More 6th experiences

I was thinking what a letdown it was that there were no new fortifications released with the Chaos book, and how awesome and narritave-y it would have been for each new book to include a codex-specific fort. So much opportunity wasted! Chaos could have really been a chance to introduce out-of-the-box style fortifications, like a temple that could help units deep strike if another unit was occupying it or something (ie summoning circle). In other words, the potential for more interactive terrain. I mean static deep-strike assistance is not really game breaking... but then again GW took away Chaos' deep-strikey icons for infantry. And it seems like a very conscious (and obnoxious) decision to disallow any CSM/demons synergy besides the allies rule. 

Otherwise, I like the chaos book so far, though it made my particular collection a little tough to work with, but thems the breaks. I've really enjoyed playing a lvl3 tzeentch terminator sorceror with some tzeentch terminators to back up Abaddon. After the obligatory tzeentch power (preferably gift or doombolt), I usually start rolling on the telepathy chart. Either hypnosis or invisibility is my goal, but psychic shriek and the one that takes away fearless are not shabby either. I'm still using my old cults as troops, with 3 squads of chosen and one of thousand sons, along with some autocannon havocs and obliterators. Against balanced marine lists so far I have done extremely well, but I still haven't played Grey Knights with Abby yet, and I anticipate they would be tougher. Against xenos... I think I have lost one or two times, can't recall right this second. Mostly I have been creating a rhino corral and slowly advancing in the desired direction. In my experiences, Abby's 12" preferred enemy rule greatly enhances the obliterators and havocs at range, and all the other guys close-in. The rhinos are really for an assault speed bump, deep strike buffer, and portable cover more than mobility, but in a game where they're likely to get shot up first turn, I'll keep most of them empty so my troops don't get stunned into inaction when their cars do. Thousand sons practically beg to walk'n'spray anyway, and the khorne guys love to get in and start taking skulls rather than take 2 turns to get into a scrum - though since they have bolters, they do all right jumping out from a rhino than other assault troops. I actually like Chosen quite a bit with their full equipment loadout. With everyone walking, they can put out more long range bolter shots anyway. But like I said, most of my luck has been against balanced marine lists, and overall I would consider this mostly a "fun" army given its limited numbers and flyer defense.

I also started incorporating the aforementioned telepathy superstars into my Saim Hann build by including a second farseer to fly around with the seer council. Invisible fortuned jetbikes are the shit. Plus they have embolden to help reroll failed leadership tests, so getting the powers off is pretty likely. Also I've noticed fire prisms got a nice boost from the new rules for blasts against vehicles. The jetbike/skimmer eldar are not too shabby overall but can have trouble putting out damage if they take some key losses early.

Necrons would probably be my most competitive army right now, just based on their decent survivability and trick plays. The douche canoes seek out trouble better than a teen actor, so I typically use them to destroy or entangle the more devastating portions of an enemy force, while everything else hacks away at infantry and other scoring units. Obviously I can't complain about Night Scythes at all, and they make the double-despair-mark squad a great free safety against any death star unit trying to ruin my day. 

My Berzerker/Blood Angels have done ok. Longer charge ranges can only help these guys, given that I use mostly jump or bike infantry. You have to be more careful with a blood claw dreadnought; terminators will now stop these guys cold. Dante's still a beast and axe-wielding (ex)sanguinary guardsmen are great too. I think the blood angels rules still suit my berzerkers much better and more characterfully than the new chaos rules do, though I do like khorne bikers and raptors in the 6th ed chaos book. I just can't find the points for them.

Guard does just ok; I play 

Chaos 6th Edition Army

Here's my Black Legion Chaos army in it's latest 6th edition incarnation. Not a power army by any means but I like the fluffy fluff and it's something I can play right away without buying anything new. I played one game with Abaddon against Space Wolves and the preferred enemy and hatred did let them hang in there well. Still, losing one or two squads can hurt. For my particular purposes, I think Slaanesh and Khorne Chosen are just as good as Noisemarines (don't have any sonic weapon models, but I have given my pink chosen squad bareheads, mouthpieces, and modified their backpack exhaust ports to be big speakers), and the number of attacks they can put out is very nice. Obviously the army doesn't have much anti-flyer at all and would struggle against a heavy flyer enemy.

Here's the 2k list:

Abaddon

Sorceror - mark of tzeentch, spell familiar, +1 level, terminator armor

4 Chosen Terminators - mark of tzeentch, champion with chainfist, 1 powerfist, 2 power axes, 1 reaper autocannon, and 3 combi-plasmas

8 Thousand Sons + Aspiring Sorceror - power axe
Rhino

8 Chosen - mark of khorne, 2 meltaguns, champion with powerfist
Rhino

7 Plaguemarines - 2 meltaguns, champion with powerfist
Rhino

6 Chosen - mark of slaanesh, 5 flamers, champion with power weapon
Rhino

3 Obliterators

Defiler - extra powerfist, power scourge

Thoughts on 6th: Necron Edition

Just a few thoughts about 6th Edition and how it affects Necrons... the caveat being, my understanding of 6th is evolving so I might be getting some of these wrong:

The benefit of deep-striking during the enemy turn seems pretty clear now, allowing you the ability to actually do anything in the turn on which you essentially arrive.

Challenges should help get the mindshackle scarabs into the brains of important folks in a mass assault, which is good, since we can still get run over'd.

Thanks for the teleportation beam bonus!

Thanks for AP1 warscythes!

Thanks for 4 hull points on all my larger vehicles!

Since Crypteks are characters, lanceteks can snipe folks with S8 AP2 lances on 6's, yay! I will have no compunction about trying to run away from a challenge with a cryptek. And since they have longer range anyway, there's no need for them to be in the back, so you can leave them last for allocating unsaved wounds. I still think that example for rolling mass wounds on page 16 ("Fast Dice") is pretty screwy.

Catacomb command barges! My lords fight from the barge? I can charge with them? They get +1 to armor saves? I'll leave the weave at home, thanks for 15 points. D6 hammer of wrath attacks from the dang thing?

It's hard to tell what kinds of rules TOs will keep in effect, like the nightfighting, but if it is always included, that's just more turns where Necrons are at an advantage. Solar pulses can either extend the cover benefits, or get rid of them in our own turns to pop a few more pimples with sniping lanceteks.

Scarab Swarms got what seems like a huge boost with the new movement and fearless rules. They move 12" in movement, they aren't slowed by difficult terrain and aren't damaged by dangerous terrain, and they won't be gakked by fearless wounds for losing combat, making them even more of a tarpit after they pop that landraider.

All glancing hits remove a hullpoint. In most cases, you need to pop three hullpoints to wreck a vehicle. Rapid fire guns move and shoot 24". I can wreck a landraider with 5 warriors about 50% of the time. Corollary: no need to pay for a phaeron anymore! What a useless rule now.

The Monolith looks like a perfectly fine choice now, since everything under a big blast hits at full strength! Monoliths can only snap fire with the gauss arrays after shooting the particle whip, but it's something! And I think it gets a 5+ jink save if it moves! Hilarious.

Wargamescon 2012

Wargamescon has come and gone once again, and here I am struggling to make any sense out of it all. I knew I should have written this immediately afterwards! I played in the Pairs Tournament on Friday, and the Championship Tournament on Saturday and Sunday.

This year, the tourney was held at the Rennaisance Hotel in the Arboretum, and the convention hall was huge! There was Fantasy and Warmachine/Hordes on one side, and Flames of War, 40k Narrative, and several vendors on the other side, with the largest portion in the middle set up for 40k. It was great to have it all in one big ass space so you could browse all the shenanigans between games. The organizers did a superb job and I had a blast.

For the pairs tournament, I brought my Berzerker Blood Angels and teamed up with Kingsley's Plaguemarines. Here was our list:

Blood Angels
Dante
Furioso Dreadnought - frag cannon, heavy flamer, Drop Pod
Librarian - shield of sanguinius, unleash rage, jump pack
Sanguinary Priest - power weapon, jump pack
10 Assault Marines - 2 meltaguns, sergeant with power fist, jump packs
5 Assault Marines - Razorback with TL plasmagun/lascannon

Chaos Space Marines
Chaos Lord - wings, mark of nurgle, demon weapon
Chaos Lord - wings, mark of nurgle, demon weapon
5 Plaguemarines - 2 meltaguns, Rhino
5 Plaguemarines - 2 meltaguns, Rhino
2 Obliterators
2 Obliterators

We played first against a mixed Deathwing/Ravenwing (using Black Templars rules to cheese in the cheaper land speeders):

In particular, Dante and his unit attracted a ton of fire. Their reserves came in very scattershot and we were able to pick them off one by one. Late game contesting speeder shenanigans didn't keep us from winning this one.

Second game we faced off against a duo playing space wolves/grey knights. There was some kind of random warping special rule in play which drove us crazy the whole time, and ended up scattering half my army (Dante's big unit) right into one of the wolves' firing nests. There was a big battle in the middle between my furioso, some plague marines, both chaos lords, and the grey knights' terminators/praetorians/whatever. We lost this one!

After a frustrating game, we found out we were matched against another local duo, Mike and Tyson, and decided to play a little Beerhammer. Any finished beer vessel must immediately be placed on the table, creating an impassible terrain piece that blocks line of sight:

I'm pretty sure we lost, but I don't quite remember what happened at the end. Mostly.

Here's a couple shots of the huge narrative tables:

 

Here was one of the two amazing Tzeentch towers in play:

Here are some of the armies from the hall during the Championship:

As always, Michael Strange brought a cool army. Then some dickass piece of shit stole two of his chimeras. If whoever stole them is reading this, I hope you die out of cancer.

I spent several sleepless nights the week before finishing up a night scythe and an annihilation barge and brought my Necrons:

Overlord - warscythe, mindshackle scarabs, semipternal weave, phase shifter
Catacomb Command Barge
Royal Court #1 - 2 crypteks (harbingers of destruction) - 1 solar pulse

Overlord - warscythe, phaeron, resurrection orb
Royal Court #2 - 2 crypteks (harbingers of destruction) - 1 solar pulse
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
5 Warriors - Night Scythe
15 Warriors - Ghost Ark
5 Wraiths - 4 whip coils
3 Tomb Spyders - gloom prism, repair claw array
Monolith
Annihilation Barge

Game 1 - Orks

Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Sieze Ground
Secondary - Eliminate an enemy troop choice selected before deployment
Tertiary - Highest number of victory points in non-deployment quarters

For my first match I was paired against Will's orks. He was playing with Ghaz, and a second warboss in a single battlewagon, a big nob biker squad, two or three 30-man boy squads, a grot herd, and three dakkajets. This was the first of several people I played against that were from Arkansas. I faced off against his Lysander/Tigurius marines last year. Not so lucky this year! I came in fast and loose and lost my big warrior squad right away to a single waagh dakkajet blast when I left them out of cover. My bargelord and the wraiths could not finish off the Nob bikers in time for the boyz squads to roll over everything and gave me a big size 20 donut! Down to the bottom dregs with me!

Game 2 - Blood Angels

Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary - Have the highest number of units within 12" of the center
Tertiary - Have a unit within 6" of the enemy board edge (both players can achieve)

Clayton was running Mephiston, a librarian with fear of darkness and shield, honor guard in a drop pod, a furioso with a magnagrapple and frag cannon in a drop pod, a furioso dreadnought with blood talons, one sanguinary priest, a 10-man close combat scout squad, a 10-man sniper scout squad, 2 flamestorm baal predators, a minimum scout bike squad, a stormraven, and a vindicator. Clayton had bad luck with his dice and reserves rolls, and I was able to repel most of his attacks on my center core while the wraiths and barge lord wreaked havoc in his backfield. I came out with full points. Clayton was a great sport and would love to play against him again.

Game 3 - Space Wolves

Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary Objective: Seize Ground
Secondary Objective: Destroy half your opponent's starting kill points
Tertiary Objective: Control the largest number of table quarters with victory points

No pic on this one. I think this guy's name was Brandon? He was playing with a space wolves parking lot nearly identical to the one I played at the end of the tournament. The game was just a little tense as a couple rule misunderstandings on his part led to an awkward start. I rolled up a bunch of razorbacks and rhinos with the scarabs, and disabled the rest of the vehicles pinned in his backfield. I was able to achieve the primary and tertiary but not the secondary.

Game 3 - Blood Angels

Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary Objective: Capture and Control
Secondary Objective: Annihilation
Tertiary Objective: Have at least 50% of your remaining units in your opponent's deployment zone

This was an exciting game. Norman was playing with Mephiston, a librarian, two sanguinary priests with combimeltas and lightning claws, four assault squads in las/plas razorbacks, one 10-man assault squads, two assault cannon baal predators, and two missile launcher devastator squads. This game started out horribly for me. First turn he spotlit and destroyed the ghost ark and annihilation barge. Second turn, he tank shocked my large warrior squad off the board edge and destroyed the monolith. While his assault squad and a couple razorbacks rolled both of my immortal squads in my center and left, I managed to fight off Mephiston and the baal predators with scarabs and the wraiths. My barge lord moved flat out for his table edge and just tore up his backfield real good. Just by himself, I think he wiped out two squads, a sanguinary priest, and a couple vehicles. My night scythe came on right at the end to contest my objective. He destroyed it, but then on my last turn they came back on the board to keep contesting. It ended up with us drawing the primary, he won the secondary, and we both achieved the tertiary because I only had the warriors and barge lord left! A nailbiter.

Game 5 - Orks

Deployment: Spearhead
Primary Objective: Capture and Control
Secondary Objective: Victory Points (300 point victory margin)
Tertiary Objective: Seize ground with three objectives, one in the center and one in each of the non-deployment quarters

I have to admit I groaned a bit when I realized I was facing off against Orks at the top of Day 2! Justin was playing with Ghaz, a big mek, two squads of eight lootas, a small meganobz squad in a battlewagon, three 20-man boyz squads in a battlewagon, and 15 stormboyz. I decided I was going to have nothing to do with the mean greenies and started off far in my own table quarter, keeping the wraiths, monolith, night scythe, and barge lord in reserve. He pulled far enough away so that when my reserves came on, he had to redeploy quite a bit to reach my stuff. The wraiths got tied up in the stormboyz defending his home objective but could just not overcome them, especially after the lootas jumped in, but it was a worthwhile distraction. The barge lord harrassed the center while my immortals, scarabs, and spiders fought off the nobs and boys attacking my home objective. Ghaz in particular got distracted going after immortals and I was able to slowly chew him up with gauss and tesla. It was a close game that turned more in my favor as time went on. I was able to teleport the big warrior squad through the monolith at the last second (immobilized on dangerous terrain!) and pulled out a 30-0 win in the last turn.

Game 6 - Grey Knights

Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Objective: 5 Objective Seize Ground, with one in the center and the other four in the center each quarter
Secondary Objective: Capture and Control, with the objective to the left of each player's deployment edge serving as their home objective
Tertiary Objective: Destroy a selected enemy HQ

Another groan on seeing my matchup for this one! Grey Knights are not my favorite army to play against (maybe it's just me). Eric was playing with a librarian, Coteaz, two venerable psyflemen, two normal psyflemen, one dreadknight with a sword and incinerator, four three-man acolyte razorback squads, two five-man death cultist squads, and two stormravens. When he shunted his dreadknight all the way across the board and threatened to wipe out my big warrior squad with his incinerator, I had to charge it and fight it off with my overlord. In the first round of combat, the dreadknight passed the shackle test and knocked the overlord down, but he got back up again and finally overcame several turns later (the big bastard was great at making 5+ saves!). The bargelord then crossed the board and contested the two razorback units holding his second seize ground objective. We contested the center objective, we both got our home objectives, and I managed to defend my second seize ground objective. As it was, I won the primary and drew the secondary and tertiary. Tough game!

Game 7 - Space Wolves

Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Seize Ground, 3 objectives
Tertiary Objective: Capture and Control

Unfortunately I forgot my third opponent's name, nice guy though (another Arkansan!). He was playing with a couple jaws rune priests, a couple razorback grey hunter squads, a few rhino grey hunter squads, and three big long fang squads. I neutralized two of his long fang squads early on and generally moved toward his middle. I think the main thing that helped me is that he was un-wolfy and pulled his firing line backwards when he should have charged in headlong. Anytime I got in assault with a big group of guys, he wiped me out. But it only happened once or twice, and by then those units had already destroyed one or two of their own. This was a great game for the monolith, which just pulled up into the ruined building and killed probably 10-12 grey hunters with the particle whip. I won the first two objectives and tied the other two. Good game!

In the end I think I came out something like 5th of 118 in the b-bracket with all scores combined. I was pretty wiped out by the end, and very ready for sixth...

Psyche! You'll get nothing but fear and paranoia on 6th from me, but there's plenty about that on the internet already. It just seems a lot more laborious. But I probably thought that same thing five years ago. Oh well there's no going back for me anyway, too invested!

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 6/3/12

I brought the Stormlord and company to another 1250 tournament at Dragon's Lair this past Sunday and won first place along with quarter champion (snaps). I changed the list since the last tournament to include immortals and a couple lanceteks.

Imotekh the Stormlord
1 Harbinger of Eternity - chronometron (joined with the ark warriors)
2 Harbingers of Destruction (1 joined up with each immortal unit)
5 Warriors Ghost Ark
5 Immortals
5 Immortals
6 Wraiths - particle caster, 4 whip coils
7 Scarab Swarms
2 Tomb Spyders - 1 gloom prism
1 Annihilation Barge

Game 1: Space Marines 

My first game was against Liam, a younger new player, who was playing with Space Marines. He had a couple tac squads and a rhino, a small regular terminator squad, a multimelta dread, and I don't remember what all else. We were playing capture/control, three seize ground objectives, and a third mission I don't remember either. I ended up with full points.

Game 2: Blood Angels

My second game was against Brandon's Blood Angels, where he was playing Dante, the Sanguinor, a Sanguinary Priest, and three squads of Sanguinary Guard. He had bad reserve rolls, even with Descent of Angels, and only the Sanguinor and 2 squads of guard (not Dante's priest squad) came down second turn. I think they probably wrecked the ghost ark before my return shooting and the Wraiths laid them all low. When the remaining squad came in, they fought me back a bit, but between the Tomb Spyders, Scarabs, and the Stormlord, I finished them up for the win.

Game 3: Imperial Guard

My last game was against an imperial guard player with an infantry platoon with a flamer command, two infantry squads, several heavy weapon squads, one or two squads of melta vets, two squads of melta command HQs, a basilisk, a leman russ demolisher, and a few chimeras. It was a very hard fought battle, with plenty of casualties on each side, and we ended up drawing two of the objectives and I won the third objective.

I came in first in the tournament and also took home the quarter champion cup. Necrons OP @ 1250!!! I really liked the small immortal/lancetek squads, but at the same time, I never benefitted from the Ghost Ark's repair barge ability since I only had the one small warrior squad. I thought the Stormlord worked out just fine once again at this smaller point level, and I still think his high point cost is well worth the multiple ways by which he can affect the game. Nightfighting at 1250, with generally fewer eyes/searchlights in each army, plays a bigger part than at 2000, but at the same time, the lighting power is less destructive. The second and third games were nailbiters, and even though the first game was a little one-sided, my opponent was a good sport. A good Sunday! Thanks to my opponents and the TOs.

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 5/6/12

I played in an 1850 today with a new necron list I've been working on over the past couple of weeks. I decided to drop the Stormlord, not because I don't think he's the bees knees, but because I wanted to experiment with lists using normal Overlords and solar pulses. I learned a bit more about playing these guys today, and a bit more about some other armies as well. Without further ado, here was my list:

Overlord - warscythe, semipternal weave, mindshackle scarabs, resurrection orb
Royal Court 1 - 2 Harbingers of Destruction - 2 eldritch lances, 1 solar pulse

Overlord - warscythe, semipternal weave, mindshackle scarabs
Royal Court 2 - 2 Harbingers of Destruction - 2 eldritch lances, 1 solar pulse

9 Immortals

10 Warriors
Ghost Ark

8 Warriors

8 Warriors

7 Scarab Swarms

6 Wraiths - 2 lash whip/particle blasters, 2 lash whips, 1 particle blaster

3 Tomb Spyders

Monolith

Annihilation Barge

Sorry for the lack of game pictures (I glitched on that), but here's some sum-ups:

For the first round, I played against Matt's Grey Knights. I fought against this same list 2nd round last tournament and got smacked around quite a bit. Through a few different kinds of happenstance, I did a little better this time, coming out 20 to 10. He was having some big problems with the animal hair in the store though and felt his allergies were to blame for some tactical errors he made. OK, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. I beat Grey Knights because of allergies. The Monolith mishapped and he placed it behind his lines so he could kill it with his psyfleman, but then he also had to pull back his dreadknight to deal with it. Long story short, it wasn't enough to drop the Lith and the next turn, my lords and immortals came jaunting through. The lords mindshackled and scythed his ass down. Revenge for the last game, complete. We drew on two of the objectives and I won one of them (destroy a 'marked for death' unit - a strike squad cut down in the prime of their life by the Overlord Brothers).

Second round I faced J.R.'s Sisters of Battle. Even though I have my own Sisters army, I never picked up the new rules and was a little unprepared for the Celestine factor. Resurrection orb reanimation protocols with a phylactery, plus a power weapon beast in close combat? The thrice damned harpy just wouldn't die. I killed her at least 5 times, but she got right back up and wiped three different troop squads by herself. I'm positive only the game ending on the 6th turn kept her down for good. We ended up going full draw accomplishing one objective each and drawing on the third.

I was paired up against Sam's Chaos army for the third round. He had a lash sorceror mixed into some thousand sons, Kharn hanging with a chaos marine squad in a rhino, another couple plasma and/or melta chaos marine squads in rhinos, a couple melta havoc squads in rhinos, 2 7-man raptor squads with double melta and powerfist sergeants, and a possessed vindicator. I took out the raptors early, and thanks a good castle on my left and a nice push forward from the monolith, immortals, and ghost ark warriors on my right, the only thing that gave me any trouble really was the thousand sons, and eventually they were the only thing he had left, and I kept them busy with a tomb spyder for a couple turns until it was all over. Full points. I only regret I did not have the opportunity to give Kharne the full DOUBLE MINDSHACKLE treatment, but my wraiths did the job well enough.

All in all I came in 5th. I blame J.R. and Celestine.

OK here's some notes:

* Mindshackles are awesome. I mean, besides the whole concept of filling some chump Justicar's noggin with tiny mechanical beetles and getting him to thump his buddies with a thunder hammer (and/or himself in the head - nom nom nom OH GOD MAKE IT STOP!), it really lets the Overlords take on all kinds of weird crap, especially lonesome monstrous creatures or small hardy units that might otherwise be trouble. I mean, 15 points to deny an opponent's most dangerous attacks (with proper positioning) is good enough, but then you get his attacks in your favor? Priceless.

* The only thing better than Mindshackles? DOUBLE Mindshackles. I couldn't stop saying this with Macho Man Randy's voice today. I'm sure everyone else around me loved it as much as I did. Seriously though, it might not be worth it - I might try putting my second Overlord on a Command Barge next time instead.

* When Mindshackles aren't awesome, it does indeed hurt not to have an invulnerable save. After the third or fourth time I killed Celestine and she got back up to wipe out another troops unit, I charged her again with my two Overlords... and both mindshackles failed to do anything. Celestine handily dispatched my resurrection orb lord, who rolled a 3 and left his pardner to wipe her out by his lonesome (which he eventually did, but if the game hadn't ended, she probably would have just gotten back up and cleaned his clock too). Still, I'd have a real hard time paying 45 points for that 3+ invulnerable. Just gotta watch out who I let them tangle with or be ready with a Plan B if things go tits up!

* Gloom Prism - I had my doubts before, but I don't think I had really learned how to best deploy these guys before. Castled up, you can work the scarab farm while protecting nearby key units from nasty things like lash or battle psykers. 15 points plus some more wound allocation? Sure why not. If the 6th edition rumors about wound allocation and random psychic powers are true, they might not be worth it anymore. But from what I've heard about the vehicle hit points, I really won't miss it.

* I do like the Monolith, but I'm not convinced a veil or Obyron wouldn't be better. Still, it does give you a deep-striking webway, and the battle cannon also came in handy several times today, whittling down bunched up SMEs in and out of cover before my gauss finished them off. And the damn thing is so emblematic. How can I leave it at home? I mean, if a second ghost ark and annihilation barge fell out of the sky onto my hobby table, I could probably find it in my heart to give them a chance instead...

* If I don't switch it out altogether for a Command barge lord instead, I'm going to try switching out the mini-tesla on the Annihilation Barge for a gauss cannon. The AP3 would have been real handy on several occasions today. One dakka barge is still not that great though.

* Double pulses doesn't come in handy all the time, especially with the silly searchlight rules (I can't fire a gun in broad daylight while driving fast, but I can pick a target out of the darkness with a beam of light? Crocodile Dundee eat your heart out), but I have a hard time not leaving myself the option for a second (or third in DoW) turn of nightfighting shenanigans. I also had the opportunity to take away the effects of nightfighting during my own first turn in DoW,which allowed me to wreck a couple of key rhinos.

* I was not all that impressed with the tesla immortals. I'm not entirely certain it would have made a difference in today's games, given all the 3+ saves I was up against, but I may end up going gauss/phaeron sometime in the future.

In light of those notes, my list probably needs some more tweaking. More to come!

which 1850?

Which 1850 is bettah? Donkey Kong or Mortal Kombat?

LIST 1

Nemesor Zandrekh
Overlord - warscythe, mindshackle scarabs
HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance, solar pulse
6 Warriors - Ghost Ark

8 Warriors
HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance, solar pulse

8 Warriors
HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance

8 Warriors
HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance

8 Warriors
HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance

6 Wraiths - 2 with coils and casters, 2 with coils, 1 with caster

3 Heavy Destroyers

6 Scarab Swarms

2 Tomb Spyders

Annihilation Barge

LIST 2

Imotekh the Stormlord
Orikan the Diviner
HOE Cryptek - chronometron
6 Warriors - Ghost Ark

Ctan Shard - writhing worldscape, swarm of spirit dust

6 Warriors - HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance

6 Warriors - HOD Cryptek - eldritch lance

6 Warriors - HOT Cryptek - tremorstave

6 Warriors - HOT Cryptek - tremorstave

6 Wraiths - 2 with coils and casters, 2 with coils, 1 with caster

6 Scarab Swarms

2 Tomb Spyders

Annihilation Barge

Earlier this evening I played a 2k of the Orikan list (took out the spyders, but added 3 scarab swarms and a monolith) against Chris' Tzeentch/Slaanesh demons and ended up losing the very tough game. I really missed having the extra bodies and gauss shots in the small squads of warriors (6 plus cryptek), and the worldscape combo didn't do much to an army full of stuff that will deep strike in close and use invulnerable saves to ward off any failed terrain tests. Plus Orikan hulked out Turn 2 with noone anywhere near enough to charge, then went back to "Ori-kant" mode Turn 3, even with the help of the chronometron. Nightfighting was basically moot, as the tzeentch heralds dropped in close enough to blast the shit out of my wraiths before they got to do anything. I think it came down mostly to me using my severely weakened linebackers (wraiths) and the scarabs to engage a bunch of daemonettes and seekers. Result: two utter failures that opened up my right flank for the bitches to just march on into the 2 warrior squads holding my home objective. One promptly broke and the other was slowly whittled down along with the C'tan. Fun game, but uphill all the way, so I'm kind of feeling the first list at the moment. But I want to play one more game with all the snarescape and stormlord bs against a different kind of army, like wolves or grey knights. That said, I am liking the look of the double pulse versus the stormlord's nightfighting. I think it would be better to control the shooting phase uncontested for a couple of turns than count on the rather chancey lightning. But Orikan and Stormlord could be so much fun! I'm torn.

Whole Lotta Shakin

After further review, I think I will try to incorporate Orikan and a couple transmogrification crypteks into my 2k list for some shake-n-bake silliness. Orikan is pretty sick regardless of his temporal snares, especially thrown in with the Stormlord and a chronometron, giving him relentless as well as a possible reroll to help keep him in hulk mode. Still lovin the Crons! Here's the list:

Stormlord
Orikan
2 Crypteks - transmogrification
1 Cryptek - eternity, chronometron
Ctan - writhing worldscape, pyreshards
5 Warriors - Ghost Ark
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
5 Wraiths - 2 whip coils & particle casters, 2 whip coils
6 Scarab swarms
2 Tomb Spyders
Monolith
Annihilation Barge

I think it still keeps some variety in there without going full-on mech MSU and it won't take too much extra painting on my part to finish up. I have some deathmark heads and a box of praetorians coming in right now to make crypteks, and I think I will use my existing cryptek as Orikan for the near future.

Monolith

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 3/04/12

I crammed a bunch of painting and basing on the NDGs in on Thursday and Friday so I could get them all done before a 1250-point tournament up at Dragon's Lair last Sunday. I took the following list:

Imotekh the Stormlord
Cryptek - Chronometron
5 Warriors - Ghost Ark
10 Warriors
10 Warriors
6 Scarab Swarms
6 Wraiths - 2 lash whips and particle beamers, 2 lash whips, 1 particle beamer
2 Tomb Spyders
Annihilation Barge

I took the Stormlord because he's always been fun for me and usually changes up the game quite a bit. I also guessed the nightfighting might foil other 1250 point armies. Wraiths are my favorite Necron unit so I decided to max out on them.

Game 1 - Space Wolves



Deployment - Pitched battle
Primary Mission - 4 objectives, 2 along the center line, 1 placed by each player
Secondary Mission - Have the most units within 6" of the enemy table edge
Tertiary Mission - Control the most table quarters as determined by killpoints

My first match was against Brandon, he of the incredibly articulated and beautifully painted Bjorn model. He was playing with a rune priest, iron priest, and servitors inside a standard land raider, 3 grey hunter squads with plasma guns in twin-linked LC razorbacks, one dreadnought with a multimelta, and one dreadnought with plasma cannon. He decided to hold everything but the land raider and one razorback in reserve. With nightfighting going strong, two of the objectives along the center line of the table, and most of his stuff arriving late, I decided to charge headlong into the breach with the wraiths, scarab swarms, and one of the warrior squads. I got across the board fairly quickly with the scarabs and wraiths, the scarabs eating both dreadnoughts and the wraiths taking down a razorback squad or two on the way. I never had any lightning strikes, but Brandon was having bad dice luck and I ended up getting all three missions in the end.

Game 2 - Grey Knights



Deployment - Spearhead
Primary Mission - Capture and Control
Secondary Mission - Control objective that moves randomly each player turn unless controlled
Tertiary Mission - Control terrain pieces with any unit type

Aaron was playing with Draigo, 10 paladins, 6 purifiers, and a storm raven. Unfortunately I left all my AP1 and AP2 at home with my catachans. I'd have to make do with a solid castle and hopefully a nice counterattack from my wraiths. I ended up taking out his storm raven with the scarabs, but a small space was left for Draigo and the purifiers to disembark and they got out and made mincemeat out of most of my forces. A few warriors and the tomb spyders managed to hightail it to some distant terrain pieces while the wraiths and swarms sacrificed themselves to keep the grey knights busy. I had held the stormlord in reserve with the cryptek, warriors, and ghost ark, and they came in just in time on the left side of my long edge to grab the moving objective just as it came within reach. On his last turn, he made it to my home C&C objective to contest. He won the primary but I came away with the secondary and tertiary.

Game 3 - Space Wolves



Deployment - Dawn of War
Primary Mission - Killpoints
Secondary Mission - One objective each in opposite quarters
Tertiary Mission - Have the most units within 12" of the table center, not including dedicated transports

So, Space Wolves and Grey Knights all day long. Oh well, at least Jon C had a different style wolves army, with one drop pod full of grey hunters, one drop pod full of terminators, and one drop pod full of multimelta dreadnought, all dropping into my necrocastle within the first two turns. He also had a rune priest with lightning and jaws, two more squads of grey hunters in rhinos, and rocket launcher long fangs. Nightfighting kept the long fangs and rune priest from being very effective for most of the game. In the final turns, I had just fought my way clear of the drop pod salvo (wraiths, scarabs, spyders, and mass gauss fire in combination makes for a decent castle) when his rune priest rolled up and world wolfed both spyders, three scarab bases, and two or three warriors just like that. Wish I'd paid for that gloom prism after all! In any case, I was extremely pleased to finally be able to inflict a kill with Imotekh's staff of the destroyer (zapped a wolf termie!), and everyone else performed admirably as well. We drew the secondary mission but I won the primary and tertiary missions.

After the dust settled, I won first place! Hurray, prize support! Alas no, apparently that's not a thing anymore. I did get a medal, but I bit it and it is made of not gold. All in all I was most happy to have three challenging games against friendly opponents. Seldom was heard a discouraging word and the skies were not cloudy all day.