The FFG/GW breakup – a buyer’s guide

I case you haven’t heard, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) and Games Workshop (GW) have “concluded their business relationship”, which means that, as of February 28^th next year, FFG will no longer sell any of their RPG’s or board and card games set in the Warhammer and 40k universe . Announcement and a list of games this will affect here.

There’s no word about which side initiated the breakup, but my money’s on GW. Several of FFG’s games are quite new or in mid-lifecycle (especially Warhammer 40.000: Conquest, which is having a whole tournament season cancelled because of this) – games they must have put a lot of resources into and which they can no longer capitalize on.

This is a sad affair for at least two reasons:

One: Many of these games are very good, and it’s doubtful of they can or will be re-implemented in some form. This is certainly true of those games which combine the GW setting with original rules from FFG – akin to what happened to Heroquest and the Dune board game.

Two: In hindsight it’s fairly apparent that FFG must have known for some time that this was a possible outcome, and they have been holding off on creating additional content for some of these games. It’s certainly understandable (they’d essentially be throwing money in the trash), but it’s still a d*mn shame, as some of these games could have benefitted greatly from one or two expansions.

So, if you are at all interested in this, you must be wondering: “do I rush out and buy these games right now?”

It’s a fair question. As you read this, stock must be dwindling and prices rising. If you wait too long, you may not be able to get your hands on a copy (some of them are already very difficult and/or expensive to get hold of), but unless you have a couple of thousand pounds you don’t know what to do with, you won’t be able to buy everything.

Fortunately, I’ve played most of these games, so I thought I’d give a brief rundown of which ones I think you should pick up first.

Keep in mind that I have no insider knowledge whatsoever, so when speculate that something probably won’t be re-implemented and/or get more expensive, it’s just my assumption. Also, because I don’t’ want to repeat this every time, when I say that you “absolutely must buy” something, what I really mean is: “Absolutely buy this, unless you can’t stand the theme and/or type of game”.

With further ado and in alphabetical order:

Black Crusade (and the rest of the 40k RPG line, Dark Heresy, Deathwatch, Only War and Rogue Trader):

We’re off to a bad start, as these are some of the games I haven’t actually played. They are (loosely) based on the rules from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP) 2^nd Edition, and I’ve heard both good and bad things about them.

I did buy the Deathwatch book some years ago, but the rules seemed overly detailed, so I never played it.

In general, it seems to me that books remain more readily available, and closer to their original price, on the secondary market than games, so I don’t think you need to be in quite as much of a rush here.

If you are interested, FFG has some free introductory modules, including abbreviated rules, available for download that I absolutely think you should get your hands on. Look under “Support” on each game’s page. The Deathwatch one seems like especially great fun (it’s what made me buy the full rules in the first place).

Verdict: If you really want to GM these games, I guess you’d better get them now, but otherwise I’d wait. Unless you have a strong preference for some of the other themes, I’d go with Rogue Trader, which seems like the most versatile setting.

Blood Bowl: Team Manager

I own and really like this game, but it does take a surprisingly long time (and lengthy rules-explanation) for something that, at first glance, seems like a rather “light” game.

It’s a fun premise, and the game-play is unlike anything else out there, but it’s probably not going to be a fondly remembered classic.

Verdict: Get it if you see it on sale.

Chaos in the old World

Now we’re talking. This is already a classic, and it’s the game that put Eric Lang on many people’s minds as a designer to be aware of. It’s a finely balanced, beautifully made and generally fun game.

The only minus (if it actually is a minus) is that it’s a game that you get better at over time. Expect cries of “Khorne of sooooo OP” the first couple of games, followed by varying cries of “Tzeentch/Slaanesh/Nurgle is sooooo OP” depending on who’s doing better at the time.

It has a single expansion that, while not absolutely necessary, adds some options to the base game and allows for five players. It’s also out of print and very expensive.

The game has been out for a while, so there are a fair few copies floating around, but since it’s so reliant on the GW background and based on original FFG rules, I don’t see how anyone can remake it without losing a lot of the charm.

