40k Pic of the Day 8-7-09

Pic submitted by reader: Felix

Someone's gotta take a peek out there.
Anyone, anyone? Beuller?"
~Your daily dose of tabletop fun! Enjoy. If you have an awesome shot you think would make a great BoLS pic of the day, email us!

View Comments

40K HOBBY: Russ Tank Variant Workshop

Warhammer 40,000 "treadheads" have been drooling over the list of Russ tank variants on page 49 of the latest incarnation of the Imperial Guard Codex ever since it was released a few months ago. The now numerous weapon variations and combinations one can stick on the venerable old Leman Russ tank model are dizzyingly exciting for Imperial Guard commanders. Which turret variants to build? Which weapon combinations to add to the hull and sponsons? The possibilities have never been so much fun.

Some other questions that all the new Russ variants raise for many IG commanders are:
1) Whether or not to wait for kits for the variants not yet available and
2) If one doesn't want to wait for kits, what can be done through conversion to build some of the new variants and finally
3) How best to make use of all those extra cool bits available in the new Demolisher kit after one builds a single tank model from it.

I wouldn't even begin to try and answer question number 1, that's up to each modeler to decide, but for those that have decided to go ahead and try their hand at building some of the variants not yet available as regular GW stock items, I think I can help while answering question numbers 2 and 3 together. Best of all, everything used in the conversions covered in this article is made from the same polystyrene plastic. No metal or resin bits were used at all, so get out your plastic cement, put the super-glue away for a while, and lets get to converting!

First, all those extra weapon bits in the new Demolisher kit will leave you with a plethora of options to add to other tank kits. If you have some regular Leman Russ tanks around you'd like to convert, those parts will be most helpful, especially for upgrading the sponsons or hull weapons on your Russ to something other than the heavy bolters or lascannon that comes with it. A simple cut and glue job with a modeling saw and some plastic cement will do the trick.

When it comes to the turret weapons things get a little more complex, but certainly not overly difficult. Some cutting of the battle cannon and replacement with those extra turret weapons from the new Demolisher is also possible. For variants not covered by either the regular Russ or new Demolisher kit, other resources are available like plastic tubing or parts from other GW tank kits. In the pictures below, I'll go over five different conversions using the aforementioned items.

This Punisher conversion is one of the simplest. If you've built an Executioner or Demolisher from your new Demolisher kit, you'll have a left-over Punisher gatling gun. Simply cutting the battle cannon near the gun root and plugging in the Punisher cannon will give you an instant Punisher variant. Note that I replaced the hull lascannon on this model with a heavy bolter from another Leman Russ. This tank will get 29 dice when firing from a stationary position! This is a more-is-more machine gun tank for mowing down infantry and light vehicles.


This conversion involved cutting off a battle cannon and gluing an Executioner plasma cannon to it. Only the part of the battle cannon that allows it to fit in the turret and elevate has been kept here. The turret has been widened with plastic card armor plating to match up with the shield near the root of the plasma cannon. Rivets were made from plastic rod. The sponson heavy bolters have been cut off to make room for plasma cannon bits from the new Demolisher kit, making this a "super-plasma" Executioner. One of the heavy bolters that was removed from this model was used to replace the lascannon on the Punisher shown above.


This Demolisher was converted using the plastic Demolisher cannon from the new Demolisher kit. The sponson heavy bolters have been replaced with plastic multi-meltas also from the new Demolisher kit.


My Vanquisher was made by cutting out part of the battle cannon and replacing it with plastic tubing. I determined the length by looking at the proportions of the barrel in relation to the lascannon beneath it in the line drawing on page 49 of the Guard Codex. I made what is for me an unusual decision to eschew sponsons in this case because the Vanquisher is a dedicated long-range tank destroyer, so I figured the main turret gun and lascannon would be all that is needed here.


Finally, I built an Eradicator using the Hellhammer barrel from a Baneblade kit along with some plastic card, strips and rod to make the armored shield at the gun root.


There you have it, some simple ways to get the most out of the old Leman Russ kit and the new Demolisher/Executioner/Punisher kit. A guardsman's armor may metaphorically be his contempt for the enemy, but nothing beats having some real armor in the form a bunch of Leman Russ variants to back him up. Happy tank building. Dismissed!

