Genestealer Cult - Codex?

There's a lot of exciting rumour coming out of late, and I'm sure most of you interested in 40k will have heard the rumblings about a harlequin-sized release for the genestealer cult. You can read a bit about it here. It's popped up in a couple of places now alongside the more solid adeptus mechanicus rumours. Considering my current project is and adeptus mechanicus cult, happy days.

A genestealer cult codex for warhammer 40k would suck me right back in to giving current 40k a shot. It seems plausible given the new mini release for harlequins. This got me thinking, what would a current release include? It seems to make sense for GW, as they could incorporate loads of existing kits such as the broodlord, Imperial guard, plastics genestealers etc.

The new kits would have to include a hybrid kit. Even the thought of it makes me weak at the knees. Can you imagine the plasticy goodness? Whether it would be a full kit or just conversion parts for other models, is hard to call, but I would guess a full kit. I wonder would the iconic ribbed armour make it into a new release?

For other kits, a clampack magus would be probable. I don't think we'll see a hierarch or a limo. Perhaps a kit of the larger 1st generation hybrids, or something new. It could really be done with a magus and hybrid kit at a minimum, everything else is there already. The codex itself would be a boon to all cult players, ending the need to jerry-rig proxy lists. It's improved since the new allies rules came out, but it's still a pain. Even the codex on it's own would be great. Considering the frothy gushing from gamers (myself included) when cult rumours arise, I'm surprised GW hasn't gotten on this before.

I'll keep my horrific hybrid fingers crossed that this is one rumour that follows through.

Genestealer Cult - Castellan Robot

After some serious detective work I managed to get my hands on some Rogue Trader Imperial robots for use with my adeptus mechanicus genestealer cult. The first off the assembly line is this venerable castellan. It's my favourite of the old robots, and was a real treat to paint. I've kept him in mechanicus colours, albeit somewhat tarnished and battle worn. I figure the cult isn't too big on keeping it's machines in parade condition when it's fighting for control of the cities.

Next up is a controller for this automaton. I think a heirarch with a control panel will do the job nicely.

Here he is with a large hybrid for a bit of scale. He's on a 40mm base, so small by today's standards, but meaty enough for my purposes. Another four of his brethren will be joining him in time.

Genestealer Cult - Brother Char

After a hideously long time on my painting desk, the next hybrid is done. A meltagun toting 2nd generation, or brother Char to his fellows. The base model is a Mantic Games Plague model from Deadzone. I added a masked head to give him a little adeptus mechanicus feel. The gun arm took some work, a I had to change the position to lower the weapon so I could add the strap to give it some weight. A little greenstuff, an extra arm and some talos bits for stim injectors and there he is.

Multi Player Pulp Alley - 40k Style

Last weekend we kicked off the gaming for 2015 with a large Pulp Alley game hosted by John of JustJohn fame. Saturday morning (late morning, we just can't seem to stop talking little men over pot after pot of coffee) we adjourned to John's hobby building (shed doesn't really cover it) and his enormous wargaming table.

The game was Pulp Alley, and the scenario was uncover several minor plot points hidden around the table to find out the whereabouts of the captive held by the sinister cult. The players were as follows:

A loose alliance gathered to find the captive, all with agendas of their own:
Bruce - An inquisitor and his retinue of Imperial followers.
Paul(Cheetor)- Heisenbork brainboy and his band of greenskins. Big Billy was my favourite here.
Sean - A unit of Imperial Ogryns, led by Beefpounder, the biggest Ogryn I've ever encountered.

This very loose alliance was set against the cult, represented by:

Craig - A gang of trench-coat wearing toughs led by Salty Tom.
Dave  - My own league was a group of nasty genestealer hybrids, led by magos (not magus, you'll note) Kurgan.

So, essentially the Imperial/Ork alliance had to find the clues to the whereabouts of the captive, and the cult had to keep them guessing.

The inquisitor leads his followers into the jungle.

The ogryns crash straight into the hybrids.

As you can see, Sean, who was the only Imperial player on his side of the board wasting no time in ploughing right into the cult magos. Magos Kurgan has an unlucky reputation, ans spent several turns fending off the unstoppable Beefpounder before help arrived in the shape of brother Welt, a grossly misshapen and augmented hybrid. With the cult in furious battle with the ogryns, the initiative stayed at this end of the table for several turns, denying the orks and inquisitor the chance to make an impact in the early game. Judicious use of cards meant that the orgyns put up one hell of a fight though, with lead and steel bouncing off them to no effect. (It seems tremendously easy to build characters in Pulp Alley to reflect any type of ability. Such as Beefpounder's ability to just not die.)

Bruce drives his men forward like a merciless tyrant.

Eventually the initiate shifted, and shots began to ring out from the advancing Imperials and Orks. Notably from Bruce's sniper, who cleared an area very swiftly as dodging cultists dove and rolled behind whatever cover was available. Craig rolled some truly astounding dodge rolls.

Dodging like a boss.

Eventually though, as plot points were uncovered, a second underground entrance was discovered. The main entrance being in the ruins of the Imperial shrine in the centre of the table. Bruce's inquisitor and his fellows raced for the shrine, with his commissar and adeptus arbite vaulting up the outer wall and onto into the ruins.

Well, that's what statistically would have happened. Instead, both managed to fluff several peril rolls and sprain their ankles, taking them out of the game. Hilarity ensued, with the mental image of two Imperial hardcases rolled up in a ball grabbing their ankles and hissing 'Fffffffff, oOooOoooo that's sore!'

"We never talk of this, agreed?"

After the mockery abated, it was noticed the orks were making for the rather lonely looking outdoor toilet at the far end of the table after completely abandoning the fragile alliance with the Imperials. The second entrance had been found. They were now only a flush away from certain victory.

Heisenbork leads his greenies to the secret entrance.

At the other end of the table magos Kurgan eventually managed to extricated himself from combat, with Beefpounder's attention diverted by brother Welt. The ogres had soaked up an enormous amount of punishment, but eventually the cultists managed to access the entrance to the catacombs in the shrine and head off the orks before they managed to rescue the captive. After some vicious tunnel fighting the cult came out on top, though there are rumours of a steward's inquiry. All in all a great game, which fairly effortlessly accommodated several players. This only serves to further cements my affection for the Pulp Alley rules.

Bono attempts to barge the charging cultists out of his way in the dying moments of the game.

Next up was an introductory game of Bolt Action using our Rogue Trader models. Bruce gave us the skinny on the game, which was a lot of fun. I do like the dice system, and it seems as if the rules can be massaged enough to suit the 40k universe. I've seen a game using German Walkers and zombies, which ticks my weird war box something fierce, so I'm interested in more Bolt Action.

Imperial guard and squats await the assault.

An odd alliance of Leprecians (Ratlings) and the Legion of the Damned.

The Leprecians advance along the flanks.

These legionnaires hadn't seen battle in literally decades up to this. They seemed to have retained their mojo though.

To finish off a very fine weekend of gaming, Sunday morning saw John crack out Dungeonquest. Insanely difficult, but loads of fun. I must get me a set.

Bottom right character. Second tile, fell down a hole. Good old Dungeonquest.

2014 Musing and Thoughts on the End Times

Yeeehhaaaaa!

So. Another year in the hobby done. One year closer to the cold and uncaring grave.

Still with me? Great. So, the year that was. A lot of great stuff hit the house of Saturday. My obsessive trading for old lead continued apace. This year though, my focus returned to 40k. Not so much the current game as the background. This was thanks to the O'Hammerers (the Irish Oldhammer contingent,) that my interest was rekindled. Our first outing was at KnaveCon 3, where we set out a participation game of Warhammer 3rd edition where my ravenous fimir were attacking a not so defenceless halfling village. Good times.

Delicious halflings

Since then the beginning of a genestealer cult has started in infiltrate my cabinet. Still small, perilously so, but growing. We've taken Pulp Alley as out rules du jour, and it's a very pleasant system. Easy to learn, but with enough variety to apply it to pretty much any scenario. We took to the road again for BroCon.

Paul Shoten's (Cheetor) amazing terrain

I have a couple of models I'm planning on painting for it next year I'm quite excited about. I mean, what would a hybrid ride into battle?

The fimir were not forgotten, with a large ettin joining the army, as well as some new characters. The ettin was the largest model I've yet worked on, and my first Forge World model. I was very impressed with the detail on the resin. I have some new bits and pieces I want to add to the army in 2015. Some hound handlers, along with more hounds, some fianna fimm and another wyrm rider for starters. Truly armies are never finished. I am toying with adding a large unit of human tribesmen complete with the dagda and his mates, but sure we'll see.

As the Summer wore on I got more and more engrossed in the cult. Post BroCon my hobby tailed off some due to life, but I've been adding to the cult in the time I had. It's a very enjoyable project and has really invigorated me to go searching off after a lot of the old Rogue Trader miniatures. My latest notion is a maniple of old Rogue Trader era robots led by a magus. The robots aren't common, and I'm acquiring them almost literally one piece at a time.

I know it says bog pools. I really must fix that.

There have been a couple of KnaveCon this year, which keep getting better and better. The next one is the fifth, which is on April 11th, and if you're an Irish gamer, I really recommend coming along.

September saw my now annual trip to NWG, where the games were fun and craic gooood. Nigel and the lads always put on a great event. I picked up a couple of painting prizes which was very nice indeed. Another great event in the Irish gaming calendar.

These fimm are in trouble.

The All Quiet of the Martian Front and Mars Attacks kickstarters shipped. Mostly. I'm still waiting on wave 2 of All Quiet. The models are bloody great though, especially the Martian tripods. In general the game is good, with a few little glitches, but nothing sensible gamers can't overcome. The wonderful models make any rules jiggery irrelevant. The human tanks are really excellent in my opinion, with a great alternate World War One feel to them. I'd really like to get a few tripods and tanks painted up next year.

I've played a few games of Mars Attacks, and it's a nice wee game. Mantic did a pretty decent job with the shipping, but have been so busy since that they're having trouble responding to backers looking for missing parts etc. Still, I'm looking forward to assembling the saucers and giant robots. With both this and All Quiet awaiting painting, surely I won't need to buy and models in 2015?

Indeed.

So, looking back it's been a pretty decent year gaming and painting wise, bar the terrible slump in painting in the last few of months. Still, the brushes are in hand once again. There was one other big event that warrants discussion, and that is the end times in warhammer. WARNING: SPOILERS.

Nagash has had enough of your shit.

I've been playing Warhammer now since 1986. You can't do anything for almost 30 years without it becoming part of you. Over the years the background of the game has soaked into my subconscious and nestled there. This is part of the reason the End Times series has made me gasp more than once. Both for the events in the books and the ramifications on the future of the game.

Major characters are dead. Nations burned or sunk. I mean, Ulthuan is gone. GONE. That still needs to sink in. (Sorry.) Khemri GONE. That promoted a bit of a sulk. Kemmler apparently dead, Zacharius dead, Eltharion dead, Tyrion dead. Teclis dead. Malus Darkblade dead. Naggaroth abandoned. Estalia and Tilea taken by the ratmen. Bretonnia essentially razed. Kislev destroyed. The list of losses goes on and on and on.

It's almost too much. 

The imaginary world that has seeped into my bones over the years is being take apart, one paragraph at a time. Where will it end? Part of me wonders what GW are doing. A lore that has taken over 30 years to build is being razed to the ground. That said, I LOVE the books. Despite the destruction, the sense of excitement in the books makes it no wonder they sold out. Everyone I know who has read them has devoured the story, and read only some of the rules. We all want to know how it ends. I've not been as excited about the game in a while. And yet, where is it heading?

According to those that may know, we are looking at two, maybe three more books, with the skaven the stars of book four, out January 2nd. That date is still a rumour. I really do like the united armies of undead and chaos, as that's how they were when I started the game, and my skeleton archers, skullchuckers and Realm of Chaos army might see action once again. What GW seem to be doing is consolidating the books down into 5 or 6 main armies for 9th edition, whatever that might be. Will Warhammer 9th edition just be a tin box containing cooling ashes and fragments of bone?

What will be left of the Warhammer world for 9th? Will your human army consist of a battered knight, four starving halberdiers and old guy on a horse?

The discontinuation of the Tomb Kings book bodes ill, for what replaces it? Is the rumoured ravening hordes book for 9th really going to happen? Added to that Tamurkhan and Monstrous Arcana are discontinued, with Forge World not looking at any new Warhammer releases for the next two years at least. Bad times for chaos dwarf players, myself included. Ah well, it's not like we weren't out in the cold before. Maybe what we need is for space marines to land in Altdorf to get things moving. We could have empire space marines, skaven space marines, undead space marines, (I mean, they have a primarch) lizardy space marines... sorry. That sounds bitter. I actually like space marines. Just not all the time.

I'm really very curious about where Warhammer is going post End Times.

New Irish Blog - Tabledgames

Howdy all. Today is all about Tabledgames, a new Irish gaming blog kicking off over the next few days. Tabledgames, authored by BroCon's very own Jay McKeown is aiming to promote the Limerick gaming scene and the Irish gaming community online. It will be bringing you the good word on gaming news and the lowdown on upcoming events. All that good stuff.

If you're a gamer in Ireland, make sure you subscribe for what is sure to be a fountain of gaming what's on, where and who's playing it.

http://tabledgames.blogspot.ie/

Genestealer Cult - Hybrid Aberration Finished

After spending a long damn time on my painting table, the heavy weapon hybrid is done. I painted him in brief snatches of hobby time over the last month, ten minutes here, half and hour there, as that's all I had available to me until recently. Anyway, he's finally done, and as such brings the squad up to half strength.

As you've probably guessed, the autocannon is magnetized. I feel he'll be getting a big claw at some point in the future. My 40k bits box is slowly getting to the point where I at least have some options. This entire guy is made from bits I purloined from the various trading pages on Facebook.

Here's the gang so far. Five more to go. Melta gun armed 2nd generation up next.