Gathering the Beasts - Part One

A few months ago, in what is understood to have been a not entirely sober affair, in my good friend Richard's game cave, it was decided amongst those attending (Richard, Alex, Thomas and James) to set the task of building 2000 point armies for Warhammer Fantasy. I joined in later after hearing about this. 

7th edition Warhammer Fantasy (the one with the skull on it).

With the untimely death of 8th edition at the hands of Games Workshop, we could choose whatever edtion we wanted to play. It was decided that 7th edition would be the one for us, it seemed (from from what I remember) to get the balance about right (at least until the later army books). I opted to build a Beastmen army. Before I delve further into that though, I thought I would explain a little about my history with Warhammer first.

I first encountered Warhammer in my local Games Workshop store around the age of 12 or 13 (as I'm sure a lot of future wargames did at the time), and like most I initally dabbled in 40K (Space Wolves I seem to recall). This was mostly because my brother was into 40K as well, so as a little brother is want to do, I did the same thing. I can't quite exactly remember how Fantasy caught my interest, I was likely given a demo by a red shirt and persuaded to empty my pockets.

6^th edition was the rules set at the time. I picked up the rulebook, and remember being immediately overwhelmed, the rules seemed tremendously complicated. Never mind that though, I still wanted to get an army.

Vampire Counts is what I went with. Undead seemed really cool; hordes of zombies and skeletons led by enigmatic vampires and decrepid necromancers. I read the Army Book over and over again. The bloodlines were especially interesting - the regal Von Carsteins, the sorcerous Necrarch and monstrous Strigoi to name a few (shame they did away with the bloodlines in the 7^th edtion Army Book). 

6th edition: Bravo! Excellent!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7th edition: Boo! Hiss!

 

I remember only playing a few games with the army (it got to around 1000 points), but one encounter will stay with me. My unit of 20 zombies was charged by a Beastman chariot. I fully expected to lose the combat and have my unit crumble away to nothing (undead do not flee, rather they take more casualties due to a lost combat). I did indeed lose the combat, only about fice or six zombies remained, but importantly they could still fight in the next turn. These remaining zombies subsequently roll rather well in the proceeding round of combat, beating the chariot. I outnumber him. Zombies cause fear. Being outnumbered by a fear causing unit causes it to automatically flee. He rolls 3d6 for his flee distance, I roll 1d6. He manges to roll a measly total, which I manage to beat. The zombies eat the chariot alive, brains and all.

Moments like that are what make wargaming so special. To create a few more of them is, for me, the goal of this project.

In actuality, I've never played more than a couple dozen full, proper games of Warhammer over the course of all three editions (6^th through 8^th) . It speaks greatly of the strength of the Warhammer world that I liked it so much, despite having hardly played any games at all.

Onto the present.

Why Beastmen and not Vampire Counts? There's a few reasons. Firstly, I considered rebuilding the undead horde again, but decided against it since the 7th edition Vampire Counts book is both unbalanced and, well, rather boring flavour wise. Secondly, Beastmen appear to be quite generic, but not in a negative way. They have very few oddball special rules, so seemed like a good path to relearn the game. They arn't boring however; there's still a variety of infantry, big monsters and other interesting units to pick from. Lastly, Mantic had just released their Forces of the Abyss range, which make great stand ins for Games Workshop's range.

I still can't quite work out what that spike on that guy's crotch is for.

The plan is to make an army that will be usable in a range of different games, not just 7th edition. I'd like to try them out in both 9th Age and Kings of War as well. Yes, i'm being greedy and triple dipping. I can even use them in a bunch of other smaller scale games (Dragon Rampant comes to mind).

I dove right in and ordered the 'Forces of the Abyss Mega Force' from Mantic, which looks to be able to make about 2000 points.

That's a lot of plastic.

Currently I'm working towards getting 500 points built and painted, then get a few games in at that level. Here's a prevew of what I've managed to complete so far: