Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 23/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k!We've been playing the darn game of 40k for 3 weeks now. Probably nine hours in already and although I was reluctant to finish it off we decided to.

We thought it'd be over pretty quick as we had very little left.

And then scenes of absolute dice chaos! 🎲

Three ones.

Followed immediately by three sixes and three threes.

Box cars when I absolutely needed it.

Box cars for Liam when he said he was going to 'roll like Dave'!

So we did have a lot of laughs at these insane dice rolls.

But despite some resurgence from the bugs, Old One Eye is an absolute must take. The Orks won the day. I think we had fun, but every unit feels like an unwelcome surprise when you come to use them. Again, rules were forgotten or overlooked and when you come back to them later in the game and realise it would have had an impact earlier on it just feels like you're stupid, rather than the game being overly complex. We not play again for a while but at least we had a laugh.

Meanwhile, Liam had been really busy at work so only had time to knock up a Vampire Counts army for Warcry! He's a nutter.

With an hour left in the evening he set up with Will for a 'quick game' but Will's Chaos Knights are absolutely rock solid. I'm sure we'll all end up playing it at some point. Might give me a reason to paint my Night Haunt... But I also have the Crimson Court too which I now have an idea of how I want to paint them, in a style very different to Liam's.

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 16/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! After last weeks 4 hour gaming session on just the first turns we were all hoping to finish our return to 40k. We had agreed that we would come into this with open minds. We want to like 40k, I am addicted to it afterall. But to paraphrase Helmuth von Moltke 'no plan survives contact with the enemy'. 

Last week the Orks hadn't been particularly effective. 

The Tyranids however were more durable, seemed to kill whatever was put in front of them and their wealth of rules seemed disproportionate to the Ork buffs. 

As Ben and Liam started turn 2 this continued. 

Liam was lucky with his amount of shots, then many hits, but he couldn't seem to translate that into wounds. 

Even when they did, our high saves, or invulnerable saves left most of the bugs undamaged.

 As our turn started Ben and Liam had almost called it quits. Shadows in the Warp left most of the Orks battle shocked, adding to their woes.

But, when it came to our shooting and combat the dice failed us and we couldn't seem to thin the Ork Horde. The Norn Emissary, who was nigh unkillable failed to remove any of those that had surrounded him.

And with their ability to fall back, shoot and assault he was riddled with the weight of dakka.

Suddenly the game swung the other way but the damage had been done.

The game is depressing. Every unit came as a surprise and the wealth of buffs proved too much to ignore and just play the game. I couldn't enjoy our initial success while Ben and Liam felt overwhelmed. Then when the fates reversed I felt annoyed we'd gone through that complaining because all it took was some bad dice to put them in the lead. Ben admitted he too then felt bad because it was all going their way. Maybe with more games, familiarity with both the ruleset and the units may prevent the unpleasant revelations of "it does what?!" Put it this way, we only got to the bottom of turn 3 in another 4.5-5 hours. I wasn't interested in the scores but Liam checked and we were losing [just] 26 to 25. It was mentioned finishing it off next week but I have no desire because it wasn't a fun experience. 

In fairness I felt despite all the buffs there must be balance in the game for us to have been so close. We both had shocking runs of dice rolling that did very little and allowed the other players to come back into the game. So really it isn't that bad. It just brings out the worst in us, because the depth of rules and interactions gives the impression it's unbalanced. I don't want to go through a debate every time about a unit's rules and if it's OP every time we play. I didn't write its rules. As we have plenty of other game options that don't feel so overwhelming, and are more fun, so why play one that does? We may try it again sometime. It's just a shame we couldn't make it work for us.

Battle record - 40k Tyranids Vs Ork Speeed Freeeaks - 09/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warhammer 40k! You read that right, actual 40k that I am supposedly an addict for. We had a full shed of Otty, Ben and Liam. Ben brought his Speeed Freeeaks, which was supposed to be 2,000 points, but due to balance updates was now around 1,780. I managed to combine Otty and my own Tyranids and bring it down to 1,735 [the 2,000 point list looked awesome]. Even so when Liam and Ben set up the plethora of vehicles with so many still in reserve it felt like we were severely outgunned. Anyway, we lost first turn and managed to weather the barrage of fire, mistakes were made and progress was painfully slow. I think we just managed one turn each! Our counter-attack was much more effective and quite a few vehicles were trashed. But aside from the mistakes and bad luck I actually think when we finish it off it will be close and challenging for both sides. We have the advantage but if the game turns then it could prove interesting for us all, which is the most important thing. We want to like the game but if it's no fun then what's the point when we have more pleasant game to play instead?

Battle records

Afternoon #Warhammer Community although there's not a lot of Warhammer I've been able to post some battle records up. They're posted on the days they happened so you won't see them unless you search, but I've collected the links below in case you're interested in looking at a lot of un-annotated photographs of figures followed by some grinning loons in a shed, then knock yourself out:

• Battle record - a lot of Orc hunters on Wargs Vs Hill tribes #MESBG - 11/09/25
• Battle record - Middle Ents Vs Eagles #MESBG - 04/09/25
• Battle record - Bolt Action - Operation Sealion - 31/08/25
• Battle record - Bolt Action - Operation Sealion - 21/08/25
• Battle record - Bolt Action 2 10/07/25
• Battle record - Bolt Action 1 03/07/25
• Battle record - Middle Earth Goblin Town Vs Usurpers of Edoras #MESBG 12/06/25
  
• Battle record - Star War Legion 12/06/25
• Battle record - Middle Earth Goblin Town Vs Orcs #MESBG 08/06/25
• Battle record - Star Wars Legion Droids Vs Wookies - 22/05/25
  
  

Battle record - Warcry - 02/10/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with a game of Warcry. Ben was working so it was Otty, Liam and Otty's son Will in the Hobby/Otty shed. Will had been extolling the virtues of this game for a few weeks now so we decided to give it a go. Aside from the inordinate amount of wounds some models seem to have - 30 for an Orc! It felt like  good game and with some practice maybe a lot fun. But the amount of wounds seem a little silly.

Operation Sealion has had a board upgrade. Otty has built some cobbled sections that create roads and courtyards when buildings and other terrain pieces have been added.

The cobbled effect was achieved through textured wallpaper.

He also 3D printed a bridge for his river section. It should work for both WW2 and MESBG. But it was actually too narrow for tanks so he had to split it down the middle and widen it. It's perfectly adapted to the island in the middle of the river, with magnets to keep it in place.

While in the old shed, now the work shed, one of his old Realm of Battle board shas had a coastal/desert makeover.

These will work with some other terrain to smooth into normal grassland or deserts. He's very inventive so it's all in hand.

Battle record - a lot of Orc hunters on Wargs Vs Hill tribes #MESBG - 11/09/25

I've been #PlayingWarhammer with another game of MESBG. Liam was working so it was Otty, Ben and myself in the Hobby/Otty shed. It's amazing how quickly I can forget what happened in a game, which is why I don't do reports anymore. All I can recall is that Otty's first two turns were pretty good, and Ben almost threw in the towel then and there. But somehow it all unravelled for Otty. Ben, despite his early losses, managed to have weight of numbers in scoring objectives. This meant Otty lost the main objective. Then, by the end of the game the dice rolling was so bad between the both of them, it was liking they were hitting each other with pool noodles! Ben would take the victory and I only remembered to take our selfie when we got into the car. Even so, a lot of fun and more experience for their trip to their next midweek MESBG tournament.