KOW - NZ Rankings Updated

The NZ KOW Rankings have been updated to reflect the results of the last Warlords Super Series events.

The next event is the Auckland event being run on the North Shore in late October.y understanding is that will be the final event of the tournament season.

Remember the NZ Masters are being held on the first weekend of December here in Wellington.

KOW - WSS Spring Photos

On Saturday we had the last of the Warlords Super Series here in Wellington.

I managed to snap some pics of the early action.

Neil Williamson's Trident Realms Up Against Josh Barton's Orcs

Seth Cook's Orcs had a narrow loss to Ian Dixon's Ogres

The Orc Fightwagons spent most of the early game back in their own corner.

On the other flank the Ogres pushed aggressively into the Orcs.

Neil's Kraken in amongst the Orc lines. He got into the flank of the Ax Horde here

Ryan Lister's Undead take on Kent Jackson's newly finished Trident Realms

The Lower Abyssals of Lliam Munro are assisted by a Chroneas as they advance towards the Elf lines. Lliam lost this game but went on to win the event.

KOW - WSS Spring Results

Yesterday we had the final of the four event Warlords Super Series, Spring at Khandallah in Wellington.

The event attracted 8 participant including new arrival in the country, Seth Cook from Atlanta, USA. Seth travelled down 2 hours hours for the event which was greatly appreciated.

Here are the results:

This was Lliam's first event win so congratulations. He and Josh played in the last round with Lliam prevailing. What was interesting is that every player won and lost at least one game - so hardly fought.

The other standout was Seth winning Best Sport by achieving best opponent votes from each of his four games. Fantastic effort and great reflection on the man.

So the series is now finished for 2017 and the winners of the four events were:

Summer - Pete Dunn (The Herd)

Autumn - Pete Dunn (The Herd)

Winter - Rob Higgins (Orcs)

Spring - Lliam Munro (Forces of the Abyss)

Thanks to all that participated through the year.

KOW - Warlords Super Series "Spring" Lists

This weekend is the last of the 2017 WSS events. It has attracted 8 players with Orcs and Trident Realms proving popular.

You can see the list here

This is the first appearance on the local tournament scene of recent import from the USA, Seth Cook. Looking forward to welcoming him to New Zealand and hearing his thoughts on different playstyles.

Weekly Hobby Update

The past week has been very stop-start. I have been looking at the Emperor's Children models that I've wanted to finish and have procrastinated until Friday evening. I managed to get a start on them....about my fourth start....which meant I lightly airbrushed over what I had done. Spent Saturday afternoon and then bits of Sunday and they weren't progressing. Finally got over the hump last evening and they are starting to come right.

I expect to finish them this week and then I can (re)start my Terminators. They also got new airbrush coats as I wasn't happy with the colour.

Next weekend is Warlords Super Series - Spring and I am umpiring. This is the last event I am running this year (apart from Masters). I have received all but one list and will post later today.

I have also been reading Black Library books. Finished Fabius Bile and now working my way through Lucius. Picking up snippets of new EC lore as I read them (e.g. how the Emperor's Children got their name).

Finally, I pre-ordered my Death Guard purchases at GW Lower Hutt on Saturday. Congratulations to Luke on the store's 7th Birthday.

Bigger than Wargaming - Brave Hugo

Most Wellington 40k tournament players know Aaron Twose. He has been attending events for over 10 years and is always a great and fun opponent.

Aaron's three year old son, Hugo suffers from cerebral palsy. I personally can't think just how bad that must be for his parents, as well as himself. You can read a recent article that appeared in The Dominion Post here.

At the recent Maelstrom event run by Hagen Kerr, the attendees were able to raise money to go towards getting treatment for Hugo. This was a wonderful initiative and I know was greatly appreciated by Aaron.

Coming up over the next few months will be more fundraising events aiming to raise the necessary money to get Hugo the further treatment to make his life easier.

One of these is something that all 40kers can get behind....a fundraiser featuring the new Star Wars movie. It would be great if the Wellington wargaming community could get behind this en masse.

I'll post details nearer the time but as they say in politics "Let's Do This"

EDIT: Aaron has provided the two dates for movie nights - 17th & 19th December.

Please mark these in your diaries wargamers. I'll let you know when tickets are available.

40K - Death Guard Out 9 September

Old news now but Death Guard officially released on 9 September.

Only three releases:

• Mortarion
• Plague Brethren
• Codex

I suspect the rest - two types of Terminator, new vehicle and more Plague Marines are later in month.

