Terrain Showcase- Sandswept City

This week's terrain showcase is one of my most recent boards. This board mainly based on the Chalnath Kill Team ruins, painted up to match the Sandswept City mat from Frontline Gaming. The Chalnath ruins are lovely pieces of kit, and I wish they had more of them available to buy. They are much sturdier than the old style ruins and I think they look really nice on the table. 

Terrain Showcase- Industrial Board

Today's hobby showcase features an Industrial board that I made for my local gaming club. This was based on the kill team boxed set with the pipes and ruins. I really liked this set of terrain and wanted to paint it in a yellow scheme, with some rust. 

Terrain Showcase- Corrupted Land

 Hi everyone, today I have another terrain showcase for you. This time, a corrupted earth board that I made for my local gaming club. This was similar to the lava board that I made, with just a changed colour scheme to match the gaming mat. 

Terrain Showcase- Lava board

Today, I am showcasing one of the terrain boards that I made for my gaming club; Didcot Wargames club. 

Hi everyone! It's been a long, long time. I've kind of neglected the blog in recent years, due to a combination of having less time to spend on it, covid, and running the games club. However, I wanted to showcase some of the terrain that I have been making for the club in recent years. 

Hobby Update 05/01/22- Jungle Terrain

Hi everyone, today's hobby update features pictures of my terrain that I have been making for the jungle mat. These are mostly ruins and jungles that I have based on MDF, and added some plastic trees and bushes that I purchased. 

Adding these plastic pieces helps to make the ruins look denser, and add to the jungle feel of the board. I think this gives good coverage for the board, and hope to try it out before my tournament this month. 

The plastic trees were from amazon. The shrubs were from ebay and amazon. 

Starting a Wargames Club: Experiences from Didcot Wargames Club

Last year, I started a new Wargames club in my local area, Didcot Wargames Club. A few readers asked me to put together my experiences of setting up the club, to hopefully provide some advice for those thinking of doing the same. 

Here are my thoughts on setting up the club, and how it has been going. 

Why Set Up the Club

Putting together my own gaming club has been something I have been thinking about for a while. For me, the catalyst came from changing personal circumstances. My partner was moving from about 30 mins journey away to over an hour journey away. As a result, we were going to be more restricted to meeting up at weekends for the forseeable future. This meant that I may not be able to attend my regular gaming club on a regular basis. 

I normally attend Spiky Club in Reading, which meets on a Friday night from 7-11 pm. This club is a good 45 mins drive from my current flat, which is a bit of a travel commitment. As it is a Friday, I can get away with this. On a regular weeknight, I would struggle, not getting back till Midnight and having to work the next day. There are even times when I cannot be bothered going on a Friday if I have had a long week at work (the curse of getting old!). 

Due to these factors, I was looking at setting something up that was more local and would be happening mid-week. 

After speaking with a few friends in the area who play 40k, I thought there would be enough interest in setting up a local club in Didcot to make the venture worth exploring. 

I would say that this would be the first thing to consider if you are setting up a club. Will there be enough interest in the local area to keep the club going? Most people setting up a wargames club will be taking on the financial obligation initially, at least until the club becomes self-sustaining. If you can share that among a group of people involved in the club, it is more likely to run for reasonable costs before you get a group of dedicated players.

Hobby Update 09.12.21- Desert Trees

Hi strangers! It's been a long time since I posted, but I have been very busy with real life in recent months. I moved house and started my own gaming club. This extra hobby time has eaten into my blogging, but I thought I would share some hobby updates. 

I've been building terrain for my gaming club, as well as preparing for the first tournament I will be running. I decided to make some dense cover for my desert boards. These were really simple to put together. 

I purchased some MDF (6 mm) and cut them into appropriate shapes. I then sanded down the edges and glued on some sand. I painted them in suitable desert colour, then drilled the holes to glue in the trees. I then added some static grass for details. I got all these bases done within a couple of days. Some nice easy terrain, for low cost. 

I found the plastic trees on ebay. They are pretty cheap for a couple of sets to make my tree bases. 

9th Edition 40k Battle Report 215- Dark Angels Ravenwing vs Drukhari

This week's battle report sees my Dark Angels Ravenwing take on the Drukhari in a 2000 pts mission in a barn stormer of a game! We were using the new Grand Tournament Missions 2021 rules, so had updates to some of the secondary missions, as well as points costs. We rolled up and got the Retrieval mission. 

My army consisted of:

Outrider Detachment

Primaris Chaplain on Bike- Master Orator, Warlord, Canticle of Hate, Recitation of Focus

Sammael

5 Bikers- TL Bolters, 2 Plasma Guns, Power Sword

5 Bikers- TL Bolters, Meltagun, Power Fist, Flamer

Landspeeder Typhoon- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher

Attack Bike- Multi-melta

Ravenwing Apothecary- Selfless Healer, Chief Apothecary

5 Black Knights- Corvus Hammers

4 Black Knights- Corvus Hammers

Outrider Detachment

Talonmaster- Arbiter's Gaze, TL Heavy Bolters, TL Assault Cannon, Brilliant Strategist

3 Bikers- Plasma Gun, TL Bolters, Power Sword

3 Bikers- TL Bolters, Meltagun

3 Bikers- TL Bolters, Grav Gun

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon

A few change ups from last week's army. I dropped the Darkshroud, to add more Black Knights. I just don't think it is worth the points any more, as the -1 to hit bubble is not as essential in the army any more. I also dropped the Champion to fit in the Black Knights. A few units went up in cost (Attack Bike, Apothecary and Talonmaster), while the Chaplain dropped a few points as well. 

Once more, I had a fast and mobile force, with a decent amount of firepower. 

9th Edition 40k Battle Report 214- Dark Angels Ravenwing vs Raven Guard

I'm back! So nice to be rolling dice again. Today's battle report sees my Dark Angels Ravenwing take on Ben's Raven Guard in a 9th edition battle report. We were playing the Grand Tournament Mission, Rise of the Machine Spirit. 

My army consisted of:

Outrider Detachment

Primaris Chaplain on Bike- Master Orator, Warlord, Canticle of Hate, Recitation of Focus

Sammael

5 Bikers- TL Bolters, 2 Plasma Guns, Power Sword

5 Bikers- TL Bolters, Meltagun, Power Sword

Landspeeder Typhoon- Multi-melta, Typhoon Missile Launcher

Attack Bike- Multi-melta

Darkshroud- Heavy Bolter

Ravenwing Apothecary- Selfless Healer, Chief Apothecary

Ravenwing Champion

5 Black Knights- Corvus Hammers

Outrider Detachment

Talonmaster- Arbiter's Gaze, TL Heavy Bolters, TL Assault Cannon

3 Bikers- Plasma Gun, TL Bolters

3 Bikers- TL Bolters, Meltagun

3 Bikers- TL Bolters, Grav Gun, Power Fist

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon

Landspeeder- Heavy Bolter, Assault Cannon

With the new codex released, I had the chance to field my all-Ravenwing army once more. 

The force was led by a Primaris Chaplain on Bike. I upgraded him to Master Orator and gave him the litanies to get bonus moves to charges, and +1 to hit in shooting. I backed him up with Sammael, who provides powerful re-rolls for the army, as well as being pretty solid in combat. My third HQ unit was the awesome Talonmaster. He has the Arbiter's Gaze, allowing him to always hit on a 2+, even in overwatch. This provides some very powerful firepower for the army, as well as the Lieutenant buffs to the nearby units. 

The bulk of the army is Ravenwing Bikers, with five units of varying size, loaded up with special weapons. In the Outrider detachments, they gain objective secured, making them great for grabbing objectives. I also took a unit of Black Knights, to provide potent firepower and some strong combat ability when armed with the Corvus Hammers. I also added an Attack Bike with Multi-melta for some anti-tank firepower. 

I took a Ravenwing Apothecary, as he is an obvious choice. He provides great buffs for the army, bringing back dead bikers. The Ravenwing Champion also gave me some more combat options for taking on enemy units. 

The final parts of the force were the speeders. I took a Darkshroud for protecting my Biker units, with its -1 to hit bubble. I took a Typhoon with some potent anti-tank firepower, as well as two Landspeeders with Heavy Bolters and Assault Cannon. These should provide some fast and mobile anti-infantry firepower to the force. 

The Ravenwing should be a strong force. Mobile and with a lot of good firepower. Their special rules means they get an invulnerable save from shooting attacks on the move, as well as being able to use their firepower while in the Devastator Doctrine. 

Hobby Update 21/05/21- TT Combat Brownstone

Hello strangers! It's been a while since I've posted anything, but that is mostly due to a lack of gaming. As we begin to move out of lockdown and I can get playing again, I've been doing some work on a new game. 

I picked up the Batman Miniatures game recently. I've always been a big fan of Batman, so wanted to buy the game and try something a little different. As a result of this, I'm going to need some new terrain to go with the game, as my regular 40k stuff wouldn't really suit it too well. 

I picked up a Brownstone building from TT Combat off of ebay. I wanted to paint this up in a pseudo-realistic fashion, so viewed a number of online tutorials for painting brickwork on model railways. I found this tutorial, and it was the kind of technique that I wanted. 

However, I did differ slightly from the tutorial. To do the mortar work, they used joint compound. I tried this and it didn't really work too well for me. I had issues removing it from the brickwork without all the paint coming off too. In the end, I went with standard filler, which come off much easier, though I did colour it with a little grey acrylic paint.