Gorgon rises

When I started painting my tyranids a year ago (!) I was aiming for a 750pt list to get me started.

Part way through the year that list had to be tweaked after GW dropped the points totals for a lot of models. That meant I had more models to paint!

Anyway, I have actually finished that list, along with a couple of other models. So here they are in their glory!

They’ve had their first outing which finished pretty well for Hive Fleet Gorgon. Seems genestealers like the taste of Dark Angels!

Expect more progress in 2020, should have some Tyranid warriors done pretty soon.

Nostalgia

So I’m an unashamed fan of the Warhammer universe and I do miss the Old World and ranked combat.

I still have 4 Warhammer armies and occasionally play games of 8th/End Times to whet my appetite for the old game.

This week I got the chance to take on a friend at Warhammer World with my son helping me out. We got lucky and were given a special table to play on looked amazing with all the painted models on show.

It was a daemon and tomb king alliance against some wood elves and although we only got 4 turns in due to a lunch break and much rules looking up, it was great to get back on the table!

Anyway, the result doesn’t matter, but look at all these lovely models!!Thanks for reading!

Solid foundation

Solid foundation


Another tournament blog this time, from a 12-man event held at the Wargamers Den in Gillingham, Kent, last weekend.

I dithered about whether to take Masons or Farmers for weeks - they are my only fully (well, nearly) painted teams - but opted for my Masons again purely because I have more games with them and did get a few practice matches in during the weeks before the event.

I travelled with three other London GB players this time, and all in there were 5 from our meta in the field. Could have made for an awkward car journey home!

My Masons 12 were: Hammer, Honour, Marbles, Brick, Chisel, Vet Chisel, Flint, Granite, Harmony, Vet Harmony, Mallet, Tower

I had wanted to field the new rookie Champ, but she wasn't painted in time so wasn't an option. This time Brick and Harmony made their way back into the 12, with mascot Wrecker and the no-longer allowed Union option of Snakeskin making way for them.

The field was very alchemist heavy - three teams - which is a bad matchup for Masons so I felt Mallet could play a role there with his smashed shins character play perhaps helping to protect against goals.

Round 1: vs Miners

I got the toughest of draws for round one, against multiple tournament winner Michael Coomber. Miners were very strong when they came out, got toned down a bit, but are very much making a resurgence at the moment. I got one practice game into them the week before, but felt this would be a very tough game.

Masons: Hammer, Marbles, Brick, Vet Chisel, Flint, Tower
Miners: Shaft, Digger, Fissure, Mule, Salvo, Spade


I lost the roll and had to kick off, using Flint to boot it. Michael was very smooth with his influence and placement going past in the blink of an eye and had passed the ball along the line before scoring with Spade to go up 4-0.

After kicking out I parked the ball on Flint and beat up Spade a little to set her up for the takeout at the top of turn 2. Going first, I played conservatively (so I thought) and went with Flint first to hit the knocked down Spade a bit and try and keep the Miners away from the ball.

Hammer did take out Spade, but Shaft's legendary allowed him to still get to Flint and score the second goal so the Miners were up 8-2.

This time the kick out scattered badly and went behind my deployment line, meaning I couldn't generate momentum. Tower could move towards it but not recover it, and a returning Spade in turn 3 might be able to score a third goal.

Mule was being a real pain here, knocking over Marbles and preventing his counter charge and generally being very difficult to deal with.

In turn 3 it emerged that Spade was just out of range of trying for the goal, but could recover the ball and kick it back into space hoping for Salvo to pick up. Tower intervened and booted it back towards the Miner lines, but it was still in reach of Salvo, and although I'd knocked down and damaged Shaft by my goal Mule could again knock down Marbles to prevent his counter charge and Salvo could score the third goal.

Final result: 2-12

Post-game thoughts: Bad scatter aside, I was scratching my head at what I could do to stop the Miners. As usual though, after the event I realised when I recovered the ball with Flint and hit the knocked down Spade I should have unsnapped the ball as Shaft could not then reach it. Things to ponder for future games!


Round 2: vs Blacksmiths

This time I was drawn against Ricardo Pequeno, who was one of the London boys in my car down! He had hoped to play Morticians, but forgot half his team and so rolled a dice and it came up Blacksmiths.

The smiths are my second most played team in season 4, so I was fairly comfortable with them and although I lost the roll off Ricky chose to kick so I had the ball at least.

Masons: Hammer, Marbles, Brick, Flint, Granite, Tower
Blacksmiths: Anvil, Sledge, Farris, Iron, Furnace, V Cinder

Furnace and Vet Cinder could be a problem with the searing strike character trait, and Sledge is still a beater extraordinaire despite losing his 2" melee. But with the ball, Hammer is a proper threat so I felt I could get stuck in to the Smiths.

Farris kicked off and I recovered the ball and passed it to Hammer. Eventually Farris was a little over-extended and Hammer passed the ball to Flint, and managed to take her out for 2-0 to the Masons. That gave me the momentum to go first in turn 2 and Hammer then took out Vet Cinder before she could activate for 4-0. Brick was causing a nuisance of himself by knocking down other Blacksmiths and using concussion to remove influence, while Flint hung about with the ball at the back.

In turn 3 Vet Cinder came back on and was promptly surfed by Hammer again for 6-0, and although Marbles was taken out by Sledge, Hammer took out Vet Cinder for a third time in turn 3 and Flint scored a goal to hand the win to the Masons.

Final result: 12-1

Post-game thoughts: Farris was just overextended and isolated in turn 1 which got me a takeout and the momentum and it really just snowballed from there. Granite was really good here as Ricky's apprentices were often TAC3 when attacking and just couldn't do the damage needed to give him momentum and easy takeouts.


Round 3: vs Ratcatchers

Jason Inglin and his Ratcatchers awaited me in the pair down game in round 3. This time I could use my favourite captain Honour, and again I was getting the ball as opponent chose to kick.

Masons: Honour, Marbles, Brick, Chisel, Flint, Granite
Ratcatchers: Piper, Squeak, Bonesaw, Vet Graves, Miasma, Scourge

My opponent kicked off with Piper and he was clearly hoping to nip in, steal the ball and score early. Flint recovered the ball for me and kicked it back to Marbles. I set up the counter charge threat and had the ball on Granite when Piper made his move attacking the monkey first and pushing him away.

I felt there would be an opportunity for Marbles in this game, and it came then as Jason declared Piper's Haunting Melody play (opponent chooses whether Piper makes a jog towards someone, or the other way around) and I chose the Ratcatchers captain to make the jog, which triggered Marbles' counter charge.

Jason wisely defensive stanced his captain, but I could still push him out of range of Granite and this left Piper stranded in front of my team. Honour had earlier given herself superior strategy and used her remaining influence to dodge Marbles back in to Piper and start the damage train.

The remaining ratcatcher team had moved up together, so at the start of turn 2 Honour took out Piper for 2-0 and Chisel was able to take out a fully-stacked Bonesaw before he could activate for 4-0.

It got worse for the ratcatchers as Brick got stuck in to Scourge and removed some of his influence. By turn 3 Piper came back on and was promptly taken out again by Chisel for 6-0, followed shortly after by Vet Graves being removed with full influence by Honour for 8-0.

Brick was taken out by Scourge in reply, but I was able to move Flint up with the ball in range of the goal and go first in turn 4 to secure the win.

Final result: 12-2

Post-game thoughts: A brutal game for the Ratcatchers in the end, I think I removed players with 10 influence on them and they were always on the back foot. Honour is boss, simples!


As it turned out it was only a three round event, due to the third player who was on 2-0 losing in round 3.

I finished in 5th place (I think) and was awarded best painted, but returned the prize as I didn't paint my Masons - apart from their goal token. A fun event, nice to get some tournament games in! Masons will be parked again, going to stick to Farmers and Navigators for a bit to learn them properly.

Thanks for reading.

Strategies and schemes

Hey folks.

So it appears I’ve picked up (yet) another new game thanks to the good folks at Welwyn Wargamers, in the fashion of Malifaux.

Now I’ve been interested in the game for a long time, but until recently I didn’t know anyone local who played it.

With the new third edition of the rules and several members of the club having a crew or several, now seemed a good time to try it out.

As usual with a new game I like to look at the various factions and the models specifically and decide what appeals to me most.

In the case of Malifaux, that was the Neverborn. I had no idea how the game was played, apart from that no dice were used and there seemed to be a vast model collection, so I put in a preorder a while back.

Wyrd who make the game seem to ha e been having lots of distribution problems and so it took me a while to get the stuff I’d preordered. I’m still waiting for the rulebook and my faction book, but still.

I do have a Marcus crew though now. Here they are in their grey plastic glory:

I played my first game a couple of weeks ago, losing 4-2 to a guild crew in a Turf War strategy game. It was pretty fun, albeit I had no idea what I was doing, but I did enjoy the strategy within the game as you pick your crew and the mini-missions you need to try and win.

In the meantime I’ve picked up a few more models to give me some options in future games - a Grootslang (snakey type critter), some Will O’ the Wisps (sneaky little dudes for grabbing objectives) and some Corrupted Hounds (more of the same). My crew is about mutations and speed, and the boss man Marcus sets all that up so hopefully as I play a few games I’ll start to learn some strategies etc.

This month I painted up another two of my Guild Ball Butchers - Tenderiser (my favourite model in the guild) and Brisket. Will hopefully have another 2 done at least this month, but we shall see.

Here there are. Pretty happy with how the team looks so far, but only 3 players finished.

Finally I've been working a bit more on my tyranids. No pictures yet but am part way through painting up three Hive Guard models and a Broodlord.

By the time they're done, I have one more model to build and paint to complete my initial 750pt list. Small steps, but the vast majority of the troop core is already done for bigger armies etc.

Thanks for reading!!

Path to Glory

It’s been a while since my last post, which doesn’t necessarily reflect my hobby progress, rather than a lack of completed projects.

Over @welwynwargamers I’m running an AoS Path to Glory campaign which has enticed 15 players to join. I’ve only played one game of AoS myself, and I’ve always wanted an orc army.

So I took the plunge with Bonesplitterz. So many models to paint...

Here they are so far! The starting force - a Wurrgog Prophet, 2 x 5 boar boys, 1 x 10 savage orruks and 1 x 10 savage orruk arrowboys are all done.

The clan will get their first run out tomorrow (2nd) which should be interesting.

The campaign itself has been going well, a decent mix of battle tomes and some entertaining scenarios. No idea how my boys will fare, but that’s not the point anyway!

In other hobby news I’ve been acquiring more Guild Ball guilds - Morticians, Engineers and ratcatchers. I’ve nearly got the lot, but then you knew that would happen 😀

I’ve also picked up Magore’s Fiends for Underworlds thanks to a prize voucher won by my halfings. That gives me three of the bands with associated decks which is plenty for me to be going on with.

That’s about it. Will try and post a bit more frequently, GB butchers and some Hive Guard next on the painting table!!

Thanks for reading 

UK Games Expo!

After a last minute decision, a trip to the UK Games Expo at the NEC was on the cards! It was a very much last minute thing, as we decided to go at around 5pm for the following morning.

My son Jamie was coming along, and good friend Wulfyn was also easily persuaded. An hour and a bit in the car and we were there with all the other nerds.

I hadn't been to the UKGE before, and it was pretty intense and busy. So many games that looked fun to play and so little time!

We bumped in to several Blood Bowl tournament friends, played a few games and spent plenty of money on new things. Really recommend it, but perhaps it's a 2 day thing as it did get a bit overwhelming for all of us at times.

I came back with a decent haul of goodies, look forward to playing some of these soon!

Hobby progress

Short update on what I've been up to during May. Not a lot it seems, despite best laid plans.

I did manage to finish another 12 termagants for my tyranid swarm. Now have 40 models done, and another 8 genestealers well on their way.

Next I finally finished off one of my Guild Ball Butchers team - Shank.

I've had these on the painting table for months and months to be honest. I finished their bases ages ago, but as they are really popular in the game at the moment I kind of lost motivation to get them done.

There's lots more of the guild to go, but I'm aiming to paint up Brisket and Tenderiser next.