Where in the world...

Warhammer World!

We take a brief reprieve from game play this week, as we didn't actually get any battling in.  What we did do though, was take a trip to Nottingham to check out the home of Warhammer.  First, though, I want to talk a little more about the addictive (for us anyway) drive to purchase more units. 

Reinforcements

For me, one of the appeals of Warhammer is not only the diversity of armies, but the diversity within those armies in the choice of units available.  Necrons have quite a selection, though still not close to some of the other armies, of 44 options.  There's plenty to invest in and multiple different approaches for most armies.  Ranged, heavy, close combat, infantry, vehicles or a smorgasbord of all of them.

Whilst participating in the Charge & Fight lesson at Games Workshop I covered last time I was chatting to the guys working there about Necrons and they pointed out that there were actually two options of 'Start collecting...' boxes available.  It resulted in me going back in the week and picking up the alternative to the first box I had, which came with;

• Triarch Stalker
• Necron Warriors
• Necron Overlord
• Canoptek Scarabs

Sometimes it really is too much of a temptation having Games Workshop on the route home from work!

The real addition to my army was the Triarch stalker, a cool looking model with some heavy firepower.  Again it has options for the weaponry and I chose a Heat Ray, which itself has two different firing options based on range.  

I was also happy with another unit of Warriors.  They have great value in being a meat shield with the possibility of the regenerative Reanimation Protocols whilst also rocking a nice -1 AP rapid fire gun.  Look at me, four posts into an 'amateur' blog and I'm dropping phrases like 'a nice -1 AP rapid fire gun'!!!

Bobby G

So I'm quite conscious that I've been writing a lot about my Necrons with the odd mention to the Eldar and Ultramarine armies I've had to face.  Now whilst my Eldar friend brought up quite a lot of units, that are still in his backlog to be built, my other friend has been more considered in his approach.  However one purchase he did feel was absolutely necessary to compliment his forces was a man we like to call 'Bobby G.'  However to the general Warhammer faithful, who will likely cringe at the name we've given him, he is known as Robute Guilliman, the Primarch of the Ultramarines chapter of Space Marines.

One thing I have slowly started to learn, and we tell each other from our own codexes, is the lore of Warhammer 40k, otherwise known as fluff.  Each army has their own back story and rivalries with different armies which adds a second level of the game.  One thing that I do want to build toward is some narrative play and developing our own campaigns between ourselves as to why the Space Marines might stumble across a Xenos war between newly awoken Necrons on a tomb world after being disturbed by some Eldar expedition.

We look forward to seeing Bobby G take the field, from what I've been told he's quite formidable and therefore quite a costly (in terms of points/power level) addition to an Ultramarine army.

After all, the only being alive to have conversed with the Emperor and carrying the Emperor's sword into battle is going to be quite an adversary.  It'll definitely be a toss up between whether it's the full brunt of a Necron army coming to bear on him before I think about my objectives, or just plain try and stay away from him.

Warhammer World

The highlight of this period was a trip to Warhammer World in Nottingham.  We wanted to go and check out the home of Warhammer and take in the exhibitions, not to mention the store and Forgeworld.

We decided to go on a Saturday morning and jumped in my car.  I picked up my friends and with some dubious playlist options and an hour or so later we arrived.  The first order of business was taking in breakfast in Bugman's Bar, the onsite restaurant.  Breakfast was huge and filled a hole for sure, if you've never been to Warhammer World I can certainly recommend a visit and leaving room for food.  It's worth a picture on it's own;

Next order of business was checking out the exhibitions.  All I can say is they are phenomenal, I have some pictures (below), but really they don't do any of it justice.  The scale of some of the dioramas, especially the final room, are phenomenal.  It takes a journey through the multiple incarnations of Warhammer including Age of Sigmar as well as 40k.  Here's just a few select sneak peaks, but really to truly appreciate it you need to see it in person;

With our minds blown it was time, perhaps not sensibly, to hit the store.  We all picked something up and some were more reserved than others.  I decided it was time to invest in a character and picked up Imotekh the Stormlord, also my first resin model.  In addition I invested in a Forgebane starter set as it included some Necron models I didn't yet have (Canoptek Wraiths & a Cryptek).  Having checked out the Knights in the store also I wasn't adverse to having Adeptus Mechanicus as my second army some day.  Mt Ultramarine friend settled for a tank whereas my Eldar friend came out, arms bursting with an entire army worth of units!  

