Warhammer 40K (1) - Road to Armageddon

 

This, like all my part 1's, is a bit of a rambler. 

As many of you are probably aware, I used to work in a hobby shop. I worked there for the better part of 10 years and in my time there became very interwoven with the hobby. Debatably interwoven enough to do things like start a blog, or a podcast.  Since "leaving the industry" some odd five years ago I've flirted, probably more than casually with the hobby in various ways. Always participating in some capacity but discovering how I interface with it in a very different way from "the outside." I could really wax lyrical about that for hours at this point but I say all this to say I had a really interesting day. 

See, when you surround yourself 22 hours a day with "hobby people" you tend to forget what it's like for "non hobby people." I think this goes without saying but though I'm referring specifically to Wargames, Painting, Boardgames and RPG when I say "hobby,"  I do truly believe this sentiment extends to any sort of "enthusiast. Whether you collect comics, sports memorabilia, vintage 90's Vampire the Masquerade novels, or are more of bowler, golfer, sporty type, I do think that outside looking in, our hobbies tend to be a bit of a great unknown. 

This all comes to an interesting head today. Part of the company culture at the company I work for now includes a sort of annual check in. Similar to a review, you meet with your direct boss and discuss things like goals and plans for the future. Less of a review by the numbers and more a personable check in. Now obviously these are conversations any manager worth their salt should be having anyway but I think the process is a good one and it leads to interesting conversations and shared experiences. See, part of what makes these consultations so interesting is that the people giving them are sort of explicitly instructed to do "some sort of activity, that the employee chooses" they're told to get out of the office and not just go for lunch or something. My teammates chose things like the firing range, or bow hunting in the woods.  

This was something we did last year and now for two years we've chosen an activity that I think really gets to show my interests and gets me talking. Today was the second of these I've done and for the second year in a row, I've chosen to go tour a few hobby shops in our area and show my boss some of what I get into in my free time.                                

My boss is a bit of a nerd as well and is definitely aware of things like Warhammer, even having read several of the black library novels. So none of this was "new" in that sense but as he looked at some of the kits, games, books etc, beyond sticker shock, he had several questions that I really enjoyed answering because it gave me a chance to sort of be the expert and share something I take such enjoyment from. 

 One question in particular was "so is there's just a guy in here? already painted?" in reference to the Lion El Johnson kit. I found a clamshell blister and began explaining sprues and such. Also humorously he said "he's older than I imagined" to which I responded with a comment about yeah, you haven't seen him in 10,000 years, not since the heresy." 

It did really get me thinking though. I realize that most of my readers (all 8 of you) are really aware of what this hobby entails but it was an interesting peek in from the outside again. I explained sprue cutters and how the game is kind of like risk but more complicated. We had a very long talk about "if all the games are the same or if they're totally different."  For a lot of the conversation though, the subject of sticker shock, pricing, and content per dollar came up. When I first got into the hobby, 3-4 hundred bought you a decent army and now, 300 is the asking price of 2 750 point starters in the Armageddon box. 

Mostly, what got me to open up this old blog though was the thought of step by step document just how much I'm "getting out of this hobby" so to speak. I redownloaded Brushrage and was thinking about documenting fully, the painting of this box set.

To start however, since I plan on sharing this entire entry/series with my boss to show him as well, I wanted to actually take the box out, open it up and show exactly whats in it from a new persons eyes. 

You've seen the box art up top but here's what's advertised on the back, promises of miniatures and rules and more. Oddly this box contains no dice or measuring devices, making it technically unplayable as a single purchase, paint supplies not withstanding. Part of what makes the "starter sets" their own thing is inclusion of those elements.

 

 

 Opening the box we are immediately greeted by a pile of plastic frames and bases. 

 Here I've got all the Space Marine sprues laid out, with a standard mechanical pencil for scale. 

 For the most part, space marines come on one frame, orks are separate. The Comanders for each side share a sprue in this case. Presumably because they only come in this box and arent available outside of it but thats just me guessing. 

