The Tau Are Coming.....

Thats right, Tau are coming to this very blog, as allies to my Evandalists, and as a force in their own right. My birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and having a wee bit of money and a couple of Games Workshop vouchers, what better way to spend than something fresh!

 So the colour scheme I've gone for is Loren green with a nice good wash of Agthrax Earthshade. Tau rarely use metals, so I've gone for grey on the weapons and tech, and so far I'm really happy with the contrast between the colours. I'm currently debating whether to paint the details in a colour or a similar grey, but one idea was as the colour scheme reminded me of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to perhaps paint different units akin to the Turtles themselves. So Blue for the leaders and elites, Orange for troops, red for fast attack, and purple for heavy support. Its definately tempting me but we shall see!

 

Stealth suits look awesome, these havea bti more of a ways to go before they're finished than the Crisis suits but I'll get there slowly. I think I'll do the eyes red, as I like the way green and red works together, and was how my Mordheim Raiders Blood Bowl team were painted, so its a wee nod to those.

The jet pack of the stealth suit. The closer you go the more tidying up you can see I've got to do... Yikes!

And lastly my Firewarriors. I love these guys, strength 5 basic weapons are goooood! They've done me well so far, taking down two terminators in overwatch fire, and taking down another 4 in one rapid fire shooting phase. Combat they do die easily but the shootyness outweighs this!

So thats the basis of my army, I've also got another 7 fire warriors for this squad and a Hammerhead. Earlier today though I had a random knock at the door, and it was Andrew from our club. He'd been clearing some of his old mini's out and came across some Tau. So now I've got another bunch of Firewarriors, Kroot, Krootox, Vespid, and a sniper team for the princely sum of £45. Score! I'm well on my way to a nice sized force, upto about 2000 points is my intended target. Broadsides and pathfinders next please!

Transition and Evolving.

This post is a little different to normal, as it doesn't focus so much on the models, rules, my own army or someone elses for that matter. Its not about the direction that Games Workshop are taking any particular game, race or hobby materials, and its certainly not about the next even deadlier batch of Tyranids. This is about community, and in particular, the gaming club.

Having joined Tredegar Wargames Club just under a year ago, we're soon looking to enter a transitional period. In just a few weeks time, we'll be losing three of our most regular members. All three guys have been at the club far longer than I, and I think its fair to say help make the heart of the club beat greatly. Monday nights will surely be a little quieter thats for sure! So what does this mean for the club?

First of all, I think its fair to say we're a small club. We have at least 20 members, but many of these have the rigours of life that keep them away, be it work, children etc. This leaves us with around 10 or so regular members. This still gives us plenty of variety in games, whether its 40k, fantasy, specialist games, or non GW games being played at our venue. While the gap left by those leaving to pastures new will be noticeable, we still have other members who give greatly to the club in terms of inspiration and soul. The thing is, we now need to evolve.

A few months ago, I was asked to be Chairman of the club. To be part of the club for a short period and asked to take up this position was a great honour, and the longer I've been in this position the more I've seen how much needs to be done. With three people leaving, we need to recruit more members and fill our ranks. The more people we have, the bigger and better our club will be. With more members comes more money, which, with good planning could go from us surviving, to growing. I personally would love to see us grow with new members, take part in friendly tournements with other clubs, put on special events, and be able to buy more things for us all to use. The question is how.

Part of the reason of this post is to see if any of you have had good ideas about making your club better and bigger. We're currently floating a lot of ideas around, posters, fliers, promotional video etc, but everything is unproven. We have a great venue, and we need to start using it to its capability. We recently ran our first all day event there which you may have seen recently on my blog, and we'd love to run more like it. The lads who are leaving for university will still come back to visit, so we'd love to run some more all dayers to coincide with their returns.