One of the things on top of seeing a lot of cool dioramas was the inspiration to paint some of my own models and make them look better.  It really does help bring some battles to life, more so than marching an army of base grey plastic models across the battleground. 

Next time...

Given my complete inability to keep these coming out on a weekly basis, I've switched to 'Next time...'  Anyways, next time I'll cover our final session with Games Workshop for the 'Bring it all together' session as well as venturing out on our own and expansions to our armies. 

As ever, feel free to comment, ask any questions or let me know if there's any particulars you'd like me to cover.

Thanks
Steve

CHAAAARRRRRRRGE!

Week 3

Week 3 was about continuing the education and slowly starting to get the urge to buy more models and expand beyond our 'Start Collecting...' boxes.

Expanding the army

I added a couple of extra units to my Necrons as my Eldar friend started to expand his own army.  By this time we had been reading our codexes a little, learning the 'fluff', and browsing what units were available to us.

With my defeat to Moody's Ultramarine Space Marines still relatively fresh from our Movement and Shooting lesson I decided to invest in some heavier firepower.  My troops looked cool, but were a little weak on staying power.  I liked the Reanimation Protocols that could bring models back to life but they did get mown down by that dreadnought.  

My solution?  Purchase a Necron Doom Scythe.  You get a set that you can turn into either a Doom Scythe (attacking option) or Night Scythe (transport option).  The Doom Scythe comes with a weapon called a Death Ray, exactly what I was looking for!  From a pure aesthetic perspective as well they look cool on their elevated base, really giving that sense of speeding over the battlefield with their supersonic speed.

In addition, whilst my Eldar friend was padding his own army he decided to pick up a unit for me as well as a gift (which I was very appreciative of!), of Necron Praetorians.  As usual it came with a choice, again at this point in my education I went with what I thought looked cooler rather than based on stats.  In this case I went with the Lychguard build thinking they looked cool with the large shields.  It was also a wholly melee load-out that would be perfect for our next lesson at Games Workshop.  

Lychguard below;

The scenario I mentioned last week was the reasoning behind my final addition at this point.  Owing to Moody's Ultramarines running the classic Captain/Lieutenant combo for re-rolling 1's on hits/wounds respectively I needed a way to deal with that.  Having gone with the Immortals option out of the 'Start collecting...' box I decided I needed to get the Deathmarks, whose Synaptic disintegrators have the ability to target a character even if they are not the closest unit.  Invaluable.  

Don't forget to paint!

As I briefly mentioned in the last blog post, the trick is painting units.  This is also not as straight forward as it could be.  Depending on the seriousness of the games you will be playing i.e. having some fun battles with friends Vs full on tourney play, your paint scheme can denote a particular membership of your army.  In the Necron world it denotes which dynasty you are, each has their own backstory, inter species rivalries and their own special perks that you can apply to the army in battle.  Again depending on seriousness of play, there is the option to create your own dynasty if you don't like the look and feel and want to go with your own colour scheme, which then allows you to choose your own dynasty perk, as long as you stick to it for the battle.

I decided to stay fairly neutral with my Overlord and follow the recommended classic look and feel.  He is far from looking great but I was happy with how he came out with my limited skillset;

I did like the look of the Mephrit dynasty, which has a lot of red in it as a nice contrast to the dull metallic looks otherwise.  From this side of things I painted my scarabs in this style, but have since decided that I'm actually not a fan of it (though could very well just be my painting!) and have re-based them with Leadbelcher to start again. 

Charge & Fight Phase

So it was time to have our second lesson at our local Games Workshop store.  This one was to focus on the Charge and Fight phases of battle, having already covered Moving and Shooting phases in the first session.  It would see my Necrons take the field for the first time against the Eldar Craftworlds.  We restricted ourselves to any melee type models we had, which was a handful for me (Overlord, Lord, Lychguard and scarabs) Vs not particularly melee focused Eldar units. 

