Kanluwen wrote:Why should they make a copy for every single person out there?

Not every one will buy a copy. In fact, I will be fairly surprised if all the copies sell before this time of next year.

Aerethan wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Why should they make a copy for every single person out there?

Not every one will buy a copy. In fact, I will be fairly surprised if all the copies sell before this time of next year.

I didn't say make one for everyone out there. If I were GW, I would want EVERY player of Warhammer to have a copy. That makes business sense. Hell it's even priced well enough to get it into every players hands unlike SoM.

FabricatorGeneralMike wrote: If it's just a quickly toss together rule set to sell more uber over the top modelkits that youi 'need' for the games, poor show GW, poor show.

Apparently the defenders of the castle need to roll for what is called 'starvation' at the start of the game, this means that every model in the defending army needs to roll a D6, on the roll of a 5+ they suffer a wound. Because the Dwarfs have 'Stonebread' they only suffer a wound on a 6+, not sure if any saves apply. Although the Dwarf player in this specific battle report lost 22 dwarfs due to this roll

Sidstyler wrote:So there's more pointless "lolrandom" rules to punish you for no reason and possibly cost you a game. Doesn't make any fething sense to me, either...so that means every time you play a siege game with someone you're assuming the siege has been going on for weeks and the game picks up at the end/in the middle? Is there an option to play without the stupid "starvation" rules if I want my pick-up game to take place when the siege begins, or do my guys have to start randomly dropping dead because they haven't eaten in three hours?

'Blood in the Badlands is a 96 page hardback campaign book for Warhammer. Inside you'll find new background, a complete set of campaign rules, four massive multi-player scenarios, a Warhammer Siege expansion as well as additional rules for playing Warhammer in vast caverns below ground. All this is framed within an exciting studio campaign, as eight players, including the White Dwarf team, seek to carve out the largest empire so the ensorcelled castle, Fozzrik's Flying Fastness, will land in their realm and its amazing treasures within can be claimed.'

BramGaunt wrote:Maybe one should mention that this is the first of several books.

Kroothawk wrote:nobody is excited about it

Blood in the Badlands

Blood in the Badlands is a campaign system for Warhammer that enables you to unleash your army against your foes and carve out a corner of the notorious Badlands for yourself. As well as the campaign system itself, the book contains rules that can be used in any Warhammer game, form massive multi-player scenarios featuring new magic items and spells, rules for underground battles and a complete siege expansion. Blood in the Badlands also features the tale of eight intrepid hobbyists as they play the campaign, including detailed battle reports, glorious army showcases and turn-by-turn accounts of their expanding empires.

This 96-page full-colour hardback Warhammer Supplement contains rules for siege battles in Warhammer, underground battles, new scenarios, magic items and Cataclysm spells. It also has a full set of rules that can be used with the Mighty Empires expansion set.

You will need a copy of Warhammer to use the contents of this book.

Kroothawk wrote:Nobody knows about the book, nobody is excited about it, so yeah: GW's policy works

BTW I can confirm that the book is NOT a limited release.

Just finished reading the book and am a bit mystified on the slim treatment of the advertised "new rules". I think the seige rules are flushed out somewhat well but the underground fighting rules consistent of dangerous terrain tests, limited shooting range and random trolls/cave squigs popping out. Thats it. Bit of a letdown for me.

There are no additional basic items for gameplay, all pertain to the campaign specifically. Also there are no additional spells aside from 1/lore relating to storm of magic siege spells (and none of them are that exciting to be honest, for example a Lore of Beasts seige spell on a 25+ that doubles bound monster's strength and lets it try to breech a wall on a 6 to hit. The lore life spell repairs a breech for 25+....breech in your magic phase, opponent repairs in his, yipee.

Oddly there is a cantrip that is cast on a 25+. I dont think much thought went into the spell section.

Boiling oil seems very powerful as it doesnt scatter, I would get as many of those for a defense as possible. Hell gate is nice too.

Not that bad overall aside from the above, high production value but I wish they put more rules stuff into it.

PS- to compare the General's compendium, this new book has FAR less actual material in it. Most of the good bits are actually in the most recent WD issue.

(...)
the first thing I thought of when I closed the book up at Starbucks was the crowd on Warseer wasnt going to be happy with the contents...

Overall though the people this is targeted to (the more fun campaign oriented player group) will enjoy it. Lots of cool fluff and they updated the campaign racial special rules/abilities for every army but chaos dwarves (oddly).

