What's Your Story?

Greetings wargamers, and welcome once more to my cardboard bunker...

Today's topic is inspired by a post on The Burning Eye blog (please see a link on the right of my page, I recommend a read), which was about the naming of Characters and Units in your army, and by doing so, bringing them and the battles they participate in to life. Not literally of course. That would be weird. Like Toy Story...with Melta Guns. And a two inch tall Vulkan.

I would like to explore fluff from another angle, and that is the creation of the backstory for your army, its history and its place in the setting of the game, whichever game that might happen to be. I guess elements of what I write here can be applied to a variety of games, but my experience is all with GW games, primarily the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 settings.

Some people might not care about their army background, which is fine, but I feel like I would really be missing out if I didn't tell my own part of the story, and read that of other peoples armies, particularly material written by fans. The setting after all is one of the big draws of Games Workshop games. I mean, look at the vast number of novels you can buy which tell the exact same kind of stories that I would want to be told about my own armies.

In my mind, the story behind my army is very important, and adds immensely to my enjoyment of the hobby. When an army has a story behind it, it stops being a simple collection of playing pieces (no matter how well converted or painted they may be) and becomes a living, breathing entity. There is little difference between reading about a battle fought between the Talosian 3rd Army Group and the Orks of Waaagh Griffnut, and reading about the Battle Of Arnhem Bridge, apart from the fact that one is based on fact and the other a fabricated game setting. A great example of this would be Forge World's Imperial Armour books for 40K, which not only include history, unit details and army lists, but also amazing photos which look incredibly life-like. If you removed all the names from such pieces of text, you might be hard pressed to judge which was the factual history, and which had been made up by a geek (I myself am proud to declare I am at least 40% Geek) on a computer...

When I think about writing background material for an army, I can think of three main ways to approach it, each with varying degrees of work required by you, the narrator of the army's story. First, and easiest, is to simply use existing background material, from a rulebook, army book, campaign book or even a novel based in the same setting as your army.

For example, if you decided to collect an army of Ultramarines for Warhammer 40,000, they are probably the single most comprehensively written about Space Marine Chapter in the history of existence, which is just how Marneus Calgar likes it I'm sure. The point is you can look at their background and simply say 'my army is the Ultramarines 3rd Company', and you already have not only instructions on how to paint them and mark them out as the 3rd Company, but there are probably bits of fluff all over the place that tell you about their history, their famous heroes, homeworld and their part in major events in the history of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

There are lots of armies that have taken part in specific events in the history of their settings, like the First, Second and Third Wars for Armageddon, The Thirteenth Black Crusade, and, more specific to the Ultramarines, the wars with the Tyranids on the Eastern Fringe (may the Hive Mind envelope the snot nosed Tau and their piddly Empire and reconstitute them all as mindless snot licking toad-things...).

This is great if all you want is to know a bit about the history of your force, and are happy go with what's already there. This is probably typical of Historical Wargames in particular, where battles are often re-fights of great clashes from history, and the troops, commanders and locations are taken straight from the documentary evidence. A variation on this idea is to make your army the followers of a particular Special Character, who all come with their own often extensive histories, and tying your army to their background material. Just don't tie your army to Commissar Yarrick and the Battle for Golgotha. That's where we saw the demise of the Squats after all. I'd love to know how the new Black Library novel 'Chains of Golgotha' spins that one...

The second option is to base your army around an existing force, but make up their battle history, create named personalities to lead them and even design your own insignia and such for them, rather than using pre-fab Special Characters. I could use my Dark Angels force as an example. The army is based around and uses the paint scheme of the Dark Angels 4th Company (the one with the fiddly check patterned design). I didn't want to use the 3rd Company because to me it's an obvious choice, being the first Battle Company, and I chose to avoid the 5th because that's the Company that the Games Workshop studio army is based around (in the last Codex at least), so I went for the 4th Company. I say 'based' around the 4th Company because my collection as a whole, in keeping with the established Dark Angels (and Space Marines generally) background, is part of a larger strike force which includes elements of the 1st Company (Deathwing), 2nd Company (Ravenwing) and 10th Company (the Scout Company).

This army rarely includes any Special Characters, but every squad has a name, as well as every vehicle and character model. The history of the strike force is based loosely around the various major battles I have fought with them in the time I have been collecting Dark Angels, which is getting on for twenty years, so they took part in defending Talos VII from Hive Fleet Scylla, they fought on Armageddon during the Third War, and they joined the rest of the Chapter and the Unforgiven as a whole during the Thirteenth Black Crusade fighting Abbadon's forces and chasing 'The Voice' around the Cadian Gate. The whole time, my strike force commander, Teranius, Master of the 4th Company and Bearer of the Blade, has been responsible for hunting down a prominent Fallen Dark Angel known as 'Kraven'.

By taking this approach, you can base your background around a theme or army that you like, but take the step of adding some additional background flavour to make it more personal if that's what you want, to feel like you have had more of a hand in creating the story that supports the army.

The final option I would like to talk about (and the one I prefer), is that of writing the background for your army pretty much from scratch. It's not quite totally from scratch, because every race has its 'army wide' backgound that your own fluff will tend to agree with in most cases. Imperial Guardsmen are, broadly speaking, grunts with flashlights, no matter what world they're from, they all have traits in common. Orks are all frothing thugs who want nothing more than to bash someone's head in, (preferably yours) regardless of whether the Idol represents Gork or Mork. Tyranids want to suck out your brains regardless of whether they are red, green or puce with lime green polkadots. You get the idea I'm sure. Apart from staying within these fairly broad guidelines (unless you can fabricate a good reason not to), you can go wild.

Writing background from scratch opens up a world of possibilities, literally, because you get to create (almost) everything, including cool stuff like homeworlds, culture, colloquial language references, fighting styles, preferred or specialist combat environments, and of course, names. For this one, I'll use my Imperial Guard as an example. They are the Talosian 24th Light Infantry Regiment. The Talos System is made up of giant planets. I took the name Talos from the bronze giant of Greek Mythology.

Talos VII, the planet that my regiment hails from, is also the world that was fought over in a very early (possibly our first ever) campaign played by the group of gamers I went to school with in the mid nineties. The campaign revolved around an Imperial world being defended by the Guard, which was being invaded by the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Scylla (which became my Tyranid army), and which the Eldar (half our group played Eldar) also had a vested interest in because there were functioning Webway Portals hidden on the planet which they needed to shut down or at least seal, before the Hive Mind gained access to the Webway.

These days, the back story of my Guard talks a bit about their culture before the Tyranid invasion, and a bit about after the Hive Fleet was driven off (by the arrival of the Talosian Fleet, led by my Dark Angels strike force of course), and what has become of them today. At the moment, my Guard are embroiled on the staging world of Barakka Prime, which was invaded at the outset of the Third Armageddon War by my Ork army (led by Warlord Griffnut, tasked with this staging world's destruction by Ghazgkhull himself. I think Ghazgkhull just wanted him out of the way because he's got his eye on the crown), as part of the Orks coordinated effort to strangle the supply network feeding the beleaguered warzone.

As you can see, many of my armies have background that is interlinked, which is another benefit of writing from scratch, because this is relatively easy to accomplish when you have free reign to make things up as you go along. In the case of my Imperial Guard, I used a campaign that we had fought way back in the mists of time as the inspiration for their history, which was nice because it really was their history. The names I chose to give my officers were taken straight from my Secondary School teachers, so the Talosian 24th are led by Colonel Riccarius (Richard) Bailey, with Lieutenants and Captains named after teachers I remember. There is so much you can call on to create your background. Why not delve into real world history for some inspiration? Is there a culture or period of history that sparks your interest? A particular commander perhaps? It doesn't take a genius to work out that Lord Commander Solar Macharius is based on Alexander The Great.

The key thing to remember is that whatever approach you decide to take, you have the chance to make your army background exciting, to give your games context in the sense of your army's wider involvement in the setting. If you expand on the army's background through incorporating battles and even campaigns fought within your local gaming group, then the group as a whole has the chance not only to expand their individual army fluff, but also to build one that connects them all together in an epic shared existence.

One last thing to remember...history is always written by the victor.

Thanks for reading...

So Many Armies, So Little Time...

Greetings once again fellow wargamers. If it's a bit crowded in here, it's because my various armies have a conference on.

This time I would like to talk briefly about the fix that I and I'm sure many others find themselves in, either due to the length of time they have been collecting, or because they are compulsive buyers. I am talking about owning lots of different armies, and how this affects our hobby experience compared to gamers who play just one or two armies. I don't mean lots of models, because some people have truly huge armies, which comes with its own issues. I mean owning lots of different armies using different army books and codices.

I have been collecting Games Workshop models for just over twenty years, and in that time I have accumulated eleven different armies: six for Warhammer 40,000 and five for Warhammer Fantasy, not to mention stuff for specialist and other games like Battlefleet Gothic, Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Inquisitor and not forgetting Man O' War.

Now having this many different armies (rather than multiple armies that use the same book, like three different Chapters of Vanilla space marines for example), many of which are quite sizeable, has had a number of effects. First, as you would expect, it means having lots of models, which requires copious quantities of storage space and vessels to store the models in.

It also means that, as I did a lot of my collecting in my teens, I have lots of unpainted models. I don't really see this as a drawback, because thankfully it means that now I am really getting back into army painting, my standard of painting is much better than it was when I started collecting. That's not to say I don't have shares in dot 4 hydraulic brake oil. I have had my painting apocalypses in the past just like anyone else. It's also a good thing collecting so many different armies because it's rare for people who have so many different models to paint to get bored of them. Oh look, I have another space marine to paint to add to the company I already painted. Whoopee...

Another impact is the maintenance cost of having so many different armies, and by maintenance I mean the cost of picking up the latest Army Book or Codex as they are released. This was less of an issue when they were knocking them out at around twelve quid each, but now they are going for thirty of Her Majesty's finest pounds, it's a lot more expensive. If it turns out that my armies all have a book come out in a very short period, that's quite an investment just to be able to play using the latest rules, which I guess is par for the course having fingers in lots of pies, and I do like to pick up the occasional new toy here and there (Mortis Engine, ye shall rise soon, I promise) but still...

An advantage is that if I only played one army, I'd be having to rush out and get the new book as soon as it came out to be able to play using the latest rules, but as it is I won't be picking up the new Warriors of Chaos book till Fathers Day, because I have four other Fantasy armies I can play till then. Plus, having half the Army and Codex books available is great if you like fluff, because you end up with a much bigger picture of the background as a whole than if you just had one Codex and the rulebook.

The greatest effect having this many armies is the one it has on my gaming. I like to play all of my armies, rather than focus on just one or two, because they each give me something different and exciting, and I hate the thought of all that hobby goodness being left on a shelf or in a box and not being used. I would never sell one of my armies for 40K or Fantasy, because each has a huge monetary and emotional investment in them. I have had most of my models longer than I have had my wife, and most are older than my youngest brother, plus, they remind me of some of the greatest times and best friends of my childhood.

The impact that switching armies so frequently has is two fold. First, it keeps my regular gaming opponents guessing about what army I'll be playing next, but more importantly, it affects how conversant I can be with any single army. Given I get about two games a month in, if each one is with a different army, and we regularly have new editions of game rules, army rules for my armies and army rules for my opponents armies to contend with, this results in little opportunity to really get used to playing a single army under stable conditions for an extended period of time. 

I have plenty of general experience playing Fantasy and 40K, and know the game rules well, but always find myself learning something new about using my armies from people who stick to the same army week in week out. In my head, this puts something of a cap on how good I can get as a player, because it's easier to get better sticking with one army and getting to know every little detail and trick inside out than picking it up every now and again.

I guess at the end of the day I have a couple choices. I could give up some of my armies, either shelving them (as if), or more sensibly, sell them off (never!) in order to better concentrate on one or two armies and play them until I can beat any player and any army, or, I can continue to play eleven different armies, winning less, but getting to take part in a far wider spectrum of gaming possibilities.

To be honest, I have got quite attached to my armies and their associated fluff, my named characters and the general history of their victories and defeats. I couldn't send them out into void now even if I wanted to...

So, next time you see the grizzled old veteran at the club or store that always seems to bring a different army to play, but rarely walks away victorious, just remember that the more armies you play, the more opportunities you have to immerse yourself in the hobby. Why play 40K or Fantasy one or two different ways when you could be playing a dozen different ways?

Once again, thanks for reading.

Why I don't play at Tournaments.

Greetings Wargamers. Thanks for dropping by, get yourself a drink and have a seat.

I have taken recently to listening to Warhammer & 40K podcasts, and have found some that I really like. Cutting the list to a level that allows me to actually listen to them all has been tricky though. Too many feeds and you can easily find yourself with days and days of shows and not enough time to get through them all.

Currently in my list are:

The Dwellers Below (Warhammer Fantasy)
A Tale of Four Geeks ( Warhammer Fantasy)
Bad Dice (Warhammer Fantasy)
Garage Hammer (Warhammer Fantasy)
The Independent Characters (40K)
The Second Founding (40K)
SkaredCast (40K)
CanHammer (Warhammer Fantasy)

I recommend all of the above, and I get something good out of all of them.

Now I do enjoy listening to these in the car travelling to work and back, and they put out some great shows, discussing all sorts of hobby topics, but one thing many podcasts (and blogs for that matter) have in common is that they talk at great length about the tournament scene, what's coming up next, which events they are attending or running etc.

This is great, and I have no problem with tournaments in general. They sound like fantastic social and gaming events, but there is one thing I have realised about them. I used to think I didn't want to play in tournaments because they involved time and expense I couldn't spare, or because I still haven't managed to finish painting a complete army, or even that I am simply not a good enough player to be successful at an event. I realised while listening to all this talk about the various tournaments going on (Adepticon is the next really big one), the thing that puts me off is the lists that gamers take to events, hoping to do well and give a good showing.

The problem for me is this: broadly speaking, tournaments are competitive, which in itself isn't an issue. Wargames in general are competitive, one person is attempting to defeat the other. My perception of tournments (and as always, please feel free to comment and tell me how very wrong I am), is that these days, with such a comprehensive network of forum sites, blogs and podcasts, all talking about what they think the best lists are, my fear is finding that, in a effort to be competitive, gamers attend tournaments and are all packing very similar lists, varying by race more than by preference. This at least is the impression I am getting from listening and reading about the tournament scene.

