Can GW games even be unbalanced?!

Let the arguments ensue!

The Battle for Deathbridge begins!

The Battle for Deathbridge begins... soon.  The local club is starting a mighty fantasy escalation/land grab league.  The insidious Forces of Destruction are invading the Island of Deathbridge, the meager armies of the Forces of Order rushing to the defense!  Twelve armies all vying to be the last one standing!

Island of Blood and new Fantasy releases

Normally I'd save this kind of post for Wallshammer, but I'm pretty darned excited about this, as a High Elf player and all.

For those of you who don't know (which I'm hoping isn't many of you), Island of Blood released on the weekend, with the best snap-together starter minis GW has done yet.  But they weren't finished!  Monday they released pictures of the new plastic High Elf elf kits and the new metal character blisters.  On top of that, there is another wave of Skaven coming soon (signs point to January) to flesh them out even more.


Pictures after the break:

500pts... try it, it won't kill you... probably.

Let's take a quick look at our normal point levels.  Locally we play 1500 and in the wide world of internet gaming, that's small!  I think it's the PERFECT size game.  Lots of models but not an overspam of them and quick to play.  However... what if we played even smaller games?!

I WANNA QUIT!!!

I am sure a lot of us have been there.  You are on that really bad losing streak.  You can't seem to win, let alone the fact you are getting butt punted every time you put a shiny man on the table.  Yes, this happened to me.  Yes... oh yes.  The source of my frustration?  The above.  The fact that I put a TON of work into an in progress army that got beat so horribly I wanted to hide my head in shame.  Thankfully I had a REALLY good, friendly opponent.  Against almost anyone else I would have quit.  

So the question of this very short discussion piece is:  What do you do to/How do you come back from your negative times (on the table) in the hobby?

Think of the Children (or the N00bs)

A problem is popping up in Fantasy, now that we are 2 months in to the new edition.  That being the enthusiasm that was drawing new players to the hobby is driving those new players away.  Let me explain:  New players, for those of you who might not know, usually don't know how to play the game.  If they did, they wouldn't be new players.  The vets of this game, on the other hand, are getting a little carried away with the new 'relaxing' of army composition.  And creating some decidedly terrible lists, just because they can.  I don't mean terrible in the 'why would you show up with that?' sense, I mean terrible in the 'Mwa ha ha ha!  I can take 3 grudge throwers, 3 cannons, 6 bolt throwers, 2 organ guns and have great weapons on all my units!'.

Now, before you neck feathers get all poofy, let me clarify something.  There is nothing wrong with playing something like the above... as long as the other guy knows what's going on.  But springing something like that against a guy playing his first or second game?  Seriously?  What's wrong with you?