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[Radio Controlled]

At one point, I considered getting into the 40K tabletop, yet 2 small details prevented that:
-I have the motor skills of a wet towel.
-I don't know any professional criminals to rob a bank with me.

[itisnotlogical]

The only shame about the computer games is that Dark Crusade is balanced like something that has already tipped over from balance issues. After walking through the first few missions in any given campaign, you're utterly destroyed by the computer before you can get off the ground just outside their inner territory. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I beat both the original and Winter Assault with about the regular amount of challenge.

[inEQUALITY]

The only shame about the computer games is that Dark Crusade is balanced like something that has already tipped over from balance issues. After walking through the first few missions in any given campaign, you're utterly destroyed by the computer before you can get off the ground just outside their inner territory. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I beat both the original and Winter Assault with about the regular amount of challenge.

Really? I never had an issue with it when I was playing Dark Crusade prior to Soulstorm - assuming you're talking about the campaign. Actual Skirmishes/Multiplayer were also decently balanced in DC, IIRC. Didn't stop me from raging at Necrons quite often, though.

I know for certain that the campaign balance was fine in Soulstorm. You should give it a try, it had some nice new features- especially the introduction of the Dark Eldar and Sisters of Battle armies. Though I still question the usefulness of having added air units to the game... skirmishes really never last that long for me.

[Telgin]

The only shame about the computer games is that Dark Crusade is balanced like something that has already tipped over from balance issues. After walking through the first few missions in any given campaign, you're utterly destroyed by the computer before you can get off the ground just outside their inner territory. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I beat both the original and Winter Assault with about the regular amount of challenge.

In my experience there were a handful of maps where the computer had some sort of overwhelming advantage that required you to attack immediately and relentlessly in order to have any hope of winning.  Usually using a large honor guard.  Off hand I recall the one Chaos map where they're on I believe an island in the overview, and one Eldar map.  Both of those quickly devolve into the computer opponent sending endless huge waves of units that will inevitably push you back and beat you.

I enjoyed Dark Crusade as well as the other Dawn of War games that I played a pretty good bit.  I never played Soulstorm though.

Anyway, I used to love 40K but I'm sort of on a downswing in interest on it lately.  I haven't played the tabletop game in years due to the cost being absurd and generally not wanting to upgrade editions.  I had a 3,000 point space marine army I'd have to fix, and I just don't care enough about 40K to do that right now.

Other than the tabletop game, I once really got into the lore and stories but even that feels pretty uninteresting to me these days.  I just kind of go in cycles on this sort of thing though, so in a year or two I'll probably get interested again.  Then again, maybe the fluff changes in the last edition probably didn't help my waning interest...

[Rolepgeek]

Anyone have general advice/a step by step tutorial for painting? I tried dry-brushing, it didn't seem to work, I got scared and stopped.

[Rez]

snip

General cheating AI stuff.  IIRC, the AI can have a full honor guard with their one or two territories.

[Telgin]

Anyone have general advice/a step by step tutorial for painting? I tried dry-brushing, it didn't seem to work, I got scared and stopped.

I don't know any tutorials, but the best advice I can give you is to use the absolute minimal amount of paint on the brush you can get.  Wipe it on a towel a few times until very, very little paint comes off.  Then try drybrushing.

[nenjin]

Anyone have general advice/a step by step tutorial for painting? I tried dry-brushing, it didn't seem to work, I got scared and stopped.

#1 Every thing you paint is an experiment, a test of skill. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and fail to learn something. Even the pros who have been painting for years will tell you this. Just do your experiments on your rank 'n file troops, and once you have your technique down, apply it to your more bad ass figs.

On dry brushing: I use news paper. I get my brush thoroughly saturated with paint, then wipe it off on the news paper until I literally cannot see a streak. Now you're ready to dry brush. You know you're doing it right if your 1st 10 brush strokes barely put any paint down. If you see appreciable paint after your 1st or 2nd stroke, you've got too much paint on there. Dry brushing is a gradual process, it's about building up faint layers one after another. So err on the side of caution, it will only help how it ends up.

Secondly is the surface. Don't try dry brushing anything remotely smooth. It's difficult to make it look right even if you know what you're doing. Stick to edges and raised surfaces until you've developed a feel for it. Then you can start learning how to slowly fade layers into each other.

Contrast is really important for dry brushing, so pick your highlights carefully. That said, pure colors tend to pop very quickly, where more muted colors take many more layers before they pop, often giving you a blended look. Sometimes mixing up to a higher shade works, sometimes not. For example, trying to highlight red with a 50/50 red/white mix is a bad idea, because pink does not make a good highlight to red.

In general, I don't do a lot of highlighting, not to the degree GWS does. Usually because it's very easy for it to start looking fake and hammy, and it takes a lot of talent to highlight an entire model well.

Lastly, a warning about dry brushing. It can end up ruining a brush over repeated brushing, because the bristle get the crap beaten out of them and they repeatedly get gummy with dry paint.

My process for painting figs goes like this:

1. Primer coat of spray paint. White for brighter figs whose colors you want to be bold and pop, black for darker, grittier looking figs. Or you can do a quick primer of the same color as your base coat. The primer coat can have a pretty big impact on the base coat's brightness, so decide what look you want before you pick a primer color. And it's absolutely necessary so the base coats go on smoothly and evenly.

2. Base coat. Usually a coat of whatever color is going to appear most on the fig. A quick, sloppy base to get paint on there. It really helps how clean the model looks, if you do your best to avoid painting over areas that aren't going to take the base coat color. If something needs to be painted white, like a skull for example, and your base coat isn't white, don't paint over it or it will take several coats of white to hide what's under there. You can base coat several figs at a time and get a lot of them ready for detailing very quickly. This is kind of a judgement call, which areas to paint around and which to paint over.

3. 2nd base coat, so your color intensity is consistent across the fig. Also so you can fill in areas you missed with your quick base coat.

3. Detail colors. This is what takes the longest. A flat coat to establish the color schemes. (Belts, gun metal, wires, edges of Space Marine shoulder pads, that stuff.)

4. A clean up pass. I go back over everything and make sure I'm painting within the lines, covering up mistakes, ect....

5. Inking/Washes. I thin out some colors to use as washes. Watered down brown/leather for the aging on bones, black for giving some shading to weaponry or cables. Stuff like that.

6. Another clean up pass, because washes can get messy.

7. Dry brushing. See above.

8. One last touch up pass, then a coat of dull coat to seal it and take the shine off it.

My general goal when painting is: make it look clean, at the very least. I may not have the most complicated or detailed paint jobs, but I'm pretty proud that my work stands up to high levels of scrutiny. (If  you start looking very closely at other people's figs, you can often see the "layers" in the hard to reach areas.)

Here's how it turns out for me:



Random tips: wash your brush frequently, to prevent paint from drying in it. That will ruin your brushes, and dried paint in the bristles can end up getting deposited on the fig, which looks ugly and is a pain to clean up when you do it. Impossible to get rid of without damaging your paint job once it's dried.

Paint somewhere with good lighting. When you're trying to paint a tiny section of an underarm or something, poor light and shadows can make it harder than it needs to be.

If you're working with metallic paints, be careful about cleaning your brush with your fingers. Most metallics have tiny metal flakes in them that's basically glitter, that ends up in your clean water. And if you get it all over your fingers (by rolling your brush tips through your fingers to get rid of excess moisture, for example) and start touching your fig, your bad ass Chaos Space Marine is going to be sparkley.

Some people go so far as to mount their fig on a piece of cork using pins, so they never have to touch it. I don't go that far, but I do try to hold my figs by the base, usually. I've never had any problems smudging paint jobs with my fingers.

My last tip would be: control the amount of paint you use at EVERY step. Details are the life blood of cool-looking figs, and too many layers of paint can ruin that. If you laid on your primer or base coat too thick, you'll fill in all the cracks and depressions that make up the fig detail. Lay on your other colors too thick and the same will happen, eventually. Always get some paint on your brush, then take some off on the edge of the paint pot. If you didn't use enough, you can always use more. But you can't really take away excess paint once it's there. This is also the reason to paint each section as meticulously as you can, because it results in less cleanup, which results in few layers obscuring the details.

