A challenger Appears!

The exhausts... no-one expected the emperor damned exhausts... The thrice cursed Halbestark were meant to have been wiped out ages ago back at Core 614, that’s what happened; But those gas-masked frakkers are still fething alive, and armed! I’ve lost my entire squad, massacred in front of my eyes and the frakfaced ‘Stark didn’t even utter a word, not a fething word! They say it’s not the crap they filter out with those masks, they say they pump obscura right into their emperor cursed brains; it’s what makes them so creepy like... Feth this.

- Last Transmission from Adeptus Arbites Squad Sigma 92

Yes Guys and Gals, Robb's beautiful gang has burst onto the scene, ready to take down any and all who oppose their might! Hoohah!

Necromunda campaign introduction.

Howdy doo folks, Greg here and today I’m posting to tell you about the Necromunda campaign me and Robb are running and the details so far! We each picked a house and gathered a gang using the rules for gang selection in the Necromunda rulebook (Free download here). We played our first few games at Robbs house and a certain degree of hilarity followed. One example is when, just after recovering, one of Robbs gangers stood up into the line of sight of my heavy and was promptly mowed down by a hail of heavy stubber fire, taking him out of action. We each rolled for 5 territories but after agreeing that because only two of us were playing to fully test the rules we would need more territories to fight over we randomly generated in 6 more territories and agreed we would get 3 each. We began by playing one of each type of scenario until one of us had 3 territories; the other then claimed the rest automatically to keep it fair.
The games we played served two purposes. Purpose one was to give us an idea about the rules and mechanics of the game including the rules on board and the experience and trading systems off the board. At the moment both gangs seem about even with each gang at around 1400 gang rating. Below is a full background and list of names for my gang.
Catachan Cowboys
A group of leather wearing ex-guardsmen from catachan, after being honourably discharged from the imperial guard for acts of exceptional bravery they were shipped to a nearby settled planet. They were greeted by an uncaring hive. After being slowly forced down through the levels, their temporary status and popularity fading as they clashed with the upper class, the guardsmen ended up in the underhive with no money and no hope. All they had was their old gear from their time as servicemen. Damien (Who was their sergeant back on catachan) proposed they get into the ganging business, reasoning that they could use their training as an edge in combat. Most of the group disagreed with his plan, they hadn’t fought in the name of the Emperor to degenerate to a life of crime however some of the group agreed to help Damien with his plan. They realised that without the creds raised through illegal chem production, protection money and gambling winnings they would all die of starvation sooner or later.
Leader: “Burn ‘em Damien”
Heavy: “Big” Krull
Gangers: Larkin, Wrex, Godwyn, Karmin, Kragger, Thysser, Marxis.
Juve: “Little” Krull (Krull’s younger brother, fresh to the unit before discharge).

Patch 3.3

When 3.3 first came out I had mixed feelings. There was this part of me down in my gut that screamed “I DON’T LIKE CHANGE!” over and over again and then there was the part of me up in my brain that told me “Don’t be silly, absolutely nothing bad has happened!”
Now I’ve had time to think about what this new patch has brought I realise that for me, only good has come from it. For a start the new looking for group system is certainly very handy, allowing players from various servers to group together for instances. Although people may complain about not being able to pick and choose their own group-mates and some say it lets poorly geared players leech off the elite, if the elite are truly as amazing as they seem this wouldn’t affect them at all. All it does from my experience is allow new players to access opportunities they wouldn’t have had before.
Another thing that has emerged to be incredibly useful is the replacement of daily quests with the “Looking for random group” feature. This way players who are not fussy about which instance or heroic they do are rewarded with a satchel of useful goods (which has a tasty little blue for you) if you’re level 10-69 or emblems of triumph or frost if you are levels 70-79 or 80 respectively. This leads to faster groupings and more rewards which can only be a good thing.
And of course, how could I talk about looking for group without mentioning the new instances and the new raid?! Icecrown citadel has three new instances along with the inevitable raid. The first instance is the Forge of Souls and the goal is to ruin the twisted engines known as soul grinders found in this portion of the citadel, and then players can advance to the next instance which is called the pit of Saron. Players who venture here will immediately be confronted by the lord of this lair, Scourgelord Tyrannus. Before they can present a threat to Tyrannus, players have to free slaves who have been trapped by the Scourge. Until that happens, Tyrannus leaves all adversaries to his minions, workers of the citadel's mines. From there you enter the Lich King’s private chambers, the Halls of Reflection. He summons his two former captains to attack you and once they die he confronts you himself. The result doesn’t exactly go to plan.
I can’t really comment on the frozen throne raid as I haven’t actually done it yet! Suffice to say I’ll be doing it given a whiff of a chance and I’ll fill you in as soon as I do.
The last thing I’ll mention is the new quest tracking feature. On the map there is now a blue blob where your objective for a quest is. This makes it easier to find the less obvious objectives for quests while still making you work for your experience by looking in the area. I know it’s not your precious questhelper with its big green arrow to follow but at least they showed you where to look!
The last thing I want to mention is the new armor set, Tier 10. Pieces of this set can be bought with emblems of frost and it looks to be the end game armor for wrath of the lich king. Many people have complained about the looks of the various sets but to them I would say: Shut up and look at the stats. I will be dancing for joy as soon as I get my first piece of T10 but until then I’ll have to make do with my T9.
Well that’s me for now; no doubt I’ll run into some more interesting features at some point or maybe even the Lich King himself but until then:
Greg out.

Merry christmas!

From the crew here at Weliketron, merry Christmas to one and all! Everyone here hopes you have a great day with all the presents you wanted. Before you go charging off to play on your shiny new consoles, assemble those fresh troops or install that new game you got I’d just like to mention that posting will carry on as normal and we would like to thank everyone who’s following us on twitter and blogger... hell anyone at all who likes the blog. Your appreciation is the icing on the cake.

The Robb Files Episode One - Brewfeud!

Hello all this is Robb here introducing a new segment to this crazy train of fun – The Robb Files. Yes, right here and right now every week I’ll be releasing a new scenario, campaign or other nonsense for use in your tabletop games!

So, right on with it - I present to you a festive themed addition to your Warhammer Fantasy games – well if your Christmas involves drunken Dwarves anyway.

Brewfeud!

This battle is being fought over a mighty and ancient distillery, be it a Dwarven Brewery or a Bretonnian Vineyard; and you can bet that your troops would enjoy getting their pilfering hands on the goods – about as much as the enemy!

First of all, place D3 Kegs or other appropriate brewing paraphernalia anywhere on the board then roll a scatter dice and a D6, and move them to the appropriate location. Any one unit within 6” of the keg may sacrifice their movement to get suitably hammered. Roll a D6, on a 1 the unit is subject to stupidity, otherwise the unit is subject to frenzy for that turn as long as it remains in contact with the keg (someone has to keep guzzling!).

The rest of the game is fought just like a pitched battle but feel free to add in your own rules or quirks as desired, a battle involving getting your illustrious Vampire Lord drunk off his face can hardly be considered serious, so play away!

This is Robb over and out.

IT'S... ALIVE!

We're back folks and we're going to be blogging with a vengeance! Since the blog died a death a few months back we've been talking about kicking it up again for a while and so here we are. Regular posting will ensue from me Phil AND Robb this time and this time we're going to be reviewing movies too!

So expect the same amount of nerdy goodness and please take the time to comment on our pretty new banner, tirelessly worked on by none other than our very own Robb.

So untill next time
Greg out.

Well that didn't go so well...

Contrary to what I thought would happen, going back to school unsettled the frequency with which I post even more! I've had a lot of homework to do and little time to do it in but now I seem to be on top of things so expect more from me. For those of you who are wondering I managed to finish off the one thousand point army of necrons and yesterday I went out and bought a monolith and a couple of destroyers. Building your first monolith seems to be something that has to be done with much reverance and respect and I'm suprised at how well it went! Normally when I glue together a large model I allways make one mistake which I need to fix in a frenzy of panic before the glue dries but with the monolith it all went swimmingly! My next post will allmost certainly be a tactica for monoliths which will be followed shortly by an article on using falcons in the tactic "Hammer and anvil".

Untill next time
Greg out.

I'm a lazy bastard aren't I?

Well It's been a while since I last posted because a lot of shit's been going on but here I am! First and foremost: Sorry. I didn't meet my self set target of giving you updates on my crons but, truth be told, it's not all that intresting. All that was left to assemble since I last posted were my 28 warriors and most of them were slapped together the night before I went to Robbs' because I thought "Shit, I need them." I promise to post a picture of my crons when they're all assembed. Next step has to be the monolith!

I was also hacked on world of warcraft since I last posted. The hacker obviously wanted to use my account as his own and he began leveling my death knight and he also farmed some saronite. By the time Blizzard got me my account back I had maximum mining skill and 200 saronite bars. I got my items back that he had sold and got to keep the 200g he'd made from selling them. All in all I'd say that it turned out pretty well!

Anyway now that stuff's calmed down I should be posting a lot more. Untill next time;
Greg out.

Musing on Cities of Death

So hello all, after an enforced break due to log related incidents, Greg and myself came once again to play a game of Warhammer 40,000; I was playing the Traitor Guard (More on that in future posts) and Greg played his Necrons. Now to be honest we didn't really read the rules and we were in a bit of a rush, so we chose a bunch of stratagems, deployed terrain and went at it with a Dawn of war Seize ground scenario and I would very much like to say that it was another memorable game for both of us; from Heavy Destroyers Chasing sweet sentinel ass around the board to me waiting eagerly with my finger on the trigger to use my Demolition Stratagem to Greg shouting "I GOT THIS!" while charging my Stormtroopers with a single scarab swarm it was a game full of special moments and little quirks, made all the more memorable by the buildings and the flavour they gave and the stratagems and the frustrating hilarity of a 12 strong Necron Warrior unit with a 3+ Armour save, 4+ Feel No Pain and then a 4+ We'll be back save.

As a side note, Greg's past post about the virtues of scarab swarms was not wrong, a unit with 30 wounds running at that 6 man Imperial Guard squad is enough to make any emperor serving warrior darken his combat fatigues.

In Conclusion, I'd very much recommend cities of death to anyone, although it takes a little more effort to set up it is entirely worth it in the end; this is Robb, over and out.

Forth the impetuous scarab swarms!

Scarabs are one of the most underestimated necron units. They come free with a box of warriors, they cost 12 points and they take up those precious fast attack slots that can be used for destroyers or wraiths. Despite all of those points which would lead one to believe that scarabs are just cannon fodder I believe that used correctly scarabs are lethal.

Because scarabs move like jetbikes they can turbo boost 24 inches in the first turn, which gives them a 4+ invulnerable save against those nasty heavy weapons and it also sets them up for a turn two charge. Then there's the fact that they're cheap and expendable. With the 4+ invulnerable save granted they should be able to absorb lots of fire that would otherwise be pumped into your other troops. Not only that but they don't count towards your phase out limit, which means their deaths are of little importance.

The sheer number of attacks that a sizeable swarm of scarabs can churn out is easily enough to kill your enemy's biggest, shootiest unit or at least tie them up for a few turns. Another absolutely key feature that scarabs have is disruption fields. These allow the scarabs to score glancing hits if they roll a 6 on the armour penetration roll. With 40 attacks on a stationary vehicle about 6 or 7 glancing hits will be scored, easily enough to cripple or destroy a vehicle. In this way a 160 point scarab swarm could do the nasty with a land raider, battlewagon or even an enemy monolith (should you ever find yourself in that position) and bag double their points worth of tank. Then they'd attract a large amount of firepower away from your warriors and such, buying you more time to execute your plan.

Greg out.

My bad...

Hay guys. Sorry I didn't post an update on the whole Necron scene yesterday, my Internet was busy screwing me over. I've not had much time to do a lot with my Necrons so I think it would be better to do it week by week. This would allow me to actually plan what I need to do rather than sit down and think "FUCKFUCKFUCKNEEDTOPAINT!". So far I have only managed to assemble the unit of warriors and the lord from a few days ago and today I assembled 3 destroyers and a heavy destroyer. One thing I have to whine about is how fucking ANNOYING gluing a frigging huge metal gun onto one side of the heavy destroyer was. It made the body start to tilt so I had to support it with a box. Another thing I hate about GW's models are the instructions you get with them. A lot of the time they'll be very vague which leads to panic and rage while you try and glue the model together. Anyway I'll be posting another update on how it's going in 4 days.

Until then: Greg out.

Flame leviathan; what's the point?

When my guild organised an Ulduar 10 man run yesterday I had never done it before. They let me tag along because they allready had an awesome group and there were'nt any hunters and they said "It's ok if your gear isn't great, we're doing flame leviathan." I thought that flame leviathan sounded pretty badass and because it's in uludar it'd be pretty hard to do but I didn't question lest I be kicked from the group. So I summoned them all with some help from my guild leader and we all went in. Brann Bronzebeard lowered the shield and we all jumped into our respective tanks. So we trundle down and find the flame leviathan. 300k health with the tower up. The tower I speak of increases his health by 100k and if you kill him with it up better items can drop but we were looking for an easy ride so we toppled it. After a long hard slug against him we finaly brought the massive tank down and he dropped Ironsoul and a chestpeice for elemental or restoration shamans. I think it was called firestrider chestguard. Anyway that left me wondering what the point in gathering a group with awesome gear to down him was. All you do is hop in a tank and play the part designed for that tank. Ah well, I can't complain can I? The flame leviathan is still a realy hard boss and you realy have to earn those drops!

Greg

Necron army, day by day for a week.

As I mentioned in one of my previous articles I am starting a Necron army. I plan on giving you a day by day update on how things are going and I'll be sure to upload a few pictures to show you how it's coming along. Hopefuly by the end of the week I'll have a 500pts force finished and ready to game so that I can test it against Robb when he gets back from his holiday to Scotland.

So far today I've assembled a squad of warriors, a pair of scarab swarms and my necron lord, basecoated them all and fully paint and base one warrior. I'm using a colour scheme that makes them look similar to skeletons and I'm basing them with sand that has been drybrushed with bleached bone. I'll put up a picture and you can send any tips or suggestions you have to weliketron@gmail.com ! Please contact me because any feedback helps. I am more gaming orientatedbut that's because I tend to lack a steady hand.

I appologise now for the bad camera!

Greg.

RP servers

On World of Warcraft there are varying types of servers. One of these types is roleplaying (shortened to RP) in which the players act as their characters would. This is a feature that some players enjoy and it is quite harmless to the people around them. I like to RP with my friends sometimes and so we used to wander round orgrimmar chatting in character. Then some random person will ride over on the largest mount they can find, park their ass right in one of our face and bellow "RPin's sad LOL!" and "EAT RHINO ASS LOL!!1". When I ask them what in the name of the earthmother they are doing they usualy reply with something along the lines of "RP is for fags lol".


People like this make me wonder, why? I play on a RPPVP realm so I expect to be able to RP and PVP in relative peace. I don't expect the randomer in Commmon and Uncommon gear with one Rare to take part at all, all I want him to do is remove his mounts genitals from my face before I beat him down.

Necrons; are they overpowered?

When I said to Robb that I was going to collect Necrons next he moaned about how overpowered they were. He complained that they were self resurrecting space marines with an unkillable tank. This seems to be the way that most people view necrons and it is, in essence, true. However The incredible stat line and special rules come at a price.

Half of this price is the points cost and lack of choice. In a 500 points force you get two squads of basic necron warriors and a lord with 40 points worth of toys. With each troops choice rolling in at a hefty 180 points minimum and the new rules regarding capturing objectives in 5th edition you're going to need at least two or three of these units per 1000 -1500 point games. This leaves you with severely reduced amounts of spare points to pretty up that lord or bulk out that destroyer squad.

The second half of the price is the hefty disadvantage of the "Phase Out" special rule. If a Necron army is reduced to 25% or less of its starting size it will just piss off to lick its wounds. This gives the enemy an automatic victory regardless of objectives and slaps a big "Fuck you" square in the face of the Necron player. Now a 500 points list is 21 models in size as we've established so if you lost 16 models you would loose.

Despite both of these major setbacks Necrons are still a good race to play as because of the stat line you get and so I would say that they are a well balanced army, just like most of the races in warhammer 40,000.

Greg out!

Hmm...

I wish I was at Gencon.

World of warcraft: What's the best gathering skill?

Every time I meet a new player they all ask me the same question at some point or other: What's the best gathering skill?

I always have to give the same answer. "It depends on what you're looking for. Money, usefulness or ease."

The three gathering skills are mining, skinning and herbalism. I am going to do a quick summary of how they do in the three categories of Money, Usefulness and Ease one category at a time.

Money: Mining brings in very good money consistently as you progress through the levels due to high numbers of people aspiring to reach 450 blacksmithing with minimal effort --- Herbs are in high demand since WotLK was released and so prices have soared. The herbs are expensive from level 1 to 450 --- Skinning is one of the less used gathering skills, however there seems to be a high demand for endgame leather and so the prices are usualy good --- I would give the Money award to herbalism personaly due to the high price per herb.

Usefulness: Ores and gems from Mining are used in Blacksmithing, Engineering, Leatherworking, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting --- Herbs from Herbalism are used in Alchemy, Enchanting and Inscription --- Skins and hides from skinning are used in Leatherworking, Blacksmithing and Engineering --- I have to give the Usefulness award to Mining purely due to the number of proffesions it is used in!

Ease: This is a factor that is critical to most players. How quickly and easily they can aqquire materials --- Mining: Mining nodes are few and far between. Nodes are restricted to rocky areas and are normaly sought out by others who want them too. --- Herbalism: The bushes of herbs are also relatively rare. More often than not they also have restrictions on the types of area they appear in, stranglekelp only appears in water for example, however they can occupy a wider spectrum of areas than ores --- Skinning: Skinning is by far the most accesible gathering skill. Anywhere there are beasts there is skin to be taken. Beasts respawn quickly and places like Un Goro and Scholzar Basin are almost exclusively populated by beasts --- I would give the Ease award to Skinning because of the abundance of places to get hides from.

I'll leave it to you to make your own decision using this review of the gathering skills but I hope it can be some help.

Greg

GURPS - a thirty second review.

Content, WHAT?!

Okay, GURPS. Generic Universal Role-Playing System. It pretty much does what it says on the tin, and I never thought I'd be glad of using the word "generic". You want your PCs to command a Panzer Tank through an odd WWII offshoot in which the Germans invaded America? No problem. Set of monsters attacking a city? No problem. A battle royale of all super villains ever? No problem.

In short, GURPS allows you to do whatever you want with just one system, a great boon when you have a gaming group who don't take keenly to learning a whole new ruleset every month. The 3d6 core system around which it is based is VERY intuitive, and as a Warhammer 40,000 player, we never have a shortage of dice!

Anyway, this is Robb signing out, it's 03:36 in the UK, apologies if I missed anything glaringly obvious.

Meet The Team: Greg

Howdy, I'm Greg, the third member of this tribe of geeks. I'm Robb's wargaming partner so a lot of the battles you hear about will be about us two and our long running battle for supremacy. I'm also the local World of Warcraft nut although Robb does play it too (if you can call it playing!). As both Robb and Phil have mentioned we all like a bit of D&D now and then and me and Robb tend to switch the DMing between us. Another person we might mention is Tom. He tends to tag along for D&D most of the time and he plays World of Warcraft and a bit of Warhammer and Warhammer 40k. Anyway, here's to a (hopefully) successful blog!

Meet The Team: Robb

Introductions are in order I think, I'm Robb, Tabletop Wargame Fanatic, Occasional DM and neckbeard extraordinaire, I'll be posting on pretty much every subject TTWG related and a few other things, heres hoping I say something relevant once in a while, eh?