Battlefield Birmingham List, Part 3

As I said in my last entry, I had booked a game of Warhammer at a local club to test out my 2500 point Dragon list. What I've decided to do here is give a bit of a run-down of that game, focusing on my list and how it performed. I've not really tried to do a proper battle report before, so I doubt that this will be as good as some that I've read, but I hope that it will give me some insight on how to play the list better next time.

To start with, a quick recap of the list I was using:

2500 Vampire Counts

Vampire Lord: Charmed Shield; Talisman Of Preservation; Potion Of Strength; Quickblood; Level 2 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Zombie Dragon; lance; heavy armour. 616

Vampire: Enchanted Shield; Book of Arkhan; Dragonbane Gem; Level 1 Wizard, Lore of Death; Hellsteed; lance; heavy armour; Battle Standard. 207
Vampire: Sword Of Anti Heroes; Dragonhelm; Luckstone; Potion Of Foolhardiness; Quickblood; Dread Knight; Level 1 Wizard, Lore of Death; Hellsteed; shield; heavy armour. 231
Necromancer: Level 1 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Dispel Scroll. 90

36 Crypt Ghouls 360

15 Dire Wolves 120
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40
20 Zombies: musician; standard bearer. 70

5 Hexwraiths 150

Terrorgheist 225
Varghulf 175
Varghulf 175

2,499 points

My opponent had brought High Elves, and for the second straight game I was also facing off against a Dragon! This time though, as it was a club game, he was proxying some things in his list. I have no problem with this at the club (after all, what better time to try things out!) though when it comes to events I'd rather have an easier time of identifying what's what. From memory, his list contained the following:





Prince on Dragon
Noble BSB on Steed
Noble on Steed
Mage: Lvl 2 Fire
2 x 15 Archers
25 Spearmen
2 x 5 Reavers
14 Dragon Princes
2 Skycutter Chariots
2 Eagles

Unfortunately, when I had finally made it to the club, all of the good scenery had been pinched by other tables! We were left with 3 hills and a marsh, so we spread them out as best we could and got on with deployment.

My deployment

High Elf deployment

In terms of magic, his Fire mage rolled Fireball and Burning Head. My Lord got Hellish Vigour and Invocation, and the Necromancer took Invocation too. The BSB rolled Soulblight and kept it, and the other Vamp rolled a 1 so automatically took Spirit Leech. We did our Vanguard moves and I won the roll for the first turn. 

Turn 1, after my movement phase.

The main moves this turn involved pushing the Terrorgheist up to scream at the Reavers and everything else trying to stay within 12" of the Dragon to keep in march range. The Varghulfs (is that the plural? Varghulfii?) started running around the flank, trying to limit where the eagle could go. The Hexwraiths were not close enough to hit anything with their movement attack, so stayed back a bit. Magic was quite good, an Invocation giving me more Zombies and a boosted Spirit Leech taking 3 wounds off the nearest Skycutter. The Terrorgheist screamed at the Reavers, killing 4.

Turn 1, after High Elf movement

The High Elves responded by retreating into the corner. Skirt wearing pansies! :D The remaining Reaver charged the BSB's unit, hoping to put a cheeky wound on her, and the Skycutter charged the wolves. On the other flank, the Reavers charged the other small wolf unit. Simon had spotted that I'd left him an over-run into my Vampire, which I had completely missed. Magic saw me burn my Scroll protecting the Hexwraiths from a big casting value on a Fireball, and his shooting killed some Ghouls.

In combat, the lone Reaver failed his mission and was predictably killed. The other Reavers killed the wolves, and decided to overrun to avoid a potential Ghoul charge. I knew they'd either be stuck there and potentially charged, or overrun and be out of my way for a turn, so I wasn't too unhappy with that. The other wolves though died to the Skycutter without doing the last wound, and the chariot managed to get the overrun into my Vampire.

Turn 2, after VC movement

A Varghulf charged the Skycutter to try and help out the Vampire, but that was the only charge. The Terrorgheist again went up to scream at something, this time the eagle. Problem was it couldn't go far enough to get out of the charge arc of the Dragon Princes. I pushed the Hexwraiths up to help redirect the Princes if I managed to get Vanhels off, as they were just short again with their movement. The Ghouls moved up to threaten the infantry, and maybe tempt the Dragon into charging. Magic saw my first spell miscast, putting Soulblight on the cavalry to maybe make them think twice about charging the Terrorgheist. Fortunately the miscast did nothing major, but it meant the rest of the phase was a wash. The Terrorgheist again managed to not kill it's target, putting a wound on the eagle. In combat, the Skycutter ran over the Vampire purely with Impact Hits, but the Varghulf avenged it.

Turn 2, after High Elf movement.

Then Simon did something I wasn't expecting and charged the Hexwraiths with the cavalry. Everything else backed off again, except the eagle assigned speedbump duty in front of my Dragon. I sensed a theme emerging... ;-) Magic saw an Irresistible Fireball strip the Charmed Shield off the Lord and put a wound on the Dragon, and put a wound on his mage whilst killing a few archers. In combat the cavalry predictably went through the Hexwraiths on combat res, and with their flame-proof armour I couldn't even kill the unit champ. They overran, but not enough to hit the Varghulf behind.

Turn 3, after many many charges!

Here I had a choice. I had hoped to split up the cavalry and the dragon so that I didn't have to fight them both at once, and that had happened. I just needed to figure out how to make the most of it. The options were to redirect the bus for a turn or two with the Varghulfs and go for the dragon, but my own Ghouls were in the way. They charged the eagle, as did the BSB. It fled from that, and the Ghouls redirected towards the archers. They were further away, but I thought they would be less likely to flee. Flee they did though, and Plan Kill The Dragon was scuppered. So I went for the Dragon Princes. Both Varghulfs went in, and the Dragon went to run over the Eagle. The Dire Wolf unit went in too - I was hoping that the Lord would fail to kill the eagle and it would flee, meaning the wolves could make it in too (a long shot, but worth the risk I thought). Magic gave me a double 1, and a channel let me power through a Soulblight on the Princes. The Terrorgheist screamed and killed 5 Princes, then in combat I did very little. The Lord was stuck in a challenge with the Unit Champ, killing it, and the varghulfs both did a couple of wounds whilst taking a couple in return. The Elf BSB turned out to have the Crown of Command, so they went nowhere.

Elf turn 3. My photography failed me here... ;-)

The Lord popped her Potion of Strength, hoping to cut through the Dragon Princes this turn. The Elf Dragon charged my BSB and everything else moved out of the way again. The mage killed himself with another Irresistible Fireball, this time putting 3 wounds on the Terrorgheist. The Elf Lord predictably killed the BSB, and reformed so the Zombies weren't in his flank but he could still see my Dragon. Even with Strength 8, the Lord couldn't kill enough Dragon Princes. The Varghulfs went for the characters, and the Dragon used it's breath weapon, but at the end both Nobles were on a wound and there were 2 Princes left. The Crown again saw them stick about.

The end of my Turn 4. Spoiler alert!

This turn went a little better. The Zombies charged the Elf Dragon, sacrificing the Necromancer in a challenge to pin it in place. The Ghouls went for the Archers on the hill, making their charge and killing enough to drive them away - unfortunately they didn't catch them. The Terrorgheist flew over to scream at the Elf Dragon, putting a wound on the Prince, but I forgot about the Skycutter, leaving it easily within charge range for next turn. Magic saw an Invocation put wounds back on all the important stuff, but no Hellish Vigour. In combat, the Elf Dragon ate the Necromancer, but held from the resulting break test. In the important combat, the Lord and the Varghulfs finally killed off the Princes and the two heroes. A little late though, as all I could do was hope the Zombies held another round...

In the High Elf Turn 4, the Reavers charged the flank of the Zombies, and the Skycutter charged the Terrorgheist. Simon positioned it so it needed a 9 to overrun into my Dragon, and the Reavers needed an 8. He was hoping to get one of them so that I would be unable to charge his Dragon in my turn, and the odds looked good for him. On the other side of the field, the Archers rallied and turned to face the Ghouls, and the Spearmen charged and killed the Dire Wolves.
With no magic and no real shooting, combat saw the Skycutter roll a 1 for it's impact hits. Together with the ineptitude of the Terrorgheist fluffing all its attacks, this combat ended with the Terrorgheist still alive on 1 wound. With the combined attacks of the Reavers, Lord, Dragon and it's breath weapon, the Zombies evaporated. Crucially, the Reavers then made their Overrun into my Dragon, pinning it in place.

 Vampire Turn 5

 The only things I had left to move in my turn were the Varghulfs and the Ghouls. The Ghouls went into the remnants of the Archers, easily killing most and running the survivors off the board. One of the Varghulfs was stuck behind the Dragon, so it moved out to help if there was a next turn (at this point we were running short of time). The other charged into the Spearmen, hoping to Regen and a high toughness to keep him kicking. Magic was again very useful to me, with Invocation giving two wounds back to the Terrorgheist and healing the Dragon, but Hellish Vigour was again stopped. The Terrorgheist, even wounded and with the Prince nearby, put three wounds on the Skycutter with it's scream.
In combat the Varghulf killed plenty of Spears, but they were Steadfast and held. The Skycutter and Terrorgheist continued their stalemate with a scoreless draw, and the Lord and Dragon combined to kill only three Reavers. With their General nearby they held, giving his Dragon an easy charge into mine.

High Elf Turn 5

Time was short, so we made this the last turn. The Dragon, as expected, charged in and the rest of the Elf army kept itself out of the way. In combat, the Varghulf continued to kill Spears, but left 6 alive so they were again Steadfast and did not break. The Terrorgheist took a wound, but remembered what do do in combat and finally killed the chariot.
Now for the important clash. I challenged to keep the Reavers from adding a cheeky wound, and failed to get through the Princes Armour and Ward with the Vampire. Going back, the combined attacks of the Prince and Dragon put 4 wounds on the Lord, and I saved 1 with my Ward. Dead Vampire Lord. All I could hope for was for the Dragon to hold on to save some points, but it fluffed it's attacks and took 4 wounds from combat res. With the last act of the game being crumble tests, I needed to be lucky to hang on. The Terrorgheist failed by 1, leaving it on 1 wound, but the Dragon failed by 2 to give all it's points to Simon.

With that, we called it a game and totted up the points.

Vampires: 1527

High Elves: 1789
Result: 9-11 Loss

Summary
Well I must say that when the Lord died I had assumed I had lost, but it turned out it was a lot closer than I thought! I'm pretty sure if we had played Turn 6 the Terrorgheist would have died to crumbling, but the Varghulfs (who are immune to that) would have probably got the Reavers and the Spearmen, keeping things pretty even. Given the two mistakes I made costing me very useful units, I'm happy to keep it that close! It was also a lot closer that the last time we played, as then I wasted the Ghouls and didn't manage to kill the bus either.
Looking at my list, I can see straight away that this version is better. The Death magic adds a lot of ranged threat, and even having the extra spell on the Lord is a big difference. I think that the threat of the Hexwraiths was more useful than the Vargheists were in the last game, but I'm still not sure I'm using them correctly. I want to keep them close to the Lord to give them the 16" movement, but they never really had a good target within that range to go after. I also didn't use the Book of Arkhan in this game, but I'll keep it for now to see how useful it is in other situations.

I think that there will not be many changes to the list before my next game, as I want to see how it does without the positioning mistakes and against something different. I have another game at the club booked in for the Monday before the list deadline, so if there are any changes to make I will post them after that game.

Finally, please let me know if you this report was interesting. It was quite fun to do, but taking the photos put a bit of a strain on the game as I was trying to remember to do that as well as play. Simon was fine with it, as he usually does the same thing, but I'm not sure if every opponent would be so accommodating.

Until next time!

Battlefield Birmingham List, Part 2

Time for the second look at my VC Dragon list!

