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January White Dwarf Battle Report – A Sign of Things to Come?

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White Dwarf Battle Report

Flipping idly through the latest White Dwarf, I remembered writing a separate blog-post about the Battle Report from the January 2013 White Dwarf. It was an odd battle report, preachy in a way, in trying to convince players to get rid of point values and other constraints to embrace the idea of narrative gaming.

After a full year, including loads of (very) large miniatures and the December curve-ball of things like Escalation, we’re back with a January White Dwarf Battle Report, this time full of super-sized models (and little else).

Is it a sign of the way Warhammer 40K is going?

#1 – Warhammer 40K – A 72mm Skirmish Game?

If you haven’t read the latest White Dwarf, the battle report features the new Tyranids (surprise!) against the Tau. Unlike last year, point values are back, at least for informative purposes (~3100 pts. per side).

The most notable feature, however, is that the White Dwarf team decided to ignore the (double-)FoC (not that new, admittedly) and simply cram as many large miniatures unto the table as humanly possible.

In a nutshell, you have 5 Riptides facing off against 3 Hive Tyrants, along with the rest of the Tyranid large creatures, old and new. No Firewarriors or ‘Gants inside (until a Tervigon spawns a handful). A handful of blinged-up Crisis Suits and Tyrant Guards is as “small” as it gets.

Now, admittedly, the writers said that this is what they wanted to do and, admittedly again, the game looks actually like it was quite a bit of fun. I’ve read a lot worse in the White Dwarf recently (Sigmar’s Blood, I am looking at you!).

At the same time, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was looking at something more akin to the old Inquisitor game: a “skirmish-game” with some 8 to 10 models per side, just that these happened to be very large miniatures (for 28mm scale).

#2 – Go Large or Go Home?

Once more, I want to stress that this may not mean anything. Perhaps I am just reading it all the wrong way.

But could this be “the Warhammer 40K of the future”?

After a slew of large kits over the year, from the Riptide to the Lord of Skulls, the “blurring” of the boundaries to Apocalypse with releases such as Escalation, the loosening of the FoC with Dataslate-Formations (giving quite a few armies “easy access” to Riptides and Wraithknights), it doesn’t feel like a stretch that a game like the one on display in this month’s White Dwarf might soon be the way a lot of “regular” games of Warhammer 40K could look like.

It would presumably synch well with the business-side of things, as GW clearly likes making “big kits” and, from what I see, most people like buying, painting and playing with them.

Possible? Probably? Unlikely?

Leave a comment and let me know what do you think?

Z.

Zweischneid

Zweischneid

I am Zweischneid. Wargame Addict. Hopeless painter and founder of Pins of War. I hope you enjoyed this article. Don't forget to share your favourite miniature pictures and wargaming videos at www.pinsofwar.net.
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  • Royce Trounson

    Farsight was in the list, so crisis suits are troop. If they used the farsight supplement. It wasn’t actually far from legal. I think that all it heralds is that the white dwarf staff are turning to power gamers style lists as they are all that seem to exist in tournaments now

    • http://pinsofwar.net/ Zweischneid

      I guess they could’ve made the lists more or less legal, if they cared. True, there is Farsight. The Tyranid-list however literally has not a single troop choice, and they say rather explicitly in the write-up that they didn’t bother.

  • Hive Senteniel

    As I commented previously I wish we had seen a normal 40k game over an Escalation battle. Escalation is fun and all, but I do totally feel that GW is encouraging big kits over little kits like troops (makes sense though). but this did seem to make several tyranid players a bit nervous. For example, we didn’t get to see how Hive Guard work or how Lictors or Stealers were affected by the new Dex. But hey, I guess we’ll just find out when the new dex drops :)

    • Bobthemim

      fraid to say that escalation is the norm for 40k now..

      Not fun to play orks and the opponent pulls out a Reaver.. The only things in the list that could hurt it was the PK’s.. which were dealt with pretty sharpish

      • Hive Senteniel

        True, escalation is becoming pretty common. An unfortunately for other players that Revenant Titan is far too powerful. While I like Escalation I do notice a lack of balance with it. Hopefully the D-weapons will be rectified or even more interesting FW models will get removed and GW makes their own LoW for games. Imagine an Eldar super-construct, Tyranid Bio-titan or Big Orky squig monster (or vehicle). Maybe then It will be a bit more balanced and everyone will stop complaining it’s “broke the game”. Sorry if that seems rantish, but just wishful thinking.

        • Bobthemim

          not rantish at all..it needs more balance.

          Just as people got used to flyers (with all the anti-flyer stuff there is), escalation turned up.. allowing Necrons to take the av12 12shot D weapon thing for only 300ish points..

          in a 1500 point game that will destroy half of your army..

  • Mr. Wizard

    The problem I have with turning normal 40k into apocalypse where only larger models fight it out is that you lose the sense of scale that you get from a 40k game which is its main draw over other games such as warmahordes or infinity. Also as everyone else has been wise to point out Warhammer has a lot of balance problems and with the addition of super heavys and monstrous creature with really high toughness you run into rock paper scissors problems where only a few models in an army can take something out and they are dealt with easily enough.

    • Hive Senteniel

      Well it’s not so much becoming Apocalypse it’s more like here’s a way to add this one super-big OP unit in your game. Which is neat, but in Apocalypse the sheer number of units and heavy supports balances it out. Yet in Escalation that one OP unit is pretty much your army right there. And I do agree, the addition of a Revenant, or Baneblade, or Harridan leaves little room for a full army and makes the game much smaller than it would be without them. Like I said previously, I wish the Forgeworld models would either be toned down for normal 40k or GW eventually releases their own superheavies for armies (maybe via Dataslate).