October: Boxed Game?

Theres been speculation for some time now about an all inclusive boxed game coming out from GeeDub. Last year rumours for Blood Bowl were rife. Three teams, seperate sculpts, bit of a story... I was incredibly intrigued to say the least. But then rumours dissipated and new murmourings became visible.

Inquisitor.

Rumours for this was that GW wanted to get back into the skirmish games market, where other companies had been doing well GW had given up on its specialist games market due to poor - mediocre sales despite a cult fanbase for all its games. 28mm, 3-4 warbands in the box all sound good for a new version of Inquisitor, and if theres one thing that could back this up is that in White Dwarf we've seen hints at future releases... Matt Hutsons Black Templars having units added to it and then Space Marines coming out next? Jes Bickhams Tyranids could well be getting some love after he'd kept adding to them.... So the hint for Inquisitor? Blanchitsu wasn't in the last issue, but in the previous few months every single Blanche article was about Inquisitor warbands in 28mm. Yes, this kind of model does have great scope for conversion, so it would be a prime target for modellers... but 4+ months in a row? Surely this is GeeDub quietly introducing new people and reminding us veterans what Inquisitor is. 

What if we have been totally fooled however, and GW are doing something different?

What if the secret release turns out to be Necromunda? Its ideal for getting back into skirmish games, plus with the technology that could go into making the terrain it'd sell to 40k players too just to get their greedy mitts on some underhive terrain! Add on packs could easily work, picture this. For £70 you get a boxed game with three or even four gangs inside. Goliath, Orlock, Delaque, and Escher. Thats four playstyles and something to appeal to female demographic. You also get some nice terrain, and all the bits and counters you need to play. 6 months down the line, an addon pack comes out. Van Saar and Cawdor are included, a few more rules, and a bit more terrain. This keeps people interested in the game but also getting purpose to use the terrain for 40k gives added incentives for people to buy it. Another 6 months and you get ratskins and redemptionists and so on. 

The most likely scenario is that the Inquisitor game is released, which could also work well with expansions down the line. Myself? I'd love to score some touchdown or earn me some creds....

Space Marine Codex Batrep

So after the huge brutal but fun game of Apocalypse on Sunday, Andrew, who'd been unable to play challanged me to a game the following night against his Death Guard. This mean I'd be facing lots of toughenss 5, a maulerfiend, and the Defiler he'd been ovingly painting up over the last month or so! With the new Codex, I fancied trying a different Chapter Tactics, so while looking at my models and seeing my bikes, I plumped for the White Scars. The benefits of this is Hammer of Wrath attacks are ST 5 from bikers, Hit and Run and auto-passing difficult terrain tests. 1500 points each, and this was my rough list.

Captain, bike, artificer armour, storm shield, power axe.

Chaplain, bike

Bike squad, 5 bikers with meltagun, flamer, attack bike with multimelta

5 man tactical squad with lascannon

10 man tactical squad with vet sarge, powerfist and a meltagun in a rhino

10 man assault squad

5 vanguard with powerfist

predator with lascannons

dreadnought with plasma cannon

5 devastators with missile launchers

Legion of the damned with power axe and multimelta.

Deployment!

Mission was capture the relic, and we had the narrow deployment type. This basically turned the 6x4 table into a 4x4 which meant death guard would be more concentrated... ouch! I won the roll off to go first... so deployed as seen as above. As you can see on the image at the bottom underneath Andrews army is a dice roll of a six. Yes, Initiative seized!

Andrew pushed forward with most of his units, large unit of cultists with sorceror, maulerfiend, decimator and some of the death guard. Shooting casualties were light although I'd left my lascannon as the nearest model in the 5 man squad so he died. 

I sent all units forward, bikes shot at the cultists ripping many apart but failed the charge. Assault squad moved into the centre ready to get stuck into the centre and the vanguard swung across to the left flank to charge the maulerfiend and try to cripple it with kraks and a powerfist. 

The missiles and pred failed to do much, and this was followed by the Vanguard unable to damage the maulerfiend but only lost one of their number. 

