Short Update under the influnce.

Well the last few months have been chopped full of change for me, the Crowe list has gotten me up to the final tables the last two tournaments in row only to have it snatched away in the last second. I’ve honestly been debating going with the Coteaz list just because it’s a more effective use of points but it makes me feel dirty when I look at the list. I’ve purchased my next army and amazingly enough it’s daemons. This army is completely out of my comfort zone which may be good for me. Chance to change up tactics and try for something a little bit different, well my buzz is starting to wear off and relaxation slash sleep hangs in front of me good night world.

Purifier List

1850 List

Crowe
Inquisitor Lord w/Psycher Level 1 (hammer hand), Rad Grenades, Plasma Siphon, Power Armor, 3 servo skulls

Techmarine w/Power Weapon, Servo Harness, Rad Grenades

3 Purification Squad 5 purifiers w/ 2 psycannons in a psyback(searchlight)
1 Purification Squad 8 purifiers w/ 2 psycannons, 5 NFH, Daemonhammer in a rhino(dozer blade, search light)
1 Purification Squad 8 purifiers w/ 2 incinerators, 5 NFH, Daemonhammer in a rhino(dozer blade, search light)

3 Psyfileman Dreads

The heart of the list is of course the 5 purification squads, I seem to differ in design, from the standard purifier list but the basic thought process is the same. These guys are awesome troops with excellent fire power, and good assault capabilities. Where we some to differ is that you made every squad an assault unit I concentrated my assault unit into 2 with independent characters to throw grenades they truly become a nasty hammer units that can easily take out a large portion of nasty units in the game right know.

The inquisitor’s unit runs with 2 incinerators, this is more of a play test than anything else but so far they have performed very well. Without even getting out of the rhino they’ve obliterated wych squads, done massive damage to troop units, but they do lack the ranged fire power that the psycannon can pack. Another reason I’m considering them is for what they can do against scarab swarms, each wound kills two scarab bases due to the swarm rule. The Inquisitor is also running with some unusual war gear (Plasma Siphon, & 3 servo skulls) mostly for play testing, what I’ve learned is that it’s all very situational the servo skulls shut down scout & infiltrate and the plasma siphon is fun as it shuts down plasma within 12 inches of the squad not to mention the fun things it does to Tau armies if I can get him in close. Basically all of this stuff is too take out IG, but since no one plays them in the area I haven’t really had a chance to see how they work.

The second assault unit has the tech-marine this squad has been a surprisingly good counter assault unit, and the tech-marine again and again proves his worth great abilities that I never that I would use but I find myself using them all the time. The ability to make a ruin 3+ cover is amazing when you can get your dreadnoughts into the ruin. The servo harness with the flamer & twin-linked plasma pistol is almost always forgotten and when he charges he gets 2 power attacks at I4 and then another 2 strength 8 attacks at the end of assault. Add on the ability to fix his ride and he’s almost better than the inquisitor.

The final 3 squads of purifiers are my back up squads; they ride around in razorbacks with heavy bolters and wait until the right moment to jump out and team up on anything that gets into range. While not great in combat they can do descent damage vs. non assault units and can take out scout squads that get to close without a problem. The key to these units is that they have to stay close to each other to provide support, on their own they die but as a group they are incredibly nasty.

On the great debate between razorback vs. rhino I run middle of the ground, I like the access points that the rhino gives me but the razorback works great with the ability to throw Str 6 shooting down field for light armor hunting and anti-infantry.

So far I’ve played the list only a few with great success, so far I’m 3 wins and no losses. I’ve played a newbie DE player which almost shouldn’t count as he was learning his army against in all likelihood the worst match up for him. Space wolves and a Grey Knights (Mack), in all 3 games the army seemed to outshoot them. And when I managed to get into assault the list performed exactly as I had hoped it would. The big thing that I’ve learned is that I have to keep my army together, so that I concentrate my fire power and destroy one or two units a turn. When I try to play the entire table that’s when I run into issues.

New List vs. DE

Grey Knights vs. DE

Grey Knight List

Crowe
Inquisitor Lord w/Psycher Level 1 (hammer hand), Rad Grenades, Plasma Siphon, Power Armor, 3 servo skulls

Techmarine w/Power Weapon, Servo Harness, Rad Grenades

3 Purfication Squad 5 purifiers w/ 2 psycannons in a psyback(searchlight)
1 Purfication Squad 8 purifiers w/ 2 psycannons, 5 NFH, Daemonhammer in a rhino(dozer blade, search light)
1 Purfication Squad 8 purifiers w/ 2 incinerators, 5 NFH, Daemonhammer in a rhino(dozer blade, search light)

3 Psyfileman Dreads

Dark Eldar List:

I may not remember the list exactly but this the shape of it.

Archon w/ Husk Blade, Soul Trap, & Shadow Field + Combat Drugs & Haywire Grenades

Court of the Archon w/ 3 Ssylith, 4 Ur-ghuls, Medesa, Lheaman

Raider

Haemoculus w/ liquefier

5 Incubi

Raider

5 Wracks in a venom *2

10 Wyches w/ haywire grenades & succubus (agonizer) in a raider *2

Beast man pack – 4 beastmasters, 4 razorwing flocks, 5 Khymera, 1 Clawed Fiend

2 Ravagers

1 Razorwing

Mission: Annihilation

Deployment: Spearhead

Dark Win the roll to go first and deploy as far forward as possible, basically 12 inches away from the center of the board. Seeing this and knowing that they will be charging directly towards me anyway I set my 3 dreadnoughts to get cover and deploy everything else in the back corner. I choose not to seize.

Turn 1

With no great surprise he charges everything forward towards me, all the raiders move all out. The ravagers move 12 as well as the razorwing and take some shots on the dreads and stun one of them. Beastpack move along the edge of ruin to get cover.

In response the Grey Knights smile and move into position, I make sure that all my vehicles at least move and the dreadnoughts move to get line of sight on the Ravagers & Razorwing in pack. 5 Purifiers jump into a ruin enhanced by my Techmarine and the Crowe takes there place in the Razorback. Shooting goes how you would expect again armor 10 & 11 vehicles and I take out a Razorwing, Ravager, 2 raiders with court of the archon, and the incubi to make them walk. And blow the dark lances off the other 2 raiders.

The cries of how broken are Grey Knights begin…..

GK: 4 Kill Points

DE: 0 Kill Points

Turn 2

He moves the venoms into range to shoot my purifiers in the ruin, moves the last 2 raider with the wyches into position to get a multi assault of on rhinos and razorbacks and disembarks. He hides his incubi & court as everything is in boxes, shooting phase in unimpressive and the assault that follows is a joke resulting in stun locking 2 razorbacks & 2 rhinos.

Well Fortitude pays for itself as everything shakes off the stun lock and I roll out. Tank shocking cause one of the wych squads to fall back, again being careful to always move my vehicles. I disembark the 8 man purifier squad w/ inquisitor attached in attempt to draw the court out into the open. He’s about 17 inches away so I feel pretty secure. And I open up, dreadnoughts down the last ravager, and the 2 venoms. Purifier squad incinerates a wych squad, and razorbacks kill of 9 of the 10 wyches, who manages to make her moral check.

GK: 8 Kill Points

DE: 0 Kill Points.

At this point the cries turned into a continuous whine.

Turn 3

With all of his long range shooting neutralized he had very little in the way movement, other than to hide two raiders. The lone wych jumps into a raider for kill point denial, and then he moves his court to assault my 8 man purifier squad and for some reason his incubi. And sets up the assault on a rhino for the beast pack, mostly because he still hasn’t managed to get anything out of their vehicles. Fleets the court and gets a 6. Assault happens and he pulls out a rule that seemed outlandish, the lhamian gives the entire squad poisoned weapons that wound on a 2+ including the husk blade carried by the archon. Apparently the FAQ says that’s how it works and shocker he didn’t have it with him. I let it slide and only lost combat by one thanks to grenades and psychic powers. The rhino got wrecked, and the 8 man squad with the tech marine got out.

Dakka Dakka time, all the purifiers get out of their vehicles even Crowe who set himself up for a close combat attack to take out Mr. Archon. Move a dreadnought up to assault the incubi just to keep them tied up and I open up into the beast man pack the squad with everything. That squad can be very nasty but just withers under the fire. He took all the wounds on the beastmasters first so that when he tested moral he failed since his leadership was 5…. Not the smartest move, but maybe he didn’t think he would take so many wounds. Assault time, 8 man purifiers don’t get to assault as the beast pack fall back. But Crowe goes in with the d3+1 I10 attacks rolls a 1 and gets killed by the archon but he gets his revenge and takes the Archon with him. Dreadnought goes into the Incubi kills 2 of the 5 forces a moral check which they fail and they run. Absurd but I’ll take it.

GK: 10 Kill Points

DE: 4 Kill points

Turn 4

At this point he calls the game even if the beast pack did manage to rally I would have enjoyed seeing how the combat went.

To dip or not to dip.

So this last weekend I picked up a can of Quickshade made by Army Painter from my local gaming store. The hope was that it speed up the painting process on close to a 80 Mordians that I am currently working on. For a table top quality I really like the results but I'm definatly going to have to pick up a matte spray for the model. The glossy sheen just does not work for this army but it might be cool for a space marine of 'Nids.

Please note that one picture is with flash & one without.

'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.

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.