Okay, welcome back to the chronicle, men podcast
everybody. I've got a really special guest,
it's Nathan from the war games Orchid, and I'm really happy
that Nathan could spend the time with me and you guys today to
give us his origin story and a very special topic that I'll let
Nathan introduced later on. So, first of all Nathan.
Hello, hey, how's it going? Good man.
I'm going really well, how is it over there in Canada?
Mate, it's called it's very cold here.
The Canadian dream. You might be familiar with the
American dream of the The fence white, picket fence, the kids.
Everything the Canadian dream is just to be warm and we're still
working on that 200 years later a Vegemite.
Yeah, yes, imagine, yeah, I've never been to Canada, but I
would just freeze my butt off. If I went over there in the in
the in the winter especially I think I think Canada is going to
be like a summer trip for me man.
Oh yes. Yes, it's lovely in the summer.
Just don't come before or after that.
Yeah, it's the same with the whole kite out here in Japan
like there's no way I'm going the winter.
It's just Way too cold, like minus 20, which I believe is
kind of like in Canada and places you get like - 20 there
as well. It's like, you know, you like in
the South Pole basically you know so it's like I couldn't do
it. We do and I'm lucky enough to
live by the ocean which kind of moderate the temperatures a bit
but we still get brutally cold Winters here.
If your Inland forget about it just don't bother.
Yeah. You've living in an igloo before
too long, that's for sure. Yeah.
All right. Bye.
Again, thank you for coming on. And yeah, I really wanted to get
you on because, you know, as most of us should know that
Nathan has his own podcast. And I've been listening to that
since well, since recently, I found out about it and I went
back and listened to you earlier podcasts and episodes and that
kind of thing. And you know, you had sort of a
reintroduction 250 Edition like myself after many years away
from the from the Hobby and I thought it'd be nice to have you
on and talk about that made and how you actually got into
miniature wargaming and how this whole sort of, you know, Revival
of fifth edition came about Absolutely.
It's a topic that I find endlessly, interesting.
And I have quite a quite a background in it myself.
I would really just like to say though, thank you so much for
doing what you do and doing your podcast.
It was a big influence on me and and getting the war games
Orchard started and just seeing this community that you've built
is something really special. It's something really cool and
it's so exciting to see this revival of Era.
So, thank you for for playing your part and being a real
Catalyst for this. Well thanks man.
Thank you very much. I did honestly thought, no one
was going to listen to it. I thought it might be me and a
few other blokes that I know personally that might listen to
the podcast, but it's been a really big journey and it's I
just can't believe. It's hasn't even been a year,
yet that we've done that. I've done this.
And it's and I've no so many more people like you said, in
your last podcast, that you've met so many people now, All over
the world like you've connected to so many people that, and it's
happened to me as well. I've got so many great friends.
Now that I've met through the podcast that it met through the
YouTube channel, now, through Facebook as well and it's just
been amazing. Like, even the hero Hammer grip
when I first joined it, I'm sure there was like, about 1,000
people in that group and I think, since covid, sort of
kicked off we've now got like four point four thousand people.
Now in that group and yeah, there's something something in.
Yeah, I don't know what it is. Maybe it wasn't fungus juice or
something, but I think, I think everybody wants to go back to
the crazy times of, you know, the old 90s of Games, Workshop
games or Miniatures or something.
And it's just yeah, it's been really, really fun to be part of
that big community. And now, you'll be, you're a big
part of that too now, which is great.
Yeah, I'm so happy to have have my little chunk of the community
and just contribute in any way that I can.
And it's really just so great to see.
See this newfound enthusiasm and optimism and people taking the
Hobby and in every which way. So yeah, I guess to start my
journey through war hammer and and hero hammer.
And the whole era, we have to go back to what I have started
calling the last good decade, which was the 1990s, and I was a
child, Child in the 90s. I was born in 87, so I don't
really remember much of the 80s. I kind of my earlier memories
are of those those early 90s years and I didn't discover
Warhammer until 1996. And it wasn't my discovery that
that I made myself. It was my best friend at the
time, kid, by the name of Chris. Really cool kid, couldn't take a
photograph to save his life pretty much invented.
The duck lips. But otherwise, he was a very
smart, very cool kid and he had he was quite well off his
parents. His mother was a lawyer.
His father was an airplane pilot and so not only did they have
money to go on a lot of trips, but Pilots used to be able to
hop on any flight that there was space for free and bring their
families and I don't know if That still goes on, probably not
these days. But in the 90s, it was certainly
a thing among the Canadian Airlines.
And so they were always jetting off to someplace or other.
One of the trips he took was to England.
And he came back from this trip and he was just humming with
exciting. He's like, I have to show you
this. I hear like, this is the coolest
thing I've ever seen. And so, he started telling me
about war hammer, and I was always the kind of kid who I was
big on imaginary play. I was big on toy soldiers, army
men, that kind of thing. So I go over to his house and I
look at this box and this is the Warhammer fantasy fifth edition
starter set which I think had just came out at the time.
And I see these lizard-men and I see these Bertoni ins, and the
peroneus looked pretty cool. But as soon as I saw the lizard,
man, it was it was over for me. That was it.
And he gave me this free catalog that they had given him at the
time. It was this neat little just
sales catalog, basically that highlighted Warhammer and
Warhammer 40,000 and you could, you know, cut out a little
section of the catalog and mail it back to them and they'd send
you a, you know, those little tiny plastic pots and a chaos
Warrior. And I think a Space Marine And I
just that summer, I carried that little catalog with me
everywhere. I went, and I was just
constantly flipping through it. Being like, Oh, I'm going to
collect that. I'm going to collect that no
idea what anything is or does. But just in love with this,
these little worlds that I'm seeing on the page, and at that
point, I'm 9 years old, I have no money of my own of course,
nor should I have been trusted with any money on my own, and,
So I decide that I'm going to save up for, for this starter
set, which even back in those days was quite expensive,
especially for a kid. So it was going to take me some
time to do that. I, The first little bit of
Warhammer that I got was actually, I'm got my
grandparents to mail in the to fill out and mail in the little
mail order, my first paint kind of starter set that they had
that had that chaos warrior in that space marine and I remember
doing that up and I still have my very first chaos Warrior.
It was a very first miniature that I ever painted up.
Don't know what happened to the Space Marine, but he wasn't as
cool as the chaos Warrior was and Yeah I just remember doing
that. I was so excited I honestly I
think I did a pretty good job on him for a forehead,
over-enthusiastic nine-year-old and later on that year with some
very generous donations from my grandparents, I actually got
enough money to buy the fifth edition starter set.
And that's really when my journey into the hobby kicked
off, I got that and my grandparents help me assemble
it. They actually painted a lot of
the models in that set alongside me and it was actually it's it's
funny. Now my grandparents
unfortunately are long since past but those memories are just
you know whenever I'm thinking of them those are the First
memories that I think of it, it's just really sweet and
really nice to have those. And I remember playing the first
few kind of test games with those Starter Set Miniatures
with my grandfather and he would always have to play as the
Bertoni ins and I would play as the lizard men and I'm pretty
sure I cheated just constantly, mostly not on purpose but I
think because I just had a very flimsy grasp of the rules.
And then I started playing with with my friend, Chris, he
started collecting A High Elves, which was really neat and we
kind of kind of went from there. After those first couple of
years. The big, the next big thing that
happened was I got into 40K and that was when the Third Edition
set dropped in 1998, from that point, it was always, I always
kind of had the mixed attentions between fantasy and 40K and It
was an interesting time as well because 40K went through this
big grimdark change from the, the light and colorful second
edition. And honestly, I think if I had
had my choice, I would have gone with the second edition 40K, but
I just, I was a little bit late on the draw for that one.
The Third Edition. Yeah it took that real Grim dark
turn everything was in black and white.
Now it was all grim and gritty and for a kid that was you know
I was going on 1011 at this point you starting to get into
that kind of preteen or teenager feel so your you start to get
into that. You know everything is darkness
and skulls and and I got away from the aesthetic.
I think that really captured me. As a younger child which was the
the bright colorful schemes and I started getting into more of
the the 40K side of things, when 6th edition launched in 2004
Warhammer fantasy. It was just a, it was like an
audible clunk between the two as far as a tonal shift goes.
You had the, the bright colorful and it got just again.
Everything was black and white. If you want to play a fun
drinking game with the sixth, Addition Warhammer rule book.
What you do is you you go buy it, you go Page by Page and you
look for any page that has an Empire Soldier either dead or
getting killed by something awful, like an orca, chaos
Warrior, and you have a drink and you've got dead by the
shooting phase. I guarantee it is, it was just
such a departure. But at the time and especially
by 2000 by 2000, I'm like 13. So I'm I'm a teenager.
I'm just like, oh yeah, edgy and and everything is dangerous and
everything is awful in. The Warhammer fantasy world, I'm
into it. But I never really lost my love
of the aesthetic of the Miniatures from the 90s era and
that was one thing that I kept with me.
So I kept hold of all of the things that I had accrued during
that era even though I tended to cycle more through my
collection, As I got older. So I would I would get things
and then I would get bored of them and I'd sell them or I'd
trade them or that kind of thing.
So, I've had, I don't know something like a million armies
over the span of my lifetime between fantasy and 40K but I
have moved on from 99% of them now and even today, I basically
I keep all of my 90's models and then I have a select few from
from more current times. As I got older, I got into more
of the specialist games as well. I guess they came to be known as
specialist games and blood Bowl was a big one for me.
I really enjoyed blood Bowl War Master for a while although I
never had opponents for war master.
So I always had to kind of just play by myself, which was a
little unfortunate because I think that game was really
worthwhile. I just I don't know it.
I guess it was the wrong scale for for people to really grab
onto it and missed on Epic. Fortunately, and I regret that
although some weird stuff happened to Epic in the Arts, so
maybe it wasn't that bad of a thing that I never really got
into it, but played all of pretty much all of the The
Specialist games battlefleet Gothic.
Those ones there was only a few that I missed over the years.
As I got older it became a little bit harder to find people
who were just into fantasy and I think a lot of that was just 40K
really came out with stuff like dawn of War in the ayats.
It really started to kind of take over games, workshop's
design space and I almost feel like Lord of the Rings might
have cannibalized some of fantasy during that era as well,
where they were both, you know, the fantasy Games.
But Lord of the Rings was a little bit more
beginner-friendly where it was a skirmish game, you needed a lot
less models that kind of thing and 40K was the same way where
it was easier to get people into 40K.
Yeah, because they didn't have to worry about collecting big
units or anything like that. So I wasn't at the time, I
always had the enthusiasm for the game.
I was always really good at getting people excited about the
game, but it was just so much less work to get people to play
40K with you than it was for fantasy.
And I I'd always cherish the Fantasy games that I got in
because they were a little bit more few and far between and my
friends and my friend groups going in high school.
And then later on in University were very much 40K focused and
that was Vine. 40K is fine. But it just it doesn't have the
same feel for me. I don't have the same love for
though. I do love the 40K setting just
not to the same degree that I enjoy the fantasy.
