The Eternal Warriors

In the United States, today is Memorial Day. Originally started in 1865 to honor soldiers who died fighting the American Civil War, this holiday has come to encompass all American soldiers who died while on active duty. If you know an active military member, spend time with them; let them know they are appreciated because tomorrow you may not have that opportunity.

On this Memorial Day, as you celebrate the start of Summer, remember those who made your celebration possible.

The Chicago area has 10 different Games Workshop stores and another 10+ large independent hobby stores with open wargaming tables that are all less than a 1 hour drive from one another.  In addition there are dozens of smaller game/comic/book stores spread though out the area that cater to Magic, board games and other smaller independent games.   A google search for “Games Workshop” in the Chicago area will yield 44 different locations.  On top of that we’re hosting Games Day and have the multi-day mega gamer party known as Adepticon.  Within a few hours drive are at least 6 other medium sized cons this year and the biggest gamer orgasm on the planet known as GenCon.  We have a very large and active wargaming community with numerous events every single weekend of the year.  When it comes to gaming opportunities I can safely say that we in the Chicago area are spoiled rotten.

I’m not bragging, I’m telling you this because I appreciate what I have available to me.  Not for one minute do I take it for granted.  It takes a huge  commitment on the part of the gaming community to create, maintain and grow what we now have.  Part of this appreciation is to acknowledge that not everyone is as blessed with gaming opportunities as we are in Chicago.

One of the best things about being a part of this podcast is talking to people from across the world.  Ask me about the gaming opportunities in Columbia, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa and the Saudi Arabia. I’ve spoken to all locations.  Some are large and healthy and some are just two guys with a single starter box.

Even in the US where GW has a large presence the gaming can be spread pretty thin.  Ask Chris about the gaming community in Montana, he met him at Adepticon last year.  Ask the hosts of the 11th Company podcast how large their local gaming community is.  If it was any smaller the 11th Company would be the gaming community.

So how does their small game community effect me?  To be honest, it doesn’t.  Like I said earlier, we here in Chicago are spoiled rotten with opportunity.  But just because we live a privileged existence doesn’t mean we have to act that way.  Chris and I are well aware that we have it good and others don’t.  That’s why we have always been quick to help out a fellow gamer.  That’s why we promote gaming cons we’ll never go to, a painting service we’ve never used, or help publicize a local club we don’t belong to.

And that is why we were quick to come to the defense of a gaming community under threat in Australia and New Zealand.  We both looked over the facts and the facts are true.  People who play 40K and Fantasy in Australia and New Zealand are being overcharged between 65% and 75% by GW.  Their only outlet to buy GW models for a similar price that everyone else in the world pays is to go on-line.  In June that option will be shut down.

At that point a few people will pay full price but many more will stop playing the game.  That by itself is normal, people stop playing this game all the time.  Some come back and others sell their models on ebay.  For a gaming community to stay the same size they need to recruit new players every year to replace the ones who quit.  What do you think will happen if more people quit because they can’t afford to stay in the hobby and less people join because they can’t afford to buy into the hobby.  Seriously people, you don’t need to be a genius to figure this one out.

Has the GW wargaming community been on the decline?  Yes it has.  The proof is clear if you just look.  What happened to the Imperial Truth Podcast?  Why is Podhammer talking about giving up GW games?  Why has the Gamer’s Lounge stopped covering 40K?  Where is Phil Johnson and his Warbanner podcast?  Why did we stop being 100% 40K?  What about Bell of Lost Souls, they used to be 100% 40K also.  Warseer and DakkaDakka forums never used to have a Warmachine or Malifaux section but now they do.

What about Games Workshop the company.  I’ve always said that when a company has bad morale the good people leave because they can and the bad people stay because they have no choice.  Where is Steve Jackson working now?  Where is Rick Priestly, Jervis Johnson, or Alessio Cavatore?  They all left.  Is there something they know that we don’t?

But back to my original point.  Chicago has 10 Games Workshop stores because it has a strong wargamer community to back them up.  Sydney Australia has 13 and it’s wargaming community is under threat.  What do you expect Chris and I to do?  Will we sit and selfishly watch a great wargaming community die because it’s inconvenient to help out.?  No, we’re going to stick our necks out on the line for people we don’t know because it’s the right thing to do.

It is rather funny, to me at least, at all this nerd rage and fall out. The price increase; the corporate mentality gone berserk; the formulaic and ritualistic fuckening GW is committing upon themselves. But this is also kind of sad: not only what they are doing to themselves, but how the rest of us are reacting.

