500pts of Bolt Action making 40k feel flat as a game.

Hi folks,

Happy New Year and welcome to my first two games of 2014. 

My buddy Greg and I managed to get in two games. We're very much into Bolt Action but he was also keen to give 40k a try as he's a WFB player and was always tempted by the Dark Eldar (he's the source of my new Haemonculus Coven models). We went for a 500pt game of Bolt Action and then a ~1000pt game of 40k.

Here are Greg's new Russian support weapons. A medium machine gun with a gun shield (6+ to kill if shooting from the front arc) and a medium mortar team.

His assembled troops squads. The lying miniatures on the right are his sniper team (shooter + spotter) and in the middle of the troops, at the back, you should be able to make out his light machine gun team.

For the Germans I brought a 6 order dice list comprised of my 2nd Lt, a veteran sniper team and four infantry squads. Greg had 7 order dice - 2nd Lt, two 11 man squads, a medium machine gun, a medium mortar with spotter, a sniper team and a free 11 man squad  from the Russian special rule (all regular).

We rolled the attrition mission and had to move on in the first turn. We both sent all the models in in a single wave, not keeping any reserves. Greg brought the Russians onto the table relatively evenly spread but I was a bit worried about his numerical superiority and so I used the big building on the left to block LOS to several of my units while I tried to focus on the right flank.

Here we are in the early stages of the game. It swung dramatically back and forth but as the turns wore on, I managed to take out enough of the Russians and pin the remainder so much that they couldn't mount an effective counterattack. I took casualties of course, in particular my commander who fell to a lucky sniper shot through the building's window, but overall managed to wear down the Russians.

Here is the end of the game. Having outgunned, outflanked and outlucked the Russians, my three surviving squads closed in on the final member of the Russian side who chose to abandon his mortar and run back to the Motherland. Undoubtedly he'll return with reinforcements for a rematch.

The game was a lot of fun. Both of us had our share of lucky moments and failed order tests that cost us dearly. Highlights include:

• A mortar round guided by the spotter rolls 6 hits and wipes out an entire Wermacht squad. 
• The Russian officer is sniped but his adjutant runs bravely forwards towards the building before failing three order tests (7 or less on 2D6) in a row and cowering on the ground.
• The flanking squad luckily surviving fire from a light machine gun, then a medium machine gun, killing both, killing the spotter then getting hit by a mortar round and pinned down en route to the final kill.
• The German sniper killing an officer early on and then pinning a squad while failing to kill anyone for about five turns.
• The Soviet inexperienced, green infantry squad passing their morale test after the first casualty, being upgraded to regular and fighting hard before going down in a hail of bullets/glory.

My favourite part of this game was that neither of us had a clear advantage all the way through and it wasn't until the last couple of turns that the game really swung to the German side. A few different dice rolls could have taken it the other way. Also, I remember having (and I think Greg also had) real challenges choosing which unit to activate first when I got an order die. This part of the game is really fun. Do you take the sniper and risk that single shot that can pick off an NCO or special weapon, or is it better to move your big squad out of the line of fire in case the opponent gets the next order die? These kind of questions keep you involved the whole time. Also, given that we basically alternated activation, I never felt that I was just waiting for my guys to die before it was my turn again.

Both of us finished the game with big grins and are excited for the next order from Warlord Games, which will be bringing halftracks, flamethrowers and machine guns for the Germans, and artillery, jeep and light armour support for the Russians. 

Next up was an introductory game of 40k on the same terrain. The armies were just over 1000 points and chosen to give a flavour of different things for Greg to try. He took the Dark Eldar, in order to play tricksy and I brought the Deathwing to be polar opposites. It was a pretty quick game with lots of casualties. The Deathwing clinched it in the end after a few turns but with some losses.

That said, the game just felt flat to both of us. Greg picked up 40k quickly and we didn't have rules challenges but a lot of things felt really stupid. In particular the shooting drove us both crazy.

Why does standing still and shooting at point blank range give me the same chance of hitting as when my troops sprint around a building and fire at maximum range through a forest against a single model in cover? It just runs really counter intuitively now. I know the cover save element comes into it, but the single save mechanic of 40k means that the Deathwing and other good armour troops have little reason to seek cover and take no benefit from it.

By the end of the Bolt Action game we felt pretty stoked, challenged and interested to play more.

By the end of the 40k game we felt just a bit...meh...and agreed the excitement wasn't there.

Now I love the models and background for 40k, enjoy painting a variety of different units and admit that it might just be that I've been playing a different game for a while now, which has skewed my perception of rules. Still, it hasn't got me excited to expand my armies at all. Maybe I need a few more games to get back into the swing of things. 

All the best everyone.

Pete :-)

Christmas painting season, then the wife rediscovers transfers :-)

Happy New Year everyone.

I hope you all had (or are still having) a great holiday season and relaxed nicely with family and friends. I know that I did and I'm still lucky enough to be off from teaching English until next week. Terrible for the bank balance (I'm freelance so no work = no pay) but great for relaxation and my hobby time. 

Over Christmas we spent a week in my wife's home village in southern Slovakia. It was as relaxing as usual since my mother in law refused nearly all offers of help and wouldn't let me cook/clean/wash up or do much other than relax. Well...if you insist ;-)

While the ladies chatted happily in Hungarian and baked oodles of tasty treats, I decided to kick butt on the painting front. I took my totally unpainted Eldar Jetbike force down with me and can happily report that I returned with all of the primed models totally painted. Then when arranging them on my desk at home my wife discovered the transfer sheets and her face lit up. When she was younger, she and her cousin loved using transfers to decorate eggs and the like. She gave me the puppy dog eyes and how could I refuse. An hour later she'd stuck them in just about every place they could go on the models.....and given them the pop that they really needed to stand out. 

Enjoy

Here is the paintscheme in general. I wanted to do something different to the Dark Eldar but stay close enough to tie the two forces together. I went for an armour colour match but the bikes were in gold and blue.

My aerial assault force ready for battle, replete with awesome new transfers. 

The Autarch is now glued and placed on his Rhino-blade-bike and I'll prime him in the next batch of models.

Here is my farseer conversion on the triple bladed bike with a singing spear.

Side view showing the greenstuff handle. Since I spliced two spears together (the shaft from a Venom flagpole spear and the head from a Scourge power spear) I knew I'd need to reinforce the joint. I went for the twisted pattern you see here. It's not perfect but once painted up I hope it'll look good. I still want to greenstuff a cloak to make the model stand out but that's still on the cards.

Now I've moved on to the Finecast haemonculus batch I received as gifts before Christmas. I'm doing the messy parts first with the pale skin (Menoth white base, blue wash, highlights) and then I'll get onto the other colours to bring the models up. Any thoughts on colour schemes here? I'm thinking of going with a flesh/hide skirt colour but need something to tie them into the rest of the force. Since the others use red with a touch of purple as a spot colour I'm considering the opposite here. I think that the haemonculus force being different from the main force but consistent with one another will look nasty. 

Best wishes to everyone and comments welcome :-)

Pete

Dark Eldar Grotesques Finecast Review - Number 2

Hi Folks, hope you had a great Christmas break.

Here is my second review of the GW Dark Eldar Grotesques in Finecast resin. As you can see in the picture above, I got some more. Now these were courtesy of the excellent GW customer service. I debated sending them a message but as a friend pointed out, if they don't know then they can't improve on it. Despite clearly stating that I made one great model out of three and only two had some problems the customer service people were kind enough to send three new models along with the rather funky Christmas card you can see above. Thumbs up.

Here you can see the contents of each clampack spread out. There are a couple of minor differences compared to the previous packages I got, which is nice.

Here is the first difference. Now the newer mould is on the left, the older on the right. Immediately I can see that there are cleaner lines and fewer vents for the resin. In particular I was happy that the two 'lamps' (?) sticking out of the back don't have vents on the top of the smooth surface now. That's a big improvement. You can also see a tweak in the attachment for the creepy little arm. I think it's now got a smaller connection point.

Similar story with the other pieces (newer left, older right). The mould design seems to have been cleaned up and simplified, which is good news. Overall I found it less work to tidy up and prepare the models for gluing. 

As far as the model quality goes, there are some similar issues. The bubbles are fewer but this batch all had a bubble in the upper calf of the back leg and a few other tiny bits. An improvement but not perfect. The overall quality of the models is higher, definitely, and I'm glad GW adjusted to improve. The waists suffer from the same problem as before in that none of them align to the body properly. I'm not sure if there is a design flaw or the resin just needs to be tweaked and bent some more. For me I'd rather throw some glue there then fill it with green stuff when I get time. It's easier and these models are suitably creepy and messy looking that my limited sculpting skills probably won't affect the final result once they're painted up.

My second conclusion is similar to my first. Great model concept and sculpt. Let down slightly by the material choice and issues with production quality BUT easier and better than the first time around. Credit where due to GW for making their models better over time as well as the consistently  excellent customer service. I may by moving away from them as a company for many things but their model quality and customer care is great.

All the best everyone,

Pete :-)

Uncloseable Super Glue......glue all the models!!!

There are many benefits to having such an awesome wife as I am blessed with. However, today we'll be focusing on her working for Henkel. This company makes a lot of products including Persil and Schwarzkopf but the modeler is more interested in their production of the brand Loctite. Now while she does get a lot of products at a discount, we're also loath to waste money and, being relatively unfamiliar with glues, she got me two small superglue-looking glue tubes. They're called SOS repair and are cute, small and seemed to contain cyanoacrylate. 

Suspecting (wrongly) that I wouldn't be able to close the tiny tube thing once I snapped off the cap, I decided the only thing for it was to clear the decks and glue everything I had that needed superglue. Glue all the models!!!

Here is everything laid out (bonus shot of the drying laundry). On the table we've got some GW finecast Wracks and Grotesques, an Infinity starter set and the plastic ruined farmhouse from Warlord Games Assault on Normandy.

Here is the finecast (bubbles and miscasts included) ;-)

The infinity models. Some really great sculpting quality here.

The ruined farmhouse pieces. Generally really nice and very flexible with assembly but not as well cast and to the same tolerances as the GW plastic terrain kits I've tried. That said, it's also significantly more affordable.

The finecast beasties assembled. To its credit, this material is a dream to work with as far as gluing goes. You need to hold the pieces together for about three seconds before they catch and the light weight means they hold well (***See note below about light material***).

The whole group assembled. I've still got a few rubble bits (left) for the farmhouse that I'm not going to add yet. I'm thinking about making some bases using baked sculpey mounted on MDF so perhaps I'll add them then.

Now to the greenstuff. Here are the adjustments to the first grotesque. The biggest part was the waist, where none of the three models lined up. Here I also had to fill under the arm to solidify the joint, cover two bubbles (in the biceps/arms) and wrap the repaired joint of the sword. Thanks to the incredible light finecast, a slight finger touch during assembly snapped the sword off at the thin joint. I glued but decided to add some reinforcement this way too.

Grotesque two also had a major waist issue to deal with plus some small gaps in the shoulder joint. Under the left bicep also needed a bubble fill.

Shoulder, waist and underarm for number three as well.

At the end of my gluing marathon I noticed (in my probably slightly high state) that the glue cap could be replaced and so I can continue to use the little bottle for any other bits I get. At the moment I have no plans for a lot of resin or metal but then my Bolt Action Germans and Americans need some reinforcements so who knows.... ;-)

My follow up to the Grotesques review reinforces what I said before. Great models with lots of character but let down by the material. All three share the same pose and are fragile, come with several bubbles and need a fair bit of work to get them into finished condition. The resin takes glue extremely well but I think the quality control is not where it should be and the material is very fragile. Here's hoping for a three model plastic box for these in the future.

All the best everyone

Pete

Bolt Action Rules Review - a few games in.

When Jerry appears, give him a taste of 57mm steel!

Hi everyone,

As you have undoubtedly noticed, I've been very much taken with Warlord Games' World War 2 themed skirmish gamed, Bolt Action.

Bolt Action (BA) is a fun game first and foremost. It's simple, quick to play and has a lot of things going for it. For the purpose of this review I'll primarily make comparisons to 40k, both because I know that game relatively well and because it's perhaps the most common or well known wargame (in my area at least). To start with, if you've not seen it around, BA is a skirmish game for battles set in WW2. It was designed with 28mm models in mind but can be adapted to other scales as well. Fundamentally it's close to 40k in that you can move, shoot and fight in close quarters (assault) over a number of turns.

BA add a great dynamic to the game in the activation of units. Instead of having one player do everything on their side, then swapping, the game mixes things up. Each unit brings an order die to the game. Each turn, all of these dice are put into a bag or cup, shaken and drawn out randomly. Whichever side gets the die can issue an order to one of its units. Then another die is drawn, an order issued and the process repeats until all of the dice have been used. That turn is then over and the dice are (usually) put back in the bag for the next turn. It's nice in that you never quite know what order the game is going to happen in when you start a new turn. You might get that crucial first order die and throw a wrench in the opponent's plans but then again you might have a string of bad luck and they get all the first activations. On the other hand you then get to activate your units in a row at the end of the turn and can adjust your plans because your opponent has already chosen their moves. It adds a challenge when you get the first die and have to think carefully about which unit should go first.

The six orders you can give are: Fire, advance, run, ambush, rally and down.

These let you fire without penalty, move and fire, double your move or assault, wait to ambush an opposing unit, try to get your troops back in the fight, and hit the dirt. When you start the game your units automatically follow your orders but once you start taking fire and being pinned you have to pass 'morale' checks, which is harder the more pin markers you have. This seems quite punishing when you fail but makes sense when you think about a machine gun hosing your guys' positions, and also gives a reason to field veteran troops (higher morale) as well as keep your HQ in the middle (bonus to morale checks with 6").

Pinning  is a real change compared to 40k (where it is less frequent and effective). Suppressing fire is extremely effective as a tactic and makes games a real challenge. No long will your troops cheerfully leap out from cover when they are under a hail of fire from multiple angles. Instead, a more realistically, your men may decide to avoid the bold/foolhardy choice in favour of keeping their heads down in cover. Each time your units are hit, they receive a pin marker, regardless of whether any casualties are caused. Having bullets whip by your ear is almost as scary as your buddy being hit. Each pin marker gives you -1 to order and morale checks, plus a -1 to shooting. Don't expect guys with three pin markers to make effective shots when they're at -3 to hit just from the pin markers. Might be time to try a rally order to get rid of some markers while hiding in cover.

Watch out for the snipers in the next building!!!

Speaking of cover, I feel like it adjust the right aspects of the dice in BA compared to 40k - the shooting phases, specifically, how easily you hit. One thing that has always felt jarring to me in Warhammer 40k is the way that a Space Marine (to take a common example) hits on a 3+ no matter whether he is standing 2" from a target out in the open or sniping at someone at maximum range who is hunkered down behind a concrete barricade. It's frustrating when you are right on top of someone and suddenly can't hit worth a damn when just last turn you were picking them out of hard cover like Vasily Zajtsev.

BA handles shooting slightly differently than 40k. All troops hit on a 3+ and then that roll is modified by a small table of factors. Point blank (6" or less) gives you a +1 to hit, but lots more things give you negative modifiers. You'll get -1 for firing over half range, moving and firing, being inexperienced troops, firing at a unit of 1 or 2 men (small target), -1 PER pin marker on your unit, -1 for soft cover that obscures sight and -2 for hard cover that obscures and protects. As you can see, shooting is rarely going to be an easy task in Bolt Action. While this means that casualties tend to be relatively light, barring lucky dice, at range, you can still suppress and pin your opponent until you get closer and the brutal firefights begin. Don't expect your 2 pin marker rookie troops to effectively shoot a German sniper team out of hard cover at long range (-2 pins, -1 inexperienced, -1 long range, -2 hard cover for a total of 9+ to hit). Then again don't stop in front of the enemy machine gun position at close range in the open because they'll be hitting you on 2+ and you can't go down in reaction if you've already taken an action.

Now with so many modifiers you may well be asking what it means when you need a 7/8/9+ to hit your target. Without making it complex, BA adds a chance for such long shot success. Roll to hit, if you score any 6s, roll these again. A second 6 means you hit. They call these nigh-impossible shots but it can still be worth if you have the opportunity. You never know when that lucky bullet will take out the enemy machine gunner and save your butt.

A Jagdpanther in cover with a machine to cover it? Ouch!

Let's say get some luck and hit the enemy. First up, we put a pin marker on them, regardless of whether we kill anyone. That's a good thing, especially if we can put some more on the same unit later in the turn. Then it's the chance to kill someone. Regular troops die to small arms fire on a 4+, inexperienced on a 3+ and veterans on a 5+. I like how this tries to reflect the variety of training and experience for different troops. Veterans would know more when to get down and how to survive better. That said, bigger guns add modifiers to the damage roll so a 20mm cannon (+2 to damage) will bring down veterans on a 3+. Buildings bring your wound roll up to a 6+ so even rookies in buildings can take a lot of fire, even from heavy guns.

Vehicles with with a lot of similarities to troops except that they have a damage value of 7 - 11 (armoured cars to super heavy tanks respectively), which means small arms fire can't touch them. They don't get pinned by light weapons, but if you start putting heavy weapons on them, then they can be pinned down and damaged. In general, vehicles let you add a lot of mobility to your force as well as giving you anchors around which to fix your attack or defence. Plus, who doesn't want to put a King Tiger on the table and make stuff go boom :-)

The last point I'll add that I love is the way that your nation of choice gives you a unique bonus.

• Germany - Bonus shot for infantry machine guns (Hitler's buzzsaw) and NCO survivability.
• US - Move and fire without penalty for rifle/BAR troops and double air strikes.
• British - Free artillery observer and bonus to pre-battle bombardments 
• Soviet - Free 11 man inexperienced squad and re-rolls to some morale checks (for the Motherland)

So, is Bolt Action a perfect game?

No, of course not. I find it quite a close ranged game. Most troops have rifles, rifles fire at 24" so you end up in a close up battle much of the time. I think this is a general weakness of shooting based wargames played on relatively (6x4) small tables so it's a not a huge problem. On the other hand, most rifles and WW2 weaponry had similar characteristics so it's reasonable.

Tanks are not very cost effective in many cases, especially the big ones. A King Tiger will set you back 555 points and if there are no armoured targets on the field it turns into a really expensive machine gun carrier that isn't going to be able to take on the 40 or so infantry you'd get for the same points. Also the armoured vehicles are not as distinct as was historically the case, but that's very hard to do on the tabletop. At the heart, the game is infantry focused and that's fine for me.

In conclusion...

This game is fun, a lot of fun and plays easily. People who've tried it are big fans very quickly and want to play again. Already one of my buddies (a Warhammer Fantasy player) finished the first game, went home and ordered the rulebook and his Soviet army immediately. The low model cost and variety of places to buy models really steps the game up as well.

If you have any questions please drop them in the comment box and I'll answer them as best I can :-)

All the best

Pete

Dark Eldar Grotesques Finecast review - How many bubbles do you accept? ;-)

Hi everyone,

First of all, check out the awesome package of 75 plastic WW2 figures from Warlord games sprue sale. 54 Pounds including delivery (and one more pack of bases than I intended, misclicked order).

Now, on to the review of the Finecast.

I was given three Grotesques by a gaming buddy who decided that he'd had enough of dealing with the funky finecast and trying to make things fit. Two of them were still on the sprues and the parts are above. Please note the snapped sword blade in the bottom right. It's a shame it broke there as gluing such a small point, even with it being Finecast, isn't much fun. Lucky I plan to run one of these with a liquifier gun, which will replace the right army blade.

The close combat arms for the beasties. I love the details on the mechanical claw arm. A creepily excellent piece of work by the sculptor.

Torso and head. I'm not up to date with moulding and resin technology & design but why would you put vents on top of the smoothly rounded backpack chamber-thingies? I've cut them off and it's really hard work to then smooth out the rounded, nicely moulded chambers is a hassle. I'm not an expert sculptor or miniature maker and I don't want to have to fix my model and reshape parts that the production process has impacted on.

Liquifier gun, lower body and details. Similar problems with the vent locations for the extra bits you see at the bottom and top middle. I had to carve, file these down and couldn't quite get them smooth. 

Here is the assembled body that my friend already made. You can see the big gap in the waist that I'll need to greenstuff. I dry-fitted one of the other torsos after cleanup and it doesn't line up well so I may need to hot water bend the spine to line it up.

The first of the moulding problems. One of the liquifier guns has an air bubble right on the joint of the arm, which means there is a big gap just where the arm should connect to the body, which is not cool. Greenstuff is definitely required here.

Both of these show the same problem area. Apparently the grotesques use too much underarm deodorant because this is a problem area on all of the models.

Overall I think the Grotesque model is, despite my grumbling above, a very nice piece of work. Admittedly it's monopose and I'd love to see a three model multi-part plastic set but I guess they aren't big enough sellers to warrant it. The general detail and style of the model is excellent, as is nearly everything in the Dark Eldar range. I'm mixed with GW releases and often find them simply ok or not to my taste, but I can't think of a DE model that doesn't resonate with me, even if I don't want to actually own it. One of their most consistently brilliant product lines for sure. I'm looking forward to painting this unit up as a creepy addition to my force and perhaps I'll even invest in a Raider so I can't jump them forward into action nice and quickly. It'll be a nice challenge for my colour scheme work too.

The Grotesque is a creepy, impressive piece of work that will fit nicely into my army and I'm looking forward to painting it. The Finecast production is what lets it down in my view. The mould lines run over places that are hard to clean up, the vents/flash from the resin are in terrible places from a detail point of view and I've got bubbles that affect detail and in one case (that I've noticed so far) actually impact the stability of the glue joint. There are lots of small spikes of resin flash that I cut off but sometimes they extend from the top of protruding pieces, which means you have to work hard not to cut off actual detail when you're removing the flash. I'm going to have to use greenstuff to fix and in some cases resculpt aspects of the model.

So here is the question. 

• How many errors would you accept before you got in touch with GW to look for replacement? 
• Would receiving the models as a gift change your opinion on the above?
• If you've got three models with errors but could probably cobble together good models from the bits would you contact GW?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the above. I don't like to abuse such a good customer service policy as GW offers but then again I don't think charging such high prices for models when they are some serious production issues making the model look bad are good either.

Thanks for reading and for anyone who read the review and wants to know more about whether the models are worth it then keep watching the blog as I go about assembling and painting.

All the best

Pete

PS: I noticed another bubble in the bicep of one model, which is not something that can easily be ignored. Such a shame.

Warlord Games has a great sale on

Hi folks,

Very quiet from me on the hobby front recently for all sorts of good reasons, the main one being that my wife and I recently purchased an apartment here in Bratislava and there are oodles of things to worry about and work on. That combines nicely with the start of a new teaching year to mean I'm pretty slammed and busy.

Nonetheless I'm slowly soldiering on with my painting and have even managed to get a few games in. More on that in due course.

Now, though, NEWSFLASH!

Warlord Games has a 50% off sale on its individual sprues of plastic models. Check it out in this link that I'm providing. They seem to have all of their core games covered.

For me it was a great chance to add some Bolt Action figures to my force so that I can have more extensive game experiences. Just as a heads up, here are some savings.

25 Commandos in a box    = 22.50 GBP
25 Commandos on sprues = 16.75 GBP

25 US Infantry in a box    = 22.50 GBP
25 US infantry on sprues = 16.75 GBP

25 Germans in a box    = 22.50 GBP
25 Germans on sprues = 19.75 GBP   *The bases are separate here. I included a set of 50, 25 will be spare

40 Russians in a box    = 28 GBP
40 Russians on sprues = 19.75 GBP  *The bases are separate here. I included a set of 50, 25 will be spare

Not bad deals by any stretch of the imagination.