Why, Hello there! It's been a while since I posted on this blog of mine... About 3 years no less! Why? Because, well, I am alone among my local peers in my pursuits of tabletop gaming. Yes, I did have gaming friends and I still meet them regularly, but tabletop games don't interest them any more, nor do I have a suitable space to host a game should some of them want to. It's sad really.
But, recently the bug got me again. I don't know why and I don't know how long it will last, but I do know I will share a couple of my old Warhammer Fantasy Battles scenario's with any who stumbles upon this page. Mainly because of what I read here ... and as you can see I couldn't resist to reply ;)

As I tell in my little rant there, I was very intrigued by scenario-based gaming back in the day and stuck among a crowd of tournament-minded players. Occasionaly a multi-player campaign was played at my house or at the LGS, but two-player campaigns were rare. I only did those sometimes with my brother over a long weekend. Often just the basic outline from the 5th edition Battle Book (page 144). Which was like this:  
Battle 1: Scouting We usually played this as a meeting engagement, 1000 points per side  

Battle 2: raid The winner of Battle 1 attacks a village defended by the loser of battle 1. 1000 points game

Battle 3: Ambush The loser of Battle 2 ambushes the winner as he takes off with the loot (or something like that). Ambusher had 1000 points, ambushed 1500 as per the Battles book Ambush scenario.  

Final engagement The big final clash of the two armies where everything is at stake. 2000 points armies +250 points for each battle won previously for each player

This was also the template for many of the 5th edition campaign packs (Idol of Gork, Grudge of Drong, Circle of Blood) and has in fact been the shape of GW-published campaigns for -like- ever... However, I played Empire and my bro High Elves and I rarely won a game against him, making this campaign set-up very much a foregone conclusion (he'd have 2750 points for his army, I a measly 2000!), so I'd often come up with different Victory bonuses or write my own campaigns or retool existing ones for the forces we had available.
For the Battle Book basics I quickly came up with:
1. The winner of Battle 1 can place the terrain and pick his deployment zone in game 4
2. The loser of Battle 2 gets 250 points extra for his army
3. The loser of battle 2 may only have one war machine

I believe this campaign outline will still work in 8th edition, if you and your opponent are willing... and I'd advise not to use named characters, but the generic ones and Give them names of your own. Create a little story there.

 In the near future (within a few months I think) I will offer you the glory of three homebrew campaigns I made. One is a more detailed version of the "Schuster's Last Stand" idea from White Dwarf 195 (my first White Dwarf), which I may or may not post in 2 variants: Variant 1 would be as I played it with my bro, Empire vs High Elves. Variant 2 would be more akin to the original idea, Empire vs Orcs and Goblins.

Another Campaign we had fun with was the Kalamata Conflict, which was originally an Epic Campaign from the Citadel Journal featuring Eldar and Imperials. I figured this could easily be ported to Warhammer Fantasy by exchanging the two combatants to their Fantasy counterparts.

The final one will be the sadly ever un-played Battle of Wasserloch, the WHFB equivalent of the Waterloo campaign featuring Bretonnia as the French (doh!), High Elves as the British and the Empire as the Prussians... Sadly our Bretonnian playing friend was so much of a casual gamer that anything beyond 200 points "Line 'em up and go" instantly put him off.

Do note that practically lost every game of WFB I ever played, even if I designed the scenario! Goes to show that I did not write scenario's just so I could have a good chance of winning 'ey? ... still, I recall that the Bretonnian player was rather suspicious every time he heard I wrote a scenario and always refused out of hand...

I have always been more into the Gaming and background aspect of the game than into painting and modelling. Hence, no pictures of my collection as in many other warhammer blogs. Maybe there will be a time when pictures show up, but that will only happen if I can get a good game going...

see ya,

Herohamnos

RANDOM REGIMENT

3 re-rolls are allowed. Each re-rolled feature costs double the normal price (+1 becomes +2)

1. Race table

2d6 roll	Race and price per model
2	High Elf, 8pts
3	Wood Elf, 8 pts
4	Lizardmen, Saurus: 14 points, Skink: 3.5 points
5	Undead, Skelleton: 8 points, Zombie: 7 points, Ghouls: 10 points
6	Skaven, 4.5 points
7	Empire, Human, 5 points
8	Orcs & Goblins, Orc: 5.5 points, Goblin: 2.5 points, Black Orc 8 points.
9	Chaos,(d6 1-2) Chaos Warrior: 24 points, (d6 3-5) Beastman:8 points, (d6 6, demon)
10	Bretonnia,(d6 1-4) human, 5 points,(d6 5-6) Knight: 41 points (only roll command and magic items if applicable
11	Dark Elf: 8 points
12	Dwarf: 8 points

