Adepticon 2014: Friendly Tournament Re-Cap

So this year's theme for the Friendly Tournament was "The Dirty Dozen".  There were three rounds, roughly equating to the major plot points of the film.  Round 1 your lads didn't quite get along, Round 2 they were participating in the war game, and Round 3 was the final suicide mission.

I brought, what I thought was, a fairly "friendly" list.  I was a little hesitant to bring my three Centurion Devastators with Grav Cannons, they performed very well for me, but I don't think they ended up being over the top.  My list can be seen here.

My Storm Talon was only shot down once on the day...about three seconds after this picture was taken.
Rathnor used orders, and some timely "6's" to down the aircraft.  Who needs skyfire?

In the first round, I played a list that seemed eerily appropriate.  Rathnor's IG list with Space Wolf allies was my first opponent.  He brought a Creed, Kell, a command squad in a Chimera; a big blob of a platoon with a handful of dismounted regular squads, heavy weapons with lascannons, and 50 conscripts; a squad of vets in a chimera with melta guns and demo charge; Logan Grimnar, and three wolf guard in power armor.  It was an unusual list (for me with my limited exposure to games outside my own shop) with a lot of optimized quirks (Logan's abilities adding to the conscripts, Creed's boatload of orders, etc.) but it was well played and likely not overly optimized (more on that later).

This was "the end".  He had marched across the board, shooting up everything in sight.  The next round would
see a charge that left me with a combat squad and an immobilized Razorback.  The Gods would take pity on me
and end the game (and my misery) shortly after that. 

For this mission, players had to split their army in half, with each half counting as desperate allies.  This did almost nothing to my opponent, but was disastrous to me, as my play style involves castling up my entire army to support one another with short range firepower.  That, plus dice rolls so bad that Rathnor offered up his own dice for me to use in an effort to stop the painful torturing of probability that was my dice for that round.  In the end, I was trounced.  I "earned" a crushing defeat and garnered no points for my team.  Rathnor did have an entire 50 man squad of Rogue Trader era human bombs.  Some with the neck collar, and the rest with the backpack bombs.  Nifty stuff if you're into that sort of thing.  He says it only took him two years to get them all...

For my second round, I played The Bloody Chaos, who happened to be Chambers' opponent from round 1.  He normally plays chaos, but decided to do something different for Adepticon.  He brought a Carcharodons (space sharks) army that was awesome.  As none of you know, I harbor a secret desire to own a Carcharodon army, so this was a special treat for me where I got to live vicariously through TBC's army.

My crap pictures don't do it justice, but he had a Chapterhouse Studios "true scale"
marine with a gigantic chainsword (can't remember the company he got that from)
that was simply amazing.

TBC's list was as follows: Tyberos the Red Wake; a squad of assault terminators as elites, and another as troops; a scout squad in a Land Speeder Storm; 2 Tactical Squads; a Storm Talon; an assault squad; and finally, a devastator squad.  This round's special rule was that ambulances were placed on random tables and they scattered 4d6" every turn with the possibility of moving onto neighboring tables if they had the movement for it.  Any unit hit was either tank shocked or rammed.  We had an ambulance show up at our table during the game, but it promptly drove off with no effect.

This was my deployment.  Notice the gigantic hole for deep strikers.

TBC was easily my most fun opponent on the day.  Beer was exchanged & fun was had.  This was the epitome of what the "friendly" tournament should be.  TBC's army is obviously an assault army with some long gun & air support.  That's probably the type of opponent my list is best against.  He faced an uphill battle all game, but this...

...is where his fate was sealed.  He was only able to get one of his terminator squads in from reserve on round 2.  That meant my entire army, but mainly my Centurions, could focus on that close threat.  And believe me, getting a squad of Carcharodons in close combat was not a goal of mine.  He lost one to quad gun fire on the way in, and the rest were taken care of after that.  The next round Tyberos and his squad showed up, but again, I had no other obvious targets.  Even after all that fire, I still needed to assault him with my own terminators and Vulkan to keep the upper hand.  Some poor rolls in TBC's part sealed the deal.  After that combat, I ran my lads towards the relic and table quarters for the crushing victory.

Round three is where I lost all credibility as a blogger since I didn't take any pictures of my game with Cee Kay and his Tau-Dar list.  I'm not going to lie, this was the weirdest list I've ever played against.  At first glance it seems too optimized for the friendly, but when you look close, he made conscious decisions to weaken his list.

As penance for not taking pics of the game, here's a real life fire warrior that I saw.

He was pale, yet quick.

He brought Farsight with 4 crisis bodyguards with flamers, stim injectors, & vectored thrusters; a crisis suit commander with every piece of wargear available to him (354 points!), a 6 man stealth team; a single crisis suit with flamer; a three man crisis suit with bonding knife (no weapons?), Karandras the Shadow Hunter; & 6 guardian jetbikes.

His plan was to camp weaponless crisis suits & jetbikes on objectives, infiltrate Karandras with the stealth team, and deepstrike everyone else with Farsight et al.  I'll admit, I was pretty nervous.  I shot up the crisis suits as much as I could, but with nightfight, those guys are tough to shift.  He deepstruck right next to my castle (which I deployed with no room for deepstrikers behind my aegis) and proceeded to use flamers against me.  He was unaware of the Salamander's chapter tactic known as "lol flamers" and was disappointed to cause no wounds.  Everything in my army, minus the 145 point Storm Talon, then shot at that squad.  At the end of my shooting phase, he had one Stealth Suit left on that corner of the board.  I spent the remaining rounds getting line breaker, grabbing objectives, and killing his bikes and backfield crisis suits.  I have no doubts that had Karandras and/or Farsight got into assault that it would have been a different game.  This round's special rule was to have vortex missiles moving about just like the ambulances previously.  A vortex missile made it to our table about 5 minutes after the game was over, having no impact on our game.

All in all, I think this year's friendly was an improvement over last years.  Yes, I went 2-1 this year, while going a disastrous 0-3 (finishing dead-ass-last overall), but the lists I saw were more friendly.  My worry was that this was going to become just another 1500 point tournament, but it didn't happen.  That's not to say that it's out of the woods.  Many of the guys who showed up with quirky or overly friendly lists were saying that they wouldn't make that mistake next year.  The friendly walks a fine line, and I think they need to review lists as advertised.  Early list submissions would go a long way towards maintaining the trust of the community that rock hard lists won't be seen at this tournament next year.

