Monday, August 2, 2010

Faceoff

Hey Everyone

I've been doing some traveling lately, which affected how many posts I can put up so far, hope you guys would understand. JQ has been busily painting his figs, and I also have some figs in store to shoot with...so expect a much larger variety of units/minis in the near future...

In particular, this post will feature the last shot from our batch of warhammer photos and hang on tight to see new ones flood this blog soon! This time, we have another shot by WT of a Chaos and Bret/Empire faceoff that signals impending doom and a glimpse at glory for members of either side...which is more or less determined by their survivability (which Chaos has more than an average human).


I'm probably stating the obvious that wars are a gamble. With so much death going on in wars, isn't it unsettling that campaigns can turn out to be frankly useless? In any armed conflict, from medieval times to modern warfare, we are witness to seeing soldiers dying in vast multitudes by following orders from above, even as the commanders themselves cannot be fully sure of the necessity of the benefit of victory in their campaigns. Thankfully in WFB we're only rolling dice and dealing with the fictional...imagining campaigns or even participating in GW campaigns (eg. Storm of Chaos), and only losing miniatures vs. being responsible for human lives.

I've been reading a magazine called WWII Quarterly, which (of course) featured articles on various conflicts during the war...and one of them was Peleliu Island (which was featured in CoD:WAW). During this campaign, the US forces (Marine and Army) met the fury of a dogged Japanese defense that ate through the Americans as they formed a beachhead and advanced into the Island. The fighting was so fierce that the battle had the highest rate of US casualties of the Pacific theatre.

1st wave of LVTs arriving at Peleliu.

The US commanders intended to neutralize Japanese presence on Pereliu to prevent interference with MacArthur's planned invasion of the Philippines, as Pereliu geographically flanked the Philippines...but it turned out that previous intelligence assessments were right: the Japanese on Peleliu lacked amphibious/aerial ability to effectively land soldiers on the Philippines to be of any threat to MacArthur. In consequence, the Americans did not achieve significant strategic importance from a campaign with such high costs of lives and equipment. It's pretty evident that commanders have a whole load of responsibilities especially with the lives of the soldiers they command, whose death cannot be reversed. Personally, a true realization of this responsibility can only come from war, and not in peacetime armies (such the Singapore Armed Forces I was in).

Although it maybe unsettling that we all are also liable to invest so much in something that turns out to be useless, we hopefully become wiser and always know that in life (or at least in wargaming), there will be always another day to keep rolling the dice...

7 comments:

  1. No amount of wargaming, let alone training can fully prepare u for real war.

    It changes men.. and goes deep into their souls.

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  2. Hmm Funny, two post all of a sudden came up. Hmm never saw this one on 1st Aug.

    Neat picture taken. Liking the face off concept.

    As for war, I pray it never happens because like POI said, it isn't Fun on all counts like how we play on the tabletop.

    News on tv has shown us a perspective of how War brings no victors. To imagine yourself stuck in one.. is just heart-wrenching and mind-numbing agony.

    Aside from all that, was wondering whether do you paint any stuff at all Josh?

    Be cool to hear your painting experience too.

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  3. Looking at all your various pictures of this Warhammer figures and the fact that I have been giving Warhammer Online a try.

    I am starting to like the whole idea of starting to play this tabletop game.

    Am I making a mistake?

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  4. Definitely not making a mistake.
    The Warhammer community in many places are really big.

    I am not too sure about Asia but my word of advice would be to financially plan and start from small and work your way to a big army.

    Warhammer is costly and requires Money and Hardwork to make a big army.

    While I don't want to scare you, Warhammer is not something that should be a short term hobby. It is long term. Real long term. Then again, I am pretty sure you are not a kid so definitely you will be considering this carefully.

    Its a great hobby with a really fun system of tabletop gaming. All the things that appealed to you in WAR, should appeal to you in Warhammer Fantasy.

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  5. With soaring prices, chaoslurker is right.
    But I am pretty sure Warhammer has a widespread amount of communities everywhere in which you can make new friends and play with people all over.

    Been in it for 20 years or close to there. So yeah, it is a long term thing.
    Start slow, Play warband games, followed by 1k to 2k to the massive pointage battles.

    Cheers

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  6. @ChengYin45

    Hey, I did play Warhammer Online not too long ago. Man it really does get in touch with me in a deep way as I play tabletop Warhammer.

    All I can say is that while I currently grumble at the idiosyncracies of GW and its company policy to charge their miniatures at crazy prices, I still have a great sense of belonging to the game and what it is.

    Like what the rest say, Its expensive and requires financial planning as well as hard work to make and conjure up this figures. And if u don't have the time to paint and want really nice looking figures, U will have to cough up a lot more cash to get painting services to do it for u.

    As for the game itself, its really great.. especially when u play wif friends. And when u go into a community, it becomes a whole different ball game that is also very enriching. So check it out if u feel the urge ;)

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  7. Thanks alot everyone for the fine advice and recommendations.

    I think I will take the bite into the Warhammer Fantasy world

    ReplyDelete