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Sunday 29 December 2013

TLC V DGG Crossed doubles

Christmas is always a good time for getting in a full days gaming as lots of people are on holidays, so this year was going to be no different, but from a 40k point of view things this year are a lot different.



For those not in the know the TLC & the DGG are 2 gaming clubs based about 30 miles apart from one another & this was third such gaming day, so for this one I came up with the idea of doing a crossed doubles day to make feel more like an event then a tournament.



So the idea was that we'd have teams made up with a player from each club, with each player having an army of 1K points & play 3 games over the day.



In the perfect world we'd have the same amount of players from each club but the best lay ed plans & all of that kind of thing, so what we did end up with was 3 from the DGG & 6 from the TLC giving us 9 players which meant yours truly didn't get to play with his toys.



On the plus side we'd 4 teams which meant that each team would get to play each other which is cool as all the players get to interact with each other on the table, so the teams we had where Lenny DGG with Johno TLC, Darra DGG with Erik TLC, Lloyd TLC with Ross TLC & Brian with Conner TLC.



Now as I said above things in 40k are now a lot different & what I mean by that is the use of super heavies in 40k & with Darra bring an IG stormlord super heavy tank this was for all of us our first chance to see one of these big guys in a normal 40k game.



How did this work in the game I here you ask ? well the answer is quiet well to be honest, is it powerful ? yes is it more powerful then a lot of other stuff in the game ? no I don't honestly think so even if it did survive every game, but that's not to say it wasn't on the rack once or twice if Lenny could have roller a 5 or a 6 there would have been a nice big bang.



What is funny is the way these things change the way a game players out, as it became very much so as a good friend of mine use to always say in apoc games shoot the big thing, & as someone who loves models I can say in all honesty that I look forward to seen more big things on the gaming tables.



Even though I had to sit this one out I'd a lot of fun as did to the best of my knowledge that lads that took part which at the end of the day is what these things are all about, highlight of the day for me had to be when Lloyd turn to Conner & said are you shooting at something or are you just rolling dice for the fun of it ? isn't that what we all roll the dice for at the end of the day Lloyd lol.



So I'll finish up by thanking all the players who took part, Ian for the use of the Hobby Shack ( if you find yourself in Wicklow town drop in & say hi)  & you for dropping in & I look forward to a BIG newyear in 40k.

Ps it turns out we where doing the damage on the super heavy wrong & Lenny should have indeed destroyed it, we'll know better next time.

Sunday 22 December 2013

40k stronghold & other things

While Escalation has been making all the waves in 40k the book that I'm more interested in is the one that was released  alongside it Stronghold assault, why is that Frank you might ask ?

The answer is really simple modelling opportunities as lets be honest I spend more time is this hobby noddelling & painting then I ever could hope to do playing so that makes this book for me the better of the two.

Now I know GW make a lot of these kits already & very nice they are to if you like skulls & Aquila's all over every thing lol but all joking aside even little things like razor wire or tank traps are now more fun as they are more in the main rules as you take them as part of your army.

Funny thing is I had tank traps & razor wire pieces done before & gave them away as they where just sitting there gathering dust, ah well it just means I'll have to make more as well as things like shield generator building & with a new nid dex coming out in a few weeks I might even try build some stuff nid style.

On the gaming front this week so me back in the descent campaign, which as someone who has aways liked boardgames I'm really enjoying as broad games offer a nice change of pace from table top wargaming, one of the gaming companies have I noticed released a firefly game which I'm very temped to pick up as I've a get liking for that show & movie & really hope they do more of them.

Yesterday also saw Darra arrived home for Christmas & as he'd been working flat out on his newest army of boltaction we got together to roll a few dice & chat as we do every time he's home, any way here's a link so you can hop over & see what hes been at.
http://dakeryus-blogofwar.blogspot.ie/

Bothaction is a game I'm getting to like more & more but sadly is one I only get to play when Darra is over, I might see if I can do anything about that in the newyear maybe pick up the rule book & build a small army it would needless to say have to be the Germans.

So there you have it my last bit of waffle before Christmas & I hope you enjoyed it I'll finish up by thanking you all for reading my blog & wish you a very happy Christmas.

Saturday 14 December 2013

40K Christmas Carnage

With last Wednesday night been the last gaming night in the club before Christmas it could mean only one thing & that was it was Christmas carnage.

