Orc & Goblin Digital Army Book Review!

I finally decided I got tired of writing stuff here. I didn't want to knock my hobby log on the head completely however so I've started a video version of Always Strikes Last in the form of a Youtube channel by the same name which you can find here:

http://www.youtube.com/alwaysstrikeslast

Enjoy!

Always Strikes Late

So we're already nearly half way through January but hey I like to lag on my blogging updates. I have a bit of quiet downtime and figured maybe it would be a good idea to review my hobby exploits over 2011!

Back in April 2011 I made a "pledge" because occasionally I'm prone to doing silly things. I figured here would be a good place to see how I got on.

1. The Trinity War.

This was a home brewed campaign that I intended to complete and maybe even produce a fluffy book for.

Result: Incomplete

The campaign stalled for one reason or another (which is a shame because it was going well) and then the new Ogre book was launched! My plan in 2012 is to try to rekindle interest in this project since it will let me use the new Ogre rules as well as give the hallmark of completing a campaign in my friend group.

2. Complete my Night Goblin project.

Oh dear. In fairness I did a number of scratch builds and painstaking painted 100 NG's to a pretty good standard. I also converted up a bunch of Goblin heroes and squigs. The fact of the matter here though was this project was BIG and quickly defeated my motivation. Which in wargaming terms means a new shiny project came along and I got all excited and flitted off to do that!

Result: Incomplete

3. Play 10 games with the Night Goblins.

Errm read above.

Result: Incomplete

4. Dig out, rebuilt, and recreate my Tomb King army.

Finally some good news! This project was a sterling success. I managed to build over 3000 points of Tomb Kings and for the most part paint it all! I think all that remains is about 2 character models for when I play even larger games. Perhaps the crowning glory is the scratch built hierotitan pictured above which won me much praise from those who've seen it.

Result: Success!

5. Play at least 10 games with the Tomb Kings.

Again success! I think I managed to play more than 10 games which somewhat makes up for the lack of Night Goblin games.

Result: Success!

6: Mad Blood Bowl project.

I may have slightly altered the title for this pledge but that's simply because it was bloody mad! I still want to do it some day but right now I have so many projects going on its not a realistic target.

Result: Madness!

So overall I only managed two of the six pledges I made last year....bummer! It kind of makes pledges look like the wrong term for it so for this year I shall call them "goals" because it is still always a good idea to have things to aim for.

What did I do instead?

As for why I didn't achieve the pledges the answer is simple, I got caught up in other things. For a start we have Dreadfleet which ate a significant amount of hobby time and energy. On top of that I dug out, revamped and completely painted my Flames of War army which wasn't part of my initial plan. Then we had Storm of Magic which I prepared things for and actually started producing terrain for. On a terrain note I also completed my Fantasy terrain as well as creating some buildings for a Flames of War and a new desert board. Throw into this mix an addiction to Starcraft 2 and then eventually beginning to do my own commentary in the forms of a regular cast and my nerd time and energies just couldn't be everywhere at once! Never the less despite them not being part of my original pledges I do see them as an impressive tally of hobby being completed!

Plans for 2012 

For 2012 I'm going to try keep myself much more grounded and directed. I'm going to list a number of goals below but in no particular priority because the nature of this hobby is you flit from project to project and back again.

1. Complete my Night Goblins:

This is going to be a biggy but I can do it!

2. Complete Dreadfleet:

I only have the terrain to go so this is very achieveable.

3. Update my Ogres to 8th edition:

This mostly involves assembling and painting a few new units not much more.

4. Complete a new Space Marine army:

I'm already moving towards creating a mobile bike force for my Ultramarines and making a nice paint job. There's a couple of scratch builds thrown in but I think this is an achievable goal for the 40k side of things.

5. Madness Alert: Build a full life-sized suit of MkVII power armour.

This is a pretty mad project. And yes anyone reading this might think it sounds wackier and even more impossible than the Blood Bowl idea. And you'd be right, it is. The difference is I have already started this and met a measure of success to motivate me to continue. I'd love to get it completed by Halloween but this is such a large project it might well carry over to 2013. I hope not but I'm trying to be realistic and not get carried away!

And that pretty much sums up my thoughts on 2011 and plans for 2012. They're more a direction this time than a pledge to give my hobby some focus during this year. I look forward to bringing anyone reading my blog updates on the above over the year!

What a difference a few years makes...

Its been a while since this blog received any attention which means the few who did read it have probably moved onto new pastures by now. I find this a good place to collate my thoughts anyway and in many ways it performs a good function of being a hobby journal and something to flick through from time to time.

My attentions have been diverted to Starcraft 2 recently and creating commentaries in the form of casts over at http://www.youtube.com/user/BastardMode. Its a lot more faster paced and a bit "swisher" than the blogging world but its also incredibly time consuming. This has meant less time to play with toys and of course less time to blog about it. If you're interested in SC2 head on over and take a look if not read on as I wont be mentioning it any further here.

So to give a quick overview since I last placed anything here I have actually made a small amount of hobby progress. I did a small amount of work on my Night Goblins but not enough to get me any closer to my goal of finishing the army. 

At the same time Dreadfleet hit the scene and the tag line of "Pirate Battles on the Warhammer High Seas" was all I needed to hear. I promptly purchased myself a copy and have thus far not played a single game of it. I hope to remedy that in the next few months as I am tantalisingly close to completing the painting on the entire kit! Hopefully this should mean I will post a review and full coloured battle reports for it soon.

In the mean time however we have had the release of the super scary Necrons! This has enthused a friend of mine to wanting to play 40k. As is so often the case in this hobby the domino effect of enthusiasm has to eventually hit you and you'll find yourself getting back into something you haven't touched in a while. After a year of Fantasy switching back to 40k might well be just what I need. But which of my armies should I get out the box? The Orks? I still have plenty of models to build and could create a completely different list. Never the less I can't get excited about the greenskins now for whatever reason. How about the Imperial Guard? They've had a new book since I last used them which has made them much more competitive! Add to that the army is nearly completed and it sounds tailor made for getting out of the box for games! Alas however not even the plucky Guardsmen are tickling my fancy. So out of the remaining 40k armies I have in possession that leaves but one....hmmmm...if the title pic hasn't given it away the answer is simple...

There's a double reason for using the above pic. Obviously it says "Space Marine" and therefore looks like it completes the preceding sentence whilst ignoring the plural. More importantly it explains why I want to revamp my Space Marines. Because the Space Marine game is awesome! Running around as an Ultramarine made me want to revist my...well...Ultramarines. Funny how that works eh? I will probably do a Space Marine review soon as well since its relevant to the hobby but for now lets focus on the plastic toys.

And that leads us back neatly to the title of this post. What a difference a few years makes! It was my intention to go back and spruce up the paint jobs for my Battle Company with of Marines as I was convinced they were in good order. As it happens I seem to have not only left a lot unfinished but the original paint jobs I did on them don't so much impress me! Obviously my abilities have moved on since I last worked on them but I had no idea just how much. So here lies the next project that's in season for my hobby mind. I intend to work through my Battle Company and complete the outstanding painting. At the same time I intend to improve the standard and paint on "battle damage". When I first started collecting marines I had said this was something I had wanted to do. As the grind of completing an army kicked in I realised painting them plain was by far easier. After working on some fairly bespoke armies like my Ogres and Night Goblins however I think I'm ready to take the plunge in order to get a look I am happy with. After all I am a Space Marine! And I shall know no fear!

Over and out for now. - Toina.

Battlefield From a Box™

Looks like I've invented something new again! This time out of a desperation to get my hands on some 15mm desert terrain. Galeforce 9 produce some excellent terrain that comes pre-painted and is ready to use straight out of the box! Swish! Sadly however they appear to have discontinued their desert buildings  which I'm sure they used to create...boo.

There are other sellers out there who make some cracking alternatives but alas they too cost money but this time with the drawback of being unpainted. Within itself this isn't terrible (when you sign up to this kind of hobby you should expect there to be a reasonable amount of painting effort involved) but didn't sit right with me. I would have perhaps been prepared to part with cash for ease of having good looking terrain straight out the box but if I still had to paint something it made me wonder if the investment was worth it in the first place.

And thus came the idea of if you can't have it straight out the box...you might as well make it FROM a box.

