South  Auckland Miniatures
Wargames Club

Newsletter
Febuary  1998   


NEXT MEETING:  Saturday 14th Febuary 1998 at St. Johns Church Hall, Norrie St., Drury, starting around 9 a.m.


GAMES ARRANGED:

The Necromunda Tournament is on this month with most club members playing in this. Information was in last month's newsletter, but essentially its a new gang worth 1000 credits with all rolls for income, experience, etc., done after each game and witnessed by your opponent. Kevin is running the tournament and there is a small entrance fee, which will be used for prize money. Gang lists to Kevin as soon as possible please!


       There are free table for those who wish to join in on the day !!!

New hours and games structure:

As the club only holds one meeting each month it has been proposed that we make the maximum use of the time available to us. Therefore club meetings from now on will commence at 9am and run through to 5pm (if you want to stay that long!). Each meeting will be divided into a morning session (9am to 12.30pm) and an afternoon session (1pm to 4.30pm), thereby enabling members, if they desire, to play two games each meeting, effectively doubling the number of games you can play at the club in a year and at no extra expense to the club! Alternatively you can just come to the morning session or just come to the afternoon session or play one game that takes the whole day or whatever. We are just trying to provide the opportunity for playing more games - it's up to you how you want to work it.  However to help out there will be a new table booking sheet available each meeting where you can book a table for the next meeting for a morning or afternoon session or a whole day or whatever. First in, first served on table bookings, however if there is a shortage of tables then members (that's paid-up members!) will get preference over any visitors. Bryan will still record details of table bookings either at club meetings or during the month if you don't come to a meeting, and will also try to find you an opponent if you need one, or organise you a game if possible. Table bookings will still be published in each month's newsletter so everyone knows what is happening. Really the key is be in early, arrange your games in advance, be reliable and play if you said you would, be a good sport even when you lose, and you should have no trouble getting more games than you can handle!!

Club fees for 1998

Thanks to Jarrod, Michael, Andrew and Allister who all paid their 1998 fees promptly and on time. Everybody else is overdue!  Please be prepared to pay your $30 fees by the February meeting at the latest or don't bother turning up. If you haven't paid by then this will be the last newsletter you will see as well! Sorry about having to take such a hardline but we need to pay for using the church hall and it's not fair to those who have paid promptly if you come along and play for free.  You have been warned - no fees means no games and no excuses! All fees to either Bryan Orsbourne or Robert Davies with any cheques payable to South Auckland Miniature Wargames Club.


Warhammer Fantasy Battle Tournament:

Elsewhere in this newsletter is a proposal from Peter Colson to run a WHFB tournament on behalf of the club later this year. Please read through his proposal and give your comments and feedback directly to Peter along with an indication of whether you would be interested in playing in this tournament or not. Catch Peter at club meetings or phone 2987293.

Club League for 1998:

Man-O-War is back as the club league for 1998 being kindly run by Allister Nicholas. It's great to see members taking their turn at running leagues and tournaments for the enjoyment of other club members so give these guys your full support. The usual league format will be used with the following rules supplied by Allister:

  1. All MOW games will count for the league regardless of size and whether they were played at the club or elsewhere.
  2. All results to be supplied to Allister which should include details of the fleets used, players names, and the final scores, along with anything of interest that happened in the game. Allister will then provide an update, which will be published in the newsletter each month.
  3. Entry into the league is free to all club members, you just need your own fleet. There could be some fleets for sale if you don't have one already - see Bryan about advertising in the newsletter for one.
  4. Appropriate prizes will be awarded by the club for first and second place league winners.


Any comments, feedback, enquires, and all results to Allister at club meetings or phone 09 4382321.


Lost book:

Michael Earley has misplaced his copy of Battles in the Underhive for Necromunda. If anyone has found this or if you come across it could you please let Michael know, at a meeting

News and rumours:

WHFB Siege and Dogs of War Mercenary books are in production at GW. This hopefully means we will see the release of these products within the first half of 1998 and hopefully sooner. For those who have not heard, WHFB Siege has been rewritten. To support this product, Citadel will be releasing their castle again, probably redesigned. Supposedly the rules are much simpler than their previous edition and the new book will have 10 scenarios included in it. A new castle will be released and there are rumours about a new plastic siege tower as well.

