Please Allow Me....

To reintroduce myself.

So who is this great bufoon behind the blog? Well, put simply, me. Known infamously as Big Kev or vandalworks (twitter, instagram, XBL, facebook) I am not only large in size but also large in nerdiness. Over the last year, Death By Die, has been put to the side a little as real life came to the forefront and decimated my time and mental stability. But now it would appear that I need this more than I realised. I've missed blogging, writing about things I love (mainly gaming of the dice and card based kind) and hearing from people and making new friends. So where do we start? Lets talk about the shit I love.

This last year, myself and a couple of our club members (The Gwent Reavers) got into Dungeons and Dragons. We didn't know what to expect, but I think massively enjoying it wasn't one. I thought it would be ok and worth a go, but I've now become a huge fan of being a DM (thats short for dungeon master) and helping to create these adventures for my friends to gallantly garner victory or hilariously fail basic tasks. Gav, looking at you kid. What makes this so good is character development, seeing people you know get into who they have become for a game and trying to go against what might be a better tactical option for something more in line with their character. And the best thing now is that we're soon having our first regular roleplay night with a few new people. Should be good and will be something I'll blog about in the future! 

Ah Sons of Anarchy. This represents not just how much I adore board games but certain TV shows too. Sons being one, Game of Thrones being another. I don't get in to many but the ones I do get into, I may blog about occasionally! Also keep an eye out for movie posts, with a Force Awakens thoughts post coming soon!

Everyone needs their ideal snack for gaming, and by Christ Squashies are the best. From full to empty in a short and often unbelievable amount of time these little pillows of goodness are addictive. Hence why I've been clean for a few weeks. But soon....

Being born in the year of the Empire, (1980) I was a pure eighties kid. Cartoons were probably at their best with Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bravestarr and a plethora of other goodies being crammed into my eager and toy needing eyes. But if one caught my attention more than any, it was Transformers. Generation One Transformers to be specific. When the vehicles got a little scifi they were'nt Robots in Disguise anymore, which was ok but I preferred the real looking ones. Expect much gushing if I spy Transformer related goodness. 

Ah Blood Bowl, my first love. Not only have Games Workshop released the first sculpts for the new addition and therefore given me the biggest nerd-on in the last year but I picked up the sequal to the original videogame on the Xbox One and its been enjoyable. I took a little time off videogames for a few years but a few months ago Star Wars Battlefront was being released and I needed to get back on board. Expect some videogaming posts on this very blog! Along with the Blood Bowl tabletop game I do play the occasional game of 40k and am often found tinkering around with some Space Marines, so progress, which you can find over various posts previously in this blog shall continue!

Wrestling. Yes, I'm a fan of the theatrical fight where men in pants covered in baby oil act and grapple for a new belt. From WWE to local wrestling, if I can get to some shows I'll be giving thoughts on them and about things that happen in the wrestling world as I see fit to comment on. Royal Rumble is just around the corner and may well be the first subject on this blog! 

So thats my reintroduction of who I am, and what you can expect as I attempt to inspire myself to blog and annoy you about all things I feel most nerdy about. 

Geek on Garth.

40k Batrep: The Decider

So the time had come. The big one. The decider. Crow Valley Crusaders vs Tredeager Reavers. Best of three, first two games split, only one left and everything to play for. Alun had informed me that we'd have 3k pts. Each. This would be a chunky game! Alun was taking Guard this time, using the Militarum codex that had been released just the week before. On one hand, it was fresh and Alun hadn't used Guard before, but on the other I don't think Mike or Shaun expected Guard... lets see how it goes. 

Upon arriving, Mike and Shaun tell us we'll be facing 4 Chapter Masters. Shocking!

I'd decided not to take one, and had plumped for Tigurius and a Captain (aka Squat Slayer). Alun had taken Stracken as his warlord, with Tiggy as mine. We got first turn and set up. Most of our units were on the right flank, which, in hindsight, not a good idea to bunch things up.

Then 'IT' happened. One of the most devastating first turns I've ever seen. Unfortunately it was from Mike and Shaun who seized the initiative. 3 orbital bombardments later and 2 leman russ tanks, 2 chimeras and a vindicator were blown to pieces. Alun, who had also taken some Grey Knight allies, lost his Vindicare to an unlucky roll of '1' to save him. I think the boys said they had around 27 blasts to come down on the first turn. Needless to say, they got first blood. It did not look good. Shauns sternguard drop pod down beside my plasma cannon devastator squad and only a couple are lost.

Two of my drop pods entered play, and I attempted to assassinate Mikes Warlord. 10 combi grav shots later and I butcher the tactical squad he was accompanying but he loses just one wound... and gets it back later on from it will not die. Oh well, worth a go! Elsewhere we take a couple of hullpoints off a contemptor, stop one of the plasma preds from firing and I blow on of the other ones up, although this enrages a nearby contemptor who comes charging back to deal with my tactical squad in the next phase. The plasma cannon squad, lead by Tiggy take aim at the Imperial Fists Sternguard and wipe them out. Presciene and Perfect timing working incredibly well together!

