40k 6th Edition and 1st Edition Marines

Well White Dwarf finally confirmed what everyone seemed to know anyway, 6th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 is due out - next week in fact.

So here's a look at the new rulebook.  Turns out its the picture that's been slowly building up on the spines of White Dwarf this year.  This edition is the turn of the Dark Angels to be the cover boy.  As the first legion, its been a long time coming frankly.

With this momentous event and the recent completion of a squad of marines that have been sitting 90% finished on my table for a while, its time for some 40k ramblings.

My first real army was Space Marines.  Like so many other people RTB01 was the start of this army but I hadn't picked a chapter.  I owned the Compendium and had randomly painted a squad in desert camo - it seemed in the Badab war this was allowed (apparently this is explained in the recent Forge World books).   

In White Dwarf 130 the Space Marine strike force was advertised and there were these really cool white marines.  From this point in I was collecting Dark Angels, specifically the first company "the Death Wing" - some of whom were lucky enough to wear terminator army.  Things have changed a lot since then, but on restarting 40k a few years ago I settled on Dark Angels again - but this time I'd do them green.

The completed squad, in Rogue Trader deployment formation

So then, my first proper 40k figures post on the blog and its a real nostalgia trip for me.  I noticed very quickly in the multi-part marine sets that you got a few Mark VI (beakie or womble) pieces. Unfortunately collecting a complete tactical squad of Mark VI marines was looking like I would need to wait a really long time, so I took care to assemble the pieces on the same figure, but didn't expect to get a complete squad.

The plastic half of the squad, plus resin missile launcher

Then last year Forge World started releasing resin early Marine Mark kits and I just had to get some.  They also released some classic weapon kits, so I was able to get the old cobra style missile launcher, a retro melta gun and even a low slung flamer.

The lanky combat squad

With some trades with my brother and spares from the Dark Angels veteran kit I was able to get 5 plastic Mk VI marines together which combined with the resin 5 gave me the complete 10.

Side detail, the lovely cobra missile launcher and retro Mk VI squad markings

Mark VI armour, as well as the beaky (or corvus) helmet, has one knobbly shoulder and one smooth.  This means the squad markings have to be combined on the right shoulder so a little bit of retro research was required to make sure I got this right.

Still not true scale

An interesting feature of the resin marines is that they are noticeably taller than the plastics.  I've tried to hide this a bit by using crouching legs, the missile launcher and the raised fist on the sergeant, but as you can see above there's a definite move to taller Adeptus Astartes from Forge World.

Ready for all eventualities

One thing I was keen to try and stick to with my new Dark Angels was "What you see is what you get" (or WYSIWYG) but I couldn't afford or spend the time to paint every option as a separate figure.  Instead I've been investing in magnets.  I'll post more experiments with these in future, but here you can see my special weapons approach.  Tiny round magnets in the fist of the marine and the gun means I can swap them around but they don't fall off mid game.  The only real sad thing is the low slung flamer requires the arms to be in a very different pose to hold it, so I didn't use them in the end.

Well that's done for now.  I'm getting quite interested in what 6 ed will bring.  It sounds like allies, new rapid fire rules and vehicle changes will really help my chosen play style.  The new mission objectives sound like they shake up the slightly stale approach currently being used and defined (and interesting!) scenery will help make my growing selection more entertaining to use.  More on this when I get the book.

Follow me!

...and my PC is back!  After a hard drive 'incident' I've been without computer since pretty much my last blog post.  Some updates will be on the way later in the week but a couple of exciting blog events have happened since my last post.

I have followers!  So thanks to FeldMarshal G, Tony Maher and Gartenzing to taking the bold move in admitting you've looked at this blog.

There's little doubt in my mind this momentous event occurred because I have been accepted into my first blog network - the House of Paincakes.  Thanks to John for letting me sneak in there - the big logo is now pride of place on the right of these very words.

Ghouls - lots of them

Its been a busy few weeks so I've neglected my blog a little.  Time to catch up with a bumper post.

Diary notes:

• A few weeks ago I introduced a number of my friends to Malifaux, the session went quite well with everyone at the least interested in the way the game played (which in contrast to Song of Blades and Heroes is saying something!).
• I've joined a Warhammer fantasy battle campaign with 7 other players.  Its a larger size (2500 points) than I have been used to so its kicked off lots of mini projects.

Right on to the main post then.  When 8th edition of Warhammer was released it led to a lot of experimenting with what worked on my existing forces.  A clear winner in my Vampire counts army was ghouls, at the time they were the same price as skeletons and far, far superior undead the new core rule set (hello poison and supporting attacks).

My 6th edition skirmishing(!) ghouls

I already had around 28 ghouls, of which only 8 or so were painted.  In previous editions ghouls worked differently every time an army book was released and were never especially effective so I hadn't been too keen on them.




In the 7th edition book at least they were a ranked unit and with the right choices, a vampire could increase the unit size so I had started to build up a good sized unit.  I wasn't a fan of the GW plastic ghouls (more on these shortly) so I looked around and got some of Mantic ghouls (see my previous post on these here including some painting ideas).  I also needed a Ghast to lead the unit so I found this huge beasty from Reaper to lead them.

Don't mess with the big guy

With my gaming group we started a 500 point 'tale of gamers' type series of games to allow people to start new armies and try out Warhammer.  500 points isn't an especially balanced size game, but it was small and fast.  I decided to build an all ghoul army as an add on to my standard force (especially as experiments with skeletons resulted in consistent losses!).

My brother had some very old metal ghouls lying around he wasn't too fond of - I think these are 4th edition as there were earlier incarnations of ghouls (the "night horror" range included at least 2 ghouls) which saw use in 3rd edition and earlier.  I do like to have as many generations of figures as I can in a unit, but these chaps are tiny and pricey on ebay so I'll relax my rule.  After some brush restorer dipping, these were returned to battle ready status in the now trademark purple skin tone.

Comical, but at least they rank up

Finally there's the GW ghouls.  I had bought 20 but only built 10 at this point.  These little @#%$ are not my favourite figures.  They don't rank up and generally look silly with the crazy over the top piercings and trophies.  They do however fill up my ranks and add some variety to the unit so needs must...

Not actually genestealers, honest.

This mob is lead by the Ghoul King from the top of the Terrorgeist.  It seems unlikely to me I'll mount the big bat beastie if I take it, instead using it as a rare choice.  This sorted my second Ghast model out for me.  The real question is, if I do take a Ghoul King on foot, do I use the Reaper giant or the leaping GW model?

So having completed 54 ghouls, including movement trays my ghouls were finished and all good for battle.  I had plans as we expanded beyond 500 points to increase the size of the units so bought some of the really excellent Heresy ghouls to add to the mix.  Then, the new Vampire Count army book arrived.

Great.  Ghouls now cost 2 points more each and can't be raised beyond their starting numbers.  They also cost twice as much as a skeleton.  So for a long time, the Ghouls sat shiny and ready for battle without leaving the shelf.

Now with this big campaign I'm playing in I am considering them seriously again.  If I take a large unit (40+) they may well work for me - an experiment with 30 didn't go too well in my first game, but their size wasn't the only factor in the problems they faced so I am willing to give them a few more tries.  They are also all painted so I want to use them!

I've also finished some more undead themed scenery.  I picked up some gravestones from Mantic (actually produced by Renedra who I think mold Mantic's plastics) and added them to the small pile of bits I had from GW skeleton and zombie sprues.  I still have more left over which I may make more scenery with, but I am also trying out some regimental basing (inspired by my brother and Rob Hawkins).

My unit of skeletons (about to be raised)

Kirai crew - part 1

Following on from last week, I'm going to walk through my Malifaux crew in a bit more detail.

I was introduced to Malifaux through a few sources.  My brother had an interest some time ago although we didn't get chance to play a game.  Then I saw a few posts about it on Frontline Gamer and was interested again after reading these.

I was finally convinced when a local hobby store ran a Malifaux introductory day.  A watched a few games play though and bought myself a small rulebook.

After getting a feel for what this was all about, I had to decide on how to start the game.  Malifaux is roughly split into 5 factions, each of these having at least some themes running across all the crews within so narrowing down to one of these was one option.  There was the pretty candy approach, pick the miniatures that appealed the most - this nearly did it for me.  Then there was the voice of reason, discussion with veterans of the game and some forum reading.  I was sorely tempted by 'The Dreamer' both the background and the models looked really good to me.  I was warned off as a starter crew they might be a bit much.





Instead, encouraged by my wife's choice and a recent viewing of 'Spirited Away' I chose Kirai and the Spirits of Vengeance.


The Japanese style of these figures plus the undead faction they belonged to gave me several things I could work with.  I didn't know a lot of the Malifaux background when I bought this box, so instead I started thinking of my own.

My crew would be lead by Kirai, who was acting a bit like Dorothy in Return to Oz in my vision of Malifaux.  Taking the role of Chihiro from Spirited Away, Kirai has returned to a spirit world she visited as a child.  This time where there were only occasional dark elements to the world, now the world of Spirited Away is very much a part of Malifaux.  Returning as an adult has seen Kirai again abandon her real name and is known as 'Sin' (rather than 'Sen' from the film) which also ties into Kirai's Malifaux background nicely it turns out.

Kirai and friend

Kirai has become a Master in the world of Malifaux, with the unique ability to bind spirits to her will.  More, she is driven to discover what has become of her protector from her first visit to the spirit world, Haku.  She has been unable to summon him fully to her side, instead only an animalistic, spirit, version of himself has answered her call.  Followed as ever by faithful soot sprites, Kirai dominates the will of other spirits in her quest to find Haku and woe betide any who get in her way!

My Kirai crew then are, where I can find a link, inspired by characters from the Spirited Away film.  In terms of the Kirai figure, I've more or less use the colour scheme from the official boxset, Chihiro wore a red dress in the film so this is fine.  She's standing on wooden boards, as will all the crew.  This represents the bath house that most of the film is set in.  Finally I replaced the decapitated head between her feet with a soot sprite.  While Kirai is certainly not shy when it comes to battle, I felt this was more in character!

Ikiryo, the dark(er) side of Kirai

Spooky head tilt in full operation

Kirai is a 'two part' master in Malifaux.  Able to summon her own dark spirit forth to enact her vengeance from afar, the Ikiryo is a nasty minion that can be unleashed time and again.  This miniature was a tricky one for me to both place in the background and paint.  In the end I decided it was a new character to the story and used a combination of the official colour scheme and one I have used on my warhammer banshees.  I'm reasonably happy with the end result.  There's no real tie to Spirited Away on this character, aside from the mandatory wooden boards.

The robes on these are really nice to paint

The Onryo are a couple of the bath house girls who in the world of Malifaux became drained spirits.  Kirai quickly bound these women to her will.

Again the official colour scheme was used here.  There's plenty of echos from the film in the red and white kimonos, and the jade is a nice third colour to add to the mix.  I do have a couple of soot sprites to add to the bases here, I didn't get chance before the tourney last week.  They are at least mounted on the wooden boards however.

Rar!

Probably the most popular character from Spirited Away is 'No Face'.  This harmless spirit is corrupted by the greed of others in the bath house and becomes a gluttonous monster of titanic proportions in a key moment of the film.

Lots of robes to paint in this crew

This is perfect for the 'Gaki' spirits that can form a wall of slavering monsters in a Kirai crew.  The more of these spirits you have, the hungrier they get - the rules a perfect match for No Face.  I've got a pair of these beasties currently but really I want 3 or more.  I am trying to sculpt one of my own to closely resemble No Face, my first attempt is a bit large for the in game rules however so I am still thinking that one over.

For now I have painted these in dark blues to sharply contrast the colours of the female spirits.  Their skin isn't black as No Face's is, but a dirty grey/brown.  If I do make No Face he will be in his true colours, but these are his lesser cousins.  Once again soot sprites and wooden boards link the crew to their bath house origins.

Finally, for this post, is my Haku figure.  Now in game terms, one of the best characters available to Kirai is the Shikome spirit.  This is actually a sort of Japanese version of a harpy/witch, but I have to admit I really, really dislike the official figure.  This problem was one of the key pieces in the background puzzle I created for myself.  The Shikome's role is that of a relentless hunter.  Fast, flying and very dangerous in melee I quickly thought of oriental dragons, which in terms of Spirited Away is the character Haku when not in human form.

A game winner and clear favourite figure for me

 I hunted the internet for oriental dragon figures and was really surprised and disappointed by what was available - very little.  I finally had some luck with Bushido releasing their Mizuchi figure, which I reviewed here.  I spent a lot of time painting this chap and I am quite pleased with it.   As it represents an older incarnation of Haku, some of his colours are deeper, he's hairier and has longer horns.  His base is decorated with a small paper figure, one of the minions that pursues him during the film.

There's more figures in the crew, but they are not quite complete.  I also have plans to slowly expand Kirai's minions to cover the options that seem to fit the theme, so future posts will cover these.

Slaughter in Salisbury!

My crew, Kirai's spirits of Vengeance

Well yesterday was quite a success.  I arrived nice and early at the venue in time to help set up the boards ready for a day or wargaming.  In the end there were only 6 participants, however this did make the event feel a lot more friendly and communal as a result.  The tables and scenery were supplied and prepared by Bryan and Pat.  We had a graveyard, a creepy forest and a couple of windy canyon tables to battle over.  Bryan kept everyone in order and was tracking scores throughout the day as well as providing cake!

There were 3 games to be played each throughout the day, each round with a specific strategy to play for.  Each player was also allowed to select up to two schemes per game, however no scheme could be used twice at any point during the day, so selecting the right ones for the right game could be the difference between winning and losing (and it was...).

Round One - Shared Slaughter

Dr Frankenstein, I presume?

My first game was against a a crew from the same faction as me (resurrectionists) - lead by the infamous Dr McMourning.  Controlled in fine humour by Matthew, the game was a slug fest where the objective was simply to do more damage to the other side than they managed on you!

As both of us were keen to increase the size of our crews through our necromantic skills, this had the potential to be a very bloody game.  Things started very well for me, I soon summoned pretty much everything I owned onto the table, well before McMourning had even started thinking about stitching anything abominable together.  As it turned out, time was short for us on the first game and we were only half way through the 3rd turn when it ended.  This caught me rather by surprise and as a result despite being in a commanding position to wipe out around half of McMorning's minions I wouldn't get the chance!

Matthew had been much cannier than I and succeeded in taking out his revealed grudge against my Onryo and managing to kill my Shikome (or the proxy "Haku the dragon spirit" I am using) in the dying seconds of the game through a slow to die action.  I gained only a single point through my own secret grudge scheme.

So round 1 - a loss 1 - 4 victory points.

Round Two - Shared Reconnoitre

Nothing up my sleeves or under my hat, honest

Game two was against Pat, one of the chaps who organised the event, using his show girl crew lead by the slippery Colette du Bois.  Pat knows the game of Malifaux well and was using a complex and subtle crew here.  The mission was to spread out across the table and take control of as many quarters as we could.

I was wary of Colette's sorcerer skills - Pat had a mountain of soulstones in front of him very quickly.  Taking the bull by the horns, I sent Haku the dragon off on a mission of violence against the only none-showgirl Pat had, knowing he couldn't do too many sneaky tricks against this.  After eating the unfortunate gunfighter, Haku continued to distract Pat by munching on his performers, eventually pulling Colette's attention away from the centre of the table.

This was fortunate, magical pigeons were flapping about far too close to Kirai for my liking - I had to dispatch one with her shears!  After a late game summon of Ikiru was incinerated by Colette in a single blast I was getting worried about her simply gunning my spirits down, but again time was running out and I had managed to distract Pat long enough to secure half the board.  Pat managed to secretly claim a nice mausoleum, but I had successfully bodyguard'ed Kirai after announcing it to him, so managed a narrow win.  As Pat is fond of saying, even if you get wiped out, in Malifaux you can still win if you did what you were supposed to.

So round two - a win - 4 -3 victory points

Round Three - Shared Claim Jump

Some interesting models in this crew, not sure
 they are a great choice out of the box however

Feeling a bit more positive after the second game, I faced Rob using an interesting choice of crew - Lucius's special forces.  This is a bit of a brave choice as Lucius is a henchman not a full master so considered a bit weaker than standard.

Knowing a bit about this crew (their rules are much less complex than Colette's!) I played very aggressively.  This suited the mission well as I needed to own the centre of the table to win.  Ryle was real concern to me, so I made him the target of a scheme and proceeded to hit him really hard before he could fire that blasted cannon at me too many times.  After that, Lucius's men were outnumbered and outclassed by my swarming spirits.  Haku had another blinding game - eating the guard captain and Lucius!  At the end of time for the round only a single guardsman was standing (just, on 1 wound) and I had dominated the table, gaining all the victory points I could.  Rob had some terrible luck, his cards never seemed to be much help to him.

So round three - a win, 6 - 1 victory points

So after the dust had settled and the points were added up, the placings were read out.

In third place was Matthew.  I'm not quite sure how his fortunes faired after his victory over me, I know I heard that McMourning had died in at least one of his games.  Regardless a fine performance.

Somewhat unexpectedly (at the time) I came second.  Turns out Bryan, the main organiser, had taken himself out of the running as he was only playing to help with numbers (he should have won by my reckoning).

In first place was (Viking) Dan.  I didn't play Dan so  don't know how mean his crew were, but I did see some rather empty tables opposite him through out the day, except when he played Bryan...  All the same, very well done!

There were non-place prizes too, one for sportsmanship - won most deservedly by Matthew who remained upbeat, fun and in character throughout the day, and one for painting.  Now to be fair only 4 of the players had any serious amount of paint on their crews but I had spent a fair few hours the last few weeks working on mine so I was hoping to be in with a good chance of clinching this prize.

The votes went my way (I don't know if Bryan again took himself out of the running) 

and I got this fine certificate to remind me.  Very pleased I am too.

There was a 'bad luck' prize for Rob too, he received a new card deck to hopefully improve his luck in future!

So all in all a fun day and a pleasing result.  Thanks and well done to Bryan and Pat for putting this all together and thanks to 7th Heaven for sponsoring the event.

I'll post more about my crew, the theme I am using and how Malifaux the game works in future posts.  For now here's a couple of shots of my crew's leader Kirai and my star of the tourney, Haku.

These shears aren't just for show as a magic pigeon found out

Fast, poisonous, relentless and cool, its Haku

Getting ready

Just a quick post to get up to date and clear the decks for the next series of posts.

The main, full sized rulebook.
Now rarer than hen's teeth.

I've been getting prepared to take part in a Malifaux tournament.  I've never actually taken part in a competitive event before so this is something new.  It's been billed as a starter event so hopefully I wont feel like a total idiot.  As a result I've been painting a lot and playing a number of games to 'get my win on' as the event organiser would put it.  I've also been trying to read up on as much as I can - knowing that some characters can instant kill you in revenge for killing them is good to know...

I managed to watch and then take part in a game last week, my opponent was using a crew lead by, essentially, a giant evil wooden puppet.  It was a fairly unique gaming experience, one of the reasons I am currently enjoying the game so much!

I always thought Punch and Judy were sinister...

Sadly we ran out of time to complete the game, so it ended on a draw.  I was hopeful I could turn the game into a win given a full game, so a very useful learning experience.

Mine's like this, but green and
not ready for blogging

I also squeezed in a game of 40k this week.  It was a chance to try out my Contemptor dreadnought.  I had agreed with my opponent (good old Greg) that we could both use things from the Imperial Armour book that had the 40k stamp on it.

Greg tried out a couple of Warp Hunters.  Turns out they aren't very 40k ready - some might even say they are 'broken'.  So this combined with an unbelievable turn of saving throws from Greg's assorted turbo boosting jetbikes and apparently invulnerable farseer meant I lost 7-5 on kill points to a very well commanded Eldar army.  The game was fun all the same but I think we'll save the Forge World rules for really big games in future.

So its back to the painting table to see if I can get all my figures in a reasonable state for tomorrow.  Report and finally some pictures of my crew soon to follow.

Making your own 40k scenery - part 2

Couple of quick updates before the main part of the post:

• I've written a guest post on Mywargame reviewing the really nice Mizuchi miniature I got recently.  I'll blog the finished job soon as he's all but finished now (assuming the varnish I just applied doesn't ruin it).
• Played a game of Warhammer Fantasy, Tomb Kings vs. my Vampires.  Ended up a fairly convincing win even though my general fell to the curse of the Tomb Prince.  Luck was very much with me at several key points and I still made several "I should know better" mistakes, so all in all a fun game (thanks Rob) with some good take homes.

So back to the scenery...

I've been casting up extra blocks on and off for months and having ideas about making a big fortification of some kind.  I've looked through the planet strike rules and fancied having a go at some point so this was partly driving me, but I'd also been given a nice big Imperial double door by my brother that I wanted to stick on to something.

A few weeks ago I decided I would see if I could build something in a week, just in time for a scenario game I was hosting for some friends.  You can have a look at the scenario here if you wish.

The idea was that this bigger fortification should be usable on its own, but also look in keeping with the bunkers I'd already made, so a line of fortifications could be put together that looked quite nice.  With this in mind I used the design of the bunkers as the template to construct a much larger building, with 2 floors.

There's a few challenges with a building of this size made of plaster of paris that's going to be used for gaming rather than just display.

1. It needs to be strong enough to support its own weight plus that of miniatures.
2. It needs to have access points for miniatures to enter/exit the structure and also ideally to see out from for line of sight while shooting.
3. It needs to be of a size that I can store it safely somewhere.

So here's what I did:

This is the ground floor.  It's pretty large, each of those tiles holds a 40k miniature easily.

Using the bunker walls as a design starting point (especially the window slots) I started dry assembling a front wall that included the big double doors.  The doors were a bit higher than I wanted the entire structure to be so they influenced the shape of the front quite a lot as you'll see on later pictures.  Once I had an idea of the size of the front I quickly dry built walls for the side and rear to make sure I had enough bricks - it was looking good so I started designing the side and rear walls in more detail.  I wanted a rear entrance that was recessed hence the 'C' shape design.  It also saved me tiles as it was looking very tight for that particular brick type.

The 1st floor, the centre section is mostly enclosed, the sides sheltered and the front exposed.

Having worked out the rough footprint of the ground floor, I started planning the 1st floor.  This I wanted to have a command bunker section, but be overall smaller than the ground floor so I wasn't building a tower block.  I also took a very simple shortcut in terms of access between floors - I didn't worry about it.  I did leave a hole in one of the sections to suggest that there's different hatches to allow for this.

The roof!  I ran out of tiles at this point so it was brownie blocks to the rescue!

The roof was more complex than I first thought.  Having now designed the ground and 1st floors in detail, I was running seriously low on bricks.  I did have a pile of brownie bricks spare, but they aren't quite the same dimensions as the Hirst moulds.  I found a combination that almost worked and then did some trimming with a knife and filling with wooden stirrers.

Front view with all levels assembled

So having worked out the overall design I started sticking the various sections together with PVA.  I generally started by making lots of subsections that were very similar to the walls of the original bunkers.  The plan was that rather than trying to build it all in one go and discover there was a fault in one brick that compromised the entire thing, at most this would affect a small section and hopefully could be compensated for when I assembled the sections.

Rear view and a sneaky sandbag lizard

Due to the size of the structure I needed a sturdy base and also decided to base the 1st floor as well.  The Hirst power station I've already built does have a large roof without a base, but this was going to be larger and heavier than that so I didn't want to risk it.  Both the ground and first floors were constructed before gluing them to their bases, again to avoid any defects in the bricks affecting the overall shape.  The ground base is mounting card, the 1st floor some plasti-card.

Side view, gives an idea of how the front is offset   

Like the bunkers and power station before it, all the touch points between floors have had a generous coating of PVA after painting to try and reduce wear and tear due to in game moving of the sections.  This is especially likely near the front door arch as its a fair tight fit.

The finished product - not 100% on the base but there's so many other things to  paint

After coating it in gesso primer, I painted it in a series of GW paints, starting with a foundation (now base) paint that goes a long way even when diluted.  I had a suitably large Aquilla left from the 40k basing kit to mimic the motif from the bunker so I added that to the 1st floor bunker.

The bastion laid out with my walls and bunkers.  Looks ok to me, need more walls!

Finally here's the "bastion" lined up with my other fortifications.  I think as a defence line it looks quite good and certainly fills a big part of a gaming table.