Games Workshop--what are you buying, selling, playing, or painting?

Amid all of the new GW announcements from LVO, one that stood out to me:

Get ready to play Warhammer Age of Sigmar as you’ve never seen it before, in a new game that draws on some of the best bits of Warhammer Underworlds and Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team…

www.warhammer-community.com/2019/02/08/8...egw-homepage-post-1/

Sounds like Age of Sigmar is getting its own rendition of Kill Team?

It’s not really clear if that is what it is...I hope it is though, and I hope it is in the same format. Faction boxes and all of that.

What would be even better though is if it used Underworlds minis...

Slowly building up a decent number of Kill Teams with kijiji and local sales, this is a cheaper hobby than I thought to get into. Until the paints and brushes lol

I’ll likely start painting armies and terrain that share many similar colours, so Deathwatch and Necrons will be my first completed set. Those should also give me the colours to paint the Fronteris terrain; I really don’t like the default red that GW recommends for the Ryza pattern stuff, so I’ll likely go with a dirty metal look.

I broke my commitment to completely paint Adeptus Titanicus before playing because my son kept asking for it. So we did a little match with only painted stuff (my restriction. I had a Gryphonicus Reaver (power fist, laser, apocalypse missles and a banner of Vyronii Knights. River took the two Legio Mortis Warhounds, one with double Vulcan megabolters and one with plasma/inferno.

It was pretty easy to get the hang of piloting them around. Actually, it is SUPER simple, surprisingly so...much simpler than Battletech. I would go so far as to say that this is GW’s leanest, most efficient rule set. It’s a James Hewitt thing, so there’s that. But all of the special rules, weapons/shields/power/etc. are really easy. It gets slightly more complex when you add orders and stratagems, but we didn’t use them.

So he barreled in down the middle with the fast moving Warhounds, boosting their move by pushing their reactors while I took position with the knights in cover behind a building. The Reaver hung back hoping to toss a few missile barrages before engagement. The Knights got engaged right away, but shooting at the front of a Void shielded Titan with a low strength Avenger Gatling does nothing and the other Knights whiffed their shots. The Warhound with the boosters ripped out 12 shots...and hit twice, both smushing against the Knight’s Ion shields. The Reaver fired a couple of warning shots.

Round 2, I had initiative but made him go first- I realized that positioning and flanking is the name of the game as attacks to the back and sides give big boosts to hit and damage rolls. He split the Warhounds to each of my flanks and I was forced to dislodge the Reaver from his spot or take a rear hit. He hit a couple of knights with his plasma blast gun thanks to scatter (yes,
It has the template and die) and flamed one into scrap, the Knights failed their command check and were shaken (-1 on stuff until they rally).

The megabolters completely shredded the Reaver’s shields, and I returned fire with the laser- which also moves your reactor status up in exchange for putting a -1 on shied saves. I managed to start chipping at the armor. The knights had some good luck too- used the Gatling and auto cannon to reduce shields, then the thermal cannon to do some damage.

A few turns went on- using Servitor Clades to try to vent plasma, raise shields and effect repairs, the Knights were wiped out but not before busting that Warhound’s leg actuator with chainswords. The Reaver used the power fist to punch the Warhound, which caused it to turn and stagger while also taking critical damage. After the haymaker,’I fired with the laser blaster (putting my reactor in danger) and did Catastrophic damage. The Warhound exploded...and the massive damage took out my Reaver because it didn’t stagger far enough away.

Awesome!

We called it a draw right there.

Anyway, the game is freaking amazing.

A local Warhammer store found some boxes in their backroom, slipped behind a shelf and forgotten. They posted a picture of the rediscovered inventory on Facebook, and I saw two copies of Gorechosen. I dropped every god damn thing, and sped 11 miles to the store. I showed up, and sales associate Zak asked, "What brings you in today?" I said, "Facebook!" He said, "Gorechosen?" I said, "YES." He said, "We have one left."

MINE.

Nice. Those minis are siiiiiccck.

Huh, I didn’t realize Gorechosen was a THING in terms of price. Gee zooey, I may have to think if I like my copy of this game with all of the extra models fully painted better than $300+.

I bet they didn’t make many copies of it...Shadespire came right after it. But it is a very different thing.

3 new games shown at Toyfair:

Dreadfane- new Underworlds set with a focus on environmental hazards. New Stormcast/Nighthaunt.

