40k - Went First, Win?

 Continuing my tracking of prevalence of the "Player - Went First, Win?", here are the results from The Long War V played last weekend.

Fourteen players, three rounds....21 games.

ROUND 1 - Scorched Earth: WFW - 2/7 (28.5%)

ROUND 2 - Surround & Destroy: WFW - 6/7 (85.7%)

ROUND 3 - Battlelines: WFW - 4/7 (57.1%)

OVERALL: WFW - 12/21 (57.1%)

So the average is 57.1% which is exactly in line with what Goonhammer is tracking.

Hobby - Citadel Paints to Dropper Bottles

 One thing I have been meaning to do for ages is transfer my Citadel Paints to dropper bottles. I am not a big fan of the current Citadel Paint pots finding them fiddly to use, wasteful for paint and not particularly conducive to wet palette use. Previously I had Vallejo Game Colour and found them easier to use though the paint still separates.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a Vince Venturella vid on transfer to bottles and knowing Jack had done it and found it better I thought I'd do it.

Big Bang for me. I have one of the GW Paint Sets with 100+ paints in it - released when they changed to trademarked names about 7-8 years ago. It came with great box which was my main reason to delay change as it makes organisation and tidy up easy. So it meant I had around 80-100 Base and Layer paints to transfer........in fact it is more like 120 it turns out.

I purchased 15ml bottles off Amazon along with stainless steel ball bearings to drop in as agitators. I had Liquitex Flow Aid and Matt Medium. Then it was just clippers and my handheld Badger paint mixer.

Process to transfer was easy - I recommend the Flow-Aid to thin paints that are particularly thick. There are about a dozen easy to find youtube videos that tell you how to do it....they are all much of a muchness. I reckon 100 paints took me about 3-4 hours. The GW label can be lifted off their pot and put on the bottle.

To store/organise them I bought an organiser from BattleKiwi (just ordered a second). It is good as it tilts the bottles so paint is stored towards nozzle and because you can clearly see the colour. I am going to look to reorganise by colour rather than split Layer and Base out. At the bottom of the organiser is a shelf for GW Dry Paints.

Nice easy hobby project that I expect to pay dividends in coming years from utility and economy point of view.

 

40K Hobby - Nurgle Daemons Progress

 Over the weekend I continued progress on my Nurgle Daemons with a view to having them finished by the end of this weekend.

The two remaining jobs are the bases for the Plaguebearers and adding five further bases of Nurglings.

The bases of the Plaguebearers have been smeared with Vallejo Earth Texture and then had rocks and gravel added before being sealed by PVA. From here I need to paint the bases and rocks before adding Agrellian Earth texture and then grass tufts.

The metal nurglings were primed, basecoloured then drybrushed on a painting stick. They have then been fixed to their 40mm bases for painting.

Once they are painted and inked, I'll go through the same basing process.

I have ordered rare earth magnets (6mm x 3mm) and I'll fix these inside the bases to help storage and transport.

40K - Nurgle Daemons

 I have a large Nurgle Daemon army that was originally built for WHFB. When GW blew up the Old World I ported it over to 40k.

Recently I got it out again and was keen to get it on the table. However to do this I found I needed to paint 13 Plaguebearers and, more importantly, rebase the full two units on 32mm bases. My army uses the old metal Plaguebearers (slotabase) so this involved cutting, drilling and pinning.

Here are all sixty in their glory. I need to give them a spray of satin varnish before I texture their bases.

The final thing to do is add 5 more bases of Nurglings to give me a neat dozen. Again these are the old metal figures. Pulling them out of my bitz box I found I had enough to do 24 40mm bases.....but where's the fun in that.

Hopefully over the next week I can finish the army up ready to get it out on the table.

40K Terrain - Ruined Tank Factory

 Over the weekend I painted up the Forge World Ruined Tank Factory and based it on one of the Tablescape tiles that arrived.

I then made up the interior to be in line with the molded base.

I reckon it has come up well and am looking to slot it into my home table.

This is quite a big piece. The tiles are 12" squares so the Factory is about 14-15" high.

It is very solid. The walls are made of solid resin which is around 1 cm thick. I have a bit of detail work to finish - inking of aquilas etc - but it is 90% done.

