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Wood Elves (they’re my favourite Fantasy army, I have about 6000 points, but their current army book is two editions out of date and a bit naff).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.

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..

That’s not to say that I have completely given up on games of the dice rolling variety. Sat on my desk are the beginnings of a roman legion for the ‘Hail Caesar!’ ruleset, but whether I’ll get them finished this side of armageddon has yet to be seen. In retrospect probably not the smartest project I’ve started… I’ll post some pics when if I’ve made some progress.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Merekk and Isa

No other game, and I really mean no other game, has come close to the tools that SWG gave you to make the world your own. Initially there were no levels, you still had to kill things to gain experience but that experience allowed you to buy skills in one of the best skill systems I have had the pleasure of enjoying in an MMO. You could dramatically change your character at any time. I mastered a large number of them myself, I’ve been a Commando, Ranger, Scout, Marksmen, Weaponsmith, Pikeman, Rifleman, Carbineer, Smuggler, Teras Kasi Artist, Swordsmen as well as the Pilot professions that came in with Jump to Lightspeed.

More important than all of those aspects of the game though, was the community. While currently I am waist-deep in The Old Republic alongside some of those people who I left behind in SWG the community that was forged in those early days is still the finest I’ve been fortunate enough to role-play with. Miss Isa’belita Yveshi, as seen in the screenshot above, is still someone who I have contact with almost daily, even though we are separated by a rather large body of water. You can see us enjoying the setting of the Tatooine suns on the roof of the Guild Hall I used as a domicile.

Housing and city building in this game was amazing, the planets were large and afforded guilds sufficiently motivated enough with opportunity to carve out a slice of Star Wars for themselves.

The Last Ditch

The screenshot above shows the infamous Last Ditch, the cantina at the heart of the city of Malador, named for the guild I was in during my days playing. In the background you can just about make out the mansion of Lythas Vex in the back left, criminal mastermind and also a really nice bloke from the south coast. I have many fond memories of events that took place in that cantina and the people who frequented it. Our city was the hub of what we did, late nights were spent getting everyone together and playing out our own little version of the Star Wars saga.

Sadly, when WoW arrived the storm that it created panicked SOE, at least from my point of view. They rapidly (and unexpectedly) changed the game that we all loved into something that attempted to copy the WoW-effect and, rather unsurprisingly, it failed. SWG had a lot of potential, it was a really great game, sure there were bugs, flavour of the month classes dominated PvP and the game needed horrific power to even run, but we loved it all the same. When the game changed to a levelling system and the unique combat systems had been overwritten, we not only lost the diversity of the huge number of classes, we also lost the heart of what made SWG SWG.

I had planned on being online for the finale. However, I went into the game on Tuesday night, loading into Tatooine still gives me goose bumps as I hear the majestic score play out until you are loaded into the game itself. I went and checked out my home one last time, drove around a bit to see the sights but the magic has gone. The planets are a mess of random buildings, the people I had such great times with are absent, the game I loved is a lobotomised shadow of its former glory. While its demise can be viewed much as watching the slow decline of a beloved family member, the fact it has now been put out of its misery is fitting. While there will always be a special part of my life that I look back on with a great and heartfelt fondness, now the game is gone there is a closure there. People change and move on, SWG has finally been given the merciful deathblow some of us wish had come a lot earlier.

The only thing left for me to do is to say thank you SWG, thank you for the memories of amazing people, amazing experiences and being one of the few times when we can say; the Internet makes things better and can change lives for the good.

While you may be gone, you will not be forgotten!

This is the roundabout way of me explaining that things are going to continue to be quiet around here as we wind down to eating unhealthy amounts of food and getting depressed about the Bears chance of making the play-offs without Jay Cutler and Matt Forte….

So, dear readers, the 6 Inch Move crew wish you all a very Merry Christmas (or whatever festival you choose to or not to celebrate this time of year) and we’ll be back in the New Year!

I’m sure we are all aware of just how amazing some of the people who frequent the Internet are but these two articles just go to show amazing examples of humanity in all of its glory. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did.

7 Douche-bags in gaming

7 more douche-bags

Check out his full post here:

http://fightingfantasist.blogspot.com/2010/09/when-40k-went-bad.html