Nothing gets me in that Chistmas Mood…
...like having someone break into my house earlier today.
I was having a great day up until the Sheriff calls me to let me know. All-in-all, my wife and I are fine (which is great), but my laptop and game console are AWOL. If it wasn't for my horrible job with wires behind the TV, that would probably be gone with other assorted AV crap that was too tangled up to get out (they tried though).
The thing that just bugs me though... I had just traded my IG for CSM; and while nearly everything is still there, they took 2 CSM models form my work area; Ignore the big metal ones and the box box of them, just take the 2 that I had just assembled. It just adds insult to injury.
Still, it could have been worse. Neither my wife nor I were home, and all 3 cats stayed inside and just hid. I lost stuff, but nothing irreplaceable.
So, I probably won't be updating much for a little while (not that I'm a frequent updater anyways)... However, I did work up a quick change to my CSM list for the upcoming FLGS leage. More fluffy this time, but I think I have an uphill battle in terms of competitiveness:
HQ: Abaddon the Despoiler (275 pts)
Elite: Terminators (190 pts): 4 Terminators (Combi-melta x2; Combi-plasma x2) & 1 Terminator Champion
Elite: Chosen (165 pts): 5 Chosen (Chaos Glory, Meltagun x2) & Rhino (Combi-melta)
Troops: Chaos Space Marines (245 pts): 9 Chaos Space Marines(Chaos Glory, Meltagun x2), 1 Aspiring Champion, & Rhino (Havoc Launcher)
Troops: Thousand Sons (259 pts): 8 Thousand Sons (Icon) & 1 Aspiring Sorcerer (Doombolt)
Troops: Khorne Berzerkers (263 pts): 7 Khorne Berzerkers (Icon) , 1 Skull Champion (Power Weapon), & Rhino (Combi-melta)
Troops: Plague Marines (296 pts): 6 Plague Marines (Icon, Plasmagun x2), 1 Plague Champion (Combi-plasma), & Rhino (Havoc Launcher)
Troops: Noise Marines (155 pts): 6 Noise Marines (Icon, Sonic Blaster x6)
Heavy Support: Obliterators (150 pts): 2 Obliterators
Skipping the obvious: I know Abaddon is a big points since and Daemon Princes are most cost-efficient, but I want to runt he big guy for the fun of it. The Terminators will be painted each one as a different Chaos God markings (the Champion will be undivided representing Abaddons personal guard). I also have lots of Icons in their to help with Deep striking.
Should be fun to play, and that's what I want out of the league.
Update on Battle Reporter Plugin Development
You may have notice, but development has stalled a bit on the reporter plugin I've been working on.
The big killer is that I've been having a hard time making time to really get cranking on it and I've hit a few roadblocks in my designs and have gone back to the drawing board a few times to try to figure out what a good user interface should look like for this.
So, yeah, I'm still working on it, but it just goes slower than I had hoped.
Still to be done:
1) Admin/User Interfaces to create Battle Reports
2) Picture Uploads (right now, they work, but are all manual)
3) Search Funtionality (in the short term, I'll continue just listing all reports in lieu of the search page)
I bumped the search functionality down since I felt that people should be able to create Battle Reports before they can search (since now there is very little to search for).
I Now Have Chaos Space Marines!!
Thanks to John from Santa Cruz Warhammer, I now have no more Imperial Guard left, but I do have a heafty army of Chaos Marines.
This came at a great time too as my FLGS is about to start a campaign/league called Mittennacht. If I wasn't able to trade away my IG in time, I was going to run my Daemonhunters (which are always good for a sure loss). Fortunately, I will be running my new CSM.
I've worked up a quick list to try out. I'm a bit short on time (and the holiday season isn't giving me more time), so I need to get some list-testing done ASAP to weed out any problems and get used to the new army quickly. Here's my initial list (trying to be somewhat fluffy too):
HQ: Daemon Prince with MoK & Wings (140 pts)
HQ: Daemon Prince with MoN & Wings (150 pts)
Elite: Dreadnaught w/ Plasma Cannon (105 pts)
Elite: 4x Terminators w/ 2 Combi-Meltas & 1 Reaper Autocannon (155 pts)
Troops: 7x Plague Marines w/ 2 Plasmaguns, Champion w/ Power Fist, & a Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher (281 pts)
Troops: 8x Khorne Berzerkers w/ Skull Champion w/ Power Fist & Rhino w/ Combi-Melta (268 pts)
Troops: 10x CSMs w/ Aspiring Champion, Icon of Chaos Glory, & Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher (225 pts)
Troops: 10x CSMs w/ Aspiring Champion, Icon of Chaos Glory, & Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher (225 pts)
Troops: 10x CSMs w/ Aspiring Champion, Icon of Chaos Glory, & Rhino w/ Havoc Launcher (225 pts)
Heavy Support: 2x Obliterators
Heavy Support: 1x Obliterator
Total: 1999 Points
That gives me 60 models with at least a 3+ save that should be a task for any army to whittle down. I wanted to keep everything Khorne & Nurgle (and in their sacred numbers no less) and originally I was toying with 2 of each Cult Troops instead of just 1 each (too few models for my taste though). I'm going to go back through in a bit to try to see if I can find a bit of room to make to give the DP with the MoN a Psychic Power (possibly Nurgle's Rot since I want him up close and personal, but Warptime is awesome too).
What sucks a bit is that I really like Lucius the Eternal and alot of the Slaanesh stuff, but I also really like the Berzerkers. Mixing the 2 would kinda kill the fluff thing I want to keep, but it's be fun. For this, I want to keep a bit of fluff going, but in a future fluff-be-damned list, I may play with them together a bit more.
Another list I'm playing witht hat I think would be a really fun list to play is a Black Legion army fielding 1 of each Cult Troop in their respective sacred number (Tzeentch,= 7, Khorne = 8, Nurgle = 7, Slaanesh = 6). Fill that out with other units divisible by 4 (to model evenly amongs the Chaos gods) to get more support and a bit more variety. I've toyed around with it a bit, but so far, no list I rally love yet.
Trading Imperial Guard for Chaos Marines
I've been thinking about how I play and the armies I run for a while, and I've decided that I'd like to drop Imperial Guard and switch to Chaos Space Marines. A big part of this is IG not really meshing with how I play. I learned to play on Tyranids and the whole quantity over quality approach, but over time, I got to where I really enjoyed games with smaller, elite armies instead (Daemonhunters still being my favorite).
Also, one of the things I really want to do for 2010 is to field a full 2000 pt. game witha fully painted/based/etc... army (ideally against the same). Looking over my unpainted guardsmen, I know I'm a slow painter, and I get overwhelmed thinking about them. That's not a feeling I want associated with this game. I've been spoiled by my FLGS having no requirements or push for painted models as most of the players have largely unpainted armies. I do however subscribe to so many Warhammer blogs that feature painted armies and beautiful battle pictures. Having seen those reminds me of what originally got me into this hobby to begin with. Sadly though, this is not something that I can do with Imperial Guard.
I'm leaning towards Chaos Space Marines based on my past experiences playing them and thumbing through the codex. They go together well with my Chaos Daemons army already and I really like the appearance of the models and the large array of options in the codex. Also, I can easily see a variety of elite armies being built form the codex (Plague Marines and Thousand Sons spring to mind and look impressive). I also think this might be a good step back into the Fluff of the game for me (somethign I never really managed with IG).
Anyways, here's the details on the models I have up on the chopping block and what I'd like to get in exchange: Imperial Guard Up for Trade (for CSM)
Please email me if you have any questions or are interested in trading. Thanks.
Update: I finally gota few pics of the IG have have up for trade. I also have a few trades pending, so updates are on the way (Friday).
It’s been a slow past 2 weeks…
I've had the worst time getting in Warhammer games over the past few weeks. I can typically swing at least 1 game a week, but recently, I haven't had a chance to play in 3 weeks.
I have managed to squeeze in some Board Games (most notably Formula D, Race fo the Galaxy, and Shadow Hunters, all of which are wonderful games), but not a single Warhammer or Flames of War game. What steps do you take to get more games in? I think I can get more if I scale back and play more lower-point games, but I really enjoy the options and flexibility of larger games.
This is bugging me and I'm going to be making more of an effort this week to do something at least. I did get Col. 'Iron Hand' Straken painted and I'm hoping to start on Gunnery Sgt. Harker soon. I was hoping to have pictures of Straken up, btu I just learned how crappy camera-phone pictures are for models. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting better pictures? I think I just need to spend some time on the FTW pages and get advice from fellow bloggers, but I'm open to suggestions as well.
Later today (when I get a real camera out), I'll have some pictures of Straken. It's not amazing work, but it's a step up from my normal level of quality, so it's a start. I haven't done any highlights though, and I'm a bit nervous about them as that's usually when my models go from decent to crap. So, I know I asked alot, but if anyone has suggestions on highlighting models, I would love to hear them.
Thanks in advance for any comments.
Also, as a heads up, I'm making a push at my FLGS for 2 things in the near future: Most WFB games (my Daemon's are lonely), and a special one-day event in November (details to come later).
Status of the Battle Reporter…
I've made many small improvements to my Battle Reporter Wordpress Plugin and I'm hoping to have an initial release before the end of the month.
What's done so far is the output of the Reports and a Rating System. Also, the Options page is completed and allows the administrator to Add/Remove Armies and Game Systems. My initial rollout is including armies for Warhammer 40k, Warhammer Fantasy Battles, Space Hulk, Flames of War, Warmachine, and Hordes. I also have entries for 2 board games (Pandemic and Ticket to Ride), but both games are disabled by default.
The big things still needing to be done are (in the order I'm workign on them):
- Finish Comment Functionality
- Finish Pictures-in-Report Functionality
- Create Search/Browse Page
- Create Report Input Page
- Create Admin Pages for Editing Reports
So, yeah, there's alot to do still. But, This is the biggest coding project I've undertaken in a while (and I had to learn AJAX for it), so I'm happy with the results so far.
Hopefully more will be coming later. For now, I'm going to go ahead and turn on the Battle Reports page and hope to get feedback/suggestions based on what's there now and as it gets more complete.
To Space Hulk or Not…
Games Workshop just re-released Space Hulk after 20 years of it being out of print.
This is something I've wanted to play for a while, but never found a copy, now that parts not too bad (although it is on a "limited" print run). Unfortunately, GW wants $99 for the game. That's alot for a game that I can't foresee my wife playing too often; and honestly, I'm not sure how much I'd play it.
Looking over the bits and pieces, $99 seems like a whole lotta money for not alot of stuff. If it were metal, I'd be more understanding. But 35 plastic minis? Granted, they look much more dynamic than the normal terminators and genestealers from 40k, but come one...
All told, I'm certain this will sell out and GW will make a mint on it. I'm still not sure if I want it still or not, but I do know I'm not interested in it for that much money.
I've ended up with 2 ways to go on this:
1) If the "limited" run goes well and GW releases it again, I might check eBay or something andsee if they ever get down to around$60-$70. That's still more than I like to spend on a board game; but this game does look pretty fun.
2) I have 40k minis already, and Board Game Geek has the rules for 1st and 2nd edition available. So, I could use my minis with their rules and printout my own corridor tiles. While it might not look as cool, it'd be MUCH cheaper and might be more fun since my Imperial Guard could be like the marines from Alien/Aliens...
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