When I saw the prices I must admit to a strong case of Sticker Shock.

Mortarion is NZD 280 - for those of you overseas that is - USD 202 or GBP 157. The USD list price is $140 while UK RRP is GBP85.

The Plague Brethren is a webstore exclusive and is NZD 83 for three models though they are accompanied by an 8 page booklet and 3 art cards.

Guessing the delay in releases is to let your wallet recover.

40K - My "Come At Me, Bro" Emperor's Children Terminator Squad

Listening to various podcasts, I hear that Terminators are not very good. I thought I'd put that to the test with my Emperor's Children warband.

By the 41st Millenium there is little, if any, Legion structure left in the Emperor's Children. Reading the Black Library background novels - Fabius Bile, Lucius etc - it seems that the past 10,000 years haven't been good for the Phoenician's Finest and they have descended into a bunch of personality-led warbands. That has always been the basis for my EC armies which eschew heavy vehicles for Infantry-based solutions.

On that basis I made up a unit of Termies to support my power armoured marines.

They are made out of a mix of Tartaros and Catafracti armour from 30k. I've then added in various Emperor's Children, Chaos Terminator, imperial Terminator and Chaos Mutation bits. The Noise Casters are from the Chaos Vehicle sprue.

I managed too grab 3-4 Combi-plasmas from my bitz box but the rest have been made from plasma guns, boltguns and plasma pistols.

They are also carrying their "kit" with them so I have flayed skin, bags and tools on their belts. I salvaged some pieces of meat from the Ogre box and they use these to feed the daemonettes that follow them.

Next job is to clean up all the mold lines and plastic tags before filling gaps and priming

40K - The Playtesting Fallacy

One of the things that the "community" has a lot to be thankful for is the playtesting that went into the creation of the new edition of Warhammer 40k.

That is the myth that is being perpetrated by a section of commentators out there, be it on podcasts or blogs. Strangely - if you are a moron, that is - is that this is most commonly advanced by those that were "invited" into the process.

Roger and Bruce - Warhammer 40K's Top Analytical Minds At Work

I'm sorry to disappoint you guys but this is becoming a bit of a circle jerk. If you are going to say you were a playtester then you need to own responsibility for the errors that are emerging within days of release - who would have thought that Flyers with a high rate of fire were good; the ability to smite enemies off the board with 2 point Brimstone Horrors, what about RG sitting in the middle of a bubble of lascannon conveyors?

Either the playtesters involved weren't very good or they were only involved in the most cursory manner (in their role as Internet Celebrities). So which was it guys? Did they miss what were pretty apparent glitches - spam + stats = Good - or were they only really shown the finished product. I'm going to go with the latter, because if they were there for any significant part of the ride they didn't do the job.

Perhaps I'm being uncharitable? Perhaps they did find these holes and GW ignored them. Perhaps they've now been found right. I guess I'm an old fashioned cynic.

My guess is that they were flattered when GW came and asked them to "playtest". What they were actually offered was early access and the opportunity to "cheerlead" at the same time growing their own individual brand. Is that a bad thing? Does that make them bad people? Of course not. But let's not dress it up as playtesting.

Playtesting is an intense process designed to break the system to identify faults that can be corrected. I don't think that that is what happened here. Playtesting in the new Warhammer 40k context was just another form of marketing.

Well played GW, well played.

40K - Getting Down With Robby G

Over the last week I have been reading the “Dark Imperium” novel by Guy Haley. Warhammer 40k novels are generally pretty mixed – and this one is no exception. The storyline follows Roboute’s return to Ultramar to confront the Mortarian-led Nurgle incursion.

By far the most interesting character in the book is Robby G himself. I went in very negative on the guy but found the depiction of him led me warming to him as a character. This is pretty much because he pretty much confirms the whole basis of the Heresy, that the Imperium is a lie and claims to the Rotting Corpse’s divinity are false.

I particularly liked the passages where Guilimane said the whole construct of Father and Sons was a myth. The Emperor saw the Primarch as no more than tools (in the most literal sense) and allowed them to call him “Father” only so he could employ them more easily.

The biggest downer for me was Mortarian. We are used to Nurgle Daemons being portrayed as cartoon characters with little depth. However I felt that Haley’s characterisation of the Death Guard Primarch was very uneven. Just when it felt we were going to get a deeper insight, the story waded back into the shallows.

Overall, I enjoyed it but really only for Roboute. And I never thought I would say that!