Dreadfleet gameplay thoughts. Sorry no pics.

Hey all,

Recently I managed to find a couple of hours to play some Dreadfleet and see how the game actually pans out when it hits the tabletop. Sadly I forgot to take my camera to the game (despite putting it on the counter) and so there are no pictures. Still, a brief look at what we experienced of the game so far is still nice to see.

Three of us played the fifth scenario in the Dreadfleet play list. This is the same one that was featured for a turn on the GW website prior to the game's release. It was a good challenge since we had our first game with 9 ships on the field in total but all three of us are 40k and/or fantasy players who've been around miniature games for quite a while.

Once you get the hang of the turn pattern, the game plays nice and quickly. Its biggest shift if you're used to GW games is the alternating model activation concept. Starting with the player who wins initiative for the turn, the two sides take it in turn activating ships and running through an entire set of actions with that ship, then the other player goes. It gives some nice tactical implications to the game since you can clear the movement path for your ships and combine attacks if you play your ships in the right order. Of course your opponent can alter that with their plans so you have to keep on your toes a bit.

In a nutshell, each ship gets to issue an order (full speed ahead, repair, hard a port etc.), move, fire a broadside and then fight a boarding action if they are in base contact. You're even able to fire on a separate target even if you are locked into a boarding action that is ongoing. It's a nice touch that keeps all of the ships valuable while they are on the field, especially if they get locked into boarding actions and can't escape from them. In our game, my ship ended up fighting off boarding actions from two ships, attacking back to the one in front and then firing at the one to its flank.

The Fate deck seems to be a much maligned around the interwebs as it brings in random events and moves the wind counter around the table. I think it has been somewhat exaggerated in its power, though I suppose with a particularly strong draw of cards, you could produce big effects (somewhat like drawing a straight flush in poker at the start of the game). Basically you draw a fate card per player, per turn and resolve both. Our game was six turns long, though we ended on turn 4 I believe so a total of 8 fate cards were played. They gave some boosts to shooting, damaged one or two ships slightly and generally made the game more fun and crazy to play.

The changing wind counter was also not as powerful as I thought it might be. In the course of our game it started in the middle of one long edge, then move to one short edge, onto the next long edge then back to the short edge. Certainly not a massive gameplay shift though it did have implications as my flagship ended up failing a command check at the end and being unable to move enough to get out of the path of my opponents' flagship and fleet. Quite a dramatic end to the game all in all.

In essence, the elf warship made a run for it but was gunned down by the combined Dreadfleet. The Black Kraken (mecha-squid) was then tied up and battered to pieces over several turns by two ships on my opponents' side, my tomb kings ship got flattened by the enemy flagship. The skaven ship was fired upon from all angles and finally went down to the surviving elf dragon auxiliary. In the end, my Vampire Lord flagship did the most damage, sinking two enemy ships before finally being sunk.

MVP award goes to the Dwarf dirigible auxiliaries who, despite only getting one dice of broadside per turn, managed to make my flagship list badly for a turn (no firing), killed the first mate (lowering my command score), started a fire in the powder room (draw D3+1 damage cards if you don't roll 3+ at the start of the turn) and finally put the final point of damage on the titanic warship, sinking it right after it sank the alliance flagship.


So my feelings on Dreadfleet?

It's a good game. The models are excellent quality, the game is fun, it plays differently do other GW stuff but that's fine, it's self contained and it doesn't take itself too seriously. The price is a bit high but in general, it gets a thumbs up from me. It's not a wargame, it's not competing with Spartan Games or the like, it won't be further supported but you will have a good time playing it.

All the best,

Pete

Dreadfleet unboxing.

So Dreadfleet arrived and I got to experience the fun and excitement of opening a new boxed game again. I've not managed any assembly yet but I had a great rummage through all the plastic bits checking out the details and also have read the rulebook.

Everything that comes in the box spread out on the bed. Mmm new game :-)

So here is the game spread out and making a mess on the bed in our apartment (NB: Tolerant girlfriend helps here). There is a lot of stuff in the box and the actual box is both deeper than and made of sturdier cardboard than I recall the AOBR box being.

The ship sprues

The ships are impressively detailed. If you haven't already had a look at the sprue pictures on GW's website, then go and browse through them. It's been said around the blogosphere and forums that Dreadfleet really showcases the quality of GW's injection moulding technology and I tend to agree with that. Whatever you think of the aesthetics of the Dreadfleet models, you can deny that they have produced some very detailed pieces that fit together extremely well. My favourite parts are the top decks where they have tiny little cannons that fit to the gunwales very well. The Skaven cannons even have power cables since they are warp lightning cannons and that is some very small detail.

Rulebook, card decks, dice and the top of the big terrain sprue.

The rulebook and cards are both nicely printed. The colour layout and many diagrams of the book are to be expected from GW offerings, along with a generous helping of John Blanche's artwork and pictures of the models and terrain in the GW studio. The cards are quite thin but seem good quality so far. We'll see how well they stand up to play. I like that there are a bundle of plastic zipper bags inside the box so you can put all of your loose cards in together and make sure things don't get lost. I recommend getting a few small elastic bands to keep the different decks (Fate, damage, status, auxiliary etc.) together.

The gaming mat spread out on a normal single bed.

So the game mat. This is a very nice thing to have and I look forward to seeing how the ships look on it once I get them assembled and some layers of paint added. The material is a thin, feels silky and folds away nicely. I think it is about 5'x3' but here you can see it spread out over a regular single bed. You won't be short of playing space for your ships this game, that's for sure.

My girlfriend modelling the mat as a sarong (while remaining anonymous lol).

While she declined to show her face to my blog readers, my girlfriend did comment on how nice the mat was and her intentions to use it as a summer sarong if I get bored with Dreadfleet and don't want to play any more.



Well that's all for now folks. Sadly I left my clippers in the UK with some other modelling gear so I'll have to pick up a new set (plus some spray primer) before I get started on assembly. Some of the pieces are very fine and you want to be careful when removing them from the sprues.

More thoughts on the rulebook and other stuff soon.

All the best

Pete

PS: My girlfriend has started asking about her playing the game with me and is interested in painting one or more of the ships. Methinks I have a winner here ;-)

I bought Dreadfleet. Yarrr me hearties.

Taking to the High Seas




Well despite being on the bandwagon and not being happy about GW using resources to produce the non-expandable and non-standard scale naval game that is Dreadfleet, I ended up buying it.

Quite the dichotomy it would seem. I'll admit that it took me some time to be swayed over to actually purchasing Dreadfleet and there were a number of factors that got me interested. Here's a short list.

- The game looks fun.
- I have limited free time to play now that I'm teaching full time and at funny hours. This game is self contained and so easier to organise.
- I've come to like some of the models and the included terrain is really neat.
- I want variety from painting Deathwing models and these ships are all quirky and different.
- I love the gaming mat
- In a way I quite like a game that doesn't tempt me into buying more models.


The Skaven Ship monster is very cool.


I like the styling of the flagships.


I like the islands with extra scenery bits on top. The skull ones are OK but this one and the fortress one I'm in much in favour of.


Now I'm not going to argue in favour of this release as a long term naval wargame compared to Spartan Games. They are different things and satisfy different markets. I might even pick up some SG fleets and use this battlemat to make a good-looking playing surface.

I was also considering picking up the Warmachine two player starter set (for about the same money) when this was all released and that did have me tempted. In a twist of fate, the very fact that the game is expandable put me off the WM set. I just don't have the time or money to invest in it to the level I want to right now and I'd rather get a good fun game to enjoy than be constantly wishing I could field the force I'd like to in a WM game.

From a painting point of view, I'm also keen to try something new compared to 28mm level figures. The thought of painting up armies in consistent colour schemes isn't that appealing to me at the moment since I'm stuck into the Deathwing right now. I want to have fun painting these ships in radically different colours and styles.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'll be sure to post up pictures when the set arrives and give you all a good look at the game, plus thoughts on how it plays out.

All the best

Pete

PS: I'm not stopping general wargaming by any means, just reorganising priorities based on the time I have to put towards them.

PPS: Next on the blog list is a big series on the utility, or lack thereof, of the different battleforce sets for 40k gaming.

How white is bone? Deathwing painting help please!