Its only in the 11 or so months that I've been in this club that I've rediscovered my love for the hobby, and the people at the club are an incredibly huge part of that. I've built an army of my own, started a second, been to Warhammer World with the club for a huge battle, once to spectate and once to game, I've even had an interview at Games Workshop to work on the White Dwarf magazine. My love for videogames has been put on a backburner as the batteries in my Xbox pad last longer as I toil away painting at my desk long into the night. This hobby hasn't just caught my imagination, it coiled its delectable tendrils around my brain and simply won't let go... and I welcome it. 

This is why I want our club to evolve into a larger and even more enjoyable place. So just how do you attract new members to the club? How do you show them your own enthusiasm and passion for this hobby and inject it into them? I ask these questions to you, the blogging universe. 

6th Starter Set

So what do we have here.... No rumours, no pinches of salt... just some good old solid truth. I think everyone knows about the new starter set which will be released in just a few days, but how do we all feel about it?

First of all the contents. Take a look at that picture... Phwoar!

Two nicely sized armies with plenty of variety of units for newcomers to learn about. The smaller rulebook I know will become an Ebay hit, as many people wish to sustain its larger brother and have something more transportable. Templates, a booklet outlining the units in the box and the missions along with a nice reference sheet help finish off the set. Of course, the real stars of the show will always be the miniatures and rightfully so.

Firstly, the Hellbrute. The first time you see it, you'll be amazed at its bulk. Its as if a Great Unclean One, a Dreadnought and an Obliterator had some Slaanesh sexy time and this beast was born. I do have one problem with it however. As amazing as a model it may be, its not going to be very poseable, which in turn equates to a lot of very similar looking hellbrutes out there at least until a boxed version with options comes available... which itself makes me excited. 

The other Chaos models are really well done. The Lord and the Chosen look great, plenty of character and detail embedded into the models, and if you havent already I highly recommend popping over to the GW website where you can get 360 degree pictures of them to marvel at. I however, am most enamoured with these chaps.

Chaos Cultists. Why? I've always been intrigued with perhaps doing a chaos army, but story wise its the uprisings that appeal to me. Dark Tidings afoot, and murmours of Traitorous Marines coming to the world to tear it asunder. As the defenders steady themselves, cultists appear and turn everything on its head even before the Chaos Space Marines are even on the planet. I love the idea that people everywhere suddenly show their true colours and turn upon those they were once friends with. I'd love a huge horde of them, some Imperial Guard Tanks perhaps, with some allied Chaos guys to be in charge. Sounds like a future army is brewing! Also though, is how well they'd fit as a Necromunda gang, they'd be amazing!

The Dark Angels contingent is really well done too, although as a Chapter they don't really appeal to me. I do feel that GW missed out by not having normal Marines in the box or at least having them be easily converted to be normal Codex marines. Expect a lot of these on Ebay too! The two models for me that stand out are the Librarian and the Limited Edition Chaplain, both are very nicely done and I may be tempted to do some extensive work on both to unclude them in my army.... Very extensive!

So in all, I think a great package especially for £65. I know a lot of people will be swapping contingents around so swell their ranks, and I look forward to facing off against these! 

What do you all think of it? Can you see some great idea's for conversions? Do you plan on swapping any contents? Your thoughts... Give them to me!

Day of 40K.

Thats right, a day. we opened the doors at 10am, and were able to get started by mid-day. We thought about this for a wee while, so I was able to organise to have the hall we play in for a full day for a pretty good price. Let the onslaught proceed! 

We had two teams, Imperial, and non Imperial. On the Imperial side was Morgan and his Space Wolves, Aaron and his Blood Angels, Jamie with his Grey Knights, and myself with my Evdandalists and new allies the Tau. Chaos gods had spoken into the minds of Louis, Mike and Owain, Bam fielded his Legion of the Damned army with the evil ones, and Alun and his Necrons also stood to invade the Emperors world.

First of all we played two games. Owain, Mike and Louis vs Morgan and Aaron, whereas myself and Jamie took on Bam and Alun.

The Imperium lost both opening games, not a good start! We'd decided also to make a note of player points, and after the first game Bam had taken the lead and I was not far behind. Not bad considering a loss! Jamie's Grey Knights failed to make much impact and lack of numbers proved decisive. I still had some troops left and had my Termies killed Bams Captain and Dread or I could have finished off his tactical squad holding a vital objective, I could have stolen the game. Moral victory, not just for that but my Predator gained revenge against Aluns Doomsday Ark by blowing it out of the sky, YES! 

