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!

Hero Hammer: A way to save money and still play games workshop games

They named it warhammer

It was called Hero Hammer instead

It became Hero Hammer because the liberal rules for building armies. This freedom, as mentioned earlier, offered both inspiration for modeling but also for exploiting the system to “always win, regardless of such lame things like setting background, sportsmanship, friendliness and mutually entertaining afternoons/Friday evenings of miniature wargaming”.

Or that's how some people perceived/experienced the system.

As I said in the Army Book Essay, the fifth edition players had great freedom in selecting their forces for battle. The games designers themselves advised altering the army selection rules if you would think it became a better game by doing so, or for home-brew scenarios.

They did that when they hosted an official tournament:

No special characters

No unridden large monsters

No allies

Wizards are limited to a maximum level of 3, no magic items can improve on this
is that 3 in total or 3 per wizard? I always wondered.

Magic Items with a points value of more than 50 cannot be included

Only one war machine, for each regiment in the army

In fact, Hero Hammer was probably conceived by accident, by starting players who wanted their battles to be as big as possible with the least sensible amount of expensive miniatures (they had spent about 150 euros just on the main box-set, magic system and their army book of choice). So, in a 1500 points battle, you take 2-3 small regiments, some monsters and/or war machines and fill up with big characters to reach the agreed-on points value. It was more an economic solution to have a reasonably sized game with just a few troops. It also meant that players discovered some kick-ass combinations of characters, magic items and elite units to fill out the points in a cost effective way… and stuck with it, even if their collections grew and allowed for more balanced forces. Off course, this meant that no-one left home without a level 4 wizard, the opponent might take one and dominate you in the magic phase (and then you faced elves who took Teclis, being a level 5 dude with cool items). There was a time I always fielded a lord or hero on griffon, just to counter other flying monsters that opponents might take.

I also suspect it’s why the campaign at the games store was with starting forces of 600 points. As 1500 points was the default size for one-of fantasy battles around there and the target size most players had for their armies. Everyone had way too many (special) characters, monsters and war machines to agree on a higher total value for the campaign, as it (like I said earlier) reduced the amount of special awesomeness one could include in an army.

Many fellow hobbyists in the early years bought miniatures for a 1500 point force, and then started a new army or collection. It’s actually quite interesting how a force of 1500 points could still be an example of the Hero Hammer Host, because of the liberal army lists and magic item choices. Some players really made an effort to find some game winning combinations. Such as a Slann mage-priest champion who takes the item that allows him to choose, rather than randomly selects his spells, and uses that to indefinitely cast apotheosis on a skink hero with potion of strength and heart of woe: a deadly combination that can only be described as The Lizardman Skink Suicide Bomber of Extremely Enormous Explosions. It’s one of the prime examples of Hero Hammer Munchkinisms I was on the receiving end of.

The Campaign rules and why they were so nice.

The campaign rules in the battles book greatly limit the player to a regiment-based army. The army must include a general and is limited to one magic item of a maximum point value (50), one war machine, one wizard, one large monster and no allies. Each player then randomly selected a number of territories under his control by rolling a d66 (one d6 for tens, one for units, consult a chart). The awesome special troops and items could be gained with the control of certain territories but army selection still had the regular limitations. Setting the army points value at 600 meant further restricting the possibilities of the most powerful stuff.

A campaign as described in the battle book is a lot of fun, and adds a sense of justification for the inclusion of powerful elements, the player has probably fought hard to obtain or defend the territories where he found them, and it gave you an incentive to try your best to wrest the best ones from your enemy’s hands, driving him into useless wastelands of little utility. If only I had thought about driving the Bretonnians into forest territories, they did not have access to war machines at the time, and that’s what forests gave you.
In addition, it had a simple system for creating veteran units and characters over the course of a campaign, which were omitted from the 6th edition (though it had a similar campaign system), and without doubt, 7th has all but forgotten them. It required the veteran regiments to be appropriately named, very inspirational... and a passionate modeller could have done cool things with that.

Also, these rules could be used for one-off battles. Just agree on a point value and the number of territories each player controls. Roll for the territories and build your army with what you get from the rolls. The territories you rolled are also used as the terrain in the battle.

This set-up brings more thought to selecting your forces. Do you make full use of the resources at hand? Or do you make a balanced list using just some of the options available to you?*

I never used them that way, but it sure would have been interesting.

Even so, it was occasionally a lot of fun to have no-holds barred 3000 points matches and fight epic duels between monster riding heroes…

*Territories that supplied wizards were of limited use to dwarf players, only for magic items and maybe a runepriest (not quite a wizard). In contrast, the Bretonnians and Wood Elves (!) had no use for Forests at all, but these were the dream location for Dwarfs and Empire.

hmm... the uselesness of a forest to a wood elf player is actually quite annoying now I think about it.... still, I stand for my claim, 5th edition needs to be played as campaign!