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.
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.
If You Only Had 2 Troop Choices (Scenario What-If…)
My FLGS is having a Scenario night this Friday and the theme of the month is (apropriately): Dawn of the Dead.
The basic premise is we get 2 troop choices from our army limited to 250 pts. each (500 total). No special characters. You play twice... once as the living and again as zombies (a bit curious about this mechanic, but it's being kept secret).
I have the ability to field 3 different armies: Daemonhunters, Chaos Daemons, or Imperial Guard. I'm not quite sure which I will be running yet.
Daemonhunters:
Pros: Good Shooting, Good Assault, True Grit, Power Armour, Nemesis Force Weapons, Incinerators, just good in general...
Cons: EXPENSIVE. Basically, I'd be fielding about half as many models as any other option I have.
Chaos Daemons:
Pros: Good Assault (Khorne), Good Shooting (Tzeentch), Good Staying Power (Nurgle), Freakily Sexy (Slaanesh), Invulnerable
Cons: Very little shooting aside form Tzeentch. Too-specialized.
Imperial Guard:
Pros: Good Shooting (Vets.), Good Quantity (Platoon), Vehicles, Cheap
Cons: Platoon is cheap, but really just lives for the quality of quantity, Vets. are a bit pricey (though not like GKs), Weak Assault.
So tha's my thoughts on the options. I'm pretty much decided that I won't be using IG for this (although I'm rethinking Vets. in Chimeras, but I'm told the zombies will have an effective method of dealing with vehicles). I'm leaning pretty heavily on Khorne + Tzeentch though for the Daemon side of things. I don't see Slaanesh really being any better than Khorne; and Nurgle would live the longest, but I think the victory will be based on zombie kills more than survival. I think Going pure Tzeentch would be suicide and Khorne would lack shooting and likely take a big hit on turn one. Grey Knights are expensive, but they are also extremely well balanced. With True Grit, I don't really care about getting the charge (whereas Khorne needs it for Furious Charge), so I can hold back and use my Storm Bolters or Incinerators. Once the GKs do end up in assault though, I think they'd still be formidable.
So that's the dilemma that I have to decide before Friday... Any thoughts on what might be a good option?
Rant: Players I Can’t Play Against…
I try not to complain about other gamers, but I finished high school (and college) and while back, so occasionally I like a mature, non-screaming, sane game where we agree on a points level and play. I get annoyed dealing with people that might not understand the fact that the Warhammer table-top game is not the same as the video game, so you can't jsut throw down 10 groups of 5 Firewarriors and a Hammerhead and say you're ready to play.
There's a Force Organization Chart for a reason.
Screaming that "Tau have nuclear missiles, so I'll use the Apoc. blast template instead of the normal blast template" or "Orks can't be killed by a single shot, so that wound doesn't count" just make me want to pack up an leave. If you want to play the video game, go do that. If you want to apply the video game logic to the table-top, then the table-top real estate becomes a concern (few tables make space a premium).
I'm not ruling our that I may be too serious, but I've had too many games days ruined by overly immature players. I have a busy job, so days I can play are rare and special; having days like that really hurt the hobby and the game for me.
</rant>
All that said, and I actually had a great game today at my FLGS. My Imperial Guard against Space Marines. I was hoping to write up a battle report for it, but I don't think I'll be getting it done since I'm about to be out of town for the holiday weekend and I didn't take notes during the game (with my bad memory, I have to for a battle report). The short version is that for the 1st half, luck was on my side and it was looking up. Turn 4 things changed and I couldn't make a save or hit a target to save my little soldiers life. I ended up losing, but I in the end, I was close to forcing a draw, but got bogged down in close combat. I did have a Chimera parked dead center on an objective for 4 turns during which the SMs could not destroy it. It took all the way to the bottom of the 6th turn to pop it and stop it from contesting the objective.
I'm planning on getting a few games in next week, so I will get at least on of them reported on. Plus, I'm about to get back on the ball with my painting, so I should be showing off my skills (or lack thereof) shortly.
Have a great weekend!
New League and New Event @ Fat Ogre
My FLGS (Fat Orge) is having 2 40k events coming up:
Dark City Scenario Event - Based on the movie of the same name, everyone fields up to 250 points of a Fast Attack choice and deal with your opponents as the buildings around you move and the city reforms (makes much more sense if you've seen the movie). Instead of my normal Daemonhunters or Imperial Guard, I'm thinking of getting out my Fantasy Daemons army for this. With 13 Flesh Hounds + Karanak (Furious Charge, anyone?) or 14 Seekers of Slaanesh (can you say: 70 rending attacks @ Initiative 6?), I can see this being rather wicked.
40k Mittennacht Campaign League - A 2000 point fixed-list (with exceptions) campaign based loosely on Mighty Empires (not sure why since Planetary Empires is out now). I've been thinking about using my Imperial Guard for this, but I'm still on the fence about whether or not to join in this one. On the one hand, leagues mean gaming certainty (and usually reasonably serious games too); but on the other hand, there's a few clientele that grate my nerves and I'm unsure if they are going to be in the league as well.
Flames of War League Over
I was recently in a Flames of War (Early War) league @ Adeptus-Ineptus using my American Tank Company/Rifle Company from Afrika. The end result put me in a 3-way tie for 10th place out of 18 places (there were 34 players... there were alot of ties). By count, this puts the 3 of us that were tied for 10th almost squarely in the 50% mark... Better than half and worse than half.
All-in-all, I'm happy with the results. These were many of my first games with Flames of War ever (I had a while 3 games prior to the league), and I learned a great deal. The playoffs are going to be held shortly, and while I'm not involved, I'd like to be a spectator for a game or two and see what I can pick up.
The biggest learning I'm walking away with is that superior firepower can be as much of a weakness as a strength. My M4A1 Shermans were the biggest and baddest tanks for most games. However, this also meant I had one of the smallest armies in terms of platoons and models. In my most stunning lost, I was forced into a Company Morale Check at the top of turn two and had one of the shortest games ever. We played on for funs, but in terms of league play, the game was over and we both only had 1 turn). So, while I had the firepower advantage in most games, I had to learn real quick to be careful about exposing myself since none of my platoons were ever expendable.
The next big lesson was movement tactics. I'm more versed in Warhammer 40k where armour saves are better than most cover (up until 5th edition changed that), so I didn't place a premium on being in cover and forcing the enemy to either move to a better position or take an unlikely shot. Flames of War was much more brutal than I was expecting and it took a few games for me to find my way about the battlefield without walking into my own death. With my Imperial Guard in 40k, this is definitely somethingI'm going to carry with me.
Next time, I think I'll be in a much better shape to do things based on my experience now. Also, I'm thinking of converting my Rifle Company into either Paratroopers for the enhanced training/motivation or Armoured Rifle Company for the quick movement and increased platoon counts. While I work on my Imperial Guard though, I don't anticipate much happening with my Americans, but I'd like to play a few pick-up games at the FLGS at some point.
Imperial Guard League List
My FLGS is looking to have a 2000 point fixed-list league. There's minor revisions allowed as such:
- Games might be played at < 2000 points, so you'd select units form your list to accommodate (Following FOC still)
- You can occasionally earn an extra 250 (maybe 350) points in a single battle to add to your army
As far as I know those are the only 2 ways to change your list for the battles, but I'm talking to the organizer still, so more details might allow more options.
This makes the league one of the hardest ones I've run in a while. It's expected to go around 8-10 rounds (it's variable since it's using a modified Mighty Empires ruleset). Having to build a list up from that is a "Take all Challengers" type isn't something I've done often, but I think it's a good practice. That said, I'm learning that there is SO much in the Imperial Guard Codex that I want to take, but that points won't allow. I had hoped to induct some of my Daemonhunters as well, but that went out the window very quickly.
So here's what I'm thinking so far:
- I'd like to Have Col. Straken to have an offensive HQ option to catch opponents off guard.
- I'd like to also have Al'Rahem to get 20+ outflanking Guardsmen. With FRFSRF or Like the Wind Orders, this could be brutal to non-Marine armies. Even with marines though, I think it would b effective.
- I'm going to add some tanks (I'm not usually a big fan of them, but I saw some Leman Russes do AMAZING things last week).
- I want to keep plenty of troops since I'm anticipating alot of objective-based games
- Lastly, I want to include Marbo. Sure he's typically a waste, but I'm going to do what I can to get the points to include him. Plus, the psychological benefit of him coming in play anywhere with his Demo Charge is worthwhile I think.
So, I'm going to get to thinking though a list and hopefully get a few trial games in to see how things work out. Once I get my list done, I'll post it here for comments/critiques.
Meta
Categories
Tags
Archives
Blogs I Follow
- A Host of Word Bearers
- A Year of Frugal Gaming
- Bell of Lost Souls
- Berks Warhammer 40k
- Blood of Kittens
- Daemonic Possession
- Dark Future Games
- From the Warp
- Santa Cruz Warhammer
- Spite for the Dice Gods
- The Back 40k
- The Painting Corps
- Warpstone Flux
- Yes the Truth Hurts