Adepticon: March 26 - 28, 2010

I may have been conned into returning to the upcoming Adepticon. I don't have the time, I don't have the models, and I'm not entirely convinced my wife (who was not present during the work-up last time I went) will be pleased with the whole process. Thankfully, we don't care about the Gladiator, but we don't yet have a full team, let alone a team concept. It will likely deal with Space Marines and may have a Pre-Heresy slant to it, but that's about as far as we've taken it. I need to come up with a clever name as "Stupid bastards who always wait till the last minute" doesn't roll off the tongue as well as I'd like it to. I will, of course, post progress reports as things develop.

Blog Down! Blog Down!

Anyone with an ounce of "blogger-sense" know why the frick my right hand column is way the hell down at the bottom of my page? I hate being ignorant.

I'm not dead yet!

I must say that rumors of my passing have been greatly exaggerated. I have, however, been a tad busy (getting married, too much work during the day for too little pay, tough-ass semester in grad school, abject laziness...you know how it is) lately. I do have some gaming announcements though, so pay attention. :)

Brewfest 2009: It's at Buckner's Brewery in Cape Girardeau Missouri (October 9 -11), and I must say that its one of the best convention experiences I've ever had the pleasure to experience. There's a variety of games, its not too large, its not too small, the venue serves great food (and booze, its at a brewery...hey-oh!). While we usually have a tournament (RTT or team tourney) and a big-ass Apocalypse event, I won't be partaking of the 40k events this year. I still have my IG army, although not tweaked for 5th edition yet, and my Salamanders are in their infancy; I just don't "feel it" at the moment.

Pathfinder RPG: I dabbled with 4th edition D&D, and while its an interesting game, its just not to my tastes. Pathfinder, however, fits me very well. I'll be playing Pathfinder's organized play events for most of the Con and a few slots of some homebrew. Not much time for gaming with school now, but the fellas have a Pathfinder home game I'd like to get in, but alas...

Pre-Heresy Awesomeness: While wandering the Internet while "working on homework" one evening, I happened upon an awesome blog that detailed pre-heresy World Eaters. Try a search for "Eater of Worlds" if you're interested...or you can wait for my lazy ass to upload the link to the TSE blog page. Anyway, its always been a dream of mine to be able to pull of the whole "Yeah, I can paint white and not make it look like crap" attitude so I would love to get to work on some of those guys at some point. That and having an army that could double as a CSM, SM, BT, & BA army would be a godsend. That might take care of SOME of my army ADD and the Mrs. would enjoy only having to look at one army in the house.

Hell, I don't have time to finish my IG or start my Salamanders (even with the sweet conversions I commissioned for my MotF & Vulkan models) let alone get a mini-project of Pre-Heresy World Eaters going. :) In a perfect world, I'd get the IG and Salamanders done and sold off on feEbay and then I could get some World Eater action going...I like the newer models though, so some purists might look down on me.

later all,

EDIT: Looks like Brewfest occurs during Homecoming weekend for Southeast Missouri State University. That means parades, traffic horrors, & drunk co-eds. Two out of those three will ruin your day, while the other could haunt you for a long time. :) Plan accordingly in all cases.

Army A.D.D.

We all know that Genoside has a problem with Games Workshop products...he frickin owns them all. I'm here to say that my name is Chad and I have Army Attention Deficit Disorder. (Hi Chad...) I will, however, refuse to speak my latest crazy idea out loud for fear that I might actually start working on it. I really need help.

I could take him...

He is only a plastic statue after all...or is he? In any event, with various GW gamesdays coming up, this is my public service announcement opportunity. Just say "No" when it comes to Games Days. Yes, the Golden Daemon stuff looks cool. Yes, they purpusely put that damn plexiglass at the perfect angle to prevent folks from touching the art...and ruining any pictures you try and take. Yes, the line to the forgeworld counter is too long and slow. No, there aren't any games worth playing. Yes, you get better deals on merchandise from any internet retailer or FLGS. Basically, for us, the drive is long, the cost is high, and the reward is severely lacking. If you have family in the area or if you're a fan of the host city, then have at it. Just consider GW's "Lame-Day" a temporary diversion to your regular trip. My recommendation? Independent conventions all the way.

Working On It...

This is for the three of you who may read this blog...I'm in the progress of updating the layout of the blog to a three column format and I lost all of my links and such to do so. Will rebuild as time permits.

IG vs. Orks @ 1500pts

I had a great game with the new Imperial Guard codex today against Partho's orks. I showed up with: (3) leman russ tanks, (2) chimera mounted veteran squads, (1) heavy bolter armed vet squad w/ Sgt. Harker, (3) autocannon armed armored sentinels, (1) devil dog, & a chimera mounted company command squad. Partho had an approximation of the following: (2) battlewagons filled with 20 boyz each, a truck w/ Gazgull, a painboy, and 6 nobz, a truck with shoota boyz, and truck with slugga boyz and his ubiquitous biker mob. We played capture & control with spearhead deployment. I won the roll to pick deployment area, but subsequently Partho "siezed the initiative". That was a grim sign of things to come. :)

Partho's Orks are fairly mechanized, and those two battlewagons are able to reliably transport their cargo where they are needed. I, however, have always played drop troop/light infantry guard armies. So, neither Partho nor I knew what the hell I was doing, and the first two turns were relatively uneventful. Partho didn't dismount because he didn't have enough anti-tank at range. I couldn't stop his advance for the same reason. On turn three he moves forward, dismounts and tears me a new ass with his power klaws. I lost two of the LR tanks and my command chimera. What really hurt, was loosing all of my mounted special weapons from the destroyed vehicle. After that, I focused my surviving templates on his (now more vulnerable) infantry,b killing them in large numbers. In the end, it came down to famous Team Snake Eyes rolling (failing leadership, difficult terrain checks, etc.) and some clever tricks on both our parts. Partho ended up with both objectives for a decisive Ork win.

My first thoughts are that in 5th edition the easiest thing to earn is a win or a draw in a capture and control mission...I earned neither. Partho is a skilled warboss, however, and it was my first game with the new codex using an army style (mech) that I am still unfamiliar with. I've got a few ideas on tweaking my list, but I'd like a few more games in with it against some other opponents/missions before I go too crazy with changes. I misused some units, so I can't justify getting rid of them until I learn how to better use my new list. I thoroughly enjoyed the game because even though Partho was the clear winner in the end, it wasn't clear until the VERY end of the game. As always, never give up, remember your objectives, and keep playing.