The not 40k post

 I was having a look back through the blog and realised it's a bit 40k heavy at the moment.  Sorry about that! I've had a quick scan over my geek shelves.

10mm ECW

Not really small wrestling but English civil war in the 10mm format. My friend Alex has many many armies for different game sets in 10mm and the price and space capacity always appeals to me. So I thought I would go for a bit of Pikemans lament and get some Parliamentarians. My awesome friend Alex donated me some minis and I have made up a fair chunk of a small force. I am aiming for a force loosely based on the Battle of Camp Hill (Birmingham / Dudley based so the closest battle always appeals). I have most done and based, I just need to check they are all primed and be brave and paint them. I don't think the speed paints will work on 10mm as the models are to small for the  paint to do it's magic. Normal paints will have to do. I have had some advice not to worry about to much detail with 10mm as it's the whole unit that gives the luck. I won't use my normal base flock as it seems to much for 10mm I believe. Might just settle for painting the sand.

Rumbleslam 

I think this will be all done with for a while. The TCW was popular on posts so I will try and bring that back. Think this might be a good game to play with my sons as the ring is where the action takes place so won't need a lot of table space.

Victory at Sea 

Not gonna add much to these I don't think for a while. I have just been putting together the Altmark I got free with the VaS rulebook. I have also got out of the box some IJN subs and coastel MTBs.  So they will need priming and painting soon. Sub games look interesting but will need some rule reading. 

Fallout Wasteland Warfare

This one has took a bit of a back seat. The models are quite expensive so haven't got new one for a while. The range has expanded quite a bit so plenty of choice still. This game takes a while to set up (it has a lot of tokens!) so I haven't really played it that much. I need to get back into it. 

Xenos Rampant 

I can't wait to play this game. As its miniatures agnostic I don't have to worry about new minis. So it's just making up a force out of what I have. Come to think about it I could use some fallout minis for this game as well as my 40k stuff. I need to sit down and write some lists up of different forces. 

Dragon Rampant 

I would love to do a middle earth army for dragon Rampant but as ever space and money hinder my Wargaming utopia. I have my 15mm Barbarian army all sorted and ready for a game........i think may need to go remind myself of the list 

Last Days Zombie Apocalypse 

This game I have plenty of models for! I have zombie and a cracking mix of survivors. I don't have full terrain for an urban board but enough for a few buildings like a farm or small suburban area. 

Blood Bowl

I have all the teams I want (so far mwha ha ha) my Halflings are  absolutely my favourite team in the game. We have to get our friends league started again soon hopefully. 

Gaslands

I love this game I really do but the turns seems to take so long being spilt into gear phases  when you have multiple cars on a team and multiple teams. I'm sure if you played the game all the time you would fly through a game but I like multiple games so sometimes turns take a bit longer while we check rules etc. 

I think that's it but I might have more rulebooks squirrled away some where! 

*Update I found more rule books!!!! 

What a Tanker

This game was a lot of fun. The game system was good and I like the use of dice results to do certain activations. I like the plans for progressing up the tanks. Starting at early war tanks moving up to late war. Only issue is getting models for all those tanks. I could see it being done in 6 or 15mn that would reduce the cost for the game. 

Tanks Modern Age 

I'm a big fan of  the Team Yankee book and Tom Clancys Red Storm Rising I was sad when this game died a death. I think Team Yankee stole some of the games thunder to be fair. I loved the game play and simple system. I would love to play this again as it would scratch the team Yankee itch.....may have to dig it out if the box. 

Update to the update to the update! 

It's been pointed out that I have forgot 2 quite big games

Bolt Action 

No real changes, no new forces as I am not interested in axis force so it would be allies and they are quite similar. I have got some Commandos so will probably expand those a little more and I want a churchill tank to go with my late war European theatre force. 

