Team Snake Eyes

Road to Adepticon: Motivational

2012-01-21T20:05:00.000-06:00

It's 2012, the last year on Earth. Before the next Presidential election the zombie hordes are due to destroy life as we know it. But before THAT, a completely different horde of strange and wonderful individuals will descend upon unsuspecting Chicago-land for a weekend of combat with plastic and white metal warriors.

This will be Team Snake Eyes third straight Team Tourney. We are currently toiling, brush and Exacto knife in hand, to bring some new additions to our Salamander force. We are excited about these reinforcements and hopefully they will meet or surpass the standards we have set for ourselves in previous years.

I had wanted to do something for my brothers-in-arms for the holidays, but, as often happens, the holiday hecticness made me put it off until now. So, lads, here is a late but heartfelt look back at where we've been in an attempt to energize us for the sprint toward April.

I give you the first ever Team Snake Eyes Motivational. Enjoy!

Road to Adepticon 2012: Gaming the System

2012-01-11T20:48:00.000-06:00

Well we have previously looked at the obvious requirement of getting your team together for the Adepticon Team Tournament. I know, I know, we here at Team Snake Eyes are cutting edge bloggers continuously breaking new ground at every opportunity.

"Gaming the System" might not mean what you think it means. I'm not referring to any sort of skeevy shenanigans that one might expect from lesser gamers, rather I mean taking at look at the Adepticon Team Tournament Rules and actually making a plan. Shocking I know, but hear me out.

There are currently 120 teams registered for the tournament. It is highly likely that there are other teams waitlisted since the opportunity to meet, and potentially play, me is unsurprisingly in high demand. With this sort of competition it pays to have some idea of how you plan on getting as many points as possible.

The available points are as follows:

Battle Points (you know...winning the game) - 240 points (54% of total)
Commander's Heads (killing opponent HQ choices) - 32 points (7% of total)
Command Tokens (minimizing your use of special mission rules) - 32 points (7% of total)
Sportsmanship (not acting like "that guy" when you lose) - special
Appearance (paint your stuff you bums) - 60 points (14% of total)
Theme (do your 4 armies make sense together?) - 60 points (14% of total)
Tournament Quiz (harder than you might think actually) - 20 points (4% of total)
Team Spirit (how nuts are you about this tournament?) - special

The battle points are self explanatory. You need to win as many games as you possibly can, by as big of a margin as you can possibly manage. The commander's heads are also obvious. Keep your HQ choices alive, and send the other team's HQ choices to an early retirement. Each mission has a variety of wonky rules that adjust what constitutes a scoring unit and whatnot. If you use your special rule, you lose a command token. If you kill an enemy unit with a command token, then you gain one. Your best bet here is to not use them unless you absolutely have to and kill everything your opponent puts on the table. Sportsmanship is another category where you should be getting "easy" points. Don't lose your cool, and work through any differences and you should provide an enjoyable game to your opponent. Regarding appearance, I highly recommend reading the rules packet linked above. You will be getting scored on overall painting, uniformity of your armies, detail work, highlighting, basing, and conversions. The quiz is hard. There's really not much more to say about that. Spirit is the banners, shot glasses, costumes, etc. that some folks get into. While this whole exercise benefits from large amounts of disposable income, this category in particular is just about how much money you are willing to spend. Fortunately, it has no impact on your final score for the tournament. Want a super-cool display board that shows the assault on the gates of Terra? That gets you about 10 points. Want a pizza box spray painted black with your team name on it? That gets you about 3. That difference equals about 1% of your total score and I don't even want to think about how much things like that cost. While those kickass display boards are well...kickass, they are certainly not going to prevent you from scoring well if you don't have one.

In short, if you're at all interested in your team's final placement in the tournament, then make a plan. It doesn't have to be as complex as entering into a land war in Asia, but put some thought into the enterprise. To be honest, its exercises like this that add to our overall experience in the tournament. If you find yourself at the tournament and wish to introduce yourself and/or your team, just look for this guy and say your piece.

Aerion's New Army

2012-01-09T23:02:00.000-06:00

Well, maybe a LITTLE bit.

If by "new" you mean "purchased mostly when the army was released in Spring of 2011 and just now getting some love with the build and brush", that is.

Last year at Adepticon my long months of artistic guidance over the Salamander project was rewarded by a generous gift of some new models that had, just that very weekend in fact, been scattered Primarch-like across the globe by Games Workshop. As the imposing stack of Grey Knight kits was shoveled into my grateful arms I was both humbled and exhilarated. My humbleness has never waned, but my exuberance had to take a back seat to things like school, life, and various other projects.

This year another gift gave me a much needed impetus to see the Grey Knight project launched into the seas of possibility. My beloved wife, Lady Boxcars, signed me up for a Freeboota membership. For those who aren't aware (and honestly, if you're in the hobby and not, you're missing out), the lads at 40K Radio (link here) have a members only forum community collectively known as the "Freebootas". Membership has its privileges, but one big one is the friendly and supportive environment for lovers of our game.

Pursuant to that environment, the gang host an annual "Motivational Challenge". Basically they designate a goal for each month of the year for participants to accomplish. For example, January's goal was troops or "'Boota'z Choice" (i.e. whatever you want as long as it's something 40K related and you don't start it until the 1st of the month). If you complete your goal by the 15th you get a gold badge for your tracking bar. Complete it by the 30th and you get a silver. Get it done eventually and you get a bronze. As the year progresses you will ideally find that your chosen projects will be vacating your "to-do" shelf and ending up on the table.

I wanted to make my mark as a contributing member of the community so I dove in. I didn't want to start with troops (though, considering I actually had a smidgeon of free time between the holidays and the relaunch of school, I probably should have), so instead I took the "Boota'z Choice" option and got this guy out of the bitz box and prepped. On January 1 I primed him, and by the afternoon of January 4 I had this:


"Of course they have armor cleaning stations in the warp. Why do you ask?"

So that makes two complete models for my Grey Knight army. I have an HQ and I have a Heavy (Dreadknight). That gives me about 1000 points, so I'm halfway there. Woot!

Thoughts on Black Templar Rumors

2012-01-05T18:31:00.000-06:00

The following has been blatantly stolen from BOLS, who got it from Warseer

Begin quote:

ghost21 says:-relic dreadnaughts, like a mobile requiary bearer... is what i had heard

-expect bt to be the landraider spam army

via Marshal Laeroth
-there's going to be a named emperors champion, who's old by BT standards, and has been EC for a while. long enough to be better than the standard one.

-initiates will be cheaper, around 11 points, and neotyphes around 6pts. still, expect some drawbacks to this.

-there'll be a new named character on a bike with eternal warrior, and also eternal warrior killer.

-and possibly some dreadnought/knight style thing that fits with the rest of the army, in line with the big stuff from GK and BA.

-oh, last thing, possibly some upgrade that lets land raiders be destroyed by the enemy, but still 'live' for a turn. final shoot and move, the explode in a last ditch suicide run or someut.

via BloodCrusade

1)Helbrecht(Cheaper with rules to make Sword Brethren either Scoring or Troops)
2)Grimaldus(Rules update)
3)Special Champion
4)Draco(Will be making the transfer from White Dwarf to Codex with rule amendments)

These are the *guaranteed* Special Characters with rumors of:

1) Marshal/Castellan for drop pod armies(Reminiscent of one of our own's Custom Codex, believe it was Sigismund Himself?)
2)Terminator HQ(Allows for termies as scoring or as Troops for 'BlackWing')

Haven't heard anything of being allowed to bring Bikes as Troops if your 'Captain' rides one, which I'm thankful for. There's a Chapter for that and it's White Scars.

Special Units being brought to the Codex:

1)Chaplain Dreadnought(Same reroll hits on charge, probably fealess to all units with-in 6" like Grimaldus)
2)Durandal Dreadnought(Being brought from White Dwarf into the Codex, haven't heard the rules will change- maybe one more base attack?)
3)Assault Rhino Chassis(Been rumored/hoped for a long time, whether from the Rhino or a new vehicle on it's chassis)

End Quote.

Now, it's a well known fact that I've played Black Templars since I got back into the hobby. My regular opponents also know that I have been dreading a new codex. Why? Mainly because I don't trust GW to keep any of the rules I've become accustomed to, nor do I expect them to keep any of the BT flavor that I adore. My fears were reinforced recently with the Sisters of Battle WD codex. The way they stripped any and all association with the Inquisition rankled me to no end.

But I digress.

When it comes to my Templars I'm very possessive. I don't win with them very often (or with any other army for that matter), but I LIKE the way they play. I like the idea of a bunch of borderline heretics ("Codex? We don't need your stupid codex!") plying the space lanes in unfathomable numbers doing right by the Emperor in spite of his "loyal" servants wishes. I love that they hate psykers and want to rip their aberrant heads from their shoulders on sight (unless they're wearing shiny silver armor. Then they're okay.) I like the idea of a power armor wearing horde running screaming with pistols and chain swords while an impressive wall of Land Raider variants come rolling along carrying unlimited troops in Tactical Dreadnought Armor. If it sounds like I revel in the spam side of things, that's no accident. I should be allowed to wallow in greasy spam since my W/L/D record proves that it's not really all that spammy (at least in my hands).

So, what do I think of the above rumors? First, they're rumors. I concede that and, more importantly, I am not holding any semblance of breath regarding them. I am, however, hopeful that they are at least in part semi-accurate. Do they sound a little spammy? Of course. More so than, say, Space Wolves or Blood Angels? Nope. Not even close.

I hope the Land Raider rumor is true. It fits the flavor of Templars and it gives me the chance to build and paint more of the glorious tanks. They are my favorite because they are massive slabs of plastic, offering large tracts of flat surface upon which I can work my creativity. With a new air brush on the way (more on that once it arrives) I am imagining some serious murals and other gaudy bits of imagery.

I also find the idea of an "assault Rhino" intriguing. Hell, they can even charge me the extra points I've been spending on bare-bones Rhinos since the SM Codex came out. I'll even pony up the 3 points for the same smoke launchers every other army gets standard.

The hint that my currently useless and overpriced character models might actually find a place in my army makes me happy. Helbrecht is a model that I have both in metal and Finecast. Neither are painted. If these rumors are true that may change. If not, they may continue to collect dust on my "someday" shelf. The addition of other characters will please me, too. I love painting center pieces and that aspect has been lacking in the BT codex of editions past.

The cheaper infantry aspect works for me, too. The idea of those raving hordes of enhanced humanity screaming across the battlefield just does it for me. Throwing the lightly armored fodder in front appeases the Darwinist in me, too. Survive to the end of the game and you get power armor, Jimbo!

In closing, I freely admit that I'm anxious about a new codex. This latest batch of rumors, though, has soothed my nerves a tad. At the very least it tells me that someone somewhere is giving the ambiance of the army some consideration. That, in a nutshell, gives me hope.

Ol' Seth is at it again

2011-12-12T14:26:00.002-06:00

I'll be honest, I'm too lazy to figure out how to tie these new pictures back to their original posts, but Ol' Seth has finished up (I think) his flying rhino and Dreadnought as well as teased us with a heavy weapon trooper. Enjoy the eye candy!

Now with sculpted wind shield!

On base, left side.

On base, right side.

A neat idea, I too would like a push button missile launcher.

He carries the shield because he was bullied.


It may be the Salamander in me, but I prefer the heavy flamer over the storm bolter.

Looking good!

Ol' Seth's Pre-Heresy Anti-Grav Rhino Conversion! (WIP)

2011-12-08T08:07:00.001-06:00

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous. These pics just hit my inbox this morning, and I had to share. This Iron Hands army that Ol' Seth is putting together is going to look amazing. These will, likely, be mounted on flying bases, and count as regular Rhinos. Flesh is most certainly weak! Anyway, Ol' Seth is a little uncertain if he likes the design, so please feel free to chime in and tell him what you think!

Inspiration

Ol' Seth's previous Iron Hands Conversion can be found here.

Road to Adepticon 2012, Part 1: Getting the Band Back Together

2011-12-06T11:54:00.001-06:00

If you are reading this blog, chances are pretty good thatyou’ve heard of Adepticon, and their team tournament. As you might imagine, the Team Snake Eyes blog wascreated to document the process of preparing for that august event. Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll bethrowing up some posts documenting our efforts in that regard over the years,but most importantly, for the upcoming 2012 tournament.

Broken down to its simplest components, to play in the TeamTourney you need 4000 points of models, and 4 guys willing to play them. Today I’m going to be talking about the“team” aspect of this event.

Depending upon who you know, or where you live, it cansometimes be a challenge to find 4 players willing to take this journeytogether. Do they all have the financialmeans? I would love to work out how muchmoney I’ve spent on this tournament over the years (essentially my entireSalamanders army + other sundry bits), but if my wife ever saw those figuresI’d likely get heavily ‘sanctioned’. Do theyhave the actual time to work on pre-tournament preparations or to actually makethe trip? Many of my 40k friends areshift workers or full time students. Sometimes they can’t arrange the vacation, or have other priorities thatprevent them from participation. My crewis also heavily involved in Paizo’s Pathfinder game or other role-playingplatforms. Married gamers know that thereis often a limit to the number of events one can attend or afford. Can anyone paint or lose without throwing atantrum? Say what you will about softscores, but this team tournament has them. Your army needs to look like it belongs together and you won’t get farif you score well in battle points but go all “West Side Story” on youropponents or team mates.

So, as you can imagine, there are a lot of things toconsider in picking your team. I haveseen good friends not get chosen because they were too competitive. I’ve been “fired” from teams before we evencompleted planning because of personality differences. Better to sort it out early than not have anenjoyable time in Chicago.

So, that brings me to the most boring part of this piece,introducing you to the Team Snake Eyes contingent for Adepticon 2012:

That prime rib BEGGED me to eat it.

Chosen1 (Team Captain, army owner, and spiritual leader) – Toput it bluntly, I’m awesomely amazing at everything I do. Any failures in my life can be safelyattributed to those around me interfering with my aura of greatness. I’ve been around the world 31 times, visitedevery semi autonomous nation state within the Mid-west, and received honoraryawards such as “Most Magnificent Man of the Last Five Minutes”, “Creator of theTwinkie”, and who could forget the “Most Cherry Coke Zeroes Drank in a Night”award. Yeah, it looks intimidating doesn’tit? Shhh, shhh, shhhhh. Hush now, don’t be scared. It’s just better this way. You’ll know it too; you just have to be oneof the lucky few that make it past my entourage.

He's so far beyond you all spiritually, it defies reason.

Chaplain Aerion (Art Director) – Aerion is one of my oldestfriends. Not precisely on his merits,but his wife pays me a healthy stipend to say that publicly from time totime. Known fondly as “the cabbage boy”by the roughnecks he grew up with, he has an amazing knack for feng shui,competition napping, and interpretive dance. Additionally, I like to refer to him as the “dice whisperer” for hisuncanny ability to accurately state the outcome of every throw of dice he’sever made. It’s brilliant, you should seeit. I’ve leaned heavily on Aerion’stalents over the years and that may be why we’ve never finished higher in thestandings than we have.

Do NOT ask to pet the elephant.

Zephyr (Rules Guy & Strongest Player) – Zephyris both a charity case, and living proof that there is life after a career ofbrutal Burmese pit fighting. Raised byferal cats and captured early by mercenaries, he was forced into blood sport atan early age. Recently recovered on oneof my many humanitarian missions, I set his vicious mind at ease by making himplay with toy soldiers. His keen warrior’smind and my masterful tutelage granted him quick grasp of the game and he longsfor the day he can take revenge on his former masters by returning to Burma andchallenging the mercenary leader to a game of 40k Apocalypse. Zephyr enjoys butterflies, coconut milksmoothies, funny hats and Pokémon when not yearning for the settlement of bloodfueds.

That look means he's hungry

Da Goffer – (Chapter Menial) DaGoffer’s mom pleaded that I take him out of her basement and give him somethingproductive to do. She’s such a sweet lady;I had no defense against her desperate pleas. Turns out, he’s not that bad to have around. He carries things quite well with his stunted frame, and withsupervision manages not to break too many models. He has a strange love of fungus, often yellsincoherently for no good reason, and loves to smash stuff to pieces and thenrebuild them into something less suitable than the original. I have found him to have quite a temper, andI must encourage any of his opponents to just: “let the wookie win”. It’ll be better for all of us if you do.

His hair is simply average.

Chambers (self proclaimed Dice Monkey & strategist, our“5^th man”) – Chambers has spent his life in other’s shadows. After failing to get into command school dueto low test scores on warp drive theory and a certain indiscretion with aKlingon Commandant’s daughter, he was relegated to a Red Shirt for hisperennial “so-so” performance reviews and total lack of meaningfulachievements. What is such a master ofmediocrity doing on TSE? Simply put, weneeded someone to get us coffee and snacks. Chambers fit the bill…sort of. He’lllikely not survive his first mission anyway. Lazy bum couldn’t even get me a picture when I asked him to.

EDIT: Chambers finally responded to the picture request. It seems he has "obligations" that take up his valuable time. Although I did get a pic, it was only of his remedial arithmetic homework. Because you all still won't know his face, Aerion believes we can use him as an enforcer at Adepticon. If any of you run afoul of TSE up in Chi-town...watch out, we know a guy.

Now you can all see for yourselves what sort of "priorities" our Redshirt has

The Indy Open: March 3-4, 2012

2011-12-01T12:52:00.001-06:00

I am just passing along word of, what looks to be, a great tournament going on over in Indianapolis, IN. The guys over at The Back 40k are putting this on, and I strongly recommend that you consider going if you've got the opportunity.

I have shamelessly purloined the information below from their site:

The format will be a Win-loss style (like NOVA Open) with prizes for the top person in each of the W/L brackets (5-1, 4-2, 3-3, 2-4, 1-5) as well as other door prizes. March 3rd we will have 4 games, followed by two games on March 4th.

Registration fees will be as follows:
$40 Pre-registration (Nov. 1st through Jan. 7th)
(all pre-registered entrants will be put in 2 drawings for a free Adepticon ticket)
$50 Early Registration (Jan. 1st through Feb. 24th)
$60 At the Door Registration (if slots are available)

Location will be:
The American Legion located at 601 S. Holt Rd, Indianapolis, In 46241

Prize Support:
Best General will win a $250 visa gift card and an entry spot in the 2012 Nova Invitational Tournament. (Player still has to pay for event)

Renaissance Man will win a $250 visa gift card and an entry spot in the 2012 Nova Invitational Tournament (Player still has to pay for event)

The Indy Open will give out approximately another $1500 in prize support to: (Based upon a full 64 person tournament)

Some of the many prize categories will include:
Best painted army
Second best painted army
Best sportsman
Bracket Winners (These will be the top players from each bracket)
Random Door Prizes and drawings

Lusty Loganwing vs. Salamanders Rematch!

2011-11-24T18:55:00.001-06:00

"Logan" vs. Vulkan...the outcome of this assault determined the result of the entire game.

Some of you may remember Chambers from The Back40k's blog. He resides in the St. Louis area and plays at my store when he has the time. Our first game was a 1500 point game where he pitted his gorgeously converted (by Ron Saikowski of +From the Warp+) Lustwing army utilized as Space Wolves against my Salamanders. Before you purists go crazy, he uses the Space Wolf list instead of the Chaos list because the terminator army can't be faithfully done using the Chaos Space Marine Codex. Honestly? An army that looks this good gets all sorts of allowances when it plays against me. Paint your models kids, it's part of the hobby. :-)

I had played Chambers only twice prior to this game. Game #1 = Severe beat-down against his Lusty Loganwing. Game #2 = Severe beat-down against his Lamenters during the final round of the Ard Boyz prelims. While I love playing with Chambers, I don't exactly love getting my teeth kicked in. I was a bit nervous about this game. We stuck with 1500 points, got capture & control with 5 objectives, and spearhead deployment.