 These are each of the Ork sprues. You get two of the bottom left sprue so I've only shown one.

 

This sprue in particular I find kind of strange as it comes with 10 orks and 5 goblins by my quick glance, meaning those units are sold as one kit. I am wondering what the long term plan is for those, whether they'll be getting another set with more options or what. I have gone into this project without reading much discourse and will have to see what the community thinks. 

 The banner is sculpted but has room for an included decal or freehand design

 Below all this plastic is a pile of paper in the form of several books and cards. Having not played any of 10th edition, I don't know the role of all these components but if the project goes long enough may revisit this later. Personally, I bought these to paint and collect but am interested in giving 11th a go. 

 The core rulebook is actually a smaller format than I was expecting which is great as it makes it easier to lug to a game. In it are just rules, no story lore etc. Included is an instruction booklet that comes full of painted examples. For a new person, this is useful but a bit of a disclaimer, theres no painting instructions beyond cursory inspiration.

Another super interesting thing here to me, is this Operation Imperator hardcover book. I am at a point where I'm done buying codex's, do with that what you will. All of the lore has been pulled out of the book and sent over to this book giving some background, setting and character information. This makes this book an entirely self contained story book as it were meaning in a year or so when all the rules are invalidated with updates, this book can stay as an art book/ novella. A smart choice IMO.

I'm currently finishing another project which I'll post shortly but the next step for the Armageddon project is to pick a unit and show exactly what goes in to painting it. The plan is to share this article/series with some of my non hobby people and just give a little insight into what it is I love about this. 
 

 

 

 

 

Wroth Game Review

 Again, I am fully in my "area control" era. This is Chip Theory's take on the genre. I had looked at the KS originally and decided to back out before pledging for one reason or another. 2 things swayed it into my collection though. First, I saw an update for this and 20 strong that said they were probably shipping in March, and with the late pledge open took the plunge. The second reason was something about the metal troops upgrade being unsustainably cheap. I ended up doing the late back and ironically received this before some of the guys in the group I game with. The wife and I played it once and I thought it was alright, pretty good but not amazing. Then I brought it to a more "war gamey" crowd. Absolute hit. The design is simple but incredibly tight. We played 3 games in a row with everyone switching factions between games. It was easy to pick up and teach, the components are lovely.  

 

Gameplay Thoughts

I've waxed lyrical about Warhammer as a concept to almost anyone I've chatted with about design but I'll repeat my mantra here. Warhammer is a well designed game where the designers never stopped. The core concepts (roll to hit, roll to wound, roll for save) work great and in moderation the design space (specials rules are exceptions that allow for flavor) is great. The problem comes when in order to introduce that flavor you need so many convoluted rules tacked on top of each other. As a brief totally hyperbolic example, if you normally roll one die a model for melee, a good addition would be something like "I roll two attacks when I charge because of my blood rage." A bad addition would be something like "I roll 2 attacks for blood rage, at plus 1 because of my priest. My captain has a rule that allows me to reroll but only if I spend blood points. Each blood point I spend allows me to double move." I digress. My point, as long winded as it is, is that Wroth isn't Warhammer. 

Your core gameplay is very clean. Roll and draft dice. Spend a die to do the action on the die. There's an action to get Corra, the games resource, a couple actions to add troops or move them and one action to attack. Attacking is either into a space you occupy or a space adjacent. That is hyperbolic simplification but honestly the core is really that simple. There's some nuance in the economy and the variable objective tokens but generally, if each faction was the same we'd be playing it already. 

Now where this game really shines, and I truly mean shines, is the asymmetry. Each faction has access to special troops represented by dice. Each special troop (between two and three per faction) usually only has one line maybe two of rules. The overhead is near nonexistent. The only other asymmetry comes from a one time use Feat card (each faction chooses 1 of 3 unique to their faction.) So let's look at one faction up close

These are the Koda, the Viking like berserkers. If we look at their player board we can see they only have two special troop types. The gentlemen on the left are basically werewolf types. Big angry dudes with a ton of health. First, one thing to note here is that even though they have a ton of health, they only count as one troop for the purposes of controlling an area. If we look at their special rules, they get to punch on the way into a territory and when they attack an area they are already in they do an extra damage. Let's look more in to this. First of all on first read you'd be right to think "beat stick." Those abilities are both about damage right? Drop guys in to the fray and spend your attack dice on them. Its subtle but one of the real draws is if you don't get any attack dice, now all of your maneuver dice are effectively attack dice too as long as you have one of these guys in the move. Add on to all of that that these guys will score you some victory points each turn and it makes sense to scatter them to the wind and let them tear your opponents apart.

Now lets look at the trappers. These are a "follow the ball under the cup" type of mechanic. When you place a trapper (into an area you occupy, not your off map deployment area) you choose a face for the die. When an enemy moves into its territory you flip the die and spring a trap (steal Corra, deploy two more troops or attack for 2.) These are pretty simple in terms of rules overhead but the potential for shenanigans is there. If you come in to my area and i flip this, maybe your guys die, maybe I steal a precious resource. 

Now for the icing on the cake. Lets look at a few of the feats. The Koda persistent ability is to make the trappers score VP each turn. Couple this with the face that allows you to drop more troops when revealed and suddenly you can potentially score mountains of points each round as you scatter deep into the board. Alternatively, you could use the feat that allows you to mutate three troops into werewolves. Now the tight economy isn't much of a concern as you have this ace up your sleeve. 

Each faction has its own tricks and abilities and its all achieved with very simple tweaks. Take the Ooglan Karn troops. Their rule allows them to drop into an enemy controlled region. That's it. Everything else reinforces areas you own but the Karn pop up out of no where. The Venna have some rules where they can reinforce from their discarded troops where the other factions generally cant. Lots of very very simple tweaks and exceptions to that base core ruleset that really vary the factions. 

We had a game where I played the Guild who have a one time use ability to take 10 Corra to their bank to spend. One player had the Paldeyn, who every time they would gain Corra, they can deploy a die instead. The third player had the Eldan, an elven faction that could spend Corra to fire arrows around the map. As the guild i had access to more or less the whole bank of resources, my troops stealing from the Eldan. The Paldeyn never took Corra opting instead to deploy their whole suite of troops. Just the faction choices dictated a completely different economy for that game. The round with Koda, Eldan and Ooglan devolved into a slugfest over the one extra Corra each round that resulted in the Koda taking off with the lead by virtue of their cheap traps. Very minor changes resulting in a very different landscape. 

Component Thoughts

Now let's talk about Chip Theory, Price and Components. 

So first of all the elephant in the room. My late pledge included the Core Game, the Venna and Paldeyn expansions as well as the addon for the metal troops upgrade. The price tag for all of that with shipping was just shy of $140. 

If you aren't familiar with Chip Theory I'm sure you can tell from the photos that their production is incredible. No boards, all neoprene mats. High end poker chips for tokens. Custom nice dice. PVC cards that are much more durable than usual. This all makes for a beautiful product and if you like this art style it really can't be beat. It's an expensive buy in but I do think it was well worth it. 

Now, on the subject of the metal troops. I bought these because they mentioned somewhere that the retail cost for the troops would be significantly higher. I did not realize when i bought them that the plastic pieces included were also the unique faction sculpts. The plastics are totally acceptable and the metal actually weigh the tray insert down enough that it makes me a little nervous when people grab it by the middle. All this to say, metal cool, not necessary. 

I do however think the Paldeyn and Venna expansions are totally necessary. In a game that really thrives on that asymmetry adding more factions is kind of a no brainer. The Venna in particular are just so cool. They play like zombies but look like fae wood elves. I lost horribly but the mechanics they add are super cool. 

Overall I am really into Wroth. The game plays very quick managing a teach and 3 games in just over 3 hours. Once the initial teach and play is through, the overhead to learn a new factions basics is very minimal. Compare to a game like root wherein you could spend a half hour just trying to figure out a new faction only to lose horrible because you never really got it. Our games haven't gone past round 5 yet and the game is very snappy. I have yet to dive in to it but there are also 3 solo/coop scenarios per faction to play through. Overall an absolute winner. 

Top 5 "New to Me" Boardgames of March 2025

 This is probably going to be a reoccurring thing if that wasn't clear.

So March saw me fall just a bit shy of the pacing I've had for the year so far. I think were still fine for the total goals at year end because there should be more gaming this summer. I played 27 plays across 22 different games. Of those, 12 were new to me not counting new expansions for games I've already played. 

Honorable Mentions

An Age Contrived

 This was played at the monthly "lets play those kickstarters" game group I've been attending. Same place we played Last Light last time. I could best describe this one as "a euro game with ameritrash sensibilities." I have this game on my wishlist but to be honest I haven't decided if I will actually pull the trigger because I haven't decided if I actually liked it. I'll republish the texts I sent to a friend that sum up the experience pretty succinctly. 

"It would be like if I told you to make a cake and instead of giving you a recipe I just told you what every individual ingredient tasted like. So you taste the raw flour and rightfully spit it out and that's the moment I tell you well, that ones there for structure not flavor. So you smash together some version of a cake based on all the cake youve eaten in your life and its bad and only then do I tell you that you needed specific quantities of each ingredient"

A bit hyperbolic but it summed up our first game well.

World Wonders (Mundo expansion)

 

Last year we played our way through the legacy game, My City with some friends of ours. In short, My City is a tile layer with tetramino shapes and requires some spacial awareness. About one or two games in my wife as well as one of our friends were over it. 2 of us loved the experience until about the final 6 games of the campaign. We all thought by the end that the game overstayed its welcome and the consensus was "I'm over this genre" 

Depsite the wifes protests, I picked up the spacial awareness tile layer World Wonders and its Mundo expansion at Origins last year. I'm glad I did. There are some neat twists to the formula in the open shared market, the "buying out of the round" that comes with purchasing wonders and the actual spatial puzzle. Many of these games work by asking you to fill the grid out more or less completely but this one doesn't. I'm also obsessed with nice Chonky Wood parts. 

This is an honorable mention because we've played the base game a few times but just added the expansion in recently.

Apiary 

Apiary makes the list because I would play it again but it didn't leave a solid first impression. Unfortunately I blame that on the starting faction I drew at random which pointed me towards a specific resource that was difficult to get and shoehorned me into thinking I needed a specifc strategy to compete. This is the most points I've lost a game by with this group probably full-stop. I'd play it again buy I did take the expansion off my wishlist.

Top 5 of March

5 - Power Vacuum

 This was a kickstarter that just delivered. Billed as a trick taker mixed with social deduction. I don't think that's quite what delivered but the game is super unique. We only got one 3 player play in and I would be very excited to play this one again. There are some twists to the formula wrapped in a nice production that make it a good fit for the shelf. There is a much larger discussion on what hidden role and social deduction does for a game but in short, adding a mechanic that allows you to reveal your hidden role early makes for its own subset of mechanical interaction that is super interesting to me.

4 - Black Forest

 

I liked this. I mostly want to talk about the resource "clock."  This is a euro game about making glass. Every time you recieve a basic resource (the resources to the right of the top facing "clock hand") you slide the token representing that resource one space clockwise. You'll notice the number tracking quantity around the center of said clock. Whenever there is an empty space to the right of the clock hand (i.e. there are no tokens in the "0" space) the clock hand must be moved over. This has the effect of increasing the resources to the left of the clock hand while simultaneously depleting all the resources to the right. This happens automatically and is mandatory and will happen mid action. You either understand what I said and it sounds neat or you didnt and this game is probably not for you.

The meat of this is wrapped around a sort of worker placement type mechanic and involves you trading the resources back and forth to have the right resources to buy what you need at that moment. My only complaint so far is that those clocks are dual layer and curled right up. I was the most into the game in our group but I don't think anyone hated it.

3 - Hands in the Sea (2nd ed)

This is A Few Acres of Snow rethemed to the Punic wars. I adore Few Acres so this was a natural fit for me. I think the changes and additions of things like the naval combat and the event deck make it different enough that if you enjoy one there's room for both. I think Few Acres is slightly more polished and is arguably more accessible. 

2 - Joyride Turbo

I have a lot of car games for someone who spent a long long time self describing as "not a car guy." Briefly; Thunder Road, Formula D, Heat, Rallyman GT, Rallyman Dirt, Downforce. Of these, I've become obsessed with Heat for my racing fix. Rallyman is solid though more simulationy and less hollywood. Thunder Road captures the chaos well. 

Joyride is really fun. It brings enough to the table to make it worth keeping. It is ultimately a mario kart style game with the win condition being the race part. It isn't as easy to teach as thunder road but it isn't as hard as something like a wargame like Gaslands. I had been itching to get into gaslands again but this is much easier to table.  

1 - El Grande

Area Control. I love it. I like dudes on a map games. I like twists to genres. This has everything to make me feel like it is a "classic" game even from play one. The actual mechanics are easy enough to follow but the Castillo and accompanying rules add just enough rub to make the game stand out. It wasn't long enough to overstay its welcome but had more depth than a filler game. Just a super solid game all around. I was incredibly disappointed in Ethnos last month but this was a welcome surprise hit.

 

For housekeeping. Were close to a wargame post. I'm nearly done with the Halo Flashpoint starter. After that I've got some Flashpoint Wave 2 to paint and then I've got my eye on something historical for a little bit. I've been painting a bit here and there but need to do a day of just basing soon to actually finish this stuff off. 

 

 

Lunar (1) - The Haul

 Oh look, It's another "Matt posts a pile of stuff because he has no impulse control" Post.

 This time it's Lunar by, you guessed it, Blacksite Studios. Lunar is a skirmish game set during the Cold War on the moon. It's roughly 3 to 5 figures a player and is all about fighting for resources on the moon. There's a campaign, lovely components and great resin figures.

Inside the starter you get dice, tokens, a rulebook and 10 figures as well as the cards to play with everything. Unlike Violent dark this set also comes with some clips to track all the stats with. 

The resin sets are basically a bag full of options. The game isn't WYSIWYG so I opted for stuff that'd be fun to paint and look at. The figures didnt require much clean up and went together nice. 

 Unlike Violent Dark, we got a game in already and I'm actually interested in playing more of the game. We got one game in at the "small" size and actually really enjoyed it. I was a little skeptical after our test game of Violent Dark that maybe DLB was a flash in the pan but I think VD just needs some ironing out and am going to finish painting it but wait until theres more content to revisit it. 

Next time I post about Lunar, I'll give some thoughts on the game as well as showcase what got painted already. Long story short though, this ones a winner.

Violent Dark (1) - Intro and Other Games April

 Hello

No secrets here that I'm sort of a fan of Black Site Studios. I think the stuff they make is neat. Our game of the year on the podcast the year it was released was Don't Look Back (second edition preordered already) and I have most of their games. There's a neat push right now through several content creators for what is being referred to as "Other Games April" this Miniac video sums it up but basically its a spotlight on indie games. In honor of the event and because I never touched this stuff after the first week, I decided I wanted to focus in and try and get my Black Site Games on the table this month if at all possible. DemonShip is coming (not soon enough) and we're going to start with Violent Dark

I backed this project through the BSS Backroom program which is a sorta-kickstarter program. I backed the second highest tier as I didn't think I needed the mdf terrain. At adepticon last year I picked up most of the other releases I didn't have. Here's the haul

Violent Dark is a co-op and solo focused space thriller in the vein of aliens. You control 4 crew members, theres missions, its got fun looking rules that I'll cover once the game's hit the table. 

