Vulkan Sighted at Forge World's Heresy Weekender

Vulkan!  BoLS Lounge member DrLove42 posted up some photos of this weekend's Heresy event across the pond.  Lots of juicy Salamander Legion stuff I can't afford such as sweet new terminators, upgrade kits, a Salamander Contemptor Dreadnought, & of course Vulkan himself.  Additionally, there was quite a bit of stuff about the Mechanicum (a Dark Mechanicum list is in the works Chambers!), Knights, and some of the other lesser legions.  Head over to the thread and check it out.

Not the pose I expected, but still very cool.

A bit of paint, and a few of his lads...

EDIT:  Recalcitrant Daze has some sweet pics of Salamandary goodness over on their site:

...such as this beauty right here.  Aerion, the forge is calling.

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!

Come the Apocalypse...

That's apparently what it'll take for me to update this thing.  In any event, I'm not dead; I've just had a great deal going on.  New job location, new house, new son, new codex(!), etc.  Life is busy, but that's why they call it life I suppose.  In any event, here's some pictures of what I've been up to.  I may not be blogging, but life couldn't keep me away from the game!

The New Hotness.  I had to get in on this right?

I also had to get rid of some of those damn brass etchings that I had laying about...

And some more brass etching...

Here they are with a bit of paint.  Prime black, base with Knarlock Green, go over with Snot Green.  No idea
what the new names for those colors are.  Something appears lacking, yes?

"The New Hotness" doesn't come on a standard sized base, the way God intended.  GW in their infinite heresy
decided they would go with wonky 50mm bases.  Dark Arts Miniatures, the lads who made my gorgeous resin
lava bases don't have an equivalent.  So, a bit of cork and some assistance from my lovely daughter and I had it
sorted.

A closer look.  I was skeptical at first about what I was going to do, but after my daughter asked if she could help
They've become my favorite bases in the whole army.  Parents will understand what happened here.

It's wasn't all infantry.  Part of The New Hotness includes fliers, so here's mine.  I'm not a fan of the original kit,
so I had to borrow liberally from the internet to get a conversion I was happy with.

Drop pod fins for wings, removed the lower rear stabilizer, magnetized the weapons on the outside of the engines,
switched out the over-sized assault cannon for a converted land speeder version.  You know, the simple things.

Again with the brass etching, again with the non-standard base size that needed cork and my daughter to render aid.

There's probably a bit of highlighting yet to do on this guy, but frankly I got tired of painting Snot Green at this point.  If the Easter Eggs in some of the above pictures haven't been clue enough, I sold off my Tzeentch Daemons after their new codex dropped (and I absolutely did not like the way that new book played) and replaced with them with something else sinister:

An ancient Necron Dynasty has awakened, and they are pissed.  But it's not what you might think.  They were pretty cool dudes, but someone left a hatch or two open in the tomb, and now they're all corroded and even their ceramic has seen better millennia.  

Giving the new paints a go (Prime with Army Painter Brown, base with Rakarth Flesh, layer with Wych Flesh.  Metallics done with Warplock Bronze, Hashut Copper, & that new Oxide Technical Paint.  Use that stuff folks, it's so easy it feels like cheating.  Giving the textured paints a try on the bases as well.

So now we're all caught up.  I can't say I'll be regular, but I can say you'll see more of my Necron project log.  I'll likely have a few posts on the new paints and new techniques I'm trying out (tried a bit of sponging on the ceramic as you can see).  I won't win any painting contests with this army, but I'm having fun again and I'm testing my hobby skills.  And for me, that's what it's all about.

What's New Today?

Apparently we are.  Or, more specifically, Aerion & CVinton are.  This gorgeous tank that was converted by CVinton and painted by Aerion has a brief mention on Games Workshop's Blog.  While they may not be shameless self promoters, I am certainly the proud owner of their excellent collaboration.  Good show lads.  Good show.

Tactically Hybridized: Local League game 5 of 5

Ever wonder how hard it is to find a suitable picture for these posts?

Well, last night was it.  The final game of the local league where I was featuring unique (to me) lists for each game.  Try something different, test some new (to me) theories, etc.  All in all, it was exactly what I needed. I had awesome opponents the whole time, and I played a pretty diverse set of opponents: Necrons (win), Eldar (draw), Space Marines (win), Tau (win), & Dark Eldar (win).

Go here for week 1s results (No Chapter for Old Men)
Go here for week 2s results (Tactically Maximized)
Go here for week 3s results (Two Headed Monster)
Go here for week 4s results (Netlist Extreme)
All lists can be found here
A better battle report than this one will be can be found here.

We had Capture & Control with Pitched Battle deployment.  He won the roll to go first, and I failed to seize the initiative.  Everything was laid out on the table, with no reserves.  It was going to be a game to see who could outshoot/outlast the other guy.  These games with only two total objectives are real easy to earn a draw on, so aggressive play was required.

He had two of the Dark Eldar flier things.  I recommend that you go the Grendal's blog Xenos for the Win to see what they actually were.  All that I know is that they had some dark lance weapons and a bunch of missiles.  He also had some of their blasphemous transports.  One held some angry assault ladies, while the other two held warrior squads in them.  Finally, he had a miniature transport thing with some close combat guys in it.  It had a poison weapon  on it, and they had power swords.

He deployed at the 12" line and then rushed everything forward.  That memo on aggression?  I appeared that he received it.


















My list was adapted from something that Chambers asked me to try out.  It had five tactical squads with a variety of heavy weapons and razorback transports.  This was supported with two Autocannon/Heavy Bolter Predator tanks, two Twin Linked Autocannon Dreadnoughts, and a Multi-melta/Heavy Flamer Speeder.

I tried to deploy in combat squads in cover, but didn't want to crowd that clump of trees since I new he had a bunch of large blast templates.  I would try to push forward as much as possible, but his shooting early on had something to add to that plan.

Here is the "filthy xenos' eye view"

End of round 1/start of round 2

At the end of his first turn, I had a "what just happened to me" look on my face.  He shot me with a lot of stuff.  Some of it was lance weaponry, some of it was poison, some of it were one shot missiles, he did a lot of moving about prior to that.  I'll readily admit that I was a bit confused by his tricksy xenos ways.  There's a reason the Emperor has no truck with these types.  It does us good to remember that.  Anyway, he beat up a few combat squads, and one even fled off the table.  The Heavy Bolter was blown off Vulkan's razorback.  I did a few things to him, but not much.

Start of turn 3

At the end of the second turn, he had busted up three of my five Razorbacks, the Land Speeder, and was about to lay into a few more of my combat squads with his scourges and warriors.  I had removed his two close combat units, basically solidifying my left flank allowing me to roll towards the right.  My Predators and  Dreadnoughts would spend the remainder of the game shooting at a 10 man warrior squad that was on his objective.  He went to ground for the next three turns, and it took me every bit of three turns to kill that squad.  Yes, (4) Twin Linked Autocannons, (2) Autocannons, and (4) Heavy Bolters took three turns to kill 10 guys with a 3+ cover save (they went to ground).  A razorback from my left would add its fire as well for the last two turns.  My combat squads visible in the picture above would win an assault with his scourges (only because his "sergeant" missed all of his attacks with his power weapon over several turns) and move up to take out the other raider and warrior squad.

At the end of turn 5, I had tabled him.  At turn three, I was asking myself "Why is he dying?  I thought that was my job."  He had a scary amount of firepower on turn one and two, but after that...not so much.  His squads were decent in close combat, but when fighting power armored marines, he relied on his squad leaders and their power weapons.  I'll admit he had terrible rolling when it came to those guys, and it made a difference.  I also credit the large volume of fire that came out of my Dakka Preds and Riflemen Dreadnoughts.  He tried to shoot them up early in the game, but to no effect.  Those four units shot down all of his large threats relatively early in the game which allowed me greater access to control his objective by the end of turn 5.

Grendal is a great guy.  He may not remember, but he was one of the first people I played when I got to this store.  It was a 500 point game, that I spent a majority of running away from his Orks.  You may not realize this, but you can buy a crap ton of Orks for 500 points.  In any event, I'm glad he was my last opponent of the league.  I had fun with my list tryouts, and I somehow managed to go 4-0-1 on the league.  We don't know final results yet, but I may actually have won this thing!  Which is to say, I get pseudo bragging rights for about three weeks until the next league starts up.

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.

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!