ZombiePirate Announces His Retirement…

… from Warhammer Fantasy and 40k.

Yeah! This might take some explaining.

I have been involved with gaming for almost 20 years, ever since the day my Dad and I I first stepped into GW Dudley and bought me my first Space Marine Captain. I saw second edition 40k arrive and although I didn’t touch Fantasy for many years I remember the High Elves Vs Goblins box set as the current edition when I was little. Over the years games have come and gone, and as all long time (proper) hobbyists know this is never just a hobby, it is an obsession. Speak to any gamer and the norm is to recount each other with tales of swathes of metal and plastic models hidden in almost every available nook and cranny numbering similarly to Xerxes’ crusading Persians in the 5th Century BC.

I can attest to this as I’ve bought far more models than was ever possible for me to paint or even play, I am a sucker for a good-looking model though, it’s the artist in me, that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it. The rather sensationalist headline to this post is not something that has come idly on a whim however. Various other denizens of the floating citadel can attest that I have voiced this particular idea before it is just now, after a long and hard thought out plan of what I want from my gaming future that this decision has been reached. I’ve looked at my model count, looked at what we as a group are playing, and then made a decision. This may come as a shock, considering that 8th edition of Fantasy has come out and we reviewed it rather favourably, I also have 3000pts of models for it too. Not only that but the Dark Eldar are on the horizon, being released next month, an army that I have been waiting an awful long time for to come of age. It’s an awful long time since we last had a game of 40k and I can’t see Warhammer being much of a goer with War of the Ring now making appearances on our gaming tables.

I am therefore pledged to sell off my 40k and Fantasy stuff, I’ve already got rid of quite a bit and have a swelling Paypal account to prove it. I’m sticking with War of the Ring, it’s a very good game, is less prone to arguments over rules and gives me my army level fix from a universe that I enjoy a lot. I really like to models and the simplicity, the fact it is inspiring me to keep painting is another plus point. Malifaux is staying too, we haven’t had chance to throw down recently and I need to assemble my Collette box but it provides a different experience to the other games we have so I am sticking with it, the fact it needs only a handful of models is another bonus. Firestorm Armada gets a lot of regular play and we are starting to properly expand the fleets we use. I need to assemble some ships to get me ready for our 750pt games but this is also staying on my play list. We then also have Warmachine. Everyone in our play group has at least some Warmachine stuff and I know generally people like it. I’ll therefore be adding a little to my Retribution force to hit 35pts, enough for a proper game, I think I need to buy one more boxset and a couple of blisters to be done, £30 tops I think. That will then constitute the capacity of my regular gaming along with Space Hulk of the board and card variety. D&D will continue and having a reduced number of models to paint now I should also be able to spend more time writing campaign adventures.

In order to compare what’s changing, here is a list of games systems I currently have models for;

• Warhammer Fantasy – 3000pts one army plus various other models
• Warhammer 40k – over 4500pts from two armies
• Uncharted Seas – 2 Fleets
• Necromunda – Original Escher boxset (still boxed) with additional Heavy Plasma Heavy
• Firestorm Armada – Can probably do almost 1000pts of Dindrenzi
• Warmachine – Not a lot these days, but working towards that 35pts of Retribution
• War of the Ring – Almost 1500pts from the Fallen Realms list
• Malifaux – Ressurectionists and Arcanists forces

Those are the major systems that I have stuff for. I’ve already started selling the 40k stuff, still plenty of other stuff to shift. Once I’m done I’m hoping the results will be me having stuff for;

• Firestorm Armada
• Warmachine
• War of the Ring
• Malifaux

Much less gaming real estate and still a good variety of games from skirmish to army level. This feels like a good move to me and I’m waiting for the Sherriff to cancel the pre-order I chucked up for the Dark Eldar. With fewer games I reckon not only will I be able to get to play them all but there is also a universe-ending chance that I may end up with it all painted…

I wonder if retiring from those games qualifies me for some kind of pension?

Zappy Pew Pew From The Church Of Gaming – Firestorm Armada

Hey googlebots! We managed to get our grubby 6InchMove mitts on a tremendous gaming venue this weekend – inside a converted church! I’ll spare you all the obvious corny puns on prayers to the dice gods etcetera.

Dealing with Aquans? You need a fishing trawler, you do.

A good night was had by all, and consisted of myself and Carabus eating chips, drinking DPZ and generally heckling Admiral ZombiePirateXXX and Big Chief Gribblin as they played one of the closest Firestorm Armada battles in a while. It was probably close because for once I wasn’t playing and wiping the vast floor that is space with the tears and wreckage of my destroyed opponents. Oh yeah, I play Terrans.

“So Mr Evil Space Goat, you think you’ve scored a critical hit hmm? Let me roll for shields. And now let me reroll my sixes. Hmm, no damage to me this time!”

The game came down to the two remaining Battleships. The Aquan battleship has massive armour and can shrug off damage that would wreck others. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite have the staying power of the Dindrenzi. The big double hulled superglue nightmare of construction just kept soaking the hits until the last Aquan had pulled the flush chain on his escape pod. Down to the last hull point!

We also played a new Space Hulk card game called Death Angel. Poker with genestealers? Would they get dealt extra hands? Stick around to find out…

6 Inch Move – Top Posts So Far

So we are one year into our blogging adventure, and here’s a run down of our top five most popular posts:

Rolling in at positions 5 and 4 are parts of ZombiePirate’s excellent assessment of the effects that Warhammer 8th Edition is having on the army lists. Well researched and well thought out, the spambots have been paying close attention to these posts!

5) Warhammer 8th Edition – Army Power Levels Explored Part 3

4) Warhammer 8th Edition – Army Power Levels Explored Part 1

At number 3 we have a popular post by Gribblin giving his initial experienced eye-view of the release of Warhammer 8th Edition:

3) Warhammer 8th Edition – My Thoughts

Coming in at number 2 is ZombiePirate on the always complicated and convoluted subject of which army to choose for Warhammer:

2) Warhammer 8th Edition – Choosing an Army

…And the most popular post on 6InchMove so far is:

1) Firestorm Armada vs Full Thrust

Both are great games, but the fact that we prefer Firestorm Armada generated a lot of controversy at the time which places this post firmly at the top spot!

Aquan Fleet – refit finished

Hi folks,  I finished painting my Aquan fleet earlier today so here are some pictures.  Again apologies for the picture quality, I’ve had to use my phone’s camara as my proper one has gone to silicon heaven to join all the calculators.

I know the picture quality isn’t great, but oh well.  What I’ve done with these ships is painted them a mid-silver colour, then covered them in a blue wash, then dry brushed the same silver over them.  This has given the ships a slight bluish hue to the hulls.  I them used a light metallic blue to draw a watery pattern on the upper hull.  I finished them off with metallic purple weapon ports and glowing green engine exhausts.

As for the firestorm game itself I really enjoy it.  I’ve only played a handful of games so far, but I like the simple game mechanics, the models look pretty good (despite the molding problems they had with earlier ones) and it’s generally just fun to play.

Oh and as for my Tyranids painting, expect an update really soon.

Made Of Win!

Hello folks! Well this is a wargaming blog and I was worried about the whole “He rolled a four and I rolled a two” stereotype imposed upon our noble hobby. Well, today my friends, I will indulge that stereotype!

Firestorm Armada…

Fire six Terran Torpedoes! Pew pew pew!

Take that, Sorylian scum! Time for the rerolls!

Eat crits galore! What’s this? Double six on the crit table? Sorylian battleship vanishes in a puff of jammy dice rolls…

A Wild Tabletop Game Appears – GW Competitors, I Choose You!

Last night I got a call from Servitob and was asked to come and help give a demo of Firestorm Armada to a chap considering diving into the Storm Zone. So it was I packaged up all my gear and made the drive over to his house picking up Gribblin along the way. Even though I had planned to spend my time sat at home painting my Haradrim it was nice to get to have a game of Firestorm for the evening and it was a close game. By then end all that was left was a heavily damaged Dindrenzi Battleship supported by two undamaged Cruisers beating on the Terran Battleship that was also starting to take damage. Servitob conceded at the end of turn  7 but it really was a game where out fortunes went back and forth as to who was holding the upper hand.

However, this isn’t a post about Firestorm, that was just a pre-amble to what I have been trying to come up with the words for over the majority of this week. There should be no surprise that personally I am unconvinced by the new version of Warhammer Fantasy and that all of us here feel a great sense of excitement about War of the Ring. Odd how two games from the same company can bring about such different emotions. I know there are a lot of people out there in Internet land that cannot stand 40k, I happen to find it an interesting and fun game, this may depend on the environment in which you play it though. My friends and I enjoy chilling out and playing with each other, we don’t take the super competitive armies nor do we go to tournaments.

From this I have been wondering about how people decide on which games they will play. For many years now GW has not been the main player, there are a number of viable competitors exciting the market, I’ve had the fortune to play a number of these and some I’ve looked into but never took off. Sure I’ve gone through a large part of my adult life with no one to play with (yeah, I know, /violin) but since getting in with my current pals we do play some games and not others. Firstly, I think I should make a list with all the games I’ve spent money on getting the rules and/or models for in the not too distant past;

• Warhammer Fantasy
• Warhammer 40,000
• War of the Ring
• Warmachine
• Hordes
• Infinity
• Secrets of the Third Reich
• Malifaux
• Sphere Wars
• Necromunda
• Confrontation
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Magic: The Gathering
• LOTR: CCG
• Uncharted Seas
• Firestorm Armada
• World of Warcraft: TCG

That’s a lot of stuff that has come around, far more than any of us could actually get around to gaming with, yet as I have said in previous posts I am a sucker for fantasy worlds. Some of these games all I ever got was the rules, some of them have good models, some of them don’t. I like the rules for Secrets of the Third Reich but the models are hideous. So, let’s put up another list of the games that are really the ones that our group will be playing in the foreseeable future;

• Warhammer 40,000
• War of the Ring
• Malifaux
• Warmachine
• Firestorm Armada
• Dungeons and Dragons

This is still quite a long list, Warhammer Fantasy may pop back in there later but at the moment I have little inclination to get the new rules and finish off my High Elves. But, how did we come to the conclusion that this is what we would be playing. Well, a large part of it is what people are willing to spend their money on, a lot of the games listed at the top I guess most of our group has never even heard of. I am always looking through gaming forums and spotting what is new and if the models are good (we bought stuff for Sphere Wars from Salute just because the models were really awesome, I don’t see us playing it ever if I’m honest with everything else happening). Warhammer 40,000 is a long time favourite of the group, it’s what we started playing together and we all have armies for it. War of the Ring is obviously the newbie for us but it looks a solid rule set and we are all really excited by it, more so than anything else for a while. Warmachine is throw back to our individual gaming days as we all have models for this game already, we’ve had a couple of games of Mk2 and people are keen to keep it around to play now and again.

Malifaux is awesome, currently there are only myself and nBreaker playing it, but I love the Fate Deck mechanic and the game is a lot of fun, it is quick to play and is different from the other games that we play, hence it stays. Firestorm allows us to take a break from normal gaming as it is a completely different setting, we all really enjoy it so again, it stays. D&D got a resurgence after we tried 4th Ed at Salute, Servitob is currently DMing a campaign and I think we are almost at the end of his current set of prepared stuff. It tends to be a quite light-hearted game (we are currently running through a mine that has a beholder as the foreman who has a magical hat which allows him to look human for public appearances) and expands the gaming circle to include Mrs Servitob playing her emo Wizard.

So, we have a broad range of games that are across genres and settings, each has a rich universe to enjoy and allows us to test our grey matter against one another. But with all the other games out there how many do you feel comfortable playing, how often do you get to play them all and how do you decide which ones are keepers and which drift into obscurity?

Ships Ahoy – Firestorm Armada expands

Full Thrust fanbois prepare to flail with nerd rage as new kid on the block Spartan Games has released another fleet for their outstanding space combat game Firestorm Armada as well as painted pictures of the next fleet for release. This rounds out the 6 fleets detailed in the main rulebook, the Directorate are shipping to stores as we speak while the Relthoza will appear a little down the line, this will also include the Escorts and Heavy Cruisers so you won’t miss out with the options available to other fleets.

