Month: July 2018

Playing Magic: Dominaria & Battlebond!

Hey everybody!
For today’s game day blog, I thought I’d take a look at another of my Magic decks that I’ve recently been enjoying, as well as throwing the spotlight on a couple of the recent sets for the game.

Magic Dominaria

Dominaria is first Magic set for a very long time to come out as a standalone expansion, part of the new three-and-one expansion model that will apparently allow for greater design space or something. There has been a lot of tinkering with the structure of Magic expansions in recent years, and we’re in the latest iteration of that now. Anyhow!

Back in the day, Magic began its life on the massive world of Dominaria, but has since moved around the multiverse and investigated a slew of new worlds. For the first time since 2007, we’ve gone back to where it all began, in celebration of Magic‘s 25th anniversary this year. Consequently, we’ve got something of a nostalgia-trip for a lot of people who were playing the game back in the day, as the story involves all manner of classic locations and characters, including Jhoira, Teferi, Jaya Ballard and Karn. It’s not all nostalgia, however, as we also get to catch up with Liliana and Gideon, who have journeyed to Dominaria on the trail of Belzenlok, the final demon who holds a piece of Liliana’s contract.

The set has seen a couple of rules tweaks, such as removing the term “mana pool”, and also a reworked border for Legendary permanents that was first tested out in the last Duel Deck, Elves vs Inventors. The new Legendary frame helps to distinguish these cards as, given the nostalgia theme of the set, there is a major focus on these sorts of spells. A new game term features in the set, Historic, which groups Legendary cards, artifact cards, and the new type of card, Sagas.

Dominaria Sagas

Sagas feature across all five colours, and generally have beautiful artwork reminiscent of an illuminated manuscript or stained glass. They all have three “chapters”, and enter the battlefield with a lore counter that allows the first chapter to trigger. After the third counter is placed, chapter three triggers then the card goes away. At first I was a little bit underwhelmed by some of these Sagas, and struggled to find a place for any of them in my deck, until of course I came to build the deck I’m talking about today!

Even for a relative newbie like myself (it’s been barely three years since I’ve been playing), seeing a lot of the artwork on these cards, and the returning themes and characters, it can be quite the nostalgia trip in itself. I’ve spent a lot of those three years collecting up older cards, and while I’m perhaps not as immersed in the lore of the original plane as I could be, it is still a lot of fun seeing this blend of the older stuff with the new Gatewatch vs Bolas storyline. All in all, a great set!

Magic Battlebond

Battlebond is the summer supplemental product that is focused on Two-Headed-Giant, the format where two players take on two other players. There is a theme of e-sports in the game, as the set takes place on the plane of Kylem, and specifically the arena of Valor’s Reach. Here, two-on-two combat is the spectacle that everybody is interested in, as combatants strive to defeat their opponents with flair and style.

In keeping with this theme, the set re-introduces the Partner mechanic from Commander 2016, this time using specific paired creatures that you or a team-mate can search for when one of them is put into play. There are 11 partnered pairs, including a pair of Planeswalkers, Rowan and Will Kenrith. While the set is designed for 2HG, Commander was another format consideration for a lot of the new cards, and these Planeswalkers are an example of that, having the first on-card reference to a Commander outside of the Commander products.

This is a supplemental set, and while there are a few new cards in here, there are also a healthy dose of reprints, most notably Doubling Season. I was unbelievably lucky to actually pull one of these when I bought a few packs upon release, so I’ll have to find a good use for that soon!

So what have I been making out of these two sets?

Garna the Bloodflame deck

I love Black and Red, I’m sure I’ve mentioned this already here on the blog. After floundering around for a bit, I decided to look at building a Dominaria-block deck around Garna, the Bloodflame. It’s an interesting card that seems a little bit niche, and is perhaps symptomatic of the need to create Legendary creatures at both rare and uncommon in the set. I still wanted to use a lot of the Cabal-themed cards from Dominaria, so now supported them with some of the red, Keldon-themed cards. Finally, I added in some of the Azra cards from Battlebond (the half-demon creatures) and produced a fairly aggro-based deck that still manages, for me at least, to maintain some depth to it.

