Mini Bat Reps: Game Night 1

For the first night of our gaming weekend, we got things started with three minigames, playing randomized 400 point forces on a 3x3 table, with D3+1 pieces of terrain. Round 1 featured Evan vs Chandler, Evan fielding Space Wolves with a Rune Priest and Thunderwolf Calvary while Chandler got Eldar and rolled a Special Character and Heavy Support. Randomizing the special characters, Chandler got Magun Ra. Considering he'd rolled their Phoenix Lord, we determined he had no choice but to run Dark Reapers.

Turn one saw the Thunderwolves stay out of sight of the Reapers, charging hard up the left flank. Meanwhile the Rune Priest trusted his Terminator armor to keep him safe and made a direct 2" march through the ruins. The Eldar shuffled over and opened fire on the Rune Priest, who was able to withstand the fusillade without concern.

Gaming Weekend: Evan's Final Pregame Thoughts

I just wanted to do a quick little update on progress from when we set our gaming weekend a month ago until today, when we kick off the festivities. My only two real accomplishments going into this gaming weekend were finishing the DakkaJet and basing some scenery.

Looking back to my goals post exactly one month ago, my plans definitely took a different course than I'd expected. I had been leaning toward working with some Dark Eldar, but ended up not even touching them in favor of their nobler kin.

New Broadside XV88 leg posing conversion

Hey there FTGT readers, today I want to show an easy option for leg posing on the new XV88 Broadside kit.

The intended pose on this guy is just awesome - with one leg back and the other forward to brace the XV88 suit with its heavy weaponry.  Unfortunately, as cool as this pose is - in a squad of three it can start to get repetitive.  This article will show you an easy way to change that, without having to hack apart joints or re-sculpt missing details.

Scenery Building

As I may have mentioned before, I am not very good at making or completing scenery projects. The main reason we had a fully terrained (it's a word now) board for our last gaming weekend is because Ron provided a number of very nice pieces. My unpainted foam, foamcore, and plastic scenery filled out the rest. I promised myself that it would at least be a little different this time, along with some encouragement from +Dave Weston to finish up my first run at some of the STCs he provides on his site. The STCs are a wonderful resource for someone like myself for whom making terrain is not a strong suit.

You may or may not remember my progress for the last gaming weekend, but to summarize, I didn't get much further than this:

I hadn't made much progress until the last week, when I finally cut out and glued another STC from Dave, along with cutting out MDF bases for each piece of terrain and gluing together some foam pieces I'd cut out a while ago.

When Mini War Gaming goes MINI Part 3

So over the last two days we have seen several Mini Games that I have worked on to experiment on Friday Night (Part 1 here Part 2 here).  This is the Stunning Conclusion to this little series: Missions 2 and 3 for the Space Hulk Style mini game.  These missions are Get to the Landing Zone and The Alamo.  Remember, all these missions and styles have not been play tested so there may be some bugs to work out (literally).

When Mini War Gaming goes MINI Part 2

As a follow on to last night's post on mini-games, here is the Second Part of Mini Games for Friday Night: Space Hulk Style Games.

This game as well as the missions were inspired by the Space Hulk Board Game.  They are pretty much a no  win situation for whoever is involved.  With that said, the allies still have a shot to get out alive or win the scenario.  The three missions below are designated as Defend the Bunker, Get to the Landing Zone, and The Alamo. HQ, Sergeants, Special Rules, and carnage: what more could you ask for from a War Game with your Friends.  This Post will talk about setup and Mission 1.

Bat Rep: 1,500 pts Tau vs Orks

Hey everyone!  Ron here with a batrep of the very first outing for the Tau army I've been assembling.  My brother-in-law plays Orks and we had time for a 1500 pt. game this past Saturday.  My brother-in-law is a great gamer, and has some of the most beautifully painted Orks I've ever seen.  It is always a pleasure playing against him.

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When Mini War Gaming goes MINI

With our big game quickly approaching, Evan, Ron, and I have been in discussion about some mini games that we could do on Friday night before the big game.  I have been looking online, remembering some ideas that I heard while I was just getting back into gaming and coming up with some ideas on my own.  Below are three ideas I have for Mini Games that we could do on the first night everyone gets in:

1. Random Army Mini Games
2. Kill Team
3. 3-Player Space Hulk Style

This Post will take care of the First two mini games:  The Random Army Mini Games and Kill Team.

New Tau XV88 Broadside Review and Magnetizing How-to

Hey there FTGT readers!  Today on my mad dash to assemble a full Tau army we have the new XV88 Broadside.  Another great update to an old model GW put in the Tau release.  

The kit comes with a ton of extra bits such as 3 heads with multiple faceplate options (maybe use leftover ones on XV8s?), 2 drones (which you can make as marker, missile, shield or gun variants), and a ton of wargear options - making the kit slightly more viable at the $50 apiece price tag.

Three is a Magic Number: 3-Player House Rules

With Game Weekend 2 coming fast, Evan, Ron, and I have been in discussions about some house rules.  With any game, whether at a hobby store, school, or even a garage filled with enough miniatures to have our significant others wondering if we have a mild-severe obsession (not speaking from specific personal experience or anything), it is a great idea to talk about rules questions that could come up ahead of time.  House rules are a necessity because there will be times when you are in the heat of a battle and a situation will arise where you realize that there is no FAQ, no response from GW, and no clearly defined answer to the situation.

This post is going to go over some of the house rules we have talked about for our big weekend.  Granted these will not always apply to every game (like a three person mob rush in the middle of a board) but we hope this will spawn some discussions, some ideas, and who knows, maybe even give us a chance to actually find the answers that GW hid while they were burying the Ark of the Covenant.

Painting: Swarmlord

Like the Ork Warboss, this model has been a long time coming. 

I had the Swarmlord nearly complete in time for our last Gaming Weekend at the end of April, but not enough to glue him together. Since then, I finished off the fine details, but he was still waiting on a base and final assembly because I painted him in pieces. 

List Building: Eldar 1,500 Points

I partially broke my ban on buying more minis and added ever so slightly to my small Eldar collection. My self justification was that I found a good deal on weapons platforms, but then had more platforms than guardian squads, so had to pick up the bits to make another 10 defenders. I certainly paid less than I would have to add one of the new kits, but the new kits would have been cooler. And then I won an Avatar auction for cheap. Oh well.

Anyway, with us deciding that our 3-player free for all game would be at 1,500 points, I figured I should come up with a 1,500 point list for the Eldar if I want to use them.

Tau XV8 Finecast Commander Review and Conversion

In my continued mission to assemble an entire 2000pt Tau force before the 29th of June, I opened up my new finecast Tau Commander for assembly.

This guy is a refreshing update to the XV8 chassis.  The arms and legs have been elongated and the posing is dynamic.  With how good this guy looks he has the negative side effect of making your existing XV8's look even more dated.  The bigger drawback of this model is that it is finecast - limiting the pose unless you are willing to undertake a substantial conversion.    It also introduces all the potential flaws associated with finecast - mold shift (where two parts of the mold haven't been lined up perfectly), bubbles, wonky straight lines, etc.  With a model made up of primarily straight lines - this can be worrisome.  In terms of finecast quality, the commander I received was all right...literally - it had two right legs and no left....

Gaming Weekend II: Three Player Battle

When discussing plans for our upcoming Gaming Weekend at the end of the month, we realized we might have some difficulty coming up with the "smaller" game. Last time we ended up doing a 2v2 match with our friend John. This time, John will be out of town on our appointed weekend, and we don't really want to play one-on-one games leaving an odd man out. While our Big Game might end up being 2 on 1, like last time, we all would like a chance to run our own armies and be on our own. Leaving us with a conundrum since Warhammer isn't exactly designed to be three player without alliances. 

Twin Linked Dual Devourers for a Flying Hive Tyrant

Hey guys!  Ron here again with my first Tyranid post.  Tyranids are my main army, and my favorite mini for them has to be the flying hive tyrant (flyrant in nerdspeak).

As anyone who has fielded one of these can tell you - the most popular weapons configuration in 6th edition is two sets of twin linked devourers.  Now this presents a conundrum - the hive tyrant box doesn't come with ANY devourers.  You could use the one set of monstrous creature size devourer arms that comes in the Carnifex set - but you will quickly realize that after assembling the flying tyrant with wings and legs - you only have room for one set of devourers.  The answer to this problem is the subject of this post - making your own TL dual devourers.  Evan has shown you one way to do it on the blog (which look great and can be found here: Evan's TL devourers).  Below is my take:

Gearing Up for Another Gaming Weekend

After going into hiding for a few weeks after a Hellacious beat-down at the hands of Evan, Ron, and both of them at the same time, I have come back just in time to prepare for Orks, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, and whatever other armies we can pull together for a battle royal.  Just as the post title suggests, I am staring down at a box of models that need assembly and painting, at a loss of where to start.  I have a few new models, a few models that need a good painting, and I have a few models that need LEDs.  Luckily I was given direction by Ron and Evan; I have decided to help with the Greater Good and assemble and paint all of my Tau models so we can have a mighty force.  Currently I have 3 Tau Crisis Suits, 2 Stealth Suits, a Sniper Drone Team, and a Group of Pathfinders.

Airbrushing: Starting to Get the Hang of It

It's been nearly a month since my last Airbrushing post and I finally broke out the airbrush again. Right now I think my biggest obstacle to getting more comfortable with airbrushing is just a reluctance to use it. As with any new process, the steps required go pretty slowly the first few times until it becomes routine. The time consuming prospect of working on just the basics always gave me the excuse of "I don't have time" when I considered doing some airbrush work.

