The Beard Bunker

Nothing speaks to the flexibility of tabletop wargames like mixing in a spot of roleplay and strategic map shenanigans. Having finally gotten to do so as a player rather than as the GM I can confirm that while your mileage may vary, it is, for me, the tits. Four days of having my cake, eating it, and finding another cake in the cupboard. I cannot take you to this magical realm, but this post might just offer a glimpse of it. Perhaps you can find your own way there. Or you might think bloody hell, I'd rather just play a competitive round robin and keep life simple. And hey, look, maybe methodone's your thing. Before I go any further I should probably offer some context. What we did Essentially a weekend-long roleplay campaign (think D&D etc) but where the encounters are fought with 40K armies rather than a band of adventurers. Tom was the GM, Drew and I were the players. It's not a format that lends itself to more than two players without also having more than one GM.

In a perfect world, this post would be the follow up to Tom's last post about the awesome weekend-long campaign we played recently, but that's going to have to be next week since it's not quite ready. Truth be told I've deliberate cooled my hobby jets over the last month and jumped into a fresh playthrough of  Cyberpunk 2077 as I'd been riding my hobby horse pretty hard, and sometimes one has to just calm down a bit and inject some variety. Let's not pretend this is anything more ambitious than a post saying "look, I painted a miniature! Please come back in a week when I've got some actual content for you!" When I first saw the new Librarian in Terminator Armour I was thrilled we were getting one, but un-enamoured with his glowing nipples and magic Tron lines. But it turns out, if you just calm down and treat them like armour, there's a lot to like here. I also wasn't wild about the face, but that's the easiest thing to swap out. Appa

Alarmingly it was nearly 6 years ago when Charlie ran for me and Jeff a narrative 40k campaign that remains my favourite 40k gaming experience of all time.  On the blog we’ve called it the Samalut IX campaign , but internally we mostly called it Orbital Drop Fridge, which quickly became ODF for short.  For a very long time we talked on and off about running a second ODF, but the logistics involved were not insignificant and then there was this little thing called Covid.  But eventually I stopped waiting for the stars to align to make the perfect game and just decided to have a go at doing something, even if it wasn’t perfect, and trusted we would have fun.  Surprising no-one, we did. So, shuffling things up a bit, I invited Charlie and somewhat newer player Drew to join their blue and white forces in the last alliance of Elves and Men an unholy alliance of Imperium and Xenos to see off the greater threat of Tyranid invasion on a little world called Melia’s Reach.   The Rules Charlie

 In the Grim Darkness of 2023… …we did more hobby.  Public shocked.   Politicians outraged.  Who could have expected this?! Tom : We’ve been a little on and off with these recap posts over the decade but over the last few years we’ve got pretty good at consistently remembering to do it.  In 2023 10th edition 40k came out.  As usual with the last few new 40k editions, 10e has some issues we grumbled about but overall seems to once again be the best edition ever.  That said, the codex reboot has put us on the back foot a little and we haven’t had any major big group events this year.  And, as you will see below, 2023 has been a less than stellar year for many of our nerd herd.  Nevertheless, lets see what everyone has been up to. Warning: Drew's review contains graphic imagery  (of miniature carnage).   Charlie Charlie : The original intention was to finish the Goffs this year, so here’s a shot of my year’s output: Sad tuba sound. OK in truth I had a good year, just not on the stuff