May monthly hobby roundup...40k campaign and more Beastmen!

Time for another monthly hobby wrapup - I'm finding that I'm not blogging as much, but I am enjoying Twitter for quick hobby fixes during the day.  If you are Twitter competent, curious or inclined you'll find me at: https://twitter.com/Paul89487518

This month we have completed our first 40k Path to Glory Campaign and what a hoot it was.  The focus on narrative play in an evocative list growing process was a lot of fun.

Reilly's Necron army is looking awesome in its Mephrit Dynasty orange colour scheme

My Berserkers demand Hydraulic fluid blood substitute for the Hydraulic fluid blood substitute God! 

In our penultimate game we played the Retrieve the Spy game which was interesting - Reilly ended up pushing his Necrons forwards to grab the agent, which allowed me the deep strike in my Chaos Lord and his retinue of Red Butcher terminators, which got messy (in a good way for me)...

Oh the joys of a deep strike with these boys - 30% of the time, it works every time!

My boys slaughtered 19 of the 20 Necron Warriors... man I hate those Necron resurrection protocols! Through his clever use buffs, abilities and strategems Reilly regenerated 17 of them! :-)  But in the meantime my Chaos Lord "Volk the Blooded" got into Melee with the Necron Overlord "Ankhep the Unliving", which was rather convenient as Vlok had fastidiously sharpened his Lightning Claws only the day before...

Time to play the "Duel of the Fates" theme music again! (which we do of course)

Fresh from that Victory, my Chaos Lord was rewarded by Khorne with ascension to Daemonhood (cue buying and painting a new Daemon Prince figure) - one more victory and the Campaign would be mine!  We played the Duel scenario from Vigilus Ablaze which was wonderfully evocative. The Blood Flowed and Victory was indeed mine.  A great wrap to a really fun progressive campaign.  The next one has already started, with Reilly pitting his Necrons against my Tyranids from Hivefleet Charybdis!

Then I got to observe some club mates play a fantastic Hoplite battle using Men of Bronze.  The lads have adjusted the rules just a little and they played very well - the table looked awesome and you can see more at the full writeup here: https://agrabbagofgames.wordpress.com/2020/05/21/attica-raid-428-b-c/

The Spartan lochargos blesses his gaming dice before the battle

And finally, after a COVID hiatus I have been tinkering with my Warhammer Beastmen army again. I have finished another Gor regiment of 20 figs which I call the Blood Snout Herd.  Overall I now have 70 Gors, 10 Bestigiors and 22 Ungors ready for battle - so I'm now past the half way mark :-)

For something a bit different to my other regiments I gave these Gors a more bloodied, frenzied look

Sadly, after too much fermented goat's milk both Larr and Grarr thought they were appointed to make the battle banner...

I have also been sprucing up a Centigor unit that I got second hand at Cancon in January.  I was thrilled when Reilly found these in the Bring & Buy stand and its been very satisfying to bring new life to the classic metal figures.

Hive Fleet Charybdis

Playing about with our new Nid army, getting ready for our next Path to Glory campaign

April Hobby Roundup and a Skully gift

Well what a month or two its been!  For many around the world it has been a very challenging times for a myriad of reasons. Great to see that some have had both the opportunity and inclination to do some hobby and I have enjoyed watching the various projects.

I have not been one of those - indeed, I have been very busy being part of the Government response here.  Extremely busy but wonderful to be part of the solution and helping the many State and Commonwealth authorities and agencies.  Along the way I have gotten a few little things painted and the odd game in too. Reilly and I have have been upgunning some of our Kill Teams to play narrative 40k games - particularly the incremental Path to Glory system.  Its been a hoot, pitting Ankhep the Unliving and his Necron horde against Chaos Warlord Drok the Blooded and his World Eaters.

This week I got something very special in the mail from Barks in recognition of my win in our AHPC X "Skully McSkullface" side challenge.  Most appropriately it was... a servoskull!  So awesome, thanks Barks - I love it !

There is only one thing to do when you get something this cool in the mail - use it on the table immediately.  We found a good scenario where the servo skull would be the focus of the whole game: the next adventure of Drok and Ankhep was afoot!  Ahhh, the joy of a live in opponent in isolation.

What followed was a tense tabletop tug of war in which I grabbed the Servoskull early and played keepings off for the rest of the game, staying very narrowly ahead of the Necron hoard that was after me. It was more like a game of Blood Bowl really!

My Warlord and his Red Butchers wade into the fray

My berzerkers made lots of blood flow (mostly their own it must be said) 

One must always play 'Duel of the Fates' on your phone when warlords clash like this

When they work, berzerkers are awesome. Mostly I cant make them work, so its a treat when they do!

My Rhinos made highly effective LOS blockers - then both exploded and killed lots of enemy troops. Cool!

 The game just didnt end, going for 7 turns in unceasing nail biting endgame. At the last, it came down to this - my last 4 figs (still with the skul) facing off against Ankhep the Necron Overloard.
If he only killed two of my guys in the upcoming melee I would win, 3 and it would be a draw, 4 and he would claim the skull for the Victory...

Barks - the basing on the skull even matches my army, how cool is that!

And he rolled double 1s for the charge, tripped over his own feet and I managed to crawl away with a win! A down to the wire nail biter! What a hoot, and all because of the new Servo Skull.  

Thanks Barks for the great gift and inspiring a really enjoyable game! :-)

Hope you are all well out there in blog-land. Stay safe!

ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day with a difference this year for my 30th year in uniform: distanced but not forgotten.

No masses gathering for the traditional Dawn Service. No Marches, no beers with mates at the pub, no playing 2-Up.  Instead there was a big push on social media to stand at the end of the driveway or be in a prominent place to stand and remember.  My family did so and I felt it was very genuine.

Dawn over Sydney Harbour from my balcony

It was a very still morning, and one could hear bugles and trumpets playing Last Post across the water. Very poignant.

Mrs Man Cave replicated the traditional post Dawn Service big slap up brekkie we usually have at the pub, God bless her

This is the ANZAC display at my current Joint Task Force - a small but meaningful spot to reflect on our Service and the Service of others before us.

Lest We Forget