New Eldar vs Tau Batrep! 2.5k

Eldar vs Tau Batrep, plus a little more action from Tredegar Reavers Monday night!

And so my pointy eared friend Alun has picked himself up the new Codex Eldar, and challanged the Tau of my caste, the Tee'emen' Tau to a game. 2.5k, which was courageous considering the 3 hours we had to play and set up! We rolled for mission and got the Scouring, I only had two units from fast attack but 5 troops, so I'd have some chance even though none were that protected. Alun won the roll to deploy first, so I set up to counter this. I then stole the initiative!

Aluns list was this.

Farseer - Singing Spear, Runes of Witnessing
10 Warlocks
Illic Nightspear
10 Dire Avengers - Exarch with power weapon and shimmershield
10 Rangers - upgraded to Pathfinders due to Illic
10 Fire Dragons - Exarch with Firepike and Fast Shot - attached Wave Serpent
6 Striking Scorpions - Exarch with Scorpions Claw, Crushing Blow
5 Dark Reapers - Exarch with Tempest Launcher and Fast Shot
Aegis Defence Line with Quad Gun
Succubi - Agoniser, Haywire Grenades
8 Kabalite Warriors
9 Incubi - Klaivex with Demi-klaives, Onslaught - attached Raider with Dark Lance

Mine was...

Tau Commander

Ethereal

Fireblade

8 markerlight drons

10 pathfinders

Riptide

10 firewarriors

10 firewarrios with devilfish

2 x 6 of firewarriors

10 kroot with shaper and Krootox

3 crisis suits

2 x 6 stealth teams

 2 hammerheads, one with Longstrike

broadside

I think thats it anyway! 

 My first turn consisted of very little moving, and making sure the Dark Reapers died. These worried me the most as their firepower can damage some of my important elements of my army. Many units worth later, and they're dead. First blood! The rest of my fire kills off 7 warlocks accompanying the farseer, leaving just the farseer himself and 3 warlocks. Not bad! This would stunt the psychic powers a little.

No Dark Reapers!

The next two turns sees some fire dragons disembark out of their wave serpent, and taking three of my stealth team out situated nearby. Unable to kill many they then take four wounds off my riptide the next turn... yikes! My pathfinders also come under fire from the advancing dire avengers and fail a morale check and run off, thats no good! My Riptide fires a heated Ion Accelerator shot at them, but due to the shimmershield invun and the Farseers Fortune only one dies from the riptide and a couple of fire warrior squads. Thats harsh! My other stealth team on the left flank continue to harrass the enemy, cutting down a couple of scorpians lurking behind an aegis defence line. 

My allies fail to arrive, a Crisis team and a Kroot squad, but Aluns Dark Eldar allies come on and make an impact after I'd finally managed to wipe out the Dire Avengers, but it took a lot of firepower! Incubi burst out of their raider and charge into a Firewarrior squad with my ethereal, killing them easily. I manage to whittle them down, but due to Fortune once again there are still five... Eldar are hard to kill if they get that! Elsewhere our vehicles don't do an awful lot. Aluns vehicles fail to hit anything, and mine don't do much wounding. 

After being left with one wound, the riptide manages to kill one of the fire dragons and charges into them, hoping to squish them both. Alun rolls overwatch... 6 6. One fails to wound.. but I fail the invun on the other and the riptide goes down... bugger! The dragons then charge into a 6 man fire warrior squad, but my crisis team arrive, kills one and the other tries to run, but I luckily catch him and he's dead. Meanwhile at the four point objective in the middle of the board the surviving incubi issue a charge, but due to my Grav Inhibitor drone he fails it and doesn't make it into combat. We have to call the game there, and Aluns incubi are a hairs breadth away from the 3 inches they need to be withing the objective, Alun suggests rolling to see if they're within range and loses the dice roll, giving me a win. However I prefer to call it a draw, as we don't know how the fifth turn would have turned out and it was a pretty close affair, I can let the tiniest of measurements get me a win! 

