Trying to move my list on

So I currently use a Thunderwolf list with big units of Grey Hunters, it does fine against Marine armies but against serious tournament players its just not there.
I think Open war is going to my last time using this list and I'm going to change to something a little like this after looking over some lists on yesthetruthhurts.

HQ	330
Rune Priest	100
Chooser of the slain	10
Living Lightning	0
Murderous Hurricane	0
Wolf Lord	100
Thunderwolf mount	45
Power Fist	25
Storm Shield	30
Fenrisian Wolf x 2	20
Elites	179
Wolf Scouts x 5	75
Melta Gun	10
Melta Bombs	25
Wolf Guard Pack x 3	54
Combi Melta x 3	15
Troops	705
Grey Hunters x 5	75
Flamer	0
Las plas Razorback	75
Grey Hunters x 5	75
Flamer	0
Las plas Razorback	75
Grey Hunters x 5	75
Melta Gun	5
Rhino	35
Grey Hunters x 7	105
Melta Gun	5
Rhino	35
Grey Hunters x 7	105
Melta Gun	5
Rhino	35
Fast Attack	255
Thunderwolf Cavalry x 4	200
Melta Bombs	5
Wolf Claw	20
Storm Shield	30
Heavy Support	280
Long Fangs x 6	90
Missile Launcher x 5	50
Long Fangs x 6	90
Missile Launcher x 5	50
Total	1749

Constructive criticism is always wanted, cheers.

Doubles Review...

Well I was meaning to get this up sooner. But I've been crazy busy this week to say the least...but finally here it is! It wont be a detailed account of all the games but a general over view, highlights and thoughts. So lets jump right in with:

The List


1 x Daemon Prince with Wings and Lash
1 x Great Unclean One with Instrument and Cloud of Flies

5 x Chosen with 3 x Melta Guns, 2 x Flamers in a Rhino with a Combi-Melta
4 x Fiends
3 x Flamers

10 x CSM with Power Fist, Lascannon, Plasma Gun, IoCG in a Rhino
5 x Plague Bearers
5 x Plague Bearers

8 x Flesh Hounds
5 x Seekers

1 x Oblit
1 x Oblit

Now as you can see it doesn't look terribly broken, and this was part of its strenght, people underestimated the elements combining to be greater that the sum of its parts. Normally if you think Daemons and Chaos, you think Lash Prince 4-6 Oblits, 12+ Fiends/Crushers, 5 Plague Marines, 5 Plague Bearers and not much else..so we took the Prince, and the Oblits as a distraction.

The general plan was for the Obliterators and las-cannon squad to de-mech what they could turn one and two, while the Prince took the brunt of the incoming fire and made the opponents set up and play differently. This was the psychological effect we wanted and achieved in pretty much all of our games. The real power in the list were the Daemons. The Hounds, Seekers and Fiends could drop outside of Rapid Fire range and then usually get a charge off in the next turn, the Flamers just ate a couple of squads and then died generally but were one of the best units we had.

The Games

We had a really good time over the weekend, and all the people we played against were great opponents who we'd never played against before which was good.

Game 1:

The first game was against a double foot marine list with two objectives. The enemy made the mistake here of bunching up with most of their units, and not using heroic intervention on their Vanguards. On top of this the list they were using is what our list plays best against. This resulted in us tabling them to net 1500 Vps

Highlight: the Flamers dropping in to get 17 hits on bunched up Sternguard...to cause only 4 wounds...

Game 2:

This was the only game we lost, down to something that became a common theme for the weekend, it ended on turn 5. We were against Orks and DE in a kill point mission. Their army had 3 Deff Dreads, a large mob of Boys and a KFF along with some Blood Brides and Warriors in Raiders and 2 units of Reavers. The game started with me having to explain to the opponent that you roll once on the drug table and apply it to the whole army, not roll for each unit...not a great start. The game ended after an unlucky combat which saw 10 CSMs charge 5 DE Warriors...and the Warriors won! The game ended on turn 5 with the oponents having a single DE warrior, an immobile raider and an immobile Deff dread left, we had the GUO and an Obliterator bearing down on them but the dice gods are fickle...

Highlight: The Prince lashing the Ork Boyz mob and spreading them out so that the Fiends on the other side of the board could charge one end, and the prince the other keeping the Nob and Klaw out of combat and stuck bridging the gap as it couldnt move up and pile in!

Game 3:

Game 3 was a multiple objective game against Foot Marines and BAs in Rhinos with some Scouts in Storms. Suffice to say our army rolled over them and netted us another 1500 Vps with Hounds tearing down speeders and the like..

Highlight: Chris having pin-point accuracy to tell me where to place the Prince so that he could last a squad at 23" away but leaving the Librarian just out with his hood of nerf...

Game 4:

Game 4 was against Wolves and Sisters in a kill point mission. The thing that won this game for us is that we held the Oblits in reserve to deep strike and the Chosen to outflank. Our opponents bunched up in one corner only for our reserves to show up in turn to in the right place. The Chosen in their rhino came on and blew up a rhino with a Rune Priest in only for them to be pinned, this then stopped the Sisters Immolator and Exorcist from moving anywhere. They focussed their fire on the the Daemon Prince and Obliterator which left the Flamers free to eat some Long Fangs and Sisters in one turn! The game ended on turn 5 again with the Cannoness stuck in combat with the GUO with no faith points...another 1300 Vps for the loss of 3 kill points!

Highlight: The Flamers were very impressive, but just the army in general played perfectly this game.

Game 5:

Back to the top tables...this time against Wolves and Guard, in a multi objective game. Some good shooting on the opponents side took out the Prince and Chosen early on, but it left them out of position and away from the objectives. If they'd have played differently the could have rolled over us to be honest but they just focused on the wrong things. The game ended again on turn 5 with the opponents only having 5 Guardsmen and an immobile Basilisk, we'd lost the Seekers, Chosen and Prince...with everything else ready to strike.

Highlight: The GUO eating a Land Raider, 9 Wolf Guard, 6 Grey Hunters a Rune Priest and a handful of Guardsmen

Game 6:

Last game of the weekend and on Table 3 against Eldar and Dark Eldar. An unlucky morale tests on our opponents part saw us in a strong possition early on and we capitalised on this, coupled with the Prince making some good Inv saves in combat with the Archon to finish him off in turn 3! The game ended again in turn 5 with us on one objective and moving to the other. We'd lost the Seekers and the GUO, the enemy had a Farseer, 1 Dire Avenger and a wounded Wraithlord left.

Highlight: The Daemon princed being charged in Turn one, but holding out with some lucky inv saves to kill the Archon in turn 3....roll enough dice and a one will turn up eventually...

Over all a good weekend. We came 4th due to table one drawing and someone on table two winning...any other result would have seen Chris and I come 2nd or 3rd...we did however win the Bloodthirster award with around 8200 Vps over the weekend out of a possible 9000!..the reason we didn't get the full 9000 was due in a large part to the dice gods ending all our games on turn 5! However, when you factor in that the Daemons don't do much in turn one appart from the Flamers thats a total of 24 Turns to kill stuff (about 330 Vps per turn)!

Final Thoughts

It wasn't until about a week later that I realised why we did so well. It wasn't that we took an over the top list, we didnt, we took a mix of Daemons from all the Gods, on top of that I don't play Chaos Marines and Chris doesn't play Daemons so its not like we knew the armies inside and out.

We do however know the rules, and other armies well enough to priorities targets and offer fake threats. On top of this, and ultimately the main reason was communication. Every move we made, and decision we came to was communicated so that we could support each others units to maximise their strenghts and limit their weaknesses. Other players did this to a degree but Chris and I played with 1 x 1500pt army, not 2 x 750pt forces put together.

TheBaron out!

I rolled: 6 (4/2)

Moar Powah!!!

Open War is coming up in early April which gives me about a month to sort out a list that I fancy throwing into the ring. I've been focused on Pedro, Lysander and Khan variations of a Vanilla Marine list because these guys are what I know best and I have a good amount of experience with them. I've also had some success in tournaments in the past with lists based on these Characters and finally because Special Characters are allowed this time at Open War it seems silly not to run one.

Yesterday I played Mick with a Blood Angels list featuring some jump packers. I've not done this sort of BA list before because I don't have the models and I've seen Gav's success with MSU Wolves and wanted to emulate it with a Blood Angels list. However I liked it and despite the fact I'd basically been tabled by the end of turn 5 I felt it could be competitive with a couple of tweaks and some practice.

So after a bit of mucking about on Army Builder here's what I've come up with and I'll talk through the changes I made and my reasoning below:

HQ
Astorath the Grim
I had a JP Reclusiarch on Saturday but as Open War is allowing special characters this time he looks like a great option to add.

ELITE
Sanguinary Priest
(2) 1x Jump Pack
I've dropped the Honour Guard Squad that I usually run so I need to add a JP Sanguinary Priest to support the Assault Squads. The one without the Jump Pack either drops with the Sternguard or hangs out in one of the Razorbacks

Sternguard Squad
(5) 3x Combi-Meltas; Drop Pod
These guys are the both a heavy armour solution and to get my opponent to compensate his deployment to avoid an alpha-strike. They are relatively cheap for what they bringand I'm not shy about using them as a speed bump.

TROOPS
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Flamer, Sgt w. Power Fist
Assault Squad
(10) 2x Flamer, Sgt w. Power Fist
Bouncing Assault Squads! Astorath and the JP Priest hang with these guys making them a formidable wedge of melee madness. I like the flamers for anti-infantry but there is a lack of melta in this list so I may need to make a few small tweaks to try and get a melta or two in these units just in case I come up against a multiple Land Raider list.

Assault Squad
(5) Razorback w. Lascannon & Twin-Linked Plasma Guns
Assault Squad
(5) Razorback w. Lascannon & Twin-Linked Plasma Guns
To be honest these are to add some armoured target saturation to take heat away from the Dreads and the Baals (not that I expect them to be too effective at that. They also lend some more fast moving scoring capability to the list and give me some mobile cover options fast enough to keep up with the jumpers.

FAST ATTACK
Baal Predator
Flamestorm Cannon
Baal Predator
Flamestorm Cannon
Scout move to threaten Power Armour at the back in cover on turn 1, or outflank and clog everything up in the middle ready for munching by the assault dudes. I do like these guys but have not had a lot of success with them yet. More practice needed.

HEAVY SUPPORT
Dreadnought
2x Twin-Linked Autocannons
Dreadnought
2x Twin-Linked Autocannons
Can openers extraordinaire! I love these guys, they eat up light armour and do well against troops and monstrous creatures as well.

So what's missing? The most notable unit that I took out of the list from Saturday is a 5-man Vanguard Unit. Perhaps I'm over-reacting to an exceptionally unlucky performance (they got the Heroic Intervention charge and lost the round of combat against a Long Fangs Pack and in 2 rounds of combat could not finish them before they were eaten by a Grey Hunter unit on the counter charge) but what this illustrated to me was the 5 guys are not enough to make an effective assault unit. This is also why I dropped the Honour Guard unit, even the inclusion of a hidden Sang Priest does not compensate for the fact there are only 5 of them.

As Gav's already mentioned “Go big or go home!”.

Storm Pelican

Sooo, it's been a while since my last post and, as has already been noted, that may largely be due to the re-emergence of the computer gaming black-tar heroine that is “World of Warcraft”. However I have not been completely neglecting the hobby and I have had two rather large boxes sitting on my painting desk for the last couple of weeks over which I'm now in a quandary.

The boxes in question contain Storm Ravens and the thing is that I am now wondering if I'll ever actually use them. I got all excited about the model (I actually think it looks pretty cool) and the shiny-newness of it all and actually pre-ordered two of them. After drafting up a couple of lists to see how they would work in a tournament-style list I am not as convinced that they would as I was before.

The up-shot of all this is that I'm strongly considering trading them back into GW for something else like some Assault Marines (which I think will work in BA list) and some more 'nid monstrous creatures (which may not work but will be fun).

Anyway, I'd like some opinions from “the cloud”, is the Storm Raven worth it? Should I trade them back? All opinions welcome!

Difference between a good and a great player

So me and Andy (yes that bloke who used to write on the blog before he got World of Warcraft) attended Warhammer world for a game. After the game we were chatting about how you think you move up from a slightly above average player to a good player (and unfortunately we used the baron as our example of a good player)

Between us we decided that the baron was very good because
a) he has a freaky ability to judge distances
b) he knows the rules inside and out, I still struggle with the intricacies of combat, who should go where etc. however Gav described a multi charge close combat by Darren where he somehow managed to keep half of the enemy out of assault range.

Now that I have finished inflating Darren's ego I would like you to tell me what you think is the difference between a good and a great player?

Gav will never get to light up that cigar

So as you saw here last night Gav and I descended on Warhammer World because tonight I shall be at the home of football.

As you can see Gav pondered how to deal with my Thunderwolves. His plan was to ignore them and for the first turn it went perfectly. I have never seen a turn of shooting like it, 10 long fangs, 6 las cannons and 2 rifleman dreads and the only thing that missed was 1 shot from a rifleman dread which he then got to reroll. I had lost 2 rhinos, 1 was immobilised, a long fang pack was walking, my rune priest unit was pinned and all in all I thought I was on for a third turn tabling.

In my turn of shooting I managed to take out a weapon on a razorback but it was looking bad. However at this point Gav stopped being a Hannibal and turned into Murdoch and decided that my Thunderwolves were getting too close. He fired everything at them and managed to take a couple of wounds off a couple and kill one of my thunderlords pet dogs which pissed him off.

From there I was able to snatch a win although it was a bit of to and fro. Its hard to play the list that Gav plays without a doubt and as we discussed I can certainly see why it is preferred by Americans at the bigger points level they play.

Arena of Death - Claws and Fists vs Games Workshop

On Friday, GW posted this article up on their website. Hmm, Special Character vs Special Character? Called the Arena of Death? Now, where have we seen that before...

Picked up by the big boys - we must be doing something right :o)

The Rolling Thunder Review - AKA Stop the Doggies

So, tonight I'm playing Mick up at WHW (he can't make it tomorrow as he's seeing "them from across the park") I've seen his 1750 list in action a few times but I've never actually played against it so it's time for a bit of theoryhammer as to how to stop it. First up, here's what he usually runs:

Rune Priest
Lord on Thunderwolf with 2 bullet catching Wolves
3 x full Grey Hunter packs in Rhinos
Scout Pack with Meltagun & Meltabombs
5 Thunderwolves tricked out for wound allocation
2 x Long Fangs packs with Missiles & Lascannons

Against this, I'll be trying out my Razorwolf list again. I'm thinking that my biggest issue will be dealing with those nasty Thunderwolves...

Tactic 1 - Ignore them

This is the internet's usual advice for dealing with single rock lists - ignore the rock and focus everything on the supporting elements. I think in an Objective game this would probably be the best thing to do. I can feed the Thunderwolves a couple of speedbump units while I focus fire on the 3 scoring units.

Tactic 2 - Focus fire

Shoot them! Shoot them until they're dead. Now, I think I can just about muster enough fire power to do some serious damage to the Thunderwolves in a round of shooting so long as a) I go first, b) they're not in cover and c) my dice aren't as horrible as they normally are. If I go second, Mick will be able to supress some of my firepower with his and if those TWolves are in cover all those lovely AP3, AP2 and AP1 shots of mine aren't as killy.

So option 1 sounds like the better option - I just hope I don't lose my nerve and decide to start firing at the dogs instead...

Look Who Made the Front Page...

Just a quick one from me (I know I've been saying that a lot recently) but a few familiar faces just made the front page of the "Whats New Today" on the GW website here. This was taken during game two of the Doubles Tournament on Saturday, from Left to Right you can see Alex and Matt (From the Fang), my Chief Minion Gav (who looks like he was blogging), Me and then Chris my partner in the doubles.

Well thats all for now, I'll try and find time this eve to post more about the weekend so check back soon.

TheBaron Out!

I rolled: 7 (4/3)

Thanks so much to from the warp and an announcement

I went to the Zoo today. Really good day. Get home and got to check the weekly top ten to the sad sad news that From The Warp is going into stasis to allow Ron a chance to regain his world so I would like to offer him the thanks of Claws and Fists.

I have especially loved the weekly top ten so I am going to have a bash at putting one together each week starting next week.

So again thank you Ron and all your contributors.

I need your help

Looking for a method to paint rotting flesh and rusty armour for a project. Your help would be grateful Claws and Fists readers.

News Just In...

Well, just a quick update from me as I'm tired and have work in the morning. Just got back from the doubles Tournament at Warhammer World, and my partner Chris and I finished 4th. More importantly however, we got the Bloodthirster award for a whoping 8089 VPs over the weekend out of a possible 9000.

I'll put up a better account of our experience tomorrow evening or maybe Tuesday..who knows.

In any case I had an awesome weekend, and I'm sure there will be some more reports to be found over at a little blog called From the Fang. (Along with an idea for an article series he may have stolen from me...unless I post it first...).

TheBaron Out

I rolled: 12 (6/6)

The Bitter Taste of Defeat

A 10-9 defeat in game 2 for The Baron. They looked to be on top but they couldn't deal with the three Deff Dreads in the Ork/Dark Eldar list. Even then they nearly nicked it at the death and were only a couple of lucky dice rolls away from winning. Such is the game...

Make mine a double

Just popped down to WHW to check up on the 40K doubles to see how The Baron is getting on. He and his partner Chris tabled a double foot Marine list in game 1 and so are on table 5 for the second game. Next door, on table 6, are the From the Fang boys...

Go Big or Go Home - Part 1

Our Claws and Fists campaign starts today and I plan on using it as an excuse to try out some new army lists in preparation for Open War. So, over the next three weeks I'm going to present three extremely focused lists and then see how they get on. They are all going to be based around the Razorwolf concept of lots of small Grey Hunter packs in Razorbacks. I used to run a really focused Razorwolf list at 1500 points but it got a bit lost on the way to 1750. This time I'm stripping right back and building the list specifically for 1750. So, without further ado, here is the lsit for week one...


HQ


Rune Priest, Chooser of the Slain, Stormcaller, Murderous Hurricane


Only one Priest now. He has Stormcaller to give the vehicles an alement of protection. It was a toss up for his second power between Hurricane and Jaws but I tink that Hurricane is more universally usefull.


Elite


Dreadnought, Twin-Linked Autocannon, Twin-Linked Autocannon

Dreadnought, Twn-Linked Autocannon, Twin-Linked Autocannon


Dakka dakka. 8 Twin-Linked S7 shots provides some supression fire.


Troops


5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun


Saturation, shooting and scoring.


Fast Attack


Land Speeder, Mulitmelta, Heavy Flamer

Land Speeder, Multimelta, Heavy Flamer


Heavy Support


6 Long Fangs, 4 Rocket Laucnhers, Lascannon

6 Long Fangs, 4 Rocket Launchers, Lascannon



I think that the main problem in this list will be that it's too tempting just to stand off and shoot. Against some armies that isn't such a good idea. So, I just need to remember, keep moving, keep shooting and get out only when you need to.

Same old same old

I want to pick up on something that Gav spoke about in him Caledonian Open Evaluation and that was that his best result came against Vanilla marines which is the army he plays against most often and it got me thinking that there are armies that I play against more often than sum.

Last year on another blog I forget the name the blogger uploaded a chart that he used to chronicle his gaming over the year, both in terms of modelling and gaming. I have used this thoroughly so far this year. So far I have 98 modelling points (these are done on a scale depending on the complexity of the model, e.g. a vehicle is worth 5 points, cavalry 2, infantry 1.) I have also been recording my games this year.

So far this year I have played 12 games of 40K losing 4 drawing 1 and winning 7, which is pretty pleasing but my big problem is that I seem to play the same people A LOT.

So far this year I have played Vanilla Marines twice, Chaos Marines 4 times, Imperial Guard twice. I still haven't played Dark Eldar at all and I haven't played Blood Angels or Nids this year.

So my aim before the Indy GT is to try and play more games against unfamiliar armies. Might also have to get a few more codex's (or codices both are valid).

My question to readers is are there any armies that you play more often than others and do you think this makes them a lot easier to play against?

Help me Claws and Fists readers your my only hope.

So which dragon prince colour scheme should I go for Blue or Red?

My new chooser

So yesterday at Hammerhead I found this celt mini that I thought looked at little Valkyrie esque. Just unsure how to base it. Any ideas?

Hammerhead 2011 - Everything GamesDay should be

So this morning Big Gaz (my Dad) and me got into our trusty Rhino and headed to Newark to attend Hammerhead 2011. We had some trepidations because when we attended GamesDay last year we left with a very bad taste in our mouths feeling it was a waste of 80 odd quid and a Sunday.

Hammerhead is put on by a bloke I met last summer when I attended COGS (Chesterfield gaming club). He had told me about it back then, and it has been in the diary ever since. There were 30+ games each one being participation and plenty of vendors, and a tenth doctor who impersonator.

So how was it? Well it was great. £4 each can't really be grumbled at and for that price we gained a free miniature. We spent the first couple of hours wandering through thinking that it was good, there were loads of games that I had never seen before including more werewolves which I posted about yesterday on one stall that I snaffled up. I got into the bring and buy early and got a couple of Celtic maidens which will be used as my Choosers and after a couple of hours we decided we best come home to get to the pub to watch QPR-Forest. I hadn't had any games because I've got laryngitis so I couldn't really have any conversations with anyone but we had certainly had a more enjoyable morning than at Gamesday.

One thing was missing though, Doctor Who. We hadn't seen him all morning, we had also noticed all these lads walking around in World War 2 uniform but just assumed that they were heading outside to drum up trade. However as were about to leave we noticed people heading down another corridor and found another massive room full of games, more vendors and plenty of friendly folks. There were loads of different games ranging from Ancient Britains to the far future, lots of different companies and model makers. It was a really great event. I also gained some magnetic bases from a company who's leaflet I have misplaced but when I find it I will post on here.

The one problem that it game me was there are now even more projects I want to have a go at especially a Napoleonic Army, I first read the Sharpe books as a teenager and since then I have really enjoyed learning about the Napoleonic wars so that I think will be on my to do list after High Elves (although it will probably be pushed back by Grey Knights).

I would definitely recommend next years events to everyone. We will be back without a doubt.

Mark of the wulfen

For me along with a wolf standard its a must in every squad of Grey Hunters I use, more often than not you will get a couple of marines attacks out of it and with a bit of luck one or two of them will be rending attacks.

My big problem with it is how to model them, at the moment my marines with MOTW have black shoulder pads and red park markings in reverse of my normal marines however I'm just not that taken with them. I have tried in vein to find the wulfen models that GW made once upon a time but they go for silly money on Ebay so I was delighted with my discovery this morning at Maelstrom games in Mansfield.

Westwind productions make these models as part of their Secrets of the third Reich range and I think they re perfect for those brothers that can be taken by the beast that lies within at any point.

I will post pics of my finished model but until then what do our readers use for their mark of the wulfen models?

Improving on Perfection

As regular players, we've all played more than our fair share of the standard missions. Of course, there is the Battle Missions book to dip into, although I hear that some folks don't rate it that highly. Personally I've not tried it yet, so I'll reserve comment for now, but my initial feeling is that the games therein are very specific.

So my question is, what would you do to make the game better?

This weekend, I've been thinking about simple tweeks to the existing missions to add a little randomness and spice to proceedings. I'll publish my thoughts once I've heard yours!

G.

Caledonian Uprising - Final Learnings

The best thing about coming 75th out of 80 people, indeed the only good thing is that it means that you've made lots of mistakes to learn from.



Army List



My list isn't focused enough. It should either be Rhinos or Razorbacks not a mish mash of both. For my next tournament (which I think will be the next Open War) I'm going to go with the old fashioned Rhino Rush or with a proper Razorspam list rather than a mix between the two. I also kept forgetting about the two filler items in my list - Saga of the Beastslayer and Wolf Tooth Necklace. Just goes to show that you need to be really hot on the army that you're running.



Experience



It's no coincidince that the only army I actually beat was a Space Marine army. By far , they're the army I've played most in the last year and a bit. Clearly I need to look a bit further out and play against dome different armies just for experience.



Get more Bolshy



In the third game against Brad, he did his combat incorrectly (allocating wounds against a unit to an Independent Character), used his Wolf Standard incorrectly (unveiling it as I charged in which would have meant that it would have worked for the second round of combat) and he deep struck his Land Speeders after only declaring that they were in Reserve. They were all clearly innocent mistakes but I should have called him on them. Especially the combat one since my Wolf Guard with Power Fist was in base to base with his Priest and would have kileld him which would have meant D6 S7 shots coming ym way each turn. I don't think it would realistically have made any difference to the outcome of the game but it certainly didn't help.



Also, in the sixth game, Graham wasn't taking Leadership tests on his Destroyers. I've only played Necrons once so I assumed he didn't have to. Of course he should have been taking them. Again, it was purely accidental but I should still have been asking.



Now let's look game by game at some more specific learnings:


Game 1 - Objective Placement


Three units of Bezerkers are a serious Combat threat that clearly want to get to grips with my guys as soon as possible. If I'd placed the Objectives in Peter's half of the board then he would have had to make some tough decisions about whether he wanted to sit on the Objectives or whether he wanted to rush into combat. If he'd sat on the Objectives, I could have just sat back, shot him to pieces and then zoomed in to claim the Objectives nearer the end of the game. If he'd advanced then I would still have been able to shoot him, then held him with my larger squads while my smaller squads drove round the melee to claim Objectives.


Game 2 - Shooting Before Combat


My Wolf Scouts turned up nicely on the back board edge, near to Ian's Objective. I then shot with them at one squad with the intention of multi-charging two squads. Unfortunately my shooting was too good, the squad failed its Leadership check and ran away and left my Scouts swinging in the wind.

Game 3 - Deployment


After I'd seen that Brad's list had more shooting than me, I should have given serious consideration to placing my army in the corner as far away from him as I could get. This would have meant that he would have had to have moved his Dreadnought's to get them into range and his Long Fangs would have had some tough decisions to make around where to move to in order to get into range and trying to stay in cover. I could also have left some units in Reserve allowing me to come on my long board edge and attack his army piecemeal. I'm not saying that this would have been a foolproof tactic but it would at least have made for a less static game.

Game 4 - Aggression


I delayed my charge for a turn to keep my vehicles out of range of Grotzookas and Rokkits and in the final reckoning I was about half a turn away from Sean's Objective. I should have forgone shooting Living Lightning for the first two turns and moved my army forward 12" which would have given me a much better chance of getting to the Objective.

I also started with my Speeders on the board which just allowed Sean to shoot at them. If I'd left them in Reserve, I could have brought them on right next to my Objective and Heavy Flamered the Orks who were claiming it.

Game 5 - Deployment

For some reason, I have this blind spot when it comes to Battlewagons - I always forget that they can travel 12" and then the Boyz can assault out of it. So that's a 20" effective charge range on Turn 1. Unfortunately for my Long Fangs they were only about 16" away. Bye bye Long Fangs before they even got to shoot.

Game 6 - Stay in the Rhino

One of my Rhinos got Stunned so rather than lose a turn of shooting from my Rune Priest, he jumped out with his squad and cast Living Lightning. They then got shot to pieces and after the 3 survivors got back into their Rhino on the next turn it was subsequently blown up. In retrospect I should have stayed in the Rhino, popped smoke and accepted not shooting for a turn.

Actually, in the same way I made mistakes in Game 4 by concentrating on shooting too much out of the top hatches and not getting forward, I did the same thing here. I was never really going to win a shooting contest against Destroyers since I couldn't deny them WBB. If I'd been more aggressive, I could have gotten into Jaws range and from there into combat, both of which would have given me much better chances to win the game.


As you've seen, I've already started thinking about my next tournament list which is going to be a lot more focused. Time will tell how we get on...

Hello, my name's Mick and I'm a wargamer.

Sounds like the start of a self health group. Maybe admitting to yourself you have a problem is the first step. The problem with me is half the time I don't tell people about the guilty little secret that happens in our box room late at night while the lights are out, I sit and paint.

Do you actually tell your friends you are a gamer? Those friends who aren't gamers that is? I as regular readers will know am an avid football fan and because of that I have two very distinct group of friends, I have my football friends who all wander up and down the country looking like extras from the Football Factory most weekends and I have my gamer friends who don't look like the latter group. My football friends still don't know about my gamer friends. They don't know why most Thursday nights I am unavailable.

I guess my question is why is it like that?

And the answer is because the appeal of 40k is incredibly hard to explain. Have you ever tried explaining it to your Mum? Where do you start? Do you start at the beginning of the fluff? There was this man called the Emperor and he had these sons called the Primarchs and suddenly she's going off on a tangent about the shop Primark (for our America readers Primark is a British clothing chain which sells cheap, made in sweat shop clothes to the masses) and how there is absolutely nothing on the shelves its all piled on the floor.

Do you start with the miniatures and try and explain why your mate has exactly the same miniature as you which could well lead back to the swamp that is the fluff or may go on the other tangent of 'How much do you pay for these things? And you say they aren't even painted? And you have to buy the paints for yourself? How long does it take you to paint them? Well you have a little bit more time for the ironing then don't you?'.

Or you could try and explain the game through the rules which in the end comes down to throwing some dice, using a tape measure, doing some mental maths and someone somewhere moving some models.

Its a minefield to explain it to people and personally I believe that if I were to try and explain it to my mates they would just confused.

So here am Internet saying loudly and proudly. I am a wargamer (but don't tell too many people.

Arena of Death - Arjac Rockfist vs Darnath Lysander

vs

This week in the Arena of Death, we have Lysander verses Baby Lysander...

Round 1 - Arjac on the charge

Arjac began the battle by hurling Foehammer at Lysander. Despite hitting and wounding, Lysnader managed to divert the blow using his Storm Shield. Swinging his Hammer and his Shield, Arjac hit Lysander 4 times but being Grimnar's Champion, he re-rolled his miss and that hit as well. He managed to cause 4 wounds but only one avoided Lysander's Storm Shield. Hitting back, Lysnader missed with all of his attacks and even his Master Crafted Thunder Hammer couldn't help. Arjac swung again, hitting once but that became twice with his re-rolls. Both hits wounded and another made it through Lysander's defences. Enraged Lysander hit back three times and caused two wounds, one of which was blocked by Arjac's Anvil Shield. Arjac hit twice and again his re-roll was successful bumping it up to three hits all of which wounded. Again, one got through leaving Lysander on one wound. Lysander managed to miss with all three of hit attacks for a second time. Arjac only managed a single hit but that became two with his re-roll. However, he could only wound once and that was saved. Lysander only manged to hit once but this time his Master Crafted weapon made it into two. Both wounded but Arjac saved them both. With Arjac and Lysander on a single wound apiece, they could sense the end of the combat was near. Arjac hit once before re-rolls which became twice afterwards. Both hits wounded and Lysander could only save one. With his last breath Lysander struck back, hitting twice but that became a Master Crafted three hits and three wounds. However Arjac saved all three, leaving him victorious.

Round 2 - Lysander on the charge

Lysander let out a roar and charged into combat, hitting four times. Two of them wounded and one managed to avoid Arjac's Storm Shield. On the Counter Attack, Arjac hit five times. Despite causing four wounds, all of them were stopped by Lysander's Storm Shield. In the second round, Lysnader hit twice and caused two wounds. Both of them were too fast for Arjac's Shield and he was left dead. With only three attacks, he couldn't take Lysander's four wounds and so Lysander was the winner.

Round 3 - No Charge Bonus

Arjac struck with three attacks, hit twice and caused two wounds. Lysander managed to save one but one got through. Attacking back, Lysander hit twice but could only cause a single wound. However, Arjac couldn't stop it leaving him on his last wound. Arjac let rip with Foehammer again, hitting three times and causing three wounds. However, Lysander was a master with his Storm Shield and he managed to save two of them. Hitting back, Lysander hit twice and caused two wounds. Only one got through but that was enough for Lysander to be declared victorious in the Arena of Death

Wow, the two wounds that those extra 12 points get you made all the difference. Well actually, the fact that he made a lot more 3++ saves was what made the difference. Both of these guys are going to be beasts on the charge, especially Arjac with a S10 AP1 shot at BS5 and then 5 attacks that hit on 3s and wound on 2s. Lysander though is a bit of an odd character. TH/SS marks him out as a combat monster but Bolter Drill and Bolster Defences are more kind of defensive skills.

Caledonian Uprising - Day 2

So after a good start on Day 1, it had all gone a bit Pete Tong. After falling asleep on the sofa, I woke up reasonably refreshed for day 2...

Game 4 - Sean's Orks

Sean had a fantastically painted Kan Wall Ork army with two Forge World Mega Dreads standing in as regular Ork Dreads. He also had two KFF Meks, two big Boyz squads and some Lootas. It was Dawn of War deployment and the mission was Roll Dice and Tie. Which I lost again. I let him have first turn with the intention of leaveraging my entire army against half of his but it didn't quite work out. My Scouts proved next to useless in combat while I used my Land Speeders very poorly. I also hesitated with my charge at his Objective by a turn which cost me the game. All in all I should have focused on keeping my Objective and taken the draw. However, I really hadn't enjoyed game three where we just sat in our respective corners and I didn't want to do the same again.

Game 5 - Darren's Orks

So blogger against blogger in the big grudge match. For the first four turns Darren absolutely battered me. The only highlights for me was when I managed to Jaws his newly painted Warboss and when he caught me in a Sweeping Advance when if he hadn't my squad would have run off the board. However, in Turn 5, he moved off two Objectives in order to try and wipe out my last squad. Unfortunately we'd both forgotten about my final Razorback which was under the table in Reserve. Darren very graciously allowed me to bring it on at the end of Turn 5 and thanks to a lot of luck keeping my other squad alive, I managed a thoroughly undeserved draw.

Game 6 - Graham's Necrons

Graham was running a Destroyer Wing army with lots and lots and lots of Destroyers. It was a Kill Point mission and due to We'll Be Back, I just couldn't do enough damage while he slowly and surely took out my vehicles and racked up the easy Kill Points.

All in all, it was a great tournament that was really well organised and ran. I was completely shattered by the end of it and looking back with the benefit of hindsight I can see that I made so many mistakes. In the end I finished 75th out of 80 which was a little disappointing but it's only my third tournament and I'm still learning...

MIA

So for the last week I've been MIA in the world of blogging, work has been getting in the way of that oh so important thing - having a life.

I failed to play a game last week because of having some major car trouble on Thursday and then going to watch Alfreton VS Mansfield on Saturday. Instead of gaming I've spent a fair bit of time sorting some models, mainly my square based elves.

I know have

1 Lord on a griffon
1 Lord on a horse
I Lord on foot with a standard
1 Mage on foot
1 mage on a horse

5 Shadow warriors
a bolt thrower
a chariot
10 dragon riders

40 sea guard
30 Spearmen
20 Archers

Not a bad collection, the only problem is I have absolutely no idea what to do with any of it.

The first company vets are in the middle of their Fantasy tournament so at the moment there is no one to really take me through the game however it does give me enough time to magnetise all the models and then get some magnetic movement trays. If anyone knows where to get them from can you let me know.

One of the main issues with Fantasy is that it takes hours to paint a unit. I really hate playing with unpainted models however its something that I will have to grin and bare in order to actually learn the game before 9th edition.

Campaign Quandary

The C&G gang are planning on starting a 40k campaign which will use Mighty Empires as the background mechanic for our games. My quandary is that I want to use a new army, as I've played a lot of games with my Chaos Marines and, frankly, I feel like a change! My problem is, I'm glacially slow at building new armies and I really don't want to rush my labour of love (ie, the Squat army I bore everyone with).

So, if I'm not to use my Chaos Marines, what am I left with? I can muster about 1,000pts (1,500pts at a stretch) of Tyranids, or I could field a reasonably balanced Eldar army (up to 1,750pts).

Guys - any preferences on what you'd like to play against?

G.

Spam? I call it Redundancy...

So, you may have noticed that there was no Arena of Death this week. That's because I was actually playing a game against Andy rather than at home playing with myself. Erm...

We were playing Seize Ground with 4 Objectives and Dawn of War deployment. I was using the following list:

Rune Priest, Chooser of the Slain, Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane
Rune Priest, Stormcaller, Jaws of the World Wolf

Lone Wolf, Terminator Armour, Chainfist, Storm Shield
Lone Wolf, Terminator Armou, Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield
6 Wolf Scouts, Meltagun, Melta Bombs, Mark of the Wulfen

5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun
5 Grey Hunters, Meltagun, Razorback, Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun

Land Speeder, Multimelta, Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder, Multimelta, Heavy Flamer

6 Long Fangs, 4 Rocket Launchers, Lascannon

Andy had a Warboss on a Bike with a load of Nobz, another Warboss on foot with Snikrot, a big unit of Boyz on foot, 2 20 man Boyz squads in Waggons and a squad of Lootas.

It was absolute carnage. The game was over by the end of turn 5 as all Andy had left were 3 broken Boyz mobs. Things weren't much better on my side of the board as I only had one scoring unit remaining. I was really happy with the way this list performed and also with the way I actually played it. Normally, I never get my Grey Hunters out of their transports but here they jumped out on turn one to rapid fire at the bikes. I had been hoping to wipe them out but leaving just the Warboss and two Nobz all on a single wound was a great start to the battle.

After that I didn't really get to do much shooting as all of Andy's Orks were in combat. I managed to get the charge against the big Boyz mob which was golden as it prevented them getting Furious Charge. I have to admit that my Lone Wolves were a bit disappointing as they always seemed to be arriving at combats just as they were ending.

After a disappointing time at Caledonian the other weekend, I feel like I played a really good game this week. I think that the only thing Andy probably should have done was to turbo boost his bikes on turn 1 but as he said at the time he was worried about putting them in charge range of the Lone Wolves.

I'm still tempted to take a Drop Pod list to the next Open War as the missions seem to favour that kind of army but after the showing of the Razorwolf list here, I might change my mind.