Necromunda Underhive and Evolving Team Games

One of the main bits of news passing through the internet over the past 24 hours from Games Workshop is the revealing of Necromunda Underhive. I have fond memories of the original version of this game, and of analogues in Warhammer Fantasy.

I will start with the latter. When Realms of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness was released, its impact was huge and broad. Not just in fantasy but in 40k as well. What were once nearly abstract chaos entities were given very concrete forms in a very specific and hierarchical manner. More than this though, the Realms of Chaos books introduced new ways to have battles and new ways to consider building armies. One of these was to build up your very own chaos war band from scratch and improve it from mission to mission. Sure, there were pitfalls along the way (the notorious 1d1000 chart in the same book had some serious balancing issues that were barely levelled out by the large number of possible outcomes on the chaos attribute chart that your war band chaos lord could get, and indeed: her or his followers). But the idea that you could "evolve" your team from game to game is one that struck a chord with many an old-timer.

Fast forward a little bit and we see this kind of idea take shape with Necromunda. You control an under hive gang of violent men (and / or) women hell bent on proving themselves better than all others, taking control of different areas and potentially suffering from serious testosterone poisoning. However, the thing that struck me here was not so much the random gains that one could make to individuals. No. Rather it was that the person in control of the gang could "upgrade" them from mission to mission. A reclaimed flamer was perhaps discovered in a long forgotten alleyway in the darkness of the under hive that was brought back to functionality by the gang. Now one of your gang members is happily toting a (very useful) flamer to cleanse all in her path. It is this upgrade and evolution that really holds the appeal to me. Having members of the clan or gang get better over time and still risk permanent death by the end of the next game is exciting, heart breaking, and interesting. It adds a new dimension of caring about the team and the individuals within it that is not generally seen in Warhammer 40,000 so much. Well, not unless you are one of those painters who scribes the name of each and every miniature on to their base or their shoulder pads. I sometimes feel Dark Angels should engage in this a bit more, myself. I digress though.

Beyond this thought (and attractive feature) is the fact that for perhaps the first time, the game moved away from the epic scale battles and skirmishes fought by the elite Imperium and the malevolent Orks (etc.). These kind of skirmishes were at a very much lower level (pun not intended) and between distinctly ordinary citizens of the hives of the Imperium. Thus, we got a little bit closer to the grim darkness of everyday life for some of the (not quite average) citizenry of the Imperium. We got closer to explaining how the hierarchy of the Imperium works with the rich on the upper spires of the Hives controlling the wealth and industries, the elites below them, the working classes facilitating the production of promethium (or whatever it is they do - I'm not entirely clear), the slave classes and the down and outs below them, and the gangers at the lower levels literally fighting for their very lives on a day to day basis. It might not be Nostramo, but it might be close. What it did show was the very real grim dark nature of the setting in a new light. 

In some ways, this kind of game can be seen here and there in different formats. For instance, Frost Grave focuses exceptionally well on a wizard and her entourage trying to Lara Croft the pickings out of a frozen waste land. Kingdom Death might be a further example of this where a band of survivors tries to build up their village over several Lantern Years and improve their lot by taking out various monsters in the heinous world that surrounds them.

These kinds of evolutionary games are very well done. It is really appealing to see Games Workshop once again go down this route in a very complete and well thought through manner. Although I may or may not purchase the new Necromunda ultimately, it really does bode well for this type of game and game system. 

Comments on AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol

In today's post, we're going to go a little bit off the usual fare of Warhammer, painting, and roleplaying games, and talk a bit about the board game of Go. In the world of Artificial Intelligence, the game of Go occupies a high position. This is because unlike other games (Chess, Draughts / Checkers), there are a huge number of potential plays (legal moves) and possible board positions. What does huge mean in this context? Well, in Chess the typical number of legal moves per board position is about 35 and the depth of the game (the sheer number of turns required to complete a game) is about 85. This compares to values of 250 and 150 (respectively) for Go (Silver et al., 2015, Nature, 529, 484).

