Long absence, a green Knight fiasco and new horizons…

A long time has passed since I last posted on this rather small blog which was intended to be a regular update on my Bretonnian army progression. This reason for this was a rather painful back injury that required morphine and some exams I had to sit taking up the vast majority of my time, thus relegating my brave Knights and rather dirty peasants to their respective boxes until such a time came that I could do them the justice they require!

Now that time has come and for the last month or so I have been active on the forums that I lurk and with my brush flailing away with red and blue and now I have got the time to update my blog I thought that the time was ripe!

Firstly my Super-Lance/Pain Train is completed: 14 Knights of the Realm a Sorceress and a Paladin make for a rather hard hitting force that in theory can break almost any unit they come across provided they charge! Sporting the blue and red of Carcassonne, they are a rather cool sight as they charge across the battlefield meeting out death on those foolish enough to challenge our might!

However this is where my Green Knight Paladin has encountered a few issues. The idea was for him to sport blue, white and red on his barding and a red and white on his torso while the crests on his head and his horse were going to be painted a bright red, orange and yellow to give the impression of flowing flame.

Unfortunately I figured out that orange isn’t as easy to dry brush with as the darker or more solid colours I normally use and so rather than have a bright red highlighted with orange I instead have a murkey-reddish-brown-orange colour (which in itself isn’t nasty just not very bright) with some very dubious yellow highlights!

I am hoping that once I get the rest of the model painted it will look ok but if not I’m afraid this poor chap is going to have a swim in the paint stripper for the 3^rd time in his life (got to love metal models!).

That brings me nicely onto the prospect of a new Bretonnian book! Rumours are abound of when we will receive it but there does seem to be good odds for this summer! Even more debate rages on what we will get in this new book!

The biggest split between the community so far seems to be if we need foot Knights or not: many feel we need them to make certain games (Watchtower) possible while others think that our Grail Pilgrims should just get a boost to make them a little bit more competitive and retain the heavy cavalry list that we currently have.

I am on the fence! I certainly don’t want to see our list become The Empire in different clothes nor turn away from our list being a Cavalry one but I can see the logic in popping some Foot Knights in there both for gaming purposes and purely to sell new models.

Other arguments involve war machines and the possible inclusion of some Crossbowmen? Who knows, Games Workshop in their infinite wisdom…..yeah, in their wisdom will undoubtedly get it perfect or utterly wrong, there seems little ground for in-between these days!

And while I haven’t got around to much painting, I have managed to paint my Empathy Paladin who is looking heroic and ready to club some vile Orcs or Vampires to a pulp and also convert a model to represent him on a horse, who may be my General! Not sure yet, I need someone suitably heroic and that seems a rather illusive thing to achieve!

Will continue to update as and when things happen but for now, Ta-ta!

Kind Regards

Viscount “Wolf” Blackwood

Luck Vs Skill

Right,

At the end of last week i embarked upon a game with a borrowed army. Never the best idea when you are playing a talented, tournament player who fields a power list and you are fielding an army that you have no experience with.

Thus, my Empire army got absolutely slaughtered by some pointy eared High Elves.

Now, luck always plays an important part in a game of Warhammer and while i had good luck in some places (my magic was effective) i had bad luck in others (my war machines were ineffective, i rolled a double one on a breaktest meaning my opponents expensive cavalry was held up by 1 handgunner in a turn i should have been shooting at them with two hellblasters and thirty crossbow's!) and in other parts it was the rarest type of luck: average!

Overall, it mattered little because i think even had i been blessed with good luck my list was ill suited to stop a huge amount of white lions and dragon princes ripping my men to pieces but i had a good, fun game!

What i did take away from the list however was the question: How much is Warhammer a game of Skill?

Lets break it down for clarity:
Chess is PURE skill - there is no randomness involved in any aspect of the game.
Dice is PURE luck - there is no skill involved in any part of the game (concerning the results).

Warhammer is a game based on dice and therefore luck but, considering the rules, you can do things to stack the luck in your favor.

Anyone who played 7th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles will know that it involved a lot less "randomness". Charge ranges were double your movement and magic was powered by the level of your wizards. In a nutshell, you cavalry always charged infantry and if you sunk a load of points into your mages you had powerful magic phases.

Now, the game is much more random.

My opponent was lucky in the fact he only had a single mage because, in five turns of rolling for winds of magic, he never scored above a 5! (Bearing in mind i had two mages and three warrior priests channeling dispel dice). I on the other hand who had put a few more points in the magic phase (or been forced to by my VERY limited selection of models) never scored below a 9. Therefore, all was well and fair in the world.

But consider a game i watched recently when a Vampire player rolled snake eyes for his magic in subsequent turns while his opponent, armed only with a single level 2 mage, rolled a 12 and a 10! Result: not much necromancy going on in that quarter!

As most of the game is based on dice rolls, you expect good and bad luck: its part and parcel of wargaming. But should key elements of the game be so severerly punished due to a single, unlucky roll?

Some people would say yes: after all, 7th Edition Warhammer was dominated by Dark Elves using superior movement values to outrun other armies and fear causing Undead/Daemons being immovable from key objectives.

Some people would say no: is it really fair that your powerful cavalry unit led by a thousand year old Dark Elf Dreadlord is unable to charge the 10" to the unit of pathetic humans because you consistently roll snake eyes on your charge distance?

Me? Well, i'm in the middle! I like the idea of the randomness - i play chess and i like the skill involved, i play blackjack and i like the chance. Warhammer gives me a nice middle ground. Of course, when the dice rolls go against me, i believe that it shouldn't work like that. When my opponent fails to cast any spells or finds his infantry are unable to charge across open ground (clearly they forgot their boots), then i think it is the best thing in the world!

Anyway: interesting tangent finished!

I now have to plan where my General has been on his Grail Quest and which, mysterious female he has met along the way!

Kindest Regards

Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood