Thursday, 9 June 2016

Prologue

One of the things I’ve been looking to do with the new blog is make it more personal. In the past I would take units within a vacuum, cite uses for them, what they work well with, what they don’t, compare and contrast them with other units in the book, etc. This was effective to an extent, it could really show efficiencies and inefficiencies within a book itself.

What it failed to do however was give an accurate representation of how something would play on the tabletop, and as such it often gave the wrong impression. For example, mutilators. On paper they are pretty garbage, however I do not believe that they are the worst unit in the book, far from it. For example, Khorne Berzerkers. They have a distinctive idea behind how they should play on the table, however there are units and setups that simply do it far more efficiently, and with a lower base cost in the first place. Mutilators are the most efficient point per wound value (Toughness, base save, etc) in the book with the Deep Strike special rule. Need a Terminator Lord deep striking but don’t want to have him blown away? Here, take a single Nurgle Mutilator as a meat shield, enjoy.

Therefore, I would like to get more practical application across in this blog, rather than it just being a documentation of my mistakes in game and a list of units as judged on paper. So, here is a timeline of me in the hobby.

2003: Begins playing the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game at the age of 9.
2008: Changes school, is introduced to Warhammer 40k.
2011: Discovers 40k Podcasting, attends first singles event with 30 Ork Nobz in trucks. Comes mid table.
July 2012: Attends first ‘Throne of Skulls’ event. Gets bodied 1W 1D 3L. First run out with Space Wolves.
December 2012: Meets first high level tournament players at Oxford Gaming Club (BM and MC)
January 2013: Attends second ‘Throne of Skulls’ event. Improves to 3W 2L.
February 2013: Attends Battlefield Birmingham 3. Finishes event 2W 3L.
March 2013: Attends first GT Finale. Finishes event 2W 4L.
July 2013: Attends Toy Soldier. Finishes event 2W 1D 2L. Defeating first ETC player. First run out with Chaos Marines
August 2013: Attends second Invasion. Finishes event 3W 0L. Best Sportsman.
October 2013: Attends first GT Heat. Despite finishing Day 1 on Table 2 narrowly misses out 2W 1D 3L.
January 2014: Attends first Caledonian Revolution. Finishes event 3W 2L.
March 2014: Attends second GT Finale anyway. Finishes event 3W 2L. Best General CSM.
April 2014: First introduced into the England Squad.
May 2014: Attends first War of the Roses. 3W 1D 1L.
July 2014: Attends second Toy Soldier. 2W 3L. First run out in 7th Edition.
November 2014: Attends second GT Heat. After being conned out of 2 games finishes event 2W 4L.
January 2015: Referees at Caledonian Uprising.
May 2015: Attends second War of the Roses, gets rekt.
July 2015: Attends Caledonian Revolution. Finishes event 3W 2L.
October 2015: Attends first Luton event. Finishes event 2W 1L. First run out with Eldar.
October 2015: Attends third GT Heat. Finishes event 3W 3L, after a highly contentious ruling in the last game.
January 2016: Attends second Luton event. Finishes 2W 1L, losing on the top table in the last game playing for the tournament.
January 2016: Attends second Caledonian Uprising. Finishes 4W 1L, finishing 8th in the largest 40k tournament ever run in the UK.
March 2016: Attends third GT Finale. Finishes event 3W 3L, due to narrow losses and crushing victories, finishes 13th.
April 2016: Attends Clash of Lions team tournament. Finishes 2nd.
May 2016: Attends third War of the Roses. Finishes event 4W 1L, losing on the top table in the final game to Josh Roberts. Finishes 8th.

June 2016: Called up to represent an unnamed nation at the ETC.  

Wednesday, 1 June 2016

Wargaming with Rampage Reborn

And here comes post number 3 or 4 of this blog’s relatively unpopular series, ‘I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long but I promise there will be loads of exciting and regular new content’. Here is a place that I was once very proud of, the traffic was good and it stimulated a lot for me in terms of how I thought about 40k as a game. Of course, my thinking has evolved since then, and although I stand by a lot of the points I made here, in a lot of cases I feel that the way I went about it could have been much better.

I started this blog at the age of 18, with the aim of documenting my journey into the competitive realm of Warhammer 40k in Britain. To be honest I have skipped huge parts of this. I documented my first couple of independent tournaments but never really continued. There were a couple of reasons for this which I may go into another time but none of them are really valid.

The end goal however was always to win the ETC, and in 2 months’ time I will be making my debut in Athens, without really documenting that journey.


I’m now an IT technician in a fancy school, specifically dealing with A/V and what have you, meaning I have access to all of the fancy software that comes with it. This means I am now capable of delivering the complete revamp that I have always wanted for Wargaming with Rampage. I will be keeping the URL, and all of the old content will be staying up, however otherwise I am hoping to completely overhaul this blog. The 22 year old ETC debutant and GT contender who runs this place is very different to the 18 year old Dakkanaut and Throne of Skulls shitter that created it, and I would like this blog to reflect that. Stay tuned.