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.