41 - Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It's Off to 11th Steve Goes

Erik is back from vacation to find that Barnhammer has been played without him.  He's definitely not feeling jealous, FOMO, or left out and DEFINITELY is not punishing Steve for organizing it without him by making Steve lead the episode as a result.

Along the way they cover:

• Barnhammer 11th Edition recap — first impressions from the play group, why the missions kept every game close, and what it felt like to finally get 11th on the table with friends
• Steve's surprise Votann list — Needgaard plus Hearthguard Covenant, deep striking Einheryr, and a brand new way to play an army that had been frustrating him for all of 10th Edition
• The Champion, the Dunce Hat, and the Ones — some things never change, and Steve's Votann Champion remains aggressively, historically bad at his job
• Cousin Josh goes full aggro — why watching a naturally defensive player come out swinging with Cursed Legion Necrons was the highlight of Barnhammer and what it says about what 11th is encouraging players to do
• The Pink Pony Club — Steve teases his fourth army and talks about how he thinks about Imperial Knights like a modern military tactician defending Helm's Deep
• Guard, Death Guard, and what's next — why Imperial Guard is calling Steve's name, why Death Guard isn't, and Erik drops a closing bombshell about what he's most excited to play

Whether you're here for the Votann deep strike, here to see Cousin Josh channel his inner snapping turtle, or just want to hear Steve put a dunce hat on his champion, this one's for you.

📖 Read Erik's battle reports at gmpwt.blog
📺 Watch on YouTube at @GrownMenPlayingWithToys

Transcript

Intro and Quick Terrain Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I have a bunch of champion models. But the one I do have is like pointing his finger and it kind of does look like he's doing like a number one. I think what I'm going to do is 3D print adjuster hat and er no a dunce hat. Welcome to Grim Men Playing with Toys Podcast. They say we're too old. We say hold our dice. We're your hosts, Eric and Steve. Eric, what have you been up to? A lot.

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Uh per usual, as have you this time. Um, so I I got back from a close to two-week vacation. We had a big work thing, which is why it's been a couple weeks since we we released one of these. I've played two more games of 11th. I'm reconfiguring all of my terrain to match the new 11th layout, and I may or may not have offered to pay my kids who are learning to use 3D printing and 3D modeling software in school. I may or may not have offered to pay them to design some 11th edition legal but narrative-focused terrain for me. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

You may or may not have enlisted your built-in labor force.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Hey, I am teaching them important life lessons about how to be little entrepreneurs and the value of paying attention in school and applying the lessons learned in their technology class.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Also known as dad can totally take advantage of the fact that these skills definitely aid him in his hobby. I approve. I think this is great. I think you are maximizing your hobby time, and I think it's phenomenal.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

You also like it though, because the terrain, like what they've produced, is it's pretty.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

You know, you're getting your kids into. I think that's really awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

I will give you this one and then we can move on to other subjects because I know you're not gonna let it go until I say it. Because I am going very thematic with the terrain while also making sure it fits on the the different layouts. It does significantly upgrade the experience when you use immersive terrain. Like I used a a lava-themed mat, and the first set of terrain I had to make were all of the light terrain or kind of the the long um lowercase L-shaped terrain pieces that go with the GW event companion. They printed out all those for me, and I painted them up to look like you know lava and little lava pools with eruptions coming out, and it it made the game look pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I mean, how cool is that? That is really what it's all about, honestly. I I think it's really cool that you know you're embracing that part of it and and bringing that into you know just your experience. So, you know, it it's a cool way to kind of change the way that the the game looks and feels, and and let's be honest, it's it's not you know breaking your back or breaking your bank to do it. So I think I think it's really awesome. So uh, you know, I'm a big one for feeling like the game has something to kind of draw you in. Um, if you're just straight up playing, let's beat the snot out of each other, to me, it's not as exciting as if there's a little bit of a flair to it. And I think that you know, you're adding uh an aspect where the board is bringing some of the flair to it. And I've seen some of these pieces that you guys are coming up with. It's it's really cool. Um, it you know, it's exciting. I kind of can't wait till we get a chance to play on the same board and we can, you know, break them out and and uh you know have have ourselves our first game in 11th, because you and I haven't played each other yet. No, we haven't.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

It I think you've played pretty much every one of our other friends, and I've played quite a number of games, but we have not played each other yet.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

For the most

First Barnhammer of 11th

SPEAKER_00 5:24

part, yeah. I think we we had a we had a Barnhammer event, which is always a lot of fun. Um you know that kind of went off, went off without a hitch. We had a lot of experiences that I'm I'm wanting to talk about today. Um but yeah, uh, I haven't had a chance to play you yet. I'm looking forward to our first game uh where we can kind of break it, break it down uh on here. I mean, I will tell you right now, just based off of my experience with 11th, I'm feeling it, man. I really so far am enjoying 11th. Um yeah, I I don't care about balancing, I don't care about some of the other stuff um yet. I I think it's too early. We're gonna get a data slate here soon. We're gonna see kind of a little bit of how the balance plays out. There's been some big tournaments that have been played, so people are starting to kind of you know um grind their teeth on what 11th is gonna be. Um, but off the bat, I really, really enjoyed it. Um I think it was refreshing uh in a way that I kind of really always hoped 10th would be, but I didn't feel like 10th was. I'll be honest, I don't know how I can put my finger on that. It just feels different. Um, I mean it is different, obviously, but uh the feeling of playing 11th just feels different. I think the the the way that the force dispositions are are working and how you know the missions and things kind of play out. And we did play the twist just to add kind of another aspect to it um in the Barnhammer uh games, and I don't know. It just I really like it so far. That's awesome. So it what games did you guys play? Um, so you're asking me to remember things that were a couple weeks ago, uh and I can't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday. Um so we played a couple games. We played a um, and I you I gotta go back and look at notes to see what what we played as far as the actual breakdowns of the lists.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

I was gonna say I have it in my phone from when you texted me. Do you want me to read it off?

