Friday, December 21, 2012
Blasts from the past
Here's a few pics from a commission I just finished up. These are the WIP pics and I totally forgot to take final pics before dropping them off. There was only a little more detail. The details on the battlecat armor were done in silver, Thundarr was highlighted a bit more and the skin tone for Ariel was blended out to a lighter shade. The Ariel project was the most interesting since she isn't modeled with any clothes on. I did some shading to hide the fact that it is painted on. I'm pretty pleased. Might even get a call from SI asking if I'm intersted in painting on swim suits for the next edition...?
Tau Wolves vs. Blood Guard
Gundam John and I played an 1850 game last night, each sporting our first drafts of Allied lists. Gundam John has the usualy Tau with a compliment of Space Puppies, while my Blood Angels found some Guard to tag along with. We played a scenarion from an upcoming local invitational. Primary was 5 objectives, 1 in the center and the other 4 were placed anywhere else not within 12" of another objective, each player alternating placement. The secondary was to end the game with your warlord in the enemy deployment zone.
5th edition Spearhead deployment.
Turn 1
I got the first round and started by giving my las cannon devastators the ignore cover blessing, re-roll to hit to the las heavy weapon team and re-roll to the autocannon HWT. The Devasatators then blasted off a few long fangs in ruins, the two heavy weapons teams took care of same grey hunters and fire warriors in the open. This was followed by a few minutes of me figuring out how my manticore works like a total noob and then taking out another half dozen fire warriors.
Puppies and fire warriors advance and with rapid fire end up taking 20 of the 30 man guard blob off the table. Both Broad side teams fail to destroy the manticore...just two glances. Bad rolling on his part and a lucky save on the penetrating hit on my end. With 5 objectives on the board I should not have combined the blob. They should have been spread out and one completely hidden/reserved.
Turn 2
No Stormraven this turn...this is becoming a theme...more re-rolls for heavy weapons and more ignore cover for the devastators (las cannons ignoring cover was fantastic all game). I can't reach his braodsides with me las cannons, so I just ignore them, the most they can do is kill 4 things a turn. This turn was much like the first, I just keep picking off the low hanging fruit, fire warriors and grey hunters in the open and use the ignore cover to finish off the long fangs.
This round of shooting takes another 5 off the blob, takes out the chimera and the infantry command squad. I also lost a couple of scouts...which again should have been out of line of site near that objective. The Lone Wolf walks forward and finishes off the blob with ease, despite me having several poweraexes in the squad, the 3++ shield did its job.
Turn 3
No stormraven...and more of the same shooing as the previous turns. Again I am picking squads apart, but not finishing any of them off that well. The honor guard and las cannons did take care of the lone wolf, which I should have been focusing on a turn sooner.
The manticore didn't last this round, finally succumbing to the broadsides. John used the attached wolves for extra movement to sling shot the wolf into combat more effectively. Definitely a nice move for someone that has never played an assault army.
Turn 4
The Stormraven gets to play and promptly kills 4 marines in the open, causing a check that they fail and move back a bit. The assault marine stay on board. At this point I finally start causing some checks on the squads and am having a little more success with my shooting. Unfortunately, I no longer have the models for enough rate of fire to turn the tide. When John starts his turn, I start to see that he is suffering the same way. With no clear targets for the broadsides, and most of the fire warriors out of rapid fire range, John focuses on killing off my troops, which he does pretty well. by the end of turn 4 I have 2 scouts on an objective, a hwt no where near an objective and 5 assault marines in the Stormraven. He has at least 5 partial fire warrior squads still on the board, might have been more, and two beat up grey hunter squads.
Turn 5
Stormraven goes to hover mode, the assault marines get out and slaughter one of two fire warrior squads on an objective. The flyer and honor guard finish off the Rune Priest and his Grey hunters neatly as well this turn.
Farsite starts walking across the board seemingly aimlessly, I'm a little confused by this and don't question it...because I totally forgot about the secondary objective. The fire warriors near my assult marines do nothing, but I lose 2 to the broadsides....roll a 12 on my leadership check and roll 3 dice to jump right off the board. I needed this unit to get a win. They should have easily killed another squad and hid on this objective. No such luck, the best I can hope for is a tie now, assuming we get a turn or two more.
