Games Workshop Increase Depth to Which They Shaft Customers – story at 11

In what many of you may regard as a slow news day I come with a story that will be of no surprise to absolutely nobody. Next month the mudslinging will begin again as perennial gaming bad boys Games Workshop chuck another round of above inflation rises onto their stock.

While one may be forgiven for thinking that this does not impact too much on those of us ensconced within the mighty fortress that is the 6 Inch Move floating citadel it does mean that we will not be bringing you a project we’d been alluding to since the start of the year.

Last year, the Warhammer Fantasy contingent here at 6 Inch Move came up with an idea. We had decided to run our own version of the fan favourite “Tale of X Gamers” while putting our own twist onto the genre. I was planning on putting together a 3000pts force and showing you all, dear readership, that this could be done on a budget if one were to plan appropriately and be clever with what was purchased. We’d have been assembling and painting our way to fully painted armies and we’d have been showing our work here on this very organ. The reason behind this was to show that despite the Sherriff’s eye-watering prices that with a little forethought you could get the army you want for less than you think and I’m not just talking about a 20% discount from online retailers and some lucky purchases from eBay.

Sadly, after reading rumours about price increases around the net today I had the news confirmed by my FLGS. Therefore it is with a heavy heart that I have decided that I can no longer support this endeavour. I’ll be sticking to my other games and enjoying the 3000+pts of Ogres that I already have. From talking to the others involved with this project it looks like they will also be doing the same. I’m saddened it has come to this but belts are tight these days and despite the hobby’s luxury status I can get a lot more for my money from other games systems that I enjoy just as much. I should be able to now make that custom gaming board I’ve been thinking of.

The silver lining to all this is that I don’t live in Australia, if this rise goes on there as well…. that’s not going to be pretty.

A Tale (or Tail) of Monsters

I recently purchased one of GW’s latest models for the Tyranid range; the Tervigon/Tyrannofex kit.  I’ve assembled, but not painted the model (see pic) and it will hopefully one day look something like the picture on the right;

The kit is simple enough, and was fairly easy to put together.  I’m glad that GW finally got round to producing the model for Tervigon as it is one of my favourite choices to use in my Tyranid army.  I like it for more than its ability to spawn 3D6 Termagants a turn.  Its ability to enhance all friendly Termagants around it is more useful to me as I tend to use lots of the little critters.  The model itself looks great (as does the Tyrannofex build), although the base could do with being a little larger; it only just fits on the base.  For anybody thinking of putting one together I’d also recommend attaching the egg sac before gluing the legs on, it’s just easier that way.  I don’t know the full details of why it’s taken them so long to release the full range of models for the Tyranids.  They were missing 1/3 of their units until the other month and the addition of the Tervigon/Tyrannofex kit and the new Hive Tyrant/Swarmlord model has gone some way to changing this.  I wish they would get round to releasing the rest of the Tyranid range (especially a Mycetic Spore), though the new winged Hive Tyrant should be easy enough to change into a Harpy.

But that’s the grumbling over with. Over the past 12 months or so I’ve been impressed with the monster kits that GW has been producing for both 40k and Fantasy.  Like many an old gamer I may remember the days when most of the monsters were barely twice the height of a man, now they truly are MONSTERS.

The Tervigon is just one example, but there are many more; the Arachnarok Spider, the Thundertusk/Stonehorn and the Warsphinx/Necrosphinx are just a few.

One of my personal favourites is the Vampire Counts Mortis Engine and to go with the new releases for the Empire a much needed new kit for Emperor Karl Franz which can also be made into a generic Empire General on a Griffon.  What can I say to this other than bravo!  I hope this is a trend  that will continue.  On a slight side note I’m impressed (and I mean really IMPRESSED) at the speed to which they are producing the Warhammer Army books, it was only three months ago that the Vampire Counts were released and now its the Empire’s turn.  At this rate it’ll only be another 18 months before pretty much the entire lot are done.

Something to get your teeth in to

It’s been a little quiet here at 6 inch move recently.  Servitob has had an addition to his brood of future gamers, there is the usual chaos that accompanies the Christmas/New Year season and as for myself I’ve had to move an entire swimming pool/sports & leisure centre (and I’m telling you those things are heavy).  As a result our small band of gamers has had little time to get together and roll the dice.  This will be changing soon as life begins to settle down again.

This month saw the release of Warhammer Fantasy’s latest army book, the Vampire Counts.  Having bought an army of the undead when I was still a teenager this edition caught my attention.  I’ve always liked the dark, gothic imagery that has accompanied vampires in general and GW’s vampire counts in particular.  To me they are what a classic vampire should be; dark, sinister and above all blood thirsty.  No glittering skin here.  I’m almost impressed at the speed that GW has been turning out the army books for this edition of Fantasy.  Its been out about 2 years and they’ve produced 4 army books for it so far, along with the Storm of Magic supplement and several 40k codices.  Not to bad going.  It was good to see them do the Ogres, Tomb Kings and Orcs early on as all of these army books needed serious updates.  I just wish they’d hurry up and do the Wood Elves (they’re my favourite Fantasy army, I have about 6000 points, but their current army book is two editions out of date and a bit naff).  Still can’t complain, I have new vampires to play with.

So whats new to this edition of the dark lords of undeath? Well the book itself follows GW’s latest trend of full colour, hard back with a £25 price tag.  The book is nicely edited and of good quality, and if you’ve looked around a bookshop recently, it’s not too over priced for a colour hard back.  Saying that though, gone are the days when I’d buy every army book as it came out.  Now I’m restricting myself to getting the armies that I actually own, or are seriously considering purchasing.

The army has seen the return of a few old favourites.  The option of a Lord level Necromancer is back, as are the special characters Lichemaster Heinrich Kemmler and Krell.  Necromancers can again be made better wizards than in the last edition and once again Wraiths can be taken as Hero choices.  There have been some new additions to the ranks of the dead.  The Strigoi Ghoul King is a Lord choice that is basically a hate filled Strigoi vampire, who has weaker magical abilities than regular Vampire Lords, but more than makes up for it in close combat kick-ass potential.  The vampire characters all have a new special rule called The Hunger.  Basically whenever they kill one or more models in close combat you roll 1D6, and on a 6 the vampire regains a lost wound.  Nice.

The other new units include the Crypt Horrors (basically ogre sizes ghouls), the nice looking Vargheists (psychotic, bestial vampires in bat form), the Terrorgheist (a dragon-sized, undead bat with one hell of a scream), the Coven Thrown, the Mortis Engine and the Hexwraiths.

The Coven Thrown and the Mortis Engine are both made form the same kit.  I’ve been really impressed by the large, plastic models that GW has been producing for Fantasy.  For me the kind of symbolize a fantasy genre; you have epic heroes, magic throwing wizards and large, scary monsters

and although GW can sometimes go OTT on the heroes and magic, the latest round of monster kits are fantastic.  In game terms both the Thrown and the Engine count as chariots being pulled by a spirit host that grants both units ethereal movement.  The Coven Thrown is a mount for Vampire characters, and comes with a pair of vampiric handmaidens to attend to their lord.  It has a 4+ ward save and nice little special rule called Battle of Wills that could result in an enemy unit turning on itself.  The Mortis Engine is a rare choice and has Regeneration, a Banshee swarm and a Reliquary that hurts the enemy and heals the undead and becomes more powerful the longer it stays on the table.  Both builds look good, but personally I prefer the look of the Mortis Engine.  It has the look of a gothic pipe organ and I love the swirling banshees.

And finally we get to the Hexwraiths.  The rules for them are cool.  They’re ethereal, fast cavalry that can move through units, hurting the enemy as they go.  Their attacks are flaming and ignore armour saves, and their background as agents of death itself, sent to hunt down those who have cheated death is cool.  The models are OK.  They’re made from the same kit as the new black knights.  They’re not bad looking models, my only problem with them is that I don’t think that they do the concept art from army book justice.  Have a look below and you’ll know what I mean.

Now is it just me, or is that piece of artwork cool.  It really captures the terror and ethereal aspect of these creatures.  They are the stuff of nightmares and this picture shows that.  Like said, nice models but I’m not sure if they really bring out that same fear factor.