So, at the end of the previous post I had a first draft of my list, and had arranged a game against some High Elves. Well, suffice to say the game did not go too well and it ended as a big loss. I don't mind losing games, especially when they were a lot of fun, but as this was essentially prep for an event I thought about how I could improve things. Firstly, I focused on the positive aspects of the game:
- The army is certainly fast! With 4 flyers, 3 Vanguards and 2 monsters that can march 16" even on their own, I managed to redeploy almost everything to one side of the battlefield in 2 turns.
- The Terrorgheist scream is really useful! I've been on the receiving end of these before, but getting to take off a unit of Reavers turn 1 was very satisfying.
- The baby Vampires are actually pretty hard! The fighty one nearly took out the Elven Prince on the charge, and had I remembered my Potion of Foolhardiness I may have actually done it. The BSB was especially useful to stop things losing wounds in combat, an ability I had almost overlooked when building the list.

All that being said, there were a great many disappointments also.
- Magic. With only 3 level 1 wizards, all on the Lore of the Vampires, I had nothing really to draw out the inevitable Dispel Scroll. This meant that when it mattered I was forced to go for IF which cost a baby Vamp a wound, leading to her downfall.
- Target choices. I threw the Lord into a unit of Dragon Princes with the Terrorgheist, hoping to kill enough with the scream and in combat to break their Steadfast. However, I rolled poorly and forgot the Breath Weapon, meaning my Lord was stuck in place. This lead to a countercharge and enough combat res to pop the Lord.
- Vargheists. I knew that Vargheists are pretty easy to kill, so I was worried about throwing them into anything. I ended up wasting them completely for three turns, then their Frenzy kicked in and I was forced to declare long charges that I didn't make.

So, the list needed improving. The first change was easy, and out went the Vargheists. In their place, Hexwraiths looked appealing. They didn't have to worry about missile fire, and they added a fourth Vanguarding unit to the list. They were also the perfect choice to threaten enemy War Machines that could kill off the big monsters. Job done. This saved me 80 points, so I began to revise my character selection.

I decided that the way to improve my magic phase was to switch the two baby Vampires to the Lore of Death. That would at least give me two of Spirit Leech, and with the ruling at the event that Inspiring Presence can be used for this spell, I could be Ld10 as long as I was within 18" of the Dragon. That should scare some people into using their scroll in the first few turns! This meant that I lost out on a backup caster to keep the army going if the Lord died. The easiest thing to do was to put in a Necromancer, and I moved the Dispel Scroll over to him - freeing up points on the BSB.

The only things left that I can change are the items on the characters. I wanted the Lord to be able to get out of scrapes once she had become stuck, so a Potion of Strength seemed like a good idea. This would be used if she was ever in combat with something at the start of my opponent's turn, hopefully freeing her up to charge again in my next turn. I also upgraded her to a Level 2 mage, letting her have 2 shots at getting either Vanhels or Hellish Vigour (amongst the best spells in the deck). This obviously needed points from somewhere, and the compromise was the Sword of Might and Quickblood on the BSB. I saw her in more of a casting and support role though, so a lance should still le her help out if needed. Moving a few things around, I also found the points for the Book of Arkhan. An additional Vanhels could be crucial at the right time, especially giving rerolls against an opponent who also has ASF.

With these revisions, the list now looks like this:

2500 Vampire Counts

Vampire Lord: Charmed Shield; Talisman Of Preservation; Potion Of Strength; Quickblood; Level 2 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Zombie Dragon; lance; heavy armour. 616

Vampire: Enchanted Shield; Book of Arkhan; Dragonbane Gem; Level 1 Wizard, Lore of Death; Hellsteed; lance; heavy armour; Battle Standard. 207
Vampire: Sword Of Anti Heroes; Dragonhelm; Luckstone; Potion Of Foolhardiness; Quickblood; Dread Knight; Level 1 Wizard, Lore of Death; Hellsteed; shield; heavy armour. 231
Necromancer: Level 1 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Dispel Scroll. 90

36 Crypt Ghouls 360

15 Dire Wolves 120
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40
20 Zombies: musician; standard bearer. 70

5 Hexwraiths 150

Terrorgheist 225
Varghulf 175
Varghulf 175

2,499 points


I have another game penciled in for tomorrow evening, against the same High Elf opponent I played last time. Hopefully the additions and changes should make for a different result than last time! I'll try and take some photos and maybe there will be a third blog post in the offing! :-)

Battlefield Birmingham List, Part 1

Finally a post about Warhammer!