SPEAKER_00 7:45

I was gonna say you might as well read it off because I don't have notes in front of me, and I'm just kind of uh, you know, I'm excited to talk about it. So go ahead. You can read off the list. Go ahead with your first spreadsheet of the of the night.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

So it sounds like the first game that was played was Other Josh and Cousin Josh playing El Dari Aspect Host on Disruption against Necrons uh playing Purge the Foe with Cursed Legion. Yes, and I'm gonna assume that he was pairing that with the 1DP detachment that buffs the mounted. Um, I don't have it in front of me the name, but it buffs basically the locust heavy destroyers and gives a couple of them assault.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, it's the destroyer detachment. I don't remember exactly what it was, but yes. I mean, those are kind of, I think they're cousin Josh, some of cousin Josh's favorite models, so he's gonna bring them.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

And then it sounds like it was you on your leagues of OTAN, kind of the list we talked about in our last episode that you surprised me with that you constructed, which was Need Guard with the new Hearthguard detachment. And it was built around deep striking in and shooting a bunch of stuff with the Ein here Hearthguard, which I think Man am I excited about this, but go ahead, continue. Nice. And you played the Dark Angels playing a Raven Guard themed list, which took the super spicy angle of three one-pointers, which I think you said was Fulgarist from the Generic Space Marines codex, and then Dark Flight Pursuit and Dark Age Arsenal. So bikes, speeders, and plasma, which sounds pretty spicy. It was. You know, I think the uh we covered them in the order they were played. So it was Eldari Necrons first, then your dwarves versus the the Dark Angels, and then uh a rematch Eldari Necrons. So yeah, what how did it go? What did you guys what did you guys think?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So a couple things are like overall off the bat. We decided I kind of guilted them in, and uh, this goes along with like the the thematical side of things, right? Um because it was our first foray into 11th, it I didn't want it to just feel like we were just beating each other up because we didn't really know what to bring. We didn't there's there's no way to kind of like balance that, and we wanted it to just kind of be a walkthrough of hey, we're all kind of learning 11th together. Um, and it was cool, it was still competitive, don't get me wrong. Like, uh of course we want to be each other, like we're friends, of course we are competitive, and we and we are always trying to win, even if we say we aren't, we are definitely always trying to win. Um, but it was it was nice to kind of be able to take the things that we've been talking about for a while um and apply them to the table and take a look at you know the different ways that like forced dispositions are gonna are gonna act. We also brought the twist part in, because like I said, a little more thematical, and we were kind of just playing uh let's figure some stuff out. Granted, with that being said, we didn't all of the twists that we chose kind of messed with the with the missions that we were using, right? So it kind of rebalanced the missions so that we weren't necessarily pitting one army's force disposition and then their kind of like optimized mission against another army's force disposition and their optimized mission. The twists kind of messed with that, which was fine. We were learning how to play 11th, we were having fun, um, and we were enjoying it. Interestingly enough, I think three games is all I have to go off of from this event, and playing the twist, I think that that aspect balanced out the game unto itself. All of our games ended very, very close. And they all went late into the rounds where there was kind of an opportunity where if you found it and you looked, Ray, and you looked at, you know, kind of the macro strategy of what you were doing, you could, you could, if you were losing, you could come back into the game. There were ways to do that, and we talked about this previously um in our thought process for 11th. Um, I think, based off of what I've seen, based off of feedback from you and from others that are playing, I I think I think I feel like they're trying to um not have it so that we have so many routes and that you know you're just getting walked all over if it's a bad matchup. I think that the way 11th is kind of structured and the way that they're thinking through it, I I think that it's it's meant to give you opportunities. There's there's plenty of opportunities to get back into a game and and to keep the scoring um as close as possible. You have to see them. I think there's consequences. If you choose things wrong, it can hurt you too. Um, but I don't know. That's that's my tops down, I guess, perspective of the games that we played across the Barnhammer event.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

I mean that that roughly matches my experience playing games so far. Because I've had a similar experience of I think the biggest point differential has been 25-ish points. Yeah. Which isn't huge in the grand scheme of things. And I think three of my games have been within 10 or 11 points of each other. So yeah, that that kind of matches my

Force Dispositions Pros and Cons

SPEAKER_01 15:12

experience. I also resonate with what you said about kind of the modular nature. But one of the things I've experienced, and I think it's both a it can feel really good or it can feel really bad, depending on on who you are. Um is I think the force disposition thing, like you said, it allows you to re-rack things, choose a new force disposition, uh play, you know, the same army, and yet the game will feel completely different. And I love the fact that the interaction of the two force dispositions changes the primary mission, changes the terrain you're playing on. I love that side of it. The only feel bad I found so far, and I I'm even gonna chalk it up to hey, I'll deal with this to for all the positives that I found so far, is I think they've made a concerted effort to give every army access to all five force dispositions, which I applaud because that gives people the option to play all five. But I'm not sure every army plays each force disposition equally well. And I don't know that that's a bad thing because it I think it's good that some of them feel like they're more naturally inclined to play the game in different ways. Like when you first told me about one of the games, I think it was the third game, and you're like, yeah, Necrons played disruption, I winced because I was like, ooh, that does not sound like the kind of forced dispositions that Necrons would play well just with how their army is constructed, with what their rules are like, with what kind of units they have. And I I've come around to that's fine. Like, not every build has to be good.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Right. I I think I think that that's I don't know. I I saw that when I watched the two, like it was really cool to watch the Votan and the um the Eldari games kind of both back to back um and see them kind of switch. Um the the way that both armies felt were completely different on the board, and they had different objectives. And so you're playing uh not similar, but you know, you're still playing what feels like a Necron army or what feels like an Eldari army. It's just it felt like they could put on a different hat and assume a different identity and use everything on the table a different way, and yet you're still kind of coming back to like there's still a little bit of a you know uh a core feel to it, if you will. Um that was always kind of there, right? But it just felt like you could like you could cosplay a different type of army on the thing. Now it doesn't necessarily mean it's good, right? And and we saw that, right? Um, you know, cousin Josh played a version of Necrons that was a little bit more aggressive the second time that he played, and and or I'm sorry, the first time he played, he played a more aggressive Necrons list. The second time he played, he played a more defensive Necrons list. And it the core was there, but it definitely changed the feel of the table. And what I saw was both players, um, other Josh and Cousin Josh, they had to change their strategies um for what win conditions were and how that came to be and the different ways that they interacted with the army, and I think that's the part about 11th that I'm most excited about is that you you you can do that, right? Even if it's not good, if you want to play a certain style, there's an option available for you to try it, right? And it doesn't necessarily have to be meta, and the best part I think is maybe you still have opportunities to play a really good game, um, and not only be pigeonholed into playing meta things. That's that's my observation, it's an opinion. I've only played a handful of games in 11th, so this could all change in an instance.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

I mean, eventually it's going to get solved, and there's gonna be a meta that emerges, especially with everyone that plays Warhammer playing on what is essentially the same terrain layout. Like in 10th edition, you had this weird wrinkle of depending on where you lived geographically, if you played competitively, you were playing on one of three different terrain packs. If you lived, I think, in the you know, kind of Oceania, Australia or continental Europe, you played WTC. If you lived in the United Kingdom, you played on UKTC. And if you live, if you lived in the United States, you played on GW terrain. And that produces three different distinctly different metas. It makes it weird because we all pretend when you go watch Ospek's tactics, like the win rates are the same, even though they're rolling up on three different metas, three different terrain layouts. Now we're all playing on the same one. We're all it's all apples to apples. So eventually it will get sh it will get solved, but to your point, I found it's way more interesting to play the thing that isn't meta, because even if it's not completely optimized and crushing, it's still gonna be super fun.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Um so alright, so you've played some games, right? Um and we can get back to the games that I played in a little bit. Um, but you've played some games. What are your tops down thoughts on the games that you've played?

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Um tops down. So one similar to you. I love the modular aspect of it. I continue to love the force dispositions. At this point, I have played four games, eight different armies, and I think I am one more game away from at least trying each force disposition twice. I still need to do disruption and take and hold versus each other, and then I will have played each force disposition twice and one matchup against another one uh twice for each one. I'm really, really enjoying it. I love the ability to combine detachments. I have only played One game with a 3DP detachment. Everything else has been a 2DP and a 1DP. And it just, I'm digging how thematic it feels. I'm I'm really enjoying the creativity of list building, even if it's not a hundred percent optimal. I think you can still get to something that feels really good on the table. And I'm also still working my way through the I think I have a knack for building lists in certain force dispositions, and there are other ones where I'm still feeling my way through it. But by and large, I'm I'm really, really enjoying it. I just the only downside that I see is again that, you know, what if you have a force disposition that you really want to play and your army isn't great at it, or the detachment you really want to play isn't aligned to it. But I I'm willing to concede the ground on that one because I I think what they've come up with is really cool so far.

Barnhammer Surprises

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, I I will tell you something that I saw a little bit, um, which is the uh aggressive list with the necrons that cousin Josh played. Um I I don't think the Necrons are great at it. I think that there was some issues with the Necrons and wanting to do it the way that he was doing it. Um but I think it was I think it was a good list. But it did do something that I thought was really interesting. So Cousin Josh kind of has this like ingrained way of playing where he is naturally defensive, like he just loves to play defense and he likes to like castle up and build these kind of castly bricks that are just so hard to kill or so hard to move, and he gets a huge kick out of it, right? Um the change that I saw was it gave him the opportunity to try something different, which was go totally aggressive with it. Um, and the interesting part, like I said, I I don't think the Necron's list is I don't think Necron's meta is super aggressive right now. At least not that I've seen. Maybe it is, maybe I'm just totally lying here.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

No, you're you're right. There meta is taken hold, or maybe priority assets, purge the foe, not quite a Necron's thing. Disruption, definitely not a Necron's thing. Reconnaissance, I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

