Am I too late for a New Year’s resolution?
For 2013 I’ve been telling myself I want to get back into
Warhammer Fantasy and get in one game a month but I’m not sure where to even
start?
Last serious game of Fantasy I had was in 2009 with my gobbos
and many a game after that a few months later where I faced Burt’s Bretonnian
knights and his Pegasus dudes trounced my whole army.
Actually I have gotten in a few plays of Island of Blood,
and had a blast playing that, and I guess that fun is what I’d like to capture
and experience. A small game with manageable units, a few special units thrown
in, and some limited magic for some flavor. Sure the sides aren’t balanced, but
do I really care?
I guess I’m looking for more of an experience, a tabletop
story, over getting into another miniature arms race to be competitive and win
like 40K.
There isn’t much of a Fantasy community at the BFS club,
myself, this other dude, Burt, and Teddy, and getting anybody else to play IOB
is like whipping out a copy of Dreadfleet.
Maybe ToyWiz?
I know what is killing 40K and at the same time what bring
in new 40K players, but I wonder what drives players away from Fantasy and what
brings them into the sytem?
40k is the reason I don't play fantasy. I found the universe much more appealing. I love the fluff and the fantasy fluff doesn't really do anything for me. I'd much rather spend my fantasy time in the song of ice and fire fluff or Tolkien.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I can't really commit to both 40k and Fantasy at the same time. Too costly and also too time consuming, I do play some Malifaux and that though very gothic gets my "magic fantasy" fix in when I need it.
I do like a lot of the models for fantasy and maybe someday I can get into Skaven like I have always wanted to.
Tried to respond last night, but Blogger ate my reply. Here goes again:
ReplyDeleteI've actually found myself gravitating more towards Fantasy than 40k over the last few months. You can probably blame a few things - the local meta, power armour, flyers - but I struggle to nail down exactly what it is that makes me want to play Fantasy more than 40k.
Still - here's a few thoughts:
1. Fantasy is a lot better at satisfying my need for tactics, strategy, maneuvering, positioning, etc.
6th edition did a lot to bring this more into 40k with its wound allocation changes - more than once I've been able to deep strike or outflank some firepower and hit someone in the back and take out all their heavy weapons - but it's nowhere near as deep or meaningful as it is in Fantasy, where you have so much stuff to consider with unit facing, flanking, breaking through the enemy lines, etc.
2. 40k keeps trying to get bigger and bigger but the bigger it gets the more cumbersome and lazy it feels - I agree with you that its much better suited to smaller scale games. Recently we've had a host of local tournaments where you run 750-900pts per force, and they've been wildly successful. Fantasy, though, is designed for large battles with hordes of footsoldiers and hundreds of figures, and the rules make it work so much better.
3. Fantasy has a lot more in the way of balance, and the playing field is seriously level. It might just be the local meta, but it seems like no matter what army you play, whether you win or loss is going to depend more on the player than the list. I don't see any of that 'cookie cutter' style netlist stuff, and it seems like all the armies are on roughly the same sort of power level when viewed as a whole.
Ugh, I remember having other thoughts as well, but they must have vanished while I was asleep. Still, hope my ramblings are helpful.
At my flgs, Fantasy was KING! It dominated all other games including 40k. In fact, it was joked that kids play 40k and adults play fantasy. Well with the release of 8th edition, the game completely lost all interest with the entire shop. People whined and complained about horde units; "Oh there's GW again, forcing people to by more models. How dare they!" "Oh Em Gee, look at the bastard. He's playing Teclis." Blah blah blah. I could go on forever.
ReplyDeleteWhat killed it for my shop I believe were 3 things;
First, horde units were feared soooo much. I didnt understand it since all you had to do was flank them or pie plate them depending on if it was built for shooting or assault.
Secondly, there's always been a division between magic lovers and magic haters. When the President of our club quit completely after the new edition because of all the magic, a lot of people soon followed.
Third, our FLGS store owner does NOT support GW products. He HATES keeping things in stock and he could care less about the player base. He's stated he makes more money off Magic and Comic books. I think he forgets that because he's treated his GW player base like shit for years, we all order online.
Anyway, kind of a small rant but I'm completely disappointed in the fact that fantasy was killed in our shop. Even 40k was dead for the past 6 months until a few of us decided to try and push to get it back in.
Fantasy can be a FAR more competitive game with ridiculously broken lists that can have you rolling 5 or 6 hand-fulls of dice which to me is fun. A lot of the models are GORGEOUS! I mean look at what you get in the Island of Blood set. Look at those High Elves!
My recommendation to anyone wanting to play more fantasy on the side or just to break up the monotony of 40k; build a Daemon army. Base them on 40k bases and buy/make movement trays to fit them. You'll get two armies in one and daemons are the CHEESIEST fantasy army so it'll be forgiving and fun!
If you crave previous additions of Warhammer Fantasy (much like I did) I suggest you check out Warhammer Ancient Battles (no longer produced by still has a decent following) and War & Conquest. Both are basically the best of 5th, 6th, and 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy without Magic or Over Powered characters, Horde units, and monster cavalry. War & Conquest changes up the the order of rolling to wound and armor saves but if you look close, it is essential the same rules just presented differently so the game could be published. It also happens to be from the guy that was in charge of WAB for many years, Rob Broom.
ReplyDeleteHuron, thanks for the reccomendation- I actually picked up a complete set of the older fantasy rulesets and have been taking a look at them.
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