Huzzah Hobbies RTT - September

Hey all!

The RTT @ huzzah hobbies this month will be run by Matt S and Phil!

Please see their blogs here for all the relevant details

http://tsarith.blogspot.com/2014/09/huzzah-hobbies-rtt-928.html

http://www.elphilo.com/2014/09/huzzah-hobbies-40k-rtt-928.html

Huzzah 40k RTT 8-17 - 1850k NOVA OPEN format -

Good evening east-coasters

The last RTT before the NOVA OPEN is running this sunday at Huzzah Hobbies 8-17.


Please arrive between 10am and 10:45. Round 1 will start at 11am. No need to sign up though it is preferred. You can call the store at  703-466-0460 or visit their website www.huzzahhobbies.com for location / number. We have room for about 30 people, so come one come all!

1850pts.

We are following the NOVA open missions / FAQ's this month. So that means Single CAD, and only two sources for your units (so no INQ/ SW/ SM nonsense). Please do note though that every stronghold assault model is allowed, (which is a slight difference from NOVA), so feel free to bring whatever, just please no networked building / systems. If you show up with two bastions or two void shields I'm going to tell you to re-write your list.

Costs are $15 and include lunch! All the rest of the money is rolled back into prize support.

Anyone with questions please just reply to this post.


Yes I know I copied and pasted my last blog post. It's been a busy month.

Also a reminder for the NOVA OPEN - I run the TRIOS event with Troy, if you want to do a team trios, and are seeking others for your team, please shoot me an email or leave a reply to this post! I want the Trios to be even bigger this year than ever!


SIGN UPS FOR IT! //RAWR//

Personal life updates

- Changing jobs, moving locations. Will post more in the future.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT - 40k 1850 This Sunday 7-20

Greets all,

Normal 40k RTT at huzzah Hobbies this sunday. (7/20).

Please arrive between 10am and 10:45. Round 1 will start at 11am. No need to sign up though it is preferred. You can call the store at  703-466-0460 or visit their website www.huzzahhobbies.com for location / number. We have room for about 30 people, so come one come all!

1850pts.

We are following the NOVA open missions / FAQ's this month. So that means Single CAD, and only two sources for your units (so no INQ/ SW/ SM nonsense). Please do note though that every stronghold assault model is allowed, (which is a slight difference from NOVA), so feel free to bring whatever, just please no networked building / systems. If you show up with two bastions or two void shields i'm going to tell you to re-write your list.

Costs are $15 and include lunch! All the rest of the money is rolled back into prize support.

Anyone with questions please just reply to this post.

ATC Battle reports (sorta!) - Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars recap

Team Ziggy Wardust and the Hammers from Mars!
http://whatc.org/40kstandings.php

We got 6th place with 530 pts.
Mark had an AV13 necron wall, and was 2 points from best Necron player
Tilly was in contention for best CSM player with spawntide with deamon screamer star allies
Justin played balanced waver serpent / wraithknight elder
Chip played a drop pod marines with dark angel ally army
James played 5 Imperial melta knights




Tilly and Mark  vs. round 1 opponents

Ben, super chill guy

Warner, super enthusiastic it seems!

Neil !

Wooo screamer star

The Gaming hall

Round 1 vs. 2 Minutes to ATC


 

Round 1 top of turn 2

I was matched with Ben who had a very unique Vanilla marines list. I felt pretty awful about this round, but he did the best he could given the tools he had. I just kinda stomped across the board and kicked the marines around. 30-0 win.

Round 1 bottom of 4

Round 2 vs. The Gypsy Curse



I deployed first and let my opponent have first turn. His army was a typical tau gunline and elder allies list. Broadsides with buff commander in a bastion, two riptides, wraithknight, 2x jetbikes, firedragons wave serpent and an autarch.


 

Round 2 - Middle of turn 1

I moved forward and left a knight titan within melta range (though closer than I actually wanted) to bait the fire dragons into going for an easy kill. They did, costing me the knight titan, but I was able to shoot/assault them the following turn removing the largest threat from the board. Other than that I stomped forward with tow knights, and help my side with two, and slowly eliminated the opposition. I think we tied emperors will, but otherwise I got 22 or 24 points from the round, and he got 6 or 8.



Round 2 - Turn 4

Round 2 - Turn 5






Round 3 vs. Killer Koalas

Round 3 - Turn 1 / 2

For this one, I fought an elder wave serpent army with three wraithknights, and a farseer on a jetbike with the laughing god mantle. It was a tough match. At the end of it, he had a wraithknight and some dire avengers on the emperors will objective. I had a single knight titan standing on the emperors will. His wraithknight claimed an objective. So we split. I got KP and he got objectives, we both tied emperors will. I got first blood, warlord and he got warlord. So I won 16 - 14. It ended on turn 7.



Round 4 vs. Name Pending

This match was pretty interesting. Three knight titans with Pask / IG allies, vs 5. At the end of the game, my warlord and one knight titan remained, meanwhile he had a single wyrven, and a taurox and two squads of vets. He had bottoms, so was able to use a Taurox to contest my emperors will, hold an objective with a wyrvren and vet squad, and hold his emperors will with a vet squad. I got First blood, warlord and linebreaker and kill points. He got Emp will, objectives, and linebreaker.
 

Round 4- Deployment

Round 4 - Turn 1 bottom.

Round 5 vs. The Sons of Vulcan

Due to some pairing issues.. *cough cough*, I ended up playing vs. an all flyer necron army. This is a huge facepalm for me, as I literally can not even hurt the flyers or do anything about them. Meanwhile they have tons of shots to fry my knights. My saving grace in this game was rolling outflanking warlord trait, which let me outflank my warlord and two knights, the deployment being hammer and anvil (to reduce potential arcs of movement for him), and winning the roll to decide who goes first. I made him go first, and having bottoms was super useful as it always is vs. a necron army.
I got lucky with this game, I lost three knight titans, but was able to contest emperors will, win kill points, and lost objectives. But I did get first blood, warlord, and linebreaker, which gave me 16, and the win.
I found out my opponent was a super cool guy, and, better, was a fellow ork player! So we spent a lot of time shooting the shit about orks. I also lost my cool at my dice, when after 3 rounds of shooting at a squad of 5 immortals with all of my guns, I couldn't kill them (because of scatter and general rolling of 1's to wound). But I was mad at myself, not my opponent, so I composed myself quickly and apologized.

Round 5 - Top of turn 2

Round 5 - Top of 5

Round 6 vs. Roll to Wound

So because all the top teams had already played each other, we, as the team in 7th place, somehow got paired with Tony Kupachs team, which was in 2nd place. Nicks list was put out as a defender, and Justin placed me to attack. I was fortunate in two things in this game which were super clutch, one, Nick did not roll any greater deamon summons except on his book herald, and I won deploy first, so made him take first turn.

Turn 1 Nick summoned plague bearers to prep for assaulting me turn 2, and moved his pink horrors forward. I assaulted the plaguebearers rather than let myself be assaulted, managed to roll 3 stomps in the combat, and the remove from play ability, and promptly stomped out a herald who was about 6 inches away, woooo. Nick lost another herald due to a bad perils roll. So that was super advantageous. From there, lots of combats with deamons ensued, and a ton of plaguebearers were summoned, and assaulted by knights. Fortunately I got a few D stomps, and they evaporated reasonably quickly.

The game ended on the bottom of 5, with me winning objectives, killpoints, slay the warlord, linebreaker, and first blood. We tied emperors will. Nick got linebreaker.

