If The Rumours Are True.......

The news reported here yesterday (and now more widely reported on the net) is that 2012 will see the release of Empire, Dwarfs and Vampire Counts rather than Brets and Wood Elves.


This would seem to make a lot of sense for GW from a commercial viewpoint as I’d be willing to wager that any of the three armies would sell more than the Brets and Wood Elves combined. Each of those armies are seminal Warhammer Armies fundamental to the history of the Old World. Without wishing to offend anybody, both Brets and Wood Elves are sideshows, similar to the recent Ogre Kingdoms and (perhaps) Tomb Kings.

However there are other reasons why Brets and Woodies may be delayed. Basically their plastic kits are not in desperate need of updating. The key Core choices Glade Guard and Dryads (in Woodies) and Knights of the Realm and Men At Arms (Brets) are all kits that were new at last release and have stood the test of time. I suppose the same argument could be extended to their “replacements” but I wonder why GW would have bothered creating Finecast Treekin.

From a rules point of view there’s not much that I’d like to see in terms of Empire. Cut back the number of magic items in line with the other recent book. Perhaps include some of the wider Empire e.g. Kislev units and variants for different gods. A plastic War Alter seems likely but unfortunately the word is no new Empire Knights.

I’m not sure what they can do to make Dwarfs less boring. Apart from removing that hard-wired piece of the brain that requires Dwarf players to seek out any hill – preferably in a corner – stress if they don’t have 4 more Dispel Dice than opponent’s Power Dice, the ability to take 3+ Scroll equivalents, 1+ re-rollable saves coupled with Immune to Killing Blow and 3+ re-rollable Ward Save etc. Short of making a 12-8 a massacre victory to try and encourage them to live a little and risk going for a 300 point win there’s not much I can see that will save the rest of us further hours of mind-numbing boredom! There’s no point giving them cavalry etc as they may prove difficult deploying behind the hill with the rest of their troops (they have a Gyro already and its use is shunned by any “serious” Dwarf player). Perhaps a new Dwarf Special rule that adjusts any variation (however rare) from 10-10, back to 10-10 so as not to induce stress in Dwarf players.

As for VCs, the figures aren’t the problem, the current list is the real problem. At present there are two builds for VC – the Grave Guard Bus backed by Ghouls or the Black Knight Bus backed by Ghouls. Skeletons and Zombies have fallen out of the game. So anything that expands the viability of different Core choices is good. There is scope for some new figures too. The f-ugly Zombies are a shoo-in for a new kit, particularly in light of the Mantic offering. And Black Knights too. The current figures are incredibly dated and would benefit from an overhaul. My real hope is to see the VC power level clicked back to bring them in line with the recent book. Restricting the number of Magic Items is a start. However I would like to see the development of the various Vampiric lines as in the previous book.

So what are you looking for?