The Kick Start.

Nope, nothing to do with crowdfunding, this is a kickstart of my own motivation to hobby. And talk about hobbying. Its been a while since this very blog has had some consistency, but this is all about to change. After a shockingly shit year, things are slowly starting to fall into place and motivation to paint models and play games is slowly coming back. Don't believe me? Well stick this in your eyes!

 I have a whole gang of Goliath gangers almost painted up, all upto this standard. Didn't expect that did you? Whats more I have 10 Eschers on the way, plus another box worth of Necromunda to build and paint up. Why so many gangs Kev? IMPERIAL GUARD GANGS. Yeah.

See, I wasn't sure if the Guard... sorry, Astra Militarum Codex, was what fit with my idea. Then I remembered thinking the Genestealer Cult codex was perfect for a gang based army, so I shall possibly try using that codex instead of the Guard one. We shall see! Also...

The Ostermark Oracles.

If you have been a reader of this blog for many moons you may remember my old human team, the Mordheim Raiders. Well I decided to go for a bit of a change and the Ostermark colour scheme looked unusual and bright so I plumped for them. I'll post better pictures of all these plus a few other projects I've been working on in the future, this is just a wee taster!

So what exactly can you expect from Death By Die? Well, I'm trying to coax some members of my local club to contribute from time to time. Whether its through their own words or I may interview them about different aspects of the hobby, or probably both down the line. Speaking of Interviews, I will be having one soon with Blood Bowl and Necromunda rules writer James M Hewitt which I'm axcited about. I interviewed Andy Chambers a few years ago and it was an absolute joy, so interviews are something I'd like to try fit in here and there if possible. 

Dance with the DM will be chats with DM's I know personally (or have yet to meet) about the running of a D&D campaign. Advice, guides, tips, and just general fun stories from the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Expect some other roleplaying bits too, along with hopefully some narrative reports from games we play like 40k, Necromunda, AoS and even Malifaux. Who knows what else though, I'm still having ideas sporadically slap me in the face before running away before I can put pen to paper. 

Otherwise thats it for now. Expect a couple of posts a week, whether its topical, works in progress, interviews or just thoughts about tabletop gaming. If you have anything you'd like to see from the blog then comment below!

Its good to be back!

Saturday Salvo: Vs Chaos Marines, Xwing Wave 4!

Welcome to another Saturday Salvo, with some 40k and Xwing updates. Myself and Chris played some 40k last week, with the Krohmus Guard taking on long time rivals of the Khorne Warband Chris controls. 1500 points, and you can see the table below!

Moments of note... My land raider getting blown up on Chris' first turn, captain and termies not doing much. Sternguard failing to blow anything up, although they did dent a predator and Chris' land raider. T

The Scorpius Whirlwind is pure awesome, as long as you deploy it well. Getting those extra shots can be devastating!

Khorne bikers made a dent in my lines and I couldn't finish em off. The champion, while not overly effective, did kill several marines over a prolonged combat and survived. 

I need to better use the Chapter Tactics I choose... or at least remember to use them and anticipate when to use them better. Cause at the moment I don't use them well!

Missile Launchers are still good stuff. Power Armour hates Kraks. 

A debate I've had on occasion with Bam about overloading Tactical squads, he always upgrades his sarges, I rarely do. I think I'm gonna do it more often when against power armoured foes, it would help on combats having someone reliably kill enemies a bit more.

Aquire targets better!

In the end it was incredibly close, with me just winning 10-8. He'd killed my termies and captain later on and I just managed to instant kill his lord with a well placed krak. Good game though! 

Also, below I've started work on my first proper piece of terrain, which will be a sort of generator building. Its based on some polystyrene I've had for a while and the part on the left reminded me of a bunker/generator sort of thing. The bottle is some sort of fuel container, with a wacky thing on top possibly doubling as a void shield. I'm gonna add some small raders and more details to it, along with some small pieces of Imperial decoration and anything else I can find!

Another thursday has come and gone also with myself and my Nephew doing battle in X-wing. We attempted using all the ships I had, 5 Imperial and 4 Rebels, with plenty of upgrades. I think we had about 133 points each, with about 110 being spent on the ships. Bit ambitopis but we had a laugh trying to remember our upgrades and pilot skills!

We're both starting to see some decent combos of skills and upgrades, although remembering them isn't easy! R2D2 on Wedge has been useful, and I've found myself doing a lot of green moves because of it! 

