Project Redemption Update

Been busy for the past few weeks with school but I did find some time to put together a document for the Project: Redemption over at the Bolter & Chainsword Dark Angels forum.

See the thread here (I post at the Bolter & Chainsword under the name Deathwing, proud to be member #1155 over there!)

The project itself aims to bring Codex: Dark Angels on par with the other marine codices. So far the document I put together adjusts points costs and special rules to match what is currently available. The hardest part is adjusting the points cost of our special characters, the Deathwing and the Ravenwing as no other marine book really has a counterpart or unit that is comparable.

It is a living document so I expect to be updating it often based on feedback from the forum and whoever else playtests it. The people over at the Bolter & Chainsword hope to eventually convince GW to release some kind of Errata/FAQ/PDF Update based on our efforts with this project (they did before with the 3rd edition Dark Angels book so hopefully they do it again with the 4th edition book).

The document, if you want to try it out is located here

Pictures from Orctoberfest

A week late, but I finally sorted through my pictures.

Orctoberfest 2010

Again thanks to everyone who came out! It was great to see everyone having a good time and playing some good games! I'm already planning for next year and hopefully more people come out. Lots of prizes this year and hopefully the same amount or more next year!

Orctoberfest Aftermath

My first tournament as an organizer is finally done. Being an organizer is so much different than being a player.

From the sounds of it everyone had a great time and would come back again next year. I certainly hope so as I do plan on doing it again next year but with some changes

Eve of Orctoberfest

So at last the Orctoberfest tournament has rolled around. My gosh does it ever take a lot to organize a tournament and so many things can and do go wrong. From making sure we have enough terrain to finding out we now have an odd number of players it certainly is quite an adventure organizing an event like this and it's not even that big!

Oh well, looks to be great and all the players are super excited to start bashing some heads come Saturday. I've still got some last minute things to print out (totally forgot to do it at my work place as they have a really fast photocopier) and still have to find someone to fill in the missing player. I'd do it myself but I kind of want to circulate and be the resident rules lawyer. We'll see what happens tomorrow morning.

Seeding in smaller Warhammer tournaments

Every tournament I've played in has always gone 6 rounds unless it's been a GW one (i.e. 'Ard Boyz) which goes for less (usually 3). This of course is usually enough to determine an undefeated player by the end (6 rounds is good for 33 - 64 people) but can cause problems for tournaments with 32 people or less.
That's because you could have multiple people with records of 5-1 and one person may not necessarily have an undefeated record. Only a problem if you don't have enough prize support and generally smaller tournaments don't.

So what is the solution?

Waaaaagh Boneparta!

So I decided to start a new army for 40k after playing Dark Angels for over a decade (no I am not getting rid of my Dark Angels, my wife knows I've tried but they keep sucking me back in). I had picked up the Black Reach Warboss pretty cheap a while back and have now just decided to add to his Waaaagh.

The first additions, a trio of Killa Kanz made from Kinder Surprise eggs!

Battle Foam Sponsors Orctoberfest 2010

I'd like to give a big shoutout to the folks at Battle Foam for agreeing to provide sponsorship to the Orctoberfest 2010 tournament up here in Prince George BC!

So if you guys are in need of a product to carry your army, go and check out their website as they carry quite a lot of cool stuff designed to make transporting your army easier and safer!

BSG & Trek Firestorm Ships Updated

Just remembered (after someone emailed me asking for the BSG ship stats) that I updated the ships I created for Firestorm Armada. My gaming group has adopted them and so far everything appears to be balanced internally (i.e. these three are balanced with each other, but may not be with the actual Firestorm Armada ships).

One of the group is taking his hand at designing ships for the Stargate universe but he's finding out that balancing the game stats with what is seen in the show is a lot harder than it looks.

Battlestar Galactica Colonial Fleet

Klingon Imperial Fleet

Starfleet

Again, some of the stuff is non-canon (most of the BSG stuff is) so it was really left up to my group and I to decide what each ship did.
For the models, I took everything in the Armoury's stock for BSG and Trek, though some things aren't in the store yet (like the Trek battleships)

Codex: Dark Angels Upgrade project

Interesting post on the Bolter and Chainsword's Dark Angels sub forum. (linky)

Tired of waiting for GW it looks like the Dark Angels from the B&C are banding together to put together a homebrew update for the marines in green, black and bone. I'm kind of optimistic about this project as prior to this initiative there was no real coherent objective as far as updating the codex goes (or at least no one put the effort to put everything together in a nice package?).

The B&C Dark Angels did get GW to update the 3rd edition codex to 3.5 so I'm really hoping, as a community, that the Dark Angels can pull it off again and get our 4th edition codex updated to 5th edition standards. Not really hoping for new and unique units at the moment, just an update to some of the standard wargear and units that are common throughout all the marine books.

