I feel like I play wargames very seriously, but if you look at the bright lights of the space, I barely play them at all. Plus, the hardcore of this realm play in tournaments which sounds very scary. Imagine the overall dynamic, thus: they are members of the FGC. Evo types. I say this not because all that is bad, but because it is true: the community for every game exists in a continuum and I am decidedly not at the apex. Most aren't; that's what makes it the Apex. In comparison, I play Tekken with my friend on the couch. I tried playing Warhammer at a store once, against a stranger with my printed out army list, and it was the most harrowing experience of my gaming career. It's just not who I am. I suspect the vast majority of us aren't.
I like games broadly. I'm always a ready audience for models of complex systems. But wargaming shoots through everything else that I like in the medium; I was always into turn-based, and there's a version of this experience that takes place in the real world. It is my purpose, my tendency, my fantasy to explain why - if you like games - you should be a wargamer.
This project has gone on for decades, arguably. Mike Fehlauer and I made sure tabletop always had a home at PAX; now, tabletop at PAX has an exclusive representation in PAX Unplugged over in Philly. The hope when I put these things very near to one another, so near that they may kiss, is ever and always that you might start painting dolls and making them kill.
What I want to say is that there is a new version of one of the world's most played wargames - specifically, Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar. We received a box early, some blessing of the fates; I read the rules, and I had only one or two questions. That's how clean it is. I'm also going to tell you that this game is more fun than its substantially more famous sibling, Warhammer 40,000. 40k as a story setting is beyond words. Even if the system underlying it lacks a few creature comforts - or is beholden to some unwieldy traditions - I still play it every week. But it's fussy about a few things that Age of Sigmar just… isn't. I could explain some of the things that make it faster or more fun
(you determine charge targets after you roll, damage is in a single big pool not tied to specific attacks, no mental math when trying to do damage)
but explaining why they're simple would (ironically) involve explaining a much more complex version. Let me just say that Age of Sigmar is "Yes, And". It longs, demands to be played. It was already better in my opinion, and now they've busted it down to Private and taught it social skills. Age of Sigmar is clearly where they test their ideas in live fire exercises. Here, the designers are allowed to play, too - and it makes for a better game. And if you're looking for a preview of whatever the next 40k is gonna be, this is a front row seat.
I mention all this because there are preorders that are about to come online and in your local shop for a box called Skaventide. If you aren't in this continuum you might not know, but such launch boxes contain models for two different armies to go at one another. What you need to do - what we typically do - is split the price for a box like this. And you should. You should talk to that friend and you should split this box. One of the two factions in this box are Skaven, wicked rat-men who gnaw through reality and whose treacherous local deity - The Great Horned Rat - just got kicked up to the big leagues in the setting's dark pantheon. The other are Stormcast Eternals, implacable divine warriors who arrive on the field in bolts of lightning from on high, and when they die, are reforged on a literal anvil to war again - and with each reforging, less of their mind remains.
Here are a few aspects that can't be entirely explained in a traditional entreaty: there really isn't anything like painting an army and pitting against another army. It's bottomless, like any good hobby. Building and painting models is so rich that many never go beyond it! Even determining what models you're going to put on the table - "list building," in the parlance - is a kind of game. You could start and stop with the main box. But, in their strange and ineffable wisdom, Games Workshop - known colloquially as Gee Dub - has included a second game inside the Skaventide box. It's called Spearhead.
Games Workshop makes lots of games at lots of scales, all the way from mainstream, Target endcap lures to smaller scale "skirmish" games based on their main lines. They make a football wargame! It's awesome. The two current ones in that vein skirmish, Warcry and Kill Team, use custom systems designed for their size. As a result, they can't really teach you to play the big game. Somehow, with Spearhead - a punchy, in-your-face brawl that takes place on a small board where you're almost always under threat - they have made a genius level on-ramp to the hobby in general. I've played it. I don't even think they know how good it is.
My friends are primarily interested in dramatic, table-filling war operas that deliver cinematic thrills at scale. I like this also! I have painted many, many orks and bugs toward this end. But Spearhead has boardgame chops, with videogame respawns and teevee show runtimes. In stores or online, you'll see Age of Sigmar boxes called "Vanguard" or "Spearhead" and each of them is a completely self-contained army with its own playstyle, and you can play them against each other in this mode like characters in a fighting game. I already have an army, a big one, but these discrete gameplay lozenges are gonna be a problem for me and I can already tell.
So, I think you should try this hobby on. And I think this Skaventide is probably the greatest way to try it on, with a box that has two full games in it at different scales. And I think you should split this box with a friend, because you're gonna need somebody to throw models at. Preorders start Saturday.
(CW)TB