Round 6 Top of turn 2




Round 6 - Turn 2



Round 6 - Bottom of 5

SO MUCH RECAP- ATC Thoughts - Tim G's team's antics

Greets all's,

This post contains edits in light of new information and feedback from the TO and other sources.


So this post is going to have a lot. I just returned this morning from the ATC. For those who don't know, it mimics the ETC style tournament. This means you go as a team, but play individual games which collectively score for the team. Pairings for each round are based off of overall team score, and individual game pairings are determined by the two teams playing each other. In essence one team will put forward a player / army list, and the other team will select an opponent for them to play. Then that team will put forward a player / opponent, and the first team will select an opponent for them to play.

It results in really interesting matches and is really quite a fun format.

http://whatc.org/40kstandings.php


So let me get out front and center that Tim G and his team, "The Gypsy Curse", are a bunch of cheaters and were caught multiple times at the event doing so. In my opinion Tim should not have been given best grey knight player.

- Tim round one "Misplayed" Coteaz's "I've been expecting you", by not following the RAW and resolving the shots immediately after the unit arrived from reserve, and instead waited for a drop pod player to bring in/deploy his entire army, then shooting all of them (essentially crippling him). His opponent trusted him as Tim is a GT player, big mistake. He did not find out until after the game ended that Tim has misplayed it, and by then of course its to late.
- Tim was lying to an opponent saying Banishment is a 24 inch NOVA power. His excuse was that he had a BOLS print out saying it was so... Right....
- A team called a judge over for suspicious dice rolling
- They brought an army that was explicitly banned (Legion of the Damned), and played it. Despite the fact that lists are turned in a week a head of time, this was unfortunately missed. It was not caught by players until round 4. The TO's of the event solved this problem by docking 10 points per game played by the LOD player, and forcing him to change the LoD to vanilla marines.

There were lots of other word of mouth rumors about the bullshit he and his team were pulling, but those were the only ones I can directly verify as truthful / accurate, by direct participation or direct contact with opponents / judges.

Those alone, add up to a picture of a cheating, disingenuous team. As the saying goes.. fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.. Tim's repeated shengigans each round should have been more than suitable to incur serious repercussions

So that's out of the way..

What did I think of the event?

Positives
- The venue was solid and was priced beneficially to maximize player returns. The on site food  / drink vendors was good.
- Shane and his judges made sure their presence was felt. They were responsive and friendly. I never felt like I couldn't find a judge, or couldn't have a reasonable conversation with one.
- The event more or less kept on schedule reasonably well
- Location was good with lots of hotels, food places and such
- Table themes, I enjoyed that the event organizers attempted to keep each table themed, so it felt cohesive and not a hodpodge of random types.
- The format was good, the atmosphere was positive and energetic, and that was quite an accomplishment considering how annoyed many of the attendees were by the before mentioned BS.

Other notes

- It was difficult to see round to round progression and verify the results were correctly input. Only the overall results were displayed which is not ideal for a nervous team hoping their 72 points were entered properly and forgot their previous overall scores.

- Lack of clarity on terrain types and placement. Spending the first few minutes of a game having to discuss or arguing with your opponent about how to rule terrain pieces can be awkward. Especially as people play all sorts of different ways, impassible vs. not, battlescapes vs. difficult terrain, what's considered a ruin etc. I had the normal GT issue where people shoved their terrain out of the way to put models / displays / books on the table. Then left it that way at round end, and unfortunately next round opponents insisting that we don't touch it to fix it.

- The quality of the terrain. Many of the tables were just fine, but there were always one or two tables in each team match that needed some extra LOS blockage.

- Starts to damn early. I think it'd be better to do 3-3 rather than a 4-2 split. But that's just me grumping about waking up super early, so maybe its fine.

- Prize support did not follow as stated on their website. Their website explicitly stated teams 1-6 would receive prizes, instead at the event only teams 1-4 received prizes, and the top two teams were allowed to select a second prize each.  Shane has noted since the event that this was an accidental oversight, and that the teams involved will receive their appropriate support.

- CSM award  - Edited based on Shane's feedback.

- Swag bags could have used a bit more oomph. A secret weapon miniature base + random other thing, and a ton of advertising.

- Objective markers were randomly colored poker chips. When trying to run an event with 6 objectives on each table, 4 of one type and 2 of another,  it left open the potential of people forgetting which colors represented which type of objective over the course of a long game. Shane has noted this was not the intent of the ATC to use the poker chips, but was to correct a last minute problem.

I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting for both positive and negative. So Shane and company, if you read this, I hope you take this as a critique, instead of me just bashing. The event is promising, and I think with a few changes it'll be much better in the future. I'll state for the record I do plan on attending again, so clearly I have faith that the team will fix issues, tighten up the rules ship and handle things properly.

Ork Codex review / thoughts / RTT 1850k July 20th, NOVA OPEN format

Hey all,

So I specifically waited to post this as I wanted to make sure I had time to absorb the ork codex, see other peoples thoughts and play some game with it to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'm glad I waited as my opinion now is not the same as a week ago.

Also we have our monthly RTT on July 20th this month. We'll be using the NOVA OPEN missions, and nova open FAQ. Same things as usual, show up around 10:30!
What this means importantly is, please note that the nova open is not allowing double CAD, so neither will we. However, As I do believe stronghold assault is fine now, all of stronghold assault is still legal. (despite nova FAQ otherwise).

Last time we had 20 people turn out, lets try and repeat that!


Ok. So orks.

When I got the codex last week and had a first go, it looked like the codex was actually weaker than the 4th edition codex. There are far less options in it, no neat FOC manipulations or use of combinations to make the sum of the parts greater than the whole.

Having now gotten several games in with it, trying different lists and all of the models. I feel that this codex is just barely stronger than the previous ork codex. It's gained a lot with a few specific units, but its lost a lot with its lack of FOC manipulations, and as mentioned, there are very few "combinations" of units that are what i'd consider effective. That said, there are a few, and I'll outline the few things I like below.

Let me state again for the record, I think GW screwed up big time by not maintaining, or adding unique FOC combinations to give orks a unique twist. People have been pointing to the formations as the unique combination elements. That's nice, it's not the core rulebook. Not everyone allows formations.

Fear not loyal reader! Despite my misgivings, I will continue to make orks work through all 7th edition. My CSM are mostly hitting retirement for now. I've played them almost all of 6th and its time to mix things up. So we'll give it a go.

So here are the models / list I'm currently using, and the reasons why.

Warboss  - Mega armor - da lucky stikk
- This is good. So so so good. This gives orks a re-rollable 2+ save, and a warboss who is almost always going to hit and wound. It's cheap and powerful.

Big Mek w/ KFF - a 5++ invuln vs. shooting is still useful, even if it doesn't extend beyond a vehicle and is only models not units. I recommend running him outside of your vehicle on the top of turn 1, then hopping in and joining a ride.

Mad Dok Grotsnik - Holy crap is this guy good now. He still can't leave a unit after he joins it, but he gives fearless and rampage. Seriously I had to read the rules for this several times. He literally gives the unit those rules, if he dies for some reason, or if its an IC in the unit he's "conferred" it to, as it were, that unit/IC keeps the rules. As according to the raw text, they "HAVE" the rule, simply because he joined them. So, use this to give your orks so much needed umph. Combo this with meganobz/warboss for a really good time.

