The Storm of Chaos - Eye of the Storm - Part 2

Welcome once more, and may I present to you Part 2 of the fan fiction written for each of the main protagonist races for gaming following the Storm of Chaos campaign.

Last time, I gave my view on where the Orcs, Skaven and Bretonnians may have found themselves after the Seige of Middenheim, and now I present to you the fluff for the Beastmen, Dwarfs, High Elves and Wood Elves. Next time, in the final part, I will present the material for the Empire, Ogre Kingdoms, Manfred's Sylvanians and finally, Archaons Forces.

Beastmen

The insatiable warherds that took part in the great invasion of the hated human Empire, led by the forces of the northman Archaon, took great satisfaction from the enraged bloodletting that saw the northern provinces ravaged. However, the Everchosen proved too weak, underestimating his enemy, and was now at bay, cornered like an animal within the pile of stones the humans called Brass Keep. Who was this Archaon? A mere man, who thought himself the Chosen of Chaos, when it was the Blessed Children of the deepest forests that were the true chosen of Chaos! The herds had been mustered in secret over many months, massing in numbers greater than ever before. The great beasts of the dark places had been roused to anger, and now the Beastmen were ready to finally take back what once was theirs, tearing down the pitiful cities of human kind as they went, in an unstoppable roaring, gnashing tide of destruction that would see the end of men in this world.

The northern Empire had been weakened by Archaon’s assault, and now the time was ripe. The numberless beastherds, joined by rampaging Ghorgons, insane Cygor and horrific Jaberslythe, would sweep across the northern Empire, razing utterly those places that still stood defiant, before they could rebuild their defences and call forth more warriors from the south. After the destruction of the north was complete, they would turn to the destruction of the rest of the Empire, and after that all the nations of men, Dwarfs and Elves beyond the mountains. The time of the Beastmen was here...

Dwarfs

Garagrim Ironfist, heir to the throne of the Slayer Keep, is dead. His Father, Ungrim, beside himself with grief, and torn between his duty to lead his people and his oath as a slayer, has halted after the breaking of the siege of Middenheim, allowing his forces to reorder themselves and re-equip for the fight ahead. They have been joined by hundreds more slayers from the length and breadth of the Worlds Edge Mountains, only now completing long journeys from the south.

There is much debate within the Slayer Kings war council about the direction they should take now that Archaon’s forces have been forced into retreat. Dwarf armies march to defend their holds or to the aid of their human allies across the Empire, lending their skill to the rebuilding or shoring up of shoddy man made fortifications, but rumours have reached the ears of the Slayer King of a might horde of Ogres from far to the east which have crossed the Worlds Edge Mountains to the south, and now threaten the eastern Empire and the Dwarf holds of the region. Confronting such a force would earn many slayers a worthy end indeed, but having amassed such an army of Slayers as had never been seen before, many would have Ungrim march his army to the Eight Peaks, and attempt to regain the ancient city, greatest of Dwarf holds, an endeavour which would also assuredly see many Slayers fulfil their oaths. This course also promises the chance to return the city to Dwarven hands at long last.

Ungrim knows well that whatever the decision he makes, the repercussions will echo down the ages...

High Elves

Throughout the war, small contingents of High Elves lent support against the forces of Archaon where they could. Though they were few in number, their spears were welcome wherever they joined the forces of men and Dwarfs. Perhaps a tale that will be told unto the end of time in the annals of history, the greatest achievement of the High Mage Teclis was the banishment of the host of Daemons led by the Dark Master, Belakor. Not since the first war against Chaos has such power been unleashed in the world. There is no doubt in the minds of some that Middenheim would have fallen had this terrible force reached the walls, and the people of the Empire will always owe a debt to the High Elves for this significant intervention.

As Karl Franz holds council to decide how best to combat the foes that still beset the Empire, and in particular regard to how Archaon himself should be dealt with, surely the sage council of Teclis will prove invaluable. As Teclis himself considers the many paths that the coming months may take, he has become acutely aware of the power that has been unleashed in Sylvania, and the fate that follows Manfred von Carstein, a fate that may see even greater death and horror than that which was unleashed by the Everchosen...could it be that Teclis and the Vampyre must face each other before the end?

Wood Elves

The Summer has passed. Its raging infernos that consumed our forest as beasts burned, rampaged and rutted amongst the ashes is over for now. Though our realms are a withered husk of what they were, we made the tainted invaders pay with rivers of blood for every step they took, every forest despoiled and every one of our own they cut down in battle. The seasons turn, Autumn calls, and with it our last chance to chase them from our lands before we are too weak to defend ourselves. The king and his wild hunt call out to us 'Come drive them before us!', 'Come, let us finally crush the lord of skulls and drive his corrupting presence from our lands!', 'Come, let us rejoice in the slaughter of the unworthy, so their blood may nourish us in spring!’

