Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 13/11/25

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed bto finish off playing Star Wars Legion, Rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be], but rebels were Ewoks, Wookies, Pyke Syndicate and Mandolorians. 

Things did not get better for the Empire. Despite a really good turn where the AT-ST wiped out the unit of Ewoks on the central objective, to deny them 2VPs we were destroying squads, not making them panicked, which was scoring the rebels lots of secondaries.

And we would still lose units, while Ben was able to work with what he had left.

We discovered we'd been playing the armour rules wrong, which we think then meant even the 'primitive' Ewok slingers had a chance to damage the AT-ST through rate of fire. Given they're rolling black dice [white dice are worse, black dice are better, red dice are best] to hit and the AT-ST's armour just ignores the first 5 hits there's a chance other shots get through. The slingers are just wrong and cost a third of what a unit of Stormtroopers does and they're hitting on white dice. Yes I know that tracks with how bad a shot they are in the film but there are no strength Vs toughness roles here. A hit and a save is what you get. Stormtrooper saves are better than Rebels, but even so it feels all wrong.

Ultimately we lost but decided to start again...

Pretty much the same board, different mission and deployment.

But in the first turn I think the Ewoks were at it again. For something we'd found to be so much fun the previous week this was quite the rude response.

We've a week off as some of the guys are on night shift and hopefully we'll come back refreshed and keen to play on. But at this point it seems there's a definite imbalance...

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 06/11/25

Afternoon we've had a couple of weeks where we weren't all able to meet at Otty's shed but we finally managed it. Back playing Star Wars Legion, rebels V's Imperial [what else would it be], but rebels were Ewoks, Wookies, Pyke Syndicate and Mandolorians. 

Got to roll out some of the terrain I recently painted. Now, this was a very interesting night of gaming after our 3 week effort to play 40. We only managed 2 turns, so the speed of the game was comparable.

We discovered new rules for the units and just how ridiculously OP Ewoks are - their slings totally wrecking two speeder bikes. Again, these things were similar to our 40k experiences.

The dice rolls were fickle both ridiculously good and bad, well that happens in every dice game.

But despite sharing many of the issues we had with 40k this game was not just fun but often hilarious. I don't know what it is about the game or why this light-hearted atmosphere was created.

Is it the IP, based on childhood memories versus 40k that has always been steeped in the grimdark?

We can't work it out, but we're all in agreement that we love the game. 

I mean even if the Imperials were being utterly savaged by these local teddy bears there was a lot to enjoy. Can't wait to try and finish it off next week.

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