Triage Terrain LED kits - RTT At Huzzan Recap, New Fortification review

Soooo.. I could make up excuses as to why I havn't posted in a while, but who needs those!? Lets just get on with the 40k!

 

So FIRST! I lit up my helldrake with some lighting kits from TriageTerrain. TriageTerrain is now wicked awesome, mostly because they dropped their prices on their kits by half! That's crazy! So you can now light up all of your army really cheaply! (5 dollars a kit) I'd suggest going there and picking up some LED kits. They also have just components if you think you're a smarty pants and just want parts.

 

Why I really like their kits? Because they are essentially plug and play. Each wire comes with a socket you simply plug the next connector into. No need to glue, solder, or otherwise figure out how to join wires. They also include instructions for wiring, and necessary resistors ect to make sure you don't blow up the LED light. (I had a green one I blew up by removing the resistor, it was kinda cool but .. sad).  Sooo BAM!

 

BAM! Suck on that non lit up helldrakes!
Go cry in the corner with your jealousy.
 

SOOO. Two weeks prior I ran an RTT at Huzzah Hobbies, As normal this RTT was on the 3rd Sunday of every month. Meaning our next one is on August 18th.

This event was well attended, with 18 people in attendance! Woo! Pizza was had by all, and sodas, and doughnuts! Everyone likes doughnuts right? Sure...

So our winners were, Eric H, with "Flavor of the month". Anthony with Dark Eldar, and third place was to.. um, I seriously forgot his name! I'm sorry. I'll update the blog post later with your proper name!

In keeping with our (Jon P and I) tradition of having a wild card prize instead of 4th place, this time we decided to go with the person in the statistical dead center of Win/Loss and battlepoints of the pack picking up the  4th award.

 Some highlights of the event included Pierre attempting to tank shock 3-4 kroot squads which had perfectly lined up in his backfield with his razorback wall. A guy who brought conscripts (you know, the buddies who come back to life after dying), Andrew G rolling about a billion 1's in a row vs. dark eldar turn 1 (never a good thing) and a hyper-enthusiastic ringer utilizing the new fortifications to see how good they were.




So congrats to all the gamers. I think everyone had a good time! I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again later this month. It's last ditch chance to practice those nova lists before the NOVA!





SURPRISEEEE IT WAS ME ALL ALONG!

Speaking of using those fortifications. I love them. Adore them. I want to pet them and take them to bed with me. They're soo pretty......


Ok no seriously though, they are really good. The battlecannon fortifications work a little like this. Deploying an AV14 building that automatically fires a BS2, S8 AP3, Ordinance, 72" large blast at the closest legal target. You can place the template anywhere you want over said unit, just make sure the unit itself is the closest. If you opt for what I consider the shittier version of the fortification, it has the punisher cannon. 20 shots, S5, AP -, but its also 10 pts cheaper.

The building itself is a little larger than a rhino (see the picture for size comparisons). It provides impassible 3+ cover saves (being a fortification). Currently, due to the language of the guns being purchased for them, the thoughts in the NOVA area, is that they can not be targeted separately.

So you set up these bad boys during the terrain phase of deployment, and watch your opponent squirm! They can be set up anywhere no your board half, and don't need to be next to each other. I find myself deploying them on opposite board ends to ensure they always get a decent target. It also keeps them from dying together to a determined assault.

Also, all you Tyranid players out there upset you couldn't make use of weapons like the quad-gun, here you go. These guys auto-fire, meaning, you can use them!

So, that should illustrate why they are good.

Also they look really cool, seriously, when all painted up.

The other fortification, the firestorm redoubt, is essentially a bastion which is not very tall (just taller than a razorback), but fires 4 BS 2 twin linked las cannons a turn at the closest flying target, and failing that, closest target period. It can be occupied and has one gun slit in the front like a bunker. So again, tyranids rejoice! You can park some gaunts inside and fire 4 lascannons a turn for the low low price of a ton of points.



Next Post - The finish of the IFL league.

RTT at Huzzah Hobbies 1850k, Sunday 7/21.

Greets all,

I've been MIA for a bit, work caught up with me and slammed me.

I want to remind everyone that our monthly RTT at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn, VA, will take place this Sunday! (7/21). The entry fee is the same as always, 15 dollars. All entry fee's go towards lunch/drinks and prize support. Registration starts at 10am, and the first games start rolling at 10:45. Call the store and let us know if you are running late and we will hold spots for you. (703) 466-0460

We do not require any painting or fancy basing. Just make sure that models are as close to WYSIWYG as possible, and you don't use models incorrectly. Please bring several copies of your list for your opponents!

Or text my phone those unfortunate few who have my number!


Show up! Have fun!

We will be playing NOVA missions, which ones will be randomly decided at the time.



In other news I was silly and picked up the new Apocalypse kits over the past weekend. My next post will cover the new "rules" for the terrain, but for now let me post pics of the big guy. Who does look way better in person than in photographs btw.  I also made it into the top 8 players for our IFL league, so there will be a final RTT on August 4th to decide the grand champion of that *cough cough* Gonyo *cough cough*.. oh excuse me there.

Week 5 - IFL 40k Rematch, nurgling additions!.

So

Happy Belated Independence Day to my American readers. Todays post recaps an 1850 40k game I played vs. Tyranid, and some painting for my army. I have not posted for a while due to extreme work hours and general updating / painting my army some more. I had someone who will remain anonymous, but a paint judge for a "large" event (not adepticon), tell me that my army lacked a cohesive theme, and that it make no sense that I had red guys, and green guys, mixed with some black guys. Needless to say it was blatantly obvious this individual had no idea what the fluff is for Chaos Daemons, or Chaos Space marines. Explaining it too this individual didn't help either. (EDIT here based on Tim's feedback, original comment cut).

That said, I decided if said paint judge was unable to figure out a theme in my army, then I'd spruce it up some as no doubt there will be future paint judges who are also unable to find a theme, for any number of reasons, or probably shouldn't be paint judges in the first place. See my post about Adepticon's 2013 lack-luster paint judges.

So that out of the way, I've decided my love for Papa Nurgle only grows deeper day by day. After all, out of all of the Chaos Gods, only he truly cares for his children. He actually turns his followers into Plague Bearers when they die, rather than oh say, devouring their souls, or just being really uncaring, or a douche who uses everyone for his own ends which maybe he doesn't even know. Fuck those guys, seriously. Come join me in my worship of Nurgle.

He's throwing the little guy

He's taunting you because he's better than you
and you know it.

Riding him around like he's his daddy

I love the tongue pulling action

 
 
 
Week 5 - IFL Match Vs. Benjammin'

Night fight - Yes
First Turn, rolled by me, given to Ben
Seize - No

Mission - The mission consisted of several primary objectives each worth a number of points. Slay the Warlord - 1, LineBreaker - 1, Center Objective - 1, having more corner objectives than opponent - 2.

Whoever had the most points at game end wins.
I took two Close combat weapon rewards (instant death, plague flail) on my Herald. The Plague Drone Sarg took the instant death sword. My warlord trait was to infiltrate d3 units.. (yay uselesssss...). Ben rolled Iron Arm for all of his Tervigons, and  a few Endurance's here and there. The Flyrant got Endurance I believe.

Turn 1 - FIGHT!

This is Deployment. Ben ran his models forward, and fired with the biovores inflicting a wound or two I think. His flyrant flew along the far board edge to take some pot shots at the plague drones causing a wound. He spawns gaunts on two of his Tervigons - also exhausting them. My turn 1, I ran forward at Ben while staying in Cover so Gaunts would have to attack me at a lower Initiative if they assaulted. Plague drones moved next to the flyrant in a half-hearted effort to  shoot at him on the off-chance he was grounded. Surprise! He was grounded. Then assaulted by plague drones. I made a mistake here that nearly cost me the game. I had a maulerfiend I could have easily moved to support the plaguedrones in assaulting the flyrant and would have guaranteed it dying had it been grounded. I didn't though, shame on me. Also, Ben forgot to challenge, and I set it up so I couldn't have my herald challenged (in case he remembered to), and then Ben proceeded to boss about 2-3 armor saves, and 4 or so Instant Death wounds. I was sad to say the least.

 

 Top of turn 2. Ben has his Ymaryl genestealers and the Trygon arrive from reserves. The ymaryls pop out in the center ruin and assault my maulerfiend / soul grinder. The Trygon comes onto my backfield and shoots ineffectually at the maulerfiend. Gaunts run forward and pop shots at my T5 spawn squad and kill one with the help of the biovores and tervigon. Hive Guard hit a maulerfiend quite a bit but fail to damage it.  Ben assaults my T5 spawn squad with gaunts to tie them in combat on my turn (which is successful as the khorne lord hits himself in the face, but does not wound). He also tries to charge in the Tervigon in order to challenge and squish the Khorne lord, but he just  barely fails his charge. (Iron arm was up with +3 at turn). Ymaryls fail to damage the two vehicles and lose two for the result. His backfield Tervigon pumps out some gaunts and runs them into combat with the plaguedrones.

Bottom of Turn 2

For my Turn 2,  Helldrake came on with one squad of cultists. Helldrake vector struck the Trygon causing two wounds, and flamed down some gaunts which was somewhat pointless. The maulerfiend in the open ran forward to assault the Tervigon.  Plague Spawn and Plague lord moved up to multi charge the crap out of his squads. However, I over-moved by about two inches some spawn here due to the ruins, so after correctly placing them, we found that my spawn were not in range for the epic charge that I was hoping for. So I just ended up nailing the gaunts real hard. Woooo Gaunts.
So at the end of this turn of combat, the flyrant has passed another 4 instant death armor saves. The gaunts have been beat up by the plague drones. My Plague lord / nurgle spawn are locked in combat with 4-6 gaunts. The khorne lord and his spawn are free hanging out on some terrain. The maulerfiend / soul grinder kill the remaining three Genestealers and consolidate as shown below.

Turn 3 (Top)

 The Doom comes in, he scatters a bit and lands in between the middle terrain and the far scatter piece. He gets out and disembarks towards the plague drones to go cause em trouble. Ben spawns more gaunts, finally exhausting his last Tervigon with a mighty 18! These suckers charge into combat with the plague drones. His Trygon assaults the soul grinder slipping in 1 pen, and blowing it up! The maulerfiend and Tervigon hang out and have a dance party. His middle tervigon and nearby gaunts move next to the Nurgle lord and assaults his squad. The Tervigon in the far region moves into terrain in an attempt to assault the plague drones, but fails his charge. So a bit of a WTF moment here. The Tervigon in the middle has Iron arm up I believe, and ends up in a challenge with the nurgle lord. The nurgle lord gives him an amazing 7 wounds, which he promptly fails 5 on (having lost one previously on a perils), and eliminates himself flat out. If that's not just crazy bad luck I don't know what is. Seriously.

 Bottom of Turn 3 (photo is the end of turn 3). One Maulerfiend is now stuck into each of the remaining Tervigons. They are steadily causing wounds despite Iron Arm and Endurance. (Though the top one passed three FNP saves! Like a boss). My Nurgle lord has assaulted into the Biovore / Tyranid Prime (warlord) squad. Leaving the Tyranid Prime with only a single wound left. My juggy lord + his spawn assault the Trygon. He is left with three wounds, and I lose a spawn. Trapping the back Tervigon outside of the 6 inches needed prevents the large squad from having poisoned attacks which would have otherwise ravaged me real bad has been redeeming.

 

 

This photo is actually game end - So don't let it confuse you
with turn 4!

 Turn - 4/5 ?

So Ben assaulted his Hive guard into my nurgle lord squad to see if he could rescue his warlord and possibly kill my warlord. That did not turn out well as spawn rolled a crazy shit ton awesome number of attacks/wounds and everything died. My maulerfiend in the bottom left finally killed his Tervigon, as did the maulerfiend and his tervigon in the far backfield. The Trygon died to the juggy lord. The doom just barely failed to charge my plague bearers in the middle. (can't really see in the picture well but my cultists have snuck onto the board in the bottom right and taken an objective). The Plague drones at this point have basically evaporated with only 1 with 2 wounds on him left. Ben keeps forgetting to Smash and this has been my saving grave (Sorry Ben!). Also i think my dice have been kinda stupid hot on saving throws for them.

Ect, so basically I throw the now free maulerfiend at the Doom. The other one can't move as its been immobilized. The nurgle spawn go to assault into the gaunt / flyrant combat just to lock him down for the extra turn or two that would buy me. Nurgle lord goes and kills the last two biovores. Regular spawn go sit on an objective just to contest it in case Ben wins free. That's basically it.

Fin -

So I got linebreaker, Slay the Warlod, Middle Objective, and more corner objectives. Earning me a well fought win.

This game had lots and lots of pivots and could have gone either way frequently. His Tervigons has crappy penetration results which let the maulerfiends hang out longer than they should have. I managed to have it will not die rolls actually be semi-useful. The Tervigon blowing up to the nurgle lord instantly was just crazy silly. If those outcomes had gone the other way, I could have seen this game going against me entirely as Ben could have hung back to sit on his objectives, and I would not have been able to prevent the doom, a eventually freed flyrant, or the gaunts from gaining linebreaker or contesting my middle.

Ben did boss through a silly number of instant-death wounds on the flyrant. I think like seriously 9  to 12 of them. So maybe that makes up for the Tervigon implosion. Dunno. The gaunts were out of range of their mommas in clutch moments too, so that could have changed things. Ben's dice let him down on several charges he needed which would have changed the range issue.

IFL Game 5

Good Morning!

Earlier this week I played my IFL week five game vs. Ben. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so will need to rematch within the next few weeks. However, as we played a full 4 turns so I figured I'd post up what we had. His list is the last photo. Mission goals -  4 objectives, one in each corner, whoever controlled more won 2 points, a center objective worth 1 point by itself, and then points for linebreaker and slay the warlord. Deployment was hammer and anvil, no night fight, and I gave Ben first turn.

Deployment

 We deployed as thus, Ben is rolling his powers for the turn in this pic. His tervigons had a mix of iron arms and endurance. His flyrant rolled iron arm.

Ben moved forward two tervigons and some gaunt squads. He exhausted one or two Tervigons this turn rolling doubles for spawning. He moved his flyrant directly into my line shooting at the nurgle lord spawn, putting a wound on the lord and one spawn.

I moved forward and shot all my guns excluding the juggernaut lords pistol at the flyrant. Only one gun hit (soul grinder) giving him a wound, but he passed his grounding check. The juggernaut lord w/ his spawn multi-charged a gaunt squad and Tervigon which had strayed to close. Unfortunately I forgot it was iron armed so I only did 1 wound to it. I charged a maulerfiend into a smaller gaunt squad to prevent them from counter charging me on the following turn. I forgot to jump my plague drones in the assault phase..


Top of turn 2 - during reserves

 The picture to the left is the top of turn 2, Ben has started his reserves and the Doom of M'lanti has arrived right in the middle of my army. His Ymaryl opted to arrive from the middle piece of terrain, and then charge into combat with the juggy lord and his spawn. During turn 2, Ben flew his flyrant forward vector striking a maulerfiend, and then shot its rear armor, causing it to be immobilized. His tervigon continued to beat down my juggy lord giving him two wounds, taking none in return. The ymargyls rip up the spawn pretty good, but their high toughness and an armor save this round saves them from taking more than two wounds from them. Spawn kill two genestealers and a gaunt in return. The black mace lord and his spawn multicharge a larger gaunt squad and the gaunts locked in with the maulerfiend. As it turns out the multi-charge was unecesary as the maulerfiend clears his gaunts on his own. The black mace lord and company end up locked in combat with two fearless gaunts. Helldrake comes on from reserves, vector strikes the flyrant failing to do any wounds, and kills a gaunt squad. Plague drones hop forward, assault a tervigon (whose bubble wrap was removed by the dragon), and kill it. My soul grinder assaults the doom of m'lanti, killing it. Also one of my cultist squads came on and ran for the objective in the ruin.

Top of turn 3 during movement

Turn 3 ! Ben moves his flyrant next to the soul-grinder to charge it, and manages to pen it twice and blow it up on the charge! His gaunts in the backfield assault the plague drones and manage to lock them in combat. His hive guard shoot at the maulerfiend but don't have any effect. The tervigon kills the juggy lord on the top of 3(Ben's turn), but in return the spawn finish off the gaunts and genestealers in the combat. So fair trade, maybe? Ben also charges his free tervigon into combat with the nurgle lord after spawning gaunts to assist with it. Nurgle lord and he get locked in a challenge, neither side giving ground.
On my turn 3, the maulerfiend charges into the tervigon, killing it. Helldrake moves forward ineffectually. Red spawn + maulerfiend consolidate into middle ruins. Plague drones finish off the gaunt squad and consolidate into the ruins. Plaguebearers attempt to land on Ben's backfield objective but scatter off quite a distance (and promptly die to biovore shooting next turn)





Bottom of turn 4 when we called it

Turn 4

Ben moves his flyrant into position to either contest, or help the tervigon in combat as needed (as it was undetermined due to biovores not having shot at the plaguebearers yet). His trygon attempts to come in near my objective but scatters to far. (we forgot to roll his run move to see if he got back into contest distance, however we deemed him as contesting it becauase the store was trying to push us out the door, so that's why he looks out of position). His hive guard shoot at and wreck the maulerfiend. Tervigon gives the black mace lord a wound in combat, and black mace lord has now given two wounds to the tervigon (don't remember which turns). Spawns have killed the remaining gaunts and are hanging out as a dance party watching the lords duke it out. I assault Ben's hive guard + tyranid prime with the plague drones + nurgle herald. I wipe out all the hive guard and leave the prime with two wounds left i think.

So at this point, the dream wizards staff were insisting we pack it up and go. So we had to call it, bottom of turn 4. As pictured fairly well above. As the only troops left on the board was Ben's tervigon, who was not in a position to take the objective, and my cultists, one of which was being contested by a trygon, the others, needed turn 5 to make it to the objective, assuming they lived somehow through biovore shooting. Given that we would both had linebreaker, first blood was mostly irrelevant, and neither of us could claim any of the objectives on this turn effectively, and it was likely our warlords were both about to die, we called the game a tie, until such time as we get a rematch in.

Both of us got beat up pretty good this game. See  the pic below. I tallied up the VP's as I got a little excited and wanted to see game results.

 Ben had remaining a wounded Tervigon worth full VP, a more than half wounded Flyrant worth half VP, two biovore squads worth full VP, and a trygon worth full VP.

 I had left a regular spawn squad worth half VP, a nurgle spawn squad worth full VP, the plague drones + nurgle herald worth full vp, the helldrake worth full vp, a maulerfiend worth half VP and  two cultist squads worth either full or - no VP depending how how we wanted to play it out.

 

So, the net summary is, we are going to have a rematch to finish out the game properly with time.

IFL Matches, week 2 and 3

Happy Day to all!


So earlier this week I got my weeks 2 and 3 games in for the IFL league. 

I played VS. XV25 (Andrew) for my week 2 game. He was testing out  the new eldar and had taken a diverse quantity of models. Our game was objectives, with vanguard deployment.

I rolled at my warlord trait the d3 infiltrators, and ended up infiltrating plague drones and my soulgrinder. After deployment I set up my soulgrinder as pictured in the photo left, and Andrew then wisely blocked off the other place I was going to infiltrate with his infiltrating rangers (I didn't realize infiltrators alternate). I ended up placing my plaguedrones dead center.

So this game played out basically with Andrew shooting the crap out of me, and I ran at him full speed with all my tentacle and wobbly bits swinging. After several rounds, I ended up winning on the primary.

One hard lesson which was impressed on me from this game was to not forget what monofiliment does to my I3 models.

 

 

My next game was vs. Lbrady, also known as Lee.

Lee noted this was the first time he had ever played vs. a zerg rush type of army like mine, so thought it would be interesting to see how his army handled it. Despite it being his first time playing vs. this kind of list, he handled my army beautifully and came very close to wrecking me completely.

Our game was hammer and anvil, big guns never tire, with 4 objectives (2 in each deployment)

 

His army was, 2x warscythe lord on barge, 2 squads of warriors in transport barge w/ 2 destruction crypteks, 2 squads of immortals in nightscythes w/ 2x storm crypteks (haywire), 2 annihilation barges, monolith.

This is the bottom of turn 2. Monolith existed in the diced off area
the soul grinder is already dead from haywire shots

 I opted to go first, (never a wise choice vs. necron air, due to last minute contests), however I was feeling gutsy. I think the haywire crypteks also affected my judgement a bit, I didn't want them popping out and wrecking my maulerfiends turn 2 before I could charge with them. However, as it turned out, that was largely irrelevant, as Lee destroyed them both first turn w/ gauss and annihilation barges. So first turn, I ran at him, all my bits swinging. Came as close as I dared, without coming to close to the monolith portal. Lee spent turn 1 adjusting his line to block charges with his transport barges, and blowing up my maulerfiends.












Bottom of turn 5, right before Lee started shooting. The nurgle bike
lord in the bottom right was a blackened smear on the hill after the
annihilation barge was done with him.

Turns 2 - 4 consisted of beating each other up really badly. He killed my soul grinder with haywire, so helldrake took revenge and killed the entire squad  + night scythe, and then promptly was gun downed by Lees second night scythe. I charged at units and hurt them, he would shoot at me and exact terrible revenge.

There were two key pivots in this game from my perspective. His destroying of my maulerfiends and soul grinder removed a significant portion of my easy to use anti-tank, anti-vehicle, and particularly anti-monolith. So that crippled me from the start. Luckily, my nurgle lord melta-bombed the monolith on turn 2, blowing it up, so I dodged a huge bullet there. I also managed to nock a barge lord out of a transport, which as it turns out later was good, because Lee was not shy about using a fast transport to turboboost into my backfield and contesting / killing my troops with them. Something I had not pondered, but now will watch out for in the future. (see the second photo bottom left).

I had to chase Lee's barge lord all over the board this game.

So on turn 5, I am contesting his objectives with a nugle lord, and nurgle spawn. I'm holding my objectives with cultists, and plaguebearers. I win on turn 5 on the primary of objectives, if Lee forced it to go to secondaries, he wins on Slay the Warlod & First Blood.  I had to hope it ended on turn 5, otherwise Lee would be able to clear off my pictured bottom left objective, and take back one or both of his right side objectives letting him win on first or secondary objectives.

I was sweating bullets at this point as you might imagine. I did not want to roll to see if continued, so Lee rolled it, and it ended!

So victory! sort of .. kind of a shallow one for me given the beating I took (and was about to take).

This game was a lot of fun, basically just slugging away at each other. Every turn was devastating to both sides.

Huzzah Hobbies June results

Good Friday morning all! The weekend is soon!  Last Sunday we held our regularly scheduled RTT at Huzzah Hobbies. I know it was Fathers Day and the same weekend as killadelphia, but I decided stubbornly that consistency would be better. So as a reminder, every third sunday of a month will be 1850 40k RTT at Huzzah Hobbies. Prize support pool is based on attendance, so the more of you attending the prizes grow substantially larger!

Would also like to mention that Huzzah Hobbies has set Wednesday night as 40k nights, so show up 40kers! Get some games in.  Huzzah also has a good price on GW product, 10% off, which is always a good thing.

So despite the adverse conditions, we still had a good turn out with several new folks in attendance, which is always a good thing. The range of armies was not super diverse this time though, we had a few necron players, a few daemons, a tau, and I think a space wolves player. The Deamon flying circus quickly found out why tau are basically eliminating them from being a viable army, at least without some super sneaky tactical play AND good LOS blocking terrain. Necrons did well as always, with two of our necron players squaring off in round 2 I believe.

Both necron players brought what i'd consider non-standard builds. One was using a monolith with two command barges, plus two of the transport barges. It's unusual to see a monolith, but even more so to see the lords on barges (they were super popular in 5th, I know, but not recently).

The other was using a list more like what Niel on the 11th company used to advertise, lots of squads veiling around the board to deep strike in and annihilate with overwhelming firepower.

One of these two won it all! Anyone want to guess?

So Collin won it all with Veil Necrons, with Lee coming in second place with his barge necrons, we had two guys tie for third, Peter and Lance, So I diced it off to see who would win as is appropriate.

Flying Circus Deamons vs. Space wolves

Tau vs. Flying Circus Daemons, Tau (Peter) won this one

 

 

 

 

 

Current Project: Painting Chaos Deamons

Greets,

I'll post up about the RTT later today, but for now, I just wanted to post up my current projects. An in-progress soul-grinder. He's about halfway done at this point. I need to give him a tongue of some sort for his mouth, and then finish all my highlights, touch-ups, and another wash for some parts.

The other project is nurglings! I bought two boxes of nurglings and I'm going to sprinkle them around my entire army on the bases and the occasional model. I think they'll add a bit of theme to the army and generally look cool.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT June 16th, 1850k 40k.

Good Morning All

Quick reminder. 40k RTT upcoming at Huzzah Hobbies this Sunday.  If you are attending I would appreciate a phone call in advance to mark you down. 703-466-0460. Entry is 15$ as normal, Please show up around 10am, we will start pairings at 10:30 and games will kick off shortly there after. If you are running late, just give us a call and we'll have you play the ringer for round 1 or set you up vs. another late arrival. So don't let that stop you from coming!
Space is pretty much unlimited, so come  come all!

Three round event, NOVA open format. Any questions let me know.

Huzzah hobbies offers 10% off of GW prices for product, so do some GW shopping there!


Also want to mention that the 11th company GT, and NOVA open GT, while a ways off, are very much so open for registration! Go purchase a ticket now before its to late!


Ok,

So this week being what it is, and work being how it's been, I haven't had time for any games this week but I'm still plotting like crazy for "uber" lists. I'm leaning towards Daemons currently. I've been painting my Chaos Sm/ Daemons army to enhance / finish remaining elements. My other side project is painting the other half of my dark vengeance box sets, which gives me a deathwing / ravenwing army set.  I could combine this with Tau so i have an answer to Helldrake / flyer spam. So several directions to go there. Can also re-work my orks possibly and give them another go. Havn't yet had my tester games, so i'll post those up as soon as I do.

So instead I found some funny demotivational posters that made me laugh.

Yes, sooooon. / Furious charge

Reference: Eldar and tau.

Eldar Air, once everyone realizes its pretty decent.

What GW thinks of us, I'm sure.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT June 16th, 1850pts. Battle Report vs. SM/IG

Good Afternoon all!

Let me remind everyone. Huzzah Hobbies monthly RTT will be held this Sunday June 16th! SHOW UP! woo! 15 dollar entry fee gets you lunch, a few drinks, and a chance at prize support! All money invested is returned as food or prize support.


Over the weekend I had a very pleasurable game vs. Matt with his Space Marines / Imperial Guard army.

His list:  Matt "Sigmar"   +++ (1848pts) +++

* Primaris Psyker (70pts)

* Guardsman Marbo (65pts)

* Infantry Platoon (240pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
     * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
     * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)
   * Infantry Squad (60pts)
    * Sergeant (10pts) Laspistol, Power Weapon (10pts)

* Platoon Command Squad (60pts)
   4x Flamer (20pts), Krak Grenades (5pts)

   * Vendetta (130pts) 2 Twin-linked Lascannons

* Librarian (130pts)  (And They Shall Know no Fear, Combat Tactics, Independent Character, Psyker) Force Dome, Null Zone, Storm Bolter (5pts), Terminator Armour (25pts)

* Dreadnought (125pts) Twin-Linked Autocannon (10pts), Twin-Linked Autocannon (10pts)

     * 5x Scout (90pts)  5x Camo Cloaks (15pts), Missile Launcher (10pts), 4x Sniper Rifle
      * Scout Sergeant (26pts)  Bolt Pistol, Camo Cloak (3pts), Sniper Rifle

     * 5x Scout (90pts) 5x Camo Cloaks (15pts), Missile Launcher (10pts), 4x Sniper Rifle
       * Scout Sergeant (26pts) Bolt Pistol, Camo Cloak (3pts), Sniper Rifle

     * 4x Scout (52pts) 4x Combat Blade
       * Scout Sergeant (53pts) Melta Bombs (5pts), Power Fist (25pts), Shotgun

* Stormtalon Gunship (145pts) (Aerial Assault, Escort Craft, Hover Strike, Supersonic)
Typhoon Missle Launcher (35pts)

* Stormtalon Gunship (145pts) (Aerial Assault, Escort Craft, Hover Strike, Supersonic)
Typhoon Missle Launcher (35pts)

* Stormraven Gunship (261pts) (Assault Vehicle, Ceramite Plating, Power of the Machine Spirit)
Extra Armour (5pts), Hurricane Bolters (30pts), Searchlight (1pts), 4x Storm Strike Missile, Twin Linked Assault Cannons, Typhoon Missile Launcher (25pts)

* Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)

* Thunderfire Cannon (100pts)


Matt watches The Regular show, and thus gets UBER props right off the get go. The only person I know who watches it is my buddy JP who is an outstanding human being.

Ok so I forgot to take a game 1 photo. The mission was Killpoints. Matt opted to let me go first.

I deployed directly across with a very spread out line. A maulerfiend and lord on both sides, plague drones in the middle with the soul-grinder. Turn 1, fastest turn ever, i just ran at him like a crazy man.