 

The results aren't world beating but then I never set out to mastercraft these pieces. The emphasis was keeping them cheap and cheerful without having to spend an age on them. Considering as they are all made from cardboard covered in filler (with the exception of the mosque which also has a pasta sauce pot!) the succeeded in being cheap. The longest time was spent waiting for the filler and poster paint to dry so in terms of actual work they probably took about two hours to cobble together. Not bad considering as purchasing such buildings would cost about £40-50 and still require a paint job!

Now all that is left is to use them in a game. By now I feel like I and my opponent have grasped the fundamentals of the Flames of War rules and I look forward to our next engagement! Thus far things haven't been going well for my lads but it is often said the British start wars by losing battles but invariably end them with victories!

The British Are Coming!

The great Winston Spencer Churchill once said "This is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end. But is is perhaps, the end of the beginning." I know how he felt since I have finally got around to painting my British 8th Army! Now that task is out of the way I can finally get down to the business of getting some games in!

 

 

The painting experience for this project was a completely new one. As can be seen from the normal activity on my blog I'm usually painting 28mm miniatures so the climb down to 15mm was certainly a challenge. These pictures are probably not the best to showcase my work as the lighting was poor and I took them in a hurry but there is a surprising amount of detail on the figures to contend with.

 

 

As Flames of War is a historical game you also have to bear in mind that colour schemes and the like are pretty dictated to you by the historical precedent. Granted I'm sure you could paint everything however you see fit if that's how you roll but certainly for my part I felt the pull towards at least attempting to gain some historical accuracy. Perhaps that is the history buff in me but it could also be the sense you get from historical games that their raison d'etre is recreating a setting and a feeling. As misfortune would have it I lost my Vajello paints and rather than fork out to replace them I decided to substitute the colours with what I figured was the closest match in my current Citadel collection. I might not have got things spot on but I'm reasonably satisfied with the overall finish when the army is laid out together.

 

 

As you can see from all the shots the army is very sizeable! I have to confess I have no idea how many points it comes to as I've not really concerned myself at all with the rules in favour of just getting some paint on all the models. I'm glad the project is done as it was starting to take on a gruelling undertone akin to a chore. I think there are a number of reasons for this and they are lessons I shall try to carry over onto future projects. First and foremost I have only ever played  a single simple game of Flames of War and that was quite literally years ago. Aside from some trucks getting shelled by mortars and killing most of the occupants I don't recall much from that game including whether or not my opponent and I finished it!

This means I have primarily been engaged in a modelling project. Whilst I do have the rulebooks and have glanced at them once or twice, in real terms I have no working knowledge of the game system. More importantly I have not been playing games and this is often the best factor for motivation towards getting your forces ready. Tie this in with having a lot of "creativity" stifled by units requiring to be built and painted in particular ways and the project hasn't had the same level of satisfaction as I would normally take from say painting 40k or Fantasy miniatures.


Never the less I am very glad to have completed the army I have invested in! All that remains is to get some games in and prove that it was all worthwhile! I'm looking forward to a change of pace from the Games Workshop ruleset and will post my thoughts as and when I have some experience. As a final parting shot I will give a quick review of the Battlefoam Flames of War bag I picked up to cart this army around in!

The bag itself is quite pleasing to the eye. You may notice the Velcro patch above the Flames of War logo which if you choose to invest in is there so you can put your armies motif onto the carry case. A nifty little feature but less attractive when you consider the patch itself will set you back approximately £10 and the reason mine is still blank! 

 










Another nifty feature is all the little pockets that line the bag have been constructed to fit all of the official Flames of War gaming aids which is certainly very handy for taking everything you need in one case! The front flap just about fits the hardback rulebook or the a hardback intelligence handbook but sadly not both without over stretching the flap. Never the less carrying 2 hardbacks about is probably not what the majority of gamers do and I can see why some people invest in the much smaller soft back reference versions of the rules.

