This Saturday sees another tournament on the schedule. This one isn't at the Games Workshop Bunker, but rather the local Redmond game store. It's a 1750 point battle, so I'll basically be able to use everything I've got. It also means I've got a tight painting schedule to get everything in order. I've got five ratlings, five ogryn, a plasma gunner and 3 assorted heavy weapons that need a coat of paint to be rogue trader legal. That means I'm going to have a few late nights.
Also on February 2nd the bunker is doing a combat patrol tournament. I've got some painting to do for that, but it's still a week out and there's only a few models. My plan is to run as a demonhunter army with an inquistor, a small storm trooper squad in a chimera, two death cult assassins and an Eversor. Based on the tactica at Bell of Lost Souls I think it could be at least a fun army to play, if not an effective one. I think it will mainly have problems with any army that moves fast. As long as I've got effective cover I should be able to zip the assassins in and provide covering fire and assault support with the chimera and storm troopers. I'm very interested to see what other armies show up for combat patrol.
1.24.2008
1.18.2008
Chaos Marines
I've finally started painting my chaos marines. I wanted to go for a mostly white paint job with a nods to the classic yellow and gold thousand sons scheme. I mainly used techniques from the Fly Lords website. I like how using the fine point pen for outlining really makes the whole thing pop. If you look at the larger version you can see how messy the whole thing actually is, but from a distance, at a small scale I think it came out really well. These guys should look great when I have them moving around in a big block.
1.16.2008
Tournament Report
I showed up to the Bellevue Bunker around noon and sat around waiting to see if three people wouldn't show up so that I could be moved from wait-list to player. In fact at least ten people didn't show so everyone on the wait list got to play.
I played the list I specced out in the last post with the exception of the Inquisitor Lord since I forgot the WYSIWYG model.
Game 1
The first game was against a black templar player. I don't think I've even ever read through the Black Templar's codex before so I was wholly unprepared. Mike, my opponent, had three blocks of ten marines, a chaplain and emperor's champion, and a razorback/predator (It wasn't painted so I can't remember for sure) with twin linked lascannon turret and heavy bolter sponsons. The mission had something to do with killing a select enemy squad.
So I guess Black Templars have a whole bunch of rules that let them make extra moves. They swept across the battlefield and by turn six had wiped out my entire army. That isn't to say that I didn't give a good accounting of myself. By the end all his squads were below half strength, one squad had only a single member left, and the tank was wreckage. Still, as the first tournament game I'd played in an awfully long time, a massacre didn't have me hopeful for the rest of the day.
Game 2
The second game was against a beautifully painted ultramines army commanded by a pleasant fellow named Timm. It was comprised of a tactical squad, scout squad, devastator squad and command squad all of which had every single option and loadout. We played on a fun ruined city location. The mission was a straightforward cleanse with some sort of extra gravity rule that we both forgot about.
This game went much better. I was generally able to exert overwhelming force on each of his squads individually, taking his army apart piece by piece. I will also admit that the dice were very much in my favor and I think that my tanks scared him because his command squad spent the whole game shooting a single lascannon at the demolisher. In the end I wiped his army off the table and only lost five or six guardsmen.
Game 3
Game three was played against an unpainted ravenwing-centric dark angels army. There was a tactical squad, scout squad, two squads of three bikes, a dreadnought, and the master of the ravenwing in his land speeder. The mission was Suicide Squads where we each had a squad that we wanted to get killed for extra victory points.
This was a total slug fest. The dark angels won the first turn and the bikes and speeder zipped forward to lay waste to my infantry squads. After that there was mainly just a lot of back and forth blasting at each other with my army having a bit more firepower and luck. In the end I had the inquisitor lord, russ, demolisher, immobile chimera and stormtroopers left, and he had half a tactical squad detachment, an immobile dreadnought, and the land speeder. It was a victory for me, but far from a resounding one.
I had fun. In the end my army performed as I predicted it would when I made the army list. Against the hand to hand templars I crumpled, against the straight up vanilla marines I dominated, and where I had to fight against a land speeder with fourteen armor on the front and sides I had a really hard time dealing with it. If I had to do one thousand points again I'd definitely tool up my command squad for close combat so that I could have some sort of response to an assault.
I played the list I specced out in the last post with the exception of the Inquisitor Lord since I forgot the WYSIWYG model.
Game 1
The first game was against a black templar player. I don't think I've even ever read through the Black Templar's codex before so I was wholly unprepared. Mike, my opponent, had three blocks of ten marines, a chaplain and emperor's champion, and a razorback/predator (It wasn't painted so I can't remember for sure) with twin linked lascannon turret and heavy bolter sponsons. The mission had something to do with killing a select enemy squad.
So I guess Black Templars have a whole bunch of rules that let them make extra moves. They swept across the battlefield and by turn six had wiped out my entire army. That isn't to say that I didn't give a good accounting of myself. By the end all his squads were below half strength, one squad had only a single member left, and the tank was wreckage. Still, as the first tournament game I'd played in an awfully long time, a massacre didn't have me hopeful for the rest of the day.