Slugga choppa boyz -  Shoota boyz are infinitely better in almost every way, but its not worth 7pts a model. So now is the time of the slugga/choppa boy. I previously advocated for using big shootas, now is also the time of the rokkit, use them instead of big shootas. Anytime previously you thought of using a big shoota, or you get a big shoota, simply make a it a rokkit, this goes for all units in the codex.

Meganobz - same as always, dead hitty and resilient. Now more so with a painboy for FnP

Trukk - Cheap rokkits and fast

Warbuggies - these guys were great in 5th, and now they're great again in 7th. 25pts for a rokkit buggie is solid. Run them in squads of 2 or 3.

Battlewagons - still great, don't bother with upgrades though. Deffrollas are trash now, seriously don't bother. If you want to buy things, give them wreckin balls, boarding planks or rokkits. I'm running mine with just a single rokkit though to keep the points cost down.

Tankbustas - Now amazing, its hard to argue with EVERYONE GETS A ROKKIT AND MELTABOMB! They're very effective at killing MC's and tanks. Use them, seriously. I'm running squads of 10 in trukks or bwagons depending on how I feel. Trukks can be solid for 12 inch movement, and snap firing out. Super awesome in the elite slot.


Of the other models that are new or rules revamped.

Gretchin artillery - this stuff is still a trap - admittedly a cheap one. You're talking about a maximum of 5 shots, 3 which hit, and maybe do something. For a fairly low cost. The real problem? They are in the heavy support slot, where you want to grab better things like b-wagons or lootas.

Lootas - Still good, and slightly cheaper, shame they share the heavy support slot

Morkanaught / Gorkanaught - I complained about these guys previously, and i'll do it again. They're at least 150pts way to expensive for what they do. Even then, they'd still be questionable for useful in an ork army. These are more like pretty models you felt like painting than combat effective monsters. They needed to be a super heavy, and i'm not sure why they are not. Seriously GW, go FAQ that shit and make them one. It's not like you guys have a problem changing other things (i.e. super deamon ally friends with the heralds)...
For their point cost, they need to be super heavies. They should also be assault vehicles, like seriously.

RTT This sunday April 15th (yes its fathers day, what better way to celebrate than with your friends! Instead of family!)

Hey all

So I've been getting a lot of questions about how to handle the RTT this weekend.

I've thought about it, played some games of 40k, and generally messed around with 7th. I'm going to say, I'm very annoyed at how the summon shenigans works now. Being able to summon 1300pts of models into an 1850 game in 5 turns is generally unacceptable to me. That has occurred in several games without even trying hard. So, GW, you dropped the ball, hard.

That's in a battleforged army btw, I can't even imagine how abusive it could get in an unbound army.

So, what shall we do for this Sunday?

D-weapons have been nerfed, so that's a thing. I could allow lords of war possibly, but some of them are still stupidly over-powered (baneblade transports)..

So those are all things.

So, something you all may not have caught. Things like the bastion were removed from the core rulebook so we don't know how to use them except via the Stronghold assault rules.

Soooo, I think no matter what I decide I'm going to be wildly unpopular. So I'm going to stick with what I think tournaments will be running based on talking to other TO's & friends. (I.e Matt, BLAME MATT)

So 1850 pts.

- maximum of 2 sources for armies

- Must be battleforged

so any two detachments (ie 2 combined arms, 1 combined arms 1 ally, 1 combined arms 1 formation, 1 combined arms 1 inquistion, etc etc)

All models from stronghold assault are now legal. HOWEVER, please still no networked systems. meaning if you have a void shield, its only a single void shield generator. Not 2-3. Can't have multiple bastions etc.

No lords of war, full stop. I'm going to investigate them further, but atm, no.

EDIT- People have been asking me how we are going to do terrain. As if you didn't notice, area terrain is no longer a thing.

So, all previous "area" terrain is now a battlescape. That means it'll confer a default 5+ cover for being toe in. All buildings/ruins remain as ruins, so that'll be a 4+. Note that  ruin terrain now provides it regardless of if obscured by elements or not.

People have also been commenting about the CADS - We are testing the waters here, if I end up thinking its retarded to have multiple CADS, then it'll get dropped from the next RTT.

Other than that, we'll start at the normal time, 10:00, and we'll do pizza and stuffs.

See you all there!

New Ork Walkers thoughts - Also ork codex removed from GW website.

Greets alls,

Looks like the ork codex pre-orders should be going up this weekend. Despite rumors to the contrary. I was unable to find the ork codex on the GW website. So that's usually a pretty good indicator shit's about to go down. Someone let me know if I'm just stupid and missed it.

- Now thoughts on the ork walkers

The new Ork units in the white dwarf are pretty sexy, BUT BUT, they are missing two vital rules, which I hope is in the codex, or these will be -never going to fucking take - wonders. Seriously. Not to mention ,if the rumored points values are true (Gorkanaut 245 points, Morkanaut 230). Then they're stupidly over-priced regardless, especially if they take up a much coveted heavy support slot.

Assault vehicle and/or Fleet.

They definitely need to be an assault vehicle, if nothing else.

Why?

It's guns are so - so (good for orks, bad.. because orks are shooting them). It's got good CC abilities.
So hiding  a core of scoring units in it is plausible while it shoots, but not a good idea. The game plan is going to be run this thing full tilt across the board at the enemy.

So what's the problem?

Things a walker, it's slow as shit.

Turn 1

Turn one move 6' run ..average of 3. Now it's 6 inches behind your leading vehicles (because you want to maintain that KFF bubble). If you don't care about your kff bubble, its 6-12 inches behind (vehicles move 12, flat out 6)


Turn 2

Turn 2, all your vehicles move forward 6; guys disembark 6, and your assault is on. (hopefully, unless your opponent is playing hammer and anvil and moved the hell back, in which case its stretching to reach them.

But for the sake of things, lets pretend its not hammer and anvil, or didn't back up far enough

So your walkers moved forward 6, and is now (6 + distance from b-wagons previous turn) away from your battle line.

You now have a choice, disembark the... 6 man squad (most like 3 meganobz or some flamer bro's), and run them forward with the walker to go for turn 3 assault, exposing them to all sorts of nasty firepower. (Now 9 to 24 inches away from your battle line, depending on your dice rolls and vehicle speeds)

or simply run forward and wait for turn 3 to unleash its cargo, for a turn 4 charge.

Either of which, is not a super amazing choice. Lets hope they have one or those two rules.

Assault already got hit hard with nerfbat, and 7th edition hasn't changed that one bit. If your assaults need to happen as rapidly as possible, in a timely reliable way in order to be useful and make up for this. Given the mobility of a lot of armies (and more so elder), they need to be effective at getting there as well, not to mention with enough bodies to absorb inevitable overwatch.


I can see a couple useful roles for the walkers, but mainly Counter assault/second wave assault, AV13 will make them durable and reliable in CC. They have plenty of hitting capacity, and pretty decent anti-infantry firepower. Also Firepower soaks (same reason).

The squad you hold inside of it, needs to have a similar role, or it will be essentially useless. And you can't have counter assault, if the squad can't assault out of it. Especially if the thing explodes, which it's likely to do, as its a big scary walker and an obvious target for anti-tank.


It's fairly clear since the transport capacity is only 6 models, that the intention is for some sort of small elite squad to be moved about inside this vehicle. GW needs to give them the means to be practical using it. Otherwise the transport capacity might as well not exist.

FAQs are live ! also, eldar buffed further.. like seriously Dafuq

FAQS are live people, go take a look. Looks like lots of things got nerfed pretty solidly including helldrakes, rune priests (space wolves in general).. etc

Based on my reading of this, no more 4+ shut down of psyker powers, and good bye space wolf specific psyker powers. No more jaws etc. 