But I thought it was so cool for him to come out and just be like, you know what? It's 11th, baby. We're going full-on aggressive Necron. I've never done this before. And in a play group, right, that we have, we all know that that Josh is going to be more on the defensive side. And I think it caught me, other Josh, Chris, all off guard. Just like, wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, what just happened? Like, turn two, he was trying to get as far up the board as he could possibly get. And uh the cool part was it it it it changed the dynamic of the game pretty quickly. Like other Josh, like we've talked about like he's very good at like figuring out all the little nooks and crannies of the game, and you could see him have to like adjust the way that he thought this was gonna go, like mid-game. And I I just it was so fun to watch. Um, and it was super enjoyable. And so I I I swear I'll bring this around to something that make a point. Um, I'm just really excited. Uh um the the point that you made about like it allows you to be able to fit things together and they may not be good, yeah, but it also may be able to fit things together that no one's expecting. And you could come off the high rope of just like, whoa, I didn't see that combination, or I've never seen that before. And especially in our play group, it allowed my cousin to play a completely different way than he's normally used to playing. And it was fun to watch. It was fun to watch him do that and figure out a different way and a different aspect to his gameplay, and it was also really fun to watch other Josh deal with this thing that kind of came out of left field and you know, kind of squirrel his way around it um and have to play to it. It just made for a really interactive game, and I think that I honestly I'm super excited about playing the list I played, I really loved it. But I think that might have been my favorite part of Barnhammer was just being able to see kind of what you're describing in action.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

I mean, I could tell because I was driving while you were doing that, and you were texting me roughly every five minutes with updates and you're running commentary and how excited you were. And at one point, my wife, because my phone was kind of up mounted to the dashboard because we were using it for directions. My wife looked over and she goes, So they're having fun.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Don't lie, you had FOMO too. I mean, don't get me wrong, you went on an amazing vacation with your family, and that's really cool and all. But you had FOMO.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

I mean, you just talked about how your cousin came out swinging and he was playing aggressively. How do you know that I wasn't using my Bluetooth to feed him instructions?

SPEAKER_00 27:39

I don't know, maybe you were. I don't know. I didn't see any earpieces in cousin Josh. I know you're out there listening. I don't know, maybe that's what it is. And and and other Josh, I don't know. Maybe we gotta do a a check down next time uh on the game. Um I infected him with the destroyer madness. It it really was cool. I mean, there are a couple things with 11th that I think need to get tweaked and changed, but for the first, yeah, for the first couple games, I I just I don't know. I'm pretty excited about this edition.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Like, I'll even take it to the point of it's too early to know. Like, are there some things that I've experienced where I'm like, huh, I'm not sure if I like that or not? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

But that could also be me bringing in my assumptions from 10th edition. So like one of the ones, and I I know cousin Josh brought this up playing the the Cursed Legion Necrons. I experienced it today. I just played a game with orcs and I ran two big things of Squig Hog Boys. The new engagement rules aren't great for things on big models that run in decent-sized units because you can't get very many of them into engagement range to then participate in the fight.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

So I found that same type of thing when because I have some big models like a hecaton, right? When that gets engaged, and then getting other things in to support it, I ran into that same problem, and it was like, huh. Okay, how do I do this? And it it it you're right. Uh I mean that was one of the things that I was like, I don't know that I love this, but I don't know that I hate it either. I just don't know how to feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

It's just a matter of I've kind of come down to reprogramming some assumptions. And the other thing is maybe redefining what is gonna be good. So, like I we've covered in the past, I'm I'm Mr. Chaos in our playgroup. So I really dig chaos space marines. Renegade Raiders was one of the best, most consistent ways to play Chaos Space Marines through all of 10th edition. It's a very powerful detachment. It did not it falls in the category of one of those ones that didn't get a great force disposition. Like it's its entire detachment rules are all about getting buffs when you attack things that are on objectives. That sounds like a great way to play purge the foe. It got reconnaissance as a force disposition. So the CSM community is not super thrilled about that one. No, no, the uh that seems to be the guard. We won't go there. Yeah. But I gotta go there. I w I played we we'll go there in a little bit, but it's so not a full-fledged meltdown, but you do see some complaints because it's an objectively fun detachment to play. It was good for most of 10th. It's how a lot of people I think still view and learned how to play. I've had to do a you know what? I I'll go figure out something else to play. Maybe I need to recalibrate my expectations, and this is an opportunity to play the game a different way and to play a different list and to play a different detachment. And that's that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

So so what if you don't though? Like, what if you don't play a different list and you don't play a different detachment? What if you go with what you did, but just maybe don't go in with the objective that you had for 10th, but try and figure out how that combination is supposed to work and feel in the new edition. And maybe maybe they are onto something. I don't know. Maybe they they have figured out a way, and and it's just another look at how how to you know how to how to work the the game.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

So that that's the stuff where I'm having a lot of fun because we as we've established, I love list hammer, which I did a lot of over my vacation, but it's yeah, because you didn't have FOMO, right? No, I no, I I had FOMO, but it's I also was super excited to hear how well your list performed, to hear that cousin Josh came out swinging with his necrons. Like it was cool to hear how it went. And yeah, what you brought up is a it's that's another viable option. I I just love the idea of it. Feels like you know, there's there's a whole lot of opportunities to look at the game differently, and I'm enjoying trying to figure that out.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

It feels fun, like I said, it feels refreshing. I feel like I'm learning Warhammer again. I feel like my my knowledge is expanding on the game through learning different ways to play it and different interactions. And I don't know, like I said, keyword refreshing for me. That's that's been kind of my observation so far. Um, so can we talk about my list?

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Yeah, I was gonna say, yes. I I want to hear about your list, I want to hear how the game went.

