Apocalypse Soon

The cityfight board is finally complete and I must say it looks rather spiffy. The mass of buildings really affects your normal game plan and forces you to think of new and cunning ways with which to kill your enemy. My Eldar were given a run out against Chris' squat legion and suffered. I would normally think that Eldar would do well in a cityfight situation, what with plenty of cover and kill zones with which to use, however the mission was escalation which meant that my force advanced in an ad-hoc fashion. The result was that I was forced into a brutal meat grinder which saw each player removing at least one unit a turn. Predictably, my Eldar quickly lost this when against the numbers of Imperial Guard and the result was a minor loss. However, my Farseer had obviously forseen this as the best possible result for the future of the Eldar race and so it really had to be a moral victory to the Eldar. All that said, my first defeat under the current incarnation of my Eldar taught me some important lessons, including to stop infiltrating my Pathfinders so close to something with a flamethrower.

Plans have been unveiled by myself and approved by Chris to extend the cityfight board so that we can have large apocalyptic battles on it. The board will be extended by a further three 4x2 boards so that we can either have a board that is 8x6 or 12x4. Chris and I have ordered in an Imperial City box for the occasion. The idea being that we want quality over quantity, with the city having some open spaces such as plazas (and maybe a park), leaving us the option to build some very large buildings. The extended board has also been designed so that, should we need, we can have two standard 6x4 cityfight boards. We want to see some large buildings so that we have games of Necromunda with some very interesting buildings to fight over.

In the meantime, I've put some thought into how downstairs can become more interesting and welcoming, not just to new club members but also to any people who come to play from other clubs in tournaments and the likes. Since my Mum was most insistent at me cleaning out my old room now that I have left home, I discovered that I have a large amount of empty packaging left over from when I bought some models. As such, I came up with the idea of cutting the artwork off the boxes and mounting it onto cardboard, like a collage. These posters can then be mounted onto the walls of the Gaming Crypt and lend a bit of colour to the place. This should make the Crypt look more appealing. At the time of this message going to press I have completed 4 such posters with scope for plenty more. I have sent out appeals to my fellow club members that they save the boxes from their new purchases and give them to me so that I can create more of these posters. It will take a long time for me to cover all of the walls in the Crypt but I think that it can be done in around a year.

On the gaming side of things, there were plenty of games played last week with a total of 6 games played in one evening. I think that was the best week yet in our 2 year history, with 4 games of 40K played, 1 FoW and 1 Warmachine game. I played against our resident assault cannon army and came out tops, in part thanks to a few pivotal dice rolls, but I am undeterred, much rather preferring to sticking to the old saying 'luck is the residue of design' than blaming dice rolls that go against me.

Looking to the future then, I am in the process of organising our first Apocalypse battle which looks like will be a big participation battle between the Imperials and Chaos. Hopefully we will be able to collate around 15,000 points a side. Keep your eyes peeled for a battle report with maybe a few twists incorporated into it.

As a final note worth mentioning, Dice Not Included is two years old this month. Can I just say, as one of the founding members, that it has been a fantastic two years with some amazing contributions made by all who have helped these past two years. From that first month that we spent in the community centre to the 23 months we have been residing in the Gaming Crypt. Also a big thank you to Jason and Dave for allowing us to move into the Gaming Crypt, without whom I doubt the club would have survived for even half the time we have now been running.

Keep reading and stay tuned.