GW The Old World is back?

[Psychopomp]

Weren't Chaos Dwarfs getting a legacy list, too? It disturbs me that I haven't seen any base size posts with them in it.

 

[TristramEvans]

Weren't Chaos Dwarfs getting a legacy list, too? It disturbs me that I haven't seen any base size posts with them in it.

rumour is Chaos dwarves, like Kislev, are going to be a second wave release as part of the game.

 

[Neon]

I've never played any "army" miniature games (I've only played skirmish games). How do players generally go about this? Do they just invest in one army? A couple of armies? Or the entire product range?!?!!!!

 

[Psychopomp]

I've never played any "army" miniature games (I've only played skirmish games). How do players generally go about this? Do they just invest in one army? A couple of armies? Or the entire product range?!?!!!!

If we're being honest, it's usually one main army, then several "I should totally do a second army, and I've always liked..." half-starts.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've never played any "army" miniature games (I've only played skirmish games). How do players generally go about this? Do they just invest in one army? A couple of armies? Or the entire product range?!?!!!!

The temptation is always there for multiple armies, but yeah it's definitely best to start with one army and gradually build it up by prepping and painting one unit at a time. A lot of gaming groups will run "escalation games", which means you start with very small point totals and gradually raise the total over time, giving players the opportunity to prepare and add more units to their army along the way, and get used to the special rules for alternate units and find their playstyle.

A good starting point for any Warhammer army is generally 1 commander, one wizard, two infantry units and one special unit (heavy cavalry, artillery, etc), about $150-200 and a week's work.

 

[CRKrueger]

If we're being honest, it's usually one main army, then several "I should totally do a second army, and I've always liked..." half-starts.

 

[TristramEvans]

Buying armies is easy.

Getting them ready for play is a lifelong task.

 

[Neon]

I'm loving the 90s cartoonish paint jobs I'm seeing online. Bright vibrant colors.
I think I will go in that direction rather than the grittier / earthier tone I see some fantasy armies painted.

When looking at individual units by themselves, I like those earthy tones, but in a squad they all just blend into a ball of brown.

I'm sending in the clowns!

 

[CRKrueger]

Buying armies is easy.

Getting them ready for play is a lifelong task.

It’s getting to the point where “getting all my minis painted” is going on the “when I win the lotto” list.

 

[TristramEvans]

It’s getting to the point where “getting all my minis painted” is going on the “when I win the lotto” list.

I've sold off everything I don't reasonably expect to complete in the next decade. Right now it's down to Kingdom Death's Gambler's Chest, Mantic's Hellboy The Boardgame's third wave of expansions, and a medieval War of the Roses army with enough fantasyesque figures worked in that it could easily work for Bretonnia (Perry's Foot Knights for the new Bretonnian Knights on foot units revealed a while back). And Warhammer specifically, I have only Skaven and a Tom Meier elf army that could serve as a counts-as Wood Elves (I leaned more into the wood theme), but they would be a bit out of scale vs GW. Not horribly so, it can still work from a bird's eye general's view of troop representations, and I do scenic bases which tends to help obscure minor differences, but some players don't like that, and I defer to their preferences).

And a sort of anything-goes "Medieval Hell" army that combines everything from converted Nurgle and the Nurglish Rotten Factory Circus of Chaos minis to Thomas Foss's Triumph of Death Renaissance woodcut-themed skeletal army to Antideluvian's Medieval Demons to Eureka's Chaos Army.

The theme, or intention, is Carnevil, the videogame, mixed with Hieronymus Bosch and Durer by way of Berserk's Eclipse.

And then there's Skaven.

I can only describe my collection thus: I could put together a 10,000 point army for 8th edition with 90% of the army, including all clanrats and slave units, purely Jes Goodwin miniatures released between '86 to '91. Let those with wisdom understand those words.

