Construction Season

   We've all been really busy at work lately.  With employees having personal needs and growth coming on like a tsunami, I haven't been able to lay down paint or even push some warriors around for the dice-toss.  Any of you that live in a big city knows that this isn't Spring or Summer; this is Construction Season.  The seas of orange cones and parked yellow tractors fill the various (and busiest) roadways.  The traffic patterns are my hobby time in this metaphor...

  Fortunately, those construction zones haven't stopped the money-spending, and the results of some recent purchases have arrived.  If you've kept up with the blog, you'll remember that I love terrain.  Because I'm not a creative person, I prefer to purchase terrain rather than build it (although I do have skills in that due to years of service to the Emprah).  And with my focus being Necromunda recently, slums and such have been the focus of those expenditures.  

  My favorite brand making terrain right now is TinkerTurf.  I've mentioned it before.  This week, I received the newest batch from their latest Kickstarter product.  The first set was based around stilted walkways and gantries while this one is focused on walls and defenses.  After all, where am I going to set up the market stuff that GW released recently?  This company made the terrain with Necromunda in mind and I happen to be a 'mundan!  You can check out their website and see their fantastic products here.  

  Speaking of the Underhive- not every environment is platforms and rickety crossings.  Sometimes, there might even be habitable structures there!  Getting bored with the mad dash across elevated levels, I went searching for hab blocks and slum stacks and found them.  This time, it was from a popular company known as TTCombat.  If you visit this link, you'll see why this terrain was perfect for what I was thinking.  With a good paint job and set up copying the movie "Ready Player One", this can really capture the slums of the Underhive mood that I'm going for.  Shootouts and gang raids tend to happen in settlements, they say...

  Once work and life settle down a bit and I return to the workshop, construction season will start.  I may not have the cones (well, I do, but in a bit of a smaller scale), but there's going to be some disruptions to traffic as work begins.  That's all I have for the week!  Anyone else out there working on terrain, sprucing up that battlefield, creating a new setting for war?  Let me know in the comments below.  

Happy Hobbying!

Blades & Snakes

   I almost missed this week- I've been busy!  But I always find time to game and this weekend was no different.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures and I'm going to rationalize with two excuses: one group isn't fully painted yet and sometimes I just want to push pieces and roll dice.  I'm not too lazy to talk about it, so I'll sprinkle some artwork between the prose- quota met!

  Our foray into the Underhive continued and my wife's Carrion Queens launched their second attack on my Silent Ones.  The Escher had the numbers and learned their lesson from the last battle- no more caution!  With a couple of gunners stationed above the ground to provide cover support, the rest of the ladies deployed behind cover and readied for the sneaky Delaques.

  The Dark Hand, being a sniper of outstanding aim, took the opportunity to shoot one of those Escher gangers right off the platform!  He watched as she landed three-point and walked off to later gun down Iagorth.  The battle between these two was obviously going to be brutal.  The rest of the Delaque moved forward and took up positions all around the area.  But they lost the initiative and were punished.

  Jelena and her Juve moved up to corral Cxauth and his entourage into a funnel and they fell for it.  As though practiced, Marika then moved up and fried Cxauth's girlfriend with a plasma pistol to the face.  As Jelena walked by and let her juve take some bullets for her, Marika charged in and knocked out Cxauth's last bodyguard and broke the opposing leader's nerve.  He fled and didn't return to the battle until it was too late...

  The rest of the Delaque found their positions untenable and spent their time snapping off shots between dodging sheets of fire.  The crossfire set up by the Escher was insane and kept the trench-coaters ducking more than moving.  With the loss of Iagorth, Trembra, and Dendrah, it was time for the Silent Ones to escape.  They were not prepared for the Escher onslaught this time.

  I bottled out voluntarily in this game to introduce that concept more regularly- we play Skirmish right now and play until the last fighter runs or dies.  We want to start the campaign over summer and I need to teach my wife and son to save their gangers' lives.  It will matter.  But this game was a blast and one of my few losses.  The wife wasn't so clever to set all this crossfire and timed charges off but she was definitely genius at taking advantage as it presented the opportunities.  I was impressed and hurt as none of my well-laid plans made an impact in this battle.  Nice!

  The activity in the Underhive continues and I plan to have the Delaques fully painted soon.  That means another hobby post and then some batreps with pics.  Soon.

Happy Gaming!

They're here!

   Well, I definitely made my son's day.  He came home from a late weekend to find the new xenos book on his chair.  His excitement was expressed with a lunge from his room, wearing a cheshire cat-grin, to thank me and dive into the rules.  It made my dad-heart warm...

  It did not, however, make my warlord's heart warm at all.  I've had an unreasonable fear of the 'nids since 2nd edition and have relished the fact that the army hasn't been ascendant in the power scale for some time.  That has changed.  The new codex has come out and the new rules are not nice.