I thought I'd get Aluns take on the new Eldar Codex so he sent me this... 

"Well, as always, finding the correct synergy is key still in the Eldar codex; as an example, losing my Dark Reapers in the first turn severly hampered my initial plan, as that part of the synergy was lost. However, if you build your list correctly, you have what I would call a 'supporting synergy' - meaning, despite the loss, I still had enough potential to come back. Psychic powers are impressive to say the least, the only downside was that you have roll; so much for being the greatest psykers, eh? Though, one of the best part of the powers is that they now work on -friendly- models; no 'Codex: Eldar' nonsense, just friendly. This helped immensely in regards to helping my Incubi survive (I took Dark Eldar allies, who aided to the synergy outstandingly). I wouldn't even say I took a competitive list, but it was a 'strong' list in the regards that it could still do feasibly well; plus, it showed that you DON'T need a Wraithknight to win your games if you use Eldar. But, first thoughts? Great codex; I'm looking forwards to using some of the other units that I haven't tried, such as the Phoenix Lords (though only in large games) and maybe the new fliers and Wraith units at some point."

Fair play it was a great game, and the new Codex gives the Eldar some great little tricks to use, particularly good are the Striking Scorpians, even tho they played little part in this battle getting infiltrate and move through cover is amazing! Hopefully I'll have some more games against them soon. 

Onwards, and we have Louis and Jordan with an Imperial Guard and Space Wolf combo against Chris and Andrew who fielded Khorne and Nurgle lists. I've no idea who won but it looked absolutely brutal!

Also being played was No Quarter, the pirate game Huw has created. 

Please watch your eyes as miniature nudity is coming up! Huw has sculpted all of these and cast them himself, the dirty little bugger! They look hilariously good though!

More ingame action

Yes, a lot of shenanigans go on in this game, STD's are pivotal!

More action happening this time indoors, here we see two floor plans for buildings. 

Watch your eyes...

Well, I can't even comment on that guy! If you're intrigued with No Quarter Huw has set up a page on facebook... Scurvy Dog

Go have a look! I'll be back soon with some more goodness, so see you all again!

Crusade of Fire... I Have It!

I made a post about the upcoming Crusade of Fire campaign book, and how I was tempted to get it. Well, I'm very happy to say I've obtained a copy two days before release! I've had a flick through, and I'm pretty impressed thus far. Theres several pages of backstory, of which I'm yet to read but the basic structure is set in a part of space that no-one has been able to access... until now. A Crusade has been sent to reclaim it yet as they enter local space... Chaos and Xenos are there too. Intriguing!

As you can see, the cover is pretty darn nice. Nice to see a Hellbrute depicted in a pose that isn't like the model... Hopefully a boxed poseable version of him soon!

Each commander gets to pick an overall 'Grand Warlord', and these traits give you campaign points. There are Servants of Ruin, the Chaos forces, Crusade of Fire, Imperium, and then the Prophets of War which represent the Xenos can choose which table to pick, Campaign points can be granted for killing or capturing enemy HQ's, capturing objectives and so on depending on which trait you roll.

I had to take a quick snap of these, Kevin Chin's Imperial Fists are sublime. The guy has 9 dreadnoughts and two full boarding marine squads, totally suiting the Imperial Fists! 

Also included are rules for dogfighting with flyers, and they seem interesting. Whether I'll get to use them I'm unsure as not many flyers are at club, so we shall see. From what I've seen though they could be a good bit of fun. 

Speaking of fun...

The Arena of Death is a place to save your captured commanders and characters. If you win, you can escape. If you lose, then you're probably dead! As you can see from the above picture, you get bonuses for attacking from the side or rear, and you also get bonuses via 'Roar of the Crowd' tokens which you earn from how well you do. There are also some cards to photocopy and print which give you certain actions to use. It looks like a heck of a laugh and I'm hoping to rope some of the guys at club into having a go and maybe doing a videoblog on it. We shall see!

Many people may look at the book and wonder "why couldn't this have been in White Dwarf?" Well, it may have been possible and it wouldn't surprise me if they had thought of releasing it in this way initially. It works really well though as a book, although the £25 price point may put some off. If you're into campaigns and want something designed for 40k, this could well be for you. Seeing the participants armies is great, I could look at others armies all day! They go through the different games, add rules for fighting in Daemon worlds, for me its worth the money. If you're not a campaign person, then this probably won't be for you. For me though its a good little pick up. Lets hope people at the club can be persuaded to get involved!

Tau vs Tyranids Battle Report!

In the first time in quite a while at our club, we had a battle that had no power armour. Ok, so a few models had a 3+, but they didn't belong to any sort of Space Marine. Chaos, Astartes, or Grey Knight. I took 1000 points of my Tau against Jacob and his Tyranids. First time for me against Tyranids, and I'm still pretty inexperienced with Tau so I wasn't expecting a lot of success! I was expecting a lot of fun however.... 

The forces are pictured below.

My force, two Hammerheads, pretty much everything is WYSIWYG, apart from my Shas'o who had the airbusrt fragmention device. 

Jacobs force had a LOT of mini's! Those warriors scared me, 9 in total all with three wounds... It would be hard to whittle these guys down AND contend with the mass of gaunts!

We played the Scouring, but as we were on a 4x4 board we decided that 4 objectives were plenty and had a one point, 2 two points, and a 3 point objectives. We placed objectives and rolled for deployment. Jacob won and deployed where there were two objectives, whereas I had one and the last was in the middle. After deployment, I had the one point objective and Jacob had the 3 point objective... This game became incredibly more harder to win!

Jacob sends his Tyranids forward into the guns of the Tau.

 Needless to say, Turn two arrived and combat had began! Not enough guns and the worry I had for those flying warriors were justified! I lost my two Fire Warrior squads, although I did gain first blood.

I lost 3 of my stealth team to Termaguant fire, and tried to use as much as the board as possible to delay the inevitable close combat.

Not long after this the game ended with me being wiped out. Painful game! Thankfully rhough the fun I hoped for was reached, it was great fighting Tyranids and I'll have to take them on with my Space Marines, should be interesting. The things I learnt about this game is I forget tactics. Going into the game I knew synapse creatures would be lethal and concentrating fire on these could help me win the game... but what did I do? Forget. I didn't concentrate fire enough, and should have dealt with a unit before shooting at something else. This, I need to drill into my brain... I also learnt that Battlesuit commanders are great, even in combat. Mine finished off the flying warriors and lasted a combat phase against Jacobs Warrior Prime, so deffo glad I chose to lead my force with one. If I could change my force I'd perhaps either drop a hammerhead or the stealth team and take another fire warrior squad and an ethereal so I could upgrade the squad to have 1+ BS. I think the numbers may have helped... although the Hammerheads took a lot of fire and verbal abuse from Jacob! Great game though, look forward to revenge!

Elsewhere, Louis' evil laugh rang through the hall...

I'm afraid I have no idea of the score, but I know Louis won because his laugh was even louder and even more evil and maniacal after the game ended. Louis seems to be on a roll and his list is unbeatable so far! I fancy a return game though and fingers crossed when I do my dice won't fail me as they did in the last one!

After the game Louis sat down with our youngest member and helped talk him through the creation of a Gorkamorka gang. There'll be a game or three going on next week and its a good way to get the younglings involved. I started with Blood Bowl, and its a great entry level for people to get into the hobby. Doesn't require too many models, is cheaper, and just as much fun!

Bam and Mike also got a game in, with Mike's Thousand Sons holding out for a win over Bams Space Marines. They also played the scouring, and the game finished extremely close. If one of Bams termies had survived the result would have been different, but Mikes last Obliterator was able to smash the two Terminators down and helping a Thousand Sons squad claim a vital objective. 

