Boxing day blogger

Just thought I would do a post on what I got over Christmas and what I plan to do in the near future.

So firstly, my present pile, I got a batch of beastmen models that came out earlier this month. My wife (I) bought me a gorgon, a jabberslythe and a box of minotaurs. She also bought me mighty empires so we can get a campaign started an blood in badlands, a limited edition campaign addon. I also got some space marine battle fleet gothic ships which will be painted up in Night Lords colours.

So this week I will be building and painting my battle fleet gothic ships ready for my game against Angryman next Monday. After that I am going to start on my mighty empire board, so we can do an escalating campaign to encourage us all to get painting!

So, what did you get from Santa and what are your plans for new year?

Col.Straken

Demo Games for 2012 pt.2

After my post yesterday, he's some more ideas that I forgot to add onto the list. I thought I'd do them as a separate blog post, rather than add them onto the previous list.

Lord of the Rings
LOTR has a fantastic amount of scope for a scenario to be as big as you want (using War of the Ring) or as intricate and small scale as you would like with the Skirmish game.

 One thing I do like about LOTR is the scenarios and content from the books and films that can be used, as well as the background and models being recognisable to many people.

There's a few ideas I had, one of which being Balin's Tomb, which can easily be done with the starter set (especially if there's a cheap deal on eBay). A few years ago I actually made (never painted) a Balin's Tomb scenery piece made from 4 cork tiles. Unfortunately, I've chucked that away since.. but if I remember right, it cost me about a tenner to build the scenery piece.

Another option is some of the other scenarios from the film and book, or even expand on this and do some stuff from The Hobbit?

Cops and Robbers
Now, this one stems from me getting a bit hyped up over "Payday: The Heist", a game which is on PC and PS3, where 4 bank robbers have to complete a heist on a bank or other location, whilst under attack from SWAT teams, helicopters, security guards, snipers and all sorts of other things.

Whilst playing it, I then started to think how this could be reflected in a tabletop game, with random events using a deck of action cards, heavy emphasis on cover and objective driven scenarios (drill into the vault, place C4 at locations, capture hostages).

Have a nosey at a gameplay video, or buy the game if it's on offer (I got it for £5 on Steam yesterday!)

So yeah, there's a few more ideas to get involved in. I figure a lot of this could share usage, so for example, the Left 4 Dead ruleset could easily be modified to the Cops and Robbers game. Metal Gear Solid and Batman have a lot of crossover too.

And then there's stuff like LOTR and 40k with it's own actual ruleset.

What do you guys think?

SB

Demo Games for 2012

Morning all,

Over the last few days I've had some emails from The Spartans Wargames Society in St. Helens, who are responsible for running the Phalanx show (http://www.phalanxshow.co.uk/) which we attended with our first demo game for the club.

Now, I really enjoyed spending the day running a demo game, rather than playing in a tournament. Last year we ran an apocalypse game loosely based on the 2nd War for Armageddon (since it features Orks, Guard and pretty much every Blood Angels special character that Sanguinius had models for!). 

We got a lot of good feedback and comments from people, especially for my Mr Potato Head Stompa, but one of the main problems I had was the amount of set up and clean up time afterwards. It was an extremely impressive sight to have two 10K armies face off against one another, however. You can read and see some pictures of the demo game here http://maws40k.blogspot.com/2011/06/demo-game-battle-for-hades-hive-2nd-war.html to see what we took and how it looked.

Now then... I've recently recieved some mails planning for Phalanx 2012 and asking if we would like to book to run another demo game. Me personally, I'd definitely like to do one again but I'm asking around for what ideas people would have.

The problem with running a 10k Apocalypse game, was that whilst it looked fantastic on the table, there wasn't much interactivity from passers by (we tried to rectify this by having a Kill Team game on a smaller table next to the main game) and as I've said before, it took a LOT of set up time and transport between cars.

So yeah... Here's some ideas I have. I'd like to try and make a decision by the end of January, since most will require buying some bits, building some scenery and painting time - which by that point, there'll be 3 MAWS babies around and there won't be too much time left to get stuff done.

1. Apocalypse - Famous 40K Battle

This is a quick solution option since we already have most of the scenery, know the rules well enough and there's plenty of background info to go off of. I've not got many ideas I can think of, other than the Armageddon scenarios, or maybe branch out a bit.

I don't know anyone at the club who has actual Sisters of Battle models, but the massacre at Sanctuary 101, where the Necrons first re-emerged, would be nice.

Or what about the final stand of the Squats against the Tyranids? Or keeping in the Tyranid theme, you've got Malantai and the birth of the Doom when the Eldar there were destroyed... Or even Macragge?

Urien Rakarth's double cross of the Tau, when his "payment" from the Tau was Fire Warriors he secretly turned into Wracks and Grotesques?

2. Smaller Scale 40K
Here I'm thinking there's a couple of options:

We could run a Planetary Empires campaign on Black Reach, where we start the day with the contents of the boxset, play 500pts(ish) games and each win counts as a territory for each player.

This could also be expanded to multiple Combat Patrol armies and get a mini-campaign weekend on the go, battling for a planet in the 40k universe.

Another idea is Kill Teams with event cards, try and ramp up the narrative aspect and allow for cool cinematic things, like jumping off buildings (Dangerous Terrain test, for every floor you jump, -1 on the roll) and other such things.

3. 40k Last Stand
If you've not played Dawn of War 2, play it and play the Last Stand mode. 3 players control a hero each and take on waves of increasingly difficult enemies.

I thought this would be cool to run and see who can get furthest through the waves. We'd have to come up with a list of waves and bring all the relevant models for if someone were to get that far, but I think it'd be pretty fun to try and build a replica of the board from DOW2.

4. Zombies
Everyone loves Zombies. We've played a game at the club with some Zombie survivor rules, and I'd like to do a lot more work on that to make it work better and flow more freely.

The main idea I'd like to do is based on Left4Dead and a tile generated map. I can remember when I played Lord of the Rings there was a scenario where Frodo and Sam were travelling through the Sewers of Osgilliath and each time they left a tile, you rolled to see what the next tile was and if there would be enemies or items in it. This'd be cool to do with Left 4 Dead using some cork floor tiles to mark out a Map or city.

Thing we'd need:
- City scenery
- Survivor models
- Lots of Zombies.

5. Alien v Predator
Back when I was in college, I started writing up some AvP rules and never got very far with them. A couple of days ago, I made a start working on some fresh ones and if there's interest, could work on them enough to get a Demo game going.

The plan would be that there's a lot of emphasis on the facing of a model and suspense / terror factor. There'd be 3 playable groups in the game, each with their own objectives during the game. Maybe even adapt this to be able to play solo, or have the third faction able to work on it's own (so Marines v Predators, with the Aliens as hazards).

Things we'd need:
- Some sci fi lab terrain
- Converted Aliens
- Marines and Predators from casting company.

6. Batman
Like Zombies, everyone loves (or should love) Batman and I've been playing Arkham City recently and thinking about the Predator stealth sections of the game and whether this would make a cool Dungeon crawler stealth based game.

We could expand it to have several playable characters for however many people plan to join in. Batman, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman, etc. Each could have a few of their own cool unique abilities. Basically, it's all just an excuse for me to read, play and watch more Batman stuff...

I've seen Heroclix stuff, but I'm thinking more of making / tweaking my own rules for it and being able to expand it with what I want to add at the time.

Things we'd need:
- An environment (scenery or tiles)
- Heroclix Batman and Hero miniatures
- Generic Goon models.

7. Halo
Halo is pretty similar to 40k in terms of sci fi shooter, but what I'd think of doing here is smaller scale, respawns and more video game style modes like Capture the Flag, Juggernaut, etc.

There'd be 2 factions, your UNSC and Covenant teams. Each would have basic marines and Grunts, then a Spartan and an Elite per team. I'd imagine it functioning similarly to Warmachine in a way, with the Spartans and Elites issuing orders to the lesser figures, keeping in closer range stops them from running away when outnumbered, etc.

Completing certain objectives could reward the teams with things like the Covenant being able to call in a Hunter, UNSC could bring in a group of ODST troopers, Air support from Banshees and Pelicans and whatnot.

Things we'd need:
- A Map
- Converted UNSC miniatures
- Converted Covenant miniatures

8. Metal Gear Solid
The last idea I've got is similar to the Batman one, with a Metal Gear Solid theme - mostly because I want a reason to convert a Solid Snake miniature.

Again, heavy emphasis on stealth, takedowns but with rules for gunfights and gadgets.

Things we'd need:
- Map / Scenery
- Converted Solid Snake
- Genome Soldiers

Opinions!


So, what do you guys think? Any suggestions or feedback on my ideas? Any ideas of your own to chip in with?

Hopefully we can get a plan together over the few weeks and decide what we're doing for 2012 demo games at shows!

SB

Badger's Log - Brotherhood of the Forge Progess

Morning folks,

After some time in exile, my Brotherhood of the Forge are currently underway and hopefully will be finished by the end of Christmas break from work. It's taking a fair while to assemble them though, mostly because of the awkwardness of converting the guns.

Either way, over the last 2 nights I've finished off some bits and BOBs...

Arch Confessor Kyrinov
Part of my plan for the army (along with the dream for all my armies) was to have the option of at least 1 of each unit in a Codex. And since I had a spare Dwarf knocking about, I decided to make Kyrinov.

I'm not too keen on him ruleswise, I much prefer Uriah Jacobus and St Celestine, but I've given him his Icon (the lantern) and his Mace of Valaan (The only model int he army with a hammer). He fits the job and we'll see how he gets on in games!

Dominions
These were planned a fair bit later into my initial thoughts for the army. I'd bought the models and planned what I was going to do, then backtracked and thought I'd make a unit of Dominions.

I made these guys with 2 Melta Guns to try and make use of the scout move and knock out a vehicle early on, along with giving them a Simulcrum Imperialis to try and ensure they pass their act of faith to get twin-linked. The plan is that their cloaks will be red (because red ones go faster!) as it should differentiate them from the rest of the force.

Crusader Henchmen
Crusaders with storm shields and power weapons was something that I wanted since the last codex, unfortunately, my dream of 9 Crusaders with an Inquisitor in a Land Raider was crushed (in the old codex) by only being allowed a maximum of 3 henchmen of each type. And now in the new Codex, my Land Raider option is gone...

These guys are the first time I've used normal Dwarf warriors to build from. The idea being they've got Power Axes and their large shields make up the Storm Shield. I've also bulked them out with some shoulder armour to try and get the feel these are heavy assault shock troops. I might also go back and add masks onto the faces of these guys and give them some more protection.

Where next? 
Well, I've got 10 Seraphim to build and 20 more normal infantry, along with an Immolator. It's taking me a fair bit of time to actually get through them because of how the weapons and arms have to be cut up meaning I've got to glue the weapons in 3 or 4 stages. Either way... They should be quick enough to paint up once they're sprayed and get on the table!

SB

Festive Projects

Morning all,

So pretty soon, it'll be Xmas and everyone will (hopefully) be getting some time off work and unwrapping lots of hobby goodies that are under the tree. Whilst I was assembling some dwarfs last night, I started thinking about what I'm going to try to get done whilst I'm off work.

1. Brotherhood of the Forge
I've made a fair bit of progress with these, as they've been sat in a box for the last 5 months whilst my Dark Angels and Chaos Daemons were top priority.

So far I've got Arch Confessor Kyrinov made and 6 Crusader Henchmen. Last night I got half way through a 5 man Dominion squad before I called it a night. The thing I loved about these guys first time round was how quick they were to paint. Dark colours, mostly metal armour and minimal amounts of skin on show - meaning that they *should* be quick to get finished so I can get some use out of the army with the WD codex.

I've got the following to assemble, spray and paint:
- 10 Seraphim
- 20 Battle Brothers
- 1 Command Squad
- 1 Saint Celstine
- 1 Immolator

2. Dark Eldar
Next up (not necessarily in priority order...) is a load of Dark Eldar bits I traded some LOTR stuff for at the last Warboot event. I've got 40 old style Kabalite warriors (4 units of 10 warriors, 1 Splinter cannon and Sybarite in each) and 5 metal Wyches to strip down and paint.

What interests me most here, is whether or not my Kabal's Ice Blue armour scheme will look any good on the older models. The new Kabalite warriors armour tends have more defined layers that curve outwards, whereas the older models have more curved inwards, closely layered armour. It'll be interesting to see anyway, and allows me to heavily bulk out my Dark Eldar with more Kabalite warriors, which are one of my favourite units in the book.

I've got the following to strip, spray and paint:
- 40 Kabalite Warriors
- 5 Wyches (to be Hekatrix bloodbrides)
- 3 Venoms

3. Necrons
Here's hoping Father Christmas brings me the Necron stuff I've asked for, if not, I've got 2 boxes of Immortals sat under the tree that I bought at the start of this month. I'm not too sure what to arm my new Immortals with, whether to go the traditional Gauss Blaster route and replace / bulk up my Metal units, or to give Tesla carbines a try.