Half the fun of building these conversions was just figuring out how to do so. I've been sitting on that Apocalypse bundle deal of ten Leman Russ tanks since late 2007 waiting to see all the new possibilities for them that would be available in the new IG Codex before proceeding with assembly and I'm really glad I did. I never dreamed when I bought that big boxed deal that I'd be able to build so many different versions out of it. When the conversions shown are painted, they'll look much like the older Demolisher shown at the top of this article, which I painted for my IG army when I built the core of it back in 2006.

Finally, I'll leave you all with a question. You may have noticed in the pictures above that I did not yet add sponsons to my Eradicator. That's because I'm still trying to decide if I want to just put the usual heavy bolters on there or upgrade to something a bit more colorful. If you were building an Eradicator, what if anything would you use on the sponsons? As a hull mounted weapon? Imperial advisors may leave their comments below.

View Comments

The Mystery Box Begins to Open

Folks in the Lounge are seeing movement regarding the Mystery Box.

Latest talk says:

"GW already offering preorder to the retail shops at at approx 50 GBP - It's Space Hulk with terrain , Terminators Genestealers and 2 metal miniatures. For now there are no plans to sell space hulk in more than 1 print - this is limited edition"

~It may only be available at Brick and Mortar stores and the GW Web Store, and supplies may be very limited. I don't know about you but this may be the "Tickle-me-ELMO" moment for Games workshop with hordes of old-timers pulling out the stops to lay their hands on the limited copies of this. I'm already working on my nefarious plans to secure one....How about you?

View Comments

40K Pic of the Day 8-06-09

If you're gonna Lash, do it with style.
~Your daily dose of tabletop fun! Enjoy. If you have an awesome shot you think would make a great BoLS pic of the day, email us! We especially want to see some of the rarer races out there. You guys know who you are...

View Comments

40K: The Evolving Hive Fleets

We've seen a lot of changes over the years from our beloved Tyranids. We've seen the build your own mutable creature system come and go. We've seen more variants of Lictor rules than you can shake a stick at. Old One Eye and the Red Terror ran rampant over tabletops before being put into the deep freeze, and we've seen the army shift from assault, to shooty, and back again over editions.

What was once the loathed monstrous-creature horde of 4th edition has found itself getting a little long in the tooth as we embrace 5th. But, there is talk that 2010 will be the year the new Tyranids return (possibly with a fancy new plastic Trygon), with a shiny new book full of whatever the newly evolved hive fleets have to throw our way.

This thread is an open tactical discussion of what you think the new Tyranids most need and should change into. Lets get some specifics in here my fellow Norn-queens. Whats just not cutting the mustard any more, or really needs to improve, and how would you do it? What's a no-brainer that might need toning down?

~For you non Tyranids-players, lets hear what you think the remorseless Hive-fleets most need to make them a truly feared, unique opponent to face off against on the tabletop. The floor is yours...

View Comments

BFG: Game Sequence 101

A guest post by Fracas

Hello all. Previously I have posted about the genre and fluff appeals of BFG. Today I want to spend some time on the game mechanics. Many of us believe BFG have among the best of GW's rulesets. While certainly not perfect, I do believe that it is tight. This post will focus primarily on the turn sequence.

Pre Game: The pre-game activities are primarily about determining leadership values of your ships. Though you can purchase one or more leaders with preset leadership value, this is in large a random process. Since you have little control over the value you roll, the most important aspect of leadership is actually whether to squadron your cruisers. Escorts have to be in squadron and typically most of us will not be fielding more than one or two battleship so there is not much to decide there. Regarding cruisers, there are four types based on their primary weapons: attack crafts/torpedoes ships, batteries ships, lance ships, and mixed armament ships. Which ship category a ship is in is determined by its armament and more importantly how you intend to use it as most ships have a combination of armaments. The advantage of placing cruisers in a squadron is that the squadron uses the highest leadership value in the squadron.

