Hive Probatious: Defend Against Pestilence

'All was darkness. Memories and dreams flew through Adelias mind as if a tempest was inside her mind. Her hard childhood learning to defend herself in the depths of Hive Probatious, improvising weapons until she joined the Eschers and was giving her first gun. Her father, who was an officer had started to lose his mind, and her mother had dragged them both away from the eyes of those who may question what he had fought and seen. The Inquisition will cleanse anyone who sees Chaos, and her father had seen much. He would often wake up shaking, murmouring of disgusting creatures that slowly stalked the battlefield, clouds of flies buzzing around their humanesque forms as smaller creatures would gather in great numbers playfully laughing and attacking the guardsmen. Sometimes he could not speak at all of what he had seen. Her thoughts began imagining large Astartes in armour that rotted, the smell of disease and filth strong and their relentless advance, firing boltguns and plasma wherever they pleased. With a jolt, Adelia shot up.'

 

Welcome all to a 2000 points battle report between the insidious Death Guard lead by none other than Typhus versus the gallant (yet slightly scummy) Hive Guard! First time using points and it worked out pretty well, managed to fit in a little more than I did in 100 power.  Deployment was a standard set up along the lengths of the board, I rolled and got first turn but Lewis seized the intiative! Darn it!

'Her vision was blurred, but she recognised her surroundings quickly. The dark ceiling and the low green lights of the command centre was now a familiar sight, a welcome one at that too. As her eyes started to focus she saw the crew of her Leman Russ battle tank to the side, all sat around a table sullenly drinking whatever was in their cups. "Awake I see. Bout fucking time" a gruff voice said. Her fellow Escher looked over to see her awake, as she looked to the side seeing Birim, his huge grey haired mohawk looking black from the battle but a smile on his face. "Wha... What happened?" Adelia asked. "One of those Death Guard bastards smashed your tank up, but its being fixed. Your girls are all fine apart from some scratches and smoke inhalation, but you got thrown out from an explosion on the main turret. Should be fine though. Massive bruise on your arse made all the lads laugh" he said joyfully. Then she felt the ache through her entire body, her arms were covered in scrapes and her backside throbbed, Birim wasn't lying. Ophelia, the driver of the Leman Russ, walked over and put her hand on Birims shoulder. "you alright sis?" she asked. Adelia let out a sigh, "I think so, medicae administered anything?" "Yeah" Birim replied. "Drink this and get up" he said handing her over his hip flask. Adelia had drank from his flask before and the liquid inside burned her throat. For once, it didn't feel unpleasent.'

Lewis commanded his forces forward quickly taking the two bastions with deep striking terminators right on the top. It took quite a while to get them out of there! My plasma executioner tank took a lot of damage early on and wasn't very effective but with how much damage it took it did its job! Autocannons vs Death Guard are pretty good though and even though it wasn't ordered it did well! Deffo keeping him around.  Those terminators though took out 2 squads of infantry, the damage to the tank and almost killed a sentinel. They got some bad ass weaponry!

"So some of us are alive, did we acheive the mission? Whats the casualties?" she wanted to know. Birim walked over to a desk where some people were discussing a hologram. He picked up a dataslate and walked back over, the red glow from the slate lighting his face up. "Pushed em back, made the fuckers pay. A lot of em are left lying face down in the dirt, though their stinking corpses probably like that. Ghronx went down, but hes not dead. Well not yet anyway. He still owes me 30 credits. We lost a few vehicles and about 40 men. Lot of repairs needed all being worked on. Some stupid bitch let a Marine slap her tank... oh yeah thats you." Birim snorted heartily under his breath. "We got em retreating and whatever they were after we don't think they got. Beat em to some of the supplies so we should be good until reinforcements." Adelia swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking a moment to stretch. "Who did we lose?" Birim looked up at her solemnly. "Most of my boys are gone, some are wounded pretty bad but that won't stop em from getting stuck back in if needed. A lot of your lasses are wounded too, not sure how many dead. Them Goliaths seem ok but the Defence Force squads lost a lot too. Reinforcements are hopefully coming in soon." Adelias experience of gang warfare was that you might lose a couple of comrades during a skirmish, but war brought loss to a whole new level."
 

Objective wise it was a close battle, I managed to get a few early on but Lewis kept close too. I'd edge forward by a couple then he'd catch up, and coming towards the end of the game he had just pushed ahead by a point.  I love how the objectives keep you guessing what you need to do. The best example, was me having to advance all my forces out of my deployment zone, which I manmaged to do and then on Lewis' turn he had to move 4 of his units back to defend his deployment zone. Narratively after his slow grinding advance I rushed forward and took him by surpise forcing him back. We loved that moment! My Vendetta took out the Plague Drone which was the scariest unit for me as it could surge forward with flamers and tie up valuable units. It had to go! 6 Lascannons worked haha.

