New GW Book

Wow... This is going to be great!

Link

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Dan-O's updates

I just wanted to throw out some updates from over the past week.

BattleLore - Played several games of BattleLore over the past week for the X-Cam and I really enjoy this game.  The first game was against Brian A. and though it was a loss it was still fairly close.  The Second game vs. Will was a solid win.  The third game vs Will however was epic.

I was ahead 5 out of 6 flags, and Will had but 3.  I had a Fireball set to go for the next turn which would have won me the game but that sneaky git did a Cavalry Charge, and it decimated 3 units in that turn winning him the game.  So close yet it all went horribly awry.

Sturmovik Commander - I found this great WW2 dog fight game a short while ago and for the longest time I have wanted to do something in this genre.  Brian A., Will and I tried it out yesterday and it was fantastic.  I had a few reservations on a couple of the rules but everything played very smooth.  We made a small list of game items which would help game play such as a dedicated movement ruler, range ruler, and Initiative token to name a few.  Look for more on this game soon.

Another game I have been looking to try is some form of historical skirmish game.  I have a couple I am looking at but in the meantime i've started to collect some 1/72 scale minis.  A couple weeks back I bought a box of Germans, and this week I found a great set of American GI's by this company here.  These models are far superior and I can not wait to begin building and painting them.

Lastly, the only other game related item are the Bruins vs. Montreal playoff games.  What a series.  We're up right now 2-0 and are playing in Montreal tonight.  As long as we can keep our heads together like we have been we'll do great.

Good Luck B's!

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New Guard Goodness!

Bad photo but great model!

The Warp Rift - Battlefleet Gothic Web-Zine

I stumbled across this today and wanted to share.

http://www.epic40k.co.uk/bfgmag/index.html

Foolish Bio-Mass

Aha! So Dan has foolishly given me access so now we will talk about the glory of the Hive Mind! While it may be slowed by silly pink skinned or green skinned Bio Mass pieces, the truth of the matter is that the slow rolling devastation that is the Hive Mind will roll over each and every planet it can consume.

Yep, the Tyranids are coming...

And they get bigger too!

I'll be posting more information here about our HUGE Imperium vs Tyranids/Orks Apocalypse game coming in the next month but here is the initial board configuration that we will be using.

-Will

Oh one last thing.

I thought I'd take a picture of the hand painted legion symbol for the Reaper Legion. Learn it well, it will be the last thing your army sees. >:)

I think the blade of the scythe needs some work, but you get the idea.

Thoughts on collecting "the" 40k army continued...

So after some thinking in the privious post I've narrowed down my "legacy army" to either Eldar, Space Marines, or Chaos Space Marines. They all have great minis (all having by products of the sculpting god Jes Goodwin) with good flexible lists that should satify my occasional urge to do something different.

So, as promised, here are the three badly photo'd test minis for the three contenders. The eldar farseer of craftworld somethingorother, the Reaper Legion chaos marine, and the vet. sarge of the Warforged Chapter of space marines.

So one thing I think is important is variety. Being able to paint something different from time to time just to break up the monotiny will help keep me sane. The more I think about this the less it looks good for the space marines. In keeping with a uniform color scheme, I only get a chance to break apart would be techmarines and apothacaries. Even so these would only be in limited number and I fear it won't give me much of a vacation from painting up the rest of the force. Granted I think the quartered steel and blue looks slick, I just don't want to paint that much of it. Atleast with the chaos marines and eldar I can paint up some aspect warrior squads and cult units to give myself a break from time to time.

So between Eldar and the Chaos Marines, the next thing I think of is paint styles. Mainly Eldar work with a clean crisp style, and the Chaos Marines works also but even with some things like weathering and battle damage lets me try out some new painting techniques. Plus I can really have fun with the chaos vechiles. I've seen some really nicely done Eldar with lots of rust at this years Adepticon and while they look nice, it seemed out of place to me.

Lastly, I would think of conversions. Here the chaos marines really shine over the eldar in my opinion. I was toying around for the eldar of making a new aspect warrior squad based on lions to replace howling banshees but after that, I think my main conversion challenge would be making warlocks and farseers on jetbikes.

The more I'm thinking about it, the more I think the chaos marines will work for me in the long term. This will actually be my third chaos army after having an Alpha Legion and Wordbearers armies. Guess third times the charm?

So Reaper Legion it is! Now to settle on a beginner 1000 pt. army list. I think Alex has my codex. Hmm this will require investigation as I can't find it on my own.

Thoughts on collecting "the" 40k army.

So I'm at a crossroads in my mini wargaming journey, again. The inevitable and all too consuming internal discussion on the next army to be collected. As the rest of the red sticks will tell you, this is a common thing with me. However this time I'm trying to do something different. I don't want to just write out a list, build it, then maybe think about painting it. I'll probably paint a unit here or there but they won't get done until some tourney comes around the corner and then I'll rush to get them done and half ass it.

I'm looking for something more of what I like to think of as a legacy army. What I mean by that is not that I think it will be so great as to people all over the world will sing it's praises but rather an army that will stick with me for years and years to come. All too often when it comes for me to decide what new army to make I think first of what don't the rest of my friends have at the moment, and what isn't the new flavor of the month as far as the greater 40k community is concerned. Well I've been doing that for the greater part of almost 15 years in this hobby and what I've gotten from it is a bitz collection of half attempts to build an army and fond memories of armies I either wish I had finished or hadn't sold off.

So what do I think makes the criteria of a legacy army? Well for me it's more with what the army list as a whole has to offer, more than the models themselves. I like most of the GW 40k range as it is so trying to settle on an army based on which models I like won't get me far. So, the list/codex I feel needs to be multi dimensional. Something that if I wanted could be a heavy shooting, heavy assault, static defense, or a rapid offense and still be somewhat viable. Thankfully for me this cuts out a fair amount of codexes. IG, Tau, Tyranids, Necrons, Orks, Chaos Demons to me, don't fit this idea. While good armies, I feel they have set styles of fighting that I want to avoid. Second on my list of things I want is something with a good amount of plastic miniatures (for cost and conversion sake) and that is well supported by GW, so codexes Witchhunters, Deamonhunters, and Dark Eldar need not apply. So what it's boiling down to is either Space Marines, Eldar, or Chaos Space Marines. Thankfully I have a test model for each of them for a paint scheme I like since I one point during that last two years I was planning on doing a list of them. I think in the near future I'll post some pictures of them and my ideas behind why I might make them my legacy army. Now the hard part to narrow down the choice even more.

Guard Codex

All I have to say is... what a score!

When Will called this morning, it sounded like he was running a covert mission and hoping that no one else could hear!

I did indeed show it off to all.

First impressions are that there are a lot of fun toys but it will still be important to remember that only troops are scoring units.  Much of what's been said on BoLS seems true and I am sure we can keep an eye out there for further tactica and such.

This week draft one of the army list will be put together.

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FoW vs. Chex

Another great game. This saw the Canadians vs Italians teaching Chex how to play. 

I changed up the list again a bit and tried out some Shermans.  I liked the flexability they offered in having two units of tanks, but I do need to use caution as they are much more fragile than the Churchills I'm used too. 

All in all a great game with both of us learning a lot.  

Next post I promise will not be about FoW...

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Flames of War - Battle Report

Alex and I played a 1750 point game of FoW tonight at the Game Castle.  Joe, the owner pretty much held the store open for us to finish.

First off, I got my extra bitz and Mortars so this weekend should see the re-basing of a couple of the teams and building of the mortars.

We played 'Fighting Withdrawal' and his American Mechanized company was the attacker and I was to defend a small town and surrounding areas.  (Need to learn to remember to bring a camera from now on.)

The objectives were set up evenly spread throughout the zone.  Left and right placed by the attacker and the center placed by the defender.  The defending Canadians dug everyone in prior to the start.  The town, and an objective to the east was defended by an anti-tank platoon, a rifle platoon, and a couple of Bofors.  The West flank saw machine gunners, heavy mortars and some commando's.  The center was defended by another rifle platoon and a stray bofor looking for some action.

The americans sent many troops at us and got a bit bottle necked to the west.  The troops on the East dismounted just outside of town and continued on foot while the american artillery pounded down on the canadians forcing their heads to sink further into their fox holes.

Eventually his Shermans broke through and the battle to the West was well under way.  the mini soldiers traded several blows but in the end the Canadians did not hold and their lines were broken.

Next battle, Alex and I are going to switch sides on the same scenario and I will let you know how that goes.

I think in the end my set up was fairly solid and a couple of unfortunate die rolls on my part and fortunante ones on his part lost me the game.  Ohh, and learning the proper rules for Ambushing 3 Churchill's could have helped a bit.  That being said though, it was a great game and hard fought by Alex.

Look forward to the next one.

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Flames of War

After a long hiatus, Alex, Chris, and I have been playing Flames of War on a more regular basis.  We've been playing smaller games which is a bit refreshing as my Canadian Infantry Company had become a bit stagnant.

It looks like I'll need to get a package of Heavy Mortars.  They really seemed to provide much needed support.

I also need to get another Bofor AA gun, even though they didn't seem to help too much, they require 3 and alas I have only 2.

I have a couple of special order parts on the way to upgrade my Universal Carriers into MMG Carriers, as well as a couple of extra PIAT teams.  I also need to re-base my machine gun teams as they are based the wrong way right now.  Perhaps that project I'll start tonight.

Lastly, Will and I have been looking into paper terrain, buildings mostly, and we have stumbled across quite a few great items.  Look for a more concise list soon but check out this page here, about 1/2 way down the page.

I plan to build these in FoW scale (and 20mm for another project,) and hope to have them finished soon(ish.)

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Welcome

Welcome to the Official Blog of the Red Sticks. Once we work out the kinks, we can use this as a repository for ideas, projects and links relating to our hobbies.