The Fractured Imperium

Call the internet plumber for the leaks are out. Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines and having been in stasis for thousands of years, is back. With him comes a new Grey Knights (bore) Grand Master and much more excitedly, Cypher.

Cypher looks impressive, and it will be interesting to see where the story lies for these characters. In one of the leaked pictures from White Dwarf, Cypher stands next to both Guilliman and the GKGM even though he was once thought a heretic. The Dark Angels will likely still think this, but my narrative head is beaming with ideas. A couple of other pictures leaked held some very intriguing text. One mentioned that some in the Imperium would be incredibly suspicious that Roboute has been brought from the dead, while the Primarch himself is dismayed at the state of the Imperium. This makes me wonder... will the Imperium split? 

Think about it, not for thousands of years have the Imperium had a figure to look upon as a leader. The High Lords of Terra are mysterious, the Emperor is but a corpse held alive but machinery, who do they look upon? Roboute. However, with the Emperor being revered as a God Guilliman may not agree with many of the Imperiums rules, hence a possible civil war. Depending on rumours with how this Gathering Storm continues we could see the fracture of the Imperium of Man.

Cypher working with Roboute, is he trying to tell the primarch that the emperor needs to be killed to be reborn? Vulkan could be used as evidence and a potential future release down the line. However, due to the many cults and factions many will not allow this and I can see a brutal war breaking out amongst the Imperium. Rumours abound that the Gathering Storm after this third instalment could see Vect return, along with Mortarion in his Daemon Prince form and a new envisioning of Abbadon, which is well needed. Will they perhaps work together to create an even bigger divide of the Imperium, taking advantage of the inner turmoil? Perhaps Cypher even is creating this discord, its always been said he creates a lot of discord and would suit his character. 

The splitting of the Imperium would be huge. Space Marines no longer allying with other factions like the Grey Knights or the Ordo Hereticus, Imperial Guard could be stuck in the middle, Primarchs vs High Lords of Terra. Having the story arc for Warhammer 40,000 move along after so many years is exciting, so many possibly story lines could be closed, expanded and started that this time next year we could be talking about the fringes of the Imperium battling the empires of the Eldar, Tau and Renegades. Perhaps the Tyranids will evolve and become a republic, leading the other races into a new age of prosperity. Yeah, and Jokearo might fly out of my butt.

Chaos Lives! Chaos Lord and Hellbrute updates

Its not very often the forces of Chaos get a dedicated post on Death By Die... but today they have found their way in. At our gaming club, the Gwent Reavers we chatted about the expense of the hobby and perhaps if we had a small collection of 40k things here people could at least try before they buy. Thinking further about it, I realised that I had a small Chaos force. Very small. But its something. With the Assassinorum boxed set giving me 15 cultists, a Chaos Lord and 3 Chaos Marines along with the the 6 beastly based Chaos Marines I modelled a while ago, it was a start. I'd also won a Hellbrute a couple of years ago in a little competition held by friend Adam, where he gave it away on his old Nurgles Command video. 

Out came the glue and paint! What you see below are what I've done so far, along with other things its not much but the Chaos Lord looks pretty good and I'm happy with the colour scheme. Its Thunderhawk Blue highlighted with Lothern blue, which I'd previously used on my Millenium Falcon(more of that soon).

 I'm especially happy with how his cloak came out, I think the green tones look nice and compliment the blue pretty well.

 And heres the Hellbrute! Same colour scheme, and I went with a very brown skin as it would work against the blue by being a little warmer in colour and the pipes, exhausts and bones would contrast the browns too. Note the added Imperial Fist helmet, which, somehow innocently, is Bams chosen army... coincidences heh?

Mikes also brought over his Tzeetch Thousand Sons army over for me to scavange from, a lot of work needs to be done on some of the models but the Chaos Terminators and Lord look very usable, as well as a few other bits. Its coming along slowly! Some of the models won't look that great but if it means the club has an army then its all good. 

Now a little chat about the new Chaos Terrain for Age of Sigmar. To make up the whole thing its £600+. Wowsers, thats a lot of pennies! It does look spectacular though, and I think some of the smaller packages are pretty good too in terms of visuality. I did wonder how it would look for other Chaos forces though....

And I'm really digging it in blue! I've changed the saturation in photoshop to what Tzeentch and Nurgle fortresses may look and I think the blue one stands out really well. I think perhaps some Tomb Kings accessories would help give it a more Tzeentch flavour, and for nurgle lots of ooze, lots of browns on there too. Be interesting to see how people paint theirs when its released.

Theres also rumours of a september release for a new Chaos Codex for 40k, along with a new Daemon Engine. What could it be? Who knows, a Chaos sized Knight titan would be good thats not Forge World, but I'm expecting something a little different. Who knows! What do you think will be new in the Chaos Codex?

8k Batrep and Assassins Progress

Well hello there! Welcome to another Death By Die post, this time an update on the assassins from the Execution Force boxed game and a battle report! 

Heres how the assassins are looking so far, still some details to get done but they're almost there! 

Below is the Vindicare assassin, like I said some neatning up is needed but you get the general idea on how they'll look. I've yet to play the game but used this game in the following battlereport and he did well.

Heres the Eversor assassin, I wasn't sure whether to go for the traditional bone skull or go dark grey with the rest of the body suit, but thought the bone would stand out more. Can imagine an unsuspecting target seeing the skull floating int he air several feet away from him, only for it to zoom forward, claw lunging for their face and skull laughing like Skeletor! 

So the batrep was a doubles game, myself and Shaun with his Imperial Fists against a Death Guard/Khorne combo with Rhys and Chris. Chris also had his newly converted Khorne Knight with him, yikes! 2l points per army, so 8k in total! I used White Scars tactics, factoring I'd get close to whatever was coming at me and boltering/grav'ing my enemies to death. Then against Chaos I wondered if this was a good idea as they're better in combat! We dployed first, and I took the right while Shaun set up on the left, both of us sharing the middle.

The enemy answered with Chris' Knight deploying against Shaun, whose army consisted of mainly bolters, and my bikers found themselves against 10 Nurgle terminators with not only a Chaos Lord (represented by Mortarion) but Typhus too. Their central consisted of a strong force of Chaos Marines with 2 units of havocs with autocannons and some weapons platforms. I scouted forward and in the first turn took 7-8 terminators out due to a few bolt guns fiding the weak points in the armour and the gravs crumpling away the millenia old terminator armour. The Weapon platforms were destroyed before they could fire, and Shauns Honour Guard unit reupted from their Krohmus Guard borrowed Redeemer to leap into assault with infiltrating chaos marines, who were cut down by the verterans in yellow.

The second turn saw the Knight beocming a threat as it charged forward... but not quite far enough to attack Shauns lines. A chaos vindicator was finished off from a combined strike of my deepstriking dreadnought and some Imperial Fists supporting fire. Typhus, the Chaos lord and remaining terminators lurched forward, a plague wind killing a couple of my bikers who responded with more bolter/grav fire and then Khan (at least my version of him) charging in. Khan however took 2 wounds with Khan unable to wound the mighty Chaos general. The terminators were finished off however and the white scars retreated via their hit and run ability. 

With the Chaos Knight almost on Shaun a lot of fire was poured into it. Most of Shauns shooting proved ineffectual but my two lascannon armed predators were able to take a few hull points off, my storm talon adding to the weight of fire. IT was not enough however... and it stepped forward into the Honour Guard. 

My assault Squad failed to get into combat, and were then shot up by the Chaos Marines they were about to target and lef tme with my Captain wounded and one assault marine left. My Dreadnought was destroyed by Chris' Terminators who then pursued the Knight to back it up, but the Havocs entrenched on an objectiv were left with just he champion from the Fists suppressing fire. My bikers lined up the Chaos Lord and finished him off as my main unit revved around the landing pad to charge the unit that had initially been the target of my assault marines, wiping them out to a man. More Havocs were butchered, some by my captain and remaining assault marine others by the storm talon. 

Thats a lot of firepower for a chaos lord to withstand! 

The honour guard clinged on for life against the onslaught of the Knight, the captain unable to dent the machine with his power fist. The Chaos left flank had crumbled though, and Krohmus Guard were flooding over to support the Imperial Fists. 

With just a couple of the honour guard left along with their captain, my jump pack captain and shauns contemptor rushed in to aid the fists. The contemptor failed to dent the great machine, who aimed his attacks at the Imperial Fists commander who barely avoided the blow. As my woundeed captain was about to land a blow with his mighty thunder hammer the Chaos Knight staggered back the Fists Captain punching a great hole in the machines knee setting off a chain reaction of explosions. Then this happened.

Extreme pie plate moment! My captain was killed in the resultant ecxplosion, where everyone else survived... typical! haha. The Fists captain had finally delivered the blow he'd been unable too, and finished the machine off. 

I forget the final score but myself and Shaun had won by a good margin, and the field was ours. It was so good to have a nice sizeable game of 40k again though, its shown me how much I've missed playing the game. Fingers crossed at club we'll be able to get a club Chaos army, and when Aluns back I'm gonna see if he fancies doing a campaign or something. See how it goes anyways!

Now, IU couldn't leave without having a couple of pictures of Chris' Knight.

Apart from using some spare Chaos bits I think he said the head was taken from the new Bloodthirster model, and it fits it incredibly well. Such an evil looking beast!

Even though I did a lot of damage to it it took a hell of a beating to destroy, and it makes me fancy a Knight of my own to suppoert my Marines. Maybe in the future we'll see a Krohmus Guard Knight!

International Tabletop Day at the Reavers!

And so International Tabletop Day has come and gone, and my word was it a cracking event. Not only did we have members from the Tredegar Reavers and the Crow Valley Crusaders as usual, but we had a good dozen or so people who weren't members of a gaming club come for a visit to try some tabletop goodness, and judging from the comments everyone had a great time!

Above we have Morgan, Gareth and Alun playing some Magic the Gathering, of which I had a go later on in the day and although I'm still unsure of how it works, did enjoy and wouldn't mind a few more games to see if its something I want to get into. Excuse Morg scoffing his face, breakfast pizza. Lucky bastard!

The Crow Valley Crusaders brought some games and tables up, and set up this awesome looking Infinity display. The bottletop barrels were great, as were the use of toys for vehicles. 

Heres one of their members setting up Deadzone, a game I really wanted to try but didn't get a chance too. The scenery looks pretty cool and I've noticed Mantic have announced that they'll be bringing it out more widely soon... interesting!

One of my favourite board games of all time, Scrabble, got plenty of use and there must have been 5 or 6 games played in total. I lost one and won a game, but enjoyed both immensely. 

Of course No Quarter was played, Huw putting on another great game that got plenty of peoples attention. Huw scowling while mentioning Mikes name could become a new tradition at club!

Chaos in the old world, with a daemon dice!

The aim of CITOW is to get your Greater Daemons together for an intense hugging battle where the softest yet firm hugs win out. In truth, Morgan played a card from the Khorne deck making all the greater darmons in play jump to the same region to do battle... but before a weapon was swung I used a card to get my Lord of Change out of there! 

Scuse the mug, but my mate Louise... I mean Lewis popped over with his lady for a visit. 

Things getting serious as Byron and Shaun look to be in a good postion to win.... but who does?

Heres how the hall looked at mid afternoon, we had people come in and out all day, such a good turnout!

More No Quarter, but with a new cappin' on board! 

Dungeon Petz, a strange game that I didn't quite understand but the players seemed to be loving it. There were different counters for sand, grass, food, and poo. Yes, they were brown! I think you had to look after the pets and nurture them to sell them on. I could be wrong, but thats the sense I got. Louis and his lovely other half also brought Ticket to Ride which I didn't get to play and I really wanted, dabnammit!

So CITOW ended with Byron almost winning, only for Shaun to steal victory from him. The Skaven expansion added some cool elements to this and was a great laugh.

These guys were also part of Dungeon Petz, and I think they either help you or they live in the dungeons that the game takes place in. Cool little counters though thats for sure!

I pulled CubeQuest out for Alun to try, and it wasn't long before EVERYONE was having a go. We tried to set a league but ran out of time, it was hilarious though watching people going from just flicking the cubes over to them actually trying serious tactics out, some great moments fair play.

Five of our visitors had a great time playing Guards! Guards! I really like the look of the hexagonal board and even though I'm not sure what was happening, they players were well into the game and you could see them schemeing over their cards!

As you can see, getting down low to line up a shot in CubeQuest became a nessecity!

More Magic being played, this time between Byron and Morgan.

More hardcore Scrabble action, defiantely an all time classic!

Just some of the games that people brought to play. This isn't even half of them, we had over 30 games for people to choose from!

Heres my hand while playing Gloom, one of my favourite games to play with people new to tabletop gaming. My friend Cassie brought a couple of her mates over as they were interested, so I took them through a game. Some of the little stories that were told were fantastic, and a copy was bought on amazing when the game had finished!

More CITOW

More of Gloom being played by some of our guests.

You can tell when Louis forms a plan, he has that evil smile on his face! Probably about to make someones character happy in Gloom, devious man! 

Without a doubt, the most concentration I've ever seen on Byrons face was when we played CubeQuest. Such a great game, and its quick to play!

All in all then a great day, and one I feel should happen more than just once a year. Everyone seemed to have had a great time and so many games were played! It was incredibly rewarding seeing everyone enjoy themselves and be inspired by new games and meeting new people, and I can't wait til we put on another event like this. I have to thank not just our members but also the Crow Valley Crusaders, especially Byron who helped coordinate the event, organising these things are half the battle! Mainly though I have to thank every person who came and rolled a dice, drew a card, or flicked a cube at me from across the table, it was an amazing day and one we'll be having again!

For more info on our clubs, visit the Tredegar Reavers and the Crow Valley Crusaders or just give me a shout on here. Thanks for reading!

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!