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News: Games Workshop goes woke the wrong way

I don’t normally do news or politics on this blog for two main reasons, first I usually can’t muster the will to give a fuck about other people’s bullshit, sorry world, I got my own shit to worry about and it’s more important than you. Secondly, almost all modern politics are stupid and wrong on both sides lacking a moral compass, so there is no one to agree with, Liberal Democrats are every bit as corrupt and unethical as conservative Republicans. You are effectively asked to choose between two sides, both run by assholes, both lying and avoiding important context.

Today I make an exception to my no politics rule and it’s only because my hope is that somewhere out there, perhaps someone working at Games workshop, someone with an actual moral compass and a brain has some influence and can steer their company away from the idiocracy they are heading for.

My hope is that Warhammer 40k won’t be the next Disney, Marvel or D&D that catapults itself off the cliff of self-destruction in the name of fake morales designed by people who pretend to give a shit for people pretending to give a shit. As a guy who truly does not give a fuck about you, think of this as the only objective advice you will ever get.

The Fake Woke Drama In Warhammer 40k

For those of you who play and follow Warhammer 40k, you have no doubt heard about the latest Games Workshop debacle. To sum it up, basically, GW, a company that treats their employees like shit and underpays them (well documented) while obscenely overcharging for their products and taking every economic shortcut possible fucking over their community at every turn (well documented) has suddenly become concerned about diversity in the boys club they created and maintained for nearly 5 decades.

Their big public”strategic play” to fix diversity in 40k was to add a female character to an all-male faction (The Custodes) and when the community called them on their bullshit, they re-wrote their own history and pretended like “women have always been part of the Custodes” and they had no idea what the fan base is complaining about.

Now the gaslighting aside which is an issue in its own right, this is about the equivalent of a full nude strip club suddenly changing Taco Tuesday to a vegan buffet because they are concerned about the cruelty of how animals are treated in slaughterhouses. This in a place in which they facilitate vulnerable 18-year-old girls to sell their actual pink tacos.

Of all the moral concerns one might bring up and wish to address about how Games Workshop operates as a corporation and its commitment to diversity, having more girls in Warhammer lore perhaps shouldn’t be their priority if they are actually concerned about diversity.

How about instead you make sure that female employees at Games Workshop get equal pay? Perhaps focus on creating a business model that doesn’t exclude poor people who are mostly minorities? How about making sure that when I walk into a Games Workshop store, you have some actual diversity among the people running it? How about simply starting with creating some diversity in your own company so you don’t have only middle-aged white guys defining what diversity means or how its implemented?

This is the Gender Pay Gap report on Games Workshop from 2022.

There are a lot of ethical changes Games Workshop could make within its organization to address diversity and ethical obligations if they are actually serious about change. The simple fact that women are not represented in the company and those that do work there get paid over 10% less at GW than men might be a good start. Considering the company has a 70%+ ratio of men running the place with nearly 100% men in the executive branch, diversity at Games Workshop and as a result in Warhammer 40k is impossible. You want more diversity in your game, maybe start by having more diversity in your company!

Here is my point about the drama and the push for diversity at GW. It’s bullshit, it’s a bunch of virtue signaling while they continue to operate their company as they always have, an exclusive boys club. Meanwhile, they shake their finger at the community and call them sexist because the community gets pissed off about some irrelevant lore retcon and how GW handled its introduction into the game.

A brilliant political move designed to divert attention, I will grant you that, but, an asshole move just the same, one that doesn’t address diversity in gaming at all.

The Reality and Problem of Woke Politics in Gaming

The truth is that the fan base doesn’t really care about the fact that GW decided to add female characters into the lore of the Custodes, this is not at the heart of the problem. Women in Warhammer 40k is neither a problem or a concern for the fan base, they have always been welcome by the community. We love women in gaming, in fact, most gamers will go out of their way to make it as comfortable and pleasant an environment as we can. Gamers are among the healthiest and most forward-thinking people you will ever meet, despite media painting a picture to the contrary. It’s why women are attracted to the scene and why each and every year we get closer to a 50-50 split between male and female gamers in all genres. This happens despite, not because of the diversity push of game publishing companies and despite the fact that these white washed companies continue to maintain their organization as a boys club.

The issue is that though women are welcomed in tabletop gaming, they have never been welcome by the industry and organizations. There has never been much in the way of complaining that there are not enough women playing Warhammer, least of all by women. The complaint is that women are not welcome to work at GW and the few that exist, do so in low level, limited influence positions. It’s a male-oriented hobby because GW ensures its a game marketed boys and men because that is where the money is because that is who has the most interest in it. It’s really that simple and there is only so much that can be done to get girls and women interested in painting plastic soldiers and playing pretend war.

GW nonetheless, is solving a problem that doesn’t exist, it’s a problem they invented and are now solving in the most public and loudest way possible to ensure they maximize the internet attention and very much on purpose. The goal very clearly here is headlines, not change.

The core issue is that this very public forcing of woke politics into the game as a message to create a new truth is a method of narrative control. It’s a way to control the conversation and to paint a picture of themselves as a “morale” company in the eyes of people outside of the hobby while they gaslight the community and vilify those who disagree with them to illustrate their commitment to this new moral direction they are pretending to take.

The infusion of these politics and the method of injection of these politics is a new practice that companies that have a lot to hide employ to raise their profile, without making any actual change to their operation. By deflecting the focus of the conversation away from reality, into the realm of fantasy they get the headlines they want “Games Workshop goes woke”, but it does not require them to make any internal changes. A practice that has become the new standard for creating positive headlines for a company with an image problem.

If you want to know how this plays out long term, just look at Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Dungeon and Dragons which has been pushing diversity for over 5 years now using this virtue signaling approach. Their franchise was struggling terribly after releasing an edition of the game that sucked balls and no one bought it (4th edition) and they wanted to push better headlines for themselves for their new edition (5th edition). They however had a major image issue, D&D was seen as a male hobby, because, effectively, it was because that is how the game was marketed for nearly 5 decades.

They made all manner of gestures publicly to appeal to a vocal minority in the hobby but mostly outside media to garner as much positive attention as possible. In the course of these 5 years, however, Wizards of the Coast has made very little meaningful change in diversity, in fact, the more things changed on the surface, the more they stayed the same internally.

Below you will find a picture of all the executives at Wizards of the Coast today, the company of diversity and virtue signaling. Yes, it’s just a bunch of white dudes with a few women sprinkled into the mix into irrelevant made-up positions like head of Kids Studio. Not a single dark-colored person in the entire bunch, it’s a White-Male run company. 5 years of virtue signaling has changed nothing about how the company operates, who controls it or who is in charge. Yet Wizards of the Coast wins awards for their efforts in diversity and is praised for it by a wide range of Social Justice Warrior groups. They even invented an entire diversity organization so that they could award themselves titles like “most diverse company of the year”.

What is the point here? Well the point is that Games Workshop gives zero fucks about diversity, they care about controlling the narrative and message of diversity, and they care about the headlines. You can expect, like Wizards of the Coast and other companies like it, that the company will continue to be the white-male-run boys club it has always been. They aren’t serious about real diversity, they are interested in making sure you think they are.

You want to be pissed about the lack of diversity in gaming, get pissed about that.

How to do diversity the right way

The answer is less obvious and likely unpopular by both the left and the right because it requires that you care less about appearances and more about reality. It requires that you understand that diversity used like a machine gun targeting everything and everyone at the same time, is actually a really terrible and destructive thing that serves no one.

The problem has been and always will be that anyone who see’s unfairness and demands social justice is easy to manipulate and their targets are always the most obvious places where there is an absence of diversity without investigating why or asking whether or not there is a good reason for it.

So far as the Social Justice Warriors are concerned, this latest fiasco at GW is a win for diversity. Games Workshop forced a female character in an all-male faction in a fantasy game in which grown men paint and move plastic soldiers around, take that! The fans are pissed off, the SJW’s are celebrating a victory, meanwhile, women got a grand total of jack and shit out of it. Is the pay gap fixed? Are more women working in gaming? No, they are not and the scene is setup to ensure that GW doesn’t have to alter anything at all about their operation as far as diversity goes. They changed some text in a book few give a crap about and now they just became the diversity good guys publicly. The fact that women still get paid 10% less than men and GW is controlled by middle-aged white men, no longer needs fixing.

Ask yourself, who won here? Did women win? Did diversity win? Did the fan base win?

Real change takes place when the monopoly on power on the organizational level changes and diversity exists from a natural evolution of the company’s real desire to change, to be inclusive by handing over creative power to a diverse fan base and the audience’s desire to consume the changes.