Firstly, since carriers (attack craft ships and to a lesser extent torpedo ships) has to reload their ordnance (attack crafts and or torpedoes) being able to use a higher leadership really matters. Not being able to reload neutralizes the carriers ability to function as carriers. In addition, one larger wave of ordnance attack is superior to smaller waves of ordnance attack. The main downside to squadroning is that the ships have to stick together.

Secondly, batteries based ship in squadron can fire together simultaneously. Since batteries attack are better simultaneous rather than in sequence, much like carriers. However, since each cruisers can still fire without needing to reload, it is not as important for them to be in squadrons. Most battery based cruisers are reasonably effective on its own.

Thirdly, most mixed armament ships have a combination of batteries and lances. Again, weapon batteries are better combined but mixed armament ships don't carry that much batteries for there to be much degrading of effectiveness and their lances are likely able to maintain their effectiveness so squadroning them is a plus or minus affair. In general, lances don't need to be squadroned. Oh, one more thing, if you regularly play 40k or FB more than BFG, remind yourself that BFG is played in centimeters and not inches.

Turn Sequence: Each turn consists of 2 parts, yours and your opponent. Each part consists of, in sequence, movement, shooting, ordnance, and end phase. I just have a few comments for each phase.

The Movement Phase: A couple of items worth considering here. Firstly, decide what special orders your ships will go on. Then roll for them in sequence, with highest leadership tests first. Once a special order test is failed, no other special orders can be rolled for. Secondly, all ships have to move a minimum of 1/2 their movement allowances. The only way not to move is to use special order "Burn Retros" with a leadership test. This means that everything will change and you will need to anticipate where you will be with respect in your turn as well as in your opponent's turn. While this isn't too different from most table top wargames like 40k and FB, most people field both a static and a mobile force in these other games. Thirdly, cruisers and battleships (with exceptions) must move a minimal distance before they can turn, 15 cm for battleships and 10 cm for cruisers. Finally, since ships do not block line of sight when shooting weapons but will block line of sight with torpedoes, I tend to move my torpedo ships first to set them up to have an unobstructed line of fire, then move my other ships to stay out of my torpedo ship arc of fire.

The shooting Phase: Each ship or squadron fires all its weapons then the next ship or squadron fires. Always fire your weapon batteries first because the presence of blasts will degrade the effectiveness of subsequent weapon batteries attacks. As a result, fire with the largest strength batteries first before weaker ones, which also suggest then that your batteries ships should fire first. Lances, which are not affected by blasts, can fire at any time. It should go without saying that concentrated fire focussed on a few targets is better than spreading your attacks among many. Once a ship loses 50% of its starting hits, it is considered crippled and its weapon goes down to half strength. Thus if it is your ship being attacked and you estimate reasonable likelihood of being crippled, you should go on special order “Brace for Impact” to get a 4+ save against each hits (after shields).

The Ordnance Phase: Four items of note. Firstly, both players get to move whatever ordnance is on the table; you get to go first in your turn and only you get to launch. Thus though leaving ordnance on the table makes them susceptible to being taken out, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. To take out your ordnance your foe will have to shoot at them. Not only are ordnance harder to hit than your ships, if he is shooting at ordnance, he certainly won't be shooting at your ships. Alternatively he would have to use his own ordnance to take out yours and again, since you can reload ordnance during the game but cannot "reload/reinforce" your fleet with more ships, losing ordnance is much more effective than losing ships.

One item of caution though, while one fighter can take out another attack craft, one fighter can take out a whole wave of torpedoes, thus I usually hold my torpedoes until within striking range. Secondly, turrets defenses against ordnance attacks gets to defend against each wave of ordnance attacks but for the phase must choose to defend against torpedoes or attack crafts. This means that a combined bombers and torpedoes attack has synergy. This also means one larger wave of this is better than multiple smaller waves.

Thirdly, hit and run attacks are conducted. Hit and run attacks are most effective against escorts as success results in the escort being removed from the game. A successful hit and run against capital ship is unlikely to inflict structural hits and while critical damage can be annoying and functionally degrade the effectiveness of the capital ship, this functional damage from critical hits can usually be repaired. Finally, worthy of note is that Corsair Eldar and Craftworld Eldar can move in their ordnance phase after all ordnance have moved. This allows them to hit and run.

