More Rats of Doom!

On Thursday I got to see the new Skaven Plastics up close and personal and I can say that they are very nice. The Clan Rats are now one piece apart from right arms (for hand weapons or spears) and shields, so from a modeling point of view Skaven players have lost some flexibilty for assembling but gained a unit which is quite easy to assemble. The Doomwheel is a multi part plastic kit which looks very nice and has lots of conversion possiblities.

It also looks like I'm going to be doing Skaven because I quite like the models and my wife has been egging me on saying I should get them (it's true!). She's even brought me a box of Plague Monks to get me started (which may be renforced with some mates later today as I have to go past my local shop!).

On another note, pictures and rumours about the book has started popping up on the net. I haven't been paying the rumours too much attention as I want to enjoy reading the book when it pops out, but it looks like nobody is really crying about them being too hard or too soft yet. Picture wise, the Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace have popped up on the net. Thanks to nhohn from The Warhammer Forum (in this thread) has posted the following pictures....

The Plague Furnace

The Screaming Bell

So the Skaven book doesn't sound like it'll be in the same League as Dark Elves, Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, and Lizardmen (I count them up with the big three), but it does sound like a fun book.

SKAVEN!!!

Nothing but a chitter for months that Skaven were being released and then GW release a horde of Vermintide by adding the New Skaven Releases for Advance Order!

As you can see from the lovely new model for Queek above (as well as the rest of the stuff on the GW site), they look fantastic and I'm really happy I waited for the new models as I've wanted an army of Skaven for a while now. Only downside is I would like to use them for some events I've got planned for the next few months, so I think it's unlikely that I'll be able to assemble an army of them on time (without resorting to Dip). It's safe to say that I'll be having the new army book when it comes out as well as asking for a few boxes for Christmas if I'm good.

Howling Wolves and Squats

I think this blog needs a bit of 40K love as I've been harping on a lot about WFB recently. Codex Space Wolves hits the stores tomorrow, along with some new metal character models and plastic kits to let you assemble an army of giant howling armoured barbarians with guns. I saw some of the plastics a few weeks ago in the flesh and they are very nice. I should be picking up a copy of the codex tomorrow as it gets me up early to avoid the rush at the local shopping centre, and I can mow the grass for hopefully the last time this year! I should put a review up in a few days minus the grass cutting. If you need to know what's coming out, check out this page on the GW site.

On a more important note, who remembers the Squats? Because if you do, you might be interested in getting this tongue in cheek model...


I personally love it. The only way you can get one is with a White Dwarf Subscription but more details will be available in November.

Battle Diary - Daemons of Poo!

I've just finished my game I had scheduled tonight against Chris and I thought I would keep a semi-regular Battle Diary thing. Partially because it's a nice entry and partially because I'm not quite ready for bed at the moment!

One of my main weaknesses is that I just don't play enough games and I'm not the sort of person who sits down and picks things up naturally for wargames (although strangely I can do this with computers which is great for work). So a pre new years resolution is to game more. Tonight I decided to try some different units out to see what they can do, as well as just playing some warhammer. The list I took is as follows..

Bloodthirster with 3+ Save, +1S and Flaming Attack with re-roll hits
Tzeentch Herald with Flames and Chariot
Tzeentch Herald with Flames and Chariot
Nurgle Herald
17 Plaguebearers with full command and standard of re-rolling wounds
13 Horrors
13 Horrors
5 Furies
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flesh Hounds
5 Flamers
1 Fiend

Chris took roughly the following...

Runelord on Anvil with funky runes (dispel scroll and something which adds +2 to dispel)
BSB with Runic Standard of +1 to dispel
Dragon Slayer
10 Thunderers
10 Thunderers
10 Longbeards
10 Warriors
Grudgethrower with Flaming hits
2 Bolt Throwers
Slayers (can't remember how many but 12ish)
Miners
Organ Gun
Gyrocopter

Now I'm not going to go into a turn by turn report but I will highlight some things and my thoughts. Firstly the terrain scattered in such a way (we used the WPS Terrain rules) that one half the board length ways had all the terrain (lots of buildings), while the other half had a hill and swamp. Chris won the roll to pick sides and chose the side with buildings to deny me all the cover. We rolled for who got first turn and I chose to go first.

My basic plan was to shove the Bloodthirster down a flank with lots of cover while the other fast stuff went down the other and they would meet in the middle. So my Thirster goes RRAAAWWWGGHHH! and hurtles down the flank and ends up chasing a Gyrocopter off the board. Turns later he comes back on and is placed in a position to start smashing stuff but expecting to take a couple of wounds from shooting. All the Dwarfen war machines cause a wound but the Thunderers manage to kill him thanks to a Flurry of sixes for Chris and a Flurry of ones for me!

On the other side of the board my fast attack force fares a little better but is all killed. The Fiend is killed by a Bolter and Thunderers, and the Chariots attempt to shoot up some stuff with magic and flames only to be handbaged by a counter charged by Anviled Warriors and later the miners once Chris remembered he had them. The Flesh Hounds end up in the Slayers guarding the Anvil and die eventually due to a long 7 round combat. The rest of my army is picked off by shooting and Anvil counter charges and Chris gets a Massacre!

Lessons Learned are....

• Daemons do not equal an instant win!
• I'm starting to think more about my turn and what I want to do rather than randomly doing stuff.

I still need to play more but I do feel I'm doing better than what I would be as I'm looking more at what I'm doing. I just need to learn how to look a couple of turns ahead and I might start winning games. My army needs to be tweaked as I felt it didn't have much synergy, but Dwarfs are a bit oddball to play because they can deflate the magic phase as well as having a strong shooting phase. I'm going to try and play Stevyn next and his Dark Elves or maybe go to the local club and get a game!

Heelanhammer Shoutout

I'm just off to play a game of WFB in a bit with my Chaos Daemons against Chris's Dwarfs (I'm going to give the Bloodthirster a go in some proxy action!), I thought I would give a quick shoutout to Heelanhammer.

Like Podhammer and Bad Dice, Heelanhammer is a Warhammer Fantasy Podcast but in my own humble opinion it beats both with a big beat stick. Dan and Wayne are easy to listen to on the ears and while they can ramble on about off topic stuff, it still keeps on track by being about the hobby. Also slap on a big dollop of hobby related stuff (they give advice about how to paint good) and it's a really good podcast. So if you like WFB podcasts, download Heelanhammer and give it a listen.

Also for those folks who haven't been to the GW site for a while, it's worth visiting to have a look at the Astronomican. Basically the Astronomican is a kind of blog site where the guys at GW put up info about any new articles added to the site, as well as pictures about new models coming out or really cool pictures taken of things people have sent in.

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!