Need More Tanks... Always

Sometimes you have to roll a hard six...

2012-02-14T04:13:00.003Z

And that's precisely what I plan to do this weekend, at Winds of War. Though if it comes up easy, I'll take that too...

In the meantime, here's my little force for this years combat patrol event. I'm using Eldar this time.

10 Wraithguard - 350
Warlock, upgraded to spiritseer, given destructor - 41

vyper, shurikan cannon - 50
vyper, shurikan cannon - 50

491

Backstory...

Leaving untold destruction in her wake, Spiritseer Syx must now make some desperate alliances if she wishes to make it through to a new home.

Her stalwart companions always have her back, but those Vyper jocks areless of a certainty. Only time will tell if it was a good idea to bring them along...

Follow That Fortress!

2012-02-14T03:49:00.002Z

With no one to stand in their way the good men of the Empire planted the flag of Gelderland and claimed the territory from the lizards, before the cold blooded fiends could even react. As the men were readying to move on, an ominous shape drifted overhead.

"The fortress. it heads for the marshes!" cried a squire

"Then it is out of reach for now" stated Sir Ulric "It would be suicide to enter those Marshes in anything less than high summer!"

Later that afternoon though, a strange wind blew from the West. "The winds" cried the various wizards accompanying the search "The wiiiinds"

Just as Sir Ulric was about to say he'd heard enough about their bloody wind problems, that dark ominous shape passed back overhead, heading into the heart of the lizards territory. It hovered, almost within a weeks march of his current position. All that stood in his way, the heart of the lizards empire. Sir Ulric suppressed an involuntary shudder at the manner of icky creatures he would no doubt encounter, mounted his horse, and pausing briefly to whisper "nothing ventured nothing gained" gave the order - the army would march on the lizard capitol. And bring all the spellcasters they could recruit en route with them.

Correspondance

2012-02-14T03:30:00.001Z

Greetings Dark Kin of the Elven Kind,
May the ties of animosity be the ties that bind,
I pen this ballad on behalf of my master,
Whose first battle in the campaign was somewhat a disaster.

We've noticed you tracking us along the coast,
We're not sure why you hate us the most,
But we have heard word that you are fighting the toad,
And in the downfall of lizards, we shall share the load.

In our last battle our lord was unseated,
by the sorceress doings of a toad most conceited,
We have made deals of a most malicious artifice,
For that toad we have prepared, a blood sacrifice!

But of course for this curse to take hold,
Someone most spill that blood that runs cold,
As it is you who faces the one we despise,
We must offer you a bounty, to ensure his demise.

Take Toad out of the battle, and win lose or draw,
We shall pay thee a bounty, a trophy of war,
Give us our attempt to shuffle him off this mortal coil,
And a family heirloom will be yours, to keep or despoil.

I know what your type are like, so the choice of heirloom will be ours,
I'll send it with a messenger, some chocolates and flowers,
If you don't like the heirloom I'm sure the messenger will do,
In the meantime enjoy the bearer of this ballad, to entertain you.

General Wilde.

***********************************************************

General Wilde,

Firstly my thanks for the messenger - he entertained my troops for a time, I do certainly hope there will be more.

This....ballad...must seem intriguing to lesser races such as yours, but please rest assured that if I ever have to spend valuable time and effort in deciphering another I will personally administer The Thousand Cuts of Khaine upon your weak flesh.

As for this Toad, rest assured that plans are in place that guarantee his demise, my sorceress' have made some promising pledges to me that he shall fall.....if not, well that's another pleasure your meagre kind will not understand until it is visited upon you.

Anarian Hearthunter
Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

***

Well apart from the obvious fact that Dark Elves are clearly "with it" when it comes to new technology, it is good to see the Blood In The Badlands campaign kicking up some in-character interactions.

Who Left That Root There?

2012-02-07T02:35:00.002Z

"Onward" yelled Sir Ulric as the enemy drew into sight "Onward to vic..."

And that was the last that was heard of Sir Ulric as his horse foundered on the magically charged ground. His knights thundered on and held themselves to reasonable account, and the artillery fire from the common soldiery was assisting the noble cause... until an unassailable threat from orbit wiped out the entire artillery encampment. The life wizard helped the knights as long as he could, and even managed to make the enemy leader founder on the same magically charged ground (losing a revered item as his plinth came crashing down to earth) before several simultaneous charges scattered his band of warriors to the four winds. Clearly they were in the wrong place, at the hands of some very bad intelligence.

The army survivors mustered away from the battlefield, and the next day Sir Ulric joined them. He looked somewhat dazed. "Right" he said "Let's try that again shall we?"

"But Sire, what of reports that the Fortress is to the North? We hear of rebellions, castles crumbling, and great portents of doom as all armies head to the centre of the Badlands"

"Yes, but we also heard the Fortress was up river, and that turned out to be tosh didn't it? Those lizards unhorsed me without me having even a chance to fight. It is my honour that must be... honoured... and as such we have to fight again. And beat them this time. And win. And... er... yes, that'll cover it. Let's get ready, for on the morrow we march North!"

"But the lizards are to the South and East"

"I knew that! That's what I meant. WessssssSouth it is then. South. We go South."

An Alliance Formed...

2012-01-30T18:37:00.001Z

"YOU DID WHAT?!?" screamed Sir Ulric

"You said we needed funds for this expedition, I provided them" pointed out The Mad Monk, in one of his unusually lucid voices.

"You said you were going to sell some of Gelderlands surplus warmachines to some gentlemen from the East... I didn't expect you to sell them to a marauding bunch of Ogres!"

"I did say they were rotund gentlemen..."

"Well that was somewhat of an understatement now wasn't it. Now we head into the badlands knowing that at any time we could be fired upon by our own bloody cannons!"

At this the mad monk paused for a moment and considered the position. "I don't think this too likely... they seem to be quite happy with the deal, and we forged something of an informal alliance over a very large meal"

"Well I'm glad you had fun"

"Hardly, I had indigestion for days..."

"I have no interest in your constitution! Tell me we at least have some cannons left for our own armies"

"I may be mad but I am no fool - of course we do"

"Very well, let's prepare for this campaign. I suppose at least if those brutes use those cannons to devastate half the badlands we can follow in their wake. I just hope we don't see any lizards. Man those things give me the creeps - weird cold blooded little critters" Sir Ulric rattled in his armour as an involuntary shudder trickled down his spine.

At this moment a little voice chipped in, having suddenly had an epiphany...

"There were some overweight gentlemen from the east... who bought cannons over a feast..."

"Oh shut up Wilde!" roared Sir Ulric "I am most definitely NOT in the mood for your poetry right now!"

A New Project for the New Year...

2012-01-05T04:29:00.006Z

I picked up the Necron codex when it came out. And it made good reading. I was tempted. But I was on a budget, so restrained myself. Though the background and character of Trazyn the Infinite I absolutely loved.

Then my mum retired, and decided to use some of her pension lump sum to give her two boys a bit extra for christmas one last time before the frugal years to come. So with a lot more money than I'd anticipated having in my pocket, I went shopping, and bought the job lot below (plus Trazyn the Infinite, of course.

Yeah that is pretty much 2250 points worth of Necrons to play with!

I've put it all together (excepting the Doomsday Arks which are partially assembled for easier painting) and have started painting - though I had to wait for two weeks for the weather to be good enough to undercoat this lot! The first squad is done, and I have my colour scheme worked out. It's simple (obviously) I just wanted something slightly different from the stereotypical green.

I plan to use red for the Gauss and the detailing around vehicle edges and shields (and the half buried structures on the resin bases I picked up) though to break things up a little I plan to use a blue for any Tesla based weapons (my Immortals and the Annihalation Barges then)

I got the first squad done in a matter of hours, so I reckon this will be a fairly quick army for me to paint. The only break in it will be any time I need to do work on my project for Winds of War 2012. I have done the main squad for this (apart from some heads) and have found the models I want to buy/convert for the rest, just gotta wait till payday (which annoyingly is moving this month, so gotta wait an extra two weeks grrr) but with the event itself sometime in February there isn't much time to waste on this one...

My final thought, and something I'm a little bit proud of. The "We'll be back" rolls for my Necrons. Sure I could just lie the casualties down and stand survivors back up. But I came up with a cool little gimmick idea that may get me some kudos points if I take this army to a tournament at all (cough, ahem, blogs wars 3) I have made "We'll be back" counters. The scarab is turned to point at however many casualties I have to roll for. Fairly pointless, but fun I thought!

Anyway, look forward to more posts about Necrons, Winds, and Blood In The Badlands in the coming weeks...

And once again, apologies for the picture quality. It was a good camera for taking pictures of shiny new models... or oodles of shiny new models. And I'm a wargamer first, blogger second*. Sorry!

*Editors note - actually blogging is far from second. There's drinking, watching films, drinking, takeaway food, drinking and half a dozen unmentionables between wargaming and blogging... but between those two I guess the point stands!

A Year In Statistics...

2011-12-31T19:23:00.002Z

I did this last year so I'll do it again...

Firstly, a quick recap of 2010. Played 75 games, won more than half. Seriously let down by my fantasy gaming, where I got most of my losses. Rich Hall was my nemesis beating me 11 of 14, Nige I only played 4 times (2 wins a loss and a draw) while poor Ken had a miserable year against me, regularly being on the receiving end of a beating by my shiny new guard codex.

So, what does 2011 have for me? Well, a couple extra games (77) and while I didn't get quite as many wins and a few more losses, I still had a fairly healthy WDL ratio of 37/11/29

Again it was fantasy that let me down. 40k my stats are 30/10/16. Fantasy is 7/1/13. Not good, and with an upcoming Blood in the Badlands campaign I either have to break my duck or expect a large black mark at the start of my stats for next year...

Against friends, well Neil it seems we played exactly the same game - 2/1/1 in my favour again. I think this is because half the time I play Neil we end up playing Space Hulk or Dreadfleet or Risk or some other game I don't keep stats for. We do game more than once a quarter I know we do! :oP Rich I managed to draw back into something more manageable, accrueing an even spread of 4/1/4 against. Ken meanwhile seriously turned things around, getting 8 wins and 3 losses out of 11 games against me! Quite the turnaround from last year!

I also this year looked at how I did competitively, and while I'm not a competitive gamer I am pleased to say I made a respectable mid table showing of 9 wins, 4 draws and 8 losses. I don't expect to grace the winners circle anytime soon, but if I can keep picking up best army awards I'll be more than happy :oD

And finally, to a few of my favourite armies of the year. Orks were again a strong choice for me, despite recent coverage on bols on what needs to be done to "fix" the codex. Well this second rate codex got me 13 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses. And I gotta admit one of those losses at least was in a tournament where, realising that win lose or draw I was mid table at best/worst I went hell for leather screw the objective in true orky fashion and had a blast. Reading my opponents blog after the event he described it as the best game he's had all year, so a loss it may be but a good one all the same.

Guard served me relatively rarely, only 6/2/3 for the guard... but then that is because I chose to count my random theme army of Star Wars Guard seperately. I got in a fair few games with these nutcases and did better than I expected... 8 wins, 4 draws and 9 losses. They put the percentage of my guard games up but drag their win ratio down unfairly, so I'll be recording them seperately whenever I break them out in future.

One stat I'm glad still stands... I am still undefeated in guard vs guard. Though I am getting increasingly nervous about it, and have noticed that when I am challenged to guard vs guard I really bring my A game in defence of that statistic. I'm a lot more easy going with any other army, or Guard vs any other army, but guard vs guard makes me sit up and pay attention.

Anyway, with 2012 and a warhammer campaign on the horizon, expect me to break out the orks a bit more to try to rescue my yearly average from the damage my forays with the Empire (both Sigmars and Galactic) will do to it!

Happy New Year to you all

Ginge

General Wilde

2011-12-27T16:21:00.002Z

*My third and (for now) final Hero of Legend for the upcoming Blood in the Badlands campaign*

General Wilde considers himself to be a literary genius and a poet extroadinaire. It is not a widely shared view. Most find Wildes witticisms downright infuriating and many have questioned Sir Ulric as to why he would invite him on such a venture. Sir Ulric was forced to confess that his idea of a crusade tot he badlands had not been met with universal acclaim, thus forcing him to team up with the crazy and the unconventional alike...

And besides, the Empire might get lucky... General Wilde might not survive the trip!

Prophet of the Failing Comet

2011-12-23T18:50:00.003Z

*Introducing another Hero of Legend for the Blood in the Badlands campaign*

No one recalls the true name of the prophet, and it is probable he no longer recalls either. He is known by various aliases that sound impressive to the common soldiery, but amongst polite society he is known merely as "The Mad Monk" He is considered dangerous by some, and comical by others - every single apocalyptic prediction he makes, each inevitable doom, each moment of rapture, each ancient prophecy... NONE of them come true.

Do not mistake polite ridicule for worthlessness though. The lords and captains may mock him, but they also recognise the galvanising effect he has on the common soldier. His combat prowess is also not to be denied as, mad as he may be, he is not fool enough to enter a fight unprepared. Sir Ulric once described a sparring session against the Mad Monk as being like trying to tie knots in eels. As such, he is entrusted with a force of men for those occassions where subtlety is... shall we say, not required...

Arch Lector, Armour of Meteoric Iron, van hoorstmans speculum, sword of sigismund. 225 points.

The Mad Monks Martyrs

Always following in the Mad Monks wake is a steady stream of the insane. Their emaciated condition and frenzied nature leads to a high casualty rate in the units they form, but their numbers are always replenished before the week is out. There is no shortage of souls who share the mad monks outlook on life...

Regiment of Reknown

30 Flaggellents. Prophet of Doom. 310 points

A Knight... Sired by Knights...

2011-12-22T21:15:00.003Z

*Introducing the first of my characters for the upcoming Blood in the Badlands campaign*

Hailing from the minor principality of Gelderland, Sir Ulric left for Bretonia and the jousting scene at a young age. He burst upon the tournament scene with fabulous success, his deeds being the only thing at the tournament to outdo his introductions. His combat prowess brought him to the attention of the Empire Knightly Order of the White Wolf. Crossing the border and joining the order, he has dedicated his adult life to it and has arisen to a position of power within the order, becoming one of it's Templar Grand Masters. With this power he has the political clout to lead an expedition home, back through the Border Princes and to the Badlands beyond...

I give you, Sir Ulric Von Lichtenstein

Templar Grand Master, Mace of Helstrum, The White Cloak, Luckstone. 245 points.

There Will Be Blood...

2011-12-16T21:43:00.002Z

In these here Badlands...

Starting in the new year I'll be running a warhammer fantasy campaign using the new Blood In The Badlands book for my local wargaming club, and here is the map ready to go (barring one or two terrain pieces I'm still working on, most importantly Fozzriks Flying Fastness itself)

I will try to keep updating the background info on the campaign on my blog, hoping to kickstart my posting somewhat :oP

Fame! Now where's the fortune...?

2011-12-12T23:48:00.001Z

So I saw the following on bols today... which looks kinda familiar...

Back in the Habit...

2011-10-18T20:35:00.002+01:00

So I've noticed that my blogging sort of tailed off when I was without internet due to moving,and hasn't really picked up since... well this has gotta change! I am officially getting back in the habit!

So, what have I been doing lately? Well with Tale of Eight Gamers approaching it's conclusion I've been looking to new things. The timely arrival of dreadfleet has given me something interesting to do, but it is fairly limited in how far that will keep me occupied. I'll review it a bit later.

Other than that I've been mulling over my next project. Up for debate are the following...

A space marine army - I'm working on more of a budget now so perhaps biting the bullet and building one of those codex crossing power army armies would be the best way to get more bang for my buck. I have an idea for the C:SM starter plus a few ideas for C:CSM additions, as well as a bit of a backstory and colour scheme in mind. However, the core 2000 to start me off looks like it's gonna be about £350 or so. Might have to wait and see how payday goes before I start that venture, though a recent tax rebate will come in handy.
The new Necron stuff looks cool. I like the change in fluff, and think some of the new models look awesome. I do however fear that every man and his dog will have the same idea, and I've never been one to collect the popular army (damn the new guard codex being awesome and getting loads of people to jump on my battered old wagon - I've been suffering this thing for years, find your own ride now that it's finally good!)
With a large backlog of stuff to paint, I could work at more guard stuff, but having just completed a guard army I kinda fancy a change...
Similarly I have a large backlog of fantasy models. Though I don't game much with the Dark Elves at the moment, and the Empire stuff I have so much old stuff in old colour schemes I sometimes feel I should just buy more and paint it up to my current standards. Then there are Tomb Kings, and I only have a couple of units to paint to finish off my regular 2.5k force, then it'd just be about adding the new shiny stuff to my army. So this is a good contender at the moment.
As always I'm looking for a theme to take to Winds of War next year, I already have something in mind, and with february not as far away as you think now could be the time to start on that little project... On the flipside, I believe that project will be 11 infantry and 2 vehicles, so shouldn't take all that long anyway...
Or finally, do a few repairs to my Orks, finish off the alst couple units, and maybe look at getting some other stuff that doesn't fit my standard playstyle (deffdreads and killa kans) to open up new playstyle avenues for that army

So those are the options I'm mulling over at the moment. Any thoughts and input can't hurt. I'm not averse to more than one project at once, so I think Winds of War will kick off soon enough in some form anyway. Really I'm waiting for the necrons to drop properly before I make a final decision on the direction that project will take.

And Finally, dreadfleet

The models are beautiful. Enough said.

The game mechanics work very well. It's a simple system, and while the turning does look a little odd with the back end of the ship swinging outwards, it works in game terms so I'm not complaining. There's not too much to remember (though of course in my first game I kept forgetting CRITICAL special stuff for each vessel) certainly not as much as one of the core games, and I think once you've played it a few times you won't even need the rulebook. The system of sliding damage cards under the ship card so just the vital info is showing is a cracking idea too, far better than the book-keeping I've seen in other games.

As for my first game, it was technically a draw, but with two relatively unscathed Grand alliance ships together, against a bruised Zandri half an ocean away from a BATTERED Bloody Reaver (who was at Move 3, Handling 7, Could only turn to Starboard and was a blazing inferno slowly drifting towards the edge of the seascape) I think the Alliance would have won the day eventually. Though things may have been different if that damn Elf hadn't one shotted my Kraken... admittedly, forgetting the tentacle attacks probably didn't help, but it was still sods law that I got a third (and decisive) crew damage to peg the kraken back to the depths. Something also to remember is that the big ships are more manouverable than you think, as proved by the Heldenhammer turning away from my Fire as she bears bloody reaver and thanks to some well timed orders dodged around an island to get behind me. Admittedly, my Bloody Reaver wouldn't still have been sat there waving it's backside about if it wasn't for that accursed Elf...

So in summary, good game, but I don't like Elves. So nothing new there then...

Busy Month Ahead...

2011-09-07T05:43:00.001+01:00

Ok, so, due to a lack of funds didn't pick up the parts for my Tale of Eight Gamers stuff till payday... meaning 5 weeks of this phase just drifted on by with no activity, leaving me something like 3 and a half weeks in which to build, convert, paint and base 65 infantry...

On the bright side have built and converted 55 of them, just the penal legion squad to go. And two objectives. Both of which I'm still Bitzsearching for... :oS

I've also taken it upon myself to do a friend a favour and convert a valkyrie into a counts as vulture... or generally make it look more like a gunship than a fat bodied transport craft. I intend to make use of plasticard for this and am planning to take pics so that, if it goes well, I can make a how to guide for this. If you don't see that guide in the next few weeks, assume I got stuck into my Tale stuff... or the conversion was a disaster :oP

Anyway, as the 55 are waiting for better weather to be undercoated, wish me luck and a reasonably dry day. Further updates to follow...

I'm Back... and here comes the sun...

2011-08-06T16:57:00.002+01:00

Ok, so a slight hiatus to move house became a bit of an epic downtime as Sky and BT faffed around for ages before finally giving me broadband, but alls well that ends well and here I am. In the meantime, I've completed phase three of Tale of Eight Gamers AND run the phase three tournament, in which I came second. The tournament being won by the guy coming last in painting score was a real bonus for me, as this leaves me leading the painting score going into phase four. Awesome!

