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Battle Report Video!

Here is another video report of a really exciting battle we had this past Thursday. Ahriman's Renegades (CSM - Thousand Sons theme) caught The Disciples of Caliban (Dark Angels) by surprise with a flank attack!

It was a brutal and bloody battle. Using the battle mission book we got the Eldar - Flank Attack! mission. I gotta say, this is a really interesting mission, it stretched my strategic thinking and helped me to think outside of the box with my list. For this particualar mission we rolled off and Brother C. was the 'enemy'. This meant that I was pretty much going first and I got the extra cool option of being able to outflank anything that I left in reserve. This was huge! I was able to outflank my chaos dreadnoughts! And to top it all off I didn't have to roll for which side they came in on, it was my choice! The benefit for Brother C. in this mission was that there are only 3 objectives and 2 of them are in his deployment zone way on the other side of the board from me.

I really needed to think about how I was going to play this, I needed to basically control the one objective deep in my territory and do a feint move on one of his flanks to draw the majority of his army there, contest that objective then either capture or contest the other one. For the most part my plan worked out, but he was able to finish off my troops squad in his territory with some really lucky rolling! He also managed to stun my land raider and end the game on turn 5 when it was ready to just plop on his objective.

All in all it was a great game, but I did manage to do more damage to him than he did to me thanks to my terminators tar pitting his entire army. They really earned their armor this fight!

Check out the report!

Photographing Miniatures

Hey all,

Brother C here.

There was a call out to all FTW bloggers to submit articles written about photographing your miniatures. I can't believe we haven't talked much about that on here as of yet.. so.. here it goes.

Basic techniques for lighting and photographing your miniatures.

As with my photography, there are a lot of factors that go into a great shot. I’m going to go over a few of the basics and feel free to experiment and play around until you achieve the final image you desire. The above image is to show you a before and the rest are after implying some of these techniques.

THE LIGHTBOX

The first thing I would recommend is a lightbox or light-tent. These are fairly expensive online, I think you can get a decent one for around $100. These are great, and I think most are portable. Great for taking to the local club. However if you do not feel like dropping the dough, like the rest of us, there are quick and easy DIY tutorials out there.. here’s ONE that I have used.

LIGHTING – INTRODUCTION

The key to setting up your lighting is to position the lights to eliminate any harsh shadows and dark areas on your models; while maintaining enough contrast in your lit areas to reveal definition. Wow, that’s a mouthful. Lets break this down. You will want a KEYLIGHT. The main light, such as the sun for instance, but you will need to create this light, decide where you want the main light source coming from. Got it?

Alright now, you want to look where the shadows have formed, where you are losing details and definition due to harsh, dark shadows. You want to position your FILL LIGHT to bring illumination to these areas. Usually your FILL LIGHT is a bit more dim than your KEY LIGHT because you don’t want these areas to shine, but just have enough illumination to reveal the missing details you spent so much time preparing and painting.

The next light is a BACK LIGHT. This light is intended to illuminate the background. Whatever background you feel is appropriate for your models. I would recommend something simple such as a gray or white background. If you are looking to replace the background in a post-processing program such as photoshop use an extreme color like a bright green or pink, something you can easily select the pixels and remove them as needed. You will want the BACK LIGHT to be just bright enough to bring contrast to your models, making them ‘pop’ off the backdrop. This will probably need some tweaking as you progress. I strongly recommend a large piece of solid color paper such as Bristol paper. You want to place your models on the center of one of the short sides and then lean the paper up against a flat backing such as a wall. This will create a nice even curved (creaseless) surface behind your models.

That’s it for lighting basics.



CAMERA BASICS

Fist rule for the camera. USE A TRIPOD. Don’t even argue. DO IT.

Now, the next important thing you will want to do is to NOT use on camera flash (if you know what you are doing ignore this tip, but for everyone else, turn OFF your on-camera flash. Reposition your lights if you want to change the lighting scheme.

If you are comfortable using your camera, you will want to be shooting in APERATURE PRIORITY mode, usually the one with an ‘A’ on your camera dial. Set this as low as your camera will allow and work your way up. This will allow you to get that nice clear focus and blur the background. This may blue the models next to the focus point, so again, you will want to work your way up the scale until you are happy with the result. You will want to ALWAYS use MANUAL FOCUS here, don’t let your camera focus on the model in the back, while your model in the front is blurred, it will look very strange.

