More Proof Of Life… Or Rather Undead

Yes, I'm still here doing a few hobby bits now and again. Not much worthy of a blog post but last night saw the first of (hopefully) the new look Tuesday Games Night. It might have taken nearly ten years (!!) to re-establish itself but myself and Bull finally live within a half hour's drive of each other again so a regular games night is once again a possibility.

So last night saw us play a rather large game of original Zombicide… with cars. It was tense – very tense, but some cool heads kept things going and all six survivors escaped the board with the loss of only a single wound (damn those zombie extra move cards). Excellent game – my thanks to Mr Bull for hosting our first evening.

We have a couple of gaming DAYS in the calendar for August, hooking up again with Mr Awdry. One day will undoubtedly involve zombies, the other… who knows (though it won't be Age of Sigmar, that's for sure – lol).

Stay tuned.

Warhammer Is Dead – Long Live Warhammer!

So I hear Warhammer Fantasy is dead, replaced by a free fantasy skirmish game. I also hear that GW have turned over a new leaf, are talking to punters now and happy to answer questions about their new game. What have I missed? I feel like I'm having one of those trippy dreams after eating too much cheese before bed, you know the ones where the world distorts into a parallel universe and everything you know is all weird and backwards… no, wait – that was End Times!

We never really got into playing Warhammer Fantasy much. When they launched a box set several editions ago we bought in and started a bit of an escalation league that quickly snowballed into dragons and the like. But these were the heady days of 40k tournaments, so the rigid formations and required planning ahead of Fantasy felt stuffy in comparison. A shame really as I always liked the idea of Warhammer Fantasy, but it was so unforgiving that it was easy to get demoralised as a beginner.

Yet, with whisperings of 9th edition on the horizon late last year, purchases were made to give it another go. Then boom – along came End Times and flushed everything we knew down the toilet. With the emergence of Age of Sigmar, Fantasy's replacement, it seems that even Slaanesh didn't make it out of the bowl – that's a big risk for the sake of being child-friendly, given how popular the pink god is.

I've been collecting random skirmish rulesets for a few years now so was happy to download AoS when it appeared. I've had a quick read but the idea that melee is based around the weapon not the wielder (if I have that correct) seems abstract in the extreme – kind of like the rules for Zombicide. With that particular board game it works wonders but I'm struggling to see any satisfaction for miniature gamers after investing hours of painting time on their models. I've no doubt I'm missing the bigger picture with faction-specific rules et al, but I like to get excited about a game from the offset. Not only do these rules have nothing new to offer (it seems) but to simplify something with so much heritage to this degree shows a great lack of respect to both the history of the game and the gamers themselves. I understand the business premise behind this move, but surely there had to be something less extreme.

Talk about being all in – GW must really be feeling "squeaky bum time", to quote a famous Scot.

Alas our days of playing Fantasy happened long before this blog existed, else I would have loved to reminisce with past blog posts and battle reports. I have a starter box full of plastic Chaos Warriors – question is whether they will see the light of day in AoS or be destined for Ebay?

Black Death Ends In 3 Days!

If Zombicide is your thing, you're no doubt aware of the new incarnation currently receiving a large amount of funding on Kickstarter. Black Death takes the standard Zombicide premise and dumps it into a fantasy setting, with a few tweaks.

I'd promised myself I wasn't going to go there after investing in Zombicide Season 3 (then selling most of it off as I'll never get around to playing it!). But love them or hate them, Cool Mini Or Not are so very good at pitching these games. They are the masters of Kickstarter, as their various funding totals will attest to.

This time around the models seem far more detailed, they've revised the console aspect and the game seems a lot smarter. They've obviously got a wealth of resources to take inspiration from for new survivors, from film and tv.

As with previous Zombicide 'seasons' there's an expansion set. For Black Death this is Wulfsburg and involves… zombie wolves, plus a stack of new survivors.

It wouldn't be a proper Zombicide kickstarter though without truck loads of strech goals that get smashed on a daily basis. As a consequence the basic content for your pledge has reached a staggering amount of stuff – probably the main reason I got involved.

Anyway you have but 3 days left to get on board, if this is your thing – delivery due for Christmas… ho, ho, ho!