I could be wrong though on this, as it seems the FAQ part may not be the most clear. The FAQ instructs to replace the third sentence of runic weapons with "furthermore a model with a runic weapon adds 1 to deny the witch roles". Looking at the space wolf codex the runic weapon rule on page 36, the sentence it's actually replacing is " A runic weapon is a force weapon". So I guess it depends on where the rule starts, as the first two sentences are actually literally fluff. Unless that's a comma not a period at the end of that sentence, which I doubt, as "Furthermore" is capitalized.  So, I think the intention is clear, but the rules lawyers out there.. have at it.

So... Thoughts on that? GW SNAFU?

Second edit, so as pointed out below by Hudson, I misread the FAQ change for the SW- I read the first part that stated the SW FOC would now follow the book one (and thus thought what I said below), and completely missed the following rule change, which allows two HQS per FOC slot, so disregard that. Todays just not my day apparently!
Also huge changes to space wolves FOC, no more double rune priests etc.


So, for salt in the wound, Eldar ghosthelms act exactly the same as they do now. So, if Eldar perils, they can just basically ignore it.

So Edit here, people pointed out to me I was incorrect about this, but leaving it in so comments make sense still (in italics) Additionally, runes of warding got a huge buff, it now adds +2 to the deny the witch roll. Which means it can be used even to deny blessings.

I think runes of warding just became auto-take.

That also means, my previous post was spot on. Good bye other forms of death-stars. Your powers will be to unreliable to get off.

Behold, now it is the time of the Eldar!

Prepare yourselves for beaststars and seer councils.



Other misc: Gloom prisons for necron are now +2 to deny the witch, otherwise pretty much the same
CSM - Helldrake nerf, now a hull mounted gun, meaning no more 360 arcs of fire.

New edition thoughts - In the grim dark of the future, there are only Eldar.

So I notice a lot of idiots are posting/cheering about how Deathstars are going to go away, specifically beast-stars, seer council etc. Notably on BOLS and Faeit....

My description of those people should tell you what I think of that.

Invis + Fortune = "I Win".

Invis, to those who have not yet read the book, means you have to snap fire at the unit, and can only hit them on 6's in CC.  It's stupid, because as far as I can tell, ignore cover doesn't remove invis. So having to snap fire is atrocious. It also means blasts / template weapons can't be shot into them.... (as its not a snap fire). Then you can't assault them, because you'll hardly touch them. Meanwhile, they'll play with you just fine.

Give those two powers to an army that can assault turn 2, and throw tons of attacks, have reliable invulns, have plenty of IC's to spread around abilities or break away to kill shit, and a lot of psyker levels, and you've got a recipe for super death stars.

Seriously invis is stupidly good. What were they thinking?

A lot of people are championing the return to MSU - They are wrong. Vehicles are slightly more durable than they were previously, but the gains are uneven in each army. Wave serpents benefited immensely, while rhinos only slightly improved. So your scoring MSU'd vehicle army is only slightly more durable than it was in 6th (unless you play wave serpents of course).

 It's nice to know that those AP3 and worse guns won't insta-gib a vehicle. But, all that requires is a few weapon swaps to get back to the status quo. Prepare for a lot more AP2/AP1, or S6+ torrent to simply glance stuff out.

Vehicles needed more hullpoints, or 6+ invuln saves (representing armored systems.. or whatever take your pick), not just booming on a 7+. It's a helpful change but not the best.

Seer councils / beast stars weren't having a problem tabling people in 6th, MSUing your units isn't going to really change that, it just means that the seer council or beast star might include more wave serpents to boom your vehicles (as they do it quite easily and reliably), and less wraith knights (As cover saves are dumb now). Or just a few more anti-tank ranged units.

It's also a thing, that you can summon your own daemonic allies (at least atm, we'll see with FAQS), so you can rush that more durable than ever death star across the board, and it can summon more units, to help kill whatever it might be facing.

And because your MSUing, that deathstar player knows you won't have your own deathstar to oppose theirs. So they can toss their stuff forward and go full bore into you, and summon daemons every turn to bolster their army, allowing them to hunt down your squads efficiently and effectively.

I will tell you, that some deathstars are going to disappear real fast. This is very unfortunate as before we had a sort of balance occurring, with several deathstars able to nock each other out, so at least it wasn't monolithic.

Forget that for now. In the grim dark of the future, there is only Eldar.

Centurian stars, ovesa star, these will be gone. Ovesa isn't legal anymore (unless faq'd otherwise by GW), and centurian stars relied on either having a buff commander for ignore cover, twin linking, etc, or on psyker powers, which will now be much harder to get off vs. a seer council player who can toss all their dice with no fear of retribution into shutting down your crucial roles. Do you as a tournament player, really want to risk your death star getting its shit pushed in by someone who can shut down your crucial buffs 1/3 the time. Not to mention, Centurian stars will rely on throwing a lot of dice to get the powers off, risking perils! Something Eldar don't fear.

I saw someone pointing out that Eldar players won't want to risk their armor save improvement powers because of the new casting things...

So what?

A re-rollable 3+ and/or 4+ is still good.

Additionally the changes to how cover saves work (standing in terrain by itself is no longer cover), means MC's and weak troops are now super easy pickings for ranged attacks.

For those who missed it, being obscured by difficult terrain is now a 5+, and being in any part of a ruin (but not necessarily obscured) is a 4+.

So armies with good troops, or good transports to hide them in will be vastly improved. Armies without.. well. GTFO? Especially with the proliferation of barrage potential from imperial armies and.. Eldar.

So expect to see -- Seer council w/ wave serpents; Beast Stat w/ Wave serpents; Cheeky drop podding marines (which will go away just as quick, as they realize helldrakes are still going to rip them a new asshole, not to mention the previously mentioned armies will have no problem shredding them once they adjust to bringing some more anti-tank guns to nock down their stuff).

I was hoping IG would be awesome. Now I don't think so. The change to invis is just to much, a solid deathstar like described above can simply come across and kill them.

A lot of people are looking hard at GK to problem solve this. It's an interesting idea, but ultimately I don't think it will pan out. GK's are not going to win an assault fight vs. seer council or beast packs, and they're not going to shoot them down if they have invis. So it'll really depend on if the GK player can roll enough dice to cancel the Eldar players power. That's some chancy shit tbh. Especially if backed up by wave serpents the elder player with some careful target priority can quickly reduce the number of dice the GK player can toss to block powers.

In case you all missed it, template/blast weapons no longer work based on ruin levels. It's simply models under the template. So those of you hiding under skyshields, that doesn't work anymore. But it also means spreading your troops across ruin levels to protect against them is more or less pointless. Also barrage now comes from the center of the first landing spot. So if your models were standing in some difficult terrain that obscured them from the front, but not from the rear (where our hypothetical blast has landed), despite standing in terrain, no cover saves(unless in a ruin). So that's kind of a big deal.

Huzzah RTT results! Also new edition today... thoughts on that at some point

So!

We had our Huzzah Hobbies RTT last sunday. Results here -- > http://app.torrentoffire.com/#/tournament/Huzzah-May-RTT/1/leaderboard


No one brought any crazy beat-face lists (ovesa stars, cent stars, etc). And the predominant armies were SM and IG.
The top table ended up being orks w/ nob bikers vs. foot slogging daemons (with no fmc's or fateweaver!) so. To give an idea of how "non-competitive" the armies were... (they were pretty competitive tbh, the surprise factor at dealing with nob bikers alone coupled with bwagons meganobz is enough to throw off a lot of peoples strategies).

