My return to Warhammer

Hello, ladies and gents/Ogres!

Weeell. I took a break from my busy highschool lifestyle the other day to pay a visit to my local newsagents when what did I see but the latest edition of White Dwarf. Given I had a few spare dollars, I decided to purchase it purely because of how cool the artwork on the cover was (a Gondorian soldier - why they're still spending money on LotR I have no idea), not expecting to be, once again, drawn into the world of Warhammer.

But, oh, I was. That weekend I pulled out all my old WDs and read through my Ogre Kingdoms army book again, and the idea to get back into the game slowly grew on me. My main argument is this - I'm supposed to be saving for a trip to America. My argument against this is I can save the right amount of money - I'm aiming to have $1000AU spending money for April and earning around $300 a month right now. At the end of this month I'll have no extracurricular activities to attend to and so will have more time that I can work, and thus earn more money.

The important thing to me is that I can still keep my social life alive and play this game - which I failed at a few years ago. I've since discovered the joys of girlfriends and nights out, and don't really want to sacrifice them for my geeky obsession 

So here I am - ready to embark on a perilous journey back into the word of Warhammer.

I'm going to chart my, er, return to the game. This isn't going to be a conventional Gnoblog I don't think - there'll be a bit of everything thrown in for the hell of it, and hopefully it'll prove to be interesting. If not, too bad, I'll keep going anyway

It looks like I'm going to be taking command of my Chaos army yet again, although with a new theme, new models and a new general. I also acquired the Beasts of Chaos army book through a trade right before I gave this lovely game up - does anyone smell a Shaggoth?

SM

PS. Wow, I do go on a bit

Spent a good 40 minutes going through all my old Warhammer boxes, which meant much rearranging of the junk in my cupboards. I remembered as I was looking through my stuff that I'd long since traded off both my Chaos Knights - 10 of them - and my Chariot, the two units I'd spent the most amount of time on. Sad.

On the plus side, I still have (with varying degrees of godawful, thick paintjobs) -

2 units of the new Chaos Warriors, one with additional hand weapons and the other with shields
16 Marauders with great weapons
2 units of 6 "Warhounds" - actually old school Boars and Wolves
16 5th Ed Beastmen - somehow, I think they're going to become Bloodletters. Just a sneaking suspicion...
6 "Chaos Ogres" - they were going to be the beginning of my Ogre Kingdoms army. Luckily they have red pants (for Khorne) and grey skin, so they can still fit in with Chaos.
1 Chaos Spawn minus the base. I never even finished building this - I'd just put the body on top of a base and use it.
1 6th Ed O&G Troll - I was going to buy a whole unit of them and never got around to it. But with him and the Skull Pass troll, I could have a unit in no time.
1 Dragon Ogre - I was going to convert him. Never did.

I have enough characters to last me a lifetime -
Archaon
Lord of Slaanesh on Daemonic Steed
Champion of Slaanesh on foot
Lord of Tzeentch on Disc
Champion of Khorne on foot
Sorcerer on foot
Luthor Huss - who I might paint Chaosy to be my general, I love the model

- but I'll probably buy new characters as I'm entirely unsatisfied with everything I've painted thus far.

Things on my "To Buy" list (which will be ever growing, rather than getting shorter) -

a Beastherd
Bloodletter Command
a Chaos Chariot.

There are also many other things I want in the future. The great thing about the Chaos army is that you can use pretty much any unit you so choose from any army, paint it up Chaosy, stick a Chaos symbol on their banner, and say they turned to the Dark Side. Units I'm considering are a Dwarf regiment as Chaos Dwarves, representing Warriors of course, and possibly with a big weapon in their midst - representing a magical banner or something like that.

I'm also after a Giant... ahh, too many choices.

i like the idea of luthor huss as a chaos character i might have to borrow that idea lol a priest of chaos always seemed cool to me as for there being too many choices in a chaos army i agree!! its the only reason my army has got so big lol

mm Chaos is tremendous.

I'm going to try and work out a theme to narrow it down a bit - snow is appealing, but if they're coming from icy places they wouldn't logistically have chariots and heavy weapons and stuff.

i have a snow army and it contains 36 knights and 12 chariots lol chariots with snow bases look really good

12 Chariots!? want to swing a couple my way!?

It is proving to be very difficult to narrow down my options. Earlier today I was going to go with a Khorne army, but now I want Daemonettes and their mounted buddies in the army too. I'll probably just make a big army that I can tailor one way or another for any specific battle.

