This Saturday didn't go nearly as well as expected, but I did end up having much more fun than expected as well.  Then got hammered second round for a loss by Necrons.  Last game I was nearly tabled by Tyranids...really.  No regrets.

First game was against a mixed jump/mech Blood Angels list.  This is what my army is built to play against, some troops and lots of mech.  I took out the tanks and transports with little fanfare early on.  I bogged down Lemartes and several Death Co. with a Rifleman Dread for 4 rounds.  The plasmagun Honor Guard made quick work of the power armor.  Ryan was a wonderful sport and plays a good game.  He mentioned he was out of practice (several years).  his list was solid, other than Lemartes and not having a Power Fist in the Death Co. squad.  After getting this game under his belt he went on to play much better in the other rounds.

Second game was against Alex and his pink Necrons, which makes me regret not taking pictures while we play.  Alex is an outstanding and well established player, so I was thinking more about how to not get tabled than taking pictures.  Basically, I succeeded in not getting tabled.  I managed to tie one of the objectives late in the game by tank shocking his squad with the HQ in it off the table.  There were two gaping wholes in my game before we even setup. 1. I don't play often enough against top notch players. 2. I haven't even read the whole Necrons Codex yet...(or Gray Knights).

Alex had some horrendous shooting rolls that I was not able to take advantage of.  Also, the every round is night fighting thing really game me a worse start than I am used to.  With the Pred and dreads not making shots every turn I'm at a real disadvantage.  I rely maybe too much on the guns softening up an army before my five man squads close in.  I think having played more games at a higher level would have exposed many of the holes that I am now seeing in the list.  Obviously knowing what all of your opponents models do is a nice advntage.  I'll be working on these in the coming weeks for sure.


Third game was me being too tired to play well.  My deployment was a disaster and I suffered through the rest of the game trying, and failing to make up for it.  My opponent was pleasant though so it wasn't too bad.  By the end of turn 1 I was ready to go home and take a nap!

Round 1 of shooting from the hive guard dropped way too many of my transports, despite great placing and cover.  I concentrated too much on his shooting units when I should have been thinning out the genestealers from a distance with the dreads.  I also should have been protecting my heavy flamers for later in the game.  I should have sacrifieced a 5 man to an assault and then had a razorback on hand to flamer the genestealers after they won the combat.  Again dealing with another codex I don't have enough familiarity with and do not face often enough....come to think of it I think I have played against Tyranids 3 times now and gotten stomped each time.

I ended up in 24th place, which is not at all what I expected.  I played 2 really great games and played them well though so the day was hardly a waste.  Unfortuantely next month is a doubles at 500, which I am not at all excited about. The other store in RI has a monthly singles though so I may end up down there instead.

Changes to the list are in order!  Mephiston or some other heavy assault unit is a must.  Two regular  librarians was not worth it.  I didn't need the shield of sword powers at all, and nothing else about them really adds anything to the army.  Might just straight up swap them both out for Mephiston.  This means I will need to remove the second honor guard squad as well.  I really liked how they both performed so this will be tricky.  4 plasma and 3 melta in each are so reliable for what I need them to do.  Marines die and tanks explode. 

Also, too many heavy flamers.  I need to swap at least one out and put back in the Assault Cannons.  The range limitation was too much in all 3 games.

On the painting front, there were plenty of great armies in attendance, with none other than Jawaballs making the trip up north to take the best painted award!  Again my army was not quite finished and my display board was better than nothing, but not worth mentioning either.  The other thing I hadn't considered much is the best single model award.  For this army I don't have a single model painted up to my own best standard.  I'll be sure that this doesn't happen next time if I can't get the whole army up to snuff in time so that I am in the running for at least one of these two.

I took a couple days off from thinking about gaming and painting and am now back to thinking about bits for the Vanilla marines list I am working on.  That is going to be a slower work in progress than the Deathwing and Blood Angels have been.  I have plenty of touch ups to those and commissions before getting into the new army too heavily anyway.

Upcoming 1850 Tournament List

Here's the list that I came up with for this weekend.  This is pretty ambitious considering what still needs to be painted...on of the honor guard has no arms, one of the Razorbacks is unopened, the Flamestorm Baal is only primed, and both the dreads are only base coated.  On top of that, the display board (which is probably too small for this list...) needs to be repaired from the bumpy ride home from Templecon...

The goal is to have all of this done for Saturday morning and hope it fits on the board well enough to not look cluttered.  It is about time this army got finished anyway, so this will be a great motivator!
 

Blood Angels

1850

Battlegrounds – March 24, 2012

HQ

1. Librarian: Shield of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage – 100

            Honor Guard 115: plasmagun x4 (60), co. banner (15) – 240

2. Librarian: Sword of Sanguinius and Unleash Rage – 100

            Honor Guard 115: meltagun x3(30), Rhino (50) – 195

Troops

1. Assault Squad (5) 100: power weapon (15), meltagun (10), Razorback TL Heavy Flamer (20, discount for removing jump packs) – 145

2. Assault Squad (5) 100: power weapon (15), meltagun (10), Razorback TL Heavy Flamer (20, discount for removing jump packs) - 145

3. Assault Squad (5) 100: power weapon (15), meltagun (10), Razorback TL Heavy Flamer (20, discount for removing jump packs) - 145

4. Assault Squad (5) 100: power weapon (15), meltagun (10), Razorback TL Heavy Flamer (20, discount for removing jump packs) – 145

Fast Attack

1. Baal Predator 115: heavy bolter sponson (30) – 145

2. Baal Predator 115: Flamestorm Cannon (free) – 145

Heavy Support

1. Predator 65: Lascannon sponson (70) – 153

2. Dreadnought 105: two TLAutocannons (15) – 120

3. Dreadnought 105: two TLAutocannons (15) – 120

New Projects and Old Display Board

"The Lion"

I've included some pictures of the display board I used for Templecon and Battleground Tournaments where I had best painted score.  I have found it to be way too small for my liking.  It certainly has all of the elements I would like to have in a board, but doesn't allow for the models to be spread out in such a way as to appreciate each model and the board at the same time.  I'm trying to come up with a new plan for a bigger board, but too many other projects need to get done first.