I was very lucky to have started recollecting my nostalgia dream army back when most folks treated the old minis as nearly worthless. The golden beginnings of Oldhammer before the End Times or AoS and a collector's craze was instigated. A single ebay purchase of $100 for me back then, is sold piecemeal for closer to $2000 these days. I still keep my eye closely on the various secondhand online markets, but there is no way I could have accomplished that if I started again today. I think the big problem is that Skaven got a big push at the beginning of 8th with the wildly successful Island of Blood revamp of the army. And they are really good, I thought it was the best redesign we've seen for the army, after so many years stuck with the Monkeyrats. The IoB Skaven, along with a few new releases at that time revitalized the line, and created a visual consistency that was quite different in approach to Jes Goodwin's original sculpts. More "cartoony" and impressionistic" (you basically had to paint on the fur yourself or leave them with these weird muttonchopped werewolf partway through transformation look), but still really good. Some of those kits were just beautiful - the new Screaming Bell? The revamped Doomwheel? Those Stormvermin? I absolutely loved it.

There was a few things missing... Eshin troops - Nightrunners/Gutter Runners were still only offered in their monkeyrat iterations. Some of the characters were still metal, some old Jes Goodwin, some circa 6th edition. The older Jezzails, Rat Ogres/Giant Rats and Pestilins kits didn;t match the new aesthetic. But that was fine, conversions were easy with a bit of ingenuity. You could have made the entire 7th edition armybook just from Island of Blood sets, with a bit of ingenuity.

But then they blew the world up so GW could try out He-man and the Masters of the Warhammer.

And Island of Blood went away.

You see, they designed the IoB sprues so that they made optimum use of space for a mix of high elf and Skaven figures. So there was no way to extract one set from the mold and not the other, or, I guess, GW just can't tolerate molds with holes in them.

Anyways what was left was a hodge podge of minis in different styles across 30 years, and then GW introduced their new AoS aesthetic, which is a bit....extra. This started with the End-Times releases, which were ...well, this is the aesthetic they went for....for a renaissance-era fantasy game...



At the time there was earnest speculation that they were going to take the End Times as an opportunity to port the Skaven to 40k, in other words, bring back the H.R.U.D. There seemed to be hints about that hidden in some 40k books in those days. Even in the End Times books themselves, Lizardmen and Skaven both come into contact with Eldar. I thought maybe new Slann and HRUD armies would join 40k and no more fantasy (recall AoS was not announced until after the End Times). Anyways, the new AoS Skaven are...weird. They gave them really long tails for some reason. It's an aesthetic choice, I suppose. It doesn't look horrible but, I don't personally think that it adds anything other than fragility. More cynically, I assume GW went in that direction to make the sculpts harder to pirate for resin recasters. Small, thin, fragile parts aren't easy to replicate a mold for.

Anyways point is, I started getting into older Skaven at a time when that was purely just a whim, I was mostly happy with the state of Skaven in early 8th edition. I just held out the entire edition for a new rulebook.

But poor Brettonian players, all that stuff I just described? They got it a hundred times worse. A pdf-released patch to a 3 editions out of date army book. Almost no new miniatures since 5th edition. At least the leftovers they were handed looked really good. Brettonnia never had an equivalent "monkey rat" phase - it's hard to screw up Arthurian Knights. But yeah, GW at the time pretty much actively ignored them.

That is how I'm expecting Skaven and other legacy armies to be treated by the first phase of The Old World.

And so I'm lucky enough to have the opportunity to do a purely nostalgia army - the wishlist army in the furthest reaches of my imagination as a young kid pouring over the photograph's of Andy Chamber's Skaven army in White Dwarf again and again. It's not just a Skaven army, it's complete themed armies for each of the major clans, including a Feudal Japanese Clan Eshin and highly-Nurgilized Clan Pestilens mass conversion. A Steampunk by way of Skeksi/Dark Crystal-inspired clan Skryre army of chaotic inventions, and a Cronenbergian Moulder Hell Pit army.

Needless to say, Skaven are the biggest project that I intend to bite into.

That pretty much does it for Warhammer except for McDeath. I accumulated all the minis for McDeath. It cost me a small fortune and 5 years of hunting. I'm working on all the individual terrain layouts done in 4' by 4' blocks of insulation foam mounted on particle board. At least once in my life I want to run through McDeath in it's entirety, with all the miniatures, and fully painted terrain rather than maps. Including the different levels of Castle McDeath.

Then there's the smaller projects, one-off miniatures, small lines, and dioramas. There's a handful. Brugelberg to populate a medieval city. A collection of all the classic Citadel minis with moon heads. One miniature for each of the professions in WFRP 1st edition. A small group of Fimir. Zoats!

