It’s been a funny old month…
Things started out so full of promise, with a whole bunch of posts about Necromunda and Marvel Champions, the two games which are absolutely top of my list right now. But then the wheels seemed to come off when life got in the way of my blog, and things went quiet for more than two weeks. We’ve had a nasty bout of colds doing the rounds in our house, which left the youngest in hospital for a couple of days, but this then turned into the dreaded Covid, which is upsetting because we’ve all made it through three years of pandemic without catching it once, only to now test positive. Very disappointing! Prior to all this, I’d also been on the road with work, travelling to the other side of the country for a two-day meeting. My eyes are still rolling as I write this.
However, all that travel did mean I was able to read a fair bit. Indeed, despite everything that has been going on, reading has definitely been the constant here! I’ve got to write up some proper posts for these things, of course, but I’ve not only finished The Tower of the Swallow for my Witcher read-along, I’ve also read a couple of Warhammer 40k novels, including the excellent Flesh and Steel from the Warhammer Crime imprint.
I’ve been kinda focused on Necromunda, as I said, and the ongoing Law & Misrule campaign with James. Things have really surprised me in terms of just how well the Goliath have been doing, and I’ve actually been running away with the campaign, truth be told. I’ve been able to get all ten of the gang members painted up now, anyway, and have been having quite the blast playing them. However, in part due to the fact that the Goliath are doing too well, we’re thinking about drawing this to a close and trying out a different campaign. I was thinking I will take my Van Saar out for a spin this time, although I’m really unhappy with the colour scheme I have so I want to try something different there. I’m probably going to for Delaque this time. I think James might be going back to his Orlocks, though we were talking recently about Venator gangs, and that seems to have really fired his imagination. So we shall see!
Speaking of firing up the imagination, I’ve recently begun to look again at my AdMech army, such as it is. Before the recent points update, I had roughly 1200 points of these guys, though it has dropped now to just over 1000. I’m kinda keen to get back to painting them, as I still have a few Skitarii that need doing, so watch this space!
All this talk of points will most likely be invalidated soon, however, when 10th Edition 40k comes out in the summer. The long-rumoured Space Marines vs Tyranids box does in fact seem to be correct, following the news out of Adepticon, so it’s going to be interesting to see how they handle the expected range refresh for the bugs. As far as the game is concerned, there has been a lot of talk about how they’re having a complete do-over again, making all the codexes obsolete when 10th comes out. Interestingly, though, we don’t have to buy an Index for our army at launch, because all of the rules will be available for free. The core rules are being pared back, and apparently the army specific rules will be reduced to just two pages each.
I’m not entirely sure what I think about this, so far, so I’m trying to reserve judgement for the time being. The big thing of course is that the number of stratagems is going down, which is good! Apparently, universal special rules are coming back, but I seem to remember that being a bugbear for me during 7th, so how they handle that will be interesting. It sounds like it might be too much streamlining, though – I could have the wrong end of the stick here, but it sounds like all the sub-factions are going away? That would be a shame, I think, but as I say, I’m going to wait and see, as much as possible…
All of this came out during Adepticon, where we also saw the return of the second loyalist primarch, Lion el’Jonson of the Dark Angels. Guilliman has been holding off the forces of Chaos single handedly for two full editions, so with three Chaos primarchs out there, it’s only right to finally get the balance tipped back.
Among other revelations is the last Kill Team box in the Gallowdark series, with Squats vs Beastmen. Interesting, and I don’t think anyone had been expecting it, but I’m guessing once again it’ll be a box that simply isn’t available to buy when the time comes! I’m sure that one of the rumours for 10th edition also involved news of a brand new faction coming, so I wonder if Beastmen could be involved as part of a Renegades & Heretics army…
Gaming this month has been split almost entirely between Necromunda and Marvel Champions. Around mid-month, I posted a photo of a game I was playing on Facebook, and someone pointed out to me that the villain’s health scales with the number of players. Basically, I’d been playing the game wrong. For months. No wonder it was sometimes such a quick game! So I’ve gone back through a few villains in the last couple of weeks to almost see if I can still play things correctly. Villains with 28 health are no laughing matter, of course, but I’m quite happy to say that I’m otherwise doing everything right, and still managing to come out on top. Playing properly has its benefits of course, as more things come into play. One thing that happens with shorter games is that the rules for playing through your deck, or the encounter deck, don’t come into effect, but in actual fact it seems much more common to actually need to shuffle up and start over when the villain has more life in him! I think it’s been interesting to see the whole of my deck – often cycling through quite a fair way while trying to defeat the villain.