Anyway, as promised (MANY weeks back) I want to start a debate about Dawn of War. The deployment type, not the computer game. Now the problem I have seen with this deployment type is that everything seems stacked against the player going second, far more so than any other deployment type. In pitched battle if you're going second you just deploy in the best position to weather the storm of enemy fire for a turn. In Dawn of War chances are what little you have deployed will be crushed into your back line, and everything will have to squeaze in with it on your first turn. This makes playing refused flank a lot more difficult, as instead of having 12" to deploy in several layers, you'll be walking on 6" plus have a lot more ground to cross to boot.

Player 1 gets to bring his army on and has the handicap of night to stop him from shooting... at what, the 2 units that are deployed that are probably pegged as far into the enemy deployment zone by the not within 18" rule as possible? You'd be lucky to have the range for most guns anyway, let alone visual acuity. Player 2 rolls on, and there are plenty of targets... but of course you're moving, so can't fire as effectively, and that's IF you can see them. Turn 2, player 1 now has units in position, that haven't moved this turn, and a whole army in front of them and now NO visual restrictions... oh this is gonna hurt. I've played games like this where my SPEED freaks Ork army has only got one unit (and I use that term to very loosely to describe the few battered and bloody survivors) into combat in the entire game. A foot based list would not have reached the assault. And games that one sided are not fun.

At the same time I can see the problem from the point of view of the gunline army - if you're going second, those enemy forces are breathing down your neck before you can even begin to deploy. About the only advantage you have is that while you HAVE to kill those units in front of you, chances are everything else would be out of range anyway. Fail however, and they'll be in your lines tying you up while the rest of their force follows up, with little you can do about it.

Anyway, I think it's fairly clear I'm not a fan and the general mood I see is that it's the least popular deployment type with most people. So I'm wondering about what could be done to change things. Right now player one gets the first clear round of shooting advantage whilst player two get's the bugger all deployment zone handicap... perhaps these should go hand in hand. If you choose to deploy first, getting the lions share of land possession and forcing your opponent into a corner... you then have to weather the storm as he get's the first turn unless YOU sieze the initiative. This would put the units that are deployed far forward to force the enemy into a corner then expected to leg it back to the safety of the firebase in much more danger - GOOD! Surely if they've been sent to scout ahead of the main force they can expect to be in more danger! I've seen games where with good run rolls the entire enemy line is assembled on turn 1 and I can't even tell which ones his "sacrificial" units even were, and my army hasn't shown up yet!

A simpler idea would be to reflect the greater confusion of fighting in the darkness, make the initiative be siezed on a 4+ or something. With this in mind player one may be slightly less gung ho with the units he uses to pen the enemy in the corner, and player two may feel he has a fighting chance of catching these units napping.

Anyway, I'm interested in what you people think. Bear in mind I'm still trying to maintain something entirely distinctive from Pitched Battle and Spearhead here, Dawn of War is a different tactical challenge and I don't want to change it into being a carbon copy of the other two... I'd just like a bit more balance to the situation.

let me know your thoughts.

Balancing a Tournament: Kill Points

2011-07-01T12:09:00.003+01:00

I have an upcoming Tale of Eight Gamers tournament to organise, for the end of this month, and I am putting some thought to the missions. After attending blog wars, I could see that for a three mission tournament, whilst doing the standard missions and deployments was by far the simplest way to go, there are a couple of aspects of it that were deeply unpopular. Dawn of War being the obvious one, but also to a certain extent kill points.

Now I've been a sceptic of Kill Points for some time, claiming they were brought in as a part of dumbing down the hobby (no more having to work out half the cost of a 135 point unit, god forbid!) I don't like the fact that at Blog Wars, one poor gamer had to face off against a three kill point Paladin Grey Knight list. By turn one he'd downed a couple speeders and a rhino, meaning his opponent had to table him to do anything other than lose. He came fairly close, and the grey knights player walked away with a very poor VP margin at the end of the day... but he was in the top few going into the final game, and could have won the tournament if his final game had gone better.

I've been there myself... it's intensely frustrating to lose a game when you have over 1000 points left against an immobilised rhino and a weaponless dread cowering behind it. Especially when the game ends turn 5 as the majority of your army, that steamrollered the rest of his force, is racing across the board to engage these few remaining survivors.

However, having said all that...

It has been pointed out to me that with troops units being important in objective based games the kill points system balances things out between elite armies and the MSU style armies. That while it's only a third of games, it still has to be considered in army list design if you want to be competitive.

At the same time as I don't like to give MSU any more help, I don't much like Death Star armies either...

So here is my potential solution, and I'd love to hear any feedback I can get from you guys.

I have argued before for a Kill Point percentage system - If I kill two of the three units in your Grey Knight Paladin army, I've got 66%. Meaning killing a couple speeders and a transport out of 20 KP of my army will only be 15% - a win for me as opposed to a victory for you. If the scores are within 10% of each other (say 66% and 59%) then it's a draw.

Now to try to counter the MSU style army, I have another idea. Take the army list below - no points just a generic style thing I've seen.

Wolf Lord
Rune Priest
5 x Grey Hunters in Razorback
5 x Grey Hunters in Razorback
5 x Grey Hunters in Razorback
5 x Grey Hunters in Razorback
5 x Long Fangs in Razorback
5 x Long Fangs in Razorback
5 x Long Fangs in Razorback

Now that army is currently toting 16 Kill Points, a lot of killing power, and 4 scoring units. Now if I was going to change it from pure KP to KP percentages, that'd push it slightly in this armies favour... so to balance that out, I was thinking scoring units (and their dedicated transports if they have them) count double, 2 KP each. That would mean the army above had 24 Kill Points available, 11 of them in fairly easy to kill transports. Against that Grey Knight List, which would be made up of 5 kill points, the grey knight player would need to kill a good portion more of the wolf army to ensure the victory (as losing one of his units would see him lose 40% of his KP, meaning he has to kill 51% of the Space Wolf army to get the win) At the same time, this isn't unreasonable to achieve, as he can get 46% just from pegging the transports.

Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. If this system seems to be agreeable then I shall use it and just use the standard missions for my tourney... now I need to come up with a deployment type to replace the hated Dawn of War... that could be a bit mroe tricky :oS

For Firewasp

2011-06-28T14:19:00.001+01:00

It's Tau Day Tomorrow

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13906169

ToEG: The Emperor is coming here?!?!

2011-06-07T16:39:00.002+01:00

As the hulking monstrosity advanced on the Imperial lines, a lowly guardsman quaked in fear. "Issa weesa gonna die?"

He swiftly did, as Lord Vader turned and lopped off his head with his power sword. The rest of the squad had no more problems with their resolve.

Piett turned to Vader and asked "Was that strictly necessary?"

"Perhaps not" mused Vader "But I always found that guy irritating anyway..."

"I can get this situation under control" stressed Piett "I know we've suffered some setbacks, but I need more men!"

"Well you can ask the Emperor when you see him"

"The Emeror is coming here?!?" stuttered Piett.

"Indeed" said Vader "In fact his arrival is immenent. He wishes to take charge of this campaign, he has something in mind for a young rebel..."

"I shall redouble our efforts!"

So my requirements for ToEG phase three are as follows:

Primaris Psyker Palpatine – 70
Veterans; carapace, 3xPlasmagun, vox – 150
Veterans; carapace, 3xPlasmagun, vox – 150
Vendetta – 130

My simplest month by far, apart from extensive conversion work to do for the veterans, and having to paint bright red... I don't like painting bright colours, my palette is very grim dark. But should manage to get it done on time touch wood.

Wish me luck

ToEG: Phase Two Review

2011-06-07T16:37:00.000+01:00

Well the time is up and then the late score slot too, so here's the scores from the end of phase two.

Sadly Dan has dropped out for Medical Reasons, so we're down to 7. I'll look at getting a substitute in to even things out for the tournament and the apoc game, preferably the same one for both but we shall see.

A reminder of phase two points availability

5 for on time
3 for late (within one week of deadline)
0 for unpainted

Also a bonus 3 points for getting a 1000 point legal game in.

Ginge - 14
Rich H - 14
Rich F - 14
Rob - 14
Rich A - 14
Scott - 9
Ken - 4

Next up for us is phase 3, with the usual painting points available. I'll also be running a 1500 point tournament at some point in this phase, date to be confirmed. Assuming it's before the deadline for painting, I won't be enforcing a painted models requirement for this - I'll save that requirement for the apoc game finale. There will be bonus points available for the tournament, for those who finish in the top three positions. I did consider scoring on a sliding scale for everybody, but that would mean the winner fo the tournament would gain far too much advantage in what is supposed to be a hobby based challenge, so the points available are 5 for first, 3 for second, 1 for third... and bugger all bonus for the rest of us!

Good luck, further info will be in the phase three part of this forum topic.

Blog Wars - My Personal Highlight...

2011-06-06T01:54:00.001+01:00

Game One, Turn Two...

Kharne and his terminator buddies have just pasted some deffkoptas, and are stomping their remains into the dirt.

However, this

Plus one of these

makes

Blood for the blood god! Khorne likes roadkill, right?

ToEG: As Promised, Pictures!

2011-05-17T22:49:00.005+01:00

So, I finally got access to a decent camera so the much awaited good pictures of my Tale of Eight Gamers Star Wars Guard can be shown on my blog.

First up we have phase one and the basic Storm Troopers. I've only got a pictures of one squad here, but BELIEVE me the other 4 squads were just the same O_o

Apart from the large infantry platoon, phase one also had a penal legion squad... also known as Captured Rebel Scum!

And that was phase one. Simple. Though plentiful.

Phase two I started to add some character to the force, starting with someone to lead them...

I also added some "heavy" support in the form of armoured sentinals. I'm working from a self-restricted codex for this army, mainly being stuff that was on Endor or at least in Return of the Jedi in some way... so here are some AT-STs, that just have to keep an eye out for trees...

I'm particularly proud of one of them, whose tustle with an ewok glider had a slightly less "Disney-esque" ending...

I also wanted to include some Scout Troopers, who double up as both Ratlings...

and Rough Riders...

And finally, while he may have expired before we see Endor, this guy is so legendary that if anyone were to escape the fate that seemed to befall him, it would be him. I give you my personal favourite thus far, Marbo Fett...

And to finish, a message to all my recruits for the next couple of ToEG rounds...

Blog Wars: List

2011-05-08T23:51:00.004+01:00

Well I'll admit I've had a bit of a hiatus from blogging, it's been a combination of factors not limited to getting a part time job, trying to get various full time jobs, trying to publicise an event of my own (which I'm sadly going to have to cancel due to lack of numbers) and I've gotta admit part of it is that I promised I would get a better camera and take some decent pictures - which I haven't done yet. But soon I shall have pictures worthy of you all, I swear... :oP

In the meantime, I plan to attend blog wars and the date is fast approaching, so I've decided to write up my list. Would ideally like to get a game or two in beforehand, but with the new Tomb Kings out and my part time job stopping me from attending my regular gaming club at the moment, I have a bad feeling my next game with my Orks will be a hastily pressed game against Ken the night before Blogwars...

Anyway, here's the list. I don't fear publishing it. For one thing there's so many marine armies entered this thing that anyone who tried to tailor their list to fight me would likely be pulling their trousers down and bending over for every other competitor... for second I play Orks the way they're supposed to be played. No subtlety, no finesse. Take a large amount of green hardcases, and ram down the throaght of the enemy. It works out well a surprisingly high proportion of the time actually...

HQ - Wazzdakka Gutsmek - 180 (My special character for this tournament - and to think the guy said Ghazkull was the obvious choice!?!)

T - 11 Warbikers inc Nob w PK/BP - 315
T - 20 Boyz inc Nob w PK/BP - 160
T - 20 Boyz inc Nob w PK/BP - 160
T - 10 Boyz inc Nob w BC/BP - 80
ded - Truk, red, riggers, ram, armour plates, plank - 65

E - 10 Lootas inc Mek with Kustom Mega Blasta - 150
E - 10 Burnas - 150

FA - 3 Deffkoptas rockets + 1 Buzzsaw - 160

HS - Looted Wagon, red, ardcase, 2 big shootas, riggers - 65
HS - Battlewagon, red, ram, riggers, 2 big shootas, armour plates - 125
HS - Battlewagon, red, rolla, riggers, 2 big shootas, armour plates - 140

Glossary
PK - Power Klaw
BP - Bosspole
BC - Big Choppa

So, nice simple 1750 list. I've stuck to the simple effective things I can most successfully ram down the enemy throaght, and that I'm used to using. I like Snikrot and his kommandos, but I'm fairly new to them. I've had some games where they've been awesome, but I've also had games where they've been anonymous. I know I can always rely on a good number of Boyz to bring a good time!

Anyway, I'll sign off for now, but keep an eye out for more Tale of Eight Gamers stuff and Tomb Kings stuff soon...

The Call Goes Forth Once More...

2011-04-11T17:51:00.004+01:00

I will be running a 40k combat patrol doubles tournament at my local gaming group in Portsmouth (UK) on the 28th May this year. The details are available here though it will be following the very successful Winds of War format established by Bracknell Forest Gamers.

For those who wish to attend as singles I've set aside a section of our club forum here so you can chat to like minded people and arrange teams ahead of the day.

Anyone who is interested feel free to ask me any questions you may have here, and other than that hope to hear from you soon with army list submissions :o)

ToEG: Phase One Review...

2011-04-05T16:19:00.002+01:00

So the phase is up and the late submission deadline has also passed, so here is a rundown of current standings...

A reminder of Phase 1 points availability

5 for on time
3 for late (within one week of deadline)
0 for unpainted

Also a bonus 1 point available for getting a combat patrol game in.

Now we had a combat patrol evening at the club, and we had a new member take part who expressed an interest in being a late entrant to the Tale challenge, so for now I've put him into this scoring round. Along with all the existing challengers, we have the following scoreline.

Ginge - 6
Rich H - 6
Rich F - 6
Rob - 6
Dan - 6
Rich A - 6
Scott - 6 (though next time to clarify, the deadline is the last Monday in a month, so the last Monday in May for phase 2)
Ken - 1
Josh - 1

So pretty even for most of us so far, and fear not Ken and Josh there's plenty of opportunity to catch up.

For phase 2 the standard painting times/points are the same, and this time there's a bonus 3 points available for getting a 1000 point legal game in. Scott and I already have that actually, having played a game last night. So the onus is on the rest of you!

Good luck, and get painting!

ToEG: Go For Backup!

2011-03-29T13:59:00.002+01:00

**coded transmission - recipient Kaminoan 501st, Commissar Lord Vader**

Lord Vader

Initial scouting reports suggest heavy rebel pressence in this area. Further to a confused attack during poor visibility conditions we have since encountered some determined resistance from forces of a chaotic though admirably implacable nature, followed by running battles with very odd creatures that seemed to just appear out of the trees themselves!

I formally request assistance from the scouting element of the 501st, specifically our ratters and mounted scout troopers. If some AT-STs can be spared for heavy support that would also be useful.

Thank you for any assistance you can spare my lord.

Piett

**transmission terminated**

**coded transmission - recipient Kaminoan 501st, platoon Alpha**

The forces are being dispatched to aid you, and I am coming also. Some things I must deal with personally.

Also a notification - a bounty hunter has been dispatched to your location. Do not attempt to interdict him, he has his own mission. A man of your qualities will probably barely notice his presence.

The Emporer Protects.

Commissar Lord Vader

**transmission terminated**

Brace for Battle!

2011-03-21T17:05:00.003Z

I will be running a 40k combat patrol doubles tournament at my local gaming group inPortsmouth (UK) on teh 28th May this year. The details are available here though it will be following the very successful Winds of War format established by Bracknell Forest Gamers.

Anyone who is interested feel free to ask me any questions you may have here, and other than that hope to hear from you soon with army list submissions :o)

What we got here, is a failure to communicate...

2011-03-19T22:25:00.003Z

So I went down to my local GW today as they had a special game on. It sounded fun. I got told they were gonna try to assemble a lot of flyers to assault a fixed position, to celebrate the release of the stormraven. I was interested - with 2 valkyries, 2 vendettas, 2 vultures a lightning and a thunderbolt, I was well placed to take part. No they say, just bring one flyer and one squad. It'll be kinda like a race. To take part you only need a squad and a transport, though naturally flyers have an advantage. Ok, so I packed a vendetta and my straken bomb into a case and wander down.

I get there, and there aren't all that many people there...

And it seems there's been a change of plan...

There will be a squad of grey knight paladins, controlled by a staff member, waiting for stormraven extraction. We count them as individual squads and score 1 point for killing each. There's also 3 points available for bagging the stormraven.

Arrayed around the table, we have;

Myself with straken and transport.
A kid with a guard squad, command section, sentinal, lone sniper (wtf?!?) and a death strike missile. he was putting his Stormlord on the table too but the staff member told him not to.
A kid with a termie squad in land raider and a dread
A kid with devastator squad, predator and dread
And another guy, with term squad and chaplain in land raider, and dev squad with rhino, and predator, and dread, and scout squad in land speeder storm.

Right, so slightly outgunned then... especially when they said we'd be allowed to shoot at each other, though no points were available for that...

Now as good as the save on those Paladins was, they were still subject to instant death. They were all dead before the Stormraven showed up. I was most annoyed that I wounded with a laspistol and a meltagun... he passed the save on the instant killing meltagun, and lost a wound to the laspistol. That wounded guy was then pegged when the deathstrike missile hit the building. So with the squad gone the scores were 2-2-1 for the kids. The large army had started shooting at the kids early on, (as well as giving me a taste of flamestorm) so we all pitched in on him in return. I pegged his landraider that had caused me some problems and his dread was eliminated.

The stormraven showed up first (by this point a dread knight had been added to the reinforcement pool, worth 2 points) and went for the guard player... which was really annoying for me, as my vendetta, being unable to shoot last turn, had turbo boosted down to the opposite end of the table. I'd have to turbo boost again next turn to have a hope of shooting it on the turn after, assuming it didn't move out of line of sight again. In the turn immediately after it's arrival, it was immobilised... so while a long way away at least I'd be able to head towards it confident it wouldn't fly away... unfortunately big armys termies were heading inexorably in the same direction...

The dread knight deep striked in next to Straken and fired at the remnants of his squad. Clever wound allocation saw me lose the last bodyguard and meltagun. So in my turn I charged. The dreadknight put all the attacks on Straken and his medic. 3 wounds were caused. Two of them eliminated the medic... the final one bounced off Strakens refractor field. As it is he was striking simultaneously regardless, and took three wounds off the monstrosity. The Eviscerator wielding priest took out the final wound.

With Straken isolated he ended up in a scrap with a dread, and they both died in a loving embrace...

So it all came to the Stormraven - could my vendetta blow it up before the thunder hammer termie got there... or should I nail the termy? Knowing I had a dev squad behind me that could easily peg me after nailing the termy I thought my best chance of winning was going for the stormraven. Over two turns of shooting (before the devs nailed me) I got three penetrating hits... I achieved nothing. Oh sure I took some weapons off, but that thing has so many it wasn't close to getting glanced to death. And in the race between the thunderhammer termy and the guard plasma pistol sergeant, the termy passed his inv saves to strike the stormraven down. Giving the other guy three points and the win.

It was a good laugh over all, and everyone had scored some points. The guard player had three men left, the other three of us were wiped out to a man, while the marine player who won still had a termy, a dev squad, a couple scouts and a pred. But I couldn't help but feel somewhat underprepared for the mission... if the other armies had been restricted to one unit one transport, I doubt the marine player would have made it across the field to the stormraven. It's easy to be reckless and turn on everyone when you have as many forces as the rest combined. If I'd brought my flyers, no squads just flyers, I feel I would have wiped the floor with him, and probably still have fielded less points than he did! The dissappointing aspect of the game for me was the sense of inevitability. Seeing how many points more he had than everyone else I felt certain he'd win from the start. The fact that he left it so late was almost a banana skin on his part, but it was still kinda inevitable. I don't like inevitable games, in either direction. I like fun, in the balance, games. And if you're gonna promise a day entitled "Flight of the Valkyries" then I'd like to not be the only guy with an airborne vehicle!!! I felt critically ill-prepared for the game I ended up playing. The only way it could have been worse is if they'd suddenly had an objective for a troops choice to grab...

In the words of Bert from Tremors, "I feel I have been denied... CRITICAL... NEED TO KNOW... Information."

Bloggers Tournament

2011-03-18T18:14:00.003Z

From the Fang are looking at hosting a tournament for UK bloggers. I'm giving it some thoguht, though the likely location is some distance from me so I may well be relying on the hospitality of a friend and fellow blogger if I wish to go... but here are the details so far. Worth keeping an eye on I think...

An unknown foe...

2011-03-10T01:01:00.003Z

The commander of Alpha platoon watched his troops as they advanced, three squads setting up ahead of him behind cover as the other squads moved up on his right flank in a leapfrog manouver, covering each other as they scouted out the terrain around them. The storm clouds overhead made the afternoon so gloomy it was hard to see more than a hundred yards in front of you, though an ominous rumbling sound from the darkness implied the presence of armour.

"This place is supposed to be deserted" muttered commander Piett "Squads, illuminate the target"

The troopers took to this task with gusto, the tracer rounds from their autocannon briefly showing a vehicle before the billowing smoke concealed it once more.

"Well that's not supposed to be there" stated Piett "Send some more fire in that direction, to suppress whatever infantry is escorting it" The troopers continued to fire, with typical accuracy for them.

Return fire started to come from near the wreckage, the pinpricks of light as missiles were launched highlighting the enemy position briefly. The missiles flew wild, some causing casualties and some far from the troopers lines.

"Shoddy fire discipline" rued Piett "Rebellious scum perhaps? Though I do have scout reports of some primitive natives, but I doubt they are any threat to us... Have you still not got that vox working trooper? I'm trying to give orders here!"

As the storm intensified and lightning strikes started to batter the troopers positions, infantry started to emerge from the murky cover.

"Send forward the penal scum"

"Are you sure sir?" asked the vox trooper "I think I can see a flamer in that squad"

"Oh I see the flamer... but that's what those scum are for"

As the penal legion advanced on the unknown foe, they were for the most part roasted alive as not one but two flamers swept over them.

"Oh well" said Piett "No matter. Keep firing"

With a roar the mystery foe was in amongst the troops slashing and hacking all around them. Lesser troops may have fled from such a foe, but these troops know the price of failure and fought on. Sadly this bravery saw their comrades unable to get a clean line of fire at them, though a howl of pain that cut through the storm suggested their shooting into the darkness had had some effect. As the butchers bathed in blood and advanced on the final bastion of fire, Piett had but a moment to wonder what mad men were in these forests, before he was beaten down and left unconscious. The vox link finally crackled into life, just as a chainsword cut it's bearer in two.

Piett regained consciousness back at the bunker. The wounded had withdrawn and returned to sweep for survivors and found him then. Luckily there were still plenty of troops available to him, but as long as he was unaware what was in these forests he would be fighting blind. He needed the 501STs scout troops here asap, and would have to dispatch a signal to that effect. Just as soon as that damn vox was fixed...

**********************************************************************************

This was quite a close game, and seemed to be heading for a draw. I made a bit of an error with my penal legion squad (I honestly only spotted the one flamer, and hoped their sacrifice would whittle down the squad enough that disciplined fire would finish them off - of course after two flamers the few that survived were butchered in combat without getting the chance to try to get some rending hits in) but what seemed to be worst for me was Leadership tests. My troops stubbornly refused to pass a single Leadership test for the orders (FRFSRF) until the fourth turn... by which point I only had one lasgun trooper left! So after failing three LD8 tests, I then had to take an Ld6 test to avoid falling back - something I wanted to fail so I could fire at the enemy assault unit. Nope, THAT one I pass. He beats me in my combat phase, ready to advance in his next turn. He charges a four man command squad, surely this time I'll get to shoot him on my turn. Nope, THEY hold firm as well. Irritating!

Admittedly I don't expect to do too well with this army in kill point missions, though I did reduce it to 4 for this game. I perhaps should have reduced it to three instead but I wanted a bit of flexibility with what I fired at. Of course with killing the razorback on turn 1 I had very little to trouble me so I ended up shooting at the same target most turns anyway, so should have gone for the 50 man blob. Oh well, you live and learn.

Speeder Bike

2011-03-04T16:29:00.002Z

Here's the prototype for some speeder bikes i'm making. They're counts as rough riders. I still have a little green stuff work to tidy up the rider, make those spindly eldar arms and legs look a bit more human, but for the first one i'm fairly happy with it :-)

Master of Deception!

2011-03-03T14:39:00.000Z

Yes, you know who I mean. Marbo! The man who can just be there right next to the enemy all game and they won't realise until he gives them a demolition charge shaped suppository...

Trouble is, he's so good at this hiding malarkey, I've been unable to find him since they reintroduced him to the codex. I knew I had the model from my early days as a Catachan player, but couldn't find it anywhere. Have been using a Catachan Devil Ambush Squad leader to represent him for ages now. Today however, I finally found him! Lurking in a box of Tomb King stuff of all places! So hopefully get him painted up soon and start using the real model for a change.

Also on my hunt I found some guardsmen bits that I'd just this morning ordered off ebay (Gah, waste!) another plasmagun (handy) and some old commissars I bought off a mate.

Naturally, the thing I was actually looking for, my Steel Legion Commissar with rebreather, that I picked up years ago and am finally doing the project I originally envisaged him being a part of... he's nowhere to be bloody seen is he?!? Sods law.

Anyway, back to the bitz. I'm hoping if I start looking for, I don't know, some spare Ork stuff, then my Commissar may show up! :oP

Winds of War Results - Posted

2011-02-26T19:35:00.000Z

The results and more importantly photos from last weekend are up!

I'm really chuffed with that Army painting score. I knew we'd done well, that it had been flip a coin practically between us and the best army winner... but I didn't know what score we'd got for our painting. 19/20... I'll settle for that :oP

And also good to confirm our 6th place. Having checked the vp and stuff if we had had the time to get the draw against that tyranid player (there was so much cover he could have probably hid his hive guard to salvage a draw) we'd have only got as high as fourth, so shouldn't grumble too much - not like we missed out on a podium place because of it! :oD

Anyway, there's some good pics of some good minis up there (not just mine) so enjoy.

TOEG: Out on the fringe...

2011-02-24T20:35:00.003Z

**coded transmission - recipient Kaminoan 501st, platoon Alpha**

Dispatch with immediate effect Eastern Fringe, Gamma Sector, Quadrant 4 - rest of 501st to follow as and when can be made ready following current engagement.

Garrison secret Imperial Base on moon of fourth planet in Moddell system

Scout out local tribes and evaluate threat level.

Good hunting.

The Emporer Protects.

Commissar Lord Vader

Further - if some expendable troops are required, penal squad SC11M has been attached to your platoon.

**transmission terminated**

Winds of War - Review

2011-02-20T00:21:00.004Z

This weekened the Halo Marines got their day in the sun, and a good day it was. The army got a lot of attention and compliments, which made all our efforts worthwhile.

Firstly, here are some brief match reports on how the days gaming went.

Game One

This was capturing the objective in your opponents deployment zone. We were up against a Guard/Wolf list. The guard player had the Bastion Breacher Medusa, an armoured sentinal, and a infantry platoon in chimeras. The wolf player had a 5 man squad in a razorback and 5 thunderwolf cavalry, with enough equipment variations to allow wound allocation shenanigans to take place.

Despite the fierce list against us, disciplined fire and a well placed assault (within range of the sanguinary priests feel no pain) saw the thunderwolf cavalry taken out (about 350 points) for the loss of my warthog, chaplain and aggressive combat squad (about 200 or so points all told) We then concentrated fire on the rest of the marines and the force sent to capture our objective was destroyed. This just left getting to the enemy objective. Disciplined fire from the guard and some blocking chimera moves left us struggling to reach the objective with our scoring units, though a grey hunters squad did charge two squads of guard with the ability to consolidate onto the objective. Of course to do that first they had to win... and were promptly beaten. With all scoring units miles from any objective this was quite clearly a draw.

Game Two

This was kill points against a combined Nid force. They had 4 zoanthropes, a squad of 28 hormagaunts, 3 hive guard, a squad of normal genestealers and a squad of yrmgrl genestealers. That's 6 kill points, to our 12. This game was a little irritating as our opponents were really slow. For example, I had two identical landspeeders next to each other. One squad of zoanthropes and the hive guard could see them. Nothing else could see them. The zoanthropes could see nothing else. Yet it still took over a minute of debating for them to decide which speeder to shoot! And then after knocking the gun off it, about another minute to decide to shoot the hive guard at the other one! In this game we felt we were playing against the clock, and so this was irritating. We don't think our opponents were deliberately dragging their heels, it seemed like just lack of experience. But it was somewhat irritating. Especially given we had time called on us at the end of turn 5. They'd won 5 KP to 3. But by this point he had a single zo about to get charged by ALL my blood angels, a couple of hive guard hiding and a few genestealers who were in an assault they'd not been doing too well in against wulfen marked opponents. We kicked arse inthe victory points, about 600 to 300. And with a 6th turn I believe we'd have tied the game, and won in a 7th. So to run out of time is quite irksome.

Even more annoyingly, the first squad of zoanthropes managed to pass 6 out of 6 3++ saves to avoid instant death in the first two turns alone. If they'd taken some of them, we could have sooner turned our long fang fire elsewhere, not to mention taken out a large part of our opponents anti tank ability early on.

Game Three

In game three we came up against a guard tau list. It was D3+2 objectives (3 for our game) dawn of war. We went first and I put my lone razorback in the centre. In our turn I moved up into the lee of a building as we moved the rest of our forces on. Our opponents trundled their chimeras on (there were lots of chimeras today) and then I really caused them problems in turn 2... I parked my razorback on the road in front of two chimeras. It would have meant difficult terrain tests and a roundabout route to get forward, though this proved to be irrelevent as my combat squad caused merry hell amongst the guard contingent. At the end of turn 6 our opponents had little left and we were sat on all three objectives, and turn 7 (which we'd rolled for and got) we were on for tabling them, so our opponents asked to save face and call it full vp for us.

Game Four

Game four was kill points again, but teammates were in opposite diagonal corners of the board. We were against another wolf/guard combo, but this one was a sentinal list, with 3 armoured and 2 scout sentinals, along with a squad of vets in chimera. Deciding that my heavy flamer and heavy bolters would be better targetted on the guard, I sent most of my stuff at him. Ken sent one of his razorbacks his way too, and we'd reduced him to a weaponless immobilised armoured sentinal by the end of turn 3. We then turned to the wolf player. Annoyingly, we could NOT finish off that armoured sentinal for the additional kill point, it withstanding half a dozen bolt pistols to the rear, three krak missiles to the front, two rear heavy flamer shots and 12 krak grenades without getting the last weapon destroyed or better result it needed to finish it off. Meanwhile the wolf player had mauled Kens forces somewhat, though a lone long fang passing his morale test to hold firm in an unobtainable position helped us. Sustained fire from my missile equipped combat squad saw off her last chance of taking him out, leaving just the skyclaws and runepriest to worry about. At the end of turn 6 we were winning on kill points, and with my chaplain and power weapon squad poised to join in the fray agains the skyclaws (and thus allow the missile launcher and heavy flamer YET another attempt at the sentinal) I believe that even had there been a turn 7 we'd have won this one.

Overall

So two wons, a draw and a loss sees us better our Win, 2 draws and a loss of last year. They've not published the full results yet but a quick check had us in sixth place I believe, of 18 teams, which I'm quite happy with... especially with how many armies had quite nasty tricks up their sleeves. From chimera spam to hydra love to hive guard and thunderwolves, very few lists didn't have at least something that was particularly nasty to it... for us to do so well with, well, nothing more impressive than a long fang squad... I'm proud of our result. With only a little more time in game two I think we could have got at least a draw, which I believe would have put us on the same gamescore as second place, with only VPs to seperate it. So quite close really...

As for the Halo themed army, well it recieved many plaudits throughout the day. When it came to the prize giving for best army the organiser said it had been down to two armies... one a team effort, one an individual... and they'd decided to give best army to the best painted individual army. They then went on to say that for overall effort and the team armies matching and such we were being awarded the coveted Fergus award. So we didn't leave empty handed! I am also eagerly awaiting the score list to see exactly what points we got for our army painting.

Anyway, it was a fun day, and while Ken was a little disappointed that we didn't win best army (and I am a little too I will admit) at least we got some recognition for our efforts. Ken is thinking next time to not put so much effort in and go for a beardy list like everyone else and try to win it... I've said if he does he's gonna either have to do so for the solo event, or expect to carry me. I LIKE making these little 500 points of cool theme forces. To make an entire army this way is a hell of a project (believe me, I KNOW) and then it won't see as much use as generic forces. So I like being able to throw the boat out on these little projects, cos if 500 points sits on a shelf and rarely get's used, I don't feel nearly as bad. Working from a self restricted codex to match a theme in mind, I doubt I will EVER field a beard army.

But anyway, now I just have to decide what to do next year. I'd like to stick to the geeky sci fi theme, I believe it's quite a crowd pleaser. I had been thinking of a combined force of Eldar and Necrons - Eldar for the VIPER, the necrons for a bunch of toasters running around led by a ressurecting character in a red dress with a killer body... sorry, DESTROYER body, keep making that slip :oP There are two problems to that theme of course, the first being you an't take Necron Lords in combat patrol and the second being Ken isn't so sure about taking a theme list again. So I may have to just work from one codex, which is probably easier anyway :oP I'm still kicking the ideas around for now, as I have Tale of Eight Gamers to keep me busy on a theme army. But my mind is always plotting something...

**all photos from Bracknell Forest Gamers website**

It's a beautiful bridge...

2011-02-16T21:14:00.003Z

By the time Keily caught up with the Orks, they'd already overrun a Space Marine force sent to interdict them, and were involved in a pretty even dual with some Chaos Space Marines. As the Vendettas screamed overhead, the Orks abandoned the beaten bloody chaos survivors and piled back into their truks in hot pursuit.

"I hope you know what you're doing Keily" growled Big Jon "Cos those Orks look pretty mean, and they're keeping up with us"

"That's kinda the idea Jon" muttered Keily "There's a Nid infestation in the way, we need it gone. If you've got anything better to hit them with than an army of screaming green maniacs, let me hear it now"

"Cut it out with all the negativity!" yelled Strangefruit over the intercom.

The orks tore across into the Tyranid lines, the burnas lighting up their hybrids with customery glee. With the back of the tyranid army broken, and the Orks back to picking fights with the few left crawling, a swiftly timed vendetta swoop finished off the few problem creatures and caught the Orks attention again.

"Nows the part where it get's tricky" muttered Keily "We got Space Wolves in the way now... plus I've heard there are Eldar knocking around."

Not only were Space Wolves waiting for the Orks, but Njal Stormcaller. He was not to be trifled with, and between his storm calling and psychic powers he put most of the Ork force to the sword.

"Strangefruit, get in there and keep those Eldar busy!" yelled Keily

"The only way I have to keep those Eldar busy is to let them shoot holes in me!" Strangefruit cried

"Confuse them then, do your third dog impression"

With a vendetta swooping low over the Eldar position time was bought for the Orks to regroup. Once they are mustered again, Keily will again get their attention, and carry on towards the hive and the prize that resided within...

The above sums up my first four games in the allies campaign. Thus far got a win, a draw, a win, a draw. And thanks go to Yeti's Yell for the movie quote I paraphrased there ;oP

You Rebel Scum!

2011-02-15T18:22:00.002Z

Finished Penal Legion Squad for my Tale. Phase One is complete bar the basing!

An Entire Legion Of My Best Troops Await Them...

2011-02-13T18:03:00.002Z

For Tale of Eight Gamers (and Escalation) my Imperial Guard Infantry Company. No close ups, cos they're kinda boring... I just wanted to show what a pain in the arse task I set myself! :-P Just got the officer of this lot and the penal legion squad to do. And you can't imagine how much i'm looking forward to using a colour :-P might just have to do rainbow coloured penal legion to get it out of My system :-P

Winds of War - Ready!

2011-01-31T10:57:00.002Z

This is my finished Winds of War army in it's display case. Just got to hope my team mate can do his force in the next 3 weeks :-P

Until the tournament though, my army is sat in the local gw display cabinet. Which is nice :-)

Yeehaa!

2011-01-29T13:06:00.002Z

A counts as razorback for my winds of war force... Only 3 weeks to go but i'm all finished!

Background... Allies Campaign

2011-01-24T14:47:00.003Z

As enemy forces advanced on his position through the driving rain, Keily made his escape back to the new Imperial lines. He'd lost his prisoner somewhere while fleeing - that wasn't his problem now though. The information he'd wheedled out of the the lil blue freak with nothing more than amasec was impressive - as a race the tau couldn't seem to hold their liquor, and Private Keily took complete advantage of that. Now to make use of that information. Not for the immortal emperor, nor for the good of the blessed Imperium. This time Keily was looking after number one.

This is just some background info I'm coming up with for an interesting allies campaign that my local GW is running. I may have plagiarised a little bit here, but I'd prefer to call it pop culture references... :oP

With a couple of weeks of R&R for his squad, private Keily knew now was the time. The rest of the lads were up for it. Keily had come up with a cunning plan. With an Ork warband rolling in roughly the right direction anyway, it wouldn't take much to try to tease and coax them onto the exact heading required. They'd then let the Orks keep the defenders busy whilst they nipped in and pulled off the heist of the century. They'd all be rich men, and the loss would be assumed to be spoils of war captured by the enemy. The perfect crime. Staff sergeant Blackjack was in, all that was left was to convince master sergeant Big Jon.

"We'll still need transportation" muttered Keily

"I think I might have an idea for that" said Blackjack thoughtfully "A guy I know, used to drive Leman Russes but swapped for Vendettas - says he likes to be able to get out of trouble as quickly as he gets into it"

"Sounds like a sensible man" admitted Keily "He could be what we need"

"Yo Strangefruit" yelled Blackjack "We got a proposition for ya..."

Woof Woof Woof

A Tale of EIGHT Gamers

2011-01-20T13:27:00.002Z

With the start of my new Tale of Challenge almost upon us, I can confirm that there will be eight participants this year! I'll still be tagging the posts Tale of Four Gamers, as that way they'll be grouped with the last one and any future ones... but the title of any posts will be TOEG related.

We have the following participants;

Myself - Guard
Rich F - Tau
Rich H - Space Wolves
Ken - Tyranids
Dan F - Dark Eldar
Rich P - Grey Knights
Scott W - Tyranids
Rob - Guard

I am of course building my army for Escalation so my first round is a nice easy 65 infantry O_o

Platoon Command; vox, autocannon – 45
Squad 1 – 5 all identically equipped; plasmagun and autocannon – 375
Penal Legion Squad – 80

Others will have till the start date to submit their planned 500 points to me, and I will publish them all when I know them.

The only detail yet to be tied up is what to do for the apocalypse event. There are several options for this, and I will be consulting the participants to see where they want to go with this one. Participants are quite welcome to vote here in the comments.

Anyway, options...

1 - Imperium stick. Pros - quick, simple, obvious, fluffy. Well, on the good side anyway. Cons - Tau gunline with Nids assault support... OUCH!

2 - Goodies vs Baddies - now this isn't too far from the above, but it puts the neutral Tau on the good side and MY guard (which given the theme of the army are not the nicest chaps in the galaxy) on the evil side. Pros - takes the Tau firepower away from the nids... Cons - puts all the horde armies on one side, making for an EXTENSIVE movement phase :oS

3 - Balanced - we put one nid on each side, one power armour on each side, one guard on each side, one xenos on each side. Pros - about as balanced as we can make it. Cons - not exactly fluffy. *Note can be even more balanced by the various pairs not knowing which side they'll be on till the day of the game or thereabouts.

4 - Rank based - We look at the challenge leaderboard and put 1st, 3rd, 6th and 8th against 2nd, 4th, 5th and 7th. Pros - last time I did this we followed goodies vs baddies route and the two players who were doing poorest ended up on the same side. At least this way the ones who have done best (and therefore have probably finished on time each time and had the last few weeks spare to do EXTRA stuff, as opposed to playing catch up on stuff they missed from their normal allocation, will be split up, hopefully keeping the sides fairly balanced.) Cons - again, not fluffy.

5 - Points based - Everyone should have 2000 or so points, but we can have a look at the totals that people are bringing to the apoc game and balance the forces that way. Pro - fair sides in points value. Cons - Could easily make up the points difference with strategic assets anyway.

6 - Random - Everyone turns up, I draw names out of a hat and that's the side you get. Points differences will be balanced with strategic assets. Pros - random nature makes it as fair as it can be, no design whatsoever. Cons - luck is a factor, you could potentially end up with the four smallest armies on one side...

Anyway, the apoc game won't be till about October so not really something we need to worry about yet but I would like to get the format down as soon as possible so people know what to expect in advance and won't accuse me of trying to bend things in my favour.

Do comment on your choices and gentlemen, start your brushes ;oP

Battle Report

2011-01-18T00:56:00.003Z

Tonight I played a game against a Valhallen player... so thought it only right that i should take my snow based Ork army :oP

We played sieze ground dawn of war. I had first deployment, and I hunkered a squad of boyz in a bunker on an objective while my bikes and wazzdakka took the centre ground to pen the enemy firepower back. My opponent siezed the initiative and rolled on and took up firing positions against my bikers... with a searchlight and a withering hail of fire I was down to two bikes and Wazzdakka before my first turn even began. Knowing they were now little more than a forlorn hope I split Wazzdakka from the unit and put them right in front of the guns to distract my opponent as much as possible while the rest of my army played catchup.

The firepower was quite telling against my forces but then turn two I pulled things back as Boss Snikrot led some Kommandos into the enemy rear. A good charge took out two squads, a command squad and a heavy weapon squad. They then caused a merry distraction for my opponent as my army crashed into his front. One of my battlewagons had immobilised itself but it was sat next to the objective carrying twenty boyz so no harm there. The other dropped twenty boyz in place to attack a 3 squad infantry blob and heavy weapon squad, with deffkopta support, whilst snikrot and co cleared the last scoring unit from my left flank. With me holding two objectives and nearest to the building holding a third (considering the one on my opponents right flank his, with two squads and several armoured vehicles in my way...) The boyz and deffkoptas got locked in longer than I planned as a commissar first held the unit in check, and THEN fought on alone. How irritating! But I cleared him in the end.

My opponent then took to firing at my boyz unit with gusto. He managed to take it down to 5 left, but they passed the morale check and carried on. He also saw off snikrot and sent the deffkoptas fleeing, though the koptas rallied. He was also moving an infantry unit in towards the objective he needed to tie-game.

My grot riggers finally fixed the immobilised truk, and the burna boyz and warboss were on the way again. Admittedly it was my tactical mistake to leave them stranded so long, though they had a welcome diversion in seeing off an outflanking stormtrooper squad. I didn't think I'd fail THAT many grot rigger rolls in a row before finally getting the thing working again! They then rushed to catch up.

With me sitting pretty on two at the start of turn 5 my opponent got some good difficult terrain and run rolls to tie the score. So it came to my turn but a poor difficult terrain roll meant I wouldn't be able to assault. Loota fire did nothing, so out of desperation my four boyz fired their sluggas. Three hits. Three wounds. Three dead. Morale check - he failed and ran! I would win if there wasn't another turn!

Inevitably there was. And he pounded my orks on the objective in a merciless fashion. There were only four left by the end of the shooting phase, and only my nob from the other squad. Both passed their morale checks. In my turn the truk drove in and got rid of the enemy command squad, whilst the deffkoptas put themselves in front of the enemy guns should there be a turn 7. Fortunately there wasn't, as I don't think it would have been too hard a task for my opponent to finish off the two units I had on the exposed objectives, leaving me with a very long shot to try to force two failed morale checks on his units garrisoning his own objectives. Not impossible, but very unlikely.

A good game and very tense. Snikrot playing merry hell among the enemy backline won this game for me. I should use him more often! :oP

For the mrs...

2011-01-16T13:35:00.001Z

Bought this model a while back as it amused my wife, finally got round to painting it. Thought i'd try to nab a picture before I give it to her, though my camera isn't great. The model is quite cool though - from hassle free miniatures if anyone is curious.

Interesting Campaign

2011-01-15T13:22:00.004Z

One of the staff members at the local games workshop has come up with an interesting idea for a campaign...

You take 1500 standard FOC of one army... and combine it with 500 from the same FOC of another army - though it must include one troop. The idea being the two have agreed to work together, with the larger force there in support of the smaller force trying to achieve their objective.

Now I collect Orks and Guard, and the Orks are better painted, so they'll be forming the bulk of this force. I'll be using the guard to cover the orks weaknesses... namely dealing with land raiders and armour 14 in general :oP

However, I cannot for the life of me think of a reason why these two would be fighting side by side. The best I've come up with so far is opportunistic guardsmen striving to achieve their objectives whilst the orks are keeping the enemy distracted... perhaps they're like Kellys heroes trying to rob a bank in the midst of a war. That's the best I've got, and I'm more than open to suggestions.

Oh, and here's the list...

HQ - Wazzdakka Gutsmek - 180

HQ - Warboss, PK, tl shoota, cybork, bosspole, eavy armour - 110

T - 11 Warbikers inc Nob PK Bosspole - 315

T - 12 Boyz inc Nob PK Bosspole - 112
ded trans - Truk, red, ram - 45

T - 12 Boyz inc Nob PK Bosspole - 112
ded trans - Truk, red, ram - 45

T - 11 Boyz inc Nob PK Bosspole - 106
ded trans - Truk, red, ram - 45

E - 10 Lootas (inc 1 Mek) - 150

E - 10 Burnas - 150

FA - Deffkopta rokkits buzzsaw - 70

HS - Looted Wagon, red, ard case, big shoota x 2 - 60

Thats the 1500 Orks...

T - Veterans, demolitions, 2 x meltaguns - 120

T - Veterans, demolitions, 2 x meltaguns - 120

FA - Vendetta - 130

FA - Vendetta - 130

And there's my 500 of guard. With the melta, demolitions, and vendettas they'll be dealing with the heavy armour. The boyz just charge towards the enemy to cause them as many problems as they can to keep them busy so the guard can do their job. The looted wagon is for one of the boyz mobs to get into for cover and hold in support of the lootas, giving their truk to the far more offensively minded burnas.

Phase One Assembled

2011-01-11T18:29:00.002Z

Ok, finally assembled all I need for phase one of the inaccurately named Tale Of Four Gamers i'm about to run (7 confirmed 2 maybes...) Phew!

So, all I have to do is paint this lot, and towards the end of the challenge do the same amount again... Not to mention converting a squad of rough riders and two squads of veterans - the vets requiring a fair amount of green stuff, and the rough riders requiring... Plasti-card and inspiration maybe :-P

But hey at least phase one is built... Now all I need to do is sand the bases and undercoat them ready to start on the 31st.

Burn the Alien

2011-01-04T15:12:00.002Z

So got my first game against the new Dark Eldar last night. My friend had been warning me that their codex was beardy and broken and all the usual claptrap, but I like to try things for myself. I personally think they'll be a glass hammer - broken if things go right, and BROKEN if things go wrong.

I took a strong list against this army, though it wasn't particularly tailored - I'd happily take this list against any army. The only considerations were that the hellhounds definitely made it in, and I dropped a melta down to a flamer (using the spare points to bump another melta to a plasma) I even took a combat squad - Ogryns led by Mr Yarrick. But the bulk of the force was vets in chimera, with Hydra support.

We rolled Sieze Ground Nightfight, my opponent going first. He had his warrior squad without transport in a bunker. On turn 1 his jetbikes turbo boosted to my side of the field, his raider with witches came on and took cover behind a building, his raider with warriors did the same on the other side, vect in his pimped ride joined the warriors in cover and some beastmasters led a squad onto the field.

I arrived and put the bulk of my army rather close to his jetbikes. The beauty being searchlights meant the rest of my army could see them once th first chimera did. So while they got their cover saves against the chimera, one of the hydra batteries chucked a few shots (moving so only one autocannon each could fire) their way taking out several. Knowing they needed a break test, I pysker battle squaded their leadership down to 1... and then a few supplementary wounds from other chimeras got the squad below half strength. The other hydra battery tried to clip one of the raiders but didn't have the light.

So with the jetbikes fleeing unable to rally the raiders break cover and gun for me. In return the massed fire of several chimeras (and admittedly my opponent forgetting Vects ride is armour 13) saw two raiders crash and burn and vects ride immobilised. The witches were pinned in the wreckage so I weakened the resolve of the surviving warriors, ensuring they'd be going the wrong way for a turn.

Turn 3 saw Vect and his Incubi storm out of their transport and assault a hellhound. To no avail. His warriors also rallied. In return I saw enough casualties on the witches that they couldn't rally (again the psykers weaken resolve power coming to the fore) and massed fire saw the beastmasters wiped out and the incubi take heavy casualties. At this point my opponent conceded. As it had been such a short game, I offered a rematch.

This time we did the same mission but had Spearhead deployment, again my opponent going first. He went for an aggrssive stance as close to me as possible. I went for a chimera wall with hellhounds anchoring the flanks and hydras in cover. His turn 1 he came at me as quickly as he could, though his lance fire failed to do anything. In return I repeated my weaken resolve trick on the jetbikes, and killed all three raiders.

The witches then charged in and killed a hellhound. Vect and his incubi failed to do anything to theirs. So I boxed him in with chimeras and opened up with everything. The witches were wiped out, as were the incubi and beastmasters. Vect broke his 2++ save and took a wound. With one man and a bunkered warrior squad remaining at the end of turn 2 for the loss of a single hellhound, Dan again conceded defeat.

Now admittedly Dan was not playing with his ideal list, as not all his models have arrived yet. And I was giving him a game with probably the worst thing for him to face - a mechanised force. With Dan doing Dark Eldar for the upcoming tale of however many (9?) gamers and me doing a foot guard army, I can see him having a better time of it. About the only good thing I can say for that army is infantry blob - 50 guardsmen, make him EARN that pain token :oP

Still, a good start to the new year for gaming.

A year in Statistics...

2010-12-31T22:17:00.002Z

So this year I kept a tally of the games of 40k and fantasy I played. I wasn't particularly planning to do anything with it, it was out of idle curiosity. As we've come to the years end, I decided just to sort through and tot up some totals for the interest of myself and some friends. It's looking at it like this that makes the whole rigmarole worthwhile throughout the year! :oP

So, basics. I played 75 games of 40k or fantasy last year. Some were competitive, most were friendly. Some were apocalyptic, and some mere combat patrols. Most were with my own army, but I occassionally borrowed someone elses, and in an interesting fun tourney came up with a dreamteam comprising Orks, Guard and Nids! It's been an interesting year I'll give it that!

Of those 75, I've won 41, drawn 12 and lost 22. After so many years of being the poor guy in the corner who, bless him, brought GUARD of all things week in week out, and duly got his backside kicked - well, suffice to say this win record is unprecedented for me, and I am somewhat proud of it! I even managed a 16 game undefeated streak, and an 11 game winning streak!

Breaking it down into 40k and fantasy, I find where I have more talent/luck/bribe money* (delete as applicable) I played only 19 games of fantasy, yet just over half of them (10) were losses, along with 4 draws and a mere 5 wins. This of course did leave the 40k stats looking all the better. Of 56 games, I had 36 wins, 8 draws, and 12 losses. And yes, that is where the 16 game undefeated streak came from by the looks of it!

Looking deeper and comparing my two main armies of Guard and Orks, I discovered a shocking and indeed troubling fact - I got in more games with my orks than guard this year! However, given at the start of the year the Orks were being built up as part of a Tale of Four Gamers and were then part of a campaign and taken to a tournament, I suppose I can forgive them. This year I have already planned to do Guard for tale of four gamers, ready in time for a tournament, so they should get some more love. This decision was made before this discovery was made I will say now though! :oP

I did have more success with the Orks, winning 19 of 28, whilst suffering only 5 losses and 4 draws. They established an undefeated streak of 17 games! The guard managed to win 13 of 23, drawing 4 and losing 6. They didn't get up much of a streak though, only managing to remain undefeated for 6 games at most!

Oh, and in case you're wondering why I didn't mention the undefeated streak for fantasy, it's cos it's a measly three... which matched my losing streak for fantasy! So not a good year for the swords and shields!

And finally on to personal friends. Chris went from being my nemesis last year (whose plague marines I just could not touch, in every sense of the word) to being a bit of a whipping boy this year as he switched to guard. My knowledge of that army allowed me to pick him apart on 6 out of 7 occassions, with him clinging to some pride with a solitary victory to deny me inflicting pool-hall rules punishment on him. Ken and I also played 7 games, and he seems to have slipped from being a permanent annoyance into being someone more manageable, with 5 wins out of 7 (1 loss and 1 draw accounting for the other results.) I've played far less games against Nige than I realised this year, only facing him 4 times. I scored 2 victories a loss and a draw there. Have to get more games in against him next year. And then there's Rich. He complains that he has bad luck against me, that I always cause him problems... well the statistics tell the lie of that! Of 14 games I won a mere 3! And no, we aren't well matched opponents who regularly draw - there were no draws. He beat me 11 times out of 14! And some of them were rather irritating ones, such as the recent Tau that managed to pass 4 armour saves to hold my squad in combat away from the objective, gifting Rich the game. It's not like I can look for ways to raise my game against him, he just seems to be my nemesis - whether it's my Stompa refusing to turn up and face him, or a man who can survive getting run over by a deff rolla 5 times, or genestealers that break from Ld10, run through dangerous terrain and lose enough of their numbers not to rally... my point is something uncanny always seems to happen in his games against me to bely the odds. I don't see that ending any time soon!

Anyway, this post is a little dry, so will hopefully replace it with something better soon. But it may be of interest to the people mentioned, so I'll post it anyway :oP

Hope your 2010 was as good as mine, hope your 2011 looks better than mine does :oP

How much is too much?

2010-12-26T12:56:00.003Z

I've just added up my guard army for a mega apocalypse battle. Now normally against my usually opponents I'll have about 5k to play with and I'll carefully pick and choose what I want to take. This time I have been invited to play down the local workshop, and they said they were trying to set a record for how big a game they can play. I said I might pop down with my baneblades, to which the staff member inquired "Plural?" to which I gently reply "eight"

His eyes sort of boggled, a feat I've only ever seen in rats before.

"P-p-p-please come"

So having totted up every thing i have (with the exception of a few unbuilt bits and plenty of special weapon options - I have more special options than I can use so I can use the same basic troopers but vary the squad loadout with ease) I've come to about 17,000 points. This is such a total that I am actually assembling a team of wargamers to assist me with this army, to take control of some of the force to speed up gameplay. These guys either haven't got 40k armies of their own anymore or are down visiting family in the area and have not brought it with them. Or just don't want to pack up all their models for the trip, who knows.

Now most of these forces are old models that I'm not particularly fond of anymore (paint scheme wise) and will only bring out to bolster forces where necessary. I do plan to do some updated units so I can play my Catachans to my current painting standard, but that is a work in progress. I also want to build a 3k or so Aircav army for those Catachans (of which I have about 1k of the flyers so far, included in the above total) I am also about to start a special themed guard army for an October tournament as part of a tale of four gamers style campaign. So within the next couple of years I "hope" to have somewhere in the region of 22,000 points. And given a few thousand of that will be stuff that wasn't available in the last guard codex, who knows what I may add the next time they release the codex and bring out a new toy as awesome as the valkyrie/vendetta. And heavy forbid what is coming for the imperials in this so called "summer of flyers."

But seriously, how much is too much? I like nothing better than to see this mass force forging it's way across the battlefield, though I think this will be the first time I've seen this since my very first game of apocalypse (my baneblade collection was much smaller back then) I do have to admit, whilst I rarely get to see the force in full, the ability to chop and change my army as I see fit is very enjoyable - my opponents never know if I'm going to bring an armoured company or foot guard, even in apocalypse! This has earned me a reputation as the most unpredictable guard player anyone has ever met, to the extent that one of my friends once said playing a game like me was stressful for anybody, as a hive tyrant could march towards me, and I will charge it, and the hive tyrant will die at the sheer shock of the situation! This reputation pleases me, as there are far worse reputations for gamers to develop :oP

Tis the season and all that...

2010-12-23T10:28:00.001Z

I'm more of a bah humbug person myself, but thought I'd share this regardless.

It's that time again... time for a tale!

2010-12-21T15:13:00.003Z

Yes, I've decided to run another Tale of X Gamers campaign for my friends and I. I've done Tale of Four Gamers before, but as yet I haven't got an exact number and it exceeds 4 in any case, so for now it's just X gamers :oP

My planned rules for it are written below. This is a collection of the various posts made throughout last years campaign, with updated dates and clarifications.

Even better, I'm planning to use this to get my Escalation 11 army ready and painted.

Anyway, the rules are below.

Tale of X Gamers

Starts Monday January 31st.
Phase 1 lasts till last Monday of March
Phase 2 lasts till last Monday of May
Phase 3 lasts till last Monday of July
Phase 4 lasts till last Monday of September
Phase 5 will last an as yet undetermined time...

Phase 1 - 500 points. 5 points for on time, 3 for late (painted by first Monday of April) , 0 for unpainted. Bonus 1 point available for getting a combat patrol game in. (not necessarily a ToFG competitor, anyone will do. Get a couple of pics if possible.)

Phase 2 - 500 points. 5 points for on time, 3 for late (painted by first Monday of June), 0 for unpainted. Bonus 3 points available for getting a test game against someone (not necessarily a ToFG competitor, anyone will do. Get a couple of pics if possible.)

Phase 3 - 500 points. 5 points for on time, 3 for late (painted by first Monday of August), 0 for unpainted. Also, will play a mini-league with each competitor playing each other competitor. League rankings will determine bonus points. This will take place early August (date TBD) We will look to book the club for a Sunday to get the games in.

Phase 4 - 500 points. 5 points for on time, 3 points for late (painted by first Monday of October), 0 for unpainted. Bonus 2 points for modelling an objective marker. Further bonus 1 point for a further objective marker.

Phase 5 - As much extra as you wish for Apoc. Legendary Units, Super Heavies, whatever you like. Deadline is the day of the apoc game, probably late October or early November (date TBD). There will be no points available for painting, but simply put if it isn't painted you can't use it. Any units dropped from earlier 500 point blocks can be put back in here. All forces will join our standing 2000 point armies. The sides will be determined by the challenge organiser along the best lines he sees fit. Hopefully we’ll have some clear “goodies” and “baddies” that can team up, neutrals being assigned as needed... however if there are no clear easy sides to draw we will find another method, at random if necessary. Any difference in points will be covered by additional strategic assets for the poorer party. Scoring for this month will be 5 points for each person on the winning team. There will be an additional 5 points for the "Champion" of each team. This will be decided by completing a secret personal objective (so secret even their team mates aren't allowed to know!)

Additional Rules and Clarifications

The 500 points is the target. Give or take a few points that can be made up or dropped with wargear this is fine. Of course, in your test games you must have a legal army and the correct army value so bear that in mind when planning your forces. Your 1500 point army for the mini tournament will be made up of what you have painted thus far.

If anyone chooses to paint extra throughout the challenge that is their prerogative. However you can’t hold it off against next month. If you present 650 points in phase 1 you still have to present 500 in phase 2. The advantages for doing extra are more tactical flexibility when planning for the phase 3 tournament and more forces ready for the final apocalypse game.

Imperial armour books are acceptable sources for miniatures, unit entries and army lists. Anything found within those pages shall be allowed to be entered as part of the contest and used in games therein (though obviously apoc only formations can’t be used till the apoc game) The person wishing to do this however MUST possess (or have access to) the Imperial Armour books required.

If anyone wishes to use this as an exercise to add more models to an army that already has the core forces painted then this can be arranged, do ask for more details if this is relevant to you. I have a working solution in mind but I’m an idealist, I won’t go into it unless I have to :oP

When it comes to games, weapons on models and anything that would normally be represented needs to be. Wargear that doesn't need to be represented can be varied.

If you go to the effort of making your weapons alterable, through magnets or whatever, you can make use of this flexibility. The conversion work and painting the extra guns is the price you pay. Note though that in the mini tournament you must stick to one weapon loadout throughout.

Finally, while wargear can be changed, when it comes to the mini tournament we will each submit a list. That is what we play to for ALL games.

Apocalyptic Finale

To finish our Tale of X Gamers we're having an apocalyptic showdown, and I thought I'd give fair warning of the rules we are using for this one.

For starters, all models MUST be painted. It is a painting challenge we've just finished after all. It doesn't matter when you painted them, or whether you're missing something you should have finished earlier, if it's painted you can use it, if it isn't then it doesn't exist as far as we're concerned.

Second, scoring. Imperial Armour apocalypse rules will be used here. I will reproduce them below...

"The following model types are NOT able to claim objectives:

Independant Characters
Immobilised Vehicles or immobile models
Flyers (including those using Hover Mode to act as skimmers)
Units which are fleeing or pinned

Other than this all other units and models can both claim and contest objectives unless stated within the mission rules.

To claim or contest an objective, a model must be within 5 inches of the edge of the objective marker. No model or unit may claim or contest more than one objective regardless of size. Owning player picks if this becomes a factor.

Objectives themselves are counted as impassable terrain but do not block line of sight at all. It is not permissable for vehicles or walkers to 'park' on top of objectives for any reason.

Note also that owing to these modified rules the strategic asset Hold At All Costs is no longer relevant as listed and should not be used"

There will be a couple of additional objectives, again taking inspiration from IAA2.

Kill Score.
Kill points will be added up for any unit destroyed. Gargantuan creatures are worth 3 kill points, super heavy vehicles are worth as many as their starting structure points. Keep track of the kill points, whichever army holds most at the end counts as holding an additional objective.

In addition to this, we'll be using the Lord Of War rule. This makes the commander of the army worth 3 kill points instead of 1. For this, we will be using the characters that have been with us through thick and thin. These will be determined during the campaign by the mutual loathing of the enemy commanders, and will be made clear before the showdown. To give fair warning though, this will not necessarily be your BEST character - it wasn’t mine last time. It’ll be the one who’s built up the best “rapport” shall we say with your opponents. Opinions will be taken into account but the organisers judgement is final. The points for killing this Lord of War will be added to our kill points score to decide the additional objective. If it is a tie neither side gains the advantage.

For fun, I'm including the rule for crashing flyers from IAA2. I don't think there'll be many of these, but it could be a bit of fun to spice things up.

The basic rules will be for a standard apoc game, though we will have personal missions. These will be written in advance and will be secret (even from our teammates) Revealing the mission before the end of the game means your mission is void. You will have the choice of three.

Claim most objectives in the enemy deployment zone.
Kill the highest value enemy independant character.
Destroy the highest value enemy legendary formation.

In the kill/destroy ones, the person who takes the last wound takes the prize, as keeping track of who did what damage is far too much work. If both players on a team complete their mission, whoever did the harder mission is named that sides champion.

The winning team will get 5 points each. The champion of each team will get 5 points each. Thus each player can score 0, 5, or 10. Only one player will score 10.

Anyway, gamers, let me know your thoughts or queries on these rules. I've tried to keep things fluffy, balanced, and to use some input from Imperial Armour Apocalypse 2 to make it work with 5th edition and still be fun and quite a lot of carnage.

Anyway, let me know either here or on the club forum who's definitely up for it and what army you wish to do. I'll need answers by... mid january say, to give me a couple of weeks to finalise details. I'll be running the campaign through here again, with rules and queries cross posted to the club forum.

Good Luck

Tenacious Tau!

2010-12-14T17:19:00.002Z

Last night at my club I played against a Tau player. It was Sieze ground, spearhead deployment. My army was entirely in reserve, as I wanted to try something different. Two vendettas, a valkyrie, a couple of outflanking penal legion, Harker leading a squad of vets round the flank, marbo appearing... whereever he damn well pleases, and storm troopers deep striking in for the fun of it. I was struggling to make up the points without putting something on the table (and with only that to fire at for the first turn I figured anything I put down would DIE) so ended up chucking yarrick into my straken command. Sure it's pverkill, but it finished off my points...

The game was really close, though a few things annoyed me. I don't know whether to blame my rolling or the disruption pods, but you'd think that over the course of 5 turns shooting a total of 9 twin linked lascannon shots at a hammerhead I'd do more than shake it once. At the end of turn 5 I wasn't in position (my army had turned up in 2 halves, despite the +1 to reserves the astropath gives) and Rich was winning one nil. Turn 6 comes, and I'm poised to sieze the draw. All I need is for my veteran squad to beat up one tau and consolidate onto the objective for the draw. They wound him four times... he passes all four armour saves. Drawn combat. We roll for the turn - it's over, Rich wins. Gah!

We played a turn seven out of idle curiosity and the veterans did eventually finish off the tau to claim the objective, and yarrick managed to get in and contest another one, giving me a one nil victory if there'd been a seventh turn. But bloody irritating that I have to chalk that one up as a loss cos he managed to pass FOUR 4+ armour saves. I suppose it calls for equipping sergeants with power swords, but to do that across the army would be a bit of a waste to me for how rarely combat matters to guard.

I could have perhaps helped myself if I'd learned the rules for Harker properly. It was only turn 6 I realised he gave his squad stealth, so they would have been +1 cover for half the game. And it was only as I was putting the models away I realised he gave them move through cover. Given that I moved on 6, then tried to move into the building on a 1 + 2 three turns in a row, knowing that ability sooner may have been useful for getting to the objective. Or, I'd have rolled 1 + 1 + 2. Who knows.

Anyway, a good close game, but irritating to chalk it up as a loss when I feel I should have got a turn 6 draw turn 7 victory.

Painting Contest

2010-12-13T11:45:00.002Z

I wasn't gonna post the finished picture of this till after the contest but the "judge" popped by my house and saw it anyway, so I might as well.

This is my conversion of a tzeentch herald on chariot of tzeentch. I'm hoping to get some better pictures done at some point, but for now i'm happy with the result. The horror wasn't too bad, but getting the tails to stick on those screamers was a real chore. In the end I had to flesh them out with green stuff to a) keep them in place and b) cover the gap where the two parts didn't quite meet. At 20 quid for 3 you somehow expect better, especially when the plastics are so top notch.

Let's go round again...

2010-12-12T18:14:00.003Z

Looks like my Winds of War 10 force will get another outing!

My local GW are hosting a small tournament a week tomorrow, and having a fair amount of free time at the moment I've decided I'll pop along to it. I decided to take my 500 point combat patrol from last years winds of war out for a spin. However, this time it's 600 points... so I have 100 (technically 105 cos winds of war 10 I had 495 points) to spend.

Now I was wondering what I could put in that would still fit the theme of my force when I learned that it's not using combat patrol rules... So technically someone could turn up with a land raider. I have nothing in my force that could do more than tickle that, so that kinda forces my hand with those last few points. Especially as I now have to follow a standard FOC - I need an HQ choice.

As it is I've squeazed in a command squad with melta guns and a power fist, and transferred the storm troopers chimera to them. Their job will be to deal with any tanks the rest of my fluffy force can't handle. This also only gives me 5 figures to paint in the next week. I can manage that!

With a bit more time, and maybe a slightly higher points allowance (750 perhaps) I'd have loved to put a valkyrie in this force... heavily converted naturally, with the wings bent upwards and rocket pods on the wing tips - something like this really.

Maybe I will expand this force in the future to include a valkyrie, but I know I was struggling to stretch the ideas to 500 points in the first place (hence borrowing penal legion, effectively from Alien 3, to bolster my forces) so think I will only do that if a specific 750 point tournament comes up.

Armoured Might

2010-12-06T23:23:00.001Z

So been doing some more painting recently, and finally picked up this lot that have been sat base coated for oh 18 months or more...

A basilisk, 4 chimera and a chimera with a raised roof for ogryns. Still got a bunch more tanks that are either unpainted or in the wrong colour scheme (second hand) but this bulks out the amount of vehicles in the right colour scheme giving my army somewhat more consistency. Which is good.

Bitz Box Bonanza

2010-12-05T00:29:00.002Z

Had a reorganise of my bitzbox and found I had more sentinal bitz than I thought I had (namely two complete cabs) so I took a stab at making heli-sentinals. I've seen a few similar things around the blogosphere, so can't really give credit for this one, i'll just admit this one was inspired by others rather than myself.

I think these things will fit in nicely with my guard air cav army I mentioned in my last post. I hadn't intended to include sentinals, I wanted it to be entirely airborne, but these should fit in nicely.

Just letting the green stuff dry, and then I've got to find a way to mount them on flying bases. That should be "fun" :-S

First valkyrie...

2010-12-02T19:14:00.002Z

Finally finished this little beauty. It's my first so won't be my best, as I made a couple of assembly mistakes (meaning one of the rocket pods is wonky and the cockpit window doesn't sit perfectly) but overall i'm happy. So, the first of my aircav is ready to fly - now got another valkyrie, 2 vendettas and 2 vultures to paint, before buying the rest of the wing... :-S

Spartans! What is your profession?

2010-11-29T16:45:00.005Z

I bring my quiet interlude to an end with a post relating to this little project - an update in fact. As for why I have been absent, well a double dose of illness has kept me fairly quiet of late (viral flu like infection, and just as I was getting better, tonsilitis decided to kick me while I was down) but hopefully the blog will see a bit more activity over the next few weeks in the run up to THAT EVENT WHICH SHALL NOT BE NAMED (until about 3 days before it, which I think is probably the acceptable date for shops to start selling IT, though of course they don't listen to me, they start in August... I digress)

I have painted the two counts as land speeders, and have also done the marine squad, sanguinary priest and chaplain. All I have left to do is paint the counts as razorback, and model a power sword/crozius for the squad sergeant and the chaplain respectively. Hoping to get it done before THE EVENT which would be way ahead of schedule, given the target tournament I'm painting for is late Jan early Feb. It just means I have time to give my team mate a ribbing for not having done his yet (though I do believe he has now finished his army list... :oS)

Anyway, a few pics for your perusal.

Hope you enjoyed those, keep an eye out for my counts as razorback... my teammate and I did have something in mind for this, but he may have just found something else he wants to use instead - which is slightly annoying but if it looks better I'll be happier in the long run.

Anyway, tonight I go to my club for my second ever game of spearhead... let's hope it goes better than my first (Ork army bangs it's collective head against unkillable Baneblade while Stompa turns up on turn 5...)

Anyone else..?

2010-11-11T18:32:00.001Z

Having seen the pic of the Stormraven on bols... does anyone else think it's ugly as sin :oS

The FIrst heretic - Spoiler Alert

2010-11-02T21:49:00.003Z

I am not going to say much about this book, despite the warning above. Like most Heresey books it fleshes out the background of the Great Crusade, and I was utterly absorbed throughout. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read and hard to put down. I would recommend it to any Horus Heresy fan.

Now, that spoiler...

Just in case you're ignoring the warnings and reading this anyway, I am still going to be vague. But in this book the author takes a character through a series of visions. It is a vision of the scattering of the primarchs. It is a vision of ten of those primarchs coming to rest on their home worlds. The character did not know why he wasn't shown the fate of all the pods, merely ten of them - though as the reader you are free to assume the ones that chaos has their tenacious claws in are being shown. The ones that will fall to chaos. But no, there were only nine traitor legions I hear you say, so my theory must be false.

Well, from the vague descriptions given of each resting place and the contents of the pod, it is fairly clear that the primarchs revealed are, in no particular order; Horus, Lorgar, Angron, Konrad Curze, Magnus the Red, Alpharius and Omegon, Fulgrim, Mortarion, Perturabo and Lion El Jonson. Yet again that old debate about the loyalty of the Dark Angels will be fired up among my crowd. I'm firmly on the side that the Lion was at best waiting to see who won so he could join their side, and at worst was a secret traitor, waylaid by his own loyalists, but successfully covered it up. I am so very eagerly awaiting the final part of the Dark Angels part of the Horus Heresy series.

Anyway, overall a good book and well worth reading.

I hate resin!

2010-10-24T22:31:00.001+01:00

So with several elastic bands holding the tail booms in place, I have no idea if they've stuck well, though the resin weapon mounts I put on the wings seemed to stick fine. No where it does not seem to want to work is anywhere I have to stick resin to resin. There I can think it's holding, I can leave it a couple hours to be sure, I come back later and move the model slightly... And bits fall off!

Trying my hand at pinning one bit now. Was gonna pin the bigger parts anyway but right now it looks like if I want a tail fin to stay in place i'm gonna have to pin it, which seems a bit excessive! Any tips anyone?

Pit of Shades vs Steam Tank

2010-10-20T22:35:00.002+01:00

I've seen this question on a few forums, and here are my own thoughts...

In the Empire FAQ it says "Does the spell Pit of Shades affect the Steam Tank? - No" This is pretty clear cut and simple, but a lot of people are saying it's a hangover from when spells without a given strength value couldn't effect the steam tank. I think this unlikely. For starters, that line of text has survived two FAQ revisions since 8th edition, and STILL it remains. So I think it's meant to be there.

As for the explanation as to WHY it should still be there...

From a fluff point of view, Pit of Shades is a bunch of spectral hands reaching up trying to drag your soul to hell. If you don't pass an initiative test to dodge their grasping fingers, you die. Now the steam tank isn't exactly great at dodging it has to be said, but while those spectral hands may be able to grasp it easily - so what? It's a massive lump of metal! They're not exactly going to do much to stop that! They're not going to drag the steam tanks immortal soul down to a place of eternal torment... so the tank has good reason to be immune.

From a game mechanics point of view, if Pit of Shades effected the steam tank it would be devastating to it. Most spell lores have a super spell at number 6 that can really put the hurt on opponents. Purple Sun is a good example - that would, and will, annihalate a steam tank. But it's a tough spell to get off. If Pit of Shades was as strong as Purple sun (and what's more without the risk of Purple Sun of rolling a misfire) then that puts a level 5 spell as better than a level 6 - which kinda defeats the point. That's why I think Pit doesn't affectt eh steam tank - to keep it from being just TOO good a spell!

Anyway, as long as that's on the FAQ I have written backup for my point of view regardless of any arguments :oP but I'm more than happy to hear your opinions... after all, if they do change it next time they redo the FAQs you get to say "I told you so..." but only if your comment is written here first - no belatedly claiming you "thought so" ;oP

Escalation 2010 - How did it go?

2010-10-17T17:11:00.003+01:00

Well, it was a good day all in all, and good fun, so that's the most important thing down. A few of the scenarios were a bit odd, but I'm planning to go next year, so obviously not THAT bad :oP

For those of you who are interested in the details, here's what I got :oP

First off I was curious if my friends dire prediction of Space Wolves and Blood Angels players everywhere held true. I checked around. Out of 24 gamers, there were 4 Space Wolves and 2 Blood Angels - so a quarter had the armies he expected. And the MEQ total was about half. But there was still quite a good spread. Orks were also popular with 4, Eldar surprised me with 3 (one being an absolute thing of beauty, which richly deserved it's Best army award... and it's Fergus award... and he presumably deserved his Woodenspoon too. I'm shocked anyone had the heart to kill models that beautiful! But I digress...) Guard only had 2, Chaos Space Marines likewise. Then there was representative each from the following; Dark Angel, Tyranids, Black Templars, Imperial Armour Chaos Zombie List, Dark Eldar, Vanilla Marines and Tau. So quite a nice spread of armies really.

Game One

The first game was set out like the night fight mission from the battle mission book, with units placed in random sectors. My opponent had a squad of Khorne bezerkers ina rhino, and a plague marine squad (again in rhino) He deployed one near each objective. My Lootas were then well placed to engage his plague rhino (assuming the game lasting night fight didn't stop them) I had the grots in cover for a late game objective grab, the burnas poised to assault the contents of either rhino, and my boyz mob utterly surrounding the beserkers rhino. Sure he could tank shock his way out, but I was fearless and would just step out of the way. He then would not be able to assault if he disembarked, giving me the opportunity to assault him on my turn. As it is, I siezed the initiative... and my opponent conceded. He'd been worried enough about how deployment had gone and the bag he was going to have to fight out of if I was hitting his rhino on 6s... but being able to charge it from all sides, auto hit - emergency disembark would see to most of the beserkers - so he conceded defeat without a shot being fired. A bit of a cheap win, but a win is a win in a tournament, and while I was disappointed not to get a game, I took it in stride. Result - Win

Game Two

My second game was against an Eldar army for kill points. I went straight down the throaght, sweeping Wazzdakka around to the right flank. In his first turn he put 2 wounds on Wazzdakka. Never fear, I have a 3++ save I said. Promptly failed both. Wazzdakka then looked decidedly unhealthy. Kept driving right for the enemy, and it was very close. But Wazzdakka got dragged down (JUST - skin of teeth stuff) by the fire dragons and farseer - if he'd started that combat with full compliment of wounds, or even one, he'd have kept that unit busy for longer. Instead they were free to turn around and assist with the fusilade of fire against my mob that was within spitting distance of his lines, having resoundingly wiped out a guardian squad the turn before. He took them down. With the enemy having more kill points, and me down to my grots and lootas, it didn't work too well, and I spent the last couple turns just trying to accumulate victory points. Result - Loss.

Game Three

Green met green in game three, in a mission again inspired by battle missions. I believe it is an ork mission. Spearhead deployment, objective in the centre and each empty quarter. Only fast attacks can deploy. Well, that'll be nothing for me then. My opponent also held off his FA choices. However, the rules stated everything else was in reserve. So we couldn't even roll in from turn 1. So turn 1 nothing happened. Turn 2 a couple of my units turned up and advanced towards the middle. Opponent - half his army turned up. Turn 3 a couple more units turned up, the lootas running to get into a position where they can do something. My battlewagon rolled in and dropped off a mob, wiping out the kommandos on my right flank. My opponents turn, the rest of his army shows. Including an annoying couple of deffkoptas that manage to rout the lootas! A big scrap meanwhile kicks off in the centre as we start assaulting each other. In orks vs orks, generally whoever charges wins, and this proved to be the case here. Turn 4 a couple more things turned up for me, but STILL not Wazzdakka and his cohorts (meaning a third of my army are still not in the game!) Turn 5 they finally turn up, and things are looking desperate. I turbo boost them into the centre, recklessly, knowing they can be assaulted but hoping the armour save will hold them steady. Meanwhile my big mob assaults the opponents bikers and stormboys simultaneously, and wipes them all out. The opponent charged wazzdakka and co, but lead with his warboss. They were the only two involved (narrow access) and it was simulateous, hit on 4 wound on 2 instant death. 5 attacks against 4. My opponent fluffed his attacks. Wazzdakka got one through. The mob stayed, but they were in trouble. By the end of turn 6 I was holding the centre objective, and was well positioned to contest his sides objective while hopefully getting rid of the deff dread contesting the objective on my side. But the dice failed me - there was no turn 7!
Result - Draw

I was really irritated by this game, as given the first turn was none existant and the second we'd just about trundled on and looked at each other, it felt like only a 4 turn game. I reckon I would have won it if there'd been a turn 7 (read 5) OR better yet if Wazzdakka and co had arrived even one turn earlier. As such I plan to convert a new warbiker, wearing top hat and rabbit ears and carrying a rather large pocket watch, to try to encourage them (from sheer embarrassment) not to do that to me again! :oP

Game Four

The final game of the day drew me against Ken. He had the lead in victory points thus far, though the fact that we were drawn against each other shows we were doing similarly well. It was Dawn of War style deployment (without the night fight) on the most open battlefield in the room. I gulped. I fretted some more as Ken won the roll off, and on turn 1 set up a massive firing line to deal with me. I decided my best option was to try to use the cheap truks as cover for my battlewaggons, and do a refused flank to minimise the amount of shots he could throw at me. At first I didn't think it was working too well as Ken built up several points of a lead in this kill point mission. Then the boyz broke against his lines, and I surged into a few points lead of my own. Disciplined fire pulled it back level, and then we tentatively edged forward from then on, to get a 10-9 finish... in MY favour! Admittedly, if one of those penetrating hits on my battle wagons had rolled a 3 or better it may have been different... 3 times Ken rolled a 1 for that critical roll. And I have to admit my lootas did stupendously this mission, kicking out an insane amount of shots (clearly they had all the ammo for the last mission to use up as well!) It was a very close game, and I just about edged it. We were running out of time at the end so declared the game at turn 6 instead of rolling for it, but by that point both armies were battered and bruised. He could have turned round and shot at my burnas and tried to even the score (though I'd have gone to ground and rolled 3+ cover for all I was worth) but then my lootas would have picked off the last fire warrior of one squad to take the lead again. The remnants of the two armies were mostly seperated by a vast killing field, and there were very few victory points between us either.
Result - Win.

Result

The Bracknell Forest Gamers website hasn't been updated yet, so I can't give accurate scores for everything. I know it was an eldar player that got second (the one that beat me!) and will update in the comments once I know the rest. But I was very pleased to get 7th overall. Ken had a respectable 11th (top half of the table in first solo tournament, can't complain!) Ken can also brag about being the best Tau player there ;oP though I am curios if I can make the same claim.

I was also pleased to have the second highest VP total on the day. In fact if I won that game I drew (and think a little better luck in reserves or one extra turn would have changed) then those couple extra Tourney Points, combined with my VP, would have seen me ascend to 4th! Lofty heights indeed. :oP I did later realise, if I hadn't failed those two 3++ saves in Wazzdakka, and that game against the Eldar player had gone my way... I'd have been tied with the other two top scorers in place of the Eldar player - and my VP total would have seen me come first! But still, saying that, if I'd won my first two games on the trot I'd have faced different opponents in later rounds, and who knows where fate may have led me. But tantalising to think about nonetheless :o)

Overall, I enjoyed this tournament and while I have my reservations about some of the scenarios (I just wanted to put down the majority of my army and play - having two missions where I couldn't deploy the vast majority of it, and one mission where I could but it was deployed randomly - I think strange deployments are interesting to break things up, but they should be different to the norm, and not the majority of deployments.) I do intend to return for winds of war 11, and Escalation 11 too. As regular readers will well know, I already have some interesting armies planned for both of them (though with my usual thing of going for fluff over effectiveness I've no idea how well I'll do!) :oP

Anyway, with the pressure of Escalation off I now have to sort out what I'm doing for the Hammer N Ales painting competition though I think I may do that one in secret and do the big unveil on judging day. Pictures will eventually follow :oP

In the meantime, I'm sure I'll come up with something to write about on this thing :oP

Santa Ork Is Coming To Waaaagh

2010-10-05T00:47:00.002+01:00

Something for the Escalation tournament I'm going to in a couple weeks. I plan to use it as an objective marker, though may use it as a regular warboss in future games. Hell, if the stores all have their christmas stuff out already, no one can complain about me jumping on the band wagon...

Get your choppas out
Reload your gun
Give a grot a clout
We're gonna have us some fun
Santa Ork is coming to Waagh

He's making a list
And checking it twice
The boyz want some truks
And some burnas would be nice
Santa Ork is coming to Waagh

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
Cos he's peering through your window
So stop before you go blind mate

O! Get your choppas out
Reload your gun
Give a grot a clout
We're gonna have us some fun
Santa Ork is coming to Waagh
Santa Ork is coming to Waaaaaaagh!

How to Counter Teclis...

2010-10-02T16:12:00.003+01:00

At our local gaming club we've been playing quite a lot of Fantasy lately, what with 8th ed coming out. One player has been having a run of success with his High Elves (not to mention a few jealous glances at the shiny new models he has to play with) and has been showing just how powerful a choice Teclis is now. He still get's his irresistable force trick, can ignore the first miscast, and is quite frankly a magical powerhouse. So it came to my turn to take him on...

Now I used to play a guy who used Teclis in his Elves (though he has since sold the army and moved on to Lizardmen) and I found the way I killed him most often was to hit him in the face with a cannonball. The first time it was a complete accident - I was aiming at a dragon, overshot and by fluke he failed his "look out sir" roll and died. That inspired me. Henceforth I just kept chucking cannon shots at him, reasoning that he had to fail his "look out sir" roll sooner or later. I used the same tactic for other characters I didn't want causing problems in my Empire lines (Skulltaker for instance)

So it comes to our game. I'd drawn up a gunline list to test out a few shooting principles with a mind to drawing up a list for a tournament a few weeks from now. I took Balthasar Gelt in this list - I'd not used metal magics yet, and while I didn't expect the wounding against armour save to be much good against lightly armoured elves I thought the other spells could yet prove handy. By taking several small units of missile troops rather than the hordes my opponent has been more regularly facing, the big spell Dwellers Below lacked the devastating effect it might normally have. But to be on the safe side I didn't let him get too many magic phases in. My opponent had manouvered his unit out of LOS of the first cannon, and the second cannon fell short... luckily this gunline list had three cannons, and the third shot nailed him! His comrades, if they saw his impending doom, didn't feel inclined to save him. Maybe he'd been bragging too much about how he'd won every game pretty much single handed up to that point and they'd had enough. Either way, Teclis was paste. From that point, I had absolute magical dominance, and wiped out half his largest unit by turning them into gold (taking his Battle Standard Bearer with it!) It didn't help his cause that of his remaining 4 units (all needing panic checks) three of them failed! My opponent conceded as we were starting the third turn - he'd lost half his army while I'd lost barely anything. I don't normally like such one sided games, but it's always fun to kill Teclis! It was also good to get one over one of the expected strong challengers in the upcoming tournament.

Of course, sods law when it comes to the actual tournament my cannon crew won't be able to hit a barn from inside it, though I have joked in the past about modeling a sniper sight onto my cannon barrels. Perhaps I should do this in time for the tournament, to try to inspire my troops.

In the meantime, I will admit "shoot him with a cannon and hope he rolls a 1" is fairly limited advice for dealing with Teclis, but in every game I've ever played against him, I can't recall killing him any other way. On the flip side, I seem to recall achieving it a disproportionate number of times... to the extent that we swear he's hard of hearing.

"Look out sir!"

"Huh?" SPLAT

For those who were hoping for some more tactical insights, an ogre player I know has a trinket that makes Teclis miscast more and roll on the ogre table (though he still ignores the first one) whilst the lizardman player has the ability to pass his own miscast on to someone else (and Teclis CAN'T ignore that one!) I think Feedback scroll isn't the best way (how often do you get the chance to dispell a Teclis spell, he IFs nearly everything) and of course if you could get the Ring of Hotek close enough that may cause a few problems. But beyond that, I'll keep to my guns ;oP

Boombunnies of Khorne

2010-09-26T11:44:00.003+01:00

A few of you will have seen this scenario already, but got into a conversation with another blogger about squig based scenarios and so am posting this for his benefit. It's a scenario I came up with a little while ago hoping to do an Easter weekend apocalypse game, but in the end I couldn't organise the game in time, so it went on the back burner (maybe next year :oP)

Anyway, to the scenario...

Apoc Scenario: Warp Rift Rabbits

Background

War is raging on a world. The armies mass for titanic battles. The rage and hatred finds a weak spot, and tears a small hole in the fabric of reality through to a dimension of pure rage. A dimension of violence and hatred. A dimension, of the most vicious ill tempered rodents you ever heard of...

Battle is joined for the fate of the planet. But a deadly foe divides the forces. Can the armies control the warp rift and deny their enemies an exotic is somewhat risky biological weapon? Or will yet another land become overrun with...BOOMBUNNIES OF KHORNE!

Basic Rules

Apoc mission with some fifth edition modifications.

Use standard rules for which units count as scoring. Only units above half strength will count unless a strategic asset dictates otherwise.

Standard bidding procedure, however the losing side WILL have the opportunity to sieze the
inititiative.

Deployment will be standard apoc. The warp rift will be in the direct centre of the battlefield, and
will count as both neutral objectives. As such it is a vital objective (worth 2) and cannot be corrupted and despoiled.

Any psyker within 6” of the warp rift gains +3str to any str based psychic power, up to a maximum of 10. However, ANY roll of a double will trigger a perils of the warp attack. Any item that lets a psyker roll additional dice and discard/reroll can be used to avoid this fate.

At the start of the game there will be d6 Boombunnies deployed from the warp rift. An additional d3 Boombunnies will appear every player turn. The details for Boombunnies are given below.

Standard apoc scenario for game length, though estimate 4 turns per side.

Boombunnies of Khorne – cos even blood gods have a sense of humour.

Aeons ago a verdant world was full of happy smiling woodland creatures. It was like something from a disney movie, without the vomit inducing songs. One species rose to dominance at the expense of the others. The planet was overrun with a subspecies of rabbit. Of course, no sentient species lived there, so no one cared. Then the eye of terror erupted into existence, and swallowed the world.

Tzeentch looked upon the world, and decided he couldn’t make the creatures look any more
ridiculous than they already do. Coming from a god whose greater daemon tends to look like big bird, that’s saying something...

Slaneesh looked at the world, and decided that the idea of linking sex to rabbits was a bit of a
cliche...

Nurgle looked upon the world, and saw much that he could corrupt among those white cotton clouds and white cotton tails...

Unfortunately he was beaten to it by Khorne, who didn’t go in for all this looking and thinking
malarkey... not when you could hurl yourself into battle with an axe in each hand and a bloodthirsty scream on your lips.

After the first couple of hours and million or so dead rabbits, Khorne paused. There were no worthy adversaries here. The creatures had very little blood to spill, and the fur soaked most of it up. They could also breed quicker than he could kill them. He’d be here for an eternity. Khrone then had an idea. It is believed it was his second. Ever. He took the harmless, timid, easily confused creatures, and imparted some of his rage to them. They were now occassionally timid, certainly easily confused and startled, but also extremely angry! Khorne gazed across the fields of his influence, as the little blighters got so irritated with each other, they fought, and would get so enraged they would swell up with sheer fury and pop. Khorne found this hilarious, and watched for quite a spell.

Boombunnies of Khorne – special rules

WS___BS___S___T___W___I___A___LD___Sv
_5____0___4___4____1___9___D6__10___4+ inv

Boombunnies are Monstrous Creatures and are Fearless.

Every turn each Boombunny moves 2D6” in a random direction. Any unit it makes contact with it counts as having charged. This also applies to any unit contacted by an irritated boombunny reaction roll.

The soldiers quickly learned that these rabbits are not to be trifled with. When ordered to engage the creatures, unless the soldiers feel they are in iminent danger anyway, will tend to make only enough of an attempt to keep their superiors happy, whilst hoping not to attract the attention of the beast itself.

When shot from more than 12” away the creatures inv save becomes 2+ to reflect the fact that the soldiers are aiming in it’s general direction but actually hoping to miss.

The creature responds to loud noises, and can be unpredictable. Their reactions vary from trying to hide, or flee, to charging headlong at it’s percieved aggressors, right up to the extreme reaction of being so enraged as to physically explode!

Whenever a loud noise occurs within 12” the beast will react in an unpredictable manner. Loud
noise could be a unit opening fire or a vehicle driving past. If a beast wanders within range of a
vehicle, assume the engine is idling, and it will only attract the creatures attention if it moves or
fires. Weapons with the sniper rule do not attract the beasts attention, as they are presumed to be silenced.

Resolve the movement, or shooting, before making the beast reaction roll. If the beast has to make a save, add +1 to the result. If it has been wounded by a psychic attack, add an additional +1 to the result. (The khornate hatred of magics!) Assuming the beast hasn’t been killed in the attack, roll on the beast reaction table below.

2D6 - Reaction
2/3 - Cower. Digs down for a 2+ cover save.
4/5 - Panic. Runs 2D6 in a random direction.
6/8 - Charge. Charge 12” at source of irritation.
9 - Poof. Small blast centred on bunny. Str D
10 - Pop. Large blast centred on bunny. Str D
11 - Bang. 7” blast centred on bunny. Str D
12 - Boom. 10” blast centred on bunny. Str D

In death, the bunny is still a threat. Often the rage explodes from the bunny. If not that, the smell of the carcass is unbearable. Furthermore, they sometimes head back to the big bunny field in the warp... and that is not a place a mortal would wish to follow them to.

If a boombunny is killed, whether in combat or from shooting, roll on the following table and apply the result.

1 - The Boombunny goes back to boombunny heaven. Place a vortex grenade template where the bunny died. This follows the rules for vortexes from the next player turn.
2 - The bunny deflates, and releases a god-awful smell. Any unit in base contact must immediately retreat as if they’d failed a morale test, even if Fearless. The unit regroups automatically once the fallback move is complete.
3 - Apply the Poof result from the irritated bunny reaction table.
4 - Apply the Pop result from the irritated bunny reaction table.
5 - Apply the Bang result from the irritated bunny reaction table.
6 - Apply the Boom result from the irritated bunny reaction table.

Many forces have an interest in this world. Some for the side of good, some for disorder, whilst
others... well you never can tell can you?

Armies will be put on certain teams, and depending on how many players we get for each side,
the “neutrals” can be assigned to a team.

Forces of Good
Space Marines (and all variant chapters)
Witchhunters
Imperial Guard
Daemonhunters

Neutral
Tau
Necrons
Eldar*

Forces of Disorder
Orks
Chaos Space Marine
Chaos Daemons
Tyranids
Dark Eldar*

*These armies will not be on the same side... if there is a dark eldar player then the eldar will help the imperium. If there isn’t a dark eldar player, the Eldar will aid whichever side happens to work out best in the long run for the Eldar...

That Belated Tutorial - Halo Ghost

2010-09-23T18:07:00.013+01:00

Ok, so I know I promised a soon to follow tutorial to make this a couple weeks back, but my 9yr old brother in law came to stay for the week, and he was a lot harder to deal with than I anticipated. Anyway, today he is gone, so today I bring you that much belated tutorial.

First off, preparation. For this model you will need one Tau Piranha and one Space Marine Bike. I also used an Imperial Guard Heavy Bolter, and a couple of IG Sentinal Missile Launchers. Neither of these are necessary, you can use the weapons provided by the piranha quite well, I just wanted different weapon systems for the build I'm doing.

Of course, you won't need all the bitz from the bike and Piranha, just the bitz shown below.

A few of these bits had to be trimmed/filed down some. The space marine legs had to be shaved back to be level with the knee (use the piranha body as a guide to how narrow they need to be) which looks a little odd but will be hidden by the model. I trim the parts off the bike designed to hold wheels (for obvious reasons) and I adapted the guns to hold the heavy bolter. I also have some magnets I got from ebay that I will use to make my missile launchers removable - again, this bit is entirely optional. I then proceeded to glue any obvious halves together (bike, space marine body, missile launchers...) I also shaved the tau iconography off the shoulder pads, and trimmed the marine backpack mounting from the marine rear body. The results are below.

I plan to glue the drones in place as part of the chassis, so was able to use them as my missile launcher mounts. With this in mind, I glued magnets in the hole normally reserved for the flying base.

With preparation complete, it was on to assembly. To start, I glued the sides and back piece to the piranha body.

Next came the tricky stage. I put the legs in from underneath, then hooked the saddle under them while bringing the bike in from above. I then put glue on the piranha floor piece, and brought it up from beneath. A little glue dribbled down the inside of the body where the legs are flush against it will hold your man in place quite well. I then glued the body and arms in place before the glue was dry on the legs, in case I needed to reposition them slightly. This is the tricky bit with any biker though, not just this project! :oP

I then took one of the heads bought especially for this project, from pig iron productions. This doesn't fit perfectly in the space marine collar, so a small dab of green stuff needs to go in for this to sit in. I then tidy the green stuff around the edges.

I added the Tau backpack and shoulder pads to the marine body. I plan to do the same thing for the rest of the marines (spartans) in this project :o)

I then secured my gun in place in it's mounting. I then dry fit the wings, as I would have to trim these just a little to get round the gun mounting. In the second image below, the wing on the right has already been trimmed - not much needs be removed.

Next I glued the drones in place as missile launcher holders. Finally, I cut some plasticard to fill the back of the cockpit (where the second Tau would normally sit) You'll need to put a piece in the top and on the rear. I recommend doing the top first, as this lets you poke a file in the rear to help you get the positioning right (a mistake I made with the prototype, but managed to salvage well enough!)

The other mistake I made with the prototype was to glue the flying base stand piece to the ghost... BEFORE I undercoated it. So one of my ghosts will have a black tipped stand, but the other I will definitely do clear. Here's a final few shots of the model.

Winds of War - Land Speeder

2010-09-14T22:12:00.002+01:00

Next year ken and I are attending Winds of War at Bracknell Forest Gamers. We plan to do a Halo theme, and this is the first model produced - one Ghost shaped Land Speeder. It's armed with Heavy Bolter, and while they aren't necessary for the tournament I also magnetised a pair of missile launchers.

I still have to make another one of these, and for that I will take step by step pictures and write up a tutorial, both for ken to follow and any other interested parties. More on this project to follow...

Escalation Update

2010-09-12T16:07:00.002+01:00

These little beautys are actually for escalation next year, but converted them today so thought i'd show them off. Got one more to convert, i'll do it tomorrow. As for this years escalation, i've painted the squad of boyz I needed, but as i've put plenty of ork pics up before I thought i'd put these up instead.

Escalation 2010

2010-09-06T13:42:00.008+01:00

So, Ken twisted my arm a little and we now have tickets for Escalation 2010, an event held by Bracknell Forest Gamers My plan had been to do a guard army for this, though with getting married and moving house and what have you, there is no way I can complete this army in time. So, that's on the project board for next year - in the meantime I'm gonna take my Tale of Four Gamers Ork army for this year.

I'll be using mostly what I've already painted. I need to paint up a few more boyz, a few deffkoptas, and I WANT to paint up some different objectives for an amusing little theme for them, but more on that when I have some models to show. In the meantime, to the list!

Round 1
20 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw and Bosspole – 160
10 Lootas (1 Mek) – 150
10 Burnas – 150
10 Gretchin 1 Runtherd – 40

Some good firepower, a couple of scoring units, and burnas to draw my opponents attention from said scoring units.

Round 2
Wazzdakka Gutsmek – 180
10 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw and Bosspole – 100
Dedicated transport – Truk red paint, ram, boarding plank and armour plates – 60
10 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw and Bosspole – 100
Dedicated transport – Truk red paint, ram, boarding plank and armour plates – 60

Some mobility to the list along with a couple more scoring units. I tend to take mobs of 12 in truks but with trying to get exactly 500 points a time 12 boyz at 6 points each just provides a real headache! Wazzdakka will turbo boost around tank hunting for me, hoping his 3++ save and T6 will keep him safe.

Round 3
11 Warbikers inc Nob with Power Klaw and Bosspole – 315
Looted Wagon, ard case, red paint, grots, stikbombs and big shoota – 65
Battlewagon, ram, red paint, grots, stikbombs, 2 big shootas – 120

In round 3 Wazzdakkas mates turn up to give me a highly mobile and tough scoring unit. The looted Wagon can potentially take a unit where they need to be or hold aunit with slightly better protection on a home objective. And the battlewagon lets the boyz from round 1 finally mount up!

Round 4
20 Boyz inc Nob with Power Klaw and Bosspole – 160
Battlewagon, deffrolla, red paint, grots, stikbombs, 2 big shootas – 135
4 Deffkoptas, 4 twin linked rokkit launchas, 1 buzzsaw – 205

And finally in round 4 some more boyz come rolling in with their own wagon, and some deffoptas round out the points.

Anyway, that's my army. With less than 6 weeks to paint 12 boyz, 3 deffkoptas and a couple objectives, I should be able to manage it. Provided I don't get distracted by something shiny... like the stuff Ken and I are working on for Winds of War 11, also at BFG... I'd better not tell you about that yet, otherwise I'll end up working on that project instead! :oP

Murphys Law

2010-09-01T08:24:00.002+01:00

Attended the club on Monday night, facing Nige with 2500 of Ogres against my Empire forces. Technically I won the first game - the roll of mission gave us the army breaking point one. For a game of this size your breaking point is three, your fortitude is two for the general plus one for every standard. If fortitude reaches breaking point you lose. Due to poor army design on Niges part, his fortitude at deployment was three... so, I won! :oP

I magnaminously challenged Nige to a rematch, and we rolled for the mission again. This time we rolled Dawn Attack. This is where you roll off for where the units from your army show up. I deployed first. I ended up with both cannons on my right flank (with a decent cross field shot) protected by a unit of swords with detachment of handgunners. I had my general, BSB and big unit of spears over on the left flank (typical) along with the other unit/det of swords/handgunners. The flagellents took the centre, and the two mortars and two hellblasters also took the centre. I had two Shadow wizards offering augment/hex support.

Nige ended up with his hobgoblins on his right, both units of leadbelchers on his left, and everything else coming straight down the middle.

Murphys Law - anything that can go wrong, will. This is pretty much what happened from turn two onwards.

I let my flagellents charge his massive unit of ogres (18 or so strong) knowing they would die, but hoping to take plenty down with me. I had my shadow wizards poised to (potentially) reduce his toughness by D3, reduce his strength by D3, or let my flaggellents use their LD for str (10) All I needed was say 5 or 6 power dice to get one of these spells off for sure. Not too much to ask for surely? Seems it was. I rolled 3 on the winds of magic. My wizards channelled nothing (depsite using four on the Arcane Ruins) I even used my power stone, and still couldn't get a spell off. The flaggellents were without support when they needed it most. Still, if they could make the 3+ required to get rerolls to wound it might still work out. Nope. Got a 1. So they have hatred... which they have anyway. Oh dear.

In return, Nige tried a spell that inflicted 2D6 str 2 hits (no armour save) on my swordsmen. I let this pass through. He rolled 8 hits. Needed 5s to wound, he'd get a couple I thought. 7 wounds later, we have a failed panic check, and the swordsmen run... taking both cannon crews with them! The leadbelchers merely rubbed salt in the wound, eliminating my right flank by turn 2.

My swordsmen on the left flank did manage to chase the hobgoblins away, and reform themselves ready to charge the flank of the Ogre unit. They then failed their charge from 8 inches away. Thus the ogre unit charged my spears. This is where I started to bull it back. Niges general issued a challenge. My general accepted. Thanks to the potion of swiftness he was I7. No vhs for me this time (that was on a random wizard) this time my general had the mace of Helstrum - allowing him to sacrifice his normal attacks and make a single S10 D6Wounds attack. Thank heavens the warrior preists get a reroll to hit - the ogre general was smashed to pieces. The ogres won this fight (by 1) but thanks to the BSB the unit stuck around. The next round the shadow wizard finally got the spells off to reduce the S and T of the ogre bulls, allowing the spearmen and late arriving swordsmen to beat the ogres in combat and chase them off in the final turn of the game. With the unit fleeing and counting as destroyed, there was a mere 25 point difference in victory points. A draw.

Overall, with how disasterous this game was (summed up best by my ten handgunners, needing 4s to hit, rolling 4 ones, 5 twos and a three) I am more than satisfied with a draw. I wouldn't change the list all that much to be honest, as it is a fairly decent balanced list. With a bit better luck from the winds of magic, I would have done better. I quite like using Shadow, as with the augments and hexes it is a good balanced lore (heavens being better against flying things, light against evil things, metal against armoured foes - Shadow doesn't really have a favourite opponent)

We'll see how next week goes.

Marbo...? polo!

2010-08-23T08:27:00.002+01:00

Played a couple of away games this weekend, on a visit to my friend Ken. Took a list that was designed mainly to play with some newly painted sentinals. It had 9 scout sentinals, and a catachan flavoured list led by Straken. 4 squads vets in chimeras (2 squads melta, 2 plasma) a couple squads penal legion, and two 2 tank batteries of hydras. And of course, Marbo.

My opponent had a Farsight build Tau army. Lot's of suits, 3 squads of fire warriors, a broadside battery 2 devilfish and a hammerhead.

The first game was one objective each, spearhead deployment. This game went very well. Marbo devastated the broadsides with a well placed demolition charge. He then ducked to avoid the survivors instant killing fire. He was then assaulted by the broadside, knocking down the protecting dinner plates and chasing the broadside down. He made a thorough nuisance of himself! Meanwhile one penal legion squad held my objective, despite a late attempt to wrest control from me. By the end of turn 7, there were 2 weaponless immobilised devilfish, and one fire warrior squad hiding in a building. A solid win.

The second game had three objectives, dawn of war deployment. Having seen how much of my force could outflank my opponent castled up in the centre of his lines. He had the first turn and swiftly withdrew his forces back to his own area. I attacked along a refused flank, though with a bulk of chimeras and hydras in the middle as a firebase. This game the Tau had far more success in taking out my forces, my flanking attempts doing minimal damage before being swiftly dealt with. My opponent did do a fatal error though. He pulled his forces off the objective in his deployment zone (fearing the heavy flamer armed sentinal would get too close. He loaded them in a devilfish for more mobility, but a couple of rounds of shooting from a hydra kept stunning the tank, preventing it from moving. With a veteran squad holding my home objective I was in the lead, with several squads bearing down on the centre objective. The game ended on turn 5 with a 1-0 win for me, though I think on turn 6 I could have got rid of the immobilised and stripped hammerhead that was contesting the central objective. I think Ken would have needed a turn 7 to try to force the draw, despite finishing the game with far more intact forces.

All in all a couple of good wins, and good to be back with the guard after Waaaghing for so long!

FIRE! I bid you to burn...

2010-08-12T17:22:00.001+01:00

This is Arthur Brown. He lives in a crazy world. He's my freshly painted Empire Fire wizard.

Productive Weekend...

2010-08-10T14:39:00.006+01:00

So, for those who may have noticed my painting points tally shooting up these past couple of days, I had a long weekend at work... and one of the benefits of my job is that while shift means I lose half my weekends, on the weekends I am in work, it's quiet enough for me to get some painting done in the idle hours between calls. Here is what I have managed to get painted over the last few days.

Above we have a Karl Franz on foot conversion I made a little while back, finally painted. I did him in his own cities colours, and while that will make him stand out like a sore thumb among my Hochland force, I think I'll only be bringing him out in the really big games anyway (now that we're back to percentages on characters)

Here I have a wizard of the Amethyst order. I'm really liking the Lores of Death and Shadow at the moment. It does help that I seem to be playing Lizards and Ogres, and these two lores punish low Initiative. If everyone starts playing Chaos Knights then Balthasar Gelt will look a lot more appealing! I need to get a shadow wizard, but for the Lore of Death I am very happy with this guy.

Some very simple old models, finally with a bit of paint on them. I got these about ten years ago now, so will admit to not putting much effort in, as to be honest I hate the models now. But they will make up numbers in my army, and regiments aren't cheap. So I'll give them some colour instead of grey plastic and learn to live with them a bit longer.

Here I have some of those crazed idiots, the flagellents. This is the first batch of ten, I'm halfway through the second batch, with a third to follow! But I do love these guys in game so it's about time I got them painted. I like the model too, though am deliberately giving them a grubby look (when the world is ending personal hygiene seems to go out of the window - ask any teenager! :oP

And finally, I finally got this little mob below done. Getting through all those parts of the Ork army I rarely use, may have a fully painted army one of these days. Only a looted vehicle, 10 Stormboyz, 20 Boyz, a skullhammer and about 30 deffkoptas to go now... :oS

Do You Know What Nemesis Means?

2010-08-04T19:34:00.003+01:00

A righteous case of retribution, personified by an appropriate agent. In this case manifesting itself, as an orrible **** - ME!

Snatch quote aside, the book is a really good read, and another fantastic addition to the Horus Heresy series of novels. Like a couple of others (Mechanicum springs to mind) this book focuses less on the legions, and far more on the humans of the Imperium. Admittedly, assassins are quite extraordinary humans, but they are human nonetheless. This book gives the assassins a human side I'd never before considered - though this of course is in varying degrees - the Culexus doesn't come across as all that human, and has an autistic quality to their character. But given the background, this does make sense.

Obviously this book has the major drawback that it shares with the whole heresy series - we know who the bad guys are. We know which legions fall, we know who wins. We also know that, whatever happens, the assassins will fail to complete their mission of killing Horus. But like most Heresy novels it brushes this aside. We know the Alpha Legion fall - Legion told us how and was a fascinating book. In this, we know they do not suceed - but it is still an excellent story that had me gripped to the end.

Spoiler Alert

Speaking of the end, and please do not read any further if you have not yet read the book... or if you do so then don't blame me, I've given plenty warning! :oP

Anyway, at the end it was implied that Horus had been tipped off that the team was out to get him, and thus sent someone else to take his place. But who tipped him off? Not many people knew about the team. Is there a traitor among the leaders of the assassins? Personally I think not. My own opinion (and if you're going to disagree in the comments, please give the same spoiler warnings I have given here so people who skip this paragraph don't accidentally get the story from your riposte) is that the "traitor" if you will is none other than Rogal Dorn. He seemed so appalled by the idea of sneaky war, that while I do not think he would ever betray the Emperor or the Imperium, he may have tipped his brother off about the assassination attempt. Why, you ask? Partly because he thinks assassination is a dishonest way of making war. Mainly I think because he thinks Horus predictable and a preferable adversary to whoever would take the reigns of the crusade following his death. And possibly, despite it all, he wouldn't want to see one of his brothers meet such an ignoble end.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. All in all, an excellent book. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment of the Horus Heresy series.

Quiet Day At The Office

2010-07-31T21:48:00.001+01:00

I do enjoy those quiet saturdays at work where I manage to get some painting done... In todays case these beauties! Ironically my colleague whiled away the hours playing dawn of war on his laptop. He has no interest in the hobby, but does appreciate a good game.

Lego moves with the times

2010-07-28T22:22:00.001+01:00

The policeman used to be helpful. Sometimes drove a rescue vehicle. Sometimes had a criminal in a cell. Nowadays? Some git with a speed camera!

Shh... sneaky sneaky...

2010-07-28T10:37:00.002+01:00

Ok, slightly delayed by a PC failure, but here are my finished Kommandos. I did 18 in all to allow some variety, including two Burnas, two Rokkit Launchas, and a power Klaw Nob and a Snikrot conversion. This gives me two choice of squad leader and some flexibility in the special weapons I take. I like the effect the lichen has on them, but I have to admit it's proving unreliable at staying where I want it! These models will definitely need to be handled with care!

Kittens...

2010-07-26T08:33:00.001+01:00

Cute. But destructive :-S

My kingdom for a horse!

2010-07-25T15:27:00.001+01:00

Well, actually, for a tub of PVA glue. Had finished my unit of ork commandos, varnished them - now just the basing and other scenic touches to finish them off before I go to work, so they'll be dry for photos when I get home tomorrow. What's this, no PVA? What else, the shops here don't have any and I haven't got time to go to one of the shops that would sell it, cos I have to leave in less than an hour. Doh!

In the meantime, here's one of my sneaky commandos who fills his base to the extent that I don't need to put any scenic touches on him. He'll have to whet your appetite for now...

Looted!

2010-07-21T17:35:00.002+01:00

Rolling out of bugrits workshop, a patched together vehicle from the salvage leftover after the apocalyptic ending to the tofg campaign.

Thunderbolt Complete

2010-07-21T14:16:00.001+01:00

With my recent conversion of a lightning giving me the motivation to come up with a colour scheme for any Imperial Navy aircraft I own, I finally got round to finishing the Thunderbolt I've owned for heaven knows how long! And here is a shot of the finished result.

There's another one of those film references to this piece, though not quite as blatantly obvious this time. I wonder who will pick up on it...

Dark Elves FAQ Query...

2010-07-17T16:06:00.003+01:00

Browsing other blogs today I spotted a review of 8th edition, which mentioned that Ring of Hotek had been nerfed a little - it could still be used by getting close to enemy wizards though. Now this troubled me as Ring of Hotek has always been far better as an umbrella for my own units than for a dark pegasus hero to go chasing enemy wizards - heroes like that tend to get themselves shot full of nice conventional arrows and the wizard carries on the next turn. It also seemed strange to me to change the item so much in what it can do, but the AMENDMENTS part of the FAQ would seem to bear this out. It says

Page 102 - Ring of Hotek
Change to "Any wizard (friend or foe) attempting to cast a spell within 12" of the wearer must roll on the Miscast table on any roll of a double, but will only cast a spell with irresistible force on a roll of double 6."

This seems simple enough, it says any wizard attempting to cast a spell within 12" but makes no mention of targetting. However, in the FAQ part of it there is the following...

Q. Do area of effect spells miscast on a double if they affect any model within 12" of the ring of hotek? (P102)
A. Yes

But hold on, surely that can't be true if it only matters if the caster is in range as opposed to the target? This is why I think they've done it wrong. I think they made the amendment given the new rules on IF/Miscast. It used to be Miscast overruled IF. Now you get both... so it's possible people might think if IF = Miscast then Miscast must therefore equal IF - effectively making the ring of hotek a spell magnet! To avoid this, they've stipulated that the msicast roll is for any double, but IF only double 6. This of course means IF still get's through now, which is a slight nerf for the Ring, as opposed to transforming the ring into a useless trinket as otherwise seems to be the case. But as the part about the spell failing and miscasting instead has been removed, this suggests to me that the ring has been nerfed further by allowing spells that pass their base casting cost to go through... the wizard just gets a miscast too.

This reading of it would seriously tone down the ring of hotek without making it completely useless. I fear that making it into something that can only be used by someone following a wizard around... well hell, it'd be cheaper to just give your hero a couple of repeater handbows and finish the job quicker and easier, rather than messing around with a ring the wizard can probably march move out of range of anyway!

I'll be discussing this with my regular gaming group to see what people make of it, and see if we can establish a house rule, but as several of them read this I may get a good read of their opinions here and now! If anybody else wants to chip in their two cents as well, they're more than welcome, I'm interested in what other people have to say about this :o)

The campaign rumbles to an end...

2010-07-15T16:07:00.002+01:00

I've recently been running a campaign at my local club. It was my first campaign and I had a few ideas. Some of them worked, others not so much as I'd hoped. I have some better ideas for next time, but that can wait for now...

I used Orks in the campaign, and despite going undefeated throughout I am out at the first knockout round. My worst result from the buildup was a solitary draw, and the same result met me in the first knockout round. Not having time to play a rematch, my opponent and I flipped a coin for it. I lost.

To be fair he'd had the better of the game anyway, turning my assault on his left flank into a slugfest that halted my advance. My usually effective nobs squad was slowly cut down by penal legion troopers with the rending ability - of all the skills they could have rolled that was the worst for me. In the fight my opponent lost a guard squad, a vets squad, 2 penal legion squads and a straken led command squad to my warboss, unit of nobs and half a unit of kommandos. More importantly however, he stopped my power-klaw armed nobs from getting to his heavy armour and making mincemeat of them. They, unharrassed, proceeded to take apart much of the rest of my army.

By far the most annoying unit (aside from the penal legion) had to be my opponents psyker battle squad. Its ability to weaken resolve meant that whenever my biker squad (led by Wazzdakka himself) had to take a morale test for 25% casualties, they did so needing snake eyes. After spending the first 4 turns running, rallying, running again, they'd finally had enough and were beyond the point of rallying. That single 110 point squad disabled and saw off 500 points of my army, and arguably my toughest scoring unit to boot. I managed to make a nuisance of myself by clinging tenaciously on for a draw a couple of turns after any hope I had of capturing an objective evaporated. So all in all, fate favoured the more deserving. I can curse the heavens if I wish, but I know I'm the fool who recommended both penal legion and psyker battle squads to my opponent. Hoist by my own petard indeed.

So for now the orks are going back on the back burner. With 8th ed arriving and everyone showing an interest in warhammer I'll be going back to swords and shields down the club for a bit, and perhaps blow the dust off my guard once or twice too. I'll continue with the occassional painting project for the orks as they take my fancy (I have far less of a backlog with them than any other army, it'd be nice to clear it for one army at least, though I doubt I will ever achieve quite such a feat. With an Orkish campaign under my belt, and a friend talking about running a tournament in August, I think maybe it's time to get the guard out to play again.

In the meantime, Bugrits got plenty of scraps to be working on, I'm sure you'll see the occassional random thing come clanking out of his workshop over the coming months!

I'm at Third and Main...

2010-07-05T15:21:00.004+01:00

So, for something different, I painted up this Lightning Fighter I converted. There's a film reference in this piece, I wonder how many of you get it?

A couple more pics, but wasn't too impressed with how these pics turned out with the flash. I need to practice my model shots! :oP

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Orks Sighted on Holy Terra!

2010-07-04T20:53:00.001+01:00

Whilst no greenskins have been discovered, Imperial forces did find this Battlewagon - complete with Deffrolla and Killkannon - at Goodwood, Albion. All citizens are asked to keep watch for signs of greenskins, or other "dastardly" characters...

Journal of a Sentient Grot - Industrial Action

2010-06-30T19:14:00.002+01:00

Comrades! We have today earned a great victory, and the time for celebration is upon us!

Let me start at the beginning. My efforts to get my muscularly challenged greenskin kin to rise up with me against our brutal oppressors has met with some success. I talked (and threatened and bribed) the entire community into a strike! We hit this tribe where it hurts most - we shut down promethium production. The fleet of vehicles swiftly ground to a halt, bringing Bugrit to the negotiating table we'd set up at a small town near the edge of the forest.

Admittedly, Bugrits negotiating tactics were somewhat better than mine. He brought the entire tribe, who were somewhat annoyed. He muttered something about "lernin ow to negoshiate from maggie" and proceeded to fire clumps of my kin from the building through the warp to the ground below, where any deranged survivors would be set upon by the crowds below. Clearly the power of the unions will not be my route to success in my endeavours to bring my kind to the top of ork society.

At this point though, things changed. The humies, obviously seeing our entire tribe caught on foot, decided to attack! That dastardly Koenig fellow was back again!

Naturally, with a more entertaining opponent arriving the entire tribe turned and ran towards the ridgeline the enemy occupied. Despite the withering hail of fire put out by the enemy, the tribe got amongst them and ran amok. The imperials had set up a firing line and barely advanced beyond it. Before long, we'd wiped them out to a man!

Most importantly, from the word on the grapevine I believe that Koenig may well have been struck down. Will this be the last we shall see of him? Here's hoping. And in further good news, with such a comprehensive victory, we managed to seize some key imperial assets - those cursed anti aircraft units that normally tear our truks to shreds. Admittedly they aren't currently in the best condition, and we may never get them working as well as they did... but then neither will the enemy, and sometimes that is quite enough!

With our numbers thinned we're back working harder than ever at the promethium plants, and I have learned that industrial action is not the route to glory. I will think of something else. I'm just biding my time.

Till the next time, farewell.

Escalation

2010-06-21T09:55:00.004+01:00

I had originally hoped to make Escalation this year with a specialised project, however I fear I won't be able to complete the project in time. I might still go taking my Tofg Orks, but am not sure yet. However, having come up with an inspired theme for this list, I AM going to do it... it just might have to wait till Escalation 2011 to show itself off.

Escalation is a linked campaign. 500 points gets added per phase, My list is below.

Round 1
Platoon Command; vox, autocannon – 45
Squad 1 – 5 all identically equipped; plasmagun and autocannon – 375
Penal Legion Squad – 80

Round 2
Commissar Lord; power weapon, carapace armour, camo cloak, meltabombs – 105
Marbo – 65
Ratling Snipers – 30
Ratling Snipers – 30
Armoured Sentinal Squad – 165
Rough Rider Squad (10) – 105

Round 3
Primaris Psyker – 70
Veterans; carapace, 3xPlasmagun, vox – 150
Veterans; carapace, 3xPlasmagun, vox – 150
Vendetta – 130

Round 4
Platoon Command ; vox, meltagun - 45
Squad 1-5 all identically equipped; meltagun and missile launcher – 375
Penal Legion Squad – 80

Reasoning

This army is designed from a fluff point of view, much like the Bug Stompers Winds of War force. I am therefore working from a self restricted codex. I am trying to keep in theme, while still trying to maintain some competitiveness.

Round 1 is for combat patrol. There are plenty of scoring units for objective based games, while I can make it just 3 kill points for those missions. The infantry platoon will provide a solid firebase which can despatch light vehicles (with 10, 15 and 20 str 7 shots out to 48, 24 and 12 inch range respectively. The platoon is best suited to holding a home firebase while hoping the outflanking penal legion can attack the enemy position.

Round 2 I bring in a commissar lord who can keep that infantry blob in the fight as enemy firepower increases. The sentinals are good for light vehicles or infantry, chucking out 9 str 6 shots a turn. By making them armoured I can also guard a flank with them, as they will be far harder for most troops to defeat in combat than the scout version. Marbo can cause some disruption amongst the enemy, and the rough riders gives me a good assault unit to guard the other flank. The snipers will hopefully cause some pinning checks. I considered doing one squad of 6, but considered 6 ratlings just as easy to kill or see off as 3. At least with two units I force my enemy to fire twice, and can potentially pin two units rather than one.

Round 3 brings in some better troops, while the vendetta provides something that can hurt heavier tanks that are more likely to appear at this level. It also gives another way for me to take scoring units to the enemy. The primaries psyker will hopefully add a different dimension to my game, but he’s primarily there for fluff purposes.

Round 4 brings more troops, to bolster scoring units for objectives, and bolster the home firebase. Again in kill points I can reduce my numbers significantly, and by putting the commissar in one unit, close to the second, I can use his aura of discipline to keep 100 men in check. They are equipped with meltaguns and missile launchers to help deal with the heavier tanks that are probably becoming more prevalent at this level.

By round 4 I’ll have two large infantry blocks (or 10 squads) providing a home firebase, with two outflanking stubborn units to attack enemy positions. I’ll also have a couple of better skilled scoring units to try to advance on the enemy, or hitch a lift in the vendetta. I designed this army to the 1500 point level, and then had to add another 500. Hence the similarity between round 4 and round 1. What amuses me is that I have 2 HQ, 3 Elite, 6 Troop and 3 Fast Attack. And NO Heavy Support. Is this Ginge? Is this Guard? WTF?

It's a Sad Day...

2010-06-20T13:37:00.002+01:00

for free speech. I've had to turn comment moderation on.

Now please note that I will approve each and every comment that is made on my blog, whether complimentary or otherwise. But I am getting sick and tired of having to delete comments that are nothing but hyperlinks to "certain" websites. They are unwelcome on this site, and are no doubt unwelcome on From The Warp. I don't want this troll to get my blog kicked. So I am taking action.

I have tried using word verification to protect my blog from comments, but it seems this troll isn't a computer - it's really someone who has nothing better to do than sit around posting comments on blogger. It seems kinda sad to me, I only hope this pitiful existence is how they make their living, and not just some sad hobby.

Perhaps I will be able to de-activate the moderation in time, but as long as this troll keeps bouncing off my moderation I'll keep it up. For the genuine commenters, I will endeaver to approve your comments as swiftly as possible.

It's sad that it's come to this, but please don't be discouraged from making your comments.

Thanks for reading.

Ginge

Waste Not...

2010-06-16T20:07:00.006+01:00

Some of you noticed that a large chunk of my latest project contained the hull of a valkyrie. Now that may seem an expensive kit-bash, but I had plans for the rest of the bitz...

Credit where it's due, I originally got the idea from this blog but while I took some hints and tips I didn't follow it to the letter - I was after something that looked more like a lightning than a generic fighter. Below are some pictures of the result.

This is from one valkyrie kit, with a couple of extra hellstrike missiles (for this lightning they're gonna count as skystrike missiles) and a couple of spare guard heavy weapons to give the correct armament. And of course some plasticard and green stuff!

Look for this to make an appearance controlling the skies at an apoc event as soon as I can attend one... in the meantime, I feel the need...

...the need for speed ;oP

Primaris Psyker - Green

2010-06-10T13:11:00.001+01:00

Using the free mantic games ghoul I got, and copious amounts of green stuff, I made a primaris Psyker for my escalation project. You can barely see the original model under the green, but I loved the pose with the hands. Really looks like he's about to lightning arc some poor soul.

As far as i'm aware, this models main weakness is his overconfidence - I really shouldn't judge, as it's been said I rely on my friends too much from time to time, as i'm sure he'd be the first to point out... :-P

New Project

2010-06-02T13:30:00.002+01:00

I had hoped to attend Escalation 10 at Bracknell Forest Gamers (those who hosted the great winds of war) and came up with a themed army to do as a project for it. However, with the house move I don't think i'm gonna make it in time. I'll still do the project, but it's likely to be over a longer period, in time for Escalation 11.

In the meantime, I started with the centrepiece of the army, a counts as vendetta. It's obvious enough that it should give the theme away completely, so look forward to an army that follows the same theme. And the time issue? The army is a lot of infantry, and I have to learn a good technique to paint those infantry white!

Back Again!

2010-05-29T21:39:00.005+01:00

So, haven't been on the blog for a while. Sorry for the unexplained absence, but the house move has met complications (well, internet complications anyway!) and with most of my hobby stuff still in boxes it may be a little while longer before I put up a proper hobby related post...

So, for now, here is the website for my local club that a friend of mine completed not so long ago. Hopefully be putting some events and stuff on it soon enough, not to mention pics for the gallery.

www.hammernales.co.uk

Nobbled!

2010-05-04T13:08:00.004+01:00

So this weekend managed to get a squad of Nobs and a warboss painted. Not got the pics yet as still have to base them, but knowing I was having a game after work on Monday (thus wanting to keep the game small) I figured an expensive unit of hardness was a good way to eat up points and reduce the size of my army. Thus my 1500 point list was

A warboss with Power Klaw
Wadaka Gutsmek
10 Nobs (including 3 P.Klaw, 6 Big Choppas, a Waagh Banner and a painboy. The unit was designed for WYSIWYG, and so a plethora of bosspoles was on display - the nobs normally leading squads. This did give me some flexibility to play around with the wound allocation if needs be, but the squad wasn't designed with that in mind)
dedicated transport - Battlewagon with Deffrolla
11 Warbikers inc Nob with P.Klaw
10 Burna Boyz inc Mek
1 Battlewagon with Killkannon

I was up against...

A Tyranid warrior prime (HQ) attached to a squad of 4 warriors
A zoanthrope
A unit of 2 Zoanthrope
A unit of 3 Shrikes
2 units of 3 Ravenors
2 Hormagaunt Broods
A termagent Brood
A trygon
A trygon Prime

Ouch.

We rolled the Cut and Run Ork mission, and I deployed on one flank. My opponent did the same (as much as he could given the size of the army) with the trygons deep striking.

He got the first turn. The lone Zoanthrope blew up one Battlewagon. The pair of Zoanthropes blew up the other. Bad start. He also got both squads of ravenors and a hormagaunt brood in combat with everything I had.

The nobs squashed the Ravenors and freed up the Burnas and themselves to move on. The bikes took a good tally on the gaunts and ravenors, but not enough to kill them off. With a battlewagon wreck between the bikes and the rest of the orks, and more nids incoming, the nobs and burnas left them to fend for themselves. The burnas toasted a brood of hormagaunts before the Nobs charged the warriors and lone zoanthrope, killing the alpha warrior, zoanthrope, and most of the warriors.

In turn 2 the bikes were under more pressure as the shrikes entered the fray. The two trygons turned up and shot the hell out of the burna boys, though the two survivors passed their morale check (though had gone to ground) Meanwhile the nobs finished off the warriors and moved on. In the Ork turn two, the Nobs waaaghed to get into position to charge the zoanthropes AND the trygon prime. They killed both. By this point the kill points were in my favour - Rich had to table me to win. And technically I could exit from my table edge from turn 3 onwards. The bikes meanwhile fell after failing 7 out of 8 4+ armour saves. The lone Nob being run down without the nids even having to make an initiative roll (his I plus poor dice roll was less than their I!)

Turn 3 Rich decided it was do or die. Sure he could use his better mobility to scoot around taking pot shots... though with feel no pain on the squad this may not be too effective. Besides, if he played that game, I could simply walk off the table for the win. He decided on do or die and charged everything towards me. The hormagaunts left over from the bikes finished off the burna boys, while the ravenors and shrikes charged the nobs. They did some wounds, but were wiped out in return. The Nobs then charged straight for the trygon, killing it in a single round of combat (though losing a couple of their number for their efforts)

The hormagaunts reverted to instinctive behaviour, and assaulted the nobs. They didn't last long. With a single unit of hermagants in cover, the 3 nobs and warboss (all wounded) could have walked home for the win... but that wouldn't be very Orkish, and no way to end such a terrific game. So they advanced on the hermagants. The only tactical thing I did was split the warboss from the Nob squad so that one lucky round of shooting couldn't wipe out my entire army!

Turn 5 the gaunts shot and killed another nob. In the ork turn 5 the boss rejoined the squad, and they wiped the gaunts in combat. Victory!

Overall, the nob squad and boss cost 530 points, so a large chunk of my 1500. But given they took out about 1350 points of my opponents 1500, it was a fair price! This was a terrific game, and I can see how the nob squad is open to abuse. I don't intend to do so. I merely played by the rules after equipping them WYSIWYG (as any regular reader here knows, I'm particularly fond of playing to that standard) After losing both battlewagons on turn 1 I was really up against it, and am very glad I managed to pull off the win (and do so without running off the board like the mission parameters said I should, in a distinctly un-orky fashion!) :oP

Psyker Battle Squad

2010-04-27T15:16:00.001+01:00

A quick dab of guard, though my painting posts will be a little more sporadic for the next few weeks, as in the process of moving house.

Painted the overseer of this squad when I did my penal legion overseers, but he was boxed up and camera shy. He'll join them for a game when i'm moved. In the meantime, my orks are gonna be the last things I pack!

Shokk Tactics

2010-04-19T23:42:00.003+01:00

A friend of mine has come up with an interesting scenario for a future club event, and while I'm not going to steal his thunder by giving the game away too early, the army list selection for this had me looking at Imperial Armour for extra units. I was looking at the Mekboy Junka. It can be taken either as an Elite choice, or as a dedicated transport to a Big Mek. And it has given me an interesting idea...

As part of my Tale of Four Gamers campaign, I wrote some background material involving a sentient grot. This grot was very interested in the possibilities of the shok attack gun. With this in mind, I have an idea for an army. I doubt I'll ever realise it, given the strange nature of the army (lots of grot gangs for starters) and I don't yet know the points costs, but here is the outline of it.

HQs - Big Mek with Shok Attack gun, with junka with shok attack gun. x2
Elites - Three Junkas with shok attack guns
Troops Grots - Just Grots
Fast Attack - Have to miss this out as can't find any suitable elements yet
Heavy Support - Grot batteries, Killa Kans

I doubt I'll ever get to use this army, though I may possibly do a proxy game at some point if I come up with a good enough list. It could be a funny game with lot's of shok attack madness! Watch this space for a list sometime in the future...

England Expects...

2010-04-18T11:49:00.002+01:00

Fancied a change of painting pace, so have painted up my uncharted seas fleet. Very quick and easy scheme, my entire fleet in one batch (though if my friends and I take to the game i'm not ruling out buying more)

As for painting points, i'd feel like I was cheating if I classed them all as vehicles... So have given them points roughly in line with their size. 2 points for the battleship, a point each for the cruisers, 2 points for the 6 frigates and 1 point per submarine (including both it's decoy markers) for a grand total of 15 points.

Now I just need to get my second game in with this lot!

Stompa!

2010-04-08T20:49:00.001+01:00

Just realised that quite apart from having done several word heavy posts of late, I never did get round to putting up a pic of my tofg Stompa, wanting to keep it a surprise for the big day. So here it is, in all it's orky glory!

ToFG: Journal - Onward!

2010-04-01T09:33:00.003+01:00

Well my friends, the battle is over. We broke like a wave against the imperial frontlines as the cowardly chaos marines snuck around behind to shoot them in the back. I guarded the rear door of the Stompa, waving at Imperial survivors.

The chaos have made off with some fancy trinket or other, and have fled the system, fearing hot pursuit. Not sure why... the imperials have been forced back to lick their wounds, the tau are awaiting reinforcements, and we just don't care. With no one left to fight, we grow tired of this world.

Don't get me wrong, this planet has been good to us... especially in that last battle, where with the Tau and Imperials dismissed from the field and the chaos heading for their ships laughing maniacally, we had all the time in the world to loot and salvage. Look for some interesting items to come out of our workshop over the next few months...

Speaking of which, we've moved our workshop onto a small flotilla that is currently following Wazzdakka. He's promised us some action as he fights to build his highway from one side of the Lukas Worlds System to the other. It sounds like fun, and we've fought off some Imperials, while Wazzdakka repulsed some Chaos marines before storming a neighbouring guard world. He's making his way to us, we'd better get started from our side!

To all my faithful readership, I will keep you informed of developments.

Clash of Heroes!

2010-03-29T15:28:00.003+01:00

So with the new battle missions book I was curios about the special mission Clash of Heroes. It is all about the special character and how many kills they can rack up. Of course, if your character kills your enemies, you instantly win.

Thinking about this, as good as Straken is, against most enemy commanders, he'd get badly beaten. He wouldn't stand a chance. So guard can't go for instant win, we have to go for a points decision. So I designed an army.

My hero? Marbo. He's cheap. He can deploy anywhere I like. And will hopefully make his points back and then some with a well placed demo charge.

To counter my opponent. A mob of 50 conscripts joined by a commissar lord. 5 squads of infantry (mobbed up around a commissar) with chimeras to channel the enemy. A valkyrie for dropping in key avenues of approach, and a couple of stubborn penal squads for desperate situations.

I played against a chaos army, led by Kharne the betrayer. It isn't entirely clear whether killing your own side counts, but we assumed not (thankfully, as he killed most of his squad over 12 rounds of combat!) He had a couple of squads of marines, a squad of beserkers, a defiler, a squad of lesser daemons, a daemon prince and a couple of rhinos.

Target 1 for me was the rhinos. I wanted kharne walking where I could keep an eye on him. I also ran all my (empty) chimeras straight at the enemy to bunch up the field of play. I then steered my 50 strong mobs towards Kharne. My opponent took the bait. Now over the course of the game he managed to wipe out the conscripts, with the daemon prince and the beserkers sharing the spoils of victory. But with a stubborn Commissar Lord keeping the conscripts in check, the fight lasted a long time. Long enough for the infantry platoon to pile in. My opponent made a big error - assaulting the valkyrie with two squads. He did nothing, and the valkyrie could move off, leaving him in a nice demo charge bundle... sadly Marbo showed me his one flaw. Relying on a reserve roll. He failed to come in till turn FIVE!!! In which time kharne hacked and slashed, and between conscripts and guardsmen, killed 35 men over the course of a 7 turn game. But my men would not run.

In the end, the combat was still going as the game drew to a close, and Kharne had made back 158 of the 165 it cost to buy him. So -7 scoreline. Marbo? Turned up, and despite my opponents efforts to keep the demo charge at bay by assaulting tanks and hoping for an immobilised result but not a kill, I got to throw it and killed 5 lesser daemons, making his points back in one fell swoop. The chaos marines then charged him (aware of his sniper pistol) and over a couple of rounds of combat they killed him several times... course in this scenario he cannot die! He struck a couple of them down to give an overall score of 30 for the win.

So my theory proved workable, depsite many things going wrong. Oh how I'd have loved to face Abbaddon and a term squad, with Marbo showing up promptly.

A: "Who dares blow up half my terminator squad?!? You! I'll kill you. Wait, die silly conscript... out of my way you foolish human... Marbo, where are you going? Face me... not you conscript! How many more of you are there?!? 40 more! And who's that guy in black at the back waving you all forward? Don't listen to him! Fear me! Marbo I'll get you yet... You've got yourself an ICE CREAM?!?!? Gah! Get off my shoe you worm!!!"

ToFG: After Action Review

2010-03-29T11:38:00.003+01:00

Well, the dust has settled, and the Stompa glares across the battlefield as the roving battlewagons grind a small mug to dust beneath their tracks...

The apocalyptic showdown to ToFG has been and gone, and we had a wonderful time. It was great to see four fully painted armies fighting it out over a table laden with painted scenery... I don't think many of us had achieved this before, much to our shame!

The Orks went for the subtle approach, lining up in the middle of the board as far forward as possible and running screaming towards the enemy. The few chaos forces that deployed mostly hid behind the Orks.

The imperials and Tau set up a gunline behind some defence lines, about halfway through their deployment zone, with a substantial killing ground in front of them.

The arsonistic Orks set fires raging that obsucured visibility early in the battle. As the smoke started to clear, a stompa walked through it! Also several trucks and battlewagons barrelled through, a green wave to break against the Imperial/Tau line. Meanwhile, the sneaky cowardly chaos had arrived behind the gunline, in order to shoot them in the back. Oh such the chaos way...

With the guard soaking up the bulk of the "back" shots and the orks taking the bulk of the punishment in the face, it fell to the more mobile Tau to carry the fight for the forces of good. The Ork Stompa had been immobilised short of it's target of the enemy super heavy - it's wildly innaccurate fire from the killkannon failing to finish off it's foe. It did manage to peg one of it's own trucks that had moved up hoping to take an opportunist shot with a wrecking ball. Oops. Hur hur hur.

With the evil forces winning solidly on kill tally (worth an additional objective) the manouverable Tau were looking for a way to tie the game. In the end they saw off the diminishing Ork ground forces (Bugrit buried by a collapsing tower after a strafing run by a barricuda) to claim a fair share of the battlefield... the kill tally settling the game in favour of the forces of evil. The one surviving named character, the daemon prince Beeswax, (he'd survived this long by avoiding half the game, then hiding behind an immobilised super heavy for a couple turns... he'd only popped his head out in the open for 5 minutes!) flew at the enemy baneblade. The stompa, filled with overexuberant Orks, eyed their target. They "accidentally" targetted the Baneblade so that shrapnel from the blast would fall just short of Beeswax. When the shot scattered and hit Beeswax square in the back (how do you chaos wimps like it?!?) the boys whooped and hollered... till they realised the fuse hadn't primed right, it'd failed to wound him - though it had left a terrific bruise and reports say he still grimaces every time he tries to pick something up.

Overall a fun game was had, and with the Orks failing in their mission of killing the super heavy (something Rich eventually achieved) Rich was champion. Thinking Rich would have gone for the enemy character I'd already given up sharing the objectives in enemy territory with him in order to contest a neutral one. Working for the greater good gifted Rich an additional 5 points. It's irrelevent... win or lose I needed to get 5 more than him. Scoring the same as him was not good enough.

Ken captured most territory in the enemy zone, but as Chris had already killed Wazzdakka his mission was considered higher, and he got the bonus. So, campaign points for the battle are as follows;

Rich - 10
Ginge - 5
Chris - 5
Ken - 0

Which gives an overall Tale of Four Gamers score of

Rich - 39
Ginge - 29
Chris - 23
Ken - 12

So, Kudos to Rich (you don't actually WIN anything in this :oP) and hope you all enjoyed it, and hope you can keep up the workrate ready for next time I do one of these. And next time Rich, you're doing a horde army I swear! :oP