Playing With Little Metal Soldiers And Dice

When I was 13 years old I was introduced to a game called Warhammer, a game of magic, monsters and little metal fantasy models and dice. Now as I was a young fantasy geek with a love of all things Lord of The Rings I was instantly hooked and tried to collect and play as much as I could, my friends and I playing huge wargames of hundreds of figures on overturned doors covered in green sheets and home made terrain. We decided the fate of human cities, dwarven strongholds and orc tribes, rolled thousands of dice and read and reread hundred of pages of rules.

This game was published by a little known company called Games Workshop, run by hobbyists for hobbyists. Fast forward 24 years, teenage years, 2 mortgages and 2 children and I’m still playing this game. It has gone through 5 incarnations in this time, the company that makes it has become an international organisation with stores in Europe, the US and Australia and there have been thousands (or even hundreds of thousands) of models produced. 

So now that I have set the scene and you now realise that I'm a massive geek I’ll get on to the subject matter. Games Workshop recently produced the 8th edition of the game (I started on the 3rd edition) and I have only recently played this version and I have a few concerns, namely ITS BLOODY CACK!!!!!!!

Let me reiterate for those of you who may be hard of hearing, impaired vision or who may disagree with me - ITS REALLY BLOODY CACK!!!!

Now for my reasons. The game aims to recreate physical activities in a structured way to allow players to compete against each other within a structured ruleset. Each model represents a living breathing thing (I say thing as the game has dragons, ogres, lizardmen etc) and has numeric attributes representing its ability to carry out certain activities. For example when a model is armed with a Bow and wishes to shoot at an opponent it has a Ballistic skill value that equates to a certain percentage chance of hitting its target. The higher the value the greater the chance of hitting the target. To represent chance and the reality of carrying out the activity we roll a dice and if the score on the dice (in this case a six sided - D6) is greater than the score required to hit then the target now has a sharp piece of wood with feathers sticking out of it.

So a models numeric attributes relate to its abilities which then are assigned a level of chance, with the chance of failure being reduced the higher the numeric attribute. Failure is never eliminated on this basis (things can always cock up). Now this system only works if all models work in the same way. So if an Attacks characteristic represents how much damage it can cause and there is a set process to how those Attacks are resolved then all models must follow the same rule. To take into account that your opponent doesn't want you to whack them with a big stick/sword/axe they tend to dodge about and parry etc. so to actually strike your opponent you have to compare your ability to fight vs their ability to fight (a different attribute to attacks) and this gives you a percentage chance of hitting. As before this then equates to a number on a dice, you roll above you've successfully managed to get past their oh so pitiful defence and given them a good whacking. If you roll under this number then their feeble attempts to dodge etc have been successful and they dance out of the way like a nimble sprite and chant "nah nah nah nah nah". Ok first gripe:

WHY DO SOME MODELS NOW HAVE ADDITIONAL ATTACKS THAT HIT AUTOMATICALLY AND DO NOT FOLLOW THOSE RULES. This goes against the structured sequence of play that is supposed to represent physical actions. The attributes are there to represent their abilities. As soon as you start allowing certain models to have attributes that bypass the basic game theory then you invalidate the theory.

Next. A model has a movement value that represents how far it can physically move. A normal move is walking at a set pace and a charge move is building up to a full run etc to collide with an enemy. So gripe number 2:

CHARGE DISTANCES ARE NOW RANDOM. A cavalry model can now potentially charge a minimum of 10” yet a foot model can potentially go 16”. This makes no sense if this is a game of rules representing physical actions. How is it that a foot trooper can charge further than a cavalryman?

So as you can see I’m a little annoyed at Games Workshop and the way they have changed the rules. Previously it was a game of strategy and tactics and now it is a game of randomness (it’s a word) and selling models (the ones that cost them the least to make).

Poohsticks!

Note: My eldest son is 2 years old so we’ve abandoned all swear words!