Rik is aboard

After weeks we have finally bent Rik to our will. Rik has his own blog with is own unique view on the Games Workshop hobby. I have no doubt that Rik will bring hard hitting thoughts and ideas, in a a fun and enjoyable way. http://rfmadeptusastartes.blogspot.com/

Planetary Empires Week 4 Results:

Kip (Space Wolves) v Digger (Tyranids)

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Dawn of War

Winner: Kip 1 objective to Digger’s 0 (Kip didn’t captured one of Digger’s territories)

Chase (Red Corsiars) v Matt(Grey Knights)

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Spearhead

Winner: Matt’s 1 objective to Chase’s 0 (Matt captured one of Chase’s territories)

Kyle (Night Lords) v. Bill(Orks)

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Pitch Battle

Winner: Kyle’s 2 objective to Bill’s 1 (Kyle didn’t captured one of Bill’s territories)

Mike(Space Wolves) v Rik (Blood Angels)

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Spearhead

Winner: Mike’s 2 objective to Rik’s 0 (Mike did capture one of Rik’s territories)

Mike(Space Wolves) v Steve (Space Wolves)

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Spearhead

Winner: Mike’s 2 objective to Steve’s 1 (Mike didn’t capture one of Steve’s territories)

Look for more Planetary Empires next week.

-Kyle

Why Forge World rocks

As some of you may have seen from Kyle's blog post I went a bit nuts ordering some Forge World stuff this week. It was prompted by a good friend of mine shipping me out the new Salamander Dreadnought. I went crazy and ordered all of the variants of power armor except Mark 6 ......which actually comes in the tactical squad box. I also ordered another Land Raider Achilles.....to me this is the most bad ass Land Raider in the Imperium. Along with these items I ordered various upgrade kits and transfer sheets.

Now most of the items I purchased from Forge World are just accessories for Space Marines. They enable me to customize the look of my Marines even more. The one description that stuck with me was what Graham McNeil said about Space Marines after he wrote the 4th Edition codex.......that each Space Marine was like a knight, not just some sci fi dude in generic armor. I have really taken this to heart when I assemble my marines.

I know Forge World is not easily accessible and can be rather pricey, and don't take this post to mean that if you don't have Forge World stuff that you and your hobby suck. I just want to shed some light on why I love the crap out of it. If any of you have questions about the products please feel free to ask.

-Rik

Forge World I love you!

Yesterday Rik and I went in on Forge World order so we could get the free express shipping. Rik as all ways went overboard with his ordering, which I think was inspired by the new Salamanders dreadnought. My purchases however were inspired Lugft Huron and his diabolical chapter the Astral Claws. I waited almost for a year till FW released the transfers and shoulder pads. I also picked up the Carcharodons transfers as well to go with my Tyberos “The Red Wake” model. This is what I purchased:

2x Packs of the MK III power armor

5x packs of the Astral Claw Shoulder pads

1x pack of the Astral Claw Terminator pads

1x Carcharodons transfer sheet

1x Astral Claw transfer sheet

Over the next month or so I will start building and painting my Astral Claw army. I will post pics on my paint scheme as well as "how to" post.

- Kyle

Sometimes life is just a kick in the balls.

Well last week was just not my week. At the beginning of the week my girlfriend of almost two years decided to throw me out like a sack of moldy tangerines. Once again the point is proven that women will come and go but Games Workshop will always be there for you.

So Tuesday was game day. While my opponent had been game planning and readying his list I had been wallowing in my self pity and watching the extended version of Lord of the Rings on Blu Ray. I violated my cardinal rule and made no changes to my list. We headed over to Kyle's and the battle began.

From turn one it was a giant crap show. My opponent had about 8 million lascannons deployed making it impossible to have my Stormraven on the table. My opponent blasted one of my Rhinos to bits and apparently the marines inside were ok with burning to death and 5 tactical marines perished. On my half of turn 1 I accomplished very little and killed even less.

In to turn two. He once again blew up a rhino and this time the squad inside lost 6 marines. At this point my dice went flying all over the garage as I threw them in a fit on anger. With over a squad dead and all rhinos gone it was like being a one legged man in an butt kicking contest. In my portion of turn two I managed to not break any of my models which I am very proud of.

Turn 3 was memorable for his wolf scouts coming in and eating part of an assault squad. My assault squad was quite overmatched in this fight. They hit their butts kicked and really did not do much in return. In my portion of the turn I sent my other assault squad down to finish of the wolf scouts. I killed them to the man but the damage had already been done.

Turns 4 thru 6 were a blur of my marines dying, me rolling horribly, my opponent learning the lesson of allocating wounds to independent characters, also learning that Power of the Machine Spirit allows you to fire when crew stunned and lots of sweating in the 110 degree weather. At the end of the day I was single, my army had been killed to the man, and I was tired, sweaty, and cranky. Let's hope my luck turns around next week.

- Rik

I’m a lucky hobbyist

I find myself to be a very fortunate hobbyist. I have an awesome group of guys I game with on a weekly basis. Not only are they good players, they’re also good hobbyist. It sparks my competitive juices to constantly put out good armies and get better at playing 40k. Here’s a list of their blogs and you can judge for yourself.

http://phantomminis.blogspot.com/

http://myspacewolves.blogspot.com/

http://dawerkshop.blogspot.com/

-Kyle

Moment of Clarity

Today I just realized that I have not even begun my objective markers for our contest. So of course I start freaking out because I’m going to be that guy that doesn’t have anything for his own contest. I spent the first half of the day wracking my brain and wonder what I was going to do.

I started sketching out stuff and thinking of stuff I have done in the past and nothing was clicking. Then, as if the heavens opened up I realized I had the internet. Then Kip and I laughed about what an idiot I am. So I jumped on the old interwebs and began to Google search objectives and came across some really cool stuff. I started to focus on some Chaos objectives and came up with my final idea. My objectives will be a pile of helmets that will resemble all the armies in our Planetary Empires campaign. I will create 5 piles that will be used for my objectives.

Keep your eyes peeled for future pics; no back to painting and modeling!

-Kyle

War Games Con

I just got back from a weekend in Austin where War Games Con was held. Over all I would give it an eight out of ten. There were some high lights and some low lights. There were a couple of things that jumped out at me and made me feel a little sad for the Games Workshop tournament scene here in the US. Now I don’t go to a lot of Indie GTs but here are so things that stood out to me.

1. Terrain: It was great to see a tourney that had terrain pieces that blocked LoS. Normally when I see pictures of a GT there are 5-7 small pieces that were built for 3 and 4 edition 40k. The problem the terrain was painted to below standard in my opinion.

2. Custom models: The more and more I see it the less and less I like them. One Ork player had 3 battle wagons that would have put a bane blade to shame. If there is a model then use it and use those monstrosities in Apocalypse. I would have been pissed if I had to play those tanks.

3. Games: They did a great job of get matches posted and for the most part they were flawless on their timing. They did have a couple of hiccups on the first day; a couple of players had to been given a warning for “slow playing”.

4. The Players: Every player I met was a good person. They were either super pumped about the hobby or cracking jokes. They’re good group of gamers.

5. Painted armies, almost: There were 20 -30 above average painted armies. With over 200 gamers that is disappointing. Some armies were not fully painted or built. Please bring the hobby back to GTs, please!

6. Mirror match: This was by far the coolest event all weekend in my option. The players played a 3 round tourney. All the lists were identical to each other. The tournament organizers posted the list on the website and that is what each of the players had to use. Great idea and it was fun to watch!

Next year I think I’m going to play in the mirror match. Over all I would suggest that you take a look War Games Con and maybe I will see you there next year!

-Kyle

Week 3 Results of our Planetary Empires

Week Three results:

Mike (Space Wolves) v Bill (Orks)

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Dawn of War

Winner: Bill 9 kill points to Mike’s 5 (Bill captured one of Mike’s territories)

Mike wrote about the game here: http://myspacewolves.blogspot.com/2011/07/wolves-went-down.html

Chase (Red Corsiars) v Steve (Space Wolves)

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Winner: Steve’s 1 objective to Chase’s 0 (Steve did not capture a territory)

Steve was able to scratch and claw to his first victory. It was by no means easy; Chase took the Space Wolves to the limit. Now if the game had ended on the first die roll for random game length Chase would have won in dominating fashion. That was not the case; Chase has this streak of bad luck going. Whenever he need the game to end it goes on for another turn or two. This was very even and tightly contested game. Kharn collected many skulls for Chase and the Blood God. Steve failed to gain a tile.

Digger(Tyranid) v. Matt(Grey Knight)

Mission: Seize Ground

Deployment: Dawn of War

Winner: Draw

For the first half of this game Matt was getting beat like he stole something from Digger. Matt lost his Storm Raven on one of the first shots of the game. Matt had a turn 4 that was one of the best I have ever seen. The Grey Knights killed a Trygon, Swarm Lord, Doom, and 2x Carnies. Digger just stood there with his mouth a gaped.

Matt (Grey Knights) v Rik (Blood Angels)

Mission: Forfeit

Deployment: N/A

Winner: Matt (Matt captured one of Rik’s territories)

Kip (Space Wolves) v. Kyle (Night Lords)

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Winner: Kyle’s 12 Kill points to Kip’s 6 kill points (Kyle captured one of Kip’s territories)

This was an action packed game. It was neck and neck till my Night Lords were able to take control of the game in turn 5. They game did not start well for me. Kips’ Rune Priest was bring down lighting like it was going out of style! He hit with 17 of his first 17 living lighting attacks in the first 3 rounds. His Rune Priest accounted for 3 of his kill points. In the end the Night Lords were too much for the Space Wolves. Kips’ Rune Priest was the first model to roll on the Heroic Action Table and now has a re-roll for one shot per game.

WEEK 3 MATCH UPS:

Kyle (Night Lords) v Bill (Orks)

Digger (Tyranids) v Kip (Space Wolves)

Matt (Grey Knights) v Chase(Red Corsairs)

Mike (Space Wolves) v Rik (Blood Angels)

Mike (Space Wolves) v Steve (Space Wolves)

Another week went by with some great games and some very close games as well. I was able to bring my record to 4-0. This week I will have to take on the green hordes of the Orks!

I will be at WargamesCon over the weekend I will not post till the 10^th.

-Kyle

What does complaining really accomplish?

This is a question I find myself trying to answer in the last couple of years when it is related to Games Workshop. Of course people cry about price raises, finecast or any other ills in the hobby GW gets blamed for. In this post I’m going to tackle a couple of myths and give hope to the standard bearers of the GW hobby.

GW cost too much?! Does it really? I find if you do all aspect of the hobby you get more than enough value out of GW minis. A Tactical Squad comes in at $38 bucks and I could complain that it is $3.80 a mini. I look at the fact that it is going to take me 20 min to 30 min to build and clean one SM, then another hour or two to paint it. Then I game with it another 4 hours a week. So for $38 dollars in one year I get 106 hours of enjoyment out of it. How the hell is that too expensive? I’m I missing something? Ever think about getting a job that pays you a salary that will allow you to buy minis? The hobby is a luxury not a right!

There is a double standard or high standard that GW is held to, while other companies can do no wrong. Privateer Press has come out with another press release (http://privateerpress.com/an-important-announcement-concerning-new-steps-toward-product-fulfillment) saying that they are going to delay releases again. This is due to the “high” demand for their product. This is the third time in the last two years PP has done this. To me this smells of poor planning and not enough liquid capital to increase production but they’re given a pass because they are viewed as the golden child. If GW was to do this, the sky would be falling and rumors of Hasbro buying GW would surface, again. This is a perfect example of the double standard GW faces.

The internet trolls are in “rage” mode. These groups of basement dwellers have taken over the internet and spreading the lies that GW is evil. They high jack threads and try to bury anything good GW does with lies and baseless facts. These booger eaters would have you believe that they all have business degrees or a law degree. When in fact they’re the troll that sits in the corner of the store and leers at your gaming group and wishes he could be a member. He sits there avoiding eye contact and fights back the feelings that this is like high school all over again. His silent stares are interrupted by a phone call from his mom who wants to make sure he will be ready at 5 pm when she comes to pick him up. The other type of internet troll on the internet is just being that guy for the sake of being that guy.

I say stick with GW because they have been there with you over the years. I have tons of fond memories and a great group of friends that I have made over my 20+ years of playing GW games. Trolls may call me a fanboy but I’m the true definition of a GW hobbyist.

-Kyle

The Brush and Bolter

On Fridays (if I’m in town), I will start a new series of blogs based on blogs. This will cover the blogs that inspire me or what I would call hobby standard bearer blogs. Hopefully this will give you the reader another insight in to my hobby. Whenever I hit the hobby wall I go to these blogs and they get those creative juices following.

The first blog I will cover is; http://thebrushandbolter.blogspot.com/. This blog is fairly new and run by Ultraraider. Ultraraider is also put of a great hobby community that be found here: http://www.thefreebootaz.com/forum/forum.php The blog covers Ultraraider painting his outstanding Blood Angels. Though I feel I could never paint to his level, it gives me inspiration to do so. So please check out his site and become a follower or leave comments. I’m sure Ultraraider will respond to any and all questions.

-Kyle