My next event is Battlefield Birmingham, on 15-16 February. This event is slightly different to some others, as it is 2500 points rather than 2400. It may not sound like a lot, but that extra 100 points means that the allowance for Lords increases to 625 from 600. This meant that a Dragon riding Vampire Lord has enough allowance to get enough equipment to actually survive for more than a single turn!

I've wanted to run a Dragon list for a while now. Dragons are brilliant, and a very characterful part of the game. However, the two armies that I have been playing recently don't really have the option to have a Lord mounted on a Dragon. Closest I have been was using a Lord of Change in a couple of events in 2011, or a Hunter on a Stonehorn for last year's Mersey Meltdown.

Unfortunately though, mounting a Vampire Lord on a Dragon is not just putting all your eggs in one basket, it's putting all your eggs in a paper bag and throwing it around a bit. It's not a particularly safe option to say the least! But I'm not that bothered by that. I don't get to play much Warhammer at the moment, so I'd rather play an enjoyable list to start the year. There are other events that I'll run a more standard list for, but for this I'm going out of the box! It also helps that I recently got hold of a fantastic Dragon model that I want an excuse to use!

My Dragon, in the process of being assembled

 The point of this blog post is to run through my list design ideas and show how my list develops. Usually I wouldn't post this before an event, but as I'm going to this purely for the fun of the game I don't think having my list out there beforehand will be an issue. I'm also posting my first draft of the list which was written a fair while ago, so some items and things may have changed since then. I'll get to these changes as I go through the process.

There is minimal comp for this event, but before I go through my thoughts on my list it's always a good idea to consider the limitations in place. For Vampire Counts, there were the following points to consider:
 - Units have a cap of 450 points and 40 models (as all Undead are Unbreakable). Doesn't include characters though!
 - Up to 3 units with the Ethereal rule are allowe.
 - Up to 3 units of Dire Wolves are allowed.
Not too much comp at all. There are a few other restrictions that help, namely that other people are limited to a maximum of 3 war machines - so I may face fewer cannons that I normally would!


Firstly I needed my Vampire Lord. I knew I wanted her on a Dragon, so that was already a massive 465 points taken care of. you can't put such an important model on a big mount without protection, so next up was the Talisman of Preservation and Charmed Shield. My army is Lahmian themed (hence calling my Lord 'her'!) so Quickblood is not only a really strong in game choice, but it fits the theme. After all of these, I had ran up a bill of 545 points. Before I spent any more, I moved on to the rest of the army.

Core is almost the easiest to do in a VC army, as very little of it is any good at all. The best unit in the Core section is probably the Dire Wolves, and I was only allowed 3 units of them. Seemed like a good starting point though, so in went 2 units of 5 and a unit of 15. The bigger unit is mainly to eat points, but also gives me a faster moving block to help out the characters when they hit combat by adding ranks. I then put in a minimum size unit of zombies to hold a banner, as Blood and Glory will be played and I'd quite like to not automatically lose that one! Finally, a big block of ghouls filled my 600 point Core minimum. I'd normally have a block of skeletons, but these usually have a fair few characters in and without character support ghouls usually do better.

Having spent nearly half my points I turned to the Rare section. Again, this would be relatively easy to fill, as an idea was forming of how I wanted to play my list. The advantage of the Dragon is that it is fast - it can fly 20" per turn with a possible additional 8" move from Vanhel's Danse Macabre. If this is the major asset of the list, I needed to build on that theme. I needed to only add in things that were fast, and could redeploy a lot more quickly than a standard VC army. The 3 Dire Wolf units help with this, as they can Vanguard as well as move a minimum of 9" a turn and can Swiftstride their charges. To fill Rare, I went with this theme too, adding 2 Varghulfs and a Terrorgheist. It would probably be better to have 1 Varghulf and 2 Terrorgheists, but that was 50 points more expensive. Also in terms of models to build and paint I knew I would need a fair few more than I already have, so the fact that I already had 2 Varghulfs made this decision for me!

