Warhammer 40K -- Dakka Chugga Update

Hi everyone,

The Dakka Chugga is making steady progress.  Here are the big steps forward....

[Here is a link to our "fluff fuction Chapta 1 - of the Pink Orks finding the hulk of the Dakka Chugga:  http://battlegaming1.blogspot.com/p/warhammer-40k.html]

1) Decided (with some amount of back and forth) which Lionel steam engine and tender combination to chop up and have the Pink Orks "loot."

Here were our options for the Dakka Chugga.  We made one look rusty (the one the Pink Orks "discovered" - and we're looting another one).

Here's the selected Dakka Chugga - ready to start work!

2) Created a "shop plan."  Turns out that the Pink Orkys had a Big Mek helping them out - and he had several ideas of what should be done.

A Tyranid is trying out the Tenda.  Coal is removed.  We'll make a box to hold the 'Nid Bits - and the set up an Ork Boy or Grot to chuck the 'Nid Bits into the Burna.

3) Some very helpful responses on Dakka Dakka helped us have more Orky Bits for the looting process.

4) Tyranids....  We decided that the "fluff" of the story would be that a group of Tyranids attacked the Pink Orkys just as they discovered the Dakka Chugga's rusting hulk.  A battle ensued -- with the Pink Orks triumphant in their pink armor glory.  Then, came the bright idea to burn the Tyranids as fuel in the Dakka Chugga!  All good - but we needed some Tyranids that we could pile up in the tender.  Bought a bunch of quite broken ones from eBay (didn't seem right to chop up perfectly good Tyranids).  So, we have them painted and in rough working order to stage the battle (going to try today)!!  Then, YES - we will CHOP 'EM UP and STUFF 'EM IN DA TENDA!

 Here are the Tyranids we got from eBay.  Here we've primed them - but haven't gotten limbs back on yet.

 

Here are our Tyranids pieced back together and painted.  We had to used some arms to fashion legs - but it's not too obvious in this picture (is it??).  We tried out air-brushing to paint them quickly.  The Pink Orky's Deff Dread in the background....

5) Lighting electronics.  We have the lighting board for LEDs to make the fire-box light up (with the burning 'Nids).  Had really nice conversations with Chris who runs this company - great guy - board works EXTREMELY well.  One change - the Big Mek didn't know just how full the Dakka Chugga is with hardware.  He was thinking to put the lighting board and battery into the Chugga itself.  Instead, going to mount those in the Tenda and run wiring back to the Chugga.  (Here's a link to Powered Play Gaming.)

Here our lighting package - really easy to use :)

6) Sound electronics.  Still need to get the sound board.  Thinking to get this one.  Then can play Ozzie "Crazy Train" and other good Ork music as the Dakka Chugga steams (charges) forward into battle!  (Here is a link to the Voodoo Fx board we are planning to use.)

7) Looting!!  We have a turret built for the Dakka Chugga.  It's fashioned out of Orky Bits, Bomb parts and some random tank parts we had accumulated.  Have a Trukk driver type guy in the turret.  Fashioned a gun sight for him (not that he needs it with his Ballistic Skill of 2!!)

Some of our first work "Looting" the Dakka Chugga - lots more to do.  Needs far more points, spikes and Ork Teknology on it!

Anyway - it's coming along - appreciated all of the support when we first thought about this.  Goal is to have this running by Winter Holiday time.  After all - it will run on Lionel Track!!  So, yes, indeed we can have a Pink Ork Waaagh! around the Christmas Tree :)

Warhammer 40K -- All of the Ghazghkull Rules

Hi everyone,

After playing last week, we were struck by the number of rules sending us back and forth in the Ork Codex for Ghazghkull Thraka.  So, decided to make a bit of a "cheat sheet" to help us remember everything.

Well - then we started reading the GT supplement and it really started getting deep.

[And, it seemed like a really good idea to know all of the rules - because even though he's 225 points, we seem to have pretty good luck with Ghazghkull.]

Please let us know if you see errors in our thinking (pretty sure there are lots of them)....  [For example, we can't figure out what a Waaagh Banner is - and where the rules are for points for one.]