It was essentially just for an overview to understand the mechanics of Charging.  So we went through Overwatch, which is essentially when you declare a charge against a unit (you are within 12'' of them and want to pile in to attack in hand to hand combat) that unit has a chance to fire their weapons at you whilst you're running in.  They need to roll a 6 to hit, irrespective of their ballistic skill (BS), unless they have specific rules.  What this means is that your unit could potentially be mown down before they get close enough to do any damage.  A situation that did happen when my Overlord charged in to a unit of Wraithguard, wanting to swing that cool scythe around, and my friend pulled off four out of five 6's.  Annoying for me, but much amusement to all else watching, and he was taken out!

The rest of my units did rally though and my Lord and Lychguard were able to carve up the remaining Eldar units, with my scarabs providing an annoying aside, which is their primary function from what I can see.  With combat comes a number of other strategy considerations.  For example, if a unit is committed to close combat then other units are unable to fire upon that unit.  Also a unit that is caught up in close combat can retreat, but that comes with it's own set of penalties.  

You do need to be within 12'' on the enemy unit as a successful charge is dependent on you rolling the required distance across two D6 dice.  You could even find yourself in a situation where you declare a charge, take hits in overwatch and then fail to make your distance.  

Fighting itself (if you have completed a successful charge) takes you back to your datasheet to look at attacks (A) for how many times you can hit, weapon skill (WS) and toughness Vs strength.  Then to top it all off once you have made your attacks your enemy, if still alive, are afforded the opportunity to hit back!  

Nevertheless, a first victory for my Necrons!

It is quite complex and something I am still trying to wrap my head around a little, more so than shooting.  Once you have had a fight and depending on the outcome you can consolidate your models and wrap up the enemy unit by piling in more of your models from your own unit to fill gaps where you may have killed the enemy.  

A bit of a head scratcher for me for sure.  As well as more considerations as to what units I might need to look at next.    

It adds a further level of complexity to how you build your army.  You need to think about balance, do you want units that can tie up shooting units and prevent them firing at you, do you want tough units that can carve through the enemy?  Do you want units that do a bit of both?  Or do you just want to focus on heavy firepower and hope overwatch does the business for you? 

Next week

So next week I'll cover a cool trip we decided to take to Warhammer World in Nottingham.

As ever, feel free to comment, ask any questions or let me know if there's any particulars you'd like me to cover.

Thanks

Steve.

So you've got an army...

Week 2

Apologies for the delay, I've been away and busy, but here's my round up of our second week trying to learn Warhammer 40k.

An omission...

I want to start off with something I neglected to cover in the first week's blog.  So where were we?  I'd just completed the construction of my Necron starter collection.  However, this doesn't tell the whole story.  

As I noted with the contents of the box there are a couple of options presented that I needed to review when I made my models;

• Annihilation Barge or Command Barge?
• Immortals or Deathmarks?

Being fresh to the game without a full comprehension of the intricacies and implications of gun choices, I did make my decisions a little blind, albeit with some sense checking on online forums.  I thought it would be worth seeing what the general consensus of the community was.

This amounted to doing a quick well known search engine check on;

What is better, Annihilation Barge or Command Barge?  The popular answer seemed to be the Annihilation Barge.  I liked the idea of the extra firepower from the twin tesla destructor and went with it.  It also meant I had a Lord as a separate model having not accommodated him in a Command Barge.  

Next up was choosing between unit choices of Immortals or Deathmarks.  Again to the search engine;

What is better, Immortals or Deathmarks?  The opinion on this one was mixed but Immortals seemed to take the edge on being a bit more heavy hitting.  Again I liked the sound of that so decided to go with them.  Ok sorted.  Or was I?  Turned out I then needed to choose between Gauss blasters and Tesla carbines!  Back to the web and carbines seemed to take it, so again I went with the popular opinion. 

I guess what I am trying to illustrate is that the way that Games Workshop produce their squads is to provide you with similar models with options.  Depending on the style you want to mould your army in should determine the choices you make.  I say should, because I went in a bit blind and I'll make a point a little later on that illustrates this.

(I will add that I am playing some catch up here, being a few weeks into the journey, so there are a couple points about the above to revisit!).

Here's what my 'Start Collecting...' boxset came out looking like;

The artistic stuff...

One of the first things you'll notice if you go in to a Games Workshop is how cool everything looks.  They're likely to have a game table or two with sprawling scenery and models laid out in action.  All immaculately painted and bringing the war of the 41st millennium to life. .

So there-in lies the challenge.  How do you make your own models look as cool as that?  Not easily, that's for sure.  Though for however deeply you want to get involved you can do.  As I mentioned when trying to look at how to learn to play there is an abundance of material online for painting tutorials.  If, like me, you just want it to be straightforward then navigating bases, layers, highlights, dry brushing, washing etc is a bit of a minefield.

Fortunately for me though I have a Necron army.  What I've found is that providing a white primer layer and then using a Citadel Leadbelcher base layer gets me most of the way there!  I intend to work on highlights and layering, but as pure metallic terminators the models do look pretty cool.

Playing with a manufactured plastic look army doesn't quite bring the fantasy of the game to life in the same way as a painted army does. 

 I chose a relatively cheap primer from my local hobby store.  The idea is to give a thin layer to apply a good base coat to.  Living in a ground floor flat with no garden I've been spraying in batches outside and placing on the side (next to the wide open door!) to dry.

As I mentioned above the ideal for Necrons metallic terminator look is a base of Leadbelcher.  I got the Citadel spray from Games Workshop and applied to the majority of my units to start breaking down those fantasy walls to the 41st millennium and give that robotic feel to my Necrons advancing across the battlefield.

Our first lesson!

If you're reading this because you're thinking about getting into Warhammer or just starting out and weren't already aware, your local Games Workshop should put on lessons for anyone who wants to learn.  It's great, take everything you need to play (models, tape measure, dice, datasheets/Codex) and you can set up on one of their tables and they'll take you through it.  When you start looking at datasheets and reading the rules it can all be a bit much so to have someone break it down for you makes it so much more accessible.  As per week one's blog it was definitely a daunting game to learn that out off my much younger self from learning. 

The guys at the store break it down in to three sessions.  To go straight in to everything would probably be mind blowing enough to make you feel like you'd been victim of Smite!  (I'm actually quite proud of that joke as a beginner!).  The first three sessions are;

• Moving & Shooting
• Charge & Fight
• A full battle that they call 'Bringing it all together' 

We booked ourselves in one Saturday afternoon for our moving and shooting session and decided of the three of us, I would play my friend Moody.  My other friend would spectate and take it in.  So there it was a small force of Necrons in a toolbox ready to face off against a small force of Ultrmarine Space Marines in a Tupperware box.  

We set up on the battlefield which was an apocalyptic industrial wasteland with broken down walls and piping for terrain.  The moving side of the game is pretty simple to be honest and even I could learn it without having it explained to me.  You move as per the distance stipulated on your datasheet (M) and it's measured in inches.  Obey the laws of physics i.e. you have to move around physical objects, unless you can fly or have anything otherwise that would exempt it.  The only real thing to remember is to make sure that your unit stays in cohesion and together.  That is to say that models within a unit must be within 2'' of each other or 6'' vertically.  Vertically being for example that a model is up on a platform in cover and other members of the unit remain on the ground behind it.  The model on the platform cannot be more than 6'' higher than the ground units.  

Shooting is where the true nature of table top gaming comes in.  There's an assortment of rules to learn, which I won't go through here.  This is mostly tips and lessons learnt as we learn how to play the game, rather than outlining exactly how to play.

Mostly you just need to learn your weapons, what's the range on them?  Do you have line of sight?  How many shots do you get? Are you in range for rapid fire?  (I.e. double shots), have you moved and does that effect your heavy weapons?  Then after that it's what is your ballistic skill to hit? (BS) *Roll the dice* How many hit?  What do you need to roll to wound? (Toughness Vs Strength of units and the machinations that causes - same, more/less than, more/less than double?  Wait, are there any special rules that change the rolls needed?)  *Roll the dice* Did you wound?  What's your opponents save (SV)?  What do they need?  Do they have any special rules that affect it? Are they in cover? *Opponent rolls the dice*  What did they get?  Did they survive?  Is it a wound?  How many wounds does that model have?  Is it dead?  It is dead?  Does it explode if you roll a 6?  

It's crazy!  There is so much to remember and so many things that influence what is needed.  A great way to learn is to watch the battle report videos on YouTube.  There's so much content to see and always some interesting scenarios.  

One of the key lessons learnt here is special rules!  Now being a n00b and just looking at basics I wasn't looking at the rules so much.  Therefore in this opening skirmish between my Necrons and the Ultramarines I didn't activate my Annihilation Barge's Quantum Shielding rule.  This is a cool rule where is I take damage I can roll and if my roll is lower than the damage I can ignore it.  Completely missing this, the Ultramarine's rocket launcher dude took it out sharpish and that was my heavy firepower.  

One cool thing I love about Necrons though is Reanimation Protocols!  I have a unit of 10 Necron warriors.  Throughout a turn they might get cut down by my enemy's fire.  Let's say that I theoretically lost four models from the unit.  As  Necron player I get to place a wound counter of four next to the unit then on my next turn I get to roll a dice for each dead model and on certain numbers (special character effects/rules dependent) they have the chance of coming back to life!  Amazeballs. 

However, long story short, my Necrons got pounded and lost their first foray on to the battlefield, but it was a lot of fun!  Another thing I did discover though is that I needed to really start to look at my load-outs, what models had I built, what weapons had I given them?  More importantly though, what models could I buy that would counteract those guys that killed me? 

The point I alluded to earlier after the difference between Immortals and Deathmarks is this.  When fighting the Ultramarines I learnt that my friend had a Captain tucked up behind the unit that let him re-roll 1s in certain scenarios.  His rolling sucked on a few occasions and he quite often got two bites at the proverbial cherry.  How could I possibly get round that, as it was super annoying?  The answer seemed to be that I should have gone with the Deathmarks.  A standard rule is that you cannot fire at a character unless they are the closest model that you can see, any unites between you and it have to be disposed off first.  Unless you have Deathmarks!  I am sure this is the same for some units in other armies, but the Deathmarks have an ability that allows you to target a character even if they are not the closest model.  So, although Immortals can hit hard they left me open to the re-rolls and ultimate pummelling I received.  

It highlighted the need to ensure your army has a little of everything to deal with whatever you may come up against.  So again, what models would I need to get?  More on that next time! 

Next week...

I have some catching up to do(!), so I won't leave it so long until the next week's entry.  I'll take a look at our second lesson, charging and fighting and as I mentioned getting extra units.

Feel free to comment, ask any questions or let me know if there's any particulars you'd like me to cover.

Thanks

Steve.

First step of the way...

New beginnings

Some time ago, probably 1998(ish), I tried out Warhammer 40k.  I was 12 years old and;

1. didn’t have a great deal of disposable income, or
2. the patience and mindset needed to understand a complex set of rules.

I enjoyed the craftsmanship aspect for a while, but ultimately my toolbox of, in hindsight, amateurishly painted models sat gathering dust in my mum’s attic.  The Nintendo 64 won the battle for my free time.

Fast forward 20 years and a couple of friends and I are ready to give it another shot.  My two previous blockers have since been removed;

1. I am now a grown man with a full-time job and disposable income, and
2. I might still not have the patience but having some friends along for the ride means we can muddle through and learn the game together.

I thought it would be fun to chart our progress in a blog and see how we get on delving into the world of Warhammer 40k, complete with the pitfalls and learning curves along the way. 

So here goes…

Week 1

Having played some Vermintide 2 on the Xbox a friend mentioned to me that he felt like getting in to Warhammer again, as he had played when he was younger.  I professed to dabbling (artistic embellishment) with 40k myself and said I wouldn’t mind giving it a second go.

