The Dead Rises

It's been a while, but in truth I have done absolutely nothing to do with wargaming... for which I entirely blame Football Manager.

Having started the game unemployed I was hired by Panianios, did well with them (two Greek Cups and the League Championship) and was offered the Tottenham job, the thing that swung it was that Tottenham were offering me ten times the wages I was getting in Greece - the princely sum of £27k a week. I took Spurs to three Premier league titles in 3 years and then a new board took over who made it clear they didn't want me as the manager, and after coming back from 2-0 down against Manchester United to win 3-2 I decided I really didn't care about Spurs more (we should never have been 2-0 down) and resigned. After a three week holiday, I was offered the Lazio job, and I took them from a relegation battle to the brink of the Serie A title - and may well have won (Lazio needed to win and hope that AC Milan lost or drew) but for my goalkeeper getting food poisoning and the reserve goalkeeper having a mare, we might have done it (oh and AC Milan won). The next season things went well with Lazio going well at Christmas with only Genoa offering a challenge, when Real Madrid came calling out of the blue. They were offering me £400million in the bank for transfers (I eventually spent close to £600million) and £275k a week. And so it was that I took over, leading them to 2 league titles, the Champions League and various other trophies... when I was tempted to buy the latest version, and ended up managing Bristol City, which was fine.... except I really don't give a monkey's about Bristol City and found myself eyeing my firebelly with a view to breaking open the paint.

And so for the past few nights I have spurned the delights of football management, and my mind has once more returned to wargaming.

The Firebelly has received a make do and mend paint job, and I have found myself fiddling about with lists in excel.

It turns out that I have about 3000 points of Ogres painted, but as is the way of things I have found myself thinking about what I need/want to buy. Which is a bit daft as I should really make the effort and get down the club and play a few games before I make a decision as to what to buy. Especially as I have found myself daydreaming about starting a completely new army.

What makes this daydreaming all the more odd is that I have been seriously looking at both High Elves and Skaven - my two least favourite Warhammer armies - in part because I want the small rulebook that comes with the Island of Blood, and can't find a decent deal for it on ebay.

Dumb I know.

For the sake of spending £5 more than I think something is worth, I am thinking of spending several hundred pounds, and committing myself to a massive painting task.

However a few things pulled me back to reality.

The first being that no matter how many times I looked through the armies on the GW website, I couldn't find any models that really floated my boat like the Ogres.

But it was when I was running the numbers on Chaos Knights that it suddenly struck me that if I was so keen on a 2+ armour save, then surely it was better to get three wound Mournfang cavalry. And if I wanted cannon, then why not get a cannon that was also a chariot. And perhaps more importantly, I choose Ogres because they are crap, so why the heck am I looking around at other armies to build that may or may not be good.

On reflection I guess my epiphany came via Garagehammer.

I was catching up on their episodes and they happened to have the chaps from Heelenhammer on. And they happened to be bad mouthing Ogres. And I happened to be reminded of why I haven't listened to Heelenhammer for over a year, and why I won't listen to them in the future. Which in turn led me to think of a couple of things to add to my Ogres, that will give me options.

The main one being two Ironblasters - hardly a revoltionary idea - but if you cannon snipe the shadow magic out of the game then the Runemaw banner becomes less important.

And having run a few mathhammer experiments - using dice - with Mournfang cavalry, they don't seem that bad either. Then a few sabretusks for chaff and deployment masks - and instead of spending several hundred quid to get a rulebook, I'm spending @£80, on stuff than can be painted up quickly, and what's more I will have that mythical beast - the fully painted army.

Of of which relies of course on my not falling under the spell of Football Manager again.

peace:)