At the root of the issue, are several factors.

• Games Workshop has raised prices, yet again, on many of the items they sell by 1% to 25% with an average of a 22% increase. Not too bad; just the usual we’ve come to expect from them over the last several years.
• Finecast Miniatures was also announced and it made sense: use the relatively stable and cheap price of resin/plastic to replace metal models so the profit returned per model over the rising price of tin was better. Using the same molds utilized for making metal models, GW decided to also increase their prices here as well. Can’t really attribute this move to anything but the need to provide the extra money needed for the increased dividend payout (see below).
• The terms and conditions under which independent retailers (both brick & mortar and internet retailers) must follow to sell GW products has also changed. These new terms, which GW can change any they feel like it, now restrict these retailers to, basically, not selling out of their world zone. For example, retailers in North America and Europe can not sell to Australia or New Zealand where exchange rates, price increases and other poor GW pricing methodology has been employed to cause AU/NZ retail prices to be about 60% more than EU/US prices. Effectively, this change has brought about an embargo upon the English speaking southern hemisphere. The only reason I can see (indeed, the one provided by GW) is the need to push local people towards their GW and FLGS to spend their money there vice lining the pockets of over-seas internet retailers taking advantage of the differing economies and exchange rates.
• Games Workshop announced their profits were better than expected for the 2nd half of their fiscal year. Through personnel shifts, cost cutting measures and other means (that include charging more but selling less product), GW has made more money than they thought they would. These extra monies has allowed them to increase their returns to stock holders while simultaneously not investing further capital into their development capabilities or their product lines. Did I fail to mention the primary person responsible for this increase stands to make an extra $930,000 this year because of the dividend increase?

To a lesser extent, GW has responded to all of these changes (save the generic price increase). Floating around the internet and read on our last episode, you will find a letter written by Citadel/GW Chief Executive, Mark Wells, in response to the irate rantings of gamers everywhere. I would publish that letter here, but we at TEW like to limit the amount of bullshit we put in print. Please allow me to summarize it:

Dear World,
Keeping the basics of supply and demand in mind, we feel justified in raising our prices and restricting who we allow to sell our products. We are a small corporation looking to maximize our profits utilizing any method we see fit. We know you’ll take our move like a champ because, after all, it is us who brings joy to your lives … for a price. So we hope you’ll understand our decisions and fuck you very much.
Love,
Mark Wells

Ever the optimist, I have a few suggestions that might help GW turn its image and long term finances around.

1. Stop listening solely to your Sales and Accounting Departments. They are unholy servants to the cold, unfeeling Cult of Money.
2. Growth of the hobby community (i.e. this generation of gamer producing the next generation of gamer) should be your priority. Steady long term growth trumps short term gains any day … unless you are trying to make yourselves attractive for a buy out.
3. Hire more intelligent people for all your departments. Their smarts just might rub off on the rest of your lot. Case in point: three or four years ago, you incurred debt to make sure you and other share holders got a better dividend.
4. If you can screw online retailers at a whim by dictating who they sell to, surely you can do it again by offering sales at your own bloody stores!
5. Speaking of sales, how about throwing in a Black Library book if someone spends $75 or more at one of your stores? Recently, the Chicago Battle Bunker threw out several dozen books by ripping off the cover and tossing them away. Really! Upper management wouldn’t even let the Bunker give them away!
6. If you are unsure as to what you should do after, ask your opponent or roll a D6.

What’s funny to me about all this is the outrage from virtually every fan and internet talking head. There are online petitions for GW to reverse its policy; nerd rage abounds; keyboards are catching fire from all the hatred being poured into the internet about this; gamers are accelerating the ozone depletion with their wasted breath. There are even numerous calls for a boycott of GW and I sincerely hope that move works. The shitty thing about capitalism is that you can have a virtual hold on how your product is made, sold and marketed and that system is not always fair. So, as a gamer, I also offer some advice to those who feel pretty strongly about all this.