In turn, this means that it is a practical impossibility to "crack" the game of Go in the same way that Draughts / Checkers has been solved: by exploring every possible board position and finding the optimal strategy through brute force. Chess and Go, although not solved in this manner per se, can be helped by reducing the search tree of both the breadth and depth of the possible moves to those that are more likely to help. This worked spectacularly well for games of Deep Blue against G. Kasparov (Chess Grandmaster at the time).

But Go seemed out of reach. Until the past few days. 

Enter Google and the DeepMind team who created AlphaGo. By using both policy networks (move selections) and value networks (is this particular board position / predicted board position any good for me?), coupled with supervised learning and reinforced learning, AlphaGo has now (at the time of writing) beat one of the 9-Dan rank champions of Go twice, Lee Sedol. There are 3 games remaining in the series.

This is absolutely remarkable. 

To put it in perspective, there are more possible Go positions than there are atoms in the Universe. Despite really simple rules, Go is a highly complex game that few ever master. 

What this means is that to defeat a Go grandmaster, a computer must start thinking like a human. It must discard what it thinks are bad moves and think only about ones that will prove productive for it. In other words, it needs what can be described as "intuition" to play effectively. A gut instinct that a given play will lead to a better outcome. That's the level of AI we're talking about here.

All this said, something else really struck me whilst I was watching the live broadcasts of these games. And that is the way the commentators are talking. They are talking as if the AlphaGo program is a human player. At certain (rare) junctures, they comment that "this move is weak" or "that move is unexpected" about AlphaGo's plays. I didn't think much of these comments at the start (why should I? - they know much better than I do about "good plays" in Go). 

Until this morning. When they interviewed one of the programmers.

What was very striking about this interview was how they crafted the program. Rather than taking a purely human approach of building up a sizeable lead, or generating a "comfortable margin" (for lack of better words) in terms of the game's points, all the program seeks to do is win. The nature of the win - by a single point, or by many - is not relevant in the slightest.

Therefore, if it comes across a move that might seem "weak" to a human player, it must be borne in mind that what it has done is optimised the probability of winning. Put another way: it could make a "strong" move and optimise the number of points it wins by but have a lower probability of winning, or it could make a "weak" move to optimise the probability of winning overall. What this means is that the computer is not playing like a human. It plays to win. But it doesn't care if it wins by 1 point, or by 100 points. All that matters is that a win is secured. Therefore, apparently sub-optimal plays (as judged by not building a comfy margin) are actually optimising the winning probability. It is this that I found truly profound. 

I then got wondering about 2 things.

(1) Could AlphaGo's human opponent, Lee Sedol, exploit this in some fashion?;

(2) And can we (and do we actually already) apply this principle to other games -- even games that involve elements of chance like Warhammer 40,000? 

I'll be watching the next few games with interest and pondering if Lee can come up with some magic to defeat the intuitive program somehow - especially if he finds a way to exploit its own methods against it.

[Image: used as part of Google's press pack download]

Betrayal at Calth: Miniature Bits

In the image below are the miniatures bits for a squad of ten space marines in Mark IV armour taken from the Betrayal at Calth board game. I hope this (cut sprue) image will be of use to people looking for bits of their own.

Some of the things that stand out to me are (in no particular order):

The multi-part missile launcher and heavy bolter;

Two bare-heads (one clean shaven which will look good for Alpha Legion players; the other with an ocular implant; others with studs);

Front torso for a commander;

Different legs many of which with "Heresy" era studs;

Four shoulder pads with Heresy era studs on;

A combi-weapon;

and all important specialist guns! (pity I need several more of these for a support squad really!).

Enjoy!

Betrayal at Calth Display

A big picture today featuring a display of the new board game, Betrayal at Calth, as snapped in a Games Workshop store.

Although I haven't purchased the game, I'm going to get at least some of the tactical marines from the boxed set to mix in with my other Alpha Legion forces that are growing larger...

