Games Day - What Happened!?!

UK Games Day. Probably one of the biggest gaming events in the UK and maybe the world, as it's when GW puts on a nice show, showing off all the new toys we can expect to see over the next 18 months. Unfortunately it wasn't. I didn't go but I was really, really close to caving in and trying to wangle out of helping my wife at her shop to go to Games Day. I'm glad I didn't.

A lot of people have come away feeling really disappointed by how tight lipped GW have become over anything new coming out. You can find a nice topic about it on Warseer but here's a nice summary....

1 ) There were some showcase models for the new plastic Seekers of Slaanesh and the Chaos Daemon Prince in a red resin, but they were taken off display quite quickly!

2 ) The Tyranid Codex is being redone for Jan 2010. It was only confirmed by the following picture!


And that's it (apart from Forgeworld stuff)! No Space Wolf codexes were on sale (but the plastics were) and not a hide or hair of the new Skaven! I feel really sorry for those folks who paid £30 wanting to see lots of new cool things. I think GW have dropped the ball with this as a lot of people will get quite disgruntled by it as well as it will put a lot of people off going next year!

Anyway, I need to now decide if I want to start a new WFB army so I have something nicely painted, or start assembling Nids in readiness for the new codex!

Oh, and before I forget, you might want to check this site out if you've ever wonder if GW should make a film......

Warlord GT Roundup

Well it's been almost a week since the Warlord GT and I suppose I should let people know how I got on. Firstly it was a really good weekend and even with my lack of games before the event and the driving both days (the M6 was a nightmare on the way back on Sunday), it was still a really good event. Me and Chris are definitely coming again next time. There were a couple of downsides though.

Firstly the communications were a bit pants as things weren't that clear in the rulespack to what happened on the day (for example because me and Chris had a grudge we didn't need to bring any terrain which wasn't explained until Chris spoke to the organisers a couple of days before the event). Secondly the soft scores (Sportsmanship and Painting) caused a few problems. Sportsmanship because it wasn't clear how to score people (it varied differently through the event with people giving great games for every game rather than just one great game) and painting because if you got nominated you got 1000 tournament points. My Daemons got nominated and a few people were a bit peed off why a basic dip job got nominated over their nicely painted army. I think it got nominated because the Judges liked some of the conversions and how it looked overall, but personally I wouldn't have picked it and I can understand why some people were annoyed. We shall say no more apart from that I was dead happy to be nominated!

Gamingwise I came in at 87th out 122 people which was alright and I even managed to win a game! I would like to say thanks to all of my opponents if they read this, that I had five good games and enjoyed them all. I do have to say my best game all weekend was against Wayne Kemp who is the co-host on Heelanhammer and our game gets a bit of a mention in Episode 15 as well as a general review of the event.

I still don't know where my camera is but here's a couple of pictures of my army from the event...

You can also find lots more pictures here of the other armies and players.

Good event and even with the minor niggles and some of the whinging about soft scores, it's worth going to. You're going to start seeing me at a lot more events now as I really enjoyed myself!

Warrington / Warlords GT Pre Ramble - Extra!!!!!

Ooh! Just a quick one folks but the Ben's from Bad Dice have some coverage going on over the weekend!

Twitter - Www.twitter.com/baddice_podcast

Flickr - Www.baddice.co.uk/gallery

Warrington / Warlords GT Pre Ramble

It's T minus something hours before the Warrington Tournament (basically it's tomorrow) and it's quickly become one of the most anticipated events this year (I think only the South Coast GT comes close or beats it). There's around 120 odd players ranging from some of the best players in the country to chumps like myself. Apart from printing a couple of things off, I'm pretty much ready to go.

So prediction time. I won't predict who I think will win it as the Bad Dice boys have a quick summary in their latest podcast, and to be honest I can't really say where I'll expect to come apart from in the lower end closer to 100. I can say my expectations though. Besides having fun and being tired I would like to win at least one game and come higher than my mate Chris in the event.

And that's it from me, apart from a quick shout out to Heelanhammer which is a podcast by Dan Heelan and Wayne Kemp. It's a bit tournament focused but it's also very hobby focused and is well worth a listen to!

