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Games Workshop

Orktober 2024: something really stupid pt. 1

by SCG October 20, 2024

written by SCG

Retro 90s Squighog Boy Painting Diary

I feel like one post in five on this website involves me acknowledging that I’ve not been writing much, but I guess a gap of around 10 months does warrant some response. And, well, my working life saw me shift into a new role around this time last year, and it’s been really tough, and I’ve had very little energy to put into writing, hobbying or even my social life. Things are, at last, getting a little better. And I’ve been keeping a personal journal which I’ve gotten surprisingly regular at updating, which is nice. So it’s not all bad.

Anyway! It’s October, and that means it’s ORKTOBER! Last year I entered a Midwinter Minis painting competition on the community Discord, and my retro 90s Snakebite Squighog Boy (plus period-appropriate cactus) caught enough attention to snag me a runner-up prize. With that in mind, how could I resist entering again this year?

This time around the challenge was to convert any ork model, to at least some degree, and paint it. Nice and simple, very open. I’ve not really done much converting before – in the 1990s as a child I cut the arm off a Van Saar gang leader and glued on an Eldar power fist, and I once glued a cocktail stick to a 2nd edition plastic Goff’s back for a banner – so this was a bit of a challenge. But in for a penny, in for a pound, right?

October 20, 2024 0 comments 66 views

Retro 90s Squighog Boy Painting Diary

by SCG October 31, 2023

written by SCG

During October the YouTube channel Midwinter Minis ran a painting competition. Dubbed #Sporktober (a portmanteau fusing Spook, Ork and October) it offered prizes for painting Undead or Ork models in a vibrant and colourful 1990s style. I hadn’t painted in that style since the 90s (when my painting was, quite literally, childish) and I had never entered a painting competition, so I decided this was a perfect opportunity to amend both!

The greatest obstacle for me was that I had two work trips during October, which effectively took me out of the country for two working weeks, reducing the time I had available for anything else. I also misjudged exactly when these trips occurred relative to the submission deadline, because I am very smart. The end result of this was that although early in the month I’d developed a clear plan for what I wanted to paint and assembled my chosen model, when it came to the actual basing and painting I had exactly three days to get everything done. Well… why not make a challenge more challenging, eh!

The basic idea was to follow the 90s colour scheme for the Snakebite ork clan, particularly the old Boarboyz. I also knew that I wanted to break out some of my very old 1990s Citadel paints, at least for some base coats. And finally, I wanted to include a simple base decoration that in some way recalled the period – eventually arriving on the idea of making a miniature spiky cactus, something familiar to anyone who read White Dwarf in that decade.

October 31, 2023 0 comments 795 views

Gladius: playing as Tyranids

by SCG August 3, 2023

written by SCG

A quick administrative note: in the interest of stretching my writing muscles a little more frequently, and publishing a little more frequently to this sadly neglected blog, I’m going to try writing small pieces about stuff I’m doing or am interested in. This might mean some posts seem a bit weird or undercooked… more so than usual, anyway.

I’ve again been playing Slitherine Software’s second most recent 40k offering, the not-quite-a-Civ-game and definitely-a-mouthful Warhammer 40,000: Gladius – Relics of War. If you don’t know, the potted description is that it’s a hex-based strategy game that looks a little like Civilization or Warlock or Fallen Enchantress or any number of other civ games, but in practice it’s a great representation of the grimdark setting of 40k, because you will never stop fighting. Want to hang back and fix your economy? Good luck, pal.

The game is brutally tough on higher difficulties but, happily, it works well as a multiplayer title. I’ve been playing multiplayer games with some friends and friends-of-friends against AI teams and sometimes things go well, but other times one of us is stomped into dust before anyone else can help them. It’s luck of the draw where you will start out; if you’re close enough to support an ally, that’s good. If there are other players between you, that’s not so good.

Still, you can only blame random deployment so far: knowing what you’re doing with your faction is also very important. Our most recent starting games left me feeling like there was a lot I had to learn about playing as everyone’s favourite voracious bug swarm, the Tyranids. I’ve started a practice game to experiment with some stuff, and figure out possible build orders for the faction. Here’s what I’ve got so far…

August 3, 2023 0 comments 2.3K views

Tyranid artwork from the official Warhammer 40000 website

10th edition 40k & Leviathan

by SCG July 8, 2023

written by SCG

Games Workshop launched the 10th edition of Warhammer 40,000 just two weeks ago, including a box set dubbed Leviathan. This contained a substantial collection of posthuman Space Marine and chitinous alien Tyranid miniatures; about 75 models. Thanks to a friend I was able to snag a copy of Leviathan, and spent the launch weekend building models and reading the new rules. This post is a round-up of assorted reactions to the new edition, including my thoughts after playing a couple of games, and my feelings about the contents of Leviathan.

Let’s start with the box set, about which I’ll be brief. Since pre-orders sold out rapidly, at this point the only copies available will be via third-party sellers, and so there’s not much reason to dwell on it. So, here you get approximately fifty Tyranid models, approximately twenty-five Space Marine models, a hardback book containing the 10th edition rulebook and Crusade rulebook in one, a pack of Leviathan mission cards, and a transfer sheet. There are no dice, measuring sticks or other ‘starter’ items, as this limited run box set is clearly aimed at existing fans more than new players.

The rulebook including the new Crusade rules is really nice, as this more narratively oriented way of playing the game is something I’m interested in. The book itself is hefty AF, although the core rules are covered in just 40 to 50 pages; just a fraction of the contents. There’s otherwise a lot of lore, artwork and miniature photography, as you’d expect. It’s a nice book, well laid out, and the Core Rules are mostly well explained. I also like the included pack of mission cards; like the Crusade rules, this is something I’d otherwise have bought separately. These cards are a way to easily generate a variety of mission objectives, rules and deployment areas, giving games plenty of variety. I’ll speak of these again later.

I felt the absence of the new style of ‘index cards’ – double-sided cards containing all the status and rules for any given unit – for the models included in the box set. These feel like they’d have been an easy inclusion, and without them you’re left referring to a downloaded PDF or the official app. This isn’t ideal, but more on that later. Reference sheets for the core rules would also have been a nice inclusion, but not including them does make sense for a box set not targeting new players.

July 8, 2023 0 comments 885 views

Dark Future wallpaper, showing two armed cars against a dusty desert backdrop. One car is firing laser beams.

Dark Future: Blood Red States

by SCG July 21, 2022

written by SCG

Tactical vehicular highway combat in a satirical and cartoonish post-apocalyptic America! What’s not to like?

I’m familiar with Games Workshop’s Mad Max-inspired Dark Future setting from a bunch of secondhand paperbacks I read as a kid in the 90s; the franchise endured longer as a narrative setting than it did as a tabletop game. I can’t speak to Auroch Digital’s 2019 video game version’s proximity to the original, but given that it was released over thirty years ago there can be few with strong feelings on the matter.

The core mechanics of Blood Red States feel solid. You’re always on the highway and you’re always in or between one of four lanes. Your car has three weapons: front-mounted, rear-mounted, and a 360 degree turret weapon. You can switch into ‘command mode’ at any point, slowing time immensely and allowing you to carefully plan your moves and then click to execute them. Target an enemy with your turret, speed up, slow down, brake or switch into reverse, hit the afterburners, match a target’s speed, and so on. You’re generally going to always be moving forwards, and as you do so enemy or allied vehicles will merge onto the highway or appear up ahead. All this works nicely and is fun, with a few exceptions, which I’ll come to shortly.

Between missions you spend your hard-earned cash. You’re a ‘sanctioned operative’; a mercenary for hire. You’ll need to spend cash on fuel, which isn’t cheap, and the price escalates as a run continues. The campaign structure is a bit like FTL or Convoy – the latter a much closer comparison for Blood Red States – in that you need to complete your overarching objectives and final mission before you literally cannot afford to go on, but it’s otherwise fairly open-ended. Cash you don’t spend on keeping your motor running goes on upgrades: more armour, new weapons, modules that provide buffs, and more powerful engines supporting heavier and better upgrades. A nice dollop of narrative flavour comes in the form of emails, of which you generally get one ‘fluffy’ email after each mission, in addition to any communiques directly related to accomplishing objectives.

A major weakness of the game is repetition. There’s a bunch of randomisation in the enemies you’ll be up against, mission difficulty, the level layout and scenery, but ultimately there are a limited number of mission types that cannot vary too widely. Quota has you straightforwardly killing enemies. Intercept is the same, but after a certain number of kills a ‘boss’ enemy appears. Gang War sees you killing enemies again, but this time there are allied cars on the road too. Escort requires you to protect an unarmed friendly until you’ve gone a certain distance. Blockade Run sees you fending off enemies and swerving through single-lane gaps in a set number of blockades. Data Heist has you driving close to large ‘robotrucks’ whilst a progress bar fills up, and there’s another mission type I forget the name that has you killing robotrucks. On paper it’s quite varied considering the core mechanics; in practice it boils down to whether or not you add an additional consideration alongside exploding enemy cars. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but with similarly-structured games like MechWarrior 5 I’ve found myself getting a bit bored as progress through the economy feels slow compared to my desire for novelty, change or a sense of progression.

Maybe I’m just impatient. I’ve only played four hours of Blood Red States, and I enjoyed them. I found myself getting frustrated by the random and limited selection of upgrades available between missions. I spent an entire campaign seeing the same tier 1 items appearing and sticking with my starting loadout almost the entire way through. It was only after the final mission unlocked that I saw different items appear – predictably, right after I had spent almost all of my money on an engine and extra armour, on the basis that I hadn’t seen anything more interesting appear. It’s random, I guess, but it’s still frustrating.

The game’s not without other problems. If you drop your speed to almost zero the game kinda breaks as the enemy AI doesn’t really know what to do. Hiring a second merc to help you out makes everything much harder and less fun; you may assume as I did that they’d act like an AI car, but nope, you need to issue commands for them. This more than doubles your cognitive load. It could be worse, I guess, because when you do see allied AI cars they are as dumb as bricks and will repeatedly crash into you and drive into your line of fire.

If you’ve got more time on your hands than me and don’t mind a bit of repetition and randomness in your action-tactical games I do recommend giving this a shot. The narrative flavour is great and the core mechanics are mostly solid. But I’m unconvinced that I’d get much more than I already have out of further enduring Dark Future’s foibles.

July 21, 2022 0 comments 918 views