This was our 3rd year playing this & I'm proud to say that apart from Lenny who's brainchild it is I'm the only other player to play in them all, here's a link to Lenny's blog for the rules.
http://thehobbybutterflyeffect.blogspot.ie/2013/11/dgg-2013-christmas-carnage-scenario.html


The first year I brought my nids but with the gants getting flatten by those fecking reindeer last year I gave the sob's a run out, but with Santa wanting the cannoness to sit on his lap all the time & talk until something came up I decided to bring the Red Scorpions this time round.


This is an event that is growing every year, & this year there was 8 players wanting to join in so we had 2 tables with 4 players on each one, as its only 1kpts per player 4 is a number that works very well for this game.


So my list was a captain, a tachmarine, 2 tactical squads in rhinos, a dread in a pod & a lascannon pred, a nice balanced list to have a bit of fun with.


Also playing on my table was Lenny with his Crimson Fist, Stephen with Space Wolf lead by Ragnar Blackmane, (who happen to be a model  once owned & painted by your truly, it's amazing how much lighter the colour of space wolfs where 15+ years ago) & last but not least Colin with IG's.


So after a couple of fun hours with snowman Brussels spouts Elven artillery & anything else you can thing of as Christmas's the game came to an end with Stephen the winner so well done to him, but that fact also means that I'm still without a carnage win ha well theres always next year.


So my thanks to the other players, to Lenny for making this happen & to you for dropping in & I hope you & a few mates might try this out for yourselves




Monday 9 December 2013

40K the gloves are off

Since 6th ed hit 40K has been going through a lot of changes, we've got allies back, fliers & fortification but all this was only the start the tin edge of the wadge if you like.

This weekend saw the release of 2 new books for 40k called escalation & stronghold assault, with these GW is opening up the game even more & braking down barriers.

A funny thing about this game has always been the whole FW not legal in 40K games, now anybody who been playing GW games for a long time will know how much it has changed as a company.

When FW first started out it was treated more like a specialist game that GW did  & was not really seen as a part of 40k, you could use their stuff but you need your opponents permission, over the last couple of years that has been slowly changing.

First we got apocalypse with apart from the then new GW plastic baneblade superheavy tank all the other big stuff was made by FW GW then done the stompa, this was the first time where the to companies where coming together.

A long time ago Epic was how you played these big battles but why sell you a whole army for a couple of hundred quid when we can sell you one model for that amount ? we have since got apoc 2sd ed for which GW released another couple of big kits but I've a funny feeling this has not done as well as GW hoped.

So we are all most at the stage where its all the same, we first had 40k stamped next was you don't need permission to use FW models but you should explain how they work, which is something you should do even with GW models if the rules are in doubt or you think the other play is not to familiar with what your using.

GW has changed a lot over the years & the people running it now are first & for most business men & want to make money to do that they have to sell models, the best way to sale a model is if a player can use it in a normal game of 40k landing pad anyone, if as I suspect GW see a rise in the sale of these big bad boys (& I'll bet a pound to a penny that they will) then when 7th ed comes around expect to see another foc slot in the rule book.

These things are here to stay whether we like them or not, FW is now apart of the game whether we like it or not, you see GW wanted us to play apoc games all the time & we didn't so now GW is bring the mountain to Mohamed.

Thanks for dropping in & if like me some of your bigger toys have been getting dusty well its time to blow it off.

Thursday 5 December 2013

One hunderd not out

This is my 100th post believe it or not & I've got to say I'm amazed I reach this mile stone so fast, it's also funny when I look back over the blog that after a little over a year I'm nearly back where I started.
I'll explain I'm starting to writhe this post on December 4th & tonight I head into the club with an army made up of the Inquisition Space marines & IG, now the blog was a year old at the start of September but I noticed I put up my first post about the Inquisition on December 3th of last year.
Now as anyone who as fallowed this blog over that length of time will know I started playing game using inquisitors in away that oddly enough is similar to how GW went about doing it, taking them as part of my army but with them not using up the allies slot.
When 6th ed came out first I'd high hopes as GW seemed to put out a rule book that kept harping on about forging a narrative which had me hoping that they where going to send the game in a certain way, plus there was rumours of all kind of supplements.
Chaos was to be the first codex out & while I never let myself believe that it was going to have legions (once FW started doing the HH I was sure) I was hoping for a good book more so when I heard that Phil Kelly was writhing it.
That wasn't to be the case as the dex is in my opinion very poor & if I was to try to build my Wordbearers in the same way I've always played them in a world where things is other codices where getting cheaper these guys were going up in price.
I'd luckily bought a SOB army at about the same time & even through by this time they where no longer involved with the inquisition the army included inquisitors & henchmen & while I'd always had a liking for the inquisition this was to be the spark that lit my fuse.
It was to also to get me playing INQ28 & give me reasons to go off & make up warbands & terrain, after I started playing INQ28 I stop using the inquisitors in my 40k games & got to a stage where I was only playing 40k about once a month.