Biggest one is a diorama of the two rarest and some of the most beloved Citadel miniatures that I own: The Manchester Rabbit facing off against The Great Spined Dragon.

The Manchester Rabbit was a promotional giveaway for the opening of the first Games Workshop store in Manchester, and were only given away on that day until supplies ran out. Technically not even for Warhammer (he was noted as a "Broo"), the Manchester Rabbit was one of the Holy Grails of my early Oldhammer hunts.



And the Nick Bibby's Great Spined Dragon is, in my opinion, the best Dragon ever sculpted for a miniature line. I even did a homage to it for my Doodling D&D series:

I have them squaring off at the mouth of the Dragon's cave, with a C29 Young Dragon in a nest behild a pile of gold coins, also sculpted by Bibby, behind the mother Dragon, and littered on the ground by the Rabbit are the bodies of dead knights. The Manchester Rabbit I converted a bit to carry a banner to El-ahrairah, the rabbet ancestor-God of Watership Down's lore, done in the style of the 1978 cartoon:



Anyways, not a complex concept, but something I'm pouring an inordinate amout of wor into, from individuall sculpting the pile of coins & treasure from greenstuff to a rather excrustiating multi-chromatic paint job on the Dragon's scales.


So yeah, that's what I hope to finish over the next ten years. A lot, but not unreasonably insurmountable.

Along the way I've sold off all my 40K armies: Custodes, Grey Knights, Necrons (though I miss Necrons, I may get Necrons again if it's feasible), and many fantasy armies. I still have the beginnings of a classic Citadel Orcs and Goblin army that I need to unload.

 

[Ladybird]

a Tom Meier elf army that could serve as a counts-as Wood Elves (I leaned more into the wood theme), but they would be a bit out of scale vs GW.

Wood Elves were an army I always liked the look of, but I'm not a skilled enough painter to do Elves.

But poor Brettonian players, all that stuff I just described? They got it a hundred times worse. A pdf-released patch to a 3 editions out of date army book. Almost no new miniatures since 5th edition. At least the leftovers they were handed looked really good. Brettonnia never had an equivalent "monkey rat" phase - it's hard to screw up Arthurian Knights. But yeah, GW at the time pretty much actively ignored them.

There's a really interesting piece on Warhammer Community about the process of designing the new models and what went into making them feeling both new and classic at the same time.

 

[SmallbutVicious]

It’s getting to the point where “getting all my minis painted” is going on the “when I win the lotto” list.

Which is why I'm probably not going to bother with the Old World. I can't even get a Mordheim band finished these days, there's no way I'm assembling and painting an entire army before I retire.

 

[Self Saboteur]

Nowadays the only GW I play is Necromunda and their video games. But it’s cool to see the excitement for the Old World coming back. I’m sure the minis will be pretty awesome.

 

[David Johansen]

If you're trying to get people to start playing Warhammer, you'll want to paint two armies. If you have a club that you'll be playing at, you'll want to paint one army. A second army can be started as a contingent that can be used as part of the first army.

From a setting perspective: Dwarfs or Ogres and Empire, High Elves and Wood Elves, Wood Elves and Brettonians, Dark Elves and Chaos, Vampires and Empire, Chaos and Chaos Dwarfs or Chaos Dwarfs and Orcs. Lizardmen don't really have any friends but might at least ally with High Elves to fight Chaos or Dark Elves in a pinch.

Theoretically armies from Araby, Hind, Cathay, and Nippon might fight alongside Bretonians and Empire but I'm guessing Araby and Hind will have ties to chaos to get Genies and Hindu inspired monsters, so they might go with Chaos Marauders or Daemons though they might not in to avoid cultural disrespect issues.

 

[TristramEvans]

Yep, I often do two armies when trying to sell people on the hobby or my ridiculous homebrew mixing WRG 6th edition with Tony Both's Hyperborean rules and Warmaster/Black Powder/Hail Caeser in a not-Warhammer setting that tries to capture the feeling of Oldhammer (particularly WFB 3rd edition). The system mixes the Silhouette dice system with Terry Gore's Medieval Warfare, the Lore is "Warhammer, if the focus was a fantasy version of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth instead of a fantasy version of the German Empire" and Chaos was replaced with a Heironymous Boschian medieval concept of Hell.

The sadly obscure and discontinued Hell Dorado also big influence (I put that up there with Planescape, Kingdom Death, Mechanical Dream, as just a powerful unique vision that blends this Picaso-esque surrealism with Catholic horror, that sadly never captured an audience. I think it would have made a wonderful RPG setting, for tabletop or a highly styalized videogame). Instead, I treasure the beautiful sculpts that I was lucky enough to acquire while the game was in print.

Well, that was a tangent, but I'm taking a break from writing today, while I'm still in "writing mode", so you guys are getting stream of conscousnesshit posting for the moment.

Anyways, yeah two armies. Um, I'll usually go 10mm or 15mm scale. Any game is easy to convert as long as both armies follow the same basing conventions.

Warmaster, which is now, along with BattleTech: Alpha Strike, my go-to for introducing a friend to the hobby, is a blessed 6mm. I think it took maybe 5 days to paint up 5 Warmaster armies for opponents, and then a few extra days spent on my Skaven:


(I am bad at taking photographs. It's an artistic talent that I was not blessed with. That's why you don;t see many here. Most of the good ones I shared are ones that I roped visiting friends into taking, and that's not something you want to ask everyone you have over ("would you take photos for me of my toy soldiers that I painted for me to show to other nerds online?"). But I was proud enough of my tiny tiny paintjob that taxed my poor bespectacled nerd eyes that I took maybe a couple thousand digital photos and whittled it down to a few that were acceptable enough.



This was to show scale with one of my old Skaven unit fillers:


28mm and above, these days I do for myself mostly, but my gaming circle all have their own armies done their own way. Customization and Theme are big priorities as far as the hobby goes among my colleagues, and I think that investment of yourself into an army, painting it and making it your own, is essential to the experience of the wargame itself, that I would consider that a part of the indoctrination for wargames on that scale. That's not me trying to sound gatekeepy, it's more like...microwaving a frozen dinner at chef school.

In the meantime, 10mm WH40K was a blast.

Def yeah, two armies, and I always knock off a few points on my side, give the new players an advantage without "playing down" during the game, and no ruleslawyer tournament tricks until they get comfortable with the rules.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

TristramEvans, I use that "rat piloting a human-robot suit" image a lot too, but mostly in reference to real pet rats. Can't get enough of those.

 

[K_Peterson]

Damage done to the wallet this morning. I preordered the core book, both army books, and a couple of the card packs. Even then, it was a chunk of change.

 

[Brander]

My first Warhammer fantasy army was to be Goblins, my second was to be Skaven. I came close to enough minis for both, but I'm not sure I had enough life to paint them all. My 3rd was Wood Elves, but the first two were more than enough for my wallet and time.

 

[Neon]

Damage done to the wallet this morning. I preordered the core book, both army books, and a couple of the card packs. Even then, it was a chunk of change.

You only live once petey'boy!

 

[Neon]

The temptation is always there for multiple armies, but yeah it's definitely best to start with one army and gradually build it up by prepping and painting one unit at a time. A lot of gaming groups will run "escalation games", which means you start with very small point totals and gradually raise the total over time, giving players the opportunity to prepare and add more units to their army along the way, and get used to the special rules for alternate units and find their playstyle.

A good starting point for any Warhammer army is generally 1 commander, one wizard, two infantry units and one special unit (heavy cavalry, artillery, etc), about $150-200 and a week's work.

Uh huh.... uh huh.
So if I understood correctly, the whole product line.
IM IN!

 

[TristramEvans]

Uh huh.... uh huh.
So if I understood correctly, the whole product line.
IM IN!

yup, welcome to plastic crack

 

[Neon]

yup, welcome to plastic crack

From what I've heard, we could only dream of it being plastic.

 

[TristramEvans]

From what I've heard, we could only dream of it being plastic.

You mean the TOW releases? They are cobbled together with only a handful of new models, sure. Just like Horus Heresy, I expect this to be a heavily DIY game.

 

[Neon]

You mean the TOW releases? They are cobbled together with only a handful of new models, sure. Just like Horus Heresy, I expect this to be a heavily DIY game.

I'm new to miniatures games. Is it being a diy game a bad thing?

