Mordheim and support for old games

Recently, a friend from the Central Coast (about an hour and a half north of here) mentioned in passing to another friend that he's interested in playing Mordheim again. For those not in the know, Mordheim is a skirmish-level, campaign-based tabletop miniatures game produced by Games Workshop. I thought it was a grand idea, and promptly read up on all that I needed to know.

Soon after, I was making scenery for a new table. 4 foot by 4 foot, full to the edges with ruined buildings and so on. I've taken to it like a fire in a tissuebox, and in the space of a couple of weeks I've already improved my scenery skills twentyfold. I'm using high-density polystyrene to carve stone structures, balsa wood to make wooden embellishments...

but that's a different story, and I'm digressing from the point. When I first did my research, I found where the rulebook was kept at http://www.specialist-games.com. "Hooray!" I thought, "they still look after us!"

I looked through some of the optional extra warbands available to play in the "rulebook" section of the site, and settled on the Shadow Warriors - a group of exiled Elven warriors who excel at sneaking around, hiding, and shooting without being seen. I rushed out and bought the miniatures required, and after a few haphazard games while we refreshed ourselves with the rules, I totally owned one of my mates.

So he did a bit of research of his own, and discovered my warband is effectively "illegal" because they're too good. This disappointed me. I'd spent $40 dollars on these models. I didn't want it to be a waste! What disappointed me most, though, was that it actually took all of this extra research to find out that I was cheating my friends. I couldn't take the rulebook on face value!

This game is easily one of the best skirmish-based games available. The range of miniatures in plastic (one day I'll write a post about the virtues of plastics) means you can make your warband totally unique. The rulebook itself is purported to be "living" (e.g. monitored and updated as necessary) and free, so you can be up-to-speed at any time you need. Yet still, I managed to make a fairly big faux-pas.

I'm still going to play, don't get me wrong, I've decided to play an Averlander warband after I finished reading Honour of the Grave by Robin D. Laws. It's a novel set in the Warhammer world, and these novels get me excited and inspired to play (as I'm sure they are intended to do). The thing is, I'm going to have to buy the models slowly now, as I have to be selective and plan my purchases ahead these days.

Games Workshop is reporting a loss for the last financial year. They seem to think that they can rest the hopes of an international retail chain on the back of three franchises - Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, and Lord of the Rings. Gone are the days where you could walk into a GW and find heaps of different games being played. As a result, getting into the hobby is a massive investment of a consumer's time and money.

Give us more ways to use your miniatures, GW! We can't afford to play your games anymore. Bring back Mordheim, keep the rules free (and balanced) and give the casual gamer something fun and quick to do. Bring back Blood Bowl, and release a conversion sprue so we can turn your existing range into football players. Re-release Gorkamorka, and watch your Ork sales rise. Allow Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay into your stores and extoll the virtues of the tabletop combat system. Make Warhammer Quest a reality again - allow characters to fight against any monster from any army book!

There are so many ways to experience the hobby that aren't being explored. Instead, we're told we need a few hundred dollars worth of gear, hours and hours of involvement, and a mate who's done the same before we can truly enjoy the hobby.