Tanksgiving 2025

This year I participated in the Tanksgiving event at the local Warhammer store. 

The idea is that you pledge to build and paint a new vehicle or monster for Warhammer 40,000 and then show up with it on the designated day to participate in a mega battle. Now, obviously, it's to get people to BUY more BIG TANKS AND MONSTERS... but you don't HAVE to buy new ones. You could bring in some old stuff still on the sprue sitting in you pile of shame... and I DID consider that - as I have more than a few Imperial Guard tanks and other vehicles I could have brought in and pledged.... but I was worried that might distract me from my plan to FOCUS on Age of Sigmar stuff... so instead I bough a brand new Great Unclean One to build and paint... and I did that:

Great Unclean One

Now... for a tank battle... A Great Unclean One probably wasn't the smartest choice... It doesn't really have much in the way of ranged attacks... (it does have a vomit attack with a range of 12" - but most tanks have guns with ranges in the neighbourhood of 24-36") and id doesn't go very fast, compared to most tanks (so the tanks could just keep backing away - if there's space). But I've never been known as one who made SMART choices, when it came to army selection... or... much of anything, but it was the one way I could assemble and paint something that would be usable in Age of Sigmar and still participate in the event, so there it is... 

I rode out to the Warhammer Store on Saturday - and ended up being a bit late - it was the first really COLD day and it was windy (cold headwind!) and a ride that normally takes me 40-45 minutes took well over an hour. I'd planned to leave early... anyway, people were supposed to show up at 3:30, but I didn't make it there until almost 4pm... and everyone was all lined up and waiting for me... which was a little embarrassing! 

The sides were split up into Imperial and NOT Imperial and the two sides were to fight until one was eliminated, then it would be free-for-all for any remaining Vehicles/Monsters

Like in the latest version of Apocalypse, damage didn't take effect until the end of the round, so if your stuff got blowed up before you got to go, you'd still have a chance to shoot/hit things. 

The winner would be determined by who dealt the most damage, in total. 

On my right was a little Leages of Votann light scout vehicle of some sort and a Chaos Knights Warhound. 

To my left was a Chaos Predator and a Genestealer Cult super heavy tank of some sort. 

There was also another Chaos vehicle... might have been a Rhino or something built on a rhino chassis. Wasn't sure if it was Thousand Sons of Nightlords or some other Traitor Marine Chapter... 

Each vehicle went through a turn entirely on their own: moving, shooting, charging, and fighting, before the next player went. 

First turn of the first round, this little warhound rocked out to the middle of the table, poured some fire into this Marine tank (Space Wolves?) and then charged it and destroyed it!? YIKES! 

It did get to shoot back on the Imperium turn... but failed to take the warhound out. 

Over on the left all the other tanks shot each other up and most died in the first round...

When the dust settled, all that was left was the Dark Angles Fellblade... 

Which was in the opposite corned of the table from me... 

I briefly considered moving forward under cover, but the Votann car and the Warhound had the same idea and, going before me, hid behind the building I was thinking to take cover behind... so I just ran at the thing... 

The Fellblade took a few shots and then charged right in... I DID get to hit it with my sword... ONCE... and dealt THREE damage... Didn't get to use my flail or vomit on it... The other two finished it off and when it exploded, it finished the rest of US off... and that was the game! 

In all I think it took less than an hour! 

Vehicles of all the participants. 

Seemed like a fun bunch of guys. 

I'd probably do it again next year... but next time I'll build one of those Guard tanks that I already have!!

Or maybe a Valkyrie? Could be funny to have a flier! John, the store manager, floated that idea at one point - suggesting maybe make it so EVERYONE had to bring a flier...? I do have an Imperial Guard Valkyrie in a box (not sure how great that would be, it's not really a fighter aircraft, it's meant to be more of a transport!). Somewhere in the house is an Ork and Aeldari fighter, gifts I'd gotten for the kids one year- when they were both still interested in 40K... but neither ever got around to building... 

If they do the Beast Feast again next year (the Age of Sigmar version of this event) I'll definitely get in on that... I have NO IDEA what I'd build and paint, that's MONTHS away... I have no idea what I'll be doing NEXT month most of the time, let alone what I'll be doing in 9-10 months... Lots of things I COULD do.. Bloodthirster... ANOHER Great Unclean One... maybe a Treelord (or I could do a Greater Daemon of some sort AND a Treelord, for Amanda to bring out!?) 

I have a few more games of Age of Sigmar lined up for this next week - and have a few more Warhammer Quest game reports to finish up - so stay tuned for those! 

Age of Sigmar: Sylvaneth Outcast Spitegrove

 Today the Battle force boxes were released... So I rolled out to Dragon's Den Games. 

