Les Jeux: Le futur des commerces de détail

For english readers: dear valued reader, this is only a french translation of this excellent article by Llew that you probably read before. I only wished to make it more accessible to fellow frenchmen and quebecois as it is generating interesting discussions on our local forums. WNT team will post more articles for you next week. Thanks for reading us!

A Whole Nation (Part 1)

Why do new projects always show up before weeks of exams?

'Early adopter' Derek (and his blog) convinced the already weak-minded (when it comes to miniatures) '2nd generation early adopter' that I am to spend my money on...

Dystopian Legions

With a ''Federated States of America'' (aka FSA) starter.
Just for you, dear reader I'll do a quick review of what you get in a FSA starter.

DUST (why play it + pictures of my allies)

Hello all,

As usual, a very late article with some very real life delays that prevents me from posting all I'd want to so I thought it would be a good idea to talk about Dust Warfare.
beware: it's going to be a LONG ARTICLE, if you find a part uninteresting, just skip it.

1.My Past with Dust

Dust Models, a line of models created from Paolo Parente's mind from mixing WW2 stuff with his imagination, conversion skills and Aliens.
Paolo did some of my favorite Magic: The Gathering artworks so I knew the art direction for the game could only be awesome (if not more).

At Gencon 2010, a big coffin box of Dust Tactics was for sale and there was demos of the game.
My friend Eric and I sat at a demo table and managed to wipe our two opponents on 1st turn, the demonstrator asked us politely to leave our seats so others could try the demo.
Despite a super small taste of the game with the allies, we both really liked the quality of the models (especially the walkers).
(Side note: I even met Paolo and took a picture with him! Man is he fun!)
Later that year, the box was available in store and I bought one.
Played a game or two of Tactics with my little brother...and that was it, as usual, I got distracted by other games.

At Gencon 2011, I got a taste of Warfare (and managed to destroy Eric on 1st turn, oups!) Didn't really like the feel of the vehicles damage chart...the worst of 40k in a promising game (but keep reading!).

Then came the ''Revised Core Set'', with it new units and new campaigns, I bought one, was so impressed with the models inside that I prompted a friend of mine to split another one so I could get more axis reinforcements...and that was it, again, I got distracted by other games and left Dust collecting (bad pun censured).


Then came these guys: Dust Tactics Quebec a group of players with one I already knew, that plays from time to time in many Montreal stores and more importantly form a community and have beautifully painted armies.
I didn't needed much more than pictures of their models on Facebook to motivate me picking up mine and start painting.

2.Dust Warfare vs Dust Tactics

Now I got the chance to play both games:

similarities:
-They both use the same models

differences:
Dust Tactics:
-Tactics uses a grid for movement, this means a world of differences = the game plays way faster and LOS is easily determined.
-easy to remember rules and all additional rules available in free PDF
-Unit cards, making it easier to keep track of what's happening.
-A more dynamic system thanks to alternate activation of units.
-Tactics seems deadlier
-Benefits from campaign systems (!! This is a real plus!!)
-Perfect for a fast game: a 300pts game is played within an hour.


Dust Warfare:
-Has a rulebook and plays like a regular wargame (= measuring tape required)
-There's list building restrictions to limit powerplays...It also adds som fluff.
-slower, units seems to be tougher to kill
-Order system and use of suppression and reaction make for a more realistic game (and a fun one!)

3.Dust Warfare

I went with Dust Warfare because it plays more like a regular wargame, in fact, it reminds me A LOT of warhammer 40k...if WH40K was more dynamic and used a clever 2 activation phases system coupled with a really interesting use of suppression.
It would take me too long to explain all the rules (and their subtlety), lets just say that if you can try Dust Warfare, try it!!

Add to that a really nice rulebook and you have one of my favorite game system for that size.

4.Why play Dust?

Other than for the simple but effective game system, there is a lot of advantages to playing Dust:

-The Models. They are awesome...and cheap!! 15$/5-men unit, 30$/Walker/Tank 40$/Heaviest Walker/Armored thing

-Model Conversion Opportunities: the Dust universe is set in an alternate WWII era, this allows you to buy any WWII modelling kit and adapt it very easily to the universe (just make sure they are the same scale as your models!)
All Dust models are plastic. You can open walker hatches with a knife ;).
All models are on a 1/48 scale (which, while not only being a very common scale for tabletop, allows them to be mixed with some more conventional historical model kits.

-The Era: I always was fond of WWII (thankfully I didn't had to take part in it, I would probably hate it otherwise) and the beginning of mechanized modern warfare. Walkers are nicely designed to have that era's feel to them.

-The Distributor and the producer: Fantasy Flight Games is providing a nice support to the game so far, it isn't as good as the biggest wargame companies out there but above average, Dust benefits greatly from FFG's weight. As for Dust Studios, producer of the game, they've been churning out new models out of their factory like shermans during WWII and they keep having nice new model concepts.

To sum it up: Dust is Cheap, set in an interesting era, with really nice models offering lots of conversion possibilities and with good support of both its distributor and maker. Add to that a growing internet community (the best being Dust War Forums and Blog and of course, FFG's own forums, divided sadly between Warfare: FFG Dust Warfare Forums and Tactics: FFG Dust Tactics Forums

5.My Dust Warfare Armies:

Well, since I got a taste of Warfare and bought two books for it, all I can say is that I'm so sold to that game I even bought more models for it!

I'll share with you some pictures of my Dust armies and their (unofficial) fluff:

5.1 Allies:
The Allies are in the Wargaming Ninja Turtles' blog colors  Trollblood Base and Trollblood Highlight, they were painted in a low tabletop quality in a week and two days.
I played two games with them and lost both...but had so much fun and learned a lot!!

Here comes the 148th Airborne

-Captain Montreal:

 

What happens when an ex Montreal's biker gang member gets enlisted in the allied army?

This model is converted.

What happens when an ex Montreal's biker gang member gets enlisted in the allied army? He does what he does best: smashing skulls with a chain to punish the Axis and SSU soldiers from preventing him to eat poutine (the food! wiki that!) and being a biker.
He is ultra patriotic, quite though and uses a ''No turning on the right on red lights'' sign as a shield an souvenir from Montreal.
In game terms, he uses Rhino's stats and joins a unit of ''hammers''.

-Bazooka Joe (here with a squad of rangers)

He came in the starter, I hate using heroes in almost every game where I have a choice not to but he acts as a cheap HQ choice and allows a squad to survive a lot more than it would without his help.

-Heavy Assault Rangers (aka: Hammers):

These guys have a huge casualty rate in their ranks but its for a reason my opponents keep suppressing them and try to wipe them off the map: once in close combat, most tier 2 units are utterly unable to fight them.

-Assault Rangers:

The cannon-fodder, they are there to capture objectives. Always surprise me with the amount of bullets they can send flying into the enemies' face.
Flamers didn't impress me at all in Warfare. (they are quite hard to use)
Okay, I admit it, the paintjob on these 5 guys is far from my best...

-Grumpy Patriot and Liberty Prime (aka: Allied Medium Walker ''Mickey'' class)

Liberty Prime on the left and Grumpy Patriot on the right

these not only look beautiful but also do an excellent job

My two anti-infantry super-fast jumping medium walkers. They are insanely efficient at devastating infantry and very poor at dealing with any armored target. Extremely maneuverable, they make for a very interesting game experience.

-Dr.Manhattan (I know, I already used that name for my Earthborn Dire Troll)

What is blue and drops from the skies? An Allied Heavy Walker with the ''Airdrop'' platoon upgrade!! This tactic seems so strong and vicious that I've yet to use it against any of my opponents.
I had a lot of fun to paint this walker and even painted a turtle (this Blog's animal) in a freehand.

Thanks for Reading

I forgot to do a group shot but I'll try and fix that soon and will also try to add some of my Panzerjaeger Axis  Platoon on the blog.

If you're close to Montreal and want to get games of Dust going, join this group: Dust Tactics (and Warfare) Quebec.

Edit 1: Thanks to Stefan T. and Jean-Sebastien C for their comments, allowing me to better describe and differentiate Dust Tactics vs Dust Warfare.

guru

Buying Time!

Hey Kids, it's that time of the year! Yeah you know: it's buying time Christmas!

I'm going to try and make a little guide as to what to buy/ask for depending on what you like to play with, look at and paint.

Alright, take a paper and a pen and let's start the test!

Question 1: What Style do you like?
a) Historical (WW2, Napoleonic, etc...)
b) Alternate History (sometimes to the point there's almost nothing recognizable)
c) Fantastic
d) Modern
e) Sci-Fi/Post-Apocalyptical
f) Steampunk
x) you don't care about style

Question 2: What Scale of miniatures do you like?
a) Small, 1/100, 1/72
b) medium, the regular 28mm
c) bigger, 35mm
x) you don't care about model's scale

Question 3: What Scale of game do you want to play? (aka: how much money do you want to spend)
a) Skirmish (low model count 5-10, usually not that expensive to get in)
b) Medium Skirmish (from 15+ to 50 models on a table)
c) Big Battles (50+models in most armies)
d) Huge Battles (100+ models being the norm, usually with some gigantic centerpiece)
x) you don't care about game size

Question 4: How much time do you want to spend playing?
a) From 30minutes to an hour
b) From 1h to 2h
c) 2h to 3h
d) 3h+ to even days!
x) you don't care about game length

Question 5: How complicated do you like game rules to be?
a) As simple as it can get
b)With some extra rules per factions
c) With lots of extra rules per models
x) you don't care how easy or complicated a game can be

It should now give you a code, I'll try and put games I know into the code I hope fits them best and you would like most. note: ''x'' count as any letter (you were playing scrabble and didn't even realize it!).

aacbb	Flames of War
ba(bc)ca	Dystopian Wars
bbaac	Helldorado
bbbbb	Dust Tactics
bbbbb	Dust Warfare
ca(bc)ca	Uncharted Seas
cbaac	Anima Tactics
cbaba	Super Dungeon Explore
cbccb	Warhammer Fantasy
eaabb	X-Wing
eabbc	Heavy Gear
ea(bc)ca	Firestorm Armada
ebaaa	Mercs
ebabc	Infinity
ebbbb	Dark Age
ebccb	Warhammer 40k
ecaac	Eden
fbaac	Heroclix
fbabc	Malifaux
fbbba	Dystopian Legions
fbbbc	Warmachine

xxxxx             Santa might not appreciate that you've been this naughty! You'll probably end up like me and play most games.

Note 1:This Test is a work in progress but I'll release as is so I can get some help to make it good. Ultimately this will become a very useful tool to help people choose games.
Note 2: It is really hard to categorize most games as they try and touch as many ''style'' and ''scale of games'' as possible in order to increase their sales and boost the gaming experience they offer.
Note 3: You know a game that I haven't played (there's lot!) and would like to incorporate it in the test? Leave a comment! (thanks!)
Note 4: You think a game has been poorly categorized? Discuss it and leave a comment. (Thanks!)

On another note, I got a camera!! Expect LOTS of pictures soon!
Thanks for reading,

guru

Infinity Fun

Hey guys! Its been a while since I posted, I hope you didn't miss me too much.
This week I have been on a painting blitz to get some commission work done and in the process I picked up some inclination to paint my own models! Agast, what is this tomfoolery!? Well I asked myself the same but you can just say inspiration just bit me... or you can say I finished XCOM: Enemy Unknown and had nothing else to do. Whatever the reason, I come to you now with my miniatures for a Infinity Nomad Force. If you look at the Bakunin Jurisdictional Command on the Corvus Belli website, they are all on nyce plain ship deck bases with not too much frill to them. As my LGS had no special bases for my models I decided to go for the same ship deck style but in my own style.

The bases are plain in that I glued a double diamond textured plasticard to a magnetic 25mm base. I trimmed away the excess plasticard away from the circular bases and primed them black. I then painted them in a layer of Citadel Leadbelcher. Once that was dry, I drybrushed a layer of 1:1 Citadel Snakebite Leather and P3 Khador Red Base. I then drybrushed another layer of Citadel Snakebite Leather before slapping on a wash of Citadel Agrax Earthshade. And voila! Quick and plain bases. (You can check out a similar base project in Yaumasta`s post about his Dragon Forge Design custom bases here)

Now on to the miniatures!

Nomad Zero

Nomad Wildcat Multipurpose Tactical Unit

I had a plan to do all my Nomads in a Blue/White scheme with a glowy green effect on any gem pieces. And in sticking to that plan, you can see with the Wildcat Multipurpose Unit and the Zero, the armour consists of a white porcelain effect for the solid pieces and blue for the clothes. The porcelain white was based in Citadel Celestial Grey, while the clothes were based in P3 Cygnar Blue Base. I added progressive coats of diluted Citadel Ceremite White over the armour plates to raise the highlights. For the clothes, I first washed the base with a layer of Citadel Druchii Violet, then worked up to a 2:1 mix of Citadel Ceremite White and P3 Cygnar Blue Base by wet blending with P3 Cygnar Blue Base. The ribbed sections of the clothes were washed with Citadel Nuln Oil and drybrushed with Citadel Celestial Grey. For the gems, gun sights and miscellaneous sections I based them in a 1:1 mix of Citadel Moot Green and Citadel Flash Gitz Yellow, then highlighted in a 1:1 mix of Citadel Flash Gitz Yellow and Citadel Ceremite White.

There you have it, the beginning of a Nomads Squad of Ass Kicking. Two down, fourteen to go!

X-Wing: A Pilot's Life...+Mega Battles V1

A Pilot's Life:

You wake up to the sound of your Star Destroyer Cruiser "Code 5: All Pilot's to their Tie Fighters'' alarm...
Eat your breakfast because it's the most important meal of the day,
Brush your teeth because it's important...and the Empire doesn't provide dental care.

Heavy Gear: Unboxing the Northern Army Starter Kit

Unboxing the Northern Army Starter Kit, Yes But First...

Dear reader, 

I'd like to apologize for the time it took the team and myself to write any article on our beloved blog...It is the result of many many technical difficulties (ie: moving, lack of internet because of moving, camera dying during a trip to France, lack of inspiration, etc.) but be convinced the blog will not die out like that, in fact, like the Soviet army during WW2, this silence on the front was just hiding the noises of all the special projects the team and I have been cooking up (for my part: hiring artists to offer a better visual experience, working on a gaming table, painting tons and tons of minis, trying new game systems, etc.).

Foamcore Industrial Warehouse Terrain Project

My piece for the store. My first intentionally indoor/outdoor terrain piece. Lots of work went into it, and sure it doesnt look spectacular, but its a prototype.

Gaming: The Future of Brick and Mortar

As a young boy I still remember going into the hobby shop at the mall and buying D&D books and lead citadel minis. I remember saving up my allowance for weeks so that I could go into this little store in the mall and stare at their one rack of books hoping to find something new and wonderful. To be honest, 27 years later, not much has changed. I still go into the gaming store and stare at the racks in wonder. But for how much longer will I be able to do it?

Challenge Accepted!

It has come to my attention that a couple of the members of this blog and other friends have taken it upon themselves to put in place a painting challenge... an Unbound Challenge. That is, paint 150 pts of Warmachine or Hordes for an fully painted Unbound game. As I dont see myself being able to purchase supplemental models to make 150pts of either Menoth or Trollbloods (84 and 112 pts, respectively), I have taken up the challenge to paint similar amounts of points in other game systems.

Cellular Ghost's MERCs

Hey Guys!

I finally finished something! I painted 4 out of my 4 MERC minis for the potential of playing an actual game with them :D

Without further delays here they be:

They look better in real life but camera or the light dulls the details quite a bit. All the armor plates and clothes are wet blended; armor with a mix of Vallejo MC Scarlet and P3 Sanguine Highlight on a base of P3 Skorne Red washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade; and the Clothes are Vallejo MC Royal Purple/Citadel Nuln Oil and Vallejo MC Royal Purple on a Basecoat of Vallejo MC Black.

And as Guillaume (Guru) informed me, the models need a couple of markers to indicate facing. So, I put variety of reds, brown, and yellows to give a field of vision.

I had a real problem priming them since the can of primer I used gave the minis "little fuzzies". After several tries I settled for black primer since that was all I had, even I almost exclusively paint on white :/ Thats why if you look closely (or not closely :/), a bit of the detail is obscured by layering of primer. I also blame the stripping product I used, PineSol, which might have caused the fuzzies to appear due to the reaction with the primer. Dont know but I wont be using PineSol to strip my models anymore...

Now who's down for a game of MERCs?

Edit:

Added new pic of the MERC KemVar Trooper

Orks from the Sky (Arena 2012, Orks' Point of View)

Couple months ago, my boss asked me if I would join him in a team-tournament of 40k. I'm not the biggest 40k fan out there but I do have a sizable ork army and the prospect of playing a tournament with an all-ork team and my boss seemed fun so I said yes.

Preparation: The Rise of an all Flying Waaagh!!!

The Arena 2012 tournament organizers announced the categories in which you could win a prize: Best General (most victories), Best Sportsmanship (getting the highest sportsmanship grade), Best Painted (the best painted armies), Best Theme (best army theme/fluff) and Best Overall (''jack of all trade, master of none'').
Right away my boss and I looked at each other and thought the same thing: we had no chance to win 'Best General', might as well go for the ''Best Theme''.

At first I thought of an ''all flying ork army'' but that would mean I'd need to scratch-build these 'flying trukks' I always dreamed of. When I got some orks from a friend I almost decided to eschew the ''all flying'' for a regular theme and go try to paint them to high standard to instead win ''Best Painted''.
But then I don't know why, I ended up starting to build 3 Flying Battlewagons, I'm somebody impulsive.

My Boss followed-up with a diorama of an Drop-Rok (a carved out asteroid orks use to land on planets) and we started building our lists with as many Deffkoptas in it as we could fit.
I'll post our lists in the comments of this article as it's going to be long enough already.

Then my exams happened, I got distracted into painting couple of MERCS models (I regret nothing!), painting some Warmachine...and then 2 weeks before the tournament went back to preparing my army despite diablo 3 coming out.
I really thought I could have it fully painted but the sneaky battlewagons proved more challenging to finish assembling than I expected...I then spent the last week before the tournament with an average of 5 hours of sleep and the night before the tournament I went to bed for a big 35minutes of sleep as I had been painting from 5pm to 6:16am and the tournament started at 9 but I needed to meet my boss for final details.

Despite being super tired, I was quite excited as I was confident in the strenght of our theme: we had Team T-shirts, fluff written and an all-flying ork army!!

The Tournament: Dark Clouds of Orks to be Expected

Game 1: Red Gets You Killed Fasta!! (Blood Angels + Grey Knights)

When I saw our first opponents' army lists I thought to myself:<<well here comes our first (of many) loss!>> as they were playing Blood Angels with Grey Knights and were fielding some of the strongest combos in the codexes (ie: 2xDreadnought double twin-linked psyforce auto-canons). On the bright side, their army was fully painted and quite nice to the eye.
The primary objective was control of 3 objective markers. Secondary was to kill the most expensive unit in the opponent's army.
We won to go first.
The scenario also had 'Dawn of War' so we deployed only Warboss Alces-Alces (Boss on bike) and the Nobz bikers.

Our first turn on that beautiful table. All three Blorkade Runners swooping in to shoot da oomies.

Turn 3: An insane amount of tanks wiped our koptas and destroyed 2 out of the three Blorkade Runners, only ''Da MoonBusta'' survives the firepower unleashed against it.

Mephiston vs Gretchins: this fight lasted 2-3 rounds despite a desperate intervention from the remnants of a nearby boyz squad. Most gretchins were killed by the Runtherd's squighound devouring them to keep morale high against such a mighty opponent.

By turn 5-6 we had nothing left on the table and had not killed or destroyed a single model from them. Crushing Defeat!

We rolled A LOT of ''1'' when we were wounding on ''2+'' for Powerklaw attacks, Mephiston should have been dead but the Boyz Nob's Powerklaw malfunction ruined a ''kill by gretchins'' from happening.

Our opponents, despite playing a uber-competitive list (some go to tournaments to win ;)) were very friendly, patient and made for a very enjoyable game even despite the one-way annihilation. 

Lunch: Da Boyz need more squig-fuel fer da Blorkade Runners!

I think this is something to point out: through the entirety of the tournament, snacks, drinks and lunch were provided. In my gaming experience, this was THE BEST service I got. I mean: you come in in the morning and there's donuts for you.

This attention to their gamers really puts that event one cut above.

Game 2: A Shiny New Helmet For Kaptin Zugnut's Collection (Taus + Necrons)

Well I never faced the new Necrons but had a lot of experience against Taus. When I saw their list had even less stuff than ours I was certain this would be an easy victory. I couldn't be more wrong.

Primary Objective: control table quarter (in order to do so, both team members need to have a scoring unit in the same table quarter) Secondary Objective: kill points?

We did not go first and failed to seize initiative.

The scenario had a diagonal deployment.

Our Koptas on their scout move...Needless to say these fire warriors are about to disappear quickly.

Couple of turns into the game: Big Boss Alces-Alces and his nobz bikers find out how nasty the Wraith became in the new codex...But he also shows them that he's more than a match in melee too!

Close to the now-destroyed Blorkade Runner, Kaptin Zugnut shows a Necron Lord the fine art of dismemberment by powerklaw: one shiny new helmet fer da Kaptin!

Koptas are enjoying the 5 thoughness but make us regret we didn't equip them with buzzsaw.

We won because we contested their table-quarter...but also because the Runtherd succeeded his 6+ armor save in the explosion of his Blorkade Runner.

Very close victory for the Orks from the Sky.

Game 3: Enigmork in Action! (Imperial Guard x2)

Two Imperial Guard players with list almost similar, nothing particularly crazy but two Valkyrie 'Vendetta' so we could dogfight with the Blorkade Runners.

''Its gonna be an occasion ta try da Enigmork'' said Kaptin Zugnut as he looked at the impressive machine the big Mek had fitted in his Blorkade Runner, sure, it required grots to change the magnetic bands every three minutes but the occasion to yell abuse in the opponent's com-links was too much to pass for the Kaptin.

This describes perfectly the game as imperial guard will fail their morale check again and again (easily 5 times this game) and Creed will roll a double 6 on the first turn of giving orders.

The Deffkoptas decided to go ''headchoppa'' and wiped a whole squad on our 1st turn. (not shown in this picture: my deffkoptas do the same...Thats what da 'umies get for trying to burn them with flamers)

Guardsmen are a little nervous of the Nobz' proximity.

The Blorkade Runners will finally be able to shoot their Killkanons this game...to cause absolutely no damage.

Warboss Alces-Alces couldn't resist chopping off some 'oomies 'eads while the Nobz have to destroy a Leman Russ

The 'oomies fought back more than we expected and inflicted two wounds of the Boss...They failed their morale (thanks to the Enigmork) and try to run away, the boss slaughtered them.

The guardsmen operating the lascanon must have been thankful to be so high on the pyramid: the boss got shot before he could reach them.

One of our opponent laughing as the ''ugly red'' Deffkoptas enter the battlefield from a flank (these guys came in from the flank we wanted them in EVERY game, ''Ugly Red fer da Win...err or tryin' ta!'').

The valkyrie will finally get shot down (our Blorkade Runners couldn't do the job properly) explode and kill some guardsmen.

Definitely our most enjoyable game of the weekend. Enigmork (or is it Orknigma?) was a beautiful encrypting-abuse-yelling machine but despite it, our opponents seized the day with 5/4 versus 3/3 (points for primary and secondary objectives).

Thanks to them, we had a great game and good laugh!

So 2 losses and 1 win... ''What's our status boss?''

The Prizes: Da Boyz Get a Share uv Da Loot!

Finally, the moment everybody had been waiting for!

After a raffle where I won absolutely nothing (but my friend and contributor to this blog Llew won tons of things) came the awards for Best General, Best Sportsmanship, Best Painted, Best Theme (best army theme/fluff) and Best Overall.

-We did not win Best General...with our mediocre score of two crushing defeat and one minor victory and our 13 deffkoptas list we already knew it.

-We did not win Best Painted, it's without surprise that it went to Vincent Hudon...We did score very high with a 22/30 (Llew will complain that most of my guys had a lot of primer showing up but I'll just say that the Blorkade Runners blinded the judges)

-We did not win Best sportsmanship but tied for second (with a score of 16/18 thanks a lot to our opponents! We had fun too!) (Llew and my friend and co-worker Chris actually won this award)

-We did not win Best Overall.

WE WON BEST THEME!!!!

Orks from the Sky
We come in...Waaagh!!!

WAAAGH Orks from the sky!!!

I dedicate this win to Dan and Audrey, the first for having done such a beautiful diorama, basing my army, made the logo and T-shirt and the second because I cut a lot on the time spent with her in order to finish painting the Blorkade-Runners and Koptas and I strongly believe the Runtherd's miraculous 6+ armor saves were because I painted him instead of going with her to one of her friend's birthday.

Conclusion: Arena 2012 ''Orks are never beaten in battle!''

<<'Cause when we run away, it's ta come back stronger!>> (Codex Orks, GW)

From the beautiful tables (most of them were simply insanely amazing), to our great opponents, to all the little details the tournament organizers took care of, Arena was, as I said earlier, one cut above.
I started this post saying how I'm not the biggest 40k fan and I'll end it by saying that I simply can't wait for the next Arena to happen and I think it says a lot!
Thanks to Angela and Jean-François for the amazing tournament they were able to offer us!

Sekret Projekt: "Da Wing'' (Part 3)

In  Part 1  and  Part 2  I showed how to build the main ship but there was couple of details left, so for today we have:
-Building a turret (with Kinder Surprise's eggs)

-Putting the ship on an ''official GW flying base''

-raging because GW announced official ork flyers that look super sweet

-rejoicing because we're building flying ork transports and those aren't going to be official GW releases in...a long time.

Step 11: Make your kid happy!

Go buy your kid a Kinder Surprise, then eat the chocolate, give him the toy and keep the egg. (Or you can try to give him the chocolate as you will only need the egg but I'm trying to make everybody happy there!)
Cut the egg, for this project you will only need the top (the small part).

Put the top on the thicker plasticard sheet you used in part 1-2 and with a pencil go around it to create the shape you need to cut.
Cut it and glue it to the egg-top.

Now the regular orky stuff you're used to: cut in the thin plasticard a long thin rectangle and glue it aroung the bottom of the egg.
Glue a canon or weapons you want, don't put them too high as you'll want to put a little ''window'' for the gunner to see.

For the little ''window'', I'm creating them the same way I did for the rest of the spaceship.

like that!
Now I forgot to take the picture of the next step so you'll have to trust me on this:

-put a tank hatch on top.

-armor the sides of the turret by gluing between the hatch and the band of plasticard you put on the bottom rectangles and triangles.

-glue rivets on all this.

last thing for the turret: glue a little earth magnet, that will allow you to turn it, remove it, etc.

glue the other magnet on top of your ship.

Here you go! Your Blorkade Runner now has a shiny new Killkanon!

Step 12: The last one before painting

So it appears I messed up when I told you to glue the back of the ship because in order to put the ship on an official base you'll have to pin it....And you can't leave pins in empty air.
Solution to that is to put green stuff between the platform and at the very end of the beer glass (roughly center of the ship)

Here you go, the cool thing with the ship being transparent is you can see what you're doing.

GW official flying stand (ordered separately from Valkyrie kits)

drill it and put the pins in it.
Drill in the ship, so it goes in the green stuff for more stability/solidity, put two pins.

and

Step 13: 'Ere we go! 'Ere we go!

My first Blorkade Runner being painted. You'll see a lot more pictures of it soon.

Oops! You can also see the other two Blorkade Runners. Don't they look awesome? Well I gave you three tutorials to complete your own orkish flying contraption!

Stay tuned for:

-Arena Battle Report (with my contributor Llew playing the Blue guys)
-LOTS of pictures from the Arena table my boss and I have been working on (it is already awesome!)
-Pictures of Arena, Pictures of my painted orkish army.

Thanks for reading and if you post a picture of your own ''Blorkade Runner'' (made following my tutorials) I'll try to find something awesome to offer you!

the Uranium Deal (Mercs Battle Report)

---Classified Data---
--Clearance: VP and UD01 Project Director---
-16-05-2183-
-Codename: Uranium Deal
-Funds: ***encrypted***
-Assets: + ***encrypted***
-Status: --Read Report--

Report:

As you are aware, the Keizai Waza ''Blue Tiger'' squad met with (name erased) USCR representatives to discuss a possible Deal in which KW would sign for Uranium (and possibly Deuterium), all abundant in Siberia, in order to reinforce its position on the world's energy market.
Details of the transaction have not transpired yet but we do know Kemvar deemed KW entry on their turf (energy) worthy of sending a full composite assassination MERCS squad to put an end to this deal (and possibly re-ignite the enmity between USCR and KW).

Drone Pictures + Comments:

Forces Involved in the Conflict:

Here's the first Kemvar Assassination Squad Dispatched: Their battle colors identifies them to Kemvar VP José.

Soon after, Kemvar VP Yaum's squad was dispatched, proof of the mission's importance.

A new USCR squad unknown to our services yet, rumors are Commander Korto got in charge of it.

The infamous 'Blue Tiger' squad, responsible of countless civilian exposed to tactical nuke's radiation. Read our other reports for more information.

Individuals Involved in the Conflict:

Assassination Side:

José assigned his Assault Leader, Assassin and Monkeywrench to the mission while Yaum provided support with his Heavy, Sniper and Demo.

Dealers' Side:

In a pure show of strength, USCR had brought a Behemoth, Assault Leader and Sniper to protect the corporates. Keizai Waza had brought a Blue Tiger Tactical Nuke Squad (Assault Leader, Forward Observer and Pathfinder) Such heavy armament brought to protect a Megacon deal shows that both dealers expected the worse (or wanted to be in a strong position to negotiate the deal).

Drone Offline/Observer's Report:

The dealers must have been quite vigilant to protect the Uranium Deal or it might have been Kemvar's attempt to avoid any links to this assassination, one way or another, a Megacon defense system started disrupting communications and only the presence of one of our observers secretly inserted in the area allowed us to keep track of the situation:

-As soon as Kemvar's assassination squad was detected, USCR and Keizai Waza moved in to intercept. A transmission we caught indicate mission orders were simple: Eradicate the intruders, lethal force allowed.

The newly formed squad of USCR took that as an opportunity to film a propaganda movie to demonstrate their Behemoth's might to citizen workers while the Keizai Waza soldiers made a vow that, should they be close to death, they would bring their would be killer in the grave before they would fall.

(Corporate Plots: 'Hero of the People' and 'Death Before Dishonor')

First 15 Minutes of the Operation

Both sides moved into position. (USCR and KW reacting to their opponent's move by bounding all their members to the USCR Sniper (reaction1)).

The Drone went online for a couple of seconds, allowing for this picture to be taken.

On the left (cut by picture) the Kemvar Demo takes position in the center of the map behind a roadblock, in the background the USCR Sniper gets on top of  a small building to cover the battlefield while the Kemvar Heavy does the same thing in the forefront. USCR Behemoth moves and sits in the middle of two streets while the Assault Leader stays close to it to help it spot targets. At the far left, rushing behind buildings, is the  Kemvar Assassin, ready to execute the mission, one Vorpal Blade kill at a time.

15-30min. Since Beginning of Operation

While the battle raged on the field, our satellite took this picture and here's our interpretation of it (cross referenced with our observer): The Keizai Waza Assault Leader, having received his own satellite picture of the battlefield, saw the Kemvar Assassin heading his way, he probably then retreated to lure the Assassin in the open street in order to expose it to the combined firepower of his own gun and USCR's Behemoth and Assault Leader.
The picture shows that the trap worked but the Assassin still was able to charge the KW Assault Leader who apparently emerged unscathed to climb on a generator and fire a couple of shots into his opponent, wounding him and de-activating his cloaking field.

On the other side of the field (No Picture, Drone Offline), the KW Pathfinder fakes a Nuke by marking a spot with his laser, the Kemvar Assassination Squad evacuate the area but no nuke gets fired.

30-45min. Since Beginning of Operation

The Kemvar Assassin then gets killed by the USCR Assault Leader.

And the first kill is soon followed by a second one as the Pathfinder falls to Kemvar Sniper's fire.

In the background you can see the Kemvar Sniper and Assault Leader, the Assault Leader will get entangled by USCR Harpoon Sniper fire.

15min to End of Operation

In the middle, avoiding a lot of incoming fire and even a wurm grenade, the Forward Observer uses his Machine Pistol to wound badly the Kemvar Demo. Prooving they are ruthless, the Heavy proceed to shoot and finish his own team Demo in order to damage the Forward Observer.

Kemvar's efforts to eliminate the Observer won't be rewarded as he will survive the bloody battle.

 Meanwhile, Both Dealers' Assault Leaders start covering each-other's back while they rush to secure the containers' area and kill more enemies...Only to receive the end-of-mission signal.

Conclusion

Having successfully repelled most members of the assassination squad, the Dealers Mercs were successful in preventing yet another anonymous assassination in the world's energy market. Furthermore, the USCR Assault Leader investigation of a container showed it contained Kemvar's wurm-grenade eggs.

Facts:

-Our very own agent infiltrated to get infos on the deal's end got caught and is M.I.A.

-The Keizai Waza did not fire the Tactical Nuke they brought and cannot be prosecuted.

-USCR propaganda movie was not released as the secrecy of the deal was too important for the Behemoth's high command.

---End of report---
-----Please leave a comment---