Andrews death guard advance once more, my bikers get charged but my assault squad move into the cultists. I lose the challange between the sorceror and my sarge as expected but kill off the cultists to gain first blood. I destroy a weapon and immobilse the decimator, but andrew claims he'll roll for both to be fixed in his next turn due to its ability. 

He rolls the dice, and gets the results he needs! Decimator mobile again and now storms in to finish off my vanguard. The bikers and captain have trouble wounding the death guard, T5 proving hard to break especially with FNP, but andrews plague knives are poisoned and he does whittle my bikers down... then I remember hit and run! Typical ha! Meanwhile my tactical squad jump out of the rhino and get into contact with the relic. 

The decimator finally meets its end, and I take off the last hull point. The Legion of the Damned lower their multi melta at the maulerfiend and take that out too, which is a huge help as we both desperately fight for the Relic! He takes out my tactical squad with the Relic by shooting them with heavy bolter toting havocs and plasma guns, but I'm able to get the last four of my 5 man squad onto it. 

This is what was left at the end of turn 6, which was the end of the game. Andrews unharmed Havocs were also left, as was 4 missile launcher devs and predator in my deployment game... but this had been intensely brutal! Legion of the damned had got stuck in to try and tip the balance but were too late to save my chaplain, and while my captain didn't suffer a wound he didn't kill an awful lot either as Andrews rolls to save for armour or FNP were amazing! So the game finished... who won?

Well we'd both got into contact with the relic, so no points for anyone there. No Linebreaker, and no Warlord... so it was down to the First Blood point I had earned by killing the cultists that won me the game. I do however use the term 'won' very loosely, it was that close! It was also incredibly fun, Andrew is always a great opponent and its great to play him after such a long time. 

So what do I think of the new codex?

Well, when I remembered hit and run it helped a lot, if you can get some good resilient units into combat, then hit and run you can pour firepower into the enemy unit before getting stuck back in and stopping them returning fire. If I'd have remembered I could have had another turn to shoot the maulerfiend which would have helped a lot. I also forgot Hammer of Wrath quite often, so this had very little effect. Auto passing terrain checks was good though when I did remember hit and run as I could rush back into cover and then leap back out without worrying about armour saves. 

It'll be interesting to try some of the other chapter tactics too, Iron Hands and Imperial Fists tactics seemingly pretty useful, as is the Ultramarines one. I've got another game or two on friday so I'll see what lists I come up with.

How are you guys finding the new Codex?

Temple of Skulls and Drop Pod

Well hows about another update? This time we have my drop pod, and some terrain... the Temple of Skulls! I've literally slapped the paint on the Temple of Skulls in a few hours, and its to a standard that'll look good on the table. Firstly though, the drop pod!

I really enjoyed painting this, and didn't expect too. Its got some really nice shapes to it, highlighting it in the same way as my Termies was nice too, I think it looks gritty and used. I've also added some weathering in the form of paint chips.

I think they look ok too, I'm not going insane with small ones too for a realistic effect, it was just as much an experiment as it was to adding somehting that looks cool. Its definately something I'll be doing to other vehicles in my force!

And here is the Temple of Skulls. I've been in a frenzy to get some stuff done so wanted a quick but effective way of getting this done, and I think I've pulled it off. The basecoat was a mix of a couple of old pots of chaos black and skull white, remember those names? I drybrushed the entire thing with skull white, then washed generously with some agrax earthshade, followed by some Baal red and then a little Nuln Oil to add some shading to certain areas. Skulls picked out with white, and the Chaos Star in the middle was basecoated with the old foundation paint, Iyanden Darksun.

I'm really happy with how its turned out, if I get some time I'll do a couple more details but I could not help myself adding a blood trail up the steps. Adds to the whole effect of it being a place of unholy worship. 

So there we go! My next update will unlikely be until next week, as theres a busy few days ahead. We have a mini tournament at club on Sunday, so I'll be sure to take pictures and perhaps even a little video footage... I know I've been promising this for a while but I swear it shall happen soon!

