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!

Crusade of Fire: Campaign Book.

"Crusade of Fire"

 

 

"Crusade of Fire is a campaign system for Warhammer 40,000 that enables you to join the campaign to control the Corvus Sub-sector. Whether you choose to join the Crusade of Fire itself, the foul Servants of Ruin or the bloodthirsty Prophets of War, the fate of the sub-sector lies in your hands. 







This 96-page, full-colour hardcover book features exclusive artwork and a host of dynamic new rules. As well as the campaign system itself, the book contains rules that can be used in any Warhammer 40,000 game, from massive multi-player scenarios fought in low-gravity environments or in bunkers deep below the ground, to expanded rules for Flyers. It also features rules for playing games in the gladiatorial arenas of Commorragh as well as for fighting battles on the surface of a Daemon World.


Crusade of Fire also features the story of nine hobbyists as they play through the campaign, including detailed battle reports, fantastic army showcases and turn-by-turn accounts of their conquest."


So where did this little beauty come from? I'd heard mutterings about some more rules for flyers, and we've seen the rules for fighting on more random batlefields in White Dwarf several months before 6th edition was released... so perhaps we should have seen this coming? What does it mean for us 40k gamers though.

First of all, campaign rules made for 6th edition are a god send. We've tried a campaign at our club, and it fizzled out after a wee while as people either had little success or just became bored. This could help give meaning to our games regardless of how good or how well you've done. Expanded rules on other parts of the game will hopefully n ot just add variety, but give us more reason to come up with our own ideas for rules in games. Something I like about members at the Tredegar Reavers is that most of us are up for creating our own little scenarios or rules or even little events that happen in games. Serious games are had, but we never let fun escape out of the window. This is something I shall be picking up, I love anything that expands the universe of this game and if it can add to the games I play in its well worth the pick up.

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"

Day of 40k. November style!

So another hugely satisfying day of 40k gaming for us at The Tredegar Reavers, 2 large games of 40k went on and Huws Pirate game made a splash too. This post however, is dedicated to the game I participated in, a nice chunky game of 40k.

We had two opposing sides, Imperium versus Chaos. The sides were;

Me/Big Kev - Evandalists Space Marines and Tau allies

Bam - His mysterious Space Marines

Iain - Space Wolves

Carl Grey Knights.

Louis - Alpha Legion and Traitor Guard

Chris - Khorne Bezerkers and Death Guard

Alun - Daemons of too many varieties! 

 It was amazing to finally see most of my army out on the board, although some of it was not used. I think we had between 18-20k in points total, and thankfully it wasn't as slow moving as the Apocalypse game we played at Warhammer World.... mainly because we didn't have 16 players in one game! For the mission we adapted two missions from the rulebook to meet the size of the game. We had 6 objectives, but also victory points could be gained as in Purge the Alien. This meant we had a lot of tactical choices to make when capturing objectives... especially when Alun suggested a special rule.... In addition to him deploying daemons in the normal way, if a Chaos unit held an objective for a turn he could bring his units in within 12" of it. This made holding the two objectives in our deployment zone a huge priority, and also the two in dead mans land would need to be kept clear. We felt we had a good gun line and so wanted to hold back and then surge forth in the closing couple of turns to claim the open two objectives.

We won the roll for deployment and went first. This is our Deployment below!

Grey Knights and Space Wolves held the right Flank, myself and Bam held the centre and then both me and Iain held the left too. The chaos forces deployed and prompty stole the initiative, even though Alun and his Daemons didn't want too! As a lot of the Chaos forces were off the board, we escaped only losing a couple of models and no victory points lost, we had a chance at the bonus of first blood... which was then captured as a Nurgle Land Raider was blown up. Good start! We managed to get a few more kills and that ended the first turn.

Turn two, and the Daemons turn up... Ouch! Them having to deepstrike basically meant kill them asap or be charged by a close combat elite force. In our deployment zone we found blood letters, lesser daemons, Slaaneshi riders, warp talons, and a Great Unclean One. Louis' Valkyrie made an appearence too... but I'd chatted to Bam when making our forces and had contingencies for this! We had taken two Bastions, Bams had a Quadgun and mine had the Icarus Lascannon. Manning mine however, was Telion(or at least my Squat Sniper, not decided on a name yet!). This meant I had a 96" range st9 sniper! The Valkyrie flew on and was promptly blown up by Bams Quadgun... I didn't even get to fire! Only two crew survived, one Veteran and a Comissar Lord. 