The Storm of Chaos - Eye of the Storm

Greetings traveller, and welcome to part one of the follow up to my posts on Worldwide Campaigns.

I promised that I would be posting the sections of background that were written by me and other contributors to be used as a jumping off point for playing games of Warhammer after the Seige of Middenheim, which formed the climax of the Storm of Chaos Campaign. This will possibly, at some point, if I ever get round to it, form the nucleus of a Source Book for playing in that setting. Rather than trying to fix some of the glaring mis-steps that were written into the 'official' conclusions to try and fix the various story problems that manifest themselves at the end of the campaign, I have tried to put a twist on them where necessary instead, to give gamers something that we can work with that allows all factions involved to move forward with purpose.

Your comments are welcome, so let me know what you think. I'll start you off with the first few factions:

Storm of Chaos – The Eye of the Storm

The condition and disposition of the various factions following the lifting of the siege of Middenheim
The Orcs of Gimgor Ironhide

Grimgor Ironhide, mightiest Orc Warlord of the age, was seething with rage. Of every promise he ever heard roared across a battlefield, every challenge laid down by the warmongering cries of a mighty champion, every upstart proclaiming himself the doom of all other warriors, Archaon, the supposed Lord of the End Times, top Chaos boy, had been the biggest disappointment.

By the time Grimgor and his Immortulz had hacked their way to the heart of the mighty battle of Middenheim, hewing their way through screaming Flagellants and spiky Chaos boys, their leader was already battered and bruised after a fight with two other humies, but he’d beaten them both, but the fight he offered Grimgor was utterly disheartening.

How did such a weakling ever become the leader of such a vast horde of warriors? Surely the quality of the northern tribes of men must be pretty low for this man to rise so high? Having laid the Everchosen low with a mighty ‘edbut and the flat of Gitsnik’s heavy blade, Grimgor turned his army around and withdrew from this vexing waste of his time. Muttering to himself as his boys hacked and slashed their way clear of the fighting, Grimgor wracked his Orcish brain for the answer to his lifelong question. Where would he ever find a challenge worthy of his blade? Where could he go to find the greatest fighters he could possibly face?

As he finished battering a shrieking Flagellant into the mud with a length of wood he didn’t remember picking up, the spiky end of it caught his gaze. It had human words scratched on it. Wiping away the Flagellants blood he struggled to make out the name on what he now saw was a signpost....Alt-dorf? That was the human boys big city to the south. If they’d managed to beat the Chaos boys here, then the Empire must have even better fighters than the Chaos lot, and they would muster every blade to defend their big important city. Grimgor extended his muscled green arm, and with a roar and the pointing of a dirty claw, turned his army south...

The Skaven

The Council Chamber was in complete uproar. Fur stood on end, and tails swished agitatedly. The Council endorsed plan to utilise Clan Skyre’s super weapon, the lauded ‘Doom Hemisphere’, had failed to annihilate the mountain and the fortified human warren that sat atop it. Instead it had only partially exploded, warping and fusing the tunnels beneath the great rock into labyrinthine new forms. The device itself was now lost somewhere within the newly created maze, though even now, gutter runners of Clan Eshin had been despatched to try and find the device.

The shrieks of treachery and sabotage that had been levelled at Clan Skyre themselves had been defeaning, and it had almost come to bloodshed on several occasions, until the Council had restored order, the Storm Vermin guards brandishing their blades menacingly until the clamour abated. The fact remained that armies of many thousands of Skaven warriors were in place to attack. Beasts of every description had been herded to the underways beneath the city the humans called Middenheim in their hundreds. If they did not attack now, then the vast resources expended gathering so many Skaven and so much support into a single place would be wasted as all sense of order and purpose gave way to infighting and the Councils meticulously laid plans dissolved into nothing. The human Empire above was in turmoil, now was the Skaven’s time. This city would have to be taken the old fashioned way, by sneaking up on the humans from beneath and taking them by suprise. The order would be given. They would attack...

Bretonnia

After battling alongside their human and Dwarf allies in the defence of the Empire from the vast hordes of Archaon, and distinguishing themselves at the Siege of Middenheim, the Knights of Bretonnia are in high spirits, jubilant in their hard won glory, though little of that spirit seems to be present in the peasantry who marched to the Empire’s aid in the wake of their noble masters. They appear as downtrodden and dishevelled as ever. Now that the siege has been lifted and the forces of Archaon forced into retreat, the Knights of Bretonnia seek further challenges to test their metal against.

