Ravens and Skavens

It’s been a busy couple of weeks on the wargaming front!

First thing I want to talk about is the Horus Heresy campaign at my local gamestore. The campaign has kicked off in full swing and we’ve got a seriously large group of 18 gamers going at it. Freshly assembled Betrayal at Calth marines are everywhere. It’s an escalation campaign designed to help us build our armies and so my first 250 points zone mortalis battle was against Night Lords (courtesy of Peter Zuidgeest, check out his pro-painting service!). Despite going for the ridiculous option of fielding a land speeder, I actually won this. Because of a shortage of assembled models, I went with a single unit of 10 guys and a land speeder. Peter figured more bodies would be better, but in the end resulted in a victory for me due to my squad’s superior combat capabilities. We did a second battle afterwards where Peter took some different upgrades and I lost that battle completely. Biggest thing I took away from all of this though is to never use a land speeder in a zone mortalis game.

Phone shot of the second battle. Note the sad, useles, immobilised land speeder in the back.

With my first battles done I could return the focus on painting the army again. So, just last night I finally finished my first tactical squad! Next month will have 500 points battles and I think I’ll try and build a contemptor and the BaC chaplain to round out my army.

The finished squad. Not featured in this image: some extra grass tufts that I added later.

Now, because working on a 30k army is apparently not enough to keep me busy, I’ve also made my first steps on the road to the Age of Sigmar! Which basically means that I’ve bought a lot of stuff and I’m doing a lot of reading. As people might have noticed, Age of Sigmar has released Skaven Pestilens as a playable faction. Complete with their own battletome and black library love.

index

Just look at that beautiful mug and tell me you are not hype for this faction.

Since I plan on playing Skaven exclusively to start with, I have picked up the battletome and the black library book ‘Legends of the Age of Sigmar: Skaven Pestilens’. The latter one is well on its way to being finished so hopefully I’ll be able to find the time to do a proper review for the blog some time as well as perhaps a future Skavenblight Radio episode.

Squeeking of the Radio, we released a new episode a couple of weeks ago. It’s most likely a lot better than the previous episode since I talk a lot less in it. Also, it’s episode #13 and that has to at least count for something on a Skaven podcast.

So that’s what I’ll leave with for now. Next couple of weeks should hopefully provide painted Skaven, progress on the 500 point Dust Vultures and a review of the Pestilens black library book.

Victory or Death!

Decimated

No big update today. Just a teensy one because I just can’t resist showing off my new toys. Feast your eyes on a brand spankin’ new Chaos Decimator Daemon Engine (it has too many names).

Big mini. Tiny base.

The image was taken before priming. Assembling the model was an enormous bitch as I had to pin nearly every joint and socket in this thing and still had trouble fitting it in a pose that didn’t make it look like it was either standing motionless or tipping over. In the end I feel happy with the result. Only thing that needs to be done is fitting the magnets that I’m going to use for the weapon mounts (I also have a siege claw, butcher cannon and stormlaser for it) as well as the painting. Hopefully more updates on this project as it develops.
Also this:


Coolest. Cover. Ever.

If you have ever even remotely considered the Night Lords to be a cool legion I sincerely urge you to get your hands on the amazing trilogy books by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. Void Stalker is the last installment and I can’t freaking wait to read it.

Death to the False Emperor.

Distractions

I’ve been somewhat distracted this week.

Work has been a constant drain on my energies since I now work 6 days a week at both my graduation internship and McDonalds. In fact, it’s been such a strain that I’ve decided to quit working at McDonalds, even though it’s been my best part-time job ever and it’ll probably be rough times ahead without the extra income.

For my graduation internship I also have to travel back and forth for about 3 hours by train every day. This has had the nifty little side-effect that I now tear through my black library books like there’s no tomorrow. The First Heretic by Aaron Dembski-Bowden has been the first to fall.

Did I ever mention that I like chaos space marines? For those not in the know: The First Heretic is about the how the Word Bearers legion introduced the worship of Chaos to the imperium of man and set in motion the massive war of betrayal that was the Horus Heresy. This right here is also precisely why I love to read Horus Heresy books. Every book reads like it’s history in the making. It’s immensely fascinating to me how all these small coïncidences and decisions, usually motivated by very understandable human emotions, end up shaping these incredibly epic and apocalyptic events. The First Heretic has this stuff in spades.

Another thing I never fail to enjoy is a story that makes me sympathise with a vilain. Even regular space marines are a bunch of superhuman indoctrinated psychopaths who kill people with less emotion than I feel when making a sandwhich. Chaos Space Marines (and the Word Bearers in particular) do not only go around commiting horrible genocide around the universe, but are also the ones that come up with the brilliant idea to start worshipping daemons from hell and completely betray and murder their own brothers while they’re at it. It’s a testament to a story when you can not only be a witness to all of this, but still get that “I know that feel” moment in the midst of it.

Even chaos marines need a hug sometimes.

Then again, this is Aaron Dembski-Bowden we’re talking about here and, as he has proven with his excellent Night Lords series, chaos space marines and their inner workings are his expertise.

The only thing I felt was missing in this book were the absence of a single, continuous plotline. The main character in this book is the word bearers captain Argel Tal, but since this guy is ‘merely’ a captain and therefore not present at most of the plotting and scheming that goes on behind the scenes, I felt like I missed some important points from the main story. This is remedied to some extent by switching storytelling focus around a lot to the other characters, but this doesn’t actually achieve the ‘best of both worlds’ effect that it should. This is a problem with more heresy books though as I had kinda the same complaint while reading Fulgrim, for instance.

All in all, everyone who’s interested in 40k and the Horus Heresy in general should not miss this book. I highly reccomend it for a deeper understanding of the 40k universe if nothing else. 8 out of 10.

So, besides working and getting wierd looks from the people sitting beside me on the train, the rest of my week was spent getting together with friends, rehearsing/recording with the band (anyone know a good bass player near Eindhoven?) and playing Space Marine. I said in my last blog that I might give it a review this time, but I don’t really feel like it right now and there’s already loadsofgoodreviewsoutthere anyway.

As for the progres I made on the warband this week:

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Get ready for it people…

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I assembled and basecoated 2 chaos sorcerers.


Now that’s there’s some good-ol’ fashioned metal.

Death to the False Emperor.