 

[Fenris-77]

My first WHFB army was undead, and if I went back to it now it would also be undead. I do love painting bone and a bunch of the newer undead sculpts are amazing.

 

[Neon]

My first WHFB army was undead, and if I went back to it now it would also be undead. I do love painting bone and a bunch of the newer undead sculpts are amazing.

I'm also a diehard boner.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm also a diehard boner.

Lol. I never cared for the division into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings personally, but it would be Vampire Counts if I had to pick. I don't need any Egypt in my Oldhammer.

 

[Neon]

Lol. I never cared for the division into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings personally, but it would be Vampire Counts if I had to pick. I don't need any Egypt in my Oldhammer.

You've clearly spoken too soon!

 

[Neon]

#EgyptianBoner

 

[TristramEvans]

I'm new to miniatures games. Is it being a diy game a bad thing?

Not from my point of view/ I think customization is a big part of making an army "your own". 6th edition and before, this was something that Warhammer heavily encouraged. A large portion of White Dwarf articles in those days were devoted to it. Nowadays AoS and 40K and associated games are sorta presented "paint by number". But Horus Heresy was always a smaller line published by Forge World, that used an older, more complex form of the rules, and in most cases had no official minis for the troops except for a few centerpiece models and a bunch of conversion kits for regular40K space marine models.

Like HH, The Old World is limiting it's focus to a few armies (for a long time no Xenos had stats for HH, and even now they are still mostly ignored as the grand narrative is the Biblical civil war among the Astartes). I expect it to be treated much the same as HH, going forward. Though popularity may change that.

 

[TristramEvans]

Lol. I never cared for the division into Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings personally, but it would be Vampire Counts if I had to pick. I don't need any Egypt in my Oldhammer.

They always seemed out of place to me as well, but I felt the same about Ogre Kingdoms.

It looks to me like the armies getting excluded from ToW are the ones that AoS is actually doing something with though, there's rumours of a big Skaven line revamp in AoS and Vampire Counts got subdivided into some pretty elaborate undead factions. Bretonnia and Tomb Kings share an irrelevance in AoS, their mini lines were essentially dead and buried otherwise.

So mini-wise, the legacy armies are generally doing well (except Chaos Dwarves, but Mantic's are kinda awesome and way cheaper than Forge World's).

I really hope the Legacy lists don't suck. That they are at least playable, even if they don't have access to any of the new shines of the gameline or are sub-optimal from a tournament perspective.

 

[K_Peterson]

You only live once petey'boy!

 

[Ladybird]

Bretonnia and Tomb Kings share an irrelevance in AoS, their mini lines were essentially dead and buried otherwise.

The courtly knight army is still there, there's these fine noble lads on their glorious steeds, off to do some heroic deeds. Aren't they glorious. Paragons of honour. Listen to how the villagers cheer as they approach!

So mini-wise, the legacy armies are generally doing well (except Chaos Dwarves, but Mantic's are kinda awesome and way cheaper than Forge World's).

Chaos Dwarves were always in an odd "official homebrew" place, though, even when they had a range of their own. They really came into their own in the other games.

I really hope the Legacy lists don't suck. That they are at least playable, even if they don't have access to any of the new shines of the gameline or are sub-optimal from a tournament perspective.

Hopefully GW are wise enough not to repeat the "this is technically an army list but we don't want you using it" bullshit they added to the "get you by" army lists for 1e AoS.

Spoiler

For those of you not up on your AoS lore, the Flesh-Eater Courts - including the lads above - are a faction of ghouls, suffering from hunger-crazed delusions resulting in them thinking they are actually heroic courtly knights in service to their vampiric Ghoul King. They use some of the same iconography as Bretonnia, because GW does like a fleur de lys, but they're pretty thoroughly on the Villain side of things.

 

[TristramEvans]

Hopefully GW are wise enough not to repeat the "this is technically an army list but we don't want you using it" bullshit they added to the "get you by" army lists for 1e AoS.

Honestly I didn't mind those lists, even with the jokes. I thought they did a good job of capturing the flavours of the classic armies. The Skaven one especially I'd go so far as to call it the best Army List GW ever did for Skaven.

There was little to no balance though, and of course no points, and some armies' (Dwarves especially) players really didn't like the joke rules such as an in-game benefit for having a bigger beard than your opponent. I personally found it a refreshing change from the Tournament mindset, bringing back the sense of not taking things seriously of the Oldhammer era.

