Personal House Rules

Nick speaking,

I have previously talked about house rules, but what about personal house rules? A personal house rule is something that you always do that you feel is the way to do it, and sometimes you will do this automatically without even thinking about it, as I discovered the other day...

I was in the middle of a game with one of my main gaming buddies, and we had a mutual gaming buddy with us who was watching. I had a handful of dice and rolled them to wound, there was allot of dice and a couple of dice landed on top of some other dice. I picked the top dice off and re-rolled them. The guy watching said "hold on, they were misses, you can't re-roll those?" I turned to my opponent who said "That's OK, he always re-rolls those dice!" 

This event later turned into a conversation between us, and yes it seems I do have a personal house rule that I didn't even realise I had. Like my buddy said, even though when he has dice on top of another, he takes them off and uses the results, he knows that I always re-roll them. As long as we always do the same thing then there are no problems. It has made me more aware of the little things that happen in games, and of course if my opponent had said "no, you can't re-roll them" there would be no argument from me, as long as he does the same.

So does anyone out there have there own personal house rule that maybe they didn't realise they had?

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Fear Factor Battle Report

Nick speaking,

Putting my Space Wolves Fear Factor army list on the table against Orks had me re-thinking what my two units of Thunderwolves were going to do! The original plan is to send both units of Thunderwolves out to meet the enemy, but with flanking Koptas, Snikrot Commandos, fast moving bikes and Rocket Boyz, my opponent had other ideas...

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Next 40k Movie?

Nick speaking,

Being my birthday today and all that, I thought I would share what my birthday wish would be if GW were to ever make another movie!

Imagine if GW said that the first Ultramarines movie was a great success, and now they are going to commit a huge amount of money on a brand new film. So much money that it will have amazing graphics, amazing sound effects and an amazing story! What would you like to see in this new movie?

Personally I would love to see the Eldar on the big screen, I think they have allot of potential for a massive story, lots of great fluff to work on and all the Aspect Warriors could give so much to a movie. I would love to see all those amazing anti Grav tanks in action, with Fire Dragons, Dire Avengers, Striking Scorpions, Vypers, War Walkers, The Avatar of Khaine and of course the Farseers! Just how would a Farseer Doom and Fortune on the big screen?

But who would I love to see them battle against? Easy, only one option for me, Necrons!

Oh well, back to the usual birthday treats...

What armies would you like to see in the next GW movie?

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Flying Jetbikes Without Flying Bases!

Nick Speaking,

Fellow Space Wolves player Terry, and owner of my local hobby shop TD Books & Wargaming, has recently entered a piece into a local gaming club competition, and unsurprisingly to me, has won first place with it.

It is a great battle scene of Space Wolves Vs Eldar, but the thing which stands out for me is the ingenious way he has made the Eldar Jetbikes fly without using flying bases. As you can see from the pictures below, he has used the Jetbike guns and Wolf Claws to make the Jetbikes look like they are really flying. A very effective ideas, and just shows what you can do with a bit of bendy wire...

Terry does some nice touches in-store that really do make a difference, you can go in and buy some of the models already built and base coated for the same price as buying it in the box! Great for kids, or for parents of kids who don't want to give there children clippers and superglue to play with? I like supporting local shops and his shop is always my first port of call when I need something.

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Hospital Dice!

Nick speaking,

One house rule that my gaming circle has is what we like to call hospital dice! Hospital dice are basically any dice that are white. We use white dice for wound allocation, it sort of makes sense, wounds are certainly associated with hospitals and white is sort of a medical colour...

We play that hospital dice cannot double up for anything else, they are for showing what wounds the models have and that is all. If you accidentally roll a white die, whether the result is good or bad, it doesn't count and you have to re-roll a different coloured dice.

Talking about showing wounds on your models, we always mark our dice with how many wounds the model has left e.g. A Necron Lord loses one wound so we put a white dice on his base showing a two, as he has two wounds left! I have noticed many players marking the wounds by showing how many wounds the model has taken, so in the example above they would mark it with a one!

I think our way is best, as you can instantly look at a model and see how many more wounds you have to do to kill it, without having to know how many wounds it had originally. Very useful when you are playing something that has allot of multi wounded creatures like Daemons for example.

I am wondering what other wound marking systems others are using, and how effective they are? How about the GW markers, does anyone use them?

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Choas Daemon Terrain - Daemon Portal

Nick speaking,

Following on from an earlier The Enemy is Gathering post, where I showcased a fantastic Chaos Daemon army that my buddy Paleghost has made. Paleghost, also know as Derek, has been hard at work with getting his gaming board and terrain up together.

In this first guest post from Derek, he is going to show you some of his work and give an insight on how he made his Chaos Daemon Portal piece of terrain.

Take it away Derek...

I recently decided to concentrate on producing some terrain pieces for my Daemon themed gaming board. I made my board from the Citadel  Realm of Battle gameboard, that I was lucky enough to receive for Xmas. After finishing a GW Battlescape piece, I thought I  would have a go at making a Chaos Daemon Portal...

