Month: March 2017

Mostly Ill!

It’s been a really rough week and a bit, a lot of it is fallout from the other week, but I am just trying to put that behind me and move one with things. But the kicker was that at the end of last week, I managed to pick up a little bug which kept me in bed for quite a few days, I managed to miss the whole weekend, cancel two driving lessons and miss a game of 40k on Tuesday, before I have finally managed to get better, which just so happened to be right in time for the dentist.

So not a lot has been going on, I did mange to watch series 3 of Brooklyn 99, it that’s about it!

What I am Modelling

Before I fell ill, I got the Stormcast Eternals Retributors from the Storm of Sigmar set finished this week, and that completes the set, which is cool. Now to actually do what I intended to do with it and get Lindsay to try the game out so I can convince her to play with me.

I am also working on a Word Bearers Contemptor Morris armed with two Kheres Assault Cannons, and a Quad Mortar Rapier. And I built the Deredeo Dreadnought with Arachnus Heavy Lascannon Battery and Aiolos Missile Launcher and I don’t really think I got the pose right, but overall I am pretty happy with it. Hoping that when I add it to my Ultramarines it will give me a chance to go toe to toe with Christians Mechanicum Cybernetica.

I did manage to start and finish a Rapier Quad Mortar today, it was my first day of recovery so I took it easy and spent time in the studio. This particular set required quite a lot of work to build it up a couple of months ago, I got it with my first Forge World order for my Ultramarines, which included two of these preordered and this one came really badly miscast. The crews bodies were just about the only usable pieces on the whole thing.

I sent in photos of the damaged parts to Forgeworld and they replaced the whole kit which was great, but I have ended up building this one up, so I can have a third Quad Mortar option for when I really want to rain down the pain. I needed to do a lot of rebuilding with green stuff and some alterations under hot water, but eventually it came together and bar the obvious issues with the tracks and barrels that I couldn’t fix, you would be hard pressed to tell how bad it was when I got it, although the plastic MKIV parts used on the crew, particularly the shoulder pads would give it away as well. The original back packs were completely unrecoverable, but I managed to get these ones from a guy on eBay which was cool.

What I am Reading

Not a lot, the headaches kept me from concentrating too much, but I have read and digested most of White Dwarf, and that counts as reading right???

What I am Playing

I have played noting thanks to being ill, just a lot of Ticket to Ride Germany on the iPad.

What I am Backing

Nowt new this week, still backing Rising Sun and Cognition Issue #2.

Rising Sun has added an expansion that is $50, which I have gone in for because it has some KS exclusive extras so the two clans it comes with will match up to those in the base game KS version.

We have also started with the development of an expansion called the Kami Unleashed for which we have so far funded 5 out of the 7 Kami and hopefully we will have funded all of them by the end of the campaign.

The value of the box keeps going up and up and the campaign is now past $3 million.

And Cognition has got all of its stretch goals as well which is cool.

What I am Spending

I went to the Hilltop for dinner last Tuesday night and got a burger for my tea, and I bought some super glue and a pot of paint, that’s about all I have spent this past week and a bit.

I did manage to swap some of the extra Dropfleet Commander stuff I had got for a sealed copy of Warhammer Quest Shadows Over Hammerhal which is nice, but I already have the Silver Tower still waiting to be built and painted!

Slow with a Touch of Upset

It’s been a slow week, although we started it nicely with a trip to Airecon in Harrogate where we played some games.

The rest of the week has been a bit weird, Lindsay has been off work unwell, so me and Megan have been doing our best to look after her, and thankfully she is getting a bit better.

I think the most we have achieved is that we have done some moving around and changing of furniture in the games room, replacing a double bookcase with two singles so we could split them up and put the sofa against the wall. It means we have acquired a little extra space for games which is nice.

The back half of the week has been dominated by some drama, a chap in the local war gaming community has fallen out with me, which is a bit upsetting. Honestly I have noting bad to say about the guy, apart from his habit of being quite loud, but he is a great guy and has done wonders for the local community. But what’s done the damage is that a “friend” of mine has decided to message him and harass him over it, which is utterly unfair and wrong. It’s driven the chap to want to give up 30k and I am trying to convince him not to, but he wants to sell his army and that’s not cool.

I would hate to think that a guy could be driven from an amazing hobby because if something I, or one of my friends has done. Honestly it’s got me quite upset, and I am angry with my friend for making him feel this way.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and make people feel better and get along, but I can’t, so instead I will just keep trying to restore a bit of calm and sanity to life.

What I am Modelling

Because I have been in a lot of pain this week I have gotten very little done, I have finished most of a squad of Breachers with Power Swords, and they now just need their bases doing, which I am going to do tonight.

I also have built a Aspiring Deathbringer with Goreaxe and Skullhammer that I found hiding on my shelf behind some some Legion Combi-Weapon sets. My plan is to prime all my Sigmar stuff tomorrow along with The first if Megan’s Ironjawz.

What I am Reading

I read The Ember Wolves by Rob Sanders. It an interesting short read, and really gives an insight into how the traitor titan Legions were breaking down in terms of chain of command and how unruly the traitors were becoming.

Also, it describes a really cool scenario showing how in numbers, Warhounds are extremely deadly to bigger titans, kind of a rehash of the cool Titan battle in Betrayer by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, but it’s different enough to keep you I treated in the story. It gave me a lot of inspiration for when they eventually release Titanicus.

I also finished I am Slaughter and have moved on to Predator, Prey. A bit shocked that the Imperial Fists were all wiped out, and I am wondering how that will play out, because we know that they are still around in M41.

What I am Playing

Myself, Lindsay and Megan made the trek down to Airecon last Saturday, which was really cool. Both Lindsay and Megan were suffering from some significant anxiety that day so we didn’t stay for a long time nor play too many games.

We played a game of Samurai Spirit which I have had on my to play list for a while, simply because I enjoy the work of Antoine Bauza and I have a Promo Card for the game.

It was ok, a bit confusing as it was noisy and we struggled to get our heads around the rules on our first read through, and so we lost pretty badly, the villagers all died. 

Megan was not impressed by it, so it’s coming off my to buy wish list and I will pass on the Promo Card to someone else.

We then played in a short session of Pathfinder, which was cool, the girls have been wanting to do a bit more role playing for a while, and I think they enjoyed it. I really should play some Pathfinder, I have enough of the books!

On Thursday I went to Battle Bunker where I played a game of Horus Heresy with my Ultramarines against Christians Mechanicum, and of course he brought his Acastus Knight Porphyrion, which I really struggled against.

The game went quite badly very quickly, my Fellblade was destroyed in one turn of close combat, curse Scoria, and my Sicaran Venator died before it could do any damage to the knight. My reserve rolls didn’t go my way, so my two Storm Eagles full of troops didn’t come on, and I lost the game by end of turn three. It was a brutal game and I need to figure out a way to counter his high toughness, high wound robots, because my current army just can’t seem to manage it.

What I am Backing

This week, my old school pal Ken Reynolds laughed his Kickstarter for Issue 2 of Cognition, his self published series about a steam powered robot with the soul of a man and a demonically possessed mouse.

I have really enjoyed issues #0 and #1 and think these are pretty good examples of how cool small press comics can be, and the fact he is an old friend makes it an auto-buy, of course it helps that the series is well written and beautifully illustrated by Sam Bentley.

As always, go check out the project and if you like what you see, back it.

What I am Spending

This week I actually spent an awful lot! I sold a couple of bits and pieces on eBay and achieved my savings target and was finally able to afford the things from Forgeworld I have been squirrelling away money for these past seven months.

What did I get, well I bought a Mastodon, my most expensive model ever purchased! I did vacillate and seriously consider just getting a Warhound, but I figure I will have more opportunity to use a Mastodon, plus it’s a lot less scary than a Warhound. It’s destined to join my Word Bearers and eventually will transport a unit of ten Val Gorbak, but initially it will carry nine Tartaros Terminators and a Praetor Tribune. In both cases the other 20 Space will be taken up with two Contemtor Dreadnoughts.

Also included in the savings target was Lorgar, because I desperately wanted to paint him, and a Deredeo Dreadnought with an Arachnus Heavy Lascannon Battery and a Aiolos Missile Launcher which is destined for my Ultramarines.

I also had to buy Lindsays birthday present as I next get paid the day after her birthday, she knows what she is getting, a good pair of monitor headphones for her record player, but not the exact make and model.

At Airecon I found myself in love with this amazing Imperial Aquilla dice box and I had to have it, the artists works is really good, and Megan and Lindsay also bought boxes for their polyhedral dice from her. I also bought a copy of Ticket to Ride Map Pack 3: The Heart of Africa from the Travelling Man stall as it was on a nice show price. 

I also put down part of the deposit for next years weekender and had a few other unforeseen expenses, so I am pretty brassic for the rest of the month, and as such won’t be doing much of anything.

Post Weekender Roundup

Well the weekender was amazing, it was phenomenal, although I was looking after everything and didn’t get to play, I saw some amazing games and some brilliant armies.

It started with a huge panic, because when we arrived, there weren’t enough tables and after trying a few methods to live with the number of tables we had, Phil had the brilliant idea of looking in the marquee and we found some more tables there which we fetched over to use. Tristan whom we normally deal with the last few times has set the hall up perfectly for gaming, but he is sick at the moment and the rest of the staff didn’t know where the tables were. So we sorted out the tables but Phil had forgot the all important event packs so he had to rush off, which left me to cook the pie and pea supper, and ever since my brain injury, well cooking is not something I can really do anymore and I managed to burn the peas!

It was overall a nice night because people came along and helped us set up tables and they started playing, which was brilliant to see. People got a bit merry and although me, Phil, Graham and Adam ran around like headless chickens for a bit getting things ready, but it did calm down in the end and things started to move slowly, even though we were still repairing terrain and boards right up until quite late!

Saturday started well, the breakfast was on time and warm, strangely only one bowl of cereal was eaten, but lots of toast and Jane was had! Games got underway and these matchups were ones that we had predetermined based on fluff, so we had Space Wolves taking on the Thousand Sons, Ultramarines battling Word Bearers, Night Lords tackling the Dark Angels etc, and this went very well and worked out a bit more balanced than we had thought, the only game which looked a bit too uneven was a game between the Legio Custodes and traitor Solar Auxillia, but it wasn’t overly so.Lunch was hot dogs which we had slow cooked since the breakfast and these were well received but based on feedback we might need to provide a bit more next time for the hungry guys. After lunch was game 2, and the hour break worked out perfectly to allow Adam and Graham to work out the narrative and pairings. These games also went rather well, and I just pottered around, emptying bins, and took a quick trip to Tesco with Lindsay for a few bits and bobs we ran out of like Tomato Ketchup.

Game 3 was a doubles game and this was a bit mixed, it was a hit for some people, but other people didn’t like it, and we had one very bad match up, where there was a bad personality clash between two players, which was a shame. It didn’t get too bad, but when two of the players were having a bad time because their partners spent the game arguing over simple rules, it made me feel bad for them. This game went on quite late on into the night, with the last game putting dice down at 11pm, at which time I retired to my room because I needed to be up early to reorganise the tables in the morning.

At least that was the plan, but I managed to sleep in, but thankfully Phil had gotten up early and reorganised all the tables himself and started to cook breakfast, showing what a bloody hero he is! Games wise this is where we fell down a little, Graham and Adam left organising the narrative and pairings until the morning so the games got away a bit later than planned, and in between games 4 and 5, it took an hour to sort out, and we only allocated 30 minutes, so that’s something we have to tighten up for next time.

I spent most of Sunday tidying stuff up whilst Lindsay and Megan, who were amazing and cooked for everyone during the weekend, told me how dreamy Jason Mullins was! Game 5 actually worked out to be the worst game, I had planned an ambush game with a last stand for the losing side, but some games were over far too quickly as they were so very one sided, so I am never planning that kind of mission again, but that was the biggest disappointment of the weekend.

Getting out of Moorhouse was a huge rush as we overran our booking and as such we forgot to take the tables back to the marquee and afterwards they told us that there was a superglue spillage on the floor, so I am awaiting a repair bill for that.