If you want a simpler approach, simply move your camera dial to the macro icon, this will automatically set up your camera for taking pictures of minute details. Again, you will have much less control, but it should do the job 9 times out of 10.

Shoot in RAW if you can.



POST-PROCESSING

There’s a multitude of post processing you can use to accent your photographs out of camera.

Adobe Photoshop

Basic. Make sure you have the Photoshop RAW converter and check the option to open JPGs in the RAW convertor if you aren’t shooting in RAW. This will allow you to tweak almost ever option from your camera with broad sweeping strokes, allowing you to achieve desirable results very quickly. The RAW convertor for photoshop is free.

Adobe Lightroom is my software of choice, it does everything the RAW convertor does and has a very user-friendly interface which allows for all aspects of the photography process. You can organize, print and send to web all with a few tabs and clicks of the mouse.

Iphoto and Capture NX (as well as dozens of others) are also photoediting programs that are just as good. Feel free to experiment and find the one that suits your workflow the best.


_____________________________________________________

And there you have it, my quick and dirty miniature photography tutorial. Feel free to play around, post results, and of course ask questions about anything you are still unsure of.

Force of Chaos vs Exiles of Caliban!

Image from MrChaos

Hey guys! Had a great match last night that I wanted to share with you all!

I decided to stop by a buddy from Berks 40k clubs house and get in a match. Originally I thought I would be fighting the dirty Dark Angels again. But when I got there his brother-in-law, who also plays 40k, was there and he plays mighty Chaos Space Marines as well! So we decided to have an epic battle of 4,000 points per side, Chaos vs Dark Angels!

The Forces of Chaos were The Dragon Warriors of the Black Legion lead by Abaddon The Despoiler (controlled by From_the_warp) and Ahriman's Renegades lead by Ahriman (controlled by myself). We each had 2,000 points to spend and we could use our own force org chart for each of our armies.

The Dark Angels (Exiles of Caliban) were controlled by LordCypher and he was able to use 4,000 points and we even allowed him to take up to 2 force org charts just as we did.

This was a massive battle and I must say, it was on some really good looking terrain! We ended up using the new Battle Missions book and rolling for mission 51, Blitzkrieg. In this mission the board is divided into 4 quarters (basically spearhead). There are 3 objectives placed in a line in across the middle of the board that forms a line between the two deployment zones. But here is the tricky part, ONLY fast attack units are allowed to deploy on turn 1, all other elements of your army MUST arrive from reserves on turn 2 with a 4+!

Being that we were playing the Chaos Space Marine Codex, pretty much all of our fast attack units suck. Warp fielded a unit of 3 Nurgle bikers with an Icon, and that was our only fast attack unit. He thought it would be a good idea to keep them in reserve as well.

Abaddon brought a lot of troops in rhinos with him and his job was to contest the two objectives that were on the far side from our board edge. My job, because my list isn't very good at assaulting, was to hold the objective that was closest to our side. It was a blood bath! I lost a lot of units in the first few turns but eventually Ahriman arrived to put down the loyalist dogs and secure the objective.

Abaddon meanwhile took the middle of the field with blinding power as he crushed through everything in his path.

The Dark Angels responded with Belial and his Land Raider on their closest objective. He killed many Chaos Space Marines and secured their objective.

The game ended in a tie, but when we went to victory points the forces of Chaos just barely won. The over priced ravenwing are to blame!

It was a very interesting mission and I had a blast playing it! Check out the video for more details!



Thanks for having me over!

**Here are some Pics**

Super Blog Chain Giveaway! - Logo Design Competition!

I am honored to have won a brand new Space Marine Dreadnought from Inquisitor Lord Aki!

I was reading through his blog and noticed he was doing a free give away as part of the Super Blog Chain Give Away and I thought, "hey, why not try?" and I actually won! I am so excited because this will actually complete my 2000 point army! I don't need to use paper cut-outs anymore! YEY!

For those of you that don't know, the Super Blog Chain Give Away is a nice little "pay it forward" kind of event for those of you that have blogs. The rules are simple! All you need to have is an actually updated blog, and something that you could give away for free. It has to be something decent, not like a paint pot or something. Whoever wins the give away from one persons blog has to give away their item to somebody else! It is up to the winner how said item will be won.

Aki basically had people write in as to why they deserved/wanted to win one of three things. He ended up picking me because he liked an article I wrote!

Now that it is my turn, I am offering up a FREE and brand new still on the sprues Chaos Predator!


Now, how do you go about winning it?

Well, first you need to become a follower of our blog. Then, you need to comment on this post with your blog and what you would be willing to offer up for the give away were you to win. And finally, the thing that will determine if you win or not! Lancashire Wargaming needs a logo! So design us one! The winning logo entry will receive the Chaos Predator for free!

And remember, the Chaos Predator is the exact same spure as the Space Marine one it just comes with an extra sprue of spikes! So even if you're those vile loyalists you can still get in on this!

This competetion will be going for about 3 weeks and I will post updates on the blog to remind you! So have at it!

September 40k day

image courtesy of ibrahem swaid




Brother C here,

Just wanted to follow up with my own reactions to LWG's September 40k day. It was great to see a few of our northern rivals from the Berks club come down and join us for some carnage. My first match of the day was against Renegade Angel who brought his force of Chaos Undivided Space Marines. It was a heavy infantry list, something I am not used to facing. My current list is more built for dealing with mechanized armies and the results will show.

Starting off the match as Dawn of War did not help, neither did 4 objectives, however, having terms as troops could have proved an advantage for me as there was not alot in my opponent's list to stop Brother Adso (Belial) and his retinue.

He deployed 2 troops in rhinos as far forward as he could, he would be assaulting by turn 2. I deployed cautiously my lascannon combat squads, having everything else come in on turn 1.

Renegade Angel played very well in this match. He was able to crash onto my objectives on turn 2 thanks to Dawn of War and just when I was seeing some light from the first assault, his deepstrike units and flanking chosen came on the board to make life hell for my flanks. It seemed wherever I made some headway, another unit would appear to deal with. It was a great tactic, I think he chose great locations for his units to come from reserve and they provided more than enough support for my patethic attempts at a counter assault. My terms came on at turn 3 and trudged through some heavy fire, just to get consumed by a wave a red zerkers, taking down just a few in their wake. between oblits and the demonprince, my opponent was able to handle my dreads, allowing his infantry to cover my lines unopposed.

it was a fun match for sure. I tried to hold the back line as waves of CSMs came pouring in. I was able to hold off the push for the most part and if the game went further I could have possibly challenged his objectives. The game ended on turn 6 just as his empty rhinos tank shocked in to contest one objective. so it was a victory for the CSMs, 2 objectives held, DoC only 1 and 1 being contested by that pesky rhino at the end.

Outcome thoughts:

There were a few major things in this match that did not play into my favor.
1. Dawn of War - having his heavy infantry list start halfway across the board was quite the advantage for my opponent. it allowed him to dictate the battle right from the start, I played as well as I could have but there just was not enough time to get back to contest his held objectives. Something my army is definitely lacking - mobility. 0 fast attack units. having my anvil unit come in on turn 5 also hurt. At that point it was more about scrambling for the objectives than it was about pushing my opponent's weak points. I'm still in love with my dreads, they are worth their weight in gold. My one dread kept an assaulting demonprince at bay for 3 turns, and reducing him to 1 wound. the tech marine also proved to be a viable asset. I don't seem him chosen in many DA lists but man, he basically soloed a group of noise marines and finally dropped to another group of chosen, but that was 3 rounds at least of 10v1. the librarian also proved his worth by countering all warp time spell casting and wiping a group of lesser demons and nurgle bikers with hellfire. my epic ability to roll 1s on term armor saves continues. lost 2 to zerker bolt pistols...

it was a decent battle, I would love a rematch, I believe I could have tactically played much better. I don't want to take anything away from Renegade Angel, he played well and the victory was deserved.

Again, thank you everyone who came out and was a part of the September 40k day. hopefully word will spread and we can see more of you in October.

