8 Armies
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine remarked that he and his wife would like to start new Warhammer armies. Previously he’d been a keen 40k and Warmachines player and now he was hankering to get into WFB. As we work together we chatted about it at the office and this led to a few more people jumping in. It’s funny how many closet wargamers there are in the world. So now there 8 of us all starting new WFB armies to play against each other. The idea is that we’ll begin by each putting a 500 point force together as a starting point, have some games with those and then expand from there. There’s talk of a potential Mighty Empires campaign eventually too but we’ll take it one step at a time for now.
As it happens the eight players are four real life couples; there’s me and my wife Dawn, Adam (the friend who started this whole thing off) and his wife Caz, Mario (the Game Director) and his girlfriend Grazyna and finally Jan-Eric (my boss) and his girlfriend Sarah. Conveniently all of us except for Grazyna and Caz all work for the same company which is also located within scatter range of the local game store.
There was a bit of deliberation initially over army choices but eventually we all figured out what we wanted to play. Jan, Sarah and Grazyna have never played before, Mario, Dawn and Caz have played a bit but Adam and I are the only ones with any significant experience in painting and gaming.
- I’m doing Chaos Warriors as I have a few boxes that I won just before leaving Dublin that have sat in the cupboard of shame for the last year or so.
- Mario is doing Tomb Kings
- Grazyna eventually settled on an Empire army after debating the merits of Bretonnians and Lizardmen
- Dawn will play Orcs and Goblins
- Adam has started a Wood Elf army
- Caz will be fielding Vampire Counts
- Jan-Eric is a newly fledged Skaven player
- Sarah has chosen Dark Elves
The last few weeks have seen our dining room table overwhelmed by six new armies being assembled and painted (Adam and Caz preferring to paint at their own apartment). The new hobbyists are getting painting and modelling help from those with more experience and in general it’s a pleasant way to spend an evening.
It also keeps me honest as when I’m painting by myself it’s easy to get distracted and wander off to do something else, whereas with a bunch of us painting together I tend to just get on with it and finish things. As a result I’ve completed my first unit instead of doing my usual trick of getting it half done then leaving it for months in a semi-complete state. On the left you can see my Marauder Horsemen unit which are awaiting varnish.
Jan has been blitzing his Clanrats to build confidence before starting work on Queek Headtaker and Deathmaster Sniktch. The photo here shows them mostly basecoated with a wash to come. Mario and Grazyna have made inroads into the Tomb Kings, Dawn has been painting up Night Goblins archers and Squigs while Sarah has found that the plastic Corsairs are trickier to assemble and paint than they look. Grazyna got off to a bit of a late start compared to most as she spent a while agonising over which army to play. In the meantime though she helped Mario with his cavalry.
Bearing in mind that some of the people involved have never before tried painting miniatures, these work in progress photos aren’t too shabby at all. Everyone is keen to come across and do some more painting and tea breaks at work tend to revolve around purchasing decisions and discussions on paint schemes. I’m looking forwards to adding another army to my collection and having a group of friends to share the hobby with.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be reporting on the progress that each army makes and reports of the battles. I’ll also ask the various players to write about their experiences and print those here too.