The chasing down of bandits and the broken remnants of the enemy force beneath their interest, the Bretonnians turn their thoughts instead to the newly emerged threat from Sylvania. Many are the tales of that blighted realm that have found their way to Bretonnian tap rooms over the centuries, and such a challenge as the notorious line of the von Carsteins would indeed be a test worthy of the gallant elite of fair Bretonnia. It is also rumoured that a vast army of Ogres marches from the east, from beyond the Worlds Edge Mountains, and an entire army of such monsters is too much for any true knight of Bretonnia to resist. And so, word has spread amongst the legions of young knights eager to prove themselves in their eyes of both their piers and the Lady of the Lake. Never before will the dank and decrepit province of Sylvania have seen such a muster of splendour as the army of Knights marches to finally free the people of that benighted realm from the curse of the Vampire Counts...

Thanks for reading...

Warhammer 40,000 Club League - Game 1 Result

Good day to you all, and thank you for joining me once again.

Today, we lament the unfortunate loss suffered by my Imperial Guard at the hands of one of the club's top players and his despicable Tau. Yes, I lost my first League game. Am I bitter? No. A little disappointed maybe, especially as I got off to a flying start by taking out his Broadsides on turn one, but after that it became a bit of struggle.

I have to be honest with myself and admit that for me to win would have been a bit of an upset anyway. I'm out of practice, have only played three games in 6th edition 40K, and my opponent has only lost one of his League games so far. The important question I need to ask is 'what did I learn?'.

Well, I am pleased to say I learned plenty, about my army and about how I play the game.

I learned that I was right to target the Broadsides and Hammerhead early, as they were the biggest threat to my tanks. One thing I learned is that Tau skimmers with Disruption pods are very bloody hard to kill, what with having a 3+ cover save, and 2+ moving flat out! The Hammerhead ended the game on 1 hull point left at the end of turn 6. The fact is that long range high strength guns don't have a high enough rate of fire to take down such a target without a lot of luck. They need to be engaged close up, point blank in fact, and I just wasn't equipped to move that fast.

I learned about improving my depolyment, and connected to that, the placing of objectives. This is really something new to 6th edition  and the placing of objectives is a game in itself. We had three objectives, and I got to place two of them, and I placed them both in my own half of the table.

The mistake I made was placing them too far apart, because of a fear of losing them both in one go if things went really badly in one area of the table. The other side of the coin was that I had to split my army to cover them both, which I managed for a few turns, but in the end I would have been much better off placing them closer together so my various units could cover each other and concentrate fire better.

I could moan and whine about bad dice, but I won't because dice tend to balance out. Having said that, some dice rolls are more important than others. Like the three failed cover saves that saw my Lascannon squad die and ended my chances of taking down the Hammerhead once and for all. Such is the nature of the beast I guess.

The thing that had the biggest impact was the diagonal deployment, which placed our lines at about 40" apart instead of 24-30", and effectively neutering my Demolisher and Lasguns, especially after it lost its Lascannon. That 72" range on the Railguns, combined with an armour 13 skimmer with a 3+ cover save is a real nightmare when you don't have anything that can move fast enough to engage it close up, especially when losing Tanks in the 'Big Guns Never Tire' mission gives away extra victory points.

One game down, four more to go. Now I just have to take what I learned and use it to forge a victory in the next game. I'm facing Marines next.

One last item for you which became a running joke. Both of us had an objective in our own deployment zones, held from turn one, which both turned out to be Sabotage! objectives. The game lasted six turns, and between us we rolled twenty four dice, and not once did we roll the '1' that would have seen one blow up...

Wish me luck, and thanks for reading...

Warhammer 40,000 Club League

Greetings and a warm welcome fellow wargaming enthusiasts.

I have decided to blog about the next development in my integration into the local gaming club I joined towards the back end of 2012.

I have been coerced, nay, down right ordered to take part in the club 40K league. This league includes several club regulars, and requires us to present  a 1000 point list for use throughout the league. Initially, we are to play each of the other armies in the league once.

Lists are to be selected with all the usual restrictions, and cannot be changed between battles, so I guess a balanced approach is appropriate, especially as we will be rolling up missions as normal.

There is one extra consideration when list building however. Points will be scored as follows:

Victory - 2 points
Draw - 1 point
Major Victory
(ie. Hold all objectives or wipe out the enemy) - 4 points

So plainly there is an incentive to win big rather than play safe and go for a last turn snatch for just enough points to claim the scalp. Winning is better than losing of course, but scraping wins won't get you into the top spots in the league.