DoC Update 4 - Dirty, Dirty Dip

As I type this, I currently have a massive grin on my face, because my army of Daemons is now finished. It's not nicely painted but it has three colours and the overall army scheme looks nice (Pink and Purple). So what happened? Well on Saturday I had gotten to the stage where I was just going to ink wash and then drybrush everything and I remembered I had a tin of Army Painter Dark Tone. I sat there looking at the tin, thinking that it would be too dark for Pink and Purple, but a little voice said do it! So with me loosing hope because of other things going on I tried a horror out and it looked alright. Then a horror unit was done, and then another and another until the army was finished. And while I'm not over the moon with how well I painted it, it looks rather nice. I popped round my friend Stevyn's house the other day to borrow some terrain for the Warlords GT and he quite liked the overall look.

I originally brought the Army Painter dip to try out but got put off the idea due to more vocal members of the online community slagging it off (because it's not proper painting). After using it, I agree it's not proper painting but as a product which lets people get a painted army on the table which doesn't look too bad, it's a fantastic product! Plus as well it varnishes your models as long as you don't mind a glossy finish (but you can use dullcote or a matt varnish to dull it down). So if you have a load of unpainted models and want to get them painted quickly to game with, visit The Army Painter for general ideas on how to use it. It's not rocket science, as it's paint your base coat on using slightly brighter colours than you want and then apply the Army Painter (using a brush for best effect). You can get it from Maelstrom Games if you are interested.

I'm pretty much gearing myself up now for Warrington but I'll wack my thoughts into a post before I got. See you soon folks!

Space Wolves + GW Tool Kit = Nice!

Just a quick wander away from Daemons as I'm waiting for things to dry but I popped down to my local GW store as I needed to pick up some movement trays and I needed to a new Hobby Knife (my old one broke and nearly ended up in my head).


So I pick up the trays and I notice the GW tool kit up on the shelf. If you don't know what's in the kit, you basicly get a Hobby Vice, a pair of Plastic Cutters, a Razor Saw, a Sculpting Tool, some Modelling Files, a Hobby Drill, a Hobby Knife, 2 Bitz tubs, spare blades and drill bits, as well as coming in a hard case (the 108 figure GW cases). I needed a new drill as well, so I quicky added up how much everything would cost seperately and it seemed like a nice bargin. Seperately it would have been around £90ish but it was £60, so a good deal to me. I know people bash GW but their tools are very nice and having a case to keep them althogther makes this a nice kit.

I've also managed to have a nice look through the new Space Wolves Codex. I won't say that I've read it because I want to do that when it comes out, but having a good look through I can say this looks like it will be a great codex. It's written by Phil Kelly and has loads of background and lots of cool rules to keep the army in character like not taking the same equipment layout on characters or a Lone Wolf unit who needs to die in the game otherwise your opponent gets Kill Points. I want to do an army of these guys but I have been bitten by the WFB bug at the moment, so it could be a while before I do anything with these.

DoC Update 3 - Dark Elves are tough!

Okay, a few days later and I have my army all assembled and I'm not superglued to anything (although it was hit and miss with the Lord of Change!). I'm slightly disappointed with myself that I'm not at that painting stage just yet but real life butted in so I'm about half a day to a day behind.

I've got some conversions and price cutting stuff in my list and I do promise pictures soon but I have no idea where the camera is. Anyway, what funky stuff do I have? Well for a start I'm quite chuffed now with my Slaaneshi Chariots. Originally they were made out of Wood Elf horses and the base of a tomb king chariot and basicly looked like proxies (and my mate Chris agreed). I've just done some minor conversion work using some clippers, green stuff and some Tyranid Devourer guns and they look much better. I snipped the WE horse heads off and replaced with the Nid guns and then greenstuffed some 'fur' around to blend it into the model. Looks nice.

Next conversion is my Herald on a Steed which is basically a centaur mish mash of a WE Horse, Bloodletter body and Daemonette head. It's not brilliant but does the job. I've also minor converted the Fiend using Nid parts on the arms, but this was mainly because I was getting annoyed trying to rush and assemble it. The plastic arms made it much easier than pinning the proper bits on. Also, my furies are Nid Spore Mines and my Flesh Hounds are bog standard Chaos Warhounds. I would like to do some more conversion work but too be honest I can't be bothered now and just want to get them painted!

I also managed to get a couple of games in against my mates Steve and Chris. Steve wasn't going to Warrington but had brought a Dark Elf tournament style list (Dragon and lots of shooting) and Chris was going with me and wanted to test his Dwarf list out. It was also good as neither of us had really played in ages! So my first game was against Steve and them Dark Elves are tough! Basicly I deployed like a numpty, chose the wrong lore of magic (picked Beasts rather than Fire as he had a regen lord and Hydra), and forgot half the rules of the game. Steve was a bit cautious at the start due to never playing Daemons but soon got stuck in and took advantage of me. We both didn't play as well as we should of but it was a fun game, even if I lost!

Next I played Chris and his Dwarfs and he had a fairly standardish list (i.e a Anvil but too be honest Dwarfs need them to be competitive). I played a lot better in this game and had my Lord of Change rolling up his flank and taking his army apart but in the end he also managed to beat me with a Minor Victory. Both our armies were pretty hammered in the end but Chris managed to take out my Lord of Change and take a few units down to under half strength to stop me contesting table quarters.

So a rather lengthy post but all in all it's been fun the last couple of days, apart from the frustration of trying to assemble stuff quickly. I've got tomorrow to try and get the bulk of stuff painted, and I'll be honest it's going to be drybrushing and washes to the rescue. Anyway must dash as I've got stuff to paint!

DoC Update 2 - 09/09/09

It's been a while since my last update but quite simply I have been distracted to really do anything Daemonic painting wise. I've been distracted by work, distracted by spending time with my wife, and of course distracted by Space Hulk (it's Ace!). So here I am having a few days off to get things done and having worked in IT for over 10 years I know it's best not to panic in situations where things aren't going to plan.

So I've had a couple of days off work to get things assembled and painted. I've pretty much got all the components for my army apart from a Lord of Change (which I think will appear today depending on the postman), and my general plan is to post updates as I work my way through it (assuming I can find the camera my wife has borrowed). To wet your tastebuds, here's a semi-secret copy of the list (no magic items I'm afraid) so you can see what I'm rushing about over....

Characters
Lord of Change
Herald of Slaanesh on a Chariot
Herald of Slaanesh on a Chariot
Herald of Slaanesh riding a Steed

Core
13 Daemonettes of Slaanesh with Champion and Standard Bearer
10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
10 Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
5 Chaos Furies
5 Chaos Furies

Special
5 Flesh Hounds of Khorne
5 Flesh Hounds of Khorne

Rare
5 Flamers of Tzeentch
1 Fiend of Slaanesh

DoC Update 1 - Why does it always rain on me?

We've had some pretty horrible weather today, with it being rather nice this morning and then being treated to rain, rain and more rain this afternoon. And I think the weather sums up how things are going so far for me today. We had a big issue at work this morning, which took up a lot of my time. I've also been to the local GW only to find out the bits and bobs I was after weren't in stock (tournament season you see and Daemons are popular for some reason), and I'm currently sitting at my desk at work because I've been called out! So all in all not a good start!

Plus points are, I've ordered the bits I'm after and I can make a start on some things at home. I've decided to do some general conversions for my army, partially as a cost cutting exercise and partially because the conversions should look cool. Conversions are....

1 ) Horrors - These are going to be what is quickly becoming the classic conversion for them; plastic Ghouls minus their heads. The neck will be painted into an eye and it should give them a more 'horror' appearance. I'm also debating wherever to have them armless as it's less work for me and I think it'll make them a bit more Daemonic!

2 ) Furies - In my army these will be represented by Tyranid Spore Mines (40k range folks), as the models look quite tentacle like and sort of fit in with the horror theme.

3 ) Flesh Hounds - I'm currently humming and arrhing about these as I'm thinking about using Chaos Warhounds although part of me does like the idea of Tau Kroot Hounds or Dark Eldar Warp Beasts.

As for the colour scheme, I'm thinking Pink and Purple as it's a nice bright colour scheme, looks alieny/daemonic, and it's a bit different!

Anyway must go and finish fixing things! Catch you soon.