Honestly, what helped me get over the hump was watching videos on some of the basics over and over until I felt a little more comfortable. In particular, I liked the series of quick tip videos from Les at AwesomePaintJob.com. Once I had the motivation, it was time to actually try my hand.

Wolf Works: Orks Take to the Sky

I have to say that so far, out of all of the models that I have lit up, the most incredible one is the Dakka Jet for Evan’s Orks.  It has a lot of Orky goodness in it, and all of the lights add to that feel.  The whole setup is internal within the fuselage.  It is run off of a 9V battery with a total of 3 true LEDs and a switch that has an LED when it is in the on position. Below I will talk about my process for bringing this beast to light.

Posing and Magnetizing the Riptide

Ah the Tau Riptide.  If you love giant robots and 40K, it doesn't get much better than this guy (you know, at least until two months later when an even bigger one comes out of the gates sporting +2 Toughness, +2 or so inches, and an even deadlier attack profile towards wallets and bank accounts).  The Riptide is by far one of my favorite models put out by GW - so small head aside, I had to pick one up.

Painting: Mycetic Spore

A few months ago, I bought a beautiful (if you can call it such) Tyranid Mycetic Spore on eBay from Halestorm Gaming. I felt pretty fortunate to get my hands on his casts as I had followed his work as he posted on a Warhammer forum, The Tyranid Hive. I asked him in a private message to let me know if and when he would be selling casts, since I was having no luck and no love with my own attempts. He sent me a message when they went up and I signed on just a few hours later, just in time to snag the last one.

Jumping on the Tau bandwagon

Hi guys (and gals?), I'm Ron, I'll be posting here from time to time on FTGT; as much as time allows since I am a single dad of an amazing 3.5 year old.  I first got in to 40K with the Battle for Macragge set at the end of fourth, and have been buying up as much plastic crack as money has allowed since.  My main army is Tyranids - which you will see me showcase a bit here on the blog.  I also have a healthy (ok, probably unhealthy) amount of Space Wolves and Warriors of Chaos for Fantasy.  As with most wargamers who own three plus armies, I have a large amount of bits, on-the-sprue minis, and unopened kits lining every inch of free space available in my place that I will likely never get to in my life.  So when Tau came out with an awesome book (thanks Vetock!), and even better looking minis naturally I set about buying another closet or two worth of bulk plastic.

Inverse Pyramid O' Sprues

Shout Outs

In my short involvement in the Warhammer Blogging community, I've received some great advice, input, and help from other bloggers. I've also seen some brilliant ideas and beautiful models. Whenever I find some cool material on a blog, I add that blog to my increasingly full Reading list off to the right. If you'd like to be added to the list, shoot me an email at ftgtgaming [at] gmail.com and I'll add you on. I can't promise jumps in page views by any stretch, but I at least check my reading lists frequently for new posts.

Sometimes though, that doesn't feel like enough, so I'd like to give some thanks and kudos, and highlight some posts and tools I've found recently which I liked. This collection is by no means complete, authoritative, or otherwise, and makes no claims to be so. It is also, for the most part, not in any sort of order.

List Building: 1,000 points of Eldar

In this post, I'm going to go through the thought process and choices made in making a list, based on what is available and the tactics I expect to employ. For this first List Building post, I have chosen to make 1,000 point Eldar list using the new codex. I chose Eldar for the obvious reason that they're new and everyone is still feeling out what will work and what they might need to change in their collection. That said, I will only be including models I already own, so I unfortunately won't be exploring the new units. I chose the point level for this list for two reasons: 1.) my local store has monthly 1k Tournaments which is where I do a fair bit of my limited gaming. 2.) I don't have an extensive collection of Eldar available, so 1,000 points will force me to make some choices whereas at 1,500 points I could probably take just about everything I own.

Bat Rep: 1k Tyranids vs. NEW Eldar and Dark Eldar

I went to my local store on Sunday for their monthly tourney. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, only one other person showed up, so the tournament was off. Since we were there, we decided to go ahead and play a 1,000 point game as planned, but with no time limit, which was nice as I had bought the new Eldar codex when I walked in and was learning the rules on the fly. My opponent, Rick, was a great sport and didn't complain when I grabbed my book dozens of times each turn. 

 vs.

Eldar Codex Review

I swung by the local store on Sunday for a tournament and was pleasantly surprised to see plenty of copies of the Eldar codex, as well as plenty of the new boxes. I'd promised myself I wouldn't be buying any new models, but I let myself splurge a little and get the book. 

As with the Tau codex, I am still impressed with the quality and appearance of the book. There is a good bit of very cool artwork, much of which I haven't seen before. I particularly like the art on the coverpage: