Battlefield in a Box: Badlands

Here we've got two selections from Gale Force 9's Battlefield in a Box line.  We've had these for a long time now, and they were featured on the old club blog - but it's time to start fixing up the gallery section here.  Also I really like these - I forgot how much I liked this line.  

Best thing about Battlefield in a Box is that you don't really have to do anything to them and they are battle ready.  The pieces are heavy and solid, and in the several years I've had them they don't really seem prone to chipping.  In particular we have two sets here, the Badlands Plateau and the Badlands Bluff.  There are two other sets in this series and now I intend to finally complete the entire set with Badlands Tors and Badlands Pillars.

Obviously there's a lot of cool stuff in the line, especially for 15mm games - Flames of War in particular.  Of course these pieces aren't scale specifics, so they can be placed on a variety of tables and still fit right in.  In these pics I've got them set up on my Tablewar Cave Floor, and it's probably the best match for them - but they look good on any table you want to set them up on.  To fit with a greener theme, just add some flock and static grass.

Howl of Oblivion: Lost Jewels of the Ancient Sorceress

** Howl of Oblivion Campaign Page **

The party splits ways with some of it's members, but meet new folk eager to adventure in Yecha.

The PC's spend a few days with Fasha Daouda'shi, who eventually entices the group to a venture he had been working on for quite some time...

After a short discussion about the ethics of grave-robbing, the party was in, and prepared to head into the Yecha Hills with Fasha and his auto-yurts.

Soon, they were at the base of the hills where the tomb was rumored to be.  After a short search, the party finds the supposed entrance fairly easily.  Inside is a much bigger area than expected, and the stonework seems to absorb echoes.  Borz is wary of traps as well, for the workmanship seems to suggest them everywhere.  

Khaine discovers a headstone in what is presumably the actual tomb area.  After a few frights dealing with the minor magical wards, he lights both braziers and says a prayer to A'ta Savaaya, the Ancient Sorceress.  He then pees on it.

Further into the tomb complex, the party makes new friends.

They smoke the skeleton guards pretty quickly, but Walkul started to take some punishment during the battle.  He had a spell disrupted by the rushing skeletons, but the party came rushing to his aid.

Old Units & Warhammer Legends

Inspirobot thinks you can do better with all that money.

So, recently Games Workshop dropped a huge chonk of stuff onto Warhammer Legends.  In addition, a large swath of stuff was removed from Forge World's Imperial Armor books.  Like, 200 units.  FROM THE GAME.

You likely already know what I'm talking about.  You guys remember when they used to claim continued support for any army they ever sold?  Huh?  You remember that?

I'm not going to go into detail on what I think about this move, but as far as generally-accepted practices go I would say it isn't one and shouldn't be.  It's so silly I've decided that I hardly even care - not because it doesn't affect me, but because I'm numb to the pain.  Therein lies the strength.

I find I'm just not really interested in a lot of stuff that GW is doing these days.  Sorta, but not really.  Rules design and coherence has been sketchy since 2012 and everything needs constant collation and updating.  I mean, I love Warhammer - but this constant points changing has got to stop.  In 8th and 9th we'll probably skip right to power levels across all modes over the ridiculous new points system.  I'm not really a competitive gamer anymore.  I'll deal with it in that setting, but in our increasingly more casual games it's a disservice to listen to the metamongrels who constantly force this.

While I'm not declaring that this is an Oldhammer exclusive blog...I'm probably steadily leaning that way as time goes on.  I like a diversity of rulesets, so it's unlikely that I sit with simply ONE version of a ruleset I own six or more completely different versions of already.  We'll use, create and convert any rules or models we want to make our games interesting - you know, how they used to encourage us to do.

Just like with D&D there are so many old editions that actually provide valid ways to play.  So many things that have been lost in the current version of the game.  I have toyed with the idea of attempting to bring every rule and unit from my vast collection of tomes into one work, a sort of 'ultimate' edition, if you will...but that way lies madness.  I mean, vehicle design rules, Legion of the Damned - pretty much everything that the current IP stands on the head of to even be a thing.

It's obvious GW doesn't really care HOW we play the game, and I don't really care what they think anyway.  They can't make up their minds as there are too many goons out there trying to break the rules.  The current rulesets do have their own cool things, don't get me wrong.  I like it, in a way.  I can always use the models for whatever I want.  Any model - in any edition.