Insufferable Contemplations of the Orb | Plans for 2024
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I was contemplating how to (finally) paint up my GameIn5D boards, speculating on the wisdom of doing two 4x3 boards (one snow, one desert)... wouldn't it make more sense to have them all the same and butt them up for bigger games? But I have models on snow bases...
No. It started with the money, I reckon.
Due to Circumstances, I am back on the old school "to buy, I must sell" principle, where the hobby must to a great extent be self funding... and I have some unfortunate rulebooks from the last decade that lack nostalgia appeal...
Or... did it start with the app?
When Codex Necrons came out, I paid for a month of Warhammer Plus so I could create a bunch of template lists and have them stored in the same app as my official rules reference. Which let me dick around with a bunch of other lists.
Or was it Warhammer: The Old World?
I have 3000 points of third party Tomb Kings. Dr. Shiny has 3000 odd points of classic Skaven. Benjie has... a lot of High Elves, and whatever else he's got knocking around this year. If we're all on the old basing standard, do any of us need to switch?
The point is, I have multiple incentives to clear out the display case. And, as the record of my Fanceyful Notions will reveal, doing so has created £400 in hobby funds, split neatly between TTCombat store credit and actual currency.
The former is likely to go on Tomb Kings Desert of the Dead models - the big Heavy Horse brick I've always wanted, some Tomb Guard, Sepulchral Stalkers, a Sphinx or two, a melee Bone Giant, you get the drift. I could go very loud on this range, even considering a third pass of Zombies, Jackals, Corpse Cart, Banshees, all the bits to make a Lahmian or Necrarch Vampire Counts army in the same style. Associated scenery is also a possibility - just a couple of pyramids and walls for the blocks to wheel and push around, you know? Other options involve more Resistance stuff for Dropfleet - I've had the starter fleet to build since the birthday before last and I really should do something with them.
The latter is being queued up for Necron reinforcements (Triarch Stalkers and Praetorians, Canoptek stuff, maybe some Ophidians - we'll talk about this in another post, but reorganising the display case and reviewing the Detachments has highlighted a themed subset approach to the army that I'm looking forward to exploring later). There's also a new rule set tempting me... Kill Team!
I haven't entirely abandoned the ways of Chaos: there remain a set of Shadowspear Legionaries and a Master of Executions whomst I haven't painted, and I'd quite like to do them as Red Corsairs or something like that. There is a Night Lords box coming out later this year. Death Guard are a Plague Marine box, done deal. Thousand Sons are Tzaangor and Exalted Sorcerer boxes. Kill Team should allow me to indulge my addiction to random Chaos yabbos and yahoos - the craven desires which normally pull me into wanting a big bad Chaos soup for my complete hobby breakfast.
Returning to the scenery situation, this (and the general layout of my house) mean I could theoretically set up a 5' x 4' main board and a 3' x 3' Kill Team board at the same time, one themed for the random assortment of Chaotic ne'er-do-wells and the other a Necron cityscape. Or jam it all together and set up a big board in an external venue for some proper old-fashioned exhibition style WFB at my preferred scale of play.
Ignore those last couple of lines. They are pipe dreams. Chaos Knights were the models that hooked me back into 40K a couple of summers ago, and I still haven't built any. Thousand Sons have been a long smouldering desire, ever since the first Ahriman model hit the game about the same time I did - I like the John French novels, I like the core themes of hubris and self-deceit behind the character and the Legion, and I like that in the age of "I cast Gun" they have retained some placement and probability control psychic abilities in the shape of Cabal Rituals. But I know how I am with Chaos. One army bleeds into three or four and the urge for unattainable projects becomes too much to bear. Necrons as a main army are straightforward, easier on my ailing wrists, and I already own about 1600 points of the buggers.
That's where it started, really. One book. One project. A Narrative forged with my longest serving opponents. A body that cannot handle too much trim. Besides, I spent all that money on scenery. Enough for a Necron themed Cityfight board that's at least vaguely compatible with Matched Play layouts for current 40K.
See this is why I like the good ol' fashioned flat board cut into modular sections for storage. You can make 'em double-sided for two different environments and then just throw a cloth over it if you want a new one. Stick some Stillman-grade termite art DIY terrain over it and she'll be right churr bro.