2. Weapons table

2.1 Close Combat weapons

Roll a d6

1 Hand weapon, free

2 Second hand weapon, +1 pts

3 Spear, +1 pts

4 Halberd, +2 pts

5 Flail, +2 pts

6 Great Weapon or Lance. +2 pts

2.2 Missile Weapons

2 Throwing weapon, +1 pts

3 Short bow, +1 pts

4 Long Bow, +3 pts

5-7 bow, +2 pts

8 Crossbow, +3 pts

9 Repeater Crossbow, +3 pts

10-11 Handgun, +3 pts

12 Pistol, +2 pts

3. Armor table

Chaos warriors always carry Chaos armor at +4 points/model (inc in basic value)

D6 roll	Armor
1	No armor
2	Shield, 1point
3	Light armor, 2 points
4	Heavy armor, 3 points
5	Light armor, 4 points
6	roll again 1-4 Light armor and Shield, 5-6 heavy armor and shield, applicable points value

6 Characteristics increases.

Up to 3 characteristics may be improved by 1 point each for +1 points value to the model

D6 roll	Stat increase by 1
1	Movement
2	Strength
3-4	Weapon skill or Ballistic Skill
5	Toughness or Attacks
6	Initiative or Leadership

6. Special rules table

2d6 roll	Special Rules
2-3	Killing blow, +2 pts
4	Frenzy, +1 pt
5-7	Skirmish, +1 pts
8	Hatred (roll on race table), +1 pts
9	Immune to psychology, +2 pts
10	Cause Fear, +5 pts
11	Always pass any leadership test, +3 pts
12	Roll twice on this table

7. Unit size and points value/model

Add up the cost of all taken upgrades for normal troopers, this is the total points value. All regiments have a basic size of 5 models (3 for 40x40mm based models). You can increase the regiments size (later) by adding models paying the generated points value

Mounted troops?

D6 roll

1-4	No mount
5-6	Normal mount for the race, points value per 5th ed. rulebook

8. Characters and Command

The Commander of a Regiment of Renown is always a Hero of the chosen race, roll for his lieutenants on this table:

D6 roll	Characters and command
1	Musician, double points of `1 model
2	Standard bearer, double points of 1 model
3-4	Standard bearer and musician
5-6	Standard bearer, musician and Champion (standard cost of champion + acquired special rules)

Special rules points cost x5 for champions and heroes

.Chaos warrior units may use Champions instead of heroes as captains

Vampires and Necromancers may be taken as captains of Undead regiments

Mage Priests may be used as captains to Saurus regiments

Chaos Farts on your Face... just a little bit

I described the Gifts of Chaos phase here: Chaos Farts on your Face Phase

and I oversimplified things and... well... I lied.

It was not That bad. It was a 2d6 roll at the start of the game, that dealt the Chaos Player the same number of cards to (still: unfairly) influence the game to his advantage. It had only slight drawbacks, but overall it was a bit too much for a race of which basic Rank and File troops fought as well as a Human Lord character (of which you were just allowed to have ONE), and supporting units who could have a Magic level for each half a dozen models (demons of Slaanesh, Nurgle and Tzeentch).

CARNAGE COMPANY: 5TH EDITION REVISITED

Long time no post 'ey?

Oh well, no one reads this blog anyway...

or do you?

If you do, here's the news.

I did not get around to finding my old records of the Unvictorious Count's battle reports. However, I did get some nice idea's thanks to http://www.solegends.com/marauder/index.htm (stuff of legends). One is a Random Regiment of Renown generator.

The other idea is something I'd like to try in the future with my brother and RPG group, CARNAGE COMPANIES. This will be warhammer 5th edition using just the 3 basic books (and cards), the Rulebook, Battle Book and the Magic supplement. It is inspired by older editions of the Warhammer Games and will have some more liberal equipment options and give more significance to Standard bearers and Musicians for starters. It came to me last week as I read some nice E-books, namely Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness. In addition I found a site from some dudes still playing 3d edition (which could do with some updating) and just read The Tragedy of McDeath and am now searching for a pdf of Bloodbath at Orc's Drift.