Betrayal at Calth - thoughts

By now, there are lots of rumours being confirmed about the impending release of the Horus Heresy: Battle of Calth board game. No doubt it'll be flying off the shelves like its Christmas or something when its released. I'm not in the business of posting pictures from other websites that probably violate copyright or embargo, so you can go and look these up for yourselves if you've somehow not seen them yet.

When I originally learnt of the game and the miniatures that it contained, I was truly excited! The sheer value of the miniatures contained inside the box in relation to what it would cost to purchase the Forge World equivalents in resin made this such a great deal - and a no brainer almost.

But now, I'm not so sure.

The lack of possibility for the contemptor dreadnought is a big issue for me personally. As you can see from some of my efforts with Forge World dreadnoughts, I really do like being able to pose the contemptors in a decent manner with running (and other) suggestive poses.

The image above is one of my Alpha Legion dreadnoughts that I'm yet to paint up. But I won't be able to get something like this out of the Battle of Calth. Sadly.

But what I would be able to get is a whole bucket load of Mark IV space marine armour as well as plastic Cataphractii terminators. I can't shake the feeling that these plastic miniatures will be released at a later date thought in a separate package. Equally, the Dark Angels and Chaos Marines from the last 40k starter set has never come along in a different set, so what would I know.

In terms of the board game itself, it clearly is in some kind of tile based vein. Perhaps something like what the extension such as Genestealer did for Space Hulk. The pieces look like they move across the board, fighting each other for territory, coupled with some kind of game specific damage and weapon ability mechanic. Obviously its Ultramarines and Word Bearers, but the pieces are all generic and need not be painted in those colours. 

Yet, although I was originally very excited to hear about the game and GW's foray in to the Horus Heresy with plastics, I'm still not certain if I'll purchase this game or not. I just can't make my mind up about its worth, whether I'll play the game, and / or whether the plastics will becomes available later and if they're exactly what I'm after - at least in comparison to FW's resin pieces. Therefore, I'm adopting a wait and see approach to this whole thing. 

Dreadfleet Release

The mystery has revealed itself: Games Workshop has just released the Dreadfleet board game boxed set.  It is a new board game with plastic citadel miniatures for battles on the high seas.  Specifically, the vampire count's fleet takes on the humans et al. for dominance on the seas.  Who will win?  Can your ships get a strong broadside on the enemy or will all your gunpowder kegs go up in flames from incoming fire and sink your ships before you can even get a volley away?

The game looks like it will be a solid addition to the limited edition releases over the past few years such as SpaceHulk.  However, I think that SpaceHulk was probably the best-seller over recent years (with strong tie-ins to the 40k game due to the unique Blood Angels terminators and genestealers sold with the set), so it will be interesting to evaluate how well this limited release does over time.

Horus Heresy Board Game Report: A Traitor Victory

The Horus Heresy Board Game can be played in a variety of modes across six different missions.  This is a report from one of the advanced scenarios entitled "Cry Havoc".  The main difference between the later scenarios and the earlier ones are the extent and power of the event cards and the way in which the game is set-up.  In this scenario, there are multiple game board areas that are inaccessible to both sides.  This means that each player needs to plan out their moves in a bit more chess-like detail in order to navigate through the maze to their desired destinations.

The set-up is similar to previous games otherwise, but it did take a bit of time to get it all done.  As the traitor player, I had Angron and Fulgrim on the planet's surface supported by the rank and file of their respective legions ... ready to pounce.  The Loyalist player had Dorn an the Imperial Fists tucked up in a nicely fortified looking palace.  Meanwhile, the Khan kept to the out-field with his legion. 

As I made a move to attempt to secure one of the space ports in the game, the Khan swept in from nowhere (one of his special abilities) to completely lightning strike Fulgrim's forces out of the way.  In the image, you can see the Khan gloating over his victory with his troops, supported by a loyalist tank company.  To the upper left, you can see some traitors looking quite isolated and weary.  They were the next units to be elimiated by the Khan.  Fulgrim himself even fell to the Khan by two thirds of the way through the game.