I went to Heroes next. I could get away with a single zombie unit with a banner, as I was thinking of taking a Vampire BSB to help with Fortitude and march tests for the Dragon. To fit the theme thought she would have to be mounted on something, and a normal Nightmare made the most sense. Then I saw that they have the option to go on a Hellsteed. This is sort of like the Pegasi that other races get to use in that it is a flying cavalry mount, and the idea of having lots of flying Vampires really appealed! Not only did I add in one Vampire on Hellsteed to be my BSB, but I put in a second as an additional fighter. Equipment on these proved a lot more problematic that I thought. Quickblood on them both made sense thematically, and I tried to get them as good an armour save as I could. One got the Dragonhelm and the other got the Enchanted Shield. Along with Heavy Armour and the mounted bonus, they each got to a 2+ save, which was as good as I could find!

When designing Heroes, I try and keep in mind the role they will play in game. Are they going to be doing a lot of fighting? If so, what are their targets? Are they more a support Hero, augmenting the unit they are with or casting magic? The Vampire Lord, with the Dragon's attacks, Breath Weapon and Thunderstomp, should be able to take on units of troops and be OK. She would come unstuck though if she was challenged by a defensively geared character with a good Ward (the standard Tzeentch BSB on Disc springs to mind). I therefore wanted one of my Heroes to be able to take these challenges instead. I gave her the Sword of Anti Heroes to up her strength and attacks, and a Luckstone to give her an extra chance to make a save. I also found a few points spare at the end, adding a Potion of Foolhardiness for that extra attack when she charges. I decided I would keep her on Lore of the Vampires, as I was expecting the Lord to die at some point and I didn't want the entire army crumbling away to nothing.

The other Hero Vampire I thought could be my Scroll caddy and BSB. I envisaged her in a support role, taking Invocation more often than not and casting it to heal the monsters. She already had the Enchanted Shield for protection, and I simply added the Sword of Might to help against heavily armoured targets.

All of this left me with just over 200 points that I wasn't sure what to buy with. I wanted something else fast, and looking in the Special section I saw Vargheists. I'd never used these before, mainly as I have an idea for how I want them to look and I'm struggling to find models that I like to represent them. But 5 of them could make a useful flanking force and they filled the gap in the list.

And that was it! My list now looked like this:

Vampire Lord: Level 1 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Charmed Shield; Talisman Of Preservation; Ironcurse Icon; Quickblood; Zombie Dragon; lance; heavy armour. 566

Vampire: Level 1 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Dispel Scroll; Enchanted Shield; Sword Of Might; Quickblood; Hellsteed; heavy armour; Battle Standard. 244
Vampire: Level 1 Wizard, Lore of the Vampires; Sword Of Anti Heroes; Dragonhelm; Luckstone; Potion Of Foolhardiness; Quickblood; Dread Knight; Hellsteed; shield; heavy armour. 231

38 Crypt Ghouls 380
15 Dire Wolves 120
5 Dire Wolves 40
5 Dire Wolves 40
20 Zombies: musician; standard bearer. 70

5 Vargheists 230

Terrorgheist 225
Varghulf 175
Varghulf 175

2,496 points

It looked ok, and very fast as was the plan. With such a different style of play I knew I needed a game to test them, so I played one against the High Elves of Simon at a local club before Christmas. This game gave me a load of insights into the weaknesses of the list and ideas on how to change it, but as this is already looking quite long I will go through them in the next post!

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings about list design, if you have any comments please feel free to get in touch!

Hall of Fame

Given that this is supposed to be a mainly Warhammer related blog, I've not really written a Warhammer related post yet! I'm afraid that this is going to continue for one more post, as I feel that I have to write something baseball related. If you're not interested in this, then fair play and I promise that I'll write something about Warhammer next!

If you're sticking with me though, this post will be about the Baseball Hall of Fame. The announcement of who has been elected into the HOF is today, and for baseball people this is a big thing. For those that don't know that much about the Hall, here is a brief run down of the important points:


1) A player is eligible for election to the Hall of Fame if they played in the Major Leagues for at least 10 years, and have been retired for at least 5 years.

2) The votes are cast by members of the Baseball Writers of America Association who have been members for at least 10 years. They are each allowed to vote for up to 10 eligible players.

3) A player is elected if he receives at least 75% of the vote. If he receives at least 5% of the vote and is not elected, then he stays on the ballot for the following year. Players are allowed to stay on the ballot for up to 15 years.


