Midas Crusade 2016

Over the weekend we held the third Midas Crusade tournament. The last one was end of April but due to real world issues I forgot to cover it. But the third one went rather well with little in the way of hiccups. Once again Jon offered the use of his sizeable garage and we spent a day playing some 40K.

As usual it was 2000 points, fixed list, with three rounds of three hours each and tactical objectives missions. The VP's scored totalled over the day to determine the winner. Anything 40K is legal but not HH stuff.

Unfortunately we had two players drop out at separate times in the weeks running up so i had to jump in and play, and the eighth player, Gary D,  could not make it until the second round started. I set it up so I effectively played Gary D and we drew. Neither of us were playing to win anyway so it wasn't a big issue.

Armies played were:

Colin - Chaos Marines (Death Guard) with Chaos Knight ally.
Chris - Craftworld Eldar.
Jon - Necrons.
Ash - Astra Militarum with Genestealer Cult allies.
Benjo - Dark Angels.
Mike - Craftworld Eldar.
Dan - Eldar Corsairs with Craftworld Eldar allies.
Gary - Space Marines (Imperial Fists).

It was a hard fought day for the top spot but Chris' Eldar successfully spent the day claiming objectives and stole first place.

Broodlord and genestealers outflank into the Dark Angels. 

Mike brought some interesting Eldar toys with him. 

Astra Militarum gun line. 

The Death Guard prepare to surge forward. The Knight did a great job of stomping genestealer hybrids! 

 Lots of conscripts being pushed forwards!

The Eldar battle lines.

 Necrons and Eldar face off across no man's land.

The unexpected genestealer cult allies shortly before being trodden on.

Narrative Play part 1

I cannot just sit down and play a board game or card game without immersing myself into the world of that game. It doesn't matter that the game is Magic the Gathering or something like the Serenity/Firefly board game. I have to immerse myself and know why I am doing what I am doing or what a given action would entail in the real world. With Warhammer 40,000 I take that even further. Unlike everyone else I know I cannot just turn up to a game and play. I have to know why I am fighting Dark Angels and what relevance the mission has. Without that I may as well be playing chess against a computer. Sure it is fun but ultimately it is missing something. I am a narrative gamer and I'm proud to admit it.

The problem is that being a narrative gamer when no one else is can be a real pain. I have tried with my local club to introduce a narrative element with the Midas Crusade. The MC was based upon the Crusade of Fire campaign book from Games Workshop. I did it as an open-ended campaign where players could challenge other players for control of planets. I envisioned players colluding together or seeking to build that perfect list to drive the Orks from Volistad. But it never happened. There were a few attempts but no one was interested enough. It ended up with me making posts and basically running the fluff for three years. I recently decided to drop it entirely.

So how do you run narrative games? Well, I have realised that you can't do with a games club. It needs a handful of dedicated players willing to immerse themselves. Willing to go beyond just turning up with some dice and an army. It needs someone, an organiser, to come up with the overall story line, the missions and be able to alter things as wins and losses mount up. It needs structure but not too much detail.

What I plan to do with this short series of posts is to put forward some ideas for narrative campaigns that hopefully might work for you. But first, do any of you have thoughts on this? Have you played a dedicated campaign and see it through as more than just another game of 40K or whatever your game of choice is? If you don't enjoy them, I'd be very interested to see why not.

The floor is all yours.

No More Conquest

A few days ago it was at last revealed that the partnership between Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games has ended. No more GW related games from them. Normally I would not be too bothered after all FFG are well known for the board games and I have the 40K ones that I want and I have everything for the Deathwatch RPG. However, this also means the end of Warhammer 40K: Conquest, their living card game.

Conquest had a good future ahead of it. We have had three expansions and two new faction expansions (Tyranids and Necrons). It makes me angry as I feel now that I have wasted my money on this game. Card games like this, as good as they are, die off when there are no further expansions. The history of CCG's is full of such cast aside games. Surely the two companies could have come to some arrangement over this? I mean, really?

A couple of people have pointed out that part of the licensing agreement was that FFG would not make any miniatures based games as that is GW's domain. FFG have announced a skirmish war game based upon their own fantasy world of Runebound and I think that may have been the death knell. But again I ask, could they not have worked something out?

So, as we have hardly anyone who bothers to play any more anyway, it looks like Conquest will end up either gathering dust on a shelf or I may flog it all on EBay. It is going to make me think long and hard before I pick up anything else like this.

Anyway, rant over.

Painting Day

Due to work and other commitments I haven't had the chance to sit down and do some painting/building for several months. So having a day off today I gave myself the afternoon to get some done. Managed to get the Chaos Knight finished bar it's basing, and a few more plague marines and a rhino done. Lots of undercoating too so I can just sit down Monday evening after work.

Unfortunately what I wanted to do fell through. I have two boxes of Raptors to build and I want them for a game I have against Raven Guard this coming Thursday. But when I went to my pile of new stuff both boxes were missing! NNOOOO!!!! No idea where they have gotten to so I'm going to have to have a full on search when I get chance.

I did get slightly distracted watching TV in the background but it felt good to get back into painting.

What to field?

So, in a couple weeks we have the third Midas Crusade Invitational (MCI) tournament coming up and due to a drop out I am having to step up and be both organiser and the 8th player. I need to work out what to take in a 2000 point tactical objectives based tournament.

What I currently have finished is as follows:

Typhus.
Chaos Sorcerer.
20 Plague Marines with icon of despair, two meltaguns and the champion has plasma pistol and power weapon.
20 Plague Marines with icon of despair, two meltaguns and the champion has plasma pistol and power weapon.
10 Chaos Marines whose champion has a power fist.
5 Chaos Terminators with three power weapons, one lightning claw and a power fist (because of what comes in the box) and one reaper autocannon.
3 Chaos Bikers.
15 Chaos Cultists.
1 Helbrute with multi-melta.
2 Chaos Rhino.
1 Chaos Land Raider.
1 Defiler.
10 Plaguebearers.
1 Chaos Knight Errant with daemonic possession.
2x Vengeance Weapon Platforms with Punisher Cannons.
1 Bastion.
1 Aegis Defence Line with Autocannon.

Some things still to be built:

2 boxes of Chaos Raptors.
1 box of Zombies.
1 box of Plague Marines.
1 box of SM Terminators (so I can have a unit with lightning claws).
Cypher.
2 boxes of Dark Angel veterans (to be Cypher's Chosen squad).

I need some ideas what to field so I can finish building and painting before the weekend of the 24th September. Any suggestions?

Why no narrative?

I haven't used this blog for well over a year now. Part of it has been starting two new jobs and settling into a new relationship. But there has also been a slow grump growing over me which stole a lot of my love for 40K. That grump has been the ongoing Midas Crusade narrative campaign that I was trying to do. Basically a lack of interest from local club members. I seem to be the only person interested in doing such a narrative. It has got to a point that now after about three or four years of trying to do reports for it that I have given up bothering.

I can't fault anyone though. We all come to the hobby for different reasons and most of the people I know are in it just for the game and not for anything else. I've always been more interested in playing something with a storyline. While I don't like overly complicated campaign rules something where players with same factions can work together even plotting in the shadows appeals quite a lot but no one else does.

So, I've dropped the Midas Crusade narrative, and have instead started writing narratives for the games that my Death Guard play. I'm using another blog page: March of the Damned.

Slowly that funk is fading and I want to get back to discussing the game and getting some motivation for my painting - something else I am finding a hard time organising.

Hope you are all still around and looking forward to reading your posts.