'Memories of the battle started flooding back. Part of the mission had been to reclaim two old Bastions, but the enemy had managed to somehow teleport straight on top and the firepower from them took a toll on the defenders lines. Eventually they were cleared and one of the Astropaths had made it into one, the information claimed potentially being valuable. She remembered a smoking Vendetta gunship screaming around, its Lascannons blazing bright lights across the sky before it was struck and tumbled to the ground. The Death Guards flanks seemed to have been pushed back, but the middle had been the problem. Adelia suddenly remembered the masked Astarte that had strode forward over the bodies of friends and foes alike and struck at her tank with force she never knew one person could wield. After that, she could remember nothing. "Ghronx is in the medicae if you wanna go see him, along with the more badly wounded" Birim mentioned. As she set her feet on the floor, pain stung up her legs and her back. Her first couple of steps were uneasy, but the pain wasn't an alien feeling. "Best go see how the horny bastard is then" Adelia said as she walked away.'

These Death Guard Plaguebursters are brutal. Lewis has informed me hes getting more to add to the two he already has and I am worried! We had a little Callidus vs Typhus action (eventually, we kept forgetting we had them in reserves!) and I was gutted the Assassin didn't do more damage. Damn Chaos Psyker of filth!

My commander fell to a Plaguecaster, who then went into my command tank and finished it off. That was brutal! He then fell to lasgun and plasma gun fire from some infantry and the Goliath Veterans. Typhus had moved forward to try and contest an objective but I was able to slow him down enough before he could add his considerable weight to the fight. 

'She saw Aldreyus to one side, who was talking to the Astropath she had seen with the Goliaths before. A Ratskin shamen was also present, although he seemed distantly in thought elsewhere. She nodded at the Primaris Psyker who noticed her. "Ah Adelia, you're up and ok. It is a blessing to the Emperor that you are well". "Yeah I'm pretty happy about it. Although death means a good sleep" she replied. "Oh dear, thats not good... Oh I see! A joke! Ha I like that one!" he proclaimed as Adelia rolled her eyes walking past the old man. A few corridors along she came to the medicae. Some of it had been shut off, some illness had been caught by a couple of guardsmen although it seemed to be contained. She walked into the area and could see Ghronx's body lying on a bed, a couple of machines seemed to be hooked up to him. A man in civilian clothing bar an apron walked over to her, giving her a courteous nod. "Adelia I believe?" Adelia nodded, "Yeah, hows he doing?" "Not great, I'm afraid. He was found unconscious but barely breathing, we're hoping we can stablize him." the man said. "And you are?" Adelia asked. "Claus, I'm the medic here. Well sort of, not offcially but I've had some training. Not military grade training but just down in the Hive." he explained. "Good to have you here Claus. Hows my girls doing?" Claus checked his dataslate and scrolled through the hologram. " out of the 17 casualties, 4 were dead on the battlefield, and we lost another 3 since. The others should be alright to some level however." Adelia felt relieved that more were not lost, and patted the balding Claus on the back. "Appreciated Claus. Let me know if Ghronx wakes up." "Will do maam" replied the medic as he walked off to attend some of the wounded. Adelia had never been called that before, and it took her off guard. She thought back to her father and how he was an officer, and it seemed she would follow in his footsteps. 'Lets just hope I don't go crazy and see the shit he saw' she thought to herself.'

So tose Death Guards are brutal. Armour saves then extra saves on top of those on a 5+, they are hard to put down! I'm glad they're not cheap to bring too because facing a horde of them would make me cry. Well cry because of the challenge brought by the emperor of course... Ahem. 

A great game, I hope you enjoy the story I wrote too. Fancied doing it from a different perspective and theres probably a lot of mistakes but its all good. 

Whats next for the defenders of Probatious Hive? One thing is certain, there is always war!

Saturday Salvo: Controversies and Sisters.

This weeks Saturday Salvo takes a look at two things... so lets get the biggy out of the way... Go here for more.

Beasts of War are parting from Wayland Games, due to Games Workshop being upset that they'd shown unreleased images and sketches of unreleased images on some of their shows. The Beasts of War boys are now a completely independant entity and I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavours (wrestling reference there). They'll be relocating to Nottingham and a couple of other possible locations which means they'll be in the hub of British Wargaming. They will also continue to expand shows to cover the Games Workshop brands, so it will be interesting to see how this works out.

However, the internet has gone wild.

As per usual, people have been putting their hate-filled rants online. One of the comments called GW scum, and that they'll support Beasts of War. But wait a second, what exactly IS BOW's stance on Games Workshop? They're continuing to support the company and its games in videos, so how can others vent such rage when the people affected by it are continuing to do shows dedicated to its games? It could be argued that not showing anything based from GW would hit its audience... 

The problem is BOW had several letters sent to them warning about showing off unreleased GW images and material, yet they kept showing these despite GW's efforts to stop this. Why GW are so protective and secretive we may never know, but if you're a company and you want to release products in a certain way surely you're entitled to that right to do so? Natfka, man of Faeit212 had similar trouble after showing many images of unreleased Games Workshop material and was promptly shut down after failing to take heed of a number of warnings from GeeDub. They have both since reached an understanding and Faeit212 still thrives despite not showing so many rumours and by increasing its range of games.

I do not understand why GW have not created some sort of newsfeed to perhaps dispel rumours or create them via a video show. They're not high cost anymore since Youtube has become such a huge platform, and they even advertised for a 'video presenter' a number of months ago. In an interview I had with two members of the White Dwarf team they even stated about going into video with some sort of show that would appear online, but its seems as this idea has been shot down. The point is Beasts of War were told not to show material that GW hadn't released but continued to do so. Hopefully, like Natfka, the Beasts of War guys will continue to grow and use this as a positive step towards an even better range of shows. What are your thoughts on this subject?

Next up, along with a digital Blood Angels release, is this.

While not a full codex SOB fans won't be SOB'bing anymore as they finally get some sort of love. Even though its just another update from the White Dwarf list its still a good sign and fingers crossed if sells well, GeeDub will produce a full codex for fans of the army. 

Finally, some of you may have not just seen this but already given your money to Mantic for a copy.

Mars Attacks! the board game has reached its target in just 15 minutes, beating the record of Deadzone by around half. Thats pretty insane fair play! Personally, I don't think I like the look of it. I'd have a go but theres not enough there for me to want to drop money on it. The target was initially $50,000, but its now on $171,674. Thats incredible and a great feat! How do you guys feel about Kickstarter and how companies are using it to launch games? Do some companies even need to use it and hurt the smaller guys who are trying to get off the ground?

This weekend I'll hopefully be putting a post up with a battle report, my new almost finished Chapter Master and news on an event thats happening in the Valleys of South Wales. 

Warhammer 20k: Giveaway!

20k. 20,000. That, my friends and readers is how many views I've had to my blog in just over a year, and I feel pretty chuffed with that! Hopefully my blog will continue to grow, as I intend to expand what I cover, and include news and more club goings on from the Tredegar Reavers. But how to celebrate this milestone? Well, I feel like a giveaway! 

The prize shall be a nice fresh £20 Games Workshop voucher, something to go towards that new vehicle you've promised yourself or a box of troops to add to your forces.  But whats that did you say? "How do I enter Kev? How can I please your gaming appetite and gain this favour you large beast?" 

Well, thats a good question! Anyone who already follows me will be automatically entered. Also, anyone who follows my blog in the next two weeks will also be entered,  However, there is another way to gain extra chances... and heres how.

By combining my two loves, photography and Wargaming, I want you to take a self portrait of you and your fave mini. You don't have to have a great quality camera, use your phone if you'd like! Not only will you get extra entries, but I'll post your image on my blog in a feature, along with a link so all my followers will see your blog or page. Its a good way to share the love and feature what some of you guys do! To enter just send me an email to vandalworks@hotmail.com and you'll get a few extra chances to win the voucher.

Heres my example!

So what are you guys waiting for? Thanks again everyone and good luck!

Total War-hammered.

Creative Assembly, makers of the highly successful Total War series, has obtained the rights to make games based on Warhammer Fantasy Battle, previously held by EA.

“We have enormous respect for SEGA and Creative Assembly and have felt for a long time that the combination of the enormously rich setting of the Warhammer world, and their stunning development talent is a match with huge potential,” said Jon Gillard, Games Workshop's Head of Licensing. “Now that we’ve managed to bring these two giants of gaming together it is safe to say that some truly amazing products are going to be unleashed as a result. We are excited at the possibilities, and are enthusiastically working with the team at Creative Assembly already.”  

Meanwhile at CA...

