Observations of the Fox

So, I've probably mentioned already that there are issues that have prevented me from continuing my high school tabletop roleplaying club. As far as I'm aware, there are investigations still ongoing, and I'm not allowed to publicly disclose what's happening. However, I'm also aware that there are a few regular readers of the blog who know exactly what's going on. I've got a half dozen students who ask me on at least a weekly basis to give them updates on the situation, and I know that as soon as the club is ready to go again, it will resume with a bang.   In the meantime, I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.   I reached out to the Warhammer Alliance , to get the tools ready to start a new club, or at least expand the potential within the club once it resumes activities. The starter kit had to be sent to a school address, so I was thankful that the front office staff notified me immediately on it's arrival yesterday. This evening I unboxed it. ...

Just when I thought Games Workshop was irredeemable, the last few years have shown some really interesting products released by them. Female figures for various factions, new rumours of plastic Sisters of Battle, Age of Sigmar skirmish rules, a revised Necromunda, and now Warhammer 40k Kill Team . It's almost like they want to get new people into the hobby, and get people who left them to return. A lot of these ideas seem designed around the idea that not all players want massive armies with 100 figures a side playing battles that take hours to resolve. It goes against the ethos that they've been pushing for years, where the aim has been to push players to buy as many figures, codexs and terrain pieces as possible... an ethos that has driven away most of the players I know who have been struggling to justify expenses on hobby goods when rental and utility prices have been increasing far faster than their wages, and surviving is more important than play diversions. This idea o...

I've been thinking about ways to integrate the two games, " Familiar " and " The Law ", perhaps even connecting the mutant animal game " Other Strangeness " and the unnamed Angel game. It shouldn't be hard. Most have been based in a setting that's a huge, overwhelming, dystopian sprawl... similarly, they've all been based on very similar game mechanisms which have reflected an evolving core system which began as " System 4 ". It's been the specific interconnectedness of these elements that's given me trouble. Until today, when this article about a library scanning in magical texts came across my radar. It made me think of the Librarians in Warhammer 40k, and how they might be written if the game started today. Mystics with books filled with arcane methods of harnessing the mystic energies of the warp... basically the Imperial sorcerors from Warhammer (but that's not surprising given that everything in Warhamme...

I usually don't worry about new versions of Warhammer 40k, but posts like this and this , along with rumours of a new skirmish level game in the vein of Necromunda are drawing my interest. A lot of these modifications seem to be streamlining the game, and make a logical sense to me.. but I've been out of the loop for so many iterations of the game that I'm really not sure 🤔 whether things are being improved or not in this version of the rules. Still, it's got my attention, and I'll be keeping an eye on the further blog posts as they reveal more.

I was reading through this article about early 40k , it's a really interesting read and intersects a few ideas I've had over the last few months. A few points... I generally agree with the idea that GW has never given a good reason why they got rid of Squats as a faction, but I suspect it was easier to rebrand the "Space Elves" as Eldar (and now "Aeldari" to conceal that origin even further), while the "Space Dwarves" would be too hard to dissociate from their Dwarven heritage. I miss the bad puns in GW character names. I miss a lot of that old 80s attitude, but I've moaned about that here on the blog a few times. There have been so many missed opportunities by Games Workshop in the desire to simply sell more minis...again something I've moaned about a few times. I really miss that early idea of a techno-fantasy battleground. I'd totally love to do a mixed 40k/Fantasy battle. It's a shame the games keep diverging furth...

They say things are worth what people are willing to pay for them. Sometimes I wonder about that. I've got stuff that has a big sentimental attachment for me. A massive miniatures collection that I've spent thousands of dollars on over the course of two decades, including a few painted pieces that have won awards at various conventions and tournaments over the years. But at least half of the figures are for games that are no longer in print. When times have been tough, I've been told by a few people that I should just sell them, but I haven't because In specific cases I remember painting each one (or, for the rest, at least vaguely remember painting each batch). For me the hobby is about the play, and the painting, and the imagination. The collectability of the metal (or resin or plastic) is just an aside. I could probably sell the figures for a few hundred dollars in batches (sold by game, sold by faction), I'd still have quite a few odd pieces left over. I s...

Yes, it's a bit of a "click-baity" title, but it's something I've been thinking about lately, and this whole " White Male Gamers as Terrorists " thing has fed into that (The article and the issues around it have been addressed by Wyrd ). The problem is that I've seen a lot of people point the blame at Wyrd, but have seen far worse offences and atrocities commited by Games Workshop. I'm not saying that the volunteer representatives  of Wyrd (or employees, depending on whom you ask) get a free pass because Games Workshop does it worse. As a graduate of Social and Cultural analysis with a minor in sociolingustics, I know that communications can be important, and that messagess can vary depending on the context of the speaker, and the implied context of the listener. I've tried to make a neutral comment regarding the experiences of my wife and I in regard to similar issues, and people latch onto the neutrally-intended "female" which I...

Wow. Who'd have thought resharing a simple article about gender issues in Games Workshop products would generate so much discussion. Here's where I did it. There is so much that could be expanded in this discussion, so many issues bottled up inside, so much confusion. If you want to discuss it here, or have a metadiscussion and the core discussion here, please do. Otherwise feel free to delve into the original post and it's comments. I might come back to this topic later, it seems to link in with some useful stuff I've been studying at University.

Last night, my wife Leah said..."I'm bored, let's play Mordheim tomorrow". So today we did. We dug up the old rulebook, the town criers, the annual ( can you really call it an annual if there was only ever one of them? ), and our assorted print outs that have sat in untouched folders ever since we moved house over two years ago. We've played other miniature games in the meantime, not many, but a few. But Mordheim was the game that hooked Leah into the hobby of lead figures (she still hates plastics with a passion, I dislike them too and we've been put off several games that use plastic figures). Mordheim is a fun game and its design concepts have played a major influence in several of my designs, but it has it's problems. The mechanisms of the game are heavily derived from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Combat consists of many interconnected rolls...first a roll to hit, then a roll to injure, then a possible roll to save versus that injury, and then ...

I wish I'd seen this at the beginning of the month when it was first released. I know so many people who'd want to buy a copy. Have a look at the official page ...(Yes, I do know the significance of the day when it was released).