We Get Xtreme with Dreadball and Much, Much More!!!
March 1, 2014 by dignity
So guys, here's the rundown on what we have been up to this week, as well as what we have planned for the next little while:
- First up, we're talking about the cool new gaming board Warren and Lloyd are busy working, while Justin has been off building Deadzone terrain like a mad man.
- Then we get to the meat of the show as the guys get a closer look at Dreadball Xtreme that's currently on Kickstarter.
- After that we move on to chat with our buddy James M. Hewit about his move over to the GW game design studio.
- We also get to chat 40K and give out thoughts on how we might back in to the game.
- Wrapping up the show, we have a word about the new bits and gubbins we're planning to add to the main BoW web site.
So it's looking like a jam packed show, hope you enjoy and have a great weekend!
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Weekender and Black Library live in Nottingham for me. Today is a good day 🙂
I actually like the little add breaks you put in now, gives you a decent pause point.
Imperial Guard is an excellent army for people, who want to explore other ranges. You can use pretty much any historical range you want – Napoleonics, World War 2… A lot of the sci-fi ranges are also quite useful. Take a look at some of my Blood Pact minis made from Warlord Germans (and some bits…): http://urbanzone.ehost.pl/blog/?p=801 (yes, I know, I am not a very good painter)
There is a lot of potential for “gaming in the gaps” – IG can represent an army from a “lost” world, mercenaries, units from some backwater planet, a humanoid not-over-the-top alien race…
Sunday, Monday, happy days
Tuesday, Wednesday, happy days
Thursday, Friday, happy days
But Saturday, what a day. watching The Weekender with you!
Your Marine worshipping melta bombs wouldn’t have been much of a faux pas in Rogue Trader. Not sure how the fluff has evolved since.
LLyod, if you want to understand the desire to play with Big Ass titans, you need to go back to the beginning of 40K. When I first played 40K it was rogue trader, a 1500 pt army consisted of 10 marines and a tank. My Friend was amazed when he bought two original land raiders and found he had spent all of his points, with only two vehicles and NO troops.
We always dreamed of playing bigger games, with multiple tanks and squads, and maybe one day a Baneblade. Then they brought out the baneblade templates ,to make your own, in the White Dwarf. Then we got the Gobsmasha, Spleen Splitta, Lung Bursta and the other one (can’t remember the name) as templates to make your own in WD. The Dreams got bigger. Then we got the 2nd edition of 40K, fixing the naturally developed imbalance in the game ( so many new units and rules were added to Rogue Trader). Points costs went down and game size went up. My friend and I dreamed of being able to use a Titan such as in the Heresy. fast forward to now.
The game mechanics handle having armies of a couple of hundred models being actually played in a weekend, Board sizes went up and now to play a really tactically diverse game you need the board space to manoeuvre such a large army. Now the Titans actually fit, best if you have some on each side, so you have titans beating crap out of each other over the top of a battle between other ground forces. It is almost like having two separate battles at the same time.
Warren, I was going to suggest Grey Knights, and use some of the new Dream forge models in power armour, the look great as Grey knights. You also have the Leviathan Crusader as your Knight model, and as they are in power armour they are easy to paint.
The bigger 40K got as a game, the less interested I became in it. I also don’t understand the desire to play Titans. Diff’rent strokes.
I agree with warren Titans are fantastic, and having scratch built a few myself including a Tau Titan, their definitely one of my favorite types of models and can look great as a center piece for your army.
On the subject of army’s, what about starting Tyranids, they can be customized and painted however you want, you could even make up your own hive fleet name and background.
Plus as something a little different you can include a Genestealer brood, who take on the physical and genetic characteristics of what ever host species they infect. So you could have partially transformed models from different species including humans.
praying to melta bombs really does fit in with the 40k universe, where all things mechanical are mystical!
James said GW design studio is Extremist….