1. Stop thinking your opinion matters so damn much to GW. I’m sure you’ve all faced “that guy” who whined or complained during a game. Well, guess what? In the game of economics, YOU are “that guy.” When it comes to the almighty dollar (or pound etc), GW will take that over your concerns of old codices or price increases or wasted time on expansions like Planetstrike or Spearhead that aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Relatively speaking, GW is like God when it comes to their (divine) marketing and sales plan and they are not about to change that for you. After all, what good is a (divine) plan if any schmuck with a petition, microphone or blog can come around and screw that up? To think that you can means you think too much of yourself.
2. Stop thinking that your voice matters and start thinking that your wallet does. That thing in your back pocket is more than a lump in your ass every time you sit down. There are other gaming companies out there; perhaps it’s time to give them a chance. Instead of spending time and money on something that you are unhappy with, how about donating your gaming time/money to a charity or other organization that actually does the world some good. Perhaps purchase something that makes your life easier or equally as confusing as a hobby? Like a car or house or wedding ring? If you really must spend money on GW, how about buying stock? You will have entered into a vastly smaller pool of voices. Then, and only then, will your voice make a difference.
3. Don’t let your friends talk you into a boycott of GW for the sake of solidarity.

But in the end, none of this probably matters. GW will still function and charge what it wants to and you will either buy it or you won’t. They will either bend or break, and so will you. It’s that simple. So can we get back to the crap that matters? Like Sisters of Battle and Necrons being really out dated? Or tourney people who can’t seem to find their calculator or shower?

This article is reposted from the Tabletop Hooligans website with their permission. Very well written article.

As I’m certain everyone in the gaming universe is well aware of by now, Games Workshop has announced a wide range of price increases currently set to take effect at the end of May. Veterans, and even most neophytes, in the gaming community, would normally roll their eyes at this completely expected maneuver, shrug their shoulders, and move on.

This has not been the case this year. A number of news items have made this a very different merry-go-round of pain for our friends in Great Britain this year, and this may be the year that our friends at Games Workshop have finally overreached, perhaps fatally. Rumors had been circulating for months that GW was going to change production of their metal models over to a resin formula to save on costs for months, an announcement that was eventually confirmed. The first wave of Games Workshop’s new “Finecast” range is coming our way soon. Considering the cost savings of resin over metal, few expected prices would increase this year. Nobody expected that Games Workshop would actually lower prices-that would be madness-but very few people actually expected that GW would actually have the stones to raise prices after publicly switching to a production method they were admitting was going to save them a significant amount of money.

This was not the only public relations disaster that was related to costs coming our way this year. For years, our gaming friends down under have paid significantly more for the same product we enjoy here in the northern hemisphere. Now, some of that had to do with exchange rates and shipping costs, but with the proliferation of online retailers, many in Australia came to the realization they could order from brick and mortar retailers in Great Britain online, and pay for shipping, around the globe, and still save significantly more money over driving around the block and buying from their friendly local gaming store. Or from the local Games Workshop Retailer, which are much more prevalent elsewhere in the world than they are in the US.

Here in the United States, there aren’t a whole lot of areas that depend on GW for brick and mortar play. Independent retailers comprise most of the gaming market here in the United States. We here at Tabletop Hooligans have an amazing FLWS to play at, Brothers Grim Games, and the nearest official Games Workshop Store are the two small stores in New York City, which have less floor space than the storage closet in the basement of Grim. On-topic, though, elsewhere, especially in Australia, Games Workshop in theory generates tremendous revenue from direct sales through their brick and mortar stores. So, that box of Space Marines they sell for $40 in the United States, they in theory sell for approximately $75 in the land of Kangaroos and Steve Irwin. (It does fluctuate a bit due to exchange rates).

Games Workshop, realizing the amount of money they were losing due to their customers not being stupid and exercising their free market rights going elsewhere (even if that elsewhere was a retailer on the other side of the planet) put pressure on their distributors and those retailers to stop selling outside the European Union. The legalities of this are questionable. I’m not going to delve into international trade law here in this editorial, because frankly most of you don’t care and I’m not entirely up on the subject myself, but the end result is the most popular retailers that Australians did business with can no longer sell outside the Eurozone-the European Union and a handful of countries associated with it. Technically, that includes the United States and a bunch of other countries, but, hey, at least we don’t pay seventy five bucks for a tactical squad, right? I managed an independent retailer before. I’ve seen GW exert extremely unfair influence in the industry before. They get away with it because, to be blunt, nobody has the money to go after them in court. Games Workshop hasn’t just shut down shipping to Australia, but indeed, to the entire Southern Hemisphere. That’s right, half of the globe, is prohibited from shipping to the other half of the globe, because it’s cutting into Games Workshop’s own profits.

The “nerd rage” that the combination of these practices has engendered has been spectacular. If, however, the gaming community at large wants to actually effect change, then we need to come to some sort of rational conclusions as a group and do some things.

1: Games Workshop is a publicly traded company. At the end of the day, the thing that the current corporate directors care about is the stock price. Now, that’s ultimately really short sighted, on par with the sort of financial decisions that triggered the Great Recession of 2008. Right now, it’s working for them, because the stock price is still fundamentally sound, in fact, it’s increased because GW’s profits are up. But, they’re only up because GW’s done a number of things that in long term are really going to cost them. They’ve done a great deal of cost cutting, including cutting staff, stretching out release schedules, closing retail stores, and let’s not even talk about the low quality of the way they support their releases after a new book comes out. At the same time, they’ve consistently raised prices year after year. They’ve maintained their profits, yes, but sales volume is down significantly. Looking at their yearly reports, it seems that since 2006, sales by volume have decreased at least 10%, but profits have remained about steady, probably due to a combination of price increases and ‘trimming the fat’ elsewhere. Games Workshop boasts that they make a 75% markup on most of the products sold in their store. As someone who worked in retail for a number of years, let me tell you something-that is an insane profit margin. An electronics store is lucky to make a 10% markup on a high ticket item like a laptop or TV, which is why they try so hard to get you to buy accessories or a warranty. Your friendly local gaming store normally has about a 30% markup on that same box of space marines, which has to go to things like rent and employees. Don’t believe me on this financial information? Remember, they’re a publicly traded company, it’s all required to be available! Check it out on their investor’s website.

http://investor.games-workshop.com/downloads/results/results2010/2009-10_FinalFullYearReport.pdf

2: There’s nothing a publicly traded company hates more than bad publicity. But, if you want to have a lasting impact in such a way that actually has a positive impact on the hobby we all enjoy, we have to do things intelligently and respectfully. Remember, this is a company that we all have given hundreds (or thousands) of dollars over the years and have enjoyed the products they’ve produced. The day-to-day employees who work at the Battle Bunkers are not responsible for these asinine policies. Nor are the guys who write the rules systems we enjoy, nor the sculptors who create the models we love. Hell, even Matt Ward isn’t responsible for this debacle. When talking about this entire situation, remain calm, responsible, and reasonable. But be sure to be on-point about this: We as a community can no longer tolerate a company treating its customers in such a fashion. We have other options. Unlike in the past, when Games Workshop was basically responsible for 90%+ of the tabletop games industry, there’s a whole host of competition out there who treat their customers with far more respect and kindness than Games Workshop corporate has shown us recently. Privateer Press and Battlefront Miniatures are certainly the two biggest that come to mind, but I’ve seen Malifaux, Infinity, Dystopian Wars, Battletech, and a number of others all making their rounds around the shop recently. Also, nobody’s forcing you to use only Games Workshop miniatures at your local friendly gaming store-obviously if your only option is a GW store, then that’s that, but certainly at the Grim that’s not the case.

3: Games Workshop targets two demographic groups with its merchandise: Males 18-49 and teenage boys, both with disposable income. These two demographics are the most coveted in the United States for advertising revenue because, well, we buy tons of crap. Our attention is constantly being fought over as a result. We, as a group, have decided for whatever reason to spend money on Games Workshop products. We’re mostly educated people with disposable income to spend on stuff. We need to make it clear to Games Workshop that we’re not going to spend it on their products any more.

4: How can we do that, you ask? By respectfully contacting them and letting them of our displeasure. And not via the internet, which for some bizarre reason has the ability to trigger mass revolution in the Middle East but not make suits in a board room realize their pricing policies for little plastic soldiers are inefficient. Be respectful and contact them by letter or by phone. The customer service number in the United States is 1-800-394-4263. I don’t have the number for other countries, but I can’t imagine it would be that hard to find. They log and track every phone call they receive. Remember, the nice woman or man on the phone is NOT responsible for the pricing policies Games Workshop is implementing. Be polite to that person, because you’re far more likely to get a positive result if you’re polite, and if all this works, they’re going to be dealing with a lot of phone calls. That said, express your displease over the near-constant price increases they’ve hit us with over the last ten years. In 2001, a box of space marines cost around $25. Now it costs $40, and that’s before whatever price increase they’re going to hit us with at the end of the month. They’ll say something about the price of oil, and manufacturing costs, and that’s fine. You can reply with that little nugget I shared in about the 75% profit margin on product in GW stores, the fact that GW opened another manufacturing plant in Alabama a couple of years ago to cut costs, and the fact that many of their most popular kits-the entire Space Marine range, for example, much of the Eldar plastics, a lot of the Guard stuff-has long since paid for itself a hundred times over. Remember at all times to remain respectful, though. I really can’t emphasize this enough.

Another option is to send a letter. The effort it takes to actually send snail mail means that it gets special attention. In Congress, staffers actually take the time to address constituents that send their Congressmen and Senators letters, simply because so few of them do that they tend to be active in politics. They’re people that can be relied on to talk about the issues to their friends, to encourage them to vote. So by giving those people attention, they can help influence other voters. Even if you call Customer Service, send Games Workshop a letter. Address it to Tom Kirby or Mark Wells, care of Games Workshop, at the following address:

Games Workshop
Willow Road
Lenton
Nottingham
NG7 2WS

Remember to be respectful and polite. Make a coherent, personal, impactful argument. Don’t be a douchebag, or internet toughguy. That completely undermines whatever you’re trying to say and nobody will take you seriously. Worse, you’ll get the cops after you for sending a threatening letter through the mail.

5: Having done all these things, and sworn up and down we’re done buying Games Workshop products…DON’T BUY ANY MORE GAMES WORKSHOP PRODUCTS. Be done with them. God knows I already own enough stuff of theirs to have multiple armies for years to come. I don’t ‘need’ anything else, in sense one could need something in a completely optional hobby one spends disposable income on. The only way to make them see reason is to affect the stock price. The only way to hit the stock price is to shake sales (and cause such a titter of customer discontent through actions like this that investors get antsy). That means not buying their products, no matter how awesome the new War Sphinx looks! In the meantime, support your local gaming store by getting into another game. In a lot of cases, you’ll discover that they can be a lot of fun. We’re starting up a Warmachine and a Flames of War league at Grim in the next couple of weeks, and as much as I’m looking forward to the Grim 40K GT in June, I’m also looking forward to stepping away from the style of Games Workshop games for a bit and getting into the different game styles represented in those other two games systems.

I want to thank all the people participating in the discussions taking place on DakkaDakka, Warseer, and Spacebattles. Some of the ideas and information in this editorial came from various people in those forums and I want to acknowledge all of those people for their collective contributions. I’ve been playing Warhammer and Warhammer 40K for almost fifteen years now and I’ve been gaming for twenty. I want my kids to one day participate in the hobby with me. But I want it to be affordable enough that I don’t have to mortgage the house my wife and I are currently shopping for in order to be able to do it.

Garrett Petersen is an occasional contributor to Tabletop Hooligans. He is an Aquarius and enjoys BBQ, long walks on the beach, and the smell of a combi-melta in the morning. When not gaming he is completing a master’s in special education and also breeds tropical fish. His wife isn’t sure which hobby she hates more. He can be reached at slacker22 at gmail.com

In segment 1, you will be treated to the short version of what we’ve done along with some Black Library news and Privateer Press news.

In segment 2, we’re all about Chaos Daemons.

For segment 3, we’re all about GW’s recent move to raise prices, control the flow of its merchandise and other stupidity.

We thank you for listening and hope you don’t raid your child’s college fund.

Click here to L I S T E N !!!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this post are C Swizzy’s and his alone. They do not reflect the views of TEW in it’s entirety. 

That’s right, I’m not going to BUYcott GW as we have in the past with Planetstrike. As it turns out the term Buycott is the exact opposite of Boycott, as in buying goods from a company in order to show your support. So I would recommend everyone to get their terminology straight…

Now that I got that little PSA out of the way, let’s get down to business. GW, unsurprisingly, announced another price hike that goes into effect at the end of May. Yup, it’s that time of year again. You can almost set your watch to it.  Here’s the best link I could find that has a list of the price increases http://www.3sdgames.com/iumaddog/?cat=5. Props to these guys for the info. On average we’re looking at a 22% increase.

There is also a list of the new Citadel Finecast prices. For those who don’t know, the Finecast stuff is the resin replacement for the old school metal models we all loved or hated. Shockingly enough, they upped the prices on these as well and rumor has it they are direct order only.