"The Edge of Dawn"

"The Fall"

I hung out with Simon and Matt last night.  Matt showed off his recently painted models.  Lots of legion of the Damned and Chapter Masters.  Matt's painting skill has improved amazingly of late.  Too bad he doesn't play often since I rarely get to see what he has been working on.

Simon has me starting on his Grey Knight "Inquisition Army"  just a few dozen more models that will each be individually modified and customized.  It is a ton of models and work, but I like the overall theme of the army so much it doesn't matter.  Lots of crazy unique pieces and a liberal approach to "Counts As."  Simon is a top notch player so it is great seeing the models I've been painting for him perform well.  Simon will have some articles and posts here as a guest to contribute.  Hopefully, he'll be able to provide content on a regular basis, or at least Batreps from some of the larger New England area tournaments.

Kroot in progress.  These should be of use for the next doubles match when team "For the Greater Booze" rolls in.  Just need to get the basing done on these guys.

Just adding some notes on how the last few singles tournaments have gone.  I couldn't find or remember anything earlier than these 4, so I'll start with this.  Looking back, this past year has been pretty solid.  Templecon in Feb. of last year I pulled out a 3rd place finish in the 1850 with Blood Angels.  In July at the FLGS I placed 2nd in the 2000, then again this January for 1750 I placed 8th and Best Painted Army.  Templecon thi s year was a much improved scene, so I didn't see ending up in 14th as that big of a drop off from the previous year, more on that later in it's own post.  I did however end up with the highest painting score for the event.

There were a couple of Doubles events mixed in there as well.  I did miss out on Ard Boyz on account of my company picnic and the Falmouth Roadrace taking up that whole weekend.  Hoping that not all 3 of these events end up on the same weekend again this year!

Looking ahead this year I plan on attending at least one more major event.  My focus has to be improving my game against more opponents and more armies.  I'm confident with my ability to put together good lists, but I end up having trouble with armies I have not played against enough and against better players.  This is a pretty obvious point, but all the more evident with the two matches I struggled with at the last two tourneys.  At the last BG tourney I ended up selling myself short because I hadn't played against Orcs or Grey Knights before with my Deathwing.  If I had played more aggressively against each I may have maxed points against both instead of minor wins.  Something that would have made a big difference overall.  At Templecon it was the opposite. I was well prepared for Blood Angels, but both my opponents were better players and had more practice with their armies than I did with mine.

1. Play different opponents
2. Play against more armies

To be continued...(painting goals for the year!)

Great game last night with the Frobro!  Chaos and the Edge of Dawn (in BA form) took to the field last night.  We had a slow start, getting FroBro caught up with all the people there and grabbing a quick bite from the sub place next door.

The game went slow as expected.  Frobro had lots of questions and we would stop midway through moves to talk about why he was doing something or another and what the repercussions would be.

We played dawn of war, capture and control for 3 rounds.

Chaos brought
2 chaos marines squads (10)
8 berserkers
5 terminators
2 defilers
2 rhinos
Demon Prince of Khorne
Typhus

EoD (BA)
Sanguinor
Libby w/ Jump pack
3 RAZ squads w/ Power weapon, meltagun
RAS Power Weapon, 2 meltaguns
Stormraven
2 priests both with powerweapons, one with Jump pack

We both rushed at each other as would be expected for the match up, and let the dice do the talking.  His dice were awful, mine were average.  His placement and choice of assaults were spot on.  He may not have a firm grasp of the rules, but has been gaming in general long enough to have a great grasp on tactics.  We had a great time and as hoped infected the FroBro with more of a desire to paint and play, Mission Accomplished!

Going to look at getting in a 1850 game in the next week or so to help me make up my mind for the next tourney.

Tried following up on a possible commission, but no luck so far.  Still lots to paint this week; Kroot,  Inquisition!, Bikes and figure out what I want the Stormraven to look like.  Looking to do some kind of mural on the Stormraven, but no idea what!

Welcome! I'll be using this to share my Warhammer 40k Adventures, mostly painting, but a fair amount of bat reps, rules discussions and talking about rumors.  I'm still figuring out the blogger layout functions so everything is assuredly a work in progress.

Over the next month expect updates on all things power armor as I try to determine what list to bring for a 1850 point tournament on 3/24. I have been playing Dark Angels - Deathwing lately, Blood Angels with a large amount of success before that, and have been caught up recently in building vanilla marines. Scouts and Bikes!

The sudden interest in the Vanilla Marines is more because of the models rather than interest in the Codex itself.  Here are a couple of works in progess for the Bike Captain (Relic Blade and Storm Shield) and Scout Sergeant (Powerfist and Combi-Melta).

Modelling is done for these two primed and started a little of the base coating.  The scouts are going off of an Assassins Creed feel, while I wanted the Bike Captain to have more of the medieval flare.  I'm really excited about how the weapons came out for both of these.  The lance was a pretty easy, but getting the wire just right on the crossbow was a complete pain.  Figured I would change up the concept of bolter a little bit, same ammunition right?

More posts to come as I narrow down the lists for the next 1850 and results of this weeks Thursday night regular game night.  Bringing 1600 of Blood Angels to play against a newer Chaos Marine player.  Lots of fun units, alot less of the WAAC stuff I would bring to a tourney.