Maybe give http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/ a looksee too. While the site is mostly focused on terrain building and painting, rather than figs, there's lot of good articles about general techniques.

And one final, FINAL tip: paint stripping. I did and still am stripping my original Blood Angels army from 15 years ago. Their paint jobs are so bad it defies imagination. You can always strip a fig down and go back to square one. I use Simple Green. It can be found at most grocery and hardware stores in the US. It's non-toxic, non-corrosive to plastic and doesn't stain models. I dumped half a bottle of into a coffee can and dropped a few figs in. A few weeks later, I came back and hit them with a tooth brush under the faucet. I generally get 90 to 95% of the paint off.

Just as an example how far I came because I stuck with it...this is what my army used to look like.

[nenjin]

Just played my first actual game of 40k in like...10 years.

We played a slightly modified version of 2nd ed. A Blood Angel army (mine), a Black Templar Army, One Eldar and One Chaos Space Marine. 500 points, no squad coherency rules, 25% mandatory base troops, 25% maximum leader cost, any vehicles or heavy weapons or specialist squads 25% max. Basically each side had between 8 and 10 figs, with Necromunda-esqe rules.

One objective in the center, winner is the person with the highest value of troops within 6" at the end of round 10.

I placed 2nd after the first space marine player, at the far end of the table. The Eldar and the Chaos Space Marine set up on either side of me. I was completely pinned and put on the defensive immediately, caught between two armies with ample opportunities to shoot me as soon as I left my structure. My biggest tactical advantage, my Jump Pack Assault marines, were pinned in cover by the Eldar's War Walker sitting in overwatch, waiting for them to jump over the top of a wall. Meanwhile all the heavies from the CSM side, the actual Chaos Space Marines, a Terminator and the Hero all started bearing down on my left. His handful of cultists and another CSM made for the objective.

The War Walker took out my Heavy Bolter that I stupidly left exposed to his fire, and I spent the next several rounds feeding Krak missiles to the advancing CSM to little effect. (Forgot my dice whilst getting all my stuff together. So I was using someone else's "reject" die.) Eventually I manage to frag a Terminator with a krak missile, and then the Chaos hero closes in range and throws a Blight grenade into the cubby hole my Captain and a Tac Marine were hanging out in.

Luckily the Captain is unharmed and the other marine isn't hit. My captain steps out of cover and blasts away at the CSM hero with his meltagun combibolter, and misses. The Hero charges in and they merrily trade shots in close combat. The CSM is completely outmatched and is only kept alive by his Displacer Field jumping him out of combat at the end of each round.

The Eldar player (who is advancing across his whole side of the map toward the objective under good cover) starts tangling with the other Space Marine player. But he still has enough reserve to sneak his leader around my back (since no one can move to see him without getting a face full of scatter laser from the war walker), teleport in and gank one of my marines with a missile launcher. At this point I'm afraid that he's going to completely ream my remaining guys, but he eventually backs off and teleports to the objective to harass the other SM player. 

Still unable to really do anything with my Assault Marines because the Eldar player still has my flank covered by his War Walker, I walk them out of cover and line them up to start firing into the backs of the cultists that are climbing the rubble toward the objective, scoring a few kills. The Eldar player moves a Fire Dragon out of cover and smokes one of them with a meltagun, while a CSM kills another with a plasma gun. A complete waste of Assault Marines, sadly.

The Hero and my Captain continue to mix it up. I roll especially badly and he actually deals a wound. At this point it's clear I'm pretty much done in, so I charge most everything I have left at the hero; my last last launcher marine and my last assault marine. Foolishly, I let my Captain attack first. End result, he does no real damage, and the hero slaughters my other two marines. I mean, he would have slaughtered them either way. But I should have let my Captain get all the bonuses so he could have finished him that round.

