Painting Stuff – 18th November 2009

After failing abysmally to get anything done on Monday I managed to spend Tuesday night making a start on assembling my Chaos army for the upcoming Warhammer battle.

I began by dumping all my old lead Chaos Knights in a jar full of paint stripper. They’ve all suffered various paint related attention over the years and I thought it was time to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch. Although I prefer the new plastic stuff, which is cheaper and gives you the ability to choose from a range of poses, there is something nice about being able to push reset on your figures.

Leaving them to soak I cracked on with the horses, all 26 of them! I started with the traditional black undercoat and now I’m working on the armoured mounts, leaving the Marauder ones till last because I can paint metal faster than horse meat.

I didn’t specifically want black horses, but I quite liked the idea of a dirty ash grey. I’ve given them all two layers of highlighting so far, starting with Adeptus Battle Grey and then a light brush with Astronomican Grey. I’ve used a watered down Badab Black ink wash over this and I’m pretty happy with the results.

I’m still undecided what I’m doing about their armour. I’m like the idea of either red or black, but I’m also quite fond of metal. I might give them all a go and see what I think looks best.

Chris Young is coming round to my house tonight for an evening of painting. Phil Potter can’t make it this week for gaming, so rather than having a battle we’re just going to kick back and get some painting done. Painting nights are actually something my girlfriend suggested (well done Sharon) and it seems like a much better idea than sitting painting on your own!

I’m planning to get all the stuff out of the paint stripper and undercoated. I’m also hoping to get all the horses finished too. No slacking tonight for me!

Following the herd – 17th November 2009

The new Warhammer Beastmen Army Book is coming in February! As the owner of a sizable Beastmen force I'm obviously quite pleased about this. Not only does it mean that they’ll get some new figures, but it also means they’ll get sorted out in line with the new rules too.

I’ve only played a few of games of Warhammer under the current rules and one of these was using my Beastmen against an Empire force, which I lost pretty badly. My dice luck was above average, I've never considered my tactics to be rubbish and my army had a good range of choices in… so what went wrong? I’ve never found ‘Codex Creep’ to be as bad as it’s often made out to be, but this battle really did make my herd look a bit weak compared to the Empire force and its shiny new book.

Things I’d like to see…

Plastic Bestigors – There is nothing wrong with the old lead miniatures, but looking at the amazing Skaven Stormvermin figures it’s clear that plastic is the way forward.

Plastic Centigors – The new Chaos Knights are awesome and about half the price of the old metal ones. I’ve got 10 x Centigors in my current force because I like the models, but I haven’t seen them in many other players’ armies and I bet cost is a factor.

War Machine – They managed to crowbar the Hell Cannon into the Warrior of Chaos list without making it look out of place, so maybe something for the Beastmen might work too? I could see them with a catapult shaped device, or maybe some kind of huge horn which can be blown with different results, some boosting the Beastmen others affecting the enemy.

Skulls for Santa! – 14th November 2009

My girlfriend and I took a trip to London this weekend. Coming from Hereford, I’m always blown away by how well a city of this size of London manages to do everything. London is cleaner, less congested and has nicer pavements and roads. It’s well laid out with top notch public transport and there are millions of restaurants and shops to choose from. Hereford on the other hand, is a dog hole.

The Lord Mayor’s Show was excellent, despite the weather. Although I felt a bit sorry for some of the ATC kids marching along in their soaking wet shirts, it’s great to see so many people taking part in the parade. Sadly the fireworks were cancelled, but I guess given the weather it was safer to call it off than have one of the boats they launch them from being buffeted about on the Thames shooting a rocket into the crowd.

Continuing my mission to visit every Games Workshop store in the UK I made a point of escaping the masses and heading into the Oxford Street store, where I was greeted by a Chaos Warrior looking suitably festive in his Santa hat!

The products on the shelves might be roughly the same wherever you go, but the gaming tables and display cabinets are unique to each shop and the London store was no exception. I really liked the bone coloured city terrain and their Warhammer board has further eroded my resistance to buying the Fortress kit. I also had a great chat with one of the staff, whose name escapes me (sorry dude). Well worth a visit if you’re ever down that way.

Enemies of old – 12th November 2009

About 8 or 9 years ago I used to game with a couple of friends who I’ve known since school, called Stuart Hedderly and Guy Miller. As is often the case, we lost touch with each other a few years after college and although we're all friends on Facebook I hadn’t actually spoken to either of them for yonks.

I got a text from Guy a few weeks ago asking for my address to send an invitation to. The obvious assumption was marriage (between him and his girlfriend – not me), which Guy confirmed. So, congratulations amigo!

The text also led to a bit of catching up and it turns out Guy was still playing Warhammer on and off with Stu. It’s great when you learn that people you used to game with are still playing, and it’s also a great conversation topic, ensuring that you’ve always got something in common.

To cut a long story short, I caught up with Stu as well and also discovered another gamer living locally to me called Peter Owen (good old, Shifty Pete - another friend from school).

Stu has always been an amazing painter and modeller and he’s clearly been praying to the right gods, because he’s even better now than ever! To see some of his stuff, check out the following links:

He’s subscribed under Rumplemaster on:
www.mybattalion.com

Alternatively follow his blog at:
www.rumplification.blogspot.com

View some of his painted minis on:
www.coolminiornot.com/artist/rumplemaster

After we’d exhausted the limits of text and email correspondence, the next logical step was a fight! So, we’ve organised a Warhammer battle for Sunday the 22nd in Shrewsbury Games Workshop.

Stuart Hedderly - Ogre Kindoms
Guy Miller – Tomb Kings
Peter Owen – Warriors of Chaos
Jon Simpson – Warriors of Chaos

I was torn at first between my High Elves, Warriors of Chaos and Dwarf armies, but choosing Chaos seemed logical as it would give me the smallest force for 1000 points and therefore be easier to get painted. Yes, I know I’m highly unlikely to get the entire army painted in this time given my slow progress with a brush, but I should be able to get the majority of the figures done which is better than nothing.

I’ve decided to give the following list a go:

Chaos Hero
Rending Sword
Chaos Steed

5 x Marauder Horsemen
Mark of Khorne
Flails

5 x Marauder Horsemen
Mark of Khorne
Flails

5 x Chaos Knights
Musician

5 x Chaos Knights

5 x Chaos Knights

Total Points: 998

I’ve never used a completely mounted army before and I’m not sure whether going without a solid block of infantry or any magic is a good plan or not, but I guess I’ll find out later this month…

What’s that coming over the hill? – 11th November 2009

My Stompa arrived today!

I’ve been eyeing up both the Imperial Guard super heavy tanks and the Stompa since their release. The models are super cool and the biggest kits Games Workshop had ever produced outside of the Forgeworld stuff. At around £60 the new tanks and Stompa weren’t badly priced and gave any army lucky enough to get one a nice Apocalypse shaped boost.

So why didn’t I have one? Although I really like the models and I had both Imperial Guard and Ork forces, they just never quite made it on to my essential purchase list. Outside of an Apocalypse battle they won’t see as much table time as a squad of Lootas or Ogryns, so until I had all the other stuff I wanted they would have to wait.

During our last gaming session we were discussing a campaign using Battlefleet Gothic, Planetary Empires, Warhammer 40,000, City Fight, Planetstrike, Apocalypse and Dark Hersey / Rogue Trader. This would give us an excellent chance to run a storyline right from the ship-to-ship combat down through the battlefields and into an actual RPG game, which sounds pretty awesome to me!

With the whiff of an Apocalypse game in the not so distant future the voices in my head started again, only this time they were more convincing than ever. Click. Add Stompa to basket. Click. Checkout. Enter bank card details. Tap, tap, tap. Delivery address = me. And I’m done. You’ve got to love the internet :-)

I decided on a Stompa over a tank on the basis that my Cadian Imperial Guard army is already huge and has 14 Leman Russ in its motor pool. Add to this the 3 currently daubed in Vostroyan colours I’ve got for my mini First Born force and you’re looking at a lot of armour.

My Ork force is currently very Boyz heavy with slight ‘air cavalry’ theme in the shape of 20 Deff Koptas! Don’t get me wrong, the green (mostly grey at the moment) tide is an awesome site, but I think the game will be more fun with one of these mini-Gargants adding some weight to the Ork line!

I prefer fighting Orks! – 10th November 2009

Tuesday rolls round again and it’s time for more 40K!

We played at my house this week and my new games room saw its first action. After playing a 600 point Ork vs Space Marine introduction to the new rules, it was time for a bigger battle. A quick survey of what armies everyone wanted to play gave the following results:

Jon Simpson: Anything except Dark Eldar
Chris Young: Space Marines or Imperial Guard
Phil Potter: Not really worried (Phil code speak for Orks!)
Gareth Loxton: Chaos, or 2 Imperial Guard forces in a civil war style.

So taking these suggestions and my time scale on board I assembled two 1500 point forces, Space Marines vs Chaos Space Marines.

I thought this would be a nicely balanced battle, with both sides sporting good saving throws and similar weapons. To keep it interesting though and keep road testing the rules I also made sure I included a Defiler (indirect fire weapon), some Scouts (sniper practice), Bikes (bike rules) and a few tanks (vehicle rules).

---------------

Space Marine Army

(HQ) Space Marine Captain
Terminator Armour

(Troops) Tactical Squad (5 Space Marines)
x 5 extra Space Marines
Meltagun
Missile Launcher

(Troops) Tactical Squad (5 Space Marines)
x 5 extra Space Marines
Meltagun
Missile Launcher

(Troops) Scout Squad (5 Scouts)
x 2 extra Scouts
Sniper Rifles
Heavy Bolter

(Elites) Terminator Squad (5 Terminators)
Assault Cannon
Land Raider

(Elites) Dreadnought
Assault Cannon

(Fast Attack) Space Marine Bike Squad (3 x Bikers)
x 2 extra Bikers
Power Sword
Meltagun

(Heavy Support) Predator
Twin-linked Lascannon
Sponson Lascannon

---------------

Chaos Space Marine Army

(HQ) Chaos Lord
Terminator Armour

(Troops) Chaos Space Marines (10 x Space Marines)
Lascannon

(Troops) Chaos Space Marines (10 x Space Marines)
Lascannon

(Troops) Khorne Berzerkers (10 x Berzerkers)
Rhino

(Elite) Chaos Terminators (5 x Terminators)
Combi-Flamer
Combi-Melta
Reaper Autocannon

(Elite) Chaos Dreadnought
Twin-linked Lascannon

(Elite) Chaos Dreadnought
Twin-linked Lascannon

(Heavy Support) Obliterator Cult (3 x Obliterators)

(Heavy Support) Chaos Defiler

---------------

The keen eyed among you will notice that these armies actually add up to slightly more than 1500 points each. So am I just really rubbish at maths? Technically yes I am, but that wasn’t the issue. The problem was that I designed the armies from memory and when I got the figures out I realised that my Chaos Dreadnoughts had Lascannons, not Heavy Bolters, incurring a few extra points for the Space Marines to spend on Scouts (the models were handy and I like snipers). With the armies prepared, Phil and Gareth took charge of the Chaos forces while Chris and I would once again be kicking rear for the Imperium!

At this point I feel the need to point out how bloody good the boards looked! As I mentioned last month, I’m going to sort an urban board out at some point but for now we just put the buildings on one of my Realm of Battle Boards and it looks pretty damn fine. As a kid I played countless carpet battles and took a range of household item shaped objectives. To finally have a decent selection of scenery and space for some proper boards is awesome and makes a big difference to the visual appeal of the battle.

Instead of breaking this game down turn by turn I’ll simply pick a few of the highlights.

The Land Raider utterly missed with all 3of its twin-linked weapons, leaving the Obliterators unscathed. To add insult to injury the Obliterators returned fire and destroyed the Land Raider outright. 250 points down the pan on, the Emperor has abandoned us!

One of the Chaos Dreadnoughts failed its ‘Crazy’ roll and shot its own side. To avoid it targeting the Obliterators, Phil had to move one of the Chaos Tactical Squads closer to it, forfeiting their chance to fire.

The Space Marine Scouts succeeded where the Land Raider had failed and managed to inflict two wounds on the Obliterators.

The Space Marine Terminators on the right flank consistently dealt a torrent of Bolter shaped death throughout the game. Good luck combined with rolling 10 D6 for Storm Bolters (4 Terminators and the Captain) and 4 D6 for the Assault Cannon while being able to move 6” a turn proved why these guys are Elite!

A Space Marine Combat Squad valiantly took the balcony of the Sanctum Imperialis objective in the centre of the battlefield, only to be wiped off the face of the planet under a landslide of attacks from charging Khorne Berzerkers! I did mention the problem with this plan to Chris before he moved the Marines, but coming from the death or glory school of tactics, it wasn’t ever going to end any other way.

