BO5A progress

By just speed painting and cutting corners I managed to take the bulk out of the evil forces today. The goblin chieftains, shaman and Bolg await as a treat when the wargs/riders are done

Battle of Five Armies, finally some progress

After nine years of sitting in its box, I finally decided to paint some of this stuff. I've no real experience with this scale, but I can paint it roughly and quickly to get some games in time for the release of pt3 of the Hobbit movies this December! 

Progress of the Elven host 

Necromunda Campaign starts tomorrow...

Got my gang painted up, 'the Yellowjackets', Orlock gang scum ready for violence

Dreadfleet! Part 0

I've owned Dreadfleet for nearly 2 years and never played the campaign. Shame really, so I'm gonna try and work through the campaign with my friend Steve. 

The story so far...

Dreadfleet is set in the Warhammer world. If I can paraphrase, the ports of the Old World have been plagued by a mysterious Dreadfleet, lead by Count Noctilus and his Bloody Reaver. After each attack, the Dreadfleet disappear without a trace into the fog they emerged from. In addition, the wrecks of destroyed ships were disappearing from their watery graves

Captain Jaego Roth of the Nightwatch, after decades of successful piracy, was returning home to the pirate city of Sartosa. However, on his return, he found his home destroyed and family slain by the Dreadfleet. Recovering three magical artifacts, a map, a moondial, and a spyglass, he set out for revenge. 

Having failed to muster any support from the towns and cities he visited, Roth petitioned the temple of Sigmar for help, but they were engaged in war elsewhere. Roth stole the Heldenhammer, the Sigmarites mightiest warship, sacrificing the Nightwatch in order to escape. 

Short on cash, Roth's crew raided the khemrian city of Zandri, stealing a great deal of gold. With this gold Roth enlisted the help of The Flaming Scimitar and the Swordfysh. 

Roth then attempted to fight the Dreadflleet as it attacked Luccini, but saw first hand how it was able to disappear from the mortal realm. Roth's fleet came upon Red Brokk Gunnarson, who's craft had been wrecked by the Dreadfleet. In exchange for rescuing them and returning them to Barak Varr, Gunnarson agreed to join the Grand Alliance in order to seek revenge upon Noctilus and his fleet.

Having provisioned and repaired at Barak Varr, Roth, with the assistance of the Golden Magus of the Flaming Scimitar, deciphered the secret of the map, moondial and spyglass. Travelling to the Dread Gulf at the appointed time, a mighty storm engulfed the Alliance fleet. When it finally calmed, they were separated, but Roth had found the passage to the Galleons Graveyard, realm of the Dreadfleet!

The campaign will begin shortly!

Infinity Concepts pt 2

REFUTED!

Ignore this one, turns out that if you stand up, your second short skill needs to be a move!

Preserving your impetuous troops

On first glance impetuous seems like a massive bonus, right? It's a free order, right? Well, when your opponent becomes more experienced at setting up his reactive turn, you may find your impetuous troops running into the fire lanes of well placed enemies.

But it's ok, right? You can spend an order to suppress their primal urges. Well, yeah, but now they're completely the opposite of a free order. They're sapping one from your pool.

Here Eudoros, who is impetuous, will probably race into the fusilier's fire lane if I don't do something. 

He has to move of he can, so my options are, let him run into a firelane (sure, he's Euforos, he's a tough cookie, but this is Infinity. Even the lowliest grunt can nail him, so we don't take unnecessary risks). Or I can spend an order to suppress his impetuous order. Well, I'm playing Aleph, if this is the second or third turn I may well be on 4 orders. That's not cool.

So instead, I'm going to make sure Eudoros starts the turn prone. I do this by deploying him this way, and using his last short movement skill of a turn wherever possible to make him hit the deck.

Now, when his impetuous order kicks in, he just stands up, and I can use the second half of the order with a much greater degree of control

Simples. Now, Eudoros isn't the best example for this, he's just the only impetuous model I have kicking around. But a Cameronian, with their huge super jumping movements, are very vulnerable to baiting. 

Many players will use their very last order if their turn to kill something. That's cool, but very often this will leave a model over stretched and vulnerable. When you rely on your hard hitting impetuous troops, or you have a very aware opponent, try using it instead to preserve them. Go prone.

Infinity Concepts pt 1

Don't waste your orders trying to kill one guy, use your opponents

Scenario: Posthuman Nero is approaching a firelane, but pesky fusilier Barao is in the way, and is behind cover.

Nero declares move (into cover).
Barao declares shoot.
Nero declares shoot.

They have a firefight, Nero wins but Barao survives and passes her guts check. Both are now in cover.

STOP!

There are one of two ways this will now go, the first is a waste of orders, the second is smart use of orders.

Number 1) Annoyed at the fusiliers resilience, Nero declares another order, and declares shoot. Barao declares shoot. Nero declares....nothing for the second skill. Why? It would be stupid to move, as she will lose cover for her next order, should Barao survive again (and with range, cover-bs and cover+arm thats now likely). No short movement skill is helpful here, so she has effectively wasted half an order.

Lo and behold, Barao survives another three orders spent shooting her, so Nero has in effect wasted four short movement skills.

Number 2) Annoyed at the fusiliers resilience, Nero declares another order, and, losing nothing by using a long skill, declares suppressive fire right on Barao's head. We've already established that a short movement skill is useless here, so the long skill is fine. Now, as we put it down, Nero automatically shoots full burst at Barao. If she dies, great, we can move on, we've spent no more orders than the same point in the previous example. If he doesn't, LEAVE NERO THE HELL ALONE! Do not spend any more orders on this order-sapping firefight.

Instead, go somewhere else on the board, spend orders elsewhere. Now in the reactive turn, Nero will fire full burst on Barao every time your opponent spends an order on her. Use his orders to kill his guy instead of your own.

Added bonus: any time you don't have a viable short movement skill, never use shoot, always use suppression fire. You shoot just the same, but potentially you then have a nice sup fire corridor lay down for your reactive turn.

Summary: NEVER JUST SHOOT! If you're going to move, jump, climb, swim, do the okey cokey afterwards, fair enough, otherwise use suppression fire.

When not to use this tactic: when there's a massive external factor, like a sniper having LOF on Nero, or as always when a game winning objective hangs in the balance and you NEED to be covering ground on each order.

Infinity Fundamentals pt 2

2) surprise! Camo works best in your active turn

We've all done it. A juicy morsel has ran across the open, and your opponent has no idea you've got a hidden deployment sniper with an excellent LOF on him.

He moves, guffawing like a fat baron you shout "reeeeaction! Hidden sniper shoots you!"

He says "Ok Colin, I'll shoot back. Only it's face to face, and I've got four shots, you've got 1. Good luck"

Combat Camo works in your active turn. Just chill, he doesn't know your guy is there, he probably won't know to keep him in cover from your devious crows nest, wait till your active turn, and go first with two shots (probably) against his one, should he survive. You're welcome

When not to use this tactic: your opponent went second and its his last turn. Why the hell is your sniper still hidden?