Time to put on my thinking hat and see what I can contribute.

Orctoberfest Sponsors!

Orctoberfest 2010 now has sponsors! Both stores are gaming stores in Prince George BC and have helped to promote and nurture the wargaming hobby in this region of Canada. They have great staff and both stores offer open gaming at all hours. If anyone stops by in Prince George (i.e. on the way to Alaska) feel free to swing by one of these two establishments!

Armoury Toys & Hobbies

Great White Entertainment

Librarian, Vanguard & Orctoberfest!

Sometime last week I finished my Librarian and Vanguard for the Bolter & Chainsword's Call of the Imperium painting challenge. Though I couldn't have done it without my wife's help as we were both up the night before it was due finishing up the final details and bases.

To recap, I vowed to finish a squad of Deathwing, a Librarian in terminator armour and a Vanguard squad.

Pictures below.

Deathwing Librarian & Vanguard WIP

Still working on these two units for the Bolter & Chainsword's Call of the Imperium. I have until tomorrow to finish them but I think I can do it. Painting Space Marines is so much easier than painting Bretonnian Knights.

I think if I start another fantasy army I will pick an army that is easy to paint, maybe something like Skaven. Being dirty rats should be easier to paint than the colourful (and somewhat more detailed) knights.

Anyways latest progress below.

Firestorm Armada & Ship Design

I spent some time last week mulling over the various starship models available at my friends store and making up their stats using the rules found in Firestorm Armada.
The store has a lot of starship models available (see store here) and I took on the challenge of writing up the rules for his Battlestar Galactica ships.

Painting Knights

Started painting some of the Bretonnian Knights I've had sitting on my shelf for a while now. Boy do I ever hate painting these things. The models are great, but painting each knight differently slows the entire process down considerably.

I did my best to assembly line the whole process so it's going a little faster than how I used to paint Bretonnians (one knight at a time), but it is still way more time consuming than painting my Dark Angels or space ships.

Pics below of what's been accomplished so far.

All cavalry Bretonnians dead? It'll come back and bite you in the ankles!

Alrighty, got myself a copy of the Warhammer Fantasy 8th rulebook and I've had some time to think about how my Bretonnians are going to be run for 8th.

For the longest time I ran almost pure cavalry armies starting in 5th (when the Bretonnians were re-introduced). It was two units of archers and the rest of my points was put into knights of various types. Kind of a one-trick pony which was fun at first but got boring quickly (both for me and my opponent).

Firestorm Armada - opinion after a few of games

Got a few games in of Firestorm Armada this weekend. We didn't use the actual fleets that are in the Firestorm universe as we didn't have any of the models. So instead we used the ship design rules found in the main rulebook to create the Starfleet and Klingon ships that my friend gave me.

I tweaked the rules from the ones I posted earlier and they can be found here. All our games were cruisers vs. cruisers/frigates games so no battle ships.

Bretonnians in 8th Game 2

Warhammer break over, met up with my dwarf friend this past weekend and played another game of 8th with my Bretonnians. I kept the same list but I swapped out the 24 bowmen for a third trebuchet (would have taken more but only 3 max) and upgraded my foot Damsel for a prophetess.

I took pictures this time which will help me remember what happened in each turn!

Firestorm: Star Trek

A follow-up to my post from yesterday. As I said I am painting some starships for a friend of mine as he wants me to demo Firestorm: Armada for his store.

I've been given a small fleet of Starfleet vessels and Klingon vessels from his store and here's my work in progress on the Starfleet vessels.

My 5th Deathwing Squad & Starships!

I took a break from 8th Edition Fantasy for a bit as I need to think about how the Bretonnians will work in this edition of stubborn infantry blocks (or just sell them and get high elves, if I get two boxes of Isle of Blood High Elves I can have a full 2000+ army depending on characters and magic items!).

In the meanwhile I am catching up on some painting that I need to do for the Bolter & Chainsword's annual (well it seems like an annual thing) Call of The Imperium painting challenge. As part of my vow I need to complete a Deathwing squad, librarian and vanguard squad by the end of July. My Deathwing squad was completed today.



I have also started working on painting some starship models as one of my friends (who also runs one of the gaming shops I frequent) asked me to help demo the relatively new starship wargame, Firestorm Armada. I've written the rules for his starships using Firestorm Armada's create a ship rules and I'll post them up later on (along with pics of the ships I am painting).

Bretonnians in 8th after 1 game

So had the opportunity to play a game of 8th edition on Sunday. Boy was that long, I think it took us almost 3 hours to play 6 turns at 2250. Mind you we didn't know the new rules completely so there was a lot of checking and stuff.

Bretonnians and 8th edition: First impressions pre-FAQ

Yay 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy is upon us! Maybe it's time to brush off the old Bretonnian army I have sitting around. Only had a brief look at the rules plus what everyone else on the internet has had to say about the new rules and I haven't played a game yet so my analysis of the Bretonnians is definately not in depth at all.

