If in doubt AFK out

a Horde guild on Nordrassil-EU

People that pay attention might realise I now work for the NEAS (North east ambulance service) well I’ve got my observation shift with a crew approved. News that has both excited and worried me! I’ve heard such great things and such terrible things in my time at NEAS and now it seems I will see them first hand. Wish me luck!

Played redben’s demons a bit back, I actually feel with hindsight a bit ashamed of the game as I knew nothiong about anything other than Orks in 40K and relavent rules to them as reben didn’t know demons he got totally screwed over rules-wise. A rematch is definitely in order

So a few months ago I manged to get a 40K army pretty cheaply (£50 for a 500-700 pt army) which had just been sitting on a table. I’d always threatened to play a game with them and finally after a couple of cancelled games due to work I managed a game, a small 500 point game. We played a take and hold (I think thats the name) game where there was 4 objectives to capture.

Typically it all started well with a fairly inoffensive heavy weapon blasting my ramshakkle trukk off the board first turn and boyz being killed by- whacky psychic attacks, sneaky scouts and wolf marines dropping from the skies in a drop pod. Nork also got a lethal peppering from rapid firing bolters.

Thankfully sheer numbers aided by possibly the worst ever saving throws ever seen on a gaming table (from Mike) evened the tide and when the Nob ripped the razorback (a transport vehicle with a heavy bolter) to pieces it was pretty much even stevens. My deff koptas shot up his remaining troops and contested the building that the wolf marines had cleansed of Gretchinto make it a 1-0 win to Nork’s warband!

I really enjoyed the game, Mike is a great opponent and can laugh at the sort of luck that would make grown men cry. He had a list that needed some improvement but that which was very good at fighting mine. His army was as ever for Mike beautifully painted. By contrast I had a sprayed black, take what models you own type of approach and had no clue what I was doing. Thanks must go to the very nice chap from the TA who made sure that I wasn’t being totally bonkers with my troops and the rules.

40K is very much so a quick and streamlined game now (hence the title) and it’s no suprise it sells well, it’s a more simple game than WFB.  This isn’t an insult, simplicity can be a good thing and certainly over-complexity is a bad thing. Whilst I like the greater tactical thinking of WFB there is tactics in 40K and it is a fun game with a rule set which probably makes more sense to in of its self to its own ruleset. I liked the mission thought has to be said that I’m not sure that the other two scenarios are as good, one is a mission that each person gets one objective deep in their deployment zone (called capture and control) and apparently is draw-tastic with most armies doing a lot of controlling and not much capturing and the other uses Kill points which are farsically simple. Basically any unit is worth one point, no matter whather a minimum unit of throw-away gretchin, a 30 point transport vehicle, a massive heavy tank or a big unit of elite troops. Isa makea no sense !

Still it seems quite a fun game and with a new missions book coming out and a lot of expansions is very well supported. One thing you roll a LOAD of dice in 40K. Most units of 10 troops can roll twenty dice a turn but some can roll amazing amounts of dice. A unit of thrirty ork boyz can roll a table breaking one hundred and twenty dice in assault. Its unlikely you’d get that many alive and into combat, but still, I’ve rolled just under fourty dice in an assault before.

I’d like to take out Spaceboss Nork and his boyz out for more games so expect more musings soon enough

Merry christmas and a happy new year to you all, whether you (still) play WoW, play any of GW’s games or have got here simply by mistake!

As you may know from a previous post myself and ben went to maelstrom a few weeks ago for a few reasons. I’ve already documented meeting the Mantic guy’s but I haven’t talked about Maelstrom or playing Invasion (a card game from the warhammer universe) so here follows a brief post.

Maelstrom itself is not to unusual of the set-up of a GW shop (and thats not an insult, far from it)  having a display case a couple of tables for demo’s etc and a fairly decent stock. The difference being that Maelstrom stocks a wide variety of wargame, not just GW stuff. If they don’t have something in store they can just get get it from their warehouse which is on site.

