The Return

 Apparently I have a habit of leaving this blog alone for long stretches of time. It would be a shame to break the habit.

 So, where have I been and what have I been up to?

Moved house, had no internet access at home for a while, Covid hit the world, 9th Edition 40k released, restrictions now easing...

That put a bit of a crimp in both the hobbying and the posting to the blog. However, I have found ways to get some stuff done and am now ready to return to getting my thoughts back out there online.

 

 

 

Warhammer 40K

I don't know if you heard, but Ninth Edition released. I've been fortunate, as I've been able to get together with George quite frequently to get games in. Recently, we've been playing 1000 point Grand Tournament missions, so we can get practice in the Secondary Objective system. We are also preparing to do a narrative Pariah Nexus Crusade; Necrons versus Imperium. Will I puzzle out the mysteries of the Nexus before the snare closes around my neck?

I've also been invited to a slightly larger campaign group and another group are gearing up to start regular meets to get games in. Truly, this shall be a golden age for 40k.

I also spent the majority of lockdown getting my backlog of miniatures painted. I lost count, but easily painted over a thousand models. To see my work and progress, check out my Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/elementalkid/  

I now have 38,418 points of painted models across 12 factions. I even did some terrain recently too.

 

Age of Sigmar  

I took the opportunity across Christmas and New Year to pick up some boxes to partake in GW's 'New Year, New Army' scheme. Start a new army, get it painted, earn a pin badge. 

I chose to use it to finally dip my toe in Age of Sigmar, and dived into Disciples of Tzeentch. Before I could look at getting any games in, Third Edition was announced.

I now have 3170 points of painted Disciples models, I've played one game of Third (on release weekend) and I'm looking forward to playing more. 

Marvel Champions  

Started playing Marvel Champions, its a great card game that can be played as a group or solo. The Villains all feel very different and what you need to be doing to defeat them changes. Same with the Heroes, they all suit different play-styles and the Aspect based deck-building helps different builds actually play significantly different from each other. It's a blast and I can't wait for more group games now restrictions are easing.

Transformers  

Wizards of the Coast discontinued their Transformers TCG. Bastards! 

The game was fun and had some great potential, even though their final set has some power level issues. Fortunately, fan groups have stepped into the breach and carried on designing. I've even been a part of the process.

Check out - 

Energon Hustlers

https://www.bayformers.net/ 

For the best stuff. There are also still tournament circuits running. Check it out

That's the gist of it all. Have you managed to get any gaming done?

It's Been A While

Well, like the title suggests; it's been a while

I've had a lot of things going on in my personal life, and as a knock on effect I haven't had the motivation to write stuff for the blog. I'm going to try and get back on track now and get more stuff written this year. Look out for gaming reports, photos of stuff as I get it painted, reviews and the opinions you've come to enjoy.

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2018 - 2019

It's that time of year when the Roman God Janus encourages us to look back at the year we've just had and to look forward to the year ahead. Following this tradition, I shall be discussing what I have achieved over the past 12 months, and what I intend on doing over the next 12. As I did this last year, I can also compare what my hopes were versus what I managed to do.

2018  

It's been an interesting 12 months.

I've been juggling trying to find the correct format for some events against working more events away and also some personal life stuff. This lead to me being a little hit and miss on things in 2018.

I only managed 50 posts this last year, falling 2 posts short of the 52 posts a year target. Failing by two posts isn't a huge deal, but I want to make sure it doesn't become a habit. Everything I said about the purpose of the Blog last year still holds true.

The Quick Hit series helped, not only to give me a regular source of content but to allow me to analyse all the Codexes as they released at a break-neck pace. Thanks to all the people that let me borrow books from them to facilitate this effort. I've had positive feedback on the series, so will be looking at something similar to replace it.

Local events have been a little bit wayward compared to my intended amount as well. Star Wars X-Wing has managed to be regular, but others have fallen to the wayside. This is far from ideal and something I seriously need to rectify. The Christmas Star Wars Day events was a success though, and so were the Store Championships.

I worked quite a bit with Asmodee and had a great time doing so. From judging at Nationals and Euros to demoing at Tabletop Gaming Live and Insomnia, it's been fun. The best bit is the colleagues, there are some wonderful people at Asmodee and on the Judge and Demo teams. I look forward to seeing more of them all.

I played more at my own events. This lead to those events being more enjoyable for me and let me get back into playing those games properly. I still have the option of building more fun decks/lists, but now when I don't I end up playing games against people on a similar level. The easy solution to get around claims of dodgy rulings on my own games is to not claim prizes. This leaves me only playing for pride while not actually denying people a prize. if it's a semi-important event and I do well, then the prize I would earn gets passed down. If it's a regular event, then any promos I would win simply stay in the prize pool.

I've attended a few X-Wing and Final Fantasy TCG events run by other people in 2018, but other than that mostly failed to play outside my own events. I have gotten in a tonne of casual 40K games as well as some Keyforge and a lot more MTG Commander than previous years though.

On the personal side, I have had 3 close relatives pass away at various points during 2018, an Aunt, a Grandmother and a Grandfather. Between funerals and my mental state around those events, it's been difficult to focus on doing the gaming side of things.

The lowest point was the Cornish Nationals. My Grandfather had recently been diagnosed with Terminal Cancer, and that weekend had been readmitted to the hospital. I debated not going to the event, as I wasn't in the best of moods, but it was for Charity so I did travel down with the rest of the Marauders hoping that the team's presence would help.

Round one, I got smashed largely down to zero evades present on my green dice. My red dice were hot, but I was only managing to do 1-2 damage a round versus losing a ship in return. A bit jarring, but whatever. I spent the rest of the round forcing myself back into a positive attitude, watching the games around me. Pairings for the next round were called and, due to a player having to drop out, I received the bye. 20 mins later, all my enthusiasm dropped away. With a lunch break due after the round, it was going to be 2 hours before I'd get another game of X-Wing in. I went outside for a break and an attempt at clearing my head, but it was too late.

I played the next round with the intention of dropping and did so. It wasn't worth forcing myself to continue to play a tournament when my heart just wasn't in it. I relaxed for the rest of the day and played in the Hanger Bay side event in the evening.

It's a sobering lesson; if you aren't in the correct headspace to play in a tournament, don't force yourself. Nothing is wrong with just hanging out and spending time with fellow players, and that in itself can prove to be a helpful escape. But the point to playing a game is to enjoy yourself, and sometimes outside issues will make that impossible. Don't play for the sake of playing, make sure you take care of yourself first.

2019  

So moving forward, it's time to put the bad stuff in the past and get back on the improvement train.

The blog will continue. I still feel like I have plenty to say and the written form is my preferred way of expressing myself. What I need to do is both promote the blog more and make an attempt to get more engagement from you, the readers. Currently, I'm basically putting my thoughts out on the internet, and I'm not getting much in the way of online response. It would be nice to see more comments from readers on the Blog, especially if they disagree with me. I want to see more alternate viewpoints on things, rather than come across as some sort of all-knowing oracle, even though I do give that impression some(most) times.

Local events need more work. I need to get better on the promotion side of events, as well as improving the visibility of my "brand" Baron Administrator Tournaments. Going into 2019, I will be focusing on running weekend events for the following games;

• Star Wars X-Wing
• Star Wars the Living Card Game
• Warhammer 40,000
• Keyforge

With these core four games, I can focus my efforts on getting them running monthly and promoting them across social media. I also want to use the Blog to help with this, putting up reports on the events. It's going to require a lot of discipline on my part, as well as a lot of time, but it should be worth doing.

More work with Asmodee is on the cards. I had to turn down a lot of Christmas Demo work due to the aforementioned family issues, but I will get back into doing it soon. I'm also on the Judge team for the UK X-Wing System Open in Milton Keynes. It's going to be a great opportunity to hang out with Judge friends and see some of the best players from across Europe play X-Wing. I can't wait.

UK X-Wing System Series Open - Milton Keynes 2019 

I'm going to continue to play in my own events, and try to get more gaming done in general. I enjoy gaming and have stuff for plenty of games that I found zero time to play last year, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to play more of them this year. Especially games like the Game of Thrones Card Game or VS2PCG where I keep buying new cards, but failing to find time/opponents.
I'll also try and reflect this in the blog, posting about a wider variety of games as I play them.

Finally, I want to try and get to more events run by other people. There is always something to learn from seeing what they are doing, as well as how the players are enjoying the event. It also lets me play against people I wouldn't normally see, in the case of events that require travel, or play games I don't normally have the time to play, in the case of Yugioh.

All in all, I'm taking a positive outlook on 2019. As an aside, it's kinda weird that I'm writing and publishing this on the 7th of January, exactly one year after the last one. Here's hoping I can manage the same thing next year.


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Codex Adeptus Sororitas feedback

As the Sisters of Battle book is currently a Beta Codex, Games Workshop have asked for feedback on the unit entries. I will copy/paste my email here so you can see both my thoughts, and how I structure them into feedback.  If you have thoughts on the Sisters book, or want to give feedback on any of the 8th Edition 40K rules, then they have an e-mail address

40kfaq@gwplc.com

Here is my e-mail;

Hi GW Rules team

As a long time fan/player of Sisters of Battle, I want to help contribute to making their eventual Codex as good as possible. While doing a short review of the Beta for my Blog I raised the following points:-

Page 79 - Acts of Faith; The Passion

I would look at changing The Passion's trigger to the end of the Fight phase. It's your hardest to achieve Act of Faith and you risk your opponent being able to kill the unit it's been activated on before they can strike a second time. By making it end of the phase, it works more like the similar Stratagems many armies have access too.  

I also think an end of phase trigger would be easier for players to understand when the extra attack happens, as I still see players get confused with Khorne Bezerkers.

Page 82 - Missionary

I'd like to see Word of the Emperor affect Astra Miitarum units as well. I think you would see people taking one of these if they did.   

It's a minor thing, but would make it support those that like to take some Priestly support for their Imperial Guard regiments.

Page 84 - Repentia Squad

These may be a little too expensive at 15 points each. It's also a shame that the maximum squad size is smaller than it used to be. However, you can fit them into a transport.

These used to have a larger maximum squad size and be available to buy separate from the Mistress, leading to some of us older players having more than nine per Mistress we own. Obviously, this will be less of a thing when the unit gets new models, but something to bear in mind at the moment.

Comparing these to units from other armies I play (Assault Marines and Striking Scorpions), I'd like to see them become 12 points each. This is very much a first impression though, I will have to get some games in to see if 15 feels right for them.

Page 84 - Mistress of Repentance

This character lacks the <Order> Repentia Squad keyword, so she doesn't buff her own ability to hit. More importantly, she doesn't buff her own Advance and Charge rolls so struggles to keep up with the unit she is supposed to buff. They can easily get out of range of her when they move into combat and she will struggle to make the charge to keep up. A simple fix is to give her the keyword to match them.

I understand the flavour of why she doesn't have the keyword, but with a 6" range on Driven Onwards, the unit will often end up out of range, especially as they are likely to succeed in Charges she will fail. I'd like to see her gain the keyword so she also helps herself.

Page 85 - Celestian Squad

I'm not sure the army wants or needs this unit to exist, but I feel that way about Space Marine veterans, so maybe it's just me.

Included for sake of completeness, but largely my own personal bias.

Page 86 - Arco-Flagellants

Not sure what I want from these, they may just be too expensive for what they do.

I may be wrong as they have a minimum squad size of three. It may be their role has changed slightly to be a counter-charge unit rather than a surge forward and seek the enemy unit. Some playtesting will give me a better handle on this.

Page 89 - Exorcist

As an aside, while looking at improvements for things, I wish Smoke Launchers weren't instead of shooting. It's great for transports that surge forward and advance, looking to get to the opponent, but terrible for gun tanks like this one. They also fail to help the tank if your opponent goes first. And this applies across all armies with access to them, not just Adeptus Sororitas. 

As I say, this isn't just a "problem" with this Codex, and probably beyond the scope of fixing just by changing it here, but may be worth looking at for a Big FAQ change. There are many tanks that feel like they almost never want to use their Smoke Launchers. It may be that this wants to operate like the Prepared Positions Stratagem from the Big FAQ and activate at the start of the first battle round.

Page 95 - Order Convictions

It feels like two of these do the same thing, regardless of how you have built the army; regain Faith points. The third makes Tests of Faith easier and will probably go on to be the default choice for players. I would change Argent Shroud's ability to something else,  possibly something like the Space Marines Salamander's re-roll ability.

There is a lot of stuff in the army that interacts with either Test of Faith or Faith Points. I don't think half of the Order Convictions also need to do so as well. I'm not against there being a "go to" sub-faction, as most armies have one that will attract the competitive player, meanwhile, those that play armies for flavour will use the others.

Of the three, Ebon Chalice; Daughters of the Emperor will probably attract the Tournament players, and is a fine trait. Our Martyred Lady; The Blood of the Martyrs is amazingly dripping with flavour. This leaves Argent Shroud; Deed, not Words as the easiest one to change. It needs to hit the flavour of decisive action. Either a limited form of re-roll to hit, much like the T'au Sa'cea Sept, or a re-roll to hit with Bolt weapons like Craftworld Biel-Tan do with Shuriken weapons. It's also probably no coincidence that these both come with +1 Leadership.

For the full review

https://hiveoffunandsilliny.blogspot.com/2018/12/quick-hits-december-2018-sisters-of.html

These are the main things that have stood out during my first look at the book. I will report back with more feedback in the new year as I get games in. This whole exercise is a fantastic opportunity to look at the way armies and codexes are designed, and I'd like to thank you for it. And even more thanks for all the hard work you guys put in. I've played since 2nd edition 40k and 8th has rapidly become my favourite. The return of move values and save modifers are what clinched it for me ;)

Sean Samuels

 Hopefully, as I get more games in, I can see if my initial opinions hold up. Maybe I'm wildly wrong and playing the army will show me this. I will update the blog both with my findings and if Games Workshop reply.

Tablet test

This post is a simple test to see how easy it is to post via my tablet.

Pros

• I can update without bringing the laptop
• I can post notes on the tablet and directly transfer them here

Cons 

1. Still need Wi-Fi access to post
2. Not used to typing on the tablets keyboard, so larger posts will take longer

Summary   

I will trial this. It will certainly make short posts and impromptu battle reports easier. However I will stick to the laptop for longer posts.

Quick Hits - A New Post Type

Last year I did my huge review of the Craftworlds Codex. They have long been my favourite army and I felt they deserved the work. However, between the rapid pace of Codex releases, the cost of buying Codexes for armies I don't own and the changes the FAQs/Chapter Approved can bring,  I can't cover the other armies in the same detail.  I do get asked my opinion of Codexes and units though, so I need some way of meeting in the middle.

Enter "Quick Hits".

A series of posts that should allow me to give you my thoughts on a wider range of armies. It should also prove quicker to right than a full review, allowing me to borrow books for the armies I don't play. It should also allow me more scope to keep up with the pace of releases from Games Workshop while making time to write about other games too.