Deployment

While Chamber's limited number of models limited his selection, he had three squads. Two six man squads with various weapon load outs including missile launchers, one giant squad with a truck load of guys, Logan Grimnar and a Rune Priest, and a Lone Wolf to wrap it up. I hate to have guys play the same list of mine twice if we can help it, so I played with Vulkan, a Land Raider Crusader, Land Speeder, two Dakka Preds, two assault terminator squads, and two tactical squads with Rhinos, Multi-meltas and flamers. Objectives were placed in the middle of the board as well as in the middle of each table quarter.

End of Round 1

Chambers won the initiative and proceeded to take "hail Mary" shots with his missile launchers. Seriously, that's what he called them. He averages about 4 Str 8, AP 3 shots a round and reaps a disproportionate bounty of wrecked vehicles and my tears. My Land Speeder (behind cover) was wrecked, and one Pred was immobilized and stunned. He also dropped a few of my dismounted terminators and moved his lone wolf forward while his other two squads controlled one of his objectives, and moved towards another on my side of the board. I only managed to kill a single terminator out of the large squad.

End of Round 2

Round two saw Chambers holding two objectives on his left of the board, as well as the center. I killed off his Lone Wolf (man I hate those guys) and he wiped out my unmounted terminators. I was not please with myself at this point. I was moving a combat squad towards an objective with terminators on it in a vain attempt to contest an objective while my other combat squads were hunkered down for late game shenanigans. I had five terminators in their tank, and my Preds hadn't had a full turns worth of shooting due to "stun-locking" from the missile launchers. I had no desire to charge my boys into that mess with a dozen or so terminators in the middle, but that's where they had to go.

Wonder of Wonders!

My third round saw me throw every bullet I had at his large terminator squad. It wasn't as small as I wanted it to be (1 or 2 left would have been nice...) but I managed a favorable assault since his squad was so spread out. His Rune Priest wasn't able to join the assault this round.

This is getting better and better, but there's no way I can pull this off...

The next round left us with the epic match up you see at the top of the blog post, so you see, I was quite surprised when I saw this:

Last man standing!

This was classic! After I took out that squad, he only had two remaining, thus he could only ever hold two objectives. I moved one Rhino mounted combat squad to the middle of the board, the other went to an open objective, and my final combat squad stayed home to claim that one. Final tally: Salamanders 3 objectives to Lusty Loganwing's two. It was an awesome game, but I can't fault Chambers' gameplay or anyone's dice rolls. While winning the assault in the middle of the board was clutch, only having three expensive scoring units to my four cheap ones backed up with a Land Raider, Dakka Preds, Assault Terminators, etc...you get the idea. The extra boots on the ground were the difference for me in a game with 5 objectives.

End Game

Ol'Seth's Iron Hands Conversions

2011-11-18T13:57:00.001-06:00

Want to know who's got game when it comes to 40k conversions? It's not hard to figure out. Just looking across the web at some of the beautiful models out there can be downright depressing for those of us with mediocre skills. Ever sit next to an awesome painter/converter and think to yourself "why bother?" Well don't. Every one of those guys started out just like you and me. Practice makes perfect they say. What's perfect look like? Take a look at what Ol'Seth's been up to lately.

Awesome Dread conversion coming to a table near you...

Awesome Cog-Axe thingy of destruction

What's better than a cool converted Dread? A magnetized Dread of course.

Lascannon/Twin-Linked Plasma Gun Razorback conversion

Plasticard/Brass Etching Rhino front plate

Side view of a Razorback almost too cool looking to be shot at...almost.

Front view. Don't ask me about the creepy color, I have the photo editing skills of a small brained rodent.

Brand of plasticard used by Ol'Seth

From the mouth of Ol'Seth: The Razorback as you can see is a Lascannon/TL plasma gun variant because well, I like the looks of a single extended large barrel on a turret. The white plasticard is all from Evergreen models which I picked up at a local hobby shop and can be ordered online. The etched brass is from Forgeworld. There was no special hard to do conversions here as you can see. The barrel on the lascannon was extended with the plastic tubing from Evergreen models and was accomplished with the use of drill bit attachment on a dremel. Remember to mark the center of where you want the hole with a center punch or cutting knife which is what I do. Then drill a pilot hole with a small hand drill before going in with the dremel otherwise you may slip and damage your conversion work. The glacis plate on the front of the Razorback was plasticard simply cut to size by measuring the dimensions of the one that comes with the model. Scoring the plasticard and then breaking along those score marks is the best way to use the plasticard as some of it is too thick to cut thru with an X-acto knife in a single pass. The dreadnought's legs I can not take credit for. That was an idea I borrowed from here:

http://z11.invisionfree.com/Work_In_Progress/index.php?showtopic=16659

As far as the left arm goes I also borrowed that idea from there. However, I thought a cog axe would be more Iron Hands appropriate and also would work well since I ultimately want to use it as a Librarian Furioso Dreadnought. The axe will be its force weapon. I need to brainstorm and think further on the right arm although I am currently leaning towards a shield being equipped in that arm.

Ol'Seth is also the creator of the Slaaneshi Baneblade, so you know his skills have pedigree. Give it up for Ol'Seth and let him know what you think of his work (so that he gets inspired to send me more pictures!)

Adepticon 2012: T.S.E. is on the march!

2011-10-31T19:35:00.000-05:00

I signed up the team at 5:15 pm CST and I was the 25th person in line to do so. As of 7:30 pm CST, there were 61 of 110 slots filled. You want a chance to kick the crap out of us or witness some spectacularly bad tactics/dice rolling? You better get a move on folks.

Flesh is Weak!

2011-10-25T08:05:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't been Mr. Johny on the Spot when it comes to updating this blog, but I would like to take this time to introduce a new Team Snake Eyes Member. "Bannus" and I played a game at Castle Perilous in Carbondale, IL. He has since moved up north and continued building his collection of Iron Hands. Welcome to the team Bannus!

Lead Poisoning: How Painting Miniatures Became a Passion.

2011-09-28T19:03:00.000-05:00

"Land Dragon w/ Lancer" by Ral Partha, ca. 1978

The dragon's eyes bored into mine.They were yellow, slitted vertically with a black line. They glistened withillusory wetness, glaring above an open pink maw which was filled with ivoryfangs. Ropey strands of saliva hung perpetually from those savage jaws, and thebeast reared back on clawed feet forming a threatening, scaly S. Brown wingstinted with gold flecks sprouted from the dragon's ridged back, ready to launchit into the air to rain fire down upon anyone foolish enough to covet itsheaping horde.

Igazed upon this tiny beast of legend with the eyes of an eleven year old boy,and when I looked down into the display case at all the grey, unpainted leadfigurines for sale I felt a surge of creative hunger. So many forms were echoesof the beasts and heroes I had worshipped as a youngster. There lay a skeletonthat conjured the sounds of a battle brought to life by the immortal RayHarryhausen in the Sinbad films. Inthe next tray over, a knight upon an armored horse, looking like he had justleft the tourney in Ivanhoe. Orcs,goblins, elves, dwarves, vikings, and things which I could not readily name, calledto me with the voice of a Mediterranean siren.

Theman behind the counter answered my questions. They were simple enough."How much do these cost?" "What kind of paint do youuse?" I chose a dragon, naturally.But not one with wings to threaten the countryside. I chose a wingless dragon.It had a long, lean form and a tail which ended in a large, flat,diamond-shaped spade. It sported a saddle as well as a bit and bridle. Theseaccessories were to accommodate the knight sitting astride the beast. He wore abreast plate and chainmail armor, as well as a conical helmet. A metal rod toppedwith a sculpted bit of feathers and a pointy tip served as the warrior's lance.I took it home, intent on bringing it to life with the application of somepaint.

Lookingback, I am forced to smile at my utter incompetence. To be fair, I haddiscovered an extremely young hobby. I wasn't inept. I was simply uneducated.But then, so was everyone else. The gentleman who owned the small hobby storefrom whence I had purchased my new obsession had a truly awe-inspiringcollection of heroes and monsters. The gold and brown rampant dragon that firstcaught my eye was only one of dozens that he had painted. I'm not entirelypositive that he was self-taught, but the likelihood is high since publishedmaterial on the subject was limited to discussions of classic toy soldiers andmilitary modeling. The companies that produced these curios of fantasy were intheir infancy, and their creations were sculpted by artists that were the bestin their day, which is to say they could convincingly render a tiny shape thatwas recognizable as whatever they happened to be sculpting.

Isat at the desk in my bedroom at home and studied the model. The saddle wouldneed to be brown, as would the reins and the boots on the knight. His littleface was the only human skin showing, but the bulk of the dragon was smoothreptilian flesh unadorned by scales or bony ridges. The dragon's mouth was setin a leering grin, showing rows of tightly packed pointed teeth. The bitprotruded from the back corners of the beast's maw. The underside of thedragon's neck and belly were parallel bands of skin separated from each otherand from the upper portion of the body. They would need to be a differentcolor.

Ihad learned about the color wheel in art class, but the whole concept of colortheory was an arcana reserved for "real" artists. I reached under mybed and produced an old shoe box that was filled with small glass jars ofTestor's model paints. My grandfather had purchased the box at an auction and Ihad used its contents to decorate everything from World War II fighters tohotrod cars. I removed a few colors I thought might work, a larger jar of paintthinner, and a couple of truly horrid brushes. I placed some paper towels on mydesk, strained to twist the lid of some of the more venerable paints, and setto work.

Whenit was done I saw my little dragon knight. He glimmered in metallic silver andgold. His face was the color of a peach crayon, and his triangle of a beard wasthe same brown as his boots (and the saddle, and the ground the dragon strodeacross). The dragon's skin had an interesting look to it; a pale, jade greenwith a silvery tint. This, I would later learn, was due to the fact that I hadpainted a transparent gloss paint over bare, un-primed metal. The beast's bellywas a flat, dull yellow, and his claws and teeth were a shining white.

Iwas thrilled! Afterward, as I returned home with more and more pieces, I began totry different things. I mixed paint to create new colors. I thinned it so thatit would run down into recessed areas, shading them. I learned that all paintis not created equal, nor are all brushes. I discovered the joy of paintingwith acrylic, water soluble paints.

Ithas been thirty-two years since I first held a white metal miniature in myhand. In August of this year, for the third year in a row, I entered a national-level competition. Thefirst year I got nothing. Last year I won a silver medal. This year, a bronze.Next year... well, we shall see. I have some really cool ideas.

And now for something completely different...

2011-09-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

The assignment for my Advanced Composition class was titled "Your Journey to Literacy". Since half of the two-part assignment was to be a visual component, I opted to chronicle my development as a painter of all things fantastically small. I offer my efforts here for your perusal and, hopefully, enjoyment. Please feel free to offer feedback as this assignment isn't due until Friday the 30th.

Also, please ask any questions this presentation might inspire. I'm always thrilled to talk about the hobby.

Ard Boyz Aftermath

2011-08-19T13:14:00.003-05:00

Because my day was a Dinosaur fighting a Whale fighting a Squid kind of day.

Well I'm clearly behind the curve in posting up my results (such as they are), but things happen. First of all, while I didn't place in the top three for the tournament, this was one of the better times I've had at a tournament. We had 14 players overall, and I ended up placing 6th, finishing the highest out of the Codex: Space Marines participants. Here's the list of attendees and how they performed:

1st: Blood Angels w/63 pts (Chambers)

2nd: Tyranids w/60 pts (Nidzilla)

3rd: Chaos Marines w/55 pts (Nurgle/Khorne)

4th: Imperial Guard w/54 pts (mech)

5th: Eldar w/45 pts

6th: Space Marines w/41 pts (your's truly)

7th: Space Marines w/34 pts

8th: Space Wolves w/34 pts

9th: Orks w/27 pts

10th: Orks w/23 pts

11th: Space Marines w/17 pts

12th: Black Templars w/12 pts

13th: Space Marines w/11 pts

14th: Chaos Daemons w/10 pts

Games were against the Chaos Daemons in the first round, Chaos Marines in the second, and Blood Angels in the last. Here's a brief breakdown:

Game 1

I won the roll and had the Daemon player go first. I castled up in the middle of my deployment zone and waited for the deep strikes. He rolled for his second wave to come in first and then had two units destroyed via mishaps, landing only a Greater Daemon, a Daemon Prince, and some plague bearers directly in front of my guns. I killed the Daemon Prince & Greater Daemon with shooting and finished off the Plague Bearers in assault. He had seven units to roll for reserves on turn two and got none of them. I had 10 kill points at the end of turn two (I had killed the traitor as well), and he had 1 (the Vindicator in the ruins). This is where the game turned sour. I had killed all of his units on the table when his turn three came up. He said that I had one since I tabled him. He apparently thought that if he didn't have any more units on the board that he couldn't bring on the rest of his reserves. I had never experienced a situation like that, and asked him if he was sure because it didn't sound right. He said that he was, and we ended the game. Afterwards, we obviously found out that shouldn't have been the case. I would have felt bad winning that way if it were true, so winning that way when it wasn't was particularly bitter. This player and I are friends, and there's no hard feelings, but I just wish he wasn't so confident about that bogus rule. While I accumulated max points for this turn I, in no way, earned them. On the plus side, he does have a super-sweet Cthulhu Daemon:

I am painted now for extra mind shattering goodness...Cthulhu fhtagn!!!

My second game was the best technical game I played on the weekend (meaning I didn't get tabled or win by either player not knowing the correct rules). He had a Khorne/Nurgle list with terminators, a land raider, some obliterators and Havocs. I don't often play with five objectives, so I used max combat squads and waited for him to come to me. It was a fun, close game, that ended up with me claiming my home objective and one "away" objective. He claimed his home objective. All other objectives were contested. Great guy. Great game.

I really need to come up with a better tactic than "march forward and die" for my dreads/speeders

None of those models could touch my Ironclad. I thought I was clever. A havoc w/Lascannon off screen killed him.
before he could kill more than one berserker. Pathetic.

My last game was against Chambers' Blood Angels. Ah Chambers, why do you beat me like I owe you cash every time we play? I love Chambers like a brother. Our games generally devolve into us tearing up with laughter (as I'm removing my casualties of course), but they all end the same way. All two of them that is. First time out, he beat my face in with his Lusty Loganwing. Now, his Lamenter themed Blood Angels had a go at me. I managed to last until turn five or six (they were all sort of one blood streaked haze at that point) before getting tabled. Victory points? I killed or damaged just over 300 points of his army. Amazingly bad performance on my part. At this point in the tournament, Chambers was in third, and I was in 4th. A solid showing from one of us and they would have taken home first. Well, Chambers won. :)

Note the super awesome suicide death tactic of my Ironclad...again.

I pushed forward my speeders in a feeble attempt to slow the Blood Angels down. They were destroyed with casual ease, aided and abetted by my pathological aversion to successful cover saves. As he approached, I thought it would be more sporting if my Vulkan enhanced Multi-Meltas took the night off and I relied on harsh words and stern looks to send off my foes. Understandably, that tactic was less than successful as well.

At the end of the day, it was a fun time and a so-so tournament. I enjoyed playing all of my opponents, but the outcome of my first game, and my performance in my last really dampened my experience overall. My rolling was so bad that Chambers offered me the chance of re-rolling some of my dice. Run that through your mind a few times. It's Ard Boyz, we're playing for a win, and my rolls are so appalling that my opponent offers to let me re-roll a few of them because he feels so badly watching this disaster unfold. Team Snake Eyes, I'm not only the founder, I'm also the President. :)

Ard Boyz Permission Slip

2011-08-10T08:41:00.003-05:00

Would you let this count as a MotF w/Conversion Beamer on a Bike?

So I recently learned that I have permission from Holy Terra (Mrs. Chosen1) to participate in the Ard Boyz tournament at my FLGS, Fantasy Games in Fairview Heights, IL. Having never considered this possibility, I don't really have an army list prepared, so I'm digging out one of my "stock" lists that I keep on hand to prevent the folks who play me on a regular basis from seeing the same army list twice. While I have a lot of models, I don't generally have enough stuff to field any "niche" lists or anything like that. I have, however, recently acquired a 2nd Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer, but it won't be ready for this coming weekend. "But your Land Raider looks awesome Chosen1, and it's Ard Boyz so it doesn't need to be fully painted." Bite your filthy tongue heretic, no member of the XVIII sets foot "...unto the anvil of war" without being fully painted. I give all praise to CVinton, though he has recently fallen prey to the wicked wiles of Chaos, he can convert the heck out of a model. It just won't see battle until Aerion has had his way with it.


Is it really a Chapel on Wheels?

Anywho, here's my proposed list-in-progress:

Master of the Forge w/Conversion Beamer
Forgefather Vulkan He'Stan
Tactical Squad w/Powerfist, Combi-Melta, Multi-Melta, Flamer, & Rhino
Tactical Squad w/Powerfist, Combi-Melta, Multi-Melta, Flamer, & Rhino
Tactical Squad w/Lascannon, Flamer, & T.L.L.C. Razorback
Tactical Squad w/Lascannon, Flamer, & T.L.L.C. Razorback
(5) Scouts w/Sniper Rifles & Cammo Cloaks
Dreadnought w/Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
Dreadnought w/Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
Dreadnought w/Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
Land Speeder w/Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
(2) Land Speeders w/Multi-Meltas & Heavy Flamers
Ironclad Dreadnought w/Heavy Flamer, Assault Launchers, & Drop Pod
Vindicator w/Siege Shield & Extra Armor
Vindicator w/Siege Shield & Extra Armor

Yeah, it's a Vulkan list. I play Salamanders...get over it. There's a lot of flamer & melta, but I'm living proof that those lists aren't all that tough. My win-loss ratio of late is awful heavy on the L, and light on the W. It only works out to 2490 points, but I'll be honest 2500 points is a bit much for me. I wonder about the best use of points on 1500 point lists, so when I get up to this level, my army lists start looking like Ricky Bobby's hands during his first television interview: "...what do I do with these?"

More Salamander Goodies from Forgeworld!

2011-07-15T11:46:00.006-05:00

Bray’arth Ashmantle – Salamanders Venerable Dreadnought

Salamander's Brass Etch Sheet

This hits keep on coming. I am loving the additional support that my chosen chapter is getting lately. I will not love convincing my wife that I NEED these upgrades. I am also not too terribly impressed with the fact that the arms come separately, but I suppose there is precedent for that. Check out Forgeworld for the details.

P.S. Aerion ready your brushes!

Happy Birthday America!

2011-07-01T20:09:00.004-05:00

May your weekend be filled with the wind of freedom which keeps our noble flag waving proudly. Happy Independence Day to you and yours, and may your revels be safe!

Speed Painting- TSE Style

2011-06-27T00:40:00.007-05:00

This past weekend I attended Cape Comic Con in my home town of Cape Girardeau, MO. As this was a work weekend for the lion's share of Team Snake Eyes (and also the celebration of our own Chosen1's arrival upon the Earth), there wasn't much point in organizing one of our fabulous 40K events. For that you'll have to wait til October (7-9) and Brewfest.

Can you find the miniature painter?

Instead I was offered the opportunity to set up a table and demo my miniature painting skills. I basically got to sit in the hall, ogle girls in skintight and revealing superhero and anime costumes, visit with passers-by, and paint. But wait! Don't hate me yet!

While there I acquired a couple of new commissions. One of the Team's friends came by on Friday and asked me what I would charge him to build and paint a Stormraven for his Blood Angels. I gave it a bit of thought, asked him what level of detail he'd want, and shot him a price. He stood quietly for a moment looking at the ceiling. Then looked down at me. Then back up, thinking. After a fairly uncomfortable couple of minutes like this, he said he felt I was undercutting myself. I mumbled something about probably and the economy sucks, yadda yadda. Then he countered by doubling the price I'd shot him and stating, "I want to see what you can do."

DEAL!

I have the 'Raven in hand and my lovely and talented sprue monkey (i.e. Wife) has already begun prepping the model. A bit premature, maybe, since the customer doesn't really need the model before our big Apocalypse game at Brewfest in October, but spirits were high after a great start to the weekend and the con, so we went with it.

On Saturday a couple more moments of pure awesome (tempered by a bit of sad panda) revealed themselves. Our FLGS, Championship Games, had a booth set up. One of the owners walked over to my table with a cardboard box of sturdy build and median capacity. Inside was the store's entire stock of unopened P3 paint (around 50 pots of paint with few duplicates and several bottles of inks and washes in all). I was told the box was mine for fifty bucks.

