Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Lakeside Cup 2013 (the last incarnation), result = Wet Paper Bag

the crew
FYI - Once posted I am going to be updating the date back in time so this fits along better in terms of when the tournament actually happened.  Just a disclaimer in case it ends up being confusing.  This was the final time Peter would be running this incarnation of the Lakeside Cup, and having missed it for 2 previous years I was not going to miss out.  Here is the NAF thread.

A quick recap since it was so long ago and I just needed to make sure I posted up something.  A quick pic of each game, I will try to add something about each and some notes about my roster, skill upgrades and luck below.

0-1 loss vs. Mark H. (Chaos Dwarves)
attempting to crowd push his bull centaur lost me my chance to score a TD.
nice t-shirt eh?
1-1 tie vs. Colin (Chaos Dwarves)
there is something strange about playing Colin, we always seem to tie.
playing outside was much nicer than downstairs
3-2 win vs. Austin (Skaven)
was lucky to win this one - Austin's dice were terrible all game.
Austin looks surprised
0-2 loss vs. Ryan (Orc)
getting schooled is how I remember this match.
game four day one I just wanted it over
2-0 win vs. Gord (Necromantic)
dice were perfect for me in this game
sorry no pic
0-2 loss vs. Leathan (Lizardmen)
IIRC I was under the cosh from the get go due to a thrown rock ???
no luck vs. Leathan this time

I think my main problem was trying to make my roster/skills too "perfect" or "combo-ish".  One berserker I gave mighty blow & piling on and I don't think he caused a casualty all tournament.  I did like my wrestle/tackle ulfwerener, but only having 1 meant I was low on frenzy and strength. I gave +ST and +AG to my runner, but I shouldn't have made him my ball carrier, he ended up hiding in cages too much.

In the end, I finished on the winning side - though I didn't have too much to do with that.  It was nice for the West to finally win after several years of being the Easts whipping boys.  Additionally I picked up an individuals trophy - though not one to be proud of...
wet paper bag trophy
The Wet Paper Bag - that I couldn't fight my way out of - this was for least casualties caused and is particularly embarrassing having a berserker on my roster with mighty blow & piling on. :(

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Minis Painted for Me!

Well I have been focusing on building some more units to send to Ricalope thanks to getting back my first box of Flesh Tearers and getting a game of 6th edition in.  I have been getting those figs varnished - and writing rosters for the upcoming Lakeside blood bowl tournament.  However a pleasant surprise was posted on my facebook this morning - my buddy Dan (who will unfortunately have to miss this tournament) has finished painting up a spire brat for my ever growing gang - and that reminded me I STILL owe Paul of The Man Cave a photo posted of his contribution to the cause!  So I got off my backside and snapped a quick pic of his brat as well as one painted by Mik over at Miks Minis.  Shown in order received...
a ginger brat from Paul @ The Man Cave
A ginger haired brat inspired by the man himself, I love the job he's done on the power sword! Of course if you've seen my Novamarines you will also know I am a fan of quartered schemes.
a dark reaper'esque brat from Mik @ Miks Minis
Mik chose to do this harly (I believe it's properly called a Death Jester?) up in a scheme very similar to the old 'Eavy Metal scheme used on the Eldar dark reapers.
a "Mardi Gras" brat by my buddy Dan
Dan told me he took inspiration from "Mardi Gras" for his brat.  I love the way the green mask stands out on this mini.

Thursday, July 11, 2013

First game of 6th edition (yes took that long!)

Had my first game of 6th edition last night.  Yes it's been a while since I have played 40k - a combination of our blood bowl league being full steam ahead + some lack of desire to start learning all the changes mean it has been out a while before I got a game in.

Played against a new opponent Leo who lives about 10 minutes away and we used smallish (1250pts) armies to ensure it didn't get too messy and we were able to (mostly) finish in an evening.  I brought some of my lately acquired Flesh Tearers since I just wanted to use them in a game.  We played mission 5 (the emperor's will?) and diagonal deployment.  I put my objective near him because even with the jump packs I knew he would have me outclassed for speed so I just wanted everything pretty focused.  Fortunately I rolled the warlord trait that gave me move through cover so my land raider was immune to dangerous terrain tests (Leo seemed confident this was correct, please let me know if that's wrong!)

My army had;
* reclusiarch in terminator armour
* 2x sanguinary priests (one terminator armour, one jump pack)
* 6 terminators with a cyclone missile launcher
* 10 assault marines with jump packs, 2 meltaguns & power fist
* 6 death company with jump packs, infernus pistol & 2x power weapons

His army of Eldar had a farseer, 5 warlocks, an autarch?, a couple guardian squads in falcons? wave serpents? (whichever one has that dirty new force field that it can choose to shoot with) a fire prism and the crimson hunter.