Hey everyone,

I really need some help and thoughts with respect to painting up the bone armour of the Deathwing. I have thus far painted most of my models in three stages:

- Bone white spray
- sepia wash
- highlighting with Menoth White base.

Now I started to paint up the next layer of highlighting with Menoth White Highlight and had a pause. Do you think it is too bright of a jump or should I continue to do this with the other Deathwing models?

L-R: Bone spray, sepia wash, menoth base, menoth highlight

It is possible of course for me to mix the base and highlight colours to have something in between but that carries the penalty of mixing paint to the same level for 27 terminator figures. I'm not sure if I have the patience for that haha.

Please pass on your thoughts so I can decide how I'll brighten up my models (or not).

Much appreciated.

Pete

Bringing out the Dark Kin from Commoragh

Hi everyone,

So now that my Deathwing force is well into the painting stage, is complete at 1500 and just needs a couple of units to make it to 1750 (see other post), I'd like to talk about another army entirely.

Deathwing are, to me, the epitome of a durable, slowly moving elite force. There aren't many of them so you have to concentrate your attacks carefully but they will weather a storm of fire, never run since they are fearless and will often surprise you with just how long they can plough through the opposition when the chips are down. You can trust in your 2+ armour and 3+/5+ invulnerable saves all while gunning the opposition down with storm bolters, assault cannons and cyclones, or pulping them in assault with lightning claws, power fists and thunder hammers.

If Deathwing are the proverbial brick outhouse, now I want to have a try with the glass cannon that is the Dark Eldar army.

This might just be the most awesome cannon ever :-)


I've really enjoyed the tactical challenge of having to carefully consider each and every move I make with my small, elite Deathwing force and from all counts, playing a mechanised Dark Eldar force brings many of the same thinking challenges. Knowing that you are very vulnerable to shooting and assault from pretty much anything in the game makes me feel like I'll have to have razor focus all the time. Now that can be a tiring way to play but it is exhilarating too.

So having read a few tactica articles on Dakka and considered the kind of army I'd like to play here is my 1500point army list.

HQ
- Haemonculus.
- Haemonculus.

Elites
- 3 Trueborns with blasters in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)
- 3 Trueborns with blasters in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)
- 5 Incubi in a Dakka Venom (two splinter cannons)

Troops

- 7 Wracks with an Agoniser wielding acothyst in a Raider (flickerfield, aethersails, shock prow).

- 7 Wyches, haywire grenades, razorflails, Hekatrix with agoniser in a raider (configured as above)

- 7 Wyches, haywire grenades, razorflails, Hekatrix with agoniser in a raider (configured as above)

Heavy Support

- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield
- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield
- Ravager, 3 Dark Lances and Flickerfield


NB: To bring this up to 1750, I'd probably add another Haemonculus and ten Kabalite warriors in a Raider.

Rargh! We've come for your souls.


Army Selection Thoughts

Despite the tasty selection of characters in the codex I decided to start off with cheap Haemonculi to bring some paint tokens. With one token I get FNP, two tokens give me furious charge and three make me fearless. The first one is really key for a fragile dark eldar army and will make my Wyches even nastier in assault. I'll probably put one with each wyche squad.

For the elite selection I knew I wanted some nasty shooting and assault ability. The blaster trueborn are a tried and tested way to kill off tanks and terminators. Putting them in a dakka venom lets me move 6" and fire 3 blasters plus 12 poisoned splinter cannon shots out to 36". If I need to move 12" I still get to unleash the dakka since poisoned weapons always count as defensive. I added Incubi because the models are really nice and they will let me take out armoured foes or those with FNP that I don't want my wyches tied up against.

For the troops I started with wracks who bring their own pain token. With poisoned weapons they can put a nice hurting on an enemy in assault. I see these as being effective troops to tie up the more basic enemy forces that I don't want my wyches engaging or to sit on an objective if needed. The wyches are nasty assault units that can kill off enemies with the agoniser, threaten tanks with haywire grenades (possibly on turn one if the opponent deploys on the 12" line) and tie up big assault units because of their CC invulnerable save.

All of my raiders get a flickerfield (5+ invul) since they'll be in danger most of the game, aethersails to make sure I get a turn 2 assault, redeploy rapidly or tank shock at speed, and a shock prow in order to make tank shocks. It not only adds a threat to armour but lets me tank shock units to put them in a good position for controlling the number of models who can hit me back.