Turn 1- Matt used his T-Fires to great effect to put a wound on my juggy lord, kill 3 regular spawn, and one nurgle spawn. He also tried to puppet master my soul grinder, which unfortunately failed to hit (as its a witchfire), for lolz, we rolled it out to see what would have happened in hypothetical, and as it turns out, the soul grinder would have shot his ordnance, which boomeranged back onto him, blowing himself up.... Sooo I dodged a bullet there!

As photographed, this is the top of turn 2. All i've done is bring helldrake onto the table. I rolled my reserves and got everything. I continued my charge across, setting setting up for Plague Drones, Nurgle Spawn, and juggy lord to hit the blob guard squad. The maulerfiend to hit the auto-cannon dread, and the maulerfiend on left to hit the scout squad in the far corner.

After this, helldrake killed 3/5 members of the scout squad. The maulerfiend in that corner failed its charge. Juggy lord + spawn failed their charge. Black Mace lord + his spawn + plague drones make their charges into the blob. Maulerfiend charges dreadnought. Soul grinder fires his cannon ineffectually. The maulerfiend blows up the dread for first blood. The plague drones + mace lord slaughter their way so well into the IG squad that we actually end the round out of the 6 inch move distance to keep combat continuing! So my guys end the round all standing around.

 

 

 Matt's Turn. All his reserves pop on. He focuses a vendetta and storm talon on killing helldrake, which unfortunately fails. He focus's the storm raven and other storm talon on killing the soul grinder, which also is not successful. This was to be a repeated theme, not for any lack of trying on his part, but an amazing amount of 5+ saves were made. The IG blob guard regroups and shoots down more spawn from juggy lords squad. The T-fires once again unleash upon my lines. Marbo blows up an entire cultist squad by himself.

 My end of Turn 3 Helldrake tries to vector strike a storm talon but fails. Flames a techmarine ineffectually. Soul-Grinder fires at a storm talon and fails. Maulerfiend + plague drones focus on the remains of the blob guard. At the end of it, only the SM Libby is left standing, and he manages to escape without running off the board, to rally and cause havoc on Matt's turn. The juggy lord and spawn park themselves in the primarus psyker + scout squad where they hang in CC for several turns. The maulerfiend on the far left finally makes his charge into the two remaining scout squad guys wiping them out. The black mace lord heads over to the far left ruins with his spawn so he can send them after the techmarine sitting on the top level of the ruin (as its in-accessible to both the bike lord + the maulerfiend). I shoot marbo with 10 las pistols, and somehow miraculously managed to kill him. Matt spends this turn trying to kill the soul grinder, by launching a meltabomb assaulty squad out of the storm raven at it, while shooting the snot out of it and killing more of my troops with a  storm talon. The second storm talon moves to try and kill the maulerfiend on far left.

After two rounds of combat, the soul grinder has killed the squad sent to end him, and only has 1 hp remaining. Matt blows up my maulerfiend on the left with a combination of storm talon + vendetta shooting. All of my troops are evaporated except for 5 plaguebearers by command squad flame throwers and a storm talon. My helldrake vector strikes said storm talon in revenge and explodes it. Maulerfiend parks himself in combat with the SM libby, who actually holds his own for several rounds but eventually goes splat. Nurgle spawn assault the techmarine, and eventually die to him /sadface! Plague drones + herald kill the techmarine on the far right.

 Soulgrinder failing his assault vs. the hovering stormraven who blows him up next turn.
Helldrake revenges himself on the command squad with his flamer. Plaguebearers hide like wimps. Maulerfiend fails his charge, but juggy lord makes it, stunning the storm raven allowing the maulerfiend to blow it up the following turn.

Going for kp, Matt moves the vendetta and las-cannons the juggy lord to death. He shoots the storm talon at something else, killing it I think. My helldrake then vector strikes the second storm talon out of the sky, while the vendetta (which had to hover to get shots off at the juggy lord) is assaulted by the plaguebearers + maulerfiend and dies. Over on the far left, the black mace lord just barely manages to kill the techmarine in CC after several rounds.






Finish!


So this was a great game. Matt had a really good sense of humor which made this a lot of fun.

We both had an interesting situation on our hands in this game. On the one hand, my army excels at ground assault, it's good at running around fast and killing in assault. It pretty much sucks at taking on air or ranged shooting though if it can't reach it fast enough. Matt's army on the other hand, had no substantial assault elements, but plenty of difficult to touch shooting and good firepower. Had I not managed to pass so many 5+ saves with my vehicles earlier on (esp with helldrake/soul grinder), this might have had a very different outlook as Matt could have then focus fired on every unit that wasn't a plaguedrone (as lets be honest, those guys do not really die to shooting if there are ruins on the board), probably eliminating vast swaths of my army fairly easily. Marbo dying to las pistols was also kind of bad, he should have lived longer I think and probably would have gotten another KP for Matt.

IFL - Road to NOVA league, more meta thoughts, demise of orks in the current GT meta.