The last game ended up being a nailbiter (quite literally), and came down to a few dice rolls at the game end, which could have easily swung it either way. So congrats to Eric and Kevin!

We went a little silly on the terrain, see the pics. For whatever reason, I've never seen an event that had river or water activity. So I bought some and slapped it down on the table. People seemed to enjoy the themes on the tables, so that worked out well. May continue it into the future.

I've also noticed a lot of our more casual players have been substantially stepping up their game, be it from competition levels or otherwise. So that's been really encouraging. It seems most of the regular attendees are more or less coalescing at a similar skill-level, and its more luck / army matchup now that decides rather than any complete blowouts.

As far as 7th, most of the new rules / rumors are out. It seems it won't be the earth-shaking devastating mix-up's which were prophesized. More like 6.5. However, key differences on scoring, Tau basically taking a sucker punch to the nuts, and other small tweaks are going to see a radical mix-up in lists.

So far- without the book in hand, based on what I've seen (and discussions I've had with others (MVB etc), it seems Eldar will come out the top dog, or at least a close toss-up to IG. Wave serpents are now ridiculous, and seer-councils got a fairly substantial buff.

I've seen some retarded pairings posted over on BOLS, but I expect that the meta is going to shift, a lot.

Why?

Tau buff commander based armies will no longer be effective. No more battle bros for them. This means cent stars etc will have to rely on psyker powers to get their abilities off; and things will be a bit more unreliable. I'm not sure how the denial dice work yet (if they are buffed by your mastery level, or just D6 winds of change). But if buffed by mastery level, forget about using pskyer powers vs. elder, who will chuck ass-tons of dice to deny it.

Even if D6 based, a opposing player could easily save all their D6 dice to deny that crucial ignore cover roll, and have decent odds of doing so.

Eldar also don't have to worry about ze perils, because of ghost helms. So, they want fortune? Chuck as many dice into it as they want... oops perils? oh well!

Unless they FAQ that of course, we'll see.

So expect to see Eldar top dog. Daemon FMC is going to go to a shooty based only variant, but is likely to have lost a bit overall, especially with the change to assault.

Depending on how FAQ's etc go, ovesa star may go away, if the buff commander really can't join to ovesa and company.  I expect tau will stick around as broadside spam w/ riptides backing them up is still super super good. Just, bye bye ovesa star (based on rumor that IC can't join MC).

Necron lose out huge if that rumor is true, spyder star no longer is legal, and that was .. such a good and fun build.. seriously.

Ok, enough rambles, we'll have the rulebook within hours, so can post legit non-rumor based thoughts then!

40k RTT This Sunday May 18th @ huzzah hobbies

It looks like the warm and awesome days are finally here! Shame there isn't a place to play 40 outside in a large group.

Just wanted to let everyone know that our last 6th edition RTT will be held this Sunday at Huzzah Hobbies as normal. www.huzzahhobbies.com

Registration starts at 10am, and games begin at 10:45. If you are going to be late please call the store at 703-466-0460 and let us know. Pre-registration is not a requirement.

Entry fee is $15, and covers a pizza lunch and two drinks. The remaining cash is rolled entirely into prize support.

1850 pts.

We allow stronghold assault, but with the caveat that no networked systems, D-weapons or AV15 buildings are legal. Escalation is not legal. If you want to bring forgeworld please email me ahead of time with your units rules so I can decide if its ok. (for the most part it should be cool). All dataslates and formations are legal. Formations have a provision that they are a special slot 0-1, so no more than one formation for an army.

Note that next month, pending our review of the new 7th edition, there will be a necessary revamping of what's allowed and what isn't allowed.

40k new edition leaks

Click here, try not to hyperventilate or panic.

http://imgur.com/a/Kbyu1#1


So heres the big changes

1) unstructured or structured. This looks like a quasi-come the apocalypse. We don't know for sure. It looks like bonus's for staying in an FOC, and nothing for breaking it.

So is this good for tournament play? Probably not at all. Will it be banned by exactly all of the tournaments? Yes. Expect every event to post that they only allow structured FOC's. So that will solve this little issue.

2) New ally matrix - we'll have to see how this plays out, as we know nothing more than that it's new.

3) Psyker phrase - This sounds like a cut and paste of the magic phase from fantasy..

4) New missions - This is good. GW is thinking more and probably seeing other games for inspiration. They are a bit random in implementation, but will probably be fun. Expect for tournaments to not come near them though, as they don't make for good missions in an event. As you generally want everyone on roughly the same mission at the same time.

So, no change.

So, basically out of the 4 posted changes

3 - Will either not change the game as events will over-rule them for consistency / standards
1 - CHANGES ALL THE THINGS! But we don't have enough rules for implementation to be upset. However if its anything like fantasy... (which its probably a cut and paste of that).. I expect a lot of upset players.

Citadel Tools are a rip off - See why

So apparently I lied, this blogpost is not about the team tourney, that'll have to be the next one. Mark brought this blog to my attention and I just wanted to spread the word. This basically breaks down why the citadel toolkit is a waste of money, and what the comparable price is on the market, as it were.

http://tomschadleminiatures.blogspot.com/2014/04/games-workshop-has-recently-advertised.html

I think it's worth spreading, maybe someone at the GW headquarters will read it, and realize their stuff isn't making sense.

Encourage everyone to go take a read.

Adepticon - The GT 2014 Recap

Greets all,


To get it out of the way, I think the new IG book is fantastic, and barring some future ork release before NOVA, I anticipate the player/list that wins nova will use IG in some form.

Our next RTT at Huzzah will be May 18th, 1850, we will be using NOVA missions. If you want an idea in your head, look at the Delewar missions.

Let me say straight out, I'm very proud of Matt S who won Best Xenos for the GT, and Rob T, who got 2nd placed (second in command award) at the GT. These guys played super well and it was really well deserved. So all of you coming to our RTT's, that's the caliber of players we have! Come practice, take advantage of playing against them and learning from them, and get your skills up!


So, a bit delayed by a few weeks, but here in is my recap of my Adepticon 2014 GT adventures. Next post will detail the team tourney. Let me say in advance, obviously this was a few weeks ago, try to forgive inconsistencies. I probably made some mistakes, but the overall flow of the game is more or less correct.
I'll update/attach pictures when I get home tonight

We drove out to adepticon, made good time and arrived there just in time for dinner with buddies at Rockbottom. The breakfast burger there is AmAZING! Went to bed on time to make sure we were all prepared for the GT the next day, and amazingly, not drunk/hungover! (not yet!)

Then, disaster, a friend of mine who will remain anonymous forgot a significant portion of his Adepticon army. Rather than see him not play, I volunteered the use of my models to supplement his army, and I opted to play my necrons we had brought for my Adepticon Team Tourney team.

So my list for the GT, instead of my classic spawntide, became.

Zandrak, Obryn, Destroyer Lord w/ mindshackle / sept weave
4x5 warriors w/ night scythes
2x5 wraiths
1x3 spyders
1x1 Annihilation barge
1x3 scarabs


This turned out to be a pretty good list, and gave me the tools I needed to handle the armies I came up against.

Round 1 -Space marines with dark angel allies

Killpoint - 5 Objectives -  Dawn of War

So his list was interesting, a mish-mash of allied units from DA, and I give big props for him being ballsy enough to bring it to the event. He was also a really nice guy, and we had a good game, lots of laughter and shenigans.

Several meltagun tactical squads w/ 2 assault cannon razorbacks -
Librarian
Vulkan
Sternguard x 7 in drop pod
Legion of the damned w/ melta / mm / grav gun
Dark Angels flyer
T-fire
Those deepstriky assault terminators dark angels get

Dreadnought w/ flamer + MM in drop pod.

Something like that.

So this game, I almost ended up losing due to a bit of the old overconfidence. My opponent had first go, and deployed his tactical squads and razorbacks board middle on his side in terrain. I hid my spyderstar / annihilation barge / scarabs behind a los blocker and decided to simply wait out his turn of shooting then move forward.

Turn 1
 His dreadnought + drop podding vulkan/sternguard landed next to my spyderstar. The meltaguns blew up my annihilation barge.  The T-fire missed.  I opted to be cheeky and use zandraks deployment ability to have my wraith squads deep strike in in his face. This pretty much backfired as he cut them down without taking any real losses. Their only accomplishments were blowing up his two razorbacks before dying.. and I guess soaking up firepower, that wouldn't have been able to shoot at anything else anyways.

My spyderstar assaulted the drop pod / dreadnought and wiped them out for first blood. Scarabs ran out and helped kill a drop pod. Wraiths kill the two razorbacks. One of the two wraith squads multi-assaults a tactical squad with its razorback. This ends up being being a losing fight.

Turn 2
Libby misfortunes the wraiths in combat with the tactical squad. His terminators deepstrike in next to the spyderstar and shoot them a bit. Sternguard takes shots at the free wraith squad. Legion of the damned arrive and all but finish the wraith squad the sternguard shot at. His flyer comes on and shoots the crap out of some wraiths but they boss their saves.


3 Night scythes come in and shoot at tactical squads / his flyer but don't cause many casualties. The flyer loses 2 hullpoints and a gun but is otherwise unaffected. Spyderstar multi-assaults terminators and sternguard squad, a few sternguard die but that's the only tangible result. My solo wraith assaults the legion of the damned squad- makes it to combat but does nothing, so we hang out. Scarabs attempt to go places and do things, but fail.
Combat between spyderstar / terminators / sternguard / vulkan drags on.

Turn 3 
His flyer opts to be cheeky and fly off the board. The libby re-ups the misfortune on the wraiths, and a tact squad is making a run for my board side objective. The T-fire in this turn manages to get several S5 ignore cover hits on my scarabs, wiping them all out. The solo wraith in combat with the legion of the damned dies.
Combat between spyderstar / terminators / sternguard / vulkan drag but now a terminator has died (so 4 left) and all the sternguard are dead, but Vulkan lives
My remaining night scythe comes on, and shoots at the libby's tactical squad killing a few guys. Two other night scythes fly over and kill the t-fire. The 4th night scythe tries to help kill the libby's tactical squad but basically does nothing. Oh - I guess they do something, I manage to kill one of my own wraiths due to arcing and misfortune., so I got that going for me.
Combat between spyderstar / terminators / sternguard drags on, vulkan dies after taking a load of AP2 wounds. Now.. just 4 fearless terminators to contend with. At this point, I was afraid I'd never escape the combat, b/c i forgot I could simply teleport out of it. More wraiths die.

Turn 4
His tactical squad running across the board now basically has my objective, woo. He blows up one of my night scythes somehow I think. My wraiths in combat all die. Legion of the damned advance to board middle to be mischievous. His flyer comes on and does.. something? I don't remember. The spyerstar finally crushes the terminators in combat in a furious round, but only just barely.

All my flyers zip off.. The spyder star deepstrikes right in front of his army, ready to multi-assault and wipe it all out next turn. EXCEPT the destroy lord, who breaks off to go deal with those cheeky rebels, err tactical squad guys who snuck into my backfield objective. This he does somewhat admirably, and by that, I mean he actually kills 2 in combat, they run and get away. My walk on squad has come on near the objective he was attempting to hold with the tact squad, but their shooting only kills a tact marine.

Turn 5
His flyer / rallied tactical squad shoots at my destroyer lord a ton, causing him to die. But he by some miracle he gets back up. The libby misfortunes my spyderstar, and I think I deny it. The legion of the damned move to shoot / assault the spyderstar, they'll need an 11, and they get it! The rest of his tactical squads shoot at my spyderstar ineffectually. The legion gives me two wounds on a spyder though. In close combat, the legion guys all die except for one guy. Boo.

My turn, all my night scythes fly on, drop troops onto two objectives to ensure a win (as he currently has two, one with a tact squad by itself that the wraiths failed to kill, the other with the libby's squad). The walking squad moves onto their objective.  I use one night scythe to try and kill his flyer, and it passes, no joke, 5 penetrating jink rolls. 5. 5!! We both just kinda looked at each other and laughed our asses off. He was  promptly nominated as an honorary Daemon player. So the spyderstar finished off the lone legion of the damned guy and moved into position to assault for turn 6. I kill off the tact squad that was trying to hold my objective, and my other shooting blasted his non libby tact squad on the objective down to just 2-3 guys, and that was the turn.

So I'm holding objectives 3-2 and KP is 10-4 in my favor, so I think I've pretty much got this thing wrapped up. I've gotten warlord and linebreaker.
We roll to see if it continues, of course, it does!

Turn 6 and 7 just basically involved me trying to kill the his flyer, the spyderstar finished off his remaining ground forces. So natural end turn 7, with time left in the round.


Round 2 - Eldarrrrrr - 
2x Dire avengers in wave serpents
1x wraithguard w/ spirit seer w/ wave serpent
2x wraithknight
Warp spyders
Large jetbike squad w/ cannons + farseer on jetbike
some smaller jetbike squads.


This gentleman was on the Sons of Shatner adepticon team.

So this mission was interesting. Instead of objectives, you had to capture terrain pieces. In order to score/deny them, the entire squad had to be completely inside the terrain piece. The secondary objective was relic. Vanguard deployment.

So he went first, so that was good. He deployed everything more or less along his board middle after correctly assessing he had nothing to worry about from my shooting turn 1. I had a weirdish large catcus to block los in my corner, and a bridge thing. So I deployed the spyderstar, some scarabs, and the annihilation barge.behind these.

Turn 1

He moves forward and shoots at the annihilation barge / scarabs a bunch.

I aggressively deepstrike my spyder star and misshap.. oh noes =( Was placed into ongoing reserves, so I guess that's ok.? I think the annihilation barge shoots a wave serpent and does a lot of damage.

Turn 2
He moves his stuff board center more, tries to finish off the scarabs and annihilation barge. He's successful in killing barge, not all the scarabs though. All his reserves are now on and hiding.

I deepstrike the spyders in essentially the same place - His backfield. This time they stick. 3 of my night scythes come on. I use them to crack open a wave serpent, badly damage the other one, and I think killed some jetbikes and mauled dire avengers.

Turn 3

He finishes off the scarabs and uses his wave serpents + warp spyders to drop a flyer, and damage another one. Most of his army is sitting on or near the relic in board middle. There are some dire avengers which were running, and continue to run off the board.

My 5 man warrior squad advances onto the board as dead men walking. I put them on aggressively and use them to hose a squad of guardian jetbikes. My spyderstar advances into the board middle hoping for a multi-charge off onto a wraith knight and the wraithguards wave serpent, both of these fail. I spray things with night scythe fire but its not super effective. Also my wraiths came in, which I deepstruck board middle, then had to /pray they'd live.

