Better Know a Blogger- Part 11: Creative Twilight

This week's Better Know a Blogger features Tony Stanley (AKA Thor) from Creative Twilight.

Straight from the horse's mouth, Creative Twilight is "a multi-author wargaming/gaming blog with a big hobby focus on painting, modeling, and even tutorials. We play Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, Battlefleet Gothic, Blood Bowl, and more. We also have lots of battle reports, army lists, and editorials of all kinds. We're just gaming geeks".

 

Creative Twilight has recently undergone a revamp to the layout of the blog and it looks amazing! The layout and style of the webpage looks like a really professional wargaming magazine with the articles laid out in a nice online magazine style, with lots of different sections to suit your gaming tastes (gaming, tutorials, community news, etc). The site is easy to use and navigate and is a step up from your average 40k blog (this one included!). Creative Twilight doesn't just look pretty though, fortunately its aesthetics are backed up by some top notch content to go with it.

Tony (Thor) in all his painting glory!

I think it was Thor initially, and not Creative Twilight, that came to my attention after reading his article on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on the House of Paincakes blog network. The article explained how to optimise your blog for getting good results on search engines for those of us that were novices at that sort of thing, without too much technical jargon and some detailed explanations. I try to incorporate some of the lessons from the post into my own blog, though must admit I don't follow every lesson (renaming all the photos from my battle reports is too much effort even for me, they take long enough as it is!).

 

Not long after that, I was a regular reader of Thor's blog and loved the interesting and varied content I found there; battle reports, tutorials, painting progress, editorials, etc.

 

One of my favourite set of articles was the Community Pimp'n series, which has now become the Wargaming Bloggers Showcase. This is a series of articles where Thor highlights some of the interesting wargaming blog posts that he has read to bring them to a wider community. We all know how much great wargaming blog content there is out there on the web and it can be all too easy to miss something on your timeline or there may be some fantastic blogs out there you are completely unaware of. This series of articles is brilliant for highlighting some things that you may have missed or not been aware of and builds a great sense of community in the 40k blogging world and it is well worth checking out his picks to see some fantastic new content.
Perhaps this very article may end up on the Bloggers Showcase, where Thor can highlight a blog post that highlights Thor and his blog because it highlights his Bloggers Showcase and we can end up in some weird blogging Mobius strip for infinity.

 

You can also check out Thor's many great battle reports on the blog as he struggles to build and play with a competitive and fluffy Chaos Space Marine army.

 

There has never been a better time to check out Creative Twilight as it has just got a bunch of brand new writers who will no doubt bring a lot of varied and interesting content and we will get to know them as time proceeds (if only there was some sort of series where we could get to know them better, you know, as bloggers...........give me a shout guys if you want to feature!).

 

Anyway, be sure to check out Creative Twilight if you have not already and check out Thor's answers to my questions below.

 

1. What age did you get into gaming and what started it off?
I got into gaming with the original Atari. I was around 4 years old when my dad came home with the first Atari. He got it for himself, but little did he know he’d hardly get to use it. From there it was Nintendo, and eventually PC gaming.

As far as tabletop wargaming goes though, I was 18 when I picked up Gorkamorka. I never got to play a proper game with it, but the seed was placed.

Hobby Sunday 12/06/16- White Scars Scouts with Sniper Rifles

This week, I have been working on getting a unit of Scouts painted up for my White Scars army. I need the Scouts for my list for an upcoming tournament, so wanted to get a start on them before July. I painted the Scouts up to match my existing White Scars scouts, with the exception that these ones have camo cloaks.

For the camo cloaks, I decided to match the basing colour for my army, rather than go for a camo green look. This made sense as obviously the camo pattern would match the ground where they were fighting. I was also inspired by Rob's Scout squad to try and add some static grass to the cloaks in order to break up the colour and add a visual splash to the model.

Anyway, here are some photos of my work in progress and the finished models.

The armour has been painted. Even though it doesn't look like it, there is a difference between the armour and the white undercoat.

New Space Marine FAQ's Review

Games Workshop posted the latest round of first draft FAQs a couple of days ago, this time dealing with various Space Marine rules queries. I had a look through them and there are some interesting rulings that are going to have some impact on my Dark Angels and White Scars armies and I thought I would take a look at these.

This ruling means that my White Scars Command squad could now take 5 grav guns and 5 storm shields. This would make the unit even more powerful, but even more expensive. I would probably take at least a Storm Shield on the Apothecary, as I often use him in challenges to protect Khan or the Librarian and it would help when he is targeted by sniper fire or barrage.

EDIT- This has now been amended as the answer should have been "No". So no upgrading the Apothecary for me.

Double Trouble Bound!

I've got my sunglasses on, got the power ballads blasting and the Orks are kicking up a storm in the backseat. That's right, I'm heading off for Double Trouble down in Stockport!

Are we there yet??????

 

I will be spending the night at the North West Gaming Centre to play in Luke's X-wing special event and hopefully get a few games of 40k in too. If you are heading over on the Friday, join us for a drink and a game, and be sure to come and say hello if you are a fellow blogger or reader of the blog. I have provided a picture of my ugly mug below so that you can recognise me!
 

 

Looking forward to seeing you all there and getting some great games in! 

Battle Report 59- 1850 pts White Scars vs White Scars

This week's battle report features my White Scars taking on Allan's White Scars in another practice of my list for the upcoming Caledonian Revolution tournament.

 

Last week, I played Innes and his compact, deathstar-containing army and my White Scars list fared pretty well. This week, I played a very different type of army. Allan likes to field his White Scars with as many bodies as possible and lots of bikes. In fact, the board would be swarmed with bikes in this game and I would get to see just how annoying it is to go up against those jinking White Scars.

 

My army consisted of:

Scarblade Strike Force

Hunting Force

Khan- Moondrakken (with CS or K)

Command Squad- Bikes, Apothecary, 4 grav guns, 4 storm shields (CS)

6 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS1)

6 Bikers- 2 grav guns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS2)

Attack Bike- Multimelta (AB)

6 Scout Bikers- 2 Grenades launchers, sergeant with meltabombs and homing beacon (SB)

Stormbringer Squadron

5 Scouts- bolt pistols, combat weapons, sergeant with meltabombs (S1)

Landspeeder Storm- Heavy Bolter, Cerberus Launcher (LS1)

Landspeeder- Multimelta, Typhoon Missile Launcher (L)

 

Combined Arms Detachment

Librarian- Bike, Hunter's Eye, Meltabombs, Mastery Level 2, Force Sword (with CS or L)

5 Scouts- Camo cloaks, sniper rifles (SS)

5 Scouts- Bolters, sergeant with meltabombs (S2)

Landspeeder Storm- Heavy Bolter, Cerberus Launcher (LS2)

3 Bikers- 2 meltaguns, sergeant with meltabombs (BS3)

3 Centurions- Grav cannons and grav amps, hurricane bolters (C)

Drop Pod (DP)

Stormtalon- TL assault cannon, Skyhammer missile launcher (ST)

My warlord trait was fixed with Khan (giving me re-rolls for morale and pinning tests and Scout moves for my bikes and transports). My Librarian got Psychic Shriek and Prescience. I decided that Shriek would be useful against so many bikers and Prescience should help my units hit if I managed to cast it.

Double Trouble Army

This weekend I will be travelling down to Stockport for Double Trouble (run by Alex at From the Fang). I had previously written a post proposing some armies that I was planning on taking down to the tournament and looking for comments from readers about them. By an overwhelming majority, my Orks were selected as the army that I should take.

 

My original proposed army was a speed freaks type force, featuring all mounted units and a fast moving force to grab objectives and get to the enemy quickly.

 

I started to see a lot of the proposed armies that people were taking to double trouble and saw that my Orks would have to stand up to a lot of firepower. I had a think about what benefits the Orks could bring at 750 pts and thought that one of the biggest bonuses was numbers. Orks and Gretchin are cheap compared to Space Marines, so I should be able to build a force that would outnumber any opponent (maybe even both my opponents together depending on their forces).

 

After playing some games with my Orks and having a think, the force I have decided to take is:

Warboss- Eavy Armour, Power Claw, Shoota, Bosspole, Stikkbombs

Painboy- Urty Syringe, Dok's Tools

 

25 Ork Boyz- Sluggas, Choppas, inc. Nob with Power Claw and Bosspole

11 Ork Boyz- Sluggas, Choppas, inc. Nob with Power Claw and Bosspole

Trukk- Big Shoota

Runtherd and 15 Gretchin

Runtherd and 11 Gretchin

 

3 Warbikers

Warbuggy- TL Rokkit

Warbuggy- TL Rokkit

 

Looted Wagon- Killcannon, Ard Case, Big Shoota

Better Know a Blogger- Results!

Just a quick post this evening. WestRider sent me an email now too long ago saying "My pageviews recently. Thanks!" with the attached photo. There's no scale on the y-axis, so I'm just going to assume it is in hundreds of thousands ;)

I assume the spike is when I posted the "Better Know a Blogger" article. Either that or Russia has been at it again......

 

Good to know the series is having some success in getting the word out on good blogs that people should check out! Be sure to give Cascadian Grimdark a follow and check out his posts on a regular basis now that you all know where it is.

 

If you have your own blog that has just started up, get in touch to take part in Better Know a Blogger and see if we can get you a few more followers. 

Better Know a Blogger- Part 10: Cascadian Grimdark

This week's Better Know a Blogger features Peter (AKA WestRider) from Cascadian Grimdark.

 

WestRider is a relative newbie to the 40k blogging world, but no doubt you will have seen him pop up in your comments section, usually with informative rules corrections or tournament advice.

Cascadian Grimdark (awesome blog name, by the way) features tournament reports, after action tournament reviews, as well as painting and modelling posts. The blog is still in its infancy (as WestRider himself has said), but I hope to see it grow as time goes on and it would be great to see some support for another blogger that has recently started up.

 

So here are WestRider's answers to my questions:

 

1. What age did you get into gaming and what started it off?
I think I was 8 when my brother and I first got some D&D stuff. But we'd had HeroQuest before that, and I had also got a book from the library about the history of Wargaming and designed a couple of really crappy generic Wargames with terrible hand-drawn maps and handmade paper counters. In Middle School, I found a D&D group who would end up being the core of my friends for quite a while, and they also got me into BattleTech. Then in High School, I started burning out on keeping up with MtG, and getting more interested in miniature Gaming beyond BattleTech, and as soon as I saw the 40K Chaos stuff, I was hooked.

Hobby Sunday 05/06/16- White Scars Librarian

This week I have been focusing on finishing off my White Scars Librarian mounted on a bike. I started this back in April and needed to get it finished before some upcoming tournaments.

 

I decided to paint the robes of the Librarian red to match my other bikers and contrast against the White of the bike. I painted the robes a base of Mephiston Red, then gave them a wash of Carroburg Crimson and a highlight of Evil Sunz Red. This colour scheme matches the colour of the red of the chestplates on my White Scars. The Evil Sunz highlight was not light enough for my tastes, it didn't really contrast too well with the base red. I decided to do a second highlight of a mix of Evil Sunz and White Scar for the final highlight. This turned out a little more pink-ish than I was expecting, but it looked ok.

Death From The Skies Supplement Review- Part 4: Air War Missions

This final part of my review of the new Death From the Skies supplement takes a look at the new Air War missions. Six new scenarios are presented for getting the most out of games using a lot of flyers. Some of the missions seem like a lot of fun and I hope to try some of them in the future.

 

Some of the missions presented require the use of several flyers, so might be best suited for larger games with multiple players per side in order to fulfil the requirements. There are a couple of changes to regular missions that also take effect. One is that flyers are able to start the mission on the battlefield (unless the scenario states they must begin in reserve). This means you will be able to use your flyers from the very start without having to hope that they turn up early. Another change is that the game no longer ends if one side has no models on the board and only units in reserve. This is a sensible change for games likely to feature a large number of flyers in reserve and additional units in reserve and makes null deployment an even more valid tactic in this game.

 

Fighter Sweep

This mission does not use points values and simply takes place between two opposing armies of flyers. This represents a massive air battle, so you will not need any terrain, but will likely need a very large gaming space to properly play this mission.

 

The winner of the scenario is the player/team with the most victory points; 2 VP for each destroyed Fighter, 1 VP for each destroyed Attack Flyer or Bomber.

 

This mission uses an endless reserves type rule, where each flyer that is destroyed is returned to play in the following player turn. There are also additional rules to benefit flyers that arrive from reserve, giving them an increase in their move (to allow them to get into the action) and Preferred Enemy.

 

I really like this mission, it provides a very different way to play 40k and provide a more unusual game. I plan on running this mission at the club in a couple of weeks and hope to get a large number of players and flyers on the board.

 

I may make a few changes to the mission though. I would remove the Dogfight phase as the board represents this. With so many players and flyers, having a Dogfight phase would become too complex I think. I also may remove the no skyfire rule for the other flyers. It will be very hard for non-fighter flyers to damage other flyers if they can only snap fire. I may compensate for this by giving Flyers a ballistic skill bonus or improved jink. I'd be interested to hear what readers would think of these changes and whether they will unbalance the game.

 

With the large board, large number of flyers and endless reserves, I am hoping this will be a fun and bloody game of 40k.