Caledonian army list

Ages since I have done much hobby related, trying to bring down the tory parties cheerleading section takes up too much time.

The Caledonian uprising is upon is and today was the dead line for army lists (which I almost forgot) so here is mine, just really increased the lascannons in the army to deal with Paladins and Grey Knight and Necron armour a little bit more consistently.

Mick Simpson (93) - Space Wolves

HQ1: Rune priest: living lightning, Murderous Hurricane, chooser of the slain, wolf tail talisman [115]
HQ1: Rune priest: living lightning, jaws of the world wolf, chooser of the slain [110]

Elite 1: Wolf Guard Pack: 3 Wolf Guard, 3 Power Fists, 3 Combi Meltas [129]+ TRANSPORT1
Elite 2: Dreadnought, 2 Twin linked Autocannons [125]

TROOP 1: Grey Hunters Pack: 7 grey hunters: meltagun, mark of the wulfen, wolf standard [135] + TRANSPORT 2
TROOP 2: Grey Hunters Pack: 7 grey hunters: meltagun, mark of the wulfen, wolf standard [135] + TRANSPORT 3
TROOP 3: Grey Hunters Pack: 7 grey hunters: meltagun, mark of the wulfen, wolf standard [135] + TRANSPORT 4
TROOP 4: Grey Hunters Pack: 6 grey hunters: flamer, mark of the wulfen [105] + TRANSPORT 5

FAST 1: Landspeeder Sqn: 1 Landspeeder: Multimelta, heavy flamer [70]
FAST 2: Landspeeder Sqn: 1 Landspeeder: Multimelta, heavy flamer [70]

HEAVY 1: Long Fangs Pack: 5 long fangs+1 Squad Leader, 4 missile launchers, 1 lascannon [155]
HEAVY 1: Long Fangs Pack: 5 long fangs+1 Squad Leader, 4 missile launchers, 1 lascannon [155]
HEAVY 1: Long Fangs Pack: 5 long fangs+1 Squad Leader, 4 missile launchers, 1 lascannon [155]

TRANSPORT 1: Razorback: lascannon + twin linked plasmaguns [75] [Elite 1]
TRANSPORT 2: Rhino [35] [Troop 1]
TRANSPORT 3: Rhino [35] [Troop 2]
TRANSPORT 4: Rhino [35] [Troop 3]
TRANSPORT 5: Razorback: lascannon + twin linked plasmaguns [75] [Troops 4]

Had thoughts about dropping the Dakka dread but it was so succesful for me at Open War that I couldn't do it. Hope Santa brings everyone lots of hobby related goodies. Have a good one all and thanks for supporting the blog this year.

Revealed (NotW-Style Expose)! The Truth About the Lost 2nd & 11th Legions

So, everybody knows that the first rule of Astartes-Club is that you don't talk about 'those' Legions (just like those members of the family that never get mentioned at Christmas time. 'Long holiday', yeah right).

Anyway, I was browsing the internet this evening and found what I consider to be a perfectly plausible explanation for the mysterious disappearance of two whole Space Marine Legions, the 2nd and 11th. Here it is:

http://sonsoftaurus.blogspot.com/2010/11/secrets-of-lost-space-marine-legions.html

The only other explanation I can come up with for two missing Legions is printed on the side of the now-legendary Space Marines box RTB01 (one such box currently resides in my conservatory, storing cardboard scenery pieces for a very old Alternative Armies game, Firefight). I can summarise the reason for the two missing Legions in four short words:

Space Sharks.

Rainbow Warriors.

Really, I know 40k was a fledgling game back in the eighties and not every idea was going to be a winner, but surely they could have come up with something a bit better?! No wonder the modern fluff-writers have gone to such lengths to mask these two less-than-spectacular Legions!

Blog Wars - Game 2

 

Game 2 was against a “friend of From the Fang”, Dave Crawford, and his Blood Angel Army. He opened by telling me all about how, he'd only just come back to 40k and that he'd not won a game yet. Dangerous talk because my confidence level shoots through the roof and I start to make mistakes. This time however I had promised myself that I would play each game as though I knew my opponent was the best person in the draw. So I had a look at his list:

HQ

Dante

Honour Guard

(5) Blood Champion, Thunder Hammer, 2x Infernus Pistols, Storm Shield, Power Sword, Chapter

Banner

ELITE

Sanguinary Priest

(2) 2x Power Swords

TROOP

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Assault Squad

(10) 2x Meltaguns, Power Fist

Scouts

(5) 5xSniper Rifles, Camo Cloaks

HEAVY SUPPORT

Dreadnought

2x TL Autocannon

Dreadnought

2x TL Autocannon

… lots of troops.

The mission was spearhead deployment and cleanse (table quarters), I lost the roll and Dave chose to go first. He combat squaded everything giving himself 8 scoring units (Special Characters count as scoring in this mission) deploying roughly half his force on the left of his deployment zone and the other half on the right. He placed his Dreads in the back corner and held Dante and his Honour Guard in reserve, the Scouts infiltrated into cover on his left flank.

I decided to split my force to send Ghaz and a Battle Wagon full of Boyz off to take on the three combat squads on the right, the Stormboys and the other Battle Wagon went left after the other three combat squads and the two Trukks were set up centrally, aiming for the back corner and the Dreadnought. The Lootas were placed pretty centrally in my deployment zone with good LoS to both flanks and I held the Gretchin in reserve (for a change).

Oh I forgot to mention the Deffkopta, that's probably because I forgot to scout it and two rending shots from the scouts later it was toast. Bit of a bummer really as I'd planned for that to go and root out the scouts. This was to set the scene for a roller-coaster of dice rolls that did not go my way, Nuffle was clearly not pleased with me for some reason!

Dave advanced down both flanks spreading my forces further apart, I pushed forward and at the top of turn 2 he made a play for my Battle Wagons with his meltas. Surprisingly the one with the KFF was destroyed while Ghaz's BW emerged unscathed, I felt pretty good though because all of his assault squads were now in charge range. I kept my Meganobs heading towards the Dreads in their Trukk, everyone else piled out of their vehicles keen to take on some crunchy marines, the 18 shoota and 12 sluggas went for the 10 marines who took out the BW and the 15 Stormboys went in on the remaining combat squad. Likewise the other unit of shootas went for the Marines who'd failed to take out their BW and Ghaz made a b-line for the last combat squad harbouring the second priest. I have to say I was feeling pretty confident here, I thought I'd wipe him out with Orks to spare to hunt for Dante when he arrived. I was wrong.

The Stormboys failed spectacularly losing combat and getting run down, the other combat on the left was similarly unsuccessful with two 5-man combat squads running down the 30 boyz who piled into them. Fortunately the marines did suffer heavy losses and they fell back into close proximity making an easy target. Over on the right the Shoota Boyz were able to hold the two Assault Squads they were engaged with and Ghaz made short work of the combat squad he was aimed at, freeing him up to come back and support the shootas.

The collapse of my left flank meant that the Meganobs had to come back and mop up the remaining marines there, while they managed this they suffered two losses thanks to a remaining power fist. And headed off to settle the Dreadnought who were contesting the back left quarter. While all this death and destruction had been happening, Dante and his Honour Guard had turned up and were happily tearing through my Lootas and the Gretchin who had turned up only moments earlier. Not to worry I thought, they're not Sanguinary Guard so Dante doesn't make them scoring (Face-Palm!)

So I moved the remaining shootas on my right to threaten his Scouts and charged my Meganobs into the nearest Dreadnought … and then the game ended. Draw I thought and then Dave reminded me that while the Honour Guard were not scoring, Dante was and I'd lost by a quarter. Kicking myself does not come close.

Aside from forgetting about Dante there were a couple of things which lost the game for me, first was not scouting my Deffkopta to get a cover save, I think he would have comfortably had those scouts, as it was, they took him out comfortably. Secondly was my complete failure on the left flank, causing my Meganobs to have to come back to secure it and that stopped them being able to clear the Dreadnoughts from the back quarter.

Grr, a frustrating loss thanks to some bad dice, forgetting mission rules and playing an opponent who stuck to his game plan. I was staring down the barrel of going win-less, lets hope I could pull it together in game three which would be a show down between Ghaz and Yarrick! Stay tuned.

