Sunday, September 18, 2011

New Project

Well I've been thinking of starting a new project for a couple of different reason first off I'm tired of the cries of cheese or broken when I roll up with my grey knights, it would create an interesting painting project to hopefully grow my painting skills. I'm thinking of doing a black templar list, first off the fluff is great for this chapter. Next it's kind of a dark horse, it has a ton of great abilities that really make it something to be concerned about.

Just priced out what I would need.

Tactical Marine Box Set $37.25

Devastator Box Set $35.00

Black Templar Box Set $30.00

3 Razorbacks $105

3 Land Speeders $90

Venerable Dreadnought $44.50

3 Assault Terminators $150

Land Raider Crusader $66

Emperor’s Champion $15.25

High Marshal $20.00

Total 593 retail

'Ard Boyz Results


‘Ard Boyz Semi Finals

Round 1

So my first game was against IG w/ Vendetta Spam (5 of these things) with of course 5 veteran squads with melta guns & demo charges, a blob squad with auto cannons, a squadron of leman russ battle tanks, and the cherry on top was Straken, & an astropath. The mission was pitched battle with victory points and to get a designated troop choice into your opponent’s deployment zone which was worth and additional 500 victory points.

He got first turn and deployed pretty much completely filling his deployment zone. With the astropath restricting reserve I used my grand strategy to scout my two purifier squads so that they could blow smoke in front of all my vehicles so that I could cover saves vs. all the las cannon shots about to come my way. But luck was on my side and I seized which turned this from a shooting match for him into a real game. So after 6 turns of a knock out drag out fighting we drew both of us got are messenger into are opponent’s deployment zone, and I discovered that straken is a mean mean man he killed 4 Paladin in close combat which pretty much was the swing he needed to draw the game. All in all a great game would love to play Mike again some time, we both knew that unless we massacred are next two games we had no chance of placing.

Round 2

I played blood angles this round and he had taking the meta in hand when he was creating this list and had decided to shut down the grey knight psychic phase. Librarian, 2 Furioso Librarian Dreadnoughts, Brother Corbulo, 4 Five man assault squads with a melta gun in 2 razorbacks with las cannons, a god pattern land raider and a crusader, 3 Baal Predators, & 3 Vindicators. The mission was to get as many scoring units within 6 inches of the center of the board and of course pitched battle.

Seeing the vindicators I concentrated fire on them which was my big mistake of the game. Since he was only rocking 4 troop choices I thought I would have no issue getting them later in the game but it didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. Basically ended up 5 to 3 scoring units so I got a minor victory and no bonus points because I was so concentrated on trying to get things out of land raiders, this game was my game to make mistakes if I had slightly better I would have had a good chance of a major victory. But my opponent was smart and capitalized on my mistakes so I have no one to blame but myself.

Round 3

This was not my favorite game; I played a kid who seemed to have practiced on how to cheat when he was rolling his dice. Rather than the pick and toss he would rattle the dice in his hand than set his hand on the table and release. It bugged me but since I was obliterating his army I choose not to do anything about it. He played DE with a raider spam, incubi beast pack, and an archon. It really was miss match list.

So this was the mission where we don’t know what the objective was until turn 3 I spent the first turn destroying his transports & ravagers. On turn 3 we rolled and it was table quarters the best option for him since I contested two and he held two. Well fortunately killing warriors and forcing moral checks caused 3 warriors units to fall off the table. So by end if turn 5 I held two and contested one, we rolled for end of game and to my great disappointment it ended. If I had one more turn I think I could have contested two for the major victory.

All in all it was a good time for a free tournament. I won’t get into the cheating that happened by a player to win the tournament by using his friendship with the TO to get the best matches for his army. I will say that I will not be going back there for any more tournaments.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

4 Hours to 'Ard Boyz


4 hours and counting….

tis the morn before ‘Ard Boyz and all through the land,

Little gamers where preparing for what could be their last stand.

There armies where packed with the utmost of care,

And the gamers where thinking of what they would find there.

And then all the sudden with honk and a screech,

There ride had arrived like a whale on the beach.

They rushed out the door with army in tow,

Buckled there seat beats, they were ready to go.

All kidding aside it’s been a weird night, when you go to bed thinking of strategies against the unknown you awake feeling like you hadn’t gone to sleep at all. I’m hoping that once I get there the adrenaline will kick in but I don’t have high hopes. Fortunately my time has a parent has taught me how preform when I’m only running on 6 hours of sleep.

So my goals are simple, I would like to through this tournament and not lose! I would be willing to accept a draw but winning would be nice. Next it will be making sure that I don’t make any of those stupid mistakes. Like forgetting to fire a squad of paladins before they assault, and finally it’s a game and I’m there to have a good time. Play people from all over the US and enjoy the day. Oh ya and win a 2500 point army that will make GW shake their head at the cost.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Semi Finals…


Only 5 days away and I am completely unprepared, I’m running roughly the same list with a few minor tweaks. Unfortunately I have had no chance to play any practice games with the scenarios so I doubt I will perform as well although hope springs eternal. My biggest concern however is a gentleman buy the name of Tyler, I’m told he’s that guy who happens to be friends with the TO and uses that friendship to cheat and get the games he wants against the armies he’s strongest against. So I guess you could say that I’m going in with a bad feeling. But in an attempt to be somewhat prepared mission break down;

Mission 1: I haz a Mezzige! Or insert stupid Ork title here. The mission is pitched battle with victory points, with a 500 point bonus for getting a designated scoring unit into your enemy’s deployment zone. With bonus point for killing you opponents messenger, and keeping yours alive, simple and straight forward. But this mission has a few favorites; DE can get the messenger in turn 2 with a little luck, or for that matter anyone with a fast vehicle for troops. I think the key to this mission is going to be patience and taking out your opponent’s messenger before he can get into your deployment zone which means you might have to ignore the hammer.

Mission 2: Kaptur da Flag! Have more scoring units in the center of the board than your opponent, massacre is 5 more! And 3+ for a major, so if you don’t have 6+ scoring units your screwed. With a standard pitched battle deployment this is going to be the one that separates the men from the boys if you can pull off a massacre you will be at the top tables come round 3 if you even do halfway decent in round 1.

Mission 3: Armies That Go Bump in the Night! At the start of turn three roll on the following chart to determine both players objective: 1-2 Kill Points, 3-4 table quarters, 5-6 terrain features. Kill points: The player with the most kill points wins. Table Quarters: The player who controls the most table quarters wins. Terrain Features: The player that controls the most terrain features wins. To control a terrain feature you must have a scoring unit within 3 inches of the edge of the feature. To control a table quarter you must have more scoring units entirely within that quarter than your opponent. Scoring units that are in two or more quarters cannot hold any quarters. So another mission where scoring units are going to be the key, 66% of the time, or yet another kill point mission another spearhead your would think that with the name we might get night fight but I guess no luck on that one. I dislike the randomness of this mission but at least everyone is stuck with the same issue.

All in all the missions are much better than the first set. So good luck to everyone and I hope you don’t run into that guy.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Tournaments: Blessing or Curse



Couple more pics of my current project.

Tournaments, personally I believe one of the great motivators in our hobby. I never get as much painting done as I do in the weeks up to a tournament, and I always come home with a tid bit of info about a rule or tactic that I got wrong before. However there is a bad thing about tournaments and it comes down to what is commonly known as that guy, made worse by TO favoritism which can cause you to forget all the good things that may have happened and concentrate on that one game.

It makes you not want to go back, which in turn causes you to become a garage gamer and in turn may cause you to leave the hobby. Why? Well if you play same people over and over you don’t get better and since you don’t see neat tricks at a tournament you have no way to improve other than forums and blogs which is never the same thing as seeing it in action. So you know how the game is going to go after about 6 months you move on. I’ve seen it happen

So a bad tournament, in effect, reduce the number of players in the game which could cause prices to rise since there might be fewer players in the game and in this hypothetical situation cause GW to close their doors. Which leaves all of us without a hobby, so congrats Guy you got your win hope your proud of your win.