Upstairs they have their gaming area with 20 or so well flocked tables with loads of quality scenery justready to be fought over. It was upstairs where Ben and I had a game of Warhammer:Invasion, Ben going for an attack attack attack philosophy whilst I was a bit more patient. In the end I was able to build up huge forces and weather his early storm and destroy his capital. It was a fun game though I’d probably need to play more to really be able to give a good critique.

Maelstrom were probably known  as an internet company selling figures at a good dicsount (10-12.5%, good range, free P and P) and I have ordered from their web site a few times but they have some promise as a gaming hub and a great place to hold your tournaments (their gaming room even has a bar.) They really need to improve their one toilet though.

Myself and redben went down to Maelstorm games two weekends ago to play one or two games, check out Maelstrom games and see the guys at Mantic games (oh and redben had an order placed)

Mantic are probably known to most readers of this website for their extremely well priced figures like- http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Elves/Army-Deals/Product/Elven-Kings-Cohort.html Yes thats just 70 quid for

• 5 x metal Hero figures, including a mighty Elven King, his royal Standard Bearer, the Mage-Queen and her pet cat, and the proud Prince Nuadalor
• 2 x units of 20 Spearmen, including command group
• 2 x units of 20 Bowmen, including command group
• 20 x Scouts
• 2 x Bolt Throwers, and crew.

Games workshop would give you 32 spearmen, 32 archers for £70.20 So you’d get 8 more spearmen, 8 more archers, twenty scouts, two repeater bolt throwers and five metal figures for less money. Not forgetting Mantic’s innovative self-contained carry case system where each boxed set essentially comes with its own carry case. Of course there are one or two (minor) issues like not being able to use them at official GW tournaments and the design of the figures is not to everybody’s liking. That is some people are used to and prefer games workshops more heroic scale elves and it’s a matter of opinion whether you prefer the heroic style of games workshop or the the more I guess realistic proportions of the mantic elves. For the record I can see both sides but I don’t think anyone could doubt mantics quality of minatures and certainly you can’t doubt their prices- I make it Mantic games builds you an army for your generic fantasy game half the price of games workshop.

Anyways enough of what you already know, for me the real plus point was seeing the Mantic guys, their new race (undead) and chatting about their design philosophy. It’s clear Ronnie (head honcho at Mantic games) has a great love for the hobby and has a particular goal to see big armies clashing on the battlefield. Now I’m not that big a fan of 5,000 point mash ups on the battlefield but even I think warhammer is too much about the Big gribblies and special unit’s and too less about core. Core is often now seen as the must take 3 units and less as the the core of your army. The real core these days is the special unit’s. I’m not sure I like that and I certainly agree with Ronnie’s desire to see more troops on the battlefield. Their army design philosophy certainly facilitates building large armies at a cheap price- great news too for those wishing to build that sort of army for an affordable price.

We saw the new undead (alas no pics) and I’m pretty sure both tomb king and vampire counts players could use stuff from their releases, or the old school undead army from yester-year or indeed an army for another game. Ronnie also got a nasty cough and revealed the next few armies coming. You can probably find out the next one coming if you do any digging yourself.

I recomend anyone who can to attend one of Mantic games demo’s as they are all a great bunch of guys with drive and enthusiasm for the hobby and Ronnie can’t help himself talk about the new releases as he’s so excited about them, it appeared to myself and Ben. Personally I’m very looking forward to their third army release and Mantic are an excellent source for your ‘other army’ you know your second or third (or more!)army that you you always liked the idea of but didn’t want to make it your main army, well with Mantic you can collect it cheaply and play at your gaming club/friends.

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the Mantic guys and quite possibly be parting cash for some of their (censored) figures. It will also be nice to see whether they manage to hold a mantic figures tournament, though that won’t be for a couple of years yet. Still it sounds a great idea, with lots of core and an army that doesn’t cost the earth to collect.

