I’m not going to lie to you folks but, during the editing of this Venerabletome that shall henceforth be known as Issue 3, I found myself thinking ‘howdo we as gamers keep our hobby time fresh?’ As much as everyone else, Itend to suffer a little sometimes from getting stale on the different games Iplay and armies I collect, but I like to think that I cope well - so I’ll put for-ward some ideas on how I deal with a case of ‘gamer stale’.For starters, you can play some different games! Now has never been a bet-ter time to dive into different aspects of the overall gaming hobby, with somany great games covering many fantastic genres that we all know and love.This ties in nicely with this month’s look beyond the standard GamesWorkshop fare – we investigate two alternate game systems, with SpartanGames’ excellent Firestorm Armada and Privateer Press’ huge hit WARMA-CHINE (they tell me it’s so manly it has to be written in all caps.)Another great way to save yourself from going stale is to brighten up yourold reliable and – let’s face it – occasionally humdrum battlefield. It also justso happens that this month we debut a series of terrain-building articlesdesigned to fire up our tabletop.Last but by no means least, we can change our gaming lives by heading todifferent events. A tournament, convention or simplegames day can break us out of our gaming humdrum - shockingly enough, our very own contributor Nigel Kavanagh is here to give us a low-down on what we canexpect in the next few months.My God...it almost looked like I planned this editorial. Before the cat’s utterly out of the bag, I’m off to paint more Space Marines.

PQ

From the Editor’s DeskPaul Quigley introduces the third issue.

Our esteemed editor. (just kidding - he’s not that esteemed)

EditorPaul QuigleyAssistant EditorsNigel Kavanagh, Jimmy MurphyContributorsOwen Conlon, Darragh Cullen, Dave Leahy,

DesignDerek OwensArtworkDave LeahyAdditional thanks toBattlecry Miniatures, Gamers World Dublin

The Uplink Issue 3 was produced by

The UplinkEditorial

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The UplinkContentsContents

ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!!The Uplink’s painting competition draws another strong batch of entries.

Malifaux MasterclassJimmy Murphy explains how he painted his Lady Justice.

Lost in SpacePaul Quigley introduces Firestorm Armada, a new game of space combat from Spartan Games.

Introducing WarmachineOwen Conlan explains why the Privateer Press game is worth checking out.

Simple Terrain: HillsDarragh Cullen introduces a simple alternative method to building wargaming hills.

Warpcon 2010Jimmy Murphy reports on his personal highlights - and lowlights - from Warpcon 2010.

Signal to NoiseThe Uplink’s round-up of the latest products and interesting tidbits in the gaming world.

Around the ClubsDetails of wargaming clubs in Ireland.

Fun StuffGamer humour - you have been warned.

469121516202124 3

ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!!The Uplink’s painting competition draws another strong batch of entries.

After the stunning entries last time out, it was always going to be achallenge to maintain the standard of painting. I’m delighted to saythat our second painting competition - “ZZZZzzzzaaaapppp!!!” - didjust that. Due to a change in the Uplink’s publishing schedule, we havetwo winners this time out; one for the original deadline and one forthe extended deadline.

The EntriesThere were some super entries..Gar Lombard’s Slann was an excep-tional effory and won the prize for the first deadline. I’m sure we’ll alllook forward to seeing him float in a unit of Temple Guard on thetabletop blasting all and sundry with his magic.The second deadline saw more entries and a very tight competition.Patrick O’Sullivan entered a pair of Orc shamans named “Zig and Zag”of stunning quality. Graham Bailey and Jimmy Murphy stepped outsidethe Games Workshop scene and opted for Malifaux miniatures - bothladies were painted very well indeed. Finally, Ujio entered with aRaven Guard Librarian which featured some excellent object sourcelighting techniques.

The judges had an incredibly difficult job in choosing the winner here,and I’m glad I didn’t have to make the decision. In the end, it was

almost impossible to seperate Ujio’s Librarian and Jimmy’s LadyJustice. However, the judges finally gave the nod to Jimmy Murphy bythe very narrowest of margins. Congratulations Jimmy!

Next Month’s competitionOur third competition is called “Raising the Standard” and features,unsurprisingly, a Standard Bearer or equivalent model. As always, thejudges are looking for clean, crisp models and this competition allowsplenty of scope for freehand work and imagination.Good luck to all!

Thanks again are due to BattleCry Miniatures, our generous painting competition sponsors.

In the end, it was almost impossi-ble to seperate Ujio’s Librarianand Jimmy’s Lady Justice.

“”

The UplinkCompetition

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Clockwise from right: Take a bow - Jimmy Murphy’s Malifaux minia-ture won in a tightly-fought second competition;The competition is pos-sible thanks to our generous sponsors, Battlecry miniatures; Ujo’s superbRaven Guard Librarian showed off some great object source lightingtechnique; Graham Bailey’s brooding Malifaux lady looked the business;Zig and Zag, Patrick O’Sullivan’s Shaman duo, also impressed.Far left: Gar Lombard’s Slann took the prize for contest number one.

The UplinkHobby

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Malifaux Masterclass

I picked up the new hotness that is Malifaux at Warpcon this year as afew of the lads had got it and I’d been listening to the D6 generationrave about it on their podcast.To be honest after the prep work for myork army the idea of a game who’s entire model range has less figuresthan my army had a certain appeal.The painting completion gave an impetus to getting started on thecrew or at least the Master of the crew Lady Justice.

I was going to change up the paintscheme a bit but I settled for a fewtweaks to the existing scheme since Iliked it so much. I base coated it blackand then sprayed it white to bring upthe details as an experiment. It didmake it easier to pick out sections ofthe model than a plain black undercoatwould have.

I took the usual approach of paintingfrom the skin out, with the colours inthe ‘colour me up’ box. I wanted a verysharp, but not chalky, look so I stoppedthe highlights at ghost grey.

At this point I went online and had a lookaround at different ways of doing hair colourbefore deciding she was a brunette. I workedup from a base coat of charred brown.

Happily, the sculpt of the hair made it a loteasier than I expected it to be.To the right,you can see how shiny it was after the ogrynflesh washes

The next step was to add lots of red. For painting red, I’m using P3colours of Kador Base red and sulphuric yellow. I also used some sepiaand ogryn flesh washes to darken down the low areas.About halfway through the painting of the red area’s my wife poppedher head in the room to see how I was doing and got the standardpainter ritual of “look at what I did”. Having learned the correct

Jimmy Murphy explains how he painted Lady Justice, the winning entry in The Uplink’s paintingcompetition.

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response from dealing with our daughtershe nodded and made the appropriate ohhahh sounds before pointing out that thehair was a bit bland for a blind chick witha big samurai sword. That kicked off themost interest Majella has ever displayed ina miniature.The upshot was that Lady Jgot some red streaks and I’m wonderingwhen Majella is going to join her.Tip forlads trying to get their other half inter-ested in their figures: ask about hair-colours.

Game Colour Pale Flash, Game

Colour Elf Skintone, Game Colour

Dark Fleshton and Citadel

Gyphonne Sepia wash

Game Colour Stormy Blue, GameColour Electric Blue, Game Colour GhostGrey

Colour Me UpTo paint lady Justice, Jimmy predominantly usedVallejo’sGame Colour paints, with some Citadel washes.

Skin Tone

Fabrics

HairGame Colour Charred Brown,Game Colour Dark leshtone, GameColour Parasite Brown, GameColour Bone White, Citadel Ogrynflesh wash.

“

The UplinkHobby

Red detailP3 Sulphuric yellow and P3 KhadorRed base, washed with GamesWorkshop Devlan Mud, OgrynFlesh, Gyphonne Sepia and BaalRed.

7

Once the red was done it was a matter of tidying up the figure andfinishing off the odds and ends like the sword handle.

Figuring out a base for the model was abit tough as I’m used to basing armies,not single figures. And at that point, Iwas a day from the deadline. So, Ichopped up an ork boarding plank andpinned her to it. Using a hand drill.Everyone with a dirty smile on theirface should be ashamed of themselves.

The last stage was a quick spray of army painter matt varnish totake care of the shiny wash effect. As you can see in the picture, itdoes a great job of giving the model a nice flat matt finish.

The next things on the painting table are some new ork Kans andthe ork dreanaught.The entry for the next competition is underdebate. For a biker wagghbanner, I'd need to do a bit of convertingbut I've got all the bitz and I could use it in my army. As for a NobWaggh banner on foot, I'd have to paint a nob squad on foot to go withit.The other option is an Ultramarines limited ed figure. I've had oneof these in my collection since the Skullz promotion with GamesWorkshop years ago.The main drawback is that it might start me onthe road to an ultrasmurf army. Last but not least is another skulz pro-

motion figure - the old Iwo Jima diorama. Of course, I'd have toremove the Dork Angel and replace the figure with a proper marinefrom the space wolves chapter but that wouldn't be too tough.Decisions decisions..

A quick tip for lads trying to gettheir other half interested in theirfigures: ask about hair colours.

“”

The UplinkHobby

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Lost in SpacePaul Quigley introduces Firestorm Armada, a new game of space combat from Spartan Games.

UFO’s, Space Ships, Star Cruisers, the list goes on. Ever since I was a nip-per, I’ve been fascinated by anything to do with Space combat of any sort.So it was logical that, when I started down the road to gaming, this lovefor all things space ship related led me to get into the venerable BattleFleet Gothic (BFG). I loved this game from the start - despite its fairlycomplex mechanics, its frequent use of tables that to some were fairlyindecipherable and its extremely low level of support from GamesWorkshop it still ranks right towards the top of my all time favouritegame systems. But, because of some of these shortcomings, BFG hasalways tended to have a smaller following than I’d like (despite my bestefforts I might add). So, I’d quietly resigned myself to the fact that space-ship combat wasn’t something that was going to happen in my gamingclub with any sort of regularity. That was, of course, until the debut ofSpartan Games’ Firestorm Armada. Upon hearing about a new Spacecombat game I was of course as giddy as a schoolgirl - not just becauseSpartan were diving into my favourite genre with Firestorm but alsobecause they are a company that have a history of doing things right.Take,for example, their first release (Uncharted Seas) in late 2008. This takeon medieval/fantasy naval combat has been almost universally acclaimedfor its novel mechanics, its nice range of miniatures and Spartan’s com-mitment to quality customer service, giving me great hopes indeed forthe standard of Firestorm Armada.

The backgroundThe six fleets in the rulebook are divided into two warring factions.Now, for me this is something of a double edged sword. Having a ratherbasic structure of back story and game ‘canon’ leaves the gamer withfreedom to spin their own stories so to speak and create their own back-

ground. Others will find the lack of a comprehensive and fully immer-sive background off-putting.Whichever camp you personally fall into, beaware that the first rule book is only number one in what’s planned to bea rolling series of releases over the next number of years.

The modelsThe models, as you can see throughout the article, are rather nice - infact, this was one of the early things that drew me to the system as awhole.Whats more, regardless of personal taste and preference, I believethat everyone can find something they are interested in within the firstfour released boxed sets.Those are the Aquans (with their starships filledwith water and predominance for close in fire-fights), the Sorylians

A hard-fought battle in progress.

The UplinkGame profile

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(saurian life forms with hellish close boarding potential and mas-sive broadsides), the Terrans (think Star Wars Imperial stardestroyers with a preeminance in high powered shields) and theDindrenzi (A breakaway human faction with ships boasting horri-bly destructive long range fire power).All of them have their basicbattle box, which contains six frigates, three cruisers and a battle-ship.This is excellent value for money as a gateway into the game(retailing in and around €40) especially when one considers thatthese models are predominantly resin (if only forgeworld pricedso conservatively). A further point to note is that, although theship classes within the boxed might be the same the difference inracial abilities, ship stats and special rules makes each satisfyinglydifferent.

The RulesSpeaking of stats and special rules, let’s dip slightly into thenuances of this games compared to others of its kind. Firstly, itsan activation-based system. Essentially, one player activates a shipor squadron, completes its movement, firing or boarding actions,and then turns over to his or her opponent to do the same.This isalso based on a turn-by-turn roll for initiative with modifiersbased on racial characteristics or special rules. For those in thespace game know, its almost like a combination of BFG’s attackrating system and Babylon 5 A Call to Arms’ initiative roll. Thisturn system allows both players to be involved more often in theturn breakdown and tends to result in a more fun experience forall concerned. Barring this, most of the mechanics should befamiliar to anyone involved in any space combat game: differentclasses of ships turning at differing rates, different rates of fire ondifferent weapons depending on a ship’s trajectory, and similartouches.Of particular note from a rule perspective is the ‘exploding dice’mechanic. Basically, when a player is shooting and rolls a 6, it

counts as two hits and allows him or her to roll again.This neat little mechan-ic is carried through almost all of the game, including shield rolls, boardingactions and point defense systems. Thus, it really serves to break up the usual“so I need a 4+” thinking that experienced gamers so often suffer from.‘Mathhammer’ becomes more difficult and it forces people to really thinkabout their plans more. To be honest, more systems should have the intelli-gence.The most striking aspect of the rules, though, is how simple they are to graspand how easy Spartan have made the game to dive right into. They provide asimple template that allows turning and movement to become laughably easyto work out, they have printed small stat sheets for every ship class allowingquick reference during gameplay, and they have released a token set that is socomprehensive it will never leave anyone in any doubt about the current stateof your ship in terms of hit points taken, damage to systems, or the other in-game incidents that can be overlooked. Basically speaking, this is a game thatyou could easily introduce an inexperienced gamer to and be fairly confidentthat you’re not going to bewilder them: my other half had the dubious pleasureof testing this claim and didn’t prove me wrong.Ultimately, this is a fun game that plays well at several levels, with mechanicssimple enough to be grasped by novices and enough challenges to ensure evenexperienced gamers don’t get jaded. The background and the model range isstill a work in progress but, on the basis of what we’ve already seen, there’severy reason to be optimistic that this system will get deeper and even better.

The ‘exploding dice’ mechanism reallyserves to break up the usual probability-based thinking that experienced gamers sooften suffer from. ‘Mathhammer’ is moredifficult and it forces people to really thinkabout their plans more.

“

”

The UplinkGame profile

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The Aquans are fully com-

mitted to fight the threat of

the Dindrenzi for as long as

it takes, and if necessary

even invade Dindrenzi

space in order to reduce or

destroy their support bases.

They have full confidence

in the Kurak Alliance and have left their more distant territories stripped of

defences and logistics.

Aquans

The Factions

SoryliansTerrans

DidenzriThough a relatively fledg-

ling race, the Dindrenzi

Federation is aggressive and

intolerant of others - espe-

cially the Terran Empire. A

race based around a mili-

tary bedrock, the Dindrenzi

is waging inter-galactic war

with only one thing in mind: annihalation of Terra and its allies.

The commanders of the

Navy of the Terran Satellite

Charter are dedicated to

the protection of the sys-

tems within Fathoms Reach

against the invading

Dindrenzi forces.They have

their best Terran warships

deployed at the front as part of the Terran Storm Fleet, with the assistance

of the Terran Allied Fleet, which includes battlegroups of Sorylian and

Aquan warships.

This race has suffered badly

in the initial stages of the

Dindrenzi War, largely due

to poor initial deployment

and by being caugth out by

the sheer speed with which

the Dindrenzi Fleets have

advanced.They have always

dispersed their fleets to respond to any crisis within the Collective,

whether it is caused by Terran colonists, Raiders or the Dindrenzi.

The UplinkGame profile

11

Introducing Warmachine

“Play like you’ve got a pair!” is the catchphrase for this fast-paced aggres-sive game. If you like the sound of a wargame that has a stunning rangeof miniatures, is based in an immersive and compelling world, has someof the most beautiful books produced by any gaming company, is bal-anced and has a set of rules that are rock solid then Warmachine is thegame for you! Warmachine has been around for about seven years nowand is produced by Seattle-based Privateer Press. Its second version,called Warmachine MkII, released at the start of 2010 after an open fieldtest in which thousands of players contributed feedback to tweak andrefine the game and model rules. This award-winning game has earnedPrivateer Press a devoted set of followers worldwide who love theirgames equally for their strong character-driven storyline and fantasticgameplay.