Turn 4
This turn might as well be called, they all die horribly. Because that's pretttty much what happened. Two wraithknights and the warp spyders double team a wraith squad eliminating them. The other squad is decimated by wave serpents and jetbikes. Crucially, my dead men walking are ignored, completely. Though the warp spyders bounce to set up for the next turn to take them out. The spyderstar gets shot at a little bit by the wraithguard who have now disembarked and moved into a piece of terrain next to the relic to hold it

I break the destroyer lord off to go chase down the fleeing dire avengers, I did not want to risk them rallying as they were still about 25%.The spyderstar sat on top of the relic after crunching the wave serpent belonging to the wraithguard. My night scythes buzz around and are killing his troops.

Turn 5
Also known as the turn I stopped getting my ass handed to me.
It was clear to both of us that the relic was not going to be had by either side. It came down to those crucial objective/terrain thingies. He consolidates his remaining two troops into terrain, this was the jetbike squad w/ the farseer, and the wraithguard. His wraithknights went after the spyderstar, killing them all in combo with the wraithguard. Zanny and Obyn hop back up though thanks to the rez orb. Then the part that changed the whole game, his warpspyders go after my dead men walking, and completely wiff it. No problem says the warp spyders, w're 2 inches away, we'll just assault the bastids. It's 7 warp spyders vs. 4 necron warriors, what can go wrong? Lets try, completly going insane in combat, winning it, then running down the fleeing warp spyders.

Yes, that was a thing, it happened, and it stunned us both.

That turn I deepstruck zanny/oby into the farseers piece of terrain in an attempt to contest it but rolled to far. That's ok, because I was able to drop off two other squads from night scythes and was now winning 3-2. I needed the game to end so badly it hurt, but ... it didnt!

Turn 6

Farseer tries to go kill zanny and oby, epic wiffing by the farseer, but she takes two wounds. The wraithknights move into two of the three pieces of terrain I am holding to contest them. The wraithguard try to decide if its worth going for the relic, but decide not to. Jetbikes / wraithknights shoot at my 5 man squad in a ruin which is uncontested, they go to ground and boss it.

I deepstrike zanny /oby into the terrain held by the wraithguard, I scatter off, but not by much so am sitting half in half out. My night scythes try to kill the now 3-4 jetbikes holding the terrain, but fail miserably.

So bottom of 6, I'm still holding 3-2,  i neeeeed it to end. It doesn't.

Turn 7

Zanny and oby are mutilated by the wraithguard, but luckily zanny stands back up, and now he's in terrain. woo. That one's contested! Thennn he gets assaulted, but, he holds his own! Yay! Wraithknights + jetbikes again shoot at the single squad standing uncontested. I opt not to go to ground this time, knowing what's coming next. Luckily i pass my saves. Then, as I thought, his farseer turbo-boosts into that terrain to contest it. He cleverly places the farseer out of LOS from any night scythes. If I don't kill the farseer, he will win on secondaries (first blood), as no one has warlord, and both have linebreaker.
 2 things need to go right for me here, zanny needs to not die in combat, or if he does, he needs to get back up, and i need to kill the farseer. Not looking good for me, not going to lie.

Magic moment, 4 necron warriors line up, they all double tap. 5 wounds. Not bad for 4 warriors. He fails 3, 2 more than what was needed.

I GOT IT! wooo.

Then zanny lives. Magic.

Thus concludes a super rough game. 

So a very close win for me.

Round 3 Tau
Broadside's with lots of drones
60+ kroot
3x riptide
Etherreal
Buffcommander
2x skyray


I played Jon Willingham, who was very proud of his ETC.  Also at this point, tired of being sober while playing 40k, I had started drinking a... a bit, shall we say. Long island anyone?

So, hammer and anvil.

He had first go, set up all his guys pretty far forward to maximize range, pretty much knowing I'd want to hide from him. Infiltrated 2x 20 of the kroot to set up 18 inches away to shoot me turn 1.

I deployed the spyderstar in the far corner, along with scarabs. All else in reserve. In hindsight, should have deployed the barge to give him more to shoot at and menace the kroots.

Turn 1
He shot me a lot and killed all but one scarab base.

I deepstruck forward right behind his broadsides.

Turn 2

His reserves came on - and this is where I fucked up, because i used zandrak's counter-deployment thing to bring on my wraiths and deepstrike them right around my spyderstar. The problem was, I kindaa maybe let him move his shit after I brought the wraiths on. Which is not how its supposed to be order of operation wise. So that, that hurt me a lot. It let a lot more kroot double / triple tap wraiths. Then he shot the piss out of me. Killed one wraith squad, and all but 1 of the other. I lost a spyder, and wounds on the destroyer lord.

Turn 2, I assaulted the broadsides, sucked at it, killed a single broadside, he hit and run away, and that was game.

Seriously. Full stop, it was over. My 4 night scythes, assuming they lived through 3 skyfiring ion/fusion and burst/SMS riptides, plus a ton of broadsides, have no way to kill that many kroot.

So that was it. The game basically ended / was lost based on my deepstrike position of the wraiths.

So, heres a question that came up. He was using the ethereals power to fire extra shots with all his kroots. To do this, he'd only have a single model from the squad in range of the ethereals aura, but used this to let all of the kroot including those out of range get the extra shots. If i had been a lot less drunk, I probably would have investigated this a bit better in game time, rather than just being super stunned / unchallenging. That, and the redeploy thing, oh well.


So since this game, I've had a ton of GT players tell me both ways on this rule, is it simply model by model, or is it an entire squad if a single models in range? I want to know for future games, and because it was such a devastating impact on this game I wasn't prepared for. In conjunction with me letting him redeploy his reserves location on the board edge, that extra firepower made all the difference between the wraiths living and dying.... So, Internet, answer my question! Did he do it right? or wrong? I seriously don't know.  I probably should.

**EDIT**

I stopped being lazy and went to go look it up. The exact text is.. "


 The Ethereal, and all friendly non-vehicle models from this codex in units within 12", benefit from the effects of the elemental power.... "


Debate away


 So, then I went to the bar there with several friends and indulged in some relaxing beverage.



Round 4 Space Marines with space wolf allies

Objectives - Kill points, Dawn of war - Big guns never tire - Middle objective is worth 2 of the corner objectives.

I played a British guy, whoooo I think gave me a bad sports rating. Which is fair, I was drunk, said a lot of stupid shit, and was probably irritating / annoying. Nothing mean mind you, just, retarded. Also I think it was pretty clear I was heavily intoxicated, so that might have hedged his expectations to simply roll over me, especially after round 1, read below!

So what did he have. SM Biker grav gun spam! 
3 or 4 squads of grav gun bikes
Super beefy chapter master with all the good stuff
1x Tactical squad in a rhino for some reason
1 or 2 rune priests on bikes
Grey hunters on foot w/ missiles or something
Storm talons x2?
t-fire x2 ?

So, he had first go, deployed all his bikes centrally, and his rhino squad off to one side.. I hid my spyderstar, wraiths, in the corner on the same side as the rhino behind some terrain along with the annihilation barge. This was purposeful, I was basically doing a - come at me bro -. And he def did.
Scouted right at me.

Turn 1
He came at me hard,. Pretty much killed all but 3 of my wraiths, and I think killed a spyder. The annihilation barge died. Luckily I denied the witch to his jaws.. or woo.. that woulda been bad.

So I moved out, and assaulted his bike star. I assumed I'd do pretty well with all the AP2 attacks I have, andddd I was completely and utterly wrong. My spyderstar bounced off of him, and he just kept adding wounds to my stuff.

