Invasion Kenosha, part 3

Before we get to the pics some words about the tourney in general. I had a great time there. Prize support was generous and consisted entirely of actual product rather than store gift cards, a very nice idea for a tourney that drew in players from across the state. While I didn't win anything with my record I did manage to get a cool Ogre/Cyclops mini from an independent company that I think will look great with my Ogres. We also got lots of cool bits in our welcome bags, including cool Pre-Heresy ish heads and some lipped bases which I'm excited to use. Plus, food was plentiful and included in the base price, always a plus for me!

More pics from Invasion Kenosha. These were pics of armies that I found to be the best of those there and showed off some pretty cool techniques.

I really enjoyed the color scheme on the Space Wolf army. The darker hues and use of more red and bone really sold me on the whole "Space Viking" concept much more than their traditional garb.

 This IG army had some rather impressive weathering effects- check it out!

 And speaking of rust effects...

That's it for now- hope you enjoyed!

Invasion Kenosha, part 2

Hi all, back to Kenosha for me. First some pics, then we'll get into the games.

All right, game time. First game was against an older gentleman named Eddie who also brought an Imperial Guard list. I learned following the game that all of the IG players bar one had been "randomly" paired up with another IG army. Interesting, but possibly legit as there were a LOT of IG players playing scarily similar lists.

Eddie's Army (love the sky/ground camo on the Valks!)

Eddie was not one of these, piloting a list with, at least in my opinion, a few too many upgrades and less efficient choices (Valks with hellstrikes?). Still, Eddie was a great opponent and we had a lot of fun. I got pretty lucky on most of my rolls, such as having my Demolisher destroy 4 vehicles in as many turns, including a Leman Russ through front armor. I ended up cleaning up all of the battle points, completely forgetting the idea of playing it safe when on the last turn Eddie encouraged me to charge in guns and bayonets ablazing to make it an appropriately epic ending.

End game

My mistake was soon laid to bare in my second game against Razor Spam Blood Angels. 5 Razors, 2 AC/HB Baal Preds and 2 AC/LC Preds and to top it off he won first turn on a board with very little LOS blocking cover in a pure KP scenario. This game really showed off my lack of long range firepower, as right from turn one I was desperately trying to knock anything out and get my tanks into position without exposing my side armor, a near impossibility due to the speed of the Blood Angels tanks.

I debated doing the all reserve but without an Astropath I didn't want to rely on the risky strategy, so I instead opted to reserve the combined platoon and the Vendettas to make sure I had some kind of punch after turn 1. Unfortunately I didn't end up getting my reserves until turn 4, at which point it was far too late to do anything. I was actually tied on kill points up to turn 5, but after that the Blood Angels got in close and tore my lines apart, earning him a Massacre. I have to say that my opponent was a gentleman and a very good player. None of his moves were wasted and all were focused on maximizing the most out of every single shot and charge possible.

Finally I played a really close game against a Nid player who played a list with no Hive Guard or Tervigons. This was a really great game that went back and forth on nearly every turn, especially turns 5, 6 and 7. There was some confusion over how the mission worked, and I may have been able to pull out a Major Victory in the end instead of the tie that we ended up with if I had read the missions more clearly, but even so it was very fun and got me to use a lot of the tools that I had brought in my army list. Favorite moments were probably charging twice with my platoon into both the Doom of Malantai and a squad of Stealers. They probably would have won the second battle if a second squad of Stealers hadn't outflanked on that edge the turn after they charged in.

So, at the end of the day I ended up near the middle of the pack, probably a fair assessment of my current level of rustiness as well as the very real limitations that my list possessed. The second and third game were very educational and I'll definitely try to remember the lessons that I learned.

Next time, some more pics from the tourney. Till then, thanks for reading!

Invasion Kenosha, pt 1

Hi all! This past weekend I got back into the 40k groove by checking out Invasion Kenosha, a tourney put on near my home town that was put on by fellow Warhammer blogger Equinox.

When I put together the list that I was taking I had a couple of thoughts in mind:

One, it was a 1500 pts tourney and so I couldn't bring the normal set of tools that I consider to be indispensable. So no ridiculous Heavy Support choices and certainly not the plurality of units that I'm used to in my Mech Guard lists.

Two, at least when I started originally putting my list together ForgeWorld units were set to be allowed. Because of this my list needed to be able to deal with some of the nastier Forge World options that were out there, such as Lucius Drop Pods, Land Raider Achilles and Hades Breaching Drills.

Three, I of course still wanted to go mostly mech. I likes my tanks and I have a lot of them, so being able to get my Vets out there was a given. However I wanted to try something that was more of a mixed mech army, so including some foot element in the army to help screen my tanks and overwhelm other infantry would be key.

So here's the list I put together. I'm using a lot of acronyms here, so if you're confused check out my IG vocabulary reference page.

CCS with 3 meltaguns in a Chimera, ML/HF
2 Veteran squads, 3 meltaguns in a Chimera, ML/HF
Veteran squad, 3 plasmaguns in a Chimera, ML/HF
PCS, 4 flamers in a Chimera, ML/HF
3 Infantry squads with power weapon sgts., one with a Commissar with power weapon
2 Vendettas
Hellhound with hull heavy flamer
Leman Russ Demolisher with hull heavy flamer

A couple of key points here:

- I don't like doing triple Vendettas in lists anymore. Vendettas continue to be awesome and incredibly efficient, but they are such high value targets that they are shot down almost instantly or are forced to turboboost the entire game due to shaking. I also really like the other Fast Attack choices and choosing one to throw in in their place sounded like a good plan. Plus, it's much easier to transport 2 Vs than 3.

-The infantry squads were included to help deal with what I consider to be the bane of Mech IG, drop armies. They can easily provide a 6 inch area of safe space between them and my tanks to help reduce the chance that a deep striking unit will blow something up. They also provide a nice buffer against assaulting armies, tying up big death star units until I can devote enough resources to blow them up. I wish I could have found the points for some special weapons for these squads, but at least at the time I thought that power weapons were more important.

-The Demolisher was chosen for two reasons: strength 10 and mobility. Strength 10 Ordnance gives me an out against a Land Raider Achilles (stupid immunity to melta) and can help blow up TWolf Cavalry and give nearly every unit in the game a hard time. I chose it over other Str 10 choices like the Manticore and Medusa because it's very mobile and well armored. Putting it at the forefront of my spearhead provides some protection for the rest of my AV 12 tanks or on the side to protect their AV 10.

-The Hellhound was a last minute choice. I was debating either it or a Devil Dog, and I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. On the one hand my Chimeras are all equipped with heavy flamers making it somewhat redundant. But, on the other hand, I often want to set guys that are over there on fire, and the Hellhound with its speed and long range super flamer excels at this task. Again, if I could have had more points a hull multimelta would have been a nice addition, but we do what we can do.

-Over all I was a bit worried at my lack of long range firepower. I have the Vendettas... and that's about it. Granted I feel that I made my army pretty effective in mid field, but not having more ability to reach out and touch people at 48" or more was a little worrying for me. Replacing the Hellhound with either a Devil Dog or some Heavy Weapon teams/Hydras (along with creative points reallocation) might have been enough to fix this problem, but even then I'd be a bit worried.

I played a pair of test games with the list against some people from my FLGS. First was against a double Raider/jumper Blood Angels list and the second was against Nids. Both ended in pretty strong wins for my list, but then again both played pretty well to my strengths (dealing with small groupings of well armored units, using speed bumps effectively and burning gribblies and MCs), but neither had the sheer weight of light mech that I knew would be popular at the tourney. Still, it showed that my list could function well against some pretty good players.

We'll get into the games next post, plus some pretty pics. As always thanks for reading, and it's good to be back!

Last Square 1850 Tourney: Game Three and Wrap Up

So, we come to the final part of my tale. Before that though... ORKSES!

Back to our story...

I knew that game three was going to be a bit special even before I read the mission as rampant accusations of "dumb", "stupid", and other less savory terms were being bandied about the club. None of these were more heartfelt than my opponent, who I mistook for a sailor.