Review: Death From The Skies

So my copy of Death From the Skies has arrived, and what follows are my thoughts. Theres been a fair bit of controversy around this by it being Direct Only, so lets see exactly how much it matters.

The first thing you notice that makes this different to the other releases in the 40k collection so far, is that its softback. Yes, the book bends! This matters little but it did catch me by surprise

Theres not an awful lot in here in relation to artwork, although it is nice to see this Helldrake illustration in a larger format than it is in the Chaos Codex. We already know this book is a compendium, so don't expect anything original.  The photography is pretty good too, some nice compositions and angles but again, I don't see much original.

So when the Stormtalon and Ork jets were released, there was an article in WD featuring a Necron, Ork and Space Marine campaign. Thats here again, although it feels a little larger and not having that WD to had is hard to compare. If you havent seen this already you'll enjoy the read however. What follows this are 4 new missions that take flyers into mind. Theres some nice ideas here including a couple of different deployment zones that I'll look forward to trying out. One mission, 'Scramble!', has the defender nominate 3 landing spaces or 3 skyshield landing pads where 3 flyers are given for no points cost, and these are grounded.You launch these flyers depending on the roll of a 6 or more, by adding the turn that you are on. The attacker gets D3 VP's bonus for each of these that are destroyed. Sounds like a great laugh, and reminds me of a battle report from a few years ago between a drop-podding Black Templars army and an Ork army that was set after the Armageddon campaign in WD.

So the missions are a great little addition. The rules for dogfighting are also included from Crusade of Fire, and should be a good laugh if you have a number of flyers to try them out. While there are no new flyers in here, it does mean that now my Space Marine chapter can take Stormravens.

This is a good feature, and having bought one several days ago I'm looking forward to putting it together and using it on the field. The only difference I can tell so far between the vanilla SM's and the BA's Stormravens is that the missiles vary a little. While both are ST8, the BA's are ap1. The Codex Marines are ap2, but are concussive. Minor difference, but it seems like a useful weapon. Stormtalons are now 10 points cheaper than they were originally, which is a good thing as they were'nt used that often, even though I love using them! The book also features the rules for the other flyers currently in the game, its just a pity they couldn't fit a new one or two into the book. 

Overall thoughts then.... Is the book worth £20? This all depends on how much of the material you already own. If you don't have the WD with the rules for the StormTalon and Ork jets in then you get the rules for these plus a story revolving around three armies and their flyers. If you already have these, you're paying £20 for slight changes that lets be honest, shouldn't cost that much. Why they couldn't put this update into a WD or on a PDF on the GW website I'm unsure, but it would have been a nice gesture to try and balance the feeling a lot of people have against Games Workshop. The GW online store has some bundles where you can buy multiples of flyers, but these offer no savings over buying them individually. Why not do these bundles and throw the book in for free? Come on GW, give the customer something back! 

Its a nice little book that will add to your games if you're an avid pilot in the skies of 40k, but you will feel its overpriced for what it gives you.

The New Year

So 2013 has arrived, and after a busy couple of weeks I've finally been able to get some time to do a retrospective post and a look ahead to the new year. Firstly, as club was shut over the holidays a few of the guys came over where we spent the day playing Blood Bowl, eating pizza and krispy kremes, and introducing the lads to Rare Exports. I won two of my games with my humans, but lost to Morgan who simply had the better dice rolls. I couldn't get any of his players off the pitch! I did manage wins against Aluns humans and Owains Dark Elves though, plenty of winnings and I managed to dig out the old Special Play cards that added an extra bit of fun to the game.

 So looking back over the past year, and its been huge for myself personally. Not only at the tail end of 2011 did I find a wargaming group with a great bunch of guys I now call friends, but I became Chairman, helped to rebrand the club and we became members of the GCN, which is an honour. This means we'll be advertised on their website, and invited to events such as Hammerhead which is in February, which a few of us may be at! 

