Thoughts on a new Dwarf Book & looking ahead to 2012

Mentioned in last post that a new Dwarf army book is expected early-mid next year.  Given the recent balancing act done with the new army books under 8th especially the dropping of army unique magic items to 8-10 items each I am starting to worry about seeing major changes to the Dwarven Rune system.  There are several runes that under 8th are redundant either because rule changes make them so or because no-one uses them, and others that clash with the new rules, or were weakened by them (e.g. RO Sanctuary and Magic Resistance). 

Hopefully the Dwarf book will keep the unique nature of the runic system and the rule of 3 but with GW you never know.  The major problem here for Dwarfs is that we cannot use any of the common magic items in the rulebook.  The massive breadth of items here must either be matched by an equally long list of items in the Dwarf book or balanced out by changes to the rune system that would allow similar runic items to be built. The former is simply unworkable and should not and will not happen.  The latter would work particularly where common pre-built runic items are used to accompany a smaller but more focused list of runes.  The pre-builds would be cheaper than building a similar item under the current book but come with penalties, such as either use pre-built or custom built.  Custom buiilt (those built by the player) would do a lot more but have a much higher points cost, and come with fewer restrictions.  This at least would require Dwarven players to make some concessions when it came to things, and would I guess stop people complaining about the uber-killer Dwarf Lord on Shieldbearers etc.

Plans for 2012
Seems the right thing to do around this time of the year is to plan out what (we hope) the following year will bring. Gaming wise I have a serious painting backlog to get through but also a couple of new projects I would like to get off the ground.  Keeping it simple these are:

• Build a gaming table for games at home
• Finish unit of 20 Dwarven Quarrellers to complete army.
• Build a display board for my Dwarf army.
• Finish my High Elf painting backlog (about 50-60 models).
• Re base my High Elfs to fix up all the yellowing snow.
• Build a Mid-War FOW Africa Korp army (Panzer or Panzer Grenadier)
• Play in at least 2 FOW tournaments
• Play in at least 2 WHFB tournaments

Thats about it.  Of these building the gaming table at home and a Mid-War FOW army are the top priorities.  After that its finishing off the High Elf painting which has been on the back burner for nearly 8-9 months now.  In fact I already have plans for the table sorted and will be getting the wood next week :)