Boltgun Battles 3

Well, I went to a local tournament yesterday called Boltgun Battles, and I had a Spectacular time. This was the third annual event held in a town a few miles north of me. Alan Blount organises this every year with the help of his friends and I have to say, they throw a hell of a party. The prize support was spectacular, and more than half of the entrants left with something to show for the day beyond 3 good games. There were some CRAZY games going on...like a necron vs. necron with 5 monoliths and nightbringer between them....did I mention one of those players was a woman!?! (Amanda I LOVED your army, very thematic and well done).

Now, the games were at 2000pts, which is larger than I usually play, so I had to sit down and create a whole new animal. I went through 5 army builds on three different codeci before I settled with Daemons of chaos. I was fairly certain I would be in a minority with them, but more importantly I ENJOY the quirky nature of the army.  I took a sub-optimal list of my own design, that with some tweaking (and about 30 plaguebearers) could be a tough nut to crack. This is how it stood for the tournament:

Fateweaver
3x Daemon prince, mark of Nurgle, wings, Daemon Armour and Noxious touch
3 flamers
12 plaguebearers
16 bloodletters
2x 15 bloodletters

Now, I know this is not an "optimal" list, but it hits hard, and I enjoy playing it. I had three spectacular opponents and while the random daemons didn't perform perfectly (and neither did I), I had nothing but fun. Here is a run-down of my games. I can't remember all the details of the lists but here is what I do remember.

In round one I played Afrojoe. Now, Afrojoe had done something similar to me and taken an army he did not normally play. His space marines were really in the growing stages and Afrojoe seemed to be still learning the ropes with them.

Librarian with force dome
Captain with fist in a tricked out command squad in a rhino
3 (possibly 4 but im not sure) 5 man tacticals in rhinos with various gear
typhoon speeder
2 triple lascannon predators.

Now Joe played well, but he had never played the daemons, and I was able through LUCKY drops to get his speeder, one predator, his command and a tactical in the space of 2 turns with my princes.....took all 5 turns to kill everything except an immobilized rhino and one predator which had no guns on it. Joe is super nice guy and we talked after the game about how it went and what could have gone differently. Joe is one of those guys that I would play anytime!

My second game was against Jeremy McClung and his spectacularly painted Howling Griffons marines. This army is GORGEOUS. Jeremy is a super nice guy as well, and we laughed all the way through this game.

Khan on bike with command squad
Librarian with null zone (curses!)
4 tactical squads in razorbacks all with las/twin-plasma
bike squad with a multi-melta attack bike, this one was scoring because of Khan
2 whirlwinds

Now it strikes me that I am missing something, so Jeremy if you read this comment and let me know, because I really like this list. There was an incredible amount of low AP fire coming in, and Fateweaver should have been the savior of my list....except Jeremy shot every gun in his army at him for 2 turns and I eventually failed that third save....after even making two leadership tests to keep him around. Problem is, I had no way to stop null zone, so I had to re-roll all successful invulnerable saves on half the table....which is basically all I had.....hmpf.....This mission was for table quarters and kill the opposing general was a bonus table quarter. While I smeared Khan all over my filth encrusted talons in turn 3, he had killed fateweaver. It came down to a 5 to 3 win for Jeremy on strength of numbers in his scoring units.

Now in round 3 I played Jeff Jenkins, and his mechanised Imperial guard. Again, Jeff if I miss something comment and let me know.

2 primaris psykers as HQ
4 veteran squads in chimeras
manticore
pair of Leman Russ battle tanks with hull lascannons
Pair of Executioners (ouch)

This mission was a bad draw for me as there were three objectives in a line across the middle of the table, all out in the open. Then you throw that SICK firepower on a daemon and I just melted under the fire here. Jeff was ready to throw Fateweaver across the room by turn four, but we both had a good game. It was fun and in the end I lost 2 to nothing.

In the end I was 1-2 on the day with a total of 16 battle points. I have not seen the final painting, comp or sports scores so I am not filled in on the placements over all, but I did walk away with on HELL of a prize:BEST SPORTSMAN! I had NO idea I was even in the running. I went to have some good games and a good time, and I aceived that in spades, but the sportsman award was AWESOME!! and the prize support for it was....well......THIS!!!

Yes...that is a Knight titan....WOOT!

Drew Part 1: Da Bomb!

Drew has this for his initial order: The whole thing!! 

Alright, got my 1500 list written and models ordered.....and of course I went to extremes, so buying, building and painting will be a pain! lol

Lelith

9 wyches:
1 hydra gauntlet
hekatrix
blast pistol
phantasm grenades
agoniser
haywire grenades

raider transport:
torment grenade
aethersails
retrofire jets
chain-snares
envenomed blades
night shields
flickerfield

10 wyches:
2 hydra gauntlets
hekatrix
blast pistol
phantasm grenades
agoniser
haywire grenades

raider transport:
torment grenades
aethersails
retrofire jets
chain-snares
envenomed blades
night shields
flickerfield

10 reavers:
3 heat lances

10 reavers:
3 heat lances

10 reavers:
3 heat lances

general idea is to zoom the wyches into position for objective based games and let them unleash nasty combat goodness on whatever enemy unit is trying to capture the objective. meanwhile, the raiders and 3 out of every squad of the reavers have tank busting capability. the wyches with haywire grenades can also attempt tank busting in a pinch. any infantry units not able to be engaged by wyches will take fly-by hits from reavers as well as volleys from their poisoned splinter rifles.

yes, there are some holes in that list, but i like the models, it's fast, and it has capability to deal with most units. now we all know how i roll, so really, it doesn't matter what list is "best" i'll still flub it on the table!

A Tale part Deux

Drew texted me today with his initial take on a 1500pt force.....shockingly close to mine....

Lelith Hesperax
9 Wytches in a Raider
10 Wytches in a Raider
3x 10 Reaver jet bikes

Wow....2 troops in gutsy, even leaving it all in reserve while the bikes fly around the board killing transports. He plans to table what he plays, but we'll see how well this works out.

Next up: Play-testing with the new toys.

A Tale of Two (addicted) Gamers

Well, I have my second miniature group ordered now. I have added the following, which will make a playable army somewhere above the 500 point range so I can begin testing.

Urien Rakarth
2x boxes of Wytches
Mandrakes
Webway Portal

These are really just filler pieces to make it a legal army. There are a bunch more things that I am likely to need to convert or buy multiple boxes of to complete. The force after wave 2 (no grear) looks like this:

Urien Rakarth
Archon

9 Wytches in raider
20 Wytches on foot for portal
10 Warriors

Mandrakes
2x 6 Bikes

Again this is a partial force, but I plan on getting some Hemonoculi as a second HQ and dropping the Archon. I will need more warriors to get the bits for a Trueborn tank busting squad, and I need to convert 3 bombers and a parasite engine or two as the anchors of the list. So far so good!

A tale of two (Addicted) gamers

A few of the guys at Armoury games (plus myself) are building Dark Eldar armies starting in a few weeks. Drew and I decided that this would be a great opportunity to take a look into the very organic process of conceiving of, buying modeling and painting the same army from two different perspectives. Even though we are starting from the same army book, we are taking VERY different approaches to the army. In the end of this process we should have two playable and hopefully competitive armies that function in different ways. We hope to tell the story of how we got to the finished product through a step by step story. We will buy 250+ point chunks of army and explain why we chose the units we did, including intent for units purchased and not finished at each stage.

My starting design concept for the army is called the Cabal of the Sundered Storm. While I haven't totally settled on a final color scheme, I am thinking about armor plating somewhere darker than Dark Angels green. I recently bought an airbrush so the lightening camouflage pattern  is my first trial at lining with it. As far as an army list is concernedI originally had a few ideas for lists.

The first was a simple wall of warriors with maxed out dark lances.....
The second idea was a Hellion based list with maxed out hellions....
The third was a Vect Based Alpha Strike list with maxed out ravagers and warriors in raiders....
The fourth idea was an air-force based on reaver jet bikes...
The fifth idea involved a pain circus with grotesques and wracks as troops with the kabalite trueborn as gunships....(still like this idea)


Currently I am leaning to center the list around an air-force/raider assault. To be more specific I am going to max out on the jet-bikes and bombers (or ravagers) and use wytches in raiders to clear the field. As far as a leader....well that is where things get murky. I could use an Archon, I could use Vect, and I could use Lelith Hesperax or several of the other characters for that matter.... That part can wait for now though. I spent about an hour going through the codex today and while I didn't write out a list I have an idea of where to go.


My first purchase was the codex, an Archon, a raider, some wytches and 12 bikes. A good start to be sure. Lets see what Drew comes up with once he gets a look later this week.....

The Defense of Drask

937M41

The Drask system lies deep in the Galactic North East. It lies far from Major routes to anywhere….in real-space. The fourth planet from a bright Blue star, Drask IV is an H Type planet, with a breathable, though severely polluted atmosphere and a population of more than 40 billion. As a manufactorium planet it is unable to feed itself as nearly 80% of it’s surface is covered with urban sprawl centered around regional Hive cities. What Drask lacks in Agriculture it more than makes up for in raw ceramite sheeting production and stamping. This output arms and protects the tow nearest Imperial regimental recruitment hubs on Valhalla and Tallarn.
Then there is the matter of the local shipping routes. Due to the ever changing tides, currents and eddies in the Empyrean the system currently sits on one end of a jump point to a system within 500 light-years of Terra. If the forces of destruction should take control of this jump point then The siege if Terra could happen again….with ease…..
Inquisitor Pranix Leads 5 Battle companies of the Space Wolves, elements of the Cadian 301st and The Tallarn 14th in retaking the 9 hollow worlds from Huron Blackheart. Drask has elevated production levels in support. As the production push is foremost on the minds of the forge supervisors, they miss tell-tale warp signatures at the edge of the system. Only the failsafe warning beacons mark the approach of Xenos and Heretic ships….

Im running a campaign at Armoury Games in Pickerington. This is the fluff for it. If you are interested let me know here with a comment. I have this set up for 12 players, but I can make room for more if needed.

Work work work!!!!

Well not much going on this week. I have taken on a squad of Blood Angel Successor Sanguinary Guard. I have a test scheme approved by the owner, and I'll post some pix tonight if I get a chance.