The biggest part of wargaming calender was most certainly the release of Warhammer 40,000 6th edition. There were so many rumours, people burning effigies in the streets, others creating new statues to the gods to earn favour, all in the hope or disbelief of what they heard were in the new rules. Well, the rules came out, and they've been pretty sublime. They have added new tactical decisions, reasons to take new units and mix things up, generally just so much better than I could have hoped for.  We've played many games since its release and I think every game has been enjoyable whether its a comfortable win, horrible loss, or a tight game.

Something else of note for me in 2012, was being able to play in Warhammer World in Nottingham. Playing apocalypse was tiring, exciting, tedious, amazing, such a mix of emotions as you play, and the await while your opponents play their turn. With each turn taking around an hour it was hard at times but the amount of stories and events that happened in just one game more than made up for this. Highlights for me was my Legion of the Damned taking over 120 shots from various weapons before 'dying', my Chapter Master Vincent Eniko taking on Imotekh the Stormlord and utterly destroying him, and just seeing my force set up on the Battle for Fort Pain board with everyone elses armies. It was astounding! Anothing highlight was meeting James and his wife. James is a great guy and we chat regularly on Facebook about life, gaming, jerky and much more. It really is a highlight of the hobby that through its social interaction new friends can be made.

So 2012 was a great year, but what for 2013? Well, what you see above is a box of Skaven Gutter Runners. I've long had an affinity for the ratmen, and as they were my first team, I've decided to have a go at converting a whole team from scratch as a slowburn project... that could become a crazed fast convert-a-thon as I hurriedly claw and sratch my way to make a team to compete! 

Another aspect is that I've heard from someone within GW, that as Warhammer Fantasy Battle is 30 years old this year, there 'could' be some sort of surprise release in the summer involving perhaps a campaign book or even a boxed set... intriguing! Intriguing enough that I may just start collecting a Fantasy army for the first time. Skaven are obviously an option, but Beastmen are the leading temptation so far. I love the feral and brutal look of them, so may skip my hooves down to my local store to pick up a box or two. I'm also intrigued that the new Tau codex is possibly around the corner... this could influence whether my attempt to get into WFB will actually happen!

Club wise we're just looking to improve what we have in terms of terrain and tables, get more exposure and hopefully more members. More members means more income, and more income means more things for the club. Hopefully Hammerhead will happen for us and we'll get some interest from that, and also Huws Pirate game keeps developing nicely, could turn into a treat!

Blog wise, I'll be here blogging all the latest from myself and the clubs activities, wargaming news and rumours and hopefully a few more videos here and there. I'd also like to see who is interested in meeting up at Games Day 2013, as I'm intending on going again. For now though, I shall wish you all a farewell and I hope your new year is a great one.

Blood Bowl All Dayer and the Night After

So our Christmas all dayer at club has come and gone, and boy did we have a blitz! We got four games of blood bowl in, there was some 40k, and the pirates squng their hooks around in the air again too!

So blood bowl consisted of 4 players... Me, Morgan, Alun and Louis. 3 human teams and Morgs Norse didn't mean much in terms of diversity, but it did become very much about tactics as we knew all the strengths and weaknesses of the others! 

My first game was against the Norsemen, and it started well but then bad dice rolls started to affect my game..

And I lost 2-1 in a reasonably close game. Louis on the other hand gave Alun a thumping... 4 or 5 - 0 I believe... ouch!

Owain was a miserable deck swabber...

Cappin' Huw soon put paid to that with a healthy dose of encouragement! 

Heres the game between Louis and Alun

Things like 'Billie Piper went for it but fell!' and 'you killed Elle Macpherson' were just some of the hilarious things heard during games with Louis and his Bunny Girls.

Pirates!

I somehow forgot to take pictures of my game against Alun, probably because it was incredibly close and exciting! We ended with a 2 - 2 draw and smiles on our faces. Morgan lost 1 - 0 to Louis in a really close game. This left me against the bunnies and Alun and Morgan to play! I needed Alun to beat morg to make it to the final and beat Louis who had won his previous two games... No chance! 

However... there was one... I beat Louis 4-0 in a one sided game, where dice rolls decided to be my friend! I managed to injure a few of his players and he was unable to stop my ogre bounding around picking on swimsuit clad ladies. 

