VENGEANCE!

This is not a post about revenge. It’s a post about the largest Guild Ball event I’ve been to, and possibly the largest in the UK. As such, this is a long post about Guild Ball – you’re warned! This year marked the third anniversary of the event and I finally overcame my social anxiety and concerns for my ability at the game to go along for the weekend extravaganza of Guild Ball and gaming. jumping in a hire van with five other Surrey Spartans, we began our literal Road to Vengeance after weeks of “planning” and “preparation”.

Barry’s Birthday Bonanza Snake Draft

Fellow Surrey Spartan and good friend of mine Barry (of Roll Better Podcast fame) turn another year older – only his 27th, I’m assured by ‘sources’ from said podcast – and since he, like many of my gaming club, are keen Guildball players local pundit John Parish (also of Roll Better fame) kindly organised a snake draft as part of his celebration.

The Massive Mass Effect Race – Part I

                I have not been a very good writer this weekend, and nor was I very stringent on my diet or exercise regime. What I did do was spend two and a quarter days shut in a house with six friends racing through the Mass Effect trilogy – Andromeda was excluded only because it’s not part of the Shepard story line, and we were aware we may not have the time to do all four games. And so I’m doing a three part blog post about the adventures and exploits of Titan Shepard, Earthborn war hero of the Alliance Infiltrator Corps!

Surrey Spartan’s Cabbage Punt

The Surrey Spartans have recently held their first ever Guildball Tournament! This was, of course, named the Cabbage Punt because really grown adults quite laughing at immature jokes – I mean, er, after Bushel’s ability and in honour of the Farmer’s release. Definitely. Whatever our ineffable reasoning, we hosted it

A Return to Space (Games)

Time for a lighter blog entry this week – as predicted, after my Drop Fleet Commander game on Wednesday evening my enjoyment and excitement for the game returned. The initial rekindling of my enthusiasm for the game came after flat-mate Matt took his UCM to table against PHR player Laurence from our group. The brief after-action report I got from Matt energised me for a game of my own, so I got in touch with Laurence and arranged one!

Space Battle! [Drops Fleet]

When I threw down the gauntlet to Steely Dan, our local Scourge player (alien parasites like a more invasive and domineering version of the Goa’uld from Star Gate) to the biggest game we could manage I was wholly surprised when he turned up and said, “Do you want to just have a big space battle?”. But I was up for it.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves Part IV – The Scent of Cheese and a Ringing Bell

My fourth practice game in September was against Mike’s Vermin Swarm, as mentioned previously. Having already played Mike I was confident I could beat him. He had changed his list, adding in even more ranged firepower and somehow shuffling points about to get not one but two war platforms. He’d used this new list to beat John P, a regular tournament attendee and very good player, so perhaps I should have had slightly less bravado about going into this game. Mike was also the one who clarified how powerful the Magic Resist rules are to me, so again I should have gone in with a fairly sharp mind.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Part III

While I cursed DJ and prayed to the Dice Gods to set his beard a light in his sleep, I also got to play Matt “The Stampede”’s Beast Herds tournament list and got another game against Mike’s redesigned Vermin Swarm list. Both games held some concerns beforehand for me, and both held some surprises too. I’d like to thank both of them for some very fun and very educational games – I definitely learned a lot about my army and tactically!

Imperial Rim

No, this post is not some kind of sci-fi, supernatural romance Space Hulk fan-fic! My flatmate and I are both big fans of the giant mecha-monster slug fest that is Pacific Rim and have decided to recreate the epic and senseless-yet-awesome violence that the film embodies. We briefly discussed having this showdown through the medium of interpretive dance, then decided that the better way of paying homage to thoughtless, excessive violence would be using the thoughtless and excessively violent setting of Warhammer 40,000.

Designing Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Entry 2

So after my previous Dread Elf post focusing on list writing and what the book offered that was actually worth putting on the table, I have not one but TWO battle reports, albeit condensed somewhat and lacking pictures (sorry!). The first was against Dan P’s Beastmen army, the second against Mike’s Vermin Horde. Read on to find out how the games went, and whether my clever plotting achieved anything.