Creating an Alpha Strike Force - Part 2

If you missed the first one of this series, click here!

Well, it is finally time to get started!

Choosing an Era

First, you need to choose which era do you want to play. I'll not write an era breakdown here, since you can find better ones elsewhere. What is important to know is that the 'original' starting point of the BT universe is the Succession Wars era (the Star Leacgue happens before that, but was just fleshed out recently). Because of it, it is the most known era by the BT fans and casual players, but have some aspects that can complicate things... in this era, the technology development came to a halt, with people trying to maintain rests of Star League equipment. Som, no new mechs are produced, availability is limited, and everything needs to be salvaged form the battlefield, Mad Max-style, cause the are not produced anymore. While it is an exciting era for role playing and original BT games and campaigns, it can be very limiting for AS, due the low variety of mechs, no army 'exclusives' and the mech is something rare on the battlefield, at the there is a limited infantry variety (no battle armor options). it can be nice in a boardgame with 4 mechs per side, but when you have 4 or more LANCES of 4 (or more) mechs each, it doens't seem very suitable anymore.

Creating an Alpha Strike Force - Part 1

BattleTech Alpha Strike is nice, quicker and simpler than BattleTech, but not in all aspects. In BattleTech you can simply get any minis (or even paper standups) put on the grid and have fun. Well, Alpha Strike is basically the same, but to to a better experience, you need more than just that.

Alpha Strike (or AS, for short) is a step in the direction of the modern wargaming experience. While in BattleTech (BT), having several mech squads (called 'lances') can slow the game almost to a halt, in AS they are a common place - if you play AS with just a couple of miniatures, the game will last less than half an hour. And when you play with several miniatures, painting them and force organization are important - as in 40K, where you simply can't get any miniature you have and put on the table - they need to be of a certain type, belong to a certain army and be organized in squads and such.

While AS is more 'structured' and allegedly balanced for tournament play, it sends curious mixed signals:

Hobby Links - Part II

We're back with more links for you. The more experienced wargamers may already know most of those sites, but we are posting them here to help the new players on finding online resources. With that in mind, today I'm bringing some YouTube channels about miniatures and painting, together with some 40K-related blogs and forums.

See them after the break!

Dornian Heresy - Considerations

Rogal Dorn, the Arch-Betrayer

As I've said before, for now I'm sticking to the idea of collecting a Fallen force, which I plan to publish my own piece of fluff here at some point in the future (together with other ideas I had in the past, but I had put those aside when I've decided for The Fallen), but now, thanks to phobosdeimos, I'm giving some thought to the Dornian Heresy idea.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

I know it's a chaos blog, but as the subtitle says, it is about all things 40K and miniature wargaming as well. So, in that spirit, it's my pleasure to announce a new contributor to this blog, Phobos. He is a Necron player, but a great fan of the Chaos Space Marines, Daemons and the 40K fluff as a whole. He is the main responsible in convincing me to make a Fallen Angels army as well.

Hobby Links - Part I

Hi, today I'm here with a handful of interesting links related to the hobby, to help the new players on finding resources on the web. They are loosely classified below, so enjoy!

Forums:

Warseer - The most famous Warhammer-related forum in existence, Warseer is the mandatory stop when checking for the latest news and rumours. As a forum itself there are better options now, but the opinions vary.

Heresy Online - I particularly prefer Heresy Online as a general Warhammer 40K/Fantasy forum over the Warseer. Check them both and decide by yourself ;)

A Tale of Three Editions

The 3 last rulebooks (pocket versions)

Last night I was browsing my 40K stuff, and just occurred to me that I have the 3 last rulebooks in their pocket incarnations - the versions that used to come in the starter sets (Battle for Macragge, Assault on Black Reach and Dark Vengeance, respectively). It brought me into a trip down the memory lane.