Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine Now Available for Pre-order

I'm not sure when it went available, or when the release date was pushed back to September, but the good news is that the game is now available for pre-order from Steam.  Not only that, but the pre-order includes the game Darksiders, and more importantly the Blood Ravens chapter pack.  I'm not sure how that chapter pack will work, but I'm glad to see it.  For my money the rightful chapter that should be featured in a Relic 40K game should be the Blood Ravens.  Not that the Ultramarines are bad (they are the face of the 40K franchise for Games Workshop), but the Blood Ravens are the face of the 40K franchise in the video game realm.  So huzzah to Relic for making them available for the game.

40K Neotube - My Little Space Marines

I'm not sure how many of you have seen the My Little Pony mashups that have been going around.  Well somebody decided to mash up the trailer for Space Marine with footage from My Little Ponies:  Friendship is Magic.

All I can say is In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only ponies...and friendship..and magic...and war...

Discussing Terrain

I played a round of 40K back on April 9 with some of the guys in my 40K circle, and as is wont for a group of people who are passionate about their hobby we spent quite a bit of time discussing the game after it was done.  Most of our discussion was in chat rooms as we bandied about different ways we would have handled different situations, or bemoaned how the dice were so blatantly in love with James and Connor, among other observations and critiques of the game.  At one point, and I don't have a log of our conversation to remember what exactly I said, I commented that the terrain we placed played right into the strategies employed by James and Connor.  They both had very shooty armies, and with wide open fire lanes and extensive line of sight, it really helped them out.

This really got me thinking about terrain, and the importance of it.  The rules call for 25% of the board having mixed terrain, I think we had about 20% of the board covered last time we played.  Not only that, but the terrain pieces we used were fairly short and unless you were directly behind a piece did not do much to block LOS or give much cover.

This came up again after one of the guys read this blog article on terrain.  Now, normally I'm not one to post to another blog outside of my sidebar links (after all this site pretty much has barely enough room for my hot air), but this guy made some really interesting points.  My favorite notion is the idea of measuring out 25% of the board and filling it with terrain and then placing it around the board.  Our group normally does terrain as part of setup, with each team/player alternating to add terrain until we have coverage we are happy with - Probably around 15-20% of the board.  My thinking is next time we play each team/player alternates placing terrain in the allocated 25%, and then alternates moving the terrain out to fill out the board.

Think about it, non-shooty/assault heavy armies get cover so they aren't so easily destroyed just trying to maneuver to attack, and shooty armies can maximize shooting lanes making enemy units pay dearly for leaving cover.

How do you guys handle terrain?  I'm curious what other ways people utilize terrain, or how other people handle adding terrain to the boards.

I Proclaim My Ork Trukk Complete

I spent a good 20 hours working on my Ork Trukk, and it's finally finished.  I think it came out pretty good, but I'm most pleased with how customizable I made it.  I wanted my Trukk to conform to the WYSIWYG rules, but still allow me to add and remove components to fit it into what points I could allot the Trukk.

I also learned some more and refined my painting/dipping process...which is always a good thing.

Working on the Trukk, I realized the biggest influence on how I painted and pieced it together was the Ramshackle Rule.  It's a special rule for the Orks on how to handle a vehicle destroyed or vehicle explodes hit to the Trukk, and I just wanted the Trukk to look as ramshackle as it could.  Here's what I did to customize the Trukk:

• Added a piece of a rokkit from a stormboy to the back of the trukk (just for cosmetics)
• Magnetized the boarding planks to be removable
• Magnetized the wreckin' ball to be removable
• Magnetized the reinforced ram
• Cybork'd the driver when one of the arms came up missing (I blame my cat)
• Added hooks to the armour plates for easy attachment
• Cut off and reglued the skull on the radiator to make it more crooked
• Misaligned the bars in the cab to make it look more off kilter

The only 2 customizations I made permanent were the red paint job (by the very nature of it) and the stikkbomb chucker (because I forgot it was a customization and so it got pinned to the side of the trukk).  I may go back and change that, but for now I'll leave it as it is.

I have a slew of pictures after the jump, so hit it and enjoy the show.  And of course any feedback (positive or negative) is always appreciated.

FOUND!!

For those who have followed the plight of my family with my missing sister, I have some good news.  She was found alive in Joliet, IL suffering from amnesia, and was identified today.  Police found her, released her photo, and a friend of a friend recognized her from the missing person flyer we had posted on Facebook.

I want to thank everyone for all the kind words and prayers.  And I really want to thank all of you for your patience as I've had other things on my mind than 40K.

We have a lot to work through (the amnesia, her last 3 weeks, why she left in the first place, and the ramifications of her being a missing person), but the biggest concerns have been resolved.  Yes she's alive, and yes we know where she is at now.

I'm Not Ignoring The Blog

Just in case anyone thinks otherwise, I'm not ignoring the blog.  After my visit with family over the Easter weekend I felt good.  The time with family, speaking with investigators, and seeing the Dollar General my Sister was last seen at sort of gave a sense of closure.  Well, not closure, but I have this feeling I will never see my sister again.  I want to know where she is, and I want to know why, how, and what happened.  But I've reached a place where I've accepted that I likely never will.  I'm not giving up, and I'm not giving in...but I have been able to move on.  And so, after I came back from Georgia I needed a bit of time to process everything, and then I started working on my Trukk again.  The cab is done, the bed is done, the front end and the boarding planks are in process.  I can see the finish line.

And so I'm focused on finishing that up so I can post pictures galore, of everything I did with my trukk.  What I did to customize it, and what I did to adapt it so I can equip certain things as needed.  Will I have it done by the end of the week?  I'm not sure, but if I don't post anything next week then I'm making a big push to finish it and blogging will recommence when  I have finished it.