For The Love of the Game! - My 40k Story

Inquisitor Lord Aki has been hounding me for awhile now on the Berks 40k forums for a post I made when I first joined. Basically its the story of how I got involved in 40k. He keeps telling me that it inspired him and I should share it, so here it is!

I started war gaming last November. I knew nothing about it save some video game references. In fact, the real reason my interest in 40k was perked was through playing Dawn of War 2. I really took to the style, background, and game play. My friend Jon (Brother Cornelius) and I decided that we should check out this crazy table top thing. We were blown away once we started doing some research on the internet and watching battle reports.

The community for 40k is amazing and we were sucked in. Reid (Agni of Hive Fleet Agni) got me a rulebook for my birthday and Brother C. got me the Chaos Space Marines Codex. Ever since then we've been delving into blogs, the books, the rulebooks, codex, everything we could get our soon to be glued fingers on.

We aren't rolling in cash, so we had to find a way to play without having any models. We saw on Fritz's blog the idea of playing with paper cut outs to represent the models. We chose our colors and started cutting out some circles. Next thing we knew we were playing some matches and we were instantly hooked! How did we not know about this when we were younger!

To be honest with you, I've played tons of games. I can say with certainty that I know what makes them good or not, and 40k is the best game I've ever played from any genre!

After that we started selling it to our friends and we've been really surprised at how much interest there has been. Left and right, everybody we know has pretty much jumped in and loved it! The beginning of Lancashire Gaming was in my basement with no models to speak of and boxes of tissues for terrain. It was amazing!

Our goal is to spread this hobby through the area, there are so many people that would just love to involved in something like this. The pride of modeling and painting, the thrill of victory, and the fulfilling social interaction are all part of what makes 40k and our club awesome.

So there you have it! I just love this hobby!

September 40k Day Round-up!

Hey all Moros here! This past Saturday was the best 40k day yet! We had a handful of new people and got in a lot of games!

Over the course of the day we managed to have six 2000 point games played and two lower point games. Overall a great success and the most games our humble club has had so far! Not bad for a few months of operation!

Including our guests we had a great array of armies represented. We had Chaos Space Marines Undivided, Chaos Space Marines Thousand Sons Themed, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Necrons, and Codex Space Marines. They were just handing out power armor like candy I guess!

I can't comment too much on the other games but the matches I had were bloody and close! I had a really good time getting to know some of the Berks guys and being able to take part in some really competitive matches. My first game (Using my Thousand Sons) was verses the Space Wolves 13th Company lead by Berek. It was a 2000 point seize ground (5 Objectives) spearhead match-up.

The entire flow of the battle was different from what I was used too, because of the way we deployed and moved in the first turns the game basically panned out as a Space Wolf Rush down the entire 6 foot length of the table, it was really something to see! They stole the initiative from me. I castled up in on my short edge and let loose the battle cannons, havoc launchers, and lascannons. I got first blood on his long-fangs and immobilized his land raider which really helped me slow down his advance. He had two rhino's filled with space wolves coming down my left flank and the contents of the land raider with a jump pack squad coming down the right flank. At this point his wolf scouts came in behind my lines and blew up one of my defilers with their meltagun. My Thousand Sons responded in kind to them, wiping them out, but the damage was done.

His Blood Claws from the land raider, a large squad of 15 of them with a wolf priest within striking range of my Terminators from my land raider. My Terminators unloaded their combi-plasma rapid fire killing 7 wolves and in the ensuing assault wounded the priest and took out the rest of the wolves. More Blood Claws from his rhino's on the left flank joined in the assault on his turn and they overwhelmed the terminators, but the Dark God's were pleased with them.

As I slowly whittled down the Space Wolves it became a cat and mouse game to contest objectives. 5 Objectives is pretty much the worst case scenario for my army as I only have two troop choices because of their insane cost. But I did my best heading him off and I definitely took down far more of his men then he did of mine.

The game ended on turn 7 with us each holding 1 and contesting 2 with the final objective out in no mans land. We also tied on kill points but as his squads were much larger I ended up winning on victory points.

It was a hard fought game and my first against the space wolves. I was happy to have this classic match up and hope to do a nice narrative write up on it soon so keep an eye out for that.

