Category Archives: News

Six Nations Lists: Six Takeaways

The Six Nations AoS Teams Tournament is coming up soon, where England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Sweden and Wales will compete against each other and the lists have just been released. To give you an overview of the kinds of matchups that will be coming up and what we can learn from the submissions of these national teams, we’ve come up with six takeaways from the lists.

For reference, here’s all the army lists in one handy download (courtesy of AoS 6 Nations, Underworld Gaming and Mediocre Hobbies)

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Blood for the Blood God…Apart from in Scotland.

Of the Six Nations, all countries took a Khorne variant apart from Scotland, underlining how powerful Khorne are in the current meta with their ability to march across the board and stomp their authority on any game. Prayers are clearly going to be a key part of the Khorne strategy alongside the ubiquitous Murderlust for those out of phase movements. Only one Skarbrand out of the five lists, but lots of Wrathmongers and Flesh Hounds with one Bloodlords list with waves of Bloodletters. Other popular lists included Soulblight Legion of Night with Manfred appearing in three of the four lists; Seraphon Fangs of Sotek with double Ark of Sotek Bastiladon; three King Brodd’s Stomps, with three bigs and three littles and three Disciples of Tzeentch Guild of Summoners lists with 12 Enlightened on Discs.

Give me ALL of the Primal Dice!

While there are lots of battle regiments in the lists as expected, the next most common battalion is Andtorian Acolytes for those extra Primal Dice. In most cases, the lists in question could not fit into a single battle regiment, but rather than going for a second battle regiment, those extra Primals seemed to be worth going to a three drop list minimum. Alongside a high frequency of Merciless Blizzard, the potential for a single hero phase to turn around what should be an easy win to a loss (or vice-versa) is definitely there. Even just being aware of the threat will impact on the opponent’s strategy, which might be enough to get a positive result for your team.

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Fight me, you coward!

We are clearly in a combat-heavy meta at the moment, with the vast majority of lists focusing on winning the battle by fighting in combat as opposed to relying on ranged shooting attacks. Both Daughters of Khaine lists have eschewed the Bow Snakes for the Fighty Snakes; there are no Lumineth Sentinels at the event; even Kharadron Overlords are much more focused on fighting out of a Frigate rather than Thunderers blasting away from range. There are a couple of exceptions, with all of the Idoneth lists having a healthy amount of shooting, with even the Namarti-heavy list having 40 Reavers and the Shark lists having a huge number of attacks that will also explode on 6s. It will be interesting who these will be matched up with because the lack of return shooting from their opponents could really swing the matchup in the fish-elves favour!

OB – Where?

One of the more underrepresented armies of the top echelon recently are Ossiarch Bonereapers, with only two nations choosing to collect the Bone Tithe and both of these being Null Myriad lists. The points increases on Immortis seem to have done the trick as there are only two units at the event, with Deathriders and Mortek picking up the slack. Perhaps this isn’t surprising as only a quarter of the armies at the event are heavy magic-users and the pairings process can potentially avoid a single anti-magic army. Other notable missing armies include Beasts of Chaos, Ogor Mawtribes and Kruleboyz – just kidding! As recently as a few months back, there would be less variation than we have represented, with nineteen of twenty-four battle tomes in attendance, showing how healthy the meta currently is.

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An Age of Heroes.

Across the lists, there is definitely a flavour of what unique heroes can bring to an army, not only narratively, but competitively too. Named characters who will be fighting it out include Gobsprakk, Katakros, Skarbrand, Brokk Grungsson, Kairos Fateweaver, Manfred Von Carstein, The Glottkin, Severith, Morathi and everyone’s (least) favourite angry dwarf, Gotrek. One of my favourite aspects of AoS is how cool it looks on the tabletop to have these centre-piece models battle it out and there will be ample opportunities for epic showdowns across the event with this array of heroes.

Skewl List, bro!

Most of the lists submitted are relatively close to a take-all-comers singles list too, but there are a couple of more skew lists that look really interesting that will cause absolute headaches for whoever gets paired into them. The IDK shark lists come close to this, but they’ve become a bit more mainstream, with several players running this list successfully. What might become more of a meta-list after this event and with the arrival of Belthanos on the scene is Andreas Angermund’s 18 Spiterider and 6 Seeker list. Firstly, respect to Andreas if he is transporting that many models with fragile and awkward wings but then to also give your opponent the dilemma of having these 24 flies be able to pre-game move 12″ before the game even starts…yikes! Another interesting list that could very quickly get across the table and punch you in the mouth is Greg Shelton’s 30 Black Knight list. Black Knights appear in several of the Soulblight lists, but no-one has gone as hard in as Greg has. If all three Black Knight units make a charge, Greg will be rolling 60 dice and expecting at least 20 mortal wounds as his return – scary stuff indeed.