On top of all of this “good news” GW decided to screw over the whole southern hemisphere by putting an embargo on retailers selling and shipping GW product down there. I have already heard the rantings from the Aussies and a certain someone in Asia is already planning to make one last bulk purchase before this goes into effect. It appears that GW is trying their hardest to exploit the conversion rate of foreign currencies. This is such a great way to treat your customers….

So let’s get this straight. A few months ago GW stated that their sales were down. What’s the best way to increase sales? Apparently it’s by increasing prices, again….

I seriously have had enough. I’m done. My Astral Claws project is on hold, if not axed all together. I’ll probably make a squad or two from bits I have but that might be it. I hope (but doubt at the same time) that when my Templars get a new book, I’ll be able to use my old BT stuff, but then again look at the Grey Knights book. A lot of the old figs the old school GK players had can’t really be used as much as they were in the past.

I hereby vow that I will NEVER buy from a GW store again. I am officially boycotting GW but there are stipulations. I will still continue to support Black Library as much as humanly possible and I will leave open the option of dabbling in some Forgeworld from time to time.

Now I know some of you will say that Privateer Press isn’t that much cheaper and you might be right to some extent. I still believe that it’s a better bargain because of the support that PP delivers and due to a lower model count, you can get away without buying as much in order to get into Warmachine/Hordes. I still believe you can get a decent 25 point army for right around $100. Malifaux and most of the games put out by Spartan can be started up for just under $100 and this includes a decent sized tournament ready army, not just a beginner army.

I’ve just had enough of GW’s oppression and I’m going to let my wallet do the talking from here on out. I know I’m not the only one who will be doing this, and if you feel as I do, I encourage you to do the same. E Bay is always an option if you just can’t pry yourself away from 40K or Fantasy.

I made a prediciton last year that GW will go under in 5 years. We’re one year in and I think they’re making excellent progress. I even made a wager with Carl from the Independent Characters about this. So Carl, you better start getting sized up for that Sister of Battle costume! LOL

This guest article is brought to you by Inquisitor Medina.

I thought I’d throw out a few thoughts I’ve had about the Grey Knights codex from the UK perspective. So, in best UK style it was off to the converted church hall, tea cup and vaguely thought out army list in hand, to try out the Grey Knights. I decided that, rather than try to build the perfect list, I’d have a go at trying out a few different units to get a bit of variety. It was also part of my goal of buying as few new models as possible. Here is what I took:

• INQUISITOR (ORDO MALLEUS): Psycannon , Terminator Armour , Daemonhammer, 2 Servo Skulls
• Callidus Assassin
• HENCHMEN: 3 Death cultists, 4 Acolytes w/t flak armour, las pistol & chainswords, 3 Acolytes with Carapace armour & multimeltas, 1 Servitor w/t Multimelta in a Chimera with multilaser and heavy bolter.
• GRANDMASTER: Pair of Mastercrafted Nemesis Falchions, Terminator Armour, Blind Grenades, Rad Grenades
• Techmarine: Conversion beamer
• 1 Paladin: Halberd
• Strike Squad: 10 Grey Knights: 2 Incinerators, 2 Forceswords, 6 Halberds
• 6 Terminators: Justicar w/t mastercrafted daemonhammer, Knight w/t Brotherhood Banner, Knight w/t Incinerator & force sword, 3 Knights w/t Halberds, Psybolt ammo.
• Dreadnought: T/L Lascannon, Nemesis Doomfist

I was lucky enough to get a game against Jon “Commissar Random” from the Overlords. He’s a nice guy and brought a semi-mech guard list with plenty of tanks/walkers but no Valkeries. We played a terrain light game and the centre of the board was pretty open. I’m not going through the battle; mainly because my luck was bad enough to fall so far into the extreme end of the probability curves that things happened that couldn’t really be blamed on the unit, or how it was used. I just wanted to sketch out a few things that stuck me. In some ways I selected my army in the way GW seems to: a grab here and there. In contrast the guard were their usual efficient machine of tanks, vets and command squads.

The Grey Knights codex has to be one of my fave codexes. It just feels diverse and full of flavour. It also feels like it embodies the spirit of the army. Does that make effective on the table top though? Well there’s the rub …  I tried using the above list keeping everything except the dreadnought, techmarine and paladin in reserve. Sadly ruins were lacking so the tactic of hiding a dreadnought in ruins that had been bolstered defence by the tech marine didn’t pan out.

