During the past few months, my work was a lot more demanding, which meant that I had a lot less time for hobby activities (or I was simply too tired). What little spare time I had, I used mostly for reading some books and slowly painting my Lord of Change (and I'll cover that in another blog post).
However, during this period a new edition of Age of Sigmar was also launched. I did not expect a new edition of the rules at least for a year (or even more), so I was a little surprised when it was announced. So, I read the core rules as well as the army updates and I realized that I have a lot of mixed feelings about the new edition.
Now, I enjoyed playing Age of Sigmar since 1st edition (as well as my friends). However, I think that there were certain parts of the game (like line of sight and targeting rules, for example) that left a lot of room for improvement. But, when I read the rules for the 3rd edition I realized that the game went in a strange direction: more complexity was added to the game but in the areas that were either completely new, or that were working fine; there were several aspects of the game that could be improved that were left intact. I always had the feeling that Age of Sigmar could benefit from more complex core rules - especially when it came to terrain and line of sight (there were some other things as well, but I feel like these two are the most important ones). Instead, the core rules maintained low level of complexity over the years, while model and army rules became more complex. Now, with the latest edition, core rules did become a lot more complex (which I think is good) - but the same problem areas still remained. I'm not saying that heroic actions, monster rampages, new command abilities or new ways of scoring victory points are bad changes - not at all! I think they are all very interesting changes and I can't wait to play my first game of the new edition. All I'm trying to say is that it was not the kind of complexity that I wanted to see the most - and that is is probably the biggest "flaw" of the newest edition (at least in my opinion). For example, I think that 9th edition of Warhammer 40K did a pretty good job with rules changes and I expected to see some of those changes transported to Age of Sigmar.
In the same time, during the last few months I started to think about playing Warhammer Fantasy Battles again. I'm excited about The Old World, but I also feel a bit nostalgic about the old WHFB editions, especially the 6th edition. I played old WHFB for a short time: I started playing Warmachine early during the MK1 and that was my primary game for many years. Later, I switched to playing Age of Sigmar, but I was always looking back at WHFB. Part of the reason was that I played WHFRP and I loved the setting, but I also missed certain elements of the game. Not only that - I missed the spirit of the game. Age of Sigmar is wondrously diversified and the minis are great, but the setting still lacks identity as strong as the one that the Old World or Warhammer 40K have (or even Warmachine/Hordes, for that matter). All these feelings, combined with the fact that due to pandemic and lack of free time I didn't play a lot of games, together with what I wrote above regarding the new edition of AoS, resulted in a decision to finally bite the bullet and start "Oldhammer" (or would it be "Middlehammer"?) project. One of my friends liked the idea as well - even better! This way, I could still enjoy Age of Sigmar, but in the same time I could "scratch that itch" when it comes to playing a different type of game.
And so, a few days ago a package arrived on my doorstep - the rulebook for Warhammer Fantasy 6th edition. I managed to find a copy in a perfect condition in one of the Facebook groups for selling and trading Warhammer stuff (and the price was great as well). Here are some pictures:
Right now, I am working on a short narrative campaign, that involves Hordes of Chaos and the Empire. I will play Tzeentch Chaos army - however, I will be mostly using new models and I won't rebase them. I know that this can lead to some issues, but my friend is fine with this, because nobody wants to have his minis ripped from the existing bases and glued to the old, square ones - especially if they are painted.
So, in the following weeks/months I will cover the whole campaign and my Tzeentch force in the series of posts.
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