Marge: ”You know Homer it’s very easy to criticize.”

Homer: ”Fun, too.”

By Pat Nevan

I was in two minds about writing an end of year wrap up article for the Blog. I’ve got more than enough content creator ego¹ to assume that my very own super special thoughts need to be shared with both members of my reading public. I just wasn’t sure what approach to take. 

Looking back on my output over the first year on the job there has been a lot of criticism of GW. Not constructive, balanced or well meaning criticism but the sort of mean spirited, sarcastic cheap shots that appeal to the worse angels of peoples nature. The hobby blog equivalent of watching a highlight reel of the Real Housewives of Botox Paralysis throw shade at each other.

“Your unbalanced battle tactics are why you can’t keep a man, GW!”

Don’t get me wrong it’s been a great time. The All New All Different Plastic Craic has been a fantastic opportunity to combine a long buried passion for writing with a love of running my mouth and a natural inclination to grasp the lowest hanging fruit. Feedback has been largely positive², the Patreons seem happy and that’s close enough for government work.

Still, the arms of the mightiest shit flinging Ape grow tired after a while, so I thought I’d close out the year with a few pats on the back for GW. Spread some seasonal cheer around and hand out a bit of credit where it’s due. We have already covered the best and worst of the year in rules, models and content creation but these are my personal highlights.

Best Supplement: Soulblight Gravelords

I know citing one of the top performers of the year as the best supplement is a bit of a No Shit Sherlock call but as I’ve said 1000 times: Overall performance is not the best indicator of the quality of a book. Strength is important, nobody wants to wait 3 years to get their ass kicked, but there are a range of factors beyond performance that determine quality. Looking at this year’s top performers KO are good, Gitz are middling,³ Seraphon and Khorne are steaming piles of crap.

I could write a novel about everything they got right with the SBGL but I’ll settle on a few key points.

• Depth. With five viable sub-allegiances that play very differently you can play the book for a long time without running out of things to have a crack at. Alpha Strike mortals, Big Stompy Dragons, fruity countercharge and board control, Zombie horde spam, straight up Monster Mash or elite Vampire troop shenanigans. Sure they aren’t equally strong, but you can try new things and ride shifts in the meta without needing a new army.
• Verismilitude. A fancy ass word that, in gaming terms, equates to keeping it real. The devs for the SBGL took pains to make the book work the way that the Vamps should. The Summonable units are clumsy idiots⁴. The Vampires are lynch pins of the army. The Alpha dog of each sub-allegiance brings unique leadership factors to the game. Everyone just keeps coming back from the dead. The battle tactics have the right amount of flavor. There isn’t a SBGL alive who doesn’t chortle with glee when they do Doomed Minions and send a summonable unit in to be wiped out. The whole thing just feels and plays right.
• Simplification Like a lot of books the Vamps got a very neat cleanup in 3rd ed. No more wholly within hero range for a ward. Returning a flat 3 wounds 3 times on deathly invocation. Fewer spells, artefacts and command traits.⁵ No bravery debuffs. No keeping track of destroyed units for Endless Legions. The hunger straight up heals the damage you dealt. This book is the easiest the undead have ever been to run.
• Good Design It all adds up to a lot of good decisions in this book. The rework of Skeletons, Zombies and Dire Wolves made for much more simple, effective and distinct battleline. Giving Vyrkos unique characters access to enhancements was simply a masterstroke that put some of the more interesting models in the range on the table. They used the full range of enhancements to differentiate the sub-allegiances while reducing the number of special rules. The new summonable hero rules are great. There’s even less Nagash around in this edition to reflect the ass-kicking he got in the ongoing storyline. 

Of course there were problems on release with some over powered rules and undercosted units, but show me the strong AOS 3 book that didn’t need an urgent FAQ. I get that the SBGL have a fairly strong NPE factor. Jerkass hard to kill Vampires, endlessly respawning models, ugly debuff spells all in an army that always seems to have the Ace⁶ that it needs tucked up its sleeve. From a design perspective they are working as intended and after a couple of whacks with the nerf bat they are a long way from unbeatable. 

Just need GW to make a model of Nicholas Cage from Renfield

Favorite Rules Change/FAQ

I gave this one to 6 man coherency changes over the Look Out Sir modifications because It’s hard to admit when you are wrong.⁷ Especially when you are Games Workshop and have a corporate obligation to defend the product at all times. I’m not being snarky, I get that they can’t just say “Well we fucked that up.” Still the 3rd ed coherency changes have been a thundering pain in the ass. I guess it was designed to stop people screening out the board but it turned the game into a haves and have nots contest between units with 2 inch reach or 25mm bases and every other poor schmuck. Plus you can still screen out the board whenever you get the urge.

