Second Day at Caledonian uprising - the falling continues

So day one wasn't good but I learnt something

Firstly I made myself feel better by beating a young kid at pool twice to remind myself that there are a couple of things that I can do at a competent level in the world
Secondly Kidney beans just don't go with Sausage, chips and baked beans
and thirdly I need to ask for no butter on my bacon in the morning

So with that in mind I got my bacon sandwich minus the butter and hoped for a couple of wins to put me mid table at the end.

Game 4 saw me face Grey Knights.
I'd only come across them once and that was a pure Paladin list, this however was as mixed list, 1 rhino, a storm raven, a couple of dreadnoughts, a dread knight and a vindicaire (along with a few other things)
I won deployment but then had it seized however because it was Dawn of war he failed to see me, I managed to light up the storm raven with a search light and then shoot everything at it bringing it down and knocking off all its weapons RESULT.

However from there it went badly. It was a similar story all day, just not enough to stop a proper deathstar unit. The terminators rolled through everything I shot at them, I lost the primary objective although I could have drew it by destroying a rhino that I failed to do. There was just too much in that army and the terminators were nigh unstoppable for my army.

Game 5 same the arch enemy across from me. A chaos warband in all its glory and Khorne must have been gazing down with his champion Kharn leading 29 Beserkers and 5 plague marines in raiders. 3 Raiders? I haven't been able to deal with one bit of high armour all weekend. Well maybe my luck will change and turn 1 it seemed like it might, first lascannon shot, hit penetrated and immobilised and that was it, nothing else for the rest of the game. In this game you had to have the most number of troops within 12 inches of the centre of the board. The game turned when my opponent got the beserkers out and charged into all three of my rhinos and I feel I lost it because of my own stupidity, my rhino was too close to the board edge which meant when it was wrecked only 4 grey hunters could get out. I managed to kill the other 2 but couldn't do anything about a raider contesting my secondary objective.

The primary was a draw and we were fairly equal on KP's link he won by 317 grrr which gave him 1 extra point and me 1 less. Another game lost because of my stupidity, had it ended turn 5 I would have had a second win.

My final game was my only gripe for the weekend. My opponent had a Vanilla Marines army consisting of a raider and drop pods. The terrain certainly favoured 1 side so I was desperate to win the roll off however I didn't. My opponent to start with said he would take the side I favoured and then said actually you can have deployment, by the time I had laid dice to show the deployment zones he had again changed his mind and wanted that side of the board and first turn. Now maybe it wouldn't have made a difference but it did annoy me a bit, if it had been the first game or a game not being played at the lower end of the hall I would have probably argued but I didn't. In all honesty I deployed really poorly bunching up and allowing him to bog me down with Vulkan ripping through my army, I again failed to dent his landraider and I didn't do much to his Terminators.

The only saving point was he very strangely moved a scoring unit off one of the secondary missions objectives which would have meant a draw. He was looking for the win instead of consolidating what he had. I was able to kill the scout squad and he fluffed his move through cover and run to give me a win on the secondary while getting severely bummed on the primary.

Overall I finished 100th out of 110, my worst ever tournament finish. A couple of minor details might have seen me move a little further up but I know that I didn't play well. I killed well, only 1 person has a better VP score than me within 30 odd places but it isn't just about killing your opponent. Look out tomorrow for my thoughts on what direction I am going to take for the UK GT which is coming in March.

Caledonian Uprising battle reports - a descent to the bottom

So this weekend me, Graham and John (from the Bloodclaw blog) attended the Caledonian uprising tournament at Maelstrom run by Tim and team Scotland.

These battle reports are only going to be brief so don't expect detail because no matter what intentions I go with to make good notes etc of my games I never follow through with it, I forget by turn three so it all goes to pot.

Some good news started the day on Saturday, Maelstrom now do Bacon sandwiches, the bad news, it came with butter on, now I don't care how you do it round the country in the East Midlands we don't put butter on a bacon sandwich, Maelstrom is in the East Midlands and so should be following convention. That being said it was a nice bit of bacon.

Game 1 saw me come up against Ian a Guard player with what you'd describe as an unusual list. Foot based infantry, 4 Russ' and 3 of the chemcannon toting Hellhounds which I always call chemdogs (and will be for the rest of the battle report.
The mission was annihilation primary objective, 5 objectives secondary, quite a tight game in all, he destroyed my vehicles fairly quickly, I destroyed the chemdogs, couldn't scratch the armour 14 (get ready for this being a trend) and in the end lost 17-3 being very close on VP's but just having too many KP's. It was a disappointing result because I didn't think I played badly enough to have a comprehensive loss but it was an enjoyable game because Ian was a cracking lad.

Game 2 saw me come up against a Viper heavy Dark Eldar list played by Jamie. I really expected to struggle against this list but it turned out to be my one win of the weekend. He won first turn and killed a long fang squad and immobilised my dreadnought and a las plas. I opened up with everything else and wiped out the majority of his shooting. After I had taken away his mobility it became a bit of a forgone conclusion. I felt bad for Jamie because he didn't make one flicker field save but he took the loss on the chin. I was incredibly stupid however and in the last turn I forgot to move a rhino with a squad in the 2 inches to secure my objective to tie on the secondary so I lost the secondary, won the primary and won on Vp's giving me a 15-5 win when it should have been a 17-3 but for my stupidity.

Game 3 found Guard against me once again wielded by the competent hands of Paul Burke, I lost the roll and like a leaf was blow away. I didn't feel that I played poorly for my standard I'm just not as good as Paul as he showed finishing 8th overall I believe. I did win a spot prize of a can of Chaos Black primer that Paul went and fetched for me because I forgot all about it. He made a horrible game as pleasant as possible and for that I have to thank him, a 19-1 loss was probably unfair to Paul because if he hadn't let me move my Rune Priest in the shooting phase because I forgot to then it could have been 20-0

So there ends day 1, 1 win and 2 losses. Doesn't look too bad, believe me, it only gets worse from here.

Things to remember for tomorrow #CaleUprising

Played my first game of 2012 last night and my only warm up game for Caledonian uprising and am I glad I did.

Other than me and Andy completely forgetting how Initiative tests work (no Andyits not like blood bowl, having a high number isn't a good thing in this case) it also confirmed to me that I need to remember about both the primary objective and the secondary.

I really love this tournament style, in case you don't know each mission has a primary objective and this can range from rule book missions to some other win scenarios such as table quarters and these are worth 8 points for the win 4 for the draw and 0 for the loss. Then the missions have secondary objectives which were worth 4 for the win and 2 for the draw and then a sliding scale for difference in VP's with 8 being the highest.

Unlike my last tournament Open War which had some problems (which have now been sorted and tickets are on sale on the first company vets website) this leads to far less draw, if its going to be a draw it has to an actual close fought game.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow, I'm quite annoyed with myself that over the last 5 months I haven't played anywhere near enough 40K so back to the traditional vow from this week. A game a week for the rest of the year. Lets see how far we get.

Shifting into 6th

So far, I have stayed silent on the whole slew of internet rumours that purport to describe a whole new way of playing our favourite game - Warhammer 40,000. However today's twist is that the rumours are... rumoured to be true!

Obviously there is still no certainty as to whether 6th edition is coming, or what form it may take, but to my eternal embarrassment it did make me giddy with excitement (for a few moments at least). What excited me most was the fact that this new edition may be the last for the forseeable future, and will live on as a living rulebook supported by ad-hoc updates, FAQ's and the like. If this were to be the case, it would certainly help to keep the playing field level, and hopefully prevent codexes from becoming obselete when a new edition arrives (a la Eldar when 5th edition arrived).

To summarise my thoughts, I've listed below my thought on why the leaked 6th edition pdf may be either real or a hoax:

Why might the new pdf be real? 

 - The living rulebook idea would match those of Bloodbowl & Epic from Games Workshop, and those rulesets from Mantic for Warpath etc.

 - It would provide a level playing field and prevent codexes from obselesence when new editions arrive.

 - The pdf is apparently very lengthy and incredibly detailed.

 - It would allow GW to concentrate on developing new models and new units which could be designed to work in a unified game mechanic without upsetting the balance of other units and/or armies.

Why might the new pdf be a hoax?

 - A living rulebook would prevent the excitement and 'entry point' for new players that new editions usually generate.

 - Sales of rules books would obviously reduce

 - It would prevent future diametric shifts in gameplay - that is, there would be no opportunity for the game to be slewed massively in favour either of hordes, or massed tanks, for example.

 - The leaked rules introduce some MAJOR changes, seismic in their magnitude - the biggest being the assault phase coming before shooting. For the life of me I cannot understand why this would be logical, or even vaguely representative of how real battles are fought (is that even a consideration?!).

Summary

So, I really don't know what to think. My heart says that I would love a living rulebook that might actually level the playing field and prevent codex creep and/or new edition obselesence, but my head says that GW is a sales-driven company and would not jeopardise revenue by giving us a book that doesn't need to be re-bought.

What do you think?

1,850pt Tyranid Drop-Spore List for Caledonian Uprising

Next weekend sees the hungry hordes of the Scottish ETC team descend upon our green and pleasant English lands (or more accurately, Mansfield). The Caledonian Uprising, as this year's tournament is called, promises six games at 1,850pts and with the novelty of special/unique characters and units being allowed. Apparently the reason for the diametric shift in allowing these models is that the European tournament scene is moving that way. I rather suspect that someone realised that their Draigowing Grey Knights army wouldn't be legal, so promptly changed the rules! Seriously though, the newer codexes do rely heavily on unique characters unlocking certain playstyles, something I'm totally  in support of. 

For the tournament I'll be taking my untried and untested Tyranids: 

HIVE FLEET NEMESIS - DROP-SPORE 1,850pt LIST
 
HQ - Hive Tyrant (170), Wings (60), Powers: Paroxysm & Leech Essence, Hive Commander (25), Heavy Venom Cannon (replaces Scything talons) (25) = Total 280
 
EL - The Doom of Malan’tai (90), APC - Mycetic Spore (40)  = Total 130
 
EL - 2 x Zoanthrope (2 x 60), APC - Mycetic Spore (40) = Total 160
 
EL - 2 x Zoanthrope (2 x 60), APC - Mycetic Spore (40) = Total 160
 
TRP - 10 x Termagant (10 x 5) = Total 50
 
TRP - Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15), Adrenal Glands (10), Toxin Sacs (10), Scything Talons (5), Regeneration (30)  = Total 230
 
TRP - 11 x Termagant (11 x 5) = Total 55
 
TRP - Tervigon (160), Catalyst (15) , Adrenal Glands (10), Toxin Sacs (10), Scything Talons (5), Regeneration (30) = Total 230
 
TRP - 9 x Genestealer (9 x 14) = Total 126
 
HVY - Carnifex (160), Twin-linked Devourers w/Brain-Leech Worms (15), Heavy Venom Cannon (25), Frag Spines (5), APC - Mycetic Spore (40) = Total 245
 
FA - 4 x Ravener (4 x 30), Deathspitters (4 x 10), Rending Claws (4 x 5) = Total 180
 
GRAND TOTAL 1,846pts


I have actually played one practise game against club-mate Dave Poolley and his fantastically-painted Space Wolves, and the results were less than overwhelming!  My list is a stretched version of the reasonably successful 1,750pt Drop-Spore list which I enjoyed using at December's Blog Wars II tournament. The new list  includes one less Carnifex, and instead adds 9 Genestealers and 4 shooty Raveners. It turns out that adding these elite-ish infantry units has completely broken the synergy of the original list! They are just too easy to kill, and having to remain stationary when they deepstrike is a recipe for disaster for the Raveners. 

The reason for the untested list is simple - I work away a lot, and the few weeks before the list deadline saw me travelling to Cardiff and Glasgow. So, I approach the tournament with some trepidation! I am of course looking forward to seeing a lot of top guys again, but I'm less than confident that my list is anywhere near optimal. Let's see how it goes!  

Review - The 'Eavy Metal Masterclass book

So while in town today I saw this (I also saw a Eavy metal box for 20 odd quid that constituted a metal pencil case tin 2 paint brushes and a couple of small tubs of medium, Jesus) and decided to have it just because I have stopped getting white dwarf but always enjoyed the master classes.

The book itself costs £18 and is about the thickness of a codex. Every page is colour which you would expect from a book on painting. The book contains 13 master classes, mixed between 40K, Fantasy and Lord of the rings (which I don't think anyone in the world actually plays).

The master classes themselves are just what are shown in white dwarf, lots of details and of course top class painting. There are certainly some techniques such as their one for painting parchment and their technique for painting glassware that I will certainly have a go at but there are others that aren't great.

So all in all would I recommend this book? If you don't get White Dwarf regularly then yes however if you do then there is really little point.

On a side note picked up some liquid green stuff a couple of weeks ago and used it to put together my Contemptor and a squad of mark III armour marines, I am going to go out on a limb and say its the best thing GW have released in the last few years.

How do you paint? - reader advice wanted

Since come back into the hobby I have never found a comfortable way of holding my models when painting them, I generally blue tac them on to the top of an old paint tub but this isn't the most secure of bases so I am looking for advice that over the next few months I could put into use?

Looking forward to seeing your replies