A good day then! We've got another all day session coming up in about 2 weeks, so we'll see what happens as we're undecided as to what to do. I may have one game, but I also fancy seeing about having a nice little Blood Bowl tourney and taking some footage and pictures, generally spectating and enjoying the action! We shall see anyways, and that concludes this post. 

Eyes peeled for more posts!

Monday Night CHAOS.

So last night we gave the new Chaos Codex a go. Louis and Chris, to avid Chaos followers (feel free to spit in the heretics faces ha) played me and Bam. Louis took Abbadon, Sorceror, two cultist squads, and three two man obliterator squads. Chris took Kharn, bezerkers, Daemon Prince and Termies. Not sure if he had another troops unit, but its all good. Bam had three dreads, captain, and three tactical squads, and also two drop pods... one for a dreadnought and one for the captain and tactical squad. I took Tau. Yep, against a new codex and I took an army I'd used only once before, interesting! I too 3 battlesuits, inc Shas'O, 6 man stealth team, 2 fire warrior squads, and a hammer head. 

This week long time member Jacob mentioned he was bringing some terrain up, imagine our faces when it was all painted and looked awesome! New terrain means awesomeness. We rolled for terrain, mission and deployment. Crusade and the normal deployment was the way, and me and Bam won which side and first turn... needless to say we took the side with more cover!

I didn't get as many pics as I'd have liked, due to playing and forgetting too. Perks of getting old! First couple of turns was quiet, except for me and Bam getting first blood for Chris' Terminator squad trying to deepstrike in front of my battlesuits, scattering onto terrain, then getting lost in the warp on a roll of a one. Yeah! I concentrated blowing up the rhinos to make the Khorne contingent footslog while bam dealt with a daemon prince, who are now nasty pieces of work. It killed all but a sarge of a tactical squad, a dread tried to save him but got blown up, letting the seargent stick his power sword where the warp don't shine(it was on its last wound, phew!)

My stealth team deepstriked in, as I didn't see anywhere good for them to deploy via infiltrate, and then did exactly the same as the Chaos Termies. ARGH! All for the greater good I guess, swings and roundabouts! 

Bams Captain and tactical squad got beaten by abbadon, cultists and two obliterators in combat, we both managed to down most of the bezerkers, and I'd not lost a fire warrior. Thats a first! We had to stop early as time was getting late, but I think we were in a decent position. Kharn would have been amongst my lines if he could have survived a whole turn of everything I had shooting at him, including a hammerhead. We had one objective and first blood whereas the Chaos side only managed Warlord. A win for the Tau! It was a good laugh, and I think both sides made some mistakes here and there. Pity we couldn't finish but ah well!

Mike, has a new ambition to be a God. So he's started by sculpting a mountain. Ha crazy man, should be good though, will look awesome having such height on a table. 

Projects for me shall soon consist of revisiting my Space Marines to start work on the 2 chaplains I want to do, one on foot and one on a bike. I have some of the parts so will get cracking soon. I'm also thinking of building a Master of the Forge Dreadnought... but I'm daunted! Adios for now anyways!

Chaos Codex Flick Through.

Thought I'd do a little video flicking through the new Chaos Codex, I don't go too indepth, but its a quick peek into how the book looks. 

I also mention the post before subject about the slayer sword... Enjoy!

40k Game, For A Laugh.

So Monday night at club, I fancied having a chuckle and suggested to a couple of the lads about a smaller game. Morgan, in all of his wisdom, pointed us to the Battleforce Recon mission in the back of the rulebook. 500points, 1 HQ and 1 Troops. But we chose to play with one objective... in the middle! Thats small! As we set to our army lists, Mike organised a game of Space Hulk with one of the younger members of the club.

 Morgan and Alun, on their last night at the club before they leave to go to University, had a game of WHFB Chaos versus Bretonnions. I believe Alun won, but as you'll soon see, we all did!

Oh yes, Mike's wife Mary kindly baked this cake as a leaving gift for Alun and Morgan, and what a tastey delight it was too! Much Kudos Mrs Browning!

