One of the many true joys of my Squat army, is that they’re tiny models. They double up beautifully in the standard GW cases, rather than struggling one-to-a-space like my 40k Orks.
Means a whole 1750 point army can fit in a case, with a layer spare for my Cryx, and then some. Means games don’t entail logistics problems, or lugging cumbersome bags on train stations. It means they can be surreptitiously slid under my desk without attracting quizzical glances.
Cute Bad Moon Fighta Bombas. Wooo, they’re the tiny Epic 40K era ones, not Forge World’s ginormous Aeronautca Imperialis ones. I love them.
They might get some snow on their bases to match my other Epic army, and (as-yet-unmade) personal gaming board. And they’re not varnished yet. I’ll give them nice matt finishes, and then high-gloss cockpits.
I’ve always favoured brash, bright schemes for miniatures. They should be colourful and vibrant, not drab. If you carefully paint a miniature in a subtle came scheme and place it on the table, then it disappears. No-one can see them, and the visual spectacle of the army is gone. Doubly so with 6mm scale – the infantry models are the size of clumps of basing material, and get lost.
This Bad Moon army will stand out a mile.
My Squats have taken once again to the field of battle! As the sun has now set on 4th ed 40K, my Squats appeared at Toy Soldier VII in Preston to take on all-comers.
They were joined by their regular friend, Inquisitor “Hood” Hargen, helping bulk them out to the 1750 pts required and defending their minds with his titular Psychic Hood. As I was also fielding a Callidus, Hargen was promoted to Lord Inquisitor, and had a mandatory retinue of suitable oldskool models, inclusing this old Judge Dredd Ape Gangster Citadel produced under licence in the 1980s. Here he is failing to kill an Eversor with a banana.
Vikarius’s Battle Cannon mercilessly obliterating the Sister Troops choices. Although we were playing 4th edition, the missions were based on the 5th edition hearsay floating around at the time the rulespack was put together. That meant Troops were exterminated with extreme bias.
And here they are, fighting against some Classic Space Wolves. Old lead models with beards. Most of these Space Wolves were released in the Rogue Trader era. Lovely.
At the end of the tournament, they’d managed 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses. That’s impressive for Squats. Have to reconfigure them for 5th ed now.
In site news, I fluffed up the end of my six-month hiatus by missing it by a whole 4 days. Oops. There’s been a bit of behind-the-scenes cleanup going on, and some changes will be coming int effect soon. Keep watching this space.
Sillily I gave all my bases to the club to base up the many many trees we have. This has left me without any 40mm round bases the stick my exo-armoured models on now I’m experimenting fielding them as Grey Knight terminators.
The Crypt was all out of the bases, as was the local Games Workshop. I phoned every GW store in the area, and none of them had any. Word on the street is that they’re discontinuing the packs dedicated to just one base type and replacing them with blisters that give you a little bit of everything. Not very useful.
And while I’m moaning, it’s impossible to navigate to the store locator on the UK GW site. And when you do get there having to use your Google-Fu, they don’t even have the opening hours listed, so you have to phone. Not at all helpful.
Luckily, Glenn came to my rescue, kindly furnishing me with enough bases for the squad. Here he is forced into the bright daylight of a gorgeous Saturday morning
Cheers Glenn!
Tomorrow’s list.
Got to drop the extra armour on the Rhino and Russ as it’s not modelled on, and I can’t bring myself to blu-tac plasticard to their sides.
Matt and I have been busy this last month getting our forces ready for the Games Workshop Doubles Tournament. For those of you unfamiliar with Doubles, it’s two allied 500 point forces that have to conform to awkward restrictions for the 2nd elites, fast attack and heavy support choices. The real challenge of the event is choosing two forces that complement each other. Me and Matt chose Orks and Dark Eldar.
Orks and Dark Eldar? How can that be justified fluffwise? Well, to make things even more bizarre we threw something else into the mix … Genestealers.
Once upon a time, a cunning Haemonculus had come across some Genestealers, those six-limbed aliens famous for stealing genes. His experiments splicing the Stealer DNA with his own creations weren’t successful, creating only horrible deformed Eldar/Stealer hybrids (for which Matt had modelled up some Grotesques). The Eldar physiology wasn’t tough enough, but their Ork slaves’ was…
It all fits nicely together modelling-wise. The Dark Eldar Warrior plastics even have five crests on their helmets, making them look niddy.
My Stealer/Orks (Greenstealers) will be developed over the coming year into an complete and independent force. More pictures to follow when I’ve finished modelling all their new trophies on.
Trophies! Yes, they’ve got trophies from the many enemies they hideously butchered. Our weekend’s Doubles gaming went rather well. We won four of our six games, managing to climb as high as table 6 for the last round before being smacked down by Allen and Nathan’s Taudar. I did manage to shoot down a Holoed-up Prism though, as Allen had cockily parked it on top of impassible terrain where a its vectored engines did nothing to help my lucky immobilised result. With the new Ork Codex out that Kan will be getting a Kustom Mega Blasta made out of a Prism Cannon.
Nice thing about playing Doubles is the second player. We were able to spot the flaws in each others’ tactics, and we could draw upon twice as much experience. I definitely want to do it again. Hope Matt does too, (not that my constant disregard for his advice cost us any games).
Roll on the 2008 Season.