 

[Ladybird]

Honestly I didn't mind those lists, even with the jokes. I thought they did a good job of capturing the flavours of the classic armies. The Skaven one especially I'd go so far as to call it the best Army List GW ever did for Skaven.

There was little to no balance though, and of course no points, and some armies' (Dwarves especially) players really didn't like the joke rules such as an in-game benefit for having a bigger beard than your opponent. I personally found it a refreshing change from the Tournament mindset, bringing back the sense of not taking things seriously of the Oldhammer era.

I don't mind jokes - I mean, I'm collecting Ironjawz, the ones that do the traditional GW greenskin meme stuff - but gaming humour is always best when it's the players bringing it, rather than the rules dictating you must Do A Comedy Now; the players left alone might overdo it, if they don't know how to be funny themselves, but if they're repeating the games designer's jokes then they will get overdone; it's the same difference between Monty Python (Funny) and people quoting the same sketches from Monty Python (Not Funny).

There's also a case of reading the damn room, and given the level of anger there was about the World-That-Was being destroyed and AoS existing, making every faction into a joke faction was probably not wise (See also : D&D4e).

All that said, Settra's "if you kneel, you lose" rule is hilarious.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don't mind jokes - I mean, I'm collecting Ironjawz, the ones that do the traditional GW greenskin meme stuff - but gaming humour is always best when it's the players bringing it, rather than the rules dictating you must Do A Comedy Now; the players left alone might overdo it, if they don't know how to be funny themselves, but if they're repeating the games designer's jokes then they will get overdone; it's the same difference between Monty Python (Funny) and people quoting the same sketches from Monty Python (Not Funny).

Yeah, that's a fair point.

There's also a case of reading the damn room, and given the level of anger there was about the World-That-Was being destroyed and AoS existing, making every faction into a joke faction was probably not wise (See also : D&D4e).

No doubt. The release of AoS was a clusterf---, GW couldn't have picked a worse time to bring in some comedy. Dark Elf armies were burning on Youtube!

All that said, Settra's "if you kneel, you lose" rule is hilarious.

Indeed. Maybe it helped for me that Skaven were largely spared the joke rules. I was more concerned with them making Eshin playable for the first time since the Storm of Shadows list.

 

[David Johansen]

Well, here's the metal stuff anyhow, I've got a lot of spears to fix and so on, those first Empire regiments plastics were flimsy where the head of the weapon attatched to the shaft.

 

[David Johansen]

Here's a shot of the whole army including plastics.

20 Knights Panther (10 metal, 10 plastic)
5 Knights of the Blazing Sun (led by Othello the Moor and his right hand man Iago)
5 Pistoliers
5 Desert Dogs (Painted as bodyguard for mounted wizard)
40 Handgunners
40 Spearmen
20 Greatswords
20 Swordsmen
20 Halberdiers
20 Archers (many are 5e Bretonians with head swaps)
20 Crossbowmen (mostly metal 12 Marksmen of Miraglio)
20 Free Companies
20 Brother Toby's Friendly Pilgrims (my Mordheim Witch Hunter Warband played as Flagellents)
2 Great Cannon
2 Mortars
1 Hellblaster Volley Gun (the second metal version that falls apart all the time and is somehow a more acurate model as such)
Heroes (With Hunter Duo, Warhammer Quest Noble, Warhammer Quest Witch Hunter, Knights Panther Grandmaster and Battle Standard, Bright Wizard, Mounted Bright Wizard, Jade Wizard, I've got some of the others in plastic from the toy box)

Close to 300 figures all told.

 

[Acmegamer]

Not sure if this is the best place for it, it feels on topic. Though I could be wrong. She really rips into GW on the Oldhammer stuff.

 

[TristramEvans]

Not sure if this is the best place for it, it feels on topic. Though I could be wrong. She really rips into GW on the Oldhammer stuff.

I got to the 4 minute mark so far - her voice is...challenging to listen to. I dunno, she seems to be trying to make a mountain of a molehill. We've known about the legacy armies, and which armies were going to get initial support for 2 years, not 4 days before launch as she says, trying to make it seem like a last minute reveal seems kinda dishonest.