Work and Toy Soldiers

 I've been at my current company for 8 years I work on a system management team I also provide training for our online applications to internal staff and external insurance brokers. We're also called on upon to provide SME support on systems, projects, upgrades shit like that. I'm also well versed in Office buzzwords, have a Linkedin profile and can converse in internal acronyms.

Why am I telling you this boring stuff? Well I took a week off after the completion of some god awful project got released/fucked up and arrived back to find myself enrolled in a 5 day course, 5 whole days! Now I do systems training I usually sit at the back of the room and drive a projector people follow along ask questions and we're done in an hour. This training course was next level it taught us session plans, how to get peoples buy in, it was really good!

You're still reading I hope (this is a toy soldier blog after all)

So after the 4 days of being taught we were to re-convene back and give a half hour presentation on our chosen training topic. Naturally all the learning and development people went off and did things about learning, someone did something on changing the flag. I was going to force my audience to a half hour version of my knowledge hour but they're not the right crowd so what did I choose? 

HOW TO INK WASH A MINIATURE

Yeeeeaaa but is that really going to work?

I prepped 10 Mantic Zombies and got all the other attendees to write their favorite colours down so I could personalize the pants/rags(?) of the zombies and proceeded to record an entire how to video I also uploaded it to YouTube for safe keeping. The people doing the Inkwashing said they found it relaxing and the instructions we're fun and easy to follow. Although I do own about 3 of every Secret Weapon Ink wash now. Anyways without further ado the video.

I know it's basic but I got to paint toys at work and got paid to do it and am now a lot wiser when it comes to training. Thanks for reading and watching!

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King Of War V2

Woohoo my kickstarter arrived, and  on time, I've had a read of the rules and to me everything seems similar to the first version except all those things people didn't like, getting charged in the rear by a flying unit and spending 2 turns to face only to have them fly off and recharge you in the rare again!.

Now my Kickstarter arrived and so did 2 other Rulebooks I thought I decided against ordering them due to the shipping but they were included so I got all of the above and 2 additional rulebooks I gave one to a friend and I'm going to give one away on the Behind Enemy Lines podcast. 

So a new version comes along and if you're a Warhammer player you're probably wondering whats been written out, what have GW forgotten or who's been nerfed etc.

 Well above you there (minus my Necromancer) is my old 1000 point list also in the same picture is my 1000 V2 list throughout the changes and  balances I lost 10 points this meant my Necromancer didn't get his artifact the made the enemy deploy additional units rather than the I go you go, no biggy it's never really helped.

So how does it play under V2 well just like V1 but with all the things you hated gone. I had a game against a Warhammer refugee and he absolutely loved it even though I won and what makes the game even cooler is now they have lists for all the Warhammer races so if you're a Beastmen fan you can use the Herd, Skaven fans use the Ratkin the lists keep going on, oh and here are all the lists kow2.easyarmy.com . So far it's a great game and because of it's fortunate timing with AOS coming out it's become very popular. Now I'm just waiting for their sci-fi game Warpath to see if that's worth picking up.

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Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Play the below video while remembering the Good times not the End Times

I didn't think Games Workshop would or could do it but they did. They've killed Warhammer Fantasy. I checked my calendar just to make sure it wasn't April 1st but nope, it was July 4 2015 American Independence day, and the day Warhammer Fantasy was put down........

Warhammer Players try not too cry too much

The Age of Sigmar is upon us which if you've been following the end times fluff means the Warhammer World as you and I knew it has been destroyed and replaced with small civilizations escaping through portals to realms elsewhere blah, blah, blah.....What this really is, is a failed attempt at deus ex machina.

Warhammer Fantasy was only accounting for about 13% of sales and the game which generally only appealed to the older wargamer, this is no longer Games Workshops target demographic, GW's target is more likely the children of Fantasy players. Get them in, sell em a boxset, GTFO, Profit. Not exactly a winning business plan, but fuck it, share holders need their dividends.

Enter Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Fantasies brain damaged cousin, firstly it introduces us to a new race of Space Marines as usual GW's pricing puts it out of range of most first time wargamers ,which it looks to be designed for, at $250NZD you get the below toys and the 30K/40K players are really excited about the new mini's.

Sweet Hellbrute bro...

FOR SIGMa......err SANGUINIUS

Now the rules are soo strange there's no points system I'm not going to go deep into it I'm leaving the analysis for better blogs for folks who passed English in high school and know the right place for an oxford comma. But sufficed to say when I heard that player interaction effected game-play beyond rolling dice I called BS lies silly, silly lies but alas they were all true.

Machete don't dance

I'm not sure what was going through their heads while writing this although I suspect someone had access to some high grade warp dust cos motherfuckers gone bananas!

Options: Now asides from the knee-jerk reactions to drop all your toys on Ebay or burning everything and putting it on Youtube. Crying until the pain goes away is another option but it still doesn't get your fantasy fix. Bullet point time bitches....

1. Carry on playing 8th edition make sure you've got that FAQ saved also a fine gentleman has purchased the domain  nethammer.org so in the coming months it'll have the resources needed to survive.
2. Kings of War: One of the fastest growing mass fantasy battle games they've even been kind enough to include the races that are missing from their canon Kings of War . Once described by one of New Zealand's biggest wargaming trolls as "Warhammer with training wheels" oh how times have changed. They release their FREE V2 ruleset on July 10th this year.
3. Hmmm I ran out of ideas but 3 bullet points makes it look more professional I guess, I dunno.

Anyways as always they're your toys and ultimately you decide what you're going to do with your hobby time and money and since GW just gave you a big ol Fuck You you should probably spend it elsewhere.

Thanks for reading I always appreciate feedback so feel free to comment below...

