Gangsters and Thugz

Adversaries for my army of Pulp Cops, these gat-men are also from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures line. Below is Bugs Malarchy’s Mob (PGJ-02), one well-heeled group of hoods. With three Thompsons (who really believes there’s a violin in that case?), these guys mean business!

My personal favorite miniature is “Chopper” McCoy all the way on the right. He looks like a psycho and reminds me of Eddie Dane in Miller’s Crossing.

Up next is another crew of gangsters from Pulp Figures, These Guns for Hire (PGJ-04) I posed them with a car that purists will know isn’t from the 20’s, but it looks good enough.

Fast forwarding seven decades or so, I picked these guys up from Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy a few months back. They’re from Bobby Jackson’s controversial Thugz line. I love them, but I’m a little bummed I’m missing two of the coolest sculpts. Nonetheless, here are my modern gangstas, probably for use as a gang  in a zombie game.

My favorite is the guy all the way to the left. I’m pretty happy with the way he came out. They’re all packing heat (even the girl on the right, it’s behind her back), except for the big woman. But take a look at her. Do you really think she needs any help?

Here they are posed with some cops from the (I believe) now-defunct Mississinewa Miniatures line.

Uh-Oh, Five-O!!

Gen Con 2012 and Buyer Remorse

This year, I finally went to Gen Con for the first time in my life.  It was a great time. While I was organizing my vast (and ever-increasing) mountain of unpainted lead the other day, I came across my Gen Con 2012 acquisitions. I bought a lot of stuff there. It got me thinking: Gen Con was an expensive trip. Flight, hotel, admission/registration and car rental cost me over a thousand bucks alone; never mind things like food, parking, miniatures, swag and copious amounts of beer. Was it worth it? Yes and no. Here are my thoughts on both the Con and what I bought there.

Event Registration

Event registration was a pain. Like many others, I submitted my wish list of events with a click of a mouse at the exact moment online registration opened. Two minutes later, I realized my computer had frozen. So I resubmitted it and was informed I was number 2, 632 in line to be processed. Needless to say, i didn’t get into the games I most wanted to attend.

Games

My friend and I played in four events over the course of our stay at the Con. The first was a “marines vs. alien bugs” themed RPG that was completely actionless. It was supposed to last four hours and we were done in two. It was run by a nice enough guy, but it was obvious he had only part of a story in mind. We learned the game creators were going through some legal issues, as well.

We got into the open play Super Dungeon Explore! event on Friday morning, and we had a blast learning how to play this very cool game. Later that night we played “It Came From Beyond the Still”. Mike Williams of Bring Your A Game ran a great game and put a lot of effort into both the board and the miniatures. I got to play the “meddling kids”,  aka Hasslefree’s not-Scooby gang. My friend played the famous hillbilly family, the McCoys. It was the most fun I’ve had playing a miniatures game in years. My team did pretty well…Fred shot a UFO out of the sky with a pistol (while driving the Mystery Machine,no less), Daphne and Scooby-Dum were disintegrated by a gray alien’s rail gun, Scooby-Doo killed and ate (yes, ate) Agent K from the Men in Black, and Velma was stabbed by a cultist. In the kidney. Shaggy didn’t do much (but then again, he never really does). How about that for a game?

The last game we played was on Saturday morning-a Pathfinder scenario called the Tomb of Caragthax, run by the guys at Total Party Kill Games. Nice bunch of guys, and a fun time.

Food and Accomodations

Indianapolis has some pretty mediocre food, with some notable exceptions. The microbrews are terrific. The fried pickles (something you can’t get where I live) are amazing. And the Weber Grille served some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life. The rest of the food we had was meh, and the Denny’s near our hotel pretty much confirmed that Denny’s sucks everywhere.

We stayed at the Candlewood Suites near the airport, and I think that was probably the best move for two guys who don’t want to be aggravated by each other and by gamers LARPing in the hallway at 3 am every night. The hotel was great, but about 5 miles outside of downtown, and paying for parking sucks.