Below are some pics and a bit of description - hope you enjoy!
autarch? & warlocks flee
Probably the turning point of the game, first psychic power goes off, but 2nd his Farseer perils and he spent his last token to save himself (some helmet wargear item).  Then immediately another warlock perils and dies (no save anymore?) and being in a squad of 4 they take a morale test - fail - and flee off the board.  First Blood to me! (+1VP)  Lesson learned for Leo, keep a minimum of 5 guys to start in that squad so 1 perils doesn't cause that morale test.

land raider advances to fire on transports & death company use as cover
Leo also zoomed his transports over near his objective, near where I was setup - so I moved my land raider forward and jumped the death company in behind to hide them from his fire prism.  I left my assault squad in cover deep in my deployment zone as the fire prism LOS to them was blocked.  The land raider missed with the multi-melta and while the assault cannons hit twice they failed to glance.

land raider blocking LOS and attacking fire prism
A dismal round of shooting for both Leo and I meant not a lot happened, at this point it is after my land raider stunned his fire prism which it shook off with some piece of wargear.  He then moved all his vehicles around to focus on my land raider - after the crimson hunter caused some glances, his fire prism lanced my land raider and blew it up - all the terminators inside survived.

terminators destroy the fire prism
So in my turn the terminators duly charge his fire prism and wreck it without even needing to resort to power fists!!  Go go Reclusiarch Crozius!  The cyclone did fire before charging but missed with both krak missiles (never hit once all game with krak missiles!)  No consolidate move?  Yikes!

assault marines fail charge roll - damn difficult terrain
I had also decided to finally charge my assault marines into battle.  Perhaps failing this charge actually turned out to be beneficial as I think Leo was still more worried about the damage possibly caused by my terminators.  Oh and my sanguinary priest was the only one to fail a difficult terrain test, and he promptly failed both armour and feel no pain to die outright! D'oh!

transport explodes, terminators in the open
This photo looks quite a bit later in game, so I'll try to fill you in.  His crimson hunter flew over and shot at my death company, missing with 1/2 it's shots.  Then my assault marines blasted it out of the sky with their meltaguns (fortunate they both rolled 6's to hit!)  Leo disembarked his Farseer and guardians from 1 transport and used it as cover and shot at my terminators - who lost a couple guys.  His other transport fired at my death company and killed 1.  Now this looks like right after my terminators charged into his transport (I cared less about his squad and more about their ability to move, they are nearly 1/2 the table away from the objectives at this point) I blew up his transport and in his turn he shot a bunch at my terminators who tanked without any casualties.  His second squad tried to battle focus to get within range of my assault squad and shoot them, but I rolled every save I could (a couple shots were AP2)

eyes on the prize
In my next turn I turned around and focused on that second guardian squad with my assault marines and my terminators, gunning down something like 6-7 of them and they failed their morale test and ran off, they would continue to fail and flee for the rest of the game.  I also assaulted his second transport and wrecked it with my death company.

death company can assault vehicles rear AV10 pretty well thanks to furious charge
This is nearing the end of the game (we had to finish on turn 6 which was lucky for me, as in turn 6 his guardians basically wiped out my terminators except for the sanguinary priest - which allowed them to charge him and a possible turn 7 could have seen a battle go on for one of the objectives) that's slay the warlord for Leo (+1VP) so I decided to jump my assault marines into the furthest objective to capture it (+3VP) and jump my death company to the nearest one to deny it and that's where we had to stop - which left me winning.

If we had the time to go to turn 7, it was very probably that Leo would have been able to capture the nearest objective to his guardian squad with farseer (unless my lone sanguinary priest could have held them up) thanks to their battle focus they could have probably consolidated from assault, moved, ran, if within range of objective - shot up my 3 remaining death company - if outside of range wait and assault them and thus move close enough and capture the objective which would have given him the tie (we both got the bonus VP for Linebreaker.  So I felt pretty good that the worst I could have achieved was a tie.

That was completely down to being smart with my one scoring unit and I think a combination of poor dice luck and perhaps a bit of getting caught up in killing units by Leo.  He probably should have been more cautious with his movement early so he could have gambled a bit more later.  All in all a pretty fun game but man did it really feel like a 5th codex vs. a 6th codex.  His eldar seemed really awesome for the points cost - especially those transports and I'm pretty sure if his warlocks hadn't fled off the table in turn one that would have changed the complexion of the game entirely.  Codex creep seems alive and well!

Monday, July 8, 2013

Limited Ed. figures - Max and Carol!

I wanted to bring to your attention the chance for a very cool set of Limited Edition figs that are available to help fund/promote the Mike Kriger memorial cup blood bowl tournament. You can read more about the tournament in a post by BFG over on our group blood bowl blog - Merry Mayhem News.
Carol & Max
A blurb about the figs from BFG
"With a limited cast of 50 of each (sold together), the figures are made from pewter (37 and 17mm respectively), and are sculpted by Rykar, who will also be sculpting a new 'monster' from the book every year.
Each set (with both figures) costs 25USD plus shipping, and aside from helping funding their tourney, a donation will be given to the PA's fallen soldier fund."

If you are interested, the best method is to get in touch with John (bound for glory) directly through the TFF forum in this thread (http://www.talkfantasyfootball.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=38415)
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