NEWS AND RUMOURS: Plastic Trygon

40k
I came across a new thread on Warseer early last week confirming the sighting of the plastic Tyranid Trygon. Apparently the model has been out in the public domain for some time and you can check out the photo in the Apocalypse rulebook - it is in the fold out Battle of Cold Steel Ridge game report. Brimstone has also confirmed that the model will be released at the same time as the Tyranid codex, not with the Planetstrike expansion due in the summer.

This leads on to further speculation as to whether the Tyranid codex will be released late this year or early 2010. The 'Nid codex would also possibly to tie in with the rumoured Space Hulk release before Christmas. That would give us a release list of:

• May - Imperial Guard
• June/July - Planetstrike
• August/September - Space Wolves
• October/November - Space Hulk
• December/January - Tyranids

Brimstone and Harry have already hinted at the Daemonhunters and/or Witch Hunters getting a 2010 release and of course the Dark Eldar are still waiting for a slot along with the Necrons. I just hope they don't forget my beloved Blood Angels - I'd really love the full codex update rather than the White Dwarf/PDF junk.

One rumour I like the sound of, but don't really believe, is that the Blood Angels codex will be released alongside Space Hulk. Veteran gamers will know that the Blood Angels featured heavily in the very first edition of Space Hulk. Wishful thinking? Probably.

Battle reports
It's finally here - the last of my regular Imperial Guard battle reports. This game was played against Gary Warriner, the local GW store manager, and his well modelled and painted Necron army. Gary is a good painter and great with conversions, so much so that one of his armies actually featured in White Dwarf a long, time ago, a Dark Angels force with lots of Necromunda ratskin conversions. Anyway, I enjoyed the game and I hope you enjoy reading about it.

Now that my bog standard, text only reports are all ported over all I have to convert now are the pictorial reports. They will be trickier because I need to find the photographs on my hard drive amongst all the others on there, so they may come by a little less often. Still, I am motivated to blog them because it means I'll be completely up to date with my battle reports. Come on!

GENERAL: Bi-monthly book update

Another big blog entry today, so grab yourself a cuppa before you read on.

I've posted another Imperial Guard after action report up on my battle reports blog. In this 1500 pointer I took on Gary's Eldar once again, using an Imperial Guard army that I can confidently say will never have been used before and will never be used again. When was the last time you saw a mortar squad, Ogryns and Cypher with a squad of Fallen in the same army? Read all about this strange game here.

Now then, here is the book update.

I read most of my novels on my lunch breaks at work. I also create the written versions of my battle reports in notebooks on my lunch break the day after the game. If I'm really enjoying a book I'll read it in my very limited spare time in an evening, but that time has largely been taken up with writing up my battle reports for my blog. I've also been playing a lot of games lately so my reading has been curtailed somewhat.

Still, I have finished some books.

Dead Sky, Black Sun is the third Uriel Ventris Ultramarines book by Graham McNeill. I was anxious to finish it so that I wouldn't have to carry it around with me anymore - those Games Workshop trilogies are heavy!

This book is bonkers! That is both a good and a bad thing. After the Ian Watson Inquisition War books Dead... is the most experimental piece I've read by a Black Library author. Graham really goes for it in terms of the plotting, characters, setting and even the writing itself. This is to be commended, as far too often GW publications are cliched and dull.

Ventris is banished from the Ultramarine Chapter following the events of Warriors of Ultramar and ends up in the Eye of Terror on the homeworld of the Iron Warriors. Through an increasingly bizarre set of characters and circumstances he ends up confronting Honsou, McNeill's anti-hero from Storm of Iron.

McNeill has a decent stab at recreating the feel of being on a Chaos-wracked planet and some of the descriptions are disturbingly gory and gruesome. The text even breaks down in places to reflect the impact the surroundings are having on our protagonist.

And yet...

For all the good points there are major problems with this novel. The plotting is very loose, an unusual thing in Graham's reads so far, and therefore necessarily contrived in places. He has to come up with some fantastical characters to shift the plot along and many times I felt my eyebrow raising and thinking to myself uh-huh.

I also have a very real problem with the way that the Marines are written- they are far too human. It's been a problem with all of the books so far and shows that Graham has under-imagined his characters.

More than once our Marines have been approached unawares to add dramatic impact to a scene, but what about all those auto-senses in their helmets? Speaking of helmets, there is a major continuity problem with helmets on/helmets off and other armour related shenanigans. Often the characters 'feel the sun on their skin' despite wearing their power armour in previous scenes, they shake hands with unarmoured humans, place caring hands on their shoulders and the marines sometimes manipulate delicate objects. In Dead... one of the characters sneaks around with a jump pack attached to his back!