Vendors

Whenever we weren’t gaming, sleeping or drinking, we spent our time in the Vendor Hall. And it is here that I spent far too much money. I won’t go into everything I bought, but I should give some recognition to some of the cool people I met there.

The War Store had a big area, and as always, the staff was terrific. A woman named Phadra (? sp) ran me through a demo of Firestorm Armada. She was pleasant and very knowledgeable and even choked down her lunch so she could run the demo right away. (Which wasn’t necessary, but I appreciated it anyway).

Ginfritter from Armorcast was on hand, and as usual when confronted with Armorcast stuff, I bought a bunch of it.

The guys from Geek Chic were there showing off some of the coolest and most expensive game tables ever made, but boy are they impressive.

I got to meet Larry Elmore, who of course is a legend in the fantasy art world. I told him his stuff was the visual inspiration for all our games growing up, and he seemed to like that. I bought this print of his and he signed it for me. It’s the cover to the Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn game, and it’s now framed and hanging in my home.

I also bought a few prints from  Erika Taguchi-Newton, whose stuff I fell in love with right away. She seemed very nice, but I don’t know her personally and I don’t know how she would feel about me posting one of her images on this blog, so I won’t. But I encourage you to check out my favorite one I bought on her website. It’s called “Night at Karloff’s”.

Buyer Remorse

So what wasn’t worth it? Well, while going through my Gen Con purchases yesterday, I felt a bit of buyer remorse. I shouldn’t have bought the baseball hat with the Yellow Sign on it. Not because everyone who sees me goes incurably mad, but because I’ve never been much of a hat person. But what I feel the most buyer remorse about is miniatures. Specifically, these:

First off, let me say that I love Wyrd’s miniatures, and I love Asian-themed minatures. This would seem to be a win-win for me, and in a way, it is. I don’t play Malifaux, but I purchase a fair amount of Wyrd’s stuff for use in other games. When I saw the concept art for these Thunders, I was excited; and when I heard they’d be premiering them at Gen Con, I planned to buy them. And I did. For 21 bucks.

Now, at the time, I didn’t really think too much about it, because I was caught up in the excitement of the vendor hall. But when I looked at them the other day, I got annoyed. There are three plastic miniatures in this box, all contained on one sprue. I paid TWENTY ONE DOLLARS for this. For three plastic miniatures. That’s actually worse than GW, and they charge $25 for five plastic space marines!

What makes matters worse is that I’m not all that remorseful about spending the amount of money I spent on miniatures at Gen Con, which was a considerable amount. I’m mostly remorseful about this one purchase.

To put it in perspective, I also visited the Wargames Factory booth and bought a box of their Zombie Vixens for fifteen bucks, and they threw in an extra sprue for free. That’s 40 zombie chicks for fifteen bucks. That’s a sweet deal by anyone’s estimation. To be fair, this was a Gen Con special. WF usually sells the box for $19.95, and it includes 30 zombies. But that’s still ten times the miniatures, and it’s still less than the $21.00 I paid for the Thunders. I just bought a box of their Greatcoat Shock Troopers (not even sure why), and that’s 18 plastic miniatures for $19.95…maybe not as good a deal as the Zombie Vixens, but still a way better deal than the Thunders.

Sure, WF may be an extreme example of value for money, and no, the Zombie Vixens don’t look anywhere near as good as the Thunders. But they’re both plastic. The same plastic, as far as I can tell. Want another example? I bought a set of Mantic Dwarf Crossbowmen, ten figures in total, for $12.00. Want another? I bought a box of 24 Defiance Games UAMC Marines for $30.00.

I know our hobby is an expensive one, and nobody made me buy anything. But I think in this particular case, Wyrd is demonstrating some very GWish behavior. It’s too bad I didn’t realize it until after the Con, when I could think straight and wasn’t a drooling fanboy. No way will I ever pay this much for three plastics ever again.

I think Wyrd has some very talented sculptors and some very interesting miniatures, and I will continue to use them in my games. But there’s a point where ridiculousness smacks you in the face like a cold mackerel, and this was it for me.  I get the fact that Malifaux is a skirmish game and in order to play Malifaux you need fewer miniatures than, say, Warhammer Fantasy Battle. But fewer miniatures should mean that playing the game is less expensive, and at these prices I’m not really seeing much difference. I’d hate to see Wyrd go the same way as GW, but it seems to be the case.

 

Thinking of Opening a FLGS

There used to be a Friendly Local Game Store in my area up until about 10 years ago. Now the closest one is 40 miles away.

The owner was a gamer who decided it would be cool to own a store. For a long time there was a dedicated group of gamers that met there often to play and patronize the store. Warhammer and 40K were the only miniatures games played in the store, and it only stocked GW games and miniatures. Privateer Press was in in its infancy, so no one was playing that yet, and Flames of War was the new kid on the block. There was a lot of CCG gaming too, mostly Magic and Pokemon (For the kids. Mostly. Don’t ask…there were some creepy people there.)

It seemed to do well, but the place had its problems. Like the fact that the owner had no use for his regular customers once they had bought their armies and weren’t interested in buying more. And like the owner’s wife.  Whenever she was around she was a rather vocal and annoying presence in the store, and she loathed gaming and gamers and didn’t mind letting us all know it. Plus, she tried (unsuccessfully) to insert herself and her own choice of products into the workings of the store…for example, she famously insisted her husband carry the Thomas the Tank Engine line of wooden train sets for toddlers. (When the store closed, I’m pretty sure they still had every Thomas toy they ever stocked, and they had the whiole line. That stuff wasn’t cheap.) It was poor decisions like this (and like her habit of changing her toddler on the gaming tables) that ultimately led to people deciding not to play in the store as often. I don’t know why the owner eventually closed up shop, as he seemed to still be doing a decent business when he did (and he was a millionaire through inheritance, besides) but I suspect it was more his wife’s decision than his own. Time for him to “grow up” and all that.

So for about ten years there’s been nowhere central to play in my area. Most of the regulars splintered off into little groups, and I have no idea where they play now or even if they still do. All my friends who played miniatures games from that time are now scattered, and I’m pretty much left with a bunch of WFB and W40K armies and miniatures that never get used. So now I’m considering opening my own game store.

A bit about me: I am unmarried and have no children, so I don’t have a family to support. I own my own business and I would be able to continue operating it while running the store on the side. I am not rich by any means, but I am fortunate enough that I don’t have any problem paying my bills. In short, if I were to open a store, I would not have to rely on it to make a living. In fact, I would not have to draw a paycheck from it at all for as long as necessary.

From what I gather just from browsing the forums, this is probably a good thing; as no one seems to be getting rich owning a game store nowadays (if they ever did).

But my reasons for opening a game store are mostly selfish, and making money isn’t really one of them. Of course, no one goes into business looking to lose money, and if I was hemorrhaging cash every month I would probably close up shop fast. But I could live with a store doing a little better than breaking even, if all my goals were met.

That being said, here are my reasons:

  1. I would like to raise awareness of the hobby and promote smaller-press games and miniatures. I would like to introduce people to great game systems like Kings of War, Rattrap’s .45 Adventure, Hydra’s War Rocket, It Came from Beyond the Still, and the Two Hour Wargames stuff. Promoting these kinds of games would show people there’s an alternative to GW and that it’s possible to have a good time with miniatures that don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. (Of course, I would carry and promote GW stuff too, seeing how they’re the biggest company around and most people in the hobby play their games. Even though I don’t like their business model or their practices, ignoring them would ensure my store fails before it ever gets on its feet.)
  2. It would be nice to attract some fellow gamers. Currently I play RPGs with some close friends, but none of them are very big into miniatures games. When we get together, which is infrequently, it’s pretty much solely to play RPGs. I’ve tried to get them interested in some skirmish level games, something that doesn’t necessitate a huge layout of cash and/or time (like 40K), and I’ve had some modest success. But the simple truth is that if I want to play miniatures games (and I do), then the burden of buying and painting miniatures and buying, painting and constructing scenery lies with me and me alone. It would be nice to have other gamers who really love the hobby help out with that.
  3. I’d like to have a great place to play. Although I’m in the process of setting up a pretty cool gaming room in my home, at the end of the day, if my friends don’t come over, I don’t play. And I’m pretty selective about who I invite to my home. I’d rather play games elsewhere with people I don’t know all that well.

So it looks to me that my reasons for opening a game store can be summed up as follows: I want to open a game store as an extension of my hobby, so that I can play more games more often. Not exactly a great business model, right?

My strategy to stay in business would be to stock merchandise from games that people play already (like Warhammer, War Machine, Heroclix and Magic: the Gathering), and slowly bring in other stuff that people may not know about (like A Call to Arms: Star Fleet, War Rocket and All Things Zombie). I’d like to carry Reaper’s stuff, including their paints; and Mantic’s games in order to give people an alternative or supplement to GW’s stuff. I’d carry as much Fantasy Flight stuff as I could, and I’d promote everything with in-store demos, workshops, game nights and tournaments. I would want the store to always have something going on, whether it’s a board game, miniatures game, card game or rpg.

The obstacles to my success, as seen by me, include:

  1. The economy. Like it or not, our hobby is a luxury. No one needs to spend money on this stuff, and with the economy in the shitter, fewer people are able to.  The price hike on metal isn’t helping anyone, really; and even plastic and resin miniatures are pricey nowadays. And that’s not even considering the biggest pig at the trough, GW, whose annual price increases certainly don’t help retailers to sell more of their stuff, and actually puts them in the role of “GW apologist” far too often. But again, ignoring GW isn’t an option, and they’re not about to change, so you’re screwed either way, it seems.
  2. My competition isn’t the FLGS 40 miles away. It’s Amazon.com and Internet discounters. Who wants to pay $50 for the latest Pathfinder Core Ruleset from my store when they can get it on Amazon for $20? Not many people. Sure, supporting the little guy is a noble ideal, but the truth is a lot of us, myself included, shop at Wal-Mart even though we know it’s bad for the economy. Because $25 DVD players are tough to say no to, as are $5 DVDs. I know I won’t be able to match any Internet discount, and I know eBay is a good source for secondary market miniatures (especially GW stuff).  So just getting people to buy stuff from me as opposed to getting it  cheaper someplace else will be an ongoing challenge.
  3. All the financing for this business venture is probably coming from me. I don’t anticipate selling a bank on financing a business of this nature. Perhaps some of you can tell me if they encountered any problems with getting a business loan based on the fact that you’re opening a store that sells (often overpriced) toy soldiers. And how much money do you need to start things up?

I am now at the stage where I will be talking to business consultants about how best to proceed should I decide to take the plunge. I would greatly appreciate the input of brick and mortar game store owners and people in the business. Please offer your opinions and let me know what I haven’t considered, what I have been woefully naive about, etc. Feel free to comment on this blog or email me at angrypiper@angrypiper.com.

Pulp Cops

I got the pulp bug again, although to be sure I never really lost it. I painted these cops a while back for use with Rattrap’s .45 Adventure, which is my pulp rule set of choice. In truth, it’s the only rule set I’ve ever used to play pulp. I like it, though, so I haven’t needed to try anything else yet.

 

All these cops are from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures line. Some of them are customizable, like the cop on the right in the picture above. You can give him either a billy club or a pistol. I opted for the club.

When the cops need a little something extra, they break out the big guns, like this machine gun here. The shotgun cop on the right is another customizable piece.

The sergeant with the megaphone is one of my favorite models. These cops were easy to paint all at once, considering they’re all wearing the same colors. Now I have more than enough police to take on my gangsters (coming soon).

The Cudgel Gang

These guys are a small gang of bandits in my current AD&D 3.5 campaign. Basically they’re a group of highwaymen infamous for beating the hell out of the folks they waylay. The fellow in the middle is their leader, Quin Payden. The guy to the left of him is Karg, his lieutenant. Both are nasty fellows.

I rolled some strips of green stuff and cut off the tips, then painted them to look like coins, which I scattered on Quin’s base. I think I stole that particular technique from Cool Mini or Not. I like the end result.

The miniatures are all from Reaper. Quin’s miniature is Dub Bullock, Rogue (03026). Karg is Mack Hardwick, Mercenary Captain (14332). The fellow to the right of Quin is Calbach Greatclub (03231). The guys on each end are Thugs (14329).

Here is a rear view of Quin and Karg. I love the Dub Bullock miniature with the knife behind his back.

In the game, my players decided to fight rather than hand over their money (of course). They killed two thugs and badly wounded a third. Quin was wounded as well, but not before he got a chance to backstab the cleric and take the bard hostage. He escaped with most of their money. Karg got away, too…unscathed.

Bandits rarely change their ways, so there’s a chance they may cross paths with the party again. My players would love some payback.

Limehouse Personalities

Smoky opium dens and shady waterfront characters abound in Limehouse. Here are a few.

First up, the main bad guys. The burly fellow on the left is White Tiger, from East Riding Miniatures’s Golgo Island Legends line. Because of his striking resemblance to a famous Chinese bodybuilder/actor, I had to own him. The other two miniatures are the Sinister Dr. Koo and his enforcer, Chang the Iron Fist, from Bob Murch’s Pulp Figures line. Dr. Koo is out of production while Bob works on a new sculpt. I can’t wait, although I like this one a lot.

Next up: the cannon fodder. These Waterfront Characters are from Rattrap Productions for use with their .45 Adventure game. I like them, and I can always use more goons. I painted them all at once with similar colors to get them done quicker. I’m happy with the result.

Lastly are these two ‘ard lads, from Killer B Games’s “Geezers…Shut It!” line. I don’t play Geezers, which is a miniatures game based on 1970’s British cops and robbers, but I found these two miniatures to be good for any period, particularly pulp. Not the best picture, I know. They look like a couple of tough guys who might cause trouble in a seedy section of town like Limehouse.

Who’s Getting My Money?

This year for Christmas, I was fortunate enough to receive a gift certificate in a generous denomination for use at The War Store. This, coupled with some purchases I was planning to make anyway, means that soon after the new year I’ll be dropping more money on lead and lead accessories. However, I will almost certainly exceed the amount and have to dig into my pocketses for the difference. Fortunately, as anyone who has ever dealt with them knows, the site is great, the service is great, and I’m happy to give them my business (again).

Since the only miniatures I’m using nowadays are for my AD&D campaign, I have to keep some things hush-hush as I don’t want my players to know what they might be facing on the table soon. So, with that in mind, who’s getting my money, and for what? Read on.

1. Reaper: Reaper Miniatures is due to be getting a big order from me, and what I can’t get at The War Store I’ll likely order direct. All my dealings with Reaper have been exceptional and they appear to be a company that values their customers. January has some promising new releases in their Chronoscope and Dark Heaven lines, among them this guy here:

In my opinion, no one offers better fantasy personality miniatures than Reaper. With each order, I usually pick up one or two that catch my eye that I may not have any use for at the moment, but that I can work into my games later as an NPC.  I also buy miniatures I think will be fun to paint, whether I ever use them or not. Here’s another I’ll be buying soon: Lem, Iconic Halfling Bard:

2. Litko Aerosystems: Litko is getting some of my money because I now need regimental movement trays for the two new Warhammer armies I’ll never ever play (and probably won’t even finish painting).

3. Hydra Miniatures: Hydra’s Retro Raygun and War Rocket lines just keep getting better and better with every new release. That being said, I’m way overdue for some Slishians, like these fellows here.

And although I still haven’t managed to play a game of War Rocket yet despite having two fleets painted, I think I may well invest in the Zenithian starter fleet, since they’re considered to be a formidable fleet and they look really cool.

4. Wyrd: Wyrd’s Malifaux line makes some of the best-looking Steampunk miniatures anywhere, and although I don’t play Malifaux, I regularly purchase their models for use in RPGs. There are some models I plan on buying that I can’t show here for fear of tipping my players off to what may be lurking around the corner, but I’ll be buying Kirai Ankoku for sure. She just looks so amazingly evil, she makes me want to dust off my Clan War miniatures (another game I’ll never paint or play) and run a “Oriental Adventures” RPG.

Another sure bet for Wyrd is this guy, who I’ll definitely find some use for as a zombie boss (whenever I finish making my zombie table).

That’s about it, for the forseeable future, anyway. Who knows what releases my come in 2012? So far, I like the look of Games Workshop’s Vargheists, however much it pains me to even consider giving GW  a dime of my money. Reaper, Wyrd and Hydra are likely to get repeat business from me. And then there’s Bob Murch, who can be counted on to make me pulp crazy a few times a year. And I really love the look of A Call to Arms: Starfleet…

Gentlemen… Behold!!

I just love Rattrap’s Professor Kroon. He reminds me of Dr. Weird from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Here is the old-style Professor Tobias Kroon with a small army of Kroonbots. I painted them up a while ago for use with .45 Adventure but I haven’t got around to playing any scenarios with them yet.

The Type II Robots are a personal favorite of mine, although they would have been a cast-iron bitch to put together with a pin vise instead of the Dremel I used. I bored a hole through the bodies of each robot and inserted a 3/64 mm brass rod through the body to pin the arms. Attempting to attach the arms without pinning would have been impossible.  I decided to go with the Cylon look for the optical sensors. The bases are from Micro Art Studios.

Rattrap recently released new miniatures for their most popular characters for the .45 Adventure 2nd Edition. Although I like the new Professor Kroon model, I didn’t feel the need to buy it as the old one is just as good, IMO. (I do like the new Jade Hood model much better that the old one, though.)

I have a scenario idea kicking around in my head for my players to attempt to thwart a nefarious alliance between Professor Kroon and Bob Murch’s Radon Zombies of the Ionosphere.

“Today New Commerce, tomorrow…THE WORLD!!!”

Tomb Raiders

Picked up these “Not-Lara Crofts” from Shadowforge a while back and painted them up. Just dug them out of storage with an idea for an appropriately-themed Egyptian pulp game. The bases are from Wolvesbane, which I’m pretty sure is no longer in business.

Comments welcome.

Why Did I Do This?

Recently, over on The Miniatures Page, I asked the Warhammer Forum whether or not I should just break down and buy The Island of Blood Starter box.  I figured I could buy the boxed set and use the High Elves, selling off the Skaven to recoup some of the cost of the set. There were many reasons not to make this purchase, and only one real reason why I wanted to (because I’m sick). For those interested in how the thread went, you can find it here: TMP Link. For those others who don’t want to bother, I’ll briefly recap below.

I haven’t played a game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle  since about 2003 or so, and only recently got back into painting miniatures at all. I started playing WFB with an Undead army, prior to GW splitting up the Undead into two separate armies, Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts. With my army effectively cut in half, I decided to start another army that had been interesting me for some time: Orcs and Goblins. This would become my main army for most of the time I spent playing WFB.

Still, as any wargamer knows, sooner or later you want to try something new. I wanted to play the good guys for a change, and I specifically wanted an army with some decent cavalry. I started with some Brettonians, since they came in the boxed set; however I quickly abandoned them before I spread one drop of paint, because I read their army book and found them to be unbelievably cheesy/beardy/unbalanced. I moved onto Empire, but never really found the time to paint them, so I sold off what I had. A couple years later, I broke down and bought the High Elf Cavalry Patrol boxed set below, because it was a small force and didn’t require much of a committment in either time or money. I figured I could use it for some small skirmishes. I quickly added a regiment box of Silver Helms and a Regiment box of Spearmen to add a few more core troops to the force.

As you can see, I never even opened the boxes. They went into storage along with the rest of my miniatures, where they sat until last month. In the meantime, the game store that I patronized changed ownership. I never set foot in the new store, which I didn’t even know had  opened until a year later. That didn’t matter either, since they went out of business long before I pulled these miniatures out of storage.

Which brings us to last month, when I got the undeniable urge to paint up a High Elf army, even though I know I will probably never play them. Ever.

I took my dilemma to The Minatures Page, and I was pretty much universally encouraged to buy and paint more elves (although some folks told me just to paint what I have and keep it a skirmish force due to the cost, time, and let’s face it, stupidity of buying and painting a force I will likely never use).  Tiny Legions, a fellow TMPer, was kind enough to point out that the miniatures in Island of Blood are significantly larger than the miniatures I had, and even posted some comparison shots. In the end, I decided I would probably buy IOB anyway. But I didn’t.

Instead, I got a pretty good deal on the Battle Ready Battalion above, mainly becasue I found a place that has LOADS of GW backstock and wants to get rid of it. The BRB I got is from 2003, still mint in box. I picked it up for half price. Which now means I have more elves to paint. So, as of now, my High Elf Army consists of:

  • 21 Silver Helms (5 from the Cavalry Patrol, 8 from the Regiment Box, and 8 from the Battalion)
  • 5 Ellyrian Reavers (from the Cavalry Patrol)
  • 1 Tiranoc Chariot (from the Cavalry Patrol, pulled by horses, not the current GW lion-pulled chariot)
  • 16 Archers (from the Battalion)
  • 32 Spearmen (16 from the Regiment Box, 16 from the Battalion)
  • 1 Repeater Bolt Thrower (from the Battalion)
  • 1 High Elf General on horseback (from the Cavalry Patrol)

Altogether, not too bad. A little cavalry heavy, perhaps. I’d like to have fewer Silver Helms and maybe a few more Reavers and another unit of Archers. And a unit of elites would be nice. I always felt sorta “Meh” about Phoenix Guard and White Lions (elves with axes? C’maaaaaan.) I’d opt for some Swordmasters, because they’re the coolest, and because i snagged an old-school blind Eltharion miniature from the same store., and he could champion the unit. And of course, I need a wizard, which means my army just isn’t complete yet.

Now for the worst part. I always wanted to play Dwarfs, because Dwarfs are hands-down my favorite fantasy race.  When I initially got into WFB, a friend of mine quickly laid claim to the Dwarfs, so I picked Undead so we could fight each other. I got my ass handed to me by his Dwarfs too many times to count. When I switched to Orcs and Goblins, I lost even more, because my own Animosity rules frequently lost the game for me.  I always wanted to play Dwarfs, and still do.

Which is why I bought this, too.

The Battle for Skull Pass, which was also discounted since it’s the last edition of WFB. I just bought it for the Dwarfs. Although the Goblins look very cool,. I painted enough green skin in the late 90’s to know that I don’t want to paint any more. So my plan is to sell off the Goblins. Perhaps I’ll keep the Troll, and I like the Spider Riders, which look way better than the old metal ones I have. We’ll see.

So now I have the makings of a nice Dwarf skirmish force:

  • 8 Dwarf Miners
  • 12 Dwarf Warriors
  • 10 Dwarf Thunderers
  • 1 Dwarf Cannon and Crew
  • 1 Dwarf Dragon Slayer
  • 1 Dwarf Thane

I don’t like the sculpt on the Thane, and I always found Dwarf Slayers of any type to be stupid.  Just my opinion. So, not content with what I have, I am awaiting the conclusion of a trade in which I have acquired 36 more Dwarfs: 18 Miners and 18 Hammerers, as well as a Dwarf Organ Gun. I’ll probably pick up a better Dwarf Thane model too. Lord knows there are plenty of them out there, most of them not even made by GW.

So now I have an additional 183 miniatures, including the horses, to assemble, paint and base. Did I mention I’m just as likely to play these Dwarfs as I am the High Elves? In other words, it’s probably never gonna happen.

Why did I do this? And why am I so looking forward to it?