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.
I had to take a couple of days to recover before posting this, so sorry its a bit late, but I was absolutely shattered after the weekender.
My team decided to make our deployment zone an absolute fortress as we knew our opponents had in their army, Horus himself, and his ability to deep strike without scattering is pretty powerful. However we discovered as we started turn two that one of our team had interpreted our advertising the day as an apocalypse style game as bring as many points as you want rather than sticking to 3500 points as it was supposed to be, he actually had 5000 points on the board.
The narrative highlight to the day for me was Horus being killed by 10 Firedrakes, 15 Terminators and 6 Boarding Marines from the Salamanders and 10 Terminators from the Imperial Fists, it was quite an epic moment and was arguably the moment we won the game, that said it felt a little wrong considering the huge advantage our side started with.
a winners medal, (no expense spared!) whilst the Traitors collected the coveted Wooden Spoon.
But we had an amazing weekend, and the fact that people are asking to do it again next year shows me that it has been a real success.
