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
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
The Awakening of the NDG
I haven't been able to muster the guster for a 40kology post in a long time, but I probably don't have that many readers anyway (not a pity party!). First thing, I HAVE been playing quite a bit, and only with the reawakened Necrones de Guerra. I made a video battle report a week or so ago that was going to be the start of something great, but but windows movie maker sucks a bag of assholes and I don't have the coin for an Apple, so for now that idea is sitting the bench. Also, my camera doesn't take high res video anyway, so nothing lost, etc.
So, the Necrons. This is my new favorite army, for sure. And my Berzerker Blood Angels were the culmination of a 15-year love affair with khorny skulltaking, so that's saying something. Maybe it's the rules, maybe it's the models, maybe it's the fact that only a few people locally are playing Necrons and I started out with a full army on day 1. I've had a fairly even mix of wins and losses but always enjoyed myself. I will note that against strongly competitive army lists, I haven't done so well. But screw those types anyway, who cares. So boring. Here's my favorite units to play:
* The Stormlord - If you've played only one game against the Stormlord, you might think he's either total cheese or a waste of points. If you've played two, you might be more lukewarm about him. In any case, I think he is a great idea for a Necron special character. The nightfighting and lightning can really change up your normal game, are great fluff-wise, and both come in handy against those little-shooting-box armies. And now that they faq'd the chronometron (though I still don't get what "phase" the beginning of the turn is), you're much more likely to keep it going for at least the first two to three turns. And destroying someone's most beloved vehicles before they have a chance to do anything is cracktastic. You know it's bad for you, but what a rush. And it's often more entertaining than devastating for the enemy. The last game I played, lightning wiped out both of Robert's small ratling squads in a single turn. Not a real gamechanger but totally hilarious: the shortest guys on the table!
* Wraiths - These guys are my linebackers. Whatever comes at you, they're likely to either wipe them out or tarpit them until you can move up some more gauss. Since I bumped my original squad of four up to six wraiths, I've only been loving them more. I just run em with 4 or 5 lash whips in there. Well worth the points. Sometimes I'll run a destroyer lord with them, burying him real good in a dense layer of wraithfat, and either charge them all in together or break him out of the squad at the last minute to go carve open some nearby tanks or stragglers. You have to watch out for whole gangs of powerfists, but you can usually see guys like that coming a ways off.
* Annihilation Barge - I magnetized my single barge, so for a while I was running Anrakyr the Traveler in a command barge. I had a lot of fun skimming around firing other people's vehicles at themselves, scything up their other vehicles, or just using that flat-out cover save to be a general pain in the ass to finish off. But after the FAQ took all the fun out of ole Ann-Racky, I switched to the slower, shootier barge species. Short range, but by the time nightfighting has run out, there's plenty of enemy stuff within 24 inches anyway.
* C'tan - Another fun unit that can make for a totally different game with the inevitable writhing worldscape ability. I was running mine with spirit dust for a while, but recently I switched to pyreshards, which I think are better and more S4 dice rolling fun! Stealth and grenades were just not adding that much to the C'tan experience. He usually underperforms in assault, so he usually camps out behind a nearby monolith or pick your targets carefully.
* Scarabs - Ok, ok, scarabs are cool too. I start with six and usually wait until I have Spyder'd them up to ten or twelve to let them off of the scarab leash. Those are really small leashes! Usually I'm totally fine with sacrificing a 90 point unit to take out a charging land raider, and I'm even more fine if they can stick around a little bit longer to annoy something else.
Here's some random pictures from recent games:
Against Brandon's Space Marines:
Against Kings' Mant-ass Warriors:
Against Will's Salamanders:
Against Rob's Dark Eldar:
And another game against Kings' Mant-assers:
Here's a bonus battle report against Kings' guard
So, the Necrons. This is my new favorite army, for sure. And my Berzerker Blood Angels were the culmination of a 15-year love affair with khorny skulltaking, so that's saying something. Maybe it's the rules, maybe it's the models, maybe it's the fact that only a few people locally are playing Necrons and I started out with a full army on day 1. I've had a fairly even mix of wins and losses but always enjoyed myself. I will note that against strongly competitive army lists, I haven't done so well. But screw those types anyway, who cares. So boring. Here's my favorite units to play:
* The Stormlord - If you've played only one game against the Stormlord, you might think he's either total cheese or a waste of points. If you've played two, you might be more lukewarm about him. In any case, I think he is a great idea for a Necron special character. The nightfighting and lightning can really change up your normal game, are great fluff-wise, and both come in handy against those little-shooting-box armies. And now that they faq'd the chronometron (though I still don't get what "phase" the beginning of the turn is), you're much more likely to keep it going for at least the first two to three turns. And destroying someone's most beloved vehicles before they have a chance to do anything is cracktastic. You know it's bad for you, but what a rush. And it's often more entertaining than devastating for the enemy. The last game I played, lightning wiped out both of Robert's small ratling squads in a single turn. Not a real gamechanger but totally hilarious: the shortest guys on the table!
* Wraiths - These guys are my linebackers. Whatever comes at you, they're likely to either wipe them out or tarpit them until you can move up some more gauss. Since I bumped my original squad of four up to six wraiths, I've only been loving them more. I just run em with 4 or 5 lash whips in there. Well worth the points. Sometimes I'll run a destroyer lord with them, burying him real good in a dense layer of wraithfat, and either charge them all in together or break him out of the squad at the last minute to go carve open some nearby tanks or stragglers. You have to watch out for whole gangs of powerfists, but you can usually see guys like that coming a ways off.
* Annihilation Barge - I magnetized my single barge, so for a while I was running Anrakyr the Traveler in a command barge. I had a lot of fun skimming around firing other people's vehicles at themselves, scything up their other vehicles, or just using that flat-out cover save to be a general pain in the ass to finish off. But after the FAQ took all the fun out of ole Ann-Racky, I switched to the slower, shootier barge species. Short range, but by the time nightfighting has run out, there's plenty of enemy stuff within 24 inches anyway.
* C'tan - Another fun unit that can make for a totally different game with the inevitable writhing worldscape ability. I was running mine with spirit dust for a while, but recently I switched to pyreshards, which I think are better and more S4 dice rolling fun! Stealth and grenades were just not adding that much to the C'tan experience. He usually underperforms in assault, so he usually camps out behind a nearby monolith or pick your targets carefully.
* Scarabs - Ok, ok, scarabs are cool too. I start with six and usually wait until I have Spyder'd them up to ten or twelve to let them off of the scarab leash. Those are really small leashes! Usually I'm totally fine with sacrificing a 90 point unit to take out a charging land raider, and I'm even more fine if they can stick around a little bit longer to annoy something else.
Here's some random pictures from recent games:
Against Brandon's Space Marines:
Against Kings' Mant-ass Warriors:
Against Will's Salamanders:
Against Rob's Dark Eldar:
And another game against Kings' Mant-assers:
Here's a bonus battle report against Kings' guard
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Return of the Necrones de Guerra
A while back I bought my buddy Mack's Necron army. They've lain dormant waiting for the new codex and I'm excited to get them back on the battlefield. I took them out for a trial run the other day against Robert's Tzeentch demon army and ended up squeaking out a win, but more importantly, got to really experience how different they feel from other armies, including the Necrons of the previous codex. I had just enough models to put together a classic 2k list, with a modern general:
Imotekh Stormlord
Cryptek - harbinger of despair with nightmare shroud and veil of darkness
Destroyer Lord - warscythe, resurrection orb, semipternal weave
C'tan Shard - worldscape, dust
4 x 10 warriors
4 Wraiths - 4 lash whips
5 Destroyers
8 Scarab Swarms
Tomb Spyder - gloom prism, fabricator claw
Monolith
Robert was running a Lord of Change, 2 Tzeentch heralds on chariots, 3 squads of flamers, 4 squads of horrors including the Changeling, and 2 Tzeentch demon princes. We were playing for 4 objectives with Dawn of War Deployment and I went first. Things looked bleak when the Stormlord's gimmick stopped on the second turn before he had even dropped anything in, and then when he did, he wiped out Imotekh, the cryptek, and the attached warrior squad right away. I had nothing left to do except buckle down and go after the horrors and be prepared to fight for a draw. The destroyers, c'tan, and wraiths were able to take care of that fairly quickly. The warriors went down pretty easily, with the reanimation not having much of a positive effect. Because he didn't have much in the way of heavy strength guns, the monolith survived for quite a while but didn't do all that much damage. I did manage to suck up a few flamers with the door, which was probably the high point of the game. The scarab swarms didn't have any vehicles to eat, but they surprised a unit of flamers that would have otherwise wiped out my last troops unit. One of his chariots was mishapped to a far corner of the board late in the game, while the other one and the Lord of Change raced to push me off my last objective. The surviving wraiths and scarabs and the tomb spyder successfully held them at bay and I won 1-0.
After further consideration, I want to try playing with Nemesor Zandrekh for a while. At 185 points, he is a steal. He has great equipment choices, and for only 5 points above a similarly equipped lord, you're getting his master strategist buff/nerf powers (along with the dubious phased reinforcement ability). I think the nerf part of that ability is the more useful one, though stealth and tank hunters for my own guys will be nice, too. I want to try pairing him with a troop squad and a cryptek with a chronometron and try to keep him and his buds alive for a while. I picked up an annihilation barge that I'm pretty stoked on using. I had to repose and rebase all the models and fix a few broken ones, and since I'm already missing a few arms and legs here and there, I thought I'd go for a complete broke-down, emerging-from-the-swamp look. I'm going to take advantage of their already rusty-looking paint job, somehow incorporate water effects into the bases, and judiciously apply some hanging seaweed-looking goop from their limbs. I eventually want to paint the neon gun tubes, too, since none of the newer models use them and I always thought they looked a little off when light is generally painted on any other 40k miniature, rather than using some kind of effect that depends on the actual physical properties of the miniature.
Lately I'm generally over the competitive approach to 40k. I still prefer 1500-2000 point games with standard missions, but since I barely have enough time as it is to build, paint, and play for fun, I'm not inclined to spend that precious time messing with any kind of spam. If a unit is halfway decent, has a neat effect, and/or just looks cool, I'll include one in my collection; otherwise, I probably won't be motivated enough to paint it.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wargamescon 2011 GT 7/9/11-7/10/11
After this weekend’s 7-game GT at WarGamesCon, I figured I’d be pretty tired of playing 40k, but I actually feel somewhat invigorated and looking forward to more games. And that’s even after I had a pretty shitty record of 3-4 with 3 donuts. After seeing some of the top table shenanigans, I'm glad I was nowhere near it. To be so supposedly good at the game and then not be able to finish five turns, for shame! The bums lost, Lebowski! The bums lost!
Before I get into it, here’s a slideshow of some cool armies I saw:
I was playing with a slight variation on the list I had won with the week before at Dragon’s Lair. I changed the infernus pistols in my assault squads to meltaguns and used the spare points to give infernus pistols to two of my sanguinary guard.