However, the "real" battle (if I'm allowed to call it that) was not taking place in the out-field where the Khan was amassing victory after victory over the traitors (poor Fulgrim!)... but rather: it was nearer to the palace walls itself.  Pictured, Angron has secured one of the Space Ports through an overwhelming force of World Eater legionaires, titans, and daemons.  The Blood Angels who were nearby got slaughtered and those that survived limped back to the Imperial Palace, routed.  Sanguinius himself fared little better.  Although some Loyalist marines can be seen surrounding the space port (Imperial Fists top left, White Scars top right), their numbers were far too small to do anything about Angron in full fury.  Indeed, I let Angron assault the palace himself whilst Mortarion and his Death Guard served to back them up and mop up the remaining resistance around him. 

Of course, the Emperor himself was holed up in his fortress / palace all along.  By the time Angron was a few board squares away from tackling the Emperor, a powerful event card was drawn: the loyalist fleets that were in the Warp on transit to holy Terra were lost -- Horus' prayers to the darker powers had paid off!  In game terms, this meant that the Loyalists could no longer "hold out" until their reinforcements arrived.  Help wasn't coming and a drawn game wouldn't mean victory for the Emperor.  Hence, the Emperor took a gamble and teleported on the the Vengeful Spirit -- Horus' battle barge in orbit.

Taking with him several squad of custodians and what remaining troops he could, the Emperor encountered both Magnus the Red and Horus aboard the catacombs of the battle barge.  Still a little bit miffed about the whole Nikea thing, Magnus really took it out of the Loyalist forces.  The Thousand Sons were glorious: accounting for multiple units of custodians and army regiments.  The daemons that they had allied with also helped change things up.  Desipte wounding Horus himself, the Emperor was alreaded greviously wounded himself from Magnus' assault.  Horus then came along to join the party.  A few combats later, and the Emperor was dead.

The shields immediately were raised over the battle barge once more, leaving Angron and Mortarion to mop up the remaining resistance on the planet-side.  The Khan and the Fabricator General escaped, but Dorn and Sanguinius were both gone; their legions shattered.  Horus had won.  An new era beckoned.



Dungeonquest Board Game Review

Dungeonquest is a classic Games Workshop board game that has been re-released under licence by Fantasy Flight Games.  The design of the game attempts to capture all of the elements of the original, plus the catacombs expansion in one novel re-interpretation.

For the main part, the re-interpretation is very true to the original in my opinion.  I like the tiles and the board layout, combined with the Sun "timer" (you have until the Sun goes down to enter the dungeon, collect treasure and escape again -- the doors get locked at sundown and all players are automatically trapped / killed if they remain after that!).  The Sun counter can be seen on the bottom part of the image below.

I liked many features about the game. The faithfulness to the original concept is obvious (particularly for my old-time readers) and the sturdiness of the tiles and the board is plain to see.  This, combined with the quality playing pieces that Fantasy Flight Games are becoming known for makes playing the game a visual feast.  The gameplay is also straight forward: each player starts in one of the corners and draws a tile every turn.  If the tile is a corridor, they get to draw another one.  If it is a room, they have to deal with the aspect of the room (a gaping chasm for instance, see the upper right player who has leapt over one such obstacle; a cob-web filled room can also be seen in the lower right player's pathway so far), and / or draw a card to determine the contents of the room (monsters, treasure, crypts, etc.).  In the centre of the board is the dragon's lair -- this contains the more expensive treasure.  But raiding the lair risks waking the dragon up and you dropping all the treasure that you've collected so far ... which is bas since the winner is determined by the player with the greatest amount of treasure (measured in gold pieces) who gets out alive.

One issue I had with the game is the large number of decks (see the upper portion of the game board).  These range from not only room contents cards, but also trap cards, corpse investigation cards, treasure cards, etc.  I believe that the game could be simplified by having far fewer decks: one for the room contents and one for dragon treasure.  The combat system is reminiscent of the Horus Heresy card based system.  I didn't really care much for the system personally: something more approaching the Steve Jackson / Ian Livingstone "Fighting Fantasy" system might have been superior?  But that's just an opinion.  The game could readily be mixed with something like "Munchkin" for added fun I feel.

