The Uplink Editorial
From the Editor’s Desk Paul Quigley introduces the third issue.
I’m not going to lie to you folks but, during the editing of this Venerable tome that shall henceforth be known as Issue 3, I found myself thinking ‘how do we as gamers keep our hobby time fresh?’ As much as everyone else, I tend to suffer a little sometimes from getting stale on the different games I play and armies I collect, but I like to think that I cope well - so I’ll put forward some ideas on how I deal with a case of ‘gamer stale’. For starters, you can play some different games! Now has never been a better time to dive into different aspects of the overall gaming hobby, with so many great games covering many fantastic genres that we all know and love. This ties in nicely with this month’s look beyond the standard Games Workshop fare – we investigate two alternate game systems, with Spartan Games’ excellent Firestorm Armada and Privateer Press’ huge hit WARMACHINE (they tell me it’s so manly it has to be written in all caps.) Another great way to save yourself from going stale is to brighten up your old reliable and – let’s face it – occasionally humdrum battlefield. It also just so happens that this month we debut a series of terrain-building articles designed to fire up our tabletop. Our esteemed editor. Last but by no means least, we can change our gaming lives by heading to (just kidding - he’s not that esteemed) different events. A tournament, convention or simple games day can break us out of our gaming humdrum - shockingly enough, our very own contributor Nigel Kavanagh is here to give us a low-down on what we can expect in the next few months. My God...it almost looked like I planned this editorial. Before the cat’s utterly out of the bag, I’m off to paint more Space Marines. PQ
The Uplink Issue 3 was produced by
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Editor Paul Quigley Assistant Editors Nigel Kavanagh, Jimmy Murphy Contributors Owen Conlon, Darragh Cullen, Dave Leahy,
Design Derek Owens Artwork Dave Leahy Additional thanks to Battlecry Miniatures, Gamers World Dublin
Contents
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The Uplink Contents
ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!! The Uplink’s painting competition draws another strong batch of entries.
Malifaux Masterclass Jimmy Murphy explains how he painted his Lady Justice.
Lost in Space Paul Quigley introduces Firestorm Armada, a new game of space combat from Spartan Games.
12 Introducing Warmachine
Owen Conlan explains why the Privateer Press game is worth checking out.
15 Simple Terrain: Hills
Darragh Cullen introduces a simple alternative method to building wargaming hills.
16 Warpcon 2010
Jimmy Murphy reports on his personal highlights - and lowlights - from Warpcon 2010.
20 Signal to Noise 21 Fun Stuff 24 Around the Clubs
The Uplink’s round-up of the latest products and interesting tidbits in the gaming world.
Gamer humour - you have been warned.
Details of wargaming clubs in Ireland.
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The Uplink Competition
ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!! The Uplink’s painting competition draws another strong batch of entries. After the stunning entries last time out, it was always going to be a challenge to maintain the standard of painting. I’m delighted to say that our second painting competition - “ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!!” - did just that. Due to a change in the Uplink’s publishing schedule, we have two winners this time out; one for the original deadline and one for the extended deadline.
The Entries There were some super entries..Gar Lombard’s Slann was an exceptional effory and won the prize for the first deadline. I’m sure we’ll all look forward to seeing him float in a unit of Temple Guard on the tabletop blasting all and sundry with his magic. The second deadline saw more entries and a very tight competition. Patrick O’Sullivan entered a pair of Orc shamans named “Zig and Zag” of stunning quality. Graham Bailey and Jimmy Murphy stepped outside the Games Workshop scene and opted for Malifaux miniatures - both ladies were painted very well indeed. Finally, Ujio entered with a Raven Guard Librarian which featured some excellent object source lighting techniques.
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In the end, it was almost impossible to seperate Ujio’s Librarian and Jimmy’s Lady Justice.
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The judges had an incredibly difficult job in choosing the winner here, and I’m glad I didn’t have to make the decision. In the end, it was
almost impossible to seperate Ujio’s Librarian and Jimmy’s Lady Justice. However, the judges finally gave the nod to Jimmy Murphy by the very narrowest of margins. Congratulations Jimmy!
Next Month’s competition Our third competition is called “Raising the Standard” and features, unsurprisingly, a Standard Bearer or equivalent model. As always, the judges are looking for clean, crisp models and this competition allows plenty of scope for freehand work and imagination. Good luck to all! Thanks again are due to BattleCry Miniatures, our generous painting competition sponsors.
The Uplink Hobby
Clockwise from right: Take a bow - Jimmy Murphy’s Malifaux miniature won in a tightly-fought second competition;The competition is possible thanks to our generous sponsors, Battlecry miniatures; Ujo’s superb Raven Guard Librarian showed off some great object source lighting technique; Graham Bailey’s brooding Malifaux lady looked the business; Zig and Zag, Patrick O’Sullivan’s Shaman duo, also impressed. Far left: Gar Lombard’s Slann took the prize for contest number one.
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The Uplink Hobby
Malifaux Masterclass Jimmy Murphy explains how he painted Lady Justice, the winning entry in The Uplink’s painting competition. I picked up the new hotness that is Malifaux at Warpcon this year as a few of the lads had got it and I’d been listening to the D6 generation rave about it on their podcast.To be honest after the prep work for my ork army the idea of a game who’s entire model range has less figures than my army had a certain appeal. The painting completion gave an impetus to getting started on the crew or at least the Master of the crew Lady Justice. I was going to change up the paint scheme a bit but I settled for a few tweaks to the existing scheme since I liked it so much. I base coated it black and then sprayed it white to bring up the details as an experiment. It did make it easier to pick out sections of the model than a plain black undercoat would have. I took the usual approach of painting from the skin out, with the colours in the ‘colour me up’ box. I wanted a very sharp, but not chalky, look so I stopped the highlights at ghost grey.
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At this point I went online and had a look around at different ways of doing hair colour before deciding she was a brunette. I worked up from a base coat of charred brown.
Happily, the sculpt of the hair made it a lot easier than I expected it to be.To the right, you can see how shiny it was after the ogryn flesh washes
The next step was to add lots of red. For painting red, I’m using P3 colours of Kador Base red and sulphuric yellow. I also used some sepia and ogryn flesh washes to darken down the low areas. About halfway through the painting of the red area’s my wife popped her head in the room to see how I was doing and got the standard painter ritual of “look at what I did”. Having learned the correct
The Uplink
Colour Me Up
Hobby
To paint lady Justice, Jimmy predominantly used Vallejo’sGame Colour paints, with some Citadel washes.
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Skin Tone
Game Colour Pale Flash, Game Colour Elf Skintone, Game Colour Dark Fleshton and Citadel Gyphonne Sepia wash
Fabrics Game Colour Stormy Blue, Game Colour Electric Blue, Game Colour Ghost Grey
response from dealing with our daughter she nodded and made the appropriate ohh ahh sounds before pointing out that the hair was a bit bland for a blind chick with a big samurai sword. That kicked off the most interest Majella has ever displayed in a miniature.The upshot was that Lady J got some red streaks and I’m wondering when Majella is going to join her.Tip for lads trying to get their other half interested in their figures: ask about haircolours.
Hair Game Colour Charred Brown, Game Colour Dark leshtone, Game Colour Parasite Brown, Game Colour Bone White, Citadel Ogryn flesh wash.
Red detail
P3 Sulphuric yellow and P3 Khador Red base, washed with Games Workshop Devlan Mud, Ogryn Flesh, Gyphonne Sepia and Baal Red.
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The Uplink Hobby
Once the red was done it was a matter of tidying up the figure and finishing off the odds and ends like the sword handle.
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A quick tip for lads trying to get their other half interested in their figures: ask about hair colours.
Figuring out a base for the model was a bit tough as I’m used to basing armies, not single figures. And at that point, I was a day from the deadline. So, I chopped up an ork boarding plank and pinned her to it. Using a hand drill. Everyone with a dirty smile on their face should be ashamed of themselves.
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The last stage was a quick spray of army painter matt varnish to take care of the shiny wash effect. As you can see in the picture, it does a great job of giving the model a nice flat matt finish.
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The next things on the painting table are some new ork Kans and the ork dreanaught.The entry for the next competition is under debate. For a biker wagghbanner, I'd need to do a bit of converting but I've got all the bitz and I could use it in my army. As for a Nob Waggh banner on foot, I'd have to paint a nob squad on foot to go with it.The other option is an Ultramarines limited ed figure. I've had one of these in my collection since the Skullz promotion with Games Workshop years ago.The main drawback is that it might start me on the road to an ultrasmurf army. Last but not least is another skulz pro-
motion figure - the old Iwo Jima diorama. Of course, I'd have to remove the Dork Angel and replace the figure with a proper marine from the space wolves chapter but that wouldn't be too tough. Decisions decisions..
The Uplink
Lost in Space
Game profile
Paul Quigley introduces Firestorm Armada, a new game of space combat from Spartan Games. UFO’s, Space Ships, Star Cruisers, the list goes on. Ever since I was a nipper, I’ve been fascinated by anything to do with Space combat of any sort. So it was logical that, when I started down the road to gaming, this love for all things space ship related led me to get into the venerable Battle Fleet Gothic (BFG). I loved this game from the start - despite its fairly complex mechanics, its frequent use of tables that to some were fairly indecipherable and its extremely low level of support from Games Workshop it still ranks right towards the top of my all time favourite game systems. But, because of some of these shortcomings, BFG has always tended to have a smaller following than I’d like (despite my best efforts I might add). So, I’d quietly resigned myself to the fact that spaceship combat wasn’t something that was going to happen in my gaming club with any sort of regularity. That was, of course, until the debut of Spartan Games’ Firestorm Armada. Upon hearing about a new Space combat game I was of course as giddy as a schoolgirl - not just because Spartan were diving into my favourite genre with Firestorm but also because they are a company that have a history of doing things right.Take, for example, their first release (Uncharted Seas) in late 2008. This take on medieval/fantasy naval combat has been almost universally acclaimed for its novel mechanics, its nice range of miniatures and Spartan’s commitment to quality customer service, giving me great hopes indeed for the standard of Firestorm Armada.
The background The six fleets in the rulebook are divided into two warring factions. Now, for me this is something of a double edged sword. Having a rather basic structure of back story and game ‘canon’ leaves the gamer with freedom to spin their own stories so to speak and create their own back-
A hard-fought battle in progress.
ground. Others will find the lack of a comprehensive and fully immersive background off-putting.Whichever camp you personally fall into, be aware that the first rule book is only number one in what’s planned to be a rolling series of releases over the next number of years.
