Moving!

You may or may have not noticed the inactivity on this blog. As usual real life has butted in and I've been distracted. I've also had to change my email address which is proving to make things a little difficult with some of the extras that I think I can do with the blog, so I'm using this as an opportunity to move blogs and start anew.

So my new blog is http://ineptusgameus.blogspot.com/

see you there!

Oh, E, Arrgghhh, Ouchy! Plus new Eldar toys

I should be painting Lizardmen. I really should, but some how I've hurt my right elbow and it's quite painful to do anything with my right arm (I'm typing through gritted teeth). Which should be fun come Friday as I'm helping a friend move house, which will be made even more fun as I'm off to the Stourbridge Beer Feastival the night before. I'm hoping the pain of a hangover and the pain of my arm will cancel each other out.

Anyway, more interesting news to do with models that go "Pew-Pew" in the 41st Millenium. For those not in the know, GW are releasing a new 40K expansion pack called Spearhead, which is going to be a White Dwarf only add on and is basicly for fighting battles with lots of TANKS!!! Sounds like to me we will be seeing the Apocalypse tank boxes coming back (plus I'm hoping that they redo the classic WD battle report of Rogue Psyker Lord Varlak's Rebellion, which was basicly a massive Tank Battle). But what you want is pictures, so here's the new Fire Prism/Night Spinner kit which is coming out.

Both these images have been pinched off The Warhammer Forum, from this thread by Jackal God.

Some people don't like them while others do. I quite like them, especially the Fire Prism. Also more rumours about the Spearhead release is some more Guard Tanks (basicly the Manticore and Deathstrike) plus some whispering about the Dark Eldar Ravager being redone (basicly think BFG Eldar ship and spikes).The Dark Eldar Ravager sounds really interesting and hints about a possible Dark Eldar release this year!

Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi! (or The King is dead. Long live the King!)

You may have noticed that quite a few Warhammer Fantasy players are scurrying around getting all excited about an announcement Games Workshop have made this week - Warhammer 8th edition is coming out in July. Nothing else has really surfaced apart from that but the rumour mill has been cranking up. You can have a look over on Warseer in the WFB rumour section for more details. Some of the rumours sound quite interesting but again with all rumours you need to take a pinch of salt when reading them.

Above is the new logo for Warhammer which most people have dubbed the Jump Pack Hammer, due to the position of the Twin Tailed Comet. It looks alright but I'm waiting to see the whole book before I make my mind up.

In other Gaz news, I have been quite busy. I've been sent away to do some work at a Power Station and took part in a tournament. Power Station was fun as it's nice to get out of the office and see different things, although I would have prefered to stay at home with all my creature comforts. The tournament was fun as well. Tim Fisher of the Dragon Slayers, had organised a one day event at Maelstrom Games. Tim's cunning plan is to hold a one day event a few weeks before a big event, so players can come and practise and generally have fun. This one was using the South Coast GT rules. I went to the event with Chris and Luke. Chris had brought his Dwarfs and Luke had brought his High Elves as he got in as a last minute entry. He couldn't bring his usual choice of Lizardmen as he had loaned them to me.

The Lizardmen list was quite a cheeky one considering the rules and I took...

Slann with Knows all spells, wipe sixes from a enemy wizard, bane head cupped hands, and a dispel scroll
Priest on EOTG with extra spell and Wardrums
Saurus BSB on cold one with Burning Blade and Mirror Shield
Skink chief on Steg with Steg Warspear
3 units of 10 skirmishing skinks
1 unit of 10 skink cohorts.
1 unit of 11 saurus warriors with Standard and Musician.
1 unit of 6 cold one cav with Standard and Muscian
2 units of 3 terradons

Now I had a rough idea how to use the list which was to use the skinks as shields and then bunker the Saurus, Slann and Stegs together. I played zero games before going to the event and only had a brief look through the lizardman book and I wasn't expecting to do well at all. Here's a quick summary as all this happened before I went away for work.

Game 1 - Dean and Warriors of Chaos
Dean took a 'soft' Warriors list and he wasn't expecting to win this game. I believed that I deployed okay for this game but not really knowing what can do what I was a bit hesitant to commit. This gave Dean the chance he needed and he punished me. Plus my dice decided to punish me for not using them recently and I rolled quite badly all game. This lead to me popping downstairs to the Maelstrom shop and buying some more. Ulitmately, Dean outplayed me as I didn't have a clue what I was doing and I got 20 nilled.