The point here is that diversity can’t be implemented through company image and making minor changes to artwork or fiction. Unfortunately the left wants to implement diversity in this fashion strictly because it pisses off the right. This is about shallow political victories which are notably battles fought by two sides mostly made up of outsiders (people who don’t play or give a shit about Warhammer) doing little other than degrading the quality of the franchise and in the end facilitating the destruction of it. When the dust settles, these outsiders will simply move on to the next political battleground, leaving the 40k franchise a pile of smoking ash for the few fans that remain.

Exclusivity is a good thing

Games like Warhammer 40k are boy’s clubs because they have been cultivated by boys for boys for decades. This is why 40k is so successful. The people making the game are also the target audience. They know what they are making, who they are making it for.

If women want to participate in this world, they should be given the opportunity to do so but its important to understand that the reason its a boys club is because women have shown very little actual interest in it. You need female fans that love Warhammer to get involved, they need to help create a version of the game for themselves out of love for the content that they consume, that they nurture. We need content created by female fans for female fans.

Infiltrating the boys club and trying to turn it into a girls club doesn’t work. Think of it in other areas. Why is basketball dominated by primarily black men? It’s because they grow up with it, they live it and love it every day of their lives and when they become adults they are your super fans and so naturally many of them transition it into a profession. Should we have more forced diversity in basketball? You can’t suddenly say, ok from now on 30% of all basketball players have to be Asian because of diversity. Asian people don’t have the same history with the game, the same culture of playing it every day on the street courts in the sun, they don’t consume it and love it the same, its why they are underrepresented.

Do you get it now? Warhammer 40k is a boys club it has exclusivity and that is ok. There are lots of things that have exclusivity for good reason. Black History Month, gay pride parades, girls soccer, the para-Olympics and so on. There is nothing wrong with that and that exclusivity doesn’t exist to gate keep people out of it, its simply focused on a specific group of people who it is intended for because it was created by and for them.

As a straight white guy am I not allowed to enjoy and celebrate black history month? Am I not allowed to go watch the gay pride parade or enjoy watching female sports? Of course I am, but its not really made for me, these are exclusive things designed to create a space for certain groups be it black people, women, gay people or whoever. Its ok, it doesn’t make you a bad person because you want your own parade.

Well 40k is a boys club, it’s for boys made by boys and that is ok. You don’t need to fix it, you don’t need to change it. Its not broken. Does that mean women are not welcome? Of course not, but it also means you can’t enter this boys club and decide that boys clubs are bad and make it your mission to destroy it and turn it into a girls club. That is unethical and its wrong, your not creating diversity, your destroying something that wasn’t made for you simply because it exists.

I’m not against diversity, but if your going to do it, let it be a natural evolution. Don’t force diversity into the game for the purpose of showing how diverse you are as a company. You want to prove that, pay women their worth, hire more diverse talented people into the executive branch. Do that and diversity will be born naturally without any effort or publicity stunts required. Diverse creators, will create a diverse game.

Gaming Articles, What Makes It Tick

Warhammer 40k: Scratching The Surface

From my last article you might have guessed that I have now committed myself to collecting, building and painting a Warhammer 40k army with the intent to join my friends on the Warhammer 40k, 10th edition adventure.

I thought it might be useful to share my experience for those out there either considering joining the hobby for the first time, or possibly someone like me returning to the game.

I will do things in Chronological order first and foremost, but I have snuck in a few sub-sections where I think they were relevant to the experience.

Enjoy!

What got me interested?

The truth is that I have always had an eye for Warhammer 40k, its one of my origin games. What I mean by that is that, this game, along with Dungeons and Dragons, Zelda on the 8 bit Nintendo and Magic: Gathering are all games that sort of drove my early days of gaming and made me the gaming nerd I am today.

Origin games are important, they define who we are as gamers and steer the ship. Its a rare case that I meet a gamer who can’t name their origin games with little effort. We all have them. For me, Zelda was, in a word, my childhood.

In many respects, Warhammer 40k is a nostalgia thing for me and over the years even as Warhammer 40k fell out of favor, as have most of the origin games to different degree’s, its always been on my radar.

The reality is however that 6th edition was the last version of the game I played. 7th, 8th and 9th edition all, in my observation where unanimously considered problematic. All the people I knew that continued to play Warhammer 40k, despite their participation where not advocates for the game. They all voiced a lot of negative opinions about Warhammer 40k to me, if the people playing your game aren’t advocates for you, that to me, is a clear sign that there is no reason to explore it any further.

6th edition Warhammer 40k was the last edition I played. It had many very frustrating issues and Games Workshop had a lot of really poor business practices that drove me away into the arms of better games and game companies.

10th edition Warhammer 40k however has been a very different story. Suddenly people who play the game have become advocates for it and the edition is spoken in high regard among 40k players in my circles. That got me interested enough to explore and ultimately try out the game.

I felt very strongly that the assessments and reviews of the game were quite on the money, Warhammer 40k was great again and I got very excited about the prospect of returning to one of my origin games and building a new army.

That is how it started, it was pretty straightforward. Make a great game and you can have my money!

Early Exploration

Despite my enthusiasm, I took a pretty cautious route at least, cautious by my definition. After playing a couple of games using borrowed armies I settled in for a lot of reading and research on which army I wanted to play.

This was actually a lot harder than I thought. In 10th edition all armies are currently indexed, which simply means that most armies don’t have a full codex, having been re-vamped for the new edition and all of their army rules where available online. Suffice to say there was a lot to review.

My decision wasn’t going to be made based on army strength or current meta, or anything like that. I did however want to make sure that the style of play I prefered was a core function of the army I chose.

Meta Watch and GW’s commitment to keeping an eye on the health of armies is a great initiative and I’m in full support, but I neither play competitive or even outside of my local gaming circles so this information really neither impacts me or is relevant in any way. It also doesn’t reflect the strengths and weaknesses of armies in my circles which are vastly different than what is shown here. Local metas rarely match up with the official results.

My prefered style of play was to effectively have a little bit of everything. I wanted good melee options and good shooty options, but I also knew going in that I wanted to have an army with a lot of models. This didn’t necessarily mean I wanted a swarm, but very early on I ruled out elite forces style armies and focused more on armies that would allow me to field more than your average model count.

Custodes is perhaps one of the most elite armies in the game and they are very attractive, both mechanically and with their visually stunning models. I was tempted, as having individual models that are super bad ass I can imagine is also a lot of fun. I stuck to my guns however, I wanted the table overflowing with my painted models so I had to rule these guys out early on.

This narrowed my choices down to one of the Space Marine chapters, though this was very tentative and I ruled it out quickly. Orks, which I thought where really cool but a friend of mine was already collecting these so it was ruled out on that basis alone. Necrons I considered, not so much because they were meeting my “more models” criteria but because this was the last army I collected when I quit the game. I ruled them out however for that reason, I had already collected them before and I wanted something new.

Serious contenders included Astra Militarum, Tau Empire and Tyranids. It was going to be a tough choice but ultimately my decision had a relatively smooth process of elimination. I excluded Astra Militarum mainly because its basically the “modern human military army” and it just didn’t feel science-fiction enough, the models essentially looked like a normal modern army.

Astra Militarum are really cool, but if you don’t look to close, you might think these were straight out of a world war II miniature game. They are just plain “army dudes” and while I think that is cool, I already actually have armies that look like this in my collection.

Both Tau Empire and Tyranids offered a lot to like. Tau Empire was about to get its updated codex which would likely include a lot of new models and updates, which was exciting. They also look amazing on the table with a mix of modern, Robotech style models and the primitive but equally awesome Kroot. I loved them and to be honest, I was really close to picking them outright.

In my opinion The T’au Kroot are the most visually unique and among the coolest looking models GW makes. These guys alone almost made the case for running a T’au army.

In the end however I chose Tyranids for three core reasons. First and most obvious is that I’m a huge Predator and Aliens fan and Tyranids are an amazing combination of both of those science-fiction tropes. There lore also intrigued, I love Starcraft lore and they had a similar science-fiction look and feel. The fact that they had a newly released codex was also a big factor, it meant I was effectively choosing a fully support army which could not be said about most of Warhammer 40k at this stage in the 10th edition lifespan. The final thing that really tipped it over the edge is that the new crusade rules focused on Tyranid lore and I found that really exciting.

I have no regret, picking Tyranids was an awesome decision that would turn out to have other cool benefits I would discover later on.

Buying Into Tyranids

Unfortunately I had missed the boat when it comes to Tyranids as the Leviathan Box Set was out of stock and would remain so, which most regarded as one of the best starter box sets ever made for the game and it was especially good for Tyranids. I got lucky however and I met a player who had already purchased the Leviathan starter set but he was a Space Marine player and wanted to shake the Tyranids side of the box set. I ended up getting all the Tyranid Leviathan models for next to nothing, leaving me with lots of cash burning in my hands to buy more stuff.

