TRO goes to Winter Challenge, Part 2

I managed to forget to take any photos of the games I played on the first day of the event. I managed to fit in a couple of games, which mostly consisted of me having my teeth kicked in quite thoroughly, but in a friendly and educational way.

In particular, I learned some key lessons about how much protection you need to give your troops when deploying if you're going second, and about balancing the range bands of your weapons so that you are engaging at the optimal range for the weapons you're using.

My proudest moment was using White Noise to block an MSV sniper's vision, then running up Pi-Well with Assisted Fire and taking out the sniper. Any game where you can deploy electromagnetic interference to block a sniper scope, give an AI's targeting systems additional processing power through a deployed wi-fi node and take out a sniper as a result is just plain awesome.

On the second day, I was paired with Domo, who was running an Aleph force, I think Steel Legion. This included Ajax and Phoenix, who are rather nails. Here, Ajax tries to capture a roof being held by an NPC Odalisque, with them both lying down and "engaging in close combat". There's a Captain Hammer joke in there somewhere.

The mission objective each time was to capture the roof of the building in the middle of the board. Here, Pi-Well completes a Sensor scan to discover that some helpful chaps have heavily mined the other side of the building.

We won two games and lost one, leaving us in fourth place. Sometimes I felt I wasn't contributing much, but I did manage to get some useful things done. Here, a co-ordinated order got Zoe, Pi-Well and the Reverend Healer all up onto the roof in one go, before someone lobbed a grenade onto the roof to try and get us off. We survived, and won the game as a result...

The only problem I really encountered was with finishing games - sometimes with the new rules and people working out what best to do, we didn't really get the full three turns to play out. The line between "getting the hang of things" and slow play is impossible to judge, so I'm not sure what a TO can do about it.

We all got a little loot for turning up, and another little bit of loot depending on how we did, either in the "achievements" game or in the win/loss/draw side of things. I didn't get anything special, coming fourth in both, but did manage to get the Vortex Special Ops patch for the Nomads - along with an Antenocitis Workshop Egg Car and a couple of pin badges. We also all got a poster.

All in all, I'd heartily recommend going to one of the Wartrader's Challenge events if you can make it. They're excellent fun, the people are lovely and they're well organised. Definitely worth a visit, even when Exeter is very far away...

TRO goes to Winter Challenge, Part 1

At the end of January, I went down to Exeter. It turns out Exeter is really quite a distance from London! I travelled down on the train Friday night after work. This meant I got in very late, and basically went to bed straight after I got to the hotel.

I'd picked a Premier Inn about an hour's walk from the venue. It felt like it was a former motel, arranged around a courtyard, and the corridors were rather sparse. But the room was nice and the cooked breakfast tolerable.

The walk from the hotel to the event was a little odd. Countess Wear, where I was staying, seems to be twinned with Stepford. It was all very nice and expensive, with big houses, pretty parks and vintage cars in the gardens.

Once you crossed the railway bridge, you entered the industrial estate where the event was being held. I specifically took a photo of this waste plant / incinerator for my wife, because she quite likes power plants.

Once I got to the event, I found a wide variety of different tables set out for people to play on. These included the usual urban tables, but there were also forested ruins, a board consisting of a series of islands, and a spaceship interior board.

Between the first and second day, the attendees all retired to a nearby pub for dinner. If you go to an event in Exeter, I'd recommend doing so - the food was affordable and delicious! I did not take photos of that, because I was busy eating and chatting. In the second part of my account, I'll be covering how I found the games on both days of the event.

Rogue Trader Era Space Ork Designs

I was sorting out a few boxes of old miniatures for a friend who was selling them on eBay. I noticed the old box design for the Space Orks, and decided that the flavour text, example paint jobs and glyph designs might be of interest to people...

Where the hell have you been?

I've been busy Doing Things - the Winter Challenge, LARP, gaming with people. I've barely been keeping up with reading blogs, let alone writing them!

I do need to at least do a proper write up for the Winter Challenge, and a 40K game I got in against Dark Eldar (played by a friend of ours, rather than the wife).

In the meantime, here's a picture of a skeleton rock band.

Health Check: New Year's Resolutions, End of January

So, lets have a look at how I've done with my New Year's resolutions for painting and stuff.

The Main Goal

- Finish painting at least two things a month
SUCCESS

That's three things completed and sorted out.

Bonus Goals

- Finish more than two projects a month

Success!

- . . . and limit purchases the following month to whatever I beat the target by

Abject failure.

I picked up a Bob Olley Mechanicus off eBay when I finished the third model this month in a fit of enthusiasm, forgetting I was meant to wait until February. I then also didn't manage to get a fourth figure finished, because I desperately needed to buy a couple of Nomad Remotes for the Totally Crit Open at the end of February.

Preparing for Events

I didn't manage to get all my figures assembled for the Winter Challenge, which was very frustrating. Fortunately, it wasn't ITS, so I could use proxies, but I still feel bad about it.

I now really need to get sorted for the Totally Crit Open, because that is ITS and if I don't have the models assembled I'll be left begging people to borrow theirs, and that's just humiliating.

This does worry me a little regarding my "two a month" painting target - as I really can't afford to distract myself from assembly, and February is a short month. Still, I'm an adult and I can wear it. If I don't get two things painted this month, it's not the end of the work - I can always focus on trying to catch up in future months.