Womp. My pancreas says hello, and it’s terribly sorry for kicking my ass for the last little bit. I keep telling it that you all understand, but my pancreas is surprisingly compassionate about you folks missing out on content, so there is that!
In between flare-ups I’ve managed to get some painting in, and I’m actually feeling okay at the moment, so fingers crossed. I had a friend ask me to play a little Age of Sigmar, which I tried and actually almost enjoyed, it was my vampires vs. his awful, smelly, tricksy elves.
There are some really fun and thematic actions baked into the game, but they usually come in the form of a re-roll, and there’s just so freaking many of them. Once again, GW‘s penchant for over-complicating a ruleset gets in the way of what could be a rocking good time. Still, my friend was awesome to play a game with, and that’s what matters in the end.
I even had the urge to paint up a little Warhammer, this demon lord from the Darkwater box has been calling to me for months, and he was a blast to paint!
That got me thinking, though. Mass fantasy battles used to be catnip to me. The Old World rules look to be pretty close to classic Warhammer Fantasy, but honestly that’s way to many rules for me. I want something fun, loud, and easy to table, but still elegant enough to get a little crunch going if I want it.
One Page Rules is cool, it’s just not crunchy enough for me. Close, though. I think Oathmark holds some promise, I just have to get enough minis together to give it a test game. Kings of War and I never really got along.
And there’s the fact that at the end of the day, I’m a hobbyist, not a gamer. That’s going to impact what I enjoy more than anything. Still, I like to build something to a list, just so that I can say there’s a theme or method to the madness, hahaha!
I started printing some Forest Elves from Highlands Miniatures, and if I use Warhammer rules as a template, there’s about 1,700 points worth waiting for a paintbrush. The minis look cool, and I’m not really pushing myself to do more than have fun at the moment, so looking at them isn’t making me want to scream and hide.
What do you all think about mass-battle fantasy games? Any of you find a system that you love? Or are you all tourists in the gaming world like me? It seems like most of the folks reading this are more into hobby building and painting than gaming, but I would love to hear what you enjoy building and (even ocassionally) playing!
Grimmleigh's Lab 