Alas, it was not to be... Alun lost to Morgan and I was unable to play in the final despite my confidence. 

And the final? Morg won 4-1, the injuries I cause on the Bunnies meant Lou was missing a couple of players giving Morgan an advantage from the get go... and a big win. What an awesome day though! It made me realise how much I miss Blood Bowl and I hoped to get my revenge against Morgan... Luckily... I didn't have long to wait...

 Next night we arrive to club and eagerly set the board up. Myself and Morg have a match, both extremely confident, me coming off a big win and getting a couple of advances and a lot of money to buy a blitzer and a catcher, and Morg having a rising star player in a ST 4 runner....

Morgan taunts my ogre before kick off, saying his dauntless st4 runner will take my ogre on. Fair enough I think. I recieve, blow a hole open allowing my ogre to run down and blotz Morgs star player runner. Knocked down... injured... misses rest of the game at least. First turn, complete success!

From there I slowly gather my pace and roll up the pitch to go into half time with a lead and a couple of players up. From there Morg finds it hard to get back into the game and I win 3-0. REVENGE!!! As you can see, casualties for Morg were a tad heavy!

Always a good sight!

A sad Morgan means happy club. HA! Awesome game and I win 80,000 gp's from the game, I've been earning a lot of money fair dues! Every game thus far I'd won 60,000 at least, cannot complain. 

Elsewhere the last club night of the year saw young Corey take on Chris and his Dark Eldar, a game in which the youngling won by tabling his opponent!

Mike attaching weapons and arms to his pirates, ready to punish some scurvy sea dogs no doubt!

Most ship building takes place in the docks, but theres so many hookers hanging around them now we have to revert to the old table instead. 

After my match Morg plays Owain and his Dark Elves, a game I think Morg won 2-0. 

Lastly, Edmund brought over a Warmaster/Lord of the Rings game, with this really awesome little board to play on. Looks great!

And thats 2012 wrapped up as far as club nights go, we'll be back on the 7th of January, but we should be getting some gaming in before then, hopefully some Blood Bowl and even some other systems I'm yet to try... so look out for more posts over the holiday period!

Blood Angels vs Space Marines BatRep 2000pts

So being a little late this week at club we pretty much got right into the game. I took a fairly different list this week. This is a rough list...

Captain on Bike, + 5 bikers and attack bike

Chaplain leading a tactical squad

2 other tactical squads, one in rhino

3 dreadnoughts, one in drop pod

2 dev squads, one all missile launchers and one all plasma cannons

storm talon with typhoon missile launcher

Mikes Blood Angels list is roughly...

Dante and 5 sanguinary guard

8 assault marines

10 death company in rhino

tactical squad

devastator squad, 2 plasma 2 lascannon

baal and autocannon predators

dreadnought

stormraven with 5 assault terminators

Mike won the roll off to deploy and go first, then I set up. I went for a static left flank and centre, and the right would advance aiming to take out the dakka pred. Otherwise we'd see what happened!

First turn, no first blood but a couple of models killed either way. I glanced the baal and DC rhino twice each but couldn't get the first blood, but if I could weather the second turn of incoming fire I could pick one of those off to get a vital bonus point!

Mikes storm raven comes in and adds fire against the bikes and devs but fails to really do anything. Mikes assault squad manages to make an 11" assault into my central tactical squad, and a combat erupts! In my turn, I'm able to destroy the Baal and the DC rhino. First Blood!

Also in my second turn, my bikers advance even further and fire all their melta weapons at the dakka predator, and promptly blow it up. Another victory point! 

Ouch! As you can see in the following pic, the assault termies come out of the Storm Raven and slam into my tacitcal squad... this won't last much longer! The Tactical squad makes it to my turn with just a sarge and chaplain left, but then they can hold on no longer. I start losing more too, with my dread dying in the centre of the field.

