Tuesday, 19 March 2013
The Hall of Miniatures at Warhammer World
I was quite surprised to see that the Dark Angels exhibition was still on despite the recent Codex Daemons release but I was very pleased to see loads of my old favorites still on display up there. Here are a few pictures.
Monday, 28 January 2013
Battle Brothers - Game 1
Game 1 of the Warhammer World Battle Brothers Tournament. Gav and I were representing Claws and Fists and given the amount of play-testing we'd gone through, and my recent experiences on the tournament scene in 6th Ed. expectations were low.
Our first game was against a couple of friendly chaps playing a BA and IG list that looked something like this:
BA Captain w. Jump Pack, Infernus Pistol & Thunder Hammer
Assault Squad x5 with Flamer & 2x Hand Flamer
Death Company x10 Thunder Hammer, Power Fist 2x Infernus Pistols, Drop Pod
Death Company Dread with Blood Talons.
Baal Predator w. Flamestorm and Heavy Flamer
Storm Raven w. Plasma Cannon & Multi-Melta
Lord Commissar w. Powerfist
Marbo
Infantry Platoon
PCS w. Plasma Gun & Plasma Pistol
20x Guardsmen w 2x Autocannon
Aegis Defense Line w. Quad-Gun
The mission was Purge the Alien with Hammer and Anvil deployment.
Tuesday, 31 January 2012
Throne of Skulls Winter 2012 - Day 1 Reports
After a successful Friday night playing poker I woke up full of optimism for the weekend ahead. Mick and I were aiming to get down to Warhammer World at about 8 o'clock to sample the breakfast in Bugmans. This meant I had to roll out of bed at highly unsocial 7:30 in order to have time for a shower and still make the daunting 10 minute drive to the venue. Tough life living in Nottingham!
The breakfast did not disappoint, neither did the organisation; registration went smoothly and the Black Library guys had the pre-release books all set out ready for perusal. The tables at Warhammer World are all the moulded plastic Realm of Battle boards beautifully painted and flocked. I would say that the terrain was a little sparse, more like the 20% than 25%. That doesn't sound like much of a difference but when you compare it to the tables at Maelstrom every table I played on felt wide open. Also a note on the Realm of Battle boards, I've always thought they were better for pictures than for actually playing on, having played 5 games on them this weekend I have to say that they weren't as bad as I was expecting them to be. I still prefer a flat board but these did make a nice change.
Anyway, on to the tournament proper and I should start with my list seeing as I haven't posted it previously:
Codex Orks – 1500pts
HQ
Ghaz
Big Mek
Kustom Force-Field, Boss Pole, Burna
ELITE
Lootas (x10)
TROOPS
4 Mega Nobz (1x Kombi-Skorcha, 1x Kombi-Rokkit)
26 Shoota Boyz (23x Shootas, 2x Rokkits, Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole)
26 Shoota Boyz (23x Shootas, 2x Rokkits, Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole)
18 Slugga Boyz (17 Boyz, Nob w. Power Klaw, Boss Pole & 'Eavy Armour)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Battle Wagon (Armour Plates, Deff Rolla, Red Paint Job)
Battle Wagon (Armour Plates, Deff Rolla, Red Paint Job)
Game 1 vs Dark Eldar
Mission: Pitched Battle / Capture & Control
HQ
Lady Malys
2x Haemonculus (1x HexRfl, 1x Web Portal)
ELITE
5x Trueborn (4x Blasters, Venom)
4x Bloodbrides (Venom)
TROOPs
5x Warriors (Venom)
5x Warriors (Venom)
5x Wyches (Haywire Grenades, Venom)
3x Wracks
10x Warriors (Blaster & Dark Lance)
FAST ATTACK
Beastmaster (x2 w. Razorwing Flock x2)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Razorwing
All of the Venoms had Shadow Fields and double Splinter Cannons and all of the units had various upgrades which I really can't remember.
Recap:
My foot units advanced in cover trying to secure the Ork Objective. The Battle Wagons advanced trying to pin the DE units into a corner. My deployment had put the Lootas out of range so they had to re position quickly. Fortunately my opponent had and appalling 1st turn of shooting, only managing to kill 4 Orks
His failed shooting had left him dangerously close to my lines and I got greedy and broke cover with one of my units and jumped the Slugga Boyz out of their BW in an attempt to charge 3x Venoms that moved fast, sadly my charge was even less effective than the previous round of DE shooting. With no cover to protect them the Orks fell in droves to the return fire and one 26 boy and the 18 Boy units were wiped out.
The Mega Nobz continued their advance towards the DE objective and charged out of their BW and into the 10-man DE squad on the DE objective. Wiping them out and taking the objective.
A turn or two of concentrated fire on Megan Nobz finally managed to kill one of them, they failed the subsequent morale test and were and escorted off the table. The remaining Boyz unit wre quickly whittled down and removed from the Ork objective with relative ease.
Result: 2-0 loss
Game 2 vs Tyranids
Mission: Dawn of War / Seize Ground (4 Obj)
HQ
Tyranid Prime (Lash Whip & Bone Sword)
ELITE
3x Hive Guard
2x Zoanthropes (Spore)
2x Zoanthropes (Spore)
TROOPS
15x Termagants (Devourers, Spore)
10x Genestealers (Toxin Sacs)
10x Genestealers (Toxin Sacs, Broodlord)
Tervigon (Cluster Spines, Catalyst)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Mawloc
Recap:
I deployed the 2 Shoota Boyz units across 2 of the objectives, in cover, one taking the centre of the board, the other in my back right corner.
1 BW with Ghaz and the Slugga Boyz went left for the Objective in the far left corner. The Mega Nobz in the other BW went right for the other in the far Right corner.
The Zoanthropes dropped in turn 2 & 3 taking out a BW each time but being cut down by Lootas/Shootas in each of my following turns.
The Slugga Boyz took far left Objective uncontested because my opponent was focussing on the centre and the objective on my far right. However, the Mega Nobz & Shoota Boyz in the centre managed to resist a charge from both units of stealers (thanks to hugging the terrain) cutting them down to just the Broodlord.
The Mega Nobz cannot move fast enough to reach the Objective on my far right to contest it, and were out of position to support the Boyz in the centre Leaving them vulnerable to the firepower of the Devil-Gants and the Broodlord. When the dust had settled though, 5 Shoota Boyz stood firm to hold out and contest centre objective.
Result: 2-1 win
Game 3 vs Black Templars
Mission: Spearhead / Annihilation
HQ
Emperors Champion (Vow: Pref Enemy)
ELITE
5 Terminators (2x Chain Fists, 3x Power Fists, 1x Assault Cannon)
TROOPS
10x Crusaders (Flamer, Plasma Cannon, Power Sword) 5x Neophytes
10x Crusaders (Meltagun) 5x Neophytes
FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder Typhoon (Typhoon Missile Launcher, Multi Melta)
HEAVY SUPPORT
Vindicator
Predator (Twin-Linked Lascannon, Lascannon Sponsons, Machine Spirit)
Land Raider Crusader (Multi Melta, Blessed Hull)
Recap:
I reserved both Shoota Boyz units, and he reserved his Terminators electing to Deep Strike them.
The Slugga Boyz & Big Mek took their Battle Wagon left to take on Predator & Vindicator, Ghaz & the Mega Nobz went Right in their BW to take on the Land Raider.
The Slugga Boyz took out the Vindicator for no loss but the Lootas could only stun the Land Speeder. Worst of all Ghaz missed the charge on the Land Raider. The Crusader squad inside counter-charged and took Ghaz down to 1 wound also forcing him to use his Waaggh. On the up-side though he did take out the Emperor's Champion!
The Terminators dropped in to support of the left flank where the Slugga Boyz were eating through the armour (the Predator was taken out in short order), but the 1st unit of Shoota Boyz also arrived and tied them up, eventually wiping them.
The Mega Nobz counter charged to support Ghaz who managed to survive another round of combat on a single wound, and wiped the Crusader Squad. Following on Ghaz made short work of the Land Raider and provided a clear shot on the Speeder which the Lootas quickly dispatched.
The Crusader Squad on the left flank halted and wiped the rampaging Slugga Boys but a combined charge from the second Shoota Boyz Squad and the Mega Nobz took care of them clearing the Black Templars off the table at the bottom of the 5th turn.
Result: 8-3 win
Monday, 30 January 2012
Throne of Skulls - The final standings
Well, let's start from the start, you get 3pts for a win, 1pt for a draw and 0pts for a loss, you also get points based on how many of your opponents nominated you as their favourite opponent of the weekend. GW's method for ranking you in the tournament is (as best as I can tell) the following; the average score across all the players who used the same codex is compared with your tournament score and the difference is you "ranking score". For example I scored 12pts for my 4 wins and 1 point because someone thought I was a good opponent. The average score across the 7 Ork Players at the tournament was 11 so that gives me a ranking score of 2. Mick scored 13 points as well but the average score across the 11 Space Wolf players was 8 so his ranking score was 5.
Using the above methodology Mick placed 6th and I placed 44th out of a field of 129 players. It's GW's tournament and they can score it how they like (also I knew this would be the case going into the event so I'm not complaining), I'm just not sure what that system tells us in the final standings. Except, possibly that if you do well with an army that other players did not manage to do well with then you are likely to do well in the overall standings.
Where this gets iffy is when someone with a 4-1 record wins the tournament with Daemons while the only player with 5 wins finishes 8th, so you're not really in control of your final placing.
Let's just take a look at where we would have finished if the rankings were based on your results with the codex ranking score used as a tie-breaker. In this case Mick would have placed 11th and I would have got 19th. The 5-0 Dark Eldar player still only manages second place though because an Ork player with 4 wins managed 5 best game nominations and so ended up with 17 total points to beat him by a single point. So it comes back to the age old issue of soft scoring vs generalship but all I can say to that is that if you know how the scoring is done before you go to the event and buy the ticket anyway don't complain about the rubric after the fact.
What I take away from this tournament is that I played well and managed 4 wins, I had 5 great games against 5 really nice opponents and I would definitely buy a ticket for another Throne of Skulls.
Just in case you're interested, here's how the codexes break down in terms of number of players and average score:
| No. of players | Codex | Avg Score |
| 6 | Black Templars | 9.83 |
| 13 | Blood Angels | 6.62 |
| 5 | Chaos Daemons | 9.20 |
| 8 | Chaos Space Marines | 8.38 |
| 1 | Dark Angels | 7.00 |
| 12 | Dark Eldar | 11.17 |
| 7 | Eldar | 8.00 |
| 14 | Grey Knights | 7.93 |
| 11 | Imperial Guard | 7.00 |
| 6 | Necrons | 9.50 |
| 7 | Orks | 11.86 |
| 17 | Space Marines | 7.41 |
| 11 | Space Wolves | 8.18 |
| 3 | Tau | 7.33 |
| 7 | Tyranids | 11.57 |
Saturday, 1 January 2011
Postcards from the edge ... of the table
Happy New Year all!You may have read in an earlier post that Gav, Mick, Graham and I played a large (12,000pts) game just before Christmas, hopefully you've read Gav's overview here but I was the one holding the camera and here are a few of the snap-shots I took:












That's about all I got, sadly I didn't capture the moment Mephiston died trying to take out a Land Raider. Even more sadly though Gav did, as I said earlier his version of events can be found here.
All in all I enjoyed the game and am looking forward to the next one. did I hear a 1500pt per player challenge being laid down to Graham and myself? Bring it on!
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Steppin' out into the Underhive
With Warhammer World closed for its annual deep clean Gav and Graham descended on my house with beers, squats and Space Crusade. After opening the beers and critiquing Graham's Squats, which look awesome in their new colour scheme, we set up a game of Space Crusade.
Space Crusade is a sci-fi dungeon-crawl board game which was originally released all the way back in 1990. While it feels wrong to classify it as Space Hulk-light, that does sum it up succinctly. It does seem less involved, less dependent on tactics and the random element has a stronger influence on the outcome of the game. However it is fast, easy to get to grips with and a lot of fun. It's an old game but well worth digging out of the closet if you happen to have an old copy lying around.
After we had played a couple of missions, leafed through my copy of the 1st Edition 40k Rule Book and the 'Ere We Go Ork supplement and refreshed our drinks I asked if the guys could talk me through rolling up a Necromunda Gang. It had come up a couple of times in conversation over the past few months and I remember back when the game was first released that I'd been interested in getting into the game. I'd been quite into RPGs as a spotty youth and the campaign/gang development mechanic really appealed to me, as well as the skirmish nature of the encounters.
Anyway. with Gav and Graham's help it took me next to no time to roll up the following Gang o' Goliaths called the Mad Dogs:
Muru (Leader): Las Pistol, Chainsword, 63xp
Hakkar (Heavy): Heavy Bolter, Las Pistol, 62xp
Garr (Heavy): Heavy Stubber, 62xp
Kez (Ganger): Lasgun, 26xp
Leith (Ganger): Lasgun, 25xp
Emile (Ganger): Autogun, 22xp
Rav (Ganger): Shotgun, 22xp
Twink (Juve): Las Pistol, Auto Pistol
Lev (Juve): Shotgun
Territories: Archeotech, Spore Cave, Tunnels, Vents, Slag
I'm pretty happy with the composition of the gang, I think the guys have managed to temper what I thought would be good into something practical. I think I should have spent some of the 25 creds I have left in the bank for alternative ammo choices for the shotguns but there'll be time for that further down the road. Fortunately, with my rather lucky rolls on the Territories table I should not be too short on cash, providing I can keep my gangers alive long enough to put them to work!
I think I'll be converting my gang from the Catachan IG box set so keep it here for updates on the gang as they get built and put to work in the Underhive.
Sunday, 22 August 2010
There's a Storm Coming
I have avoided this unit like the plague because; they seem to be the norm in what's considered a "competitive" Marine list and I do so hate toeing the line, you need a Landraider to run them which means you've got about a third of your force in a neat little box and at £27 they're pretty damn expensive for 5 guys ... all be it seriously cool-looking, tooled up, action hero type guys!
However, this weekend the little voice in my head started nagging at me saying hat I hadn't bought any little plastic men for a while and that I probably needed to go and throw some cash at a Red Shirt. The voice was clearly ignoring the fact that I have a good 45% of my Ork army left to paint and I have an unopened Valkyrie wating to be converted into a Storm Raven - anyone want to buy a Valkyrie, still in the cellophane?!
Anyway, Daniel was in a mood because he's teething at the moment so I selflessly volunteered to go out and do the food shopping on my own. It just so happens that Warhammer World is only a 10 minute detour on the way to Sainsburys. I mean, it'd be rude not to just poke my head in and see if they had any in stock seeing as I'm in the area anyway ...
50 minutes later, and not a little wet thanks to some freak rain which decided to fall at it's hardest during the periods when I was not in the car or in a shop - I took this storm as a positive omen, Thunder Hammers; Storm Shields? You with me? Anyway, 50 minuted later I walk back through the door of my house with some orange Sainsburys bags and a little black bag containing the Emperor's cheesiest little squad that could. They are now assembled and undercoated, ready for painting should I be able to get some free time in the evenings this week. Otherwise there's a convenient bank holiday weekend comming up next week so that may be a good opportunity there. Here's a little pic of the guys so far:


I also "tweeked" my list for Open War to include them, whadda ya think?
HQ
Librarian
Null Zone, Gate of Infinity
ELITE
Dreadnought
2x Twin Linked Autocannons
Dreadnought
2x Twin Linked Autocannons
Assault Terminators
5x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield; Land Raider w. Extra Armour, Multi Melta
TROOPS
Tactical Squad
(10) Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Sgt w. Combi-Melta; Rhino
Tactical Squad
(10) Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Sgt w. Combi-Melta; Rhino
Scout Squad
(10) 5x Combat Blade, 3x Sniper Rifle, Missile Launcher, Sgt w. Sniper Rifle
FAST ATTACK
Land Speeder
Typhoon Missile Launcher, Heavy Bolter
Land Speeder
Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder
Multi Melta, Heavy Flamer
HEAVY SUPORT
Thunderfire Cannon
This is my standard shooty Marine army list with the Sternguard replaced by the Assault Terminators, I retain the Lascannons thanks to the Land Raider dedicated transport. The Librarian rides with the Terminators so the Land Raider and both Rhinos rush to control the mid-field which gives Null Zone a good area of effect.
The Thunderfire Cannon, Land Speeder Typhoon and the Dreads sit on the back line to provide fire support and the MM/HF Speeders are held in reserve to Deep Strike and hopefully keep the opponent guessing. Against armys with no heavy armour or massed infantry they could also be run as a diversion up a flank.
One last thought is that in tournaments where Special Characters are allowed I could drop the Typhoon and upgrade my libby to Vulkan. I think it's a pretty decent Vulkan list and I don't really lose too much from the intention of the original list.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Open War 13 - Game 1
My first game was Spearhead deployment, Seize Ground (5 objectives) against a Daemon list which my opponent referred to as a bit 'beardy'. I'd never played against Daemons before so this comment did not boost my confidence. I have, however, recently started listening to the 11th Company podcast and one of the hosts plays Daemons and regularly gives good insight into the lists he plays, so at least I wasn't going in completely blind!
I won the roll and elected to go first the plan was to spread out as much as possible to deny the Daemons the option to easily deploy in open ground. At the same time I was concious of setting up firing lanes and keeping them clear, I would probably only get one turn of clear shooting and I would need to make it count. As it turned out he immobilised his Soulgrinder in difficult terrain and lost a couple of bloodletters in the same vein. Later on the tactic would reap bigger rewards thanks to his Lord of Change misshapping itself to death! Good times.
Frankly I was a bit lucky in this game, the Lord of Change would have been a potential game-winner for him, if it had survived. He got no additional reserves in turn 2 and only half on turn 3 so I had plenty of chances to whittle him down in bite-size chunks. However my
shooting was pretty poor initially and his Bloodthirster managed to take out Pedro and his Sternies before I could take it down.
Lysander finally played a key part in a game for me by first lending his Bolter Drill to the Sternguard who managed to take out the remaining 14 Bloodletters in one round of shooting! He also managed to single-handedly tar-pit a large unit of Dameonettes (my opponent's last remaining troop unit at the time) stopping them from holding an objective thus guaranteeing that I could not loose.
Sadly his Daemon Prince was able to eat through the units on my 'home' objectives and contest the only objective I held out-right on the last turn of the game. It was a good, closely fought game, a perfect start to a tournament and a good intro to Daemons.
Daemon List
Lord of Change
Master of Sorcery, Breath of Chaos
Bloodthirster
Unholy Might
Bloodletters
(16) Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos
Daemonettes
(12) Icon of Chaos, Instrument of Chaos
Pink Horrors
(9) Changeling, Bolt of Tzeentch
Fiends of Slaanesh
(6) Unholy Might
Soul Grinder
Phlegm
Daemon Prince
Mark of Tzeentch, Wings Daemonic Gaze
Result - Draw (0-0)
MVP - Lysander
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Heresy, Blips and Beers
The mission we went for was Mission 3 - Rescue (the table was not big enough for the board required for Mission 2 - Cleanse), this is the one where you have two teams of Marines at either end of the board and you have to escort the C.A.T from one entry point to the other. I was a bit dubious about the mission as I thought it strongly favoured the Genestealers but it turned out to be a lot of fun (mostly for me though!).
I took the 'stealers' first and decided that I was going to go for the middle of the board before Gav could control either of the major corridors which allowed my blips to enter and contest the centre quickly. I also misunderstood the rule about blips having to lurk if a marine is within 6 spaces of their entry point, I didn't realise they only had to lurk 1 turn and could come on after that! Because of this I didn't bother trying to bring blips on from the entry points closest to his starting areas. As it turned out this probably worked in my favour.
I manged to get a large number of blips into the centre of the board and quickly and whittled down his unit carrying the C.A.T., crucially taking out his marine with the Heavy Flamer in the process. In the other half of the board I was throwing 'stealers into the firey maw of his Assault Cannon. I was purely trying to get him to expend his ammo so I could make a serious attempt at wiping out this squad before the loose C.A.T. made it's way to that team.
In the end I managed to wipe him out, at great cost to the hive mind, but hey I guess they'll get melted down and used for new bio-organisms anyway, no great loss there then. So that was 1-0 to the 'stealers and, after a refill, we swapped sides.
Having seen the game play out I had a clear idea of the tactic I wanted to employ, I was going to keep my teams together and get to the central corridors with 'stealer spawn points as quickly as possible. My Assault Cannon would basically hold the fort against anything coming in from the left edge of the board while my team with the C.A.T. would move as quickly as possible towards them because if the Assault Cannon ran out of ammo before they got past his position I would be screwed!
The plan went well and was helped by Gav placing his first bips behind where I was going. It did mean I had to set a rear guard for each team, but I was going to do that anyway. My plan went as intended and I was able to get the C.A.T. across the board with the loss of only 5 marines. I have to say I was really helped a lot by Gav's bad luck with his blips, if he'd had a few more 3's rather then the 1's and 2's that kept showing up I would have had a much harder time but as it was, my rear guard held firm with the Heavy Flamer shutting off routes as we advanced. The Assault Cannon did it's job well too, keeping the corridors clear until Squad Lorenzo got past, but again bigger blip counts would have caused me more problems with the Assault Cannon's limited ammo supply. Anyway, 'twas a good fun game and made up for the thrashing I received on the 40k tables the other week!
After the game we went for a wander around the tables to have a look at the armies people had bought to the AotE campaign weekend and I have to say I'm always blown away by the quality of the modeling and the painting players bring for these types of events. Armies that stick in my head include a great number of White Scars lists, a beautiful box full of Word Bearers, some brilliantly painted (yellow) Imperial Fists and some stunning looking Thunderwolf Cavalry conversions, pictures below:


