Sources Of Power

Almost forgot to mention. In my ongoing, massive re-write of the Tunnels and Trolls spell book, I'm drawing upon all of these resources:

• Tunnels and Trolls 7.5 Rulebook
• Codex Incantatem
• Codex Incantatem II
• Tunnels and Trolls HQ
• Dungeons & Dragons: Complete Arcane
• Sword & Sorcery: Advanced Players Guide
• GURPS: Magic (thanks to Tim Shorts for the heads up on this one)
• Dragon Warriors
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

If there's a good one I've missed, I'd sure appreciate a point in the right direction. :0).

Cyborkz - Resistanz Iz Futile

Who wouldn't want to add a few Borg to there miniatures collection?

The trouble is though that if you do want to, there just aren't any good Borg miniatures readily available. In fact, I'm not sure there are any "out of the box" Borg available full-stop. Of course, I could be wrong but, I can't find them!

So, what's a modeler to do? Assimilate of course! ;0).

My first thoughts on going custom were that Cadian Shock Troops would make a pretty good starting point for any Borg model. I'd need new heads and probably a few servitor arms from other models but the end result should be pretty close.. Or so I thought.

Then I found this picture on-line:

Click to enlarge.

Whilst the Cadians would do a fine job representing labor and transport drones, the arms would need some serious modification for every other type. The Games Workshop servitor arms just weren't going to cut it.

Not particularly practical from a personal point of view as I have none of the parts in my bit box nor anything to mod them with, meaning that this idea could quickly turn into a cash sink.. But looking in my bits box did give me a brainwave.

I have 40 or so Marauders from Mantic. Orks, that straight out of the box have a very Borg look about them. At one point I was even going to convert several of these to Mech Boyz for 40k. So, these would seem to be the perfect low-cost option for the project at hand. After all, the Borg didn't just assimilate Terrans did they?

So, depending on how well this pans out, I may even produce an unofficial codex for them. Not that Games Workshop will ever let you bring them to their gaming table... You can always use the paint scheme and ideas though, bringing cybernetically  enhanced Orkish killing machines to a workshop gaming table near you.

DMotivational #34: ACME Ork Suppliez

Alchemy's Workbench #4: Just Scratching The Surface

Not going to happen. At least not anytime soon.

Getting an early morning in today gave me just the opportunity that I was looking for to hit the drawing board and, to start prototyping my scratch build projects. It's been quite a learning experience.

The first thing that I have learned that is no matter how cool I may think David Gaffam's papercraft model is, it probably isn't going to happen with Balsa Wood.

At least not anytime soon.

This is pretty much down to the second lesson that I have learned today, which is to play to the strengths of your chosen material. Balsa Wood doesn't handle cutting curves into it too well at all, so the arches in David's model are a definite no go for someone as new to scratch building as me, even with an experienced hand to guide me.

This has lead to some interesting compromises from a design point of view, as a lot of science-fiction architecture tends to be curve heavy. It has also lead to what I thought would be a ruins construction project going in a completely unexpected direction, with what I have on the drawing board now resembling something better described as an Imperial barracks.

All this has inspired a number of other ideas that I already had swilling around as well as sparking a new one. That's about as far as I've got so far (well apart from a card mock-up of some of my ideas) but, I have to say that I think I am coming along great guns!

Battlefield In A Box

Whilst I am covering the subject of terrain, it is probably well worth pointing out that if scratch building seems far too much like hard work for you, there are a good number of pre-built options available, with one of the most impressive in my mind being the Battlefield in a Box range from GaleForce9.

You don't even have to raise a paint brush!

Whilst I would have to say that the primary focus of the company is definitely terrain for the popular tabletop skirmish game, Flames of War, Warhammer: 40,000 could benefit greatly from the "Gothic" range of ruins.

True, it may lack a lot of the skulls, chains and imagery that we associate with the game but is that such a bad thing? I don't think so. In fact I find the concept of some less lavish terrain dispersed amongst the official stuff quite appealing.

Not to mention how appealing the price tag of £18 a pop is! Definitely something to consider when outfitting your gaming table.

Scratch Building

One of the many things that I have been wanting to do for some time now is try my hand at scratch building.

I've never really been too sure of where to start though but fortune sure does shine upon the bold and a chance conversation has lead to me having a fairly detailed discussion on the do's and dont's of scratch building with a highly experienced modeler, who has even offered to give me a hand, having outlined what I want to do.

In fact, they have offered to do it for me gratis! But me being me, I want to get stuck in and learn something new the best way. By getting involved.

Initially I am going to keep it simple by producing a few toxic craters on the cheap (the very cheap as I have some scrap material already collecting dust that will be just perfect for the job) and, some factory ruins. The classic for any Warhammer: 40,000 battlefield based upon the excellent papercraft model produced by David Graffam, pictured above.

The main difference between the model depicted above and what I am looking to produce will be material. David has opted for paper, which is all well and good but, wanting a more durable model, I will be using balsa wood. Granted, it is hardly the worlds toughest material but the improved durability combined with the ease of use and pliability seems to fit what I need well.

Plasticard will almost certainly be involved too along with a few plastic girders from my local modeling shop to really carry off the theme in a way you just cant with paper and card alone. All the time keeping in mind my overall objectives for this project:

A functional light-weight piece of terrain and templates that I can work from to produce them again if replacements are ever needed (or if someone else wants one).

In my head I have this all planned out. Now I just need to make it happen! 

Fantasy Product. Fantasy Prices!

I'll preface this post by saying that it is not really like me to come down hard on small businesses but, by the end of this post, I will be!

Let me start though by inviting you all to take a look at this post over at Alien Dungeon.

Normally I would root for fledgling and independent publishers like these guys but, I really have to draw up an objection to their pricing policy. More so, I also have to question them as to what the hell were they thinking when they came up with it!?

To ask for $100 investment in a new product line when all you're offering is a handful of miniatures and a rulebook essentially is ludicrous! Even Games Workshop, who are the worst of the worst when it comes to price bloat only charge £61.50 for their base product (that frankly gives you a lot more bang for your buck) and, that's a price tag for an established product line.

You know it must be bad if I'm coming down on the side of Games Workshop when talking about value for money! It's probably also worth saying that Games Workshop didn't have the benefit of a kickstarter to produce their product line and they STILL don't charge that much!

I would be interested in hearing what other people have to say on this but, to me it looks like greed, plain and simple.

DMotivational #26: Necron Nerf Rifles - Still Capable Of Destroying Your Most Powerful Tanks With A Single Round

The Torch Bearers Flame

Found this great play report in my feed this afternoon and just had to share it.

It really takes me back and reminds me of my first interactions with the hobby, when my elder brother patiently sat down with me and guided me through my first session of Warhammer: 40,000. It was also my brother who taught me how to play chess, bought and painted the copy of Warhammer Quest that we all (my niece, my nephew and, I) played with as youngsters and, whose copy of Dungeon! I received one summers holiday and just couldn't put down.

Many, many fond memories there, all still as vivid as the day they were created.

It's really great to see that the torch is being passed on from generation to generation.

DMotivational #25: Not All Is Fair In Love And War

2 For 1 On Marine And Chaos Forces!

There's no sale though. Just a loophole within the Warhammer: 40,000 rules big enough to park a Baneblade in!

A loophole exacerbated with the reintroduction of alliances in 6th Edition. So, imagine if you will that you could not only effectively collect two armies more or less for the price of one but, that you could field three armies instead of two without breaking the new alliance rules.

How cool is that!? But, how do you pull it off?

The trick here is to pick your paint job. What you are going for is finished models that look something like the Fleshtearer in the upper right of this post, just minus the decals and insignia.

They're black and red, you declare them as Fleshtearers, they're Fleshtearers right? After all decals are an optional extra by and large. An added extra that you really don't want!

The thing is though that the Red Corsairs are also decked out in red and black as you can see in the picture to the right. So those Fleshtearers could easily be Red Corsairs... After all, they've got no insignia to suggest otherwise right? ;0).

There you have it! Two armies for the price of one!

If you want access to the Blood Angels Codex, Wargear and, alliances, field them as Fleshtearers. If you want access to both the Space Marine and Chaos Codex's, Wargear and alliances, to mix and match on a whim, field them as Red Corsairs!

Taking the later option even opens up the possibility of a Necron alliance.

Space Marines laying down oppressive firepower, Chaos Daemons deep striking with impunity and, Necrons withering armor whilst point blank refusing to die... What hope does your opponent have?

Necrons: The Lazy Man's Force

Imagine this but, more awesome!

When it comes to starting up in the Warhammer: 40,000 hobby the first major choice that you face is which army to field.

It's obviously important to choose a force that appeals to you but, what often gets overlooked by newer players is just how manageable is that force?

For example, the idea of playing as Orks may appeal to you but, are you prepared for just how many models you are going to have to assemble and paint?

Let's face it, it's not uncommon for new players to throw in the towel half way through painting up, what is a small army but a hell of a lot of models. So, to save wasting money if for no other reason, it's important to choose your army wisely based on your abilities and level of patience (and I can be quite impatient!)

The chances are that if you're reading this, you're quite impatient too. So what do i suggest?

Necrons. Necrons all the way! But why?

Well, for a start Necrons have always seemed to have an edge over all of the other armies from the word go, so if winning is important to you, choose Necrons but, that's probably a topic for another post.

What we're interested in here is the fact of just how fast you can get that bulk of a Necron army to the table, and when I say fast, I'm talking in hours, not days, to the point where it is conceivable to have the better part of a Battleforce rendered to a good tabletop standard within a day!

Something that I consider unthinkable with most other armies.

This is made possible by just how little you can get away with and, how many lazy mans tricks you can pull to get you there quickly. You thought Black Templars where a cinch, you haven't seen anything anything yet!

All you have to do is follow these few simple steps and you'll be rising out of the sand with the best of them:

Step 1: Prime your models.. Spray them black.
Step 2: Paint them all with a quick coat of watered down chainmail or boltgun.

This is a personal shortcut of mine. Metallic paints don't mix well with water as you may know, so the end result of applying this mixture will produce much the same effect as if you had painted the model silver and washed it black... Just in one step, saving you time and saving you money!

Step 3: Whilst your models are drying, paint their bases brown.
Step 4: Once your models are dry you may want to wash a little black into the deep recesses but, this is totally optional.
Step 5: Detailing. Pick out the chest emblem and eyes with a touch of green to compliment the Gauss Rifle and, optionally the piece of cabling on the rifle itself.
Step 6: Assemble the model.
Step 7: Base the model with sand and you're done!

All in all, that should take you about an hour and a half for a ten man squad the first time around, which should get quicker as you get into the flow of things. You can also apply similar methods to your other models, switching the green for red with the scarabs for detailing and, possibly line-edging your larger models.

Be warned though, line-edging takes time (lots of time if you want to get it right) so be sure to make it one of the last things you do to bring your models from tabletop - good, to tabletop - awesome. For a lazy mans approach however, this simple guide should see you well on the way to marching across scorching deserts and apocalyptic wastelands.

(Really) Basic Hammer

Whilst having a ponder in the bath this morning, where it has to be said that I do a lot of my best thinking, I got to mulling over Warhammer 40,000 and my pet peeve with it (well beyond the elitism and extortionate prices associated with it).

The rule book.

Warhammer may not be the most complicated game ever written but it does suffer from a bulky rule book. It's gargantuan when you consider that the game itself only consists of four phases and six turns!

Definitely not user-friendly!

So, I got to thinking, what the game really needs is a bare bones introduction level set of rules. Ideally they should take no longer to explain than a couple of minutes and they should be easy enough to allow people that have never played before into the game.. And I think I may really have something here.

The basic rules as I have designed them where written with infantry based skirmish level play in mind but, to be honest, no specific brand of miniature. So if you are considering entering into the hobby but don't want to shell out £60+ for an entry level box set, why not break out some old toy soldiers or other minis that you have lying around give these rules a whirl?

They're by no means 40k rules but, they will give you a taste of what it might be like to play the game and, if the game is for you.

Set-up

Before play each player should take an equal number of models of their chosen type and place them within their "deployment zone".

Deployment zones can be any area at least 12" away from enemy deployment zone. If you do not have that much space to spare, then separate table  edges will suffice.

Phase 1: Initiative

Each player rolls 1D6. The player that rolls highest acts first in each of the following three phases (or may optionally allow his opponent to act first) and, play they proceeds amongst the players (more than 2 is possible) in order of the dice rolls from highest to lowest.

The player with the highest initiative will be referred to as the "first player" throughout the rest of these rules. 

Phase 2: Move

Roll 1D6 for each "Unit".

This turn that unit may move up to that many inches. A unit is defined as a group of models acting together as one. Once you have moved all of your units, play passes to the player to complete their movement phase.

Once all players have completed their movement, the first player then begins their Shooting Phase.

Phase 3: Shooting

Each unit that can now draw a clear line of sight (a line between your model and your opponents that is not blocked by terrain) but is not within an inch of an enemy model may fire.

Each unit rolls 1D6 for each member it has left and, every six rolled removes one model from the targeted group.

Once all of the first player's units have fired, play passes to the next player in initiative order that has models left on the table.

Once all players have completed their Shooting Phase, the first player begins their Close Combat Phase.

Phase 4: Close Combat

Units that are within an inch of enemy models (and therefore could not fire) may now optionally attack in close combat.

Close combat works just like Shooting, with each unit rolling a number of dice equal to its members with the exception that both fives and sixes will remove an enemy model.

Once all players have completed or passed on this phase the next turn begins and, initiative is re-rolled.

Winning

If at any point all of a players models are eliminated, they are out of the game. The winner is the last player to have models on the table when all of his opponents have been eliminated.

