Video Boarding Action Battle Report - Tyranids vs Space Wolves

Hello!

Back with another Narrative Wargamer YouTube battle report! And this time, it's with the new-ish Boarding Action rules - though rather than using expensive, probably out of stock plastic terrain that neither Tony or myself own, we made a battlefield with card Necromunda and Space Hulk tiles. With that in mind we picked a thematic match up with my Tyranids taking on not-quite-terminators, in a mostly Gravis armoured Space Wolf force. The Wolves were kindly lent to Tony by fellow Narrative Wargamer Podcast contributor, Chris of the Unrelenting Brush.

In any case, after their kin inflicted a minor loss on the Tyranids, the Space Wolves were on the hunt, venturing into a space hulk looking to burn the nest, but the Nids were certainly not going to go down without a fight, especially as they were able to employ specialist organisms bred for this kind of battle. This would most certainly be a brutal, close quarters battle of ceramite against chitin...

I really enjoyed the differences here between a regular 40k game and Boarding Action. It really felt a lot more tactical than a normal 500 point game of 40k which usually goes one sided very quickly in my experience. The terrain and various changes to actions and overwatch etc meant there was a lot more thought going into how to negotiate the battlefield and it helped kept units alive a fair bit longer. I hope that comes across in the video, and you enjoy it - and maybe it'll inspire you to give it a go as well, especially if the barrier to entry has been access to the official terrain. 

In other news however, that won't be the last time my Tyranids will feature on the Narrative Wargamer channel. Much as Chris did with his Space Wolves, I am lending Tony my Tyranids for some months, and there is at least one more game in the pipeline featuring them...

Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

Narrative Wargamer Video Battle Report - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Orks

Hello!

It's been a while since I've been able to talk about being in a video battle report, but here we are again. This time though it's also something a bit new, because this is the first ever Narrative Wargamer battle report! As you may know, I've been appearing on the Narrative Wargamer Podcast alongside Tony and others on and off for a while now, so I was pleased to be involved as Tony is branching out into video content on YouTube. So here it is, our first report, obviously it's a narrative play game and as the title suggests, it's my AdMech (and Knight) vs Deathskull Orks:

As this is the first one, we'd love to get a load of feedback if possible! (And the classic like and subscribe...) That said, if you click and check it out expecting some pretty basic video of two sweaty dudes (it was a hot day!) mumbling over a game of Warhammer, you might be surprised. Tony has thrown a lot of effort into editing this one and personally I think it looks pretty slick. The first thing you'll see after the intro graphics is a 'briefing cut scene' to explain the situation, narrated by the talented RJ Bayley, and this will continue throughout with little narrative snippets during the game. While there's still plenty of room for improvement, it feels like we're hitting the ground running with something that takes good ideas from plenty of other YouTube battle reports, but puts the Narrative Wargamer spin on it. Hopefully there will be plenty more coming in the future!

Anyway, I really hope you check out and enjoy the video. Thanks for reading, and stay safe out there.

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Orks vs Orks!

Hello!

Well it's been a while, but I've been back to visit SorcererDave to film another battle report! This time it was Orks vs Orks, Snakebites vs Freebootas, Nipper vs Stompa, Redtoof vs Zog!

It was fun to get back into it again, and with the Orks who have largely managed to avoid Dave's channel, aside from the classic Stompa battle. Obviously with it being a Dave report it's got a nice narrative focus rather than being anything close to competitive - and speaking of which, we are still planning to eventually finish off the Reuvengrad campaign, assuming the world doesn't conspire against us again. I'm dead keen for that, having been listening to the Eisenhorn novels of Audible!

Anyway, if you didn't click the link earlier, here's the report:

Hope you enjoy it, and stay safe!

Eight Days on Reuvengrad Part 2 - Narrative Campaign with SorcererDave

Hello!

Once more going back to the before times when one could freely visit a friend to play toy soldiers and film it, here's part two of the latest narrative campaign with SorcererDave, Eight Days on Reuvengrad. 

