Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Huzzah Hobbies Sept 15th recap

Greets,


So our RTT of sept 15th was decently attended. I'm assuming there was some heavy NOVA burnout, as the event was only 2 weeks afterwards. However, it went well and was smooth.


In 1st place - Lee with Necrons
2nd - Matt S with Jetseer Eldar
3rd Pierre with Wave serpent Eldar

and our "random" award this time was for midpack, and went to Jon, with his Imperial guard army.

Thank you all for attending! Our next event will be October 20th!










Saturday, September 14, 2013

The D.C. Area 40k league is up for the fall!

I'm posting this for my friend Eric, so these are his words not mine.


“The Great Fall” 40k League 2013 Guidelines
Howdy Y’all! On Behalf of Chris Shriner, Mike Brandt, and Eric Hoerger, it is my pleasure to announce “The Great Fall” DC 40k League.

League Dates, Army List Submissions, and Schedule:
The League will consist of 6 games played over 6 weeks: 9/28-11/09. Players must register for the league by 9/25 on the Beltway Gamers forums at http://beltway-gamers.com/forums/index.php?/topic/2823-the-great-fall-40k-league/, and they will commit to a primary detachment for the duration of the league at that time. When you register, post your name, Primary Detachment, and City.Two games will be played with no restriction on lists save using the submitted primary detachment as their primary detachment.

League Dues will must be paid by 9/25 to the Iron Fist League Paypal Account: treasury@ironfistleague.com. Please note in the paypal comments section when you send the payment that it is for the “The Great Fall.”

Pairings for the league will be posted by 9/28, and will be posted to the Beltway Gamers forums.

Players will be divided into four divisions, including three geographically-influenced divisions and a champion’s league consisting of the playoff qualifiers from the IFL’s Road to the NOVA 2013. Players will play 6 other opponents in their league as designated by league commissioners. Games should be completed within 2 weeks of being scheduled, whereafter they will be treated as a loss for both players. Games can be played early if both players agree to it.

This is a 40k league so folks can get in their weekly games WHEREVER AND WHENEVER they choose - at a nearby DC game store or other suitable battle location agreed by the opponents.

A couple of DC 40k open gaming nights for your consideration are: Tues at IFL game central – aka Brittany's Restaurant , Woodbridge, VA; Wed at Dream Wizards , Rockville, MD; Thurs at Game Vault , Fredericksburg, VA; and Fri at Eagle and Empire , Alexandria, VA.

League games will be played without a time limit and will end per 6th Ed Basic Rule Book criteria.

Army Lists Guidelines

League Rules for Army Lists
  • Each player may field a single detachment of up to 1850 points.
  • Allied detachments are allowed, and follow the allied detachment rules found in the Warhammer 40k rulebook.
  • Forgeworld units and lists are not allowed.
  • Players may take up to one fortification entry consisting of no more than 200 points.
  • Players may select primary and allied detachments from any codex released before September 8th. Codex: Space Marines is legal for use.
For League play we will accept proxies with the goal of a fully painted WYSIWYG by the playoffs. If a top 8 army does not meet this standard by the playoffs they will be disqualified - the next ranked player down will be invited to the playoffs and so on until the 8 player requirement is met. A player can always petition the Commissioners for a waiver if there are extenuating circumstances that prevent meeting the established standards.

Players will be required to submit final lists by October 14th, which will then be used for the duration of the league and the postseason. Submit Lists via PM to the League Commissioners on the Beltway Gamers Forums; cc all 3 of us in the PM.

All lists will be posted by October 15th to the Beltway Gamers forums.

The League will use the NOVA FAQ, which can be found at novaopen.com
Playoffs:
Playoffs will consist of eight players consisting of the top two qualifiers from each division at the end of league play. Standings will be determined by first win-loss then battlepoints, as per the IFL Road to the NOVA.

Playoffs will be held on Saturday, November 16th, location TBD Note: the playoff date does not correspond with either the 11th Company or Da Boyz Grand Tournaments.

League Fees and Prize Awards:

The Warhammer 40k DC Fall League will have a buy-in of $27. Prizes will be given in proportion to the amount of buy-in dues received, minus the cost of lunch and refreshments for the playoffs and the administrative cost of processing paypal payments. Prizes in the playoffs will be awarded first by W-L and then by battle points amongst those with the same W-L record.
1st: 35%
2nd: 20%
3rd: 15%
4th: 10%
5th: 5%
6th: 5%
7th: 5%
8th: 5%
Missions
Missions are a mix of missions from the upcoming fall GT events: Feast of Blades, Battle for Salvation/11th Company, and Da Boyz GT. As Battle for Salvation and the 11th Company GT both use NOVA Missions, we have including two missions from NOVA Open 2013 to give practice to attendees of these events.
Missions can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qpby__1EHCXLz0hPeGUbFhQgwrwFJuIomsQhVnRlqjM/edit?usp=sharing

League Commissioners Contact Information

To contact league commissioners, please reply to league threads on the Beltway Gamers forums. Alternatively you can PM League Commissioners directly on either the Beltway Gamers or Iron Fist League Forums. Please include all three of us in any rules discussions, questions, or concerns.

