers, 8 sword and shield). On the Evil side, we used 175 points of troops (since the Minas Tirith warriors added up to 200 points exactly) and thus were 10 orcs (5 archers, 3 sword and shield, 2 double-handed weapons), 2 uruk-hai berserkers, and 5 uruk-hai with pikes. This gave the Evil player some interesting tactical options.

The problem here was that the victory conditions for this scenario depended on numbers of figures. First side to kill 50% of the opponent´s troops would win. This meant the Evil player had to kill 12 figures, while the Good side only 9.

The game was played twice, changing sides, and thankfully it was proven that even though the number of figures was not equal, the scenario was well balanced.

Game 1

The first game I played the Good side. The deployment had my troops split, a scout party near the orc deployment zone and reserves coming from the other side of the table. The only thing even close to a battle plan I had was to kill orcs as fast a possible. Try to shoot them down, avoiding the hard-hitting uruks, and hopefully getting 9 out of 10 fast before Gabriel realized he could destroy me with the pikes and berserkers.

Troops coming out of their boxes, deployment zones marked with dice, and final deployment. First moves were “catch the orc”. Trying to kill as many low defence orcs as possible.

The troops were very spread, and little combats were taking place. He was pretty afraid of my lousy shooting, which as usual did almost no harm. My plan worked, so I started killing orcs first. After a few shots I went in close, blocking the uruks with the least warriors and using all my strength on the lousy orcs.

Reserves were running to the fight, while I ran around his uruks, fightint as many orc as I saw.

It turned out well, and I even got to kill an uruk by bow fire. I lost very few figures. It really looked like it was an easy scenario for the forces of Good.

Finally managed to kill the orcs I needed. Almost all the uruk-hai survived the battle, as they were too tough to waste any efforts on them.

Game 2

After a short coffee break, we came back to the table, thinking about what we just learned from the battle. I rapidly accepted the fact that bow fire was useless, and now even more that I was going to play with the orcs. Gabriel didn´t believe that from the start, so he started slow, but finally accepted it too.

My plan this time was to hit fast and hard on the scouts. They were 8 figures, far away from the reinforcements, so if I could kill them fast then I would just need to kill 4 more. Hopefully some archers, since they were less armored.

Same deployment zones. This time deployment of troops was a bit more ordered. Gabriel created small units, and I did too thinking of getting the most effective combinations of pikes, 2 handed weapons and berserkers. I put my orc archers in the middle, giving the impression that I was really interested in shooting. This worked because the main reserves went straight to them while I tried to slaughter the scouts on the sides. The Evil side deploys after all Good models are on the table, and with this battle plan in mind, it was a very big advantage.

This time, deployment was clearer. Small units for his Good troops, and tiny “killer teams” for me near his scouts.

I started my crazy charge against the scouts, while the Good guys braced for impact and the reserve ran like hell for their comrades. Gabriel understood my plan early on and started shielding, waiting for the reserves.

Orcs and uruks choosing their charges, shielding themselves from bow fire.

I kept hitting really hard, but the dice were mocking me. When I had a combat with 4 or 5 dice against the 2 of the shielded figure, I did nothing. But if an orc archer was charged, he usually won the combat! Though getting a 6 to wound the warriors with shield was crazy and it was taking me much more time than anticipated.

Orc archers didn´t kill a thing, but had his reserves running straight into them.

Plan didn´t change, except that I had a small detachment going for the archers. When they arrived some of them were being shot down so I got behind the main reserve unit that was already closing in on my futile slaughter attempts. Gabriel had them running but somehow split them up, which was good having a couple of uruks on their backs.

Some of the fights I picked were deadly, and still the bastards kept surviving behind the shields. Also see the small detachment I had running towards the weaker archers.

Dice kept mocking me and I was getting very nervous. I got to pick the fights, won initiative for about 4 turns in a row, and just could not get my, supposedly easy, 8 kills in time. It was driving me crazy.

Some of the last turns trying to kill the scouts, before the reserves started to arrive.

I had to use the archers to block the reserves advance, but I couldn´t just sacrifice figures. He could´ve won in no time that way. I was killing, at most, 1 figures per turn. It was slow and painful, and even some of the really slow Good archers were catching up into the melee.

Reserves arrive, slowly, but I was still not completing my mission. Now the orcs were going to start falling.

I was finally able to get my kills, but my orcs were already falling like flies by that time. It was really insane how I could not kill those stubborn men, hiding behind their shields.

Finally made the 12 kills before the wrath of Gondor got a chance to pick fights and kill orcs.

This is the first time we used different troops than those specified in a scenario, and thankfully also the first time different sides win it. Beyond the fact that I won both games, it means that the scenario is very well balanced even when messing with the actual number of troops. Another reason that joins the thousands that this game is truly amazing.

 

Going underground.

I think it´s pretty clear where I´m going this summer…

PS: Yes, I am in the southern hemisphere. And yes, I´m already building some amazing scenery.

 

Dwarves of high caliber.

Here you have them. Did I mention how much fun it is to paint LotR dwarves?

Here we have a Gimli, a Gimli, another Gimli, and yes, Gimli. Also a couple of dwarf kings, two dwarf captains, Murin, Drar, Durin, Mardin, Dain Ironfoot, and my second Vault Warden team.

Next up we have 8 spearmen of Minas Tirith and some horsemen which include Eomer, Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas and (yes, once again) Gimli. Oh, and my first two warg riders!