The difficulty of the game is well-known: the survival rate of the absent-minded adventurer is low.  You've got to carefully plan whether you can get to the dragon's lair and out again.  Some players venture only a few tiles in to the dungeon before deciding they've got enough treasure, and leap back to the exit.  Often that strategy can pay off as the player survives and could win the game with only a few gold pieces of loot, whilst the other players get slowly killed off. 

Overall, its a good game, but I'll be mixing in the room cards with, e.g., the corpse cards (etc.) for future plays.

Horus Heresy Board Game Report: An Imperial Victory

Today's game report is from the Horus Heresy Board Game. We played the second mission from the booklet, which is identical to the first except that you get to think about where to put your initial troops yourself. This involves a little bit of thought about which faction you want where (i.e. you should think about having Angron with his World Eater marines, but do you place them in a space port, or hold them in reserve for later in the game?).

The game works on an initiative based turn. If you have the quicker initiative, then you get to place commands and execute orders. The full rule book is available for download in pdf format from the publishers, so I won't go in to too much detail about them. I will note here though that it is very, very easy to forget an odd rule or two on the first few games that you have. But try not to stress about that!
The first picture shows the game after a few turns after the set-up point. I am controlling the traitor forces whilst my opponent controls the imperial forces (in grey). I have Angron and the World Eaters controlling one of the space ports near the bottom right of the picture (in red). Meanwhile, Magnus and the Thousand Sons (in blue) control a second port (top right) and have begun to spread out. The green guys near the palace are Death Guard which I've just dropped on to the board.

On the loyalist side, the Imperial Fists and Dorn can be seen in and around a manufactorum just north of Angron's position. Dorn's forces are spread out and Angron thinks they're going to be easy meat for the blood god. Meanwhile, Sanguinius and his Blood Angels are holed up to the West side of the board. The Khan and his White Scars are not visible: they're way off to the West of the board and out of sight. In the palace, the Emperor sits on his throne looking on. His has his personal guards around him and a few mechanicum forces. Various other tanks, infantry and titans are scattered around. But notice the tanks and infantry with the black bases just East of the Death Guard -- I've managed to turn several units traitor! Indeed, this is part of the set-up: the traitor player has the chance to "corrupt" some of the Imperial forces before the game begins. This often makes for an interesting opening!

My plan is simple. I'll let Angron loose on the South of the board and cause all sorts of mayhem down there. Meanwhile, I'll hold off any Imperial forces around the palace with the Death Guard marines. This should buy enough time for Magnus to make a charge through the palace and get to the throne room for a first assault on the Emperor!In the second image, you can see my plan in action! Magnus the Red has easily breached the palace walls and his marines are running amok inside the palace. He's still completely mad about the whole sorcery and Space Wolves thing a little earlier on... Also, you can see that I've reinforced my grip on the space port to the East of the palace -- Fulgrim has arrived with some Emperor's Children marines (purple) to debase themselves on Terra. Mortarion has even brought a traitor titan with him, just to show he's serious. Along the way though, Fulgrim manages to corrupt more Imperial units to the traitor cause.

However, my opponent has executed a well-timed plan. The fabricator general (top left of the palace) has rushed to the Emperor's side thanks to the Machine Spirit. But he's not alone. He's brought with him the might of Mars with a titan or two!

In the South meanwhile, Angron makes short work of Rogal Dorn and his pesky Imperial Fists. Dorn dies horribly at Angron's hand as the World Eaters begin to enjoy being in Khorne's service. This, of course, incenses Sanguinius. He's not a happy chap. He takes his Blood Angels and swoops in on Angron. Sadly for Sanguinius: Angron is up to the challenge. He dispatches poor Sanguinius as well.

However, the Khan is having much better luck. In a lightning strike, his marines decimate the Death Guard standing guard over the palace. They're just no match for his unexpectedly quick re-deployment! Especially since Mortarion is still having a friendly chat with Fulgrim in the corner of the Space Port. Pay attention Mortarion! Fulgrim is distracting you!

But my plan is working very well despite the Death Guard losses. Whilst the Emperor's Children engage Imperial Tank divisions, Magnus the Red storms in to the palace with the remains of his Thousand Sons to confront the Emperor. Little is said between them as they unleash their forces. Many Thousand Sons perish. Whole imperial infantry platoons with millenia of legendary dutiful service die. The Emperor seriously wounds Magnus, but Magnus fails to scratch the Emperor.

Realizing that the Emperor is in trouble, my opponent withdraws him to join up with the Fabricator General and his titan. Only now do they fully realize the gravity of the situation. Only now do they recognize that there can be no turning back. His sons have turned against him. Sanguinius and Dorn are dead. Jaghatai Khan's White Scars are losing against a tide of daemons summoned by Fulgrim. Angron will not give up his hold of the space port. They're going to have to take on Horus himself. The Emperor gathers his forces around him and teleports them on to the Vengeful Spirit.
The Emperor's forces (pictured above) clear the spacecraft's vaults of their daemonic infestation quite readily. But they were not expecting a swift counter-assault. Horus takes to the battle himself. Previously holed up in the control room of the Spirit, he descends in to the bowls of his space craft to find the Emperor there with the Fabricator General and some select imperial forces. But he has sent a signal out. Mortarion answers the warmaster and brings with him a battalion of Death Guard and Emperor's Children. But will it be enough?

The fight is at first evenly matched. But Nurgle's power flows through Mortarion and the Death Guard as they rust the Fabricator General's titan into the void. Although the imperial tank division stands up bravely to Horus, they suffer the price. Horus takes their souls. The Emperor's side lances the Emperor's Children in exchange for their sins.

As the fight progresses, both the Emperor and Horus take damage. But soon, there is only Horus and Mortarion standing on the traitor side. The Emperor and the Fabricator general are looking stronger, and they still have some troops left alive. In another exchange of blood, Mortarion and Horus almost slay the Fabricator General - only his bionics are keeping him alive at this point. But it is too little too late. Horus' auto-senses inform him that the Imperial Fleet has arrived.

The Ultramarines, Dark Angels and Space Wolves are here already. Horus and the traitors have lost and will now pay dearly for their heresy...

Horus Heresy: First Impressions

Despite a volcano getting in the way, my copy of the Horus Heresy board game finally arrived.

My first impressions of the game were largely positive. The sheer number and quality of the miniatures contained therein is impressive. However, my singular gripe was that the initial assembling of the playing pieces was tedious and not always easy. By that, I mean that inserting some of the pieces in to their bases was problematic: one or two of the bits were slightly too large for the holes they were meant to be inserted in to. I filed on of the bits down after struggling. It fit eventually! We did spend a lot of time assembling the pieces which delayed the start of our first game, but the assembling was fun in itself.

There are also so many detailed cards that come with the board game. They required little more than sorting in to their correct piles and shuffling.

The board itself is reasonably large, and comes with a three dimensional aspect as raised plastic parts are used to depict the palace region of Terra, alongside the Warmaster's Vengeful Spirit battlebarge. I like the detail around the board and was immediately taken by the initiative system that is used to drive the game.

The rulebook is a fair size and will appear complex to people who have not played similar games before. It takes a few readings to get all the main rules right, but I guess the best way to learn the rules is actually to go ahead and play the game.

Although I will write another article on the first game that I had, I will note here that setting a game up requires time. We followed the instructions and decided to play the first scenario (brother vs brother). It took a long ten minutes to set up all the playing pieces in to their initial positions on the board, but once in place, they looked good. Both Horus and the Emperor looked like un-assailable targets holed up in their respective places. It can appear very intimidating to both players to think how they're going to get past all their personal guards and take on the other. But there are two other ways to win: both players can achieve a space port victory by holding all four ports from just about half way through the game. The third way is that the Imperial player can hold out for a reinforcement victory: the loyalists fleets are on their way to bolster the White Scars, Imperial Fists and Blood Angels.