Setting. And yeah, that was my that kind
of continued, oh, all the way into my kind of young adult life
and had a pretty stable group of friends and we would cycle
through what we were playing. Sometimes we were more into
role-playing games and Dungeons and Dragons, and that kind of
thing. And then sometimes we'd go on
big Warhammer kicks, where we would be playing, you know,
several games a week and maybe doing campaigns and that, Kind
of thing. And again 90% of it was 40K with
the odd fantasy game sprinkled in there.
But again, during that time, it was kind of a take.
What I could get these. These big communities didn't
exist as much back then. And yeah it's just been in the
last want to say the last few years that I've really been
starting to get back into those games.
In those additions that I had been in my childhood and in my
youth and a lot of that was, I spent too much time quite
frankly, keeping up with the latest stuff from Games Workshop
and Occasionally other manufacturers as well.
And it was it's one of those things that it's obvious in
retrospect, but it wasn't obvious at the time and maybe
it's just that I'm older now and I have a little bit more
perspective but I think I enjoyed 40K and fantasy less and
less as the years went by and only because I wasn't a huge fan
of later, editions of both of those games.
And at some point I had to kind of ask myself.
Why am I not just playing what I like, why am I not just doing
what I enjoy and the part of it is you do need to have a
community you need to have at least another person to play
with to share you, earlier, enthusiasm.
And to get you motivated to, to paint up the models that you
have. And that kind of thing.
It's really hard to do that on your own.
And the other thing was just, I had gotten into this cycle of
just keeping up with with fantasy with 40K.
I took a break I think when age of Sigmar happened and the whole
world blew up for a while I was I was not pleased about that
honestly though. In retrospect I do think it was
for the best and both for Games Workshop and for Warhammer
fantasy because at this point in time, looking at the state of
things in 2021, Everything's in a really good place.
You have active communities for Warhammer.
Fantasy, hero Hammer, 6th edition, 8th Edition.
Each one has its own little niche and they have, you know,
active communities. They have fan fixes for a lot of
the things that were egregiously broken during those eras and
it's great to see that the community has really taken
ownership of it. And I think age of Sigmar, I've
come to think is actually a really worthwhile game.
I've, I haven't played much of it, I do enjoy what I've played
of it and I think it has a lot of really strong points.
I think, though it should have maybe always been a separate
thing from Warhammer fantasy and I think a lot of the anger
surrounding it, of course was, you know, it was this world that
we loved ending in front of our eyes, it was really it was
traumatic and a lot of ways. and, we as a community, I think
it took a long time for people to to realize that.
Hey this means that Warhammer is ours now and it was always ours
but now it's just it's it feels like abandoned we're right?
It's just the people who love it and the people who really enjoy
it, have claimed it and are doing their own thing with it.
And we have all of these great eras of the game to explore for
those who are interested in. And for those who are interested
in one particular era, you can go down that rabbit hole.
Now as deep as you want you can just Revel in that and you don't
have to worry about anything that's coming out new or
anything that's happening because it's done.
So I think It's become, it's gotten to a really good place
and to tie this back to my own story that has really
re-energized me in that, I enjoy what the community has become.
And I really wanted to get involved with it again.
Yeah might I totally share your sentiments are I think it's been
if anything a boost for me because since getting back I
just think well I don't worry about new releases or it have to
be worried about being swayed into getting the new edition of
something because now I have the fun of going back and either
painting purchasing playing games.
I never had a chance of playing back in the day because we're so
caught up like at all. It talked about before you're so
caught up in, what's happening in your own gaming group that,
you know, we were used to just drop things and just start
something else because it was a new thing on the Block.
And, you know, no one wanted to play the old game anymore and
yeah. Yeah.
Isn't that the worst now if you think about it in with, with the
benefit of hindsight I can't believe and I have a lot of time
for a Warhammer fantasy 6th edition is one of my favorite
additions to play. I do wish though that I had just
you know with with my friend Chris That kind of thing just
been like hey every now and again, do you want to do you
want to do some hero hammer do you want to do some 5th Ed?
And it pains me honestly that it just never occurred to me.
Because at the time it was always just like, oh well this
is the new thing where you have to play the new thing.
You can't play the old thing for reasons, Mmm?
Yeah, Yeah. It's like computer games, you
know, like when the new version of this particular computer game
comes out, then people just tend to drop the old ones and it's
just forgotten. Bowden stuck on the, you know,
the discount pile, you know, in the game store it's not like
it's, it's just old news, so yeah, I'm really yeah, I'm
really enjoying having to revisit and replay or find
things that I didn't know about back in the day because, you
know, like, for instance, it was only what last year.
Sometime that my local gaming buddy.
Justin he loves Playing Vampire, like vampire counts and that
kind of thing. I said in the beginning, when he
started first playing fifth edition, I said, look mate,
sorry, there's only Undead book for fourth edition.
There is no fifth edition book for vampire counts.
So he sent us a message. Should that through the week or
whatever he said, are you Josh? I found this 50 dish in Vampire.
Counts book on this particular Russian website that has all
the, you know, the PDFs on it. I said no - yeah.
Yeah. That's it mate.
No sorry. It must be a mistake because
There is no fifth edition. One must be like a used bike.
A fan base one. No, no.
Is there a bar B? So I checked and lo and behold
there it was and I never even knew about it.
So I was like, wow this is a new release and I was as I was I
think was at a hospital or something at that point.
It was it wasn't such a gross of getting a medical check-up or
whatever. But I was just like going
through the PDF and looking through all the pages, it's like
just having a new release again. It was awesome.
So, yeah, I've made it. I made a few discoveries, new
discoveries that I'm just never knew about that.
Just totally slipped my bike. It by you know absolutely and I
100% feel you on that funny you mentioned that fifth edition
vampire counts book one of my friends Jesse he is a huge
vampire counts player he loves the lord loves the models has
like a 10,000 Point Army and we one of our very first episodes
of The Orchard. We had him on to help us talk
about vampire counts and we were going through Through the rules
and we got to the fifth edition book and he's like, hold on
guys. I can't find which book are we
in? And sounds like, we're in the
fifth edition. Vampire has spoken.
He's like, it, you mean the undead book and I'm like, no,
no, there's a came out. And, and I'm telling him when
it's published in everything and he's like, oh my God, I need to
get this book. This is, I didn't know this
existed and there's a thousand things like that.
When you go back in the era, I've been discovering so much
just Doing the podcast, doing the research for the
retrospectives. I've gotten huge lately into the
old Hammer era. I don't know how to play the
game in the old Hammer era, but I've gotten just fascinated with
the Genesis of the units that I know from hero.
Hammer, and later additions, and how they got their start.
Yep. And we'll hit that in a little
while when we do this one, but it's just been, it's been so
eye-opening and I'm Super excited to get a chance to play
some things that I missed by just being too young for them,
things like Manowar. The original epic are both games
that I really want to play. Thank you for doing those
retrospectives. By the way.
That's that hasn't been eating my brain at all for the last
last like month in those two games.
I've find them very, very fascinating even for someone who
doesn't know anything about the rules or anything.
Just hearing the way the game works is So cool.
The yeah to kind of put a bow on on my story.
I guess I'll just talk about How I started up the the podcast and
this would have been in. I think January last January.
Myself and Scott and Scott. I had met in the in 2019 and we
had played a couple game started off playing kings of war and we
were both Warhammer fantasy players, though at heart and
there was a local Kings of War group that was kind of trying to
get started. And so we both meet up and we
both got, he's got his wood elves, I've got my dark elves,
but we're playing with the kings of War rules.
And he's, you know, we're going through it and we're just
talking about it, and he's showing me.
Parts of his collection and everything because we both have
this shared love and I think like a week after that he starts
with Jesse and Patrick a couple of my friends started the war.
Hammer Orchard Facebook page because he wanted to play around
with the rules of 6th edition a bit and he wanted to get a local
community going and where we would where we could all play
Warhammer fantasy in whatever way that we wanted to and in In
doing that, it kind of, It kind of re-sparked.
All of, all of my love for this because I figured if I could
get, you know, if there were folks that were willing to play
sixth edition or willing to play 8th Edition.
I wonder if I can find or get them to play fifth edition with
me because that was always my goal for the last couple years
was just like I want to play fifth edition again, I got to
find somebody to play with and Luckily enough there, there was
there was interest there, there was interesting, kind of all of
the, the additions of fantasy. And so we started working on
that and in March, when the first round of shutdowns
happened, I was just sitting at home and I was kind of gearing
up for What was what I thought was going to be my working
season in and to give a little bit of brat background.
I used to work at a public library and I was a children's
programmer. So I did a program called baby's
first books which is rhymes and songs and stories with with
babies and usually their moms. And I would also do puppet shows
all those kind of things that you associate with with
children's free programs and I left this job in.
The late spring of 2019, and I did it because unfortunately,
there was a lot of, you know, budgetary cuts.
It was just we were doing more and more with less and less.
It was just really draining on on a lot of us and I decided to
kind of Go My Own Way at that point and I started my own
business doing walking tours of Halifax and they were historic
walking tours that were based on kind of the CD or darker
history. Of Halifax, which is the city I
live in Nova Scotia Canada, if you've never heard of it, and
there's really not a lot of Reason outside of Canada that
you would have heard of Halifax, but we do have a lot of history
here. And I started doing that, I did
that summer of 2019 and it was super enjoyable and I was
gearing up to do that again spring last year and then
tourism died. And that was not what I had seen
coming. So I found myself swiftly with a
lot of free time. And I decided, Well I I've done
podcast in the past. I love audio recording.
I love audio production. It's been a hobby that I've been
really into kind of in fits and starts but I've really enjoyed
it. So I'm going to get and I'm
going to see if anyone is interested in doing this with me
on in the Orchard and Scott was very enthusiastic about it.
So we decided to launch the war games Orchard.
We did our first first six episodes in the spring between,
I think April and June, And unfortunately, at that point, we
I said had fortunately, it was, it was actually very fortunate,
but Nova Scotia and Halifax. We really didn't get hit hard by
covid at all. We're a very small part of
Canada and it's mostly rural. This is the one big city in the
entire region, is where we live. So there wasn't a lot of spread
here, thankfully, and things started to open up which means
Scott went back to work and he was working two jobs, he was
just slammed so we didn't get Get to do anything in the summer
and at the time I was just like I don't know if I really want to
do it, it just by myself kind of thing.
And in the fall I was I just had the itch too much and I was
like, okay well I can kinda do this by myself.
I have an idea here I really like doing retrospectives.
I really like delving into the history of the game and I don't
know pod any podcast that really do that kind of thing.
So I started up, I did an episode in October.
That was the champions of chaos episode.
And then in November, I kind of got serious about it.
I was like, okay, I have I still have all this time.
I still can't find work. I'm going to make an episode a
week until something changes and I've been doing that ever since
and it's just been so rewarding because doing that and
advertising it. And that's I mean that's how you
discovered the podcast and I got to meet you.