 

The star of the show for the bag however is the foam and loading system. All of the miniatures are stored upright in trays that have had their slots configured to fit all different base sizes for the Flames of War game system. I have comfortably fit my entire army into this case with a little more room to expand should I ever feel the need to do so, which is pretty impressive! Of particular note is that you can unzip the bag to give you access to one tray at a time or bring the zips right down to let you remove multiple trays at once. The bag is solid even when you do this so although it is a canvas material the hard inner lining keeps the structure rigid enough to ensure things aren't going to spill out of the bag just because you've opened it up.

All in all I am very impressed with the product especially since it cost me about the same as a Games Workshop Army Case. Considering as the price is about the same the build quality, foam and durability is vastly superior which will certainly have me looking at Battlefoam's other products for my future transport requirements.

That's it for now! I should expect I will be back soon with a review of the new Ogre Kindgoms book or a battle report of my very first game of Flames of War! Tally-ho!

Battle report - Storm of Magic

So finally I managed to get a game of Storm of Magic in and the short version is it was absolutely fantastic. Even if you don't read the rest of this battle report rest assured it was one of the best games of Warhammer I have ever played and the most fun I have had with toy soldiers in a while. If you'd like to know why then read further! The last battle report I wrote was using battle chronicler. Whilst I enjoyed that it was a lot of work and the result was a very long winded report that could have done with being shorter for the average reader. So this time around I'm going to show off a few photos of the game and literally focus on the highlights (which after all are the best bit!) As a final caveat I'm not photographer so I apologise in advance for the quality of some of the images.

The game started out as pictured above with the Empire army and Tomb Kings facing off against each other in nice neat lines. Areas of note are mostly the bound monsters! The Tomb Kings are fielding Trolls, an Arachnarok Spider and a Giant whilst the Empire have somehow ensnared not one but two Black Dragons into their control! The Tomb Kings control the two fulcrums on their side of the table with both a level 1 in Death and Light magic whilst the Empire have a level 1 Fire Wizard and Level 1 Life Wizard protecting their fulcrums! The roll for first turn was won by the Tomb Kings and so battle commenced!

 


The first few turns saw plenty of action! With a winds of magic roll gifting them 24 the Tomb Kings wasted no time in dumping 6 dice into their Casket of Souls giving them irresistible force! The most impressive kill was a Black Dragon blasted into smithereens by a terrible leadership roll from the Empire. If that wasn't enough the Life Wizard also had his soul ripped from his body from the arcane warmachine gifting the Tomb Kings magical dominance early on! Despite these heavy blows much of the Empire lines remained unmolested and in particular their fabled artillery remained unsilenced which would have heavy consequences in the turns to come.

The Empire already reeling from their loses were met with despair upon receiving two successively poor magic phases. With the general cursing the wizards who had tricked him into believing they were up to the task he turned to his guns to readdress the balance. The artillery backed up by its Engineers remained true to form and were unerringly reliable much to the consternation of the advancing Tomb Kings! The mortars went to work and over the course of three turns blasted the Tomb King infantry to pieces. As the Liche priests turned to their incantations to raise their fallen warriors the forests surrounding them uprooted and began to attack them viscously! The Empire truly had some dark magic at work with an Arbonecromancer on the field turning the battlefield into an enemy that rivalled even the Empire guns in destructive power.

 

 

The battle had turned against the Tomb Kings although they still held their fulcrums defiantly against the enemy. Unable to support their units without the reprisal of the forests around them they began to fall back. The enemy would have to come to them and as long as they still held their fulcrums the prize would remain theirs for the taking. In retaliation the keeper of the Casket of Souls continued to bombard the enemy with flights of the tortured souls of the Tomb Kings long dead enemies. The Death Priest tapped into the Wild Magic surging around him and attempted to fell the Fire Wizard whom had moved opposite him only to lose control of his spell! Unbeknowst to him the Puzzlebox being used by his comrade had destabilised the winds around him with dire consequences. The denizens of Chaos dragged the priest of the mortuary cult kicking and screaming to a fate worse than the Undeath he already endured. Suddenly the battle had taken a very different downward turn for the Tomb Kings as this cost them their dominance of the field. As if roused by the flicker of magical energy the unit of trolls stopped picking their noses and looked upwards to see the remaining Black Dragon approaching. Ordinary a creature would think of self preservation but being the thick witted creatures they are the trolls merely rubbed their stomachs and shouted "Dinner!" to each other. The lumbering monsters crashed into the gargantuan beast vomiting their putrid acid and wounding the creature. As if surprised by the affront of actually being charged the Dragon failed to return any meaningful damage.

On the opposite flank the Empire artillery continued its chorus by felling the Arachnarok. An Empire captain on a pegasus finally cut through the remainder of a flock of carrion that had seemingly attacked him from nowhere and made his way towards the Light Wizard with all due speed. The Tomb Kings right flank collapsed when the chariots found themselves caught out of position and were annihilated as punishment for their error. The damage to the centre of the line held by the skelletons continued and they were forced to withdraw further into a building to protect their hierophant from the on coming army and their tree allies!


 

 

A small crumb of comfort was gifted to the Tomb Kings when the Casket blasted apart the Fire Wizard removing the Empire presence from the fulcrums and gifting magical dominance to the Undead once more. However with the right flank now truly folded and the remainder of the Tomb King army suffering from continued artillery fire prospects looked bleak. The Tomb King's own artillery had thus far failed to achieve any damage at all throughout the entire game as if to add a final insult to injury. A glimmer of hope came when the Tomb Guard found themselves resurrected to a decent combat strength and smashed into a block of swordsmen. The humans fell like leaves in autumn to the skilled warriors of Khemri and promptly fled the fight giving some hope to the Tomb King left flank.

After such a long time in combat the Dragon finally grew bored of all the vomit that was continually being spewed across him by the Trolls. He stirred a rumble in his own belly breathing his own corrosive venom across them in reply. The stupidity of the last remaining troll finally lifted and he decided dinner could be had elsewhere. The Dragon gave chase but was unable to catch his quarry but instead smashed headlong into the Casket of Souls, surely now the war machine would be silenced? Despite the best efforts of the Dragon however the Casket remained on the field only to be brought down by a rampaging blood forest. In his last act the Keeper of the Casket smashed the lid of the hellish tomb releasing the souls of the damned in all directions. Still sticky with troll vomit the Black Dragon was swamped by the ethereal beings and brought down adding another impressive kill for the Casket in its swan song.

In the final turn the Tomb King army lay in tatters but still the Liche Priests would not surrender their claims. In a last act of desperation the Hierophant clambered atop of a nearby fulcrum risking himself so that victory might still be bought for his King. In a act that mirrored the rest of the battle the Empire artillery reliably stepped up having failed to miss a target for the entire battle. A single cannonball sailed into the fulcrum and when the rubble had cleared the Hierophant had fallen. The resultant magical shockwave unbound the remainder of the force holding the Tomb King army together and they crumbled from the field. The lone Light Priest remained ensuring the Empire could not wrestle magical control of the area leaving the conflict to be fought again on another day....

Conclusion

My army itself got well and truly smashed which if you revert to Victory Points means I lost the scenario...but only just! Since it was a draw on objectives I'm keen to claim this as a moral victory! Either way the game itself was immensely fun and far from just a series of random events. Yes a lot of things happened and for sure alot of death occured from spells and such forth but none of it felt game breaking. If anything it seemed to add a really rich and wonderful flavour that enhanced the game beautifully. 

What went wrong / what did my opponent do well?

As usual I found myself on the receiving end of cannonballs and mortar shells and as usual they proved to be the single most devastating thing I faced off against. During the game it felt like I was in a lot better position than I actually was as I held the fulcrums but this neglected to take into account the heavy toll the Empire artillery was having on me. In furtherance the use of the Blood forests by my opponent really locked down my magic phase and prevented me from healing my troops, which for Tomb Kings is huge. 

What could I have done better?

Kill the artillery! Its something I always struggle with and certainly think Empire are my hardest match up to play against with all my armies. I'm certainly learning and I think concentrating on them a little more might pay off. As for the Blood forests? Not much really! Beyond killing the character holding the wand controlling them you just have to take your lumps. Not casting magic in them helps.... Not risking my Death wizard would have made a huge impact on the game as it effectively gave away my advantage without making my opponent have to remove him.

What did I do well?

Casket of Souls! Well...technically I can't take the credit for that but it was certainly my man of the match for taking out 2 dragons, 2 wizards and an assortment of other things. I think I targeted the right units with it even if I could have perhaps tried to do more damage to the artillery. Other than that I did make a lot of mistakes which is reflected on how I lost the rest of the fight so badly. Never the less I did remain objective focused and forced the game to Victory Points with victory actually in my grasp on turn 6, so in terms of the scenario I didn't do too badly. As always when you lose a game its difficult to highlight the positives!

Overall

A throughly enjoyable game. I think going forward I would make a few alterations to my list and try a couple of different tactics. The main thing is both I and my opponent had heaps of fun and it has left me hungry for a rematch!

Storm of Magic Review

Its been a while since I posted but I've been buried under casting projects (which I am happy to report are going well). I've got some painting progress done and I do indeed owe it to myself to get those pictures up here soon.

In any case the purpose of this post is the Storm of Magic! For those who have been living under a rock (or not on the Internet) Storm of Magic is a brand new expansion to Warhammer Fantasy Battles. In a nutshell the standard rules for Warhammer are turned topsy turvy by the addition of plenty of monsters, wizards, arcane fulcrums and of course magic. Having found a quiet couple of hours I've sat and picked through the tome cover to cover....here is what I found:

The book:

First off the book has been loving produced in the brand new Fantasy hard book format which I have already raved about like a Games Workshop groupie. We might have already been treated with the Tomb Kings and Orcs and Goblins in this fashion but wow factor hasn't worn off for me yet. As before the hardback book wins another big thumbs up from me. The full colour artwork is also little short of astounding. Here however introduces the perfect opportunity for a segway on perhaps my only negative about the book. As part of the game Storm of Magic uses a spinner which has been crafted into the front cover of the book. In essence this means the front of the book opens in two parts.

As you can see above the spinner appears to the right of the book whilst a thin strip remains on the left hand side. Now before I continue a quick note about construction. When doing something like this it is remarkably easy to come across as cheap or tacky. I am at least happy to report that GW seem to have avoided that pitfall. The spinner may be made out of plastic but it doesn't feel flimsy or too bulky. The actual spinning mechanism appears to work just fine. I'm also pleased they went with simple black plastic with a few patterns moulded into the spinner. By avoiding trying to make it look too fancy they've come up with something functional that doesn't look overdone and garish. I realise that's a lot of analysis to go into a spinner but since its an important functional aspect of Storm of Magic games (you need it to determine the ascendant winds each magic phase) I felt it was worth a little scrutiny.

In addition to the spinner itself the outlying paper (both across the back cover and front cover) feels of very high quality - almost some kind of expensive parchment. Perhaps that it just me but it seems a lot more durable and nicer to touch. That's not to say the paper inside the book is bad, it is the normal glossy finish you would expect, just a minor thing I picked up on. And that leads to the negative - at least for me. I actually like the spinner a lot as I think it is something different. It also prevents us throwing a D8 since this game is not D&D. The negative however is it robs what is a large book of a front cover when reading. Now perhaps I am being a bit nit picky there. After all I much prefer that the spinner was integrated into the book as if it had been sold separately it would have been a bit of a flop. Not to mention it means all you need is your rule book and you have everything you need for a game. But...there is a part of me that protects my books. I try to keep them as shiny and pretty as the day I bought them. I think it may well be that side of me which wonders if down the line this will lead to damage or what have you. In any case the fun news is that is the biggest gripe I have with the entire thing (and even I acknowledge why it was done). On the bright side the cover appears to be magnetised so when you fold the front cover back together it does snap into place quite neatly. This means it is only really a problem when you are reading the book and can be stored away as easily as any other hard back in your collection.

The content:

So that's the book itself out the way what about the content? The content itself reminds me of what makes Games Workshop the company they are today. And in light of the recent news surrounding price hikes and finecast its nice to see that phrase used in a positive way. After a little bit of a stuttering start on the background front the book swings in with a fantastic ruleset, some cracking items and spells as well as a glorious bestiary of monsterous regiments and creatures. Anyone who has been involved with Warhammer's sci fi cousin 40k will be familiar of the Apocalypse expansion which brought in huge super heavy tanks and critters along with data sheets of entire companies of worth of warriors and a myriad of special rules. Apocalypse was a great expansion but I really feel that Storm of Magic takes the best bits and refines it even further.

To explain this analogy take myself as a prime example. I currently have Ogres, Orcs & Goblins and Tomb Kings active in Fantasy. I could take my Ogres into a Storm of Magic game with my Arachnarok Spider, Stone Trolls and Giant as elements bound to my army. In addition I could field whole units of Tomb Kings under the 'pacts' system. Already Storm of Magic is opening access to a normal game pretty much my entire collection of Fantasy models and says "Yep use those if you like!". That is nothing short of fantastic. Sure enough GW has released new monster models and is sure to come out with quite a few more but you don't need any of these things if you don't want them. Apocalypse was similar in this regard but had more restrictive "data sheets" which meant you already had to possess X number of units to use them as an effective formation and gain their special rules. Storm of Magic does away with this notion and keeps thing simple and clean. If its a monster in the bestiary you can bind it to your army for the points indicated. If its a unit from an army book you can summon it into the game. The size of the unit will be dictated by how many of the arcane fulcrums you control. If its an Undead or Daemon army then you can make a pact with it which basically allows you to take the entire army list in addition to your own (with some minor restrictions). Its a really clean and effective way to let people tap into their entire model collection to create some cracking combinations that will lead to epic play.

Lastly we come to the wizards themselves. As you might expect from a game called Storm of Magic the game contains lots of spells! I'm a real sucker from the magic cards GW has produced and grabbed the nifty little grimoire pictured above. There's 64 new spells in Storm of Magic ranging across the 8 rulebook lores, high magic, dark magic and the secondary lores of the particular races. All in all it works out at about 2 or 3 spells per lore. All of the new spells are powerful and tag high casting values to justify it! The spells themselves tend to come in different grades of power from presence through to equilibrium and lastly to dominance. You can achieve these things by having your wizard control the arcane fulcrums on the battlefield which represents your control of the winds of magic throughout the game. If you possess a fulcrum then you are said to have a presence. If you are on even footing with your opponent then you are at equilibrium. And lastly as the name suggests dominance means you're in control of more of the arcane fulcrums than your opponent. This affects many different spells and magic items with your magic as a whole becoming much more powerful as you dominate these sites so there is plenty of incentive to go out there and capture them!

Beyond just the boon they present to your magic the fulcrums also form the objectives for the game. The person holding the most fulcrums at the end of the match wins. This is a nice touch as the games are not going to be decided on pure victory point terms and actually forces all style of armies to fight over the focal points of the game. Wizards are the only unit that can occupy a fulcrum which is ample enough reason to bring plenty along even if you're not a fan of all the shiny new spells! Whilst placing a frail caster ontop of a big perch would normally scream "shoot me" the fulcrums happily grant a wizard a 3+ ward and immunity to multiple wounds. In addition only 1 model can assault at fulcrum at any one time so you're not just going to be able to throw a 50 man block at that wizard and hope to break him on combat res. Your best bet will be a tooled up character or perhaps one of all those monsters you're allowed to take now? This shifts the role of the rest of the army to protecting the wizard to prevent him from being knocked off his magical perch while he rains down super nasty spells on your opponent. But even if you do all this perfectly...magic being magic..sooner or later something will go wrong, especially with 4D6 power dice a turn! A wizard on a fulcrum rolls once on the normal miscast table before rolling on a new miscast table that contains all sorts of weird and wonderful events. Thus the question will also be can you risk casting spells with those wizards who are holding what are the objectives set to win you the game? Not lending the magical support however will likely see your opponent open up big holes in your line with spells of his own. Happily as with any good war game there are bound to be many layers of tactics within this new mechanic!

Overall I am incredibly excited to get a game of Storm of Magic in. As soon as I do I'll be sure to post up my thoughts here. On the modelling side I'm already planning on making my own fulcrums to spice up the game and give me some good objectives to fight over. There is still plenty about the book that I have left untouched but I have rambled on enough at this point! If I had to end on a parting note that summed up how wacky and fun Storm of Magic sounds it would be this: 

"An amazing transformation has occurred. All wizards on the table (friend or enemy) are immediately transformed into frogs!"