Say what you will about my painting...

... but Dark Vengeance is still a few hours away and already I shall be able to field a painted Dark Angels force.



Now it isn't exactly wysiwyg, the Ravenwing aren't armed as they should be, but are distinguishable enough and I never really bothered with a Librarian previously so I'm having to use a Veteran Sergeant as a proxy, but that aside it's the full and painted force.

I've not had much time for 40k since 6th edition was released, but I must admit that Dark Vengeance has captured my attention. Primarily because it contains two of my armies, so there are no redundant models.

So the plan is for me to play a couple of missions against Matt at the club tomorrow. I shall let you know how it goes, and it may be a double post tomorrow as I'll also be playing Dystopian Wars.

In Coalition Russia Dystopian Wars plays you!

So, I've played my first couple of games with the Russians now and I'm enjoying them immensely.

Firstly I played an 800 point Naval core battle against Ben's Republic of France force on Wednesday and we had a bash at actually rolling for Field orders and also in using National Fleet Commodores from the Hurricane Season campaign book. My mission was to kill 50% of his force AND destroy all mediums. For his part he had to kill all my Large/Massives (so my Borodino then).

In the end, Ben won as he tabled me, though it was a hard slog for him. I was a bit further away from my objective as he still had most of his mediums, albeit that they were limping around, but limping meant they weren't destroyed, so.

Tonight I faced Matt's Prussian Empire (Matt can't read or write so he doesn't blog) at the same level. This time we both reverted to kill 70% as we weren't keen on the options we rolled. No National Fleet Commodores this time.

I managed to pretty much cripple his battleship early on, and in addition gave most of his Frigates a big headache. Now, not sure whether it was just down to a mixture of dice luck and relative experience, but Matt was really struggling to take my boys down. I handed him the Rostovs (destroyer) squadron early and was perhaps a little over aggressive with the Saransks (medium skyships) as they took a battering as well.

I'm still awaiting a reasonable amount of RC naval and air units to arrive, but all things considered I'm happy with how things are progressing. Low activation numbers are an issue, but the storm weathering isn't as scary as I feared. My appraoch really is to view Ablative armour as a bonus rather than something to pin hopes on. Also, I'm liking the way I can target two models with the Novgorod frigates regardless of their position - the trick is to just ensure that I move tem cleverly enough to be in RB1 of the first model and far enough away to be in RB2 of the second to make the most of the lob shot. With most ships that would be a tricky prospect, but with these frigates I can dart about in any direction!

I'm happy with the Suvorov Cruisers and the Tambov Gunships alike and obviously both have Jammer generators that benefit the force against different nations, so the plan is to mix lists dependent upon who I face. An inconvenience when you consider that I was able to write an all comers list for the KoB, but I suppose that was something of a luxury!

So, the Juggernaut has begun to build up steam. Dare you stand before it?

For the Motherland!

So the day we all new would come is upon us. In a moment of weakness I have ordered a second fleet for Dystopian Wars. After long consideration I chose the Russian Coalition, though it was a tough call between them and the FSA.

In the end it came down to the fact that the Russians seem to be a different beast to the initial nations and I liked the idea of having to weather all the incoming fire before unleashing a barrage at close range. It'll be tough, but at least it'll mean a swifter game until then. The models too are very nice being a mixture of inspirations from CoA to KoB whilst still keeping its own identity.

 In what is technically the second batch of purchases I have a bought a Kostroma Battle Carrier, a squadron of Tambov Gunships, a squadron of Rostov Destroyers and a squadron of Saransk Medium Skyships. The first batch is the Naval Battle group and the Moskva Dreadnought (which is holding them up as it hasn't yet been released) and so once that arrives I shall have a substantial Naval force supported by a small Air force.

At the moment however the models I have amount to 655 which is an awkward amount, so it may be a little while before the Russian Coalition sees action, however if all goes to plan I hope to use them in the upcoming mini campaign at Hulls Angels.

Until then however, the KoB shall rule the seas!

Dystopian Wars - Hurricane Season

Yesterday saw the arrival of my copy of Spartan Games' first expansion for Dystopian: Hurricane Season.

I must say that I am very impressed with the book as when I ordered it, I had done so believing it to be softback like the rulebook, however I was delighted to find out it was hardback, as after all, despite the fact that when you were a kid you just wanted to be advanced enough to read soft backs, there is something about a hardback rulebook that sings to the very soul of the common or garden Geek.

The majority of the book is devoted to driving the story line onwards. In fact, of the 121 pages, 84 pages are taken up with the background. The story picks up with the Japanese establishing a new colony in Argentina which eventually leads to a large scale confrontation with the KoB and the FSA.

The writing is solid and cohesive and gives a good standing which players can use to develop their own background including incredibly detailed fleet structure and deployment.

Each of the major nations has inclusion within the book, however due to the timing of the book, it focuses less on the Republic of France and the Russian Coalition and more upon the Covenant of Antarctica to whom they have used this book to draw them into head on conflict rather than them using espionage tactics as they had previously. In this vein, the back of the book contains all the units for CoA in the same manner as the main rulebook does for KoB, PE, FSA and EotBS. In addition it includes the rules for all of the new small fliers as well as the Black Wold and all supporting MARs and generators not included in the rulebook.

Having had a glance over the new missions, they each look fun, and the inclusion of nation specific Commodore rules is a nice touch. I won't go too in depth as to what other rules are included, though obviously the landing barges are there and there is a nice section to support the campaign play including a simple weather chart.

So all in all, I'm very impressed with the book and am happy to pay the £20 RRP (though I paid a bit less) for this and look forward to the next book. Who knows, I may try to get an inclusion within it!

The Rise of a Kingdom

The trouble with playing so many systems is that you need to make decisions as to which you favour. You can obviously play all of them at the same time, though doing so means that you cannot get used to any particular one. On the other hand, concentrating on one means that the others suffer and in addition it means that you have invested a great deal of money (and if you paint your models, time) on systems that fall by the wayside.

With such a good following for Hordes/Warmachine lately I've spent most of my time using my Trollbloods with a couple of 40k games thrown in to the exclusion of Dystopian Wars. Beccause of this I have considered shelving the Kingdom of Britannia several times, but the one thing keeping them out was that Ben was hosting a Dystopian Wars weekend last weekend meaning that they were kept in 'play'.

Going in to the weekend, I had only had one Naval Battle recently and it hadn't gone well, however having used my Armoured forces lately I was more confident with those.

Over the weekend I lost a couple, drew one and won a couple so was fairly happy and I had learned a lot on how the KoB worked and when to activate each squadron. Consequently the love is back for Her Majesty's Kingdom and I am intending to field them as much as possible.

With a growing group of players at the club I should be able to get a variety of games in.

Finally, a big thank you to Jamey and Ben for putting up with us all over the weekend!