Organisers may try and address this by running a variety of scenarios with differing victory conditions, and not knowing who and which armies you'd be playing against will also have an effect, but in many cases lists have been hammered so much and so publicly that the optimal allcomers tournament list is posted all over the internet. Add to this the various power levels of armies at the moment, again something discussed in great detail by the community, and you seem to end up with people who are experienced tournament players and organisers being able to predict with some confidence what races and compositions they expect to see dominate at an event. 

It's reminiscent of a well known fashion guru stating at the start of the season 'this is what's popular at the moment, what's "on trend", so this is what everyone will be wearing this season.'

Now, not all players are equal, and we of course have the dice to factor in (never discount the ability of the dice gods to spit on your well laid plans from a great height), so in the end, every tournament will have a winner who we would hope is the player with the best plan and the most consistent win record, but what is the likelihood that their list is different to the majority of other players fielding the same race at the event?

The point of all this ruminating about tournaments isn't to knock them or people who enjoy them: they are what they are and look like they are here to stay, and they add another facet to the hobby experience, which is great. No, the point is that I like to play my army the way I like it, which is a bit competitive, but equally fluffy and story driven, and this means playing with armies that are not the latest flavour of mean. As an example, I have been playing Vampire Counts since before they were Vampire Counts, and tonight I'll be using Ghouls for the very first time. It seems as though throughout the last Vampire Counts book, winning involved spamming Ghouls and not bothering with any of the other core choices, but that didn't fit my idea of what the army is meant to be.

I don't like the idea that I'm playing the same list as everyone else, and I'm not prepared to take the list that lots of other people are taking just because it's been determined to be the best at the moment. Other people are welcome to do this, and good luck to them, but it isn't for me. I feel happier going against the grain. If that means I win half my games playing the kind of armies I like, rather than winning all my games playing the same list as lots of other people then that suits me fine. I've decided I get more from playing in'the spirit of my army' than I would playing with what feels like someone elses list. I want to progress the story of my army, not rack up wins that mean less to me than the context of the games.

I guess that's why I'm not keen at the moment on attending any big tournaments. Maybe one day I'll have to give one a go and see if my perception turns out to be right or wrong. In the meantime, thanks for reading.

During the War...

Welcome wargamers once again to my sporadic textual emission.

Today, for a change, I will talk about something other than wargaming, but which is still military in nature.

What I am going to talk about is in no way intended to belittle anybody, merely point out a difference that I perceive from my personal point of view. I will be talking about the differences between equally valid experiences, and the effects that those differing experiences have on those who come after.

I am from what is essentially a military family. My great grandfathers on both sides served in the army fighting for Britain and Cyprus respectively, my grandad on my dad's side served in the British army for twenty five years. My dad and my uncle are both Navy men, and my male cousins in Cyprus have all done their national service. It is really with my generation that this tradition of military service has ceased in our family. I remember considering joining up when I was in my mid teens, and my granddad advised against it.

What I have come to believe recently is that, to me at least, there seems to be a line. Before the line, are people like me, who could all have the conversation that began 'what did your grandad/dad do in the war', 'The War' being the Second World War. After the line are those folks whose grandparents were too young to have served, even if they lived through the war as children, who have their own unique stories to tell.

To me, it feels like people who grew up being able to have that conversation about their grandparents share a bond that seems less present amongst those who aren't able to have that same discussion. Watching parades on TV and seeing the World War II veterans march (or roll) past has a different meaning when your grandparents served during the conflict.

I'm not implying that this makes everyone else 'less' in some way, just that I personally see a distinction, like people who like marmite and people who have a sense of taste. The half dozen people who like Jedward and everyone else in the world. It's like the kind of bond that people have through an experience that their family members lived through. I guess you could compare it to meeting people who are complete strangers, until you find out that they too are wargamers, and then they don't seem like strangers anymore.

I know there have been other conflicts since the Second World War, but none in my mind that have the same lasting impact. It shaped the world as we know it today, and it's events reverberate down the decades that have followed. It was a different kind of conflict from anything that went before or after, a unique few years in this races shared history that separated entire peoples, and tied others together forever.

It is my feeling that when there are no veterans of the Second World War left, it will truly be the end of an era. When there are no people left who even remember being told about the war by their grandparents, the world will have lost something of the sense of connection, the gravity of that experience, that it can never regain, however many books we read or films we watch. We can all show respect for those involved, but the personal connection carries something different.

War in any situation is a tragic thing, and I'm sure the vast majority of right minded people would prefer it to be avoided in all but the most dire of circumstances, but I also realise that sometimes it is unavoidable. At these times, it is the experiences of the common soldier, sailor or airman that are passed down through the generations to their decendants, and I think having had that living connection affects the way we view the world.

When we see in the news about things like War Memorials being vandalised, it makes me sad and angry and sick all at once, but it also makes me think that people who can commit that kind of despicable act are unlikely to have had the kind of personal connection to the War and the people who served in it that I have. I'm not saying for a second that if your granddad didn't fight in the war you're going to go out and vandalise a memorial, just that I can't see from my biased viewpoint how anyone who has that connection could even contemplate such a thing, because it would be so massively disrespectful to the things that members of their own family fought and possibly died for.

I think it's fantastic when I meet someone younger than myself who doesn't have that connection, but talks and feels like they do, and this gives me a kind of hope that, for all the bad things that came from that horrendous conflict, the good things that came from it like the sense of cameraderie, of the good side of national pride, and tremendous respect for the people actually fought on our behalf.

I also like to see programs on TV that show old service people who fought on opposite sides during the war meet decades after the war ended, and who bear one another no ill feeling. It reinforces the idea that the common soldiery were simply there to do a job, and were not themselves responsible for the actions of their overall commanders. They were just two people wearing different uniforms and speaking a different language, but with many things in common with each other that allows them to empathise. In another life, they might have been great friends. This is not always going to be the case though, because war is war, and some people never get over it.

In my mind this allows people of whatever country to take a certain pride in the actions of their own family members when all those family members did was show courage in the field, and look after themselves and their mates in some of the most unbearable situations a person could ever have to survive. Some things are impossible for a person to live through and not be profoundly affected by their experience, and the way that this affects them can colour the view of that experience held by their families.

I am very fortunate indeed. My granddad survived everything the war had to throw at him and came out in one piece. I am fortunate because I got to enjoy and benefit from having a grandparent like him that, molded by his experience, was a courageous, pragmatic man that saw the job that needed to be done and got on with it. You might call it a sense of righteousness, or fighting spirit, but it probably isn't even that complicated. I think he just had a simple idea of what was right and what was wrong, and saw it as his duty to look after those around him. I think his experience made him grateful to be alive and grateful for what he had to show for it - his family. I hope it has made me think about things the same way.

Again, I stress that this is just a ramble about how I feel, and isn't intended to comment on how anyone else should feel about the subject. Everyone is entitled to their own views and to express them, which is what gives us all the potential to be interesting in our own right. Maybe there is something in my view, maybe it's all in my head, maybe I just miss the old bugger, but if others have an opinion I'd be interested to hear it.

Thanks for reading.

The Spirit of the Game?

Greetings once more, fellow wargamers!

I recently took a trip to Warhammer World for a big game with some buddies from the club I used to attend at Leicester University. We planned a pretty huge Warhammer 40,000 clash, as you obviously have to when playing on the tables in the gaming hall at Warhammer World. I mean, how often can you play really large games without having to commandeer someones entire downstairs floor?

The game was set at six thousand points per side, and broke down into me with three thousand points of Dark Angels with the new book, and my co-commander with three thousand points of Blood Angels (though with Lysander thrown in for good measure), versus two brothers each fielding three thousand points of Tyranids. Each player selected their force to fit one Force Organisation Chart, so two FoC's per side.

The armies looked great on the table. The Marines included a quarter of the Deathwing planned for a turn 1 Deathwing Assault, and between us we had four Devastator Squads, Tactical Squads, Ravenwing Bikers, A Nephilim Jetfighter, Assault Marines and most other things you can think of, though neither of us included a single Tank or Dreadnought, given how Monstrous Creatures can shred armour like tin foil.

The Tyranids included the Swarmlord, a second Tyrant, a Harpy, a Mawloc, Trygon Prime, Tervigon, Tyrannofex and two Carnifex with 2+ saves and Regen - nine monstrous creatures in all, plus a roiling, screeching mass of smaller creatures.

The Tyranids won the roll for deployment, and elected to deploy first and take first turn. We had agreed to go with 'Dawn of War' deployment and the 'Purge the Alien' mission because it was appropriate and simple. The Xenos deployed wide across the twelve feet of battlefield we were playing across, and kept both Carnifexes, the Trygon Prime, Mawloc and Harpy all in reserve.

We then deployed the Marines in a harsh refused flank, deploying most of the army on our right opposite the fastest wing of the Tyranid force, and leaving the slower half of the Tyranid army stuck out with a long slog to get into the action. All we had deployed towards the centre of the deployment area to hold up the Nids on that side were a couple of Tactical Squads in Rhinos covered by a Devastator Squad, and I planned to bring on the Nephilim to shoot up their swarms, as they were nigh on defenceless against it with most of their ranged attacks if I avoided Impaler Cannons and the like and kept out of their Deathspitter range.

I deployed my two squads of Ravenwing Bikers as far forward as possible, planning to strike out towards the Nid line, and bring the Deathwing I had selected with shooting galore plus a Master and close combat equipped squad down on their filthy Xenos heads. My first ever Deathwing Assault!

Then came the giant punch in the teeth. The Marines managed to steal the initiative...

Needless to say, I put plan 'Shoot the bugs till they're nothing more than a fine purple mist' into action, Scouting the Ravenwing forward 12", then on turn 1, moving them forward again, then Deepstriking with twenty six Deathwing Terminators and a Company Master right in the face of the Tyranids on that flank. This was on top of about half a company of Marines and two Ravenwing Attack Squadrons with guns trained on them.