Granted it took them two years to notice that a whole bunch of armies had 3 man units they liked to run in lots of 6 but this one saved people a lot of pointless hassles. No more ridiculous clover leaf formations for Heavy Cav. No more breathing a sigh of relief when one of your Gluttons gets killed and you can stop pissing about with coherency. It was a buff to the three man units, and people running into spread out Plague Drones and Mighty Skullcrushers aren’t too thrilled about it, but the drop off in pointless fuck around from one simple rules change is well worth it.

Favorite GHB Feature

Galletian Champions was the best of the 3rd ed GHB’s for me and as a guy who runs a lot of Ogor Tyrants, this one was the pick of the litter. It’s unfortunate that the sworn bodyguard fighting in the hero phase turned out to be not worth the effort but being able to bash away out of sequence with your long suffering foot heroes was a lot of fun.

It also showed the value of a bonus heroic action to those poor allegiances that don’t get any good ones in their own battletomes. Strike at the Opening gave us something to do other than ‘Eh, I’ll just try for a command point.’ There should be heroic actions in every GHB for this very reason.

Have no fear Ogor fans, Big Pimpin and The Nature Boy will ride again in 2024

Best New Model

It’s the Harbinger of Decay for my money. A pretty popular choice: our very own Sean picked him for best Eavy Metal Paint Job and he finished top of the AOS models in GW’s model of the year contest in 5th place.⁸ I love the model for its incorporation of the heritage of a classic sculpt into a modern centerpiece with a fantastic level of detail. 

It’s mainly what they didn’t do for this guy that does it for me. With the continually improving techniques for miniature design and construction⁹ it must be hard to resist the temptation to produce a spectacular action pose for the prestige models but the Harbinger is still slouching toward Bethlehem, in no hurry to get there, giving the viewer a casual “Sup Bro” glance and a nod to classic Frank Frazetta art. Shame about the rules set.

Most improved for GW: Community Involvement

By community involvement I mean engagement with the competitive community and everything that results from that, not store open days or showing off models to snot nosed kids. I know it started earlier but this is the year I noticed Gee Dubs getting involved with the competitive community, gathering stats and really responding to the evolving meta. They have also gotten into the habit of telling us what they are thinking from time to time which is kind of cool. This results in FAQs and battlescrolls that have been tight, and the all-important elusive ideal of game balance has been closer than ever. It doesn’t feel that way because comp players are busy with the grind, and the sound and fury of the latest outrage will always draw more heat than measured praise. Whatever your beef with 3rd edition AOS it’s fair to say GW are doing a better job running the damn game.

Also a shout out to the Warhammer World Championships. There were more than a few rocky moments with the whole golden ticket process but at the end of the day it is all grist to the hobby mill. A bunch of people got to go to America and have it out to see who is the best in the World¹⁰ and as far as I know everyone who went had a blast. Think about it. Next time you are trying to explain the hobby to someone, do you want to be apologizing for playing with Toy Soldiers or bragging about going to the World Championships?

“So yeah World Championships is a lot of pressure but I do it for the country.”

Anyway that’s about all the positive commentary I have in me. Whatever the state of the meta is it’s been another great year in our amazing hobby and I’m glad we all still get to play with toy soldiers instead of being boring ass grown ups all the time. Thanks to all my friends, acquaintances, enemies, Patreons, clubmates, opponents and that poor guy I tried to explain the Nurgle wheel to in the toilet of that Irish pub in Ballarat. You all put up with a lot from me sometimes and I do appreciate it.

1. Content creator ego is similar to regular ego except there is no normal healthy amount to have. ↩︎
2. Largely Positive. I don’t do internet squabbles but as a Christmas treat to myself I’m doing an advance 2024 retort to anyone that wants to go on Reddit and comment on how much they hate my writing style. ”Oh Yeah, well I hate your fucking face!” ↩︎
3. Its a subject for another article but IMO the mistake with Gitz was incorporating all the White Dwarf charity buffs instead of redesigning the four streams of Gitz. Eg : Troggoths should be repopping like Skeletons instead of coming back from the shrine like Goblins. ↩︎
4. Except Graveguard or if you buff the hell out of them etc etc.  ↩︎
5. Looking back I was surprised at the magical offence they lost but eh, they don’t miss it. ↩︎
6. Often in the form of an easy battle tactic when you’re under the pump ↩︎
7. So people tell me, I’ve yet to be wrong about anything myself. ↩︎
8. Which as we all know is really 1st place because some dogshit 40k model always wins but weight of fan support. Democracy is a joke. ↩︎
9. About which I know jack shit about I might add. ↩︎
10. Sort of, it won’t replace Worlds anytime soon. ↩︎
11. Sort of, it won’t replace Worlds anytime soon. ↩︎

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