The Sanguinor
Dante
5 Sanguinary Guard – 2 infernus pistols, 1 powerfist, chapter banner
2 Sanguinary Priests – 2 power weapons, 1 bike, 1 jump pack
Furioso Dreadnought – blood talons
10 Assault Marines – 2 meltaguns, sergeant with powerfist, Rhino
10 Assault Marines – 2 meltaguns, sergeant with powerfist, jump packs
7 Space Marine Bikes – 2 flamers, sergeant with powerfist
Storm Raven – TL lascannon, TL multimelta, extra armor
Game 1 – Imperial Guard
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: Seize Ground (5 objectives)
Secondary: Annihilation
Tertiary: Table Quarters
My first opponent Chris was a real nice guy playing with Creed, a couple of melta veteran squads in chimeras, and a couple of 20-man infantry blobs, a lord commissar, normal commissar, priest, and a couple of sergeants with power weapons, and something like 8 autocannon heavy weapon squads. I went first and set up the Sanguinor and my rhino squad halfway up the side of the table with the most objectives. He set up Creed and the infantry squads in rings castled up in the opposite corner. The Stormraven, Furioso, and bike squads charged up one side of the board while my jump pack marines moved up to hang out on objectives behind the rhino marines and Sanguinor. My right side was destroyed pretty early on by a combination of shooting and blob-squad counterassault after a classic front-line sacrifice. I could have played that better and broke left with my bikes and storm raven after the initial push. Also I made the mistake of landing Dante and the Sanguinary Guard in the piece of terrain in front of the left melta vet chimera and the damned priest died to a dangerous terrain test, which reduced their survivability substantially. They destroyed the melta vets but got chewed up pretty badly in return. Dante and the Sanguinor survived to kill plenty of autocannon squads and distract the blob squad towards the backfield. But the key moment happened when he drove up his melta vets on my right side towards the center objective on the next to last turn. They were just in range of my jump pack marines, who destroyed the chimera and survived to stretch over two objectives, while my foot marines stretched out over two objectives and I won 23-7.
Game 2 – Grey Knights
Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Capture and Control
Secondary: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Tertiary: Kill opponent’s least expensive unit
Mike had a Grey Knights army with a grandmaster, a librarian, a big terminator squad, two strike squads with rhinos, three psiflemen, and a stormraven. I set up my rhino marines, jump pack marines, and bikes in my home quarter and moved up to hover behind cover around my C&C objective and a couple of nearby seize ground objectives. I drove my stormraven straight up the middle with the Sanguinor and furioso, and dante deepstruck with a priest and the sanguinary guard on the far right side. I don’t remember exactly everything played out but I do remember rolling very badly the entire game. The bikes and marines on my left took the brunt of his shooting the entire game, and the S8 autocannons negating my FNP but not as badly as I expected. His strike squad rhinos pulled up next to my piece of cover. I pounced with my surviving bikes and jump pack squads but could not break through either rhino with meltaguns or powerfists. My stormraven was brought down by the very first dread to shoot at it, and the furioso was immobilized immediately by his stormraven. The Sanguinor jumped forward and distracted the Grandmaster’s squad, while Dante and the guard took out the small strike squad on the right side fairly easily. If the game had ended on turn 5, I was in place to get the win. As it was, the strike squads jumped out of their rhinos and shredded my left side, while his terminators fought off my right side attack and grabbed a bunch of objectives. We both destroyed each others’ cheapest units, and the game ended with Mike up 30-7.
Game 3: Blood Angels
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Tertiary: Control the highest number of terrain features
Sean was playing a dark angels-marked mephiston/razorspam list with a second librarian, six small assault squads in las/plas razorbacks, two assault cannon/heavy bolter baal predators, and three autocannon/lascannon predators. This game was really just a pain in the ass. For whatever reason, I didn’t get along that well with the guy, and what a boring army to play against. I hung in there for a while and kept the KP even, but eventually Mephiston and all the mech shooting caught up with me and finished off most of my stuff. I lost 30-0.
Game 4: Grey Knights
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: Capture and Control
Secondary: Annihilation
Tertiary: Kill the most expensive enemy HQ
For the fourth round of the day, Jon and I were paired up for almost exactly the same matchup we played the week before at the top table at our monthly FLGS tournament. He was playing with Draigo, Coteaz, DCAs and special weapons troopers in a chimera, 2 squads of loadout paladins, 1 nemesis dreadknight, 1 dreadnought, and 2 stormravens. His dreadknight came in early and I was able to melta it to death with Dante’s squad and my jump marines. We zoomed around playing out the dance of the stormravens until I surrounded Draigo’s whip with the Sanguinor, dante, the sanguinary guard, my jump marines, and the bikes, esploded it, and assaulted the passengers with the whole mess. Once again Draigo and his buds went down in the face of all that skull fever. The furioso and foot marines headed for Coteaz’s posse and eventually took them all down. I don’t remember exactly what happened with his second stormraven, paladin squad, and the dreadnought but they either died or were too far from an objective to matter, and I won 30-0.