Creatures
Blaring Captain (2)
Cabal Paladin (2)
Champion of the Flame (2)
Garna, the Bloodflame (2)
Josu Vess, Lich Knight
Mindblade Render
Rushblade Commander (2)
Stronghold Confessor (2)
Urgoros, the Empty One
Verix Bladewing
Whisper, Blood Liturgist

Instants and Sorceries
Diabolic Intent
Warlord’s Fury (2)
Blessing of Belzenlok (4)
Fervent Strike (2)

Enchantment
Demonic Vigor (2)
Frenzied Rage (2)
Lighting Talons (2)
Rite of Belzenlok (2)

Artifact
Blackblade Reforged

Land
Cabal Stronghold
Cinder Barrens (2)
Dragonskull Summit (2)
Mountain (9)
Swamp (11)

The deck is primarily focused around having fun, and uses a lot of cards that tend to do quite well without the need for specific combos to be set up. My favourite way to play the game, in many respects. Admittedly, a few of the cards here (particularly the Azra cards) feel a bit shoe-horned in, as there aren’t a great deal of Warriors to care about. I’m also not 100% sure on Josu Vess staying in the deck, but I think that this is a deck that I will be coming to time and again, and tinkering with it as new things catch my eye. The core of Dominaria-themed cards is there, which has something that is just so quintessentially Magic, that I’m sure it will be a lot of fun to bring new stuff into the mix alongside these things as time goes on.

I still need to investigate what Core 2019 has to offer me, in this respect, to say nothing of the upcoming Commander 2018 edition!! I think Xantcha, Sleeper Agent could be a fun include in here…

Kill Team!

Well, it’s almost upon us, so I thought it about time to come here and waffle for a bit more about how much I’m looking forward to this Kill Team malarcky!

After the launch article earlier this month, I was left somewhere between hoping this would be better than Shadow War: Armageddon, and wanting all of the accessories, no matter how painful it would be for my wallet. Since then, we’ve seen a series of articles on the Warhammer Community site that talks about each of the factions eligible to play in the game, and some of the special rules those factions have. While I have often found myself feeling a little saddened at the narrow focus on models that can be taken in specific armies, I’m nevertheless trying to be hopeful that the game system itself will have enough redeeming features that it will still be a lot of fun to play.

Enter, the latest video!

It seems really interesting to me to see just how similar the rules are to regular 40k, although with a few subtle tweaks that will likely make it difficult to keep a track of. Charging in the movement phase? Interesting. The whole business of fighting on while wounded does feel a little bit weird as well, though a similar situation exists in Shadow War, and I suppose it could be just too devastating for the small model count forces to be picked off. Kill Team should, rightly, be more than regular 40k in 10 minutes…

Skitarii killteam

The datasheets look remarkably similar to those for the regular game of 40k, also!

Overall, I am very excited for the new Kill Team, though I have the usual feeling of not wanting to write on the cards that come with the game to mark things like level-ups, so can see myself getting some sort of alternative solution for that! I like my stuff to be as clean as possible! As to what faction I want to try out first, while I’ll likely be playing something like Necrons, Dark Eldar or Tau, simply because I already have painted models for them, I’m looking forward to trying out some of the smaller forces that I’ve been working on (or planning) for a while now, foremost among them being my Thousand Sons!

Yes, I started building these handsome folk back in November, and have so far managed to get just five of the blighters built up. While I’m still not sure how things like points work for the models in a Kill Team (I have heard that there’s a system similar to power points, where each model is costed, regardless of its wargear), I’m slightly hoping that just five models might be enough, though I might well build up the entire box of ten before I move on to painting them.

Paint scheme is something I’m not 100% sure of just yet, but I’m either going to go for the classic blue and gold, or else a scheme that involves purple. We shall see, I suppose!!

I’m also thinking that this could be the excuse I need to get moving with some Genestealer Cults at last, as well – progress really halted around February time, as I felt it had been too long since I’d painted detailed models properly, and consequently felt my skills had lapsed somewhat. In fact, it was the stumbling block of not getting very far with these guys that led to me picking up the Tau force. I do have a number of minis that have been painted almost to completion, however, so I’m thinking I might possibly try to finish those off in time for the new game. We shall see I guess!

Of course, while I do like the sound of it, and I’m looking forward a great deal to the new style of gameplay and micro-level squad-building, I don’t think this is going to take away from regular 40k for me. I’ve been having the best time playing in 8th edition so far, and so don’t really see myself moving away from that in favour of a smaller-scale game. While it’s nice for the change of pace, and it seems to allow for a whole host of different flavour to come out, ultimately, I want to play with big battlesuits, tanks, and all that cool stuff that doesn’t have a place in a smaller game.

Summer Painting Updates!

Hey everybody!
Just thought I’d share with you all some Summer Painting Updates, after having a fairly productive weekend with the minis! Unfortunately, I’ve yet to lift a brush to my Militarum Tempestus force, and the Skitarii have only vaguely been looked at, so this update will be purely based on the T’au part of my painting goals.

Let’s take a look!

After exactly four months, I have finally managed to finish painting my first Fire Warrior squad! It feels like it shouldn’t have taken this long, but I guess it was a long slog trying to figure out the scheme, and then trying to work it so that I could paint things quicker than usual. I’d say that, once I got going with it, it wasn’t too long to get everybody done.

The drones are fairly quick to do also, I’m not trying to go in for a stunning standard with anything here, but very much trying to get them ready for the tabletop. So no glowing lens-effects, or anything! Though I have tried to get some vague glow-like effects on the ends of the plasma weapons.

Anyway, let’s talk about the scheme!

The armour is basecoated with Caliban Green, then drybrushed with Kabalite Green, Warpstone Glow, and a final highlight of Niblet Green. The fatigues are basecoated with Mechanicus Standard Grey, then shaded with Nuln Oil. I had been toying with drybrushing them with Dawnstone, but have decided against that.

The weapons are basecoated with Dark Reaper, then shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade, before a light drybrush of Thunderhawk Blue – not too much, just enough to help bring out the details.

The blue badges are all painted with Caledor Sky, shaded with Drakenhof Nightshade, and a light drybrush of Teclis Blue just to help brighten the details back up. I also then drybrush the ends of the plasma weapons with Teclis Blue, to give the effect of an active weapon.

Speaking of weapons, the Tactical Support Turret there is equipped with a smart missile system (at least, I think it is – I had thought at first it was the missile pod variant that had the bank of six, but given the missile pod for the Commander is just three warheads, I’m switching round!) When I was painting my Riptide over the May Bank Holiday, I’d decided to paint those with yellow noses, to both add some visual interest and differentiate from the missile pod, which I had painted red on the Commander. These are done with a base of Averland Sunset, a shade of Agrax Earthshade, then a light drybrush of Yriel Yellow. It’s almost maddening to try to paint these as neatly as possible, especially because the yellow will show up horrendously on the dark grey should I make a mistake, but they do look quite good, I feel! Such a shame that the smart missile system is the better weapon than the missile pod…

The skin of both the Shas’ui and the Ethereal is done using the classic T’au skin scheme:

The bases are then done with Armageddon Dust, with some Agrellan Earth dabbed on here and there. Once all that is dry, I shade the whole lot with Agrax Earthshade, then when that is dry, drybrush it with Terminatus Stone. I’ve still got some of the Burnt Grass basing flock from back in the day, so I then add a bit of that with PVA glue – Tau armour is meant to be camouflaged against the environment they’re in, so if I were painting a desertscape for the base, it should by rights be a more tan/ochre colour. Adding the grass helps to justify the green of the armour, but the red bits in the flock do help to add interest to the base overall.

So there’s my T’au army to date! I do need more drone support, and I do need to get moving with more troops as well, but I’ve actually started basecoating every battlesuit that is on my painting table with Caliban Green at the minute, so I should probably get a grip and stick to the plan! I’ve previously made a fairly decent start on some Pathfinders, so I think next on the list will be trying to get a squad of those finished, along with their accompanying drones.

Stay tuned for more!

New Kill Team!

Well folks, the news has dropped, and so has my jaw! This release looks huge, and makes the 7th edition ruleset look particularly awful by comparison!

I mean, right off the bat there’s just so much stuff!

I’ve not played Shadespire, but from all accounts it’s pretty good. Using the same rules designer to come up with this game seems like it’s a sure bet for success, at any rate. The article linked above talks about what will make the game so good, such as the squad customisation stuff, and from the sounds of it, we should be in for a really great addition to the 40k universe.

The way that the game is going to be supported, with individual Kill Teams available with their own bits of terrain, as well as terrain bundles that come with the game mats to play on, sounds like it’s almost akin to a boardgame than anything else, and I guess that is the overriding impression I get from the launch article, that they’re heavily targeting the boardgame audience rather than making just a different way to play with your existing 40k collection.