I had forgotten everything I knew, what little that was, so it was like a complete fresh start.  We decided the best approach would be to go in to our local Games Workshop and see what was available, so that’s exactly what we did.

I will confess that my choice was based 99% on aesthetics.  We had a perusal of the starter collections on offer to see which direction we wanted to go in.

My choice? Necrons.  I mean… look at them!

(image from https://spikeybits.com)

They look cool AF, robotic terminators with an effervescent green glow coming from their core (well in the majority of available literature, your paint scheme is your own after all!).  

I picked up a Necron starter set (there are two available, I chose the one with the Command barge option) and the Necron Codex.  Followed closely by a trip to a local hobby store to pick up some tools for crafting my models later on.

My friend went for the Dark Eldar Craftworld set himself.

With a close to kid at Christmas kind of excitement I rushed home and had to make the decision on what I wanted to build first.  The Necron starter set I chose comes complete with;

• Necron Overlord
• Necron Warriors
• Canoptek Scarabs
• Necron Immortals/Deathmarks
• Command/Annihilation Barge

I decided to go with the Overlord first as the current figurehead of my small force and started to go through the process of building that I remembered from my youth.  Using a crafting knife to remove the pieces from the insets and filing down any residual pieces of plastic.

Here’s where I learnt my first lesson.  Using the glue I had picked up, inexpensively, from the local hobby store proved akin to Spider-man learning to effectively use his webbing, it was stringy and pretty much went everywhere. It was a bit slow to take hold as well and you'd need to hold things there for longer than is ideal. None the less, I managed to put the Overlord together and was pretty happy with him.

Fortunately, or unfortunately depending how you look at it, my walk home from the train station after commuting back from work takes me through the local shopping centre. I decided to stop in to Games Workshop and pick up some 'official' glue. Now I don't intend to push the official Citadel products here at all, and I'm all for purchasing cheaper products, but in this case it was the best option. The bottle has a near needle point application tube which was perfect for control and overcoming the aforementioned Spider-man related difficulties of building my Overlord the night before.

I decided to tackle my Scarabs and Warriors next. Nice and simple. Or so I thought! The scarabs were definitely straightforward. Attach Scarab to stalk, stalk to base. Simples. The Warriors however, were much trickier than I remembered any models being from when I was a 12 year old.

The most challenging part, that I don't yet have a solution to, is that their guns, arms and bodies are three independent pieces. I had to contort my hands into claw like appendages to hold the gun arm into it's socket at the same time as holding the other arm into it's socket and attached to the gun so all would set in the correct place. I don't yet have the repetitive experience to know where I need to set the gun arm so that the second arm will slot in the socket and be in position to attach to the gun.

A couple of days after picking up my starter set I messaged another friend of mine, tongue in cheek, to say that me and my other friend had picked up starter sets and he should get involved. I was somewhat surprised when I got an enthusiastic response that it was actually something he wanted to give a go himself. Excellent!

We arranged to meet up at the weekend and head over to Games Workshop so he could have a perusal himself at what was on offer. We then did a compare and contrast at a local independent store and he picked up an Ultramarine starter set. I took the opportunity of getting a metallic base spray (Leadbelcher) and a primer pray from the local hobby store where my friend did a tools run.

Throughout the week I started familiarising myself with the game a little more. I think it's safe to say the biggest help I have, and something I didn't have 20 years ago, is YouTube and a smart phone. Introductory videos aplenty ranging from the game, talking about different armies, battle strategies and even painting tutorials. I can watch at home or on the commute and already my knowledge of the game is building.

I rounded the week off by completing my starter set army, which felt like a mini accomplishment in itself. In parallel I started to read my Necron codex and started to learn the lore of this set of terminator looking guys I'd gone with.

Turns out they're over 60,000,000 years old, have fought ancient foes, made a race changing bargain/sacrifice and then put themselves into a self imposed hibernation for those 60,000,000 years.

They're awakening now, those that haven't been destroyed in their slumber within their Tomb Worlds, and they're coming...

Next Post for Week 2 will look at a start to painting, a lesson in movement and shooting and the need to overcome a compulsion to grow the army!