Wargear:

• Cybork body (pg 98)
• Means Feels No Pain 6+
• (But if we use our Dok, then this is a Feels no Pain 5+)
• Mega armour (pg 99)
• Means 2+ Armor save, Bulky and Slow and Purposeful
• Means no running (except for in a Waaagh)
• Big shoota (pg 96)
• Standard Big Shoota
• Power klaw (pg 93)
• Standard Power klaw
• Bosspole (pg 98)
• Means We have re-rolls on the Mob Rule
• Stikkbombs (pg 98)
• Standard Skikkbombs

Special Rules:

• ‘Ere we go (pg 92)
• Eternal Warrior
• Means Instant Death drops to 1 Wounds vs. 0 Wounds
• Furious Charge
• Means Adds +1 to Strength until end of Assault phase
• Only if an “Orderly Charge”
• Independent Character
• Mob Rule (pg 92)
• Waaagh!

Warlord Trait:

• Prophet of the Waaagh! (pg 92)
• When calling Waaagh, since has Waaagh special rule – he and all friendly units with ‘Ere We Go are Fearless until start of next turn
• Prophet of Gork and Mork
• If GT is your warlord, when he calls a Waaagh! then
• Means GT gains 2+ Inv save until start of next turn
• Means GT and others in mega armour can ru

Runts and Squigs

• These seems like a great way (for only a few points) to extend what GT can do.  A re-roll of a critical shot or attack....
• Maybe even more vital is adding these to our Dok ??

 One wound down, but still charging forward at the end of our last battle....

PS:  Are the rules for GT having a strong head and its bonuses still valid?  Or were those from an older Codex?  (We're guessing older Codex - but we just watched a sequence about this on Youtube.) 
 

Warhammer 40K -- League Play Week 2

Hi everyone,

Here is a quick write-up on the events in our Warhammer 40K League -- week #2.

Quick summary:
- We played 1000 points this time.
- We brought the "Pink Orkys" and "Yellow Orkys" Ork Army again.
- Had two battle sessions.  Played the League Leader - Mr. L; Played Mr. M one more time.
- Through an assortment of helpful teaching by Mr. L and Mr. M; very good luck at the right moments rolling dice; and by a little bit more experience and good decision making on our part - we actually won both battles.

Our Army:
We added the following in to get to 1000 points:
 - Added the Pink Orkys' Trukk.  Plan was to put the Gretchins inside to see if they could do some damage before dying.
- Added a set of Meganobs
- Added a Big Mek with Shokk Attak Gun
- Added a few more Boyz to Ghazghkull Thraka's (GT's) crew

Key notes:
- Figuring out all of the rules and bonuses for Ghazghkull is a challenge.  Reading and reading afterwards, we missed several.  Thinking of making a little cheat-sheet with the page numbers for each of them for next week.  Wondering if anyone has already made such a list.
- Seems like we should have bought a few Runts and Squiggs to augment Ghazghkull.  He's already 225 points.  What is 3 more to give him a roll of the dice when in a very bad way at the end.
- The Warbikers had a rough go of it.  Died quickly both times.
- Power Klaws are terrific.  Very much worth the 25 points each.

Battle #1 - Playing Mr. L's Tau Army
- This was the first time we had ever played against Tau.  Mr. L explained to us that they were sort of like Eldar.  Pretty fast - lots of long range shooting - but not too strong if we could get up close.  So, we did our best to charge in close.

Here is a photo of our deployment.  Our idea was to run the Trukk with Gretchins up the right side - hoping to do some useful shooting.  Then send the Meganobs and the Killikans up the center.  Ghazghkull and his Boyz coming up the left center.  And, the Warbikers up the left flank.

 

 

Here you can see Mr. L's deployment of Tau.  He had a squad of Pathfinders hidden in the trees.  And, he had a Riptide with drones and some suit thingies.  He kept his warlord and more suit thingies in reserve.  You can't quite see his missile launching hover craft in the photo - that is way in the bottom right corner.

 



 

 

Here you can see Ghazghkull and his Boyz along with the KilliKans almost reaching Mr. L's forces.  By this time the Meganobs are dead - wiped out by all of the long range firing.

Here we are finally reaching Mr. L's forces.  Ghazghkull:  "Me an da boyz killd da heck out of da big tank thingy."

The game got really exciting when it we had a close combat and the Riptide challenged Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka.  (One of us was nervous - one of us wasn't.)  Anyway, Ghazghkull won - and we did a pretty good job in close combat.

 

At the very end, Ghazghkull was finally worn down - but the Pain Boy and the remaining Pink Ork Boyz won the day.  (And, once again, Mr. L was super nice - helping at many points.)