I know the weekend went very well, we have had some great feedback from the survey, but there are things I need to change for next time. The biggest thing we are going to do is to extend our booking and get a couple of hours extra to set up and break down, and putting up a pasting table outside for repairs, oh and hireing tables next time so we don’t have to scavenge for tables and most importantly we can provide seating for lunch!

But we plan on doing it again next year and right now I am just awaiting confirmation that we can have the date we want from Moorhouse, and then I will be announcing that date. But just in case we can’t get it, I am looking at other venues, and also getting a van next year to make getting the scenery around a lot easier, rather than spreading it around everyone’s cars.

What I am Modelling

The early part of the week I took a bit of a break and only just got back into my studio on Thursday.

I built the Stormcast Eternals part of the Age of Sigmar boxset, and some Mighty Skullcrushers of Khorne, gonna give a bit more attention to my Age of Sigmar stuff now the weekender is done and out the way.

I planned started to paint my Gal Vorbak as well, they are an intimidating unit to paint but hopefully I will do them justice, for the daemon skin I am looking at Skaven flesh for inspiration, I want something that looks like it could be human, but slightly wrong. However, I left the Word Bearers in the car so I started on my MKIV Breachers for the Ultramarines instead.

What I am Reading

Mostly a whole lot of noting, not even an audio book, I am not happy with myself in this department.

I have read a little bit more of I am Slaughter but that’s it!

What I am Playing

At club on Tuesday I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shadows of the Past for the first time and it was ok. We played through mission 1 from book 1 and it’s not too bad a game. Still need to read though the rules a bit more and figure it all out properly, but I quite like it so far.

We also played an old favourite of mine from when I was a kid, Space Crusade, I played at the Imperial Fists and the dice hated me, I lost all my heavy weapons in the first villain turn and only managed to score 6 points in the whole game, whole Lindsay managed to win with 73 points after she killed the Chaos lord.

I visited Battle Bunker in Sunderland for the first time on Thursday and I have to say, it’s a brilliant venue, lots of tables, just across from a McDonalds, 25% off GW stuff and a really nice owner. I really want this place to be a success and will be playing as many games there as I can afford to.

Anyway I meet up with John to play an 1850pts game of Heresy, it was one of Johns first games so he had to pop in a Space Wolves unit to represent a tactical squad.

For my list I took as follows:-

HQ – Praetor, Cataphractii Terminator Armour, Iron Halo, Thunderhammer, Combi-Volkite, Digital Lasers 

HQ – Centurion, Jump Pack, Chaplain, Artificer Armour, Plasma Pistol, Power Maul 

Elites – Gal Vorbak Dark Brethren, Dark Maytr with Artificer Armour and Power Fist

Troops – Terminator Squad, Cataphractii Terminator Armour, 3 x Powerfist, Chainfist, Reaper Autocannon, Sgt with Grenade Harness and Power Maul, Spartan Assault Tank, Dozer Blade, Armoured Ceramite, Flare Shield

Troops – Veteran Squad, 2 x Heavy Bolter, Vexilla, Sgt with Artificer Armour and Lightning Claw, Rhino with Dozer Blade, Marksmen

Troops – Veteran Squad, 2 x Missile Launcher, Vexilla, Sgt with Artificer Armour and Power Fist, Rhino with Dozer Blade, Machine Killers

Heavy Support – Heavy Support Squad, 5 x Missile Launchers 

We rolled to play War of Lies with an Ambush deployment and I rolled to deploy first and I chose to be the attacker. But John was playing Raven Guard so after he deployed his Contemptor Dreadnoughts he then decided everything else would infiltrate, whilst I put my two Veteran squads and my Terminator squad in their transports on the board in my deployment zone and then placed my Heavy Support Squad in a ruin.

I managed to get an exploded result by firing my Lascannons from the Spartan into one Contemptor Dreadnought, but no matter what I put into it, he always seemed to roll the invulnerable saves for the other. I rolled up my Machine Killers and eventually got them into combat with a Mor Deythan Strike Squad which had almost wiped out my Terminator Squad in the shorting phase where they rerolled their misses and had rending. But when my Praetor and last Terminator got into that combat they were able to rout them which allowed the Veteran Squad to make a sweeping advance which wiped out the Squad and his Praetor.

Kaedus Nex made some excellent shoot attacks against my Praetor and did take a wound off him, but the Heavy Bolter on the Spartan eventually killed him, but it has made me decide to get a Moritat when FW eventually release that kit.

 My Praetor eventually died to shooting attacks from his Tactical squads and he was on one wound and standing on the central objective, he fell to a lowly bolt gun round.

My Gal Vorbak succeed in their reserve rolls on both turns 2 and 3, but in both turns they managed to mishap, but they did go into ongoing reserves thankfully, eventually they arrived in Turn 4 but by that time they couldn’t do much and were in an end of the table where in the turn they arrived I wiped out the opposition.

My other Veteran Squad, shot up a Tactical Squad and eventually wiped them out in close combat, but it took a while, I then wanted them to claim the objective the Tactical Squad had been on, but by the time they had wiped out the units last guy, John had moved his Terminator Squad onto the objective and I decided to have them try to take shoot to death the Tactical Squad sitting on the central objective which they failed to do.

In the round up, we both held two objectives and got Slay the Warlord whilst I had First Blood, in the rolling for points I ended up with -1 victory points after rolling a 6 then a 3, whereas John got a 2 and a 5 giving him a total of 5 points.

It was a very enjoyable game and I look forward to playing John again.

What I am Backing

What else, but Rising Sun!

I really regret not backing Blood Rage so of course I was going to back this game, and it looks brilliant. Ok so it’s a slight bit lacking on it’s perfect knowledge of the culture, but otherwise it’s looking awesome, the gameplay looks really interesting and quite involved and the minis look breathtaking.

It’s knocking down Stretch Goals like there is no tomorrow, I can see this ending up making an easy $3 Million.

If you liked Blood Rage, then certainly go and back this, or alternatively if you do’t know what Blood Rage is, back it, otherwise you will regret it.

Munchkin Shakespeare ended up funded with $295k, just $5 short of getting us a round game board resembling the Globe Theatre, but it is coming as a deluxe edition with a board and standees, and I also let my sister-in-law Jane piggyback on our pledge in order to grab herself both the main game and the Kickstarter expansion.

What I am Spending

Not a penny, I bought a parmo on Tuesday after club but that was it.

I am trying to reduce down my spending and hopefully this is a good start in doing that.

A Bunch of Thank Yous

I first off want to thank the people who made the weekend possible. 

To Adam who wrote the fluff which directed the narrative, I know a lot of people loved his s croon about the various planets in the system.

Graham who used his programming skills to write the branching method which worked out how the story unfolded.

Phil who organised the logistics of how things would work during the event, and who sweated moving around tables for the doubles.

Andrew, David and the two James, who as the remaining members of the committee helped steer us in the right direction and in a way that would benefit the community and the club.

And of course my beautiful girls, Megan and Lindsay who alongside Megan’s mum Jane, cooked the meals that were e joyed over the weekend.

These people put up with my madness, panic and worry as I worked to coordinate people and make this event work, they kept me more or less sane and I am proud to call these people my friends.

But the people I want to thank the most are those of you that came, it’s was so inspiring to see people travel far and wide to come and play five games of The Horus Heresy here in our little corner of North East England.

I will speak a bit more about how the weekend went in a few days, along with some feedback we got, but for now I just wanted to say thank you.

Almost There

This week has been mostly finishing up preparations for the weekender. Sunday saw me and Lindsay head up to CostCo to order the cake, and pick up the crisps, chocolate and pop for the tuck shop, and Lindsay and Megan will be returning on Friday night to grab the cake and some biscuits.

On Tuesday I was at club where we got the clubs terrain split amongst a bunch of us to take up to Moorhouse on Friday, we figure with my Realm of Battle and terrain, plus all the clubs stuff, we can do about 16 tables, which is one more than we need, we hope it’s going to all look good.

Wednesday was the day we went to grab the non-perishable food for the weekender, off to Asda in Stanley I journeyed and managed to clear their shelves of mushy peas, bockwurst hot dogs and kidney beans. We still have to grab the fresh stuff, but that waiting until Friday morning just before we drop it off at Moorhouse, I don’t have room in my fridge to keep 9kg of mince after all!!