Game 2 - Merlin and Wood Elves
Merlin brought his Wood Elves which for some reason included a Treeman Ancient. Back in the day these were quite hard but thanks to everybody having flaming attacks or access to such things as well as being able to bash him with other big character things (Bloodthirsters), they are generally seen as not very good.  I had learnt my mistakes from my first game and this was a lot closer and really came down to the wire ending in a 12-8 win to Merlin. It was a fun game and I made a mistake with some of my moves as things ended up in a traffic jam which meant I had problems smashing things up (this cost me my EOTG in a combat with Wardancers as I had to charge in my Skinks to allow my Cold Ones chance to get in).

Game 3 - Rupert and Daemons of Chaos
Another fun game and Rupert had brought a tough DoC list but it wasn't that flexible which is why I think he ended up on the lower tables with me. This game was ruled by luck with me having loads at the start due to being able to bounce a miscast onto his GUO (which miscast a few times on it's own) and blast things using the EOTG. All this luck was paid back as my army seemed incapable of holding against a unit of Flesh Hounds which then smashed my Cold Ones in one round, followed by the Slaan/Saurus unit. Game ended with my remaining units scurrying off to contest/capture quarters. Another fun game but ended with a 15-5 win to Rupert.

This meant that I was the lowest placed out of me, Chris, and Luke but I really enjoyed using the army. So much that I'm now collecting Lizardmen which hopefully will be ready for the next couple of events I go to. 40K wise things are quiet due to whispers of the Dark Eldar being the next book and I really like the concept of the army and can't wait to see what happens to them.

And I guess that's why they call it the Warhammer blues...

.... or something that Reg Dwight fella wrote. Like many Warhammer Fantasty players all round the world, I'm feeling down. Not down because some truck reversed into my car last week (that car is going as soon as it's fixed) or because my washing machine broke and peed water all over the kitchen (it's got one more sleep before it goes to washing machine heaven), but Games Workshop have been so tight lipped about what is happening with the 8th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Since the Beastman release there has been no news about anything to do with WFB. War of the Rings has a big release next month and 40K has had loads of things (Nids, Angry Angels, and a mission book) plus more things to come out over June. But nowt for WFB. While this is annoying, it should be exciting to be honest. GW must be cranking their mechanical gubbins to full, pumping out new models and this seems to be the lull before the storm. If I was a betting man (and I'm not), I would bet that July is going to be when the 8th edition comes out. Which is kind of cool, but it's not because you kind of feel like you don't want to do anything out of fear of having you buy and paint up becoming useless.

Anyway, because I'm slightly mad, I'm probably going to ignore all that due to Project: I buy that for a dollar I'm drafting up to entertain myself over the next few months. Watch this space....

Rabbits, Chocolate Eggs and Rabid Gamers

It's Easter, that time of the year where we all get excited about Easter Eggs, Bunnys and forgetting the real reason why we celebrate it. It's also when GW has chosen to release the Blood Angels and I suppose the theme of resurrection can apply, because BA players have been stuck with an old codex and then a pdf get you by for a few years now. I've had the codex a few days now and been reading through it and it's nice and captures the 'feel' of the army quite nicely. I won't do anything indepth as loads of things will be popping up on the net now (like how unit X is too hard).

More importantly, GW have made an annoucement this week about it's Grand Tournaments. You can read about it HERE but I've copied it below...

We are pleased to announce that the Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and the new War of The Ring Throne of Skulls Grand Tournament tickets will be available to purchase from the Games Workshop Web Store from Monday the 12th of July 2010.
The addition of War of The Ring into the Throne of Skulls family as part of our events calendar will be great news for all of you War of The Ring gamers out there! But that's not all.....
We've also taken a look at our calendar and we've decided to hold four seasonal Throne of Skulls Grand Tournaments per year for both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, instead of three heats and a final. 
This now means that we are able to offer even more tournaments a year and by spreading them out you can enjoy the events at different times of the year too. This also gives even more opportunities for avid hobbyists to take part in great games, make new friends and enjoy the hospitality of the Warhammer World Venue.

