The week that was ...

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12-18^th October 2012

You all know what happens to “regularly scheduled” blog posts in these parts. Typically they start with good intentions but fall quickly by the wayside as real life and other inconveniences get in the way. So it is with much trepidation that I offer to you a new, regularly scheduled series of posts on the week that was the week before ... if you get me. This entirely (un)original concept is brought to you by me and hopefully will gather contributions from others in the “staff” if it gains any momentum.

With that said, here we go!

Open War 18.

Last Friday I was feverishly throwing Army Painter Medium Shade over poorly painted Tyranid models in a desperate attempt to finish my army for Open War 18. As you can read here my efforts on the painting front were successful enough for me to be able to attend the tournament, sadly however, my gaming skills were not up to the task and I finished a somewhat disappointing 14^th out of 18 competitors. Still, lessons were learned and I’ll be back for Blog Wars 4 with renewed fervour!

Club Night.

Thursday night is our regular club night at Warhammer World in Nottingham. Up to now I’ve been neck deep in the Perpetual Blood Bowl league, amassing four extremely middle-of-the-road teams in just over a year. For the latest team intake, however, I have decided to take a break and recharge my scrimmaging batteries. The previous week saw me, instead, throwing some 40K-related shapes in an Open War practice game against the midget-loving Grazer (who owes us a Battle Report, gloriously detailing how I won on a technicality).

This week heralded the very welcome return of Gav (our very own Mr Claws and Fists) to the gaming table who ably demonstrated his rustiness by loosing consecutive games of Space Hulk to me. Beating Gav at anything is a rare enough occurrence that I have to twist the knife at every opportunity but both games were pretty close, with the kind of great action and tension that makes Space Hulk as memorable as it always has been.

Looking forward.

I spent a couple of hours last night mulling over Daemons/Chaos Marines lists that Gav and I could take to Battle Brothers in January and I came to the conclusion that squeezing allies into 1500 points is at best difficult and at worst detrimental to the list no matter how powerful screamers and Flamers are ;) Bring on 1500pts of Tyranids I say!

And Finally.

I was listening to the latest episode of World's End Radio this week and they did a short segment on playing under pressure which I felt fit in rather nicely with my recent dusting off of Space Hulk. Being a little out of practice I’d forgotten how little time that egg timer gives you as the Marine player. You are forced to think fast and you get a real sense of pressure in a game where the odds are somewhat stacked against you anyway! I love the mechanic here though, because it really adds atmosphere to the game, drawing you into the situation. If you’re in a bit of a jam, the time you spend thinking yourself out of it often leaves you with a frantic rush to get everything done as the last few grains of sand spill out of the timer. Inaction is the quickest killer in Space Hulk.

Please check back next week for more of the same (hopefully!)