Sylvaneth Outcast Spitegrove

Included in it are Twenty Dryads, Fifteen Spite-Revenants (which could also be build as Tree-Revenants) a Spirit of Durthu (which could also be built as a Treelord or Treelord Ancient) and Drycha Hamadreth (a named special character). 

I'm pretty excited to get going on these! The Sylvaneth are pretty easy to paint, so I should be able to knock them out fairly quickly. Not sure if I'll build the Spite-Revenants/Tree-Revenants right away... I might let Amanda play a few games with both and see how many of each she'd like made. If I did ten as Tree-Revenants and the other five as Spite-Revenants - that would mean we'd have two units of ten Tree-Revenants and three units of five Spite-Revenants.

I still have the Shudderblight Cyst of finish up as well... 

Well... I have a LOT of things to "finish up", but those are the two priorities at the moment. I'd like to get both all assembled and painted by the end of the year! Ideally, I'd like to get as many painted in the next two weeks as possible, because in two weeks Warhammer Quest: Darkwater is being released - and when I get that, it will become the priority for the next bit! 

The new Path to Glory campaign book - Blighted Wilds - is being released in December (I didn't think it would be out until some time in the new year!) which is the other reason to get these Sylvaneth and Maggotkin finished up!!

Later in the day, I rode out to the Warhammer Store to participate in the Tanksgiving Mega Battle.. but that'll be another post.. 

Age of Sigmar: Champions TCG

It has been a LOOOOOOOOONG time since I have played a Collectable Card Game or Trading Card Game... I have to admit, I have never actually played Magic the Gathering! I played a lot of IlluminatiL New World Order and a bunch of other weird, smaller CCGs after the bit CCG bubble burst and you could get starter decks for $3-5 or packs for 50¢ or $1... Like Rage (the werewolf game) or Dune or Kult or Mythos..

I had a lot of stuff for the Star Trek: The Next Generation CCG and one edition of Legends of the Five Rings... just because I could pick up stuff cheap... but never actually played either!?

A few years back, I discovered there had been a licensed Age of Sigmar collectable card game called Champions. At the time I was able to pick up a booster display for less than $20 (CANADIAN!?). I did some snooping around though and it was hard to find the rules (though I did eventually find some... but they'd been downloaded as screen shots from an app and lacked diagrams...) another thing I found suggested that you NEEDED the starter decks to play (I'm not 100% sure this is true... but it would be tricky to pick up enough blessings just from one booster box to play any of the factions. 

The Starter Decks just seemed too expensive... the cheapest I could find was $22 + $12 shipping and that was for Destruction (the faction deck of least interest to me... and they just went up from there... and I'd probably need at least two...) 

At some point I found someone selling a set of all four for $85... which was a bit more reasonable in terms of per unit cost... but it was STILL paying $85 for a game that may or may not suck and may or may not ever get played more than once... or... EVER!? (not that that has stopped me from buying games "on spec" before... but I'm TRYING to be more reasonable...) 

Last week I found that same seller was now selling starter displays (8 starter decks, two of each) for $85... so... 

I bought the starter display... 

Now.. it it NOT lost on me that I've STILL payed $85 for a game that I could conceivably never play... 

But I've got twice as many started boxes now!!

I could give half of them away to potential opponents!

The starter comes with a pre-constructed deck that is supposed to be playable, a booster pack (the first taste is free!), a much more readable set of rules, and a fold out paper playing matt... which isn't the highest quality... but will probably be handy for a game or two then entirely discarded once we all figure out where stuff goes. 

I wondered if this maybe came out BEFORE Warhammer Underworlds...? To maybe test the waters to see if Warhammer fans might be interested in deck-building games...? But checking the dates on Board Game Geek, this game was released the year AFTER Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire was released. It still seems crazy to me that there are new CCGs being released in this day and age... Okay it was seven years ago... but still, I thought everything that wasn't Magic the Gathering (or maybe Pokemon?) died off in the 90s or went the "Living Card Game" route that did away with random booster packs! 

Because Amanda has been busy this week, I haven't been able to get her to sit down and try it out with me (and Orion is out of town for work), so I decided this evening maybe I should just sit down and try a solo play-through to see how it works... So I busted out the Chaos and Death pre-constructed decks and set up a game. 

The only thing about solo gaming, I can't stand my opponent... 

Ugggghhh... this fucking guy... I swear he's cheating... 

I can't honestly tell if this guy is genuinely dumb as fuck or if he's just "weaponizing incompetence"... Moron. 

Anyway... seems like a fun little game that will play quick enough when I'm not trying to play BOTH sides... Solo gaming kind of works for me, I have such garbage working memory that by the time I walk around to the other side of the table to play the other side, I've completely forgotten what cards I had or what plans I'd been making moments before. Unfortunately, it takes forever, because I walk around to the other side of the table and have to re-read all the cards on THAT side and try to figure out what the hell I'd been planning... or if I'd had a plan at all!? Ultimately I end up having to come up with a whole new plan!?

Isn't that just my luck... playing Khorne and all I got is a hand full of SPELLS!? 

(there is a Tzeentch Champion in the Chaos deck - that is otherwise MOSTLY Khorne stuff - and they can cast the spells... but spells take time and you can't just fire them all off in one turn!?) 

The basic rules seem simple enough to follow... but getting the right card combinations at the right time, so you can get the timing of them right for it all to GO OFF... that's the tricky part! 

I swear, Amanda will lose the first two games, complaining viciously about the rules and how she just doesn't get it... and then I will never win a game again in my life... 

Warhammer Quest: Cursed City - Night Wars 05 - Sabotage Journey

 We played this game almost a month ago on 4 November 2025. We'd taken a break for a few weeks while Finnegan was busy with school projects... and now were back with the first of the Sabotage Journeys to disrupt the power base of Carmilla DuSang.

In these Journey's the Heroes have to hung down and kill TEN Diregoyles and Gnawbone Strays - small creatures that are the heart of DuSang's spy network. They are very fast, very small, and VERY hard to kill  - they only have one health, but each time one is damaged a d12 is rolled and on a 5+, they simply ignore the wound!! that's nearly 60% of the time!!

If that weren't bad enough... ALL the characters START each journey both Cursed and Diseased - conditions that, unless they have a treasure card that does, cannot be removed (If Cleona Zeitengale were still alive, SHE could remove them during the game... alas...). The Diseased means one of the activation dice rolled each turn is automatically reduced to a one. Cursed means any time an enemy hits one of the characters, they deal extra damage (+1/+2 - an extra damage on a regular hit, TWO extra damage on a crit). ALSO, if taken out of action during the game, each condition still on the character at the end of the game when they make their survival roll creates a -1 modifier to the roll... so, if you were still cursed and had ONE diseased marker... -2 to the roll means 25% chance of dying... 

AND, if ALL THAT weren't enough... once the timer hits "night time" (it's always night... but when the timer hits the position that would have indicated nightfall in the previous campaign) a strange mist rolls in that makes it hard to see things and regular hits no longer count, only crits and they only count as regular hits!?

So... with all of that... we began the first Sabotage Journey! 

For this first Sabotage Journey, Finnegan took DAgnai Holdenstock and Octren Glimscry. Amanda played Glaurio VenAlten III and Qulathis the Exile. 

Their first sabotage journey took them to The Tombwrack Laurels. 

Before they even left the Landing Zone, they were attacked by a pair of Vyrnkos Blood-Born vampires! 

Qulathis filled one full of arrows and Dagnai stepped out and chopped the second down with his axe. 

Then pushed through, past Qulathis, and found himself staring into a square FULL of Deadwalker Zombies and members of the Ulfenwatch! 

Octren wandered off in a different direction, only to be attacked by ANOTHER Vykros Blood-Born AND a handful of zombies and ulfenwatch!? 

The Ulfenwatch were the first to move on Dagnai! 

Glaurio, in all the confusion, couldn't decide what to do or where to go, so he just started firing his pistols at a few of the Ulfenwatch that stumbled into view... 

While he was distracted by the battles that Octren and Dagnai had found themselves in, he failed to notice ANOTHER patrol of the Ulfenwatch marching up BEHIND him! 

The fell upon him and he was injured severely! 

Glaruion VenAlten III - out of action... 

Octren tries to escape his pursuers, only to find his path blocked by MORE zombies!?

He is very quickly overwhelmed... 

and out of action... 

The Horde then turns on Dagnai... 

and he to is quickly overwhelmed and taken out... 

Glaurio digs deep and recovers well enough to shamble out of the alleyway he's secreted himself in and stand by Qulathis' side... 

Things... do NOT look great for them on the initiative track, though... 

Bats swarm Glaurio and Qulathis dances her way out of there, cutting a path and dodging past hostiles... 

She makes it into the clear and tries to go for the Extraction Zone... 

But is caught by a Vyrkos Blood-Born and blocked by Zombies... 

Down went Qulathis... 

and Glaurio... well... 

yeah... 

So that was the first failed mission in the Night Wars... 

Which isn't that big of a deal on it's own... I think the DOOM can grow to seven before you lose the campaign. 

You also lose the campaign if less than four characters remain (i.e. if five die, and three have died already!). Remember that bit about 25% chance of dying when rolling for survival after one of these Sabotage Journeys...? So the post-game survival rolls were particularly TENSE!!!

Luckily, everyone survived!! WHEW!!!

This went SO BADLY, like, right from the start.. I wondered if it was just bad luck or are these scenarios just so insanely hard that they are next to impossible to accomplish... I'm not sure they killed a SINGLE one of those little Diregoyles... every time one was revealed it just scampered off into a lynchgate and disappeared! 

Did I mention that you can't even attack them if there are ANY other hostiles that are even VISIBLE to the attacking character...!? 

I have TWO other game reports for Cursed City to catch up on, so, they don't all die in the next Journey... stay tuned for that!

I was pretty excited, later in the week, when the new Warhammer Quest: Darkwater was revealed at the BIG PREVIEW SHOW at the World Championships of Warhammer. After this scenario, I was feeling like we might need that sooner than I had expected!!

Path to Glory: Ravaged Coast - Rift in the Peaks

After fighting the Soulblights to a standstill in a nearby valley (...okay, it was a DEFEAT!), Goretim the Reddish retired to a rift in the nearby peaks, caused by recent volcanic activity to rest and regroup. The following morning, they woke to find the Soulblight army arrayed before them. Battle lines were quickly drawn up to face the hated foe once again!  

The Bloodbound quickly moved to the attack! 

Slaughterpriest Bob Bloodblob, despite being drained from a failed healing ceremony, successfully summoned a pair of Hexgorger Skulls which drifted hauntingly towards the enemy, while the Blood Warriors of the Red Wave scrambled to keep up. 

Wary of the Blood Knights opposite, Goretim the Reddish held back with his Mighty Skullcrushers. Korgachz the Beast surged forward to collect some glowing emberstone. 

The Duchess Mircalla summoned a Purple Sun of Shyish - but it was quickly banished by Bob Bloodblob (Dealing the Duchess DAMAGE!) 

The Skeleton Legions of the Soulblights surged forward and attacked the Judgements of Khorne, banishing them in their own violent way... 

The Blood Knights cantered forward, slowly building speed. 

The Vingorian Lord Consort crashed into the Blood Warriors, with Legions of Skeletons in tow! 

More skeletons attacked the Blood Reavers. 

The Blood Knights charged Goretim the Reddish, the Mighty Skullcrushers, AND the Korgorath. They would pay for their hubris... 

The Korgorath was cut down in their charge... but the Blood Knights were utterly annihilated by their foes... 

The Mighty Skullcrushers charged off after some Fell Bats that were seeking out Emberstone. 

Goretim the Reddish staked a claim at one of the sites of Emberstone.

Bloodreavers and Skeletons kept fighting. For every undead warrior smashed down, another clawed itself from the earth... 

The Mighty Skullcrushers rode down the Duchess and then charged the Vengorian Lord... and there, met their doom... 

Goretim the Reddish rejoined the battle to aid the Blood Reavers in finishing off the Skeletons, only to be assaulted by MORE Fellbats! 

With the Fellbats dealt with, Goretim the Reddish and Bob Bloodblob attacked the Vengorian Lord and fought a savage battle with them... until both sides tired and were forced to break off and retreat. 

Mr. Squiggly-Wiggly, the last of the Bloodreavers held on to the store of Emberstone. 

Another group of skeletons clawed their way up from the ground to reclaim the Emberstone Goretim had claimed... 

This is the second game I played with Orion on Thursday, immediately after playing the Blood in the Valley scenario!

This scenario was called Rift in the Peaks and was more of a "standard" scenario with forces arrayed across from each other along the long edges of the table, and a series of Objective Markers in the middle that had to be held through out the game (1 Victory Point was awarded for each of the three objectives held at the end of each of your turns!)

It was ANOTHER loss... but in the end, I claimed FIVE Emberstone Shards! It think two of those will be used to raise Goretim the Reddish to the Elite rank on the Path of the Slaughterer, gaining the Brutal Onslaught ability (ass 1 to charge rolls!) - it's not amazing... but the next rank has a CRAZY good ability! I will save the rest - to raise either Bob Bloodbloob or Goretim the Reddish to the Mighty Rank of their Paths after the next game... 

Gob Bloodblob healed the Mighty Skullcrushers, Bob Bloodblob healed the Khorgorath

I've gotten a bit behind on Game Reports - I have THREE Warhammer Quest game reports to finish up and one for a game of Bolt Action played back in OCTOBER!? Hopefully I'll get those sorted this week.

Also still working on Gossamid Archers for Amanda's Sylvaneth, but I'm not sure exactly when we'll get to play next...

Finally, this weekend is the TANKSGIVING event at the Warhammer Store - that I've been working on the Great Unclean One for... I'm not sure I'm going to survive the first turn to even HIT anything... but I'll be there and try to get some pictures of all the bit TANKS!