Now that is out of the way, I can start talking about this year's election. No one was elected to the Hall last year, which has led to the ballot becoming stuffed with people who I feel should be elected. It makes the announcement today one that has extra importance - not just for who is elected, but who fails to reach that 5%. Given that this ballot is massively loaded with talent, and the Writers are only allowed 10 votes, there is a possibility that some players will not reach the minimum level of support that deserve to be in the Hall. This issue is going to get worse over the next few years as more Hall worthy players become eligible for election.

Beyond this, there are some truly great players on this ballot. Some of them have a cloud of suspicion surrounding them regarding PEDs, and this is a big part of baseball during the 90's and early 2000's. Unfortunately baseball at that time did not have a comprehensive testing regimen, so there is often no proof whatsoever that these players took PEDs, but the suspicion seems to be enough for some of the Writers to exclude these players from the Hall of Fame.

The Writers on the staff of mlb.com in the last few years have had their ballots published with a little bit of detail surrounding them on the day before the announcement to add a little bit of build-up to the announcement. Yesterday was no exception, and the ballots can be seen here. There was one Writer though whose opinion shocked me to the core. Ken Gurnick, beat writer for the Dodgers, has said on record that he will not vote for anyone from the supposed PED era. Even players that have never had any suspicion of PED use throughout their careers. This amazes me - I have no idea how someone who follows the game so closely, and who makes his living writing about it - can eliminate an entire generation from consideration for the highest accolade the sport can bestow. It boggles my mind!

Quite apart from this, he has not voted for Greg Maddux. There has never been a unanimous vote for election, and there was thought that Maddux might have a chance to change this. He is obviously a Hall of Famer, from whatever criteria you choose to use, be it pure stats, the effect he had on his era, or anything else. He won 355 games in his career, 4 Cy Young awards (given annually to the best pitcher in his league), 18 Gold Gloves for being the best fielding pitcher of the year (including an amazing 11 consecutively) and had many more unbelievable achievements in his career. Gurnick though has ruined this, as he felt that as Maddux pitched in the "PED era" he must be excluded. Maddux still might get the highest ever percentage of the vate, and that would be a massive achievement. However, the reason that Gurnick has given for excluding Maddux from his ballot is just rubbish. Given that he voted for Jack Morris, I don't actually understand what he feels the PED era is. Morris pitched against Mark McGwire multiple times, and McGwire has actually admitted to taking PEDs, surely Morris pitched in the same era that Gurnick is supposed to be eschewing?

In finishing this rant, as it has become, I will try and play Devil's Advocate a bit. I can understand if a Writer has a reason for not voting for someone. I can understand the hesitance to vote for the players who were suspected of using PEDs, even if that includes someone like Barry Bonds (the All Time Home Run leader), as it is a factor that has to be taken in to account. I can even understand that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But to exclude someone like Glavine yet vote for Morris WITH THAT REASON, is just crazy.


Out of interest, my own personal ballot would read as follows:
Jeff Bagwell
Craig Biggio
Barry Bonds
Roger Clemens
Tom Glavine
Greg Maddux
Jack Morris
Mike Piazza
Curt Schilling
Lee Smith

I would also add the below to the list as Hall of Famers, but with the crowded nature of the ballot I would not elect them this year:
Jeff Kent
Edgar Martinez
Mike Mussina
Tim Raines
Frank Thomas


No matter who gets in, I'm looking forward to finding out!



EDIT:
I finished the above before the announcement was made, but held off posting it until I knew the outcome!

The following players were actually elected to the Hall of Fame this year:
Greg Maddux - 97.2%
Tom Glavine - 91.9%
Frank Thomas - 83.7%

Craig Biggio missed out by 0.2%! Jack Morris, in his final year on the ballot, gained 61.5% and misses out. Thankfully, the only major name to drop off the ballot completely was Rafael Palmeiro, who only appeared on 4.4% of the ballots.