There is no question in my mind that Tyranids is one of the coolest factions in the Warhammer 40k universe. Ever since their conception way back in the day, I have mused about collecting them, so it’s great to finally do it!

I decided against however buying a whole bunch of plastic before I have had a chance to actually play with what I already had, as honestly I wasn’t sure what to buy.

I ended up buying a bunch of painting supplies after choosing my painting scheme (more on that later) and I purchased the Tyranid Codex, The Core Rulebook and the Tyrannic War, Crusade rules supplement.

These were all great purchases. The Tyranid Codex is filled to the brim with amazing lore, well organized army rules as well as a special Crusade Rules section specific to the army. I know that many people question the validity of purchasing codexes but in my opinion, if your going to buy the army, you should buy the codex. It’s just a really nice to have, its more of a collection and atmosphere thing than a nescessity.

The Core Rulebook too is kind of a luxury purchase and not a necessity. The Core Rules are available for free online and frankly even when you play the game, using the core rulebook at the table is not really all that practical thanks to great digital support apps. Still I thought this was a great buy, less so for the rules and more so for the lore and atmosphere. It’s just fun to have something to look at when you get that Warhammer feeling.

Crusade rules have been around in Warhammer 40k for a while, but the reality is that even back in the early days of 40k people would write stories and create campaigns for their battles. In many ways, Warhammer 40k is a sort of tactical role-playing game. Its lore and the story behind the miniature game is absolutely vital to its health and image. It’s why I’m such an advocate for the narrative style of play, in fact, it’s actually competitive match play that is a foreign concept to me.

The Crusade book was simultaneously the best and worst purchase. Again the expanded lore is so good, the crusade rules are absolutely fantastic, my favorite way to play so for me this was a must have. Unfortunately much of the book (more than half) was dedicated to content that already existed in the core rulebook, like the core rules themselves. I get why this was done, technically I could have gotten away with just purchasing this book without the core rulebook and had everything I needed to play a full crusade campaign. But just be aware that you end up with a lot of duplication between the books when purchasing them. It sort of felt like this content should have been in the core rulebook and in fact, if you managed to purchase the Leviathan core rulebook that came with the Leviathan starter set, this is exactly what you would get. I don’t know why the core rulebook and crusade rules were separated in this fashion in the standard rulebook given that using the Crusade system is in my opinion, a core and fundamental part of Warhammer 40k gameplay.

Getting Modern Supplies & Picking Paint Scheme

Most people when they paint their army are going to go with something close to or exactly as depicted for their army to match up with the lore and feel of the Warhammer 40k universe. One of the luxuries of the Tyranid army is that picking a unique, one of a kind paint scheme IS the appropriate lore way to approach it.

It was a lot of fun to muse about this but ultimately what I wanted to do was paint a Leviathan army, but I wanted it to be more gritty-fleshy-meaty and in some places more colorful. I ended up using the Leviathan paint scheme as inspiration to create a more realistic variant.

Contrast paints are effectively a magic bullet in the world of miniature painting today. We minimal technique, skill or effort you can create well defined and visibly appealing painted miniatures. With more advanced techniques or combining contrast painting with other more traditional techniques you can create an amazing painted army in a third of the time.

For that job I chose to do a combination of Contrast Painting, using a blending method, toned down and a bit darker colors with some occasional hyper fluorescent vibrant colors.

I was easily able to locate all the supplies I needed and I have to say that modern painting is not only much simpler and enjoyable to use. After painting a couple of models I started to get the techniques down and though I made plenty of mistakes, it was very easy to get my painting done in no time flat.

Small sample of my army. As you can see there are blending effects, a clear dedication to the Leviathan theme with my own little flavor. These miniatures did not take long to paint at all and thanks to contrast paints and basic techniques, it wasn’t really difficult. Believe me when I tell you that I have zero natural talent and everything I know, I learned while painting these miniatures. Its not an exaggeration to say that quite literally anyone can do it.

My army isn’t 100% done at this point, but other than minor, individual flares, I know I have the method and means to fully paint my army from this point forward and it did not take a tremendous effort to get here. Its a very comforting thought to know that I will be able to paint up my army exactly like I want, get it looking really nice in a reasonable amount of time.

To The Table and Beyond

The final step of my journey was to build an army list from my constructed models and get it to the table. Now initially I was actually quite nervous about this. Warhammer 40k is a fairly complex game so far as miniature games go and while I don’t think the Tyranids are a particularly complex army to run, they do have some key synergies and a very defined style of play which requires a bit of finesse and understanding.

My first game was a 600 point match vs. Dark Angels in which I fully expected to be crushed relentlessly. It turned out that my Tyranids held up pretty well, the game went 5 rounds with a final score of 48 to 46 with Dark Angels coming out on top.

Dark Angels is another army with a released codex in 10th edition. They look amazing and my friend who is running them, loves them. He is also our best player, undefeated in our circle, which makes this the strongest army in our meta. Not so in the official meta, in fact, many argue they are terrible. Which makes the case that, what is happening at official tournaments and what’s happening at your local tables is not likely to line up.

It was a tight game from start to finish, with tons of epic moments, terrible loses and heroic triumphs. It was everything I wanted out of Warhammer 40k and more.

It was a messy game of course, I spent a lot of my time asking questions, looking up rules and trying to remember all the stuff my army could do, but I was fortunate enough to have a gracious opponent who advised me well and patiently let me figure things out. The game took more than 4 hours from start to finish and while I felt that this was pretty long for a single game my opponent assured me that games could range from 2 to 5 hours depending on the point count and circumstances of the game itself.

This means to me that Warhammer 40k is always going to border on an event style feel, which is fine by me. It means I will probably get to play less often, but the games themselves will be more memorable. More reason while I want to play this game using the Crusade rules. If we are going to spend that much time on a single match, I want it to have meaning beyond the match itself which is exactly what Crusade rules allow you to do.

My second match was against another novice player running Adepta Sororitas, aka The Battle Sisters. My friend had only recently bought into Warhammer 40k along with me and he only had a combat patrol army, which gave me an opportunity to try out The Combat Patrol rules.

Another really amazing army, these Battle Sisters look absolutely awesome on the table. Some of the models and the lore behind them especially is bizzare, its some of the craziest shit I have read in science-fiction for a very long time.

This match up probably would have been a lot tighter had my opponent had a better understanding of his army, but as a new player myself, I knew even less about The Battle Sisters than he did so I unlike my first experience against a veteran player, my opponent was not getting any of the clever advice I was guided by in my first game.

I didn’t exactly crush him, but the end score was 15 to 35 for the Tyranids which when you get right down to it, meant I had nearly doubled my opponents score. Suffice to say my opponent forgot to use a lot of special rules and strategies typical for the Battle Sisters and I think had he employed some of these advantages the game would have been a lot closer.

The Combat Patrol rules themselves where really not any different than the standard rules, certainly not enough to make a notable difference from my perspective. The biggest change was to the Detachment rules, which were unique for Combat Patrol for both armies and the units themselves which were slightly altered (In some cases better in others worse than their core rule counterparts).

There was also a static secondary objective each army chose from at the start of the match, rather than the more dynamic drawn secondary objectives of the full game.

It was a great match, very relaxed and it gave me an opportunity to try out some new strategies with different units.

The main take away from both of these matches was that the Tyranids have a lot of flexibility as individual units, meaning their roles aren’t super fixed and this army is also really great a board control.

I wish I had more, but my experience is so shallow at the moment with this game and this army, that I’m not sure I could come to any further conclusions. I do have some preferences however.

What I like and dislike about my army

I’m mostly positive about my army, all my units felt strong or alternatively useful in some capacity. While there are clearly some roles certain units have in the army, I think its big strength is the flexibility of the units.

For example The Von Ryan Leapers have many useful talents that allow them to serve multiple roles depending on the situation. They can be an advance force to slow an advance, a great melee aggressor, a unit used to steal objectives opponents in their backline and my favorite, a ploy to draw attention away from something else I’m trying to achieve by simply being a menace on the board my opponent must deal with.

I will say in both games this unit died very early on, so I may not be using it quite right, but I have enjoyed their antics.

Most of the units have a similar duality.

There is some stuff that even as a newbie to the game and army I found on. One example that sticks out like a sour thumb is the Winged Alpha Prime which is a fast moving, flying, melee leader unit. The weird thing is that they can lead other units, namely Gargoyles and Tyranid Warriors but they don’t seem to mess with either of these units particularly well.

He is a poor fit for the Gargoyle unit since the last thing you want to do with those is get into a melee fight, they are a shooty unit if they fight at all. Equally poor are the Tyranid Warriors who have half the speed of the Alpha Prime, forcing it to give up its main advantage, speed.