I have also been collecting together all the other bits and bobs that will make the weekender work, things like the iZettle, for taking card payments in the tuck shop, the camera so we can film some of the games taking place, my audio recorder so me and Graham can interview some folk for our podcast, and little things like that.

I also tonight finally sort d out all of my terrain that I am taking along, I had to remove the fantasy style stuff from the box, and thankfully once that’s removed the newly painted up stuff fits in it quite nicely. And looking though it I found one or two bits that I forgot I had, like the resin Urban and Ork barricades that Games Workshop did a few years ago.

I know it’s going to be a good weekend, we just have to make it happen!

We did have a bit of a bad day today, it’s the 5th anniversary of Lindsay getting attacked by the dog, so she really was having a hard time coping at work. In the end she had to take a days holiday, because she couldn’t stop crying. 

I hate it when she gets like that, I feel so useless, I should be able to look after her and make her feel better, but when it comes to this I simply can’t, and it really makes me feel impotent and powerless.

Some people wonder why I don’t like dogs, but when you once had to pick up bits of your wife off the carpet, lie next to her whilst she suffers through the attack all over agin via a nightmare, or she just has this sad look in her eyes when looking at the scars, then you might understand.

Thankfully the law has changed since she was attached and if it happened today the police would have the power to seize the dog and destroy it, but that doesn’t make me feel better know that it’s still alive and could turn on someone else at the drop of a hat, and perhaps they won’t be so lucky as she was.

What I am Modelling

I finished the terrain I had to do with the completion of the Void Shield Generator, the glowing orbs were done using a method that Sarah from Warhammer in Newcastle thought me.

Started with a base of Caliban Green, then drub rushed with Warpstone Glow, then dry brushed with Moot Green. The lightning was then painted in using Yirel Yellow, and the whole thing was then glazed with Lamenters Yellow before being given a coat of Ardcoat. It’s a simple method buy one which looks really well, although the lightning on mine does let it down a little.

With this done I turned my attention back to my Word Bearers and competed the Plasma Tactical Support Squad, it was. Ice to be doing one of my armies again.

I will be turning my attention next to my Age of Sigmar Khorne Chaos stuff, the Newcastle Warhammer store is doing a challenge to build and paint up a 1000pt list to play in some games in store during April, so that’s what I am going to do.

I already have the Goreblade Warband ready to go for this, to which I will be adding three Mighty Skullcrushers and ten Bloodletters to get to 960pts, so sadly I won’t be including Slambo in that list.

What I am Reading

I downloaded and read the new short story Ordo Sinister by John French which is about a Psi-Titan and its fight in the War in the Webway.

It tells a tale of Prefect Hydragyrum holding back a deamonic incursion in the engine Borealis Thoon, completely unsupported by any other elements of the Emperors forces.

The story being only some 20ish pages long doesn’t go in to a huge amount of details about the Ordo Sinister, but does give us a brief glimpse at how starange they are compared to other Titan Legions and how disturbing their Psi-Titans are.

It does kind of over exaggerate exactly how badass it is, but honestly it’s a decent little read and the way it easily fits in with the story in Master of Mankind means it’s a no brainier of a purchase at £2.49, especially with a talented writer like John behind it.
What I am Playing

This week I got a game in with Graham using my Ultramarines, I wrote up a Battle report of the game for Edge of Empire which you can read here.

What I am Backing

Nowt new, but Munchkin Shakespeare is still plodding along, and now we have a stretch goal at $275k which turns it into a Deluxe version of Munchkin complete with game board and standees. So I urge you to give it a look and back it if you like it. 

It hit £200k last night which added 4 more cards, 2 dungeons and a colouring book to the Kickstarter Expansion, for the main set, Andrew Hackard, the Munchkin Czar, tells me they are aiming for 168 cards which would be the same amount in a core Munchkin set.

What I am Spending

It’s not spending, but I did swap a rare Munchkin promo card for a Plasma Obliterator as I mentioned in my last entry, and it arrived, considered painting it up for the Weekender, but ended up deciding against it as I want a bit of a break from scenery for a little bit. It got built up and primed but that was as far as I was willing to go with it.

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