Horus Rising

This week I picked up a copy of Horus Rising by Dan Abnett. Now in the past I have never been a massive fan of GW published fiction, I found much of it of mediocre quality but Abnetts First Founding series was an exception to this.

In this book (and the series that follow it) we learn about events leading up to and during the Horus Heresy. A period when half the forces of the Imperium rose up in rebellion against the Emperor lead by Warmaster Horus, the Emperors most trusted Primarch.

I can with no word of a lie say, Horus Rising is one of the finest pieces of fantasy fiction I have ever read (and I have read plenty)! What makes this book such a pleasure to read are the characters, they feel like real people dealing with real issues.

If you have in the past been put of buying Black Library novels because of previous poorly written books (The Blood Angels ones spring to mind), then do yourself a favour and go out and buy this one, it is a treat to read and have already started reading it again.

Charlie Don't Surf!

I loved the original Battlefield Vietnam so I may have to pick up a cheap copy of Bad Company 2 just to play the new Vietnam expansion.

Planning my Blood Angels Army

After a good look through Codex Blood Angels and also reading some of the articles on Games Workshops website I have now got a rough plan on how to create my force.

Combined with the models I already have (that came with Assault on Black Reach) I have decided to create the army in two stages,

Stage 1, Space Marine Battleforce.

Games Workshops 40k Battleforce boxed sets (and their Warhammer equivalent) are very good value and the Space Marine is no exception. It provides a nice helping of Troop options to make sure I will have models able to take and hold objectives and a Rhino transport to make sure they can get there fast! The Assault Marines would become Vanguard Veterans to give them better stats and an edge in assault over other Elite units.

Stage 2 Specialist Units.

The first stage only really gives me a Space Marine army, this is deliberate. By learning how to fight with a basic Marine force I should be all the better prepared to drop some specialist Blood Angels units into my force. These first units being Death Company (of course!) and a Baal Predator. These units should give my force a more Blood Angels feel and give the enemy five blood crazed lunatics heading for their HQ units and a nasty shooty and FAST tank to worry about!

This should give me a cost effective and flexible 1500 point Blood Angels force.

Codex Blood Angels

Bought my first 5th edition Codex this weekend, Codex Blood Angels. It looks like I'm going to make another Blood Angels army after all. Upon first glance this current Blood Angels codex is the best one yet, again the Angels excel in close combat with some truly awesome special characters.

I think I'm going to try and create a small Blood Angels task force from the second war of Armageddon. This may or may not result in black trimmed shoulder pads (as the Blood Angels were sporting around the time of second edition 40k)

With the units you get with Assault on Black Reach along with a purchase of the Space Marine Battleforce (along with a few other odds and sods) I hope to have a 1000 point force by Christmas.

Lets just hope my painting technique is better than it used to be :S

Assault on Black Reach

So last Thursday was pay day and I decided to take the plunge and go out and buy myself Assault on Black Reach, the Warhammer 40,000 starter set. Now I haven't really played 40k since second edition so I wasn't to sure what to expect. What I got was everything the second edition felt like it was back in the day.

I won't go over the contents as they can be clearly seen on the Games Workshop website (above link) but I will comment on the quality of the miniatures, they are excellent! well above the standard I was expecting (I've still got some of the original Space Hulk Terminators around here somewhere! They looked like weird toad men!) The asking price is almost worth it for the figures alone.

Getting up and running was pretty easy, most of the figures just clipped together although they all required gluing to the bases. Myself and my girlfriend Becky spent an hour or so putting them all together and we soon had the squads needed for our first games.

Our first couple of games demonstrated a few of things to me,

1) the 40k rules, at their basic core level are very simple, the most complex part of the game turn, the assault phase was fully understood by our second game.

2) Becky is better at 40k then me. She annihilated me in both games!

3) Playing with all grey unpainted figures is very confusing, especially in an assault.

Ok so were there any problems? Not in our first couple of games no, we will be introducing some of the other models in the set in our next game so I will let you all know how that pans out.

As for the whole package I think the only thing I thought the game could have done with is a few intro scenarios to introduce the different pieces (like the second edition boxed set) and maybe more balanced forces in the box (the Space Marines force is approx 30% stronger than the Ork force) although if you take turns playing each side as Becky and I have done this shouldn't matter.

Becky is most excited about getting to paint the Orks, we have a money off voucher for Hobbycraft and our local one stocks GW stuff so I think some paint buying may be in order.

I think the Space Marines will be painted up as classic Blood Angels circa the second battle of Armageddon.

As for the Orks well that will be up to Becky, I'm sure they will look great, I'm sure she is half Ork anyway.

All in all Assault on Black Reach is an excellent introduction to the World of Warhammer 40k, I just hope my wallet can cope!

Job Hunting

Well I have sent off two applications today, one to Codemasters and one to Games Workshop. Lets hope I hear something soon.

New Dark Eldar

I don't even own the 40k rules yet and I'm already planning what I may buy over the next few months.

Just announced by GW is the new Dark Eldar range and believe me they are looking sweet!

The old range of Dark Eldar never did it for me, I always felt the figures just didn't live up to the horrific and calculated savagery the background material attributed to these vile creatures. The new range however looks to do justice to these twisted brethren of the Craftworld Eldar. Just look at some of these images (swiped from GW.com).

Dark Eldar Reavers

Dark Eldar Kabalite Warriors

Dark Eldar Incubi

For more info head over to Games Workshop Dark Eldar Range

Reboot

As this blog has been dormant for a while regular (lol) readers will probably been under the impression that I was dead.

However this is far from the truth. Over the last few months I have found myself in a job with unsocial hours just to pay the bills, this has left me cherishing any free time I have and unwilling to devote any more time to this blog.

Things are going to change though. I have now graduated from University (with a 2:1 no less) and am now looking for jobs in the gaming field.

I am also getting back into a couple of old hobbies I effectively gave up during my time at university. Them being pen and paper roleplaying and tabetop wargaming.

Roleplay.

On the Roleplaying side of things look forward to posts about current

games of Dungeons and Dragons I'm playing in and also a game of Traveller I am planning to run in the new year.

Warhammer 40k.

With me looking to get back into a bit of Warhammer 40k I am going to purchase the new

Assault on Black Reach boxed set this month (I gave away most of my old 40k stuff when I left for Uni), look forward to Lolz as Becky and I get to grips with the contents.

Videogames.

I will also be covering my passion for videogames, With Halo: Reach dominating my life atm I will posting some vids and screenshots of my adventures with Bungies masterpiece

and also with F1 2010 out this month look forward to tales of my rear ending Lewis Hamilton (oo err!)

So thats a little update of what to look forward to.

Ben