Toy Soldier 3

On Saturday I went to Element Games which is a shop and gaming centre in Stockport, just outside Manchester. It’s also known as the Northwest Gaming Centre and is quite popular. There’s room inside for about 80 to 100 people who are painting, playing games and just generally talking and having a nice time. They have a commercial kitchen and a bar and they sell doughnuts. I would really like it if there was an equivalent in the Southeast where I live.

There are some places like, but nothing with quite the same setup so for example there are places where you can go to play games, and there’s plenty of table space. There are places which serve some drinks or food but I think the reputation of the Northwest Gaming Centre is currently pre-eminent.

I went there to take part in an event called Toy Soldier 3. This is run by D and M from a group called the Old World Legends. I think I was admitted by mistake after someone thought I was pretty good at playing Warhammer when in fact I am miserably bad. I like to think I’m smart and make good decisions but the reality is I enjoy the idea of Warhammer much more than I enjoy being good at it. I prefer to play with armies and units and models which are fun and thematic and not necessarily the best options you can take.

For two of the three events I’ve taken my Orcs and Goblins which are currently predominantly goblin. For the second one I took a new army at the time called the Renegade Crowns. These are a sort of mercenary-themed blend of Empire and Bretonnian options. I got a trophy for that one because I was the only person that took the Renegade Crowns (there’s that love of theme over capability) and although I got soundly beaten in almost every game it was a lot of fun to play an unusual list not many people had played against before.

One of the downsides to being a little bit mediocre is you then don’t often get the opportunity to play games against the really good players. Frankly there are some people playing in these events I would pay to play games against. I have thought about going to these events and just spectating some of the top tables rather than participating myself because I think you could learn a lot by looking at the army lists, how people deploy, how people play, it would be really interesting to see.

I drove up on the Friday evening. Saturday was the first of two days and I played three games losing 2 of them and drawing one. My opponents were brilliant and although you might look at my results and think gosh Gareth had a terrible time actually it was really fun playing the games and my opponents were very generous and we enjoyed ourselves.

In some ways it’s a little bit ridiculous to think about losing or winning a game of Warhammer: The Old World. The rule set is famously imprecise and the game is all about having fun and sort of enacting these little fantasy battles where Dragons, heroes and goblins meet on the field of battle. Certainly one of the things which makes the game fun to play are the little moments where a goblin manages to kill a much stronger model or a really strong model charges into a unit of teeny-tiny weaklings only to then completely mess up all of its attacks.

I played one game against a guy using four giants. It was quite intimidating to look across the table and see these very large and fabulous models arranged ready to rush across the table. The giant models don’t roll normal attacks they have a little table they roll on depending, with different options if they’re fighting little guys or big guys and depending on what you roll they go through different attacks. One of the first monsters I ever owned when I started collecting was the metal Marauder giant which is now an absolute classic and not anywhere near as big as the current range.

It’s not just the prices of Warhammer miniatures which inflate with time it’s also the miniatures themselves. The new double-headed Chaos Dragon is a case in point. It’s absolutely gigantic and I was surprised at how many people have managed to find the money (and the time!) to buy one and paint one.