Yes, Aos is here to discuss!

Love a good discussion so I am going to start my rant on AoS! First start with the disclaimer that I haven’t play tested any of the rules and this text is purely based on first opinions on the rules text as they came from GW.

Age of Sigmar, everywhere we read the AoS abbreviation! It is about a new age! It is here now for some days, but what is it? How do we see it? How does the gaming community sees this? One thing is for sure it is in for a lot of discussion! 

Let’s split this post up in a couple of chapters to go through it methodically. 

AoS vs. 9th

To start of with the fact it is called AoS and not 9th is quite a big thing. The free 4 page ruleset is in fact not the rumoured 9th edition. Actually it is something completely new. Some say it is a ruleset that should be used in store to let people playtest the game. Others say it is only there to keep the gamers somewhat busy while Games Workshop focusses on its main focus area: making miniatures. With the rule set and the scrolls there is a game system and that is it. It requires very little maintenance no new army books to maintain and publish, no big rule sets to test. All in all this should save GW a lot of time and resources they can now put into miniature making. At least that is what I think their philosophy is. 

With the fact there is now AoS, there is still the possibility to bring out 9th in the end. If this trial with AoS really backfires, there is always a possibility of bringing out the next rule set and continue on the old ways :)

Free “rules” and scrolls

Yes indeed the rules are free to donwload. A nice set of pdfs can be found and used. A simple rule set that fits on 4 pages. Great to start a quick game and let the game be quick. The scrolls contain a set of characteristics for the different units and characters and we are go! Some funny gimmicks in the special rules that involve actual bribery and such. Funny but in the end these things will go unused when playing a lot of games. And this is where I think this simple rule set goes wrong. It is too simple. I will not play a simple rule set I get to know in a game or two and then use the rest of the year. The challenge of discovering new combo’s interesting loopholes, fun opposing rules to discuss is just not there. I think when playing the set it will bore quickly and then what. Play only small games and buy new miniatures to use other rules from other scrolls? Aha! There we might have a catch. This is what GW wants of course. We must buy all the miniatures! Not to play mega battles with, but only a couple of small skirmish games and then on to the next to paint new models. Since I like painting models and the need for painting hordes of the same models is not there any more, this is actually a good development. On the other hand it is almost as if we are playing a throw-away game or army: Disposable armies ! Will it come to that?! :)

Playability of the set

I have to say that I haven’t played the rule set for now. I’ve read it of course and will play it in the near future. For now is my main comment: where are the points per unit?! I get the fact that we have to discuss among ourselves what to play against each other. But still how is that to work out? I go to my friends house with a set of mini’s in my case. He only has painted a model or 10. That is what we are going to field? That is highly unbalanced. Maybe I should field a model of 10 as well, but how do I know if my 10 knights shape up to 10 storm vermin? OK, maybe we should have a look at the total wounds then? hmmmm, but now we are somehow creating an alternative expansion of the base rule set. Our house rules, maybe for our gaming club? All clubs will do the same and an explosion of house rules will come. Is that what GW wants. A crowd-creation of rules. 

Already rules as wound counts or all kinds of stat multiplication formulas are starting to pop up. Will it all work, only time will tell :)

Tournaments then?

This seems a bit difficult to do but might be very simple as well. Why this double feeling. On one side a tournament with a good rule set and comp calculation makes a fair organised event. But when looking at all the comp rules out there and all the discussion about them it is as if they were discussing AoS all along!

So a simple rule set and some scrolls, maybe a simple formula calculating army sizes and we are there! 

AoS might also help in organising more “friendly”  tournaments. Maybe even more small scale events and stuff. I can imagine with the” loose”  set of rules a really competitive event isn’t the way to go any more. For me being a more fluffy gamer this bodes well for coming tournaments. 

Maybe I’ll go that road myself and organise one! Let’s go crazy!

The new models

What can we say. More and more models are being released. The base set containing the stormcast eternals and Khorne models is somewhat…ahem…interesting? At first glance it isn’ my cup of tea. I was almost shouting to my fellow gamers how bad a model GW has put out there. On second thought and upon watching painting videos of the stormcast eternals being painted I am having those second thoughts. From the painting videos I get the feeling it isn’t as bad after all. Let’s see how it goes and where it will lead us :

Conclusion

Let’s finish up and see what the conclusion for me is here. New rule set, lot’s of discussion; and this is actually what I like about the wargaming hobby. If there is a new game out there (Frostgrave just being delivered at my front door) or new models to look at, it is great to discuss it with your fellow gamers and have a nice beer and possibly a game on the side!

I’m not buying the stuff as just yet, but will plan to play test the rules. Actually I have a set of dark elves lying about. This might be the time to paint a couple of them, take scroll and set up a small army to test the rules.

We had a campaign going with Chaos armies, this might just be as fun to do!

Dipping Ottomans

(Disclaimer: This article has nothing to do with any financial (other than my own wallet) crisis in Greece nor any current event or state of affairs concerning Turkey at all. )

Last weeks I started paiting some miniatures that were hidden in the closet for quite some time. Every year this idle collection grows a little due to purchases made a Crisis, but now the time has come to at least give some a bit of color.

Years ago the idea popped up to start playing medieval battles and to keep the cost manageable, to do this in a smal(ler) scale. At Crisis the Kallistra stand turned out to be a treasure chest filled with nice figures that fitted this idea and some blisters were purchased. A ritual was born, and every year some blisters were added, but to no further action.

But now, despite lots of other 'parallel' projects (Adding more stuff to my FoW late and mid-war armies, painting some Warhammer models (perhaps this one could be cancelled now the Age of Sigmar has arrived), starting a Frostgrave warband, building an early war (but which) FoW army, learning to use the airbrush, starting playing X-wing, euhmmm. ) my Ottoman models made it all of sudden on to the painting table.

Because of my frustratingly growing backlog I decided to try out a quick and dirty method to paint these small men and I'm very pleased with the way they turned out! The photographs give an indication of the result, which for my taste/abilities is rather good and achieved within a limited amount of time.

Kallistra Medieval Ottoman Standard Bearer (Command blister)

So here's my recipe, just in case (Note: All paintwork was very very basic, more or less like a colourbook, filling the surfaces..)

- white (GW) basecoat
- black or brown (GW) wash (whose names I cannot recall and are due to change anyway...)
- painted flesh parts
- painted clothes/armour
- painted some details (arms, shoes, etc.)
- painted the bases
- some cleaning up
- adding the wonder stuff: DIPPING the miniature with Quickshade

Post-dip

Pre-dip

Small report of a small battle

A few days ago I played a Flames of War battle against Lex, a new found opponent. Lex is a long time wargamer who just started playing FoW; picking me as a trainer won't help off course, but results in very interesting battles :-)
His friend Guus showed up to watch and was so kind to take some pictures. So all pictures courtesy of Guus ©.

In our preparation of a tournament that will take place at Table Top Kingdom, we played late war lists. Lex took a British, excuse me, Scottish infantry list. My list was a German tank army from the Desperate Measures book, shown in the table. Playing trained panzer instead of the usual veteran waffen ss infantry would require a new approach.

We decide to play the 'hasty attack' scenario. Half of my opponents force would be in reserve at the start of the game. Lex decided to place all his anti tank guns and infantry on the board, and place his mortars, hmg's and M10's in reserve. Having the M10's in reserve was a bit dubious (and Lex had meant them to be in ambush), on the other hand they were save there for any long range gunnery.

The battlefield (photograph on the left, Lex force was deployed on the left side of this picture) looked very very nice with a small village half way between the forces at my right flank. Through the village a road stretched across the full width, as a border between the two parties. On the left of the village some bushes were located on either side of the road.

Trying to make use of the absence of half my opponents units (still in reserver), I rushed all units forward (with the exception for the nebelwerfers). Lex' anti tank guns tried to respond to this, but were hindered by the woods on his side. Further more it turned out that despite having quite a few anti tank assets in number, they lacked the power of hurting the panzers at lange range. (And that's not even taken into account Lex's dice rolls...).

The first wave of attack took place on my left flank. The StuG's went forward, hiding behind a little wood. The Panzer IV's joined the Panthers and also went forward, but a little more cautiously. My infantry tried to keep up and at the same time stay out of sight of the Scots.

Lex' response came in the form of the arrival of the M10's, who came in from reserve, ready to kill off my StuG's (a completely overlooked the possibility of the immediate arrival of reserves). However, both M10 and StuG crews turned out to be hopeless gunners and would shoot each other for two round without any result other than bailing a crew. In the long run I was very lucky on that flank, when my StuG's blew up the M10's just before a unit of Scot infantry failed their tank terror test. The picture shows Lex' forces on this side of the battle (with a poor burning StuG hidden in). After driving off my attack on this flank, his troops pushed forward through the woods.

At the right flank my Panthers supported by the grenadiers managed to rush through the village without losses. The second in command Panzer IV was blown up and the first in command almost suffered the same fate, being bailed. In the last turn the Panthers assaulted the unit guarding the second objective on the right flank and managed to wipe them out. As there were no way for the Scots  to challenge this objective, the Germans won this battle.

As for the aftermath... It was a very nice and hectic game, played in some very nice scenery. The lack of 'big guns' in Lex' list gave me the opportunity to maneuver freely with my tanks. Having a 'stormtrooper' move' boosted this even further. I was very very lucky when the M10's showed up and managed to miss all shots.

This panzer list does not leave much room for compensation of losses. The Panthers and also the modest Nebelwerfers performed outstanding. The Nebels pinned the anti tank guns almost continually through the game (and at the same time Lex failed to unpin them almost every time..).

Time for a rematch! ;-)

(Ook gepubliceerd op NLFoW)