The backgroundI mean, what’s not to love? Warmachine is a game full of massive steam-powered machines of war that can headbutt, slam and throw their ene-mies to the ground before pounding them to oblivion.These machines,named warjacks (or just ‘jacks), are controlled by battle mages known aswarcasters. The background of the Iron Kingdoms, a set of countries onthe continent of Western Immoran, is one of almost constant war. Thewarcasters are the powerful protagonists at the centre of these conflictsthat are tasked with leading the armies of their countries.They are war-riors beyond compare who can wield potent magics to cast spells andboost their ‘jacks in battle. In the world of Warmachine the warjacks aresentient constructs of armour, weaponry, pistons, gears and steam-pow-ered might centred around a cortex. The cortex is a delicate piece of

magically constructed engineering that gives the ‘jack basic intelligenceand allows it to operate autonomously. It also enables the warcaster tosee through the ‘jacks eyes and push it to extremes. This is the uniqueselling point of the game, the focus mechanic that represents magic.Thefact that the game has exceptionally well thought out and balanced rulesdoesn’t hurt either!

MechanicsBefore I can talk about how focus works, I first need to introduce thebasic combat mechanic. Like most wargames every model has a set ofstats that represent its movement, combat abilities and capacity to sus-tain damage.Warmachine does not rely on players learning off tables to

Owen Conlan explains why the Privateer Pressgame is worth checking out.

Game profile

The Uplink

12

The UplinkGame profile

calculate the chances to hit and wound an enemy. Rather a player simplyrolls 2D6, adds them to a combat statistic and compares them to theiropponents defense. Equal or beat their defense and it’s a hit.Woundingthem is done in a similar manner – roll 2D6, add the strength (andpower) of your weapon and if it beats their armour they sustain damage.It is in these dice rolls that the delicate balance of the game lies.Everything is based around average rolls. For example, most ‘jacks havea melee attack (MAT) statistic of 6. A high defense (DEF) on a warcast-er would be 16. On average rolls a ‘jack would have a hard time hittinga ‘caster. Here’s were a ‘jacks controlling ‘caster can help out.Every warcaster has a focus statistic (typically around 6 or 7).At the startof a turn the player can allocate focus from their ‘caster to ‘jacks toenable them to do exceptional things during their activation.With focus

a ‘jack can perform power attacks, such as throws, slams, armlocks andheadbutts, and importantly boost attack and damage rolls. Boostingallows the ‘jack to add an additional die to a roll.That DEF 16 warcast-er seems a lot easier to hit now that the ‘jack is rolling 3D6! Focus allo-cation is one of the key skills in the game as the ‘caster can also use focusto cast spells and boost their own attacks. Every warcaster has a uniquelist of spells that they can cast to destroy their enemy, control the batle-field or help out their own army.They also have a once per game feat thatcan dramatically change the face of the game. When playing against anew warcaster the first thing you do is check out their feat to see whatit does!

The game in PracticeSo, that’s the basics of the gameplay – you have a powerful warcaster (ortwo!) at the centre of your army who pushes it to excel in battle.Warcasters are so focal that changing a warcaster can completely changehow an army performs. Armies are constructed in a similar fashion toother games, you set a point total and add ‘jacks, units and solos untilyou reach the limit.Warmachine is a game of synergies. Some units andsolos work well with each other and specific ‘casters. Games tend to bescenario focused were there are two winning conditions – win the sce-nario or kill the enemy warcaster. Larger games, 50 or 75 points, canhave a large number of miniatures on the table and will take 2-3 hoursto play. At this scale Warmachine isn’t the skirmish game that it appearsto be at initial glance. The carnage is beautiful and battles can changequickly as a player who seems to be winning the scenario suddenly findshis warcaster under threat. However, even small games that comprise awarcaster and a few ‘jacks are great fun.These battlebox games last lessthan an hour and are so-called because they are made up of the contentsto a factions basic boxed set. Each of these boxes contains a warcaster, afew ‘jacks, their stat cards and a quickstart version of the rules (whichare also available for download). If you’re considering playingWarmachine this is a decent place to start. 13

There are essentially six factions in Warmachine – Cygnar, Khador,Protectorate of Menoth, Cryx, Retribution of Scyrah and Mercenaries.Coming from games like Warhammer and 40k this might look like veryfew, but the fact that each faction has a lot of warcasters (as many as adozen in several cases) really mixes things up.These ‘casters completelychange the character of an army, so there is a lot of strategic diversity inthe game.There are a lot of resources on the Internet that talk about thefeatures and differences of the different factions, so I won’t go into themhere. Each faction has a broad theme and a unique aesthetic. For exam-ple, the Khadorans could be characterised as a cold power hungry racethat value superior armour and bone crushing weapons over speed andprecision.Their large brutal ‘jacks are symbols of a stoic people and anever expanding empire. Each faction has its own character.The factionsare well balanced as Warmachine is released incrementally, i.e. eachbook release sees every faction get something new, so you don’t end up

with army books developed under an old edition become obsolete. AsMkII is a new edition of Warmachine everything was reviewed andupdated.The releases of MkII during 2010 will see each faction gettinga ‘Forces Book’ that details the background and rules for every minia-ture in that faction. From 2011, the game will return to the incremen-tal releasesThere has never been a better time to get into Warmachine. It is amature game, with lovely miniatures and a great set of rules. Ask afriend to give you a demo, or take the plunge and pick up a couple ofbattleboxes, but - whatever you do - remember to “play like you’ve gota pair!”.

Owen is an avid Warhammer and Warmachine player. He’s also a big geek whoblogs about all of his wargaming exploits at www.farfaraway.org.

The UplinkGame profile

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The UplinkHobby

This method of building wargaming hills is an alternative to the stan-dard approach taught in White Dwarf and elsewhere. It offers twomain advantages: first, there is virtually no slope in the hills – in theo-ry, models should be able to stand on most of the hill without fallingover. Secondly, because you’re effectively building from the bottom up,it is easy to adjust the height of the hills to create good line-of-sightblocking terrain.

· Mark out the base size of the intended hills on the MDF board.Thencut and bevel the board.

· Cut the foam into square and rectangular shaped pieces and arrangethe pieces onto the MDF. Make sure to leave a 2-3 centimetre gapbetween the foam and the bevel edge. Once you’re satisfied with thebasic shape of the hill, glue the foam into position. When the glue hasdried, apply a dark base coat (black or dark brown) to the foam.

· Sort through the chip bark to get interesting looking pieces. Build upa single level of chip bark around the edge of the foam (do not applyany glue yet).

· Once the first level of chip has been finished, apply a second layerand try to ensure that each piece of chip bark from the second layermakes contact with at least two chips from the first layer. Repeat thelayering until the chips cover all sides of the foam.

· Once the layering is complete and the hill looks good, remove all thechip bark and repeat the layering – this time, using hot glue to stickthe chips together and to the base.

·Once the chips are glued, coat them in a layer of PVA glue. Soak sometissue in PVA glue, place the tissue on top of the foam and ensure italso covers the top level of chips.

· Once the glue has dried paint the hill in textured paint and detail itto match your war games table.

Simple Terrain: HillsDarragh Cullen introduces a simple alternative method to building wargaming hills.

· Insulating foam of various depth· MDF· Chip bark· Hot Glue plus gun· Jig saw· Tissue· PVA glue· Textured paint

What you’ll need

15

Warpcon 2010

I’m focused on the wargaming aspect of Warpcon because that’s the bitI know. I’m aware of the other things going on like LARPs, Role play-ing, board games or card games, but I’m a wargamer - so, anything notinvolving mandollies falls into the realm of ‘other stuff’.

Preparing for the tournamentThis year, I wasn’t running anything in Warpcon, but I did agree to dothe rules packs and help out with the usual stuff like making more ter-rain and trash talking. Since I was refining the rulespack I put togetherlast year, a first draft of the rules for Warpcon was being discussed in ourclub back in October and released to the wider audience overNovember. Once the missions and scoring stuff was straight, we startedadding the FAQ. There was lots of back and forth between the four tofive players involved in figuring out the questions and the answers. Wekicked it off with the intention that this was the way things would standfor Warpcon.Where possible we showed the reasoning behind the deci-sion. Nobody I’ve talked to is 100 per cent happy with all the answers( myself included) but everyone seems to get that we at least have put inthe effort to answer them so that the “discussion” of the rules happensoff table and not in the middle of the battle. There’s lots of scope forimprovement and my hope is that other tournament organisers will takethis and polish it over the next year - mainly because I don’t want to havemuch work to do with it when Warpcon 21 rolls around! The latest OrkFAQ from GW gave me an “I told you so” moment as one of the con-tentious rulings for Warpcon was that deathrolla’s worked in a tankshock.Getting the rules pack and FAQ out helped a bit with raising interest.

Having the army list submission date 2 weeks ahead of the event proba-bly saved our bacon as the 40K numbers turned out to be much higherthan we expected, growing from 48 last year to 60+.For preparing my own army, I’d made the decision to replace my oldtrukks with new trukks when the new ones came out. A year afterthey came out I got around to it. I did all the assembly and convertingfor 3 of them in September.Of course I didn’t get them painted in the meantime. I was busy over thechristmas so I didn’t sit down to actually pick my army for the tourna-ment until January 17, one day before submission deadline (Planning iskey folks). At that point I found out I needed one more trukk for thearmy. Hence I spent the last few weeks before Warpcon painting 4trukks, assembling one trukk, painting up the Forgewold warboss,painting an ammo grot and finishing the basing on the grots. I’d havehad a smaller list but 2009 was the year of me missing out on all thetournaments I’d normally go to, so I was behind on my painting.

Jimmy Murphy reports on his personal highlights - and lowlights - from Warpcon 2010.

The UplinkTournamentReport

‘Ere we go! The lads ready for war.

16

The Uplink

TournamentReport

The big dayI got the army fully painted at two on Friday morning because I had lotsof stuff to do that evening.The day was a bit manic with the fun of help-ing with the setup when we were trying to figure out the best deploy-ment of tables in the new room. Low point was collecting some ladsfrom the airport and having my car breakdown. No good deed goesunpunished.The highlight was getting to have a pint in the old bar withAlessio.We had him conned into playing a game of 40K on the Saturdaywith a borrowed army. Unfortunately on the day, duty got the better ofhim and he spent the day showing people how to play Shurro. Hopefullyhe’ll come back for a visit in the future.The less said about the unfortunate delay before kickoff on Saturday, thebetter, suffice to say it’s a bit harder to organize 90ish gamers than thenumbers more commonly seen at Irish tournaments.The plan being dis-cussed for next year is to take a leaf from Johnny and the NorthernWasters and have the first round matchups pre-assigned so that, on themorning, all that needs to happen for 90 per cent of the players is acheck of who turned up and bought their ticket.Since the first game was a ‘grab a table’ game, for me this consisted of aquick dash to the end of the hall with tables that Chris had made (thereally nice terrain tables) and grabbing the first person to make eye con-tact as an opponent. I’m getting no end of abuse for “bunny running” myfirst opponent. Sigh. Begrudgers, the lot of you!

Game one: Rob with Imperial GuardFacing Imperial Guard is one of the tougher matchup for orksbecauseof the limited optionswe havefor dealing with armor. Essentially,Rob castled up in a corner and I ran everything at him at top speed.Rambo- I mean Marbo - popped up in turn one so that he had a per-fect shot on three trukks with his demo charge, only to fluff it so badlythat he nearly killed himself.A turn 2 Waggh charge with the entire ork army on pretty much the

entire Imperial Guard army ended up as a single combat. ColonelStrakken survived the main fight, only to find out he needed to take 25armour saves cause he’s fearless. OuchAfter that it was just a matter of chasing down the survivors and shak-ing hands.All credit to Rob he took the game in good spirits andI couldsee that he was already thinking about ways to sort out theorksthenext time he saw them on thetable. So game one 20-0 for me

Game two: Ivan withImperial GuardI HATE Imperial Guard. They dosneaky things like shooting me alot. Ivan grabbed a corner andpointed all the guns in his army atme. I went first and, in turn one, Itook a single shot with a trukk Bigshoota at the choir chimera sidearmour. I think the gunner wasmore surprised than Ivan when three singed psychics staggered from thesmoking ruin.Turn two was another round of “how many things can I grabwith a Waggh” Unfortunately Ivan survived the experience with some big fly-ing things filled with squishy guardsmen.The rest of the game was me trying

The Guard buddy up in the corner.

Rob’s impressive Imperial Guard Army.

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to grab objectives and kill guardsmen as they zipped around the board.Theend result was a solid 15-4 to me.The interval was the time to layout thearmies and get painting judged.

Game three: Joe with ChaosI was wilting badly by this stage of the tournament: my camera battery gaveup half way round looking at the Warhammer 40,000 armies on display andI was feeling like I could have done the same. Caffeine only gets you so far.Yes, the excuses start now - why do you ask ?The game was a lot of fun, with some things going my way, but ultimately Imade tactical errors that Joe took full advantage of. I set up my objective

pretty centrally on the board while Joe lobbed his in the back left hand cor-ner.My deployment was designed to control the area between the objectives.Joe took advantage of that and deployed heavily on my right,making the mostof the range he had.The twin lashes and vindicators didn’t hurt! In turn one,I charged across the board hoping to survive with enough stuff to get a goodpunch in. I did manage one good charge turn and took out the obliterators,both vindicators and a single squad of chaos marines in a rhino.Unfortunately, I also immobilised the trukk that was intended to take hisobjective and ended up out of position to catch his bikers.Highlights of the game included included my warboss surviving the death ofthe biker mob to rip open a vindicator, and Joe’s bikers sweeping up myflank and mowing down all before them. Lowlights consisted of the nob bik-ers getting lashed, the warboss getting lashed, my boyz (noticing a patternhere) getting lashed and the grots getting lashed.Also, my Trukk immobilis-ing on a difficult terrain roll was a pain.This stopped me short of the objec-tive when I should have just gone and parked on it.The result? 10 - 0 to Joe.The biggest regret of the weekend is getting called for time on this game

before completing it, due to a late start and the distraction of a quiz in themiddle.There’s a good chance the score wouldn’t have changed significantlybut I’d love to have seen the game out to the end.That wrapped up the gamesfor Sat. We headed to the bar for pints and post-mortems of the games.Thanks to some prior planning, a bunch of us had a reservation in town foran indian meal which turned into a bit of a pub crawl back to UCC. Sundaydawned way too early and way too bright for the condition I was in.

Game four: Padraig with TyranidsThanks to my average scorebeing pretty high I was still hang-ing around the top end of thetables. So game 4 was againstPadrig’s Bugzilla horde com-plete with cold, sleep depriva-tion and hangover.Why yes, thisis another excuse game since youasked. I’d found the spare camerabattery so I could take pic-tures.Unfortunately, I was struggling to keep it together and play the game,so pictures fell by the wayside. I’d been lucky enough to have never faced afull fledged Bugzilla list in a tournament, so it was nice to experience itbefore the new codex changed it. The game kicked off with a refuseddeployment and a forced first turn to me. I reserved the Deffcopter andcastled up my lads in the middle of the board ready for the swarm to, wellswarm.You can see where Padraig arrived from on turn two in the picture.I decided on a brutally cunning (instead of a cunningly brutal) plan for thegame, and charged for his lines with everything I had. Hey, I play orks fora reason. I left a trail of burningwreckage across the battlefield and got mycharge off, only to make some really naff dice rolls in combat.After that, itwas a matter of trying to pick off VPs here and there and not get wiped out.The game ended on turn five with Gaz on one wound, and the grots brave-ly defending a rock from loud noises.Thanks to the Grots’ late arrival and the

The UplinkTournamentReport

Some things went my way, but I made tac-tical errors that Joe took full advantage of.“ ”

The bugs looking menacing.

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VP I’d earned a 17-3 defeat.Lunch had the judging for the best painted armies and I’d swung a nomina-tion. So while people looked the armies over I ran to the shop for paraceta-mol, caffeine and sugar. I love a healthy lifestyle.

Game five: Darragh with ChaosThe last game put me up against Darragh. It was a good way to end outthe tournament since we’ve had lots of trash talk over armies and gamesover the last few years he’s been playing and I hadn’t faced his Chaosarmy before. So what was the plan going to be against this chaos army?Same as ever: get the charge and make ‘em die.I was going second, so I suck my stuff on the flank with the intention ofusing the buildings for cover. Darragh was delighted to wreck Ghazzy’strukk on turn two only to find out on my turn three that, whenGhazzy wants the trukk he’s standing beside, he gets it. I’d piledGhazzy and the mega nobs out of one trukk to withing 2” of theother trukk. The ard boys in the second trukk piled out andextracted vengance on the marines, who blew up Ghazzy’s trukkwhile he sped off into the distance. So the waggh got off, with dramat-ic results visible in the picture, and it was once again mopping up time.The final game finished 20-0.I entered my warboss in the single figure painting competion andhelped out with some of the terrain packing. When theresults wereposted I found out I’d had a bridesmade weekend. second in player’schoice army, fourth overall, and third in the single figure painting. So,all in all, it was a respectable set of results.

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TournamentReport

Right: Facing Darragh’s Chaosmarines, pre-Waaagh.Below: After the Waaagh, themop-up.Bottom, from left: Jimmy’sOrk Warboss and Lloyd’sBannanadar craftworld army.

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The Uplink

Incoming Signal to NoiseMalifaux card deck.Really useful accessory for playing Malifaux. It makes life a bit easier to have all the relevant in game information onthe card and the art on the cards looks great. It’s a nice touch that the background art for the weak to strong cardschanges to reflect the strength. Highly recommend picking up a deck if you want to play Malifaux or just have acool deck of cards. Check it out at www.wyrd-games.net.

The Game CrafterEvery wanted to make your own game? Well game crafter is a print on demand service for games. It looks very slick.You grab the templates doyour thing and then upload it.You can build all the elements of the game and then get yourself a copy or publish it and see if you can sell thegame via their store.Well worth a look see - visit www.thegamecrafter.com

Tournament scoring discussionIf you want to know more about what goes into working out a good tournament scoring system come visit the Whfb forums and have a look.Constructive ideas are more than welcome at whfb-ireland.org/forum.

40K boardgame incomingIf you’ve been living under a rock you might not have heard about the upcoming Fantasy flight boardgame HorusHeresy. For teaser info and pictures of shiny new game stuff check out their website at ww.fantasyflightgames.com.

Matchstick menThanks to Brian for sending this link of Minias Tirith. Made with matchsticks - visit www.matchstickmarvels.com/minastirith.htm to check itout.

Behind the Curtain with Rick PriestlyVery interesting interview with lots of insight into how GW got to where it is now and what it was like in the early days.Worth a read but cleara bit of time: www.battlegames.co.uk/documents/BG_HH-RP-JS-interview_unabridged.pdf.

The Uplink’s round-up of the latest products and interesting tidbits in the gaming world.

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The Uplink

Fun stuff

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The Uplink

Fun Stuff Ask the Heff“Dear Heff,

I’ve been playing with a horde army for years and I think I’ve a pretty good grasp of howto play them in a very competitive manner. However, I’m not getting the results I thinkI deserve and am going to start a Daemon army.

What do you think?CD, Dublin Airport

“Dear CD,

I empathise with your query.

This reminds me of a story from my childhood.When I was kid my dad carved me a love-ly wooden flute for my birthday one year. I loved my wooden flute. All day long I wouldsit in the corner with it, my fingers flicking up and down, my little eyes shining withdelight.Yes indeed, a good flute was the best friend a little boy like me could have. Untilthe next year my brother was given a bigger flute for his birthday. I was gutted. His waslong and black and had knobs on it.The works. So one night under cover of darkness I crept into his room and stole his flute.Now even though his flute was better than mine and took less skill to use and practically played itself it just wasnt the same as my old flute. Soonmy friends would turn away in disgust when I showed them my huge black flute and little girls would cry in the street. And in the end after muchsoul searching I gave my brother back his flute and went back to my room and there amid all the rubbish and dirty clothes was my old flute I haveloved so much. Carefully I pulled it out and polished it slowly at first then quicker till my old flute shined as new and then with trembling lips Iplaced it in my mouth and blew. And do you know what I realised, after all this time? That my old flute sucked donkey balls, so I cracked it overmy brother’s skull, stole his and have never been happier.So to answer your question - yeah, get daemons. Daemons are awesome.

The Heff

The Uplink’s resident agony uncle answers your questions.

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Dear Heff,

Ogres rock! Hur hur hur.

J, Greystones”

“Dear J,

The good Lord said every person has a place in this world and I believeyours is sitting on street corners covered in vomit and pee and askingstrangers for change. Oh yeah, and continue playing Ogres - everybody,even warhammer players, need someone to look down on and that’sgonna be you.

The Heff

Dear Heff,

After many undefeated years, some other guy just won ‘Most DrunkenOpponent’ in a recent tournament. I feel like I have lost part of myidentity and blackened my soul.

Where do I go from here?

W, Dublin

Dear W,

The problem arises as you are constantly drunk; people just assume it’syour natural state of being.

The secret can be found in one of the greatest movies of all time -

Rocky. A week or two before the tournament you’re going to go coldturkey and do some exercise. Go running with a bunch of kids, wearsome old sweat pants and eat plenty of eggs. Soon you’ll lose that toxicalcoholic glow and start to look healthy again.

Then, on the morning of the tournament go around and talk to every-one. Try hard to appear normal and make small talk. Ask about theweather, the kids, the wife. And then as the first game begins, starthammering shots into you. Get completely sh*t faced. Drink windowcleaner if you have to, or brasso metal polish. If you’re getting a sand-wich or a bar, dilute it in whiskey first. Don’t be afraid to Irish thatthing up. And then when the time for the award comes round, you’ll belying at the bottom of the stage in a pile of your own vomit, kacksaround your ankles, various multi-kit models jammed up your hole, the‘Bad Women of Irish Wargaming’ calender in one hand and a clump oftissues stuck to your belly.You still wont win the award, Chris will. That fella’s Olympic standard- you cant beat that. But you will have no recollection ever of losing,or why you ended up in bed with Fergus that night...and at the end ofthe day, isn’t that what wargaming is all about? Getting shafted.

The Heff

The Uplink

Fun stuff

When the time for the award comes round,you’ll be lying at the bottom of the stage in apile of your own vomit, kacks around yourankles, various multi-kit models jammed upyour hole, the ‘Bad Women of IrishWargaming’ calender in one hand and aclump of tissues stuck to your belly.

“

”

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HobbyThe Uplink

Gaming clubs Around the Clubs

Lisburn Gaming ClubLisburn Gaming Club (LGC) is a new tabletop gaming club located inthe heart of Lisburn, five to ten minutes walk from the centre of theCity. The club hosts all tabletop games that members wish to play. Allthe ususal GW games plus some of their specialist games are alwayswelcome and usually on hand to play. The club also encourages andactively plays Roleplaying games and certain card games too. There ishope for a regular LAN setup in the future, but the club will remainmainly focused on the tabletop. For more information, visit www.lis-burn-gaming.co.uk.

NUI Maynooth Games SocietyThe NUI Maynooth Games Society base most of their games duringthe week for the majority of the college year in the John Hume build-ing on campus.They host an annual games convention aroundNovember every year called Dominicon and play a variety of gameswithin the society such as wargaming, roleplaying, card games etc.Youcan reach the club via email (games@nuimsu.com) or online atminds.nuim.ie/~gamessoc

The Drogs of WarThe Drogs of War have been around for about nine years now. Initially,it was started as an alternative youth club for people living in theDrogheda area but has developed since then into an established gamingclub with a core of about forty gamers in two main groups - juniors

(up to sixteen years old) and seniors.The club have a policy of developing younger players and tend to avoidoverly competitive play with these gamers. Instead, the Drogs of Wartry to encourage important things like learning how to play the gamecorrectly, painting, assembling and modeling, plus the social side ofthings.The club plays most games, including Warhammer FantasyBattle,Warhammer 40,000,Warmachine and Hordes, Battle FleetGothic, Blood Bowl, GorkaMorka, RPGs and many board games.The atmosphere is very friendly and you will usually be able to arrangeany type of game with members.The general attitude to gaming isquite easy going, most members are casual gamers who enjoy friendlyand non-competitive games.The club uses the modern church hall ofthe local Church of Ireland, which is a wonderful facility with all themodern conveniences, and can comfortably set up 14 tables if needsbe.The junior section plays from 14:00 to 18:00 and the seniors from18:00 to 22:00.The club can be contacted atwww.droghedagamers.com.

The Northern WastersThe Northern Wasters club has been running for 10 years.The club is mainlyInternet-based with the players meeting up to attend and run tournaments.Many of the players are based in Northern Ireland, but there are also Wastersin the rest of the UK, Ireland and The Netherlands. Ballymena is the Wasters’spiritual home, and a group of around 25 players meet up there every secondSunday.Warhammer Fantasy Battle is the most popular system currently, butyou can also usually find games of Warhammer 40K, Blood Bowl and Space

Listed here are some of the clubs in Ireland that wargame. If your club is not listed here pleaseemail the editor (theuplinkeditor@gmail.com) with your club's contact details and a brief description of the club's activities.

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Hulk being played. On the non-GW front, several Wasters are starting to playFlames of War and Hordes/War Machine.You can contact the Wasters ontheir forum (forum.northernwasters.com) or by emailing northern-wasters@gmail.com39

The North Wexford GamersThe North Wexford Gamers are a group of gamers with a passion forWarhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40k.They’re a social bunch whocan often be found playing at other clubs and focus more on the fun elementof the game than winning at all costs.The North Wexford Gamers can becontacted via the side – www.northwexfordgamers.org - which includes aforum and podcast, or through e-mail on admin@northwexfordgamers.org.

The Underground GamersThe Underground Gamers is a war games club based in Gamers Worldon Jervis Street in Dublin’s city centre.The club formed in 2004 and isdedicated to offering players a relaxed environment where they canplay a large variety of war games, board games and roleplay games.Warhammer Fantasy Battle is a staple of the club with practically everymember playing at least one army, but other systems are well repre-sented.Warmachine, Hordes, Blood Bowl,Warhammer FantasyRoleplay and Flames of War are all frequently played. In fact, there arevery few games they don’t play!The club prides itself on being both competitive and friendly.Members perform well in both the gaming and painting competitionsin the Irish and International tournament scenes: recent highlightsinclude club members winning the first two Irish ranking WarhammerFantasy Battle tournaments in 2009 and scooping painting awards ateach.The Underground Gamers We are looking forward to hostingtheir own club tournament in 2010 which will involve an ETC-styleteam event.You can contact the Underground Gamers by joining theemail list at groups.google.com/group/undergroundgamers or byenquiring in Gamers World.

The WarheadsThe Warheads are a club dedicated to tournament gaming in Irelandand frequently play Warhammer 40,000,Warhammer Fantasy Battles,Blood Bowl and Necromunda in Gamer’s World in Dublin City Centre.Youcan reach the club via email (joseph.warmaster@gmail.com) or visitsites.google.com/site/thewarheads/home

WAC- Wargames Association CorkWAC are a group of wargamers who play just about anything put outby GW, with Wahammer 40,000 and Fantasy Battle most popular.There are also a few people interested in playing Warmachine.Thegroups are currently co-located (i.e. sponging space off the UCCWARPS club) so there are role players, car gamers and board gamersclosely associated with the club.WAC meet at the Elec eng building inU.C.C on Thursdays from 18:30 to 22:30.To contact the club, emailthemurphyfella@gmail.com or visit the Yahoo group:groups.yahoo.com/group/WACork/?yguid=11890703.

The Uplink

Gaming clubs

Write for the Uplink!

The Uplink is looking to hear from other passionate wargamerswith something to say or show about their hobby. Submissionsshould be sent to: theuplinkeditor@gmail.com.Any kind of submission is welcome, including stories, artpieces, pictures of your army, opinion pieces or tactica articles.There is no guarantee of inclusion in the magazine, and anyarticles may be edited to suit the format of the Uplink. Feelfree to contact the editorial team with more informal queriesor ideas for articles.

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