With all of this in mind, I set about choosing my 1000 point list. I decided, being as I have no current preferences for which army I wanted to use, and I haven't had any chance to even finish reading the new Dark Angels codex, let alone consider it's effect on how the army plays, I decided to go with my Imperial Guard. Coincidentally, it was my Imperial Guard that I used in the war (club tournament) of 2010 at the gaming club I used to attend, and I think that they have the right stuff to go the distance at this points level.

Here is the list I settled on, after much online hammering to get it the right shape and consistency:

Company Command - 75 points
Commander with melta bombs (the last of my points bought these)
4 Sniper rifles

This squad is for support, to disrupt the enemy and hit high toughness targets using the Bring it Down order, which allows me to save high strength weapons for hitting armour.

Platoon Command - 50 points

Officer, 4 Flamers.

Pure counter attacking unit, for use vs enemy that break through the infantry squads or flankers.

Infantry Squad - 107 points

Bolt pistol, melta gun, autocannon, Commissar.

Infantry Squad - 70 points
Melta gun, autocannon.

Infantry Squad - 65 points
Autocannon, flamer

These 3 squads will combine to maximise the high Ld of the Commissar. The guns are selected to give high strength punch, but also short range anti armour, plus a flamer for stuff like gaunts and orks about to jump down my throat. I love flamers!

Veterans - 100 points
3 melta guns

Chimera - 80 points
Heavy flamer, heavy bolter, dozer, extra armour.

Vets mounted in Chimera to go off tank hunting. Extra armour to help them keep moving for a melta rush.

Leman Russ - 165 points
Lascannon

Demolisher - 180 points
Lascannon

Both tanks to engage key targets, especially vehicles and high save units.

Lascannon Squad - 105 points
3 Lascannons

Lascannons to take the second order from the Company Commander and target enemy armour.

I have selected models subject to advice from various sources and the restrictions of my collection. After going through the process of writing a list with online critique, I really should write a short post about the terrors of posting lists online for opinions.

Now my friends, I am under no illusions. I not the General Supremo I was ten years ago, simply because I am out of practice, so this will be a learning project for me. It may have been good fun to use a different army in every game at the club so far, but that approach wasn't allowing me to really get to grips with a single force. In the last event of this type, I finished 4th out of 11 players, again because I was a casual gamer, playing for fun, against seasoned players battling week in week out. 

My first game is this tomorrow, vs Tau. Lets see how I fare.

Thanks for reading...

Worldwide Campaigns - Part 2

Welcome back one and all, to part 2 of my rant...I mean summary, of the phenomenon that was the Games Workshop world wide campaign! I am relieved that if you are reading this, then at least someone decided that part 2 couldn't possibly be worse than part 1.

Below is what remains on the list of events that we have not yet covered. The next event in particular I consider to be of major significance, a turning point in the history of the world wide campaign.

2004 - Storm of Chaos (Warhammer)
2005 - The War of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game)
2006 - The Fall of Medusa V (Warhammer 40,000)
2007 - The Nemesis Crown (Warhammer)
2011 - Scourge of the Storm (Warhammer)

So, we come to it, the event that inspired this topic, and has generated by far the greatest volume of debate and controversy. Even though it is seven years this year since the Storm of Chaos took (or didn't take) place, we still see the odd thread pop up in one of the various background forums from either someone who saw things go down and has questions, or a gamer who wasn't there and is appealing to the Loremasters for enlightenment.

I will talk more about this event than any of the others, because this is the biggy, so I apologise for that, but the Storm of Chaos was 'the daddy' as far as significance goes. I will say that I speak, as usual, from my own point of view, as a lover of stories, and with the considerable benefit of hindsight.

A couple of things you have to bear in mind about this event are that it was set in the Old World, the very heart of the Warhammer setting (not an Island in the middle of the Ocean, or on a far flung planet created specially for a war to be waged over), and that, at least in the beginning there was the promise that we as participants could affect the background of the Warhammer setting itself, by our actions in the campaign.

This was an amazing opportunity for anyone like myself, who places a high value on the story behind the games.

Now, there was an awful lot of ground work done in the lead up to the campaign, including linking back to some very old material, and I commend the writers for that. The story itself was great - up to a point.

I have read and re-read most of the material for the campaign, as I am lucky enough to have been able to preserve or locate much of what was made available at the time, and there was plenty of it!

As well as all the lead up stories, battle reports and special characters used as plot drivers, there was a day by day account of the war penned by Gav Thorpe, and the conclusions presented on the website which followed the end of the campaign proper.

Despite all of the work that went into the event, the quality of (most of) the material and the amount of control of the battles themselves given over to the participants, when the dust had settled and the conclusions written, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong.