These Marines leap and roll in combat and sit in regular chairs - how heavy is power armour anyway?

And don't get me started about the logistics of capturing Space Marines! Letting them keep their armour on is like locking up a tank commander with his Leman Russ.

I had noticed these little niggles in the previous books and largely dismissed them but in the third they are so noticeable that it actually jars you from the tale.

If you've already read the first two books in the trilogy and plan to keep with it you're going to have to read this book; indeed McNeill has not long released the fourth book in the series The Killing Ground.

Dead... is a flawed book with redeeming features.

Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume 1 (IAMM) is a great book. I'm probably exceedingly naive when it comes to modelling having approached it from entirely within the 'Games Workshop hobby' so some people may be surprised when I say that this book really taught me a lot. The book covers a lot of ground in its 130 pages.

The first section describes the tools and supplies which are used throughout the book, ranging from airbrushes to floor varnish.

The painting and modelling of a renegade Medusa takes up the next 20+ pages and introduces many of the tricks and tips that are used in the rest of the book. Some are very simple. Adding paint chips with a sponge is simple but extremely effective and I have already tried this on a number of my models. Others are more complex and require expensive kit and some practice, such as airbrushing camouflage patterns and weathering the model.

More examples follow then the focus switches to dioramas. I was blown away by Phil Stutcinskas' Death Korps of Krieg artillery diorama. It includes vehicles of course, but also shows you how to build up terrain too. More examples follow and then we move on to terrain pieces.

An Aeronautica Imperialis airbase is constructed and then regular 40k battlefields are put together to represent part of the Siege of Vraks. The are visually remarkable and would be an absolute joy to play a game upon, adding so much richness to the game.

The AI/40k tie in continues with 40k scale aircraft painted and modelling using techniques explained previously.

I thought that this was a superb book and would recommend it highly to anyone wanting to take their modelling and painting to the next level.

On to purchases.

I caved and bought a book, although I can still claim I haven't broken my New Year resolution because it is not a novel. I picked up a copy of Disciples of the Dark Gods, a Dark Heresy RPG supplement by Fantasy Flight Games. It's a meaty tome, almost 250 pages of dense text and gorgeous full colour art. I'm wading through it at the moment and might just have finished it for the next book update!

I've also added some more tomes to my books wanted list.


Books read.

• Dead Sky, Black Sun
• Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume 1
  

Books bought.

• Disciples of the Dark Gods

Books wanted.

• Red Fury
  
• Planetkill
  
• Titanicus
  
• Imperial Guard Omnibus Volume 1
  
• Creatures Anathema
  
• Horus Heresy Collected Visions
  
• Imperial Armour IV: The Anphelion Project
  
• Tales of Heresy
  
• The Killing Ground
  
• The Grey Knights Omnibus
  
• Heroes of the Space Marines
  
• Scourge the Heretic
  
• Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium
  
• Rogue Star
• Star of Damocles
  
• Lord of the Night

Here's what I already own and still need to read:

• Imperial Armour Three: The Taros campaign
  
• Liber Chaotica
  
• Storm of Chaos
  
• Imperial Infantryman's Primer (Damocles Gulf edition)
  
• The Life of Sigmar
  
• Faith and Fire
  
• Dark Apostle
  
• Cardinal Crimson
  
• 13th Legion
  
• Kill Team
  
• Annihilation Squad
  
• Space Wolf
  
• Ragnar's Claw
  
• Grey Hunter
  
• Soul Drinker
  
• The Bleeding Chalice
  
• Crimson Tears
  
• Soldier
  
• Codex: Space Marines
  
• Warriors of Chaos army book

See you again in two months.

GENERAL: New Year resolutions update

I'm rattling through those Imperial Guard battle reports now! This particular game was versus Steve and his Death Guard.

And now on to the show...

It's been three months since I blogged my New Year resolutions so with a quarter of the year gone I thought I'd revisit them and see how I've done.

Finish 2000 points of Blood Angels Space Marines
I now have 1135 points completed and I'm still on course to hit the 2000 point target.

Paint 1000 points of my Ork army
That will begin once the Blood Angels are done in the second half of the year.

Paint a total of 100 points of models over the year (the formula is in this blog entry)
I've added my painting points to the sidebar of the blog and that now stands at 31, so I'm currently well ahead of schedule.

Completely finish publishing my old battle reports
As I keep mentioning the end is in sight on this front.

Finish my Blood Bowl league
I haven't even thought about this yet. I'm getting a bit bored by straight up 40k battles at the moment. Maybe I should switch back to Bloodbowl?

Finish my trench board and accompanying terrain
Again, this is on the back burner for now but I still plan to finish it this year.

Restart my News and Rumour posts
I've done this successfully but I'm not sure what it adds to my blog. Other blogs and forums cover this better than I ever will be able to. What I wanted was to be able to record my browsing on forums and blogs and flag this up to people reading my own blog just in case they hadn't seen it elsewhere. I think Neil Gaiman calls it 'tab closing' on his blog. What does everyone think - should I continue with these posts or not?

Switch domains
Done nothing yet but I'm still poor so this will happen at some stage.

Buy no more Games Workshop novels
I've kept to this resolution so far. It has forced me to finish the Ultramarines omnibus and I've just started on the Last Chancers trilogy.

Review every Games Workshop book I read and review a broader range of Games Workshop products
This will happen as I have taken notes on every book I have read since Christmas (and before). I've held off blogging the reviews while I've been producing my battle reports so expect a flood of reviews when they are finished. I guess it wasn't the best idea to promise to review a broader range of products at the same time as I stopped buying models and books from Games Workshop!

Spend nothing at all on models
I'm still going strong on this resolution, although I am building up quite a wish list. The new Imperial Guard codex will test my willpower to its limits, though.

Have £500 in the New Model Fund by the end of year
I've only had one private sale, and no eBay auctions at all, since Christmas but I have still got over £250 in the fund. This is largely due to carrying some money over from last year and also spending none. I want to go eBay crazy in the next couple of months and sell a tonne of stuff before the Imperial Guard codex is released.

So all in all I'm quite pleased with my progress. I'll check back in at the six month mark to see if I'm meeting my targets.

ARMY BUILDING: The Masterplan revisited

Lots to talk about in this blog entry. Before I get on to the main event, revisiting my gaming masterplan, I want to talk about two things.

The first is Twitter. I've just signed up to this today so expect the odd gaming related twitter message appearing on the side of my blog from time to time. I hope to be able to use it to talk about games I'm playing and events I attend in real time via my iPhone. Fingers crossed I can get the technology working. While I'm on the subject - does anyone know of any Games Workshop related Twitterers out there that I can follow?

Second thing is yet another battle report. Again this is an Imperial Guard offering and sees me take on Steve's Death Guard down at the local GW store. Scope it out here.

Righto, on to the main event.

Almost two years ago I blogged about my gaming masterplan. One of the core ideas was that I would paint a 1500 point 40k army every year until I had each of the main factions represented. I thought it would be fun to revisit the masterplan and update it.

Since 2007 the Chaos Daemon codex has been released, adding another faction. I've added them to the list of main protagonists, as I imagine they would be heavily involved in the major Chaos invasions of the Skolarii sector.


The primary protagonists are:

• Imperial Guard (Cadian 271st and many other regiments)
  
• Orks (common right across the sector)
  
• Chaos Space Marines (Black Legion, Exigators and The Hooded renegades)
• Chaos Daemons
• Space Marines (Blood Angels)
  
• Daemonhunters (fighting the Chaos invasions)
  

Secondary armies are:

• Tau (Third Sphere expansionists)
  
• Tyranids (splinter fleet has devoured Dyram)
  
• Witch Hunters (small commandery)
  
• Eldar (small craftworld, Harlequins fighting Chaos)

And tertiary armies are:

• Dark Eldar (scattered pirate raids)
  
• Necrons (single tomb world)

I split the factions up into primary, secondary and tertiary armies to help me prioritise my painting and modelling.

Looking at my model collection now I have the Imperial Guard covered (although I'd love to add new models from the new codex), the Chaos Space Marines are completed and I'm happy with the Daemonhunters for the moment. I'm painting my Blood Angels now and I just need to add about 500 points to my Chaos Daemons to be able to field them. That just leaves the Orks from my primary armies and I plan to start on them once I've finished the Blood Angels.

Hopefully I'll have the Orks finished by the middle of next year and that means I can start work on the secondary armies. I have some models for all four already, especially the Tau - in fact I could probably rustle up about 2000 points without buying a single extra model. I'll probably choose the order based on when they get updated 5th edition codexes.

The tertiary armies both need big 5th edition overhauls so I'll definitely wait until they have new rules and models before I even think about them.

Since 2007 Games Workshop have also released Apocalypse, and although I haven't actually played a game of it yet I am a big fan of the books, models and rules. I've put together two super heavies, one for the Imperial Guard and one for the Chaos Space Marines, and I plan to add a super heavy to every faction to 'finish the army off.' I did this with the Brass Scorpion for my Chaos Space Marines and it felt great to be able to symbolically say that the entire army was done and dusted.

Since then GW have released the Stompa so I am sure to add one to my Ork army. As time passes I'm sure that GW will release super heavies for other armies too and I'll be sure to pick them up.

One more hazy idea I have is to paint my armies in matching pairs. I plan to do this with my Blood Angels and Orks first and see how it goes. The bases on my Blood Angels are a dusty brown and are littered with broken rubble, razorwire and other detritus of war. I'll do the Orks the same and can then say they are fighting on the ash wastes of the hive world of Armageddon.

Possibilities for other armies are urban rubble, jungle/deathworlds and ice worlds. Ideally, and this is pushing the idea right out there, I'd build a matching gaming table with terrain too.

So if my masterplan works, and I keep painting at the rate of one army per year, I'll be done in 2016!

Of course, you can never really say that any army is completely finished and as new editions of codexes roll by there will always be new things to add. In fact, one of the things I'm already considering now is to mechanise all of my existing armies.

I always used to prefer infantry models to vehicles because I thought they had more character but the GW kits have improved over the years and my interest in modelling and painting vehicles has increased. Vehicles also eat up lots of points in army lists for relatively little painting time and effort so there is a practical value in adding them to my armies.

Take my Chaos Space Marines as an example. I could easily improve it with six rhinos, a predator, vindicator, defiler and land raider thus making the army more visually interesting, more diverse, more effective and bigger in points values for Apocalypse games. I could even try to buy some Apocalypse vehicle formations such as the linebreaker squadron. I could batch paint all the vehicles at once and get a hell of a lot done in a short space of time.

Anyway, I've rambled on for quite long enough now so I'll draw to a close. I hope this post has given you a little insight into my tortured plans for the future.

NEW MODEL FUND: I have...er...what's the word...amnesia!

I'm getting very forgetful in my old age. The first thing I've forgotten to blog about is my New Model Fund - this post is over a week late. That's partly because not much has happened on this front lately. I haven't gotten back into the routine of putting up eBay auctions since Christmas. I will get round to it shortly, though, in time for the Imperial Guard codex release.

So what have I been up to? Well, I decided to make some changes to the fund. As you may have noticed already I have posted up the current fund in my sidebar so that it will always be visible, much like my painting score for the year. That means my monthly updates will talk about what I've bought and sold during the past four weeks as well as showing you my wish list of models.

So without further ado, here is the first draft of my model wishlist:

40k
Valkyrie
Plastic Cadian Command
Hellhound
Baal Predator
Bloodcrushers of Khorne

Apocalypse
Stompa
Shadowsword

Warhammer Fantasy
Hell cannon
Khorne Lord on Juggernaught

Other game systems
Epic IG army
Epic Ork army

No doubt there will be many more to add over the coming months!

The second thing I forgot was to link to this 4th edition Imperial Guard battle report when I posted it up last Friday. If you haven't already read it, it was a nine turn thriller against Gary's Eldar army.

GENERAL: Light at the end of the tunnel

I now am less than half a dozen games away from completely porting over my Imperial Guard battle reports. The latest instalment is a 1500 point game against Gary's Khorne heavy Chaos Space Marine army. Read the full report here.

Once I finish with the old IG games I have a handful of pictorial battle reports to share with you (once I've found the photos to go with them) and some tournament reports (again with photos) from a variety of armies. I'm confident I'll get these all on my blog by the middle of the summer and that will mean I'll have over 150 battle reports in total.

What I'd love to do then is crunch some numbers from the reports and work out my win/loss record against certain players or using certain armies.

Of course I'll still add any new games I play as I play them.

NEWS AND RUMOURS: Planetstrike

40k
I've been following the rumours on Warseer that The Dude has been posting regarding planetstrike. It seems to be a Cities of Death type supplement for 40k which will be released by July at the latest. The missions are rumoured to be attacker and defender split with the defender choosing the board edge and possibly moving the terrain and making it dangerous by booby trapping it and the attacker getting to place craters and the chance to use outflanking and deep striking, etc.

Games Workshop look to be continuing with their plan to release a new wave of models for a range of armies at the same time. The Space Marines seem to be getting the Ironclad Dreadnought and Land Speeder Storm along with Vulkan He'stan the Salamander special character. Further models are yet to be confirmed but the plastic Thunderhawk rumour has resurfaced again. Other rumours mention Eldar jetbikes, the Chaos Daemon Prince, plastic stormtroopers,

There will apparently be new terrain in the form of bunkers and fortifications. Speculation says that we have already seen some of them in the 5th edition rulebook. There is apparently a bunker on page 230 and a landing pad on page xiv.

I just got my latest edition of White Dwarf through the post and all of the above seems to tie in with the snippets of information which has been fed to us about Phil Kelly's latest studio campaign which seems to mention fortifications and even trenches. It is also clear that this is something in the very near future.

I'm looking forward to this one...