On top of that, I should have the two released Necron special characters, some Lychguard (not sure whether I'll convert these to Crypteks yet though) and a Ghost Ark. At first, I was really miffed off with the Necron codex, but now I'm interested in how the new units will work and how it'll change the dynamic of an army I've had since I first started 40k.

Also on the topic of Necrons, I've been debating repainting the army or at the very least, washing them. They were done pre-Badab Black days and when I get them out compared to my more recently painted models, they're showing their age. It would also let me add a bit more variety to the other Necron armies I've seen around.

4. Bretonnians
These have been an ongoing project for the last 4 or 5 years and they're still irritating me to this day. I really would like to play more Warhammer Fantasy and get some use out of the army, but I have zero desire to paint them. With a few members of the club expressing more interest in playing Fantasy, maybe it'll give me a kick up the backside

To paint:
- 8 Grail Knights
- 5 Mounted Yeomen
- Grail Reliquae and 20 Battle Pilgrims
- Mounted Damsel
- Damsel on foot
- 3 Pegasus Knights

5. Scenery
Last on the list to do is to deal with some scenery I've bought over the last year from eBay. I think I've got about 20 - 30 trees dumped in a box which are all just loose standing, but after going to Stockport NWGC for a tourney last month, I really liked the way they've done the trees.

Basically it's a kidney shaped piece of hardboard, with 3 60mm (ish) holes cut into it. Take the hole piece you've cut out, glue the tree to that, then glue a piece of stiffened card underneath the hole you've drilled (so you can pick it up as 1 piece) and then spray and paint.

It looked really good and meant you could easily shift the trees if you needed to, as well as meaning trees can be left loose for easy storage and mixed and matched between each base.

The only problem is just the time it takes to do all of that, maybe with some help from a local DIY expert (i.e. My Dad) the job will get done a bit quicker.

So that's it for my plans folks. I highly doubt any of it will get done, but it's worth listing down what you want to aim for...

So, what are you guys planning to get up to hobbywise over the Xmas period?

SB

Badger's Log - Dark Angels Complete

Ello folks,

I had a fairly productive week last week, with a push to try and get my remaining Dark Angels bits completed. The plan was to get them finished before Christmas, so that I could make a start on other projects (build Dwarfs, paint strip some Dark Eldar, etc.) that have been backlogged.

So yeah, last thing for my Dark Angels was 20 tactical marines, along with a Captain - all from the Black Reach boxset.

Rather than do a tester model like I had with other armies, I'd already painted a Drop Pod and was happy with that scheme so I (somewhat foolishly) ploughed on and made a start on all 21 models. I stuck to the colour scheme from the codex, but went for a bit of a lighter green.

After it's all done, I kinda wished I'd used a darker green as the Badab Black didn't darken it as much as I had liked, but overall I'm pretty happy.

I used Red as the secondary colour for the shoulder pad trims, rather than cream as I wanted that colour to stand out on the robes and Aquilas.

Lastly, here's my Captain who I plan on using as Azrael. I just need to make myself a little Lion Helm bearer from a Chaos Marine Lord familiar.

So yeah, quite happy with him, although the Red on the cloak and the trims was a bit too much.

That's it for my Dark Angels for now!

Cheers,
SB

Col. Straken baby names

Hi all,

Angryman here.  One of our long time club members Col Straken and his wife have just had a new baby boy named Ben.



(not actual baby ben)

In the run up to the birth there was a lot of banter about what he should call the new baby, my personal favourite was Little Horus but Col Straken preferred Konrad Curze after his favourite traitor legion the Night Lords.  Sadly we were all overruled by his boss and lovely wife.

BUT

I like to think we still have the final say on our blog so I'm setting up a poll on what we think he SHOULD have called him.  Due to the massive amount of characters to choose from I'm keeping it to the 18 known primarchs

All comments welcome

P.S. Staken,  This is in no way meant to cause offence but when he is crawling can i use him as a Tyranid Heirophant?

Deathwing - My Initial Thoughts

Ello folks,

As most of you can see from the past few months of my painting log, and those that have been down at the club recently, I've been using my Deathwing army.

Over the last 3 games, I've used 3 different lists at 3 different points values.

Game 1 - 900pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Land Speeder Typhoon - Multi Melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher.

Now this list was to team up with another Marine player with a balanced list of Tactical marines, transports, assault marines and another unit of Terminators.

We played against a Space Wolf / Salamander combo army in a Kill Points game, which suits me down to the ground aside from losing an easy kill point in the Speeder. And spending most of the game tied up against Dreadnaughts and not doing much in the way of damage.