Turn of the flyers! Most of the flyers enter play except for Shauns Fireraptor. We take more losses this turn, a combat squad is wiped out from Mikes huge terminator squad in the spartan, the Guardsmen behind the Aegis Defence Line take a hammering and the plasma cannon devs are reduced significantly. Not as bad as that first turn though!

Aluns surviving Leman Russ takes position to cover the Relic, its battle cannon threatening to any infantry looking to capture the objective. I drop pod nearby the Relic and attempt to run onto it to capture, but roll dismally and fail to reach it. After some concentrated fire, Shauns Warlord is left alone after his accompanying tactical squad were blown apart by rockets and battle cannon.  A missile launcher toting Krohmus Guard tactical member takes aim and looses off a krak missile. The missile hits home and Shaun fails his save, giving us a vital victory point. With the objective in the middle of a killing zone we realise that the objective wont be held by anyone and its via bonus VP's this game will be won. We'd already lost out on First Blood and Linebreaker looked likely to be held by both sides, so Slay the Warlords would be huge. 

More of the Iron Hands and Fists units deepstrike onto our right flank, and guardsmen are hit by fire, although not before a demolition charge is thrown at Shauns terminators, but Alun misses and only catches four in the explosion. My plasma cannon devs are wiped out, and Tiggy is left on one wound after fire from umpteen sources. Off he hides! Shauns Stormtalons are wiped out in retaliation and it seems the right flank is safe, despite not much being left. The Techmarine and Thunderfire weather the storm and are left on one wound. 

The Fireraptor also gets dealth with thankfully, although my Stormraven gets battered and left with one hullpoint. Aluns Inquisitor deepstrikes down and takes so much firepower yet still a few survive! And then get charged by a contemptor... Mikes Warlord hides in some ruins with another Tactical Squad, and this now is our prime target. Both of my Storm Talons swoop over and manage to kill a few of the squad. Aluns Valkyrie also flies over into a position to drop off his stormtroopers for a fusilade in the final turn. 

Becoming fed up of Mikes plamsa pred getting fixed up all the time the Stormraven destroys it before the thunderhammer termies assault wrecking the third and final one. Noll the Squat Cyber Slayer also launches himself into the other thunderfire cannon, easily dispatching the Techmarine. The heavy flamer dread torches three of the marines but leaves himself out of range when he assaults... oops! 

With both of our Warlords safe, the score stands at 2-2. Mikes Warlord is now the only thing we kill to earn us victory, the Relic seemingly secondry to killing people! The stormtalons go into hover mode as the Stormtroopers disembark and loose off a hail of fire, taking down the last few of the tactical squad guarding the (one of many HA) Chapter Masters. Alun also manages to take off a wound from the Warlord and the Stormtalons open up finally killing the stubborn sod! With that, we edge out a win 3-2, although I'm still not sure how after that first turn!

So what a game and what a way to end this best of three series against Mike and Shaun. Both were awesome opponents and I can't wait to play more games against this scheming duo. I'm sure many more interclub games will be held, if they're half as fun as these three games have been they'll have an awesome time playing! 

Coming up is a game against Aluns Daemons that was again, incredibly close, and also some WIPs of projects I'm working on. This Saturday too I'm going to Warhammer World with a few of the CVC lads to the GCN EGM, so that should be a great day out and it'll be awesome to meet some of the people involved at the GCN. Its a shame I never got to meet Anthony Barnes who passed away recently, and was the president of the GCN. Whoever takes over has some big shoes to fill, but I'm sure they'll be upto the task. I'm also looking at perhaps a couple of Forge World additions....

Batreps: CVC Longest Night Visit!

So Friday night I noticed the Crow Valley Crusaders, a club based in Cwmbran and occasional visitors to our own Tredegar Reavers, were having one of their more famed events. The Longest Night. Plenty of dice rolling from 3pm on Saturday til 6pm Sunday. Oh yes! Myself and Alun went down with some 40k and managed to get a couple of good games in... and the pizza...

Heres some of the CVC lads playing Game of Thrones, Alun has this and it looks awesome, deffo need to play this soon! 

All hail pizza. What was that Byron? Order over £50 and its all half price? SWEET! 

Not sure what the best thing about the pizza was, that it lasted longer than Aluns Eldar, or that it was one tasty summa' bitch! 

Check these beauties out too, Alun wondered where the cape was from.... 

Then we were told they were ALL based on Calgar. So much money, but so much love! I love the look of these guys, just awesome conversion work! Even using one body they all look different, good lesson in posing there folks! 

Onto the first of two games... the first I played against Alun who was using Eldar. Wave Serpents, are dicks. With this in mind I wondered what the best way to shoot them down was. Then it hit me. Don't shoot em, Power Fist or Krak Grenade em! My list consisted of two full assault squads, two tactical squads, bikers with Khan, devs, TF cannon and a lascannon pred plus a dreadnought with multi melta in a drop pod. Of course, the Legion of the Damned appeared too... 

