DDWG's Attack! 2010 - A Roving Report

Hi All!

The weekend just gone was Attack! 2010 our local wargame group's convention.

As usual there were tons of traders, our bring and buy, competitions, demonstration games and participation games.

As a fully paid member of DDWG i couldn't take part in the 40k competition like i did last year, so this year I donned the club's "red Shirt" (one of us.... one of us....) grabbed a camera and became a roving reporter... sort of.

a demo game in the canteen

The lads tuck into some lunch after a hard morning's sell!


This game looked fun, based in the Weird War universe, various World war II tanks take on a single walker (I believe it only lost once or twice all weekend...)
Marking the 70th anniversary of the battle of britain, a large participation game was being demonstrated, based in the Solent.



The ever popular Wings Of War was being played in the canteen, this always proves to be crowd pleaser, in part because of the simple rules system and quick gameplay, but also the enthusiasm of the guys running it.


Lots of historical games were being fought over the weekend, including this absolutely huge gaming table

Day one:


Day 2:
Another historical game

This game certainly caught my eye, a skirmish game set in the wild west, trechery and gunfights were plentiful. In this picture you may notice one particularly evil character dragging a wounded opponent into the path of a stampeding wagon.

Heres a closer look :D



The 40k Competition Raged on, in this picture: a particularly nasty Double Punisher, Double Hydra, Manticore, mechanised IG list obliterates all the sisters of battle in its path.

one of our younger lad's tyranid army rampages around some open fields

towards some rather scary looking thunderwolves

Which I managed to grab a photo of later on. they are Rat-Ogre type thingies. after chatting with the owner, he said he's decided to change their colour to remove the "rat image" and make them more werewolfey, although personally I think they are inspired as is.

the game boards were 3 abreast, encouraging much chatting and a friendly atmosphere

Plenty of alcohol flowed at the competitions, many participants bought (4 pint) jugs of beer along to each game despite feeling slightly rough from the previous night out.

Another space wolf army (there were lots of them this year) takes residence in a building.











Some Alcoholic product placement!

These gorgeously painted Daemons couldn't be missed.





Flames of War was a popular entry this year








The Fog Of War Competition was definately busy.


This was a fun looking game, it encorperated all sorts of miniatures from various companies, fighting in a future apocalyptic universe against militant factions.


A Fantastical Skirmish demo game was heavily populated by terrain and monsters.


I personally had a great time chatting with everyone, both at the show and afterwards in the pub.

here's a handy PDF file detailing the winners of all the events and some more info about our club
http://www.ddwg.org.uk/pdfs/Attack_The%20follow%20throughWEB%20version.pdf

I took the opportunity to grab some discounted GW stuff - spray paints, templates, and of course, plenty of models! (coming to a hive splinter near you!) I also grabbed some terrain from some of the other traders, which I'm planning to use at the upcoming Borlingrav game.

Cheers for dropping by!

TSINI

Spearhead - our first venture

a few months ago, the ddwg group decided to get a game of spearhead together.

apologies for the random picture quality, they are all camera phone pictures, and from 2 different people.

the scenario was simple.

5000 points per side (4 players, 2500points per player)

I'm not too sure on the name of the scenario, but one objective is worth 3 victory points (in this scenario a cross road) and the other 3 objectives are worth 1 victory point each.

Here is the imperial setup:


We were lined up ready to pounce on the 3point objective with a mechanised column of guard in chimeras. A long gunline stretching out to the right. Whilst a small armoured group flanked the orks from the rear, and a strike team of penal legionnaires was being ferried in by a vendetta with a supporting vulture. the plan literally was to keep the advancing orks at bay, then jump onto the objective towards the halfway point in the game and hold it. whilst the strike units would attempt to grab a single 1point objective, winning us the game.

The orks (not shown deployed) lined up a large armoured column to punch through the middle of the crossroad, with support from dreds and killa kans who would break from the cover of the buildings and obliterate any troops on the 3point objective. a second column of battlewagons was sallying around our left flank, and some choppas were manouvering around our left.



The big guns - 2 basilisks and an earthshaker emplacement keep well behind an armoured line of leman russ' the infantry taking cover in the trees, and setting up the heavy weaponry on the hills.

An infantry squad garrisson the earthshaker emplacement.

The lucky 88th "trackless armoured column" prepare to break forwards.

The conscripts fill one building, infantry and heavy weapon squads fill the other, with the mechanised force in the centre ready to punch onto the objective. ogryns hold the left flank.

The ork armoured column, 4 battlewagons with various support vehicles.

2 of the 1point objectives, a T junction, and a clump of trees. Rokkit boys leap forwards, only to catch several ordnance shells from combined medusa and earthshaker fire. The smaller armoured column made up of buggies and killa kans recieve insane amounts of missile, autocannon, lascannon and battle cannon fire. many arms, shootas and wheels are lost.

The third 1 point objective, a destroyed mk1 rhino.

The orks' second battle wagon column bursts onto our rear. the guardsman change into more tactical "brown camo" trousers. the last vox from the hellhound crew cannot be repeated to the general public.

Ork choppas cause mayhem behind the trackless column, but are whittled down by mass infantry fire.
The imperial flanking armour had a brief moment of glory, but were more suited to the title "a mild annoyance" distracting the rearward orks and drawing them from their objecitves.

the airborne strike team had no effect on the battle field, massed ork AA fire blew both aircraft from the sky, the penal legion bailed out in the nick of time, only to be gunned down by the war hungry orks.


The game was a while ago, so the precise result escapes me, but as far as i can piece together, the imperium made a valiant attempt to hold the orks at bay, regardless, the orks burst through onto the crossroads, contesting the 3point objective.

imperial strike forces had made a decent attempt at taking an ork objective, which merely resulted in the removal of ork forces from those objectives by forcing them to re-locate. however the orks stil held at least one uncontested objective. winning them the game, and sending the imperium sulking away with their tails between their legs.


Some more assorted shots.




There will be another spearhead held on the 20th, which i intend to get some more detailed shots of, photography practice if you will for the Battle of Borlingrav weekend game at the end of the month.

All in all, there are some interesting new ideas and tactics which spearhead brings to the game.

for example, it gives an apocalypse feel, to a game which still requires standard Force organisation, meaning you still have to create a working army to fill out points, but you can go mental with the armoured columns - for "free"(FOC wise) which is fantastic fun, without being "too open" which basic apocalypse can be.

cheers

TSINI

Time for the BIG GUNS!!

Hi guys, it's been a while.

some of you may have seen my latest project go up on hive splinter borlin

As for the Imperial guard... well i haven't been completely on target. instead of furvently painting the masses of models i intended to do. i got distracted.

here is the distraction:




Yes it's a baneblade. I do need some inspiration for this vehicle mind.

1. Colour scheme - I was going to paint this grey, to match the lucky 88th vehicles. but i've added a commissar to the top hatch, it's difficult to see but the driver just has his head exposed from the right hand hatch, and the commissar is weilding his sword from the left hatch. The lucky 88th are full of commissars, they are everywhere, so to take the "commissar crew" option was a no-brainer. it's just that you are supposed to paint commissar vehicles black, and i abhor the idea of leaving this tank an undercoated black. it just looks tacky and horrible, even with skull decoration and such. so my conunderum, do i paint it grey, possibly with black sections marked with the commissariat skulls, or do i try painting it black...
2. Naming the beast - what the hell do I call this vehicle? I originally had not planned to include a baneblade - therefore had only come up with names for the superheavies I did plan to buy. they were:

• Winter's Sword - Shadowsword.
• Reigning Fire - Stormblade.
• Bastion of Borlingrav - Malcador Defender.
• The Alamo - Stormlord.
• "Razor +" - Macharius Vulcaniun.

So I could steal one of these names for the baneblade, or come up with something along similar lines. I was thinking of something along the lines of "injustice" or "redemption" "salvation" "deliverance" (daninang neng nang neng nang neng nang) "liberator"

these are all along the right lines

3. Modifications - One thing thats present in all of my vehicles is a slight modification. whether it's simply bolting on forgeworld parts, or building a little extra onto it. the aim of this army is to be interesting to look at. little extras that you can find on every model which make them individual. the only thing i've managed to do with the baneblade is slightly angle the antennae back. i want to do something more impressive. possbily a giant dozerblade or something of that sort. it just looks "out of the box" at the moment. i'm also considering stealing the Speaker system from my executioner and giving it to the baneblade. whilst this will take away some individuality from my executioner, it will definately give the commissar a nice loudhaler to shout his imperial doctrine from!

Any help at all with these points will be much appreciated!

_________________________________________________________________

This is what i've been working on the past few months:

Inquisitor Payne and Retinue

bear in mind I haven't read any 40k inquisition codex, I am simply building these in pure fluff'o'vision I'll most likely make an Apocalypse formation / Datasheet combo which incorporates everything as a special unit.

The Servo Skulls:

This servitor from the Inquisitor Soloman Loq model was a little bugger to get together, and ended in me snapping the supporting scroll, but as you can see he's together and looking studious!

I am totally astounded with the quality of the casts with these tiny models, especially when you look at the amount of correcting needed on my rough riders, these were perfect!
These servitors are a pack of 4 (bargain for such cool models) 2 with clamps and 2 with mini flamers - they came in 3(!!) parts; the "body", the gun/clamp arm and the second tiny teeny weeny arm which i must have dropped multiple times for each model, be warned, not for the easily frustrated :D

The servitor
A very nice model to put together, body, backpack and 1 hand to glue, and bam instant detailed companion for the inquisitor

Maverick "Inferno"

Inquisitor Payne dabbles in many diabolical and dark artifacts, needing the protection of a powerful psycher. This is the Inquisitor scale (54mm) version of "Inferno"

And here is my 40k scale version - a model from Anima Tactics, hes actually 30mm scale, so will look tall compared to a GW model, but due to his slender figure, he actually looks just that, like a tall person. Firsty I built him a staff from various GW bits.



Next up a bit of greenstuff to fill the gaps, and a cobbled together backpack





Since this picture was taken I found by pure chance (I have more than 5 bitz boxes and a whole rack of trays filled with bits) an Adeptus Mechanicus symbol. I didn't even know I had one (I think it must be a piece left from my Inquisitor "Krieger Crash Thrax" model), but it fits the front of the book perfectly


Inquisitor Payne
The main man himself, Here he is in Inqusitor 54mm scale:


And here he is in 40k scale

I have loved the Inquisitor Soloman Loq model since I first saw it, and for £10 (with servo skull) it was a must have.
As you can see I've given him his trademark "brutal" chainsword, made from 3 hacked apart space marine chainswords.



I've never based a model on a stone before, and seeing that Inferno is such a tall model, i decided to go for it for such a special character to prevent him having a "short guy complex" standing alongside his psycher friend.

and here you can see the chainsword with extra "engine parts"
As you can see i've given his sword some coverings, mainly to cover up the joints, but also to prevent him chopping off his own head when weilding such a large weapon in this manner.

I must confess here, I may have gone a little loco, I drilled a hole into the inquisitor's belt and glued in a magnet... I figured i'd start making some strange devices and weapons, magnetise them then I can pick and choose the loadout for themed 40k games or for 40k scale inquisitor games.

all that is needed now is a lick of paint!


The Secret Project

I will leave the main project a secret. Partly because I haven't started it yet, and partly because it will be fun to reveal it at the game at the end of the month.

The big game

Yep, it's not long now, I'm going to have to start a recruitment drive for it soon or it'll just be me and the usual suspects playing an extra long game of 40k.

it's been set for the 31st july and 1st august. I will be documenting the game fully on this blog so watch this space the following week.

Attack 2010

A local wargaming event in my hometown of Devizes (17th and 18th july) get in touch if you are interested in wandering around. If I remember rightly its a few quid to get in (like £3) and there are tons of traders, participation games. more info can be found here http://www.ddwg.org.uk/

Other projects

Some other things I've been working on

• vendetta - my 1 built vendetta is getting there. the main fusilage needs finishing, but the wings, guns and engines are all painted up nicely. I am not looking forward to building the second one whenever i get around to it.
• Command squad - I'm having massive problems fitting them with carapace armour. so far any attempt at "shinguards and elbow-to-wrist pads" have just looked awfull. I just don't have the greenstuff skills to pull it off nicely.

Next post will be a quick rundown of a humongous spearhead game we had a couple of weeks ago - assuming i can get the pictures off of my dodgy phone.


Right, back to "work" I guess!!

Cheers for dropping by

TSINI