Note this was written originally a few months ago it’s still relavent, it was a little bit more restrained about the problems of Orc’s than I’d probably have liked as my target forum was warseer.

Mine (and Nork’s performance)

Well my minor loss, draw and solid victory was enough to see me do better than ‘average’ finishing 20th out of 48. My total VP’s were very low though, 5th lowest or something, one guy got more VP’s in a single game than I did in all 3 (mind he tabled someone) but I’ll speak more of that later.
I’m fairly happy with my performance for my first tournament my finish was good considering my lack of experience and my army choice/selection.

Army selection

My army (and you could argue orc’s as a whole) lacked hittyness and the ability to deal with a deathstar/bunker whilst that may be a problem with the Army rather than the choices I made there’s things I could have done.

Heros

Hero wise Nork should have been a black orc, there’s no game reason nor rules justification otherwise- it was just me clinging onto my army background, but normal orcs are inferior to black orc’s all-round and to savage orc’s for hittyness. Originally Nork was going to be a savage orc (his original name was Nork frenzytooth) but I decided against it fearing it a bit unpredictable and ofc you really have to run him on foot.
Nork being a black orc would have seen him racking up more hit’s (lots of ws 5-6 enemies there) and if I’d had a suitable unit for him as savage version then he’d have been able to spend more points on bashing items and had an extra attack. There’s really, alas, no reason to use normal orc heroes and thats a real shame.
My other 2 hero’s did there jobs admirably (gobblit never got killed) and I suffered very little magic, because they were defensive I really suffered from having Nork be a normal orc with a mix of defensive and offensive items.

Conclusion- if I did it again Gobblit and Banna Basha would be exactly the same, Nork however would either be a black orc or savage orc.

War machine’s/ shooting

I’m fairly happy with these and they did what they should do, allowing me to fend off the harder unit’s. I probably had one more unit of shooting that was appropriate especially as all 3 tables did not lack terrain.

Infantry
One problem I had is my troop’s really lacked raw hitting power, combat res and T4/4+ save is all I had and it really didn’t cut the mustard against some armies, or wouldn’t of in the case of the dwarfs.

Conclusion- I’d exchange the 2 armed choppa boyz for a unit of savage orcs and possibly drop a unit of shooting.

Army choice- Orc’s

Measures words carefully There’s no doubt that you can take Orcs to a tournament and get an above average position, indeed I with better play and a slightly better armylist I could probably have added a few tourny point’s. You might even be able to get a high (top 10) position in a field of 50. A lot of the tourny final positions depend on the draw (for those 3 game events) and with the length of most games it seems you need 2 days to do 5-7 games.

I’m honestly not sure what you can do against some of the super hitty unit’s out there except avoid them. I didn’t have a counter to the graveguard/ longbeards and that would have been the same with Black guard etc. By no means will you lose to these armies guaranteed (though DE frighten the pants of me) but you’re playing for a draw/small win it seems (as there’s so many points in one or 2 unit’s)

I guess one of my few complaints with orcs is that it seems that you’re playing for a small win against most competive tournament builds and whilst that’s no great tragedy (I believe that there’s no unbeatable army) it does affect your chance of getting the very high rankings as generally you need very good win’s to get there. (I bet I get a flood of people posting Orc massacres now and or linking top 5 finishes in large tournaments. :D)
Please note this is is as much a fault of Warhammer, the direction it’s going, the state it’s in and of tournament play/structure as it is of the Orc book.

My second complaint has to be about animosity, this is probably old ground for some but my complaint isn’t the standard one- that it’s too bad/random (of which you can argue it’s both) but it’s that it’s time consuming (5 mins extra a turn- 30 mins a game) and counter intuitive (an unit can squabble as easily if it is within an inch of no enemy than if it can’t see one, and the same with ‘lets show ‘em)
As a related point I never called a waagh in any of the 3 games.

My last complaint is a funny one- the army’s too popular. I know this may suprise/bewilder some but for an army that is a fairly average army to me both in its format and ability, boy do you get a lot of people playing them. I can understand this if you like their background or find them fun, but am I the only one who thinks their background was greatly reduced in the army book and the fun, random, whacky part of the army has been greatly watered down. The character and unpredictability of the army seem’s to have been replaced by a fairly standard, mediocre army where occasionally a unit doesn’t move.

I will still continue to use Orcs and goblins and maybe even take them to more tournaments, Nork shall ride on, but I’m now looking for a second army (which don’t worry won’t be one of the big 3)

Conclusion

Cry havoc was a great tournament, I had a great time and I’m happy with my finish, I’m likely to go back again, whether it’s with Nork at it’s head is no guaranteed thing (if he is back he’ll have gone feral). Was a great night at the watering hole too

My month of Wow subscription is almost over and I have played on wow 5, maybe 6 days (that’s 6 days i’ve logged onto WoW, not the amount of time I’ve spent on it). I didn’t quest nor pvp with hoof at all, just doing a few quests on my shammy. I won’t be renewing it.

Simply put theres just no wow feeling, it’s very stale at the moment.  The expansion should change that whereas the first expansion featured space squids pretty pretty horde elves which made no sense and a horrible zone, and the second expansion has goth knights and err, the upcoming expansion for myself sounds a lot more interesting. Goblins and werewolves, now thats my kind of extra races and the reworking of old world which has always been my favourite part of WoW sounds very exciting.

So see you all in 9 or 10 months with a goblin and Worgen

So despite my best efforts to get a free 10 days I had to pay £8.99 for a months playtime. In the 3 months of inactivity I managed to get booted out mah comedy paladins guild and not a lot else has changed looking at the game. Sanch still has alts and wicker still has all the alts, the usual suspects were still online and an afk raid had been cancelled.

I got to see zippy ding 80 (grats!) and speak to a couple of people so I don’t mind paying the nine pounds, though I’d be suprised if you heard me paying for another month’s though.

So I’ve played just under 20 games now of Warhammer Fantasy Battle 7th Edition and I’ve had a fun time. I’ve enjoyed the games and 7th ed ruleset is probably the best WFB ruleset I’ve played. However one thing truly puzzles, suprises and baffles me- the terrain rules, both in terms of what different terrain pieces do and on their deployment. After talking to Redben in the pub (always the best place) I decided to post my thoughts.

Now I’m used to playing with hills in deployment zones and woods back from 4th edition because it was the terrain pieces we had as they’re the easiest terrain to make/represent. These days we still play them but mainly because of the way the terrain rules work. Under the terrain deployment you take a handful of scenery (we use 4 pieces) and you deploy them one by one with players alternating in positioning the terrain. No chance of using a random piece of scenery, no scenery scattering, no nothing. I could discuss why I don’t like this but first let me explain what the terrain does in gameplay effects.

Firstly there are some terrain pieces which are way too advantageous to have in peoples deployment zones or near one to infiltrate scouts into. 2 story buildings allow 10 people inside to shoot out in all directions to be protected by a hard cover bonus, to be immune to cavalry charges and to force any assaulting infantry units to have to beat them on kills alone with no static combat res. Good luck getting that unit of 10 shades out!

So thats buildings out, how about something really fancy  like big cliffs, a huge pond that type of thing and count it as impassable? Well not if you’re using an army that breaks/flees/panics conventionally because in the rules if any unit flees into impassable terrain it is instantly destroyed even if it just touches it. Running around the terrain is far to difficult.. Still those unbreakable armies like Chaos demons and Vampire counts need all the help they can get right?

Don’t snigger but I’ve always liked water features pools and ponds maybe a stream. DirtyG (Graham) plays with the life spell that can be cast near a water feature and I’ve always remarked I wish we could play with a water feature. Now I’m considering a lizardmen army and I wouldn’t dare try to pick a pond as one of our terrain pieces as people would raise an eyebrow at me.

That leaves us with obstacles, hills and woods. I’d quite like to use a hedge or fence but have never seen them on a gaming board leaving us with hills and woods.

Woods are a staple of WFB, I’ve seen at least one on every board I’ve played on except when I played on a desert themed board at Cry Havoc, I think the only wood elf player there got that board after me They haven’t changed much over the years but the games evolved to where characters aren’t quite everything and marchblocking and slowing down your enemy is a key part of the game. Suddenly the 2″ line of sight, half movement and inability to march becomes a massive disadvantage. Some units going into a woods would miss most of the game, as a 8″ march becomes a 2″ normal move.You can also annoyingly hide small units or even single characters in the middle, they’re virtually invunerable and yet they can still marchblock people. Good luck catching that wood elf mage casting treesinging ago go. Whats worse is troops you might expect to operate better in woods like white lions still suffer the 2″ LOS issue and whilst they move through woods effortlessly they can still be marchblocked by something in the woods they can’t see.

Lastly hill’s- now they have changed sublety since I last played WFB or not so sublety upon reflection. It used to be if I recall correctly that you could fire with as many ranks as there were levels and that you could draw a slightly better line of sight from your vantage point. Now you get a +1 CR straight off, only 2 ranks can fire (yet any number of ranks can fire at you on the hill, crazily) but now you can see over anything on the battlefield no matter what except for another hill. Literally nothing’s safe from a unit or warmachine on a hill. Now everybody wants a hill in their deployment zone not just shooty armies to be able to see their target but fighty armies as they need a hill to hide behind for cover as its the only safe sight-blocker. You’re at a real disadvantage if your opponent has a hill and you do not, no matter the match up.

These days for 90 % of our games we play with 2 hills (1 in each deployment zone) and 2 woods off to the sides. It’s fairly boring and dull but hopefully as I’ve explained the other terrain types leave even more to be desired. Not just that but the way the game’s deployment rules work with players taking it in turns to deploy a piece of scenery with no scenery allowed to be within 12″ of the centre mean most of our battlefields are very similar. We had to agree on placing all 4 pieces of scenery together as said you can really have advantage if you get a side with a hill and your opponent does not. |The situation is not very realistic, its dull and it’s boring and all our battlefields look very similar. I as a lizardmen player couldn’t suggest a pond for fears of bias and because all the scenery is placed theres not much randomness. Yet I as a lizardmen player look on very enviously at a WE player with their free woods.

Redben had a good idea whereby you buy scenery, say you could buy one piece of scenery (your race would decide what you could buy) and place it anywhere you wanted in your deployment zone. To expand on his idea This would be done after other terrain deployment. It would allow a lizardmen player to have his pool but at a price, would seem to add some ‘background realism’ and would be a lot fairer than the current system. You could have a hill to put on your deployment zone but at a cost. I’d suggest that the other, say 3 terrain pieces be placed and then scattered with an artillery and scatter dice and possibly scatter to close to the centre point. Wouldn’t this be more interesting, more varied and realistic than the current system?

Comments appreciated

Yes that rights folks harry oof estate agents are pleased to offer this following property, whilst some boring, mundane, conventional estate agents who are paid far too much money for little to show for it might describe it as “Accommodation comprises: entrance hall, lounge, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms and family bathroom. Benefits include double glazing and central heating. Gardens to the front and rear, with driveway to the front providing off road parking.  “Harry Oof gets to the bottom of its real selling points!

This is the house that the scientist built helped along with crusher zippy! This property is big enough to house a very expensive TV which is so complicated you need a degree to operate it, has a shed for your motorbike and has gardens for cats. It’s also within walking distance of a McDonalds and a garage so expensive if you buy something from there that’ll be the last purchase you can afford to make until next months pay cheque.

This house was good enough for Scientist smoe and if it’s good enough for him it’s certainly good enough for you. It’s a true bargain at £125,000 set in wonderful surroundings.

In other news

My humans 2 Redben’s ratmen 1. Thank you and goodnight.

With the computer game now available to play both in Single player mode and Online versus play added to the fact that my tabletop team (The Sharptooth’s) have now played 3 games I thought it prudent to do a more extended post on Blood Bowl before I discussed my exploits in Bloodbowl.

For those not aware what Bloodbowl is allow me a brief description. Bloodbowl is a game of a cross bewtween american football and rugby played by staples of the fantasy genre such as elves, dwarfs, orcs, goblins as well as less well seen types such as rat men, lizardmen and beastmen. The team that wins is the team that manages to get a player holding the ball into thier opponents endzone thus scoring a touchdown. This being a fantasy game the road to victory is not simple, some teams suceed by bashing all their opponents players off the fieldand slowly working their way up the pitch (dwarfs, elves etc) and some by speed and finesse (elf, skaven ‘rat men’) whilst the human team can do both and the goblin team win’s by bribing their ref and using their secret, sneaky, underhanded weapons.

You can find the tabletop’s free rules available for download here-  http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?community=&catId=cat1290318&categoryId=1100006&aId=4800003 whilst the computer game can be found here- http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/index.php# The computer game is available as a direct download only at a slightly expensive $40/50 euro’s whilst the board game is £50 from Games workshop though you can pick up a copy on Ebay for half that price.

The computer game is supposed to be a very faithful adaption of the board game just with gnarly graphics and the ability to play against a much wider selection of opponent’s whilst the board game has the social aspect going for it. The computer game has 8 teams built into it (Humans, skaven, lizardmen, chaos, wood elfs, dwarfs, orcs and goblins) and the promise to add 2 more in a patch depending on the games success whilst the board game comes with 2 included in the box (Orcs and humans) with rules for another whopping 19 teams legal for play at this time, though you do have to buy them seperately.

Future posts will likely concentrate both on how I’m doing and enjoying Bloodbowl with some looks into the game in more detail and depth both formats.  It just made sense to explain a bit about the game before I discussed what I like’d and didn’t. Any questions, as ever, feel free to ask.

So I haven’t had a sub for over a month now and I thought I’d share some thoughts. I don’t like the term quit for a number of reason’s- firstly it’s such a dramatic (over-dramatic) term making me think of all those people who make emotional I’m quitting posts on the forums, desperate for attention, to inevitably return a few weeks later and secondly I haven’t quit as much as suspend my account.

There will be a day I reactivate my account, not mainly to complete some awesome grinding daily quests, gank and be ganked by teenagers in BG’s or do another new, exciting raid dungeon with bosses who are totally new and unique (just like the last raid dungeon) but to finish some unfinished business, speak to a few people and give away some of the immense amount of mats I sto.. err I grinded. I can’t imagine my return will be longlived (I intend to buy a game card even) as you can probably tell but hey I will be on to type in caps to lakk, to have a conversation with ano just using words like awesome, suck and shape up, to see zippy hit 80 and to trick razor into tanking some instance at 3 am.

So why did I suspend my account I know you’re all dying to know. Simply because the game has got for me personally very stale, even features I’d long dreamed for (like a worldscape which actually permanently changes based on your action) didn’t change that. The content isn’t new its just different colours and different numbers on your slightly differently named items. Looking back in hindsight I’ve felt this way for a bit, before WoTLk even, certainly in TBC times. I realised in my time in Twisted logic that the game itself had no real appeal for me, I would log on and raid and it was okay fun but really it was being in AFK that kept me in the game and not being in AFK meant there was very little reason in me continuing.

Of all the thing’s I have done I probably regret not leaving sooner or stepping down sooner mainly because I was having little fun and it was obvious I was having little fun when you talked to me and that coloured my assiociations and interactions with some people. SWP probably turned me off raiding, not the actual playing in it (gotta love moonkin DPS) or the difficulty in of itself (which was probably a little too hard for us unerfed). What did it was the week when we killed felmyst and I raided all 4 days (a rarity in those days, it exhausted me) and the subsequent argument I had with a member over loot was probably the beginning of the end for me when I subsconciously realised that my time as a guild-leader in afk was not infinite. I don’t blame the particular player for this but it was more like a realisation that hit me.

So it became inevitable that my time at AFK as guild leader was not to be forever  and whilst there would be days I would have hope any little thing would cause the get out hoof feeling to rise. Indeed I told maxi a month or so before I made him guild leader that I was going to go ’someday soon’. I probably shouldn’t have left so suddenly but my love for the guild was so much I knew I would try and talk myself out of it, I certainly shouldn’t have joined TL to come back as a member.

I always thought I had something to offer AFK even after saying I just wanted to be a normal member for a bit, hence why I asked for druid classleader (only for the position to be abolished less than a month after I was offered it). I thought that the whole CL thing wasn’t handled great but every guild has hiccups and my tenure at the helm was no different, but what did it for me was that as a member I could see what was being posted and what was going on in the CL/officer forums. There was a very real danger of the guild becoming a hardcore elite- with penalties for dying, talks of your WWS logs with officers, 5 day a week raiding schedules and a push for server firsts. Whilst thankfully it doesn’t look like the guild has gone down this path and is now a 4 d/w raiding guild in the top 10 on Nord there was a chance it might have gone that way and I made several impassionate posts on those boards some of which sometimes spilled over onto online. I think the last straw was probably when nath complained about me after I took issue with a decision in game.

I knew I had to go then, it was doing me no good and AFK on the whole no good and I wanted to preserve some friendships which could only have been diminished by my continued presence in the guild. It’s weird being a guild leader then rejoining a guild and having no say, I’m not sure I can explain it or you guys can understand it but yeah it took some time getting used to. I still have and will always have great love for the guild, what it used to be the heady vanilla days of wow when we killed ossirian the unscarred through to TBC and the maggy kill etc. I still have affection for the vast majority of the guild and I can honestly say I harbour no animosity towards anybody that was in AFK at any time I was guild leader, although the reverse may not be true

Well anyways thanks for reading this guys and I really hope that I can see/play with you guys again whatever game it might be, but yeah gief D3 already!

Hoof, aka the hoof, aka Iain.

P.S. If you’ve read all this post you will be entered into a prize draw !

Being as how I have virtually no interest in WoW atm, then it makes little sense to continue in a wow theme with WoW news. Whilst a later post will address what I think of WoW and Nord, for now its enough to know the site will change in theme (albeit slowly) so i will be able to concentrate the games/hobbies that I am involved in/excited about.

Including but not limited to- Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, bloodbowl and the warhammer universe. I’ll try to keep you up to date on these games and change the links to point towards them meanwhilst please don’t hesitate to contact me with any updates on any of these games at my hotmail address. P.S hoho please do hesitate to send me messages telling me that I have a final warning on my wow account haxxors !

It’s worth repeating that this isn’t the afk WoW website anymore

Many, many years ago, err well 5 or 6 a bored resident of plymouth whiled away his hours between work, sleep and the hoe playing a graphically challenged computer game. That game was diablo 2 and whilst it was no patch on modern MMORPG’s graphically or content wise and it was haxed to fook (been PK’d by a TP BS spammer? I have) its game play and the fact you really could put in however much time you wanted (unlike a lot of modern MMORPGS) have earnt it a place in mine and many other peoples hearts.

So bring on diablo 3 already…

Best ab ever played? Maybe.