So that’s six takeaways from the Six Nations lists. Best of luck to all competitors at what I’m sure will be a great event. Are there any interesting combos that I’ve missed? Please comment below if I have and let us know which list(s) you think will do the most work!

Patrick Prints! – Simple Printer Maintenance

Sometimes things go wrong. Your car doesn’t start in the morning. Your boss yells at you about your TPS reports. Your roommate eats the last Oreo even though your name was on the package and he knew you were saving it (I have not forgiven this transgression).

 

And sometimes your printer’s FEP pops a hole and spills resin on the screen.

 

I recently had to deal with several small hills of resin on my printer’s screen due to a pinhole in my FEP. Hopefully my first experience leaves you more prepared than I was.

What is a FEP?

A FEP (Flourinated Ethylene Propylene) is a plastic film that sits at the bottom of your resin vat. This film acts a barrier between your liquid resin and the curing source (your screen). FEP film is used in 3d printing because it has good chemical resistant properties, and generally won’t adhere to your print.

How did this happen?

That’s a great question! Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer.

 

If you have a print fail you need to empty out your vat, pouring the resin back into the bottle through a sieve to make sure that you are catching any larger hardened pieces that may be present. If your printer has a self-clean function (where it exposes the FEP to a solid block of UV light) you should do this to cure the bottom layer of resin. This traps any floaters against the FEP and allows you to be sure that when you pour out the resin and peel the clean layer away you are left with a pristine tank.

 

But, as I said above, sometimes things go wrong. In my case, I didn’t have a print failure that I can blame. Everything was going well until it wasn’t. If you are working with poorly supported models you could potentially have pieces of resin break off from the model and start to float around the tank. If one of these floaters gets in the wrong place it will be pushed down into your FEP. This could potentially puncture your FEP, or worse, break your screen.

Protecting the Screen

The best maintenance is preventative. If you address a problem before the machine breaks you are ultimately saving yourself some pain and money.

 

In the case of your screen, the easiest way to protect it is to get a screen protector (who saw that coming?). These only cost a few dollars and make cleaning up resin spills much easier. Simply peel the screen protector off and dispose of it.

Not exactly what you want to see on your screen.

They also provide a buffer for your screen to keep the screen from cracking. Most modern printers arrive from the factory with a screen protector installed, but you should still verify that one is there if you are in doubt.

 

The one point to note: if you do not currently have a screen protector, and you are installing one on your printer, you may want to recalibrate. The screen protector will not make a huge difference, but it is an extra layer of material that your UV light must pass through.

 

If you don’t have a screen protector you might be in a tight spot if you have a resin spill. There are a couple methods of cleaning cured resin off your screen, and I’ll link them below. Full disclosure: I have not tried either of these methods, so I cannot personally speak to their use.

Replacing the FEP

Your FEP should be considered a consumable part of your printer. Resin, gloves, and paper towels need to be replaced more often, but if your FEP becomes cloudy or gets punctured then the only fix is to replace it.

 

I have an after-market resin vat from Sovol that has been wonderful to use. I also found out that it has significantly fewer screws holding the FEP in place and still doesn’t leak. There are still a lot of screws used in the process of holding everything in place, and making sure you are balancing your frame while replacing it is important to avoid slack in the FEP.

One of many machine screws

Once the screws are pulled out, you can dispose of the old FEP, and lay the new one in place. You’ll need to have a hobby knife or sharp tweezers on hand before replacing the screws. Machine screws don’t have sharp points, so you will need to puncture the screw-holes in the FEP before you can get the threads of the screw to make contact with the threads of the hole. The FEP will have some excess material around the edges, but that’s a good sign, since it means that you have less risk of a bad seal. You simply need to take a hobby knife and carefully cut around the edge of the vat to remove the excess.

Stagger your screws to keep even pressure

Once that new FEP is in place it should be drum-head tight. The video below shows some light taps so I could test the tension.

Volume up for tippy-taps

Final Thoughts

Preventative maintenance and a solid plan for accidents are the best steps to achieve worry-free printing. When those accidents happen: don’t panic! It’s all part of the fun of the hobby. The more you work with your printer the more intimate you will become with it, and the more you will be able to get out of your little box-shaped friend.

 

Happy printing, friends!

Woehammer TTS Tournaments

We’ve recently managed to dupe over 1k people into joining our Discord server! Along with our WoePoints and Hobby Bingo, a big attraction seems to be our Tabletop Simulator tournament’s which we’ve recently changed the format of.