I Meet the flail of skulls guys. I've got to meet so many great
people in this community and do a couple of guest spots on shows
and it's just it's blown my mind how incredible this has been and
just the feedback that I've been getting in the and the amount of
listeners it. It's like you said, I didn't
expect anyone to listen and just the fact that we've got
listeners we've had this support has been so huge and in the new
year with we're gonna we're going to play around with a lot
of different stuff. We've Scott's got some some
video things on the way and we're going to try and do some
Warhammer fantasy. Battle reports both for hero
hammer, and sixth edition and our own kind of hybrid Orchard.
Addition Warhammer. It's going to be tons of fun and
I just can't, I wish I could express how incredible this
whole thing has been this whole experience.
It has turned around my 2020. This is This was not, this was
not going to be a good year for me, just being out of work and
not having any kind of sense of the direction of my life that
kind of thing. It's this has been for my
sanity. This has been kind of an anchor
point, right? That's just like well this is
going great. You know, I can I can put effort
into this, I can put and I know that people will enjoy it.
I I'm hoping that it's brought a little bit of light. 1:52
people's lives. You know, I get a lot out of
podcast. I listen to a lot of podcasts, a
lot of hobby podcast, a lot of sports podcast and I love it.
It's a really nice and free activity that I can do and be
and feel engaged with. And I hope people get that out
of out of my podcast. I certainly get it out of your
podcast so thank you for that. And yeah, this is this has been
really good and honestly it's Really kind of changed.
My projector are trajectory and this year because I've decided
to go back to school. I'm going to take a radio
television journalism program. I actually found out just a
couple days ago that I got into that program.
Okay. Slices me really happy for you.
Yeah, and I'm really excited to learn more about audio
production, audio, engineering, and looking to turn this kind of
hobby of mine. Sign into something that is
actually a job in the future and that's that's very exciting.
So this the podcast has had a huge effect on my life in a
startlingly short time, quite frankly, like it was really just
November that we got super serious about it.
So that is yeah, so that is my story.
I'm sure I've talked way too much about.
No no. I said I can talk as much as you
like for as long as you like. We're all very honored that you
come to the podcast. It talk about it.
But yeah since discovering your podcast, to give you a bit of a
break. Yeah, I've been really happy to
have, found it because I was waiting for somebody to do it.
I was waiting for somebody to do more of the law background, kind
of thing to the to the armies and characters and that kind of
thing. I know the The podcast, maybe
you like as well. The old world lives, they sort
of touch on that as well. And they do a great job.
Those guys are fantastic and and I think yeah, you do it.
An awesome job in what you guys are doing there and especially
these sort of retrospective or more sort of deep dives into
the, to the law of the characters and where they are
originated from and how they've changed through the additions
and that kind of thing. And it you've got such a great
speaking voice and you can tell a story and I think that's
really good eye. I really like the, you know,
when you start reading a story and given to the characters and
that kind of thing, it's really nice.
It's a good. It's a really good talent.
I'll thank you so much. I wasn't sure about the
character voices. I did a Christmas special that
was Felix and got rekt stories and I couldn't help myself.
But to try and do some character voices for it and listening to.
I love the. Oh, this is this, this is the
silliest thing in the world but it's that, it's that I spent
Five or six years reading stories to babies and two kids
and you have to be into it, right?
And doing puppet shows, you gotta do like a thousand
different voices and they're all very silly.
So I'm sure I'm sure I'm not. I'm not on the short list to
start doing actual voice acting anytime soon, but it's so much
fun and thank you so much. That is, that is still growing
with you. It's awesome.
It's now that now you told me that you about your background,
it fits. And now it, now I can see.
You know, I can just picture you in a library with babies and
young children, and telling them stories and that kind of thing,
so that's really cool. Well, thank you.
Yeah. Just the the thing with the
retrospectives that really got me was The and it kind of came
to me while I was perusing at my local game store and I was just
I love to look through used books and use Miniatures and
that kind of thing and just look for treasures.
And one thing that I saw was people will often dump their old
Edition books for Warhammer for Warhammer fantasy, age Sigma or
whatever. And there was a part of me that
was like, and I've done this too and I can't say, you know, we
all have limited space. Hmm.
But there was a part of me, that's just like, there's so
much history here, there's just so much to all of these games,
and we're getting to the point now, where these games are, you
know, 30, 35 odd years old. And I don't want to see, just
everything being forgotten when we move on, for example, for 9th
Edition, 40K Space Marine or 8th Edition, I guess Space Marines,
gotten into Higher range, revamp and they're slowly phasing out
the the classic era of Marines and it's for me, it was just, I
thought of like, wow, someday in the future, I'm going to see 40K
being played and not have any idea of any of the units on the
battlefield, right? I won't see rhinos.
I won't see Leman Russ, battle tanks, and there was something
about that. That really just kind of spoke
to me and said, you know, would be a cool thing to do is go back
through the air. Rose and show people how units
have changed and show them how the lower has changed, how it
evolved and how it got from where it was, it started because
so much of it started. Just just these little blurb
sentences almost and blossomed into these incredible epic
stories. I mean, the Horus heresy, which
is almost honestly, the, it's the underpinning of modern 40K.
It was almost nothing. it started from almost nothing and,
you know, they needed, they needed evil space brains to
fight regular Space Marines, I believe for the first edition of
Epic and everything came from that and it's and just to see
how it's grown into this multi book series, I think 50 or 60,
you know, novels and I its own game system and just the Genesis
of all that is so incredibly interesting and Warhammer
fantasy being Kind of the older brother of Warhammer 40K, has
things that are no less as incredible and things that
started off as just I want to call them, almost throw away
armies. My next episode of The Orchard
is on Bertone. Ian Grail nights.
Mmm. And we look at the, the old
Hammer Bertoni ins and they were much like the forces of the The
Norse or Nippon or Cathay? They were these kind of just oh
let's just throw in medieval French.
So let's just throw in, you know, feudal, Japan kind of
thing and how they grew and evolved out of that is really
interesting. So that's that's kind of my
passion when it comes to to this though.
I have certainly at this point spoken long enough about myself.
So why don't we come to our topic today before I just before
I just never Stop now I know that don't stop.
It's been good. It's been really good.
But yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next episode of
your podcast. Anybody who wants to chat, just
just let anybody know everybody hasn't heard of Nathan's
podcast. It's the war games Orchid and
it's on most platforms now, is that right?
Nathan. That's right.
You'll find that on all of the big pod, catchers and most of
the small ones. So if you just, yeah, look up
WarGames Orchard and you'll find it there.
And if you Don't mind just one Shameless plug.
Before we get into it. We do have a patreon now so if
you listen to some episodes, if you really like the episodes, we
do have a patreon. It's a pay what you can and you
get a bonus, episode, every month, I put up the first bonus
episode last night, how did you? And yes, yeah, and that's on the
smash Warhammer fantasy video game.
Shadow of the horned rat came out in 1995, was the very first
A fantasy video game is lots of fun.
Is it is brilliant and frustrating and all things in
between Scott and I played it so that we could do a retrospective
overview and review of this game.
And we had tons of fun with that.
So if you, if you listen to the show, if you like the show,
check it out. You can unlock that for a dollar
a month extra because it's, there's no tears on our patreon.
So thank you. That is my is my Shameless plug.
I'm not as fun but I'm a now. Proud, patreon of your Patron.
So you very much for that and I was really looking forward to
the, this particular episode on the Shadowkhan rap because it's
something I just recently. Picked up again through the is
it co G Cog? I think it's the website.
It's like a it's just one of those.
Yeah, so our good old games. I believe this is a gue, little
God. Okay.
I never knew what the acronym standard stood for.
So yeah, I went to that website, download it on my tablet, my
Microsoft Surface Pro, and it works like a charm.
It You've got like touchscreen capability on it as well.
Which is awesome. That's incredible.
Yeah, I'm really surprised that they were able to do that
without a game that old. Yeah, my day, it's amazing.
So, I thought, oh well, it's only like three bucks or five
bucks. So I thought I'll just take the
chance on it, if it doesn't work.
Well, as his five bucks down the drain, who cares?
So, I downloaded it yet. Works like a charm but it's
just, it's, it's a brilliant game.
Like it's just for its time and I never gave it much time on my
PlayStation one. I think.
When it came, it first came out and Playstation 1, because the
controls are just so incredibly frustrating that with with a
regular piece controller. It's just impossible, but with a
with PC controls, what you need really need a mouse and to be
able to click and move around very quickly on your map and
position things and not that kind of thing.
But it's just been a revelation coming back to it.
Now has been so cool and it's like it's way ahead of its time.
Yeah, it's for it has its frustrating moments but It's
just a work of Genius, I think. Yeah, yeah and Scott and I
really get into it for me it was the story that kept me going
because the gameplay can be frustrating especially when
you're just starting. There's our there's quite a
steep learning curve. But once you get into it, once
you get into the story is just it's addictive.
You just like I need to know. I need to know how this ends.
There's a lot of choice to there's some branching paths and
that kind of thing, which is not super common in games of that
era. Where things were a little bit
more limited in scope, but it's, yeah, it's a really fun game.
And if you've played it or if you're thinking about playing
it, or if you just want to learn more about it, we we've got that
episode cool. Yeah, I'm going to listen to it.
Probably after we have our chat today.
Mate, I'm really looking forward to that one.
I have to ask you. Do you ever sleep know?
Is that I'm a vampire count in Japan?
Did you know that? Yeah.
No, but I have really a regular working hours.
I work as a teacher here so I work in and like a conversation
school so my starting times like one am sorry 1 p.m. and I finish
at 10 p.m. so I get home at about 11 p.m. so then I'm I'm
wide awake. I stay up till about 2:00 a.m.
in the morning. I wake up at 8 in the morning
the next day for my son to take him to school so I have and I've
got to fit a lot of stuff in. I got I'm doing uni as well so
I'm back at School as well. So wow, my life is Hell mate.
It's just absolute chaos. So this is incredible because
you you manage such a large community.
I'm always in awe about how well your community does on Facebook
and Discord and and just the things that you guys have going
on and to man, I feel like such an underachiever.
Now this is like I mean I've been doing this podcast and
almost nothing else and I feel swamped but it's been awesome
but I've had a lot of help Like Jesse from you.
Ellen, a good friend of mine. Now, like we met through Lama,
Facebook group really, lovely guy.
He is now helping me with the challenge.
Like he's handling the, the call of the crown painting challenge,
I had to give it to somebody. I had to share stuff around
because mate, I just couldn't do it, it just couldn't, I just
couldn't do everything myself. So Jesse thankfully took that on
that responsibility is doing a great job of that much better
than I could do with it. He's really good at managing
stuff. Oh, and I've got a great group
of people on Discord that Dave Lister started up for us, and
now we've got a thriving community on there.
That people are finding a sort of a hub where they can get
together, connect in paint, and chats chain, paint, and chat
sessions and talk to each other live, and that kind of thing
about video there, we're doing like Remote Play staff.
And, and it's just, it's just really the Facebook group that
I'm sort of you know, coming in. And again, but it's really sort
of runs itself, really? I think Nathan, I think, maybe
the maybe your Facebook group, which I can't find, by the way
on Facebook. But yeah, it drives me nuts
because you're a member of the group.
I mean, it's the groove there, but I can't.
And I can't find it anything and you know what was funny?
You know. It was really funny.
I actually Googled your, I thought.
