Then, I came across the digital copies of the Realm of Chaos books. As discussed earlier, I spent some time creating a Champion of Chaos and generally mucking about with the books. Since then...well.
I've been infatuated with them.
So much so, that I've diverted the large bulk of my model fund in order to buy them:
My digital copy of The Lost and The Damned was a little corrupted, so I wasn't able to see certain sections of it (like the Tzeentch army list), but I was able to get enough from it to take action when it came up on eBay.
The main reason for this sudden infatuation is around my other main objective of this blog: Warhammer 3rd Edition evangelism. I've tried to get Warhammer 3 going, but at the club, most people are more interested in 40K, or trying to get their fantasy armies ready for tournaments. Don't even get me started on why I think that tournaments are single-handedly responsible for everything wrong in wargaming today. In short, interest was low to start with, and now its dwindling. Also, sickness has prevented me going for a few weeks, so ...out of sight, out of mind for them, no doubt.
But, one of the things that really grabbed me is that one can play skirmish games with these rules. A large portion of Realms of Chaos is around the progression of your Chaos Champion and how he and his little retinue develop. What better way to learn the good sense of Warhammer 3, then to play it in small skirmish games, where the various individual little rules come into their own?
Also, I quite like the idea of the Champion and his Retinue being the seed of a Chaos Army - a great way to get painting something that can be played with almost immediately, but can also grow into a beautiful army. A lot of Khorne on those two blogs.
I am sort of interested in a Nurgle army at the moment, mainly because a Nurgle army can include undead units in it and can also make use of the Plague Cart that I've recently acquired. That said, I was very disappointed to note that the format and general quality of The Lost and The Damned (which has the Nurgle and Tzeentch lists in it) was dramatically different to the other 3rd edition books - in fact, it is evidently the predecessor to the current army book format we have been forced to endure since Warhammer 4th edition onwards. I refer to the quality because it seems like various elements and rules that were present in Slaves to Darkness (and relevant to those armies) appear to have just been left out. Also, it looks like The Lost and The Damned is the first book to experience some serious power-creep - the magic items available here run rings around anything available in the other books.
That's got me thinking that I'd rather build an army from the Slaves to Darkness book instead.
So...given that there's so much Khorne going around at the moment, I wonder if I shouldn't look at Slaanesh instead? Now what the hell am I supposed to do with that Juggernaught that's just arrived?
I've been reading your blog for a little while now, but have only decided to comment today.
ReplyDeleteI agree with a few things that you said in this post, like how tournaments bad for the game.
But there are a few points that I disagree with; the first is with the car analogy.
As in all things, when something new comes out into society it gets a certain group of people excited and interested, but then after a time the majority get bored or find something else to satisfy them.
But there are always some people in that initial group that for them that "something new" thing answers all their needs and are left never wanting more & never interested or tempted by the next new shiny thing. The same is true to car people.
Unfortunately for you & people like myself, we fit into the latter category.....satisfied and never wanting the "next new shiny thing" that comes along every other day, but ultimately....with not too many other people to enjoy it with.
I live in Melbourne & am lucky enough to have two close friends that still love WFB 3rd and ROC, but I too have searched in my local gaming club for possible recruits to my cause, but alas....their to busy with 40k or war machine etc etc.
I think it would be great to have an old school club for like minded people like us, but I think its just a pipe dream...just not enough of us around.
The last thing I disagree with is your assessment of "lost and the damned", I think this is the far better of the two volumes because it had been edited and revised to a greater degree than slaves to darkness had.
Slaves is a mess, I actually got the WD issue (107) that had the errata cut-outs that you were to stick in over the offending pages. Trying to make a champion was so confusing that they even explained in the WD how to go about it.
Sure some of the items in lost and the damned might seem too powerful, but these items were for use in the chaos wastes where everything is over the top. These items were never supposed to be used in an army (even though you could technically).
The summary at the back of the book, coupled with the clearer process of making a war and make it (for me at least) a better volume than slaves is.
But don,t get me wrong.....I love them both equally :)
Lastly, I love reading your blog, keep it going for all us old school games out there.
Cheers
Oops, I meant to type "warband", not "war and".....stupid tablet :)
ReplyDeleteDon,t you just love the internet? Just wrote a huge reply, and it disappeared when I tried to publish it :(
ReplyDeleteHi, er... Mr One.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, as always - thanks for following along! Its nice to know that people dawdle through the older stuff from time to time.
Secondly (and this won't mean anything to anyone else) I saw your comments come in and I think the confusion stemmed from the fact that Blogger thought your original comment was spam. No doubt because you used the word 'disagree' :)
And thirdly, I confess - I don't recall the car analogy? I've hunted around a little, but I couldn't find this? Embarrassing, I know, but could you refresh my memory?
Regardless of what the analogy was, I think I get what you're saying. Unfortunately for us, you are quite right - people are taken by the new shiny, shiny and I suppose in the interest of not being 'outcast' - as we players of 3rd edition have become - they move along with the latest. This means they always have games to play, even if the games themselves are not very interesting.
Somewhere, once upon a time, I came across another phrase which I believe has originated in France, or from a french person, or possibly just someone who just likes french food. The phrase was this:
It is better to make love once a week for an hour, than to make love five times a week for three minutes.
...or something like that. Essentially, it is a reference to quality over quantity. The problem these new, shiny, shiny enthusiasts have is that their tendencies are distinctly focussed on the quantity element (I'll get a game every time I go to the club - even it is a carbon copy of the game I played last week).
Where I think the 3rd ed players (or any Oldhammer enthusiasts) position themselves is firmly in the quality bracket. I've only played two games of 3rd edition (Wyemm Seeyay and Koles Lorr) since the turn of the century, but both have been much higher quality games than the drudgery warhammer became for me at the various clubs and versions in between. And I've not touched any dice or a single figure!
I'm still exploring ideas and tools in order to try and unite oldhammer players with each other. The main obstacle appears to be money - there are some good web pages that can do useful things, but they all want money. I have found something that I want to explore (which is free), so watch this space.
As for the RoC books, I see what you're getting at with LatD. I guess my main disappointment with it was its departure from the Warhammer Armies format for the army list. I LOVE the line drawings in Warhammer Armies and StD and I desperately wish we could return to that. In truth, both books are equally poor as regards quality. I think the quality statement regarding LatD was that there was no mention of how one goes about summoning the daemons. In StD, there is a note in the daemonettes entry which indicates how one goes about summoning the things.
Of course, one can use the two books together to work out how it should be, or just make it how you want it to be, because, ultimately, we're all mature adults here. But, I expected more from the 2nd book than I got. I was also disappointed in the power creep. I know that RoC isn't a poster child for fair gaming, but just the little things that came up (like chaos armour being 5+ in the 1st book, and 4+ in the 2nd) felt a little over the top.
The summary tables at the back were quite useful though.
Anyway, that's been a very interesting discussion - thanks for the comment!
Regards
Gaj
Hey Gaj,
ReplyDeleteI know what happened with regards to the car analogy. I think I started looking at previous post "yeah yeah" and kept reading down into the next post without realising that it was a seperate post.
Also, I wrote this on my wife tablet last night & then the internet decided to eat it all up. I'm happy that it actually reappeared.
Thanks.