2016: A Year in Review

Rolling for Happy New Year!

Still Secret Im Afraid 

Well here we are again! Seems like only yesterday we were starting another New Year. This year has seen a lot of changes in both myself and this blog. Every day brought something new this year and the world has kept on spinning. We here at Behind the Lines Gaming would like to wish you a Happy New Year. At the beginning of the year were had promised to promote big news to you all. That big news is still happening, even if things have been quiet, but we will tell you more in 2017. As always keep checking back for updates on that.


The Tanith and Allied guard have gotten a lot of attention this year. I can safely safe that most of those units have been painted. 2017 should see some additions to the armies.  The Tau as noted earlier will be getting reinforcements with the Riptide battlesuit and hopefully a few more surprises. The Adeptus Mechanicus army is growing with the additional purchase of a skitarii army pending at the moment. More news on that soon! Finally with MK III of warmachine out now, I have gotten into full swing of painting those miniatures. Hopefully i'll be able to take them out for a few games.

As always we plan to do a Top Three projects we have done this year. Located here, the Gallery is a page dedicated to the top work on completed models we've done each year.Give it a look and let us know what you think!

Tiger Tank of the Imperium

#1 this year turned out to be a product review of the Gideon Tank done by MadRobot Miniatures! This review came in with nearly 1137 views! A huge thank you to Steve at MadRobot for putting up with me while I made the order. These models were a joy to put together and a joy to paint. The fact that I got 2 more waiting to be painted is only extra exciting to me! Once warmer weather hits Im going to break out my airbrush and start on its two siblings ASAP! In the future I hope to order potentially two more to add to the armored group. We'll have to see though.

12 Crisis Suits Plus 1 more

#2 this year was the Tau [Crisis Suit] Story. At 764 views this post was the second most viewed post of the year.  Once I had decided on a scheme for my Sept I set about painting it.This scheme was exteremly popular with the folks down at my LFGS and the models have seen a ton of play. I think the post was popular because of the amount of Tau crisis suits? Maybe it was just the amount of painted Tau? Whatever the case It has been a fun journey to show them off to you all and play with them on the table and against them. Trust me, Its not fun to face down 24 plasma rifles as guard. Still the modification to the models to make the XV-46 was one of my favorite changes to these stock models. Leave no model unconverted!

#3 this year was a twist. Pulling from our Dark Heresy game, Sister Hana and Krieger 18D became the third most popular post with 682 views. This project was being completed by my friend Bandogora and he has progressed well on both Hana and 18D. In the future he hopes to finish Hana and add in the rest of the party including our Tech Priest Magnus Nicodemus of Metallica and Interrogator Bo Terran. Time will tell if he can do it.  This project was a joy to watch come to completion. As our Dark Heresy season has ended for the year, I can fully say the party did not come away unscathed. Truths were revealed that injured the party and caused many angry emotions. Next season will show if the party and time has healed the wounds left by one party members betrayal.

As the year comes to a close I wish to thank my loyal readers and those who follow me. It makes writing these post easier knowing that some people read them and enjoy the content of them.If you like what you see please become a follower of the blog or leave a comment below! Every little bit helps

With that I wish you the best in this ending to 2016 and a happy start to 2017! Keep rolling those dice and stay tuned for many new exciting things to come in 2017! 

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Heavy Gear Blitz: A review

Or How I learned to love war gaming for what it truly is: A good time.....

A week or two ago now, my buddy Renegade09 invited me to go to the local game store with him to try out a new game. Having lost my last Warhammer 40k game I wasn't too anxious to get my tail handed to me again in miniature combat.

This time the battlefield took us away from the grim dark future of the 41st millennium and into the world of "Heavy Gear", a game by the Canadian company Dream Pod 9. So you ask, What did I think of the game? Well my buddy Renegade09 had bought two factions of this fantastic science fiction world: Peace River and The North.

After a quick run through on the rules the night before we got to go the store and test it out. The activation system and the flow of the game was very fast. I enjoyed the pace and the way cover actually mattered in this game compared to others I had played. I also found the models to be of excellent quality that Renegade had painted to a well done table top quality. After having painted with him for weeks, it was nice to get a chance to try out the game.

Our set up after only about 20 minutes saw  the table ready for our deployment and mission objectives. Renegade had home built and printed off the templates for the terrain (I really need to ask him for some of that) and a well done carrying board.  After rolling off, we determine who went first and started the game.

By turn 2 not much had happened and the number of potshots being bounced off our armor was becoming annoying. Somebody needed to get a kill. We had a few people interested but many dismissed us. Still, we did get a few 40k players to try it out. Progress!

The game didn't end at 4 with anybody dead so we continued onto the next round. By turn 6 our board looked like below. Finally after some daring maneuvers and listing lazily to the left our units engage into close quarters battle. His HQ unit "Honcho" was killed by a blast to the face at close range and my unit made up of brothers "Tweedle Dee" and "Tweedle Dum" fell to his Gears from gun fire.  In the end, the game was a clear victory for me by number of kills and him having one model on the board. However, having had a epic night full of combat, I told him we should call it a tie instead.

So what did I think of the game? Honestly, the pace and the activation system are probably some of the cleanest and nicest rules out there right now. I liked the unit count and the amount of models needed to get started was low. I also enjoyed the background and the fluff behind all the factions. The Science Fiction part of the story also was very well done and nice. Since this system was D6, it made it easier to learn for me as well as new players who would like to learn more about war gaming in general. I watched a 40k veteran pick up the game and understand it in nearly ten minutes, a impossibility in other games such as 40k and Warmachine.

What didn't I like? To be honest, not much. After having come from 28mm models, the game felt familiar enough to not be off putting but new enough to be entertaining. I imagine with infantry at the 15mm scale things would get annoying but I have yet to see them in play yet. Some rules mechanics I found funky but none too rule breaking. The counter system of movement while ingenious does seem to slow down the pace since I very rarely wanted to switch modes to go faster, instead focusing on my firepower to see me through.

Overall my Rating would be a solid 9.8 out of 10. Very easily one of my favorite games I've ever played. Having war gamed since 2006 I felt that with time this game could be a serious contender to the big 3 should DP9 continue to run the game right as they seem to be doing now.

Till next time. Game on.....

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