Tabletop Nation 'Eastern Edge II' Tournament

Thanks to deciding to skip Black Library's Weekender (more on how money-grabbing and unfriendly BL have been in a later post) I was able to instead go to the Eastern Edge II tournament at Tabletop Nation today.

This was a one day, 1200 points, 40k tourney. The aim was for four games to be played, hence the low points limit. It turns out however that there is some kind of hard limit of points in 40k, whereby any points cost over said limit does not really reduce playing time. Thus, even with small armies, we still only managed three games each in the time allotted.

Lets get the good news out of the way first - I came second :) I got a nice little voucher to spend in the store and a certificate to add to the trophy shelf (there isn't really a trophy shelf, I just put it on a bookshelf for now). I was actually genuinely surprised to do so well. I had thought I was in with a good chance at best painted army, to be honest. But still, a prize is a prize :)

There was a fairly good selection of armies at play. Alongside three Blood Angels armies were Orks, Daemons, Space Wolves, and Necrons. Daemons placed first with three wins out of three while the Orks came in just behind me.

A brief summary of my list and three games then.

I took a Librarian with psychic powers from the BRB, going with Prescience every time and a random TK power too that never got used. I had a Furioso with Frag Cannon and two Sanguinary Priests as Elites. Two tactical squads for troops, one with a las-cannon, one with a plasma cannon, and, finally, two Stormravens, each with plasma cannons and Typhoons, one with sponsons.

Top: difficult to budge Tactical Squad and Bottom: fleeing Grey Hunters!

First game was against Space Wolves. It was Kill Points. My opponent had Grey Hunters in Rhinos and Long Fangs with rockets and Long Fangs with plasma, which might have been problematic had we not got a) deployment at the short edges, and b) night-fighting on the first turn. So his Long Fangs were neutered on turn one, and unable to hit my flyers on turn two ( a combo of templates-can't-hit-flyers and poor dice rolling there ). My flyers and long range shooters, by contrast, were able to take out two Rhinos and suppress the third. We did end up with a couple of combats but, surprisingly, his GH packs, even when, on one occasion, being backed up by charging Thunderwolf cavalry, could not shift my tactical squads. I even got one squad to run away! Cut to Turn 5 then, and my Furioso dismounts and frags a Long Fang squad to death. The two Stormravens nuke another couple of Rhinos for more easy kill points and its a win for the boys in red.

Second game was the saddest of all things - red on red violence. My opponent this time also had Blood Angels but in a list I wish I had had. For one thing he took and Aegis. At 1200 points I didn't think anyone would want to fit that into a list, but then he also had five man assault squads taking las-preds with 35-point discounts so it all fit. Two Librarians too, one on a bike, also spelled doom for my boys, with both of them taking Divination powers to make their shooting infallible. We were playing the Relic and I combat-squadded my troops to have a better chance of grabbing the relic. But it was not to be - giving his quad-gun Ignores Cover and his assault bikes rerolls to hit made short work of my army. A Stormraven was predicatably cut to pieces by the quad on arrival and it all went downhill from there really.

Third game was a bit more fun. Fun for me, that is, because it generally went all my way. I had chosen to take BA's over my usual favourite for competitive play, Space Wolves, because the last tournament winner at TTN had taken 'Cron Air. Five flyers had apparently made easy work out all comers so I wanted some built-in Skyfire. Today's 'cron player only had one flyer though, and no other competent anti-air. Playing Big Guns Never Tire, with five objectives on the table, I started claiming two, one of which, in ruins already, improved my cover save by one. One of his was sabotaged so he had to shift off it pretty sharpish. My Stormravens were able to polish off one of his Heavy Support tank-things (sorry, I really can't remember all the silly names GW gives their toys) for First Blood and a bonus victory point. And, for me at least, it was all uphill from there. The 'crons just couldn't stand up to marine shooting or the Stormravens - Power of the Machine Spirit is the only thing GW failed to nerf on these machines. I even hit the 'cron flyer with my las-cannon in the last turn causing it to fly off the board and onto the post-game kill points column. A good win.

Salamanders vs. Space Wolves. Not everyone brought Space Marines though, honest.

Just time for a couple of quick observations and thoughts on the armies I saw and played today then.

As I suspected, the Stormraven does now largely suck as a transport for anything without jump packs. In 5th you could roll halfway across the table and then charge out of its belly to assault your enemy. In 6th you can only do this if it moves 6" or less. It excels as a gunship though. The rules for flyers work really well for the Stormraven - it has so many guns, plus PotMS, and can put out massive amounts of firepower, lots of which can be twin-linked. Lots of talk has been made of melta being redundant as noone takes Armour 14 any more. the necrons have great access to Arm 13 though and, sometimes, I wish I had had las-cannons on the flyers. But even without them, the SR has loads of rockets built in, the option for more, is hard to hit when flying and can Evade, is easier to hit when hovering but can Jink. Its got everything you want from something with 'Gunship' in its name.

The Aegis line with quad-gun is just great. I highly expect to be buying one soon for use at 1750 and above. There is no reason not to take one and, particularly if you twin-link it with a psyker, has the power to ruin an enemy's day and list.

Assault marines and more Predators are pretty nifty too. They make a staple of 5th, one which is still very valid in 6th, very cost-effective. Thinking about the great value they are and how deadly my las-Pred Space Wolves are makes me drool a little.

Finally 'crons. I was not super-impressed by these guys. The units that came into range of my tactical marines were really easy to kill. Even the big hard ones with shields went down to plasma bursts and a Frag Cannon  quite quickly. The Deathmarks were probably the scariest, hitting marines very reliably and with some silly rule that allowed them to wound me on twos. But ten marines in cover, with a Priest, turn out to be very hard to shoot to death. In return they obliterated the 'marks in two turns of shooting. The flyer was a bit more worrying, largely because it is very manouverable. It also has that silly beam-down ability which could be a problem if it is filled with the right unit. I think it managed, over three turns, to take out a Stormraven, and nearly did some major damage to a tactical squad before being las-cannoned off the board. Again, Aegis line....

Overall then, a good day out. For what was billed as a 'casual' tourney, some players played remarkably aggressively and not everyone took losing in, shall we say, and 'admirable' fashion. Some were out the door as soon as the last dice settled when they had lost a game, i.e. they didn't think they could 'win' the tournament so there was no point in sticking around. But most people had a fun few games, drank a lot of coffee and rolled a lot of dice. Many many plastic men gave up their lives, often repeatedly, for our pleasure and enjoyment, and that, after all, is what its all about.

Build Guide: Mantic Forge Fathers Hailstorm Cannon

 Mantic's Forge Father range is shaping up rather nicely, with some visually and stylistically distinct models and units. One of these is their optionally-mobile artillery piece, the Hailstorm cannon. Its a tracked quad-gun, with a pilot who looks half like he's aiming the barrels, and half like he's riding the thing. It also perhaps owes a little to Alien's space jockey in its styling.

I recently got one as part of the Fate of the Forge Star bundle and found, in common with other mantic products, it does not come with a build guide. Its not overly complicated to put together, but, just in case you're having trouble figuring yours out, here's my guide. This is going to be largely pictorial.  As I said, the model isn't complicated, but sometimes it can be useful to see which way up things are supposed to go or which order its best to glue some parts together in.

 

The two halves of the barrels go together as seen above. Don't glue them together yet though - they need to be mounted on the main body of the gun first.

This side-view shows you the arrangement of the two shield pieces on the gun. I found it was best to glue the bottom shield to the body first, then stick the barrels on, then stick the top shield onto that piece. There's a hole in the top of the barrel section for the top shield to fit in to.

The gun barrel tips can be stuck on to the ends of the barrels once they are glued to the main body. There is only one correct alignment for them so, if they don't seem to fit right when you dry fit them, rotate them and try again.

Those ammo drums can be fitted on after the shields, but it might be easier to do it beforehand. Its not a model-breaker if you leave them till last though.

The pilot went on last on my gun. In retrospect it might have been better to glue his gun and holster on before putting him on the machine. Finally I stuck on the rear ammo drums and the tracks. The tracks also only go on one way.

From the Mantic forums, I hear some of these models turn up at people's houses pretty warped. I'm not sure which parts in particular tend to get bent, but if you get one like that its pretty easy to fix with hot water. You'll often see boiling water recommended. This might be necessary for thicker pieces, but I have used hot water straight from the tap to reshape restic in the past. The point is, a little bendage is really not that big a deal and very simple to rectify.

Feel free to ask any questions if you are building a Hailstorm cannon or indeed any Forge Father models. Later on I will be putting up some pictures of my Steel Warriors.

Wargames Terrain: Oil Barrels

In ascending order of awesomeness, here are some awesome things to look at:

• A gaming table full of models fighting each other
• A gaming table full of painted models fighting each other
• A gaming table full of painted models fighting each other in and around painted scenery and objectives.

This week I decided to challenge myself a little bit and paint something I don't normally do: scenery. GW added exploding fuel dumps as an optional extra to the latest version of 40k. I have had a small piece of barrel-filled scenery sitting on the shelf for months now, plus I came home with another set from Games Day (free! From GW!), so I decided to paint those suckers up and make some. obstacles/objectives for wargames.

First up, the set of barrels and jerry cans from the GW batttlefield scenery kit. You only get three barrels and two cans in the set, which is barely enough to make one fuel dump. Its representative of a fuel dump, is probably as generously as its possible to describe the piece. But with 6th ed. rules you can hide behind them, I guess, and thus make them explode. So hey ho.

On the other hand, these are the barrels GW gave me fore free(!) at Games Day this year. Now thats more like it. A proper collection of potentially explosive containers. They also gave me some tinfoil (!) and half-heartedly told me I could paint it as camo netting. I binned that though as I had a better idea - see below.

First the paints used and techniques. This all comes from Forge World's Model Masterclass Volume 1 - a great primer on advanced modeling and painting.

I sprayed the cans with Desert Yellow first. GW don't make this paint any more, of course, because it was great, so you'll need to find your own alternative. It doesn't really matter too much what you choose as the base as you'll be weathering the *&%$ out of it later on. But I recommend a khaki or olive colour for verisimilitude.

I then sponged on Charadon Granite to get the chipping, concentrating on raised edges and the top and bottoms of the barrels as this is where the worst wear would occur. And that is a hard sentence to say or type.If you can't get Charadon Granite, look for a dark grey, almost black to sponge on instead.

 To pick out the details I used a mix of black and brown oil paints, thinned with thinners, gently pushed into the corners and crevices. The nature of the thinners causes the mix to flow along these lines, so mixing it up in the first place is probably the hardest part of this job.

I then made up some rust with the brown oil paint. some thinners, and some rust weathering powder. I flicked this onto the drums just by stroking my finger along the bristles of an old brush that was loaded with the rust mix. You get a nice splattering pattern this way, which you can then soften up by spraying on more thinners.

I used thinned brown ink as 'oil' and dribbled it around the seams of the barrels and on the flooring around them. This is definitely a no-smoking area. Lots of oil and dirt lying around. These cans are meant to be used and reused.

To make the larger stack of barrels a proper source of cover and concealment, I wanted to add some camo netting that would look a bit more convincing than painted tinfoil. I'm not saying you can't paint tinfoil to look awesome. Just that I can't. So, using another technique from Model Masterclass, I raided my First Aid box for a bit of bandage. I soaked this in watered down PVA glue, wrung it out, then draped it over the barrels.

The next morning the bandage had dried almost completely stiff. I first glued on several strips of thin masking tape. then painted it all with watered-down Graveyard Earth and lots of it. The bandage naturally soaks up the paint, I may have wrung too much of the glue out, and requires lots of coverage. I finished it off with a drybrush of Kommando Khaki, and hey presto, a camoflaged fueld dump.

 I'm very pleased with how the barrels came out, perhaps less so with the camo netting. I wonder if there is some way to paint the fabric before gluing it and setting it in place.

For now, I have two nicely painted bits of scenery to go on the table :) Next up - the ammo canisters.

Kings of War is Getting Ugly

Mantic eventually got me to invest in their Kickstarter when they started throwing out crazy cool ideas like dwarves on badger-mounts, angelic paladins, and dudes riding giant cats to battle. Yeah, I like weird cavalry. One of the more traditional units they pledged to fund though were the ogres. Now, Mantic has taken flakk for initally releasing a very limited number of fairly bland sculpts for some of their armies. But take a look at these images of sculpts, released today, and tell me Mantic isn't threatening to dominate the market for excellent fantasy models:

Once again, I don't normally play fantasy wargames, but these models could turn a guys head...

Whats the Difference: 40k/Warmachine/Hordes?

Tabletop Nation have been running a journeyman league for Warmahordes recently, which has given me the impetus to get painted and the opportunity to play with my Cryx army. I have still only had half a dozen games with them so bear that in mind. This isn't an exhaustive guide to playing either game, just a few observations on the differences between them - things you might like to know if you want to switch from 40k to Warmahordes.

Tabletop Nation's Journeyman League

Firstly, size. Warmahordes uses much smaller model counts to play with. The starter sets come to around 15 points and that may only mean four models. But this is still a very playable force, compared to say half a 40k starter box which can feel like only half a proper army. Even when you go up a level to 25 points, you many only add two or three more units to your list which could again be as few as one, two, or three models. My 25 point list, for example, added four new units to the starter set, for a total of 16 new models. But my 35 point list is only two additional units and two new models.

You can have many more models, of course. I chose two one-model units specifically to save on money and time  but I could have gone for lots of cheap light jacks. Painting earns you points in the league though, so I didn't want to get bogged down with two many jacks and solo's to paint.

Second, Warmahorde units feel less flexible than 40k units do. For starters your force will be led by a Warcaster, at least if you have a Warmachine army, I forget what the Hordes leaders are called. Your choice of caster will heavily influence how you fight and what you choose to play with, partly because each caster has a once-a-game feat to use - a special irresistible effect, unique to each caster - and partly because each caster has a list of themed armies they can take which, if you meet the force organisation requirements, give bonuses to your army.

Units appear very clearly defined in what they are meant to do too. If it is a close-combat jack you will know it. If a unit is meant to shoot at stuff, it will be clear. Actual gameplay might of course change what units have to do - but they start with very clear purposes.

Guess what that dude does...

A criticism of Warmachine is that each fight can feel very similar to the last one then, as your tactics aren't likely to change too much from engagement to engagement. I think this is possibly deliberate on the part of the designers though. This inflexibility pretty much forces you to buy new toys when you want to fight in a different way, but what might at first seem a weakness  becomes a strength when you see how cheap the models are.

Whereas with a 40k army you might have to plan a list for every eventuality, then buy and build every model in that list, with Warmachine it feels more like you focus on one small area of the army book, build and play with that, then expand your collection to allow more tactical flexibility and options. The end result is the same - a large collection of miniatures with all sorts of options. But its much easier to start a Warmachine force and cheaper to expand it.

Warcaster Denegrha's job is to hide behind the big guy.

 
The next big difference is the turn sequence and importance of individual models. In 40k, every model gets to move, then every model shoots, then every model fights. In Warmahordes, every unit does all those things, one at a time. So model or unit A moves, shoots, and fights. Then model B moves shoots, then fights. And so on. The challenges of each system are similar - you have to plan what is going to move where, and shoot what and fight what before committing. But, as a long time 40k player, one has to take care not to shoot and not to assault a target to death I had also planned to assault with another model, leaving that second model stranded far from the enemy.

Finally the big big difference between the two systems - Focus and Fury.

Warmachine uses Focus. This is mana for your casters and is used to empower your jacks to charge and do more damage as well as casting spells. It is a precious commodity and adds another layer of complexity to planning each turn.

Hordes uses Fury. This kind of works in reverse to Focus, in that monsters gain Fury when given commnds to do stuff and, if not dispersed properly, has the potential to overload your beasts, causing the, to go berserk. I actually quite like this system, it feels a lot less limited than Focus. It has the potential to cripple your force if you're unlucky, but as far as I can see the benefits outweigh the risk.

Overall then, Warmahordes, at least up to 35 points a side, feels like a lot more focussed and intense game than 40k does. It lacks a little of the 'narrative of battle' 40k has, owing largely to the smaller battlefields and forces. It is by no means weaker though, just very different.

It is quick, easy, simple and cheap to collect a strong army for with Warmachine or Hordes. The models are almost all attractive and well made and the game systems have complexities and mechanisms that make them, like all good games, easy to pick and difficult to master.

Building Guide: Project Pandora - Veer-myn

One of the drawbacks to getting older is its often harder to get what you actually want for your birthday. At my age you are basically doomed to socks and other woolen goods unless you really really stamp your foot down and insist on toy soldiers. This year I got my wish. First present up: Project Pandora: Grim Cargo by Mantic.

This is a dungeon crawler, set in Mantic's Warpath universe and includes 10 Corporation Marines and 10 Veer-myn - ratmen. In spaaaace! I'm thinking of converting my marines up into zombie troopers, so here's a quick look at building the Veer-myn.

Here's all the parts you get for ratmen. The important points to note are:

• There are 8 bodies, four each of two types, that are tail-less. These are the bodies for the grunt troopers.
• There are two bodies with tails - these are your boss and the heavy weapons trooper.
• The boss and the heavy trooper's heads are in the little baggie, along with some more tails and the boss's weapons.
• The guns for the troopers come with hands as part of the cast. They look almost identical but there are two types. Ones with cloth on the fists and ones with studded plates. Separate them out.

Most of the parts for the grunts are interchangeable. The weapons, however, are not. The hands that have cloth wrappings belong to the bodies with cloth rags and cowls - the top set in the above picture. The studded hands go with the bodies that appear all armoured up - the bottom set in the picture.

When gluing your arms on the bodies, make sure to account for the extended jawlines the models will have. These guns cannot really be glued raised in a firing position. The models pretty much have to carry them low down, as if they're running with them. 

Top row: piggies. Bottom row: er, other ones

When it comes to heads, the ones that have gas masks on - piggies, as I like to think of them, generally go better on the cowled/ragged bodies. Conversely, the unmasked heads generally fit the armoured bodies best. You can mix them, as I have, for a bit of variety, just be aware this may lead to some gaps appearing around the necks. Nothing you can't, at the worst, fill with greenstuff though.

Tails you glues. Thankyou very much.

As with the guns, there are two sets of very similar looking tails. These are probably best described as a 'long' selection and four 'short' ones. The long tails are designed to fit into the backsides of the armoured bodies. So, of course, the shorter tails are supposed to go into a little hole below the right knee of the cowled models. I have found you can, again, mix them up for some variety in your models. Fitting the long tails on the cowled models is definitely the trickier job though. It will certainly require some trimming of the tail tabs to make them fit and may also require some greenstuff to get the piece looking really right though.

The above pic shows you the boss parts to attach to one of your tailed bodies. Nice and simple, although why the guy is carrying a gas cannister on his back, I don't know. Can't be very ergonomical when it comes to crawling along ducts. But hey ho. Its the future.

 And here are the parts for the heavy chem thrower rat. The pipe that runs from the tanks on his back to the grip was cast way out of line, but a few seconds under a hot tap put enough bendiness back into it, it was easily fixed.

Here's a nice blurry picture of my Veer-myn boss, whose name I have forgotten, all ready for washing and painting.

And here's the heavy weapon rat.


Once you have sorted out the heads and weapons and so on, these models are all really easy to put together. They are all sprueless, which speeds things up a lot, so apart from a few bits of trimming and a couple of mould lines being taken off, they're quick to do. One of the weapon sections was bent a fair bit, but, as with the aforementioned piping, this was easily fixed with a bit of hot water.

Project Pandora was basically put together on the cheap, as a way of getting Mantic mini's into people's hands quickly, without them having to commit to a whole Warpath army. As such its a pretty good advert for the quality of Mantic's models. I'm not sure choosing not to include a build guide for them was the right choice though as new gamers are possibly just as likely to swear never to buy another game without pre-assembled figures as to choose to invest heavily in Mantic toys. For gamers with a little more experience though, Project Pandora's Veer-myn fit well with Mantic's aim of producing high quality miniatures at very affordable prices.

The Future is Mantic

I had the good fortune this past weekend to attend the Open Day at Mantic's headquarters in Nottingham. I had the further good fortune to spend the morning there in a painting workshop with painters from Golem Studio and even further fortune to walk away with a box of Enforcers - Mantic's new army for their Warpath game.

I frame all this as being fortuitous because not only are the folk at Mantic very nice and friendly, they also make some very good miniatures that cost a fraction of their equivalents from Games Workshop.

I have, in the past, been a little critical of Mantic's minis. I checked out sprues for several of their fantasy and sci-fi armies and found them a little lacking. It didn't help that many if the sprues were in fact the same - the same torsos any way, but with different arm options, depending on the timeframe the model is intended for.

But a few months down the line Mantic minis are really starting to develop into something special and cool. Check out the attached photo of one of my Enforcers.

Details are crisp and clear. The sculpts are attractive. These parts all came sprue-free and required minimal clean up before gluing. They come with their own foam-lined carry-case and cost roughly half what ten Space Marines would.

There are still limitations to this awesomeness though, its true. There's little variety between the models and different entries in the army list all use these same models, just varying the number of special weapons they come with.

But this is because Warpath is still in beta - the current ruleset is 2.0. The game, then, is but officially released. The plan is for a Kickstarter to launch the game around April, 2013, shipping product in September. These models are a promise of things to come.

So, there may not be a truly compelling reason for everyone to completely jump ship from the good old S.S. 40k just yet. But its on its way. To of the iceberg, and all that.

I'm already thinking of shifting my Forge World budget over to buying Mantic minis so as to be ahead of the curve as it were, but also to be able to show people there really is an alternative fie toy soldiers from Nottingham.

Who knows, they might even get me playing fantasy wargames!