Usernames: Patton, MVBrandt, Shrinedawg

Thursday, September 12, 2013

YourHobbyPlace 40k RTT 1850 Sept 28th


9/28/2013 Saturday- Warhammer 40K Tournament 1850 points! Starting at 1:00pm
Entry fee - $5


This is located at YourHobbyPlace, an excellent hobby store located in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

For those of you in the northern Virginia / Maryland area, its about an hour and some change drive.


The event is a three round, battle points / rulebook based missions.

I always try to attend the RTT's there, and I recommend you all do as well! The terrain is varied themed for each board. Dave the owner runs a good event, and the store itself is quite nice. The Meta, as it were, is varied, and not normally any builds that you'd expect for big GT's.

http://yourhobbyplace.com/

Give it a go!



Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Nova shames, Painting updates

So NOVA is done.  I should probably have an extensive posts on my games as they were actually quite interesting. I did very well, and almost won my bracket. I quite literally, lost the game for myself, which has had me somewhat upset. I know a lot of people "say" that, that is, that they lost the game for themselves. But in this case its quite literal.

I took two dangerous terrain tests on a biker lord, thinking that he needed to, and caused two wounds. This sounds fine, except the problem is, he was attached to a squad with move through cover, which confers... =( So I didn't need to take the tests. This was compounded, as last turn, I broke him away from the squad in a desperate bid to last turn contest an objective my opponent was holding. This was fine, except in a effort to save time, I asked my opponent if I could go ahead and move the full 24" in the movement phase. He agreed, all was well. Then my vector striking helldrake nocked said squad off of the objective, meaning bro didn't need to be there anymore. Of course, there's no backsies on the lord being there, so I'm stuck now with a move I wouldn't have made if I hadn't been hasty. On top of that, my opponent (quite rightly I might add), blasted him in the bottom of the turn in a bid to get slay the warlord + an extra kill point (to win on Tertiary objectives). It all came down to a single 4+ dice roll (lord is T6 and hard to wound). Which I failed.

So he won.

If I hadn't taken the dangerous tests unnecessarily, he would have been cool beans bro, giving me the win. Him dying gave my opponent 2 points, which flipped the game from me winning by 1, to him winning by 1.

Shame on me.

I don't want to sound bitter or angsty towards my opponent. Its my fault and my poor knowledge of the rule. It's just how it goes. I'm just annoyed at myself.

I've been doing this forever, so there's a lot of wounds I've taken over the interval of the last year, improperly.

/le sigh



So back on track, i'll post up game recaps in the near future.

I've been painting models, as I felt obliged to for some strange reason. So I decided to paint my ravenwing army that came with my dark vengeance box sets. I decided I'd go all out on Sammael to set the theme. See the pics below. He's not quite done but he's pretty close.







Enough people have posted about the new vanilla marines codex, I don't feel obliged to comment at this second except to say that i'm pleasantly surprised. I was expecting more OP bullshit like wave serpents, and found nothing of the sort.

I do see the further death dirge of vehicles being sung by vanilla marines though. Those grav guns are ridiculously stupid strong vs. vehicles.

Everyone keeps going, oh but you need a 6 penetration result. So what? You're firing enough volume, and with the potential for re-rolls from tank hunters or other buffs, you're going to get more than enough of them.

One squad of bikers fires 6 shots, 3.96 hits, so rolling roughly 4 dice to see if you get a 6. If you roll even one 6, it basically cripples the fucking thing.  You roll a second one, and if its 3 HP or less, its gone! BAM! (Immobilized results are -2 HP if already immobilized).

How many times do you roll a quad gun hoping for 5's and 6's to pen or glance a flier?

Exactly.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Reminder: RTT at Huzzah Hobbies this sunday. September 15th. 2k no double FOC

Just wanted to remind everyone that our monthly RTT at Huzzah hobbies is approaching this Sunday! Since NOVA season has ended for now, we will be switching to 2k, (1999+1) so no double FOC.

As a note, I will be allowing the new vanilla marines codex, so if interested, feel free to bring it.


as always  - registration starts at 10am, first game at 1045. Entry is 15 and covers lunch. The rest is rolled directly into prize support. As usual we do not require any painting or fancing basing.

For those interested in proxying models, as long as you don't have any other models of that type in your army, and they have a passing resembelance to the models being proxied, proxies are O.K.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Black Legion thoughts

Well its been a while, my absence in large part caused by preparations for the NOVA, and my familial obligations. Those are now past. Huzzah! sort of!


