Bladestorm Pictures & News!

Mike Doyle's old-school Ultras in the city ruins

Our league is chugging along quite nicely and nearly all participants are playing quick games, fully memorizing the rules! No small feat for such a rules-intensive game such as this one. The best generals are also taking to helping newcomers learn the nuances of new armies, picking up new ones themselves, and sharing the wealth of knowledge about the game and the hobby.



Our metagame has slowly shifted and increased in power these past few months. We started off with nine-model Blood Angel lists and have ended up with finely tuned take-all-comers armies capable of dealing with a variety of threats. Still, more fearsome armies are sure to follow.

A friend of ours and his roommate from Virginia came up for the day and played some 40k. Ellie took to playing the Tyranid player, Dave, winning the game 7-2. While her Trygon was destroyed by a Hormagaunt blob with toxin sacs, it did enough damage and delayed their goal enough to come from behind with her Prime+Warriors clean up crew.

"I deep strike right behind your dudes -- whatcha gonna do?"

During her game I was playing our friend Mike Brown, who brought a small portion of his intended NOVA Open list for a 500 point showing. Three Chimeras with multi-lasers, with plenty of vets with plasma and grenade launchers inside each, as well as a sentinel (with a multi-laser.) Needless to say, the lack of cover on the board didn't help, nor my inexperience dealing with three pieces of armor at 500 points. It was an extremely tough game and Mike won 5-4.

A ridiculously clean looking Wave Serpent by Brain Tanner

Brian Tanner has put together a thoroughly impressive Saim-Hann Eldar army. I had to grab some pictures to display his models. We played a practice game where I won 5-2. I haven't used some of the units that he has -- it's definitely disappointing that the Guardian weapon platform can be killed, but the Wave Serpent is an absolute beast now with the energy shield shot, something I was truthfully a little afraid of.

Brian's Striking Scorpions on a hill, trying to get to the assault.

Brian's impressively clean Dire Avengers

During our game, Ellie played Mike Brown's mechanized Guard. I figured the massed S6 shooting and meltas would give her tough guys like the Trygon and Warriors a hell of a time, but two of his tanks got immobilized on the first move through the difficult terrain. Ellie wound up winning the game 4-3. Don't underestimate the lady players, fellas! They mean business.

Rob Porter's Dark Angels

 Rob Porter's Dark Angels are coming together as well. His Dark Vengeance force has been combined with some Snipers, and he's also starting a Tau army now as well. Speaking of new armies, Kyle will be getting into one as well. Ellie wants to play Grey Knights or Dark Eldar, we already have some miniatures for Dark Eldar, and I just grabbed the codex for Grey Knights, so we'll see how things work out.

The game floor has been busy at Games and Stuff these past couple of weeks, as minis and card gamers have had several events. This past Saturday, we had Warmachine, Malifaux and 40k all being played, with some players preparing for tournaments and other learning games. It was quite fun seeing all of the different systems and armies about. Prior to that, the SCG Elite IQ event had so many card players in the game room that we probably should've taken some tables out into the sales floor for more space! As well, you can check out Certs Tabletop blog for the large Infinity event that ran at G&S, sporting lots of cool laser-cut terrain and fully painted forces. One of the things I like most about G&S is that there are always plenty of boards to pull out, or accommodations made for people if they want to play a game here. Staff will certainly help you out if you need it, rather than tell you to buzz off because their tournament is full and more important.

That's all of the pictures I have for now. In the works: A 500 point tournament for our regular guys here, plus any competitive comers who want to prove supremacy! Also, I really need to finish these Planetary Empires tiles and get started with that!