Now I'm going to pause and say that if anyone can find anything that specifies when Deepstriking units have to be brought on, other than in the movement phase, please let me know, because I and others have scoured the Rulebook, Codex and FAQ's and couldn't find anything to say I couldn't bring on the Deathwing after moving the Ravenwing bikers on my Turn 1. The only stipulation was that the unit with the Teleport Homer must be on the table at the start of the turn to be used to prevent scattering, and that the roll for reseves (which doesn't apply to Deathwing Assaults anyway), happens at the start of the turn.

This initial assault took down a unit of twelve Gargoyles (netting us an easy 'First Blood'), a couple of Winged Warriors, a unit of Hive Guard and a Tervigon, all but exterminating the Nids far flank, and putting us on four Victory Points off the bat. This is bearing in mind that we now had a truck load of fire power right on their flank, and they had little to throw back at us, so we were poised to simply march up their line, shooting them to bits as we went.

Because the Nids were yet to have a turn, it was bound to look bleak, but one of my opponents turned to me, understandably vexed by the situation and said that, 'though what we had just accomplished was within the rules, he didn't think that going ahead and lannding all those Terminators and Bikers right in their face and ripping a chunk out of their army on Turn 1 was in the spirit of the game'.

At the time I was quite surprised by this, as I thought I was playing to the fluff and in the way the Dark Angels had been intended to be played, and I tried to argue as gently as possible that this was what the new Dark Angels army was designed to do. I had spent nearly half my points on stuff other than Deathwing and Ravenwing, had no Special Characters and only one HQ. I said it looked bad because they hadn't had a turn to retalliate yet, but he was insistent that with so many Terminators already in their back line, and half their army out of the picture for at least a couple more turns, they stood no chance of taking us down before being shot to pieces.

Because this debate went on for a good quater of an hour, it left something of a bitter taste, and I spent a great deal of time after the game thinking about what he had said.

I concluded that my opponent, who I have great respect for and consider a friend, could not have read either the new Dark Angels Codex, or the White Dwarf battle report that showcased what the army could do, because that would have told him exactly what to expect and it wouldn't have been a surprise. At the same time, it did make me question where we draw the line between what is within the rules and 'sportsman-like' and what is within the rules but not in the spirit of the game? Maybe I should remember that not eveyone keeps up with the latest White Dwarf and online dissection of every new rule, and so doesn't know what to expect when a book changes, so maybe I should have run through the changes in the book, just in case.

This is after all is said and done, a game intended for one side to be victorious over the other in the majority of games, dependant on what victory conditions are used to determine success and failure, but having said that, is it in the spirit of the game for one side to get trounced? We come back to the age old argument between gamer types, and whether we plan a friendly battle or a competitive one, and making sure everyone is on the same page beforehand.

Personally, I didn't think that I had selected a 'power army', unless playing the latest Codex out of the gates automatically quialifies it as a 'power army'. I am certainly not a 'Win At All Costs Player', by virtue of the fact that I play the models I have they way I like to play them, which typically means balanced lists. Plus, I'm just not good enough to be a WAAC player. I don't generally play tournaments, and at the moment I'll be happy to simply win more games than I lose.

So I'll ask the question again. What is the 'spirit of the game'?

I think the answer is simply to play the game we love, and enjoy doing so - us and our opponents. To play the rules (generally speaking) as intended, rather than taking too much advantage of loopholes that allow really nasty selections within the rules, but that might not have been designed with that application in mind.

This definition is my own, and may differ from yours. In fact, I'd like to hear what other players definition of the 'spirit of the game' are, if anyone wants to comment. If anyone has been following my Club 40K League progress, then they will know that I have played three games and lost two of those, one being tabled by the end of turn 3. I know what it is to lose, and how it feels afterwards.

No one wins every game. Not even Ben Curry. Except maybe Marneus Calgar.

Closing statement:

It's just a game. We might win, we might lose, but we should remember we play games for enjoyment. If we don't win this game, we should learn what we can from our defeat, and enjoy being given the opportunity for revenge next time around. We get better at this game by playing against better opponents, which for most of us means losing plenty, but improving our game to the point where beating us gets harder and, less likely. As players, we need to plan for victory, but be prepared for defeat and be able to deal with it constructively to allow us to evolve into better players.

Final note:

The Marines vs Tyranids game ended at the close of turn two due to the time such big affairs take to play. I wish I had enjoyed it a little more than I did. The Victory Points ended up being 7 - 6 to the Marines. Just as I expected, hardly a white wash after the Tyranids got their chance to fight back.

Thanks for reading.

Warhammer 40,000 Club League - Game 3 Result

Greetings once again wargaming junkies. This time around I present my conclusions following my third League game of five, and with only two games left to play, with some outstanding results I could still place joint second! Yeah, not gonna happen...

Just as a reminder, I am using Imperial Guard in this 1000 point fixed list League. I am pleased to report my first win so far, scoring maximum points against Nick's Dark Eldar. I try not to talk about dice, because as I have said before, I think they balance out over time, and we can't ever be sure of what they'll do, but I guess this game redressed the balance of the first couple somewhat.

I should also say that with hindsight, I benefitted from a scenario that suited my Imperial Guard and really didn't suit the Dark Eldar. We rolled up Hammer and Anvil deployment, which didn't really have an effect on the game, and Purge the Alien, which had a huge impact on how we played.

So how did it go on the night?

Initially, knowing what was in my opponents list, I decided on a targetting priority as follows, in decending order of threat potential: Raiders carrying units, Reaver Jetbikes (the unit included two Blasters), Infantry, Razorwing.

My thinking was that Raider mounted units were fast and packed either lots of firepower or close combat ability (for either Wyches and Succubus or Warriors respectively), Reavers were very fast and a threat to armour, but weren't troops and were few in number, Infantry were slower but still a threat, particularly if scoring units, and finally the Razorwing, which had good firepower, but started in reserve and had no ability to contest objectives other than shooting my plucky Guardsmen off them.

I did plan to keep my Infantry squads separate rather than combining them, so that if an enemy unit did get to assault them, I would be in a positon to shoot them down when they hopefully ended up standing around in the open after killing my unit. When we rolled up the Purge the Alien mission, I immediately changed my mind and combined them, offering just a single Victory point instead of three. My opponent won the roll off for deployment and elected to deploy first, taking the first turn.

I'm happy that I deployed better than I have previously. keeping all my infantry close together with comprehensive overlapping fields of fire, and close to my Officers to allow flexibility with my orders. I also kept them a little further back than the deployment zone edge to make sure it would take more time for the enemy to close.

Looking down at my infantry, I realised that a building to my centre left would completely block line of sight from my units where I had deployed them centre right of my deployment zone to the enemy Raiders and Jetbikes if they decided to use this as a stepping stone to assault my units from the left flank on their second turn. With that in mind, I deployed both my Tanks and the Chimera mounted Veterans on that flank, on the edge of the table to protect their rear armour and facing the gap that the enemy would move to if they assaulted down that flank. The Chimera went in between the Demolisher and Leman Russ to shield it's weaker side armour.

Though I failed to steal the initiative, the game went pretty well for me, with the Dark Eldar being forced to approach me because I had far more long range shooting available, so they couldn't just sit back. This meant they had to run the gauntlet of my guns to close the gap and assault as quickly as they could because close combat was the safest place to be!

Turn 1 saw my Lascannons slaughtered by Turbo Boosting Reavers using Caltrops and blades, scoring First Blood. Nick decided to ignore the Command Squad and go for the Lascannons, believing them to be a bigger threat to the Raiders and Razorwing, though the Command Squad would have given up an extra VP for Slay the Warlord. The Raiders approached more cautiously, using the building to shield them from the vehicles while they engaged the infantry.

The next few turns saw the Reavers shot down in short order by my big Infantry Squad under 'Fire on my Target!' orders to reduce the effectiveness of their 3+ cover save, and the Wyches dismount and fire a Blast Pistol at the Chimera hoping to force the Veterans out so they could be assaulted, but failing to pop it, as did the Dark Lance on the Wariors Raider that also had a go. This left the Wyches very exposed and they were shot to pieces, along with the Succubus Warlord, by Heavy Flamer fire from the Chimera and the Infantry Squads Autocannons.

The Razorwing failed to appear and support it's twisted bretheren, leaving the Tanks free to move around the building and bring their big guns to bear, resulting in the Raider mounted Warriors transport being shot out from under them and many of them being shot up by fire from the Infantry after they were pinned. The Warriors however blew up the Demolisher in retaliation by double 6ing it with their Dark Lance, before they were finally killed off by the Leman Russ Battle Cannon.

The Razorwing arrived on turn 4, just in time to see the Warriors vanish in a spray of blood and shrapnel, and the Wyches Raider finally gave up it's Victory Point after first being deprived of it's Disintegrator and then being immobilised in the previous two turns, being annihilated by the Veterans Melta Guns, for the Veterans to be shredded in turn by the Vengeful Razorwing. The next two turns saw me lose the Chimera and around half my Infantry Squad to the Splinter Cannon and an assortment of missiles from the Razorwing, before it's minimum move finally brought it within range of the Infantry Squad.

The Autocannons had failed to hit the Razorwing so far, but the Colonel ordered the unit to 'Bring it Down!', making all their guns twin-linked, resulting in a hit from a Melta Gun which penetrated and rolled up a 4 for damage, boosted to a 6 for AP1, blasting the flyer out of the sky and ending the game by 'wipe out'.

