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.

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.

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.

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.