Now this is frankly annoying. I finally went to a WFB Heat last year and I was hoping to go to a 40K one this year (as well as WFB if funds permitted) but I can no longer attempt to get into the Final for any system as the format doesn't exist now. While the indi tournament scene will take up the slack for this, its a bit annoying that GW have dropped their 'flagship' event and replaced it with something slightly watered down. Don't get me wrong, I imagine that the seasonal events will be just as much fun as the heats and final but that sparkle won't be there. At the moment, GW haven't said how much these new events will be, so while they will be popular it'll be interesting to see if the tournament regulars still go. Plus point is that War of the Rings gets a slot and possible more support of GW which may get more people playing it.


So do people think that GW have done a good thing here with the change or are you a chocolate powered killing machine due to the change? Whack a comment on and let me know what you think.

Happy St Patricks Day and a Blog shoutout

Well to be sure, to be sure, or something like that. Happy St Patricks day to everybody. Not much gaming done since the last update thanks to that wonderful day, Mothers Day. Basicly my wife is a florist, so I had a few days off to help her with Mothers Day (Delivery Boy and general help) and then she's moved shop and I've been helping with that! So I'm back at work tomorrow for a break!

Wargaming wise I'm going to Warrington GT again to play WFB and the event is now having a 40K tournament as well. WFB has sold out but if you want to try the 40K one, have a look HERE on The Warhammer Forum. There's also a few of us trying to get into the Open War XIII event at the end of May which should be fun. So with the Dragon Slayer Bash in April, Open War in May, Midlands Open in July and Warrington in September (plus a GW Heat), I've got plenty of events to look forwards to.

Also I want to do a Blog Shout out. As some of you may have been aware, GW held the 40K GT Final last weekend (Mothers Day weekend) and by all accounts it was a fun event. Neil Kerr (AKA Skcuzzlebumm) went and is writing a report on his PINK TYRANIDS Blog. He took 'Nurglisc' Daemons (you can see one of his models above) and did fairly well with them. Go to his blog for a read of how he got on.

Anyway, Guinness and sleep is calling now so until next time!

Soul Hunting and Reporting

Blimey, I seem to be getting more and more 40K orientated recently. It's understandable really as it was my first GW game as I got into the 2nd edition 40K just when it came out. Anyway, I popped into my local GW yesterday with the intent of looking through the Battle Missions book and I noticed Soul Hunter on the shelves.

I had quite enjoyed Lord of the Night and I had heard quite a few people have been rating this book, so I picked it up. And I couldn't put it down! I literally spent a few hours reading it once we popped round my Mother-in-Laws and it only got put down when me and my wife went out. Then it got picked up again and was read into the wee hours. It's a enjoyable book and worth getting.

Another reason I've been getting the 40K bug is seeing the Battle Reports done by the Bell of Lost Souls on Youtube. These aren't full blast battle reports but more a quick rundown about a game, and too be honest I have been enjoying them.

I ATE'NT DEAD

As Granny Weatherwax would say, "I ATE'NT DEAD". I've had a load of fun the last few weeks with my internet providers, Tiscali/Talk Talk. Now working in IT, I had a fairly good idea what the problem was (an issue at the Exchange) and was 100% sure it was nothing my end as my phone and router were working fine. I even said this when I phoned them up. Yet still they seemed to have bodged it up and spent a week raising a call with BT to check my phone line, and the engineer was very surprised when I answered the phone as he thought it wasn't working. So a few days later they've managed to fix it, but it seems only after I raised a complaint.

Anyway, Wargaming stuff now.....

I've played three games of WFB over the last few weeks. First game was against Steyvn and was a 1999 point practise game for the Open War event we both want to go to. He took his Dark Elves and I took my Daemons and the game ended with a draw in my favour. A couple of times, Steyvn was thinking about giving up, but I had to keep on telling him that it was close and it was! Second and Third games were against Chris, with my proxing up a Vampire Count army against a Daemon army he was trying out. I lost both games but that was more down to me not understanding how the vampires work.

For 40K, I've been getting more and more interested in the game again, and debating about painting somethings up. We also seem to have the new Blood Angel codex on the GW website, which is being shown as a White Dwarf cover for next month

Looks alright but I did prefer the mockup one I showed in my last entry. Currently waiting to see the codex before I make any desicions about what things I want to go for.

The Angels of Death are coming....

 

The internet world has exploded recently with lots of rumours about the Blood Angels codex and I've been having a look with a trusty bag of salt. Two things seem to be flying around at the moment - The above cover and a PDF with all rules in it.

Firstly we have the cover. Now I've pinched this off Heresy-Online and it looks very nice but as I made a copy of it, the acutal file is called BA Cover Mock UP. While this 'may' be the offical cover (and I hope so as it's nice), I can't help but feel that this is something somebody has quickly made up.

EDIT - Dezartfox has nicely pointed out that if I looked properly at the cover I would notice that a lot of the Marines seem to be Imperial Fists sprayed Red. Shame as it would have made a nice cover!

Next we have the PDF. The PDF is basicly a hand typed copy of the actual rules from the codex (or a test version), so is full of spelling mistakes (like my blog). A general flick through reveals lots of interesting things but it's not until you come across the MIGHTY BAT RIDER CAVALRY entry where you really suspect this is a load of rubbish. The author of the list has tried to defend the rumours and is saying wait until April to see who is right, but I can't help but shield myself with my bag of salt. It's possible that the author has added the MIGHTY BAT RIDER CAVALRY unit as a joke but too be honest if you want people to take you seriously, you can't make jokes. Rumour does have it that GW have confirmed that there is a leaked copy around of the codex, which gives this PDF some creditablity. I for one am happy to wait until April, mainly as I want to read the background more that the rules!

I won't be putting any links up for the PDF as I don't want the GW legal heavy boyz kicking things in.

WAAAGGHHH!!!!

I've been trying to write a couple of interesting updates to do with the Rankings or about how GW are backing away from having all the models ready when a new army book/codex is released, but I seem to have left my muse down the pub (plus I'm not feeling too good). So instead, I'm going to get all excited about new plastic models!

The image above is the new Ork Deff Dread and I quite like it. It's out with the new Battle Missions book, along with some new plastic releases - Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought, Killa Kans, Ork Flash Git, and new re-done Guard Chimeras and Baslisks. I'm currently holding out for the Blood Angel release but I could be painting Orks up if I loose my Warhammer fetish!

Sheffield Slaughtered!

Hi folks. All back from the Sheffield Slaughter and what a fun weekend that was. Real life has been giving me some problems the last month or so, and too be honest I wasn't going to go. But my wfie said I should as I would enjoy it and was she right! I would just like to thank all of my opponents for the weekend - Paul, Rob, Chris, Bernard, and Owen. I got to fight lots of different armies and got 1 win and 4 losses.

I would also like to thank Gareth Hamilton as he is a true gent as he lent me some skaven models from his really nicely painted collection, as I was unable to finish the army I was painting up.

I'm not going to post up any reports as I'm struggling to remember them all, plus they all had the same theme - lots of misfires and the army destroying itself.

Arrgghhh!

Me again. Yet another day off in an attempt to get things finished and what happens? I spent most of today going back and forth between the Accident Repair Centre. Most of the morning was spent with them going through the details of what happened (some numpty drove into my car then drove off), and then I find out they've given me the wrong courtesy car! All sorted now but I've got to pop off again to sort out some other odd jobs. So out of the 8 hours or so I wanted to do today, I've probably done 30 minutes undercoating. Plus pointis that I'm quite impressed with using Halford Car Primer as my undercoat spray. Costs about the same as GW but you get 700ml rather than 400ml and it seems to spray better than the GW one. I wasn't expecting to be able to do much as it's quite cold and damp outside but the Halford Spray did the job!

Random Rant!

Just venting here folks, so please bear with me. Went to take my car to the garage and found out that the dozy woman at the call centre hadn't booked me in so now I've got to take it on Monday. Then the British weather returned to normal (rain with a chance of more rain), so no spray painting for me, and to top it off I went to my local GW which doesn't seem to stock anything but Battalion Boxes!

Not the worst day ever but mildly annoying when I had taken the day off to paint skaven up. I've vented the frustration on my PS3 and been watching videos about Red Dead Redemption (cowboy version of GTA) which I'm quite excited about. I've also got on my to do list, to find time to read Salamander by Nick Kyme. I've got a soft spot for the Black Skinned, Red Eyed, Nice Marines and I quite enjoyed the short story in the Heros of Space Marines book which came out last year. I nearly picked up James Swallows Blood Angel Series but I've heard lots of bad things about it and I don't really want to ruin anything for when I get my hands on the Codex (which I'm looking forwards to how they are fleshing out the background). I've also discovered that I can't seem to finish a WFB book while I can read the 40k ones over and over again. No idea why.

Anyway, I'll get back to moaning about the weather and call centres! :(

It's oh so quiet or something like that

So a fair few days since my last update as real life has been butting in. Work is starting to get busy, which is interesting when the team I'm in has shrunk and now has more inexperianced members than experianced members. Well it's interesting in a watching Mr Bean kind of way - Mildly amusing the first time and then quite dull and annoying afterwards. I've also had somebody done a hit and run on my car during the 'big freeze' (for those Johnny Foreigner folks, the UK was hit by lots of cold white stuff that we don't see very often and the whole country went silly). Thankfully me and my wife were okay but it made me say a few choice words about the person who did it. My car is going to the garage tomorrow and I'll be having some random car in exchange while mine is being tinkered with. Funny thing is that I can see me having a Smart Car (ickle car) to drive up to Sheffield in next weekend.

Speaking of next weekend, Sheffield is almost upon me! Painting wise I've been slacking and got a lot of grey models looking back at me while I type this. Cunning plan is to have a couple of last minute days off, starting with tomorrow to start the monsterous task of painting 160 off models in a week. Then I need to sort out some terrain! Even though the panic of not having things finished is starting to set in, I think I must really like it as I seem to do it a lot.

Meanwhile during all this real life stuff and none painting, I've signed myself up to another couple of events. First one is the Dragon Slayer Bash being run at Maelstrom Games, and this is a one day event to be a warm up for the South Coast GT which I missed out on. Tickets have sold out now but I'm looking forwards to this as Maelstrom Games is not too far away and the guys who run it really like gaming. Second event is a local affair known as The Midlands Open. It's being run by one of my regular opponents Luke and it should be fun as well as local! There's still tickets left which you can find HERE.

I think that's it for the moment apart from waiting for my Tyranid Codex. Due to the delays with the weather, Maelstrom Games couldn't send any out for the Codex release date (last Saturday) but I should have mine for the weekend. I had a peek at it last week when I popped into my local GW for a nose and it looks nice. Not ground breaking (or even game breaking) but should keep fans happy.

2010 is going to be a good year....

Wow, it's 2010 now and I thought it would be a good time to post something on my blog, especially seeing how lazy I've become.

When I was a little boy, 2010 seemed such a long way away and here it is! It's quite a big year for me and my family as there are quite a few big birthdays (I'm 30, my mom is 60, my sister-in-law is 18, and my Grandfather-in-law is 80, plus there are quite a few other big birthdays as well!!!). I also looks like 2010 is going to be a good year for GW as we seem to be having some really cool releases coming up soon.

Firtsly we have the new Tyranids next week and they sound quite cool (plus the Trygon looks a cool model) and then we have Beastmen coming out in Feb. I got to see the army book today and it looks like it's going to be a sneaky top tier list as a lot of people have been poo-pooing them (mainly due to the models) as they have lost a lot of the things in the 'current' book. Personally I like all the new models as well as some of the new rules (Core Chariots, Big Monsters, Hatred if you pass a Ld Test, Bestigor who can nick standards) but I can see some players being annoyed due to Ungor now being on 20mm bases. I think I would be annoyed but move on six months and I can see people not even worrying about it.

Also I had a email this morning off GW, stating that we will be seeing Blood Angels in April. I'm quite excited about this as ever since the 2nd editon of 40K, I've always wanted to collect a company of Blood Angels and seeing how I'm thinking I want to go to a 40K heat this year (as well as a WFB one!), I'm taking that as a sign. Add into the mix that we should be seeing the Relic/GW Space Marine game at some point this year as well as more info about the Ultramarine Movie, (and rumours about 8th editon of WFB and new plastic technology where you have models with no moldlines!) you can see why I'm thinking 2010 is going to be good year!

Skavenmas!

Wot ho folks, did you have a nice Christmas? We had a nice one but very tired at the moment as ended up seeing loads of family and being all over the place.

Wargaming wise I've had a very nice set of Skaven Toys with a Battalion box set, Stormvermin set, and a Doomwheel. With the bits I've got already I should have the main bulk of the Skaven army I want to paint up. I'm hoping to get a bit done on my Lunch breaks at work this week, and hopefully I have all my Slaves and Clanrats assembled before the year leaps out of the door!

It also looks like 2010 is going to be a very good year wargaming wise as we've got the 8th edition of WFB coming out and I've also started getting the twinges for 40k again, and the new Nid release looks brilliant along with the rumours about Blood Angels and maybe Dark Eldar or Necrons coming out later in the year.

Flames and Slaughter

Tonight, I shall be having my first game of Flames of War (I've dabbled with it in the past but never had a 'proper' game of it). I'm looking forwards to it even though I'm very anti-historical wargames due to my experiance of it when I was younger. The reason for this is the people I started gaming with often ended up turning the game into a simulation and would have 'discussions' during the game that unit X couldn't do that in real life, etc etc. Because of this, I've always been wary of historical games as I think they should be a bit of fun doing 'what-if' scenarios as well as having fun researching different eras of history while you assemble, paint and game with your army. So it's off round Stevyn's later to have some Americans batter Germans (or visa versa), while I scare him with horror stories about the new Skaven book.

Speaking of Skaven, I'm off to the Sheffield Slaughter in January. The Sheffield Slaughter is an yearly event held by the Dragon Slayers and is regarded as one of the best events in the calendar. It's got a very heavy composition rules set but it's still attracted 80 players. Me and Chris will be going, with Chris taking a varient of his Combat Dwarfs (but with no Runesmith on an Anvil as it's banned) and me taking Skaven. I shall be fielding the following....

Warlord
Plague Priest on Plague Furnace
Chieftain BSB with Shield
Warlock Engineer

23 Stormvermin with Shields, Full Command, and Poisoned Wind Mortar Weapon Team
25 Clanrats with Shields, Standard, Musician, and Doom Flayer Weapon Team
25 Clanrats with Shields, Standard, Musician, and Doom Flayer Weapon Team
25 Skavenslaves
25 Skavenslaves

25 Plague Monks with Full Command
6 Plague Censer Bearers
6 Gutter Runners

1 Doomwheel
1 Warp-lightning Warp Cannon

Now this is a big change for me as I've been getting used to my Daemons for the last three months, but Skaven are an army I've always wanted as I like the background and the new models look nice (proper 80's/90's style GW/Jes Goodwin!). It's a lot of models but with a can of Army Painter I should be able to do this.

Highs and Lows

I went to the Destruction Derby over the weekend which was a nice one day event organised by the Derby Wargames Society, of which the Ben's from Bad Dice are members of and they helped organise the event. It was a fun event of random scenarios and meeting new people.We could take anything as long as we had the rules to back them up and we saw a nice variety in the armies. I took a slight varient on my Daemon list as it's the only thing I have painted up at the moment. I took....

Lord of Change who was a Level 4 Wizard and had Flames of Tzeentch and Tzeentch's Will
2 Heralds of Slaanesh with Etherblades and riding Chariots

2 x 10 Horrors
13 Daemonettes with a Standard
2 x 5 Flesh Hounds
4 Flamers
1 Fiend

Not the hardest list in the world but then again not the weakest. My army worked out to 2013 points which was the limit for the event and we were going to get a special prize. Predictably though, pretty much everybody brought an army bang on the points, so the Ben's weren't expecting this and gave out dice instead.

Game 1 - Luke and High Elves

Luke is one of my regular opponents from the Dudley Darklords and a very good player. Earlier in the week we had played a practise game of the scenario for game 1 and a won by a big margin. Little did I know the tables would turn. I had originally grudged another DD player (Adam Jones aka Tank) but he dropped out so I grudged Luke as he had taken his place. The Bens placed us on Table 1.

Luke took a Lord on a Dragon with a Halberd, re-rollable save and a ward save, Lvl 1 mage, 2 x 10 archers, 16 White Lions with Full Command and Immune to Psych banner, 5 Dragon Princes with the Ignore Terrain Banner, 5 Shadow Warriors, 2 Bolters and 2 Eagles.

The Scenario was beat the living daylights out of a goblin who was being naughty with the Kings daughter. The goblin sat in the middle of the board and the player who scored the most wounds on it won. You could only score a wound by rolling a 6. Luke was more prepared for this game and I deployed badly because I was worried about the Dragon and Dragon Princes (in our last game Luke though I had Siren Song and had deployed the Dragon facing the other way). Luke pretty much took apart my army with the Dragon and Princes (which half my daemons couldn't damage due to having flaming attacks) and then peppered the goblin to bits with his shooting. Game ended with Luke on 11 and me on 3 which was a reversal of our scores on Tuesday.

Game 2 - Richie and Ogres

Richie had travelled all the way up from London with Og Games (who had sponsored the prizes for the event) and he had brought Ogres. Both of us had been beaten quite badly and were on the lowest ranked table - 18. Richie had been spanked by Adam Hall who had brought a Skaven with 2 Abominations and other bits which ripped Richie to bits. Richie was a bit worried about facing Daemons with his Ogres but we both knew this was going to be a fun game whatever the outcome.

Richie had a Tyrant, Bruiser, 2 Butchers, 2 x 3 Bulls, 2 x 3 Ironguts, 9 Gnoblar Trappers, 2 Maneaters and 2 Rhinox riders. In theory this should be an easy game for me if I can pick my combats.

The Scenario was a normal pitched battle but the who battlefield was effected by the Rainlord spell and each player turn, your army got blasted by Forked Lighting on a roll of 1 for each unit (1 or 2 if you had a ward save). Game starts with me getting the first turn and I move everything ready for charges. My 2 Chariots face off against the Rhinoxes with a Lord of Change nearby to support with Gift of Chaos. Rich moves everything around but knows things will be bad next turn and I charge my Chariots in and move my LoC up. So I cast Gift of Chaos hoping for a few wounds and I miscast which causes a wound to my LoC. My Chariots then cause a couple of wounds from Impact Hits and I get ready to watch my Heralds have fun. With 8 attacks hitting on 3's and wounding on 5's should cause lots of damage and win me the combat. Lots of fluffed attacks and wounds later and the Heralds are bricking it as the Rhinoxes are unscathed! Then for the rest of the game my dice decided to not play properly and I started playing like a numpty. Richie pretty much took all my toys off the board while his army was all there apart from a unit of Bulls and Gnoblars. Richie won by lots and I put my models in the middle of the board knowing I wasn't moving tables. It was a fun game watching my army self destruct but a bit frustrating but Richie did make it fun as we chatted all the way through the game.

Game 3 - Lee and Orcs of Chaos

Lee had travelled up with Richie as part of the Og Games crowd and had brought his Orcs of Chaos. Basicly it was a Warriors of Chaos army converted up from Orcs and Goblins who had been seduced by the bloodletting for Khorne.

He had a Lord of Khorne on a Jugger, Hero on Jugger, Lvl 1 wizard, 2 x 5 hounds, 2 x 5 horsemen, 14 marauderers with MoK and Flails, 20 odd marauderers with MoK, full command and shields, 15 Chosen, 5 Knights, and a Chariot of Khorne.

This game was to get into my opponents deployment zone while the entire battlefield was effected by the Pandaemonium spell (miscast on a double and units can not use the generals leadership) while a Infernal Gateway was strolling around on the board. Both of us deployed our armies and we found I had weighted my Right Flank while Lee weighted his Right as well, which left the main bulk of our armies as far away from each other as possible. Lee asked my why I had charged the Rhinoxen in my last game and I said you'll see but I thought I could have them. Couple of turns later and my Chariots were in his deployment zone having gone through his Knights and he agreed that I should have had those Rhinoxes last game. The game was pretty much me getting my Chariots and Flesh Hounds into his deployment zone while the rest of my army acted as a speed bump to slow Lees down while my LoC could blast away with his magic (and strangely only miscast once all game). Game ended and we found that I had got 1300 odd points while Lee only managed 1100 points which game me a win. If Lee had been able to get his chosen into my deployment zone he would have won but I think a combination of deploying badly with them and me worring him with the LoC constantly zapping models off the unit, meant he didn't push them as far as he could.

In the end I came 29th thanks to my win (not bad in a 36 person event). It was a really good event and made a nice change from all the 'serious' warhammer the last few months. I really liked the scenarios and it was a good venue to play at and I shall be going again next year.

Hi Ho!

Just a quick update. Just got back from playing Chris at a 2250 Pitched Battle of WFB, with him trying out his Warriors of Chaos army he is building and me trying out his Dwarfs because I'm thinking about giving them a whirl.

My Dwarfs were roughly - Anvil, Master Engineer, 13 Warriors, 2 x 10 Crossbows, 18 Longbeards, 18 Hammerers, 2 Bolters, Grudgethrower, 15 Slayers, 2 Organ Guns

Chris's Warriors were roughly - Sorcerer Lord on Dragon, Lv2 Mage, 14 Maraurders, 2 x 5 Horsemen with MoS and Flails, 2 x 5 hounds, 5 Chaos Knights with MoS, 2 x 3 Dragon Ogres, Warshrine, Shaggoth

Terrain scattered so we had loads of terrain in the middle of the board (a building and wood) and the only hill sat in front of these limiting fire/charge lanes. I deployed facing the other half of the board which was open and the game started with causing damage to the Shaggoth and Lord with my shooting and then Chris presenting as many targets as possible because if something got through it would hurt. Next turn I get a lucky scatter onto the Dragon and kill his lord and leave the Dragon on a wound. Chris then manages to get into my lines and starts smashing war machines to bits and scaring hammerers off with his Dragon. I then damage control by finishing off the half dead units and manage to charge the Dragon Ogres in the flank with the Longbeards and roll them up.Chris then manages to kill all of my shooting elements (apart from a unit of Crossbows tucked away in a building) with only loosing most of his Knights to the last Organ Gun before it got revenge and killed the Organ Gun. Game ended and totalling up the points I got a Massacre!

I'm chuffed with the win but too be honest I got really lucky killing the Dragon early on and I made load of mistakes. Quite seriously thinking about Dwarfs for Sheffield now but lets see what distracts me on the weekend!

Real Life + Me + Hobby = BUSY!!!

I think busy is a understatement for what I've been upto recently. If I haven't been out at Beer Feastivals or Hotels with my Wife, it's being snowed under at work or playing lots of Warhammer. In fact this is probably the first night since the GT I'm having a night in as such.

Anyway, hobbywise I've again been playing lots of Warhammer and I've been practising for my last event this year - The Destruction Derby Three. It's run by the Derby Wargames Society (the Ben's from Bad Dice's local club) and the easiest way to describe the scenarios is silly and random! The event is basicly a one dayer with three scenarios of randomness and players are allowed to bring anything with a army points limit of 2013. So I'm taking my Daemons which I've managed to get to 2013 points!

Practise games so far have been scenario 1 and scenario 2. Scenario 1 is basicly we've got to cause the most wounds to a naughty goblin (he's been having it away with the Kings Wife), and the only way you can do that is by rolling a 6. I played Luke and his High Elves and we had a great laugh. I got a first turn charge on the goblin (he starts in the centre of the board) and lost my Lord of Change to a Dragon Prince charge (pesky Banner which lets them charge through woods) but got revenge when I charged Luke's Dragon and it got Charioted to death! The goblin got smacked around all over the shop and in the end I had scored 11 to Luke's 5 winning me the game. Victory Points it was a draw in Luke's favour but it didn't matter as I won!

Scenario 2 was basicly a Pitched Battle but with every unit on the board getting hit by Lighting each turn. On a roll of 1 it's hit (unless you've got a Ward Save then its a 1 or 2!) and it takes D6 S4 hits. First turn I loose a big chunk of my army due to this! I was playing Chris and his Dwarfs and managed a Draw in the end of the fighting and lighting.

The DDIII looks like it's going to be a really fun event and I'm really looking forwards to it!