WarLlama 40k

Monday 14th - Sunday 20th January 2013

Let's get the new releases news out of the way first, next month looks like it's just going to be Warriors of Chaos coming out from GW. Fortunately it's not an army that appeals to me so I can get more painted in February without feeling the urge to splash out on the latest plastics.

From Forge World there's four new Zone Mortalis board sections, Epsilon, Eta, Theta and Zeta. It's great to see more variety but they're still 25 quid a pop which puts them out of impulse range. There's also a couple of embellishments for the boards which add a bit of variety to the already detailed walls.

A while ago I won the crashed aquilla lander set from ebay. I had no idea it was still available on the GW website but thankfully I paid less than it costs brand new, phew. Anyways, it showed up this week and has joined the pile of scenery to work on ready for my gaming table

Speaking of scenery I got another couple of end pieces finished from the wall of martyrs and started on the big emplacement sections. I've got a week off next week (yes, another one!) so I'll have a lot more to show next week. With all this scenery on the go I had to pick up a couple more washes. I'm finding that a nuln oil followed by agrax earthshade gets it looking suitably worn and dirty.

The other stuff that I'd ordered a while ago was some Dark Angels from Total Wargamer. They arrived on thursday which was one of my days off so I got cracking straight away on the Deathwing Knights. They're amazing models packed with cool details, from the shoulder pads matching the shields, to the vents on the back of the body being arch shaped. I'll hopefully get them glued together instead of blu-tacked next week. I also got Asmodai and the casting doesn't look too bad but haven't got him out of the blister yet. After adding up everything I've got so far it comes to around 1100 points, not bad for a set of DV and a couple of extras.

The final thing that happened was a bit of a surprise. I spotted a retweet of a new Magic card and couldn't help but comment on it. My friend @kryptonickWG then started chatting about the game and that rekindled my enthusiasm. I haven't played, let alone looked at, my cards in about 2 years so has been great fun getting back up to speed.
The main reason I stopped was that I wasn't enjoying it as much. It was getting too competitive with everyone bringing top end standard decks to every FNM. I myself was part of that with a pretty expensive Jund deck.
This time around I'm going to keep it on my terms, try not to get sucked into spending hundreds on a deck on cards. I've signed up for the midnight pre-release event for Gatecrash at one of my local stores, Firestorm Games. By a stroke of insane coincidence this set contains the Boros guild, my favourite colour combination of red and white, kerching!

Well on that bombshell I'll leave you for another week. Next time round I'll have a round up of how I got on at the pre-release and how much stuff I managed to get painted on my holiday. Cheers as always for reading.

Monday 21st - Sunday 27th January 2012

Hey folks. Thought I'd write this weeks adventures up a day or so early since I'm in work tomorrow then out at a gig Monday. Currently I'm suffering from massive sleep deprivation from staying up all night playing Magic, not something I'm going to repeat in a long time! More on that later, first there's been genuine hobby progress made this week, so there's not as much filler/news!

I ended up deciding to just part with more cash for plastic crack at the start of the week, so for my first trip down to Firestorm of the week I picked up another Deathwing Command box and a Dark Talon. I had my work cut out with 11 chunky models but I've managed to get all of them cleaned up, glued and primed! At least the first time I use them they won't be bare plastic. I'm hoping I'll find some time after moving to at least get the basecoat down.

On the painting front my mission was to finish some scenery ready for my Realm of Battle so that my army had something nice to die behind. I managed to build up the motivation to finish the bastion finally, and also completed two parts of the Wall of Martyrs box set. I got the bunker and one of the emplacements done. I haven't seen how they look on my board as it's packed away ready to move but hopefully it'll all gel well and look ace. I'll put up some photos once it's all set up.

Before we break into Magic talk, as it's Saturday I was expecting February's White Dwarf but it hasn't arrived. I really thought GW had got their postage issue resolved as it's been consistent for quite a few months now. Guess I'll have to wait and see for Monday.

Finally we come to Magic the Gathering. I think I mentioned it last time round that I haven't played in years, since around the time that Zendikar came out. The Boros legion (red/white) has been a firm favourite archetype of mine for a long time and when I found out this set was going to feature the old Ravnica guilds I knew it was time to jump back in.
Last night I set off in the shitting rain (well, at least it wasn't more snow!) to Firestorm again and arrived at around half 11. It was a fairly uneasy feeling walking into a room of over forty complete strangers on my own but soon got chatting to a few guys. There were 45 of us playing I think so we had 6 rounds, which I was totally unprepared for! I thought I'd be home by 4, 5 at the latest. I managed to drag my weary body back home at around 7 this morning.
Each player got a box from their guild containing a specific pack with cards from their chosen colours, along with 5 booster packs and a spindown die. I'd gone prepared with some fresh sleeves and eagerly went about trying to remember how to build a deck. I managed to get it figured out with time to spare and here's what I came up with - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/boros-gatecrash-prerelease/

I started taking notes after the first couple of games, but by the time we'd finished game three I was too fucked to bother writing anything down. Each of my opponents was great fun to play against, and I ended up winning 3 matches and losing the same amount. This placed me somewhere near the bottom of the pile but I really don't mind that, it was a great way to get back in the game and I'm looking forward to heading to a FNM in the next couple of weeks.

Another week reported on, and it's been a good one. Next week isn't going to be great hobby-wise with the big move into the valleys, but I'm sure something geeky will happen that I can write about. Until then, have fun and have a great week.

Monday 28th January - Sunday 24th February 2013

Well, I'm back. It's been a long time, almost a month in fact. It's been quite a hectic few weeks moving into a new place. I'd forgotten how much work goes into it, from making sure you tell all the relevant companies and relatives where you've moved to, many trips to Ikea (I'm glad I went before they found horse in the meatballs, they complete the whole experience), and almost endless unpacking.

I think we've pretty much settled in and are feeling at home, it's almost like I never lived in the last flat. So here's a couple of photos of the new place just in case you're remotely interested.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Monday before we moved we saw a gig. It was the first bit of live music I'd seen in ages and they were every bit as good as I expected, they were the Joy Formidable. I wasn't too familiar with some of their new tracks but did my best not to look too much like an old man in a crowd of young hipsters.

Another thing that happened was Valentines Day. I decided to consult with my Jamie Oliver collection, and came up the an interesting sounding mozzarella and chilli salad to go alongside homemade pasta with parsnips and pancetta. Apart from the bombsite that was the kitchen after I'd finished I think it all went alright! Anna got me Professor Brian Cox's new book which was lush, he's my favourite person on the telly, and it's a great read. I just need to catch up on the TV series on my week off.

At some point, I can't quite remember when I went down to my local board and card game shop for a night of Magic. It was EDH night (or Commander as it's now known) and it was a huge amount of fun. I definitely think I'll be playing this a lot more than Standard. I took a Naya deck which you can find here.

I don't think I mentioned it in my last blog post but I picked up a Dark Talon for my Dark Angels and got it built. No photos yet but I'm hoping to get some paint on it later this week. I also finally got hold of a copy of Space Hulk from ebay. Whilst still very expensive it certainly wasn't as bad as some auctions I've seen and I'm really happy that I've finally got it. Once I've had a few games I'm planning to build my own terminator squad / warband to add the personal touch to it.

I'll call it a night there I think. Sorry for boring you with a whole heap of non-wargaming related news! Normal service will be resumed next week with an update on my War Room, a game I've got scheduled and hopefully some painting. Laters!

Yep, I'm a whole month late in reviewing this, so I'll try to keep it brief as I imagine that if you wanted to know about what's inside you will have found out by now!

Opening Salvo - Jes is up to his old tricks again, going to great lengths to tell us how great the new models are.

New Releases - The big release this month were the Warriors of Chaos for fantasy. None of them particularly caught my eye, but if I had to pick a favourite I'd go for the Vortex thingy. Speaking of models that aren't what I'm into, there's some new Hobbit stuff including a non-limited edition Radagast. This model definitely isn't as awesome as the one from the box set, but is still sweet.

From the satellite companies we have a few nice releases. A Ciaphas Cain novel featuring the Tau, and the Legion Champion and master of the signals from Forge World.

Army of the Month - I've been looking at these pages for a month now and I'm still not bored. This is exactly the kind of cool shit I want to see in this magazine! It's a well painted army with plenty of kit-bashing and also and very flexible approach to collecting. Using various different 'types' of Astartes and painting them as one unified chapter. Love it!

Jervis Johnson - I think this whole issue is subliminal. Jerv ties in nicely with the previous army by talking about what it's ok to collect. The answer is do what will please yourself. This, coupled with Blanchitsu and the Army of the Month has had a profound affect on my attitude to the hobby over the past few weeks while I've been unable to do any actual hobbying. I always knew that the freedom was there, but I guess I was just always too busy working on army projects and really stop and think. I'm even contemplating buying a Hobbit figure just for the hell of it!

Battle Report - Once again I'm afraid I kind-of glazed over, except for the great shots of the Night Goblins. I think there might've been an issue at the printers as Andrew's army is so black it's almost impossible to make out details.

Blanchitsu - When this article first returned in the new WDs I didn't get it. The models showcased didn't look like they could easily be used in a game so I passed them off as an odd curio from a talented man. Something happened this time around and I realised the joy of modeling for it's own sake rather than as a means to an end (I hope I got my cliches correct!). The minis on display this month were sent in by a reader and are oozing with detail. I'm already planning in my mind the Inquisitorial Warband I'm going to try and make!

Hall of Fame - Juan Diaz' Sternguard are the focus this month. They are amazing sculpts, however I'd probably rate the Tyrannic War Vets over these, but they're not current.

Parade Ground - Continuing on from last month we get some highlights from Golden Demon 2012. Stand-outs for me this time are Adam Haton's Inquisitor, and Kornel Kozak's Skaven.

Kit Bash - This month it's a look at 40k command squads. There's some really cool examples like the kit-bashed Tau suits, with great posing and an inventive use of different bits. Inspiring stuff.

Battle Ground - Four of last years Armies on Parade entries. These must have taken so much time and money. I was happy to see the Deathwing again, with much better photos than I took. Also there's the overall winner, from Cardiff no less!

Paint Splatter - Mostly focusing on Chaos tips but it does branch off to other areas. Much discussion has taken place about how this article lacks the focus of the old 'Eavy Metal masterclasses. It's just a different beast. I prefer to look at it as a handy collection of tips and tricks that you might not think of on your own, and these techniques can then be learnt, adapted and used on whichever minis you like.

Jeremy Vetock - Some people say this is a waste of two pages, that it's not important and that it's nothing that you can't find on hundreds of blogs online. I think it's actually a very important article. It's very rare, probably impossible to find a hobby blog written by a member of GW, and this is an insight into one of the design teams life in the hobby. Yes it's not telling you how to win at all costs, but it is a slice of fun, written in a very personable manner and shows that the designers are still passionate about the hobby the create.

This Month In - The photos in this section are really dark. It's a shame because this is another area where the passion of the Dwarfers really comes across. There's artwork and designers notes about the Warriors of Chaos, but the star of the show in my eyes is the FW section. Abaddon and Loken are previewed (they've been released now though!) and there's shots of an awesome looking Necron Realm of Battle section. I saw it at GD2012 but there was no clue as to when it'd be coming out. Now it's been shown to the masses I really hope it's coming out soon. It'll be a huge amount of fun to paint.

There we go, short and sweet. I'm not sure if you can tell that I think this issue is great, it's packed with ideas, inspiration, non-studio models and plenty of enthusiasm. So on to the score, wait for it, a whopping 9 out of 10. Nice one Jes, Andrew and co.

This month I'm only a few days late, not bad! Let's see if it continues the winning streak from last month, especially since it contains an army I'm part interested in.

Opening Salvo - Jes has toned it down to an appropriate level, and comes across much better for it. The new models are described as being terrific which sums them up and doesn't make me feel like I'm being sold to.

New Releases - Chaos Daemons, so a double release. This has always intrigued me and put me off at the same time. The fact that the minis have to be designed to be compatible with both systems must put a lot of restrictions on the design process but I think they've done a good job of keeping the grimdark in there. It's mostly (well actually only) the Nurgle kits I'm interested in and they look suitably gribbly. The Plague Drones look interesting, but the Herald of Nurgle is amazing, proper nasty stuff. These look like they'll fit in very nicely with the other daemons released a few months ago.

Forge World show us what they've released over the past few weeks, with some of the special units from the Betrayal. I guess the rampagers weren't quite ready when this went to print.

Licensed Games is something slightly different this time. They've released Warhammer Quest for the ipad. I'd seen this back at GD2012 and had a chat to one of the designers, and this might actually be the first app that I pay for. I never played the original boxed game but was very interested in it from reading articles in old WDs.

Army of the Month - A very Forge World heavy marine army this month with a crazy number of superheavies. The scale of it is impressive but I don't feel as inspired by it as last months.

Jervis Johnson - The importance of letting the dice decide. My initial reaction was the think 'why don't you just develop watertight rules in the first place?' Then when I stopped to think about it, a foolproof set of strict rules would be bad (can you tell I'm not competitive yet) as it would greatly reduce the freedom we have in making this game our own.

Battle Report - Daemons v Space Marines. The daemons were a mixed god list but weighted towards Nurgle which I liked, and used the FW plague toads which is cool. The one thing that struck me about the battle was the board. It was a relatively simple set up, one that could be easily achieved by any gamer without a huge budget.

Blanchitsu - More warbands, and another showcase of a hobbyists fantastic conversions. See previous Blanchitsu reviews for appropriate comments.

Hall of Fame - Urien Rakarth is nominated by Neil Green. It's cool to see concept artwork and it's a nice model. As with a lot of these articles I'm not too sure of it's classic status yet.

Parade Ground - Even even more Golden Demon entries. Possibly going too far with this series as it's taken over from the real article for a bit too long. One idea could be to have a Golden Demon section as well as Parade Ground, just showing a single category each month, that way it won't have such an impact on content.

Kit Bash - I thought they'd covered flyers a few issues ago? There's some really neat conversions but I've got a strong sense of dejavu.

Battle Ground - Further showcases from Armies on Parade. The Tau board is very eye-catching. The Imperial Fists are a little underwhelming though.

Paint Splatter - More chaos orientated mini tutorials, how to use the spray gun and the tricky subject of how to paint yellow marines.

Jeremy Vetock - This time round Jeremy talks about what fucks him off. It's an interesting piece as it highlights that things aren't always happy and rosy. Of course it's all done in a tongue-in-cheek manner to keep the mood light, and it was a fun read.

Beth's awesome Raider, not mentioned in the review.

This Month In - Blanche returns to talk about the artwork of Chaos and how this informed the design process. There's talk of inspiration, thought processes and outcomes. The piece about cartography was a nice touch too.
From Forge World there's some great bits that haven't been seen before. The Mechanicum Thallax is intresting, and it's great to see another RoB section in the works. Looks like this one will fit in with the first one.

I didn't feel quite as excited reading this issue as I did the previous one. It's possibly down to repetition more than anything but I'll give it a 7/10.

Monday 25th February - Sunday 3rd March 2013

Yep, it was time for another week of annual leave! I was hoping that I'd be able to squeeze in some hobby time, but knew that most of my days would be taken up with finishing touches to the house.

The biggest thing to happen this week was the completion of the war room. Or mancave, I still haven't decided on its final designation. My initial plans for an 8x4 table fell through when I realised I hadn't taken into account the door being able to open and close. A 6x4 it was then. The next hurdle would be obtaining wood that big. Wickes wouldn't/couldn't home deliver it so I went for three pieces of 4x2 chipboard and a shit load of legs from Ikea. Construction was really easy, and although the end products don't look like much on their own, when covered in my painted Realm of Battle boards I think it looks good.

The other project in my room was to finish unpacking all of my armies into the converted wardrobes. They're a lot deeper than my previous shelving solution so everything has space rather than being piled on top of each other. It's quite dark towards the back of the shelves, but no one is really going to be viewing them so it's all good.

With all of the housework out of the way it was time for some fun. First on the list was downloading Magic Duel of the Planeswalkers on my PS3 (my PSN should be either dijital_llama or dijitalllama if you'd like to add me). This sucked up a lot more time than I'd expected, especially some of the trickier problem solving games. By the time Thursday rolled around I still hadn't picked up a paintbrush, it was time to rectify that!

I got up way too early for a holiday and went into Cardiff with my girlfriend, did some loitering until GW opened up at 10. I would've gone to Firestorm but they don't open until 12 on Thurdays. I picked up a few paints I needed to work on some terrain, I also picked up one of the painting trays, as my old wooden version doesn't fit between the arms of my armchair (and it's used for storage of the growing collection of paints and tools. New equipment in hand I headed off home to work on the Honoured Imperium set, or maybe some more Wall of Martyrs. I couldn't find my large brush anywhere, disaster! Plans scuppered I grabbed the nearly models to hand, 13 Tau Gun Drones and set to work getting this random choice painted up. For such small models they took ages, and I've still only completed the 'shells' with the guns outstanding.

Saturday rolled around and I woke up wondering where my week had disappeared to. After a quick tidy up my mate picked me up and we headed to Cardiff Comic Expo. Our friend Ian was back from Ireland with his girlfriend Dani, they were launching issue #1 of their very own comic Razarhawk! We had a lovely chat catching up on all things geeky, and on life in rural Ireland, even contemplating playing 40k over skype somehow, and picked up a copy of the comic. After an hour or so looking round I also went for a book called 7string, from another (possibly local) artist. After one last visit to Razarhawks stand we returned home where the new reading material was digested and amazed at. If you have a minute please head over to their blog to see just how good it looks, here.

And so we reach the end of the week. More hobby progress made than in the preceding three weeks but still not a lot. However I do feel refreshed, and it's only about a month until my next one! Happy hobbying folks, catch you soon!

Monday 4th - Sunday 10th March 2013

Back to work this week, but the usual horridness of Monday was made better by the knowledge I'd be going home to play my first game with the Dark Angels. We played the kill points mission at 1500. I took Belial, deathwing, deathwing command, deathwing knights, a tactical squad and a dark talon. I was up against a hive tyrant with guard, trygon, some warriors and ravenors, a tyrannofex and lots more mini nids. I didn't record the whole match but here's the highlights. Belial did well deep striking but got taken down by the warriors. My plasma cannon blew himself up. The rift cannon was great but didn't get a chance to use the stasis bomb. The knights are a total beast in combat. We finished at the end of the fourth turn as it was getting late, we ended up drawing.

With that out of the way, what else happened this week? I got tickets for the ForgeWorld open day, I'm really excited to be going again this year to check out the Fall of Orpheus and whatever new Heresy goodies they've been working on.

Still thinking about the recent Blanchitsu articles I went for it and got myself a Cairn Wraith to convert into something Inquisitorial. Although I'm quite tempted to make him a Cryptek. Either way it's a neat little kit with plenty of potential. Whilst we're covering the purchasing of hobby supplies, I don't think I mentioned it last week but I grabbed the Honoured Imperium scenery set. I put it together but didn't get around to slapping any paint on it.

Speaking of painting I tried to carry on with the Tau gun drones and got half way through doing the guns then hit the wall, they're going to go back on the shelf until the new codex comes out. I then proceeded to work on some scenery. I dug out the moonscape craters and managed to finish them in a day. Also got a load of basecoating done on the Wall of Martyrs. So that's finally something finished!

To finish up, I thought I'd include some of the awesome stuff that FW has previewed over the past couple of newsletters. On the Warhammer Forge front they've finally put out the Dwarven Command unit, they look really cool, proper grim and grudge-bearing. The biggie though only got previewed today. The Necron Night Shroud Bomber. It's basically an uber-croissant! I like that it's pilotless, or at least that they're not on show. The finale is the Realm of Battle Tomb Citadel. It's been shown a few times previously in WIP form but we finally get to see the finished thing. It does look mighty impressive, but so is the £90 price tag. That's a whole 15 over their existing RoB section. I'll reserve judgement of it's value for when I see it.

Until next time, happy hobbying!

Monday 11th - Sunday 17th March 2013

Finally, a week where some reasonable hobby shit got achieved. I'm still not making as much headway on the backlog as I'd like but I didn't buy anything and actually finished a couple of bits.

My focus on scenery continued with me managing to not only complete the Aegis Defence Line I bought ages ago (sans quad gun though, that would be pushing it!) but also finished off the Honoured Imperium set. Both were a treat to paint and it's been a nice break from all the fine detail of actual models.

Now I think of it I did make a purchase at the very start of the week. I was listing my old bed on gumtree and thought I'd have a nose at what GW stuff people were offloading. I managed to find a bulk lot of White Dwarfs locally, £25 for almost a hundred issues. A few were duplicates but they were fairly tatty anyway so I don't mind. The issue I now have is storing them. I didn't take that kind of rapid expansion into consideration when I was planning the warrior lodge (Yes, that's the name I've settled on this week for the gaming room).

My tickets for Forge World Open day arrived and this sparked off my thoughts of rekindling a plan for a Heresy Army. I'd planned to just do Ultramarines, but got thinking about my friend starting a World Eaters force and how cool it would be if I did a legion from the Istvaan setting so we could use the campaign in Betrayal. I spent a couple of nights care fully planning a 1000 point list. Deathshroud, legion Contemptor etc. Then I finished Brotherhood of the Storm, the limited time BL novella. I'll try and do a review of it this week, it was great. This meant I could start on Know No Fear, which I'd been meaning to read for ages. Well this blew all thoughts of Nurgle out of the way, the blues in blue all the way! Another couple of nights planning a new 1k list and I was happy. Would be pricey but there wouldn't be any pesky postage.

The list was as follows -
Praetor with Thunderhammer and Boarding shield. I also gave him Pride of the Legion giving me Terminators and veterans as troop choices. This meant I wouldn't have to spend so many points on the basics and could pack in the good shit!
A five man Veteran squad with minimal upgrades. I was thinking that I could get some more exotic weapon choices when the list expanded past this mark.
Five Cataphractii Terminators. Again kept very basic.
A relic Contemptor with twin linked Autocannon.
A squad of 3 jetbikes. These are just plain cool.
Finally, a Land Raider Proteus. It's old school and pretty beefy.

A quite a nice all-round list I thought. I was all settled on it until I woke up on Sunday morning and checked the Shellcase, Tau photos had been leaked and they looked. Badass. Blurry, but most definitely badass. Well that was a fucking spanner in the works. They've rekindled a long time plan to use plenty of FW suits and drones, so that's my mind (probably) made up, a few XV-9's and and extra treats. And just in case you haven't seen them a million times already, here's the leaked shots.