The models The models, as you can see throughout the article, are rather nice - in fact, this was one of the early things that drew me to the system as a whole.Whats more, regardless of personal taste and preference, I believe that everyone can find something they are interested in within the first four released boxed sets.Those are the Aquans (with their starships filled with water and predominance for close in fire-fights), the Sorylians
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The Uplink Game profile
(saurian life forms with hellish close boarding potential and massive broadsides), the Terrans (think Star Wars Imperial star destroyers with a preeminance in high powered shields) and the Dindrenzi (A breakaway human faction with ships boasting horribly destructive long range fire power).All of them have their basic battle box, which contains six frigates, three cruisers and a battleship.This is excellent value for money as a gateway into the game (retailing in and around €40) especially when one considers that these models are predominantly resin (if only forgeworld priced so conservatively). A further point to note is that, although the ship classes within the boxed might be the same the difference in racial abilities, ship stats and special rules makes each satisfyingly different.
The Rules
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Speaking of stats and special rules, let’s dip slightly into the nuances of this games compared to others of its kind. Firstly, its an activation-based system. Essentially, one player activates a ship or squadron, completes its movement, firing or boarding actions, and then turns over to his or her opponent to do the same.This is also based on a turn-by-turn roll for initiative with modifiers based on racial characteristics or special rules. For those in the space game know, its almost like a combination of BFG’s attack rating system and Babylon 5 A Call to Arms’ initiative roll. This turn system allows both players to be involved more often in the turn breakdown and tends to result in a more fun experience for all concerned. Barring this, most of the mechanics should be familiar to anyone involved in any space combat game: different classes of ships turning at differing rates, different rates of fire on different weapons depending on a ship’s trajectory, and similar touches. Of particular note from a rule perspective is the ‘exploding dice’ mechanic. Basically, when a player is shooting and rolls a 6, it
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The ‘exploding dice’ mechanism really serves to break up the usual probabilitybased thinking that experienced gamers so often suffer from. ‘Mathhammer’ is more difficult and it forces people to really think about their plans more.
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counts as two hits and allows him or her to roll again.This neat little mechanic is carried through almost all of the game, including shield rolls, boarding actions and point defense systems. Thus, it really serves to break up the usual “so I need a 4+” thinking that experienced gamers so often suffer from. ‘Mathhammer’ becomes more difficult and it forces people to really think about their plans more. To be honest, more systems should have the intelligence. The most striking aspect of the rules, though, is how simple they are to grasp and how easy Spartan have made the game to dive right into. They provide a simple template that allows turning and movement to become laughably easy to work out, they have printed small stat sheets for every ship class allowing quick reference during gameplay, and they have released a token set that is so comprehensive it will never leave anyone in any doubt about the current state of your ship in terms of hit points taken, damage to systems, or the other ingame incidents that can be overlooked. Basically speaking, this is a game that you could easily introduce an inexperienced gamer to and be fairly confident that you’re not going to bewilder them: my other half had the dubious pleasure of testing this claim and didn’t prove me wrong. Ultimately, this is a fun game that plays well at several levels, with mechanics simple enough to be grasped by novices and enough challenges to ensure even experienced gamers don’t get jaded. The background and the model range is still a work in progress but, on the basis of what we’ve already seen, there’s every reason to be optimistic that this system will get deeper and even better.
The Uplink
The Factions Aquans
Game profile
Didenzri
The Aquans are fully com-
Though a relatively fledg-
mitted to fight the threat of
ling race, the Dindrenzi
the Dindrenzi for as long as
Federation is aggressive and
it takes, and if necessary
intolerant of others - espe-
even invade Dindrenzi
cially the Terran Empire. A
space in order to reduce or
race based around a mili-
destroy their support bases.
tary bedrock, the Dindrenzi
They have full confidence
is waging inter-galactic war
in the Kurak Alliance and have left their more distant territories stripped of
with only one thing in mind: annihalation of Terra and its allies.
defences and logistics.
Terrans
Sorylians
The commanders of the
This race has suffered badly
Navy of the Terran Satellite
in the initial stages of the
Charter are dedicated to
Dindrenzi War, largely due
the protection of the sys-
to poor initial deployment
tems within Fathoms Reach
and by being caugth out by
against the invading
the sheer speed with which
Dindrenzi forces.They have
the Dindrenzi Fleets have
their best Terran warships
advanced.They have always
deployed at the front as part of the Terran Storm Fleet, with the assistance
dispersed their fleets to respond to any crisis within the Collective,
of the Terran Allied Fleet, which includes battlegroups of Sorylian and
whether it is caused by Terran colonists, Raiders or the Dindrenzi.
Aquan warships.
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The Uplink Game profile
Introducing Warmachine Owen Conlan explains why the Privateer Press game is worth checking out. “Play like you’ve got a pair!” is the catchphrase for this fast-paced aggressive game. If you like the sound of a wargame that has a stunning range of miniatures, is based in an immersive and compelling world, has some of the most beautiful books produced by any gaming company, is balanced and has a set of rules that are rock solid then Warmachine is the game for you! Warmachine has been around for about seven years now and is produced by Seattle-based Privateer Press. Its second version, called Warmachine MkII, released at the start of 2010 after an open field test in which thousands of players contributed feedback to tweak and refine the game and model rules. This award-winning game has earned Privateer Press a devoted set of followers worldwide who love their games equally for their strong character-driven storyline and fantastic gameplay.
The background
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I mean, what’s not to love? Warmachine is a game full of massive steampowered machines of war that can headbutt, slam and throw their enemies to the ground before pounding them to oblivion.These machines, named warjacks (or just ‘jacks), are controlled by battle mages known as warcasters. The background of the Iron Kingdoms, a set of countries on the continent of Western Immoran, is one of almost constant war. The warcasters are the powerful protagonists at the centre of these conflicts that are tasked with leading the armies of their countries.They are warriors beyond compare who can wield potent magics to cast spells and boost their ‘jacks in battle. In the world of Warmachine the warjacks are sentient constructs of armour, weaponry, pistons, gears and steam-powered might centred around a cortex. The cortex is a delicate piece of
magically constructed engineering that gives the ‘jack basic intelligence and allows it to operate autonomously. It also enables the warcaster to see through the ‘jacks eyes and push it to extremes. This is the unique selling point of the game, the focus mechanic that represents magic.The fact that the game has exceptionally well thought out and balanced rules doesn’t hurt either!
Mechanics Before I can talk about how focus works, I first need to introduce the basic combat mechanic. Like most wargames every model has a set of stats that represent its movement, combat abilities and capacity to sustain damage.Warmachine does not rely on players learning off tables to
a ‘jack can perform power attacks, such as throws, slams, armlocks and headbutts, and importantly boost attack and damage rolls. Boosting allows the ‘jack to add an additional die to a roll.That DEF 16 warcaster seems a lot easier to hit now that the ‘jack is rolling 3D6! Focus allocation is one of the key skills in the game as the ‘caster can also use focus to cast spells and boost their own attacks. Every warcaster has a unique list of spells that they can cast to destroy their enemy, control the batlefield or help out their own army.They also have a once per game feat that can dramatically change the face of the game. When playing against a new warcaster the first thing you do is check out their feat to see what it does!
The Uplink Game profile
The game in Practice
calculate the chances to hit and wound an enemy. Rather a player simply rolls 2D6, adds them to a combat statistic and compares them to their opponents defense. Equal or beat their defense and it’s a hit.Wounding them is done in a similar manner – roll 2D6, add the strength (and power) of your weapon and if it beats their armour they sustain damage. It is in these dice rolls that the delicate balance of the game lies. Everything is based around average rolls. For example, most ‘jacks have a melee attack (MAT) statistic of 6. A high defense (DEF) on a warcaster would be 16. On average rolls a ‘jack would have a hard time hitting a ‘caster. Here’s were a ‘jacks controlling ‘caster can help out. Every warcaster has a focus statistic (typically around 6 or 7).At the start of a turn the player can allocate focus from their ‘caster to ‘jacks to enable them to do exceptional things during their activation.With focus
So, that’s the basics of the gameplay – you have a powerful warcaster (or two!) at the centre of your army who pushes it to excel in battle. Warcasters are so focal that changing a warcaster can completely change how an army performs. Armies are constructed in a similar fashion to other games, you set a point total and add ‘jacks, units and solos until you reach the limit.Warmachine is a game of synergies. Some units and solos work well with each other and specific ‘casters. Games tend to be scenario focused were there are two winning conditions – win the scenario or kill the enemy warcaster. Larger games, 50 or 75 points, can have a large number of miniatures on the table and will take 2-3 hours to play. At this scale Warmachine isn’t the skirmish game that it appears to be at initial glance. The carnage is beautiful and battles can change quickly as a player who seems to be winning the scenario suddenly finds his warcaster under threat. However, even small games that comprise a warcaster and a few ‘jacks are great fun. These battlebox games last less than an hour and are so-called because they are made up of the contents to a factions basic boxed set. Each of these boxes contains a warcaster, a few ‘jacks, their stat cards and a quickstart version of the rules (which are also available for download). If you’re considering playing Warmachine this is a decent place to start.
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The Uplink Game profile
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There are essentially six factions in Warmachine – Cygnar, Khador, Protectorate of Menoth, Cryx, Retribution of Scyrah and Mercenaries. Coming from games like Warhammer and 40k this might look like very few, but the fact that each faction has a lot of warcasters (as many as a dozen in several cases) really mixes things up.These ‘casters completely change the character of an army, so there is a lot of strategic diversity in the game.There are a lot of resources on the Internet that talk about the features and differences of the different factions, so I won’t go into them here. Each faction has a broad theme and a unique aesthetic. For example, the Khadorans could be characterised as a cold power hungry race that value superior armour and bone crushing weapons over speed and precision. Their large brutal ‘jacks are symbols of a stoic people and an ever expanding empire. Each faction has its own character.The factions are well balanced as Warmachine is released incrementally, i.e. each book release sees every faction get something new, so you don’t end up
with army books developed under an old edition become obsolete. As MkII is a new edition of Warmachine everything was reviewed and updated.The releases of MkII during 2010 will see each faction getting a ‘Forces Book’ that details the background and rules for every miniature in that faction. From 2011, the game will return to the incremental releases There has never been a better time to get into Warmachine. It is a mature game, with lovely miniatures and a great set of rules. Ask a friend to give you a demo, or take the plunge and pick up a couple of battleboxes, but - whatever you do - remember to “play like you’ve got a pair!”. Owen is an avid Warhammer and Warmachine player. He’s also a big geek who blogs about all of his wargaming exploits at www.farfaraway.org.
Simple Terrain: Hills
The Uplink Hobby
Darragh Cullen introduces a simple alternative method to building wargaming hills. This method of building wargaming hills is an alternative to the standard approach taught in White Dwarf and elsewhere. It offers two main advantages: first, there is virtually no slope in the hills – in theory, models should be able to stand on most of the hill without falling over. Secondly, because you’re effectively building from the bottom up, it is easy to adjust the height of the hills to create good line-of-sight blocking terrain. · Mark out the base size of the intended hills on the MDF board.Then cut and bevel the board. · Cut the foam into square and rectangular shaped pieces and arrange the pieces onto the MDF. Make sure to leave a 2-3 centimetre gap between the foam and the bevel edge. Once you’re satisfied with the basic shape of the hill, glue the foam into position. When the glue has dried, apply a dark base coat (black or dark brown) to the foam.
What you’ll need · Insulating foam of various depth · MDF · Chip bark · Hot Glue plus gun · Jig saw · Tissue · PVA glue · Textured paint
· Once the chips are glued, coat them in a layer of PVA glue. Soak some tissue in PVA glue, place the tissue on top of the foam and ensure it also covers the top level of chips. · Once the glue has dried paint the hill in textured paint and detail it to match your war games table.
· Sort through the chip bark to get interesting looking pieces. Build up a single level of chip bark around the edge of the foam (do not apply any glue yet). · Once the first level of chip has been finished, apply a second layer and try to ensure that each piece of chip bark from the second layer makes contact with at least two chips from the first layer. Repeat the layering until the chips cover all sides of the foam. · Once the layering is complete and the hill looks good, remove all the chip bark and repeat the layering – this time, using hot glue to stick the chips together and to the base.
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The Uplink Tournament Report
Warpcon 2010 Jimmy Murphy reports on his personal highlights - and lowlights - from Warpcon 2010. I’m focused on the wargaming aspect of Warpcon because that’s the bit I know. I’m aware of the other things going on like LARPs, Role playing, board games or card games, but I’m a wargamer - so, anything not involving mandollies falls into the realm of ‘other stuff’.
Preparing for the tournament
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This year, I wasn’t running anything in Warpcon, but I did agree to do the rules packs and help out with the usual stuff like making more terrain and trash talking. Since I was refining the rulespack I put together last year, a first draft of the rules for Warpcon was being discussed in our club back in October and released to the wider audience over November. Once the missions and scoring stuff was straight, we started adding the FAQ. There was lots of back and forth between the four to five players involved in figuring out the questions and the answers. We kicked it off with the intention that this was the way things would stand for Warpcon.Where possible we showed the reasoning behind the decision. Nobody I’ve talked to is 100 per cent happy with all the answers ( myself included) but everyone seems to get that we at least have put in the effort to answer them so that the “discussion” of the rules happens off table and not in the middle of the battle. There’s lots of scope for improvement and my hope is that other tournament organisers will take this and polish it over the next year - mainly because I don’t want to have much work to do with it when Warpcon 21 rolls around! The latest Ork FAQ from GW gave me an “I told you so” moment as one of the contentious rulings for Warpcon was that deathrolla’s worked in a tank shock. Getting the rules pack and FAQ out helped a bit with raising interest.
‘Ere we go! The lads ready for war.
Having the army list submission date 2 weeks ahead of the event probably saved our bacon as the 40K numbers turned out to be much higher than we expected, growing from 48 last year to 60+. For preparing my own army, I’d made the decision to replace my old trukks with new trukks when the new ones came out. A year after they came out I got around to it. I did all the assembly and converting for 3 of them in September. Of course I didn’t get them painted in the meantime. I was busy over the christmas so I didn’t sit down to actually pick my army for the tournament until January 17, one day before submission deadline (Planning is key folks). At that point I found out I needed one more trukk for the army. Hence I spent the last few weeks before Warpcon painting 4 trukks, assembling one trukk, painting up the Forgewold warboss, painting an ammo grot and finishing the basing on the grots. I’d have had a smaller list but 2009 was the year of me missing out on all the tournaments I’d normally go to, so I was behind on my painting.
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The big day I got the army fully painted at two on Friday morning because I had lots of stuff to do that evening.The day was a bit manic with the fun of helping with the setup when we were trying to figure out the best deployment of tables in the new room. Low point was collecting some lads from the airport and having my car breakdown. No good deed goes unpunished.The highlight was getting to have a pint in the old bar with Alessio.We had him conned into playing a game of 40K on the Saturday with a borrowed army. Unfortunately on the day, duty got the better of him and he spent the day showing people how to play Shurro. Hopefully he’ll come back for a visit in the future. The less said about the unfortunate delay before kickoff on Saturday, the better, suffice to say it’s a bit harder to organize 90ish gamers than the numbers more commonly seen at Irish tournaments.The plan being discussed for next year is to take a leaf from Johnny and the Northern Wasters and have the first round matchups pre-assigned so that, on the morning, all that needs to happen for 90 per cent of the players is a check of who turned up and bought their ticket. Since the first game was a ‘grab a table’ game, for me this consisted of a quick dash to the end of the hall with tables that Chris had made (the really nice terrain tables) and grabbing the first person to make eye contact as an opponent. I’m getting no end of abuse for “bunny running” my first opponent. Sigh. Begrudgers, the lot of you!
Game one: Rob with Imperial Guard Facing Imperial Guard is one of the tougher matchup for orks becauseof the limited optionswe havefor dealing with armor. Essentially, Rob castled up in a corner and I ran everything at him at top speed. Rambo- I mean Marbo - popped up in turn one so that he had a perfect shot on three trukks with his demo charge, only to fluff it so badly that he nearly killed himself. A turn 2 Waggh charge with the entire ork army on pretty much the
Tournament Report
Rob’s impressive Imperial Guard Army.
entire Imperial Guard army ended up as a single combat. Colonel Strakken survived the main fight, only to find out he needed to take 25 armour saves cause he’s fearless. Ouch After that it was just a matter of chasing down the survivors and shaking hands.All credit to Rob he took the game in good spirits andI could see that he was already thinking about ways to sort out theorks thenext time he saw them on thetable. So game one 20-0 for me
Game two: Ivan Imperial Guard
with
I HATE Imperial Guard. They do sneaky things like shooting me a lot. Ivan grabbed a corner and pointed all the guns in his army at me. I went first and, in turn one, I took a single shot with a trukk Big shoota at the choir chimera side The Guard buddy up in the corner. armour. I think the gunner was more surprised than Ivan when three singed psychics staggered from the smoking ruin.Turn two was another round of “how many things can I grab with a Waggh” Unfortunately Ivan survived the experience with some big flying things filled with squishy guardsmen.The rest of the game was me trying
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The Uplink Tournament Report
to grab objectives and kill guardsmen as they zipped around the board.The end result was a solid 15-4 to me. The interval was the time to layout the armies and get painting judged.
Game three: Joe with Chaos I was wilting badly by this stage of the tournament: my camera battery gave up half way round looking at the Warhammer 40,000 armies on display and I was feeling like I could have done the same. Caffeine only gets you so far. Yes, the excuses start now - why do you ask ? The game was a lot of fun, with some things going my way, but ultimately I made tactical errors that Joe took full advantage of. I set up my objective
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Some things went my way, but I made tactical errors that Joe took full advantage of.
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pretty centrally on the board while Joe lobbed his in the back left hand corner. My deployment was designed to control the area between the objectives. Joe took advantage of that and deployed heavily on my right, making the most of the range he had.The twin lashes and vindicators didn’t hurt! In turn one, I charged across the board hoping to survive with enough stuff to get a good punch in. I did manage one good charge turn and took out the obliterators, both vindicators and a single squad of chaos marines in a rhino. Unfortunately, I also immobilised the trukk that was intended to take his objective and ended up out of position to catch his bikers. Highlights of the game included included my warboss surviving the death of the biker mob to rip open a vindicator, and Joe’s bikers sweeping up my flank and mowing down all before them. Lowlights consisted of the nob bikers getting lashed, the warboss getting lashed, my boyz (noticing a pattern here) getting lashed and the grots getting lashed.Also, my Trukk immobilising on a difficult terrain roll was a pain.This stopped me short of the objective when I should have just gone and parked on it.The result? 10 - 0 to Joe. The biggest regret of the weekend is getting called for time on this game
before completing it, due to a late start and the distraction of a quiz in the middle.There’s a good chance the score wouldn’t have changed significantly but I’d love to have seen the game out to the end.That wrapped up the games for Sat. We headed to the bar for pints and post-mortems of the games. Thanks to some prior planning, a bunch of us had a reservation in town for an indian meal which turned into a bit of a pub crawl back to UCC. Sunday dawned way too early and way too bright for the condition I was in.
Game four: Padraig with Tyranids Thanks to my average score being pretty high I was still hanging around the top end of the tables. So game 4 was against Padrig’s Bugzilla horde complete with cold, sleep deprivation and hangover.Why yes, this is another excuse game since you asked. I’d found the spare camera battery so I could take pic- The bugs looking menacing. tures.Unfortunately, I was struggling to keep it together and play the game, so pictures fell by the wayside. I’d been lucky enough to have never faced a full fledged Bugzilla list in a tournament, so it was nice to experience it before the new codex changed it. The game kicked off with a refused deployment and a forced first turn to me. I reserved the Deffcopter and castled up my lads in the middle of the board ready for the swarm to, well swarm.You can see where Padraig arrived from on turn two in the picture. I decided on a brutally cunning (instead of a cunningly brutal) plan for the game, and charged for his lines with everything I had. Hey, I play orks for a reason. I left a trail of burningwreckage across the battlefield and got my charge off, only to make some really naff dice rolls in combat. After that, it was a matter of trying to pick off VPs here and there and not get wiped out. The game ended on turn five with Gaz on one wound, and the grots bravely defending a rock from loud noises.Thanks to the Grots’ late arrival and the
VP I’d earned a 17-3 defeat. Lunch had the judging for the best painted armies and I’d swung a nomination. So while people looked the armies over I ran to the shop for paracetamol, caffeine and sugar. I love a healthy lifestyle.
Game five: Darragh with Chaos The last game put me up against Darragh. It was a good way to end out the tournament since we’ve had lots of trash talk over armies and games over the last few years he’s been playing and I hadn’t faced his Chaos army before. So what was the plan going to be against this chaos army? Same as ever: get the charge and make ‘em die. I was going second, so I suck my stuff on the flank with the intention of using the buildings for cover. Darragh was delighted to wreck Ghazzy’s trukk on turn two only to find out on my turn three that, when Ghazzy wants the trukk he’s standing beside, he gets it. I’d piled Ghazzy and the mega nobs out of one trukk to withing 2” of the other trukk. The ard boys in the second trukk piled out and extracted vengance on the marines, who blew up Ghazzy’s trukk while he sped off into the distance. So the waggh got off, with dramatic results visible in the picture, and it was once again mopping up time. The final game finished 20-0. I entered my warboss in the single figure painting competion and helped out with some of the terrain packing. When theresults were posted I found out I’d had a bridesmade weekend. second in player’s choice army, fourth overall, and third in the single figure painting. So, all in all, it was a respectable set of results.
Right: Facing Darragh’s Chaos marines, pre-Waaagh. Below: After the Waaagh, the mop-up. Bottom, from left: Jimmy’s Ork Warboss and Lloyd’s Bannanadar craftworld army.
The Uplink Tournament Report
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The Uplink Incoming
Signal to Noise The Uplink’s round-up of the latest products and interesting tidbits in the gaming world. Malifaux card deck. Really useful accessory for playing Malifaux. It makes life a bit easier to have all the relevant in game information on the card and the art on the cards looks great. It’s a nice touch that the background art for the weak to strong cards changes to reflect the strength. Highly recommend picking up a deck if you want to play Malifaux or just have a cool deck of cards. Check it out at www.wyrd-games.net. The Game Crafter Every wanted to make your own game? Well game crafter is a print on demand service for games. It looks very slick.You grab the templates do your thing and then upload it.You can build all the elements of the game and then get yourself a copy or publish it and see if you can sell the game via their store.Well worth a look see - visit www.thegamecrafter.com
Tournament scoring discussion If you want to know more about what goes into working out a good tournament scoring system come visit the Whfb forums and have a look. Constructive ideas are more than welcome at whfb-ireland.org/forum.
40K boardgame incoming If you’ve been living under a rock you might not have heard about the upcoming Fantasy flight boardgame Horus Heresy. For teaser info and pictures of shiny new game stuff check out their website at ww.fantasyflightgames.com.
Matchstick men Thanks to Brian for sending this link of Minias Tirith. Made with matchsticks - visit www.matchstickmarvels.com/minastirith.htm to check it out.
Behind the Curtain with Rick Priestly
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Very interesting interview with lots of insight into how GW got to where it is now and what it was like in the early days.Worth a read but clear a bit of time: www.battlegames.co.uk/documents/BG_HH-RP-JS-interview_unabridged.pdf.
The Uplink Fun stuff
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The Uplink Fun Stuff
Ask the Heff The Uplink’s resident agony uncle answers your questions. “Dear Heff, I’ve been playing with a horde army for years and I think I’ve a pretty good grasp of how to play them in a very competitive manner. However, I’m not getting the results I think I deserve and am going to start a Daemon army. What do you think? CD, Dublin Airport “Dear CD, I empathise with your query. This reminds me of a story from my childhood.When I was kid my dad carved me a lovely wooden flute for my birthday one year. I loved my wooden flute. All day long I would sit in the corner with it, my fingers flicking up and down, my little eyes shining with delight.Yes indeed, a good flute was the best friend a little boy like me could have. Until the next year my brother was given a bigger flute for his birthday. I was gutted. His was long and black and had knobs on it.The works. So one night under cover of darkness I crept into his room and stole his flute. Now even though his flute was better than mine and took less skill to use and practically played itself it just wasnt the same as my old flute. Soon my friends would turn away in disgust when I showed them my huge black flute and little girls would cry in the street. And in the end after much soul searching I gave my brother back his flute and went back to my room and there amid all the rubbish and dirty clothes was my old flute I have loved so much. Carefully I pulled it out and polished it slowly at first then quicker till my old flute shined as new and then with trembling lips I placed it in my mouth and blew. And do you know what I realised, after all this time? That my old flute sucked donkey balls, so I cracked it over my brother’s skull, stole his and have never been happier. So to answer your question - yeah, get daemons. Daemons are awesome.
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The Heff
Dear Heff, Ogres rock! Hur hur hur. J, Greystones” “Dear J, The good Lord said every person has a place in this world and I believe yours is sitting on street corners covered in vomit and pee and asking strangers for change. Oh yeah, and continue playing Ogres - everybody, even warhammer players, need someone to look down on and that’s gonna be you. The Heff
Rocky. A week or two before the tournament you’re going to go cold turkey and do some exercise. Go running with a bunch of kids, wear some old sweat pants and eat plenty of eggs. Soon you’ll lose that toxic alcoholic glow and start to look healthy again.
When the time for the award comes round, you’ll be lying at the bottom of the stage in a pile of your own vomit, kacks around your ankles, various multi-kit models jammed up your hole, the ‘Bad Women of Irish Wargaming’ calender in one hand and a clump of tissues stuck to your belly.
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The problem arises as you are constantly drunk; people just assume it’s your natural state of being. The secret can be found in one of the greatest movies of all time -
The Heff
After many undefeated years, some other guy just won ‘Most Drunken Opponent’ in a recent tournament. I feel like I have lost part of my identity and blackened my soul. Where do I go from here? W, Dublin Dear W,
Fun stuff
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Then, on the morning of the tournament go around and talk to everyone. Try hard to appear normal and make small talk. Ask about the weather, the kids, the wife. And then as the first game begins, start hammering shots into you. Get completely sh*t faced. Drink window cleaner if you have to, or brasso metal polish. If you’re getting a sandwich or a bar, dilute it in whiskey first. Don’t be afraid to Irish that thing up. And then when the time for the award comes round, you’ll be lying at the bottom of the stage in a pile of your own vomit, kacks around your ankles, various multi-kit models jammed up your hole, the ‘Bad Women of Irish Wargaming’ calender in one hand and a clump of tissues stuck to your belly. You still wont win the award, Chris will. That fella’s Olympic standard - you cant beat that. But you will have no recollection ever of losing, or why you ended up in bed with Fergus that night...and at the end of the day, isn’t that what wargaming is all about? Getting shafted.