Also GK and Guard are awesome, also an excuse to buy ShadtowStug and use it 🙂
I havent played a game of 40k in about 6 months now… Bad tournament and campaign experiences were the final straw…
But yeah, I dunno how you guys are thinking it’s going to be a moderate amount of money, I worked out my 1750 point Imperial Guard army came in at £686 direct from GW, if I bought it new. My Blood Angels came in a fair bit better though at around £220 with a heavy dose of kitbashing to make Sanguinary Priests and the like.
40k just seems to be entirely ‘pay to win’ now. Turn up with a fairly typical army often enough and getting smashed enough times by someone with 2 heldrakes, Wraithknights or Riptides in their <2000 point armies and its just massively discouraging.
And its even worse (for me) now that Apocalypse is all but standard rules with the Escalation expansion. One of the recent 40k games I saw at my gaming club was Grey Knights with a Warhound Titan, VS a Raven Guard force with 2 Storm Ravens and a Storm Talon at… I think 1500 points. That just wasn't my game anymore.
And now we have people being able to field armies of Scoring Knight Paladins, or alternatively up to 3 as allies.
With the backstage is is better for you guys if you get the lump sum or if it goes in the monthly instalments? Or does it not really make a difference?
The annual one is a big help as it gives a bit we can put towards equipment etc.
But really a balance of the two suits us best so either is a great help 🙂
Ok, the new titans minis are cool, they’re impressive, all what the players want.
But, sincerely, that will be without me. I’ve played 40k since long time (1988), and now it’s only Epic on a 40k table !
I stop to play 40k because of that. I prefer to come back to the Rogue Trader rulebook. It was so much dreamful to me. Today, I think that 40k is only a combat between big tanks or big walkers. Where are the troops ?
You said about playing 40k like watching a 40k movie. Ok. Maybe in Apocalypse… funny moment, but really toooooo long (maybe I’m too old 😉 )
Like you, I don’t care to win or loose, I play for fun, but what interest in a game if your Strategy/tactics are only command with too much dice luck ? What interest if your plans are annihilated with a random and hazardous event ? Maybe funny one time, but I think that’s not fun every time.
I prefer so play with my old Space Marines/Adeptus Titanicus than play 40k today (and not the Epic40k crap !) At these times, in SM/AT, titans made movement, it was fun, and impressive to play on a big and large table with building and real strategy (preparation for orders).
Anyway, today I play with DzC (far better for me !), and my two favorites games : DreadBall and DeadZone.
So, James M. Hewitt, i wish you Good Luck and Godspeed for your future work ! Hope to see you again on BoW videos ! ^_^
Yes, I prefer the Rogue Trader rules for skirmish combat but they had bad flaws too, the Virus grenade was a classic – Had my entire army whipped out bar 3 orcs in the first turn with the first shot by my opponent and being a space marine he was immune to the effects…….
But the Rogue Trader games had much more fluff and lent themselves to themed games as opposed to the tournament rules that 40K now represents.
Try the Old Hammer contract, it’s a good way to bring the fun back in your gaming group, a good attitude to the game also.
http://realmofzhu.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/oldhammer-contract.html
As a set of rules, RT left a lot to be desired. A little like AD&D at the time, no two gaming groups would have played it the same way as you needed to adapt the rules to make them workable for you.
Tournament rules? Have your read the rules?? Tournament/competitive games are balanced! 40k is definitely more set up for narrative play.
God I had some good times during the Rogue Trader era. lol
I still remember a friend of mine reading the dreadnought & robot construction rules and saying he wanted to try something out just to see how it went…
It ended up being a dreadnought with no movement or weapon skill points a 10 in balistic skill and having a defence laser as it’s only weapon. ( You know, one of those things that planets had for shooting down starships that in orbit. ) In 40k scale it was 15 inch long and had a stupidly powerfull 5 inch blast template.
Needles to say, it was one of the first things to get killed. lol
The way forward for Orc in Rogue Trader was grav surfboards armed with shurikan catapults and krak grenades…And one looney with a vortex missile
Titans first appeared in Titan Legions, the 6mm scale game, which was expanded into Space Marine, a horde of expansions and then it all went sh!t-shaped with Epic rules which brought it down from regiment sized battles to something barely larger than a standard 40K game.
As for Imperial Titans, Warren missed one.
Warhounds, Reavers, Warlords, Warmongers and Imperators, though the Warmongers were never released (there was concept art floating around).
The best thing about the 6mm scale was you could field multiple battlegroups of Reavers and Warlords supported by scout pairings of Warhounds, with one or two of the Imperators as the core of your offence or defence. Against them – scores of vehicles and hundreds of stands of tiny troops.
The knights GW released are the 28mm realisation of just one of the metal and plastic knights designs that were available in 6mm scale (there were maybe a dozen, perhaps more).
A sad day when the let it go…best game they probably produced
The thing is with 40k these days is that it can be whatever you want it to be. It can be huge apocalypse battles with titans and baneblades, it can be a 600 pt skirmish, it can be squad vs squad kill team. The problem is that too many players have a very narrow view about what is the “correct” way to play it. 40k isn’t the type of game where there is a right way to play. It’s a system that gives you the tools to play the kind of game you want.
The draw back is when you talk about pickup games and playing in clubs and tournaments. When there really is no such thing as “standard” 40k, everyone has different expectations.
– just my thoughts looking at it from the sidelines.
You hit the nail on the head in your second paragraph. It’s very easy to say you can make the game your own and play it how you want, but that depends on having opponent’s who feel the same way. It’s great if you have one or two like-minded friends to game with, but by and large you’ll find most of your opportunities for gaming will require you adopt the common language of the game. That means exploiting army lists and local metas. It’s inevitable and very hard to avoid it.
if you are going for a grey knight/imperial guard mix, rather than a religious group of guardsman, why not go for a ‘spec ops’ vibe? grey knights are normally sent in when the poo hits the fan, so why not have a very tactical feeling guard army? there will be much scope for customisation and easy painting (lots of blacks and dark blues) alternative manufacturers (copplestone castings, puppets war) and for the vehicles too
Great show I really enjoyed it…
I am pumped over dreadball X cant wait.
Okay, here we go…
My advice to any beginner of 40k is to start small. I was lucky to grow up with 2nd Edition, where you had regular articles and codex rips published in White Dwarf, with background, rules and points costs + the extensive material that came with the boxed game, so I had all the bases of the background covered as it was consolidated from Rogue Trader. Now so much has been added since it’s easy to see why it can be daunting for anyone new to the 40k universe.
I would recommend seeking out copies of the 2nd Ed Codex Imperialis and Wargear books, although background has changed in some areas the fundamentals remain the same. In fact older versions of rulebooks are generally cheaper and all the hardback rulebooks from 4th onwards contain the basics of the background, so it may be worth picking up a copy on the cheap. You could also try looking at the 40k Wiki, as it’s free and is pretty extensive:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki
Check out the entries for the following to get a foundation course in 40k fluff, essentially a Beginning, Middle and End (current timeline) story:
Creation/Pre-Imperium: Old Ones, Chaos/Chaos Gods, Necrons & Eldar/Dark Eldar
Age of the Imperium: The Emperor, Primarchs, Space Marines, Mars/Adeptus Mechanicus, The Horus Heresy (also other races Orks/Imperial Guard/SM Chapters/Chaos Legions/Age of Apostasy)
41st Millennium: Abaddon/Black Crusades (13th especially), Tyranids & Tau.
This will give you a run-down of all the races and their relationship with each other as well as where things stand in the current timeline (though there’s nothing to stop you gaming in any point of 40k’s history).
All the rest of the background has off-shoots of this wherein you get the different Space Marine Chapters/Ork Clans/Chaos Warbands/Eldar Craftworlds and Characters etc. To me the background is the reason why anyone wants to play 40k and a sound knowledge of it can only help you if you want to get into the game – if you don’t like the background then the game probably isn’t for you. I don’t think any other game allows you to ‘Game in the Gaps’ quite to the extent that 40k does as it’s so vast, which is what it was designed to be.
If you read enough background that could then inform army choice, or it could simply be all about the models. Like any game go for what you like the look of or the sound of – forget the rules in making your decision. With the allies system you have scope for greater variety (allies were actually used back in 2nd Edition where typically 25% of your army could be allied without any negative rules). You can pick two forces, so look at the allies chart to see what may work for you.
Once you’ve chosen or have an idea the next thing is to get the relevant Codex, which you need to budget for. I’d also start off at a 500pts limit, but even 400pts can work. You could also check out Kill-Team which uses 200pts forces:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m3460063a_Kill_Team_Rules_Pack_2013.4.pdf
In fact I’d say smaller games are often better to play as they’re more even (no room for big/spammed toys) and are easier on the wallet. 1,000 – 1,500pts is ideal for any piece of 6×4. The temptation with 40k is to go big and spend big, but I’d urge a beginner to do the exact opposite and show restraint in purchases, perhaps proxying a unit/model you want to buy to see how you find it works in the game if you care about getting any real ‘use’ out of it.
The cheapest way to get the rules and a force is to buy Dark Vengeance, if you like you can sell one of the forces on and recoup about £25-30 on ebay depending on how you sell them, or you can split the cost with a friend. If you buy from a discount retailer keep in mind postage costs, sometimes it can be little to no difference in price compared to buying directly from GW (if spending about £40). Otherwise you are best off saving up and getting the Battleforces/the newer boxed sets which are reasonable especially if you buy from a discount retailer – you could always sell any elements you don’t want in your army on ebay and make 50-80% of the RRP back which makes the remaining units even better value. If you’re really tight on budget and don’t mind sacrificing modelling opportunity in the future then sell any spare bits as well, certain special weapons/bits are worth a small fortune on ebay. Clip them from the sprues, get a good photograph and sell in bulk. As an example I bought a discount Daemon Prince, built it up and sold the wings by themselves and the spare bits and recouped the price of the model.
Either way the minimum you will need to play ‘officially’ is 1HQ and 2 Troops – a look on the GW website will tell you the composition without the need to buy a Codex. So you’re looking at about £50-60 + £20-35 for the codex to get the minimum you need to play (assuming you have glue and paints etc – if not there’s money to be saved here with alternative paints/glues other than GW’s).
There are many alternative models, mainly for Imperial Guard/Space Marines/Orks, though don’t always expect them to be cheaper. Any Google search will find models and many have been covered by BOW in one way or another.
@warzan: The cheapest army to buy is probably Grey Knights (or more specifically Terminators), whilst you could use Imperial Guard as Henchmen for your Inquisitor or as allies. Plastikote do some great metallic sprays (including chrome!) but are harder to shade with as the paint runs off the surface so I can’t recommend them fully.
Lastly rules are more like guidlines. If you find a rule that irks you and your opponent, check your reading of it – read it aloud, then if you’re still undecided/confused ask on a forum or get in touch with your local GW – if you’re still not sure then roll a dice if in disagreement or change it to something you both do agree with. Try and never let a rule interfere with the game – I’m only saying this as 40k has so many and they are often worded beyond what is needed to understand them that it can be confusing, others are just plain silly IMHO.
That folks is my brief primer for 40k beginners – read up on the background first and then spend money as wisely as possible, with small games of between 400-1,500pts in mind, you can then expand your collection in any direction you wish, unless you’re rich enough not to care, in which case I’ll happily take donations for my wisdom 😉
TECH ISSUE: Am I the only one not seeing the video? Right clicking the space reveals “Video not loaded” Flash message.
A great idea for the 40k side of things, have plenty of advice and tips to offer. Depending what options you look at maybe a way of trying to help out as I may have a few old sprues or items I may not be using.
