The Blood Angels are coming......

Just read an email from GW......

Incoming! Blood Angels

This April the Blood Angels will be re-launched with an all-new Codex and range of plastic and metal miniatures. One of the oldest and noblest of all Space Marine Chapters, the Blood Angels have stood fast against the enemies of the Imperium since the Great Crusade and it was their Primarch Sanguinius, who laid down his life to aid the Emperor against Horus in the final hours of the Warmaster’s rebellion. The new Codex explores the background and history of these superhuman warriors like never before, and contains new artwork depicting some of their greatest battles and most powerful champions.

The Blood Angels have always been a powerful close combat army and have been made even deadlier thanks to a range of specialist wargear, the ability to field Assault Squads as Troops choices, and more Dreadnoughts than any other Space Marine Chapter, including a Death Company Dreadnought and the fabled Furioso Dreadnought. The Sons of Sanguinius will be deep striking onto a tabletop near you this April – now’s the time to practice painting red.

Ohhhhh, so tempted.

Learnin for how til play warhammer

I have always been a 40k player. Period. I love the skirmish style play of 40k and a lot of spin offs from GW such as necromunda and mordheim. I also adore bloodbowl.

40K is my thing and i love the feeling that every time i put my guys down on the table i can hear them shouting 'Incoming', or 'Fire at will' or even 'Their well out of ran... arrrgh.' The thrum of engines and the stacatto of bolter fire echoing through an alein war torn city.

Then a while ago i bought Battle for Skull Pass for some bizarre reason and suddenly past feelings of being 10 to 16 again as suden bursts of D&D, WFRP and heroquest exploded into my mind like an ancient WWII unexploded bomb that had lain for decades forgotten til dredged back up again. I remember there used to be a shop called Liesureworld in Belfast (long gone now - its is merely a carpark now). Basically it was our version of Hamleys. Top floor, i think it was the second floor, right down near the hornby counter was 1980's games workshop goodness. Five - yes FIVE - minis in a blister pack for.....wait for it ....... £2.50. Still have the buggers - i bought the fantasy figures. Full of character and good detail. They still stand up to some of the stuff produced by GW nowadays.

Anyway, i have now had a few games of Warhammer with my dwarf army and i hope to organise a few more soon. I have been trounced like a goodun but have enjoyed the games. One against Empire - damn those bloody pistoliers on their horses and my stunty 3" movement. The other was against Vampire Counts - vicious glips they are too.

Important thing in this all is that i had fun playing - so i win anyway.

The Christmas Bash

A few friends and myself had an excellent post christmas 40k day on Saturday 27th December.

Four of us got together at my house and set up two tables with modular sections. So no table with a cloth for our games.

The armies were also varied. There was a tyranid army, Tau army, a chaos space marine army and I had a space marine army. Between the four of us we got a good two solid games each on the day

I got to play both games with the "Sieze Ground" scenarios, the first being a Dawn of War mission while the other was Spearhead.

I fought against the Tau in the first game - lots of minor mistakes on both sides - both in tactics and rules - but hey it was still fun with, bizzarely, a discussion on what to do between the two of us when we were supposed to be clobbering each other. Very enjoyable and ended up a draw - but mostly because of friendly tips from the Tau player.

I am still trying to get my head around objectives. I have mostly always played space marines, but i am a natural Khorne follower, i.e. charge and shoot and kill and loot and destroy.

The second game was against Chaos Space Marines. Plenty of fun and learning in this game too. Lucky for me though the Chaos player got slightly stuck between a hill and a building while i slowed him down and grabbed as many objectives as possible. One of the funnier moments was when the Chaos Land Raider decided to ram my own Land Raider. There was lots of bangs and smashes with little but paint work scratched when the smoke and dust cleared. I justcould not believe he rammed me. But it was a good run through of the rules on ramming. Might try it myself sometime - not as desparate as i first thought it was.

Lots of last turn tricky shooting and blowing things up rolls with the dice rolling in my favour this time.

All in all a brilliant day, which i hope will happen again soon.

40k: Revolutions

Well by now you should already be aware of the imminent release of 40k 5th Edition.

Some nice rumours can be found at Bell of Lost Souls

There is also a mother of all cheesy trailers on the GW website at

Surprised that they have it hosted on Youtube, but there you go the money meisters are at it again, probably knowing full well that they do not have to do that much of a hard sell.

I have dibs on the Gamers edition which will, apparently, be in a nice ammo crate box with some counters.

I also received via the 40K underworld an alleged copy of the 5th edition pre-finished in a pdf format. I wonder if this is a real thing, and if it is - is it a deliberate leak to get people playing with the new rules now so they will be used to the difference come July when it is launched??

End of 2008 will come with a thud

The news I have been waiting on is here, even though the game is not. Cyanide, the erstwhile makers of Chaos League, will be making a major contribution to the diverse Games Workshop portfolio by producing the computer version of one of the most popular board games ever – Blood Bowl.

Chaos League was a great game and was seen as Blood Bowl on the PC in all but name. This led to a minor kafuffle with GW, but all seemed to end amicably with Cyanide gaining the official license to produce Blood Bowl based computer games and that the Chaos League title was transferred to GW. An undisclosed amount of money was coughed up by cyanide for the privilidge.

However, it seems to have paid off with even the tiny amount of info on the website looking beautiful and making me drool too much.

Methinks this Christmas is going to be good.

Below is the official statement on the game from Cyanide.

Release Date : Year-end 2008 Official Website : http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

The Blood Bowl game, currently being developed by Cyanide and to be published by Focus Home Interactive, is an adaptation of Games Workshop's highly successful board game. Matches, involving two teams of 11 players, are as tactical as American football, but far more violent! The winner is the team that scores the most touchdowns (i.e. gets the ball into the opposition end zone) and it's basically no holds barred to that end! It even happens that the players on one side are completely wiped out... Despite the best efforts of the Apothecaries.
Discover or relive furious Blood Bowl matches via the turn-based mode which fully respects the rules of the Living Rulebook 5. If you're up to it, there is also a real-time mode which will seriously test your nerves and your reflexes.

Become coach of an unmerciful team of Blood Bowlers and recruit players from 8 different races: Chaos, Dwarfs, Goblins, Humans, Lizardmen, Orcs, Skavens or Wood Elves.

Lead your players to victory and progress them through multiplayer championships (Internet).
Renew and upgrade player equipment so as to improve their characteristics, making them even more dangerous and pitiless during a game.

Customize your players, creating your own identity for your team.

Blood Bowl development is on-going and the game should hit the shelves (with a heavy thud) by year-end 2008. Keep up to date on events via the official game website (news, screens, videos...). You can also interact with the development team and ask all sorts of questions via the game forum.

Beta-testing is under way thanks to a full complement of dedicated players. At present, we are seeking no more beta testers.

Thanks for your interest in Blood Bowl.

Fantasy Flight Games to Exclusively Publish Board Games, Card Games, and Roleplaying Games based on Games Workshop properties

Latest announcement from Black Industries

22/February/2008 - Fantasy Flight Games Announcement

Fantasy Flight Games to Exclusively Publish Board Games, Card Games, and Roleplaying Games based on Games Workshop properties.Roseville, Minnesota (February 22, 2008) – Fantasy Flight Games (“FFG”) and Games Workshop (“GW”) jointly announced today that they have reached an agreement for Fantasy Flight Games to become the exclusive publisher of board games, card games (including collectible card games), and roleplaying games based on Games Workshop’s family of renowned intellectual properties including Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40,000.

Additionally, the deal will grant FFG the exclusive rights to publish new versions of the classic board and card games titles published by Games Workshop over the last 25 years.Additionally, a second agreement between the parties will transfer the publication rights and system of the Universal Fighting System CCG, formerly published by Sabertooth Games, to FFG.“We are just so thrilled to partner with Games Workshop in such an encompassing deal,” said Christian T. Petersen, CEO and founder of FFG. “Not only will we be able to continue the publication of some phenomenal roleplaying, card, and board games currently on the market, but we look forward to creating new games for the popular GW universes!”

"In Fantasy Flight Games, we’ve found a partner who shares our passion for gaming and our dedication to producing the highest quality products,” said Andy Jones, Head of Legal and Licensing for Games Workshop. “e legacy of our board, card, and roleplaying games is in the best possible hands with them, and we are extremely excited about the prospects of seeing some fabulous new games set in our universes as well. ”