This week in Immoren: Marshalling the forces

Seems more like it ought to be this month rather than week since it has been so long since my last post. Suffice to say I've not managed much table time or modelling time recently with one thing or the other.

As the months roll on and we seem no closer to moving I have been spending a bit more time trying to order the chaos of my house so that we can at least try and get over to West Yorkshire before I retire. In addition I seem to have developed something of a social life in recent months with me joining an am-dram group earlier in the year (as a stagehand; I've no desire to act, I'm a writer after all!) and a couple of weddings, a stag do and numerous trips here and there.

However, I have recently had my first battlegroup game with the Comvergence of Cyriss against Ben's newly acquired Retribution of Scyrah whereby he used the alternate battlegroup from Privateer Press' Journeyman League rules. It's early days but I enjoyed the game and even though it is a very different (pardon the pun) beast to Hordes, the synergy element of the Convervenge helped. In the end though I sacrificed the Forgefather rather needlessly and gave Ben a caster kill.

The only other thing I've done is assemble my Trollkin Warders and try to find a list for them, which I think I have done now, and there is a clue as to which Warlock I'm using somewhere in the post, but I shalt spoil the surprise for the uninitiated.

The models are quite nice albeit that there is quite a lot of flash to them. I've still not managed to remove all of it, but to be honest I got bored of trying so shall have to go back to that if ever I decide to paint them.

I'm quite enjoying the back to basics approach to gaming with Warmachine and Hordes at the moment and so m scaling back my games at the moment, so when I get a chance to catch my breath again in a couple of weeks, if anyone wants a smaller level game, let me know.

Until then, take care and play you you have a pair.

Games Workshop, I'm done.

I've had a lot of fun with GW games over the years. Without them, I would have been blissfully ignorant of Wargaming. For nearly 20 years I played both Fantasy Battles and 40k and to greater and lesser extents I enjoyed each. In total I amassed 15 armies across both systems, some I enjoyed, some I never got to grips with, some are still on sprues.

My enthusiasm has waxed and waned over the years, but had always held firm.

Until now. At least as far as Games Workshop is concerned. Whilst many have baulked at the ever constant price hikes, I had always felt that the hobby has always been expensive and that I would just need to be more selective with my purchases. Even with the great Games Workshop exodus of 2010, when I began to really get into Hordes I wasn't ready to forego My first love.

I think there are a few reasons for this: very few of my gaming friends were ready to forego Games Workshop entirely, many didn't even start playing Warmachine and Hordes, and of those that did, not all stuck with the new system (and that's fine obviously). Another reason is that the community is much more established for GW. With not just tournaments but also more thematic campaign weekends, due to the number of years head start they had, GW have almost settled into their events more than their competitors. As such, since I've neither the inclination nor the skill to be highly competitive, I'm not too fussed about attending a Warmahordes tournament just yet.

I think that the main reason though is quite simple. I still love the background to both systems.

However, there is only so much I'm going to put up with and these days GW are really grinding my gears.

Their kits are becoming stupidly overpriced for much less value, they are trying to make certain 'must haves' direct only items and this latest move towards supplements is really the final straw.

One of the strengths to GW is aside from the main Rulebook is that if you buy a Codex or Army Book, you have all the rules you need for that army. Sure there are other supplements like Apocalypse, City Fight, Planetstrike etc, but they are optional. But this move towards 'buy this book here, but wait, you need this one too and it costs just as much, then there is this one and this one and you can't play properly without this one' attitude is more than I can bear.

As such, I'm calling time on Games Workshop. I've much more desire to play Warmachine and Hordes than I do Fantasy or 40k anyway, so I'm not too fussed.

Now I'm not going to forego my armies entirely, after all I've spent a lot of time and money on them, however fifteen armies are a lot of shelf space for what is now a secondary set of games at best. As such I am intending to downsize my collection dramatically and shall be putting many of them up for sale.

It's sad that I've come to feel like this about them, but I do feel that Games Workshop's greed and desperation have driven me to this.