Game 5: Space Marines
Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Seize Ground
Secondary: Capture and Control
Tertiary: Have more total units in enemy deployment zone
Will was playing a cool Lysander/Tigurius list (they should make a buddy cop movie… Tigurius would be the uptight one. Lysander would call him “Tiggy,” drive a convertible, and maybe have a drooling great pyrenees) that also had five SS/TH assault terminators, an ironclad in a drop pod, a drop pod of sternguard with flamers and combimeltas, a tac squad in a drop pod, a tac squad in a rhino, a MM/HF landspeeder, and a land raider redeemer. I reserved everything but my rhino assault marines. He dropped down with the ironclad near my rhino and immobilized it, put his other drop pod tac marines on top of a distant objective, and charged full forward with his land raider full of terminators. Second turn Dante dropped in, and the rhino marines ran out to surround him and give them a cover/assault save. I managed to immobilize the ironclad and keep him from assaulting me. Then the sternguard and land speeder dropped in right next to that group and dropped four flamer templates on the sanguinary guard plus a bunch of S6 bolter fire. With feel no pain, I resisted most of the wounds. The landraider pulled up and disgorged the terminators and Lysander. Lysander charged into the surviving berzerkers, but the terminators rolled poorly for difficult terrain and got hung up. Lysander killed all of the foot marines except for the super-sergeant (upgraded by the Sanguinor). On my following turn, the bikes, jump marines, and stormraven came in. The bikes zoomed up on my left, while the jump marines, sanguinary guard, and Dante charged into the assault terminators. The Sanguinor charged Lysander, and the furioso charged the sternguard. It was a perfect storm, highlighted by Dante wiping out the terminators single-handedly in one fell swoop. Lysander hung on for one more assault phase, while the furioso chopped through almost all of the sternguard with no problem. Tigurius and the one surviving melta gated right behind the furioso for a last ditch attempt to hurt him, which failed utterly, and he turned around and chopped them down. The Sanguinor, bikes, and jump marines advanced towards his midfield rhino, popped it, and killed the survivorshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif. The game ended with me up two or three objectives to his one, including the capture and control objective. He seemed to think we could tie the tertiary, and who was I to argue, so the final tally was 26-3. Will was a really good sport about the extreme change of fortunes in the match, hope to play him again.
Bonus spectacle: I looked over at the Dude's game next to me, he had some serious Eldar sneakiness going on... and you should see the jetbike/falcon mating dance he had going later on.
Game 6 – Orks
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Capture and Control
Tertiary Objective: Highest number of surviving troop units
Winning big my first game of day two sent me up near the top of the B-bracket to play against Richard from Wyoming, who was playing with Ghazgull, a big mek, 5 or 6 megaarmor nobz in a battlewagon, 2 17-18 boy squads in battlewagons, a burna mob in a battlewagon, a deff dred with megablasta, and 12 or so lootas. Thas a lotta battlewagons! And true to form, they came right at me. Dawn of War gave me a bit of a break against the lootas, and I dropped Dante and his buddies into his backfield take care of them. They also distracted the deff dread and the burna’s battlewagon. I waited with everyone else in the corner near my home objective, waiting to break hard left when I got the chance and spread his mobs out a bit. Naturally he called the waaagh when he was close enough and did plenty of damage against the rhino marines and jump marines. The furioso counterattacked against the mob on my right and wiped them out in no time. I had immobilized Ghaz’s battlewagon, so he spent most of the game midfield trying to bring down the stormraven in assault, which I believe he finally did near the end of the game. The megaarmor nobz were his real rock stars though, making something like 237 5+ invulnerable saves and holding out against the bikes, the sanguinor, and the furioso for like four turns of assault. If I had managed to wipe them out in the initial assault (like they damn well should have!), I might have been able to regroup, kill ghaz, and possibly recover my deployment zone from the green tide. Instead the nobz wiped out pretty much everyone. Bastards. The deff dread finished off Dante and friends in his backfield after they had wiped out the lootas and burnas. A brutal game, but basically Richard rolled better, bouncing me back to the bottom of the B-bracket.
Game 7: Dark Angels
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Objective: Seize Ground
Secondary Objective: Don't Remember
Tertiary Objective: Destroy most expensive unit
Unfortunately I don't remember my third opponent's name, he was a nice guy from Corpus and I enjoyed talking with him about all the craptastic landmarks in that fair city. His army was tailor made to take mine apart, unfortunately, as all that super-mobile krak missile fire just tore through feel no pain, and I was making shit for cover saves. Also I overextended to the left with the Sanguinor and furioso, and just got played out. Meanwhile, his bikes zipped around and shot me up with plasma guns until there was very little left. I lost 30-0.
A fairly crappy end to a fun weekend. Definitely will go back next year, providing congress raises the debt ceiling and the four horsemen are kept at bay for just a little bit longer. I'll just be waiting out the real age of strife in my bomb shelter...
Before I get into it, here’s a slideshow of some cool armies I saw:
I was playing with a slight variation on the list I had won with the week before at Dragon’s Lair. I changed the infernus pistols in my assault squads to meltaguns and used the spare points to give infernus pistols to two of my sanguinary guard.
The Sanguinor
Dante
5 Sanguinary Guard – 2 infernus pistols, 1 powerfist, chapter banner
2 Sanguinary Priests – 2 power weapons, 1 bike, 1 jump pack
Furioso Dreadnought – blood talons
10 Assault Marines – 2 meltaguns, sergeant with powerfist, Rhino
10 Assault Marines – 2 meltaguns, sergeant with powerfist, jump packs
7 Space Marine Bikes – 2 flamers, sergeant with powerfist
Storm Raven – TL lascannon, TL multimelta, extra armor
Game 1 – Imperial Guard
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: Seize Ground (5 objectives)
Secondary: Annihilation
Tertiary: Table Quarters
My first opponent Chris was a real nice guy playing with Creed, a couple of melta veteran squads in chimeras, and a couple of 20-man infantry blobs, a lord commissar, normal commissar, priest, and a couple of sergeants with power weapons, and something like 8 autocannon heavy weapon squads. I went first and set up the Sanguinor and my rhino squad halfway up the side of the table with the most objectives. He set up Creed and the infantry squads in rings castled up in the opposite corner. The Stormraven, Furioso, and bike squads charged up one side of the board while my jump pack marines moved up to hang out on objectives behind the rhino marines and Sanguinor. My right side was destroyed pretty early on by a combination of shooting and blob-squad counterassault after a classic front-line sacrifice. I could have played that better and broke left with my bikes and storm raven after the initial push. Also I made the mistake of landing Dante and the Sanguinary Guard in the piece of terrain in front of the left melta vet chimera and the damned priest died to a dangerous terrain test, which reduced their survivability substantially. They destroyed the melta vets but got chewed up pretty badly in return. Dante and the Sanguinor survived to kill plenty of autocannon squads and distract the blob squad towards the backfield. But the key moment happened when he drove up his melta vets on my right side towards the center objective on the next to last turn. They were just in range of my jump pack marines, who destroyed the chimera and survived to stretch over two objectives, while my foot marines stretched out over two objectives and I won 23-7.
Game 2 – Grey Knights
Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Capture and Control
Secondary: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Tertiary: Kill opponent’s least expensive unit
Mike had a Grey Knights army with a grandmaster, a librarian, a big terminator squad, two strike squads with rhinos, three psiflemen, and a stormraven. I set up my rhino marines, jump pack marines, and bikes in my home quarter and moved up to hover behind cover around my C&C objective and a couple of nearby seize ground objectives. I drove my stormraven straight up the middle with the Sanguinor and furioso, and dante deepstruck with a priest and the sanguinary guard on the far right side. I don’t remember exactly everything played out but I do remember rolling very badly the entire game. The bikes and marines on my left took the brunt of his shooting the entire game, and the S8 autocannons negating my FNP but not as badly as I expected. His strike squad rhinos pulled up next to my piece of cover. I pounced with my surviving bikes and jump pack squads but could not break through either rhino with meltaguns or powerfists. My stormraven was brought down by the very first dread to shoot at it, and the furioso was immobilized immediately by his stormraven. The Sanguinor jumped forward and distracted the Grandmaster’s squad, while Dante and the guard took out the small strike squad on the right side fairly easily. If the game had ended on turn 5, I was in place to get the win. As it was, the strike squads jumped out of their rhinos and shredded my left side, while his terminators fought off my right side attack and grabbed a bunch of objectives. We both destroyed each others’ cheapest units, and the game ended with Mike up 30-7.
Game 3: Blood Angels
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Primary: Annihilation
Secondary: Seize Ground (3 Objectives)
Tertiary: Control the highest number of terrain features
Sean was playing a dark angels-marked mephiston/razorspam list with a second librarian, six small assault squads in las/plas razorbacks, two assault cannon/heavy bolter baal predators, and three autocannon/lascannon predators. This game was really just a pain in the ass. For whatever reason, I didn’t get along that well with the guy, and what a boring army to play against. I hung in there for a while and kept the KP even, but eventually Mephiston and all the mech shooting caught up with me and finished off most of my stuff. I lost 30-0.
Game 4: Grey Knights
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary: Capture and Control
Secondary: Annihilation
Tertiary: Kill the most expensive enemy HQ
For the fourth round of the day, Jon and I were paired up for almost exactly the same matchup we played the week before at the top table at our monthly FLGS tournament. He was playing with Draigo, Coteaz, DCAs and special weapons troopers in a chimera, 2 squads of loadout paladins, 1 nemesis dreadknight, 1 dreadnought, and 2 stormravens. His dreadknight came in early and I was able to melta it to death with Dante’s squad and my jump marines. We zoomed around playing out the dance of the stormravens until I surrounded Draigo’s whip with the Sanguinor, dante, the sanguinary guard, my jump marines, and the bikes, esploded it, and assaulted the passengers with the whole mess. Once again Draigo and his buds went down in the face of all that skull fever. The furioso and foot marines headed for Coteaz’s posse and eventually took them all down. I don’t remember exactly what happened with his second stormraven, paladin squad, and the dreadnought but they either died or were too far from an objective to matter, and I won 30-0.
Game 5: Space Marines
Deployment: Spearhead
Primary: Seize Ground
Secondary: Capture and Control
Tertiary: Have more total units in enemy deployment zone
Will was playing a cool Lysander/Tigurius list (they should make a buddy cop movie… Tigurius would be the uptight one. Lysander would call him “Tiggy,” drive a convertible, and maybe have a drooling great pyrenees) that also had five SS/TH assault terminators, an ironclad in a drop pod, a drop pod of sternguard with flamers and combimeltas, a tac squad in a drop pod, a tac squad in a rhino, a MM/HF landspeeder, and a land raider redeemer. I reserved everything but my rhino assault marines. He dropped down with the ironclad near my rhino and immobilized it, put his other drop pod tac marines on top of a distant objective, and charged full forward with his land raider full of terminators. Second turn Dante dropped in, and the rhino marines ran out to surround him and give them a cover/assault save. I managed to immobilize the ironclad and keep him from assaulting me. Then the sternguard and land speeder dropped in right next to that group and dropped four flamer templates on the sanguinary guard plus a bunch of S6 bolter fire. With feel no pain, I resisted most of the wounds. The landraider pulled up and disgorged the terminators and Lysander. Lysander charged into the surviving berzerkers, but the terminators rolled poorly for difficult terrain and got hung up. Lysander killed all of the foot marines except for the super-sergeant (upgraded by the Sanguinor). On my following turn, the bikes, jump marines, and stormraven came in. The bikes zoomed up on my left, while the jump marines, sanguinary guard, and Dante charged into the assault terminators. The Sanguinor charged Lysander, and the furioso charged the sternguard. It was a perfect storm, highlighted by Dante wiping out the terminators single-handedly in one fell swoop. Lysander hung on for one more assault phase, while the furioso chopped through almost all of the sternguard with no problem. Tigurius and the one surviving melta gated right behind the furioso for a last ditch attempt to hurt him, which failed utterly, and he turned around and chopped them down. The Sanguinor, bikes, and jump marines advanced towards his midfield rhino, popped it, and killed the survivorshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif. The game ended with me up two or three objectives to his one, including the capture and control objective. He seemed to think we could tie the tertiary, and who was I to argue, so the final tally was 26-3. Will was a really good sport about the extreme change of fortunes in the match, hope to play him again.
Bonus spectacle: I looked over at the Dude's game next to me, he had some serious Eldar sneakiness going on... and you should see the jetbike/falcon mating dance he had going later on.
Game 6 – Orks
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Capture and Control
Tertiary Objective: Highest number of surviving troop units
Winning big my first game of day two sent me up near the top of the B-bracket to play against Richard from Wyoming, who was playing with Ghazgull, a big mek, 5 or 6 megaarmor nobz in a battlewagon, 2 17-18 boy squads in battlewagons, a burna mob in a battlewagon, a deff dred with megablasta, and 12 or so lootas. Thas a lotta battlewagons! And true to form, they came right at me. Dawn of War gave me a bit of a break against the lootas, and I dropped Dante and his buddies into his backfield take care of them. They also distracted the deff dread and the burna’s battlewagon. I waited with everyone else in the corner near my home objective, waiting to break hard left when I got the chance and spread his mobs out a bit. Naturally he called the waaagh when he was close enough and did plenty of damage against the rhino marines and jump marines. The furioso counterattacked against the mob on my right and wiped them out in no time. I had immobilized Ghaz’s battlewagon, so he spent most of the game midfield trying to bring down the stormraven in assault, which I believe he finally did near the end of the game. The megaarmor nobz were his real rock stars though, making something like 237 5+ invulnerable saves and holding out against the bikes, the sanguinor, and the furioso for like four turns of assault. If I had managed to wipe them out in the initial assault (like they damn well should have!), I might have been able to regroup, kill ghaz, and possibly recover my deployment zone from the green tide. Instead the nobz wiped out pretty much everyone. Bastards. The deff dread finished off Dante and friends in his backfield after they had wiped out the lootas and burnas. A brutal game, but basically Richard rolled better, bouncing me back to the bottom of the B-bracket.
Game 7: Dark Angels
Deployment: Dawn of War
Primary Objective: Seize Ground
Secondary Objective: Don't Remember
Tertiary Objective: Destroy most expensive unit
Unfortunately I don't remember my third opponent's name, he was a nice guy from Corpus and I enjoyed talking with him about all the craptastic landmarks in that fair city. His army was tailor made to take mine apart, unfortunately, as all that super-mobile krak missile fire just tore through feel no pain, and I was making shit for cover saves. Also I overextended to the left with the Sanguinor and furioso, and just got played out. Meanwhile, his bikes zipped around and shot me up with plasma guns until there was very little left. I lost 30-0.
A fairly crappy end to a fun weekend. Definitely will go back next year, providing congress raises the debt ceiling and the four horsemen are kept at bay for just a little bit longer. I'll just be waiting out the real age of strife in my bomb shelter...
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