And now for the other stuff.  The magic Lore of Vampires has changed slightly.  All of your old favourites are there; Curse of Years, Vanhel’s Dance etc. but there are a few subtle changes.  The signature spell is Invocation of Nehek, but this time instead of targeting a single friendly unit, it targets ALL friendly undead units within 6″ (or 12″ or 18″ if you want to increase the casting value).  All friendly units regain D6+caster’s magic level worth of wounds, unless the unit is Vampiric, Ethereal or a Large Target, which only regain 1 wound per casting.  Characters and their mounts do NOT regain wounds from the casting of this spell.  The only way they can get wounds back is from the Lore Attribute; each time a spell is successfully cast from the Lore of Vampires the wizard, or a friendly model within 12″ regains a wound.  Unless the unit is zombies (or you have bought the appropriate upgrade) you cannot increase a unit beyond its starting size.  The Raise Dead spell can be used to create new units of skeletons once more, but you do have to increase the casting value.  Oh and in case you ever get tired of raising the dead you now have access to the Lores of Death and Shadow.

One of the cool things about the Vampires is that you can customize your lords of undeath.  You can still do this, though the list is a little smaller than in the previous edition.  This I feel is no great loss as several of the Vampiric Powers are now included as standard upgrades (such as armour and weapon upgrades).  The one I am going to miss is no more ethereal vampires.  Oh well, can’t have everything.  The list of magic items has been reduced to 9 as is the standard for the newer army books.  Frostblade has gone, but watch out for Skabscrath is all I’m saying.  As for the death of the general?  Well its still not a good thing.  Your general has to be a wizard with the Lore of Vampires, and if he/she is killed then all of your non-vampiric units have to take a leadership test at the end of the phase.  The difference this time is that if you have another wizard with the Lore of Vampires in your army then he/she takes over and the army doesn’t take anymore leadership test.  This is repeated if that character is killed and so on.

All in all I’m impressed with the new release.  They’ve added a few, nice looking units and made some minor rules changes to existing ones.  They’ve re-done the Black Knights, which is about time, as they seriously needed it.  What would I like to have seen?  I know it’s called the Vampire COUNTS, and therefore focuses upon the von Carsteins, but what happened to the other special characters such as Neferata and Walach. Harkon.  The zombies could also do with re-modelling, and I really wish they’d done a new Black Coach, rather than just making it a Finecast model.  It is however nice to see an army that has all of its units available rather than GW’s usual trick of not releasing half of the army list.  It looks like I may be dusting off the coffins that contain my undead models and giving them a new lease of . . . life.

GW: The Company I Love to Hate or Hate to Love…. I’m Not Sure

Just a couple of things this morning from the opening salvo of 2012. Firstly I bought this month’s White Dwarf, it’s got a lot of stuff for the latest Warhammer Fantasy release the “Vampire Counts” in it. They’re an army that has appealed to me right from day one, I’ve never gotten around to the army though, but I have come close a few times. I had a little chuckle to myself when after the Editorial and contents page there was a double spread advert for Dreadfleet. I’ll not go into that here, I am sure all regular readers are more than aware of my feelings for the game, the picture at the start of this thread should suffice if you’re in the dark.

In other news I doubt many people will have heard about the leaked 6th edition rules, or what are rumoured to be 6th edition. After all the furore when this document first hit the Intertubes there has been a lot of sudden declarations of it being a fake, despite what would seem to be considerable evidence to the contrary. I’ve seen the rules myself and had a quick scan through and, personally, I’d be happy for 40k to develop this way. A lot of the problems with 5th edition have gone and it does seem to change-up the meta-game. Now, there are things I don’t like but overall I see enough positives here for this to be a good change for 40k.

Going back to that White Dwarf I purchased (taking the number of White Dwarfs I’ve bought over the past ten years up to needing two hands to count) it also alludes to this being the 25th anniversary year for Warhammer 40,000. I’m going to be very interested to see what overpriced tat the Sherriff tries to hawk onto us so that we can “share” in the celebration of this momentous event. I’m going to go with a generic hot beverage container costing upwards of a decent night out with one’s significant other. I can tell you now which I’d prefer and which one is much more likely. I think I might have the steak!