I’ve had a couple of games with Iron Man and War Machine, which have been a lot of fun, although I think my favourite recent discovery is Nebula. I’ll have more to say on that in my weekly round-up tomorrow, though!
As far as Necromunda goes, we’ve had a few more games, one of which was using the Gallowdark terrain, which was a lot of fun! I think I’ve made my peace with the fact that I’m not going to get a second set of that stuff – indeed, I’ve not been trying to keep up with the whole Boarding Actions / Arks of Omen thing, so it’s not like I can actually say I’m missing out or anything! Having one set for games like this has been fine, so that’s all good.
That does bring me on to Kill Team, oddly enough, and the fact that it’s getting on for two years old now, but I’ve not really made any moves towards playing it (outside of this attempt). I have actually been trying to slim down my stuff, because I have far too much going on, so I might well see about getting some of that stuff shifted. It comes back to Necromunda, oddly enough, and a conversation I was having with my wife the other week. I was talking about how I planned to pick up some Stimmers and Forge-Born for my Goliaths, and after the initial grimace from her, I explained that these are models that I kinda need for the campaign, so would be buying them but almost immediately building and painting them, because I want to play games. There is so much stuff that I have up in the loft “ready for when I get round to it” or similar, and yet I haven’t gotten round to it, that I think it’s time to cut my losses.
Of course, the trick will be to somehow sell off my extraneous stuff without simply turning the cash into yet more plastic…
So how has the painting been going, I hear you cry? Well, it hasn’t been all that bad, truth be told! I’ve been able to chip away at a few things, principally in relation to Necromunda, but the big forge terrain piece is once again coming along, with some gunky weathering being applied. I still can’t quite bring myself to make my terrain look filthy, of course!
I think my painting progress ground to a bit of a halt when I started getting distracted by other things, including the aforementioned AdMech, but I’m once again focused on the task at hand, painting up my Delaque for Necromunda.
There’s still a lot to do, but I’m pleased with how well things are going so far here. I’m going to try to get everything painted up before we start another campaign, though, so that I then have the flexibility to add in more fighters whenever I need them, and they will be ready-painted. That’s the plan, at least!
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Sorry to hear your family had to deal with covid. That’s never a fun experience. But now you’re naturally vaccinated for a while and any future bouts should be a lot easier to deal with.
And best of luck selling extraneous models. As you say, not immediately turning it right back into other plastic is going to be the real trick 😀
Thanks very much! Yes, it has been pretty grim, but we seem to be coming out the other side now, so that’s the main thing!
I am going to do my very best to stop myself from getting too much hobby stuff from here on, yes! It might not end up as plastic, though I can’t guilt won’t end up as something else. Cardboard, for instance… 🫠
Cardboard doesn’t take up much space, just saying 😉
I love your way of thinking 🤣
That’s why I’m thinking about marvel champions so much (fyi, once a month thoughts for games are a lot for me)
You mean to say that you still haven’t bought a copy yet? Shame!!
Not even close. I’m only 1/6 of the way through Doom the boardgame. Once I finish that up and my bro and I get bored of it will be when I try MC.
Well in the meantime, I plan to keep on pumping out the content here, so you can live vicariously!!
And that is pretty much what I do with your marvel posts 😀
By the time I actually end up playing, I expect the game to be a complete disappointment as it doesn’t live up to the hype I’ve created in my head due to your posts 😉