Key for me was to get the interior right. The molded base only covers 60% of the tile so I wanted to attempt a reasonably "invisible" integration of the rest. The new GW pipes help that.

There are lots of gantries and different flooring materials which gives a great canvas of textures to paint and play on.

40K Terrain - Supplies Airlifted In

 Yesterday eight new Tablescapes Urban Streets tiles arrived from the US. Jack sent them via USPS - who guaranteed delivery by 21 September or postage refunded 😆

These eight tiles allow me to expand my Cityfight table to 10' x 4'.......woohoo.

Last night I fitted some of the terrain I've been painting to individual tiles. As a result I'll have 3 new building tiles, three open plaza (one will get the Flying St. Celestine Statue) and two T-intersections.

The new Terrain GW released with the 9th Ed sets

Forge World Ruined Tank Factory with Extension plus 9th Ed Pipes

Manufactorum with 9th Ed Pipes/Boiler

The FW Ruined Tank Factory will be repainted this weekend using airbrush and inks. It is a beautiful OOP piece. Hopefully I'll have pictures up on Monday.

Fantasy - Kings of War 3rd Edition Bundle

 On the weekend I called into the Warlords for 10 mins while picking up an espresso (please be fixed soon, dear machine) and watched some members playing SAGA Fantasy.

It reminded me how much I really miss my beloved Rats and so, when I got home, I went online to Mighty Ape and bought myself the Kings of War 3rd Ed rules, Uncharted empires army lists and the spell and artefact cards.

Pretty good value for $130....Rulebook is 400 pages while the additional book of Army Lists is 112 pages. All three of my KoW armies are in Uncharted Empires - Ratkin, The Herd and The Varangar.

When I stopped playing 2-3 years ago, the local scene was too small to support an active tournament scene. However my approach this time will be to get in occasional games to scratch my Fantasy itch. From what I understand there are still 6-12 locals with armies.

40K - "Go First, Win" Redux

 So I have been sitting on this data for a week - since the FOB NZGT ended.

I had published it to a TOs' group to see if they could explain what I was seeing but got the stock "not enough terrain/not the right sort of terrain" answer.

However this morning Goonhammer published an article which appears to confirm what I was seeing. 

Put simply, if you go first you have a substantially increased chance of winning.

Goonhammer have indicated that the skew towards Go First Win is 58%. FOB NZGT had a more pronounced skew but if the average is 58%, within the bounds of uncertainty.

In their analysis, Goonhammer singled out Vital Intelligence and Surround & Destroy as particularly problematic. They also highlight Battlelines as the most balanced of the missions. 

I'd certainly be using Battlelines as my Championship mission in future - last weekend it was fortuitous that that was the case.

Personally, I think this skew is worrisome. That there is such an advantage from a random die roll is something GW should be worried about.

Hopefully, this will be addressed in coming months,

Event - 2020 Fields of Blood New Zealand Grand Tournament

The FOB NZGT is on again this weekend. I have been running it since 2008, prior to that Games Workshop ran it 1999-2007.

It is unashamedly a hobby event with the winner being the participant that scores the most points across the four core categories - Battle, Presentation, Selection and Sports.

Numbers are down a bit this year - expected with the Covid situation - but there are 44 gamers fighting for the First Overall plaque. There are also plaques for 2nd and 3rd and for the winners of each individual category.

In addition there are eight Best in Race awards. All the participants have been assigned to a faction so in the end a third of the field will be walking away with a trophy.

The event is on at Khandallah Town Hall in Wellington and the results can be followed on Down Under Pairings. If you are local, feel free to drop in.

I'll post some pictures of the action.

 

Hobby - 40K Manufactorum Progress

 Managed to get the basecoats done on the Manufactorum I airbrushed earlier this month.

The next stage is to apply washes and then airbrush inks to weather the piece. I'm hoping my new tiles will arrive this week which will allow me to fix the building to its base.

Happy with the way the flooring has come up. It will contrast nicely with the blue and red tiling that I used on my other buildings.

Hobby - Properly Cocked Podcast

 The Properly Cocked podcast is a local podcast hosted by Steve Joll. For those that don’t know, Steve is a professional announcer gracing the airwaves for one of the national radio stations. He also does voiceovers on television ads....and once you’ve clicked it is Steve, you can’t unhear it. 