I was also reading keenly through an article in a WD featuring a GT-winning Chaos army that was based around an alliance of Khorne and Tzeentch troops. I'd like to do the same thing, only with Slaanesh in place of Tzeentch.

I'll be making my first purchases in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to make a decision pretty soon and start forming some fluff. One thing I decided is that I don't want Knights in my army at this point - I've never seen a Chaos army without them so I thought I'd break the trend.

have you seen my gnoblog? If you are unsure which god to align too go undivided! I always liked nurgle so my army is a huge tide of green! You ever seen the forgeworld mammoth? I personally dont like mixed god armies because they end up looking loike an explosion at a paint factory lol Id pick one god and make a fluffy army based around that

Mmm as usual I'm really undecided. Yeah I've checked your blog, you must have a lot of money to burn!

I've discovered an Ebay store that sells battalions for $120 ($150 from GW) and regiments for $40 (usually $50). This reduced price means I can pretty much go for any army that has a battalion available, or stick with my original plan of Chaos...

I'm also considering Ogres. I've read a few tourney reports here and they seem to be workable, and the minis are superb.

I also have core troops for Empire and Skaven armies, so they're possibilities...

Gah! Too many choices.

We'll see...

I´d stick with what uve got. I´ve recently began repainting my abandoned DE force (abandoned for Ogres) and have made the decision not to spend anything more on it (or on the hobby in general) until I´ve painted everything I already own. I recommend this for two reasons: 1) It helps you rediscover why you chose that army in the first place and 2) When you´ve finished it gives you a gameworthy force that you can use while deciding if you want a new army. Also, begin making army lists using just the troops you have at hand, and as you might be surprised how many points worth you have already. In the case of my DE I discovered I had over 2,000pts ready and waiting to be painted.

I've got a fine core for a Chaos army, but my main problem is I don't like the paintjob and, as they were painted over 2 years ago and my knowledge of painting techniques was really limited, they're all painted really heavily.

Some ideas I'm tossing around are -

This Chaos army but with more of a focus on Beastmen and monsters.

An army the race of which I havent decided based around Ancient Greeks.

an Ogre army - they don't have a huge miniature range, but what there is is cool.

an Empire army based around Ancient Rome - not really converted so much, but just in their military style. And with cannons.

a Bretonnian Crusading army. yep, it's been done before, but come on, how cool are Knights?

Sooner or later I'll find some deciding factor for or against. Mostly it's movies that inspire me, so if I was to watch anything with Knights I'd probably be swayed towards Bretonnia, for example...

I have the same:
Have some dark elves, chaos and orcs and goblins hanging around to get some paint on them(and eldar, but they are fairly new).
If I'd buy something, then that will be painted first, so I try to paint everything I have now.

One thing I lack is enthusiasm for my old models. I've had them all for so long, I'm just bored of them, and so don't have the willpower to paint them up. My Warriors, Marauders and most of my characters are already done, just not to a good standard.

The main reason I'm turning away from Mortal Chaos is because I've pretty much used or owned every character at some stage, and heroes are a big part of why I play - it's a lot of fun to see heroic deeds played out before me, or for them to turn tail and run (or be killed, as was the case with my Vampire Lord on several occasions).

Basically, what I'm looking for is an army that is fun to play yet can be competitive in a tournament situation, and is cost effective.

I've already ruled out Mortal Chaos for obvious reasons, Dwarves because I've never beaten them and thus they irritate me to no end, and Skaven and O+G - I don't have the money for a horde army!

The search for an army continues as I work my way towards my first purchases (this time next week possibly).

SM

I'd support the ogre kingdoms suggestion. They take a bit more work to get them to a competative tourney army (but it can be done, just not as easily as other armies like wood elves or brets), they're fantastically fun and becasue every model is a huge, character quality sculpt you get a real sense of story from them. check out the maw pit sagas for examples of how players ogre generals have carved names for hemselves!

thanks
Corai

True. I too got bored of my Dark Elves and did Ogres just as something different. I put together 1000pts of OK over the previous year, and, after the break, I feel good about rejeuvenating my DE.

Another plus to the Ogre Kingdoms - I already have the army book, so I can start drafting army lists and playing with proxies pretty much straight away.