The final bit of news was the preview of a new Black Library novella. Not limited edition, but direct only. It's called Shadowsun: The last of Kiru's Line. By a relatively new author, from what I can tell, it's some bit size blue goodness. I'll be reviewing it as soon as it comes through the door along with the new Fire Caste novel.

As always, cheers for reading.

For the third year running my friend Dean and I headed off to Nottingham at 5:30 this morning with much excitement about the resin treats they'd have in store for us. Sadly our usual accomplaice and guestbook defacer couldn't come this year, what with being off in Ireland.

We arrived at around nine and the queue had already formed. We were around 50th in line and the time flew. As we were let in almost everyone made their way to the sales stand. I'd ummed and ahhed for weeks about my shopping list but in the end made some snap decisions and got a bag full of goodies. Managed to pick up the Fall of Orpheus, a Night Shroud Bomber, three XV9 suits and the Death Korp event only model.

With that out of the way we went straight for the studio area. I'll let the photos do the talking!

Legion Praetor in power and Terminator armour

Praetors from the rear

Reaver Squad (Sons of Horus possibly)

More Reaver Squad

Heresy Era Whirlwind

Minotaurs Contemptor from Fall of Orpheus

And a better shot

Minotaurs special heavy bolter guy

Fellglaive Superheavy

Necron Baby pylon 1

Necron Baby pylon 2

Emperor's Children Palatine Squad

Necron Baby pylon 3

Heresy Landspeeder, from the next book.

Note the weapon options!

Squig lobber!

Dread Maw

So with those out of the way onto the scraps of information I managed to find out...

Imperial Armour 3 - the taros campaign is getting a second edition. It's already at the printers and will contain all tau units according to Talima.
Simon Egan has only got a couple of hours more work to put into Fulgrim then he's ready for release at the Horus Heresy Weekender.
The next Primarch to be done is Ferrus Manus. It's related to him and Fulgrim that he's up before Massacre comes out.
Will is working on an unspecified Mechanicum unit at the moment.
Massacre (horus heresy book 2) is hopefully going to be ready for this years games day.
When I was chatting to Trish about the Warhammer Fantasy stuff, she said that all work on the Battle for Black Fire Pass is halted until further notice.
Simon is solely working on Primarchs for the foreseeable future.
Once the heresy landspeeder is complete, that chap (sorry I've forgotten his name) is hoping to resume work on a new Tau suit, it's size will be between an XV8 and a XV25.
Will Hayes has been working on some Heresy Tartarus pattern terminators. They don't have the aquilla and will have full Betrayal weapon sets released.

Think that's about it really. Now for the random/cool stuff. Thanks for reading folks. Was an epic day and well worth the ticket price. Oh and on non-FW news, High Elves and Lizardmen were missing from the fantasy cabinets. Loads of different 40k armies and units were also absent. The only thing that I can think of that would warrant that would be another campaign, or a universal expansion such as apocalypse!

Standard tourist shot

The Fat Bloke!

Some time ages ago - Now

Well, I've got no excuse like moving house this time. I've just been plain fucking lazy on the blogging front. And now I think about it, in the hobby overall. The good news is that I've got a few posts lined up and my hobby batteries have been recharged.

So, what have I been up to? Certainly not playing any games, although I have got one lined up for at the end of the week which should be cool. There'll be more details about what I've got planned later in the week. I've read a couple of Black Library books and reviews should be coming out at some point this week.

The trip to Nottingham which I wrote about last week was epic as always and I've been slowly building some of my purchases. The XV9 hazard suits are a treat to put together as always, but there's issues with the night shroud bomber where a couple of bits seem to have shrunk. I'm sure Forge World will be able to sort it out in their normal super friendly way.

The Tau codex has been my bed time reading for a while now and it's a fantastic codex. I didn't pick up any of the new models, expect the Cadre Fireblade, since I'd gone a bit mad the week before release and picked up loads of the existing kit.

At the moment I'm still painting my first Devilfish and also building all 24 Fire Warriors. Hopefully I'll get round to building the Piranha and Kroot squad this week too.

There should be another post coming soon with my thoughts on the codex, and also for the White Dwarf that came out the other week. So that is what's coming, fingers crossed I can stick to it.

The final thing I wanted to write about was Battle Systems. If you haven't seen them on the interwebz yet, or seen them mentioned in my blog before I urge you to check them out. Up until now they've been producing some great print-and-build sci-fi interior terrain. They're now gearing up for a kickstarter for a boxed, ready to build set which looks incredible. The box looks like it'll contain tons of pre-printed sections that slot easily together to create space ship interiors or military installations. They're currently still in development but the updates and WIP shots on their blog and facebook are very promising. The multi-level setups really grabbed my attention as they'd be perfect for Necromunda and kill team games.

That's about it folks. I'm not sure I'm going to be continuing with these "weekly" updates in future, I might just go back to posting stuff up as and when. Might mean smaller posts, but a lot more frequent. Cheers for reading!

A direct only novella from a (I think) new to the universe writer Braden Campbell. I leapt on this as a semi-long time tau player and with the new codex release so close. Maybe I was hoping for a few spoilers like Ravenwing did for the Dark Angels. No such luck this time but what I did get was a very compelling read that I couldn't put down.

It started out slightly off kilter with a scene that reminded me of Caliban from the Horus Heresy series. It soon kicked in though with the emergence of Shadowsun and her drones.

The story covers her being effectively stranded on a planet with a handful of earth caste and their attempts to get back to T'au. They're hampered along the way by the local Imperial guard, so there's plenty of firefights. This is where the story really comes into its own. Without any mentions of new technology, Braden fills the pages with swathes of details on existing tau systems, like how an escape pod protects the people inside, to how the tau heal themselves.

I've read comments from other readers that Shadowsun didn't come across as a great main character, mostly down to her rudeness. I think the arrogance of the species was nailed, and the social interactions between the different ranks of fire warriors were spot on, anything different would've felt like a cop out.

The only slight criticism I had was the lack of chapters. It was almost one continuous story, and while the action never really chopped and changed locations, there could've been places where a natural break could've been put in.

I'm glad I got it and would definitely recommend it to other tau players. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be to folks with no interest in the faction, it possibly doesn't have the same universal appeal as say the HH series. A solid 8/10 from my tau-lovin perspective!

I really don't know why it took me so long to finish this book. It was a great read, fast paced, not too heavy on plot, I just never got around to it I suppose.

It was another of Black Library's limited time hardback novellas, written by Chris Wraight and the first time the White Scars have shown up in the Horus Heresy. I think this will be the last of these styles of book I'll buy about a chapter or faction I don't have a massive like for. It came with no added extras such as posters etc but cost the same as Catechism of Hate, the chaplain Cassius novella, which was a shame. But I knew that when I clicked to buy, so mustn't grumble.

The story covers a couple of meetings. The first being two very different 'captains' and that thread of the story follows how their brotherhoods get along, learn from each other and wage war against the Orks.

The other meeting takes longer to set up, and is between an official from the Emperors admin department, and the Primarch of the White Scars himself. There's a big build up about him being uber evasive and hard to track down. Then it turns out he's just hiding in his bedroom! There is a great surprise mystery guest that pops in for a chat, but I won't spoil that for you.

All in all it was a nice read, possibly not worth the price tag, and definitely not worth the ebay prices. But on the stories merit alone it deserves a solid 7/10.

I was mega excited about this novel, finally the Ultramarines would get some Horus Heresy loving properly. I didn't know a huge amount of detail on the battle of Calth other than who was involved and that the boys in blue got their shit well and truly fucked.

The style the book is presented in was a great mechanic, breaking it down into 'marks', basically time-stamped journal entries that made following the planet wide conflict simple, with multiple story threads held together in a common timeline. It also meant stopping and starting was a lot easier.

Old characters made a return on the Word Bearers side, and although the demonic contingent was absent at first they soon got their mutant claws stuck in!

There were plenty of stand out moments, from the return of John Grammaticus, to the descriptions of vast spaceships tumbling out of the sky. The Mechanicum aspects were fascinating as usual, but the stand out moment of the whole book for me was when Ventarius wrenched an assault cannon clean off a land speeder and open fired on a Word Bearer, proper heroic shit.

The novel contains way too many awesome moments to note here, you'll just have to read it to find out. That's why I've kept this review so short. Dan Abnett has done another top job and I can't recommend this enough, whether you're a fan of the smurfs or not. An absolute 10/10!

It feels like its been due for ages, rumours of the fish folks reworking had been bombarding the forums for what seemed like years. All kinds of wild guesses were thrown in with a few nuggets of truth. In the end what we've got is a beautiful hard back codex that's shaping up to be massive fun to play with.

At first glance a lot of the 4th edition idiosyncrasies from the previous codex have been ironed out, such as the compulsory Fire Warrior troops, and the restrictions on the special characters. No new races have been coerced into serving the greater good, but what we did get was a fleshed out, well rounded set of new units, and a sensible jiggling of existing entries.

From the front cover all the way through to the end it's a glorious book to look at. The artwork looks great in full colour and the layout is so much easier on the eye with some cool borders and superfluous details. The ease of finding the information has improved, just like all of the 6th ed codexs, with the reference tables being in the correct place, and the myriad weapon and support systems easily findoutable. Which is good because people are going to want to know what your Puretide Engram Chip actually does!

What Bez did after Happy Mondays

The HQ slots have been greatly expanded with loads of viable choices. Playing with double force org should be fun as you'll get a wide choice of heroes. Unfortunately at lower points levels I think certain choices like the Cadre Fireblade and the special pathfinder are going to be neglected in favour of the crisis commander and ethereals. What could've fixed this was putting the fireblade as a unit upgrade for fire warriors, and allowing dark strider to unlock pathfinders as troops.

Nothing's changed much in the troops slots except the previously mentioned removal of restrictions, and a couple of point and stat changes.

So stealthy they've disappeared

Elites are going to be the slots that consistently get maxed out. The XV8 and XV25 are still there, now joined by the epic Riptide. At the moment I'm just running the original suits but I'm sure I'll cave and get the big boy soon enough. I wasn't expecting any options for the old XV15s but it seems like they've almost totally ignored them in this dex.

Fast attack gets the second standard 6th edition spangly new unit/s, flyers. As with almost every release you get a bomber and an aerial fighter. I'm really liking the look of these, despite them being a complete departure from the Barracuda in terms of looks. Pathfinders get some awesome new drones, I love the idea of slapping the big daddy drone in the top of a Devilfish, reminds me of power rangers combining to create something bigger and better.

If you squint he looks like Greg Wallace with no pudding

Finally, the heavy slot doesn't really see anything new, although plenty has changed. Sky Rays are now a solid contender due to their skyfiring, Broadsides get a tank commander upgrade ala sergeant Cronus. The biggest change though are the broadsides. A brand new kit, new base size, new weapon stats. Again, seemingly highly controversial. To be honest I couldn't give a shit. Just get over it, stop crying and rejoice in the fact it's a sweet looking model with plenty of flexibility now.

So that's my very brief tour of the tau book, and I'm very happy. Let me know what you think.

Just a quickie, since I'm heavily blogging at the moment while I'm on holiday.

Forge World put out their newsletter, and formally released two of the kits that were previewed at the open day. The Tesseract Ark looks immense, it's a really clever model, and although I haven't finished reading the rules properly it's a beast on the battlefield.

The sentry pylon is available in the Fall of Orpheus with three gun options. It looks from this that each will be sold separately, and at a higher price than I was expecting.

