Category Archives: 215th Praetorian

BOYL ’22 – Last Stand at Glazer’s Creek

09 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by in 215th Praetorian, BOYL, OldHammer

≈ 35 Comments

Greetings Terrans, it has been a while since I posted (again), been away on hols for a bit, plus work & study are both kicking the crap out of me at the moment… Finding the time to do anything else is just so damn difficult! That said, I did make my annual pilgrimage to Newark this past weekend – BOYL is one event I will always do my very best to attend. I has a blast this year, it was great to see so many familiar faces, plus I got to meet some awesome new people too. This year I put my Space Orks and my Praetorian Guard to good use, and I GM’d the ‘Last Stand at Glazer’s Creek’ scenario from WD222 on repeat. I managed to run the scenario three times, with a total of 11 individual games of Rogue Trader played (each run through has a variable number of assaults with each assault being a game). I didn’t get to see much else & I was bloody knackered by the end of the weekend, but it was so worth it. The results were as follows:

1st run through – James H (Orks) vs. Jesper (Praetorians), 5 games total. This was a bit of a practice run, refining rules & adjusting things for balance. Result was a narrow Orky win.

2nd -Paul D (Orks) vs. ‘other Paul’ (Praetorians), 3 games in total. Crushing Ork win – as an inexperienced Guard player, ‘other Paul’ was overwhelmed in the last round & couldn’t hold the farm.

3rd – Chris W (Orks) vs. ‘other Chris’ and Dan (Praetorians), 3 games in total. Narrow Praetorian win – mainly de to some masterful play from ‘other Chris’ in the final assault, (plus a little bit of luck with an out-of-control Ork Dreadnought torching a mob of Boyz!).

There were far too many twists and turns to list here, but suffice it to say that everyone got into the spirit, and this was a great narrative gaming experience. One highlight was having none other than Jervis Johnson (the gaming legend who wrote the scenario back in the day) stop by & chat a bit about the scenario! I was a bit star struck & didn’t dare ask for a photo, but he was a genuinely lovely guy who was so generous with his very limited time there. He probably doesn’t realise it but he made my bloody day 😊  

Here are some pics to hopefully give you a flavour of the game:

The defending force – elements of the Dauntless 215th plus auxiliaries

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Ready for the 1st assault of the weekend

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Savage Orks closing quickly!

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Rogue Trader Arturo Lamina proves his skill in combat

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As does Captain Caine

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I think this is the start of the final assault of game 3 – look at all those Orks! Faasends of ’em!

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This mob of Orks were unimpressed with the imperial mortar fire!

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Rogue Trader Lamina at it again

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And Capt. Caine doing the same, despite sustaining grievous wounds to overwatch

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A heroic (and suicidal) dash over the barricade to deliver a devastating blast of flamer fire

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The Orks finally break, with just 5 humans left to defend Glazer’s Creek… Close!

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Huge thanks to Jesper & James, Paul & Paul, and Chris, Dan & Chris for being such excellent players – you all made it a great experience with tons of laughs, tension, excitement, and occasional flashes of tactical genius! I hope you lads all enjoyed it as much as I did.

3 Peaks Challenge done!

22 Wednesday Jun 2022

Posted by in 215th Praetorian

≈ 24 Comments

Greetings Terrans, a rare non-hobby post today but I wanted to report that I successfully completed the 3 Peaks Challenge last weekend! I believe the phrase is ‘smashed it’ judging by how much the youngsters in the group used the term. The sub-group that I was in managed all the walking in 13 hours & the done thing is to then add 9 hours for ‘optimal driving’ to give a total of 23hrs. In reality we were 2 hours over this due to a traffic delays & diversions, and for legally required driver breaks, but the T+9 method is apparently fine so I’m calling it a Win 😊

The group were great, and as the second oldest, I was delighted that I managed to keep up on the ‘ups’, though I did find the ‘downs’ tough. My feet took the brunt of it & are pretty battered now, but everything else held up well – much to my relief! The overall tiredness was hard, & snatching the odd hour of poor quality sleep on a minibus isn’t great physically or mentally, but we all got through it in (mostly) good spirits. The level of cold was also fun, with a perceived temperature of -10 Celsius / 14 Fahrenheit on the top of Ben Nevis, and -5c / 23f on the others… pretty serious stuff!

Overall, the wider group (something like 56 of us) had raised £55,000 for Mind at the time we started the challenge, which is just incredible. That said, my Just Giving page is still open if anyone missed it, or were just waiting to see if I actually finished the challenge! I don’t know how long it stays open, but it’s here:

Alex Jelley is fundraising for Mind (justgiving.com)  

Finally, I just want to thank you again for all of the support, and for the personal messages of encouragement – they really did mean a lot to me, and I am very grateful.

Have a pretty picture of the view from Scafell Pike in return :-)

Hobby update

06 Monday Jun 2022

Posted by in 215th Praetorian

≈ 28 Comments

Greetings Terrans, I have a bit of a general update post for you today – a bit of an odds-and-sods photo dump really!

Fist up, some excellent Bob Olley Beastmen courtesy of the incredibly generous Azazel:

One of them was missing a weapon so I popped on a Bolt Pistol with a view to having them as an Abhuman squad in my one-day Bob Olley Rogue Trader army… These fellas have literally travelled around the world & were a real pleasure to paint – I am so happy to give them a home Az, I can’t thank you enough dude!

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Next, sticking with the Rogue Trader theme, I painted up these Bob-bots that Ninjabread Chris had made up:

These were great fun, perfect for a wet afternoon of speed painting!

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Finally, I found enough bits to make a Witch-elf:

I painted her to match my other DoK, and the rather OTT pose was entirely forced by using a helmet to match her colleagues… She’s a bit goofy, but I kinda like the ridiculousness of the pose, and happily, getting her finished means that I was able to round out this quartet to make an actual unit!

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I think that’ll do for this week – I have a few more random bits to share, but it’ll be more Realm-of-Warcry next week :-)