The Beard Bunker

Since 40K's ninth edition dropped I have been yearning for a full weekend of playing Crusade games with my mates. Was it worth the wait? Yes . Just being surrounded by friends doing the hobby we love was great. I should probably caveat this post-coital hobby high as I don't want to oversell things to you,  dear reader. Is Crusade perfect? No. Is 40K perfect? No. Am I the perfect opponent? No, but thanks for asking. The thing is, I'm slowly learning to relax about, and laugh at, 40K's post-reality mechanics. Today's post is really just chronicling my first serious weekend of 40K Crusade, including one of the multiplayer Treachery and Honour missions from the Catastrophe  mission pack. Game 1: Wait, what xenos cult?? Having been tipped about the existence of a xenos cult on Andaras Prime by Drew's Farseer, I threw my challenge gauntlet at Jeff: my Cobalt Scions versus his Starborn Souls  in a 500 point exchange of strongly worded opinions. As with many 500 point

Phobos armour: sleeker. Sneakier. JUST AS BRIGHTLY COLOURED. The first time GW put out a unit wearing Phobos armour left me decidedly confused. The Phobos-clad Reiver squad was depicted wearing bright blue heraldry so they didn't seem like stealth troops, but were instead... terror troops? I'm sorry, aren't marines terrifying by default? It didn't help that the greaves made me think of cargo shorts and skater shoes. Those Reivers would love to help purge the galaxy of xenos, but sorry, they're too busy doing radical tricks in the nearest halfpipe. It was only when the rest of the Phobos stuff dropped that my attitude started to soften. Ohhhhh, they're stealth troops, they've just been painted in bright colours because Fl ames Orkshop. I started to imagine how these tacticool idiots would look if painted in more drab colours, and I liked what I was imagining. So much so, in fact, that I recently bought a box, built 5 Incursors (albeit without the Geordi LaCyc

The final step of the Sector Mechanicus elements of the urban project was getting around to the cables and hand rails that attach to the sides and undersides of the walkways. Glamorous? No. Visually effective? I think so, yes. I'll confess I'm not wild about the handrail design, what with them having strong picket fence energy. I had no idea what the thought was behind them until I came to recognise that the overall approach to the Sector Mechanicus terrain is that of a nightmarish sci-fi Victorian train station. That doesn't knock me into actively loving the railings, but I can at least see the dark comedy charm, and they have grown on me since painting them because they really, really add some volume to the walkways. Here's a comparison shot: Lazy up top, bizniz on the bottom half. Adding the cables and railings really breaks up the plain silhouette of the walkways, and makes it all feel a lot more lived in. And also immediately turns the walkways into something you m