The ravagers are tank and heavy infantry hunters. Because they can move 12" and still fire all three weapons I think it will be very tough for a foe to stop me getting side armour shots. Also it lets me redeploy a lot of force very quickly that can reach out and touch hard at range.


The downside

So while this is an exciting army idea I hope to get started on soon, the inevitable downside is pricing. GW has made it quite costly to mechanise your army and having to shell out some £20 for each raider, £18 for each venom and £30 per Ravager makes it a big investment, even before I put troops in them.

Still it's a nice project to look forward to.

Thoughts, criticism and jokes all very much welcomed

Pete :-)

Taking the Deathwing up to 1750 points

Hi everyone,

So my Deathwing army painting is progressing at a decent pace now that I've gotten myself settled in Bratislava and been able to unpack. One of my new coworkers at the language school is also a 40k player and will be introducing me to the gaming club here soon.

The army as it is so far.

I'm happy with the way that the models are turning out so far. I need to test out some highlighting as I'm not sure how much more I want to brighten up the bone armour and how extensively. Should I just do edge highlights with a brighter shade (I used Menoth White Base so I can do Menoth White Highlight next) or should I look to brighten up the armour more in general? Not sure on that one yet so I'll be doing a test on one of the grunt models before I apply it to Lysander/Belial/etc.

Now the army comes out to just over 1500 points with upgrades and I hear that a lot of people here game at 1750 so I want to increase my army size a bit. With 215-230 points (depending on upgrades) to play with I have some options. I don't really want to add more terminators since the current lot are such a mix of styles (GK, SM and SW) and I like the variety. Plus I already have 27 terminators to paint and I don't need more ;-)

I've been thinking about one of the new venerable dreadnought kits and the techmarine with servitors. I know the latter is not a power unit by any means but I've always liked the model and now that it's in the easily-assembled Finecast format, it's something I can consider. Superglue still hates me but the lack of weight on the Finecast means even I can assemble the models.

Some groovy venerable dreadnoughts


A good picture of the Finecast techmarine from the always excellent 40kbitz blog. Go and follow it ;-)


Any thoughts or advice for boosting the army? I'd like to keep everything in the same bone-white though I don't mind painting Ravenwing in that colour if land speeder is the way forward.

If only Sammael on Jetbike was available in Finecast, he'd be on my list for sure :-)

Thanks for reading,

Pete

PS: The other option is to leave the army at 1500 and move onto my new crush of a Dark Eldar Skimmer army. More to come on this soon ;-)

PPS: I got my new Windsor and Newton brushes as a birthday present to myself (27 years young and still playing with toy soldiers).
Deathwing Lysander approves of my new brushes!

WFB Orcs and Goblins using just a sprinkle of GW for flavour. Pt 3: The army list

Ok, time for the final part of my making an Orcs and Goblins army post series.

Here is the model list from the last post. Now it's time to point it up roughly and see what it comes to.

- Warboss on boar
- 40 Black Orcs
- 10 Boar Boyz
- 75 Orc Boyz
- 60 Night Goblins
- 2 Speak Chukkas
- Giant
- Arachnarok spider


Lords
1x Black orc warboss on boar = 160pts


Core Units

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

25x Orc Boyz with shields, boss, musician and standard = 175pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts

20x Night Goblin archers, boss, musician and standard = 90pts


Special Units

20x Black Orcs, shields, boss, musician and standard = 295pts

20x Black Orcs, shields, boss, musician and standard = 295pts

10x Boar Boyz, Big Uns, Shields, boss, musician and standard = 255pts

2x Goblin Spear Chukkas = 70pts


Rare Units

1x Arachnarok Spider, flinger = 320pts

1x Giant = 200pts


Total army points as shown = 2390pts


So there you have an army that comes out to just about 2500 points. I don't know WFB that well but I understand that magic plays a solid part in it these days so perhaps some points tweaking to include some shamans would be a good idea.

That's all from me for now. If I get the time and funds to kickstart this project I'll be sure to keep you all in the loop with how it goes.

Thanks for reading.

Pete :-)