Okay, well, I'll go to Google. I'll stick in the war games,
Orchid Facebook group. I think this Facebook group all
the patrons what I thought when I Wendell had it had looked for
your patreon. I thought I'll put in the Google
and see what it comes up with and it came up with my post, on
my patreon, about your podcast. It didn't even come up with your
patreon. It didn't come up with a
Facebook group, nothing. So I didn't say, I don't know
what it is, but I cannot find you on Facebook at all.
I know I'm a member. I would love to see your
pictures of your fifth edition games your siege game.
You talked about in the podcast recently and all that kind of
stuff. But yeah, it's just a mystery.
Yeah, I will. Keep meaning to post that in
other places too, and I will do that.
I'm going to have to be better about posting to other places so
that you can see it or find some way that maybe there's something
on my end that I can do. I don't know I hope no one else
is having that I don't know what it is but it's just Facebook
it's has something to do with. Yeah.
And if I don't know it might be that.
You're like you're a your crown of command page is a page itself
as well because it doesn't swim up in like a separate category.
Yeah, but I do Don't know why that should affect it or
anything, but yeah. Anyway, anyhow will be
Facebooking. Sorry, I'm sorry.
No, no. That's okay.
Let's get back to the bait of the discussion here and yeah,
tell us what it's all about it. Oh yes, I can.
Today's topic is on night goblins and not any night
goblins but the most famous most iconic night Goblin unit and
that is the Fanatics, we're going to be taking a look at
Fanatics from first edition. All the way to Ether Edition
night, Goblin Fanatics were present in the very first
Warhammer fantasy armies supplement and that's incredible
night goblins were almost fully formed back in first edition
fantasy. But Fanatics themselves have
changed a fair bit. And it's worth looking at,
because they have some incredible rules throughout the
arrows and they also have some very challenging change some
very some fluff that really changes throughout the history
of the game that is worth checking out.
Because for those of us who started in the hero Hammer era,
or later we have a one version of Fanatics that isn't
necessarily how they were conceived.
And I thought, what a better, what better way to do the crown
of command podcast, then too. Go full in with a unit.
The first unit that I've ever done in a retrospective that
goes through every edition of Warhammer fantasy.
Very very cool. We're going to start things off
with Warhammer fantasy. First edition, this is the
forces of fantasy book. And warmer fantasy first
edition. And I'm not a scholar of the old
Hammer era. I've been discovering it as I've
been doing these podcasts. I wanted to dig deeper into the
lore. I didn't want to stop at just
the hero. Hammer era that I was most
familiar with, I wanted to kind of inception myself and, you
know, go that level deeper and it's been just an incredible
experience. If you're interested in the
history of the game, you can find Soft copies of all of the
old Warhammer books from first edition to 3rd Edition at
goldhammer era. It is worth your time just to
see, just to see how the game evolved.
And to see the Arts to the very different art styles than the
hero Hammer era or the later Edition era.
And to jump into night goblins here.
In first edition goblins, were not only their own Army separate
from Orcs, but there was many different types of goblins.
You had great goblins who are kind of your, I want to call
them like the hobgoblins of the later eras.
So not quite as big as Orcs but bigger than most other goblins.
You had the night goblins and the night goblins were in
Warhammer fantasy. First edition said to be the
most common types of goblins encountered by the other races,
but that wasn't it. You also had red goblins and red
goblins were kind of a specialty bread.
Version of the goblin annoyed that was created by evil
necromancers. They didn't stay in the game
really past this first edition. I don't think they ever really
had an idea of what they were doing with them.
And finally you had hobgoblins themselves who were said to be
relatives of goblins but not really like they were kind of
half-breeds almost So there is a lot of variety in your Goblin
types. And each of these goblins were
their own forces. At the time night goblins were
And interesting. They were the kind of the most
common and the least threatening Of the Goblins in.
They were the smallest and they they were they kind of posed,
the least threat individually. However much like in later
editions, they would win their Battles Through numbers. and
I'll just, I want to read to you the very first Introduction to
night goblins that we are given in Warhammer fantasy and you'll
see some similarities to what we know in the hero hammer and
later eras. But there's there's some
differences here. Night goblins are by far the
most. Common of all the goblin Races.
They are the they are shortish and stooped and have misshapen
leering faces. Some of them are noticeably
smaller than others, and these are sometimes called lesser
night. Goblins, both sorts live
together, intermix and interbreed.
But the Lesser goblins are more. Often found performing the more
menial and demeaning tasks in Goblin Society.
Goblins live in underground Warren's somewhat, like dwarf
mines, but far cruder. They are relatively safe in
these holes because very few people.
Would dare risk being trapped amongst the dirty and dark stone
caverns and passages occasionally the Goblins,
organized raiding parties, or may even grouped together into
large armies. If they have some specific
objective in mind, the illustrations for night goblins.
In this book, show us the characteristic black-clad and
black hooded goblins that we know from earlier editions, they
don't have the long kind of noses.
The, the kind of sharper features that would become the
goblin stock standard in later editions, but these guys are
certainly recognizable. One thing that I will say before
we get into the stats of Fanatics and things, here, it
helps to have a little bit of an understanding of night Goblin
lore throughout and we'll maybe we'll do is we'll hit it kind of
as we come to the era where each one where the lore gets its
Genesis and where it grows from. So in this Edition, there's none
of this. There's less of the the focus on
fungus and that kind of thing, skwiggs aren't Present in the
game yet. So night goblins are a little
bit more basic than what we would see throughout the later
years. Getting to the night Goblin
fanatic. They're lower in first edition
is really dark, it's really unsettling.
And this is another one that I think is worth reading because
it's it's just a paragraph and it's very, it's a paints a very
different picture of Fanatics than we see in later Editions.
The night Goblin fanatic is a strange and frightening creature
promising, young goblins are selected for incorporation into
the ranks of the Fanatics. Each initiate is cruelly,
tortured and fed a constant diet of Mystic horrible preparations.
Needless to say, they are thoroughly insane and twisted,
they walk around with a glazed expression and a permanent grin
but never speak to anyone in, in battle, the Fanatics, hide
themselves amongst ordinary goblins and Appear.
Only when able to charge the enemy this they do by screaming
their nauseating Battle Cry and swinging a huge ball and chain
around their heads. In an uncontrollable manner,
These guys. Yeah I when I read this fluff
for the first time, I was kind of taken aback because in later
editions, we get the madcap mushrooms, the fungus Brew all
of these kind of hallucinogens and drugs.
Basically that that make a fanatic what he is in this.
Addition, we do get the diet of horrible preparations, but we
also get the cruel torture and the fact that outside of battle
these guys just walk around with this Twisted grin on them
because they're so thoroughly broken by what's happening to
them. That it it just destroys their
mind. It was a really kind of an odd
one and you won't see this particular description past
first edition I think even Maybe Games Workshop thought that this
was a little bit too weird or too dark, but I really wanted to
include it because it's it's just it's so out there.
As, for gameplay, goblins, in Warhammer fantasy first edition
have a very odd stat line, and I want to share it with you.
Because it's it, is it something else The Fanatic himself has a
movement of for? He's got weapon Skill, 3
ballistics kill, three strength to toughness, be one wound
initiative to, and just a question mark for his attacks
because they are randomized. He is four points per model and
you can have up to 10 of the max in your Force.
Let's cover the toughness of be first.
In first edition fantasy, instead of number for toughness,
you had a toughness grade and be sounds pretty good until you
realize they were counting upwards.
So be would be somewhere around a toughness of two.
And this is actually not terrible.
Neither is his strength of to in first edition Warhammer fantasy.
Anything that was man-sized so elves, men, Goblin avoids
generally had a strength of 2 instead of a strength of three.
It was The Benchmark as opposed to the strength of three that
would kind of come in a little bit later.
The night Goblin with his ball and chain does strength, three
hits. So he actually does still do
more. He was still a scary piece to
face on the table. He was still going to easily
wound creatures in this game. It just when you read the rules,
doesn't look impressive because our brains are thinking strength
3 is the Baseline. Instead of being exceptional,
which it was in. First edition.
The Fanatic himself has an incredible amount of rules
associated with him. It's almost in a full page in
itself, but some of this and I'm not, I'm going to paraphrase
most of this because we don't have all night.
We will see that the The Fanatic still has his random movement.
What you would do is you would throw to D6 for his movement
speed. So this stays from 1st edition
to 8th Edition Fanatics, move to D6 and What you would do with
your fanatic is you would actually have to take their base
and then Mount that on a larger base.
So Games Workshop, suggested taking a little piece of card
stock that had a 1 inch radius and mounting the base in the
center of that. And that was kind of your
Fanatics range of things that he would hit.
Because even back in first edition, they still don't really
participate in combat. The Fanatic just does things and
your army has to deal with whatever The Fanatic does. and,
We throw to D6 to see how our fanatic moves in game.
We also have to throw a D20 and consult a chart because in the
hero or the old Hammer era, you would use pretty much every die
that you would use for a game of Dungeons and Dragons in
Warhammer fantasy. In this case, If we got a 12 to
20 and this is what he's being pushed out of his unit.
If we got a 12 to 20, he would go in the direction you wanted
him to go in. However, if you rolled Under 12,
you had a chart to consult in the rule book, that would tell
you what direction he would go. And it was just a numbers and
arrows, charts that that gave you all of the Cardinal and in
between cardinal directions. And so he could go any, which
way. Way.
This means in first edition even when you were pushing for a
fanatic out of your unit of night goblins, he could turn
around and just go right back through your Gotham.
There was no kind of safe turn like there is an in future
Editions. The other thing I want to hit on
in first edition because it never features anywhere else is
that he moves in his first turn, he moves sort of normally, and
in his second turn, he does another movement, and this
movement is entirely random. So, in this one, you just do
the, the little random chart to see, which way he moves, but at
the end of the second turn, Your fanatic will throw his ball and
chain. And he tries to throw it in the
direction of the enemy. But again, it uses this same
random chart. So you roll a subsequent D20 and
on a 12 to 20 or sorry, I should say 13 to 20, you can choose the
direction in which he throws this ball and chain.
However, if you mess up and you roll a 12 12 you have to Consult
that random table again, he throws it in a random Direction
after which The Fanatic collapses and is removed from
the game. So in this Edition, there is no
Fanatics, you know, swinging through things for 4 turns or
until they hit something. If they hit something, it still
kills, the most of the fanatic rules are still here that we
know from later editions, but at the end of the second turn, they
have to throw this ball and chain and then they just
collapse in an Exhausted Heap. And anything they hit with the
ball and chain takes the same. Strength, sorry.
No, it actually takes a strength for hit, which is very, very
good in Warhammer fantasy first edition and the other anything
else, anything that hits subsequent to that takes a
Strength, three hit and even when you are.
So even if you have gotten this in the right direction at
pointed at the enemy when he lets it go, you still have to
randomize what happens by Rolling a D3.
And one of the options is just the goblin.
Miss judges is throw and the chain wraps around his neck and
kills him. So this unit is so incredibly
random, and which it is in future editions but this one
involves the most roll. Saying I believe for what your
fanatic actually does and is the only Edition where he will throw
his ball and chain at the enemy. Which I thought was a really
cool thing and I'm kind of sad that didn't didn't continue as
an option for Fanatics. Mmm.
