One more revision to the Freebooterz list

As I was going back over my previous battles, I realized the one unit of boys really don't do a whole lot.  They purpose of them is to sit back and wait until the shooting has softened everything up.  But just one unit unsupported really doesn't do much.

But one thing I do need is more command points. That means another Battalion and 3 more troops choices.

That's 30 grots at 90pts.  Carefully going over my list the only things I could drop would be either half the boys or the traktor cannons.  I could possibly drop the biker boss but I do need to maintain 4 HQ choices.  Maybe someday I'll buy and 2nd SAG ~~

But enough blabber, here is the new list. 

Battalion Detachment
Kulture: Freebooterz
HQ: Big Mek on Bike, KFF, KMB, Big Choppa
HQ: Warboss on bike, PK, Da Killa KlawTroops: 15 Boys, Tankbusta bomb, Nob w/BC
Troops: 10 Grots
Troops: 10 Grots

Battalion Detachment
Kulture: FreebooterzSpecialist Detachment: Dread Mob (-1CP)
HQ: Big Mek w/SAG, Da Souped Up Shokka (-1CP)

Troops: 10 Grots
Troops: 10 Grots
Troops: 10 Grots

Fast: 2x Shokkjump Dragstas
Fast: 2x Megatrakk Scrapjets

Heavy: Gorkanaut
Heavy: 4x Mek Gunz, 2x Traktor kannon 2x Smasha Gunz

Air Wing Detachment
Kulture: Freebooterz
Dakkajet 6x supashootas
Dakkajet 6x supashootas
Wazbomb Blastajet, KFF, Wazbomb mega kannons, smasha gun

1998 pts, 104 PL, 14(-2) CP

I still have the small unit of boys to jump and assault, but now I also have more units of grots for both grot shield and jumping on to objectives (which was VERY effective late game).

But mainly losing a bit of CC power for a 50% jump in CP is a pretty good trade off IMO.

First 8th edition tournament summary

So when I go to tournaments I usually don't do full reports because I'd rather just play and concentrate on the game then worry about filming. So I'll just give you a brief overview of what went down on Saturday at Glimpses of Wonder and Warfare.

Game 1 vs Tau: The Scouring

He had 2 stormsurges and 3 hammerheads..and not much else.  We rolled and the 4pt objective was on my side and I went first.  I jumped 30 shootas to the area on the right, killed a unit of Firewarriors for first blood and shooting and assault took down the first stormsurge by 7 wounds and a couple wounds on Longstrike.  Not too bad. He wiped out the shoota boys quite easily and put a couple wounds on the tanks.  Next turn I just poured the firepower and knocked down the stormsurge some more.  He then moved up a bit and used what he could to do damage to another unit of boys. That small unit then jumped and assaulted some pathfinders.  I jumped the last unit and killed stormsurge and assaulted the 2nd.  Near the end Zhadsnark moved up and tried to finish the last 4 wounds on the stormsurge but he made all his invul saves.  I held the 4pt, and he had 3 objectives for a 5-7 minor loss.  I didn't have much left on the board!

Game 2 vs Salamanders, No mercy.

Varied marine list.  Couple libbies, 4 melta in a drop pod (I surrounded the tanks), bike command squad and chaplain, a couple razorbacks, and lascannons, but the most deadly thing there was 4 Centurions with Heavy Bolters and Hurricane Bolters - OH MY!  They had to die.  First turn I jumped the shoota boys, killed one in shooting..and then failed the charge!  That unit didn't last long. Next turn I jumped another unit took out the apothecary and librarian.  It took a couple turns to finish off the centurions, and zhadsnark mowed through the command squad despite the storm shields (a turn of complete whiff with thunderhammers helped).  Again, not much left at the end.

With first blood and warlord I scored a 120-45 major victory.

Game 3 vs demons, secure and control.

He had a ton of seekers of slannesh, brimstones, 15 thousand sons terminators and Magnus. I ended up with first turn yet again!  I jumped the shootas over and tried for first blood on the brimstones to no effect.  I also took 2 wounds of magnus after some re-rolling 1's and a command point for another save.  I should have gone for the seekers. But the seekers spent half the game doing nothing but killing boys so that was quite nice. He then dropped all the terminator and flew magnus right in my face, wiping out most of a unit of boys in shooting but opted to charge mostly another unit so there wasn't much damage in combat.  I then jumped the remaining big unit out of combat to assault the smaller unit of termies, locking them up until they died in turn 5.  The other bigger unit stayed locked in for most of the game.  Zhadnark did a TON of damage to the termies all by himself.  Magnus was able to kill off most of my characters but I kept hounding him getting him down to 2 wounds at the end of the game.  It ended on turn 5 or I probably would have killed magnus and taken my objective from the 3 remaining termies.

Result in a 0-8 major loss.

Yep 1-2 that day, and with a bit of better play it probably would have been 1-1-1.  My biggest errors were not attacking magus with the deffrolla! Totally forgot to attack with my tanks at all while he was locking them in combat. GRRR!! Even the Kill tank is pretty bad ass in combat and can do mortal wounds on the charge!

Despite losing most of my army every game none of them felt like I never stood a change. They were all excellent games and could have gone my way with a bit better play and/or remembering my rules.

40k 8th Ork analysis: Boys before toys? No, toys AND boys!

So last night was my first game of 8th edition, playing buffed Ork Horde.

it's quite the adjustment to not have to worry about templates!

So I went full buff list: Ghazzy, warpath weirdboy, waagh! banner nob.  It was astonishing easy to get 6 attacks per boy hitting on 2+!!!  Also having STR4 base is HUGE.  And the nobs become STR10 with their power fists resulting in S10 just from them - that means wounding T5 on 2+.

The new wound chart also takes some time to get use too.  As does pistols in close combat - I never once shot my sluggas.

The second wierdboy with Da Jump puts quite a spin on the horde aspect of it as well.  Sending 30 shootas across the board first turn is amazing and forces your opponent to deal with them as the super buff group moves forward.  I did forget I could try and charge with them though lol.

Ghazzy himself is still a beast in CC, getting S12 and with T8 makes wounding him almost always on 5+

The lack of the 'eavy armor upgrade is a huge hit.  Boys just don't have any survivability and if someone concentrates on them they will die in droves.

So a combination of Boys and buffs is the way to go. An unsupported horde won't make it very far.

I have more ideas..I will be trying basically random lists for a while until I find something I really like.

The Inner Circle and Apoc at GW store.

I decided to give a go at The Inner Circle competition GW is doing.

Last Saturday I spent the day at the store playing in the first event, an apoc game.  Well it wasn't really Apoc, but really just a large game of 40k.  I took my Orks, in the Decurion with a Stompa.  I was allied with AdMech, against losts of (mostly 30k) Space Wolves.  I added mine up to 3500pts, but points weren't really used, so, ya.

Luckily we got first turn and I ran everything right up

Lots of dead Trukks.

So after much death, it came down to Ghazzy vs Leman Russ himself.  It was basically a slap fight with 2++ saves all around.  until...

Fucking D weapons!

Anyway I will be doing Dark Angels for the Inner Circle, and I have quite a bit of painting to do in the next 3 months to get up to 18 units. If I don't, well, I'll lose points!

What I have done:
2 units of Black Knights
1 unit of Ravenwing Command squad
Sammael
Chaplain on bike
1 unit of Devastators
1 unit of Assault Marines
1 unit of Ravenwing Bikes
1 Rhino.

That's 9.

In progress: 1 (or 2) units of Tactical Marines

On sprue:
Tactical Squad
Rhino
Drop Pod
and the full DV set: Company Captain, Libby, Tactical squad, termies, bikes.

That adds up to 18.

Plus a display board. 

Looks like the first half of this year is all Dark Angels. 

I also sold my Medusa Strike Force on ebay.  Time to pack the BA away for a long time...

Iron Angels at a tournament - Fist of Medusa Strike Force.

Didn't take any pictures today but I went to a 1 day 3 round ITC tournament.  I busted out my second Stormtalon in just one day to get ready.

These 2 things happened:

1. I rolled Veil of Time in every game
2. I went first in every game

Despite that I only went 1-2.

Game 1 vs War Convocation  (scouring)

Pretty straitforward war con list with lots of grav.  after seizing on a 5 because of the knight, rolled up veil and started chomping through the army.  Took the knight down with a combination of drop pod melta and Stormtalons.   Didn't get warlord, but 10-1 win.

Game 2 vs Tau (killpoints)

This was killpoints and he just didn't have that many to give up with a lot of points in a single unit of Ghostkeels and a Stormsurge.

This time I seized on a 4 due to the superheavy and rolling +1 to seize warlord trait.

It took about 4 turns to kill everything I had except the deathstar and in that time I was able to take out the Ghostkeels and 1 Riptide.  He made a bunch of 4+ invuls on the Stormsurge vs grav though for sure.  Ended up running away from me and hiding while getting good malestrom rolls.  Tied on secondary, and I got king of the kill resulting in a 3-7 loss

Game 3 vs Gladius + summoning (emperor's will)

Last game I was getting tired but played it out. He used a librarius conclave to summon a heap of deamons.   He let me go first after bunching up Rhinos in the middle.  The deamons didn't do anything and was used mostly to block movement.  After the first turn he started to split up the transports effectively.  As time was running out the game came down to killing the last 2 regular bikes on my objective while my deathstar held his.  The result was a tie on primary, he took secondary and we both had linebreaker.  Another 3-7 loss.


