8th is actually still really fun

So I got to game a bunch this weekend and I want to rub it in, so here I am on the blog. I visited Wooster in the big smoke, we gave Age of Shitmar a try, then proceeded to play 3 games of 8th ed. 

This was my first foray into the realm of Shitmar, as much as I wanted it to be really good for reasons I couldn't see, it blew turbo space chunks compared to 8th. We did Lizardmen vs Chaos and I lost horribly. Wooster summed it up rather well afterwards, it feels more like table top mtg than warhammer. Apart from the fact that I lost, it wasn't a particularly shitty game (if you don't compare it to 8th) but it also wasn't a game that I would actively try to play. Games Workshop must have somehow thought that the fantasy community was longing to play warmachine. Anyways we concluded that 7th and 8th edition fantasy will provide years of entertainment at least for playing each other. 

Now onto the good stuff, 3 whole games of 8th ed with pictures.

So the first game was my Slann/Carnosaur double lord list VS Woosters demon prince slaughter orgy list.

While Wooster may have won in the end I like to think I won a moral victory by immediately returning to 8th ed after a single game of AoS. I had more fun deploying 8th ed than I did playing all of AoS. I deployed a pretty standard line of dinosaurs, skinks on each flank, the temple guard block flanked by monsters and the steg wide out on the left flank. Wooster dropped the chimera and the demon prince across from the carnosaur lord, leaving dogs and chaff on his left flank, with the chaos warrior hero block and chariots on the right. 

I definitely got to go first once this weekend but I can't remember which game, anyways we rampaged towards each other as combat armies do. His chariots hit my skinks, pulped them, and continued into the temple guard. I was trying to line up the chariots to pop them with the ancient steg but I ended up delaying too long.

The carnosaur lord surged forward on turn one only to have the demon prince side step him, but none the less he found a target in the chaos warriors. The combat ground out for a couple turns where the carnosaur lord slaughtered a unit champion and an exalted hero on a beasty before being dismounted and sent running. 

Arguably my favourite moment in the first game was a minor chaff skirmish that took place on my right flank (pictured below. Wooster's dogs had surged forward as his marauder horsemen ran from my rippledoctors and a unit of skinks, all this took place within 3 inches of the demon prince. Instead of charging the skinks or the ripple doctors into the dogs to hide them from the demon prince, I stood still and shot the dogs to death as it was abundantly clear that the demon prince had bigger things to worry about. The shear hilarity of walking up beside a demon prince and slaughtering all of his buddies with full confidence in no retaliation is what makes 8th worth playing, the strategy is just more complex and fun.

I guess the photo documenting slowed after turn 2 or 3, but the end resulted in a lot of my stuff being dead including the slann and the carnosaur lord so I surrendered.

So we decided we should bang out one more game before the night was finished, Wooster wanted to give his Sigvald the Magnificent list a try and I was intent winning at least once.

The Sigvald list included the Skullcrushers, a warshrine riding wizard, a chariot, the chimera, the booby snakes, and of course Sigvald's block of warriors. My list was significantly harder than the previous one, featuring the slann, 2 great weapon scar-vets on cold ones, same old saurus and skink core, 30 temple guard in special, and an ancient steg in rare.

I think I may have gone first in this game, but nonetheless Wooster landed the first charge with box cars for the crushers against the stegadon. The important point to note here is that a nice large gap had just opened up beside Sigvald's warriors.

The pictures above depict the early maneuvering, including a bunch of skinks who were too inept to even run away properly, they ran only 3 inches back and failed to bounce through the temple guard. 

The booby snakes pulled off a ridiculously long charge as well and managed to land in the flank of the saurus, although after combat neither side did any damage and the booby snakes ran away.

Trapped by my own skinks, a plan was hatched in the magic phase, a solid casting of walk between worlds allowed the slann's unit to close with Sigvald's flank rather efficiently. Wooster then reformed to face the Temple Guard for the impending showdown. Sigvald and his unit traded blows with the temple guard in a thoroughly bloody manner, I think 10 temple guard got butchered and I don't remember how many chaos warriors died but it was several. Now at always strikes last, both scar-vets swung all 8 str 7 attacks at Sigvald which served to fatally end his magnificence. It was at this point Wooster surrendered.

