Space Hulk Grudge Match Results!

Hello out there Just A Rhino fans. February (The hardest month to spell) is fast upon us and if we're to get through all these New Year's Resolutions at JustARhino we'll have to get right to it!

I know it's almost a month late, but this needed to go up at some point. And we need this stuff out of the way before we can get on to our next grudge match...

As you may or may not know me and Monty participated in a battle for the Just A Rhino Championship Belt a month ago.

Here's a video of the challenge and the rules.

And Here's Monty's synopsis of the results.

Now as you may or may not know little spacehulkamaniacs but MONTY CHEATED!

He used some kind of trick dice tower to effect the odds of his normally horrible dice rolls.

See there it is! Cheatza-Tower!

Painting Sisters! 4 Down, 75 to Go!

Well, let me tell you two things that I've learned about painting sisters...again!

THEY'RE A PAIN!

I've painted them before, but I'd been mostly doing that in single model batches. A Cannoness here a meltagirl there. So this is my first exposure to batches of 4+.

First of all, let me say this.

They are really a pain to batch paint!

Back to Sisters...Again.

After a particularly poor showing at this month's Local Gaming tournament with my Blood Angels. I found that my little red droppers weren't working very well at all. Something about an army that relies on reserve gimmicks exclusively (improved as they may be in BA) tends to make games really one sided. Either I'm behind the enemy blowing up their dudez or I'm getting an ass full of lazer and it's not long before the game's over. I know there's a lot of luck involved with 40k but if you're playing a deep strike heavy list it's almost ALL LUCK. So I've decided to rededicate myself to finishing and fine tuning my sisters into an army.

6th Edition: A Brave New World

I have a stack of 40k projects that I've let fall by the wayside...

I still have to repaint (and build) the rest of the Wolf Girls,

I have 300 dollars worth of anime robot toys and Gi-Joe guns that despite my personality

I have NOT turned into Tau crisis suits,

I have boxes of unassembled and unopened Blood Tiger Sharkadons (Blood Angles).

Maybe I've been strapped for time?

But somehow over the Christmas break I've managed to assemble and paint 20 15mm Sherman Tanks.

Why?

(40 - k)^6e = Nightmare

So, new rules done gone and leaked.  (Note: As a reader pointed out, they might be fake as hell.  But, seeing as I wrote all these words already, let's pretend I thought that out reasonably and decided to write this anyway) Reading through them, I'm not sure I like 40k anymore, or even understand what 40k's mission statement is.*  Before I get into specific rules quibbles, I'd like to explore what exactly draws (or, ahem, drew) me to 40k, and why I believe it has become the industry standard in the tabletop gaming market.

My first gaming hobby was, like many of you, trading card games.  Working at a game shop, I played pretty much every new game that cropped up, but it was always Magic that I really wanted.  I'd buy poly-bagged issues of Scrye Magazine because they came with promo cards for new TCG's.  These wondrous artifacts always piqued my interest (Ooh, look how many stats this guy has!  +4 Engineering!), but I never fell in love with these upstart games the way I did with Magic.  They were just too hard to actually play. (Oh crap, what does Engineering do again? A bonus to Cartography, right?)

Haha, Shadowrun.  Sweet.

Now, please understand that I'm not a complete fool.  Being an accounting major means that I'll probably do more algebra today than many of you have done since high school.  I'm not opposed to math or analysis whatsoever.**  But when I want to play a game, I want to play a game.

Breaking New: 6th Edition Rules!

This Just a Rhino in (ahaha) 6th Edition 40k has had a draft version of its core rules and codex changes LEAKED onto the webernets at large. Bell of Lost Souls has a forum up about it (sigh), but has refused to put up the links to the leak itself -assuming its authentic- they would like to refrain from some sort of punishment if the document was stolen. Since I have yet to read it I can only say that this is going to be a long news day, and will try my best to keep you informed. (WINK).

Happy Nerd Year!

First pun of the year goes to Norm! Yes!

Sorry for the lack of posts on my end, dear readers. Things get crazy with finals, double shifts at work, and of course friends and family coming to visit. But you didn't come to this blog to read about my personal life! (Or did you?)

No, you come to this fine blog to read about tabletop games. Speaking of both tabletop games and visitors, I have a bit of both to report on today: The Space Hulk Grudge Match was won by yours truly, sweeping the best-of-three match playing Tyranids!* We played two missions: Frank Sucks (Suicide Mission) and Frank Cries (The Artifact), which seem like odd choices, but I wasn't going to argue. Not to rub it in anyone's face (except Frank's), but I feel like the reason I won was a thorough understanding of the main principle of Space Hulk: It's a race. For the novice Space Hulkamaniacs (like Frank) in our readership, I feel it's appropriate to go over some of the basics, and give the game a quick-and-dirty review.