Battle Report 4 : The Quater Mine

The next battle that I fought in the Lalinta Prime campaign was against Tom and his Chaos Space Marines. Flushed with my decisive victory over Will's Eldar, I made the lazy and as it would turn out foolhardy decision to field much the same army as the previous game; just swapping out flamers for melta guns due to the increased armour of the Traitor Legions and leaving Heavy Bolters on the Razorbacks.

1500 point battle Blood Drinkers v's Chaos Space Marines

Books in Brief : Fulgrim by Graham McNeill

As with all the Heresy books if you are a fan; the subject matter sells itself. This instalment starts well introducing more of the Emperors Children and digging deeper into their ethos of perfection and thus their terrible flaw.

However I found as the book went on, the writing became frantic and rushed; it's narrative bloated and excessive. It was almost as if McNeill, in writing about the 'Children', was being tainted by them; there is a sense of arrogance in his writing here. I read another review which said and I quote 'McNeill if only you were as good as you think you are.' That's more than a little unkind, but not without basis in this instance.

The author layers on overused descriptive passages to cover an apparent lack of original thought and crams so much of it into the final chapters as to make you wade through it in search of the end of the book. I also got the feeling he may have taken some personal offence at not getting to write Galaxy in Flames and took it upon himself to insert his version of the Isstvan campaign in at the end. As I was reading this as a bridge between False Gods and Flames, it kind of spoiled the plot for Flames.

All in all its an 'ok' addition to the series, but McNeill, like his chosen subject, succumbs to mad excess and destroys his art.

A Matter of Choice : Your Thoughts?

I'm currently suffering the nightly after effects of a hard training week at work; with my body not so kindly reminding me, via various aches and pains, that I'm not as young as I used to be. My power save function seems to kick in as soon as my tired arse graces the sofa; as a result there has been little activity on the hobby front for me since my last post.

In the meantime I'd like to ask for your valued opinions on a special character / unit I'm considering for my Blood Drinker army.

Postcards from the Edge

The end of the month is almost upon us and as I sit trying to figure out quite how Old Father Time has managed to swindle me out of a couple of weeks, I swear he's getting better at it with each passing year the crafty bugger; I realise that I haven't sent a postcard, how remiss of me.

It's been a busy few weeks for the blog, following it's near demise by my hand at the start of the month; I've got the 'Edge up on both Librarium Online and House of Paincakes blog networks, a special thanks to Lauby from HoP for the warm welcome and to Roger from LO for sorting out that technical issue (there's that hand again, lethal I tell you!)

February's White Dwarf : The Blood Angels Issue...again!

With the hulking form of Brother Sergeant Rafen dominating the cover of this months White Dwarf, you can be in no doubt that the Son's of Sanguinius have once again seized control of GW printing press. The artwork by the excellent Clint Langley, is from James Swallows Blood Angels Omnibus, the only bit of the book worth having IMHO, but thats another story.

Forty First's Famous Faces

Following on from my recent post of Jan 11th featuring artwork by David Gallagher, with a Blood Angel who looked a lot like Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. And further inspired by Bryan's latest Rogue Trader Fridays post over on FTW; where b.smoove quite rightly pointed out the presence of Al Pacino's Tony Montana within the ranks of the Dark Angels. (I'm also going for a record amount of links in one paragraph btw).

Stormravens and Dreadnoughts and Eldar! Oh, my!

So my hunch was right, not that you needed to be a rocket scientist to figure it out, which is fortunate for me; GW have announced the 5th February as the release date of the long awaited Stormraven and the Furioso Dreadnought and don't these kits look the business!

Ultramarines the Movie : Bix's Review

I finally got to sit down and watch the much anticipated and (in some quarters at least) much maligned Ultramarines Movie from Codex Pictures. I had been planning to see it with the rest of the Gents, along with a good supply of beer and pizza to sustain us through it's epic run time of...erm...70 minutes.

Books in Brief : False Gods by Graham McNeill

Another gripping read from an excellent series, though I think Dan Abnett's work is a shade better; McNeill still ticks all the right boxes. Certainly where the action is concerned, it's fast paced and thrilling with plenty of moments for the Marines to show off how truly awesome they are.

With the groundwork done, the scene and players set in Horus Rising, False Gods can take time out to colour the main characters some more and that means more Loken, which is never a bad thing. Once again he shines as the most engaging character in the story, acting as our witness to events and aptly showing the finest elements of the Astartes as both ultimate warriors but also deep thinking and dare I say soulful men.

I did find McNeill's take on Horus to be a little blunt, I know that the tale demands a momentous change in him, but he loses a lot of his tact and charisma in this portrayal; this being his most dangerous quality to my mind seemed to be a mistake. Also the story does on occasion get bogged down in extraneous exposition about the Mournival; although I find this ancient council very interesting, the author does dwell a little too much on the strained relationship with their Primarch. Things are rocky, we get it, move on.

Still it's a great book and being part of the spine of the Heresy it's a must read; this epic tale of power, corruption & tragedy moves on apace.

Battle Report 3 : Traitor's Rain

As I've posted previously, the Lalinta Prime Campaign is drawing to a close, we've only got one game left to play and I'm well behind on the reports. So I plan to bang out in quick succession all the games I fought in and an overview of the rest of the Leagues progress in the campaign.

They are pretty basic affairs, I think all the games for this campaign ended up being annihilation matches (so much for all my intricate plotting) and I'm learning the art of reporting as I go; this is my first using Vassal although I ended up just using templates from it in Paint, which wasn't ideal, but time is against me and well you know by now my somewhat ham-fisted track record with IT; maybe I can master it another time.

1500 point battle Blood Drinkers v's Eldar