Konflikt 47

I'm holding fire with this. Waiting to see where warlord go woth this game  now they have took on the licence. I have a fairly decent Birtish force anyway though a tesla tank would be nice 

Leagues of Votann

 

Got to take my leagues of Votann out for a battle today.  All my models came to about 45 power level. My friend Matt brought his tau along and as it was my first ever go we just did a straight up kill every thing.  I lost but had much fun getting to grips with the new army. They don't die as easy as my guard which is nice but they are slow. I killed a lot more Tau than I did with my guard (though I haven't tried new guard rules yet so who knows). I got slapped a lot by mortal wound causing sub munitions so didn't get to see my core troops in as much action as I would have liked.  I knew my bikers were weak (from reading the Votann FB group) and the poor guys had to go up against a Ghost Keel and Commander shadows un. They took a hell of a beating but did manage to bring Commander Shadowsun down. Something I have never done before. They were promptly blasted away by the Ghost Keel. My champion failed miserable but that was mainly my use of him, I teleported him into the open and he got blown away. Uther the Destined is bloody awesome! He killed a tank (can't think of the name and I know Matt will tell me in the comments ha ha ha) and then had a good crack at the Ghost keel. He was the last one standing but was brought down by sheer amount of fire power from the Tau troops. Great fun Judgement tokens are absolutley awesome it has to be said!

Uther vs Tank

Uther vs everything! 

Imperium gets a Small Reinforcement

 I've mentioned them before in a previous blog and now I havd my preacher and ratlings all painted!

First up the preacher. Nothing to put together just added a base for him and he was fairly easy to paint. 

He will soon be inspiring the troops of the Imperium to kill the Xenos threat. 

Next up are some sneaky ratlings waiting with their sniper rifles for the next threat. These required some assembly but not to hard to put together. 

Once  again loved using speed paints! I think they turned out really nice. 

Welcome 2023!

 Well it's been a few months I know. The usual Christmas chaos took over the Trials house and with 2 kids under 10 it's been busy busy. Christmas came and went. I was blessed with some models and a rule book.

I hope you guys got some cool stuff also! I got some Artizan commandos for bolt action plus Lord Lovatt and his bagpiper. So that's my officer sorted.  My fried had night me a commando support unit a while back so now with maybe one or two more blister packs I have a small commando platoon.  You'll see some citadel blisters in there. They are a preacher and some ratlings for my Guard army. Now I get to set someone up  outside my deployment zone! (That's a reference to my mate Matt and his pesky Tau setting up all over the damn place 😂). The preacher I need to read the new rules for him see what buffs he gives now. 

Quite excitingly I have Xenos Rampant now. I have had a read through and it seems really good plus I can use all my models for it. I'm still liking the idea of WW2 vs aliens. I would like a Battle for LA style game aswell but don't have many modern soldiers in my collection. 

My son is a big top trumps fan and has many, my wife managed to acquire me a WW2 bolt action top trumps!!  Not played it yet though.  The last thing Wargaming related i had was the kill team counters and templates. My son quite fancies trying kill team so I thought it would be handy to have my own templates and counters. 

Aims for this year. 

I don't like to make to many aims as you never know what life throws at you but here goes. 

1. Try playing smaller point value games 

2. Play Xenos Rampant 

3. Play some more Rumble slam. As that always seem popular. 

I don't have much space left so I can't see me expanding any new armies rapidly so I'm leaving that one open for now. 

Well happy new year to you all and hope you all have a good one! 

The Leagues Of Votann.

 My birthday has been and gone. Didn't really know what I wanted. Family got me Mass effect legendary edition as I have been wanting it for ages. If anyone else asked I asked for money for models. What models? Well it was either kill team or leagues of Votann. I then discovered the price of new kill team box so ruled it out. My birthday came and I got more money than expected. I popped to local gaming shop with the mind set of if they have kill team I'm buying it otherwise I'm getting leagues of votann. They had one copy but it was reserved so leagues of Votann it was!! Reasons why I wanted them? Well squats were cool in Epic 40k and I wanted my own OP army ha ha ha Guard are wonderful and the best faction but they do die easy. The Leagues of Votann seem a bit more powerful! The army box arrived home and I was surrounded by sprues and books and cards. The codex is full of fluff which I love . You get a pile of data cards (so much stuff to remember which I of course will forget) and a book of instructions. What I would have liked is pictures of some of the weapons as it took me longer than I would like to admit to work out the difference between ion cmgins and bolters. The models in box are 

 1x Ûthar the Destined, who can also be built as a Kâhl

– 1x Einhyr Champion

– 3x Hernkyn Pioneers

– 20x Hearthkyn Warriors

So guessing you wanna see the models? Well as its been a while and thanks to the all blessed speed paints they are done and I am super proud of them

There ya go! My personal favourites are thr champion with massive hammer, my Medic with an axe and a missile launcher 

Can't wait to give them a run out! 