I am 40k illiterate. Can anyone tell me why there are so many different kinds of Space Marine? I don’t mean canonically, as it’s easy for GW to come up with factions within a group. I mean in terms of gameplay and models. How different do they play? How many models that you can buy are specific to to Blood Angels or whatever? Seems unnecessarily complicated and I don’t understand why anyone cares other than for story.
To answer your “why” question first… because of demand. Simple as that.
Blood Angels, to name one example, have a fair number of unique miniatures, for example a unique Dreadnought and the Death Company box, as well as unique characters. Of course, the charm is that you can use other Space Marine kits in your Blood Angels army as well.
I am not sure what you mean with complicated. How is two flavours of Space Marines different than one Space Marine and one non-Space Marine faction?
Of course, it may seem superfluous if you’re not “into” the game, but that is true for any game. I don’t play Infinity, and I can’t for the life of me tell all those guys apart. They all look the same to me. Nevertheless, Infinity fans will quickly tell you that all those factions probably mean something.
If you’re in the game, you’ll enjoy the diversity of it.
So what are the implications of using that Blood Angel Dreadnaught in a Grey Wolves squad? I mean with a grey wolves paint job. Have you broken the game?
By complicated, I just mean that it seems like the only differences between them are what each Codex tells you they are. It mean, if GW said that we’re making a new Tau faction that was black with a new insignia, one new model and a new Codex, wouldn’t that be weird?
Dunno. What do you consider broken?
Have I broken the game if I use a blue-painted Khador Warjack in a Cygnar army?
They’re all warjacks. The only difference seems to be what the books tell you.
Why do you need different factions for Red, Blue, White and Black Warjacks? Probably because it’s cool.
And if enough people play Tau, I would hope they make a new Codex.
If … say … 1000 people out of 2000 in total play Tau, I’d rather have those 1000 split up among 2 Codexes (or 3, or 4), than just playing one.
You can’t “stop” people from playing Tau, if they are a runaway success. But you can add different rules for them to keep things diverse and stop a majority of the player-base to play only one Codex (to the detriment of overall diversity).
I’ll give you that. Maybe it’s the product of decades of evolution and trying to keep the game interesting.
Got to admit, I do sort of wish sometimes I could get into 40k, as there are things about it i do genuinely like – but none of the “playable” factions have any appeal to me whatsoever – I dont like playing humans, super-humans, humanoid aliens or bugs.
I do really like some of the “backround” factions like Enslavers, Umbra (the depiction that has the tentacles/mouths ect, not the plain sphere ones lol) and the Slaugth sound awesome too (floating biomechanical pillars and stuff sounds totally my thing!) – but I cant see any of thsoe getting plastic kits and codices any time soon!
You forgot daemons 🙂
I always just saw them as humanoid aliens though, personally….but you are right, it is arguable.
Man, that video was extreeeeeeemmmmeeeeee!
Great show guys. Lovely to see James one last time with you all.
Looking forward to all the new content, especially @elromanozo and his new tutorials, which make the perfect background for a bit of mini painting once you’ve seen them a few times. Romain’s voice is so theraputic.
“…A dark wet hole, what every purple worm deserves….’
Great show, guys. James, I think everybody on this site is going to miss having videos with you in them!
I’m really looking forward to this new 40k series. I actually never played any GW stuff, except the PC version of Blood Bowl. I grew up playing Battletech, along with various RPG’s. Getting back in to the hobby now, I’m currently playing X-Wing and Dreadball, and am taking a VERY close look at Infinity. Maybe I’m just geared mentally more toward smaller, squad/skirmish games, but with 40k being the big boy on the block I think this will really help me see what the appeal is of the massive wargames.
Warren have the Titans – I have my Dragons …
@warzan – pick Vlka Fenryka with Imperial Guard. If you like good background that connects two armies you can’t choose better. Winter is coming! 😉
@warzan you could go for a gaunt’s ghost / Kelly’s hero type army with units from other imperial army’s or aliens’’ in a fight for survival type army.
I don’t think it would be economical on a full table size, but for snow bases for my miniatures (for example, I’m doing my Ariadna minis for Infinity with snow bases and snow camo) I go black, blue grey (e.g. shadow grey), light grey (e.g. stonewall grey) and then white. On a table size you could probably paint blue grey and then spray with white though.
I like the idea of doing guard for the 40k army. Always had a soft spot for the common men in the imperium. Combining with some sort of dedicated assaulty force seems the best idea to me so Grey wolf would fit really nicelly
@warzan My thoughts would be to gear the IG towards a Penal Legion type army, perhaps lead by a colonel/inquisitor type trusted by the Grey Knights. As soon as you mentioned that combo, my mind leaped to the same story James was talking about, so I figure expendable IG. And who is more expendable than a bunch of convicts? No one!
So basically, Inquisitor in the GK detachment, trusted colonel underling of inquisitor as HQ for allied IG detachment (or the other way around, I don’t know which you were going to make your main army). The troops themselves don’t truly matter, as they may simply be purged between deployments. Or maybe the GK don’t think it’s worth wasting bolt shells on these criminals, as eventually some demon will do the dirty work for them.
And for fun, why not a unit of penal legion kasrkins? Because even the best of the best have vices and commit crimes.
You should go with elysian drop troops as your allies, they are imperial guard specialists trained for airborne assaults. They are 40k’s equivalent of paratroopers!
Really enjoyed this episode, particularly more info about Dreadball Xtreme. It’s a bit of a shame we won’t be seeing James around much anymore, but I wish him well!
Love seeing these video’s about your plans for the gaming table. Inspirational work gents, the concept of being able to use it for multiple scale battles will be fantastic. Only suggestion I have would be that you could use rare earth magnets to fasten the various bits of terrain to the board instead of brass rod. Can be used to create a cleaner look to the board, provided that it is within you budget.
@brumby123 Absolutely fantastic idea, and one we’ll look into budgets permitting. The only other possible issue, is having to correctly manage the polarities… if we go magnet to magnet.
Magnet to lump of metal would be a lot cheaper, no polarity faffing and probably strong enough.
*Probably*
You need to have a master magnet and check polarity with everything before you glue it down…
That said, I used to love titans… In the original Adeptus Titanicus game. The first one with the styrofoam buildings. That’s where they fit and belong.
On the snow board are you not going to do patches of the board using pva and bicarbonate of soda. The should give a believable reflectivity, that real snow has. So give the white base, it should have more depth.
hi warren, if you are looking to get people to explain some of the background of the 40k universe then you should look up the vaults of terror on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS14rofXz-WT305CKiu719Q
these guys do absolutely awesome videos covering all aspects of the 40K fluff, i’m sure if you ask them nicely they would be willing to help you guys out. i thought i knew a lot about the 40k universe, these guys proved me wrong 🙂
Another great episode guys.
I was wondering where you guys get all your terrain building materials from? I live in Derry and I haven’t been able to find anywhere that sells any of the high density polystyrene.
My advise, go with vamilla space marines and pick a theme and roll with it. I personally have a space marines army that is ENTIRELY inspired by anime. Everything from the name Knights of Oorai to the shimpan (blue/white horizontal striped panties) chapter symbol is all anime derived.
For Imp guard infantry I considered Wargames Factory Shock troops and then Dreamforge Games Eisenkern Stormtroopers for veterans or stormtroopers (especially Inquisitorial if you are going with Grey Knights… bleh I say but I’m not a fan of the direction they took with them). I also really liked the Dystopian Legion tanks/ironclads so I have a batch of those to go with. That being said I actually stopped all work in its tracks as A) I didn’t want to support GW further until I see some changes, B) everyone I would consider playing with at the game store switched to Warmachine(ugh), had no interest in 40k(meh), or are the super excessive competitive players that wouldn’t be that fun to play against(double ugh) C) its actually a lot harder lately to get out to the game store due to outside things going on.
