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
Saturday 3 August 2013
Wednesday 31 July 2013
So, on with the show?
As i already hinted at, i'm have given up my tournament days and become a player who is much more interested in the spirit of an army. With this i have also abandoned what used to be, more or less, a commandment: Power-Gaming!
For those who are not aware, power gaming is a term that is used as a catch all phrase for army lists designed to win at any and all expense. Popular lists revolve around "Deathstars" (units that cannot be stopped due to extreme resilience/hitting power/characters within) which can lead to, in my opinion, rather boring games as two armies avoid one another's main unit and desperately try to claim as many points from other sources as possible.
So, with that doctrine well and truly abandoned, i probably should start looking towards my new doctrine: Fun, Balanced lists! Madness!
The first thing i have to do with my new list is decide on my General! From that starting point i can extrapolate (not really the correct use of the word but i absolutely love it and have been wanting to use it for ages!), the rest of my list.
Henceforth, The indomitable Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood was born! Now to give him some personality.
Looking at the Bretonnian map doesn't really give a lot away. I did rather like the idea of a Mousillon based force but it does seem it has been done rather a lot so i came up with a different plan.
Carcassonne: South East of the Kingdom and home to a warlike bunch of individuals who regularly battle with foul Greenskins (and others!), shouldering the burden of defending the realm uncomplaining. What i particularly like about the region is the colour scheme (a nice Red and Blue) and a magic item: the Birth Sword!
Who doesn't want the first thing their new born son touches to be a sword? In game terms its not amazing but i like the idea of it so there goes another reason for my General to be from there!
Now to flesh it out a little. Virtue of Confidence to make him a challenge monster! Now while this virtue is commonly associated with Couronne, that is easily solved by saying his Mother was from that province! (It also has the rather useful because it has the same colour scheme!).
So, he is already going towards being designed for challenges so the next thing i need is to bump his skill at arms up. Armour of Agiluf will do that job, but lets change the name to something more fitting: Cuirass of Martial Pride? Sounds good to me.
What else? Well, now he is a challenge monster lets make sure the enemy has to accept these challenges. Gauntlet of the Duel!
And finally what she was have for a mount? As cool as Hypogriffs and Pegasus' are, i think for a true Lord the only way is in the front rank of his own men. So a Warhorse it is!
But why stop at a Horse? Wouldn't a Wolf be cooler? Not a smelly little thing like dirty goblins ride but a massive ferocious wolf that looks capable of tearing a dozen men to little bits! So a BIG wolf!
Lets bulk the general idea of him a little more now we have an actual model in mind! Riding a wolf and unafraid to meet anyone in a personnel challenge. Grail vow is needed then (again, probably not worth it in game terms but its important i get this right!) but with Grail Knights being living saints (quite literally), its important i don't have many in the army. Maybe just my General?
With all this in mind i came up with this bad boy:
Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood
Virtue Of Confidence & The Grail Vow
Birth Sword of Carcassonne "Dawn's Judgement"
Cuirass of Martial Pride
Gauntlet of the Duel
Bretonnian "War Wolf"
The model itself is made from King Leoncouer's body, a Knight head and arm, Spacewolf Stormshield, Spacewolf Thunderwolf, Empire Helmet (The wolf is stood on it, to give it more height), Dark Elf Lance Tip (not visible in this photo) and a book from the Grey Knights range.
With this in mind i need to create a back story for his wolf mount, his grail quest and where, from this individual, the army is going to go!
Regards
Viscount Blackwood
For those who are not aware, power gaming is a term that is used as a catch all phrase for army lists designed to win at any and all expense. Popular lists revolve around "Deathstars" (units that cannot be stopped due to extreme resilience/hitting power/characters within) which can lead to, in my opinion, rather boring games as two armies avoid one another's main unit and desperately try to claim as many points from other sources as possible.
So, with that doctrine well and truly abandoned, i probably should start looking towards my new doctrine: Fun, Balanced lists! Madness!
The first thing i have to do with my new list is decide on my General! From that starting point i can extrapolate (not really the correct use of the word but i absolutely love it and have been wanting to use it for ages!), the rest of my list.
Henceforth, The indomitable Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood was born! Now to give him some personality.
Looking at the Bretonnian map doesn't really give a lot away. I did rather like the idea of a Mousillon based force but it does seem it has been done rather a lot so i came up with a different plan.
Carcassonne: South East of the Kingdom and home to a warlike bunch of individuals who regularly battle with foul Greenskins (and others!), shouldering the burden of defending the realm uncomplaining. What i particularly like about the region is the colour scheme (a nice Red and Blue) and a magic item: the Birth Sword!
Who doesn't want the first thing their new born son touches to be a sword? In game terms its not amazing but i like the idea of it so there goes another reason for my General to be from there!
Now to flesh it out a little. Virtue of Confidence to make him a challenge monster! Now while this virtue is commonly associated with Couronne, that is easily solved by saying his Mother was from that province! (It also has the rather useful because it has the same colour scheme!).