The End Phase: In this phase you try to repair functional critical hits and conduct teleport attacks and boarding actions. You will also have to remove D6 blast markers from the tabletop. If possible, leave blast markers in front of enemy battleships if possible. Most battleship are slow and ponderous and will not be able to turn without special order Come to New Heading or Burn Retros. As we all know, part of tabletop tactics involve maximizing your mobility and minimizing your opponent’s mobility. Thus remove blast markers from in front of your own battleships if you can.

For future posts I intend to go through each fleet lists the best I can. Probably Necron, followed by Corsair Eldar, then Space Marines.



~Bigred here. Fracas will be back from time to time to take us through the paces of BFG and the strengths and weaknesses of the different fleets. He also runs Warmancer, one of the best BFG blogs out there, so by all means you interested Naval Cadets should check it out. Comments and questions are welcome, and by all means lets hear your ideas for future BFG articles.

View Comments

40K Pic of the Day 8-05-09

"Multiple targets acquired Princeps"
Moderati, you may fire at will."
~Your daily dose of tabletop fun! Enjoy. If you have an awesome shot you think would make a great BoLS pic of the day, email us! We especially want to see some of the rarer races out there. You guys know who you are...

View Comments

BoLScon: 2 Weeks Away!

BoLSCon 2009
August 22-23
Doubletree Hotel, Austin, Texas


BoLSCon is just 2 weeks away!

Lets hit the high points as we get down to the wire folks:

UBER-PRIZES
Over $12,000 of value, with more prizes and gifts still coming in! That averages out to more than the cost of the BoLScon Floor Pass per attendee!

GT CIRCUIT EVENT
BoLScon is the first event of the 2010 GT Circuit. That means tournament winners will get a chance to attend next year's Games Workshop Circuit Championship!

TOURNAMENT TRACKS
40k, Fantasy, and War of the Ring Tourneys. No matter you favorite game, get in 7 exciting games over 2 days of tournament play!

NARRATIVE TRACK
Dive into the Imperium's most famous Battles. Fluff enthusiasts can dive into a series of Horus Heresy, Macharian Crusade, and Badab War Planetstrike and Apocalypse games to immerse yourself into the world of narrative gaming.

PAINTING COMPETITION
Come show off your best stuff! Multiple categories of painting competions allow you to show the world your best stuff and walk away with some great prizes!

AFTER HOURS EVENTS
Lucky 13s, 40k Pod Racing, Open-Gaming, Jwolf-Fritz-Jawaballs Battle of the Blogs! We have a ton of great side games, challenge matches and a pile of BoLS' titans, flyers, and superheavies just waiting for you guys to play with on our open gaming tables. There is something for everyone!

GW GUEST
John Shaffer. Master modeler and converter John Shaffer will be on the floor giving out painting and conversion tips and tricks. Who knows what GW info he might have on hand. We'll have to find out.

Full details on these events can be found in the Downloads section of the www.BoLScon.com

REGISTER NOW! There are only 2 weeks to go!


The Doubletree is a NICE hotel, with the lowest rates you've seen.






~Come on down to beautiful, sunny Austin and enjoy a weekend of your favorite games with the Fly Lords. We'll see ya there!

View Comments

40K TACTICS: Spearhead Deployment and the Imperial Guard

Jwolf here. If you’re like most Imperial Guard players who have played for the Guard for a long time, you do the Happy Dance when Spearhead Deployment comes up. After all, we have the big guns with all the range, and Spearhead means we get set up a nice neat castle in the corner and mow the enemy down on their way in, right? Here are a few good reasons to consider using Reserves and different deployment options for the Imperial Guard under Spearhead Deployment (Note: Any shooty army can benefit from this, so get over the whining about Imperial Guard articles already).

1) Reserves come in anywhere along the long table edge. This means Chimeras coming from Reserves get Multilaser shots at the sides and rear of enemy vehicles charging towards your line. This is especially true if you deploy towards the center of the table along the short table edge. Spearhead is also a good mission to consider Valkyries and Vendettas in normal Reserve instead of outflanking, for this very reason.

