A bit of a retraction. It's not all Doom and Gloom.

"Against the Alien and the Traitor there is no fair way to fight"

So as you may have noticed I had a bit of a blow up the other day. I had had a pretty rough game that night. It was in fact one of several bad that I've had since the beginning of 6th. I was feeling very frustrated and just needed to rant and let off some steam, and quite frankly, my fiancee just doesn't want to hear it.

I may have gone too far in saying (with pictures) that 6th is shit. It's not. There are aspects of it that I don't like. In fact I really can't stand certain aspects of it. The flip side though is that there are things that I really do like.  For instance I like the inclusion of allies. I like many of the movement changes (except the transport rules, those suck IMHO.) I like snap fire and overwatch. I like Flyers and flying monstrous creatures (though we really do need some more of them and some more skyfire, but that will come with time.)

Really though I guess it's just different and I'm having trouble adapting to the changes. I had another game tonight. This time I brought out my Eldar with a small contingent of Grey Knight allies. I faced off against Imperial Guard. I had a very fun time this game. I had to call it early as I had a meeting scheduled, but the point is that I can have fun in this edition. If I can have fun in one game then I can have fun in more. Its just going to take some time to adjust.

I'm sure in a short time I'll be in the full swing of things and will look back at my last post and laugh at what an idiot I was. Or at least I hope so!

Till next time....

My opinion of 6th edition after 11 games.

So after 11 games I've come to the conclusion that

=

Now I know that's a pretty harsh comparison so early on in the editions lifespan, but I'm fairly comfortable making it. I will admit that there are aspects of the game I do like. Some of them I would go so far as to say I really like them. However, the aspects of the game I don't like seem to far outweigh the ones that I do. After 11 games I  can honestly say that I got red in the face mad and wanted to rage-quit the game after 7 of them. How is that fun? 

After tonight's game I did rage-quit. Will it stick? I don't know. Probably not. The problem is that I have made friends playing this game and I don't want to risk not hanging out with them anymore. I also still really love the 40k background, both in the rule books and the Black Library books. So do I continue to play a game I think is terrible to hang with friends, hoping against hope that my opinion of the game changes? That's what I'll probably do, but the prospect of ever liking this edition seems pretty bleak right now. 

6th Edition: Initial Thoughts Two Games In

So I posted these thoughts up on The 11th Company forums and then thought to myself, "I should make that a blog post!' So I will.

First up my list of initial gripes.

Mysterious Forests, Rivers (terrain in general), and Mysterious Objectives suck. I want the game to be against my opponent and not against the table itself!

It sucks they kept Kill points (even though they called it something different)

First Blood is waaayyyy too easy to achieve.

Lack of Skyfire for non-Imperials is depressing.

Not being able to assault out of reserves is stupid.

Not being able to assault out of a vehicle at all is stupid.

Random Charge Length sucks (not as bad as I feared, but still...)

Wound allocation is unwieldy and slow. Old version was too so this is kind of a wash, but I was hoping for an improvement not just some weird change.

That's about it for the initial Gripes. Now on to the stuff I like.

Hammer of Wrath

Toughness boost from bikes being permanent for Instant Death and other things.

Allies. I feared this at first, but after reading the actual rules and the FAQ's that help to tone it down I really like it. It should help to shake up the meta and will hopefully see the end of the netlist as their will now be sooo many options available to players.

Snapshot is Great.

So is overwatch.

Real Fliers will bring a whole new dimension to the game (gonna one out for the first time tonight!)

Improved Rapid Fire is long overdue!

Flying Monstrous Creatures are downright scary!

Focus Fire is cool.

And I'm adding one just for the Blog. Movement by model instead of by unit is great. I love that you can now move your bolter guys around and still fire your heavy weapon if he didn't actually move!

Well those are some of my initial thoughs. My two games so far have been fun and I really do like the new edition overall. It still feels like 40k but it feels fresh and exciting again in a way it hasn't for quite awhile. Only time will really tell, but those are some of my early observations.

Pre-release thoughts about 6th Edition

So with 6th Edition mere days away from launch I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts about the upcoming release, the various rumors/leaks that are making their way around the interwebs and about 5th ed. drawing to a close. So without further ado...

Yep, it's a post about 6th, so here'e the obligatory pic of the rule book.

First off I want to say that I really enjoyed 5th. I honestly wasn't really ready for it to end. However as the rumors of 6th started to come out and it seemed that it was more and more inevitable I did start to lose interest. Not really in playing games mind you. I still have one last game of 5th planned for tomorrow night (where my Eldar will try to get some revenge for their loss at the hands of Yancy's Tau!) But I have had little drive to do anything else with the hobby. I haven't really made any new lists to try out in a couple of months. I have done a bit of hobbying, but it has been a real mental struggle to get myself to sit down at the hobby table these last few weeks. I just find it hard to get inspired to do anything when I don't know if it's going to be any good when 6th rolls around.

As 6th rumors started to spread all over the internet I was skeptical and quite frankly terrified of what 6th was going to bring. Random terrain, random charge ranges, allies, flyers, ap on close combat weapons. When it was just tidbits here and there all we could really do was look at how those things would work in the context of 5th edition and a lot of it honestly sounded horrible to me. I was worried that I wouldn't like it. I have literally zero interest in any other miniatures game I've seen being played so I was beginning to fret that my mini-wargaming days were numbered. Who knows, they still could be.

As more and more rumors and some leaks have come out though we are starting to get a better picture of what 6th is going to be like and I've really started to come around. I still think random charge lengths is terrible mind you, but overall the game looks like its going to be even more dynamic than anything we've played to date.

The rules for flyers look kind of cool. I currently don't have any ready to go, but I may have to get my Razorwing painted up so I can run it as an ally to my other forces.

 The new vehicle damage system and hull points sounds like it will bring the much needed toning down to light vehicles while actually making the more expensive heavier vehicles more worthwhile. I do have 4 Land Raiders so I may have to bust them out and see how that goes!

Wound allocation is going away/changing. I'm not sure if changing to the closest model is the best solution, but I'm willing to give it a chance if it helps do away with all the silly wound allocation shenanigans.

I'm still not 100% sold on the fortifications, but I suspect that in the end most tournaments will not be using this as it makes setting up balanced, fair tables very hard for the TO. At the very least I suspect that Fortress of Redemptions will be a no go. Even if I don't think they're all that great it's still only 0-1 per army so it's impact should be fairly minimal.

The changes to add ap to assault is IMO a good thing. I especially like that power weapons are AP3. It's really gonna see a big buff to terminator squads. These guys are gonna finally be the kings of the battlefield they should be!

Where do I even begin with Psychic Domination?! When we first heard about this it sounded like all powers except Grey Knights were going to be randomly determined. Now as we learn that you get your codex powers OR can opt to roll for PD powers it starts to seem like it will really just provide some new options in friendly games. Since in the end you still get to choose I think it will be a fun new option. I still don't think you'd want to try running it in any sort of tourney, but in a pick-up game at the FLGS, why not?

Then finally the biggest turn around I'm having would have to be on Allies. I loathed the allies rules in the old Deamonhunters and Whitchhunters codex's. I thought it was poorly thought out and unbalanced. When I heard allies were in in 6th all I could think of was that. As we've seen more and more about how they will work though I've gotta say I think it will work. I do think it has the potential to really amp up the power levels in a lot of ways, I also think it will provide so many different combinations that it will kind of balance itself out.

There's of course a lot more going on, but these seem like some of the bigger things to me. All in all as we get closer and closer I'm really starting to get pumped! It's gonna be a whole new game and I'm ready to dive in and start learning the nuances of it!

Also I'm thinking about doing a series of 'Learning' Video Battle Reports where we discuss various rules as the game goes on and afterwards discuss things we learned and what we thought worked well etc.etc. Of course this is the first I've mentioned it to anyone, anywhere so I don't even know if I'll have participants willing to share their thoughts, but we'll see. It's just something I'm toying around with.

So what are your thoughts here in the final few days of 5th? Are you excited? Anxious? Filled with unbridled rage at how this will ruin your army? Let me know, I'm eager to hear about it.

Till next time...

Night Spinner: Finished

Two posts in one day! 

Well awhile back I posted some WIP pics of my first Night Spinner. I finally got around to finishing it up today. Here are a few pics of the finished product. 

Front view

Side view.

Top view and proof that I should probably invest in a light box.

Close up of the Doomweaver. 

So this is the first time I have attempted to paint the cockpit windows. In the past I have painted the pilots and left the window unpainted. Most of them end up falling out at some point or they would get really floppy so I would then glue them down. Not knowing better at the time I used super glue and the window then all fogged up. I decided to give painting the windows a try on this and figure if I liked the effect I would go back (eventually) and paint the rest of the vehicles cockpits the same way. Well, I like it, so it looks like I've gone and created yet more work to add to my overwhelming backlog. 

I guess it's not technically done as I don't have the twin-linked shuriken catapult painted up, but I have a bunch of those laying around so no worries. ;)

Video Battle Report: Eldar vs. Copper Dragons (counts as Blood Angels)

The final video battle report from the Battle Barn. This one is a 1500pt battle between my Eldar of the Saim--Hann Craftworld vs. Tim's Copper Dragons, which he was using the Blood Angel Codex for. We decided to have to missions with Capture and Control as the primary and Annihilation as the Secondary. The deployment was pitched battle. Tim won the roll for first turn and elected to have me go first.

End of an Era

No, this has nothing to do with 5th edition coming to a close and the approach of 6th edition. It's much more sad than that and hits much closer to home.

As many of you know the place I play at regularly is known as the Battle Barn (yes it's literally a barn, red paint job and everything!) Well it's going to be closing soon. It's not all doom and gloom though. The reason the barn was opened was because there was no place in town to game and Jeff (the owner) and Brian (our de-facto club president) decided that to try to keep gaming alive they would clean out the barn and have regular game nights.

Recently though, a few new game stores have opened their doors and are offering open gaming. Places like Cobblestone Hobbies in Holland and Alpha Omega Coffee and Games in Cedar Springs have gaming on Saturday afternoons while Big Kidz Games in Grand Rapids offers open gaming everyday of the week (even on Fridays during Friday Night Magic!)  With a few options open now for regular gaming there is no longer a need for the Barn and so sadly Jeff has decided to close it.

I have made many friends in the few years that I have been gaming out at the Barn and I hope that they will continue on to these new locations (as I will frequent all of them!) It's great that gaming has become so strong in the area to support multiple locations but the Barn will be missed.

I want to thank Jeff and especially his wife for opening up his Barn to all of us these past few years. It's been a great run!