I'm pretty happy with how everything worked. Considering these were just games #2-4 with the list I still have a lot to figure out, mainly how to deal with more MSU armies. I think concentrating the death star on one flank and literally everything else on another will be something I need to try. 

as a refresher my list was:

Fist of Medusa Strike Force

Core: Battle Demi-Company
Captain: Bike, Artificer armor, Gorgon's Chain, Power fist
Command Squad: Bikes, 4x Storm Shields, Apothecary, 3 power weapons, Thunderhammer, 3 meltabombs
Tactical Squadx5: Melta, Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
Tactical Squadx5: Melta, Combi-Melta, Drop Pod
Tactical Squadx5: Grav Cannon, combi-grav, Rhino
Devastator Squad: 2x Grav Cannon
Bike Squad x4: 2x Grav gun, combi-grav

Command: Librarius Conclave
3x Level 2 Librarian, bikes, 1 with Mindforge Stave

Aux: Raptor Wing
2x Storm Talons, TL Lascannon
Land Speeder, MM, Typhoon Missile

Kill Team - Ravenwing

There is some sort of Kill Team campaign put on by GW this month, and my FLGS is running one.

First games were Friday night, and I got in 3 games - 2 normal and 1 of the 4-player scenario in the campaign set.

For ease of math and carrying I just brought 5 Black Knights.  Exactly 200pts. Lots of good shooting, CC and survivability.

I won all 3 games, very easily actually.

For specialist I picked one guy with Sharpshooter (ignore cover), one guy with WS5, and one guy with re-roll to wound in CC.  The leader got FNP (we were able to choose our warlord trait).

Turns out TL plasma with ignore cover is HUGE.

The last game there is one objective in the middle and everyone starts in each corner in a tiny 6" bubble. I just moved right to the objective and sat there.  I gave up linebreaker and warlord, but was the only one on the objective at the end.

The campaign allows you to spend additional points, and I have been able to add another Black Knight (from the Ravenwing Command Squad since I can't take another FA).

I thought I didn't stand much of a chance with only 5 models but with a re-rollable cover save from Ravenwing they are very hard to kill.   Plus they are bikes, so plenty fast enough to get in CC when needed.

Very happy with how everything played out, and having a 2nd night of 40k is always a good thing! 

Iron Angels take the field!

After months of work I finally put the Iron Angels on the table.

Lacking the 2nd Stormtalon I had to pick another aux choice. I went with Iron Guardians, which is a tactical squad and a dreadnought.  Gave the tactical squad grav and a Rhino, and just a base dread a drop pod.  Had enough points for a 4th libby, giving me a bigger bubble of +1 FNP.

First game against a Necron Decurion.  Sure, not an optimized list but still with the Conoptek Harvest.  Also the player is pretty new to the game as well and his dice were very inconsistent (could not hit in CC, but rarely failed a RP lol) and lastly I rolled pretty much perfect powers with null zone and veil of time.

Didn't lose a single model in the deathstar.  Overall the list was very fun to play and had plenty of firepower and psychic dice.  The 2nd Stormtalon should be on it's way soon!

Battle Report: Age of Sigmar tournament

First I have to say the tournament was a bit of a letdown. There was suppose to be a big wind storm blow through Portland today but it was mostly a dud and it looks like that kept people away. Only 6 out of the 26 that signed up showed up.

We went ahead and played anyway, and it was still totally worth it.

Not to mention how happy I was with the way my army looked!

 
Game 1, mission 1 vs Chaos (mostly Nurgle)

A glotkin, plague drones, some Knights, and other misc gribblies.

The game was to hold objectives one in each deployment zone.  I ran up as Orcs are suppose to do and just got wiped out. However he couldn't get to my objective earning only a minor victory.



Game 2, mission 2 vs Death

Vampire on dragon and lots of crypt ghouls that come in on turn 1.

This was quite a bit of a different mission with earning points for objectives. having many units helped out and despite losing most of my army again I still ended up with a major victory simply by outscoring on the mission.

BTW crypt ghouls are very hard to kill.  But don't do a lot either...

Game 3, mission 6 vs Order

Lots of Elves shooting and a dragon.  So. many. bows.

Another one objective each.  I lost almost all my army with just the doom divers, grots and shaman left.  I did quite a bit more damage though this time mainly with the doom divers able to take out the general on dragon.  He made one mistake leaving his objective, and the game came down to a hawk rider vs my shaman..but he couldn't kill him giving me another major victory.

There was another destruction player, playing Ironjaws with about 15 Gore Gruntas and a Maw Crusha. It looked AWESOME on the table, for sure. But He went 1-2 to me 2-1 netting me the Destruction award.

So I learned A LOT today.

What worked:
1. Goblin netters. Holy crap these are awesome. it's amazing how much a -1 to hit really hurts. I am thinking about how to keep some near every combat, it seems to be the way to go.
2. Boys with shields (kinda).  The boys units with shields were quite a bit more survivable then the unit with 2 choppas.  They just simply get a re-roll in close combat (not shooting though, which they need) and made them fairly hard to kill. Using the Great Waggh! banner gave them the same re-roll 1's that the 2x choppa guys had so I don't see any reason to take 2x choppa guys in the future.  The -1 rend on such basic models is also pretty good.
3. Spider Riders. Still an awesome unit.  I ran them into things that they should have avoided but with Inspiring Presence and Bellowing Tyrant they are quite remarkable ..if used correctly. I was super aggressive and of course have no idea what I'm facing but careful use of these guys is well worth it. They are quite spendy at 80pts per 5 but worth it.
4. Doom Divers. Having more then one is the key, and they are basically twin-linked and when they do hit they do a lot of damage.
5. Destruction abilities.  Another holy crap moment.  Giving units a D6 move in the hero phase plus their normal movement is amazing.  Not only for longer threat range but to re-arrange everything if needed prior to moving.  I took bellowing Tyrant which gives one unit +1 to hit..and it's amazing.
6. Grots.  The massive unit of grots were just so fantastic, so many models that they take forever to chew through and with the netters they don't take anywhere near as much damage as you would think.

What didn't work:
1. boys.  SOOO fragile. And then you combine battle shock losses on top of it and once someone starts concentrating on them, the units just melt away.  They need to be immune to battleshock above 10 models. They also don't hit very hard unless they have buffs on them.
2. Big things. Orruk big things have almost no save so they don't last long.  And they are seriously expensive.


Going forward:
If I spend any effort on this army for future AoS tournaments, I will need to replace the basic boys with something better for the battleline requirements.  I think Ogres are the way to go there.  Also leadbelchers could add some better firepower. Something to consider.

Second game of Frostgrave!

Got my second campaign game in tonight. Playing first mission, eclipse from lich lord.
Game went pretty well, I ended up with 4 treasures and a bunch of stuff. Didn't lose anyone during the game, as I gave my Barbarian and Knights +2 move so my opponent just moved his casters off the board as I was running full bore at them. My Soothsayer went from level 1 to level 5 in one go! My dice(die?) were hot getting off 10 spells over the game, plus the 50 bonus XP from the scenario.

I still need my own treasure tokens plus something for my Wizard's eye spells. I have 2 weeks before my next game to figure it out.

Right now I'm working on my Orcs & Goblins display board, which may or may not be ready in time for next weekend..

More Frostgrave

I said I wouldn't get any more Reaper Bones minis, but they are just so darn cheap it's hard to get anything else. These were not particularly bad, well worth the $2.50 each.

After my first game I had enough cash to re-hire my injured Thug and add these two Knights to my warband, maxing it out. I also gave each of my casters a healing potion. Not bad!

It does not look like I'm going to get to treasure or Wizard's Eye modeling this week, so I'm going to just print up some tokens for now.

Next game is Friday night and this time I promise to at least take some pictures.  I'll try and arrange a full game battle report sometime. Don't know if I have enough SD card or computer space to do it though.

Taking a bit of a break from 40k painting and I've been working on scale models.  But I'll get to my command squad soon enough.

That's it! laterz!

First game of Frostgrave!

I was so excited to play that I didn't remember to take even pictures, much less a video. 

It was a pretty dense terrain board, with big buildings in the middle.

I did a split deployment with Kristianna and the archers on one side and Seoni and everyone else on the other. I got first turn.

First thing was to cast +2 fight on my Barbarian in a group activation. My thief moved up next to the first treasure token.  The apprentice cast Wizard's eye on the other side of the table.

I was playing against a witch that summoned up some companions and potions before the game. he also brought treasure closer with telekinesis.

Second turn I put speed on the barbarian, and tried a mind control through the wizard's eye with no luck.

He grabbed a couple treasures, and some wolves appeared near my archers.

Third turn was bad, with my uber barbarian downed with a single poison dart. Despite being Fight +11 with cover, he rolled a 19(+5) to my 22 and the roll was just enough to one-shot him! I was sad.

My thief made off with a treasure and the archers attempted to shoot the new monsters. 

The game went on with me trying to glow, bow and mind control. He killed Kragmar with another poison dart. Even killed one of his own soldiers that was under mind control.

The end was 4 treasures to 2 his favor.  I ended up with 160xp, a Staff +1 fight for my wizard and a staff of casting I sold for 300 gold.  The barbarian is fine, but the thug will need to sit out next game.  For my level bonus I took a bonus to cast mind control.

However I have more then enough gold to fill out my warband. I'm thinking a man-at-arms or a knight..not sure yet.

I didn't really have much strategy coming into the game but now I definitely have a plan going forward.  The goal will be to cast wizard's eyes on the other side of the board and then hide the casters in the back, while my soldiers move up (hopefully) with fight and speed buffs.  My main offensive spell is easily mind control and with line-of-sight coming from the wizard's eyes I think I will be happy with the plan.

So now I need more models to finish off the warband, something for the wizard's eyes and treasure tokens. I will also at least have pictures next time!

Taking the Ork Decurion to an ITC one-day

So I pulled out the Decurion again, making a few slight changes to upgrade the KFF to the Mega Force field.  This time it was a 30min drive out to Sherwood, Oregon's Glimpses of Wonder & Warfare.  It had enough room for the 16 players and some X-Wing going on.

Anyway on to the games:

Game 1 vs Tyler's Space Wolves: Blackmane's and Thunderwolf star.

Same list I played against at the last event, and ended up tabling him (other then drop pods).  Talking about what he should have different was detrimental to me this time, as he surrounded me with drop pods and guys, de-meching as much as possible.  I was pinned in against the pods and could not get the assaults I wanted.  Ghazzy never got to his wolf star this time, and the Knight killed a few grots and not much else, but lived.  Result: 1-10 loss.

Every time I've played Tyler he's gone first and hopefully next time that changes!

Game 2 vs Matt's Eldar

Not quite a tournment-level list with 2 flyers, a bunch of scatter bikes but onlly 5 warp spiders, Wraitguard with d-cannons and fire dragons.  He gave me first turn which I used to run full bore at the pansies!  The fire dragons blew up the battlewagon, and the Knight stomped the meganobz and most of the Council but Ghazzy lived and harassed units one by one. I kept a few units back to defend against spiders and turbo-boosting bikes.   There wasn't much left at the end but I pulled out a 6-5 victory.

Game 3 vs Jason's Chaos Space Marines

Ah the two red-headed stepchildren of 7th going head to head.  Ariman with 2 units of thousand sons, terminators, a formation with the forgefiend, maulerfiend, and dark tech marine guy, demon prince and helldrake.   He let me go first again, resulting in me heading right up the middle..as it's the only thing the decurion can do!  The battlewagon was destroyed but Ghazzy extracted his revenge on the maulerfiend while the Meganobz make short work of the forgefiend. Then it got interesting.  The meganobz got bogged down by the terminators and a ton of 4+ invul saves, the boys died in droves mostly to exploding trukks and doom bolt's 2d6 explosion range, and the demon prince casting enfeeble and gift of contagion on the council stranding them in the middle of the board not able to run and get into combat. Once the prince went down, I was able to come back somewhat but being killpoints means I was fighting an uphill battle from the start.  Result was a nice and clean 5-5 tie.

So another day and another mediocre showing for the Decurion with a staggering 1-1-1 record. 

What can I say?  the Council with it's ability to run and change isn't a small threat for anywhere on the table, and even jetbikes had problems staying way (if they wanted to shoot) but the rest of the army is just so incredibly fragile without much overall killing power. 

I think I might be putting away the Decurion for a while. It's incredibly boring to play with a very unexciting and monolithic style.

Taking the Ork Decurion to an ITC event

Over the weekend I took my Ork list to a two-day 5 game ITC event.  Taking a look at the meta I think this is really the only viable way to play Orks in this kind of very competitive environment. 

Game one  vs Tyler's Space wolves: Blackmanes+Wolf star+ Knight

I went 2nd, and he pushed right for me.  The drop pods (8 of them) came in on objectives and stayed back.  My first turn the Council smashed into the Wolf Star and only took a few combat phases to kill them all - but did only leave Ghazzy alive and the Manz and MAWarboss exploded the Knight in short order.  11-0 win for the Orks!

Game 2: vs Matt's Eldar.  Several D blasts!

This is the killpoints mission and with 16 very fragile killpoints vs massive S6 and S7 shooting I didn't think I had much of a chance. I did push up with the council but also left a lot of stuff back to deal with 25 deep striking Warpspiders and a unit of Swooping Hawks. I did kill a LOT including most of the warp spiders.  In the end I only had Ghazzy and the Lucky Stick boss left.  0-10 loss.

Game 3 vs Karl's War Convocation

I played this exact list less then a month ago and tabled him. I was well on the way to duplicate the result until the council got stomped out on 6's.  1-11 loss.

Game 4 vs Shaylynn's Grey Knights-Dark Angels.

This army comes in turn 1, so I decided to go first anyway (for fearless) and wait.  Everything came right at me. Then it all died. I should have gotten the Council out sooner then I did.  10-2 win for the Orks.

Game 5 vs Robert's White Scars battle company:

Another player and list I've played recently, and won that one on a very close 6-5.  He learned from that game and played much better.  I had to keep somethings back to defend my objective so I didn't have enough to push him off his.  In the end it was his Objective Secured that swayed the game in a 4-8 loss.

So that was a 2-3 record and didn't even score best Ork as the other Ork player using the Big Mek Stompa went 3-2.  That may be something I'll try in the future..at least you can get obsec that way.

