Really getting into the Oldhammer community these days, the OSR of wargaming I guess.

I have seen a few blog posts about Oldhammer here and there, sounds like fun. I just have a hard time tracking down any of the 1st-3rd editions of the game, at least for a decent price anyway. Also I highly doubt I would find anyone interested in my area.

Honestly I will likely be doing most of my wargaming solo for the foreseable future. I have thought about doing Warhammer setting with another rule set, Rally Round the King, it's fairly easy and is designed with solo gaming in mind. I can also do it in 15mm and use mini's besides GW's.

I'd never played Warhammer until a friend got me interested in 3rd edition a couple years back. I've been able to pick up all the books for pretty darn cheap (except the Realms of Chaos stuff which luckily I already owned for 40K/WFRP). At any given moment some joker has them up on Ebay for a ridiculous price, but if you're patient they come along much lower.
I really like the flavor of the 2nd and 3rd edition rules... lots of fun optional stuff like being able to bribe mercenary bands into switching sides mid-battle... and baggage trains, the baggage train rules were what really sold me on getting into it.
Based on what I've heard 3rd is much more aimed at scenario/story-based games than later versions where the 'tournament' mindset crept in.

Quote from: Simlasa;700958Based on what I've heard 3rd is much more aimed at scenario/story-based games than later versions where the 'tournament' mindset crept in.

The last version of the rules I saw (8th?) seemed to have really cut back on the tournament stuff and gone back to interesting scenarios and weird random stuff.

I have the 8th edition core book, though I dare say I don't know enough about wargaming to say wether or not they are tournament oriented. It seems like a solid game just too damned expensive, and no one in my area is cool with using non GW minis. The setting always intersted me much more than anything else so I really think my solution is going to be using Rally Round the King to do battles in that setting solo with 15mm miniatures. There are plenty of ranges out there that would work and I can get a decent chunk of an army for the price of a box of GW state troops.

Quote from: Arkansan;701287It seems like a solid game just too damned expensive, and no one in my area is cool with using non GW minis. The setting always intersted me much more than anything else so I really think my solution is going to be using Rally Round the King to do battles in that setting solo with 15mm miniatures. There are plenty of ranges out there that would work and I can get a decent chunk of an army for the price of a box of GW state troops.

The rent is too damn high!

Quote from: Arkansan;699849I have seen a few blog posts about Oldhammer here and there, sounds like fun. I just have a hard time tracking down any of the 1st-3rd editions of the game, at least for a decent price anyway. Also I highly doubt I would find anyone interested in my area.

Honestly I will likely be doing most of my wargaming solo for the foreseable future. I have thought about doing Warhammer setting with another rule set, Rally Round the King, it's fairly easy and is designed with solo gaming in mind. I can also do it in 15mm and use mini's besides GW's.

Yeah I even found a place that does 15mm Skaven.

If you're having a hard time finding a copy of 3rd, though, there is a retroclone in the works among the OH community. Bing "B.L.O.O.D."

Thanks for the heads up, I will look into it.

That video sums up basically all the reasons our entire store collectively stopped playing GW when warmachine comes out. One exciting thing I see is a massive increase in skirmish level games which is creating 3 distinct and healthy types of players.

• Casual: I've seen at least 2 people who would have never got into wargames do so because of the lower barrier to entry. I never ever saw a single person casually drop the money for a full GW army with the intent to play every so often.
  
• Drifters: Many folks take advantage of the low cost of skirmish games to actually play multiple games.
• Hardcore! I still see plenty of people that just go full bore on a single game and instead of dropping thousands on a single army get the chance to own many armies at their fullest.

Historicals seem pretty neat but there just isn't any support in the area for it.

Quote from: sethdrebitko;706030Historicals seem pretty neat but there just isn't any support in the area for it.

Western minis games seem to be on the slight upswing. Aside from that. Have not seen a big historical minis wargame in ages. Last I saw was one of the big civil War minis games a friend played heavily back in the 90s.

I'd just like to weigh on in GW real quick: fuck them, fuck their Scientology-like business model (drain money from the faithful, quash dissent, always be on the PR attack and never defense, sue sue sue anyone who so much as publishes something that rhymes with a term they think they own, and so forth) and most of all: FUCK.  FINECAST.

The problem with historicals is that they tend to be pretty specific in terms of who is fighting who.  Of course, it's not an absolute limitation.  At my store we recently ran the Romanian invasion of Finland and the Finish counter strike using Flames of War.  I knew we shouldn't have taken that wrong turn at Abaqurerie.

Anyhow, Flames of War is the big name in WWII right now and pretty common place but I suspect Battlegroup from The Plastic Soldier Company is going to over take them due to better prices, better kits, and more detailed / realistic rules.  The Fall of the Reich book is out this month and I think that will be the big turning point as it's a period more people play.

Warlord's Hail Ceaser, Pike and Shotte, Black Powder, and Bolt Action are all very accessible and well supported.  They're all by Rick Priestly who designed Warhammer in the first place and he's a very competent designer.

Quote from: David Johansen;706456The problem with historicals is that they tend to be pretty specific in terms of who is fighting who.  Of course, it's not an absolute limitation.  At my store we recently ran the Romanian invasion of Finland and the Finish counter strike using Flames of War.  I knew we shouldn't have taken that wrong turn at Abaqurerie.

Perhaps that is why HeroScapes historical units caught on with some players. You could goof around as you pleased just laying out sides and having at it. Or actually recreate historical events within the limits of the terrain availible. But the base game did not lock you down.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;706420I'd just like to weigh on in GW real quick: fuck them, fuck their Scientology-like business model (drain money from the faithful, quash dissent, always be on the PR attack and never defense, sue sue sue anyone who so much as publishes something that rhymes with a term they think they own, and so forth) and most of all: FUCK.  FINECAST.

Finecast is dead!

Quote from: Blackhand;709194Finecast is dead!

Can't say I'll miss it.