Onto the next round, and to make it interesting we all had to nominate who was playing on what table. We had three, so that meant the Chaos team would have two duos and a single, whereas we had one tandem and two single players. After thinking about how they may plan their attack, I calculated that Owain and Mike would play together, Louis and bam would tema up, and Alun would be on his lonesome. And I was right. I took on Owain and Mike, Aaron and Jamie took on Louis and Bam, and Morgan and Alun continued their storied rivalry.

I won deployment and set up knowing that a good opening round of shooting would be a great start and put the Chaos side on the back foot. As Mike and Owain deployment Bam and Louis cheered as they stole the initiative. Unlucky! Owain rolled to steal it in our game... and promptly rolled a six. No! I'd set up quite aggressively too, with a couple of units fairly open.

 The first turn saw my Hammerhead nearly being destroyed by a Defiler, luckily I made the cover save. Mikes Dread was in range with its multimelta, hit, penetrated and then blew it up. That was painful! My Hammerhead failed to hit anything all game until the final turn, despite only needing to roll 3+. It was fianlly able to kill Owains Slaanesh dreadnought and deny him a point for having a unit in my deployment zone. My Land Raider was able to destroy the Defiler and deliver my Captain and Termies onto Mikes objective, where my Warlord roll to make my Captain a scoring unit would prove vital. The Stealth team were able to cause some pain to Owains troops, slowly whittling down his units. My Storm Talon killed Lucious the (not so) Eternal with a couple of Krak Missile shots and also managed to kill more of Owains squad to deny them another objective, although he was able to get his other unit on there. After the first turn I felt like I was going to lose, but managed to wrest control and get a vital win. Elsewhere, Aaron and Jamie were pounded, losing to the vile duo of Bam and Louis. Morgan and Alun fought out a stalemate, each side unable to capture the relic. Final game!

This was on a bigger board, 8x4. 3x3 and 2k points each. Me, Jamie and Morgan versus Louis, Alun and Bam. Vitaly we got the first turn, although Night Fighting was in effect.

 

Due to time constraints, we were only able to get in three turns each, and that was 3 hours of game time! We had played for 12 hours, and every hour was packed with fun. This was still plenty of time for plenty of blood to be shed. Jamie managed to get himself some better luck in this game and got us our first kill points. First Blood by taking out the Doomsday Ark, great start to the game! My vindicator survived 4 glances by getting a 6+ cover save due to nightfighting by rolling two sixes, cue me fist pumping. Morgans drop pod troops and blood claws were embroiled in long combats that swung either way, although Logan Grimnar killed himself after mind control scarabs infiltrated the old mans mind and made him smack his own head. Should have retired! My storm talon killed bams predator and a necron flyer, I also took out a big necron warrior squad and chaos squad with my captain and termies, and my firewarriors took out a last raptor and finished off a couple of terminators that were Fabius Biles bodyguard. We also lost a lot of units, 2 Land Raiders, my Hammerhead, and several squads all died in the name of the Emperor. However, it was not in vain! After the third turn we had more victory points, although overall from the other games we were down by several. After much totalling up we had discovered that I had the most points of any player, YES! Not sure how but it was nice to see that I've got back to winning ways, especially against such good opposition. 

I know there are many other tales of heroism and luck, sneakyness and straight out jamminess, but my memory barely remembers my own stories let alone other peoples. I'm very happy with how my Tau have integrated with my Space Marines and look forward to perhaps one day fielding and all Tau force. 

Onwards!

Happenings.

So I've been sort of quiet lately, but that certainly doesn't mean I havent been doing anythign hobbywise! Alongside news which I'll reveal later, a week ago, myself and old adversary Jase had a game, SM vs BA. Mission? Capture the Relic. I've yet to win this, and didn't feel too confident when Jase won the first turn. but onward! Deployment

Being a week ago I forget exactly what happened, but Jase was able to get control of the relic fairly quick.My Whirlwind was pretty atrocious, failing pretty much all game to score a hit. Although, Jase's Allied Eldar Pathfinders failed to kill anything too. Ha!

