Podcasts on Nagash Fluff

The recent episodes of both Garagehammer and Heelanhammer have been dedicated to the fluff sections of the Nagash End Times book.

Both have followed a similar format - a round table discussion of the content and its implications for the Warhammer world.

Garagehammer is more structured in form following the chronological path of the book pretty much. The panel is made up of Dave Witek, Chris Yu and Chris Tomlinson (from The Black Sun podcast). I'm not so sure on the "fluff" readings by what I suspect is one of Dave's students, but the panel discussion is fun and thought provoking.

The Heelanhammer offering is a bit more chaotic. In this case the panel is Dan Heelan, Wayne Kemp, Chris Appleford and Simon Hyett. They jump around a bit more but benefit from the longer period in the hobby that someone like Wayne has been. They regularly reference the similarities and differences with GW's 6th Ed "Storm of Chaos" campaign - that the End Times effectively replaces.

Both are well worth the time taken to listen. I regularly picked up things I missed or nuances I hadn't thought about. Well done guys!

I'm loving this narrative direction that GW have taken with the End Times and can't wait until the second wave hits.

Miniature Monday - Refurbished Tomb Kings Basing

The Tomb Kings were my first ever Fantasy army. I bought them off Charles Black in 2003 - he had picked up multiple army boxes from GW as the prizes for winning GTs (those were the days).

I didn't play them until 2006 - focusing on 40k up until then. Still they have a soft spot in my heart - my first WHFB event was the Games Workshop NZ Grand Tournament in 2006 where I won Best Sports

Last weekend I decided I would tidy up their basing and movement trays as they had become a bit tired. I'm still waiting for the trays for the cavalry and Tomb Guard to complete the army.

Steel Sheet for Magnetic Basing

I magnetise all my models so that they stick to the movement tray. The base of the model gets adhesive magnetic sheet - you can use rare earth magnets as an alternative - but you need something to "stick" to. You can use other magnets but that can get fiddly and also can create a bond that is too strong (you end up snapping models or pulling them off their base).

The product I've found best to line your movement tray is Rubber Steel Sheet from GF9. This comes in packs of three sheets 5" x 8" for USD 9.99. Battlefront NZ used to sell it but now you get it from their UK warehouse. All up with postage three packs cost me NZD50.00. It is adhesive and can be cut with scissors so it is very workable. Transit from the UK was less than a week.

Nurgle Chaos in This Week's White Dwarf

This week sees the start of a month of Chaos releases.

So the first week sees the Putrid Blightkings. These appear to be Nurgle Chosen.

Also expected is Nurgle Special Character Gutrot Spume plus a large Nurgle Monster with variety of builds.

Interestingly the rules for the Blightkings show them as "Infantry" on a 40mm base - so only single attack from second rank :-(  These look very overpriced game wise. And they cost $110 NZD for 5 models so not cheap wallet wise. Expect that they will get used as Nurgle champs in WoC armies....oh wait.

They can be used in all three Chaos armies confirming an upcoming merging of the force - perhaps some people won't be so keen to see ET armies at tournaments now!

Happy times indeed.

Vampire Counts - Who's On First?

Okay a little game of where is best placement for VC characters.

I have a Black Knight bus with three characters in it. Let's say that the bus is six wide.

Vampire Lord

• Heavy Armour
• Ogre Blade
• 4+ Ward
• OTS
• Quickblood
• Red Fury

Vampire

• Sword of Anti Heroes
• Heavy Armour
• Enchanted Shield
• Opal Amulet
• Quickblood

Wight King

• Heavy Armour 
• Shield
• Lance
• Nightshroud

All on Barded Nightmares/Steed. Unit has Full Command.

Where should I place the characters for maximum utility?

Ha Ha - ETC Rules Hangover

I was playing a game last night versus Hagen's Lizards. He has a Cold One minibus with two characters in it.

About Turn 4 I found myself congratulating myself on getting the bus down to two COC and 25% starting models. Yay half points for me.

Then I checked myself - "You're not in Novi-Sad now, Toto".

I then had to redirect resources to get the two remaining models. This unlearning takes time.

Textured Movement Trays

I generally order my movement trays from Sarissa Precision in the UK. They have four key advantages IMO over the opposition:

• Superior product design - two part tray allowing seamless magnetisation
• Competitive pricing
• Great website making ordering extremely easy
• Fast and efficient service - less than a week from point of order to delivery on the other side of the world

One thing I like to do is to texture the tray edges to match the bases of the army. Yes, this does mean lots of movement trays but it does improve the aesthetic.