Other stuff: there are no point values for any of the new items (some are quite cool, wouldve liked to use them in regular fun games) as you merely get d3 of these "relics" when you win a battle.

The siege rules are cool, just wish they gave underground fighting/cavern battles equal treatment.

The book follows 8 of the staff armies and gives the winner of the event at the end (I wont spoil it). The small pic of the WoC general, Mawhrin Skrell, is very cool and I cant tell from looking it what the model is kitbashed from at all (aside from the obvious WoC warrior head).

The boards they play the scenarios on are highly irregular, ie- not 6x4 tables and are all sorts of odd shapes, from crosses, to H's, Z's and T's. After a brief read its unclear how to build such tables, perhaps with impassable terrain squares? Lots of multiplayer (3+) combat action, which is great for fun play at a buddy's place where you might only have 1 table and 3-5 guys.

Overall, kinda reads like a giant WD (ie- lots of battle reps interpersed within, personal commentary etc) rather than an actual rules appendix. Very very different from General's Compendium.

(...)

They wrote a good amount of fluff for the overall background especially on Fozzrik and his obsession with sky travel that leads to the objective of the campaign: capture his flying fortress which moves constantly through the event only setting down at the end leading to the final epic battle (the table they play this on looks obscenely huge). Also have nice fluff on the region and each of the 8 armies, roughly what you might find a WD tho rather than in full blow AB.

The antics of each of the gamers' main generals is amusing. They have pictures of the armies but light on the actual lists they are using, which is fine.

As opposed to prior posters, this is not a Skaven vs. Dwarf thing by any stretch. There is a dwarf on the cover, but this is in no way Dwarf focused. There is some pages of descriptions of the dwarf holds in the badlands and their history which I think a dwarf player will enjoy tho (I think this is novel content too).

I would have liked point values for the new items and more in depth cavern fighting rules, but its still good value for the money IMO. Also was a bit taken aback by the exclusion of CDwarves from the race specific abilties in the campaign. Of note, this is actually a supplement to the Campaign box set GW produces, so you might want to read the book and consider getting that for your group if you dont have one.

(...)

Yes Mighty Empires, the tile based supplement campaign box. That is pretty much required if you are going to use the book as intended rather than just 1-off battles from the scenarios.

I want some other people to read the book and describe how they will construct the Z-, H- and T- shaped battle boards needed though.

(...)

Yes multiple scenarios call for boards of shapes I have never seen. At first I thought that was merely a deployment zone guide, but it appears they are forcing you to use the Realm of Battle 2x2' game tiles to construct them perhaps. Dunno, would like someone else to comment when they get a chance to read it.

Killgore wrote:All the armies are the gamers own with some interesting conversions (I like the chaos general model with the crow on his shoulder)

There are no terrain guides, but there is intersting use of GW plastic terrain kits in the battle photos, such as the huge Flying fortress model made from several Witchfate Tor kits and other buildings

There’s a 4 page section which details each landmark/ natural feature in the badlands, a few pictures but mostly text

6 Pages that cover the campaign Turns, with random events table, post battle charts and special rules

Each campaign gamer army has a dedicated page detailing unit choices/ themes that were chosen

Each section of the campaign is split into seasons with scenarios and details of what occurred in each season such as battles fought/ notable events

There are 5 scenarios for underground battles, which don’t deviate from standard rules apart from a few exceptions, such as limited range attacks, uncertain footing and random trolls/ cave squigs to worry about

The Winter scenario is a multiplayer madness game, which is designed for 5 or more players, for this scenario there is a page of special scenario rules and a page of Cataclysm siege spells

The Siege rules are composed of 4 pages of rules, 2 pages of attacker equipment and 2 pages of defender equipment. The book also recommends inventing your own equipment so I hope internet groups get busy on that one!


This is just a brief summary; I hope GW release more books such as this to enrich our enjoyment of the hobby.

Kroothawk wrote:Not enough time to thoroughly read the book, but the summaries above give a good impression of the book.

If the book is worth it, depends on what type of gamer you are.
The book is not a full rulebook, rules are the 4 pages siege rules (plus 4 pages exemplary equipment with costs), half a page underground fighting rules (as described in the second summary, basically limits to ranged fire, dangerous terrain to some and random trolls and squigs).

But embedded in a deluxe campaign report, you will find several pages with campaign rules, a lot of scenarios with background story, one page with SoM spells. Seems like a fun read to me, if you like this approach. I will certainly get some new ideas from the book, which is all I can expect from such a book.