The final game was a big 3500 point list and for that I took my 2k list replacing the Champion with Fafnir Rann, and adding a Warhound Scout Titan and a few other bits!
I played Damian’s World Eaters in game one, and my lack of weapons that could intercept was a flaw that allowed a Leviathan to drop down and kill my Kratos.
The Contemptors were a bugger to deal with, but I managed to take them out, but at the end of the game I just had 5 Templar Brethren and a Champion plus Apothecary left!
I played against Jacobs Sons of Horus, and the addition of a pair of Sicarans, and a Warhound Titan really changed things up for me!
The Sicaran is, if I am honest, a bit more effective than the Kratos, but the Kratos actually did get to shine a bit here, until it was taken out by a Terminator!
Sadly however, my bane was a pair of Leviathan Siege Dreadnoughts which over 4 or 5 rounds of combat took out my Warhound, but it was only able to do 6 wounds in response, I just couldn’t hurt them.
In the end I won, destroying everything in the table apart from the Leviathans and a couple of straggling Veterans.
My Thoughts On The Event
Pretty good event, the tables terrain was nice, especially the last games.
A few teething issues, particularly around general admin at the end, but show me an event that doesn’t deal with that, and as an EO myself I thought they did really well.
If they run anymore Heresy events, I will be returning for them, really really fun day!
Imperium Expansion
We have known for quite a while now that Warhammer 40,000 Imperium was being extended by 10 issues, and I thought, why not mention what I think about the contents!
Issues 81 – 83
The Sisters get a hell of an expansion with the Paragon Warsuits, spread over three issues, costing £8.99, that means you get them for £26.97, saving nearly £20 off the RRP!
These are great looking models and I have ordered an additional two of each issue!
Issue 84
A Skitarii Marshall, seems a bit of a let down when compared to the stuff the other factions are getting, yeah it’s a lovely model, but still, would have preferred something else, but to be fair, the Mechanicus range isn’t easy to grab something from for this.
Issue 85
The Hexmark Destroyer is one of the best looking models in the Necron range, ok, a bit pants in game, who cares when it looks like that!
I already have one, but I don’t mind having another!
Issue 86 – 88
The Space Marines get the full multipart Redemptor Dreadnought, which is a great kit and pretty cool to have in here.
Personally I would have preferred the Invictor Tactical Warsuit, but that’s down to my personal collection!
Issue 89
Inquisitor Draxus is a cool looking model, but we subscribers already got an Inquisitor in the form of Katarina Greyfax, so this whilst cool, wasn’t the greatest choice, personally I would have replaced this and the Skitarii Marshall with a two part AdMech kit.
Still great model and I can’t wait to paint her to join the rest of my Inquisitorial forces!
Issue 90
Not only does Illuminator Szeras represent great value, but also, is a wonderful and beautiful model for your collection!
Really over the moon we are getting this amazing character
In Conclusion
We are getting some really nice models, for my personal collection, a couple don’t make sense, but hey, it’s not all about me.
The only thing that I am currently wondering, is where to put the Redemptor Dreadnought.
Not sure any of my Space Marine armies need another one, but it’s likely going with the Ultramarines.
What I Am Modelling
Started off urgently beavering away to finish the bits for the Imperial Fists for the event by painting first up a pair of Sicaran Battle Tanks.
I then rebased an old Reiver Squad for my Space Wolves, originally built for Kill Team in the last edition, but on a different basing scheme, when I convinced myself that my Wolves wouldn’t have any Primarise stuff!
Anyway, they now join the Infiltrators, Redemptor Dreadnought, Ragnar, Aggressors and Repulsor that currently comprise the Wolves Primaris forces, and I have more on the way at some point!
Then, the last Tomb Blade was finished for the Necrons!
Been trying to play The Witcher 3, but the latest update has caused an issue with random crashes, so I may have to abandon the game for a bit until that’s fixed.
