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.