Turn 6 and 7
I was getting tired and things got a bit fuzzy here, though we both played quite well despite the hour and length of the game. I am able to successfully remove all of his fire warriors from objectives. Because I used all my fire power doing this, John is able to walk his warlord right across the board with nothing that I can do about it. When the game ends, neither of us has a single objective, John has the secondary, and the tertiary is a draw (victorty points differential) since we are within 75 victory points of each other.
The game was a total blood bath! We were so close the whole game with some great rolls and fun moments. We both left really happy with how the lists performed with only some slight adjustments needed.
Looks like the Wolves are going to consider a drop pod for improved mobility.
I may need to add a few more power armor bodies to the table for improved survivability. 5 assault marines don't quite cut it when everything else is 4+ or 5+ armor, regardless of the number of models. this was a major adjustment for me as well. Taking off 20+ casualties off the board in a single round is far more than I am used to and was a bit demoralizing....but that should happen to guard so I'll need to get over that quickly, or add more models!
5th edition Spearhead deployment.
Turn 1
I got the first round and started by giving my las cannon devastators the ignore cover blessing, re-roll to hit to the las heavy weapon team and re-roll to the autocannon HWT. The Devasatators then blasted off a few long fangs in ruins, the two heavy weapons teams took care of same grey hunters and fire warriors in the open. This was followed by a few minutes of me figuring out how my manticore works like a total noob and then taking out another half dozen fire warriors.
Puppies and fire warriors advance and with rapid fire end up taking 20 of the 30 man guard blob off the table. Both Broad side teams fail to destroy the manticore...just two glances. Bad rolling on his part and a lucky save on the penetrating hit on my end. With 5 objectives on the board I should not have combined the blob. They should have been spread out and one completely hidden/reserved.
Turn 2
No Stormraven this turn...this is becoming a theme...more re-rolls for heavy weapons and more ignore cover for the devastators (las cannons ignoring cover was fantastic all game). I can't reach his braodsides with me las cannons, so I just ignore them, the most they can do is kill 4 things a turn. This turn was much like the first, I just keep picking off the low hanging fruit, fire warriors and grey hunters in the open and use the ignore cover to finish off the long fangs.
This round of shooting takes another 5 off the blob, takes out the chimera and the infantry command squad. I also lost a couple of scouts...which again should have been out of line of site near that objective. The Lone Wolf walks forward and finishes off the blob with ease, despite me having several poweraexes in the squad, the 3++ shield did its job.
Turn 3
No stormraven...and more of the same shooing as the previous turns. Again I am picking squads apart, but not finishing any of them off that well. The honor guard and las cannons did take care of the lone wolf, which I should have been focusing on a turn sooner.
The manticore didn't last this round, finally succumbing to the broadsides. John used the attached wolves for extra movement to sling shot the wolf into combat more effectively. Definitely a nice move for someone that has never played an assault army.
Turn 4
The Stormraven gets to play and promptly kills 4 marines in the open, causing a check that they fail and move back a bit. The assault marine stay on board. At this point I finally start causing some checks on the squads and am having a little more success with my shooting. Unfortunately, I no longer have the models for enough rate of fire to turn the tide. When John starts his turn, I start to see that he is suffering the same way. With no clear targets for the broadsides, and most of the fire warriors out of rapid fire range, John focuses on killing off my troops, which he does pretty well. by the end of turn 4 I have 2 scouts on an objective, a hwt no where near an objective and 5 assault marines in the Stormraven. He has at least 5 partial fire warrior squads still on the board, might have been more, and two beat up grey hunter squads.
Turn 5
Stormraven goes to hover mode, the assault marines get out and slaughter one of two fire warrior squads on an objective. The flyer and honor guard finish off the Rune Priest and his Grey hunters neatly as well this turn.
Farsite starts walking across the board seemingly aimlessly, I'm a little confused by this and don't question it...because I totally forgot about the secondary objective. The fire warriors near my assult marines do nothing, but I lose 2 to the broadsides....roll a 12 on my leadership check and roll 3 dice to jump right off the board. I needed this unit to get a win. They should have easily killed another squad and hid on this objective. No such luck, the best I can hope for is a tie now, assuming we get a turn or two more.
Turn 6 and 7
I was getting tired and things got a bit fuzzy here, though we both played quite well despite the hour and length of the game. I am able to successfully remove all of his fire warriors from objectives. Because I used all my fire power doing this, John is able to walk his warlord right across the board with nothing that I can do about it. When the game ends, neither of us has a single objective, John has the secondary, and the tertiary is a draw (victorty points differential) since we are within 75 victory points of each other.
The game was a total blood bath! We were so close the whole game with some great rolls and fun moments. We both left really happy with how the lists performed with only some slight adjustments needed.
Looks like the Wolves are going to consider a drop pod for improved mobility.
I may need to add a few more power armor bodies to the table for improved survivability. 5 assault marines don't quite cut it when everything else is 4+ or 5+ armor, regardless of the number of models. this was a major adjustment for me as well. Taking off 20+ casualties off the board in a single round is far more than I am used to and was a bit demoralizing....but that should happen to guard so I'll need to get over that quickly, or add more models!
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Doubles Results
It's been entirely too long since my last update and much has happened for me in the gaming world since then, most notably Gundam John and I at the 2000 point team tournament. This is a few weeks back now, so I'm a bit hazy on details, so I'll sum up.
First round was against Demons and Chaos Marines. The game looked much closer than it ended up looking. Both John and I are very attentive with objective missions and not losing whole units. Primary was objectives which we won, don't recall the secondary, but we got that as well. Tertiary for all games was a scaling system based on VP differential, which I am a big fan of. So not quite max points, but a good start. Best part was definitely a demon prince assaulting John's broadsides and getting a pair of over-watch railguns to the face!
Round two against Keith and Mike was a strange game. Great first round of shooting, followed by several rounds of us not doing much of anything. We made some really smart moves and with a little luck ended up winning this match as well, unfortunately by only a very small margin. Given how the game went we were definitely lucky here. A few things went our way in the last two rounds.
Round three was Brad and Brian Blood Angels and Sisters. This was my first match against Sisters since the WD (shows you how popular it is in the area). Both teams are definitely in the hunt for placing at this point, so what happens? John and I pull off a minor win resulting in Keith and Mike from our previous round leap frogging us to place. John and I end up in 4th overall, 1 point behind 3rd and not much behind 2nd (no where near first which maxed out all 3 rounds).
We had a great time. Opponents were great in all three rounds and we ended up with three wins, so there was nothing to complain about. I was excited we finally balanced our lists correctly and found a way to work together.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention placing 1st in the best painted army category. Tough competition as usual, but I think I won out based on the consistency of how the army was painted. Everything was at the same level, with great detail, where as a few other armies that were close had a few pieces that weren't up to par with the rest of their army. I'll take it!
On a related note the store just put up an amazing display case, myself and several others have been invited to put some of our best painted models on display. I'm just figuring out which to have added.
More updates to come...commissions...my allied unit....Gundam John conversions and more....unless I end up overworking again like I have the last few weeks :(
First round was against Demons and Chaos Marines. The game looked much closer than it ended up looking. Both John and I are very attentive with objective missions and not losing whole units. Primary was objectives which we won, don't recall the secondary, but we got that as well. Tertiary for all games was a scaling system based on VP differential, which I am a big fan of. So not quite max points, but a good start. Best part was definitely a demon prince assaulting John's broadsides and getting a pair of over-watch railguns to the face!
Round two against Keith and Mike was a strange game. Great first round of shooting, followed by several rounds of us not doing much of anything. We made some really smart moves and with a little luck ended up winning this match as well, unfortunately by only a very small margin. Given how the game went we were definitely lucky here. A few things went our way in the last two rounds.
Round three was Brad and Brian Blood Angels and Sisters. This was my first match against Sisters since the WD (shows you how popular it is in the area). Both teams are definitely in the hunt for placing at this point, so what happens? John and I pull off a minor win resulting in Keith and Mike from our previous round leap frogging us to place. John and I end up in 4th overall, 1 point behind 3rd and not much behind 2nd (no where near first which maxed out all 3 rounds).
We had a great time. Opponents were great in all three rounds and we ended up with three wins, so there was nothing to complain about. I was excited we finally balanced our lists correctly and found a way to work together.
I'd be remiss if I didn't mention placing 1st in the best painted army category. Tough competition as usual, but I think I won out based on the consistency of how the army was painted. Everything was at the same level, with great detail, where as a few other armies that were close had a few pieces that weren't up to par with the rest of their army. I'll take it!
On a related note the store just put up an amazing display case, myself and several others have been invited to put some of our best painted models on display. I'm just figuring out which to have added.
More updates to come...commissions...my allied unit....Gundam John conversions and more....unless I end up overworking again like I have the last few weeks :(
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