Eventually my Captain kicks the Chaos Hero to death with his Bionic Leg, and my part in the battle is largely over. With two figs left, my Captain and a Tactical Marine, I pick off the remaining Chaos forces now caught in a 3 way cross-fire as they break and start fleeing, and the Fire Dragon who killed one of my Assault Marines. The other SM player, who had waited several turns before leaving their defensive position (leaving me as the only viable target for the other two players), finally engages the Eldar as he approaches the central structure. As they fight atop it, something hilarious happens. The SM players ignites the Eldar's leader with a flamer. He panics and runs straight into the giant gaping hole in the center of the platform, where he continues to burn for the remainder of the game, in darkness, Emperor damn his xenos soul.

Not super pleased with the outcome, but I was kinda a victim of circumstance. I was just happy to walk away with my Commander alive and a boot print left in the ruined face of the Arch Enemy. While the CSM player kind of favors a zerg "RRRRAAAAAA" approach and tends to not strategize too much, the Eldar player is the last person you want haunting your flank. In hindsight, I picked the poorest quadrant to fight in, a corner. But I wanted to be as far from the other SM player as possible so I didn't have to shoot at him. (And I wasn't getting shot by his hefty compliment of heavy weapons.) I played too conservatively with my best units, but when you only have 8 units to work with you can't trust the dice to keep them alive. And for all the freaking cover on the map, it did nothing to prevent the War Walker from hamstringing my ability to move.

A couple pics (huge) I took near the end of the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The painted terrain there is stuff I've made. All the white styrofoam is stuff the Eldar player whipped up in a day or two and plans to paint.

[debvon]

I have a question about the lore. I'm fairly new to the Warhammer 40k universe and I'm trying to figure stuff out, but it all seems amazing so far.

Is the Adepta Sororitas humanity's way of cleansing.. itself? What's up with Sisters of Battle waging war against the Imperial Guard? Or have they just become so zealous that they've begun attacking anything that isn't pure enough? Damn, I need to get my hands on the novels.

[Gamerlord]

Check the author of whatever the fuck you're reading then search the name on 1d4chan. That should help you immensely.

[nenjin]

I have a question about the lore. I'm fairly new to the Warhammer 40k universe and I'm trying to figure stuff out, but it all seems amazing so far.

Is the Adepta Sororitas humanity's way of cleansing.. itself? What's up with Sisters of Battle waging war against the Imperial Guard? Or have they just become so zealous that they've begun attacking anything that isn't pure enough? Damn, I need to get my hands on the novels.

Here's the thing about 40k lore and fluff.....it can do anything you want it to, as long as you justify it and it loosely obeys the canon. GWS likes to say "The canon is that there is no canon."

That said, as a point of canon, no, the Adeptus Sororitas are not at war with the Imperial Guard. But in terms of any individual story or plot line? Anything is possible, short of the Emperor waking up to kick some ass. There are many times Imperial factions make war on each other. It almost always has to do with conflicting interests, or a very warped point of view. And it always comes down to neither side being willing to compromise or back down. (If they feel that way, they're usually sabotaged into having to fight.)

The primary offenders of fighting the other factions are the Inquisition (because their job necessitates it), the Mechanicum (who often don't feel beholden to other Imperial factions because they bow only to the Omnissiah) and the Space Marines (because they're very touchy about their honor, and like the other two, believe themselves above Imperial Law.)

Played another battle tonight, 600 pnts modified 2nd ed. Same combatants. I came out on bottom, again. Lots of reasons for it. Mostly that I don't put enough effort into building my army, and my innate sense of fairness and what's fun often stops me from laying the cheese on. Also the logic of less than 1,000 point battles kind of escapes me. I feel like I'm 16 again, fun and nerd rage all rolled into one. I actually had to check myself and remember I'm an adult. Truth is, I've never been that good of a general and it's always kind of rankled.

Anyways, a shit load of pics. Painted terrain! If it makes the thread unloadable, let me know and I'll make em links instead.

Spoiler: Set up (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Mid and end battle (click to show/hide)

I probably should have taken the hint when two armies were running all Terminators, and the Eldar army was built to get in people's faces....and of course one nigh unkillable guy sniping with a Bright Lance.

