Dogs of War 4.2 and new RoR update out now!

Finally out of beta, the Dogs of War book has now been updated into an "official" 4.2 version. There's not a whole lot of changes from the beta for those of you who downloaded it then, but if you didn't, here's a quick run-down of the major changes:

• New units: Broken Lances, Pit Fighters, Hobgoblin Wolf Riders, Ribaults, Ballistae, Assassins, Griffons.
• Rebalanced points costs for several units, e.g cheaper pikemen and crossbowmen.
• New weapons and rebalanced old weapons: war hammers and blunderbusses, slightly weaker pikes, improved light crossbows.
• Improved formatting and layout throughout the entire books.
• Lots of new background for many units.
• Plenty of new art.

Links are the same as before.

Dark times ahead at GW...?

Though I can imagine that many of you who frequent the Warhammer forums might already have heard of this, but GW is not in a very good place right now. Apparently, their revenue has gone down a whole 10% since last year, which caused their stocks to plummet almost 25% when it was announced. Soon after, it was announced that GW Germany would close down.
Even more troubling are the rumours that Bretonnia, Wood Elves, Beastmen and Tomb Kings will have their support dropped* as they sell the least amount of models (which isn't exactly helped by the fact that 2 of these army have ancient rules sets and the other 2 are extremely low on the power scale).

To be honest, this wouldn't surprise me in the least, and seeing as Tom Kirby (the current CEO) only cares about the stock price (since he is one of their biggest investors) one can imagine that he will do everything he can to maximise short-term profits until the day he retires (hopefully no more than 2 years now), regardless of what it actually means for the company in the long run.

Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up here is because of a rather simple reason: if Wood Elves aren't seeing an update in May this year, I'll take up updating their book again. Same goes with Dwarfs if their alleged February release turns out to be false. Heck, should GW decide to drop more stuff, I'll just update those too, and if/when they go bankrupt, I'll update the whole damn game if I have to. Or you know, get in line for a job at whoever buys the IP. They can't do a worse job than GW is currently doing at least...


*Dropped as in; won't have any new models, won't have any new army books, won't be sold directly in stores. It's more likely that they will go they way of Dogs of War, an army that is still technically playable, but have no official support from GW. You will still be able to play all these armies, but you will have to do so using outdated official rules. Models will still available through GW's online store while stocks last, but probably won't be recast unless there's large demand for it. Also note: this is just a rumour. I still expect to see Wood Elves get a book in in May.

On the topic of Gnoblars...

Some decent news there; I have started putting the list together using the material from the old Gnoblar Hordes list, and it's currently up to 27 pages (will most likely go down once I'm finished with the formatting). There's also another fan-made army book for Gnoblars which is as of yet, unfinished. I will probably contact the authors of that one to see if they intend to work on it further or if they would be willing to share their material. At any right, it might give me some ideas for rules.

I've earlier put a "maybe" on February in terms of release date, but I think that might have been a little too optimistic. Gnoblars aren't exactly at the top of the pyramid as far as interesting factions go to me, so I won't be working on them as much for my sake as it is for the community.
At the very least, the Gnoblar book (if one could call it that) will be an updated "port" of the 6th ed list, but I will most likely throw in quite a few more units as well. That said, it might not be as good as my previous work due to a certain lack of personal interest in the subject. However, I've thought the same thing about quite a few of the other books, and people have still really liked those anyway, so I could be wrong! At any rate, Gnoblars are on the way, but do try to keep your expectations reasonable ;)

Alternative Miniatures: Kingdoms of Ind

Here's a collection of miniatures suitable for a (human) Kingdoms of Ind army:

Foundry
Vendel
New Line
1st Corps
Indus
Old Glory
Irregular

Alternative Miniatures: Chaos Dwarfs

Here's a list of suitable miniatures for a Chaos Dwarf army:

Forge World
Mantic
Titan Wargames
Battleforge
Russian Alternative
Titan Forge
Norba

Alternative Miniatures: Pirates of Sartosa

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for a Sartosan army:

Black Scorpion
Black Scorpion (Fantasy)
Crusader
Eureka
Hasslefree
Artizan
Reaper (Pirates)
Reaper (Sea Monsters)
Freebooter
Old Glory
Privateer Press
Dixon
Wargames Foundry

Alternative Miniatures: Halflings

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for a Halfling army:

Battleforge
Wargames Foundry
Mirliton
Black Tree
Black Hat
Reaper
Forlorn Hope
Essex
White Knight
Warploque
Macrocosm
Effin Cool
Slave2Gaming
Sabre

Alternative Miniatures: Dogs of War

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for a Dogs of War (Tilean) army:

Perry (Europeans)
Perry (War of the Roses)
Old Glory
Foundry
Assault Group
Eureka
Mirliton
Front Rank
Crusader
Renegade
Casting Room (Medieval)
Casting Room (Renaissance)
1st Corps
Lancashiregames
Grim-Forge

Alternative Miniatures: Amazons

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for an Amazonian army:

Antimatter
Freebooter
Mirliton
Eureka
Fenryll
Maidenhead
Wargames Foundry
Wargames Factory
Viking Forge
Shadowforge

Alternative Miniatures: Estalia

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for an Estalian army:

Zenit
Assault Group
Outpost Wargames Services
Old Glory
Wargames Foundry (Eldorado)
Wargames Foundry (Wars of Religion)
Eureka
Gamezone
Hell Dorado
Gringo40s
Brother Vinni
Tercio Creativo
Warlord
Casting Room
MoM
Shieldwolf
Norba
Avatars of War
Tercio

Alternative Miniatures: Norse

Here's a collection of suitable miniatures for a Norse army:

Red Box
Mierce (Norse)
Mierce (Angelcynn)
Gripping Beast
Dixon
Wargames Foundry
Old Glory (Nordvolk)
Old Glory (Vikings)
Reaper
Artizan
Crusader
Black Tree Design
Shieldwolf
Warlord
Footsore
Victrix
V&V
Steve Barber Models

Alternative Miniatures: Albion

Here is a collection of suitable miniatures to use for an Albion army:

Black Tree (Celts)
Black Tree (Picts)
Black Tree (Barbarians)
Renegade
Wargames Factory
Warlord
Wargames Foundry
Brigade
Reaper
Magister Militum
Gripping Beast
Confrontation (Sessairs)
Mierce (Albainn)
Mierce (Érainn)
Old Glory (Celts)
Old Glory (Picts)
Crusader
1st Corps
Alternative Armies
Mirliton
Victrix
Northstar

Alternative Miniatures: Nippon

For this army there are a ton of different makers to go with, and thus it's very possible I might miss a few. Fill in in the comments if you know of any that I've missed.

Titan Forge
Perry Miniatures
Bushido
Kensei 
Warlord Games
Steelfist Miniatures
Kingsford Miniatures
Old Glory Miniatures
Old Glory (West Wind)
West Wind
Dixon
Black Hat
Reaper
Wargames Foundry
Assault Group
AW
Footsore
Test of Honour

Plans for the coming year

Happy New Year and all that! Been a while since I last posted anything substantial, what with the holidays and gaming taking up most of my time. I'm almost finished with the latest release version of the Dogs of War book, though it doesn't really vary that much from the beta already online.
However, I'm not sure just how much time I will really have to work on the books during the upcoming months, due to just having gotten a full-time intern-ship during January-March, after which I will most likely be working on another job during April-June. This means that my time will be cut a bit short when it comes to working on any new projects, and thus I definitely will not be able to keep up the same pace as I did during 2013.

That said, I should at least be able to squeeze in a couple of the smaller army lists planned since I don't really have any major revisions to do on the main books (except Special Characters), though I'm not sure exactly when. Naturally, I will keep the blog updated whenever I start on any of these. With a bit of luck, I might at least have the Gnoblar list out in February. Until then, you can look forward to the Dogs of War book (as well as the RoR) around next week.