Almost Honest - Saturday 24th October 2009

Remember when I said I wasn’t going to buy a Space Wolf army just yet? If you can’t then scroll down a bit, it’s there in black and white.

Today I took a trip to Hereford Games Workshop. As always it was great chatting to Liam Richards, the Hereford Store Manager. It was great to catch up on the changes in the shop too, new scenery, new miniatures and as always lots of tempting new stuff on the shelves to drool over.

The sultry temptress in this particular tale was a hairy, genetically engineered super human with fangs and a bolter. I always buy every codex that comes out. I love reading all the background on the new army and it’s a really cool way to get a feel for the force. So while I had lunch with my girlfriend I took a few minutes to browse the book.

The Space Wolves Codex is excellent. The artwork is top notch, the background fluff gives you a raw hunk of meaty Space Wolf flavour and the figures are full of character. I went back to Games Workshop.

I’ve decided to start my army with a Space Wolf Battleforce. The 20 Marines, 5 Scouts and Drop Pod that it provides will be an excellent base for my pack and the left over bits will allow me to recruit a few of the other unpainted Marines I’ve got hanging about too.

Time to wake Ragnar, Ulrik and Njal. Time for a new saga to be written.

Board of The City - Monday 19th October 2009

As I mentioned last month, I’ve been thinking about painting my gaming boards grey. I’ve got the grassy field of battle well and truly covered with my 2 Realm of Battle boards, but being a big fan of pitting my 40K armies against each other across a war torn cityscape I feel the need for an urban table.

I was toying with the idea of getting myself 12 2x2’ sections of board and knocking up a modular cityscape / homemade Realm of Battle board. I’ve put this plan on hold for now though, simply because storing a monster like this would be too much trouble.

So instead I’m going to work on getting my current 40K terrain attached to scenic bases with scattered rubble and debris. This should allow me the flexibility to move the pieces round and store them easily, while also adding a much more claustrophobic ‘Stalingrad’ style feel to my games.

That’s the idea… let’s see how long it takes me to get round to making it a reality :-)

Dr Dye - Monday 14th October 2009

With Martin Dye heading off into the northern wastes (Preston University) to study the dark arts our gaming group is now a player down. What does this mean for us? Well, it means a lot more wargaming for a start!

Although roleplaying is still an option with 4 players, it’s not ideal. This is especially true when you take into account the fact that the player we’d now be missing is often the clever ‘thinking one’ and often the groups only magic user.

In the grim darkness of Wednesday nights there is only war!

Battle For The Abyss - Tuesday 12th October 2009

I wasn’t really sure about this book. The blurb on the back didn’t sell it to me as well as the previous books and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when I started the first chapter.

I won’t talk about the storyline as you should buy the books and read them if you’ve ever shown a glimmer of interest in 40k. They’re really good and build a background to the games setting which adds layer after layer of amazing fluff.

Suffice to say, it took a few chapters to get going, but last night I read 5 chapters when I should’ve really been asleep.

Wolves in space! - Wednesday 7th October 2009

It's Space Wolf month.

Will I be investing in them?

Yes, but not yet.

I’ve bought quite a lot of figures lately and now my new games room is established I think it’s high time I started getting everything assembled and painted. This hasn’t stopped me from admiring the new miniatures though!

I’m a long time Space Wolf fan. Many moons ago I bought the original Ragnar, Ulrik and Njal figures along with a small Space Wolf force to accompany them. I really like the heroic imagery that goes with the chapter and it’s great seeing this aspect getting a good seeing to in the new Codex.

I think I might give my old Wolves a bit of a face lift with the new plastics. I’ve got quite a few of the lead Grey Hunters, Blood Claws and Long Fangs hanging about, but a lot of them have lost heads, arms and weapons over the years. From what I’ve seen you get a lot of spares in the new kits so perhaps this is the perfect time to get these veteran figures back in the action.