[adwarf]

Oh sweet a Warhammer 40k thread~ I have a rather small (About three tactical squads, a terminator squad, and a dreadnought) Space Wolves army that is sadly unpainted at the moment since the paint I need costs as much as I paid for all my models. Like most I currently don't have the cash to get the army I want, but its coming along fairly nice so far I'm really looking forward to getting to paint them since I should have the money to buy the paints and accessories in the next few months.

Since no one in my general state plays 40k my experience consists over about three battles using Vassal, I've been looking for a chance to play a bit more so if anyone wants to pick up and play some small battles on it I'd be up for it.

[nenjin]

Another week, another battle.

And this one was truly novel. For the first time in 18 years.....I played 40k with a woman! Words still fail me. I know women play war games but my whole life I've never seen it until today. A truly happy occasion.

So it's my Blood Angels again, dubbed Battleforce Fuck It. The SM player who has settled on the Legion of the Damned Chapter. The Chaos Space Marine Nurgle player, the Eldar player and our new player taking up the Tyranids.



Man I really need to an actual camera or a better phone for this. Anyways. I set up across from the Legion of the Damned in the corner, with the Eldar on my right flank, the Tyranids across from him, and Chaos at the far table edge.

I changed tact this time. Instead of tac marines, heavy weapons and a couple assault troops I went 5 Death Company with Jump Packs armed to the teeth, a bad ass Chaplain to roll with them, a Missile Launcher, a Heavy Plasma Gun and a Lascannon. My strategy? Just make sure the Eldar died. Forget the victory objectives (the big silver orb thingy in the middle of the battlefield), I just wanted blood for the last couple of games. And the Eldar player had said that, on request, he was bringing all the cheese he had to the table.



And lo, it was the army of my youth, the same army that had cleaned my clock and countless others so many times. 4 or 5 Dark Reapers, at least one Warp Spider, a random Aspect Warrior of some kind.....and a long range sniper character with a Bright Lance and a shield save of some sort.

But that wasn't the real meat of the army. No, that was a Hero armed with the Magataur, or however the hell you spell it, Rapid Fire, field save and a Warp Jump Generator. That's a multi-wound unit, who can teleport ~18 inches with no scatter, fire 4 goddamn sustained fire dice at something like Str 7 -4 save, that never jams. That's a heavy weapon on a Hero character, that can move and fire and never jams, that he can shoot twice in one turn. And when he's done shooting, he teleports out another 18" in the same goddamn turn. Remember this elf.

The Tyranid player had a Hive Tyrant, several Genestealers and I think Termagants and Hormagants. Being new to the game, she actually picked things up pretty well within a few turns and by the end of the game was still in a really strong position.

The Legion of Damned came with a Terminator Captain, two basic Terminators, a Tech Marine (whose presence puzzled us all until later) and two Lascannons.

The CSM player brought a Greater Unclean One, the Predator tank, a couple Terminators and some Chaos Space Marines. Being that he was at the ar end of the table, I didn't see a lot of what his stuff was specifically. The poor, poor Nurgle Chaos Space Marines. I don't say that lightly, being that they're traitorous scum and blasphemers. But it's hard not to feel sorry for how things went down for them.

I mean, with an army fielding shit that looks THIS badass, you really want them to succeed!









My extremely talented friend made both of those. One is a heavily customized Predator tank, the other is a completely freeform piece. Yes, that's a giant pink daemon-thing with fly eyes and wings vomiting into its hand.

So the battle starts like every other battle: everyone is petrified of getting shot by the Eldar, although how bad it can be isn't clear just yet. He knows at least the Blood Angels and the Legion of the Damned are gunning for him specifically, because he's always the biggest threat. And then he's got the CSM on his right, who have to go through him to get to me (being that he's Chaos filth and the Emperor is the light and the way.) The Eldar player knows that the Tyranids are the saving grace, because whoever they go after is one less person trying to kill him.


