I refuse to use a cheez-army, and
was excited when rumors proved to be false and Mat Ward was not writing the
codex for Darkangels. While it is one of
the more underwhelming codices to have come out in 6th ed, it is
also a solid book with lots of flavor.
It allowed me to use both my Deathwing and my 4th company,
with some interesting (if slightly overpriced) options for unique units that
offer distinct roles. From the
ghostly-quiet of an empty cathedral to the hands of a praying saint, there is a
somber weight to the lore of the DA that is mirrored in their models – this
same aesthetic is present in their unique units as well. Robed sergeants, knightly terminators,
reliquary-stylized vehicles all carry that same weight and silence.
It is good that I can play the army
without cheez. Sure, the Standard of
Devastation (turns the standard-pattern or hurricane bolters of all units
within 6” into salvo 2/4 weapons) allows for some disgusting shooting (I rolled
108 shots in one round once, half of which were twinlinked, 28 ignored cover),
but it is no sure solution for some of the heavier hitters. I would have liked the Nephilim to be worth
its points – two lascannons instead of one twinlinked one, the actual Avenger Multibolter
with its original 7-shot ap 3 stats, missiles that are able to take down enemy
aircraft (maybe the ability to shoot overwatch with missiles against FMCs or
vectorstrikes to make it a dogfight-threat against Heldrakes or Daemon Princes),
or something else unique and capable.
The overall effect was… underwhelming.
Still, it’s better to have a balanced book than if the Nephilim was 100
points and spammable (people taking a librarian with 5 scouts just to take
triple Nephilims and cheap massed battle-brother troops from elsewhere would
have been lame).
I’m not a competitive person, at
least with other people. For me, I want
to be able to do well by doing well, not by utilizing every advantage or
exploiting unbalanced systems. I grew
out of using “god mode” codes back in idkfa days, and see no need to go back to
stroking my own ego without merit. To
win by nature of having played the right army is a hollow victory, more
reminiscent of an actual war than a game that has rules to balance play. That being said, if I can win against someone
who plays one of those armies, I’ve done better than them in two ways – I’ve
beaten them, and I’ve beaten the imbalance inherent in their army. In even a close game, if their list or their
codex is weighted against me, even if I narrowly lose I’ve outplayed them. And when not playing against the new
flavor-of-the-month armies with the best exploits that ruin the game for everyone
else, I rarely lose.
What’s more, I want an army that I
enjoy aesthetically, not just that I like the play-style of – creating an army
is more than just owning it. Painting it
yourself, constructing the models, sculpting and swapping and cutting are all
measures that make this army yours. I
never understood the idea of buying a painted army, or paying someone to paint
it. It might be terrible, it might look
like I used housepaint and a roller, but I did it and I own it. And I’m not a terrible painter, certainly
nothing to scoff at, but my mediocre skill with paint is balanced by my
ineptitude with sculpting. Still, it was
painting that drove me away from the hobby originally, and painting that I
struggled with the most in the early years, so perhaps if I had been able to
afford a painted army when I was younger I’d have been more likely to start
earlier.
I understand those who started
their own divergent or Astartes codex chapters, because the ability to create
background and fluff and even just the heraldry of a new chapter is a way of
making that army particularly yours. Sure,
you don’t have that lore to draw from, and sure you get closer to what my wife
refers to as “macho fanfic writing,” but you have more aesthetic leeway to use.
To me, it’s all about an aesthetic
that I will enjoy painting, as well as something that you just don’t see every
day. I had considered assembling a Tau
army a few years ago after I discovered – on sale – the worst-named box set
that GW ever released. My “Rapid
Insertion Force” was going to be a mix of shiny black and doll-party pink, or
baby blue, drawing from some silly anime like Bubblegum Crisis… because nobody
else would have anything like it. Or, I’d
do a ramshackle rusty Tau steampunk scrapyard, with corroded copper and chipped
paint. Or… well, I’d do something
fun. But moving across the state and
taking a break from wargames for a year distracted me from the project, and I
ended up giving the models to a friend who wanted to start playing just as
someone had done for me years ago.
Still, it’s less about effect and more about the urge to collect or
personalize – my Deathwing are unique for a few reasons, including that all are
named after writers or performers who share something in common with the “Dark
Secret” of the Primarch’s namesake.
This brings me to the end of a
thought: what makes an army ours? It has to be something we can take pride in –
those who are in it to jack up their victory numbers want to be proud of their
army’s win ratio and placement in tournaments.
Those who are in it for the fun want something that lines up with their
style – someone naturally defensive would not really have much fun playing Dark
Eldar, for instance, while someone who is shaken by losses might not use the
expendable bodies of guardsmen as meat shields for each other. Those who take pride in their length of time
in the hobby may want to seek out old metal beakies for an all-metal raven
guard army, or scour eBay to bid on old bionics packs for Iron Warriors or Iron
Hands, or design all their chaos units around sacred numbers and pure
allegiances. Those who have the skills
will show off their custom-made shoulderpads for their unique chapter icon, or
the blanchitsu-style extras they kitbashed or sculpted before painting with
perfect NMM techniques. There are so
many aspects to the hobby itself that there’s no one way to enjoy it. Those fellow Lore Boars may want to assemble
an army that has a story behind it, implementing some aspect of fluff into
their unit choices and modeling. These
are all great ways of feeling connected with the community, and getting the
most out of your time and money by truly feeling like your product is yours.
Still, it does have a limit. I haven’t played WHFB in over a year due to
the sudden realization that my old Beastmen army just can’t keep up
anymore. To have a chance at winning, I
have to play it in a way I don’t enjoy, and even then I’m two steps down before
a single die is rolled. Most times,
blaming dice is a cheap way out, but when rules and options are so improperly
balanced as to make you lose if you make all the right calls against an average
opponent and only roll statistically average, the game loses its appeal. No matter how great my rusty old Pestigors
look on the field, or how much pride I can take in my wolf-Centigor customized kitbash,
the frustration just isn’t worth it when improper pricing and semi-functional
mechanics create a mess. I can make my
units in sevens and include all the old Nurgle iconography, corrode-paint all
my weapons and make as many thematic links between the Gors and Ungors as
possible, but I no longer have my combined herds nor my blessings of Chaos, and
the army just isn’t the same with the new fluff. It’s not just that one game, either – upon
seeing the synergy some Malifaux warbands have with each other (Hamelin and
Kirai, for instance), and that my Marcus-led models do not, I’ve decided to
stick with painting only, as I probably will when my Wild West Exodus models
come in (since the Northeast has less connection to the Wild West, I can hardly
believe that there will be many more players in my area). But I’m ok with this – I now have subjects to
experiment with, free from mechanics making my choices for which models to buy. I will look at these as good opportunities to
improve my hobby skills.
Not
to pick fights with the Warmachine people, but the limited choices and lack of
comprehensive background depth has always been a major contributor in my
avoidance of Privateer products – I could go on about how unfriendly their
setup is to customizations and neat retooling of models, but it’s a moot point
when the setup of the factions themselves are illogically constructed. There are plenty of decent works based on
someone’s old D&D game, but few stand the test of time – the Dragonlance
novels are an amazing read for a middle-schooler, but are trite for an adult
with a degree in English lit, and the hyperfocus such products place on a few
named characters, instead of the option to create your own flavor, logically
upsets dynamics when paired with the supposed scale of national
militaries. As opposed to the
head-to-head conflicts between smaller organizations that makes the
skirmish-style utilization of a few key people make sense, they should aim
bigger and allow for unnamed generals/warcasters and unique or distinct units
within the larger military. Instead of
the unfolding drama between their named plot devices pushing forward the
action, rank and position (such as with Infinity), or fluff that demands
warband-size conflict (such as Malifaux) would do the game well. I’d love to field an alternate unit of Winter
Guard from the 43rd corps, or a different Sytaxis pirate group led
by its own privateer-captain (instead of just assigning a different name to the
same old characters that logically couldn’t be in all the places they’d need to
be at once). Still, it just isn’t
conducive to the environment they have set up.
The
unfolding drama between people is different than the unfolding drama between
nations, factions, or galactic empires.
Find a game that encompasses the scale you prefer, and run with it. Last night, I had a conversation with my most
curmudgeony friend. My first game of 6th
was vs. his Imperial Fists, and I lost in part due to a few rules botches. He showed up with a smallish tackle box to
gaming night, and I mentioned that he owed me a rematch. His response was essentially “I need to work
up enough tolerance to actually play 40k again.” He instead jumped into the Malifaux trend in
the area, and found that he liked small skirmish games more than army-based
ones. Except Warmachine – for some
reason, the best-selling skirmish game is verboten near him, with an explosion
of wrath like unto a dying sun accompanying any mention of the game. While not odd for someone who has 4000 points
of painted Imperial Fists, it is odd for someone who has such an intolerance
for 40k. Currently, his infatuation is
with X-Wing, and he finds people to play with every week. He admitted that the last time he played 40k
was the game where we tried to figure out the rules. His old favorite, beside the yearly Blood
Bowl summer league, is Mordheim… and even that for him has a tolerance
limit.
Don’t
get me wrong, I feel the same way sometimes.
I lost my last game of 40K, particularly because I was expecting a fun
pickup game and my opponent threw down a Shadowsun/crisis doom list that
exploits most of the most broken cheez in the tau list (except he claims he’s
too cheap to buy a Riptide). Sure, by
the end when I foiled his plans to sweep the board with me and proceeded to
kill all his scoring troops (and his HQ, rendering the game a potential tie had
we the time and patience to finish), he was arguing inapplicable rules minutiae
and throwing a fit when he realized he wasn’t going to win. It’s sad to see a grown man acting like a
child, moreso when you see both aspects of childishness – the god-code gloat
and the petulance from a possible denial.
I nearly backed out of the local tournament that night, knowing that I’d
face many of that kind of list and that kind of person in an event specifically
made to be competitive at a time where rules are not properly balanced. I may still play, but it will be out of
resignation and the seeking of experience rather than the hope of having fun.
Gaming is a complicated hobby with subdivisions and a great
deal of personal taste. From the people
who want to powergame to the actors between shows, many types come to the
table. Wargames are no different – there
are many types, and many who only experience part of the hobby, from those who
paint armies that never see a game, to those who commission professional
painters because they have no personal skills with a brush. They all end up choosing aspects to tailor to
their own desires, sometimes expanding into other areas in order to add depth
or experience to their repertoire. My
issues with Warmachine might actually be no big deal to another person, or an
appeal to a third. The lore that I love
in 40k might actually turn others away.
In the end, though, I choose where to spend my money, and as long as I
keep getting what I desire from these games, I’m hooked. I might not play in too many tournaments, but
I’ll have fun when I do play.
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