SPEAKER_00 33:14

Okay,

Barnhammer Votann Recap

SPEAKER_00 33:15

all right. So I I won't go, I won't full recap the list, right? But I will talk about so I really wanted to play a 2DP, 1DP combination, and I wanted to play Votan because I don't know. I just wanted to play Votan. I I'm kind of obsessed with your own. Yeah, I I just love the little guys, they try so hard. Um so I wanted to play Need Guard because I don't know. I feel like I didn't get along with it all that well in 10th, and I was hoping maybe through playing that I could learn a new way for it to feel in 11th. And we've talked about my struggles with with Botan in the later stages of 10th and as they got their codecs and stuff like that. So you can go back and recap all that. It's like five, 10 episodes ago. Um, but I wanted to give Hearthguard a chance to also be back in the list because when Steeljacks came out, that was all the rage. Everybody wanted to be in that arena, and I listen, I get it. They're kind of cool robots, they're kind of the closest thing we have to Terminators, and also they're they're just cool, they were cool stinking models. Um so I wanted to play Hearthguard Covenant, which is a 1DP attachment. The interesting part about the list, and I know I'm gonna get crucified because I picked playing Purge the Foe, but if I'm being quite honest, I've never really played Votan as a Purge the Foe before. That hasn't been the way that I've played in the past. So I'm deviating from the things that I normally do, which is again one of the reasons why I find this so exciting. Um, but the whole idea was um it gave me a chance to do something that I find really frustrating about the Votan. I could wait and pause on my action monkey type um units and really put a star of the show out there, which was the basically the hearthguard death bombs um that essentially you get to get give them um when you give them you know the right crests and um attach them to things the right way and use them to teleport. And because you get the six-inch deep strike, I mean it is a formidable thing for them to move around the board. Um I normally don't play Votan that way, and so it gave me kind of the the fastest chance for me to get to something that I've always kind of wanted them to do. Um, and now I had an opportunity to do it. And I think that the ability to not have to just play action monkeys and and try and use those things to like, you know, uh do a whole bunch of board control that way was super cool. And I learned a whole new way that I can apply pressure um in a list that I haven't ever uh done before. So being able to hold back on your action monkeys, play the missions that allow you like to to to work the way that the new uh objectives are um and kind of just I don't know, go go after it turn two, three rather than having to wait for everything to be set up properly for turn four. If you've lasted turn five, which is how I felt before, it was such a cool way to play them. And I'm tweaking the list already because I want to make a couple changes uh based off of some of the things I saw, but it it just I don't know, it gave me a new perspective on how to play them. And man, the hearthguard are so cool in this list, just so cool.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Is the champion cool?

SPEAKER_00 37:35

No, no, screw that guy, folks. I know and you know if you've listened to multiple of our episodes, that me and this champion, we just I don't, you know what? I have a certain expectation. I expect him to show up and do his job and get paid, and I'll be happy with him. And he just doesn't do it at this point. I swear to God, there is a button that my opponent presses, and immediately I roll ones. I don't care if it's on a charge, I don't care if it's you have to roll anything higher or two or higher, and hey, it does something. Nope, I'm rolling a one. And matter of fact, in this game, I sent Eric a picture of the champion before he went to charge, a picture of the dice box, and it was once. I took a picture of okay, we're gonna do damage now. Once, and I'm not even making this up, it's just like now it's comical. Like it was to the point where it's like this thing, it just has to not work, just because it it wouldn't be canon if it did, you know. If it if it if it worked, it would be so so odd. So, yeah, no, maybe that's part of the list tweaking that I'm gonna do. He's got one job to roll ones. He does that proficiently. I will tell you that. He is very good at rolling ones, and we know, like I'm I'm a grown man sitting here telling you that this champion doesn't do his job when I'm the one rolling the dice, and it's my fate that potentially is affecting these die. It works for every other model on the board, except for that one. Why? So frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

I mean, it wouldn't be lore accurate if your champion didn't whiff.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

I mean, yeah, it's just anyway, so no, the champion is not my champion. He's kind of more like the court jester. And actually, I thought about it. I thought about buying another model of the champion and maybe modding it to put like a like a jester hat on it, and then paint it like a court jester, which would be the polar opposite of everything else I have on the board. But I just feel like that's something I gotta do now.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

And that or just find a way to mod one so it's like he's running like the Black Templars Emperor's champion with his hand up in the air, only instead of holding a sword, he's just got a finger going, I'm number one, and he's really just calling a shot on what he's gonna roll.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

The one so I have a bunch of champion models, but the one I do have is like pointing his finger, and it kind of does look like he's doing like a number one. I think what I'm gonna do is 3D print a jester hat and er no, a dunce hat. There you go. That's what I'm doing. Every time that stupid sucker fails at doing his only job on the board, I'm gonna put a dunce hat on him. And maybe I'll even come up with house rules that now he's like negative one to charge rolls or something. I don't know. But man, he's annoying.