After the events of part one, Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Ivan Herrick follows up on a lead on the planetary governor's aid who seems to have been cooperating with heretics. He leads a small force of Skitarii from the forge world of Ryza, accompanied by two ancient relic Kastelan robots on a mission to a remote space port in the mountains, where they find the work of the great enemy is already underway...

As before, it's a super narrative game and obviously filmed in the 8th edition ruleset, although I think if you are into this kind of game the exact rules will be of a secondary concern behind the drama of watching the events unfold and the Sorcerer's excellent storytelling. I do hope you enjoy it - having forgotten much of what happened I watched it and found some slightly narcissistic amusement in my own antics! We're both keeping an eye on the Covid situations in our areas and planning to film more as soon as reasonably possible after 9th edition properly drops. I suspect we'll need a few games of 'normal' 40k first though before we feel confident enough in the new rules to totally break them for narrative purposes!

Anyway, watch the video, have fun and stay safe everyone. 

Eight Days on Reuvengrad part 1 - Narrative campaign with SorcererDave

Hello!

Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember back at the start of the year I posted about a narrative campaign that SorcererDave and I had been planning and had started filming - about the Inquisition investigating heresy on the planet of Reuvengrad. Well, due to obvious reasons, we've been unable to film any battle reports recently, so the two we had done were waiting for things to go back to 'normal' before being put on the internet. The intention being to not have a big delay between episodes. However with 9th edition 40k on the horizon, the decision was made to start releasing them now while we are still in 8th edition.

That said, this campaign is Narrative play, with a capital N. There are a lot of 8th edition rules that we modified or outright ignored for narrative purposes. It's not balanced, it's not competitive, it's not even got proper armies. This campaign is very much driven by the story. It's got action, it's got drama, it's got RPG elements and a mad Sorcerer acting as a 'Dungeon Master'. It's inspired by Dan Abnett books and Dark Heresy campaigns and the old Inquisitor battle reports from White Dwarf. If all that sounds cool to you, please go and give it a watch:

I really hope you enjoy this one, I know I did. And I really hope we can film more before too long. Stay safe out there everyone!

Video Battle Report - Tyranids vs Eldar on DZTV (plus Blood of Baal thoughts)

Hello!

Back in February, when we were allowed to travel across the country to play toy soldiers, I went to visit Liam from Moarhammer and Deployment Zone to film a battle report. I took the Tyranids of Hive Fleet Goliath against his Saim Hann Eldar in a 2000 point custom matched play mission. It was a lot of fun, and good to complete the set after playing Winters a couple of times.

I was going to just put up a blog post with a link to the battle report for completeness, but I thought most people reading this will either not have paid for access to DZTV or will have already seen the battle report there anyway, so I'm going to add a bit of my thoughts from the game. Specifically about the Blood of Baal Psychic Awakening book, and how it worked out for me.

I'll not post my entire list here, but I did use a good chunk of the content. I picked a monster heavy list and use a custom hive fleet with the Prey-sight and Metamorphic Regrowth traits which granted +1 to hit in melee for monsters after charging, being charged or heroic intervention, and all models regenerating a single lost wound at the start of each of my turns. I took two of the relics (the Arachnacyte Gland on a Trygon Prime and Pathogenesis on an all devourer hive tyrant) and two Adaptive Physiologies (Dermic Symbiosis on a Tyrannofex and Accelerated Digestion on a Haruspex). Overall I was pretty pleased with them, though (minor spoiler alert:) the Haruspex didn't do a lot.

I don't think the book suddenly makes Tyranids top tier by any means, (it's been out a while and we've not seen the Tyranid meta yet...) but it definitely adds some fun and I think powerful options. Choose your own Hive Fleet is a bit... specific? There are a lot of options but most of them will only work for very specific builds, and the generic ones are not as strong as, say, Kraken. That said, the ones I picked fit my army very well and are undeniably strong for taking lots of monsters and multi-wound models. Trygons suddenly hitting on 2s, rerolling 1s were quite terrifying, and it was nice getting the odd wound back, even on Warriors and Zoanthropes.