Starter sets are being released to allow people to dive on in with the new factions. I’ve reposted some of the pics from the Spartan website to get people in the mood.

Spartan Battle Report – Leonidas Vs Master Chief?

In support of our favourite ocean and final frontier boating specialists Spartan Games I thought I’d bring to the general populace’s attention a poll on their forums. The lovely chaps that created the “maybe better than Full Thrust” tabletop extravaganza that is really popular with our good selves, have decided that they want to host up a battle report and show us all how one of their games really should be played.

It is up to the consumers to therefore pick which system they want to see, either wave-bobbing Uncharted Seas or the frozen vaccuumness of Firestorm: Armada. When I voted Firestorm was winning by a single vote (deja vu of what is going to happen at the UK general election perhaps?) but with such a tight margin things could swing back and forth.

You’ll have to register on the forums if you want to have a go, luckily I am providing a link to that thread here.

Coming up…

March is here, spring is in the air and with Easter just around the corner it is the time of new beginnings. So, what does this mean for us 6 Inch Movers? Well, that’s a good question. This time of year generally makes me one hell of a lot happier than the dark and dismal sun-deprived days of winter. I obviously have some bear in my ancestry as the only thing I really want to do during these long nights is to curl up and sleep. However, with the promise of Day Light Savings coming to an end things look a lot err…. brighter… sorry, got nothing better for that.

Sunday afternoon we gathered the blog squad to Servitob’s house and cracked open the paints. During the winter I use a 60W daylight bulb to paint by, painting by horrible yellow light from normal bulbs really does mess with the colours and the shadows that are cast make it really hard to paint, especially if you are using a black undercoat. With daylight now lasting, naturally, longer this is the season where I begin to get excited about painting. Sure I still have my computer game distractions but I am hoping to fulfill my New Years Resolution by appropriate use of the extended daylight hours. If I can pull my finger out and get our garden sorted it’s possible we could have painting/gaming & BBQ days enjoying the (relatively) fresh air.

I have acquired another Battleship and 6 more Frigates for my Dindrenzi only to realise (thanks Servitob) that if we stick to a 500pts limit for gaming I would be unable to use both Battleships due to fleet composition restrictions. I’ll save it for later or try an alternate colour scheme on it as I am dangerously close to finishing painting the starter fleet Battleship as it is. nBreaker and I will also be demoing Malifaux to the rest of our gaming buddies in the near future. I have finally assembled my Cult of December box and have some ideas for quick and simple painting of the Ice Golem and Gamin. Rasputina will need some more work, especially if I go with the default colour scheme which is white, one of the most loathed colours to paint.

I’ve had stuff for this game for a while but I really am excited to be getting hands on with it. I’ve mentioned in posts before now that I am more of a fan of skirmish level games rather than ones that use hordes of stuff (even though I do have armies for those games). It may be that with my appallingly slow painting speed I feel I might be able to get these things done if I only have a handful of figures to start with. Over the weekend I also received delivery some more items for the my fledgling Retribution of Scyrah army for Warmachine. These will need to be scheduled in sometime although I’d really like to be demoing the Malifaux stuff with a fully painted set of models. I feel that this is doable, especially if I can get the right temperature to go outside and undercoat them before we demo things. I also need to make sure I have enough suitable terrain for this game.

So, please look forward to a proper review of Malifaux coming up over the next few weeks as we finally get hands on with it.

Mr Universe

In the first Matrix film when Agent Smith is interrogating Morpheus to try to gain the access codes for the Zion mainframe he utters the following words;

“I want to share with you a revelation I’ve had, during my time here.”

While I have not been trying to classify Humanity as a species, I have been thinking about my tabletop gaming. I made a post a while back asking people how they got into the gaming hobby and shared my own experience in this regard. I was continuing to ponder just why it is that I continue in this hobby, it has been the one that has by far lasted the longest. Even alongside my collection of video games and the various consoles I have owned, the one hobby that I’d be saddest to lose would be my tabletop gaming.

