Thursday, December 26, 2013

Wraithwrider in Pwrogwress

Work continues on Project X, a.k.a., the Wraithrider. Who says wraith constructs have to be slow-witted? I think the spirit stone of a Saim Hann Autarch would stay plenty sharp enough to allow him to pilot a specially-constructed bike! The model does honestly look better in person, and I can't wait to paint it. The handlebars were touch and go for a while. I'm still not 100% perfectly pleased but they came out ok.

 




Now, what kind of benefits would a custom jetbike add to a Wraithlord? You might well imagine a wraithlord given additional speed, strength, wounds, attacks, firepower... There is a unit in the codex with just such attributes! The model is a maybe a head too short, but if my opponents are game, I'll always be willing to grant generous lines of sight in order to be able to use this fluffy silliness.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 12/15/13

I played in the 2013 Dragon's Lair tourney of champions last Sunday and faced off against the top 8 players from the 2013 monthly tournaments, minus one or two that could not attend. I played with one of my latest 2000-point Tau incarnations, though I wish I had come up with my current Farsight build (more on that later) beforehand, because I think I would have had even more fun. As it was, I came away with first place after three tough games. The 'Cuda is always a lot of fun, and does really well at short range. Here was my list:

Ethereal
Riptide - ion accelerator, twin-linked fusion cannon, early warning override
3 Crisis Suits - 6 flamers, 3 fusion guns
6 Stealth Suits - 2 fusion guns, Sha'vre with homing beacon
10 Fire Warriors
10 Fire Warriors
10 Fire Warriors
6 Fire Warriors
Devilfish with disruption pods, smart missile system
16 Kroot - sniper rounds
6 Pathfinders
6 Pathfinders
Barracuda Air Superiority Fighter
Hammerhead - Longstrike, submunition rounds, disruption pods
6 Sniper Drones - 2 controllers
3 Broadsides - 3 high-yield rocket pods, 3 smart missile systems, 6 missile drones

Game 1 - Grey Knights

 

Missions: Killpoints/Relic (1 pt each turn held plus 7 at end of game)
Deployment: Vanguard Strike

My first opponent was Matt, who I definitely respected as historically being the best Grey Knights player in the local community. He had tons of psycannons and plenty of boots on the ground: Inquisitor, Grandmaster, 6 or so Paladins, incinerator dreadknight, 2 psyfleman dreadnoughts, and a few rhinos. My crisis and stealth suits were fairly useless in this game, but everything else delivered a ton of fire into the grey knights line as they ran for the relic.



Matt ended up getting 10 points from the relic mission, plus a few bonus, and I ended up getting most of my 13 points from popping a ton of his combat-squaded units. The sniper drones were helpful in taking out the dreadknight, but it was the fire warriors long range along with the ethereal's pulse boost that generated most of the wounds I caused.

Game 2 - Sisters of Battle



Mission: Emperor's Will/Crusade (3 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War

For my second game I faced off  against our local Sisters player JR. He was running Saint Celestine, Urea (sic) Jacobus, a Canoness, an inquisitor, a bunch of seraphim, dominions with meltaguns in an multimelta immolator, several small sister squads in rhinos, a big sister mob squad that ran with Urea, heavy bolter retributors, and two exorcists. This is a tough army that puts out a ton of fire, especially the retributors and the exorcists. He had a perfect start, seizing the initiative and scouting the dominions straight at longstrike, taking him out before he had a chance to even tie his shoes. His blob squad came on hard and killed most the kroot and pathfinders, and plenty of fire warriors.

 



Still, there was still plenty of my stuff left so that when he got to mid-range for the mid-table objective, the torrent of tau fire wiped out one unit after another. I got max points and moved to the top table for my third game.

Game 3: Eldar



Mission: Big Guns Never Tire/Crusade (3 objectives each)
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil

For my last game I played against Brandon who was doing well with an Eldar build close to or possibly the same as Darkwynn Nick's list that he used to win Feast of Blades this year. 2 farseers, 2 big guardian squads with 2 bright lances each, 2 D-wraithknights (1 as warlord), a small squad of rangers, 2 windrider jetbike squads, 2 7-man warp spider squads, and a nightspinner. We both had 3 objectives spread evenly across our own deployment zones, but being the more mobile army, he crossed the table quickly to come at me. He had a really good start when his warlord knight D-cannon'd my Riptide right off the bat. He parked one guardian squad in a 2-story building on his right, and charged at me with the other led by a fortune farseer. I wiped out the rangers fairly easily on the middle wall piece with SMS. He charged one wraithknight up on my right flank, and I took him out pretty quickly with pulse fire, sniper rounds, and missile pods. Both wave serpents kept the heat on and took out my pathfinders early on. The other wraithknight eventually strode forward, and despite heavy losses I managed to drop him as well (thanks in big part to the Barracuda). I eventually wiped out his aggro guardian squad and farseer. The game came down to the last turn. He was holding his three objectives with his surviving guardians and small jetbike units, and on my last turn I flew the 'Cuda over and dropped one jetbike, causing a leadership test which he promptly failed and fled. I ended up beating him by one objective along with more heavy support units killed (the 2 knights).

What I really took away from this tournament was that stealth teams are neat in concept but really pretty pointless, and that crisis suits that scatter are also very hit or miss for the points. But instead of spamming things or running some kind of triple-tide or taudar abomination, I've decided putting points towards improving the existing units in my army that usually carry the day. After all, Longstrike has proven well worth the investment with his tank hunters and BS5 bonuses. I've decided to go Farsight and drop the stealth team, field O'Shovah himself, and thereby make the crisis suits scoring and scatter-free. I have to pay the bonding knife douchetax, but in trade I get to have all the above PLUS the earth caste pilot array, which is like Longstrike for ion riptides, and the hexadingdong deny-the-witch doodad, which I have not gotten to use yet. Oh and my troop units can regroup even in teeny squad sizes? I wouldn't kick that out of bed. I had to lose intercept on the riptide and split fire on the broadsides, but like the stealth team, those have only been marginally useful in the games I've played with them. More often than not I count on the full volley of the broadsides to really finish off the tough units coming right at me or plug away at enemy scoring units in cover. And I rarely want to use intercept with the ion accelerator in the enemy turn when I'd rather take away cover from targets using pathfinders before putting down his big badass pie plate. More to come!

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Video Battle Report - Tau vs. Space Marines



I played a 2k game against Marky Mark's Assault Rammin' Space Marines this week and made a new video battle report. When I made my latest 'big' list of Tau, I wanted to include some less popular units and also take advantage of the new Barracuda rules in the IA3 update. So I did away with the helper commander and second tank.

Here's my current list:
Ethereal
3 Crisis Suits - 2 flamers and fusion blaster each
Riptide - early warning override
6 Stealth Suits - 2 fusion guns, Shas'vre with homing beacon
10 Fire Warriors
10 Fire Warriors
10 Fire Warriors
6 Fire Warriors - Devilfish with disruption pods and SMS
6 Pathfinders
6 Pathfinders
Barracuda Air Superiority Fighter - disruption pods, decoy launchers
Hammerhead - Longstrike, submunition rounds, disruption pods
3 Broadsides - high-yield missile pods, SMS, 3 split fire, 12 missile drones
6 Sniper Drones - 2 controllers

 I've played with this list a few times now. The Barracuda does ok, and it's only got 2 hullpoints, but I think it looks and plays so much better than the codex flyers. Even with some of the more 'fun' units, this list has still done pretty well; well enough that I'm just not sure if it can even hang in the 'friendly' game circuit. I did put the finishing touches on it today, including lens effects and sept markings on everybody. I picked yellow for Tau'n since I think it popped pretty well with the orange already in the scheme. I had to experiment with a sept marking quite a few times before I got a simple, repeatable design, and I think it came out pretty well. Here's a few more pics from our game:


Bonus picture of current Project X!

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Sunday, October 27, 2013

A couple of 40k memes

Random... I made these a while back for a thread in our local forum.


Attention, All You Catachan Ladies Out There!

Domestic life got you down?

Ever get tired of devining the homestead day after day after day?

Do your hands hurt at the mere thought of cleaning and filleting troublesome Devils for the rest of your life?

Have you ever considered a job in the armed service of our Lord?

Well, don’t wait any longer!

Report to your local recruiter today and sign up for one of our thrilling career pathways for women in the Catachan jungle fighters!

Think about all the incredible opportunities you’d get as a proud Grenade Launcher Trooper!

