Horus Heresy Reckoning -- Our 30k Tournament is ON!

Announcement.

We are very pleased to announce that our 30k tournament is ON! The name we have come up with for the tournament is "Horus Heresy Reckoning" and we think it is befitting of what we hope will be both a competitive, but fun environment to game in. 

The player pack for the event will be launched Friday (i.e. tomorrow). In the mean time, here is a poster that we made this evening. We hope you are interested and look forward to receiving your applications, but do wait until at least tomorrow to read the full player pack before emailing us!

We are proposing the following army construction rules (they are subject to a little tweaking here and there, but should be considered an almost final draft). 

Army Construction.

The maximum points value for each game is 2250.

Rationale: this value has been chosen to enable games to be completed in two-and-a-quarter to two-and-a-half hours, and to ensure players have access to most of the miniatures they might wish to deploy.

Fortifications are not permitted.

Armies must be constructed using an Age of Darkness Force Organization Chart comprising a legal primary detachment (i.e. Maximum of 3 HQs, 6 Troops, 3 Elites, 3 Fast Attack, 3 Heavy Support, and a single optional Lords of War; Minimum of 1 HQ and 2 Troops).

Instead of taking a Lords of War option, a player may instead elect to take a legal Allied Detachment (Maximum of 1 HQ, 2 Troops, 1 Elites, 1 Fast Attack, and 1 Heavy Support; Minimum of 1 HQ and 1 Troops).

An allied detachment must be chosen from a different 30k faction or legion to the primary detachment. In the case of Word Bearers or Traitor Auxillia, these can be chosen from Codex: Chaos Daemons with the strict caveat that summoning additional daemons is not permitted by any means. Additionally, for daemons selected as allies, no named (or unique) character can be selected.

Players can spend up to a maximum of 25% of their points (explicitly: 563 points) on a Lords of War option.

Players can spend up to a maximum of one third of their points (explicitly: 750 points) on an allied detachment.

No war machine detachments are permitted (explicitly: detachments that are made up entirely from units with armour values, excepting for Questoris Knights).

Primarchs are permitted. If selected, they are automatically the Warlord for the army.

Rites of War are permitted. These must be noted in the submitted army lists.

Relics of the Dark Age of Technology are not permitted.

Shattered Legions are not permitted.

Knights Errant and Talons of the Emperor are permitted.

Titans are not permitted.

Only units in the Horus Heresy and appropriate models may be used.

Simple and Effective Scenery Pipe Vents

I haven't done a scenery construction post in a long while, so today is an article on one of the most simple, and cheap, items of scenery that one can make.

Ingredients List.

2 x medium to large 90 degree plastic pipe bends. Get them cheap from your local hardware store for under GBP1.00 each. If you're spending more than that, be assured you can get them cheaper. 

1 x MDF table mat (coffee cup sized). Again, very cheap from department stores and hardware stores alike. 

I also used here a plastic mesh which can be bought from places like modelshop.co.uk for under GBP1.00 as well. 

Superglue.

Build.

This is so simple -- glue the pipes on to the MDF mat. Cut out the mesh in to approximately round shapes and push them right in to the pipes. That's really it.

One thing to notice here is the placement of the pipes on the MDF board. I've made sure that the overhang is still over the MDF. i.e. the base of support supports the entire pipe and not just the lower end of the pipe. 

For those who want to go beyond, make sure that you file down any plastic lettering on the pipes, or the production date (the thing with the arrow that almost looks like a clock … but that could also be cool to retain as well).

And that's all there is to it. I haven't painted mine up yet, but in the image there is a space marine for size scale purposes. The pipes are about 2.5 times the height of the marine and provide a solid line of sight blocker for any infantry or small monster models. Tucked under the pipes, a lone marine (or two) could even hide out of the line of sight of an Imperial Knight for a while as well. 

Hope you like this!

Facebook Page (Re)Launch and a Horus Heresy Tournament Question

Facebook Page for Warpstone Flux -- follow this link and like please!

Long term readers might know that just over five years ago Warpstone Flux had a Facebook Page associated with this blog. Back then, we used RSS graffiti to automatically populate the Facebook page with a copy (link) to the latest blog postings. This proved popular as a number of people very much liked to access the blog material within Facebook. 

However, RSS graffiti soon became unsupported and died a rapid death. After this event, we decided to "hide" the Facebook group and put it in storage in order to concentrate on posts within the blog itself. 

Today, we are announcing the re-launch of the Warpstone Flux Facebook page! There are multiple reasons for this, including a number of people emailing me over recent weeks and months suggesting that some of the posts I had here might be better discussed on Facebook -- in particular the questions I had about running a Horus Heresy Tournament. We will try to update the Facebook page on at least a weekly basis, and more frequently if required. In the first instance though, we will be using the page to mostly talk about tournament related topics. 

Old posts from early 2012 and prior will remain there, but we won't be touching them -- our focus is on the present. 

Horus Heresy Question.

The first topic for discussion on the Facebook Page (and here as well if you care to comment) is how should a 30k army list be restricted and/or built?

The rationale behind this question is that we want to prevent over-powered and win-at-all-costs army lists from dominating the battlefield, whilst still remaining a competitive environment for the average player to enjoy. Of course, we will never totally eliminate a spartan tank filled with terminators accompanied by further land raiders. But hopefully there are ways to restrict builds in 30k to ensure that folks can bring the armies that they like to the tables.

Firstly, and most obviously, allies can be banned. This has a large number of obvious benefits. But the problem here is that many Word Bearer lists rely on allying themselves with Chaos Daemons, and we'd want such lists to still remain viable.

If we did have allies then, how should they be handled? Personally, I'd favour banning named characters from allied lists -- this would prevent Fateweaver style builds from appearing in the first instance. However, it would adversely affect folks who wanted to bring some Knights Errant to the table (Rubio et al. in particular should be permitted in my opinion). So perhaps ban all named characters except for Knights allies?

Lords of War and Primarchs are clearly very popular. I would not want to ban them. However in conjunction with certain allies they can be over-powered. Hence, should there be a choice between having EITHER one ally, OR taking a Lords of War? I think this is a smart way to go, but would like to hear others views.

Finally, its important to points-restrict both allies and Lords of War at a 20% to 25% level. We don't want any titans showing up. Except as scenery maybe. 

Your thoughts are welcome both here and on the Facebook Page! 

[Image Copyright belongs to Facebook.]

Wargames Gallery: Coordinates Locked

++ Coordinates locked. ++
++ The Eldar will presence will be eliminated, and this world claimed for the Emperor. ++
++ Hydra Dominatus, brothers. For the Emperor. ++

DeepCut Studio: Neo-Tokyo Game Mat

One of the gaming mats that I have recently purchased is the Neo-Tokyo mat from DeepCut Studio. We used it for the first time on Friday just gone for one of our kill team games (although only 4x4 ft of it, rather than the full 6x4 ft). 

I must admit, I am really pleased with this purchase. I was hesitating between this one and a different city-scape from a different company, but I am very glad indeed that I purchased this one. The level of detail contained in the print is simply glorious. I like the layering that has been done here. Not only are the macro details lovely and crisp, but the small scale attention to detail is splendid. I really like the hints of spills here and there, the odd white spots, the yellow paint, and the general night-time ambience that the mat communicates. The diagonal arrangement of the roads only accentuates the feeling of a far flung future city. It really does the job terrifically well and makes a superb addition to the family of gaming boards that our local group is using (see the earlier article on the Frost Grave mat, for instance). 

As with the previous purchase, I selected to buy the mouse mat style mat to ensure zero slippage on the table top. The thickness is a couple of millimetres, and the weight is a few kilograms, so its not too bad to carry around and transport at all. As with the previous purchase, the transit time was under one week from Lithuania to the United Kingdom. 

This is one of the mats that I hope to use if and when we run a Warpstone Flux tournament. And if that event is successful, I will be investing again in DeepCut Studio's products in the future (certainly before the full exit of the United Kingdom from the EU occurs so I can take advantage of tariff free trade within the EU whilst it exists). 

Horus Heresy 30k Tournament: Today's Update

An update today on where everything is at with planning for a potential 30k / Horus Heresy Tournament that is going to be run by Warpstone Flux.

I am still clarifying a number of outstanding issues with our preferred host (the University of Hull). These are small things, but I want clarity on them before I make a booking with the institute for hosting the event. 

A number of you (in the blogosphere that it) mentioned to me that the proposed dates in mid-May (13th and 14th May 2017) were sub-optimal. It turns out that they are also sub-optimal for some of the local group as well. Given that I'd very much like to have as many of the local group helping me as possible (both setting up, and even taking part!), I'm going to have to potentially shift the dates. I am therefore currently looking at the weekends of either June 3rd and 4th, OR June 10th and 11th. 

Feel free to comment or email me about your preference for either of these dates. I await to hear what the university will say about room availability for those dates, hence do not regard them as set in stone. Just yet. I'm really hoping that I can lock things in next week.

To be absolutely 100 per cent clear: I've not made any booking yet. But things are looking very promising at this stage. It is simply a matter of tidying up the details for me. Hence, stick with me at this stage. I want to get everything right (or as optimal as possibly can be).

[The gratuitous image is from today's game that we played on a new gaming mat from Deepcut Studios. If we have the tournament, it is a mat that you could also be gaming on!]