1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die

One of my Christmas gifts was this wonderful book. It does exactly what it says on the tin (or cover) and lists 1001 of the best, greatest and influential games since the 1970's.

I have just gone through the book and highlighted all of the games I have played. I was brutally honest, only highlighting the games I have spent a fair amount of time playing. Over the last 30 years. I have played 221 of the top 1001 list. I thought it would be more but like I said I only listed the games I can with all honestly say I have played (5 minutes round my friends house just doesn't count!) If I had been a little more lax I think I could hit 300 but that's not the point. What was interesting was how few of the Nintendo games I have played. Over the years I have avoided most Nintendo consoles, believing them to be too childlike for my serious gaming sensibilities (yes Ican be a twat). and despite having dabbled in a number of Super Mario Bros. Zelda and Metroid games I can with all honestly say I don't like them. I agree the ones I have played are good they just are not the games for me.

Santas Sack

Well Christmas has been and gone and despite earlier belief that I was getting some Warhammer 40k goodies I got... none.

Thats right not even a single Space Marine! However I did get some other awesome stuff and a bit of spending money (which has been promptly spent on a Razorback and a squad of Death Company!)

This with a little bit of shake-up of my current Blood Angels army list gives me just under 1400 points of red painted, power armoured lunatics to throw around a gaming table. What makes the purchases even better is that all the fantastic extra parts I won't be using in the Death Company box (and some left overs from my Space Marine Battleforce) also allows me to create my own custom Sternguard Veteran squad and another 5 Assault Marines, these two squads need a few other extras but I should be able to get these by spending less than another £15. At the moment budget constraints are preventing me from throwing any more cash at the army until the end of February, by then I should have a few more battles under my belt just in time for the predicted launch of the Storm Raven and a new Furioso Dreadnought.

I hope everyone else had a good Christmas and is ready to tear up 2011 with some 40k Carnage!

Land Speeder Squadron or Attack Bike Squadron?

So as I was looking through the Blood Angels Codex at various options for future purchases my eyes settled on the Fast Attack section of the Army list. Now with options like a Vanguard Veteran Squad and the Baal Predator you would think there would be no contest in what options to pick but my eyes were drawn to the Land Speeders and Attack Bikes. Now I should first make it clear that when assembling an army I think about four things in this order:

1) Cost, how much of a hole is it going to leave in my wallet?

2) Does my force look like a real detachment, i.e. is it 'realistic in context'?

3) Does it look cool?

4) How much whoopass is it going to dish out?

Now cost wise an Attack Bike is

£15ish and a Land Speeder £18ish so the Attack Bike at first

looks like a winner, however you seem

to get a lot of cool accessories with the Land Speeder and more options (more on this later)

As far as in being realistic in context, either of them could fit in with my army theme. Maybe the Land Speeder is a little more Blood Angelesque (tm).

Looks wise I used to hate the current Land Speeder model however over the years it has grown on me. The Attack Bike still looks as cool as it always did.

Now onto the Whoopass factor, the Land Speeder has a couple of advantages over its land bound cousin. it is a skimmer, it can deep strike and it has more weapon options if an upgrade can be afforded. The Attack Bikes main attraction here is it is cheap.

After all this I can not make up my mind, I seem to be leaning toward the Land Speeder but it would be far to easy to load them up with extra weapons and spend more points on them than I want.

Any Ideas?

Blood Angels 1100 point force.

Ok so it's not the 1500 point list I promised but I keep changing my mind with that hypothetical list. Instead what I am posting is the force I would use tomorrow if I had a game. Bearing in mind my collection is still small It is basically all the models I currently have.

HQ

Captain, with Power Weapon and Inferno Pistol.

Elite

5 Marine Terminator Squad with Cyclone Missile Launcher.

Troop

10 Marine Tactical Squad with Missile Launcher and Flamer.

+ Rhino Dedicated Transport with Hunter Killer Missile and Extra Armour.

5 Marine Scout Squad with Heavy Bolter, Melta Bombs and Locator Beacon.

5 Marine Assault Squad with Powerfist and two Plasma Pistols.

Heavy Support

Dreadnought with Multi-Melta and Heavy Armour.

5 Marine Devastator Squad with one Missile Launcher.

Ok so all pretty standard early Space Marine army fayre apart from the underpowered Devastator squad. My reason for including this is that another 5 marines with a missile launcher is a useful little squad to have, Much more useful than a bolter armed Combat Squad in my opinion. I'm happy to trade the ability to capture objectives for a Missile Launcher + Re-roll. It can also be added to as and when.

So what do folk think? It's unlikely to see action this side of the new year by which time there should hopefully be some mechanised reinforcements provided by Santa.

What to do with 15 Tactical Marines

Well I've had everything I want out of my Space Marine Battleforce kit leaving me with 15 Tactical Marines I really don't need.

So my plans are to buy some of the Umbra Ferrox Bolters from Forgeworld and make me a squad of Sternguard. This should be easy with some of the bitz I am already amassing to make them look a little different. I also intend to use the bitz in the Death Company kit to make another five Assault marines, bringing my Assault squad up to full strength.

As a side note I have just attached an old cyclone launcher to one of my Black Reach Terminators giving my Terminator squad some much needed support firepower.

I'm looking forward to what Santa manages to bring me for Christmas, on my list was a Baal Predator and a Razorback to give my force more vehicle based firepower.

Does anyone have any cunning ideas about what I can do with the last five Marines? I could use them as a five man Tactical squad or I could give one the missile launcher and count them as a Devastator squad (to be improved over time).

Well that's it for today, I will be posting an updated 1500 point army list based on what I learnt fighting Robs Dark Eldar in the next few days.

For Baal and Sanguinius!

Blood Angels vs Dark Eldar

Well yesterday was the first proper outing for my semi painted Blood Angels. In the end I was able to muster up exactly 900 points. More or less the same as the army list published in this post. On the other side of the table from me was Rob with his newly assembled Dark Eldar force which consisted of two warrior squads with a heavy weapon of two, a unit of Reavers and two squads of witches, mounted in raiders,fully tooled up and one with a succubus. The scenario was a objective type with us each picking an objective to place in our own deployment zone.

The game ended in a draw on turn five with us having swapped objectives.

Highlights included:

My Rhinos Hunter Killer Missile living up to it's name causing one of the Raiders to explode showering debris and Witches everywhere on turn one.

The remaining Raider and the Witches now on foot sweeping towards my Terminators locking them in a deadly close combat that would last three turns (five Terminators against 16 Witches and a Succubus) on turn two.

My Assault squad managing down the last raider with plasma fire but the same squad members managing to shoot themselves and fail their armour saves in the following turn, The rest of the squad were wiped out in this ill fated attack on the Witches on turn four.

At the end of the game I was left with fours scouts, one tactical sergeant, my Captain and the Rhino. The Dark Eldar still had most of their witches left.

I learnt several things today, Dark Eldar Witches are nasty and should be avoided at all costs! It would help to know a little of the enemies stats and abilities before the game. Space Marine scouts are a nice useful unit if used to correctly and Hunter Killer missiles could be the best ten points you ever spend!

Traveller Campaign

Those who remember a previous post may recall me say I was running a Traveller campaign in February. After a week of Sci-Fi inspiration (working in a bakery would you believe it) I have begun to plan the first couple of adventures. As all but one of the players have never played Traveller before I am hoping to ease them gently into both the setting and the rules so the first adventure about an old deserted starship ( which I have entitled, Long lost suns) will be a number of set encounters to highlight the various aspects of what makes a Traveller game.

The second adventure which is nameless at the moment will revolve around a guerilla war being fought in an asteroid belt which the players find themselves involved in.

On top of this i have also found time to create two backup characters for if any of the players manage to roll up truly unplayable characters on the first night. Both of these characters used the standard random tables but are more than playable.

The first I call the Diplomatic Merchant, whose career has taught him a wide number of skills and given him all he would want to try and strike it out on his own (or with friends)

The second I call the Unlucky Marine, his career has been one failure after another, despite impressive combat skills. With little more than his gun and the clothes on his back he hopes some old friends can get him out of the mire of his current life.

I'm looking forward to running now, can't wait till February. :(

A couple of photos

As promised a couple of shots of my Blood Angels.

Just the Black Reach tactical squad at the moment. was all I had painted when the shots were taken.

Sarge looking all pointy

Posing on a hill

I was quite pleased at how they turned out, probably the first miniatures I have painted in over 8 years.

Blood Angels Update

Well with some furious gluing and painting I have about 900 points of Blood Angels ready to take on the 41st Millennium.

My current force list for a 900 point game would be:

HQ

1) Captain 100

Elite

1) Terminator Squad (5 man) 200

Troop

1) Tactical Squad (10 man, Flamer, Missile Launcher) 170 + Rhino (HK Missile, Ext Armour) 75

2) Scout Squad (5 man, Heavy Bolter, Sgt with melta bomb) 90

3) Assault Squad (5 man, Plasma Pistol, Sgt with Plasma pistol and Power Fist) 155

Heavy Support

1)Dreadnought (Multi-melta) 105

Most of these are painted (with a few exceptions and none of the bases are done) so I hope to get some pictures up soon.

How this force will cope with a cunning adversary remains to be seen.