My recollection of the events are that the direction the campaign took was not what GW had envisaged. The forces comprising and supporting Archaon's drive across the northern Empire towards mighty Middenheim was fragmented and seemingly not as coordinated that that of the defenders of the Empire. The Orc players, who may have been expected to take the side of disorder, conducted a focussed attack on the forces of Archaon. The Empire meanwhile enjoyed spectacular success, which it is claimed was not represented in the evolving story.

The fact was that, for many reasons, the story that formed the backbone of the campaign was not being played out on the table. The Chaos invasion force was overall struggling to make headway towards their goal, and rather than let it turn into a damp squib of an assault by the armies of the Everchosen, it is claimed that the story was used to drive the action, and Archaon towards Middenheim, where actual battle results were failing to do so.

This created a situation where people felt that ths story was not being influenced by their actions as it should have been, and this feeling was compounded by the conclusions that were written following the end of the tabletop conflict.

There were, to my recollection, three particular items within post campaign conclusions that really sealed the fate of the campaign, and by extension, the concept of the Worldwide Campaign as a story development tool.

First, we had Belakor, the first Daemon Prince and Dark Master from the Dark Shadows Campaign and his entire Daemonic army banished by the Elven Loremaster Teclis. Just like that, they were dust.

Second, we had the big battle that a large part of the campaign plot had been building towards, Valten's army of zealots and Karl Franz's army engaging the forces of Chaos. Archaon laid low both Luther Huss, 'prophet' of Valten, the incarnation of Sigmar reborn, only for the Everchosen to be slapped silly by Grimgor Ironhide, who then, in a very un-Orcy fashion, decided that it was enough to have defeated Archaon, and let him live!!!

Last, and most grating for me as a Vampire Counts player, was the tale of Manfred von Carstein and his part in the war, which in the conclusion began when he arrived at the village of Sokh where the hard core of Archaons remaining forces had repulsed attacks by the Empire army.

Manfred's forces swept through the village, decimating the Chaos forces and driving the survivors into retreat. After this, he squared up to the Empire generals, ready to destroy them, and after a cinematic but wholly unrealistic exchange of words with the now resurrected Volkmar the Grim (previously slain by Archaon and then brought back from the dead by Belakor), Manfred turns his army around and marches away without a fight!

I'm sure there are other things that people could name, but those are the things that stick in my mind. The final nail in the coffin though, was that the entire campaign had no impact on the game setting at all, as ever afterwards, bit by bit any reference to it having taken place has been erased, and the clock in the current big rulebook timeline has been wound back to the year before the invasion. Every current source now says that the largest Chaos invasion in history is on the horizon.

I should stop at this point and pass on to you, dear reader, something that I have deduced after reading the campaign background material, specifically the Loremasters Journal, in order to be fair to Gav Thorpe at least. Part of the problem with the campaign was that the Chaos invasion forces seemed to lack the cohesion and direction of their enemies, but when you read the day by day account (at least the way I read it), it is littered with prompts and nudges. These hints roughly equate to Gav saying "you've spent far too much time fighting for this inconsequencial backwater, Middenheim is the prize" and to quote Richard Obrien in his Crystal Maze days, "On to the next Zone!".

Whether these really are hints, and could have been picked up on at the time, or whether my madness has found a new way to manifest itself I just can't say, but if you get the chance to read the Loremasters Journal, see what you think.

So where does this now leave us? Will the Storm of Chaos break at some point in the future? Or has the wheel of time ceased to turn and the Warhammer setting is now stuck in a paradoxical End Time that will never actually come because the clock has stopped before it is due to be unleashed? I know what I think.

And what did the experience of the Storm of Chaos campaign teach Games Workshop? Well I think it taught them something fairly obvious: you shouldn't put vast, epic and fundamentally world shattering events in the hands of fate (or wargamers) and beyond your own control. This is what they said they were doing with the Storm of Chaos, and when it didn't work out, they had (I suppose were forced) to take the necessary action to preserve the game background. Unfortunately this somewhat undermined one of the big attractions of taking part in the first place.

Now then, we can clearly see the impact of the lessons learned in the worldwide campaigns that followed, which I shall skim over because that's all they really warrant, and to prevent this post running into a third part.

The War of the Ring I can't comment on, but I am sure it would have been a great marketing excercise.

The Fall of Medusa V for 40K and the Nemesis Crown for Fantasy were both far simpler than the Storm of Chaos, with main plots that were all but predetermined and just needed a final decison to be reached about which participating faction managed to best achieve their allotted goals before the campaign ended. Both were launched with a free booklet with White Dwarf (thank you again GW), and accompanied by campaign websites.

Medusa V revolved around a planet created specially by GW so that it could be destroyed, and it was clear the planet was doomed from the start, about to be swallowed by the Warp Storm named Van Grothes Rapidity. The campaign included opportunities for every race pretty much to be played, which will always create a story that is hard to justify convincingly. There just isn't any good reason or even likely possibility that every race will have interest in a single world all at once.

The Nemesis Crown was not a high impact high potential damage campaign like the Storm of Chaos. It essentially revolved around the hunt by various races for a single magic item: a rathed potent shiny hat. Of course the Crown had the potential to destroy the universe, but this would never have been allowed to happen. Suffice to say that this campaign was never in a position to influence the game background.

The Scourge of the Storm campaign, though included in the Wikipedia list, was over before I ever realised it was taking place, and I am confident was less of a worldwide campaign and more of a marketing tool to get people playing the Storm of Magic supplement for Fantasy.

If the question is 'how do the campaigns that came after the Storm of Chaos differ from those before?', the answer must surely be that the opportunity for we as gamers to have a chance to affect the setting we play our games in was taken away, and in my opinion at least, the whole concept died when that happened.

When quizzed on the subject, the answer given by a prominent person within Games Workshop (who shall remain nameless due to my enduring respect for this person) was that the company did not wish to cause anyones collection to become invalidated by the results of a campaign. Though I can appreciate this approach, it leaves us with a game where the setting and its stories that keep so many of us hooked on the GW hobby stagnate, reduced to a paper backdrop for our battles to be fought against.

I have been told that other companies manage to progress their back stories without any obvious problems, which makes me wonder why Games Workshop can't manage the same, though they do seem to have 'back filled' and expanded on the background material with things like the juggernaut that is the Horus Heresy series, without moving the timeline forward.

In conclusion, my advice to Games Workshop would be that worldwide campaigns can be a huge draw for gamers, and have the potential to be really amazing events, but rather than campaigns which are simply too insignificant in their events to carry any real sense of moment, they should release them as all encompassing source books similar to those produced by Forgeworld. I would love to see a book which provides background and army lists allowing us to play games in the war-torn northern Empire following the Storm of Chaos. This gives those that want it what they wish for, without impacting the main setting.

On that note, my next few posts will describe just that: the disposition and concerns of the various main factions affected by the Storm of Chaos, that I wrote after much deliberation over how to create such a source book and save the story from the ridiculous fudges that ruined it for us. Maybe they will inspire you to play some games post Storm of Chaos, or return to the maelstrom of Armageddon and pick up the war after the Season of Fire? Or even perhaps have a check down the back of the sofa for that stupid Nemesis Crown. It must be somewhere...

It's been a long post, so thanks more than ever for sticking with me...

Worldwide Campaigns - Part 1

Greetings all. Here is another subject close to my heart, and one that has spawned thousands of constructive and deconstructive posts over the years. Many of them by me I might add...

Below, I quote a list taken from Wikipedia's Games Workshop page. Some of you may not recognise the significance of the listed items. Others may suffer psychologically disturbing flashbacks, for which I apologise. Here it is:

1995 - The Battle of Ichar IV (Warhammer 40,000)
2000 - Third War for Armageddon (Warhammer 40,000)
2001 - Dark Shadows (Warhammer)
2003 - Eye of Terror (Warhammer 40,000)
2004 - Storm of Chaos (Warhammer)
2005 - The War of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game)
2006 - The Fall of Medusa V (Warhammer 40,000)
2007 - The Nemesis Crown (Warhammer)
2011 - Scourge of the Storm (Warhammer)

The list above represents a time line, and this time line records both the greatest events in tabletop wargaming history (speaking as a player of only Games Workshop games I should add. I would love to find out if any other companies have run similar events, so feel free to let me know), and what I consider to be the rise and fall of the worldwide campaign. This is obviously just my point of view, and if anyone has a differing point of view, good, because healthy debate is never a bad thing.

Now, though I am not a player of The Lord Of The Rings (at present, though the new Hobbit film releases starting this year may encourage me to change that), I can say I have been around for all of the other campaigns, and followed them online and, before the dominance of the internet, in White Dwarf magazine, going right the way back to Ichar IV. Yes, I was there son, I was there...

The reason I thought this topic might make a good blog post, is that, however involved I have been with the hobby since I started, I have always tried to keep up with things, and having had a White Dwarf subscription for several years has meant I haven't missed things that other people regret missing (like the WD released Sisters of Battle update from earlier in the year for example, which GW really should put up as a free download).

The result of this is that I have seen how the worldwide campaigns have changed over the years, and how people have reacted to them - to a degree at least. I won't be going into too much detail on the individual campaigns, because that would need pages and pages and would have you all snoring.

So, where did the (GW) Worldwide Campaigns begin? Officially at least, and as far as we are concerned, it started in '95 with the invasion of Ichar IV by the ravenous hive mind. As this was two years after the release of 2nd edition 40k, I'm sure that was the edition it was played under. So what about it? From what I remember, it was covered entirely in White Dwarf. No accompanying campaign Codex or snazzy online website for this campaign, no. This was run very simply. Well, simple for participants, not so simple for the GW crew running it. It required participants to fight battles, then post (yes post. That thing you do where you make marks on paper with a stick and feed it to the red Dalek with the 'email address' scratched on the front of the little paper casing) the results of battles to Jervis Johnson to compile.

I remember many pages of pictures from White Dwarf: photos gamers had sent in, extracts from their 'in character' letter reports, and a great one of Jervis Johnson kneeling amongst a sea of battle reports. His comment at the time was that they never expected the scale of response that they received.

From these auspicious beginings, the concept of the worldwide campaign has expanded, and in cases like the Battle for Ichar IV, have become part of the official back story of the game, though not all are considered to have been as successful as Ichar IV.

It seemed to me as though the simpler less ambitious campaigns had greater success than some of the middle of the timeline campaigns like the Storm of Chaos, though some have been of such little consequence that I didn't even realise they were happening till they were over!

The second campaign in the list, The Third War For Armageddon, (which was set around the Ork re-invasion of the entire Armageddon sub sector) was a great success in my opinion, taking the organisation to a new level by introducing a Campaign Codex book which detailed alternative and new army lists, as well as copious quantities of background material and modelling pics, and was a great step. It also made use of an online campaign website for the first time if I remember rightly. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong!

Armageddon was another campaign which made it's way into the official background of the 41st Millenium, and left us with a legacy of new models (an entire wave of Orks, which saw the race reinvigorated, as well as Salamander and Black Templar Space Marines, and the famed Armageddon Steel Legion, not to mention new versions of old rivals Commissar Yarrick and a behemoth of a Ghazghkull Thrakka model). The war itself, officially, is still raging even now, sucking ever more Ork and Impererial forces into this cauldron of destruction, which itself has an impact on available resources for light years in every direction.

The first of the Warhammer Fantasy worldwide campaigns was Dark Shadows, which took place in 2001 on the mystic isle of Albion, recently revealed through shrouding mists. It has crossed my mind that 'Sandy Island', recently found to be missing from it's New Caledonia position on many charts, and the rediscovery of Albion could be more than just coincidence!

This campaign saw the return of Belakor (the first Daemon Prince) in his guise as The Dark Master, and his efforts to control the ancient Ogham Stones which kept the power of Chaos in check (again, much of this is from memory, so feel free to correct me if you know better). The campaign also saw the introduction of Truthsayers and Dark Emissaries, powerful magic users working for the forces of Order and Disorder respectively, and who in the back story attempted to recruit armies from across the Warhammer World to fight their cause on the island.

To the best of my knowledge, this campaign was also considered to be a success and I would like to say more about it, but the fact that I can't locate my campaign booklet (which came FREE with White Dwarf I might add), makes me reluctant to speculate more than I have already. Suffice to say that the forces or Order were successful in preventing an uncontrollable dimensional cascade which would have destroyed the Warhammer World.

On to something really special: The Eye of Terror Campaign! This war saw Abaddon of the Black Legion, defacto heir of Warmaster Horus, surge forth from staging grounds in the Occularis Terribus to assail the Cadian Gate at the head of a host of Traitor Marines, Daemons, Rebel Guard forces and Chaotis Titan Legions the like of which had not waged war since the Heresy. This attack became known as the Thirteenth Black Crusade. The worlds that defend the Cadian Gate (the most stable space route for attacking Chaos forces) and the fortress world of Cadia itself were assailed in force, and the action during the included Orks on their own Green Croosade, Necrons, and of course the meddling Eldar all play their part, on land and in space.

This was a monolithic endeavour on the part of GW, and was probably the first truly 'worldwide' campaign. The campaign website surpassed the one created for the Third Armageddon War, and the campaign Codex was a much weightier tome, with yet more new army lists and tons of background material and maps. The articles in White Dwarf were extensive and continued to appraise us of the progress of the compaign for the duration. The only real criticism came after when suggestions were made that the final published result of the campaign might not have relfected the action that took place in the way that participants expected it to. The Cadian Gate remains under severe pressure from the forces of Chaos.

This may been seen as a portent of things that were to come...

Given the sheer volume of text required to discuss this topic, it seems sensible to call a pause to the history lesson here. Join me next time for part 2, and the biggest, most controversial campaign of them all - the Storm of Chaos!

Really Ancient Evil

Greetings all! As I may have mentioned on more than one occasion, I have begun attending a local gaming club, in a real effort to get some regular gaming in, and as part of my plan to get to the stage where my gaming brain is firing on all cylinders, I am steadily working through each of my armies in turn. This is partly to keep things interesting for me and give me as broad an experiece as possible, and partly to keep the other guys at the club on their toes!

Thus far, my Ogres, Bretonnians and Dark Angels have all seen combat, with varying degrees of success (a defeat, a draw and a victory, in that order, so hopefully things are on the up and up). Next, I plan on taking my Vampire Counts army to the field, which I haven't yet used with their current book, and while leafing through the gruesome tome, considering all the new units and models I don't yet own, how old my Vampire Counts army really is.

I started collecting the army (Warhammer Armies: Undead as was back then) after reading a great battle report in White Dwarf issue 174, in which they played out the scenario from the Undead Army Book entitled 'Revenge of the Doomlord', which saw the new Undead army led by Dieter Helsnicht (The Doomlord of Middenheim) pitched against an army of the Empire. The Undead, commanded by Gav Thorpe, were victorious (though it was the books inagural battle), and the intention of this report was fulfilled. I decided to start playing Warhammer Fantasy (up until then I was only playing Space Marine and 40K) and to collect the Undead.

When I look at the latest Army book, the Vampire Counts, (ever since the 'Undead' were split into two factions: The Vampire Counts of the Old World and the Tomb Kings of the Lands of the Dead) and the units detailed within, and compare it to the first Undead Army Book, it is clear just how much they have changed since The Revenge of The Doomlord.

My first Undead army included such things as regiments of Skeleton Warriors alongside Skeleton Archers, but also Mummies, Screaming Skull Catapults, Chariots and Carrion. For a while, I even included the Settra special Character alongside Weapon Skill 7 Necromancers and Vampires in my battles against the nacent forces of High Elves, Wood Elves and Dwarfs fielded by my opponents of the day. Over time, as the Undead were factionalised, and the look and the feel of the army became more focussed, one thing has remained steadfast. This is my love of the back story of the Von Carstein line, particularly the story of Vlad and Isabella, and my army has served Vlad's purpose faithfully for my whole time playing Warhammer. If anyone else really likes their story and hasn't read them, I strongly recommend the Von Carstin Trilogy by Steven Savile.

My Army has steadily grown over the years (clocking in at around six thousand points or so now), but those same ancient Skeleton Warriors bought right back in the early 90's still march alongside chunkier later Skeletons and more recent purchases such as Vargheists and soon, a Mortis Engine. My Grave Guard recruited from metal Skeleton Warriors in heavy armour who once made up the original 'Company of the Damned' regiment of renown. I am even still using the original Vlad and Isabella models, and simply refuse to use Manfred at all, the upstart usurper!

It has never been my way to shelve my older models, rather I use all my models, of whatever age, alongside each other in battle, though from time to time this means stripping the paint off models and bringing them up to date. I will never buy the latest version of a model just because it's the new shiny thing, when I have a perfectly serviceable model I like with an established history. In fact, I have found that including older models alongside newer ones draws curious gamers to ask questions like 'ooo, what's that?', and 'hey, that's cool' which isn't a bad thing in my book.

A gamers army is a very personal thing, and my armys story is at least as important as it's potency on the field. There are inevitably field repairs required on some models (such as the MK1 Land Raider I am replacing the Lascannons on at the moment - funny how things come back into fasion isn't it?), but repairing damaged Skeleton Warriors is how I learned how to convert models with reasonable confidence, which brings with it innumerable benefits and opportunities to make my armies even more personalised.

Gazing hazily back at the beginnings of my Undead army at the start of 4th Edition Fantasy, and comparing it to the force that will march forth soon in 8th Edition and with the latest book with all it's fantastic newer models, has just highlighted to me how happy I am to be able to field an army with such history, that draws people's curiosity and admiration for it's sheer variety and pedegree, and if any army should be suited to including such ancient miniatures, it surely must be the 'Undead'.

If I were to offer advice to like minder gamers, it would be this: if you like the new shiny model that has been released, then get it, but there's no reason to simply replace your veteran models with the latest versions just because they are new. A new version of a model coming out is fine, but it's not like a new rules set for a game. You don't have to replace what you have to keep playing, other gamers won't poke fun at your army because it contains older models (or they damn well shouldn't! In fact I have found the opposite to be true). Your army is your own, and as long as it's legal and playable, the only person whose opinion really matters is your own. Take those mixed generation armies, go forth, and make war.

As always, thank you for reading.