They Don't Make Nostalgia Like They Used To...

I don't really miss God, but I sure miss Santa Claus...From the Song 'Gutless' by Hole.

In the dim and distant past I wandered into a GW store and was promptly ambushed by some guy in a t-shirt who managed to sell me something called a 'Codex' about Chaos and a vastly overpriced book with some rules in it.

First thing I did was look at the pictures.

Some stuff looked cool, other stuff looked shit. I liked the whole 'Renegade' concept so I bought some Space Marines and made them slightly spikier than normal Marines and gave them some Chaos markings.

So I plonked my army of 'Stuff I thought was cool' on the table for my first game and watched in mild interest as it all died.

"Not a problem" I thought. It'll get better the more I play...

However it wasn't quite that simple was it?

Certain units let me down consistently so they got dropped from the list. Other things did well so I bought a 2nd one and then in some cases a 3rd. Unnecessary 'Fluffy' upgrades were dropped in favour of more 'killy' upgrades. I converted models I liked so they could 'Count As' units that performed better. My armies became based around the concept we all know and love as 'Spam' and I started to win games and obviously found that winning was a much better feeling than losing...

As the inherent weaknesses in the Chaos Codex became more and more obvious, compounded quite severely by 5th ed. and comparisons to the new Marine Codex I 'jumped ship' and started using 'Vanilla' Marines and later Space Wolves and then Blood Angels when lists I wrote worked better with those books.

Optimisation became my 'Raison D'etre'. Units that had impressive looking models were overlooked in favour of more effective but...well...'duller' looking units, but it didn't matter because I was winning which was the point...

Or was it?

"Lets find a hobby that indulges my basic manly need to 'destroy','kill' and win" wasn't the point at the start. I'm not sure when that became what was fun, but apparently it did...

Back to the Present.

This weekend I popped into my FLGS and invited a few friends over for some games of Warhammer. Two of them were playing Fantasy so that's what we decided we'd do as I'd assembled quite a lot of Skaven. We agreed upon 2500 points and I needed to quickly write a list and see how much of my newly assembled models I could use.

As it turned out you get quite a lot of Skaven for 2500 points and I'd used up all of mine at about 1800...

So I made the Plague Monk unit a bit bigger, called some Clanrat Spearmen - Stormvermin, stuck a base on a Lord Skrolk model I still had in the 'Blister' and ended up with this list,

2500 Pts - Skaven Roster - What I had built Skaven - 2500

Lord Skrolk (1#, 470 pts)

1 Lord Skrolk @ 470 pts (General; Hand Weapon; Causes Terror; Frenzy)

1 Rod of Corruption

1 The Liber Bubonicus

Plague Priest (1#, 139 pts)

1 Plague Priest @ 139 pts (Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Flail; Frenzy)

Plague Priest (2#, 289 pts)

1 Plague Priest @ 289 pts (Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Flail; Frenzy)

1 Plague Furnace (Frenzy; Large Target; Magic Resistance (2))

Plague Monks (50#, 375 pts)

49 Plague Monks @ 375 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack; Frenzy)

1 Bringer-of-the-Word (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack; Frenzy)

Rat Ogres (6#, 176 pts)

4 Rat Ogres @ 176 pts (Causes Fear; Frenzy)

2 Packmaster (Hand Weapon; Whip; Light Armour)

Clanrats (40#, 180 pts)

39 Clanrats @ 180 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Light Armour)

1 Clawleader (Hand Weapon; Light Armour)

Clanrats (40#, 180 pts)

39 Clanrats @ 180 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Light Armour)

1 Clawleader (Hand Weapon; Light Armour)

Stormvermin (12#, 150 pts)

10 Stormvermin @ 150 pts (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour; Shield)

2 Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team (Warpfire Thrower; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Stormvermin (12#, 150 pts)

10 Stormvermin @ 150 pts (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour; Shield)

2 Warpfire Thrower Weapon Team (Warpfire Thrower; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Stormvermin (12#, 145 pts)

10 Stormvermin @ 145 pts (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour; Shield)

2 Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (Poisoned Wind Mortar; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Stormvermin (12#, 145 pts)

10 Stormvermin @ 145 pts (Hand Weapon; Halberd; Heavy Armour; Shield)

2 Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team (Poisoned Wind Mortar; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Clanrat Slaves (40#, 80 pts)

40 Skavenslaves @ 80 pts (Hand Weapon)

Total Roster Cost: 2479

The best Skaven army ever?

Obviously not, lol.

By 40K standards it would probably be classed as a 'Battle-force' army. Certain units did fuck-all others performed better than I could have hoped. The Skavenslaves sucked exactly the amount I expected them to...

But the funny thing was, I didn't win a single game but I still had fun. That original feeling of using stuff that looked cool, or that I just wanted to try out became the part that I enjoyed.

Of course the sad part is that feeling won't last...

Units will get dropped in favour of ones that perform better, I'll start looking for rules loopholes I can exploit and rules combinations of doom that GW's play-testers missed and I'll annoy the fuck out of everyone with them until they're FAQ'd (or not in most cases), I'll start reading a units stats before I see what the models like, etc.

Maybe that will make me happier and maybe it won't...Until that happens though, I'll try and enjoy the feeling of enjoyment without necessarily having to win for as long as it lasts.....