Imperial Reference Cogitator

Thursday, January 30, 2020

 I Am Not Surrounded! I'm In A Target Rich Environment!


Fortunately the rules designers at FF did a great job with the Star Wars Legion rules and Luke slices right through these stormtroopers exactly as he should in a situation such as this...


Wednesday, January 29, 2020

The #DadGoals Menace

My son and I got in another game of Kill Team to close out winter break and he beat me again!  We finally played a scenario out of the Kill Team rulebook and the game seemed to be going in my favor for the first four turns.  However with his usual uncanny dice rolling he took four of my marines out of action in the fifth turn and pulled ahead in victory points.  More on my defeat after the jump, along with some pictures to document the occasion...

The plain white primer bunker and barricade in the left foreground drove me so crazy in these pictures I spent most of January painting them...


Saturday, January 25, 2020

In Some Countries The Word Ranch Has No Meaning...


Honestly you could probably move a lot of chips in the US by labeling something "Cool American Flavour"

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together

Part V - Unfangiven

Unsurprisingly the HWK-290 disintegrated in the firing phase...

 

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

MODOK!!!!! 'nuff said...

His sheer ludicrousness is his most powerful weapon!

Saturday, January 18, 2020

I’m Not A Vegetarian, But Sometimes They’re Good with Posters...



Thursday, January 16, 2020

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together

Part IV - For a Few Fangs More

 

I guess if you fly this close to the Death Star there's bound to be a lot of Tie fighters around...

 

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Retail Apocalypse

or why do abandoned K-Marts make me think the HK-Tanks are already here?

Image result for abandoned K marts
As empty storefronts proliferate (former K-Marts seem to be the most numerous current offender) what is it about mid - 80s strip mall architecture gone to ruin that makes me think immediately of post apocalyptic rubble?  Is it because I've seen so many 80s movies that would run down such a location so they could convey a sense of familiar destruction to rattle the Reagan generation or is it something inherent in the aging of building styles of ones youth?



Monday, January 13, 2020

Battle Mallet Monday!

Episode 19

Episode 19 is out and the whole crew is back in the virtual studio with a great installment summing up hobby hits and misses from the previous year.  There's also some interesting chat about the state of various GW systems and what we have to look forward to in the new year.  It's all makes for fun listening material for the commute or while you're "waging the battle against the grey".



Battle Mallet is a great podcast by four longtime gamers who talk about GW games and the surrounding hobby with an emphasis on balancing our hobby time and real life (marriage, kids, etc).  A lot of the podcast talks about GW's Underworld and the four podcasters annual trip to the Nova Open.  There's also plenty of content about AOS, 40K, and GW news as well as painting and the four principals attempts to grow a community for Underworlds in their local area.

Links:

The Battle Mallet Podcast

Battle Mallet Instagram

Battle Mallet Facebook Page

Battle Mallet Podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts. 

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Thursday, January 9, 2020

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together

Part III - High Atmosphere Drifter

My head canon likes to imagine that they were fighting in the upper atmosphere of a gas giant rather than it just being before I painted one side of the gaming table flat black ...

 

Monday, January 6, 2020

Legion!



Space Marine Legions?  Unfortunately, as much as I dream of playing games set in WH30K's Age of Darkness we are actually here to talk about Star Wars Legion today.  Fantasy Flight's tabletop miniatures game is a great entrant in the field, a lot of fun to play and beautiful looking models.  The same friend who first introduced me to playing the X-wing Miniatures game a few years ago got the miniature painting bug earlier this year after buying and playing Star Wars Imperial Assault with his kids.  He started out paining the miniatures in that game, using some great YouTube tutorials and asking a lot of questions.  It was fun to have another person locally to talk miniature painting with and his skills progressed at an impressive rate.  Working in a methodical fashion rare among those of us who love plastic crack he painted everything in the Imperial Assault box before moving onto to his Star Wars Legion starter set that he had acquired in the middle of last year. 

Not quite the forest moon of Endor but it looked pretty good for a first game in a new system.


Thursday, January 2, 2020

Spaceships Are Not Supposed To Be This Close Together

Part II - Fistful of Fangs

 



Was there a Rebels episode involving Deathwatch and Kyle Katarn?  Or should I write a Mandalorian spec script about it quick before Favreau thinks of it first?

Happy New Year's bonus picture! I roll this well so rarely I have to highlight it somewhere :-)

 

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

#DadGoals

With A Vengeance



“There is no dark side in the gaming table, really. As a matter of fact it's all dark"

My son and I got in another game of Kill Team right before the holidays.  We played his hostage rescue scenario again and while I did better this time, he took four of my marines out of action in the last turn and snatched victory away from me as is his usual style.  I’m concerned he’s going to become a degenerate gambler someday because he thinks he can never lose.  This time my son went through BattleScribe with me and picked his own Kill Team.  He loved having control over what troops he took and what they were armed with, and he had a great suggestion about what specialist should take which weapons that I liked so much I incorporated it into my list as well.  Please check “positive contributions to an army list” off the chart of Warhammer parenting milestones.  Unfortunately we played on the darker side of the 8’ x 4’ gaming table so I only got one decent picture of the action.  

#Dadgoals courtesy of (Jerod)imusPrime at the Battle Mallet Podcast.

Happy New Year Foul Denizens of the Warp!

Wishing us all fervent hobby progress and many critical hits in 2020! Thanks for reading in the past and future!