So there are pictures from the game we played the next day between Wooster's wood elves and my all combat character all the time list and I'm going to tack those onto the bottom of this post in hopes that Wooster will narrate his victory and add anything I missed to the games depicted above. However before we move onto that, there is 1 more excellent revelation we came up with this weekend. Now that fantasy has been condemned to its slow and painful fate, we are in need of a current competitive system to sate that competitive lust. While we may yet still find a suitable fantasy battles alternative, it will most likely take some time to find, in the mean time I would rather get back into 40K than play age of shitmar. Plain and simple 40k isn't that horrible and it has a tournament scene, which is the part I'm most excited about, travelling to far away places to get wasted and play warhammer. I fantasize about power-gaming 40k while so hungover that my opponent is fearful for my life, I look forward to coming down off of crazy drugs half-way through my second game of the day, and I think that 40K can provide me with these adventures. So with that in mind I have purchased the most recent Guard codex and I'm trying to reacquaint myself with the 40K rules.

4 Editions of Imperial Guard (missing edition somewhere in the Darkster's basement)

These are the pictures I have from the last game...

Hey folks it's your good pal Wooster. This game was lot's of fun, and followed a fairly typical wood elf path to victory: shoot all the shit dead, and what you can't shoot hit with a test-or-die spell, muahahaha!

Essentially I focus on skinks as they are them and the bastillodon are the only things in the army that can take out eagles. Then put eales in front of the combat blocks to delay them as long as possible.

This was fun, a single wild rider lived, and so was victorious in the combat.

I was able to get the first turn and drop 3 knights with waywatchers, causing Jake to push the knights up as a distraction. Then I pushed both wild rider units in to the big block. This was good fun, but probably not actually a great idea. The wild riders do a lot of work, but there were like 30 saurus there, so realistically I wasn't going to get them all.

That's a typiclal 8th ed story actually. Big units packed with characters are massively powerful in 8th. Wood elves, however, actually love that matchup. I have lots of fast flighty stuff, and eagles to block up the death star. Plus, if there are 1000 points in one unit, it makes cleaning up auxiliary units that much easier.

Look at those ranks, rectangles, arcs of vision, ooooooooh baby.

There was no way I was ever gonna get the carnosaur lord or stegadon, I maybe could fell all the saurus, but probably not. However I lost very little, so can call it a victory.

So let's get on to what you all really came here for, my unedited opinions!

First, I am super pumped for fantasy 8th ed day, a good way to see off the competitive warhammer scene, in place of trying to play AoS at bloodbath with 10 other people. Seriously don't know what the bloodbath was thinking, AoS is not intended to be played competitively, and i'm 90% sure it will be a failure.

Now for some general age of smegmar (thanks ben, best one yet imo) hate. First, i've been reading and watching youtube videos of the AoS defenders, and let me tell you the arguments are weak. Like worlds most one sided fist-fights level stuff right here. People insist there are lots of movement tactics in aos, and when you bring up flanks they swear that you can deny flanks by stretching units out in strange shapes. Well, in 8th edition there were denied flanks because UNITS LITERALLY HAD FLANKS.

Second, and I remember well my age of empires 2 box formations, but telling me my units should fight in a squiggly L (or R) formation? fuck off.

third, the biggest pro AoS argument is in the combat order. In theory there is a best order to activate units, and trying to counter-activate your opponents shit seems like really deep and intense tactics that will take years to master. Not. Usually it's pretty obvious, hit with the unit most likely to do enough damage to reduce how much it takes. I noted in my game with Jake that it completely ruined the cinematic feel of the game (which is still important even in a competitive game). It was like "oh nice, my hero survived to fight back, but I'll save that to the end because there's no point in doing it now." It really just felt like I was trying to out warscroll my opponent, which is lame as balls as it doesn't take a genius to realize more attacks that hit better with rend is better.

8th ed had obvious power choices,  no doubt, but because there were defensive stats it was more about picking the right matchup to best utilize your units. A great example is waywatchers. I remember very well my waywatchers killing cold-one knights to a man in a single volley: very powerful indeed. I also remember, against the same opponent (Darko), waywatchers not having a more valid target than zombies (waywatchers are 20 points, zombies are 3). This was a really cool metagame-based balance. Also weak units had a purpose, because they were low points. Taking 5 wounds in dogs in aos is 100% pointless. Taking 30 points in dogs in 8th was a no-brainer.

Okay rant over I guess.

Let us rejoice in my new favorite miniatures company Warlord games, who pretty well consist of all the old rules writers from GW. They have just put out a terminator themed game written by alessio cavatore who wrote 5th ed 40k, and I'm pretty sure rick priestly works there too.

Thanks for listening.