2) In Seize Ground, deploy away from objectives, and keep your initial forces away from them. This causes your opponent to either pursue the objectives or your forces. Since most of your initial deployments can be the big guns (which are coincidentally non-scoring but kill the most enemy units), having to choose what to dedicate to each task makes it easier to find a flaw in your opponent’s strategy and take it apart. In Capture and Control, you’ll want the objective as far from the enemy as possible; don’t make it easier for them to get there by deploying assaultable units along the path.

3) Hellhound Chassis Vehicles and Demolishers have short range but are rightly feared. Having them available to come in from the Flank and Rear makes a good general think about something other than his plan of attack, which makes their implied threat greater. This also means that you’re certain to get Alpha strikes with these vehicles, which is a very good thing. Deploy closer to the center of your own board edge to maximize the value of these vehicles in Reserve.

4) Drop Pods and Outflankers are hell on castled forces. Castling provides a target-rich environment that enemies love and Fifth Edition has seen so great an increase in non-linear movement that the old castle just isn’t what it used to be. Unless you prefer using a Chimera wall to outmaneuvering the opposition – that castle is still terribly viable.

5) Cheap Chimeras and good Fast Attack Choices (that are actually fast!) mean that IG are best played without the old gunline. Make enough of a gunline that your opponent can’t afford to leave it alone, then use the rest of your forces to strike at their weak points, or simply run around them and grab the objectives.

6) Astropaths make Outflanking a good percentage option. Load up Valkyries and/or Vendettas and get those Melta-Vets delivered right to the opponent’s rear objectives.

~One of the great things about the new Guard Codex is an unprecedented level of mobility, so shake up your old thoughts about Spearhead and use that mobility and Reserves to take the engagement non-linear. the floor is open Generals. Lets hear your thoughts on Spearhead deployment and firepower armies.

View Comments

PLAY AID: Badab War

OK, everybody, I have something very special today. You've all been waiting for it, and at long last it's here. Myself, Aventine, Kings, Minus67, Goatboy and many, many others have wrapped up the Badab War campaign book. Within its 92 pages you will find a set of rules to allow you all to play games during the greatest Astartes rebellion since the Horus Heresy.

Here is the link to download the 7mb Adobe Acrobat file for the rule-set.

Download Here

Note: This book is specifically designed for 2-page book style printing and viewing. If you want to open it in Acrobat, please make sure you set your options to view 2-page spreads "2-up", and "show cover page during 2-up".

Within you will find the history of the Badab War, rules for each of the Loyalist and Rebel Astartes chapters, and thier specialized units. A large set of new Named Characters offers something to every player and modeler out there. There are also time lines, maps, and great artwork throughout.

We have included a full color hobby section, a full branching tree campaign, allowing you to change the outcome of the conflict. Here are a few teaser pictures of battles, maps, and Independent Characters to whet your appetite.

Is it perfect or comprehensive? No, but I hope this serves as a starting point to get your creative juices flowing and give groups of Badab War enthusiasts a mutual set of rules they can use to start modeling and playing games.

~Its been a long time coming guys. Enjoy, and by all means, leave comments.

View Comments

40K Pic of the Day 8-03-09

pic submitted by reader: Roger Pauly

"When encountering a minefield, advance exactly as if it were not there".
-Valhallan maxim
~Your daily dose of tabletop fun! Enjoy. If you have an awesome shot you think would make a great BoLS pic of the day, email us! We especially want to see some of the rarer races out there. You guys know who you are...

View Comments

40K HOBBY: Bigred's Collection (Video)

Hi everybody.

Look what I just got! A Flip Ultra-HD. And that means the videos will be coming your way. I'm sure it will take a little while to get my videographer sea-legs, but here is a quick introductory video taking you all through my 40K minis collection (minus the titans and other big stuff).



BoLS YouTube Channel

~Comments are welcome guys! You can expect many more videos now including some great battle-reports from some of your favorite writers, and much, much more.

