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September 2006 ISSUE 01 www.warseer.com/rebasemag Simian Staff Listing Head Monkey: Adam Smith PR Monkey: Brandon Vallee Assistant Monkey: Ashley Curtis Specialist Monkey: Simon Fisher Design Monkey: Steve Gagn Art Monkeys: Ben Biggs, Nicolas Giacondino, Donald Carr Writing Monkeys: Joel and Gerard Pitt (aka: The Brothers Pitt), Ross Allan, Alex Kallend, Brandon Vallee, Tony Venezia, Adam Smith, Johan Hansson, Ashley Curtis, Saul Painter, Paul Cook, Simon Smith, Simon Fisher, Dustin Hrenyk, Rob Holland, Don Hornby, Andy Maddison, Jon Wilson and Ben McLeod FIREBASE is published every three months in association with Warseer.com. All text and layout remains the copyright of FIREBASE. FIREBASE is a fully independent publication and its views are not the views of any company mentioned herein. All characters and artwork shown in this magazine remain the and trademark of their respective owners. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without the express permission of the Editor or Deputy Editor. FIREBASE can accept no responsibility for inaccuracies or complaints arising from editorial or advertising within this magazine. All letters and emails received will be considered for publication, but we cannot always provide personal replies. This fanzine is completely unofcial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop Limited. FIREBASE magazine is a non-prot making fanzine with the aim of promoting Games Workshop games, products and hobby.All adverts shown are free of charge and are provided purely in the publics interest.

Firebase Editorial
We are here! FIREBASE is here! Youve waited long, youve waited hard and all good things come to those that wait.

Here we are Born to be kings Were the princes of the universe!

Queen, Princes of the Universe

Its been a long and arduous road, lled with peril, pitfalls and gory paint schemes, but now a staggering 100 pages of hardcore hobby material is in your possession; bursting with tactics, conversions, painting guides, battle reports and some of the great old games that make you all misty eyed and nostalgic. Welcome citizen, to the rst issue of FIREBASE magazine bringing you the best of Warhammer 40,000 every quarter, to give you the x youve been craving. But what makes this magazine so special you may ask? Well, much like the inspiring Wargames Journal, FIREBASE is entirely free to download and read on Adobe Acrobat as a PDF le. As I sit writing this, issue #2 is well underway and it goes to show what a monster of a magazine FIREBASE has become. Until next time! - Adam Smith

Contents
Firebase Editorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Converting Your Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 Eternal Dam-nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Steel over Flesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Gaming Etiquette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Tactica Kult of Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Freakz and Firewarriors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 I Quit! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Fer Boyz Wiv No Teef . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 An Orks Tale Birth of a Warrior . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Stikkin Da Boot In! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Through the Valley of the City of Death . . . . . . . 60 Slumming It. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 In space, Everyone can hear your WAAAAAGH! . 68 The Dockyard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Five Admirals and a Hiveeet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Battle Over Medusa V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Welcome To the Underhive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Down With the Hood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Run Him Outta Town! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Nicolas R. Giacondino illustrator

nicolas.giacondino@gmail.com Gallery: http://photobucket.com/albums/d61/aerion_the_faithful/
http://n.r.g.epilogue.net

RustedEngine Comics
http://www.warseer.com/rusted_engine_studio

Converting Your Home

oor to table wasnt so simple. After University, I split up with my girlfriend and had to move back in with my folks. All of a sudden it was back to the oor and all the risks that came with it. Playing on the dinning room table was not an option, unless I wanted an ear bashing from my folks. One single scratch or mark would mean eternal damnation and ery torment at least until I got enough money together to rent my own apartment. The Brothers Pitt persuaded me into commissioning them to make me a gaming board in 3 sections which I currently store in a large cupboard. They made it nice and scummy looking for me as well as having various rocky levels. Necromunda is my favourite game and theres

t was many summers ago when I rst assembled, painted and took Eddie the Chaos Dreadie to battle. He looked so very ne, arrayed in all manner of spikey bits and had been lovingly painted. Then our pet dog crushed him underfoot. That was the day we decided to stop playing on the oor.
Our little gaming group has moved on considerably. No longer do we sit in the middle of the living room playing on an old desert matt with pieces of card scenery scattered around. Now we are real men! We drink beer and stand around a table displaying the nest gaming boards and terrain. We also have fully painted armies something we could only dream of before. But the transition from

Shot 1: The dining room table, chairs and cabinet: A place of tranquility and elegance. Scratch the table and you die!

Shot 2: Pull the table into the middle of the space, while pushing all the chairs up to the available wall space, not preventing access to the kitchen door.

Shot 3: Get an old table cloth from the kitchen and the gaming boards from upstairs. I have a large cupboard in my room, while other people I know keep their boards in the attic.

nothing quite like a rotting, disjointed town. Fortunately I had plenty of my own scenery. After some discussion (and bribery) with the Parental Unit, I came up with the following method to playing on the dinning room table. If youre in the same situation, show your Parental Unit, Wife, Girlfriend, Boyfriend(?) or Pet this article. It might just help. - Adam Smith

Shot 4: Lay the gaming boards on the table and add some scenery. Crack open a couple of beers, youre ready to play.

Eternal Dam-nation
The illustrated guide by Joel and Gerard Pitt

hat possesses a supposed sane human being to build a board like this?

the Romans, would want to keep roads at. It also added an extra level to the board and gave objectives. FB: How did the ideas for the other sections of the board come about? I see we have some sort of underground cavern, a powerplant, a SAM site and a bunker on top of the dam.

I dont know, but I do know that building terrain and gaming boards is one of the most rewarding aspects of this hobby. You can have a golden demon standard army, but without a beautiful battle eld to ght over, you will never get the full experience of small scale plastic warfare! FIREBASE: What sparked this insane project?

Gerard: Well the underground cavern was hour in the DIY shop not going to be there, we had originally Gerard: We decided the ash wastes planned to have that area hollow only to arguing over which board was getting old and we needed save weight but when the construction pot of paint to get. a new giant board! The dam idea came was nearly done we added a hole to look while watching a documentary (5 industrial wonders of like the water channel that was used to divert the the world) on the construction of the Hoover dam and river during construction like the Hoover dam. The decided it would make bunker on top was an idea from someone on WarSeer an awesome board. and the power generators were to make it look more like Hoover FB:How did the dam and bridges come about? the crashed Gerard: We needed spaceship better access across was to add the valley and felt that cover and the Imperium, like linked in with

We spent almost an

the missile turret (it had been shot down) the fuel towers were for cover overlooking the valley and bridge. FIREBASE: Going back to the beginning, how did the construction begin? Gerard: Well we started by drawing the map layout onto paper and then estimated how much polystyrene we would need. Once we had the polystyrene we cut the boards to the right length we mapped out the board roughly. FB: I understand that you layered up the polystyrene and then shaped it somehow? Gerard: After we had mapped it roughly we made more detailed plans and began cutting the shapes of the hills. We made identical pieces and layered them about 4 sheets thick. Once they had dried, we shaped the cliff. FB: How did you prepare it before painting and how did you go about painting it? Gerard: We made the cliff section then aligned all the board with all the cut hill pieces before shaping them, then we glued them down

good plan for your board, before you even purchase any materials. You should doodle, sketch, research and repeat until you know exactly what kind of board you want to make. We spent several hours planning out exactly what we wanted to do, and also went back to the plan, occasionally making revisions, as we went along

oel: I cannot stress enough the importance of having a

and sanded them to form realistic terrain. We then used dental plaster in its thin form to coat the whole board to add strength, then used the thicker stuff to make more realistic terrain features. We also used it to smooth over the surface of the dam to look like cement and blend the dam and the crashed shuttle into the oor. Once all the terrain looked realistic, we applied a thin layer of sand and gravel to the board. We then pained it with a series of sandy colors ending in bleached bone.

FB: Where did you get dental plaster from? Gerard: The dentist FB: Really? You just strolled into your dentist and said Hi...Id like some plaster? Gerard: Well, Joel wanted it for Venice But yes, he strolled in and said What sort of plaster do you use? and the dentist said This stuff and Joel asked to buy some.

FB: How much did he charge you and how much did you get? Gerard: I dont know but we used about 10 margerine tubs worth FB: How big is the board? It looks bigger than a standard board? Gerard: Its 5 x 6 ft. We though 4 x 6 would leave the valley too thin.

FB: Thanks for taking the time for talking to us. Gerard. One more thing You fancy a game? Gerard: Sure!

Steel over Flesh

was as happy as a dog with two tails when I arrived for my game on the fabled dam board. Now this is what playing 40K is about! A fantastic looking army to play against on some amazing terrain and I brought a pretty ne army of my own to do it with too.

dam, each would be worth 500 victory points. As we were playing outside, we knew the light would fade sooner or later, so the last turn of the game would be played using the Night Fighting rules. It should be getting dark by then.

H E C A N T K I L L TH E M A L L !
Gerard: My tactics for this battle are fairly standard, Im going for the usual Tyranid idea of trying to get to the enemy before everything dies and then worry about capturing objectives. Simple!

The game was dictated by the board and our surroundings. None of this rolling for mission and objective counters malarkey! A victory points based game, with the objective to capture the bridges and the

1,500pts Hive Fleet Pitt Army:

Hive Tyrant with rending claws, scything talons and extended carapace 2 tyrant guard Brood Lord with extended carapace and toxin sacs 8 genestealers retinue with scything talons and extended carapace 4 Tyranid Warriors with extended carapace, scything talons, rending claws, toxin sacs and leaping. One warrior carries a barbed strangler. 4 Tyranid Warriors with extended carapace, scything talons, rending claws, toxin sacs and leaping. One warrior carries a Venom cannon. Two warriors carry death spitters.
10

20 Hormagaunts 8 Hormagaunts with toxin sacs and adrenal glands 8 Spinegaunts Biovore with bio acid spore mines Carnifex with regenerate, toxin sacs, scything talons and a mace tale Carnifex with enhanced senses, scything talons and a venom cannon

I know I will need a lot of xenos sinew to absorb all that gauss power. I have included a couple of Carnifex to draw the re from the gaunts and survive to capture the objectives. This will hopefully allow my Hormagaunts and warriors to survive and mash up his Necrons in close combat. My Genestealers and Brood Lord aim to capture the dam and hold it till the end of the game securing me 500 victory points. Ive given them all extended carapaces, so they should survive.

1,500pts Attack Force X51 Army

Necron Lord Lordi with a destroyer body, war scythe, phylactery and resurrection orb 12 Necron Warriors 12 Necron Warriors 12 Necron Warriors 4 Necron Destroyers 4 Necron Destroyers 4 Necron Destroyers
Theyre fast, theyre fearless, they have lots of attacks and I dont have any high AP weapons to make big holes in their monstrous creatures. However, I do have spades of repower! Im going to get charged regardless of what I do and its going to be by some of the smaller gribblies. Hormagaunts to be precise little blighters! The plan is to set up just out of 24 so I will get a turn to wittle down his numbers with the Necron Warriors and use the Destroyers for targeting and wiping out a single unit per turn through sheer weight of repower. Even his monstrous creatures should go down to 36 strength 6 shots! With little return re, I should be able to run (or skim) amok.

H E R E TH E Y C OM E
Adam: Boy, that army looks exciting on paper or not! Such is the way with the Necron army it seems. I am the kind of guy who shows up to every game with the same army list. I dont believe in tailoring my army selection to my opponents army and once Im happy with how my army works, I stick to it. It also saves me writing out new army lists. While Id love to take some Pariahs or Tomb Spyders, I prefer to take as many troops as possible to absorb lots of enemy repower and not phase out while dishing out plenty of repower of my own. But for once, Im up against the Nids and they dont have many guns.

11

D E PL OY M E N T
TYRANID
Gerard: As with any objective based game deployment is crucial. I had lots of gaunts and lots to hide from, so placing them was difcult. After much deliberation I opted to place them on the road leading into the valley and it would block them off from the majority of his force and give them easy access to his side of the valley. My plan was to intercept his Necron Warriors before he moved onto the bridge and charge them from both the bridge and the valley oor. This would allow me to pin them in combat while the Hive Tyrant made his slow progress across the bridge. If they were all killed he could capture the objective and stop any Necrons from moving onto the bridge as well as kill some of them. The leaping Tyranid Warriors were more difcult to place, with synapse in mind I decided to deploy them in the valley oor behind the largest hill and covering the main attack down the centre. They were sufciently close to the Gaunts to keep them inn synapse and close

enough to jump up onto the bridge at the last minute. They were also hidden from the majority of his Destroyers giving them much needed protection against the AP 4 gauss cannons. The shooting Tyranid Warriors were not needed for synapse as I already had the Hive Tyrant and leaping Tyranid Warriors so I placed them on the high ground on my side of the valley near the Gaunts. That way if the leaping Tyranid Warriors died they could provide synapse and it gives them a good eld of re. The Carnifexes were easier to place. One I put on the high ground sniping with his venom canon, the other I placed in the valley oor, hoping to use the bridge struts as cover as it moved across the board. The Biovore deployed high on my side of the valley ready to rain spores on the advancing Necrons and able to cover the dam or bridge. Finally, my inltrating Genestealers and Brood Lord deployed at the end of the dam, ready to sweep across his ank or capture the dam.

NECRON
Adam: Gerard had won the dice roll for choosing table sides and grabbed the side with the most space to manoeuvre while I was somewhat restricted.

12

I set up my Necron Warriors around the centre to protect the boundary of my little island of hill with the two bridges and dam coming in. The Necron Lord went in the centre with the Necron Warriors so that he could make a counter-charge if needed. The Destroyers all deployed on the far right ank where they should be able to sweep round and roll up the Tyranid lines. I spread my army out as best I could to stop those damn Genestealers and their Broody Lord from inltrating too close. Sit tight, wait for him to come to me

gaunts and the Carnifex in the valley continued to lumber on and the one on the hill prepared to re with his venom cannon. The Genestealers moved onto the bride and the shooty Tyranid Warriors crawled down the slope weapons training for targets.

TU R N 1
TYRANIDS
I got rst turn and moved all my Gaunts directly forward toward the Necrons. My Tyranid Warriors also advanced behind the Gaunts, out of site of the Destroyers and within synapse. The Hive Tyrant followed suit and along with his Guard followed the Gaunts onto the bridge. My 45pt Spinegaunt shield blocked his re from my enhanced

As with most Tyranid armies my shooting phase was fairly quick and uninteresting with very few guns and none with any degree of accuracy. My venom cannon hit a Necron Warrior but failed to kill it and the Biovore was out of range. However I did role a 5 and 6 for all my eet of claw moves which brightened up my day! With nothing in combat range it was over to Adam

13

NECRONS
The Tyranids were close, far too close! Time to give them a dose of green lasery death.

and with some support from one of the Destroyer squads, they were annihilated in a blaze of green light. The Destroyers on the bridge raked the valley oor with their gauss cannons, killing 12 of the Hormagaunts. 8 where left, but the synapse control of the Hive Mind stopped them eeing. I could see that they were in range to charge one of the Necron Warriors squads in the centre next turn. Im sure theyd be ne, but having my repower reduced could be a problem in slowing the Tyranid advance.

TU R N 2
TYRANIDS
With the torture of the Necron repower over, I had to re-group the remaining Gaunts. His Destroyers had killed 12 of the brood and unless they reached his Necron Warriors this turn they would never make it. With another lucky eet of claw roll they charged the warriors on the slope. My Genestealers continued to move across the dam toward the Necron Warriors. If only they could eet of claw.

The Destroyers moved on to the bridge on right ank, while the Necron Warriors on the dam moved back from the advancing Genestealers. The plan was to bunch the squad up, then move in for some rapid ring next turn. I just hope I can kill enough of the Genestealers to hold up the Brood Lord until my Necron Lord can get there and start cutting them down with his war scythe. The two Necron Warrior squads in the centre opened re on the nearest squad of Hormagaunts on the bridge

14

My shooting was a little more successful this turn. I managed to kill 2 Necron warriors with the biovore and venom cannon and then proceeded to assault with the Hormagaunts. After a disastrous round of combat, I failed to kill any Necrons and lost a Hormagaunt. With the Gaunts in synapse range they stayed in combat till next turn when I hoped the Carnifex or Hive Tyrant would reach the combat.

I expected 24 shots to do some damage, but was as shocked as Gerard when he rolled 8 armour saves and didnt pass a single one! I then laughed maniacally, of course. The Genestealers where wiped out, leaving the Brood Lord sitting there by himself. He didnt seem best pleased. Next turn, I expected the Brood Lord to shred the warriors and win combat. Id then spectacularly fail my leadership test (as Im renown for doing) and the line would start to collapse. It was a good thing that the Necron Lord was close by. The Necron Warriors stuck in combat with the Hormagaunts werent going anywhere, much to my frustration. Fortunately, it looked as though nothing else was going to join the combat next turn. My metallic minions were certain to prevail.

NECRONS
The Spinegaunts on the bridge were ayed down to their last molecule by one of the Necron Warrior squads, while the combined repower of the Destroyers tore the combat Carnifex apart in a salvo of intense re power. I didnt want it to join the combat between the Necron Warriors and Hormagaunts on the slope. On the dam itself, the Necron Warriors advanced towards the Genestealers and opened re.

TU R N 3
TYRANIDS
This was beginning to look glum, after failing all 8 4+ saves my Genestealers on the bridge were completely

15

destroyed leaving only the Brood Lord (who was a bit pissed off) to charge the squad and with his Necron Lord moving in, things on the dam didnt look hopeful. Things in the valley were going equally disastrous! My Carnifex had been ripped apart by his Destroyers in one turn without even being able to regenerate and my Gaunts had made no gains in the combat during the Necron turn. I also managed to knock down one Destroyer but the damn thing got back up using some sort of advanced cheese-induced resurrection program!

dam hed have to kill all of them (not likely!). My Gaunts made little progress on his side of the valley, loosing 2 and killing none but as they were still in synapse they didnt fall back holding the Necron Warriors in combat another turn while the unharmed Hive Tyrant and venom cannon Carnifex stomped across the bridge. Although all the Gaunts in front of the Hive Tyrant had been killed and I had suffered heavy casualties across the board, my plan was still working. The Gaunts were pinning the Necron Warriors in combat while the monsters advanced slowly and my warriors were ready to charge next turn onto the bridge.

NECRONS
With the Tyranid rank and le decimated, it was time to take down the heavy hitters -the Hive Tyrant and Carnifex! My Brood Lord charged into combat and killed 2 Necron Warriors with some lighting fast claw skills but the Necron Lord was still closing in fast and if he was to capture the All my Necron Warriors moved into position to target the Tyrant standing

16

triumphant on the central bridge, ready to give him a good dose of gauss aying. With a maniacal laugh, I zoomed the Necron Lord off the dam and across the gorge next to the Biovore, ready to strike it down next turn. Skimming never looked so cool! The Destroyers hovered where they were. Its not like they needed to actually move to splatter the variety of insectoid targets on offer. Two of the squads turned their guns on the Tyranid Warrior squad with the barbed strangler and well and truly splattered them all. The Necron Warriors rapid red the Tyrant and his Guards, backed up by re from the third Destroyer squad. They succeeded in Killing the two Tyrant Guards, but the Tyrant stood deant right on the central bridge objective and ready to charge the Necron Warriors next turn Not good!

