Blackmoor's 40K Blog

Broadside Bash Comp, Chaos Demons, and me!

2012-01-20T12:30:00.000-08:00

So I have decided to play my Tzeentch demons army at the Broadside Bash next month. Why am I doing it? Well for a couple of reasons. As I said on the 11^th Company podcast I like armies that are rare and more of a challenge to win with. Demons fit that to a tee! Not only have they always been very rare (especially in the US) but I will play a pure Tzeentch list.

So why the pure Tzeentch list?

Well one of the reasons is that I have all of the models. I started collecting them for my Thousand Sons army when they could take demons in the last edition of the rules. So when most people do not want to pay the big $$$ for screamers, I already have 10 that have been sitting around collecting dust for the last 10 years. Also I think that Tzeentch Demons might be ok in the game, not good, but ok. Remember that they can reach out and shoot people so the armies that traditionally give them problems like Dark Eldar and Grey Knights will have some of their advantages neutralized.

So what about the comp?

Here is the comp listing from the Broadside Bash:

Here are the guidelines for scoring:

0 - nothing but the absolute best most optimal units, gear and configurations with no concession to theme or balance. The army made simply to beat your face in.
1-2 - an army constructed with a heavy hand to power optimization, using combinations that might even be anti-thematic in nature
3 - normal tournament style army, no particular weakness or strength, no particular adherence to a theme. A classic example of this kind of amy. Anyone should enjoy playing or playing against this army.
4-5 - a particularly well balanced army, some weaknesses balanced by strengths, adherence to a theme even at the cost of performance/optimization.
6 - a thematic army to the extreme (particularly at the cost of performance), note: "winning" is not a theme.

So you will note that you get bonus points for being a fluffy army that takes less effective choices. Well that has a Tzeentch demon list written all over it! Not only am I playing what is considered one of the weakest codexes in the game, but restricting my choices to being a pure Tzeentch list!!!

Comp

Now I have no doubt that I will get a bad comp score. I also fully expect the really hard armies there to score well in comp. The reason for that is that comp does not work, and no one understands it. If you lose a game the army you faced was cheesy. Also if you play marines and their variants everyone knows them, and knows what they do so they always score well in comp. If you play Demons, Dark Eldar, or Necrons or other rare xenos armies’ people are less familiar with their rules, and because of that ignorance they are seen as cheesy whether or not they are.

So why comp?

I also asked the organizers why they have comp and I never received an answer. This is what I like about comp is that no one is able to articulate why they have it. Generally there are 2 reasons to have comp scores and those are:

#1. To handicap the most powerful armies.

#2. To have a more diversified field.

To handicap the most powerful armies

All the codexs are pretty equal these days (within reason) yet they think that comp will solve some of the inequalities? I listen to a lot of podcasts and some of them that do not play competitively say that Tau are not competitive, yet if you listen to others they are very competitive. Tau are very good at killing Grey Knights and can do well vs. a lot of armies. So with people unable to judge the power of a codex, how can you have people give you a score based on it? Also if you look at armies that are less powerful than others, if you lose, how can you tell? If I take a pure Tzeentch demon list, everything will still work and everything will still have a function, so how can you tell if I sacrificed taking some units to be less effective? I will not have Fiends (arguably the best unit in the Demon Codex) but if you have never played a demon player before how will you ever know that I have not taken the most powerful units? You are still going to be getting shot by horrors, flamed by flamers, and melta bombed by screamers. How will anyone know that they are facing a bad army, and it sacrificed a lot to stay to a theme? Especially when Fateweaver is giving everyone a re-rollable 4+ Invulnerable save they will have no idea that that it could have been much worse if I had a bloodlthirster charging them, or bloodcrushers hitting their lines.

Have a more diversified field

People play what they want to play, and when you are playing $65 for a ticket people are trying to win. They are not brining fluffy fun lists when it cost so much. Also they did not make the comp score enough of a deterrent so that more people would be inclined to bring a less competitive army. Also who knows what any comp score will be because it is player judged and at the whim of your opponent. A couple of years ago there were 2 foot eldar players there (Toby and myself) and we had lists that scored very well when we were judged for comp pre-tournament by the judges, but when we played on the table and won we both received a very bad comp score. The funny thing is that at the same time Hulksmash brought his razorwolves (which was one of the hardest armies around at the time) and scored a good comp score.

So if you have such a flawed system that does not work why have it? Other than tradition of course.

Now I might be wrong and might I get nearly a perfect comp score and the hard armies will get next to nothing, but we all know that this will not be what happens.

Grey Knights vs Space Wolves, let's break it down!

2012-01-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

In my last post I claimed that Grey Knights did everything that Space Wolves did only better, and so...

Abuse puppy said this:
>Grey Knights do everything that the Space Wolves do only better.

Grey Knights are worse against hordes (except Purifiers.) Grey Knights can't bring as many bodies, and are thus less resilient. Grey Knights have worse fire support. Grey Knights have minimal access to Meltaguns. Grey Knights don't have the same kind of fast, strong assault units. Grey Knights don't have backfield disruption in the vein of Wolf Scouts. Grey Knights do not get Land Speeders or anything even vaguely like them. Grey Knights don't get the same cheap utility HQs that SW have.

Grey Knights are not just "better SW." Both of them are midfield shooting/assault hybrid armies, but GK uses torrent shooting and elite models, whereas SW uses torrent melee and backfield support shooting.

Let's break it down.

Grey Knights are worse against hordes (except Purifiers.)

Against hordes Grey Knight builds do very well with their shooting. Grey Knight Strike squads can shoot to full effect up to 24" and Grey Knights can crank their stormbolters up to strength 5. Paladins shooting is devastating to hordes, and then they can beat them down in assault. The fact that all of their weapons are all assault means they can move back and keep on firing. The last point is that we just do not see that many horde armies out there anymore. It is possible that the Coteaz henchman build might have some troubles with Hordes and that is about it.

Grey Knights can't bring as many bodies, and are thus less resilient

Paladins are more resiliant than anything that the Space Wolves can put down. In fact, Space Wolves have no good answers for them. What Grey Knights do lack in quantity they make up for in quality.

Grey Knights have worse fire support.

Autocannon Dreads with psybolt ammo are equal to 5 missile launcher long fangs. They are both strength 8, the trade off is that the dreads hit better, but the long fangs are AP3. As far as durability goes, it is hard to say which one is better. The Grey Knight player also can take 6 dreads and Long Fangs are limited to 3. Also dreadnaughts can move and shoot and that is a huge advantage.

Grey Knights have minimal access to Meltaguns.

The Henchman build can take a ton of cheap melta guns. Other Grey Knights builds are limited in their number of Melta Guns, but to make up for this they have rending psycannons that can take down AV14 vehicles at range. Space Wolves struggle to kill AV14 outside of 6".

Grey Knights don't have the same kind of fast, strong assault units

Interceptors can fill this role in a lot of cases. If you are talking about Thunderwolf Cavalry then you are right, but Dark Eldar can pick them apart, and Paladins can shoot them off of the table and then beat them in assault. Also if you are looking for a fast moving assault unit you can load up a Stormraven with paladins or purifiers and then get a 3+ cover save with shrouding and you get get where you need to go.

Grey Knights don't have backfield disruption in the vein of Wolf Scouts.

I take it then that you have never seen an outflanking Interceptor squad?

Grey Knights do not get Land Speeders or anything even vaguely like them

Well, I can say that Space Wolves do not have access to Stormravens or anything like them. What do land speeders add? Typhoons with a moving and shooting missile launcher? Dreadnaughts can do that. I have not seen any other land speeders in a competitive list in a while so I do not know what their vital role is other than giving away free kill points.

Grey Knights don't get the same cheap utility HQs that SW have.

Rune Preist=Librarian, Wolf Lord=Grand Master (Never seen someone use a WGBL or Wolf Priest)

Space Wolves can take 2 more of them than the Grey Knights can but they have to pay the price for them. That is why most Space Wolf armies run around with only 1 or 2 HQs (most of the time a killy lord+rune priest for psychic defense). A big weakness to multi-HQs is that there are so many Grey Knight players and you can only make one of them eternal warrior to stop being force weaponed to death. And in a side note a head to head match up Draigo will rofflestomp(sp) Logan

Where have all of Wolves gone?

2012-01-15T21:32:00.000-08:00

I was talking to the 11^th company guys and I think I know why you never see Space Wolves around anymore. The reason why is that most Space Wolf players are band wagon jumpers because prior to the new codex there have not been any Space Wolf players after 4^th edition killed their rhino rush. So what happened to all of them? Where did they all go? Who killed them all off?

I think the answer is the Grey Knights, and it was murder!!! Grey Knights do everything that the Space Wolves do only better.

For an example let’s take the top Space Wolf builds and compare them to the Grey Knights.

Loganwing is good, but not as good as Draigowing.

Thunderwolf Cav? If you are looking for a deathstar, paladins do it better.

Razorspam? Grey Knights have strength 6 shooting razorbacks, and fortitude. Not only that but they get 12 point troop units to sit in them.

Grey Hunter spam? That is done better with Crowe and Purifiers.

So that is my thinking behind why we do not see the Wolves as much as we use to.

So here are my thoughts on Space Wolves

I was thinking over my Wolf Scout idea, and the more I think about it the more I do not like it.

If you want to win large tournaments, you need to have a strategy that works almost all of the time. If it can be neutralized, or has a lot of bad match-ups, you need to discard it. For an example, in 4^th edition I had an army concept of and Eldar army taking nothing but Vypers and War Walkers (see note below). In play testing I had some bad matchups with some armies (back then it was chaos with tank hunting auto-cannons and a few others). With that army I was winning 66%-75% of my games. That is fine for casual play, but unacceptable for tournament play.

So thinking about my Wolf Scouts there are a lot of problems and here is why:

#1. In tournament play you need to be reliable, and you must do everything you can to reduce randomness. The fact that they come on a side board edge on a roll of 1 or 2 might be disastrous. Also they need to be held in reserve so they might not come in when you need them, and they might not come on in turns #4 and #5.

#2. There are things that can take them out without working up a sweat. For an example of these is the heavy flamer. It will BBQ scouts and cover will not save you.

#3. Then there are tactics that can defeat them. The one that I like to use against them is to put my whole army in reserve and then they come on with nothing to fight, and no good places to deploy. The other tactic to beat them is to cover a corner of the board with troops and vehicles so they can’t come on and hit your valuable targets.

Now that does not mean that I am going to scrap the idea totally. I still like the idea of 10 scouts with a WG and a Wolf Priest to give them some durability and some options, but I need another way to win.

So as I mentioned in my other post I won some Thunder Wolf cav. My tactics was to place that unit in the center of the board and drive everything else back against the board edge. Kind of like a hammer and anvil.

With me reconsidering the wolf cav. There were a lot of people who played it, and they seem to have abandoned it. I do not see or hear too much about them anymore. There are also some people on the internet that think you can’t win with an assault based army anymore.

I know when I first read the Space Wolf codex they really jumped out at me. As everyone knows, I love a good deathstar unit, so a fast moving, hard hitting unit seems to be the way to go. In Phoenix one of the best players plays Thunderwolf Cav and he won the ‘Ard Boyz semi-finals here with them. He tabled my Draigowing a few times when we first played (One of the few players to do it), when he rolled great saves, but after that my Paladins have handle them without to much of a problem (I will post my batreps with him when we played at the WWSO last weekend). I still wonder where the Thunder Wolf Cav players have all gone. What happened to them? Maybe the players just got bored with them? From what I read it seems that Dark Eldar with poisoned weapons and Grey Knights have hunted them into extinction. They have gone the way of the Nob Biker and Lash armies to be relegated to nothing more than a footnote to history.

Rise of the Wolfstar

I am not going to re-invent the wheel here, so I think I will have a standard wolf build with 5 Thunderwolves with a lord or two. They seem like a good match up against grey knights. They can shut down psychic powers on a 4+ and they can also neutralize psychic powers on a 5+ that affect them.

But after the talk with the 11th Company guys I think I will give it a rest for a while and try another army that can't win.

Note on the Eldar small vehicle build: The funny thing is that 5th edition made vehicles more durable, and all of the armies that can take them out slowly disappeared. But I waited to long and now there are torrent of fire armies like Grey Knights that will blow them off of the table. Perhaps I will revisit this concept in 6th edition because if the rumors are true it will be harder to hit vehicles with a Jink rule increasing there durability. Perhaps with the new Eldar codex and GWs circle of nerf the overcosted Vyper should be dirt cheap.

Eldar for an RTT this weekend, and some batreps

2012-01-13T02:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it looks like I left Part II of my Space Wolf thoughts on my computer at work.

So here is some batreps for you.

As I said a couple of weeks ago I played against Monster Rain’s Necrons and Magilla Gorilla posted up a video batrep of our game. You can see it here.

I learned a lot in this game.

I got to try out my anti-Imotekh strategy. Since my brand of Grey Knights can's see in the dark I had Monster Rain go first and held my army in reserve and I deep struck just about everything that could. I did this for a few reasons.

#1. There is a 40% chance that I don't have to bother with night fight. (It ending on turns 1 or 2)

#2. If it is night fight and I can get close to him so I can see them in the dark.

#3. There is a 90% chance (Night fight leaving after 3 turns) that I will not have to roll to get hit by the lightning.

My plan worked well because night lifted on turn #2.

I also learned when you are going to charge a unit of immortals with paladins, and assault a unit of destroyers with Draigo, do not shoot at the immortals. The reason why is that after they reanimate, they can be placed so that they block Draigo from his charge.

Here is another batrep for you. I wrote one up over on Dakka Dakka. It had been a long time since I did one over there and I thought I would do a very detailed batrep.

You can read it here.

It was the last game of the Wild West Shootout and it was against Dave Fay’s Black Templar:

The last thing I have is that I have a local RTT on Saturday. I am going to play my foot Eldar again. It has been over a year since I have played them and I will get to see how they do against some of the newer armies. The one advantage I have is that no one here plays Eldar so it will be interesting to see what they think.

Oh, and one more thought. I was building a Space Wolf army and it has a lot in common with a lot of other builds that I have done. I like a good death star unit, and it pretty scarce when it comes to vehicles.

For the wolf time, for Russ!

2012-01-10T22:08:00.000-08:00

I played in a 2 day 5-game GT over the weekend put on by battlefoam (a few batreps forthcoming) and one of the prizes that I won was 5 Thunderwolves from Mr. Dandy.

Returning to the Fang.

So this got me thinking about space wolves. As I have said, space wolves were my first army ever and they got me into this game. I had been eagerly awaiting a new codex for years and when it came out it seemed to be very powerful and popular. I kind of grew disinterested because I don’t like armies that are too good and too powerful (Ironic I know coming from a Draigowing player), and that is the reason why I have put the Grey Knights aside unless I want to really win a tournament.

So the heat from the Space Wolves has died down from them being overpowered now that the Grey Knights are on the scene, and they seem like they have almost completely disappeared so maybe it is time for the re-birth of my wolves.

Building a Space Wolves army

Here is some insight into how I build an army. I take a unit I like (no matter what it is) and I build my army around it. When I was playing my eldar it was the mighty guardians, and with my Grey Knights it was paladins of course.

So what units out of the space wolves’ codex do I want to build my army around? Wolf Scouts!

Now how do I go about building an army around them? Well we start with the wolf scouts. That means I will be taking 2 squads of 10. This is a lot more than your normal 5 scouts with a melta gun.

Why only 2 squads? There are several reasons for it.

#1. Cost: If I take 30 scouts I will not have much in the way of support units.

#2. Randomness: I have to roll to see what table edge they come on, and 2 gives me some redundancy if one squad comes in from the wrong table edge. Three squads are too many if my dice have it in for me.

#3. Effectiveness: That is a lot of eggs in one basket, and my opponent will just set up or move out of 12” from the edge of the table leaving the scouts out in the open and unable to engage, or just have a build that can easily deal with them.

#4. Slots: To make the Scouts more effective you need a wolf guard to add to them to make them more effective and that takes an elite slot.

Troops

So after that we have all of the elites slots filled. So we have to go to troops. This is grey hunters territory and we will just through some in to the mix. It will be a couple of 5-man squads in razorbacks and 1 or 2 squads of 8 in a rhino.

Heavy Support

Really you have to ask this? I will add some long fangs and call it a day.

Well, to support the scouts and to take them to the next level we need someone with Saga of the Hunter. The only 2 HQs that can take it are Wolf Priests and a Wolf Guard battle leader. I am on the fence about these and both have their pros and cons. The Wolf Priest comes with a power weapon and a 4+ inv save. He also makes the squad fearless, and gives it preferred enemy against a certain unit type. The Wolf Guard Battle Leader is 30 points cheaper and +1 attack and +1 initiative. The Wolf Priest is more like a force multiplier than a combat IC like the WGBL. The WP beefs up the squad but the WGBL can split off and engage units on his own. When comparing the 2 I like what the Priest adds and I think I will go with him and as an added bonus he is rarely seen. Plus I have the limited edition model and I really like it. I think I will need to do some play testing with both to see which one is really better.

So there you have it, the foundation of the army. So how am I going to make it work?

Find out in Part II

The nuances of 40k part II: Greed is bad

2012-01-04T23:01:00.000-08:00

Here is part II of my series on how small mistakes cost you games.

I played in the Nova Invitational last September and my very first game was against a Deathwing army played by Alex “The Everliving” Fennel. Alex is a member of the England ETC team and a very good player. I played him a few years ago at Adepticon and I get a lucky break and managed to beat him.

Here are the units in play:

Deathwing

5 Terminators w/Cyclone Missile Launcher

Various Ravenwing bikes.

Grey Knights

Draigo

Paladin w/Psycannon, Sword

Paladin w/Psycannon, Halberd

Paladin w/Sword

Paladin w/Halberd

Paladin w/Demonhammer

The set up

So I was pushing Draigo and 5 paladins up a flank and rolling him back. He reserved his Ravenwing bike squad and he outflanked with them and came in from the side with Draigo. He took some shots at my paladin squad and he manages to wound my paladin with a psycannon. Draigo splits off to take care of the bikes while the paladins continue to punish his deathwing terminators. Draigo kills the bikes, and rushes to join back up with his squad stringing them out and keeping Draigo in the rear.

Here is Draigo on the left taking care of business with the ravenwing bikes, and the paladins in the middle.

The unstoppable force vs. the immovable object

The paladins have a deathwing squad that they have knocked down to only 3 models in front of them and they charge! With all of these power weapon attacks hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s they should go down pretty quick. Well, I did about 6 to 7 wounds and they made all of their 3+ invulnerable saves but 1. They strike back and does 1 wound in return. Since it is with a thunderhammer it will insta-kill a paladin.

Here I am before I shot and killed the missile launcher, and before I went in for the kill!

The dilemma

I have 2 choices:

#1. Put the wound on my wounded psycannon and even if I fail the save the combat will be tied, but I will lose a valuable psycannon.

#2. Put the wound on the paladin with a sword giving me a 4+ save, but if I fail the save I will lose a model that is expendable but I will have to take a leadership check because I lost the combat.

So what did I do?

I put the wounds on the sword and I failed my save. I lost combat by 1 and I had to take a morale roll and I rolled an 11 and fell back. He then followed up keeping me within 6”. I kept falling back for the next 3 turns and never re-grouped. With that blow he neutralized 600 points (over 1/3 of my army), and I lost the game.

Here I am running away.

Lessons learned

At the point where I took the morale roll the game was well in hand and I was rolling up the flank. Draigo would have been in combat the next round and he and the paladins would have dispatched the 2 remaining terminators without too much of a problem. I should not have taken the chance on a morale roll because although psycannon would have been useful, it was not worth the risk of losing the game if I failed my save and my morale roll.

Lesson: Never take a morale roll unless it is critical to winning the game. The risk/reward of failing a leadership check is devastating to such an expensive unit.

A winning Draigowing list in under 20 models!

2012-01-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

My List

2000 Points of Grey Knights

Draigo

Librarian w/Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, The Shrouding, 2 Servo Skulls

Elites

Venerable Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (1 Master Crafted), 2 Hammers, 3 Halberds (1 Master Crafted), Warding Staff, 1 Sword, Brotherhood Banner

1 Paladin w/Demonhammer

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition, Searchlight

So there it is…18 Models

Helpful hints to become a WAAC player!

2011-12-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

So in the spirit of the WAAC podcast* here are some helpful hints that I love to use to help me win, and I hope can spread the WAAC message!

Time Management

Time is your friend. Remember, that there is no playing like slow playing!

First off, play an army that not only takes a long time to play, but dominates in the early game. I am talking Orks, Tryanids and Dark Eldar here. This way time is on your side. If the game only goes to turn 3-4 you are going to be in great shape, and all over the middle of the board and on all of the objectives, while your opponent will still be huddled in his deployment zone. So here are some quick tips to make sure your will never see turn #5:

After every game, make sure you put away your army back in your carrying case. Never use a tray or display board to move your army from one game to next. If you have to unpack everything every round you can easily chew up 30 minutes for your deployment.
Make sure you only have less than 10 dice. That way when you have to roll 36 attacks you have to roll the same group over and over again and try to keep track of how many hits and wounds that you have done. Every once in a while forget how many wounds/hits you have done so you have to re-roll them all again.
For every save you will want to roll one dice at a time. Tell your opponent you like to do it because it adds to the drama and makes the game more cinematic.
Ignorance is the shield that will protect you. Question every rule. If your opponent is digging through his codex every few minutes not only will it take time, it will take him out of his rhythm and he might forget something important. If that does happen remember that you are a WAAC player, so if he forgets something there is no going back!!! (Note: If you forget to do something, do not forget to ask if it is ok for you to go back).
Do not be afraid to call a rule judge over. The harder the judges are to find, the more you will want to use this. Note: There is a law of diminishing returns here because if you call them over too much they might camp out on your table and that will be bad. A WAAC player does not want “The Man” to be sweating him, so be sure they leave before resuming your normal play style.
Keep your eye on the clock. You want to time it so that you know that you will have the last turn so you can do an objective grab. If you mistime it so that there is an extra 10 or 15 minutes tell your opponent that you can not finish another turn and argue it so that by the time he gets a judge it will too late to play another turn.

General WAAC Tactics
Here are some other helpful tips that I have found that have helped me in the past:

If you can get some dice that you can’t see what you rolled from across the table, they are keepers. I have some see-thru yellow dice that have white pips that I have had sitting in the sun for a few months so they get nice and bleached so no one has any idea what I just rolled. Heck, half of the time I have no I idea what I rolled myself, but just say confidently a good number of hits, and pick up that many dice.
Never use army builder, and you will also want to stay away from Excel or a printer altogether. Pencil and paper are the official army list maker for the WAAC gamer. Remember never put stats lines or even what they are equipped with. Heck just put the unit cost if you have to. Remember also that penmanship is not rewarded, and in fact the worse it is, the less likely that your list will be scrutinized. So be sure to make a lot of mistakes and do a lot of erasing.
Take a couple of army lists. Tournaments never check these things from round to round, so be sure to use the best tool for the job. That is what the real army would do right?
If you get the chance, move around to your opponent’s side of the table and stand right next to your opponent. This works best when you invade your opponent’s personal space. Remember, you want him to think about why you are standing so close to him, and not focusing on the game.
Grey is your friend. If there is no painting requirement, why bother? You are not there to look pretty but to beat face. Make sure all of your models are unpainted so that your opponent will not know where one unit ends, and the other begins. This way you can do the old shell game to help out squad sizes where you need them.
Do not declare what you are rolling for until after you have rolled the dice. This will greatly increase your success rate with your dice rolls.
Never put out a vehicle damage marker. That way you can forget what damage was done. When you move an immobilized vehicle a couple of turns after it happened you will rarely get called on it. Also you can get into arguments about what damage vehicles took, and if they were stunned or not.
In a tournament with battle points remember to never get the maximum points. For example: If 20 was the most you can get, you should only get 19. That way the other WAAC gamers will have to play each other, and hopefully there will still be a baby seal or two that still needs a good clubbing that got lucky the first round.
WAAC players flock together. If you are your friends are the best group around and you want to prove it to yourselves and others, and are the types to make others rage quit what you do is start a pool where each of you put in $5 before each tournament and the first one who can make their opponent cry gets the pot.
Constantly accuse your opponent of cheating. That will get him on the defensive so he will not accuse you of cheating.

This are just scratching the surface and I hope these tips help my fellow WAAC players!

* *Note: the WAAC podcast was a joke that the 11th Company Podcast did to celibrate their 100th episode. These tactics are presented in a similar spirit.

The WAAC podcast

2011-12-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

I like the direction that the 11th Company Podcast has taken and they have embraced their inner WAAC player and changed to the WAAC Podcast!

Well, early on they started talking about my Draigowing list and how you can make it seem not that bad when you take it to comped or sportsmanship heavy tournaments. I liked where they were going and now I have some good ideas of how to spin my army so when I do go to tourmanets that are heavy on the soft scores I can try to shine that turd.

It looks like how to make your army look fluffy takes a lot of time, and a lot of effort, but it looks like if I can do it it will pay dividends on the table top in composition score and with my sportsmanship score. I know most of us WAAC gamers do not like doing it, but I like to look at it as just another part of the game. Kind of like the game before the game.

Draigo

First up is Draigo. Now Draigo looks all big and intimidating with his giant back-banner, and huge shield. The first thing I need to do is make him look not so intimidating. This is where “counts as” is my friend. I am going to get my hands on one of the old metal terminators. Not only is he on a 25mm base, but he is a little smaller than the other terminators so he will seem unimportant. Not only will this help out with target priority since he seems harmless, but also in comp scoring as well.

Paladins

Now paladins are a tough one. What I am going to do is give each one a name and a back story. This way when someone calls me out for being cheesy for taking paladins and having each one of them equipped differently, I can explain the reason why. For an example:

Brother Jurivious who received his ancient psycannon on the plains of Gidion Minor after his long time mentor and friend, Brother-Captain Haridian was mortally wounded in the purging of the chaos cult lead by the inquisitorial traitor Xariphanies.

Brother Nastor who was gifted with the Halberd “Alexus Rex” that was crafted by the master-artificer Keran Korr after his stanch defense of the palisades of the fortress-monastery at Lordan Sigma.

Brother Yanis who received his sacred demonhamer after slaying the foul Khorne Demon Lord X’Ryantcox during the demonic incursion on the planet Hespera.

Brother Slacavious the sole survivor of the massacre on the planet Hawes III when Dark Chaplain Poltus Den, Arch-Heretic of the Word Bearers trapped and killed 24 battle brothers of the Grey Knights.

Etc.

Now here is the secret, if my opponent’s eyes start to glaze over after telling the story of 1 or 2 of my models, then I am facing a fellow WAAC gamer and I can stop. Now on the other hand if they are really into the stories of my models, I am facing off against a fluff bunny, and I am now committed and I have to keep going all of the way.

Interceptors

Now for my Interceptors it is easy to talk these off. Here is what I am going to say, “Most people on the internet think these are bad, and they are! They cost way too much and they do not do anything. The only reason why I take them is that I just love the models, it is just a shame that their rules are so bad.” Usually by the end they are nodding in agreement.

Dreadnaughts

Now explaining away 3+ TL autocannon dreads are a problem. I try to spin that they are only AP4 so I try to talk them into thinking that they don’t do anything to MEQs. I also take them because in my demonhunter army in the old codex they were the only way I could take anti-tank, so they are just left overs from my old army when I converted over to the new codex. I show them and explain to them that I have had these dreadnoughts for years and tell their stories like about "Lefty" my forge world dreadnought that did not have a right arm for a long time. Then I show them "Old Blue" who started life off as a Space Wolves dreadnought, and Rusty, my metal Dark Angels dreadnought. I also like Pat's suggestion that Draigo himself is on the table and who else would accompany him into battle but some of the oldest, and most revered members of the Grey Knights who are entombed in their sarcophagus?

I played some games on Boxing Day!

2011-12-27T22:54:00.000-08:00

Boxing day for those of you who live in the US is a holiday on the day after Christmas when people in the UK and Canada go out into the streets and punch each other out. (I am not exactly sure but that is what I have heard).

I went to LA this for Christmas to celebrate the holiday, and what is a holiday without 40k?

Let me tell you, there is nothing like driving around for 14+ hours for clearing out your back log of podcasts that you have not listened to yet. Podcasts are great for driving, and even though it is a heck of a drive it makes the time go by really fast.

So for Boxing Day I drove for a couple more hours and I dropped down south to Escondito Ca to a game store called Thou Shalt Game. I have heard about it from the IVC podcast before and I finally got to check it out, and met up with Magilla Gorilla and Monster Rain from the Table Top War blog and played them in a couple of games. Magilla took some video so I hope that they will be putting it up on their blog soon.

Monster Rain played Necrons and so I got my first crack at them. It was an interesting game since I did not know too much about them, but I have the basics down. Now I know what Spacecurves means when he says that they have a lot of interesting tricks. For example: Monster Rain had a C’Tan Shard with Writhing Worldscape and then hit me with a couple of Tremorstaves from Harbingers of Transmogrification to not only slow me down, but to make me take dangerous terrain tests.

I think we will get to see the brutal combinations in a little while when they get thought out a little more, and they get some tournament experience. Personally I am a fan of a Harbinger of Despair jumping out of a Ghost Ark with an Abysmal Staff frying everything underneath the template, and then hitting what is left over with rapid fire. It is too bad that wound allocation rules have made that less effective than combinations like that use to be. Maybe 6^th edition will change that so the lower AP weapons will actually kill things when they are paired with not so deadly weapons.

So overall my impressions of the Necrons have not changed. They have a lot of unique tricks, and are a very interesting and dynamic army, but they just seem to lack real killy-ness that you need to deal with other armies. For another example, DE are a finesse army and although they can’t take a punch, they sure can deliver one. So we will see if there are combos out there that can dance with the likes of SW and GK.

Forgeworld: Imperial Armor Apocalypse II, the Revenge of Resin!

2011-12-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

So when I heard that The Bay Area Open is going to be including units from Forge World’s Imperial Armor Apocalypse II I was not to happy about it.

As most people who like forge world are quick to point out that most of the units in the Imperial Armor books are overcosted and not that good. That might be true, but just like every codex the units that you see are all going to be the best units that are undercosted. Nobody takes the bad units, but they scour the book to find the cheesy ones. It is like the heavy support for space wolves. What is the point of pointing out the most of the choices are not any good when all anyone ever takes are long fangs?

I have had limited experience myself with Forge World in games. The reason why is that I am in a state that does not have ready access to them like some of the larger areas with their battle bunkers and GW stores!

So my experience is limited to Adepticon’s Team Tournament and Gladiator. Now in the gladiator you are expecting to get slapped silly by some monstrosity with Strength D weapons, Lifta-Dropa arms, structure points and gargantuan creatures. The team tournament is a lot more restrictive, with no structure points and gargantuan creatures, but you can take almost everything else. So every year there is something in the new books that is sprung on us that we have to deal with. Several years ago it was the Meiotic Spores that dropped on us. A couple of years ago it was the Griffin mortar with an incendiary round that mades a unit automatically fall back. A couple of years ago it was the Hades Breaching Drill that was all of the rage.

So I was unhappy when the Bay Area Open decided to add the 40K approved units out of the Apocalypse II book. Well, I have heard stories about the Caestus Assault Ram, and the Achilles Land Raider, and the Lucious Drop Pod, etc. I have not read the books though, and I did not see what is contained in there at all. I have since had the opportunity to read the book and I must say that it is not all that bad. There are units in it that are really good, but most top tier armies can deal with. Of course there are other armies though that might struggle with the units in the IA; AII book, One problem is that a lot of people see things through the prism of their own armies. So when you see something that your army can deal with, then you assume that everyone else will not have a problem with it, or that they can deal with it, but the truth is that some armies will struggle against some of the Apocalypse II units.

Reese also said he would bet that the winner would not have any forge world units in it. I would take that bet! The reason why is that 3 Chaos Contemtor dreads+ obliterators backing them up are going to be a deadly combo. Sure, that is a ton of points, but that is a lot of fire-power. Throw in a couple of Lash Princes for 155 points and some deck chair units and I think you will be better than ok.

The Nuances of 40k: How small mistakes cost you games.

2011-12-19T08:04:00.000-08:00

In this series I am going to post games that I played in where I made mistakes and where they cost me the game. Most of these mistakes are going to be very small, but they will have a large impact on the overall result. These articles will focus on the errors, and will show that it impact it had. Lucky for me I have written up a lot of battle reports in the past, so I have a lot of mistakes that I have made to use for illustrations.

Mistakes in 40k

Everyone makes mistakes; it is just part of the game. If you are playing against a player that is not very good, they might not be able to capitalize on it, or even realize you made one. The problem comes when you are playing a top player on the top tables and it is often the person who makes a mistake is the one who will lose.

What about the Dice?

I hear a lot of talk about how 40k is a game of dice, and that is what decides who wins the games. In my experience, it is the decisions and mistake that you make in the game are what decides it. Don’t get me wrong, there are games where dice can lose you a game. There are a surprising number of games where I can’t roll over a 4 on the vehicle damage table and can’t kill a vehicle. You saw a little of that in my game with Neil Gilstrap when I shot my whole army at a couple of razorbacks for a couple of turns and I was unable to kill them in the 6^th game of the Nova Open.

Isn’t it about matchups?

To a degree yes it is, and there are bad matchups in certain missions. For example; play against a deathstar army in KPs, or a MSU army in objectives and you are going to be at a disadvantage. Also certain armies match-up to other armies better than others. As someone who makes their own army, it is your role to build a list that does not have disadvantages, or at least minimizes them. If your army has a lot of bad matchups or does not perform well in certain missions, it is because your list is poor, and you need to improve it.

So let’s get on to the examples!

The nuances of 40K Part 1: Know when to hold them, and know when to fold them!

This is a game from back in 2009. This was at the Adepticon Invitational Tournament. This was a tournament where they invited the top 10% of finishers of Games Workshops GTs to a side tournament that ran concurrently to Adepticon’s regular tournament. So with only the cream of the crop, you ended up playing in a field of some very good players.

The Preamble

In round #1 of the tournament I was playing against Paul Murphy. Paul is one of the best players in the country and he made it into the top 16 at Adepticon’s Championships last year (He is also ranked #1 in the US in Rankings HQ right now). He was playing Nob Biker Orks back when they had no easy counters, and Ork armies were dominating the tournament scene.

His units at play:

Warboss: Power Klaw, Slugga Kombi-weapon, Attack Squig, Bosspole, Cybork Body, Warbike

Warbike Nobz: Big Choppa x2, Choppa X5, Power Klaw x2, Slugga x2, Shoota/Rokkit Kombi-weapon x1, Shoota/Skorcha Kombi-weapon x1, TL Shoota x1, Ammo Runt x1, Bosspole x1, Cybork body x1, Waaagh banner x1
Painboy: ‘Urty Syringe, Dok’s tools, Grot orderly, Warbike

I was playing Tzeentch themed Chaos Space Marines. The units that will come into play are:

Chaos Sorcerer: Bolt of Change, Disc of Tzeentch, Personal Icon, Warptime, Mark of Tzeentch.

Demon Prince: Wings, Mark of Tzeentch, Warptime, Winds of Chaos.

7 Thousand Sons Marines
Aspiring Sorcerer: Melta Bombs, Warptime

The Set up

He did what all Nob Bikers armies do and Turbo-busted up to be right in front of me.

Here he is right in front of me. My HQs are behind the bunker to the left.

The decision!

So I had to make a choice:

#1. Try to fall back and by some time.

Upside: More rounds of shooting to soften him up

Downside: Nob Bikers have a huge threat range and I might not be able to flee far enough.

#2. Charge with my HQs

Upside: My HQs have a 4+ inv save, and they can blast them with Warptime+Winds of Chaos to soften them up before charging.

Downside: My HQs have to survive so they can win combat, if not I am screwed.

#3. Assault with HQs and Thousand Sons squad (That is all that can reach because the HQs have flight, and the TS Squad is coming out of a Land Raider)

Upside: More bodies for more attacks, and I get to hit them before they hit me.

Downside: Combat resolution. Because he is not fearless if I can do more wounds to him than he does to me I might get them to break and I can then run them down. If I throw in the TS squad he gets to kill a lot of them and I might lose combat. Also I am gambling everything on this move

So what do you choose?

In the game I chose option #2. I hoped after shooting everything I had into them I could do some damage, but I did not realize how resilient Nob Bikers are. What I was worried about was getting hit with a huge combat resolution and thus taking massive no-retreat wounds. So I left the Thousand Sons out of the combat and I was hoping at least one of my HQs would survive and by me some time.

Here is the aftermath. My HQs were crushed and now he is free to destroy me.

The correct option was #3. The reason why is that when I charged the Bikers they got to pile in to my HQs giving them a lot of attacks to dish out. If I would have charged them with the Thousand Sons yes I would have lost some, but with their 3+/4+ save they could weather some attacks. But where the big error was that it would have held the Nob Bikers in place so they could not pile-in to the HQs and so it would be a 1-on-1 fight with them so they would have had a much higher survivability and not only would that have bought me some time, and perhaps a couple of turns of swinging and doing casualties.

How it might have played out is that he would have counter-charged me with his other squad of Nob Bikers and I get to swing swing first hopfulling killing some before I get wiped out, and then I would have counter attacked with my Terminators. This might have slowed him down a bit and I do not know if I could have won that

Another option that I had was to pile out of the land raider and create a line in front of the Bikers with my Thousand Sons squad so if they wanted to assault my main force they would have to drive around them to get to me and perhaps be out of range, or they would just assault them and wipe them out, so I think that would have only bought me a turn and I would have lost that unit.

Also knowing now what I know about them, I should have tank-shocked them with my Land Raider to see if I can get them to break.

Here is what happened in the end. It is all over at his point.

Here is the full battle report.

I would also like to say that my armies always have trouble with Nob Bikers. My Eldar struggled against them, and so did my Chaos. I sure could have used a lash! For the first time I beat them at Wargames Con with my Grey Knights, and even then it was a close battle. We ended up in a giant scrum and he was killing Paladins like crazy with his Klaws, but I was dropping orks to get them to run. After several turns I got them to break and I only had a few models left.

E-mail in looking for Paladin help

2011-12-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

E-mail in!