As per usual, the middle of the battlefied was the centre of the action, being that the objective was situated there. When Jase obtained the relic he proceded to move back, using his Furioso and Death Company as roadblocks. 

Despite my best attempts, my Terminators could'nt kill enough Dire Avengers each turn, and the Legion of the Damned failed to survive against a brutal charge by assault marines and Astorath. 

I did kill the initial unit that had the objective but Jase recovered well and was able to get control of it again. A failed Tank Shock at the end of the game was the final nail in my coffin. Ouch! Overall my army performed ok, and I didn't feel like bad luck lost me the game for the first time in a while. Could this be the start of a decent run? Who knows! We both had a great time though, and Jase deserved to win. I think my deployment was sound, but again I failed to stick to my plan and encircle with my Land Raider instead charging into the middle. Stupid Kev! Ah well, next time Jase... NEXT TIME!!!

There have been stirrings at the club recently, and many armies are gaining new allies to help them on their chosen path. Whether this be to claim new worlds for the Emperor, destroy everything in the name of Chaos, or take actions for the Greater Good......

Yes folks, I've got myself some Tau. I'll be using them mainly in larger games of about 1500+ points, but am looking to create a decent sized army. As last Monday was my day of birth, my lovely lady got me some vouchers and thus arrived two Crisis Battlesuits. A Tau Codex was kindly donated to me by Club Legend Andrew, and the Hammerhead and Stealth suits I got myself along with a squad of Firewarriors. Colour scheme has been chosen, but I'll wait until I've done a few more and got a better feeling for it before I get some decent pics. They've played in one game so far, when Morgan came over to mine for a game. What promptly happened was the stuff made of fate.

At the end of the fifth turn. Morgans Space Wolves were wiped out. Score! The Tau helped immensely, moving, shooting then darting back into cover. My commander I fielded with two plasma rifles, and this was a great combo. My Firewarriors rolled well, and the stealth suits are fun to use. Looking forward to more games with them!

Best of Three.

So last Thursday, myself and the Mighty Mogan Power Ranger went down to one of our favoured playing spots, Firestorm Games in Cardiff. We figured we'd go early, get a few games then some food. We weren't wrong! We got ourselves through 3 really good games, different points and lists each time, then managed to (easily to be honest) force a foot long sub down our mouths in a nice warm day in Cardiff. So... onto the games!

I completely forgot to take a picture of the second game, but we had a draw. I managed to kill enough of Morg's Grey Hunters from one objective so the survivors were more than 3 inches away... but barely!

The first game however ended too soon for me to be able to pull a draw or win back, if I'd been able too! We had 3 objectives and Morg captured on whereas the other two were either contested or not even looked at! I took 8 Lascannon shots at Morg's Vindicator and every single one failed to penetrate. My luck seems to be consistently bad! Morg's Wolf Scouts did try to blow a Rhino up when they arrived behind my lines but he failed to hit. Bane of the Meltagun! 

The third game we played was Capture the Relic, which was located in a trench. We kept the terrain to a minimum, which in turn made this bloody! My vindicator inflicted a lot of pain, and Morg's psychic powers threw my army into disarray. After my Tactical Squad which had both my Chapter Master and Chaplain were terrorised, they fell back, only for one of Njal Stormcallers special rules to make them fall back again! This took them out of the picture. I couldn't capture the relic, but I had killed Morgan's Warlord, got first blood, and thanks to my Legion of the Damned and Stormtalon occupied his deployment zone. The Stormtalon also managed to kill the Grey Hunters who held the relic, forcing it to be dropped. Game win to me! Makes a change I can tell ya! So the day ended with us both having a win, draw, loss, and belly full of Subway. 

I'm currently getting some buildings painted up, plus I have a new squad to paint up... more details in a couple of days... but it would appear I have ALLIES!!!!

