Beastmaster

Just bought 2 Dreadblade harrows and the Thorns of the Briar Queen. A complete Hinterlands Warband of great-looking miniatures for 39€. I’d say that’s ok. 😊

I could imagine the Huskard on Thundertusk doing ok in larger games. His overall damage output is not good, but he can do damage in every phase of the round. Which might be useful to give that last killing blow to an already heavily decimated unit, so that your own troops can freely move or charge the next unit.

I wonder why they don’t use the rules for retreating for that. Every model failing its roll must retreat and run and may not charge again yada yada. Much more immersive and tactically interesting than just taking some more models off the table. Edit: Ah, I see. Unit cohesion. On the other hand, this would be a way to make Bravery worth something with single model units.

Looks like a D&D thri-kreen coming out of an Alien egg. Those eggs, you know, that lay there for God-knows-how-long, until something living was stupid enough to come close.

Man. Those are really great! Would trade Ossiarchs for those guys any day of the week.

What miniature is that second one? Would work great as my D&D Duergar.

Sad that this didn’t get more traction. Hinterlands, as kind of „sandboxy Mordheim with AoS rules“ is just such a great idea. Eager to try it out the following weekend!

There are still some unsolved Rumor Engines with spindly arms holding renaissance weapons, iirc.

Sometimes I ask myself if choice is really an advantage, or even wanted. When I look at my little RPG group, our main problem at the moment is choosing which of all those interesting options we’ll play this time. They all have their pluses and minuses, so deciding to commit to one is difficult, but system hopping does get annoying too. Miniature gaming seems to go that exact same route for me, I fear. Maybe I just spend too much time reading rulebooks.

Well, in my active Go-out time I had no children, a cheap room and lived off deep-frozen Pizza. That’s a lot of beer. 😄

Since Corona-numbers go up again in my area, I changed direction. An AoS game outside the house may be inadvisable for the next months anyway. So I decided to make my collection playable at home. Next project: A nice Hinterlands playing area, with multiple warbands to choose from, a 4x4 battlemat and lots of things to clutter it with. First clutter ready to go:

No philosophy behind it for me. I just don’t like feeling ripped off. Also don’t think that would change if I had unlimited money.

You’ll also need the Hunter as general, otherwise you have no battleline.

Man. It’s been a while since I was last on the Forgeworld website. Regarding the latest price hikes of the newest GW stuff, they start to actually look affordable. 😳

Wasn’t that impressed by Mierce resin (I’ve got their Walrusmen, and while the minis are nice and detailed, the harpoons were quite bendy and breaky. I broke every one of them at least once while trying to straighten them. Just no fun to work with. Never happened with anything GW). I vastly prefer GW plastic, honestly. But not at all cost.

Just realized yesterday that I have enough stray miniatures from different factions to field four distinctly different Hinterlands warbands. Can‘t use basic AoS rules for cheaper.

I don’t think it’s souped if it has a clear common theme. On the contrary, what makes some armies so one-dimensional models wise is the concentration on a single species. Compare all-dwarf Fyreslayers or all-elf Idoneth with Ogors/Gorgers/Yhetees/Gnoblars Mawtribes or Skink/Saurus/Slann Seraphon. Likewise, I would prefer a Vampires/Skeletons/Zombies/Bats/Wolves soulblight to an All-Bedsheet Nighthaunts army any time of the day. Or even at night.

Well, all of them will outlive a FloSh in direct confrontation. For only 80-90 p more.

You’re right on all points. Still doesn’t make the models of the two latest releases reasonably priced in my eyes.

The cost effective ways are the older armies/units at the moment. You know, the ones that are slowly phased out/replaced. What will happen then?

If I remember correctly, the price for a standard 10 model basic infantry box was roughly at 20-30 € shortly before AoS. The first AoS armies (just 3 years ago) went to about 35. Now with Lumineth we are at 44. Same goes for cavalry, monstrous infantry, centerpieces, named heroes etc. It’s actually comparable to my golf club example. Now let’s say they are redoing Skaven next year. 20 Nightrunners or 20 Plague Monks cost 29 € at the moment. Redone, with new shiny models, there is no reason to think that GW, considering where we are at the moment, would charge less than 45 for 10 of them. Which is a price hike of 210%. Yes, they are new. But I’m out at that point, and am no longer looking forward to this. They’re just not worth THAT much more.

Ok, for comparison, let’s say the golf club of your brother charges not 2500, but 3000 next year and 4000 the year after, without changing anything else. Don’t you think some members will complain? Let’s also say other (granted, less nice) golf clubs in the area stay at 2000. When will the members of your brother’s club begin to consider changing to one of the other clubs? To which club is a new player more likely to turn? Yes, GW is on the pricy side in the miniature market. We all know that, and are ok with it. But this seems to slowly be getting out of hand. Which WILL ultimately mean fewer people will start playing GW games.

Keep in mind that half of the SoB army consists of (still great but) very old models. At least those could have gotten a substantial discount. Then mega-Gargants somewhere between, say, Nagash or Archaon (maybe 110€) and I think no one would complain. That’s what I expected, actually. But we got over 40% more.

My Ogors are blue. Those who don’t like it taste just as good as those who like it. Simple as that.

Maybe the internal and external balance of pricing would justify its own thread?