Nebula Raiders and Birds of Prey

Wow. Welcome to the year 2010, or MX. It's been an awesome year for me, so far, I hope fortune has smiled upon all of you just as much. The downside is that things are currently changing so quickly here that it's kind of hard for me to keep up, and especially hard to keep you posted.
You may have noticed that there hasn't been an entry to my blog in a long time now. Rest assured that my readers are not the only ones kept on hold. Don't ask my girlfriend about how the dishes keep piling in the kitchen, for example.

Now I don't want to bore you with details. W40k-wise there hasn't been much going on. Since my gaming group had agreed to end the 2009 season and take up the fighting in 2010 I have only had two games: one against the old Tyranids a few days before Christmas, and one against Necrons just yesterday. I will post short battle reports on those two encounters in a seperate blog entry that is to follow.
Unfortunately, life will be changing for me as well as the players of the Ork and Eldar armies. We are all taking up jobs that will keep us very busy. In my case this is an internship with a renowned European researching institution where I will be working eight hours a day. This will be awesome, but the bad thing is that I will have a two hours drive each back and forth every day. Tough times. Except for the weekends, I probably won't be able to spend any time on W40k and LO.


On the bright side this means that my financial situation will be a little more relaxed and allow for some more excessive spending. With a little nudging from the other players in my regular gaming group -who are sick of losing to the Nebula Raiders- I have decided to start an Imperial Guard army. It will be an all airborne force: six valkyries/vendettas, one company command squad, five veteran squads, at 1,500 points. It had to be such a fast and mobile force for me, of course. I wouldn't have settled for anything else - as those of you who know me a little may have expected.
Because I do not like the look of the regular soldiers I will probably be using the storm trooper models (Cadian Kasrkin) for my veterans. That will add the right feel to my (fluff-wise) elite 523rd Air-Ground Operations Wing "Birds of Prey" under the command of Lt. Colonel Bartholomew "Blue Bart" Rogers.

Since this army has been bred from my campaign, the Birds of Prey will of course be a force of the Duglum Shieldbearers. As Duglum has been overrun by Chaos forces prior to the arrival of the Nebula Raiders, the Duglum Shieldbearers are more or less obliterated. As a swiftly moving splinter force, the Birds of Prey have been employing guerrilla tactics and performing hit-and-run raids on the occupying forces, fighting the war of partisans.
I am very much looking forward to that project. I will be ordering the models I require as soon as my friend who plays Tyranids has decided what new toys he would like to have, so that we can place our order together and share the shipping costs from the UK. (It's cheaper for us to order over there, we save about 40% on the price despite the high shipping fees.) I'll be sure to keep you posted on my progress, though time is short and I will probably be advancing only slowly.


As for our campaign, the Battle for Duglum XIII: my gaming group has decided to take it to the next level. The strategical phase has turned awkward, with the Nebula Raiders decimating the Thadeus' Black Hearts (Chaos Space Marines & Lost and Damned) right from the start, leaving them to be finished off by Necrons and Tyranids, and then bringing down the Orks and almost entirely extincting the Eldar. Starting out with only little territory, the Nebula Raiders have managed to claim and hold almost five of the thirteen sectors of the battle zone, and it makes little sense and seems little fun to continue on that map.
We are thus currently devising a new strategical system and a new campaign map. I already have a good concept that just needs some minor tweaking before it can be launched. I will definitely keep you up to date on this too, if you're interested, and will be explaining how the system works in the campaign section of the forum.


I have learned that Alzer had been nice enough to nominate me for the "Most Helpful Member" annual LO award, and there must have been some members out there who agreed with him. I want to thank all those who have supported me with their vote and assure you that I am very grateful for receiving the award. It really makes the time spent on the forums seem worthwhile by giving me that fuzzy warm feeling.

Keep sending me your army lists and personal requests. I will try to reply to each of them. And let it be known that now I am back to W40k and LO until I will be going on the internship. I will try to get as many games in as possible in the meantime, and blog regularly once more.

Kevin vanrooyen, who in turn had inherited it from Lost Nemesis, has put me in charge of the Space Marine Topic of the Week, by the way. I hope I will not very often forget to post it each Wednesday. If you have any requests or suggestions for topics, feel free to drop me a note.

With the chat bar being back I'm looking forward to talking to all of you. In the meantime take care! I'll see you around.