I do think the relics and Adaptive Physiologies will see some use in competitive lists though, as well as in fun and casual ones. The Resonance Barb stands out (+1 to cast and deny, cast an extra power) and has seen use on several battle reports I've seen. The two I took are probably a bit more specialised, but definitely effective. The Arachnacyte Gland (3D6 charge, drop the lowest) makes a Trygon Prime or melee Hive Tyrant a more viable prospect, and Pathogenesis (6 inch extra range, reroll a single hit and wound for shooting) makes the all devourer Tyrant build even more scary with a larger threat range.

Dermic Symbiosis seems the stand out Adaptive Physiology (5+ invulnerable and count double wounds for damage bracket). I definitely could see it going on the Scythed Hierodule to make it tougher to deal with, especially if sitting next to a Malanthrope on turn one, then charging off with a +1 to hit and regenerating a wound every turn. I didn't use any of the infantry ones, but I think they definitely have potential as well, I've been especially looking at Adrenal Webs (2d6 consolidation) for a big mob of gargoyles perhaps, flapping over and tying up an entire gun line.

In conclusion, it's not a huge power boost, but it has got me more excited to play with the Nids again. Just a shame I can't right now!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Sisters of Battle vs Chaos Space Marines

Hello!

Another SorcererDave report, but this time it’s with some new rules (well, they were new when we filmed it). He managed to get his hands on the limited edition Sister boxed set, so I brought the wife’s Order of the Azurine Heart and ran them with the new rules. They went up against the Word Bearers once again, who also had some new rules from Psychic Awakening: Faith and Fury. After the last game, the Adepta Sororitas were out for revenge!

We had fun (of course!) and I think we played most of the new rule correctly. It was a very informative battle. We do have a bit of a chat about the new rules on display at the end of the game, but as a bit of a summary/mini codex review - the Sisters are good. They’ve got some tricks up their sleeve, they can put out some serious firepower and they can stick it out surprisingly well. The new miracle dice mechanic is huge. You will probably be generating them quite frequently, and there are plenty of chances to use them. High numbers make melta guns really scary for either a guaranteed big damage or the threat of an auto hit in overwatch. Lower numbers can be trickier to use, but passing morale is obviously a good use of 1s. You can also use 2s and 3s to just ensure a key weapon hits or armour save is passed.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the report, and hope you Sisters players enjoy the new book.

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Tyranids vs Orks

Hello!

It's another SorcererDave battle report, this time my Tyranids vs his Orks. We played a 'normal' game, 1750 points matched play, Cleanse and Capture. Of course, we had to have a bit of a narrative twist, so the game takes place inside a space hulk - we played it as though the wall terrain pieces went up to the ceiling, meaning they couldn't be seen or moved over. This made the game very interesting, and suited our two melee focused armies down to the... metal plated floor?

As usual, we had a blast, and I hope that translates well to the video. SorcererDave always does a great job with the editing, especially the intro/outro, which are a nice touch for what isn't primarily a narrative game. I know I am a bit biased on this, but I really think these battle reports are deserving of many more views than they usually get, and it'd be nice to see SorcererDave talked about in the same sentence as the 'big names' in YouTube battle reports. I really hope you all like them as well (even the ones that I'm not in!)

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Daemons vs Eldar

Hello!

A little while ago I played a battle report with SorcererDave where my Ryza AdMech took on his Eldar. Well, if you watched that report you’ll know it ended pretty badly for everyone involved. So here is the follow up battle, involving the Aeldari trying to fix the mess they created with their broken webway gate that just happened to start spewing out daemons after the Adeptus Mechanicus definitely didn’t touch it...

