The Path Forward – What To Play Starting 2014?

Well, the new Dark Elf book is out and I need to decide what I want to do.  Back in June or something I posted that I was considering High Elves for 2014 and I’m still considering that as an option.  I have also been working on my Chaos Dwarf army.  There are also those plans for Chaos Daemons and the partial Ogre army that I’ve built.  Without 9^th Edition or a new Skaven book, I will not be considering going back to Skaven.

Looking forward into next year I knew that the events that I’ll be attending will be Waaagh!PACA, Adepticon, SAWS, QCR and Northstar, along with many smaller 1 day events.  I’m not concerned with the 1 day events, as those are the events where I play my silly Rat Ogre Thrott list or something else equally silly.  It would also be a good time to play the other armies that I don’t end up deciding will be my event list for next year… as a way to test them out as I slowly get things done.

Both Waaagh!PACA and Adepticon allow for special characters.  Historically, SAWS has only allowed Hero special characters and QCR has not allowed any (though I heard rumblings they may consider opening it up to Hero level).  Either way, that means that whatever I decide to play cannot have special characters, or at least not those that are critical to the list design.

As I’m barely able to keep with a project for any reasonable period of time, it needs to be something that I can complete quickly, and needs to be scalable as Waagh!PACA is 2000 points and Adepticon is 2400 points with the others being 2500.  I also need to be able to get the 2000 point list done and ready to go before January.

Dark Elves

The obvious choice as it’s what I’ve been playing.  I haven’t had a chance to really go through the book, but from what I’m hearing their improvement is not directly related to my list style.  It will probably be the easiest list to build, given that likely my selections probably won’t actually change much.  It doesn’t sound like the list will be losing much, just some of the magic items, but that’s not a huge deal.  On the other hand, it would be another year of the same, or at least similar and I’m getting ready for a change.

High Elves

The first problem with this army is that it’s well… good.  I don’t usually take the opportunity to play the good guys in games.  I have to be good in real life, so in pretend I tend to lean towards evil.  On the other hand, it will still be Skaven and Skaven are evil.  This army would be able to reuse my ‘dark riders’ as I would stick with the movement theme.  Beyond that I would probably have to rebuild the army from scratch, but I’m thinking a few big monsters which should provide both some fun conversions but also a limited model count.  I think my current drafted Waaagh!PACA list has something like 54 wounds, 29 of which would be reused.

Ogres

This list has the advantage of being nearly done.  I have Iron guts, man eaters, saber tusks, and an iron blaster.  I already have the models for mournfang and another iron blaster.  I would just use clan rats as gnoblars, so got tons of those.  It’s a good list.  It’s a boring list, and there are already two people in my club playing the same thing and I’m sure tons more over the internet.  Ripping of Dale Bartz’s multiple mournfang style has its appeal, but he will be at half the big events, and I think it’s a little rude.  When I finish this army, I think I’ll restrict it to the 1 days.  Also, its conversions are less techy, and that seems to be where my interest lies at the moment.

Chaos Dwarves

I’m still extremely excited about building this army, but there is still a lot of work to complete it.  I’m not sure I could get 2000 points done for January, and more importantly, I don’t think it will do very well.  Waaagh!PACA rewards fast fortitude, and my prospective list doesn’t even have much fortitude and none of it fast.

Chaos Daemons

This is another of the super powerful internet lists that I would be building.  I have two lists, both of them stupid (though none of them with Skill Cannons).  They will be cool to build and paint, but they, like the chaos dwarves, don’t have the portable fortitude that Waaagh!PACA requires.  If only Beasts of Nurgle could take banners.  One of the two lists does have Blight Drones, so there is some there.  The list also utilizes special characters, which will only get through until April and then will require me to have another army completed.  The good thing on that would be that it would give me a more extended deadline list, and I do work better when I have a hard deadline.

Skaven

Yawn… Boring… still hasn’t been long enough since 2012 when I played them exclusively.  I’ll still pick them up for the fringe events, but will not be taking them to the core 5.  I suppose Northstar could be a possibility, depending on what 9^th edition does to the game, or if summer sees a new Skaven book (right now the rumors saw Dwarves and Wood Elves in the first half of 2014).

Right now I’m leaning towards High Elves for a quick rush through the end of the year, and then go back to working on my Chaos Dwarves.  One of my local shops just held a 30 percent off sale, and I used it as a chance to stock up big time.  What it means is that I probably have whatever I need to make my drafted lists for all of these armies so there may be some bouncing around coming in 2014.  2012 was all about winning the events, 2013 was a step back to focus on paint/conversions.  I think that 2014 will still be weighted towards the hobby as I’m having a good time.

Thoughts on what I should play?