Crazy Busy Moving!

Wow almost 3 weeks and no post!  I have been crazy busy the last few weeks.  First I spend a week traveling for work.  Then I moved houses which was quite the undertaking.  Then of course there has been non stop unpacking and of course Thanksgiving family fun times.

In all that I did not get much in the way of hobby time or games.  I did make it out to Frontline Gaming for a few games with Frankie.  He wrecked me for three games with his Nurgle CSM.  It isn't that they are super great, but my armies were pretty weak.  It didn't help that he stole the initiative twice!  /shakes hand at sky

The bummer is that there is not going to be a ton of game time on the horizon either.  I've got another week of travel which basically downs two weekends since it is overseas.  Then there are a ton of holiday parties to go to and then Christmas which will mean several days of family visits.

Hopefully I will be able to squeeze in a day or two at the end of the month to just be a vegetable and get some games in as well.  I need to get painting my own Eldar jetbikes and wrapping up the bike army.  As much as I want to finish up the 1ksons they are not going to be my best tournament army, unless I'm going in just for fun and soft scores (which I tend to do too).

Beyond that I totally geeked out over the weekend in my new office space.  At least for now it is mine, some day I will be booted to the garage when the kids get older.  Until then I'm enjoying the space.

Anyway on to the geeking out part, I pulled out all my minis.  Not like 'hey remember this guy' but in 'what is everything I've got.'  I remember seeing this on BOLS years ago and I had always wondered what my collection looks like.

Not the greatest pics from the phone that I trimmed up but here is the 'forces of order' I suppose.

And this is chaos/orks/fantasy/trollboods.

It's a lot of models.  It is way more than I get to use and it kinda makes me want to get more of these guys out for a spin.  Of course when you only get so much time to play you don't always think 'let me take this army that 6th edition broke' out when you can try something that actually has a shot at winning.

I also feel like I need to give Fantasy another try.  As 6th edition has become more like Fantasy 8th edition there might be more to like now.  I'll need to give the rules and FAQs a good looking over. 

But again do I want to struggle with learning new rules with what little time I have or just play 40k?  That was the problem with Warmahordes.  I enjoyed the game, but I could never get enough games in to really learn the other factions.

Either way I wont leave these guys out forever but it does make me want to get painting up again.  Once some of the crazier parts of Dec are done I'll buckle down and get to work.  The blog might be a little light until then!

Games at Frontline, Helldrake Assembled

So Friday night I headed up to Frontline Gaming for some games with Reece and Frankie.  I lost more games than I won but it was still fun to just hang out and get some games.  We laughed a lot and talked a bunch about chaos in general.  I picked up a Helldrake (which I had proxied in a few games) which I assembled over the weekend.

My two games with Reece we did up as Battle Reports.  My games with Frankie we were a bit more lazy, but since I lost those I don't mind so much!

Links:

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/11/03/chaos-double-header-part-2/

This is a two game report, with Jim (who's necrons was my1 loss at Golden Throne) playing Reece first and then my game.

http://www.frontlinegaming.org/2012/11/04/40k-video-bat-rep-1750-bao-test-game/

We switched over to Bugs vs Bikes in this one.  Doom of Mylanta owned my Tournamt bikes list to say the least.

Getting back to Chaos we spent a bunch of time going over units and options.  I think a lot of us are trying to unravel the mystery of how to build an effective chaos army.  The problem is it does not MSU very well, and any kind of Deathstar list suffers from normal Deathstar problems.  It isn't that the book or most of the units are bad... they are just costly and that kinda leads to every list made a bit lacking.

Oddly enough Troops are still a bit of the quandary, which is why I think we'll see more Plague Marine armies as that is at least a cheap resilient troop choice.  I think there are other solutions too, but they all end up not killing very much and/or just costing more while not adding survivability.

Cultists have their place, but they are also pretty much useless.  I've taken 10 guys and I've taken 20 guys and really they are just nothing but objective holders.  I think you either spam 10 man guys or you take a blob if you've got an HQ that can either keep them around after taking losses from shooting or put up a fight in CC.

The aforementioned Helldrake continues to be good.  I think I used it in 3 total games and it never died though I did make a lot of 5++ saves.  On the flip side it's killing power was slightly limited in my games due to the opponents.  But I've seen the havoc in can cause so I think it is definately staying.  I may even need to find room for a second unit.

So this is basically the 1750 list I used Friday.

Sorcerer MoT
Termie Lord, MoT, PF
3 Termies, 3x CombitMelta, PF
5 1ksons, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
5 1ksons, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
5 1ksons, Rhino, Havoc Launcher
10 Cultists, Autoguns
10 Cultists, Autoguns
Helldrake
3x Obliterators, VotLW
Auto/Las Pred
Auto/Las Pred
Aegis w/ Quad Gun

The Sorcereer is near useless.  The terminator Lord also really just didn't add anything to the deepstriking termies.  I think he'd be better served keeping cultists around but even then I'm not so sold.

The termies also did very little.  The games I played had very little mech, so not surprisingly they didn't have great targets to DS against.  This may be a sign of the times.  This unit might need to be dropped, or added to so as have an options to be effective walking around the board.

The small sons squads were hit and miss.  Some games the rhinos got them where they needed to go and 5 guys were plenty.  Other games rhinos died fast the small squads were not enough stick around for long.  So the verdict is still out on that.  The funny thing is the squads configured as such are only about 13 points different from running 2 x 9 squads in the rhinos with the havocs.  The Havoc launchers were fun and added a bit of annoyance but again their effectiveness is still in question.

Cultists I covered.  Near useless but sorta necessary in some fashion.  I've been starting one on the Aegis with an HQ and putting one in reserve.

Helldrake as mentioned has been impressive.

The 3 Oblits are still good, the non fearless does suck.  I also played against the T5 oblits and yes they are certainly the best way to run them hands down.

The predators have still been pretty darn good.  They are cheap and shooty and there seems to be less and less that can deal with AV 13 at range.   I keep thinking about going TriLas but not sure if it is worth it (or if at that point 2 oblits is just better too).

Aegis is obviously necessary.

So I'm back to the HQ quandary once again.  I'm now toying with a super Sorcerer on a bike and see if he can be the one HQ to fill the need for the rubrics, LD support, and a bit of killing power.

I'm not holding much hope out for the latter at this point...