First of the Seventh

And on the Seventh Edition, the High Lords did get it so right. At least thats my thoughts after the first game 7th edition 40k I've had. For the first game, myself and the Alun took a trip to the Crow Valley Crusaders to face an Imperial Guard/Dark Angels army commanded by Byron and Gareth. Alun took his Dark Eldar, where I took mainly Imperial Guard with some Space Marines. 2k each, and we used the new mission set in the rulebook to see what our objectives were. Contact Lost was rolled up, and six objectives were placed.Vague report ahead as this was played a week ago!

Having to capture objectives to gain new tactical mission cards to gain those all important victory points works insanely well and creates a really fluid game as each army are racing around to capture or at least contest objectives to get those lovely cards. What this does is challange the player to be ready to adapt during the heat of battle, as it should be. This brings so many new decisions and options that I can't wait to play more of the new missions. 

 Myself and Alun went first, Aluns Dark Eldar racing across the field to capture an objective in front of the opponents battleline. Aluns shooting was pretty dire, and mine wasn't too effective either. The return fire did some damage but we were able to weather it.

After the 1st turn we had control of a couple of the objectives, although our enemis had got the upper hand acheiving a couple early on and getting first blood. Sometimes the objective cards will be kind, sometimes not so much! They vary from capturing certain numbered objectives to killing certain units or making them run off the board. As the game went on both sides built up points in this way, and it seems a really good way to play a game.

Aluns Dark Eldar faced off against a lot of Byrons army, and highlights include a Vanquisher rolling a six to try and blow the DE flyer out of the sky, but only stunning it, and Aluns Wyches being abysmal at using Haywire grenades and leaving the Wyverns unmolested. 

I had a lot of the Dark Angels to take on, and was able to keep them mostly at bay. His bikes where slowly whittled down before they took out most of my Tactical Squad and a Rhino, and even stripped a hull point off my vendetta.  I slowly advanced down the right flank and the Banewolf took out some DA devastators before being stunned and stopping me from doing much else with it!

I then had to contend with Deathwing, which the Executioner did beautifully, killing most of them. Using an Enginseer was great too, adding some survivability to a Leman Russ but also POTMS the Russ to fire its weapons at one thing then the battle cannon at another, very useful! Combat erupted between the DE and Byrons Guard over the objective, and it was brutal. The DE were shot up and unable to cope up with the numbers the Guard flung in. Then we got to fire at the Guard and almost wiped them out, but there were soooo many tanks left!

As we got to the end of the game we totaled up the vp's and me and Alun had pinched it 11-8, such a close game!  The psychic phase was a bit of fun too, I had taken 2 primaris psykers and also Tigurius just to see how it went, and pretty much got 1 or 2 powers off each turn, much less than I expected but its a much more fun experience than just rolling under your leadership and trying to remember which phase each power should be cast. I think it makes psyker heavy armies a little less scary to face, especially those tricksy eldar! Whether the Daemons will be over powered is another thing, but I actually like the idea of a warp rift spewing forth daemons and trying to take them on! 

The star of the show however has to be the objectives. I can see some games being really difficult if you draw cards that are hard to acheive, but challanges should be accepted and relished on the tabletop. I'm already looking forward to my second game, this time against my partner in crime and his Dark Eldar! Scares me a little, as they're fast moving so I know he'll be able to capture a lot of the objectives so I will have to concentrate fire well! 

As for the Astra Militarum, heres the vehicles I have so far! The chimera on the left isn't in the best shape but it does the job for now. I'm not gluing weapons on yet as I want the ability to switch between options to see what works well, and against different opponents I can choose the nastiest combos! I've got some infantry to get done too and need to add more. Some heavy weapon squads would be nice too!

Expect posts to pick back up a little more soon, the route to self employment is about to pick up huge soon, so I'll be very quiet for a few weeks but hopefully I'll have more time to post and do some batreps. Getting a couple of tables also means more games as theres room at the studio to do so! Huge thanks to Byron and Gareth for the game, always a pleasure lads. I've not played near enough games of 7th so this will get remedied soon. More thoughts on 7th edition to come soon, and also possibly a post on much I'm swooning over the new Ork Flashgitz. THEY'RE GODDAMN NOICE!

Six point Five or Seventh.

News broke yesterday, with images leaked from a future White Dwarf that the rumours were true. A new 40k rulebook is coming. Whether this means its an update or 7th has come early, I don't think it matters. Updated rules are there, and this is what we know so far. 

"The FoC chart is still in the new 40k edition and if you follow it you have what is known as a "Battle Forged" army. It awards (unlisted) bonuses for using the FoC.You can also take a unbound army, these allow you to take whatever you want from your collection and toss out the FoC (while still adhering to unit size and heeding the relationships described in the new Allies Matrix.

Another thing is objective cards, so the objectives of the game can change each turn. The deck will be 36 cards.

There is also a physic phase confirmed now. A pool of warp charge dice is created at the start of the psychic phase, equal to 1d6 + mastery lvl of psychers. You can use as many dice as you like, but increase risk of perils of the warp (which is now a table you roll on.) Enemy psychers can draw on warp charge pool to Deny the Witch and nulify powers.
Also Eternal warrior missions still exist but in addition there are 6 new Maelstrom of War Missions.