Both my assault squads jumped as far up as they could, and the scouting Rhino (its a vindicator, but I forgot rhinos so had to use him) dropping out its guys straight away, they were almost in the Eldar deployment zone in turn one. Most of my fire went on the dark reapers... not all, cause they died with some shooting left. I hate those guys, they're deadly! 

Alun retaliated but didn't do much damage due to night fighting, and I consolidated by assaulting a prism with one unit of assault marines, which they destroyed, the surviving forward tactical squad blew up a wave serpent, Khan split from the squad and also assaulted a serpent, his hammer of wrath alone blowing it up. I can see him wheelie-ing up and into the cockpit killing the driver then skidding back down as it explodes! the bikes fail to assault some fire dragons, and I lose a few to fire. The other assault squad gets stuck in combat for the next few turns with some Direavengers who prove difficult to shift. Dreadnought makes a 10" assault into another serpent and wrecks it, Farseer and warlocks exposed! 

The game ends in my fourth turn, and Aluns force is wiped out. I won 9-0 in the end, having gained first blood, kill the warlord and linebreaker along with the two objectives (Emperors Will). I don't think Alun expected a fast moving force and I caught the elfling offguard. Score!

The second game was a bit more important... on our last visit we got beat up on quite a bit, so we wanted to regain some club pride. 1500 points per player, doubles! So I had to team up against the person I'd just tabled... hmm! All of the enemies shooting pretty much got poured into my bikes. Khan and the attack bike survived, but thats it! Our shooting did little, couple of Chaos termies died and a few troops but not much. 

Mikes Fireraptor came on but luckily did little, and in reply my Adeptus Stormwing comes on, the Stormraven doing nothing but the one stormtalons assault cannons takes down the flyer. We both do some damage to each other, wave serpents take down more of the enemies troops, the thunderfire cannon slowing the enemy advance down and a couple of the contemptors are stunned, weakening them for later fire. 

Khan kills a plaguemarine champion before hit and running out and into combat with the Chaos Lord, and gets kill as he strikes the Chaos Lord down after I rolled a 6 and the player failed to save, instant death ya'll! He gets one VP, I get two due to Khans trait. Couple of eldar tanks succumb to enemy firepower, although they lose a few of their own along with a couple of the contemptors. My thunderhammer terminators assault the plaguemarines on the relic and are able to wipe them out, although it takes two turns to do so! Aluns Dire Avengers are able to take the objective and hold onto it. 

I believe the game finished 2-5 to us, we had the objective and 2 vps from the warlord kill, and the CVC guys had one for first blood and one for killing Khan. We had a hell of a laugh playing this, the Chaos players dice rolling for saves was incredible, and I had to shake his hand 12 times for rolling four 5's or 6's to save a unit being destroyed, impressive stuff! Hopefully we'll be able to visit the Crow Valley Crusaders more often, and vice versa.... we have some coming up tonight so I'm expecting more battling tonight! 

Also saturday we have International Tabletop Day coming up at the Reavers, cannot wait for this!

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 First One.

First of all, let me introduce myself. I am Big Kev, aka vandalworks. I've blogged a wee bit before but this is my new foray into blogging about wargaming, and the Games Workshop games in particular! Having been in exile for the last 10 or so years I recently discovered a group of gamers nearby who all meet up and play games like 40k, WHfantasy and other such gems. Having dusted off some of my old mini's I delved back into wargaming with a passion.

Looking at my old space marines I had about 1000 points or so, and have since added to these and have over 2000. This tactical squad is still wip but you get the general idea that this isn't a conventional looking army, which basically suits my personality. The Evandalists, as I've called them, are a little wild compared to must codex chapters in terms of colour schemes but I think the colours go well together. Expect to see plenty more!



This is my first finished midel, a Legion of the Damned Seargant. I love the black and bone with flames colour scheme but as I'm getting back into painting I wasn't sure I was able to match it to a good high quality. Wondering what I could do I kept reading the background for them. The idea formed that as they appeared they seemed like ghosts, marines with supernatural strength. Supernatural... GHOSTS!!! Hence the ghostly paint job. I'm pretty chuffed with this and hope to do a full squad when I can afford more.


I also managed to 'rescue' this Land Raider from a previously unfinished state. This too is WIP but its not too far from completion.


The general aim is to get around 3000 points with which to play an apocolypse game with the Tredegar Wargaming club when the next visit Warhammer World. They generously took me up there on their last visit and I had an insanely amazing time. I'll post the pictures from that on here so you get to see what went on. We're currently playing a campaign based over 5 different planets/moons, in a search for the 'Angel', a weapon of unknown destruction and potential. I've won2 games, lost one, and also drawn a game. Pretty chuffed with that as I've played 6 games of 40k and thats it, having played two practice games beforehand to get to know the rules a little. Getting back into the hobby has been amazing as I've always kept upto date through having every issue of White Dwarf since 1995. More updates coming soon!