So, he is already going towards being designed for challenges so the next thing i need is to bump his skill at arms up. Armour of Agiluf will do that job, but lets change the name to something more fitting: Cuirass of Martial Pride? Sounds good to me.
What else? Well, now he is a challenge monster lets make sure the enemy has to accept these challenges. Gauntlet of the Duel!
And finally what she was have for a mount? As cool as Hypogriffs and Pegasus' are, i think for a true Lord the only way is in the front rank of his own men. So a Warhorse it is!
But why stop at a Horse? Wouldn't a Wolf be cooler? Not a smelly little thing like dirty goblins ride but a massive ferocious wolf that looks capable of tearing a dozen men to little bits! So a BIG wolf!
Lets bulk the general idea of him a little more now we have an actual model in mind! Riding a wolf and unafraid to meet anyone in a personnel challenge. Grail vow is needed then (again, probably not worth it in game terms but its important i get this right!) but with Grail Knights being living saints (quite literally), its important i don't have many in the army. Maybe just my General?
With all this in mind i came up with this bad boy:
Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood
Virtue Of Confidence & The Grail Vow
Birth Sword of Carcassonne "Dawn's Judgement"
Cuirass of Martial Pride
Gauntlet of the Duel
Bretonnian "War Wolf"
The model itself is made from King Leoncouer's body, a Knight head and arm, Spacewolf Stormshield, Spacewolf Thunderwolf, Empire Helmet (The wolf is stood on it, to give it more height), Dark Elf Lance Tip (not visible in this photo) and a book from the Grey Knights range.
With this in mind i need to create a back story for his wolf mount, his grail quest and where, from this individual, the army is going to go!
Regards
Viscount Blackwood
A Deed of Ennoblement! Where it all begins....
So, first things first! I'm Viscount "Wolf" Blackwood!
And the next natural question is: why create a Bretonnian Blog?
Of all the armies in the Warhammer World, it is fair to say that Bretonnian's are probably the least loved (joint with Wood Elves?) by Games Workshop!
There are many reasons why this may be and it is not the purpose of this blog to examine them: enough people already have and i'm not in the business of rehashing old arguments. Of course this does not answer my original question of why? To me, Warhammer is not just a game. Nor is it a hobby of modelling and painting. To me, Warhammer is a dedication to which you have to demonstrate both a certain level of intelligence and discipline to succeed. And as anyone will probably tell you, you can't truly succeed at something that you don't enjoy.
So for me, a man who won twenty-one games straight and several tournaments with my Dark Elves, it was time for a change. I always had a soft spot for the Breton's: they were my first foray into WHFB back when i was a boy (which seems many moons ago now) and while i was fickle in those days and my Knights were quickly replaced with Hellblaster Volley Guns and Halfling Hotpots, the impression they made was obviously deep!
Thus, with limited funds but a burning desire, i set out to carve myself a Kingdom in the name of the King and the Lady! So, what do i expect to do? Well, i am not an amazing painter. Not bad, but i very much doubt my models will grace the table of the Golden Daemon winners anytime soon! Nor am i a brilliant sculptor, turning lumps of greenstuff into amazing figures.
What i do have is a rather overactive imagination and a intention to make sure my army is not simply a field of grey models nor my army lists a scrap of paper with a few scribbles on them. Units will not be fielded because they are simply the most effective model per point but because they make sense to do so. The army will grow in a way it would probably do if it was being raised by a Bretonnian Lord tasked with mustering a force.
On with the show!
Regards Viscount Blackwood
There are many reasons why this may be and it is not the purpose of this blog to examine them: enough people already have and i'm not in the business of rehashing old arguments. Of course this does not answer my original question of why? To me, Warhammer is not just a game. Nor is it a hobby of modelling and painting. To me, Warhammer is a dedication to which you have to demonstrate both a certain level of intelligence and discipline to succeed. And as anyone will probably tell you, you can't truly succeed at something that you don't enjoy.
So for me, a man who won twenty-one games straight and several tournaments with my Dark Elves, it was time for a change. I always had a soft spot for the Breton's: they were my first foray into WHFB back when i was a boy (which seems many moons ago now) and while i was fickle in those days and my Knights were quickly replaced with Hellblaster Volley Guns and Halfling Hotpots, the impression they made was obviously deep!
Thus, with limited funds but a burning desire, i set out to carve myself a Kingdom in the name of the King and the Lady! So, what do i expect to do? Well, i am not an amazing painter. Not bad, but i very much doubt my models will grace the table of the Golden Daemon winners anytime soon! Nor am i a brilliant sculptor, turning lumps of greenstuff into amazing figures.
What i do have is a rather overactive imagination and a intention to make sure my army is not simply a field of grey models nor my army lists a scrap of paper with a few scribbles on them. Units will not be fielded because they are simply the most effective model per point but because they make sense to do so. The army will grow in a way it would probably do if it was being raised by a Bretonnian Lord tasked with mustering a force.
On with the show!
Regards Viscount Blackwood
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