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Tournament: Battleforge Games 5-10-08

2008-05-11T22:01:00.007-06:00

It was time again for another 'eavy tournament up at Battleforge this weekend. Something like 12-14 people showed up with all the cheese they could carry; big bugs, mceldar, double lash chaos, and triple monolith necrons were all in full rapelicious effect. I waded into them with my inquisitorial army, earned a single win and went back home to the drawing board. Third exorcist here I come. The retributors will be broken down to make a third sister squad. I'm also ditching the Callidus for good. Maybe I just don't use her right but she never seems to last past a single round of combat, c'tan tech or no. Last month somebody requested more pictures of the other armies in battle, so here's a few:

Jhag's Mechanized Guard

Sean's Tyranids vs. Travis's Orks

Robert's Chaos

Thomas's Chaos

Frank's Ultramarines vs. Aventine's Eldar

Game 1 - Necrons

Primary Objective: Victory points
Secondary Objective: Destroy an enemy vehicle or monstrous creature
Tertiary Objective: Kill an enemy independent character
Bonus Point: Have a friendly unit in your deployment zone

I drew Jay's triple 'lith list for the first round. I destroyed all of the immortals and two of the monoliths but the bulk of the force made it close enough to my lines to bring the megagauss storm to bear. I accomplished the secondary objective, Jay got the first and second objective, and we both earned a bonus point.

Game 2 - Chaos

Primary Mission: Table quarters
Secondary Mission: Victory Points
Tertiary Mission: Have fewer scoring units than your opponent at the end of the game
Bonus Points: Have a unit in the enemy deployment zone

After like a year or two of missing each other at plenty of tournaments, Thomas and I finally faced off. For this tournament he was fielding two flying demon princes with lash, two noise marines in rhinos, a thousand sons squad in a rhino, a berzerker squad in a land raider, and two obliterators. He got first turn and moved up with his transports and demon princes. One fried himself a wound right off the bat with a failed perils test, and the other couldn't see to lash anyone. I wrecked all three of his rhinos through their smoke launchers, killed several passengers, and pinned them all. He managed to lash and assault a guard and retributor squad but all my heavy weapon fire wiped out one of his units after another and he conceded. I achieved the primary and secondary missions, with a bonus point, and he got the tertiary objective.

Game 3 - Chaos

Primary Mission: Victory points
Secondary Mission: Table quarters
Tertiary Mission: Get a selected friendly unit into the enemy deployment zone
Bonus Point: Don't Remember

Robert definitely made up for our last game and totally wrecked my shit with his two walking lash sorcerers, 32 thousand sons, and nine obliterators. I might have done a bit better by first placing a sacrificial unit near the table center (in order to push his forces back 18") and deploy the rest far back in my own hidey hole. As it was he was able to start lashing me right off the bat and plasma and inferno bolts ate me up a squad at a time. I conceded sometime in the fourth round.

Slightly Unnerfing

2008-04-25T20:31:00.022-06:00

Maybe I'm leaving some detail out of my calculations, but it appears to me that if the rumored vehicle damage rules come true, it will actually be harder to damage eldar skimmers with holo-fields and spirit stones than in 4th edition.

In 4th edition, for a BS4 unit to do anything more than shake a vyper/falcon with holos and stones it takes, on average:

~~21/n bolter shots~~

~~(95%/n to shake or less)~~

~~10/n heavy bolter shots~~

~~(89%/n to shake or less)~~

~~4/10 plasma or autocannon shots~~

~~(74%/90% to shake or less)~~

~~4/6 krak missiles~~

~~(67%/82% to shake or less)~~

~~3/4 lascannon shots~~

~~(60%/74% to shake or less)~~

21/n bolter shots

11/n heavy bolter shots

6/25 plasma or autocannon shots

94%

5/14 krak missiles/6-12" melta/exorcist launcher shots

92%

4/10 lascannon/0-6" melta shots

89%

Notice those are shots, not hits. If the rumored 5th edition vehicle damage table is accurate, to do anything more than shake the same vehicles it will take the same unit, on average:

55/n bolter shots

15/n heavy bolter shots

6/25 plasma or autocannon shots

96%

5/14 krak missiles

93%

4/10 lascannon shots

89%

3/6 7-12" melta/exorcist launcher shots

81%

3/4 0-6" melta shots

71%

This assumes they moved 12", meaning they got the rumored "5+ cover save" for moving fast and were able to shoot at least one major weapon. Vypers will be only slightly more resistant to major damage from the higher strength weapons, but otherwise it looks like both vehicles are like doubly hard to bring down! Someone please prove my math wrong!

Besides the obvious boost to falcons as transport options, I predict fire prisms will start to pop up in more eldar armies, with sets of three being especially powerful. Other than close range weapons like fusion guns, singing spears, or haywires/meltabombs, it'll be the best gun to take down monoliths and land raiders that the eldar have at their disposal. At best they'll be glancing and doing no more than immobilizing them with S8. I expect both of those AV14 monsters to become more popular as well. I would bet that the Ravenwing flying land raider will be tougher, too.

edit: Thanks to Jim for pointing out my error in my 4th edition calculations. I was including the possibility of using the penetrating damage table, when only glancing is possible in 4th against SMF! I knew the rule but copy/pasting must have got the better of me. I put the corrected versions up. So basically lower strength guns will have a bit harder time, with Vypers obviously benefitting the most from this, but high strength guns will have the same odds or better. Good to know. I tried to reorganize the data a bit below. I also calculated meltagun and exorcist launcher odds. Those get much better at bringing down SS/HF skimmers in 5th.

To do more than shake a SS/HF vyper in 4th edition vs. 5th edition, it takes a BS4 unit:

21 vs. 55 bolter shots

11 vs. 15 heavy bolter shots

6 vs. 6 plasma gun/autocannon shots

5 vs. 5 krak missile launcher shots

5 vs. 3 7-12" meltagun/exorcist launcher shots

3 vs. 4 0-6" meltagun shots

4 vs. 4 lascannon shots

To do more than shake a SS/HF prism or falcon in 4th edition vs. 5th edition, it takes a BS4 unit:

19 vs. 25 plasma gun/autocannon shots

13 vs. 14 krak missile launcher shots

13 vs. 6 7-12" meltagun/exorcist launcher shots

7 vs. 4 0-6" meltagun shots

10 vs. 10 lascannon shots

Tarots and Peas

2008-04-23T23:29:00.005-06:00

I'm bringing a new character on board my never ending inquisitorial soul train, next stop, purgation station, get your palms read for a paltry pittance, your blasted warp beasts banished for a buck: a daemon hunter inquisitor with emperor's tarot. I had the perfect model sitting in front of me the whole time, but I was thinking I was going to use him as an acolyte instead. Nah. I'd rather get a leg up on first turn. Plus he can hang out and still get love from the chirurgeons (don't tell him he's just an ablative wound after 1st turn). I still added another acolyte to the witch hunter's retinue, gave the seraphim VSS an eviscerator, and switched over to the callidus assassin. Pick side, go first, word in your ear. Not a bad 2k army I think.

Cannoness
blessed weapon
inferno pistol
mantle of Ophelia
cloak of St. Aspira
jump pack
book of St. Lucius
frag grenades

Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor Lord
liber heresius
psychic hood
carapace armor
2 chirurgeons
2 acolytes
carapace armor
3 gun servitors
3 heavy bolters

ELITES

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor
emperor's tarot

Callidus Assassin

3 Death Cult Assassins

TROOPS

10 Sisters of Battle
meltagun, storm bolter
vet. sister superior
book of St. Lucius

10 Sisters of Battle
meltagun, storm bolter
vet. sister superior
book of St. Lucius

Infantry Platoon
Command Squad
Junior officer
bolter
2 plasma guns
lascannon team
Infantry Squad 1
plasma gun
lascannon team
Infantry Squad 2
plasma gun
lascannon team
Infantry Squad 3
plasma gun
lascannon team

FAST ATTACK

8 Seraphim
2 hand flamers
vet. sister superior
eviscerator

HEAVY SUPPORT

Exorcist
extra armor
smoke launchers

Exorcist
extra armor
smoke launchers

10 Retributors
4 heavy bolters
vet. sister superior
book of St. Lucius

Will Wolves Be Pretty

2008-04-22T06:34:00.005-06:00

Some new rumors about the wolves codex update found their way through warseer to BOLS last week. Taken together with the rumored 5th edition rule updates, they have significant implications for my own wolves army. But you don’t have to take my word for it.

Reading Rainbow sound

Running seems to be the biggest rules change of all, but I think it will affect the game in so many different ways it’s hard to consider all the implications without repeated playtesting. It would be useful for the grey hunters or blood claws to keep up forward movement behind cover of the Rhinos once the smoke launchers have been used up.

In the rumored ruleset that I’ve seen, locked models (those outside of 2” from a model in BTB) can still be hit by attacks, even if engaged models are removed before their initiative step. My wolves’ powerfists will still get to attack as long as they were close enough to be engaged at the beginning of the phase, even if noone’s in BTB anymore by the time they get to swing. However, they’ll only get a single attack if charged, two attacks max on the charge themselves. That’s a bummer, but hey, they’re still power fists and counter-attack should make sure they’re always in place to contribute to the fight.

Reduced power fist attacks and blood claws getting furious charge could send at least one if not both of my two blood claw fisters over to a power weapon to simulate a frost blade on the charge. It might even be better to run an IC with them armed with a power fist. Sure, you lose the I5 benefit of a character, but it’s the only way you’re gonna a decent number of power fist attacks anymore, and at WS 5, that means more will hit, too. Of course, the rumor is that the claws’ squad size will be set at a minimum of 10, so an IC won’t be able to ridealong in a rhino if that does indeed come to pass. Some slight shifting will be inevitable. Now, if I’m able to equip characters or wolf guard with double powerfists, then things will really be cooking. Surely Magnar isn’t the only ambidextrous marine in the galaxy.

You no longer have to have a model in BTB to perform a sweeping advance. And now every consolidate is a massacre.

Grenades will work only if the majority of models have them – that means I’ll have to split my HQs from my hunter squads when they assault so they count as two separate units assaulting in order for the ICs to strike simultaneously. That’s assuming I’ll still want to run HQ choices on foot joined up with hunter squads.

Grey hunters will supposedly be equipped with a bolter, a bolt pistol and chainsword, a la chaos marines. It’s a fucking great replacement for true grit if true. This will go a long way to bringing wolves up to speed.

There does not appear to be any morale test modifiers for being outnumbered in CC, only -1 for being below 50% and -1 for every wound by which your unit lost the combat. So either they’re going to have to ditch the “against all odds” special rule from the wolves codex completely, or replace it with something else, maybe something negating one or both of the other two modifiers (the latter would be the better choice).

No WS5/BS5 venerable dreadnought? Yeesh. At least give them WS5 for chrissakes. I thought we were talking about the oldest, most seasoned dreadnoughts in the imperium. If Baal dreadnoughts can have furious charge, then it should be no problem giving wolves WS5 dreads. If they do bring Bjorn back with WS5 and maybe a couple of other cool abilities, I will most likely use him. That being said, I am very much not in love with all these special “named” characters being required (and therefore almost always taken) in order to access decent units or army special rules. It sort of “dates” an army and takes away from the imaginative part of the game. How are you supposed to flesh out a story for a game in your mind when you’re paired against someone fielding the same character? Not to mention many of them are broken as fuck, e.g. Shrike, Eldrad, etc.

I’ve heard rumors about squads of wulfen led by Wolf Priests, like the wolves version of the death company. And yes, I will field this if given the chance. Where wolves? Right behind you.

Long Fangs will remain the same but maybe getting the pistol/ccw/main weapon treatment as well. Whatever, I probably won’t use them anyways. I think they should get tank hunters too, now that it might be included as a USR, and maybe stealth too, while they’re at it. Not for being stealthy as much as able to take advantage of cover well.

Wolf Scouts from any table edge, oh my. Definitely needed to bring them in line with Boss Snikrot. Hopefully I can still give them the same weapon loadout and wolf guard sergeant, but I’m not holding my breath.

If the rumored mission types hold and I don’t make too many major changes to my current list, I should be pretty set as far as troops go with three solid 10-man wolves units able to secure and control objectives on those missions that use them. I think I like the idea of victory points only being used in a draw, but I’m not 100% sure how that will play out. One thing that’s confusing from the rumored ruleset I’ve seen is deployment order. Unless I read it wrong, players take turns deploying their whole force all at once for every deployment type other than dawn of war. I can see how this would definitely balance out the choice of deployment zone (and accompanying cover) versus the benefit of knowing where your opponent is deployed. I thought it was rather clever of them to make the long table edge deployment zones start 12” from the center line rather than from the edge. I’ve played several games where units that should have started 24” away from each other were too close to one another.

Seeing as how I like to use transports for all my infantry (which may change if I can put jump packs on the blood claws more easily and effectively), I’m paying close attention to the rumored changes in vehicle damage and the effects on passengers. One thing I noticed was that dedicated transports appear to double the value of a unit in the annihilation scenarios, regardless of their usually small relative point cost. Smoke launchers appear to be even better; vehicles using them will get where they're going nearly invulnerable to explosions or being pinned. However, melta weapons pose a greater threat now in this department. And I like that you don't have to worry about those ridiculous 1" moves after assaulting a vehicle either. Altogether I'm very curious how it will all play out and it will be a long two months until July. It's perfect timing to shake things up a bit I think.

Battle Report: Space Wolves vs. Thousand Sons

2008-04-19T01:13:00.010-06:00

Hakr Varghoss and his crushing wave approached the castle ruins with a single battle tank across the valley covering the left flank. Scores of horribly stoic rubric marines were moving amidst the rubble now, driven onward by various mutated mystics and accompanied by a large contingent of tactical dreadnought marines, many of them bristling with heavy weapons. Hakr and his Sea Wolves had no real tactical mission on Kriegsmie save the outright extermination of the corrupted witches and their nightmarish charges. Death to the traitors! Death to the Thousand Sons, in the name of Russ!

As the Space Wolves rhinos approached the enemy line, the traitor terminators fired a volley of plasma beams, blowing apart their mounted storm bolters. In response, each rhino launched a series of smoke charges, obscuring their position as they shifted to the right in formation. The Land Speeders hovered over the wolves' battle group and opened fire with their multimeltas, one of them hitting their mark. To their left, the wolves battle tanks and attack bike squadron found targets amongst a far tower and began to fire on them.