Kill Team!!

 

Today I tried Kill Team. Just a basic run through of rules. The tacs ops and missions will require another game to play. This was straight up kill each other.

As you have seen before on blog I have the Imperial Guard Veteran team (Cheers Dave!) all painted up. So they jumped in their transport (foam box) and headed to war. Their opponents...... bleeding space marines!!!!

The size of battlefield shocked me even though I knew the size in my head.  This would easily fit onto a dining table or even a table at a board game cafe or Geek Retreat type place. The terrain is nice looking we had some smaller bits and not the buildings that are also in set but as I said juat a learning game. We didn't use the missions or tac ops. I believe these add a more tactical element and your way to score victory points. These will be explored another time. We will be playing narrative as well so will get to use the narrative rules (always better than competitive) and my little band of krieg brothers can grow from strength to strength...... Or die horribly I suppose such is the guard way.

Onto the game a roll for initiative each turn keeps you on your toes, you could be going first but you also may not be so plan ahead. Every model can start the game  with a conceal token or engage token. Models that have a concealed token can not be targeted  (they can be when certain conditions are met) and can not engage targets. This represents soldiers moving as stealthily as possible trying to get to the best position. Some units like snipers can shoot when concealed. Engage tokens mean your model can shoot and fight but also be shot and charged themselves. 

Models activate alternately though some less powerful models can activate 2 or more models  in one go.  When you model is activated you have AP to spend, most things cost 1 AP.  The ranges in Kill Team are represented by symbols, square circle triangle and hexagon. Square is 3", circle is 2", triangle is  1" and hexagon is 6".  So  a models movement would be 3 Circle which would be 6". The template you get is very nice and covers 2 of the distances you will be needed to measure. And a straight ruler for hexagon is also provided. They do look very cool as well. A thing I discovered today and really like is most guns have no range in Kill Team. The size of the board assumes your average rifle in 40k can reach anywhere. Some weapons do, I can only speak for what I played today but my flamer, plasma pistol and Melta gun had ranges listed. All my Las guns and opponents bolt guns had no range noted down. This little touch speeds the game up.  

Now the best bit the fighting! Kill team uses a system similar I believe to a game I own called Tanks Modern Warfare (Now been replaced with world of tanks or something like that). For example shooting, your weapon has an attack characteristic and that's how many dice you roll, your ballistic skill tells you what you need to hit. You equal or beat that total boom you landed a hit. If you roll a 6 that's a critical hit  which is always good cos you cause evtra damage!. So you've landed some hits well now the target has to see how well they defended.  Every model has a number of defence dice and a save throw. You throw your defence dice and try to make your saving throw. For every saving throw you make you are saved from 1 hit. Only a critical save (6) will save a critical hit though! Any hits that get through cause the damage stated in weapon. Once you have taken more wounds than your wound characteristic  your model is out of the game. Its kinda the same system for close combat but both parties fight at same time. You don't use defense you roll your close combat roll (depends on weapon) then any hits you can use to hit or parry the enemies hits. So you have some tough choices. This system runs really quickly and Let's you get trough your turns nice and quickly. It being GW there are a few special rules here and there but they are fairly simple and don't complicate the game.

How did the battle go....... OK for a first time I killed 2 maybe 3 space marines and then got slaughtered ha ha ha I found out about the ranges when I ran my flamer close but not close enough and he couldn't fire and was killed next turn. 

Overall really enjoyed it. The game runs smooth and the mechanics are quick to pick up and already planning another kill team. Really wanted the new box set Into the Dark but it's price is to much for me at the moment. So I quite fancy making a kill team board as when it needs storing it can live on top of a wardrobe. 

Well there ya go! I shall report back when we have played a full game with mi ssions etc 

There's Heavy support and then there is Super Heavy Support!

 I have painted the Demolisher so now my crusade welcomes LT Mkoll  (Tank Commander) and his tank the Vanguard of Terra. I went with the light grey dark grey camo theme that I have done my sentinal and hellhound in to keep the force similar looking.

Also as a new addition to my crusade force is this awesome beast!!

Imperialis Dominatus the super heavy Shadow Sword tank. The Volcano Cannon is a beast on this thing. Now technically in the current game it's not the best but it's so cool!!! And that's all that matters to me!

First time I have ever painted something so big! Can't wait to use it in a game even though it will probably die in the first turn.