Specialist Aniticipation

With the announcement before Christmas about GW and FW producing the Specialist Games range once again, I can't help but to have got myself incredibly excited. I understand why the range was dropped years ago, small ranges and difficult to expand meant profits were hard to come by. But where the range made its worth was being an easier and less financially demanding way to get into the hobby. It was the perfect gateway to engross yourself in the core games of Fantasy and 40k. 

My gaming history starts off with its humble beginnings in Space Crusade. My sister had started seeing someone and he asked if I fancied having a go, sounds good to me. After several games I remember him asking me an incredibly important question.

"Fancy playing a game thats American Football bu with Orcs and Elves?" 

Hells yes. 

And so my love for Blood Bowl began, along with the other Specialist Games as they were produced. I could natter about the past for ages, how Long Gone Lemmy the star player for the Crookback Critters could score in one turn until his unfortunate death in an win that felt like defeat. But this post is about the future, about what I'd like to see from the new upcoming range.  Just before we go into the Emperors Tarot however, what about the present? 

People at our club have been chatting a little about getting a campaign based game to play and Mordheim has been mentioned. Not really being able to spend money on some new bits I had a scour and remembered I still had the Dwarf contents from the old Battle of Skull Pass set. Behold the start of a warband! Its unknown when we're starting and it could be a while, but they're ready to go (although more love painting wise is needed) and as a friend pointed out, they look rather festive. White beards to come!

Sticking with a 'stunted' theme, I've also been working on these short warriors by Macrocosm, part of their Digger Corps range. I'm not a fan of metal models but these haven't been too bad to paint thankfully, and will hopefully look cool when done. They're multi purpose too, being that I could use them for Necromunda or as an Astra Militarum unit, which means I'm thinking about a custom Chimera!

So first of all, the future.

Blood Bowl. I'm guessing you've all seen the early sculpts from the Warhammer World open day right? No? Well just in case... 

I'm even more excited after seeing these! Many people are already saying 'well they'll spoil the rules anyway so whats the point'... For gods sake a beloved game in the community gets new models and already theres scepticism? I do wonder about this 'community' at times. If they change the rules then fine, whats to say they'll be worse? All I want from Blood Bowl, is a good league based format to play games, some good looking models and continued support. I'm hoping the full choice of teams doesn't take too long to be released so a league can be started with variety. A couple of members are very critical of the older models and they're not fussed on third party ones either so hopefully, this will get them intrigued. 

In terms of Necromunda and Mordheim, I want multi part models so its easy to equip them with what you want, preferably in plastic as its easier to convert with than resin, and I think importantly is scenery. Imagine a plastic Necromunda terrain set? It'll add to your Warhammer 40k terrain collection and add a few more layers to the play. Will Mordheim get love in this sense? Its hard to say as the scenery may be more restrictive as I haven't seen much in the way of ruined towns being used in the photography for Age of Sigmar, so it will be interesting to see where they go. One other avenue GW/FW should look at is that when making sets of gangs, make them so they'd work as Imperial Guard regiments too. Even more reasons for gamers to spend money on the kits will help sustain the game itself.

Epic has also been mentioned, and its a game system I never got to play but would be interested in. I would love to collect an entire Krohmus Guard Chapter (my own Space Marine chapter creation) in Epic scale along with vehicles and support. And an Imperial Guard artillery platoon please. BASILISKS! Otherwise I'm not sure what I'd like to see, perhaps a good way to integrate it into 40k and maybe even Battlefleet Gothic for campaigns? Could be an interesting take on how the narrative in 40k could work through continued games. 

Lastly, Inquisitor. I don't think its been mentioned, but surly it would be a great game to bring back but in the traditional 28mm scale. One of my favourite monthly doings is getting the new Warhammer Visions and flicking through to Blanchitsu, where a lot of the models featured would work well in an Inquisitor/Necromunda setting. Perhaps the two can be combined? Surely its likely that gangs may be purged by roving Inquisitors weary of the gangs uing Wyrds in the Underhive and enlisting Redemptionists? Possible!

So what do you guys and gals think may be incoming? Do you still play any of the Specialist Games? Feel free to post links to what you're working on, I'm always inspired by what the blogging community gets upto!