New Realms of Chaos Boxed set is now available and it is a wonderful tome of excellence. Well done to all involved in the production of this splendid book. The artwork and iconography are beautiful. The new Beastlord figure is excellent, so are the Daemon Princes and the new Beastmen chariot and Chaos Spawn are absolutely superb models!  Champions of Chaos, the supplementary Chaos Champions book for Realms of Chaos, is coming and we will see some spectacular new releases to support this book. The Chaos Dwarf book has been rewritten as an official WHFB army book. As yet, there is no planned release date other than sometime in 1998. The Undead book may be rewritten. If it does, then the plan is to split the armies into two, one for Sylvania, and one for Nehekhara. Nigel Stillman / Tuomas Pirinen would like to revise the Empire and Dwarf books. There are no official dates or time scales for these tasks. You may even see separate Empire State booklets but there are no definite plans.

Perilous Quest WHFB campaign pack is now available. This campaign pack also features the jousting rules that were printed in WD in issue 215. Two other WHFB campaign packs are due out sometime soon. The releases will be Tears of Isha, followed by Dark Tide Rising. Tears of Isha will be a Dark Elf/High Elf campaign pack and Dark Tide Rising will feature Skaven/Empire. Oh, and Dark Riders are coming!

 

The return of Epic 40K (Space Marine):

Jarrod has stirred things up recently with the introduction of the latest edition of Epic 40K (previously known as Space Marine and Titan Legions) to the club. He is building an Epic Ork army and has enthused both Bryan and Kevin to do the same. Rumour has it that Bryan's Ork army will be heavily biased towards Goffs (the only true Orks) whilst Kevin has settled on Bad Moons (don't know why!) and Jarrod himself is having a bit of a mixture of several Ork clans. Anyone else who would like to join in this entertaining game is most welcome to start building an army or resurrect an old one (there used to be a lot of Epic armies around from the previous edition) - just make it a different army from Orks if possible!!

 

Last month's games reports:


GorkaMorka: Michael Earley (Gorkers) beat Bryan Orsbourne (Morkers). Michael proceeded to give me a bit of a hiding. We played the scenario where you have to ram or board you opponent first so I tried but stuffed my own vehicle! Michael also did some very good shooting taking out several of my boyz and he then finished me off in hand-to-hand.

GorkaMorka: Allister and Ray had a mega-scrap against Michael and Andrew. Not too sure what happened in this game but I lent my boyz to Ray to use in the hope that they might do a bit better than the first game I played against Michael. They didn't. In fact there was hardly anything left of them at the end!! Looks like it's a new mob for me.

 
Epic 40K: Jarrod Finlay (Orks) beat Bryan Orsbourne (Space Marines). Whilst Ray was letting my mob get a bit of a hiding I thought I would give Jarrod a go at the new Epic 40K that he got for Christmas. I used to play the old Space Marine game (many years ago - I've got a Blood Angels army for it somewhere!) so I figured I would take Space Marines and give Jarrods Orks a bit of a hiding. Wrong! The new rules are quite different to the old, using blast markers and supporting units the Orks were able to gang up on me and overrun me, kicking my butt severely in the process. Even though I lost it was an excellent game, much more playable than the previous version, and now I've decided to get my own Ork army! After seeing me go down big-time, Kevin thought he would give Jarrod a go. I will leave it up to him to tell you how successful he was with Space Marines. Suffice to say he's building an Ork army now as well!! 

Epic 40K: Jarrod Finlay (Orks) beat Kevin Carberry (Space Marines). Yes well My story reads we came we saw we got squished. Must have been Space Wolves not good Blood Angel troops like I'm use to.


Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Peter Colson (Lizardmen) beat Kevin Carberry (Dark Elves). This short battle report was supplied by Peter. I came, I saw, I conquered. Kevin's Cold One Knights were good but my Temple Guard were better. My Slann mage-priest and Temple Guard took on almost Kevin's entire army and won! Things are looking up for the mighty Lord Qtlar.(I Hate Rolling 11 for my leadership tests don't you - KC)