GOOD POINTS

The Paladin as a 55 point troop unit. Great. I used the Grandmaster to make him a troop. He sat on my objective and held it (killing half a IST squad, routing them, then holding up 2 sentinals in CC for 2 turns before the game ended).

The Techmarine with conversion beamer: I really liked this. He sat in a corner and sent long range s10 blasts at a tank. Ok, so I kept rolling 1’s on the damage table, but hey that was par for the course this game). I didn’t get much use out of bolster defences but I plan on putting him and a rifleman dread in a set of ruins and using them for anti tank.

The Inquisitor; he didn’t do much due to deepstrike problems but the fear factor of that stubborn deep striking unit with an extra psycannon is lovely and he’s a very cheap HQ.

Psychic pilot: this was fantastic. My dreadnought just kept shooting. Was awesome.

Forceswords: cheaper than halberds for strike squads. The extra initiative of the halberd doesn’t justify the cost against guard/orks, so it is only really for marines but still not worth the extra points. Plus can someone tell me why the best equipped force the Imperium has to offer doesn’t seem to carry bolt pistols? It’d make a heck of a difference!

BAD POINTS

Deepstriking:

Having held almost the whole army in reserve, I ran into some issues. Firstly, with the Grandmaster in reserve, no psychic communion to assist with reserve rolls. This meant that my Chimera didn’t arrive until T3. Alone. By then the dreadnought, Techmarine and Paladin had taken a whole armies worth of shooting (again I say that psychic pilot is very good!). My 2 strikes squads refused to arrive until T4. They deep struck and failed to kill anything with their shooting. This left basically 2 squads of T4 3+ save marines. They will merciless gunned down by the massed plasma vets of the dug in guard.  No matter how well timed you think your deep striking is, if you don’t make the reserve rolls, you are screwed. To rely on it for a whole army is probably insane.

On T5 the callidus arrived. Very unimpressive. On T5, the terminators deepstruck, scattered 11 inches into a wall and rolled a 1 on the mishap table. Bye Bye 300 points. On T5 the Grandmaster arrived – bit pointless by that late in a game. So over a third of the army stayed out of the game until T5 and for half the game I was playing with less than 600 points on the table. This might well be outside the statistical range you’d expect but when it does, it kills you bad. Not enough teleport homers or servo skulls either…..

Callidus: where to start. An interesting unit and an old favourite. I loved the old rules and fluff. I took her in this list to give it a unit that could hit devastators and targets out of range of my very short ranged Grey Knights. She has a wonderful stat line and a nice attack on the turn she arrives. Sadly she has a major flaw. She deploys via deepstrike within 3 inches of the unit she targeted without scatter. This is a really crappy. She will not kill an entire unit, even with the D6 AP2 hits. So she is then left right next to it. She can’t move and she can’t assault. The neural shredder is not a good weapon as most units it attacks will have a leadership of at least 9, more likely 10. She will die quickly. She will get gunned down without any hassle without ever getting into assault. Epic fail. Avoid.

Eternal warrior, storm shields and melta.

I understand why fluff wise they probably wouldn’t have as much melta. They should have a damn sight more than they do. I think GW might have forgotten how much mech and melta there is out there these days. Lack of storm shields is baffling. Lack of Eternal warrior or storm shields on a HQ means you get hit by melta or plasma and you can say bye bye to those Paladins, Librarians, Grandmasters etc very quickly.

I think that the relaxed British game suits Grey Knights and I’m sure better players will do much better with them with some interesting combo’s. They are cheap model wise, fluffy, and they have some cool tricks. I’ve already been hacking the halberds off the strike squads and I’m planning many more psycannons and am so tempted by a Landraider but first I need to find the story for the army.

In segment 1, we get acquainted with what we’ve all been doing in the last few weeks. Then we get into Dark Eldar releases, mention the new Fantasy FAQs, Pathfinder and Warmachine’s Unbound. Then we discuss the Sisters of Battle White Dwarf update we mentioned about a year ago and how it is being picked up by other websites now. Then we mention The Overlords Video Battle Report and a contest by Nathan Long for his upcoming Bloodforged novel. There’s still time to enter!

In segment 2 we bring you the first installment of 40K For Idiot’s: Teminology 101.

In segment 3, there is a rant from C-Swizzy, mention of an excellent article on Blood of Kittens about GW’s sample lists being about spending the most money and then we take you out.

We hope you enjoy this show and remind you that 1 is the lonliest number … and a fail.

L I S T E N   H E R E !!!