Monday 5 December 2016

Club Search- Newcastle Warlords

As part of my continuing efforts to try all the gaming clubs in the local area, last week I visited Newcastle Warlords. 

The club meets at St Marys the Virgin Church in Fawdon on a Thursday (7-10 pm) every two or three weeks (depends on when the hall is available). I actually found out about the club when the organiser, Steve, messaged me after seeing one of my blog posts on another clubs' facebook page, so I was keen to go along and try it out. 

First off, the church hall was only a 15 minute drive from my flat, so perfect travelling time for me. The 7 pm start also allows me to miss the rush hour traffic, so another bonus there. There were about a dozen or so gamers there that night, playing a variety of games including 40k, Age of Sigmar, Blood Bowl, Guild Ball and X-wing. 

As the club is just starting out, they are a little short on terrain and ask members to bring along their own stuff. They do have several gaming mats though for players to use though. This wasn't such a big deal for me, as I had some of my own terrain with me in Newcastle anyway. It's quite nice to get to use my own terrain every once in a while after going to the effort of building and painting it! It also gives me a nice incentive to get more terrain built and painted.

The cost was £4, which is a bit more expensive than the other clubs in the area, but still very reasonable for a club night. In addition, there is unlimited free tea, coffee and squash available. 

I had arranged a game on the facebook page and found myself taking on Stu and his Space Wolves with my White Scars. Stu has only recently got into 40k, so I went for a milder White Scars list to have a more fun and competitive game.

We played the Contact Lost maelstrom mission, as Stu had not played a maelstrom mission before. I didn't take full notes for a battle report. Since Stu had not been playing long, I wanted to have a chat with him during the turns and hopefully help with any rules issues during the game rather than spending my time taking notes. 


My 1500 pts army consisted of:
Librarian- Level 2 psyker, Bike, Auspex, Meltabombs
5 Bikers- 2 Grav Guns, Meltabombs
5 Bikers- Power Fist
5 Bikers- 2 Meltaguns, Power Axe
5 Scouts- Close Combat Weapons and Bolt Pistols, Meltabombs
Landspeeder Storm
10 Tactical Marines- Meltagun, Meltabombs
Rhino
10 Sternguard Veterans- 3 Combi-meltas
Drop Pod
5 Devastators- 4 Missile Launchers
2 Attack Bikes- Multi-meltas

Stu's army consisted of (if I recall correctly):
Wolf Lord- Relic Axe, Combi-melta
Wolf Guard Battle Leader- Terminator Armour, Power Axe, Lightning Claw
5 Grey Hunters- Plasma Gun, 2 Plasma Pistols
Razorback- TL Assault Cannon
5 Grey Hunters- Flamer, Meltagun
Razorback- TL Assault Cannon
3 Thunderwolf Cavalry- Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer, Frost Claws and Plasma Pistol, Frost Axe and Bolt Pistol
5 Wulfen- 2 Pairs of Frost Claws, Frost Axe, two Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers
Venerable Dreadnought- Multi-melta, Storm Bolter
Drop Pod
Venerable Dreadnought- Multi-melta, Storm Bolter

I took a few pictures of the game as you can see below. Some of the stand out moments were:

  • The Librarian managed to get Force off and killed the last of the Thunderwolf cavalry in combat, being brought down himself in the process. 
  • The Sternguard arrived on the left flank, killing three of the Wulfen with their poisoned Bolter rounds. 
  • The five remaining members of the Assault Squad charged the Long Fangs, only to have 3 of their number cut down my overwatch fire and the rest wiped out in combat. 
  • The Devastators taking the last hull point from the Dreadnought to win me the game. 
Overall, it was a very close game. I won by 9 VPs to 8 VPs in the end, but got very lucky. Another turn and Stu would have most likely won the game. 










I was worried 3 hours would not be long enough for the game, but we managed to get in a full 6 turns and the game ended naturally, so it was actually pretty decent.

I also quite like that the club is every other Thursday. It clashes with Karate on a Thursday, so it will be nice to alternate between the two and get a wider range of players to play against. It will also be useful for the weekends when I am busy and cannot make the Sunday clubs.

Overall, I enjoyed my trip to Newcastle Warlords and will definitely be back there again.

3 comments:

  1. After you have fully explored your new region and blogged about all the clubs, you should take the idea on tour... any time you have a reason to visit somewhere else (work thing or whatever) take an army with you, find a local club, pop in and review it. Be more than happy for you to visit Hammer N Ales if you ever find yourself at a loose end in Portsmouth on a Tuesday evening... :)

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    1. Great minds think alike! I was actually thinking it would be cool to do something like this. Part of my hobby goals for this year were to try and get games against different bloggers over the year. The only issue is that it would need to be weekend clubs, too far to travel for a weeknight without taking time off of work. Maybe I'll save that for my inevitable big lottery win ;)

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    2. Ha, let me know how you get on with that, my one is still running a little late... tsk, mustn't appear impatient though, one of these days my parents will surely reveal we're secretly billionaires and they just wanted me to develop character, the pretence can now end... :P

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