Steve also has a side hustle co-hosting 40k Today where he is exposed to an international audience.

Joining him on the show are Aaron Wilson, Brendan Dee and Sean Sullivan, three NZ hobbyists. The podcast follows a regular format where they each choose their Top 5 on a particular topic. This can be gaming, painting or the wider hobby. I find them well researched and considered. The big surprise for me was Sean's breadth of knowledge on the lore.

Over the last week I've been listening to their back catalogue while painting terrain. It seems that while I can win tournaments, organise events and give advice but I make one blog post about Contrast Paints and I'm forever "Pete Dunn the Contrast Paint Hater". 

Hobby - The Trials of Covid

 Yesterday, I arrived home and in my letterbox was the following.

Purchased from a Russian vendor and sent seven months ago. It has obviously been in the wars. However, for all its troubles, it was extremely well packed and nothing was broken.

Hobby - 40K Terrain - Airbrush

 On Sunday morning managed to get in an airbrush session of some new GW terrain.

The buildings have been primed black, then based with Mournfang Brown, Mephiston Red with a highlight of Evil Sun Scarlet and finally Astrorath Red.

The next stage will see the blocking in of the metal - I'll use Iron Warriors - before gold trim (Retributor Armour base).

In the background are the pipes and conduits. Again these were primed black. I gave then the Mournfang Brown base before applying a salt chip mask. They were then sprayed with Averland Sunset yellow base. They've had the salt mask removed and are ready for detailing.

More pictures over the next week.

Hobby - Atelier Inks from Art Supplies

 Earlier this week Matt Carroll at Art Supplies, Auckland offered to send out some Atelier Inks for people to try. This morning a box arrived with three bottles of their Artists' Pigmented Inks for me to use.

I've previously purchased Daler Rowney inks from Art Supplies (www.artsupplies.co.nz)so I'll be interested to see how these compare. 

Thanks Matt.

Hobby - Miscellaneous Jobs

 I've got a few miscellaneous jobs to do this week.

The first is to paint up some Plaguebearers to give me two units of 30 metal PBs.

The other thing that has happened since I last had PBs on table is they are now sold with 32mm bases. I'm taking opportunity to move all sixty of them over.

While cleaning out some terrain, I found these resin pieces which were released as Citifight stratagems/objectives back in 2006. I'm going to paint them up and integrate them into my city table.

Speaking of which; I sold off my STC-Ryza terrain to Hagen but kept what look like escape hatches. Again these will be painted up and put in the basements of the various buildings.

Finally, there was a post the NZ Warhammer 40k Facebook group a few days ago that pointed out that the local Kmart has smallish "lego" display cases in their stores. These are about 10" x 6", so sit on top of my Hobbyzone shelves. They are a three tiered unit made of plastic. I bought one Saturday (NZD 13) and it arrived yesterday ($4 post). It is just the right size to keep my painted miniatures in while I working on them e.g. waiting to be based.

The miniatures are being protected by the combined efforts of Davros, a Cyberman, Mr. Burns and the Mighty Sainter.

Hobby - 40K Nurgle Daemons

 Over the past week I have been painting up additional models for my Nurgle Daemon army. 

I found some Putrid Blightkings downstairs that I had bought before GW blew up the Old World. The models painted up well and I decided to use them for Beasts of Nurgle as I really dislike the goofy official model. They will need to be based on 60mm bases .

The other models I painted were two of the Nurgle characters - Sloppity Bilepiper and Spoilpox Scrivener.

The next set of models to do are about 20+ metal Plaguebearers and about 30 of the old metal Nurglings.

I've also started to accumulate Death Guard models to build my new army. Very happy that GW announced a new Death Guard codex this morning.

Hobby - A Nice Surprise from GW & Adepticon

 Yesterday afternoon a FedEx courier pulled up to the house and dropped off a parcel posted from Illinois.

The day New Zealand went into lockdown (25 March) I was due to fly out to the USA for two weeks holiday including 5 days at Adepticon. Unfortunately Covid-19 resulted in the convention being canceled. One of the events I had signed up to was the Games Workshop Preview. It was widely anticipated that they were going to announce the new edition of 40k that evening.

It appears that they were also going to shower us with freebies - which brings me back to my couriered parcel.

A Care Parcel from Games Workshop & Adepticon

So in the box, I received a Warhammer Community cotton carry bag which contained four gifts. A set of Convention-only cards for Beastgrave; a Primaris Assault Intercessor and Necron Warrior (apparently these are unique poses, not available outside GW previews) and two softcover books - one containing the collected fiction from Psychic Awakening and the other the same from Malign Portents.

A pretty nice haul.!

This stuff will get dished out here locally. The figures will go to Tom and Cody (local Necron). The cards to Luke at my local GW store (only person I know who plays). I'm keeping the Psychic Awakening book and I'll offer the AoS book to a local I know who helped me get into the GW hobby.

Oh....and hello! It looks like 9th Ed was going to be announced at Adepticon - going by the figures included.

I hope I can make Adepticon in 2021.

Hobby - Tablescape "Urban Streets" Tiles - Secret Weapon Miniatures

 Last year, I sold off four unused Tablescapes "Urban Streets" tiles to Dave Foster as part of a display kit (they come with a frame).

I immediately regretted it, especially so when I found out that they were a scarce commodity. This regret intensified when I sat down at the start of lockdown to work on my home table. I decided to make tiles with permanent buildings  rather than bare tiles I could place buildings on. This was to increase the visual impact of the table.

In March I contacted SWM and they were having a sell out of their old tiles. These were originally part of a Kickstarter but the relationship between them and their Chinese manufacturer had broken down and they were no longer able to produce new stock. However, their inventory didn't contain many of the Urban Street tiles. The team at SWM went out of their way to gather the tiles I was after and they arrived at Jack's place in Boston today.

Eight New Tiles, a Clothes Horse & a Pair of Feet

My original intention was to pick up the tiles when I visited Boston post-Adepticon, then to have Jack bring them home at Xmas, now I will just have to bite the bullet and have then sent by USPS.

Once they are completed I will have 40 tiles which will allow me to make a 10' x 4' board or have considerable variety for a 5' x 4' board.

Hobby - Maggot Daemon from Creature Caster

 Finished up painting the Creature Caster (boo, hiss) Maggot Daemon this morning.

He is quite a bit different from your usual Nurgle Daemon in that he looks far more feeble (less resilient).

Now onto the GW models. 

40K - FOB NZGT Faction Breakdown

 Here is the Faction breakdown for Fields of Blood New Zealand Grand Tournament at the end of September.

You can check out the actual lists on Down Under Pairings here

Race	FOB Faction	Codex	Number
Imperium	Codex Space Marines	Space Marines	8
	Non-Codex Space Marines	Blood Angels	1
		Custodes	2
		Deathwatch	1
		Grey Knights	1
		Space Wolves	1
	Imperium	Sisters of Battle	2
		Ad Mech	1
		Imperium	1
Aeldari	Craftworld	Eldar	7
	Aeldari	Harlequins	2
		Dark Eldar	2
		Ynnari	1
Tyranids	Tyranids	Tyranids	6
Xenos	Xenos	Orks	1
		Tau	3
		Necrons	1
Chaos	Chaos	Heretic Astartes	1
		Death Guard	1
		Chaos Daemons	2
TOTAL			45

Remember the FOB NZGT is a hobby event rather than a straight Gameplay event. Battle points only make up 35% of your overall score.

40k - Blooming Life

 As we move into Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, a young man's heart turns to Nurgle (the giver of life).

I've decided my next painting projects will be finishing Nurgle Daemons and then rolling into a new Death Guard army (my 4th).

First cab off the rank will be the Daemons. Here I have a Creature Caster (boo hiss) Maggot Daemon from their Kickstarter as well as GW's Sloppity Bilepiper and Spoilpox Scrivener. I then have three Putrid Blight Kings I intend using as Beasts of Nurgle. 

My Nurgle Daemons currently have FW Plague Ogres as my BoN but I had a box of the Blight Kings and the models are too nice not to paint.

This morning I have sprayed them a few different green layers and intend painting them over the next few days.

40k - Harlequins: Secondary Objective Choices (Tournament Test)

 Generally, I like to keep things simple so I can keep my eye on the prize.

At The Long War IV on the weekend my Secondary Objective choices were generally consistent across the three rounds.