CARNAGE COMPANY will be something between regular warhammer and warhammer skirmish. Small and Swift warhammer battles, preferably in a campaign atmosphere. The troops will be highly customizable (within limits) and I hope it will catch my friends' imagination. I will set up these games in the future when the RPG games of my group are on hold due to vacations, illnesses etc. and people still want a game. This RPG hiatus situation happens more and more frequently, so it's worth a try. They used to put down WFB for the painting and money commitment, but considering we have now acquired a TON of WFB models for WHQ and WFRP (and the majority is painted) in addition to 4 complete warhammer armies (Orcs and Goblins, Empire, Bretonnia and High Elves) I don't really see that as an issue if we just use the old rules and basic creatures.

So, this week, or next week, I will post the Random Regiment of Renown Generator for you to try out, as unfortunately, I don't have any opponents to play against at the time. Tell me what you think!

Dark Omen, awesome quotes

http://en.dark-omen.org/texts/quotes/index.html

Fantastic game, very over the top and challenging.

What the future will bring to Warhammer Old School:

Memoires of Count Sebastian Adolphus of Wissenland, The unvictorious Gouvernor of New Altdorf, New Reikland and Phoenix Island
This was the fellow that led the majority of my defeats. He tried to colonize about 3 islands in multi-player campaigns and barely got a foot-hold in any of them. I actually kept a written record of his exploits, so these I will share with you.

The origin of unvictoriousness
This one will be a short one, it's very simple

The Fixes and Foibles of 6th Edition
Oh yes, I loved 6th, but it was too late.

What you should do when you loose at Warhammer Fantasy... A lot
Option one is simple, stop playing for a while and get internet! That's how... and find the right sites, Portent never taught me anything!

Why you can't rely on War Machines and Flagellants to win you battle, the last thing Count Sebastian the Unvictorious of Wissenland ever told his lieutenants after Shadows of Darkness.

And much, much more I hope.

Hero Hammer was an economic solution part II

ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS TURNED WARHAMMER IN TO HERO HAMMER II

I said previously that Hero Hammer Hosts were created out of economic considerations. I will elaborate on this statement further.

For the greater part of 5th edition’s life span, the cost of miniatures was comparable with the current pricing, mighty expensive! There were 3 variants of packaging for miniatures, the Plastic box-set, the Metal box-set and the blister-pack.

The Plastic Box-set was most cost effective, you either got a unit of 6-10 uniform close combat troops (or wood elf archers) or 4-5 archers and 4-5 spearmen/swordsmen for +/- 8 euro’s (and the first 6 years I played we still payed Guidlers, so that’s the prices x2) without command figures. There was also a box-set containing 2 plastic Bretonnian Knights, a boxed Skeleton Chariot and a set of 3 skeleton horsemen. This made the Undead quite a cost-efficient army in 4th edition and the greater part of the 5th (plastic infantry, plastic cavalry, plastic chariots, the core of any undead army came cheap). Chaos, with plastic Warriors and Plastic Beastmen came second, but all their exotic units were expensive metal. Greenskins also featured a great range of cheap plastics, with Goblins (spears and archers, and there was a special pack with a free fanatic included!), Boyz (warriors and archers) and Black Orcs. Most Bretonnian armies could be built exclusively from the archer and Knights of The Realm Boxed sets and as they featured in the starter set, swapping the lizardmen for more Bretonnians from a friend’s starter set gave you an instant 1000-1500 point’s army for 50 bucks! Yes, that was a force of 24 knights and some 48 archers, but Bretonnians were a rather efficient force, even with just these 2 troop types and a few characters (cost effective money and points wise). An army of triangles! And that’s one of the more solid geometric shapes ;)

Metal Box-sets contained 3-4 heavy cavalry, a character mounted on a big beast or a large war machine/chariot. The prices for these were about 20-50 euro’s depending on the contents. Later some regiments of renown were added to the range of metal box-sets supplying a squad of 6-12 infantry or 5 cavalry.

