Back in the mid 90’s when I was first getting into Warhammer and wargaming in a big way there used to be an article called ‘A Tale of Wargamers’ in the White Dwarf. The premise was simple, each person had a budget of £25 and spent that each month on expanding their army.
I thought it would be great to try and do this again in the current day and age. But also, we’re making it even harder for ourselves! What if we approached this as though we had never bought any models, paints or brushes before?! As in, what should a complete beginner look at purchasing and where from?!
So, if you’re a beginner to Warhammer or in fact any wargaming system (not just Games Workshop), then you may find this series interesting and useful. For those a bit more long in the tooth, you may just find this plain entertaining!
The Rules
As there are a few members of the team taking part in the Tale of Wargamers from all corners of the globe we first had to agree the limits.
UK based members have £25 GBP
US based members have $35 USD
Australian based members have $65 AUD
Rest of Europe have €30
You can use independent retailers, Amazon (I wouldn’t, but you could….) or Games Workshop for your supplies of tools, paints and models. Preferably eBay should be avoided as prices can be difficult to replicate.
Anything that isn’t spent in one month can be carried over to the next. You CANNOT spend more than the budget allows.
Finally, purchasing 3D miniature prints from a vendor on Etsy or similar is fine, however, we are banned from using our own printers for his purpose.
Warhammer Fantasy and Oldhammer Players
If you’ve already got a large collection of miniatures but want to take part, then use the budget as normal and consider each set of 10 models/artillery or similar to cost £25 and a hero/character to cost £15. Then purchase the paints etc as normal. I.e. you have a set of 10 Trollslayers in your pile of shame. Deduct £25 from your budget and paint them up.
I’m not going to lie, we think it’s going to be tough, but it is doable! And don’t worry, none of us will be resorting to using PVA glue to stick our models together!
Want to keep up to date on everyone’s progress? Why not join our Discord, on there you’ll fine the Tale of Wargamers channel where we post our thoughts and musings throughout the month.
Combined arms is Warlord Games’ first board game but more importantly for the Bolt Action, Blood Red Skies and Cruel Seas players amongst you, it’s their first campaign supplement as well.
What does that mean? Well you’re able to play Combined Arms as a stand alone game using the pieces in the box to conquer Europe etc. Or you can link games of Blood Red Skies, Bolt action or Cruel Seas together for one large campaign.
Credit Warlord Games
The boxed set is priced at a very reasonable £50 and includes maps, cards and all the tokens you need to wage a complete campaign.
Bolt Action – Combined Arms is a strategic board game that commands the players to face off, seize the initiative and outwit their foe amidst the fog of war. Each game will see you fighting for control of air, land, and sea in order to claim objectives and hold them against the enemy.
Choose your theatre of war, from the western and eastern fronts to North Africa and the Pacific. Each theatre has its own challenges and opportunities, some rewarding control over the sea, some rewarding control over the skies. How many of your precious resources will you sink into each, and how much will be left to control the land? Will you rely on stealth as you move units secretly, springing up where you are least suspected, or will you attempt to overwhelm your enemy with brutal overkill?
Combined Arms can be played as a stand-alone game or players can incorporate Bolt Action, Blood Red Skies, Cruel Seas, or Victory at Sea for an epic continent-spanning campaign. Unique cards link your campaign with your chosen wargames, meaning your choices in the campaign could mean victory or defeat on the tabletop.
Combined Arms is available for Pre-order and will be shipped to customers in May.
It has been given a rating of 7.8 on BoardGameGeek from 550+ ratings.
Written by veteran game designers Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestley, Bolt Action provides all the rules needed to bring the great battles of World War II to your tabletop. Using miniature soldiers, tanks and terrain, you can fight battles in the shattered towns of occupied France, the barren deserts of North Africa, and even the sweltering jungles of the Pacific.
Players get to decide which of the major or minor World War II powers they would like to represent, and then construct their armies from the lists provided. Army options are almost limitless, allowing you to build the kind of army that most appeals to your style of play. The choice is yours.
The original… now changed slightly in Warmaster Revolution
On Point HQ has produced a series of excellent videos explaining Bolt Action. I recommend checking our his other videos as well!
1. Building a Bolt Action Army
2. Unit Quality and Issuing Orders
3. Combat
4. Pinning and Morale Tests
5. HQ Units and Snap to Action
6. Transports and Tanks
7. Ambush
8. Troop and Vehicle Movement
9. Medics and Snipers
10. How HE Shots Work
11. Artillery Movement and Orders
12. The Turn Sequence
If you’re interested in getting into Bolt Action, I can’t suggest you start anywhere else but these excellent collection of videos.
It’s been a little while since I last posted to the A Life in Wargames series, for which I can only apologise. These articles take a lot more effort than the others I write and unfortunately I’ve simply not had the time for the research recently.
John Stallard, from the wonderful city of Cardiff in Wales is a Games Designer who for 27 years worked with Games Workshop. In 2007 her left and set up Warlord Games along with Paul Sawyer (who some of you may remember from White Dwarf).
John lived in Cardiff until he was four years old, at which point his family moved to Scotland where his father was working for BP, eventually at the age of ten John and his family moved to Worcester.
His cousin introduce him to military models and toy soldiers after his cousin thought he was much to grown up for such things handed John his collection. John set about expanding his collection by making weekly purchases of Airfix kits with his pocket money.
The first set of rules that John played was the Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming written by Bruce Quarrie (1974), which he then followed up with Skytrex’s Middle Earth Wargames Rules (1976).
Airfix Guide to Napoleonic Wargaming (1974)
After university John moved to Nottingham a move which was prompted by reading a job advert in White Dwarf. After a successful interview John joined Bryan Ansell‘s Citadel Miniatures team, initially working in the Mail Order team reporting to Rick Priestley.
John learnt about customer service from Bryan Ansell and his wife Diane. Games Workshop was very forward thinking at the time where orders would be sent as soon as an order form was received, meaning the customer often had their orders within the week rather than the 28 days advertised.
After a year John left the Mail Order team to retake his exams, which he failed. He put this failure down to playing Warhammer all the time. John then worked in a freezer warehouse during the summer where in a forklift truck accident he lost most of the toes on his left foot. He then attended the Wargames show in Manchester on crutches and saw Rick Priestley behind the Games Workshop Mail Order stand. Rick Priestley asked if he wanted his job back and he returned to Citadel Miniatures.
John progressed from Mail Order to Trade Sales, followed later by becoming Sales Manager and later became Head of Sales and then Sales Director. He stayed with Games Workshop until 2007 when he set Warlord Games.
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Warlord Games came into being because I had always wanted to do historical military models. I’ve been fascinated with them since I was six. I kept on saying to two consecutive bosses at Games Workshop that the company should start to do historical models. I remember Tom Kirby, a man I admire very much, saying to me, “John, I’ve done a study and if you add all the historical gaming companies together it comes to £2m, there’s just not enough money in it.” Being older and wiser than me, he’d actually done the research. I said, “But Tom, that’s because it hasn’t really been done before. What was the market for Goblins with spears fifteen years ago? Bugger all! Citadel and Games Workshop made the marketplace by making great models and banging the drum and producing wargames rules.”
– John Stallard
John teamed up with Paul Sawyer (White Dwarf Editor in yesteryear) who’d also been made redundant by Games Workshop, they contacted Renedra Ltd, the plastic manufacturing company who has previously been Games Workshop‘s plastic manufacturing arm. They also bought on board Bob Naismith to make their figures.
Warlord’s upcoming British Starter Set for Black Powder: Epic Battles
It takes around four months for the complete manufacture of a set of plastic models. During the period after the final designs were made for their Warlord Games plastic models (Romans), John found out that the Perry twins also had an upcoming plastic release. They were still working for Games Workshop at the time but they had set up Perry Miniatures in the background (which was allowed within their contract). They were going to release some plastic American Civil War figures which would be made as either Confederate or Union troops. There release would be the first ever 28mm plastic historical wargame figures, beating Warlord Games by only two or three weeks.
John Stallard’s work:
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
This is just a reminder that we have a painting competition taking place where the winner gets their choice of a Start Collecting or Combat Patrol box. We wouldn’t be able to give away this fantastic prize without the support of our good friends at SCN Hobby World. Why not join their emailing list and receive 25% off Games Workshop products whenever you place an order with them?
To enter you’ll need to paint a miniature with a base size no larger than 50mm and send it’s picture to thewoehammer@gmail.com. you’ll also need to send a small fee of £1 to the same address via PayPal. Your miniature doesn’t even have to be a Games Workshop model, it can be from any range you like.
One of your pictures must include a picture of your email address on a handwritten note. This should prevent people using internet photos for their submissions.
The closing date of the competition is 30th November where submissions will be placed into groupings of four and placed on the Woehammer Twitter account for a poll. The winner of these polls continue into the next round and so on until only one submission remains.
There you have it, get painting! If you want to find out more then either please leave a comment below, on my twitter profile or as an email to thewoehammer@gmail.com.
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
Rick Priestley grew up in Lincoln and dtart d writing wargames as a teenager with his friend Richard Halliwell. In 1979 the pair wrote their first game Reaper while still in school. Tabletop Games (a small games publishing company with no sales output) printed their rules and they contacted Brian Ansell who worked for Asgard Miniatures at the time before his move to Citadel Miniatures. Brian Ansell put them in contact with Nottingham Toy Soldier Shop who agreed to sell the Reaper rules.
Halliwell & Preistley’s first game
With one rulebook for sale, Halliwell and Priestley collaborated on a second effort, a science fiction miniatures wargame titled Combat 3000, also published by Tabletop, that used 15mm/25mm “space marine” miniatures from Asgard. Around this time Brian Ansell left Asgard Miniatures, and with backing from Games Workshop set up Citadel Miniatures.
Priestley joined Games Workshop in 1982 as part of their subsidiary company Citadel Miniatures. At that time Citadel produced the miniatures for use in Dungeons and Dragons. Brian Ansell the manager of Citadel asked Richard Halliwell to develop Games Workshops’ first in-house game, Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Rick Priestley and Tony Ackland developed the product. Warhammer Fantasy contained many of the core mechanics or Priestley and Halliwell’s earlier game Reaper. Warhammer Fantasy was released in 1983 and was a huge success.
It allowed them a vehicle through which they could sell their own Citadel Miniatures. Earlier miniature wargames were designed to be played using generic models that could be bought from any manufacturer, but Warhammer Fantasy’s setting featured original characters with distinctive visual designs, and their models were produced exclusively by Games Workshop. This paved the way for Games Workshop to become the company it is today – all thanks to the three men who developed that first game.
Since before his time at Games Workshop Priestley had been working on a set of rules of Spaceship Combat called Rogue Trader which mixed Science fiction and fantasy elements. Priestley incorporated many aspects of this setting such as the lore and space travel into Warhammer 40,000 and dropped the ship combat element due to not having enough room in the book.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
Games Workshop planned to sell conversion kits for their fantasy line to make them useable in Rogue Trader but eventually decided to instead dedicate an entire production line to the game and in 1987 Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader was born.
During his years with Games Workshop he was involved in the design of virtually all of their top games such as Necromunda, Mordheim, Warmaster, Lord of the Rings, Gorkamorka, Mighty Empires and Warhammer Ancient Battles (affectionately known as WAB by those in Historical gaming circles).
Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB)
Rick Priestley left Games Workshop in 2009 stating that the corporate culture had grown too focused on sales and no longer cared about innovation in Games Design. He expanded on his view of Games Workshop in an article with Bell of Lost Souls in March 2015. In that, his thoughts on where Games Workshop was heading, was as a manufacturer of collectible miniatures and not games design.
After Games Workshop, Priestley co-founded Warlord Games which after Games Workshop is arguably the next biggest games and miniature manufacturer in Europe.
With Warlord Games, Rick Priestley has continued to develop fantastic wargame rulesets and being no longer held back by Games Workshop, these have included historical as well as Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The biggest games at Warlord such as Bolt Action, Black Powder, Gates of Antares, Hail Caesar, Pike and Shotte and Warlords or Erehwon have all been designed with Priestley’s input.
Bolt Action
In 2011 Rick Priestley was elected to the committee of the Society of Ancients. The Society of Ancients is a non-profit organisation that intends to promote interest in Ancient and Medieval history and wargaming.
This man is a true legend of Wargaming, is the father of Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 and has done a lot that Games Workshop fans and historical wargaming fans have to thank him for.
I have tried to give a flavour of the 115+ rules and add-on’s he’s developed below. But as with Jervis’ article, this really does not even scrape the surface as to the lore and depth of his many games. Rick, thank you! I can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
This weekend Games Workshop releases their latest Warhammer Underworlds boxed set Harrow Deep.
This week’s GW releases
Warlord are releasing a massive amount of kits for Blood Red Skies, Hail Caesar and Black Powder.
Mordiphius have a number of new releases for their fall out miniatures game.
Reaper Miniatures have a massive amount of sets being released this month.
Solo Wargaming for your Favourite Games
I’m in the process of creating a series of Wargaming Aids which allow players to play their favourite games in a single player format against an AI controlled enemy army. To find out more on this click here.
For as little as £1 a month (the price of a chocolate bar) you can help support me in this endeavour and receive cool perks as a thank you, such as access to our Discord Server as well as downloadable copies of the gaming aids which you can print out and use at home.
Why not pop over to Patreon and sign up and help me in this project? Money raised will go towards making these as physical products.
I’ve been toying with the idea for a while now on creating a solo wargaming experience for wargames, but primarily at this point focused on Age of Sigmar.
The idea behind the system is relatively simple, with a deck of cards for each battle tactic. The battle tactics will be decided some simple mechanics at the start of the turn, and depending on which is chosen that deck of cards would be used.
Each faction would be classed as either Aggressive, Neutral or Cautious. For example an army such as Orruk Warclans would be Aggressive, Cities of Sigmar Neutral and Kharadron Overlords would be Cautious. This categories would have purpose when units are interacting with objectives on the battlefield.
When an AI unit is near an objective, you would roll a D6 and refer to their aggression level:
Aggressive
4+
Neutral
5+
Cautious
6+
If the score is equal to or higher than these scores then the AI unit will draw a card from the deck and carry out its instructions.
These would be on regular playing card size cards and a card would be drawn for each AI unit on the battlefield.
Below is an example card from the Broken Ranks deck that I’ve created for Age of Sigmar.
Based on the units keywords you would choose the relevant box for its instructions. For example Orruk Brutes may be classed as Melee, while Archeon could be classed as a Monster or as a Hero, however as the Monster box is above the Hero box on this card the Monster box takes priority.
I am developing these not only for AoS but for other major game systems as well. It’s early days by I’m hoping to have the first full deck ready to download from my Patreon page in the next couple of months.
If you’re interested in joining and supporting me on Patreon then please follow this link. You can become a supporter for as little as £1 per month.
The Woeful Brush Painting Competition Sponsored by SCN Hobby World
Closing date for entries 30th November. £1 entry, win your choice of a Start Collecting or Combat Patrol box set!
This weekend sees the Black Templar army set go up for pre-order. Games Workshop are also releasing two old Blood Bowl teams from the 90’s as made to order for a limited time period.
This week’s GW releases
Warlord are releasing a supplement for Bolt Action – Italy: Soft Underbelly. To go with this they are also releasing a shed load of miniature sets for World War 2 Italian armies.
Warlord are also releasing Project Z this month, which is their Zombie Apocalypse survival game.
A number of new releases this month for Mantic for Deadzone, Kings of War and Armada.
The Woeful Brush Painting Competition Sponsored by SCN Hobby World
Closing date for entries 30th November. £1 entry, win your choice of a Start Collecting or Combat Patrol box set!
Woehammer has been affiliated with SCN Hobby World for some time now and all the members of the team purchase their plastic crack supplies through SCN rather than others such as Element Games, Goblin Gaming or Wayland Games.
Why?
Because if you sign up to the mailing list of SCN Hobby World you can benefit up to 25% off the recommended retail price of Games Workshop products. What’s more is that you’ll also benefit from 10% off on web only products.
SCN Hobby World also stock a variety of other manufacturers and game systems as well. From Warlord Games to Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering.
Why don’t you check out there website today SCN Hobby World.
To join the mailing list email scnhobbyworld@outlook.com.
The Woeful Brush Painting Competition Sponsored by SCN Hobby World
Closing date for entries 30th November. £1 entry, win your choice of a Start Collecting or Combat Patrol box set!