Now let's move on through the Mists of time to ravening
hordes. This is the second edition
Warhammer fantasy, Army book. And this brought about some
incredible modernization compared to our original book.
By this point Games, Workshop has decided to combine Orcs, and
goblins into a coherent Force, which they would be for the rest
of their days. You still have some kind of
legacy things from first edition, as far as Orcs and
goblins go, you have some types of Orcs and goblins that just
won't continue to later. Editions.
For example, the half work is still in this, they are very
interesting, they're kind of just there sort of humans, but
sort of better and worse in different ways.
So, I mean, kind of like orcas are I guess.
And in this Edition Fanatics are very changed from their from
their original incarnation. And I want to read to you the
description for The Fanatic from second edition.
And and we'll see those those clear changes from the first
incarnation. In sensitized and thoroughly
blitzed on a strange. Horrible preparation.
Revered, Fanatics hide themselves.
Amongst the ranks of ordinary Goblin units.
Gibbering squeaky little incantations through foaming
lips, they are herded into battle by those around them.
Their green glowing eyes, staring, mad, and unseeing.
Once within a reasonable distance of the enemy regiment,
the crazed goblins are pushed forward by their comrades with
some relief. One imagines, and they are, and
they immediately begin to spin under the influence of Narcotics
and religious fervor. What happens next is in the lap
of the Gods with no knowledge of what's happening around them.
The whirling Goblin Fanatics plowed through anything in their
way, whether Friend or Foe eventually.
The narcotics were where will wear off and the acolyte will
collapse in a state of exhaustion or else's, heart will
fail Under The Strain and give out altogether.
Many of these Warriors die as they stumble into trees or holes
in the ground their weapons. Then Then become a liability as
change chains become entangled or their huge weighted ends
swing around and decapitate the user.
In this, in this addition they are described as drug-crazed
followers of a nasty Goblin cult their acolytes and they have
this religious fervor that causes them to along with all of
the drugs that they're taking causes them to go into these mad
States. And it's very different from
That first Incarnation, where you got the idea that maybe this
wasn't, as this wasn't something that that the goblin chose to do
as opposed to. This is what happened to this,
poor Goblin. And I like this, I really like
this description because having Fanatics as part of a religious
cult, makes a little bit more sense to me, especially with the
nonsensical nature of the Orkin, Goblin gods and the things that
they tell tend to worship and believe.
I really like this description a little bit better.
It's a little bit more fun than just the poor Goblin is tortured
into insanity and I wanted to to share that particular one.
In this Edition, the model is equipped with that same one inch
base. I was talking about so you
needed to base your Goblin and then base them again.
And he still hides in enemy units.
And all of the things that we think about Fanatics so they
shelter in their own unit until the enemy comes with innate that
is, here they go to D6. That that movement is is the
same in this Edition. However, since goblins have
everything, got a stat increase. So in second edition, we move to
that standard strength of 34 humanoid creatures and goblins
got that bump as well. And they got a double bump the
Fanatics. Because even in second edition
here we see that the Goblins have The sorry, the Fanatics do
a strength, five, hit, or strength, five hits, I should
say, and that's quite a quite a bump from there.
They're doing strength. Three hits in first edition
fantasy. What's fun about goblins here.
And I'm going to share the basic Goblin profile as in second
edition, your War gear, determined, what type of unit
you were? Most things only had one profile
and then they just were armed or equipped differently until you
got into Heroes. So, if you're playing a goblin
army in 2nd edition, you really only have one stat profile that
you have to memorize other than your characters.
And this is that they are movement for weapon.
Skill to ballistics kill three strength, 3 toughness, 31 wound
initiative to attacks one leadership, five intelligence
five, cool, five and will power 5.
You don't really have to worry about those last three stats.
Those are old Hammer stats, that were used in more of the
roleplay business. And a lot of that would get
rolled into leadership in later editions.
However, the basic Goblin is here.
Now, this is, this is pretty much what we think of when we
think of a goblin profile, Especially in the hero, Hammer
era later eras goblins other than night goblins would get a
bump in leadership. Otherwise, this is basically
what we're used to the goblin profile.
If you were to field a naked Goblin in second edition, which
was probably not a good idea but you could do it.
They were two and a half or sorry to end a quarter points.
If you like fractions, this is the addition for you.
Now, the goblin fanatic Works in a very similar way to his his
first edition. However, they've simplified his
randomized movement. No longer are you rolling the
D20 for his movement? It's gone down.
Now, to a D12. And it's basically, you're
moving him on the, our hands of the the D12, when he moves
randomly, any model that comes into contact, with the fanatic
suffers D6 automatic strength, five hits with no armor saving
throws allowed. So this is consistent, this is
1987, by the way, and this is consistent with what we see in
their very last book in 8th Edition for what they've or
sorry it is. Nine percent consistent.
We will get to some of the subtle differences but it's just
incredible that this was such a already formed idea by this
point and I guess even you know, when you're in a company or when
you're creating something, when you when you hit something that
works you just you kind of just know it and I feel like Games
Workshop, just kind of knew it that they what they had with the
Fanatics here and I think they were very into it. and, In 2nd
edition. Sadly, we do lose the rule for
throwing the ball and chain. As I mentioned earlier, that was
never going to come back for us and otherwise the move the rules
here in second edition are very consistent.
If the fanatic moves into any kind of terrain feature, he is
destroyed and there is just a lot here that you will
immediately Really recognize if you are an Orcs and goblins
player or if you have played against Orcs and goblins because
I've never met in Orcs and goblins player that doesn't take
fanatics. Alright, so that is a very quick
overview of the second edition book.
We're almost through the here or the old Hammer era here.
And the last place we're going to go is Warhammer fantasy Third
Edition. This was the trickiest one for
me to find the goblin fanatic rules as they are not featured
in the Army book other than to say, To tell you to go to the
rulebook. Why they decided that this was
better off in the main rules, I don't know.
But this is where where we where we've gotten In this Edition,
Goblin Fanatics are. Their lord doesn't change
between 2nd and 3rd Edition. So they're still there, still
described as drug. Drug-crazed followers of a
particularly nasty Goblin cult dedicated acolytes of which
clamor for the honor of entering battle as whirling as a whirling
ball of death. Which is a great great sentence.
These guys are really neat. Now in Third Edition, what they
did was they wrote out. I think what they saw was all of
the weird interactions that Fanatics could cause in second
edition. So, in Third Edition, we get a
lot. We get 11 bullet points that
actually tell us what to do with Fanatics in certain situations.
I'm not going to hit all of them because they're not all that
interesting. However, there are a few that
are definitely worth mentioning here.
I will start off by saying that the fanatic continues on his old
Hammer trajectory of having that one inch base.
He is also, he also keeps that strength five and he would keep
the strength five for the rest of our traditions. but what
Third Edition ads for us and they keep the D12, the hands on
the clock for determining his the way he goes in, subsequent
turns They had a couple of special rules here.
Skirmishing units have a special interaction with Fanatics in
this Edition. And the only time this is ever
mentioned and that is they are able to maybe dive and get out
of the way because they're in a loose formation and usually not
heavily armored. I think that's a really cool
fluff. Mechanic for skirmishing units,
when confronted by these insane little Garbo's, what they do is
When a fanatic hits a skirmishing unit you generate
the number of hits as usual D6 strength five hits.
However the skirmishing unit gets a special save against a
fanatic. They can do they it's called a
diving save and it's a unmodified saving throw of five
or six. and, Individual character models or single
models that are not associated with units, can also attempt
this. So if you had a wizard standing
out on the battlefield, or if you had a character or whatever,
they could also try to give the saving throw.
And I really like that from a Fluff perspective.
I think that's a really cool Edition.
It also this Edition also gives us our you can Target Goblin
Fanatics with missile troops because I don't think that was
clearly stated in previous editions.
It probably caused some issue. Goblin Fanatics, you can Target
them, but they're out of -1 to hit, which is what we would see
for most kind of characters or models out on their own going
forward. Goblin Fanatics will cost you 30
points. Each in Third Edition, this is
the most expensive that Goblin Fanatics got.
They would go to 25 points later and remain remarkably consistent
throughout. And this is a part that I wanted
to mention just as a just a, how times have changed kind of part
here. The very next entry after the
goblin Fanatics in the Third Edition rule book was for a
Nippon unit named. Kamikaze suicide, bombers And
just kind of goes to show you that the the era's have have
very much changed you. You certainly never get away
with something like that nowadays.
But very interesting unit. I've mentioned this before on my
own podcast but I I'm is unfortunate that Games Workshop
never did much with nip on and Cathay other than in the old
Hammer are aware. They were just stand-ins for for
ancient China and Japan. It would have been nice to see
something come. Out of that but such is life.
That's going to take us through the old Hammer era.
Now we're going to go into a little bit more familiar
territory especially For You crown of command folks, and
we're going to go to the brilliant beautiful Warhammer,
armies, Orcs and goblins this was published in 1996, making it
one of the last fourth edition books before the addition switch
to 5th edition and I believe it was the third Army book I ever
owned And I am so happy to have owned this.
I have so many good feelings from this book.
It really got me into the, the lower and the fluff, and the
silliness Of Orcs. And goblins, this was another
big tonal shift for Warhammer fantasy.
Not unlike the tonal shift from fifth to sixth, but in a more
cartoony Direction, This was Warhammer fantasy.
I believe At its peak and I'm I know, I'm preaching to the crowd
on this one. I usually would probably have a
little bit more push back, but I know around here were all fans
of the era. Now in this Edition, we're going
to see night goblins come into their own.
And by that, I mean they're going to get the fluff added to
their their profile or other their lore that we associate
with them going forward. And actually, I was reading
through all of the night Goblin fluff in preparation for this
episode and the best description of night goblins, I believe Is
from this book. And I want to share that with
you now because this gives you not only a sense of the Goblins
themselves. But how the Goblins live many
years ago? Some goblins took to living in
the caves beneath the world's Edge mountains over the
centuries, these became distinct in type and are now known as
night goblins. Night goblins have become so
accustomed to the dark that when they come out into the open,
they prefer to move around at night and hide a wager.
During the day, many of them wear long ragged cloaks who did
coats and dangling caps which cover their bodies and protect
them from the sunlight. Night goblins raise special
Subterranean fungi. Deep beneath the word the
mountains in their cool and damp caves.
They cultivate many types of fungus and are always searching
for new ones to experiment. With some fungus is used for
food for the night goblins and their strange animals.
But many are grown for their hallucinogenic or intoxicating
Properties or because they affect the Goblins metabolism in
some other way. These fungi are traded with
other goblins for weapons and many other items that the night
goblins need night. Goblin shamans are expert at
identifying growing and using fungi and they grow many special
strains to use as poisons or even weapons.
When night goblins prepare for battle, they brew huge
quantities of fungus beer to bolster their courage, as they
get steadily more drunk, they sing loudly.
So that their voices, fill the tunnels of the world's Edge
mountains and echo through the dwarf.
Holds when the time is right, shamans pick the special fungus
and make the vile Brew, which sends the Fanatics crazy, and
turns them into uncontrolled whirling.
Maniacs night goblins often take over abandoned.
Dwarf, strongholds to live in and much of the ancient dwarf.
Empire is now. Infested, with these creatures
occasionally, the dwarves will try to drive the Goblins out or
the Goblins will find some tunnel, which leads them into
the dwarf tunnels. And the two races, battle it out
beneath the mountains, due to this ancient and Amity.
The dwarves. In The Night goblins are
implacably, implacable foes and will often fight to the death
rather than give an inch of ground to their enemies.
These are the night goblins that we know and love the fungus is
there. The strange animals being the
skwiggs. All of this is introduced to us
in for fourth edition and it would solidify the night Goblin.
Lower going forward. An interesting thing to note
about goblins in Warhammer fantasy and one that doesn't get
touched on so much because in the majority of additions and
for the longest time, we got two main Goblin groups, we got the
generic gobbler. Sorry, three, main Goblin
groups, we got the generic goblins, we got night goblins
and we had Forest goblins. however, the thing that you
should know about goblins in Warhammer fantasy, lore is they
are the most adaptable race in on the Warhammer World goblins
can live just about anywhere and do in 6th edition.
There was a set of incredible rules for the different types of
goblins that you might encounter in the Warhammer world and
including them in your account or can Goblin armies.
There were he'll goblins. There were Marsh goblins.
I think they were fire goblins and dust goblins which were
actually spiteful little Undead goblins which is really cute and
they had their own lore and where they would live goblins
are very adaptable to their environment and over the
generations since goblins proliferate so quickly.
And the average Goblin life's brand span is nasty, brutish and
short. They don't have the generations
go quickly. They quickly adapt to their
surroundings and this is very much the story of the night
goblins and why they have their trademark hoods and robes.
What we don't get a lot of in the main books.
If you're just reading the Codex, or the Army books.
Going forward is night Goblin, Theology.
And night goblins, we get introduced to the bad moon.
The bad moon is a symbol that the night goblins love.
It's a symbol that is prevalent in 40K and in fantasy, and 40K,
it's more Saoirse associated with a clan Of Orcs as opposed
to the Goblins, but it's still there.
Orcs and goblins in. Warhammer fantasy are
polytheists. They have a variety of gods and
the big ones, of course, our cork and Mork, who are the orc
Gods? The Goblins though have their
own sort of Pantheon, the spider or the forest goblins worship
their own spider? God, the night goblins worship,
what they call the bad moon. And this was a really
interesting kind of thing that didn't get touched on a lot in
fantasy. It got played up a lot more when
they ported night goblins over to age of Sigmar but it is still
there in the background of Warhammer fantasy.
It's just not touched on as much.
In 4th edition. Night Goblin Fanatics, lose
their background related to them being religious fanatics.
In this one, you get the sense that any Goblin might just get
the idea that he wants to become a fanatic or perhaps his fungus
Brew gets spiked by some cheeky other Goblin.
Their powers in this Edition are derived from one particular,
mushroom known as the madcap. The madcap is horrendously
poisonous. It's not something you should
ever eat, and it's not something the goblin should eat either,
but for them, it doesn't just kill them.
It makes them a little crazy. The Fanatics in this, you get
the sense that they are not in any way, really different from
any night. Goblin just that they have been,
they have been drugged, basically that is that is about
as much as we get. We don't get any of the, the
cult aspects of the Fanatics, unfortunately, which is I think
is a bit of a shame because it did simplified their flop, but I
think it did kind of take something away from it.
By fourth edition Games. Workshop, has a much clearer
idea of what they're doing with night goblins and Fanatics.
In terms of game rules this Edition, you don't need your one
inch template that goes underneath the base.
You just have them on their regular round basis.
They have. Four main special rules.
So in the previous editions and it might have been hard, it
might have been hard to get a sense where I'm reading this and
speaking over audio. They have about a page and a
half from first edition to Third Edition.
In this one, they've only got about a half page of rules to
the other half is dedicated to the fluff.
And they've really simplified this.
So, we have the hide rule, which is as we're familiar with now
night goblins hiding in other night gobbler, Fanatics hiding,
another night Goblin units. They have their attack which is
once a unit comes with an eight. The night of the Fanatics have
to be pushed out. And what's interesting here Is
that you don't have a choice about whether to release the
Fanatics however, you can push them out in any direction.
So, there's some interesting things that you can do with
this. Also, what's interesting and I
meant to check the fifth edition or hero Hammer era, fa q's and I
just didn't get a chance before this.
But I'm sure one of your listeners would know this
whether or not a unit comes with an eighth of the Goblins.
If you have to be able to see that unit, I had a very
interesting game with my friend Patrick where his wood elf
sorcerer teleported. To take out my my Doom diver
catapult but didn't realize that she was within eight of a night
Goblin unit. And I just pushed all of the
night goblins backwards and managed to wipe her out and then
made a mess of my own back lines, but I still contend that
it was worth it. The other rules that they have
is move, which is there to D6 for movement, and they actually
note here that you have to do better than average of the
average role of seven to meet your target, which I thought was
interesting that they chose to do that.
And then finally, they have simplified fighting to the D6
strength five hits with no armor saves allowed.
What's interesting here is that the Fanatics His stats, which
you don't really reference all that much because he is just a
goblin for most part, but he is considered strength of five and
we'll be going forward. Wearing other editions, he was
still strength through your strength to, but it was the ball
and chain item, that gave him the special rules.
Now, the ball and chain item has been combined in his stats and
yeah, it's really interesting. He also has no initiative value
and no leadership. Value, which again, not stats
that he needs. But I thought it was interesting
that they, that they don't do that.
And yeah, so this was this one gives you all of the all of the
basics here, just clarifies that they're super immune to
psychology how further movement works?
This is all now, we're getting into the more standardized stuff
here. I think, I mean, for my money,
this, this orc and goblins book by far, my favorite.
There is some things though that we will see going forward into
the later, eras of Warhammer fantasy.
That Fanatics, actually get some some interesting options and
some interesting ways to use them and actually, their own
magic item at one point, which is it only appeared once and as
soon as I show it to you, you will know why it was, it was
maybe not the best. Thought-out thing I've ever I've
ever seen or sorry. It lasted for two editions but
one addition it got changed. This is going to take us out of
the hero, Hammer era, and we're going to move in to sixth
edition. So, sixth edition, this was our
big shake-up. These guys, this this whole
addition really changed. What Warhammer was the heroes
got nerfed hugely in 6th edition?
You could not win on the strength of your Heroes alone.
The magic items and Magic phase itself was drastically
curtailed. And for Orcs and goblins, This
was an interesting era, one thing that I would like to note
to before we get into this is that we're here.
Our fantasy was really blessed during this later, era.
By not having the problem that developed in Warhammer 40K.
The problem that develops in 40K was Space Marines became not
only the most popular faction in the poster child, but they
became the majority of the game. You had a lot of supplements and
things that released that really took the focus and made it so
that other forces didn't get updates that they badly need and
that is still an issue for 40K to this day.
We're Hammer fantasy is it's player.
Face was always a little bit more diverse in what they wanted
to play. You had a things were often
written from an Empire perspective and and the center
of the old world kind of being the center of events, but it was
never to nearly the same extent and what this meant was a lot of
races and Especially those who had been there since the early
days, like, Orcs and goblins had an incredible range of units.
To choose from. For my money I don't think and
in this is even during the hero Hammer are as well.
I don't think anyone had a more full roster than the Orcs and
goblins and I think that might have been also because they were
probably really fun to design and paint and I'm sure everyone
at Games, Workshop, really enjoyed them.
Now. To get into 6th edition proper
night, Goblin lore and organ. Goblin lore doesn't change much
between the fourth edition book and the 6th edition book and
that was actually a little bit of a Anomaly.
And the reason for that was most of the races, the lore got a lot
darker, everything got a little bit more desperate, everything
got a little bit more grimy gritty and dirty Orcs.
And goblins though remained the almost comic relief race for
Warhammer fantasy. And although like the artwork is
certainly of the the sixth and later Edition Style.
You get a lot of the humor, a lot of the intrinsic silliness
in the Orcs and goblins that got to stick around for the era and
that made that made me play Orcs and goblins in 6th edition, I
had a huge Army and mostly I got it at a Games Workshop auction,
the local Games Workshop. This was maybe a year or two
after they had opened. We've We've we have one Games
Workshop in my re my entire region of Canada.
Honestly, there's my Games Workshop.
And then if you travel about 700 km, you'll find the next one.
And this. Yeah, this Army was the store
Army and I guess they were updating what their stormy was
and I hate was I guess I had money burning a hole in my
pocket but I won this Army it was very well painted and really
nice had a lot of fun playing with it.
It the yeah, this this was a good.
The rules weren't always great for Orcs and goblins during this
6th to 8th Edition era but they were always at least fun, which
didn't happen for everyone, unfortunately.
Speaking of night goblins here we do see some changes from the
fourth edition fanatic to the sixth edition, fanatic, most of
your rules stay the same, however, Fanatics do get their
leadership back and their initiative back there,
initiative, three, and Leadership 10.
I think they wanted to include those just for for completeness,
because they're still immune to most things that happen in the
game. And this Edition is important
for Fanatics because this is the peak of the Fanatics power and
it's the peak for a couple of reasons.
The first reason is that they have ignores armor.
Save still a lot of things in 6th edition lost that they went
to armor-piercing or they went to just straight-up strength.
This is in fact the last time we will see See, in this little
walkthrough ignores armor on Fanatics in later editions, that
will be gone. The sixth edition book was
really good for Fanatics as well because it's actually two full
pages. So, this is the longest section
of Fanatics. And in any addition, however, it
gives you even a diagram to help show you how Fanatics work.
It's very comprehensive, it's actually a very good set of
rules here. These, there's some interesting
stuff here and again, I'm going to go quickly through most of
this because the fanatic rules are remarkably consistent, but
they do change one, very interesting thing and they they
give you a new Special Rule. This special rule is called
Dangerous loonies. and, I'm going to read it here because
it's really interesting. Fanatics are often as much of a
danger to their own side, as they are to the enemy.
And for this reason, the green skin, sometimes feel obliged to
fill them full of errors. And it, they do use the orc
spelling there. I'm not just mispronouncing
arrows, unlike normal troops which cannot fire on their own
side Orcs and goblins May shoot it Fanatics.
This is drastic course of action but the site of one of these
frothing Lou Ernie's headed, straight back towards your own
lines calls for desperate measure.
This might be the only Special Rule in the history of Warhammer
fantasy that allows you to shoot specifically at your own models.
Skaven had something similar called life is cheap where you
could fire into combat and you had a chance of hitting your own
models Orcs and goblins, however, I believe we're the
only ones that ever got a rule and this dangerous loonies rule,
is it that allows you to specifically, pick out your Your
own models and shoot them in the shooting phase.
I think that's really interesting.
I think is really cool, there are times that I wish this rule
was present through all incarnations of Warhammer
fantasy. It only features in 6th edition
unfortunately because I would certainly shoot my own Fanatics.
Probably like six times out of 10, at least when I deployed
them because they, they do things sometimes to me.
The other thing that 6th edition adds was Sixth edition had a
very different scoring method than the hero Hammer era you
would calculate victory points as opposed to scoring points for
table quarters, and various things like you do in hero
Hammer. They get their own special rule
for victory points and basically it just states that Fanatics are
only a unit upgrade they should never be counted as units on
their own and thus do not give Units, do not give victory
points unless their parent unit is destroyed.
Which was an important rule at the time in this era.
And I should also mention because I think I forgot to
mention it in the hero. Hammer era is we see Fanatics go
down in points, in 6th edition. They become 25 points.
Per model and check and then hero Hammer, they were 30 so
that 30 was consistent between hero hammer and old Hammer.
But then They dropped to 25 points in six addition and we
would see them at 25 points for the rest of the lifespan of the
game. Now, I do want to take you on a
little bit of a tour of the Warhammer magic items for Orcs
and goblins and 6th edition 6 Edition.
Got a lot of things right in my opinion, one of the things I
don't think it did particularly well was the magic phase but
it's Magic items were quite good.
The only thing that was unfortunate about 6th edition
was we lost about 80 percent of the common magic items.
We went down to about a dozen common magic items and then each
race added a dozen or so more. Probably about 20 odds of its
own magic items. That only, they could take the
Orcs and goblins have some gems in 6th edition but the Ian, why
we're here? Is the is that we have a
incredible item? And it's in the Enchanted item
section, and it's a magic item for fanatics.
This is madcap mushrooms, and it's 30 points.
Many kinds of fungus grow in the dark dank caves of Night of the
night goblins, including the rare and treasured madcap
mushrooms. These form parts of the deadly
brew that sends Fanatics Wild But only a small part, if they
get a whole one, they go really mad.
If the character is with a unit of night goblins, when they're
Fanatics are released, he may give each of them a madcap
mushroom before they go whirling off.
If they hit a unit from either side on the turn which they are
released, It suffers 2D six hits.
Instead of the usual D6, subsequent units encountered by
each fnatic, are only struck by 1 D6, hits as usual, This was
beyond the pale. Good.
If you were taking Fanatics and most Goblin or can Goblin
players, I knew took Fanatics. This was an auto include it is
the cost of basically one Fanatics, Five Points more than
one Fanatic in sixth. However, anything you hit that
first turn. You're looking at it from an
average of three, to four hits to an average of like six to
eight hits, which is generally well worth the 30 points,
especially in this era where no armor saves, were allowed.
God, help a Cavalry. Unit.
If it got in your sights with something like this it was
entirely luck-based. Of course you had to roll at
least that eight to get The Fanatic in there but Fanatics
were always a big gamble. Anyway there was really no
reason not to do this. This does appear in 7th edition
as well which we will talk about but it doesn't Really it's far
less potent by that point. This is the only time it hit it
appears in this way. And I think Games Workshop
learned their lesson very quickly about this item because
you could just devastate units with a little bit of luck here.
The other thing I wanted to hit on and this is this is the great
humor that was written into the sixth edition or can Goblin rule
book when everything was going dark and gritty the Orcs and
goblins stayed with a little bit of lightheartedness.
Most of the magic items. And I should say most, I should
say all of the magic items are written normally in the organ
Goblin rules. Except this one and it's War.
Possums. Best big boss at originally this
ruining crusted and rather squashed looking helmet.
Belonged to a dwarf king or so, Legend tells although it is a
bun in combat, it is far from infallible as its change in
ownership attests. So that part is we get a normal
sort of a normal name and normal description, but then when you
actually read the rules, it says the following magical bosses at
what protects. You gives you a five upward save
done, it may be worn. In addition to normal or magical
armor, it's the only place it ever appears, and it's, and in
future editions, it's written normally.
But in this Edition, they just decided to have an orc voice.
Give you the narration for this, and the, it's just one of the
little things that I wanted to share with you guys because I
love it so much now, These. Yeah, this is this is the 6th
edition. This is as powerful as we will
see Fanatics with that magical item and with their magical or
story, their magical item and they are ignore armor save
Unfortunately, that is it for 6th edition.
I wish we could stay in 6th edition because now we come to
seventh edition. If you're a listener to war
games Orchard, you may have picked up on the fact that I
don't spend a lot of time in 7th edition.
I spend about as a little time in seventh as possible and only
because it was a totally functional game with functional
codec. Well, sort of functional Army
books except for a few, but this was boring.
This whole Edition was just everything was Very it was 6th
edition with all the flavor removed is how I would describe
seventh edition and if you like seventh edition I'm sorry that
I'm I am - about it. I just don't find anything here.
That is particularly interesting, most of the time
and we see a lot of that for the night Goblin fanatic rules which
stay the same. They do get cleaned up a little
bit but we have a little bit of We have a little bit of changes
in how night. Goblins hit the big change is
now. They inflict D6, strength, 5
armor-piercing hits. So it no longer ignores an
entire armor. Save this isn't a big deal for
infantry units. We're at most.
You've usually got a for up or a 3 up.
Save, If you're really heavy Infantry.
But for Cavalry units, this made Fanatics far, less effective
because l no longer were. You just removing cap Cavalry
models often times they would get a save of five or six or if
it was super heavy Cavalry on sometimes a 4 5 or 6.
This was a, yeah, this, this was a bit of a Nerf for them again,
not huge. But it certainly had a
noticeable effect. And The Fanatic, all of the
fanatic rules. Stay the same here.
So we get all of the Hidden rules.
All of the, you know, shooting at them with a minus.
One penalty Fanatics have a ton of rules.
I'm not going through most of them because they would just be,
it would get very boring, very fast.
So we're just going to focus on the changes.
And yeah, that's I mean there's not a whole lot here for seventh
edition. I'm afraid.
I do want to hit on madcap mushrooms though because that
magic item stays and it works in a very same are in the very same
way in that you have to have a character in the unit of night.
Goblins, when the Fanatics are released, he can give each of
them a madcap mushroom. However this time you don't get
a 2d six hits, you only get to re-roll the number of hits so a
far less effective item which is unfortunate.
I do think it needed to be toned down or removed.
However, because in 6th edition anything that you actually
managed to hit with those Fanatics was going to have a
really Really poor day. so that that is about all I want to hit
in 7th edition, we can safely ignore 7th edition, most of the
time which I always recommend And this brings us to our last
stop and this is the eighth edition, the final edition of
Warhammer fantasy. If you are a hero Hammer player,
And I'm thinking pretty much all the audience is going to be.
In this case, if you haven't picked up 8th Edition, and I'm
going to, I'm going to caveat this with the fact that the
eighth eighth edition. I don't, particularly like, the
way it plays, I didn't like hordes.
I didn't like a lot of the things that it added the way
that cannons could just snipe out, pretty much anything.
There was a lot of problems with this game.
Magic was crazy. The Army books.
If you're just interested in the lower, in the art, the Army
books in 8th Edition are beautiful.
They are second only to the hero Hammer era, they are full color.
They will give you some incredible incredible lower some
incredible artwork sometimes and not all the time but sometimes
you can find them really cheap if you're just into the game and
The the lower in the the images this you could do a lot worse
than having a little collection of the 8th ed books, if you can
find them for cheap, this book was published in 2010.
So this is a full decade ago now because time flies and
apparently we're all old now or at least I have.
And this is actually a really good book.
They Orcs and goblins got a lot of stuff here.
They got a lot of most of their stuff came during seventh
edition, seventh edition, gave us a big expansion of the
Warhammer fantasy range and that continued into early 8th Edition
and then kind of petered out as Games.
Workshop switched Focus to the age of Sigmar that they were
building, but we did get some really fun units in the the
later eras for Orcs and goblins, including the Iraq in Iraq.
Spider was a really big one, The Mangler squigs for the night
goblins. That gave them a little bit
more. Squig.
Fluff was very, very cool. In this.
In this Edition, we find our ultimate form of The Fanatic.
This is the very last rules that we got and they for one of the
few times they managed to actually fit everything on a
single page here. In. 8th Edition.
I don't have as much to mention as in some of the earlier
Editions. They just kind of added some
cleanup things and some some qualifications.
So this is a lot like the switch from second to third, where
Fanatics stay largely the same, but they have a bit of a bit of
a cleanup. Weirding wise.
One of the interesting things that it had been in the rules,
but it wasn't always, they didn't always remember to print
it in the Army books and then they would have to go back and
Clarify this later in an FAQ or an Errata is that friendly
units. Never take Panic tests.
If Fanatics are destroyed, And again, this goes back to them
being more of a unit upgrade than a unit in themselves.
However, where they had their own entry like other units did
it did cause some confusion for some, some players.
And so it was nice to see that was That was followed through
with in this book. The other thing was that random
movement went from being a special rule that got printed in
every entry that removed randomly, which seemed to mostly
be things in the Orkin Goblin codex audit, honestly think they
had more random movement than just about anyone else.
To being a universal Special Rule that you could find in the
main rule book that units just had.
And then each unit that moved randomly moved randomly in the
same way, which just quality of life things, a lot of the 8th
Edition stuff was And yeah, the last thing I'll say is I did
play Orcs and goblins in 8th Edition, a little bit, and in
8th Edition Fanatics were very good.
Again, they stayed at 25 points per model and it sounds kind of
expensive Until you realize that goblins were basically free.
They just they cost almost nothing.
You could take an eighth edition really dropped those points
values. As for pretty much everything in
the game. So people would run night,
Goblin hordes in games that were, you know, hundreds of
models easily. It was pretty easy to fit 200
night goblins in an army, you could cram in more if you really
wanted to, and you could just fill up the board with Fanatics.
It was a bit of a gatekeeper Army at tournaments.
I remember In. And what I mean by that is that
if you got that matchup, you had to have some way to deal with
all of these Fanatics that we're coming at you.
So you would have somewhere in the vicinity of 20 to 30
Fanatics, just whirling at you. And That was, it was a it was
kind of a big problem. It wasn't really because it
wasn't like a top-tier army but it was a very silly and
potentially powerful list and I remember running quite a few
Fanatics because Orcs and goblins, though a decent Army in
in most regards weren't at the the top of the power list and
the way that people like to run hordes in Eighth edition, really
helps you actually hit with those Fanatics in 6th edition,
7th edition and previous eras, your unit sizes, even for a big
unit like goblins in, you know, in even in hero Hammer.
I'm not running more than say, 25 goblins generally in 8th
Edition, you were running at least 40 goblins.
If you're running a horde of goblins, more likely 6280
goblins and hoard Army, he's like, skaven could do similar
things. There was a lot of big units and
there was a lot of ways to make contact with those big units,
and it was a good ERA for Fanatics, though.
Not a good ERA for Warhammer fantasy in general, and which we
can tell, because it was the last era for Warhammer fantasy
and that takes us through the legend of the night Goblin
Fanatics. I hope you guys have enjoyed
that. I had a lot of fun putting this
one together. It's the First one I've ever
done that spans the entire history of Warhammer.
And I was, I was very having tons and tons of fun just
looking at all these different units and how they changed and
evolved. Yeah, my has been really good.
