Wood Elves Army Showcase

Here is the start of what I hope to be a regular series showcasing my completed armies.

First up is the flavour of the month, wood elves.

Unlike a lot of my armies, my wood elves only feature one non GW miniature being the excellent ultra forge tree woman.  I picked this army up on eBay as a whole a few years ago when a new book was not even being talked about and have only had to purchase a few extras along the way.

I remain a huge fan of the metal eternal guard along whom I will need to purchase some shields for under the new wood elves book.  I am keen for some extra way watchers which I will convert using the archer bodies similar to the way-watcher hero which is below.

The army has an autumn theme and was painted using GW paints and then dipped using army painter medium shade.  The eternal guard were deliberately painted darker to reflect their solemn task of protecting the lord of the army.  They came out a little darker than I wanted due to the army painter dip being exposed to too much air which thickened it.  When I have time they will be stripped and repainted along with the wardancer hero and muso who suffered the same fate.

Overall I am extremely happy with the army and the display board I threw together pretty quickly before a tournament a few years back.

I have not used them under the new rules which I hope to remedy over the next few months.

Lord/ hero on great stag

2 spell weavers

Lord/ hero with great weapon

Bsb

Way watcher hero 

6 way watchers

18 wardancers plus hero

31 eternal guard

5 wild riders 

5 glade riders

39 glade guard

4 tree kin

Tree woman 

22 dryads

2 eagles

Excellent article from the dice odyssey

This is an excellent piece from the dice odyssey.  Check out the blog: http://thediceodyssey.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/the-rumour-conundrum.html

The Rumour Conundrum

According to the rumours we should expect WHFB 9th Edition in September, or we should expect it to be discontinued in December, or we should expect it to be replaced by a Mordhiem like skirmish game, or we should expect 9th edition in 2015. All of the above are rumours i have heard regarding the future of WHFB. From the outset i want to make clear that i think it highly likely that WHFB will get a 9th edition and find it highly unlikely that WHFB will be disconnected. I believe WHFB is in fact growing, its player base swelling with every new army book and GW would have to be declared insane if they dropped it. The point of this post is to address several issues all at once. Firstly i want to take a look at the state of rumours about GW's release schedule, why are there so many rumours about the same thing and how can we possibly tell a false rumour from a true one. Then i want to address the rumours/view that WHFB is a game system in decline, that its player base is dwindling and try to show that this is not the case. Finally i want to talk about 9th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles, what i hope to see i the new edition and what i think is likely to be in it. So grab a mug of your favourite hot beverage, sit back and read on.

Dont let its age deceive you, its not dead yet.

I feel truly sorry for anyone trying to start a GW news website. Inevitability the "News" will become rumours. This is because GW isn't in the habit of making its release schedule public out of fear that other companies will design models for races they are releasing. And so people become desperate for news, we all want to know when our armies will be redone and what to expect rules wise, this is a perfectly normal urge that anyone who plays any War game will feel. The problem is that in the news vacuum people will either make up rumours to pass onto the news sites, or they believe any scrap of news they hear. The biggest sign of this is when people report news from an anonymous source who they claim is reliable, only for it to turn out that the source was wrong. The example that springs to mind was a old post on a news site about 7th edition Empire 

Ulric is back on the menu.
Teutogen Guard are in. 
Religion / the gods are more prominent. 
Theres also a sphere of influence so Sigmarites will not be affected by Priests of Ulric and Ulricans wont be affected by sigmaric priests...etc. Different gods priests have different abilities. Ulric are ‘frothing loonies’ and Morr focus on undead. Priests can impact on a units abilities when they join them. 
There is a new focus on Morr. Priests of Morr, Knights of Morr, Garden of Morr, etc.

Clearly that source was very wrong but any Empire player reading that couldn't help but be excited at the prospect. So how do us, as fans of these armies, tell a false rumour from a true one? Well what happens now is, due to constantly leaked images from White Dwarf, we know what Army will be released one week before GW announces it so if you only pay attention to rumours that appear in the one week prior bubble you will be able to avoid being disappointed by false rumours, mostly. The other way would be to not invest too much hope or energy in any rumour, and just wait until GW announces the army.

A puzzling popular rumour that is currently running around is that WHFB will be discontinued at some point this year. This rumour is fulled, i think, by the view that WHFB is a dying game system and isn't making GW as much money as they want it too. Its player base is shrinking, the army releases aren't drawing in the sales ad soon GW will axe it. Needless to say i reject such rumours. If you ask someone who tells you this why they think this is true eventually you will find the reason why they hold this view boils down to personal experience and anecdotal evidence, in other words "Well in my club there aren't many WHFB players". Anyone who has studied debates, or who has debated before will know that arguments from personnel experience are weak. For example Person A claims that Medical Drug X makes him feel ill so it must be bad, but Person B says that he took Medical Drug X and felt fine? So whose argument from person experience should we believe? The answer is that you shouldn't believe either argument but instead look at the hard evidence and thats where the debate about WHFB hits a snag. Both the people who claim that WHFB is dying, and those who claim that is isn't, both have no hard evidence because none is available. What both sides would need is the sales figures for WHFB in a time where is was popular (say 6th/7th edition) and now to draw any sort of concrete conclusion.