Aparently I got as far as assembling the core set and getting paint on two pieces. It looks like I printed the bases for most of the crew but as the FDM printer is currently down, I've got a back up plan for the rest. 

The aliens we're a very slight disapointment. Mostly, I wish they fit on the bases provided. The resin is a touch spindly and bendy and they just don't sit nice on the slightly too small bases. I'm not sure how I'm going to paint these yet. You do get a ton of bits for them which is neat.

As a part of the initial buy in, and available later, there are a few expansion type pieces. One of these is rogue synths which adds a new type of threat. 

There was also a vac-suit and xenos hugger type of expansion

The xenos one comes with new rules for the threat. These are almost definitely my favorite sculpts in the set.

These expansions came packaged in the same bags as the bonus minis. The bonus minis were a few more crew, some turret guns and this cat.

After digging everything out I got most of everything built save for a couple aliens and the turrets. I also opted to leave the synths in the box for now. The plan is to get this on the table soon so we're going to start with an alien and two more crew as a minimum. 

Will report back soon

My 2019 in Review

As 2019 comes to a close, I've taken a bit of time to look back on the events I've attended, shows, games Ive played etc. Its been a crazy year for me hobby wise and I want to look back month by month here. This post is picture heavy and a long one so you can see more after the break

Review of Gale Force Nine Battlefield in a Box: Badlands Terrain

Recently I picked up the whole range of Badlands Terrain from Battlefield in a Box by Gale Force Nine. After Searching around a bit online for information I couldn't really find the information I was looking for. The two things I was the most interested in were 1) How much space will one box of each configuration fill? 2) How does this stuff look on a "desert" mat?

Here's how this stuff looks as well as some thoughts on the range and photos of it "in action"

First of all here are the sets laid out on a 4 x 4 table.

I think you can already answer both questions with this photo. Assuming that you're planning on adding some sort of other terrain, whether its roads building etc, you can probably get away with one set each for a standard game of whatever.
Having said that the dark reddish color of these pieces makes them much more useful in my mind for things like 40k, Mad Max, This Is Not a Test, or Gaslands then say something like Modern Middle Eastern gaming for example. They would probably work in an Old West Setting.
For scale purposes pictured are a GW Rohan Warrior, a GW Necromunda Figure, and an Eureak Modern Taliban Figure.
First is the Pillars Set

The "Tors"

 The Plateau

The Bluff

 Finally a shot of a 4 x 4 with the sets mixed in.

So what do I think? I think I'm a fan. Our club had talked in the past of playing Gaslands, or Gorkamorka and I think this stuff is perfect for it. It came exactly as you see it and all I had to do was unwrap the bubble wrap it was packed in and boom, good to go. Having said that, it's too red in my opinion to use for Middle Eastern Terrain which is fine but a little disapointing. I think with the addition of some other less scatter type pieces or one more of the larger formations youd have a pretty nice table.
There are a couple minor problems, however.

First of all, the way they're packaged. The sets come with each piece wrapped individually in bubble wrap. Evidently this isn't enough as you can see below.

These appear to just be hotglued on to me, as evidenced in this photo. Not a deal breaker by any means especially considering the low cost.

One other slightly more major issue however is the warpage on this piece

I ordered one set of the pilars off of ebay prior to ordering this larger pile from my FLGS and it appears they used to be packaged differently and although I'm sure the new way is cheaper, I'd rather have stuff arrive intact

 

So, long story short, I'm happy. The cost is right, the whole set retailing for 120 It's an affordable way to fill a table. Sure, I could probably make something similar with foam but honestly, I won't. I'll make a plan to, and never follow through. I think these photos will speak for themselves and give people a better idea of how the stuff looks on an average table.