Listen, thank you so much again, for all that research in time,
you put into making this podcast pretty special night because
yeah, it was interesting to know because I didn't know anything
about first second or third edition how they played.
And it was interesting to know that the condition that was sort
of like these religious acolytes and they had all these
polyhedral dice rules and charts and that kind of thing that made
it very, you know, very very detailed and complex and how
they moved around and that kind of stuff.
So it was really quite interesting.
Yeah, and I do really recommend for anyone who's interested in
the history of the game. Just just dive into one of the
old Hammer additions and it's Weird and wacky.
And it's almost like reading middle English or Old English
where you recognize some of the things going on.
But then there's some things that are just totally alien to
you. One thing I wanted to ask you,
Josh, before we finish up, and this is only because everyone
I've ever met that has played Warhammer fantasy.
Has a fanatic story at least one, either that Fanatics
happened to them or they're Fanatics.
Did something. Do you have a Particularly
standout fanatic story in your War gaming career.
I'm trying to think of it now might I can't really think of
anything to be honest. I think they usually did.
They did? The most usual thing is, they
know that they'll go, they'll be injected out of the unit and
then they'll sort of come back towards my own, guys.
So I think that's quite a common story.
Among most not good, commanders or whatever, but yeah, they
been, I've been really lucky actually in the games have been
playing in the Year and a half or so, they haven't.
They generally don't really do a lot of damage to my own units,
which is good, but they don't generally do a huge amount of
damage to my opponents units, but in some rare cases, maybe
they might catch a Cavalry unit or something and take out, you
know, 75% of them or whatever. But generally, I just there just
become a nuisance and they sort of just wander around the
battlefield aimlessly, in a sort of random stupor.
And we don't know what to do with them.
Like my opponent says, well, Well, what happens if I run
into, like, what happened with Justin and our last game.
What happens if I charge into them?
Well, you're going to get hit, you know, D6 X D6 times, you
know, strength, okay, and they just become this really funny,
kind of a sideshow in a game, where we sort of sit back and
think, like a boss, what's going to happen next to him?
What's going to happen? You know, and you know last game
they hit it, hit a steam tank for the very first time never
played against a steam tank so it is steam tank.
And I said, what's the toughness of this bloody thing?
He said 10. I thought well, I can't, I can't
even went bloody thing. What's going to happen now or
like I thought, does it kill him or does it he did?
It is so we didn't know the rule was so he just hit one side of
the the steam tank and then popped out the other side of the
steam tank. So I suppose that's one of the
most funniest sort of occurrences that I've had with
the fanatic where I just didn't know what to do with it.
And I suppose The Fanatic got a quite a bit of a headache after
hitting that steam. Take a couple of times, but that
was quite, that's probably one of the most recent.
Two memory incidents that I found quite funny.
Um but yeah I always take finale.
I've played night goblins ever since 4th edition and just to
recap on the on the printing of the books.
They're actually they're actually used to Prince of the
fourth edition books and the first one being in 1993 and the
second one being in 1996. And I don't think many people
knew that I actually you. This is, yeah, sorry, this is
just been bothering me ever since I excite.
I, I would have Come in certainly after the second
Printing and I think I thought it seemed weird because of the
layout of the Orkin Goblin book but it said, copyright 1996.
So I was just like, okay, well, I better trust what it says here
but this makes perfect sense because this book is laid out
like an early fourth edition book as opposed to the later
eras. So thank you so much for
correcting me on that. That is the only reason I say
it's because actually got to I've got two copies of the book,
one being the 96 mind being the 93.
The 93 had all the earlier, the very first prince had wonderful
catalog pictures in the back of the books which I love and it
has all the Miniatures in there. So it was a great reference to
me. Checking what Miniatures?
I had what ones what ones I was missing and I would Circle the
the the labels underneath them with their barcodes or what have
you, the item numbers and that kind of stuff.
So it was like a great reference and I'm the second print.
They had like a mock-up usual like a 1500 points.
Army. So that help people, you know,
sort of build their first organ Goblin list or whatever arm it
might be with the roster sheet and all that kind of stuff.
So, I think that's probably the one then most people, most
familiar with, but I thought, I'd just let people yourself
knowing other people know that there are two editions so that's
perfect. Yeah, I love that you mentioned,
those armies at the back of the book.
Yeah, I have one of my kind of long-term just goals in life is
to Is to get all of like to get the models to make all of those
little beginner forces. Oh yeah.
Ken's. Yeah.
I just because I love them so much as a kid, right?
I didn't know anything about strategy or tactics and I had no
idea, you know what I was doing for the most part.
So these things were so good because I was just like, oh like
I can collect these models, it'll come up to 1,000 points.
This is awesome and I'm proud to say, I have models.
Now to do that, for lizard-men, chaos Warriors, Orcs, and
goblins, Dark Elves and beastmen and demons because the realm of
chaos book came, and it gave you three of those right at the, at
the back of that. So yeah, yeah.
So just just a fun little tidbit there.
Oh great, my that's awesome. Yeah.
I looked at the scavo one the
other day and I had to laugh because had like thankful and
Bone Ripper as like in 1,000 Point listed.
Yes hilarious. Like he's the most powerful.
You probably one of the most powerful character.
Actors in in the Warhammer world alone but for the scape and he's
just a monster. So I thought yeah.
The the balance on those lists is quite questionable, but
they're very cool. I guess they just wanted to
limit, maybe how many models you had for that skaven.
You had to collect for that skaven list.
But I do love that one that's. It's interesting to know too
that they, that, that was a second printing thing that they
added those armies. Because I'm pretty, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry. I'm pretty sure my Empire book
is from that earlier printing because it doesn't have an army.
It has the the catalog in the back and I was always very
confused by that by as being a kid and I always just put it
down to design changes over the years.
Hmm, But that's, that's interesting.
One thing I'd want to mention about the Orkin.
Goblin hero Hammer book is that the battle report that's in
there. That's Brewing, great great,
great little I'll report, I don't think I've seen more
people, collect a specific Force than that, or can Goblin Army in
there. I've seen at least since I've
been on the, the hero Hammer, Facebook pages, and in in
various communities and stuff, people, recreating Gore Bloom
the Magnificent and his, his little hoard.
It must have really just struck a chord with a lot of us.
I always really loved that story.
I wish more of the books that had those battle reports in
them. Yeah, the thing from 5th
edition, I just it, I think even before then I think from a from
the I think this cave and book didn't have one, the dark elf
book didn't have one. I think they just started off
with the first three or four books had like a battle report
and then they sort of just dropped off after after that,
which is a real shame. Yeah, must have found other ways
to fill the pages there but it was nice to nice to see ya.
I'm currently one. The curly one model away from
collecting the entire Goldman's organ golden horde.
And that's the the champion on the giant spider.
So, if anybody has one of those for sale, please contact me
because that's that's one thing. I'm, that's the only thing I'm
missing now. Excellent, and the dwarves, I
have everything for them even though they're not the exact
models. But I have everything like that.
So that's one of the dream scenario is to play out with one
of the guys here in Japan with me in a, in a future battle
report. Once I get all the terrain built
on need to build some houses and that kind of stuff, also, too.
Just to touch on the magic mushrooms.
They featured in 5th edition. Make that's when they first they
first appeared. No way.
Yep. Did I miss that?
Oh, my goodness. So your friend at you play with,
or when you play your goblins or whatever, you can get them in
5th edition as well. All right, oh my God.
I'm how could I not? How could I not?
Exactly, yeah, yeah. Are they, I'm going through my
workbook here but I'm thinking, no the orc book.
Did not contain the orc magic items, did it?
It didn't and fourth edition, I didn't have them.
I think that's how I must have missed it yet.
Oh, that's great, I'm gonna go. Oh, oh sorry they have some of
them. They got some of the magic, they
do they? Sorry they do have some of the
cards. I have like the bad mood Banner.
Oh yeah. Yeah, they got the big stuff
here. The guy I'm going to go through
my my magic supplement later today.
And find that because there's no way I'm not as every good organ
Goblin player and me. Also, I always take Fanatics in
my list regardless of how they do, not perform nine times out
of 10. One thing though that I thought
of well, you were telling the story about how, you know, the
goblin the Fanatics just kind of get in the way and you're there.
Just being like, well, what do I do?
What do we want to do about these guys both you and your
opponent? Yeah I've never seen a better
model or unit that can just completely stopped a battle.
Well everyone just watches them right?
It's just you have these Fanatics in the middle of the
table and everyone is just like oh okay, hmm.
And you you kind of sit there for a turn and you're just like
well I hope they get out of the way so I really don't want to
take the hits. Yeah.
It seems like I'm going to I'm going to have to work out, a
better way of using the because I mucked up the last game.
I transported them with the hand of gorks Bill, the unit of
arches and then I what I did I should I place them within eight
inches of the end unit which is the wrong thing to do.
I should have place a little bit further back so that he could
have to thank well I'd have to move as soon as I move they
relieved they get released and then if I'm lucky get another
hand of gork spell off again and charge.
Another unit will charge the same in in in the in the in the
Of the unit. So if they do flea, they have to
flee away from the enemy straight into the Fanatics.
If there'd been released already or something like that, so
there's some, there's obviously some plays you can use with the
Fanatics that will make them much more effective.
Yeah, but yeah, but it's been fun.
Hmm. Anyway, mate.
It's been, what's that? And nearly two hours we've been,
yeah. And it's been so great to talk
to you. And I have gotten do this again,
meet Sue. I had an absolute blast.
I would To have you on the orchard.
Some time to talk about just anything and everything.
The yeah, I've got them but I've gone through about a liter and a
half of water, I think this morning.
So, yeah, I think I am good to, to call it here.
If you are mine. I think it's, I think it's time.
I think it's 1:00 here in, which is early for me, maybe it's
nothing, but I don't know what time it is for you, but I'm not,
I'm sure, your wife is probably wondering where the hell you
are. You stuck in your closet there?
Accordingly Potter. Covered.
Yeah yeah. She's kind enough to take care
of our dog and stuff. While I while I record.
And yeah, it's about noon here and this afternoon, it's super
Wildcard Weekend. If any of you are American
football fans and so I'm very excited about that.
This is the last thing I have to do today before I just curl up
on the couch and eat snacks and drink and watch football.
So it's going to be a very good day.
And yeah, well, Fantastic time they made, okay.
And I really appreciate your time today and if people like I
said, go and check out Nathan's podcast at the Warhammer Orchid
Orchard on many different platforms out there on iTunes or
whatever. But yeah if you want to join our
community Warhammer Orchard on Facebook where small but growing
and there's yeah we're games Orchard.
On any podcast platform, cool that takes all night.
All right, we'll take Kit and I'll definitely catch up with
you again to meet you up on your podcast at some point.
And I look forward to listening to your Patron, exclusive shadow
of the horn rat podcast, which I'm gonna listen to you right
now. Was I do some painting and drink
some eclectic. Canadian Club whisky, good
stuff. Well, thank you so much and you
have a wonderful evening. Okay, might you think thanks so
much to the community? Thank you very much.
Might we appreciate it. Thank you.
Thanks.