Here's the mission:
Deployment: Dawn of War
Each player places 1 objective in his/her deployment zone, then places two in the opponent's.
Objective 1: Destroy at least half of the opponent's army (judged by victory points)
Objective 2: Capture all three objectives in your deployment zone
Objective 3: Capture two objectives in your opponent's deployment zone.

This mission... is a bit misguided. It seriously upgrades pretty much all of the advantages of a 5th ed army while hampering those of a 4th ed. Gone are the tactics of own one, contest the rest. You NEED to hold at least two, possibly even 5 to get a chance at victory. Seeing as quite a few of the players brought minimum Troops choices or only three they saw this as being quite unfair.

My army, on the other hand, was unfairly sitting pretty. I had easily enough firepower to earn the destroy objective and had four troops choices, giving me enough room to play around with the idea of taking ground.

My opponent's army was the beautifully painted and converted Nurgle Chaos Marine army seen below:

Did you SEE that awesome Leman Russ-Defiler? Sweet!

His approximate list:
2 Daemon Princes of Nurgle with wings
5? Chosen with 4 plasma guns
10? Plague Marines with 2 melta in a Rhino x 2
10? Plague Marines with 2 plasma in a Rhino
2 Defilers with Reaper Autocannon and close combat arm
Greater Daemon
2x9? Lesser Daemons

My opponent seemed a bit... off when I started setting up against him. I blame this on the mission and the fact that I was playing Mech Guard which he greeted with spicy language.

This attitude continued throughout the game which, compounded with several rules disputes on core concepts that I knew I was in the right on, made for an unpleasantly tense experience.

 

We both deployed our objectives towards midfield, seeing as it was the prime operating zone for both of our armies. For the third time in a row I won the roll to go first and decided to deploy a single Vet squad in their Chimera at midfield. My opponent deployed a melta squad in their Rhino in cover alongside a Daemon Prince, both just outside of 18". He then proceeded to place infiltrating Chosen near one of the objectives despite my insistence that Infiltrators counted against the 1 HQ, 2 Troops limit. I decided not to press the point, seeing as I already had had to convince him that in Dawn of War LOS did not matter for the 18" no-deployment zone.

First turn my army rolled on. The vet's Chimera lit up the Daemon Prince and my Vendettas started blasting. It wasn't until the second Vendetta that I realized that my opponent was keeping 4's for his invulnerable saves. He claimed that his Prince was in area terrain and therefore got a cover save. I had to call over the TO to convince him that MCs and vehicles needed 50% coverage to gain a cover save, which his Prince did not have. The Prince survived the first round of shooting, though I wonder if he really should have... In addition my Command Chimera lit up the Chosen who were summarily blasted off the map by my Leman Russ.

That first turn's arguments set the scene for the rest of the game. I tried to engage my opponent in small talk but he remained quiet and combative, questioning a lot of my moves throughout the game. The game boiled down to pure mechanics and no fun, me just blasting his units off the table while he desperately grabbed for cover and tried to claim all of the objectives on his side of the field.

It was a close game down to turn 5. I had easily done more damage but with his troops in cover and crawling over his three objectives I needed to make a move or risk a draw. I turboboosted a Vendetta on to his center objective and started moving my Chimeras to take my three on turn 6. Since I went first he had a turn to bring down the contesting Vendetta, but cover saves plus 6s to hit and a bad pen roll saved my bird.

Good thing too as the game ended on turn 5. It ended up that I had killed just 17 points over half of his army's total value, making me the only player with a satisfied victory condition.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I finished the day 3-0 and combined with my painting and apparently good Sportsmanship scores... I got first place overall!

This, especially given the disastrous performance that I did in my first "tournament" and the shellacking I received at the Fantasy tournament, was completely unexpected and VERY welcome... especially since it seems that I got in off the waitlist for the 1850 40k Championship at Adepticon. My list really hummed for being only my second time running it and most of the tactics that I had thought about when building the list actually worked to my surprise.

MVP of the day was definitely the Manticore, which never let me down. I was a bit nervous putting it in my otherwise mobile list but it's first turn barrages quickly shut me up, almost single-handedly turning each game in my favor. Even in the last mission it managed to take a squad of disembarked Plague Marines from full to 1 with a single strength 10 barrage that managed to hit twice dead on target. With most of a Land Raider, a Leman Russ, and two transports killed it is a great tank cracker and amazing infantry slaughterer.

So why did I do so well?

Win factor #1 was the fact that I got to go first every single game. Vendettas are fragile if you have any dedicated antitank and getting to go first plus the lack of infantry anti-tank like Long Fangs let me snipe that out quickly.

Another big factor in my win was the lack of any drop armies, as those look like they should ruin my day as I have little to no defense against them. As it was I faced either other shooty armies or relatively slow builds that needed to cross the battlefield in order to get to grips with my army, which only one unit managed to do over the course of the game (and even then only at the lost of his Terminator brethren).

Finally, my dice were rolling hot. I got insanely lucky on my first turn barrages and subsequent rolls like taking out a full tactical squad in cover were completely off the scale. This just means that I'll have to play smarter next time, as I can't rely on staying lucky forever... or can I?

I had a lot of fun at the tourney and can't wait for the next one. Thanks for following along with me, and see you tomorrow.

Last Square 1850 Tourney: Game Two

Back to the tourney! You can find a link to the first game here.

Before we get into the second game, NIDSES!

 

The setup for the second game was as follows:

Spearhead deployment
Victory condition one: Control uncontested table quarters with Troops
Killpoints for any non-Troops units killed (Troops include their dedicated transports)
Have an HQ unit within 3" of the center of the board with no enemy HQs also within 3".

I got paired with a gentleman who introduced army as "Vulkan and his Angels." I feared what I was about to face (but was delighted by the Mk 1 Land Raider below!)

His list was as follows:
Vulkan He'Stan
Librarian with Avenger and Null Zone, Terminator Armor
Tactical Squad with Multimelta, Meltagun, Rhino
Tactical Squad with Plasma cannon, meltagun, Razorback with TWL Hvy Bolter
Tactical Squad with Razorback, TWL Lascannon
5(?) Assault Terminators, 2 with Lightning Claws, 3 with Thunderhammer/Storm Shield
Phobos-Pattern Land Raider (i.e. Standard)
2 Vindicators
Venerable Dreadnaught with MM, Hvy Flamer, Drop Pod

I once again won the roll to go first and deployed in the bottom right corner of the map pictured above. I deployed my tanks such that my Leman Russ' and the Manticore were protected by the Chimeras from scary drop pods, two Vendettas on the wings and one in the backfield. He deployed everything but the Podding Dread and his Libby who was set to teleport. The Plasma cannon tac squad combat squadded with one half in the Razor and the other on an outcropping overlooking my base.

Turn 1a:
I once again get off to a good start. The Vendettas on the wings Scouted out to get better shots on targets. One got a side shot on a Vindie and blew it up, the other got a shot at the Rhino and wrecked it while the third wrecked the Heavy Bolter Razorback which was hiding the other Razor. The Manticore continued its awesome streak by immobilizing the Land Raider on it's first shot. The Russ squadron began a trend of not both seeing the same target, one of them managing to take out a single member of the wrecked Razor squad... try saying THAT five times fast!

Turn 1b:
With the majority of his Marine's mobility marginalized... man, I better cut down on the alliteration before people start thinking that I'm Loquacious... my opponent was in a bit of a pickle. The Dread came in near my rightmost Vendetta and blew it out of the sky. The Land Raider shook a Vets' Chimera and blew off the Multilaser of my CCS' Chimera. The remaining Vindicator snarled, fired and managed to knock a lascannon off of my leftmost Vendetta. The Laserback finished the job.

Turn 2a:
Two of my birds were out of the sky leaving me down in KP. I tried some halfhearted shots at the Vindicator but cover or lack of penetration saved the little bulldog. The Manticore fired again, this time dropping three warheads, two of which I was able to chain onto the Land Raider, knocking off its Godhammer lascannons while also hitting the Plasmacannon combat squad. My Meltavet squad and my CCS drove over to the Dread and Pod and bade them both a fond farewell while another Vet squad started sneaking around the hill in the center of the field, hoping to catch the Vindie unawares.

Turn 2b:
Unfortunately for my opponent his Librarian came in early, deepstriking onto the center hill and hoping to stand for 3 turns. The Vindicator turned around and started heading over towards my right flank going behind the hill. His large tac squad also started picking up speed, charging slowly across his long board edge to try and grab another table quarter. His Terminators stayed ominously silent, however.

Turn 3a:
My tanks looked at the Librarian and sneezed. Just because they happen to be down with a plasma infection is not my fault. My Meltavets tried to take a shot at the Vindicator but were just out of range. My Manticore and Vendetta tried to seal the deal but merely managed to shake the beast through its smoke. My other tanks eliminated the Plasmacannon combat squad while my CCS started getting in position to make a move on the center of the board.

Turn 3b:
The Vindicator was fed up with all of the Chimeras yapping about and charged one... but unfortunately did not manage to penetrate. Vulkan and his Terminators finally charged out of the Land Raider, surely with blood or at least mangled tank bits on their minds. His Tac squad tried to fire a meltagun at my Meltavets but were also unfortunately out of range. The Laserback also immobilized a Vet Chimera.

Turn 4a:
Currently I was winning on kill points and held my table quarter securely. My opponent did likewise with his quarter. One of the other quarters contained the shot up remnants of a combat squad and a fully functional Vet squad while the other had a Vet squad, my CCS, the Vindicator and a butt load of Terminators. Nobody had gone for the center objective... yet. The Terminators needed to be dealt with, and my CCS and Plasma tank delivered. All but one of the Terminators were destroyed and Vulkan was reduced to one wound. I also managed to blow the Demolisher cannon off of the Vindicator rendering it toothless.

Turn 4b:
Things were getting desperate now. Vulkan left his Terminator bodyguard and joined the Tac squad and started charging up the hill. The Vindicator ran away to hide in the table quarter, diverting my focus. The lone remaining Hammernator walked up to my command Chimera and smashed it to pieces in a fit of righteous fury, killing one of the two remaining Veterans that hadn't burned themselves to death in the resulting explosion.

Turn 5a:
Despite killing most of his army I was now in serious danger of losing the game. If Vulkan managed to get to the top of the hill and survive while standing in my home table quarter it would leave him holding the only uncontested quarter. To stop this and secure a win I needed to accomplish four out of five tasks:
-kill Vulkan
-kill the escorting Tac squad
-kill the remaining Hammernator
-destroy the Vindicator while keeping my Vet squad alive and in that table quarter OR take out the remaining stragglers from the combat squad in the other contested table quarter.

I accomplished the second task with a bit of luck. I disembarked my vet squad from the immobilized Chimera and moved them into position to shoot the Tac squad, but failed to do anything. My CCS and a veritable hail of Multilaser fire failed to take out the Hammernator. My plasma tank, Vendetta and Meltavets on the other hand somehow managed to eliminate all of the Tactical marines even in cover, leaving Vulkan alone but untouchable by my forces. This meant that I left the Vindicator to its own devices, so I was relying on my Battle Tanks to destroy the contesting combat squad. Unfortunately they failed me.

Turn 5b:
Vulkan ascended to the top of the hill and waited for his Angels to take him to safety. The Hammernator assaulted my CCS and got stuck in thanks to a lucky Refractor Field save. Even so, my opponent for the first time was in place to win if the game ended here.

Turn 6a:
Fortunately the game did not end and the screaming began. Vulkan disappeared under a fusillade of plasma fire, the Vindicator was destroyed by meltaguns, the Land Raider by a Vendetta and the combat squad was removed by the Battle Tank twins. The Hammernator won his combat with my commander, but even so I controlled at least two uncontested table quarters.

Turns 6b through the end of turn 7 were simply filled with the last marines dying.

All in all this was the most fun game I had all day. Even though my opponent got started on a bad foot he made quite the come back and almost pulled off a turn 5 victory. It was very tense and hard fought the entire way, exactly what I wanted from a tournament game.

The final game, wrap up and more pics tomorrow.

Last Square 1850 Tourney: Game One

This past weekend I went to my second tournament at my FLGS and... man, I am pumped right now. :) I ran the following list:

Co. Cmd with 4 plasma guns, plasma pistol, Chimera with Hvy Flamer and Multilaser
3 Veteran squads with 2 meltaguns, flamer, shotguns, in a Chimera with Hvy Flamer and Multilaser
Veteran squad, 3 meltaguns, shotguns, Chimera with Hvy Flamer and Multilaser
3 Vendettas
2 Squadroned Leman Russ Battle Tanks, Hull Heavy Bolters
Leman Russ Executioner, Plasma Cannon Sponsons, Hull Heavy Flamer
Manticore with hull heavy flamer

All of the missions were from the upcoming 1850 Adepticon Championship, which made it great practice for those of us who are going to the tourney in Chicago come April. Some of the missions were great, others were... interesting, to say the least. All of them have three win conditions- whoever wins the most wins the mission, with ties decided by Victory Points. It's a pretty cool system that allows a lot of disparate ways to win and work when they are as different as possible. For the most part it worked...

What was definitely interesting was the spread of armies present across the 14 players. Specifically, the lack of Marines (only two from my recollection) and the presence of a lot of  more unorthodox armies, like these beautifully painted (and best painted winning!) Necrons:

So it was a bit of a surprise when I drew against the only other Guard player at the tourney for my first game. He was a young gentleman who had some very nicely painted models.

  

His list was approximately as follows, and scarily similar to mine:

CCS with astropath, Master of the Fleet, 2 GLs, Commander with Power Sword, grenadiers
4 Vet Squads, 1 with flamers, 1 with plasma, 2 with meltas, all except the flamer vet in Chimeras and with Grenadiers
Vendetta
Leman Russ Executioner with Pask, plasma cannons
Manticore
Psyker Battle Squad with Chimera
Penal Legionnaire Squad

Deployment: Pitched Battle

For this one, the three were:
-destroy the enemy's most expensive unit
-Kill points
-3 objectives, one in the center, one placed by each player in the opposing player's deployment zone.

I won the roll to deploy first and spread out across the board deploying everything. The Manticore was stuck in a far corner away from my objective behind some LOS blocking cover.

 

He deployed everything except for the Penal Legionnaires.

My first turn was a bit of a blow out. The Executioner eliminated his Vendetta, two of my Vendettas took out his Manticore and, in the first of many moments of brilliance that day, my Manticore exploded his Pask-enabled Executioner (his most expensive model) AND wrecked a meltavet Chimera thanks to a lucky pie plate flip.

After taking out the majority of his antitank I knew that the game was pretty much mine. My Leman Russ' provided effective cover to my Chimeras while my Executioner tried to stay out of meltagun range. Getting the early lead also allowed me to suggest better plays to my opponent. He seemed to be doing fairly well for his age, but the difference in list power plus my lucky first turn sealed the deal. It eventually ended up with me winning the KP and most expensive unit conditions while he secured the most objectives. The only KP he secured were a Vendetta and my Manticore, the latter after it had fired all of its rockets.

Second game plus some more pretty army pics coming up tomorrow.

Tourney Prep: Deployment Strategies, Take 1

The past couple of nights I've been doing two things:

1. Building another set back Chimera to complete the mechanization of my army
   
   
   
2. Practicing deployment strategies

Something that I've mentioned repeatedly here and on my battle reports is that my deployment strategies need work. I've focused on target priority and on worked on my list design but deployment continues to elude me.

So, I measured out a 6 by 4 foot section of carpet, got down on my knees and started playing with my boxy toys. I am not too proud to admit that I made the occasional *wooooosh* *vroooom!* noise while setting up my very serious war games.

I figure that there are three basic army types that I need to prep for- gunline, melee, and drop, as well as getting 1st vs 2nd turn.

Shooty is the match up where 1st vs 2nd matters the most. My goal is to nullify their shooting by placing my nice, fat, AV 14 Leman Russ' right in the front while my Chimeras cower behind them as we move towards midfield. Most armies' long range AT fire is str 9 or lower which, while the upper limit will break through AV 14 on occasion it's definitely a long shot. Plus since I'm squadroning two Leman Russ to fit in a Manticore (I can't help it- it's too pretty!) they will have extra armor which will help them keep moving forward... at least until the inevitable immobilized result ruins my day.

If I go first in a Pitched Battle deployment I'll use a deployment like the one above. Hopefully there will be some LoS blocking terrain that the Manticore can hide behind while the rest of the army moves up. If I go second the Vendettas will probably hit reserve to possibly outflank and at least make sure that they get one good shot off before being shredded by enemy autocannons.

If in more of a Table Corners setup we'll the use the deployment above instead. Again, Vendettas can go into reserve, this time possibly along with a Chimera or two for the quasi outflank and objective grab.

Against melee armies... it depends. Hordes I'll try to go second against and use the refused flank strategy while deploying everything (except maybe a Vendetta or three, depending on the build). I've never faced TWC beat down yet, but depending on their Long Fang support I might split the army in two, hopefully distracting the big beasts with the majority of my armor busting in one group while the other goes for objectives. Nids, stay out of the way of Hive Guard and try to blast the damn gribblies from across the board.

Drop armies are where I think my army has the greatest weakness. I refuse to use the DH mystic trick as that's a little too cheesy (and short lived with the GK book coming out soon) for me to go for. Which leaves me with this deployment, two meltavet squads and my plasma bedecked CCS:

The plan is to stick this out in the open and put everything else in reserve. The CCS can really chew up firepower while the Vets provide anti-Dread defense and scoring potential. Then the big tanks roll on and use their low AP blast templates to clear the ground of those bloodthirsty angels and Loganwings.

Of course, this has all been without any terrain being taken into consideration or even objective placement. Add in my previously admitted lack of expertise with deployment makes taking what I've said only doable with a fair bit of salt. Still, the practice of actually getting your models out and seeing how much space they take up and how you can block sight lines most effectively is great practice and even more fun... if very open to mocking from those significant others in your life. *Vroom* *Vroom* indeed.

Merry Mayhem: Aftermath

So I finished the tourney with 0 wins and a grand total of 6 battle points won from only my first game. Yay! Still, I think I put up a respectable showing for someone with a grand total of about 5 games of Fantasy under his belt, only 1 of which was at the 2k points level.

As a "reward" for my performance I was awarded the Wooden Spoon and a set of dice:

I was not allowed to pick out the dice, probably a good thing seeing how they treated me at the tourney...

The tourney was fun and I definitely learned a lot about the nuances of how this game is played. Going to a tourney is probably not the best way to do it, but it is definitely one of the quickest. Key points that I took away from the day include:

• Gorgers- they just weren't useful at all the entire day. Granted I didn't go against any armies that fielded war machines in any of my matches, but each game they just kind of floundered on to the board late and eventually died.
• Charging- it's vital that you only charge the right targets! Be aware of units breaking away or baiting you, and watch out for other units that might be looking for a flank or rear charge.
• The above goes doubly for pursuing. While you might not get points until you completely smash an enemy, you don't want to expose yourself too much to enemy charges.
• Magic- the lack of a lvl 4 really hurt me, especially in the last game. Ogres just can't spam the casters like other races can, so getting that lvl 4 for casting and dispel means I don't get a second caster most of the time.
• Heroes- these really make or break Fantasy armies. I think I'll try building around them rather than doing my usual 40k thing of building the army first and shoehorning a HQ choice into the mix. In Fantasy the army delivers the heroes, not the other way around.

Thanks for hanging with me this week, and next week we're going to take a look at some non-Fantasy projects that I have lined up. Thanks for reading!

Merry Mayhem: Circus vs Circus!

My last game of the day was by request, as while I was walking around I noticed this army:

 CIRCUS GOBLINS!

The army was run by a very charming fellow from Chicago named Alex. When he saw my army walking up towards the table his face lit up and he let out a loud "YEEESSSS!" Seems he wanted this battle as much as me...

Our battle was called the Isle of Misfit Toys. Toy tokens spawned from the center of the board and scattered around. Only champions, the General and the BSB can pick up the tokens.

The rules for our battlefield:

His General is wearing the top hat, his BSB is the pogo stick of DOOM.

And here's our battle lines after deployment:

He won the roll to go first, and the comedy of errors progressed from there. We both moved up a bit, my movements were rather... cautious, based on the beatings that I had received earlier in the day. Perhaps too cautious, as my opponent quickly gobbled up two tokens.

My Ironguts on the left flank quickly chopped apart the two Trolls. My Trappers and my Leadbelchers were quickly blown away by a combination of crazed pump wagons and Goblin magic. The first casting of the dreaded "6's become 1's" spell was made around here.

Eventually my large blocks got into combat, grabbing a token on the way. Unfortunately I appear to be easily bated, as two pump wagons crashed into the side of my BSB's block. After fighting them off I chased down one, only to open my lines to the three way charge that you see below. Ouchies.

Meanwhile the Ironguts carved through the enemy General but steadily gained losses. My other block of Bulls beat off a squad of Goblins, then smashed through the Squig herders after they mauled my BSB's block of Bulls. I had a chance to catch up on the game if I could have broken the Squig herders in one round of combat, potentially grabbing two more tokens to give me the win. Alas it was not to be, and in a stunning upset the dreaded "6's become 1's" spell caused me to deal 0 wounds to an assaulting goblin block and causing it to be run down. Ouchies.

Still, the game was enjoyable and it was amazing to find a fellow circus general. We chatted for a while about conversions afterwards and I learned a few cool tips for sprucing up my display table. Turns out that he is one of the people in charge of the Fantasy section of Adepticon, so he promised to get me some good match ups at the 1k non-tournament. Hopefully I will have improved my game by then...

Oh, and the background to our little circus match was amazing:

Amazing what you can find in the back of a game store! Next time, some overall thoughts on the tournament and some wrap up. Thanks for reading!

Merry Mayhem: Battles 1 and 2

So, some battles! One of the cool features of the tournament was that each table had special terrain rules. Most of the rules were choices from the BRB but a few were more unique. Here's the rules for my first table:

Our mission, "You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch," can be found here. Basically it centered around sending units into the various buildings on the map to grab "toys," symbolized by little pieces of candy taken from a cup. The mission ended at wipeout, turn 6 or if all of the candies were taken from the cup. Our map is below:

My opponent was a Daemon player called Jeff. His list was something like this:
Herald of Nurgle with a breath weapon
Herald of Tzeentch
BSB
Unit of Hounds
Unit of Beasts of Nurgle
Unit of Furies
Unit of Bloodletters
Unit of Pink Horrors
Two units of Flamers

I deployed the majority of my forces on the right flank, with my two units of Leadbelchers on the left. Trappers scouted near a building on the right flank, hoping to run in and run out before they could get eaten.

Turn 1 I moved a squad of leadbelchers into the left building, the Trappers into the right and a squad of Bulls into the middle. My opponent countered by sending the Furies against the Belchers and the Letters against the Trappers. The two Leadbelchers managed to fight off the Furies without taking any casualties but the Trappers were cut down to a man.

My BSB's Bull squad managed to beat off the Bloodletters and steal their candy over the next few turns while my other Leadbelcher squad got another piece. My two Gorgers also came in and stole candy. Unfortunately one was gunned down by Horrors and, in a fatal turn six twist, one unit of Leadbelchers and a Gorger were defeated in close combat by the two Flamers squads. MAN those things can put out a beating!

So, I was winning 4-2 until the very last turn, ended up losing 2-4. Still, it was a very close game that was only decided by some luck and betters stats on my opponent's part.

Game two was on a very normal map and involved fighting over the Perfect Tree in the center of the board. Whoever had the most models within 8" (Monstrous Infantry counting as 3) won. This was pretty short as I deployed first, then my VC opponent (Robert, or SwissDictator on the forums) countered with some ethereal units far away from my magic weapons. That, plus his unstoppable block of Grave Guard made it his game very quickly. Still, he was a very pleasant opponent... I just need to learn how to play this game at some point.

Next time, battle three. See you then!