30k: Centurion and Techmarine

o/

Whew, its been a wild week! I had the whole week off, but there was little hobby time as we had family in from out of state, and of course Christmas day which included me surprising just about everyone when I popped the question to Wolfy (she said 'yes')! So needless to say, it was a really good week for me!

Just prior to Christmas, I put in a bid on ebay for the crew of a Forgeworld Rapier Laser Destroyer (without the Rapier itself or shoulder pads for the crew). I didn't have the $$$ for it, but they were a good deal, so I placed a minimum bid, knowing I'd lose but wouldn't kick myself for not trying. Naturally, I won the auction. Yay, one more charge for the already screaming credit card. Oh well, Friday and Saturday were kinda quiet and so I put the two together.

First up, my Centurion:

I'll probably paint that helmet on his base in EC colors as well, leaving one to wonder if it belonged to friend or foe...

One thing the Emperor's Children were known for was trophy taking. If they defeated a particularly worthy foe, they would take a weapon from their victim as both a trophy, and for use on future battlefields. As you can see, my Centurion has done just that.

Its not really visible, but the arm holding that blade is actually a bionic arm. So it leaves you to wonder if his organic arm was separated from his body by the very blade that the bionic replacement now wields...

I'll count it as a Charnabal Sabre which is a CCW that confers +1 initiative and is rending.  Beyond the exotic blade, he's a bit of a no-frills type of officer who is outfitted with a bolter, bolt pistol, and grenades. I intend to field him as just a standard Centurion, not one of the optional Consuls.

The other Rapier crew-marine (the one who is normally mounted on the Rapier itself) has been converted to a Techmarine with Conversion Beamer:

Armed to the teeth and looking for a fight!

This guy is something of a blasphemy I guess (no doubt why he was slated for termination by his traitorous brethren) as he's an amalgamation of actual Forgeworld and Chinese knock-off resin parts! I had gotten the Astral Claws Techmarine via China but didn't care for some defects in the casting of his torso (though to be honest, it was no worse than some of the actual FW purchases I've made). As such, it was never painted. With the demise of my Astral Claws, I omitted the offending parts and added the rest to the 30k gunner's body.

He looks kinda comical with such an enormous backpack, no doubt his servo-automata (servitors with bolters) help to keep him upright when on the move. Of course the conversion beamer gives my fledgling force some much needed heavy firepower which will also make this guy target priority #1! Thus the servo-automata will also serve as a few ablative wounds to keep him alive a little longer as well!

So, all I need now are some squads in the 'Troops' category (my recon marines sadly are a support squad, so can't be used for compulsory choices). Currently finances don't permit that but...I still only have two of my 30k marines painted so that's alright I guess as there's plenty to do in the interim.

Note: for anyone running short of Mk III shoulder pads, some of the CSM shoulder pads work just as well!

With New Years day falling on a Thursday, I'm not sure if I'll have another post this week or not. So in the event that I don't I'd like to wish all of you a happy New Year to come!!!

Awesome paint job, but kinda blah...

o/

lol, the title is how Wolfy described my Moblot's paint job! I like the grimy, frontline combat feel of them, rather than the pretty/anime look you see more often (and as she prefers). Their uniform camo and colors look like they're station in a semi-arid environment. I'm not sure if there are deserts on the Ariadna homeworld, but certainly there are plains/savannahs of some sort. No doubt my troops are stationed there.

My Spec Ops team thus far ('Army' doesn't sound like an appropriate term for Infinity).

Side and rear views of my Moblot, the frontal pic sucked, so you'll just have to view that in the pic above.

My Dozer Combat Engineer. As he's technically from a separate unit, his uniform is a bit different from the Moblot. No doubt my other units will also vary a bit as well.

This will be the only post for this week as my folks will be here tomorrow. So I'd like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah/Winter Solstice/and whatever else holidays I've missed!

In the voice of Adrmiral Akbar: May the dice be with us!

o/

Last night we played an epic 300 point game of X-Wing. The Empire was represented by: I.R.-Voril and Wolfy fielding 150 points each, and the Rebels by: Bob, Kushial and myself with 100 points each. In lieu of asteroids, we used some Lego planet halves (though somehow, the Deathstar never made it into any of the photos).

The battle is joined! Despite this horde of ships being on the table, I think one of the TIE Interceptors had already gone boom!

...about mid-way thru the game. Both sides have been thinned out though the Empire has taken the most casualties by far...

...and here we are at the very end, when the Phantom gets all but surrounded and finally falls, ending the game.

It was a fun night, although the Empire's poor die rolling in the beginning quickly turned things in our favor, Wolfy and Voril still managed to have fun. Our Rebels also got some new reinforcements:

The A-Wing needs to change to match our Purple Squadron, though I asked Wolfy if we ought to leave the YT in it's stock color scheme. She replied with: We're not stock people are we? lol, no...no we're not!

Voril hooked us up on a good deal for the YT-2400, and Kushial gifted Wolfy with the A-Wing for Christmas. I got some cool toys as well, but I'll save that for another post as they're not X-Wing related. I also have another A-Wing coming in exchange for some paint and repair work for Billy. So at this point our Rebel forces are pretty well fleshed out, though a few might turn to the Scum and Villainy side in a few months...we'll have to see.

Infinity Demo #2

o/

First off, what the hell happened to Thursday's post? Well...to be honest, I just plain forgot about it till after it should have been posted. Not having accomplished a whole lot on the hobby front aside from base coating an Ariadna Moblot I decided to just skip it all together.

Skip forward to this past Saturday in which we played a 3v3 Infinity demo game, and jeez, you'd think I'd have thought to take a photo or two. Nope, not a chance. In truth there was only one fully painted mini on the table, so even that wasn't all that photogenic. Well, aside from that one painted model. Scott's Yu Jing Zuyong Incinible in power armor is just fucking beautifully painted! I was completely blown away by it! Thanks to the interwebz' instant messenger though, Scott was able to send me a pic of it. Check it out:

So awesome!

Anyways, we had fun (and we won). Wolfy's contingent suffered no casualties, and as expected, her Wulver was kicking ass and taking names (and she never even made it to combat)! I still can't wrap my head around the face-to-face rolls and armor saves. Our friends who were giving the demo explained it a dozen times or so, but always in the same way. Repetition does not equal understanding if its not understood to begin with and it was quite frustrating.

This Hasslefree mini (Wolfy's is primed black, which is why I used the pic from the HF site) was what we were using as Wolfy's Wulver, named: Beyonsey (resembling but not to be confused with the singer Beyonce).

My Lt., the Moblot (again, the official pic).

 Still, the game has potential, especially as there is as much attacking in your opponent's turn as you own (which initially was also infuriating as I couldn't make any advance w/o getting lit up by 3-4 opposing models). I lost 2 of my 4 models in the first turn! That said, i found out really quick that I really like my Moblot's mimetism skill! That made up for (or at least balanced out) the Ariadna's lack of effective shooting at range! lol, as soon as I said 'mimetism', there was a volley of profanity sent my way from the other side!

I also got to see the size of the circular template in the game (apparently there is only one, and is about the size of a large blast in 40k), and damn! Our Traktor Muls are gonna be disgusting to play against! Who needs to worry about accuracy when you can just carpet bomb someone (whenever I figure out how to use it and considering the above, its probably not high on anyone's list to teach me)!

Infinity: 1st Traktor Mul finished!

o/

I'm not sure where the time goes but after another week, it seems there was little hobby time for me. I did get in a good game of Battletech at the FLGS (and was victorious!), but not much more than that. Squeezing in time here and there I managed to finally  finish the first Traktor Mul for my fledgling Ariadna force.

Per my norm, rather than going all anime-looking with it, I instead opted for dirt, grime and battle damage (including a brush guard that looks like its hit a tree or two). I still need to clear coat the camera and light lenses, but this is essentially the finished product.

I had to prop up the model with a rock underneath, due to it being so back-heavy. Without the rock, it kept tipping over, even popping up from being glued to its base! That's partly why I also added another 'decorative' rock to that base. I say partly as I realized that after I reglued the Traktor down, that it was off-center. Damnit. Thus, it looks as though the Mul just drove around the offending rock...

Hrmm...looks like I screwed up the color a bit in my photoshop tweaking...

This was also my first use of the Secret Weapon Miniatures leaf litter that I'd purchased several months back. I have to say that I really like that stuff. The base needed something...and that fit the bill nicely! It struck me as appropriate to put some on the traktor itself, since leaves like to collect between the hood and windshield of my car.

I still have no idea on how to use this thing, but hopefully I'll get a chance to use it this coming Friday.

Quonset the Hutt!!!

lol, actually there's only one 'T' in hut, but I couldn't resist.

About two weeks or so back, BoLS posted an article about Fantasy Flight's end of year sale. Most of it was RPG stuff, and whilst they were all good deals (if you played those RPGs), they were still too costly for me to buy at this point in time. All the more so as my RPG group has fallen apart with little hope of recovery. 

Idly perusing thru all of the sections, I clicked on Dust Tactics more out of boredom than anything else (I've never had any interest in the game), and stumbled on their Quonset hut 6-pack terrain set listed for a mere $4! 

lol-wut?!? 

Why do the boxes always look so much bigger on the webstore than when you get them at home?

Well, there's no wasted space at least!

I checked online for any reviews, and all were positive so I bought a set which came to $13.15 total with shipping. That translates into: $2.19 per hut! Hell, card-stock terrain costs more than that!

Total time of assembly: about 5 minutes, no glue or trimming required (meaning they still store conveniently in the box).

The scale is perfect for 28mm gaming!

My initial idea was to use them for Infinity. True, these are anything but anime-ish…but I'm going with the Ariadna, who are low-tech/3rd world-like anyways. Besides, these are cheap line-of-sight blockers that aren't my cityfight ruins. Especially as 40k's stereotypical SKULLS ON EVERY SURFACE design philosophy is also quite unanime-ish, not to mention a bit tiresome to look at after 2 decades of gaming in the grim dark. 

To me, Quonset huts scream WWII! Well that and cheap post-WWII housing. In the latter case, I know of 3 in my area, one of which I drive by every time I go to work. So for Bolt Action (which is Weird War II in my case), these will be perfect for terrain. To that end, I pulled my long hibernating (in their miniature cases) Quar out for a quick sweep and clear of the new huts! 

Note: My Camera-Quar is on hand, to photograph the event for propaganda purposes...

ALL CLEAR!

They line up nicely for a longer, multi-room hut as well.

My (futile?) hope is that my so-called opponents will get off their asses and actually build their armies after what…1-2 years? I'm not gonna hold my breath on that though. We're this far along and Rob still can't make up his mind on an army (his latest: I like the look of the Finns...kinda like he said for the Japanese and the Russians before them). My best hope is Bob who just recently picked up the Bolt Action rulebook. 

…sigh… 

I guess my over-weight Aardvarks (of a sort) still rule WWII...quonset huts and all. 

Billy's Jalopies

o/

Well, I now sit here stuffed after a 2nd Thanksgiving dinner (leftovers), once again thinking: 'Oh my god why....why did I eat so much?' I can't do too much in my current state, but I can do a blog post at least I suppose.

So Saturday evening, Billy (last mentioned in this post here) and his fiance joined us for a night of gaming at our house. We were hoping for X-Wing, but he brought a card game called Boss Monster, or Monster Boss...something like that. Generally I don't prefer card games, but his fiance doesn't play X-Wing, so we gave it a go so she wouldn't be reduced to just watching us play. Besides, it had an always fun fuck with your opponents element which appeals to me greatly (and they all ganged up on me in the last round...and I still won! Though only just barely). Indeed, I won 2 out of 3 rounds, so it was all good.

Anyways, Billy is one of our local X-Wing fanbois. Due to health issues he can no longer assemble/paint minis, so he locked onto X-Wing pretty quickly and has a huge horde of ships! Several he got 2nd hand 'cheap' and in bad shape (yes, buyers beware and all that). For example he has a TIE advance that's only fit for a wreckage marker. Speaking of wrecks...

Not an uncommon problem I'm sure...

This Interceptor had a previously broken and reglued (albeit very crooked) wing. I offered to paint some ships for him, and he asked if I would add some red stripes to this beater. Why he didn't want that on a unbroken model is beyond me. That's just Billy, if you knew him you'd understand. So in looking at this fighter the wing quickly broke again. I fixed it, then I dropped it (breaking it again) and all sorts of profanity ensued...

...but as you can see, its fixed again (for the moment). I can't seem to bend the warped wings back into the proper shape. Oh well. He also had a B-Wing which he had broken off the recepticle for the flight-stand-post off of, and reglued sideways if...not entirely straight. 'I was high when I fixed it.' Sigh...stoners for the win.

Anyways, he wanted me to change the wings to be in the folded down/traveling position, and to adjust the cockpit to match the sideways position. It was easy enough to do, though I needed a piece of plasticard on the top wing due to a gap (its not really an issue on the bottom wing).

Note the cockpit is level with the base, not the ship. Though in space 'level' is a curious concept...

He doesn't want it painted yet apparently in hopes the Scum and Villainy will get them, but I'm not holding my breath on that. However it will need to be repainted at some point. I sent him a cellphone pic and he was pleased with it, so all I need to work on now is the racing stripes on the Interceptor along with keeping its freaking wings on.

Grymn Flyer WIP Post #...uh...3?

Yes 3, I had to look in my links to figure that out, it is 3. Anyways, there wasn't really any photogenic progress on the Traktor Muls from my last post, so instead here's the latest on my Grymn's Garvus Lighter's base (the flyer will use the Arvus Lighter's rules).

The hole in the generator's top is for the Lighter's acrylic base.

Basically, its done. The flyer? Not so much...its not even out of its box yet. The Grymn on this base is a pirate model, so presumably a member of the lighter's crew who was drafted in the Grymn's military along with her ship. Given her attire, its obvious that flight crew are given a lot more latitude in their dress codes than the basic foot-slogging grunts do.

Some of the Lighter's crew up close.

Best of all: she has a Minion!!!! I love minions by the way, can't wait for the upcoming minion movie either! The minion is yet another lovely Bombshell mini. I gotta stop looking at that site, there's about $100 I need to scrounge up for a unit of bots (the arms are interchangeable between those 2 designs) for my Grymn army, but somehow I'm afraid that fixing my car is higher on the priority list than that. Sad face.

...shrugs...

Oh well, I'll try to get another post in for Thanksgiving, but no guarantees.

...and so Infinity begins...

o/

With my 40k minis going out the door in droves these days, I'll admit that very, very few minis are coming back in to replace them. Indeed, in exchange for the 100-200 or so minis that I've sold on ebay, only 5 new ones have been purchased with the proceeds (maybe 6...I think I bought a Battletech mech a month or so back as well). The rest of the $$$ has been dumped into the checking account and thus spent via the usual daily living expenses.

New toys, yay!

Of those few new toys, all (one mech aside) are for Corvus Belli's Infinity. I've purchased for myself an Ariadna Dozer-Engineer (below on the left) to go along with a pair of Traktor Mules (above), and a Moblot to use as a Lt. Only one of the Mules will be for me however with the other going to my GF Wolfy. I also bought a Dozer-Engineer for her as well, though her's is a Hasslefree mini rather than the Infinity model.

Her small collection of HF minis are all female and I figured we'd continue with that theme. However, Corvus Belli's female Dozer-Engineer is a ridiculous pin-up poster-like model with an RPG on her shoulder….because that's typical of even a sci-fi combat setting right? Bikini Battle Armor for the win! and all that nonsense. Instead I got Hasslefree's Modern Trooper: 'Harlequin' pictured below, who as you can see in the side-by-side comparison, looks badass while still being equal (equipment-wise) with her Corvus Belli sculpted male counterpart.

Copyrights of Corvus Belli and Hasslefree Miniatures.

Since we're just starting out, we'll both use her HF minis as stand-ins for: Metros, Line Kazaks and/or Caledonians, and one as a Wulver (who I've already decided is a: shoot that one first!!! model). These, along with the minis above clock in at a 100 point starting force for the each of us. After we figure the game's rules out more, we can decide then as to where we want to go with our troops from there...or if we'd prefer a different faction, etc..

6th ed redeux?

o/

As I said last week, this weekend I took my Spess Mahreenz to the FLGS for a game of 40k. Mac was there with the Red Corsair army I'd given him, along with some reinforcements he added, all of which looked amazing! Indeed, so much so that I tried to convince him it was a loan, and I wanted them back but as compensation he could 'borrow' my Storm Wardens and Angry Marines to paint for awhile.

...sigh...

No, he didn't buy that line of bullshit but did offer to play against me at least. I did take several pics of the army but alas, I had shaky hands syndrome (can I blame my bronchitis for that?). As such quite a few photos were of no use. Thus I'm no sure how coherent the following bat rep will be (not that mine are ever the most coherent to begin with...).

1500 points, one of the old missions w/o the stupid cards...the one with 1 objective each. No psykers either, so really it was a rather enjoyable 6th ed game with a few minor tweaks to the vehicle damage chart, charging into terrain, and apparently rending is only AP2 now (making my Eldar snipers even worse than they were last week). Sorry, no pics of the deployments either, to be honest I think I just flat forgot to take any...

This was the only showcase pic that wasn't blurred all to hell. Here, the Cultists prepare to unleash the hounds (Spawn).

Unleashed they were, only to be charged by my Dreadnought on turn 1. The Spawn couldn't hurt the dread, and it settled into an oh-so-rare and happy state of winning in HTH...

Turn 2 and an already damaged Hellbrute Charged in, to try and save the hounds for some even rarer dread on dread combat!

1 Hull point lost and the hellbrute goes down, leaving my dread to return to his original targets!

My Captain lost his tactical combat squad to these Raptors with a mark of Slaanesh, though he did kill their champion in the challenge.

A turn or two later, the techmarine and another chewed up combat squad tried to save him, but his Relic blade succeeded in finishing off the Raptors, who finished him off in return. The rest of the I4 schleps could only watch in horror...

Having disembarked from their rhino, and wading thru all sorts of fire, the Angry Marines slaughter their way thru the cultist horde.

The Chaos Lord with the Axe of Blind Fury tries repeatedly to climb the wall and take my objective (in the tower one level above my tac squad), but to no avail. He would fall to overwatch fire before succeeding. That said, he did wipe out a Dark Hands' Sternguard Squad earlier, so he probably paid for himself at least.

Having wiped out the cultists, and run down the Obliterator, the few surviving Angry Marines spot what looks to be a beer cooler on the top level and advance to take it...

Here we have Mac, painter extraordinaire and heinous Chaos warlord who informed the triumphant Angry Marines that the objective only contained diet coke! Enraged they hurled endless obscenities in his direction!

I do believe my dread had found his happy place, as he never left this combat till the bottom of turn 7 when he finished off the last Spawn.

Bereft of its storm bolter, the Angry Marines rhino, after multiple turns of going flat out tank shocks a havoc squad out of its cover (pancaking one in a death or glory attempt)!

Unable to contain himself from the diet coke treachery, my Angry Marines leader: The Fist Fucker, calls out the Havocs and kills them all in glorious combat!

 End result: I had both objectives and had tabled Mac's beautiful army. Huzzah!

However as a parting note: before anyone comments that I only like 40k if I'm winning, after my game I dropped right back into my usual rant mode along with Bob, who was suffering under stupid psychic phase and it's near-impossible to deny-the-witch BS.

The state of my 40k: Astral Claws

o/

Arch Centurion Carnac Commodus in all his glory!

Current Disposition: 

With the demise of my Tyrant's Legion army as the cultists have long since gone the way of ebay, my Astral claws are kindova small and redundant army now. They're also the last army I played prior to my 4ish month hiatus from 40k. Indeed, when 40+ models died to Mephiston (with biomancy of course!) and the Sanguinor who themselves were nigh invulnerable...yeah, that was soooo much fun I simply waked away from 40k for awhile. Now that I've returned, I'm thoroughly unimpressed with the game...but on a higher note, some IG models that went the way of ebay earlier this week funded some new Infinity minis!

Regardless, the state of this army is abysmal. Devoid of cultists, they're just a SM army now. However the almost fully painted Storm Wardens have commandeered the Astral Claws predator, and the Angry Marines have stolen their rhino leaving them on foot.

Future Recruitment:

Zilch.

The Ebay Threat:

lol, well...why don't you check out their current ebay listing here.

The Eldar's path of: The Dysfunctional

o/

After a 4ish month hiatus, I decided to play 40k to see if I still liked the game. Thus I loaded up my biggest army, the Eldar and headed down to the FLGS where I fought against William and his Eldar...dysfunctional Eldar indeed. 1500 points, one of the maelstrom missions which is full of cards that invariably say the same thing as the one you just discarded. As always, the terrain is all Imperial, even in this Eldar vs. Eldar fight because, well GW sucks when it comes to a variety of terrain.

I held the Dragon Knights and Corsairs in reserve. This was my left flank.

My center with a Spiritseer bolstering the troops...

...and what would turn out to be my treacherous Iyanden right flank.

My opponent's left flank and my target priority number one!!!

His center, with the Striking Scorpions deployed far forward...

...and his right which was loaded with a Seer Council, Dark Reapers and bikes.

I failed to steal the initiative, and one of my Expedite Defender squads got chewed up pretty bad but held (the flame template was used to show who needed a LD test).

COWARDS! After just 4 casualties, the Autarch (the schmuck with the sword) and the Iyanden Dire Avengers roll an 11 for LD and flee off the table! With my right flank having already collapsed on turn one, it was probably game over. Suspecting treachery, the Exodites grimly press on with their attack...

The Iyanden Wraithlord stuck around, but took 2 wounds in turn 1!!! The Spiritseer cast renewer on it and it gained one back, but still fell to bladestorm in short order.

Just about all I managed to accomplish in turn 1 was killing off most of the jetbikes. It was pretty sad. Apparently my dice were unhappy with my failed attempts to sell the Exodites on ebay. This experience wouldn't be a deterrent to try again.

Can somebody explain to me why sniper rifles are so fucking useless?

Never mind...they died turn two, so it was a moot point I guess.

I guess I got excited that something was finally going my way because I forgot to take any photos of the Seer council failing to charge my Guardians. They were summarily shurikened to pieces for their failure! Meanwhile the Scorpions charged the other emboldened Guardian squad and in doing so, proved just how lackluster Striking Scorpions really are. This combat would take quite awhile to run its course.

The Corsairs deep strike in and break a squad of Guardians with their shooting!

The also deep striking Venom and Vyper take 3 hull points (collectively) off of the 2 Wave Serpents along with one of the twin-linked Scatter Lasers, but failed to take either of them out.

Turn three and the Corsairs were all but wiped out, however the Dragon Knights (Wraithguard with D-Scythes) arrived from reserve to find that the Warp Spiders forgot to jet-pack out of their cozy little position, hehehe...

Meanwhile this Warlock, the last of his squad, fought to the end and killed the last Scorpion!

This last damned bike was starting to piss me off, between it and the Dark Reapers the other Defender squad was reduced to its warlock and Scatter laser (note, the Dire Avengers and Spiritseer died somewhere along the way). Still, that scatter laser took out the Warwalker which was a nice last gasp effort!

The Corsair prince (sans Blade Sworn and Venom) lobs a haywire grenade, taking a hull point off of the Wave Serpent, but failed to do it anymore harm on the subsequent charge.

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE D-Scythes? lol, how do you kill cheesy Warp Spiders? With even Cheesier Dragon Knights of course!

His last words: I'm not getting paid enough for this job...

The Hero of the hour! After taking down the last Scorpion, he turned and finished off the Wave Serpent with his Singing Spear!

Gulp! This will not end well...

With everything concentrating on the Dragons, they too fell. Came right down to the last die roll, or else one would have lived to incinerate another squad. Of course that would only have prolonged the inevitable...

Ouch, that was rough. In the end I had 2 VPs, and William probably had dozens...that's what it felt like. My take-aways from the game? I probably held a bit too much in reserve, the dice really didn't like me and when they finally turned around, it was too little too late. I still dislike the psychic phase, as even with psykers everywhere, its damned near impossible to dispell anything. Seriously if they were going to port the Magic phase out of WHFB, then where the fuck are my damned scroll caddies??? Warlocks would make great scroll caddies I think!

Also I think the Maelstrom cards still suck. Its kind of hard to build a strategy vs the opposing army when I'm too busy chasing objectives that are nothing more than luck of the draw. My opponent got several VPs for holding objectives he was already on top of, whereas my cards drawn were for the same objectives which were clear across the board. Gee thanks, let me just run forward suicidally into enemy fire while my opponent can just sit tight in his 4+ cover. There's already too much random shit in this game to make even my mission objectives purely random.

So do I still like 40k? 

Eh, I'm still kinda 'meh' on it to be honest. There's nothing to shift my opinion that 7th ed was nothing more than a poorly thought out and too rapidly shoved out piece-of-shit product that had no other intent than to raise GW's bottom line after THQ tanked. Oh and no, even had I won the game above my opinion of the game wouldn't be any different either. This sentiment certainly wasn't my opponent: William's fault, his army and friendly manner was just what one would hope for in a good game. Sadly, 40k just doesn't seem to me to be a good game anymore.

Unfortunately, 40k is still the #1 game at the FLGS. So I'll begrudgingly bring out the Spess Mahreenz next week and go thru the motions again. Especially as right now I don't have the heart to even bother with my beloved Orks (what little is left of them). That codex still feels like a kick in the teeth (and no, I'm not dropping another $100 on supplements for the good rules...the so-called 'supplement' concept annoys me so much, I don't even want the free Russian-hacked PDFs of them).