As the wolves rhinos passed a section of ruined wall, they slowed to a halt, pulling up tight behind one another to give cover to their disembarking passengers. Grey Hunters and Blood Claws stepped onto the low grass behind their pack leaders. The rune priest's hunter pack emerged on the enemy side of their transport, opening fire on a nearby squad of rubric marines. A mixture of haste and animosity sent their deadliest shots astray, as only a single enemy marine fell from concentrated bolter fire. The rune priest himself emerged on the other side and began to chant, bringing an obscuring cloud of smoke from the ground to slowly enravel the his grey hunter squad. It was too late, however, as enchanted bolts from the rubric marines found every last grey hunter, each screaming impact a horrible reminder to the other wolves of the arcane power of their enemy. Corrupted terminators charged into the sides of their transports, pounding and cutting with assault weapons to no avail; the armor held, praise Russ! The rune priest sensed a disturbance nearby and quickly turned to his left to see a pair of mutated warp witches approach, one of them slithering unnaturally fast into a rubble heap next to Hakr Varghoss and his hunter pack. When the witch with wings raised his arms and prepared to curse Varghoss' squad, the rune priest fell to his knees into deep concentration, chanting even louder, the power of his wolf totem barely able to keep whatever magicks the traitor sorceror was using at bay. Before the battle leader could react, the multiple-breasted serpentine monstrosity pounced and felled Varghoss with one sweep of his demon weapon. Displaying little surprise at the sudden attack, the pack responded in trained unison, their power fists finding purchase and crushing the terrible thing into violet chunks.

On the other side of the battlefield, a space wolves drop pod descended to the planet's surface just behind the enemy line. Clouds of smoke obscured the enormous venerable dreadnought as he stepped from the rocket pod and prepared to fire. Heavy bolter fire from the battle tanks and bike pack dropped several rubric marines nearby as their attendant sorcerors turned their horrible magics on the shrouded dreadnought.

Despite the loss of their leader, the Sea Wolves prepared to counter-attack. They would need to close the distance between them and the enemy in order to avoid the deadly magical bolter fire now so thick in the air. As a land speeder flew overhead bathing the enemy in flame, the blood claws squad and the rune priest waded into the traitor terminators, destroying several of them and sending the enemy into disarray. In mere moments the confused survivors had been cut down and the victorious wolves stepped back behind their rhino to regroup. Meltagun fire from the surviving grey hunters and a second landspeeder cut down the last slaaneshi witch. In the distance, the venerable dreadnought smashed into a squad of rubric marines, killing several. An enormous warp construct slowly approached the melee, its arms already forming cutting torches and saws in anticipation, the dreadnought whirled and sent the beast flying with a single hit from its oversized claw. The tanks and bikes continued to fire into a squad of rubric marines that were now crossing the battlefield to assist in the fight against the grey hunters and blood claws. Suddenly a pack of wolf scouts emerged from cover behind a third unit of thousand sons and charged into them. Though their sorceror leader downed two of the scouts with his warp weapon, the scouts continued their ferocious assault and destroyed several rubric marines.

Most of the enemy witches had been destroyed, but the wolves continued their attack, desperate to destroy any trace of their ancient nemeses. The blood claws, grey hunters, and wolf scouts brought down the last rubric marine squad and sorceror, as the dreadnought continued to send enemies flying, including a unit of obliterators that teleported in nearby. The incursion on Kriegsmie had been stopped for now, and the Sea Wolves returned to their transports.

Thanks to Robert for bringing his beautiful army up to BFG for a fun 2k annihilation game Thursday night. He had some bad luck at several crucial moments, and the space wolves were able to grab and hold on as only they can, wiping out the thousand sons to the very last dusty zombie. I think they would have had a much harder time against his usual 'ard list, what with all the obliterators and lascannon havocs. Anyways, good game, it's always fun to send two fully painted armies against one another no matter the outcome.

Jetbag Assembled

2008-04-17T16:43:00.005-06:00

A few months of scattered attention, a couple tubes of krazy glue, and more than one xacto wound later, the jetbag has assembled itself. I still need to get two more vypers and put the headbands on the shining spears, but I'm primed to start priming the main warhost here in the next couple weeks. I can't glue much together yet, since I still want to be able to get under all the nosepieces and cockpit canopies. Given my penchant for starting sloppy I need a little room to work and clean up the details later. I'm also planning on swapping out all the big bases for medium sized ones on all the jetbikes.

Tournament: Battleforge Games 4-12-08

2008-04-14T21:46:00.004-06:00

There were 20 people up at the BFG hobby tournament on Saturday and a wide variety of armies, including necrons, eldar, tau, orks, nids, DIY and Ultra marines, both pre- and post-heresy thousand sons, and mechanized guard. There were three interesting missions that built upon each other and had each player pick a unit to be the “unsung heroes” that could earn points by surviving each game and accomplishing certain objectives. I took my current 2k wolves list, with one of my hunter units (the one with the big banner model, led by the battle leader) being my heroes:

Venerable Dreadnought – assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, smoke launchers
Drop Pod

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – bolt pistol, frost blade, wolf pelt, frag grenades

Rune Priest – frost blade, runic staff, wolf pelt, chooser of the slain, frag grenades

6 Wolf Scouts – 2 plasma pistols, meltagun, 2 power weapons, frag grenades
Wolf Guard Leader – bolt pistol, power fist, wolf tooth necklace

2 x 9 Grey Hunters – meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 6 bolters, 2 power fists
Rhino – extra armor, smoke launchers

9 Blood Claws – flamer, 2 power fists
Wolf Guard Leader – bolt pistol, power fist, wolf pelt, wolf tooth necklace

3 Attack Bikes - heavy bolters

2 x Land Speeder – multimelta, heavy flamer

2 x Predator Annihilator – heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor

I had a good start with full points in the first round but lost my other two games by large margins. Zach’s Mech IG won first place, Chris’ pre-heresy Thousand Sons won second, and Brad’s Orks won third place. I won best painted and grabbed yet another vyper for my Saim Hann.

Game 1 – Chaos Space Marines

Primary mission: Take and Hold (victory points)
Secondary mission: More units in your opponent’s DZ
Tertiary mission: More units in your own DZ
Bonus points: destroy all opponent’s HQs, have your unsung heroes survive the game

My first opponent was also named Mike, a real nice guy who was coming back to the hobby after a long hiatus. He had a mixed force, consisting of a jump pack tzeentch sorcerer, a tzeentch demon prince, a couple of large marine squads with a missile launcher or a lascannon, three chosen squads with four plasma guns each, a defiler, a vindicator, and a lascannon predator. He set them up in a line along his deployment edge, while I mostly butted my rhinos and fast attack units up behind the center terrain piece with my predators anchored on both ends. This was the only game where I was able to effectively set up the castle and concentrate tactic I’ve been working on with this army. The rhinos and terrain screened out the worst of his firepower while the infantry took cover and poured short range fire into anything that came near the center. The wolf scouts came in and disrupted several of his rear units. Late in the game, his sorcerer and demon prince jumped into a grey hunter squad, but were unable to inflict much damage and eventually fell to frost blade and power fist attacks. I accomplished all three objectives and got both bonus points.

Game 2 – Tau

Primary mission: Control the most terrain pieces
Secondary mission: Cleanse (victory points)
Tertiary mission: destroy the most enemy scoring units
Bonus points: have your unsung heroes survive, have your unsung heroes end in the enemy deployment zone, and destroy all opponents units that started the game on the field

Jorge was playing a well-mixed tau list with a battlesuit HQ, another two or three battlesuits, four or five fire warrior squads, a big kroot squad, a pathfinder squad, a stealth suit team, six vespids, a hammerhead, a broadside with shield drones, and two sniper drone teams. The mission also had the “escalation” rule in effect, so most of his army started on the board, while I only had my two characters on foot hiding terrified behind terrain waiting for the rest of my forces to arrive. My bikes, dreadnought, predators, scouts, grey hunters, and landspeeders all came in the second turn, but since they had to start at the table edges, they were unable to make much of a dent in anything but the kroot, and I slowly lost units to scalding fire from pulse rifles and railguns. I also wasted the scouts attacking a much cheaper fire warriors unit, who broke immediately and left them stranded in the middle of his formation to die quickly the next turn. The blood claws didn’t come in until the sixth turn and by then the game was pretty well decided. He accomplished all three objectives while I did none, although my unsung heroes did survive the game.

Game 3 – Space Marines

Primary mission: Seek and Destroy (victory points)
Secondary mission: Secure the artifact
Tertiary mission: Secure and Control
Bonus points: have your unsung heroes survive, have your unsung heroes control the artifact, kill your opponents unsung heroes

Brian was my third opponent, and he had his usual DIY marine chapter list with two jump HQs, two double-AC terminator squads, two small tac squads, two big assault marine squads, a dev squad with missile launchers and a lascannon, and a whirlwind. I went first, moving up my rhinos to form a wall in front of the artifact objective. The few early shots I took at one of his tac squads didn’t do much. On his turn, he wrecked both grey hunter rhinos with smoke and exploded the blood claws’ rhino (without smoke) hiding behind them. He also destroyed one of my predators. So for my second turn, all my squads were down three or four marines and pinned in place. We played a couple more turns but I honestly don’t remember what all happened, other than his assault squads inflicting heavy damage to my infantry and his terminators shredding everything else with their assault cannons. I was just too bold moving my vehicles right in front of his mass shooty bits, plus he was rolling very well while I was not. Basically it just got worse and worse until I gave up. Needless to say, he accomplished all three objectives while the wolves changed their diapers and headed back to the Fang.

Saim Hann Redux #527.2

2008-04-09T12:04:00.003-06:00

After their first 2000 point game last week against c2’s chaos, I want to playtest a new arrangement with my Saim Hann army that changes the warlocks to shining spears and the farseer to an autarch. In order to use the warlocks’ destructor ability, they really had to get in close, which meant getting assaulted by any decently fast unit, which in turn meant they went squish after maybe two turns. Even wounding on 2’s, they just couldn’t get the job done with only 1 girlyman attack each. The spears’ higher initiative and high strength power weapons might work out a little bit better, plus they’re even a little cheaper. Sure, the power weapon effect lasts only for the initial assault, but hell at least they can hit and run! I figure I have enough anti-tank and a decent amount of anti-horde, so I wanted to throw a different kind of threat in the mix. I think assaulting is more fitting to the wild rider theme than a farseer and warlocks anyway. The autarch can ride with the spears, buffing their leadership, adding attacks, and getting the hit and run ability in return. Or, if necessary, he can break off and melta something to slag.

I’m going to use my warlock models for shining spears, rip one of the arms off and replace it with the jetbike autarch’s right arm to make the exarch’s star lance. Then I’m going to take the farseer off his bike, mount a fusion gun under the canopy, and put the metal autarch on there with another dire avenger spear arm to represent his laser lance. Other than his singing spear, I wasn’t really digging my farseer model anyway; the flow from Eldrad’s body to the jetbiker arms and legs was sort of weenie looking. I’ll keep him around for later. I know the vypers are fragile and expensive, but I figure by adding stones, fields, and cannons to them, stunned and weapon destroyed results no longer have a drastic effect, so instead of 50% chance of them being destroyed or neutered for each glance, there’s only a 25% chance. Maybe later if I get a hold of two more of them, I’ll drop all the upgrades and go for higher numbers of main weapons instead. So, without further ado:

edit: I added in two more vypers, dropped all their holofields as well as the shuriken cannons from the ones with bright lances, changed the shining spears' exarch to have a normal laser lance and a shuriken cannon, and changed the wave serpent's scatter lasers to shuriken cannons.

Autarch – jetbike, mandiblasters, laser lance, fusion gun

5 x 3 Guardian Jetbikes – 1 shuriken cannon each

10 Dire Avengers – Exarch with twin avenger catapults and bladestorm
Wave Serpent – twin-linked shuriken cannon, shuriken cannon

3 Vypers – star cannons, shuriken cannons, spirit stones

3 Vypers – bright lances, spirit stones

4 Singing Spears – Exarch with shuriken cannon, skilled rider, and withdraw

3 Fire Prisms – holofields, spirit stones

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 4-06-08

2008-04-07T18:41:00.007-06:00

There were 11 of us up at DL on Sunday, including a couple of new younger faces I didn't recognize but mostly regulars. There was a great mix of armies present: Eldar, Ultramarines, Orks, Dark Angels, Demonhunters, Chaos, Tyranids, my own Witch Hunters, and maybe one more race I'm forgetting. A few were tightly tuned, others not as much. I had a great time and got to play three interesting games against cool people. I played pretty much the same army as last time, minus one guard infantry squad, the inquisitor and retinue, and all of my precious assassins. As it turned out, I didn't miss them all that much, since all three opponents were more about shooting than horde or assault. I had a strong terrain advantage for at least the first two games, as almost all the tables basically consisted of two rows of cover separated by a 20" no-man's land. Great for me, since I was usually able to set up with good lines of fire and screen my exorcists from anti-tank, but maybe a little boring. I slipped up and forgot to hit and run with the Seras at a crucial moment in the last game, but otherwise I was able to remember and apply the sisters' rules and tricksies fairly well. First place went to Nick and his Storm Reaver space marines, second place went to Brendan and his Dark Angels, and I took third place. I picked up a box of dire avengers that will round out my 2k Saim Hann army. More on that tomorrow.

Game 1 - Eldar - Seek and Destroy

I played against Marshall in the last DL tournament, and come to think of it we played annihilation that time, too. For this game he had an avatar, a couple 3-man jetbike squads, a squad of guardians in a wave serpent, 5 or 6 fire dragons, 5 or 6 rangers, 5 warp spiders, a vyper with a scatter laser, two kitted-out falcons with scatter lasers, and a wraithlord. I rolled to go first and immediately took down the wraithlord with the exorcists and lascannons, as well as a ranger or two with the retributors. I may have wounded the avatar once too. He advanced with his mobile elements, shooting up guard or sister squads with his skimmers and their passengers, but my return fire usually cut the attackers down quickly. I just tried to shake or stun the skimmers first in every shooting phase and put any remaining guns into his infantry, until the vyper and falcons were all he had left. The avatar wasn't able to get within shooting range before I fried him with lascannon fire. My exorcists did really well, thanks to me rolling at sixes for the missile count at least twice. I tried to advance the seraphim and canoness, stopping briefly to wipe out the warp spiders and fire dragons that had dropped in front of my gunline, but the seraphim had to make too many saves and actually had to regroup with the spirit of the emperor before hiding for the rest of the game. The canoness, however, made it all the way across the table to light into some jetbikes and wipe them out in close combat. Witch Hunters win, crushing victory.

Game 2 - Chaos Space Marines

I also played Brandon's chaos army at the last tournament. This time he had a cool-looking betentacled tzeentch demon prince, a deep-striking squad of 6 terminators, a dreadnought, two squads of 10 marines with rhino transports, three obliterators, and a defiler. We both set up our firing lines in hard cover, with the exception of his demon prince, who came flying over on my left flank towards one of my exorcists and a guard platoon command squad. He took three wounds along the way, and managed to destroy the exorcist's main (only) gun, but lascannons finished him off before he could do any more damage. A lucky break for me, as his wind of chaos and warptime would have probably rolled up my line. Slowly but surely I picked the rest of his forces off, destroying everything but the defiler and a few marines (IIRC). I had two units near the center, giving me enough points to win by a large margin. Witch Hunters win, victorious slaughter.

Game 3 - Dark Angels

Brendan had a dark angels force consisting of Belial and a bodyguard of terminators, the landspeeder master of the Ravenwing, a veteran squad in a rhino, three more assault cannon/multimelta landspeeders, two or three attack bikes, and a couple squads of bikers. We went into the third round playing at table 2, which had somewhat of an awkward set up for me. He more or less went for a refused flank with his fast units, though it was really the big piece of terrain in my right corner that allowed him to post up next to my forces with his speeders and attack bikes and avoid the rest of my shooters. It probably would have gone a lot worse for me but he was a little hesitant in the early turns and I was able to drop a few units piecemeal before he made his main attack. Once that happened, though, it was only a matter of time for the troops on my right side. He did pop an exorcist first turn, though my second one survived to do plenty of damage on its own as well as drive into his deployment zone for recon points. My seraphim traipsed up on my left side, falling back once only to regroup and continue the assault. Belial and a few assault terminators eventually wiped them out, but only after suffering significant losses themselves. It was a very interesting game, and together with the near-disaster in the second match, I really need to work on a way to prevent fast units from flanking me so hard. I have a few tactics I'm going to try the next time I use the coed gunline. The game ended in a draw.

For next Saturday's hobby tournament at BFG, however, it's going to be the Wolftime. Hopefully I can get them all painted by then.

Action Report: Space Wolves vs. Blood Angels 3-27-08

2008-03-29T08:14:00.012-06:00

Wolf Lord Hakr Varghoss peered through his oversized optics at the enemy formation on the far side of the enormous fabricum, his voice breaking the silence that had settled on the wooded hillside. "They have spotted our approach. The main group has turned to bear and is heading this way. Armor and infantry moving at full speed."

The black-robed inquisitor turned and glanced up briefly at the space marine looming next to him before squinting back into the distance. "It would appear Maika was unable to disable their sensors. Just as well. I already transmitted my complete judication, guilty of course. More than enough evidence of that, I should think. These subhuman blood drinkers must be purged of their despicable disease." Xocratos paused, choosing his next words carefully. "It would perhaps be advantageous," he paused again, "to now close the distance ourselves and disrupt their full attack."

The grey-haired giant continued to watch through his field glasses while he replied. "Your counsel is wise, Lord, but the moment must be chosen very carefully. This is an old game to us. We must meet their advance at the just at the precise moment that their inertium brings them falling right onto our swords. Their own madness will be their undoing."

I played a 2500 point cleanse game with Jay up at Battleforge on Thursday. He brought a big Blood Angel force composed of Lamartes, 3 venerable death company dreadnoughts in drop pods, a big death company, multiple 5-man assault squads, 2 squads of 2 land speeders with multimeltas/heavy bolters and assault cannons, and 3 baal predators. I took my latest 2000 wolves list but added an inquisitor lord (with my usual retinue), a callidus assassin, a vindicator, and upgraded the wolf guard battle leader to a lord with a belt of russ. I was trying to maximize pre-game trickery, though as it turned out none of it really had much of an effect besides being able to pick my own quarter. This was a really fun game though, as the space wolves moved up in rhinos to meet the brunt of a raging blood angels attack. I got first turn (without my dread's reroll) and zapped one of the baals right off the bat (ahem) with a landspeeder, and dropped a few assault marines as well with shooting. The blood angels responded by stunning both of my land speeders and one predator with mass assault cannons, then pounding on two of the rhinos with power fists, causing one of them to be evacuated. Very luckily for me, they weren't pinned on their way out. On my second turn, all my transported infantry were perfectly poised to counter-attack into the nearby enemy marines. Together with the inquisitor retinue and two of the tanks, the wolf lord's unit of grey hunters and the blood claws shot the blood company up good leaving only three survivors. The rune priest's squad wiped out one assault squad and segued into a second. The scouts arrived as well, and managed to knock off one a baal's assault cannon turret with their plasma pistols.

His next turn saw the arrival of all three of his venerable furioso dreadnoughts. One took on the wolf scouts, burning up three of them immediately, a second dropped behind my right predator and wrecked it with a flamer to the rear armor, and the third landed just behind my blood claws, next to my inquisitor and retinue. It was a devastating attack, but once again the space wolves were left in a good position to react. The scouts ran in shooting and managed to wreck the big lug in assault with the wolf guard's power fist. The blood claws also jumped in with the closest dreadnought but were unable to do more than stun him. When a second dreadnought jumped in and started pounding the blood claws with more attacks it was over. Lascannon shots from my surviving annihilator destroyed one of his last two baal predators, and my own venerable dreadnought arrived to put the kibosh on the other one with help from a land speeder. The grey hunters all moved back towards the middle and brought down the last blood angels land speeders with shooting and assault. After the dreadnoughts finished off the blood claws, they tore into my tanks, destroying both of them eventually. At the end of the game, I was contesting my own quarter while holding two or maybe three of the other quarters, depending on whether a last second furioso charge should have gone into a rhino rather than the wolf lord's grey hunter squad because of the thirst or whatever.

We didn't count up victory points, but it looked like I had won by a decent margin, still not a rout by any means. In any case, I was mainly interested in getting more experience with the core of the army. The game was more proof to me that my list now is the best it's ever been; whether or not it's actually all that competitive for tournament play is definitely up for debate. There's still a lot of army types I haven't played against with them and they're still coming from a very old codex.

Painting Space Wolves

2008-03-28T22:33:00.005-06:00

I wanted to change up a few units in my wolves army, which required me to scavenge a few different marine bodies and parts from my bitz. I figured I might as well document the process I use for painting these. I had a wolf scout, a wolf guard leader for the scouts, a wolf guard leader for the blood claws, a blood claw, and several grey hunters with plasma pistols and meltaguns. The blood claws' leader has a dark angel powerfist with the emblem filed down and a wolf tail added, and the wolf scouts' leader has a power armor upper body with a scout waist and legs.

First I go over the models with shadow grey, chaos black, boltgun metal, shining gold, sunburst yellow, bleached bone, bronzed flesh, and blood red. I'm not especially neat at this point, so most of the time I need to go back over things again and clean up the edges between colors.

The next stage is going back over with washes. Watered down brown ink for the gold and bone, flesh wash for the flesh, black ink for the metal, and extremely watered down blood red for the yellow. Again I usually have to go back over with some main colors, especially shadow grey, to clean things up before highlighting.

I mix up about 50:50 shadow grey:space wolves grey (SG:SWG)and go over all the armor except for the deeper recessed areas. Then I highlight edges and raised areas with 20:80 SG:SWG, then even thinner lines of about 5:95 SG:SWG. The skulls and things are drybrushed 5:95 black:bleached bone, then with bleached bone, then with white. The yellow eagles are highlighted back up to shining yellow from the red-stained yellow. The stained gold and metal areas are dry brushed up to their original color on the edges and raised areas. The faces are dry brushed with mixes of bronzed flesh and flesh wash, then highlighted with white and flesh. Eyebrows, bone, and some hair are highlighted with white.

There's still some work left to do with these guys; obviously the bases, as well as a few minor details. I also have four tanks and an attack bike to paint to get my latest 2k army up and running.

That Sound...

2008-03-26T22:42:00.005-06:00

It's either junebugs buzzing at my back door, or it's an incoming Saim Hann warhost. Either way, my dog will probably eat them if given the chance, and then sick them back up in the middle of the night. I picked up a third fire prism at the tournament saturday so I figured I should just finish up their assembly, including the wave serpent. I only had to pin one of the prism crystal arms to the plastic axle piece, but I'll probably have to go back in the future when the other two break and reinforce them too.

I also put the warlocks together. They came out pretty much like I planned. After the bitz program shut down at GW I gave up on the idea of obtaining shining spears control pads for them. First I hollowed out a bit into the guardian jetbike leg pieces with just the tip of a 3/8" drill bit, then used a pin vice to drill a small hole into the bottom of the new guardian body as well as into the hollowed out bit in the legs. I actually had to trim a muscle off of the guardian jetbike left arm in order to fit the more forward-fitting warlock body. I still have to replace the lower piece of the one guy's sword handle; I think it was an early candidate for my farseer's right arm, and I had trimmed it down for some reason. A ribbed paperclip piece might work, plus a little rune on the bottom or something.

All I need is 5 dire avengers, get them all primed, and I'm set for my first 2000 point game.

Farseer - runes of warding, singing spear, spirit stones, mind war, doom, jetbike

4 Warlocks - 3 singing spears, 2 destructors, 1 enhance, 1 embolden, jetbikes

5 x 3 Guardian Jetbikes - 1 shuriken cannon

10 Dire Avengers, Exarch with 2 shuriken catapults, bladestorm
Wave Serpent - twin-linked shuriken cannon, shuriken cannon, spirit stones

2 Vypers - 2 starcannons, spirit stones, holofields

2 x 1 Vyper - bright lance, spirit stones, holofields

3 Fireprisms - spirit stones, holofields

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 3-22-08

2008-03-23T16:27:00.009-06:00

The Scourge of Zugarramurdi did very well on Saturday at the 2000 pt tournament at Dragon's Lair. Not one, but two recalcitrant chapters of space marines, as well as a sinister Eldar warhost were all judged guilty of heresy and made to submit to righteous excoriation in His name. Not all of the prisoners survived their penitence. I came in second place out of 12 people and got to play three interesting games against friendly opponents. My witch hunters have served me well, creating entertaining games and reliably earning solid or crushing victories, helping me to fly below the radar and ease into second or third at several tournaments now.

Game 1 - Ultramarines - Secure and Control

Lundy had a nicely painted ultramarines force consisting mostly of min lasplas squads with an assault squad led by a chaplain, two melta squads in heavy bolter razorbacks, assault terminators led by a chaplain in a land raider crusader, and a couple standard dreadnoughts. We rolled for three loot counters and I got to place two of them in my own deployment zone. He hadn't played against Witch Hunters before, which might explain why he charged the crusader forward in the first turn towards the same flank as the exorcists. They promptly lit the big guy up like the fourth of July, exploding the tank, pinning the terms, and scattering flamey wreckage into the nearby marine squad. They all survived the flak but were later whittled down by the exorcists and guard lascannons. I had deployed the assassins behind the center piece of cover, and he sent the two razorback squads in after them. The eversor was melted before he could do a thing, but the death cultists wiped out one squad and killed four more marines in the second. The dreadnoughts strode forward out of cover, and though I brought one down fairly quickly with a missile barrage, the second one survived to the fifth and final turn and nearly claimed a second objective after his assault marines had pushed my forces off the hill in the middle of my deployment. My Canoness and Seraphim had valiantly counter-attacked and defended the position for as long as possible, but powerfists will be powerfists and eventually they were destroyed. Both of us ended up claiming a single objective but with the witch hunters ahead by 400 or so victory points. Witch Hunters win, solid victory.

Game 2 - Eldar - Seek and Destroy

Marshall was a nice guy playing with a mixed eldar force consisting of an avatar, farseer, 10 guardians and a scatter laser (?), 10 harlequins, 10 dire avengers in a wave serpent, 6 rangers, 6 fire dragons, 6 warp spiders, 2 falcons, and a wraithlord. I think it was his first game against a witch hunters list too. I actually thought I was doing much worse this entire game than I actually was. He managed to wipe out a few guard squads and seriously deplete the retributors with shooting from the falcons, wraithlord. The warp spiders and fire dragons both jumped at my front line and got vaporized after singe rounds of shooting. I let the harlequins and scorpions get to the closest edge of the center terrain piece before springing the canoness, assassins, and seraphim at them, completely wiping them out suffering minimal casualties in return. The canoness in particular performed very well, shrugging off the mightiest attacks with her 2+ invulnerable on innumerable occasions. I finally destroyed the blasted Wraithlord (!) after two or three rounds of heavy shooting, earned a ton of points back from my surviving forces, and won by a decent margin. Witch Hunters win, crushing victory.

Game 3 - Space Marines - Take and Hold

Brian, I kicked your ass in this game! Only kidding. I had several lucky breaks that saved me a lot of work and helped me to win in the long run. He was running a jump commander, jump chaplain, two large assault squads, two terminator squads with assault cannons, several small tac squads with missile launchers, and a small dev squad with missile launchers and a lascannon. I set up my guard across the field from his shooty squads, with the retributors and a sister squad nearby to help out with leadership. When the assault squad led by the chaplain and commander crossed the battlefield towards the center, the retributors killed just four of them with divine guidanced heavy bolter fire and they broke off the table... totally tragic. I set up the eversor on the right side of his deployment, but he got first turn and assaulted him with jump pack squad. Somehow he survived like 20 attacks including a powerfist and actually won combat. Unfortunately he wasn't so lucky in the subsequent turn and exploded on his attackers to no effect. His terminators moved up out of cover toward the middle and the exorcists shot the shit out of them. Unfortunately the assault cannon termies survived and the exorcist in the cover on my right was rended into early retirement. The death cultists jumped down and finished off one terminator squad, while the other climbed atop the building and were eventually destroyed by the canoness and seraphim. His missile batteries wiped out my entire left side minus the exorcist with a never-ending frag barrage. On my right, his surviving assault marine squad made a dent in a sisters squad before being finished off by the canoness and a death cultist. The seraphim claimed the center and earned back their points. Witch Hunters win, solid victory.

Tournament: Ninja Pirates 3-16-08

2008-03-19T18:39:00.008-06:00

Last Sunday I went up to Ninja Pirates for a 2000 point rules of engagement tournament. There was an unusually small turnout, only 6 players, perhaps due to the big blowout in the corresponding event thread on the Austin forum, but more likely resulting from the games taking place on the last day of spring break. I don’t think many of the usual players at NP read the forum that much anyway. I actually wrote out a long entry about the argument but abandoned it after I realized I didn’t really give a shit about a few different people not getting along for whatever reason. It was a predictable flare-up in a community somewhat segregated by differing opinions on the competitive aspect of the game (there might be some old bad blood involved in the mix too). I don’t think it says anything bad about the Austin scene; in fact I think it’s a good thing that new players are more likely to find a sympathetic peer group with the different viewpoints represented, a few inevitable episodes of threadrage notwithstanding.

Aaanyway, after trading for another whirlwind missile rack to make my second exorcist, I decided to take a new variation on my old witch hunters/inducted guard list (see previous entry). The tournament sort of fell apart before the third round when a couple of the players took off for one reason or another, and my own two games were a little sloppy and somewhat anticlimactic. The main liability of my list is mobility. I have plenty of anti-horde and anti-armor shooting and a decent assault wing, but besides the seraphim, the only scoring units I have that can move 12" are the exorcists, and they aren’t really made to drive around and grab objectives. I could drop the cultists for a couple of rhinos for the 2 sister squads, but it would make the gunline less effective by moving their leadership-bracing books of St. Lucius away. In both of Sunday’s games I was pretty rusty with the acts of faith; hopefully after a few more warmups I’ll be back in the swing of things with the coeds.

Game 1 – Eldar

Aims drew "firebase" for her mission, requiring her to capture any two objectives on the board, and I drew "foothold," meaning I had to capture both of the enemy objectives. As I’ve already mentioned, mobility is not a strong point of this army and so I was already at a disadvantage from the start as we had both placed one objective each deep in our own deployment zones (the big triangle-shaped setups). I deployed my assassins far forward, which turned out to be a good distraction for her assault units (banshees, harlequins), but I made the mistake of anchoring the sister squads heavy on my right side rather than my left. The retributors were never able to bring their heavy bolters to bear, and after the single sister squad on the left was taken out, my guardsmen were left to fend for their own. The seraphim and canoness eventually repelled the banshees and harlequins, but the seraphim were brought below scoring and broken before they could try to contest Amy’s home objective. One fire prism was destroyed by exorcist and lascannon fire, but the second grav tank zipped around to take my distant objective. Since I had second turn, I contested it with a sister squad, and I would have taken one of her objectives in my 6th turn with the surviving retributors and tied up the game, but the time ran out and we didn’t have time to finish. Eldar wins, 1-0.

Game 2 – Armored Company

I was paired off against Jay going into the second round. He had an armored company list featuring a hellhound, a vanquisher, an exterminator, 3 or 4 standard russes, 2 basilisks, and a demonhunter inquisitor with a retinue and a land raider. He drew "rescue" for his mission (not great for an all-tank army) and I rolled for "firebase." I got first turn and things went downhill for him quickly. I was able to destroy a leman russ and a land raider right off the bat, and with all my lascannons and melta-missiles I was able to keep the same killing pace for pretty much the entire game. With no chance of victory, he started to kinda fuck around at the end, which led to a scenario in which the eversor exploded a leman russ vanquisher and a hellhound in a single turn with death or glory meltabomb attacks. Spectacular! The explosions even killed the death cultist hanging around behind him, but the eversor himself was untouched. Witch Hunters win, 2-0.

Game 3 – Clay’s Barber

My third opponent, Clay, went to get a haircut. I supposedly got a bye win, and I might have even gotten third place overall, but who knows?

Which Hunters?

2008-03-09T23:04:00.006-06:00

Out of friggin nowhere, here's a new witch hunters list I'm thinking of trying:

The Scourge of Zugarramurdi

In pursuit of a sophisticated den of heretical psykers called the "Sisterhood of Sol," Mother Belandra and the sisters of Banon joined forces with elements of the Tiefwalder 14th and investigated a rumored Sol citadel on Zugarramurdi, a carbon-mining outpost in the Ultima segmentum. When they realized the obscene taint of the witches was attracting barbarous xenos raiders from the entire segment, they immediately made plans to purify the central colony of Iberia with cleansing bolt and flame. In the hours just before the main attack, Belandra was contacted by Lord Inquisitor Xocratos of the Ordo Hereticus, and made to know that her forces would be augmented by his own personal cadre of assassins and cyborgs.

"Let nothing stand in His righteous way, God Emperor of Mankind!"

HQ

Canoness - blessed weapon, inferno pistol, cloak of St. Aspira, mantle of Ophelia, jump pack

Inquisitor Lord - liber heresius, psychic hood, carapace armor
2 Chirurgeons
1 Acolyte - carapace armor
3 Gun Servitors - heavy bolters

ELITES

Eversor Assassin

3 Death Cult Assassins

TROOPS

10 Sisters of Battle - storm bolter, meltagun
Veteran Sister Superior - book of St. Lucius

10 Sisters of Battle - storm bolter, meltagun
Veteran Sister Superior - book of St. Lucius

Imperial Guard Infantry Platoon
Command Squad - 2 plasma guns, lascannon team
Junior Officer - bolter
4 Infantry Squads - plasma gun, lascannon team

FAST ATTACK

8 Seraphim - 2 hand flamers
Veteran Sister Superior - power weapon, book of St. Lucius

HEAVY SUPPORT

2 Exorcists - extra armor, bulldozer blades

10 Retributors - 4 heavy bolters
Veteran Sister Superior - book of St. Lucius

* edit: I dropped the 3 imagifers, 2 of the seraphim, and a few other little things to bring in the death cultists. And a new crusade.

Tournament - Battleforge Games 3-08-08

2008-03-09T11:58:00.018-06:00

Battleforge set a record for attendance on Saturday - 20 people showed up more or less on time, and the store manager managed to keep things rolling very efficiently with plenty of tables and three interesting scenarios. As you may or may not know, the 2008 Battleforge 40k season features 'Eavy tournaments on the odd-numbered months, where almost anything goes and players are encouraged to bring the hardest army they can muster. The even months are Hobby ('Obby?) tournaments where painting and army composition count more towards your final score. You can find Battleforge's ruleset and judging criteria for the two different versions here (link opens a word document). For my part, I had the pleasure of facing off against friendly opponents wielding three distinctly different space marine forces, and I came away with two big wins with a big loss in the middle. Here's some more photos of the event. Nick won 1st with his mixed eldar army, Chris won 2nd with his mechanized eldar, and Robert won 3rd with his Thousand Sons.

Game 1 - Space Marines

Deployment: Table quarters
Primary objective: Table quarters
Secondary objective: Kill enemy HQ with your own HQ surviving the game
Tertiary objective: Suicide squad destroyed before the end of the game
Bonus points: Keep 3 scoring units alive, control more uncontested terrain pieces

My first opponent was Brian, who had a chaplain and commander leading a large assault squad, two squads of terminators with assault cannons, a second assault squad, a couple of small tac squads with heavy and special weapons, a devastator squad with rocket launchers and a lascannon, and a whirlwind. Other than the assault cannons on the terminators, I wasn't worried about most of the marines. The only things fast enough to really circle me and shoot were the assault squads, and they had to get up close in order to do it. Genestealers led the charge with carnifexes providing fire support, and soon both terminator squads and both assault squads had been eaten. By the fifth turn, I had only lost less than half of my forces, and I was deep in his table quarter with the hive tyrant and a big stealer squad. Together they chewing up the rest of his army, right down to the whirlwind, while the rest of my units stayed back to capture quarters and terrain pieces. Tyranids: 19/22 points. Space Marines: 3 points.

Game 2 - Space Marines

Primary objective: Victory points
Secondary objective: Recon
Tertiary objective: Destroy the opponent's most expensive unit
Bonus points: Control more table quarters, keep highest point unit alive

I had seen Josiah around at plenty of the Thor's Hammer tournaments last year but never played against him. He had a pretty low-tech commander, a chaplain and a big command squad with three power fists in a land raider crusader, two or three small plas/plascan tac squads, two or three small rocket launcher/lascannon dev squads, and five land speeder tornadoes. His assault cannons and heavy bolters had just totally eradicated Jay's tyranid army in the first round, and our lists were fairly similar. And with so many tables up and running in the store, terrain was very light, so I knew it was probably going to be an uphill battle. I set up the majority of my forces on my left side in an effort to consolidate away from any short range fire and have at least a few of my assault units reach the other side alive and win back some VPs. Of course, it was not to be. As expected, the land speeders and crusaders flanked me on the right with utter impunity (even though I maimed or wrecked several of the speeders), and the command squad charged and smeared in assault everything his gunline hadn't already shot down. The only survivor was the hive tyrant, who slowly crossed the vast desert between our deployments and wrecked shop on several squads to little overall effect. I'm not sure what I could have done differently to affect a different outcome, short of hiding everyone, and there just wasn't much terrain to hide a horde behind anyway. Maybe I'll try some sort of defensive strategy the next time I find myself against a mobile shooty force (eldar, tau), but I'm not exactly holding out much hope. Space Marines: 22/22. Tyranids: 0/22.

Game 3 - Space Marines

Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Defeat the most units in assault or sweeping advances
Tertiary Objective: No friendly units in your own deployment zone
Bonus points: Most units in enemy deployment zone, I don't remember the other one.

Frank was playing a fairly typical Frank list with an interesting exception: a small bike squad. He had a jump libby with fury of the ancients, a commander on foot accompanied by a tank-hunting 2-lascannon command squad, an assault-oriented scout squad, several small las/plas tac squads, two assault squads, three bikes with two flamers, and a rocket launcher/heavy bolter dev squad. I have a pretty even record against Frank, but we always have very interesting games and I was glad to be able to finish out the day facing his ultramarines. I deployed in a strong flank again on my left side, and just tried to move the stealer squads across the field as fast as possible. While I was consistently coming up with fives and sixes for fleet and armor saves, he was not doing nearly as well and his anti-infantry guns weren't able to cut the stealers down quick enough to keep them at bay. Two of the squads made it into assault with the scout and tac squad in the trees on his right, and the bikers and assault squad he sent out to try and slow the rest of the army down were eventually overcome themselves. The core of his forces in the center took casualties here and there from my sniperfex shooting, returning fire with mixed results against my bigger bugs, while the libby and his other assault squad circled around my right. I kept a stealer squad hanging back, and when they were in assault range I charged and wiped them out after a couple of turns with more excellent rending rolls. I did make one big mistake at the end that nearly cost me the game - I left the remnants of my very effective flying warriors standing dopily out in the open and they were quickly cut down by his heavy fire. The stealers in the trees on the left finished off their opponents and jumped out into the devastator squad in the center. He tried to fight them off with the remainder of his command and tac squads, but the 6th turn ended with the fighters still engaged in assault. Tyranids: 22/22 points. Space Marines: 0/22 points.

Reconsidering Jump Packs

2008-03-03T19:20:00.005-06:00

I'm probably going to ditch the jump pack blood claws idea, at least temporarily, since I've managed to rustle up a couple of additional old model rhinos, which I wanted to match the rhino I have painted up already. If I put the claws in a rhino instead of giving them jump packs, I can save enough points to fit the attack bikes in and upgrade a few other units.

A blood ancestor of Hakr and Lors Varghoss, Alder Hurd's saga has extended for over 6,000 years. Hurd was a member of the original pack that eventually founded the Great Company of Sea Wolves. He spent the majority of his active duty as a Wolf Scout, leading packs of the most grizzled Sea Wolves into ambush attacks behind enemy lines. After his own body finally gave out defending one of the ancient territorial worlds in his 2000th year, his indomitable spirit was allowed to fight on in the armored sarcophagus of a mighty dreadnought. He still prefers to strike at the enemy's flanks, descending into hostile territory via drop pod.

HQ

Alder Hurd (Venerable Dreadnought) - assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Drop Pod

Dmitri Lutwig (Rune Priest) - frost blade, wolf pelt, runic staff, chooser of the slain, frag grenades

Hakr Varghoss (WGBL) - frost blade, wolf pelt, bolt pistol, frag grenades

ELITES

5 Wolf Scouts - 2 plasma pistols, 1 meltagun, 2 power weapons, frag grenades
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolt pistol, wolf pelt

TROOPS

8 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 2 plasma pistol/ccw, 5 bolters, 1 meltagun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

8 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 2 plasma pistol/ccw, 5 bolters, 1 meltagun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

9 Blood Claws - 2 power fists, flamer, jump packs
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, jump pack, frag grenades

FAST ATTACK

Landspeeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

Landspeeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

2 Attack Bikes - heavy bolters

HEAVY SUPPORT

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers

Lupus Maximus

2008-02-27T21:16:00.007-06:00

I was impatiently tinkering with the wolves list again today, and I thought I'd try ditching the terminators for an assault cannon/heavy flamer venerable dreadnought in a drop pod. He can help me get first turn choice, which means all the other units have a better chance at closing with the enemy or grabbing last minute objectives, depending on the situation. Plus it lets me buy two more blood claws, upgrade one of the wolf scouts to a wolf guard with a power fist, and fit the attack bikes back in. It does mean I have to run the 2 landspeeders as a single squadron, which sucks, but I think the extra firepower could be worth it. Still, 9 scoring units, 36 infantry... yeesh. Fairly low margin of error - any shooty army worth its salt could just go to town if I fucked up in the slightest.

HQ

Alder Hurd (Venerable Dreadnought) - assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor
Drop Pod

Dmitri Lutwig (Rune Priest) - frost blade, wolf pelt, runic staff, chooser of the slain, frag grenades

Hakr Varghoss (WGBL) - frost blade, wolf pelt, bolt pistol, frag grenades

5 Wolf Scouts - 2 plasma pistols, 1 meltagun, 2 power weapons, frag grenades
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolt pistol

9 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 7 bolters, 1 meltagun
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

9 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 7 bolters, 1 meltagun
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

9 Blood Claws - 2 power fists, flamer, jump packs
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, jump pack, frag grenades

2 Landspeeders - multimeltas, heavy flamers

2 Attack Bikes - heavy bolters

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers

Sea Wolf Decals

2008-02-26T19:37:00.008-06:00

By request, here's some pictures of the new decals on my Space Wolves. Most of them came out intact, but there were a few with little dings and whatnot that I might try to touch up with black later.

This ~~Blood Claw's~~ Grey Hunter's decal came out fairly well.

and let me add...

Thinking about improving upon the Wolves: among a few other changes, against my better judgement I think I will try out jump packs on the blood claws, and take the squad down to 8 total including a wolf guard leader with lightning claws. The foot HQs will now run with the grey hunters in Rhinos (just need to find an old model rhino to match the one I have). I think this list will test a lot of my previously held notions about some of the Space Wolf units, and it'll be just about as competitive as I can make it for a while. Here's the Sea Wolves of the Near Future:

Hakr Varghoss (WGBL) - terminator armor, pair lightning claws, wolf pelt
4 Wolf Guard Bodyguards - terminator armor, 2 assault cannons, 2 bolter-plasmas, 3 power weapons, 1 power fist
Drop Pod

Dmitri Lutwig (Rune Priest) - frost blade, wolf pelt, runic staff, chooser of the slain, frag grenades

Lors Varghoss (WGBL) - frost blade, wolf pelt, bolt pistol, frag grenades

6 Wolf Scouts - 2 plasma pistols, 1 meltagun, 2 power weapons, frag grenades

8 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 6 bolters, 1 meltagun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

8 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 6 bolters, 1 meltagun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Rhino - smoke launchers, extra armor

7 Blood Claws - 2 power fists, flamer, jump packs
Wolf Guard Leader - lightning claws, wolf pelt, jump pack, frag grenades

Landspeeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

Landspeeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers

Predator Annihilator - heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor, smoke launchers