The game finished with just Wedge, Saul in his Ywing and Darth left. I managed to get a hit on Darth with the Ion cannon making him move onto an asteroid and making him vulnerable to fire next turn from both of my surviving ships. I'd suffered a lot of damage though! 

As if playing some more X-wing wasn't exciting enough, Fantasy Flight announced this. 

Hells yes! The E-wing looks amazing, can't wait to get one or two to try out and my Nephew is drooling over those new Tie Defenders. Should add some interesting tactics to the game! We can't wait to get our new purchases but now the excitement is even greater!

So far, I'm getting close to 40,000 views, and with that being a significant number I'm debating doing something to celebrate. I think a better header and logo is needed... but perhaps something else too... We shall see!

Faiet212 and GW... Thoughts.

It seems that many people are angered with Games Workshops latest legal warnings that the 40k rumour blog, Faiet212 has been closed down. Its a shame the whole site is closed, and not just the blog posts that GW thought broke the rules. Much outcry from the internet then...

But why? Its been stated that Natfka had been issued warnings before, yet he kept on posting rumours knowing full well it could happen. It seems many people do not agree with the way Games Workshop release information, and in some ways I can understand this. If we knew what was coming out, we could save up and be better prepared for new releases. I posted many months ago about rumours and the sense of having Christmas day spoiled. I used to love getting the latest White Dwarf and seeing those nice pictures of new things and being genuinely excited. These days however, I seem to have to be aware of these things through badly taken pictures OF pictures and multiple rumours, where some are true and others arent. This can hurt those people who save, as if rumours are not true when the new product is released then they wont want the new shiny things.

While its a shame that the entire site has been shut down, I understand the reasons why. I don't however understand the amount of rage people are coming out with about Games Workshop wanting to do things their way with THEIR products. Do I sound like a GW fanboy? Well, it bothers me little. I love playing 40k, I love playing Blood Bowl and Necromunda so perhaps I am.

What are your thoughts?

Librarian? Vidarian More Like!

Ladies and Elven folk, oh wait, same thing.... Gentlemen, here is my first ever videoblog! It won't take over this, although I shall post updates here. But it is another way of expressing, communicating and being part of a hobby I love. The plans are to get the club involved, battle reports, discussions etc... hopefully we shall entertain and delight you, but thats high ambitions=] 

Hope you enjoy.

Boundaries of Wargaming

 

With all the changes going on at the club, its made me think about changes elsewhere in the hobby. The club, which has now been renamed to The Tredegar Reavers (much better I hope you agree!) will hopefully be joining the GCN within the next month or so, we're rebranding the website, and generally getting inspired. With all this, Dark Vengeance, and Games Day approaching theres a lot to look forward too. But it does make me wonder about other aspects of the hobby that could be expanded.

Games Workshop are starting to produce small clips that accompany new releases, which I'll be honest I find pretty cool. Hearing about inspiration for new rules and models coming straight from the cold one's snout. It really helps convey the thought process they go through to get to where they are, but I feel its something they may, and perhaps should, take a lot further. Why not produce a once a month 30 minute video where they all talk about the new releases, perhaps tease things that have been teased in White Dwarf, have interviews etc... With HD being readily available online its an ideal way to show off some models. They could even do this. When I was a teen, there was a videogames programme called Bad Influence. At the end of every show they used to show a few pages of text which included cheats, reviews etc in as many seconds. The idea was to record it, then pause it to read. Didn't work to be fair, but its something that could now be used. Just an idea!

Something I'm hoping to do soon is to get my videoblog underway. With how things are busy at the club, its been on the backburner but I did last monday capture some footage to put towards making us a promo film. As our hobby is incredibly visual and social, sometimes writing about it isn't the best way to represent... hence why the video which we can post about to entice new members. I'm also hoping that perhaps some members may be intrigued with doing a little talk every now and then, about new releases, rules, just a little topical debate I guess. After thinking about how GW could move forward doing video, its made me wonder if I can do the same.

Its been a while since I've felt so inspired about something, but being part of the club has done just that and I'm willing to put my heart and soul into it and the hobby. Why settle for the same old method when you could try something new and exciting? I'v ebeen watching some great v-bloggers on youtube, and I think its time to join them. Its time to be ambitious, its time to make an entity.