“With this year being our 25th anniversary,” said Tim Heaton, Studio Director at Creative Assembly, “it seems fitting for us to embark on such a dream project with such a well-established partner. The incredibly rich and detailed Warhammer world is something we grew up with, and has left an indelible imprint on us as both designers and gamers.” “We’ll be doing the Warhammer universe justice in a way that has never been attempted before. We’re bringing those 25 years of experience and expertise in extremely high-scoring games to bear, delivering a Warhammer experience that videogamers will absolutely love.”

So what effect will this have on not only the videogames industry but the tabletop side too? I've heard from a small group of people how they got into tabletop or pc gaming through one of the earlier licensed games, be it Shadow of the Horned Rat, Final Liberation etc. Its probably happened to some extent since with Space Marine, Blood Bowl, and the very popular Dawn of War series. This has the potential to reproduce that, it already has a strong following and if any of those players are tempted into tabletop gaming then I'm sure they'll find some love for the strategy and grandeur of the tabletop games. 

The price of videogames also makes it an accessible way in for potential gamers too. Paying £30-40 for a few races, many battlefields to fight over, and even an opponent anytime you wish to play, is a great way for creating new fans of the Warhammer World. The one thing that scares a lot of people into going in to a Games Workshop store is not knowing enough about the product to converse with the retail staff. If you've played through a campaign on one of the games however, you'll know enough to be able to talk about something you're interested in, which makes that first trip a little easier.

The games success won't be measured by how many units it sells or what scores it gets by reviewers, but by how well it bridges the gap and recreates the look, feel, and oddness of the Warhammer world. If more gamers are intrigued by videogames as a result, and vice-versa, then GW and Creative Assembly will yell 'WAAAAAAGH' and drink much ale. And thats a good thing.

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!

The Hobbit. Best and Worst.

I've never tried The Lord of the Rings games, although I'm a fan of the films. Theres always been something I just didn't seem to fancy when it came to the rule set. With the Hobbit coming out however, intrigue was rising and I began to think to myself, "maybe now is a good time to have a go, I'm sure the models will be great and perhaps it will be fun." 

Well, after all the advance orders had been released, two things struck me.

Radagast the Brown. This is one of the best Tolkein mini's I've ever seen, and I'm gutted it won't be released seperately as its the limited edition extra. Ebay will be trawled through! I love the pose on this guy and all the little details, it just screams 'PAINT ME!!!' 

Unfortunately there was an incredibly bad point too...

What on Middle Earth? £45 for four, very averagely sized miniatures? Yes, they're well detailed and look nice, but £45??!?!!? You're totally taking the elvish bread there GW. That in itself has put me off getting into this game. The thing I like about 40k and my Space Marines is that through the basic tactical squad I can convert (even with my basic skills) some fairly decent HQ models that look fairly decent. This means I save money on not having to fork out on top dollar mini's and have a fully customised set of HQ miniatures. This however, you'd need to be a pretty good sculptor to do that, and then some! Its completely put me off getting into this game, and I think I'll only have a go IF someone at the club decides to pick it up. I love the set of Trolls but they're £50, thats £15 for each Troll and a fiver for the camp fire in effect. I understand that they have pay the license out of this but its still an incredible amount of money that I simply will not have. 

Shame!

Reavers Day of Reaving

So I've already post about The Tredegar Reavers having had an all day at club, but heres the second post I promised showing off the other two games that went on. Huw's Pirate game and an Apocalypse game consisting of Tyranids, Eldar, Chaos, Grey Knights and Dark Angels. As you can see, bio-titans and heirodules made an appearance as well as the entire Deathwing company of Dark Angels and it looked fantastic! Anyway, I'll let you look at the pics themselves, as well as a few thoughts of the day from some of our members.

Jamie Chadd; "my best moment was when my grey knights slew their first ever demon prince lol"

Huw Williams; "Owain getting his mast shot away by the Spanish Guarda Costa, Owain going up the tavern to celebrate their victory and catching syphillis (there's a special dice-roll), the pair of them getting cheated out of their prize ship by the Governor of Jamaica, the planting of a map and first clues to a vast Inca treasure: The Fabled Golden Cock of Atahualpa"

Mark Llewellyn; "My favourite part was my deathwing putting Josh's chaos army through the grinder."

Michael Browning; "my favorite part was Huw's reaction to Owain and Aaron's audatious attack on the 'best ship' in the spanish fleet and the eventual capture of said ship. Also it was my shot that took out owain's Mast!!"

Owain Richards; "Morgan's reaction to the Bio-titans, still cracking me up now. Mike taking down my mast in one shot, Celebrating a job well done with a job of a different kind and getting Syphillis and Aaron and me conducting piracy against the Spanish Navy. T'was a good day."

Morgan Payne; "Avatar fighting a heirodule for 3 turns was epic, karandras completely smashed a hive tyrant, jain zar took a harpy straight out of the sky, eldrad and his seer council survived against a carnifex, 10 gaunts, 5 warriors and 20 genestealers, the heirpohant was a challenge, kept getting its wounds down only for it to regen the next turn"

This Post is Brought to You By the Letter....

ARR!!!

Ah I couldn't help it. It was the only way to start off a post whose subject is Pirates.

One of our members at the Tredegar Reavers, Huw, has been busy drinking rum and frolicking with busty wenches to better learn the psyche of a pirate. Hes spent most of this time naked and drunk then. However, in those rare bouts of sobriety, he's also managed to build some splendid looking ships, pirates and buildings, and a set of rules that are developing nicely. I got to play for the first time, and its a great little game.

I was given a Pirate Captain and a second in command, and we were all given secret missions written down on a note. Mine, was to get to Bams captain, and present him with a letter from a local Governer. The message? I would not know til later, but when I reached him, I had to keep him alive. 

Avoiding a brawl at a local drinking hole I sneak around some buildings and head towards a rowing boat, hoping to get out to Bams ship. 

I get shot at by Mikes ship, Iain steals a ship and kills a couple of harbour men, and Bam tries not to crash into anyone. 

I was able to complete my mission, and I was to accompany Bam on a daring raid on a harbour in Jamaica. Iain was unable to get away with the ship, although he may be alright for the next game. The game itself was fun, plenty of banter and encouragement to do outlandish things and interact with each other. The one thing is to try and streamline parts of it. The combat, from what I witnessed works well, but some of the more normal tasks take a little longer. For instance, when getting a rowing boat into the water I missed 3 turns to do so... Perhaps even movement could be a little more generous to allow the game to flow a little quicker. To be fair though it was still a good laugh, and had we more time I think this wouldn't have mattered quite so much... but it would still be a good thing.

It'll be interesting to play a few more games and become embroiled in the backstabbing and politics I've seen. Alliances have been made and broken over gold and ships, and I want some! 

 

The Community.

On our clubs trip to Warhammer World, I had previously mentioned about a couple I met and got talking too. James and Angela Askins, a couple who live in Nottingham and are both incredibly embedded in the hobby, couldn't get rid of me for many minutes, and I apologise for keeping them from sculpting and painting! I think James gave me a wee present to get rid of me, and here it is.

I wish (and hopefully will soon have) a photography set up to take much more detailed pics so I could give this justice, but you can still probably see how awesome this looks. James (who is a member of The Dogs of War) was telling me that he'd had a tryout for a miniatures designing position at Games Workshop, and one of the things he was tasked with was to copy the Grimgor Ironhide model. This head is the decapitated head the Black Orc waves cheerily in his hand. As soon as he showed me it I was impressed, the slight sneer on his face, how you can sculpt that much detail I'll never know. However, seeing how impressed I was at this face James said I could keep it as a momento of the day. What an absolute gentleman! His partner Angela was also incredibly lovely, talking about painting, showing me her current project (which was looking sick!) and they both shared stories about the hobby, from Games Workshed to John Blanche and even vikings hanging out with Gandalf. Which is the subject of this post. 

As someone who has been into videogaming for a very long time, and seen the birth of online gaming, it often appalls me at how people act on there. Swearing and abusive comments being commonplace. Incredibly annoying I'm sure you'll agree. Well, experiences in wargaming, for myself, are very much the opposite. Everyone seems genuinely helpful, either to give tips, gaming advice etc. You only need to be on here to find this out. 

FTW, WhiteScars, Faeit 212, Sons of Isis, and Wargames and Migraines have all been incredibly helpful in any matter I have so wished help with or simply been amazingly friendly to talk too. It really shows just what a great hobby this is to be involved in. You only have to walk into a Games Workshop and fight the over friendly staff off to see what I mean! I've only been re-involved in the hobby for about 8 months and already I feel like I never left it for almost 10 years, the people at Tredegar Wargames Club have been so welcoming and helpful, and its an honour to say I'm now a part of this. Part of what we do at the club is to try and make it grow, from gaining new members to improving what we have to enhance the gaming aspect, everything is being looked at and its an honour to be able to help the club in this way. 

When I was young and was first shown the hobby by my brother in law, I felt that this was something I wanted to do in more than just a past time way. That feeling has started to resurface, hence why I'm blogging about it, and trying to get the club I'm a part of improve as much as possible. 

Cheers everyone I've mentioned and also to the people I may not have.