(The Righteous of Battleforce Fuck It)

The Nurgle army drives straight at the Eldar while I position my Heavy Weapons and creep the Death Company and Chaplain as close as I can get to a reasonable jump range. Like last time, I'm worried about getting my face blown off due to overwatch. Dark Reapers are nasty and even the Death Company won't stand up to that.

The Tyranid player moves in towards the Legion of the Damned through a hab complex, not taking the bait when I suggest she swarm the Eldar player (which would have been his doom and the CSM's salvation.) The Eldar positions for the CSM, already feeling the heat as we both close in.



The CSM pulls his forces around a corner of the building near the Eldar emplacement and they pretty much open up with everything they have. CSM and Terminators drop like flies (badum ching.) The Greater Unclean One loses half its wounds just to the Eldar hero gunners....and then his Warp Spider teleports in, hits the incredibly low initiative greater daemon with ease and it just.....is dead, because that's how Death Spinners work. In one turn the Eldar wiped out 75% of the CSM's army. The only thing left alive is the Predator, which had pulled around a building only to get drilled by Dark Reapers. It throws a quick reverse back down the street to find all its support dead.



I advance using jump jets since the Eldar player is preoccupied.

This is where things get hilarious. The Legion of the Damned player has been waiting for this opportunity. His Techmarine activate his teleporter, and amazingly, manages to land it right in the middle of the Eldar's Dark Reapers. This Techmarine, his whole purpose in life, why he went to Mars to learn the secrets of the Techpriests, why he went through the grueling training of becoming a Space Marine.......was to carry a teleport homer so his Lord could teleport with accuracy into the heart of the enemy and lay waste.

Guess who scatters right off the table edge, so his teleport fails to activate?

So there's this lone Techmarine, stranded in the middle of the Eldar. What does he do? Probably the most logical thing. He throws a feckless frag grenade at the Eldar commanders, which does nothing. What's even funnier is that it took 3 Dark Reapers to bring him down, unloading at point blank range. That Techmarine probably saved at least half of my Death Company from getting wasted by the Dark Reapers on approach. In his defense, the Legion of the Damned Commander will try several more times, unsuccessfully, to teleport to the Eldar badass and end him. But he will every time scatter off the table edge and fail to 'port.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, the Legion of the Damned player and I have been trading pot shots with our Heavy Weapons. He claims a Missile Launcher of mine, I almost take his leader's head off. Eventually he'll sacrifice a Lascannon to block the shot on his leader, because he can't both move and teleport at the same time. The Tyranid player, slowly, because she has the biggest army and I don't build hand-friendly terrain, advances toward the Legion of the Damned, piling up in the hab unit for the eventual charge and swarm.


Das Uber Eldar lining up his kill shot on the Chaos Predator tank before thinking better of it

The Eldar player teleports his uber into close combat with the Predator tank to rob it of all response, and punches through the armor with what I assume is probably the same weapon that he slays at range with, because it would be just like the Eldar to have a piece of war gear that is both an amazing ranged weapon and a viable anti-armor weapon in close combat.

I finally get into Jump Range of his Dark Reapers, who have just mercifully slain the Techmarine and slake my thirst for vengeance. Dark Reapers are nothing in close combat so it wasn't a very gratifying fight, but at least I can say I did something. In truth, the Dark Reapers were only there to support his ungodly Heroes. They're always the ones I'm truly after. I don't recall what happened to the lesser badass of the two, I think the Nurgle Army may have killed him.

The Tyranid player bursts out on to the Legion of the Damned player, and it's pretty classic Terminator v. Genestealer. The Genestealers only shows up after a wave of Hormagants and Termagants swamp the Legion of the Damned Forces. The Terminators win out but the lone Lascannon  guy is well and truly fucked, even though he managed to survive a whole round of combat. I take a couple pot shots at the Tyranid Swarm and Hive Tyrant as they pour out of the hab complex. I guess I kind of forgot about my Heavy Weapons guys, but with Sniper McBadasses out there, it's a bad idea to walk your Heavy Weapons too far out of near total cover.