Arguments from personal experience make even orcs facepalm

So where does that leave the debate? Well it means that the arguments have to be based on personal experience as its all we have. Unsurprisingly, to anyone who knows me or reads this blog regularly, i do not think that WHFB is dying and i think that is is growing, perhaps more slowly thank Wh40k but growing none the less. There are two main reasons why people think WHFB is dying, so lets examine these two points and refute them.

1. The WHFB section of (insert forum name here) is so much more quite than the Wh40k section. This is quite a common point brought up in these debates and it may well be true, the WHFB section of these forums may well be less active than the Wh40k one but to go from that to "WHFB is dying" is a huge leap. To counter this i present the example of the Wargaming club i attend. In my club there are 10 WHFB players and only one of them (that i know of) posts on forums. Now i have a theory as to why this is the case. I think the reason why WHFB players don't go on forums as much as Wh40k players is because they simply don't have the time/desire to do so where as Wh40k players do want to go and post on forums. I am not sure why but that seems to be the case but regardless less people kn the WHFB section of a forum doesn't mean that WHFB is dying.
2. There are less WHFB players in my club than Wh40k players, and the number of WHFB player is shrinking. My instant reply to this is "Well in my club the number of WHFB is growing". The problem with this argument is that i can go out onto the web and find a great number of people who will tell you that, like my club. WHFB is growing and getting more players, so who do we believe?

At the end of the day, in a debate that lacks hard evidence, you should believe whom ever you think has made the best case.  Until we see sales figures for WHFB products over a long period of time we wont know for certain if WHFB is dying or if GW will axe it. But why do i think that WHFB isn't dying and that GW wont drop it? Well for the firstly i don't know that WHFB isn't dying, i suspect that it isnt but i wont know until i see those figures. Likewise i dont know that GW wont drop WHFB but i suspect they wont, and here is why. There are alot of WHFB players out there who don't like 40k. So if GW were to drop WHFB then thats customers lost. And i wouldnt be surprised if there a a fair few WHFB players out there who play 40k on the side who would also quit all GW products if WHFB was axed. In short i think it would be too big a risk to take, one that could backfire on GW horribly.

If i dont think WHFB will be dropped then what do i think about the inevitable WHFB 9th edition? Well a few weeks back i wrote a post where, among other things, i showed that there was a cycle to WHFB and it stated with 4th edition. In short 4th edition was a big change from 3rd and 5th edition only tweaked 4th slightly. This continued with 6th and 7th until we reach 8th where it was a huge change from 7th. I think that WHFB 9th edition will be a slight rules update to 8th. Now if this is a good or bad thing depends on how much you like 8h edition. For me this is good news indeed as i really like 8th edition, and another 4 more years of playing basically the same game is something i look forward too.

The title of this post (The Rumour Conundrum) refers to the state of GW news and release scheduled: Do news sites publish rumours on the chance they could be true or do they not publish the rumours and mislead their readers? Its a unenviable position to be in and i encourage anyone who reads this not give news sites that get it wrong too harder time if they do get it wrong, its not their fault.  Also i would say to people who think that Game System X or Army Y is about to be axed to keep in mind that GW's primary goal is to make money, and that everything they do is an attempt to do so (7th edition 40k is a perfect example). GW hasn't dropped an army or a game system for all of the 10 years i have been doing this (they even still support the Lord of the Rings game, and if they still support that then WHFB is going nowhere) and so it is unlikely that they will do so. Until next time.
Rex

From bell of lost souls - top ten best things games workshop killed

This was a great trip down memory lane and well worth a read:
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/06/the-10-best-things-games-workshop-killed.html

Although I think you could have added heroquest's attempted return recently I did chuckle at the top entry.

2200 point one day Tournament report - a tale of woe

Well Lord Zanthrax will not be happy with the results of his underling Lord Zorgoroth from the sudden encounters 2200 tournament.

I forgot to take photos from most games so will try and hunt down and edit this post.

My list

Sorcerer prophet level 4 hashut talisman of protection crown of command 

Bsb great weapon mask of the furnace

Hobgoblin khan on wolf dragon bane gem wound on 5+ sword

29 infernal guard blunderbuss full command 

20 infernal guard great weapons banner of eternal flame full command

20 hobgoblin archers with shields and muso

Hellcannon

Kdaii destroyer 

Game 1 Troy with empire blood and glory

My buddy Troy was running his empire with priest on the alter, bsb on a steed, level 4 light wizard, big unit of knights, spearment, 4 demigriffs, 2 units of archers and their obligatory cannon and steam tank.

The kdaai destroyers got the whole world in his hands. 

This was a great fun game with the cannon wounding the kdaai followed by the magic enhanced knights cleaning up his last wounds.  I then ash stormed the knights as they overran into the flaming great weapon warriors. The knights fled from combat and then continued to flee off the board.

Flammable knight bus flees from the flaming eternal guard.

 The blunderbuss blew the demis away.  Hellcannon died.  Stank failed to make any charges.

10 all draw.  Great fun as usual with lots of inappropriate comments worthy of the Point hammered podcast.

Game 2 Lee skaven battle for the pass 

Grey Seer

BSB

Several Engineers 

Plague monk

2-3 units of slaves

Unit of storm vermin

Plague furnace and horde of plague monks

2 doom wheels

Abomb

2 units of scouting slinger

Flame thrower

Lee  targeted the kdaai with his doom wheels firing so I did the big charge into the plague dudes and took out a few before the doom wheels flank charged and took him down.  That's when everything went to crap with the plague spells tearing through my ranks and managing to fail a rerollable 10 ld check and fled.  The bsb and his warriors died.  Hellcannon was locked in combat with the a bomb but survived along with the archers.

4 - 16 loss.  Another good game with my ability to turn a respectable loss into a pantsing proven to be my undoing. 

Game 3 Ghi skaven dawn attack

Grey seer on bell in huge storm vermin unit

Unit of clan rats with engineer and two man bomber things

Some rat swarms

2 zapper cannons

6 rat ogres

A bomb

This was the kdaai's moment in the sun after being zapped down to one wound he charged and ran down the a bomb which made the the rogres flee through the zapper and off the board.  The kdaai then made a heap of dangerous terrain tests, avoided being shot by everything the skaven had and then took out both zappers.  He was living a truly charmed life on his final wound and was the difference between a win and a loss.

The kdaai with one wound contemplates the sheer amount of dangerous terrain and skaven zapping coming his way once he deals with the a bomb in his way.

Bsbs unit was magicked to death and the archers deserve dishonourable mention for fleeing from combat by two units of rat swarms- off to the slave pit for those bros.

Hellcannon, Zorgoroth and his blunderbuss and the mighty one wound kdaai lives!

11 - 9 win.

Game 4 Nathan high elves battle-line

Anointed on foot, level 4 high Mage

Bsb dawn stone and 2+ save against flaming

Silver helms 

Big unit of white lions

Some archers

2 lots of five readers 

2 frosties 

Kdaai goes hard early and get corner charged by the silver helms with the bsb on the corner who saves everything.  Bsb and warriors miss their charge to help him out and in turn get flanked by frosty no. 1.  Silver helms and anointed charge into kdaai who decides it is time to stomp the living daylight out of some elves.  Silver helms flee while kdaai kills all the white lions and their lord buddy.

Frosty no. 2 charges the sorcerer lord and blunderbuss who do nothing but die.  Lord kills himself thanks to his dark forged weapon - possessed.

Kdaai survives along with the hellcannon and those damn archers.

9 - 11 loss but I had a cracker of a time laughing with Nathan as our bros kicked the crap out of each other.  

Overall I was very impressed by the tournament- well run with food and drink provided and played on nice looking tables.  The venue had enough room between tables so as to not feel cramped in so all in all an excellent way to spend a Saturday so well done to the krags crew.

I achieved 34 battle points for 16th place, equal 6th for painting (must have been the giant robot/ iron monger/ kdaai destroyer and 2nd for sports for an overall 11th.  Lord Zorgoroth will return again next year to make amends for his failure.

Lessons learnt:

I think my list needs some work.  This is my second tourney where skaven magic has torn through my units. If I run the big blunderbuss unit they need some magic resistance for some saves.

However, at 2200 points my 29 blunderbuss was a huge chunk of my points so I think next time I will drop them in such size tournaments and invest in a smaller unit of fireglaives.  The magma cannon will be included but I am not going to give up on the hellcannon yet. 

"Hey you hairy bastard, don't you even think about dropping us from your list!" 

That leaves the kdaai destroyer - in two games he contributed very little apart from being a big target and in the other two games he well and truly put in man of the match performances.

For the next tournament I plan on dropping him for a while.  I will instead try the skull cracker (another cannon ball target) with the aforementioned fireglaives, a bigger infernal guard bunker for the bsb and maybe a horde of hobgoblins with a hobgoblin khan to lead.  Then there is my favourite unit of oglah khan's wolfboys- as usual too many choices and so few points.

  

Chaos dwarf shield wall and 2200 point tournament

Ok so after forgetting my blunderbuss come with shields I have added a permanent shield wall to their movement tray using spare rails from the GW movement tray set.

Also I have added a removable shield wall for the hobgoblins who in a 2200 point tournament tomorrow get the benefit of shields.  Let's hope they perform well or it's back to the slave pit for those dudes.

The banner of animosity has removable signs for the various states of hobgoblin animosity.  Should get me an extra point for hobby!

My tournament list is built around a level 4 sorcerer, BSB, chaff chasing/ redirecting khan on a wolf, 20 great weapon infernal guard, 29 blunderbuss, 20 archers, kdaai destroyer and a hellcannon.

The blunderbuss and warriors will anchor my flanks with the hellcannon hopefully not running towards the enemy.   I tend to try to hold back the kdaai as most expect him to venture out- I prefer to hold him back and use the khan to take out redirectors and then choose my charges with the big guy whilst hoping he does not burn out too quick or get taken out by cannon balls. 

Small list but I am keen to again take to the field of battle of a tournament after 12 months off.

Photos and tournament run down to follow over the next few weeks.