Verdict: Buy it! Can you get hold of the expansion? Buy every single copy you can find and sell them for mad $$$’s (in fact, you should write me, so I can buy one from you).

Chaos Marauders

A reprint of an old GW game. Quite simple and not all that good. Also, GW could probably just reprint it at some point.

Verdict: Skip it.

Forbidden Stars

This is a real loss. Sort of a spiritual successor to the long out of print Starcraft board game, this is a deep, long and very thematic strategy game. It’s been (deservedly) well-reviewed, and was a shoo-in for a bunch of expansions. That would have been great, but it’s still a fine game as it is.

It's only been out for about a year and many people (myself included) probably held off on buying it because of the high price-tag, so expect stocks to run low quite quickly.

If I was a betting man, I’d say that FFG will probably re-implement it using their Twilight Imperium setting, but that’s fairly bland (if you ask me), so it won’t be as good.

Verdict: Buy it right now – unless you can’t stand the thought of a five hour long game (which is a fair position).

Fury of Dracula

Aw man! This game has been out of print for a decade and only came back into print last year, and now it’s going out of print again. The humanity.

Before its re-release, Fury of Dracula was famously pricy on the secondary market, so it’s a fair bet that it’ll happen again. On the other hand, it’s one of the games where GW might also own the rights to the rules, so it’s possible they’ll make their own version. I just don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon, and I’m not sure it’ll be as good at the FFG edition.

Verdict: Buy it.

Relic

FFG’s version of Talisman set in the 40k universe. It’s quite fun – honest. They’ve managed to remove or improved a lot of the really annoying things about Talisman, while still maintaining the laid-back “just having a laugh with my mates” feel.

Pro: It’s like a better version of Talisman in a more interesting setting.

Con: It’s still basically Talisman in space.

There are two expansions available, though I haven’t played either.

Verdict: It the thought appeals to you, sure, why not get it. I’d probably wait for a sale or put it on my Christmas wish list instead. Maybe read a couple of in-depth reviews first if you are unsure.

Space Hulk: Death Angel

A brutally unforgiving game of getting murdered by aliens in space. If you hate the thought of losing you should stay well clear, but otherwise it’s a nice filler on a game night.

Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game does a lot of the same things better, but maybe you like this theme (and it’s slightly shorter). Also, this game feels more complete out of the box.

There are four expansions to this game, but they seem to be out of print.

Verdict: Buy it if you see it lying around, but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.

Talisman

I don’t like Talisman (you may have guessed from my remarks on Relic). I know it has a following, but I honestly believe that people mostly like it because it gives them an excuse to spend a couple of hours with their mates and not because of any positive qualities in the game itself.

Also, it’s one of the games GW could potentially reprint, so it’s not likely to become a “lost treasure” like some of the others.

Verdict: Do you love Talisman? Well, you probably already own a copy, but otherwise this is the time to buy. Otherwise skip it (or go look at Relic instead).

Warhammer: Diskwars

A really underappreciated game if you ask me. FFG tried to make it a part of their tournament scene, but it never took off, so they put it on the back-burner. 

It’s still very good, even if it really could have benefitted from another two expansions to round out the different factions – which will never happen now.

One of the saddest casualties of this whole affair (though it might have been abandoned in any case).

Verdict: I think you should buy it. Just be aware that you need two copies of everything to get the most out of it. Might get expensive.

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (WFRP 3^rd Edition)

This one is a bit tougher. I have a lot of respect for what FFG tried to do with WFRP 3^rd Ed, but ultimately I think they failed. I’ve actually been meaning to write something about the subject and it seems like I’d better do it soon: before it becomes totally irrelevant.

It’s actually one of the few cases where I’m fairly pleased FFG is losing the license. I love WFRP and FFG obviously weren’t going to do any more with the property any time soon. At least now there’s a chance someone else will pick up the torch (unless, god forbid, they change the setting to Age of Sigmar’s).

Verdict: Maybe pick it up, if you really like the idea and it’s on sale and you don’t already own one of the previous editions.

Actually, some of the scenarios are quite excellent, so if you plan on running WFRP (using any ruleset) you should at least pick up Omens of War, The Witches Song and the new edition of The Enemy Within, which (IMO) are the best.

Warhammer Invasion: The Card Game

I haven’t played it but I’ve heard reasonably good things. On the other hand, you’d have to invest a lot of money to really get into it, and it’s probably not that good.

Verdict:  I wouldn’t bother.

Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game

This one hurts me on a personal level. The game is sort of an evolution and mix of FFG’s Lord of the Rings and Space Hulk card games. It’s an excellent little game, but it could have been even better with a few expansions to give it some variety. I’ve written about it here.

Verdict: Get it, along with the two mini-expansions. Just be prepared to be saddened that there’s never going to be any more.

Warhammer 40.000: Conquest

I never got into this, and now I’m glad that I didn’t. It must be a real sucker-punch to see a game that’s only just reaching maturity get cancelled in this way.

For what it’s worth, it’s supposed to be quite good, but, as with Warhammer Invasion, it would be very expensive to get the most out of, as you probably have to buy multiple copies of everything.

Verdict: Unless you’re just swimming in money, I’d skip it. If you are swimming in money, you could probably do worse than this game.

So, that’s my personal epitaph to a very fine line of games. Long live their memory.

Croaker

Putting on a show

Welcome to part two of my little Malifaux project. I’ve already (It’s quick for me – ok!) finished my first model, so I thought I’d give a brief introduction to my crew and then show off my work so far.

Crews in Malifaux are build around named characters called “masters” (unless you play smaller games, in which case you can use a “henchman”). Masters are the most powerful units in the game, and often quite specialized, so your choice of leader has a large impact on the way you play. I went with Colette Du Bois – an ex-pickpocket turned theater owner and secret master smuggler for a magical underground crime syndicate/rebellion called The Arcanists.

Colette is a bit of a “control master”. She’s very difficult to kill (if played correctly) and capable of teleporting all around the board, but her main forte is getting the best out of the rest of her crew.

The masters come in boxes with a small thematic crew and as you can see Colette’s crew is mostly made up of ladies and magical/mechanical dolls in pretty dresses. These are all part of her smuggling operation (as well as being performers in her theater), and though they are quite capable of handling themselves, the crew, as it is out of the box, is slightly light on heavy-hitters. Cassandra (the lady in the red dress holding a giant sword) is widely regarded as one of the best units in the game (too bad you can only have one of her), and she can certainly kick ass, but I’ll probably still add a few more “killy” units to the crew at some point, to balance it out a bit.

I’m honestly not entirely sure why I was drawn to this particular crew. Maybe it’s because I always used to play blue/black or blue/red control when I was into Magic the Gathering, and this crew is kinda like that, or maybe it’s simply to get to paint something completely different from my usual dwarves and skaven.

Anyway, onwards to the painting…

I thought I’d begin with one of the “performers” – Colette’s basic minion.

I decided I’d stick fairly closely to the paint-scheme on the box, which led to a surprisingly heated discussion with my wife over whether her skirt is blue or green – it was a veritable blue dress/gold dress situation.

Coming to the conclusion that my wife is obviously color-blind (and what do women know about colors anyway), I ended up painting it blue.

I’m fairly pleased with the end result, though I did make a number of mistakes. For example: Wyrd’s figures are closer to realistic proportions than Citadel’s, which means that their eyes are quite small. Much to my later chagrin, I stuck to my usual procedure of painting the skin first, and then painting in the eyes. This proved to be extremely difficult, and I only achieved an acceptable result after an hour of painstaking work. Next time I’ll do the eyes first and paint the skin in around them, which should be much quicker.

Croaker.

Going off the reservation

I’m not quitting oldhammer – honest! But sometimes you have to go where the games are, and in my case, that place is called Malifaux.

For those of you who aren’t aware of it, Malifaux is a skirmish-level miniatures game set in (and I’m not kidding here – it’s on the publisher’s website) a magical, Victorian, horror, steampunk, gothic, Wild West inspired alternate earth. Whew.

As you might infer from that description, it’s a game of wildly swinging moods and themes.

It is a game where a group (“crew” in the game’s terminology) of Lovecraftian horrors might theoretically face off against a crew made up entirely of pigs. That’s not a metaphor; I’m talking about actual pigs here.

Despite this “everything that was cool in 2010” approach to world-building, the game’s background is remarkably coherent (certainly more so than Age of Sigmar’s), which has a lot to do with the (often) quite excellent stories that make up a large part of the rulebooks. You can listen to them for free on Wyrd Games’ official podcast, The Breachside Broadcast.

To illustrate just how good these stories are (IMO), let me tell you that, though I’ve settled on collecting a single crew (for now), there are at least five more that I want at some point; three of which I only became aware of when I read a really engaging story about them.

Malifaux has a couple of other good qualities (from the perspective of someone who’s got an infant, a wife and a house to take care of in his spare time).

Most importantly, you only need about ten (relatively inexpensive) figures to play, depending on which crew you choose. This means that, even though I only get about half an hour’s worth of painting done each day, I might conceivably finish a crew before Christmas, which is more than I can say for my dwarf army.

Secondly, Malifaux plays in one to two hours, only requires a small table and a bit of scenery and has an active community in my area, so I may actually get to play it once in a while without having to travel to Bring Out Your Lead (not a realistic proposition for me right now). I was always a gamer first and painter second, so this is very positive.

Game-wise Malifaux is very modern, for lack of a better word. It’s build around a familiar core (you take turns activating a model, each of which can take 2-3 actions), but has some interesting twists.

For starters, you don’t roll dice, but instead draw from a deck of playing cards to randomize results. Wyrd sells custom decks, but you could just use a normal poker set.

Each turn you also get a hand of (usually) five cards you can “cheat” in, if you don’t like your draw. As you can keep cards in your hand from turn to turn if you don’t use them, this lets you do some interesting things with probability-optimization and hand-management. For example, do you keep a really low card in hand, so you won’t draw it randomly, or do you discard it to, maybe, draw something better next turn? Does your answer to that question change if you want to do something important at the beginning of your turn? What about an average card, do you keep that? And so on and so forth…

Another feature is that all models have several special abilities – some of which can be combined into powerful effects. As I said above, a model usually has 2-3 actions each turn, but under the right circumstances, you can get as much as seven or eight (or even more, I’m sure). This sounds broken as hell, but when everyone can do stuff like that, it’s just what you have to expect and plan for – and remember that you only have a few units, so you really need to make each one count.

There’s a bunch of other stuff, but if you’re really interested, you can download the rules for free here.

In a way, Malifaux feels a bit like a cross between a miniatures game and Magic the Gathering. Now that may sound appalling to some people, but it speaks to the board-gamer in me, so I like it.

I personally have very little patience with blogs that go veering wildly off-topic for any length of time, so I won’t bother you too much with all this newfangled nonsense, though I’ll probably post some pictures of whatever I paint up, if only to avoid going totally silent for the next couple of months.

Croaker

Let’s read – The second Citadel Compendium

I figured it was about time to return to my “Let’s Read” – this time with the Second Citadel Compendium (the first one that I actually own a physical copy of). Just like last time you can follow along over at Stuff of Legends, here (I'm only including a sample of pages in this post).

As you can see from the front page, this is the-one-with-the-amazons. We are also still firmly in 1^st edition, pre-slotta territory, so a lot of the content is admittedly too old for even die-hard oldhammerers to really care about, unless you really love amazons (and why wouldn’t you?).

There’s nothing really interesting in the “welcome” section (other than noting that Nick Lund’s Chronicle Miniatures was joining Citadel), so we’ll skip ahead to the first real article, the Rigg’s Shrine scenario.

“Scenario” may be stretching the definition by today’s standards. It’s closer to a gazetteer for an RPG with some extra rules for sneaking around and looting thrown in, but then again, 1^st edition Warhammer was an amalgamation of RPG and wargame.

Actual scenario ideas only take up a couple of paragraphs on page eight of the compendium, but before that, I feel we need to return to the drinking game from last time, as the introduction mentions the future Lustria supplement for Warhammer *drink*.

Other than that, I don’t have too much to say about the scenario. Zhu has written about it (and Warhammer’s amazons in general), so if you’re interested, I suggest you head over here.

The following article is in response to at lot of questions Citadel had been receiving (imagine that; interacting with your costumers, how very novel) and explains how figures were made back then.

I’ve never looked into the process before, so I found the article to be very informative, and I imaging that the readers back then felt the same way.

Next up are the results from a competition from the first compendium.

Seems like people really got into the spirit of things, and it’s cool to see the three best entries getting made into miniatures by one other than the Perry twins. Quite a collector’s object I should think!

We then get to the Compendium Selection of figures. Like in the first compendium they are line-drawings and not photos, which is sad, but at least the general quality of the drawings has gone up.

A lot of these figures are really iconic, not least because some of them were used in the popular 2^nd edition scenarios. The selections also include many stables of the Warhammer world, such as Cold Ones, Chaos Hounds, Goblin Fanatics, Chaos Warriors and Beastmen.

And let’s not forget the awesome Amazons:

After the general selection we get the first wave of Regiments of Renown. These are cornerstones of Citadel’s history and should be fairly recognizable to most of the Oldhammer community (Bugman’s Dwarf Rangers, of cause, being well-known even today).

We then have the Specialty Sets, which, like in the first compendium, are shown in photos instead of drawings, and which, once again, underscore just why Citadel preferred drawings at the time – the pictures are, frankly, barely legible.

Tony Ackland’s Arcane Monstrosities fare better (both as drawings and photos), probably because the models are larger.

I would dearly love to get my hands on these, but I’m not really prepared to pay the monstrous price they command (pun intended).

On the next page we have a model I just might shell out the cash for: The Great Spined Dragon. To this day some people will argue that it is the best dragon figure ever produced in this scale, and I’m inclined to agree.

A few pages later we have another very interesting page: an ad for the newly released citadel paints, along with a short note on how to use these new-fangled water-based paints. This includes some advice you certainly won’t find in official GW publications today, such as: “Car body primer is just as good and usually cheaper”.

A few pages later we have a painting article written by none other than Kevin Adams. Like the one in the first compendium it’s supposed to be a guide for beginners, though this one spans several pages and goes into much greater detail.

The article is actually really good (IMO), and it’s quite funny to glimpse into a time when acrylic paints weren’t the automatic choice for miniature painters. The section about painting skin also really made me want to try out some alkyd paints to see how smooth a blend I can achieve with them.

We also get another great quote from a Citadel/GW that cared about other things than selling more and more stuff, when Kev discusses the Citadel paint range and notes that: “If the price of the artists colours makes them an unrealistic proposition, then this range is a good alternative.”

After the painting article we get a primer on assembling metal miniatures. It’s basic but functional.

The following page is a contest, where you have to try to draw a cross between the eyes if an invisible Balrog. Can you find it (I certainly can’t)?

After a few pages of reader art we get to the Eldritch Epistles (i.e. the mailbox), which is always worth a close read.

There’s an interesting discussion on the merits of using D6’s vs. D10 or D100. The answer ends with the (to my knowledge) first account of GW using a 6+ followed by a 4+ roll of get something close to a 10% chance of something – something they would make regular use of in later editions.

Also of interest is a question about how many different Citadel models there actually were – the answer being “we honestly don’t know”. In this age of 3D-printed master sculpts and titanium molds, this might seem odd, but as we’ve learned from reading this compendium, back then the hand-crafted master sculpt would usually be destroyed to make a rubber mold that might then only last a few days.

Further molds could be made by using cast figures, but usually at the cost of reducing detail on the final product. In the end, the benefits of mass-producing a particular sculpt had to be weighed against the desire to make the best product possible, and to Citadel’s honor, they often chose the latter.

It also suggests to me that a collector of early Citadel figures should try to go for the unlisted (and thus not mass-produced to the same degree) ones, as they’d be more likely to be a “first generation” cast, but that’s just conjecture.