It pains me to say it, but I eventually withdrew from the game. I was basically staring down the barrel of a unit I had no hope of ever attacking, who would steadily pick my remaining guys off one by one as he teleported where necessary to get his shot. He'd already winged my Chaplain once by the end of the game and only by the Grace of the Emperor and some really, really shitty dice rolls on the Eldar's part did he even survive. So I'm not sure exactly how it ended. I'm pretty sure the Tyranid player may have actually won as she broke the Legion of the Damned handily and had, by far, the most units left alive.

Spoiler: Neckbeard drama and Eldar raeg (click to show/hide)

I may have had one or two ways to win the game. The way we play, you can win by enemies killed (their point value), the amount of forces of your's that survived, or by playing the objectives for victory points (there were two in the center of the board, plus points for being in the enemy deployment zone. The catch? Within 6" at the end of the game.) You have to pick one of these things to determine your VPs by.

Even with most of the Eldar troops and several Tyranids in my kill list, the Eldar had the entire Chaos army in his, and a couple of my Blood Angels. I had the mobility to scatter myself all over the map to take the objectives, but that would mean several turns of sitting there, isolated, where I could be teleported to and picked off, adding yet more points to the Eldar total. I could have gone for the Tyranids and maybe even beaten them (they were QUITE numerous still when I withdrew, the Legion of the Damned being really tough...but unable to win most combats against their numbers.) But I would, again, have the Eldar shooting me in the back the whole time, with one character who had enough firepower for an entire army packed into one gun.

I like my endings to be epic, whether I win or lose. What's not epic is crawling around the map, being hunted like a rat by an enemy you cannot retaliate against because they simply get to violate most of the rules everyone else labors under. Just like in the past, most of my games against the Eldar run up against the "pop up" nature of all of their best tricks. I can shoot you but you can't shoot me. Armed with only bolt pistols (and a Plasma Gun on my Chaplain) overwatch was an unlikely solution to my problems as too as the Eldar could sit well, well outside my maximum range.

So I felt like my prospects were basically getting shot chasing him around in the open like an idiot, or tediously spending the next hour moving through cover trying to get objectives which, I'm pretty sure, mathematically still would not have let me win.

When the Legion of the Damned Lord finally, finally got his teleport off and got into the base-to-base contact with the Eldar, it wasn't even really that much of a consolation, because it's not like you can plan around another player immobilizing a problem character for you. I remember now when he quit using this character, because it really just ruins games. So while it was probably poor sportsmanship to leave the game (hell, I had the majority of my guys left), I've been down that road before and it just leads to me getting frustrated. Perhaps that's what was most annoying. I had most of my starting army and yet, in the face of 1 character there wasn't anything it could do. With 3 turns left til the end of the game, I didn't have the time or really the will to carefully spread my guys out in a dragnet to push his teleportation range to its limit. Chances are that would have gotten most of them killed anyways and completely removed any chance of victory.

All that said, the Eldar player has long felt guilty for how badly people get smacked down because, even he'll admit it, the cheese gets over the top especially in 2nd edition. When we were kids it was different because protecting your advantages as the book stated them was what it was all about...but now the goal is trying to have fun. And the combination of straight taking another player out of the game in one turn, and running circles around me because the Warp Jump Generator is just broken as a concept....made it clear that in a small squad game stuff like that just isn't fun for anyone except the guy using it. The Eldar player is now trying to excise certain units or perhaps just start playing the Orcs or the Tyranids as he has plenty of models....but he's always liked the Eldar and at the end of the day, I don't want him to not play the army he likes. We've modded 2nd. ed plenty at this point, we might as well mod the Eldar to be semi-reasonable. If we were playing more points one character wouldn't dominate quite so hard. But in these small squad games, cheese shit like that really drastically alters balance. Maybe I should bring a Whirlwind next time, and see how much people like a 3" indirect fire template.

[shadenight123]

I suppose the costs of miniatures will go down once the 3D printers come to the market.
Furthermore, they might even come already printed.
...
yes, call me heathen, but the only reason I never bought miniatures is because of the painstaking process of having to color them.