New Podcast - The Watchtower

Just like every monkey with a keyboard can write a blog, it seems every geek with a mixer and a mic can create a podcast. Over the past year we have seen far more being produced - to the point where I currently have 18 subscriptions in Instacast for GW programming. This is even after a recent cull. It is now got to the stage where the availability of "free" content has seriously curtailed my Horus Heresy audiobook listening.

One of the most recent is The Watchtower podcast out of Sydney, Australia - the name is unfortunate as they share it with a lot of Jehovah Witness multimedia. The presenters are three members of the Sydney gaming scene and have, it appears between 6 months and 3 years Warhammer Fantasy experience. I don't personally know the guys - my Oz tournament days ended in 2010 just as these guys were starting.

What I enjoy about podcasts is getting an appreciation of a different scene's meta. In the case of Australia and New Zealand, 8th Edition has seen a massive divergence from a previous close alignment. By way of background, I largely stopped travelling to play in Oz due to their reliance on subjective - usually panel based composition system. The australians are slowly coming around to hard cap systems but the process has been slow and certainly their scene is more restrictive than permissive.

So with that background in place, onto the podcast. To date there have been two episodes. The first was an introduction to the presenters followed by a review of their performance at a recent tournament. The second was a review of the recent Daemon Book release.

The initial episode was a good start. Production values seem okay. There were initial problems downloading but these were soon rectified. I liked the introduction by Nick and Mick and you knew pretty quickly that you were listening to an Australian podcast. As a gross generalisation, there are no grey areas with Australians - and the podcast is very black and white. New Zealanders tend to find Aussies very opinionated and this podcast certainly leaves you in no doubt as to where they stand on every issue. This is not a bad thing, it certainly makes for interesting listening but there is a risk that things can be seen in overly simplistic terms. Tournament reviews are hard to do well on a podcast. You need to avoid the "then I rolled a 6" aspect which doesn't make great listening. However The Watchtower did this no better or worse than other podcasts out there. With tournament review I personally prefer to hard very short synopsis of the games and then a more in-depth review of what worked and why, whether this was list design strength/flaw or was symptomatic of matchups/luck/etc. Then a discussion as to whether a list needs to evolve. I'll be interested to see how TW tournament reports are handled going forward.

The second episode reinforced a lot of what I learnt on the first episode. It added a third host, Alex and then provided a long review of the new Daemons. Again there were not a lot of grey areas - something was either crap or amazing/broken. Having listened to a lot of podcasts reviewing the Daemons there wasn't a lot of new insight but that is likely a case of being later to the party than other casts.I found their review reasonably accurate - though as noted, not much inhabited middle ground. As someone currently dabbling in Daemons I think the book is very good in terms of internal and external balance. While there are obvious strengths that the cast identified I don't necessarily think that they gave enough credence to either book weaknesses or changes to meta that can immediately mitigate some of the strengths. A case in point was the focus on the strength of Skullcannons without a consideration of mitigator in the 5/10 point Dragonhelm/Dragonbane tax for characters. Similarly the emergence of High Elves (and BotWD) may dampened aspects of a DoC's tournament return over 6 rounds. All in all though I found the review interesting.

So after two episodes there has been enough on offer to make me return for future episodes. I'm keen to hear if there is progression in the Australian tournament scene and in their meta. Generally I give podcasts 4-5 episodes before I cull. On evidence to date I suspect that "The Watchtower" may be a keeper.

You can download it on iTunes, Instacast, Podcaster etc

Daemons for NiCon

Next weekend is NiCon in the Hawkes Bay. This event moves around the North Island, last year being in Auckland. There it drew a very respectable field of 34 and I was lucky enough to win it with my Skaven.

This year - being in a smaller locale - it has drawn a much smaller field. Currently there are 12 players signed up for the event. I'm going up as part of a holiday with my wife, her sister and brother-in-law so adopted a pretty relaxed approach to the event. Over the past three months I've been painting Daemons and so I've built a list out of my most recent additions.


Lord of Change - Level 4 (Metal), Greater Gift, 2x Lesser Gift

Herald of Tzeentch - Level 2 (Tzeentch), BSB

20 Pink Horrors - Full Command

15 Pink Horrors - Standard

10 Pink Horrors - Standard, Gleaming Pennant

4 Beasts of Nurgle

Beast of Nurgle

Beast of Nurgle

3 Screamers

3 Screamers

Flaming Chariot of Tzeentch - Blue Horror Crew

Skullcannon

Skullcannon

I've had a few practice games with the list and I am starting to get my head around it. It is very chaotic and sometimes you just have to accept what the dice throw up.

Weekend Gaming

This weekend my lovely wife is away in Auckland for a friend's birthday. While this will give her the opportunity to visit her two darling boys, I'm left at home to fend for myself.

So the intention is to spend the two days gaming. I intend setting up a couple of tables in the family room and have invited locals to drop in if they fancy the odd game or two or three.

Looking forward to getting a few games under my belt - I am trying to break in a new set of dice.

WIP - A Flock of Festering Furies

Yesterday a box of Plaguebearers arrived in the mail. I had purchased these to create some "Nurgle" Furies for my Daemons. Two units of -1 to hit flyers, I feel will complement the Plague Drones.

Anyway a very simple conversion/kitbash. A box of PBs + Gargoyle Wings = 2 Units of Nurgle Furies.

The gargoyle wings fit straight on the shoulders of the PBs and were "welded" there with plastic glue.

Looking to paint them over the next week and then I'll get some shots up.