SPEAKER_01 40:54

So uh, so what do you want to play next then? So you're you're digging the Votan. I was chuckling as you were talking through it because it sounds like you kind of backed into playing a slight where's the beef type list. Yeah. Yeah. There's no judgment there because I've been having fun playing some of those lists as well. I played a CSM Creations of Bio list that was literally five units. It's like Abaddon and ten chosen, Fabius Bio in ten chosen, Huron Blackheart, and like the Masters of the Maelstrom in ten legionaries, and then one other small unit. So I am just as guilty. I'm experimenting with those lists as well, but I think it's funny that you you built kind of the tall, not wide lists, and that's really got you digging the game.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah, I I think it was really I don't know, it was a really balanced list. I think there might be some changes. I I actually thought about adding more beef to it. Um I thought about using um sagittars instead of uh instead of Jaegers and uh cap. I thought that might be I think that might actually be something that I enjoy more, but I do think it kind of limits my range a little bit, and the sagittars tend to get stuck. Um so if they're not transporting something, they kind of they they get one or two moves and then they're gonna get bogged down. Um which by the way, that's in my opinion, what happened to some of the speeders that Chris was playing. Um I think it's kind of the same thing the way that the terrain layouts are now and the way that things are going. You really can't continue to, at least I haven't found, you can't continue to move those what I'll call me mid-range transport type troops. I just don't feel like you you're really gonna get to move them too too much around the board. Like used to be that they could like float around and you maybe didn't even have to get things out to like turn three, right? It didn't feel that way in the limited interactions I had. I don't know if that's what you're seeing across your games. Um, but I do feel like the the way that the terrain is laid out, the way that it it it it the way that things are proportioned um so far uh with those layouts, I I feel like you can get into the other army pretty quickly. Like the the spacing feels a little different than it did in 10th. Like in 10th, it felt like no man's land could stay no man's land for quite a while, and you could just set up on either side and just shoot at each other. Um and and really the only reason to go into no man's land was to um, you know, if you had a really pressure heavy army, you're gonna push up into no man's land and try and put the pressure and pin them back, right? Whereas in this, I feel like you you can trip and stumble and you're still gonna fall into the midfield because the missions and the objectives kind of push you in that direction. Anyway, not all in the midfield, but you're gonna have something there, um, which which felt a little bit different. So I don't know. I'm flirting with whether or not to take out some of the maybe one set of pioneers and and the Capricus and and um and the Jaegers and and work with some Sagittari stuff, but I don't know. But yes, where's the beef?

What's Steve Playing Next?

SPEAKER_00 44:23

So what are we playing next?

SPEAKER_01 44:26

So you're gonna keep going with where's so are you gonna keep going with Votan or are you gonna pivot over to either Death Guard Guard or I did hear a rumor that you got a super secret fourth army in the works.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

So I I don't know that it's so super secret, um, but I think I'm probably gonna pivot away from Votan for now. Um I think maybe you and I can play a Votan game and we can kind of fudge around with it. But um Yes, the fourth army is 100% where's the beef. And I I don't know that I want to totally reveal it on here yet because I'm still flirting with what I want to do with it. Um I know you kind of have an idea and I was looking up some stuff and I was reading things, like I just got the codex in. Um but I'm not sure yet where I want to go with it, but I will reveal the name of it. Go ahead. We're gonna call it the Pink Pony Club.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

Partially because right now they're based in pink. We can talk about what it is, right? So, um so Imperial Knights has been piquing my interest for a while, and I can feel everybody rolling their eyes in the meta universe right now.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

Um they are quite good right now.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yes, and that's kind of why I am flirting with some other things, because you know I'm not super about like let's play the meta list. Um but there's a couple things that I I think I do want to do, and I really do like this idea of so like I was saying about the mobility of those mid-range transports and things like that. Knights have a huge range that they can move. But I feel like if you don't deploy well and you don't have like a flexible strategy with that deployment, like it's gonna be really tough. Like you're gonna get pinned in places. And so from a knight's perspective, I really wanna like work out how how to deal with that on the board because I just think that that's such a I don't know. The cliche way to play knights is kind of like, hey, I'm big, I'm stompy, and you know, I'm gonna go just like be here and be a thing, and good luck taking me off of whatever it is that I am. But I think that there's a way to play knights where you can use angles and you can use mobility traps, if you will, right? You do have a big range, you can move, um, you can create certain shooting lanes, and I think that that's kind of um that's kind of a uh a big reason why I I kind of want to play with knights, and interestingly enough, and man, I'm talking a lot on this one. Sorry, everyone. I am just really excited, and it's Eric's fault because we haven't podcasted in like three weeks, so I have a lot of this built up. So everybody's just here for Steve Hour. Um, so we watched this video, which was really interesting, and it was kind of silly and stupid, but um, the video was like some guy breaking down how the battle of Helm's Deep would have gone if we had modern military defending Helm's Deep. And it was really interesting the way that they talked about like creating crossfire, creating shooting lanes, pulling the enemy into like areas where certain aspects can get to them. And long story short, that's how I think about knights in my head, and now I'm trying to figure out how do I put that together with a combination of force dispositions and strategy because I that's what I think about. I don't think it's about just being big and stompy, and yes, some of them are very scary in melee, but I think it's more about like can I can I like pull the strings on playing the opponent to a point where I can get them into choices and different angles and different things where um you know they're they're gonna whittle themselves away, if you will, as I continue to play this. And obviously I have to get the missions to fit that right, but I have this idea in my head and I'm working on it.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Sounds I mean, just listening to the way that you talk about it is really, really interesting to me. Because I, in a lot of ways, you and I approach the game very differently. And one of my frustrations when I play Where's the Beef type list, you know, I played an orc list that was very much that way, I played a CSM game that was very much that way, I've played a game with Chaos Knights. I find ironically, I almost find them a little bit harder to play when I have a lower number of units, because it almost forces you to play every turn perfectly because you don't have a backup to whatever the job you're trying to do with each unit is every turn. Especially once things start dying and you get down to having like two or three units, and that's your entire army. So hearing you talk about it is fascinating to me because that is completely different about how I think about the game.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

I think that the way that I think about them, to your point, right, is each one of them knows their job, and the way that you play that army balanced is you you don't necessarily have somebody that has a redundant job with them, but you have somebody that can cover the job's six or their weakness. And it's just a different way of thinking about an army that I really I I haven't yet put it on the board, I haven't yet figured out how to do it. It's just it's just kind of like this thing of like, can I create this like dynamic interaction between big models on the board that aren't necessarily directly working with each other? I I don't know. I'm I'm I'm I'm still spitballing it, I'm still working my way through it, but that's kind of that's kind of the like theory behind it.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

It's awesome. I mean, I I'm looking forward to seeing you when you start playing it because I I'm digging how you're talking about it. I'm gonna completely suck.