  I even joked with my son that he'll finally have an army as powerful as my recent ones (Custodes, Tau, Eldar).  The worry is that it's not a joke.  I already have to pull my punches to ensure that we have somewhat of a game each time we play (which rarely works).  In this case, I have to consider which army to use against the Tyranids and whether it'll actually be enough.  As much as I love my Ultramarines, they're not great (a post on them later).  However, my Tau are absolutely broken and had to be retired for mental health reasons.  Custodes are great, Grey Knights are great, and Necrons don't suck- especially with Destroyer spam!  And my current army, the Eldar, are pretty powerful themselves.

  Tyranids are finally powerful.  Gants might have a role to play, the monsters have been buffed more than a M:tG deck, and the stacking rules give a ton of playstyle options.  So far, my son has the same approach that I do when it comes to first army builds- a little of this and a little of that.  It gives us a chance to try units out.  These newest codices make everything so good that even this approach isn't a guarantee of equal odds.

  The monsters are more powerful- tougher and more attacks.  The Genestealers became consistent if not nerfed (which they really aren't).  And psychic powers?  Oh boy...  My Eldar aren't really a psychic army, so that's gonna be a bit of a bugger.  That Maleceptor isn't going to be fun to play against, I'm thinking.  

  Plus, wings are now a thing in that book!  While the Shrikes (Warriors with wings) didn't make their expected appearance, a new model with wings and a couple of buffs to the flying creatures in the book make the fast, high-flying army a viable option!  I specifically mention this because my son just happened to include a horde of Gargoyles on top of the flyrant and other large wings.  Cool.  Cool cool cool.

  I'm excited that my son is going to get his dues with the army he started this hobby with.  He's finally got the same level of attention that my [insert army here] has enjoyed.  I'm less excited about the future butt-kickings I'm about to receive, but at least it's losing to 'new'.  The Tyranids have arrived.  They're here!

Happy Gaming!

 

Outside the Hive

   I'm late, but I'm just looking for something to post about this week.  While I'm hobbying on my new gang and getting massacred by my wife and son, news came out about the next era in the Necromunda world and I became excited.  So I had to, late or not, rant in a post about it.

  Since '95, I've been a big fan of the world of the Underhive.  The universe is so unique to yet part of the grimdark of the 41st millenium.  I fell out of it when I went off to college (the first of many times) and stuck with 40k when I returned.  That meant the Underhive took a back seat until 2019, when the new edition came out.  This last year has seen Necromunda return to eminence, and how there's a newer new edition coming.  And this one is based outside the Underhive!

  At some point in the early 2000's, GW released unofficial rules for playing in the Ash Wastes outside the hive city.  It was neat insofar as it included the Gorkamorka-concept vehicles and bikes, but the models were atrocious and this wasn't really what Necromunda was about.  These rules weren't enough to draw me back to the game of gang warfare, but that's different now.  

  You see, the old rules for Necromunda were really about sneaking and snapping shots in the crowded confines of the manufactorum sectors of the Underhive.  The rules were really focused on cover, hiding, overwatching dashing figures, and opposed roll-offs.  This made open-table gaming clunky and unbalanced, with Gorkamorka barely overcoming these pitfalls with the focus on vehicles and speed.  The new rules for Necromunda focus on action management, min-maxing modifiers, and upgrades, shifting that clunkiness out.  In other words, I think this is going to work very well! 

  I'm really excited for some more unique models- those raiders are awesome!  I always like the concepts of civilian- or unregulated-fighters in the grimdark where conscription is almost a best-case scenario.  And riding those giant flea-things?!?  YESSSS!  I'm not looking to make Chaos cultists or anything like the 40k community is surely foaming at the mouth for; I just want that same uniqueness that Necromunda is really leaning into.  Each of the major gangs is totally unique from each other (even the wargear autoguns and lasguns are no longer 'universal' options!), the cultist gangs are unique (minus the 40k models ported over), and now these models continue that trend.

  I'm even more excited about the terrain- not everything is a ruined Administratum!  We always think of the massive, gothic structures dominated the grimdark, but a million worlds and a score of millennia should lead to a lot of variety in human construction.  Add the variety of environments and we should see the oppressive gothic style of old rarely.  This sand-people-style terrain (thanks Star Wars!) is totally unique and, of course, amazing.  I look forward to grabbing a couple of sets just like I did for SW:A.  

  The only issue that I have is the new set coming with more Orlocks.  I already have two gang boxes for them and wasn't really planning on expanding much more than that.  But this seems to be less of an issue when we look and see that there are new dice in the box (likely necessary for the vehicles and mounts) and a big rulebook.  I'm hoping this rulebook is just the same rulebook as the Underhive one plus the riding rules; I can't imagine this is a 3rd edition and replaces the current one (which has already been expanded).  So getting more models I already own alongside new rules and dice isn't such a big deal.

  In fact, I expect the box to be $400...  and I STILL plan to buy it!  (Please GW, don't make this box that expensive...)  If you're a Star Wars Legion player, this might draw you into the grimdark.  As a 40k and Necromunda player, I'm really geeked to bridge that gap and get my battles outside the Underhive on!  Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Until then- Happy Gaming!