So as promised, thoughts on the Black Legion first.

Black Legion troops/infantry are actually worse than regular CSM This could have been so so so so so much better. It solved none of the inherent problems in CSM, in fact, makes them worse.. Troops are now more expensive. The largest problem of CSM is that troops are so expensive, with so little output for the price, that they are not worth taking under almost any circumstances. Cultists and plague marines are the only models vaguely worth their point cost, but even then, no one expects real damage output from them, more of just, duck and cover to hold objectives. 
So now you get the same infantry, but worse, because they cost more. Oh and i suppose you could argue that the buff vs. loyalist marines + LD bonus makes it worthwhile, it helps, but ultimately leaves you dissatisfied as again, how are you going to deliver these guys meaningfully? Also, if your losing combat with CSM and/or forced to take game changing leadership tests, you're probably doing it wrong. (TAKE FEARLESS MODELS)

Transport problems are still there

No way for anyone other than terminators to take a LR as a dedicated transport, not solving the assault issue. No reduced point costs on rhinos to make them worth taking and essentially offering first blood to your opponent with. Even if you want to take these power armored bodies, why would you? They'll get blown off the board by Eldar, Tau, or the new vanilla marines.

The new Artifacts are great, except you can't really take them on the HQ's you want to.
My real beef, I want that eternal warrior artifact on my juggernaut lord so bad it hurts. Except I can't, because you can't cross beams, errr, artifacts. The new daemon weapon they put in the book, +1I, is ok - but seriously, the AP2 Axe is soooo much better its not even funny. AP2 meele weapons makes any ones assault pizza, when they want to french fry, its always a good thing.
So are the new artifacts worth it? Yes, sort of - . The penetrating hits artifact is hilarious, but versus a good opponent, likely to be so situational to the point of non-use. The Eternal warrior / Admantium will one is obviously good. The daemon weapon is ok... The rest I wouldn't go near. Its not worth risking a single bad roll ( i know you can re-roll with a spell familiar, but still) and losing a super expensive psyker. The insta-gib gauntlet is interesting, but only useful if you can somehow guarantee you're going to hit, i.e., re-roll that miss you're going to do 1/3 the time or more.
so, meh
meh
meh

More FOC slots to play with
So here is the meat and potatoes of the Black Legion. Everyones automatically thinking, OMGZZZ 4 helldrakes, ok, congrats, you're probably the several millionith player to think that, and then immediately follow up with, omgzz that'd be so OP!.
Except that it isn't, its actually really bad. 680 points of, now I don't have any ground elements, so my opponents are just going to move past my guys 90 degree pivot arcs, shoot my rear armor, and laugh if you decide to hover just to make sure you get that flame template laid down somewhere useful. Well, I guess to be fair, having played one enough, I realize you can make helldrake almost always be useful every turn almost regardless, but still. It's not going to win you a game vs. properly done Tau, or eldar serpent spam.

Something to watch out for now -  snap fired grav guns salvoing into your helldrake are going to make them facepalm real hard. Locked velocity is a bitch. If your opponent is smart, he's going to salvo the shit out of you.

Helldrakes are best at killing small squads, and more specifically, space marines. If you expect to be playing vs. marines regularly, take 1, or 2 even! Otherwise, stick with 1. To be fair, 1. 1 will win you that match up vs. ravenwing, or white scars, as it may be, or let you go chase down eldar jetbikes.
Golden rule of helldrake - Always take 1, never more than 2. Oh and always take the flamer, because seriously if you take the hades cannon...

I got side-tracked, so what do more FOC slots mean? Well, more of the things where CSM actually doesn't suck, and is costed mostly appropriately! That means another maulerfiend, squad of oblits, 2nd helldrake, or 3rd spawn squad.

Are these things better than daemon allies? My gut tells me no, but the time I spent painting a land-raider, a counts-as abaddon, and terminators, tell me it'd better, or else!

Irony time
So its actually far better to take Abaddon in your primary detachment, use him as a replacement beat-stick lord (Say a swap out for the juggy lord), and then take a cheap-o allied sorcerer or lord in the black legion detachment. This helps avoid the VoTLW tax, not to mention, his warlord trait is now way more useful as people begin to bandwagon marines again.

The fluff is very well done
This, A+, seriously no sarcasm. I enjoyed reading the entire thing.

No real changes to playstyle.
If you played CSM before, this is just the same thing. Nothing is going to change in the overall mechanics of the army.


I'm seriously considering using abaddon now, as he he gives me one more super beefy, CC until, that can multi-roll thanks to his two pwnage weapons. He's also good in a pinch to tank something with eternal warrior.

I'm leaning towards him more and more every day.