...And it is hard not to notice the familiarity to a certain game we talk about here a whole heck of a lot. Take a look at the great opening cinematic...
Just give the guy a british accent...
I am not really making a criticism. "Space Marines" and Tyranid-ish bad guys like the Zerg are pretty much staples of the Sci-fi genre nowadays. Besides, it's a great game.
It also shows what you can do with graphics, even the "lessexpensivethanAvatar" sort seen here. I love the fact that the game has great storytelling to go along with the equally superior game play. And, it's only the first installment of a "trilogy" that Blizzard has planned.
It's definitely enough to keep me interested...at least until the next installment of Dawn of War comes out.
The new Warhammer has been out barely a few weeks and already Games Workshop is offering an Update for the new book. They've also updated every FAQ for every army. Nice to see them being proactive.
They have also provided a page on the new Warhammer basic set:
The art looks a bit tacty if you ask me and the name for the new set is hardly original, but the box clearly includes a huge amount of material -- and the new small rulebook. The rumored price is upwards of $90, but that's not too bad for as much as you get, IMHO.
Man, these malevolent denizen's of the warp are breeding like infernal rabbits! Coming soon to an invested gaming store near you are Bloodcrushers -- in plastic! -- and the two-headed Fateweaver.
Personally, since I've been threatening to finish my Knorne 40K Demon Army the plastic bloodcrushers are especially tempting -- even if they are still an equally impressive $53.75!
Here are the final, official results for the Origins Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader Tournament for 2010:
|
Name - Army
|
Battle |
Sports |
Painting |
Total |
| Patrick Smith - Imperial Guard |
57 |
15 |
16 |
88 |
| Michael Hernandez - Tyranids |
53 |
13 |
14 |
80 |
| Joe Miksa - Space Marines |
38 |
15 |
12 |
65 |
| David Talbott - Necrons |
34 |
14 |
15 |
64 |
| Allen Blunt - Imperial Guard |
30 |
14 |
14 |
59 |
| Michael St. Clair - Daemonhunters |
33 |
15 |
9 |
57 |
| Ken Boone - Orks |
24 |
15 |
17 |
56 |
| Stuart Moll - Orks |
32 |
14 |
9 |
56 |
| Craig Collins - Dark Angels |
27 |
13 |
14 |
54 |
| Steven Olk - Imperial Guard |
30 |
12 |
12 |
54 |
| Joshua Shivak - Imperial Guard |
31 |
15 |
7 |
53 |
| Tom McFarland - Tau |
30 |
14 |
8 |
52 |
| Hyde Anderson - Nids |
20 |
15 |
15 |
51 |
| Michael Brown - Tyranids |
31 |
14 |
4 |
50 |
| Steven Beasley - Eldar |
29 |
14 |
4 |
47 |
| Nick Soika - Tau |
18 |
12 |
11 |
41 |
| Chris Kruso - Space Marines |
22 |
15 |
4 |
41 |
| Brian Vorhees - Orks |
WD |
| CS Barnhaus - Space Marines |
WD |
Some notes on how the scoring was done --
-
Each player received a score of 0-5 in sportsmanship from each of his opponents giving a possible range of total sportsman results from 0-15
-
Battle scores are the sum total of the scenario points from all three games. The basic range was from 0-20 per game, but some extra bonus points could raise results over 20.
-
Five judges went through and graded painting individually from 0-20. Their totals were then averaged to get the final result. Anyone who did not put out their army to be judged received an automatic 4.
-
No one could win more than a single award
-
Eight people tied for Best Sportsman so the award went to the person with the worst OVERALL* score -- it's harder to be fun to play with when you are losing. (* EDIT - We intended for it to be lowest overall, to put the trophy within reach of someone new to the hobby, unlike all the other awards. It was not lowest battle score, we apologise for the typo.)
-
Ken Boone had the best painting score, but was disqualified from the Best Painter award because he did not personally paint his army. Likewise, as Patrick won Grand Champion he could not also claim Best Painter. The resulting tie between David and Hyde was decided in the former's favor after all the judges went back and reexamined the armies once again.
Our thanks to all who participated! We look forward to doing this again next year!
As a new week starts I just wanted to give everyone a preview of what they can expect this week here at 40KOrigins.com:
1) Complete, detailed results for the Origins RTT -- Right now I am going through the data to make sure it is all correct
2) First Impressions of the New Warhammer -- Just got my copy on Friday and have been reading through when I can. Definietely some interesting effects for my Empire army -- spears are better, greatswords are worse. More details to come.
3) The English Civil War Does Empire -- Being a trained historian I've always wanted to do an ECW army and for similar reasons a Fantasy Empire army. Well, it's occurred to me that as either force is based on much the same technology and the same dress style I can do both at the same time! So, this will be the first installment of a new ongoing series as I put together and paint up some Warlord figures to produce both an English Civil War historical force and Warhammer Empire force at the same time.
Games Workshop just put up some new (mostly plastic) Daemons on Advanced Order. You can see some pictures of them below (clicking on the image takes you to the appropriate GW order page):
Daemon Prince
Pink Horrors
Seekers
The Changling
Saturday was the time for the big Rogue Trader Tournament -- and the big prizes which you can see in the picture below.
Click This and Any Picture to See Larger Version
We had a larger turn out than last year, but one still not quite as big as it should have been as Origins messed up the tournament listing in its Convention Book, giving it the description for our "By Kids for Kids" Ork Pile game rather than the correct one. This in turn caused at least a handful people that we know about to think the RTT was for teenagers and not attend (although when they stopped by the game later and found out the truth they were sorely disappointed). Nevertheless, it was almost a full house.
Here are a few pictures of the tournament in the midst of the action:
There were a number of nicely painted armies, so I made sure to get copies of the ones that impressed me the most. However, first a few notes on how the judging was done.
There were five painting judges that all individually went around to judge each army while the players were off at lunch. We didn't join together to discuss armies this time around, instead just giving a score from 0-20 with 0 being bare metal and 20 a Grand Daemon level army. Once we had finished the total scores were added up and then averaged out. In the end there were two armies tied for first so we asked the players to put out their armies once again, this time for a group judging session. The winner here ended up getting the top prize.
Speaking of which, first up are Dave Talbot's purple Necrons which went on to win Best Painting:
Dave's army had a nice unity of theme and the highlighting was quite crisp and tidy. Likewise, his "lightning" effects on some of his Necron's weapons worked very effectively, better certainly than just leaving the regular green plastic untouched.
The main weakness of his army was that he just didn't give it enough time. If you pick up the models and look at their bottom sides you see usually just basic, at times messy, coloring or in the case of the Scarabs only primer black. Still, kudos for Dave at being clever at how he "hid" these defects so that from a view from above (the typical perspective) these shortcuts can't be seen.
Second place painting went to Hyde and his yellow Tyranid force.
Again, this was another painting job with a good overall theme that certainly fit what you might expect from a bunch of killer bugs. The shading and highlighting technique was also nicely done.
However, in the end Mike's force suffered from the same basic issue as Dave's (not surprising as I believe they both did their armies together in a short period of time) -- the overall level of finish was mediocre. This is more of an issue with Tyranids as they have a lot more pits and corners where the lack of time to finish well becomes all too noticeable. There were as a result a lot of bare white primer in the recesses of the models despite the fact that everything else was done well. This was the reason why the Necrons beat out the bugs -- too much unfinished detail work.
Still, first and second place look quite good overall, especially from the classic "five foot" distance. Seeing what Dave and Hyde can do with just a few weeks worth of (a lot of) effort makes me eager to see what they could produce if they gave themselves, say, a few months!
Next up are Ken Boone's orks. Really a nice paint job, so much so that they would have won Best Painting if Ken had been the one who painted them -- using an army that someone else painted automatically disqualifies you from winning Best Painting (although you get regular painting scores that are put toward winning overall).
One conversion and paint job I really liked was these Tervigons:
I hadn't seen this design before, but I really like it. Definitely Tyranid, yet unique -- a sort of mix between Screamer Killer and monstrous crab.
And now for the winners of the 2010 Origins Rogue Trader Tournament
Best Sportsman -- Chris Kruso
Best Painting -- Dave Talbot
Best General -- Mike Hernandez
And, for the second year in a row...
Grand Champion -- Patrick Smith
Thanks to all who participated and especially Armourygames in Pickerington for supplying the prize support.
More to come...
The big event on Friday was the (we hope) World's Largest Apocalypse Game. I had planned on having video of the event, but my video camera died (apparently sitting on a shelf for a few months was too taxing). So, instead I came up with another way of letting you see the entire board.
Just click on the individual parts of the above pseudo-mosaic to see the entire Apocalypse board going from left to right. We had around 110,000 points of units on the tables and most of them are there, all save those that would later enter from reserves.
Also, we ran 40K Space Hulk that day and every day.
Notice our 40KOrigins.com black and Red dice at the bottom of the image. Everyone who attended one of our events received one (or more).
More to come...