A Realmgate Too Far

Ah ha. I haven't posted in a while. There are a few reasons why. Firstly I got distracted re-organising the gaming room, which took a while. Then I got distracted sorting out some other collections of models (mainly historical stuff - Napoleonics, American Civil War, that kind of thing. I've got some pictures I'll put up soon. Promise.). Work also got a bit busier. Mainly I'm lazy. Anyway, today is a good day to make a new blog post, because it's New 40K release day. Yay! A shiny pile of things turned up at around 8:30AM, which is much earlier than I'd expected. So what did I get.... This is the little haul. The Indomitus box set, the Chapter Approved books, the Open War cards, and two of the Crusade journals (because I figured my partner would want one). Lets have a look at these things then. So, what do we have first. It's the Crusade journal. I know many of you (assuming this actually gets read!) will have already seen a lot of these things, as the intern...

Wait - isn't this an AoS blog? Well, most of the content so far has been, but since it's not the only game we play (or even system we collect models for/from), I thought I'd put a post up, given I've been painting some 40k stuff as a slight break from AoS Chaos. So, a new version of Warhammer 40,000 was revealed a week or so back. Not particularly surprising, I think, as everyone had got their codex, or in the case of some, multiple codices (I'm aware that GW maintain it is codexes. I don't care - to me they are still codices), and the Psychic Awakening books were building towards something like this. Everyone and their dog (or other animal, if you don't like dogs, I guess) will have already expressed their opinions on this - good, bad, etc. I hadn't originally planned to add to the whirling maelstrom of internet opinion - originally, I only planned to show some pictures of Necrons that I'd painted, inspired by all the lovely new models ...

It's been a somewhat quiet couple of weeks, in terms of blogging - mainly because it took me quite a while to write up the last battle report! However, that does mean that I've made quite a bit of progress painting up a number of models for both Chaos & the Stormcast Eternals. First up are the Slaves to Darkness: I actually started painting some of these chaos warriors a few years ago, partially inspired by the old 3rd edition Realm of Chaos era books, and partly by the bright coloured enemies in the similarly(ish) aged (1992, I think) computer game Legend (The Four Crystals of Trazere in some places), an isometric dungeon crawler RPG. In particular, Legend is one of the games I remember most from my youth, as it was one of the few we had when I was a kid, and I spent a long time playing it (alongside other brilliant games like D/Generation and Zak McKraken and the Alien Mindbenders).  My introduction into GW (after Heroquest & Space Crusade) was vi...

Battleplan: The Trap We recently played the next game in the Realmgate Wars series – The Trap. We’re still fighting in Ghyran, the Realm of Life, and this game gives us a bit of background and feel to what’s happening in Ghyran prior to the Stormcast Eternals arriving. For many centuries, Nurgle’s forces have spread across and corrupted Ghyran, polluting rivers, corrupting flora and fauna alike, turning the Jade Kingdoms into twisted, blighted realms. Alarielle has hidden herself away, grown disconnected with her realm and people. Despite Alarielle’s disinterest, the Sylvaneth are still motivated to fight on, and to destroy the forces of Nurgle where possible. The Trap is an example of the kind of fighting that is going on all over Ghyran. At the centre of the Greenglades lies the Shimmertarn, an ornately carved standing stone from whence rivulets and streams flow, purifying the surrounding lands and providing a pocket of resistance against Nurgle’s encroachment. As s...

As mentioned in a previous blog post I recently pre-ordered Soulbound – the AoS RPG by Cubicle 7. While the physical book won’t be available for a while, the pdf file is, so people can start reading, planning and playing straight away. I’ve only had a pdf copy for a few days, and haven’t had a chance to read through it all – the original intention was to review things every few chapters (and I still plan to), but a couple of things have jumped out at me while reading through the Equipment chapter – in a good way, so I wanted to talk about them, and some ideas that come from them. The first of these is the currency system in Soulbound. Rather than using coins, one of the major currency systems used in the Mortal Realms, and especially in the Grand Parch in Aqshy, is Aqua Ghyranis, the life-giving water from Ghyran, the Realm of Life. Apparently coins were abandoned, much to the Kharadron’s annoyance, as they had a monopoly due to the amount of precious metals they had a...