A combination of Bams Predator Executioner and Iains Plasma Long fangs wiped out the darmons threatening the right flank, while a Tactical squad belonging to Bam took out the Warp Talons. My own Plasma devastators and Tau fire warriors wiped out the bloodletters, and then firepower from 4 dreadnoughts managed leave the Great Unclean One with two wounds left, and my Snipers fire were able to finish it off. Not even Nurgle likes the toxins of the Imperium! 

Battle was soon met in the middle as the Grey Knights advanced and were soon caught up in a long protracted combat with the Chaos forces on the right flank. Chaos Champions were killed, and Abbadon and Draigo battled it out for a few turns of combat until Draigo eventually fell. 

 

Turn three saw the chaos forces advancing ever closer,  looking to capture the middle objectives so their daemon allies could safely join battle closer to our lines. They pushed up the flanks, while we kept the centre line of cultists and daemons at bay with concentrated fire.

Louis' forgefiend proved effective, not so much in how much damaged it did, but how much we aimed at it to try and silence its deadly weapons. We failed in this!

Louis' maulerfiend, aka 'Buster' did some damage too, earning its weight in points back by quite a bit! I believe Bam took it out later in the game with a well aimed hunter killer missile. Phew!

Chris and Carl duel with the dice as Khorne meets Grey Knights. 

As the Chaos forces advanced, myself and Bam began our distraction tactic. Several of my Tau units, Legion of the Damned and a Drop Pod carrying a heavy flamer toting dread, and a couple of Bams units deepstriked onto the rear of the Chaos lines. Several of the dangerous chaos units had to turn back and deal with this new threat, giving our main line much more time to deal with the impending threats!

More daemons are found among our lines, including a Blood Thirster, two units of blood letters, while a gaggle of Greater Daemons advance up our left flank and take on the Space Wolves and two of my Tactical squads, including one Kairos Fatewaever. His ability of re-rolling failed armour and invun saves proved huge for the daemons, as they stubbornly refused to die as they killed our forces! 

Being unble to wipe out the bloodletter units and Blood Thirster at our rear they charged into the Grey Hunters holding our rear most objective. We had a healthy lead at this point, but if the daemons could capture this objective and a couple of the others they would close the gap sinificantly. After the assault just 2 grey hunters remained, and we would struggle to kill these. 

In the centre of the battlefield, battle was met between my Chapter Master, Chaplain and terminators and Kharn and his retinue of Bezerkers. One Bezerker and an untouched Kharn were left standing, and I lost three terminators after the first round of combat. My chapter master, Vincent Eniko was unable to catch Kharn off his guard, but then Orneus Gyozo stepped in with an almighty punch of his power fist that could have been the Emperors fist himself and crushed the mighty Traitors helmut. With the blow, one of the Imperiums biggest threats fell to the ground and my newly made chaplains first kill couldn't have been any bigger! The unit got back into the Land Raider and surged forth to claim an objective, Vincent Eniko being a scoring unit due to his Warlord Trait.

Iains wolf lord on thunderwolf was stuck in combat with this beast for a few turns! The decimator eventually ran the warrior down, crushing the wolf beneath its armoured feet and knocking the life out of the wolf.

In the closing moments, combined fire from 2 devastator squads, fire warriors, and a tactical squad managed to kill a blood letter squad that were standing before Second Company Captain Erasmus Torgeaz and his Bike riding squad. The stormed into the combat, impact hits killing the last couple of blood letters in combat with the grey hunters and my Captain challanged the Avatar of War. The Blood Thirster greedily accepted and struck at Torgeaz with daemonic speed, two hits getting through the Iron Halo. Bloodied and battered, Erasmus delivered furious blows that must have matched the visceral brutality of the Blood Thirster itself and took its last couple of wounds off him. A huge kill for Torgeaz, and objetive rescued!

So a great game, and I'm sure the other guys had some great moments too, due to my age I only remember mine though! Ha. The gamed ended 49 points to the Imperium and 32 to Chaos. A glorius victory and many honours earned. Orneus Gyozo, Erasmus Torgeaz and my Snipers being my own personal men of the battle. 

I'll do another post soon fleeting over the other two games that were played, one of which contain 2 biotitans, a harridan and an Eldar titan. It looked cracking fair play and was an incredibly close game! I'll be asking the guys for their moments to bring to you, along with some pictures of the pirates game Huw put on that some of the guys played.

