Massive Hobby Update

It has been a very long and eventful two years since my last post. The world of wargaming has since experienced a major change and the market is free and open.

On July 4th, 2015, a bomb was dropped on the wargaming industry. Games Workshop announced Age of Sigmar after a long multi-month End Times campaign. Warhammer Fantasy Battles was officially dead.

When new editions of games are launched there is always teeth gnashing, but this time it was different. This wasn't a new edition, this was a brand new game. The old model lines were going out of print and new models were coming in. The Tolkien influences were thrown off and GW attempted to build IP by changing the names of races (they are stupid to think this makes any difference). Square bases were over. Rank and file was over. It was complete disorder on a scale never seen before.

But it wasn't all over. The hardcore tournament scene walked away in mass. The ETC began building a homebrewed 9th Age, and Mantic Games just launched Kings of War 2nd Ed, which was adopted by the Americans. The community split into three factions, and the GW monopoly was over.

The US Masters finished out their 2015 season using 8th Edition WHFB. In December they held a vote, and all but one region voted for Kings of War to become the new Masters game. But the 2016 season showed that it wasn't as simple as a vote and now two Masters systems, one for KoW and one for T9A, coexist.

On the day AoS was announced I started looking for a new game. I choose KoW because they had free rules published on their website. It was just luck, for my community and for Mantic Games, that they were already planning on launching 2nd Ed that same July. I evangelized hard to get KoW to be our game, and I think I was successful. Lancaster become the AoS haven, while Harrisburg became the KoW haven.

Fantasy wargaming had been revitalized. AoS turned out to be the best thing that could happen to the whole community. By murdering their monopoly they let other games skyrocket to the top, and to this day GW keeps letting it happen. There are now more people moving around square bases than there had ever been, and it is still growing.

So long story short, I now play Kings of War and I am active in the tournament scene. I use Night Stalkers as my primary army right now, but I also plan on completing my Goblin and Dwarf armies. Sooner or later I will multibase my old Bretonnians.

I also started playing other games more heavily. I have Malifaux, Flames of War, Team Yankee, X-wing​ and Armada as games I want to get on the table more. I still have my 40k but it has been collecting dust for years. Recently with Bloodbowl relaunching I am going to play that too.

But most importantly I have moved into historical wargaming. My friend Mark first talked me into trying out the game Saga, which is a fucking blast. We started going to the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society events on a biannual basis, and down there I picked up the games L'Art de la Guerre and Chain of Command. I'll need to start posting pictures and batreps of these games.

Well that is a short summary of where things stand today.