So onto the small game. This involved Chris with his Khorne Bezerkers, Louis with his Alpha Legion, and then me and Bam with our Space Marine armies. Make no mistake though, there are no alliances!

Rough lists were.... Louis took Typhus, a Dreadnought, and a squad of marines witht he mark of nurgle... toughness 5 and FNP?! Ahem.

Chris had a Daemon Prince, raptors, and bezerkers in a rhino.

Bam took a chaplain, razorback, vanguard, and a tactical squad.

I took 5 scouts with Telion, and a captain with a command squad. On bikes. Toughness 5 for me too and FNP with the apothecary! I hadn't used the bikes for a while, and with their speed I thought they'd be a laugh in a small game.

We set up, and I won the roll to go first. Noone stole the initiative so onwards!

I advanced as far as I could with the bikes, looking for a challange... Bam shot up Louis' army, taking two hull points off his dread, Chris advanced also. His Daemon Prince and Raptors headed towards me, and his bezerkers towards Louis, who in turn advanced also.

My bikers gunned their engines and hurtled headlong into the Daemon Prince, who had lost a wound on a failed outlandish charge attempt at my scouts overwatch fire. Two bikers died, and no wounds on the Daemon was caused. Ouch! I'd taken a Storm Shield for my captain, but I think I should have tried to find the extra few points for a power fist. Ah well! Bam dropped a Plasma Cannon shot on mine and Chris' heads, as, if you have no friendly models in a combat, you can target them! Ouch! I lost another two bikers but the Daemon Prince survived. Bam destroyed Louis' dread, and Louis advanced even more.

My Bikers were eventually defeated, but the Daemon Prince lost two wounds to scout fire and then Bams Lascannon finished him off. Louis teleported Typhus smack down on the objective, while his marines battled the bezerkers who had now been whittled down and lost their rhino. Bam, enjoying shooting into combat, dropped more plasma. Another 4 models gone! Louis eventually won the combat and the squad moved up to support typhus. Mine and bams fire continued to whittle them down slowly, and Chris deep striked his 3 terminators down and shot at Typhus. Typhus, now on one wound and on his own, finishes off the Termies and shrugs off all firepower aimed at him. Chris, in a last ditch attempt charged in with his last reminaing model, a Chaos Raptor, and killed Typhus! We totalled up the victory points, and it finished with Bam and Chris on 2 points each. What a game! I think we all enjoyed it, and the army selection did make a couple of the guys think a bit more too.

So all in all a good day! We're now 3 members down due to university, but we're still gonna have fun. If you live in South Wales and fancy popping along, go to the Tredegar Reavers website for details or gimme a shout on here.

YES! Club Night Games!

And so the second Club night for Sixth edition, and I find myself playing against one of the clubs better gamers. And I still haven't won. I'll go through my army list first. 

Chaplain, 5 Assault Termies, ALL Thunder Hammers, in a Land Raider. 

10 Legion of the Damned

2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos. 

10 Devastators with two Missile Launchers and two Plasma Cannons

Storm Talon

LandSpeeder with Multimelta and Assault Cannon

Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon

Vindicator

The Chaplain and Termies against Chaos Marines were to hold back and protect or be an attacking piece. LOTD do what they do best, hold the enemy up and contest objectives. Tactical squads to get objectives or add firepower, boltguns are lethal! Devasators to pick on troops or armour, depending on what Louis takes. Vindicator, well, you know how good these are! The Storm Talon would enter from reservesa and zoom to deal with anything it wanted, and the Land Speeder will deep strike and attack the heaviest armour the enemy can muster head on with assault cannon and multi melta.

Deployment! We get the crusade mission and four objectives to fight over, 2 in or near our deployment zones. I go first, and set up centrally and close to the right side objective. Louis places a dreadnought close to threaten my lines and so becomes a priority. The rest of his troops are further back.

Game On!

