Published most Wednesdays

Wednesday 22 September 2010

Hordes of the Things, Invincible Pole fighters, and time.

Phew.

It's been a busy week for me here in media-land. Haven't had much time for Toy soldiers, if I'm honest.

With no new updates on the army, I am starting to worry I might not get it done - as I now have seven weeks to get it all done! Still, I've booked a full week off in October to paint, so as long as I can get it all built by the last week of October, I should be fine. Fine.... yes, fine I tell you.

In the mean time, I'd just like to share a couple of things with you:

1st: - Invincible Pole Fighters

Now, some of you may be unaware of the classic of Chinese cinema that is the Shaw brothers amazing movie "Invincible Pole Fighters".

Well, have a look:

src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZiCMSEYdRVU?version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344">

Why am I bringing this up?

Well, today I came across an excellent article entitled "Spear vs. Tank". Could a Pikeman destroy a tank as often happens in Civilisation Four? Well, maybe the average Pikeman, no...but an invincible pole fighter?

Of course.

2nd: -

The awesome game that is Hordes of the Things - HOTT - is now free to download!

It's one of the best games I've ever played. A great little system, perfect for very quick games. It's cool because you can do pretty much any period army you want - you haven't lived until you've seen Space Nazis fighting WW1 brits, for example. In that particular game, Biggles shot down a nazi UFO, and a MkV tank crushed a platoon of werewolves - amazing.

It's a lovely excuse to do a cool army you've always wanted to do, but knew you could never find an opponent for...e.g. Napoleonic, Roman, Gods of Rock, Somalian warlords... whatever.

You can download it here for free - http://www.wrg.me.uk/HISTORY/HOTT2.pdf

Have fun guys,

PS: Page 23 (missing) can be downloaded here - http://www.wrg.me.uk/

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Steel Legion Assault Corps - Test game one

Right,

so, now that my army is largely built, I played my first test game.

The drop on Tau Sept World "Cemia"



I trotted down to GW Kingston, and looked for a game - a charming Tau player offered his army up to be the first game I played.If I'm honest, this isn't going to be much of a battle report - it wasn't much of a battle, as my opponent conceded at the start of his third turn.

What happened was I deployed first, and got the first turn. My opponent deployed his army - a hammerhead, a squad of broadsides, two squads of crisis suits, two units of fire warriors and a squad of pathfinders - in a ruin opposite me. He left 20 kroot and 3 crisis suits off the board.

I used my 24" scout move to move straight ahead, closing on him. He didn't manage to steal the initiative. I then moved everything forward, deployed 50 odd guardsmen at point blank range, and let fly with an army-wide, four orders barrage.

This killed most of the army - the broadsides, most of the crisis suits, all of the infantry, both of the tanks. After that it was just mopping up, really.

It taught me a few things though:

1.) Valkyries are big. Not just big, HUGE. It was a struggle to deploy six on a 6"x4" board. It was a struggle to keep them squadroned near terrain. You can probably exploit this with terrain if you're playing against a Valkyrie army.

2.) The guard are horribly vulnerable once out the Valks. I mean, I knew this anyway, but it's still shocking to see 130 pts squads all die to one flamer shot.

3.) If your opponent starts with units off the board he's making a mistake. If you're using reserves, go all or nothing. All off board denies the valk player the alpha strike; nothing off board gives you the forces to counterpunch. The way the Valkyrie army wins is by isolating parts of the enemy and destroying them in detail.

Next week: More soldiers.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

Steel Legion Assault Corps: Progress & Transportation

Hi all,

just a quick post to A.) show you the work thus far on the air transport and B.) the work thus far on being able to transport the air transport...

Progress:

I've now built six (!) Valkyries. The are lovely models, but very, very big.



Above: Ride of the Valkyries, is an optional but recommended music choice.

To finish them, I need to mount them on car aerials, base them, and then work out the best way to apply the natural metal scheme I want - but step by step tutorials on all of that later.

For now, I just want to deal with the thorny issue of transport.

Lots of people struggle to transport their Valkyries from place to place - my solution is the humble 50 Litre plastic storage box.

Observe.



3 go in, layer of foam, 3 more go in, voila. Easy to transport flying things!

As long as you leave the stands removable, you can probably fit 8 into one of these. With the addition of a humble strap, you have a tough, durable case. Hurrah!



Next week - the first test game!

Wednesday 1 September 2010

The promised pictures of the beautiful Ultramarines

Hi all,

as promised, those beautiful Ultras:



Ah ha, that's a joke. In Eastern Europe, football hooligans are referred to as "Ultras"; the picture above is actually the "fans" of a Serbian football team burning down their own stadium in protest at missing a free kick.

No, in all seriousness, here's the pictures I promised last week of the inspiring, lovely, Ultramarine army:







Gorgeous. And even though the owner lost, at no point did he set fire to anything. A true gent.