Some great news too, we made enough money from the day that we shall soon be sending off our GCN application and the insurance money, so huge boost for the club! Makes me a very proud Chairman. We're now going to look at another all dayer over the Xmas period, as our club night falls on Xmas and New Years eve... so no club for 2 weeks? NO WAY!!! All dayer needed it seems! Andrew mentioned about perhaps doing a fast paced tournement style day, which I think would be cracking! So we'll get some planning done soon and see what we can do. All in all, a great day and some cracking moments for my Evandalists... expect not only another post on the day but also a video with some footage in and also I may do a little story based from the viewpoint of my Evandalists. For now though....

Fair well!

Chaplain Kitbash.

Ah, Kitbashing. Worthy of a capital letter. I love Kitbashing me, my Librarian, Chapter Master and Master of the Forge all created through various kits. Well, seeing as my Chaplain was old and hidden under a couple of paint jobs, I decided that a new one was needed.... but where to start? 

I began browsing Ebay for various bits. Theres some great sellers on there, and I found some great parts! 

The head was donated by friend Bam from a Venerable Dread, the chest torso was an Iron Hands torso I thought looked cool, the Power First was from a Tartaros Terminator, and the Crozius was a combination of a DA Power Maul and a standard top. Standard Tactical Squad legs with some honours from the tactical sprue and also the attack bike sprue.

I'm quite happy with the pose, the idea being he's just finished his litanies and is pointing upwards as a symbol of the Emperor for all to see. Its not finished yet, he has no backpack and the wires need tidying up but he's about 80% done. Can't wait to use him in our all dayer... Which is SUNDAY!!!

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 Squat and the Boarding Captain.

First of all, in case you read that title and hoped for some fan fiction where a Squat and an Imperial Freighter officer fall in love, you'll be more than a tad disappointed. As amazing as that story would be, this is about the limited edition Forge World Boarding Captain.... and a... Squat.

The Boarding Captain was obtained by a swap with one of the greatest examples of gentlemen I have ever known, and someone I've mentioned before on this very blog. You may remember a James, who, after taking time out of sculpting to chat to an over-enthusiastic giant from Wales and gave me a sculpted Empire Elector Count head he'd done. We kept in touch, and he happened to mention if I'd picked a certain something up this year at Games Day, I of course did, so he asked if he could buy or swap... and mentioned the Boarding Captain. I knew he was a pretty cool model so happily agreed. A few days later this guy pops up in the post! I've only now got to painting him, as I wasn't sure whether to use him for my chapter or not...

But then I couldn't resist. I mean, look at the model, he's stunning! The Storm Shield I actually looked into getting when kitbashing my Chapter Master together, but glad I didn't cause it looks superb on this guy. You may have noticed he has an old Mk V Jump Pack. This was originally intended for a Chaplain I'm working on, but then put it on this guy and thought it looked too good not too! I'll hopefully be able to magnetise it so I can switch with his regular backpack if needed. But I'm pretty happy with how he's looking so far! Not finished yet, as I need to blend a couple of bits together a little more and the base needs finishing, but so far so good!

Next...

You may or may not have seen some fluff I'd created for my chapter in which they fight off a Chaos Warband from an unknown planet, and find that it is inhabited with a small clan of Squats. They decide to take them to Mars where a great sense of machinery would help the Adeptus Mechanicus. Some Squat lobbied that they should be able to fulfil tradition and pay a debt to my Evandalists and help them, whether it be as crew to the battle barges or elsewhere. I wanted to include a couple in my force, and began to look at ways to do so.

One obvious thought was as a Techmarine. I picked up a techpriest squat from Ebay, but could'nt decide on how best to use him. So thoughts turned elsewhere, then inspiration struck during a battle. A few months back I'd had a go at using the rules for Telion, and really enjoyed what he did. Hes a great little upgrade for snipers, especially if you really need that Rocket Launcher to hit a vehicle or to try and take out those special weapon squad members! So, what about a Squat version of Telion? I looked through some of the back catalogues of Squats, and they all looked a little too old school to fit in my force. Then I saw the one! RATLINGS!!!

And here he is. I picked this guy up on Ebay, and was able to some sort of success, sculpt a beard on him to make him more Squat-like. I think it looks pretty good! He still needs a little work on him, but he's at the point where I can try and get some other stuff done and he looks alright. Pretty chuffed with the guy! I'm gonna make up some fluff for him and give him a name, but I can't wait to field him with my Scout snipers, who I need to add I also have to finish! Bad habit this not getting things done malarky. 

So thats what I've been doing last few days, I've got a couple of bits coming to sort out my two Chaplains, the biker and foot ones, and then it'll be a case of painting as much as I can before the all dayer in just over a weeks time. Cannae wait!