Despite the kill ratio being well in the Space Marines favour, Chaos won the day by remembering to capture the objectives. Comment of the match goes to Chris, after Phil made yet another successful armour save:

"I prefer fighting Orks. I like it when stuff I shoot dies!"

It was another really good game and it was great to try out more of the different units. I think the Chaos forces were pretty well chosen, but their Terminators never really got to earn their points. The Obliterators did their job admirably; drawing tons of fire and making nearly every save they rolled and the Khorne Berserkers brutal close combat display was very impressive.

The Space Marines losing their Land Raider on the first turn was a bit of a blow, but the Predator was a great firebase and the Terminators were awesome! I’m not sure we used the Bikes to their full effect, but it was good to get some practice with the.

Till next time, everyone back in the box!

Mechanicum – 4th November 2009

I took a short break from the Horus Hersey series with King of Foxes. I’ve always been a big Raymond E. Feist fan and Martin Dye lent me the Talon of The Silver Hawk trilogy ages ago. I read the first one straight away, but before I could launch into the second book I got distracted by some new Black Library releases and never got round to reading the other two.

Reading a lot of the Horus Hersey series back to back has been great, but throwing a different book into the mix was a refreshing change of scenery. The 40K universe is without doubt the finest sci-fi setting I’ve ever encountered, but I think you can take it for granted sometimes when you just read one book after the other. I read a quote once, which went along the lines of ‘nothing makes you appreciate your own home like going on hoilday’ and after reading the blurb on the back of Mechanicum I’m looking forward to heading home.

Dining room table of death! – 3rd November 2009

The first RPG replacement wargame night went really well.

I tried to keep it simple by assembling a couple small armies, which would give everyone a chance to brush up on the rules (this was the first time most of the group had played this edition of 40K) and hopefully provide an evenings amusement.

I opted to pit the Black Reach box set forces against each other, with a few additions to bring the points up to 600 a side. The Space Marines gained an Assault Cannon wielding Dreadnought, instead of the Melta one, while the Orks gained an extra 27 Boyz!

Gareth Loxton and Phil Potter took the Orks, while Chris Young and I commanded the Emperor’s finest. We decided to set 3 objectives for the game; the Manufactorum, the sandbags in the centre and the rocky hill, with the plan being to play 6 turns and see who was in control of what at the end of it.

The hostilities opened with the Dreadnought bringing down 2 Ork Deff Koptas, which crumpled under a torrent of Assault Cannon and Storm Bolter fire thanks to some potent dice rolling from Chris. With the Orks heavily entrenched the rest of the Space Marine fire was mostly ineffective and the turn ended with the final remaining Deff Kopta failing it’s morale check and fleeing the board.

The Orks on the right flank surged forward into the trees in front of them, while the Boyz on the left flank made a dash for the Ruined Sanctum Imperialis. The Orks rattled a hail of Big Shoota rounds off the tactical Marines, but clearly the lucky iced buns which Chris was eating paid off with everyone making their saves!

Turn 2 saw the Space Marines drop a few more of the Boyz with some ranged sniping, but very little movement given their unwillingness to get closer to the Orks. The massive Ork mob on our left flank suffered another abysmal difficult terrain roll, keeping them in the woods while the Boyz on the right flank made a dash for the cover of the Sanctum Imperialis.

With the Space Marines trying to make every Bolter round count, turn 3 saw 6 more Boyz buy the (squig) farm. Undaunted by these casualties the Orks finally broke from cover and with a monstrous Waaagh! they smashed into the Marine lines. The combined might of the Warboss, Nobz and Boyz were too much for the Terminator Squad, who were brutally clubbed, snipped and sawed to death.

With an abysmal display from the Space Marine Captain, the only chance to avenge the Terminators was Dreadnought shaped. Clearly the long dead Marine hero piloting the Dreadnought had some kind of personal score to settle, with a flurry of 6’s the Ork Warboss was reduced to green mush.

With both sides well mauled, the final turn saw the battle close with a draw. The Space Marines held the hill, the Orks held the ruined Manufactorum and the sandbags in the centre were contested.

In hindsight I should have given the Orks another weapon or two to deal with the Dreadnought, because after the Deff Koptas took a nose dive in turn 1 there was little else that could threaten this might beast! From the Space Marine side I think the Terminators should have been more mobile, which might have helped them avoid the green tide they were forced to meet head on by standing still.

Everyone had a really good night though and I think it’s safe to say that in the grim darkness of future gaming nights, there is only war!