This past weekend, I got to work at Airecon, a wonderful little board game convention in Harrrogate.
I spent the weekend showing people how to play Star Wars Legion, using a capture the flag scenario that gave people a very very basic taste of the game, to tempt them to join the Dark Side and crush the rebels!
Got to stay at the Crown Plaza, which was nice, until they nicked my pizza, but that’s another story!
Really nice breakfast though and I got to have Eggs Benedict on Sunday, weirdly served with bacon, and I ate probably very badly, existing on pizza, burgers and Coke Zero!
And I needed to hook up the Xbox Series S, PlayStation 5 and printer to the network physically, so I bought 3 Amazon Basics Cat 6 ethernet cables to do this.
I grabbed Fallout 2, Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition and Fallout Tactics for Steam, kinda decided I am going to buy a Steam Deck at some point in the next 12 months, so grabbing a bunch of games I really enjoy that are cheap specifically for Steam.
I mist admit I was tempted to get 100 cans of Pepsi Max, cause I don’t drink, but Lindsay wanted some alcohol free gin and cider, so I ordered that for her, and then made up the remainder with soft drinks, total cost to us was £1.75!!!
I won another game in the form of Row of Numbers for the PlayStation.
So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.
I am going to try my best to not let these things cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
What’s is Descent: Journeys in the Dark
Simply put Descent: Journeys in the Dark is good old fashioned dungeon crawler whose linage goes all the way back to Heroquest.
Based very much on the Doom board game published by Fantasy Flight Games, you can see influences from across the gaming hobby, with bits from Space Hulk and Lord of the Rings being identifiable.
It’s set in the world of Terrinoth, a setting shared with Runewars, Runeage and a few other games and RPGs published by Fantasty Flight Games.
It’s a high fantasy universe and you will recognise many of the tropes and races seen in other similar fantasy style settings. It’s not particularly unique, but it is fairly well developed and interesting.
Descent is the dungeon crawler game in that universe, with one player being the evil overlord of the dungeon and the others taking in the roles of the hero’s.
For a dungeon crawler, let’s be honest it’s one of the best out there, and the only reason it’s not in my collection is that Lindsay and Megan aren’t as enthusiastic about high fantasy as I am!
The Story
In this epic tale, the Uthuk Y’llan are sweeping across the realms of Terrinoth, killing, burning and destroying all in their path.
This demonic powered horde of killers is lead by a murderous Beastmaster, who has a plan, a plan to take the forest of Bloodwood and control the mysterious source of power at its heart, so that he can destroy Terrinoth and bring all the world under his control.
But fleeing the destruction of their home city, a pair of humans, an orc and a catfolk, band together, and with the aid of an elven hunter, are thrust into an adventure to save the Bloodwood and by extension the world.
Traveling from the world they know, into the realms of the elves, this misfit band, will see wonders and horrors, and have to dig deep into themselves and fight the monsters that are the Uthuk Y’llan.
Conculsuion
This is a classic, adventure story, the kind of adventure you no doubt have played around a table with D20s with bottles of Pepsi and bowls of Wotsits as a nipper!
And that is why this story is so good, because it just hits that sweet spot of nostalgia and with fantastic writing, it really brings to life the words on the page. I really did feel pulled into the story and found myself putting off sleep to just read another chapter!
The characters, get quite a bit of padding out, with perhaps not the deepest of backstories, but enough so that you get a real feel for them.
Whilst the synopsis talks about them having to overcome their differences, I found that they seemed to become friends rather quickly, helping each other and being comrades to people they met when thrown in the mud together.
They only briefly feel safe, and the story moves along at a brisk pace, just like your RPG sessions.
The characters are all really interesting, but I did finds myself enjoying the elderly teacher Emery most, his almost childlike wonder, as for the first time in his life he finds himself travelling in the wild and seeing things he had only read about in books was really cool.
I really hope we get to meet these characters again.
This is a wonderful book and I am gonna give it 4.5 stars out of 5.
I do worry that some people will see my reviews for Aconyte as overly positive, but to be honest, apart from one stinker, all their books have been amazing!
I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Assassins Creed book The Magus Conspiracy by the wonderful Kate Heartfield, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.
So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.
I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
So let’s crack on with a review then!
What is Assassin Creed
Assassins Creed is an adventure game franchise published by Ubisoft (One of my Edge of Empire Co-hosts used to work there as well I should probably mention), and depicts a millennia-old conflict between the Assassins, who fight to preserve free will, and the Templars who desire to bring around peace by controlling people.
The games take place throughout various historical periods, the original 2007 game being set in the era of the 3rd Crusades, and the latest game Assassins Creed Valhalla, set in the Viking Invasion of Britain, and the next game Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age.
The Story
This book takes place over about a decade before Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, starting in 1851 with the passing of Ada Lovelace, the genius daughter of Lord Byron. Confessing to her friend, the 19 year old acrobat Pierrette Arnaud, her concerns over technology and ideas she may have passed onto a shadowy mysterious correspondent, known only as the Magus.
Meanwhile, Adas childhood friend Simeon Price, is shipwreaked when the troopship, HMS Birkenhead, carrying him and his regiment to the Cape Colony runs aground. After being saved by a mysterious cloaked stranger, he decides to take the strangers advice, and desert from the army, and seek out a new brotherhood in Vienna.
When Ada finally passes away, she leaves Pierrette with instructions to seek out Simeon, having received word that he survived, believing that he may be able to undo what she has done and stop the Magus.
And thus our characters are thrown into a decade spanning adventure, as they encounter the Assassin’s and learn that Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted.
Conclusion
Look, I am always gonna look on an Assassin’s Creed book with a fairly high opinion as its one of my favourite video game IPs, I am currently replaying Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, so I may be a bit biased in that regard.
The Magus Conspiracy weaves through a period of history that in the UK, we kind of look back on as being fairly stable and an era of massive industrial revolution, but on the continent it was an age of upheaval, revolution and brutal repression.
This particular story, as with many Assassin’s Creed games, takes us through historic events, such as the 1853 attempted assassination of Emperor Franz Joseph and the Orsini Affair and has us encounter historic characters, such as Julius Jacob von Haynau, the Habsburg Tiger, John Ruskin and Lizzie Siddal.
This book feels like a love letter to the period and gives us a fantastic trip through parts of Europe as events such as the unification of Italy are in full swing, the Crimean war is underway and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte crowns himself as Napoleon III.
Crack is this book, stands on its own quite well, knowing a bit about the games, will help ease you in, but its easy enough to grasp the key concepts.
The characters are nicely well rounded and feel like whole people, and I am very much looking forward to the publication of the rest of the trilogy, to encounter them some more.
Now the Magus, well, I clocked who he was pretty quickly, which was a bit of a shame, but sometimes that’s just the way things need to work, after all, I was holding more facts than the characters were.
There is plenty of action here, and I loved the little decision that Pierrette made that meshes up with the real history and is an obvious place for a sequel!
I came away from this book, kinda hoping that Ubisoft do something with the characters and put them in a game, oh and meeting Ethan Frye and Jayadeep Mir again was a nice little treat!
I have been provided with an advance copy of the new Watch Dogs novel, Daybreak Legacy by Stewart Hotston, published by Aconyte Books, so here is the honest review I promised in exchange for the book.
So here is an important disclaimer which is always important to put out there first. I have a casual work contact with Asmodee to demonstrate board games for them in stores and at conventions. Asmodee being the parent company of Aconyte the publisher.
I am going to try my best to not let that cloud my judgement in this review, but I accept that subconsciously it might.
What is Watch Dogs
Watch Dogs is an action-adventure game franchise, published by Ubisoft, and there have been three games published since 2014, the most recent being Watch Dogs Legion, published in late 2020.
