Eldar Army Woes

Okay so I'm looking at what I own am am wondering what to expand upon and what to sell to build a nice round force of Eldar.

Current Meta for the Eldar is Fire Dragons in a Serpent, some guardians or Dire Avengers (in or out of a Serpent) to hold objectives.  This is the Core of most Eldar armies these days and that works for me.

But What do I want to put in my HQ slots?

Currently I own Eldrad and another Farseer, with a crew of 6 Warlocks to accompany or spread out otherwise.

Do I want to get into buying different HQ models to possibly use?  An Autarch to ride along and support or even one of the named aspect warriors?

I don't know yet.  Another question that I'm pondering is what else do I need to fill out my army with? 

Anyways... below is a list by model and slot that I currently own
HQ:
Eldrad
Farseer
-6x Warlocks

Stolen from comicartfans.com

Troops:
10x DA w/ Exarch
16x Guardians w/ multiple heavy weapon platforms
9x rangers

Elites:
18 Striking Scorpions w/ 3 exarchs\
10 Fire Dragons w/ 1 exarch

Heavy:
3x Wraithlords
3x Warwalkers

Fast Attack:
4x Vipers

Transports:
3x Serpents

I know I need more troops, in assorted flavors.  But what else?  I like the idea of running more than 1 wraithlord and walking that mess across the table.  It is always effective.  3x Warwalkers with scatter lasers is a brutal and effective way to smash troops and light tanks.

Where do I expand and refine though?  I can't and do not want to run that many scorpions any more.  Fast attack choices good but the models I own are all Ebay throwbacks that need some serious work. 

I'm now on for fluff in this game so Lyanden or whatever themed army is out.  I think I need to get some Warp Spiders for entertainment and see how they work out.

Stolen from warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_Spiders

Space Elves...hmmm

Yes, The Eldar.

My first army, the one where I learned how to lose with grace and take each and every tiny gain and figure taken off the table as a lesson.  Because they are damn hard to play, especially against Space Wolves.  3/4 of the players I learned how to play against played puppies!  I don't know how many times Njal and his pals whooped up on me.

That is until I finally came into some realizations and learned to play the Eldar the right way.  Now it is a few years later and I have played another completely different style of army, in 2 flavors (old and new 'dex).  Grey Kniggits and Eldar cannot be played in the same fashion.

But something has been buggin me since my little tourney win a couple weeks ago.  it was the groans of people playing against me when they saw the 'Knights on the table.  They would say "Aww, not again!  I hate GK" or some such.  GK has become one of the bad armies to play.  One that no one wants to see.

So in an effort to gain more victims and school some folks, I will be digging out the Eldar for a bit.  Expanding that first timer's army of Ebay models and metal Wraith Lords, refining it to a winning strategy and bringing the destruction.

Veteran's Day

Thank You to all the vets out there who have served for our freedoms.

Thank you brothers, you are among the honored few.

1176 Tourney game 3 - Space Poopies

Yep...Space Wolves  err Puppies err...Poopies!!!

He didn't use Bjorn, but this is a pretty pic anyways.

Final game, he's got something like the following.  Its my old pal Mr. Dave who has been playing since they allowed dirt.  He's always fun to play against and has more armies than there are codexes.

So 1176 GK vs SW is the final game.


 His list resembles....
2 squads of 10 Grey Hunters with 2 melta and a plasma in a metalbawks (rhino)
Librarian
2 squads of heavy weapons 1 with plasma and the other with a mix of las & missiles
1 speeder
1 Dread with ass-can and CCW


I of course am running what I have been running.  See my first post from the other day.
Its a crowded map with ruined buildings in each quad and one in the center.  DoW deployment with (d3+2) 4 Objectives.  We place objectives asymetrically in the small space allowed for them on the 4x4 board.  I roll a 3 on the Grand Tactics and have the dreads and purifiers act as scoring.

This game was pure blood and smashing wreckage.  They always are against Dave.  He kicked me in the last tournament and every game I have against him  learn something.  He Holds everything off the edge for first turn and I deploy, putting only the GKSS on one objective in cover.  He has first turn and walks everything on.  Rhinos in the center with everything else to the left of those.  His heavy weapon squads go into the building on my left with libby assist.  I move on, dropping Mordrak into the rear with hopes of shutting down his libby and disrupting those heavy squads a bit.  Everything else comes on using the center building to block LOS and keep my lanes open as possible.  The far right objective I get my purifiers aimed at, the dreads are to push for the ones on my side. Interceptors jump to the center and hide for a turn.  Shooting is crap but Mordrak and co do a little damage.  On his turn he pushes the rhinos and speeder forward but turn nearly everything else to kill Mordrak.  Who miraculously survives and proceeds to smash into his ranks of heavy weapons and turn his Librarian into a smear on the carpet, and break his Dread like the plastic toy it is.  Sadly Mordrak does die at the end of turn 3 due to a lucky sergeant's strike.

Anyways while this is happening the rest of the battle is being waged.  The other half is getting ugly.  I open a Rhino with a dread and assault the innards with interceptors (after a fairly useless incinerator moment).  Other dread gets popped while the GKSS get reduced by las and missile fire.

I reduce his skimmer to smoking ruin and eventually it all comes down to my 3 purifiers (who are scoring) sitting on an objective trying to shoot his grey hunters off the other.  Which on the final turn they succeed in not doing.  Its a Tie, his 1 for my 1, we tie in battle points and tally scores.

In the end I will by 6 battle points.  Not much of a margin but a win is a win.  I'll take it.

1176 Tourney game 2 - Newcrons!

So carrying on from the previous post where I took apart a basic Tyranid army we move to game #2 with a Newcron army.

Now, understand that its the day after the new 'dex dropped and he is using the new rules.  I on the other hand am only barely tracking that the new rules exist.  So it was a very educational game for me.







He's running something resembling the below list.
-Monolith
-C'Tan Shard with 2 powers Grand Illusion and something else
-1x 5x warriors
-1x 10x warriors
-3x heavy destroyers
-Necron Lord with a destroyer body
-3x wraiths

The set up is 2 objectives with 12" in.  We both place objectives and drop troops on it.  We also set up almost all on the left side of the table.   So its a tight and fast fight.

I get first turn and drop Mordrak and co into the front of his 5x warriors which are screening his destroyers.  I push forward a bit and shoot a bunch.  Killing all but one warrior in the 5x (of course 2 come back), a couple of his destroyers and a wraith.  I also stun his Monolith but that's useless.  His turn, first things first he immobilizes his Monolith by parking it in terrain.  After that the monolith is largely useless as he can't face the door at approaching troops and the particle whip goes away next turn.  He does use it to vaporize some on my strike squad though.  This game is quick and brutal.  He picks away at my gunline of Dreads, Strike squad and purifiers with screening Rhino, while my Interceptors and Mordrak proceed to eat his army.

More so than anything Mordrak was a monster that he could not stop.  End of turn 2 his bubble wrap and 3 wounds were gone so every round of combat with him has me wincing.  Even with him going before me in combats at I2, he destroyed things.  The str 10 hammer with 4/5 attacks decimated his army.  Mordrak ate his wraiths, he ate the C'Tan Shard (well the remaining wound of it anyways), then he ate the warriors on his objective and finally wrecked the monolith. 

The gunline of dreads with psycannon support is nearly unbreakable if used intelligently.  There are a great many ways to possibly break it, as with anything.  Careful target priority choices are a necessity when playing a smaller model count army.

This game also illustrated the power of a GM to me.  Really hammered it in.  Mordrak's 4 wounds and capability to first turn deepstrike can divide or redirect the opponents whole army for a large number of turns.  If placed  carefully he can roll up a flank, destroying as he goes.  I can see attaching him to a bundle of Paladins and being pure unstoppable mess.  As cheesy as that is.    His ghost knight retinue may have a place in my army in the future but there are many other things I like to attach him to for that first turn delivery.

---I will have to add a pic of my version of Mordrak up later.  He's a poor conversion of an old metal Stern Model, but he works good on the table.---

I WIN! I WIN! and other inconsequential stuff.

So on Sunday I played in a LGS 1176pt (Standard force org) Tournament.  Not a huge one but most of the local villains, and a few new guys were there for the fun.  We had 2 sets of puppies, eldar, orks, my GK, nids, 2 sets of Newcrons, a marine player and something else I don't remember.


I ended up taking 1st.  Pretty cool.

Scenarios were pretty basic.  4x4 tables with 90 min time limits for fast and heavy fights.  Each had up to 4 Battle point optional bonus things like + 1 BP to kill enemy HQ, or have a unit in other deployment zone that vaired by mission.

Scenario 1 - table quarters annihilate, victory points 537+ difference for Massacre
Scenario 2 - 12" from edge, 2 obj
Scenario 3 - DoW, 4 d3+2 obj (we got 4 total)

My list was a chopped down version of my 'Ard Boyz List.
GM Mordrak w/ 5 termies (5 hammers, 1 psycannon)
5x GKSS (1 psycannon, 3 halb, 1 sword)
5x Purifiers (2 psycannon, 3 swords) in a rhino w/ searchlight
5x Interceptors (3 halb, 1 hammer, 1 incinerator)
2x TLAC Dread w/ psybolts

First game was against the 'Nid player.  Said that this was his first game in a year and he was a good guy.
He ran big maxed out blobs bugs.
20x termagaunts
20x hormagaunts
20x genestealer w/ broodlord
2x 15x harpy
1x trigon
1x hive tyrant w/gun


He puts out his two blobs of gaunts and his tyrant, I deploy holding only Mordrak for that backside punch.  he goes first and runs forward, shooting the tyrant for no good.  I proceed to drop Mordrak and the termies in the back, then shoot his tyrant and termagaunts off the table.  The hormagaunts get smashed by incinerator and Interceptors, but hold with like 9 left.  Turn 2 his trigon comes on in my backfield but is relatively useless as he can't get into combat with me.  His genestealers also come in this turn, and they proceed to eat Mordrak and friends, but loose the broodlord and a couple before finally walking away when the combat rolls back around to me.  I shoot the crap out of Trigon and finish the gaunts, but the big bug still has a wound left.  His turn rolls around again and the Trigon eats a dreadnaught, he pushes the genestealers forward.  I finish the trigon with the other dread and proceed to shoot his stealers off the table.  I regroup and kick off Warpquake to keep the harpies off me.  He tries anyways to drop them up close but mishaps get them far off into the corner where one drops off the table and the other ends up getting shot down as it comes in.

Game 1 - Lessons learned.....
#1 - Use freaking warpquake.  If I had used it consistently I would not have lost that dread, I Could have castled up and simply kept warp quake up and shot the crap out of him the whole time.  If the GKSS are not involved in a combat use quake.
#2 - Mordrak is a badass.

--more later--

Back at it

So after a several month hiatus I will be back at the 40K thing this weekend.  1176 tourney at my not so local game shop.  Should be fun.  I will endeavor to make a blog posting and analysis after.

List Changes and Unit reviews

So my list from the pre-Ard Boyz is as follows.  This is with out details for ease of use.

GM w/ psycannon
10x Purifiers w/ 4 psycannons
-both the above riding in a LR Crusader w/ multimelta
2x 5 GKSS w/psycannon in a HB Razorback
2x 5 Interceptors w/ Incinerator and hammer
Libby with Hammer & 3 powers
10x Termies w/ 2 psycannon and hammer (THRAWN!!)
2 Rifleman Dreads

New list will consist of-
Mordrak and 5 ghost knights w hammers
Libby w/ hammer and 5 powers teleport homer
10x Termies w/ 2 psycannon and hammer (THRAWN!!)
2x 5 Purifiers w/ 2 psycannon in HB razorback
5 GKSS w/ 1 psycannon in HB Razorback
5 GKSS
2x 5 Interceptors with hammer and incinerator
2x Rifleman Dreads with psybolts

This is an alpha-strike list.  Pure and simple.

Here's the plan-
Mordrak with Libby and ghost knights jump into range of the enemy and terrain with cover.  Since Mordrak counts as a unit upgrade and not an IC he can carry the Libby too.  Use Grand Strategy to give interceptors scout for the free move and 30 inch threat range.  Jump in with Mo and Co., rush with the interceptors as real threats.  Suddenly the enemy has 5 very real threats, Mo&Co, 2 interceptor squads, 2 dreads firing from backfield.  This along with 3 razorbacks roaming the field should give most players some problems.

The problem that I have run into has been multiple hulls or target saturation.  Multiple hulls being the primary problem I have been in.  This brings the possibility of striking 2 hulls in the shooting with dreads and 2 in assault turn 1 at a minimum.  If they chose to fire on Mo & Co a 2+ cover (stealth + shrouding) will be keeping them alive a while.  Possibly generating a couple more knights from anything not str 8 or better.  Turn 2 Libby summons the termies and it gets really ugly.  Turn 3 if he's still there Libby summons the loose GKSS for additional scoring if needed.

Should be fun.  Now I just have to wait for my 5 new hammers to arrive in the mail to build them.

pre-'Ard boyz Touney results

Well what a sad day for me.  1-2-0    Piss poor planning prevent performance.

There are some serious mistakes and lessons learned from this event.

#1 - Now this is just embarrassing...never leave parts of your models at home.  This is bad.  Namely the turrets for your razorbacks, and additional weapons for Land Raiders.You just look silly with a borrowed Dreadnought melta arm sitting on top of you land raider.  I am sure you can imagine it. 

#2 - Grandmaster and Land Raider - 500 points wasted.  In "Ard Boyz that is too much.  Just the Land Raider itself was the primary waste.  Blown up or wrecked in the first turn in 2 of 3 games.  The third game it got parked in turn 2 and sat there and shot for the rest of the game.    Too high of a point cost for so little effect. 

#3 - Grand Master - primary use...Grand Strategy.  This power is so very versatile and useful.  Need to take 5 objectives?  Have a rifleman dread sit at home base scoring while the purifiers run out for the far one.  Need to get that first turn alpha strike off?  Scout the interceptors, suddenly they have a 30" from deployment threat range.  Going to be recieving a lot of charges to shake you off that single objective?  Counter Attack is wonderful for those termies with a banner and libby attached.  This power alone makes me look at Grand masters as a useful part of my army.

#4 - Learn the codex's of your opponents.  Know your enemy.  ignore that paper airplane of the Dark Eldar, yes that little one, no really go ahead and ignore it....see what it just dropped off in you deployment zone....yes they can walk out of that thing.  Bugger.

#5 THRAWN!!  He rocks my socks....when I remember he's in the game.  When I forget for half the game its a problem.



Anyways... I played, as is evidenced above, a Dark Eldar player.  Who made great use of a webway portal carried by a haemonunculus carried in a Venom.  2 of them with a pair of pain engine things.  He tabled me.  Fuck, there goes winning anything in this tournament.

Second game - Mech-dar.  Low model count and great rolling.  I table him, but there were some hairy moments in there.   Once again proving to me that Swooping Hawks are the worst unit in the game.  Once upon a time I played with them and they saw the table 2 times.  Both times they landed pooped and died to little effect.

Third Game - Victory Points against....IG 2 chimera, 4 russes, 2 basilisks and vets...etc.  Crap.  Once again Grey knights prove to have a hard time against massed hulls.  He nearly tables me but a parked Land Raider and a pair of Dread keep him to a minor victory. 

Overall I finished like 8 out of the 10 folks that showed up.  Really! I fail at this game!  At least today.  But the purpose is for fun and I had a blast playing. Played the last 2 games against people who I really enjoy playing against. 

Some game results and 'Ard Boys planning

So...the time is upon us.  'Ard Boyz.  2500pts of in your face balls out killing.  Big prizes and WAAC players to boot.  I'm in.  But first there are some thing to go over.

RL info- Vacation was great thanks.  I highly recommend coastal Florida for a nice vacation.

Game Results - For 6 games played on my vacation I am 3-2-1.  Beat Thousand Sons, Necrons, Sisters w allied Marines, lost to Demons (I know....really) and IG gun line, tied Chaos Marines.

The tie was a 2 objective game where we basically swapped objectives.  Fun 1500pts against an entertaining opponent.

Losses against the gun line (11 hulls on the table) was inevitable.  Gk at 1500 pts doen't have the penetration to deal with that much AV.  We can do some high AV kills at range but not that many.  Up close it is a different story.  Demons...what can I say...1500 pts again and he brought a blood thirster.  I didn't bring any anti-demonic gift powers and he rolled like a millionaire.  This game was educational though as we both nearly tabled each other but he won by a single kill point thanks to a Rhino.

Wins - Necron monoliths are a problem.  Only the hammer did anything worth while.  Thousand Sons - fluff army but fun and pretty (he paints Golden Demon nominees), Sisters- target priority really helped here. 


As for unit results - Interceptors still continue to please me but I am going to switch out the incinerator for a psycannon.  It is more reliable for can opening.

Purifiers - meh...worth the points but they haven't proven to be anything special.

Terminators - aswesome.  2 psycannons, hammer, banner and the rest with halberds - simply awesome.  They won the game for me in a couple of spots.  With an attached Libby they can eat a unit or two a turn.  They are highly durable, even under concentrated firepower they keep rolling for a long time.  But we already knew that didn't we?


'Ard Boyz Lists - to GM or not?  This is the question.  Do I get super competitive and really go at my list with razors or do I want to play a more fun list?  I have a week to finalize a practice list.  We can see if the Gm will be worth it then.

Vacation - Sorry for the lack of posting lately...

Like the title suggests...its vacation time around here and that means time with family...not time at the Not-so-LGS making tiny wars happen.

I did get in a couple games last Saturday and will wrap them up later though.

One important thing to note - and this is a quote from me to my daughter who was sucked into her DS at the time..  "Real Life is more important.  Real experiences are more imprtant than make-believe ones." 

She missed an awesome view from very high bridge because of this.  So remember all you basement dwellers...sunlight is good for you!

Battle Report - 1100pts GK vs Dark Eldar

First game of the league- no pics again...on of these days I'll remember that I blog about this stuff while I play.

1100 vs Dark Eldar

My List is as follows-

140pt Special HQ (see last post - as an interceptor + shooting)
2x 5 man GKSS w/ 1 psycannon and 3 halberds
1x 5 man Purifier w/ 2 psycannon and 2 halberds
1x 5 man interceptor w/ 1 hammer, incinerator and 3 halberds
Razorback W/ Psybolt Twin Link Assault cannon
Rhino
2x Twin Link Autocannon Dreads w/ Psybolts (hereafter referred to as the "Chumps")

His List was -
Talos Pain Engine
1x Raider
2x Ravager
2x Pile of warriors (kitted with splinter cannons)
10x scourges (2 blaster, 2 haywire)
Special HG Shooter (same as mine basically)

So this game was small so we ended up getting Kill Points 12" in from the edge on a 4'x4' table.  River running vertically through it with a building in each quadrant.

He goes first and sets up one squad of warriors dismounted in a ruin to my left and the raiders in the center.  His Scourges take the building to the right and the Talos on the far left. One of his warrior piles goes into a raider with his HQ.

I put one dread on top (tiny 3rd floor) of a building in my left with the HQ on middle and interceptors on the bottom.  One GKSS is for deepstrike (mistake #1 as you will see in a moment), the other goes into the Razorback.  Purifiers go into the Rhino.  These all go behind the building on the left.  The other dread goes into the building on the right as bait and for side shots. 

I fail to seize and we are off.  He pushes forward with the talos and vehicles, scourges jump forward also.  His shooting blows an arm off my Chump on the left and little else.  I move forward on both sides.  Shooting does very little, damages the talos some but has little other effect.  Then the nightmare really begins on his turn 2.

More forward movement....he parks my rhino, kills the HQ, immobilizes my Chump on the right and
kills a couple of interceptors.  My go...I jump forward with the remainder of the interceptors to flame his troops getting out of the raider in the middle.  Troops in reserve continue to eat coffe and donuts.  Chumps do the only useful thing all game here and park the raider, otherwise these guys sucked. Purifiers get out as do the troops in the razorback.  Razor fires on the Talos killing it, need to get another one of these on the board it was well worth the 85 points or so for it.  Troops shoot some warriors in the ruins killing 2 I think.  His guys that piled out of the parked raider get shot up and burned down and assaulted to nothing.

Turn 3 - turning point...kind of.  He continues to fire on me.  His big troops squad vaporizes my purifiers and his ravagers wipe my interceptors.  Scourges pop my Chump on the right.  My other troops squad gets knocked down a little.  On my go....the reserves decide to come in but mishap due to scattering into his scourges.  Really they just ended up seeing the enemy and going back to coffee and donuts.  Old One arm, chump up top fires and knocks a weapon of one of his ravagers.  Razor moves to cover the troops from LOS and the Razor and Psycannon pop his other ravager.  At this point he has a troops pile, scourges, and a mostly functional ravager left.  I have a parked Rhino, a TLAssCannon Razor, a one armed Chump, and 3 GKSS (one psycannon).

Turn 4 - I win ....aka the dice return the earlier crap with goodness.  He moves the ravager and gets close with the scourges to my rhino.  His shooting kills one GK halberdier and stuns my rhino.  Fortitude away the stun and the little Rhino plinks away killing 2 scourges.  Chump up top finally pops the ravager, assault cannon and remaining GKs nuke the scourges forcing them to flee.  And run they do..3d6 running is huge.

What is that you say?  He has only the warrior pile left?  Yes.  Can the hurt AV?  Nope.   His final turn sees the Scourges stun my Razor but flee to within 5" of the edge.  I pile back into the Razor, Fortitude up and just sit out the resto f the game firing into that warrior pile in cover. 

Game ends with me on top: 8 to 5

Notes: 
-Can't rely on the dreads as the primary AV support. 
-Assault Cannon Razorbacks = awesome
-Dark Eldar paper airplanes are more resilient than forseen.

I am on vacation at the beach so not too much to say this week.  But next weekend has 1500 vs Thousand Sons and 1500 vs. Sisters planned.   Maybe another game too.

40K league/campaign entertainment.

Now there is a new campaign getting started.  One at the new store.  Well, this store is older and far longer established, but new to me after the D-R-A-M-A at the other shop.

Stolen from here, an excellent interactive 40k Map

Anyways, the campaign is similar to a Planetfall game, with the hexes and buildings and all that jazz.  But there are a couple of special rules.  Most basic is that there can be no named characters. 

First is you can get a pair of special characters.  The first is a heavy choice with a Guardsman's stat line that drops D3 large blasts per game with max scatter, 50 points.  The other is the more interesting one.

Stolen from Kingmong at DeviantArt

Take an elite, troop or heavy model.  It cannot be an MC, IC, or vehicle/walker.  It is a basic model, such as a marine or paladin, or guardsman.  It is equipped with basic gear, no upgrades.  Take this and add 115 points to the cost model (say a sergeant in a marine squad) he gains +1T/+1W/+1I/+1Ld (max 10), Eternal Warrior and a 5+ Invul save which does not stack with other Invul saves except the one below.  Pretty cool so far.  Now you get to pick is he shooty or choppy?  If shooty he gains +2 BS and a special weapon that is Str 7 AP 2 Assault 3, losing any assault weapon in exchange.  If assaulty he gains +2WS, a Str 7 power weapon and a shield that gains him an additional +1 Invul save but loses any shooting capability.

You have to name and model said Hero.

Now for the really entertaining part...since I am playing Grey Knights; what sort of unit do I make this guy from?


A paladin for 170pts?  For a WS7 T5 3 wound eternal warrior that strikes at I5 with a str8 (Hammer Hand FTW!) power sword?  Did I mention that it may be a Nemesis Force Sword?  That makes that 2+/4+ save a 2+/3+ in CC.  I still need to clarify with the campaign organizer if they get to keep the Nemesis Force Weapon quality if I go that route.

Or maybe a purgator?  135pts but uses the astral aim power on a str 7 ap 2 assault 3 weapon?

Possibly an interceptor?  Go shooty with him, and run him alongside, but not attached to, a squad of regular interceptors.  Use the gun to open a transport and then flame them with the interceptors.

What do you think?

Interceptors - Far better than hoped

Interceptor with Incinerator...similar to shouting  "Surprise! Butt Seks!"

 So time for more dissection of the GK codex based upon experience.  This time we are looking at one of the two fast attack choices.  I do not own a Storm Raven as of yet as my model budget has taken a quick dive....but I do have some interceptor back packs.  Which means that I have access to Interceptors.

Stat line wise they are normal marines, jump marines.  Cool, 12" jump style moving for only 6 more points per model than normal Strike Squads.  With the usual options of incinerator for 20, psycannon for 10, daemonhammers etc.  Basically its +6 points per model for GKSS so they are now fast attack/jump infantry. 

I personally perfer to use them as distractors and disruption units.  A single 10 man squad with 2 hammers, 2 incinerators, 8 halberds is invaluable to me.  Today's tournament proved that.  They really earned their points in pulling focus from the rest of the army and breaking formations.

So lets talk a little about tactics.  The incinerator is pure fun.  Jump 30", no scatter, place your other Interceptors to maximize targeting, and its BBQ time.  I opened a chimera with this, not the best thing to use but it is possible.  Even better is that first turn, when everyone is all jammed together in the deployment zone.  Dropping in to flame on turn 1 can change an opponent's tactics by a bunch. Sure, using the 30" jump to get there means you won't be assaulting and will most likely receive that punch in the face you asked for.  It doesn't matter though, 5-10 of these can absorb some shots and possibly live through an assault (you did take halberds right?).  This forces an opponent to deal with the parts of your army that you hand to him on your time.  Keeping them from possibly getting to a more brittle/valuable target that you do not want him to be firing at this turn. 

Want to distract him?  Drop in a single squad and allow him to nuke it off the table.  Sure it just became an expensive speed bump, but with a little forethought on placement and weaponry you may have just forced him to maneuver in way more advantageous to you.

Disruption?  Jump them in a big bunch right in front of his tanks.  This guy will put a stop to any tank and possibly force that commander to divert around you, splitting his forces.

From here on out I will run a minimum of 5 of these dudes.

Army of One Tournament Wrap-up

Well 2-1-0 with that loss being in the third round to the overall big winner is acceptable to me.  18 people showed up, so decent little local tournament.  At the end of round 2 I was 2-0, along with 4 others who were 2-0.  I paired with the local tournament "champion" who regularly goes on to place at 'Ard Boyz and other national level events.  Anyways...no pics as I am a dumbass and forgot to take pictures. 

Look at the previous post for my list and a quick overview of the rules. 

Game 1- paired up against an old school marines player who was a gentleman.  He was running something he hadn't before, but was trying out for fun.  List was something like 10x death company assault marines, 2 sang priests, a jump chaplain, 5 jump marines, and a whirlwind.  He split the priests up to run one each with the 5 and 10 groups, attaching the chaplain to the 10 death co.

Scenario was spearhead with 2 objectives.  He couldn't hold an objective (no scoring) so he had to table me or contest both.  I combat squadded everything and ran my Inquisitor with one of my troop squads for the additional psycannon.

I get first turn and pack everything I can into a building in my deployment zone, he spreads out with 5+priest going left, 10+priest and chappy going right.  First turn I use the interceptor's 30" jump to attempt to fry some of them and slow them down.  I know that they will end up getting charged and run over  but it will most likely give me another turn of shooting before they get into assault with my troops or purifiers.  I push everyone else forward for range (24" isn't as far as you think).  Flamers nearly wipe the 5+1 but only get 1of the death co.  I do stun and shake his whirlwind with my dread though. 

I won't go into super detail but he wipes my interceptors with his death co and then proceeds toward my objective.  His other squad gets wiped in combat and my interceptors go on to attack his whirlwind.  Game progresses with my whittling away at his death co, while feeding them a  squad at a time to slow them in hand to hand.  In the end I lose 5 interceptors, 5 purifiers and 2 regular GKs.  He ends up tabled as the hammer works to splat his tank in the far corner. 

Game 2 - Necrons...hehehehee.  He's got a monolith, lord, 5 destroyers and a big blob of warriors.  He's missing an elite and thusly can't place in the tournament but can play for fun.  I get first turn and we are playing pitched battle annihilate with a special bonus.  Pick one of your opponents troop, elite, or heavy infantry models that can be differentiated (not that third bolter SM from the left, but the melta pistol guy).  That guy gets a 3+ I save and if he gets killed the attacker loses a a KP, he's a spy for the attacker. 
Anyways, pretty uneventful.  No combat squadding but everyone gets within range and begins to splat robo-skeles.  His monolith goes down to a lucky psycannon shot from my inquisitor first turn, that's cool.  Otherwise, he eventually goes poof and warps home due to being below 75%. 

Game 3 - IG...ugh!  Tournament Campion kid...ugh!  This game sucked.  Basically he tabled my due to weight of fire.  He had 2 Russes, 3 chimeras and a hel hound with assorted troops.  The number of shots per turn he put out just killed me far faster than I could kill him.  Again the hammer/incinerator wielding interceptors were very valuable, but to no avail.  I couldn't save worth a crap and the psycannons were not worth more than a bolter this game.  I was only able to remove the hellhound and 2 chimeras, as well as some troops.

Overall some good lessons and good games.  More on that later.

Army of One Tournament

Ok after some time camping Army Style I'm back.

Today is the Army of One Tournament -
1111 pts, one unit for each force org chart (no more than 1 no less than 1) 4x4 tables.

here's the list I'm bringing
-Inquisitor in Termie Armor with hammer and psycannon
-10x GKSS w 7 halb & 2 psycannon
-10x purifiers w 4 psycannon and 5 halb
-10x interceptors with 2 x hammer, 2 incinerators and 4 halb
-Dread with 2x Twin link autocannon and psybolts.

Dread in the corner, Purifiers forward, GK behind with interceptors jumping straight into the mix for a heavy alpha strike if any of his troops are out in the open. 

lets get it on.

With luck I will remember to take some pics.

Battle reports incoming over the next couple of days.

Grand Master-Analysis

Looks like I'm in the mood to talk about units in the Grey Knight codex and my opinion on them.  So today I will talk about the most vexing unit in the 'dex.

The Mighty Grey Knight Grand Master.

Once upon a time he was a must for a GK army.  Now he's an expensive optional "if you need him" sort of guy.  This is what bothers me the most.  He damn expensive.  If you take a base model Gm its only 175 points. Which is expensive for a non-named HQ.

What you get is a very powerful stat line:
-6's in WS/BS
-3 wounds in termie armor and an Iron Halo.  Meaning a 2+/4+ save.

And some okay gear.  This by itself isn't anything to sneeze at.  With his special rule and psyker abilities he can be a great keystone unit to build an army around. Grand Strategy is a very versatile and useful power that can really vary how an army functions.  Depending on the scenario and your roll you can add special rules to units.  From 1-3 units can be given 1 rule each.  Need more killy?  Reroll 1s to wound.  Playing a CC army? Add in some counter attack USR.  Want a forward position?  Scout those Paladins.  And lastly (probably the most focused on use); do you need more scoring units?  The GM has you covered.

I personally have had success using the Scout USR to outflank with a set of Paladins.  Combining it with Psychic Communion you can better control when a reserve unit comes in to cause destruction.  Fun stuff.

Now lets look at the options-

• Melee Weapons first- Base load is a sword but I prefer the halberd to the sword (but that's for another post).  Giving him a staff is 35 pts which is too many even fr the 2+ I save in CC.
• Ranged Weapons- Storm Bolter for free, Incinerator for 5.  Not bad, but with a psycannon for an expensive 45 points he is utterly devastating.  BS of 6 gives a reroll, and the 5 points to Master Craft makes him nearly unable to miss.  It happens but it is hard to accomplish.  
• Grenades....all of them available.  Rad grenades please, blind grenades too if you have the points.  Brain mines and  psyko-stroke or melta bombs are all low on the cost/benefit list.  
• Servo-skulls?  yes please!  Easier deepstrike placement and keep the bad guys' infitrators further away during deployment...exellent.
• Orbital Relay?  This depends on your build strategy...if you buy this then there are no other upgrades needed as you will be parked the whole game.  If you want this I suggest looking at a tech marine in a bolstered ruin, or Karamozov.  This isn't my style but I may try it in a for fun game in the future.  The possibility of cooking multiple LeMann Russes with a Lance blast is awesome.
• Master Crafting or a level 2 upgrade can be useful.

Obviously this guy isn't for those "Army on a Budget" games.  As my preferred load out of  Psycannon, 2 skulls and Rad Grenades is 250 points.  Without Eternal Warrior a stray Lascannon can wipe him off the map, so always stick him into some protective wrap.  I prefer to run him with a termie or paladin squad with attached banner.  This gives him 5 attacks on the charge, with stacked Hammerhand for STR 6 power/force weapon on Init 6 he is a force of power.  Or just marching forward as an additional psycannon in the squad, he makes a great deterrent to keep the enemy from charging you.


Sadly at his cost level, he rarely sees action below 2k points.  

Incinerators!

Burn the heretics!

Incinerator Termies

Incinerators are the extra special flamer of the Inquisitorial sects of the Empire.  The new GK codex has them as Str 6 AP4 Template Assault Weapons.  We all know that template weapons ignore cover.  The old Daemonhunters Codex had the Incinerator as a Str 5 but ignored Invul saves also.  Which was great for Eldar psyker hunting, I was on the receiving end of that stick a few times.

Metal Incinerator with attempts at designating as a Purifier

Interceptor with Incinerator

These days though the "wounds nearly anything on 2+", "penetrates soft vehicles" qualities of STR 6 make this weapon just as fun. 

There are a few fun tactics that the unique capabilities of Grey Knights (interceptors in particular) makes for some excellent tactics not available to other armies.

I hope everyone knows about basic template/flamer placement tactics.  Things like using your own figures to alter the required placement to one side or the other to hit more than one target unit, tank shocking infantry to line them up for roasting.   These are not the tactics I am talking about.  

What I am talking about is using the Interceptor's shunt movement to gain prime broiling position from 30" away.   Being able to threaten any blob of troops from half way across the board can really alter how a game plays.  I have used the interceptors with a pair of them combat squadded out to be in a single set of 5 with the other 5 having a hammer or 2.  Using them this way you can spread the love out over a large area. 

Timing things correctly you may be able to-
1.  Open a transport, collecting the juicy bits inside in a small area
2.  Jump over on the following turn, while they huddle in the wreckage (pinned or using it as cover) and flambe them!
3.  Rinse and repeat.

The Dreadknigit's heavy incinerator has an even larger threat range with the 12-30" move plus up to 12" distance you can place the small end.  Which can be fun for shooting around corners at troops lined up on a wall for cover/concealment.  Sadly I have no pic of a Dreadknight as I have not had the coinage to rub together to get one.

Another trick I have used is in combination with a Libby with Teleport Homer and Summoning psychic power.  Call the incinerator armed troops to you from across the board and let the fun begin.  I find that summoning a Land Raider full of paladins kitted for assault with a pair of incinerators will wreck an opponents day.  I have to try this with a redeemer some day.

Anyways....its an extra strong flamer.  But can Vanilla marines really use it from 30" away?

Value of a unique weapon- the psycannon

The psycannon:  What is the value of this excellent weapon?

24" range Str 7 AP 4 Rending Assault 2/Heavy 4.  Basically a midfield can-opening super tool.

My old school metal PAGK with Psycannon

 

But the ultimate question is how many points is it worth?

The humble generic Grey Knight Strike Squad pays 10 pts for one, so do Purifiers and Interceptors.  Purgation squads pay double that at 20 pts each, but can take 4 in a squad 5 or more, while GKSS and Interceptors get 1 per 5 and Purifiers 2 per 5.  Normally you want to keep troops moving so you will be getting 2 shots per turn per psycannon. 

Now terminator armored folks get the relentless USR so end up doubling the rate of fire.  But do they pay for double the price?  Normal GK termies pay 25 per at 1 per 5 and Paladins pay 20 at 2 per 5.  Averaged out that is more than double.

Grand Master Greyen

 
So lets look at HQs-
Grand Masters pay a whopping 45 points!!  But maybe that's due to the BS of 6?  Nearly guaranteeing hits, especially if you Master-craft it.
Brother Captains (BS5) pay nearly as much, 40 points.
Ordo Malleus in Terminator Armor can get one for 15 points.

In the end is a psycannon worth the points?  Yes.  Every time.  No question about it.  I may take incinerators on my interceptors (despite higher cost) but that's due to the tank shock & shunt/jump shenanigans that are really fun.  It is also really fun to get a penetrating hit on a Rhino or other soft transport's rear armor with a flame template.  I'm digressing.  Psycannon's true power is in its kill rate and wide variety of uses.  It is the true Swiss army knife weapon of the GK codex.  A special weapon that can open AV 14 while mobile and in the hands of normal troops is pure gold.   At a relative/average cost of 1 shot per 5 points of investment it pays for itself every time.

Do I wish the old rules still applied?  Sometimes.  The 18 inch range assault 3 or 36 inch heavy 3 was very useful.  What else changed?  Used to ignore invul saves (I do miss this with the incinerators too).  But it got a str bump and now rends which is a good trade.  If you were lucky you could glance AV 12 before, now you can reliably penetrate it.

Hard to do a flame job on the new ones.

New question...Why did they change the look of them?  They look better in the old metal models in my opinion.

Intermission

Nothing to report this week, we were on vacation.

Callidus Assassin - reciever of the New 'Dex Nerf Bat Award

This is GW's pic of their Callidus.  I can't paint this good.

So, once upon a time the Callidus Assassin's Polymorphine looked like...
"Polymorphine: The Callidus Assassin is always placed in reserve, even in missions which do not normally use the Reserves rule. When she becomes available, she may be placed anywhere on the battlefield, and can move and fight normally in the turn she arrives."

Now she just deepstrikes to within 3" of her target with no scatter.  This greatly removes one of her biggest advantages....assaulting on the turn she hit the board.  The trade for what is effectively a bombing run against a unit upon hitting the table is nice but is it really worth it?

I ask this as I have the model, which I painted to be Deadpool-esque.  I used to love using her to foul the other payer's deployment with the "a Word in Your Ear" rule and then general harassment until she got shot off the board a turn or two later.  Great to draw off a unit or two from the opponent and or strike hard at a hard unit for a a couple of guaranteed dead enemy heavies.  The C'Tan sword with no saves and a high init often would be good for a clean kill on a HQ in base to base.  I have used her to great effect against many named characters, draining that 200pt HQ down a few notches and maybe even killing him.

But these days, she is at best a speed bump.  She drops in, splatters a few dudes with her grenade, hits them with the shredder (which is still awesome) and stands there to get swatted.  145 points for a one use model is too much.  It is possible to infiltrate and move her in on foot, shredding and then assaulting.  But this trades for the polymorphine bomb.

Is it really worth it?  I do not think so.

So I award her with a Nerf Bat.  Only to be used in games where I have no reason not to throw 145 points at the wind.

Battle Report - 3000pts GK vs. SM (dressed as Dark Angels) - part 2

At the top of this pic we see the building my termie blob is getting shot out of, the purifiers cadillac (with an extra marker for smoke).  in the bottom we see my GM and one of my dreads in a building they are using for cover at the opening of turn 2.  The right edge of the pic is effectively the right board edge.


2nd half of Turn 2-
Thrawn gets up, but fails at doing much else.  He ends up just hanging out in the building for the rest of the game as I forget about him in turn 3 and Turn 4 he's too far away to do anything.  My Deadpool themed Callidus and her nerf bat come in on the left to harass and slow down that side.  She drops the polymorphine and neural disruptor on a tact squad killing about half.  Then due to the new codex....sits there to die.  My Raider moves forward and drops off the paladins, but is otherwise largely ineffective.  The paladins get out in the center of the table and flame the building 2 of his tactical squads are holed up in, then assault into it, wiping one squad and consolidating into cover.  Termies move forward without any motivation due to difficult terrain and buildings.

Turn 3 - We have his 2 termie blobs moving forward firing on my paladins to little effect, wound allocation shennigans with FNP really make these guys survivable.  His disarmed ven dread moves to meet his Master of the Forge for some fixing (which doesn't end up working anyways).  His LR backs up and eradicates my Assassin and fires melta ineffectually at my Raider.    His tact squad and command group fire into my termies but Shrouding and cover save the day there.

Here we see his 2 termie blobs about to assault my paladins.  His las cannon squad in its vantage point.  Before the assault I had lost no paladins.

After the assault I lost 1 paladin and he lost 2 termies and failed leadership on both sets of termies...funny stuff there....20 vs. 6 and 6 win by sheer luck of leadership rolls.  I think he rolled 11 both times for them.

Here is the left side - My assassin about to be eaten by massed bolter fire.  From the LR and the tactical squad.  He meltas my LR wrecking it.

My turn 3 is fun.  Both of my GKSS squads come in one on the left and one on the right, both hit on target and end up being simple speed bumps.  The Libby and termie advance out of the building to get into it with his command and tact squad on the right top.  Paladins move to get into it with his las cannon squad.  Purifiers get out of their metal box to mix it up with his termie blob to the top center.

Deepstriking 10 GKSS isn't the best plan, should have known better but oh well they did fine.

Shooting goes well for most.  Purifiers end up being unable to do much to the termies.  GKSS whittle away at their respective targets.  Paladins flame and assault the las cannon squad reducing them to 3 remaining but are unable to route them (unlike the termies earlier - ironic).  Dreads and GM whittle his termies in the center and finish off his ven dread.

Turn 4 - the final turn
We almost don't even start this turn due to time but the shop was staying open late.  Its nice to have a good LGS now.  To the right you see his termies and tact squad remainders on the left.    The termies and tact squad will wipe away this GKSS set in a moment.

Just like they do on the other side.  But on the right side they have help from the command squad also.  On this side the funny part is that a single halberdier remains after shooting and he assaults him with his Master of the Forge, only the MoF though.  The lone halberdier kills the MoF on I6 with the power weapon then force weapon activates for the final wound.

Here you see the pain aimed at this last GKSS Blob.
Which wipes them.

In the assault on this side the paladins finish off his las cannon squad.













Sadly that is the last picture.  It is a near forlorn hope that has a little bit of silver lining as I have little left with which to challenge his termie blobs.  But! and it is a big butt, which I cannot deny (ha!). I do have a few tricks left.

Final segment of the game has a few moves left for me.  The GM and Dreads advance some for LoS and shooting.  Libby advances on his command squad and my paladins move out of the building to his larger/closer termie blob on the left.  Shooting see the incineration of his termies, softening them and the use of Warp Rift on his command squad.  Mighty Mighty warp rift and crap rolling on Stu's part.  All that remains of his command squad after shooting and the warp rift is a lone banner carrier, who passes leadership and recieves an assault.  The dreads and GM shoot up his termies on the center and do little.  Paladins multi-assault the termie blob and the hammer jumps on his Crusader.  His termies lose 2 and the LRC explodes gloriously.  Libby assaults and smashes the banner carrier.


He cedes the game as I have more kill points left and the bulk of his forces are at less than half.

All in all fun game.    Analysis later.

Battle Report - 3000pts GK vs. SM (dressed as Dark Angels) - part 1

Yesterday was a fun day.  First came a large game (talked about here) and then part 2 will be in the next post.

So my buddy Stu and I met up at the new LGS (new to me at least) which has a much better vibe and overall better general game store goodness.

Here's the problem, I forgot to bring batteries for my camera and also when I went to take pictures it was already into the first turn.  Cest la vie!  Out comes the phone and snaps happen.  Anyways, onto the lists.

I'm running nearly every model I own.  Which breaks down into the following...

GM w/psycannon & halb
Libby w/ Hammer (Shrouding, Sanctuary, MoT)
2x 10xGKSS w/ 2 psycannon, 7 halb
10x  termies w/ banner, 2 psycannon, halbs, & Thrawn
Calidus Assassin (more on her and her nerf bat later)
5x Purifiers w/ 2 incinerators in rhino
6x paladins with 3 halb, 3 swords, 2 incinerators, apothecary, and MC variety for wound allocation shennanigans
Land Raider (standard pattern) w/ multimelta and HK missile
2x Riflemen Dreads w/ psybolts
5x interceptor with hammer, incinerator

Stu is running and experimental Vanilla Marine set dressed as Dark Angels (he's in process of converting lots of ebay goodies to be dark angels)

Command Squad with chapter master, and retinue
Master of the Forge
4 10x tactical squads 2 with plasma cannons, 1 las gun, 1 heavy bolter, all with plasma pistols and melta
2 10x termie squads w/ 2 assault cannons each
Ven Dread with Assault cannon DCCW
Land Raider Crusader
2 Dreads with TL Las and DCCW

We set up on a standard 4x6 with 4 large 10-12"x14-18" busted buildings (one in each quadrant) and some other smaller bits of terrain.  Nice destroyed urban foot slog.  Sadly my pic of the terrain is jacked due to dead camera batteries.  But you can see the bits in the later pics.

Anyways we roll for mish and get spearhead:annihilation.  Works for both of us and he gets first turn.

He sets up with the las squad and heavy bolter in his building with a tactical squad and termie squad flanking it.  The command squad and LR go behind to the left and right respe3ctively.  The three dreads go up front on the front face of the building.

My deployment... reserve the 2 GKSS for deepstrike in later with GM assist. With no objectives and just kill points up, no worries about expending them for something more meaningful (bad plan but it works out in the end, you will see how later).  My GM goes up atirs in a window in my building for psycannon harassment of those dreads and whatever else wanders into mid field.  Dreads go into the pack corners away from him to save them from being shot at.  LR gets set up on the forward line with the paladins in it, l n the same side as his LR.  Termies w/ libby attached get Scout from GM an infil up into the building near his side.  Rhino w/ purifiers gets parked behind the building for cover.  Interceptors go in the building ready to jump out for first turn fun.

Turn 1... he moves forward and proceeds to shoot the crap out of my termies  and LR.  LR looses a las cannon sponson and is shaken.  Termies, despite 4+ cover and 2+/5+   lose 5 basic halberdiers (lame!), and of course Thrawn but are other wise okay.  Then its my turn...LR moves up to block his LR advance and bottle neck his mass of bodies for easier duck shooting.  Dreads advance to the corners of the building for cover saves and the Rhino shoots north pooping out smoke as she goes.  Shooting has the GM wrecking a Dread, another is exploded by a rifleman, and the Ven dread gets disarmed despite rerolls by my other dread (love the rifleman dreads as fire support!).   My termies move forward gettting the psycannons up to a shooting point and realatively do squat, Thrawn dissappoints by laying down on the job.

Here we see the Ven dread (old metal red one) center stage.  Sorry about the blur, I'm bad at photo snapping.  My LR in the bottom left and the corner of his on the left.












You can see my interceptors with their unlucky deepstrike scatter.   I tried to jump them into his building to lay the smack down on his clustered troops with the incinerator, but scattered 10" out directly into line of fire for his LR.  Speed bump here we come.





Turn 2 - He advances more, shooting a bunch at the LR and more death to the termies.  Speedbump wilts to Plasma and LR fire.  All that is left of the termie blob is the Libby a Psycannon wielder and a normal halberdier. 

---Hmm Real Life intrudes....more tomorrow--

3000 point game

So I have arranged for a big game this weekend.  Against a guy who I have played a few times.  He has Ork, IG and Deathwing armies all available to him.

Now the question to you all is what should I bring?  3k Eldar mixed list?  Pure GK fun?

What i am thinking is something like-

GK-
Grandmaster w/ psycannon & skulls (might try mordrak/draigo, or a orbital bombardment set-up instead)
Libby w/ hammer & 4 powers

10x blob of termies w thrawn and all fixing
2 5x blobs of GKSS

6 assault paladins inc apothecary w/ incinerators
2 10x purifiers

2 dual autcannon dreads w psybolts
land raider

interceptors as points allow
(I'd do a Storm raven if I had one  ...hehehe...  soon...)

Compared to the 10 tank hulls and 3 huge 'toons of IG that he fielded last time we did this, my army was small.   But I still won last time as he bottled himself on deployment, due to excessive bubble wrap.

 his Orks I have yet to face, but his Deathwing army was whittled down by fire and maneuver.  I was able to stay out of reach in that game due mostly to a large LOS blocking piece of terrain in the center that we orbited during the game.

Anyways look for pics nd battle report on Monday....probably.

Grim Death of an LGS

Hmmm... karma bites some days.

So the LGS I was griping about prior to this post is fixing their screw up...cool.  This makes me happy that the owner is doing the right thing.

BUT!  And its a huge one, he will be closing his doors very soon.  He cannot support the store with his customer base disappearing.  This is a common problem in my area as the largest population of people with semi-disposable income is military folk.  We military folk move around a bit and often wander off into the desert for periods of time longer than a month or twelve.  This can be really hard on local small businesses that rely on our money.  If we aren't there to spend they can't pay the rent.

So I am now heading toward a new LGS (new to me) that hosts a much better space and more solid community of gamers.  I know this as this as I have been there a few times (like a cheating lover).  One problem, its 45min to an hour away.  Which means that I will be reducing my game days to every other weekend for the most part.

So Karma from griping about a shop comes back to bite me.  Cest la vie.  I doubt any of my 4 regular visitor/readers are in the swamp with me but...meh.

Tournament List

Interesting Tournament on the horizon-


Here's the set-up, its call the Army of "One" Event.

1.  You need to fill a maximum and Minimum of One unit in each type of force org slot.  Meaning you have to have one and only one HQ, Troop, Elite, Heavy, and Fast Attack.  It breaks the rules a bit but makes you think a little more about what to take.

2.  You have 1111 points, yes, thats One thousand, one hundred eleven points to spend.

This makes things very interesting in the army building department.  I am intending to take Grey Knights but the idea of taking my Eldar did cross my mind.

My first build is something like this-

HQ- Librarian w/ MC hammer and 4 powers (Sanctuary, MoT, Warp Rift & Shrouding) - 180 pts

Troop - 10x termies - all halberds - 495pts
-banner
-2 psycannon
-hammer

Elite - 5x purifiers (2x psycannon, 2 halb, 1 hammer)  -140pts

Heavy - Dread w 2x TL Autocannon w/ psybolts & searchlight 136pts

FA - 5x Interceptor (2x halb, 1 psycannon)

Concept of the build is to combat squat the Temies into a firebase and an assault set.  Attach Libby to the Assault set and push them forward with purifiers screening and providing fire power.  Dread and firing termies sit on an objective as necessary.  Interceptors move to distract and or contest.

List idea #2
HQ - Grand Master w/ Halb, Psycannon, Rad grenades

Troops - 10 PAGK w 7 halb, 2 psycannon, Rhino w/ searchlight (gotta do something w/ that last point)

Elite-  10x Purifiers 4 psycannon, 5 halb

FA - 5x Interceptor (2x halb, 1 incinerator)

Heavy - Dread w 2x TL Autocannon w/ psybolts 135pts

Grand Strategy to make thing scoring or otherwise depending on mission objectives.  This list puts 5 more bodies on the table but at the cost of 2+/5+ to 3+/-.  It also adds 2 more psycannons and an incinerator for fun.

What to do....maybe a paladin build?

Pics of my GK

Alright I finally broke out the old camera and attempted to take some pics of my nearly completely painted GK army.

Hopefully the images worked out well enough.

No worries, I will still envy most of you all and your mighty brush skillz that I am missing.

Rhino and some interceptors

Land Raider 

How to fix a failed campaign...

So here's the scenario (one I am currently stuck in)...

The club/shop has planned a long term campaign with prize support for the winner.  Entry fees are paid and rules etc have been published to the participants.   But....and it is a whopper of a but...the organizer drops off the face of the earth in week 4 of a possibly 10 week long campaign.  No one else was keeping score, no one has access to the last 4 weeks of scoring.

    So the shop owner picks up the slack and tries to reset/restart the campaign.  Problem- he doesn't know the old scores and doesn't know how to keep score for 40k any ways.  Can't tell the difference between Kill Points and Victory Points. 

The question here is...is the campaign savable?

The answer on many of our lips is No.

How do we recoup our entry fee and possibly get some prizes too?   We hold a closed tournament.  Closed as all of the participants already have paid and are all chomping at the bit because of the whopping $35 entry fee.  That's nearly $500 worth of possible prize support, not including the store's included prize support.

With a small shop, only able to put up a maximum of 5 (maybe 6 tables) and some of the players in the campaign only able to field 1500 points this becomes another problem.  I can field 3500 points worth of GK, do I want to field that many in a tournament? No but 2K is nice to play for me, I like how the army works at 2k. 

How do we make it fair and even for everyone? 

We have 14 players, ages and experience vary widely.  From late middle age to a 12 year old, from long time players to guys who own little more than 1400 points of 2 battle forces and some small stuff who is still learning what the lingo is. 

Tournament is the only answer, but punishing those with small model counts is bad form.  Do we make it a speed tournament (1250pts with a 1.5 hour time limit)?  Or do we make it a 2k/1500 tournament, everyone brings a list for 2k but keeps a 1500 list for back up to play the low model count new guys?  But then how about scoring?  Keep the Massacre/Major Victory/Minor Victory/Draw/Loss scoring set?  Possible bonus points for secondary objectives?  I dunno.

These are the things that plague me today.

IHOP- Thanks

Thanks to Dethron over at IHOP----->(those guys with the link there)---->
for allowing humble little me to join in the reindeer games.

Unit Identification- Paint vs Basing

Okay, Here is the question on my mind today..."How do I differentiate Purifiers from regular GK strike squad models?"  Interceptors are easy, they have a different back pack.  By GW standards Purifiers have white helmets and shoulderpads.  But I am not the best painter in the world and white simply defeats me when it boils down to it.  My vehicles with white sections look like I spilled white shit on them and honestly so do my attempts at making white helmets.  You really need to have steadier hands and painting skills than I have.

I have mostly painted all of my GK models to the norm in the books and based on the old metal model way of black base-->silver/gun metal-->blue wash -->details  for my models.  The purity seals and ribbons are gold with red ribbons instead of the bone white scripture, the blades of my nemesis weapons are black with white scribbles (my attempts at lightning, which may get a make over soon as I saw a good wash over white make nifty looking lightning...forget where, I'll find it and link it).

Anyways...my hamfisted paint attempts do not allow much for differentiation by unit type.  I am trying to decide if basing the purifiers differently is enough of a distinction, or if I should get more in depth.  i am thinking of black washing them to nearly all black models while leaving the helmets silver may be a way to go.  Old school circa 2nd ed style.  But do I go that route for my purifiers or my regular GK models?  Everyone has halberds, with the exception of Justicars who have swords and one model has a hammer.

Since I am lazy, how do I go about this?  Do I just wash some models in black?  Or strip down and start over?  Possibly just go through and repaint some areas black?  Maybe something else.  I dunno.  I tried the white helmet and shoulder pad thing and the models look like crap.  The bulk of my army was painted before there was such a thing as Purifiers.  Only the new plastics have been painted up as purifiers.

I'll get some pics up soon enough.

-greyen

Battle Report - -1250 GK vs. Nids

So this weekend, in an effort to get a game in, I motored down to my LGS (see previous post) and was able to squeeze in a small 1250 pt game against a new 'Nids player.

I ran my 1250 list from the Escalation tournament, he ran something like the list below.
2 Primes
4 warriors
20 termagaunts
20 hormagaunts
and a bunch of genestealers (15 I think)

anyways, it was a wash.  Now we had a good time but wiping the floor with his army list would have been more productive.  In the end we talked about using 'nids against GK and what not.  But it seems that he was not the only one losing their insectile Hive-ass to GKs recently.  See Fritz's Game 2 for his lamentations.  Not saying anything about Fritz here , as I learned more about playing Eldar from reading his stuff than I did nearly anywhere else, with the exception of playing one game against "The Major" at a great shop Gamer's Hdeout in Missouri.  Which sadly is a 15 hour drive away now.

Anyways, I spent more time teaching this guy how to use and abuse his army than we did rolling dice.  I guess that's another frustration of a new/small LGS.  Most of the guys there are new players, I'm tired of teaching rules to the enemy as I play, or spending time afterward explaining things that they should know about the basic ruleset.

-Greyen

Responsibilities - a Rant

So, as has been pointed out before by Duke at BoLS, there is a social contract between gamers and shop owners.

And I really am beginning to lose faith in my LGS.  This guy is really beginning to violate his part.  Already he has short hours 10-3 on SATURDAY!? Closed on Sunday-Monday.  I can see 10-3 on Sunday and closed on Monday (that's pretty normal store hours anyways for most small mercantile businesses) by 10-3 on Saturday!?  Really!?  Saturday is the only day that many gamers who do have normal jobs and lives can even think to get out and abut without other prior responsibilities stopping them from happening (married with kids here so I speak from experience).  But in the middle of the day and only for short hours.  Urg.  I understand his motivation, he still works another part time job teaching a college class or two and has a passel of rugrats to corral and usher around, wanting the weekend to be family time is cool, I get it.  But - Why on earth open a small business if you do not want it to be successful?

Here is the list of my complaints - If you are local to me you will know.
1. Quit changing your hours at short notice.  I really dislike waiting an hour since I plan to get to your shop on Saturday morning when it opens so I can get in a full 2500 point game in the few short hours you are open.  And altering your hours from 11-4 to 10-4 to 10-3 to 12-5 to 1030-2 week to week really is beginning to bother me.  Especially as there is little notice beforehand beyond when I am about to enter your ship ans see the open light is not actively flashing.

2.  If you intend to go camping on a Saturday and want to close the shop early, that's cool.  Just please notify me.  You have my email and phone number as well as the fact that you saw me earlier in the week to pick up some stuff I ordered.  I dislike leaving my house to go to a game store that is going to be open for a total of 2 hours.  For that matter Why did you even open the store in he first place?

3. If you intend to run a long term campaign in  your shop, one that involves 15+ players, and charge $35 to be a part of the campaign....please decide on prize support and winner tracking/scoring rules etc before it begins.  Especially don't change or drop the ball every week for the first 5 weeks.  I mean really.  At this point I want my money back, or free entry into a elimination or scored tournament with at least $200 in prize money for first place.

This is nearly your last chance Mr. Shop-Owner, you are a cool guy but I want a place to game.  I'd rather not drive out an hour each way to game but if that is a more reliable option that your currently sorry-sad-face shop, I will.

-Greyen

Balancing Act - Form, Fluff, and Function

List building.  Something that is on many minds, be it Stelek over on YTTH, or any number of others.  This is a skill that take time and experience to hone to a fine edge.  To me there are three things that go into list building.

Form- First and foremost is the basic limit of "What models do I have?"  You really cannot build a playable army of Tyranids if all you own is Legos.  Yes, I know that "stand-in" "counts-as" armies exist, but for those to be playable you need to either be play-testing, or someone like Dan over at teninchtemplate (his stuff is awesome).  If you only own 1 rhino then running a list with 3 in it isn't that viable, is it?  Some folks can go out and drop a paycheck to build anything they damn well please, but in reality most of us have to build our armies piece by part by little dude.  So keep in mind when you are making your list just what is available in your box of guys.

Fluff - Oh the bane of WAAC and troublemaker for internet lists everywhere.  Some consider this to be a pointless apect of the game.  I myself have read ZERO of the novels and find most of the fluff in the codexes to be crap.   Others say that this is an all important aspect of the game and thye bend their army to fit fluff standards (Eldar players...I'm talking to you Mr. Lyanden).  Whether this makes your list better or not is largely in the mind of the player, as I have seen and played fluffy lists that steamrolled my littlle army. 

Function-  This is where some hot debate on the internet lives.  Is it an "Ard Boyz Take All Comers 2500 point" tournament list or a 500 point Kill Team/Recon Force list?  Is it tuned to kill Bob at the shop's list of Thunderwolf Cavalry spam?   Whatever you need to do you can do in 40k, you can accomplish with the right list build.  But "can it do ______?" is the ultimate question, be is against MEQ or not, Nidzilla or otherwise.  My personal preference is a blanaced list that is flexible but not overly spammy.  I like to play 2 dreads with twin-link autocannons and psybolts, not "I-Net Lord GrayKniggit"'s ever vaunted trio.  Why?  Because I like that last slot open, for further experimentation.   Possibly slotting in the Land Raider, in whatever configuration, for the mobile bunker and bullet sponge, or even shoe horning in a purgation squad to get a scout move for easy set up from a GM.  Also I only own two sets of rifleman dread arms, and I prefer to play WYSIWYG as much as possible. 

But over all I don’t want to be “that guy with the purifier spam list” who no one wants to play at the local shop.  Already most of the guys don’t want to play my GK even if I was playing them before they even picked up a single box of figures.   Why?  Because everyone sees the GK right now and shit themselves with fear.  Yes, the new GK ‘dex has subtly rewritten some ground level meta concepts of the 40k ideals of list building and play.  No they do not warrant any more fear than any other army.  A stupid general playing the most bad-ass Space Puppy list of uber –Interwebs-pwning action will still lose to a relatively intelligent Eldar player who is able to rub a couple brain cells together.  Trust me.  I was a new player, albeit a smart one thanks, playing Eldar.  An average of 4 of the 7 regular players who frequented the shop that I played at were Space Solves players.  And the one that annoyed everyone, was most often there and hunting for a game when I walked in.  He annoyed everyone because he would download and play the latest net lists and get kicked square in the balls with it every-fooking-time.  Even by an inexperienced Foot-dar player like me.  Yes, my list had some internet built into it but not truck loads.  For crying out loud the first “new” models I bought were Swooping Hawks (the most useless little dudes in the game!), they played 2 games before hitting ebay.   But even then I did thing my own way and killed him 5 out of 6 times (it is foot-dar, you can only get so much out of them some days).    That one win on his part?  Thunderwolf cavalry spam fresh from some big tournament winner’s list.  Did it eat my guys?  Yes?  Why?  2 reasons really, he had awesome luck with the psychic hood on Nyjal that day, and overconfidence on my part.  Did I throw away the game and “lose”?  No, he won fair and square. 

In the end my point is no matter how hard you build a list or how fluffy, it will take some skill to use it effectively.  I am a big proponent of a thinking general who plays to win, but understands the most important rule.  It is a game, Have fun.

-Greyen