Thursday 26 December 2013

What's acceptable?

Proxying. A dirty word for most wargamers, however in the Oldhammer movement as it is in any defunct miniature based system it has become a necessary evil.
Personally, I am all for elaborate custom made pieces that modellers more talented than myself are able to create. This is epecially true when the aforementioned models all tie into a theme, particularly one that cannot be found in distribution by any miniature manufacturer. These armies are usually flavourful, full of backstory and more often than not belong to opponents which care more about playing than winning. 

The proxying I refer to is that of 'counts as' ie "this unit of swordsmen counts as spear men" or "hey these thugs with bows are beastmen with two handed weapons" 
This vexes me to no end. Perhaps it all comes down to playstyle. I'm definately a happy to play and have a good time than a win at all cost type. I firmly believe in the Build a list and to hell with the odds school of gaming otherwise known as the "Stillmatic" approach to army building found in white dwarf 219-221. I make a list, I buy and collect it, I don't change a thing. 
With real life in the way I take every chance to play nearly any game system whenever possible. Thusly I play the same guys because there's no one else to play and some of my opponents will regularly "proxy" to gain an advantage.
All in order to win. 
This brings me to my quandary. 
These arrived in the post Christmas Eve. A few jes goodwin eldar, a war walker,  two dreads with bitz which can be assembled as any variant and an assassin pattern ghost warrior. 
Into the jar for stripping. 
The standard eldar pirate list in the book of the astronomican has 2-8 serpent squads, I am low on hand flamer/flamer armed troops and have tons of others casts. 
I'm thinking of just using one specific casting and telling my opponent they are carrying flamers. I'm not trying to gain an advantage, these are troops I require to maintain the compulsory troops and I wouldn't think of not fulfilling army requirements. 
Is this acceptable? Does this fall under powergaming?
Would you allow an opponent to try this with you?



Sunday 22 December 2013

62 Goal met. Job done.

My goal of 60 has been met before the year's end. The 'one a day challenge' went to shit but hey, c'est la vie; regular life has a way of throwing a spanner in the works. 
Here's the battle line thus far:
Some finished (really finished; no shield required) Plague Monks
Due to an error in nomenclature I've been forced to use some skavenslaves as Clanrats. I've also been forced to use some Clanrats with hand weapons to round out the numbers. I picked up some old school plastics. This guy came as a bonus(?!) in the lot from eBeast:
I'll use this as his 'before' pic. 
With 62 done I think I'm going to shoot for 73 which should be totally obtainable since we're getting 6 inches of freezing rain tonight. Hey why not we only got 3 inches Friday.
Up yours old man winter I'm not going to work in the land of Narnia it looks worse than Hoth out there.
Cheers 





Friday 20 December 2013

43: Bell tolls for thee

43 ratmen done (done means without shield apparently)
I'm particularly happy with my first rat ogre
Thanks for stopping by. 



Thursday 12 December 2013

A little bit closer

31 skaven painted and based.
It's a bit labor intensive but Blue in VT's basing method is sound.
Line painting is quite boring but I'm going to keep up with the skaven til New Years. By then I should have 60 finished to this standard; roughly 1/3 of my 3k list. 
Hopefully by the year's end I'll have a game or two of rogue trader under my belt. From what I've seen online it looks like a good time and a good distraction from my chittering horde. I really want to get these stripped and painted up

For Alpharius!