Watch Dogs feature protagonists who are hackers working against criminal underworlds, corrupt companies and rival hackers.
The Story
Daybreak brings the story back to London and picks up in the aftermath of Watch Dogs Legion, and sees Olly and Ro from Day Zero doing work in London to protect people from the predations of criminal gangs, con men and the newly restored Metropolitan Police.
But their activities bring them to the attention of a new group, and they end up on the run after having their IDs changed, setting the authorities on to them and those they love.
Their friendly AI, Bagley, soon discovers that this new group may have an AI of their own, who is interfering in the business of the city. Changing hospital appointments, bumping people up the housing lists, little nudges that could have knock on effects for others who are in need.
Teaming up with Nowt and the hacktivist collective 404, Olly and Ro need to discover the aims of the new AI, and discover is Project Daybreak, truly is dead.
Conclusion
Ok, I am gonna start with the negatives, a couple of little things, that just bugged me, because its set in London, but these little inconsistencies, really spoiled the immersion.
When a characters weight is discussed, they give it only in lb, which isn’t something a British person would really do, they would give it in either kg or st, and it really was quite jarring.
And on a couple of occasions, the Tube is called the Metro, again, just not something that any Brit and especially a Londoner would do.
Sorry to start with the negatives, but they were only a couple of instances, but they really did, immediately stop my immersion in the story and I tried to figure out what the characters would refer to those in that way.
Anyway on to the good stuff, this isn’t a super high octane story filled with action, now you might think that’s not great for video game tie-in fiction, but actually, I think it worked rather well.
There is a fair bit of great action, but its in appropriate places, and works really well.
This book is a great examination of the moral and philosophical questions around the development of AI, and how they would impact on our society. Not AI as in machine learning and large language models such as ChatGPT we have today, but rather true AI that can think, imagine and make decisions all on its own.
The novel feels very appropriate as we moved into an era in which machine learning is accelerating and we will see it start to replace some roles in our society as we are forced once more to adapt to new technology.
The discussions had between the characters about the nature of life, and at what point can or should be accept the decisions of AI, and whether or not AI could become a master, if we give it too much power and control.
The conclusion felt more Star Trek than a video game, with the characters all seeking a peaceful outcome, rather than choosing violence.
The story is very interesting, very though provoking, very much so considering its source material, its deeper than it has any business being!
I have to award this book 4 out of 5 stars, and I very highly recommend it.
Daybreak Legacy is out now as a Paperback, eBook and Audiobook
Last weekend, we took a flying visit to my parents in Suffolk.
We hadn’t been in nearly 3 1/2 years as a result of the Pandemic and it was nice to head down again, even if it was only brief.
It coincided with my brothers birthday, and he wanted to go to Cambridge for the day, so thats what we did, and we ate at an all you can eat buffet, which was interesting whilst on my current medication!
But it was a nice trip and I am looking forward to my next visit for my brothers wedding in April.
What I Am Modelling
I finished up the Ultramarines Lieutenants, all eight of them!
Repulsor: 2x Storm Bolters, Auto Launchers, Heavy Onslaught Gatling Cannon, Icarus Rocket Pod, Onslaught Gatling Cannon, Twin lascannon
So this means I need to paint:-
Assault Intercessor Squad x 10
Bladeguard Ancient
Bladeguard Veterans x 3
Outriders x 3
Eliminator Squad x 3
Eradicator Squad x 3
Repulsor
Primaris Lieutenant
Get my Weight to Under 100kg & Sustain it Below That
My weight as of publication is 115kg.
I have tried to do a couple days a week of exercise using the VR headset to gamerfy it, starting with Synth-Ryders and BeatSabre, but never really got that done, so do better next month!
Publish One Battle Report a Month – 8.33% Complete
I published the first battle report, a combat patrol game between the T’au Empire and Ultramarines.
It was published by the skin of my teeth, but it got done!
