So here is the 40K rules quiz they gave out this year at War Games Con, enjoy!

1) How many models must a 12-man unit of Chaos Space marines lose in one shooting phase in order to be required to take a morale test?

2) How close can a unit Scout towards an enemy unit?

3) Frag Grenades have what strength against vehicles?

Four albums and 252 pictures from Day 2!

40k

WHFB

Narrative Campaign

Painting Competition 

99 photos from today here and here, plus the best team write up, right there

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I'm ready for a fun-tastic fun-filled fun-venture with Dave Taylor today. I plan on getting down there early so I can take pictures before the "couples" tournament starts.

Pictures this evening.

So in the last week, I worked on a number of my space wolves. I moved heads around, and I worked on the paint job of the minis that I told to BoLScon last year. I worked on about 12 Grey Hunters and 10 Blood Claws. I took their painting quality from table top-quality to, in my opinion... < drum-roll >... good table-top quality!

So I have more of my GHs and BCs to get to this new quality (all the ones that already had bare-heads at BoLScon last year), but I've decided to work on my special weapons. I am pretty much building every combination of special weapons I think I could use, so that means 6 meltaguns, 2 flamers, and 2 plasmaguns. I really can't see me using more than this at one time.

About half of these guys already had some work done on them, and only one or two I started from scratch. All of my special weapons squads will have the wolf pelts on their right shoulders, and at the moment, only 3 of them have finished pelts, five of the remaining haven't even been started yet.

I've got the heads, base coats and bases down for everyone. My next step is to do highlights and washes. I have ordered some bits for my four wulfen, and when I get those in I will do some green stuff up for the wolf pelts and fur for the back of the clawed hands.

Oh, and btw, I hate painting yellow...

So I got my hands on another of Black Library's audio books. This time it is Heart of Rage by James Swallow.

The book details a Blood Angels squad entering a dead Tyranid hive ship in order to find an Adeptus Mechanicus team that had previously been sent in to the ship.

This book is read by Toby Longworth he reads all of the BL audio books and he does an excellent job. I was a little critical of some of his voices in Thunder from Fenris (because one of them sounded like a certain California Governor) but I really have no complaints in this one. He voices about 10 different people throughout the book and manages to make each of them pretty distinct.

So I am planning on running a Space Wolf Scout Pack in my army. I love the fact that you can really trick out the scouts (although they can be a huge points sink). The thought of 10 dudes coming in from the back field with a melta, 2 power weapons and a MoW dude can be quite scary if your opponent leaves someone in the back field. Now what I am considering doing is attaching a Wolf Guard squad leader to come in with them, but I'm not sure what I want to outfit him with. I was thinking of Mark of the Wulfen because the only thing that really seems better than one crazy mother F'er is two! But I got to wondering if there were better options, that lead me to break out the old probability hammer and figure it out.

So Wolf Guard are an intricate part of any space wolf army. Or at the very least they are in my Space Wolf Army. Now Grey Hunters are great because they can take just about any type of war gear in the Space Wolf arsenal from Terminator Armor to combi weapons to power weapons, frost weapons, wolf claws and even thunder hammers with storm shields.

Now I don't tend to drop a lot of points into my Wolf Guard. Most of them get a power fist, and thats about it.

So due to my spray issues, I haven't continued with my "next project." I going to have to break down and buy some GW spray on payday, the Armory isn't cutting it even in the house with low heat and humidity.

Anywho, what I am currently working on is updating my Space Wolves. Way back at x-mas, the wife bought me the Space Wolf Battle Force and I really haven't worked on it much other than to turn the scouts into Black Templar neophytes.

I did put most of the 20 dudes together way back when, but then I got caught up in another project.

So, the kids and I have been playing alot of Star Wars Miniatures games. They are quick to set up and play AND the rules are just simple enough that even Jake knows how to play. Also, both of the boys LOVE the Baldur's gate game for the PS2 that Calvin let us borrow. There are even 2 of Dustin's friends (both are cool kids, but geeks like Dustin and I), who have been coming over just to play with Dustin on Baldur's gate.

I've been thinking of moving on to something else for them. I first looked into the board game, Descent, which looks like a really cool game and if I'm correct, your character evolves as you keep going through adventures. It looks pretty easy to set up and can be played with just two people, plus the GM. The only problem I see with it is the lack of creativity you have with your character. Your only option is to pick a pre-set character.

I've also looked into DnD, which would allow the boys to be more creative with their characters and let their imagination explore more. The problem I have is the amount of effort that I will have to put into it to come up with suitable adventures, create maps of what their doing, and keeping track of stuff.

Price wise, it's about the same investment to do either. DnD would be ther more expensive up front with buying the 3 books needed, but they will take through quite abit of adventuring, while Descent, once you go through the intial box, each new adventure box is another $50 bucks..


Anyone have some good advise or opinions with what I can do?

So with the new edition of WHFB coming out, we have new rules. All wizards are allowed to use as many dice as they like (suck it druchii) so you can have a level 1 Warlock Engineer throwing six dice at the Dreaded Thirteenth spell in order to get that 25+. And it might seem like a very good idea, I mean, who wants to miscast with your (possibly) very expensive level 4 wizard? The downfall of a miscast now is much more devastating that it was in 7th edition, so what are your odds?

When we look at rolling the dice and we look at rolling double sixes it is pretty easy to understand that when you roll two dice, the chance that you'll get a six on the first die is 1/6 and the chance you'll get a six on the second is also a 1/6. The rules of probability say that in situations like this, you multiply the two results, so the chances of getting an irresistible force/miscast on two dice is 1/36.

C.L. Werner is fast becoming my favorite Warhammer Fantasy authors. Blood Money is the first book of the Brunner the Bounty Hunter Omnibus. It tells the story, oddly enough, of Brunner the Bounty Hunter.

Talk about the quintessential anti-hero. This guy is a total D-bag, but I couldn't help but love him. This book is a series of short stories that tell of Brunner's adventures in Bretonnia and the Border Princes, penned by a writer from the Empire.

I like the use of the short stories with Brunner as they give us many views of how he plies his trade and all the different ways he can be a bastard.

I think that what I like the most about Brunner is that he doesn't appear super-natural like many of the fantasy heroes such as Gotrek, and he doesn't rely on magic. What he does is use his mind as a weapon along with his very prodigious fighting skills.

I am very much looking forward to continuing to the next story Blood and Steal.

I give this book four collected bounties out of five.

So as the resident math nerd, I figure I'd do a semi-regular article on the probability behind some of the things we see in 40k and WHFB.

This time I'm going to look at weapons that "Gets Hot!" So what I looked at was the chance of surviving firing one of these weapons. So for a "Gets Hot!" if you roll a 1 on the to hit roll, the weapon has overloaded and the firing model suffers a wound.

This is the second book about Sigmar Heldenhammer. In the first book, Sigmar unites all of the tribes of humans under one banner, in this book he is crowned Emperor and must keep his fledgling empire from splitting apart.

I gotta say, the beginning of this book was a bit, "oh no! theres something terrible happening!" So Sigmar rides in with his trusty sword-brethren and after a terrific fight, comes out victorious! This happens 2-3 times before the story changes, and thats when the book becomes interesting.

Sigmar is tempted by the gods of Chaos and almost succumbs to their temptations, but it isn't until the last battle where the book really shines. This battle is written very well. It is visceral, and I could totally envision what was happening in my head as if I were watching a movie of what Mr. McNiell had written.

Codex: Daemonhunters

Army Book: Ogre Kingdoms

Plus I got an anthology book with a lot of the big names in Black Library. All in all, a pretty good weekend.

Well I finished off my squad of Black Templars. I think they look pretty good. I think painting the Dwarfs helped with my control, although at times my hands still get a bit shaky.

Here is a semi-close up of the chaplain. The crozius didn't come out as well as I had hoped. I'm not exactly sure why but its not very smooth.