A Vampire Counts Lot, TOW Temptation, and the Usual Dice-Based Bullying
A tempting undead haul appeared on our radar
Every now and then, one of us drops a listing into chat that immediately makes everyone stop what they’re doing and zoom in on the photos. This time it was Michał, who found a pretty chunky Vampire Counts army lot for 3000 PLN.
And honestly? It was one of those offers that makes the hobby brain go: well… maybe we could make room somehow?
The seller was moving on after playing Warhammer Fantasy 6th/7th and The Old World, and was offering the army only as a complete lot. The collection included a lot of good stuff: Blood Knights, Black Knights/Hexwraiths, a mountain of Ghouls, two Mortis Engines, Zombies, Grave Guard, Wight Kings, Dire Wolves, Spirit Hosts, a Necromancer, some Underworlds warbands, old books, bits, movement trays, bases, fillers, graves, and even thematic wound markers.
That is a very specific kind of dangerous post to encounter in the evening.
Stas remained strong. Mostly.
Michał immediately threw the link at Stas, because if there is a chance to gently push someone toward a new army, we are obviously going to take it.
Stas’s answer was extremely sensible and therefore suspicious:
- he has nowhere to store it,
- he has nobody to play with,
- and in The Old World he currently likes Orcs more anyway.
Very mature. Very responsible. We don’t approve.
That said, he did admit there were some cool models in there. Also, importantly, there was a Necromancer, which immediately got a personal mention. So while this was technically a refusal, we all know this was not a hard refusal. More of a soft hobby-side-eye.
The real topic: The Old World is starting to click
The undead listing quickly turned into a broader The Old World discussion, because that is how these things always go. One army post later and suddenly we’re talking about rules, movement trays, morale systems, and the philosophy of rolling dice.
Stas had been reading TOW rules the day before and came away surprisingly positive. What caught his attention most was:
- maneuvering whole units,
- the role of Leadership and Panic tests,
- and moving regiments around on trays.
That last one is a huge part of the appeal, to be fair. Ranked units just have a very specific vibe.
He was reading here:
His verdict was that The Old World feels quite different from Age of Sigmar in practice, even if some concepts are broadly familiar. Also, as he pointed out in the most important possible way: in TOW it sometimes feels like the dice logic is reversed compared to what we’re used to.
At one point he summed it up in the wonderfully cursed way only a hobby chat can produce:
1 is success, 6 is failure
Not a universal rules summary, obviously — but emotionally, we understood exactly what he meant.
But yes, game length remains a concern
There was also one very fair concern from Stas: how long a game might take.
That feels like one of the biggest barriers when looking at rank-and-flank systems from the outside. The maneuvering is cool, the trays are cool, the psychology rules are cool, but there is always that little voice asking whether a single battle will eat the entire evening.
Naturally, instead of staying serious for long, the conversation immediately drifted into the idea of movement trays with chips and tiny servos inside, so they could move by themselves while the player merely issued orders.
Michał, correctly, pointed out that the whole charm is in physically handling the models, measuring, nudging units around, and doing all the little tactile things that make tabletop gaming tabletop gaming.
And yes, we agree. Even if self-driving movement trays would be extremely funny.
Meanwhile, Michał found another way to enable bad decisions
As if one dangerous listing wasn’t enough, Michał also found something that made him want to play against Ender: the Slaanesh Spearhead battle trait.
On paper at least, it looked gloriously silly and potentially very fun.
This then immediately turned into jokes about Ender’s famously tragic dice averages. According to the chat, this mechanic would be great against Ender, but Ender himself would never be able to make it work because his dice would simply refuse to cooperate.
Ender, to his credit, accepted the slander with dignity and replied that we seemed very entertained by his average roll being roughly 1.2.
Which, to be clear, is not true.
Probably.
The classic solution: maybe Ender should just play TOW
Once the dice jokes started, the obvious conclusion appeared: maybe destiny is telling Ender to play The Old World instead.
After all, if your personal relationship with dice suggests that high numbers are a myth, perhaps a game system that feels different in how results matter is the answer. This was not necessarily rigorous mathematical analysis, but it was definitely hobby logic.
To help this along, Stas very helpfully linked the Dwarfen Mountain Holds range and reminded Ender about some of his favorite miniatures.
This did not calm him down.
Where we landed
In the end, nobody panic-bought a full Vampire Counts army that evening.
So this was not one of those triumphant “we bought a massive second-hand collection and now live among skeletons” stories.
But it was one of those very familiar hobby evenings where:
- a cool listing sends everyone into theory mode,
- we talk ourselves halfway into a new game system,
- we compare The Old World and Age of Sigmar,
- someone starts eyeing an army they absolutely do not need,
- someone else declares loyalty to Cathay,
- and Ender gets bullied by probability once again.
For the record:
- Stas is still orbiting around Orcs in TOW,
- Michał is holding the line on Cathay,
- the Vampire Counts lot looked genuinely solid,
- and we are, apparently, still only one good listing away from making terrible financial decisions.
Which is, in many ways, the purest form of the hobby.