Strangely as a solo unit, even at its low point cost it’s not terribly useful. It’s a very strange unit, I haven’t really figured out what I’m supposed to do with as it doesn’t seem to fit any role particularly well, being a stark opposite to the rest of the army.

Grant it oddities like that are fairly rare, but there are some I think are quite obvious.

Conclusion

So far I have to admit I’m really enjoying it and I’m really enjoying the fact that I’m enjoying. What I mean by that is, I think, to some degree, I thought the hype and novelty was going to be short lived and the reality of playing a GW game was going to set it.

What has happened is that the game has surprised me at every turn.

The books are great, GW’s commitment to the game is surprising, the game rules are really well put together, with a couple of exception, the vast majority of the units in my army are very playable. Its really well put together product.

I talked about the expense of the game in my previous article so I won’t re-hash it hear, but he point stands. Its an expensive hobby, but Warhammer 40k has not been more expensive than other games I have collected. Not trying to understate the cost here, its ridiculous, but Im just saying its not more ridiculous than anything else.

Its been a fantastic trip down memory lane, but that memory has been re-written, revised and re-released. Hands down, 10th edition is the best edition of Warhammer 40k to date. Well done GW!

Gaming Articles

In Theory: Warhammer 40k 10th Edition

Back in 2016 I wrote an in-depth article about getting into miniature paint/assemble war games. This article even after nearly 10 years continues to get regular hits and comments from my readers I think in big part because when it comes to miniature war gaming, very little has changed since the 80’s, to be honest. Sure the quality of the game designs and the miniature games themselves have improved one hundredfold, but so far as advice about getting into the hobby goes, everything in this article still holds up. I wouldn’t change a word of it.

In fact that article is my mantra when it comes to miniature-war gaming and every time I get excited about a new miniature-war game, I re-read it to remind myself of all the pitfalls of the hobby. In recent years my interest in painting and assembling miniature games was revitalized thanks in part to games like X-Wing being refreshed, the fantastic Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game which I maintain is one of the best miniature games out there today and most recently I have re-connected with Warhammer 40k and the Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game thanks in large part to the new updated rules and modernization of Games Workshop.

In today’s article, I’m going to talk a little bit about Warhammer 40k 10th edition specifically and why I think Games Workshop and in particular the Warhammer line is really going through a renaissance of sorts and how and why I actually gave up on the game about 10 years ago, but now find myself coming back to it.

Warhammer 40k In The Past

I played Warhammer 40k starting with 2nd and 3rd editions and then again between the start of 5th edition through to the end of 6th edition.

I really enjoyed the game and actually, I look back on these gaming experiences with great fondness but I also recall a lot of frustration.

This is the first miniature game box I ever purchased, it was colorful, it was exciting and at the time, my friends and I had no clue what we were buying into.

The great part about the game was that the creative process of getting your army ready was invigorating and inspiring. Painting miniatures is a lot of fun and the entire hobby-craft part of the game was awesome then and it’s even more so today thanks to both the quality of miniatures and supplies, in particular, the quality of paints massively improving over time.

Once your army was painted and ready for the table however is where a lot of the problems started with Warhammer 40k and ultimately where a lot of my frustration led me to abandon the game entirely.

For one, Games Workshop was terrible at maintaining the game back in the early editions. They were very anti-online updates, in particular releasing information about the armies so printed books would be left unchanged even if they had glaring mechanical and balance issues for years at a time. I recall some codexes would go half a decade between updates. This meant that if you painted an army, that army would, depending on how long it’s been since the codex was updated, be borderline useless in actual play at the table.

All that work preparing your army, lovingly painting it only to discover that every unit you have chosen is completely useless and out of date at the table is a disheartening experience, and having to wait sometimes through entire editions of the game to get an update took a lot of energy out of the experience. Often when a new codex would come out for your army, it would be designed to sell those miniatures so then you would end up with an army that is so powerful and unbalanced in the other direction that players would not want to play against you because you had such an unfair advantage. In a way, you were screwed either way. The periods where the game and your army were in a good place, where games were fun to play were few and far in-between.

After many editions, this problem never really got any better and while I had a couple of fully painted armies, I found myself always playing with an army that was either too weak to be fun, or too powerful to be fun. The balance of the game was just terrible and I eventually gave up on Warhammer 40k altogether for greener pastures. Despite this transition, I always kept up with 40k on some level through other mediums like PC games and I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was always planning to come back eventually.

What has changed in modern Games Workshop

In general, three main events woke the company up and made them realize what was important about miniature war gaming to miniature war gamers.

First was that at the turn of the century, both Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k were no longer the most popular miniature games on the market. Competition had turned out several very popular games and even at Games Workshop, they produced the Lord of the Rings miniature game later renamed The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game which sold better than their main franchise.

What made The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game unique was that its central focus was on re-creating the many unique battles and campaigns from the movies. The game fully supported (and still does) this approach and it makes this a far more robust and interesting game to play. It also had an excellent ruleset.

The question was why? The answer was simple. Games like Warmachine and Horde, Star Wars X-Wing and the Lord of the Rings miniature game were all just objectively better games mechanically.

To this day, ask anyone who plays Games Workshop games which is the best game they ever made, both mechanically, strategically, and narratively and you will get the same answer. Middle Earth Battle Strategy game is still considered to be the best ever made by GW.

I think at this point, sometime between 2000-2005 Games Workshop realized that while the hobby-craft part of the game they had down pact, they certainly knew how to make the best mini’s in the business, this was simply not enough to compete anymore. You also needed to have a good game, something that makes that hobby-craft effort worth doing in the first place.

The other thing I think they simultaneously realized is that while competitive play was a big part of the hobby, games like The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game proved that narrative play, where games are more focused on story’s and events from the franchise played a huge role in what motivated purchases. Essentially, lore mattered a lot more than I think even GW realized even though I think 40k lore was always really great, I don’t think they fully recognized that this was actually a huge driving factor of the games sales and longevity of the fan base.

The second thing was that Warhammer 40k’s scale was all or nothing. This was a problem for entry into the hobby. If you wanted to play Warhammer 40k, you needed at least a 1,000-point army and most agreed that unless you had a 2,000-point army there was almost no point in playing. This meant that the entry point for Warhammer 40k was a 500-600 dollar purchase with a few hundred hours of hobby craft before you could play the game “for real”. Not a great place for the game to be given the immense focus on streamlining entry into the hobby many if not all other games where doing at the time.

This is a Tyrannid combat patrol army represents a little less than 500 points worth of an army. To get a 2,000-point army (a real army) you will need to collect and paint 4x’s this many miniatures. That is a lot to ask of a new player.

Meanwhile, games like The Middle Earth Battle Strategy Game could be played (and played well) on a wide scale from small skirmishes with only a small handful of hero’s to massive battles. This was also true about a lot of competing games like Warmachine for example that was at the time also giving Games Workshop a run for their money on the lore and miniature quality fronts.

Middle-Earth Battle Strategy Game had scenarios that required as few as a dozen models, to scenarios that would require several hundred models like the Battle of Helms Deep. Players could scale their experience and collections and grow with the game.

Finally, I think Games Workshop realized that good support with digital releases and making the core rules of the game free was no longer negotiable. The game needed to be supported with regular updates to fix balance issues, corrections, and clarifications to the rules and most importantly they needed to listen to the community and track how the game was being played. Why players where choosing and not choosing armies or certain units and doing something about it in a timely fashion.

How modern Warhammer 40k works today

Today the world of Warhammer 40k is very different from where I left it about a decade ago. A lot has changed for the better.

Combat Patrol & Entry

The most notable change is the release of “Combat Patrol” a sort of basic version of the game that supports the core concept of purchasing a single box set that is fully supported as a game with free rules.

Each army gets a combat patrol that can be purchased for around 100 dollars and the combat patrols are pre-constructed, balanced armies designed to played against each other using the same 40k rules you will play later in the full game, but with slight alterations to make the game more streamlined and easier for new players to get into.

Combat Patrols encourage players by making their collection feel complete and playable as early as their first purchase and that is important for maintaining the early interest in the game and allowing that interest to blossom over time. As far as I’m concerned, this one decision by GW probably saved the franchise because without it no sane person would ever recommend getting involved with Warhammer 40k today.

This was desperately needed in Warhammer 40k and it has turned out that not only is this format newbie friendly and welcoming for new players but quite welcome by veteran players as well as they allow for much shorter/quicker pick-up games.

Now I will say that most veteran players will still want to play a minimum of 1,000 points and 2,000 points is still the standard game. Still, it’s nice to know that when you’re starting a new army, you can play a few games with your starting forces as you work your way toward your goal of having a full army.

