Review: Nemesis

James Swallow seems to be a hit a miss author for me. I don't really care for many of his Blood Angles books, but I really enjoyed Flight of the Eisenstein. I believe that Mr. Swallow should stick with the Horus Heresy novels because Nemesis is a very good read.

The book feels like part detective novel and part Dirty Dozen. There is a serial killer that is being tracked down by local law enforcement on a sleepy little world that has largely untouched by the heresy. We also see the an execution force put together by all of the different sects or "clades" of assassins on Terra. These killers are sent to kill the Warmaster and stop his insurrection before it can continue any further.

Slooooooooooooow Down!

Well I started back to work on Wednesday afternoon and boy, its weird how tired I can get with just two and a half days of work! Thankfully I got most of my painting I wanted to get done before Wednesday and I was able to finish up the rest this morning. I anticipate a huge slow down once school starts, but once I get my teaching legs back, I hope to speed up again.

Anywho, here are the two Grey Hunters with power weapons I got done. I really like the fact that I have a power mace. It came off of the Dark Angles sprue, and I think its pretty unique. I already had a compliment on it, unpainted, at the Kill Team battle a couple of weeks ago.

Weekend Update

So it was a busy weekend of painting. I finished up my Long Fang Pack Leaders. I really like these guys mainly because I think I'm being clever with their backpacks. I like the skulls on top of the backpacks, they have a couple of wires and a augmetic eye. I am calling them the signum for the units. I don't care if the signum doesn't do anything anymore, I think it looks nifty! Plus this makes them look unique rather than just random dudes with bolt pistol and chain sword. I don't really expect to be taking anything other than a BP and CS as I expect my Long Fangs to be in the backfield raining missile-y death from range, and if someone outflanks into them, they are probably dead before they get to shoot.

Review: Crossfire

So this is the first of Matt Farrer's Arbitor Calpurnia series. In it we get to see an aspect of the Imperium not seen too much, one of the Adeptus Arbites. Arbitor Calpurnia has been moved to a new planet and pretty much as soon as she sets foot on the plant there is an attempt made on her life! The rest of the book follows her investigation.

This book isn't exactly what I was expecting. I was hoping for a detective story, but this book isn't like that which I dislike, but nevertheless it is a good read.

The book was a bit confusing to me in some places and while there where some good action, Calpurnia seemed to spend much of the book standing behind a group of arbites with riot shields.

This wouldn't be my first choice for a 40k book, but it isn't bad. I give it 3 shock mauls to the face out of 5!

Space Wolf Kill Team

Well I found out at noon that one of the FLGS is hosting a kill team event this evening at about 5pm. So I decided to pack up 500 points of space Wolves and give it a try.

I decided to try a Wolf Priest because I figured I can "prefer enemy" on infantry and be pretty safe seeing as we are only allowed an HQ and 2 Troops. So this kicked me in the ass to finish up my Ulrik the Slayer.

Tutorial: Quick and Easy Hair Part 1

Now I don't claim to be a very good painter, but after re-capitating all of my Space Wolves, I have a lot of hair that I have to paint. Now I got some practice painting my Dwarfs and I have, in my humble opinion, come up with a down and dirty way to paint a number of different hair colors.

Everyone started with just a black primer.

Mini-Update: Long Fang Pack Leader

So I finished my first Long Fang Pack Leader. I wasn't sure I was going to do him, so I wanted one fully completed before I did the other two.

Mathhammer: Coldblooded Leadership

So this week I was taking a look at coldblooded leadership. With this rule, whenever you take a leadership, you roll three dice and take the lowest two. Not surprising, this makes passing the leadership rolls much easier, but how much easier?

This was actually difficult for me to figure out with mathematics. The problem being, I can't just count up how many different ways there are for a person to roll a 6 on three d6 (33 different ways, fyi) but I had to count and differentiate the different rolls because 1,2,5 and 3,1,5 and 5,1,6 and 6,2,4 will all be the equivalent of a leadership roll of 6. I tried several different ways to make this easier on myself and I found that it was just a simple matter of listing out all 216 different ways you can roll three d6. Then I just went through them and figured out the sum of the two lowest dice.

WHFB 8th FAQ Checker from North West Warriors!

It may boggle the mind to find out that GW is actually putting out FAQs in a timely manner (but really, how long can we expect it to continue?) but they have already updated all of the army books and the main rule book within a very short span of time. Plus many of the army books have already had their new 8th ed. FAQs updated since the initial release.

Some inventive gentleman in England has created a script that scans the GW site for new FAQs and sends out an email to anyone that subscribes to his email list.

Jump on over to the North West Warriors forums to check it out!

War Games Con Weekend Wrap Up

So I took part in War Games Con's first working sessions and I had such a blast I don't even know where to begin!

I didn't play in the "couples" tournament because a) I'm a pussy and b) once I heard that Dave Taylor was doing a number of workshops I had a nerdgasm!

I walked around the hall quite a few times and it was very busy. There was the 40k and WHFB couples tournament a well as Flames of War and Warmachine Tournaments on the first day and then the WHFB and 40k singles tournaments on Saturday and Sunday along with three narrative Appoc battles.

War Games Con 2010 Rules Quiz

So here is the 40K rules quiz they gave out this year at War Games Con, enjoy!

1) How many models must a 12-man unit of Chaos Space marines lose in one shooting phase in order to be required to take a morale test?

2) How close can a unit Scout towards an enemy unit?

3) Frag Grenades have what strength against vehicles?

4) A Leman Russ Battle Tank moves forward just over 8" to strike an Ork Battlewagon in the side. What is the strength of the Russ' ram against the Battlewagon?

5) An immobilized Space Marine Dreadnought, armed with the stock layout, has how many attacks in close combat?

6) What is the coherency distance for a War Walker squadron?

7) What is the coherency distance for an Attack Bike squadron?

8) What dice rolls normally result in Perils of the Warp?

9) Give three conditions that normally prevent regrouping.

10) The minimum cost of an Imperial Guard Infantry Platoon is how many points?

11) What are the name, strength and AP of the missiles fired by a Whirlwind?

12) A Wolf Lord armed with a Thunderhammer and Stormshield with the Saga of the Warrior Born destroys a Guardian squad, ending the enemy assault phase with 12 attacks. In his next turn, he charges a squad of warwalkers, inflicting 4 penetrating hits, 3 glancing hits, and 2 undamaging hits. How many attacks does the Wolf Lord get in the next round of close combat?

13) Without using psychic powers or near any friendly model, what is Mephiston's initiative on the charge?

14) A Wyche Archite with Combat Drug Dispenser, Agonizer, and Splinter Pistol get at most how many attacks on the charge?

15) What is the effect of Eldar Runes of Warding on a Psyker 25" away from the Farseer with the Runes?

16) What is the cost of a Grey Knight Justicar with Meltabombs, Frag Grenades, Sacred Incense, a Nemesis Force Weapon and Storm Bolter?

17) List the name of each Ork HQ Special Character in order of points cost.

War Games Con Day 2 Photos!

Four albums and 252 pictures from Day 2!

40k

WHFB

Narrative Campaign

Painting Competition 

War Games Con Day 1 Photos

99 photos from today here and here, plus the best team write up, right there

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ZOMG WAR GAMES CON STARTS TODAY!!!!!!1!11!!!!TWO!

I'm ready for a fun-tastic fun-filled fun-venture with Dave Taylor today. I plan on getting down there early so I can take pictures before the "couples" tournament starts.

Pictures this evening.

Audio Book Review: Heart of Rage

So I got my hands on another of Black Library's audio books. This time it is Heart of Rage by James Swallow.

The book details a Blood Angels squad entering a dead Tyranid hive ship in order to find an Adeptus Mechanicus team that had previously been sent in to the ship.

This book is read by Toby Longworth he reads all of the BL audio books and he does an excellent job. I was a little critical of some of his voices in Thunder from Fenris (because one of them sounded like a certain California Governor) but I really have no complaints in this one. He voices about 10 different people throughout the book and manages to make each of them pretty distinct.
As for the story itself, it is a little predictable, the Astartes are sent into the Tyranid ship which they are assured is dead, but lo and behold... not so much. Combat ensues... yadda yadda yadda. 

I don't want to sound like I am detracting the story. It is a bit predictable, but I think it is well done. Perhaps it is the sound effects that go along with the audio book, but it did a good job of keeping me interested.

My big complaint, as with Thunder from Fenris was the length. If this book were in written format, it would be a short story, and I believe that this book would fit in nicely with one of the many anthologies that BL has put out, but this is a stand alone story, and instead of coming in a large book for about $13, it is by itself for about $20. 

I went to the gym this morning, listen to the story while I worked out, and on the way home, I was done with it. Seems a bit too short for the money I spent.

I give the book three slaughtered Hive Tyrants out of five.