This game was a lot of fun, lots of banter and full on narrative mode with a custom scenario and eyeballed army balancing. And with all that, a very close, tense finish. Can the Aeldari of Craftworld Becareth close the webway gate before it’s too late? Will the Great Unclean One get to spread his grandfather’s gifts? Will any of the Skitarii survive? Find out by watching the report!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Adeptus Mechanicus vs Eldar

Hello!

I've been over at SorcererDave's again. This time I brought my Ryza AdMech for the first time on film, and played against his beautiful (mostly ebayed) Aeldari, also in their first video (that made it to the internet at least). It was a narrative type game, but we played a match play scenario - Cut Off The Head - which involves holding the objective (in this case a webway gate) with your characters and keeping them alive. We played a smaller game for a change - 1000 points, which is nice for a slightly more 'zoomed in' feel where individual characters and units can have more of a dramatic effect on the game.

As usual, SorcererDave has put loads of extra effort into this report, there is a five minute narrative introduction to set the scene and another bit of narrative goodness after the battle. Definitely worth sticking around after the battle for a bit of a sneaky, but not so subtle hint as to what happens next...

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Grotzilla, King of the Stompas!

Hello!

Recently I went to visit SorcererDave again, and along with The Claw, we played a crazy three way Stompa battle! Kaptin Badrukk's bi-annual Strompathon, Stompamania, Stomptacular or competition to determine the stompiest!  The rules were simple... kind of. It was last Stompa standing!

BUT...

Each Stompa had a crew of a Big Mek and some of his buddies, who could fix the Stompa. If it was destroyed, but didn't explode, it could be fixed up to D6 wounds on a 4+.

ALSO...

The crowd were made up of the rest of a 1750 point force each, and they would interfere in the battle if things were going badly. Starting from the second turn we rolled for our 'reserves' in the audience. The roll depended on the current damage bracket of the Stompa, so at full health it was a 6+ for a unit, while in the bottom bracket it was a 3+.

AND...

There was some other stuff as well. Random turn order was a thing, so at the start of each round we rolled off to see who would go first and second. There was also some mortal wounds coming out from Badrukk and his boyz.

So anyway, here's the game:

As you can probably guess, it was a lot of fun to play. We definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way, but it was one hell of a mad Orky ride, somewhat like Apocalypse scale Gorkamorka. Definitely not your average game of 40k! Hope you enjoy watching it at least partially as much as we enjoyed playing it.

WAAAGH!!!

I'm on Deployment Zone TV - Orks vs Imperium

Hello!

I recently went back to visit WintersSEO to film another battle report. (The previous one was Tyranids vs Adeptus Mechanicus over on Youtube.) This time though I brought my Orks, and it was filmed for Deployment Zone TV - a subscription battle report service website thing by Winters and Liam from Moarhammer. Obviously I understand not everyone wants to pay a fiver a month for more awesome battle reports (including narrative campaigns and extra stuff like Winters' Top Tips...), but I'm happy to support these guys, and if you are as well, you can watch me play a 150 power level narrative game against Space Marines/Adeptus Mechanicus/Knights with this Ork army...

In a nice twist, I also got to play on the cool Orky terrain that I and other Winters patrons helped to paint and built:

Anyway, I had a blast playing the game - it had a lot of cool moments and could have gone either way. I also got a kick out of Winters getting freaked out as I just kept bringing out more boyz from my case!

So, if you want to/can watch, go here.

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Sisters of Battle vs Chaos Space Marines

Hello!

The other day I took the wife’s glorious and sadly underused Sisters of Battle for a spin against SorcererDave. We played a now slightly old school matched play maelstrom game from the main rulebook, Cleanse and Capture to keep it simple, and now it’s on YouTube. We both took pretty fluffy armies with fun units we wanted to use, rather than because they were good, and it ended up being a very close game right to the end. I will call it a moral victory for myself however because none of the incredibly fragile metal models broke during either transporting them to the battle or during the game itself.

Anyway, here is the video:

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Chaos Marines vs Space Marines

Hello!