First Encounter With "New" High Elves

Last night I had a game against the new High Elves, piloted by local erstwhile Dwarf Tane. I was using Daemons of Chaos and so was interested to see how they would fare versus the uber-enemy.

Tane's list had a lot of the new toys - sans phoenii - and was close to the following:

Loremaster - scroll, AoC
Arch Mage - Lvl 4, BoH (Shadow)
BSB on steed

2x 10 Archers
30 Spears
5 Reavers
5 Silver Helms

21 White Lions
8 Dragon Princes - BotWD
2x 6 Swordmasters

2x Single Eagle

In the end the Daemons ground out a fairly solid victory but there were a few things that came out of the game.

We discussed later but I felt Tane erred in placing the Dragon Princes on the flank rather than in his centre where they can take full advantage of the Banner. It took them three turns to get in combat and tbh they should have been there a turn earlier.  I managed to chip off models by making them move through Dangerous Terrain. This highlighted a flaw with the HE list - the DPs need to be either bigger or cheaper. The unit size Tane had was neither cheap enough to be throwaway nor big enough to preserve damage output potential. They finally got beaten by CR from flanks, charges and ranks in second combat round after their target held first round in multiple combat. So lesson to HEs - Go Big or Go Small! Don't go medium.

Similarly the White Lions fell into the same chasm. Unit size 21 was not big enough to sustain casualties from magic to maintain sufficient threat capability. I think they need to be around 30 - with BotWD - or in "Stormtrooper" blocks of 10 models with 3 file frontage.

I was able to combat snipe the Archmage but prior to this he confirmed all my thoughts as to how scary the new book is. Personally I would go with a different lore choice - almost certainly High Magic - but understood Tane's choice. Pit of Shades is very good versus Nurgle and having Miasma twice is never bad.

All in all it was an interesting introduction - for us both - and I recommend the hilarity of a longtime Dwarf trying to deal with a 200% increase in the number of phases.

Walled Fields Completed

The next part of my terrain odyssey is to add some walls/fences/obstacles to my tables. To do this I have started by making some ploughed fields. These have the added advantage of also providing some Difficult Terrain.

Here are the first two I've completed:

The first one has been made surrounded by GW walls and hedges. The well is by Tabletop World. Lord of Change to provide scale.

The second again uses GW hedges, this time in conjunction with fences.

In both cases one end is open so it can butt onto buildings I've made to act as adjoining field.

Hobby Tip - Finecast

I expect it is well known out there but Finecast bends very easily with the application of heat.

Recently I had a painted model with a very misshapen weapon. Knowing that other resins - e.g. Forgeworld - can be re-posed by applying heat with a hairdryer I thought I'd take a chance.

I slowly applied heat and was able to reposition the weapon. However the interesting thing was that it did not affect the paintjob. The key was to apply the heat to the right place and to ensure things did not get too hot.

Very happy with the result. Of course I bear no responsibility if you try it and reduce your model to a pile of goo.

The Horus Heresy Weekender

Last weekend Games Workshop held the second Horus Heresy event where attendees were able to attend seminars given by Forgeworld and Black Library. Obviously the focus was 30k and what we can expect.

Obviously I would have loved to attend but had to make do with the tweets that came from those lucky enough to be there. Chief among these were "After Ulanor" presenter Greg Dann and "Bad Dice Podcast"  HH correspondent Marcus Pitt. They provide dozens of updates and pictures from the event.

One of the key things that came out is that the Forgeworld books will be released as trilogies. We have Book 1: Betrayal (deals with Istvaan III) but we can expect two further books on this part of the Heresy.

The next book is Massacre and deals with the events of the Drop Site Massacre on Istvaan V. In the book four Legions will be covered - Night Lords and Word Bearers for Horus and Iron Hands and Salamanders for the False Emperor. Also we will see some add-ons to the four Legions already covered in Betrayal.

I'm most excited about the new Emperor's Children units and these guys snapped some pictures of the models.

New Terminator Bodies

The First Noise Marines

The Noise Marines are the ones I've been waiting for and it is an absolute given that I will be doing Emperor's Children in conjunction with my Death Guard. I hope Forgeworld have plenty of resin as these puppies are going to sell by the bucketful (and not just to me).

The third book in this trilogy will deal with the afternath of the Massacre and feature the craven Raven Guard as they cowardly retreat to the hills, Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion.

Obviously there are also Primarchs to be released and the one I am most excited by is the alternative Phoenician model that has emerged.

Perfection Personified - Lord Fulgrim

Merchant's Townhouse Completed

Here are some pictures of the Merchant's Townhouse that I recently completed. It is a Tabletop World piece but it has been supplemented by GW walls, hedges and a tree.

I've given the merchant a vege garden and his stylist (who I'll call James) has planted some flower beds.

Really happy with how it came out - the full base largely blocks line of site - and I'll be using it in upcoming games. Those that attend Horned Rat will have the opportunity to fight for control of the house.

Full Shot of the House

Close up of Front Door Showing Flower Beds (thanks Sam)

FOB NZ Rankings - Fantasy: Updated

Over the weekend the Wandering Orc was held in Tauranga attracting 16 people.

The event was won by Jeff Kent, whose Lizardmen crushed all before them. Second was Antony Kitson with Bretonnian. Local Ross Hillier-Jones was unlucky not to podium being beaten on a tiebreak by James Brown.

The results have been entered in the rankings and we see Jeff enter Masters contention after his win. Sam Whitt rises to a career high 3rd Place in the rankings.