The realisation that I came to really was that in many cases it isn’t the rules, it isn’t the often awesome models that there are, dare I say it isn’t the immeasurable pleasure of the social interactions I get with my friends while we are playing (although that is a big plus point). The thing that keeps me going in this hobby are the universes. I frequent a number of forums that I read on a regular basis, extending my work lunch time considerably while I take things in and revel in the great nebulous cloud of nerd. What I have always been impressed with is that for the majority of gamers there is no end to the number of games that they will investigate and indulge in, providing of course that they can find a community for that game in order to provide the outlet for playing. I have rule books sitting on my shelf at home for games that I am sure none of my friends I play with have even heard of. Some of them I even have miniatures for and capacity to play those games.

Yet, I have been in this hobby for my whole adult life and the majority of my childhood. When I was little I used to read prodigious amounts of fiction and loved watching cartoons set in strange and far off places. Gaming has just brought out those themes in another format. I am effectively a slave to fictional universes. This doesn’t just extend to my gaming, I love things like Star Wars and Star Trek, I may just be labelled as a geek or a nerd because of this, afterall, one cannot really argue that I fit into a stereotype (with the exception that I am married and do not always have maliferous body odour). However, these things just feed my imagination and that is what I love.

I started off gaming with Warhammer 40,000 all those years ago and that is an amazing universe with a lot of depth. I have then become enraptured with numerous others but as I get older and still these things come to pass I am aware that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. My gaming circle is quite small and we are all of differing means. Due to the fact that my wife and I earn respectable salaries and do not (yet) have kids, I have a decent pool of disposable income that I fritter away much to the chagrin of my long-suffering better half. Therefore my outlook is different to the others. Before attending our gaming session on Saturday of the weekend just gone I went to our local gaming store to grab something before heading off to pack my stuff to go. Recently they have started stocking items for a new (to me) game called Secrets of the Third Reich. I grabbed the rulebook and we had a brief look during our gaming session. I took it home and read it later on, I was very impressed with the background but not so much with the minis available from the company (however, the game is designed to be compatible with any 28-30mm World War II models). But it we look at things from a historical point of view I can show you the development of our gaming circle. It started with me and Gribblin playing 40k together and this progressed to Warhammer. I then introduced him to Warmachine and we have played that on occasion. After meeting with Servitob we got him into 40k, then I introduced them to Uncharted Seas and following into Firestorm Armada. I bought the rulebook for Malifaux and once nBreaker and another of our friends came along we started them off on Warhammer, got them into Uncharted Seas and currently nBreaker is my most fought opponent in Firestorm. He also is the only other person to have stuff for Malifaux and I think we’ll be breaking that out soon enough to try.

Both of our two “newbies” are yet to really establish themselves in gaming, especially considering the large quantity of stuff the rest of us have. There I was with another rulebook in hand for another universe. I was very impressed with the background for Secrets of the Third Reich but then we did play our first Mark 2 game of Warmachine as well, which was a lot of fun and the first outing for my Retribution (I lost but learnt a heck of a lot).

It was after considering the fact that I get into all these games and it’s not really fair to “push” these games onto my friends (I don’t really push but I can’t expect them all to jump into every new game that comes along) that I began to wonder why I get into all these things and constantly expand the rules sets that I own. It all boils down to the world in which they are set. If I can get excited about that world then I am much more likely to want to spend time in it, much to the consternation of my friends no doubt. In short, I am those universes which is why I get so excited about this hobby.

I am 40k, I am Warhammer, I am Infinity, I am Malifaux, I am Immoren, I am Earth, I am the Uncharted Seas, I am the Storm Zone, I am all of these things and I am sure more will come along to tickle my fancy. I therefore apologise to my friends for my enthusiasm for finding these new worlds. Especially to our new players that must seem to think every time we meet up I have something new. To be honest though, as of right now, I think I have gone far enough, we already have more games than we can possibly play in a day. I’m going to try and keep to what we have now, especially when I have the least number of painted models of anyone I play with. Perhaps I need to rectify that before throwing myself into a new world.