Ending the End Times and a bit of whining

It has been a long and, I won't lie, kinda hard road for me these past weeks.

I think I've thrown myself in at the deep end with this End Times stuff. There were tons of rules and special characters, whom I needed to describe in sufficient way. While fun and challenging, it was also very time consuming and for one who never did this stuff before, simply draining. You know how it is: you start a blog, have a thousand different ideas for articles, but had decided (and announced) that you'll do a multi-part review and during the third post about topic X you start to wonder "how much longer do I have to write this?". Of course now that I actually managed to do that, the next End Times book review will go much smoother. At least I hope so. Fortunately it will be some time, before I'll decide to take a shot at "End Times vol. 2 Glottkin".

But enough with the whining. Let's get down to buisness.

Concluding my impromtu review of the "End Times vol. 1 Nagash" game supplement, are closer looks on Valten and Vardek Crom, the only two non-undead characters in the book.

Valten, Champion of Sigmar

Valten is back baby! While no longer beign the Sigmar incarnate, the young Blacksmith is still a welcome addition to the Emperor's armies. For 330 points you get the basic, unupgraded Valten with no armour save (altough he has a 4+ WS) and two mundane hand weapons, while the cavalry version costs 475 pts and grants him barded warhose, full plate armour and Ghal-Maraz (as is the case with every Empire character, Valten dosen't belive in shields). Sadly the End Times got rid of his "final form", the one that essentialy made him Sigmar reborn.

Because we can't have cool things during the Apocalypse

Valten is perfect for placing inside a huge block of infantry such as Halberderiers or Greatswords as he grants any friendly unit within 6" Stubborn special rule. He is also Immune to Psychology and has the "Champion of Sigmar" special rule which not only grants him a 4+ Ward Save, but also allows him to channel the power of Man-God. Once per game Valten can increase his stats (WS, Strength, Toughness and Attacks) by D3. Holy crap! This potentialy can make him a WS 10 S 7 T 7 A 7 close combat monster! With this ability Valten is perfect for facing Neferata, as her bullshit dagger won't hurt him as much as other Empire characters. But wait, that's not all! Our favorite Blacksmith also has the "Iron Resolve" rule, which means that when he gets killed (first unsaved wound that removes him as casualty), his controlling player can test Valten's LD. If the roll is successfull, he stays in play. This even works on stuff like Heroic Killing Blow. Nice!

In my opinion Valten is simply awesome. I'd personally always take the upgraded version of him and put him into a unit of 10+ IC Knights with some nice magic standard (Razor Standard always works well with Empire Knights) and a Warrior Priest for those extra buffs. This kind of unit basically guarantees that your opponent will either avoid it like hell (hard to do with Razor Standard) or throw everything at it, thus easing the preassure on your other units/heroes.

Feed me enemies!

Vardek Crom, Herald of Archaon

Vardek Crom, known also as Crom the Conqueror is GW's failed attempt at being smart with pop culture references. For 230 points (cheap!) he is a nicely kitted out Chaos Lord whose main role is fighting challenges and killing off enemy characters, and unlike Krell, he is actually good at his job. While his gear is nothing special (Chaos Armour, Axe, Sword and Shield) it's his individual rules that make him terryfining to any potential opponents.

First of all Crom MUST issue and accept any challenge, even if he is in a unit with other special characters ("Immense Pride"). His "Way of the Warrior" rule allows him to swap combat styles between Sword & Shield and Sword & Axe. The first one grants him a +2 bonus to his armour save and a 5+ parry save. Simply. awesome. The second option is also tasty, as it gives him +3 attacks, instead of only +1 from the second hand weapon. Both of these styles work great in challenges and general combat. Just like Valten, Crom is great and I highly reccomend him to any Chaos Player out there. For 230 points he's practically a steal, and sticking him into a nice, big block of infantry turns said unit into a real threat to his opponents.

The only downside to Crom is that he got owned by Valten, who is clearly a superior combatant (duh!). Also I'm totally not taking any sides here, no sir.

Pussy

Well, this is it. This is the final (for some time at least) article about the End Times from me. On next tuseday I'll post a review about a wee boardgame, that I've aquired recently and then I'll probably share some of my experience as a long time RPG player and Game Master. After that I'll probably return to the End Times with a review of "Glottkin".

Oh and one more thing. Between "Nagash" and "Glottkin", there'll be a small rant from me concerning the overall status of End Times, my general thoughts on the whole event and why it's heading in a bad direction. Expect more on this soon. 

Until next time!

Xathrodox86