To GW or not to GW...

I'm not a big fan of Games Workshop. The figures are really nice, but the price! About twice the price of comparable 25mm figures. The GW sculptors must be the best paid on the planet! And yes, they do make nice paints (Citidel). The best I've found in fact. But now, the new and improved version comes in smaller pots for the same price. What a rip!

All that having been said, there is a way you can get hold of some GW figures at a really cheap price (apart from garage sales by dis-illusioned gamers sick of trying to keep the GW directors in their flash cars!). Get hold of Milton Bradley's game of Hero Quest. The game itself isn't too crash hot, but it does contain about 20 odd 30mm plastic figures made under licence from GW, that can be made up into quite a nice HOTT psuedo-Chaos army.

• One aerial hero (the Gargoyle - DB[f] Hr(O) or DBM El(S))
• One magician (Skull Warrior, plus a couple of goblin flunkies - Mg(O) or DBM Art(S), at a stretch!)
• Two blades (Chaos Warriors - DBM Bd(S))
• Four warband (Orcs - DBM Ax(O))
• Plus two hordes (the Undead - two skeletons, one zombie and a mummy each element - DBM Hd(S))

And you are still left over with the firmirs (a HOTT Behemoth element or DBM El(I)) and half a dozen golbins (another HOTT or DBM Horde(I) element or couple of DBM Ax(I)'s) that can add up to about 100 DBM points (e-mail me if you want the points breakdown).

If you do the same with Milton Bradley's Battlemasters game, you've a small, cheap and good looking DBM army, just like the one that was recently sold by the Christchurch Wargaming Society. Ok, so they are really too big to fit on bases 60mm wide (you can only get them two abreast), but for $20 (which is all it cost me for Hero Quest), I think consessions can be made!

For those of you who are interested click here for an as yet unfinished battle report of the first, and so far only, HOTT game using my above Psuedo-Chaos army.

Associated with Games Workshop, but not produced by them, is the new set of rules called Warhammer Ancient Battles, which is, as the name suggests, a comprehensive set of rules for fighting historical ancient battles, essentialy with the same mechanisms as used in GW's Fantasy Battles, but without the majic, wierd and woderful machines and strange races. WHAB actually suggests starting with a couple of Roman and Ancient British plastic armies - and Craig Barkle (a wargammer from Taradale here in NZ) has done just that. Click here to have a look at how he's done it...

Anyway, here are a couple of links to a couple of rants from a couple of Kiwi's who basically share my own oppinion about Games Workshop...

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