Slowly but surely

I posted recently about my efforts to get another regiment of Empire Halberdiers ready for the table. At the time I had finished 34, but as seems to have become my default plan, the final goal is for the total regiment to be 60 strong. Wanting the whole thing to be done with so I could move on, I decided to try to tackle the final 26 models in a single wave. I figured I could just grind through and it might be marginally faster than doing them in smaller groups (although less visually rewarding). Here is where they are at now:

26 partially painted Empire Halberdiers on the workbench.

In the end I sort of compromised on the "mass painting" plan. It might be slightly difficult to tell, but they're not actually all at the same point. The front 13 of them have had a final highlight on their red, and have had a basecoat on the handles of their halberds. That still needs to be done to the back 13. From there, they can all have highlights on the skin and wood, and then have their bases finished off. I might get through it tonight. Probably not...

I started painting this unit partly because I didn't know what to do in the face of all the Age of Sigmar turmoil. I think my focus might improve once these guys are done, and I'll move onto something of more practical use in a normal game than my third huge unit of Halberdiers will be. The important thing is that I haven't let what's going on completely kill my painting momentum.

On a different note, there continue to be a lot of discussions around changes to the 8th edition rules. Most of what I have suggested seemed to be fairly well received around here, so I might make a few tweaks and put them somewhere other than just a regular post on the blog. Maybe a dedicated page where they can be maintained. Then we can get on with the serious business of play-testing them to see if they work as expected and whether they actually make any difference to the fun of the game.

To tweak or not to tweak

As soon as it started to become clear that Age of Sigmar was going to be a completely different game from previous editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, people started talking about sticking with 8th edition. In the same breath, they also talked about making changes to the 8th edition rules. People have always had things they wanted to change about the 8th edition rules, but the presence of an "official" ruleset and a largely unified tournament community that used that ruleset was enough to repel any serious attempts to implement these changes. The "death" of 8th edition as an officially supported game seems to have removed these barriers, and now talk is rife of making Warhammer 9th edition, or 8.5, or whatever you care to call it.

Over time I have thought of numerous things that I would change about 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The important thing to remember here is that the game still works very well in its "official" form. I would question the wisdom of making use of the later End Times developments in every game you played, but they do add an extra point of interest if you want to recreate some of the situations from the "period" and shake things up a bit. At its core, 8th edition remains to my mind the best that Games Workshop produced, and as such any tweaking should be kept to a relative minimum.

Anyway, just in case people are interested in what I would change about 8th edition (I have been asked a few times), that is what this post is about. I have targeted the things that I think would make the biggest difference, and serve to address some of the things that I perceive as the largest issues with 8th edition "out of the box". 

Business as usual?

Age of Sigmar has been released, and being the new hotness in town, everyone seems to have moved on from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Whether this will still be the case in the months ahead remains to be seen, but for now my prospects of getting more than the odd game in seem pretty thin. So what am I doing? I am painting 8th edition regiments of Empire models, of course! Can't let common sense and a bleak outlook get in the way of my backwards progress.

This will eventually be a regiment of 60 including the unit filler, as that seems to be my go-to size for proper blocks of Empire troops. At the moment it is a fully painted unit of 34. I'll push on with the rest shortly.

My "Ostland" contingent continues to grow. These guys match existing regiments of Greatswords and Handgunners. I have a regiment of Swordsmen earmarked for this colour scheme too, so I guess they'll reach of the size of a decent army in their own right at some point.

This unit filler was deliberately made shorter to allow it to actually face forwards in the unit if I wanted to. Of course in order to fit it on the base, the horse is right at the front. Waving his hoof well over the edge. Pretty much into the middle of whatever is standing directly in front. Poor planning. I'll have to model something up specifically to go in front of the filler if I don't want it to be sitting in the front rank.

This is now my third wagon. I figure I will soon have enough for a convincing baggage train, and then we can fight out some ambush scenarios to fight over the loot.

It's a boring supply wagon. But that might be beer there at the back...