Rounding off the compendium are a couple of ads, including a color add for the Citadel paint set.

So that’s the second compendium. Not quite as many groundbreaking articles as the first, but with an absolutely iconic selection of miniatures. 

Next time I’ll take a look at the Citadel Journal from spring 1985.

Croaker

Boom, Headshot!

I finished my Skaven jezzail team yesterday (yay!) and instead of just dropping a picture of the finished models, I thought I’d do a quick step-by-step.

I’m undercoating in grey. It’s a new thing I’m trying, and so far I’m fairly pleased with the results. Nothing controversial here.

Afterwards I wash the models with Army Painter Dark Wash and then apply a very rough drybrush in white to bring out the detail and aid with shading.

I then apply a coat of ink to the fur, wood, leather, warpstone bullets (at least, that’s what I imagine he’s got in the sack) and clothes as a base coat. I’ve tried this with the fur before, and I think it works, but as you can see, the red ink doesn’t cover very well – especially on the raised areas (I’d sort of hoped that the white drybrush would help, but it obviously didn’t).

To salvage things, I gave the red areas a couple of layers of P3 Brown Ink. It worked out fairly well, but in the future I think I’ll just give the red clothes a proper base coat.

I then drybrushed the fur and clothes in lighter tones of brown/red – both to add some further highlighting and to take the shine off the models.

After that, I did some detailing work and gave the skin and wood some extra highlights in different tones of brown to differentiate it from the fur.

Lastly, I painted the metal and leather. Metal gets a base color, followed by an ink wash and a quick highlight, while I paint leather by washing a base layer of light brown with sepia wash (I can’t remember the name right now – It’s an old GW one), then highlighting a couple of times by mixing the base color with more and more ivory, and finally giving it an extra sepia wash.

And here’s the final result. Considering how quickly I did them, I’m fairly pleased. I am, however, becoming painfully aware that red was a bad choice for the clothes, as the entire model ends up looking quite “brownish”.

Oh well… They’ll hopefully look good alongside the rest of my painted Skaven. I’ll have to do a “group photo” at some point.

Croaker

I'm back

Que the music:

That's just to say "I'm not dead - honest"

Has it really been almost a month since i last wrote something here? Wow - time does fly.

Between visiting the family, work and keeping the baby fed and (reasonably) happy, I simply haven't had the energy to do any painting.

But now things are slowly getting back to normal after the summer vacation, so I finally managed to finish the warpfire thrower team. Here they are:

They aren't really my best work. I'm fairly happy with the clothes, but the rest could have turned out better and I really, really need to lock down on a method for painting skaven flesh. As it is, I just splodge various shades of brown and pink on there till I get tired and call it a day.

At least they were fairly quick to do. Undercoating in grey works quite well, though in the future I may have to do a quick drybrush in white before applying other colors to brighten the models up a bit.

Next up are some of my favorite models ever - the jezzail team!

Croaker

Summertime

It’s been another couple of slow weeks. My speed of painting is as glacial as ever (and that may even be doing actual glaciers a disservice, what with all the melting of the poles that’s going on), and to make matters worse, I’m visiting the in-laws on the other side of the country this week.

So instead of showing some actually finished figures, here’s a picture of what I’m currently working on:

As you can see, they have been undercoated grey, which is something I’m trying out. You see, previously I always used to undercoat in black, but lately I’ve had some good experiences painting a couple of skaven that had arrived from eBay pre-undercoated in white. This made me want to try switching to white myself, but my younger brother suggested that I used grey instead, to get the best of both worlds.

Even though my brother is very much biased against undercoating in white (probably a reaction to growing up during GW’s “red period”), he’s also a much better painter than I am, so I figured I’d give it a shot.

So far it seems to be working well. I gave the fur a layer of brown ink and a two-step drybrush to highlight it. Looks (IMO).

The rest got a layer of Army Painter “dark ink” to bring out the detail (I could probably have skipped this step, but I wanted to see what I was doing), and that’s as much as I’ve had time to do.

I’ll post pictures when they are done, but if the rest is as quick to do as the fur, I’ll be very pleased.

Croaker