In conclusion, I think I played the game ok, but luck was mainly on my side as well, with shooting and with the mission, and against my opponent, again with the mission and failing to bring the Razorwing on till turn 4. The only area I would suggest my opponent made an error was in trying to pop the Chimera so allow the Wyches to assault the Veterans, instead of just assaulting the Infantry while he still had a full squad. Because it went wrong, his Wyches and Succubus were left horribly exposed and they paid for it. I think it was the threat of Overwatch fire from nearly thirty Guardsmen in Rapid Fire Range.

Given all the various factors, like terrain and victory conditions in particular, I don't think my opponent had much in the way of options. At the moment, I'll take league points where I can find them. I forgot to order 'Incoming!' again, but at least I got to shoot with my Snipers this time. Two more games to go...

Thanks for reading.

Warhammer 40,000 Club League - Game 2 Result

Welcome fellow thowers of dice and brush brandishers, to the unstructured conclusion following my second game in our club 40K League. This won't take too long.

It appears that either I am much rustier than I believed initially, or that I have simply come up against the two best players in the club for games one and two. I am clinging doggedly to option two, and I have evidence to back this up, just so I know I am not fooling myself. In case you haven't already guessed from my opening, I lost game two...

My description of the game itself will be brief. We had diagonal deployment and 'The Relic' mission, which given the speed of my units didn't really suit my army, though the side of the table I chose ensured I had clear fields of fire to the Relic starting point at the centre of the table. This is something of a moot point however, as by the close of turn 3, I didn't have a thing left on the field. This should have made me sadder than it did, but it got to the point where it was so brutal it was actually funny. I thought so anyway...

The fact was simply that my army was outclassed. My opponent said himself during the game that his army of Salamanders was a time served tournament force, and so it was. Respect to him for the quality of his army selection.

Briefly, it comprised the following:

Vulkan
10 man Tactical Squad with Flamer, Multi-melta & Serg with Combi Flamer
Drop Pod

10 man Tactical Squad with Plasma Cannon and Melta Gun & Serg with Combi Melta

2 Attack Bikes with Multi-meltas
2 Attack Bikes with Multi-meltas

Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon

As you can see, a highly optimised list that worked exactly as it was meant to, and lethal at 1000 points.

The dice didn't really work in my favour at some points, but they did at others, which is why I never blame the dice for a defeat. They do tend to balance out over time I feel. Also, I can't help how the dice fall, so I have to address the points that I do have influence over, namely things like deployment and target selection.

I felt my targetting priority was just fine, I just seemed to lack the ability to hit the targets I knew I needed to, namely the Attack Bikes. I surmised that if I could take out the Attack Bikes before I lost any tanks, the tanks would have pretty much free reign to take apart the rest of his army while the thirty man infantry squad claimed the Relic, shooting as they went under Officers orders.

As it turned out, it was the first time I had faced a Drop Pod, and didn't realise that they don't scatter when they deploy, so I thought I had my back line covered, and I really didn't. The result was that Vulkan and his unit screamed onto the batlefield in turn one and toasted my Chimera, Command Squad and two out of three Lascannons in one go, but more importantly, put multiple Flamers and a resilient combat guru (Vulkan) right in my back field.

Obviously what I learned from this is to deploy closer to my baseline when facing Drop Pods to prevent them from deploying behind me. If they had been normal Deepstrikers, they would have been taking a big risk trying to land in the spaces I had left in my deployment zone, so there's lesson one for next time.

Now I have to say that with my Chimera being wrecked by Bolter fire, but the Veterans mounted aboard passing their Panic check, it could have been worse at the start of my turn 1. As it turned out, the Veterans and Platoon Command Squad with their four Flamers and three Melta Guns between them teamed up to take out nine out of the 10 Tactical Marines that had landed with Vulkan in a single shooting phase. Unfortunately it took two more turns to take out the last Tactical Marine who assaulted into combat, and I failed to wound Vulkan at all, what with his pesky 3+ Invulnerable save!

While this was going on, the rest of my army proved incapable of damaging the Attack Bikes speeding towards me. I really felt the loss of the Lascannons at this point. The Attack Bikes started shooting at close range on their turn two, which saw me lose the Leman Russ and the Demolisher Shaken and unable to fire the Demolisher Cannon - the one weapon that would Instant Kill the Bikes! The Demolisher blew on turn 3.

Over the game I falied miserably to harm my primary targets, and fluffed so many 5+ Flak Armour saves it may as well have been tissue paper, and wet tissue paper at that. I have played two League Games so far, and have yet to get a single shot off with a Sniper Rifle.

So, things to remember for future games:

Deploying the army closer together worked well, but more consideration should be given to the armour deployment - I think I should stick with the idea I had when drawing the list up and keep the tanks and Chimera together as a strike force. At this size of game, concentration of AV14 front armour attack should be more difficult for the enemy to deal with than it has been so far.

Deploy closer to the back line when facing Drop Pods, forcing them to land in front of my lines.

Don't forget to order 'Incoming!' if keeping my guys alive is more important than killing the enemy at that moment in time, then order then back up with 'Get Back in the fight!'

I have three more League games to play.

Thanks for reading.