40k - Went First, Win?

 Continuing my tracking of prevalence of the "Player - Went First, Win?", here are the results from The Long War V played last weekend.

Fourteen players, three rounds....21 games.

ROUND 1 - Scorched Earth: WFW - 2/7 (28.5%)

ROUND 2 - Surround & Destroy: WFW - 6/7 (85.7%)

ROUND 3 - Battlelines: WFW - 4/7 (57.1%)

OVERALL: WFW - 12/21 (57.1%)

So the average is 57.1% which is exactly in line with what Goonhammer is tracking.

Hobby - Citadel Paints to Dropper Bottles

 One thing I have been meaning to do for ages is transfer my Citadel Paints to dropper bottles. I am not a big fan of the current Citadel Paint pots finding them fiddly to use, wasteful for paint and not particularly conducive to wet palette use. Previously I had Vallejo Game Colour and found them easier to use though the paint still separates.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a Vince Venturella vid on transfer to bottles and knowing Jack had done it and found it better I thought I'd do it.

Big Bang for me. I have one of the GW Paint Sets with 100+ paints in it - released when they changed to trademarked names about 7-8 years ago. It came with great box which was my main reason to delay change as it makes organisation and tidy up easy. So it meant I had around 80-100 Base and Layer paints to transfer........in fact it is more like 120 it turns out.

I purchased 15ml bottles off Amazon along with stainless steel ball bearings to drop in as agitators. I had Liquitex Flow Aid and Matt Medium. Then it was just clippers and my handheld Badger paint mixer.

Process to transfer was easy - I recommend the Flow-Aid to thin paints that are particularly thick. There are about a dozen easy to find youtube videos that tell you how to do it....they are all much of a muchness. I reckon 100 paints took me about 3-4 hours. The GW label can be lifted off their pot and put on the bottle.

To store/organise them I bought an organiser from BattleKiwi (just ordered a second). It is good as it tilts the bottles so paint is stored towards nozzle and because you can clearly see the colour. I am going to look to reorganise by colour rather than split Layer and Base out. At the bottom of the organiser is a shelf for GW Dry Paints.

Nice easy hobby project that I expect to pay dividends in coming years from utility and economy point of view.

 

40K Hobby - Nurgle Daemons Progress

 Over the weekend I continued progress on my Nurgle Daemons with a view to having them finished by the end of this weekend.

The two remaining jobs are the bases for the Plaguebearers and adding five further bases of Nurglings.

The bases of the Plaguebearers have been smeared with Vallejo Earth Texture and then had rocks and gravel added before being sealed by PVA. From here I need to paint the bases and rocks before adding Agrellian Earth texture and then grass tufts.

The metal nurglings were primed, basecoloured then drybrushed on a painting stick. They have then been fixed to their 40mm bases for painting.

Once they are painted and inked, I'll go through the same basing process.

I have ordered rare earth magnets (6mm x 3mm) and I'll fix these inside the bases to help storage and transport.

40K - Nurgle Daemons

 I have a large Nurgle Daemon army that was originally built for WHFB. When GW blew up the Old World I ported it over to 40k.

Recently I got it out again and was keen to get it on the table. However to do this I found I needed to paint 13 Plaguebearers and, more importantly, rebase the full two units on 32mm bases. My army uses the old metal Plaguebearers (slotabase) so this involved cutting, drilling and pinning.

Here are all sixty in their glory. I need to give them a spray of satin varnish before I texture their bases.

The final thing to do is add 5 more bases of Nurglings to give me a neat dozen. Again these are the old metal figures. Pulling them out of my bitz box I found I had enough to do 24 40mm bases.....but where's the fun in that.

Hopefully over the next week I can finish the army up ready to get it out on the table.

40K Terrain - Ruined Tank Factory

 Over the weekend I painted up the Forge World Ruined Tank Factory and based it on one of the Tablescape tiles that arrived.

I then made up the interior to be in line with the molded base.

I reckon it has come up well and am looking to slot it into my home table.

This is quite a big piece. The tiles are 12" squares so the Factory is about 14-15" high.

It is very solid. The walls are made of solid resin which is around 1 cm thick. I have a bit of detail work to finish - inking of aquilas etc - but it is 90% done.

Key for me was to get the interior right. The molded base only covers 60% of the tile so I wanted to attempt a reasonably "invisible" integration of the rest. The new GW pipes help that.

There are lots of gantries and different flooring materials which gives a great canvas of textures to paint and play on.

40K Terrain - Supplies Airlifted In

 Yesterday eight new Tablescapes Urban Streets tiles arrived from the US. Jack sent them via USPS - who guaranteed delivery by 21 September or postage refunded 😆

These eight tiles allow me to expand my Cityfight table to 10' x 4'.......woohoo.

Last night I fitted some of the terrain I've been painting to individual tiles. As a result I'll have 3 new building tiles, three open plaza (one will get the Flying St. Celestine Statue) and two T-intersections.

The new Terrain GW released with the 9th Ed sets

Forge World Ruined Tank Factory with Extension plus 9th Ed Pipes

Manufactorum with 9th Ed Pipes/Boiler

The FW Ruined Tank Factory will be repainted this weekend using airbrush and inks. It is a beautiful OOP piece. Hopefully I'll have pictures up on Monday.

Fantasy - Kings of War 3rd Edition Bundle

 On the weekend I called into the Warlords for 10 mins while picking up an espresso (please be fixed soon, dear machine) and watched some members playing SAGA Fantasy.

It reminded me how much I really miss my beloved Rats and so, when I got home, I went online to Mighty Ape and bought myself the Kings of War 3rd Ed rules, Uncharted empires army lists and the spell and artefact cards.

Pretty good value for $130....Rulebook is 400 pages while the additional book of Army Lists is 112 pages. All three of my KoW armies are in Uncharted Empires - Ratkin, The Herd and The Varangar.

When I stopped playing 2-3 years ago, the local scene was too small to support an active tournament scene. However my approach this time will be to get in occasional games to scratch my Fantasy itch. From what I understand there are still 6-12 locals with armies.

40K - "Go First, Win" Redux

 So I have been sitting on this data for a week - since the FOB NZGT ended.

I had published it to a TOs' group to see if they could explain what I was seeing but got the stock "not enough terrain/not the right sort of terrain" answer.

However this morning Goonhammer published an article which appears to confirm what I was seeing. 

Put simply, if you go first you have a substantially increased chance of winning.

Goonhammer have indicated that the skew towards Go First Win is 58%. FOB NZGT had a more pronounced skew but if the average is 58%, within the bounds of uncertainty.

In their analysis, Goonhammer singled out Vital Intelligence and Surround & Destroy as particularly problematic. They also highlight Battlelines as the most balanced of the missions. 

I'd certainly be using Battlelines as my Championship mission in future - last weekend it was fortuitous that that was the case.

Personally, I think this skew is worrisome. That there is such an advantage from a random die roll is something GW should be worried about.

Hopefully, this will be addressed in coming months,

Event - 2020 Fields of Blood New Zealand Grand Tournament

The FOB NZGT is on again this weekend. I have been running it since 2008, prior to that Games Workshop ran it 1999-2007.

It is unashamedly a hobby event with the winner being the participant that scores the most points across the four core categories - Battle, Presentation, Selection and Sports.

Numbers are down a bit this year - expected with the Covid situation - but there are 44 gamers fighting for the First Overall plaque. There are also plaques for 2nd and 3rd and for the winners of each individual category.

In addition there are eight Best in Race awards. All the participants have been assigned to a faction so in the end a third of the field will be walking away with a trophy.

The event is on at Khandallah Town Hall in Wellington and the results can be followed on Down Under Pairings. If you are local, feel free to drop in.

I'll post some pictures of the action.

 

Hobby - 40K Manufactorum Progress

 Managed to get the basecoats done on the Manufactorum I airbrushed earlier this month.

The next stage is to apply washes and then airbrush inks to weather the piece. I'm hoping my new tiles will arrive this week which will allow me to fix the building to its base.

Happy with the way the flooring has come up. It will contrast nicely with the blue and red tiling that I used on my other buildings.