Why I play historical games.

Wow, it's been a month since I last blogged, what's happened?

Well, I sort of ground to a halt on my ork project, not so much for lack of things to paint or inspiration, but simply the realisation that I'm throwing good money after bad product by a company that doesn't love it's customers. (Sort of like an abused spouse staying with the abusing partner.) That put a sour taste in my mouth and I have been playing lots of X-wing (the boardgame) and Castle Wolfenstein (the computer game) instead.

You see, it started with this guy:

A "failcast" ork Big Mek with Kustom Force Field.

Despite being released with the last version of the Codex, he's not in the new one. Or rather, this version is not legal according to the new codex. In order to take a Kustom Force Field, the Big Mek needs to upgrade to a set of Mega Armour.

And will thus look something like this:

The new Big Mek, although with a telly-porta.

Ok, I know I can play with my old model and I intend to, but bare with me and I will make a comparison. 

Go buy it now! Only 7 quid!

Recently Too Fat Lardies put out a supplement for their acclaimed WW2 game Chain of Command, called Winter Storm. So what does that have to do with the orks, you ask? Well, Operation Winter Storm is a supplement covering the 6th Panzer Divisions efforts to break the encirclement around Stalingrad and relieve Paulus' sixth army trapped inside. It features 22 platoon sized scenarios ranging from partisan attacks on a train to outright panzer battles. It also features army lists for 1942 panzer grenadiers, soviet partisans, cossacks and infantry.

It is exceptionally good value for only seven pounds and I snapped it right up as I usually do when TFL releases something. Alas I do not have any 1942 troops, altough in a pinch I could use a lot of my existing germans; I have some 20mm greatcoated late war infantry from Revell and GHQ which could fit if I sort out all the sturmgewehrs and MG42's. So I started to look around on how much soviet infantry I would have to buy and figured that I could get away with around 30£ for everything needed except the tanks. Keep those 30 quid in mind as we return to the orks.

Let's say that I'm going to play in a tournament where I need to follow WYSIWYG and get myself a Mega Armoured mek. I then need to buy a box of THREE Mega Armoured nobz, which also contains optional parts to build one of the nobz into a Mek. 

It costs a mere 38 pounds although you can shop around a bit and get it for £32.30 at Wayland Games, for instance. So that's 32 quid, essentially for one figure. But you get two more in the box, right? Yes, but Nobz need to be fielded in units of at least three. So you might use one to convert into a warlord, but the last one is wasted. In order to use him you need to buy another box. For 32 effing quid!!!

At that point I decided to buy more X-wing ships instead. And shop around on for other manufacturers who make resin models of space orks suitable for inclusion. I already have one favourite, Kromlech who can also be bought from Wayland Games as well as putting stuff up on eBay. For instance, they also have Mega armoured orks for 12 quid each.

Kromlech Mega-armoured, sorry MECHA armoured orc. So much nicer than the GW model too.
(Picture from Kromlech.eu)

And that is why I love historical games. Because nobody can copyright history they are a lot cheaper. And it's not like a Panzer III will suddenly disappear from the German armies.

Next time I will talk about X-wing and my first tournament. 

(In space no-one can hear you Pew-pew!)