Crusades & Narrative Play

Another big improvement of the game is that Games Workshop has now fully committed Warhammer 40k to narrative play via the Crusade system. The Crusade system is very similar to the Middle Earth Battle Strategy narrative system which allows players to replicate key battles in the Warhammer 40k universe as well as string those famous battles into a series of campaign games as well as rules for creating your own campaigns in which player armies and army leaders can gain experience, effectively improving through experience.

This mode is supported by “story books” like the Warhammer 40k: Crusade – Tyrannic War which walks you through how to setup narrative battles and long-running narrative campaigns. Crusade mode is also supported in each codex, giving each army unique narrative advancements and campaign styles that can be run.

Narrative play is just one of several ways to enjoy the game, but personally, I think this is probably the most fun way to play the game as it offers progression, and story and provides relevance to the battles you have on the tabletop beyond determining a winner.

This is fantastic news for players who are not into the competitive scene and want to explore a less generic style of play with less focus on list building and more focus on creating stories for their games and armies.

Active Online Support & Competitive Game Focus

One massive improvement Games Workshop made was committing themselves to not only track but do something about the state of the game at any given moment, not just at the release of a new edition or the release of codexes. Regular updates to the point values of armies based on competitive results as well as rules changes that they track with a focus on ensuring that all armies meet certain win/loss ratios has resulted in a game that is generally far more balanced than ever before.

This is particularly noticeable if like me you have been away from the game for a few years and are coming back now. In the days when I played, more than half the armies at any given point were objectively and unequivocally broken and unplayable competitively, in fact, many of the armies were so bad that they would be banned from anything but official GW competitions simply because they were too weak or too strong to qualify for fair play.

The community engagement goes far beyond simply posting updates, but as strange as it may sound, this was a huge leap forward for GW who saw concepts like posting rules online or updates to codexes as a roadblock to profits. I’m glad they have woken up as I believe if it were not for their much-improved community engagement, there would be no 40k today. The absence of digital release was one of the main reasons not to play GW games.

Long gone are these days of radio silence, GW is taking a very active role in making sure the balance of the game is well taken care of. That is not to say that they automatically succeed in doing so, some armies fall below the ratios while others are a bit too good, but the ranges of balance are much closer and the time to make corrections is much quicker. Generally speaking, almost all armies at any given moment are worthy of competitive play and those that fall behind don’t have to wait for years to be fixed.

Lore Support and Writing

This is not a category that will be super important to most players, but many of us are readers and we want/need good lore and good writing to support our experience. The story is a big part for me and I have to say, after reading the core rulebook lore, the codex lore and the crusade lore, I can say unequivocally that the writing for Warhammer 40k is exceptional.

The Black Library makes GW games one of the most supported franchises in gaming. Your 40k experience can be so much more than just collecting and playing the game.

Not only that, if you crave more from the Warhammer 40k universe you have the Black Library, a virtual utopia of content that you can endlessly explore. There is so much great work for Warhammer 40k for readers and lovers of lore, that I don’t think it’s overstating it when I say that Warhammer 40k is the single best-supported lore of any miniature war game out today short of perhaps Age of Sigmar which gets similar attention from GW.

They have done an amazing job supporting the game on this front.

The Supplies Have Made It Easy

I’m not sure most people fully realize it but modern hobby-craft supplies that support the miniature game hobby today are overwhelmingly and vastly superior to anything we had 10 years ago. The technology has lowered the difficulty levels of creating beautifully, very professional (looking) armies within the grasp of even the most un-artistic people out there.

Contrast paints in particular have expedited the time it takes to put a fully painted army together by about 90%. Like, I recall just trying to get a marginally looking army of 2,000 points fully painted would take me a at least 2 years or more of daily work to put together. Today, with contrast paints not only can I do it in a quarter of the time, the result will look like I spent hundreds if not thousands of hours meticulously painting my army. Contrast paints are a miracle technology that has completely changed everything, it has made hobby-craft fun even for guys like me who don’t have an artistic bone in their body.

These are Tyranid miniatures I painted with contrast paints. Each one took about 15 minutes to get to this level of quality. I’m not saying it’s anything particularly eye-popping or demon award-worthy, but 10 years ago it would have taken me 8-12 hours per mini to get them looking this good and frankly, I don’t think I could get them looking this good without contrast paint, I simply lack the talent. Contrast paints don’t require talent, simply learning a very basic technique. Its….magic.

Painting miniatures is no longer a roadblock to creating those amazing-looking scenes we see in magazines on your tabletop. I’m here to tell you that quite literally anyone with two functioning hands and eyeballs can create an army that looks like a professional artist put it together for you. I can’t even tell you how many people look at what I paint and question whether I did it myself and when I tell them, hey that took me 15 minutes to do, they assume I’m lying because it seems like it should be impossible. It’s not, contrast paints are basically, magic.

Is it all Perfect?

By no stretch of the imagination, there are still quite a few issues in the world of Games Workshop miniature games but I would say most of the issues can be quantified as common problems with miniature games in general, rather than anything uniquely problematic with Warhammer 40k specifically. More importantly, there is more myth and propaganda than reality about the miniature gaming hobby propagated by jaded players who have been unwilling to accept the realities of the modern gaming markets.

The Cost To Play

Warhammer 40k like all miniature war games and the hobby as a whole is probably the single most expensive gaming thing you can do. I participate in just about everything from CCG’s, board games, PC and Video games, you name something gaming-related and I’m doing it and there is no question in my mind that the miniature war gaming hobby is the single most expensive thing I do and by a considerable margin. Nothing comes even close, a single miniature army typically costs more than my entire board game collection put together. It’s crazy expensive!

Between collecting the miniatures to form armies, the supplies needed to get them to the table looking good and the amount of time spent getting everything ready, it’s a financial undertaking that overshadows anything else I can think of.

I love A Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game, it’s fantastic but to claim it’s cheaper than Warhammer 40k is outlandish. It can be, if you are willing to live with limited list-building options, the equivalent of collecting 500 points of Warhammer 40k and stopping, but realistically most players will collect the shit out of it and the result is the same as any mini-game… a cash drop to make you blush.

Still, GW has always had this reputation of being overly expensive as a company compared to other miniature war games and as a guy that participates in several, I don’t believe this reputation is deserved or even remotely accurate. Yes, it’s expensive, but no, it’s not more expensive than other games.

Take for example getting started in 40k with a combat patrol which clocks in at about 1140 Swedish crowns (110 dollars). Compare that to say a Songs of Ice and Fire Targaryen starter set which comes in at 1299 Swedish Crowns (125 dollars). Both give you a basic army to start with but not enough to play the full game. A typical expansion for Tyranids like something big and awesome like a Hive Tyrant costs 450 Swedish Crowns (43 dollars) compared to say The Targaryen Mother of Dragons which comes in at 499 SEK (48 dollars).

Point is that actually when you get right down to it and you do some price comparisons, GW comes in lower most of the time. A Starter Star Wars Armada core set comes in at 1250 Swedish crowns and a Bolt Action Japanese Banzai Starter Army comes in at 1119 Swedish Crowns.

Considering that GW products are far superior quality in every measurable way and by a pretty big margin, you get a lot more bang for your buck from them. It’s true that ultimately a typical Warhammer 40k army will cost you more than say a full Songs of Ice and Fire army, but that really boils down to what you consider a “full army”. These definitions get pretty tricky when you start looking at army building and competitive meta’s. I promise you that if you want to keep up with Songs of Ice and Fire meta you will not see any savings between 40k and AsoiaF. My Soiaf Targaryan collection is worth roughly 650 dollars and I’m still missing quite a few releases for it. Anyone who claims playing something like Songs of Ice and Fire, Bolt Action or Star Wars Armada is cheaper than 40k is full of shit.

Suffice to say it is expensive either way, miniature war gaming is not for dabblers and while I would argue there are miniature games you can get into that can be cheaper if you can live with certain limitations than others, in the end, you are counting your investment in hundreds if not thousands of dollars to fully participate in this hobby regardless of which game you choose.

You may as well choose the game that produces the highest quality product and there isn’t a miniature gamer on Gods-Green-Earth who could claim that there is a higher quality miniature produced out there than those produced by Games Workshop with a straight face. Miniatures GW produced 10 years ago are of superior quality than anything any company out there is even capable of producing today, let alone the stuff they are making today. No one can compete with GW when it comes to miniatures, no one comes even close.

Edition Changes & Army Degradation

One thing that is unique with Warhammer 40k and most Games Workshop games is that they do pretty regular edition changes, typically we get a new edition every 3rd year. The result is that there is a sort of degradation of your forces and books you have purchased.

What this really means is that some units get replaced, some simply are no longer part of your army codex and over time you will end up with parts of your army you have collected and painted no longer being part of the new edition. The codex itself will also expire as will the core rulebooks and other content purchased that is connected to the current edition. This takes time to happen, usually, something you bought in one edition will still be viable and usable in the next for a while, but throughout several editions, certain parts of your army will simply no longer be part of the modern version of the game and the books will all be essentially made obsolete.

Many find this cycler process frustrating and understandably so. Imagine spending hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hobby-craft hours to put something together, only to have the company that sold you that stuff, tell you “Hey, all that stuff you have, it’s now obsolete, throw it in the garbage!”

Conclusion

I’m a veteran gamer, you would be hard-pressed to name anything tabletop or digital gaming-related that I don’t know about and most of it I will have some level of expertise in. I scuff at complexity, but I’m conscious of it and the reality is that Warhammer 40k, when it’s all said and done while approachable, is a fairly complex game. Not just as a game but as a hobby in general. Its expensive, time-consuming and pretty elaborate on all fronts.

There are much easier, far more approachable and truth be told, far better-designed miniature games than Warhammer 40k out there. In fact, off the top of my head, I could easily name 10 miniature war games I know are objectively better game designs and I doubt you would find people who would disagree with me, even the most adamant 40k fans. Like it’s not some sort of contested idea or controversial statement, most people know and understand this.

That said I think what Warhammer 40k does well and in a sense does right is that they don’t make the game experience about the rules, but rather they make the game about the atmosphere and all of the connected elements to that game which combine to make it THE most popular miniature game on the market today and for the past 50+ years.

It’s a combination of crazy good miniature quality, amazing lore, flexible game modes and epic event-level feel that combine to create a far more robust gaming experience than anything I can think of. Comparing 40k to other miniature games is a bit like comparing car brands. We can argue till the cows come home which car company makes the best cars, but driving a 40k is the equivalent of driving a fuck you looking, Ferrari. Is it a good car? I have no idea, probably not, hell it’s not even practical but you can’t help but smile and imagine what it would be like to have one.

40k is not the best game, but it’s a game that lives in excess, it’s the 1st class of games, it is crystAl on ice, and it is the one everyone hates because it demands way too much. At the end of the day, all miniature gaming fans that feast their eyes on a fully painted 3,000 point army know.. they wish they had one. That is what 40k is… its excess, plain and simple and frankly, if you can afford it, its fun to live in excess when it comes to your hobby. That is effectively what a hobby is, doing something that is clearly a waste of time and money, but its fun.

Gaming Articles, On The Table, What Makes It Tick

Songs of Ice and Fire: Season 4 – Targaryan Tactics Deck

Some of the long-time readers of this blog may know that I’m a big fan of The Songs of Ice and Fire miniature game and that I play the Targaryan faction. For quite a while this was a high-profile game in my local gaming group to the point that I was writing strategy articles on this site for the game. Unfortunately, the game sort of died a while back for us because frankly most of us felt like that while the core game was great, the balancing of the game in too many areas was atrocious. To such an extreme that it sort of sucked up all our desire and energy to keep playing.

Fast forward to 2024 and at the start of the year Season 4 of SOIAF has started with all new updates to all the factions, with lots of balancing and fine-tuning of the game. A perfect opportunity (hopefully) to get back into the game we know and love.

It’s a pretty big update and I thought it would be fun to revive articles on this blog that focus on strategy, tactics, list building, and the game as a whole.

Now mind you I’m not a competitive player, I play miniature games for fun, but I enjoy theory crafting and writing articles about my hobby so consider these articles to be from a guy who just likes playing games, less so a serious tournament player. I would imagine most competitive players would have a lot more to say, but I think most people who play this game are going to be more like me, excited fans rather than hardcore competitive players.

Today we are going to get very specific and talk about the base Targaryan Tactics Deck. The tactics deck is a key element of every army, a foundational advantage that dictates a lot of the very specialized things you can do and drives the strategy of your army. It’s, in a word, a key element of an army and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of any given unit you need to understand how that interacts with the tactics deck.

If you’re a Targaryen player, this article is for you! Let’s get into it.

Overrun

Overrun is a pretty niche card that plays well into the Targaryan army general strategic core which is driven by highly mobile units, especially calvary that outflank opponents to devastating effect.

In short, as a Targaryan player, you should always be the one doing the charging, not the other way around. In a way you know that you have learned to use the army well when you no longer find your mobile units getting charged in all but the rarest of circumstances.

Overrun plays off the assumption that you will be successful and in the event you wipe a unit off the table (hopefully a frequent occurrence), this card allows you to either make a second charge or perform a big march move to get yourself into position for a future charge.

If you have the horse NCU spot (which you should and will prioritize most of the time), you get the bonus of this card of being able to re-roll your charge dice allowing you to improve your odds of taking a riskier (longer-range) charge.

This card falls into the category of niche, but powerful. It’s niche because it requires a lot of very clever setup and a bit of luck to pull off. You can’t control the dice, so you’re never going to know for sure if your charge is going to yield the condition (wiping a unit) you need to play the card. Not only must you first destroy a unit to play this card, triggering a surge forth, but you have to have the opportunity for another charge or be facing in the direction you would want to march and be in a position where making a charge or marching somewhere is a good idea. All circumstances are difficult to control and very conditional on what is happening on the table.

My experience with this card is that the conditions to pull it off don’t come up that often and unlike many cards in the deck, you have considerably less control over creating the right conditions.

This means that this card is unlikely to be useful early in the game, turn 1 and 2, you will rarely kill any units outright, making this a turn 3+ card. Additionally, this card does not have any alternative effects like some of the cards do which means that after you draw it, to use it you need to create the rare circumstances to be able to play it and while setting that up which may take a couple of rounds, you are occupying that all-important card slot in your hand of cards.

This is a really good card don’t get me wrong but in my experience, the chances of you getting to use it to good effect that will have the strong impact it suggests is very slim. It’s a rarely played card and most of the time you are chucking it hoping to replace it with something more immediately useful. One of the core concepts of the tactics deck is that you should be going through it during the game. Holding on to cards is not a good strategy ever, you want to be smoking your hand and drawing a new one every round.

What is worse is that only one of the two calvary commanders gets this card in their deck (Khal Drago), as it is excluded from Jorah Mormont (Westerosi Tactician Cavalry) and it is for Calvary units that you want to play this card for as they are your best offensive weapons. Add injury to insult, The Mother of Dragons also loses this card, which sucks for those dragon lists.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

While very strong when you get the opportunity to use it, its niche requirements are difficult to set up making this one of the weaker cards in the Targaryan tactics deck overall. The fact that you can’t combo it with key commanders makes it that much less useful.

That said I’m glad it’s in the deck. It’s kind of a strange circumstance because while you rarely get to use it, when you do, it can be a game-changing moment. I wish this had a draw card replacement effect so that you can chuck it when table conditions aren’t ripe for it. Suffice it to say I have won games on a single play of this card, so the impact when executed is very strong.

Good, but hard to use card.

Sudden Retreat

One of the tactical cores of the Targaryen army is that you are really strong on the charge, but not great when it comes to battles of attrition. Targaryans are well-equipped to outflank, so after you flank-charge, a card that lets you escape once you have done your thing is very welcome in the deck and that is exactly what Sudden Retreat lets you do.

With this card you will never need to take more than one attack if you don’t want to once you get into a melee.

It’s a pretty easy card to use which is really great and especially effective thanks to the high mobility of calvary units which are usually who you will save this card for.

Unfortunately this card, like overrun, is the elimination card for one of two of your cavalry commanders. It particularly sucks that Jorah Mormont is the one that keeps it and it’s Khal Drago that loses it. It is in fact Khal Drago that would most benefit from this card as this is the best calvary commander at least currently for the Targaryans.

Fortunately this card combos well with other units in the Targaryen army, it’s fantastic on Pikemen, especially when comboed with Unsullied Officers for example who love to be charged, so you want to get them out of combat.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s a good card, but its purpose is escape, which doesn’t make it a power play thing, more of a utility thing. The fact that one of the two cavalry commanders (your best commander) loses it is a bummer but unlike overrun, it’s easy to use and useful in a lot of situations.

I like to keep this card when drawn in the early rounds and setup a situation to use it as post retreat you are often in a position an opponent did not expect you to be and most armies are not as mobile as yours.

Swift Reposition

This card can be extremely useful in a lot of circumstances, but in a Targaryen army very often it’s redundant thanks to your already amazing mobility. Frankly getting an extra 2-3 inches of movement is pretty amazing in a game where inches matter as much as they do in ASIOAF, I would imagine almost game-breaking in a lot of armies, but in a Targaryen army it’s handy, but not quite as impactful.

It can come in handy for getting that extra range for when you want to get archers into a better position or make a charge somewhere your opponent thinks you’re out of range to attempt or sliding onto an objective, or slipping out of the way of the line of sight. Lots of fun utilities that can create very nasty surprises. The problem is that you usually don’t have issues pulling things like that off with the Targaryen units anyway. You are already crazy mobile.

I find I use this card more often on infantry units, it’s particularly nasty on Unsullied Swordsmen. Most of the time I wind up using this card to slip into objectives

Verdict: 4 out of 5 stars

Even though Targaryans don’t need even more mobility options most of the time, this is an exceedingly useful card that your opponents are going to hate because it makes pre-measuring carefully and trying to avoid Targaryan charges and being outflanked that much more difficult.

It’s quite devastating against slow-moving armies and especially effective in lists where you out-activate your opponent.

Fire and Blood

I love cards with options, the flexibility to adapt a card to a situation rather than trying to create a situation for a card is so much more useful.

Fire and Blood is a straight-up “I get some extra shit” card that is focused on letting you do more damage, so it’s great. The fact that you get a bonus for horses plays into what you are going to be doing anyway, so most of the time getting the double benefit is pretty easy to setup.

Sundering and Vicious I think are the two best benefits you can have on a charge, especially when you are usually already outflanking opponents.

This card when used on a flank charge of a calvary unit with the horses is devastating, it all but guarantees the destruction of multiple ranks.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

Versatile, easy to use and powerful with literally no drawbacks. All the good commanders get to keep it. It’s without question a top-tier card for the Targaryans, you will use it in every game. If it has any drawbacks it’s the fact that some of your units already get Sundering or Vicious anyway, but in a way that is also a plus as it means you don’t have to rely in those cases on the horse to get both benefits.

Field Control

This is a multi-use card with a lot of utility and it has a very sneaky bonus effect that isn’t written on the card.

The first part, using the horse NCU yourself effectively makes this an improved version of the horses, both when maneuvering and retreating, with a bonus effect on the retreat. Very useful.

The alternative effect; when an enemy grabs the horse NCU from you, it lets you perform a 3′ shift. The key here is the timing, as this shift takes place after the enemy resolution, so you effectively get to do an extra 3-inch move with a unit prior to taking your turn. This can be used to absolutely devastating effect when timed right.

The sneaky effect of this card is that your opponent is going to want to steal that horse NCU spot from you since you gain so much benefit from it in your tactics deck, it’s a common action taken at the start of a round when your opponent goes first. I find that players often don’t think about the existence of this card, make a very calculated move to position themselves for some future move, and then boom out of nowhere you have a calvary able to do a 3-inch move, then on your turn, that same calvary makes a 6-inch free maneuver and then they can move or march or charge another 6 to 12 inches. You can potentially charge a unit with relative ease up to 15 inches away and march as far as 21 inches!

It’s bonkers and you will find that when an opponent see’s such a move one time they will never feel safe again.

Verdict: 5 out of 5 stars

This card is a combination of an improvement of an NCU spot and a swift reposition built into one card and can even be combined with a swift reposition to get a unit a free 6-inch move before your opponent can do anything thanks to the timing of the card.

When people say the Targaryans are a mobile force, this is what they are talking about!

Unstoppable Advance

This two-part card is sort of the Targaryan middle-of-the-road card.

For the first part of the the card, re-rolling charge distance dice, while nice in niche situations, the truth of the Targaryen armies is that as a general rule, charge distance is not normally a problem. Most of the time you are just trying not to roll a 1 so you don’t lose your bonus and I suppose it helps in that situation. There is some use occasionally for it, especially when using infantry units or neutrals. It’s a luxury item and not really what makes this card pop.

The real juice of the card is the surge forth ability. A +3 to maneuvering is huge but the secondary part, weakening everything in the short range is golden. Not only can you get the unit into the action but you are going to be facing an enemy force full of weakened conditions.

Surge Forth requires you to make a kill, which means it has the same problem as Overrun so not a great card to draw early.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card, I docked it because the first ability is only marginally useful to Targaryans and the second ability has a pretty specific trigger that you don’t have full control of and doesn’t come up that often. Most of the time when you draw this card you are probably going to toss it unless the table situation has circumstances that might allow you to leverage it.

When executed, it’s devastating much like overrun.

Blood of the Dragon

I love “start of any turn” triggers as they are extremely easy to use and easy to plan your actions around.

This card is great to draw early in the round but tends to be considerably less useful in later rounds, but it comes with two effects and you are almost certain to lose units in every match to collect the bonuses.

An additional attack die is always welcome as is the -1 wound from failing panic tests. It’s a straightforward card, not powerful but not weak, kind of a middle-of-the-road bonus. The only trick to it is to simply get it into play as soon as possible.

It is a shittier version of a tactic card other factions have like Starks which has a kind of “feel bad” to it.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 stars

Decent card that gives you a couple of basic bonuses, a consolation prize for losing a unit. If the bonus is stacked with additional tokens this card would be a lot better, but as is, it’s best described as easy to use with a decent effect. Nothing too extraordinary.

Conclusion

The Targaryen tactics deck has always been universally considered to be one of the weaker, if not THE weakest deck in Songs of Ice and Fire in the past and looking at the updates they have made since launch, I’m fairly sure that is still true in such a comparison.

Looking at the tactics deck cards in isolation, the effects are great and they work well with the general core concepts of the Targaryen army, creating strong synergies and sticking to the theme.

It’s only when you start comparing the Targaryan deck to other factions is when you realize just how weak the effects are comparatively and I think it’s here that the Targ deck’s reputation comes from.

When speaking to the balance of the game as a whole, I’m not sure a comparison of tactics decks is particularly useful however and I have always felt like this reputation, while technically probably true, didn’t really say much about the game.

The Targaryen army is very strong in my opinion and very competitive, but it’s filled with subtle complexity which can be difficult to get your head around. As such I find it performs generally far below its strength when looking at stats as it is a lot less forgiving of mistakes and it’s unique in a lot of ways, meaning usual tactics associated with other armies don’t perform well when applied to Targaryans. They have a very different and very specific way they must be played and the tactics deck is built around that specific playstyle.

The point here is that the Targaryan tactics deck is very strong, in the Targaryen army and while it doesn’t appear as strong when tactic decks are compared, within the Targaryan strategy, these effects are very potent.

I think if you asked any player of any faction what they think about their tactics deck they would all come up with a list of winners and losers in their deck. I think the Targ deck is unique in that there are no outright bad cards. There are cards that are niche and very situational, some cards that can feel redundant some of the time, but generally good all around.

I have my beef with some of the commander tactics cards, but that is for a future article. As far as the Targaryen season 4 tactic deck goes, it gets a nod of approval from me. Well done!

What Makes It Tick

What Makes It Tick: ASOIAF: Targaryen – Jorah Mormont

A song of Ice and Fire the miniature game is back in my gaming group with a vengeance and while I had planned a What Makes It Tick series on the game for quite a while, I have not pulled the trigger until now. Today we start the series that will take a deep dive into the Targaryen faction (my faction) in hopes of expanding the series to eventually go through the entire army. Enjoy!

We begin the series with Jorah Mormont a Commander, An Attachment and a Solo Unit in the Targaryen army. Now before I begin, let me just say that sometimes in miniature games there is a phenomenon known as “One Good Wayism”, which is similar to the concept of “competitive meta”, except unlike in the competitive meta which is what players do more based on tested reality, “One Good Wayism” is when players do something on pure perception.

In ASOIAF the miniature game, while there definitely is a competitive meta and this drives how people play the game, how they build list and pick factions, the truth about the ASOIAF community is that a lot of how the community operates is simply based on perceptions rather than the meta realities. I bring this up because Jorah Mormont is definitely a really strong case for how true this really is.

Commander Jorah Mormont – Westerosi Tactician Cavalry

Jorah Mormont is a cavalry commander that fits neatly into the Targaryen theme as a fast-moving, hard-hitting, flanking army. With the 2021 update, Jorah Mormont however has not fared particularly well in competitive play sitting in the 34th spot out 88 commanders overall on ASOIAF stats but in second to last place in the Targaryen faction.

Certainly, the competitive meta is not something to be ignored entirely, there is usually a good reason for a commander’s position in the rankings, but it’s my opinion that Jorah is actually one of the most underrated commanders in the Targaryen faction, perhaps even the game. I think his position among Targaryen commanders is directly linked to the fact that Jorah Mormont – The Wandering Knight (solo) is perceived as so good, that most players favor using Jorah as a solo rather than a commander or anything else for that matter. In fact, this would probably be how I personally favor using Jorah best as well, so I think the stats reflect this, but I think this definitely falls into the category of “One True Wayism”.

This perception of how to use Jorah (as a solo) is so strong that this commander unit is practically ignored entirely and it’s a real shame.

As a commander, Jorah is actually pretty fantastic, without question one of the strongest commanders in the faction. His Ambush ability is pretty amazing as weakened protects the unit during counter-attack and panic helps to increase the chances your opponent will fail their panic test, a great combo. Given your already charging from the flank or rear as a strategy in general, you are also likely making a pretty strong attack with any one of the Targaryen Cavalry units.

This ability is made ridiculously lethal and potentially game-changing thanks to the potential of combining it with one of Jorah’s fantastic tactic cards, Feinting Maneuver. This is arguably one of Jorah’s best tactic cards, perhaps even one of the best Targaryen tactic cards as a whole.

It cannot be understated what a massive difference there is between charging someone from the rear instead of a flank or a flank instead of the front and the fact that you can do this with a card is just absolutely devastating. One well-timed play of this card can and often will be a total game-changer.

Stubborn Tenacity is just a sort of sugar on top kind of ability for Jorah, great to have but nothing to get too excited. Most important thing is to remember to use it.

Marshal to me however is one of the most universally useful cards in Jorah’s tactic deck because while Feinting Maneuver is amazing on the offensive, one thing about running Cavalry as the Targaryens is that you really need them to be attacking at full ranks, this is so key to the game and to the Targaryen Cavalry strategy. One of the simplest way to declaw the Targaryen Cavalry lists is to simply take the money bags away from a Targ opponent to prevent the 3 wounds heal. This secret in the sauce is often ignored by less experienced players who are eager to steal the horse NCU spot, but the truth is if you really want to hurt the Targ. Cavalry, prevent them from healing 3 wounds.

This is why Mopatis is an auto-add for any Cavalry list, but Marshal not only doubles down on this by giving you a second out it does so as part of the activation. You have to remember that Targaryen Cavalry loses a lot of steam when they lose a rank and Marshal allows you to heal and still act. With cards like Swift Reposition and Sudden Retreat, you have alternative options for additional movement to your free maneuver anyway, so losing it is not the end of the world and these cards can combine to create some real surprises for your opponent.

Betrayal is also a truly amazing late-game card that can turn a game your opponent thinks is going to end the next round into something you win this round. Those end game situations which come up often where the score is tight and you are sitting on 7-9 points and you’re just trying to squeeze out those end game points to end things early, this card is perfect for. Don’t ever discard this one, once you draw it you want to keep it! This, just like the first two cards we talked about is a game-winning card.

You don’t want to pull the trigger on this one too early however, there is no way out of the Betrayal card once it’s on you.

Opportunist is one of the weaker cards in Jorah’s deck, though notably still among the strong general commander cards in the game. This is the chink in the armor, yet is still pretty strong. Certainly gaining Precision or Vicious on any attack is always a bonus but truth is that with a typical Calvary list you are trying to stall quite a bit, its always best to attack later in the round rather than early in the round to avoid potential counter-charges and extra retaliatory strikes against your units. Hence this card kind of works opposite to your standard strategy.

I find in general, just like the Cutthroat’s ability Ruthless Aggression ability, attacking someone before they have activated is never ideal and I just don’t think precision carries that much weight statistically so you are likely going to choose vicious for most occasions. It’s a very useful card, but I personally use it the round I draw it or toss it if I don’t, just about any other card draw in your deck will get you more mileage.

Jorah as a commander is clearly tailor-made for a Cavalry list, remember that Marshel only works with Cavalry units and if you are going to eat a Betrayal card you will want it on something that can get the hell out of dodge (aka a fast-moving cavalry).

Arguably both Opportunist and Feinting Maneuver are useful on infantry units, in particular, something like Unsullied Swordmasters combined with a Feinting Maneuver are absolutely devastating. Generally, though I think Jorah and a heavy-handed cavalry force is the most bang for your buck.

As a commander, I would personally rank him much higher than where he sits in ASOIAF stats, especially in the Targaryen faction, but I’m not at all surprised to see him as low as he is and the reason for that as mentioned is Jorah’s solo variant and this perception that the solo is so good, that you favor it over taking Jorah as a commander.

Jorah Mormont – The Wandering Knight (solo)

There is no doubt in my mind that Jorah Mormont (solo) is one of the most versatile and useful units in the Targaryen faction. The 3-point cost alone is worth the extra activation for a Calvary unit with a move of 6 that can control objectives. The fact that Jorah has a great moral score means simply Crowning him to death is unlikely so as long as you keep him out of harm’s way even without Scout Openings he is a worthwhile investment.

Scout Openings however takes this unit over the top in particular in a calvary heavy force that is reliant on charging but can and often does get stuck in unwanted melee brawls. Precision is a nice bonus but it’s the re-rolls you want and that ability means Jorah far exceeds his cost in value. The potential of a well-timed attack with Scout Openings leading the way can be devastating.

Use him to hold objectives, use him for Scout Openings, and use him as a blocker during those final end game moments.

It’s true he might die unexpectedly and this will happen. Your opponents are going to be highly motivated to kill him, it’s a pretty easy victory point and activation reduction for them if they can trap him, but if you use Jorah well and extra cautiously, he is amazing and is worth keeping alive just for the activation and objective control.

One of my favorite things to do with Jorah in the early or late game is to use him as bait. It never ceases to amaze me what risks and foolish plays players will make to try to kill Jorah and at 3 points he is worth trading up for just about any unit in the game.

Jorah Mormont – The Exiled Knight (Attachment)

At 2 points I find the Jorah Mormont – The Exiled Knight attachment to be extremely circumstantial and a bit difficult to use. The keyword for this unit is “Start of an enemy turn“. If it was any turn, then this would be a force to be reckoned with but doing it on an enemy turn makes this a defensive play typically or potentially a setup for a charge on your turn. Personally, I have found this one to be quite awkward to set up and use, in particular with attentive opponents.

I also find it’s a kinda dirty attachment with its timing, one of those things your opponents might forget and you try to surprise them with it “aha, I shift 3 inches”, but the timing is important here. You have to do it before they choose a unit to activate, so what is more likely to happen is that you forget to use this one rather than the other way around and your opponent forgets you have it.

I think there is potential for this attachment but I think it falls into that expert player area where you really need to know what you are doing to leverage it. I have never had much luck with it, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s bad, It’s just tricky to use I think.

Jorah Mormont – The Andal (Attachement)

The other 2 point attachment (infantry) of Jorah is a bit more straightforward. Both abilities are extremely useful and pretty easy to use.

Martial Training is just straight up awesome on, well pretty much anything that doesn’t already have re-rolls as a unit. The combination of re-rolling and Vulnerable is just straight-up beast mode. Typically I think this attachment is best on scrappy units that want to stay and fight like Unsullied Pikemen, but strictly speaking, all infantry units become considerably more dangerous when they can re-roll dice and hand out vulnerable when they are engaged in a fight.

Stand Your Ground! on the other hand, while really good on paper gets less use than you might think. It’s great when it goes off, but infantry units rarely just stand around and fight without being attacked by something else, there is always a catalyst of charges and counter-charges in fights. It’s a great ability, but this card is worth 2 points just for Martial Training to be frank, Stand your Ground is just extra value and it’s very welcome.

Jorah Mormont – Penitent Betrayer

What I like to call “The Forgotten Attachment”, Penitent Betrayer can only be used when it’s added to a unit with Daenerys Targaryen. This is a one-shot, one-point attachment that I can only describe as circumstantial at best. Under the right conditions, it can be extraordinarily useful, other times it’s just kind of meh.

It’s nothing you can plan around, favorable conditions to use him will either come up or they won’t, but given that typically using Daenery’s means dragons, odds are that whatever list you are building is going to be tight on points anyway so even for 1 point it can be a tough sell.

Conclusion

Personally, I think Jorah Mormont is a highly underrated commander and very underutilized outside of his Solo variant for one very, hard to argue reason. That solo is amazing and it’s really hard to pass on a 3 point activation that can do so much for so little. We have currently no cheap alternatives for activation outside of the very peculiar Freed Men which I don’t think can hold even a dim candle to our mounted friend.

The fact that we have a really great alternative cavalry commander in Khal Drogo, makes this decision point that much easier. In a sense with Khal Drogo and Jorah Mormont (Solo) you can have your cake and eat it too and I think that is both the best way to utilize Jorah and simultaneously why his popularity as a commander is so low in the ASOIAF stats.

I don’t see that changing anytime in the near future, the entire Jorah package’s fate was sealed by the Jorah solo unit, it’s just too damn good!