Evil Empire soon in Darwin!! Late War Sovs Changes.

You tell em Johnny! Stick your copyrighted gold toys up ya........

Yep. The word is that a shop will be set up in Darwin. Something about Games and Workshop. Boo! I can say that I was once a supporter of the Games and figures this company made. 40k and Warhammer Fantasy. Sure I played them, brought the toys but eventually left when a few factors came together. 

Decreasingly fun game experiences. The maturity of players seemed to decline in my immediate playing pool especially when it came to the Space Future game. Not saying that players of that game are generally less mature it just happen to be a feeling of decline in that regard when I was drifting away.

Rules fractures. I got a tad frustrated at the rules of both games. It became apparent that both games had a lot of 'gotcha' special rules. 'Sorry this models special rule from this upgrade now means he can do this and you can no longer do that'. When the big battle fantasy game went hard cover and increased in size and weight the thought of reading and trying to learn it just made me feel tired. How complex does it need to be?

Price. How does that work out per figure? Prices crept up and up and sometimes it wan't even a creep it was sometimes a titanic leap. Sure I had amassed a decent collection over time but rules meant that some units could expand or new ones came along and so on (some actually got written out. WTF!). It all just became too much in the end.

While the business has been the birth place for many cool companies and creative minds. OK, perhaps not birthplace but the institute for development of people who are now involved in making stuff I do like. Like the Mantic boss or the boss of Battlefront. Yes, the company certainly has created a slick business and shown just how far our hobby can go commercially I still disagree with the business ethics (the lack of) they have now and legal bullying that has gone on. But above all I no longer like the products. If you like them good for you. 

In Darwin we have a Comic shop (Comics NT). A part of the business is selling games stuff to goons like me. This new franchise or whatever it is will impact on Comics NT. But that's free enterprise for you. However hopefully gamers who buy those sort of products will hopefully be aware that if you belong to our local club (Darwin Tabletop Gamers) Comics NT gives a 10% discount. The shop has also been an excellent and generous sponsor when it has come to tournaments. They also sell a stack of stuff like Dystopian Wars, WarmaHordes (a popular game here), Star Wars X-Wing, Board Games, Flames of War and Comics and DVDs. You won't get that sort of variety at a blandex store. However, good luck to them. If they spawn gamers who like the hobby but perhaps want something more affordable then perhaps the number of wargamers here will increase and that's good.

We just got some more awesome! Hell Yeah!

Part 2 something about Late War and Soviets in Flames of War.

Awesome! Battlefront have revised the point costings in the 'Red Bear' Late War Eastern Front book (and published it for free so you can update the book if you have it already). That means lots of point costings going down and some revised (and new) special rules. I am very happy to see this. I have played 3 types of Soviets. Heavy Tanks, Regular Tanks and Udarny shock infantry. I like them all but it became apparent to our global community that being competitive was not in there. It didn't seem to convey our imagined feel that the soviets have hordes that can swarm you out. Sure you might kill some but can you do it quick enough? The result was typically Yes! Yes you can destroy enough of them to stop them. But that is a very simplistic view on Soviet game play or tactics. They became very good at waging war and it was probably not just the logistical superiority that made them first into Berlin. So points drops should see me and many more gamers around the world look at the collection of green tanks at the bottom of the storage in a new light.
Very timely changes as I have a 2 vs 2 game this Sunday with Soviets making up one side. We are all looking forward to seeing how the soviets play. Imaginations will be fired up with the possibility's like the improvements for the Stalin's Organs rocket trucks. I have a box of these sitting unpainted in my Man Cave horde. They have been there a long time. My 'to do' list just got another task. Like I needed that!

Cheers from Brendon (The Kiwi)