Ryan writes:

"If you had a moment, I wanted to bend your ear regarding DraigoWing—I’m attending my first 40k tournament (in SOME time)—and decided to talk my new Custodes for a walk."

Don’t you mean your old Custodes? By the way, Ryan has some beautiful models!

“ So I’m going pretty zany—and without breaking down into my unique wound allocation hee haws—basically I’m taking;..”

HQs

Draigo

A no-brainer must-have!

Libby w/ Shrouding/Quicksilver

You need to think about powers for you librarian. A lot of people see Quicksilver and like it and think it is useful, and it is not. You cast it in your movement phase only on your turn, and you have halberds striking at I6 anyways so it is really not useful. You want to take Might of Titans. Sometimes you need some extra strength, and where it really comes in handy is the 2d6 armor penetration. The other power that you have to take is Sanctuary. Not only does it have a chance to keep things from assaulting you, not only does it do some damage to whatever is charging you, but the most important thing is does is make units without grenades attack last. That means Genestealers, Orks, Incubi, Demons, and a lot of other nasty stuff attacks after you do.

Troops

10 Pals w/ 4 cannons (Unique stuff for wounds)

I take it you are throwing around weapons to give them unique profiles. A few notes on weapons:

I really like Halberds because that I6 is very nice, but everything in moderation.

Swords are ok, and it is good to have a couple just in case when you get into assault you have a couple of 4+ Inv saves.

You need 2 demonhammers (in case you combat squad you then have a demonhammer in each squad) but sometimes you have trouble wounding high toughness creatures, and it is nice to have a strength 8 force weapon. Also you can crank it up to strength 10 with hammerhand for a lot of use killing vehicles and units like TWC.

You can throw in some Master crafting to give everyone a unique profile.

Brotherhood banner is something that you should always take and is very useful. (plus it looks like you have a nice model for it!)

A Nemesis Force Staff is something that I just started to add. I have been taking a lot of thunder hammer hits, and to be able to put them on this guy so I do not lose combat has been very valuable.

10 Pals w/ 2 Cannons 2 Inc (Unique stuff for wounds)

As a general rule you do not need incinerators. The reason why is that to be able to use a flamer template you need to be fast. So if you were in a land raider or a stormraven you can do it, but otherwise you will be

1. Out of range.

2. If something gets that close to you it would have charged you.

3. You do not want to do casualties to the unit because they will remove the models that are closest to you so you will be taken out of charge range.

Dreadknight w/ Psy

Well I have to say this guy does not add a lot to your army. You might want to throw in a couple of Psyfleman Dreadnaughts for some long range anti-tank. Personally I would think about putting in your Land Raider since it looks like you have a very nice one. It works well with your army, it gives you much needed long range firepower, and it goes well with carrying paladins for assault. Also those incinerators will finally come in handy, and you can give your librarian Warp Rift.

So 2k, I’m walking in 23 models—haha. I just wanted to know your experiences with Paladins—and any general tips you might offer

I would slim down one of your paladin squads and take some solo-dins (one-model paladin units) for scoring units to claim objectives. If you do take a land raider not only can you then take those incinerators, but you might want to think about taking a 4-man paladin squad and beef them up for assault just so you can fit them with a HQ into it.

I was thinking about the top players that I have never beaten...

2011-12-15T00:36:00.000-08:00

And what that led me to do is to think about players that I have beaten, tied and lost to. I thought I would make a quick list.

The people I have beaten

Really there are a lot, and this is not a brag post, or a humble brag, but I have won my share. I will say that I have heard the phase “I (or he) have (has) never lost before (with this army)” many times.

The Even Stevens

When you hear about the top players in the country I have played just about all of them at one time or another. As you work your way up to the top tables you see a lot of familiar faces. Against the top players I have a pretty good record, and for the most part I can hold my own. Also there are a lot of top players that I have split games with, or tied. Like Darkwyn of BoLS fame that I played once in an RTT in Orlando and he beat my Chaos with his Black Templars. Then a few weeks later we had a re-match in Tampa and it was his Black Templars vs. my Eldar, and I did a lot better. Let’s put it like this…after this game he started to take blessed hull even though there was no DE running around at that time ;) Another example is against Greg Sparks where I had one of my favorite games of all time at LA Games Day a few years ago. I was playing my Tyranids against his Chaos, and it was a slug-fest that ended in a close tie, and then I played him again at the Adepticon Invitational and again I almost beat him and it ended up in another tie. There are many others like Marc Parker, Alex Fenell, Mike Mutscheller, Dave Fay, etc that I have tied or we have ended up splitting our games.

The no-shows

I like playing the best-of-the-best and I like to be challenged so here is the short list of players that I have never played but want to:

Mike Brandt

Nick “Yermom” Nanavati

Thomas “Goatperson” Reidy

Shawn Kemp

Ragnar Arneson

Bill Kim

The Victors

Here is the short list of people that I have played but lost to that hurt the most (plus excuses ;):

Ben “Spacecurves” Mohlie

Ben has beaten me twice. The first time was in a demo game at Adepticon a couple of years ago. I was playing Chaos Space Marines and he was playing Space Wolves (Hey, when I put it like that, it does not sound so bad!). I popped his Land Raider on the first turn, and that was the first and last bit of luck that I had. He had to foot slog his way to me and I could not even come close to hitting him with a plasma cannon, and his rhinos were impregnable (he should have put whatever they were made out of on the land raider) and I lost. The other time was last summer in the Mirror Match tournament at Wargames Con where we both had the same Space Marine army. I was making a good accounting of myself even though I have never played Space Marine before, and they are Ben’s wheelhouse. Well, I got the jump on one of his squads and hit it hard, but he made almost all of his saves, and then he hit back and I could not roll that well and I lost several guys. At this point I should have failed my morale check and run, but I forgot that I could do that and he assaulted me and beat me down. Next year’s mirror match will be chaos marines and one of my specialties, so we will see how he does then!

Tony Kopach

As most people know, I played him twice at the Nova Open. The first game I played him in the invitational and I rolled like crap and his grey hunters beat up my paladins in assault. The second game was in the Nova finals where I lost the game when I did not make my Interceptors scoring. I got sick, and was so tired after 13 games that when I looked down at the end of turn #3 and I realized that I only have 2 troops in an objective game I knew I was screwed.

Paul Murphy

I guess I lost to him twice, but I do not count the first time. It was at the Adepticon Gladiator and he just destroyed me with a stompawith a lifta-droppa arm. The second time was the same year at the AdepticonInvitational and he was running Nob Bikers (back when they were unbeatable) vs.my Chaos Space Marines. He ran up to me with his bikers and I assaulted them with my HQs (a Demon Prince and a Sorcerer on a disc). I had a Thousand Son’s Squad that I could throw at them, but I was worried about combat resolution. He ended up collapsing on my HQs, and killing them. I should have thrown my Thousand Sons squad at them to hold him in place so he could not get all of those attacks at my HQs, and I would have had 2 turns of beating on them, and hopefully cripple them.

Reese Robins

This was Space Wolves vs. my first and only running of myDark Eldar at the Sprue Posse GT. I had him right where I wanted him in a KP mission, and I ended up failing a morale roll on LD 9 and 2 KP ran off the table at the end of the game giving him the win.

Scott Simpson

He is retired as far as I know, but back-in-the-day he was quite the Tau specialist. In the Games Day LA tournament that Sparks and I played in above we fought to a tie, and Scott who was behind us ended up jumping over us in the standing to win the tournament. Also a few months before Scott and I played we were both undefeated in the final round of the Baltimore GT and we just missed each other as I was on table #2 and he was on table #1 playing Toledo Brad. We both won our games and he ended up with a perfect 100 battle points and won best general, and I was at 97 battle points because I misread a mission and screwed up getting 3 points and I ended up with the second highest battle points. I ended up playing him at the Las Vegas GT when I was playing my Witch Hunters, and he was playing his Tau. I had a Rhino filled with Sisters that were pressuring him, and he ended up not only exploding the rhino, but doing enough casualties that I had to take a leadership check that I failed and ran away. If I could have gotten those sisters into assault with him, it would have been game over for him, but it was not to be and I was handed a loss.

Justin “Dash of Pepper” Hilderbrandt

This loss hurt the most. I was playing in the So Cal Slaughter in Space and we get paired up against each other. He is playing DE (old codex) and I was playing Chaos. This is a bad match-up for me to begin with but I was game. I have wanted to play him because he does well on the tournament scene and I wanted to see what he was made out of, and if he was really that good. So I look at the mission and it was who ever had the most KPs left alive at the end of the game wins. Well, that is great because I like small elite armies that have very few kill points, and he had over 20 of them. That was not too good for me, and the game ended up just like you would expect it to because I would just about need to table him with his fast moving units to get the win in this game.

This is of course not a comprehensive list of everyone that I have lost to. I have lost my share and then some, but these are the losses that hurt the most.

Eldar for Adepticon?

2011-12-13T22:14:00.000-08:00

Must fight down urge to play Eldar at Adepticon!

Nova Invitational Game #5: Blackmoor's Grey Knights vs. Tony Kopack's Space Wolves

2011-12-05T00:57:00.000-08:00

So before the final match-up in game #8 of the Nova Open, Tony and I played each other a couple of days before in the Nova Invitational. We had both dropped a game so we were both entering it at 3-1, so when we played each other so our outcome was not that important since we were both out of the running at this point. One of the reasons why I came to the Nova was to play people that I normally do not get the chance to and Tony was one of those people. I have heard a lot about the boy wonder after he went undefeated at last year’s Nova Open and Adepticon. I wanted to get the measure of him and see just how good he was, and now I have my chance.

Unlike after 13 games of the Nova Open when I was dead tired, sick, and out of gas, on Friday during the Invitational I was fresh and ready to go (even after playing 4 games earlier). Normally I am wrecked when I travel from west to east because of the time difference, and jet lag, but this time I had a plan to combat it. For the Nova Open I was able to book a red eye flight on Wednesday night and so I arrived at the hotel at 9:45am Thursday. My plan was to stay awake all day and go to bed early and be so tired that I will fall asleep right away. Then I be could get up at 7:00am local time and be awake and able to play (even though the first game started at 5:00am my time). Well, my plan worked out great! I was the least tired I have ever been at an east coast tournament.

So on to the game!

My Invitational List

1750 Points of Grey Knights

Draigo

Librarian w/ Might of Titian, Sanctuary, Shrouding

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (1 Master Crafted), 2 Hammers, 4 Halberds (1 Master Crafted), 3 Swords (1 Master Crafted), Brotherhood Banner

10 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammo

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Tony’s Space Wolf List (From memory)

Rune Priest w/JotWW, Living Lightning

Elite

Wolf Guard w/Combi-Melta, Power Fist

5 Wolf Scouts w/Melta Gun

Troops

8 Grey Hunters w/Melta Gun ,Wolf Standard

Rhino

8 Grey Hunters w/Melta Gun ,Wolf Standard

Rhino

8 Grey Hunters w/Melta Gun ,Wolf Standard

Rhino

8 Grey Hunters w/Melta Gun ,Wolf Standard

Rhino

Heavy Support

5 Long Fangs w/4 Missile Launchers

Razorback w/Las Plas

5 Long Fangs w/4 Missile Launchers

Razorback w/Las Plas

Mission:

Primary: Table Quarters

Secondary: Objectives

Tertiary: Kill Points

It looks like whenever I play Tony I always get my least favorable alignment of missions (kill points last).

Deployment: Spearhead

Setup

He wins the dice roll to go first and deploys his army.

Turn #1

Space Wolf Turn #1

He rushed his army up and he takes out a Dreadnaught with his long fangs.

Grey Knight Turn #1

I move up and unload into his rhino that is carrying his Rune Priest. I hate those stupid things and I want to kill him if I am able to, but all I do is knock off his storm bolter and immobilize it. I also immobilize the rhino that is on the top of the board that is near his long fangs.

Turn #2

Space Wolf Turn #2

He moves up again. He is being very aggressive, and keeps on advancing. My guess is that he has never fought paladins before and wants to try his luck in assault. Note: You should compare this to his behavior in our final game ;) If you have watched that final game, you would see that he is a lot more cautious. I wonder why? In the mean time he shoots his long fangs at my librarian’s combat squad and I roll 2 “1”s and lost 2 paladins.

Grey Knight Turn #2

Alright, time to get this party started!! I shoot at, and wreck the rhino that is in the top of the board, and he piles out. I explode the rhino that was closest, and Draigo and his boys launch an assault. This is where I make quick work out of 9 Grey Hunters! He ends up blocking my psychic powers, and then he counter-attacks and pops his wolf standard. I end up rolling really bad and killing 3 grey hunters total (Draigo should have killed that many by himself) and he ends up doing several wounds. He kills 2 paladins with his power fist who already had one wound on them and I lose combat by 3. I fail my morale roll (like my paladins always do) and they break but I get lucky here and he catches me and I take another wound from no retreat. Well, this battle went about as bad as it possibly can, short of getting escorted off of the board. That was very unexpected and unpleasant.

Turn #3

Space Wolf Turn #3

He continues to advance. I guess he was encouraged by how poorly paladins do in assault. Draigo finally does what he should have done last turn, and he, and his squad take out the last of the Grey Hunters they were in combat with. His long fangs take out another of my dreadnaughts. He does manage to fix his rune priests rhino and it is no longer immobilized.

Grey Knight Turn #3

Well, time to get going, I have him right where I want him!! Draigo moves right up to the Rune Priest’s rhino and I unload into it. I need to kill it so I can assault the contents, and after shooting my entire army at it, I can’t kill it. I then assault it and I still can’t kill it but I do manage to immobilize it again! My librarian’s squad assaults his other Grey Hunter squad but with the same result that I had last time. I was unable to get my Librarian into assault range, but the 3 remaining paladins ended up killing nothing, and he wiped my paladins out in return. The good news is that my librarian stays around! Is rolling average too much to ask?

Turn #4

Space Wolf Turn #4

Since I was unable to get Draigo's squad into assault, he was out in the open and the rune priest and his squad unload on them and then they assault. He loses 3 guys, and he kills the last of my paladins. On the other front, my Librarian kills 2 Grey Hunters, and my Librarian makes all of his saves, Tony fails his morale roll and breaks. Great...talking about to little to late...

Grey Knight Turn #4

Well, this is not how paladins should do in combat. The Librarian follows the Grey Hunters to keep them running. Draigo seems like he only gets going on the second round of combat and kills the Rune Priest and the Grey Hunters break. Well, at least my ICs can win a combat, I wish the Paladins could have done something earlier.

Turn #5

Space Wolf Turn #5

This is just about the end. A razorback takes out the Librarian and everything else shoots at Draigo and they take him down.

I am pretty much running on fumes at this point, and when he take out the last of my dreadnaughts, I can’t win because he has 2 table quarters to my 1, and we call the game.

This game seemed to have a big impact on Tony's play the second time we match up. He was not so aggressive, and stayed far away from me. He also had a lucky horseshoe up his rear because Paladins should butcher Grey Hunters, and I ended up whiffing in not just one combat, but 3!

I am prone to horrible bouts of bad luck, and this game was the last of it. That is why I did so well at the Nova Open because I did not have one of those games where I can't make a decent roll. Well, except maybe that last turn of the game when I played Tony in game #8 where I rolled terrible.

Nova Open game #7 Blackmoor vs. Devon’s Grey Knights

2011-11-30T00:13:00.000-08:00

Part 7 of my 8 part series!

So here I am, now down to the final four! It is me, Dash of Pepper’s Dark Eldar, Tony Kopack’s Space Wolves, and Devon’s Grey Knights. I played Tony on Friday night at the invitational and I liked my chances against him. Dash is a wild card because he has a ton of shooting at strength 8 AP2, but I have shrouding that he can’t stop, and I can knock those paper airplanes out of the sky pretty easy. Objectives against him might be trouble in the primary. Then there was Devon, I said that Grey Knights are my worse match-up and his army is a fast moving assault army just like the kind that I struggle against.

So when they announce the pairings, I get Devon and his Grey Knights. He played Xaereth in round #6 before and you should read his write up of his and Devon’s game because it gives some interesting context.

Devon is from Jacksonville and while I lived there for 6 months about 3 years ago I do not think we ever crossed paths. I spent most of my 40k time down in Orlando except for a tournament or two at War Dogs, so that might be why we never ran into each other.

My List

2000 Points of Grey Knights

Draigo

Librarian w/Warding Stave, Might of Titian, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, The Shrouding

Troops

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (1 Master Crafted), 2 Hammers, 4 Halberds (1 Master Crafted), 3 Swords (1 Master Crafted), Brotherhood Banner

6 Grey Knight Strike Squad w/1 Psycannon

Fast Attack

9 Grey Knight Interceptors w/2 Psycannons, Psybolt Ammunition

Justicar w/Master Crafted Demmonhammer

Heavy Support

Dreadnought w/2 Twin-Linked Autocannons, Psybolt Ammunition

So there it is…28 Models+ 3 Vehicles

Devon’s Grey Knight List

Librarian w/Warp Rift, Shrouding, Might of Titan, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, 3 Servo Skulls

Coteaz

Elite

Venerable Dreadnaught w/Multi-Melta, Heavy Flamer, Psyflame Ammunition.

Troops

Henchman Squad

· 6 Death Cult Assassins

· 5 Crusaders

· Banisher

Henchman Squad

· 6 Death Cult Assassins

· 5 Crusaders

Henchman Squad

· 3 Warrior Acolytes w/Flamers

· 2 Warrior Acolytes

Razorback w/Psybolt Ammunition

Henchman Squad

· 3 Warrior Acolytes w/Melta Guns

· 2 Warrior Acolytes

Razorback w/Psybolt Ammunition

5-man Grey Knight Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Razorback w/Lascannon, TL Plasmagun

Fast Attack

Stormraven

Heavy Support

Dreadnaught w/2 Autocannons,Psybolt Ammo

Land Raider Crusader

Pre-game thoughts

So looking at his army I know that he is going to come after me with his DCA and jump out of his Stormraven and Land Raider all the while trying to shoot up my dreads with his dreds. So my plan is to kill those 2 vehicles so he can’t assault me and then shoot down the DCA from a safe distance. If I can do that, it should be easy for me, if I can’t I will be in trouble. Also I have learned to hate Stormravens because those stupid mindstrike missiles will kill my librarian dead, and I need him to cast sanctuary to slow down those DCA in assault.

Mission:

Primary: Objectives

Secondary: Kill Points

Tertiary: Table Quarters

Well, this might be trouble because he has 5 troops, and speed. Also, his army is not very easy to get kill points off of. The good news is that it is an objective mission as the primary so if he does get aggressive with his henchmen, he will be the one in trouble because they are so fragile. Again my plan is to contest the objectives and beat him on Kill Points.

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Setup

I win the dice roll to go first and I set up. I keep my Librarian in reserve so he does no get ganked by mindstrike missiles. I make the interceptors and 2 dreadnaughts scoring with grand strategy.

He sets up with his everything in reserve except his Land Raider with the librarian and DCA in it, and his 2 Psyfleman Dreds behind the building in the upper left.

Turn #1

Blackmoor's Grey Knight Turn #1

I move forward and I start to bubble wrap my Paladins with my Strike Squad and my Interceptor Squad

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #1

Me moves his Land Raider forward and he moves up his dreadnaughts. His shooting takes out one of my dreadnaughts.

Turn #2

Blackmoor's Grey Knight Turn #2

So I have something to shoot at! I shoot at his Land Raider with my Paladins and I destroy it! Not only that, but his DCA squad is pinned.

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #2

He gets his Stormraven and a couple of razorbacks on. I ended up making a huge mistake and I up a little too far forward. After his movement and disembark I was within charge range with my interceptors. Cortez and his DCAs come in and wipe them out. Also I was too close together and he ended up hitting a lot of guys with Mindstrike Missiles. Since they cause perils of the warp, he took out 4 of my Interceptors leaving me with one, and I lost a paladin and the rest took some wounds. Ouch!

Turn #3

Blackmoor'sGrey Knight Turn #3

Well, I now have a DCA squad in the middle of the board threatening my entire army. So I can move away from it or I can try to take it out. I thought that I would be aggressive and hit them with my Paladin squad that is chewed up. They are bunched up so after a holocaust large blast, and psycannons shooting at them they should be able to hurt the DCAs with there crappy 5+ inv save right? Well after a great deal of saves by him I only killed a couple of them. I assault them and they start to beat down my Paladins. I had a chance to kill Coteaz, but I whiffed my attacks. The good news is that my Dreadnaughts take down his stormraven.

Here is a bad picture of the action.

As a side note: I think I forgot about my librarian in the heat of the action, and he never makes an appearance, so I am fighting 200+ points down. When I put it like that, I don't feel bad about getting killed this game.

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #3

He finishes off my Paladins with his DCA. He is also shooting up my strike squad with his razorbacks.

Turn #4

Blackmoor'sGrey Knight Turn #4

When you need a job done, and you need it done right, you need to call in the Draigo. Draigo and his band of merry men assault the DCA squad and go to work on them. My dreadnaughts take out his venerable dreadnaught (whew!)

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #4

Draigo and his boys clear out the DCA and croak Coteaz and consolidate. He finished off my strike squad, At this point I am not doing well, and you can always tell when I am losing because I stop taking pictures and have to concentrate on the game at hand. He still has a lot of scoring units and I am in trouble.

Turn #5

Blackmoor's Grey Knight Turn #5

I shoot and take out one of his Dreadnaughts with psycannon fire. At this point I hope he leaves his dreadnaught there. I want to go after it with Draigo with a 6" move, and a 6" assault move then with Draigo taking it out, he can get a consolidate move of up to 6" and contest the objective in his back left. That is how you can move fast with a slow moving army. If your opponent is in the wrong place, you can use it to spring board off of them to get a lot of movement.

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #5

He moves his dreadnaught closer and assaults me. I end up killing it, but he also runs a razorback up to contest the objective.

He moves his DCAs to the objective on the lower left. He has a henchman squad in the upper left behind the building that I can't get too, and in the upper right he has his strike squad. He contests the center and I hold the lower right with a dreadnaught.

If the game ends here I lose, 3-1 objectives but it goes on!

Turn #6

Blackmoor's Grey Knight Turn #6

I kill his razorback that is contesting and I shoot at his strike squad in the back right killing a couple.

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #6
He runs another razorback at me, and contested the center. Some time around here I lost Draigo to shooting since I wanted to preserve my scoring units.

If the game ends here, I again loose 3 objectives to 1
The games goes on!

Turn #7

Blackmoor's Grey Knight Turn #7

I need to clear the center objective, and clear one of his. My dreadnaught shoots and kill his razorback contesting the center. That frees up the paladin squad to shoot at his strike squad and he fails 3 out of 4 saves and I wipe them out.

Devon's Grey Knight Turn #7
He tries to run a henchman squad on to the objective on the upper right, but fails to get to it.

End of game

Primary: Objectives
I hold the Center and the lower Right
He holds the lower Left and the upper Left
Result: Tie

Secondary: Kill Points
He killed
Draigo
Librarian?
Paladin combat squad
Strike Squad
Interceptor combat squad
Dreadnaught
Total: 6 Kill Points

I killed
Coteaz
DCA henchman squad
Strike Squad
2 Razorbacks
3 Dreadnaughts
Stormraven
Land Raider
Total: 10 Kill Points

Blackmoor wins!!! (I guess you knew that since I played Tony Kopack for the win).

This was by far the hardest match-up of the tournament. Grey Knights are a hard army to fight, and I made the mistake of getting to close to his table edge to give him the first turn charge. I also did not realize that I forgot my Librarian. I only keep him in reserve when I am playing against Stormravens (like I did in game #3) but it looks like I forgot all about him in the heat of battle.

This is the game that I thought I got really lucky to win and I should have lost. As Xaereth wrote in his batrep, I did to Devon what he did to him the game before.

New name for the scarab spawning build....

2011-11-24T17:33:00.001-08:00

I am pushing to call the Necron build that has a lot of tomb spiders spawning scarab swarms "The Ant Farm".

Healthy Wargamer Challenge Part III

2011-11-18T15:16:00.000-08:00

Well my 6 week weighloss challenge came to an end today (It was about time, I was going nuts the last week).

I drove to Downtown and weighed in. I ended up losing 40 pounds in 6 weeks and ended up winning! The second place finisher lost a total of 34 pounds. I feel sorry for that guy. He lost 34 pounds and ended up with nothing. hah!

Adepticon 2012

2011-11-16T22:16:00.000-08:00

Well, another tournament season is over. It seems like the US tournament season goes from Adepticon in March-April to the November events (Mechanicon, Feast of Blades, Neoncon, etc.).

So I have the off season to work on next year’s army. There are a few events on my schedule I might go to before Adepticon like Boota Con in Mesa AZ in January, The Broadside Bash in February, and The Bay Area Open II in March before Adepticon.

So it is time to prepare for Adepticon 2012!!!

Lucky for me I jumped on the Adepticon bandwagon early because I thought that they would sell out very quickly, and what do you know? After about only 24 hours most of the 40k events have sold out!

So my question is, what army to bring to the Championships, and why am I asking this question now?

The reason why I need to ask the question now is that I am a chronic army switcher, and a slow painter and that is a bad combination. So often times I am playing with a half painted army in tournaments because I did not make up my mind until a week or two before the tournament. It is also the reason why I can win a tournament that does not have soft scores, but struggle in ones that do. The funny thing is that I am a good painter if I ever finish an army.

This year is Adepticon’s 10^th anniversary and I wanted to do it right. I have had sporadic results there and I want to make an honest effort this time. Last year I took Demonhunters to Adepticon, and the year before that I took my Thousand Sons, so it is no wonder why I have had some trouble placing well in Adepticon’s Championships.

I was thinking about playing several armies and I think I will just stick with my Grey Knights. They give me the best chance to win if I want to take this event seriously. By then though, people will know the weaknesses of Paladins, and I will have more trouble winning with them but I believe in my list, and I think I will be OK. Also the Grey Knight codex will not be the new kid on the block, and the Necrons and other armies will take some of the luster off of them, so I hope I will not be one of 200 Grey Knight players there (I have a feeling I will be though).

So what do I do about appearance? Well if you have read this blog for a long time, and you have seen my avatar, I have been itching to do a pre-heresy Thousand Sons army. I have all of the bits and pieces for it and I also think they will look nice on the table top, as a Grey Knight army (I also won’t hurt either if GW comes out with a Chaos Legions book in the near future).

This is what I am thinking:

There is a resin Magnus the Red floating around and that would make for a good Draigo.

Librarian? Ahriman of course.

Then pre-heresy assault marines would look cool as interceptors.

Regular Marines as Grey Knights

Paladins as Magnus’s Coven

Dreads as well…dreads

The problem I have is the weapons. I need to re-check my Thousand Sons book by Graham McNeil and see what I can do about that. I need storm bolters and psycannons and I will need to think about conversions. Combi-bolters will work out well for the terminators, but the power armored marines will be an issue. It might be that I just give them bolters, and everyone knows that they are storm bolters since grey knights have no other weapons. Incinerators are easy because you just have someone doing psychic flames, but psycannons might be harder. Maybe some kind of magic effect, but I don’t know.

Healthy Wargamer Challenge Part II

2011-11-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I have been dieting an exercising for the last 5 weeks as part of a 6 week weigh loss challenge. I am now in the home stretch, and the end is in sight. Just 5 more days and I am free! Well not really free, but I will not be on such a restrictive diet that I have been on to win this challenge. As a 40k gamer I am competitive, and if you challenge me to something, I will try to win.

The winner gets a nice price of a $700 membership to Gold’s Gym in downtown Phoenix.

Here I was hiking up Squaw Peak on Saturday.

It is one heck of a climb, and I noticed that everyone on the trail was in great shape, and not a bit of fat on any of them.

And as a side note, dieting takes a lot of time! I make a lot of my own meals now since I can’t eat out, and that takes time and exorcizing takes a lot of time as well.

A Chaos Space Marine experiment for Comikaze: Annihilation!

2011-10-31T23:10:00.000-07:00

So I am going to Comikaze: Annihilation! this weekend and I was getting a bit tired of my Grey Knights, so the question becomes what army to play?

I saw that Ragnar (Mannahnim on Dakka) was having a lot of success with his Chaos Space Marines and so I had a brilliant idea of not only playing Chaos…but to play his list!

So I started by trying to see what models I have, and what I need for his army, and I have just about everything painted up and ready to go. The one thing I did not have though, was his termicide squad. I converted all of my chaos terminators back into Grey Knights (I used Grey Knight models for them). The good thing is that Ragnar played at 2000 points at the Battle for Salvation, and I am playing at 1750, so I have to trim a couple of units out of his list and so the terminators are getting dropped.

I would also like to remind people that I am no Chaos newbie and I am very well versed in the ways of the Warp! There are 3 armies that I would say that I am expert in and those are Grey Knights, Eldar, and Chaos (and not in that order).Still it will not be easy to win because I am playing someone else's list, and I am ..well, playing chaos. This is also an example of why I do not do consistently well at tournaments because I am always doing stupid things (like bringing Demonhunters to Adepticon)

Battlefoam RTT

So to get into the spirit, and to knock some of the dust off because I have not played my chaos in a while I took them to a local RTT. I wanted to get use to using some of his units that I normally don’t take, so I played in an RTT Saturday at Battle Foam’s Gaming Saloon, and the list I used was a close version of Ragnar's Chaos list, with some improvising with the units that I had ready.

I took:

Demon Prince w/MoS, Wings, Lash of Submission

Summoned Greater Demon

Elite

Dreadnaught w/Autocannon

Troops

9 Chaos Space Marines w/2Melta Guns

1 Aspiring Champion w/Power Fist

Rhino

9 Chaos Space Marines w/2Melta Guns

1 Aspiring Champion w/Power Fist

Rhino

7 Berzerkers

1 Aspiring Champion w/Power Weapon

Rhino w/Extra Armor

5 Summoned Demons

Heavy Support

3 Obliterators

2 Obliterators

I made some major changes to his list for the RTT because I was really busy this week and I was unable to finish the models. For example, all of my missile launchers (for the havocs) have broken off of the models and I have to glue them back on. I also wanted to try his chosen in a rhino, but I do not have enough melta guns. This will shock people (and especially Stelek) but I have not been a big user of Melta weaponry. So rummaging through my extensive bitz, I was able to find 4 melta guns for the troops, but that was it. I have a lot of chaos bits for my Night Lords and I thought that I bought some Iron Warriors melta guns for them, but it looks like I only bought the Iron Warriors Lascannons. I might have some space wolf ones because I think they had a plastic melta gun on the Space Wolf upgrade sprue, so I hope I can dig up 3 more.

Here is some video I shot:

Quick Batreps of the RTT

Game #1 vs. Chaos Demons

5 Objectives

Pitched Battle

So for the first round I find myself going up against Chaos Demons (where are my Grey Knights now?) and I was able to kill off his troops through shooting and tie up his last squad of bloodletters with my dreadnaught and I ended up winning 2 objectives to 0

Note: As a funny story I forgot my Greater Demon at home and I was playing 100 VPs down. I was able to run home and grab him during the lunch break.

Game #2 vs. My Nova Open Grey Knights

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Pitched Battle

You heard me..this was an exact copy of my Nova Open list! Now the real bad news is that I got to beat it in an Annihilation mission. This will not be pretty.

He ends up deepstrking his whole army other than his dreadnaughts. I get in a gunnery duel with them with my Oblits, and it is mostly a slap fight. My army is mostly in the center of the board and he got all of his units on in turn #2 and deepstrikes all of his army on my left. Well, I know that he has short range shooting, and is killer in assault so I do what every chaos player should do and I ran! I used plasma cannons to do a lot of damage to his strikes/interceptors and crippled them early. I also managed to lash the Paladins and move them back even father.

In the end I had a lot of trouble killing his dreadnaughts and I had to send my Demon Princes after them. Even then I ended up in combat for a long time and I just whiffed like crazy and killed just one of them.

At the end of the game he killed 2 of my rhinos and one of my chaos space marine squads (mostly when he dropped down). I killed his strike squad, his interceptor squad, and 2 dreadnaughts.

Game #3 vs. (wait for it) Grey Knights!

Mission: Capture and Control

Deployment: Dawn of War

This is an odd build. He had the Libarian, and a Grandmaster and then he took 5 Paladins, 2x5 Termiantors, 2x10 Purgation Squads w/4 Psycannons.

For some reason I got really aggressive (and I am not an aggressive player because my dice hate me) and I started by lashing 5 of his terminators to me and shot them and do nothing to them, and then I charge with my Demon Prince and my Berserkers and I get my teeth kicked in. He kills my DP and he kills one in return. Then my Berserkers hit him and kill a couple. Then in the next round he kills some berserkers and they kill the last 2 terminators. Then I move my Berzerkers to his objective marker and I get the greater demon on. I choose to pop him out of my berserkers and he goes after 5 terminators+librarian and the berzerkers goes after a purgation squad. The bezerkers are in a close fight with the purgation squad, and then the Greater Demon takes 3 unsaved wounds, and then he gets to attack with his 6 attacks with his WS8 and Str 6 and misses with all 6 attacks! That made me sad. I was hoping to kill a few of them so I could shoot down the rest, but that whiff killed the GD and he did nothing in return. I have nothing near my objective marker, and I deepstrike a demon squad on them. Then he counters and drops his paladin squad near them. I was hoping he would get his paladins in sooner, so he would place them somewhere else, but that did not happen. Lucky for me he does not have psycannons and only kills 3 of my Demons. Then on my turn I unload into the paladin squad with 8 Lascannons from the oblits, and they kill all of them but the Grand Master (who they finish off next turn). My CSM squads have their rhinos shot up by the purgation squads, and then they start to get chewed up by them. My berserkers finish off his Pergation squad and have 2 left, and then I shoot and charge his terminators and I kill a couple from shooting, and I was able to do enough with my attacks that I was able to kill them. Then what models I have left were shot off of the objective by his last purgation squad. Then I unload my Oblits into them and I wipe them out in turn #7 for a tabling by me. I had my one objective, and he was gone.

So I went 3-0 and took 2^nd place. I learned a lot, and that is why I went to the RTT, for practice with CSM (and my video camera) for the big GT in LA next weekend and also to win some store credit for a Battle Foam Pack Air.

My greater demon did nothing in all three games and I blame the fact that he was angry because I left him at home for game #1.

So now I need to get the army together, and pair it down to 1750 points.

The list I would have taken to Da Boyz GT

2011-10-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about Da Boyz GT and there comp system. I came close to going back to their event, but I have traveled enough, and decided not to spend the money and just kick back at home.

So I made a list using there comp system and this is what I would have taken:

Grandmaster w/Rad Gernades, Psychotroke Gernades

Librarian w/Sanctuary, Shrouding, Might of Titian

Because of the comp hit you take from having a special character (especially one as expensive as Draigo), I had to drop him and take a Grandmaster. This helps out a little in assault because of the grenades, but it loses some of the durability from shooting.

Elites

Venerable Dreadnaught w/TL Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo

10 Paladins w/4 Psycannons (Swords, Halberds, Hanmmers, and the Brotherhood Banner)

Because of the loss of Draigo I would now have to use Grand Strategy a lot to make the Paladins scoring.

Troops

5 GK Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo

5 GK Strike Squad w/Psycannon

Razorback w/Psybolt Ammo

At Da Boyz, they hate duplication, but love mini-maxing.

Fast Attack

5 GK Interceptors w/Demonhammer, Psycannon

Heavy Support

Dreadnaught w/TL Autocannons, Psybolt Ammo

Because of Comp, I can’t duplicate my choices, so I had to drop one dreadnaught and move one into Elites.It costs me numbers, but it gave me a little durability (I would still prefer to have 3 Dreads that are Heavy Supports).

This list would have come in at a perfect 80 Comp points (I think), and I am pretty happy with it.

Healthy Gamer Challenge

2011-10-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about gamer health these days, and as you can see from the video in my last post I am way out of shape. And here I was thinking that I was just big boned.

Before a big event I do try to walk a little to try to increase my stamina. GTs these days are becoming a major endurance test with the length that they are becoming. Wargames Con this year was 11 games, the NoVa Open was 13 games, and at Adepticon if you play in the Team Tournament and do well at the Adepticon Championships you are playing in 12 games. Some people are saying that is one of the reasons why Tony K. does so well is that he is young and in really good shape and that helps a lot at the end of a long tournament. I know that if I had my wits about me I might have been about to win in our game. I made 2 huge mistakes that cost me that game and that was done in part by fatigue. I remember watching the finals of Adepticon last year with Tony playing Cole, and Cole (who is in average shape) was slumped over in his chair partly hung over and a little bit out of it, while Tony was still fresh and awake.

Neil talked a little bit about this in his blog about the importance of getting is shape for GTs in his "Get off your duff and exercise" post

Last year there was a post about after Adepticon saying how out of shape everyone is in, and that everyone needs to get in better condition.

Well, if you listen to just about any podacast out there you have heard about James Ayles who died a week or two ago from a heart attack and left his wife and small children behind. That started a call for gamers to be in better health and to get in better shape. Also he was about my age when he passed away.

Big Jim started his healthy wargamer challenge on his blog found here and here. He and several other people are trying to get into shape.

For me, I am in a weight loss challenge. The Gold’s Gym in Downtown Phoenix has a challenge where you donate $25 to The United Way, and they enter you into a weight loss challenge. They weigh you and check your BMI and then at the end of 6 weeks the person who loses the most weight gets a free membership to Gold’s Gym for a year. I like to eat, but I am cheap too, and that is a $700 value! So I am 3 weeks into it and I have lost 20 pounds. My plan is for the next week and a half I am going to do my regular diet and exercise, and then when I get back from LA for Comikaze Con I will go nuts and really try to lose weight for the final week and a half!

I have been hiking all over Phoenix and it has been killing me. Here are some of my pictures:

Empire Games GT video batrep

2011-10-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

If you read my last post you saw that I won a big pile of Dark Eldar at Empire Games GT.

Well in Game #1 Played against Dave Fay and I worked with him to make a video battle report with him. You can watch it here:

I use to play Dave a lot when I lived in LA. I would go down to San Diego and meet up with him at tournaments. He is a really good player and you can see in this video why he wins best sportsmanship all of the time.

As a side note: I bought and iPhone 4s, so now I will be able to take some videos for Tactics, Battle Reports, and for other hobby related items.