Ever seen a fat man leap? I'm sure it's not pretty, but....

This was also how I found out the store was closing. After three years, I'm truly sad to see it go. But I'm also friends with the owners and I know this is the right decision for them and their families. Rumor has it that someone else intends to open a new store so the future isn't completely bleak. Thanks Shane and Trace for facilitating our habits. And for keeping Febreeze handy.

Also on Saturday I was approached by one of our Pathfinder Society-playing friends. She handed me a gnomish druid mini (by Reaper), and asked me to paint her (the mini. Painting Wendy might be fun, but...). It was bare metal on a plain square plastic base, but the mini had been cleaned so prep-time was minimal. I shot her a very reasonable price (friend discount and a bonus discount because I know her husband HATES gnomes) and took custody. Upon arriving at home that night (Saturday) I flocked the base and primed the mini.

Sunday morning I woke up (a tad late), packed up the few things I hadn't left at the Con, and arrived and got set up by 11:15. At 3:15 I handed over Ginger.

The customer squealed, her husband shook my hand profusely (I'm sure the extra hard grip was simple exuberance), and everyone oohed and ahhhed. The payment was by that point simply a formality. I haven't had this much fun painting a mini in a while. I pushed myself to get it done before they had to leave at 6 pm (they aren't local), and I think I did okay. Maybe there's hope for me as a speed painter after all.

OH! P.S. If anyone is on Facebook and is interested, I have set up a fan page for my painting studio. Feel free to "Like" Tiny Heroes Miniature Painting, and if you want to add me (Larry Snodgrass), that would be cool too.

Gateway Grand Tournament Thoughts and Results (sort of)

2011-06-07T22:39:00.019-05:00

Well the weekend is over, and I managed to survive my first Grand Tournament. It was a 5 round tournament held over two days, and while I didn't perform nearly as well as I liked, after an objective analysis of my games, I performed much better than I originally thought I did. All of my opponents were fantastic to play against and I wouldn't hesitate to play any of them again. I did hear of a few individuals that had personality conflicts, but the judges were called over to settle disputes and nothing got too hairy.

What does that mean exactly? The missions included Primary (15/7/3 pts), Secondary (10/5/2 pts), and Tertiary objectives (5/3/1) with two additional battle point modifiers worth one point each. Most secondary objectives were table quarters while tertiary were typically old school victory points. While I only earned a "win" on the primary objective on one game, I managed to win out on battle points on a few games and get soundly beaten twice for a final record of 3 wins and 2 losses.

My 2000 pt GT list

My list wasn't too special. I brought Vulkan, 5 TH/SS Assault Terminators, 2 HF/MM Dreads, 2 Vindicators, 2 MM/HF Landspeeders, 2 Tactical Squads with Flamers, Lascannons, & TL LC Razorbacks, and 1 Tactical Squad in a Rhino with Flamer, Multi-Melta, Rhino, Powerfist, & Combi-melta.

Before...

...and after.

Game 1 was Capture & Control with Spearhead deployment. My opponent played an Air Cavalry Imperial Guard list with 9 Vendettas loaded with melta vets and plasma command squads. Seriously. I had heard of speculation or theory-hammer, but this cat actually put nine of those bad boys down on the table...or at least 6. He literally didn't have the room to deploy them all on the first turn so they came in on reserve. With 27 twin linked lascannons, scout moves and all those extra plasma/melta weapons I thought I was doomed. While I included a bit of long range shooting (4 total lascannons) in my list, I didn't have enough for this list. I hunkered down like a scared little boy and wonder of wonders, my opponent came after me! He brought his skimmers to within melta range and Vulkan was an absolute rock star, slinging guardsmen around like it was his job. After the dust settled, I had downed all his Vendettas and most of their contents. While we each controlled our own objective, I won on points 18 to 13. I had killed 1900 points of his army to 730 of mine. Take home lesson? Do not get intimidated by the Vendetta swarm. Yes, they would have been much, much more effective if he shot the snot out of me at range, but they are still guardsmen on the inside. This guy finished 27th out of 37.

Ravenwing Assault!

I don't believe I need much more than this picture to describe my first loss of the weekend. What you see is my opponent's Ravenguard force after his scout moves and first turn movement phase. This mission was pitched battle deployment with a primary objective of killing your opponent's HQ choice. His army contained a good deal of melta on bikes, and attack bikes. After his first turn of shooting the left side of my army simply didn't exist anymore. He used his superior movement to great advantage and his target selection was inspired. He was rolling out of his mind for this game, and most of my destroyed vehicles were killed with a 7 on the vehicle damage chart. While I wasn't tabled, this guy killed more of my army (1575 pts) than any other opponent on the day. This game tied for my favorite of the tournament, and I had more fun with this one than I did with the win in the previous round. This guy finished 22nd out of 37.

Eldar Seer Council on Jetbikes? No thank you.

My final game on Saturday was against a buddy from Carbondale. While I had known him (he's a member of the Lords of Egypt gaming club that plays out of Castle Perilous) for a few years, I had never gotten the chance to play him. That was probably for the best. This guy handed me my worst beating of the tournament. He earned the maximum points (32) while I got the consolation amount (6) given to guys who just show up and let the other guys beat on them. The mission was Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment. Objectively, this was a great game. He knew his rules, he knew his mission, and the game flowed very smoothly. I got a bit emotional (something I aspire not to do...the other players don't deserve that sort of thing) because I just couldn't do anything against a 10 man Eldar Seer Council. I don't care to hear calls about how big of a point sink that unit is. 700 some odd points? Big deal, it easily had a bigger impact on my list. The rest of his list included 3 fire prisms and some other transports. There were some 5 man squads of Dire Avengers (who never fired a shot) and Fire Dragons (who blew up all sorts of stuff). No two ways about it, I got crushed by a better list, and very likely a better player. This guy finished 18th out of 37.

I looked at my first game on Saturday as a fresh start. It was against an ultramarine list with a dakka pred, heavy bolter speeder, auto-cannon/missile launcher dread, vindicator, sniper scout squad, missile launcher/lascannon dev squad, two tac squads, and a command squad. He had a squad of terminators and an assault squad in reserve. The mission was to capture a flag at midfield and control it with an infantry squad for the remainder of the game. The scouts infiltrated near the objective, took their scout move to control it, and used their turn one movement to move it to his deployment zone. In essence, I was fighting for a draw the entire game. I pummeled this guy's army (1710 victory points to 715) but he controlled the objective till the very end of the game. Only Vulkan going on a rampage through his troops and killing the last scout in assault earned me a draw on the primary object and a win on battle points. The frustration of the previous day reared its ugly head in this game as well. I was more disappointed in my behavior (amounted to pouting essentially) during this game than at any other moment during the tournament. It really bothers me to act this way, especially during what amounts to a weak win, but I suppose it's my dirty secret. I apologized to him about it, and I hope it didn't color my opponent's experience of the tournament. This guy finished 29th out of 37.

My final game was against a gorgeous Ork army and a player who came into town from Lincoln, Nebraska. He had a tricked out warboss, weirdboy, a mob of burna boyz on foot, some nobs in a battle wagon, two mobs of boys in trukks, some flash gits, and two Deff dreads. The mission gave us the opportunity to secretly pick our mission objectives and we both picked kill points. I figured he'd come at me like...well, like an Ork, so I turtled up and waited for him. Turns out that I didn't have to wait too long as his weirdboy teleported his flashgits behind my lines. This was a fun game for the both of us with some good shooting (got my first AV 14 kill with a rending assault cannon shot) and his nob unit assaulted its way across the field before falling to Vulkan. I beat him on kill points in the end, because there was just too many templates in my army for his to withstand. This game was the other winner of my "favorite game" award, and it's just too bad this guy lives so far away, but I am glad he made it to the St. Louis metro area for the tournament. This guy finished 25th out of 37 and earned Best Sportsman.

I came away with a load of experiences, some positive some not so much, at my inaugural Grand Tournament. My first negative is the fact that more of my club wasn't able to attend. This event was a big deal for our area and we should have been able to support it with more players. Overall, the tournament was a success in my mind. The organization was there, the tables were beautiful, and the judges attentive and available. I had a minor issue with the soft scoring (I didn't get points for conversions...yeah, not much to say about that one), but nothing earth shattering, and nothing that would prevent me from returning. The final tally sheets can be found here. Overall winner played a Deathwing Dark Angels list with 36 Terminators and three Land Speeders. Imperial Guard, Space Wolves, and Chaos Space Marines rounded out the top 4. A beautifully converted and painted Ork army won Best Appearance. We had a pretty good mix of armies with the following attendees:(1) Tau, (1) Dark Eldar, (2) Eldar, (6) Space Marines, (2) Dark Angels, (5) Imperial Guard, (5) Space Wolves, (1) Chaos Space Marines, (3) Grey Knights, (3) Blood Angels, (5) Orks, (1) Tyranid, and (2) Black Templar.

Battle Points = 80 / 160 (not good here, not good at all and a main reason for my frustration)

Victory Points = 7071 / 10000 (not bad, but does it really matter if you let this trump your missions?)

The army got 47 points (Best Painted earned 52) for painting, and I somehow (in spite of my pouting) earned 51 sportsmanship points (Best Sportsman earned 53). My overall score was 183 (Overall winner earned 224). Those results were good enough to get me 13th place out of 37, which was the highest finish for a Codex: Space Marines army on the weekend.

I also apologize for the blurry pictures. Here is a link to some photos of the event. Apparently the iPhone 4 is not that great a platform for 40k tournament pictures...that or I don't know what I'm doing with it AND my army. :)

Product Review: Promethean Sun

2011-05-26T07:50:00.006-05:00

Front Cover of Sleeve

Back Cover of Sleeve

Signature Page & "limited edition" number

Authentic Salamander Hide, and I'll fight any man who says otherwise...

So clearly, I'm a big fan of the Salamanders. It's not that I have any real bombshell of a reason, I just kinda like their reliance on flamer/melta weaponry, dig dragon motifs, and green happens to be my favorite color. I sort of just fell into it I suppose. Before anyone brings it up: Yes, I would still play them if their special character (who I don't always use) didn't offer up those sweet re-rolls.

All that said, it seemed pretty obvious that I would try and get this book. I'm a big fan of the Horus Heresy series, so this seemed like a natural progression. Unfortunately, by the time I got the email advertising this bad boy, the folks at Black Library had already put sales of it on hold due to intense demand. So, like most colonials, I screwed up my calculation of time zones and did not get online right as it was set to go back on sale. I thought I was done for, but it took about 5-6 hours for it to sell out completely, so I was in luck. 2235 out of 3000 to be exact.

There is some interior art, but not much. Some rehashed pre-heresy art from the Index Astartes articles, and a fold-out version of the art on the cover sleeve. I was a bit disappointed to see that actually. It's essentially a 120 page story (written using 18 point font) with little extra to recommend it.

All in all, I give this product 3 out of 5 stars. And that includes the "salamander fan-boy" bonus I'm giving it. The story was ok but not good or even great. On the merits of the "special limited edition product" alone, it's not all that exciting for the cost I paid to get it. While I've been relatively underwhelmed by Nick Kyme's previous Salamander work, the pre-heresy feel of this short story saved it from the bickering high school girl scenes common in "contemporary" space marine novels. The details of Vulkan's early years and the importance of the Salamander's compassion were the two biggest draws for me. The depictions of the Iron Hands and Death Guard are weak, but there's really not enough space for that kind of thing in a short story and it was nothing compared to the poor treatment the 888th Phaerian IG regiment received. While not a famous regiment, they just seemed...contrived. If you absolutely need it to fill out your collection, by all means, go find a copy. I'm sure they'll be on E-bay if they're not already. If you're just curious, however, you'll probably be just fine without it.

Post Update (5/26/11): check out the pic of the Salamander Dreadnought from Games Day France

GW switching from metal to resin...and a price increase?

2011-05-17T09:20:00.003-05:00

MiniWar Gaming article

While I abhor metal miniatures and all that they represent, I'm not that big of a fan of resin either. I also enjoy price increases about as much as a swift kick to the tender parts. I need a new hobby.

Battle Report: Black Templars 1500 Point

2011-05-14T22:53:00.008-05:00

And the killing was glorious.

Chaplain Aerion reporting for duty. I participated in a 1500 point tournament at Miniature Market in St. Louis today. They host an event every second Saturday and with finals and the Spring semester just finishing, and with the St. Louis Grand Tournament on the horizon, I thought I'd drag the Howard Crusade out and knock off some of the rust.

My List:

HQ: Emperor's Champion w/ Accept Any Challenge, No Matter the Odds

Elites:
Sword Brethren Assault Terminators- 3x Lightning Claws, 4x TH/SS w/Furious Charge
Transport: Land Raider Crusader w/ Extra Armor, Blessed Hull

Sword Brethren squad- CCW/Bolt Pistol x3, Power Weapon/Bolt Pistol, (Pair) Lighting Claws w/Furious Charge
Transport: Drop Pod

Troops:
Crusader Squad Damoclese- 8 CCW/BP, 1 Meltagun, 1 Power Fist/BP
Plus 9 Neophytes- CCW/BP

Crusader Squad Torrence- 8 CCW/BP, 1 Flamer, 1 Power Fist/BP

Heavy Support:
Vindicator w/ Dozer Blade, Extra Armor

Tournament was 3 rounds. Players would get 10 points for a win, 5 for a draw, and 2 for a loss (plus any bonus points awarded) for each round.

Round 1: "RUN AWAAAAY!!!!!!"

My opponent was none other than a fellow Team Snake Eyes conscript, Josh. Josh played with TSE Black at Adepticon. I had never had the opportunity to play against Josh so this was a nice surprise.

Josh brought Imperial Guard, consisting of a Valkire full of Veterans, 2 Leman Russ tanks, a Manticore launcher, one Chimera full of 8 psykers, and the some other Chimeras full of veterans (Meltas, flamers, and flashlights), and of course a Command Squad toting lots of plasma in a final Chimera. (Apologies if I missed anything. I did not get a copy of his list).

Mission 1 was Pitched Battle deployment, and the center of the table was the sole objective. The player with the most scoring units within 6" of the objective at game's end would get 5 points toward victory, plus 1 point for every enemy unit destroyed.

I deployed as far forward as possible after Josh spread out a nice mechanized gun line. He held his Valkire in reserve and my Drop Pod loaded with Sword Brethren would be waiting on the ship as well.

My famous luck failed me right off the bat and I managed to steal the initiative. Little did I know that this would be a major factor in the end results.

My games against Guard have been fairly limited, and against Guard toting psykers even more so. So I was completely unfamiliar with the power Weaken Resolve. Let me tell you, if you play Guard and fight Black Templars frequently, take this power!

I had moved everything up and managed a few hits but did no real damage on Turn 1. I ended up running both Crusader squads, with the 10 man squad covering 9 inches. On Josh's turn, he inflicted a handful of casualties on my troops. Before he finished his shooting, though, his psykers waggled their fingers and went "Boogity-BOO!". With my 8 Leadership thusly shaken down to a 1, I prayed for the spirit of Team Snake Eyes to save me. It wasn't happening. So Crusader squad Torrence proceeded to run 10 inches back toward my table edge. This is when the true impact of stealing initiative was revealed, because with this 36" power I would have lost one of my troops to a board edge right off.

The game played on, with my troops moving forward and Cha-Cha'ing back for the first 3 turns. Finally I manged to knock the Command Squad and the Psykers out of their cute little boxes and the Templars got to do some of what they do best (next to dying in droves, anyway).

Not to take anything away from Josh, though. The battle truly was back and forth, and I wasn't sure how it would play out. My Vindicator and my LR had been immobilized and my Termies were huddled in trees waiting for a chance to rush out and smash something.

Long story short, Josh never could get his Valkirie to come in from reserve, and the time ran out, giving me 2 additional kill points and the win. I kindly pointed out to Josh that his model had no pilots and that was obviously the cause of the delay.

Round 1 result: Me- Win with 14 points

Round 2: Templar on Templar Violence

As long as I've been playing I have never faced another Templar force. That changed today when I was paired with Kirk. While my Crusade is habitually stabby, Kirk was rolling with a mechanized list. He had the obligatory Emperor's Champion, but he had taken the vow that lowers everyone's Initative and raises their Strength by 1. The Champion was paired with some shooty Termies (Squad of 5 including 1 Assault Cannon, Missle Launcher, and 1 Chain Fist) riding in a Land Raider Crusader. In addition there was a 5 man Crusader squad in a Rhino, another 5 man squad in a Razorback (TL LC), two Predator Destructors, and an Assault Cannon/CCW Venerable Dread awaiting arrival in a Drop Pod.

Mission 2 was Spearhead deployment. The objectives would be table quarters, but there was a twist that was decidedly in my favor. In this mission all troop AND elite choices would count as scoring, and only troops and elites could contest table quarters.

After deployment I once again tried to steal the Initiative (in case you haven't noticed, I rarely win the roll to choose and stealing is customarily the only way I get to go first), but this time the roll failed.

Kirk did some shimmy-shimmy with his vehicles, moved the LR 12" toward the table center, shot the daylights out of me with Predators, and ended his turn spread across his side of the board quite nicely.

On my turn I pretty much did the exact same thing, so our LR Crusaders were mirror images facing off at table center. I moved a squad to the left, and the other to the right toward one of his Predators. I did some shooting myself, and Kirk and I both decided that we buy our Multi-meltas at the same forge world (many misses and failures to glance were rolled in this round).

Kirk's Champion and Termies assaulted my Land Raider on his turn, and succeded in immobilizing it. My troops continued to take Predator fire but they were getting close enough to use their melta and assault with the power fist. My squad on the left took fire and failed Righteous Zeal, so they ran backward.

I disembarked my termies (on the sides since my front end was crowded by his guys) and they assaulted his termies. After a couple of losses to the Black Sword (HEY! How many of these things ARE there, anyway?), my termies managed to eliminate his but left the Emperor's Champion with a wound.

On Kirks' turn his Drop Pod fell right behind my Land Raider (and smack dab in front of my unnerved Crusader squad remnant), and my termies sanctioned the doppelganger Champion after taking another loss. I consolidated them back toward the Dreadnaught.

My Vindicator took his LR out of commission and the Multi-melta on mine FINALLY managed to score a hit and immobilize the Dreadnaught. I moved my troops into cover to hold the left table quarter, and the squad on the right managed to immobilize his Predator. The termies finished off his Dread (again, taking losses), and my Drop Pod (which had arrived in his backfield on my right) took possession of a second table quarter.

His Rhino moved to table center on the right side to contest, and my guys managed to withstand his shooting. On my turn I moved my squad on the right behind his Predator and wrecked it, making him have to choose which table quarter he would contest with the Rhino.

At the end of the game I held 2 table Quarters and contested the other two, giving me the win. I got bonus points for keeping my HQ alive, and a couple more for killing his termies and Dread. Oh, my most embarassing moment in my 40K career: I assaulted an empty Drop Pod with assault terminators. Ugh!

That was great fun, and Kirk was a blast to play against. I really hope to repeat it sometime.

Round 2 Result: Win- me with 18 points (for a total of 32)

So far so good (and WAY better than I'm accustomed to).
I was in 3rd place going into round 3. As they say, all good things....

Round 3: Dey SHOOTIN!

Since the BatRep has been so long, I'll keep this one short. Trust me, it won't be hard.

I was paired with Jeff and his Eldar. Since I got a copy of his list, here it is:

Avatar
Eldrad Ulthran
5 Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent w/ Spirit Stones, TL Shuriken Catapults, TL Bright Lance
9 Striking Scorpions w/ Exarch
9 Dire Avengers w/ Exarch in Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones, TL Catapults, TL Bright Lance
12 Guardians w/Warlock and Scatter Laser platform
5 Pathfinders (Rangers) w/ Ranger Long Rifles
1 War Walker w/ Spirit Stones and 2 Scatter Lasers
1 War Walker w/ 2 Scatter Lasers

Mission 3 we deployed 12" from a line drawn diagonally across the center of the table (corner t0 corner). An objective marker would be placed at table center, and each player would place 2 additional markers in their deployment zone (not within 12" of another marker or 6" of a board edge). The player controlling the most objectives would win. I actually managed to win the roll to start, but I let Jeff choose since it was an objective based game and I wanted to see where he was going to be.