So the first turn and I manage to destroy the dread that threatens my right flank, the tactical squad sent many thanks! Most of my troops just get into better lines of fire, getting close to an army thats better in assault is silly to be fair! Louis sends a rhino speeding up, which I blow up in the second turn to reveal.... 4 terminators and a Chaos Lord. OUCH!! More fire decimates the retinue until only the lord is left who ducks into cover and then assaults out and destroys my vindicator. Bugger him! 

My Legion of the Damned come on, and even after the re-roll scatter off the board. Louis gets to place them in a crater right in front of his battleline. They roll bad and do little damage. In Louis' turn they get fired at.... 5 wounds, and I fail ALL of them. I start to feel this will be another loss! In good news however the tactical squad near the Chaos Lord disembark and take two of the Traitor's wounds from him, and then the storm bolter from the rhino finishes him off. Score! The Land Speeder deepstrikes down in front of the Chaos Land Raider and turns it to molten slag, Multi-melta doing the damage. This is huge as Huron Blackheart's retinue now have to do some footslogging. The Raptors come into play and prove a nuisance as they take a hull point from my Land Raider, but the Storm Talon proves annoying and is only hit once. 

The Land Raider then pounces upon Blackhearts retinue and unleashes the Chaplain and Termies. Battle is met! Huron challanges the Chaplain and I accept, and cause one wound after dodging the attacks of the heretic. The Terminators are brutal and kill the opposing Terminators, and close the net around a now panicked Huron. Two remaining Raptors try to save him by assaulting the terminators as the Tyrant Clasps the Chaplains chest and takes him out of the battle, just as the Thunder Hammers rise and fall upon his head, shattering the Tyrant's skull. The Raptors soon fall and the terminators continue to rampage through the chaos lines. The Storm Talon is eventually taken down, but the Chaos forces are beaten, 17 - 10 Victory Points! First game won of sixth edition!

6th Underway!

And here we are. 6th edition is in full swing, FAQ's granted by the Emperor, and much tenderness for those d6's to give us the rolls we desire. And never get. At Tredegar Wargames Club we decided to celebrate by playing a series of games in a row, so everyone could see the rules being played and take it all in. I think it worked too. The general consensus is that they're a much better ruleset, the added depth a god-send and allies are allowing people to mix up their army lists.

Of course, I got to play too. I tried a small game with my nephew just to go through the basics so I could see some changes and my Nephew could see how it all worked. He beat me. Ha.Onto the main ame we played at the club, it was me and Josh, my nephew, against the old adversaries Bam and Jason. We used my Space Marine Evandalists, Bam used his Legion of the Damned, and Jase wheeled out the Eldar.

We played the Big Guns Never Tire mission which meant Heavy Support could capture objectives, of which there were three. A few things were forgot in this game, night fighting, gettinga 6+ save or Dispel against Psykers, which would have been useful going against a Farseer, and the way in which Fleet works. I forgot that you can no longer run and charge in the same turn, which Jase did and that helped them to win the game. But a fun game no doubt! Hull Points make so much more sense now, and I like how the missions work .

I also played another game against Bam, and again I lost. We did remember night fighting though! Another few things we forgot in this game too, I outflanked my chaplain and his 10 man assault squad, which allowed me to blow up Bams predator. In Bams turn, his 5 vanguard and captain assaulted my jump pack unit out of their razorback, which isn't allowed anymore. This was huge as my guys were wiped out, but it did prove to make the game more interesting! It was a really close game and I couldnt get enough wounds on bams squad that were contesting my objective to shift them. Ho hum!

Finally one of my Legion of the Damned... had a quick go at some atmospheric lighting and it doesn't look too bad... although it does show how bad my painting is!

6th. Oh My Eyes.

And so it begins. Sixth edition is here, and I've been thumbing through it looking at the rules and whats new. We knew what a lot of them were, but its nice to see it in black and white. Only, thats the thing. Its not in black and white. Its in aged yellows, oranges, and the complete book is full colour. Wow. I'll talk about the rules a little later on, but first of all I'd like to talk about the aesthetics.

Simply put, the layout design is amazing. Lots of nice little touches, and you never know whats going to make your eyes weep in joy next, weapon designs, emblems, or the latest in spectacular John Blanche pieces. This seriously is some good stuff.

The background section, 'The 41st Millenium' is full of fluff for where the world lies now. The Emperor could be on his last brain cells, aliens are growing ever more varied, and it really does make you wonder if there will be some sort of broken Imperium in the future. Theres also some nice sections for all the other races with some history and artwork, some of which is old but still looks nice.

As a photographer myself, theres some great images in there too. Whether they could have been a little more experimental is questionable, but I think you go too far and you're not showing the full quality of the miniatures off. 

All in all its a great looking book and, I have to say, worth the money. Its a pity that the price hike has been so high on the miniatures themselves with no reason as to why. 

The rules themselves are pretty good. Myself and my nephew had a small game, about 500 pts or so, just to teach him the basics and so I could see how a few of the changes work. Wound allocation has potentially slowed the game down, but I think its worth it as it makes so much more sense and adds implications to assaulting, whether its doing it yourself or getting assaulted. We both fielded a dreadnought to see how the hull points stsyem works, but what do you know? My nephew blew my dreadnought up with some rending assault cannon and then a 6 on the damage table. Damn! He proceeded to win the game 3-1. It was a good laugh though and just a simple exercise to see how the rules work. Assault troops with the Hammer of Wrath are a bit more deadly, although 3d6 falling back meant mine rolled 13" and feld. Doh! 

Looking forward to the first night at the club playing, and seeing what everyone else thinks of the rules. 

Whats your thoughts so far?

Sixth Sense.

 

So the last few days have been incredibly fruitful for those of us awaiting the new rules that Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition will bring. How will our armies be affected? How will it affect our opponants? How, and perhaps most importantly, will it affect our fun.  

One of the key sentences I've picked up on is that it has been said they GW want to make 40k more cinematic. This screams out to me as an ideal not of intent. I play games of 40k not to win or lose, but to have those hilarious or dramatic moments when the dice either favour or betray you and give you those jaw dropping moments. One of the richest things this hobby brings is its background story for the games. Why wouldn't you want your games ot be more involving of moments that tie into this richness? How the rules will help this, we won't know for certain until the rulebook is not just been in our hands, but has been used for a number of games. 

I like now that you have a Warlord. This HQ choice is then given an ability and can help add a wee bit of flavour to your army. Does he count as a scoring unit therefore making him a very hands-on character? Or does he give his Leadership to other friendly models and have such an inspiring presence? I think its a great little touch and helps add a little richness to your army.

Being able to buy buildings is a great idea, as hopefully it may encourage people (myself included) to be more hands on when it comes to building terrain. Is it practical to have to carry a bunker around? Probably not, but have themed armies that include certain fortifications or siege terrain could work well. Another cinematic box ticked. 

There was said to be a picture of a Beastman Guardsmen and mentioned ab-humans, YES!!! Anything ab-human could mean the possiblility of Squats. The more I hear about the new rules the more I see the 5th edition rulebook cwtching up into bed making sweet love to the 2nd edition rulebook. 2nd Edition was the last rulebook to feature squats, and thus gives me hope for a future appearence. 

Having to remove the nearest models from shooting attakcs sounds great too, when a unit is advancing towards you and only the guys in the back are falling its a wee daft, and now I'll be picturing the first lines falling with the slightly better troops behind ready to take their place. 

The rules for Snipers where if you hit with a six YOU allocate the wounds, this makes snipers a much better choice than they were and fits in with the sniper ethos much better. 

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about are the missions. It seems that theres more variety, and more abilities and changes for objectives and units as to what they do and who can hold what etc. I love this especially if its true that secondary objectives are in also. This adds even more to the game and will hopefully encourage more fluff inspired games. 

Overall I'm really looking forward to seeing the rules, and I'll certainly be playing some games as soon as possible to try them out. Lets hope we get plenty more of those little moments that we'll remember in years to come and add to the legend our armies build.