I’m certainly looking forward to this years releases. I’m impressed with the speed at which Fantasy armies are coming out. I’m sure Gribblin will be wanting to throw down soon with the new Vampires and we should also have a pretty interesting project kicking off here towards the end of the first quarter! Stay tuned for that. I also imagine we’ll be getting at least one Space Marine Codex this year. Black Templars are on the rumour mill and a new edition of 40k means that the generic Marine codex will need to be updated pretty quickly thereafter to make sure they don’t have to abide by any of the rules in the new book. Can’t have them behaving like all the other armies can we?

I’ll be keeping an eye on Mantic to see how Warpath and Kings of War develop. I’d certainly be interested more in their games once the product lines are a fully viable contender to the GW crown. I know that both my wallet and, perhaps more importantly, my wife would be appreciative of a reduction in the cost of my hobby..

San Francisco 49ers Blood Bowl Orcs Part 2

The starting line up for my kitbashed orc blood bowl team!

San Francisco 49ers Blood Bowl Orcs

I was going to do the ‘Greenskin Packers’ but I can’t stand painting yellow and white, so instead here we have three kitbashed orc blood bowl blitzers painted in the approximate colours of the 49ers.

Enjoy! (click on image for higher res)

Blood Bowl & Wednesday Night Gaming

IN what has now become a firm fixture in the 6 Inch Move gaming calendar we descended upon the Servitob wing of the floating citadel (recently upgraded with a spiffy new conservatory) for some Wednesday night gaming action.

As you can see from the cunningly placed image and post title last night was a foray into the Warhammer Fantasy world with one of GW’s stand out games from the mid nineties. Blood Bowl, for those too young to remember it, was a game encompassing most of the Fantasy races and took the form of a corrupted American Football game. The rules replicate passing, rushing and ferocious, bone-crunching tackles, that, in true Warhammer style, may mean more than a quick exit to the showers, where morticians are in greater demand that physicians.

We played with all the rules from the Core box, although I do have the Death Zone expansion waiting for later. We also used the plastic teams that came with this set. The usual suspects for the night’s entertainment were myself, our host Servitob and “no longer really qualifies as a gaming noob” nBreaker. I played referee for the first half and let the other two have at it. Servitob took the Humans while nBreaker took the Orcs.

The first half was actually rather tame as the two teams squared off, Servitob kicked off the half and the ball landed deep in the Orcs backfield where it was retrieved by a Lineman. The Humans blitzed, the ball came loose and they ran it into the end zone to open the scoring. The Humans then kicked off, this time the ball was picked up by an Orc Thrower, the Orcs on the line of scrimmage then did an awesome job of beating down their Human opponents to open up a rushing lane and the Thrower basically ran the length of the field and into the end zone. All square at the half!

In the second half nBreaker relinquished control of the Orcs to me. I stacked the line of scrimmage with as many Orcs as I could and left the secondary as purely the two Orc Throwers. Servitob used some nice positional play to open up one of his catchers to receive a throw at max range. Being the flukey bugger that he is he rolled the hard six needed for the pass to be accurate, The catcher grabbed the ball deftly out of the air.

What the poor catcher didn’t count on was a blitzing Orc Thrower that pushed the Human off the field and straight into the dugout. In following turns the Thrower picked up the ball while a Lineman made his way into the opponents half of the field. At this point my Offensive line of Blitzers and Black Orcs was pummeling Humans into the ground with a massive rate of success, this allowed me to get my thrower in position who chucked a pass to the Lineman who ran it into the end zone for the Orcs second touchdown. With only two turns left to go we finished the game as there was no chance for the Humans to get the ball and run it, not even if they’d have tried something similar to an on-side kick.

All in all a fun time was had and the league rules might come out in the future.

What is good about Blood Bowl is that the rules are very simple but leave a lot open to player strategy. You have one of four actions that each player can take in a turn, Move, Block, Pass and Blitz. Only one player per team turn can make a Pass or a Blitz (blitz combines a move and a block) which means you really have to think about what each member of your team is going to do and what impact that will have when the game goes to your opponents turn. Each half is a maximum of 8 turns and while that may seem like a lot there are many actions which cause a turnover so you might find that if you start off the turn with a Block that goes badly all of a sudden your opponent is having his go and you are out of position, so planning your turn is paramount.

