This Week in 40K Podcasting – 01/17/2013 – 01/23/2014

Welcome to another installment of “This Week in 40K Podcasting,”

Here is this week’s top 5!

Highlights:  This week Kenny, James, Chumbalaya, and Terry C4 are joined by a special guest Brad.  They kicked off the show with some announcements before discussing their hobby progress and games played lately.  This included Brad then filled us in on his gamer background and history and Kenny’s tales from the Space City Con RTT.  In the next segment, the guys hit on a subject that brought up by the 11^th Company about how they believe that GW does not take responsibility for the rules to their game.  They discussed the new Dataslates and what they brought to the table, including the dreaded Tau Firebase Cadre, and the whopping price for the Cypher rules.  They then hit on how much it doesn’t make sense to not care about the rules of your game and how a balanced rule set could only help the game.  They gave some very specific examples of thing they feel need addressed, which included rules, prices, and much more.  In the final segments, the guys posed some interesting solutions to correcting the game of 40K as it stands now.  What would you do to fix this?  

Opinion:  This is a real hot button topic in the competitive community as a whole and I was really interested to see what they guys thoughts were.  With Escalation, Dataslates, 2+ re-rollable saves, and much more, the community has really start to take a stand on where they feel the game is and how it could possibly be corrected.  I do which they had focused a bit more on what they thought would be good solutions to the problem, but overall all of what they had some significance to it.  Great show, my top pick for the week!

Highlights:  This week the boys continue their coverage of the new Tyranid Codex and attempt to make some competitive lists.  They opened up the show with what they have been up to lately in gaming and the hobby.  They moved on to the listener poll which was ‘Is the Tyranids the first failed Codex of 6^th Edition’.  They then discussed the Models of the week, which were all Firestorm Armada models.  Then (at the 31:30 minute mark) they guys moved on to their Tyranid list building segment.  Lange started off by admitting that he was pretty sure he was making a list he liked and moved on to his list, which was basically a lot of what was good in the last edition, with the additions of some tactics on how to keep his troops from braking.  Nathan did a more complete evaluation of his list (being a Tyranid player) and drew up a ‘best-of’, loads of bodies, all with the aid of an Aegis Defense line.  They moved on to discuss if their feelings on the Codex have changed at all after an additional week to soak it in.  They closed out the show with some discussion about Game of Thrones. 

Opinion:  I am a huge fan of the ‘List Building’ follow-up shows that precede their Codex reviews, and this one had to have been a challenge for the boys with this particular codex.  I do wish Lange had done a bit more homework on his list but overall the guys did their best with what they had.  A good, fun show, I’d check this one out. 

Highlights:  The first big tournament in the UK has come and gone and the boys take a look at their performance in part one of their coverage of Caledonian Uprising!  They opened up the show by looking at the Caledonian Uprising tournament, which included a brief history of the event, the rules, the missions they will be running, and some key round one matchups.  Next, in the ‘Match Live’, Dave (Screamer Council) and Franco (O’Vesa Star) have a match where they are preparing for the big Caledonian Uprising event.  They put Franco in the worst possible position with mission and deployment and have him try to fight his way out of it.  Next, since all of the lists that will be at Caledonian Uprising were published online, the boys decided to go through some of what they considered to be the stronger players and more powerful lists that will be attending the event. 

Opinion:  This was an interesting show, more like a pre-show to the first big event of the calendar year.  I appreciate that the guys decided to go with this as a solo show before giving their full blown evaluation of the event.  I really liked the final segment, where they took what they thought were the top lists in the field and evaluated them.  There were a lot of great tips and nuggets of knowledge to be found here.  I’m looking forward to hearing how the guys did at the event! 

Highlights:  This week the guys are talking about the big Caledonian Uprising event that they recently attended.  Josh Roberts, who won the whole event, also joined the cast to discuss his big win.  They opened up by talking about each of the lists that they took to the event, how and why they were constructed that way, and some of their tactics going in.  They then moved on to a round-by-round review of each of their five games, which included all of the key moments of the game, their tactics going in, and the overall outcome of the game.  This was jam packed with all sorts of tactical discussion and loads of great tips and ideas.  They closed out the show by reviewing how most of the top-killer list like Screamer-star, O’Vesa-star, and Tau-Eldar did not perform as well at this particular event. 

Opinion:  This show was a real treat to hear from Josh Roberts who won the Caledonian Uprising event.  I am a big fan of the round-by-round evaluations of their game and there was just a load of useful information to be found here.  The sound quality was a bit shaky but aside from that, a really good show.

Highlights:  This week Alan is joined by Cory and Larry and they look at the new Tyranid Codex!  They opened up the show with what they have been up to lately in gaming and the hobby.  Next, in the news, they talked about the new White Dwarf format, both weekly and monthly, some rumors out there, like fundamental changes that GW is rumored to be making with their poor finical reports, dropping 4 WFB models, and much more.  Next, the guys moved on to a discussion about their preparations for Adepticon 2014!  This included quite a bit on Malifaux and rules discussion, display board construction, painting in the hotel, and much more.  They then talked about the recent WFB even they attended, Siege at the Tower.  They closed out the show with their brief look at the new Tyranid Codex.  They started by talking about how underpowered this codex really feels and how much it lost versus what it gains.  The covered the Army Special rules like Instinctive Behavior, Shadow in the Warp, and Synapse.  They moved on to cover all of the Psychic Powers available to the Tyranids before covering the new models that came with the book, The Hive Crone/Harpy and the Harspex/Exocrine, and the units that they lost including the Spore Pod, the Doom and more.  They then talked about how the feel of the army has changed from the previous version and how the army will now play different. 

Opinion:  This show is really starting to grow on me and I am becoming a real fan of Alan and his show.  Each week it is expanding, getting better, and has much more content to us to absorb.  Now, this show did touch on a few non-40K games.  If you look past that however, there was a lot of great 40K content here.  The gem for me was the look the guys had at the new Tyranid Codex.  It was clear this look was from a non-competitive view and I appreciated all of the positives they found there.  Great show guys! 

Honorable Mentions– All great podcasts that just missed this cut this week, but you should still check them out, in no particular order:

Signals from the Frontline ***Explicit*** General Gaming News, Rumors, List Reviews, Tactics, and Rants!

Skaredcast – Episode 75 Escalation Warlord Traits, NEW Tyranids, and more.

Second Founding – Episode 46 Hobby Year in Review

6’s to Hit – Episode 46 ***Explicit*** A Brief Look at the new Nids and other games

Life After the Cover Save – Episode 95 ***Explicit*** Weekend Warrior and antics

So, that is it for This Week in 40K podcasting, thanks for reading. Got a podcast all about 40K, or mostly 40K that I am not listening to? Let me know about it, [email protected] and let me know about it.  Also you can find me on My YouTube Channelfor Battle Reports, Tactics, Reviews and more! Disagree with my review? Post comments for that too!