I went in with the view that in every game I would take the following three choices:

• Linebreaker - 4 points for two units entirely within enemy Deployment Zone (Progressive)
• Bring Them Down - 2/3 points for each Vehicle/Monster destroyed (End Game)
• While We Stand, We Fight - 5 points for each of three most expensive models alive at end of game (End Game)

So how did they work out?

Linebreaker - This works really well as I generally want to be on my opponent's side of the board. Generally scoring it from Turn 2, however there is the opportunity for it on Turn 1 on some of the Deployment maps. I scored maximum points in all three games. One thing to be aware of is the width of the various deployment zones. In Scorched Earth, you only have a 10" wide zone rather than the more normal 12". The alternative is to go for "Engage on All Fronts" but this requires you to score it every turn to max out. 

Bring Them Down - Chose it in Games 1 & 3. In the first my opponent had a Repulsor, an Impulsor and a Redemptor meaning my max score was 9 which I achieved. In the third he had two Defilers, two Rhinos and two Daemon Princes with Wings. I destroyed the vehicles but couldn't get through 20 Rubrics to get to the DPs. That gave me 10 points. Generally I think this secondary is one where you must be pragmatic. If you can get 9+ points then I think for a Soaring Spite list it is worth taking. If available points are less then I wouldn't take it unless alternative choices were pretty poor.

The second game I didn't take Bring Them Down as I was playing Imperial Knights (3 big one, two small). I took Titanhunter and maxed it out. Basically a free hit as the Secondary complemented what I had to do to win.

While We Stand, We Fight - for my army the three models are the two Shadowseers and the Solitaire. In each game I lost one of them giving me 10/15. In two games I lost the Solitaire (surprise, surprise) and against the Knights I lost a Shadowseer from poor positioning and forgetting new targeting rules. I can see this one varying between 5-15 points per game.

So with the aim of trying to score 30+ points for Secondary Objectives each game, I went 34, 40 and 35. I think the choices are a good starting point for my army but know I'll need to develop 1-2 more backstop choices that I know I can get 10 points each from.

40k Data - The Importance of Primary

 Using my small data set of 27 games from The Long War this weekend, the results clearly show one thing - the scoring of Primary Objective Points is the paramount determinant in winning in 9th Ed.

YOU SMASH THE PRIMARIES....YOU WIN THE GAME

The Long War IV had 27 games, all resulting in a winner.

Those results can be categorised as follows:

Scored More on Both Primary & Secondary:                15

Scored More on Primary, Less on Secondary:                5

Scored Same on Primary, Won Secondary:                     6

Scored Less on Primary, Won Secondary:                       1

This underlines the importance of building your list to score Primary Objectives in the first place. In only one case, were Secondary Objective points enough to overcome a deficit in Primary Objective points.

And based on this data set.......Secondary Objectives were only decisive in battle outcome in 26% of the games. Effectively win on Primary and you are winning 3 games in 4.

40k - The Long War IV Results

The Long War IV has held yesterday in Khandallah, Wellington. Three 2.5 hour rounds, 2000 points.

Results were as follows: 

Placing	Player	Army	Wins	Battle Points
1	Pete Dunn	Harlequins	3	244
2	Dave Hodgetts	Space Marines	3	240
3	Courtney Thomson	Thousand Sons	2	231
4	Aaron Wilson	Imperial Knights	2	183
5	Sean Sullivan	Deathwatch	2	174
6	Jasper Ford	Custodes	2	152
7	Jordan Green	Death Guard	2	148
8	Craig Stewart	Astra Militarum	2	89
9	Chris Parkin	Space Marines	2	86
10	Locky Reid	Sisters of Battle	1	195
11	Simon Smith	Sisters of Battle	1	161
12	Jeremy Webster	Eldar	1	155
13	Chris Sims	Space Marines	1	149
14	Hagen Kerr	Custodes	1	99
15	Sam Whitt	Chaos Space Marines	1	99
16	Robert Higgins	Custodes	1	64
17	Sam Nightingale	Space Marines	0	125
18	Ross Brewster	Aeldari	0	66

BEST SPORT: Simon Smith

BEST PRESENTED ARMY: Sam Whitt

The results have been uploaded to rankings.