 

[A very funny note was his sort of sly bad advice at the very end of the game - trying to get us to attack the wrong thing.  But, we could read his sneaky intentions on his face - and "We stay'd wi' da plan!"]

 

Battle #2 - Playing Mr. M's Space Marine Army

- We used the same army as against Mr. L.  And, this was the second time we played against Mr. M.  In the first match he used a Librarian against us.  (Here's a link to that write-up.)  In this battle he brought more tanks - and lots of bikers.  In fact, his warlord was with his biker unit - on a bike.

We forgot to take a photo of the deployment - but you can see how things looked after turn #1.  A Space Marine Drop Pod landed in our backyard.  And, shot the Trukk - ruining it's big shootah.  With no weapons left, we decided to ram the Drop Pod - which wasn't super good for the Trukk, but we did hurt the Drop Pod.

A big moment in the game was when the Meganobs took out the Bikers.  This shifted things a bit -
and gave us a chance to bring GT up the middle.

At the end, Mr. M held more objectives - but we were able to charge with Ghazghkull and the Pink Boyz and knock him off that one just as the game ended.  It was a mathematical win - but not sure we would have won if we had needed to take out the remaining tank forces.

Once again, Mr. M was super nice and helpful - really appreciated his help figuring out some strategies and rules!  (But, did overhear him saying that he was bringing the big fire-power next week!!)

 

x

Warhammer 40K: Playing in a League

Hi everyone,

Sunday (our first day playing in the 40K League) was extremely fun!

Here are a few of the highlights:

- Met Mr. L - who is the League coordinator.  He explained the plan.

- Week 1 (which we missed) -- 500 point army
- Week 2 (which we were there for) -- 750 point army
- Week 3 (which will be this coming Sunday) -- 1000 point army
- Week 4 (week following that) -- guessing this will be 1250 ??  Will have to ask Mr. L.

Mr. L suggested that we start out by playing a catch-up battle of 500 points.

So, we got to work creating a 500 point list - quickly.  Here's what we came up with:

• Good old GT (Ghazghkull Thraka).  He's 225 points.  And, that's a whole lot for one character.  But, the bottom line is that for us as beginners, we seem to have a harder time goofing up with him than we do with others....
• The Yellow Orky's Killikans.  With those Gretchins as pilots they shoot well - and do well in close fighting.
• The Pink Ork Boyz plus a nob.
• The Pink Orky's Gretchins.

Battle #1:

• Ended up playing Mr. M and his mighty Space Marines!
• He brought a Librarian -- so this ended up being our first experience against psychic powers.  And, please let us say that emfeeblement was a massive bummer for GT and his Ork Boyz!
• Battle went well - the Killikans did nicely as did GT.
• The Gretchins were quickly wiped out without doing much.  (Need to figure out how to handle them better -- put them in a Trukk?)
• Mr. M was extremely helpful and nice.  Offered strategies.  This was extremely cool of him considering that in the end it was a tie on points.  So, league-wise he helped us by offering those suggestions.
• The terrain was extremely cool - took a photo post-battle of one of our favorites pieces with Ghazghkull and the Yellow Orky Killikans trudging by the chemical swamp....

Battle #2:

 

Ghazghkull Thraka leads the Pink Orky's charge!

• Played against Mr. Z and his super-fast Eldar.
• This was a first for us.  Never played against Eldar before.  It's cool that their fragile - but a bit challenging in how quickly and how far they can move!!!
• Battle was 750 points - so we added to our army
• Unit of Warbikers
• Power klaws on Ork Boyz
• Unit of Nobs (they did quite well!!)
• Painboy (a first try for us)
• The battle was the scenario which is diagonal -- and with objectives.
• That was both good and bad for us :)
• Good - diagonal was easier to reach the middle - seemed to be easier for charging in!
• Bad - we didn't do our best strategy thinking with the objectives
• Mr. Z was just as helpful and cool about the battle as Mr. M had been.  And, the game actually came down to whether or not we would end early or play more turns.  We rolled - it was over - for Mr. Z won.
• With Mr. Z's help, we had actually done some damage to several of the Eldar units.  It's possible that if we'd played 1 more turn, we might have gotten more objectives and challenged his final score numbers.  But, it didn't - game ended - and Mr. Z won the battle.
• PS:  In this type of battle, our charge in with the Warbikers sort of back-fired because it turned into a point when Mr. Z killed off this "fast attack" unit.  Need to think about that for the future.

All in all, a very exciting day.  Really looking forward to next Sunday and playing some more!

Stitched back together by the Pain Boy - the Pink Orkys are ready for the next battle!

Plans for tomorrow - X-wing game today

Hi everyone,

Tomorrow will be attempting something new for us -- going to try playing in a 40K session at Game Kastle in Fremont, CA.  Sounds like this event is part of an "escalation" series - maybe this is just the first session.  We hear that beginners are welcome (that's us) so we'll try it out :)

Not sure if we'll be packing up the Space Marines or the Orkys for tomorrow.  Probably the Orkys.  We have some new members of the pink and yellow factions who are itching to fight.

[Link to the Game Kastle, Fremont calendar.]

Couple of other updates....

X-wing:

- Played X-wing with Mr. E and Ms. P today.  Also pulled in Artist Expert for a full-blown 5-person game.

- We stacked the deck for those who were playing for the first time - rebels had LOTS of upgrades.

- Sure enough the Empire was defeated.  However, should note that the Empire did put the Millenium Falcon 1 damage card away from being blown into space-dust.  And, also good to note that lessons from the tournament turned out to be well learned - didn't fly into anywhere near as many asteroids.  [Link to our blogging about the 1st ever tournament for the Battle Gaming crew - where we went 0 for 3 in battles - but learned a LOT!]

- Need to brush up on the rules for gunners in the MF.  Think we got that right - but feeling a little bit unsure.

- And (updated posting) found some Y-wings and a Tie Advanced on eBay.  Had been a bit stumped on where to find those - and really wanted to try out the trench battle with them in place.  Can do now after they arrive (from Colorado!)  [Link to our Death Star trench blogging.]

- Really excited to try them out in a battle (especially excited about the trench).  There is a droid in the Y-wing expansion which seems really cool - can recover damage cards ??!!  Maybe that's even better than what R2-D2 can do?

Gold Squadron (well, maybe a little bit short of a squadron) ready to attack the Death Star

"I'm on the leader!"

Other 40K news:

- Lots of progress on the Dakka Chugga.  Will post an update shortly - but starting to glue pieces together now!

- Tried out air-brushing.  Wow!  That is a fast way to paint!  It was much easier than we had figured.  (Painted the under-side of the Pink Orkys flyer.)

X-wing: Death Star Trench!

Hi everyone,

We finished up construction of our Death Star Trench.  (It was taking us a while, but we heard that the Emporer was coming for a visit - so we redoubled our efforts - haha!)

Here was our construction process:

1) Unfolded a long-ish box (box was free)

2) Supported with pink foam beams and braces along the outside (found the pink foam for free as well).  The pink foam turned out to work pretty well to hold things straight and square.  Used hot glue to attach everything.

3) Got ourselves from sticker paper

4) Downloaded some Star Wars Death Star graphics (thanks to the great tip)

Here's a link to the website where we bought the PDF of great Death Star graphics.

5) Printed the sheets out; ran out of printer ink; got more; printed more sheets out

6) Then, stuck them down - and we were in business.

Overall it's about six feet long.

Not sure if anyone has any cool rules for playing Death Star Trench - going to think some up - and will write-up how our attempts go.

Also - need step (7) - building some turbo-laser cannon turrets.  Thinking to build them from pink foam as well.

Also have some extra Death Star sticker sheets.  Thinking to stick those on the back of our black 3 foot x 3 foot X-wing battle mat - in case we want a Death Star background instead of an outer space one.

Here is one photo we took with some straight-ahead lighting.  Had fun setting this up.  Respect for the George Lucas team pretty high after trying all of this.  Amazing what they were able to do.

(By the way, apologies for single X-wing, two E-wings, Tie Defender and two Tie Fighters.  We don't have yet have the make-up of the Battle of Yavin in our Rebel or Imperial force rosters.)

 

X-wing: Tournament Lessons Learned (Figuring out how to play in a tournament)

Hi everyone,

Well, how about if we start with some of the key things we've learned about how to play in an X-wing tournament :)

A quick look at the tournament set-up.  Six players - three rounds.

1) Bring lunch!  We got SOOO hungry.  And, there really isn't time to go get food between rounds.

2) Bring a tray!  Just like many people do for Warhammer 40K, we watched one person (Mr. B) very comfortably move his force from spot to spot -- while we scrambled to move our dice, our templates, our ships, our markers....

3) Figure out the powerful combinations in advance (if you can).  We were a long way from winning, but we did learn a powerful-lot about how to play.  A really powerful thing was that each person there had worked out a really great combination of ships and upgrades -- where the two worked really well together.

4) Practice flying!!!  We flew into/through lots of asteroids.  We crashed into lots of ships.

5) Consider playing Rebels to start out.  More shields.  It seemed a consensus that a challenge with playing the Empire is that with many ships one bad defense roll and your ship goes up in smoke.

6) Figure out your formation flying in advance.  Think hard about who in your formation will move first - and *maybe* put the lower pilot scores in the front, not the back :)

So....  Here's how our battles went.

Round 1:

- Played a very nice gentleman - helped us through our first round in a tournament :)
- His force -- Millennium Falcon piloted by Han, with 3-CPO.  He also had two A-wings.

Results:  1 A-wing destroyed; All Imperials destroyed.  So, we scored 20 points.
- Other results:  Lots of mistakes with flying.  Very hard to fly with the Tie Fighters with higher piloting skills in front; and the lower pilot skill Defender and Phantom in back!!!
- Other mistakes:  We kept forgetting to use Mauler Mithel's Predator upgrade.
- We were also shy on good use of the Defender's Ion Cannon and the Phantom's cloaking.

Round 2:

- Played Mr. B who had clearly played quite a lot before.
- His force -- Phantom, Slave-1-type ship, Interceptor

Results:  We did not kill any of Mr. B's ships.  But, he killed all of ours.
- Other results:  Scratched up several more asteroids.  And, could see that we really missed a few good barrel-roll chances.
- Key lessons:  Got to see the power of the Advanced Cloaking Device with Mr. B's Phantom.  Wow!  Very maneuverable.

Here is the pilot Mr. B was flying

With Advanced Cloaking Device, Echo was really powerful

Round 3:

- Played Mr. B2 - also very experienced.
- His force -- 2 B-wings, 1 X-wing, 1 A-wing

Results:  We did not kill any of Mr. B2's ships.  And, yes, he killed all of ours.  But, we were at least close to killing one of his B-wings and his X-wing.
Other results:  We did some cloaking - and actually managed a good de-cloak + K-turn to have a chance at a range 1 shot (which we missed).
And:  We almost took out Wedge in his X-wing (though we didn't)

Final:
- Yup, we came in last of the 6 players.
- But, we did get a cool new Tie Fighter card!!
- And, most important, we learned a ton (in each battle) and we had a GREAT time.

Many thanks to each person we played with and spoke with.

Cool new Academy Pilot card :)

X-wing: Pre-tournament blog

Hi everyone,

We are two hours from our first tournament (where we play).

We're heading to the X-wing tournament at Gator Games.

We posted to ask for some advice on the Fantasy Flight Games website - got some really helpful advice.  (Here's a link to that.)

Basic suggestions for our first tournament:

1) Good confirmation that pre-measuring is not OK in X-wing.  Proper play involves "eye-balling" the moves.

2) Go with a small number of good ships.

We are planning to use the following:

- Tie fighter - Mauler Mithel
- Tie fighter - Howlrunner
- Tie defender - Onyx Squadron Pilot
- Tie phantom - Shadow Squadron Pilot

Some debate over whether to spend the 6 points that would leave on Ion Cannons - or whether to spend on pilot upgrades like Predator and Marksmanship.  We'll take all of these with us and make a game-time decision.

By the way, a bit reluctant to use the Tie phantom - the cloaking rules seem a bit unnatural.  But, going to try it anyway...

3) Keep the Tie fighters in formation.

Wow - that turns out to be tricky!  The classic would be to execute a corpen or wheel turn - but that's not really easy in X-wing.  Really curious to see how others do it (or if they even do).

The Corpen or Wheel Turn

 

(Link to some classic Navy ship formation patterns)

Some quick observations of the turn templates.  Gentle 1 and Gentle 2 (or 2 and 3) hold ships abreast in the first rank - but not the second.  So, an S-turn will work, but a full right hand turn is tough.

The hard turns are tricky.  The pitch between 1, 2 and 3 is so tight that you can't get ships to track in an abreast formation unless the inner ship turns 1 and the outer ship turns 3.

Will post shortly with how we do :)