Even with the fact we were checking on a lot of the rules (I’d read them through but as anyone knows that’s no substitute for actually playing) the game was pretty swift. It’s great that something that is almost 20 years old still plays so well and with no disputes about how things work. I know it has a huge following online and there are a number of companies who produce models for the same kind of games elsewhere. It’s certainly a solid game and I look forward to getting Gribblin and Carabus into a game soon. For our regular mid-week session this game seems solid to fill those few hours.

It gets a big Two Thumbs Fresh from this undead buccaneer!

Warhammer Fantasy – Magic Items Makes it Suck?

In the last week I managed to get in two games of Warhammer Fantasy with the only other player in our group, the man Gribblin. As far as fantasy is concerned we have a healthy and long-standing rivalry and have changed the armies we use as time has gone on (me far more than him unsurprisingly).

I know that one of our players specifically doesn’t play fantasy due to a perceived imbalance in the power that certain magic items bring to the battlefield. This view of the game was not helped when against Gribblin’s Vampires my 50pts Hellheart netted me 600pts of dead Vampires. The following game was not played in such a social setting so he didn’t get to see it do bugger all.

Anyone that plays Fantasy is aware of the game changing nature of some of the magic items, these are normally ones found in some of the older army books. I am talking about items that can change the game and cost very little for the consistent effects that they have. The second game I was playing was against Gribblin’s Lizardmen, a game I tend to find a lot harder than going against the Vampires. I’ll start off by saying that it was a close fought Battleline scenario and he scored 400pts more than me to net a win, however, when you looked at the table at the end of turn 6 there wasn’t a lot left on either side, but congratulations to him all the same.

I took a pretty normal Ogre list, keeping in the Stonehorn and using my new unit of Mournfang Cavalry for the first time (they were awesome). Across from me is one of the most frustrating models in all of Warhammer; the Mega-Pimp-Hand-Uber Slann. This particular anti-gravity amphibian had more bling than a 1980′s Mr T. Cannon balls screamed right through him, while he completely shutdown my magic phase, firing off an entire lore’s worth of spells every turn and (but for a poor dice roll) throwing his miscasts around to everyone else. Yes he is expensive but that model completely removed me from being able to play in one phase of the game, that’s pretty powerful.

I think that I am actually coming around more to our non-Fantasy playing friend’s way of thinking. When  I look at something like Kings of War from Mantic, each army has models with special rules dependent on the army, characters also get special rules but these are also available across the various armies. There is no real customisation of things with special item options.

I like the new 8th edition approach, that the rulebook contains the most of the magic items that are available to armies and there are but a few (normally pricey) options in each army book. However, in some of the older books the fact that magic items contribute such a huge amount can alter the balance of the game. There is the capability to completely neuter and army in a particular way, now, some may consider that just prudent planning and good generalship, but should you be able to win a game almost purely on the back of the fact you spent 100pts on a certain combination of stuff that your opponent can do nothing about?

I appreciate that Warhammer is a hugely complex game, but shouldn’t a battle be decided by the models on the table and the ken of the generals rather than an arbitrary decision made before the models even hit the table?

Please do not think that I am making a whine post because I lost a game of Warhammer, I had a very enjoyable time playing that game, momentum swung back and forth through the game and if I’d have remembered some more of the rules for my army I might have done a little better, still it was a well-earned victory and the first ever loss for my Ogres. The point of the post is to gather opinion on just how much of an impact people are happy with magic items providing to a game. I am not bothered about a 4+ ward save or 2+ armour save, those can be failed. But when you can kit something out to be nigh invulnerable and/or shut down a core part of the game when it already comes with decent protection, is that good irrelevant of cost?

I think much of what makes some of the Fantasy armies, “top-tier” is the access to their magic items list. If everyone purely had access to those in the main rulebook do we think we’d have a far more balanced game, or would it sacrifice variety for the sake of an opinion about what makes the game fairer?

 

Dreadfleet – Scourge of Fanboi’s Wallets

This weekend followers of the Sherriff’s plan to drain the world of all money sicked up in their mouths a little when they popped open the official site to see just what all the fuss was about with the rumoured zombie pirate board game release. Please note that this particular writer was in no way consulted despite my obvious undead swashbuckling credentials!

For the princely sum of £70 you can be the proud owner of the newest product on the GW block, Dreadfleet. This is going to be another one-off, limited edition release similar to what we saw with Space Hulk, except that this game doesn’t have the cult following, nor the reputation that exists for Space Hulk. Oh, and you can’t use the miniatures from this for any other game either. It’s also not a rehash of Man O War so you can’t use that to judge it.

