Beastmen vs Orcs & Goblins 2/25 Practice

So I got a game in with Dave for some Fantasy action Friday night.  It was his first game with his newly acquired orcs and goblins.  We used a semi old book/semi new book (choppas) since we don't have the new book but mostly it was just to play and get more familiar with the rules.

My 2500 beastmen:

Beastlord- HA, Shield, The Steel Claws, Talisman of Preservation, Ironcurse Icon, Gnarled Hide
Great Bray Shaman- Lvl 4, Extra Hand Weapon, Dispel Scroll, Chalice of Dark Rain
Bray Shaman- Lvl 2, Extra hand Weapon, Shard of Herdstone
Gorebull- GW, Shield, BSB, Armor of Destiny
30 Gor- Extra hand weapons, Full command (both Shaman went here)
26 Ungor Herd- HW/Shield, Full Command (Gorebull goes here)
Tuskgor Charriot
Tuskgor Charriot
6 Minos, Full command, Extra Hand weapon, Beserker Sword
29 Bestigor, Full Command, Standard of Discipline
6 Ungor Raiders
6 Ungor Raiders
5 Harpies, Souct

So what am I missing model wise?  Well I'm short bestigor and those are en route to me.  I'm short some ungor which I just need to pick up some bodies on ebay and I should be able to put them together (I did have some old metal ones for my large herd but I'd like to retire those as they are so puny).  I'm short 2 Minos which I just need to win some bodies on ebay.  Harpies I'm also missing (and are not pictured) but I'm really hoping those will be in the 2nd wave as the old metal models are truly horrendous.

Dave had something like:

Black Orc Warboss- Ogre Blade, Armor of Fortune, Dawnstone
Black Orc Boss- Armor of Desitny
Night Goblin Great Shaman- Lvl 4, Staff of Sorcery, 3 magic Mushrooms
Night Goblin Shaman- Dispell Scroll
30 Nightgoblins- HW/Shield, Boss, 2 Fanatics
30 Nightgoblins- HW/Shield, Boss, 2 Fanatics
40 Orc boyz, Extra hand Weapons, full command
40 Orc boyz, Extra hand Weapons, full command
12 Black orcs, full command, Gorks Waaagh Banner
Spear Chukka
Spear Chukka
Orc Boar Charriot
Orc Boar Charriot
12 Orc Boar Boyz Big unz- Full command, gleaming pendant

I don't think I'll remember enough to do a play by play, and we've caught a few things we did wrong, but I'll put up some pictures with a brief synopsis.

We just decided to play the Mission 1 as it is straight forward and rolled some terrain.  Here is us more or less set up to start.  I think the only thing left if for me to scout my harpies on to the far right hill.

I think this is the end of my turn one.  The harpies (blue skinks) charged and routed his spear chukka.  his orcs didn't try to charge them as they were a good clip away and they might have pulled him too far out of the game had he made it. 

I think this is maybe the end of my turn 2.  His Boars on the far right are tied up with my charriot and I had taken out two with some magic.  All four of his fanatics had come up short and now I've backed up my other units.  I did decide to push forward with my Bestigor, tho they and my gors have taken some heat from goblin magic.

This is a few turns later and the last picture I have.  His chariot in the top left dealt with my ambushing ungors and is making its way back to the main battle.  My chariot on the left had finally routed from his boars and escaped, but my gors and shaman finished the boar boyz off the next round.  My minos are just tearing throuh one goblin unit.  His other goblin unit routed and now my ungors and Gorebull are tied up with one orc horde.  The bestigors and the other orc horde are coming down to the wire.  He had one fanatic end up on his unit and it killed some of his own guys, and that might have tipped the combat in my favor.  On the far right you see his other charriot coming back around to the main battle, about 5 or so surviving black orders returning to combat after killing my harpies and other charriot, and my other ungor raiders about to flee off the table.

In the last turn or so we played:
-My gors got stuck in with his charriot and recovered golbins and killed them.
-His orc horde routed my Gorebull and ungors and they never recovered before leaving the table.
-My Minos got done with his goblins and with +2 attacks started mowing through his orcs.
-The bestigors and other orc horde were killed to a man and we were both left with heroes, but his hero routed.  My lord caught him and chopped him down (if we got those rules right) and then chopped down his chariot when it attacked.

We didn't really roll for more turns as at that point he didn't have much but I had taken significant loses as well.  We got some good practice and we're all learning why some things work and some things don't.

I'll probably try to run this list as is to see how it goes, but I'll put up another post to talk about what I think is working and what isn't based off this one game.

Dundracon 40k Game 3

So I'm off to game 3 and I get paired with Matt's Space Wolves again!  It seems I'm at the top of the 1-1 pile and he's at the bottom of the 2-0 pile.  So the tourny orgainizer bumps me up a table and I'm lined up with another ork player Scott.

So that's the mission and the tourny organizer is shocked as to why people have questions.  Well for one it isn't normal Dawn of War, which ya we get, but damn that is a great mission for people who have bonuses to reserves.  My DoA list would just pick apart a normal army that was forced to put things into reserve.

Next there is confusion about if it isn't DoW do you deploy dedicated transports or not.  The TO says go ahead and do two troops PLUS their dedicated transports.  I'm not sure why it got ruled that way when the verbiage is pretty much the same as DoW but, eh, whatever.

Scott's list looks something like:
Mad Doc
KFF Mek
Snikrot and Kommandos
4 Manz w/ Cybork in BW
4 Trukks with boyz
Deff Dread
3 Deffkoptas w/ Rokkits and 1 Klaw
3 Kans
3 Kans

We roll and set up the objectives.  Scott's got some nice ork ones made.

We roll to deploy and I go first.  I decide to play my 30 sluggas and 20 shootas with the big mek, and I'm covering two objectives.

He deploys a trukk and his BW in the corner.

My turn one and I just run my sluggas out to a 3rd objective and my rokkits are up on a hill.  I'm now covering 3 objectives, but you don't claim until your opponents turn.

His turn he scootches up a bit and shoots with some Big Shootas off the vehicles to do not much.

I collect 3 salvage points.

My turn 2 and I get my BW with Ghaz and one unit of lootas.  The wagon moves up and the rokkit boys shoot and whiff.

He isn't on any salvage so no points.

His turn 2 and he gets a couple of trukk on the board.  He gets one trukk advancing, shuffles up a bit with other things, but still only has his BW on one salvage.  He takes some shots with his BS and kills two Lootas but not enough to route them.

I get another 3 salvage points.

My turn 3 and I get my kans, a buggie, and the ardboyz in their BW.  They all advance.  My forward BW tries to ram his trukk and it goes down.  The lootas try to shoot but I don't think they do anything.  The rokkits are able to pop one trukk.

Scott gets one salvage point.

His turn 3 and he gets his kans and his dread and starts to move.  The rest of his troops are semi pinned and sitting on objectives.

He moves his wagon up and takes more shots, I think my lootas actually route here.  His boys from the trukk swing at the BW but can't do anything.

I collect 3 more salvage points.

Turn 4 and we're finally ready to make combat.  My other buggie and lootas come out and that's my whole reserve force.  My forward BW rams his guys killing one or two but also smashes into his own BW and wreck it.  Mad Doc and his Manz get out, and I decide to just send Ghaz into them.  My ard boyz get out and charge his trukk boys.  My shooting is ineffective.

I've called the Waagh so Ghazs invul save comes thru and he only takes no wounds.  Meanwhile he chops down 2 of the manz and the Mad doc.  He makes his LD to stick around.

My ardboyz smash through his trukk unit.

He collects two salvage points.

His turn 4 and snikrot and the coptas outflank.  His other kans and dread advance while his remaining troops

Snikrot destroys my lootas squad.  The koptas can't manage to do anything by shake/stun my kans.  Ghaz wiffs quite a bit and kills only one manz and takes a wound.  We all stick in combat.

I collect 3 more salvage points.

My turn 5 and I jam my BW with teh manz  up to his other objective (rammed a truck I think), and the ardboyz get in their ride and advance as well.

My Kanz turn around to shoot his deffcoptas, and amazingly I down them all.  I would have thought I had to charge but it wasn't needed.  I'm trying to down his front kanz and they approach my front objective but I can only kill 1 of the 3.  In combat Ghaz downs his Mek and last Manz and coslidates into his wrecked wagon.

He collects one salvage point.

His turn 5 and Snikrot tries to make it to my string of sluggas but can't get to contesting range.  His Kanz advance and charge my shootas.  He kills a few and I pop one and we're both tied up on that objective.  His boyz are able to pop My BW with the Mek and Manz, and they have to get out behind the wagon to stay 1" away.  So he's back to claiming that objective.

I collect only 2 salvage points this time.

We roll for turn 6 and the game ends.  It probably took less than an hour.  I have 14 salvage points to his 4.

Scott looks up and says 'A Tie' and I say 'Uh waht?'  Apparantly he was confused about the salvage points, and I guess I had talked about it enough with Anhtony that I just briefly reviewed it with Scott.  Even tho at the end of turn I kept saying 'I get X salvage points' and what not.  So I think that sucked for him a bit to have what he thought was a tie go to a loss. 

The truth of the matter is the game was mine as soon as I got to go first.  I was sitting on 3 objecitves the whole game, and at best he would have been on two earlier.  It wouldn't have been until turn 4 at best before he could disrupt my salvaging if he had played more aggressively, and I don't really see how he could have done that and hold off my advance with my BWs as well.

So I pick up a few secondaries and go on to take the best overall.  Again I was shocked, as I didn't think a 2-1 army could do it but the numbers don't lie.

So my orks seem to do well for me more often than not.  Occasionally they have a chunder game but they are certainly my most consistent army and score well for painted for me (though the BA don't look shabby by any means, I just don't know what a judge will say yet).

The next 'big' event is Kublacon, so I'm torn whether I bring Orks out again to try to smash face, or bring the BA to see how they get judged on the soft scores, or really get cracking and get a fluffly 1ksons army to go for shits and giggles.

Dundracon 40k Game 2

Game 2 and another mission that looks like nothing too crazy or anything.

So on to game two on table 16 and I'm up with a Space Marine player.  He tells me straight up that his list is pretty much a 'this is what I have' and he wanted to try a new army so he knows he's just playing for fun.

Chaplain w/ Bolt Pistol
Master of the Forge
5 Shooty Terminators (no upgrades)
Dread w/ Heavy Flamer in Drop Pod
5 Sterngarud with CombiPlasmas in Drop Pod
10 Tacticals, Sarg w/ Fist, Missile, Flamer, Las/Plas Razor w/ Dozer
10 Tacticals, Sarg w/ Fist, Missile, Flamer, Las/Plas Razor w/ Dozer
3 Scout bikes w/ Grenade Launchers, Sarg w/ PF
LRC w/ MM
Ironclad Dread w/ HF in Drop Pod

We place I think four objectives on the board.  I win roll off to go first and place my units ready to swarm up the board and spread my loota line thin as I know they are a prime target for flamer out of pods.

He's combat squads his units so there is 5 in each Razor, tucks the Raozrs behing the LRC and puts the marines up to shoot/be shot.  The Master goes in the Sterngaurd pod and the chaplain goes with the termies in the LRC.

Turn one and I advance.  My lootas take one of his combat squads to 1 guy who breaks but doesn't leave the board edge barely.  The other lootas manage to kill 2 of the other combat squad and they hold.

His turn 1 and his iron clad comes down on target.  His other dread scatters off the table, and he rolls the 'opponent deploys' so I put him way on the far right corner.  His LRC advances and his Razors back up a bit.  In his shooting from the Razors and LRC and get through the BWs, his normal dread is able to pop a buggie, and his Ironclad takes out 5 Lootas but they hold.

My turn 2 and I decide to ram the LRC and it takes the second Deffrolla to actually pop it.  I fire my Lootas and rokkits and the ironclad but nope can't hurt it, and I realize that's going to be a real problem for me.  I decide to keep all my guys in their vehicle and make him work to get me out of them.  My kans manage to stun his normal dread.

His turn 2 and his scout bikes outflank.  They come out and pop behind my kans and are able to shoot one dead.  His Ironclad charges my larger loota squad and wipes them out.  His Razors shooting again can't get through the BWs.  A a drop pod shoots one of my lootas dead but they hold.  His Termie squad of doom manages to make the battlewagon explode that holds ghaz and they pile into the crater.

Sadly that's the last picture of the game.  I was really focused to not let things go sideways on my and I just plain forgot to take pictures.

My turn 3 and I call the Waaagh.  The sluggas are able to just make combat with his 3 remaing marines.  Ghaz and the manz step up to fight the termies and chaplain.  The Kans turn around and shoot at his bikes and miss.  The last 3 lootas desperately shoot at the ironclad and manage to glance of the arm with the flamer.  My BW full of ard boyz deffrolla into one of the razors but just take off weapons and immobilize it.  The 'ard boyz get out and prepare to assault it and his last straggler marine running around with a missile launcher.

In assualt my Ard boyz kill that marine and just wreck the Razor and his guys tuck right behind it and between the second razor.  My normal boys the marines and consolidate up the field more trying to put distance from the ironclad.  Ghaz and the Manz wipe out his terminators, but enough fist attacks take out the Manz.  My two Kanz manage to take out the bikes just as the Power Fist pops them both as well (I assaulted through cover so we were both Init 1).

His turn 3 and the Sterngaurd come down with the MotF.  They scatter a bit and are very close to his Ironclads pod.  They shoot and kill some of my large squad of boys.  His ironclad moves off to deal with the last 3 lootas and he kills them in combat.  His guys that bailed out of the Razor start to run away toward his dread and pod, as does his other Razorback.  His dread is unable to shoot the last BW as he advances toward my sluggas.

My turn 4 and Ghaz hops in the wagon and the wagon rams the Razor killing it and more guys spill out of the vehicle.  The ard boyz catch his other unit and kill them off.  The last buggie back tracks trying to desperately kill his ironclad to no avail.  My sluggas charge into his sterngaurd and I kill most of them but he kills a few more but I'm still more than enough to be fearless.

His turn 4 and his last troop unit keeps moving away.   Both his dreads are able to converge on my Shootas unit (which has been losing a few guys here and there to storm bolters from the pods.  He wins combat but I'm hold (I don't remember if I'm fearless at this point or not).  My big slugga squad finish off the MotF and his Sterngaurd.

My turn 5 and the BW moves up to deploy Ghaz into his normal dread to help the boys out.  My ard boyz catch up to his last combat squad and start killing them.  The sluggas spread out to cover three objectives.  Ghaz pops the Dread and the iron clad kills a few more boys.  We consolidate.

In turn 5 Ghaz pops the ironclad and I think he's down to two wounds, but this allows my sluggas to hop on the near objectie.  The ard Boyz finish off his last combat squad.

At this point he's only got his 3 drop pods and I'm covering all 4 objectives.  We call it a game.

Ian was a good sport the whole way through even though things were pretty much going my way the whole time.  He didn't complain and we had a good time throughout the game.  We talked about his army and things he could do to give it more foucs.

Either way I pulled the full 20 battle points and was off to game 3.

Dundracon 40k Game 1

Yep, ok, nothing huge on the mission and deployment.  I get paired up against a Matt's Space Wolves.  I didn't get a copy of many lists that day, but from what I recall it looked something like this.

Rune Priest

4 Wolf Garud Terminators  with different builds, Including Arjac

Wolf Scout Pack

3 Grey Hunters Packs

3 Long Fangs Packs (with mixed shooty guns)

1 Las/Plas Razor

1 Twin Linked Razor

We placed our four objectives.  I chose to go first hoping I could whittle down some firepower.  I deployed trying to get as much cover as possible.  He set up more or less in a line across, with his wolf scouts outflanking and his two razors in reserve.  He split his Wolf Gaurd so there was one in every squad.

My turn one I advance.  I shoot.  My Lootas basically evaoporate one Long Fang squad.  I think I landed a lucky kill on another long fang squad.  I also drop o rokkit shot onto Arjacs squad and he decides to put it on Arjac with his 2+ save but fails it.

On his turn he does some shooting.  I think he kills 2 Lootas not enough for a check.  I think he immobilizes a buggie.  All in all I fare pretty well.

On my turn 2 my lootas more or less take his black unit of longfangs down to one.  Stuff advances.  I have to decide how i want to roll on his main force.  I think I play it wrong here.  I assault his two units with the ardboyz, and send ghaz and the manz after just his long fangs.  Arjac was me worried, but I really should have just sent Ghaz in there to start winding down.   As it turns out I wipe his long fangs, and my ardboyz die and maybe only kill 1 or 2.  Had I sent Ghaz in there I might have just been better off... but who knows.

His turn 2 and only one razorback comes in.  It takes side shots at the BW but does nothing.  His left most troop squad is taking cover behind a building and my lootas can't draw LOS on them.  His mob with Arjac slam into ghaz.  I call the waagh to get my invul (and bring out the book to show him it indeed can now be called) and we roll a ton of dice.  He kills my manz off (all of which had been wounded from shooting), but not before I kill off marines.  If I recall it meant that I ended up winning combat by 3and his non arjac squad fails his LD and routes off the board.  So some very good fortune for me.

My turn 3 and I think I make another bad call by sending my shootas down to engage his other troop.  I probably should have sat back on my objective and worked angle to shoot but alas.  He kills more than I do but I stick.  I charge in my kans to help Ghaz out.  Ghaz takes a wound and one kan goes down but I think I still win combat but he sticks.  I also deffrollad his Razor to death. Meanwhile in the back field my large slugga squad has spread to get two objectives.

His turn 3 and he gets his last Razor and his scouts on the board.  The Razor comes out to shoot the side of my BW that killed its mate but wiffs, and the scouts come out to charge my sluggas.  The charge pulls them off the second objective.  I'm hopefully I'll wipe these scouts out quickly so I can get back to hugging to objectives but it was not to happen.  Ghaz finally dies to Arjac but more troops are killed on his way out of the game.   A few shootas manage to hang on in the combat round as well.

My turn 4 and there isn't much I can do.  BWs move around a bit, the lootas shoot his Razor dead.  The Kans kill more troops and one loses a Klaw to Arjac.  The wolf scouts still hang in there with my huge slugga squad.  The shootas are finally killed.

His turn 4 and his sqaud that killed the lootas take refuge behind a building where the lootas have no LOS.  His scouts are finally killed off and my sluggas make a tiny consolidate.  Arjac kills one of the kans but his fellow troops are laid dead.

My turn 5 and we are running out of options.  Since my lootas have no target I decide to run them over and they stay as far back as I can and still claim the left objective.  I'm hoping his troops fail their move through cover, but if the roll well maybe I can at least contest if turn 5 ends.  I blast a buggie up as well but it is probably 1/2" short as well.  I position a wagon so that it is able to contest, but foolishly I put it on the south side of the objective rather than the north side, which I'll explain this failure in a moment.  My sluggas go to run for the 2nd objective but they run slowly (2" and are easely 3" away.  Arjac kills my last kan in combat and consolidates forward.

His turn 5  Arjac moves up and is within 3" of the middle objective.  He then throws his hammer and blows up my BW.  My failiure is that ARJAC IS A TROOP since he was attached to a troop squad.  Matt had told me this earlier and I just forgot.  I was not mad at Matt, but it was hard to not let that disappointment show and I'm not sure how well I did.  Had I remembered this key fact I could have blocked Arjac from the objective, so that even if he had killed my wagon he would have been plenty out of reach.

Not horribly surprisingly my lootas were able to be charged by his last mob of guys and wiped and they consolidated on the objective.

End of 5 with Lazy Lootas removal, but those are dead.

Matt roll's for turn 6 and... NOPE.  Game ends.  He has two objectives to my one.  I pick up one battle point for having an HQ (the Mek in my last wagon) and end with 6.

So I can't help but be disappointed by a few bad decisions and the poor luck of the game ending but that's the game.  Had turn 6 gone my sluggas could have easily made the 2nd objective, Arjac probably could have been killed by loota fire alone, and or my BW could have contested.  It wasn't a given, but I think things would have been in my favor.

Either way we both worked hard for it and the game was fun.  Matt would go on to go 3-0, and I figured I would have more fun playing and was curious to see how my soft scores panned out for me.

Next up:  Space Marines!

Dundrancon Complete!

So Anthony and I went to Dundracon for the 40k event yesterday.  The games were all fun and the tables were pretty nice with the terrain set up I'd say.  We had a nice turn out with I think 32 players (one might have been a ringer to make it even).

Pulling the breakdown from the final score I think we must have had one drop, as I now see 30 players.
Space Marines: 5
Blood Angels: 4
Orks: 4
Space Wolves: 3
Dark Angels: 2
Tyranids: 2
Chaos Marines: 2
Tau: 2
Eldar: 2
Daemons: 2
Imperial Gaurd: 1
Daemonhunters: 1

The two surprises to me were 0 Dark Eldar players as it is the newest codec, and seeing just one IG.  That codec seems to have fallen out of favor a lot over the last year.

I lost my first game by the game ending on turn 5 more or less so I figured I was just playing the rest of the day for fun.

Anthony won all 3 games and we thought he might come out on top for Best General  (Highest Battle Points) as he was on table one both game 2 and game 3.

As it turned out he lost out on Best General by one point to a Tyranid player that pulled off a full 20 points on his last game (who also won 3 games).

A really cool Tau army won Best Painted, and best Sports went to the player with the highest Sports score (there were lots of perfect scores) with the lowest Battle points.

So all of the ork players ended up going 2-1.  So when they announce best Overall they announce it was a 2-1 player, and an ork player... and it was me!  I was shocked!

So that's was definitely cool since I had a poor showing at Kubla last year, couldn't go the Grant Waagh, and the last 'big' event for orks up in Sac I also chundered.  So despite me kicking myself for my game one loss I ended up doing quite well over all!

There were only 3 players who did 3-0, and the bug players army was nicely painted but not great, and the other 3-0 armies were Anthony's largely unfinished BA and my first opponents SW which were also largely just base coated.

I did manage the highest Battle score of the 2-1 players, my Sports and Comp were only dinged once in each, and with a pleasing paint score of 34 out of 40 the totals pulled in for my favor.

Endgame generously donated a $25 gift card which is just icing on the cake.  Really I'm just pleased that I think I've now been around our little community enough for people to want to play me for a fun and challenging game!  (Well hopefully they think that, and not that I'm a total dickwad!)

Too bad there's no golden ticket associated with Dundracon.  Then again I'm thankful I wouldn't have to explain to my wife why I'd need to travel to Vegas for 40k later this year!  :P

I'll do up some quick battle reports with the missions over the next couple of days.



Dundracon a go... sorta? Stormraven Done.

So I just happen to see a thread this morning about Dundracon this weekend.  It's in San Ramon which is about 20 minutes away from me, and they are having a 40k event Sat.  So short story I'm going up to that with Anthony.  It took a lot of running around this evening to make it happen, and oddly Anthony shows up as registered for the event and I do not, but there are plenty of spots so I'm sure it wont be a problem tomorrow (at least I'm telling myself that).

I guess I'll just bring orks as I haven't given it a lot of thought.  Anthony will bring his BA.  Maybe I should take my BA just in case there are a lot of ork players.  Then again I don't think my DoA will deal with lots of orks well! :p

So since we decided to go Anthony's Storm Raven really needed to get built, so I just got done doing that.

All the moving parts are moving, the side doors can be swapped with the Hurrican Bolters, and the glass canopies can be removed for painting.  There are a few trim bits I've left off in a baggie to making painting easier.  The only non magnetted guns are the front meltas as I couldn't really figure that out, but they are secure snuggly but can be popped off there.  I can't imagine not running with them so... it will have to do.

So it will be an early morning and hopefully some fun (and smooth) gaming tomorrow which will be nice.

Walls Complete

Not much to say other than 'jobs a good 'un.' 

Now I'll really think about how I want to do some water features.

Failiure To Launch Weekend

So this weekend was pretty much fail for us on the 40k front.

First of all on Friday the guys that were going to the Sunday event realized there was a pre reg and the event was now full.

Of course I planned for the Sat event at another store.  But just to be sure I called to see if there was any prereg action.  The voice on the phone said, "Nope just come on up."

So I did.  I drove my happy butt up there Sat Am to find the even had been canceled.   Not like 'this just in' canceled either.  More like 'we canceled it a week+ ago.'

So that was epic fail.

My wife was of course happy because it meant even more family time in a weekend where I had already booked a ton of family time outside of the event. :p

In the few late hours I had I worked on more terrain.  This weekend was mostly about trying to get some forests done for Fantasy.

 

I also picked up some Citadel walls and painted those quickly.  

The quick shade is drying on those, but I should be able to hit them with the anti shine and then I will flock the bases and they should look alright.

While I had the camera out here are the two building I finished up the other week.

So the fantasy terrain selection is improving.  I really need to make some water features (ponds/swamps) and then just fill out some other bits.

A few pics from last weekend

A few pictures from last weekend games.  I brought out my pod Templars and they didn't really go well.  I managed a tie and loss against two CSM lists.  My drops were 'meh' and 'total fail' and I couldn't shake thinking 'this is why DoA BA are better.'  Plus KP in game 2 made me cry.  So I guess that means BA this upcoming weekend.

I'm not going to bother with much reporting on this as I've forgotten most of it anyway.  Both games were fun but the second one was definitely uphill from the get go.


Dave brought his CSMs and I played 3 objective corner deployment.  My drop wasn't bad but there wasn't really one place I could focus and dodge two princes also.

This is pretty much the end of 5.  I only have one guy attached to my EC and that's the last troop on the table.  Even if the game had gone on he had plenty to still kill my last Crusader and his troops were dead so we called it a tie.

Then he and Liam did CSM on CSM KP game.

That's not quite the end but things were sliding for Liam here and kept going down.

Then Liam and I played a KP game.  My drop on turn 2 was my termies, 1 dread, and 1 speeder.  Not good!

I tried to hang in there and a few times I thought I might be able to make something amazing happen but it was not to be at all.  In the last turn we played (don't even remember if it was 5) he cleaned up a bunch of things that meant I would probably have to table his army.

So Templar I think might need a reconfigure again.  Maybe multiple terminators in pods should be tried.  Or else just going complete MSU (5 man no fist one melta in pods x 6) to get more single melta shots on the drop.

Not much cooking, a little planning

So it has been quiet on the wargame front.  People have been busy, including myself, and I've been quite happy to just play some Blood Bowl on the PC in the hour or so in the evening I have rather than painting.

The only hobby bits I've done are paint/flock up some of the Citadel modular hills and those look nice.  I'm also working on two buildings for Fantasy as we seem to be short those.  I'll probably be done this weekend and I'll throw up some pictures.

I have managed a few games of Fantasy over the last few weeks.  We're still learning the rules so battle reports are kind of meaningless.  I probably should still grab a few pictures though with non painted minis and boring terrain the battles haven't looked impressive either.  Still we've learned plenty and I think we've got a few things ironed out now (like always take a BSB and a lvl 4 Mage).

Normally there would be a tournament this weekend at the regular LGS but there is not.  However next weekend they are hosting a 1500 pt gig, and another shop north of me is having an 1850.  I love the regular shop because the gamers are great and the prize support is top notch, but the tables are getting old (and most are loaded with terrain) and 1500 is kind of meh to me.  I played at this other shop hosting the 1850 in one other tournament and I enjoyed the boards and games even if the prize support was lighter.

Of course since one is on Saturday and one is Sunday all that it will really take to determine which I go to will be if my wife makes plans for one of those days. :p

All the same if everything stays as is and I'm just picking I'm leaning toward the 1850 gig.

I very well could just take up the DoA BA list I used in Jan.  I'll need to just split my 10 man VV into two units but that's ok.

I took orks last time so I'll bench them this round.

However I've got a hankering to go back to my drop pod Templar and this time see how the new Storm Shields help out.

1850 Pts - Black Templars Roster

1 Commander, 185 pts
1 Marshal (Crusader Seals; Storm Shield; Thunder Hammer x1; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds), 1 Adamantine Mantle, 1 Terminator Armor

1 Emperor's Champion, 140 pts (Bolt Pistol; Crusader Seals; Frag Grenades; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds), 1 Armor of Faith, 1 The Black Sword

1 Black Templars Chaplain, 125 pts, Reclusiarch (Crozius Arcanum; Crusader Seals; Combi-Meltagun; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds), 1 Rosarius, 1 Terminator Honors

5 Sword Brethren Terminator Assault Squad, 230 pts (Lightning Claws (pair) x3; Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield x2; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

1 Dreadnought, 160 pts (Unit Type: Vehicle (Walker); Dreadnought CCW; Extra Armor; Heavy Flamer; Multi-Melta; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

1 Dreadnought, 160 pts (Unit Type: Vehicle (Walker); Dreadnought CCW; Extra Armor; Heavy Flamer; Multi-Melta; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

6 Crusader Squad, 171 pts (Bolt Pistol x5; Close Combat Weapon x4; Meltagun; Power Fist; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
2 Neophytes (Bolt Pistol x2; Close Combat Weapon x2)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

6 Crusader Squad, 171 pts (Bolt Pistol x5; Close Combat Weapon x4; Meltagun; Power Fist; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
2 Neophytes (Bolt Pistol x2; Close Combat Weapon x2)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

6 Crusader Squad, 171 pts (Bolt Pistol x5; Close Combat Weapon x4; Meltagun; Power Fist; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
2 Neophytes (Bolt Pistol x2; Close Combat Weapon x2)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

7 Crusader Squad, 187 pts (Bolt Pistol x6; Close Combat Weapon x5; Meltagun; Power Fist; Accept Any Challenge, No Matter The Odds)
2 Neophytes (Bolt Pistol x2; Close Combat Weapon x2)
1 Drop Pod (Unit Type: Vehicle (Open-topped); Transport Capacity: 10 models; Power of the Machine Spirit; Storm Bolter; Immobile)

1 Land Speeder Squadron, 75 pts (Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Fast); Multi-Melta x1; Heavy Flamer x1; Deep Strike)

1 Land Speeder Squadron, 75 pts (Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Fast); Multi-Melta x1; Heavy Flamer x1; Deep Strike)

Total Roster Cost: 1850

Nothing too drastically new on this.  I've basically cut one troop squad and one speeder for the terminators in a pod.   It cuts a kp and a scoring unit but I don't know that either really help/hurt too much.

While it's deployment is 'safer' compared to the DoA BA list it doesn't have quite the same survivability once it hits the ground.  It's alpha strike is also considerably different.  I might be dropping the same amount of units with Melta but the BA have usually 2-3 shots per unit vs the BT of usually one.  Plus no VV to tie up units.  It means I don't nearly put that hurt on the drop, but I'm also a turn later.  Plus I'm almost always guaranteed to be getting cover.

I'd love to get a practice game in to see how it goes.  I think both lists have advantages but I'm not sure the BT pod list is quite as strong as the shiny new books even with the helpful FAQ update.