The haves and have-nots

I believe that Luke is currently drafting a similar article to this, so I don't know which of us will publish first, but this is a brief overview of how I decided upon which army to collect for this project.

First, however, lets have a bit more information.

Warhammer as a game is currently in it's eighth incarnation, and has been in continuous publication since 1983. (I love Wikipedia.)

 

It's proper name being Warhammer Fantasy Battle, it is the origin of the Warhammer fantasy world, had Warhammer 40,000 (grim dark future and all that) spun off it, and has been the entry point into the hobby of wargaming for hundreds if not thousands of people.

Currently available for the game are fifteen different armies, all of whom have different rules, tactics, miniatures and (extremely important to me - see my last post) paint schemes.

Of these fifteen I had to narrow it down to just one army to collect, paint, play and hopefully win with.

Some were easy to eliminate, others much harder, but I finally managed it; so in no particularly order, the fourteen rejected armies were...


Beastmen, Bretonia, Dwarves and Wood Elves

There comes a time in every cycle of Warhammer (eighth edition, remember?) when Games Workshop feel that the rules need tweaking to improve the quality of the game for all concerned - it has nothing to do with wanting to sell another set of rule books I'm sure of it - and so some armies get left behind while waiting for there rules to be updated.

This is currently the case for these four: the Chaotic (note the capital, that'll be important later) Beastmen of the forests, the Arthurian knights, the stunted folk and the tree-huggers. The rules and range of miniatures currently available isn't great and so they were out of the running.

A pity to a certain extent as I had seriously considered collecting Dwarves...

Daemons of Chaos and Warriors of Chaos

Remember when I said that capital for Chaos would be important? This is why.

In Warhammer the forces of Evil™ aren't ever really described as such, rather the potentially overwhelming darkness (grim dark again, this is Games Workshop after all) that all other armies must at some point work against is that of Chaos.

In the wargame the explicit Chaotic armies are Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos and Warriors of Chaos, and as I have no desire to be that Evil™ (currently), these were all ruled out.

Ogre Kingdoms, Orcs & Goblins, Skaven and The Empire

Four more armies in the list this time with no unifying feature other than I simply didn't want to paint them.

The Ogres are the newest of the Warhammer armies (to such an extent the last time I played the game, back in fifth edition, they didn't exist...) and I don't particularly like the suggested colour scheme (yes of course I could paint them differently, haven't you been paying attention though? I have enough issues painting without trying to devise my own colour schemes!)

Orcs & Goblins are your stereotypically onrushing horde of fighty monsters in a variety of scales, and that word sums up my reason against this one - horde. Horde of course implies many miniatures. All of which need to be painted. Plus I've never enjoyed painting green. Next!

Skaven are semi-chaotic mutated ratmen who want to consume the whole world. Sounds quite good fun, except for two things. One: horde again; two: I don't like painting fur...

Finally the Empire. If anything these guys are the most "normal" of the setting. Baseline humans occupying a series of principalities joined together for the common good in a teutonic empire. All good, however there's nothing here that really inspires me - they're boring! Moving on...


Now we've got down to the final five (blast it - can't think of a Cylon joke...) I'll treat them individually.

Tomb Kings

One of the newer armies, Tomb Kings have always interested me. These guys are Egyptian themed undead with lots of skeletons: skeleton archers, skeleton horsemen, skeleton charioteers; all backed up with animated statues. Yes, the Sphinx can kill people in this game.

The thing that I really liked though was their unique magic system, which was much more systematic and ritualistic than any other army in the game.

When I opened the latest army book I discovered that had been "improved" away, so no Tomb Kings for me.

Vampire Counts

With Tomb Kings out the running, I turned next to the vampires. How awesome sounds an army with a few extremely powerful figures (the vampires) backed up by hordes of shambling undead (zombies)?

While the coolness was tempting, that word ultimately put me off again - horde. Bah!



High Elves

When I first started playing Warhammer the army I collected was High Elves, and I've identified with them ever since. A powerful elite army (few miniatures = less painting = yippee!) with the Most Powerful Magic™ in the world, backed up by Eagles, Phoenixes and Dragons - what more could any Tolkien fanboy want?

In the end though I decided it would be better to try something new.

Dark Elves

Something new almost turned out to be something very new indeed - the Dark Elves.

Dark cousins to the High Elves, this army is like holding a twisted mirror to the last. Almost every unit type is replicated, with an entertaining amount of backstabbing, slavery and sacrifice thrown in for good measure. Add to all that the Most Evil Magic™ in the world and it would seem like a done deal.

One problem, Dark Elves are the latest army to be revised for eighth edition (see my earlier comments) and everybody is collecting them because of this. I'm not one to be part of the crowd so that ruled out the dark ones.


What does that leave then? Well that's simple... but also another post, for another time.