My second game was a 750 point battle vs the Frozen Sons (Codex Marines). I fielded two Thousand Son squads, one with a Rhino, and a Daemon Prince of Tzeentch. He fielded two drop pod tactical squads with flamers and missiles and an assault squad lead by a Librarian.


It was objectives with there being 4 on a 4' x 4' Table. So it basically came down to a bloodbath in the middle of the table. He had a bad scatter on his first drop pod and it allowed me to rapid fire 14 AP3 bolters into his marines with no cover. They all died but one and he failed his moral test falling back only to be killed by the Rhino in the next turn.



At this point the assaults knocked out one of my Thousand Son squads and moved in on the second with a huge ensuing melee that lasted 3 or so turns. My Daemon Prince mopped up his second tactical squad and moved in to help the melee. He killed the rest of my Thousand Sons and it was down to the Daemon Prince and his Sergeant. Needless to say, the Daemon Prince won. With that being his last man on the field we called the game my victory. It was fast and bloody, but it was a very fun match.


I really learned a lot about the lower point levels. We usually play 2000 points and 750 felt like it was nothing. But honestly, I really think sometimes the lower point levels take more strategy and tactics than the high point games.

Thanks to everybody that came out! It was a great day! I hope to see you all there next time!

----- Here are some more Pics of the action! Enjoy! -----

Ahriman's Renegades vs Necrons! - Battle Report

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, its been a crazy few weeks.

I did it! I finally broke my losing streak and got a full fledged win!

Forsaken put up a good fight, but in the end I was able to prevail by keeping the pressure on him hard and shutting down his advancing gunline!For the match we played a seize ground with 5 objectives with pitched battle deployment.

Forsaken won the dice roll and opted to go second. Which usually I would say is a great choice, but in this instance it might have cost him the game. The ability for me to place 3 objectives really helped me lay out the battle field for my advantage.

I spread out in my usual formation and began moving forward to claim the mid-field which was littered with 4 of the 5 objectives. He kept everything but his destroyers, monoliths, and Night Bringer in reserve. So I was relatively safe from shooting. He did manage to exploit my one weakness, my rhinos, and he exploded one of them and it actually managed to kill 2 of my thousand sons. But my Land Raider made it about halfway across the board and then on turn 2 I was able to move in and unload my terminators right into his destroyers that had taken cover in a ruined building. It worked out perfectly because my terminators failed to destroy or route the necrons in the assault so I was able to avoid being shot at for the next round. He wasn't even able to teleport them out to his monolith because he rolled for 2 warrior squads to come in from reserve.

At this point the Night Bringer was bearing down on my mid-field formation. Which is a huge problem for me because I really have no answer for that monster of a unit. I try my best to wound him with my twin-linked lascannons and bolts of change from my sorcerers, but his blasted invuln save kept him up. So I did what I could do, I kited him around the field as best I could.

Meanwhile on the left flank my dreadnoughts were doing their job, absorbing mass amounts of fire and keeping it off of my defilers. I have been honestly pretty pleased with their performance in most of my games. They really do offer up a nice distraction and are usually worth their price. I haven't even had a problem with fire frenzy believe it or not!

Over on the right flank my defiler moved into assault range on one of the teleported in warrior squads and engaged them. They were torn to pieces and forced to teleport out of combat in the next turn. But this really put my defiler in perfect range to assault his monolith. Liths are a beast to kill, but if anything in my army has a shot at it, its the defilers. I didn't manage to kill it, but I destroyed two weapons and forced it to keep falling back.

The Terminators continued their rampage through mid-field as I offered up my land raider to the night bringer and he took the bait, slowing him down for another turn. He did everything but kill it, with it down to only its heavy bolter. The Terminators managed to destroy two more warrior squads and absorb a HUGE amount of firepower. They more than payed for themselves this game.

The game ended with my remaining Thousand Sons squad charging the objective and actually holding off the Night Bringer! He was unable to even hurt the Thousand Sons in melee combat!

All in all it was a great game and I had a ton of fun!

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We forgot to take pictures of this particular round, But I do have some old pictures that I wanted to share, so here check them out of me fighting forsaken!

And yes, the first image really happened during the course of the game and we didn't set it up like that, the next round that warrior even managed to destroy the battle cannon!!!