Tournaments & SuperSystem!

Sad news for me. The two tournaments I've been prepping for are a no go. The organizer for the one at the end of June had some trouble getting the tables ready (basement flooded and couldn't finish them) and my wife couldn't get time off to make the road trip to the 2nd at the beginning of July.

Oh well, I was thinking of going to Astronomicon in Vancouver in August but they are allowing VDR and ignoring the official GW FAQs and Erratas. Not exactly a level playing field (though I suppose the GW FAQs don't really level things at all but at least they clear some things up)

In place of tournament prep, my friends and I have started to read the rules for SuperSystem 3rd edition.

A Draw! vs. Chaos 1500 points

Only managed one game this weekend. Against the same chaos opponent from last weekend (I'll call him Tzeentch to protect his identity as he plays a Tzeentchy list). He's learning and I have to say it was a good game. I ended up eking out a draw this time rather than the usual ROFLstomp that happens.

Oddly enough that made me very happy.

How do you improve the competition?

My wife recently commented to me that whenever I play pickup games at the stores I frequent, I more often than not win. Not to mention the victories are incredibly lopsided. She went on to say that the only times I ever seem to lose are at tournaments where the competition is no doubt a lot fiercer.

This got me thinking about how I could improve the competition in my area.

1500 point battle vs. Chaos #2

Second game against another Chaos opponent this past weekend. This time my foe was sporting an undivided build with lots of ordnance.

1500 point battle vs. Chaos

Got two games in this past weekend in preperation for a 1500 point tournament at the end of the month. I posted two lists earlier but I forgot to bring the models I needed (forgot the sponsons for the predator and some of the combi-weapon models for the wolfguard list).

I suppose I could have proxied them but to avoid confusion and maintain WYSIWYG I made a new list with the Dark Angels codex.

It's not what I would have liked to use and hardly ideal I think for 1500 points.

1500 point Tournament Army Lists

At the end of June I'm hoping to attend a tournament at the 1500 points level. Nothing too big, about 16 people are projected to attend.

I've got two lists I'm thinking of testing out.

Pre-Heresy Dark Angels

While surfing the web before breakfast I chanced upon this nifty project log.

Pre-Heresy Dark Angels

Belongs to a gaming acquaintance of mine here in northern BC. Looks pretty darned amazing. Can't wait to see the entire thing done.

Ravenwing Attack Quads/Thunder-quads

Despite not being able to go to the 'Ard Boyz semis I still ended up making a few more attack quads for my Ravenwing forces. The quads were very simple conversions requiring only one SM bike and some extra wheels which I acquired from a dollar store toy kit. Coincidentally, the toy kit I bought was for a miniature customizable quad (came with 4 pairs of wheels!)

No Semis for Me

So got an email from the local game store. The list of Semi-final venues for the 'Ard Boyz tournament appears to be final according to his GW rep. Kind of silly if you ask me. They let a bunch of stores (at least 4 by my count) in central BC and Alberta host the prelims but the closest place to play for the 2nd round is in Olympia, WA which is like 13-15 hours from where I am (and twice that if you live in Alberta).

Maybe I can convince the store to host an unofficial 2nd round just so the winners in the area can play each other and can call themselves the 'Ard Boyz of Northern BC, lol.

Oh well, maybe next year. At least there's a big tournament (hobby-ish, not completely competitive so maybe I'll take a Dark Angel list instead of a Space Wolf list) coming up in Edmonton at the beginning of July that I will probably try to attend. I'll have to scale down my armies to 1850 and test at that level though.

'Ard Boyz Semi-Finals GRRRRRRR!

So it appears that BC 'Ard Boyz semi-finalists got screwed as far as venues that host the 2nd round of 'Ard Boyz are concerned.

I really hope that my store is able to hold the 2nd round.  I like the competition and to able to face other people with competitive lists is really fun.

'Ard Boyz Game 3 at Great White

Last game of the day and I got paired up with a space marine player.  He had an all foot army so had the advantage but he was rather new to the game.  It was kind of interesting that he was also a physics teacher and we ended up talking shop afterwards.  He gave me some great tips about trying to start a wargaming club at my school which I may try next year.

'Ard Boyz Game 2 at Great White

The second game I played against a regular tournament goer in the area.  Very competitive player and nice guy who runs a store in the next town over.  I ended up visiting his area to play in the 'Ard Boyz his store was hosting.

'Ard Boyz Game 1 at Great White

Ok so I entered two 'Ard Boyz tournaments, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.  This report is for the 1st game on Saturday at Great White Entertainment

3rd Place at 'Ard Boyz in PG!

I played at 'Ard Boyz as hosted by Great White Entertainment in Prince George and managed to get 3rd place.  The competition I have to say wasn't as cutthroat as it could have been but fun and competitive regardless.  Pictures and reports will follow shortly but my final list and the outcomes are below.

Final 'Ard Boyz Army List (hopefully)

Yet another change to my army list.  Probably the last one considering the tournament is this weekend.  The new scenarios prompted a little tweaking in my list.  Not a lot, but still some changes were necessary to get the most out of my list.

Dark Angels & the 'Ard Boyz scenarios

'Ard Boyz scenarios are out.  See here.
They look good and not too wacky in my opinion (except maybe the last one)

Ravenwing Biker gets some friends

Haven't had much time to test my list some more as I've been busy preparing a multi-day field trip for my physics classes. Once that's done I should have another report or two to throw up. In the meanwhile a funny thing happened to my Ravenwing sergeant.

Evaluation of my 'Ard Boyz List

I've gotten four games in now with my Dark Angels at 2500 points.  The lists have evolved but I think they all share a few things in common.

Storm Raven work in progress Part 2

So got some work in on my Storm Raven.  Added a cockpit section and the engines.

The assault cannons in the nose section looks good as I envision the pilot using them to mow down the area in front of the ramp in anticipation of the guys jumping out.  But I'm not entirely sure how to mount the twin-linked heavy bolter.  I thought about putting it on either side of the ramp but they seem to far apart to be twin-linked.  Then I thought about putting it above the cockpit in some kind of turret or pintle mount but thought it might make the thing a little too high.  I'll have to experiment some more until I find something that looks nice and is decent in game as far as true line of sight goes.

Pics below.

'Ard Boyz Test Game #4 vs. Blood Angels

Game 4 vs. Blood Angels 

My list underwent some changes after some conservation over at the Bolter & Chainsword (see here)

The new list has more Deathwing squads and has a little more armour and mobile firepower.  Also included is a drop pod tactical squad for late-game objective grabs or for supporting the Deathwing squads.  Being in the old style drop pod also keeps the squad off the table during KP missions and when they do show up hopefully they have a good target to saturate with bolter fire.

Storm Raven work in progress

It's the end of Spring Break and for some reason I started on a new project.  After seeing this kit-bashed Storm Raven, I decided to try it myself, only this time I'd be using foam core and plasticard to try and keep costs down (so far for raw materials I think the cost is at about $1 CDN)

Once it is finished, it will be added to my fledgling War Dragons army.

Anyways, here are some WIP shots of it.

'Ard Boyz Test Game #3 vs. Space Wolves

Game 3 vs. Wolf Guard on Foot

So I tweaked my army list a little prior to this game (original list is here). I changed one of the veteran razorback squads to a tactical squad with flamer and razorback. Then I used the leftover 20 points to give the other veteran squad a combi-plasma and combi-melta in addition to their flamer and missile launcher.
The plan with these squads was to act as home objective holders. I’d hold them in reserve in most objective missions and when they come on they would rush out to hold any objective near my DZ. Hopefully with their mix of firepower they would be able to clear any troops on my objective. This would allow my Deathwing squads the freedom to engage the forward objectives without worrying about back tracking to hold mine.

'Ard Boyz Test Game #2 vs. Space Marines

Game 2 vs. Space Marines

So this game was against a player who just threw everything he had at me. I feel kind of bad about it but he wanted to and actually kind of liked fielding everything he had. The place he plays at usually plays at much lower points values.

Enemy list

-HQ-
Cato Sicarius
Chaplain – Powerfist

Northern BC Tournament Circuit

Just remembered that some guys from the North Peace River area have proposed a Northern BC Wargaming tournament circuit.

Details can be found at the North Peace Wargamers forum.

Sounds like fun and should be a great way to meet new players from around the north.

Projects

So in addition to preparing for 'Ard Boyz, I've also got a few projects I'm still working on.

My Salamanders army is coming along ok, I just need to finish painting the two tactical squads, devastator squad and Vulkan.  The vanguard squads I made I think I will keep for my DIY chapter, the War Dragons.  With the new Blood Angels book out, I can finally make an all jump-pack space marine army!  That should look pretty darned cool on the table-top.

I've also started making some scratch-built Ork killa kanz out of Kinder Surprise eggs and spare sprues and bits.

A friend gave me a bunch of old Bretonnian Knights too so I've got a full 2000 point Bretonnian army again. But they are in bad shape so I'm going to have to strip them first.

Lots of things to do and maybe some of them will be done before spring break is over.

Testing for 'Ard Boyz

Well school has taken its toll on my ability to paint and model and game but things have calmed down a bit. Mostly because Spring break is upon me and I've got 2 weeks of nothing. No marking or planning of lessons so I'm using the time to playtest my 'Ard Boyz list since that tournament is coming up in about 6 weeks or so.