Additional information that a Battle Forged list can take as many detachments as they wish, and still get bonus's.. The Unbound lists, is very much whatever you want to throw in to do a battle, and you get to choose which you want to play, and your opponent can do the same."

There are also rumours of a Daemonology psychic table to choose powers from, but I'll leave that alone until I know more.

Psychic phase makes a return. For anyone who played 2nd edition, you'll remember the psychic phase. Here, cards were drawn and then used to fuel powers, much like in fantasy in those days. 40k then proceeded to go a different route, where psykers were used a little less and the way powers were used differed until where we are today. Now however, it'll be through using a pool of dice, again, like how Fantasy does things. When 6th edition came out, I remarked to a few people, and likely on here too that some of the changes made me think about 2nd ed. It seems this is happening again. As long as the psychic phase is streamlined but with enough depth to be interesting it'll be a nice addition.

Now the big topic. If your knickers have been twisted, you may not want to read further.

I absolutely love this move GW has made in that there are now battle forged and unbound lists. Battle Forged will be an army using the FOC, much like we know it today. Unbound, will be taking a list with no restrictions whatsoever. Sound familiar? Its like a small scale apocalypse game. Now, while many will cry foul at this and see people be rude with making OP lists, think about this.

Mamy times in White Dwarfs, in various columns over the years some of the luminaries of GW have always mentioned about adapting the rules as you see fit. You spend money on the rules, you can modify them. They've even encouraged people to make their own scenarios and themed armies, this going back as far as I can remember being in the hobby, which is 1994 (ish). What they've basically done, is instead of trying to encourage people to do this things, is made it 'legal' to do this. People are afraid of rules, 'they're written down so I can't break them or change them to have more fun with'. Why can't you? If you and your gaming group all get on well, speak to them about adapting things and changing it up, make scenarios where armies can take 8 heavy support slots but no fast attacks. Whats stopping you? Absolutely nothing now, thats for sure.

Many people see the competitive side of our hobby, and think thats all there is to it. I've always been a fan of mixing things up, one of my favourite battles was against Alun where we made a scenario up that I had to split my force into two and surround his Guard army who was harbouring a traitor commander. Did it favour one of us to win? Possibly, but I think Alun would agree that it was a great match and we both really enjoyed the little stories from it. My vanguard being gunned down by his infantry, blowing up a line of his tanks with terminators, a frantic last dash to catch his commander and bring him down for justice... I still remember them now! With the ability to make unbound lists we could go back and used much more themed armies. Perhaps Alun has nothing but tanks, and they're all waiting for orders. I can only take limited infantry and have to stealthily make my way in and take them by surprise using only a couple of sternguard squads perhaps. Its this freedom that will make 40 even more fun than it is, and I'm currently loving the game!

Whether or not this will apply in tourneys I don't know, and if it is then everyone still has the same 'restrictions' so its all still fair game. This is a bold but move by GW in its key franchise game, but I believe its a good one. Some miniatures will be hurt by this, units that don't do that well may see sales drop even more but other units may make more money due to being able to use many of them.

Its certainly an interesting time for 40k fans, and there'll be a lot more information coming soon as to what rules will be brought in, changed, and kept the same. 

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!

Blood of the Martyrs

So Thursday night myself, Morgan, and Alun, took a trip to Firestorm in Cardiff. Its a wee shop with a huge selection of games and mini's for sale, and a nice big room out the back for playing games on. If you've read my blog you'll already have seen some of the awesome terrain they have there! Seeing as there were 3 of us, we looked for a mission to do.

Morgan suggest Blood of the Martyrs, which is in the back of the 6th rulebook and has the special rules for the Tau attack on an Imperial outpost. Myself and Alun would have 4500 points to Morgans 3000. Narratively we think Space Wolves with Eldar allies is a bit naughty, so instructed by Castellen Crowe Alun's Grey Knights and Imperial Guard (Crowe was the only GK bar a dreadnought!) and my Space Marines we would oust these traitors from a holy Imperial Cathedral!

Well... try.......

Morg set up and spread his units around. The more ground we had to cover to longer it would take to wipe him off the board. Varying degrees of success were available but we HAD to wipe him off the board in 7 turns. Or we would fail. We had only a little room to set up on but most of our units were either to deep strike or in Transports. Due to my bad luck on Monday I decided not to outflank Khan and some of my other units and go for a more direct approach and deploy at the start.

Deployment! Left flank was less threatening to us so we concentrated more on the right where Eldrad and his seer council were, plus a Wolflord on Thunderwolf and his flock of dogs were. Head on attack! 

So we would get the first turn unless Morgan rolled a 6. Six. Alun points out that Castellan Crowe would force Morgan to re-roll this thankfully, we need the first turn! What did he roll? SIX. Jammy bugger! Morg uses this to his advantage by advancing with some of his harder to kill units to act as a roadblock and slow us down. Edlrad moves forward as does a land raider, a large unit of blood claws, and the Wolf Lord. 

I move my Land Raider up and the termies disembark to assault Eldrad. Shotting isn't too effective, couple of warlocks die, but not a lot else. My Termies with Chaplain then roll poor for the assault and fail to get into contact with the Eldar, meaning I'd be assaulted next turn with Eldrads choice of psychic attacks to beleagre me!

Turn 2, and Morg's wolf scouts come into play. And promptly blow up Alun's Land Raider.  Khan attacks Edlrad after the survival of one Terminator and 5 bikers die leaving Khan and a terminator to fight on. They're both killed soon after. *sigh!*

The games room.

Disembarking my tactical squads I blow up a rhino that has zoomed forward... and find theres nothing in there. Bugger! I really should remember to find out whats inside a transport in case they're empty, silly Kev. This then leaves us to attack by the Wold Lord and his wolves, who can move through cover. Fast little puppies! 

I roill for reserves, with four units to bring on probability wise thats 3 units. How many come on? One. Land Speeder strikes down near Morg's Land Raider but fails to blow it up, although it does penetrate with the multimelta thus taking the heavy bolters and a hull point off the machine. My vindicator manages to kill some of Morgs big Bloow Claw unit, and Alun's imperial guard are able to whittle Eldrad down. 

My Termies finally make it onto the board and leave just this guy of the Long Fangs.  Legion of the Damned and Storm Talon fail their rolls to come on. Bad Luck continues! Around about Turn four and myself and Alun are now hopeing to make this loss look respectable, we've taken a beating and not had much luck, surely these are not Sons of Russ but Luna Wolves using some fiendish disguise?

My termies are taken out by a mass of shooting, which means my hope of using them and the Legion of the Damned to attack the rear of Morg's army over. The problem I had from Monday's game was not having enough attacking at the same time, and it happened again. Perhaps I shouldn't bring things on from reserve so much, or at least not use them too much as part of my plan if I can't rely on them? We shall see!

So the Storm Talon eventually arrives, along with the Damned and are able to do some damage but it looks like it may be too little too late.The storm talon takes a couple of grey hunters down, but the Damned are badly mauled by gunfire and only four remain. They make it into combat and last two turns but are eventually killed.

Castellan Crowe and the Wolf Lord meet after the Space Wolves warlord brutally takes out a few of our units, and then kills Crowe Crowe however manages to get one last attack in and kills the Wolf Lord, and thank the Emperor! He may have rampaged through the Imperial Guard lines with ease. A Grey Hunter squad succumbs to a lot of firepower, and it looks like me and Alun have an outside chance of pulling this off!

Eldrad is finally fallen thanks to the Guard storm troopers who pour fire unrelentlessly at the Farseer and his Warlocks. They've taken a tremendous amount of abuse and it was good to see them die. Sky Claws are also taken down after they dispatched a Callidus assasin, thanks in part to the Guard firepower and my Stormtalon's frag missiles, which killed 4 of their number. The vindicator taken down 5 grey hunters and theres only two left, but theres another squad that are still fairly strong, along with a unit of pathfinders with their 2+ coversave... ARGH!

The defenders take refuge in the cathedral.

So whats left of our forces line up to try and vanquish the enemy. The Imperial Guard manage to take out 5 scouts, but two still survive. This shooting comes from two Storm Tropper units, a GK dread, and two Chimeras. I try to take out the Space Wolves, but the cover saves prove too much. In the end, 2 Eldar are left and 5 Space Wolves survive. We fail.

We didn't fail at having an awesome game though.There were a lot of cool moments in this game, although my memory is failing to remember a few as I was concentrating on my army and taking pictures, but hopefully Morg and Alun will remind me and I can edit some more in. I remember a lot of bad dice rolls again, fingers crossed I'm due for some luck soon! I just remembered the vindicare that took 7 rounds of shooting before finally dying by the pathfinders! Its a really good mission to play though, and I recommend it to anyone. I still have some elements of my force I need to learn to use, Khan and the bikes, the Termies I've been using by deepstriking so I may try deploying these at the start, plus I realised I took no plasma weaponry, which would have helped enormously. 

Next time Space Wolf scum!!!! *shakes fist*

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?

6th Edition Officially Here.

In 7 days at least. Its finally been announced by GW that the 6th edition of Warhammer 40,000 is coming out on the 30th. We all knew this, but its nice its all a definate. Rules will quickly become known and fact, instead of mystery and rumour. Boltguns will chatter from 24", but not until chainswords have been swung. Official pictures from Games Workshop show the book in all its astoundingly gorgeous glory.

It may be £45 for the standard rulebook, but what a standard it is. It really does look the part, and I cannot wait until the 30th when I am able finally thumb through and offer my thoughts on all the rules. I'm hoping to get some games in as soon as possible with the new rules, and shall be posting thoughts. Its quite possible that I may even do my first video post concentrating on the new rules. Excitement!

Tomorrow I'll be visiting my local GW to gather as much info as I can get, and possibly even see if theres any games being run either from a demo rulebook or by the information gathered by the staff. 

What excites you most about 6th edition?Is it being over-hyped? Or are you too caught up in the hype to even care? 40k will undoubtedly change, lets hope its for the better.