This last month I’ve been playing an awful lot of Battle for Armageddon. It was one of the three “Wargame Series” boardgames released by Games Workshop in the early 90′s (the others being Horus Heresy and Doom of the Eldar).
But it’s not a proper copy, I downloaded it from Games Workshop’s site and printed it off. It was originally stuck up on the site back in 2000 as part of the hype surrounding the Third War for Armageddon campaign. But with the new Ork Codex round the corner Jerv’s drawn our attention back to the ability to download and print off our own copies. You can get it from Games Workshop here.
It’s a bit of a bitch to assemble. Rather than put any thought into digitising the game, it was just scanned in warts and all. (One of the Ork Strategy Cards reads “BUILDING AND MOVMENT” – which I love.) Then, whichever bright spark chopped up the board made all the pieces different sizes. And cropped off some of the edges. And the counters don’t line up.
But hey, it was free. What do you expect?
It’s a great little tactical game, with a surprising amount of depth. You have to think ahead, like Gothic and Aeronautica. You choose Strategy cards detailing what four actions your counters will make in the coming turn, without knowing what your opponent’s are, or what who’ll play theirs first. It can also form the bases for a tightly-structured 40K and Epic campaign, which is interesting.
With my post-GT 40K funk it’s been a great game to bring along and play. As it’s just a folded card map and a bag of counters I’ll be keeping it in my gaming satchel for those nights I can’t find a board.
But that’s not the best bit. In the Chaos Attack supplement it lets you play as Squats. Corr!
I had my first game of Apocalypse over the weekend. I took my Squats, who took to the battle alongside Booker’s Wulfen (who deployed next to the Squats on account of them both having facial hair), Craig’s Cobra Commandoes and Ben’s Tank Company.
We faced off against Matt’s Night Lords, John’s Word Bearers, my loaned Thousand Sons, and Ben’s mighty Daemonic Warhound.
Warmaster Gorun attempted a daring manoeuvre to combat this Daemonic Warhound. He tunnelled directly behind it in the incredibly thin strip between the rear armour and the board edge. Luckily the scatter dice came up HIT. (Not so lucky was his lieutenant Magnus Ulthang, who attempted exactly the same tactic but scattered and ended up very dead). Gorun and his command squad were placed in a prime position to deliver a deadly payload!
No, not Gorun’s trusty Boltgun.
No, not the squad’s flamer (which was, for the first time ever, in range).
No, not even his medic’s laspistol.
Gorun was toting a vortex grenade. How very retro.
With the Imperial forces stripping the engine of its void shields Warmaster Gorun threw his grenade with verve and gusto!
It went horribly wrong, missed, scattered backwards and subsequently sucked the mighty Squat hero into the Warp. No getting back from that with bionics.
Despite that, the Imperial won the day, and much fun was had by all.
Matt’s put a full write-up on the Dice Not Blog. Have a read here.
There’ve been no news posts since Heat 3. I’ve even been getting phone calls from people desperate to know.
Turned up Friday afternoon after travelling down with Flame On, and ran straight into Team Ireland. If anyone would be in Bugman’s before Flame On it would have to be the Irish. We first met them back in Poland at the European Team Championships. Rog bears an uncanny resemblance to a number of my Squats…
I was worried about going against Tau so I played a friendly against Craig with his 13 Crisis Suits. I’m still no clearer on how on Earth majority toughness, casualty removal and drones all mesh together but it was a fun game with a friend over a Guinness.
It was this social side of the tournament I enjoyed the most. Chilling en masse in the bar, playing Risk at Bugman’s, rocking out at Rock City stripped to the waist. The weekend was really two nights out interspersed with daytime 40K. As people wanted to qualify for the finals the atmosphere was tense, like an exam hall. Intense concentration with a time limit. Work hard, play hard. Well, er, play 40K hard, play hard.
The Saturday things were looking good, one win, one loss, one draw. I’d triumphed against the dreaded Lash of Submission thanks to Inquisitor Hood and his trusty Psychic Hood. Overnight I was scraping into the bottom of the qualification window and there was everything to play for. Importantly, 3 fun games. Intense, but fun.
Sunday morning. Started with Harelquins in a Holo-Falcon. I hate Holo-Falcons. Well, it actually started in Rock City, but nevermind. I’d managed to infiltrate my Veterans’ Lascannons within direct LoS of his stationary Falcons and would have shafted them had I got the first turn. Well, I didn’t and I lost horribly. I could no longer qualify. Game over man.
I don’t feel to great about my Squats any more. Perhaps I only have myself to blame. Somewhere along the way I destroyed my real Squat army by tuning and optimising the list to compete in the GT environment. Warmaster Gorun, my favourite Squat model ever was left at home with his command squad. My Techpriest Enginseer and his Chimera were left as neither were scoring units. My Mole Mortars Squadron were dropped as they weren’t AP3. My Rapier Laser Destroyers were replaced with standard lascannons for fear of being pulled up on WYSIWYG. The army was topped up with models painted in just 3 block colours to meet the minimum painting standard. I squeezed the life out the army, and refused to display it at lunchtimes as I was ashamed.
I had started to embrace the win-at-all-costs mentality, and then failed to win. It’s a dangerous path. My Squats will soon retire from the tournament circuit and be replaced with an army that won’t be corrupted by the tournament mentality. I’m not cut out for top-end tournament play.
Congratulations to Christian Bale for Best Army. He’s White Dwarf’s Graphic Designer so he’s turbo-cool.