I failed once again to steal the Initiative, so Jeff started shooting. His dice were hot. I mean so hot that he never failed a psychic test, and with Fortune on constant replay he rarely missed his shooting. Oh, and with Doom also going he rarely failed to wound. I, on the other hand, had burned up every ounce of luck during the first 2 rounds and failed just about every save. By the bottom of turn 3 I had 5 Terminators huddled in the crater my Land Raider had left behind (cursed Fire Dragons) a lonely Power Fist weilding Crusader, and the wreck of my Vindicator. I phrase things this way because Jeff had managed to either kill or explode every other model in my army by then. He held 2 objectives, was a move away from the center objective, and I had one single troop model at least 2 turns away from any objectives (and facing 4 Scatter Lasers and his remaining Dire Avengers, plus his immobilised but facing the right way Bright Lance). I saw no point in dragging things out so I conceded. BUT, when tallying the points I realized there were bonus points for killing the opponent's most expensive unit. My Terminators beat out my Land Raider by 11 points, so I suggested Jeff take 2 rounds worth of shooting at them to see if he could kill them. I didn't want to screw him out of a tournament win because I had thrown in the towel. He accepted and killed 2 more termies but didn't eliminate the squad.

So, points tallied we shook hands and turned in our score sheets.

Turn 3 result: Loss- Me. Points- 2 (Total of 34 for the tourney)

Jeff ended up winning the tourney and great fun was had by at least everyone I talked to. There were about 12 of us there, so it was a nice, relaxed atmosphere. Scott, the guy who handles their monthly tourney at Miniature Market, is a great friend of TSE and it is always a pleasure to play in his events. If you want, head over to their website and check out their store. They do some great discounts and their service is top notch. If you're in the St. Louis area, swing by. You won't be disappointed.

Thoughts on the day: This is the second time I've run with a bare minimum HQ (Emperor's Champion) and for the second time I've won more games than I've lost. That being said, I also failed more Righteous Zeal rolls today than ever (and not only because of Weaken Resolve). I'm likely going to re-inlist my Lightning Claw Marshall for the Grand Tournament, both for the Leadership aspect and for the CC monster he'll be. The rest of the list seems to be working great except for me missing having any Fast Attack. It's an adjustment and it's growing on me. Time will tell.

I'll be heading to the Battle Bunker in Memphis in 2 weeks to play in a 1000 point event (the kickoff to their Summer escalation league), and to hang out with my God Son who I haven't seen in a few years (Air Force brat that he is). Then it's June and time for the big Grand Tournament at DieCon.
Again, if you're in the area, check this out. It's going to be HUGE! $300 first prize!

Until next time, The Emperor protects!

New Salamanders Stuff!

2011-05-06T08:48:00.003-05:00

Forgeworld is releasing some new Salamander's stuff, presumably for that Badab War business that they've got going on right now. While I have not read any of those books, there appears to be some love given to my chapter, so I ordered a few sets of these bad boys this morning. I am hoping that they come through with brass etchings for them as well. I need to add something to my vehicles, and that might just be the thing. Of course, I could always head over and read CVinton's article on tank weathering....

Anywho, now that we've got that out of the way, I'd like to congratulate the Team Snake Eyes crew for, what happens to be, our 100th post. I've never considered myself a serious blogger. I actually don't think I'd want to be. I enjoy my hobbies, and I enjoy sharing that with folks, but I really enjoy reading up on "real" bloggers and how they do what we do. A few interesting facts about the Team Snake Eyes Blog:

Top Five most viewed posts:
Ol'Seth's Traitor Guard Baneblade
Army Showcase: Salamander Headquarters
DieCon initial debriefing: I gots STUFF!
Army Showcase: Ol'Seth's Biel Tan Eldar Host
Battle Report: Salamanders vs. Lusty Loganwing

We've had just over 27,000 page views from 107 countries. Ever heard of Mauritius? I haven't, but that's the latest country to stop by. Granted, I think many of my foreign visitors might be proxy servers for spam or some such, but my delusions of owning an International Blog of Mystery please me. So don't burst my bubble. A very special thanks to the 57 folks kind enough to "follow" the blog as well. You're all far too kind.

Lastly, I'd like to thank the two blogs most responsible for sending visitors my way. From the Warp, and Dark Future Games. I won't lie, I got into this business, albeit in an amateur fashion, because of these two blogs. They have served as my inspiration and they have supported my site on their own. Thanks for all that you do gentlemen. I owe you some drinks.

Edit (05/26/2001) - Games Day France 2011 picture of a Salamanders Venerable Dreadnought. Too, too sweet.

Salamander Character Dread from Badab War books?
Photo from Thomas Fritz

How to do a Headstand.

2011-04-13T22:18:00.011-05:00

So, you've got a head you need to paint, and you want to do an extra good job (say for a competition model or and independant character). You can either glue it to the body, prime it, and paint it along with everything else, OR.... You can use this little contraption. For lack of a better term I'm dubbing it the Headstand. It's super easy to make, and the price is either cheap or free (depending on whether you're a wine drinker or have access to one). All you need is the cork from a wine bottle (sorry, screw-cap drinkers. This one's for the snooty types), and a paper clip. Simply pry the clip apart in a fashion that has half crooked (roughly in an L shape) and the other half sticking out straight at an angle. Insert the crooked end into the cork and bend the rest around it until it holds. It doesn't have to be tight. The cork will hold the wire fairly well.

Once that's done you're ready to prep the head. Grab your handy pin vice and drill a hole in the bottom of the neck. Make sure you drill it deep enough that the head will sit securely atop the paper clip.

Now we're ready for the glue. Dab a little atop the paper clip and seat the head. Turn the head until it's facing in the direction that will be most comfortable for you to hold the stand while you paint. Let the glue set and you're ready to go! Don't worry about the head being attached to the clip forever. With some gentle but persistant twisting the head should separate easily from the stand and be ready for attaching to the model. In the unlikely event that it doesn't you can always snip the wire with your cutters. I've found this little tool to be extremely helpful and I hope you do as well. Please leave comments if you try it, or if you have other ideas that work please share them. Happy modelling!

Mr. Angry Face says, "Paint me NOW heretic, or I shall purge thee with righteous flame!"

Kneel before He'Zod!!!

2011-04-12T18:58:00.002-05:00

Rejoice Humans, I bring the Audacity of Oppression!
Image courtesy of P5YCHIC

So Adepticon 2011 is in the books, and like all ~~good~~ "in the neighborhood of average" team captains, I have begun the process of preparing for Adepticon 2012. With the added benefit of 2012 being a major election year for the U.S.A. I have decided to include a mascot for the upcoming year's preparations. No, I don't really think Team Snake Eyes needs a mascot. I have been given permission to add some Salamander flavor to our Overlord's name in recognition of his status of TSE 2012 front man. Yes, I made this decision within milliseconds of seeing this sweet image. You can't tell me you guys haven't generated a blog post based almost entirely on a cool image right? Right? Oh well. I'm going with it.

As I mentioned in our after action report, we finished much better than last year, and to be honest, much better than I anticipated we would finish (37 of 106). Primarily, we have room for improvement in the Battle Points area. In short...play better. Easy right? Not really. The likely members of the team don't live near each other, and we'll have a hard time getting in any practice games. I'm also most likely to gets comments and criticism from them on army list choices after I have finalized them and begun working on completing the needed models. Yes, that is a subtle hint for my team...no, it likely won't inspire much more input from them.

Codex: Space Marines has a lot of variety in it, but one thing I noticed this year was a bit of codex envy from my opponents. Primarily from the Blood Angel and Space Wolf books. With HeroHammer(R) making a strong come-back the named characters from those books are just awesome. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Vulkan, but once you get your face kicked in by Mephiston, you feel the disparity. I also made a strong effort to remove any weapons with a range over 24" to force my armies into an aggressive stance. For the most part it worked, but I played a Blood Angels list that spammed Predators and Las/Plas Razorbacks. That sort of firepower made an impression right away.

Something else I have to contend with in making army list decisions is my inventory. I have almost completely filled my PACK 1520 carrying case (some terminator slots and a land raider remain unfilled). I have almost completely exhausted my supply of "wife points". Married gamers know of what I speak. Bachelors quake in fear of what comes. That said, I need to stick primarily with what I've got, and make small changes with the most impact. What are my initial thoughts?

Well, terminators and another land raider are obvious choices. I have 5 more thunder hammer/storm shield termies on my desk, and 10 standard terminators unbuilt. I also have a terminator librarian who is likely going to replace my power armored librarian. Not having an invulnerable save has really hurt this guy in all of my games with him. Also on my drawing board are the other named HQ units in the vanilla codex. I have stayed away from using them up till now, but I'm only ever going to have one space marine army. I enjoy the others, but I just can't afford to buy blue/yellow/black marines to play with their special characters. It will allow me to expand my play options with my Salamanders without requiring completely new armies. I am also considering adding an Imperial Armor unit. We were allowed one this past year, and if its offered again, the Salamanders are rumored to have an HQ Dreadnought character. I know nothing about him, but it sounds cool. I've made much poorer choices with far less provocation. As you can see, it's a process.

"Can I get that in Green?"

I also need to spice up my line infantry and vehicles. I hear there are some Forgeworld shoulder pads for power armored marines as well as a brass etching sheet coming out. I love the Chapterhouse Studios pads, but the detail of a forgeworld pad is hard to pass up. That and a resin dread (or his conversion) would really add some great detail to the army. In any event, I'll be posting updates as time progresses. Feel free to post comments and suggestions.

Battle Report: Grey Knights vs. Orks

2011-04-11T17:55:00.010-05:00

We'd like to offer a warm welcome to TSE's newest member, Xerxesian. Xerxesian is a beardy vet of 40K and was a member of TSE: Black at Adepticon this year. His experience in the hobby is extensive, spanning several editions and armies. As for what he plays, I'll let him tell you in his own words: "Just in case you need to know my 2.5k+ armies are: Sisters, Orks, Necrons, IG, Chaos Daemons, Tau. What don't I play? Oh yeah! Space Marines! That will soon be rectified w/ hopefully both a SW and GK army in the future." Welcome Xerxesian. We are glad to have you on the team. Now here is our newest member's first contribution; A hot-off-the-presses Battle Report! Take it away, Xerxesian!

Firstly, I should mention this was a revenge match on the part of my opponent as I had tabled his vanilla SM army the previous evening by the end of turn 3 (lol) w/ a very similar Green Tide army list (I used 13 Lootas on Friday and replaced them w/ 13 Tank Bustas for Saturday's match). He had actually conceded at end of turn 2 but the other gamers convinced him to play on. I agreed to a rematch since he allowed my Orks a good head bangin.

Orks vs. Shiney Humies (mostly a dull, unprimered grey actually) Game was annihilation, spearhead, Orks win roll for deployment, I elect to go first. Spearhead is not an Orkie favorite btw as I have to cram 160 troops into 1 table quarter and wave at my opponent while Boss Gobsmacka yells "Gots yer any Pie... (plates)? He does. But only 1 so it's not so bad. Btw, in a friendly game I don't ever ask my opponent for a list, trusting they will be honest and liking to be surprised as the battle unfolds. My opponent IS honest :) but sometimes makes some honest mistakes (like packing 13 Terminators into a God Hammer Land Raider Friday night. "Shenanigans" I cried! and made him Deep Strike the 8 too many onto the board lol).

My army consists of Warboss Gobsmacka, 7 Nobs including Painboy, Big Mekk Lugnutz w/ Kustom Force Field, 15 Burna Boyz, 13 Tank Bustas, 3 Deffkoptas, 30 Shoota Boyz w/ 2 big shootas and Nob w/ bosspole (bp) and power-klaw (pk), and 3x 30 Boyz w/ Nob w/ bp + pk) His army was: Grand Master w/ Warding Stave, Troops: T1= 5 Termies: Halberds, 1 psycannon, Justicar has Warding Stave (oh how I learned to love 'em!), T2= 5 Termies, psycannon, Warding Stave, T3= 5 Termies, psycannon, Warding Stave, T4= 5 man Strike Squad w Halberds and 1 Psilencer, T5= 5 man Strike Squad w/ Halberds and 1 Psilencer. Elites: 1 Venerable Dreadnought w/ assault cannon (the only reason he included this is he had the model and wanted to finally play it) Fast Attack: 1 Stormraven w/ no upgrades (he proxied this w/ a Valkyrie so I'm not sure if he did any of the free upgrades) Heavy Support: He does not actually own any Dreadknight models yet but instead proxied them w/ 2 Valkyrie bases. Dreadknight #1 w/ hvy psycannon, teleporter thingie. Dreadknight #2 w/ Great Sword, teleporter thingie.

From left to right (sort of) I cram 30 Boyz, 13 Tankbustas (in cover) 30 Boyz w/ Big Mekk Lugnutz, 30 Shoota Boyz, 3 Deffkoptas, 30 Boys. Immediately behind Tankbustas are Warboss Gobsmacka w/ Nobz and da Burna Boyz are behind the Shoota Boy mob. Why, you might ask, do I have my flamer Boyz in the back? Cuz Burnas count as power weapons in an assault (45 attacks if I charge) as long as I have not fired them as flamers. My opponent deploys two very stealthy Valkyrie bases (his 2 Dreadknights lol) as close to me as possible with an empty Stormraven immediately to their left (from my perspective). Behind them on left are 5 Termies, immediately behind them is the Ven. Dreadnought. At his far back corner are 5 Strikes. Immediately behind DredKnights is a 5 man Termie squad w/ Grand Master, and on the far right are 5 Strikes, immediately behind them are 5 Termies. The terrain includes many walls and barricades, 2 buildings, all which he is behind, I'm expecting his first turn to be a big shoot 'em up deal. On my "half" (it's spearhead but you get the idea) is one piece of terrain on left which is closer to both my board edges (about 8" each way). Farther up the board there is a nice piece of terrain, stairs leading up to a shooting platform, despite stairs, my opponent insists it is difficult terrain, I laugh at him, suggesting not only does he bring the cheeze but now has to cheat as well (smirk). It's ok tho, I intend to move, then run my shoota boyz into that cover. On my far right is another piece of terrain that will be a non factor other than squeezing my Boyz together a bit as I try to avoid it, wanting to make sure I move and run as far as possible. Neither of us has anything in reserve.

He finishes deployment, and despite having witnessed it the previous night, is not happy when A:) I ask him if he forgot to deploy any Servo Skulls and he answers no, he has none and B:) my Deffkoptas Turbo Boost to 12" away from his Stormraven and DKs w/ their Scouts move. "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asks me. His surprise quickly becomes an obvious licking of his lips, he's chomping at the bit to use those DKs and a juicy target has been sighted. "Would you like to roll for stealing?" I ask, nonplussed. He fails it, my Deffkoptas shoot at the Stormraven, I get three hits, 2 pens and... it blows up! Yay Orks!! explodes 1" hitting nothing else but I'm a very happy camper. I know they will die on his turn, but who cares? They've fulfilled their dastardly mission. Everything else in my army moves and runs toward him (it's what Orks do, yawn). Ok, not only is this his first time playing GKs but my opponent, though not new to the game, is not the greatest strategist or tactician. He moves both DKs up within assault range of my Deffkoptas, the 5 Strikes in the rear move up so they can shoot at my Deffkoptas. His 5 Strikes & termies in the center all shoot at the Deffkoptas (i think he causes 1 wound lol) 5 Strikes on far right shoot at Deffkoptas and put 4 wounds on them= 2 dead DeffKoptas and the remaining one has 1 wound on it (2 wound models). He then announces he is going to assault the remaining Deffkopta w/ not 1 but both his DKs. I ask him to pause and look at the board, don't they have pie plates, nasty shooting of some sort? (remember, I have not seen his list and he is proxying these models) Wouldn't 1 of them easily handle the Deffkopta w/ 1 wound left on it? He considers and shoots a pie plate into my swath of Orks. It hits 5 various Boyz but thanks to Big Mekk Lugnutz's Kustom Force Field (5+ cover save) I save 2 of them. He assaults and kills the Deffkopta. Turn 1: 1-1

Turn 2: I Waaagh, (without screaming it for the entire building to hear btw) Boyz on far left move up but are .5" out of assault range with his Termies there. Rokkit Boyz move 4 inches but it is enough, they can't see the Dreadnought so are free to shoot at, DK! 11 Rokkit shots, dice Gods are keen, 5-6 actually find their target and that bad boy takes 2 wounds despite his 2+ save. Shootas did not Waagh and blast away at the other DK but only cause 1 wound. 30 Boyz assault left DK (2 wnds remaining) and 30 Boyz assault the other DK (3 wnds remaining) It's looking very, very good for the Orks. I laugh when what is supposed to be his big bad kick butt new toys only kill 2 boyz each. Now it is my turn to lick my chops. Regular boyz do a zillion hits (116 from each squad to be precise) but then I can't roll sixes to wound, only getting like 5-6 from each squad, and he doesn't roll any ones. OK, no worries, power klaw time, 8 attacks needing 4s... wha? I left my Team Snake Eyes shirt at home but alas, nothing but ones and twos, my PKs totally whif, I lose cc by 4 and promptly fail all my fearless saves, but really, who cares, 12 boyz down, these big humies is going to die!!!!! bottom 2: He moves his center Termies up, but they have to go thru Difficult and don't go far enough to get stuck in. He moves up all squads on far left and right. Dreadnought and Termies lay down a withering fire on my left, felling a good number of Boyz. On the right, his guys have just enough room to see my Burnas and they too assail them with bullets, killing about 8. Burnas pass leadership (whew!). Dks roll and whiff until I ask him, the one w/ the great sword, can't he re-roll like everything under the sun? Oh yeah, he kills 2 Orks. W/o Furios Charge my Orkzes are only S3 (excepting the Nobz w/ pks of course), I rolls 75 To Hit dice needing 4s, now I roll tons of dice needing sixes, get like 4 or 5, my opponent will just not roll a stinking 1!. Same thing happens in the other side. No worries, time to finish them off, power klaw To Hit rolls galore, his goose is surely cooked...1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, GGGAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! On left side, his termies assault and as he's collecting dice I ask him, doesn't every squad have psychic powers? Yes indeed, he forgot. They roll for Hammerhand and get it, thus activating their Force Weapons too, i think. Won't come into play here as my Boyz have 1 wound. He kills tons, I kill a couple, I'm still Fearless and this is actually what hurts me cuz I only roll a couple of saves and another 8 boyz bite the dust. Good thing the Boyz in that squad are all caught up in the fight but I can foresee their impending doom as they are no longer fearless. No worries, Warboss and nobz( who had moved into cover cuz I thought he would be more shooty) are not too far away now to put the hurt on that squad. Game= 1-1

Turn 3: Everything that can moves up. Boss and Nobz still too far to get stuck in, Tank Bustas shoot at Ven. Dreadnought, couple pens, shaken and stunned is all I can do. Shootas double assault DKs. He kills 4 total, DKs are not the CC beast I initially worried they would be, guess I didn't read the stat line all that carefully. Time to die big oval bases with incredibly difficult to wound clearish air base thingies! Um... but... whiff whiff whiff, and NONE of my 4 powerklaws scores a hit (insert sad/angry/perplexed Ork face here) Left DK has 1 wound remaining, right DK has 2- both should have died after 1st initial charge (sigh) His turn, trumpets blare: da ta ta DA! Grand Master to the rescue of his stoopit oval bases lol, his GM and Termies make mince meat of my Big Mekk and one squad. The 2 other Ork squads are still fearless, so despite only taking 2 wounds on 1 squad, 0 on the other, it is one big cc and so each squad loses many more boyz. I did direct 2 Powerklaws the Termies way, and after the dust cleared from a bunch'o'boyz (registered TM) doing oodles'o'wounds (TM pending), 4 Termies die, but then 2++ on this guy and 2++ on the Grand Master, which of course he makes all of them lol. (He is most definitely not allowed into TEAM Snake Eyes!) I finally kill the DK on left. Far left he wipes the remaining squad of boyz ( I have to remind him again to take his psychic tests for these combats. Oh oh oh! For some inexplicable reason he rolled Hammerhand for his DK, rolled double sixes and finally failed a save LOL!) Sole Dk has 1 wound remaining.

