Origins 40K RTT is Throne-of-Skulls Official!

Posted by gbprime on 14. April 2011 21:29

We just got official word from Games Workshop.  Origins 2011 40K Rogue Trader Tournament is officially in the North American Tournament Circuit!  That means 1st and 2nd place winners will receive a ticket to the 2012 North American Throne of Skulls Tournament, held Oct 6 + 7 2012 in Memphis!

 READ ABOUT IT HERE

 This may also have done good things for our prize support, but we're still working out the details on that.  Regardless, there will be swag, oh yes.

So mark your calendars folks.  JUNE 25, 2011.  Origins.

Now that we've got this nailed down, look for our 2011 Origins Schedule to be updated with juicy details very shortly!

Island of Blood First Impressions

Posted by gbprime on 6. September 2010 22:39

One trip to my local game shop later, Isle of Blood is now in hand.  I fended off my kids as best I could to open it during dinner and started gawking at the minis instantly.  My first impression is that the pics on the web I have seen do not do the set justice.

It's the detail in the miniatures.  I knew I was buying a set where the plastics have limited posing, but the troops are far better than I expected.  The Lothern Sea Guard are quite highly detailed, packed with equipment, and just LOOK like elite troops.  Likewise, the well equipped Ellyrian Reavers actually have 4 different poses, and for 5 models, that's pretty good.  Even the clanrats are exceptional, having just as much detail and SIXTEEN separate poses.

Character-wise, the models are pretty darn good as well.  The Moulder and Warlock Engineer look positively evil and have a lot of detail packed onto their small frames.  And the High Elf Mage... oh my lord the high elf mage.  He comes in 3 peices... back of torso w/ cloak, front of torso, and head/chest/staff.  The result is a dynamic mini with DEPTH to it, rising into the air in the midst of a spell effect (instead of just on top of it as in previous mage versions).

The two army commanders deserve special note.  They too are awesomely detailed, but are oddly infuriating to a modelling and conversion gamer such as myself.  There is only ONE way to assemble them.  The skaven warlord comes in two peices... his front torso and arms w/ weapons, and... the rest of him.  You basically clip on his breastplate and arms.  The only modification possible would be a forearm/weapon swap. 

But even that meager swap is a lot more conversion potential than the griffon rider.  The griffon comes in 7 peices and is a great model, but the rider's lower leg and upper arm on each side of his body are molded to the two halves of the griffon itself, along with bits of cloak and flowing ribbon.  The rider's torso and the other half of his cloak fit in between these halves.  Assemble it any other way, and the prince's arms are floating in the wrong locations.  Yes, you could chop off the arms and flowing cloak, and make a saddle out of greenstuff, but you'd still have to make any substitute rider match up to the lower legs that are molded to the griffon's feathers.  It's a bit disappointing, and I'd rather have seen a rider you peg onto the griffon, or even legs and waist molded to the griffon with a totally separate upper torso, making conversions easier.

Woes about the commander models aside, this set is awesome.  Highly detailed minis and the all-important mini rulebook make this a set worth owning.  Even if you trade away the minis (I'm trading Ranillon rats and receiving his elves), the value of the tradebait that comes with the rulebook is well worth it.  (The Ebay buy-it-now for the Elf Griffon Rider is currently varying between 15 to 21 bucks.)

And for gamers like me, whose small kids nick his range sticks and blast templates... bonus.  =)

Quickshade Test

Posted by gbprime on 15. July 2010 10:13

A few months back, I acquired a can of Quickshade (product link here).  The store owner was raving about how good a product it was and how much better it was than poly stain for dipping miniatures.  I'd done a dipped army before and was comfortable with it's use, so I dropped 30 bucks on a can and decided to give it a try.

A squad of my marines volunteered.  I had painted these guys up in 1999 for the Chicago GT, and they were an all-drybrush job, so they seemed like good candidates to try a varnish wash treatment on.  Here they are before the treatment.

Using the medium strength color, I brushed the entire miniature and dabbed off the excess.  I let the varnish dry for 36 hours and then sprayed the minis with dullcoat to remove the gloss effect of the varnish.  The result was a noticable yet subtle shade-and-ink of the miniatures.  It doesn't subtract from the look of the miniatures and darkens the colors only slightly, but it does fill in the joints nicely, giving them the depth they were missing in my haste to get them done for the GT years ago.

The Quickshade product is indeed superior to poly stain varnishes.  It is quite brushable (unlike the poly stain), does not bubble, flows like an ink, and is thick enough to stick in all the places it needs to go in a single coat. 

Unlike an ink, however, the quickshade requires a dullcoat afterward if any additional work is to be done to the miniature.  that breaks up the paint surface and makes blending look funny.  the quickshade also sticks to flat surfaces unlike inks, resulting in certain surfaces having a pool of darkness that really needs to be retouched.  (only because of the dullcoat requirement, that's kind of difficult)  The 30 dollar price tag is a bit of a bummer too.

In summation, Quickshade is a great product to do an entire army quickly and have a force that looks great from 3 feet away.  It's up close you'll notice the shortcomings of the shortcut, so you won't be winning any painting awards by relying on this product.  For that, stick to regular inks.

Your Milage May Vary (Dedicated Transport Rant)

Posted by gbprime on 8. July 2010 11:09

In running this year's Origins events, we had a number of interesting rulings come up, as you might expect.  Most of them we ruled correctly on, a few we got wrong, and one in particular I WISH I had gotten wrong, but didn't.

I'm talking about dedicated transports.  The problem is, the main 40k rulebook just doesn't have much to say about them.  They're a squad option now, other units can use them but not start the game mounted up in them, and (thanks to the GW FAQ) we know they count as separate units for purposes of shooting.

But what about victory points or kill points?  Or unit cohesion?  Well apparently, they leave that up in the air.  The rulebook just doesn't address it.  Some of the newer army books do (the ones written since 5th Ed), but the older ones (and their online errata/FAQ's) do not.

So here's the problem, an actual case study from the Origins RTT...  Daemonhunters army, an Inquisitor and Retinue (150 points) picked a Land Raider (250 points) as their dedicated transport.  At the end of the game, the character and retinue died to a man, but the Land Raider was unharmed.  And the game was decided on Victory Points.

Now Codex Daemonhunters (print or online PDF), being a 4th Ed army book, does not say anything extra about dedicated transports, so we go to the 5th Ed Rulebook to figure this out.  The transport isn't listed as a separate unit, so it counts as an option purchased for the squad.  So the opponant who killed the inquisitor and retinue but not the Land Raider has inflicted 50% or more casualties on the squad, but has not wiped it out.  So according to page 300 of the rulebook, he gets 50% the total value of the squad, which is 200 points.  (Half of the character and retinue, and half of the undamaged land raider, because it is a purchased squad option.)

But any 5th Ed Army book will say in the description of the dedicated transport that it doesn't take up a force org slot BUT OTHERWISE COUNTS AS A SEPARATE UNIT.  So not only is unit cohesion crystal clear on that one (thanks guys!), but Victory Points are back to the classic way of doing it.  The 150 point squad with a 250 point dedicated land raider in the above scenario is worth 150 victory points.

But the real problem... is that we are counting victory points differently depending on which Codex the army is from.  Same body count, Codex Daemonhunters gives up 200 VP while Codex Space Marines gives up 150 VP.  (Codex Tau Empire, for example, is in the same boat as Daemonhunters, so don't assume it's just the PDF-only army books that are subject to this.)

The solution... would be for GW to insert one sentence on page 67 of the rulebook, either in an errata or an FAQ, the same sentence they're putting in every new army book.  "These vehicle choices do not use up any force org selections but otherwise count as separate units."

And if GW hasn't done this by next year's Origins RTT, expect a house rule to that effect.  Victory points should never be calculated differently depending on the army being used.  That way madness lies.

Origins Missions

Posted by gbprime on 1. July 2010 09:22

While we're waiting on Ranillon to get the pics and results from all our events sorted out, let's talk missions.

This is what we got the most negative feedback on this year, particularly the missions for the Rogue Trader tournament.  They were a little too "Fourth Edition" for some people, and did not properly allow or account for current edition deployment or rules options.  They were also not available online ahead of time, as has become custom with other RTT's around the country.

To this we say... you're absolutely right.

Like everything our crew does, the missions were delegated to one of us, and that person had real life hit him hard recently.  The result was missions that were delivered to us literally AFTER game 1 of the RTT was underway.  Jim and I listened to the feedback you were giving us, but decided that rewriting the missions for games 2 and 3 while game 1 was underway was not wise.  So it was missions as written and make improvements for next year.

So let's talk next year.

We are running again in 2011 with as many or more events and as much or greater prize support and trophies.  But this time we're getting all our ducks in a row well in advance.  Missions will be posted on this blog well ahead of time.  We're designing 6 missions in total and getting feedback from you, the community.  Then our staff will pick two missions for the 3 round RTT and put up a poll for the 3rd mission.  So all of you will be voting on mission number three.

Thanks to the 40K Basement folks for summing all this up and letting us know what major points need improvement.  If they, or any of you, have any other feedback on how Origins games were run this year (positive OR negative) please leave comments on this post or send us email.  We are listening.