Cinquecento plans, Kill Team success, and a tiny Old World replay tool
Sometimes our hobby chat turns into three different events at once, and honestly, we love when that happens.
Over the last two days we had a bit of everything: post-game thoughts after Cinquecento, rules digging for Warhammer: The Old World, early plans for a possible home-grown Warhammer 40k 500-point format, tournament updates from Kill Team, and even a very early prototype of a battle replay tool.
First: that Cinquecento round 1 post really landed
Stas dropped the link to our latest report from round one and immediately called it maybe the best-written post so far. We’ll take that. Maybe we really are learning how to talk about our games in a way that makes these writeups feel more alive.
The best part is that the game itself clearly stuck with us. Stas admitted he was genuinely surprised by how well the Orcs performed this time. Usually, as he put it, he’s used to needing a lot of space off to the side for casualties. This time? Not so much. That alone tells you a lot about how the battle went.
Rules chat, frenzy upgrades, and the usual post-battle archaeology
As always after a game, one match report quickly turned into a mini-rules seminar. Michał was checking how Frenzy works and whether it forces charges in the way he thought, while Stas explained that in the Orcs & Goblins list it comes through army composition upgrades rather than just the universal rule alone.
That led to a useful little exchange about Savage-style upgrades in The Old World: no regular armour, but shields are fine, and upgraded warpaint can still give a ward save. Exactly the kind of thing that is easy to miss when you’re still internalising a faction book.
Stas even threw in a screenshot from the army rules to clarify the point:
And then Michał found another rule snippet he’d missed earlier:
This is one of our favourite parts of campaign and league play: even after the dice stop rolling, the game keeps going in the chat.
Round 2 is coming, and apparently we may need more mats
The practical side of event prep showed up too. Stas decided he was going to buy a latex mat, partly because next Thursday we’re planning to play both Cinquecento round 2 games in the same evening, and partly because, well, it’s nice to have hobby things.
That turned into the kind of wonderfully specific terrain-and-accessories discussion that every Warhammer group eventually has: latex or rubber, anti-slip or not, what transports better, what stores more easily. Very glamorous stuff.
And in the middle of that, Stas also asked the most important logistical question of all: are we actually all locked in for second round next Thursday?
Sounds like yes.
Maybe a Cinquecento… but for Warhammer 40k?
At the same time, Wilini floated a fun idea: once The Old World settles down a bit, maybe we should run our own small-format event in Warhammer 40k. The pitch was simple: 500 points, just to see who enjoys the game.
His summary was perfect:
- simpler than The Old World,
- more complicated than Age of Sigmar,
- small enough to get people playing quickly.
He even immediately put together a 495-point Black Templars list, because of course he did.
- Emperor’s Champion with The Honour Vehement
- Marshal with Artificer Armour
- Intercessors
- Bladeguard Veterans
- Sword Brethren
That sounds like exactly the kind of compact, punchy little force that can make tiny 40k games feel very serious very quickly.
Also: preorders are live
Somewhere in the middle of all this, End3r dropped a preorder screenshot into the chat — the universal signal for “you may now begin making irresponsible but emotionally correct decisions.”
Stas is still experimenting with Orcs, not just chasing the obvious build
Michał also sent Stas a recommendation for Square Based Old World, pointing him toward streams featuring a successful Orcs & Goblins list running a pile of fanatics.
Stas’s response was very relatable: yes, fanatics are strong, yes, they’re hilariously random, but going all-in on them still feels a bit too easy for where he is right now. For the moment, he wants to explore the army a bit more broadly rather than immediately defaulting to the most notorious package.
We respect that a lot. Sometimes half the fun of a faction is deliberately not taking the most obvious path first.
Big weekend for End3r in Kill Team
While the rest of us were theorycrafting, End3r was out there actually grinding games.
He reported in from a Kill Team event with a strong day-one result: 2 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss after four games, including a very tight 15:13 finish in the fourth round. At that point he was sitting 19th after four rounds, in a field of around 70 players.
That is already a fantastic result, and we said so immediately.
Even better, he mentioned that he drew against a player who had recently gone to Worlds, which tells you a lot about the level of competition. Not bad at all.
The event was being tracked on Best Coast Pairings, which End3r pointed out is where Kill Team officially lives for stats and event reporting.
A few other details from the event really made us smile:
- four games in one day is exhausting,
- but 2h15 per round felt much more humane than the tighter local schedule,
- several people came over to talk about his Salamanders paint scheme,
- and apparently the Warsaw team Northhammer already asked whether he wanted to join them for a Master event in Poznań in May.
That last one especially feels like one of those hobby milestone moments. You show up, play well, your army looks good, people notice.
And then Stas casually revealed he built a battle replay tool
This might be the most “our group” part of the whole conversation.
Out of nowhere, Stas shared an ultra-early MVP version of a Warhammer: The Old World battle replay tool, built around his Cinquecento game against Michał’s Skaven. He was very clear that it’s rough right now: animations are wonky, there are no spells, no heroes, no fanatics, and in general it only really knows how to replay the specific kind of game they had just played.
Which, honestly, makes it even more charming.
He shared the replay page here:
And he also showed the editor interface he’s using to build those reports:
Naturally, because this is still early days, he also discovered that his reconstructed replay only came out as two rounds even though he was sure the actual battle lasted four. That is such a perfect first-version problem that we can’t even be mad at it.
Honestly, though? Even as a prototype, this is a super exciting direction. If we can turn our games into lightweight visual replays, that could become an amazing companion to written battle reports.
Where we are right now
So at the moment, our hobby table looks something like this:
- Cinquecento round 2 is coming next week,
- Orcs & Goblins are still being explored in a way that feels fun rather than solved,
- we’re toying with the idea of a tiny Warhammer 40k event of our own,
- Kill Team is delivering some genuinely excellent tournament results,
- and somehow we now also have the beginnings of a custom Old World replay app.
Pretty good for two days of chat.
If this is what our “between games” conversations look like, we’re very curious what the next actual event night is going to produce.