Here's how I go about doing it. Quick and easy but it gives a good effect. These are for the chariots and snakes in my Tomb Kings. They are on desert themed bases - well doh!

Here are the Sarissa trays (plus one interloper) all constructed with steel paper between the base and lip. I've used PVA to attach the lip.

Here is a tray of Builders Sand I got from the local DIY when I was doing some paving. An even cheaper method is to grab some from the local riverbank.

Sand applied. I usually do two coats. Apply PVA then dip in sand. Let it dry then do it again. Finally after that has dried seal it with a top layer of slightly watered down PVA.

HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP:

Before you start to decorate base ensure that you remove any sand that has fixed itself to the inner lip. If you don't do this your models won't fit. And you will get very frustrated :-). I use a blunt bread and butter knife (also good for spreading polyfilla) and aggressively remove any inner lip transgressors.

I then apply a base layer of paint to the trays - the top layer of PVA has sealed the surface for you. The paint I use is house paint that I get from the local DIY. Locally the best source is Resene where you can buy test pots for around $4. The great benefit is that apart from convenient size and price, you can get it in literally a zillion colours. Here I have used the imaginatively titled "Sand". I then applied a wash of Gryphon Sepia and then, when dry, a drybrush of Ushabti Bone. For these last two steps you don't need a lot so it doesn't break the bank.

The final stage is to apply some Static Grass to decorate the base - and in my case tie in with my army.

I reckon the actual work in doing these trays was about an hour. However you need to spread it over 3-4 days to ensure that you give each stage ample opportunity to dry.

I do think that this hobby input enhances the look of your army and helps address the evil painting checklist some TO tyrants try and impose on a downtrodden populace!

 

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Chaos on 18th October

Saturday's White Dwarf confirms upcoming Chaos on its inside back cover with the rejoinder "Beware the Scions of Chaos".

This is the start of 4-5 weeks of Chaos so as noted in previous posts expect some daemon crossover kits to keep the 40k registers churning.

The next End Times book is less than a month away!

ETC 2015 - Call for Applications for the New Zealand Team

Here is an announcement from 2015 NZ ETC Captain Chris Willcox.

 

Applications for the New Zealand WHFB team for ETC 2015 are now open and will close off on Friday 24 October 2014

 

The event for 2015 is being held at:

PVA Letnany

Prague

Czech Republic

 

 Time frame players are required for:

• Wednesday 5 August 2015 meet at hotel
• Thursday 6 practice game with Singapore
• Friday 7 to Sunday 9 ETC 2 games each day

The selectors for 2015 are:

• Chris Willcox 2015 captain
• Pete Dunn 2014 captain
• Mal Patel ETC player 2011-2014

 

We are looking for good warhammer players that will:

A/ represent New Zealand in the friendly & fair manner of all our teams since 2010

B/ fit into a team environment no one should think they won't be sacrificed for the good of the team

C/ be competent with at least two armies we can't all play Dark Elves for example

D/Play your allocated army to death for the next nine months

All applications can be sent to Chris Willcox with name and two armies you would like to play.

Comp Comparison

I saw the other day that a new version of Swedish had been released so I downloaded it and had a read. It is very hard to get a view on it without some context so I thought I'd compare it to a known benchmark.

In this case I chose the 2014 ETC Army Restrictions as my point of reference. The aim with the ETC comp is to get the strongest possible army within the agreed restrictions. Yes, you need to be aware that ETC is primarily aimed at a team competition while Swedish is for singles play but at least some context.

To make the comparison I took the 2014 NZ ETC lists and worked out the Swedish score for each. Here are my results:

As you can see there is very wide variation - far more than I expected.

It reinforces the general view that Dark Elves had very light comp on them at the ETC. However try to run an ETC list in Swedish and you get murdered. The Dwarfs look like they got harshly treated at the ETC - and that may be because of the role that they play in teams' competition - but are treated very leniently in the Swedish environment.

What is really interesting is the breadth of variation that exists between what I'd guess are the two primary European comp systems. If both are aimed at balancing the game I would expect more common ground. Rule differences e.g. line of sight interpretation may explain some of variation but I don't think it adequately explains the spread we are seeing.

Can't offer much more than that - as we already knew - this ain't an exact science.

 

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