Blog Wars - Game 1

On-Fire Painting blog

This weekend saw a motley crew of Bloggers descend on Maelstrom Games to contest the coveted Blog Wars trophy for the second time this year. Blog Wars is a tournament run by Alex of the From the Fang blog and is intended to be a fun day out for us bloggers to get together, chat, eat, drink and roll some dice. Graham (Grazer) and I were there representing Claws and Fists and I think it's safe to say we both had a great time and I'd like to say that I think Alex runs a great tournament in the just the right spirit for his target audience. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first two tournaments and look forward to the two he's got planned for next year.

My first game was against international 40k Podcast net-celebrity Dave Symcox of the 40kUK podcast and blog. Now I've been a fan of the 40kUK podcast since it started and even before that when Dave did a regular segment on the 11thCompany Podcast so, since we usually operate at opposite ends of the draw in regular tournaments, it was great to face off against him here.

Here's my list for your consideration:

HQ

Ghaz

Big Mek

Kustom Forcefield

ELITE

12 Lootas

TROOP

Meganobs

(4) Kombi-Rokitt, Kombi-Skorcha; Trukk

Ork Boys

(18) Shootas, inc Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole

Ork Boys

(18) Shootas, inc Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole

Ork Boys

(12) Slugga & Choppa, inc Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole; Trukk

Gretchin

(11) inc Runtherd

FAST ATTACK

Deffkopta

Buzz-Saw, Twin-linked Rokkit Launcher

Stormboyz

(15) inc Nob w. Power Klaw & Boss Pole

HEAVY SUPPORT

Battlewagon

Deffrolla, Armour Plates, Red Paintjob, Big Shoota

Battlewagon

Deffrolla, Armour Plates, Red Paintjob, Big Shoota

Dave was playing a Space Wolf Army which pretty much looked as follows:

HQ

Njal

ELITE

Wolf Scouts

(5) Meltagun

Wolf Guard

(5) 5x Combi-Melta & Power Fist

TROOP

4x Grey Hunters

(7) Meltagun, Wolf Standard; Rhino

Grey Hunters

(5) Meltagun, Wolf Standard

HEAVY SUPPORT

Long Fangs

(5) 4x Missile Launchers; Razorback w. Lascannon & TL Plasmagun

Long Fangs

(5) 4x Missile Launchers; Razorback w. Lascannon & TL Plasmagun

Long Fangs

(5) 4x Missile Launchers

(I can't remember the exact list but it was very much along these lines)

I won the roll off and decided to go second, I wanted Dave to deploy without knowing where my Battlewagons were going. He spread out across the back of his table edge with Long Fang packs on each flank and the third dead centre. The Grey Hunters and their Rhinos were evenly distributed as well and he held the 5-man Grey Hunter Squad and the scout in reserve with the scouts OBEL. Oh, and the Wolf Guard were split among the mechanised Grey Hunters and the Scouts.

I deployed heavy right hoping to deny two of his long fang packs side shots on my BWs and out-range the other(Ghaz was deployed in one of the wagons). The two trukks were tucked in behind the BWs and I deployed the Stormboyz and the Deffkopta on the extreme edge of my right flank. The Lootas were central, in cover with good LOS across the board and the gobbos were, of course, in reserve! I scouted the Kopta down the right table edge and after I failed to steal the initiative, Dave kicked off turn 1.

The Space Wolves fell back to the centre of their deployment zone away from the bulk of the Ork force. They were able to draw line of sight on both Trukks and the resulting salvo blew one up and immobilised the other. Not a bad start as my Meganobs would be walking! Never-the-less the Orks set off across the field with the 12-man Slugga Boy unit racing to keep up with the Stormboys down the right flank, the Deffkopta tucked in behind the Long Fangs on the right and next to their Razorback. The BWs Angled for the mass of Wolves in the centre and set off at full speed with the Meganobs, trudging out of their stricken Trukk, in hot pursuit. The Lootas unleashed a hail of fire vaporising the lead Rhino in the central formation and the Deffkopta was able to wreck the Razorback.

The Wolves reformed their lines but most of their turn was about the shooting, the Long Fangs on my right flank were unable to despatch the Deffkopta and didn't do much to the advancing Slugga Boys thanks to some good cover saves. In the middle, however, the Long Fangs managed to blow up the Big Mek's putting a unit of 18 Shoota Boys out on foot. The Lootas took some fire but didn't suffer significant losses and Ghaz's BW escaped without a scratch! In my turn the Sluggas continued their advance towards the Long Fangs on my right flank, ready to support the Deffkopta. The Stormboys managed to engage a rhino and Ghaz's unit poured out of their BW into the Grey Hunters who's been de-meched in turn 1, this turn though, the Lootas could only stun Njal's Rhino. In assault the Deffkopta managed to win combat against the Long Fangs taking only a single wound, Ghaz and the Shoota Boys lost combat against the Grey Hunter pack in the centre but thanks to Ghaz's Waaggh, they stayed in it. The Stormboyz also made it to their target and managed to wreck the rhino but they were starting to look pretty thin on the ground thanks to a few deaths to Murderous Hurricane terrain rolls.

Now obviously Ghaz was a concern for the Wolves, right in the heart of their lines, locked in combat and already with a taste for Wolf. Njal sprang into action and lined up a Jaws attempt aimed at the BW behind but conveniently tracing a line through Ghaz. The roll was a tense one but Ghaz passed comfortably with a three! More fire directed at the Lootas was ineffective, the Long Fangs were able to finish off the Deffkopta and the unit who were de-meched by the Stormboyz returned the favour and wiped them out. In the middle a second Grey Hunter Pack had piled into Combat with Ghaz and the remains of the Shoota Boys; despite the Shootas getting finished off, Ghaz held firm and was comfortably chomping his way through the Wolves. In the Orc turn the Sluggas finally made it into combat with the Long Fangs on my right and the remaining shoota boy mob was heading towards the melee in the centre. The Lootas took out the last Razorback and Ghaz continued to much his way through the Grey Hunters finally finishing off the first unit he engaged! It should also be noted that the Goblins arrived this turn, choosing to hunker down behind a wall towards the left edge of my deployment zone.

Turn 4 was the turning point, the Wolf scouts turned up in charge range of my Gretchin, finishing them off easily, Njal was able to Jaws Ghaz (the roll of a 5 sealing his fate). Somehow, the BW in the centre of the table was still working and the Meganobs had finally reached it! They chose to board hoping to be able to launch some sort of game-saving multi-charge in turn 5. The Shootas continued to close in on the centre but the depleted Wolf units were going to be able to keep them at a safe distance for at least a turn or two.

Turn 5 saw the Wolfs manoeuvring to deny as many kill points as possible but Njal was till a possibility but it was a bit of a long shot, I would need to pop his rhino with my Lootas and then cause enough wounds on his unit with my Meganobs to force a Klaw wound onto him. As it transpired the Lootas could not pop the Rhino and the Meganobs had to console themselves with popping the Rhino themselves in the hope that there would be a turn 6. Unfortunately that's all she wrote and the Wolves came away victorious.

I have to say that, particularly given my recent attitude towards 40k, it was a very enjoyable game. I felt I made a number of mistakes, in particular giving away first turn, and then in not properly covering my Trukks but other than that I think I played pretty well. I didn't experience any huge dice slumps and could only put the loss down to my own mistakes and my opponent's superior play. I do think that if Ghaz had survived that second Jaws attempt the game would have looked a lot different come turn 5 though. Never-the-less my confidence in the Orks was re-affermed and I was looking forwards to game 2.

Da Bolts - A Blood Bowl Update

Well, it's been a while since my last post and even longer since I last posted about my Blood Bowl season. A lot's happened, my Orc team, Da Orkanapolis Bolts have completed the 12 games of the pre-season tournament and are now in the perpetual league proper. Their final record stood at 4 wins, 6 losses and 2 draws anchoring me firmly to the middle of the table. Not great but it's not all about the winning, it's also about staying alive and developing your players!

I have two Blitzers with 5 skills between them, one's a pure hitter, the other is a safety, another is on the path of the bash with mighty blow and the fourth is going to be a support player with guard as his first skill. The Black Orcs have not been as quick to skill up with one with block and another with jump up (I couldn't waste the double), unfortunately the third has done enough to puck up guard but has been move broken twice and I can't justify keeping him around at movement 2!

I also suffered an agi bust on my thrower who has skilled up with block so I had to let him go, hopefully it won't take too long to get the new guy up to speed because they make pretty good ball carriers. Of the two linemen in the team I rolled doubles for the only skill between them and chose diving tackle because nothing beats me faster then those damn nimble elves!

Later on in the pre-season I gathered enough gold to hire a Troll and a Goblin, the Troll is one casualty away from his first skill which is nice and the Gobo has yet to step off the bench! The combo is really only there for the potential of a one-turn TD but the big fellah is nice when facing other big guys, particularly Minotaurs who really put the hurt on the Bolts early on in the season.

But Blood Bowl is about even more than just winning and book-keeping, you usually get some good stories, the main one for the Bolts in the pre-season has been the emergence of their star Blitzer, Slash Spleenspilla who came in as a replacement for a “fired” move busted blitzer on game 4 and set the score-board alight. Da Bolts had been having major problems just picking up the ball in the early part of the pre-season even with their normally sure-handed thrower, but whenever the ball bounced Slash's way it just seemed to stick to him and turn into a score! He ended the season with 8TDs and 31 star-player points over just 8 games.

I've been painting the guys over the course of the season so here's how the finished team look:

Blitzers

Black Orcs

Linemen, Goblin & Thrower

Troll with Re-Rolls & Turn Counter

Now what's better than one Blood Bowl team?

Two of course! We're well into the second intake of teams going through another pre-season round robin tournament. I'm doing a Norse team called the Asguard Thunderers in this one, we're four games in so it's a bit early to tell but I'm at 2 wins and 2 losses and so-far I've only suffered a move bust on a lineman but I've managed to roll a strength boost on another! Combined with the two strength 4 Ulfwerners (Norse Werewolves) it makes a bashier team that much more bashier (?)! One thing I am struggling with though is scoring. I was expecting them to be significantly faster than the Orcs, and while they have shown promise with a couple of quick flank-run TDs, getting the ball back is proving to be something of a struggle at the mo. I'll have to keep working on it if I'm going to realise my goal of having a truly explosive offence!

As with the Orcs I'll be painting these guys as I go and four games in the initial roster is painted, but I've still got a couple of skill players to do who I'll pick up later in the season, and, of course, the counters:

Runner, Thrower, Beserker & S4 Lineman

Linement & Ulfwerners

Linemen

Turn Counter, Re-Rolls & Score Tracker

Monday Musings

Just another Manic Monday

6th Edition Rumours

We don't do rumours here at C&F - other sites are much better at ripping off Warseer than we could ever be. However, I have seen a couple of interesting things that I thought I'd comment on...

a) The potential return of allies. I've always loved the idea of allies ever since the White Dwarf Army List that said Space Wolves had even fought with the aloof Eldar Aspect Warriors. I think it's a brilliant way of trying a new army without having to buy a whole one and it gives you a good excuse to buy models you like but that you might not otherwise get a chance to use. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that someone will come up with some broken combos that will mean that it will never make it to tournament games, but it would offer some nice variety to friendly games.

b) Hardback Codexes. I'm one of those guys who likes to buy every new codex as it comes out. I like to read the fluff and keep up on what other armies can do in case I play them at tournaments. However, if they all go hardback, as the WFB ones have done, then I'm not so sure I could justify the cost. The irony being that if allies came back, I'd probably be more likely to buy models with the codex and not just the book.

The Meta Game

Mick asked an interesting question last Monday, which implies whether Necrons would have an effect on the so called "meta game". Now, Mr Sutton often talks about their being no meta game and I happen to agree. However, there's no doubt that if you build a tournament list specifically to beat an vehicle heavy (possibly MEQ) army then you'll win more games than you lose. Looking at the entry lists for recent tournaments, it's amazing how many Marine armies there are (with GKs being the current preferred flavour)

I was thinking about this last week when I was playing Graham's Marine horde as it was a list completely different to anything I'd faced before. You'll see from the battle report how badly I was beaten but it was just the fact it was something I hadn't factored into my list building.

And that's the thing with the "meta". If you build a list to beat all of the top net lists currently in circulation, you can easily come undone in a first-round random pairing when you come up against someone's left field army.

Looking forward to 6th ed? Come a cropper against a really unusual army? Let us know below the line...

Theoryhammer - Killing Necrons Part 2

This blogpost will self-destruct in 5 seconds

I realised that there was something very important I missed from my post yesterday:

Play the Mission

So, this has become the manta de jour around here recently and it's just as important now that the new Necrons have arrived. In the past, you'd see Necrons across the table and instantly think "Phase Out" With the removal of that rule you can no longer rely on making your opponent's army disappear in order to win the game.

A relatively minor point but potentially a huge step-change from a psychological point of view...