I did have plans then to (after watching the Demo video on BoW) to use the figures for Bolt Action if for nothing else at least solo play but have heard that Gates of Antares is going to be a modification off of the Bolt Action format so I’m pretty excited to see how that turns out.
@warzan.
I am asking this question out of general curiosity.
If you are not going to stick to GW only models.So you can do cool conversions and game in the gaps.Which I totally understand and support!
And you are not going to play in a GW store, or in tournaments.
And you will probably end up making up your own rules for the cool stuff you make up /convert.
Why use 40k 6th ed ‘official rules ‘ and 6th ed ‘official codex books’?
Why not just pick up second hand books with the fluff you want , and convert a free to download PDF rule set ?(Or use an earlier edition of 40k ?)
AFAIK the ONLY reason to BUY GW plc ‘official rules and codex books’ ,IS to play in GW stores and tournaments.
If you are not going to do that, why bother with the latest rule and codex books?
If you are doing a tutorial for newbs, then best stick to the official models and rules, otherwise they wont be able to play in the GW shops..(And GW promote 40k as suitable for pick up and play games in store.)And that why folks pay the premium price for IMO.
short answer… I haven’t fully decided yet 🙂
But all good points!
Mind you, you can only actually play a ‘proper’ game (1500pts + on a 4′ by 6′ board taking over 1.5 hours) in a game in a handful (relatively speaking) of GW stores nowadays and the only official tournaments are in Nottingham at Warhammer World.
I think it is fair to say that yeah, doing a fully scratch built army won’t be massively helpful to complete newbies, but I imagine a new guy can work things out if you say, use the aforementioned Dreamforge models instead of GW Stormtroopers.
But yeah, aside from specific ‘Gaming in the Gaps’ style things, I do think you’d need to try to use as official rules as possible in general, to give an honest view of the game.
Unique models though, that’s a whole other kettle of fish, anyone can follow along with that if it looks suitably awesome.
I don’t like
40k…
Dreadball Xtreme remembers me of Rageball a game from PSOne and this makes want this game! The rules for bring the teams of Dreadball to Xtreme is another thing that really makes sense and makes Xtreme looks amazing!
This series of videos about 40K to Newcomers will come handy to me, I’m starting with wargames with Mercs and Deadzone, but 40K is a classic and ofcourse I Want to play it!
Another great show, cancelled my Warhammer Visions subscription today and took out a BOW backstage pass, looking forward to more Deadzone, got all my minis built and prepped, Wed night is undercoat night, loads to do!
I agree with Warren about the Titans being a staple of the Imperium. I strongly disagree, however, that they are great in a 28 mm game. They are not as much as super heavies are not.
What you have to ask, is this fundamentally 40k or is it Epic at 28 mm. Frankly, I believe the current direction is going to destroy 40k. Titans and super heavies are Epic.
Think of this another way. If you were to do a WWII full company battle. Would you do it with Bolt Action or Flames of War. Most likely you would choose Flames of War because of the size of the battle and the scale being smaller, thus more suited for company level battles.
The introduction of flyers, mini-titans and superheavies to 40k has made many ask – what is 40k designed for anymore? It seems we are smashing together what used to be across many different games into one game.
Finally, if one thinks mini-Titans are good, one has to look no further than GW starting to decline in a market that grew by double-digits this year. In my neck of the woods in the US, in November we had 16 regular veteran players of 40k. Since the introduction of super heavies and mini-titans, we now have 2 (myself and 1 other). The 14 others, many of which have played 40k for 15-20 years, have decided enough is enough and that 40k was no longer 40k, sold their armies, and have moved one.
So, are mini-titans and super heavies good for 40k? I guess we’ll know in mid-July when GW reports on their next period results.