The blister-packs were about 5 euro’s for a cavalryman or character and 8-10 euro’s for 2-4 infantry or the smaller war machines such as bolt throwers and cannon and also the minor monstrosities like ogres and trolls. The blister ranges featured the most variety of troop types, but was also the most expensive way to build a regiment. A 5 man cavalry regiment required a budget of 25 euro’s, an infantry regiment of 15-20 men with command cost you between 30 and 45 euro’s!
Especially Skaven players had to be extremely affluent to afford a balanced army, and the best/most usefull dwarf and Dark Elf troops were all metal.

No miracles that most infantry regiments were build with 2 boxes of uniform and rather mundane plastic troops and a command blister, for a total price of 21 euro’s.

Only in the last few years of 5th edition the regiment boxes were added to the plastics range, finally offering some good value for money and more customizing opportunities. I’ve seen these packs diminish in value for 7th edition; the cost of collecting an army has returned to 5th edition standards! And now it is all (“high quality”) plastic!

Imagine you had a monthly allowance of 10 euro’s as a kid… The advantage was that you had plenty of time to paint the 2 cavalry or 4 infantry you bought, the disadvantage was that to play a reasonably sized battle; you had to buy a blister or plastic box every month for 2 years! Or save up money to get something big and powerful that offered more points value for your money.
Birthday money, part-time jobs and holidays featuring gifts were essential for building a reasonably sized force in a smaller time-span. The summer holiday, when I earned some money and got more cash on my birthday, was the time I boosted my army. The reason my army included 16 dwarfs (legal unit for Empire in 5th) was because they were cheap plastic and I got an accidental double set! Yes, by sheer luck, a 8 figure dwarf box actually had 16 models! Sure, I only had 8 slottabases, but for 2-4 euro’s I could get another set of these.

The main reason empire players had kind of sucky armies, was that the only plastics available were the Halberdiers. Other regiments were too costly to field beyond the basic 10-12 men and that required saving for a month or 3. Doubtlessly, there were a lot of empire players who buffed their forces with dwarf warriors.

The price of my empire army:

A Regiment of 6 knights panther: 30 euro’s
A regiment of 5 Kislev Horse archers: 25 euro’s
A Regiment of 23 halberdiers (16 plastic, 3 commands, 4 metals): 31 euro’s
A detachment of 8 swordsmen: 16 euro’s
A regiment of 12 flaggelants: 24-32 euro’s (depending on buying them pre-white metal or post white metal, which reduced the number of troops in blisters)
A regiment of 11 Handgunners: 24 euro’s
A regiment of 11 Halfling archers: 24 euro’s
A regiment of 16 dwarfs: With rather good fortune just 12 euros!
Great Cannon: 10 euro’s
Mortar: 10 euro’s
Hellblaster: 10 euro’s
General on warhorse: 5 euro’s
Ludwig Schwarzhelm: 5 euro’s
Supreme patriarch Thyrus Groman: 5 euro’s
Celestial Wizard: 5 euro’s
Reiksguard champion (hero/general on foot): 5 euro’s
Karl Franz on Death Claw: 30 euro’s
Steam tank: 30 euro’s
A regiment of crossbowmen: 20 euro’s

Total cost: 309 euro’s!

This was plenty of army, and I didn’t buy much new stuff.

Then 6th edition hit the shelves, reducing my legal unit options under 3000 points, so I bought:
2 regiment boxes: 40 euro’s
Elector Count Marius “the mad” Leitdorf of Averland: 5 euro’s (why did I do that? I had plenty of characters anyway!)
The 6th edition boxed set shared with my brother: 25 euro’s

Wow, that’s a collection worth close to 400 euro’s!
Truth be told, some units were birthday/holiday gifts, but still… that’s a euro for every 10 points these troops cost in-game!

I guess that many veterans quit the hobby when the new edition hit the shelves, their massive 3,000 points armies were mutated into “illegal” 2000 points forces, and some units didn’t even make it into the new lists and official army books. It was a sad day for the empire player with a force of Outriders, Halflings, dwarves, Ogres, Kislevites and War Wagons.

No wonder I have an itching desire to get a few games again in the near future! I could have bought an awesome guitar or amplifier (the hobby I switched to during the last years of 5th edition) or a good computer, or a driver’s license (or at least paid a part of it)!

My god, how I half-wasted my hard earned cash! True, I had the best of times with this game… but in hindsight…
Even sold my 3 awesome legoes pirate ships to get more warhammer stuff!