Finally we come to the High Elves. Those of you that read my blog know that I dabble in Fantasy and have a very small Dwarf army (no pun intended, well only a little bit!) and with High Elves so easily accessible in the Island of Blood box I can see these being really popular.

Really like this, and extended flying rods too!

Eagle chariot thing

Maiden Guard

Alarielle

Army Shot

Phoenix and some other bird

I've wanted to be part of a campaign for almost as long as I've been playing Warhammer. I don't mind if I'm organising it or simply taking part. The idea of a narrative, and one battle leading to the next is hugely appealing. Unfortunately my gaming group is rather small, there's only two of us at the moment!

For the past few weeks I've been scouring the net for ways that others have introduced this idea into their games. I've found a huge wealth of information and ideas, from single player missions (which I'll be posting about very soon) through to grand multi-player events spanning years.

What I've ended up coming up with is a fairly modest campaign, highly story driven, that will be wrapped up in a handful of games. It utilises the Planetary Empires set, however a pen and paper would be equally suitable for tracking, I just prefer the visual representation the tiles give.

The set up is simple. An odd number of hex-tiles (or areas on a map) are put together. the layout isn't overly important. They could be arranged in a rough circle, or placed one leading to the next, like a pathway. The odd number serves to ensure there is a clear winner at the end.

Unlike most other campaigns, neither player starts with any territories, so no flags are placed on the map. Only when one player defeats the other will they plant their flag to mark the conquest of that location. Games are fought until every tile has a flag, and the winner, naturally, is the player who has the most.

More often than not, the best course of action is to keep nominating an unclaimed area of the map to fight over so that you can edge one step closer to victory. There is however the option to nominate a location already won by the enemy. This opens up the tactical options, and will hopefully stop any total flattening of poor generals like myself! It also stops the feeling that it's just a best-of-three series of games. The only downside is that the controlling army gets to pick their Warlord trait, implying that they're better prepared for receiving the enemy.

There are no campaign turns as such, when you're deciding where to fight simply roll off on a D6, and the winner picks the battle.

These are the rules by which I'll be trying to run a small campaign for my friend and I. I've kept the rules simple as I plan on going heavy on the background, the stories, homebrew missions, and to be honest just to try things out. If this is a success then I'll be upping the ante and throwing in more ideas for the next one.

The next post in this series is going to outline our specific campaign. Where we're fighting, who is fighting, and so on. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

In my previous post I said I'd return with a closer look at the campaign I'll be running, and here I am! It's set on a planet called Thrask, a small world on the outskirts of the Caerphillax sector towards the Eastern Fringe.

What I'm hoping is that I can, over time, develop this region of space in much the same way as FFG have done with their own private sector of the Imperium. That's for the future though, for now I'm starting small, with just a single planet.

In the previous post I mentioned about how to create your warzone, and that's exactly what I've done. There's five areas of conflict, and if there's no funny business we should be finished in 5 games. Knowing us that'll take a few months to accomplish but at least that'll give me the time to invent the missions and write up the background lore each time.

I'm going to be playing my Tau this time. I haven't picked up any of the new shiny stuff, so my lists will be fairly straight forward (except the XV9's!) and my friend should be using Chaos Marines. I know that he's working on a Heldrake at the moment, and has mentioned a Defiler a couple of times so to be honest I'm shitting myself about being out of my depth. It should prove to be an interesting series of battles, mostly because it'll be the first time we'll have played both using 6th edition codexs.

The first section on the map to be fought over will be the starport as it would be a key strategic asset. The game is scheduled for this Sunday and there will be a couple of posts leading up to it, and a couple of posts afterwards. In the run up there will be the mission briefing, followed certainly by my armylist, possibly one from the Chaos side too. Afterwards there'll be two lore based pieces. One being a short story about the events leading up to the battle, the second being about the battle itself. After that I might do a really quick regular battle rep and show you guys how the campaign is moving along.

This is the first mission of the mini campaign. It should be easy for anyone to replicate, and the fact that it's a starport can easily be changed to a different type of facility such as a military compound, weapons silos etc.

THE ARMIES
Choose armies as per normal, with the exception that no Fortifications are allowed.

THE BATTLEFIELD
The deployment map is fixed as Hammer and Anvil.

An odd number of Imperial Bastions and Skyshield Landing platforms need to be set-up in the middle of the board. These should not encroach on either player's deployment zones.

Set-up remaining terrain either by consensus or using the random method.

DEPLOYMENT
Before deploying their forces, players should first roll for their Warlord Traits, and then deploy.

FIRST TURN
The player who deployed their army first goes first, unless their opponent can Seize the Initiative.

GAME LENGTH
This mission uses variable game length.

VICTORY CONDITIONS
At the end of the game, the player who has scored the most Victory Points wins the game.

Primary Objective
At the end of the game, each Bastion or Landing Pad held by any Infantry model or unit is worth 2 Victory Points to the controller player.

Secondary Objectives
Slay the Warlord, Linebreaker.

MISSION SPECIAL RULES
Night Fighting, Reserves.

The planet of Thrask was under the rule of the Imperium. Not that you'd be able to tell by casually looking. Due to its fairly small and innocuous size it was often overlooked. It had no vast deposits of materia to fulfil any imperial tithes. It's strength lay in its inhabitants. Although introduced to concepts of the wider Imperium, the lack of governance meant they remained much as they had been for centuries. This detachment made them ideal in o'Ralai's eyes for annexing into the ever expanding Tau Empire. With a little coercion they would make excellent Gue'vesa.

On board his Custodian class carrier and in conjunction with his ethereal council a plan was formed to make planet fall and introduce the local populace to the concept of the greater good. A concept he was sure they would embrace after being essentially ignored for so long by the oppressive humans.