View Comments

BoLS Lounge is Live

Last Friday BoLS opened up our very own Lounge. Over the weekend we had a flood of readers join in community and dive into our new shiny forums. For you guys just hearing about this, get on over there, reserve your name, and join in the conversaions. You will find links to the Lounge in the top nav-bar for easy access, and the Lounge Latest Posts widget just below the DISQUS panel in the right column.

The Lounge offers forums for all of your favorite Games Workshop games, covering all aspects of the wargaming hobby from army collection, to hardcore tactics, to painting and modeling.

We also have isolated many of the top centers of the wargaming hobby and set up sub-forums just for fellow local gamers. Link up and chat about whats going down with the gaming scene, or use our bartertown sub-forums to find some good deals in your own backyard. Many new features are already lined up and will be rolling out in the weeks ahead to make your Lounge experience even more fun.

Now the next question will be what does this mean for BoLS, and our daily editorials, news, and rumor coverage? The answer is... NOTHING. We've got our full daily lineup coming just like you like it.

Bell of Lost Souls: News, Tactics and Opinion Up Front - Conversation In the Back. Welcome to the new and improved BoLS!

View Comments

Goatboy's 40k Thoughts: Hammer units

By now we all should know a hammer unit. Usually this is some kind of massively damaging or extremely annoying unit to deal with. Either they have a ton of saves, high armor value, or some other way to cause your game to be spent rolling lots of dice and watching the majority of them being ignored. This sort of unit is normally designed to take on your entire army for a few turns. What I want to talk about today is how to use those units, as well as ways to limit their own use against your own army.

First of all lets look at some of the latest hammer units. The old standby, nob bikerz is a good example of a hammer unit. You have lots of wounds mixed with usually 2 saves, makes this a pretty hard-core hammer unit. Another example is TH/SS terminators usually mixed with some kind movement ability or some way to ignore leadership checks. There are others (medic enhanced, priest laden IG jerks, seer council, death company, etc) but these two show a good example of what is a hammer unit. This is a unit, designed to shove a brick in your face and stomp on your flowers and kittens. A lot of the time, these units are made to try and win you the game by creating the perfect storm of rerollable saves, high damage output, and overall opponent annoyance.

WIELDING THE HAMMER
Now how do we use these units to the fullest? Well there are some different thoughts on the matter and the range from pure pain to a creation of opponent dominance. I know we all know about the pain part. I am sure we have all been on the business end of some massive power klaws, lightning hammers, and pain in the butt blades and know how that type of play style works. Instead I want to go into how you can create a unit that makes the opponent focus too much on them.

These hammer units make your opponent have to think about how to deal with them. Whether it is trying to break the math hammer with numbers, or focusing all your high end damage output to somehow create instant kills, these things all help create what I like to call perfect turn situations. We all know that armies are not just made up of hammer units. They have different bits and pieces that make up their offensive potential, from the lowly troops to the high-end mechanical monsters, all these pieces need each other to work. So what do these hammer units do for this style of army? They let your other pieces do their job without having to worry about your opponent.

If I am playing orks with some nob bikerz in the army, I usually use the nob bikerz as the rush at the opponent and scare the crap out of them. I know my green monsters are probably going to die, but if they can let my battle wagons and other orky bits get into a better position, then they have done their job for me. Nothing is better then teleporting your TH/SS termies with a librarian into the front of an army. Trust me, everything is going to shoot at them as all your other pieces get into position to rapid fire things to death. The unit’s ability to make the opponent focus on them is one of their greatest strengths and something any player needs to think about when building an army.

BREAKING THE HAMMER
But of course, how do other players without access to these hammer style units deal with these threats? Well you ignore them. I know some of these threats can move fast and get into positions, but most of the time they won’t be able to win the game. You could throw a worthless unit in front of them, create some kind of wall with vehicles, or just stay in your vehicle and move away. A lot of the time these units can only take out one thing at a time, and if you play right, these pieces they kill are not pieces that are worth that much to the overall game. There have been many times where I have only had a few units left on the table and won because I paid attention to the scoring units and left these hammer units alone to run around and look cool.
This all coincides with how I think all bits of your army should work together as a whole. Hammer units, bait units, and foundation units should all be equal parts in your army. I know some of my lists can be redundant, but each part is designed to give the army something needed. Of course some pieces can be all unit types, but each army needs these pieces to win consistently and bring a game to any opponent they are facing.

