In your article...
Submitted by Drew on Mon, 27/11/2006 - 15:16.
Hey Greg, in your latest article, is that 'first tournament' in the city that you refer to the one that I was at? Upstairs, above GWs original location in the city?
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Yep
Hehe. Yeah, that's be the one. I forget that some of you guys were there for that...
drews orcish army in that
drews orcish army in that first tornament was very amsuing, luky he saved me from having to fill in for him in one game by arriving earlyer than expected on the sunday. I do think battle reports are the way to go, having been involved in two games that had picktures taken specificly for a later report. (only one made it onto the web, the other a 4.5k lizardmen vs Empire bash did not.) which is a shame as it demonstrated a good lot of steam tank bashing. More would be fun! the requirement of painted armys is some what restrictive and a non painted army dosent seem worth it. A random snario prehaps, a 3k battle for skull pass? A huge multi person good vs evil bash i can think of many that i would get excited about playing.Â
If we may use this as a discussion of all the articles
re: unreasoning hatred (of the tank)
Fair enough I guess. The tank is deliciously overpowered, but I guess I just field it because well, it's cool! It's a steam-powered -tank- after all!
Personally I don't like playing against dragons; they're often immune to cannonballs, and I have no real way of keeping up with them. Still, dragons are integral to fantasy of any sort and it'd be a shame to not see them on the field. And yes, I'm sure those that use them really think they're cool too.
I field the tank occasionally because I like the model(s) I have put together, the background behind each tank's creation and history, and how it prevents the empire being a fairly mundane early-renaissance army. I am almost looking forward to it being "fixed" in the new book, I do hope it removes the stigma of fielding one.
Maybe it ties in with your article about tournaments. If there wasn't the problem of being forced to chase a tank around, or the "standardness" of armies, would you hate it so much? I know I probably wouldn't hate fighting dragons if that was the case.
I don't know, small thoughts, long reply. In any case, focus your hate on the new robo-horse in the new book. That thing -is- wrong.
In the Steam Tank bashing,
In the Steam Tank bashing, you state "the only reason not everyone uses one seems to be that not everyone owns one"
Well i definitely own one and have only used it a couple of times. A guy played a tourney with one and came second last, thus they arn't the be all and end all. You don't need one to win games and are a liabilty against a variety of armies. (wood elves anyone) In these cases you have spent anywhere from 250 to 400 points on something that will be next to useless.
 I agree that they do use as stupid set of rules, but then you have chaos lords on dragons that destrtoy anything they touch within the normal rules.
Just my 2 cents, hope it's not too off topic
Stupid steam tanks (grumble grumble)...
John, you get bonus points for having a steam tank and not using it. The fact that you agree that it uses stupid rules probably affects your decision not to do so. I don't think everyone feels the same way...
I am probably prone to a little exaggeration in the article. I don't like Steam Tanks purely because they use such stupid rules - not because they're necessarily super-effective. That, and the fact that I always fight one every time I meet an Empire army in a tournament. The two things combine to make it really rather annoying.
Losing in a tournament with a steam tank could be due to a number of things, including what was in the rest of the army, or the player using it. Nothing in the game will save you if you're a truly terrible player. Not even a steam tank. It might help, though.
I agree about that mechanical Necron horse, Dene. It's silly. So is the grenade launcher(?) held by the outrider champion. What were they thinking???
As for dragons, I am aware that they're powerful, particularly in a Chaos army (where the rider tends to be as dangerous as the beastie). But they do follow all the normal rules, and can generally be dealt with, or at least prevented from paying for themselves. Still, there is a reason I don't field a dragon every time I play High Elves, and it's mainly to do with how I know my opponents feel about them...
irate rantings
so i think what greg was getting at in his article, was that eveyrone hates something to do with the game.. and usually its an irational hatred, he was using steam tanks as an obvious example..cause theyre so broken.. haha.. but things like ratling guns ( before the new rules) drove ALOT of people barmy... but when you thought about it.. often they wernt thaaattt great.. of course.. they then roll 18 st 5(?) hits.. Â
 basically greg was getting people to think about their irrational hatred of certain things in the game, often the reasoning IS flawed, but isnt that half the fun of having an irrational hatred of something?
Personally, I hate playing
Personally, I hate playing against anyone who takes the game to seriously - in my book, that roughly comes down to 'seriously at all':)
Anyone who looks at my Gobbos chicken rider and says 'riiiight' or 'why is that Goblin riding a chicken?' is instantly a target of hatred! Fortunatly, this just means I get to re-roll to hit them in the first turn of combat, so it's not all bad.Â
The other thing I hate is people coming up to the table when I'm getting thrashed (which is often) and saying 'I wonder who will win' or words to that effect. Isn't it obvious? I have a Goblin on a pogo stick and two snotlings, he's got four steam tanks, twenty five inner circle knights and a Giant Panda dammit!
(Carefull readers will note the above army is impossible. The empire can only get normal sized pandas under the new book.)Â
Re: Just Shoot Me
I couldn't agree more about the movies. I too get annoyed at the crappy tactics of armies with archers (especially in LOTR). Why they don't continue to shoot until the enemy is at their ranks is beyond me. Apart from LOTR, I could produce a lengthly list of movies that feature the same suicidal armies. Someone should sit down and give their generals a good talking to.
It's good to know that someone feels the same :)
movie archers
gah.. dont get me started.. actually ..too late! 300 defenders at helms deep plus 100 elven archers? or was it more? either way thats at least 400 shots say every 10 seconds ( to be very slow, i saw a show where they had 10 ppl with longbows fire into a designated 20 by 20meter square for a minute and they landed 110 or so arrows on the area.. ) so say these 400 ppl fired off 6 arrows a minute each thats 2400 arrows a minute falling on those uruk hai.. rather than the 1 volley they DID fire.. gahhhh... makes me angry
 theres alot of historical battles such as cullodden ( forgive my spelling) and more famously agencor where longbowmen won the day agaisnt a vastly superior army in both number and calliber of soldier WITHOUT the benefit of a castle
 basically it doesnt make a good movie to have the decisive battle decided by a hail of arrows, even if its what we all want to see.
Not sure about Culloden (I
Not sure about Culloden (I think it might be Culhoden, but the famous english vicotry over the French Knights is spelt Agincourt. It's not important, i'm just being pedantic. Plus you learn stuff this way!
Tanks for all the fish
Muhahaha! The news is that steam tanks are just a rare choice, meaning that I will be fielding two in a 2000 point game :D :D :D
 They're still a bit shitter though. But overall the new empire book sounds freaking shweet.
But rumor also has it they
But rumor also has it they can't leave combat anymore! Yay, now everybody's happy. :)
I hate playing games too.. Not really
Hehe- you should a subject owen- yours looked like you were suggesting you hated playing games...
Agincourt was won by a bunch of longbowmen against a force consisting mainly of dismounted knights, but it wasn't because they shot the knights up. THe field of battle was mudded up good. As the knights wore non-porus iron boots to battle, they had a mighty hard time walking (liek when you were a kid and your mum gave you gumboots to for playing in the mud- you just got stuck). On the other hand, the longbowmen wore mainly tattered rags (ok, that's probably more a description of bret longbowmen, but you get the point) and as such didnt' get stuck in the mud. This made is easy to stick knife blades underthe knights helmets or between plates etc... Thus the poms won, and the froggies all got slaughtered.
Gee, that was long and pointless. But yes helms deep in the LoTR film was frustrating.
"Fire!"Â (one volley is shot off)
"Sir, the arrows, they only slew a few orcs. Perhaps another?"
"What? Dont' be rediculous. Climb down there men an engage them!"
yeh brew your right about
yeh brew your right about theknights gettin stuck in the mud.. but the reason they were dismounted was because the archers had shot the horses out from under them... a longbow coudlnt actually penetrate french plate armour.. they did heaps of tests .. but it sure could penetrate a horse.. the horses all got shot the knights are basically trampled... smotherd in the mud cause htey cant get up.. or elsestuck and the longbow men ran up and basicalyl stuck knives in the gaps of their armour... so my point still stands... shoot and keep shooting
Yes, a sound tactic.
Agreed, the point has still been made that continuing to shoot is a very solid tactic in anyone's book, except for the film versions of the helms deep defenders. Maybe the whole saga would have ended up differently had they kept shooting...
At least tolkien made the loss beleivable.Â