Monday, November 23, 2009

Obligatory Games-Workshop GT circuit post

So GW posted their list of the tournaments in their GT circuit this upcoming year, and there's one in Baltimore (ICGT from July 10th-11th) that looks like it will have Fantasy, 40K, AND War of the Ring (or Lord of the Rings?) tournaments.

I'm sure I'm nowhere near having a painted enough army (or even assembled enough) to be ready for it, but it's certainly nice to think about. Of course, which one would I go to? Fantasy has fairly unbalanced army books at present (although I play Dark Elves, who are considered top tier), 40K will be nearly impossible for me to paint in time (Sisters take FOREVER for me to paint), and I've yet to play a game of War of the Ring.... hmmm....

Maybe I should just try playing in smaller, local tournaments this year and shoot for 2011? I really need to just get some experience in tournament games. I really want to play in the GT circuit, just for the experience, but alas, it will have to wait :(.

So much to do!

Weekend update

Well, not a lot happening hobby-wise, but a few updates.

Made some progress painting finally! My unit of Cold One Knights has paint on it, and could be done by the end of the week (unlikely, but possible). I'm really excited about them. Of course, I'll post pictures when I get around to it.

I tried Warhammer: Invasion over the weekend. It's FANTASTIC. I really need to play more games though, see how well it works with some of the other factions (we just played Dwarfs vs Chaos). The game has a lot of potential though- there's a lot of decision-making, which makes it more tactical for a card game than I'm used to.

Also, me and Rob played another game of Monsterpocalypse. I used Mogroth and Rob used Grindix-Birvikaan. The matchup was pretty terrible for Rob, given his unit selections. His units could do absolutely nothing to my alpha form, and his monster was on the receiving end of a vicious slam, really hurting his chances to get back in the game (meaning that yes, I won!). Mogroth seems very very good (Terrify + Decoy is AMAZING versus units), but I think if a player takes some Explosion and Multi-Shot, you can really help keep yourself in the fight. I'd have to try sometime, however.

Also, I updated my list of Monsterpocalypse monsters I haven't beat Rob with. Including the new monsters, haha.

Nothing else going on, and I'm sure this holiday season will be slow, but I will have some new things come the next year!

Monday, November 16, 2009

Various updates

Received 'The Pocket At Falaise' on Saturday as part of my Against the Odds Subscription. Looks like it may be good, but it's waaaay down on my list of games to play. First up is 1805: Sea of Glory. Begun clipping the counters and reading the rules. Hopefully can get this on a table by the end of the week.

Various updates

First, started making some progress on the first parts of my painting goal for this month. I'm painting some of the old Cold One Knights, will post updates and pictures eventually :).

I finished reading Fallen Angels as well. It was fantastic, of course. Really looking forward to book 12. Starting to read Palace of the Plague Lord by C.L. Werner. I know absolutely nothing about the book, so we'll see how it is.

Received 'The Pocket At Falaise' on Saturday as part of my Against the Odds Subscription. Looks like it may be good, but it's waaaay down on my list of games to play. First up is 1805: Sea of Glory. Begun clipping the counters and reading the rules. Hopefully can get this on a table by the end of the week.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

First crack against new Skaven...

Played Frans at 2250 against the new Skaven book, using my Empire army with a few changes.

Got massacred.

We went with the wording in the book about the Storm Banner, knowing that a clarification/errata was coming, allowing it to be re-used once it failed, meaning I spent the entire game unable to shoot. It turned out that was fairly critical- I couldn't muster any sort of firepower against Frans primarily Pestilens based army (2 Plague Furnace + 2 Hellpit Abominations being the focal point of the army). Also, I dropped my Steam Tank last minute for fear that the Skaven would struggle too much to destroy it (seeing what they ended up taking). Foolish, being a nice guy ;).

A few things I thought worthy of notice though.

The Hellpit is VERY nasty in close combat, but it seems to be fairly easy to kill for a monster of its point cost. If you needed a reason to add something flaming into your army (and you haven't done so already?), now you have another good reason. It stops the Hellpit from coming back. Man that thing is nasty when it charges though.

I don't understand GW's need to make things that don't break from combat in the newest books. Lizardmen added Stubborn monsters (the Stegadons). The Skaven have Stubborn Ld 8 Hellpits, as well as the ability to make several units unbreakable with the Plague Furnace or Screaming Bell. Why?

The Plague Furnace was a lot better than I thought, also- it didn't seem like much, but given it's unbreakable nature, it can definitely wear a unit out easily. Toughness tests, free hits, and the attacks really take a toll on any unit. That thing is going to suck to fight once I start seeing more of it.

Overall though, Skaven don't seem so bad- but I've only gotten a taste of them thus far. We'll have to see!

Also.... BEASTMEN IN FEBRUARY! It's been too long since they had a usable book, I'm really excited to see them redone.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Books!

I finished Gotrek & Felix's 3rd Omnibus over the weekend, from the Black Library.

I gotta say, I really enjoy the fact that Nathan Long has taken over. William King's stories have been very entertaining thus far, but I find his writing style very very bland. Nathan Long took a series that already had a bland-ish premise (basically Gotrek runs around, and kills the biggest and baddest things in the world in order to redeem some dishonor in his past), and breathed some fresh life into it. I have to say I'm quite excited for the next books, whenever I get to them.

I'm starting Fallen Angels by Mike Lee, book 11 in the Horus Heresy series. It covers the fall of the Dark Angels on Caliban during the Heresy. I'm sure it'll be fantastic as I've yet to be disappointed by any of the series thus far.

Painting for Points

So, I've been playing Games Workshop games since 2001, and have painted very very very little. I still do not have a painted army.

This is hopefully going to change :). One of my friends has suggested we start with a painting challenge in the gaming group in order to get our armies slowly painted. That's a great idea, of course, but I own a ton of miniatures for games that none of them play. I need a way to motivate myself to get them painted.

So, a lot of other blogs use a system called Painting for Points, started (I believe) by Lone Pilgrim. I've seen a few things added to it, so that's what I'm going to work off of.

Basically, I get a number of points equal to the number of painted models. We're talking completed here.

  • Infantry - 1 point
  • Cavalry, bikes, 40mm miniatures (Ogres, or slightly larger 40K things) - 2 points
  • Monsters, Dreadnoughts, Heavy Warjacks - 5 points
  • Vehicle - 10 points
  • Superheavy Vehicle (I have soooo many) - 2o points
A few games I own aren't covered here, but I'll add them in as I start painting them (the Epic/Warmaster models will take some work, for instance).

Since I've begun playing, I've painted... let me count... 29 points. Seriously, that's it.

Next year, I'll have a full goal, of course, but for the remainder of this year, we're going to shoot for ANYTHING.

500 pt list for painting

Alright, time to come up with 500 points to paint by the end of the month for our gaming group painting challenge. Overpowering awesome-ness isn't really the goal, just painting stuff is. So to that end, we've got a nice balanced list to work with.

Master w/ Great Weapon, Heavy Armour, Shield, Sea Dragon Cloak, Cold One - 114
10 Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen w/ musician - 105
5 Dark Riders w/ repeater crossbows, musician - 117
5 Cold One Knights w/Musician, Standard Bearer - 159
Total: 495 points

I'm getting kind of a late start to this, so I chose a primarily cavalry force, so I'll have a lower number of models to paint (although cav models aren't exactly speedy). 21 models by the end of the month? We'll see!

Sisters vs Orks, 650 pts

Well, another small game today at the GW, this time vs Ben. I was running a Sister of Battle list with 2 sister squads in Rhinos, and a Celestian squad in an Immolator.

I ended up losing, though it wasn't a blowout. I had some poor luck early, but overall it was fine (as was Ben's). We got the Annihilation meeting with a Spearhead deployment.

I deployed my guys as far forward as possible, and Ben did very similarly, and did not manage to seize initiative. He did scout move his Deffkoptas forward however.

I didn't really keep a play by play, but after about 2 turns of shooting, his Orks were on me en masse, and although I did kill plenty, it wasn't enough to pull off the victory. I conceded on turn 4, I think, he had 5 kill points, and if I got really lucky I may have gotten 4.

Overall not too bad. I need to be more patient with my guys, I was probably a little too aggressive against an army that does it better than I do.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Progress Bars

I've added a few progress bars on the right there, to keep track of some ungoing projects I either have, or will be working on. They are pretty self explanatory for the most part, but there's one that I need to make a quick comment about.

Me and a few friends are going to be trying to make an effort to paint up our armies, in manageable chunks. Our first goal will be to paint 500 points of new models this month. I'm going to write up a random 500 point list and paint it. I'll put occasional progress as I do. Hopefully I can get done by the end of the month!! Seeing as how I got a slow start, especially. We'll see :)

Friday, November 6, 2009

Sunday Night WTF-FEST

*sigh.

Me and Rob once again played Monsterpocalypse Sunday night.

I used Cyber Khan. Rob took Krackenoctus (I believe that's the correct spelling).

I, after seeing the monster he was choosing and the lack of movement abilities he would have available (compared to my Flight), chose a map with tons of terrain. Pretty un-inspiring selection of units (I took what I had). Took a BUNCH of buildings with Chemical spills (figuring I'd have a decent shot of staying at full health).

We started our game with the normal 'get into position' turns, trading a few pot shots. On one turn, I struck. I went Hyper, advanced something like 12 spaces (including the 4 steps), and set up for an alpha form destroying, 6 damage super slam through two spires. I figure, heck- 5 action die, 2 boost die, 5 power die... that's at least an 80% chance to hit defense 6 (it's actually 97.86%). I roll, knowing the game would be over- Rob never recovers from a blow like this....

And miss.

Well, the return blow did damage, but I got away, and tried to stall. But of course, I'm badly damaged, playing for time, and really unable to start my game again because I'm so badly thrown off. I also missed several more high probability attacks that game (88.65% and 93.91%.... yes I did the math). I ended up conceding.

Really, what more can I do? I set up for a game winner (not quite, but it would've been pretty brutal), and had it 'Rob'bed from me. I always say, luck may not win you the game... but it can lose it.

Rob did convince me that Tow is much better than I thought though. I was pretty impressed with his uses of it- seems to have some potential.

Dark Elves vs Ogres 1K

So last Thursday me and Ben played a small game to show the basics of the Warhammer system to our coworker Chris (and so he could see what the game was about). Ben had joked about taking a Stegadon-based Lizardman list, which at 1000 points would be a challenge to go against for my poor Dark Elves. So naturally, I brought a list I thought could moderately challenge it.

My list's basic composition was 2 units of 10 crossbowmen, two level 2 sorceress, two bolt throwers, and two chariots. This army had a LOT of shooting, and good counterattack ability, and great magic for this points level (2 level 2 Dark Elves can pound a LOT of magic)

Sadly... Ben brought his Ogres. Now, Ogres have many things going against them- no armor, costly units, ineffective shooting, costly characters.... oh yeah, and their army is about 4 years out of date, and wasn't THAT good when it came out (but certainly provided some interesting matchups!).

And of course, Ogres suck BAD at low points (anything less than 2250, I'd say).

I won't bore you with a play-by-play (I don't remember all that much). It was a lot of shooting kills, followed by his Tyrant eating a Chariot then two units of crossbowmen in a surprising finish. He ate through a LOT of my army towards the end, and ended with only one wound left (and the sole survivor for the Ogre army).

Minor Victory me. Wish I would've known he was bringing Ogres though, I would've put together a balanced army to show Chris the basics of the game :(.

Alright...

I actually had some games late last week beginning of this week, but never got around to posting. I was battling 'The swine' all week, and that ended up draining me. Now that I'm a little more rested (and fresh off another nap), I'm going to knock out a few posts. Hopefully no more super long delays.