Avellorn: Battle for Vanaheim Hive

This thread of articles will highlight the next league we will be playing at Game Empire Pasadena for Warhammer 40,000.  Below the break you will find the back story, rules, and scenarios for the league.  Each week I will post an update for the league including the ladder standings for players, teams, and current position holders for playoffs on the store's yahoo group.  With out further ramblings here is a copy of the official league packet that is available for our players.  If you want to take this and run it in your FLGS/gaming group by all means please do, and let us know how it is going!

And They Shall Know No Fear: Heavy Support Part 1 the Tanks.

When building a list with Codex: Space Marines a player is often faced with a number of tough choices.  The most important of which is "with x number of points how much should I spend on each section of the FOC?"  I have always believed that at least 30-40% of your list should be made up of troops choices, and after that the remaining 60-70% can be spent however you like.  The difficulties with list building tend to arise when you're forced to choose between expensive, versatile units and cheap, single task units.

Warmachine: Steamroller Tournament Lists

Hello Everyone!

We held the first of what will become regular monthly Steamroller tournaments out here for Warmachine and Hordes, and since we managed to convince one of our locals to handle the T.O. duties for the day, I actually got to play!

40k Strategy: The "3Ms" explained.

 There has been some discussion out on the web and on this site about the 3Ms.  The 3Ms are Mech, Mobility, and Melta.  They are a theory of how 40k works in 5th edition.  If you know/play against me in real life you've probably heard me talking about the 3M theory for longer than you want to admit because most people will want to know how you haven't killed me yet.  That being said, for the benefit of our readers who aren't sick of hearing it I will explain my 3M theory quickly.

40k Strategy: Pinning, the path to victory. Part 1 lists.

Pinning: To fasten something or somethings in a specific position.

Pinning is a key to victory in 5th edition, much like observing the 3Ms (the 3Ms are briefly discussed here and are discussed more in depth here)will lead you to victory pinning your opponent will lead to victory especially when observed with an army that makes the 3Ms part of it's mantra as well.  What I am not talking about is "pinning" as described in the 40k rule book.  I am not talking about pinning a unit with sniper rifles or Lash of Submission, what I am talking about is strategic in nature and a player who can master this strategy will find victory on the battlefields of the 41st millennium easier to come by.

Wolf Scouts - The King of Scouts

Greetings everybody,

Just finished painting a full squad of Space Wolf scouts for my growing Wolves army and wanted to share why I think Space Wolf Scouts are one of the best units available to Wolf players, and are possibly the best scout/infiltrator type unit in 40k.

A Tail of Two Conversions Part 3

In my previous portion of this article I had finished two different types of Thunderwolf Cavalry for my Space Wolf army.  For one set I used Goblin Rinder wolves for wolf bits and for the second, and I believe better, batch I used Chaos Warhounds.  You can find the two previous articles on converting Thunderwolves from Pyth and myself in the Hobby section of this site.  I began painting these TWC about a week and a half ago in the hopes of having them ready to use for the RTT last Saturday.  I was, unfortunately, unsuccessful.  However I took pictures of the painting process so let's get into that now.

Warhammer 40k Tournament Complete Coverage - Part 4

Hello everyone!

All right, my faux-weekend is finally over, so here's the last installment of our full coverage of the September Tournament...

Warhammer 40k Tournament Complete Coverage - Part 3

Round 3 is under way as I write this, and we're in the final round. The field has narrowed and there are about four players fighting for the top spots...

Warhammer 40k Tournament Complete Coverage - Part 2

All right, the players are back from lunch and well in to Round 2, so here's the Round 1 wrap-up and the current match-ups!

Warhammer 40k Tournament Complete Coverage - Part 1

Hello Everyone!

It's tournament day out here again, and we're going to try something a little ambitious: I'm going to put up round-by-round updates on the event! Let's get started with the basics:

It's Tournament Time.

If you're a reader of this blog site, play 40k or Fantasy, live near Pasadena CA and want to get 3 great games of 40k or Fantasy against some great and friendly players then come by Game Empire in Pasadena this Saturday 9/11 for their monthly RTT.  I'll be there with my Wolves ready to play so come by and get some games in!  These tournaments are run by Dis and he is excellent at running them.

Space Wolves Round 2

Greetings All,

Just finished painting another batch of Space Wolves, using techniques similar to those presented in my last Space Wolf painting article. For this batch I painted a Land Raider Redeemer, Rhino, and Grey Hunter squad with attached Wolf Guard.

The downside of trying to paint your models with high visual quality is that it takes a long time to get units finished. Wanting to speed up the process I made an effort to simplify my method, while trying to not sacrifice the visual look of the models. After getting through the first batch of Space Wolves I felt a lot more comfortable with the color palette and that comfort aided me in speeding up my painting process.

A Tail of Two Conversions: Part 2

Thunderwolf Cavalry; probably one of the most deadly units in 40k today, heralded by some to be the new Nob Bikerz.  They are an uber deadly unit, hyper survivable, and almost entirely unsupported (model wise) by GW.  The idea of Space Marines riding giant wolves has had many corners of the internet crying "cheese!" But I think the unit provides gamers with an opportunity to do some real hobbying.

Malifaux Review - New Faction Starters

Hello Everyone!

I thought I would kick off the first Malifaux article on CNC with a review of the two new faction starters for the game, the Spirits of Vengeance box featuring Kirai for the Resurrectionists, and the Showgirls box featuring Colette for the Arcanists. I'll be tackling Kirai, bloodied hedge-clippers and all, and our very own Sand will be taking care of Colette with a special guest review!