Hobby Wednesday 30/11/16- Deathwatch Marines

I started painting up my Deathwatch marines this week, wanting to try some new techniques on them for once. 

After undercoating them black, I had a go at painting the first edge highlights with Thunderhawk Blue. As you can see in the photos below, I am not used to this technique and my first attempts were pretty heavy handed. 

Battle Report 87- 1500 pts Deathwatch vs Tyranids

This week's battle report is the first game featuring my new Deathwatch army. I was playing at Heaton Games Club taking on Adam and his Tyranids. I had previously played his Dark Eldar, so was interested to see how this game would play out. We rolled for mission and got the Relic. 

My army consisted of:
Combined Arms Detachment

Watch Master- Beacon Angelis

5 Veterans- 5 Stalker Pattern Boltguns

5 Veterans- 4 Frag Cannons, Storm Shield, Auspex

Drop Pod

5 Veterans- Infernus Heavy Bolter, Sergeant with Xenophase Blade and Combi-melta

5 Veterans- Black Shield with Power Sword, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, Power Sword, 2 Storm Shields

5 Bikers- 4 Power Swords, Power Axe, Meltabombs

Corvus Blackstar- Extra Armour, Auspex Array, Blackstar Rocket Launcher

Vanguard Veteran- Heavy Thunder Hammer

Vanguard Veteran- Heavy Thunder Hammer

For my warlord trait, I got Lord of Hidden Knowledge, giving my warlord and his unit one re-roll. 

I started the army with the Watch Master. He is essentially a Chapter Master with an AP2 power weapon that strikes at initiative, pretty handy! I gave him the Beacon Angelis to allow me to quickly re-deploy a unit.
I took a combat tooled-up Veteran squad to accompany him; a Blackshield with a power sword, two Heavy Thunder Hammers, a power weapon and a couple of Storm Shields for defence. I planned to put them in the Corvus Blackstar for assault. 

I then took a Veteran squad with 4 Frag Cannons. Deployed in the drop pod, these should eliminate any threat on the turn they arrive. I could use the Beacon to re-deploy them quickly to support the Watch Master. I also took a unit with Stalker Boltguns for some long range firepower. A final unit with an assault Heavy Bolter and a Sergeant with a Xenophase Blade was also added. 

I took a Bike unit with power weapons, this would give them some good mobility and combat ability. With the points left over, I took two individual Vanguard Veterans with Heavy Thunder Hammers. This would give them good mobility and could hit really hard in combat.

Apologies for the "grey army", I've just got them built and am waiting on some decent weather to get them undercoated. It may be some time.....

Fluffageddon 2016: Army Review

This post will review my army for the recent Fluffageddon tournament, how it performed and how it could be improved. 

Army Review

As a reminder, my army was:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher 

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist 

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter 

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

In order to put the reviews in context, my battle reports for game 1, game 2 and game 3 can be found in the tournament tab. 

Fluffageddon 2016- Armies on Display

Today's post features some of the army photos from the Fluffageddon tournament. Hope you enjoy!

First up is Ian's Ork army. He actually ended up taking the Best Army award and it was well deserved. You can see more of his army on his blog, Need More Tanks. 

 Next is my own Ravenwing.

Fluffageddon Battle Report 3- Ravenwing vs Eldar

The final game of Fluffageddon 2016 saw me playing at the top table against Danny and his Eldar army. This mission would be a variation of kill points, where the units destroyed would be worth Blood Points equal to their points value (with half points available for a unit taken below half strength/starting wounds/starting hull points). 

My army consisted of:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption (with CS)

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword (RB1)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist (RB2 and RB3)

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter (AB)

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (SS)

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

My warlord trait was Rapid Manoeuvre, giving me +3" to charge and turbo-boost moves.

40k Rulebook FAQ now up!

Hi everyone,
wanted to share this link with the blog readers. The rulebook FAQ is now up on the warhammer community page.

I've had a quick look through and two changes from the draft FAQ I spotted were:
- Scout moves occur before Seize the initiative. This makes sense, but it was nice to have an extra tool for countering seizing.
- Passengers in a jinking vehicle don't have to fire snap shots. I would have liked to have them fire snap shots as per the draft FAQ, but Dark Eldar players will be happy (for once!).

Any other changes that I may have missed?

Fluffageddon Battle Report 2- Ravenwing vs Astra Militarum

After a great first round game, I found myself at the top table facing off against Lewis and his tank-heavy Astra Militarum army. This mission was the Eternal War mission Crusade with 5 objectives. 

My army consisted of:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption (with CS)

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword (RB1)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist (RB2 and RB3)

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter (AB)

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (SS)

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

My warlord trait gave the Chaplain Courage of the Lion, giving him a 12" Fearless bubble.

Frontline Gaming Article Highlight

I've steadily been continuing to write content for Frontline Gaming, as well as my own blog posts here. I thought I would take the time to highlight some of my recent articles that may be of interest to the blog readers that you may have missed. 

Humourous Army Reviews

I have continued to write up some spoof, tongue in cheek reviews for certain army builds in 40k. These have recently included:

• Codex: Riptide Wing
• Codex: Gladius Strike Force (Oprah Edition)
• Codex: Bad Space Marines (Or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Cabal)
• Codex: Space Communists

The Lost Art of the Written Army List
This was an editorial based on a recurring trend when I go to tournaments these days. It was sparked after attending the recent Fluffageddon tournament, where not a single one of my three opponents had a paper copy of their army list for me. Instead, I was given a phone with a Battlescribe file to take a quick look before the game started. These are some of my thoughts on the etiquette of tournament lists.

In addition to these, I have a whole host of Space Marine and Dark Angels unit and formation reviews on the site for your perusal. Hope you enjoy!

Fluffageddon Battle Report 1- Ravenwing vs Blood Angels

Welcome to the first battle report from my games at Fluffageddon 2016. The tournament was billed as a more relaxed event with a moderate degree of comp and emphasis on building an army that fit with the background of the relevant race. 

Overall, the tournament was good fun. I got some really nice compliments on my army, which was great considering some of the standard of painting there. There were a few issues though that I will get to in a later post, but it was generally a fun day. 

My first game saw my Ravenwing army take on Tom and his Blood Angels in the Contact Lost Maelstrom mission (3 cards per turn). 

My army consisted of:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption (with CS)

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword (RB1)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist (RB2 and RB3)

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter (AB)

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (SS)

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

My warlord trait gave the Chaplain and his unit furious charge. You can find some of the army restrictions and my thoughts on my list in my previous post.

Guest Post- The Definitive guide to Youtube Video Battle Reports

Hi everyone, this week's Guest Post comes from Chris Rhode. In this article he talks about his top picks for Youtube channels for 40k video battle reports.

The Definitive Guide to Youtube Video Battle Reports

by Chris Rhode

Hi again St. Andrews faithful! Thanks to your gracious approval of my last guest article I got to write another, and I sincerely hope that this one will be at least as useful and/or interesting to you.

So let's get right to it - I love batreps, you love batreps, and all of us especially love GOOD batreps, otherwise we wouldn't be on this blog right?

And without leaning myself too far out of the window I daresay most of us also enjoy a good video battle report. And by now there's also quite a few channels on youtube, so at times it can actually be hard to find the really good ones. By “good” I’m talking about things like decent lighting, non-garbled sound, and maybe even an engaging host and painted armies. As you can imagine, the creation of such high quality video batreps takes time, maybe even more so than written ones, so usually there’ll only be no more than one or 2 new releases every week. So, to fuel my batrep addiction, whenever I came across a new good channel I made sure to subscribe. And now I get the chance to promote my favorite channels here and you get to see some cool batreps - win-win situation I'd say!

First off I'd like to group my list of channels into 2 categories - ‘short form’ batreps and ‘long-ish’ batreps.

Now if you're anything like me you don't have unlimited hobby time, or at least not as much as you’d like. There's usually a job involved (to pay for new plastic crack), shopping for groceries and preparing meals (so you don't, well, die), daily hygiene (so other people will want to play with you) and maybe even a significant other (that has be placated every now and then unless you want to risk him or her pouring paint and super glue all over your Dark Eldar army. Yes, yes that actually happened and I know I mentioned it in my last article but even 10 years after there’s still some hurt feeling here. I mean, superglue, really?!).

So anyway, hobby time comes at a premium and at least for me that means I cannot watch a 2 hr battle report where you show me every single dice roll, and frankly, I wouldn’t even want to. Thankfully a lot of channels do some post-production now, and cut their videos down to a much more manageable 30 - 90 mins.

And without further ado I present:

Category 1 - Short Form Video Battle Reports (30 - 40 

#1 - Winters SEO

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWVwkGrdqVEGkU3LNlp70fw

My absolute favorite in this segment is hands down Winters' channel - Winters SEO. Even though I have no idea what "SEO" stands for (senior executive officer?), I DO know that I love his channel to bits and his batreps (and other videos) are simply superb. Featuring very nicely painted armies, great scenery and my personal favorites in the realm of battle mats (gamemat.eu), it's hard to find something that could be done better. But the unique trait that makes this particular channel my favorite is Winters himself. The way the man tells the story of the battle, his tone of voice and the way he talks really draw you in. In fact I believe he'd make an excellent audio book narrator if he ever finds himself not liking his current job anymore.

“Home” armies: Space Marines, Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus and *drool* - Mechanicum (30K)

Hobby Sunday 13/11/16- Ravenwing Bikers and Deathwatch

This week for my hobby progress, I finished re-basing my Ravenwing army and assembled some more of my Deathwatch marines. 

Most of my Ravenwing army has now had their bases updated to match my White Scars. This army was the one that I took to Fluffageddon yesterday (this post was written in advance, so I have no idea how I did at the time of writing). 

Fluffageddon Bound!

Tonight I will be travelling down to Sheffield to take part in the inaugural Fluffageddon event on Saturday. My Ravenwing hope to perform well on the battlefield tomorrow and have three fun and entertaining games. 

If you are a reader of the blog and are attending, be sure to come up and say hello, especially if I have not met you before! I intend to capture all my battles for future battle reports, so look forward to seeing how I get on. 

Battle Report 83- 1500 pts Ravenwing vs Astra Militarum

This week's battle report sees my Ravenwing take on Chris' Astra Militarum force. This was another practice game for Fluffageddon that I managed to fit in the same gaming night as the previous battle report for my first visit to Heaton Games Society.

As we were getting a little short on time, we decided to play an Eternal War rather than maelstrom mission. We played Crusade with 4 objectives.

My army consisted of:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption (with CS)

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword (RB1)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist (RB2 and RB3)

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter (AB)

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (SS)

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

Once again for my Warlord Trait I managed to get Rapid Manoeuvre, giving me an extra 3" on my charge.

Guest Post- Work in Progress: Getting Back Into Hobbying

This week's Guest Post is another from Darren Tse (he is on a roll at the moment!). Having recently just got back into 40k, Darren has written about his experiences of getting back into the hobbying aspect of 40k this week, detailing some of the challenges that he has faced. Be sure to check out the Youtube channel he helps contribute to, 1Plus Productions. 

Work in Progress- Part 1

by Darren Tse

Hi guys. I recently started playing 40k, and at first was quite reluctant to start the hobby side. I have played before, but way back in the early 90's, and let me tell you, hobbying back then was not fun. Models were poor, lacked detail, and were mostly lead or pewter. Nothing seemed to stick lead to lead very well. Things were not as snap and fit as they are today, and it was both impossible and potentially toxic to try and cut and shave your lead models. Primers sucked, did not stick, and generally removed any of the already lacking detail on the models. Paints were poor, and to wash, you actually had to mix up black with water to the perfect consistency. All in all, being a hobbyist back then took true dedication.

But apparently, so I’ve been told, that has all changed! Even fine-cast models are better, and the plastic is really a dream. Super detailed, snap and fit, and good plastic glue make modeling, kitbashing and converting a breeze. Very good paints, from multiple manufacturers, give the painter a plethora of choices. And allegedly, nuln oil is like liquid skill. So it was with great excitement that I decided to start hobbying again.

Up until this point, I had had a lot of my models commissioned. I wanted my things to look good on the tabletop, and did not feel I had the skill to do that. But having been encouraged by my fellow players, I’ve taken the plunge and started to hobby.

Over on our YouTube channel, you’ll see the video series called Work In Progress, which chronicles my somewhat amateurish forays into the hobbying world. These blog posts will accompany those video episodes, so please enjoy.

I decided right off the bat, with my limited hobby time and short attention span, that I would need some short projects and some longer term projects, and that I would need multiple projects to jump back and forth. I know myself, if I have just one project that has seemingly no end, I will end up quitting. So to keep the motivation high, I gotta keep it interesting. If you are like me, then I do recommend having several things on the go. However, if you are the type that can sit down and concentrate and finish one thing off at a time, then power to you!

1) Setting Up The Hobby Space

I recently moved, and my nice big basement has been turned into my 40k area. I got a big gaming table with plenty of shelving to store things, and bought up some studio lights for our video batreps. I used an old Mahjong table for my hobbying.

Battle Report 82- 1500 pts Ravenwing vs Dark Eldar

This week's battle report comes from a recent visit to Heaton Games Club. I was wanting to get some practice in with my list for Fluffageddon, as I had not played my Ravenwing in some time. I would be going up against Adam and his Dark Eldar list in the Contact Lost maelstrom mission (the one where you get a card for each objective you hold). 

My army consisted of:

Ravenwing Strike Force

Interrogator-Chaplain- Bike, Meltabombs, Auspex, Mace of Redemption (with CS)

5 Ravenwing Command Squad- Ravenwing Banner, Apothecary, Grenade Launcher (CS)

6 Black Knights- Meltabombs, Grenade Launcher (BK)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Sword (RB1)

6 Ravenwing Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Sergeant with Meltabombs and Power Fist (RB2 and RB3)

Attack Bike- Heavy Bolter (AB)

Landspeeder- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

Ravenwing Support Squadron

Darkshroud- Assault Cannon (SS)

3 Landspeeders- Assault Cannons, Heavy Bolters

For my warlord trait, I got Rapid Manoeuvre, giving me +3" to any charges. This would be great for my Command Squad, helping to ensure they get into combat. In order to use the rules for Fluffageddon, I would be limited to a 4+ for any re-roll save on the re-roll.

Club Search- Heaton Games Society

My continuing search for local games clubs in Newcastle, brought me to Heaton Games Society last week.

The club meets in Heaton on a Sunday from 4.30-9.30 pm. It was only a short 15 min drive from my flat, which was great and very local. I actually ended up attending the club on the same day that I had tried the Northumbrian Adventurers Guild on the Sunday.

Straight off, the club members were very friendly. I wandered into the Community centre bar (another big plus there!) and one of the club members spotted my carry case and directed me to where the club meets. As soon as I entered, I was greeted by one of the club members, who introduced me to a bunch of the other players and helped me to get a game organised.

I was actually able to grab two brilliant games of 40k, both of which will be written up as battle reports in the coming weeks.

When I first arrived, there were a couple of players setting up for a game of Space Marines vs Genestealers Cult. The Cult player had managed to roll a 6 on the ambush table (allowing him to charge from deployment 3" away) for his Patriarch and Purestrain Genestealers. The Space Marine player was not too worried as he had the first turn. "If you seize, I am going to rage quit this game" he joked. I think we all know what happened next! I don't know how the game ended, but I imagine it was quite a contest.

Overall, I had a great time at the club and had two great games to write up. I will probably be attending the club on a regular basis, along with occasional trips to Durham Raiders for some variety.