Adepticon 2014 - There and Back Again, a Burnout's Tale

Just...try to relax...

As some of you might be aware, a handful of members have had associations of some sort or another with Adepticon since about 2006.  It started with the Team Tournament, sprinkled in a few rounds of Combat Patrol, and the last two years have been dedicated to the 40k Friendly Tournament.

Discussions about the Team Tournament could take several blog posts to cover.  I'll spare you that, or you could just look back through the archives.  Suffice it to say that it takes luck to even get in to this very popular event, and a great deal of money and time to not embarrass yourself when you see the titans of industry who will inevitably win.  These are the teams who have spent thousands of dollars and man hours to put together truly masterful works of art.  Average participants?  Don't hold your breath.  This event truly rewards those who go above and beyond.  It's actually worth coming to the event, just to see the display bases the teams put together.

Combat patrol has never really been my thing, but others have enjoyed it.  I have trouble making a 1000 point 40k army, so 400 points really is an exercise in futility for me.  To each his own, I'm glad some of the other members have had fun with it.

This will be the third year for the 40k Friendly Tournament.  I had some friends participate in '12, and they gushed about how awesome it was.  Laid back, thematic lists, a complete lack of douchebaggery, it received rave reviews.  I did not bring Team Snake Eyes to the Team Tournament in '13 because I was a little burned out from that hectic experience and wanted something a little more relaxed.  The Friendly was my choice. Three of us came up last year (myself, Chambers, & Grenn Dal) and although I came in dead-ass-last place (it's a real thing, look it up) it was a good time.  After hearing the staff repeatedly say they would disallow hard lists, I was a little shocked at some of the things we saw last year "What do you mean my drop Wolves list with four Rune Priests with Jaws isn't friendly?" Chambers and I are a little worried about what we'll see this year.

Vulkan and the lads take the field once more

Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, but I've been having technical issues.  My list, which I feel is true to the "friendly" theme is as follows: Vulkan, (5) TH/SS Assault Terminators, (2) Tactical Squads with flamers, multi-meltas, combi-flamers, & TLLC Razorbacks, a Storm Talon w/typhoon ML, (3) Centurion Devastators w/Grav Cannons & Hurricane Bolters, a Thunderfire Cannon, and finally an Aegis Defense Line w/Quad Gun.  It's got a moderate amount of shooting with a counter assault/harassing unit in the terminators.

Chambers assured me his army was ready to go...

 Chambers army looks pretty cool too.  He's got a Dark Mechanicus army that has ties to Nurgle and Slaanesh using the Chaos Marine Codex: A Chaos Lord in Terminator Armor, (5) Chaos Terminators with combi-meltas, a squad of 12 Noise Marines with Icon of Excess, 7 sonic blasters and 2 blast masters, (2) squads of 6 Noise Marines with 2 sonic blasters and 1 blast master each, a Helldrake with Hades Autocannon (yes kids, Chambers can beat you without the bale flamer), 2 awesomely converted Obliterators, and finally a Bastion that has the Imperial iconography defaced and replaced with sacrifices and icons of the dark powers.  We'll add an army pic when he's ready for me to take it.  :)

Random Pics from the game room on Thursday:

This thing is about 5' high and is likely someone's display board.  These people do not mess around...

Iron Hands charity raffle army, there are better pics out there on the internet, and they are worth seeing.

Sisters of Battle display chapel/board.

This close-up of the floor detail proves once and for all that
you can never have too much awesome in your life.

Stay tuned, more tomorrow!

Specific Review of Codex: Chaos Daemons

Picture shamelessly taken from this BoLS post dated 3/3/13.

I suppose I could say "Yes" to to above question.  But the reasons for that might not be what you think.  As any cursory inspection of the blog will reveal, I am primarily a Salamanders Space Marines player.  I probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 12k points of the flame loving crusaders, and I'm fine with that, or more accurately, my wife is okay with that.  On the other hand, even with that sort of diversity available within that codex, I was tired of playing power armored super-humans, and more importantly, I was tired of painting snot green (or whatever the hell the new color is called...I'm still using up my supplies of the "old" snot green).  I needed a new army that would maintain my interest in the hobby by selecting one that had: a different play style, a different "look", was something that wasn't too popular in my shop, and was something that I could get excited about.

Rather than go into excruciating detail about the specifics, I ended up choosing Tzeentch Daemons.  It is my preference to only play mono-god lists due to the influence of the past background material.  Perhaps in Apoc could I envision the Gods working together to accomplish a task, but never for something as trivial as a 1500-2000 point game sized force.  Yes, this was post White Dwarf update.  No, that was not why I selected them.  I had originally settled on Nurgle Daemons, but there were about a half dozen of the lads at the shop who played them.  A handful had Khorne and Slaanesh, and exactly zero people played Tzeentch.  Still, I think it's worth noting that as powerful as the Screamers and Flamers were in the previous update, I never took more than 9 of each in my three 1500 point games.

So, where did that leave me?  I made plans to attend Adepticon again after getting burned out on the Team Tournament.  I was to participate in the 40k Friendly event and the Combat Patrol.  I would bring my new Daemons, I wouldn't worry about award-quality paint jobs/conversions, and I would focus on fun.  I carefully selected my list, acquired the models, and got to work.

Here is the list I planned on taking:

Herald of Tzeentch w/Bolt, Disc, We Are Legion, & Master of Sorcery
Herald of Tzeentch w/Bolt, Disc, We Are Legion, & Master of Sorcery
(18) Horrors of Tzeentch w/Changeling
(8) Horrors of Tzeentch w/Bolt (Herald would accompany)
(8) Horros of Tzeentch w/Bolt (Herald would accompany)
(4) Screamers of Tzeentch
(5) Screamers of Tzeentch
(3) Flamers of Tzeentch w/Pyrocaster
(3) Flamers of Tzeentch
(3) Flamers of Tzeentch
Daemon Prince w/Flight, Might, Gaze, Bolt, & Mark of Tzeentch

That list was silly with sacred numbers.  I had 9 screamers, 9 flamers, Horror squads in sacred number denominations once the heralds were attached, and 9 total units altogether.  It was glorious.  I had anti-horde, anti-vehicle, anti-elite unit, anti-flier, a unique deployment system, gorgeous models and a solid ruleset  that I was beginning to fall in love with.  Short story long?  I enjoyed the hell out of them.  I was excited about my hobby again.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Enter the new codex.  Can I be nit-picky for a bit?  I hate hardcover codexes.  HATE them.  They should be softcover the way God intended.  There, I'm done with that for now.  There's plenty of press out there discussing the pros and cons of this new codex.  Those folks are likely much more qualified that I am to discuss this book in an objective manner.  That's not what this post is about.  This post is how the army that I carefully selected and built for a specific purpose is no longer playable in the manner it was when I selected it.

Here is my new list that I'll be taking up to the 40k Friendly event.  I haven't come up with my combat patrol list.  I just don't have the heart for it at the moment:

Lord of Change (Lvl 2 -Divination & Change) w/(2) Greater & (1) Lesser Rewards
Herald of Tzeentch (Lvl 2 - Divination & Change) w/Exalted Locus of Conjuration
Herald of Tzeentch (Lvl 2 - Divination & Change) w/Exalted Locus of Conjuration
(20) Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
(20) Pink Horrors of Tzeentch
(9) Screamers of Tzeentch
Burning Chariot of Tzeentch
Burning Chariot of Tzeentch
Daemon Prince (Lvl 1 - Biomancy) w/Mark of Tzeentch, Flight, & (1) Lesser Gift

There are some things that I find intriguing with the new book.  The Greater Daemons and Daemon Princes seem like they might be worth taking, but that's about it for me.  I hate that my horrors are so cheap, because now they're shit.  Yes, I can get twin linked S6 shooting from them now, but I lost a whole lot of total shots, any opportunity to overwatch (which has saved them from assault in the past), and a point of invulnerable save (even though I do now get to re-roll 1's).  Additionally, the move away from innate abilities towards psychic powers was a poor one in my opinion.  Now any army with any sort of Psychic defense (Grey Knights, Space Marines, Tyranids, Eldar, etc.), not to mention failing my Perils test or my opponents lucky Deny the Witch rolls, could conceivably shut down my entire army.  Talk about building a narrative.  I think the reason I'm so disappointed with this new codex is the changes to my Pink Horrors.  They were the backbone of my army, and they've changed so dramatically.  I can't even take squads of 9 anymore.  It seems like sacred numbers were an afterthought to the design of this book.

So, in closing, the book wasn't what I wanted it to be.  Not even close, actually, I consider it to be a great disappointment.  But, I had a very narrow definition of what I wanted, and I'm naturally a very unlucky person, so I'm not surprised that the list that I became attached to no longer plays the way I wanted it to.  All that said, I will play the lists at Adepticon since I had to register the army I was playing in the 40k Friendly, so I'm stuck with it.  I may even play a few games with them at the shop, but I doubt it.  I wouldn't play Apoc with this codex unless I absolutely had to.  Turns out the way to refresh my desire for my Salamanders was to sprinkle my Daemons with the salty tears of despair.  :)

My overall rating?  Inconclusive.  I had no desire to play anything but a limited mono-Tzeentch build so I can't speak to it's overall quality.  It does, however, lose points for being unnecessarily a hardcover book.

My specific rating?  1.5 stars out of 5.  This may go up or down as time goes on and I see what I can do with it, but my initial opinion of the units is poor, and my opinion of random charts for gifts and "warp storms" is very low.

Tzeentch Daemons Road Test

Last night Grenn Dal, from Xeno For The Win, and I played a game to test out our respective 1500 point 40k Friendly lists for Adepticon 2013.  He had a Tyranid list, the specifics I can't remember although it wasn't a dead-hard list due to the nature of the event we are preparing for.  My list was something like:

Tzeentch Herald
Tzeentch Herald
18 Horrors w/Changeling
8 Horrors (joined by Herald)
8 Horrors (joined by Herald)
3 Flamers w/Pyrocaster
3 Flamers
3 Flamers
4 Screamers
5 Screamers
Daemon Prince

The sacred number of 9 is used where possible here.  9 total units, Horror units in multiples of 9 (when joined by Heralds), 9 Flamers, & 9 Screamers.  The Daemon Prince is obviously the odd man out there, but I have yet to find an opponent that will let me field them in units of 9.

While I did not win the roll for my preferred wave (seriously?), since this was my first ever game with Daemons, and a play-test to see how the army performs under the most common circumstances, Grenn Dal graciously allowed me to drop my preferred wave first.  Karma, being the bitch that it is, I mishapped twice on turn 1.  Oh well, the Dark Gods are fickle indeed.

We focused on the game too much for a decent battle report, but here are my thoughts:

• Deepstriking is key.  If I don't master this, my enjoyment will be limited with this army.  I was too agressive at times as well as too conservative in others.  Need to find a balance.
• Pink Horrors are miserable in assault (no shock there), but surprisingly decent at shooting, especially the larger squads where I could use volume to counter my lack of quality shooting.
• Camping Heralds inside Horror squads gave me a great deal of flexibilty with their "We Are Legion" boon.  Need to remember to declare all shooting, regardless of target, prior to rolling dice.
• Minimum squads of flamers don't hit very hard and are not at all resiliant to mass shooting or assault.
• Screamer HAVE to get the charge off against dedicated assault units.
• Vector striking is awful nice, but with the 90 degree turn restriction, Flying Monstrous Creatures in Swoop mode are a tricky ballet.

I like the list, and will be trying it out against a variety of opponents in the coming months as I work to improve my use of the army.  I may consider going with 3 units of 3 screamers and 2 units of 4 & 5 flamers going forward, but that remains to be seen.  In any event, the game vs. Nids was fun, the forces of change came away victorious in their first outing, and I'm looking forward to getting in my practice with them.

EDIT:
(Grenn Dal's list)

HQ

Tyranid Prime –lashwhip /bone sword regen

Troop

10 Genestealer – broodlord toxin sacs

10 Genestealer – broodlord toxin sacs

Fast

5 Ravener - rending claws, Devourer

5 Ravener - rending claws, Devourer

3 Shrike – lash whip/ bonesword toxin sac

Heavy

Trygon Prime – bio pulse, regen

Elite

Zonathrope

Zonathrope

Netlist Extreme: Local League game 4 of 5

Extreme?

Last night we played out the 4th game of our 5 week league.  As you know by now, I vowed to play a different list each week (within the same codex was our only limitation) that departed fairly significantly from my normal play style.  My goals were to mix it up a bit, have a lot of fun, and practice using my tactical squads in a way that doesn't suck.

Breakdown of all lists can be found here.
Week 1 results: "No Chapter For Old Men" found here.
Week 2 results: "Tactically Maximized" found here.
Week 3 results: "2-Headed Monster" found here.

This week we had Spearhead deployment with Seize Ground (5 objectives).  I won the roll to place the first objective and kept up a trend of keeping all the objectives fairly close to one another.  I also won the roll to go first, but I deferred, allowing my opponent to chose his deployment zone and go first.

My "netlist" was unabashedly stolen from Danny Internets and his blog Bald and Screaming a long time ago when I first started playing Space Marines.  I knew I would be playing Salamanders, and it was a Vulkan list, so I thought I would copy it into my spreadsheet of lists I like and I'd eventually get around to building it.  It required 5 Land Speeders, 2 Vindicators, and 3 Drop Pods.  At the time I swiped the list, I only had 1 vindicator.  It would take me years to get the remaining models before I could play the list.  In fact, my last two drop pods were given over to me last night after being mostly assembled.  Since they were "in the shop" I was using some loaner drop pods from the Crimson Fist dealership on the corner.  If anyone knows or ever sees Danny thank him for posting the list, and apologize for me that I can't link back to the original source (if you can't find a list on the net anymore...is it still a netlist?)  Essentially I had:

Vulkan
Librarian
6 TH/SS Terminators
2 MM/HF Land Speeders
2 MM/HF Land Speeders
1 MM/HF Land Speeder
2 x Vindicators
3 x Tactical Squads w/meltaguns, multi-meltas, combi-meltas, etc. in Drop Pods

My opponent was a filthy Xenos lover who played a suit heavy Tau list.  His list to the best of my knowledge was:

Commander Farsight with a crew of suits w/missile launchers
3 x 3 suits with missile launchers
3 Broadsides
3 x 10 Fire Warriors
4 Pathfinders with transport
Railhead

Tau deployment + 1st turn & my 1st turn arrival of 2 pods

With Spearhead deployment, the Tau player was pretty bunched up.  He made some push towards my board edge (empty devilfish, fire warrior squad, & Farsight with crew) as well as pushing a squad of fire warriors and the railhead to his left to capture the farthest objective.  The rest of his lads were right there for me to drop on.  I dropped Vulkan with a squad as well as my librarian with a squad.  Each tactical squad broke up into combat squads upon arrival.  My hope was to give the Tau a lot of different targets to shoot and hope he didn't focus fire.  My librarian failed his test, and avenger didn't go off.  I didn't even get mad this time.  That's how common this had become.  One combat squad targeted the fire warriors on the objective in the trees.  The other targeted the suits closest to the blue pod.  Both of the squads out of the green pod targeted the broadsides.  Blue pod inflicted light casualties, but enough for leadership tests, which were all passed.  I did enough wounds on the broadsides to force a test there as well, and they failed!  So I had that going for me moving forward.

aftermath of my turn 2

His turn 2 gave him the opportunity to take revenge on my Salamanders for their rude arrival.  He contintued moving towards my board edge with a few of his units, but otherwise stayed put.  His shooting killed all but the Sgt. in one combat squad and all but the meltagunner in the other.  He also put a wound on my librarian.  He didn't shoot at either of the green pod combat squads, instead opting to target their drop pod.  My reserves were very kind to me this turn with a vindicator, squadron of speeders, and the terminators coming in.  Terminators used the blue pod's teleport homer and ran towards a group of suits.  Vindicator and speeders drove on right next to the fire warriors and suits that were creeping up on my edge.  Between shooting and assaults, I cleared the Tau from the objectives they were near (except the one outside the frame to the right, they would own that all game), and eliminated a set of suits with the vindicator.  This turn was devastating for the Tau.  His game plan was disrupted by my arrival within his lines, and a got very lucky with my reserves.  He lost a lot of his capability, while I lost the majority of two combat squads.

turn 3-ish

 At this point, he has his HQ & retinue with another set of suits on that side of the table.  On the other, he has a fire warrior squad on an objective with a railhead & squad of suits in support.  He runs his suits away from my terminators (who would fight nothing all game, a first for me) and shoots my speeders out of the sky in retaliation from using their heavy flamers on the squad of fire warriors previously occupying those trees.  He kills the sole surviving member of a combat squad by the blue pod and kills both my librarian and meltagunner with shooting as well.

end game

Turn 3 saw all but a single speeder come in from reserve.  The vindicators each killed a squad of suits (one with Farsight in it).  The remaining tactical squad dropped on an objective and split into combat squads.  One held the objective they landed on while the other made its way to the objective on the hill.  At this point he had enough firepower to deny me the objective by the blue pod but he couldn't ever take any more than the one his only scoring unit was currently holding.  To prevent him from shooting at my combat squads, however, I threw a bunch of delicious looking units at him so he would shoot at them instead of my scoring units.  Vulkan met his fate to a missile in this manner.  At the end of turn 5, we rolled for a 6th turn and got it.  We decided to call it there, however, since the game was clearly in hand at this point.

This list was quirky, and certainly something I've never played around with.  I'm very timid with my tactical squads, especially when they're in combat squads.  When given a choice (and a transport) I often baby them.  Dropping them down in drop pods, however, forces the issue.  I was impressed with their performance even though they died in droves.  Chambers is always singing the praises of them, but he always rolls well, so I hadn't seen their use until last night.  My vindicators also cleaned house by clearing out 3 squads of suits and Farsight.  I readily admit that I was lucky with my reserves, and I had already removed the broadsides by the time they showed up.  Although 240 points of terminators never saw the angry side of assault, it was clear that they made him nervous (as they should have).  I think they did a fine job of contributing to the chaos that this list brought to my opponent's game plan.

It was a fun game, my opponent was fantastic.  He's a new player trying to learn as much as he can about the game and his army, during a time of known transition for us.  I wish I had a fraction of the good grace and demeanor that he showed during what was a pretty solid beat down for him.  I learned a little about my new list, but I was truly humbled by his classiness.  It would be an honor to play him again.

Iron Hands Venerable Dread & List Advice

Bannus has returned with some new conversion/paint work on a Venerable Dread for his Iron Hands.  I'm quite impressed actually.  Bannus has moved from my part of the world up to the Windy City.  We miss seeing him at the store, but we're awfully glad he's staying in touch by showing us his work.  Enjoy!

Pretty cool no?  I like that we've got a couple of TSE members churning out sweet Iron Hands conversions. Ol' Seth and Bannus need to hook up and make a monstrous Iron Hands force.

Additionally, Bannus offered up some list advice to break me out of my gaming rut recently.  He suggested that I make "elementally" themed lists and offered up a Water List as a suggestion.  I've copied both the list and a description in his words below:

HQ
Varro Tigurius

Troops
10 scouts w/ Bolters, Heavy bolter, Powerfist, combi-melta, Melta-Bombs
10 scouts w/ Bolters, Heavy bolter, Powerfist, combi-melta, Melta-Bombs
10 Scouts w/Sniper Rifles, Missile Launcher, Sergeant Telion

Elites
Ironclad Dreadnought w/Heavy Flamer, DCCW, Ironclad Assault Launchers, Drop Pod & Locator Beacon
Ironclad Dreadnought w/Heavy Flamer, DCCW, Ironclad Assault Launchers, Drop Pod & Locator Beacon
5 terminators w/Assault Cannon, 2 Chainfists

Fast Attack

Space Marine Bikes w/Additional biker, Melta Gun, Melta Bombs, Multi Melta Attack Bike

Heavy Support
Vindicator w/Dozer Blade
Vindicator w/Dozer Blade
Vindicator w/Dozer Blade

I created this list as a "water" list.  And the idea is, much like how water changes shape to fit whatever container it is in, this list will adapt to whatever enemy you might face.  It has one other strength, nobody will see it coming.

Tigurius is the key to the whole list, with his ability you can re-roll any reserve roll, so you will have an easier time controlling when your units enter the game.  This fits in perfectly with the scouts, drop pods, and terminators.  He also can use three psychic powers a turn, and may choose from all psychic powers, which adds versatility to any unit he is attached to.  He is vulnerable though, so keep him safe.

The scouts themselves are outfitted with anti-tank, anti-infantry, and a close combat weapon, and should be able to take on most enemies.  And they have many special rules that allow you to adapt to the situation, both while deploying and after.  Just avoid heavy flamers.

Ther Ironclads in drop pods can be deployed when and where you need them, and if you plan it right, the terminators can use the locator beacons to deepstrike with precision.  The Ironclads themselves have a meltagun and seismic hammer for vehicles, and a heavy flamer for infantry, so again, very versatile.

The attack bikes look anti-vehicle at first, but dont forget they have twin-linked bolters also.  Combined with relentless they can rapid-fire before charging to take on infantry units, have 5 wounds at T5, and can always choose to fail morale if they cet in an assault they didn't want to.

The terminators with chainfists, storm bolters, and assault cannon can take on almost anything.  And you should be able to drop them wherever they are needed, if your enemy decides to destroy your pods to stop this, then who cares?  He didnt shoot your other units, and all of them are dangerous.

And finally, the vindicators, though they are the most out of place, S10, AP2 large blasts are useful for anything.  And they are also useful mobile cover for other units because they can move while firing to full effect, so if you choose to deploy your scouts at your board edge, they will always have cover behind the vindicators.  They also leave your opponent no room to run if you deepstrike/outflank the rest of your army. 

This army's main weakness is against speed, once they are deployed they are slow, but speed isn't as necessary when every unit is equipped to handle every task.  Against a fast opponent I think you will be fine if you keep the units close enough together that they can support each other.


Let us know what you think!

Two-Headed Monster: Local League game 3 of 5

I'm really scary.  You're just going to have to trust me on this one.

The third week of five is now in the bag for our 1850 40k league at my FLGS.  A brief recap: Make five separate lists to use that are all departures from what I normally play.  This was to break me out of my post Adepticon funk, give my opponents something other than what they've seen before, and to bring fun back into focus for me as a gamer.

Breakdown of all lists can be found here.  Week 1's "No Chapter for Old Men" results can be found here.  Week 2's "Tactically Maximised" results can be found here.

As with all weeks, excepting the very last of course, the lists were chosen randomly by a third party prior to me learning who my opponent will be or what mission we will be given.  This week, we were assigned Dawn of War deployment with Annihilation as our mission.  My good man Stuey finally showed back up at the game store with his White Scars after he finished his semester at school and we were paired up on a table with a moderate amount of low terrain (desert village table).

My list:
Vulkan
Terminator Librarian w/null zone & avenger
2 X (5) TH/SS Terminators w/Land Raider Crusader & Multi-meltas
3 X (5) Tactical Marines w/combi-melta & TLHB Razorbacks w/HK missiles
2 X Land Speeders w/Heavy Flamer & Multimeltas

The purpose of this list is simple.  Smash face.

Stuey normally plays bikes, but he too mixed it up for the evening by bringing a Pedro build.  He brought:

Pedro
(10) Sternguard with a variety of stuff (combi-meltas & a Heavy Flamer I think)
(10) Tactical Marines with meltagun, lascannon, power fist & Rhino
(10) Tactical Marines with flamer, lascannon, power weapon, & Rhino
(10) Tactical Marines with meltagun, lascannon, power fist, & Drop Pod
2 X Vindicators
Predator w/ Autocannon & (2) Lascannons
(2) Land Speeders w/ (2) Heavy Bolters each
(2) Land Speeders w/Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers

I had 14 kill points to his 16.

He won the roll to go first, and accepted it.  I did not attempt to steal the initiative.  Not only would I have failed, naturally, but I actually wanted to go second so that I could position myself better based upon his position after he drove all his guys on turn one.  Neither one of us deployed anything, so he moved all his stuff on 12".  He put his Drop Pod in the approximate center of the board and combat squaded the guys inside.  That was good for me since there were really only two place to effectively drive my Land Raiders on, and they were both within striking distance.  My turn 1 actually saw me able to push forward with my LRC that had Vulkan in it and assault his combat squad nearest to me.  The power of the machine spirit in the LRC blew up the Drop Pod.

aftermath of the turn 1 assault

That looks kind of scary.  It certainly wasn't pleasant.  The squad on the left is the sternguad and Pedro who rushed up to shoot Vulkan's squad.  The other five guys are the remaining combat squad from the Drop Pod.  There is one Speeder in frame, two more just outside to the right, 2 Vindicators, and a lascannon from a tactical squad in a Rhino half in the frame at the top right.  All of that shooting, and three terminators would die, leaving Vulkan and just a single terminator.  All three of the dead terminators would fall to a single land speeder and its 6 heavy bolter shots.  Yeah, mathhammer is for the weak.  All in all, the remainder of the game would take place within spitting distance of that fancy yurt-like structure.  He would throw units at my terminators until they died.  They he would throw units at my LRCs until they died.  It was quite a bloody affair.

Vulkan's squad was dead at this point, the Librarian was going to break off from his squad to use avenger on the Sterguard who were bunched up in teardrop formation, and the terminators were going to push through the tactical marines towards the tanks.  That was the plan.  What actually happened?  The Librarian broke off from his protective squad, rolled two sixes for his perils of the warp test (I've tried using librarian power 4 times...I have failed twice), assaulted the sternguard, failed to wound a single one, and died to Pedro's power fist.  I love the model.  I love the words in the codex about what they are supposed to be able to do.  I have had only a single game where I have been able to see any performance whatsoever out of that unit.  The terminators assaulted the Tactical marines, drove off the survivors (but not far enough that a surviving meltagunner wouldn't be able to kill a LRC at the end of the game.

Final tally?  I had killed 10 KP of Pedro's Scars, and he had killed 9 KP of Salamanders.  It was a stressful game with a fantastic opponent.  I had opportunities to handily wrap this game up from turn one on.  I failed again and again to capitalize on the opportunities that presented themselves.  While the game was a victory for me in the end, my dice rolls were so bad that bystanders and neighboring tables were making fun of me.  I would miss with twin linked weapons, fail to penetrate armor with melta weaponry, only manage shaken or stunned results on vehicles.  It was pathetic.  Stuey was a class act, and made fun of me an appropriate amount without going too far.  But I am getting a bit sick of it.  How can I analyze me list performance when I can't even depend upon average dice results?  I'll stop complaining now.  It was a win, I should be happy right?

Tactically Maximised: Local League game 2 of 5

We Salamanders are LEGION!!!  (well technically not since that Istvaan/Codex  Astartes thing I suppose...and I HAVE killed quite a few of them off...)

This is the second week of our five week league at my FLGS.  My mission, after returning home from Adepticon in a bit of a funk, was to craft 5 separate lists, one for each week, that served as a departure from my normal play style, included elements that I have always wanted to try out, or that just seemed like damn good fun.

Breakdown of all lists can be found here.
Last weeks "No Chapter For Old Men" list results can be found here.


This week's list theme was simple.  It's almost like going to AA meetings:  "Hello, my name is Chosen1.  I am a Space Marine player, and I don't know how to use my Tactical Squads."  Seriously, its an embarrassment.  It's like Ricky Bobby's hands during that first TV interview, I just don't know what to do with them.

What am I supposed to do with these?

What's one way to figure these things out quick, fast, and in a hurry?  Play with as many Tactical Marines as I can in an 1850 game.  I selected 6 Tactical Squads, gave them Vulkan, a Librarian, and then a bunch of razorbacks and heavy weapons.  Here's the list:

Vulkan
Epistolary Librarian w/Null Zone & Avenger
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, plasma cannon, power weapon & TLHB Razorback
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, missile launcher, powerfist, & LTHB Razorback
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, lascannon, & TLLC Razorback

Our mission was seize ground with spearhead deployment.  My opponent was a Tricksy Eldar player that I've played once before.  He's an outstanding guy, and I had a great time playing him, but we fought to a draw.  I told myself that win or lose, I would not get another draw...yeeeah, about those TPS reports...

My Deployment: All combat squads

His Deployment: a bunch of Xenos trickery

I would love to tell you what was in his army.  In fact, my friends are telling me all the time "Chosen1, you should really learn these other codexes so you know how to play against them."  Honestly?  That sounds like a lot of work.  It also opens me up to heretical thoughts, and the light of the Emperor's cleansing flames as I burn them down are all I need to understand about Xenos.  Here's what I can remember:  Avatar, Eldrad + Dire Avengers in one of those melta-ignoring transports, 3 War Walkers with scatter lasers, (7) Jet Bikers with warlock, (7-ish) Fire Hawks in melta-ignoring transport, (5) Rangers in the "venerable" transports that make me roll twice to kill them, and (5) Dire Avengers in the "venerable" transport.  I normally fear the Avatar like no other since I load up on flamers and meltas.  Don't judge me, I roll like ass.  I dont' NEED those re-rolls, I can quit anytime...really.  This time, however, I had plenty of other guns for him.  I was also glad I had a librarian.

I know I suck at battle reports, but honestly the game looked like this for most of the night.

We get five objectives, plus two more "story objectives" for the league's storyline that have no bearing on the game play.  I lost the roll to go first, failed to steal the initiative, and weathered the first turn fairly well.  I could tell he was intimidated by all of those transports and Tactical Marines.  I'm no seer, he actually said "I'm kind of intimidated by all that".  I tried not to strut around like a peacock.  I failed.  He maneuvered to get shots on Vulkan and the Librarian's transports, but didn't take either out.  I moved up across all fronts trying to engage him with my combat squads and shoot what I could.  The Avatar took out two combat squads before he was brought down by Vulkan.

The jet bikes were led by the warseer "brave, brave, sir Robin"

Those two transports (green/white & purple) at the bottom of the frame stayed there the whole game taking pot shots at me.  Their occupants would ultimately claim the objectives near each.  The tricksy bikers did their move-shoot-move dance.  I eventually flanked around the right side of the treacherous Xenos scum and shot them down.  It was glorious.

This is what I was doing instead of aggressively advancing towards him

I didn't realize I wasn't "doing it right" until the end.  Now you've all heard me complain about my horrible rolling.  My opponent was doing poorly this game as well.  In fact, I think we sort of averaged each other out.  I had some good turns, he had some good turns.  My librarian shut down about half of Eldrad's powers, which is a big deal to me, because that cat can use a lot of them.  I would almost bet that if Eldrad had been allowed to do his thing the final outcome would have been significantly different.  I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the "you must take a librarian to have a chance against the tricksy eldar" meme, especially since I took him randomly this week, but it is what it is.

This is essentially the end game.  I held the top/bottom left objectives.  He held the top/bottom right objectives.  Eldrad and a Dire Avenger exarch move onto the center red objective.  I shot the snot out of them and fail to move my guys close enough before the end of turn five.  Game ends in a draw.  Don't get me wrong I enjoy winning.  On the other hand I know when I don't "deserve" it.  I played sloppy.  Not just moving into position, but I made mistakes on some rules (they were corrected), but I am always nervous that folks will take my mistakes as cheating.  That's absolutely not who I am.  Both of us were glad this game ended in a draw because neither one of us performed any better than the other.  Back to those TPS reports I suppose.

What did I learn?  I (still) need to be more aggressive with my tactical squads.  I think that not only would I have forced him further out of his comfort zone, but that I would have been in a better position to contest or capture objectives during the late game.  Combat squads are fragile.  If someone starts spouting off about a statline in the 4's backed up by 3+ saves punch them in the face.  Marines are nothing special.  That deserves repeating, Marines are nothing special folks, they perform similar tasks as their Black Templar, Space Wolf, and Blood Angel brethren, but they're inferior in almost every way.  This doesn't mean they can't win, just that they need (insert something sage and wondrous) to do so.

All in all, a great game with a great guy.  I look forward to next week's match!

No Chapter For Old Men: Local League game 1 of 5

What's that you say?  You want the truth?  You can't handle the truth!
You may have wanted me on that wall, but due to your pathetic generalship, we're all dead!

So yesterday was our Thursday league night at the FLGS.  Not as big of a turnout as I would have liked to see, but we likely had 12-14 players show up for the first of five Thursday night games.  Some of the "newer" players could have shifted days since the store recently set aside Friday nights to help new players with practice games, painting & modeling advice, etc.  An excellent way to grow the hobby in my opinion, and I only wish I had more Fridays available to lend my assistance.

To quickly recap, I have a five week league.  I have five army lists.  You see where this is going don't you?  In any event, I had a buddy of mine "pick a number between one and five" prior to tables or opponents being named.  He chose number 3.  The third list on my sheet was "No Chapter For Old Men".  The spirit of this list was that due to my poor skills as a commander of Marines, there were only a handful of scouts and tactical marines available for use, while maximizing dreadnoughts.  When I min/max here, it's not to extremes.  I set a few goals (lots of dreads, minimum scoring units) and then attempt to make a viable list within that framework.  Here's what I settled on:

Master of the Forge with Conversion Beamer on a Bike
(10) Assault Terminators with Thunder Hammers & Storm Shields
(10) Terminators with (2) Cyclone Missile Launchers
Dreadnought with Twin Linked Lascannon & Missile Launcher
(5) Sniper Scouts w/Cammo Cloaks
(5) Tactical Marines w/Powerfist, Combi-melta, & TLLC Razorback
Rifleman Dreadnought w/(2) Twin Linked Autocannons
Rifleman Dreadnought w/(2) Twin Linked Autocannons
Dreadnought w/Multi-melta, Heavy Flamer & Drop Pod

Deployment was Pitched Battle while mission was Annihilation.  I won the roll and elected to go first.  Here was my deployment zone:

I castled up in my left corner and hoped he would advance towards me.  This would serve to minimize my exposure to his guns (due to the terrain set up you'll see in the next pic) and limit the number of his units that got to me at any given time.  Please pardon my regular terminators as they are still "in progress" on the paint desk, and my feeble MotF model is still on the drawing board as far as conversions go.  Here is his deployment zone:

With a terrain set that my opponent casually termed "the battle for the port of Los Angeles" there were those cargo containers all over the battlefield in approximately that density covering almost the entire board.  There were a few clumps of trees here and there, and a ruined building that was out of frame to the right.  Our deployment zones were relatively free of terrain.  As I know nothing of his filthy xenos codex, I'll do my best to relate what was in his list:

(4) 5 man warrior squads
Gypsy Shyster Lord with nightfighing, turn stealing, and lightning powers
Squad of (3) Wraiths
Squad of (5) "assault" necrons with shields that reflect shots
Squad of (5) Immortals with assault guns
Squad of (3) scarab swarm bases
Squad of (3) Destroyers (or were they heavy destroyers...I have no idea)
Squad of (5) Snipers with assault weapons
Skimmer with guy in it (control barge?)
Skimmer with creepy arcing electrical gun on it

The early game did not go my opponent's way.  He brought night fighting to a table with a lot of guns, so he was spared a lot of early casualties, but as he advanced, he took up positions outside of cover...which made him vulnerable to return fire and allowed my terminators to advance rapidly.

This wasn't all bad for him.  I dropped my drop pod (with dread) next to his big gun barge and rolled a one to hit it with my multi-melta.  folks are often shocked at how poorly I truly roll.  That's when I bring Vulkan to the table.  Without those re-rolls, my opponents often consider my rolling on par with a humanitarian crisis or some other horror of history.  It is truly appalling.  That dread fired three more shots throughout the game. He would roll a 1 to hit every time.  He did, however, kill that gun barge, the scarab swarms (str 10 vs. swarm bases?  Yes please) and the Monolith, but he did all that in assault.

End of turn 2.  Monolith immobilized, gun barge dead, scarabs about to be dead
skimmers about to die because they exposed themselves on top of cargo containers...

I'm horrible at writing battle reports.  I get involved in the game, and I forget to take pictures.  I'm so bad that I kept putting my phone in my way so I could remember to use it, but I just moved it around without even thinking about it.  Pathetic.  I forgot a pencil so I couldn't even take notes.  But, it was a fairly one sided game in the end.  I had 5 victory points (gun barge, monolith, 2 skimmers, & sniper guys) and my opponent had none.  He killed a few models here and there, but no full units.  My assault terminators were down to 4 guys due to my chronic inability to roll anything but a one on their armor saves, but they held.

Rather than my awesomeness, which has been proven to be more myth than reality, I think my opponent lost the game rather than I won it.  The terrain hurt him.  His own night fighting hurt him.  I removed his big gun early, and he had not back up for it or back up plan in the event that it was destroyed.  His warriors did nothing.  I don't know how cheap they are, but he only shot one squad once (at my drop pod) and that did nothing to it.  The other three squads never even moved.  Those were points that I didn't have to contend with, making the game an imbalanced one as everything I had was shooting, assaulting, or getting into position to do so the next turn.  He's still learning the Necron codex, finding out what units fit his playstyle and which do not.  I expect these are just temporary shortcomings and that he will shortly become a more serious Xenos threat.

Most importantly, he was a fantastic guy, and I think we both had an enjoyable game.  No Chapter For Old Men was fun to play, and I think that had a lot to do with the fact that it just happened to be perfectly suited for the mission were were given.  While I'll likely come back to it in the future, it's on the shelf for now.  I wonder how my random list selection and opponent/mission assignment will go next week.  Stay tuned.

We Ride!

Operation: Get Back On The Horse has commenced!

The FLGS will be starting a new 40k league this Thursday that will last five weeks.  Those of you foolish enough to read posts on this blog will know that Team Snake Eyes got crushed at Adepticon 2012, and that didn't sit too well with me.  I'm not a super competitive guy, and while I didn't expect to blaze a trail to glory, I did hope for a better than 99th place out of 116 teams.  So, as you can imagine, I've been a bit bummed out by the whole process.  Then, with a flash of brilliance, I realized that doing "well" at Adepticon isn't why I got into this hobby.  It's not why I play every Thursday.  It's not why I collect the models, paint them, and hang out with my friends.  In short, I was being a dumbass.  Relax, my wife assures me it's happened before from time to time.  While she says I can't be cured, it's not entirely contagious.  Y'all should be safe.

To get this party started, in a stylish fashion, I have come up with a clever plan.  For the five weeks of the league, I will play a different list each Thursday and try to play something that's different from what I've previously tried to put on the table.  6th Edition is around the corner and I am just about universally disappointed in the rumors about it that I have heard.  So, what better way to honor 5th edition than to put together a set of lists as interesting as my model collection will allow.  It is my great pleasure to introduce to you all "The Five Fingered Death Punch".  I have heard that a badass sounding name is the first step on the road to rampant badassery...therefore each of the lists has it's own clever codename.

Oooh, scary.

List #1 "The Two-Headed Monster"

Vulkan
Terminator Librarian with Storm Shield, Null Zone & Avenger
(5) TH/SS Terminators with Land Raider Crusader w/Multi-Melta
(5) TH/SS Terminators with Land Raider Crusader w/Multi-Melta
(5) Tactical Marines w/combi-melta, meltagun, and TLHB Razorback
(5) Tactical Marines w/combi-melta, and TLHB Razorback
(5) Tactical Marines w/combi-melta, and TLHB Razorback
Land Speeder with MM/HF
Land Speeder with MM/HF

I've always wanted to try a 2 Raider list, and here's my chance.  I've heard it's a "dick move" to bring them, but I haven't witnessed  any undue survivability issues with a single Raider, so I'm not overly concerned.

My Tactical Marines are stone faced killas... (bad jokes are free around here)

List #2 "Tactically Maximized"

Vulkan
Epistolary Librarian w/Null Zone & Avenger
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, plasma cannon, power weapon & TLHB Razorback
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, missile launcher, powerfist, & LTHB Razorback
2 X Tactical Squad w/flamer, combi-melta, lascannon, & TLLC Razorback

I've never personally fielded this many tactical marines...and I have them...so why not give it a shot?  Using tactical marines successfully is also my biggest weakness as a marine player, so this is a training exercise.

This cat remembers the Heresy because he was there, he was on that wall...where were you punk?

List #3 "No Chapter for Old Men"

Master of the Forge w/conversion beamer & bike
(10) TH/SS Terminators
(10) Terminators w/(2) cyclone missile launchers
Dreadnought w/TLLC & ML
(5) Sniper Scouts w/cammo cloaks
(5) Tactical Marines w/powerfist, combi-melta, & TLLC Razorback
Dreadnought w/ (2) TLAC
Dreadnought w/ (2) TLAC
Dreadnought w/Multi-melta, heavy flamer, & Drop Pod

Light on the scoring units (as light as I could make it anyway) and heavy on the young and entombed.  This force is a direct result of all the dead Salamanders I am responsible for after Adepticon and playing the previous list.  Don't judge me.

List #4 "Tactically Hybridized"

Vulkan
Dreadnought w/ (2) TLAC
Dreadnought w/ (2) TLAC
Tactical Squad w/ combi-melta, meltagun, missile launcher, & TLHB Razorback
2 X Tactical Squad w/ combi-melta, meltagun, lascannon, & TLHB Razorback
Tactical Squad w/ combi-melta, meltagun, plasma cannon, & TLHB Razorback
Land Speeder w/ HF & MM
Dakka Predator
Dakka Predator

A hybrid list that Chambers put together for me that includes elements of the Tactical Marine horde with a few support elements.  Combats squads will be had by all, and much death will ensue.

List #5 "Netlist Extreme"

Librarian in Power Armor w/ Null Zone & Avenger
Vulkan
(6) TH/SS Terminators
2 X Tactical Squad w/powerfist, combi-melta, meltagun, multi-melta, Drop Pod & locator beacon
Tactical Squad w/combi-melta, meltagun, missile launcher, Drop Pod & locator beacon
(2) Land Speeders w/MM & HF
(2) Land Speeders w/MM & HF
(1) Land Speeder w/MM & HF
Vindicator
Vindicator

This is a slightly modified list, ripped straight off the internet, from Danny Internets over at the Bald and Screaming blog.  I tried to link to his posts about it, but his site seems to be down.  My apologies to Danny.

5 week goal?  Have a blast, hang with my boys, drink some beer, roll some dice, and not worry about the small shit.  I'll post a bat rep every week.  I will likely randomly pick (or have opponent roll) to determine which list gets used for any given week with a list only being used once in the tournament.