  

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Your hobby dollars? (make coffee before reading)

Hi everyone,

In these tough economic times it's hard to pick and choose it's not  2007 anymore  and we can longer justify purchasing pretty much everything and anything, going from being paid $4,000 a month to $2,800 a month doesn't help either, so what I'm going to do here is help you ,the reader, by directing you in the best way to spend your hobby dollar.

First things first you've got to be open minded this isn't Games Workshop there are loads of other games out there and you no longer have to drop $18 for 100g of sand (totally true) instead of debating alternatives here we're going to look at what you can get for $200NZD in each different system. We will assume you brought the rules a few months back and already have all your modelling supplies so now it's toy soldier time!

http://www.flamesofwar.com
Flames of War 1:100 World War II Miniatures game with a focus on Africa, The Mediterranean and Europe with an Early War 1939-41, Mid War 1942-43 and Late War option 1944-45. Lets select a 1500 point Mid War list and consult our budget.

Ok here we have a bog standard German Grenadier Infantry list

Company HQ                     $17.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00
Grenadier Platoon              $34.00   
HMG Platoon                     $17.00
3x Panzer IIIN Tanks         $51.00 
2x StuG F/8 Assault Guns  $34.00 
Priority Stukas JU-87G      $25.00

Total $212, $12 over budget however planes don't always need to be represented. Flames of War is the third most popular gaming system in the World after Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Fantasy it shouldn't be too hard to find a player near you.

http://wyrd-games.net/
Malifaux is a 32mm Heroic Scale Steampunk, Victorian, Horror Skirmish game meaning it's cheap to get into another strange thing about it is that it uses a card based fate deck to twist or even cheat fate. The different factions in this operate in Crews the points of a game are measured in Soulstones so lets go build a 25 point Soul Stone List.

For this I'm going to go with my list that I took to Battlecry

Witch hunters
Sonia Criid
Purifiying Flame 2 points
3 x Witchling Stalkers 12 points
Samael Hopkins 8 Points

This leaves me with 3 extra Soulstones in my cache to help me cheat fate etc as for price well each faction has a starter box

This works out to about $40NZD at current exchange rates and the Purifiying Flame is about $9NZD so you and 3 other friends could easily get started for that $200 budget or you could have 4 Starter sets. Good looking miniatures and and easy to follow ruleset also help out alot.

http://privateerpress.com/

Warmachine is a very fast growing 28mm scale steampunk/magic miniautres game and one of the very few American wargames that's actually working. It combines infantry and Steam and magic powered robots (known as Jacks) and Beasts for the Hordes part of it both fighting to kill the opposing teams caster like Chess once your caster's dead that's game.

 It works similar to most dice games walk forward, murder people however the Jacks and Beasts need orders so you have Focus and Fury both work very differently. Jacks get allocated Focus by your Warcaster and Beasts generate Fury by doing things I've heard it discribed as risk management versus resource management anyways lets build a 25 point starter list that seems to be a good start

Lets go with Khador they're red and they seem grumpy

The Butcher of Khardov $22.05

Decimator $45.40

Destroyer $45.40
War dog $13.00
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 2 Grunts) $58.40 (this is a box of 5)
Winter Guard Rifle Corps (Leader and 9 Grunts) $65.00

Total $249.25 ok so that's well over budget so you might want to purchase it in parts I'm going to pop over to Wayland games and just do a comparison $223.81 not a bad saving their link is at the top on this blog.

http://www.spartangames.co.uk/

I lumped Dystopian Wars & Firestorm Armarda togerther as they're both played in a very similar fashion albeit one is a futuristic Sci-Fi Space ship game and Dystopian Wars is a Victorian Steam-punk Air, land and sea game. The miniatures are made of high quality resin and the game play is an I go you go system with an exploding dice component, roll 6's, it's good fun once you've figured it all out.

Ok lets see what we can get for our budget I'm not sure how points should work but I've been told one box contains everything you need to get started.

So $65.27nzd not a bad outlay for so much stuff and when was the last time you got 9 of anything for that price so at this price I could get the above and still have coin enough to get this

At $73.85nzd it's a bit more expensive however the ships are even bigger than Battlefleet Gothics ships and the Space battleship is twice as long as the Dystopian counterpart. So far that's $139.12 that leaves us $60 to spend on enhancing our fleets with carriers, submarines and other assorted toys. I always go with what looks cool rather than what is good according to the masses.

http://infinitythegame.com/

I copied this from their website.

"Infinity is a game with 28mm high metal miniatures that simulates combat and special operations in a science fiction environment with Manga aesthetics. Infinity miniatures are characterized by the high quality and detail of their modeling, the dynamism of their postures and their futuristic aesthetic"

I tell you what their minis are real nice however some of them have that Manga look and well I personally can't stand it. The game itself is a reactionary D20 game it has a very steep learning curve but once you're onto it the game plays smoothly when I played it I took a few heavily armoured troops and thought I was unstoppable unfortunately unfortunately snipers can still kill you no matter what you wear. One other thing I neglected to mention is this game relies on terrain and lots of it almost a Necromunda amount which helps with cover and consealment but the better player will always overcome this. Lets price it out anyways so once again I've gone for a box set due to it being a skirmish game it shouldn't set you back too much.

The above is a nice looking set of toys that'll cost you about $54.00 which is very cheap for such high quality minis when you compare it to 5 Space Marines for $48.00 from Games Workshop it comes up tumphs. You can start adding things to this like snipers, heavy weapons and ummm well what look like warewolves for these guys everyone else just has big robots.


So there you have it these are what I think about these selected games and I'll write more reviews in future if you want to send me something to be reviewed please contact me via email or leave a message in the comments below.

Thanks for reading
-Daniel

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