My storm talon comes on and shoots at the devs. I manage to kill 2, but they hold firm. As I mentioned the assault squad and termies butcher my chaplain and tactical squad and consolidate towards my left flank. My bikers advanced again however and melta spoke death to the dreadnought, melting it to slag. For their efforts however Dante is finally able to enter play and charges them with his sanguinary guard. My captain challanges Dante who accepts, and a very close fight erupts between the two Space Marines heroes! The bikers however are unable to hurt the sanguinary guard and all bikes are killed after two turns of combat.

 Last turn heroics needed! At this point neither of us knew the points, so we kept fighting and decided to count up after the battle ended. Mikes 3 assault troops leapt into my left most tactical squad, but overwatch took one out and then I killed another without a loss. The sarge retreated, and Mike was able to save himself a point as his last terminator charged in. In my previous turn I'd shot at his termies with a lot of firepower and killed four... So close! The termie however misses with all but on attack... then rolls a one to wound! I failed to penetrate his armour however until my dreadnought stomps in and deals the fatal blow. Termies killed! 

I'd manage to whittle down the death company slowly but there was a couple left, so a vp denied. Dante and my captain was a close fought fight however, and the game ended with them still fighting. Captain Torgeaz had 2 wounds left, whereas Dante had one. Turn 5 was the last however, and we counted up victory points.

Counting up the points I'd won 7-6, first blood proving crucial! We knew it was a close game as we were playing, but that was incredible, I really like not knowing until after the battle and it proved an entertaining affair. Heck of a game fair dues, Mikes getting to know his army fairly well.

Elswhere at club a game of Gorkamorka went on, but I have no idea what happened apart from hearing much laughter from the table... must have been a good time!

BLITZ!!!!!

I know what you did, you read the title of this post and said it to yourself in the same way I said it as I typed it. With much volume, aggression and love. We all know 'Blitz' means one thing, and that's Blood Bowl. I have an incredibly squishy bit of my heart dedicated to this game, so when a new member suggested playing something imagine my smile when he accepted my challange of a game. YES!!

We'd both taken Humans, alhough I did have my old Undead team but I couldn't remember their stats so well so went with my Mordheim Raiders. Edmund also took Humans, so this would prove a pretty close affair. Humans are well known for being one of the most tactically sound teams in the game, being able to do a litle bit of everything. Depending what team you play against, you should be able to do a little of the other. Against Wood Elves? Barge em round and slap em til you have numbers then overwhelm them by stomping down the pitch. Against Dwarfs? Use your speed to keep ahead of them and try to pick one or two of them off by ganging up on them. They can do it all! This would prove interesting then!

 

I managed to score reasonably quickly and put Edmund on a bit of a backstep. I'd taken one of his guys out early, but he'd taken an apothecary and brought him back. Buggers!

 Then it starts to get crazy... Edmund rolls dice like he's playing Orcs or one of the other brutal teams, and starts to flatten my defence!

 I lose 5 people in total, 2 of which completely died! I was able to score another two touchdowns however before I lost all these, and the game finished 3-0 to me but Edmund had done plenty of damage and looked more than content! A good game, plenty of laughs too!

 It was awesome to get the old team and pitch out again, hopefully some of the other guys will be interested in playing a few games, Louis already has mentioned about getting his bunny girls out, so it seems my team will gawp around looking at scantily clad women playing football!

 Throwers Eye View.

Look at these braggards. Rough, violent, and probably all drunk on rum while hassling the wenches at a local serving bar. Yep, Huw's brought the pirate game back up!

I'm not entirely sure what went on, but I should be playing either next monday or the monday after, shall see! Looks like a laugh, although mutterings of Huw making bits up were heard and chortled about.

I remember Iain robbing a bank, Andrew had to back stab Bam, who then killed his treacherous foe, and Mike couldn't get to shore for ages, I think for bad rolling for rowing!

I'm not sure if Bam said one of his secret missions was to capture a ship, but I don't think he was able too being the other side of the board. You'd wanna steal on of these sea-faring beauties though, they look awesome!

Louis and Chris also played some 40k, Chaos vs Chaos. I didn't really get any pics of this game though, but I think Louis won against the Khorne Bezerkers. I want the Chaos players to pick their Chaos God and represent him in a 4 way all on all battle, I think it would look awesome!