RIP Warhammer

Today I picked up a copy of Miniature Wargames from W H Smiths (been I long time since I purchased a copy) and found we'd (the forum and various blog pages discussing Oldhammer) made it into their pages following the demise of WFB. The article was a bit general in its nature but on the whole painted us in a fair light.

http://miniaturewargames.co.uk/?p=451

Anybody else notice anything in the general wargames press?

Paul / Golgfag1

Tiberius.":kmnpckxk said:

Count Von Bruno":kmnpckxk said:

It took me about 20 years to get an army painted and play actual games, as long as you let me use my beloved tin soldiers I don't care *too much* about what game we play...that's my take.

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That's the main problem with WHFB, if you wanted to start for the first time at the beginning of 8th you likely would have a £500 bill for the books and model requirements to 2000pts and about 9 months to get through painting them. AoS you can play with whatever you have, 60 models seems reasonable.
I brought together a reasonable 2500pts for 2nd ed 40k and was thinking of how long it would take to paint them.... then it occurred to me the amount of Marines I have for the whole army is the same number for one unit of 6th Ed Skellies.

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Kids these days! It’s the same with houses they want to move straight into the perfect 4 bed house with no work rather than buy a dump the wrong side of town and do it up. When I started as a 13 year old with 3rd a decent sized game was 3000pts. That’s probably 120 miniatures minimum, more with Orcs and goblins or other horde armies. It took me an age to collect a full army let alone paint it same for my friends. But we did, we painted to a basic standard, we used stand ins, sometimes we used card counters. It doesn't have to look perfect. Changing a mass battle system into a skirmish game is just a symptom of our age. Immediate gratification or don't bother appeasr to be the mantra, not do your best and build to something worthwhile, enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

When I were a lad...


The closest GW was about forty minutes' drive away and none of our little group was old enough to drive. The 'club' took about one trip every other month to a genuine GW store. The rest of the time our figures were bought from a tiny local toy shop which had a very small selection of blister packs. So we'd play 3rd Ed and 4th ed with 'allied' mixtures of whatever models we liked the look of and could afford from the toy shop, waving points values for the most part and largely playing warband and skirmish sized games. I think the largest battle I ever played was about 20 skeletons with a necromancer and a chariot against 15 dwarf warriors and the anvil of doom!

Erny":8v37amdx said:

When I started as a 13 year old with 3rd a decent sized game was 3000pts. That’s probably 120 miniatures minimum, more with Orcs and goblins or other horde armies. It took me an age to collect a full army let alone paint it same for my friends.

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This is a pet peeve of mine with 3rd edition, or at least a post-Warhammer Armies peeve.

In my young day (not far before yours by the sound of it) we learnt from scenarios in the Journal and White Dwarf, things like Dolgan Raiders (a shade under 900 points for the Raider side), Blood on the Snow (1450 to 1600-ish points) and Vengeance of the Lichemaster (900 to 1100-ish points). Forenrond's Last Stand has the elves with a shade over 1450 points, and the orcs a shade under.

When WA came out we all suddenly aspired to 3000 points it seems, and of course White Dwarf would happily promote large armies at you, but I also remember the Marauder armies offers which I'm vague on the details on but I seem to think being 2 or 3 sizes, from warband up to army.

I'm too much of a kid in a sweetshop now to concentrate on one force up to 3000 points, I'd much rather have a smaller orc force, and a couple of different chaos forces, plus some dwarves and some skaven and ... So I'm happy to find gamers who want to do skirmishes, or at least smaller encounters, as the 3000 pointers to me are overpowered and slower versions of these it seems...

Erny":8v37amdx said:

But we did, we painted to a basic standard, we used stand ins, sometimes we used card counters. It doesn't have to look perfect. Changing a mass battle system into a skirmish game is just a symptom of our age. Immediate gratification or don't bother appeasr to be the mantra, not do your best and build to something worthwhile, enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

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I agree with all of this, except to me Warhammer isn't a mass battle system, it's a large skirmish game (even at 3000 points that's quite a small battle). For massed battles you want Hordes of the Things or something else element-based.

Sorry, peeve over...

Paul / Grumdril

Golgfag1":l4r9aov2 said:

Anybody else notice anything in the general wargames press?

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There was brief mention in Tabletop Games review of AoS that mentioned Warhammer was 30 years old, "eight edition" (sic) was the last, and fourth the first to contain plastic figures, but not much else.

Small-scale skirmishes (10-40 figures aside) dominate the published scenarios, throughout 1st and 2nd edition (including 40k:RT) - there are some exceptions - the magnificent Sven has about a million Slann and Minas Tirith has large number of orcs IIRC. We always played skirmish level BiTD, used tokens from the scenarios and joined forces for larger battles.

I only ever recall playing WFB once when I was a teen in the early nineties (it would have been the time of 3rd edition). The minis were borrowed from a friend and we played using sheets and books. I don't even remember which armies we used.

(I only got back into wargaming two years back and even then it was into 40K - I still didn't acquire the patience to paint up an undead force in its entirety)

In principle, it is nice to have the journey of collecting a 3000 point but when I was that age I had a maximum of 10 pounds pocket money a week which would have netted two blisters if I had spent it on nothing else at all. A 3000 point force would have been a very long way off for me, no matter the dedication my teen mind would have needed to paint them all. I was enraptured by the world and the imagination and the humour of GW at the time. I remember spending hours pouring over Lost and the Damned and seeing which daemonic pantheons could be summoned into existence with my dice rolls.

I think mass army building is primarily a grown ups game. And I don't have any objections to make it easier to play by reducing the model count. It wasn't that ever drew me in. It's the end of that world and the character of the sculpts I miss.

Zhu Bajie":7i87c078 said:

Small-scale skirmishes (10-40 figures aside) dominate the published scenarios, throughout 1st and 2nd edition (including 40k:RT) - there are some exceptions - the magnificent Sven has about a million Slann and Minas Tirith has large number of orcs IIRC. We always played skirmish level BiTD, used tokens from the scenarios and joined forces for larger battles.

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Million Slann?

Tiberius.":348xoaet said:

That's the main problem with WHFB, if you wanted to start for the first time at the beginning of 8th you likely would have a £500 bill for the books and model requirements to 2000pts and about 9 months to get through painting them. AoS you can play with whatever you have, 60 models seems reasonable.

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This is not true, 3 boxes of perry plastics and "illegal downloads" of scanned rules would be a more sensible place to start.....for under £100


My tzeench army was made from Mighty Empires (£35). I also played alot of Realm of Chaos, so 12 beastmen, a unit of thugs, some wizards, chaos warriors, whatever me and my buddies wanted to make would get thrown in the mix.

AranaszarSzuur":2lkwv5gr said:

Zhu Bajie":2lkwv5gr said:

Small-scale skirmishes (10-40 figures aside) dominate the published scenarios, throughout 1st and 2nd edition (including 40k:RT) - there are some exceptions - the magnificent Sven has about a million Slann and Minas Tirith has large number of orcs IIRC. We always played skirmish level BiTD, used tokens from the scenarios and joined forces for larger battles.

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Million Slann?

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Yes 70 slanns, 150 villagers, 12 berserkers, plus all the named characters, at the times it looked like a million to me too

I have about 6 villagers. Can't imagine anyone having 150. To be fair it suggested using counters.

Scalene":2d723qa7 said:

I have about 6 villagers. Can't imagine anyone having 150. To be fair it suggested using counters.

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tsss tsss tsss, you must play with painted miniatures