To be fair I obviously haven’t played the game, although I have watched Pirates of the Caribbean which this seems to be ripping off quite heavily. Therefore much of what I have to say may reek of bile or some kind of pathological hatred for Games Workshop. However, I do have a nice Dark Eldar army and have recently purchased some of the new Ogre goodies (Internet discounted of course) so I am not exactly a massive detractor. What I do object to is something that is this expensive! Space Hulk was £60, had figures you could use in Warhammer 40,000, had a number of missions to play and an already established name. I see a lot of people out there in Webland creaming over the quality of this set. We already now that GW pride themselves on the quality of their releases (yes, we are not forgetting about Failcast) so that should be no surprise. People are also touting that other board games are also £70, yes they are, but the difference is that those other board games get continuing support and expansions, something that will not happen with Mortgagefleet. The only other game I’d look at in this price bracket with a view to purchase would be Dust: Tactics a game that you can add to and expand which therefore changes what you play. I get the impression that Dreadfleet is going to get very samey and there are other naval wargames out there. Spartan Games prides itself on naval wargaming and you’d get a lot for your £70 although you’d have to provide your own terrain in that respect.

Personally I find solving a Rubik’s cube easier than figuring out how GW comes out with ideas and prices. There are still a number of army books for their core games that are in desperate need of an update and they’ve obviously put in a good number of hours coming up with this. If the rumoured 35,000 units is to be believed that would earn GW and little under £2.5 million if they all sold. Imagine what they could get from an army release? You’ve got a £20 army book for a start at minimum, then all the extra kits you’d sell for the new units etc… I reckon you’d eclipse that figure in short order.

I’m not against these little diversions but you know that after a couple of spreads in White Dwarf nothing will be heard of this game ever again, it will fade into obscurity like so many that have come before it. The only real value I personally see in this is to pick up a copy, hold onto it for a while and then resell it. However, even that is risky because this isn’t like Space Hulk where the following is there to start with. A lot of what I have been reading from other people seems to be the same lack of interest that I myself feel towards this. It may be a really cool game but I don’t see it coming out all that often after the initial fun and then people will just go back to their regular gaming. Perhaps that is what the Sherriff wants? You drop £70 on something you’ll play twice, forget about and then go back to buying ludicrously expensive Mattel grade resin.

GW really do baffle me, they are sitting on a potential gold mine with their market presence but they make questionable decisions that we can see from their financials are reducing their profits. There are many people who would love to see a return of the olden day GW classics, Man o War, Necromunda et al but GW won’t do this, they produce three core lines that they will give floor space to and that is it. They’ll probably sell out of these boxes which is an obvious win for GW so I should just shut up, but I think they could be doing more with their time and doing better things overall.

Dreadfleet, so scary my wallet won’t come out of my pocket!

6 Inch Move Review – 8th Edition Warhammer Armies – Ogre Kingdoms

No-one in the Warhammer speaking world can have failed to notice that one of the army books in direst need of being updated has finally crashed through the wilderness of the GW design studio and landed with a thud in stores around the world.

I’ve read, pondered, digested, giggled maniacally, planned, re-planned and procrastinated the writing of this post. I thought it about time that I actually put forth my feelings on the latest book. I believe the best way to start that is to look where we’ve come from.

The previous Ogre book stemmed from a previous age and was starting to show it, even in its native 6th edition it was regarded as an auto-win if you faced them across the table. Seventh edition didn’t do them any favours either but there were those of us who enjoyed the fat, sweaty, subtle as a London rioter being filmed walking down the street with the 52″ TV he’s just looted from the local branch of Currys, big guys! People played the Ogres the only way they could that would let them have any chance of winning. Then, we got 8th edition, a whole new era of gamer dividing awesomeness, suddenly Ogres were actually competitive again. Sure, no-one was singing that they were as broken as Skaven or Daemons but the changes of the new edition brought enough of a see-change that even though people still decried them as bottom of the ladder we could now bring the pain and shock people. Arguments ensued over just how Gut Magic worked, small children wept at night about how many characters were stacked into all-consuming death stars of Bulls or Ironguts but the Ogre players, like the armies that they played, rolled with it and kept on fighting.

So, after almost 300 words of drivel what is the new book like then? As we all know by now GW have decided to put all the new 8th books into hardback, another way of screwing more money out of gullible punters or a genuine improvement in robustness? I’ll let you be the judge of that. However, I must admit that the new books are very nice, still not sure they are worth the money, the Ogre book is 96 pages for £25 afterall but I paid it so I can’t really say all that much now can I?

The background section has been fleshed out (pun intended) so we get much more detail about what happened to the Ogres on their forced migration across the mountains, there are also larger sections expanding the known tribes and the new map is brilliant for showing the tribes, their haunts and the various roads leading through the region. Background and fluff is something the Sherriff has never had a problem with in my book. They might not be able to write clear and concise rules or even balance stuff all that well in some circumstances but they can certainly spin a yarn.

The bestiary is good and provides fluff for all the options in the book, although people have noted that the old Forgeworld Rhinox fluff has been copy/pasta’d into the Mournfang entry. Rather unsurprisingly all of the new units that models have been released for are viable. Ogres certainly have a lot more variety in how they can bring the pain. Gnoblars lost a dedicated Trappers entry and Bicker! but went up in price by 25% when the cost of Ogres across the board dropped in a lot of areas. The Tyrant got more expensive as did the bargain that was the Slaughtermaster who now makes a viable (if low leadership) general.

The special characters are generally overpriced for what they are and the Ogres have far less of them than the other new books, although you could argue how many Ogres you can get with a distinct personality. The new Lore of the Great Maw is pretty decent containing a huge haul of Augment spells and you have to take it on at least one of your Mages, the Lore has no quirks now and works off the standard rules just like how the Lore of Nehekhara has been brought into line with the new edition.

Ogre Bulls are now just called Ogres, are cheaper and now come with armour, they have a number of options and Ironfists now count as a shield so you can get a Parry save! Ogres have lost the Armour Penetration of their Ogre Clubs but also will be more reliable when charging into stuff and scoring impact hits due to the changes in those rules. The Special choices are really where things get interesting for the Ogres now, Sabretusks can be taken in packs of 1-10, that’s right for a mere 21pts you can take a M8 model with the same stats as an Eagle for running around on flanks and hunting warmachines or redirecting the enemy. The Mournfang cavalry are the heavy shock troops for the Ogres, they can get a 2+ armour save, can carry a magic banner and can use Ironfists to get a Parry even when mounted. They cost a lot but are going to be a huge benefit for Ogre generals. Slam in some normal Ogres into the front of a unit and a flank charge from these guys is going to be devastating! If you want another unit that is going to make your opponent cry then the new Maneaters are where it’s at. Substantially cheaper than before you now get to pick two of a myriad special rules when picking the unit, this makes them eminently customisable. They are not cheap either but then Ogre players are used to having to deal with expensive units.

In Rares we now find the Scraplauncher that uses a small template but won’t charge headfirst into the first thing it sees! We get a cannon with S10 grapeshot that is mounted on a chariot, it’s 40pts more than the (cheaper) Scraplauncher but also fills more of a hole. We get the Slave Giant now called a normal Giant and using the same profile from the Orc book, although I think he will now feature in even fewer lists thanks to our new arrivals. The Stonehorn (pictured at the start of this post) is a pure brute, it does an increased number of impact hits when it charges. It certainly isn’t going to take a normal sized unit down on its own but it will make a mess of what it hits. The Thundertusk is a support beast, still big and tough but not as brutal in combat. It can spit out spheres of ice and give Always Strikes Last to enemies within 6″! No more re-rolls for those pesky High Elves.

The Ogre magic items are typically lean as has been the style with the new books, they are often overpriced for what they are. Debates rage online about just whether the Ironfist (which performs exactly like a shield so the rules tell us) means that a Slaughtermaster can take magical armour but overall we have another solid book here. The general consensus among Ogre players is that this is a massive improvement, an assessment I am happy to agree with. It doesn’t make the Ogres hugely overpowered, but offers improvements and viable choices where none existed before.

I’ll be looking to get some of the new units for sure and will give a rundown of how the go when I finally get around to putting them on the tabletop.