DundraCon fail

Well It was an interesting experense.  I got the second lowest comp score at the tourey (some dark angle guy really pissed some people off with his 9 /30 sports and 4 out of 15 comp).  I got an 11 comp which I do not understand so much as my first BA opponent that also had meph/stormraven/furioso/bigger termy squad got a 15.  My army itself did great, I was on the top table for games 2 and three and won both games pretty convincely.  Of course being on the top table ment someone on a lower table was able to jump me for the top spot, but that was alright I guess.  I got a wopping 3 out of 40 on painting so there is room for improvment there, but I got to say the whole soft score thing is pretty weak and there prises reward everything except actually playing the game which is just sort of bleh.  I did like the tables more or less, but the missions "Expecially the last one" left some to be desired.  No DoW, no Night Fighting, 2 of the 3 were corner deployment, all were objective based in some manner, no kill point missions.  Now these helped me in the end I think as the last opponent stated about 20 times that if the mission had been something else, he would have been in good shape, which my come back was sure, but then I would have played differently

At last another game of Elves vs Lizards 8th edition style

So Dan and I at long last got another game day in.  Saddly like the last one I had where I got to play 7 turns in my 4 games, Dan was ready to throw in the towel after turn one.  This was partly due to probably the GW idiots allowing possibly the most unbalanced thing ever in existance into play.  After this and and respeccing my wizards school, we actually had a very close game.  Fantasy is bloody and models get taken off in big droves, magic is dominating "though HE named guy is totally overpowered".   Next time we play we are going to need a rule book, and hopefully an army book or 2 that work better with the rule set.

On to a bigger issue.  This is the second game day I hosted where my opponents where I feel my oppenents really did not want to play me/conceed early.  As much as I enjoy playing, I find it pretty lame and think I will bow out of future games for the time being. 

Fantasy is here at last

So after much research and time, Dan and I did get our first games in last week.  We got 2 games in.  The game is really more complex and much harder to mathhammer out as you go to your enemy.  Some things we learned

• Terrain -  this is big, each player places 3 pieces of terrain alternating as they see fit (type and location).  So this requires a lot of terrain options that you can put into play that blocks can move through.  So what I did was pick up a bunch of color felt, about 12x10 (large piece terrain) and cut to represent the various types.

• Terrain provides cover -1, or -2 to hit at range
• No Marching if at any point you enter terrain
• 1/2 or 1/4 movement rate depending on type
• various other effects depending on type
• Movement - most move 3-6 inches base, and can double that via march/charge  flyers can move 20
• Turning in place, takes 1/4 movement  and can not charge or march
• Wheeling measure the outside of the wheel going forward for distance.  on charge can wheel once
• Facing, you can only fire in your frontal arc, so if something scouts behind you, you need to turn to be able to shoot at it

Things we learned was rarely can you rely on one unit to take on another head on, the game has so many other parts of combat resolution, killing is only one part of it.

 Magic is its own phase and plays like it, though the events are still fairly random and can not be counted on, as it should be  Miscasts are little less often than 40k but the more you try to pump up a spell, the more likely you can miscast.  we probably saw about 60% of our spells be countered or fail, which seems accurate and fun to me.

Options-  this game just sort of has them.   Missile troops have the option to stand and shoot charging units if coming from far enough away, they also have the right to break on the charge and usually have an easy time pulling away.

Units that cause Fear and Terror actually do, to most everyone, but can still be broken.

All heros and champs can challenge as a tactic to reduce damage to units.

I am looking forward to our next game, 1750 points is next

1850 Tourny

 So I decided on my list and went down to the local game store for some fun games.  1850 was the points and I brought my Guard list as follows

Command squad 2 plasma 1 lascan plasma pistol in chimera
2 Vet Squads 2 plasma 1 LC 1 melta Chimera
2 5 man GK storm troopers 2 meltas
Brother Cap with psy hood, psy cannon.
2 Vendettas
1 Battle tanks with las cannon
1 Demolisher with 2 multi meltas, lc
1 Bane wolf
1 Manticore
Marbo

I went 1-2 and fininished in 8th place out of 20 after conceding the last game after turn 4.  

For the Recap:

Game one vs Michel's Bugs.  This was my first game against bugs:

Battle 1

He decided to deploy only his winged hive Tyrant that had +1 to reserve rolls to counter out my Officer of the fleet.  Mission was kill points with secondary killing troops and tersiary was Killing all HQ ??
He went first and I scouted up to get fire on his one HT, killing him in my turn 1 with all my las fire, this made him come in on 5+ starting on turn 2 and Picked his army appart as they came in.  Doom came in and put a licking on my troops in the Vendettas and they took a beating in his table quarters but they did there damage, Kill points ended up 13-5 in my favor.  He had 1 guant left on the table when the game ended on turn 5.

Game 2:  More Bugs from Jason.

Battle 2 vs Bugs

This game was Dawn of war, had to occupy terrain piece.  Had to look up a new rule on this one.  Opponent deployed then infiltrated with a third troop choice than took out my chimera and displayed my troops. 
BRB pg.93 "...units that can infiltrate, can do so, as long as at the end of depolyment the player still has a maximum of one HQ and two Troops units on the table."


You still have to meet the restriction at the end of the depolyment.
 
So this really turned the tables on this battle.
 
Still a fun game.  Bugs are really hard with Jasons big squads and lots of cover.  They basically always gte cover save from any fireing direction as over 50% are in cover from any angle on the covered boards.  Also allowed him to be in range for catalyst which gave his homaguants FNP, so we had 4+ cover 4+ feal no pain on anything under str 6, with 30 model screens granting cover to anything behind, lets just say this was a pain.
 
end score wsa 24-17 bugs.  He won Primary, 2 objectives with the spawned units, I won secondary with all HQ killed, we both won full bonus points.
 
Game 3 Orks
 
As Expected  Ork had 3 Battle wagons with troops and KFF, 9 nob bikers and 1warboss, 2 def copters.

Ork Battle 3

 

This battle went as expected.  He had turn 1 as I lost all 3 rolls for the day and did not steal ever.

 

I beat up his battle wagons but could not get enough fire on his bikes as he multi charged in to my units.  I need to do a better job of moving a little and not relying on my extra las cannon shots.  Enemy was on me so fast I was nuking myself with my manicore.  2 rule errors that I recall, ork player gave defcopters the exhaust cloud saving through, but it did not play into outcome as they routed.   Nob bikers on turn 2 were able to use the wahhhhg as they have the rule that allows them to being nobs and adding bikes does not remove it.  I have not looked up a ruling on this but does seem wrong.

 

This would have given me a full round of shooting on the bikes with probably half my army, could have made a difference?

 

Biggest thing was I forgot to place a vet squad at the beginning, so played 1850 on 1650 for a bit.

 

But fun was had, Bugs are a pain as are defrolla/nob biker orks. 

IG painting

So I know it will not be believed, but I have actually started painting my Guardsman.  Though I still am horrible at it the first 2 turned out as dan would say, "Table top quality.  Take a lokk below at the 2 guys.  I am still thinking of darkening the guns and need to work on something for the base.

I have 6 more plasma to get done and then figure start on some Meltas.  The vehicals will not get started before the 1850 tourny

Chaos rolls over the under equipped loyalists

So I finally decided on the bulk of my Marine army.  for the 1500 point core I went with

1 Pedro
1 5 man scout/telion with Rocket launcher, 3 sniper rifles
10 man Tac with rhino, ML, Melta
10 man stern guard with 6 combi meltas + Drop pod
1 Iron clad + Drop pod + locator beacon
5 Assault Terminators
1 Vindicator
1 Ped Auto cannon + 2 Las cannons

The list performed pretty well, mission was kill points and  long table edges, though we mostly deployed corner deployment.  Termies were teleporting.   I forgot to deploy my scouts.

List performed pretty well, got a little unlucky on some shooting, 6 ap 3 get hot shots 4 1's, and some clutch saves by the DP.

Game was fun and back and forth.  I need to get better with the Drop pods and remember once again to deploy my entire army.

Termies did nothing, nor did the tac squad I did not use well

Options to consider, swap out pedro who currently DP with sternguard.   Change telion into a land speeder storm for more mobility and protection for the scouts.  doing something with the termies.

so I need a pedro model along with 2 drop pods and a few more combi meltas for the Sternguard

Working on Marines

So I have taken a step back from playing and been putting my feeble modeling skills to use.   I decided to concentrate on my marines as my IG have had way too much play in the last few months.  I have assembled my Ironclad at long last.  I could no resist getting it any longer though it is not a very powerful piece, I do like the concept of it.  The real nice part about it, is that it come with complete arm assembly for all the main weapon options, so you do not need to do any magnet work.  Though I may revisit the melta/Heavy flamer options to add on to the piece. 

I moved on to my Pred which has been sitting in a box for 3 months.  nothing much special though I did mag the main turret weapon which turned out poorly at best, table top as dan would say.  I am debating on if I want to take a stab at the side sponssons or just go with las cannons and call it good?

My new concept still requires me to get 3 Drop pods, and Pedro to fill out my 1500/1850 lists