Been to see SorcererDave for another battle report. This one was a bit... different. This time I took the Alpha Legion of the Fractured Truth, and teamed up with another SorcererDave regular, known appropriately as Alpharius and his Hydra’s Reach warband, to fight the Imperial forces of the Revenants chapter. But as always with the XX legion, things are not exactly as they seem, and it soon got... complicated.

Enjoy!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Tyranids vs Astra Militarum, the Finale!

Hello!

It’s finally here! The long awaited (by me at least) finale to the Battle of Morgan’s Reach narrative campaign with SorcererDave! If you want to get caught up with the previous three instalments, go here! Otherwise, go directly to the video below, and clear three and a half hours of your life to watch it!

This game was an epic, a fitting ending to the campaign. A valiant last stand of the Cadian 404th against the unending swarm of Hive Fleet Goliath, hoping against hope for some kind of reinforcements to answer their call. I loved playing in it, and SorcererDave has done an excellent job of adding some narrative touches during the editing process. (He does a passable Sean Bean impression it seems.) If you’ve been following along with his content, or just these battle reports, there might be some shocking, even emotional moments, and fair warning, as always the comments section is full of spoilers!

Anyway, here it is! Enjoy!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Tyranids vs Astra Militarum

Hello!

Battle of Morgan’s Reach part 3 is up. Once again, SorcererDave has conjured up a bit of magic. It’s another narrative game, the Blitz mission with a few tweaks here and there. The Cadian 404th’s tanks go up against the big bugs of Hive Fleet Goliath.

As before, this is part 3, so there are two more to watch first if you don’t like a bit of a spoiler. Part 1 here. Part 2 here.

Enjoy!

I really enjoyed playing this one, but I’m really excited to play out the finale. I think it’s going to be pretty special!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Tyranids vs Astra Militarum

Hello!

Another game up on YouTube with SorcererDave! Part two of the Battle of Morgan's Reach narrative campaign. (Yes, it's definitely a thing now, there will be more!) As mentioned previously, I took a themed Tyranid force to face the Cadians in the ruins of a hive city. The game itself was, as my opponent put it, "epic in both the modern and literal sense of the word". It was a truly gripping, shortbread fueled 9 hours of my life. We both agreed, regardless of what happened and the narrative behind it, the game looked really cool, and as an added bonus/teaser, here are some pictures SorcererDave took with his vastly superior camera...

Of course, this is a second part in a narrative, so if you don't like spoilers, and you haven't seen the first one, go here! Also, just to note, this was filmed early in November, hence the poppy.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the video!

Video Battle Report with Winters SEO - Tyranids vs Adeptus Mechanicus

Hello!

As you might remember, a while ago I took my Tyranids on a trip to Swindon to play a game against the legendary Winters SEO for his Youtube channel. I had an absolute blast playing against the master of the Penitent Forge, and Winters at the very least tolerated me. (I did bribe him with Yorkshire Tea, so I think that helped.)

Anyway, the video is now up, so give it a watch! I've been way more excited for this than I should be, given that I already know the outcome...

I have to admit I was pretty nervous and I made a few mistakes that I realised on the drive home, but I don’t think any of the errors had a significant impact. The game itself felt very back and forth, we both had some weird luck at times (one of use perhaps more than the other...) which made the game much less predictable. Hopefully it’s just as fun to watch as it was to play.

As a fortuitous bonus, the video has popped up just in time for this to be my 50th post on the blog. It's a small milestone but it's a good sign that the blog is here to stay!

Video Battle Report with SorcererDave - Tyranids and Genestealer Cult vs Astra Militarum

Hello!

Seems like SorcererDave works fast, our battle report is up on YouTube already!

I don't have much to say on this, I'm actually watching it myself right now! Managed to get it on the telly, and the intro looks pretty epic on a slightly bigger screen. As an added bonus I don't sound nearly as Westcountry as I had expected. If you are interested in more pictures of my army and some thoughts on what I brought, check here.

Hope you enjoy it nearly as much as we did!