Dear Heff,
The Uplink
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The Uplink Hobby Gaming clubs
Around the Clubs Listed here are some of the clubs in Ireland that wargame. If your club is not listed here please email the editor (theuplinkeditor@gmail.com) with your club's contact details and a brief description of the club's activities. Lisburn Gaming Club Lisburn Gaming Club (LGC) is a new tabletop gaming club located in the heart of Lisburn, five to ten minutes walk from the centre of the City. The club hosts all tabletop games that members wish to play. All the ususal GW games plus some of their specialist games are always welcome and usually on hand to play. The club also encourages and actively plays Roleplaying games and certain card games too. There is hope for a regular LAN setup in the future, but the club will remain mainly focused on the tabletop. For more information, visit www.lisburn-gaming.co.uk.
NUI Maynooth Games Society The NUI Maynooth Games Society base most of their games during the week for the majority of the college year in the John Hume building on campus.They host an annual games convention around November every year called Dominicon and play a variety of games within the society such as wargaming, roleplaying, card games etc.You can reach the club via email (games@nuimsu.com) or online at minds.nuim.ie/~gamessoc
The Drogs of War
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The Drogs of War have been around for about nine years now. Initially, it was started as an alternative youth club for people living in the Drogheda area but has developed since then into an established gaming club with a core of about forty gamers in two main groups - juniors
(up to sixteen years old) and seniors. The club have a policy of developing younger players and tend to avoid overly competitive play with these gamers. Instead, the Drogs of War try to encourage important things like learning how to play the game correctly, painting, assembling and modeling, plus the social side of things.The club plays most games, including Warhammer Fantasy Battle,Warhammer 40,000,Warmachine and Hordes, Battle Fleet Gothic, Blood Bowl, GorkaMorka, RPGs and many board games. The atmosphere is very friendly and you will usually be able to arrange any type of game with members.The general attitude to gaming is quite easy going, most members are casual gamers who enjoy friendly and non-competitive games.The club uses the modern church hall of the local Church of Ireland, which is a wonderful facility with all the modern conveniences, and can comfortably set up 14 tables if needs be.The junior section plays from 14:00 to 18:00 and the seniors from 18:00 to 22:00.The club can be contacted at www.droghedagamers.com.
The Northern Wasters The Northern Wasters club has been running for 10 years.The club is mainly Internet-based with the players meeting up to attend and run tournaments. Many of the players are based in Northern Ireland, but there are also Wasters in the rest of the UK, Ireland and The Netherlands. Ballymena is the Wasters’ spiritual home, and a group of around 25 players meet up there every second Sunday.Warhammer Fantasy Battle is the most popular system currently, but you can also usually find games of Warhammer 40K, Blood Bowl and Space
Hulk being played. On the non-GW front, several Wasters are starting to play Flames of War and Hordes/War Machine.You can contact the Wasters on their forum (forum.northernwasters.com) or by emailing northernwasters@gmail.com39
The North Wexford Gamers The North Wexford Gamers are a group of gamers with a passion for Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k.They’re a social bunch who can often be found playing at other clubs and focus more on the fun element of the game than winning at all costs.The North Wexford Gamers can be contacted via the side – www.northwexfordgamers.org - which includes a forum and podcast, or through e-mail on admin@northwexfordgamers.org.
The Underground Gamers The Underground Gamers is a war games club based in Gamers World on Jervis Street in Dublin’s city centre.The club formed in 2004 and is dedicated to offering players a relaxed environment where they can play a large variety of war games, board games and roleplay games. Warhammer Fantasy Battle is a staple of the club with practically every member playing at least one army, but other systems are well represented.Warmachine, Hordes, Blood Bowl,Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Flames of War are all frequently played. In fact, there are very few games they don’t play! The club prides itself on being both competitive and friendly. Members perform well in both the gaming and painting competitions in the Irish and International tournament scenes: recent highlights include club members winning the first two Irish ranking Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournaments in 2009 and scooping painting awards at each.The Underground Gamers We are looking forward to hosting their own club tournament in 2010 which will involve an ETC-style team event.You can contact the Underground Gamers by joining the email list at groups.google.com/group/undergroundgamers or by enquiring in Gamers World.
The Warheads
The Uplink
The Warheads are a club dedicated to tournament gaming in Ireland and frequently play Warhammer 40,000,Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Blood Bowl and Necromunda in Gamer’s World in Dublin City Centre.You can reach the club via email (joseph.warmaster@gmail.com) or visit sites.google.com/site/thewarheads/home
Gaming clubs
WAC- Wargames Association Cork WAC are a group of wargamers who play just about anything put out by GW, with Wahammer 40,000 and Fantasy Battle most popular. There are also a few people interested in playing Warmachine.The groups are currently co-located (i.e. sponging space off the UCC WARPS club) so there are role players, car gamers and board gamers closely associated with the club.WAC meet at the Elec eng building in U.C.C on Thursdays from 18:30 to 22:30.To contact the club, email themurphyfella@gmail.com or visit the Yahoo group: groups.yahoo.com/group/WACork/?yguid=11890703.
Write for the Uplink! The Uplink is looking to hear from other passionate wargamers with something to say or show about their hobby. Submissions should be sent to: theuplinkeditor@gmail.com. Any kind of submission is welcome, including stories, art pieces, pictures of your army, opinion pieces or tactica articles. There is no guarantee of inclusion in the magazine, and any articles may be edited to suit the format of the Uplink. Feel free to contact the editorial team with more informal queries or ideas for articles.
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