ReplyDeleteIt's why my long term distant future plan for home boards invariably revolves around two big sheets of wood jigsawed into convenient sized interlocking chunks and painted on both sides - Desert, Snow, Urban and Space - with a green static grass blanket to throw over one for jungles and ruggedly beautiful Central North Island Fantasy Wilderness.
But I digress. Given the current state of the showcase gallery on this blog, and the excitement for more Tomb Kings, it seems like the option for a big combined sandy board is probably going to match more of your figures in the near-to-medium term at least. The Necrons are desert-based, the Tomb Kings are (if I remember right) desert-based, and those seem to be the two armies you're leaning on hardest at the moment. You can always revisit the frosty board later when circumstances allow.
Otherwise the real question is, how often are the Vampire Counts and Tree Spirits going to see use on your own home tables vs. on some snowy table somewhere else?
Of course the Necrons are the swing vote here. If they were based for snow I'd be lobbying for two frost-flavoured board cubes full throttle, because now I say it out loud snow-themed Necrons sound awesome, the Necron scenery looks free-standing enough to adapt to any table and the idea of a frozen dead Tomb World just oozes Mountains Of Madness horror appeal and I may very well steal the idea myself one day.
Just never say never about big exhibition games. I thought I would never be able to enjoy regular 2004hammer games, but last year I was proven wrong. Then I ended up shutting myself away from the world for a couple of months for unrelated reasons but the point is these things happen.
Ahh, the ole "bits of MDF" approach. Such were the battlefields of my youth (green on one side, blue-grey on the other – I was big into Necromunda for a while), and indeed my old Warmachine table was a hinged 4x4 affair with indented river and craters, long low hills that took up a proper amount of table estate... that was a satisfying bit of kit that I ended up leaving in Ross-On-Wye, just up the road. I wonder what happened to it?
DeleteOn this occasion the 5D magnetised affairs have two main attractions. Folded flat, they occupy a space only one foot wide. Assembled as cubes, they double as storage vessels.
I do like your proposal for four themed boards that become two similar fantasy standards (or one, given the size of engagements to which you're predisposed). If I had space to store big sheet boards I would be piking that quick sharp.
Kings and Crons are both on desert sand, indeed. As for the others, the Vampire Counts are on their unique "dark fantasy" black and green (and largely a display piece nowadays), and the Tree Spirits are among the goods moving on.
It's funny you should mention snowy Necrons. Had I not been wed to the set of inks already purchased, I had considered a heavily textured cast iron scheme that would have looked FAB on black ice and snowdrifts.
The exhibitions certainly may come round again. My desire for more Tomb Kings is motivated by a firm principle: "3000 is the starting size for proper Warhammer like how Rick would have wanted it."
Yesss.... yesss... embrace the standard of 3000+, build to 4000+ and empty your entire figure collection on the table every game. Join us... join ussss....
DeleteIt's sounding like there's a strong case for pivoting towards desert themed boards if the Tree Spirits are emigrating too. 2/3 active armies feels like more of a match and if I remember right there's always the snow board at that localish gaming location you discovered last year.
M'lud, I'd like to remind the jury that my last two games with my Vampires were exactly that "dump everything I own on the board and Forge The Narrative" variety. In fact... half the Fantasy games I've played this decade have been 3000 points or up. The system works!
DeleteThere are, alas, no snow boards set up at the Abergavenny club, but now I'm wondering what the Geek Retreats in Cardiff and Newport have going on. I shall have to investigate.
I gave up even trying to match my bases to my terrain collection, beyond one theme per army. Six armies means six different terrain themes, and that's never going to happen with my cupboard budget!
ReplyDeleteSand and snowdrifts are kind of similar from a modelling point of view. Same shapes, different colours (and temperatures). I wonder if a very pale light blue could almost double as alien world desert cobalt sand?
I hear that! I go through phases with my bases, either matching everything to the one board I have (in my Warmachine days everything was on swamp bases) or not having a board and treating the base as an extension of the figure, pulling colours down to make them work as an art piece (pretentious, moi?).
DeleteYou make a compelling point with the pale snow/alien sand/desert at night idea, but! the largest active armies are in quite warm tones and I have zero interest in rebasing anything again. If I was absolutely starting from scratch I'd definitely think about that, though!