New Years Hobby Resolutions

There are traditionally two things that are done at New Year - look back at the year just gone, and look ahead to the year to come. The Bad Dice Awards post was my attempt at looking back, and this one should take care of the looking forward side of things. I have seen a few people post their hobby related New Years Resolutions on Twitter, and I usually try and set myself a few goals for the coming year too. This year though, I intend to put it in writing on here, so I can look back next year to see how spectacularly I failed to meet them!

Resolution 1: The Pledge

I've not actually seen the origin of this anywhere, but it appears on all sorts of forum signatures and I think that I've got the gist of it! It appears that The Pledge involves keeping track of all the models that you paint during the year, and also how many that you buy. The aim is to keep then number of painted models above the number of bought models. As I have a vast horde of unpainted plastic, my first resolution is to take The Pledge for 2014.

I will aim to paint more models than I buy this year.

Resolution 2: Tournaments

Tournaments are a big part of why I play Warhammer. They are great social occasions more than anything else, and there are a lot of people on the tournament scene that I count as friends. I rarely see them outside of these few weekends a year, and this is a shame. The 5 or 6 games of Warhammer that also come as part of the tournament are almost secondary to this! However, these weekends are proving a lot harder to get to now. The venue that was within an hour of where I live closed down in May last year, and since then most of the big events seem to be in the North West Gaming Centre in Stockport. I have nothing against this venue, but being in Stockport it is more than 2 hours away from where I live and requires an overnight stay on the Saturday night. These are costly, and working in a school means I have to make my way up Saturday morning for most events too. My resolution though is not to let all this stop me.

I will try and attend at least 6 two day tournaments this year, wherever they may be held!

Resolution 3: Gaming

Last year saw me end what had become an almost 3 year stint of playing Ogre Kingdoms at events. I played them at the tail end of 7th edition Warhammer, when I returned to the hobby after a break, and I played them throughout the first few years of 8th edition as well. I played them with the old book (widely regarded as one of the least competitive, mainly due to its age) and when the new book was released I continued to play them, trying out almost every option available. The problem with this was that whatever list I used, the playstyle was very similar and I eventually became bored with them. Since then, I tried to use my Lizardmen army in a few events, and found them rewarding but tiring to play. I also painted up a new Vampire Counts army and debuted them at the Blood and Glory event in September. This gives me three armies that I like playing with, each with their own particular style of play. I intend to switch between them to not let myself get bored with one particular army.

I will not use the same army in two tournaments, unless I have used at least 2 different armies between those events.

(For example, if I play VC at my first event of the year, I would have to use my Lizardmen and Ogres at the next two I go to before I can use my VC again.)

Resolution 4: Raze and Ruin

In October I ran my first Warhammer tournament where I was the principle organizer. It was a lot of fun, and has been documented elsewhere on the internet (specifically the Bad Dice podcast and on The Warhammer Forum). I really enjoyed running this, and to go along with my 2nd point I think that the Midlands could do with another big 2 day event. I already have some ideas to try and improve on the first event, and I hope to be able to really put it on the map as one of the events people want to go to. The first thing to do though is to clear up the organizational problems that were evident this year, and to try and announce the date and other such details a lot earlier! Attendance is always going to be the only way to judge whether an event is a success, so for this resolution I'm going to put a target number on that!

I will try and ensure that Raze and Ruin 2014 has at least 40 people attending.

Resolution 5: Blogging

5 is a good number. Things seem to work well in fives, and you constantly see lists of things that have 5 points on them. I fee l that this blog post should be no different, and thus I am sort of copping out with this resolution in making it about the blog! However, even in the few posts I have made so far I am quite enjoying writing down my thoughts, so I feel justified in putting a resolution towards continuing this. I am notoriously bad at keeping things like this up to date, for instance see my Club 200 log on TWF! However, I hope that having something like this as a place to write (where I don't have to keep to a particular theme!) will encourage me to do so.

I will try and update this blog at least every two weeks.

That's it! There are lost of other things I'd like to do this year though. For instance, I'd quite like to do well at an event, maybe bring home a trophy or two, maybe improve my painting ability as well. However, these are not going as resolutions as I feel that they would either be over ambitious or difficult to track! I do invite all you reading though to comment below with your own New Years Hobby Resolutions, be they big or small, and share with at least one other person what you plan for the year.

Happy New Year to you all!!!