Games Aplenty!

So THIS weeks club night had a few games going on. We've booked the hall we use for an entire day in a couple of weeks so are hoping to get a good days worth of gaming out of it, so that should be a good post with a bunch of pictures.

Morgan and Mark had a bit of a grudge match, Space Wolves versus Dark Angels. I think it was 3000 or 3500 points each, and looked crazy.

Venerable Mike and Chris had an all Chaos encounter, unsure how many points but you know it would be brutal!

Some of the SW/DA game. Huge unit of Blood Claws on an outflank, ouch! Thank god they can't assault the same turn! I believe Morg and his Space Wolves won, but it was a hugely bloody affair, and fittingly too.

Huw brought along his pirates game to try out, and here you see Andrew and Owain having a game. It looks like a lot of fun fair dues, and I may be getting a go in a few weeks. Huw has made the rules up and is looking to games test it at the club, be good to see a game through development!

 

So what did I play? Well I went for something a little different, and Alun teased that he would too. I was trying out my Librarian, and also a Whirlwind. Alun? A Necron army. Yikes! I'd never played Necrons before so this was gonna be tough. Alun previously had an army of them before, but missed them so got another one. 2000 points capture the relic! 

I made so many mistakes its insane. My deployment was too defensive considering the mission, although I had taken a very shooty army. My scouts performed well, smattering a couple of the Necron units with sniper rifle fire and also defeating 5 scarab bases in combat... I'd forgotten what it was like to roll good dice! Unfortunately the dice rolls weren't across the table. The whirlwind did alright, wearing down a large unit of Necron warriors but Alun's rolls to bring them back were pretty good. The storm talon dented the Necron flyer, which is absolutely devastating. That death ray weapon it has is horrifying to play against, and the tesla weapons too. Especially if you roll sixes like Alun does!

In the first turn my newly assembled Predator Annihilater was, rather aptly annihilated by the Doomsday Ark. That weapon is insane. 72" range!!! Its hard playing against an army for the first time, not knowing what those units do can be the undoing of your battle, and this was true for me. I did consider using bikers, and I wish I had. I dropped the bikers, captain on a bike and a Landspeeder for a Chaplain, and the scouts with Telion. Although the scouts did well I think the Bikers speed and added toughness would have helped, they could have sped across the objective and held up the main necron unit as my other units tried to take control of the relic. Even though I had a bit of a beating my Termies performed better, although the Librarian died without casting a psychic power, they did a nice bit of damage and took a lot of attention away from the the rest of my army. My Chaplain was able to hold up the Necrons in combat, that strength six ap4 Crozius being extremely effective against the robotic xenos!

Ah well, I lost 2-0 due to neither of us having the objective, Alun had killed my Warlord and had first blood. Ouch!

Monday Night Gaming. Late!

So heres a rather late post from last weeks Tredegar Wargames Club night. I found myself playing a 3000 point game against Imperial Guard. Tanks. Yikes! 3 Leman Russ Executioner, and 3 Leman Russ Punisher. This could go badly! We also had two fliers, my storm talon against Louis' Vendetta(I think?). Purge the Alien was the mission, so deployment!

This picture was taken after we both deployed. Devastators and MOTF in the far right building, Scouts in a bastion, etc etc. The Predator was all armed with lascannons, something I hadn't really tried much before. First turn, and 60 shots later from the Punishers and 3 devastators left standing. And the MOTF had died. This would prove interesting soon after..... Louis fired his executioners at my scouts, and even with their excellent cover save (2+ with camo cloaks in fortifications) they all died. First time I'd used Telion too, and he didn't fire a shot. Thats no fun! I could have said they were in the Bastion as I didn't realise they could mostly still fire, but ah well.  My predator blew up the main punisher, which was commanded by Pask. This was a huge morale boost and helped take some of the firepower down. Elsewhere not a lot happened.

The Vendetta comes on, and I don't think it does much damage so far. One of the things I was happy with about going second was the chance to let Louis get his flyer on board and then react with mine.  Rough Riders and Termies make an appearence, (Chaos Allies with Ahriman of all people) and support the troops and tanks already on the board. My Storm Talon comes on and takes the vendetta down, relief! My two Multi Melta toting Land Speeder deep strikes next to the executioners but only destroys a weapon, and the Legion of the Damned's meltagun take a hull point off. Not very effective! My unlucky Terminators (who you'll know about from previous games and my ability to roll ones for when it comes to armour saves) wipe out 7 of the rough riders in a hail of fire. Not bad. 

And then it went downhill. Louis discovered that the punishers firing range was 24" and not the 36" that he had thought it was. This meant that the death of my Master of the Forge and devastators should not have happened, at least not that early on! Louis 'kindly' offers me a Look out Sir roll to bring him back, which I accept and make. He still does nothing and dies=/ Louis assaults my Termies with some guard troops, makes 4 wounds.... 3 die. Yes, theres the picture to show I rolled ones. What have I done dice gods? WHAT HAVE I DONE!??!?!

This guy pretty much took care of the LOTD, executioners are ridiculous. Simple as! 

I also had this crazy roll, thats where the dice actually ended! 

The game ended as another loss for me. Its a little frustrating that I've lost so many games recently, especially as a few of these has been partly because rules not being known, but in truth my tactics are to blame also. I was not agressive enough with my army, seeing those tanks put a bit of fear into me about losing my own armour. This should not have been the case as if Louis had blown some of my tanks up it would have meant my infantry would not have faced so many plasma and punisher shots. I do need to keep a fine balance between keeping to a plan and reacting to your opponent. There were some high moments, I killed Ahriman with a Krak Missile, My Chapter Master and Termies took out some Khorne Termies and some Imperial Guard troops, but were in the fight too late to do much else. Storm Talon performed well, and if it hadnt been brough down in the last turn to some lucky sixes it may have made the game very tight. I think, that even though my losing run continues I'm still enjoying 6th edition immensely. I just need my opponents to learn their ruddy armies!

Also tonight, Morgan and Alun fought their second refight of the game we played in Firestorm a few weeks ago. I forget who won but Aluns face is truly incredible, and worthy of rememberence! 

Kit Bash Librarian.

So lately I've been playing games and most people seem to be including psykers. I've never used them myself, but wondered what they were like. First of all, I'd need a model! I was tempted by the standard Terminator Librarian you can get in Games Workshop, cool model, 5+inv save, not a bad choice. But then I looked at the rest of my force and most things have been converted or kitbashed in some way. Oh well, lets get to it I though! First of all, what to use? I studied my slowly shrinking bits tin and found a few pieces. The missile launcher steadying arm would be perfect for an out-streched hand, no doubt power flying from it. I'd need a straighter arm however.... Oh hello biker arms! Sorted. Legs, I wanted something a little more dynamic than usual so went for some assault marine legs. The torso was just a tactical torso, with wires on the front and the force sword a simple power weapon from the assualt marines. The head, was from a Grey Knight that I saw on Ebay, score!

Now Librarians have psychic hoods, and I remember thinking many months ago that perhaps a shoulder pad cut up may work. Lo and behold, over on From The Warp, the legend that is Ron also used this very thing so I set about cutting bits up. Heres how he looked!

Not amazing but I'm pretty happy with him, little bit rough but I'm not that great as you may have well seen at converting but for tabletop use I'd be happy. I used some green stuff to make a rear tabbard like parchment, and created a small hill on the base for him to look a tad more imposing than a regular trooper. He looks a little more together undercoated.

 

As you can see, he doesn't look too bad at all. I then set about getting him painted! Like with my Master of the Forge and Techmarine, I use the typical uniform colour (this time being blue for a librarian) for prominence, and then added the red and purple in and around. Theres still some tidying up to do, especially looking at these pics! Overall though I'm pretty happy with the little guy. So please meet,

Shiori Kiyoshi. This is apparantly Japanese for 'bookmark pure', which is highly appropriate.