Atalan Jackals review

Miniatures

Got my hands on the Jackals box this week, as always thanks to our friends at Triple Helix..

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These guys are so cool and next to the Ridgerunner perhaps my favourite release GW have done this year.

Anyway onto the review, the box is as per all other GW kits, so pretty painted models, with the new look of now terrain to distract you. Just the shiny models to grab you attention, I like this move by GW as the models pop more on the dark background.

The instructions are great as always and like any GW kit with have plenty of options to set up your bikes.

I will say it is a little hard to do anything with the bikes beyond the carriage area at the back of them. But with some careful positioning you will be able to get them sliding around dirt bike style.

We get 2 spures in the kit with everything packed in tight, something that makes me very happy is that all the wheels are 1 piece no more gluing endless wheels together for me 🙂

I like that the bikes are very simple which works for what they are and allows space for a very cool quadbike (with some amazing details).

You get all the options you would need for the quad and riders themsleves.

Something that strikes me as realy helpful but also fsutrating is that each bike has an arm/handle bar section.

Now this makes it easy to line up you joints on the models and also easier to allow separate painting of bike and rider.

But it then limits what the riders could be doing without some extra work. I would have loved an extra handle bar section with no arms.

As lets face it everyone wants a double pistol toting rider in their force? No? Just me then…

Altogether, the bikes are really really easy to throw together and provide plenty of options as far as heads/arms/extras go.

The quad is a little more indepth as far as the build goes, something I didnt look into is how well it magnetizes up for the different gun options. But thats for another time, as lets be honest a giant laser is always going to win in the cool stakes..

So something that I am working on is the fact my cult is a Rogue Machine cult infected with a Chaos Computer Virus.

I struggled to fit these guys in but that was easlily sorted as I had spare Goliath heads, I mean surely bionic hair and jaws with be easily corrupted right?

Listen to the molars/follicles…

Overall,

So as a kit the price point of £24.38 (from our friends at THG) it is hitting that mid range for a kit, but it is a very cool kit that lends itself really well to other systems outside of 40K (Gaslands anyone?). But I think with some conversion they could work in Guard force or even an Ork force the bikes are perfect for Grot riders 🙂

Hinamatsu

Malifaux, Miniatures

The first of my Qi and Gong keyword models complete, making the way for Youko as she arrives very very soon 🙂

I had great fun painting her/it, mainly as it is for a friendly little painting competition locally.

But used some techniques before, for the base using posters etc. but then something new as I tried to do some cherry blossom type tree on cloak.

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Titanicus Campaign Books Review

Adeptus Titanicus, Review

First disclaimer, I am not too deep in with AT.

I am definitely a one of every shiny forget the balance/strategy here lets play stompy robots

With that in mind I have been having a dip into the campaign books for Titanicus, in the shape of Titandeath and Doom of Molech.

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They both follow a similar pattern of background, new legions/households, new maniples, new narrative campaigns and extra bits at the end.

They are both really really nice books and on par with anything else FW kicks out as these are most definatly FW and not GW books.

The artwork is amazing and the quality is top-notch as well. Although for the game itself I think those with a dedication to the Horus Heresy series, these are certainly worth collecting.

Titandeath

So we get 97 pages of goodness in the first book release and I think the book most are going to want to get of the two.

The fluff is not bad gives a brief overview of the the battles of beta-garmon. All very much done on the timeline sort of way. So boxes of text across some nice artwork of planets etc.

We get EIGHT! new legions to play with in the book;

  • Warp Runners, Nova Guard, Firebrands, Imperial Hunters
  • Deaths Heads, God Breakers, Tiger eyes, Death stalkers

I love them all, they all add some really fluffy rules, but on the flip-side nothing that is too stand-out. Well at least from my eyes anyway

The new (four) maniples are also a welcome addition as they offer some much needed variation from the rulebook. We do get some more spammy ones in the book in the shape of all reaver / warhound builds but thats OK as they also give us the King and Queen build 😉

The seven new scenarios we are given are all narrative, based around the story of Beta_Garmon of the story. So not what you can class as matched play but they are worth looking into as some look a real blast to play.

My favourite has to be On The Edge Of The Void. Battling in a space ship as close to death starring as possible…

Campaigns have never been my cup of tea no attention span…SQUIRREL!!! But the rules are there for a group to rock to or even an mini event at WHW (now thats an idea ;))

A final mention to the appendix additions in the book, which covers hostile environment rules as well. Again perhaps not match play worthy BUT who dosent love a titan minefield.

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Doom of Molech

Now Doom is the smaller brother of Titandeath only coming in at 81 pages and has to be said not as Titan heavy as we are really looking at Knights with this one.

We see a switch from the time line boxes of TD to more normal text for the fluff and perhaps more of nod towards what the marines and primarchs where doing, but then I suppose Doom had more of a mixed forces fight going on than TitanDeath. Still good but different from what we have already.

We got 4 new lefgions, in this book and again nice touches that make them cool rather than must have!

  • Warmongers, Dauntless
  • Dark Fire, Murder Lords

Mirroring this, we only see 2 new maniples and 5 scenarios. But again we see the same pattern as with TitanDeath and worth looking into.

We do also get 1 matched play scenario, which is just for knights. It is based around hunting monsters as any good knight would want to do, with stats for said monsters. Its a really cool idea and should offer quick games that help teach the very basics of the game.

What the book does bring to the titan in abundance is Stratagems! Loads of new ones to consider and also the option now to pick a Legion specific stratagem to use but at additional cost.

The small tactical choices this brings is pretty spectacular and will certainly freshen up your choices.

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Now the core of the book is set aside for the Knight forces rules.

Now I am not going to go too deep into this but simply when as a full force they have less variation within the banners (all need to be armed the same) compared to the standard support banners we have had so far.
This plus they have to activate as a Lance (3 Banners, 2 must be same type) so a larger number of knights moving together almost like a titan volume of robots 🙂

It’s a simple choice but also ensures activation control is less of an issue in the game. But generally the knights work as they did in the rulebook just with more thought towards co-ordination of your force as a minimum of 9 knights is actually a big footprint to move about (worrying about blasts).

They also get their own missions and stratagems as well, with the leader (high scion/ seneschal) get knightly qualities in a similar way as warlord traits.

Overall

These books are certainly worth it and from our friends at THW both clocking in at £17.60 its a good deal to be had to bring something extra extra to your games of AT.

I would say for general players that TitanDeath has to be your first purchase as it opens a lot of choices for Titans which the game is all about. Doom brings something different and perhaps something only a few will actually want to try in a full knight force. However the extra bits for the titans still make it a worthwhile bet.

In other words, get them both and be a happy Princep…