Game 2 - 1500pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Interrogator Chaplain - Terminator Armour
Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 1 Lightning Claws, 1 Lightning Claws Apothecary.
Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword

In this list, I removed the Speeder due to points costs and added in some "Fire Support" Terminator squads to help out around the place. After playing a Khorne / Tzeentch Daemon doubles list for the past few months, I've found the shooting units to be invaluable.

This list I played against Guard with and did alright. I can't remember the mission or the result, but I can remember 1 Terminator squad spending most of the game in assault with a 30 man Infantry blob that refused to run away and eventually chipped the Terminators down.

Game 3 - 2000pts
Belial w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
Interrogator Chaplain - Terminator Armour

Deathwing Terminator Squad A - 1 Thunder Hammer, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Deathwing Banner, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 1 Lightning Claws, 1 Lightning Claws Apothecary.

Deathwing Terminator Squad B - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad C - 2 Thunder Hammers, 1 Thunder Hammer w/ Cyclone, 2 Lightning Claws
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Deathwing Terminator Squad D - 3 Power Fist Storm Bolters, 1 Power Fist Assault Cannon, 1 Sergeant Power Sword
Land Speeder Typhoon - Multi Melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher.
Venerable Dreadnaught - Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer, Venerable, Drop Pod.
Venerable Dreadnaught - Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer, Venerable, Drop Pod.

I played Guard again with this list most recently, and played Capture and Control. The game ended up a draw due to a combination of things (time restraints ending on Turn 5, a poor Run roll for a unit of my Terminators, etc.) All in all, I was happy with the list, even though in Turn 1, my Chaplain and his Terminator squad Mishapped and got destroyed. So I was immediately 400ish points down.

Anyone remember the Neo v Swarm of Agent Smith's ?

Anywho, that's my run down of the last few games... What have I learnt?

Saving Throws
Whilst Terminator armour fantastic for small arms fire, I've managed to lost most of my Terminators simply to low S AP - fire (Lasguns, Space Wolf psychic Power) than I have to Lascannons and whatnot.

Again, same with the Storm Shields. They've got a big reputation to live up to and it's good for dealing with Lascannons, Meltas, etc. they're still only a 2/3 chance of passing.

What I'm trying to say is, with my shoddy dice rolling, lots of Terminators still die!

Wound Allocations
My close combat squads all have more or less different wargear (aside from the 2 lightning claws) so it means I can mess around with wound allocation a bit, putting the AP2 or 1 stuff on the Storm Shields and using the Lightning Claws to soak up the smaller arms fire. This has come in really handy, and although a lot of people swear by all Thunder Hammer / Storm Shields, I like the mix that the Lightning Claws can throw in there.

Fire Support Squads
In my earlier games I was running close combat Terminators (with the exception of the Cyclone missile launchers). Now I've added 2 units with Storm Bolters and an Assault Cannon. I find what these guys lack in survivability (when stood in the open), they make up for with flexibility.

As I've found whilst playing with Khorne Daemons, the turn you drop is the harshest part and I like having something to do in the shooting phase. 8 Storm Bolter shots, plus the 4 Assault cannon shots can thin out small squads or wreck a light vehicle on the turn they drop - which is always good!

Cyclone Missiles
Everyone online seems to love these, and I dread to think what they were like as just a 1 shot weapon, but I'm really not sold on them. Part of my idea when making the Deathwing army was to take lots of missiles because I'm then flexible and can target armour / elite infantry or hordes. So far, my Cyclones haven't done very much at all.

Deep Striking
Lastly, it's something I had to deal with whilst playing Daemons, was that the hardest part of my game was deciding on my Deep Strikes. Last game I got really risky with them and ended up with 1 Terminator squad and Chaplain being destroyed, the other being misplaced.

I guess it's something I have to think about a bit more, it's not good enough just to drop close enough to assault next turn, but at the same time, dropping too far away means you end up chasing faster moving units like a dog chasing an ice cream van.

Overall, I'm really enjoying playing the Deathwing. I don't have the bodycount of my Orks, fear factor of my Daemons or the speed of my Dark Eldar. It's a nice change of pace and it also means my games are a lot faster since I don't need to deploy on the board and miss out half of the phases.

My next step with the list is I think to drop the Chaplain and add in another Land Speeder.

Any thoughts on Deathwing folks? Either using them or in what you don't like about them when facing them?

Cheers,
SB