Here are some things I learned over the last 9 games with this list:

1. The Mega Armor Warboss with Lucky Stikk is broken, even under ITC rules.  This guy has tanked literally 100's of wounds and only died to a S10 Thunderwolf and a Stomp.

2. The Council is an amazing death star.  It just wipes away everything it touches.  The super high WS takes a lot of people by surprise.  Ghazzy's extra warlord traits can also be a factor.  However the problem is it can only reach out and touch so many things in a game...

3. Lacking ObSec is a bigger deal in ITC then some people make out.  I lost the last game literally on this rule alone.

4. MSU is hard for this list to deal with.  My stuff dies too quickly to really be able to move from unit to unit (especially things like 5+ Rhinos or Drop Pods).

5. When I lose I can always say "Ya but I'm just playing Orks!".

It was a great event and I had fun for sure (other then that stomp..sigh). 

Superfriends 3.5

Over the weekend was Storm of Silence 4, a major ITC tournament I was actually able to attend. I took my Superfriends 3.0 list and learned something very important.

I went 3-2, losing to ...wait for it..Eldar and Tau.  There wasn't much I could do against the Tau list but I could have beat the Eldar if I had played the aggressive CC game I should be playing.

The Wulfen only made it into close combat once out of 5 games. The other 4 they were shot of the board before they could do anything. Most of the time it took literally all of my opponents shooting to accomplish this.  The answer to this is a second unit of them!   I was thinking about dropping the Ravenwing entirely for a Librarius Conclave, but I might not need too.

So here is Superfriends 3.5:

Great Wolf Detachment:
HQ: WGBL, Runic armor, thunderwolf, SS, Fist
HQ: Rune Priest, Bike, Level 2

Elite: 5 Wulfen, 3xTH/SS 2x Frost Claws
Elite: 5 Wulfen, 3xTH/SS 2x Frost Claws

Fast: Drop Pod
Fast: Drop Pod
Fast: Thunderwolf Cav x5, 5x SS, 1x Fist

Allied Detachment:
HQ: Sanguinary Priest, Bike

Troops: Tactical squad x5, Heavy Flamer, Combi-Melta, Drop Pod

Ravenwing Strike Force:
HQ: Sammael

Fast: Black Knights x4
Fast: Black Knights x4

Only one caster does not mean I'll get what I need, but it can't hurt to try.  Having the 2nd unit of Wulfen also come down turn 1 means a lot of hurt right where I need it the most. In both the games I lost if I had the 2nd unit, I would probably have tabled my opponent.

It's also a lot less money then my 4.0 list, and I'd rather put cash into modifying my Blood Angels into an Iron Hand Medusa Strike Force.

Age of Sigmar

So I finally played a game of AoS, my Orcs vs Gorn Lizardmen Seraphon.  It was a heck of a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it...despite obvious balance issues.

So after just one game I already have some thoughts. That's the nice thing about a simple ruleset, it does not take long to get a grasp on it.

1. The roll each turn to see who goes first can be rough, especially on turn 2.  however I think if you know that your opponent might get 2 turns in a row, you can plan for that more easily. I didn't know it, so I was super aggressive and it cost me.

2. There is no unit balance. Sure you can play with a framework, like limiting wounds per unit, duplicates, etc but it does not help because some units are simply better then others.  There are comp systems out there, I'll have to look into it..

3. Shooting into/out of combat.  There is no rule that says you can't, but we played it like it does.   I think that really helped especially since I was facing some really potent shooting.

4. A game of remembering!  So many rules in each warscroll that it takes time to remember everything you can do. 

5.  Monsters. I *love* how monsters get weaker as they take wounds. It's a great mechanic I've wanted in 40k for a long time.

6. Multiple combats.  I think this is where the game really shines.  Because you do not resolve each combat separately, but pick units to attack in turn and then resolve the results after everyone is done. This means when involved in multiple combats you can only be sure of having the advantage when it's your turn and then only in the first unit you pick.  You're opponent can pick any other unit involved in other combats, giving him the advantage in that one. It's bloody brilliant if you ask me and ads so much challenge to the game.

I don't know if or when I'll pick it up again, especially how much better the Seraphon are then my O&G, and I don't have another army to play. My cousin does, tomb kings, but that has plenty of broken stuff in it as well..

Anyway that's it for now.

So I break out the Blood Angels..I still hate tactical squads.

Just open gaming for December so I decided to break out my Blood Angels.  Picked up a game also against Blood Angels.

My list:

Baal Strike Force

HQ: Priest
HQ: Priest w/jump pack

Troop: Tacticals x10, combi-plasma, plasma gun, heavy flamer, drop pod
Troop: Tacticals x 9, combi-melta, melta, rhino

Elite: Death Company x 10, 8x bolter, 2x power swords, rhino

Fast: 10 RAS, 2x melta, Vet w/fist
Fast: 2x Attack Bikes, 2x MM

Heavy: Devastators x6, 4x ML, Las-Plas Razorback
Heavy: Pred, lascannon sponsoons, overcharged engines
Heavy: Baal Pred, Heavy bolters

LoW: Dante

My opponent:
Combined Arms
HQ: Libby Dred, meltagun
HQ: Mephiston

Troop: 10 tacticals, vet w/fist, combi-melta, meltagun, MM, drop pod
Troop: 10 tacticals, heavy flamer, plasmagun, rhino

Elite: 10 death company, 2x power swords, fist

Fast: 10 RAS, 2x melta, Vet w/fist
Heavy: Baal Pred, Flamestorm
Heavy: Stormraven, AC/MM

Rolled Big Guns never tire, dawn of war.

Deployment:

End of turn 1:

End of turn 2:

End of turn 3:

End of turn 4:

 End of Game:

I have to say the combination of furious charge, +1 WS from the priest and +1 initiative from the formation is quite the amazing combination. 

Dante is an absolute beast!   He gets boosted by the priest and the formation as well, resulting in WS, strength and Initiative 7 on the charge...with 6 attacks.  WOWSERS!  Also now that he has eternal warrior he can tank for the whole squad. 

Death Company are pretty darn awesome too. I think a full unit with jump packs is a real powerhouse that can be on their own and do a lot of damage and/or soak up a lot of firepower.

I still hate tactical marines and am still pissed to no end that I have to take them.  Also I'm sure there is enough low-ap shooting out there to really deal a lot of wounds unlike what we had in this game.

The new book is better then the old one, no doubt. But just like in the Ork codex there seems to be an awful lot of change for change's sake, which is just plain dumb.

First list with new codex

I didn't dive right in like on other books, but instead sat back and watched and read into other people's experiences with the new book. Then combined with my own ideas I built my first list for a pickup game yesterday.

Primary: Combined arms detachment
HQ: Warboss
PK, Bosspole, Da Lucky Stick, Cybork

The new waggh! rule is pretty fantastic, so having a warboss warlord is almost mandatory IMO. Bought the lucky stick, but it never came into play this game.  I stuck with the cybork despite how much it sucks.  I would also normally take 'eavy armor, but I was exactly 4pts over..

HQ: Wierdboy
Level 2

HQ: Mek
Just because I could.

Troop:  30 Slugga Boyz
'eavy armor, Nob w/PK and bosspole
This is the main unit, with much more survivability then regular boys.  Slugga boys really needed to go down in price, not stay the same, but I digress..

Troop: 30 Shoota Boyz
Big Shoota x3, Nob w/PK and bosspole

Fast: 2 Deffkoptas
Buzzsaw
I still love me some deffkoptas, and the slight drop in price is pretty cool.

Heavy: 15 lootas
1 mek
Took the mek, obviously, for mob rule.

Heavy: 2 Mek Guns
Kustom Mega-Cannons, 2x ammo runts
I love these, for the price the hitting power can't be overstated.

Heavy: 4 Mek Guns
Lobbas, 4x ammo runts
The great Lobba, now bigger, badder, cheaper.

Ork Horde Detachment
I took this just for the extra HQ slot, even though it means losing Objective Secured.

HQ: Big Mek
KFF, bosspole
The KFF isn't the 50pts of broken it once was, and it never really came into play until late game.  I'd rather have the old version and risk coming up against ignore cover armies, that's for sure.

HQ: Wierdboy
Level 2
More psychic awesomeness.

HQ: Painboy
He rode with the KFF and Warboss in the 'ard boys unit.  HUGE.

Troop: 30 Shoota Boyz
Big shoota x3

Troop: 12 Shoota Boyz
Trukk w/Reinforced Ram

Troop: 11 Slugga Boyz
Nob w/PK and bosspole
Trukk w/Reinforced Ram

A couple of trukks that can provide quick objective grabbing, but remember they don't have objective secured.  I kept one trukk in reserve, the other in range of the KFF.

Fortification: Aegis Defense Line

I knew I would be playing Tau, but I went with this as-is anyway.  I wanted to try out the big mob of 'ard boys with FNP and it was just fantastic, taking round after round of shooting.  I did fail 1 morale test, though, but with armor and FNP that resulted in no casualties.

Another HUGE help in this game was getting the warlord trait that allowed all units within 12" to use the warlord's LD.  I can't stress how useful this particular trait will be going forward. I liked it before, because I could keep my lootas on the table but now it's good for everyone.

Pretty much the entire game both my psychic phase and Mek Guns were fail..throwing 8 dice as possession and failing!!!  The scatter die wasn't on my side, that's for sure.

That's the nice thing about mek guns, they are so cheap that if they scatter a lot an fail, you're not missing much.  My opponent however didn't like them, and wasted a turn of shooting at them, only to realize how useless that was.  If I had been rolling better on scatter, I think the game would have been a lot more of a blowout for my side.

Some thoughts on Tau+Tigurius.

Well I didn't get to play in the tournament but I did fill in one game as a ringer.

It was against seer council.  Man, that stuff is tough to deal with.  Not like it does a whole lot of damage though, but is just so tough.  Maybe a rune priest would have worked better..maybe.  Or better yet, both!  Thanks to Tigurius I did roll misfortune but was only able to get it off one turn (mainly because I forgot he can re-roll failed tests..sigh) ..still, in that one turn I killed all but 1 warlock and put 3/6 wounds on the two farseers.  Even with fortune, all you need is something that's AP2 and ignore cover.  It goes from 36 wounds per unsaved to just 4 per unsaved, and that difference is HUGE.

Also on the first turn, the tactical squad failed to down a venom..a venom!  Talk about bad rolling.  Still, combined the tactical squad and a unit of kroot put pressure on his backfield where he had to deal with them. I should have dropped all the units of suits down instead of deploying them.

Overall I'm pretty darn happy with the list.  I have to cut it down to 1500 for Wednesday, and I think Riptides would really make a huge difference in survivability over crisis suits..even if it would lose some firepower. I still love the tactical squad in the drop pod..enough where I might consider a 2nd unit of them..or maybe a thunderfire.

I do need to play it a whole lot more for sure, but for now I'm liking what I'm seeing..there was at least one other person playing the same thing so I did get to watch the list play out.

I did see several drop-pod heavy armies at the tournament and man, they do pack quite a punch that first turn.  After that though, it isn't that hard to kill marines but you have to survive.  I like the lists I saw, and that would be something I could get behind.

Yay! First game of Warmachine!

Headed out to Red Castle Games tonight for 40k, where I played a 1500pt game of my Tau/Wolves vs Orks...as someone's first game of 40k.

After I finished that, a bunch of Warmahordes guys came by and I was able to find someone to play against. Glad I finally started taking my models with me!

It was quite fun. Spent a lot of time trying to figure how to make thing work, and I had some hot dice that allowed eHaley to solo a heavy warjack! Ended up dying in the end but only things left on the table where Haley, the other warcaster and another solo.  Lots of turns, learned a lot. Maybe I should read the rule book :)

-Hunter. I really liked using him to flank around back and put some shots out. Even though he lost his cortex early, he was still annoying enough to force my opponent to spend some time killing it. I'd like to have 2 or 3 for larger games.
-Lancer. Used it's attacks to quickly take out cortex points. Really helps limit the damage other jacks can do.
-Charger. That gun is great, combined with Haley's spells it can put out the hurt.
-Domination.  WOW. That's all I have to say about that.  Combined with the re-roll you get from the squire it's great fun.

I really wish I could get more models. I don't have much heavy hitting in the stuff I have now but being able to sneak around for back shots and taking out a cortex or two does help make up for it.  Overall eHaley and the models I've picked really play into my passive-aggressive style of miniature wargames..the same thing I've been playing in 40k for years.

So yes, I'm playing WM just like I play 40k..


Just a few pics I took here and there. My opponent was great fun, and he said I did very well considering my only experience was youtube videos.

Is Tau fun to play or play against? Also 100,000 views.

I noticed my blog passed the 100,000 views mark. Not too bad for my little corner of the internet. Pretty happy with that.

The last two games I've played with my Tau have not been very much fun.  I had a 1500pt game vs a Chaos Space Marine/Ork alliance, with a flying MC, a forgefiend, two rhinos and a battlewagon full of boys.  The vehicles died quickly, and the ion head with markerlight support quickly dispatched the units that came out.  It wasn't even close, and not fun for either of us I think.

Tonight, I played against 2000pts of Eldar.   It was obvious my opponent wasn't having much fun..maybe because everything he tried to do I simply lit up with markerlights, took away cover saves - conceal wasn't very useful - and then blew things off the table.   SMS is a pretty good weapon against Eldar troops, and tank-hunting missile pods work well against their tanks.

At the end of the game he had 2 models falling back, and a Farseer on a bike. I had lost my Kroot, 6 Crisis suits and 2 Piranhas.  It wasn't even close. He said "My first game against the new Tau, and hopefully my last."  Sigh. I felt bad.

Pretty much playing against Tau means putting models on the board..and then picking them back up again. 

It isn't hard for Tau to completely dominate.  Once they get a bit ahead, it's hard to come back just due to the sheer firepower.

I was talking with a few other players after the games and some of them agree that Tau can be very..well I like the term "turn-key"..it does not take much thought. Just delete units in order of threat.  Other people really enjoy playing Tau, even when dominating.  I almost want to try less-optimized lists just to make it more challenging.

Thoughts? Ideas? Tau aren't unbeatable for sure, but they are really, really good.