But... there is an event card that can potentially swallow up the inbound fleets thanks to the Warp. So in some games, the Imperial player cannot aim for a hold-out victory thanks to inertia. I like this twist on events personally, even though it is not cannon. I'll post again on Horus Hersey and show how one game played out.

Eyjafjallajokull

I thought I would take advantage of the good exchange rate between AUD and GBP and get my copy of the Horus Heresy Board Game delivered Down Under from the UK. Sadly, Eyjafjallajokull had other ideas. (Do I have any Icelandic speaking readers who can tell me how to correctly pronounce that awesome name?).

After reading a lot of the reviews online recently, I do have one quick comment about the Horus Heresy game: Where are the Sons of Horus?! Other than that, I hope the back log of flights from the UK clears soon so that I can have a go at the game!

In the mean time, here's a link to a picture from NASA.

Mighty Empires Painting: Mountains

With Planetary Empires on the horizon, I thought I'd post a little article on Mighty Empires - the fantasy equivalent. Mighty Empires comes with 48 distinct tiles, many of which are reversible (i.e. they have something different on both sides). The only tile that doesn't have a flip side are the mountains - simply because they understandably stick out over the top of the connector boarders more than any other piece.Mighty Empires has been sat around for quite some time in my collection (edit: I even remember the first edition of this accessory!) - it doubles up as a unique board for games of "Risk"! Here, I've pictured the set of mountains that it was supplied with.

I've undercoated these tiles in black and then proceeded to drybrush the mountains steadily whiter in colour tones. Some of the peaks of the mountains are almost in pure skull white. Meanwhile for the valleys, I've experimented with a number of different shades of green and inking plus drybrushing techniques. If you look closely, you'll see that the greens connect up with the mountains very well with some tiles, but on others, there's more of a pronounced gap in the foliage covering. I'll post some other tiles that I've painted up at later dates. I'm looking forward to seeing how well they can connect up with the more urban feeling that I'm sure Planetary Empires will have.

Space Hulk Genestealers

Although my main W40k interest certainly lies in the various forces of chaos, I remember fondly the days of Space Hulk. My wife and I played a few games of Space Hulk a couple of months ago (which I lost pitifully, for the record), at which point I dusted off the old genestealer models and re-evaluated them.

Comparison.
The old genestealer model is pictured here side by side with the newer version; both unpainted. Ignoring the different plastic technologies, it is readily clear that the newer version is much more dynamic and can be posed in a varitey of ways. The sculpts are also subtly different: the new version's exoskeleton appears stronger with fewer weak-spots compared to the older counterpart that (for example) has exposed flesh in the centre of the back.

The new model's rending claws are also better looking, but the more human, rear pair of hands are broadly similar. I might go as far as to say that the older genestealer's human-like hands are preferable given their dynamic look; the newer one can appear like it is about to slip on a pair of mitten gloves before venturing out in to the dank, chilly service tunnels of the Space Hulk.

The odd older model genestealer can provide variety within a brood of genestealers on the tabletop, but I don't think it looks as good as mixing in a Rogue Trader era plaguebearer with modern counterparts: older genestealers simply look out of place and ... less evolved. Moreover, I think making any biomorphs look consistent between the older and newer models would be very tough to do. But how about an entire brood of older models?

Pictured here are two broods, a ten strong brood in classic Space Hulk colours (Hive Fleet Behemoth vanguards?) and a five strong brood (non-viable in the current codex since they're below the minimum brood size) in green exoskeletons and purple flesh. These models are over 15 years old now and my painting style has evolved a long way since they were painted. A painting scheme will not be provided for them because of that reason, but perhaps their look might inspire a new paint scheme?
Looking back, they are certainly dated and not as well painted as my newer miniatures, but I wouldn't be too ashamed to field them on a tabletop despite the uniformity of their pose (apart from one model which used a hybrid's arm set, if you look closely).