Greets all


So I decided to toss my hat into the IFL's road to NOVA league.  (scheduling here ) I figure it will help me find a list I want to play at NOVA, as well as give me some much needed practice. Lists had to be finalized last saturday, so I ended up with.....

HQ's
Chaos Lord - Khorne, Meltabomb, Sigil, Juggy, Axe of BF - 175
Chaos Lord - Nurgle, Bike, Sigil, Blight Grenade, Meltabomb, Black Mace - 180
Herald of Nurgle - Palanquin, Lesser Reward x1, Greater Reward x1, FnP Locus

Troops
1x PlagueBearers
2x Cultists

Heavy Support
2x Maulerfiend - magmacutter
1x Soul Grinder - Slanesh, Phlegm Bombardment

Fast Attack
1x5 Spawn - Nurgle
1x5 Spawn
1x bale-flamer helldrake.
1x4 Plague Drone - Plaguebringer, Greater Gift, Deaths Heads, Venom Stings


Now I'm aware this isn't the best list, but I figure it'll be fun if nothing else! The soul grinder gives me a small bit of anti-air firepower, some decent anti-crisis suit / MEQ firepower as well, and provides a third fast assaulty vehicle to throw forward. Black mace lord and axe lord are still devastatingly assaulty provided they can reach their targets. Plaguebearers are meh with so many ignore cover weapons, but I don't have other deamon troops painted, so plaguies it is.

I don't think I'll have much of a problem vs. anyone except the new tau/eldar. At least, no more than the normal list problem solving. Tau and Eldar are going to break my knee-caps hard if my opponents are smart and have solid lists. Barring the potential I've grossly over-estimated the effectiveness of the eldar/tau shooting of nocking out my spawns (highly unlikely), this will probably be the last time I use them for anything competitive. Plague drones continue to be good, as forcing opponents to use marker lights to remove cover is always positive, not to mention a 5+ default invuln is always win.

Eldar are a great army, that book is just as good as all the other recent releases. I know a bunch of us were very sadface that howling banshees are not epic-sauce, but as a whole the book gained a lot! Swooping hawks are actually really good now! Who'd have thought that? Eldar Serpent Shields make a mockery of spawn-tide and many other lists lists due to S7 ignore cover shots at 60 inches. (Beware all you other chaos/high toughness reliant players) They make GK psybolt dreads look like a joke.  Due to silly twin-linking shenanigans, they are also reallllly good at downing enemy fliers. Don't expect helldrake to save the day.

Tau and Eldar represent full on meta-killers of what we saw at Adepticon. New meta elements such as: swooping hawks, serpent shields, marker lights, wraithknights, missle spam broadsides, interceptor/skyfire fusion blaster squads and SMS, all will force substantial changes. Necrons will have to revise their strategy of relying on night scythes to turn 5 contest. Deckchair scoring units which were previously super effective will see to their auto-inclusion in many lists ending. Blob guard looks like it will no longer be king of durability either.

 Honestly I always thought blob guard was a bit retarded, but hey, what do I know. I've only rick-rolled every guard blob I've ever fought against. (Not the same as winning the game).

Assault armies are giong to be much harder to play effectively as well. Long range high S firepower that ignores cover is always really bad for assault armies. Previously in the meta, we were well off because a majority of the armies in the game being played relied on firepower in the short to mid-range game. If they could shoot us, we could assault them. No longer the case.

I expect tau and eldar to bandwagon realllll hard.

B-Wagon orks are still sad btw, gun platforms that can move 12 inches, fire ignoring cover S7 shots, mean side armor shots are super easy to get. So, most likely hardcore face palming to continue there. GW game testers / designers, if you read this, give ORKS a good delivery system please! Also recommend lowering post costs of ork models a bit, not by much, but a point for boyz, and about 10 points for meganobz, and 5 for nobz. It would let ork players keep up the model count needed to not just get shot off the board. However, as that means ork armies would probably number about 200+ models on average (rather than just being the occasional green-tide player), it would be better if you just provided us with a better delivery platform.

Change KFF to invuln save, its now completely worthless. Orks only had cover going for them, and when your opponent can put out oh say, 36 to 150+ AP5/AP6 shots a turn that ignore cover, that ork army can disappear reallll quick like.

Orks with a flier platform that would be an assault vehicle would be totally lolz and make sense. Could even have special rules for stormboyz involving them. I hope someone there considers it.

So I guess I actually just talked myself into thinking orks are still unplayable currently. It's not that orks are unplayable per se, its that if you compete in big GT's, people are going to bring these kroot-storm lists, or the 6 wave serpents with serpent shields + swooping hawks + tau allies ect. You'll hit that, and suddenly your army is going to evaporate. You might get lucky and dodge those matches, but unfortunately those lists are quite good and unlikely to get knocked out until the end.

Well, maybe, I'm actually going to playtest my orks here in the next few days just to see if those matchups play out how I think they will. Maybe I'll happily come back and post I was wrong.

I do so love my orks.