40k losing its appeal

Ok guys this isn't a rant about the prices of games workshop, even if they are getting ridiculous. This is my thoughts on the game in general. 

I love 40k, I've played it for years and have numerous armies.  But lately you could say that I'm all 40ked out.  Pick up games down my club or organized games against my friends have really lost all appeal to me.  Playing against the same people all the time has become repetitive, facing the same list week after week.  Not only that but its become an arms race.  One guy will get a bad assed new unit, and another guy will get one to counter it, then the first guy gets a new unit to counter that.  Now that gets expensive.  This just encourages power gaming.  Now there's a time in a place for power gaming its called a tournament.  If I want to try a new unit or army for that matter I don't want to be steamrolled off the board because I brought a weaker list.  Not that I have a problem with losing, I just don't like battles to be completely one sided.  The close games are always the more fun.

A lot of the guys from the club are feeling the same way.  We've been diversifying into other games.  Bolt Action and Malifaux are on the rise.  There's a bunch of us wanting to get into Dropzone Commander.  And everyone who has played the X-Wing games I've demoed have really enjoyed and have shown an interest in getting their own squadrons.  Actually there was one guy last night who played two games of X-Wing who then proclaimed that it was quickly becoming his favourite game.  Despite the rise of these other games increasing popularity I don't want to give up on 40k.

So how to make 40k more fun?  Well I reckon the key lies in narrative games.  Throw all the power gaming, all the arms races, all the poor sportsmanship out the window.  Make a narrative scenario with themed forces that's the key to unlocking the full fun potential of 40k.  Last year my cousin and I came up with a scenario called Ork's Drift, which we loosely based on the battle of Rourke's Drift.  The scenario involved my entire space wolves army manning a central fortification and he attacked it with his entire ork army.  He rolled a d6 for each of his units to represent the turn upon which they arrived.  His stompa was due to arrive on turn 10.  His units could arrive from any table edge of our 12' by 5' board.  If an ork unit was destroyed it would come back on the board the following turn.  In order for the orks to win they had to wipe out the entire space wolf force.  For the space wolves to win they had to hold out until the end of turn 15.  I lasted until turn 15.  I had one grey hunter left who was desperately trying to out run a stompa.  He addmitedly got squished.  The game came right down to the wire and had some great moments. 

I challenge any of you reading this to give a narrative game a shot.  They're a lot of fun.  In fact I might post a battle report or two of them in the future.  That's it for me for just now.  I'm off to plan my next narrative game, I've got a dark eldar slave raid in mind.  So until next time, happy wargaming.

Finially painted something

Well I'm back.  Haven't done a whole lot of painting recently, but I think I've rectified that over the past week or so.  On other news I passed my driving test, on my third attempt.  I also ran a Halloween game of Call of Cthulhu at my club, which was a lot of fun and went down really well, so we will be playing that again at some point.  Also on club news a lot of us are getting into Bolt Action.  So expect some pictures of my Germans sometime in the near future.  Now on to the pictures

The fourth proper monster to grace my dungeon, the dreaded cockatrice.  These things are deadly, although a bit delicate.  I think this is the number one contender for killing Pete's priest.  It was quite fun to paint, lots of dry brushing involved.  Behold the chicken-snake of doom... kwaaw!

Well if that fails send in the Deathmaster.  Deathmaster Sniktch.  Don't really have to say anything else, his title is Deeathmaster.  Dead priest... or party on the way.  I'm saving him as a last resort.  I'll also use him in my Skaven army.

More mummies.  That puts me up to six.  

And finally Queen Neferata.  I plan on using her as a homebrew Lamhia vampire character, but I could also use her as a vampire bad guy.  She might also find her way into my Vampire Counts army.

That's it for this installment. So until next time happy wargaming.

I need a hero

Welcome back to the Halls of the Damned.  As the title might imply I've been painting heroes of late.  And they see to all follow the same view point of armour if is for pussies. So without further a do on to the heroes.

First up is the wardancer.  This is an original GW Warhammer Quest wardancer.  I picked him up from ebay surprisingly cheaply.  I have to say I've always liked this miniature and when I think of wardancers my mind automatically goes to this guy, which is quite weird  considering he's not posed in any way to suggest that he dances.  I've done him up in old school would elf colours, green and yellow.

Another old school miniature.  Here is a Warhammer Quest pit fighter.  A very brutal looking chap.  I painted him to be quite spartan, very little bright colours.  He's a fighter, raised in the arena, finery isn't something that he should really concern himself with.  I really enjoyed painting both of these figures.  The next one not so much.

The last of this installments adventurers is an amazon serpent priestess from Games Workshop's Mordheim range.  I believe this miniature, like most of the specialist games miniatures, is now out of production.  I love model, but hated painting her.  I went for a jaguar hide cloak and red feathers (there's a bald parrot out there somewhere).  I think she turned out ok.

Now how about some bad guys?

Here we have the wight brothers... ha ha I'm hilarious.  But seriously they are wights.  The two on the outside are old school gw wights and the one in the middle is a plastic grave guard.  I painted them up to match my vampire counts army and I think they're looking al-wight...

This in old gw night goblin shaman.  Not much to say about him really.  Bizarrely the only greenskins my party have encountered have been snotlings.

Finally we have a tomb king.  A formidable opponent indeed.  I've done his dessicated carcass in a dark grey like real life mummies.  I can't wait for the party to stumble into this guy.

I've got a couple of mummies in a vat of fairy power spray, should get the paint stripped off them in the next couple of days.  I've also got some plague censer bearers that are needing painted.  And I've got a Lahmian vampire on the painting block.  Well that's it from me, until next time happy wargaming.

My dundeon's gone a bit creepy crawly

Good evening and welcome to another Warhammer Quest update.  Since the last update I've been mostly painting gribblies (although I've started a wood elf wardancer, whom you will be seeing hopefully in the next update).  On to the stuff.

SPIDERS!!!! You'll recognize the blue veined one from last time.  These spiders  are from Heresy Miniatures.  They're a bit of a pain in the arse to assemble, but go together well if you take you're time with them.  I painted them all to look fleshy and corrupted, I use the same scheme on my Nurgle daemons and plague marines.  I've painted the veins on each one in different colours to help identify each individual at a glance.  Go my pretties feasty on those interfering adventurers.

Here we have some goblins from Reaper's bones range.  I'm using these as hobgoblins.  I'm not going to lie, I did not enjoy painting them.  I painted them quick and dirty, since they're going to die pretty quickly no-one is  really going to pay them too much attention.  But still I don't think they came out too bad.  Now whats that in the background?

The Giants of Albion.  An nice little... erm big find on ebay.  They need a bit of TLC, but some green stuff and lick of paint and they'll be right as rain... which is a strangely appropriate turn of phrase given they're from Albion.
 And finally

A Dark Emissary.  I painted him ages ago, but he's been sting on my desk for ages so I thought I'd put him to good use as a chaos sorcerer.

Well that's it for today.  In the next installment expect some more heroes.  So until next time happy wargaming.
 

Quick Update

This week I've been mostly painting Warhammer Quest monsters.  For this installment I've got a right mixed bag.  So without further a do, lets get on to the mini's.

First up is gw's Sartosan vampire.  I really like this one.  He might look a little bit effeminate with his long robes and ruffled collar, but I personally think he's quite intimidating.  He's covered in armour plates (all very stylized) and has a stake driven though his right shoulder.  I also like the way he's holding his swords in an underhanded grip.  I think he's going to be my new foot general for my vampire counts army.

Next up is a herd of beastmen, again from gw.  I painted these up quick and dirty.  More fodder monsters form my party to chew through.

Finally we have a gigantic spider.  This mini is from Heresy miniatures and its huge.  I have three of these bad boys.  I've included a beastman in the third picture for scale.  I've tried to make it look fleshy and gross... well grosser.  I don't know how this is going to go down at the club, we've a few arachnophobes.  I personally like spiders, their cute... ok that one isn't but real ones are.

Bonus update.

I finished my Victoria of the Ashes.  I love this mini.

Well that's it for now, until next time happy wargaming.

Woot! my gencon order arrived

I got my gencon Malifaux order through the door yesterday.  And boy am I impressed.  I've only assemble the Victoria's thus far and all I can say is wow!

Wyrd have really improved on these plastic boxes.  If you remember back to my Jacob Lynch review the major problems I found with it were no instructions, slotta bases and gaps.  The Victoria's box has none of these.

Also unlike the Dark Debts crew the Hired Swords come on separate sprues.  This really made finding the components for each miniature a lot easier, especially the ronin sprue.  The came 3 to a sprue but were split into 3 sections labeled 1-3.

SOLID BASES! I grinned from ear to ear when I saw these.

 The instructions are very easy to follow.

The cards are still double sided but don't fold, they're also less cluttered with rules.  Which means they fit in card protectors.  The cards are also thicker and better quality.

First up is the Victoria of Ashes.  She is the crew's master.  This model is beautiful.  The sculpt is beautiful, the pose works well.  Not only does she look feminine but she also looks pretty bad ass.  She's my favourite out of the bunch.

Next is the Victoria of Blood.  She is one of this crew's henchmen (there's 2).  I love the pose on this one.  Not too sure whether she's drawing or sheathing her sword, but she looks cool.  She was a little fiddly to put together, getting both halves of the scabbard to fit together was a pain in the bum.

Next is the second henchman Taelor.  I love her massive sledgehammer.  The pose is great, looks like she's just swung that hammer.  Did I mention the hammer was huge?  Another thing I noticed is that she has a mechanical arm.  I never owned the original metal one, but looking at the pictures I always thought it was just armoured.

Next up is the student of conflict.  She's teensy.  Obviously a little girl who wants to be  warrior.  She's covered in books and scrolls and has her glasses sitting on her forehead.  Quite a quirky model.

Last are the ronin.  I love the animesque style sculpts.  The don't look over the top cartoony, look feminine and look quite threatening.  I might pick up another box of these when they come out.  Has anyone noticed that the whole crew is quite leggy?

I love this crew and I think I'm going to use them a lot.  I really can't wait to paint them.  Wyrd have really out done themselves here.  Well I'm going to leave it there for now, and start assembling my Herald of Obliteration box.

I found my camera, update time

Well I'm not dead.  Sorry there's been on updates from me for while.  So what's been going on.  Well I got a new PC.  During the computer swap I misplaced my camera, and since I think that this blog would be a wee bitty boring without pictures, I didn't do any updates.  I also went on holiday.  However I have not been idle.  Prepare for a barrage of pictures.

Lets start on a warhammer quest front.  Its still proving extremely popular at my gaming club.  I've got a hardcore group of 5, whose characters are doing really well.  Especially one guy's home brew warrior priest of Ulrik that has effectively become the hulk, he tanked his way through twelve chaos warriors .  On top of those guys almost everyone else has had a shot, as characters who will occasionally drop in and out when a space becomes available.  And it turns out that calling a barbarian Conan is a death sentence, for some reason they keep dying.  But the games of warhammer quest will be taking a break for a few weeks as our Priest of Ulrik is of to the US for a few weeks.  I'm still going to paint things up while he's gone, I'm determined to kill that priest.  Now onto some pictures.

First up we've got some ghosts from Reaper Miniatures.  I really like the ones with the invisible limbs.

And here are some classic games workshop goblin netters.  I have another 4 waiting to join the queue.

Here's some classic GW mummies.  One of the proved a challenge for my party.  I wonder what all 4 would do to the priest.

And a wad of skeleton archers.  Or fodder as they're role up to now has been.  Would that make them arrow fodder?  Ha ha! I'm hilarious.

Some more heroes. First up is the chaos warrior, which is the armoured Big Boris from Heresy Miniatures.  This one is being played by one of our party members.  Doesn't kill much, but is wearing so much armour that he's immune to S3 attacks.  Next up is a witch hunter from GW.  The only thing I dislike about this miniature is that fact its finecr... I mean finecast.  Admittedly he was a joy to paint.  Lastly we have a female barbarian again from Heresy.  She is very much the valkyrie.  I really like this sculpt, the pose is nice and rather unusually for a female fantasy miniature she's quite curvy.

Lastly is the skaven warlord from the Island of Blood boxed set.  I've had him sitting around for ages and decided it was time to paint him.

Finally here's a bunch of kabalite warriors I painted for a tournament that never actually happened.  

Well that's it for this installment.  Next time more warhammer quest monsters and evil doers.  Until next time happy wargaming.