When I read the article, my first impulse was to buy everything so that I could have it all, but upon reflection, I have a great deal of this stuff already, so will likely only be getting the manual at first. I’ll probably be getting one or two of the “environment expansions” as well, mainly for the terrain but also because they come with the game mats. I’m really hoping that they will produce some way of selling the datacards for the kill teams separately for those of us who already have the models – I’d be really interested in playing a Genestealer Cults kill team, but I don’t want to buy another set of Neophyte Hybrids just to get the cards. (Or maybe I will, anyway…!)

The scenery does look incredible, and I really want to get that Basilicanum right now, even though my painting backlog is insane!

It’s just beautiful!

The accessories are as exciting as the game, almost – with unique dice sets giving this the greatest resemblance to the Shadespire model that is giving me the hope they’ll sell the cards separately. But I digress…

It’s not all fantastic though, as there is something giving me a little pause here. The game is described as the successor to Shadow War: Armageddon, and the article ends with a look at the different factions that will receive rules support, saying that “each of these factions uses a specially chosen pool of units, designed to represent the kind of forces you’d find in a kill team”. While I realise that balance is important for these sorts of small scale games, one of the things I really hated about SWA was the fact that I was so severely forced into playing with a narrow pool of units if I wanted to play the game – sure, I want to play Tau, so I have to play with Pathfinders and cannot make a team out of Fire Warriors or just two/three Crisis Suits. I might want to try out Dark Eldar, but cannot make a Coven team, or a Kabalite team, but instead must use only Wyches for the core of the squad. It just feels so incredibly cramped that I found myself without a whole lot of interest in playing it as time went on.

I hope that Kill Team is much broader, and uses a similar sort of idea to the last iteration, and instead of really prescribing the models we can and can’t use, it will allow for much more cherry-picking of favourite unit types.

While not mentioned in the article, the FAQ they have posted alongside all of this news does specifically state that the recently-leaked Rogue Trader game is actually an expansion to this game system, which sounds like it should be a fantastic new games line for the company. Delving into corners of the 40k universe that the main tabletop wargame doesn’t otherwise allow for conjures up all manner of goodness to me – principally, Arbites! Who knows what awesome stuff they could bring out?!

It’s very exciting, and really cool to see something done to this extent with the skirmish game. I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on the book (maybe the box set itself), and maybe getting some games in with a couple of the other skirmish fans at my local store!

Ashes of Prospero

I’ve recently finished reading the second book in the Space Marine Conquests series, Ashes of Prospero, so thought I’d ramble on here for a bit about some of my thoughts!

Similarly to the first volume in the series, this one takes its focus on a single Space Marine chapter, the Space Wolves, and tells the story of why it’s acceptable to include Primaris Marines in your army if you were on the fence. Well, it’s a little more than just that, but anyway. The story follows Njal Stormcaller as he attempts to relieve himself of a psychic stowaway in his brain, a Thousand Sons sorcerer who was stuck inside the Portal Maze during the razing of Prospero back when Leman Russ was sent to censure Magnus. Njal hopes that he can also liberate members of the 13th Company of Space Wolves who were likewise trapped, and so leads an expedition to the Thousand Sons’ homeworld.

Spoiler Alert: Njal succeeds in battling through the Maze and ridding himself of the psychic presence of Izzakar, and manages to pick up about 200 space marines of the Heresy era, along with all of their attendant tech. Interesting. I’ve read of people speculating this means the Space Wolf codex will include rules for Spartans and Mastodons, but I highly doubt that.

Anyway!

The book felt unnecessarily long, and as with pretty much anything that involves the Space Wolves, includes so many over-the-top Viking references that it feels more like a parody of Space Vikings than an actual serious space marine fighting force. Everything is wolf-this and wolf-that, with faux-Norwegian peppered throughout to give it that rime of hoarfrost that we’ve come to expect. It’s not a long book, but because the action feels so drawn-out, it does feel like a chore to get through.

But that could just be because I’m not a Space Wolves fan!

The good parts were few and far between, but I did like the in-depth look at the launch of the taskforce, as we see the efforts the Navigators go through to enter the Warp. It’s also been a nice sequence so far, with the novels focusing on chapters and their classic enemies: Blood Angels vs Tyranids, and now Space Wolves vs Thousand Sons. The third book has apparently been recently released, and sees the Dark Angels go up against the T’au, so that was a bit of a novelty for me, but even so, it all feels quite thematic.

While I don’t feel that this novel did much to advance the timeline as the first book did, it’s probably worth picking up just to see the little bits and pieces of the 8th edition story come together. Then you can probably pass it along to a charity shop or something…