The first few supplements did nothing for me but with chaos been the only one of the first three that I play I don't want to be to hard on them, but things where about to change like I'd never imagined with codex space marines.
Now here was a dex that offered so much to fluff gamers, gone where the bad old days of the Vulken in every colour under the sun now you just picked what chapter you wanted to play as & off you went, but this was only to be the start.
With digital codices GW found away of  not only giving us armies codices but now the could brake that down even more so any give us different company codices, they also did a SOB dex that while not perfect in a long way a head of the WD one.
Straight after which came the one really rocked my boat codex Inquisition & I was back where I was a year ago, I now fined I;m even starting to look for games of 40k on Saturdays & even found myself talking about doing an apoc game in the new year.

Were getting ways to use some of the big stuff in 40k games old characters that haven't been in the game in a long time are coming back, were getting formations that give special rules the game is changing like never before & I'm loving it.

The pictures are from my game with Ger last night & if your wondering why their are no pictures of my Inquisitor & his henchmen then go back up to the first picture, you'll see that the back door of the himera is right at the table edge while it's also in a piece of terrain I'll let you work it out for yourself.

So thanks for dropping in whether you've read one post or all one hundred

Friday 29 November 2013

100 models an Inquisitor & friends

Next up in my 100 models in a 100 days is Solomon Lok & some henchmen.
These are not part of his retinue as Lok comes with certain things in his retinue which I'm still working on.
Now I know I could just use IG's for henchmen but where the fun in that ?
Plus if your playing IG's a longside these fellows this is a in a good way of knowing who is who.
Another great thing about doing models like this is I can get to use them in different way plus I just love the way these's guys look.
As NPC in INQ28 or chaos cultists these guys will be handy.
One thing I always try to do is have my armies different so that even if someone else is using the same things as me it will always look different.
This lot brings me up to 43 models done so so I'm nearly at my target of 50.
I will of course keep going beyond that number should I get a chance but as Xmas gets nearer time for modelling will most likely get less.
Thanks for dropping in & please call again.























byvtg

Monday 25 November 2013

Doing the (miniature) washing

A lot of people think I like painting models but that's a miss conception, the real answer is I like painted models, models that look good in the hand & on the table.


Now don't get me wrong I'm far from been one of those guys that hate painting & think on it as some kind of punishment, I just find it mundane & would much prefer to spend time making models then painting.



When I put my mind to it I can even paint to a high standard, but I'm very slow, so a couple of years back when my son stopped playing 40k his nid army was just left sitting there.


This to me was a shame as I hate to see models not been used plus the fact I always like nids, but been as I've already said I'm a very slow painter & the thought for painting an army like the bugs with so many models just seemed like something I didn't want to take on.


That was unless I could find a faster way of getting them done while still haven them look good, now up until this point I'd spayed all my models black before painting them but what if I spayed white & used washes on them instead of paint.


So that is what I done & was very happy with the way they turned out, so much so that if I can I'll wash a model instead of painting it & with the exception of the red scorpions have washed nearly every model I've done since
.

I even found that using one wash over another can create the same effect as shading & highlighting, the only thing is that when doing this with washes is you do it backwards, start with the lightest colour first & then put on the darker ones.


A model I've had for a good while now is Solomon Lok from FW ( http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Grey-Knights/INQUISITOR_SOLOMON_LOK_AND_RETINUE.html ) & to by honest have put off painting him as its a model that I love & was afraid I couldn't do it justice.


So the other day I bit the bullet & started work on him I'd made up my mind that with so mush detail on the model I go with washes but unlike a lot of the models I wash go the extra mile using the different washes over one & other & am I glad I went this way as even if I say so myself he's turned out first class.


So if like me painting is not really you thing try doing a little washing, I know for me it's been a big help & while you still have to use paint for certain things been able to wash the bulk of an army is a big help
.All of the models in this post a mostly washed.


So thanks for dropping in & if you decide to try doing a little washing I hope you find it helpful.