Imperial Knights Incoming!

So I've finally gotten an undeniable reason to pick up WarHammer 40,000 again/start looking into sixth edition seriously.

Games Workshop made an army of giant robots that isn't ForgeWorld based, the Imperial Knights.

I kinda have a fetish for giant robots. I believe this is rooted in me watching the original RoboCop films when I was only five or six.

The Beard will tell you I also have a fetish for giant robot fish, but that's a different story entirely.

I've been buying plastic crack again. Soon I will buy more, and then the Beard will write a horrible anti-Knight list, and all the while I wont be able to help but feel like I'm not rolling enough dice!

So the point of this post: Me! WarHammer 40,000! Giant Robots! Soon!

TRADING ONLINE, A NEW WAY

So have been selling on ebay for ages never had a problem,  apart from rip off fees,  till recently.

I sold items got ripped off,  lost models I put a complaint in to ebay,  they came back saying I had to repay money to buyer, 

Wait, what.  I get screwed over by buyer,  I complain and I have to refund him wait what. So I am down the models and the money, awesome thanks ebay,  as I still had to pay listing fees,  brill.

So I have bumped into a new way to buy, sell and TRADE, yes trade it's on Facebook. 

Search WARGAMING TRADING, it's an open group,  all you do after you join is postwar you are wanting to buy, sell or trade, people will reply,  you exchange details,  pay and send. 

Payment is done by PayPal, cheque, postal order,  cash or bank transfer,  you choose. The best bit no listing fees,  no selling fees. They even have a list of folk to avoid,  or they are gd people to trade with etc. 

Take a look, it's refreshing to receive every penny you get,  rather than ebay skimming off top.

My first go at making homemade snow effect

So not really liking GW snow effect powder,  I was asking the guys at our place of choice for all things gaming and painting The Outpost, about how to create a great snow effect. They recommended Baking Soda mixed with PVA glue.

So I tried it, I was unsure of mix ratio of powder to pva, but it appears to be add to your hearts content, lol.

It's easy to mix, Also its quick to make and apply, the longest part is waiting for it to dry.

Look for yourself in these pics, drop your thoughts & or comments below

Y-Wing Down!

The Beard and I had a game of X-Wing yesterday, in which for the first time ever, he managed to destroy my Y-Wing!

It was quite spectacular too! The R2-D2 equipped Y-Wing had already taken two points of damage, but when the Beard managed to manoeuvre a TIE fighter directly behind it at range band one there was only one target it was going to go for. It was also the only target, but that's semantics! All three dice landed as critical hits and the Y-Wing went on to fail on its single dodge die. The first crit blew away the single point of shield it had left, leaving the two remaining crits to deal a whopping four points of damage, taking it's total to six. As the Y-Wing only has a hull rating of five, we felt it sufficient to say it exploded into a burning inferno of death and destruction!

I lost the game but don't mind the slightest as it has proven that Y-Wing can be beaten - the Beard had been complaining that it's overpowered. I am inclined to agree, but who knows, the TIE interceptor might change that when we get one!

New Generation of Toy Soldier Enthusiasts

So from the 10th till the 20th, my (getting taller by the day) son & my 2 princesses (that are growing up to quickly) came to visit.

My son is dabbling with 40k, as back stabbing, untrustworthy Eldar. Also he is getting to grips with his painting. He is 16, my girls are 12 and 14, they just like painting figures, at the moment, maybe so they ain't left out, who knows. The youngest paints each part and/or detail of model a different colour, so is yet to find her painting way, or get bored of it, lol. My eldest girl is trying to go semi realistic, she has some potential tbh, I might be able to train her up to do my stuff, unless she gets bored of her Dad's silly hobby. My son well he is the same, in the fact of trying to be neat and get realistic looking models,  but he (due to eagerness to play) may be a "table top standard" painter, he may prove me wrong.

This is all got me thinking, about All aspects of our wonderful hobby of "toy plastic soldiers", what's right or wrong to teach the new generation, obviously beardiness is something to be avoided,  but is cheesiness, good or bad, or is it the situation that makes it ok or bad.

I know I will teach them my mantra of "winning is all well and gd, but having fun is the key", that said if you are obviously in a tournie, the winning is kinda important, but not at the cost of fun, for you and more importantly your opponents. I feel a loss is a good thing, as you learn more about your gaming tactics & army.

Should there even be a Short list of what to teach/inform the next generation of? That's a doozy of a question, hmmm, I have hurt my brain.

GAMES WORKSHOP & COPYRIGHT, AND HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

So things are heating up, in and around all things  Games Workshop. I remember, when said company was free thinking and open.  When they looked to outsiders to expand and grow,  when money and profit wasn't the be all and end all.  When the staff in shops where called "Sales Assistants", then they decided to cash in, They either listened to FAT CATS, or they just got greedy. You could say they gave in to the whisperings of Chaos, Money, for the Money God. The said sales assistants got ironically renamed "Hobby Experts", they became over protective of the products, they stopped people using anything but Games Workshop parts in models for Golden Daemon,  the true "Open Category" disappeared.

It gets worse. Now they are trying to stop people using a phrase they didn't invent "Space Marines", How can they you ask, "stop people using a name they don't own the copyright on". It's  Simple, they are using MONEY & SCARE TACTICS, this is a disturbing turn of events. It's weird to think that a company so against copyright Nazis (see the pic below, of a white dwarf article), could go one step further and police things they don't even own. 

I can see them struggling to hold the old school gamers, if they insist on going along this road, as I sense from what I have heard and seen is a large number of older gamers, bailing on the company they have grown up with. Many gaming buddies have been dropping GW as prices rise and value for money seems to get thrown out windows,  over profit margins,  I mean they don't have a monopoly in the market any more, to many companies are able to compete with them.

I think we are going to have to watch this space I guess. To see which path the company decide to go down and if the gaming community follow on regardless.

OMG I am missing my paint station

It's been a while since I last painted. I have a bad back from a car accident, it requires meds to control pain, lots of meds. Since May I haven't been taking them due to the government, but that's a different post for different blog, lol. This has stopped me from painting.  Well I now am able to afford/take meds, but what I call the gaming room,  the missus calls it the dining room, (silly woman) is being decorated. So my painting station is out of order. As painters will know, you can get burnt out, lose fresh ideas or just get "CBA syndrome", but atm I am eager to get a brush in my hands,  stuff is stacking up and it's annoying me. I feel a paint frenzy coming on. Is this just me or is it common to go through painting highs and lows.

Is kickstarter damaging the relationship between creators and retailers

So I have been watching a few things on kickstarter,  I won't list them as this is not about those companies or developers but the relationship of kickstarter and retail outlets. 

This may at first seem a random thought process, but I will explain. Hopefully.

A games developer be it independent or big company used to go to banks or rich folk to invest.  But a new trend started to appear, that being fan creations and fan financing. I have always thought this is brilliant, we can show our fondness of a film, game or whatever. Kickstarter is an expansion of this,  but maybe it's gone to far.  As a fan its amazing the amount of input we can have  or hands on we can get. 

But look at the other side of the coin,  the retailers, I am thinking more of independent or small chains, not large chains. I fund a project, my donation gives me maybe a free copy of rulebook of the game. If I fund enough I get rule book and complete army or 2 teams etc.  For me that's brilliant, but if I have my rules and models, I don't need to buy them. Here lies the problem, talking to an independent retailer, he was saying that he can't be seen to encourage people to kickstarter as it takes away vast sales. Recently a new product should of flown off shelves, yet it didn’t he was left with too many copies, all because his customers all donated on kickstarter. Surely there is a way that kickstarter can work to help all parties,  the developers, the consumers/fans and the retailers. Because independent retailers are struggling as it is, without the consumers cutting them out of the equation for initial sales.

Maybe for your investment you get limited edition items and then only a voucher for so much off your initial purchase of rules and models.

Just a thought,

The Mayans couldn't help him, Ash will face 40k soon

So the geese are getting fat etc blah blah blah, get over it. Bigger things are afoot tbh. Ash said, i guess hoping the Mayans were right (about the end of the world, not magic numbers, although he may, hope that too.) and that when he stated he would play 40k in the new year, it was an empty promise, well my friend, no erm .......  i'll insert a new word here later, lol. its nearly that time, to dust off yr Nids, if u have any left, or more likely, your nasty Blood Angels  or Grey Knights.

For i foresee a great happening and some $)k 101s happening on or around the 1st of jan  or it will wait  till my boss says i can have "...insert later.." round to play toy soldiers. it will be fun to rediscover the world of 40k  in the new edition as i still have had only 2 games, i cant believe it  but new shiny games have had my eye, so Mr Ash its Bolters and/or claws at dawn

EN GUARD

Beards 2nd take on 40k rulebook, after gaming.

Ok so i now have a copy of the 40k rulebook (thankyou ebay seller for not knowing the value of your item ;-P) its a mini rulebook with most of the errata in it. Ok the fluff is missing, who care i know the fluff , unless they have decided they are going to rewrite history again but i think the Horus Heresy books will see this stupidity off.

I have read rules, page by page making notes. then read again looking at my notes and making adjustments, I then would like to say i asked Ash to go through them, he is very anti 40k atm.to gain his thoughts on bits i was wanting to confirm understanding. it went as follows ...................................................
Me - "I doing a blog about new rule book"
Ash - "so u have new rule book"
Me - "yes"
Ash - frowns / screws face up

Also I have got quite a few games under my belt. So here is my take on 40k and the changes to its rules, how it will effect MY gaming in reference to how i play etc. This will be in 3 parts, this being the first, to follow will be a look at my Chaos Space Marines of the sonic weapon variety, then my Imperial Guard tank list.

THE RULEBOOK AS AN ENTITY

As i said in my first look at the rules etc, its a tidy book as in its laid out very well, no really, honest. if you are looking at a rules & references a 2nd rule, it says (2nd rule, page 32) for ease of finding, OMG finally GW is organised.

MOVEMENT
* Models with HVY WPNS can move & shoot at reduced effectiveness, makes sense, more about that later.

SHOOTING
* Overwatch is back, YEY, at a reduced rate see below.

* Snapshots - in certain senarios you fire less effectively, you hit on 6s
* Wound allocation - on paper it looks broken but i will explain this below.

in old 40k if i hit you 10 times u shared the hits out equally amongst your squad, and then rolled each group of saves, obviously u got rid of "clappers" first (spare models in units that are there just to soak up fire). In new 40k, the nearest model is hit, Now this creates 2 casualty senarios,

i) a sqd with all the armour save the same, if i hit you 10 times , u roll yr saves first, so u save 4 models, leaving 6 dead, new way is the 6 nearest models are removed, or if multi-wounds you remove models taking as many wounds needed on one model till its dead, then move to next model,easy and brilliant.

ii) a sqd with multiple save or characters, this is the worrying thing for me, time will tell, you roll one wound at a time the front model tries to save it, u keep doing this till the front model has failed enough saves to lose all its wounds, sounds simple, but look at this, a character at front of unit, has a 2+ inv save mayb "eternal warrior" or "feel no pain", i hit you 10 times, said character with 4 wounds will suck up all of those hits and leave entire unit unharmed ??!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?, ok your character may lose 1 or 2 wounds, but hello!! SPACE MARINES DONT FIGHT WARS IN CONGA LINES, it just dont happen, i feel it should be case as soon as character / front model. take its first wound it moves on to the 2nd nearest model. now maybe this rule on paper this looks bad, maybe on tabletop its ok. i guess u just flank these conga lines?

*** This will only be a problem if you are low on units towards end of game, or yr opponent takes multiple HQ choices because of 2 forces organisation lists, but I guess more conga lines means smaller army, means, easier to kill,  for now I haven't had a problem with this like I thought I would. But as yet played no full on CHEESE OR BEARDY players yet.

COMBAT

I am unsure still of random charge distance, atm, but combat works well,  including over watch, hitting on 6s as per snapshots.  I like new initiative order, and moving in.  The new way combat wpns, well power wpns are classified, as in different types of perks for sword, axe etc.

So all in I am liking my venture into 40k again, Ash has also made rumours about Tau,  soooooo, let's see what happens I guess.

Star Wars X-Wing!

I picked up Star Wars X-Wing by Fantasy Flight Games earlier. Not had a chance to play it yet but having read through the rules and gone through the contents of the box I am very, very impressed! It's been a while since I last posted, but I've been inspired, so I'm going to a first impressions post do!

The box is actually quite nice - FFG do nice boxes. The outer is a nicely printed cardboard which is thick enough to do it's job, but not the strongest - mine has a pair of rips in it that look like it's been grabbed by the cut-out that allows you to see the three included minis and then mishandled before it was shrink-wrapped. Inside is a vacuum formed plastic tray with three partitions, two to hold the various cards, dice and cardboard tokens and templates that come with the game, with the third partition dedicated to the two-part plastic box containing the miniatures. It's the usual thin, almost flimsy plastic that we all expect, but it's fit for purpose, combined with the cardboard outer I'd have no worries about anything inside getting damaged were I to drop it into my bag before making the epic journey across the road to the cave of the local miniature giant space dwarf we call the Beard.


Anybody that has played any of the Wings of War/Wings of Glory (which I'm told is Wings of War WWII edition after FFG lost the publishing rights, and so will write as though it is) games will be able to pick this up with very little effort - certain core mechanics are very similar but the game as a whole is different enough that the games are not the same. Jason Little, the writer of X-Wing has done a fantastic job of creating an even more streamlined, faster-paced game than those it bares a similarity to, and has at the same time addressed some of my own issues with those games. FFG has a nice set of tutorial videos here that cover pretty much everything about the game. Go watch them. For those that can't or don't want to, I'll go over some of the things I've seen that I like so far.

With the Wings of War/Glory games mentioned above, players can simply use cards instead of miniatures - this is how I have always played it, as it was one of those games that while I was eager to play it, I was also the only person eager to play it, so I couldn't bring myself to sink money into miniatures that wouldn't see much use. Cards are also used for controlling the movement of your aircraft. It provides plenty of flexibility, but I find in some circumstances it can be quite fiddly and awkward - you'll put the maneuver card in place, reposition your aircraft, slide the maneuver template away and either nudge your aircraft as you do, or nudge it as you lift your finger off of it, or somebody else will nudge it. A minor issue, I know, but when everybody is in the same area and overlapping each other during play, cards get jostled, millimetres are lost and gained, angles are changed, and what was a range band one shot on the enemy becomes range band two and out of arc. X-Wing gives you no choice in the matter of minis and comes with them pre-painted and ready to play with. It then does away with maneuver cards and replaces them with simple maneuver dials and templates that fit in between two notches on the forward and rear faces of the miniatures bases - no fiddly arrows to line up! The maneuver dials also mean you aren't shuffling through a deck of cards looking for the right card and can't accidentally set yourself the wrong speed token for the maneuver you want to perform.

With Wings of War/Glory, everybody moves and shoots simultaneously in the respective movement and shooting phases. It does work, and is part of what makes them fun and interesting games, but in X-Wing there is a clearly defined initiative system that I've not seen anywhere else before. Every pilot has an initiative rating, and during the movement phase, each pilot moves in turn, starting from the lowest initiative to the highest, and any situations of two players having matching initiative is simple to solve - Imperial craft have priority over Rebel craft. In the shooting phase the higher a pilots initiative is, the sooner they shoot, which I think will give an overall feel of more experience, higher initiative pilots being able to react to the movements of less experienced, lower initiative pilots and being able to fire upon them first.

Something else that really excites me about this game is the list building, in that it has it. All the various aerial combat games I've seen before either completely ignore the concept, saying play whatever fighter you like against whatever fighter your opponent likes and have fun with it, or they provide scenarios, saying player 1 will use A, B and C while player 2 will use X, Y and Z. The only exceptions to this I've found so far are Forge World's Aeronautica Imperialis and Star Wars X-Wing. A Pilot and his craft have their own points value, and icons on the card representing what upgrades are available to them, such as extra weapons, Astromechs or actual talents applied to the pilot themselves, and these too have their own points cost. Imperials will just about always have a numerical advantage over Rebels, but Rebels will generally have better ships and pilots. There's also character pilots - you can play Luke Skywalker if you want to! This also leads us to my only gripe with the game - and it's not actually with the game itself. With the exception of Darth Vader, there are no Imperial pilots of note like there are for the Rebels, so they've been made up like call-signs, and it's the call-signs chosen I don't like, Mauler Mithel, Dark Curse and Night Beast. They're all a bit dark sounding. All a bit evil. Good and Evil are points of view. We can see the original Star Wars trilogy as the tale of Luke Skywalker leaving home to join the Alliance and fight against the Empire because we see it from the Alliance viewpoint. What if the story was told from the Imperial point of view? Would we have a story about the noble Darth Vader and his mission to save the Empire from the terrorism of the Rebel Alliance? Or to put it in a Wings of War/Glory point of view, do you think Adolf Hitler thought of himself as evil?

X-Wing uses a d8 system, the faces of which are above. The dice-based system allows the player to roll extra dice to their attack or defence rolls based on events in the game, or count certain die faces that would normally be considered a failure as a success. It's more interactive than Wings of War/Glory where if you fired upon the enemy plane, the opposing player simply drew damage tokens from a pile and applied any effect necessary. Damage itself is also simplified, which I like. Upon taking damage, you take a card from the pile and it counts as a simple +1 damage, and if it's a critical hit, you take into account the text on the card, which I think will keep things like mathematics to a minimum and game play fast and fluid.

The only problem with semi-proprietary dice is if you lose them, right? Pretty much. It looks like FFG thought about that ahead of time though. While they sell additional/replacement dice, they also have a smart phone app available for Android and iOS. It features dice for X-Wing, FFG's Star Wars RPG series and also has the option to roll common polyhedral dice too. It's easy to use, very pretty to look at, has nicely themed audio and supports up to twenty dice at a time. It seems to be a little power thirsty, but not terribly so - using the app for around 5 minutes near constantly resulted in around 1% to 2% use of battery. It is a purchased app, but for £3.20 I'm quite pleased with it, especially when you consider that the RRP on a pack of the six dice in the image above is £6.99! I can, already have, and will spend silly amounts of money on dice, and I'm really liking what I've seen of the game so far, but I'm not going to spend £1.16 and a half pence on dice for it when the phone app costs less than half a pack of six and will provide me with all the dice I'll ever need for it - the only thing I can see using twenty dice is a Star Destroyer!

The last thing to talk about is the miniatures. They are nicely detailed, but I'm not sure about the paint job on them. I know that with pre-painted minis the quality is never going to be fantastic, but I look at them and can't help but think they look a bit rushed. The painting around the cockpits and red markings on the X-Wing are well done, but the actual bodywork looks rushed and lacking in effort. I'm no painting expert though, and I'm not used to seeing this sort of thing at this sort of scale either, so I'm going to ask the Beard for his opinion when I get chance, since painting is his area of experience! Maybe I shouldn't complain - this is the only game I have where everything is fully painted!

I've spent much of this post comparing Star Wars X-Wing to Wings of War/Glory, which isn't fair.

Star Wars X-Wing is not Wings of War or Wings of Glory.

Star Wars X-Wing is better!

TODAY I WISH PAINTBRUSHES HADN'T BEEN INVENTED

     So I was painting today some of Mr Ashs British Dystopian Wars Fleet, when he spookily phoned me, wanting to chew the fat to burn time.

     Now what I should of done is put the brush down, knowing that its tempting fate to do two things at once. But guess what, I didn't, because I am stooooopid. So after chat with Ash I carried on painting, Only after 1 hour and 15 minutes, did I look at models, to pat myself on back.

   Only to have a weird sensation nag at me, it was then it twigged the oh so simple camo scheme of green grey green, had become grey green grey, the horror, curse the inability of humans to truly "multi-task".

God knows how long it will take to undo, now its not Ashs fault, at all, but he is still gonna suffer ear ache while I moan about it over the next decade or two.

NOT SURE IF POSTING THIS RANT BLOG

WHY O WHY O WHY ETC ETC

can't rules writers ,when writing a rulebook place everything relevant to each other together. Its bad enough struggling with a new rule set, or a newer version of one you know ,with out looking in 15 places to peice together a paragraph of writing to tell you what to do.

This blog is being written because of not one rulebook but many, its just the Dystopian wars rulebook, is the straw that broke the camels back. Why the rant? You ask. Let me explain.

  I want to know if a flight of tiny flyers; Dive bombers, to be exact. Can split its fire, between to targets. In a well laid out rulebook, this would be easy. But in the Dystopian Wars book ooooooo no, let me talk you through this , to show you why I am raged.

  If you have the rulebook, I will drop page numbers in so you can follow my rantings, I am using the ver1.1, the rules for tiny flyers are on page 48, it talks about them being set up, landing taking off etc. But nothing about how they attack or defend, even though they attack and defend different to other things. Tiny flyers are able to combine attack rather than link, this is on page 62; it states and I quote, "tiny flyer CAN - COMBINE FIRE with ORDANANCE with stands in their wing". This to me says they can , but don't have to, my problem with this is, does this mean if they don't COMBINE they can hit a different target to the others in base contact ?

Next is SPLIT FIRE on page 49, again I quote "ORDANANCE and AUX weapons can SPLIT FIRE to allocate any available attack dice (AD) amongst VALID TARGETS". Now to see what is VALID for a TINY FLYER, we have to look to page 64. Again here I will quote, " a tiny flyer dive bomber wing uses BOMB ORDANANCE.it does NOT use RANGE BANDS, it has a RANGE of 0inch, the wing MUST be in contact with the MODEL, BASE or STAND of the target". Now this is a problem if I have a wing making contact with 2 vessels technically they are both VALID, technically then I can COMBINE and/or SPLIT my ATTACK DICE (AD) between 1 or both of these 2 vessels

OR CAN I, I don't frigging know do you? 

So I return to my first point why is this not all in one section why do I need to search for 30 minutes to piece together a paragraph or sentences that allow me to work out if I can or can't attack something. Worse still because I am having to piece together this its open to interpretation of the reader or readers, see I think I can split fire as you can see by my musing, I concur with my thoughts during the last game I had with ASH. he was unsure either wat and said, err on side of caution till we knew, hence why I tried to suss it out.

So can I or can't I.

The adventures/misadventures of Chezhinka

Where O where to begin, I have decided to go a bit curve ball, ok a lot 'curve ball', with my Russian Confederate fleet carriers. As in I am going for slabs of ice fitted together for runway rather than wood, Crazy huh, lol.

Let me explain in very cold places they clear snow, to smooth ice, so planes can land. The carriers make icebergs. Wooden runways on ships, in real world, need replacing loads. So the carrier can resupply its runway whenever it wants using its generators.
  Ash likes the scheme, but as we like to pull each others pigtails, he called my mighty carrier, SNOWFLAKE. This translated into Russian is..........

Chezhinka

I like it, it's catchy, so I am taking ownership of the insult. It's staying as the carrier's name, Now what to call the other one, hmmmmmmmmm.

Iceberg = Aysberg, not sure

Trial paint scheme for Dystopian Wars, Covenant of the Antarctic

So I said to ash, if I do your CoA black,like you wanted it will be to much like your Dropzone forces. I said as a 'off the cuff' idea, military use camouflage & your guys are surrounded by ICE, it make sense to paint them like icebergs / ice flows or whatever the proper term is. So here goes a trial scheme. The first photo is of my Russian carriers icebergs, they are deliberately over blued, otherwise if I did them realistic they would be WHIIIIITE, so artistic licence was used, my hope is his ships will look similar to this, in photo 1, you can see the carrier's icebergs.

Well as you can see the blue/white is done now, in photos 2 & 3. The guns and engine/moving parts are yet to be done, I'm thinking I will go copper for archimedes' screw. Guns I thinking leave alone on smaller vessels.

The forth photo is of the vessel with metal parts done, only thing left outstanding is the archimedes' screw device.

Beards first look at the new Warhammer 40,000 6th edition rules

EDIT:  IT SEEMS THE PERSON WHO TALKED ME THROUGH IT WAS STILL NEW TO THE RULES

As the title suggested, after delaying the inevitable first game of 40k, it has happened, so here are my thoughts.

First off let's start with the book itself; it looks amazing and for the first time in ages it seems to be put together in the right order, I know, I know, but it does on first glance seem to be the case.

Secondly, let's get to, for me what I think was going to be, the "elephant in the room", the main thing to scare me was the psychic phase. At first glance it appears that there isn't one, but it's carried out during the other phases of the game. Is it over powered? I have no idea, at all. Time will, as they say, tell.

Thirdly, and and this is after only 2 games of it being played, mind you, it seems the "beer and pretzels" tag is GW way to do away with loop holes and streamlining the game. ie, vehicles just have to be behind cover, and not 50% covered, and yes its silly that a "supermodel" can give cover to a "lemon fresh" Russ. But how many times have you or a player kicked off about the precise amount of the%. If - "that's 40.5% so u ain't in cover" or "my tank is 50.1% in cover" sounds like you, well done, you are why Kate Moss gives cover to my Tank, so "tank you". While on the subject of cover, it appears that some/most levels of cover have been reduced by one, on the surface, this appears bad, but, now instead of taking the best of 2 or 3 covers you could use, you add +1 to your base cover save, for every extra piece it goes through. Ie, you hide behind a wall, that's a 5+ cover but another wall is between you and the firers. Old rules would make you choose a 5+ or a 5+, under new rules, you get a 4+ cover save.

EDIT: OK HAVING NOW GOT MY HANDS ON A BOOK THEY MODELS HAVE TO BE 25% COVERED NOT JUST BEHIND IT. SECOND, IT APPEARS THE COVER SAVES DONT STACK,UST THROUGH MY FIRST READ THROUGH OF RULES, I MAY BE BACK TO RE-EDIT THIS.

Forth there will be always rules we hate, like or think are stooooopid, I am the same so I can't moan about peeps who do, I think we all do. It's human nature I think or at least a British one, lol. But the new rules I have seen don't fill me with dread, the one about your main guy getting a super perk is cool, its random, so no cheese festing, the replacement psychic powers are random and there fore maybe not over powered (maybe we will see), wounds taken of front I like, not from clappers at the back. Whether I like the rule of rolling on front person till a wound is taken, I am unsure of, as said it's only 2 games. But, I didn't come across anything rules wise, that made me want to invade a small country. That's gotta be a good thing, right?

EDIT: THE FRONT MAIN ON MULTIPLE SAVES TYPE IS WORRYING ME, A CHARACTER WITH A 2+ BASIC 3+ INV WITH 4 WOUNDS CUD SWALLOW 10 20 30 HITS ON A UNIT THAT WOULD OTHER WISE WIPE OUT A UNIT, HMMM OVER BOARD MUCH I THINK.

So I can only say as my fifth point I am not done with the the new 40k, as I have had said, it's only been 2 games, I think the game deserves a few more play throughs for me to fully absorb it all
Hopefully I haven't bored you with my ramblings, drop a comment. Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts or have something to add,

EDIT: AGAIN PLEASE COMMENT ON MY EDIT MUSINGS, AM I MISSING SOMETHING????

Of Wargaming and Music.

Dropzone Commander unboxing blog has yet to materialise, but until I get that done, I've been thinking about music one can wargame to - the Beard has a CD player in the same room as his gaming table, and the Outpost often had music playing in the background. The Beards CD player had as yet gone unused, but the Outpost often plays discs I assume are brought in by members of staff, who fortunately have a better taste in music than the drivel usually played on local radio stations.

It doesn't really set much of an atmosphere though, so I've been wondering what sort of music would? Would classical music be suitable for the epic naval battles of Dystopian Wars or the titanic clashes of Warmachine? Would the Halo soundtrack add that little extra something to a game of Dropzone Commander? I don't know, but I'm going to find out!

http://www.realmwargames.com/

Our friend Peter has started his own online wargaming shop at http://www.realmwargames.com/. As of this post he only has the Mantic range in stock, but he's going to expand into Magic: the Gathering, Anima Tactics, Dystopian Wars and more very soon!

As much as we've only been blogging a couple of days ourselves and probably don't have any regular readers yet, we wanted to do our bit to help!

Dropzone Commander Get!

Dropzone Commander from Hawk Wargames has just landed at our local gaming shop The Outpost and has literally flown off the shelves in a matter of days, and I am, fortunately, now out of terrible puns! Dropzone Commander is a 10mm science fiction tabletop wargame featuring ground infantry, mechanised armour and futuristic aircraft, which is enough to make it relevant to my interests!

I picked up a rulebook and the Premium United Colonies of Mankind Starter Army. The UCM are similar in design to the USMC of the Halo series of videogames (no seven-foot soldiers in powered armour though) which is why I chose them - I like the idea that even though some of the technology in use on these vehicles does not and may not ever exist, it wouldn't be a great leap of the imagination to believe that the vehicles of the USMC Halo or the UCM of Dropzone Commander is the shape they would take if it did!

The premium packages are a winning touch as far as the Beard and I are concerned. We're already fans of KR Multicase, but to get a case already filled with custom cut foam trays specifically for the package you buy is pure excellence!

During the next week I'm going to put together a post going through the contents of the UCM premium starter set with lots of pictures provided my camera is up for it. That's all I wanted to say really, I'm just not very good at doing short, to the point blogs.

THIS... IS... STUDIO SPARTA!!!

Spartan Games has recently revealed Studio Sparta!

The best way I can see of describing it using as few words as possible is this: If Spartan Games was Games Workshop, Studio Sparta would be Forge World, but without the incredibly expensive prices.

Having had a look on the website, it seems like it may be a selling point for stuff that hasn't made it into one of Spartan Games other systems, but that people may be interested in having - it could even be a testing ground of sorts to see how well stuff sells before it gets put into or sold along side Spartan Games other systems, checking how much interest there is before making it available for retailers to stock.

Fortunately, Spartan Games is not Games Workshop, so prices are good, matching those of Spartan Games own retail products. The most expensive is the Goliath Giant at £30, but it does look to be a huge model, and does come with an alternate pair of arms. They also link back to the Spartan Games website where rules for using the Goliath in games of Uncharted Seas are available. The Invaders look like they could have come straight from War of the Worlds and look like they would go great in Dystopian Wars, so hopefully we'll see some naval and aerial themed models soon - it seems they don't come with any stat cards but I'm sure the Spartan Games forum will quickly create stats for them! Lastly is the Firestorm Armarda inspired Firestorm Invasion, a 10mm mechanised ground warfare game. I don't know anything about Firestorm Armarda other than it's a science fiction based space combat game, but what I do find interesting about Firestorm Invasion is that you can only get the rules by buying a kickstart pack. Given its current popularity, I can't help but wonder if Spartan Games are trying to emulate Kickstarter and just weren't very imaginative with the name!