Game 2
The second game was against a beautifully painted ultramines army commanded by a pleasant fellow named Timm. It was comprised of a tactical squad, scout squad, devastator squad and command squad all of which had every single option and loadout. We played on a fun ruined city location. The mission was a straightforward cleanse with some sort of extra gravity rule that we both forgot about.
This game went much better. I was generally able to exert overwhelming force on each of his squads individually, taking his army apart piece by piece. I will also admit that the dice were very much in my favor and I think that my tanks scared him because his command squad spent the whole game shooting a single lascannon at the demolisher. In the end I wiped his army off the table and only lost five or six guardsmen.
Game 3
Game three was played against an unpainted ravenwing-centric dark angels army. There was a tactical squad, scout squad, two squads of three bikes, a dreadnought, and the master of the ravenwing in his land speeder. The mission was Suicide Squads where we each had a squad that we wanted to get killed for extra victory points.
This was a total slug fest. The dark angels won the first turn and the bikes and speeder zipped forward to lay waste to my infantry squads. After that there was mainly just a lot of back and forth blasting at each other with my army having a bit more firepower and luck. In the end I had the inquisitor lord, russ, demolisher, immobile chimera and stormtroopers left, and he had half a tactical squad detachment, an immobile dreadnought, and the land speeder. It was a victory for me, but far from a resounding one.
I had fun. In the end my army performed as I predicted it would when I made the army list. Against the hand to hand templars I crumpled, against the straight up vanilla marines I dominated, and where I had to fight against a land speeder with fourteen armor on the front and sides I had a really hard time dealing with it. If I had to do one thousand points again I'd definitely tool up my command squad for close combat so that I could have some sort of response to an assault.
1.10.2008
Tourney Preparations
There's 1000pt Rogue Trader tournament playing at a local Games Workshop store this Saturday. I'm hoping to attend and see how rusty my tournament skills are. I've drawn up a list that I hope won't embarrass me too much.
Senior Officer HQ - Medic, Bolter, 2 Plasma Guns
5 Storm troopers - 2 Melta-guns, Chimera w/Multilaser & Heavy Bolter
Infantry Platoon - Junior Officer, 2 Infantry Squads
Inquisitor Lord - Carapace Armor, Storm Bolter, 2 Heavy Bolter Servitors, 2 Acolytes w/Carapace Armor and Bolt Pistols
Callidus Assassin
Demolisher - Lascannon, 2 Plasma Cannons
Leman Russ - 3 Heavy Bolters
My main worries is my lack of counter assault. I can get lucky and have the assassin show up at an opportune time but I'm seriously lacking in hand to hand power. I'm also somewhat worried about going up against another vehicle heave army. The demolisher, russ and storm troopers should be able to handle one tank, but a couple of land raiders will probably send a storm cloud to rain on my parade.
Senior Officer HQ - Medic, Bolter, 2 Plasma Guns
5 Storm troopers - 2 Melta-guns, Chimera w/Multilaser & Heavy Bolter
Infantry Platoon - Junior Officer, 2 Infantry Squads
Inquisitor Lord - Carapace Armor, Storm Bolter, 2 Heavy Bolter Servitors, 2 Acolytes w/Carapace Armor and Bolt Pistols
Callidus Assassin
Demolisher - Lascannon, 2 Plasma Cannons
Leman Russ - 3 Heavy Bolters
My main worries is my lack of counter assault. I can get lucky and have the assassin show up at an opportune time but I'm seriously lacking in hand to hand power. I'm also somewhat worried about going up against another vehicle heave army. The demolisher, russ and storm troopers should be able to handle one tank, but a couple of land raiders will probably send a storm cloud to rain on my parade.
1.02.2008
Resomolutions
The office I work in has ten vending machines filled with canned beverages. Everything from fruit juice to water to Coke to Pepsi is available at the push of a button. There were times when I would go through four or five cans in a single day. Sure the cans always all went straight to the recycling bin, but that's still a large energy cost that could be avoided if I just hadn't emptied them at all. And there was often guilt associated with drinking that much soda in a single day. Strangely I never order soda when I'm at a restaurant. There I have self control enough to just stick to water or to order juice or another alternative. It's when I'm sitting in my office that I most crave the comfort that a twelve ounce can of sugary sweetness provides.
This year's resolution is to not drink anything that comes in a can. Not only will this insulate me from the evils of high fructose corn syrup, but it will also reduce the amount of waste that I'm sending to the recycling plant.
This resolution doesn't rule out soda completely. Glass bottles and plastic containers would still be technically in bounds. But by reserving such things only when they are available in specific form I'll end up drinking less of it, which should help my health levels considerably.
This year's resolution is to not drink anything that comes in a can. Not only will this insulate me from the evils of high fructose corn syrup, but it will also reduce the amount of waste that I'm sending to the recycling plant.
This resolution doesn't rule out soda completely. Glass bottles and plastic containers would still be technically in bounds. But by reserving such things only when they are available in specific form I'll end up drinking less of it, which should help my health levels considerably.