TU R N 4
TYRANIDS
With the game now drawing to an end, it was vital that my large creatures got into combat. Despite the Necron Warriors pumping everything they had into my Hive Tyrant, he still stood and prepared to charge the Necron Warriors at the end of the dam. With the Carnifex backing him and both of them on full wounds things looked hopeful. The shooting phase wasnt very successful, the only casualty being my Biovore. With the Necron Lord zooming in, the poor thing panicked and hilariously blew itself to pieces. (It red at the lord and his bio acid mine scattered onto himself). Thats just how scary the Necron Lord is! In the assault phase I charged straight in with the Hive Tyrant and started slashing apart 3 Necron Warriors on the end of the bridge. Unfortunately, the bridge was too narrow to let the Carnifex into combat as well.

17

Next, I charged the Destroyers with the surviving Tyranid Warrior squad by leaping up onto the second bridge. They didnt kill any of them, but tying the Destroyers up could swing things for me by denying him a good portion of his repower.

NECRONS
Sausages! I could have sworn those Tyranid Warriors wouldnt be able to charge the nearest Destroyer squad, but thats what happens when you forget about leaping. If only I hadnt been so overcondent and had moved the Destroyers back.

The game had descended into a massive melee, with one Destroyer squadron locked in combat with the Tyranid warriors on the right ank. The Hive Tyrant continued to munch through Necron Warriors on the central bridge. Every blow that hit home bounced off his tough hide or heavy armour. It looked like the Tyrant would destroy all of my Necron Warriors and claim the bridge. My gamble to shoot him and nish him off in combat had not paid off. Thats what happens when you underestimate a 2+ save. My mobile Destroyers red at the remaining Carnifex, wounding it, but not enough to kill it. No worries, The Necron Lord was rapidly approaching with his war scythe!

TU R N 5
TYRANIDS
With my army diminished as usual and only my monstrous creatures left on the board, there was very little to do this turn. My Hive tyrant butchered the remaining Necron Warriors, breaking them, overrunning them and then consolidating back on to bridge. My Tyranid Warriors on the second bridge killed 2 destroyers and still had 3 left to contest the bridge. With both

18

TU R N 6
TYRANIDS
This being the nal turn, I had lost all hope for a draw, so I tried to hold out for a minor loss. With the Hive Tyrant alone on the bridge and on 2 wounds, he had to stay exactly as he was in order to claim the objective. I was trusting in the dice to give me some armour saves and hoping hed still be alive at the end of the Necron turn. Combat on the other bridge was going ok. While no casualties were being inicted or suffered, I was still managing to tie up an expensive unit of his and stop him claiming the bridge.

combats at a stale mate it was over to the Necrons.

NECRONS
With the Tyrant alone on the bridge, my Destroyers and the Necron Warriors up on the damn were able to get a clear shot. The Tyrant staggered under weight of re, losing 2 wounds. If I could inict just one more, he wouldnt be a scoring unit. The Necron Lord charged the Carnifex and separated his torso from the abdomen with a single sweep. He then consolidated away from the Hive Tyrant. He can always charge in next turn if he really has to. The Destroyers continued ghting the Tyranid Warriors on the bridge with neither side inicting any casualties. I was really kicking myself about letting them get charged. If the Tyranid Warriors end up claiming the bridge, it could all be over.

19

NECRONS
With my nal turn all I had to do was take a wound off the Hive Tyrant and kill 2 of the Tyranid Warriors to secure all the objectives. Every gun that wasnt in combat was aimed at the Hive Tyrant and opened re but amazingly, every single shot ricocheted off the Hive Tyrants armour and after a whole turn of ring he still stood with 2 wounds left to claim the objective! I didnt charge him with the Necron Lord. It was just too risky and I didnt fancy having my 200pts Lord ripped to shreds. The second Bridge was contested by The Tyranid Warriors, but the Necron Warriors had secured the dam! Things were a draw in terms of objectives, but victory points were another matter, with the Necrons being in the lead by 600 VPs A crushing victory!

determine the problems with the army. Firstly the Gaunts and Carnifexs dont work well together as the Gaunts get too far forward and die before the Carnifexes can reach combat. Equally my army doesnt pack nearly enough re power! The solution? Three more Carnifex and another Hive Tyrant, but thats a project for the future!

TARGET PRIORITY
Adam: While the little gribblers arent going to hurt my Necrons too badly, theres a lot of the buggers and being bogged down in combat can be disastrous. Fortunately, the monstrous creatures are slower than a snail with a gammy leg and a nasty limp (if snails have legs), so it was a case of kill the fast stuff and mop up the rest later. But while I sit here all smug and victorious, it would have all ended in tears and entrails everywhere were it not for my lovely Destroyers. Destroyers are sick. Oh so sick! Whether theyre shooting at Land Raiders, Carnifex, or small children, they will kill it. Strength 6, 3 shots, good range, accuracy and high mobility make them one of the best units in the game and only for a mere 50 points each stunning! Oh, and they get back up on a 4+. But its all for nothing if youre daft enough to let them get charged and tied up in combat with Tyranid Warriors. In future Ill have to keep them moving. They dont have a ring range of 36 inches for nothing I guess.

A F T E R G A M E THOUG H T S
CLOSE, BUT NO PIE
Gerard: Well, my entire army was wiped out. However by looking at the order in which everything died, I can

20

Gaming Etiquette

r how to more or less guarantee repeat gaming with your opponent

help you if you break one, especially if its converted. So, all in all, best just to ask. That way, if it breaks, its less of a big deal.

Well, Hello there dear chap. Welcome to Mad Doc Grotsniks School for Gaming Etiquette. Oh come now, theres really no need to look so alarmed. Were here just to run you through a few basic dos and donts of Gaming. Its really pretty simple you know. Here, Ive broken it down into several easy steps. So easy even a 12 year old newbie could manage it, what! Look, I can see your still looking rather perplexed old bean, so Ill start you off with a few easy ones, before we move on to the more in depth forms of etiquette. Are you ready? Then Ill begin.

R U L E N U M B E R TWO .
When youve arranged your game, either in advance, or on the spot, whats the most important thing to have with you, apart from your models? Dice? No, not really, though it can be polite You too must have to bring your own. No? Give up? The rules! Not met an opponent who just your own copy of conveniently doesnt your chosen game, but have the rules for his also all the rules for your chosen force, whether Super Unit OHacky in Codex, White Dwarf Death that just smashed or even download. This your entire army easy provision means any in game confusions can be cleared up with a minimum of fuss, and certainly no bad blood. Surely, dear boy, you too must have met an opponent who conveniently doesnt have the rules for his Super Unit OHacky Death that just smashed your entire army! Tiny provision, big kudos!

RU L E NU M B E R O N E .
Your opponents models are just that. Your opponents. When playing against another spunky young chap, do ask his permission before you start to fondle his Nob, or indeed, any other model in his collection. Even if the paint job may not look like much to you, it may be the best hes ever done. Besides, asking doesnt hurt! I mean, how would you like it if all and sundry came along and started to give your models a good once over? God

22

R U L E N U M B E R TH R E E .
Respect your opponent. If youre playing a game, see it through. Do not throw a hissy t just because you are losing. Do not leave the table for unreasonable amounts of time during your opponents turn. Do not ask your opponent to re-roll dice because you didnt see him role it. Or, to be blunt, dont be an arse. The games are meant to be fun. They are a means of entertainment. If you get that wound up about losing, then may I suggest something slightly less skill dependant, like Snakes and Ladders. Or sitting in a darkened room on your own and allowing humanity to continue without you.

ring lines set up. All my opponent had to do was blunder into it, and his arse (well, hers) was mine. And then ToadBoy shows up, and blabs about my devilishly cunning plan, and costs me the And then Toad-Boy game. Now, had my shows up, and blabs opponent spotted the about my devilishly trap for herself, fairly dos, she beats me fair cunning plan, and and square. But to have costs me the game. some (expletive deleted) point it out is just unfair. I was playing Monica, NOT you! So, keep opinions, hands, comments and help to yourself basically. Not a tall order, but one several people miss!

R U L E N U M B E R F OU R .
If you are a spectator in a game, as I know many of our community will be at one time or another, for the love of God please remember thats all you are. You are neither players special coach. Nor are you there to provide commentary. Nothing ruins a good solid game than outside interference from some git-faced know-itall who insists on aiding and abetting either side. Surely, if youre about to fall into a cunningly laid trap, youll learn more about it than if some socially and hygienically challenged oik decides to point out to you. This has happened numerous times to me, and the same bloody person has pointed all out. Cunning charges and cunning

So, there we have it. The Four basic rules to the mysterious and ancient etiquette of gaming. Although I have used the nd products of Games Workshop in my examples, these guidelines apply to any and all war games. And I can guarantee that if you follow them, at least in spirit if not to the letter, you will get return match ups with opponents time and time again! - Ross Allan

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Tactica Kult of Speed

the units available with some scrutiny.

here are many different ways to approach most armies in the game, and the Kult of Speed is no different; the only constants are that, whichever direction you take the army, youre going to be both mobile, and fragile.

H E A D QUA RT E R S
You must take one Warboss or one Big Mek. The question is what role you want your HQ to have in the game.

BIKER WARBOSS
A Warboss is ok as HQs go, but hes no Daemon Prince. Hes going to have trouble against tooled-up HQs from a number of other armies. The Kult however have an ace up their sleeve; a bike for your Warboss. The bike gives your boss an extra +1 toughness that allows him to stand up to other assault HQs, and, also allows him to charge, alone, into mobs of just about anything without powerst backup. Your boss should be anked by a couple of buggies as he turboboosts up the eld. As an independent character, that means your opponent cannot target him until the buggies are destroyed, and if you pick your location correctly,

G E T T I NG S T UC K I N
If youre going with an assault force, the bulk of your force should be massed up of boyz in trukks, on bikes, or with rokkits strapped to their backs. Unfortunately, each of these have their drawbacks. The Kult list does offer some nice options in terms of shootiness. Mobile zzap guns and tankbusta units can put the hurt on enemy armour, while looted ordnance vehicles, and a multitude of ways to eld big shootas and rokkits (often twinlinked) provide some decent repower. With the move & shoot capabilities of the Kult, you can generally play the range game to your advantage, closing just enough to get your shots in range, while limiting how many of their weapons are, but there are drawbacks here. Reducing the number of assault units allows you to utilize terrain more effectively to hide the loaded trukks, while offering shooty targets that the opponent cannot just ignore, which effectively diverts re away from the trukks of boyz. This hybrid element, if done right, can trap your opponent. With these basic ideas in mind, lets examine

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this is rarely a problem. Give the boss a powerklaw, a choppa, eavy armour, a cybork body, and a bionic bonce. He weighs in at about 160 points, but can make it back easily enough. This also ensures that he has a 3+ invulnerable save on that all-important turn before you can charge, just in case someone charges him. The bike also means that he can roll from one assault to the next without needing to get back in a trukk and then get back out again. The power klaw also makes him a serious threat to any vehicle on the board. Six strength 10 attacks is nothing to laugh at, and with that many attacks, he had a good chance of pulling skimmers out of the sky. T5 means that you can choose to use your power klaw against most Marine and Chaos HQs without being too concerned over dying. There are few characters that can inict 3 wounds against T5 in a turn, and with 5 (6 on the charge) S10 attacks in return. There are very few that will get a second turn of swinging at you. The things you need to watch out for are models with high strength attacks that ignore armour (like powersts, or nemesis force weapons), and librarians, who can instant kill you with their force weapons. Finally, dont forget that having a bike makes the Boss Fearless. Its not likely to come up often, but its good to have. Hes also a Skilled Rider, so feel free to charge right through terrain. Plenty of opponents wont see that coming.

BIG MEK
The other approach to an HQ is to go cheap with a Big Mek. A Big Mek with big horns and a burna can add some decent hitting power and morale to an assault unit. If you have any expensive vehicles that need protecting/ repairing, a Big Mek can take some helpers and tools, and hang back to protect them. If the vehicle hes protecting has decent armour itself, then a kustom force eld can aid its longevity, but avoid that if youre trying to protect any AV10 or open-topped vehicles.

HQS TO AVOID:
The Warboss in a trukk (with or without retinue) is largely a waste of points. You are paying nearly as much for the trukk as you are for the bike, without all the other advantages. Secondly, while the boss may be an independent character, his trukk isnt. A Nob retinue can be uffy, but its ridiculously hard for a unit of Nobs to justify their worth on the battleeld, especially when theyre probably going to spend a turn entangled in the wreckage of their dead transport. Same cost problems apply to Biker Nobs.

TH E B OY Z
Always use every single troop slot. A lone skorcha buggy is a considerable threat to a lot of armies, and the ability to put that template exactly where you want it only

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adds to the havoc youll cause. Trukk boyz are obviously the backbone of any assault-based list. Ten boyz that can hop out and krump someone cannot be overlooked. Entanglement means that you have to be careful with them, because if their trukk gets shot theyre going to be dead before they do anything useful. Buying them a burna and a Nob with a powerklaw and choppa gives some all-round utility. Bosspoles are a complete waste of points whilst Iron Gobs can be good if you have the

points. Drive by burnings can be quite effective against horde armies, although you have to get very close. Sometimes, your opponent can pulverize you in hand-tohand combat. Genestealers, Bloodletters, Daemonettes, and Grey Knights are among the things that you dont want to mess with, as theyll kill a lot of your boyz before you even get to swing. Dont forget the Power of the Waaagh! Its a big reason you should take full-strength mobs of trukkers, as you have a 92% chance of passing

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the test with a full complement of boyz. Youre almost certainly going to get the charge because you can hide in the trukk until youre ready to hop out.

BURNA BOYZ
Youre allowed one mob of these. While a plethora of burnas might be nice, you can take skarboy mobs as elites, with only a few less burnas, and higher strength to wield them with.

TANKBUSTAS
With four rokkits (one on the Nob, three in the squad), and three ammo grots, this unit can generally expect to get two or three hits on the rst tank it res at. With an effective strength 9 against armour, thats pretty good odds to knock something out. Generally it only takes killing one tank to make your points back. Get them out of the trukk and into cover as soon as possible, both because of entanglement and how many will die in a wreck. Give them a mission, and expect them to die after completing it.

Strength 3 just arent going to cut it, especially without choppas. One of the trickier parts of using this unit is getting a good charge off. Ideally, you shoot your guns, then charge and shoot them again. Its better to forgo the shooting and get stuck in, because at least you can possibly break them in assault. The resilience of bikers comes from their higher toughness, so charging anything higher than Strength 4 is going to hurt a lot, and each model you lose costs a lot of points, and a chunk out of your units effectiveness. Dont forget these guys are fearless, and thats both good and bad.

BUGGIES
Buggies are great. Theyre fast, cheap, and disposable (just like my last girlfriend -Ed). You can afford to use them to screen your Warbosss attack, or to block lines of re to your trukks, and not feel too bad about losing them. A skorcha buggy will fry whole hordes of T3 models, and can even be expected to kill a marine or two. Your opponent is faced with a tough choice shoot the buggy, and dedicate a whole units re (maybe

WARBIKES
Bikers are tricky to use. With a total effective ring range of 30 and a lot of dakka, theyre a scary unit to face, but theyre also very expensive. Always buy a Nob with power klaw and choppa to go with them. If you get tied up in combat, hes going to be responsible for dealing most of the damage. Two attacks per round at

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more), or accept the damage it does. At the end of the game, buggies are wonderful for claiming or contesting objectives too. Rokkit Buggies are not the best antiarmour unit at our disposal, but theyre serviceable, and have good odds of getting ank or rear shots. Twin-linking means they even hit sometimes when it matters. The standard conguration for skorcha buggies of doom runs a skorcha and Spikes & Blades. It works wonders against any sort of assault-heavy army. If youre playing a list with a lot of 2+ or 3+ saves, feel free to use your skorcha to screen other models.

the way to go. The kustom megablasta has a greater chance of inicting a glancing hit on yourself than you do on your opponent, and so is rated as an especially low option for buggies. Other than the upgrades mentioned for skorcha buggies, the extra cost of upgrading them just doesnt justify itself on vehicles this cheap. Youre better off buying another buggy than you are spending points on upgrades. A word on squadrons: Buggies can be run effectively in squads of two or three. Filling your troop slots should be the rst priority, but after that, doubling up choices doesnt hurt.

ELITES
A RD BOYZ
Five ard boyz in a trukk can eld three big shootas, one on the trukk, a bolt-on big shoota as well and another if you want to buy a Nob. Thats up to 18 strength 5 shots per turn, from within a vehicle that can move 12 and re. The Nob option is rather expensive for the nal three shots. Looking at ve ard boyz in a trukk with a big shoota and bolt-on big shoota, youre spending about 135 points for an expected ve S5 hits/turn. If you want to lay down the S5 re, its more cost-effective to do it with ard boyz. Buy them a dedicated battlewagon, and run 3 twin-linked big shootas, and ve bolt-on big shootas. Its more points, but the battlewagon provides some longevity for the unit too. If you expect to face

Other people advocate putting stikkbomb chuckers on their skorcha buggies, and tank-shocking the enemy before skorching them, forcing them to move into tighterpacked formations. With Big Shoota shots, even twinlinked doesnt do nearly enough to bother most opponents. Contrast that with the other two and big shoota buggies just arent as cool as the other two. Against hordes, skorchas rule. Against vehicles or marines, rokkits are

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a lot of tanks, ard boyz can eld as many rokkits as tankbustas.

F A S T A T TAC K
This is kind of redundant in the Kult of Speed as the whole army is one big fast attack choice, but you get some choices that the footsloggers dont.

SKARBOYZ
While they have the same weapon upgrade potential as ard boyz, these are recommended as an assault unit, not a shooty unit. The lack of armour means that they suffer more when their ride is destroyed, so sitting back and shooting from inside a trukk is inviting problems - not to mention, not taking advantage of their higher strength. As an assault mob, go for 3 burnas and a Nob with a powerklaw/slugga combo. Theres not much that can survive a charge from these guys. If ten isnt enough, stick them in a battlewagon and take a whole mob of 20. This is your only opportunity to take a large mob of boyz in a Kult of Speed army.

FIGHTA-BOMBA R AID
The more points the game, the more useful this is. The breaking point is about 1500 points. Below that, dont take it. As your units are all required to start mounted up, youre largely protected from misres, you risk having some vehicles start the game stunned. The at risk units are bikers and stormboyz, who are likely to take signicant casualties if they get hit, so if youre running a list thats heavy in either of those choices, there is more risk to yourself from an over-eager strang run.

STORMBOYZ
These guys are the slowest boyz in the force, unable to make a 24 move. Knowing that, use them as a second wave, allowing them to advance behind terrain, or wrecks, and reinforce the initial charge. Use small units of them, because they cannot regroup, and one failed morale test loses you a whole mob. Dont use them like shock troops, and theyll do some good.

DETHKOPTAS
Here we have more cheap scoring units. Never take more than one in a squadron. Theyre like buggies -there to annoy your opponent and claim objectives. Use the free upgrade to a Mek, and give him a burna. This is possibly the most versatile unit in all of 40k. You can

29

move 24 in a turn, even over terrain. You can take your twin-linked big shoota shots. You can burn stuff and you can assault tanks. Toughness 5 and a 4+ save means that you can tie up shooty units in assault and a burna means that you get a power weapon at S4 too.

OUTRIDERS
An interesting unit as theyre just bikers, but for 5 points more per model, you get the Scouts universal special rule. This can enable some rst turn charges, but, if you dont get the rst turn, it can also leave your boyz isolated from the rest of the army, and exposed to enemy re. regular bikers are cheaper if you cannot use the scout move wisely.

But, the reason for not taking a battlewagon as a heavy-support choice is to t other scoring units into the list anyway. Three good approaches to battlewagons include giving it a zzap gun, and secondary weapons, and try to shoot enemy tanks. Its more expensive than a gun trukk with a zzap gun, but, it has better armour to make up for that. Another version is the Dakka Wagon. It features lots of big shootas. This is best as a dedicated transport for a unit of ard boyz, and sit them in it with a lot of bolt-on big shootas, and big shootas, and just pound the enemy from 36 away. If you use range to your advantage in this case, you should be able to minimize exposure to enemy anti-tank weapons. Finally there is the delivery battlewagon, all about getting a close-combat mob into the ght.

H E AV Y S U PP ORT
Technically, there are three choices here, but really, theres a lot more, as each looted vehicle lls a potentially different role.

BATTLEWAGON
Battlewagons are cool and orky, but you can purchase these as dedicated transports for either a Warboss or a Big Mek, or for units of Skarboyz or Ardboyz. Since any mob can ride in any vehicle in Kult of Speed, the only thing you give up in doing so is the scoring unit status. A dedicated battlewagon cannot claim an objective.

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Take lots of vehicle upgrades to ensure your mob makes it to where it needs to go. Turbo-boosters on the rst turn make a second-turn disembark and assault more likely, and red paint also speeds up the delivery. Assuming the mob makes it, your battlewagon will be close to the enemy lines, so skorchas make sense for a weapon, but realize that you wont be ring at all until you get the boyz into combat.

GUN TRUKKS
These are slow compared to most of your other choices, but they can pack a punch. Stick a zzap gun in a gun trukk and youll have a dedicated tankhunting unit. These are some of the most effective anti-vehicle weapons in the entire game. Kannons and lobbas in gun trukks are not viewed as very effective weapons overall. As with all vehicles, ll out your force slots before you consider making squadrons of them.

LOOTED VEHICLES
There are only three looted vehicles worth including in a Kult of Speed army. These are the Leman Russ, Demolisher and Basilisk. The marine tanks tend to rely too much on ballistic skill, which orks dont have, and the other guard tanks do not ll any specic role any better than one of the tanks above. The Leman Russ has good armour, and a big gun, with lots of range. What else is there for an ork to want? It serves two purposes, to draw re away from your boyz, and to persuade the

enemy that sitting back and shooting at you might not be the best idea. The Demolisher is like the standard Russ, but without the range, so you lose out on the sittingback-and-shooting aspect. If youre not running a lot of choppa-armed boyz (for whatever reason), its your best hope against terminators. The basilisk is a good tank, but not a great tank. It doesnt really t thematically in a Kult of Speed army. It isnt strong enough to withstand the drawing re role, like the Leman Russ is, so the best place for it is hidden behind terrain. On secondary weaponry Aavoid lascannon in the hull, as youre unlikely to hit with it. A heavy bolter (and sponsons) can provide some repower in the case that the main weapon gets destroyed.

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P L AY I NG K U LT - OF -S PE E D

IN

4 T H E DI T ION :

The best way to play the Kult is to play for objectives and pick on targets of opportunity. Of course, helping to create that opportunity is not a bad thing either. You need to have a big, scary longer-range threat, with which you can hang back and harass the enemy troops from a distance. If you can whittle away one or two models a turn, without your opponent hitting you back, theres no real reason to risk your ultra-fragile trukks to go for more. Let them try to adjust to what youre already doing. Use your mobility. You should be dominant in the movement phase. Dont forget to use that to your advantage. You will almost always want to go second if there are objectives to claim, and deploy expecting your opponent to go rst. With a lot of units that can move 24, you can wait until the last turn to claim objectives, giving your opponent no chance to react. Use decoy units to get your opponent to move or shoot where it benets you. Buggies are 40 points. They are throwaway units. Move a rokkit buggy 24 towards your opponents tank and they now have a threat that they cannot ignore.

Use terrain to your advantage. Move a trukk full of boyz behind a forest, and you create a 20 inch zone where your opponent cant move troops without giving you an assault opportunity. Pay attention to these zones. If you can prevent your opponent from moving through an area to an objective, then you dont need to claim it until your last move. Be aware of what can beat your boyz in assault and avoid them. Daemonettes, Genestealers, Bloodletters and Daemon princes all probably have your number. Unlike a footslogger, you dont have thirty bodies to take wounds with, you usually only have ten. That means that you are already below the automatic mob check size too. While a unit of thirty boyz can afford to take ve casualties per round, while their Nob pounds away with his powerklaw, if you lose three boyz and lose combat, you stand a pretty good chance of being cut down. Preserving your scoring units is more important than throwing units into assaults that they are unlikely to win. You want to pick your battles, run away from anything you cannot handle, and set it up where you can whittle it down through shooting before you go back for the kill. In the kult of speed, you must play like a human, not like an ork... - Alex Kallend

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Battle Report Freakz and Firewarriors

M I S S ION Hostage situation (from the original Tau Codex)

P R E - G A M E THOUG H T S :
BRANDON (SPEED FREAKS)
I have never played the hostage situation mission in the original codex. It also doesnt help that I have become so accustomed to playing more elite factions such as Grey Knights as of late, that using Orks is going to be something I am going to have to remember how to do quickly or die trying. I expect to see lots of vehicles which worries me, since my speed freaks lack effective anti-tank repower, but who knows, I might get a couple of lucky shots? As far as my basic army composition is concerned, I didnt take any burnas or power klaws because I forgot to bring them up for this game -Mishaps happen, even when doing battle reports for FIREBASE. I dont think it will drastically put me at a disadvantage, but knowing that I am going to be facing a bunch of clumped up Tau, it makes me drool at the thought of ame templates. Even though I lack special weapons, I made up for it by taking plenty of orks. 4 squads of Truck Boyz, 2 squads of outriders, 2 squads of Ard boyz, a Warboss with a full retinue of nobs mounted in a truck, a looted Basilisk, 2 looted rhinos, and 2 squads of Rocket Launcher armed buggies. Just shy of 100 models, hopefully it will be enough to capture the Ethereal!

O V E RV I E W
A Warboss of a band of raiding Orks intercepts pleas from a downed Ethereal. They plan on seizing the Ethereal as quickly as possible before the Tau have a chance to react and take him to safety. Who knows what may happen to the Ethereal should the Tau fail their mission

G U I DE L I N E S :
Speed Freakz get rst turn and come in via reserves and a arrive on a random table edge Tau deep strike their whole entire army on their rst turn Whoever is closest to the survival pod at the end of the game wins The game lasts for a random amount of turns Points - 2000 points a side

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TONY (TAU)
Ive never actually had the pleasure of facing off against Orks before, but I know 2000 points can buy a lot of green skins. Since I was going to be facing Speed Freaks, I expected a lot of vehicles, too. I decided to run the 2000 point list I ran in a tournament the month before, except Id use a team of 2 Sniper Drone squads instead of Broadsides, since I didnt expect to see too many heavily armoured vehicles. I was hoping for a nice Recon or table-quarters mission, where I could sit back like a chump and pick away at his Orks, then move in near the end of the game to secure objectives. We decided on the Hostage Situation mission instead, which looked like a very interesting scenario, although it threw a wrench in my usual shoot from really far away strategy. Right away it presented problems Scouts always start on the table, but the mission requirements say The entire army arrives by Deep Strike rst turn. So, weve got two always clauses, which do we use? I ended up keeping my Pathnders in reserves as well, just for consistency, but it could have gone either way. I was going to have to Deep Strike everything very carefully, hit hard, hit fast, and hope to survive

TU R N 1
SPEED FREAKZ
Because of the missions special rules, I received rst turn, which in my opinion probably isnt the best thing to have when you know a whole Tau army is going to be deep striking on you. So I rolled for my reserves and I managed to get a large portion of my army on the table. I managed to get 2 squads of Ard boyz, 2 squads of Truck Boyz, a looted basilisk, a looted rhino, a squad of outriders, and a squad of buggies. Since there really isnt much in the way of cover to hide behind, I took whatever rock to sit behind so I wouldnt become target practice for the whole Tau army. My two truck boyz squads zoomed there full 24 inches straight towards the objective, followed by the rhino. The other units of my army took anking positions and were spread out, so they wouldnt be assured death when the Tau do arrive. The Ard Boyz where on the left, while the buggies and outriders where on the right side of the table. The basilisk took cover behind a large rock in an attempt to use its indirect re capability

34

against all of those perfectly bunched up Tau squads, when they deep strike. Now, all I can hope is prey that the dice gods are against my Tau opponent and everything on the table doesnt wind up dead when they arrive.

My Ionhead, Pathnders, Piranha, Devilsh, and Fire Warriors deployed on the righthand side of the board to deal with the trucks. The Railhead, Crisis Suits, and Sniper Teams deploy on the left half of the board, near the edge. I almost lost my Sniper Team to the edge again. On the right-hand ank, lots of action was happening. The Ionhead blew up one of the trucks on Brandons edge, and killed an ard boy in the process. The Fire Warriors Devilsh missed the other truck, but its former passengers turned out to be better shots, blowing up the truck. The Pathnders Devilsh took out the truck near the objective, but with no extra casualties. The Pathnders themselves

TAU
After seeing how much Brandon already had on the table, I was getting very nervous, because I knew he had even more back in reserves. To top this all off, I basically got to deep strike everything and then watch Brandon respond to that again. I dont mind the occasional deepstriking Crisis Suit, but this was pushing it. I nominated a point about 10 inches up from the board edge for my Stealth Team, hoping to keep them alive for a turn so they could respond to whatever Brandon did. I gave a heavy sigh as I rolled an 11 with the scatter die pointing right back at me - my Ballistic Skill 4 Stealth Team just teleported right off the table edge.

35

went on to kill a measly truck boy from the ruins of the truck, but ended up pinning the unit. The Piranha managed to stun one of the buggies it landed behind. On the left ank, the Railhead missed the side of the Looted Rhino, so the Crisis Suit HQ had to pick up the slack and take out the Rhino, but to my disappointment, nothing was inside. The Fire Warriors on the left wiped out the entire Outrider unit in a turn, which was nice, since the two Monat Crisis Suits missed ALL targets.

his stealth team so close to the table edge so they had a chance of going off, and they did. That really helped me out. Personally, I would have been more aggressive with the stealth team, but I guess the orks were a little intimidating! Since it is the start of a new turn, more reserves rolls! Yay! I managed to bring another squad of Truck boyz, a looted rhino, my other buggy squad, and my other outrider squad onto the table. I deployed the outriders where I deployed my other squad of them, before they where annihilated by pulse ries. I deployed the truck boyz unit in assault range of a re warrior squad that killed one of my trucks. Finally, I deployed the buggies and the looted rhino in the middle to support the two squads of truck boyz by the objective. I moved my two squads of Ard boyz out of the remains of their former trucks and in assault range. Since the one squad of truck boys were pinned, there wasnt much I can do, but at least they would be getting a 4+ cover save against further shooting. The other truck boyz

TU R N 2
SPEED FREAKZ
Well that could have been a lot worse. Even though I did lose the squad of outriders, most of my forces remained in tact, despite losing there buggies and a couple of men along the way. I was really surprised how Tony deployed

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squad I moved out of the truck and onto the rock where the objective was. I also moved a buggy squad to intercept the piranha before it did any more damage. Now it was time to compensate for the loss of my outriders. I started off by shooting the tau command squad, I gured, what a better way to earn back the points. Well, being an indirect shot, it missed. Now if it would have hit, lets say they wouldnt be there anymore! The two squads of Ard boyz kill 3 guys with there sluggas. The outriders killed 5 re warriors, the buggies took out the piranha and everything else managed to miss or fail to do damage. Well, Orks arent sharp shooters, so I cant blame them for doing barely anything during this phase. However, Orks are good at assaulting, and there is going to be plenty of it! I charged the two squads of re warriors on my left ank with a full squad of truck boyz and my two squads of Ard boyz. The one re warrior squad was whipped out to a man, since I couldnt reach him with

my mob, and the other re warrior squad took heavy causalities and forced to run away. The squad that ran away only rolled a two to get a way, so my ork mob consolidated into them, which would save them against next turns shooting round. After winning combat, the one Ard boyz squad consolidated back into cover of their former truck, while the other consolidated to intercept the last remaining re warrior out of his squad, the orks nally got into assault, and it was bloody!

TAU
Things are looking pretty grim, and its only my second turn. Tau really dont like assaults, let alone secondturn assaults. To make things even funnier, the units I expected to do the best did awful, and the units I had no expectations for did amazing things. On the right-hand ank, the last Fire Warrior in hand-to-hand blew away an Ork at point-blank range before being pulled to pieces. Take that, Orks! The gun drones from the Piranha destroyed a buggy on the right side, and the Pathnders marked the Trukk Boys by the objective for fun later. The Ionhead moved to hit the hidden Basilisk, and missed with all three shots. Good job, guys! The HQ team hopped forward, and killed ve of the marked Trukk Boys, negating their cover saves using the markerlight hits.

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The Fire Warriors on the left immobilized one buggy, and killed another. These guys meant business! The Railhead kept moving to shake enemy re, and took shots at the remaining Trukk Boys as well. It missed with the railgun again, but managed to take out one more Ork with the smart missile system. The two Monat Crisis Suits hit once out of seven rolls, and splattered one Ork behind the objective with a missile pod. Both Devilsh chewed up whatever Orks they could nd, since their passengers were long since departed. The Sniper Team on the left ank took shots at whatever buggies and bikes it could see, taking a few out. The remaining re warriors that were stuck in combat were nally nished off during my turn. It wasnt looking good!

TU R N 3
SPEED FREAKZ
Wow, now I took a beating Those tanks and the command squad are tearing my infantry apart, which isnt good. Having the sniper team in the far off side of the table, and having the ability to modify cover saves, now they need to be taken cared of! Having lost lots of the Boyz that turn, I really need my last two reserves rolls need to come in; hopefully they will be able to turn the game in my favor.

Both units came in, perfect! I deployed my Warboss with retinue behind a nice rock, so he could lead the counter attack on the objective, should the Tau take it from me. The last truck boy squad surged towards the objective in an attempt to make sure it stays in control of the orks. I gure it is best to concentrate taking to objective over killing tau, so I began to move the majority of my army in an attempt to swarm the objective and make the tau ght tooth and nail (or what ever the Tau use in combat) for it. I moved my squad of outriders closer to the re warrior squad in an attempt to nish them of either by shooting or assault, and I also moved my buggies to support them and hopefully the will provide some extra causalities to nish off the squad. I moved the truck boyz squad which nished off the remaining re

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warriors during Tonys assault phase in an attempt to get into combat with his pathnder squad. I moved another truck boyz squad in an attempt to get into combat with his command squad. I also moved one of the Truck boyz squad off the objective to intercept two crisis suits which were attempting to seize it from me. The shooting phase started of with another salvo from the basilisk, this time at the sniper team. I gured it would be better to shoot at them over the command squad, since the command squad was no longer bunched up, but the sniper team was! Of course the shot scatters, but I managed to take down two of the sniper drones. The outriders managed to kill another few re warriors while the buggies completely missed them. The rest of my shooting was pointless, since it didnt manage to do a single thing, everything missed... Oh well. As far as the assault phase is concerned, I charged the outriders into combat against the re warriors, charged the pathnders, and charged the Ard boyz into the remaining gun drones for the blown up piranha, since

they took out a buggy in the last shooting phase. Talk about revenge! The one truck boyz squad I was going to use to charge the command squad was out of range, by half and inch Ugh! They would surely become target practice next turn. However, I wiped out the two gun drones, the remaining re warriors, and the pathnders, and used my massacre roll to move closer towards the objective. Despite taking massive causalities and another Tau shooting phase on the way, I have completely contested the objective with the majority of my army. I may still be able to win this one.

TAU
Infantry? What infantry? Im down to elite units and vehicles by this point. Were both chewing up each others units, and this is going to come down to a bloody nish. I moved all vehicles to the right side, to focus on the Orks coming in. The Ionhead moved forward and demolished the Basilisk in a swath of ion energy.

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The Firestorm monat suit blew up a truck on the left ank and killed three truck boys in the process. The other Monat took out three more with its Airbursting Fragmentation Projector what a fun toy versus the Orks! The Railhead, Devilsh and HQ unit poured their re into one of the largest remaining mobs in the middle of the table, and killed 8 Orks in the process. For good measure, the HQ unit then charged into the Orks, netting a whole two kills in the process. With my Sniper Team pinned, that about wraps up the turn!

TU R N 4
SPEED FREAKZ
I was expecting that to happen and boy did that one hurt. Well the good news is I still had a couple of squads on or near the objective, since we would start rolling to see if the game went on in longer, so it is imperative that I controlled the objective, especially since Tau has the advantage of going second and being able to seize the game from me

after one good shooting phase. I moved the buggies, the warboss with retinue, the remaining Ard boyz squad, and the looted rhino towards the objective. I ofcially had absolutely nothing in range to kill his tanks and my turn consisted of getting to the objective with my whole army. Since all of his infantry, with the exception of the command squad and the far off sniper team were non existent, my shooting did absolutely nothing. The truck boyz squad that was still in combat with the crisis suit managed to nish off the remaining independent crisis suit and consolidated into the other one, being well below half strength, it took some good rolling for that to happen! But, alas, my turn pretty much accomplished nothing except moving units towards the objective. Lets hope I can live to see another turn.

TAU
By this point, Im praying the game doesnt go into overtime. Both sides have taken a beating, and theres not much left for me to shoot with. The Snipers on the left killed three bikes, which is always good in my book. The Railhead nally hits with its main weapon, and kills ve Ard boyz with a submunition shot. That wasnt too hard, now was it? The Ionhead adds to

40

the destruction by killing the remaining buggies. The HQ team moved forward to kill four more truck boyz in a massive storm of plasma and missile re, and then moved onto the objective to contest it.

when I lost the basilisk, I could no longer aim at mikes head -Yes, I had the range. It was a close hard fought game, and now it is time for a rematch, now only instead of playing Speed Freakz, I am going to use my White Scars!

TONY S TAKE
Ouch, ouch, ouch. I should have been more aggressive with the Stealth Team, Brandon was right. Essentially starting off the game with a 250 point decit was a pretty big morale hit. Part of me thinks I should have teleported everything as close to my edge as possible, and then start shooting anything that got close to my Fire Warriors. On the other hand, part of me thinks I should have been MORE aggressive, and consolidated everything in one pocket, instead of dividing up into two anks. I hate hand-to-hand! The Speed Freaks just do it so well, and so quickly, it was quite a surprise. For never having played Orks before, Brandon did a bang-up job. I could have used some Kroot, as the monat suits were just so-so and I sure would have liked to hit with the railgun more than once in the game, but hey, thats how the dice roll. -Brandon Vallee and Tony Venezia

V IC TORY

G OE S TO ?

BRANDONS TAKE
The Game ended after the 4th turn and ended up being a draw due to Tonys last minute move of his crisis team in the assault phase. Since we both held the objective, we decided to see who one victory points wise, and that was also a tie, but Tony held the upper hand of having 70 more points then I left on the table, but it wasnt enough to declare a winner. After the game, we gured that should it have gone on longer, Tony eventually would have won, because I could not have taken out his two hammerheads (his command squad probably would have been wiped out by the Warboss with his nobs and the other remaining boyz). I am really disappointed with my armour plates, I didnt save a single truck with them, they were a complete waste of points. Hopefully next time I can save at least one truck My only regret is

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I Quit!

hether its the cost of buying a new army, the effort of building and painting another army, or the fact that youre getting your arse kicked on a regular basis; lots of people throw their arms in the air and declare to the world: Thats it. I quit the hobby!

And they do, well, some of them. The majority pick up their paintbrush, play a game or two and suddenly theyre back in the hobby and happy being there. In all honesty, I have lost count of the number of times I have said I was quitting and never buying another miniature ever again. In fact, it got to the point where my friends would expect me to announce this and laugh at the regular hilarity of it all. Now they just ask me if Im quitting soon and smirk. Often selling everything I owned would follow my announcement. All but that one precious army of course, which Id lovingly crafted. It was always the pretty army I kept. The one with the best paint scheme and the most character: That was the Dark Angels Deathwing army. Boldly I declared I would play with that one army forever more and that it didnt matter if I was blown off the table on the rst turn, hell no! My army looked good and had a great theme -thats enough for me. But then, it wasnt.

Yes, my army did look pretty and it got a lot of attention for its uniqueness, but when it came to playing and winning, it didnt. It got its pretty arse spanked and once I began attending Central London Wargames Club in Euston, I was up against more competitive players than my friends back home. These guys know what theyre doing and boy did my army suffer. After a few months of off to Ebay regularly attending and being slaughtered, I decided it was time for a new army. A strong and competitive army that could stand up for itself and kick back. It had to be strong and tactically exible, but not a tripped-out one-trick pony.
Yet another disheartened gamer

After much deliberation, I chose the Necrons because theyre durable, forgiving and they can take a lot of mobile repower. Fun had gone out of the window. This time I was out to win, but this didnt mean Id spray the army silver and just play. I came up with a good colour scheme, which would have taken much longer to paint had I not had help from a friend who painted the base colour.

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I played a few games with the Necrons at the club and they did pretty well. They werent as forgiving as Id rst thought after Id put my lord a little too far forward, Eat railgun! Yup, he was dead and didnt get back up. The army was forgiving, but not invincible, or so I thought. My friends back home started playing again. This time I took the Necrons and that was where the fun really began to wane, although not at rst. First came psychotic laughter as the Necrons swept all before them. Nothing could stand up to them. It was only in a fourway Carnage game that they were challenged and that was because the other three armies ganged up on them. Even then, they decimated most of the forces on the table. After a few games of maniacal butchery -Ok, after a lot of games of maniacal butchery- the novelty wore off and I planned to return to Central London Wargames Club for some stronger competition. The company I worked for went down the drain and unemployment followed. This meant fewer trips to Central London Wargames Club and eventually I was looking for ways to make quick cash. In a very rash move, I sold the Necron army for a huge sum of money. Its ne, I said. I had the Deathwing, my oh so pretty army and plenty of money to get me by until my college course in journalism started. Inspired by poverty, I once again declared an end to buying new armies. My friends laughed and shook their

heads as they had done for the past ve years of quitting attempts. A little money started coming in and I began to expand my Deathwing army. After all, I did say no new armies. My friends all groaned when I told them. The vision was a mighty 5,000pts of Dark Angels 1st Company with an abundance of terminators and land raiders, including my own land raider variants with plasma cannons. However, after a few months of assembling and painting land raiders and dreadnoughts I really couldnt be bothered to paint more terminators or the four extra land raiders that Id Inspired by poverty, bought on the spur of the I once again declared moment. Off to Ebay they went and some of them in an end to buying new exchange for surprisingly armies. My friends large amounts of cash. I was lucky enough to make laughed and shook their all my money back. Thats heads as they had done what you get for haggling for the past five years of for a bulk discount with an quitting attempts independent retailer in the rst place.

Then I began to get back in to the hobby in a way I had never thought of before. My folks had been on holiday skiing with some friends and their son had brought along James, a closet wargamer who had kept his obscene

43

interests under wraps until my Mother had spotted him reading the latest issue of White Dwarf. It turned out that James had no one to play against since all his friends had acquired dominating girlfriends who had forced them to discard their armies, lives, freedom and personalities. (Such is life -Ed). James brought his space marine army round for a game and was massacred. Even the Deathwing didnt break a sweat for the rst few games or take a casualty. Gradually he got better, as did his army lists. Soon I had to discard the Deathwing and began using a friends Tau army, which challenged James further. At the same time I developed my friends Tau army and persuaded him to buy more re warriors and drop some battlesuits in favour of more hammerheads with rail guns. Once again, James had to develop his army and his tactics. After a few games with the Tau I took the Deathwing out again. The Dark Angels 1st Company had a rough time of things and I realised that I had become far too accustomed to playing with the Tau army. In fact, I wanted my friends Tau army because the repower it could lay down was simply awesome. Too bad that Id tailored it to my playing style and simply copying the army would be silly.

I managed to get a part-time job as a waiter and began raking in some very impressive tips. That was when I had a random encounter online with the guy who had bought my Necron force well over a year ago. He remarked on how well he had done with it, but was selling it because hed mercilessly butchered everyone with it and was quitting the hobby -Perfect! I bought the army back and was over the moon to nd it was exactly how Id left it, including the green marble dice Id sold with it. I now had my old army of arse-kickery back in my possession. I then spotted a Tau army just like my friends on Ebay for 70 Buy It Now. So I bought it then, seeing as it was so reasonable. I was then treading a rocky second hand road and acquired a Genestealer army on Bartertown for 60, a Chaos army on Ebay and began scratch building an Ork Kult of Speed. I had to look back at what tipped me over the edge from being a quitter to being a lover of the hobby. It came down to having converted my friends in to competitive players with competitive armies. I wouldnt have purchased so many armies, had they not been so inexpensive online, but then, I did have to trawl through pages of utter tosh in order to nd them. I was also very lucky to get the Tau army for so little. It all comes down to being online at the right time, in the right place.

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After my experience, I can summarise the factors that make people in the hobby want to quit very simply. Poverty leads to selling your armies in order to eat. Too much to painting disheartens you into selling your armies. A dominant girlfriend that you give in to leads to you selling all of your armies, your friends and your soul. Getting your arse kicked can inspire you to do better if you have the nances, but if you dont it can lead to quitting. However, competitive friends are the best factor for embracing the hobby, whether they butcher you or not. Now that Im sitting on boxes of partially built Ork buggies, a horde of Chaos marines, a swarm of Genestealers and a cadre of Tau, all of which are unpainted, I should be planning to quit from having too much to paint. The answer? -Put some of them out of sight in the loft until later. I played a game against James yesterday using the Tau and to my horror, he blew me off the table. No more Mr nice guy -Its time to break the out the Necrons for some Destroyer lled cheesiness! -Adam Smith

Fer Boyz Wiv No Teef

ave you ever had an army in mind that youve always wanted to build, but havent because its either far too expensive to buy, too time consuming to paint, or simply far too silly to eld in a battle?
Well, thats what I always thought whenever I dreamt of my all-buggy Ork speed freak army. One weekend I was idly building some sort of getaway vehicle for my games of Necromunda when I realised just how Orky the truck looked. Thats when a cartoon light bulb pinged above my head. Following a simple template, I could rapidly build the army from cardboard, plasticard and assorted bits.

cabinet. The standard Ork trukk was half the width of my cardboard trukk. The obvious answer to my scale issue was to halve the width of my vehicles. Fortunately, such an impressively large wartrukk would make an ideal transport for my Ork Warboss Kaptin Stompy. If only I hadnt made the space on the roof, next to the gun turret, too narrow for him to stand on The experiments made while building the rst trukk paved the way for the design of the vehicles to follow. Namely, these were a sloped front with low ground clearance shield, vision slits and square turrets, as well as spiked plates around the edges and square hub caps. The vehicle hull template consists of six pieces. I found it was best to stick the two side pieces on top of the oor piece with PVA wood glue, then quickly stick the rear piece across the back of the bottom and side pieces with more PVA. The rear piece holds the sides in place while they dry, as PVA doesnt grip like super glue does. Its best to leave this to dry overnight before going any further, although this doesnt mean you cant rush things. I tried to carry on, but the structure will either collapse or warp under pressure. Next up, glue the roof

B IG G E R

IS

BETTER

After standing my rst creation beside a battle tank I realised that it was far too big to be the standard chassis for my Ork vehicles to be based on. The trukk was nearly the size of a Leman Russ! I paid a visit to my local gaming store and was able to measure some of the Ork vehicles in their

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on the top and trim back the overhang at the front. How far back is up to you. Finally, stick the front piece over the slope. Leave to dry overnight again. Coat the exposed cardboard edges PVA to seal up the gaps and make the join look a little better. Its still going to look pretty awful, but at least it will look less nasty. Glue on the front shield that goes over the bottom of the slope, then put another layer of cardboard over the bottom of the shield. The turrets were made in a similar way, using six identical squares of card for a blocky turret. Once nished the turret was stuck roughly centrally on the roof. There you are; you have the basic shape of your Ork vehicle.

didnt need. The next stop? -Ebay of course. I dont know why or how they do it, but there are a number of people who sell particular types of Lego wheels in large batches on Ebay. Best of all, the bags of wheels are far cheaper than buying them directly from Lego. I purchased two bags of 16 small tractor wheels and 2 bags of 4 large tractor wheels. Luckily, Lego have hardly changed their wheels over the years.

C OV E R I NG

M U LT I T U DE

OF

SINS

So now I had some vehicles made from cardboard, but they need to be made to look detailed. This is where the thick plasticard comes in. You need to cut out a variety of squares to armour plate up the surface of the vehicle and give it some texture. Stick these on with a bit of PVA, then cut out some really tiny squares and glue these on in the corners as rivets. Cover the whole vehicle and itll be looking a lot better. I also put a rim of triangles around the edges of the vehicles to make them look more brutal and Orky.

TH E W H E E L S

ON T H E

BUS

Then disaster struck. Id used Lego wheels for my rst trukk and the big box if Lego Id had as a kid was at least ten years old. After rummaging through a mountain of Pirates, M-Tron and Medieval stuff, I only had enough wheels for one more truck. The Lego website sold the kind of wheels are was after, but not in sufcient quantity and in a pack of assorted other components that I

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A FR IEND

IN

NE E D

I made a trip to a friends house for our weekly game of 40K and took the opportunity to loot his bitz box for components to make some zap gunz, rokkitz and big shootaz. The real beauty of the Ork army is that you can make anything from virtually anything. I was able to acquire 3 lascannons, a battle cannon, an ion cannon, 2 multilasers, assorted Tau burst cannons from Battle Suits and Hammerheads, a telegraph pole and an artillery cannon from a long dead WWII tank. Tau ion cannons make brilliant zap guns. Simply cut them in half, use the front as a gun and then use the back half as a gun facing the other direction. Ion cannons should be in abundance, as many Tau players prefer the much feared rail gun.

However, I did start work on a battlewagon, using the same modelling style. Its a good idea to reward yourself with cool models to build when you start to feel burn out. Ill get back to making more buggies in the future. According to my army list, I only need to make 8 more buggies and a Leman Russ. Piece of cake! -Adam Smith

L O OK I NG B AC K
I could have made the army entirely from thick plasticard, which is far more durable and presentable than cardboard. However, the plan was to build this army the cheap and easy way. This was a fun and rewarding project. You wont be able to assemble the whole lot in a single day, but Im sure someone will prove me wrong. Although I gradually assembled these over a number of weeks, I never want to scratch build another vehicle for as long as I live.
No one was going to win the rear of the year award.

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An Orks Tale Birth of a Warrior

Rumbling like thunder. What was thunder? He stepped out in full view on the trail and waited, wondering what it was that might cause this strange noise. There it was; it came fast around a corner, almost ipping over as it took the sharp turn on just two of its four wheels. Wheels? It shot towards him, bouncing along the forest-trail, the entire thing shaking like it would all come apart at any moment. It sent dirt and grass ying as the wheels came to a sudden halt after having hurled the thing forward at max speed. A cloud of dry dust enveloped him as the strange contraption nally managed to come to a halt a few feet away. He blinked and gazed upon the shaking and rumbling thing like a buffoon. A small, green creature looked up at him from behind the steering wheel; it had large pointed ears and a hooked pointed nose, the eyes hidden behind a set of oversized goggles. The little thing lifted the goggles up on his head and studied the object that blocked his way. Wuzz yu doin?, the driver asked, raising his voice to make himself heard over the pumping engine of his buggy.

he light was blinding. The strong hands tore down the rocks and soil, nally pulling the body out of the cocoon that was lled with thick ooze. The ork pulled himself out of the ground and rolled over on his back. He spat out a thick gob of ooze and then slowly got up on his feet, ripping of the last threads of umbilical cords that still stuck to his torso.

He staggered at rst, but eventually gained his balance. He took a look around, puzzled by his surroundings. The ground was soft, uneven and with large hard solids things sticking up out of the ground, reaching far up towards the blue sky. Sky? Was that what that large expanse of blue was, and was it even blue? He started walking. He had no idea where to, but he walked anyway, his heavy feet leaving clear marks in the grass. Grass? Trees? Boulders? A forest?! He did not understand it, but he slowly understood what the terrain around him was. He had covered a mile at least, making his way through the woods, when he heard a sound, a strange sound. He continued towards it, nally coming across a strange trail, the sound was growing in strength.

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Wuzz? the large and naked ork asked. The gretchin sighed, Just got yerself dug up huh? Dug up. The little gretchin nodded and mumbled a curse, Getz yur bum on den! he waved the Ork over, who climbed up on the vehicle, which was basically one large engine with four wheels attached. Right, the gretchin said and pulled down the goggles over his eyes, Ang on den. The throttle was slammed down and the huge engine roared and spat out a ball of re before it sent the buggy hurtling along the trail, the wheels throwing up huge amounts of dirt behind the buggy. The trail snaked its way through the dense forest. Trees and boulders passed the buggy, only inches away from sending the makeshift vehicle crashing. The wind and the engine boomed in the orks ears, the woods only a blur of colors that whizzed by. His strong hands held on for all their worth as the buggy bounced and jumped along at dangerous speeds. So wuzz yer name den? the driver asked just before the buggy leapt through the air after having hit a bump in the trail.

I ave no name! the ork said. Yus gotta have a name! the gretchin wrestled the steering wheel as he took the buggy through a curve. The ork thought over it for a while. Did he have a name? Do I ave a name?!. Course yoo do! Make one up! Make one up? The ork pondered the idea for a while. Thirty minutes later the buggy left the woods and shot down a hill and out on a large eld. In the middle of the eld there was a settlement, the buildings looking as makeshift as the buggy the gretchin and ork were traveling in. The buggy made a hard turn and skidded along its side on two wheels, bouncing along before coming to a complete stop. The gretchin pulled of his goggles, his face was covered with a thin layer of dirt except for around his eyes where the goggles had been. The ork stepped of the buggy and looked at the settlement, the crude village was home to a large number of orks, gretchin and squigs. The gretchin got out of the drivers seat and sat himself down leaning against the oversized engine.

50

So, have yer a name yet?. The ork turned to the gretchin and scratched his head, No. Wuzz yers?. Gogg the gretchin answered and jumped down next to the huge ork. Gogg? the ork nodded, Wuzz diz place Gogg?. Diz? Gogg spat a gob of snot on the ground, Diz is da kamp.

I have da mekstuds ya wanted, Gogg motioned for the naked ork to drop the bags to the ground. The ork followed instructions and Gogg dug up a pair of proper orky cybernetics, Enuff to shuv ordz of gubbins, ey?. The ork who owned the shop walked over to Gogg and then opened up the bags to inspect the goods. The naked ork took a step back as to not be in the way.Gogg seemed condent, Yoo could shuv some bad tins an studs with dis lot. Drokkrakka sneered, Ya tryin to rip off a ripoff Gogg? Dis mekstuds are da biggest ordz of naff Ive evva seen. Wuzz?, Gogg pulled out another pair of bionik parts, Lookz ere yoo big snot! Dis studs da baddest gubbins around!. Drokkrakka gave it some thought, Naah, not even worth da teef in me own gob. Dats cos me own teef ar more naz dan yus bad gob, the gretchin grunted. Ill give ya three lotz of orky teef an one lotz of grot teef for da two bags of mekstuds, the ork said. Five lotz of orky teef. Three lotz and two lotz of grot teef. Four lotz of orky teef and four lotz of grot teef.

DA KAMP
The naked ork trailed the gretchin, carrying two large sacks over his shoulders. All the orks and gretchins in the settlement glared suspiciously at the naked newcomer and the gretchin he followed. The two made their way through the narrow streets of the crude village and nally walked up to a small shop erected in front of a wooden hut. Drokkrakka! Gogg the gretchin shouted, Com on out yoo grot ripoff!. An Ork stepped out from the hut, wiping his hands with a dirty towel, Gogg, ya good for nuthin grub-squig!.

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Four lotz of orky teef, my smak offer, Drokkrakka threw his arms out to get his point across. Three lotz of orky teef and one lotz of lotz grot teef, Gogg spat out. Ya naff runt! Five lotz of orky teef and two lotz of grot teef!. But Gogg wouldnt budge, Who yoo calling naff, yu worr wort ripoff! Two lotz of orky teef and one lotz of lotz grot teef an anuvver lotz of grot teef!. Dats it ya skab!, Drokkrakka growled, One lotz of lotz of orky teef an naah grot teef at all! An dats me smak offer! Deal! Deal! The fungal soup was just what the naked ork needed, swallowing great chunks of the meal at a time. Gogg sat opposite of the ork at the table, the tavern was far from full, but the few orks that were present made themselves heard. The naked ork wiped his mouth with the back of his large hand, then he took a look around. Why am I da only one naked?. Cos yoo just got yerself dug up, Gogg said, Yus needs some orky nosh. The ork nodded, So how doz I gets some orky nosh den?.

Wiv teef of course. The ork just stared at the gretchin. Gogg sighed, Yoo have to punch someones teef out. Oh! Gogg shook his head and continued nishing his meal, he looked up as the naked ork headed over to a table where three orks had a drinking contest. Snotpoo, Gogg said and pushed the meal away, Dis naff runt is a miffgit. The three orks laughed and slammed their unwieldy sts on the table, their mugs of rewater almost toppling over. The naked ork walked up and stood opposite them. Eventually they took notice. Wuzz ya want?. Teef, the naked ork said. Teef? The three orks laughed. Why dont ya zog off ya wurr naff grot, before weez duff yaz into gor, one of the drunken orks said and then gave the naked ork a strong push. Taken by surprise, the naked ork lost his balance and fell to the oor after having broken apart a table beneath his weight, resulting in the three drunks laughing and toasting.

52

The naked ork slowly got back up on his feet, as he did, Gogg walked up to him. I think itz a good thing to do as da boyz says an zog it. The naked ork ignored the advice and instead picked up a primitive chair with both hands, Gogg hid his eyes under his hand and sighed. Orkies, Gogg shook his head. The chair came apart in a dozen of pieces as it hit the back of one of the drunken orks head. The force so great that his face was slammed into the table, crushing his mug of rewater and splitting the table in half. Before the other two orks had time to react, the naked ork thrust a splintered chair leg into one of the drunks eyeballs, the piece of wood bursting out through the back of the orks head. The last of the drunks nally reacted and freed a huge and nasty looking cleaver from his belt. WAAAAGH! The huge blade cut deep into the naked orks lower arm and he screamed as the pain shot through his body like lightning. A well placed boot sent the naked ork tumbling across

the oor, sending tables and chairs and benches ying in his wake. WAAAAGH!, the last of the drunks rushed after his naked enemy, the cleaver held high above his head. The naked ork reached out and grabbed hold of a stool and tossed it as hard as he could, the thing cracked and splintered as it hit the charging ork across the face, sending him to the oor. The last of the drunks came to and looked around for his choppa, but he was distracted by a shadow. Looking up, he saw the naked ork standing above him, holding a large bench high above him. Gogg inched as sticky black-green liquid hit his face. The gretchin wiped his eyes clear of the gore and looked at the scene before him. The last of the drunken orks was lying on the oor with his head smashed like a melon beneath a bench that stood high on end, securely driven down into the oor. The naked ork stood next to the dead one, inspecting the deep wound on his arm that bled freely. Garg skar, the ork nally said. Choppas tend to do dat to gutz, Gogg said as he walked over to the naked ork, stepping over the debris. Hey yoo gitz!, the gretchin bartender

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shouted, a blaster held at the ready, Whos gonna rip off for all dis dreg?!. I think I has a name for yuz, Gogg said. The ork he had found in the woods was now dressed in the clothes of the three drunks he had recently killed, his pockets stuffed with their teeth. In his belt he had stuck the cleaver that had been used against him plus a heavy, large caliber revolver. The makeshift automatic rie that had belonged to one of the dead orks had been enough to pay off the upset gretchin barkeep. Wuzz? the ork asked. At the same time, a huge group of gretchin and snotlings pulled the three corpses out of the tavern with great effort. All the orks in the village looked with puzzled faces on the bodies being dragged along down the street. SkullKrusha, Gogg said and looked up at the ork. The ork gave it some thought, nodded and grinned, Ya, SkullKrusha, I like dat. Sounds bossy. But yoo still needs an orky name. Like Gogg. Gogg is a grot name, SkullKrusha pointed out. Yus know wuzz I mean. The ork scratched his head, thinking hard.

Ugluk? he nally said, looking down on the gretchin. Gogg answered with a shrug of his shoulders, Sounds orky to me. SkullKrusha nodded, Ugluk SkullKrusha. Datz me. Orky, Gogg snapped his ngers and gave the thumbs up, May Gork and Mork bring yoo ordz of lotz of teef, and with that the gretchin slapped the ork over the thigh and headed off. Not So Zaggy!!. Both Gogg and Ugluk looked over their shoulders down the street, there a large group of mean and angry looking orks advanced in a disorganized mob. At the head of the mob walked an ork of immense size, his heavy feet leaving huge tracks in the mud, he thrust a thick nger in the direction of Ugluk and growled like an enraged boar, Ya naff gits wont zog it til I says so!. Ugluk stepped out into the middle of the muddy street, behind him Gogg slowly tried to make as unnoticeable exit as possible. By now orks, gretchin and snotlings began to gather by the dozens to witness the promising ght. The mob and their leader came to a halt mere feet away from Ugluk.

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An who ar ya den?, Ugluk asked, his red eyes scoping the large ork that stood before him, covering his own muscular body in shadow. I am Gurthak and I am da Boss! Tension was mounting, the entire village had gathered to watch the showdown outside of the tavern Da Wurr Wort. Gurthak stood leaning over Ugluk, his fangs bared in a vicious grin, the growl from the back of his throat so intimidating it made all the snotlings quiver. Wuzz do ya wunt?, Ugluk SkullKrusha asked. Wuzz I wunt?!, as the boss spoke, spit from his huge gaping mouth hit Ugluk in the face, I wuntz yer ords of teef! All in da kamp has to rip off da taxes!. My teef ar me own, Ugluk said and thudded his chest with a large thumb, No matta how bad a boss yer ar Says who?! Ugluk pressed his enormous revolver into the bosss mouth. Sez my slugga, dats who! No one could believe what they were seeing, a meager recently Dug Up sticking a gun into the mouth of the village Boss himself.

Gogg slumped his head, rubbing his face with his hand, Oy..., he sighed, ... Dis ork iz wun manik git. Do ya have anything to say to my slugga... Boss? Huh? Brain matter, pieces of skull and thick gooey blood splattered all over the bosss mob of thugs. Gurthak fell into the thick mud of the street, the large hole in the back of his head clearly visible for all to see. Dats wuzz I call bad dakka, Ugluk said as he held the slugga before him and inspected the gun, smoke still spewing from the barrel. The ruckus broke Ugluks trance on the huge revolver, in front of him stood the entire mob of thugs, them all aiming sluggas, shootas and eavy stubbers of every size and shape imaginable. Ugluk quickly put words to his predicament, Im in bad doo-doo dis time. One of the larger of the thugs stepped up to the troublemaker, Ya wants dakka? Ill give ya dakka. All Ugluk saw was a huge mass of green knuckles coming his way.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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Stikkin Da Boot In!

Firebase: So Saul, What force do you play? Saul: Straight Codex Orks, with a Blood Axe theme. FB: Cool, and What tactics do you employ and how successful is your army in the game? Saul: Taktiks? Plan A usually! Thats just charge! Im really not a very good gamer though: Im not competitive enough to compete with the Flame On bunch but I really enjoy playing so it doesnt get me down when things go wrong - its all part of the story! FB: Nice! Your Orks look great; just how do you go about painting them? Saul: 20 minutes a day, every day; the time between my Girlfriend leaving for work and when I have to leave! Youd be surprised how much you can get done in such a short amount of time! My problem used to be just sitting looking at a pile of stuff trying to decide what to start. But now I have limited myself to a very short period of time each session I just get on with it! It also keeps the GF a lot happier, since I dont ignore her when shes home!

look at Saul Painters fantastic Blood Axe Ork Army

D A F I F T Y F I F F B A D R E DZ B R IG A DE
The Bad Redz are a Blood Axe Tribe with a taste for desert camo (regardless of the actual environment they ght in!), Looted armour, big gunz and massed infantry charges. They are lead by Warboss Kurgan Ironhead, whose Cybork Body and Bionik Bonce are not the most reliable (are they ever?). He frequently picks up radio transmissions and other more scary signals and is never quite sure if they are real or imagined!

A M OM E N T W I T H S AU L
Saul took some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few of FIREBASEs questions on his fantastic army.

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C A MO

SCHEME

Darker areas: Scorched Brown base, drybrushed with Bestial Brown then Brown Inked all over. Lighter areas: Dark Earth, dry-brushed with Kommando Khaki, watered-down Brown Ink into all the cracks, edges and around rivets. The pattern has to work from a distance so try to think about breaking the overall shape of the Kan into non-Kan-like shapes. After all, camo is supposed to make things harder to see or identify!

Saul decided that the metal Nob models just werent beefy and burly enough for the Bad Redz; bigger is better as Orks say! Skarfang is a typical example of one of Sauls converted Nobz; extra green stuff on the head arms and body bulk up the Ork in comparison to the rest of his Boyz, and then tooled up with plenty of gubbinz bulks him even more so. Of particular note is the Power Klaw, like a lot of Sauls Nobz, Skarfang carries a converted Ogre Kingdoms spiked st.

Damage: All the drilled bullet holes and scalpeled chips and scrapes were repainted black (over lapped to the surrounding areas a little). Then painted in Tin Bitz leaving a black edge. Boltgun Metal leaving a Tin Bitz edge and nally a slight highlight with Mithril Silver. Some of them also got a touch of Brown Ink to indicate grime and oil running down from the damage.

Green base coat, mid-tone of Catachan Green, highlight of Goblin Green in streaky lines to give texture to the muscles. Finally an additional highlight of Rotting Flesh to emphasise face, hands and the larger arm muscles! Clothes: As Light Camo on vehicles Gear: As Dark Camo on vehicles Weapons: Just a Codex Grey dry-brush on edges of gunz. Choppas are Boltgun Metal, Brown Ink wash, Boltgun metal streaks and Mithril Silver highlight.

OR K S
Skin: Dark Angel

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Red Bitz : (on vehicles and Boyz) Red Gore base, mid tone of Red Gore and Blood Red mix. Highlight of Blood Red. Streaky again! Last but not least! Black and White checks and Daggs everywhere ! FB: Thanks for allowing us to showcase your army, as well as taking the time to chat with us Saul. Saul Painter is a regular painter and gamer with the Flame On gaming group located in Manchester, England.

S K A R FA NG
The lights ickered in the dim hold and the oily bulkheads groaned and shook as the stresses of re-entry took their toll on the Landa. The Ork Boyz on board ignored these worrying signs though, to them this was a normal drop. They were all in a state of mild euphoria at the prospect of the ght to come: re-checking weapons and ammo, tightening straps on armour, securing gear and grenades.

Any guesses for where the inspiration for this painboss came from? Extensive green stuff work and a vintage plastic powerst really makes this model up from a standard ork boy, a rusty metallic paint job and this guy is good to go! You will be deleted!

Another allplastic and green stuff conversion, a standard ork boy carries a heavy Kustom Forceeld on his back converted from the teleport homer from the Space Marine Terminator boxed set and cables from a plastic Imperial Guard Lascannon. A sawn-off grenade launcher makes a kustom slugga and green stuff cabling nishes this model off beautifully.

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Skarfang wandered along the aisle checking his Boyz over one nal time. There were some minor arguments between a few of them, but that was also normal when they were not in a combat situation. As he passed each one he either adjusted their gear or slapped them on the head to show his approval. The Boyz that got slapped grinned with pride. They were Skarfangs Boyz: The best mob in Warboss Kurgan Ironheads Fifty Fiff Bad Redz Brigade. The low howling outside had built up to a loud whining noise, the Boyz started to feel heavier, as the air-breaks engaged, and they knew they were in the nal moments of the drop. The lights went out for a moment and were replaced by the red glow of the lamp above the exit ramp. There was a few seconds of frantic activity as the Boyz unstrapped themselves and pushed and shoved towards the doors, laughing and jeering. The Landa hit the ground hard but the Boyz had done this dozens of times and the were ready for the impact. The lamp turned green and the hold was suddenly lled with dazzling white light and swirling, dusty wind as the doors opened and the ramp dropped. With a roar, Skarfang lead the Orks down them ramp and into battle
Sauls aim for this army was to use as many plastic components and models as possible, and these two models are testament to that. Using a combination of orky weaponry and glyphs, plasticard, and parts from Imperial Guard Sentinels he went about converting some amazing plastic killa kans; here at FIREBASE we had to make a double-take at how much they looked like the metal ones, but better and no doubt easier to assemble! Sauls Orky camo nishes the models perfectly.

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Through the Valley of the City of Death

ince the Imperial City sets release, I had seen what others had made with their sets and some fantastic examples of what was to come. I couldnt wait to build a city for myself.
The interesting thing is how they got the ideas for the sets. Someone had noticed that buildings in computer games are built using tiles so they took this and created a building set for tabletop gaming -a small and very interesting fact for you all. When I rst looked into buying the set, the price is what made me unsure about whether it was a worthwhile investment. It seemed that 100 was a lot of money when it comes to scenery. When I rst opened the box all of those doubts disappeared. In the Imperial City set, there were a total of 28 sprues, which they say you can make a total of 10 buildings with. This surely depends on how big the buildings are and how you use the pieces in the box. After I had nished

with the set, I had a total of 11 buildings, and a large pile of spare pieces which would be very useful when it comes to building other terrain and basing models to ght in the streets of Medusa V. Each of these buildings were a reasonable size. When building them you have to remember that you have be able to game on them, so keeping them open and accessible is a good thing to think about. When you open the set you have to resist the urge to just start sticking bits together, thats what I did! Stop and think about what type of buildings you want. After a bit of thought I had decided to keep the buildings to a set size. The Manufactorium pieces would be used to make smaller buildings, representing communication stations and power generators, also being suitable for use as ring platforms. The Sanctum and Basilica pieces would be used to make bigger buildings, where there is room for forces to ght for control.

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Once all the larger buildings were nished I had noticed that I had a large pile of spare building panels, forming a mixture from the 3 sets. After thinking about what I could do with these, I decided it would be better to make smaller, intact buildings with a simple role, to block line of sight and provide an obstacle to infantry and vehicles. I hoped that this would make games a lot more interesting and more thought would have to go into movement and deployment of forces. When the buildings were nished, along came the point of clipping all the spare pieces off, every little nook and cranny of the sprue had been lled with a building piece. These will be perfect when it comes to basing the buildings and making other terrain pieces to use such as rubble piles. The set can be used to make a fantastic city layout on which to play on. I decided to make the buildings modular, meaning that each layout is different, as the buildings could be moved after every game and would the better option when it comes to storage, as I did not have the space to store a city-

When working with the pieces I was surprised at how easy they were to work with, everything seemed to t together with no problems at all and the mould lines were easy to get rid of. I wasnt too fussed about cleaning them up thoroughly, as I planned to roughcoat them when it comes to painting them. This gives them a nice texture to drybrush and also acts as a grey undercoat. Its always a good idea to do a dry t, it becomes easier to build and get the pieces to t together after the rst building.

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ght board and the board is also used for other games. I wasnt too sure whether the set would cover the 6 by 4 gaming board I had so I decided to purchase the smaller set, which comes with the book which I would need later anyway. It also had more building sprues and the obstacles which would be an add on to the board later. However, it turned out that the 11 buildings was more than enough to cover the board, as each building, when set up, is set-up no closer than 6 to the previous one, leaving roads in between.

In conclusion, the new cities of death buildings are all fantastic sets, being easy to work with and also looking good on the battleeld, which are two important factors when making terrain. I am also very happy now that I had decided to go ahead and purchase the set. It may seem like a lot of money at rst, but it turns out to be a one off cost and the buildings certainly look and feel like they will last the test of time. - Paul Cook

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Slumming It

hile everyone else seems busy with the Cities of Death buildings, we thought wed be different and make some of Miniature Scenerys desert buildings.
Adam: What do you think we should stick these things together with? PVA? Simon: Orour hopes and dreams Adam: Huh? Simon: Lets use some No More Nails. And so our morning of building began. Boy, did we regret not reading the instructions!

then scraped the ash off with a modeling knife. We should have used sand paper, but what the hell. We then went about slotting the thing together stage by stage and gluing it with PVA as we went. It was a total nightmare. If all else fails, read the instructionsand we did.

PLAN B
The new construction plan was to assemble the buildings in two parts; usually the top part and the bottom part. One of us would hold it together while the other squirted No More Nails along the corners and touch it up with a little PVA here and there, mostly to ll gaps in the wood. No More Nails takes about 10 minutes to become touch-dry and once it sets, theres nothing short of a nuclear missile that can shift it. The only thing is that it tends to look very white and very lumpy when it has set. PVA is a better option when an area is going to be seen regularly. So we used PVA to seal up the exterior and merrily gunked the inside with No More Nails. The buildings are incredibly easy to slot together. The only difculty is the stair slats, which are often very tight,

G O T WO OD ?
To make these buildings you will need; a modeling knife, some sand paper, PVA glue, No More Nails (or similar high-strength general adhesive), some kitchen roll, Wood Primer, brushes, a black spray can, dark grey spray can and light grey spray can and a few beers. -Beer has been known to vastly improve modeling and gaming ability. We cut the components from the wooden sprue and

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or come in two sizes. Its only when you start assembling that you realize there are two sizes of stair slats. Cramming the whole thing together and gluing it afterwards was much easier. We got through 1 building per hour. I can see it taking a little longer for someone assembling these on their own, unless they grow an extra set of hands. We left the buildings to dry on the lawn, in the sun while we had dinner, then stood back to admire our handy work. These things are huge! You could comfortably t 20 infantrymen on just one of them with a base size of approximately 6x6 inches.

accommodating for a variety of base sizes. Your models will be able to t on the stairs without falling down them and chipping their paint job. 100 will buy you 10 Cities of Death buildings, although Paul Cook managed to stretch this to 11 with some careful planning of components. 100 could instead buy you 15 desert buildings. Its the classic comparison of quality or quantity. Do you want 10 highly details plastic buildings, or 15 large, basic buildings that take a little more time to assemble? I personally, lean towards the 15 basic buildings. Little details cant be damaged or break off over time, as there are none, the buildings are all the same height with the same number of levels, making them ideal for a game of Necromunda when combined with some walkways. Theyre also a lot larger, covering more of the gaming table. However, I am concerned about painting them. Once again, this comes down to a little more time and preparation. Wood drinks paint (and spray paint) like fat people eat pies. This means that the wood needs to

Q UA L I T Y VS Q UA N T I T Y
The obvious thing to compare these to is the Cities of Death buildings. While the Cities of Death buildings are fabulously detailed and very easy to assemble, the Miniature Scenery buildings are not. They take a heck of a lot more time. You need patience and PVA to assemble the wood, or a friend with a No More Nails goo squirter for rapid results. On the other hand, theyre large, spacious and

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be primed before any painting can begin and with 15 buildings, that is time consuming. Im sure these buildings could be made to look truly amazing if someone put a lot of time and devotion into them. Unfortunately, I want them done and ready to game on as soon as possible.

a very long lifespan and seems to heavily dust the target instead of spitting paint at it. Once the undercoat was dry, we sprayed the exterior with the dark brown spray paint, followed by a quick spraying of a colour that looks similar to Bubonic Brown and a nal quick dusting with a spray that looks quite similar to Bleached Bone. In the short term, the buildings are done and ready to game on. As time goes on, we will add grafti, concert, propaganda, wanted and imperial guard recruitment posters, as well as blood stains, bullet holes, shop signs, parked vehicles, gun emplacements, radar dishes, hazard stripes, pet mutant rats and other assorted Underhive details. -Simon Smith

P RODUC T ION L I N E
We set up a production line to mass produce the rest of the buildings as quickly as possible. This cut the time down to half an hour per building. Having a friend to help out makes the job innitely easier and faster. Once the buildings were dry, we hastily coated them with Wood Primer using a couple of old brushes. Its important to cover both inside and outside of the building as part of the interior can be seem from outside and will receive a spray undercoat later.

S PR AY

AND

P R AY

Now for the fun part! We spray undercoated the buildings both inside and out, with Black Matt car body spray from Halfords. This stuff is awesome. It covers well, never leaves a bobbly or rippled effect, has

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n this page, you will nd several action shots of games involving our brand new buildings.

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Got wood?

http://www.miniaturescenery.com/

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In space, Everyone can hear your WAAAAAGH!

imon Fisher has always liked his special stuff. Now he looks at the pros and cons of the Orks in Battleeet Gothic.

The Orks are renowned for ramshackle eets, lack of speed and grace, love of the simplistic and the sheer ugliness of their vessels. One would imagine they would be a push over to defeat to the superior space faring races. Oh, how far from the truth.

You see, theres a lot to be said about the Orks in BFG. Theres something very gentlemanly Much like their WH40K Their eet list may lack the about Battleeet Gothic. Whilst masses incarnation, theyre full diversity of the Imperials and of grunts and guardsmen ght tooth and Chaos, may not utilise the of character and are as nail on a planets surface, it easy to forget speed of the Eldar and their how they got there. The might of the tough as nails! Dark kindred, is devoid of highly Imperial Navy ferried them from world technical rules like the Necrons to world, each majestic city sized ship a and lacks the build-it-yourself work of art. Shrines, guns the size of skyscrapers and adaptability of the Tyranids. However, much like their archaic sculptures of heroes and saints of the Imperium WH40K incarnation, theyre full of character and are as adorn each and every vessel at every point. Each ship tough as nails! is captained by the latest in a long bloodline of famous

Naval families, their birthright to command the vessels that have served The Emperor longer than any living man. Then, there are the Orks

I chose Orks to play in BFG for several reasons. The rst is because I dig the models. They are fantastic sculpts and typify the entire visage of the Ork. They are big, heavy, well armoured and armed to the teeth. They look brutal just how they should do! The second is the character of the eet. You have weapons that malfunction one minute, only to rival that of a battleship the next. Your escorts mostly carry ridiculous amounts of repower that can only re in one direction. Your mad mekaniks were so busy thinking

E R E

W E G O

Indeed, if BFG was a golf club, and each race a prestigious, respectable member, the Orks would be the drunken wedding reception that ended in a punch up.

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about the ships in front of them they forgot to put armour on the rear of the ship. You even have ships that are Lets be honest, specially designed to ram Orks dont care things head on! If ever a who they fight! list personied one races outlook on interstellar warfare, this is it.

TO

G O W E R NO

O R K A Z

G ON E B E F U R !

The nal reason for my choice is the challenge. There is not much diversity in the list, with only two types of kroozer to choose from. These kroozers are able to carry out several roles, which I feel adds to the strength of the list. An Ork player can build a eet that is ready for all comers rather than specic foes and lets be honest, Orks dont care who they ght! The Orks may have as many weaknesses as they have strengths, but in the right hands they can be a very challenging eet to face. Sometimes youll be jumping for joy when you roll a string of 6s for your weapons batteries and sometimes youll howl in pain when you get 1s. Thats the charm of the green tide! Youll be guaranteed one thing in a game with the Orks, that there will a lot of unexpected twists, which usually ends in lots of explosions!

Lets just consider the ships of the Ork eet in BFG. For 155 points you can buy your basic Kill Krooza. It comes with ten structure points and ank armament gunz with strength D6 and a range of 30cm. On top of this, you have the ridiculously strong strength 4 heavy gunz (which causes double damage for each hit you successfully make) with only a 15cm range. This is fairly formidable at close range, but surprisingly vulnerable from ships with a long reach. However, Where theres the front armament is where its at. They have gunz of a an Ork, theres range of 45cm and a minimum always a way! strength of 3 and heavy gunz with strength 6. This gives your kill kroozer potentially a massive armament. Even with poor rolling, one would be wise not to get too close to an Ork ship. The Orks will often outnumber their opponents, and can potentially outgun them as well!

However, this comes at a price. Although tough, their ships have low turret values, low shielding and slow speeds can make the Orks very vulnerable. Low leadership values also can cause issues when trying to go on special orders. Ordnance, especially in the form of bombers, can wreak havoc if allowed free reign of the eld. However, where theres an Ork, theres always a way!

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GR EEN

S K WODRON !

leading them to become easy pickings for any forward scouts. Should your attack craft manage to survive until you come within ring range of the enemy, they can unleash a nasty surprise of D3 bomber attacks. This is extra useful for hitting ships who have snuck behind the rear of your eet.

When using Orks, and I cannot emphasise this enough, it is important to set up dominance of the surrounding area of your eet as soon as possible. Due to bombers always striking the lowest armour values (being the rear armour of 4 on all Greenskin ships), on top of the lack of anti-aircraft capabilities, you must be prepared for the enemy launching wave after wave of attack craft in your direction. Therefore, the rst thing I ever put on my eet roster is a Terror ship. It can put out 4 squads of ghta-bombas a turn which should surround the eet in preparation for incoming ordnance. By giving this ship a warlord and an extra re-roll you should increase the leadership and an extra try at any failed special order checks useful for reloading your launch bays and deploying 4 more squads next turn. You should be able to get eight attack craft markers out by the time enemy ghters reach you. I also give this ship torpedo launchers as well, as these can be useful to give your opponent something to think about if theyre attempting to keep you at arms length. These are reloaded the same time as your attack craft, so already your rst ship is capable of protecting the ock and forcing the enemy to manoeuvre their eet to avoid your incoming re. This could cause some ships to fall out of formation attempting to avoid your torpedoes and

A LL

AHEAD FULL!

Orks, although they are Being surrounded not usually too competent just means you when carrying out special can attack in orders, automatically pass their All Ahead Full special all directions! order, gaining an extra 2D6 of distance on top of their full move. This is useful to get close to the enemy as soon as possible. However, this restricts your ring for that turn to half strength. Also, if you want to pump out the maximum number of ordnance markers you can your Terror ship will be unable to utilise this special order. Therefore, split your eet in two. One should be fast group of vessels, consisting of a Kill Kroozer and another kroozer with two squads of escorts with torpedoes and gunz. This will plough ahead whilst the slower contingent consisting of the Terror ship and the rest of the short

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ranged escorts, including the brute ram ships. The second eet should follow the rst This can be just as good a psychological move as well as a logistical one. Quite often, a fast approaching eet of heavily armed warships can force an opponent to panic and not thoroughly think out their move. They may attempt to turn into you thats ne, an approaching target is easier to re upon and if they decide to close the distance that will also lead to a positive shift on the gunnery table. If they try and run theyll be exposing their rear to your superior prow repower. A clever opponent will split their force, with each side trying to ank you. With correct timing, once they try to surround your rst eet, the second eet will be approaching and will be in range to bombard anyone crossing your rst T. Should they attempt to surround your slower contingent, your rst eet is in an ideal position to outank them and you still have your ghta-bombas and Brute ramships to give them a nasty surprise. Of course this is an ideal scenario, and things, quite often, go wrong especially with the Greenskins! If it all goes wrong, dont be afraid to get stuck in - being surrounded just means you can attack in all directions!

B AG G Y

G O T DA BIG SH I P !

You can take a single Warlord per every 500 points. For 40 points and a higher than average leadership, this is a bargain and I recommend buying as many as possible. For a slight bit more, you get all sorts of crazy skills for you crews, including being able to re-roll your gunnery results and torpedo salvos every time you re (not just once per battle). You can re-roll failed special order checks up to 3 times (if you choose to pay for it, I personally nd I dont make many special orders unless absolutely necessary Im economic when it comes to re-rolls and Orks!) and a warlord doubles your boarding rating. Another under-rated skill is the extra energy elds this adds +1 shield to your warlords ship. This negates an extra hit of damage per turn which can add to the survivability of the kroozer no end. Of course, be wary when buying all these fancy upgrades, some cost the same as an escort. It may be very cool building a range of really hard capital ships (and so typically Orky!), but you may nd yourself lacking against faster opponents and being easily out anked. Its all a matter of personal preference.

EXTR A

GU B B I N Z

In your standard 1500 point eet, Id include three capital ships of kroozer size and three warlords. The

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rest would be made up of big squadrons of escorts. I personally believe each escort has their role in the eet, and take them for their diversity and character. Depending on your rolling, you may nd your escorts are rivalling capital ships in their repower. Personally, however, I hold a special respect for the humble brute ram ship. Ok. Its puny. However, it has something the other escorts do not. It has a weapons battery that res in three arcs. It is cheaper than an Imperial Cobra classed escort and has better armour value. A squad of 6 can create a wall of effectively a strength 12 weapon battery in one of three directions nothing to be sniffed at! Two squadrons would be quite formidable should they also be backing up a Terror ship with aircraft support. They are disposable and dirt cheap, yet also pack a punch at medium range. Oh, and I have I mentioned the fact they roll 4 times their structure value when conducting ramming attacks? Just two of these ships, if successful, can destroy crippled vessels. Ideal for nishing off agships, and is there a better, more fun, more Orky way to do it? So there you have it, a brief introduction to the Ork eets in Battleeet Gothic. Orks provide you with a challenge and a lot of fun in your games. Just make sure you bring your lucky blue die with you!

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The Dockyard

Firebase: Youre a very good painter, is it your favourite aspect of the hobby? Dustin: I like to collect and convert models more than painting. Sometimes models stay unpainted a long time. The only time that they are painted is when I want to use them in a game, and when I do they get a splash of paint. FB: How did you achieve the unique scheme of your ships? Dustin: My paint schemes arent very complicated. The space Marine and Imperial navy vessels have a black basecoat, ink to cover the parts where primer never seems to go in all the nooks on a battleeet model. Then it is just one or two dry brushings of ultramarine blue the guns and prow with boltgun metal, shining gold trim and mithril silver and tinbitz used for various highlights and other details. Lastly Blood red marker lights, I dont know why but you just need red on a model somewhere. FB: Whats project? your most ambitious

n each issue of Firebase the specialist games section will bring you the Dockyard. This area will strive to bring you interesting modelling articles and showcase the models painted and converted by actual players, just like you or me.

This quarter, we are proud to present, all the way from Canada, the combined eets of Dustin Hrenyk. Dustin is 21 and has been collecting and painting Battleeet Gothic for 3 years now. Since then, he has amassed a huge number of ships, with 9000 (!) points of Imperial Navy vessels, 5000points (!!) of Space Marines and recently completed 6000 points of Black Legion Chaos (!!!). I would like to also comment on the standard of his bases, which are absolutely awless and truly completes the models. Each model has been converted slightly which really adds character to individual ships. We were lucky enough to get this interview with him:

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Dustin: As I mentioned before I like to convert models, and I guess mine would be very expensive if I didnt acquire some of the components for a cheap price on a notorious auction site. Most of my larger conversions contain more than one battleship/ship model. The biggest so far uses one and some pieces of a planet killer, pieces of two emperor class battleships, parts of a dauntless, and a chaos cruiser, not mentioning lots of other stray bits. They usually start with two rear superstructures and then I build from there using four outside sprue pieces from the 40k landraider box when they are put together they are the right width a height for weapons and dorsal plates (See the WIP Pic) simons comment -on the page link to. It usually just comes together from there. One thing that I learned whilst converting battleeet models is to never have a detailed plan laid out, have an idea in your head but no specics, it comes together a lot nicer in the end and youll be impressed with what the outcome is. FB: Which do you think is your favourite model?

Dustin: When Im asked which model is my favourite, it is hard to choose, I like them all in their own ways. But if I had to choose Id have to say the Imperial command ship that I made, just because it is unique and I have not seen a similar model. Also Im impressed how it turned out when I had no idea how I was going to make it. Now I only have to give it a respectable paint job that it deserves.

FB: Do you ever run out of new ideas? Dustin: My preferences toward Battleeet Gothic is converting, playing, and then painting (in that order). It is a mystery to me but coming up with new ship models/designs is very enjoyable. Playing occurs when ever I can. Then nothing brings new conversions/models together like a solid paint coat only then you see how

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cool the battleeet models are. Now all I have to do is sit down for more than ve minutes and get the rest of them painted all the way. A big thank you to Dustin for his time. He has also created numerous stunning conversions and written rules for their use in his gaming group. Hopefully well bring you more on these in future issues of FIREBASE. Interview carried out by Simon Fisher

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Five Admirals and a Hiveeet

o write the rst Battleeet Gothic article, we wanted someone who had an intense knowledge of naval warfare, experience of the high seas and from stock of a great military family. Unfortunately, the closest we had was Simon Fisher. Were all doomed!

Alas, I needed to justify this to the big boss. After much consideration (at least the top side of 2 minutes), I had come up with a plan. Well, the nice folks at Warseer helped me come up with it, while I sat at home, drinking Tea, listening to Terry Wogan. And here begins the story, of four Admirals and a Hiveeet. You see my chickadees, specialist games are not that difcult to get into. Battleeet Gothic only requires a few ships and a big, at board. You even get a shed load of gaming markers in the beginners box set. The rules were available for all eets on the specialist games website, so it was decided 5 gamers of varying experience would create their own, unique eets. Five views in force composition to help demonstrate how easy it is to build a strong force for Battleeet Gothic. Some guidelines had to be made. Firstly, a three month period was set as the timeframe to complete the eets. The eets would be tournament legal forces worth up to 1500 points. And nally, a total spending amount of 90 (approximately $140) would be set. Thats 30 a month. More than enough! Hopefully this would encourage some of you gentle folks at home to learn a little bit more about those specialist games, what theyre about, and perhaps persuade some of you to try them yourselves.

When I was asked to write a few articles about Battleeet Gothic I realised we needed something really bold to get people hooked. Specialist games are special for a reason- because theyrespecial and Battleeet Gothic (or BFG to the converted) is no different. Theyre not widely available, and often can be quite cost prohibited and consume a lot of time. So, how do I go about writing an article to convince people that they should play more fringe games? I mean, I could write an article saying that theyre not that expensive or time consuming. I could get up on my big bitz box and shout to the masses how they should convert to the specialist side. Or, I could get some gullible minions to do the work for me and show you how easy it is, whilst I sit around drinking Tea and listening to the Archers. I liked the sound of that last one.

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In the words of my Cockney friend; Dont ght it, you might like it!

A GOOD NAVY IS NOT A PROVOCATION TO WAR. IT IS THE SUREST GUARANTEE OF PEACE .

Rob Holland used the unusual tactic of using reallife naval tactics to base his eet upon. He made the even more unusual choice of picking an Imperial eet as well! I have recently graduated from college and am now in the US Air Force awaiting pilot training. I have been playing in Games Workshop hobbies for nearly a decade and like the sense of community that it creates and the ability to jump right into a group of gamers. I bought Battleeet Gothic when it was originally released and built an Imperial Fleet. My rst eet is attack craft heavy. To compare it to history I would say it bore a resemblance to a World War II Pacic Fleet, having a large number of attack craft. This time I am taking an Imperial eet in a different direction. More of a turn of the 19th to 20th century style eet, large powerful ships with escorts along side them with a few early aircraft carriers. So I have to turn to history for the eets make up. I looked at Wikipedia.com for examples and saw that at the Battle of Jutland, the British eet was composed with 30% heavier ships such as Battleships, Dreadnaughts,

and Heavy Cruisers while the German eet had 27% of these heavier ships. So I have a target goal for the eet, at least a two light cruisers or escorts for every cruiser, battlecruiser or battleship in my eet. In terms of background in the 41st millennium, the eet is from a sector near Ultramar. I am a huge Ultramarine fan and it was my rst army. All of my Imperial armies and eets are from the region. It is no different with this eet.The ships themselves or at least the vast majority where probably constructed at the Calth shipyards. The eets primary concerns are Ork Raiding eets, Eldar Pirate eets, and Tau Exploratory eets. On occasion it has to deal with other eets and had to ght off a splinter of a Tyranid eet. That is the history of the eet I am going to build. Read the next issue of Firebase to read what I settled upon for this eet and the completion of the eet.

FORTIFY THE STARS !

Don Hornby is a relative newcomer to the 40K universe, only beginning in the 4th edition. Being an Iron Warrior player, he was coaxed into playing a game based in space because of the rumours that the moon is in fact made of cheese... If theres any real evidence of my insanity, lack of nancial restraint and addiction to Games Workshops games, youre going to see it in the next issue. I mean,

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you have to be a true GW fanboy to start a new game for a fanzine article. But I digress. Im Don from, currently, Whitehorse, Yukon, in the northern wastes of Canada. Ive been wargaming for about 3 years now, and playing GW games for the past two. I started into 40K with the release of 4th Edition, collecting a Tau army from day one. Ive also, at assorted times, collected Steel Legion and Cadian Imperial Guard armies, a Space Wolf army, a small counts-as Iron Warriors army and a small countsas Death Guard army. However, all of them were sold as I eventually just decided I wanted more Tau instead. Ive also since started Fantasy with a Dwarf army, although, with a pretty complete lack of Fantasy players in the area, it hasnt seen the table often. And, now, Im starting Battleeet Gothic, with a Chaos eet. I originally planned to start BFG about a year ago when several of my friends also expressed an interest in starting. However, that plan died. I still wanted to start - maybe I watched too much Star Wars and Star Trek when I was a kid. Plus, the rules are so simple and effective-BFG is, rules-wise, one of the better games Ive seen and Ive seen a lot. A Chaos eet is strange for me - Ive got a permanent obsession with playing the good guys. Im the guy whos always rolling up Good characters in D&D, or at least shifting them good. As such, my Chaos eet is going

to be, uff-wise, at least less evil-theyre going to be Iron Warriors, who are only just Chaos because they think the Emperor is an arse. Well, in my opinion, of course. Plus, the whole never mind the deamons, weve got machines! is pretty cool. I chose the Chaos eet because of one thing - guns! Lots of them! Big ones! Yes, Im a repower fanatic. I play by the motto if brute force isnt working, then youre not using enough. And, when youre eet has cruisers with 10 and 14-repower broadsides, you dont get much more brute then that. Also, its a pretty cheap eet to collect-my eet for this article is 5 Cruisers and a Battleship All easy to get my hands on. Granted, Im not the biggest fan of them, I chose the Chaos fleet visually they are a bit too rough-looking for because of one thing my tastes. But, hey, if I guns! Lots of them! get the motivation, I can Big ones! always convert them.

Ill be building up my eet to the 1,500 points mark. Ive already got 4 Cruisers on the way. Now all I have to do is overcome my slow painting speed.

WHEN SHE CROSSED OVER, SHE WAS JUST A SHIP. BUT WHEN SHE CAME BACK... SHE WAS ALIVE !
Andy Maddison has already participated in a similar

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army building scheme for Fantasy battle. We found his attempts and excuses for not completing it amusing, so we thought wed give him another chance to make a mess here! Hi, my names Andy and Ill be collecting a BattleFleet Gothic eet for the upcoming Firebase magazine. Some of you may remember my last project, collecting a fantasy army for the Tale of 8 Gamers on Warseer. Unfortunately I got right to the end, and then couldnt attend the nal tournament, due to ... err ... painting issues. Well, this is my attempt to make up for that! Ive been looking to get back into BFG for a while now, and saw this project as a way of doing so. The major problem being that I have just brought a house and due to this, I have no money. No problem, because I have plenty of Chaos bits oating around at home! Surely I can cobble together a eet from said bits? Theres only one way to nd out! A quick visit to the Specialist Games website told me that the chaos list has been updated to include Daemonships; cruisers possessed by daemons which allow them to use the warp to their advantage during games. This only increased my belief that chaos was the eet for me. The only problem then was which God would they follow? I love themed chaos forces, and this would be my way to get in some good conversions. Im not really a fan of Khorne, so

that was that one out, but where to go from there? Ive always loved Tzeentch, so thats a possibility, and the conversion potential of a Nurgle eet cant be ignored. Well, Ive been ddling about with the eet list for a while to see what I could come up with, and Ive got a basic idea, but that will have to wait. Ill say goodbye for now, so tune in next time for a prototype eet list, and hopefully a converted ship or two...

TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO AUN HAS GONE BEFORE !

Paul Cook decided to begin a Tau eet for his project. He got into character by listening to copious amounts of S Club 7. All together now: Reach for the Stars! (Dont you mean Sun? Ed) So, Battleeet Gothic returns. I havent played this game in years, and then out of the blue I got an invitation to take part in Five Admirals and a Hive Fleet. The rst thing I decided upon was to look at the articles on the Specialists games site. One eet in particular that caught my attention were the Tau. They didnt have the battleships that the Imperium own but stood out as a good eet. The ships seem moderately priced for what you get, with Tau battleships being the same points cost of an Imperium cruiser. The main disadvantage that stood out was the lack of shields, but with plenty of ships for the 1500 points allowance, losing a couple to enemy re shouldnt be too

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much of a problem. Another tactic would be to use the ships speed and range in order to isolate and destroy certain enemy ships. The next thing I would need are some models, looking at the Games Workshop specialist range; I wasnt very keen on the Games Workshop models. I then noticed that Forgeworld had a range of Tau ships and that they had also published their own rule set in Imperial Armour 3. These models certainly caught my eye, so I would denitely be picking these up when Im next in Nottingham along with a copy of Imperial Armour 3. So see you next time, when my eet should be ready. Hopefully Ill also have some games to report on and a eet to use in them.

around 3,000 pts of Epic Nids collected through ebay (thanks for the re-release specialist games). Recently our veteran night moved onto Battleeet gothic, something that has always interested me but due to a lack of players I was never able to try. I decided to start with Chaos as they were a good beginners eet, I just couldnt bring myself to go Imperial. After I got basics of the game down I started to plan my Tyranid eet and had a pleasant surprise with the customisation element of the race being carried over into BFG. Ive always been a fan of hordes, force your opponent to roll enough dice and they will die so I will be going for numerically large eet with lots of launch bays and escorts. Now I have to plan the models for my eet Ive decided to use a combination of the specialist games models and ones Ill create using plastic 40K sprues. Im going to use the colours of Hive eet Kali so interesting times lay ahead.

INVASION OF THE BITZ SNATCHERS.

When asking Jon Wilson where his article was, he told me it was lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Luckily, I found this attached to his e-mail. I started playing Tyranids during the 2nd edition and they have been my primary army ever since despite some diversions Ive always returned to them. Im currently up to around 9,000 pts for 40K including an almost complete set of Forgeworld beasties and

EVERYONE IS DOING THEIR PART. A RE YOU?

Well, after all the talk of getting people to do the work done for him, Simon found the temptation of the challenge to make a new eet was just too much!

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Let me tell you just a bit about myself. Im a 21 year old veteran of BFG. In fact, BFG actually got me into this hobby in the rst place, 8 years ago when it was released! I love space ships, always have and always will. Now, after a lot of thinking and several abortive attempts to get started, I nally decided upon my eet. I wanted something challenging, a eet that not many people played, a eet that unusual but with a lot of style when being played, and, nally, I wanted a eet with character and a lot of versatility. A force that would be a really fun modelling project and that would stand out and be noticed when I set them up on the table. Jon had already got dibs on the Tyranids. The Necrons were a race I disliked anyway, so that counted them out. I toyed with the Eldar, but Ive never been a fan of them ever since my rst ever battle of BFG was against them (oh, how I got slaughtered). So, who else? Waitmy hatred for the Eldarthat was it! Which eet would take the most satisfaction from devastating the Eldar? Their dark kindred, of course The Dark Eldar! Ive always wanted to begin a Dark Eldar army in 40K, so this was a perfect opportunity for me. I read up on the Dark Eldar eet list. Hmm, they only have two types of

vessels. However, theyre very versatile and can be armed with anything I wanted. A unique range of weapons and abilities to use and there was very little written about them in BFG - so pretty much a blank canvas to start my force on. They share some aspects with their pansy Eldar brothers (that very sexy Shadoweld - ignore ordnance and lance hits on a 2+? Yes please!), whilst also having some differences (capital ships swapping two movement phases for a huge 30cm movement and slightly more tolerable to receiving damage). Their escorts could also take a mighty strength 5 weapons battery each whilst also counting all targets as closing on the gunnery table thats a lot of die to roll, which means a lot of ships to roll over and die. However, theyre quite short ranged, with their weapons only being capable of shooing 30cm. Oh well - who said being despicably evil was easy? So with only two models available (at extortionate prices as well!) I took the bold step to convert all my ships somehow. So I did the maths, made a rough eet list, worked out what models I would need and how much they eet would cost me. Then came the fun part The test model! Heres a little teaser of my Lance armed Torture class cruiser, the Czernobog. Im going to have my work cut out for me in the next 3 months Id better put the kettle on

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Battle Over Medusa V

BATTLEFIELD
Medusa V Counts as a medium planet with 15cm gravity well. Due to the numerous conicts that have occured in the last few weeks, Medusa V is surrounded by a debris eld (counts as right column shift for batteries but requires LD check to move through like an asteroid eld). Two False Moons These are actually small warp storm phenomena with an extremely dense centre. They count as a small planet with a 10cm gravity well that is surrounded by a gas cloud.

edusa V has experienced several large-scale eet engagements since the encroaching Van Grothes Rapidity was discovered. By the time the Bridge Guard Space Marines arrived in system with fully twothirds of the chapter eet, the planet was choked with the debris of previous engagements.

To make matters worse, Chaos Warmaster Karanskis was leading his eet to provide reinforcements for traitor forces under the direct orders of Lord Ygethmor. The battle would begin as a race to Medusa V to land troops, but ultimately would come down to who could wrestle control of the battleeld.

G A ME DETA IL S :
MISSION
Both forces are attempting to land troops on the planet while fending off enemy forces. If a ship begins or ends its move phase touching the planet, and does not re, launch ordnance, or use special orders, the player lands one point of troops. Each point of troops deployed count as +50 VPs for the Chaos eet while the Space Marine eet receives +100 VPs due to their special rules.

TUR NS & DEPLOY MENT:

Up to 45cm from players table corner. 6 turn game.

STR ATEGIE S :
CHAOS
Attempt to rapidly ank the Marine eet, and hit them with as many lances as possible due to full 6+ armour. After that, swing around the planet to deliver assault forces. Try to stay out of 30 cm range to avoid bombardment cannons.

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2,000pts Chaos Fleet

2,000pts Loyalist Fleet

False Prophecy Desolation, ag ship Final Apocalypse Repulsive Soul Reaver Murder Hellblade Murder Shadowbane Slaughter Dark Entity Acheron
M ARINES
Close with the traitor eet as quickly as possible, using heavy armour to absorb a large amount of enemy re, and hit them hard with thunderhawks and bombardment cannons. Once enemy eet is crippled, move in for boarding.

Adamantine Crusader Battlebarge, agship Light of Ascension Battlebarge Pain Incarnate of the Carrier Group Styx Unrepentant of the Carrier Group Devastation Black Omen of the Carrier Group Devastation Quintessence Strike Cruiser Ironclad Strike Cruiser Righteous Strike Cruiser Campaigner Strike Cruiser Vigilant Strike Cruiser Defender Strike Cruiser Aurora Strike Cruiser Copper & Zinc of Metal Squadron Gladius Escorts

TU R N 1
M ARINES
The Bridge Guard Fleet advance at full speed toward Medusa V, powering up battle systems and boldly advancing through a warp storm phenomena. Long range scanners detect enemy signals, but all weapons are currently out of range. All thunderhawks are placed on full alert as they launch into battle, scouting ahead of the main eet.

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CHAOS
The Final Apocalypse, under command of an overly devout Khornate champion, rapidly accelerates in order to come around the dark side of the planet. With no support, the grand cruiser will be highly vulnerable to interception, but it is Warmaster Karanskis plan to draw some of the Bridge Guard eet away. The remainder of the eet begins to bring battle stations online and form up with the Warmasters ship. The carrier group reduces to half-speed in order to remain farther back. As if a challenge to the thunderhawks, the Final Apocalypse and the False Prophecy launch a full spread of boarding torpedoes. As the carrier group puts up a ghter screen, the Bridge Guard thunderhawks quickly move to intercept and destroy the torpedoes.

TU R N 2
M ARINES
The bulk of the eet begins to manoeuvre to the sunward side of Medusa V to meet the traitor eet head on in glorious battle. The Light of Ascension and the Adamantine Crusader begin to alter their course towards the planet to achieve orbital supremacy and begin troop landings. With weapons still out of range, all the Marine eet can do at the moment is observe the forces of the Archenemy. At this point, the Chaos boarding torpedoes are intercepted by Gamma Squadron, expending their ammunition and fuel in the process. Enemy swiftdeaths pounce upon the slower Delta Squadron, forcing one to disengage.

CHAOS
The carrier pack continues to lag behind in order to safely provide attack craft to the rest of the eet. As the Final Apocalypse enters the darkside of Medusa V, her lance batteries engage and destroy the thunderhawks of Epsilon Squadron. As Metal Squadron comes into view, Karanskis is overjoyed. The massive lances of the

OVERVIEW
Both eet commanders size up the enemy forces and attempt to guess the enemy strategy. Commands are relayed throughout the battle groups and every captain readies his ship for battle.

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False Prophecy speak their hatred, utterly disintegrating the Copper. Shortly after, the lances of the Soul Reaver open up on the Zinc, but due to the debris left behind by her sister ship, the Zincs shields hold. The remaining thunderhawks make excellent target practise for the gunners on other ships, and fully half are destroyed or sent running. Doomres, Swiftdeaths, and the last of the thunderhawks engage over the skies of Medusa V, with the Bridge Guard gaining the upper hand.

M ARINES
Taking the bait, the Ironclad and the Quintessence peel away in an attempt to slow the advance of the Final Apocalypse. As the Zinc accelerates toward the enemy eet in revenge, the Defender and the Campaigner move in support, but are slowed as the debris impacts on their shields. Warmaster Karanskis ship shudders under the impacts of not less than three strike cruisers and the vengeful Zinc, but her shields hold as if through the intervention of the Dark Gods. The Righteous and Vigillant, with no mercy, shoot down the last of the doomres with carefully placed bombardment re. On the darkside of Medusa V, a massive ight of thunderhawks bear down on the Final Apocalypse, inicting incredible internal damage when the defence turrets fail to start up. While trying to emulate this success on the False Prophecy, many battle brothers of fourth company were lost when every single one of their thunderhawks was shot down.

OVERVIEW
Battle proper has not yet been joined, but that will change quickly. As the Bridge Guard move into weapon range, the traitor captains recall the effects of bombardment cannons and quickly adopt a new plan.

TU R N 3

CHAOS
Once again, the turret gunners of the False Prophecy were guided by some unseen force as her momentum carried it into a large number of thunderhawks. All but one was destroyed or sent eeing. Captain Gorath demanded a damage report from the heretic tech-priests aboard the Final Apocalypse. The news was bad: at least two res in C and H decks, thrusters ofine, and all weapons

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except starboard at 30% power. Gorath went into a Khornate rage as he beheaded the snivelling techs with a swipe of his blade. Fear, however, was a bad motivator and only one of the massive res was extinguished. Shadowbane had better luck as she manoeuvred into a classic attack prole and, attaining a full lock on the Righteous, crippled the loyalist ship. In a coordinated volley, Karanskis and the carrier group plotted solutions, reducing the Defender to a burnt out hulk, leaving the survivors to the void. Massive gher and boarder waves were then launched from the carrier group, on a beeline for the remaining strike cruisers.

TU R N 4
M ARINES
Suffering severe structural damage, Captain Antaeus of the Righteous is forced to disengage, using the confusion of the battle as cover. On the darkside of the planet, the thunderhawks of the Ironclad and the Quintessence were unable to launch due to debris choking up their launch bays. Instead, the strike cruiser squadron moved in and targeted the main drives of the Final Apocalypse. Despite the erce cannon-re, only the shields were knocked out. Finally coming around the planet, The Crusader and the Light of Ascension are gifted with a target rich environment. Opting to open re instead of deploying forces, the two battle barges unleash hell on the enemy eet. Aurora and Vigillant, sitting in the middle of the Chaos battlegroup, open re with all guns, failing to inict any structural damage. One of the torpedoes from the Adamantine Crusader, as if guided by the Emperor, struck the Soul Reavers bridge, killing all the command crew in less than a second.

OVERVIEW
The Dark Entity, having done very little so far, was subject to a wave of thunderhawks, resulting in the starboard armaments being wrecked. Captain Gorath continued to fume as his engineers only succeeded in containing the other re rampaging throughout his ship. Captain Manello of the Bridge Guard attempts to formulate an idea. The next few minutes could get very ugly.

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CHAOS
On board the False Prophecy, the turret gunners were not as lucky as they had been, suffering a large attack from yet another ight of thunderhawks. Signicant drive damage and two huge blazes were the result of the errant gunners lack of focus. The Dark Entity, a

for a stern shot. Luckily, the manoeuvre pays off as the Auroras bridge is blasted straight through with a well aimed lance strike. Captain Drakis of the carrier group ordered a full volley toward the Campaigner, overloading the shields and reducing the prow to a smoking wreck. A nal lance shot from the False Prophecy nearly sliced the limping cruiser in half.

OVERVIEW
The last few minutes were extremely hectic. Most of the strike cruisers have been destroyed or heavily damaged but the two battlebarges are undamaged and sitting in high orbit over Medusa V, preparing to deploy forces. With the Final Apocalypse fully repaired, a heavy cruiser is now in the rear lines of the Bridge Guard eet.

TU R N 5
M ARINES
sitting duck, had been hammered by enemy re and ordnance to the point were it could only oat in space and burn. However, the situation was not completely lost as some drop pods were lauched toward the planet. The Final Apocalypses engineers, whipped into action by the overseers (who were whipped in to action by Captain Gorath), managed to repair all systems. Though the Shadowbane was ordered by Karanskis to lock on to the loyalist ships, Captain Soloman he instead swung around With barely any hull integrity left, the Campaigner is forced to disengage before facing complete destruction. Once again, the Vigilant and Aurora charge into the enemy, moving into boarding range of the Pain Incarnate. As the Aurora pounded her port with withering battery re, the crew of the Vigilant

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bravely attempted a boarding action. Their estimates were incorrect on the enemy numbers however, and the Pain Incarnate counter attacks left the Vigilant as a burnt out hulk. The Dark Entity, sitting in between the two battlebarges, found itself pulverized by combined bombardment cannons. A shell set off the plasma drives, with the end result being a spectacular light show on the planet surface while the shields of the battlebarges somehow stood rm against the massive plasma wave. The Adamantine Crusader then launched a full spread of torpedoes at the carrier group, resulting in multiple impacts throughout the squadron. Simultaneously, more torpedoes from the Light of Ascension collided with the Hellblade and Soul Reaver, resulting in a huge chain reaction and knocking out the engines.

planet. Nearly the entire Chaos eet res all weapons at the Adamantine Crusader, but the Emperor was watching as the shields barely held.

OVERVIEW
The majority of the Chaos forces are in close range of Medusa V. Time is running out for the loyalist forces. With the strike cruisers occupied or out of action, the job falls upon the Light of Ascension and the Adamantine Crusader.

TU R N 6
M ARINES
Captain Manello, running out of options, made a bold move. All ahead full, ramming speed! Plowing through the waves of Chaos attack craft that lay in her wake, the Adamantine Crusader slammed into the Black Omen on its starboard side, all but cutting it in half. Severing multiple plasma tubes, a huge re ared up in the bowels of the stricken ship. The Aurora, with her manoeuvring thrusters knocked out, was forced to drift helplessly. In high orbit, the Light of

CHAOS
In a bold move, the Final Apocalypse changes heading, and heads directly toward the planet at top speed, unleashing a few shots at the Ironclad in the process. To back it up, the Shadowbane, along with the Hellblade also begin to move toward Medusa V. Lord Karanskis, already highly stressed, failed to lock on to the enemy, and guides his ship toward the

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Ascension began the process of deploying. A full company of Bridge Guard began plummeting toward the planet in their drop pods. Thunderhawks from the Adamantine Crusader bombarded the Black Omen in order to nish her off, igniting further decks and knocking out the port weaponry. On board the Black Omen, res ran completely unchecked throughout the ship, with nearly all hands succumbing to the smoke or burnt to death.

OVERVIEW
At the end of the engagement, few of the Bridge Guard ships were operational and the traitor eet was moving into high orbit. Though the Space Marines were able to land more forces, the eet would be overwhelmed if they were to stay any longer. As such, the Imperial ground forces prepared to defend themselves from the imminent Chaos troop landings. Warmaster Karanskis was nervous and excited: if he could capitalize on the enemy withdrawal, Lord Ygethmor would reward him well for his actions. If not...

CHAOS
As the wounded carrier pack moved on, the Shadowbane, Hellblade, and the Final Apocalypse moved in toward the planet in preparation for troop deployment. Once again, the False Prophecy had one of the loyalist ships in her sights, obliterating the Aurora in a ball of superheated plasma. In a nal last ditch attempt to slow the Adamantine Crusader, the remaining carriers launched a massive wave of doomres. Dodging the defence turrets, only two of the bombers were able to inict any damage.

R E S U LT S
BRIDGE GUARD:
444 VPs plus 200 bonus,644 VPs total.
Adamantine Crusader, Intact, 10 hits left Light of Ascension, Intact, 12 hits left Quintessence, Intact, 5 hits left Ironclad, Intact, 6 hits left Righteous, Disengaged Campaigner, Disengaged Vigilant, Destroyed Defender, Destroyed Aurora, Destroyed Metalgroup, Destroyed

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CHAOS R AIDERS :
453 VPs, 150 bonus,603 VPs total.
False Prophecy, Intact, 8 hits left Final Apocalypse, Crippled, 5 hits left Pain Incarnate, Intact, 6 hits left Unrepentant, Intact, 7 hits left Black Omen, Destroyed Dark Entity, Destroyed Soul Reaver, Intact, 5 hits left, smashed bridge Hellblade, Intact, 5 hits left Shadowbane, Intact, 7 hits left

draw there were some fun moments. My favourite was being able to ram a Chaos cruiser with my agship. Every game of BFG needs at least one good ram! It was a fun game and my opponent was a worthy foe. I look forward to future engagements with him. I could have easily won by going all ahead full, and then having all of my ships deploy troops on turn two, but that might have been boring.

BEN
Fun game! Ive never had to deal with this many Space Marine ships at any one time. They can take a lot of punishment, but cant dish it out as much. Thunderhawks and bombardment cannons are really nasty! I found that about half of my weapons couldnt re because I was always getting my guns knocked out! Against the Marines, lances are your friend. Next game, Ill try to stay out of 30cm. It was quite an interesting learning experience, and Im itching to play more BFG!

P L AY E R S THOUG H T S
DUSTIN
This game was quite enjoyable. It took a little longer than expected due to having to write down all the details, but thankfully we had a third party to help with note taking. I treated the battle as any other, except this was my rst time playing with a full Marine eet. I found I had to change many of my tried and tested tactics. Besides being a

- Dustin Hrenyk (USABOB, Space Marine Fleet) - Ben McLeod (Spamus Eatus, Chaos Raiders)
Special Thanks to John Lintott
(Decius, Notetaker Extrordirnare)

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Welcome To the Underhive

W
made

Mercenaries and that left me with my Escher gang converted from Witch Elves The Sad Goths.

hy Necromunda is quite simply the best game ever

W H AT S

IN A

NA ME ?

It was the summer vacation of 2003 when my friends and I worked all week in part-time jobs and had the weekends to ourselves. That, my friends, was the summer of Necromunda! Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday we played. There were only 3 of us and that meant 3 gangs, but we made up for the lack of competition with a variety of characterful non-player gangs. The money we spent on this game was pretty minimal. A starting gang set us each back by around 20. Cheapest army Ive ever bought, especially as the game rules are free to download now. Simon took his Orlock gang The Badland Boys, Luke dug out his old Van Saar gang Mad Micks

Naming your gangs and its members is a vital part of Necromunda. Dave just isnt going to cut it against Dangerous Dave McDangerous and often the more over the top and silly the names are, the better your gangers will be. The most characterful gangers always have the best names. Over the years weve seen many legends (or leg-ends) of Necromunda, all of them with their own eccentric names and skills like Hobbling Nick Nitro, the Orlock heavy with a amer with one leg, an iron lung, two old battle wounds and only one hand. Or theres the Escher juve known as Bomber Betsy. Armed with only a frag grenade, somewhat unhinged after a head wound and with a wealth of leadership increases she nearly took charge of my gang!

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Mad McMad (of the clan McMad) was a new Van Saar ganger, recruited purely to see what slapping an Icrotic Slime to his head would do. It took an entire gang and a bounty hunter to bring him down in combat. Dead Eye Dick quickly rose to become Simons gang leader. He was converted from an old plastic Catachan with his lasgun dragging at his side, a nasty squint and holding a knife out in front and shouting Have at thee! He spectacularly failed to hit anything for the entire campaign. And then there was Goggles McKenzie who thought he could pick off an Ork boss in his rst gang ght, only to be torn apart by a hail of autogun re from twelve greenskins.

WA N N A

BE IN

M Y G A NG ?
Like many games, Necromunda can be cheesed to the max. A horde of guys with lasguns spring to mind. In theory they should be able to bring down anything with sheer numbers. Similarly, I remember once elding a Redemptionist gang made almost entirely of novices with autoguns and exterminator cartridges. There were around twenty of them -All rabid and crazy to boot! Too bad they got picked off from afar, then when they got close the Van Saar gang that had been giving them a good dose of lead poisoning, turned tail and ed off the table.

WHAT TO TAKE IN A GANG ? THATS THE QUESTION!

You can either buy one of the gang boxes and roll with what you get, or you can mail order gang members to your specic requirements or trawl ebay, grab the ones you want, then relist the ones you dont. But what makes a good gang? The obvious answer isnt always selection. Theres a big difference in calling your gang good because it blows the opposition off the board, to your gang being good because you have a diverse range of models with their own individual characters and tactics.

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order to get some experience increases, he needs to hit and wound with almost every shot he takes, otherwise some whacked-out juve with a head wound and a frag grenade could be vying for leadership of your gang! Its best to use your leader to back your gangers up when they miss their targets in the rst few games and if youve got the creds to spare, a Bounty Hunter can help with this too. Just make sure the pair of them dont steal all the experience points on offer. Then theres your heavy. The obvious choice is the heavy stubber Cheap, cheerful and with a pretty good strength and a great rate of re, youre going to cut someone in half with this baby! Some people like to give their heavies special weapons like amers, melta guns or plasma guns. Like the leader, your heavy needs to earn lots more experience than your average ganger in order to get better at shooting, ghting or biting bullets. If hes going to carry something short ranged, but deadly like a melta gun or amer, hed better have a lasgun or autogun as a long range back up. The only problem with giving your heavy a special weapon is that his ballistic skill isnt as good as the leader. Its my belief that heavies are called heavies because they really should be lugging heavy weapons around. While the heavy stubber is a good choice, the heavy bolter

The cheese factor can be cut down with some careful planning and use of terrain. In really dense scenery the autopistol and amer can be king, while in the open the heavy stubber and lasgun are the real killers. Fortunately, treacherous conditions must be rolled for at the request of either player, so its best to take a mix of weapons for all situations, until you have enough credits to give all your gangers armed with laspistol side arms of course. Even so, there are some selections I stick by religiously. Always give your leader a high strength special weapon, ideally a plasma gun as it gets D3 shots. In

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is just nasty. At strength 5 and inicting D3 wounds it can mess your opponents up real bad. The only downside is that its more likely to run out of ammo. Of course, if youre an unlucky fellow like me, your heavy stubber will be out of juice after the rst volley anyway, so dont worry about upgrading to the heavy bolter. Anything bigger tends to be a waste unless youre shooting at bunkers, tanks or Tyranid monstrous creatures that somehow appeared in the Underhive.

L IC TOR !
Nothing quite scares the living crap out of anyone in the Underhive like a Lictor. Seriously, you dont need a

Genestealer incursion or an approaching hive eet as an explanation to have one. The gangs are playing a standard Scavenger mission with the typical mutant attacks, except this time, the Lictor shreds the hapless ganger before embarking Nothing quite scares on an orgy of destruction, the living crap leaping between the levels and blending into the out of anyone in surroundings so well that the Underhive like no one can get a good aim a Lictor. on it.

The worst part was that we all knew it was coming, but we had to wait for it to appear. That was when Luke put some creepy music from Silent Hill on the stereo and we were well and truly shitting ourselves! The Lictor didnt even appear.

H E Y , M U S IC L OV E R !
If theres one thing you should always have when youre playing Necromunda and more so than any other game, its music. I gave in to temptation when I was in HMV last and found The 20 Greatest Western Themes for a mere 2. Score! It was worth a whirl for so little and I was pleasantly impressed. Think back to all the Westerns youve watched over the years, even stuff like Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. Were

94

it not for the music, these lms wouldnt be nearly so dramatic. In fact, I recommend you pick up some of these movie soundtracks, or anything that Tarantino raves about. The music oozes atmosphere and theres nothing like hearing A Fistful Of Dollars when your gang has just burnt down a Scavvie farm, left the inhabitants for dead and taken what few creds they had hidden away. But if your gang keeps up this kind of unsavoury activity, even on the less popular dregs of society, theyll wind up on the wrong side of the law.

Fortunately, Luke has an Unless youre Adeptus Arbites army, complete with patrol cars, riot tanks, already rich, being SWAT team and riot troops. an outlaw sucks. Whenever theres a riot, a looting spree or something highly illegal, the arbites show up to keep the peace and they certainly dont do it quietly! In Necromunda the Arbites are scary as hell. Theyre very accurate, well armoured and they never run out of ammo. Worst of all, if the gangers kill any of them, they will earn the cop killer skill. Not a skill as such, but they Arbites are more likely to show up and when they do, theyll know who to shoot rst. Regardless of how big, or hard your gang may be, when you see just one squad of Arbites coming your way, youd better leg it!

I A M TH E

L AW !

The bank job had been going so well before the Arbites showed up in the riot tank and started ring smoke grenades everywhere.

WA N T E D : D E A D

OR

A LIVE

Most of the gangers got away from the bungled bank job, even though Gummy Pete was hung without trial from a lamp post and Bolter Bob was shipped off with the penal legion. The trouble was just starting now thee gangs were all wanted. Being outlawed wasnt so bad, seeing as the gangs

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were pretty experienced by this point and had plenty of credits to spend at the outlaw trading post. But unless youre already rich, being an outlaw sucks. After liberating some highly dangerous underhive scum from a prison transport and killing a couple of Arbites, the law took it personally. That was when we decided it was time to retire our gangs and start a new campaign.

Following the hijacking of a prison transport and the addition of many dangerous criminals to their ranks and earning themselves the black mark of cop killers; the Arbites came down hard on the gangs. Twenty arbites in patrol cars surrounded the outlaw camp and thats when the massacre began. Throwing down their weapons and pleading for the lives or trying to stand and ght did no good. The Adeptus Arbites were accurate and well armoured. The gangs didnt stand a chance But someone managed to get away amidst the carnage. Half brained, frag lobbing juve Bomber Betsy made it off the edge of the table with the dying screams of the gang leaders in her ears as they were bludgeoned to mush by the Arbites batons. In later campaigns the gangs were drafted into the Imperial Guard, never to be seen again or fell back to the Arbites precinct to assist in a valiant last stand against the endless sea of zombies that had been sweeping the under hive. Killing everyone off brings a great sense of nality. You will always looks back and remember your favourite gangers with awe, knowing that they died well. Who knows, one of them might even get away to come back in the next campaign? - ADAM SMITH

G OI NG O U T I N S T Y L E
While the Necromunda rule book will tell you that your gang can go into the wastes, y off world or set up their own ower arranging business like a bunch of sissies, well tell you different!

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Necromunda Down With the Hood

Ill admit right now that this was not my brilliant vision. It was in fact the work of one of those very talented people who will post a truly inspiring image somewhere on the net, then disappear forever more, their mission of inspiration and awe completed. Youll only want to make these guys if youre serious about cultists, or just love bits. Three boxed sets in order to produce a sixteen-man gang means that each of your gangers are weighing in at over 3 each. To make matters worse, Ill only be using eleven of them, due to carry case restrictions.

W A

hat do you get if you mix a Wood Elf, a High Elf and a Cadian Imperial Guardsman?

The Cadian torso also doesnt sit on the skinny High Elf waist. Get the modelling knife out; youve got some prepping to do. The rst thing you need to do is remove the imperial insignia from the left breastplate of the Cadian bodies and lasguns. You can le these off, but I prefer to scrape/ cut them off with This cultist has been a modelling knife. armed with a tommy gun style heavy Its probably best stubber, made from to le them off, a grenade launcher, but with the end as Ive hacked swapped for the up my left thumb exhaust of an Ork war buggy. The Cadian pretty good using communications the other method. backpack was stripped down to form a large You also need to ammo case, as well as remove the collars allow for the stowage of a spare lasgun. from the Cadian bodies. Next, you need to cut a new waist on the High Elf legs. Its best to cut just 1mm down from the current waist as the component is wider here and so that the Cadian torso can sit on top more comfortably. Finally, remove the knobbly bit from the Wood Elf neck and youre ready to start assembling your cultists.

sleek and sinister Chaos Cultist, of course!

C L E A N I NG

AND

P R E PA R AT ION

Just get some of the High Elf archer legs, attach a Cadian torso and arms, then stick on a Wood Elf hooded head. The conversions should be simple, but like so many things, they are not. The Wood Elf head doesnt sit on the Cadian torso, even after removing the collar.

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ST E P

BY

ST E P

Using polystyrene cement, glue the High Elf legs to the Cadian round bases. Next, attach the Cadian arms and gun to the Cadian torso using polystyrene cement. Once everything is dry, line up the Cadian torso over the waist of the High Elf legs. Now you can see whether or not the torso sits right, if you need to do a little more trimming, or if you need to re-cut the High Elf waist in order to stop the model looking as though hes leaning backwards, or too far forwards. Usually its the former. Once youre happy with that, glue the waists together with more polystyrene cement.

The head wont go on particularly well, but a good dose of polystyrene cement should sort that out and melt the plastic together to cover the gap. You can always strengthen it around the edges with super glue if need be. To nish up, you can attach some of the Cadian accessories like pouches, canteens, knives and grenades about the waists.

TH E L E A DE R
I have no idea what game system this guy is from. I found him in my local hobby shop bits box and bought him for just 1. He makes an ideal cult leader. Too bad I cant put a gun in his hand, so he gets a lasgun strapped across his back instead.
The Demagogue preaches You could use these guys as House to the converted Cawdor gangers, Redemptionists, Chaos Cultists or any other sort of robed human, maybe even Genestealer brood brothers?

This cultist carries a plasma gun from the old Ork weapons sprue. The Cadian laspistol arm was trimmed around the hand and the plasma gun glued in place.

Finally, the head goes on. I nd its best to put the head on last, as you can create the pose of a character largely by which way he is looking. Whether hes looking around, or aiming his gun is up to you. Generally I prefer my guys to me aiming and shooting, as thats what they do most of the time during the game. Actually, they lie on the ground holding their innards in, but lets not talk about that.

For narrative purposes, I chose to paint mine in a neutral colourscheme so that they could take on the role of any cult type as non-player characters in a Necromunda campaign as well as being a playable gang.

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PA I N T I NG
The painting was very simple for these guys. I wanted them to look a little like the monks from Resident Evil 4, so I left most of their robes Chaos Black, highlighted along the edges with some Bleached Bone mixed with Chaos Black. I drybrushed their weapons with Boltgun Metal, then painted the edges with a little Mithril Silver mixed in with Boltgun Metal. The non-metallic parts were painted to look wooden by using a basecoat of Scorched Brown, lines painted on with Bestial Brown and highlighting those lines using Snakebite Leather and Snakebite Leather mixed with some Bleached Bone. Finally, I painted the faces and hands with Dwarf Flesh, a layer of Elf Flesh, then a highlight of Elf Flesh mixed with a little Skull White to get a pale skin tone. I painted the eyes with Skull White, then painted some

watered down Purple Ink around the eyes for that tired and corrupted look. Now to take the cult out scavenging...

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Run Him Outta Town!

verything was going so well for the infamous bounty hunter known only as The Pitt; right up until his pint of Green Rate ale started to levitate in front of him that is. The barmen yelled Wych! and put a man stopper round through his left leg. Life was never quite the same, especially when he realised hed stopped off at a Redemptionist sympathisers settlement. Before you could say Parafn the town got themselves a posse and The Pitt was on the run.
Name The Pitt M 4 WS BS 4 5 S 4 T 4 W 3 I 4 A 2 LD SV 8 -

a good head start, or for a agging gang to catch up in the rankings. The gang should be at a very low level otherwise The Pitt wont stand much of a chance. The Applewood Boys, led by their tobacco chewing, plasma gun totting, wych hunt leader Flint Westwood took the duty open themselves to Run that thar wychboy outta our town. There are 11 of the Redemptionists in total. 8 with autogun and exterminator cartridge (for close encounters) and two novices with autopistols. None of them have gained any skills or stat increases, but they still aint pretty.

Age: 52 Occupation: Bounty Hunter Equipment: Bolter, Bolt pistol with red dot sight, chainsword, bionic eye, bionic leg, rebreather Skills: True grit, Hip shooting, Rapid re-bolter, levitate (ignores terrain movement penalties), dead ard (cannot be pinned) The wych hunters would be made up of a rookie Redemptionist gang, although you can easily take any other gang and modify the scenario accordingly. This is a great scenario for getting a particular gang off to

LET

T H E W YC H H U N T B E G I N !

SET UP:

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The table is 48 by 48. We nd that playing on a board this size makes Necromunda a lot more close up and personal and stops people from counting on their heavy weapons too much. The Pitt sets up anywhere 24 onto the board edge and the Redemptionist gang is placed up to 8 onto the board. The Pitts objective is to ee off the board edge into the wastes, never to be seen round these parts again. The Redemptionists have to take him out of action in order to be captured, interrogated and burned at the stake. In this instance, The Pitt stood behind the tank shed in order to minimize incoming re while The Applewood Boys formed a line in order to cover all the angles of the terrain as the chase progressed. The Pitt always gets the rst turn.

TURN 1: THE PITT

The Pitt runs forward, keeping out of sight as best as he can. But its not going to be easy with 3 Redemptionists coming round from the left and a whole posse of them coming in from the centre.

TURN 1: THE A PPLEWOOD BOYS

Wych Hunter Westwood signaled to his gang The wych gotta burn. Its the Emprers will! Dick Dangerous, Spittoon Sid and No Chance Nick followed behind their charging leader, while Sneaky Pete and Crazy Dave moved up onto the rocks to get a shot at The Pitt. Im gonna bag me some citay boy! Sneaky Pete hollered as he let y with his autogun, hitting and wounding The Pitt. Meanwhile, The Man with No Name, The Kid with No Face and Crispy Jimmy legged it round the left of the tank shed, leaving themselves out in the open, but theyd be sure to nail The Pitt next turn. Smooth James and Rooftop Rob ran up the right ank, planning to get up onto the rocky outcrop at the far end of the board and help to close the net later in the game.

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TURN 2: THE PITT

Having taken a round through the shoulder, The Pitt wasnt best pleased and drew his bolt pistol as he dived behind the wreckage of an old truck. The shot sent Flint Westwood crashing into the ground as it punched through his chest and out his back in a show of gore.

we remembered they were all carrying exterminator cartridges, we thought again.

TURN 2: THE A PPLEWOOD BOYS

Flint Westwood was eating dirt and leaving a rather nasty stain too. That was when he bled out and was removed from play. You killed ma Pa! cried No Chance Nick. The Applewood Boys opened re as one, spectacularly hitting nothing, while Crazy Dave unloaded a full clip, then realized he was out of ammo.

TURN 3: THE PITT

Things were looking a little tricky now that the Redemptionists were closing in and The Pitt wouldnt be able to make a stand from behind the cover of the old

You made one mistake. You showed up said The Pitt through his rebreather. With the plasma gun out of the game, The Pitts life became much easier. It was at this point that we wondered if The Pitt could take the Redemptionists on, but when

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truck. He ed round the back of the Bodgers Hut and hid amongst the scrap, staying out of sight, but he could draw a bead on Rooftop Rob over on the right ank. The shot grazed him and he threw himself to the oor, pinned.

TURN 3: THE A PPLEWOOD BOYS

Dick Dangerous was up on top of the tank shed. Spittoon Sid and No Chance Nick were on the other side of the Bodgers Hut, ready to climb up on the roof next turn. Meanwhile, The Man with No Name, The Kid with No Face and Crispy Jimmy continued running round the left ank. The gang was in position; all they had to do was wait for The Pitt to poke his ugly head out. There would be no escape.

TURN 4: THE PITT

The wych hunters were closing in fast and there was only one way to run up! Fortunately there was a small barricade. The Pitt managed to squeeze himself just behind it and let loose with his bolt pistol. The Kid with No Face quickly became The Kid with No Head and was soon nothing but a stain and a memory. The Pitt marveled at his own ability. Learning to hipshoot was the best decision hed ever made.

Geddup! Smooth James gave Rooftop Rob a swift kick (in his own smooth way). The pinned brother got back on his feet. The pair of them continued running up the rocky outcrop while the rest of the boys moved in.

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TURN 4: THE A PPLEWOOD BOYS

Sneaky Pete and Crazy Dave were sick of having nothing to shoot at all this time and moved up onto the rock bridge for a better line of sight when The Pitt makes a break for the board edge. Smooth James and Rooftop Rob continued jogging round the right ank and catch the Pitt in a crossre. Spittoon Sid and No Chance Nick climbed up onto the roof of the Bodgers Hut and waited. Kid! He killed the kid! The Man with No Name was furious and opened re on The Pitt, hitting him in the chest. The Pitt shook and coughed blood, but it was a long way from over. It looked like The Man with No Name might make a name for himself yet.

TURN 5: THE PITT

There was nothing left to do but make a break for it. Seven of The Applewood boys would be able to ll The Pitt with lead next turn. He sprinted out from behind the barricade to stop within an inch of the short cliff edge. A quick calculation meant that the odds were slightly in his favour. Besides, everyone knows that a Redemptionist cant hit a cows arse with a banjo. Gentlemen! You will forever remember this as the day that you almost caught-

TURN 5: THE A PPLEWOOD BOYS

Smooth James had been waiting to get The Pitt in his sights and now was his chance! If only his hapless comrade Rooftop Rob didnt screw things up The Applewood Boys took careful aim at The Pitt and opened re. The Man with No Face missed, Crispy Jimmy missed, Spittoon Sid was out of range, Sneaky Pete and Crazy Dave were out of range, Dick Dangerous couldnt quite see, No Chance Nick spectacularly had no chance of hitting,

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while Rooftop Rob had the perfect shot, but failed to wound. It all came down to Smooth James. The Pitt was cut down with a loud groan and Smooth James waved his autogun triumphantly. Hey, thats smooooth! somewhere and Im sure hell be back to clean up this town - ADAM SMITH

TH E A F T E R M AT H
The Applewood Boys (named after a type of cheese) had lost a new recruit, but gained a signicant prize in bounty on The Pitt and lucky for them, Flint Westwood made a full recovery. Everything was looking bright and shiny for them until we rolled for The Pitts serious injury. 66 Survives against the odds. Well, you cant be captured if youve survived against the odds now can you? The Pitt somehow eluded capture. Hes out there

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