SPEAKER_00 51:22

I mean at least the first couple times, but I don't know, it's just kind of fun to like ad lib it a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Yeah, it it's fun to be in the exploration phase.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

For me, too, the other side of that is like I can kind of create my own little stories around these models and kind of give them, you know, their own little like backstory type things, and like I don't know, I can do the immersion part and use my imagination as a middle-aged man. Um but that part is fun to me.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

That's awesome. So you gonna play that one next or are you gonna try something else? Because it sounds like that one's gonna be a bit of a hobby project and a bit of a study project for you. So is there anything in the interim?

SPEAKER_00 52:14

So I think that that one is going to be kind of like my long-term project for the next couple months and may potentially be what I try to bring to the next Barnhammer event um when we have everybody up. So that's probably not a near-term thing. Um, I don't know why right now Death Guard just isn't it's just not I don't know, it's not as intriguing to me. I will tell you, I am intrigued by this whole guard phenomenon and how the um Imperium Guard is kind of like I don't know, people are up in the air about it, and they're this way and they're that way, and they're changing the identity of it, and this, that, and the other, and then some dude goes out and like wins big tournaments, and like I don't know. I find it fascinating that there's so much there, and there's so much diversity in that one that I truly do think I can nail something down with that and play it and have fun. And honestly, that's probably what I was gonna play the either the next time I play you or if we do an event with you know, maybe not necessarily a full-blown Barnhammer, but we do a couple practice games. I was gonna look at putting a guard army together and kind of seeing what I can do with it.

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Oh, that's awesome. It's all right. So I have a hot take on the guard thing, which I think goes back to some of what you said got you so excited about Barnhammer and watching your cousin play Cursed Legion, which is I think in a my my early take with 11th edition is it's gonna be tremendously fun for armies that have large diverse model ranges, uh orcs, space marines, chaos space marines, necrons, eldari, guard. But it comes with a caveat, and I think it comes the caveat is you need to recalibrate your brain a little bit on how you think of those large diverse armies. And I think so that you know what we're talking about for folks who haven't heard about it is I think it was Art of War, one of the big time competitive content creators put out a tier list a week or two ago where they talked about you know it with the best player playing it and the most optimized list, where would we put each of these factions? And they put guard in A tier, and the guard community all had an aneurysm and melted down. And you know, my my take on that is it's almost like you know, both things can be true because I think what we're seeing. So think about what we talked about with your cousin Josh, where historically the way to think about Necrons was you had these wings of the army, and you know, and you were playing specific dynasties, and each dynasty was supposed to play a certain way. Well, they've kind of completely recalibrated it, and now you're no longer playing specific dynasties, you're playing different flavors of how to play it, and they're setting up these detachments to encourage you to play different types of models, and some of the detachments will encourage you to skew it. And I think it's super cool. Like you got all excited because historically your cousin has played kind of an old ninth edition approach of well, I'm gonna have some range shooting and I'm gonna have some infantry to go out and get on objectives, and I'm gonna play combined arms, and it's gonna be this nice, well-balanced between vehicles and infantry and buff units. And he's got a very cohesive here. Here's how he wants to play the game. So to see him just completely deviate from that and come out swinging with, I'm gonna skew super hard to this one wing of the army and I'm gonna go after it. I think that's part of what 11th edition is encouraging folks to do. And some of the started and 10th edition. And so my hot take with the guard community is it's not that guard is bad, but it's the the tried and true. Well, I play Cadians, so I'm gonna play my Cadian infantry with my Cadian command squads, with my Cadian heavy weapons, with my Lehman Russes, and one Rogel Dorn. And I've got this nice balanced approach to guard. Well, that's that may not be the way to approach the game anymore. And and a lot of what I see online is folks not wanting to make that pivot and not wanting to maybe lean into different aspects of the army, even if it's not their preferred way. So I think it's cool if you're gonna trot out the guard and and try something new. Because what I've noticed is you you approach guard differently, where it's like, I don't care if I'm mixing and matching Cadians with Deathcore or Krieg. I don't care if I'm missing mixing and matching Catachans in there or the the Death Riders in there. And so I I I don't know, I'd be super interested to see how that plays out for you because I I wonder how much of the legit performance issues it seems like Guard is having is from holding on to old play patterns and trying to force those in a new game system that doesn't quite work for it.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

So I think that's why I'm so excited to try and play Guard. Um, is I think I can get out of some habits that I was in when I was playing Guard in 10th and 9th, right? Um and every time I played Guard, it felt kind of the same way, right? And I haven't done a lot with Catachans. Um what I will tell you is um our buddy Chris found a box of catachans in like I don't know, some old house or something like this, like so random, right? But they're the old school ones, and whoever painted these did an awesome job. So I think it'd be really cool as like a little throwback to like play them too, um, and bring them into the game, which would be kind of fun. Um so there's other reasons why I kind of want to play a guard list, but yeah, I think it'll be cool to see something different. Um, you know, I also don't really want to play, I don't want to play like an all-out, like just overwhelm the other person with so many people type game. But at the same time, I also don't want to play a oh, here goes all my Rogaldorns, here goes, you know, every other piece of artillery I have. I don't really want to do that either. I kind of want to see if I can find some sort of a balance in between that and and play it in a in a different light. Um, and to your point, be okay with playing something that is, you know, slightly different than the last couple times we've played it. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

So guard next. It and with regards to Death Card, I wouldn't be surprised if part of it is I don't know that their play pattern has changed fundamentally since their codex came out, so it might just be that they feel a little boring.