The Warboss is riding a modified Deff Kopta that floats a bit above the ground. Normal Ork Warboss load out as usual. This is for the ork commission I am currently working on. IG stuff is coming soon.

~As usual if you have any questions please feel free to email me at GoatboyBols@gmail.com. I'd love to hear how you mentally deal with hammer units on the table, both using and fighting agasint them.

View Comments

40K Pic of the Day 8-2-09

"Colonel Straken, Its been an honor serving with you...":
~Your daily dose of tabletop fun! Enjoy. If you have an awesome shot you think would make a great BoLS pic of the day, email us! We know you have cool stuff.

View Comments

GW NEWS: Full 2009 Financials

Ohh, let the rampant speculation and analysis ensue. Overall, it looks like our favorite miniatures maker has pulled themselves out of the ditch and has had quite a good past year.

The quick and dirty Investors Summarized Report is here. The Full Annual Report with all the gory details can be found here.

~I'll leave it to our financial professional readers to translate this into laymans terms for us mere mortals. As with any type of financial reporting... calm yourself and keep the conversation nice and civil. Have at it guys!

View Comments

BoLS Lounge ISP Issue

ISP is was currently performing an upgrade. The Lounge has had degraded performance currently. Should be at full connectivity shortly.

UPDATE: All is well. Lounge is full speed ahead.

View Comments

HOBBY: 40k Hydra Conversion

Hi guys.

I was wondering around my FLGS this las week and saw this nice pair of homebrew Hydra's done by BoLS reader: crazyredpraetorian. I knew the moment I saw them that this particular conversion has a good chance of being the "gold standard" of Hydras until GW one day comes out with the rumored plastic kit.

What we have here is one standard Chimera, with it's turret temporarily removed. The key to the Hydra of course is the turret. This one is built using the set of Quad Autocannons and mount from the Aegis Defense Line kit. I think the results look pretty darned good.

Conversion Steps:
-Relocate the round swivel piece from the top to the bottom of the turret mount.
-Cover the now exposed top of the turret mount with a piece of plasticard.
-Drill a small hole in both sides of the turret mount for a small piece of dowel
-Glue the pairs of autocannons to each side of the dowel.

You could certainly dress up yours with some extra bits, such as radar dishes, antennae, and such. The base conversion itself takes minutes, and gets you nice fieldable Hydras on the tabletop overnight.

~Lets give it up for crazyredpraetorian and by all means throw the comments in there! What are you guys doing for not only Hydras but the other IG tanks that have no kit available?

View Comments

40K NEWS: Ard Boyz Semis Missions and More

Hey all you Warhammer 40k tournament junkees. Games Workshop put up the list of locations for the August 8th Ard Boys Semi-Finals and the mission pack to get you ready.

Ard Boys Basics

Participating Stores List

Mission Pack

~In an interesting announcement a few days back, GW released the rolling schedule for the next 'Ard Boyz competions, and the circuit will now include Warhammer 40k, WFB, and War of the Ring! Hmmmm....

View Comments

NEWS: Jwolf Crashes 40kRadio LIVE!

Hi everybody,

Jwolf will be the LIVE guest host on tonight's 40KRadio show, discussing killer combos and how to kill those enemy models dead. He might even be talking some smack about his upcoming BoLScon Challenge games. Don't miss it!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
Saturday, August 1st
9-11 PM Eastern

View Comments

40K NEWS: Hellhound and LR Demolisher Ship

Attention Treadheads.

Its time to pull out the wallet because the new all-plastic Demolisher and Hellhound kits are on store shelves now.

Hellhound $49.50
Demolisher $49.50

Also out this week are a trio of vehicle accessory sprues:

Leman Russ Accessory Pack $13.25
LR Crusader Pack $19.75
Ork Battlewagon Upgrade Pack $13.20

~With both of these combo-kits, a large chunk of the vehicle options from the new codex are now available, like RIGHT NOW. I for one am deeply curious about the extra 5 cents of value the Leman Russ Sprue warrants over the Battlewagon sprue...

View Comments