It finally happened.
First let me thank you for your patience. I have been away from the blog a bit (though very hard at work) while the wife and I transplanted everyone, dog, babies, and all, even the plants, at the end of last month. It’s been an intense but wildly rewarding ordeal.
My new (and glorious?) nerd space remains an absolute ruin… but it is my hobby space reborn at long last! It will be tremendous, I am confident, but presently it is a shambolic assemblage of boxes and mayhem with a dehumidifier in the corner. Perhaps as importantly, the internet is up and working, and I am back on your screen. It’s good to be here again. Thanks for having me.
Unfortunately, in darkest depths of one the aforementioned boxes, my camera has been securely secreted –too securely, in fact. I cannot, for the life of me, find it. And so I must enact that dreadful sin that I once promised I would never commit. I am posting picture taken with my camera phone. I tried to doctor the images somewhat to make them less abrasive, but I am reasonably certain that the results are worse than the originals. Where are you, camera?!
Apologies for the terrible photos.
Well. My very kind friend and (now reasonably near) neighbor Chris popped round to break in the basement and walk me through my very first game of 6th edition. This is a very promising turn of events. I love Chicago, but it can be a hobby wasteland at times.
As for 6th… I loved it.
Of course, there were a few bumps. We spent a small amount of time with our noses in the book and, to be candid, I forgot a bit here and there –my Warlord trait for example was established then immediately ignored. I cannot even remember what it was called, and certainly do not have the foggiest notion of what it was meant to contribute to my force. More’s the pity. I’m sure it would have come in handy somewhere.
Still, despite the noob jitters, the game itself was tremendous. I had a blast. We played at 1000pts, which worked far better, and was far more exciting than I would have anticipated. Credit to the game here, and I just recently read an article by Fritz on this very topic. Check it out if you haven’t already.
I really dig the new mission generation system and found the exchange genuinely engaging and impressive. It’s a great mechanism. I really enjoyed the victory point conditions and found that it made the game much more dynamic than any non-houserules version of 40K that I have seen to date.
In a word. Glorious.
I brought my Necrons against Chris’s Nurgle CSM. I basically cobbled everything that I have both painted and unboxed into a reasonable force as follows:
Destroyer Lord -and some techno goodies
2x 10 Warriors –the meat of the matter
5 Immortals -because that’s all I have right now.
5 Deathmarks -to look threatening and accomplish very, very little.
4 Wraiths -to bodyguard the Lord and eat otherwise hard units like air.
4 Destroyers –with sadly unrealized ambition, as they were summarily dismantled by the DP.
Chris’s force was assembled as such:
Winged Daemon Prince –who looks ferocious and earned the MVP. I’m not sure I even scratched him.
2x 10 CSM Nurgle –very tough customers with flamers.
10 Chosen Nurgle –his unit had a target on its back and got utterly minced by the Lord and Wraiths on my left flank.
Rhino –for one of the CSM units; the Necrons tore through this with the new Hull Points system, which I really like and not just for the obvious reason.
Vindicator –who might have earned the LVP with the exception of the tragically poor performance of my Destroyers. This Vindi couldn’t hit anything and the Wraiths disposed of it with good taste and manners.
In game terms, the DP and main units went up my right flank ...and crushed it. My Lord and Wraiths went up my left flank and crushed it. And so, we basically hooked around one another. At the end of the day, his crushing was more convincing than mine and Chaos won the day.
In sum, the new rules are wonderful. Necrons are still my go-to army. Having said that, I have at least one entirely new force on the cards for a special event next year (more on that soon), as well as an unquenchable need to paint some of those Dark Vengeance lovelies. We'll be seeing some Arrugginiti love for the first time in a long time! And then, of course, there are some cracking games in the mix: Zombicide, Warmachine, Malifaux (more on that very soon as well), X-Wing, Dystopian Wards ... and that Titan I've got to build. Mercy!
And, of course, Wreck Age!
My hobby cup runneth over once more! It’s good to be back.