SPEAKER_00 59:30

Yeah, I I don't I like their codecs and I like what they're doing. I I like the idea. It's just not it's just not fancy and new and shiny yet, and doesn't feel like uh, you know, like what are they what do they say, like cool side of the pillow? Yeah, like it'll all calm down, right? But but I just think that there's so many exciting things that are different right now that it's it's I don't know, it's just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

Yeah, it I agree. It is I have too many lists in my phone I could probably play for the next year and not play all the lists that I have made because it is I don't know. I I really love this new detachment system and combining them, and I'm I'm really enjoying the different force dispositions.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

Yeah, so all right,

Housekeeping and Wrap Up

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

so I know we're coming up on time here in a couple minutes, and I kind of feel bad because I have done nothing but talk this entire time. So why don't we set the precedence now and talk a little bit about some housekeeping? So um, you know, you you went on vacation and and we had some time to um settle down. We haven't podcasted in a little while, so we're back. Um, you know, I think as part of that, both of us have had a chance to kind of cut our teeth on 11th. Obviously, I've talked about it now for over an hour. Um I I I think it'd be really cool if you know our next episode you could talk about some of the things that you're doing because I think it is gonna help people with some perspective, and you're playing some different armies than than what you've talked about in the past, which I think could be really cool. So um, you know, I think you know, next week we can we can break down some of your games and maybe get into some list building and things like that. Um I don't know, what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

Yeah, I think that works. I so I mean we could do this over the next couple of weeks. One, we've got a I don't know that they've committed to calling it a data slate. They called it a monthly update. So we've got one of those coming in two days. There might be some things to talk about off of that. I have some games queued up that I want to keep playing, and I'm gonna keep burning through the different force dispositions, the different armies that I play, and then I've got some some favorites that I want to put on the board to see how they do. So it uh I'll definitely have a bunch of stuff to talk about, and we can there's some other things I've deliberately not spoken about today on things that I've noticed with the rules, with the the way the missions are structured, and kind of some some things I've discovered real time of like uh oh, that works different than I expected, or I have to recalibrate how I expect the game to play out because this is no longer 10th edition. So I I can bring some of those. So let's over the next couple weeks, just as it makes sense, bring those various things up and and hopefully you know we can sneak in a game you and I that we can come and talk about as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:37

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, maybe play play some alternative games, maybe go down to the local game store, play a game there again. I think that was really cool, and you know, just um, you know, get some time in and and and really work the hobby. I think I think it'll be really cool to, you know, we came up with a couple backlogged ideas of maybe even building out a kind of like a a random type list on on you know as one of our episodes and kind of going through our thought process there. I think that would be a lot of fun. So I think there's a lot of things that are coming. We're we're excited to be back podcasting. It's it's been a little while. Obviously, I have a lot of pent up excitement um since I pretty much talked through this whole thing. So it's uh yeah, we're back. We're back. It's exciting. 11th is here, and and yeah, I look forward to it. There you go. All right, well, let's uh I think let's end on that. I mean, uh I I really truly had a blast during Barnhammer. I think that um the list that we talked about here, it was kind of really fun to bring a surprise list to you and and see how it played out on the table. And and I I you know I really like the direction that 11th is going.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

I just think it's super cool. I'm really enjoying listening to you talking about your experience with 11th and going full circle. You built a list, thinking about what you wanted it to do, putting it on the table. Like you're you're you're being humble about it now, but you did quite well in the game, and I could tell you were very, very proud when you were texting me of like, dude, I I built a list with an intention to do a specific thing, and then we had a twist, which threw a monkey wrench, and then I still was able to to do it, and now I'm going and kind of looking online, and there are other people who are experimenting with lists similar to mine and saying this might be a really good way to play Votan. So I I just think it's super cool the full story arc with you building and then going to play that list because it it sounds like you really stumbled onto something that's a bit spicy, really, really fun. And given the trials and tribulations you had through all of 10th with the Votan, I I think that's just a super cool way to open up 11th.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. I'm I'm really looking forward to it, and I'm glad that this kind of worked out because I'll be honest, it's it's created a a surge of excitement, and and honestly, I hope I can do it with some other armies. I think I think it's it's really neat. It's helping me to kind of fall in love with aspects of the hobby that maybe were a little stale to me and before. So so I'm I'm really genuinely happy with um with with challenging myself to learn 11th.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

I also just think it's really funny that you and the guys who got together to play Barnhammer, each of you brought and played exclusively what I would describe as your I am my faction faction.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:53

We can talk about that in a whole episode because I think that 11th brings out the I am my faction in a whole new light. So that's definitely a follow-up episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

All right, add that one to the list. I am my faction 2.0.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:10

All right. Well, again, we're back. Excited to be here, everyone. Hopefully, you all are out there enjoying 11th. Um, and maybe you're not. Um, you know, that's an aspect of it too. Um, always, as usual, feel free to drop us a line, let us know your thoughts, let us know any games that you're playing and what that looks like. Um, but yeah, we're gonna keep uh keep providing our our our excitement and and what we're learning as we continue down this journey. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

And by the way, Steve, do you know what I'm most excited about for 11th edition? No.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

What? The Emperor's Children. Oh my god. Good night, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

Have a good night, everyone.