Jefferson Skarsnik

The icon bearer and the sword and shield marshal in particular have some of the most naturalistic facial details I've seen from GW models, they really have that look of grizzled Brit character actors who've stepped straight out of Game of Thrones

As long as they get the balance right with the new ruleset then the Middle Earth treatment is fine for me; compendium army books, established world with a lot of existing miniatures, supported by well-produced campaign books and sensibly targeted resculpts of the needier old kits, rather than anything that drastically reinvents the wheel. Age of Sigmar is there for the constant hype cycle of exciting and outlandish new miniatures On the other hand a) I'm sceptical they won't take the mick with pricing for old minis based on their recent behaviour and (though negating the eBay acalper market will be a net gain) and b) if it's 8th Ed only with a focus on the Old World proper, what the hell were they trying to pull with that "look at this Kislev and Cathay concept art from Total War for some reason!" stuff lmao On closer inspection Malibu Stacy's new hat was not new, or a hat

Hmm that's interesting. I probably wouldn't have bought a Brets vs Tomb KIngs starter set just to have sell most of the models on Ebay anyway, but I'd have been interested in one that was basically a big Empire army box, especially if it came with some Old World terrain. If they're making the rules and the models available then sure whatever that'll do

Oh dear god has the horse's face fallen off

Lumineth core troops can stand in for their high elf equivalents but I wouldn't say most of the heroes do that well, and I wonder if a load of sentinels and wardens next to loads of white lions and seaguard would be a bit weird because of the aesthetic and scale differences. I'd say they're one of the armies that have a use case for having old (or updated) spearmen/archers/silver helms/bolt throwers available alongside the AOS equivalents, though high elves are probably also not high on the priority list given the Old World's apparent narrative focus They do have a lot of recently-retired elite unit kits they can just bring back

Empire Secessionists confirmed! Swordsmen only! 3% win rate baby!

From recent experience with MESBG, decades old, low detail models kind of rule because I actually finish painting units of them Unless they're Finecast, in which case...no I appreciate the article's firm hand on the shoulder/"listen, you're 40 years old, you're not going to paint 12 Knights of the Realm with unique freehand heraldry schemes. Alright?" message

Resentful sniping about an imaginary enemy is bad, got it

Is there particular stuff that the Gitz are really missing as an army, other than things that just generally expand or fit better visually with the (admittedly a bit out on a limb) wolf rider aesthetic? It seemed like the early 2019 GG release was substantial and had a lot of great looking stuff in it, and what they mainly needed was to make them actually fun to use in games I've been checked out of AOS 3.0 almost entirely beyond chewing through painting a Lumineth army at a glacial pace, but that Gitz vanguard box briefly tugged at the Impulsive Pile of Shame Purchase bit of even my brain

"the end times are canon!!" yeah pull the other one lads 🙄

I Ah sure it's both I think "meta-chasing" was a bad choice of words on my part; there's always been that element to these games and it's always been possible to avoid it to some extent, I guess what I really meant was that the maybe premature (due to covid stopping so much 2nd Ed game time) new edition of AOS came with new rules (that in some cases felt a bit bolted on to solve existing balance problems), and all the seasons of war type stuff, that suddenly made it feel a bit bewildering and like there was this need to do loads of homework to continue being able to play. People can always say "there's nothing stopping you playing the game and ruleset you exactly want and ignoring all that" but if you're a bit reliant on finding games at clubs or within a scene the general state of the game and the "meta" does have a bit of a knock effect on the more casual players too in the way RuneBrush identified. Not to say that my experience is universal, but certainly the pendulum might have swung back a bit for some of the "AOS is the low barrier to entry easy fun game with no baggage" people. I broadly agree with NAH's assessment of how we got here, and certainly AOS got me painting models again when there was no prospect whatsoever that I would have ever taken the decision to buy and paint a 2000 pt 8th edition army with a load of blocks of 24 infantry. I guess I'm just interested to see if, with the decks cleared and the baggage of the old game gone, whether they can come out with a more focused experience for TOW that scratches that rank and flank square base itch while still having the Warhammer lore and production values etc. anyway, Immortal Empires dropped yesterday so I've certainly got options in the meantime

Idk, they probably just feel in retrospect that the way they blew it up and rubbed people's faces in it was a mistake, they alienated some people and left money on the table, and they might as well try to rectify the mistake in a way that makes them some money without it being at the expense of the bigger cash cow in AOS. I kind of gradually lost enthusiasm for playing AOS as a game over the last year with the kinda botched launch of 3rd edition, too many revised army books, a general sense that it's turning into a Magic-style shiny new thing meta that you have to try to keep up with etc. I have kind of a hankering for some basic rank and flank stuff with artillery, psychology rules and cav charges etc. I guess I basically just want to play 1500 point games fighting over tiny run-down villages with grizzled empire captains, no wizards higher than level 2 etc etc. The timing of the announcement and the lack of news isn't ideal though, who knows if I or anyone else will still feel that enthusiastic by the time it actually comes out. It was like the Simpsons episode where they rushed out Malibu Stacy with a new hat to crush the competitor in its cradle, only the Malibu Stacy with a new hat won't be available for three to four years, or more if there happens to be a global pandemic

Looking at the deathmaster and that terminator, is it a recent thing that GW's studio paint schemes have been using more NMM styles? They look p good, I don't think GW's "retributor armour edge highlighted with stormhost silver" type armour-heavy paintjobs photograph all that well

The rumours were true, new Osgiliath starter set with plastic Faramir /Madril/Damrod/Gothmog alongside morannon orcs, troll, rangers, warriors of MT and osgiliath ruins terrain. Unlikely to be as insanely good a deal as the pelennor fields set was but then what ever will be again, you'd almost have to ask I bought metal Faramir and weird Finecast Gothmog as soon as they went last chance to buy lol

If the new Nuln Oil is really that good at running into recesses for black lining like that I'll certainly be interested to give it a try, but I also immediately ordered two new pots of the old formula because I'm painting a Mordor army for MESBG and sometimes you just need to tastefully ruin a lot of miniatures in quick succession

Total Warhammer 3 is pretty wonderful from what I've played this week. I wasn't that hyped about playing as Kislev or Cathay because they don't have any particular nostalgic pull from the mainstream tabletop game, but the Kislev tutorial mini-campaign got me into them pretty quickly, and is really nicely pitched to appeal to both people who want the game mechanics explained to them a bit more clearly and people who appreciate a throwback Shadow of the Horned Rat style experience with a more linear, narrative-heavy progression. The story itself is 100% predictable and it 100% doesn't matter because it leans into it so hard. I had intended to start out the full campaign as Tzeentch based on my first AOS army, but a brief brush with Khorne convinced me to live a little and go down the Kill Everything route and it's so fun and flavourful. The skills in the character skill tree are called things like KILL!, MAIM! And DESTROY! and some of Skarbrand's mission fluff texts are written in HULK SMASH monosyllabic speak to reflect his uh limited range of interests. I recently suffered an increase in Slaanesh corruption because a sinister tailor moved into one of my camps and sold everyone fancy clothes that made them obsessively look at themselves in the mirror all day Although it is (correctly) WHFB-centred, the heavy focus on the Chaos gods and the realm of chaos make it the most complete AOS game so far imo. Hopefully the Old World taps into this energy a little bit. Even if it's set in the distant past I think they could do worse than release MESBG-style campaign books that focus on the characters and storylines from the three total warhammer games, accompanied by made to order releases and maybe the odd 2523—appropriate cheeky resculpt 👀

Good news: I have agreed to administer the programme on TGA in exchange for a) a competitive compensation package and b) lifetime immunity from the programme

Everyone who posts on a wargaming forum should, as a condition of maintaining their account, be regularly required to upload a photo of their current pile of shame to function as their avatar, so that any complaints they make about the number of new plastic miniatures being marketed to them can be assessed in context

Well done and thanks for the inspiration 👍🏻 Currently slogging through trying to make the white robes on one half finished unit of spearmen look halfway good 😔

Nice basing, looks like a lovely tranquil little spot to launch a rain of death from

The Cursed City models are a ton of fun to paint so glad it will be available again I never got round to actually playing it because its mysterious disappeance was kind of a vibe killer so maybe this will inspire me to

Thank you! The TMM is quite indebted to @JH.Miniatures excellent youtube channel, and some of Andy Wardle/ Cult of Paint's lockdown Lumineth adventures too I found it a blast to paint, let's hope I still feel that way when I do the other nine with a battleforce box still on the way!

Weirdly, the actual fluff in the Cursed City book is that the Ulfenwatch weren't City guard members in life, they're just random massacred citizens who've been clad in their discarded armour. Only Halgrim is still in the same gig as he was pre-death (If I am remembering it correctly, don't shoot me if I'm wrong, cursed City is a weird distant fever dream at this point) I definitely liked painting the models. They're kind of sassy looking. From a painting workflow POV I think they might have worked better as nu-grave guard with the ability to still buy lower tier naked skeletons that are easier to paint in huge batches. Then you also wouldn't have had that weird size discrepancy between the imposing, confident chaff skeletons and their petite manlet elite superiors

In the fluff iirc they are bookworm nerds who use magic to bodybuild themselves into John Cena when it's game time

I paid 104 for Lumineth at Element Games. Didn't see any battleforces up on Dark sphere at all, similarly to Cursed City. Didn't see any pre-sale mailing list thing while browsing the site earlier in the week either.