Stormvault- pretty sure this is a redo of that LOTR board game from last year, various Stormcast chambers in a co op adventure.

And.......

Combat Arena- Gorechosen 40k. Cast as a “prequel” to Blackstone Fortress. All new fighter models that look amazing.

I was sure Shadespire was going to be a more modular version of Gorechosen when they announced it, and it took me a while to not be disappointed when that turned out not to be the case. Either way, I'm definitely in for Combat Arena (though Gorechosen is an infinitely better title).

Finally started assembling some models for the first time in 15ish years lol.

Maybe it’s just me, but the plastic seems much thinner and more detailed than in the past. That’s possibly because I’m working with Necron Warriors, which are a total pain to clip, sand (the heads!), and assemble (the arms and gun!).

Went without a hitch, except one is a bit too hunched over. Looks really cool, but his chest details will be tough to highlight. Another one I messed up when sanding the gun and it snapped. Nothing a tough of glue can’t fix, and it will be far more stable once I glue the plasma coil thing inside the lower frame.

Game at the GW store. I pulled out a rare victory due to unlucky dice by my opponent. Was able to neutralise his Necron Flayed Ones.

Necrons are annoying to put together!

Do yourself a huge $18 favor. Get a can of Leadbelcher spray. Prime those Necrons with it. Then brush liberally with Nuln Oil. Drybrush from a pot of Leadbelcher, then drybrush woth Necron Compound. You’re done apart from any detail you want to add. Maybe blot a little Agrax on with a sponge to vary the metal. If you just want the green- use Moot Green.

Played Adeptus Titanicus tonight with my son. It is absolutely incredible. I’ve been saying Kill Team is their best miniatures rules but I think I have to change that to AT.

It’s actually pretty easy. There aren’t a ton of keywords stratagems, and all that. It has the right details in the right places. It’s probably simpler than X-Wing and those kinds of games.

It was a Reaver and a banner of 3 Knights (River) versus two Warhounds (me). I split the hounds (Fido and Rover) and he wound up getting the Knights behind Rover, managing to do severe damage to the legs. Then his Reaver fired a salvo of Apocalypse missiles that disabled both of its megabolters. Fido managed to drop the shields on the Reaver, which was also getting into reactor trouble from pushing the servos too much and firing its laser blaster with Shieldbane.

The damaged Warhound tried to back up to cover his rear and flanks, and River played his stratagem card- Thermal Mines. Catastrophic damage to the legs. Actuators damagesd meaning that it sort of turns randomly at the end of each turn.

Over in the Fido/Reaver fight, I totally blasted the shit out of it’s body location with the Inferno Gun and two plasma blasts that managed to put two critical hits, plasma reactor leaks, on it.

Knights just about destroyed Rover, but it was finally done in with a laser shot from the Reaver- which has a munitions exploison. This just before I destroyed the Reaver with Fido...except that it had a plasma meltdown and exploded in a huge 9” supernova, taking Fido with it. And two knights. So one knight survived all of this.

It’s SO much fun. It’s a shame that it is so prohibitively expensive../but the models and the game are actually worth the price, IMO.

You like it better than Battletech?

Overall, yes. It’s more cinematic, and the setting is of course WAY cooler. Battletech’s setting never really interested me that much. It’s actually easier in terms of rules- it seems long in the rulebook, but it’s really just about 8-9 pages of fundamental rules.

But Battletech is way cheaper, portable, and more of an old school Ogre-style wargame. It also has more varied mech types. I think multiplayer may be easier to manage in Battletech.

They are both great, similar in a lot of ways. In fact there were some points today where my son was like “so like in Battletech”.

If I had to pick one it would be AT. But I also have like $700 worth of it, so there that.

Been getting in some regular games of Shadespire against a friend. It's inspired me to actually get painting on another warband. The Sepulchural Guard are a lot easier to paint than the Orcs.





I'm not sure why one of them has gone a bit yellow. But there we go. They look ok, good enough to game with. It's nice to have little painting projects I feel I can cope with although I still don't fancy the warbands with a high count of detailed figures like the Goblins.

They've got some good cards though. Think I might invest in some opaque sleeves and do some proxying. Might avoid the silly-money GW ones for the game, though.

The more I've played Shadespire, the better it's proved. There's a lot more in it than you'd imagine from the short play time and all the dice and cards, especially once you start customising decks. The first time I did it, I just ripped apart opponents who were playing with the default ones.