I built my portal from a sheet of insulting foam and PVA glue that I got from my local DIY store.  With some cocktail sticks from the kitchen cupboard, a knife, pencil, mixed gravel, grass and paint from my modelling draw, I was ready to go. First I used my GW Battlescape piece I had to get an outline size for the base, then I drew contour lines for the different heights and proceeded to carefully slice and dice. I kept some selected pieces for the stone portal, trimming them to size and shape for my requirements...

 

After getting the portal pieces ready, I proceeded to use cocktail sticks and PVA glue to put it together. It wasn't until after I glued it all together that I realised if I had thought about it, it may have been a good idea to  have made the portal part removable for transporting...

OK, painting and finishing it off...

I painted it all over with Graveyard Earth, and then painted the steps with Codex Grey. Next I Applied a wash of vomit brown to the portal section using four parts water to one part paint. On a, personal note I decided to keep the painting simple because I wanted my models to show up more than the terrain itself. 

Then all I had to do was PVA on the gravel and grass...

Finished, now to playing..

 

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Ymgarl upgrade and Battle Report

Nick speaking,

After having very good results from playing most of my games with thirty flanking Genestealers, it was time for the Stinger Hive Fleet to upgrade them to Ymgarls! Normal flanking Stealers work well, especially with the +1 for reserves and side re-roll buff from the Swarmlord. But being able to come on from reserve into terrain, move, fleet and assault, makes Ymgarl Stealers too good to not try out, especially with the added bonus choice of +1 to Strength, Toughness or Attacks from their Alter form rule and a 4+ armour save...

Ok, Ymgarls are not Troop choices and can't capture objectives, but my Genestealers are never in my list to score anyway! They are there to come on, distract and cause havoc before they die, whilst my Hormagaunts, backed by the Swarmlord takes the objectives. Only downside to Y-Stealers is that they compete for the other great Elite slots in the Codex...

In this first battle report against Chaos Daemons, my thirty Y-Stealers lay dormant ready to pounce...

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Converting Lady Malys?

Nick speaking,

Continuing on with my Dark Eldar Harlequin themed army, and thinking about how well Eldrad supports my normal Eldar Harlequins, leads me to one entry in the Codex, Lady Malys! OK, Lady Malys is not going to give my Harlequins a buff from Doom and Fortune, but she does have one thing in common with Eldrad, being able to redeploy units! Not just that, but with her Precognisant ability she can even put units into reserve...

Apart from the thirty Harlequins I have, I currently don't own any new or old Dark Eldar models, so the question is, what are the options for converting up something into Lady Malys? I have heard that the old Kruellagh model, or perhaps the Vampire Countess models are good options? But I was wondering if anyone out there has got some other good ideas, or done their own version of Lady Malys that they would like to share with me?

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Bringing the broods to life - Three more Mycetic Spores

Nick speaking,

Three more Stinger Hive Fleet Mycetic Spores completed, bringing my total up to four Spores so far...

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Space Wolves Fear Factor

Nick speaking,

I recently got together with a few mates of mine for a small four way all against all game. We had 750 points each and I took a unit of Thunderwolves with some long fangs, two Grey Hunter Razorback units and a Rune Priest. I was up against Orks, Daemons and IG. We played a mission with one moving objective and random player turns. It was a fun game that ended with my Thunderwolves contesting the objective.

Being the only Space Wolves playing in my gaming group, this four way game started to make it very clear to me, just how much of a 'fear factor' the Thunderwolves have. I took a lot of pounding from the IG and the orks stayed away from me as much as possible. I even got a Bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets change direction to come after them, only to fail with both in the assault.

Now to start capitalising on that fear factor, and make a solid Thunderwolf list to play. First up is to have two Thunderwolf units with IC attached, with a large amount of Long Fang crack for support. Throw in a few units of Grey Hunters to take objectives and we are nearly there...

1 x Wolf Lord/Thunderwolf/Frost Blade/Storm Shield/Runic Armour/Warrior Born/1x Wolf

4 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Pistol/1x Boltgun/1x Storm Shield/Melta Bombs

(530)  

1 x Wolf Guard Battle Leader/Thunderwolf/Power Weapon/Storm Shield/1x Wolf

4 x Thunderwolf Cavalry/1x Storm Shield/1x Pistol/1x Boltgun/1x Frost Blade/Storm Shield

(455)  

5 x Grey Hunters/Meltagun/Razorback Las-Plas 

5 x Grey Hunters/ Razorback Las-Plas 

5 x Grey Hunters/Meltagun/Rhino

(420) 

5 x Long Fangs/4 x Missile Launchers/1 x Pack Leader

5 x Long Fangs/4 x Missile Launchers/1 x Pack Leader 

5 x Long Fangs/4 x Missile Launchers/1 x Pack Leader

(345)  

  

1750pts

I had to put one of the units of Grey Hunters in a Rhino to save some points, but that's OK as I will keep the Rhino in reserve to come on later in the game as it has no long range guns to sit with the Razorbacks.

So what do you think? Any suggestions for improvement?

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Painting The IDIC Eldar - Jetbikes

Nick speaking,

I know it's been a long time coming, but the IDIC Jetbikes are finally finished...

More pictures to follow...

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