Or maybe you’d prefer the adventure of serving as a Grenade Launcher Trooper!

And if that’s just not your cup of tea, consider instead the excitement of a career as a Grenade Launcher Trooper!

Here’s your chance to see the luscious jungles of our wonderful homeland on the Emperor’s dime.

And you never have to worry about overbearing commissars breathing down your neck (you know how we do)!

Do your part and sign up now!

Austin GW Store Opening Day 10/26/13


I went to the opening event ("First to the Fight") at the new Austin Games Workshop store (their facebook page) in the Brodie Oaks shopping center. It's a relatively small store but, as far as I could tell, is laser focused on showing off the goods with product shelves, display case, small demo table for the three main games (40k, WFB, and LOTR), painting bar, and two tiled tables with the GW plastic terrain. I think they had all their staff there to talk to folks, give plenty of demos, and run the First to the Fight events. Obviously loads of people that play 40k love to bitch about the font of their folly, as it were, but presentation is one of the main reasons I play this game, and the store is all about presentation. Fully painted armies look great on their tables. The walls are lined with their beautiful merch. Nicely painted demo armies displayed in glass cases. That's the kind of shit that turned me on when I started playing this game back in '95, and though I do indulge quite a bit in the competitive aspects of the game, I still enjoy closely-fought games the most, win or lose.

For the opening day, they had a painting contest, a conversion contest, and a little 40k skirmish contest. Not knowing what to expect, I brought my Saim Hann Eldar. Basically you could play up to three games using a simple scenario: pitched battle, purge the alien, at 500 points. They added up your points at the end and picked a couple winners.

Their was some confusion on the points you could score, but it was just for fun so I really didn't chase the wins too hard. I pulled a small force out of my collection: a farseer on jetbike with singing spear, 3 guardian jetbikes, 9 dire avengers, 5 rangers, a scatter laser/shuricannon vyper, and a double-scatter laser war walker. I was honestly just trying to throw in a bunch of little things so I could use a variety of models, but it ended up being really shooty and I apparently won the little challenge. Scored a sweet certificate even.

First game was against Trent and his nurgle CSM: a nurgle bike lord, 2 squads of about 15 cultists, and a heldrake (!). It came out about how I expected - I shot up the cultists and lord really good, and then the heldrake came on and wiped out about two of my units each turn. Lost that one. Then I played Tyson and his necrons: an overlord, 2 squads of warriors, and an annihilation barge. The annihilation barge was winnowing me down until it came within range of the Farseer's spear and charge. After that I pretty much just shredded what was left and took a win. Third game I played against a guy with a nicely painted ultramarines force: a librarian, one squad of sniper scouts, one squad of assault scouts, some tac marines in a rhino, and a whirlwind. Again, my shooting carried the day and I just worked my way through everything with S6 guns.

All in all, I think it is a nice addition to the Austin 40k community and will hopefully bring some new folks to the local tables.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Video Battle Report: Chaos Space Marines (Khorne) vs. Space Marines (Iron Hands) 1850

Here's another video battle report. Still experimenting with my editing software, liked a few things but I apparently set it on a background unintentionally. Good game against Dan, more skulls for my Khorniacs! Let me know if you have any suggestions regarding the commentary or format. I can't improve the actual video quality much, but... more zoom-ins on the models? more detail on the game play? British accent? I usually report on every full game turn because I often forget if I try to do every player turn. I actually played another game that same night against Kings' Mantis Warriors using the new Forgeworld Mantis chapter tactics and special character, which will come out on BOLS in the near future. Stay tuned.



Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Video Battle Report: Tau vs. Chaos Daemons 1850

I tried my hand at a video battle report! I've already got some ideas on how to improve and make it more interesting next time. Stay tuned.


Tournament: Wonkos 10/12/13


Heyooo, another tournament report! This time I took my Khorne crazies, aka The Guillotine, out to the Wonkos monthly 2k'er. Here was the list:

Chaos Lord - juggernaut of khorne, axe of blinding fury, 4+ invulnerable, meltabomb
Kharn the Betrayer
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
7 Chaos Space Marines - mark of khorne, meltagun
7 Chaos Space Marine Bikers - mark of khorne, 2 plasma guns
Heldrake - baleflamer
Land Raider - dozer blade
Maulerfiend - lasher tendrils
Maulerfiend - magma cutters
Bloodthirster - 2 greater rewards
10 Bloodletters
Soulgrinder - phlegm, mark of khorne (it's free!)

The game plan is not too sophisticated; just charge right at em and take as many heads as possible!


GAME 1 - Space Marines
Mission: Table Quarters & Special Relic
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil


Whoops, forgot a first turn picture for this one. My opponent was rolling with three Sternguard drop pods, a couple tac squads including Pedro Kantor in drop pods, a devastator squad with some missile launchers, and a thunderfire cannon. He brought the three sternguard in right on top of my big swarm and together with the devastators and thunderfre, took out the land raider and the bikers and juggernaut lord. Hellfire rounds are no joke and inflict a lot of saving throws on just about anybody. My counterattack was equally devastating however, and wiped out much of the sternguard in return. Kantor and the fourth drop pod came down and didn't do much before they were wiped out as well. It was a bloody battle all around, with little left on the table at the end, and after the points were calculated, we ended up with a draw, neither of us holding the relic.

Game 2 - Tau
Mission: Purge the Alien
Deployment: Dawn of War


My second opponent John had a fairly mixed Tau force, including a handy commander, ethereal and fire warriors in a devilfish, two broadsides with missiles and missile drones, an ion cannon hammerhead, a big squad of sniper kroot, two large squads of fire warriors on foot, two squads of crisis suits, a full unit of stealth suits, and a ion cannon riptide. I went straight at him, flanking hard on my right to try and take out the riptide as fast as possible.


His stealth suits deployed in a small house on my left side, and my cultists came out of reserve to cage them up and fire point-blank into the windows. The suits took out one of the cultist squads before the second one finished them off. I made a big dent in his left side before most of my guys got whittled down. Kharn personally executed the riptide. Late game is was basically up to my soulgrinder and land raider to try and inflict a few more casualties. Another brutal game, it ended very close with John up by just one point.

GAME 3 - Space Marines
Mission: 5 Relics (1 in each table quarter)
Deployment: Vanguard Strike


My third opponent had thirty terminators (20 shooty, 10 assault), two 10-man scout squads, a 5-man scout squad in a land speeder storm, and Vulkan leading the whole mess. The land speeder scouts made an early play to try and kill the land raider but failed and were taken out pretty quickly. He kept two of the terminator squads in reserve (deep strike), and my bloodthirster led the charge against the squad on the board, but was shot down and charged. He didn't take many out before getting banished back to the warp.


While the juggerlord and the heldrake took out the scouts and Vulkan on his left side corner, Kharn, the chaos marines, and my bikers tried to take on the terminators. My cultists sneakily grabbed objectives to my right and left and fled to the board edges. His other two terminator squads came in and wrecked shop hard on Kharn, the marines, and the bikers, but it was too late: my cultists had taken the objectives and secured me the win.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Tournament: Wonko's 9/14/13

I jumped into one of Wonko's narrative tournaments for the first time earlier this month. It was a 2000-point tournament continuing their campaign for control of a system. This particular week, the gathered generals would be competing for control of Justine, a jungle world where spores in the air gave everything +1 cover.

I brought my now usual mixed Saim Hann list:




Farseer - singing spear

5 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent - twin-linked scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holofield
9 Dire Avengers
Wave Serpent - twin-linked scatter laser, shuriken cannon, holofield

3 Guardian Jetbikes - 1 shuriken cannon
3 Guardian Jetbikes - 1 shuriken cannon

8 Rangers

3 Vypers - scatter lasers, shuriken cannons

8 Warp Spiders - exarch with spinneret rifle, fast shot
Crimson Hunter Exarch
Fire Prism - holofield
3 War Walkers - 6 scatter lasers
5 Dark Reapers - starshot missiles, exarch with fast shot, night vision

Game 1 - Table Quarters + bonus relic
Deployment: Vanguard Strike




For this game, the relic (a "spore scope") provided a permanent bonus to one of the winner's units (-1 to enemy cover save) for the rest of the tourney. I was playing against a nice guy (sorry I forgot the name) who was running Trazyn the Infinite, 2 units of 10 warriors in ghost arks, 2 units of 5 immortals, 6 wraiths with whip coils, 5 acanthrites, 2 annihilation barges, 1 triarch stalker, and a tesseract ark. The Tesseract Labyrinth lasted a few turns but didn't do too much damage. I infiltrated the rangers in some woods to his left and he spent a good amount of firepower trying to root them out of the trees. In turn, he came at me with the wraiths and acanthrites on my left. I shot the hell out of his stuff, wiping out almost everything and getting 3 table quarters, but didn't end up having time to jump on the relic. So neither of us got the scope!

Game 2 - Kill Points
Deployment: Dawn of War



I was paired against Noah for my second game. He had a farseer with mantle of the laughing god, 5 wave serpents kitted out like mine, 2 of them carrying min dire avengers, and 2 of them carrying scythe wraithguard, 2 squads of 5 warp spiders, and three war walkers. I sent my farseer, some bikes, and the dire avengers wave serpent up my left side, the fire dragons and rangers in the middle, and the dark reapers and fire prism on my right.The rangers jumped his farseer in the ruins and beat him down in one turn, and spent the rest of the game trying to distract the war walkers. My fire dragons got popped out of their transport by deep striking warp spiders, while the dark reapers succumbed to the other. My warp spiders mishapped for a turn or two, finally coming on to bust a wave serpent and not much else before they were d-scythed. I fought him off pretty good for most of the game, but he ended up winning 12-9 (or maybe 15-9? I can't recall).

Game 3 - Control the Vault (control the middle building uncontested plus bonus points for units within 12" of the center)
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil



For my last game, I drew up against John Cook and his space wolves + fenrisian guard allies. He had a couple wolf lords with fenrisian wolves charging up the middle at me, two or three squad of grey hunters in rhino following up behind, plus a support crew of rune priest and long fangs, a guard squad on foot, 4 guard lascannon turrets, a psychic battle squad, a squad of guard in a vendetta, a squad of guard in a chimera, and a sky shield. Something like that, I can't quite remember. It was a tough dust-up in the middle as I had to shoot up everything he had coming right at me. I ended up controlling the building and winning a few more points for having units close to the middle.

I won second place for my efforts, and one of the last edition tactical squads. Thanks Wonkos and Frank for running a fun tourney! Gonna try to make it next month too.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Tournament: Feast of Blades Qualifier 8/10/13

I played in the Dragon's Lair FOB qualifier yesterday with my Saim Hann Eldar, and ended up withfirst place out of a total of 8 players. I picked up a bunch of old pathfinders and dark reapers from my buddy Hart and got them 75% painted so I could incorporate them into a new 1850 list:

Farseer - jetbike, singing spear
6 Fire Dragons - Wave Serpent with twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, and holofields
3 Jetbikes
3 Jetbikes
9 Dire Avengers - Wave Serpent with twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, and holofields
8 Rangers
9 Warp Spiders - exarch with spinneret rifle
3 Vypers - scatter lasers and shuriken cannons
Fire Prism - holofields
3 War Walkers - 2 scatter lasers each
5 Dark Reapers - starshot missiles, exarch with fast shot, night vision, and starshot missiles

The Reapers can go down to heavy dakka, but until then are a big time menace to society. The pathfinders are less powerful but can put wounds on high-toughness creeps and camp out on objectives in the second or third floors of ruins. I basically traded them for a fire prism and 2 squads of jetbikes, and while I missed the resilience that comes from duplication, I liked the tactical diversity.

GAME 1 - Space Marines
Mission: Big Guns Never Tire (5 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War


Matt (I think?) had a pretty classic vanilla marines list, with a chapter master, melta/flamer dreadnought in a drop pod, 10 terminators with 2 cyclone missile launchers, three tactical squads with plasma and rocket launchers or a lascannon in rhinos, a missile launcher/heavy bolter land speeder, a vindicator, and a whirlwind. I hadn't played with the new eldar against vanilla marines yet, so that was a thrill. He inflicted some good early damage that put me on my heels, but I also made some crucial cover saves that let enough of my sharp pointy things survive to whittle him down and keep him off objectives. I ended up winning 13-2.