So if I'm him, bottom of turn 1, he's killed something like 60% of my ground components and only lost I think a single bike in return. I imagine he was highly optimistic.

Turn 2

The bikers continue to ravage my stuff, all my wraiths die, and in combat the wounds start to pile up on zandrak. His stormtalons stay off I think

Then, my night scythes come on, as does the scarabs which hide far away. The night scythes go and kill a t-fire, as well as blowing up the rhino with the tac squad inside. yay me. Combat continues to suck for me and zandrak is now about to die.
  
Turn 3

His stormtalons come on and try to blow up my night scythes, and I think wiff awfully. Combat continues and zandrak bites it. Oby now only has a wound left, so its time to cut my losses and run. His ground forces fire at my stuff.

I teleport out of the combat next to his remaining t-fire which is on the complete opposite side of the board. Only two models make this trip, oby, and a spyder with all its wounds. Everything else died. My nightscythes smoke his storm talons, and lay down some fire on the now free bikes. Scarabs make a run for one of the free bike squads and make it into assault, but do nothing. He hits and runs out to move them to a better spot.

Turn 4

He fires the techmarine at oby/spyder doing a wound. Everything else fires at the flyers, which actually get a few grav gun hits but I manage to jink them off.

I fly off two of my flyers, in preparation for next turn drops. The others move around to kill bike squads. Oby and the spyder move in and assault the techmarine, wrecking him. I should mention that the techmarine in this case was on top of an objective. (as was the other one I had killed)

Turn 5 - He spreads out his army to surround the middle objective, using the grey hunters to hold it.. Consolidates the tact squad which had been in the rhino onto one of my objectives. Then shoots everything at the two flyers in the air, doing nothing. So at this point, he's up on objectives 3-1.I need some ballsy moves to pull this one off.

So, in true balls out ork fashion, Oby leaves the spyder behind, and deepstrikes directly onto the middle objective. No scatter ftw, and now that's contested. I fly on one of my night scythes and drop troops next to the tact squad holding my objective. It's contested, but I blast them anyways for good measure killing most of them. My scarabs which had been lurking around, assault his bike squad just to try and get an extra KP (they fail, but w/e). I drop another squad of warriors into his back left objective just for good measure.

So if game ends, now I'm winning 2-0 objectives. It's time to figure out killpoints, which I'm sweating big time. It feels like he's killed a lot of my stuff. Then I do the math, and realize despite the devastating losses, it really wasn't so bad. 2 wraiths, 1 barge( counts for 2 b/c of big gunz), and zandrak. That's it. So 5 for him, and.. 2x-t-fire (4), plus 2 stormtalons, plus rhino, plus a bike squad... so I'm winning that 8-5.

We roll, game ends.

Fin.

So I ended up 3-1. With 3 wins on primary objectives, and 1 crushing loss. I had a pretty good time, and I learned a lot that would turn out to be useful for the team tourney.

And Matt S got some revenge for me, as he  beat Jon the next round, wooo.



 



 

RTT @ Huzzah Hobbies this sunday April 13th!

Just wanted to put out a quick reminder for our monthly RTT at Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn, VA  www.huzzahhobbies.com will be held this Sunday April 13th. Registration starts at 10am, and games begin at 10:45. If you are going to be late please call the store at 703-466-0460 and let us know. Pre-registration is not a requirement.

Entry fee is $15, and covers a pizza lunch and two drinks. The remaining cash is rolled entirely into prize support.

1850 pts.

The new IG codex will be legal - so be prepared!

We allow stronghold assault, but with the caveat that no networked systems, D-weapons or AV15 buildings are legal. Escalation is not legal. If you want to bring forgeworld please email me ahead of time with your units rules so i can decide if its ok. (for the most part it should be cool). All dataslates and formations are legal. Formations have a provision that they are a special slot 0-1, so no more than one formation for an army.

Sorry for the late notice, being at Adepticon made me forget all my posting responsibilities. I will post a recap of adepticon later this week.

Huzzah Hobbies RTT March 16th Recap, Crimson Slaughter / Imperial knights thoughts.

So before anything else.
Please note that next months RTT will be held April 13th, as Easter is the 3rd Sunday of April, so we will be using the 2nd Sunday just for next month.

So quick recap of the RTT of march 16th.

By win-loss - with two undefeated, the higher BP undefeated won first.

1st place - Joseph with his crimson slaughter and chaos daemons
2nd place - Brad with ovesa star

By Battle Points

1st - Robert with his deamon FMC
2nd - Pierre with his eldar
3rd - Kevin with his Tyranids

Now I will note, I messed up the BP on ToF for the last round because I'm a retard. Kevin and Pierre were only 1 point away from each other, due to my screw up, I mis-calculated Kevin as the top of that 1 point difference, when it was in fact Pierre. So I will be retrieving another 2nd place BP prize for Pierre for next RTT to hand off. Kevin, as he did totally awesome with his tyranids, will keep his prize and have it renamed "super epic tyranid bro's player award".

Innovation award - This went to Chris, who was using imperial knights. He thoughtfully had large shield symbols to show his opponents the exact facings being covered by the shield. This was very useful and a nice consideration for his opponents.

Midpack - Was decided by a roll-off between Charlie and matt, and went to Charlie


Now some thoughts about the event.

Void shield generator thingy went over well. So for future events, a void shield generator will be allowed. with the provision it is not a networked system. Thank you to Jon who voluntarily tested it.

Imperial Knights- pretty powerful, those of you out there saying they are easy to beat have clearly not been playing them right, or vs. a good player. Chris rampaged at the RTT with them, however he was nocked out by a deamon FMC player, who was able to out-maneuver him. Interviewing his opponents after the games revealed a little annoyance at the imperial knights, but nothing more than I'd expect than someone who had just matched a seer council. I think its to early to tell if these guys should be banned or not, so for the present time, I'll continue to allow them.

I just wish GW wasn't as retarded about this whole ally thing. They need to stop breaking their own FoC's, and coming up with these super dex's that only benefit imperial or "good" armies.

I will mention, playing as a ringer, I allied an imperial knight with my CSM crimson slaughter (super illegal, I know!) and Jon used hive crones to vector strike it to death by bottom of turn 2 or 3.

Crimson Slaughter - This book is pretty solid, and by book, I basically mean the relics. Having possessed as troops is decent, they're super pricey and tend to die easily. You can fit about 30 into a list at 1850 if your rhino'ing up and take other units like maulers and helldrakes. They suffer from the same thing every marine does, forcing a volume of saves eliminates them pretty quickly. I don't think running them on foot is a good idea. Rhinos give one turn of protection or movement distance to get you closer. Overall I would recommend sticking with tried and true cultists, unless you want to base an army around possessed. I will be dropping my black legion allies though to take crimson slaughter, no doubt about that. The divination psyker is a decent thought. There may be something to taking CS primary, and taking a nurgle psyker / rolling for divination. Take an AP2 force axe, and now you've got two characters who can go around instant deathing. If you get lucky in your rolling, maybe some good buffs for the spawn.

Worth a thought.


So I don't really like the idea of D-weapons and imperial knights in the game. However I do like the model quite a bit. So I picked one up from huzzah and have been painting it up. I finished basing the bulk of it, and washed it. Now I need to drybrush then start highlighting. You may be wondering why I washed the flat surfaces of the model. I am theorizing it'll turn out looking nice after I start drybrushing. If not.. oh well!