Mephiston's wargame blog

Full Scale Assault - First EpicA tourney of the year.

2012-02-06T15:44:00.000Z

So Saturday saw my first EpicA tournament of the year Full Scale Assault held at Maelstrom games Mansfield.

I decided I'd carry on using my nids this year and try and see if I can get to be competent with one army for once!

My list can be found here -My Nid's for FSA which looks like this:

So the day dawned bright and Gary, Erin and I headed up to Mansfield without a hitch.

Game One - Mike Mee - Biel Tan

Mike hadn't faced the nids before but he put up a good fight. I got pretty lucky by not only winning the initiative turn one but then using this to destroy his void spinner with a critical hit! Towards the end of turn one Mike to a gamble and used his Vampire full of aspect to try and kill my Dominatrix...this bounced and I was able to destroy the flier on the ground and then break the aspects with a counter assault. The game went into a 4th turn but Mike failed some key rallies and I was able to take the game 2-0 in 4 turns.

Game Two - Jon Mielcarek - Speed Freaks

I played Jon's army at the GT in November and it was a tough game and the only time I lost the Dominatrix. This time Jon had a huge mob on the ground to be his BTS rather than a flying one as he had at the GT. This was a tough game. I went hunting all the small formations while Jon used his fighters to hammer away at the Harridans and the Dominatrix. I did make an obscene number of saves across the game and after some pretty bold moves turn 3 and 4 both armies fought each other to a stand still. After counting up the points less than 50 separated us so a flat draw it was.

Game Three - Steve Gullick - Vanaheim

Steve decided to play corners, but I had a plan for this situation worked out. I placed both the objectives deep into the corner nearest my deployment and kept 80% of my army in this 2' area and forced Steve to move in if he wanted to contest the objectives. I removed the sentinels early and probably made one mistake in dropping in my second trygon to threaten his blitz when I should have used it to attack the only objective Steve was holding in my half of the table. So despite destroying large parts of Steve's army I was unable to push for the win and after 4 turns I ended up with a winning draw.

So 1 win and 2 draws saw me take 8th place, the highest I've been at FSA for a long time! Gary won the event, impressive with normal Orks and holding Dave T to a draw in the last game. Dave T was second with Si Jenkins taking third.

Simon Partridge won best army from the judges and Sam Dale from the players, both armies are really nicely done

Lots of new faces were on show and I hope many will come to more events as the year progresses.

The journey home was interesting as for once the weather warnings from the met office were quite accurate! 4 hours rather than 1.5!

Thanks to Reedar for the photos, Dave (from Tac Comm's) for the Epic Tools that were given out.

So either ITB of Open War is next for Epic.....some minor tinkering to the list I think :)

Oh no, don't hurt him!

2012-02-03T16:12:00.003Z

Wednesday saw round 2 of the Daventry Vaulters BB league and my latest encounter with TalonBay and his Gutter Bay Slashers.

Last season Gary crushed me twice running in touchdowns for fun as my players failed to do any damage to the rats. This time round it was looking much closer with the Khemri dishing out a total of 8 casualties over the course of the game but unable to push the ball in to score.

Then disaster struck. Talonbay's star saw the chance to throw a cheeky block against my star Throw Ra...hurting him, reducing his AG to 1....his future hung on the 4+ regen roll which......failed. So not only did I lose the game 2-0 I've had to retire my best player :(

So time to stop trying to play the grind game and have some fun I think. My team was not really ready for Division 1 and it shows. So time to go crazy and see what I can do with some mad plays and speed...could be fun!

Epic!

2012-01-24T11:51:00.000Z

Last night saw my first EpicA game of the year.

With Epic-UK's Full Scale Assault only 2 weeks away Erin wanted a warm up game as he will be attending a tournament for the first time. So my tourney nid list matched up against his list for the event, it being Codex Marines....not lists to keep some secrets prior to the event :)

The game went pretty well for the nids. Erin was probably a little too cautious and never really used his mobility to its best effect, the thunderhawk was empty all game. With both warhounds broken and out of the fight, and his supreme commander formation wiped out in a nasty engagement the game was never going to end too well and I took it 3-0 in 3 turns. Still I think Erin learnt some stuff!

You sank my Battleship!

2012-01-22T21:16:00.000Z

Yes it was back to Dystopian wars today...another shake up encounter for 2 KoB fleets.

750 points this time and I decided to try out my subs. Paul had the same idea but went with 4 to my 2. We once again used the new rules for determining our objectives. Paul had to destory my commodores ship, so my battleship while I had to destroy 50% of his fleet, including all his small ships so 9 frigates.

Pauls dice were on fire early, the hight being when he criticalled one of my submerged subs, getting snake eyes that cause it to explode, attacking all units within 4 inches with twice its stating hull points....which destroyed all 4 of my firgates that were near by!

The game was going ok as I slowly started to whittle down Pauls force but in truth it was only a matter of time before he got my battleship bracketed and down it went after 3 turns of concentarted fire.

Fun game but that critical is really nasty! We are thinking of giving the D6G's xcam missions a go next time we play.

Back to the pitch

2012-01-19T11:31:00.001Z

Last night saw my first game in my third season of the Daventry Vaulters Bloodbowl league.

By a random set of circumstances I have found myself in the first division, along with my long standing oppenets Gazza and Talon Bay.

Last nights opener was against Gazza, with whom a healthy rivalry has built up where his elves want to score as many TD's as possible and my Khemri do everything they can to kill and maim his players :)

Each round the league has a random element and this weeks was poor weather, meaning half fans, half winnings and a harsher weather table.

The game was played in pouring rain which made the normally bad Khemri ball handling even worse! The Elves scored early in the first half, but I was unable to pick up the ball so contented myself by taking 2 star's of the elves off the pitch through some fouls.

Second half was going well as I moved the ball steadily down the pitch but the plan fell apart when I failed going for it twice in two turns, even with re-rolls! Yes back to back double 1's. Still Gazza was unable to push on for a second TD and had to settle for a modest 1-0 win.

As ever a fun game with plenty of back and forth banter. Next up is Talon Bay as his super skaven team...hopefully I can hurt a few rats this season and not be on the end of 2 loses again like last year!

KGN Intro game

2012-01-17T09:00:00.001Z

Mark and I played the intro scenario for KGN last night and managed to play through it twice.

First time my tanks moved head on into the face of the german defenders and died really quickly! My infantry then spent a long time hanging on before they finally had to admit defeat.

Second game was going better as I managed to remove both German tanks for only the loss of one Sherman. Much better flanking move....unfortunately the German mmg's were rather too good at killing my troops while only attempting to suppress them forced me to draw morale chits and I picked all the high numbers and once again had to retire from the battlefield.

Have to say I like the way the rules play, limited activations per turn make you think what you have to do, unit morale works well and the semi random nature of battlegroup morale is good to.

We may have been a little generous on the lines of site in the game and some more terrain would probably help things but definitely a game to play on a regular basis.

Next up is the start of Season III for my Khemri in the Daventry Vaulters league. Promotion to Division One this year so its serious stuff :)

10mm KGN - A trial

2012-01-11T23:11:00.000Z

Well my troops are nearly ready for the intro scenario to Kampfgruppe Normandy.

Now I'm supposed to have 2 Cromwells and one M10. But I don't have the models so I'll be having 2 Shermans a Firefly and the camo netted Sherman will "count as" my M10 :)

Looking forward to playing KGN as the rules read well to me.

No cry without cryx!

2012-01-09T22:15:00.001Z

First night back at the Cranfield club and it was time to break out the Hordes. I was playing Adam and his Cyrx so I went with absylonia as I've been playing her regularly and I kinda know how she plays.

Adam rocked up with pGaspy and some new stuff in the guise of a upgraded mechanithrall unit.

Game was going pretty well with some duff dice from adam but some overreaching left me exposed and a last desperate assination attempt by Absy came to nought. Fun game and I'm looking forward to the new steamroller 2012 tournament pack to try and introduce some scenario play into the club games.

Still really struggle to beat cryx, but at least this game lasted more than 3 turns!

Time to look to a new caster to be mediocre with..Kallus or Bethayne is the question.

Kampfgruppe Normandy trial game

2012-01-07T22:18:00.002Z

On the 16th I'm going to be playing the intro scenario for Kampfgruppe Normandy - A Panther Hunt using my Pendraken10mm army initial bought to play with BKC.

Couple of issues...not as much is painted as I remember and I have neither the Cromwells or M10 the scenario calls for so I'll be using Shermans and a camo covered Sherman to count as the M10. So this little force will be the first painting of the year as I'd like to take a fully painted force to the game, even if it's not quite what is meant to be there lol.

If the game plays as well as it looks like it will from reading a decision on scale will have to be made. 20mm which the rules were written for, 15mm as there are more local players with armies in that scale for another game or grow the 10mm forces.

Dystopian Wars starts the year

2012-01-07T12:24:00.002Z

The new year of gaming got under way with an 800 point game of Dystopian Wars.

As this was to feature Kingdom of Britannia (KoB) vs Kingdom of Britannia in a pre-deployment shake down I can sleep easier that all my loses were "administrative" ones :)

As this was to be both mine and Paul's first play through with the rules amendments I decided to keep things simple and use units I'd played with previously. My Fleet was

1 Ruler class Battleship
2 Tribal class Cruisers
3 x 3 Attacker class Frigate Squadrons
2 Doncaster bombers
2 Hawk class scout rotors
2 x 5 Plane Fighter Wings

This faced up against Paul's fleet

1 Ruler class Battleship
1 Majesty class Dreadnought
3 Tribal class Cruisers
2 x 3 Attacker class Frigate Squadrons
1 5 Plane Fighter Wing
1 5 Plane Dive Bomber Wing

We decided to use the Field Orders option from the new setup rules to give us a mission each. I diced the standard destroy 70% of the enemy, while Paul got Destroy or Capture the Fleet Commodore, which meant my BB was in jeopardy!

The game really didn't go to plan at all with Paul getting the better of the early exchanges and whittling down my activation advantage pretty quickly. The fleets came into close contact between 2 Islands while my BB skulked a bit further back. At the end of the 6 turns we decide to play I had my BB left, and 8 tiny fliers. Paul had the Dreadnought, BB, 1 Cruiser and 1 Frigate. So using the setup doc this gave Paul a Crushing Triumph...felt that way!

On the rules changes the tiny fliers now acting as a wing and not individual planes marked them both easier to play and more useful. The new critical hit table was good and the guardian shields on the BB make them a much better choice now. That all said there are a few nagging issues with the doc that will hopefully get answered on Spartans forums soon.

All in all a great start to 2012 gaming, even if it was a pretty bad mauling!

2012 - First game

2012-01-04T21:56:00.001Z

Well I'm going to try and blog a lot more this year...I know that's been said before but we shall see...

2012 will be kicking off with a game of Dystopian wars trying out the latest rules changes from Spartan games. Will be good to get the ships and aircraft out on the table again and I'm keen to see how the stream lined tiny flier rules work as i did think they were a bit fiddly in the original rules.

After that its over to hordes on Monday where I'll be facing up to Cryx trialling the test Steamroller 2012 rules. Going to try out the death clock too so that should be fun :)

2011 All but done.

2011-12-29T09:48:00.001Z

Well another year of gaming gone. Thought I'd jot down a bit about the games I managed to play this year and any related painting progress for them :)

Epic Armageddon - Epic remains my go to tournament game, and is under going a small resurgence locally with some new players taking up the game. Played an average of a game a month I think and attended 4 tournaments of which Britcon remains my favourite. I painted 3000 points of Nids, finished off some bits for my Biel Tan and that's about it. So no progress on my Orks, Vanaheim or Necrons.

Blood Bowl - BB has been the game I've played most regularly over 2011 as I joined a perpetual league run by the Daventry Vaulters as well as running a league locally in Cranfield. I have enjoyed playing Khemri in the Daventry league as a change of pace from my normal Elves. Going into season 3 I may have fluked my way to the top division so I expect the challenges to keep increasing. In painting I now have 16 painted Elves! An entire team! My Khemri remain woefully partially painted, something I do intend to fix as priority one.

Hordes - Played a lot of hordes over the year, and dabbled in a bit of warmachine to with a Ruhlic army I picked up in Jan. Still lots of fun and my favourite skirmish game with some wonderful models on the table. Painting wise I've scraped my blue colour scheme and gone for a yellow brown, and most of my heavy beasts are now painted, along with one 50 point list base around absylonia. Played in some local events and did ok, and at the ETC and did spectacularly badly :)

Dystopian Wars - Played this a bit when it released and will be playing more I hope. A fun game and the models on the whole look really cool. Painting hasn't gone that well but I have completed 9 frigates and know my scheme will work, if it is a little dark.

Malifaux - Played a few games of Malifaux, even attending one tournament to secure another wooden spoon. Painted nearly all the models I owned, then sold them. I truth if I want to play a skirmish game I'd play either hordes or mordheim before I'd go grab the Malifaux. No doubt along the way I'll pick up a crew again, but no real urge to do so.

Impetus - Played a few small intro games for this in December to fulfil my need for ancient gaming. I'm liking how this game plays. It's element based which wins over WAB for me but a little less crunchy than FOG so makes an evening game playable. No movement on painting ancients this year but some more impetus play may see that change

Over the year I also managed some games of Mordheim, Ambush Alley and one game of WAB. No 40K which makes me happy :)

2012 I'm hoping to have a historical slant to games while keeping up with Epic, Hordes and BB...going to be busy :)

Epic-UK GT quick report

2011-11-30T16:55:00.003Z

So this weekend saw the first run out of my fully painted nid force (Tales of Epic gamers for photos!)

This page shows my list, and the lists I played against - http://www.epic-uk.co.uk/ukepicachampio ... =46&aid=24

Game One - Jon and his flying circus!
Oh boy..... 5 AC formations! This was the list I really didn't want to face so getting it game one was less than ideal. With no real threat Jon uses his planes well and harried the nid formations, killing one of the Harridans early on. That said I was in the game right up to the point that my Dominatrix died to a Crit followed by another 6 killing it outright. I still managed to hang on in and had a chance to make the game 3-2 but a foolish move at the end resulted in it being a 3-1 win for Jon. Fun game if I did feel a little helpless against so many fliers.

Game Two - Ryan and his bunkers.
So Siegers, the number 2 list I didn't want to face All those dug in troops were always going to be hard to shift and being blunt I was playing for a draw unless an opportunity to break into the lines appeared. Fortunately such a break did appear and at the end of turn 4 Ryan had one activation to try and save the game by ordering his last activation to march back to contest the blitz, which his AA unit did. After 4 turns of being shelled shot and assaulting the nid's came out much worse on the countback so a winning draw to Ryan. Let the debate as to the usefulness of razor wire v nids continue

Game Three - Chris and the Flying Circus MkII
Vanaheim, my that's a lot of skimmers! This was a game that could have gone badly but I think Chris moved forward a bit too aggressively on turn one and allowed the nids to swarm in and smash formations at will in turn 2 and 3. A very bloody game that saw the nids edge it 2-0 in 3 turns.

Game Four - Mark P and the Steel legion
Mark has been scared by playtesting against nids I think, and has a bit of a mental block against them. The game was going well as I broke or destroyed all the smaller formations and harried the larger ones. I wasn't able to push for the win on turn 3 and a mistake on turn 4 when my dom shot at his Reg HQ contesting my blitz rather than assaulting them saw me not have enough activations left to push for the win. Counting back resutled in a flat draw a there was less than 150 points difference between use.

Game Five - Mike T its a mirror!
Mike had brought nids, but without a dominatrix and with a couple of big swarms to my little ones. The nids basically met in the middle of the board and saw who could smash the other the quickest. 4 turns of carnage ensued with mass casualties on both sides but neither side able to force a win. When the points were tallied there was just less than 150 in it so another flat draw.

So a great weekend of gaming and I really enjoyed playing the nids with wave after wave of bodies pushing forward. I felt I had a chance in all the games with errors on my part normally the difference, though losing the Dom in game one was big momentum changer.

Thanks to Jon, Ryan, Chris, Mark and Mike for being great opponents and Steve for running another smooth event.

I think I may stick with the nid's for a while in 2012. You never know I may get better with practice!

November..

2011-11-23T09:10:00.001Z

Well since posting last it's been a busy month.

My second season in the Daventry Vautlers BB league has concluded with my Khemri team finishing third in its division again, with more draws than wins or losses again. After a bit of soul searching I've decided to keep the team going for another season at least so more BB madness for me in 2012.

I played three games of the new Dark Age skirmish game SAGA. Fun game with brutally simple rules but lots of options available to the canny player. Something I'm definately looking to play more in 2012.

With the Epic-UK Grand Tournament this coming weekend I've been painting like a mad thing (well for me anyway) and my Tryanid army is ready to rock and roll - Photo - so watch out for a post match whine about how it went coming soon.

Open War 16

2011-10-26T10:00:00.001+01:00

Last weekend saw the running of Open War 16, and I went along to play epic.

I decided to give Black Legion chaos space marines a run out, and went with a largeish drop option. List is here

Game One - Si Jenkins - Tyranids
Tyranids are the newest list available in the Epic-UK tournament scene. Fortunately I've done some play testing of the list so I kinda knew what they all did, and elected not to bother with the drop pod's this game as feet on the ground would be important.
I have to say the Si's had some of the worst dice I've seen in a while and my dice were probably above average. The game looked like a draw until a 5th turn was rolled for and I was able to destroy the remaining nids to secure a 3-0 win (BTS, Blitz, Take and Hold).

Game Two - Kev Bott - Codex Marines

Going into this game I had a perfect record v Kev. Though 2 of those wins were at Britcon against a very hungover Kev! Kev seemed to really worry about my space ship and setup cautiously and played that way throughout. The game ended in a 2-0 win to Kev with most of my forces shot up.

Game Three - Dave Thomas - Ulthwe

So with one win and one lose I expect to drop through the ranks and who do I end up with? Dave Thomas! The game wasn't going to badly, then one assault that didn't go my way and my army crumbled..Dave taking the game 2-0 in 3 turns. So still never got close to even drawing with Mr T.

Overall I finished 11th out of 16. Richard Laking won, with Dave T second and Kev third. Richard also took players choice for best painted with his Eldar.

One Epic event left this year not the GT at the end of November and I hope to have my Tyranids ready for that one.

2011 - They year of not blogging!

2011-10-19T13:30:00.000+01:00

Hmmm, 4 posts in 2011...not my finest blogging efforts ever!

So with 10 of the 12 months gone I'll do a little recap of what's been going on with gaming.

Bloodbowl has been a big game in 2011. I've been playing in the Daventry Vaulters perpetual league. I'm nearly at the end of my second season and my Khemri team have built themselves into a place of mediocrity. On paper they look fearsome, but on the pitch they just don't hurt the opposition enough to force a win. I've way more draws than either wins or losses. Still its been fun to play a bash team for a while, and a nice counter point to my Pro Elfs which I'm using in the Cranfield Conquerors league. I think my Bloodbowl itch has now been scratched and I doubt I'll continue with Daventry.

Warmachine/Hordes has been another staple on the gaming front. I played in a few events in Daventry until the closure of the shop there effectively brought them to a halt. I captained a scratch team at the WM/H ETC and lead them to a bottom place :(. Still was fun and I doubled my wins from the previous year to 2 wins. In the run up to this event I decided I didn't like the my colour scheme so I repainted much of what I had already painted and stripped others...so that is a success and failure on the painting front.

Epic has been a steady on the gaming front. I've played in less events this year than last year but it has continued to be a regular game. Britcon has once again been my favorite event and I hope that Epic will continue to run at Britcon under its new management team. With just over a month before the GT I'm attempting to get my tyranids painted so I can give the latest Epic-UK list a run out. Time is ticking but at least I've got some guants and my warriors painted.

Think that's enough for now..I shall endeavor to post more frequently as time moves on....but I've said that before!

Malifaux at the UK Game Expo

2011-06-08T09:58:00.000+01:00

The weekend just gone saw me traveling up to Birmingham to attend the UK Games Expo. I'd signed up to play in the Malifaux event as it was being run by one of the members of my local club and as I never paint unless its for an event it did force me to get paint on my figures!

I went in with low expectations. My crew is a pretty basic Viktoria gang, and as I have only played one game of Malifaux this year my sights were firmly on last place and a nicely decorated wooden spoon! The bonus is that I now only own 2 unpainted Malifaux figures one of which is a prize from the event.

Due to odd numbers I only got to play 3 games at the expo, and lost them all spectacularly! So my expectations met and spoon secured! Had a blast playing the games even if I did spend most of them asking what on earth was going on!

The bye did give me time to have a good look around the Expo, which reminded me very much of Salute when it was at Kennsington. Lots of smaller rooms with traders and gamers scattered around. I also had time to have a pleasant chat with Tom and Dom of exodus wars about what they are planning and the future does look good for the company.

The focus now shifts to preparation for the WM/H ETC on the first weekend of July. Lots to paint before then!

Ah, June already!

2011-06-01T15:43:00.000+01:00

So that post more often comment didn't exactly go to plan!

Well in the last few months Blood Bowl has dominated my gaming. The Games Vault league only has one game to go and I have to say its been an absolute blast, with all the players in my division being great opponents that its been a pleasure to play. The Cranfield club has also just started a monthly BB league so it will be my most played game of the year.

My team has done ok, but drawn too many games so will end up in mid table safety.

Played some Hordes, bits of Dystopian Wars and EpicA so a varied gaming year to date.

Painting is as ever slow but in breaking news I do now have 16 BB Elves all in the same colour scheme, a feat never before achieved! However the WM/H ETC is now only one month away and I've only just decided what I shall play, let alone begin to paint!

Hmmm, been a while....

2011-02-08T22:11:00.000Z

Well its been a while since I posted anything here so I'll do something to fix that now!

Gaming wise since August I've played a bit of Epic A, mainly at tournaments, quite a lot of hordes and recently a bit of blood bowl. All good.

The hordes has become my staple weekly club game, still playing legion but I recently purchased a mercenary warmachine army so I've dabble a bit with that. However the Legion remain my favorite and I'm building up for this year's ETC.

Blood bowl is a bit of a surprise but I've joined The Game Vault's perpetual league, that has just entered its fifth season. Boasting 5, 6 player divisions its pretty active and I have to say I've really enjoyed my 2 games to date and look forward to actually winning a game!

I've also been tempted by the new hotness that is Dystopian Wars. Love the models but yet to read the rules, A game in 2 weeks time means I must at least get the ships undercoated.

In shock news I've actually sold some models! The cryx I picked up have gone as have my Epic Squats. More to go yet as I have plenty of failed hobby projects!

Well I hope to post more regularly again, but you never know!

August - Must be Britcon time!

2010-08-04T22:04:00.000+01:00

Well, its August and that can mean only one thing, my favourite EpicA tournament of the year Britcon.

I enjoy Britcon immensely ever year. Over 200 gamers playing a variety of historical and fantasy games in the confines of Manchester University is always fun.

This year as Matt O has gone globe trotting I have the dubious pleasure of being the playing umpire for epic, but as the BHGS do all the organising and data entry I'm hoping for a smooth ride.

In other news I've added myself to twitter, as you can see from the new widget on the right! I'll be tweeting from Britcon as the weekend progress and if anyone wants to follow the progress you can on either @MephistonAG for me or @EpicUK for more general content. I'm also aiming to get more regular with my posting here, as I'm not really making the most of this platform either!

After that I'm committed to getting 500 points of my WAB republican Romans ready for a boarder patrol game on the 4th Sep. I've also signed up to take part in the Tale of Epic Gamers 6 month painting blog. Once again I'm going to attempt to get my Tyranids for epic going.

So a busy month all told. Can't wait!

A tale of two tables.

2010-07-05T22:46:00.001+01:00

Well the past weekend saw me take the trip to Maelstom games new gaming hall, the eye of the storm.

They were hosting the inaugural Warmachine/Hordes European team challenge. Now I've had a reasonable amount of hordes stuff for quite a while, and did attend one event last year run by the Tanelorn gaming club in London. I decided to sign up for this event to a) force me to paint more models and b) play some bigger games and see different armies.

I even managed to get in a sneaky game of Epic Armageddon on the Friday night before the tournament. Sam Dale came along with a nicely painted Iron Hands chaos force and managed to defeat my Imperial Guard in turn 3 2-0. Fun game and I think Sam may appear at an Epic tournament in the near future :)

My Hordes faction is Legion of Everblight and my list was built with two things in mind.

The first was what I had painted already and what bits I thought I could paint in a month. Secondly I need to use models that were not too complex as I would have enough with not knowing what my enemies models would do!

So I took the following
Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight
Typhon
Carnivean
Seraph
Shredder
Shredder
Full Warmongers
Min Raptors
Strider Deathstalker
Warmonger Warchief
Shepherd

Certainly not the strongest list but one that I knew what each piece did as I'd played them a few times, just not together in one list!

The ETC was a team event, with 26 teams of 4 players competing. With 104 players in attendance it was certainly the largest single system event I'd ever attended. Fortunately for me I found a group of players also looking to make a team and with most of us looking to win one game, we all set our expectation levels at a low level.

So Saturday morning dawned and I headed down to Maelstrom games to Meet Craig (Who had played one game of hordes prior to the event!), Andy and Ian.

Game One (Table 1) - Nick Roberts - Circle.
I'd played Nick at the Tanelorn event last year and he schooled me pretty well with a Krugger list. This time he has stepped up with Epic Krugger and the lesson was even harsher! Nick basically moved Thagrosh around at will until he was in position to be beaten down and killed.

Game Two - Kevin Martin - Cryx
Kevin's army was the second beautifully painted army I'd faced (Nick's is exceptional too). By the end of his second turn I knew that if I didn't try a desperate caster kill with Typhon, Thagrosh was going down again. So 3 boosted attacks all needing 9's I only hit with one and his caster survived. Needless to say Thagrosh didn't!

Game Three - Andrew Galea - Cygnar
Andrew was also a new comer to the whole warmachine world. However he had learnt his lessons from earlier games a lot better than myself. I found myself in a bad position from turn 2 onwards when his casters feat made all his army have +5 def. In hind sight I could have helped myself by trying to knock down his two heavy jacks but didn't. Andrew played a solid game and won on scenario when I forgot to use Thagrosh's feat to bring back my Carnivean!

So end of day one I'd played 3 and lost 3. As everyone else had won at least one I was beginning to see a bleak future!

Saturday evening was a fun evening, with Ian supplying some fun and interesting board games to entertain the the crowds.

Game Four - Stan Crooks - Circle
So, Circle again and once again Epic Krugger! The scenario for this game had to control points you needed to be within base to base and with all the push me tricks this army had I knew it would be difficult. The game was blood bath with both my army half dead and Stan's 3/4 gone by the time he claimed enough control points to win on scenario.

Game Five (Table 52, the bottom! See top and bottom tables in one event!)
Olivier Decru - Retribution
2 teams form Belgium and one from Holland had come all the way to Mansfield to take part in the event and I was matched up with another player look to get their first win. However, just looking at all the infantry and a loan jack and beast I knew this was a game I should not only win, but win big unless his army had some big tricks. Suffice to say it didn't. The scenario forced both casters and armies to basically stay in the middle 24 inches of the board. My army basically wore away at his amry and Olivier was forced to make a suicide attempt at Thagrosh that failed and sealed his fate! Have to say it couldn't have been much fun for Olivier but he kept his chin up all game and never stopped trying.

The entire set-up and organisation of the event was awesome. Maelstrom games facilities are exceptional, easily as good as Warhammer World and in the end much more gamer friendly as many manufactures products are available on site.

So 1 win secured I was happy. I'd had chances in game 2 and 4 so it could have been better. Overall our team finished 19th out of 26 which was a surprise considering our relative newbie status.

Thanks to all my opponents for teaching me a lot about their forces and mine! Every game was fun and played with a great competitive spirit.

I did go with half a mind that I'd get hammered in every game and put to rest any ideas of attending more hordes events. It hasn't turned out that way and if anything its heightened my interest in the game!

Bill and Teds excellent adventure (or 2 warhounds tirp to Open War 13)

2010-05-30T16:09:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was my second Epic A tournament of the year. I'd decided to use my Steel Legion but I would finally bow to the inevitable and actually paint and use the 2 Warhound titans I bought over a year ago.

My list can be seen here.

I also had the advantage of access to a set of the legendary "Dice of Dave". I felt sure they would make a difference and swing luck in my favour!

Game One Joe Jephson - Dark Angels
Great, game one I and get one of the big guns again! Still, Joe was using Dark Angels which are a tricky proposition to play.
As I didn't fancy getting terminated to death turn one I setup my entire army in a castle with both infantry companies on overwatch. Joe, quite rightly decided not to waste his terminators and chose not to teleport. Joe's 3 thunderhawks did some long range sniping turn one which did allow me the chance for some sneaky flak rush, which I took advantage of. Here is were the "Dice of Dave" first came good. 1st Thunderhwak overflew three hydras, took 3 hits, 1 point of damage and a critical blew it out of the sky! Thunderhawk 2 followed suit and was also smashed into tiny bits! Thunderhawk 3 made it safely away, its crew stunned!
Turn two brought on the terminators who firmly had the warhounds in their sights. Then fate dealt Joe a second major blow when I won the initiative. One 'hound ran away from his potential attackers and the second sustained to good effect materialising the second terminators.
The game ground on into a fourth turn by which time Joe was really struggling with activations and I was able to grab a 3-0 victory. Wow, I've never beaten Joe before, those dice are awesome!
A quick word on the scoring system at Open Wars. It's not really designed for Epic, so you get Max points even if you don't win in 3 turns. Not totally fair IMO and something that could be looked at for future events.

So one game one win, and I even manage to stay on Table 1!

Game Two - Matt Arnold - Biel Tan
Now here was an army I didn't really fancy playing when I'd seen the list come in. Matt went all out and loaded up all 3 vampires for planetfall turn one. So the Guardians, Warp Spiders and both Rangers were safely hidden away in the dragon ship. The Swooping Hawks were flying high over the battlefield ready to drop in and the jetbikes skulked in the webway.
I setup in wide spread fearing the orbital bombardment. I did make a mistake intermingling my Hydras and Basilisks and Matt chose to hit them with his Swooping hawks. The assault went well wiping out both formations and placing blastmarkers on some sentinels and one warhound. However Bill and Ted got their revenge with the combined fire-power of them wiping out the swooping hawks removing the eldar supreme commander and gaining BTS. This left Matt with 4 ground formations. So the time comes for the spaceship, 2+ needed to activate. A one is rolled! No biggy, it can try again turn two.
So turn two plays out with a a bit of damage handed out by both sides and then its time for the Dragonship again. Remember its 2+ and the dice comes up........1! Now Matt's really worried. Over half his army has not entered the battle, and one duff dice roll could see it never enter play. Also if the game ends in the third turn the Avatar won't ever come into play either.
Turn three begins and early on its time for the dragon ship. The dice is thrown and it hangs on the one.......and finally comes to rest on a 2! Matt's relive is palpable. However 2 assault's later and his dice have conspired to de nigh him a turn 4 and the Steel Legion take the game 2-0.
After the game Matt agrees that the "every egg in one basket" approach with the spaceship was a risk to far, and one air assault would have been a better bet.

So 2 games, 2 wins. Complete new territory here for me.

Game 3 = Mark Preston - Black Legion
Mark is one of the most improved players over the last two years in my opinion. And the Black Legion list he was using had hammered my Marine army at Full Scale Assault. With 2 terminator formations available I again castled up and prepared for the onslaught. Now unlike Codex Marines the black legion don't come at you piecemeal and as they have bigger numbers can be difficult to deal with. This game didn't go that well to be honest, I pretty much fed both Bill and Ted to Mark, who broke them and then killed them with death wheels. I did get one lucky break when I won the initiative to allow my BTS formation to move away from the two terminator formations and break the big one before they got to activate. However with the loss of my warhounds and other small formation I was never rally in a position to win and Mark took the game 2-0 in 4 turns.

So 2 wins and lose, certainly my best results in many a year. The 1st Company Vets result show me in forth place, but that is done purely alphabetically! The Epic-UK results show me 5th. The tie breaker I use is based on number of wins, draws, losses, then on margin of win, draw. So as Richard had two 25-0 wins to my one 25 and one 22 he moves ahead. Now Matt Arnold also ended up on the same points, with an identical record to me, but as I beat him I move ahead.

Overall Tim Hunt took the win, Mark Preston eased himself into second place and Dave Thomas had to settle for third.

In the championship Matt Arnold has moved into top spot with solid play in all three events, using a new race each time.

As ever there were some stunning armies on show at Open war. Chris Webb's Space Marines won the award but a special mention must go to Chris Steels Vanaheim Air Cav, all done with forge world skimmers.

On the team front this event was the fist outing for the Cranfield Conquerors. With 6 40K players and myself we managed a very creditable 4th.

Thanks to the 1st Company Veterans for putting on another great event.

Next up for me is the ETC Warmachine/Hordes event in July. Plenty of painting to get done before that!

Full Scale Assault

2010-03-28T10:15:00.004+01:00

Yesterday saw the first Epic A event of the UK Epic Championship, Full Scale Assault.

This is a one day 3 game event and gives everyone a chance to dust off their competitive edge.

My list can be seen here
The plan was to stay flexible with my deployment options and go from there.

Game One. Mark Preston - Black Legion
Mark has been climbing up the rankings steadily over the years and now is one of the top 5 players in the UK and his Black Legion list certainly reflected this and connected with a solid plan that he stuck too was a winning combination. I didn't really help this by choosing to air assault with most of my force, right into the welcome guns of his Obliterators!

A 2-0 loss was the result and not the best start to the day.

Game Two. Tim Hunt - Steel Legion
So I lose and manage to get Tim? Where is the justice in that! Fearing all my Air assault power Tim setup in a tight clump to one side of the board and chose to play down a 2 foot section! Having flown into trouble last time I decided to drop pod and planetfall some troops this time. Unfortunately Tim chose to have a stall off on turn one and as I had less activations my forces came in piece meal and were easily dealt with by Tim.

A 3-0 loss resulted and I moved to the familiar area of the bottom table.

Game Three. Mark Roberts - Biel Tann
Marks list have a very familiar look to it, with lots of AA. But I figured I'd be able to suppress some of it so went back to an air assault option with and empty space craft. Lets just say it really didn't work. By the end of the game the only formation I had left was my Supreme Commander's tactical formation, but it was holding my blitz!

A 3-0 loss.

So unsurprisingly I finished last and claimed the much sought after wooden spoon! To add to the pain I even managed to lose the roll of for most sporting to Alan Saunders! Steve Gullick won the day with Dave Thomas second and Mark Preston third. Alex Cairns took players choice for best painted with his stunning Nurgle Black Legion. Chris Webb took judges best painted for his Bad Moon Orks. Full results can be seen here

Overall a fun day between the games chatting with all the players. Thanks to all my opponents for 3 fun games, despite the result. Photos of all the armies were taken and should appear on the web in the near future. Watch this space.

Time marches on....

2010-03-14T21:32:00.002Z

....and I've still made little progress with any painting!

Gaming wise its been pretty busy.

I've been regularly attending the Cranfield Conquerors club on a Monday night and I've managed to recruit a new Epic player, so that's good. I also played a game of Blood Bowl and hope to get a game of Malifaux in the coming weeks.

I also got to play some Ambush Alley and despite some questions with the rules it was fun to try a-symmetrical warfare again.

Coming up in a couple of weeks is the first Epic tournament of the 2010 season with the one day Full Scale Assault. I've nearly settled on my list and I will have to paint a couple of bits and pieces.

Were did January go?

2010-01-31T16:50:00.003Z

Wow, January has come and gone!

I've made virtually not progress on new armies. I have stuck a load of epic ork's to bases ready for under coating.

Gaming wise I've played one game of epic, which I lost. 2 games of Hordes, one I won and one I lost.

This Saturday evening saw a load of Wings of War WWI air combat action. I do really enjoy this game every now and then. Brilliantly simple rules that produce a really fun game with enough depth to keep it interesting.

Really need to get a handle on the painting situation though, not doing anything isn't helping the lead mountain any!

The 09 review

2009-12-31T14:12:00.002Z

Well as 09 draws to a close I guess I'll jump on the bandwagon and do the whole year in review, but briefly!

Gaming

Played a fair variety of games over the year and I'll mention each briefly

Epic Armageddon - My stable tournament game and the one I probably played most over the year. Still really high on my play list, even if my pool of opponents has shrunk to nearly none again! Still enjoying the UK tournament scene and plan to continue with this in 2010.

Hordes - Played on and off during the year, and even went to one tournament. This resulted in some painting of forces. I do enjoy hordes, but I don't think I'll be a regular at tournaments. You need a wide variety of opponents to learn the tricks and I think I'd rather keep it to more low key play at home.

Blitzkrieg Commander - Played a couple of games and still enjoy it for WWII gaming. With the release of BKC II I'm sure I'll play this some more next year.

Lord of the Rings Battle Companies - Played about 20 games of this in two bursts during the year. I think LoTR is fun at this small skirmish scale, and with the improvements to battle companies it is fun. I'm sure we will play more next year.

Ambush Alley - A game that I stumbled across randomly and liked the look of. Played about 8 games across the year and enjoy the total asymmetrical nature of the game.

Field of Glory - Played maybe 6 games with both 6mm and 28mm armies. 2 conclusions, I like the game and think that 6mm/10mm makes it look the best. Will probably become my ancient game of choice but I may dable a bit with Impetus in 2010!

Warhammer Ancient Battles - A couple of games played and while I will play it not my favorite set of rules.

Warmaster Ancients - Another fun set of rules and now sits second in my ancient list! 4 or 5 games played over the year.

40K - Played my normal 2 games and I'm not in a real hurry to increase that!

Also played a little Wings of War and Space Hulk when that was re-released.

So a relative mixed bunch over the year and I think I'll try and do the same in 2010.

Painting.

Hmmm, not much progress made in 2009.

The good. The forces I bought for Ambush Alley are all painted, a first in that they were bought and painted within 2 months! My Hordes army progressed from undercoated to about 75% of what I have painted.

On epic I've added stuff to my Marines, Eldar and Chaos armies but made no progress with my Orks at all. In 2010 the aim is to get at least 3,000 points of Orks and Nids done, with more marines and eldar added as and when I'm motivated to do it.

The bad. My Republican Romans remain unpainted as do my Trafalgar ships and 6mm Celts. Add in my BKC Brits, a desert Italian force and a 10mm Greek army my painting backlog is now out of control!

All I can do in 2010 is commit to paint more than I did in 2009. Can't be that hard!

Epic UK release Imperial Guard codex.

2009-12-30T16:54:00.002Z

Epic UK have finished their review of the armies in the core Epic Armageddon rule book with the release of their codex. It reviews and updates both the Steel Legion and Baran Siegemasters lists and also adds two new lists. Ulani tank regiment and Vanaheim Air Cavalry.

These list will be used at all Epic-UK events and any affiliated events in 2010.

Head on over to Epic-UK for the pdf.

Epic-UK Grand Tournament

2009-11-30T20:57:00.007Z

So the weekend just gone saw the final event of the Epic Armageddon season in the UK. 15 players competed for the final event as unfortunately one player had to drop out at the last minute. Matt O stepped in to not only run the event but play a game every round so no one had to sit out and wait for a game.

My army was

Landing Craft
Thunderhawk
Thunderhawk
Devastators with Supreme Commander and Hunter upgrades
Scouts with 2 Twin Lascanon Razorback upgrades
Tactical
Tactical
Assault
Terminator
Strike Cruiser
Thunderbolt
Thunderbolt

Basically a battle company with attachments. The premise is to play for flexibility. There are many ways to deploy this army using the Epic-UK tournament rules. Pity I stuck to one way through most of the games!

I took notes of all my games using Chroma's log sheets that can be found on Tac Com. I will give a brief overview of the games here and do a detail breakdown for anyone that may be more interested!

Game 1 - Dave Thomas - Black Legion

So I start out with having to play the player in second place gunning for the championship title, and the legendary owner of the Dice of Dave! Dave has only lost 1 tournament game in the last 2 years and our game didn't threaten to add to that statistic! With 4 war engines in his list I was always on the back foot in this game as I really lacked the fire power to take down all 4, or even 2! Throughout the game Dave made a lot of saves and I failed a lot! When the terminators failed to take down a doom wheel I knew I wasn't going to win and I had to try to make sure I didn't loose big. In the end Dave decide to take the points for a 2-0 win in 3 rather than hold back and try to get more in turn 4. So he won with Blitz and Take and Hold.

Game 2 - Chris Steel - Steel Legion

Chris and I are regular opponents as we tend to hang around in the bottom half of tournament tables! This time he had a brand new steel legion army that was (IMO) beautifully painted. Some others must have agreed as he was voted as the Players choice for best painted. The game was going OK for me but I could never totally destroy Chris's formations, just do enough damage to break them. By the end of turn 3 most of his formations were in a bad way, apart from the Leman Russ company that I had pretty much ignored. The game came down to whether Chris could rally one lone sentinel hiding in my table half, the dice was rolled and came up 6! There was no time to play turn 4 so we shock hands and accepted a draw.

Game 3 - Mark Williams - Biel Tann

Mark has a bit of a grudge about me playing his eldar. It stretches back to the time when a steel legion infantry company in woods managed to defeat his warlock titan in a firefight! I was playing this game really cagey as his list is far to fast for me! Then I decided to take a gamble. I had a chance to get his Warlock titan in a cross fire with my full landing craft. Now the sensible play would have been to land on the opposite edge and hit one of his loaded wave serpent formations, but I decided to do the fun thing and went for the crossfire attack on his Warlock. So of the 12 attacks I had (4 at 4+ and 8 at 6+) I manages a massive 2 hits! Even the one point of damage didn't make up for this and the game was gone from this point. It did take 4 turns for Mark to win but win he did with BTS, Blitz and Take and Hold.

So the end of game one with 2 losses and 1 draw left me at the bottom and in receipt of the bye.

Game 4 - Matt Otter - Ghazghkulls Warhorde

Now as this game was officially a bye I got the points for a 2-0 win. Good job too as Matt beat me hands down! I got so mad at my dice by now that I put them back in there pot and used some dice I had in my pack of hordes counters! I didn't really have a high point in this game, but Matt's gargant getting to March all the way to my Blitz was certainly Matts! He won this game easily 2-0 in plenty of time to allow him to take some photos! I'll post links when they appear online!

Game 5 - Ole Larson - Biel Tann
This was Ole's first ever epic tournament, and he said he had only played a couple of warm up games! His lack of relative experience didn't really show and we spent 4 turns destroying each others formations. Ole's real problem was his inability to rally many formations and fail 3 activations in the 3rd turn when he only had 5 activations! Fortunately the first failure did go with the SC re roll! The game came down to his guardian formation with wraith guard assault my thunderhawk that had landed on his blitz in turn 3. If he won the assault I couldn't win so it would have been a draw. Unfortunately the guardians didn't manage to damage the flyer and to add insult to injury lost the assault and gave blitz to the marines. The game ended in a 2-0 win to me (Blitz and Take and hold). A fun game and I hope Ole will be coming back for more tournaments.

So with 1 win, 1 bye, 1 draw and 2 losses I ended up in 10th place, or to put it another way last of 5 Marine armies!

However some of my opponents must have taken pity on me and I ended up in a roll off for most sporting with Chris Steel. Using two of the dice from a "Dice of Dave" pot we rolled, with the award going to the lowest result. I won with a 5! Were can I buy these dice!

For those interested the winner of the event was Dave Thomas, 2nd place to Mark Preston and 3rd to Richard Laking. Judges best painted went to Chris Webb for his beautiful Dark ~~angles~~ angels (Chris, you were missing a terminator stand, just thought you should know ;) ).

Thanks to Matt for running yet another smooth event and to all the players I've played against this year.

Now the question is what to get ready for next year........(I'm sure there's some warhounds in that pile....)

Busy Times.

2009-11-16T11:39:00.002Z

Well I've been busy since my last post.

Firstly I attended the London Stampede Hordes event run by the Tanelorn wargames club. I managed to get 3 games of hordes in, managing to win 1 and lose 2. It was a great learning experience as I've never played against warmachine armies before. Another bonus was getting 80% of the hordes models I own painted! Pictures to follow at some point.

After that I've played a couple of games of LoTR Battle companies. Nice little skirmish game with a handful of models on either side. Looking to play some more of this.

This weekend I played some Hordes with Mark and Dave, with both of them experimenting with new casters and units. Only played at 350 so choices were hard. I think in future I'll mainly play at 500 (or the equivalent once MkII hits the streets) as it gives each side more options.

2 weeks to go before the Epic-UK Grand Tournament so I've got a little bit of painting to get done before then. Only a couple of formations to paint and they are all half done already.

2009-10-30T17:05:00.002Z

Well its been a while but I've managed to make a good dent in the under coated hordes models!

With the tournament on Sunday I've only got 3 warlocks to paint to have a fully painted force for the event. Photo's will follow but I need to maximise my painting time to ensure I get it all done!

I've played a couple more games of hordes and tried out 2 of the scenarios that will be used in the tournament. I don't expect to do at all well as I've never played against a warmachine army so all the clever little tricks will be new to me. I'm enjoying playing hordes but still have much to learn.

I also played a game of Warmaster Ancients. 1000 points of Briton's faced up to the might of Imperial Rome. I was playing the Brit's and for once my early turns were not marred by failed command rolls. However, just at the key moment one warband refused to heed the call of the warlord and this left them static and vulnerable to the charge of a couple of legions. Needless to say the lost combat, ran and kept on running. It was fun game but I have to say I was getting pretty confused between WMA, FOG and Blitzkreig Commander!

2009-10-12T14:12:00.002+01:00

Ohh nearly a month since the last update.

Been a bit quite on the gaming front but I have managed to get in one game of Epic vs Paul and won!

Also played a game of hordes in preparation for the upcoming London Stampede tournament I've signed up for on the 1st Nov. I decided to give a non epic tournament a go again an picked this one for two reasons, one - its not a traditional tournament and looks to be fun and different and two - if I don't put the pressure of tournament play in place I never get anything painted!

So right now I have a lot of under coated hordes models sitting on my table. Only 2 more to put together but they need pinning and green stuff to hold together so may wait till after this tournament.

That only leaves one more Epic tournament for me this year which will be the Epic-UK GT at the end of November.

Into the Breach - Tournament Report.

2009-09-16T12:33:00.002+01:00

The past weekend saw the latest Epic Armageddon tournament, held in GW Wakefield and run by the ever present Epic-UK team.

To bolster my standings in the mid table of the championship I decided to take an Eldar force. For a bit of a change I took my eldar painted for Ulthwe even though I have to use the Biel Tan list for now.

My list can be seen here.
The basic plan is for the Shinning spears and the large guardian formations to deploy via wraith gates with the wave serpent guardians moving forward supported by the jet bikes. With plenty of AA I wasn't too fearful of air assaulting armies.

Game 1 - Tim Hunt - Ghazghkull Warhorde.

Now having said I wasn't too fearful of air assaulting armies I initially didn't fancy Tim's army much. I set-up with one jet bike formation wide hoping Tim would hit them and allow me to react.
I won the initiative turn one and my vampire used its long range to hit one of the big blitz brigades, 4 hits killed 4 tanks breaking them. They then failed to rally until turn 4 when the vampire broke them again! I also got the nightwings on CAP nice and early. Tim took my bait and his first air assault went into the wide bikes. After combat Tim was at +3 but threw snake eyes and lost the assault! To add insult to this injury the jet bikes then engaged the remaining broken boyz's and wiped them out. Tims next air assault was into the heart of my AA, but fearing the worst I decided to intercept the landa with my nightwings. 1 critical later and it was raining orks!
The game continued with some poor dice for Tim but as Eldar armies tend to mine was dying pretty fast as the orks pressed forward in an attempt to get to grips with the eldar.
End of turn 3 I nearly lost the game when I forgot to get a formation in Tim's half as I was concentrating on holding all mine, and having no unbroken ork formations in my half. Luckily Tim failed to rally the orks I managed to claim a 2-0 win in 4 turns.
Really tight game and the first time I've beaten Tim.

Game 2 - Joe Jephson - Biel Tan

So with a win in my first game I was up in the unusual position of table 2! Joe took one look at all my flak and decided to not air assault his 2 aspect formation but put them in the wraithgate. Turn one say him barrage both my Falcons and Fire prisms to death leaving me with little AA and low on activations. In fact in two attempts to attack one of the void spinners with my Vampire (it refused to come on turn 2) I only managed to place 2 damage points on one, so the could fire every turn. This, and Joe's highly effective play meant I was never really in the game and he took the game 2-0 in 3 turns.

Game 3 - Nathan Hoole - Biel Tan

So Tim, Joe and Nathan - 3 of the top Epic players in one day! This game was probably closer than I thought it was going to be and had Nathan's dice been better for his void spinner, which twice hit the fire prisms for no damage, I would have lost bigger and sooner. However the game ground on for 4 turns with Nathan winning 2-0 in 4.

Game 4 - Ryan Downes - Ghazghkull Warhorde

Ryan won the players choice for best painted and totally deserved it in my opinion. He not only continues to paint stunning armies but is a tough opponent on the games table too. Mid way through this game I came to the conclusion that my army quite likes taking on orks as they have to come forward towards me and then I can counter attack at will. Concious of getting trapped in my own half I ensured on formation of jet bikes went deep into the ork half turn one to hang around threatening one of the objectives and in rang of the blitz should the big guns ever go off overwatch! Once again I could use my air power to pick at the short ranged AA of the orks.
The game was really close going into the end of the 3rd turn when Ryan made a mistake, he moved his big mob off of one objective to prepare to attack the blitz turn 4. Unfortunately I had just enough formations left to break the stompa mob and then move my shinning spears to claim 2 objectives and give me a 2-0 win in 3 turns.

Game 5 - Dave Thomas - Steel Legion
My final game saw we up against Dave Thomas, still to loose a game of tournament Epic this year (He drew a lot of games this tournament, but no loss on objectives). This was the most frustrating game by far. I got myself into positions to do damage to Dave's forces on 3 occasions, only for my dice to refuse to co-operate. Now I know this is an often used excuse but hear me out. When you roll 8 dice needing 5+ and 10 dice needing 4+ I'd expect to hit with more than 3! Then Dave had the temerity to save one of the hits! The other 2 assault were similarly frustrating. It was very much damage limitation in the end and holding Dave to a 3-0 loss in 4 turns was all I could manage.

So 2 wins and 3 losses saw me in 9th place out of 12.

Really fun weekend and thanks to all my opponents for 5 excellent games of Epic played in the right spirit as ever.

Next Epic tournament for me will be the Epic-UK Grand Tournament in November... what to take, that is the question.

Post Britcon blues and the Hulk returns!

2009-09-08T18:53:00.003+01:00

So in terms of gaming its been a bit barren since I returned from Britcon.

I do hate it when real life gets in the way of the hobby!

No progress on any painting due to a lack of motivation but I have to get a couple of bits and pieces done for Into The Breach this weekend. Not much to do just 3 nightwings and 3 wraithlord to paint for my Epic ulthwe army. So 4 days shouldn't be an issue!

The major new thing this week was the 20th birthday release of Space Hulk. I was sceptical at first but the GW marketing wagon got on my case and I caved in and pre ordered the game.

I have to say I'm happy I did as the production value, with the slight exception of the books, is one of the highest I've ever seen from a GW release.
The Blood Angels terminators are simple beautiful. Great sculpts that I'm sure my painting skills will not do justice too! The 'nids are similarly very dynamic in their poses.

The game plays as well as ever, but hey that's space hulk!

Britcon

2009-08-17T18:46:00.005+01:00

Well the marathon weekend that is Britcon has once again come to close. Six 4000 point games across 3 days has, as usual, left me tired but happy. 15 players competed across the weekend with 2 gents stepping in a the last minute to replace one player who had to drop out. Many thanks to Hello_Dave and Stompzilla from Flame On for filling in and giving everyone a game rather than a bye.

Britcon is my favourite tournament of the year. The mix of bigger games with an extra hour, the on campus setting and the fact that I don't drive but get the train! It all makes for a great atmosphere with a great bunch of competitors.

The results and lists can be seen here for those who don't want to read through my game by game breakdown!

My list was Black Legion - Basically an infantry heavy force backed up by some war engines and daemons for the assault punch.

Game One - Matt Arnold - Orks.
Orks right out the gate was not a match up I really fancied. My list doesn't have all that much titan killing ability and the Great Gargant is generally considered to be the hardest to kill, especially when Matt rolls and gets 11 power fields, however his Supa Stompa made up for this by only generating one power field. I can't remember too many specifics of the game, I know my spaceship barrage hit and killed a couple of gunwagons (always a bonus!) and the pin point attack was disappointing by only removing the supa stompa's powerfield. Throughout the game I only made half hearted attempts at the gargant and by the end it was shieldless but not heavily damaged.
The game ended 2-1 to Matt in 3 turns, but I can't remember what goals other than we both had take and hold. Matt must have claimed either blitz or BTS.

Game Two - Gavin McKenzie - Biel Tan
Gavin always likes to bring a different list. This years attempt was a a high activation eldar army. He basically setup in 4 big blocks ready to assault. I played corners to a) limit his deployment options and b) force some of the troops to move larger distances. Turn one saw a lot of manoeuvring by both forces with Gavin ending up herded in the centre of the battlefield, but little damage done to either side. Turn two changed all that with some massive engagements lead by guardians and shinning spears. Now Gavin is legendary with his dice. He can always roll 1's at the worst possible time and more than one of his assault went badly wrong with his dice betraying him! However time was now getting tight (3.5 hours is the limit) and despite playing turn 3 at breakneck speed neither side could force a result. So the game ended in a draw. Had Gavin's luck held slightly he probably would have worn my force down but in truth I was in a much stronger position when time expired.

Game Three - Matt Otter - Black Templars
The theme for this game was simple, I didn't roll more than a 3 on any dice pretty much every time a dice was rolled! Now that may sound like sour grapes but when your opponent pretty much states half way through the game that I should go and buy new dice now you know its not going well! Matt chose to play corners (No surprise, he is not know as "Corners Otter" for nothing! Then systematically went about destroying my army. I've wiped this sorry excuse for game from my mind. Matt won 3-0 in 3 turns.

Game Four - Chris Steel - Orks
So back to Orks and another massive Gargant. In this game my dice had obviously heard about their impending replacement and decided to change my mind! As bad as the last game had been this game went in the other direction and nothing could go wrong. In contrast Chris's dice were well below average and his army was largly destroyed in order as he tried to press forward, as orks must do. Even with 10 power fields at the start of play the gargant was left at the end of turn 3 with only 2 damage points left and on fire, with the rest of the ork army in bits. I won the game 4-0 in 3 turns.

That brought us to the end of Saturday night. The pub quiz followed, were Team Epic maintained their position of mid table mediocrity.

Game Five - Glyn Green - Biel Tan
Briton was Glyn's first tournament and he was doing well. His army was a solid list and the game was a pretty cagey affair with me finally pressing forward as my army was meant too! With both sides manoeuvring to get the best out of their formations and with hard decisions on both sides we once again ran out of time with the game balanced at 1-1 in the third turn. It was a really close game that could have gone either way in the 4th turn.

Game Six - Darren Allen - Black legion
So my final game saw a match up of the dark powers to see which faction could claim supremacy, would Slaanesh defeat a Khorne and Tzeentch alliance? This was one of the quickest games of 4,000 points I have ever played. As both players were pretty familiar with what the black legion can do, formations were normally hit until they folded! The game started on a dark note for me when my spaceship refused to activate, even with my re roll! It was worse as it couldn't appear on turn 2 as Darren had a spaceship plotted for then and wouldn't arrive until turn 3. The next two turns went better for me than Darren as I not only won the initiative all 3 turns but got bonus daemons once, while Darren lost daemons twice! Even the failure of the spaceship turned out well as when it did activate it destroyed the enemy death wheel that had been damaged by shooting during the game. The game ended in a 2-0 win to me.

So 6 games resulted in 2 wins, 2 loses and 2 draws and 6th place, which was better than I expected after game 3.

Thanks to everyone that attended for making this yet again a truly epic weekend of gaming and to the BHGS for running yet another smooth tournament.

Britcon Eve

2009-08-13T16:38:00.003+01:00

Well the big tournament of the year is nearly upon us.

Britcon, the British Historical Wargames Societies biggest annual competition, will see 266 wargamers compete over 12 different game periods this weekend at Manchester University. Not only that but there are a good number of wargames traders on hand and its open to the public.

For the Epic Armageddon Britcon gives you the chance to play at 4000 points, an extra 1000 points on normal tournaments. This is due to the fact that 1 game gets played Friday evening, 3 Saturday and 2 Sunday giving 3 hours per game. Games start before 09:00 each weekend day so its not for the faint hearted!

I look forward to Britcon each year more than any other tournament. The campus location, bigger games, more time and beer close by all make for a great atmosphere!

Since posting last I managed to get in a real life game of Bloodbowl against a local gamer with the tag Boomer. Fun game with Boomer's orks holding on to a draw against my Pro Elves. This game has rekindled my interest in BB, but not for playing in my local GW truth be told.

I also got another vassal game of Epic against Clausewitz. This time he used the titan legion list to test out some theories. Batrep can be seen here

Stand by for a post Britcon review next week.

Days gaming

2009-08-02T15:51:00.004+01:00

Once again a few of the epic regulars had arranged a casual days gaming at WHW.

Now this happened to coincide with the opening of Maelstom Games new game shop and it seemed a shame to miss out on their opening offer as I was in the area!
I have to say I was impressed with both the shop and what should turn out to be a really good gaming venue for large tournaments. The staff were all very friendly and the gent giving the tour of the gaming space (still at the bare walls and floor stage) was very positive.
If all their plans come together the UK will have a truely premier gaming venue that will cater for systems other than GW's, which can only be a good thing for the wider gaming hobby.

So with my wallet a little lighter I arrived at WHW to get down to the real business of epic gaming :)

Game one say me take Steel Legion against Steve54 using the Epic-UK Black Templar list. The game was a close affair with neither side able to push for win. The game ended in a draw with Steve taking it on points. Now I have to say that for a marine force steve managed to fail a lot of initiative and rally rolls throughout the game.

Game two say me take eldar up against dptdexys's codex marines. I'll be doing a full write up for Tac Comms on this one so I'll only say I lost this one 3-0.

Fun day but I have to say the bar food in WHW is really poor! My burger was truely terrible, nothing like what you get when eating in the restaurant during a tournament. Next time I'll follow Tiny Tims example and pack a lunch :)

More gaming.

2009-07-30T13:16:00.002+01:00

Since my last post I've managed to fit in some more gaming.

First up was another online vassal battle vs Clausewitz testing the current Epic Tau list. A full batrep can be read here. The long and the short of it was that Clausewitz suffered some very bad dice early on and never got a chance to recover.

At the weekend a friend came up to play our first games of Ambush Alley. This is a squad level game between regular and insurgent forces. The games played pretty quickly and with only a few minor rules kinks to work through. We played 3 games with the insurgents getting the better of the regulars in 2 of the games. Looking forward to getting in more of these games.

Final game was another 4000 point Epic game in the run up to britcon. As both of us were trying out potential lists for the tournament I won't go into details but my dice were are lot more average in this game and I managed a win 3-0 in 3 turns.

Not done any painting but as I have a couple of bits to get ready for Britcon I may get around to doing some more stuff as well.

Epic rush.

2009-07-13T14:57:00.002+01:00

Well in the last week I've managed to fit in 3 games of Epic at 4,000 points.

All this is in anticipation of Britcon in the middle of August. This tournament is played over 3 days and as time is less of an issue than normal it allows lists at 4,000 points.

I'm still not sure what to take so I played twice with Eldar and once with Black Legion.

First game was against Paul who was using his guard. I'm not going to post list as 1) It was a early test for one of his potential Britcon list and 2) i didn't write it down!
My list was a Biel Tann themed list with plenty of aspect hosts mixed in with various tank formations.
The game did not go well. I last the initiative in the first turn. No real hardship and by end of the turn I was setup ready to crush the guard turn two as long as I win initiative.
Eldar are +2 on the roll off for initiative vs Guard, and in the event of a tie the player that lost last turn goes first. So with my army in position to hit hard the dice were rolled and .... I lost again! This allowed Paul to destroy my formations in position to hit and consolidated his position.
I was behind and had to take a risk to position ready for the 3rd turn and hope I won the initiative.
Guess what? I lost the initiative again!
Paul mopped up and the game was over.

Game 2 was against Gary and his orks. I used a different Eldar list that is based around guardian hosts upgraded with wraithguard coming out of webway gates. This game was pretty close but a number of blown activations saw my army beaten down in 3 turns for a narrow lose. The unusually part of this game was both my Phantom titan and his gargant were destroyed. Rare you see both sides large titans taken down.

Game 3 was another test game vs Paul and I tried a Black Legion list. In this game I won the first turn initiative only for my spaceship to fail to activate on a 2+ even after using the supreme commander reroll! This left me at a big activation disadvantage and Paul basically worked hard to kill easy formations before they could hit him. I'd kept my chosen off board turn one and had planned to bring them on turn 2. With the spaceship failure I decided to keep them for turn 3. Second turn I lost the initiative, again when I had +2 on the roll off! When my spaceship did turn up I went for a risky move and dropped my retinue and forlorn hope into position to assault Paul's leman russes. Unfortunately overwatch fire out performed itself and my troops were destroyed before they got to activate. Turn 3 initiative was yet another loss and it was after rolling the dice I realised I still hadn't dropped my chosen! Arrrgggh, totally stupid but as I'm in tourney practice mode they stayed off board and Paul easily moved in to win the game.

So 3 games and 3 losses with decidedly average dice! Still better to have that now than at the tournament itself.

London 09 - Epic Armageddon Tournament

2009-07-05T22:21:00.003+01:00

Once again 16 players arrived at the unique venue that is the Cock tavern in London. For this tournament i'd decided to use steel legion. My list can be seen here.

Game 1 Mark Williams - Biel Tann

I played against Mark's eldar twice at last years gw gt and knew what it was all about, rolling assaults led by the warlock titan. In theory my force should match up quite well with good defensive fire from the infantry copanies discouraging early engagements. However poor deployment and a series of failed activations saw my forces sitting back too far. A sacrificial move by my supreme commander tied up the warlock two turns but ulimately I was too static and mark won 3 -0 in 3 turns.

So defeat I ame one. Not the ideal start, but ensured I wouldn't be meeting any of the tournament big guns.

Game 2 Chris Steel - Codex Marines
In a shock move chris hadn't brought orks! But too ease the transition his marines were green, and nicely painted to. The game was a pretty cagey afair. I'd garrisoned one of my infantry companies further forward this time and Chris spent quite a lot of energy trying to dislogde it. After 4 turns or hard fighting neither side had managed to push forward for the win. When the points were totalled up Chris had managed to take a winning draw from the game.

Draw, albiet a losing one. Things are getting better!

Game 3 Tom Webb - Steel Legion
Tom is the owner of Exodus Wars, purfeyor of fine 6mm science fiction minatures. His proxied steel legion army included some of the very nice new main battle tanks soon to be on sale. The game can probably be summed up in the deul between two shadowswords. Fisrt Tom's company moved forward and the shadowsword hit my shadowsword for one point of damage! Later in my turn my shadowsword tagetted the enemy shadowsword, for one point of damage! Turn two would surely see this battle resovled. No. Once again both sides hit the target but only score one point of damage! The battle was resolved in turn 3 when I went first and finally killed the enemy super heavy by doing, yes one point of damage!

I won this game 3-0 but Tom said he had learnt plenty during the tournament and now had a deep respect for atilltery!

So 1 win, 1 draw and 1 loss saw me finish 9th out of the 16.

Thanks to Ginger and the guys of the Central London Wargames Club for another fun tournament.

Not much news.

2009-06-25T11:03:00.004+01:00

After a hectic weekend of gaming its all a bit quieter this fortnight.

I managed to finish off my vassal game with Hena and I now need to get the write up done.

I did manage to complete the battle report of my second game vs Clausewitz and it can be read here

I also visited some old gaming friends and actual did a little rpg'ing! Dark Heresy was the setting and I have to say I enjoyed getting back into a little role play. This won't be a regular thing but its nice to know we can break this out 3 or 4 times a year.

I also managed to fit in a rematch between the Britons and the Romans. A much more cagey game with some desperate manoeuvres on the Romans part due to bad setup saw the Briton's just break the Romans spirit. I have to say the more I play FOG the more I like it.

Not much to report on the painting front and with the new Blood Bowl PC game available there may not be much news for a while!

A busy weekend of gaming.

2009-06-09T15:15:00.002+01:00

Well the past weekend was a busy time with games. Lucky me.

First up on Friday evening I played a game of epic using the Vassal40K epic mod against Clausewitz of the Tactical Command forums. A very cagey game between Tau and Marines. Full batrep to come but if you can't wait the game ended in a 2-0 win to the marines as the Tau were just to timid in this game.

Next up was some Field of Glory action. This game was between Principate Romans and Anctient Britons, using 6mm models supplied by Baccus. My previous games with FOG have been using 28mm figures and to be honest I much prefer the mass effect the smaller men produce. The game went well for the Romans, who steadily beat down the Britons before their main lines of warband made contact. The more I play FOG the more I like it and I think it will become my ancient game of choice over both WAB and WMA.

Sunday evening saw me back on Vassal to face up to Hena once again. This time I was trying his Scion of Iron tank base marine list and was up against a pretty normal steel legion army. Earlier in the week Hena and I had played one turn of an epic game after which I conceded. Hena's orc's had flattened my first attempt at a scion's list in one turn of action and I saw no point in playing any more turns as defeat was assured. We have only played one turn so far, but the game is much more in the balance. This is the major bonus of using Vassal. Not only can I game against a man in Finland, but we can break at any point and pick-up the game again without leaving models on a table!

Finally last night was back to real life epic against my regular black legion opponent. I'm going to use steel legion at the forth coming London tournament so I thought it best to get some games in with the guard. 4 turns of hard fighting saw the game end in a draw. Points were checked and with only 100 in it a straight draw was the outcome.

The rest of the week should see Hena and I finish our game and I can then get the 3 batrep's done that are all pending!

No news post!

2009-05-31T19:22:00.002+01:00

Well, since the Saturday at WHW I've not managed to get any games in or paint anything new. The lack of gaming is down to a mix of work and schedule issues.

The lack of painting is down to re-installing Rome: Total War on my PC!

Hope to get back to painting and gaming in the coming weeks.

Gaming Day - Warhammer World 16th May.

2009-05-17T21:06:00.003+01:00

As I couldn't make it up to the WPS club challenge this year, I decided to take opportunity of having the date on the calendar to get some Epic Armageddon gaming in.

I convinced Steve54 of the Tac Comm forum and Epic UK fame to book some tables at Games Workshops Warhammer World and 5 players managed to make it up for some games.

I started the day using an aspect heavy eldar army against Steve54's iron warriors. It was a bloody game, which my air assaulting aspects refused to join until turn 3, when it was in truth too late. Steve54 took the game 3-0 in 3 turns.

Next up was thePhantom playing orks. I randomly determined what force to take (I'd taken 4 armies with me) and the roll came up as chaos. I used my list from Open War XI. The game didn't go well for the orks. The ork army had 12 activations, but most of them were small sized mobs. Things went well for the forces of chaos. Orks formations were broken regualary and they never rallied. The game ended in a 2-0 win for me in 3 turns.

My last game was against dtpdexys using a 'nice' guard army. Well, it had 2 baneblades and only one warhound so I guess that counts as nice! I decided to take marines in this game and used my list from Full scale assault. This game was a real slugfest with both sides suffering massive casualties. No winner could be found in 4 turns and with no 5th turn to be played it came down to points. The marines took this by about 300 points so a winning draw to me.

Thanks to Steve54, Dptdexys, thePhantom and Gary for an enjoyable days Epic Armageddon gaming.

Ambush Alley - Brits 20mm

2009-05-16T20:15:00.003+01:00

Well, Project 2 is going really well and I've finished the first modern Brit's in 20mm. All the models are 20mm from Britannia miniatures. Nice models and I actually enjoyed painting them! Not something I say very often.

Bad picture's I know. It must be time of a new camera.

Platoon Commander

First Fire Team

Second Fire Team

GPMG Team

Sniper Team

2009 - The project list

2009-05-15T14:09:00.003+01:00

OK, so its May and normally this kinda thing is done in Jan.

I really struggle to get painting modelling projects started never mind finished without some pressure of a deadline. So which bits of the lead/plastic mountain will get attention in what's left of the year!

Project 1 - Epic Armageddon Orks. Since I started attending tournaments I've normally managed to add one race to my collection each year. Last year my guard got painted. This year will be orks. I've manage to buy, ebay and trade enough stuff for 3000 point force now so the aim is to have a tournament army ready by September/October.

Project 2 - Ambush Alley. This project is all new. I saw some figures for a modern skirmish game, got interested and before you know it I've got a small british force in 20mm! Some insurgents are on order and I've got some paper building template to make terrrain. I suspect this will run and run but I aim to have both sides ready for play in July, and I will bring them to Britcon for some pre tournament fun.

Project 3 - Epic Armageddon Space Marines. My initial army of marines wasn't the best painted so late last year I stripped some, bought some other bits and repainted enough for 3000 points. I've got another 1000 or so points half painted and I may strip more of my old stuff to match the new army. No real deadline for this but I'd like to have it done before December.

Project 4 - Trafalgar Fleet. I picked up a starter pack from Magister Militum (Hallmark ships at 1/2400th scale). With 14 ships or all rates I have enough to provide both sides for a game. At this scale I don't mind if people point out that its blue on blue! Again no real deadline for this but December seems as good as any!

After that I have plenty of epic stuff to paint for Eldar, Chaos and Guard to keep me busy!

Hello and Welcome

2009-05-15T12:06:00.003+01:00

Well, first post so I'll say what I plan to use this blog for.

My main interest at the moment is miniature war gaming so I'll be posting progress reports on buying and painting new armies for the plethora of games I enjoy playing!

I'll also be posting reports on Epic Armageddon tournaments as I compete.

From time to time I'll post up reviews of new games or miniatures as I get them.

Having said all that I wouldn't expect a regular or continuous stream of content!

Well enough said.