GAME 2 - Eldar
Mission: The Scouring
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil


I had a very close second game matched up against Carlisle's eldar. He had an Iyanden list with a wraithknight warlord, a shadowseer, three squads of 5 wraithguard (1 with D-scythes) in scatter laser/holofields wave serpents, 9 or 10 dire avengers, and a second wraithknight, and 3 scatter laser war walkers. First turn was critical, and I rolled to win it. I managed to only drop one of his wave serpents the first turn, but he probably would have done much worse to me. Things went his way for almost the entire game, and I was hanging on by the skin of my warlord trait (master of cities!), when I had an epic 5th turn and killed his warlord wraithknight (all 6 wounds), 2 wave serpents, and 6 or 7 wraithguard that were threatening my deployment zone. A single fire dragon survived being charged by a few last wraithguard and held morale just in time for the game to end on the bottom of the 5th and keep them away from my warp spiders, who were holding the 4-point objective. Tough game and luck definitely helped me survive against a badass army and excellent general.

GAME 3 - Eldar
Mission: Crusade
Deployment: Vanguard Strike


My third game sent me up against Noah's foot eldar list, which consisted of a bike farseer with mantle of the laughing god, an avatar, 10 or so striking scorpions, 10 or so rangers, a big squad of 20 or so guardians with 2 star cannons and a warlock, 2 squads of 10 dire avengers with shimmershield exarchs, 2 double-bright lance and sword wraithlords, and 3 double-bright lance war walkers. He deployed his foot troops right in front of all my dakka, and I wiped them out fairly quickly. He had placed one of his objectives in his opposite corner, and was planning on infiltrating his rangers there - but I won the roll to infiltrate first and put my rangers there instead. The scorpions ended up murdering them, but it kept his troops off the objective. I ended up wiping nearly everything of his besides a few pathfinders and striking scorpions by the fourth or so turn, and we called it.

I haven't decided whether I want to spend the scratch on going to Denver to play in the invitational. I'm sure it will be pretty hard core and that's a lot of money to spend on a long weekend of having to deal with spam style douchebag armies and their handlers.

Here's the new guys after a few more finishing touches:

 

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 8/4/13

Played in a 2000 point tournament Sunday with my newly improved Saim Hann. Here was the army:







Farseer - singing spear, eldar jetbike
6 Fire Dragons
Wave Serpent - twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, and holofields
4 x 3 Jetbikes - 1 shuriken cannon each
10 Dire Avengers - exarch with twin-linked shuriken catapult
Wave Serpent - twin-linked scatter lasers, shuriken cannon, and holofields (new addition!)
8 Warp Spiders - exarch with spinneret rifle and fast shot
Crimson Hunter Exarch (new addition!)
3 Vypers - scatter lasers and shuriken cannons
3 War Walkers - 6 scatter lasers (new addition!)
2 Fire Prisms - holofields

GAME 1 - Eldar
Missions: The Scouring and Purge the Alien
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil


JR was playing his awesome Iyanden army, with Baharroth, a shadowseer, 2 squads of 10 swooping hawks 2 squads of 10 wraithguard, a wraithlord, a wraithknight, 6 or 7 rangers, and 5 or 6 dark reapers. Getting first turn was a big deal with this game - otherwise I have no doubt that the reapers would have had their pick at wrecking much of my stuff. As it turned out, I got to fire the initial volley and wipe them out right away. After that, I suffered fairly minimal losses (2 of the war walkers, a couple of jetbike squads, maybe one of the fire prisms) and managed to wipe out all he had. The wraithknight and wraithguard suffered particularly from bad save rolls, but with hammer and anvil, I also had the advantage of range, firepower, and speed. I got full points.

GAME 2 - GREY KNIGHTS
Missions: The Relic and Big Guns Never Tire
Deployment: Vanguard Strike


As usual, Matt played his grey knights with great skill. He had an inquisitor, 2 dreadknights, 5 or 6 paladins, 3 10 man strike squads in rhinos, a small deep-striking strike squad, and a psyfleman dread. He rolled to place terrain and objectives first, and since there was only 3 of them, that meant I had one in my deployment zone, and he had 2. I was thankful to have the extra distance to back up in the vanguard deployment. I held my right flank with the wave serpents in ruins. Everything else tried to keep distance and shoot anything that came from behind the big line-of-sight blocking hill he deployed. He rolled for first turn and gave it to me instead. I immediately wrecked the dreadknight with somewhat lucky fire prism shooting, and took out one of his rhinos on my left with wave serpents. He responded with decent counter fire, frying a vyper and one of my fire prisms. I slowly wore down the inquisitor and paladins with the warp spiders and Crimson Hunter. As for the dreadknights, I only put one wound on one of them in the crucial early turns, and they were able to toast a couple things before they got close enough to take down with mass shuriken and laser fire. I killed everything he threw at the relic, and our last turn came just as time was running out. He wouldn't have made the distance with one of his surviving strike squads if I hadn't killed just enough of them to break them, sending them back towards his table edge, allowing them to regroup in his last turn, and take the 9" move towards the center. He also had just enough to take his home objectives, so he won 17 to 8. Good game.

GAME 3 - CHAOS DAEMONS
Missions: Big Guns Never Tire (3 objectives) and Crusade (3 objectives)
Deployment: Dawn of War


Wouldn't you know it, I was paired up against "Yolandi" Hart in my last game. He had a bloodthirster, lord of change, skulltaker and several khorne heralds on juggernauts, karanak, a big squad of daemonettes, 2 squads of plaguebearers, a daemon prince, and a tzeentch soulgrinder. Again, going first worked out very well for me - though this time I got it through seizing the initiative! Ouch. I destroyed the daemon prince right away, and put the hurt on his nurgling squads. He outflanked the juggernauts and karanak right into my red pointy castle, but unfortunately for them, I had wiped out all other proximal threats. This allowed me to have just enough shooters available to wipe out the khornestar before they could do anything back to me. I won with 22 points, which ended up putting me ahead of Matt for first place.

My opponents were all great and I had a blast blooding my freshly painted wild riders (with many lucky breaks helping me out along the way). Thanks Chris for running the dang thing.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Tournament: Alamo 40k GT San Antonio May 2013








 

  
 


I forgot to add these pics from the Alamo 40k GT back in May. I took my 1850 Khorne CSM army with some khorne daemon allies. Here was the list:

Chaos Lord - mark of khorne, juggernaut, axe of burning blood, meltabomb, plasma pistol
10 Cultists
10 Cultists
10 Chaos Space Marines - 2 meltaguns, champion with power axe, meltabomb, icon of wrath
7 Chaos Space Marine Bikers - 2 plasma guns, champion with power axe, meltabomb, icon of wrath
10 Chaos Raptors - 2 meltaguns, champion with power axe, meltabomb, icon of wrath
Heldrake - baleflamer
Maulerfiend - ripper tentacles
Maulerfiend
Bloodthirster - 2 greater rewards
10 Bloodletters

The Friday before the tournament started, we hit the riverwalk running...



Courtesy of a buddy we had an amazing room right across from the alamo itself.




We played about 3 turns of a massive 2x2 game using makeshift terrain and stayed up way too late.


I didn't have my "bleary-eyed" photo filter on so this looks way clearer than how I saw it.

GAME 1 - 5 DEMON BAG


Game 1 was against a 5-demon bag army with a thirster and great unclean one leading the group. This was actually my first game against one of these armies, and I found out pretty quickly that you really need your own MCs or a lot more shooting to have any kind of chance against a build like this.


I made the best go of it and ended up scoring a few points but did lose the game.

GAME 2 - TAU



I played against a mixed tau army with Khorne daemon allies. Interesting mix, but I ended up getting a good-sized win.


GAME 3 - NECRONS

I was matched up against Will for my last game and he was rockin a necron army I didn't know he had. There was a minor misunderstanding regarding some rule of mine, and it ended up screwing Will over early in the game. Still, he hung in there and we had a tough match to end the day.



Nothing a couple three absurd beergaritas couldn't fix.



I actually crashed at a decent hour Saturday night and arrived at the venue ready for Day 2.

GAME 4 - DAEMONS

My first opponent on the second day had a mixed daemons army with a couple of nurgle soulgrinders, a bloodthirster, a bunch of horrors, maybe some plaguebearers...? I can't recall exactly, and I either won or lost by a small margin. Probably my favorite game, gameplay wise, of the tournament.

Then, off to a nearby mexican restaurant for some whaaaayt cake.


GAME 5 - CHAOS DAEMONS


My last game was against goddamn Mike, my ride home! So to keep things civil, I let him win. And our maulerfiends hugged it out:


And my useless cultists took a free moment to send a signal to their patron god while they waited for imminent soulgrinder death: