Musings on Blog War 7

Well, it's all done and dusted, the smoke has cleared and the cannons have been stowed. So what happened at Blog Wars?

Well, the field was a little tougher than I had expected if I'm honest - yes, I know it's a tournament, but Blog Wars started as a hobbyists tournament. It still is for the most part, but there are a few competitive spirits about it has to be said. Then again, it had been 2 years sine my last Blog Wars, so perhaps for everyone else it has been a more gradual adjustment and was more surprising for me. I would still recommend it as a fun day and a friendly atmosphere... however I'm thinking my crazy project armies may not be taken again.

Yes, those crazy project armies like the Star Wars guard and more recently Pirates Vs Ninjas. Taking an army and deliberately working from a self restricted codex to fit a theme, picking units that may serve no particular tactical purpose other than giving you a chance to do a cool conversion (I'm looking at you Beastmaster and Razorwing flocks) and then entering it into a competitive environment, not the best. The Star Wars guard, with my years of Guard experience, I managed to overcome a lot of their inherent flaws and still finish a respectable mid-table. The Dark Eldar army, being only my second game with that army outside of four games of combat patrol, I didn't have that experience to fall back on. I didn't come last... a victory in the final game, the fight for the wooden spoon, avoided that fate. But 36 out of 38 is still rather poor. The Star Wars guard went in for the wooden spoon fight in the final game of the last Blog Wars, but I stonked my opponent so convincingly I ended up mid table. Not so this time. I kept away from the spoon and managed to put one more person in my wake, but that is it.

This taking of bad armies can best be summed up by the reaction of one of the other gamers, who I overheard admiring my army at the army judging table. Sure there were comments about the cool conversions, but what pricked my ears up was the comment "Wow he brought Mandrakes, he should get a bonus point just for that!" Now given Mandrakes are gorgeous models, I didn't think his "pity point" had anything to do with the look of the army. It's chances on the field of battle on the other hand...

So let's look at those Mandrakes. They're a cool idea, they've got a nice little shooting attack before running in to finish off the survivors. One problem... they need a pain token to use the shooting attack. Something they need to kill something to get. And chances are, by the time you've run these guys through a round of combat, there won't be many left to enjoy the shooting attack anyway. I sent one squad after an easy target in the first game, a squad of scouts. I outnumbered him 2:1, I was an assault unit, all he had in his favour was cover, meaning I'd be Initiative 1 for the first round of combat. I thought I could handle that. Several turns later my 5 surviving Mandrakes fled from the combat having killed 1 scout, and were promptly gunned down by the rest of his army, which by that point had tabled me and were waiting for me with itchy trigger fingers. Once they have a pain token they become immeasurably better, so starting them with a haemonculus would be a good idea. Except if you do that, they now can't infiltrate. Gah! About the best I could do with them was have the Cronos hurt something, toss the resultant pain token to the Mandrakes, then they could fire. That little trick was handy, and if I was going to expand the army I may repeat it... but the Cronos can't infiltrate, so is playing catch up with the mandrakes it is supposed to be supporting from the get go.

How about Khaerendahahahakkahak or whatever his name is? He starts with a pain token, is beefy in assault, and he gets to arrive Marbo esque wherever you like, preferably (according to the codex) with an evil chuckle. I can imagine him appearing, leering at his target, and whispering "I'm going to cut your head off... Next turn." At which point the target simply turns and shoots Kharendekekeheke in the head. Having a unit that is primarily designed for assault turn up and not charge is pretty useless. I mean, at least Marbo (lord rest his redacted soul) would turn up and throw a demo charge... this guy turns up and throws two str 4 ap 4 shots. Woo. If they gave this guy IC status it would make him AND Mandrakes miles better. Have a couple squads of Mandrakes advance on the enemy, when this guy becomes available he deploys and JOINS a squad. They then have a pain token. Sure they can't assault this turn because he just arrived from reserve, but they can then all bloody shoot. Two str 4 ap 4 shots isn't that impressive, but twenty two might make a dent... It would also give Kherwhatsisface some ablative wounds so that, god forbid, he may make it into combat. The only time I got him into combat this tournament was when a unit of Mandrakes tied up some marines for several turns (with pain token from Cronos to keep them in the fight) and I hid him behind a unit of Wyches that Mephiston duly slaughtered... freeing the way up for K-K to go bail the mandrakes out of the shit they were in.

So what about the actual games? Well first up I was against a Space Wolf/Space Marine list that included 7 drop pods... the marine contingent being a Stormraven and Stormtalon. This was over as a contest by turn 2. His drop assault on me took out my ravager (and 3 of only 7 strength based weapons in my entire army) and I remember looking at the situation and thinking "I could maybe just about deal with all of this... IF this was it. But no, there's more..." My overzealous scourges picked off a drop pod for some easy points, the resultant explosion killing four out of the five. Just felt like it wasn't going to be my morning. It was over as a contest by turn 2. My opponent seemed willing to accept my concession, but we had plenty of time and for tournament integrity I played on. I had a quad gun, Kharededeekeke and 5 mandrakes locked in combat with some scouts. I basically hoped I may pick off some scouts for some bonus VP. Couldn't even manage that. Tabled by turn 4.

Game 2 was against Tau/Space Marines, a squad of White Scars bikers providing some fast moving aggression that complemented the Tau gunline nicely. I hoped to get First Blood after putting 10 wounds on a 5 man pathfinder squad, but seeing him pass 8 of the 10 5+ cover saves was somewhat galling. Especially when those pathfinders, that hadn't even had the decency to go to ground, markerlighted my mandrakes and stripped cover from them, allowing them to be annihilated by the Tau firepower. I also hoped my wyches may tie up his riptide in combat (shardnets reducing it to a single attack per turn, the 4+ dodge keeping me alive as long as possible, the agoniser wounding on a 4+ hopefully picking at it... I didn't expect to win, just to stop him from shooting a few turns) but after enduring the firepower from several Tau units I then failed a 6" charge, with fleet. FFS. This was over as a contest by turn 5, but I kept playing again for tournament integrity, hoping that my solitary suriving model may kill the marines in his turn so I could charge his firewarriors and contest one objective in my turn. My opponent was hoping I'd kill the marines in my turn so that his entire army, sat on objectives and pointing their guns at my back, could finish the tabling. It was not to be... I couldn't kill the sodding marine. Was going for the instant kill on the bike commander, the sole survivor. Missed with Smash. Failed to wound with Smash. Missed with Smash. Failed to wound with Smash. Then hit... wounded... passed his bloody Iron Halo save. Which was largely irrelevant as this was turn 7 and game done anyway. So this game was an improvement... I had yet again given away maximum VP, but at least this time I was one wound from being tabled, instead of tabled.

Game 3 was the fight for the wooden spoon. Ken asked after, if I was tempted to throw the game so that I got something, and I said no. I didn't really want to finish last, and I felt it would ruin tournament integrity to deliberately throw a game... particularly just for a spoon and a £5 gift certificate. If the Imperial Knight that was the top raffle prize had been for coming last, then perhaps I may have wavered... which would have made for an interesting game as two armies tried to avoid landing near objectives whilst trying to accidentally give away FB/StW with failed dangerous terrain rolls!

Anyway, this was a good matchup for me, as I had been worried in this mission that someone could blast away my scoring units easily, then sit at their leisure and rack up Tournament points while I had bugger all I could do about it. My best hope was that my opponent would let me get into a nice protracted fight near the objectives with my scoring units. Which my assault marine blood angel opponent duly did. This was an interesting mission with objectives scoring every turn, which meant that by turn 3 I had built up enough of a lead (and reduced my opponents scoring units such) that he didn't think he could catch me. I agree he'd have struggled, though he could have done far better earlier on, when consolidating from a combat he won, he moved for his next turns charge... he should have moved to score a point off the objective, then deal with next turns charge NEXT turn. You're jump infantry, I'm not gonna outrun you! A few times I saw he could have claimed/contested objectives from consolidate moves but didn't. He also left his scouts awaiting their fate at the hands of the mandrakes for far too long... he should have run them out towards the objective. The extra distance alone would have delayed my assault, possibly even long enough for his Sternguard to chew up my Mandrakes before I reached him (they certainly chewed them up AFTER I'd killed them)

Anyway, a few mistakes from my opponent, and some careful play on my part, meant that my bedraggled force of idiots managed to claim one win before they are confined to my display shelf. Good for them. Though it has to be said, I'm glad it was a 5 turn game... he had a unit of Sternguard and half a squad of Sanguinary guard left, in control of MY quad gun. Oh, and a drop pod. I had two immobilised scratched raiders (pointing in useless directions I might add) and one ravage left alive. I think if it had been standard random game length, I might well have been tabled if it had gone to 7 turns. Maybe, maybe not. But I certainly could not have tabled my opponent... 2 turns to kill three targets (totalling 10 marines and a vehicle) with 3 shots per turn. You do the math.

As for the Pirates vs Ninjas, I was a little disappointed that I didn't get ANY votes in the best army contest... but to be fair, I have a cool theme, and am proud of my conversions, but the full title is Best PAINTED Army, and there were other works of a far higher standard than my own, so I cannot really complain. Though it was a little irksome when my opponent for game two was surprised to see my army and asked why I hadn't entered it into the contest... I told him I did and said where I'd put it... and he hadn't realised there was a second table, he'd have voted for me otherwise. Gee, thanks! I don't think this would have made much difference in the longrun, even if several people made the same mistake. It perhaps would have cost the beautiful tyranid army on the same table a critical vote or two (came second by one vote) but to me it would have made little difference. Ah well, I shall have to simply enjoy the many compliments my army got throughout the day.

As for another crazy project? Well despite this one going very long and me having to force myself to finish, the first thing I thought when I did finish was "What next?" Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. However, I need to study 7th a bit more, there's an Ork codex round the corner, much to decide. And after the pirates dismal showing, perhaps I should design an army first and jerry rig a theme round it after this time? Or at the very least, stick to a codex I know well. Hell, I could even pick an army and just try to do a nice, high quality paintjob on it, rather than going for wacky outlandish pop culture references. All sound ideas in theory, but I know me, I'll probably do something silly at some point. I may try to postpone the crazy urges by painting some UCM Dropzone Commander forces to look like Aliens Colonial Marines, apart from the scout buggies, which will be in the desert colours of Dark Knight Rises (except one which of course comes in black...)

In the meantime, watch this space, and if you can make it to a future Blog Wars, do so. I won't be at 8, too much going on at that time of year, but I can perhaps make 9...

Yarr, weigh anchor!

We be sailin the seas at Blog Wars 7, normal service will resume when the parley be over and the rum be all gone...

I see you took my advice about theatricality a bit... literally...

Taking a few snaps of the ninja contingent of my Blog Wars force and the quote used to title this post sprang to mind...

Ten more Mandrakes and Kharakhadakakaeshashaka or whatever his name is to go. The throaght clearer is built, needs undercoating. Half the remaining Mandrakes are waiting to be built, the other half I had to take back to the shop as they'd put the wrong sprues into the box they sent me - At first glance I was like "Cool, bonus extra mandrake" until I realised the missing sprue that had a solitary mandrake also had the squads left arms with him...

 

 

Blog Wars Appears on the Horizon...

Ken and I shall be attending Blog Wars in a few short weeks, and he came down to visit for a couple of days for some practice games. We figured we'd get used to our armies and the missions and such.

Well.

I played one mission with my Blog Wars list. It was such a MASSIVELY crushing defeat that I thought it best to break out the guard so that Ken had something to actually TEST his army against, rather than just club baby seals. It's not that ken has done a power list - it's effective, don't get me wrong, but there's nothing hideous about it. It's just that my army... well... kinda sucks. Ken tried to polish a turd by saying Tau were a bad matchup for it, but I think I will really struggle in the upcoming tournament. Mission 3 I think just REALLY is not going to suit my army at all unless my opponent does something drastically stupid, and on the other two missions I am VERY reliant on going first to close the distance so that only half my units die before reaching combat, instead of all of them.

The problem? I can't change my list. I haven't designed this list with Blog Wars in mind, nor any tournament. Hell I barely put any thought into playing games with this army. I have designed it purely to theme... and it does as well as you might expect given that is the case. Now my Star Wars Guard army was also to theme, though 14 years of Guard experience carried me on that one to a mediocre record of wins/losses. Playing an army I played for the first time yesterday... I doubt this will end well.

On the bright side, there is a £5 gift voucher for coming last, and a certificate nd a spoon. So I may not leave the venue empty handed after all...

 

So, onto the list. Obviously I'm not particularly after advice or feedback here, I haven't the time or the models to change anything even if I was inclined to. I'm just putting it all out there. I'll start with the list from the codex, so you can all see what I have. I'll include details where necessary to clarify. Then I'll follow it up with the background info on the army, so that the eclectic collection of units may start to make a little more sense...

The List

HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Sliscus - 150

T - 20 Kabalite Warriors, inc Sybarite and 2 Splinter Cannons - 210

T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 80

T - 10 Wyches inc Hekatrix w Agoniser, and 2 wyches with Shardnets and Impalers. Squad Haywire Grenades. - 170
ded tran Raider, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields, torment grenade launchers - 85

FA - Beastmaster w power weapon, 2 flocks razorwings - 52

HS - Ravager, enhanced aethersails, grisly trophies, flickerfields - 125

F - Aegis Line with Quad Gun - 100

HS - Cronos Parasite Engine, spirit vortex - 100

HQ - Kharadruakh - 140

E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160

E - 10 Mandrakes inc Nightfiend - 160

FA - 5 Scourges inc Solarite and 2 heat lances - 144

Total - 1846

For clarification;

Agoniser - Power Weapon that always wounds on a 4+
Shardnet and Impaler - reduces attacks of any enemy in base contact
Enhanced Aethersails - Vehcile can move an additional 2D6" but no shooting or disembarking allowed
Grisly Trophies - A friendly unit within 6" of the vehicle can reroll LD tests
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.

Dark Eldar units have Power through Pain - each time they kill a unit they gain a pain token, giving them increasing bonuses (Feel No Pain, then Furious Charge, then Fearless)

So, on to the reasoning behind all this...

Several years ago, Ken and I regularly attended a doubles combat patrol tournament. We did some cool theme armies (such as xbox inspired Halo Marines) and we struck on the bright idea of doing Pirates vs Ninjas. Well I set to it with wild abandon, only for them to change the campaign pack from the previous year... my army was not legal. So we took something else, but I always had it sat on my shelf looking at me. Eventually I expanded the two combat patrol forces into the Pirates working with Ninjas list that I shall be taking to Blog Wars.

Funnily enough, these aren't really accurate Pirates... they are somewhat inspired by popular culture of Pirates/Ninjas, and therefore are rather heavily influenced by Pirates of a Caribbean nature it has to be said...

So, to flesh out the bare bones of the above list...

HQ - Warlord. Special Character. Duke Barbosa - 150
He may have taken the Kings shilling for now, but he has his own designs. He is an expert in poisons and knows how to get to the edge of the world... and back...

T - 20 Men of the Crown, including Staff Sergeant and 2 Weapon specialists - 210
 Provided to Barbosa for his quest

T - 10 Scurvy Dogs mad enough to sail into the abyss! - 170
ded tran The Pearl, full sail and full rum stores! For now... Keep a weather eye out for Elizabeth - 80
The fastest ship around, with a crew half mad according to Mr Cottons Parrot...

T - 10 Souls doomed to stalk the seas in service to Davy Jones - 170
ded tran The Dutchman, full sail, plenty of rum, and a terrifying sight to behold! - 85
Striking fear into seamen everywhere, the Dutchman will ask a question... do you fear death?

FA - Cap'n Jack. Riding a couple of roped sea turtles and surrounded by a whole menagerie of creatures. - 52
With human hair, I might add... from his back...

HS - The Dauntless - 125
Its said she's the power in these waters...

F - The old Sea Wall and Harpoon - 100
I doubt we shall see the likes of the White Whale again, but we may be able to nap something...

HS - The Grox and Maiden - 100
If this place scares you, then NEVER go to Singapore...

HQ - Ronin - 140
He lacks a master, and stalks the shadows in pursuit of his own ends...

E - The League of Shadows - 160
They seek justice... in the most violent way...

E - The Division of Darkness - 160
In much the same business as The League of Shadows and the Conference of Shady Places...

FA - BATMAN. And some friends. - 144
Don't worry, he's given them something better than hockey pads...

Total - 1846

For clarification;

Agoniser - It looks like a big whip!
Shardnet and Impaler - It's a net, looks very nautical
Full sails - They're sails, I HAD to include the upgrade...
Rum supplies - The sight of spare rum will keep the spirits of any pirate up...
Flickerfields - 5+ inv save
Torment Grenade Launcher - The Dutchman is terrifying to behold, therefore... Any enemy unit within 6" is at -1 morale. They must also pass an LD test to assault the vehicle.

Pirates(and begrudgingly Ninjas) have Power through Rum - each time they kill a unit they have a drink, making them increasingly inebriated (Deadened Pain Senses, Increased Aggression, Invincibility... hell, we've all been there)

 The Cronos/Grox and Maiden will be able to hand out Pain/Rum tokens to units if it kills anything with it's "spirit" weapons...

The Cronos/Grox is the biggest issue in the army. It is the centrepiece, and is FAR larger than a Cronos should be, in order to make it look as I wanted it to look. To represent the template weapon I have an ogre firebelly, who has clearly had too many flaming Sambucas. To represent the Spirit Vortex, we have a bartender who can choose to start lobbing Molotov Cocktails if he feels like it. The Firebelly is stood on a table, that is th size of the base the Cronos should be on. I will measure any of my weapons/area of effect powers from THAT table, so as to gain no advantage from my modelling. I will allow my enemies to target any part of the model if they wish, so as to give no possible disadvantage to them. if they wish to play to how the model "should" be, then the firebelly on the table should be a fairly accurate height/size to represent the Cronos.

The ninja contingent was the toughest part of this task. I decided early on the Mandrakes were a good choice, but how to paint something that was half skin so that it looked mostly black was a real tricky proposition for me. And if I did do them in mostly black, would I give them different bases to the Pirates? Would I then make a display board with different areas for my forces to sit on? In the end, with time running out, I won't be doing a display board, so will assume the ninjas have broken from the shadows and are running across the sand with the pirates. Besides, the contrast between the bright base and the dark model looks good...

Anyway, with only 40 infantry an aegis and a Grox and Maiden to paint in the next three and a bit weeks, I'm not sure how many posts I'll have time for between now and Blog Wars... I shall endeavour to keep you all updated, but if I have time to post I should probably be painting!

Tales of a Tournament Newbie

So, Blog Wars 3, my first tournament!  But not my last, I need to somehow salvage some credit as a gamer!  The wooden spoon was not unexpected, but there again not exactly welcome.  I went with the aim of having fun, playing some good games with new people and I certainly wasn't diappointed there.  I had a fantastic time, even if I did loose every one of my games, and was tabled in the final one.  So what happened, where did it all go wrong?!

I thought my army stood a chance a good number of scoring units, my Sternguard being made scoring by my choice of Pedro Kantor as my commander, a couple of HQ units, a hammer in the form of assault terminators and an anvil of a dreadnought/drop pod combination.  All this backed up with some fast movers in the form of scout bikes and a landspeeder.

My army designed to represent a crusading force of Imperial fist successors based on a core from a chapter of my own led by Kantor and some CF supported by a few BTs.

The whole list consisted of:

HQ

Pedro Kantor

Space Marine Captain; Combi Melta, Power sword

Elites

Terminator Assult Squad (5 man)

Land Raider Crusader; MM

Dreadnought; Multimelta, Power Fist & SB

Drop Pod

Sterguard Squad (5 man); Power fist

Drop Pod; Deathwind

Troops

Tactical Squad (10 man); Lascannon, Meltagun

Scout squad (5 man); Sniper Rifles (4); ML; Cammo cloaks

Scout squad (5 man); Shotguns (3) HB, Bolt Pistol & CCW

Heavy Support

Thunderfire Cannon

Fast Attack

Landspeeder; MM, HB

Scout Bike Squad (3 man); GL, Locator Beacon

My cunning master plan was to infiltrate the two scout squads and scoot the bikers forwards with their scout move towards an objective or major threat and then use their locator beacon to ensure that one of my two drop pods, depending on whether I was heading for an objective or threat, would land without scattering.  My Landspeeder would zoom up a flank and pick off any artillery or vehicles or harass characters whilst my hammer would be the terminators and commander in the landraider.  These would, in theory strike at a weak point or be used to blunt an enemy attack.  My tactical squad and scouts would make objective sitting their primary task whilst hopefully providing protection to the Thunderfire that I would use to smash apart horde armies.  That was the plan, but as everyone knows no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy!

Ian King's (Buckaroo Mathammer) scout army.

So game one was against a scout army, should be an easy one, lots of four plus armour, easy to get the KPs!  Unless they're being led by Shrike and a squad of Vanguard, and every squad sergeant toting a power fist!  The scouts themselves weren't too bad...to begin with...but there were so many of them that eventually I suffered big time!  I had some good initial gains, destroying his Whirlwind and a scout squad with sniper rifles, unfortunately this ended up with Kantor being too far from the serious fight that was yet to come.  Shrike deep struck into my right flank hitting my thunderfire and scouts collapsing my flank.  In the end I killed him for 2KPs, but I also lost Kantor.  Overall I lost 5-25, worst score possible. 

Grazer's (Claws and Fists) 'Nids.

Second game was against the great devourer.  The good news was I had played Ken's nid army at this mission in a warm up game.  I'd lost, but that had taught me some important points.  Even though this mission was about holding table quarters I had learned that deploying forwards was not such a good plan! Unfortunately my opponent knew how to get the best out of his army and even though I felt I did better than in my warm up match I still struggled.  The Doom of Malantai is hard!  But I did manage to kill it, eventually!  And there was a comedy moment as he charged my land raider with his carnifex which was then counter charged and killed by a loan scout!  But another bad loss and I was on my way to the bottom table.

Ginge's oh so nasty foot slogging Guard.

My final game was against our very own Ginge and his Guard, wonderfully converted and characterful and hopefully ready to be turned to mincemeat, especially by my Thunderfire.  Unfortunately this was not to be the case.  Dawn of War saw me having to bring my TF on as reserves and before it could even fire a single shot it was taken out by the massed heavy weapons of Ginge's infantry.  My scout bikes roared in from my left flank and ended up being tied up in combat for far, far too long, 6 rounds where I could only kill 3 guardsmen! Things went from bad to worse with some horrific dice rolls, never before have a I seen so many ones and twos, and a major error in leaving my hammer unit exposed to a charge from Ginge's Rough Riders.  And damn Marbo Fett and his demo charge!  I so nearly had the central objective with my drop podded in Sternguard/Kantor combo but for him.  The end result was an embarrassing tabling and the wooden spoon.

So I'm looking forwads to next time and I think a change of army is called for, perhaps the Sons of Russ if I can paint them in time...I have my eye on you Ginge, honour must be served!

Blog wars 4

So Alex of From the Fang has put up the date for Blog wars 4, I shall of course be attempting to attend the fourth blog wars as well. I think JC would like to attend this one as well, despite neither of us doing particularly well at blog wars 3, I had an absolutely fantastic time so would love to attend No 4.

So the date for BW4 is the 14/10/12, the only danger of this date is that it may clash with Braknell Forest Gamers escalation tournament, though hopefully this won't be the case.

So the question then becomes what army to take?

My Tyranids were ready just in time for BW3, I mean literally the morning of the tournament. So they are a potential entry into BW4, although I think I will need to mix up the army list slightly to make them slightly more effective. 

My Tyranid BW3

Another alternative is to take my Tau force, they did pretty well at BW1 coming third overall. Although I would like to change the army composition significantly for the next iteration of the army which could come at significant expense to myself and given my upcoming wedding, it isn't likely to happen.

My Tau Army at blog wars 1

My third and final option would be to take my Templars these would need to be dusted off before being used for gaming, the models are actually quite dusty, I would also need to spend a bit of time painting up some new models, although this would take time rather then expense as I have stacks of space marine models to build and paint. 

It also remains to be seen how these armies will operate under the 6th edition ruleset (not that it really makes a difference to my final choice unless a force becomes pretty much unplayable). I'm currently leaning towards the Templars though as it would be nice to take a third army to blog wars.

Decisions Decisions......