Due to the lack of any real governance from the departmentus administorum, certain traits in the general populace of Thrask had gone unnoticed for generations. It was also a trait overlooked by the naive and some would say, ignorant, Tau. Psychic ability was rife, and also unchecked. On any other imperial world this would have been identified at an early stage, black ships would ferry back and forth, shipping the dangerous individuals to Terra where they would either be developed to serve the Imperium in life, or to be fed to the Astronomican to keep the Emperors guiding beacon shining.

It was this unchecked pool of psychic ability that had slowly been drawing the attention of the warp. Strange beings in the immaterial realm had taken notice and were hungry. Even if they all were devoured by the onslaught of the armies of Chaos, or twisted and enticed to forgo their souls to the chaos gods, it mattered not.

O'Ralai ordered the air caste in charge of his fleet to ready the Mantas, prepare the Orcas, and outfit the suits ready to make planet fall. As the sun set they launched their stealth invasion, the cover of darkness providing much needed cover. Although he was certain the Gue'la wouldn't have any anti-air capability he wasn't willing to take any risks. The landing site was a stretch of flatland surrounded by a crown of rocky outcrops and few miles to the west of the planets star port. Under advisement from his friend Aun'Li the subtle approach was chosen rather than just dropping the entire might of the Tau directly on top of the facility. The distance wouldn't pose any kind of inconvenience, the fast moving troops he was taking with him would cover the ground in no time at all.

As they disembarked from the huge transports and formed up into cadre groups the evening sky took on a sinister tinge. Out of nowhere clouds rolled in over the hills, and lightning erupted, closely followed by a thunder that raged harder and longer than the venerable commander had ever heard. At first he thought they had grossly underestimated the local population, and many of his cohort went to ground, taking up firing positions as the Piranhas and Tetras gunned they're engines and shot off into the distance to assess to situation. After a number of rai'kor that felt like an age, and no sign of any military retaliation, the order was given to resume advancing. The adverse weather conditions proved to be an unexpected ally, masking the noise of their propulsion systems as the advance party crested the hills surrounding their target. Little did they know that the Tau weren't the only beings interested in this vital piece of infrastructure.

As the star port and the surrounding landscape was revealed the fire caste halted for the second time within the hour. What they saw made no sense to their warp-neutral minds. The freak weather conditions were not coming from the sky, they were emanating from the fields almost directly on the opposite side of the port to them. Although thick fog and smoke billowed everywhere, and would've hindered the visuals of a less advanced race, the black sun filters of the tau easily pierced the smog and what they saw chilled them to the core.

Out of the swirling, tempestuous mists emerged myriad shapes. Some vaguely recognisable to o'Ralais hunter cadre as Astartes, others so alien and twisted they were beyond classification. Foul nightmare creatures apparated out of thin air, their hisses and cries carrying clearly over the stretch of space separating the two forces. Huge war constructs started their ponderous journey towards the outbuildings of the starport, and the Tau commander knew it wouldn't be human resistance to cause them trouble. Over internal comms he gave the final order, and the battle commenced...

(This is my first real attempt at creating a story, so please excuse my amateur ramblings!)

As I hadn't bought any of the newly released Tau kits, the army I took to try and capture the first location of our campaign was quite a straightforward, unflashy affair, but with some Forge World treats included...

Commander o'Ralai - My Warlord and lone ranger since he's no longer an Independent Character.

2 XV9 Hazard Suits - My recent purchases from Forge World open day. One was equipped with standard twin-linked burst cannons. The other with two fusion cascades. They shall hopefully be being updated in the soon to be released Taros Campaign 2nd edition.

2 squads of Fire Warriors, both in Devilfish - These were going to be my objective grabbers. Fast and with good saves thanks to Jink and Disruption Pods.

Kroot Squad - This was a test run to see if they could hold their own, or if I should just stick to the Tau proper.

3 XV8 Crisis Suits - I armed these for middle range shooting, plenty of missile pods, with a plasma rifle, flamer and fusion blaster thrown in for any situation.

Hammerhead - I've never fielded one before, and with the threat of what my friend would be bringing I thought the strength 10 shots would help massively.

Ethereal - Morale boosting rather than everyone taking bonding knife rituals.

Piranha - Armed with a fusion blaster this skimmer was to be a suicide unit, getting to a threat quickly and hopefully taking it out.

2 XV8 Crisis Suits - These were armed in a much more specific way than the previous team. Twin-linked fusion blasters, a couple of plasma rifles and a pair of shield drones. These were going to be the deep-striking monster killers, fingers crossed.

On the Chaos Marines side, I don't have a complete list of what was taken, but the general impression is still there.

Daemon Prince with wings.

Defiler.

Maulerfiend.

Small squad of cultists.

Marines, with a Heavy Bolter and Plasma gun.

A dreadnought/Hellbrute.

Small squad of Chosen.

A Squad of possessed.

And finally a lone Obliterator.

And there you have it. With that, the scene is fully set for the first battle of the campaign to see who will reign supreme over the planet of Thrask. Next up is the actual battle report, and more narrative based off it. Cheers.

Warllama Weekly Issue 9

Warllama Weekly Issue 10

WW#11 - Moving, Meatballs, Music, Magic and a Man-Crush

White Dwarf (398) - February 2013

White Dwarf (399) - March 2013

WW#12 - Mancave, Tau Gun Drones, Razarhawk.

WW#13 - Forge World, Scenery, and an actual game.

WW#14 - Finished Scenery. Tau Leak. Indecision.

Forge World Open Day 2013

WW#15 - Tau, Tau, Battle Systems

Shadowsun - The last of Kiru's line

Brotherhood of the Storm

Know No Fear

Tau Empire Codex Review

High Elf leaks / Necrons from Forge World

Starting a 2 player campaign - Rules overview

The Taking of Thrask - Campaign details.

Starport Scramble - The Mission

Prelude to the Starport Assault

Forces present at the Starport Assault