P.S I did try to convice them to do a Dogs of War army but suprisingly they were less than enthralled about the idea of losing thousands of pounds, sadly.

So redben got it into his head to play  every edition of warhammer a task which is of no little undertaking. He just needed someone foolish enough or crazy enough to play every game. I am just that crazy. We’d been talking about it for ages but we finally managed to play a game of first edition a week or so ago.

A lot of people remember earlier warhammer to be much more complicated. For me that was only really true of 3rd ed, as 4th ed was probably the simplest game of warhammer there was (and for the record in my opinion the worst). 1st ed is not complicated as much as it is totally bonkers. From a distinct lack of explanation to unusable spells to a fear rule which is extremely powerful (you have a 50 % chance of running away from fear causing enemies of charged, and you could run away even if you were shooting at them)

It was a fun game but only lasted about 20 minutes or so, my general ran away after rolling a one to shoot the demons and it became clear that the forces we were using were clearly not matched as bens demons hit me on a 3 and I hit them on a 6, both my  units auto broke and could never get away.

I’m quite looking forward to 2nd ed as 1st ed had the core of a good game but with no army lists, points values, poorly designed rules and imbalances it wasn’t much of a wargame more than a skirmish roleplay game. It was an enjoyable game and I liked the craziness but it wasn’t really a wargame let alone a balanced one.

So last night myself and Joe found ourselves at Games of war, Seaham which we found with no difficulties at all… First impression was that there was dogs there (four to be precise) which was unusual for a gaming shop and second was that it was fairly compact.  The shop front was fairly small and had a limited stock now you may suspect I am going to have a fairly negative review of the place, but this is far from the reality.

Whilst indeed the stock is limited and is only a real bare bones of Flames of war, rules of engagement, WFB and 40K in shop this isn’t a massive problem for them or for you as a customer. They do 10 % off RRP on their lines and they will order something for you and ship it to your house for no extra charge (apparently comes in between 1-3 days, Joe can confirm this) From a business point of view this makes a lot of sense as their shop is a little out of the way, certainly no high street position so they get very few off the street customers. Most of the people that come there have made plans to do so (like us)  know what they want already (like us) and are no newcomer to the hobby.  Apparently they make good business with the new releases (the space wolf battle force flew off the shelves) as they are new and the grizzled veterans don’t have them already. As you might suspect a lot of their patrons have established armies, hence it makes sense for Games of War to stock the way to to do even if the browser in me wished they had more stock, their business plan makes a lot of sense and if I was to start gaming there I’d likely buy/order from there. Joe was more than happy to place an order for a little tank (Grueber’s litle tank) and some paints.

Their gaming area is huge with probably at least 18 tables to play on at any one time with excellent scenery (they make and sell their own) including the obligatory massive castle sections and they have a fairly big painting area. When we were there we saw a game of WFB, a game of FoW and an ECW game (thats english civil war not extrem championship wrestling, though that might be more fun ) all going on with plenty more people there with armies. I spoke to Andy of NWA, warhammer.org fame and he seemed a very nice chap explaining that there are lots of different players who play in his club and they would be more than happy to use toned down armies, or ‘weaker books’ if I was to come down or harder lists if I needed practice (he could even break out the demons if I really wanted, he joked). But of course, demons are perfectly balanced right ben?! Mind his double ancient of the god’s (stegadons with crazy abilities) and slaan in temple guard didn’t look too friendly!

I do need tournament practice but it was good to know they were willing to start off easy, or play different types of games depending on whether you were a starter (soft lists), experienced player(balanced but challenging lists) or wanted tournament practice (the real filth- demons hoho). Their club has all sorts from beginners to a very competitive tournament team (came second at the club championship so I’m told)

It costs a credit crunch busting pound to play there (sorry, couldnt help the reference) which is fantastic value considering most clubs charge double that and don’t have a shop on site and I’ve played at a club which charged much more than that. The owners are very friendly and  happy to chat to you and the dogs friendly without getting in the way. Whilst games of war is a little out of the way for us gatesheaders truth be told it doesn’t take *that* much longer to get there than the north shields club is much cheaper and has a wide range of players there not just as in a wide range of games played which they do (one person apparently plays as many different games as ben who plays at last count, OVER NINE THOUSAND)but as in a wide range of skill levels/ approaches to playing the games.

Whilst I won’t be there every week I do intend to visit semi-regularly(once or twice a month) as overall I was fairly impressed with the place especially as a gaming haven where you could order product at a 10% off and Joe liked the manufacturing/industrial unit feel of the gaming area (they make their money from the industrial side of the business, I think I heard). Games of war is definitly recommended by me!

So myself and redben (name witheld to protect true identity) managed to get down to Nottingham the spiritual home of GW on Friday.  Before we arrived at Warhammer world we visited Foundry miniatures which had an ecletic set of minatures from the fairly common historical figures to really old citadel miniatures. Definitely a good place to buy Dogs of War miniatures I think. They were recruiting a staff member too, which if we’d lived in Nottingham both Ben and myself would probably apply for

After a failed attempt to locate Warlord games we went to Warhammer world, whilst redben was facing off against Nuada I was picking up a beautifully painted model by the guys at ibis miniatures.  I came back to find a knife-edged game which swung from side to side, whilst I won’t spoil the result in case one of the 2 is going to write it up it was a very enjoyable game to watch and Nuada has the most extreme luck I’ve ever seen. Only he could roll double one’s followed immediately by a double six and then another double one. Battle rep here- http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223135

I enjoyed Warhammer world a lot but I did feel it was deathly quiet, which was a little disappointing. The place is huge, with a hundred gaming tables, beautiful scenery and displays but the fact there was only about 3 games going on made it seemed empty.  Bugman’s bar I enjoyed more ! Whilst it wasn’t cheap it by no means was as expensive as it could have been and I enjoyed Bugman’s beer and burger! Myself, redben and Nuada had a game of chaos in the old world there which I won on turn 4, I’ve no idea how. Apparently it gets better as in it gets harder to win when you have more experience, but I don’t think you should have to play a game a few times before it gets any good. As it was we were all fairly amazed when I won so quickly, even redben who had played a bit before and who knew slaanesh was a powerful side was a little taken aback. Having said that if I get an opportunity to play it again with 4 players I would do, bring on the changer of the ways!

After the obligatory time to find the hotel, partially down to the epicaly sounding but epicaly failing Map quest we found the hotel, which was decent enough. Thankfully redben doen’t snore too loudly!

Well the inevitable has happened and If in doubt AFK out has disbanded. It’s been a while since I was in that guild and even longer since I had any role of authority and things it seemed have spiralled downwards to such an extent that Jeroen, egged on by Mike and Kat have made a new guild.

It’s fairly common in World of Warcraft when thing’s aren’t going well to try to form a new guild which has the ‘better players’ read more dedicated/hardcore. Normally the parent guild is very heavily set back by this, losing a lot of their (better/more hardcore/no life) raiders (pick one of the three depending on your viewpoint). Sometimes the parent guild survives but rarely it prospers, often it disbands. This is what has happened in this case as it seems Mark was unable to keep what remained of the guild going.

Whilst I’m sure Jeroen will argue it had to be done and clearly their progress wasn’t as good as they wanted in AFK I’m not sure this was the best way for things to get back on track. Bad feelings abound as I can testify and it’s easier to recruit to an established guild than a new one, especially when it seems there is a lot of competition for dedicated raiders. As it is the new guild Semi detached struggle to fill their raids and its seem to be believed whether their guild management will succeed where virtually the same guild management team failed before (switching mark for kat and mike).

I do wish them well and they definitely have the core of a succesful raiding team there. I also wish those left behind well, most of which which seem to be in a guild called Phoenix.

Good bye AFK!