Necrons!

Games Workshop has updated their Advance Orders page with Necron goodies.  I seriously think this is the coolest looking release so far. 

Here are the items I like:

Ghost Ark

Command Barge

 Deathmarks

40K Neotube - Hammers of War

Some film students a SAIT Polytechnic put together a 17 minute documentary about Warhammer 40K.  Specifically it looked at a tournament in Canada, that pitted the forces of the Emperor against the forces of Horus.  It featured footage of the games, and interviews with participants and organizers.

The film is notable for a couple reasons.  First it is completely non-judgmental.  It doesn't put the gamers in a negative light, nor does it react when someone might say something potentially embarrassing.  In fact it shows gamers as well spoken people who play the game as much for the hobby and competitiveness as for the social aspect of the game.

Normally I would embed this movie in this post, but embedding has been disabled so go enjoy the movie.  I found it to be a good piece that really puts gamers and the game we love in a pretty good light.

Battle Report 10/17/00-10/21/11

This.  This is how 40K is supposed to be.  Fun.  Competitive.  Suspenseful.  Intense.  Aggressive.  I've had some good games.  I've had some not so good games.  Never have I had a game that was clearly anyone's to win right up until the end.  This was a game where we each had bad rolls, but the dice were not an issue.  The deciding factors were the strategic and tactical decisions we made, and how we used our forces, not the fickle whims of the dice gods...well except for ONE fickle whim.

My buddy Steve spent the week working the graveyard shift, and was home during the day.  As he lives about 5 minutes from where I work it was another opportunity to get together and game.  These weekly games are quite interesting.  We split the game up into hour long blocks.  Monday is usually setup, with Tuesday - Friday being the actual rolling of dice.  What makes it interesting, is that with the carry over, we spend a lot of time thinking about the game, so we are really prepared for our moves.  Each of us was devising game plans and strategies throughout the week that we would apply with great intent when lunchtime hit.

As is natural for us, Steve played his Blood Ravens, I played my Orks.  We decided to throw a wrinkle into the game by trying out some home-brew Blood Raven rules.  Blood Ravens like their Librarians, but rather than allow them to field a bunch of Librarians, we allowed Steve to upgrade his Tactical Marine Sergeants to be Sgt. Librarians.  They each had access to one Librarian skill, but not the biggies (Gates of Infinity and Vortex of Doom).  Each Sgt. Librarian cost an additional 50 points.  I'm not sure this really played out in this game, but the thinking is that by giving the Sergeants limited Librarian skills it reflects the progression of Space Marines through the ranks of the Librarian heavy Blood Ravens without causing substantial game balance issues.

Another note on our lists.  We went 1500 points, and surprisingly both of us didn't bring any type of Walkers.  Normally Steve has some sort of Dreadnought in his army, and I rarely run without either the Deff Dread and/or Killa Kans.  This was not something that we planned ahead of time, it's just an interesting coincidence.

Hit the jump for the turn by turn recount of the action.

40K Neotube - Order. Unity. Obedience.

Games Workshop has released this teaser of things to come.

More specifically things to come on 10/29/11.

Most specifically Necrons.

40K Neotube - Tau Commander DLC

Awwww yeah, boy!  The developers of Dawn of War II - Retribution have released a Developer Diary announcing a new hero for The Last Stand, the Tau Commander.

Now on the table top I hate the Tau.  Their strengths are the Orks weakness.  Plus they're played by my mortal in-game nemesis, James.  But in The Last Stand?  Not only do I love the idea of seeing a commander for them, but I'm hoping this is the door the Tau need to get into Retribution, proper.

Hit the jump to check out the diary, and see some gameplay footage of the Tau Commander that is literally sopping wet from all the Awesome Sauce it was dipped in.

Is That Wht That Rule Says? - No Retreat!

It's been a while since I've updated the blog.  Mostly because after selling my soul to my wife so I could go to the last big game day we had, I've owed her A LOT.  Combine with that the fact I'm a huge Detroit sports fan and I've had a surplus of sports to watch (as of this writing my beloved Tigers are down 3-1 in the ALCS against Texas, my beloved Lions are 5-0 for the first time since '56, and my beloved Red Wings have started the new season), it's made finding time to write...difficult.

As a side note, several of my gaming buddies are going to be really annoyed that I sullied 40K talk with sports.  However last time I checked this was my blog, so suck it Steve and Jason.

Anyway, back to 40K rules, during our last gaming session No Retreat! became an issue.  See I've never claimed to be good at this game, actually if you ask some people I suck.  And that includes the rules.  Some I've misinterpreted and some I've just plain forgotten about.  No Retreat! is one of those rules.  It was one of those situations where the rule wasn't applied one game because I forgot about it, and later the mistake was found and it was applied from that point on.  Needless to say when you don't expect a rule like that it can hurt....a lot.  Then after that, to add insult to injury, I applied the rule wrong to the rest of my games.

Am I an idiot when it comes to the rules?  Yeah.  But that's why I do these articles so other people can correct me, and for making sure anyone who's coming close to my stupidity in the rules (because I don't expect anyone to match my rules retardation) gets the help they need.

Hit the jump for more.