Turn 4. Tankbustas shoot at VD, knocking the what had been very deadly Assault Cannon off of it and Immobilizing it. Warboss and Nobz assault Termies on far left. Um... dude? Yeah? You gonna roll for Hammerhand? Oh yeah! (Jeesh) Hmmm... I am dismayed to discover not all of my Nobs have cybork bodies, I'll need to redo that squad since in the last 2 evenings I've seen no less than 5 GK armies being played. I lose 1 or 2, finish off his squad, yes, even the guy w/ the 2++. (18 power klaw attacks :) ).

Turn 5. Far right, 5 Strikes and 5 more Termies move up and assault. GM and Termie are no longer stuck in, and being my turn, my 2 squads finally kill of the remaining DK, 4 Strikes and 1 Terminator. In his turn GM and 1 Termie run toward cover (wha?), oh, then shoot at my Burnas, then, needing a 6, assault them with a roll of six. bye bye Burna Boyz. CC on right: I kill 3 Termies but can't kill the remaining strike (2++) both Ork squads fail leadership, he catches and kills.

Turn 6 TBs shoot at VD but he is far too close for them to actually hit it lol. they assault VD but the 2 tank hammers don't reach him, Warboss + Nobz assault GM/termie. "Um dude? Yeah? Hammerhand? oh yeah!" His GM and Termie kill my meanest, baddest, toughest CC squad (stoopit force weapons, stoopit stoopit measly 5++ save compared to his delectable 2++) Rokkit Boyz knock off the VDs other arm, I actually wreck him but he makes me re-roll it, I roll a, you guessed it, 1.

Turn 7 I killz the VD with 2 Tank hammers, he is too far away to assault my Rokkit Boyz but pours all his shooting at them. Many die but I pass leadership, sparing me being completely wiped from the board. Final result: Humies win 9-4.

In all honesty, I felt like I was in the game for most of it and could have won ( or at least made it closer) had my Power Klaws done anything (just one wound on the charge would have killed a DK in turn 2.) My opponent got extremely lucky as well tho, making saving throw after saving throw w/o EVER rolling a 1! OK, he rolled a couple ones but that's out of like 80+ saving rolls!! Realistically, I was very fortunate to kill the Stormraven in turn 1, and my opponent didn't know his own rules or play it very smart, i.e. teleport out when he could have, to lay down a devastating volley of stormbolter fire- 3 squads shooting at Boyz would easily kill off a squad. I think a more experienced player would smoke a Green Tide list or any Ork list for that matter :( Dreadknights seem to be better used as a fire base or for Assaulting vehicles. Weren't scarey at all in cc tbh. I think Sisters would have ripped his list a new one as aside from his Stormraven, he was footslogging it. If you let Sisters shoot you up piece meal, you will lose. Of course, DKs teleporting could make that difficult to execute. Marine lists will now be maximizing TH/SS termies imo to counter that 2++ everywhere. I know my proposed 2k SW list will struggle vs. a more experienced GK player even with this same list. But... Eldar and Dark Eldar might do ok. And... I am happy to say, we finally have a 2nd army that can put a serious hurt on Nidzilla lists. Tau, Necrons, Chaos Daemons are even more screwed than ever lol. What about IG? Personally, I'd lose the VD and a Strike squad to get a LR-Crusader w/ psybolt ammo to at least have 1 more solid transport. I think most Guard will struggle, but does have a chance. Overall our game was very fun because we got stuck in early and for 2-3 turns it could have gone either way. Once the GM made his grand entrance, I was toast!

Thanks for the report, Xerxesian. I'm sure between the various Grey Knight armies in Team Snake Eyes (three at current count) we'll be weeding through a lot of the new tricks and traps. Feel free to leave comments or share your own experiences with the "shiney humies"!

Edited on 4/12/2011 by Chosen1: added paragraph breaks and italics.

Adepticon 2011: There and Back Again...A Salamander's Tale

2011-04-05T08:58:00.006-05:00

Team Snake Eyes' Adepticon 2011 Display Board

This year's results are in. Last year's results can be found here, but I'll summarize quickly: In 2010 we finished 92 out of 110. Hardly a confidence booster. This year, however, we brought two teams (I'll discuss the 2nd team below) and finished 37th out of 106 teams. Here's the breakdown:

247 total points out of 444 (37th overall)
109 battle points out of 240 (45th)
14 commander's head points out of 32 (66th)
18 command token points out of 32 (26th)
54 theme points out of 60 (10th)
44 painting points out of 60 (15th)
8 quiz points out of 20 (86th)
14 sportsmanship points out of 16
6 spirit points

Overall we had a blast. There was a bit of stress involved as I wanted us to perform better on the table top and Aerion wanted to improve our scores in the theme and appearance categories. I think we managed both, while still having something to strive for at subsequent events. I saw some very impressive armies out there Saturday, so I am humbled to have gotten the scores we did on theme and painting, and I have to credit to Aerion's talent and the handful of folks who pitched in to help us get the Salamanders ready for Chicago this year.

Aerion's freehand banner design for my 2nd Company...beyond awesome.

While I won't be doing battle reports for this year (I concentrate too much on the game at these things so I never remember to take pictures) I can break it down a little:

On the day we went 5-3-0. Round 1 we played "Team Rock Heads - Dances with Wolves" (placed 52nd). They beat our faces in. They brought two Space Wolf armies and two Blood Angels armies. Mephiston and a Furioso w/Blood Talons in a Storm Raven? Yes please. We had both objectives and the middle of the board at the bottom of turn 4. Turn 5 that unit showed up and ruined our day. Head over to Dark Future Games to see a picture of the "Dexter Dread". All of that gore belongs to my Salamanders.

Round 2 we played "Dragonfire" (placed 100th). They had 3 Eldar armies and 1 Dark Eldar army. It was my first opportunity to play against the new Dark Eldar. There were some nice conversions in this army, but one of the players had recently injured himself and was drugged up pretty good. That meant he played a bit slow and we weren't made aware of that until after the game. Still, it was fun, and we ended up with two wins from this round.

Round 3 we played the "Emperor's Grease Monkeys" (placed 79th). I believe they were all Blood Angels armies. We also came away with two wins this round, although those wins were bitter in my mind. At my table, the other team clearly kicked us up one side and down the other. They won the primary objective, but our winning of the secondary as well as some tactical points gave us a higher total. The other game was played by two coalitions that were unfamiliar with their respective armies. My inexperienced guy told the other inexperienced guy some bogus armor values for one of our tanks a few times during the game. I have no idea what kind of impact that had, but I still feel quite badly about it. I did, however, get some great tactical advice on my Salamanders, and Space Marines in general, from this team. It was also probably the most fun I had all day.

Chosen1 playing on table #1 "So you're saying there's a chance..."

Round 4 saw us playing the "Ironfist League" (placed 67th) on table one. No kidding. If seeing a 3-3-0 team on table one on round 4 of the Adepticon Team Tournament doesn't tell you they randomize tables, then nothing will. We knew we weren't playing for a chance at the big prize, but it felt good to play there anyway. Stop laughing, at least my mom was proud of me. These guys were an all Chaos Space Marine team and it too was a fun game. We split the games here, and the take away message for me was to stay away from IA Blood Slaughterers of Khorne. Yeah, they're that bad. The second bit that upset me occurred here. The army lists we handed to our opponents are hand typed. I loath Army Builder with a passion typically reserved for bullies and exercise. While I spent a lot of time on a lot of things, I did not review them enough to catch a few omissions. I did not spell out that the tactical squads (which were nearly identical throughout the army - and were correct on the individual player's army lists) contained flamers and multi-meltas. This came as a surprise to our opponents, and I am sorry for that. The fault lies with me.

As you can imagine, this ended badly for us.

Despite the two mistakes, the tournament was a success. I saw some great armies, and met some great guys...including meeting up with the Michigan crew from Dark Future Games and Seer Karandras from Craftworld Lansing. My big regret was not introducing myself to the Back 40k crowd, but when I was free, they were playing, etc. I'll have to have Chambers work something out. It was a blast fellas and I hope to see you all again soon.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands Adepticon 2011 Display Board.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands also attended the Big Show. They finished 82nd out of 106. I believe they went 2-6-0 on the day which is fantastic considering they were using two different armies than they originally planned and playing with two alternates. Yeah, all that mess, and they still finished better on their first year than we did. Great job guys, I'm glad you came and enjoyed yourselves.

Team Snake Eyes - Iron Hands engaged in something terribly important.

The Gate to Awesome

2011-02-26T10:22:00.002-06:00

As Art Director for the Sons of Vulkan contingent of Team Snake Eyes I'm in the midst of the final brush strokes on a few key models for our Adepticon army. My mind is now beginning to focus on a way to properly display these models in a way that won't embarrass us while keeping the wives and our aging backs happy.

The vision I have involves a lot of black and lava, but there needs to be something...else. In my quest for ideas I found Quantum Gothic. Naturally they're in the UK, so their borderline reasonable prices become less so when converted to dollars. But their stuff is (to quote my hero Peter Griffin) "Freakin' sweeeet!". The gate piece pictured here opens in a fashion where the front and back panels fold down, forming a little ramp for troops and vehicles to move over. The gate is wide enough to allow bikes through, so it's a bit on the small side. However, you can purchase additional gates to sit side by side, thereby creating as wide an opening as you wish.

They have an impressive list of terrain and fortification options from which to choose. If I were made of money the display board would be en-route to my house from the sceptered isle right now. Oh cursed fate! Why did you make me sexy instead of rich!?

Anyway, if you're in the market for some sweet resin bunkers, walls, sentry guns, craters, etc. check them out. For that old guy on the golden chair!!

DOUBLE RAINBOW!!!

2011-02-19T09:59:00.003-06:00

What does it mean?! We here at TSE are constantly striving to take our painting to the next level. Well, okay, to be fair we're constantly striving to take our GAME to the next level, but personally I know the only factor I have any realistic chance of improving is painting, so there's your honesty for the week.

One of the blogs I frequent is The Painting Corps. If you take a few moments to visit you won't be disappointed. They offer extremely good tips, tutorials, videos, and discussions on everything from putting your models together to making them look awesome either on the table or for competition. Their Friday Quick Tip alone is worth a click, and this week the tip was so fantastically useful I just had to share it.

The tip dealt with the simple but often overlooked tool: The color wheel. Now we all know what a color wheel is (assuming we took art class in elementary school), and most of us probably have at least a basic understanding of how it works (primary, secondary, complementary colors, etc.). The Corpsmen offered a link to a tool I will find endlessly useful, easy to use, and kinda fun to play with.

You can find it here. It's called "Color Scheme Designer 3" and it's full of win. Say you're about to start a new army. You can do like Chosen1 and prime some test models, slap down a basecoat of a given color, get frustrated, set them on my desk and wait for the paint elf to work his magic, still not like the way it looks, strip said test models in Simple Green, prime and repeat until you find a scheme that works.

OR...

You can go to the link above, select any shade on the color wheel, and see shades, highlights, complementary colors, triads (three colors that work together), tetrads (harmony based on four colors), and more. With a few clicks (literally) you can try out as many complete color schemes as you want and not lift a brush. Once you've found your scheme you can even export it to XML or text (in the customary numerical format that HTML uses to translate colors) so you can reference it easily later. If the color wheel doesn't have the exact color you want, don't fret. Just use the Hue Adjuster to alter a color that's close and BAM!

Check it out and don't forget to show Grey_Death and the rest of The Painting Corps some love. Happy painting!

Raffle: "Sin of Alacrity" Modular Space Hulk Terrain

2011-02-18T14:54:00.000-06:00

You want the opportunity to get a ridiculously cool, modular, space hulk style terrain board? You need to go to A Gentleman's Ones right now and donate to the raffle.

For the small price of a donation ($10 minimum entry) you can potentially have this elaborate piece of art shipped straight to your door. If I win, I will ask my wife for forgiveness rather than permission. :) Kudos to b.smoove for it's creation and subsequent offer with the raffle!

Agent Orange's Imperial Fists

2011-02-15T18:44:00.000-06:00

What's the best sign that your empire is vast, sprawling, and without end? When you have members in your gaming club that you've never even met. Unfortunately I think that speaks more to the fact that I moved out of the Carbondale, IL / Cape Girardeau MO area to the St. Louis Metro-East area than it does about the size of our club...but it was fun to say regardless.

Without further fanfare, or bad puns on my part, here are some Imperial Fists. Please note the name on the dreadnought, he was a legendary veteran sgt. whose continued service is a credit to his chapter and the Emperor!

Here are some shots of the Fists taking it to the Orks on a snow covered moon.

Gateway Grand Tournament, June 3-5, 2011

2011-02-05T22:48:00.000-06:00

HOST:
DieCon 11, June 3-5, 2011 @ Gateway Center Collinsville, IL

Tournament length:
5 rounds: 3 rounds Sat June 5th and 2 rounds on Sunday June 6th.

Tournament :
Begins at 10am (1000 hrs) on Sat June 5th and Sunday June 6th. Please be on time.

Army Size:
Warhammer 40K 2000 pts

BONUS:

Five battle points will be awarded to early army submissions. Submit your army list to armies@Omegahobbies.com until May 20, 2011.
DieCon 11 pre-registration required to receive bonus. Bring 5 copies of your army list to the tournament for your opponents.

Painting:

While it is not required to have your army completely painted to participate in this event, it is highly encouraged, and recommended. If you choose to participate in this tournament with an unpainted army, just keep in mind, you will NOT be eligible to win the "Overall Champion" award, nor "Best Appearance". You will however, still be eligible for "Best General", and "Best Sportsman". So, if at all possible, get that army painted, and help us make this tournament not only fun to play in, but amazing to see as well.

Prize Support:

1st Place : $300.00 **
2nd Place : $200.00 **
3rd Place : $100.00 **

Best Appearance, Best General and Sportsmanship awards will be handed out, as well as random prizes on Friday during open gaming of any GW game being played.
See omegahobbies.com for details.

Gateway Grand Tournament Registration:

$30.00 from now - March 1, 2011 *
$35.00 March 2 - April 17, 2011 *
$40.00 April 18, 2011 - June 5, 2011 *

Pre-Registration

Infamy Arrives (again?)

2011-01-23T11:30:00.001-06:00

Six months ago (6/20/2010), my Salamanders army was honored by being the caption contest (Where's Vulkan?) on the BoLS website. Yesterday, the same pic was featured. While I'm sure it was either a mistake or a lack of material for Bigred, I am grateful nonetheless.

BoLS on 6/20/10
TSE on 6/21/10
BoLS on 1/22/11

While I am very proud of my army, I also understand that there are much better out there. It still makes us feel good to have this sort of recognition. There should be some photo updates soon of the things we are working on for Adepticon 2011. Hope to see you there!

New Year's Sneak Peeks for 2011

2011-01-01T14:20:00.007-06:00

Happy New Year from the Team Snake Eyes crew and assorted minions, servitors, lackeys, and attendants. The bulk of the team gathered at Fort Aerion to ring in the New Year and there was much carnage (Absinthe: It's no joke!). Somehow between Band Hero, Rock Band 3, and Mario Kart (not to mention eating, drinking, and generally making merry) we managed to take some pics of some of the upcoming hotness we'll be fielding at Adepticon in April. To all our friends, a very happy and prosperous New Year, and to all our adversaries, may you leave the table feeling bad that you beat us so soundly. Enjoy!

Salamander Command Squad conversions:

Blog Banner Art Contest over at Dark Future Games

2010-11-29T20:53:00.001-06:00

How bad has my final semester of grad school taken me out of the loop? One - I didn't know that the fellas over at Dark Future Games were having a Banner Contest for their blog. Two - I didn't know that Aerion, my brother from another mother, submitted an entry to their contest! What?!? I don't know about you folks, but I find that very cool. There is no voting, since the contributors and friends of DFG will choose the winner, but please go on over to Dark Future Games and look over all the excellent submissions. They have their work cut out for them!

Yes, I have asked Aerion why he submitted an entry to another blog's contest before designing one for our own (heck, I didn't even know he could do that...man of many talents I tell you...) and he assured me that is something within the realm of possibility. I think it will be tough to design a banner for TSE since we have the white background. I'm a huge fan of the white since I find some other blogs a little difficult to read at times, so we'll just have to see what he can come up with!

Ol'Seth's Traitor Guard Baneblade

2010-11-11T15:18:00.000-06:00

Ol'Seth is one heck of a painter. Mrs. Ol'Seth is no slouch herself. Together they have produced some of the most beautiful pieces on display when Team Snake Eyes goes to war. This tank has a bit of "flair" to it that lacks some of the gritty feel of the 41st millennium's battles, but the allure of Slaanesh isn't normal either is it? :)

Genoside's Chaos Warband

2010-11-11T15:01:00.000-06:00

Genoside owns enough 40k (and fantasy too if you're into that sort of thing) models to make a grown man cry. Because of that not too much of his stuff gets painted. He has a soft spot in his corrupted heart, however, for his Nurgle/Khorne - themed Chaos Space Marine Army. Here are a few select shots of that force.

Guyver Blue's Ultramarines

2010-11-11T14:49:00.001-06:00

Guyver Blue is a great guy who only rarely gets to throw down his Ultramarines when Team Snake Eyes gets together. He typicallys shows up for one of our two Apocalypse games we host a year or the odd tournament that he doesn't have to work.

Brewfest Apocalypse Extravaganza!

2010-10-28T21:48:00.012-05:00

Dark days have begun for the small Imperial planet of Phaeton. Across the world city after city has fallen to the grasp of Chaos. One of the final places to fall was the capital city of Brunel, which was named after one of the greatest heroes of the planet. The people of the city fought valiantly in his name and for the Emperor. However, the choke hold of Chaos finally eroded at the city's defenses and the town collapsed. Rebels holding out in a remote mountain range east of the city sent a distress call in hopes of some aid but by the time the call was intercepted by the Pride of Macragge and it made transit to the system 1 year had passed. One small tactical squad was dispatched from the cruiser to the planet's surface to discover the extent of the planet's fall to Chaos. They quickly found themselves in a perilous situation with no chance of extaction and had to stay planetside til a planetary siege took place. One of their battle brothers had fallen in the fighting and had to be left behind as they tried to get out of the city and link up with the resistance. In a midnight run an Aquila shuttle was dispatched from the battle cruiser to drop off a container of medical supplies to the beleagured defenders and recover the remains of the battle brother who had fallen. If his geneseed fell into the hands of the enemy it would be a shame to the 3rd Company to which he belonged.

Everything was quiet as the small Aquila ship descended carrying the container of medial supplies. It swiftly covered the distance to the rendezvous point where the resistance claimed the hero’s body was. Along the way the pilot spotted in the middle of the road a sacrificial altar and then further ahead the fallen marine's body. He knew something was terribly wrong with no one guarding the body and awaiting the pick up. As the pilot pulled up attempting to abort the mission his shuttle was blown out of the sky by a barrage of heavy autocannon fire.
With the covert operation failed the Ultramarine Company Master knew there was no time to waste and sent a call out to all Imperial units in the sector.

Several units responded. The valiant Grey Knights had been in pursuit of a Chaos Daemon Prince dedicated to Nurgle and had tracked him to Phaeton. Their arrival took place 2 days after the Ultramarines call for assistance. The Sisters of Battle had also been in the sector and stopped their envoy exchange with the eldar. They asked for their help to join the battle at hand before departing. The Eldar agreed to help having their own agenda that only they knew.

The decision was made to hit the main capital city of Brunel. The Ultramarines wished to recover their fallen brother if possible and both the Grey Knights and Ultramarines wished to put a stop to whatever ritual the Chaos forces planned. Emperor willing, they would stop the ritual and kill the Daemon Prince whom they believed was the mastermind of everything happening on the planet. If that happened they would effectively cut off the head of the Chaos forces. Planetfall was made in the early dawn.

The Ultramarines were able to clear a landing zone near the altar and dropped all troops in using their Thunderhawk gunships. The Grey Knights plunged their forces thru the planet's atmosphere using their drop pods but unknown to them the archenemy had a disruptor beacon within the city and forced the Grey Knights into a landing not of their choosing. The Adeptus Sororitas held most of their forces in reserve having sworn to retreive the fallen marines body. The Eldar also held most of their forces in reserve committing only one of their Super Heavy grav tanks known as a Scorpion amongst the Imperial forces and one of their Fire Prisms also.

It was quickly discovered by the Imperials and Eldar though that this was not a fight just against the tainted forces of the Archenemy. It was also a fight that would involve the despicable Dark Eldar and the hated Tyranids. Why the Tyranids and Dark Eldar were fighting alongside the forces of Chaos can only be guessed at. With the Dark Eldar it can only be surmised that they were hunting for more slaves and saw the carnage taking place on the planet as an opportunity to gain them. With the Tyranid they probably only wished to gain as much biomass as possible. The idea that the Hive Mind would communicate with anyone and work with any race towards a common goal was hard to believe.

The Imperial forces quickly moved into action. Both the Eldar and the Grey Knights were able to call on their ships in orbit to bring down orbital bombardments. The Eldar using their farseers to conjure up an Eldritch Storm of epic intensity and the Grey Knights using their gun batteries on their cruiser in orbit. Any further fire by ground forces was temporarily delayed though thru some dark magic conjured up by the Dark Eldar. They projected a veil of darkness across the battlefield that obscured both vision and even electronic sensors. The Imperials and Eldar were effectively blind during the opening stage of the battle. They were able to slaughter lesser Tyranids by the score and take out both their disruptor beacon and one of their vaunted Defilers in the initial bombardment. The Ultramarines who were the first to see major action bore the brunt of the enemies counter attack but were able to hold the line despite facing no less than 5 of the Archenemies Woe Machines (Baneblades and Shadowswords predominantly). The Dark Eldar concentrated their efforts on the Eldar as one might expect. They attempted to breach the vaunted Scorpion's shields but most of their strikes from their dark lances were shrugged off. One managed to breach shields and armor alike and caused some internal damage. Inaccurate artillery fire from the enemies Basilisks also struck it and and caused further structural damage but it managed to survive nontheless. The enemies artillery killed numerous Tyranids in the attempt of which I am sure they cared not.

In the second phase of the battle the Archenemy took the initiative and struck out all across their line. All of their force was predominantly brought to bear on the Ultramarines and Grey Knights who had just made planetfall. Fire was intense into the lines but Imperial forces held. Terminators from the Ultramarines First Company moved into action in the center of the line attempting to seize the vile altar and put a stop to the enemies plans. The Grey Knights moved onto the aid station in an attempt to help secure the medical supplies and wounded in that area. Unfortunately that was also where the brunt of the dark eldar struck perhaps hoping to seize as many slaves as possible amongst the wounded. They also continued to strike out at the Scorpion the Eldar had brought into action but were unable to bring it down. This was when the Sisters of Battle and the Eldar made a concentrated effort to strike into the enemies flank. Seraphim and Eldar Fire Dragons alike worked in unison to bring down one of the Archenemies Baneblades and one of their Leman Russes along with a host of Tyranids from the fire of a element of Warp Spiders. Things were tenuous all up and down the line of the Imperials. Elements were on or near all objectives. The Grey Knights in the final stages of that days fight were only able to hold the dark eldar in check. Their line did not fold but the dark eldar jumped onto the medical station in strength and were holding it when nightfall fell. The valiant charge of the Ultramarines in the center of the line managed to take out a Shadowsword but the resulting catastrophic explosion nearly wiped out the Terminators in the process and the enemies counter strike finished off those that were left. The Daemon Prince the Grey Knights had intended to destroy survived the days battle and even managed to kill one of the Ultramarines dreadnoughts and squads with one of the dreaded Vortex grenades. The only highlight for the day was the valiant efforts of the Adeptus Sororitas and the Eldar on the flank. They were able to secure the body and genetic material of the marine that had fallen there. As that was the vital objective of the engagement the Imperials were able to secure a draw for the days battle. The lines on both sides were held and more violence would be seen in the days ahead.

They'll be back next year. Brewfest: We do Apoc RIGHT!

Adepticon Team Tournament Players Take Note!

2010-10-27T19:42:00.001-05:00

For anyone thinking of playing in the Adepticon Team Tournament (April 2, 2011) please review the draft rules up on their site. They have made significant changes to the format and rules that will likely impact how army lists are created. I'm not too worried about things on the whole, as Team Snake Eyes is not likely to finish that high in the standings to begin with, but do head over and review things like:

INAT FAQ V4.1
2011 Team Tournament Draft Rules
2011 Model Policy

Salamander terrain (Adepticon sneak peak!)

2010-10-03T00:23:00.007-05:00

As mentioned in previous entries I have been distracted by "other projects". Aside from my algebra class (which is also featured in this pic) I have been converting the Astartes statue that comes with the latest 40K Terrain kit "Honoured Imperium" to be used (possibly) in the Salamander display board for Adepticon 2011.

As you can see I swapped out the sword for a more "fluffy" hammer (Brass rod, green stuff, and bits from the Drop Pod missile launcher) and added some Salamander iconography to the piece (Chapter logo on the left shoulder, partially concealed by the cloak, Salamander hide loin cloth, flames on the right shoulder, left knee, and the chest shield, as well as a Salamander symbol on the shield above a field of flames).

This is my first real attempt to do any major green stuff work, especially on this scale (mistakes are easier to hide when they're smaller). I'm fairly happy with the results and I'm looking forward to seeing it on the awesome display board we have planned.

Any feedback is welcome. Enjoy the pics and I'll be back for the third and final Drop Pod tutorial in a few days.

P.S. Chosen1, you owe me a replacement so I'll have one to flank the doors of my cathedral ;)

Space Marine Drop Pod tutorial, Part 2 (Still Dark Eldar free!)

2010-09-30T21:26:00.008-05:00

Just like in any complex construction, the foundation is key. Luckily the foundation of the Space Marine Drop Pod is fairly idiot-proof. The base is two pieces (with a few little vent fans that glue on the bottom), and the 5 doors are two pieces each. That's the good news.

The bad news is the doors, like every other contact point, must be shaved like a Wookiee going to work in food service.

The key points are the underside just above the "hinge" (i.e. the base of the actual door which will close against the floor of the pod). This seam, when the two door pieces are glued together, will not be square. You'll want to dry-fit the doors into the floor pieces and check to see how flush they close. Then scrape whatever excess plastic you find around all the seams, paying close attention to the hinge and the door base I mentioned previously.

Once you are sure you have all the doors able to close completely you can begin carefully gluing the floor to the base after laying the doors in their brackets (this part is pretty obvious so I won't go into more detail.)

Painter's Note: This is the perfect time to take care of painting the base of the pod (at least the inside bits.) As you can see I have also decided to handle the caution striping at this stage. It's a great deal easier to get your hands at the right angles to tape and paint before the walls are raised. Here is how I did the stripes:

I laid out a strip of blue painter's tape on my handy exacto cutting mat and marked it in 3/8 inch intervals. Then I used a ruler to cut the tape along those lines with my exacto knife. Finally I cut the tape in half longways leaving me with a strip of 3/8" tabs of tape to be peeled off and used as needed. I found a length of about 8 inches gave me more than enough tabs to do all 5 doors.

Once the tabs were cut (and the door edges were painted black), I proceeded to tape every 2 "dots" (the recesses that are molded along the door edge), leaving the first 3 dots from the pod black, then an open strip, then 2 dots covered with tape, then 2 dots exposed, etc until the end of the door was reached.

I then painted the exposed areas with foundation paint followed by a brighter yellow once dry. Once I had the yellow looking the way I wanted I carefully peeled off the tape and cleaned up a few slips. Tadaa! Done.

At this point the base of the pod is ready to go. We will use this portion to help build the uprights in part 3 of the tutorial.

Feel free to post any questions you may have. Until next time, FOR THE EMPEROR!

Event Wrap-up: Little Egypt Wars

2010-09-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

Team Snake Eyes was out in force this past weekend. There were 13 players at this Rogue Trader event, and 8 of those represented TSE! There were several players new to the area because of school and, for some reason; many of the traditional local players didn’t show up. We could easily expect an attendance level approaching 20 if all the stars align. Of the 13 armies, here is the breakdown:

2 Orks
4 Chaos Space Marines
1 Dark Eldar
1 Eldar
1 Tau
1 Tyranid
1 Black Templar Space Marine
2 Codex Space Marines (Ultramarines & Salamanders)

The Team Snake Eyes Results are as follows:

Marvin the Despoiler (Chaos SM) = 1 W / 1 L / 2nd turn bye
Ol’Seth (Eldar) = 1 L / 2 D’s
Guyver Blue (Ultramarines) = 2 L’s / 3rd turn bye
Chaplain Aerion (Black Templars) = 1 W / 1 L / 1 D – winner of best painted army & 2nd place overall
Chosen 1(Salamanders) = 1 D / 2 W’s = 1st place overall
Zephyr (Dark Eldar) = 1 draw / 2 wins
P.G. (Chaos SM) = 3 draws – winner of best sportsmanship
Genoside (Chaos SM) = 1st turn bye / 1 D / 1 L

As you can see, the odd number of players required the “bye” system of one player sitting out per round. I’m not sure how the bye’s were selected, but we were disappointed that only TSE members got byes. Numerically speaking, there were more of us, so this isn’t a veiled attempt at suggesting a shady deal. We just hate to spend money to attend an event and drive (1, 1, and 2 hours) to get to an event only to be told that we’ll be sitting out for a round. I’m not sure why the organizers don’t use a ringer to take care of this issue since the last few tournaments have had an odd number of players, but I’ll be putting that in my suggestions to the tournament organizer.

Also unusual at this tournament was the scoring. There were the traditional battle points with additional modifiers at the end which meant, for example, that you could earn a draw worth 7 points and a win worth 7 or 8. So the W/L/D doesn’t mean nearly as much as how BIG the W/L/D was in relation to the others. In addition to that, I think the two or three results were averaged to adjust the results so that the folks who received byes were on similar footing with those who did not. Again, this madness could be avoided with a ringer so total points could be calculated. Don’t get me wrong these comments are in the “suggestions for improvement” category, not criticisms. To my knowledge, all in attendance had a fantastic time and we’re all looking forward to returning.

I enjoyed all of my games, especially the rude wakeup call I received on behalf of Zephyr’s Dark Eldar army in the first turn. This was only my second game overall against the DE, and they were as bad as I remember. SO MUCH SHOOTING! It seemed like every other pointy eared freak had a dark lance or whatever their version of the plasma cannon was. Zephyr was an outstanding opponent, however, and he made sure I knew exactly what his army could do before he did it. He doesn’t know it yet, but Zephyr is going to be writing some Dark Eldar Codex review articles when the new book comes out. :)

Game 1 for me vs. Dark Eldar. I was told that Zephyr took a "fluffy" list. He would have won this game but a plasma cannon (whatever those things are called) scattered over his lord and insta-killed him. That lord was about to own Vulkan and a combat squad. That point swing (killed lord + my saved HQ) was enough for a draw. I didn't earn that draw, but I'm sure as heck glad I got it.

My game two against Chaos. I used those buildings to hide my speeders and dreads and effectively pulled his teeth (killed defiler + predators, popped troops out of transports) by the top of turn three. He was an awesome player who came to Carbondale, IL from Indiana. Quite the drive, we hope to see him again.

Game three against the Despoiler's Chaos Marines. Long story short, I went first and some productive shooting from my early turns. Highlight of this game is Marvin's Chaos Dreadnought surviving four turns of assault from not one, not two, but all three of my Dreadnoughts. Picuture above is of Vulkan about to give those Chaos Terminators a warm welcome.

Space Marine Drop Pod tutorial, Part 1 (HEY! No Dark Eldar!)

2010-09-25T22:14:00.009-05:00

First, let me acknowledge that others in our hobby have blazed this trail prior to me. The only reason I'm posting this is to share some detailed observations regarding the infamous (and oft hated) Space Marine Drop Pod assembly, or perhaps to help someone who reads this blog that may have encountered problems. At least I hope it will help you avoid the above scenario.

Anyone who has purchased one of these long-overdue and dreamed of kits will already know that the GW instructions included within the box are, in a word, crap. And that's me censoring myself big time. The pictures are vague and barely instructive (a feature I've often found to be key in instructions, but maybe I'm just picky).

Now, don't get me wrong. The model itself is an opus of engineering and design. The kit is so well made that, if properly prepped and assembled, will fit so snugly together that glue becomes an option in some places rather than a necessity.

So if you're staring at a Pod on the sprue and haven't done the following, STOP and do this before you go any further:

Go here and study this blog. Pay close attention to (and even save and zoom) the picture.
Clip your kit from the sprue and SHAVE MOLD LINES.
Shave some more.
Once you think you have the mold lines gone, SHAVE SOME MORE!
Dry fit everything. If it resists, well, see steps 2-4.

I hope you see how vitally important the complete and thorough elimination of mold lines is in this process. As a hobbyist with a glue-frosted and disassembled-via-velocity kit sitting in the box (which has been covered in various litanies of hate and profanity), I really can not stress this enough.

Once you get the imperfections shaved completely (focusing extra hard on the contact surfaces between hull and base, as well as the underside of doors where they contact the model when closed), you may opt to begin gluing the pieces into the Pod's 3 main parts: Hull, Base w/ doors, and console.

A. The console-

The console is the central pylon which forms the core of the Pod. To assemble this hold the segments upside down (so you're looking "up" into the pylon) and, once dry-fitted, carefully glue each segment to the one before it using a little glue on the contact surfaces. If you look carefully you will notice that each segment has a tiny notch at the bottom and a tab at the top (with an indentation on the backside that receives the tab on the next piece). Once you dry-fit the first two segments together while looking at the underside you will see how the fit snugly together. Be sure to hold each joined segment carefully until the glue sets, then let it sit a bit longer until it is good and solid. If you start attaching the segments too fast the whole thing will pop apart in your hands and rage will ensue. Patience is key in this process.

Eventually you will get down to the final segment. This part is TRICKY! CAREFULLY and gently twist the final piece in so the tab slips together at the top and the bottom fits snugly into the notch at the bottom. This can get frustrating but with a little practice it will work. Be sure to try it a few times without glue before you do it for keeps. I found it best to put the glue on the receiving segment rather than the one I was handling, but you know your fingers better than I.

After the pylon is together and the glue has set you can slip the dome over the top to hold everything in place. If the dome fits snugly you have the pylon together perfectly. If it fights to go on you likely have a segment or two out of whack and will need to fix the problem. If the dome is snug, go ahead and glue it.

The next step is to begin dry-fitting the harnesses into the posts. There is one key element here to consider:

There is one harness with a skull on the cross-piece. This piece will only fit into the upright that has a circular hole instead of a square. There is only ONE circular hole on the uprights so once you find it you're home free.

Glue the harnesses into the uprights (after dry-fitting of course) and make sure the "bulb" where they meet (around the little nipple on the back of the uprights) is cylindrical (i.e. make sure the seams are as smooth as possible and line up well). You'll want to hold both harnesses for a bit until the glue sets so there's no slippage.

Once the harnesses are in place you'll want to check each bulb seam and scrape or file them until they're even. This is the part that will insert into the round holes that surround the console just under the dome top. If they will stick in until the hoses are nearly touching the pylon you have a good fit.

Painters Note: It's a good idea to paint the console before you assemble it completely. I laid down a dry-brush of Boltgun Metal over black, then hit it with a few highlights of Chainmail and then painted some of the fittings gold or brass. This is purely optional of course.

Go ahead and grab the floor piece and notice the raised bump in the middle, as well as the long, narrow slots around the outside. You will also notice that each upright has a thin, flattened rod of plastic sticking out and pointing in the same direction as the bulb above. On the central pylon you'll see a small arch in the center of each segment. Be SURE to slip the rod under the arch when affixing the uprights to the pylon, and make sure you have them glued properly. What I did was after inserting the upright into the pylon I would slip the tab at the base of the upright into a slot while the central pylon sat over the central bump. This ensured that all the pieces were in the right place and would remain so while the glue solidified. Again, this is NOT a race, and if you go for speed you WILL lose.

Work through the uprights, leaving the "skull" harness to go in next to the control panel on the pylon (see picture). Do NOT glue this upright.

At this point you can go ahead and finish painting the console as detailed as you wish. Once it's done and all but the skull upright are glued into place you'll be ready for part 2 (coming soon).

Army List Decisions

2010-09-16T19:56:00.003-05:00

I would love to sit here and pontificate about how awesome my 40k army lists are, but they're not all that revolutionary. I have no "street cred". I've won a local tournament, but that doesn't give me any authority. I have all sorts of opinions, but you know what they say about those...

What I do know is that unless you are an internet God who can use terms like "pro tip" and "beat face" without skipping a beat (or realizing it makes you sound like a douche), picking an army list can be tough. First, unless you are playing a casual game in your buddy's basement, there may be additional rules levied by the tournament organizer. I, for example, will be playing in a tournament this coming weekend where I have to have at least 40% of my 1850 points in troops. I disagree with this restriction on principal, but it's not my tournament, and I realize that's just the way things are sometimes. You also might be restricted on what models you have. Lord knows this isn't the cheapest hobby on the planet and sometimes real life takes priority over our dolls.

In any event, I have two potential army lists in mind for this Saturday the 25th of September. One list is a slight variation of the 1750 list I used in a recent tournament while the other is a more elite, harder hitting list with a little less flexibility than the first. I thought I would throw these out there and see if the handful of folks who read my drivel have any constructive opinions on the matter. :)

First up, my "Fire & Rain" list. It gives me more guns and mobility and has worked out for me in the three games that I played the 1750 version:

190 Forgefather Vulkan He'Stan
230 Tactical Squad with Multi-Melta, Flamer, Powerfist & Rhino
230 Tactical Squad with Multi-Melta, Flamer, Powerfist & Rhino
280 Tac Squad with Lascannon, Flamer, Powerfist, & Assault Cannon Razorback
115 Dreadnought with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
115 Dreadnought with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
115 Dreadnought with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
140 (2) Land Speeders with Multi-Meltas & Heavy Flamers
70 Land Speeder with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
70 Land Speeder with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
85 Dakka Predator
85 Dakka Predator
125 Vindicator with Siege Shield
1850

The next list makes use of some models that I want to put on the table because they look awesome. My newly acquired Blog Chain Giveaway Ironclad Dreadnought among them. Here is the list I call my "Pyrotechnic All-stars":

190 Forgefather Vulkan He'Stan
230 Tac Squad with Multi-Melta, Flamer, Powerfist & Rhino
230 Tac Squad with Multi-Melta, Flamer, Powerfist & Rhino
280 Tac Squad with Lascannon, Flamer, Powerfist, & Assault Cannon Razorback
200 (5) Assault Terminators w/ Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields
195 Ironclad Dreadnought with Heavy Flamer & Drop Pod
70 Land Speeder with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
70 Land Speeder with Multi-Melta & Heavy Flamer
260 Land Raider Crusader with Multi-Melta
125 Vindicator with Siege Shield
1850

Threat Comparison: The first list gives me 13 "vectors" or operational units to work with as well as 18 kill points. The second only has 9 "vectors", but only 14 kill points. I'm not too worried about kill points as I've done so-so in the past when I've outnumbered my opponent in kill points at the beginning of games.

I suppose minor tweaks could be made (lascannon vs. assault cannon razorback) but I'm pretty happy with both lists. I suppose my problem is that I want to play both, but I don't really have time to get in too many practice games. The Fire and Rain list is closest in theme to what Team Snake Eyes will be bringing to Adepticon, so I suppose I should practice with that one. On the other hand, the All-star list just looks "fun". That's why we're doing this right? Gah! I just wish I didn't have to work so I could play more. Damn adulthood and your silly responsibilities. :)

Anywho, let me know what you think.

The Nature of the Beast

2010-09-01T18:51:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday Castle Perilous in Carbondale, Il hosted an RTT. It was 1750pts and you were to have a minimum of 40% of those total points (700) as troops, and no more than 25% of them in any other force organization type. Now I'm not a fan of further restrictions on the rules unless special circumstances apply. The tournament organizer believing that "math-hammer" is the root of all evil and needs to be regulated from the local tournament scene does not qualify in my book. I love this game, however, and I love getting together with my lads and rolling some dice and talking some smack. My reservations about the set up were overcome and Aerion (Black Templars), Partho (Orks), Da Goffer (Orks), and me (Salamanders) showed up to represent Team Snake Eyes come hell or high water.

There were 11 players at the event with the following army list breakdown: (4) Orks, (4) Space Marines, (1) Black Templars, (1) Dark Eldar, & (1) Tau. Aerion's Templar list can be found here. The orks were mainly mechanized or hybrid foot/mech lists as were the Tau...I think. The Tau were all based white, so it was hard for me to tell what they truly were since I never played that guy. The marines were: Drop Vulkan, Bikes, "mish-mash" (not really sure what that kid had in mind), and my Salamander list which was: Vulkan, Tac Squad w/ MM, F, CM, PF & Rhino x2, Tac Squad w/LC, F, PF & Assault Cannon Razorback, Dread w/MM & HF x3, Land Speeder w/HF & MM x2, Dakka Predator x2, & Vindicator.

I ended up as overall winner going 2-0-1. Partho & Aerion went 2-1-0 and Da Goffer went 0-1-1 with a bye. I played Partho's Speed Freak Orks in the 1st round (win), a local guy's Hybrid Orks in the 2nd (win), and the Drop Pod Vulkan list in the 3rd (draw). Sportsmanship and painting were also scored and I'm certain that they helped push me into first place, but I don't believe anyone went 3-0 on the day.

Here's the deployment of my first game. It was one of the goofy diagonal ones and Partho's Speed Freaks went first.

It didn't take long for his boyz to get up close and personal but I stayed buttoned up in my tanks. When he hit my lines he did an number on them, but then the Salamanders came out to play...

Point blank flamers & bolt pistols followed up by Vulkan He'Stan's assault and the powerfist armed squads turned the tide. He put a powerful hurt on me, but at the end of turn six, I had tabled him.

Here is my deployment from the second game. I didn't take any pictures since there were 3 battlewagons full of boyz, 2 full mobs on the table, and 2 full mobs in reserve. Not only that, but it was an old school mission with the "traitor" rules...you know the ones where you have to swap an elite model for one of your opponents. Take a look at my list above, and you'll see it has three dreadnoughts in my elite slots. I traded a 115 point dreadnought for a 15 point burna boy. I was not happy. That essentially meant that I was operating a 1650 list vs. an 1850 list. I killed everything but the dregs of his last two mobs in that game, but it was a never ending shootout. I moved up a bit to get good shots and then backed up to my edge with my finger on the trigger the whole time. I assaulted when absolutely necessary (to kill off his two warbosses) but only then.

My last game was boring. No really, it was boring. Don't get me wrong, my opponent was awesome, but he got intimidated by my Vindicator. He made me go first and I knew he had five drop pods in his army. I castled up in a corner and waited for him. He saw my wall of steel and fire and said "Hell no". He dropped his entire army on the opposite corner. He had Telion shoot missles at me for six turns while I shot him up (barely) with autocannons. We went through 6 turns in about 45 minutes and killed a couple hundred points of each other's stuff. No surprise, game ended in a draw.

Aside from some minor issues with the organization of the event, we had a lot of fun. We met some really cool guys who came up from Kentucky and had some good games overall. The next tournament in C'dale is September 25th. Still thinking about that one...

A tip of the hat for my favorite tank movie (see above photo) as well as to honor the passing of Clyde. He kept us all safe from the Chaos Squirrels in Aerion's back yard for many years, and we'll miss him dearly. RIP buddy.

Battle Report: Salamanders vs. Lusty Loganwing

2010-08-12T21:53:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday I played a guy's Space Wolf army at the store. It was a great game that ended in a draw, but I didn't have my camera so didn't post a battle report. While there, however, I made arrangements with Chambers, of The Back 40k fame, to play a 1500 point game this Thursday. You see, he had an army he bought off a guy, you may have heard of him...Ron Saikowski of +From the Warp+. It wasn't just any army though, that wouldn't make a good enough story. This was Ron's old Lustwing army. If you haven't seen it, follow the link and check it out. Go ahead, I'll wait. You see? Absofrigginlutely gorgeous. I HAD to play this army. End. Of. Story. He used the Space Wolf codex for these guys as there is no option to run all chaos terminators

Our table had 25% terrain and wasn't anything too special. My list was changed up a little bit from my usual 1500 list since I'm trying a few things out to see how they play. I had a librarian (null zone & fury of the ancients); (2) Tac Squads w/power weapons, multi-meltas, flamers, & rhinos; (2) MM/HF dreadnoughts; (2) MM/HF Landspeeders; (5) TH/SS Terminators w/ Land Raider Crusader w/MM; and a Vindicator. I'd love to tell you what his list was, but I know squat about the Space Wolf codex...as in I just bought the dang thing tonight. We played an annihilation mission and he had 5 kill points to my 12 if that tells you anything. He had (2) six man squads with missile launchers, a ten man squad with wolf lord, a rune priest, and a lone wolf (I think). As I said, we played annihilation with dawn of war deployment. He deployed his two six man squads, and I left everything to come in on my board edge first turn. He went first, and here's what the board looked like.

Nothing too fancy here. Like an idiot I split my forces again. I might learn, but one would think I would have picked up on it before now...Speeders pushed forward 24" on my left, tac squads sat right where you see them (doing nothing) till turn four, while the dreads, vindicator and landraider made mischief in the middle.

Turn 2 I moved up my terminators to intercept his lone wolf, which was his plan. I flippin hate those guys. You don't get anything from killing them, and if you ignore them for the kill point they run all over your army. Nice.

The next few turns saw my terminators and their librarian owned by his 10 man squad with a wolf lord in it. Absolutely sick. Seriously, there ought to be a law. What you see in the above picture is evidence of my public shame. (1) Vindicator, a point blank land raider crusader, (1) tactical squad, and a rhino shot at that squad. Plenty of hits, plenty of forced saves...I killed three of them. That's pretty much how my night went in a nutshell.

At the end of the day, while I had killed quite a few of his terminators, I only gained 2 kill points. Chambers had 9. It was an uphill fight from the beginning, my deployment wasn't ideal, and Chambers played a smart game. He was a fantastic opponent that I won't hesitate to play again and I got to play against an army that I drooled over on the internet. Ironically, my librarian HQ was converted by Ron, and killed like a little #$%^ before he could perform. So while I learned it's probably worth while for me to equip my Tac Sgts. with power weapons, I still have doubts about power armored librarians...and no terminator librarians to try out. It was a tough night for the Salamanders as a whole but my biggest failing was not having a decent camera to take better pictures. You just cannot imagine how beautiful this Lustwing army was.

Take home messages? Play Space Wolves, they're better than you are. Seriously though, that is one tough codex, and Loganwing is no joke either (for my typical army build anyway). I made a few mistakes, but none were truly epic. A few different choices and I might have earned a few more kill points, but I would have needed to table this army to earn a win and that would have required Chambers to fail just a few of those 5+ invulnerable saves he was making. ;-)

Leveling Up.

2010-08-09T16:06:00.008-05:00

As this blurry phone pic might show, I gots bling. But this time its national bling.

I entered Totem Hunter in the Privateer Press P3 Grandmaster paint competition and was awarded a silver token for my efforts. As the name implies it's the award level between Gold and Bronze. The competition this year was changed to a "European" format in which each piece is rated on it's own merit. So in a category containing 30 entries there may be 4 golds, 7 silvers, 15 bronzes, and 4 non-medal winners. The overall best is chosen from the gold medalists and the Best of Show is chosen from that lot of all the categories.

So what this shiney bit of metal means for me is that I'm on the right track. I'm neither the best nor the worst, but among the (judging from the other entrants) very talented painters competing in the competition with the potential to reach that next level. I walk away with some pride knowing that my efforts have not been in vain and that I have something to look forward to in the future.

Speaking of phenomenally talented painters, I'd like to take a few moments to give a huge shout-out and thanks to my amazing teachers this year.

I've already introduced you to Marike Reimer and Zach Lanier (who is now up to 16 Golden Demons). What I haven't shared with you is that I was competing against BOTH of them in the Grandmasters lol. Zach was next to me when we were picking up our entries on Sunday and apparently he did better than I but still didn't bring home Best of Show. I don't yet know who did but I'm eager to find out when the results are posted in No Quarter Magazine in a couple months.

My other teachers were no less amazing. On Saturday I had the honor of meeting Mathieu Fontaine who did some amazing things with an air brush, making my desire to own one that much harder to silence. And finally I met the legendary Joe Orteza, the man who sculpted the Adepticon skull as well as some other projects you'd drool over. Joe doesn't have a dedicated page other than Facebook but if you google him you'll see some truly jaw-dropping stuff. His contribution to the Primarch Project from Chicago GD 2007 alone is worth a few hours study. In 2 hours he taught me to do some things with green stuff I never thought I'd manage (like a length of chain. Turns out it's really pretty easy!)

In summary, the highpoint of this year's GenCon was of course spending some much-needed away time with the wife. Also high on the list is being told by Ron Kruzie, Studio Director for Privateer Press, that he had never really liked the Totem Hunter model until he saw mine. I'll carry that warm and fuzzy feeling for a while, and I'll try not to be a jerk about it.

Mental Expansion: An ode to odd tourney rules.

2010-07-31T22:56:00.004-05:00

On August 28 the Team will (mostly) be participating in a Rogue Trader in Carbondale, IL. Normally this would not be blog-worthy, but the tournament rules set us back on our collective heels and I thought I'd share my ponderings on the situation at hand.

The abnormal rules are as follows (edited and cleaned up for spelling and grammar):

'Old school' force comp is what the RT turnies used ten years ago. It stated that you had a minimum of 40% troops so at 1750 points you need to spend at least 700 points on selections from the troops section. That includes any transports and upgrades. You cannot spend any more than 25% on HQ, Elite, Fast Attack, OR Heavy support, so you can spend up to 437 in any one of those catigories.

Now, at first reading I was like "Huh?" Then I re-read and re-re-read and finally it clicked. At this point a couple team members opted out due to not having enough models or just plain not wanting to deal with it. And that's fine. I refuse to play Champions for the same reason.

I was about to join them until it hit me that a) I'd be passing up a chance to hang with my bros, b) I'd miss out on much needed play experience before Adepticon MkII, and c) I might just learn something. So I reluctantly stepped outside my little box and started banging away at an army list.

Submitted for your edification, it is thus:

HQ: Marshall with Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield, Crusader Seals

Elite: Sword Brethren Assault Termies- 3 Lightning claws, 2 TH/SH Furious Charge

Heavy: Land Raider Crusader- Extra Armor

Elite: Emperor's Champion w/ Accept Any Challenge

Troops: Crusader Squad- Bolt Pistol/CCW x8, Flamer, Pistol and Power Fist

Neophytes- Bolt Pistol/CCW x9

Troops: Crusader Squad- Bolt Pistol/CCW x8, Meltagun, Pistol and Power Fist

Troops: Crusader Squad- Bolter x3, Plasmagun, Plasma Cannon

Troops: Crusader Squad- Bolter x7, Meltagun, Pistol and Power Fist, Frag Grenades

Transport- Drop Pod

Fast Attack: Land Speeder- Assault Cannon and Heavy Bolter

Heavy Support- Vindicator- Dozer Blade, Extra Armor

Total: 1750

Elites: 12.3%

Fast: 4.6%

Heavy: 22.9%

HQ: 8.3%

Troops: 44 %

It works and it might actually work on the table. Guess we'll know in a few weeks.

Intimidated by a Slip of a Girl.

2010-07-29T01:57:00.007-05:00

This is Marike Reimer. You can find her website here, and I urge you to check her out (her work, guys!)

She will be one of my teachers at this years GenCon Indy. For the second year in a row I am forgoing playing anything (I know, it's a game con) in favor of shelling out moderate amounts of cash in an effort to improve my painting skills. With the help of Marike and Zach Lanier (who I took a course with last year and who had at that time earned 14 Golden Demons, with 11 being Gold or Silver. I actually got to hold his Commissar Yarrick. I'll wait for the childish titters to cease before I continue.), and others of their ilk I hope to raise myself up from local acclaim to maybe regionally acknowledged. Eventually I'd even like to teach these classes myself. I'd also like to be served bloody Prime Rib by my Victoria's Secret harem girls. I believe in dreaming big.

But here's my big dilemma. Marike won some pretty big trophies in the P3 Masterclass competition in 2008, and in her interview in No Quarter Magazine (yes, she has been INTERVIEWED by a gaming mag that I read.), she proclaimed that she'd been painting for (wait for it).... SIX YEARS.

Tomorrow I turn 42. I started painting in junior high. That means I have been painting minis longer than she has been alive (or pretty darned close). Yet while I'm good, I'm not even within shouting-with-a-bullhorn distance of her skills. So yeah, I'm a little intimidated. Okay, I'm a lot intimidated.

But I'm not scared. If anything this churning in my guts is making me want to chain myself to that table until she takes one of MY classes (while my lovely lingerie models rub my shoulders and bring me dewy tall glasses of lemonade freshly squeezed from between their all-natural bosoms of ampleness +5. Again, I dream big. Sue me.)

So next Wednesday I'll load up a couple of works-in-progress and hit the highway to Indy. It could be the most important and meaningful trip of my life. Or it could be another 4 days of the best non-gaming in the mid-west. Whatever happens, I'm gonna stare that pretty little gal in the eye and freehand my ass off.

Excelsior!

Adepticon 2011 - The Evolution of an Army List

2010-07-27T08:57:00.009-05:00

As can be read here, Team Snake Eyes had a great time at Adepticon 2010, but didn't score so well in the area of battle points. While we placed abysmally low (90 out of 110) we considered the event a success. This wasn't some brand of "half-full" optimism that we used to uplift our crushed spirits, but we genuinely learned a lot, met some great guys, and saw some wonderful armies. I also got an ok bloody mary and some fantastic prime rib...

Here are the lists we took last time:

2010 List #1
Vulkan
2x Tac Sqd w/ MM, Flamer & Rhino
(5) man Tac Sqd w/ TL Lascannon Razorback
Dreadnought w/ MM & HF
Vindicator with Dozer Blade

2010 List #2
MoTF w/ Conversion Beamer
2x Tac Sqd with Combi-Melta, MM, Flamer, & Rhino w/ HK Missile
(5) Sniper Scouts
Dreadnought w/ MM & HF
2x Landspeeder w/ MM & HF

2010 List #3
Chaplain in Terminator Armor
2x Tac Sqd w/ MM, Flamer & Rhino
(5) Assault Terminators w/TH & SS
Land Raider Crusader w/ MM

2010 List #4
Librarian w/ Null Zone & Gate of Infinity
2x Tac Sqd with Lascannon, Flamer, Combi-Melta, & Rhino
(5) man Tac Sqd w/ Melta Bomb & TL Lascannon Razorback
Dreadnought w/ MM & HF
Thunderfire Cannon
Predator Destructor

Nothing too fancy there. We took advantage of Vulkan where we could and got the added benefit of sticking with the Salamander's fondness of flame and melta based weaponry at the same time. Our biggest drawbacks were with our playing and not our lists, and we did suffer from a lack of focus. We noticed we didn't have quite enough long range anti-tank as we would have liked, but that was primarily because we played like little sissies and didn't get up in our opponent's faces (you'd think that tactic would have been obvious with over 80% of our army equipped with short/mid range weapons). I decided since I didn't want to completely reinvent the wheel and Mrs. Chosen 1 wasn't about to let me drop the money I did last year either, we would keep the same theme but change things around a little bit...

2011 Draft #1, List #1
Vulkan
(5) man Tac Sqd w/combi-melta, PF, & TL Lascannon Razorback
Tac Sqd w/PF, MM, Flamer, & rhino
x2 Landspeeders w/MM & HF
Vindicator w/Siege Shield

2011 Draft #1, List #2
(same as list #3 above)

2011 Draft #1, List #3
Captain w/artificer armor, SS, & Relic Blade
2x Tac Sqd w/PF, MM, Flamer, & Rhino w/HK
Ironclad Dreadnought w/ HF, Seismic Hammer, & Assault Launchers
(9) man Assault Squad w/Flamer, PF, & Rhino

2011 Draft #1, List #4
Librarian
2x Tac Sqd w/PF, Lascannon, Flamer, & Rhino
(9) man Assault Squad w/PF, Flamer, & Rhino
Dreadnought w/MM & HF
Vindicator w/siege shield

I wasn't totally happy with those changes, and the points totals weren't perfect, but after discussing things with Aerion and letting things sink in for a bit, we decided to make some further changes:

2011 Draft #2, List #1
Vulkan He'Stan
Dreadnought w/MM & HF
Tac Sqd w/Flamer, MM, Combi-Melta, PF, & Rhino
2x Landspeeders w/HF & MM
(8) Man Assault Squad w/Flamer, PF, & Rhino

2011 Draft #2, List #2
Captain w/ Relic Blade, SS, & Artificer Armor
Command Squad w/Champion, (2) Flamers, Standard, TH, & Rhino
2x Tac Sqd w/Flamer, MM, PF, & Rhino
Ironclad Dreadnought w/HF, Seismic Hammer, & Assault Launchers

2011 Draft #2, List #3
(Same as 2010 list #3)

2011 Draft #2, List #4
Librarian
Dreadnought w/MM & HF
(6) man Sternguard or Vanguard squad (still working out our preference)
2x Tac Sqd w/Flamer, MM, PF, & Rhino
Vindicator w/Siege Shield

These changes increase our close combat ability that was lacking last time, provide a squad for our characters to fight with (and fight this time they will...they weren't used very effectively last time around), remove most of our ability to fight past 24" (what little we had never made a difference) and focus our purpose...Into the Fires of Battle, Unto the Anvil of War. It also represents a smaller investment in new models than some of our other options. We will, however, be undertaking some work on what we have as well. Stay tuned for our painting "upgrades" to what may be familiar models.

Any Thoughts?

A "brief" Review of Super Hero RPGs

2010-07-26T20:05:00.006-05:00

It's Alive! Oh what a terrible creation I have wrought. I started this blog because...well, to be honest, I have no earthly idea why I did it, but not only have I brought the world of amateur blogging to my living room, I have conscripted Aerion (looking for a couple painting tutorials bro...) and now Genoside into the fold. Inspired by a not-so-obscure comic convention, he brings us some of his thoughts on various roleplaying games in the super hero genre:

I'm back, this time to talk a little off subject about roleplaying games. Most members of Team Snake Eyes sneak in a few games of Pathfinder when they can. It's basically what was left of the previous edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It's a great fantasy game but with the west coast Comic Con last weekend still buzzing in my head, I am here to talk about another genre of RPGs...super hero games. I am hoping in the near future to run a super hero type game for my fellow members, but having so many systems out there it can cause a lot of trouble picking one out.

First off super hero games can be a very daunting challenge for the Game Master, due to the scale of the heroes. You have to watch very carefully about allowing players the ability to drop buildings on giant robots or perhaps turning a bank robber's brain into goo with a single though. If you don't give them any power, however, the game is no fun for them. Most players do want to throw cars around and drop buildings on their enemies so a balance has to be found.

The most helpful choice is getting a game system that works for you. There is a ton of them out there for you to use, but finding one that doesn't have you digging in the books every five minutes is key. Second, you need to have an idea what universe you want to play in. Most systems are made for the major comic producers; this can be beneficial and hurtful to you at the same time. Villains are already made for you so it reduces the prep work. It also allows your players to interact in a world they read about in their comics. The downside of this si that players sometimes know more about the universe than they should. Example: Dr. Mega Villain can only be hurt by prune juice and it so happens that one of the hero's powers is the make juice of any type.

With that said, we come to our first system: Hero/Champions by Hero Games. This is the grand daddy of all super hero games. It's now going into its sixth edition and the system is very detailed and gives you about any option known in any game. But that is where its biggest trouble is. This game scares most new players due to the sheer volume of rules. Making a hero can take hours and with the million options available, most people will want to see each one so they don't miss anything. This game also has no major comic support, so there is no Spider Man or others in this game unless you make it yourself or find a home brew version online somewhere. There are a lot of non comic pre-made heroes in their source books but if you are on a limited budget it means you are the one having to build about everything the heroes encounter.. It i a good game for people that are used to the system, but newbies should be warned.

Next up is classic Marvel Heroes. This is one of the first hero games that I played. It has little standees, maps, and books of pre-made heroes and villains. The rules are made for rock-em, sock-em style games. It has very nice, basic rules that are very easy to learn, but now that the game is over twenty five years old, you can really feel the age in the system. It almost feels like an advanced game of Hero-Clix. If you want to give it a read, most of the books can be found online in PDF format.

Talking of Hero-Clix, this is really not a RPG, but I love to use the figures and maps for my hero type games. You can find online stores that sell singles very cheap, plus they produce Marvel and DC figures. With the cheap figs you can convert and make any hero or villain you want allowing you to run a game in whatever universe you want.

Back to classic games, next up is the MEG system. It can be found in the previous version of DC heroes by Mayfair games and the Blood of Heroes. It is a good, solid game with simple basic rules, but since it is out of print it can be difficult to find. That makes it harder for your players to pick up their own personal copy of the game supplements and almost impossible without dropping a bunch of money on eBay.

Then we have Heroes Unlimited. Players familiar with any of the Palladium systems will pick this up with ease. The biggest problem I see with this system is play can tend to be clunk due to its age. Also you can have players that may want to pull their RIFTS heroes over and destroy half the world. The Mega Arms Race is off and running.

Last we have Mutants and Masterminds. Now going into its 3rd edition, it is based off the OGL (open game license) rules. It uses a basic system as 3rd edition D&D and Pathfinder. I have not had a chance to see the new unreleased rules set, but this is the system I am leaning towards. Green Ronin now has the rights to DC heroes and is also planning to release a generic rule book to go with it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an Ultimate Powers book real soon. My only real complaint of the previous editions was the damage system. It seemed a little odd and hard to explain to new players.

So there are my thoughts. Please feel free to give any suggestions of game I may want to look at.

Editor's note: Genoside sent the picture with the article submission. I couldn't resist taking a jab with the title.

Battle Report: Salamanders vs. Necrons @ 1850

2010-07-22T21:26:00.006-05:00

Had another Thursday night game at Fantasy Games tonight. I played Matt, a Necron player. We rolled for a Capture and Conrol mission with Spearhead deployment. Matt, who was a fantastic player and an even better sport considering some of the horrific rolling he had this evening, won the roll to go first and picked his table quarter and I failed to win the initiative. Our objective placement wasn't all that exciting with each of us placing it in the corner about 12" in. I used my standard 1850 list discussed here, keeping both of my tactical squads in reserve.

Matt's list consisted of (2) 20 Necron Warrior squads, a Monolith, some Heavy Destroyers, Flayed Ones, Scarab Swarms, and a lord on foot with the requisite Res. Orb.

Matt's first turn wasn't very productive. He moved everthing forward as fast as it would go and he managed to stun a dreadnought. I moved my Land Raider forward and unloaded my terminators - who were able to make their 6" difficult terrain roll and assault through cover, destroying the scarabs. That was the story of the night. I made more rolls than I had a right to, and poor Matt managed to capture the low end of the bell curve all night long. Between my Assault Terminators (backed up with Vulkan & a Chaplain), my Vindicator, and the Predator twins, the necrons were phased at the bottom of turn five. I had my objective & contested his for the win.

I had another terrific opponent, played a brilliantly painted army on a table filled with superb terrain. A great game at, what is turning out to be, a great store for me. Special thanks go out to Chambers who has served as resident rules guru for both of my matches.

New man-hole & future projects

2010-07-19T18:28:00.007-05:00

Here's my new workspace. I've got a bit more area than my previous place, but the lighting's not the best. I've bought a few new lamps tough, so we'll see how it works out.

The move gave me the opportunity to dig out my Imperial Guard army as well. This army was built (back when I didn't care about mold lines apparently) with the old codex, and they were primarily drop troopers. As such, they're now pretty worthless. I just don't have the money or time to give them the vehicle options the new codex offers. I can't get rid of them just yet though. They were a labor of love even if my modeling and painting techniques leave a bit to be desired. You see the cool commander and vehicle models? Aerion painted those. By now you should see a trend. I can do bulk work on troops, and while Aerion says I am improving, the more complex techniques are still beyond my reach in my mind. I hope you enjoy the Something something something something guard (I never gave them a Regimental home). I hope to devote some more work on them in the future. ;)

Speaking of practicing some more advanced painting techniques...Team Snake Eyes is gearing up for Adepticon 2011 in April. We need to work up our lists and develop a strategy for fine tuning the paint jobs we skimped on during last year's work up. Work continues...

Genoside throws down some Warhammer Fantasy

2010-07-18T20:17:00.009-05:00

Genoside is a quiet, but key member of the team. One of his many qualities is that he is the only member that plays Warhammer Fantasy. Go figure right? Most of us get our fantasy fix from D&D (Pathfinder now actually) and our Sci Fi fix from 40k. Despite Genoside's best efforts, neither our wives or our limited paychecks will allow us to get into that game full time. In the spirit of full disclosure, however, I must say the Genoside has offered us all the use of one of his many armies. Anyway, here's Genoside:

Hello - Genoside here and I am kind of the ghost player of the group...always buried with work and if I get free time it is usually spend with the wife. After receiving the new 8th edition of Warhammer, however, I forced myself to get a game of it the other night. This is a great start for the new edition since I only played a handful of games of the previous edition. My opponent was a new guy to our group that happens to be a local dentist.

Battle set up was standard mission with no special terrain rules. In the new rules there is all types of terrain rules that effect the game such as rivers becoming blood rivers and that alone can completely change the game. We were going to have enough trouble stumbling through the rules, we didn't need anymore stuff to remember.

For the 2000 point battle I was taking my standard Empire army. Luckily for me having played since 3rd edition I have learned not to build an army around the cheese of the month items because they tend to go away quickly. I went with my stock build that I have used since 5th edition.

My opponent for this game took Dark Elves. This really troubled me because in the new rules close combat order is determined by initiative rating and the Dark Elves have a rather high one. As planned, the game started slowly having not to confuse rules from previous editions and ended early due to the fact that we are old men now and can't stay up late anymore. Anyway, I'm not going to bore anyone with the battle report since most members of Team Snake Eyes refuse to play Warhammer; I will only list the Pros and Cons of my first game.

EDIT: Check out the comments for Genoside's stock Empire list

Cons
Magic was a big shocker. It was quite deadly now...you either do very well with it or nothing at all. No real in between. So mages now are a big gamble in my eyes. Random Charge: My heavy knights were only like 12" away from his heavy knight unit and with the new rules of charging, you roll a number of D6's and add your movement. Mine was 3d6 (pick the two highest) plus my movement of seven. In true Team Snake Eyes fashion I rolled two ones and a two for a total of three which left me two inches short of finishing the charge. Next turn he was nice enough to roll right in and charge me with his higher initiative.

Pros
The rules seem a lot cleaner. Bolt weapons still need line of sight but stone thrower type weapons (artillery) can now shoot indirectly, following rules close to the current ones in 40k. I couldn't hit anything to save my life, but I really liked this rule. Support Attacks. Now, not only does your front rank attack the second rank gets to attack also. Plus, with the new horde rule (units that are 10 wide) a third rank can attack. This makes combat a lot nastier and seems to speed up the game a lot. One thing I know I need to get more games in, so I am not so rusty and make simple novice mistakes.

The drought is over!

2010-07-15T22:08:00.006-05:00

Well, the wife and I have moved into our new apartment in Fairview Heights. It's had it's ups and downs as I'm sure anyone who's ever moved can attest. I loath moving and all that it entails. It was easy when I was in the Corps...if it didn't fit into my sea bag, I didn't own it. Now, however, I've a large baggage train (wife), a nine year old daughter, and a 40k hobby. None of those things keep me connected to my former life as a gypsy bachelor, but I think I'm better off in the long run. ;)

Speaking of 40k, I lost my Internet during the move and that has (obviously) been restored. Access to my 40k and Pathfinder content via the web has been restored, and it has done wonders for my grouchiness. I also managed to get in a game of 40k tonight at my new FLGS: Fantasy Games in O'Fallon, Il. This will be the worst battle report from me to date as I forgot my camera, but I'll do my best.

First off, I played a great guy, Tom, who fielded a fun yet effective Chaos Space Marine list. From memory his list was: vanilla lord with a chosen squad with a mix of plasma, melta, and flamers as their special weapons all riding in a land raider. There was a 10 man squad of marines on foot with a lascannon, a mounted plague marine squad, a mounted squad of thousand sons, a 5 man lesser daemon squad, a triple lascannon predator, and a plasma cannon dreadnought. There were meltas, fists, and plasma pistols sprinkled here and there throughout his list. My current 1850 list can be found here. It's been a while since I've played a chaos list without Abaddon or a Daemon Prince (and I've never played against Thousand Sons) so that was something new.

We played annihilation and dawn of war. I won the roll for side and neither of us deployed anything having all of our forces roll on at the start of turn one. We completely forgot about nightfighting which might have dramatically changed how the game was played, but I can't remember a single dawn of war game where I have remembered that rule, so I have only myself to blame (again).

Our deployments weren't at all fancy: we set up in a line in the middle of our deployment zones. I moved forward as far as I could while he held back fairly close to his table edge. Turn one saw him blast my landraider and a dreadnought right off the bat and I was working uphill from there. Remembering nighfighting might have kept them alive that turn, but that stuff happens.

I think I can say that neither one of us were too focused on kill points until the end game, and it was a slug fest till the end of turn 6. Without pictures, I won't get into too much detail but I managed to hold off his advances early on and had a very productive 5th turn. At the end of the game we calculated that it was a 7 - 7 draw, but Tom neglected to count his unit of lesser daemons and declared me the winner 8 - 7. I was previously happy with a draw since the game was so close, so a win was awesome.

The guys from the store seemed very cool, and my game with Tom was amazingly awesome with storybook moments of H.Q. dramatically battling H.Q., and sole survivors hanging on against the odds. In a way I'm almost ok with not having my camera because I got a chance to just B.S. with the guys and enjoy the game without having to worry about getting "a good shot for my blog". I also met up with Chambers from The Back 40k fame, and it looks like Tom may be spearheading an effort for us to get together and play a bit of Apocalypse in the near future. Perhaps I might get some use out of my Imperial Guard? You all have seen a lot of my Salamanders, but nothing of my guard as of yet.

All in all, it was a fantastic night, and I look forward to getting in some more games with the locals (in which group I am now included I suppose). Just remember: No matter how close to St. Louis, Mo. I live, I will always be a Cubs, Bears, & Blackhawks fan. :)

Upcoming area 40K events

2010-07-15T18:32:00.006-05:00

40K Tourney

Where: St. Charles Fantasy Shop
When: Saturday July 31st at 11:00
Points needed: 1500 Points ***Plus a 200 point unit that take up one slot on the force org chart*** So a total of 1700 points
Cost: $10 (Fantasy Shop will provide additional prize support)

This single 200 point unit will be used in each game for bonus points and mission specific tasks.

Sign up starts at 11:00
We will be judging painting from 11:15 to 11:45
First Round will start at 12:00 ***Each ROund will last 2 hours with one break after Game 1

Prizes:

1st, 2nd, and 3rd
Favorite Oppenent (ties broken using total points earned)
Favorite Painted Army (voted on by all contestants, tie is broken by me)

http://www.gamestlouis.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=6053

Siegeworld 2010

On August 14th, 2010 Siegeworld Productions presents SIEGEWORLD 2010, a Warhammer 40K Apocalypse game on a mega scale! Come and be a part of a world record attempt as we attempt to hold the largest point value for WH40K Apocalypse Game EVER!

Field your entire collection (every race no matter how many points). Field custom models, unique conversions, home built titans and war machines, as well as custom apocalypse formations. All armies, races and sizes, are welcome. Smaller armies will be facing off against similar sized foes and will have objectives suited for the size of their force. Likewise, larger forces will square off against larger foes with multiple objectives suited for a larger occupying force.

Visit siegeworld.com; follow the forum as more details develop and visit the photo gallery for pics of past events. If you have any questions or concerns please post here or on seigeworld.com or PM me.

Be there on August 14th or miss being a part of Warhammer 40K history!

Big Kahuna

Edit: Also on July 31st there is a tournament at Fantasy Games in O'Fallon Il. It's an 1850 tournament, but I don't know any more details. They can, however, be contacted at (618)632-3026 or fantasygames1@att.net

Because Chosen1 is a whiney (bleeep!)

2010-07-09T23:48:00.005-05:00

In Hoc Signo Vinces

Today the Howard Crusade christens a new vehicle to wreak exploding wrath upon the enemies of mankind. Whether those explosions are delivered via a huge shell or by the tank itself blowing up remains to be seen, but considering the track record of the Crusade's mechanized assets I know where my money's going.

This is the list I'm taking. It's a beefed-up version of the list that performed well at DieCon and I'm hoping the addition of a Chaplain and a Vindicator will get things swinging to the side of the Sons of Dorn.

HQ: Marshal Gundaker in Terminator armor w/ TT&SS.

Elite: Sword Brethren Terminator Assault Squad- Lightning Claws x3, TT/SS x2

Transport: Land Raider Crusader w/ Extra Armor

Emperor's Champion w/ Accept Any Challenge No Matter the Odds

Troops: Crusade Squad Bolt Pistol/CCW x8, Melta Gun, Bold Pistol/Power Fist

Neophytes x10 w/ Bolt Pistol & CCW

Troops: Crusader Squad Bolter x5, Plasma Cannon

Troops: Crusader Squad Bolter x5, Plasma Gun, Heavy Bolter

Troops: Crusader Squad Bolt Pistol/CCW x8, Flamer, Bolt Pistol & Power Fist

Fast Attack: Land Speeder w/ Heavy Bolter & Assault Cannon

HQ: Reclusiarch w/ Jump Pack, Artificer Armor, and Melta Bombs.

Fast Attack: Assault Squad Bolt Pistol/CCW x3, Flamer x2, Bolt Pistol & Power Fist.

Heavy Support: Vindicator w/ Smoke Launchers, Dozer Blade, Extra Armor.

This is the first list in a very long time that has included at least one of every force org choice and I'm hoping that means it's well-rounded. As this will be the second tourney for this type of list I'll see how the performance compares to Diecon and see if this, finally, is THE list.

Chaplain Aerion signing off from the Battlebarge Shield of Pending Redemption.

Army Showcase - Ol' Seth's Biel Tan Eldar Host

2010-07-04T08:17:00.006-05:00

Something I've wanted to do for a while is show you folks what some of the other members of Team Snake Eyes bring to the table. I finally got some pictures of my good buddy Ol' Seth's Biel Tan eldar. These are so good that I just had to post them before my internet gets disconnected due to my move (headed from Carbondale, IL to Fairview Heights, IL). In the interests of full disclosure, Ol' Seth wanted me to say that he painted everything but Baharroth and the swooping hawks (painted by Mrs. Ol' Seth) and the Super Heavy Tank, wave serpents and vipers (painted by Rachel of Iron Halo painting). I'd love to tell you which is what on these pics, but I know crap-all about eldar (or any army other than I.G. or Codex Space Marines). I've asked for close up pictures of specific units and characters, so hopefully those will be forthcoming. This is a gorgeous army, and it is always a pleasure to play against it. Enjoy

An Ancient Has Arrived

2010-06-29T22:14:00.006-05:00

They say this cat Old School is a bad mother...
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
I'm talkin' 'bout Old School Terminator.
THEN WE CAN DIG IT!

Yeah that's right, I went there. I can do that because I'm holding, in my hot little hands, one of the most beautiful models I've ever seen. This Ironclad Dreadnought was my prize for winning the Super Blog Chain Give-Away hosted by Dark Future Games. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking, and those can be checked out here:

Blog post with finished pictures and video

Blog post about Dreadnought Thunder Hammer Conversion

Here's another one with my newest Dreadnought standing tall amongst two of his three Black Reach brethren. At some point I hope to add a traditional dread as well as as a new venerable dread kit, and a couple more Ironclads...yeah, about that. The wife totally won't let me buy that much but it's nice to have goals right?

On a related note, none of my Chapter's ancients have names. Any suggestions for me?

Actual Game Experience...the other white meat.

2010-06-23T18:25:00.004-05:00

I’ve been planning & playing my Salamanders for about 7 months now, with some lists here, here, & here. What have I learned? I’ve learned I need more practice. What else? There are some units that I like, and some that I don’t. Guess what? The internets were wrong!!! If you are a 40k god whose mastery of the game is second only to your awesomeness as a player…stop reading now. If not, then please pay attention. Nothing you read on the internet about this game is definitive. Everything I’ve included in my lists has been promoted on one site or another but some units didn’t work out for me. Regardless of internet terms such as noob, meta-game, playstyle, etc., you just need to play the game to figure out both what you like to play, and what you find plays best for you.

What do I like? Vulkan, TH/SS Terminators, Land Raider Crusaders (as long as I’m not playing Tau…then they’re just a waste of points, Heavy Flamer/Multi-Melta Dreadnoughts & Speeders.

What am I on the fence about? Librarians, Chaplains, Vindicators (great if I hit, not so much when I don’t) & Thunderfire Cannons.

What do I not like? Sniper Scouts, Tactical Squads, & Auto Cannon/Heavy Bolter Predators.

Vulkan is obviously appropriate for my army even though some elitists think that he’s “training wheels for a Space Marine Army”. The Terminators and Land Raider are expensive, but they’re effective. I’m thinking about moving away from them though and seeing how my lists evolve without them. Dreads and Speeders are cheap and versatile so they’ll be tough for me to leave behind. Nothing I’ve seen from Librarians and Chaplains is worth losing the close combat ability either Vulkan or a Commander brings. The loss of initiative 5 on these two units is huge for me. I may try two vindicators to counter my uncanny ability to choke in a tight spot. The dakka pred has been a colossal disappointment for me, though it is nice and cheap. Finally we come to the bread and butter of a Space Marine army…the Tactical Squad.

I don’t hate them per se; I’m just really bad at using them. They’re in the low to mid 200’s in points, and I’ve constantly got them out of position or otherwise misusing them. I think if I crack the tactical squad riddle, then my game will evolve to a new level. For now, however, I’m stuck with being a Master of Mediocrity. ;)

Stay tuned for some list tweaking and blatant internet list stealing. I’m going to shake some things up and see how it works out for me.

Infamy Arrives

2010-06-21T17:15:00.009-05:00

While at Adepticon 2010, I met a gentlemen from Bell of Lost Souls who goes by the name of Bigred. He was wandering the hall of the Team Tournament taking pictures of armies and I happened to be standing next to my Salamanders when he stopped by. He was an amicable sort, and was neither Big or Red. Fast Forward to today, and you'll find the picture that he took the center of the BoLS Caption Contest here. Head on over and drop a comment if you'd like. I'm just excited to have this kind of recognition for my army. I owe it all to the excellent conversions from Ron S. over at +From the Warp+ and Ian F. at Heroes of Armageddon, awesome bits from Chapterhouse Studios & Forgeworld, and Aerion's ridiculous talent with a paint brush. For these salamanders, it took a village. Thanks guys.