For The Glory of Irk!!! Also, Christmas. Kill Team Too.

Playing around with my phone's collage function.

 

Well, most of my Irken force has arrived. I got a box from Zombiesmith on Monday, and then a box from Hydra Miniatures on Tuesday. I've put together all the included minis, and as you can see there are a lot of warriors in my army.

 

All is not well in EV land though- I started drilling the holes in the heads of the minis to put the antenna into, and things could be going better. They're ending up all over the place in the minis heads. They are not being drilled in the places I would like, and this is causing the models to look... Not Good. I'll have pictures later, but once you see them I think you'll agree that things have gone awry. Perhaps (most likely) it is because I am using a Dremel to drill out the holes. I really wish this weren't the case as drilling 122 holes by hand will be a nightmare. Not to mention the wear on my hands. I'm going to give it a shot on a few more minis, but right now I don't like the look of things. I'll stick to it though, as this is sort of a fun thing for me (in theory) and I really don't want to admit defeat here.

 

More exploring of Super Dungeons.

Next up is Christmas. I was a good Vassal this year, so my family got me Super Dungeon Explore: Von Drakk Manor. This both pleases and irks me. Now I honestly do not know what to paint. Listen to me here; I love, repeat love the aesthetic of SDE, and I still have most of the Caverns of Roxor to paint. This places my SDE queue along the magnitude of my Irken, and they need less (read no) fiddly drilling into tiny metal heads. Just mold line cleanup and base hole patching.

 

White primer is needed for both, so no difference. What else is there? Likelihood of use. This one's a really tough call. I'm not sure here. Demitra and I are less and less likely to be able to get a full game of 40k in any time soon, as my "job", despite my protestations, has begun to fiddle around with my hours. This reduces our Tuesday Gaming Time to being long enough for some Infinity or X-Wing, but not really much more. Super Dungeon Explore does not fare much better here. The game is fun, and I do have one person interested in playing, but as far as I know that's it. It's a really tough call.

 

This is worth the price of admission.

Finally, on the whole 40k note, I went ahead and downloaded my first Games Workshop digital book, Kill Team. For those of you who don't know what this game is, allow me to explain. Kill team is for those of us who like to take an occasional break from the legion-sized battles so common in the 40k universe. It is the polar opposite of Apocalypse. Kill team is about one or two squads of elite troops who infiltrate into no-man's land or even enemy territory to accomplish a vital mission. This is the scalpel to regular 40k's sledge hammer.

 

Every miniature, despite being purchased as part of a squad, deploys and plays as a unit consisting of a single miniature.

 

I love this way of playing 40k.

 

Now, this version of Kill Team (for those of you familiar with the game) is tighter and brighter. They have tweaked several things that made original Kill Team... A little unbalanced. New composition rules are in place for your team, which are:

 

- 0 HQ, 0-1 Elite, 0-2 Troops, 0-1 Fast Attack, 0 Heavy Support.

- Must consist of 4+ non-vehicle models.

- Nothing with more than 3 wounds.

- No vehicles with more than 33 total armor across the total of all three values or more than 3 Hull Points.

- No Flyers.

- Nothing with a 2+ Armor Save.

 

Now, I disagree with the 2+ save rule (as this removes the super-fluffy Grey Knight Terminator squad suicide mission option) but all the rest I am down with. There have been Kill Team events where the "elite fighting force" consists of a single Riptide (not exactly subtle). Big vehicles (and especially flyers) would just plain remove playability. Lots of wounds means things like Trygons & Carnifexes, which again are not exactly the "elite fighting force" the designers professed to envision. There is also the ability to have the elite hero/villain surrounded by a bunch of mooks, which I also kind of like. It's tough to play against, but as Demitra will attest to, it's not unbeatable by any means.

 

Further tweaks can be found in the Specialist rules. For starters, you Leader now cannot be a Specialist. Instead he gets a sort of "mini Warlord Trait" that can either drastically alter the game, or in a few cases do just plain nothing. Secondly, the Special Rules your Specialists can take have been tweaked. Gone is the ability to give Shrouded to your heavy weapon trooper (or anybody at all). The Special rules have been broken up into categories- Combat, Weapon, Dirty Fighter, Indomitable, & Guerilla. Your three Specialists must choose their abilities from amongst these groups, and a group may not be repeated. Special Rules are now clearly defined as to what kind of weapon they can be attached to. For example, a Fleshbane weapon may only be a close combat one.

 

Death Watch: the original kill team.

 

A personal favorite of mine is to attach Haywire to a Splinter Cannon. Now, not only does it shred any model that gets in its path, it will glance pretty much any vehicle to bits in a single volley. Yep, interesting combinations of Special Rules and miniatures abound in Kill Team. I've found a fair few, but I'd be tipping my hand were I to reveal any more.

 

I've been thinking up various Kill Teams over this last week. Purifiers in a Razorback, a Tau incursion team, Dark Eldar raiders...

Most likely naught will come of this but maybe, just maybe, I can find some like-minded individuals who would be up for a game.

I've rambled long enough. Happy Holidays to you regardless of which one, none, or all you observe, and thanks for reading over the last year. I'll see about an end or year roundup in the next five days, but failing that I'll see you in 2014!