DMotivational #15: It's All About The Plasma Of Late

Plasma Dawn!

Well, despite my expectations in this article that I posted up earlier, it would seem that the whispers of the warp had a certain, almost eerie ring of truth to them.

It has to be said, and indeed, I did say it, that when I heard the rumors that the 6th Edition Starter Box would contain such a high-volume of plasma weapons, I didn't think for a moment that the rumors could be true.

It was just so "Un Games Workshop".

Here they were, proposing to peddle a product to new players that in my opinion had great potential to deter them from wanting to take the hobby any further and, that does little to sell the new rules to those players.

Frankly, I am still left asking myself, what the hell are they thinking!?

The tactical squad of Dark Angels is clearly sporting a Plasma Cannon, and if the write up here is at all accurate, there are at least another two plasma weapons in that squad. That's three opportunities every time that squad fires to blow itself clean appart!

So, "tactical" isn't the word I would use given that plasma weapons only get moderately better stats than bolters and, bolters don't explode. Bolters are also cheaper as a buy in when it comes to reckoning the points cost of your forcelist, so I can see no real reason for including them.. They kinda suck to be honest.

That aside however, I must concede that by and large, the sculpts for the new miniatures look pretty amazing, with a good mix of models in there for you to bring to the table. Certainly far more imaginative than Black Reach. So in that respect, Games Workshop should certainly have no trouble selling this box set to the masses.

It is just a shame that when people actually do get some of the models to the table, that they will find them self-destructing before they've made a dent in the enemy.

This should make demo games in-store interesting to say the least!

Win A Fully Painted Rogue Trader Era Imperial Guard Army!

Yep! You read that right. A fully painted Imperial Guard army from the Rogue Trader era is up for grabs.

I came across this great give away run by the folks over at Bell of Lost Souls whilst searching the web for research material (amazing the things my research keeps digging up of late) and just had to share it with you all.

The best bit? It's free and, you still have time to enter. Hell, you can enter the draw up to six times if you have the means.

For full details, check out their competition posting here.

Alchemy Bytes #14: Dungeon Command

Another interesting insight into the world of gaming from Tom Vasel and Sam Healey over at the Dice Tower.

This time they take a look at a game that has certainly caught my eye and, promises to have a great deal of potential. I strongly suspect I will be picking up a copy at any rate. I also however suspect that this could very quickly become another expensive collection to maintain.

With each of the two box sets currently available costing over £30 each and, the realistic necessity being that you need both to play a decent game it's not cheap off the bat. Then take into account that there at least two further planned expansions in the works at Wizards and, we start getting into the realms of downright expensive!

Since this is Wizards as well, it isn't unrealistic to expect that they will go down the route of releasing booster packs that will probably set you back about £10 a time.

For that kind of money I could build a 40k army!

Dungeon Command does have certain advantages over Warhammer though. Chiefly the fact that the miniatures you buy here come painted and assembled. Also however, each miniature also comes with cards that allow you to use it in any of the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure System games that you may already own (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, The Legend of Drizzt).

So if you do happen to own any of those you're not just getting a new game but an expansion for your old game to boot, which makes the £30 a box price much easier to justify and accept.

In conclusion, I would say that this game would make a great buy for any fan of the now out of production Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures Game but, be warned, keeping up with this one isn't going to be cheap!

Alchemy Bytes #13: World Wide Web Of Wonders

I found this amazing little wonder in my Facebook feed today and just had to share it.

I have been pondering doing something similar for quite a while. Ever since I first saw this in fact.

Personally I found the art in Toy Mallet: 40c quite evocative. It set me thinking on just how much fun it could be to field a cutesy and fluffy force in such a grim setting.

Also I expect the looks on the faces of other gamers and, indeed the Games Workshop staff as you began to unpack your army ready for battle would be priceless!

In fact, the only factor that has stopped me creating such an army is budget. Admittedly a Battleforce would probably suffice but that's still £80 to spend on what is essentially a one-shot practical joke. Not Cheap.

Still very tempting though...

DMotivational #9: In The Grim Darkness Of The Future There Is Limited Segway Parking

Alchemy Bytes #10: All Things 40K

Whilst searching the web the other day I came across this excellent little blog.

It's packed full of painting advice and step-by-step guides that are just ideal for novice painters like myself. In many respects it's a lot like having a pro sit down with you and talk you through what you're doing but, with the added advantage that you can quickly skip ahead and see if the finished work is actually what you're trying to achieve.

There are of course various Youtube videos offering similar services but, in my opinion the layout here although being more basic, is far superior. After all, you can't print off a Youtube video can you?

If you're new to painting miniatures or, interested in getting involved with them this blog is well worth a read.

Links

All Things 40K