Previously, it ran as a standard GT, with a game per week over 5 weeks for anyone interested no matter where they were from. What we found was some difficulty for people to schedule games when they’re in vastly different time zones. So we swapped to continental tournaments with the winner and runner-up of each continent being invited to a truly international round robin.

The first of these continental tournaments have just finished, and the first (virtual) awards handed out. The first event saw continental tournaments for North America, Europe, and the Pacific.

North America

With only one Canadian, it was more of a US tournament, but even so, that meant there were three awards to hand out!

Being the winner, Discord User Raybear walked away with both the top US player and the first place North American. While Mortis walked away as default Canadian winner.

Raybear and Fabien are now lined up to take part in our international tournament under the new GHB, kicking off next week.

Europe

This event was much more interesting with representatives from no less than 7 countries.

Two English players, Hippy’Grinder’chef and Ogor Pete, walked away with the invitations to the international event. While hippy’Grinder’chef, Metek, LCSaba, Codrin, Nathan88, nmehlbye, and Sacep all walked away with 1st Place for their respective nations.

The Pacific

On the Pacific front, Khorgol walked away as first placed Filipino and 1st in the Pacific. While Australian Stuart Morton qualifies alongside him for the Woehammer Worlds Event. If the thought of competing in an international TTS tournament appeals to you, why not join our friendly discord and put your name down for the next event, which will start at the end of August?

AoS Worlds Singles Kicks off Today

If you’re not aware, one of the biggest Age of Sigmar events starts this week in Amsterdam. AoS Worlds.

The singles event kicks off today, and you can keep up with the action on TSportsNetwork Twitch stream. Throughout the rest of the week and into Sunday, they’ll be streaming the rounds live for both the Singles Event (Weds & Thurs) and the teams event (Fri, Sat & Sun).

Lion El’Jonson – Primarch Rules Revealed

The primarch of the first legion has awoken from his slumber and returned to our tabletops. His rules are the latest Warhammer Community reveal. Let’s take a look at what he offers.

His stat line is very comparable to Guilliman’s, which makes sense as he could be argued as the ‘vanilla’ primarch. However there are some improvements including number of attacks and, most surprisingly, an additional leadership point.

The Lion does not come across as being especially tough either. With only toughness 6 and 9 wounds it would not take much for heavy weaponry to remove him from the field. There is currently no mention of a resurrection rule for him either so once he’s gone that’s it! He does have a couple of tricks up his sleeves though…

As with most Space Marine characters the Lion comes with a 4+ invulnerable save in the form of his shield. Whilst this is pretty solid it wouldn’t take many unsaved shots from heavy damage weapons (or a certain faction that can ignore invulnerable saves…) to put him back into his slumber.

This also has the ability to reflect melee attacks, dealing mortal wounds (to a maximum of 3) on any unmodified save rolls of 6. So coupled with his sword, Fealty, he is a definite melee threat.

The sweep profile will give him a total of 20 attacks into a single unit so, at strength 6 and AP of -3, that is most standard units sliced up in quick succession even without the 2 damage each wound causes. Then there is also a strike profile that gives him strength 10 attacks at AP -5 and 4 damage apiece. With a potential 40 damage output (averaging about 5.5 successful wounds, or 20- 22 damage, against most targets up to toughness 9 before saving throws) he has the potential to deal with most large foes.

The most interesting reveal is his ability to deep strike using the Forestwalk ability.40k LionRules Mar28 Boxout3This is a particularly good deep strike as it allows you to re-roll a charge roll. As the Lion appears to be fairly fragile against shooting this would be a game-changing roll.

As is the current issue with the existing edition, I see the Lion being another high value model that will either be snuffed out before he finishes his morning coffee or an absolute machine that will decimate an army as he moves from engagement to engagement. We have, however, not been shown his entire ruleset yet and there is no mention of a firearm. There is definitely one on the model and I doubt somehow that it will just be a heavy bolt pistol.

What are your thoughts on the Lion? Are his rules even worth looking at with the imminent re-write coming with 10th edition? Let me know!

Warhammer 40k Datasheet Changes

One of the major announcements for 40k’s Tenth Edition was the changes to the datasheets and the production of data cards with all the unit information included. One of my favourite parts of Age of Sigmar, and other similar games, is having as much information on the table top in front of you as possible, so you don’t have to constantly look at apps and books. So this is a very welcome addition!

Let’s take a closer look at what is included on the cards:

The unit stats appear to stay mostly the same in regards to Movement, Toughness, Save, and Wounds. Leadership is still present, but there is talk of a new way of applying Battleshock, which will be revealed in the coming weeks. What we know so far is that it will be included in the command phase and will affect how the unit acts rather than killing models.

There is also a brand new stat included, which is listed as “OC”. According to the FAQ article, on the Warhammer Community site, this stands for Objective Control and is ‘a measure of how good a unit is at holding a contested objective’. Now, will this be a measure per model? As a unit of 20 termagants could have an OC score of up to 40 if they sit around an objective (to be fair, not much else will get on the objective if that is the case!). We shall see!

Interestingly, the Strength, Ballistic and Weapons Skills and the Attacks characteristics have been moved to the specific weapons instead of being in the unit stats. I imagine this is to remove the weapon modifiers and instead have the given characteristic in the weapon information. For example – a marine with a thunder hammer currently has a WS of 3+, and the hammer’s weapon abilities state “Subtract 1 from the attack’s hit roll”. I can see this instead of just saying WS 4+ on the weapons stat line. This can also apply with weapons like the Astartes Chainsword (+1 attack) and the Power Sword (+1 strength). I personally welcome having these modifiers included in the stat line as it will be easier to apply stat changes to help balance weapon profiles.

I have also noticed that there doesn’t appear to be a space for specific weapon abilities outside of the keywords listed alongside the weapon name. This must mean they are going to make full use of their new “Universal Special Rules” application to simplify this. I am intrigued to see more on these moving forward!

The abilities section is also useful as having all the unit abilities listed for reference will make it much easier to remember everything that is going on.

Apparently, a lot of the abilties and stratagems are going to become reactive. The example given on the Termagant card, “Skulking Horror”, appears to be a good example of this as it allows you to move the termagants, once per turn, up to D6 inches away from an approaching enemy.

I like this approach as it will make you feel a lot less helpless when you see that a mistake you made, or perhaps an advance roll that didn’t quite get you enough movement, is about to cause you a lot of pain. This particular rule also requires some thought on your opponents side. Let’s say those Termagants are not quite on an objective, your opponent moving a unit within 9” of them could give you the extra few inches to take control and gain some valuable victory points in your next command phase (assuming scoring works the same way).

The last section is the Key Words, split into unit and faction specific. This appears to work in the same way as the current edition.

I, personally, am quietly hopeful that these changes will make the game much more playable with less time flicking through books and less of a heavy reliance on remembering all these stats. My only concern is the frequency at which GW amend rules with FAQs, will it make those shiny datasheet cards you purchased obsolete quickly (I am thinking of the existing datacard packs and how often the wording is changed). There are ways around this such as FAQ sticker packs that could allow you to stick the new wording or stat line over the existing printed card but I see this as being more of a third party item than something GW will produce. But we shall see!

Let me know your thoughts, are you excited for this, cautiously optimistic or do you have a slight feeling of dread for these changes?

Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Cinematic

With all the excitement around the new edition of 40k coming soon I thought I would do a bit of a sift of the glorious cinematic they released and try to find any little glimmers of what kind of models to expect in the new box. As we know from the last editions release they do like to tease us with small details.

This is all obviously speculation and entirely my own opinion as to what we may have seen. Please feel free to point out my errors or anything I missed. I am hoping to start conversations about the game I love!

So let us delve into the grim darkness and see what we find.

Let’s start with the Tyranids and, with what is likely the most obvious, the screamer-killer.

Now we already have a screamer-killer variant of the existing carnifex model, from 2005, but this looks more like the old-school 1992 version to me, with less of a hunchback and less armour around the head. We also see the bio-plasmic scream in action, so it seems unlikely to be anything else. Perhaps a new dedicated model influenced by the original?

We have already had the new termagant model revealed, so we know that is coming. The last little tidbit I spotted for Tyranids was in this image…

Now, bear with my (hopeful) flight of fancy here but this coupled with a few more still looks like a possible Lictor? It is being displayed as a stealthy-boi with two giant appendages so…maybe? The existing model is from 2005, and in dire need of a refresh, so it is not beyond belief. There is also another image that helps add evidence to this.

Okay, so that last one is as clear as mud, like any good conspiracy photo, but when you watch those few frames, the bioform that grabs the apothecary and slings it around like a dog with a chew-toy very much resembles a Lictor. Again, this may be hope driving me to find connections that don’t exist but you never know…

Moving onto the marines, things are a little clearer here.

Yep, that’s another Redemptor Dreadnaught variant called the Gunslinger. I think that just about covers all the vairants the original Dreadnaught kit could built (ranged, hybrid and close combat) so should we start the retirement party now?

Not much else on new models here.. oh wait, there was something.

..

Terminators are back! Well, they never really left but they have a new sculpt. I am hoping the assault terminators will not be far behind (love me a thunder hammer and storm shield!) but at least we know the reliable old guard are not going anywhere. Including a new Terminator Librarian (who looks badass!)

I also spied some possible new weapon options for Primaris marines…

I believe that Reiver is holding a combi-flamer? And is that a Primaris Intercessor with a flamer? (Don’t roast me too hard if it’s not an intercessor, power armour variants were never my strong point!) I don’t think I have seen those weapons on any existing models so perhaps they are teasing at new weapons for these kits?

Let me know if you have seen anything different? Or if I missed anything entirely, or am living in a fantasy land. As always, this is for the fun of speculation and discussion!

See you in the grim dark!

New AoS Campaign Book Incoming

Adepticon gave us a lot of new reveals this week for Age of Sigmar. New Seraphon range, a first glance at the new Cities of Sigmar range and some new heroes for Soulblight and Bonereapers.

But, what you may not have noticed is Games Workshop basically announced an entirely new as yet to be revealed book. What am I talking about? Take a look at this image:

You probably all saw this during the announcement. But let’s have a look at the current factions without 3rd Edition Tomes;

  • Blades of Khorne
  • Hedonites of Slaanesh
  • Ossiarch Bonereapers
  • Soulblight Gravelords
  • Seraphon
  • Flesh-eater Courts
  • Cities of Sigmar

7 factions, right? The trouble is that the picture above has 6 revealed factions and 2 unannounced books. One of those could be Flesh-eater Courts, so that accounts for the full AoS faction listing as it stands now. But what’s the eighth?

In all liklihood, as pointed out in the comments below and on our Discord, this book will likely be a Season of War book. In the same vein as Thondia last year. Rob, of Honest Wargamer fame claims it will also include a new Spider Incarnate as well. Could it include the long talked about update to Path to Glory as well?

If it was a faction, and I was a betting man….

Yup, I think we’ll see Chaos Dwarfs Duardin return to AoS. I say return, as Forgeworld produced a whole range for the diminutive dudes only to pull them back in 2020.

But, its just a guess. What do you think the mystery 8th book holds? Let us know in the comments below.

News – Final Weekend of 4 for 3 at Warlord Games

Warlord Games have entered the final weekend of their 4 boxes for the price of 3.

This covers many of their game systems, such as Bolt Action, Konflict 47′, Black Powder, Epic Battles, Hail Caesar and a lot more.

If you’re looking to get into and of these gaming system then this is definitely one way to do it that would save you a lot of money!

News – Read the Rules – 22.3.1

I know that there are many hobbyists concerned about the direction of flow of Twitter and that’s because it has been a great source of hobby over the last ten years; a great way to meet new people, discuss the latest releases, and show off models. (Although you will need to regular use the block option if you encounter a gate-keeper).

There are also sometimes gems that people mention or notice and Mike Ellar had a good one yesterday morning!

Mike is a regular contributor on Twitter and after a short attempt to make Big Waaagh! work with Kruleboyz in early 2022, he is now trying the same with Kruleboyz. And it is not an easy task. He can be found regularly writing on Goonhammer. Go and check his articles out – I’ll be waiting for you when you get back!

Now, trying to make Kruleboyz work isn’t the easiest of tasks and so Mike has been reading the core rules and spotted an interesting one:

What does that mean for the rest of us? Well the big news is that it *could* impact who benefits from the new GHB22 (part 2) rules, although we think the rules-writers may have noticed the risk so either it’ll be covered in the book, or in a quick FAQ.

The main benefit here is the mount traits! And now more units can have them. Obviously look out for core-word locked options (particularly Monster keyword) but there are some mount traits out there without them.

This would be particularly useful for some of my Big Waaagh lists where I leave the Maw Krusha at home (mainly during the Purple Sun crises of July 2022)! But it does mean Fast ‘Un now has some additional options with the Wurgogg and there are bound to be other options in the books.

So, have a look in your Battletomes at any mount traits that are available; and then checkout those units with companions. There might be some Secret Tech hidden away in there that’s been missed.

What is does show is that it’s often worth reading the core rules again when a new Battletome of GHB drops to see if there are any interesting interactions – however if you want to do something you’ve never seen before; just chcek with you friendly neighbourhood TO! And don’t win on a ‘Gotcha’.

— Declan & Eeyore

* okay it’s possible Peter was slightly quicker to post than me… but you get two news articles in two days so its all win-win!!