Shrike Fail... or how I had fun in a mini 40k tournament.

This past weekend I participated in a "mini-tournament" at GW Yonge & Lawrence which turned out 18 players - not so mini after all!  There was a GK type theme with each game having some special daemon/warp related rules.  There were three games in which there was one of each basic mission/deployment type involved.  I brought a Shrike based list just for fun since I had just painted up my Raptors jump pack equiped Chaplain.  Also thought a massive first turn charge would be awesome!  Unfortunately for me, the armies I faced and the deployment/mission rules meant I never got a chance. :(

Shrike
Chaplain w jump pack
6 TH/SS terminators in Land Raider: Redeemer
10 Assault marines w 2 flamers, Sgt: bp & combat shield, lightning claw
10 Scouts w 4 shotguns, 5 bolt pistol/ccw, Sgt: shotgun/power fist
10 Tactical marines w flamer, multi-melta Sgt: bolter/power fist in Rhino
2 Land Speeder Typhoons
1 Predator w Autocannon

Game 1 vs. Mike F (Salamanders - Vanilla Marines)
Mission: Seize Ground (4 objectives)
Deployment: Spearhead
Result: Win (2-1 objectives)

** Special rules for this battle meant that if a unit was controlling or contesting an objective at the end of their turn, they needed to pass a Ld test on max Ld 8, each point you failed by would remove one model.  If you were outside of 6" of an objective you gained +2 to Ld. **

Mike is my buddy who lives nearby and has gotten me to start coming to this GW for gaming.  Since his army had three drop pods and he was most likely taking first turn, I chose to reserve everything which meant no first turn charge.  It meant he lost two turns of shooting but also that my reserves came on too piecemeal to really cause him any problems.  Unfortunately for him he forgot to move his troops close enough to secure objectives on his turn 5 (he was hovering nearby to avoid taking warp casualties) and the game ended, giving me the win on a silver platter (lol! sorry Mike!)

Game 2 vs. Aaron P (Orks)
Mission: Capture & Control
Deployment: Dawn of War
Result: Tie (1-1 objective)

** Special rules for this battle was a storm cloud that would randomly move each player turn and caused d6 S6 hits on any unit it touched, but also gave a 5+ invulnerable save to any units within 6" of the cloud. **

Played against Aaron and his awesomely painted Orks.  His army seemed both extremes; Snikrot w burnas is crazy, but his nobz in battlewagons weren't wound allocation builds and then he also took multiple units of grots which were almost a waste of points.  I made a crucial error not running my assault squad as they came on which left them vulnerable to Snikrot - if they hadn't taken a mauling there, there might have been some marines left to contest his objective.  As it was, he managed to kill Shrike in the last assault phase of the game, with my tactical marines in the bottom of the bunker his objective was on top of - unable to contest.  A great battle that really swung back and forth - though I have to say he never looked able to contest my objective.  Very close game with a great sportsman.

Game 3 vs. Mike K (Lamenters - Blood Angels)
Mission: Annihilation
Deployment: Pitched Battle
Result: Loss (0-7 KP)

** Special rules for this battle turned a sergeant or squad leader type model into a "vessel" trying to contain a daemon.  Could not shoot or attack in CC, but gained 2+ invulnerable save and auto-pass any Ld based test. **

This game did not go in my favour at all.  The vessel rules really kind of screwed me, I was definitely lacking enough power to take out vehicles (especially AV14) and losing a power fist to becoming the vessel didn't help.  I also made a huge deployment mistake, infiltrating my scouts and assault marines - but not deploying enough elsewhere to force Mike to deploy anything so he just reserved everything.  I needed to deploy more units at the beginning since what ended up happening was he just stood off from my fleeting army and shot me to bits with his preds and land raider.  My deployment from reserves left something to be desired as well, since I pretty much blocked off my own reserves from coming on where they could impact the game.  Oh yea, blood talons are scary good, his DC dread tore through my entire assault squad in one turn.  Brutal.  Didn't get tabled since we were mostly in a stand off, but at 7KP to 0 I think that's mostly semantics.

So all in all a very enjoyable day getting to play some more 40K and seeing some old buddies/meeting some folks who I only knew online as well.  Looking forward to the next one if I can make it - I gotta get more stuff painted up though as I was one of 4-5 armies that weren't fully painted.  Those that were looked really good too.

other blood bowl related matters...

Over the month of August - other games (8th ed.) and lack of motivation (read: opponents) has led to the second season of blood bowl at one of the local GW's to die a slow death.  I thought I would just post up some stats here since we used the OBBLM php league manager.  I was fielding my dark elf team, the Karond Kar Raiders.

Season 2 standings

Name	PTS	CAS	W	L	D	GF	GA
Troll Country Turbos	14	14	4	2	0	12	7
Karond Kar Raiders	10	1	3	1	0	8	5
Altdorf Renegades	7	5	2	1	0	5	4
Proctors of Pestilence	5	3	1	2	0	3	5
Cothique Falcons	4	1	0	4	0	3	10
Borgut's Boulda Boyz	4	3	1	1	0	3	3

It was a little disappointing for the season to die so soon.  I had quite a good record going on, having the best points to games played ratio.  My witch elves were skilling up quite nicely, I even had a second skill on one witch (also league leading scorer with five td's) I did however lose my skilled blitzer to freakin' death last game though, so I was in for a journeymen filled game next up.

ps. I'm going to do some work on a few new blood bowl teams, as I need some more variety.  I've got this crazy idea to make a daddy long legs "counts-as" slann team using styrofoam balls with flower wire and googly eyes.  The deathbowl tournament in October in Ottawa gives bonuses to slann teams and I'm positive I could get that team done on time.  Mini wise there's an all female team that could count as amazons, norse or wood elves and the original plastic humans (that I've converted) which I'm going to do halved white & red with some black detailing and probably dip them.

NBBL - sunday

Showed up at GW Yonge/Lawrence again yesterday for some more blood bowl in the NBBL league. Made sure I was there before it opened at noon so I'd be able to get in an immediate match - waiting around for an opponent sucks!

Game 1 was against Matthew, probably the highest value team in the league - I had 450k worth of enducements. I was unfortunate not to score a touchdown with my teleporting ghoul (overshot by one square into the crowd instead of the endzone), but still came away from the loss with something, as giving the "tackling machine" random event to my second mummy ensured he came away with a couple casualties, getting him a new skill (Piling On - I just wanna hurt people).

Game 2 was against Wes and his Ogre team. This was a hilarious game as I learned about the Ogre team (loving the 3 dice blocks against a gnoblar!). Unfortunately I wasn't really able to capitalize on causing injuries. I was able to keep pretty strong control of the game though. I managed to hold Wes scoreless (he's yet to score in the league) and score twice myself. His first chance I literally surrounded his gnoblar except for one square (damn side step!) and ended up knocking him out anyways. His second chance came after a touch-back and he gave the ball to an ogre, he got halfway to the endzone before I frenzy pushed him into the stands. Probably the funniest thing in this game had to be his super bonehead. 3 turns in a row his ogre is stupid, he pulls himself together to stand up, only to go stupid again very next turn. This got my Pro wight a new skill (oh, I guess that name came from "block zombie", though I now also have two block zombies)

I think even with a pretty much 50/50 record (3 wins, a draw and 2 losses) I am still doing fairly well in the league - possibly even in third place. There will likely be a lull over easter weekend.

NBBL - friday & sunday

After a quick game of 40K at Two Headed Dragon on Friday I nipped down to GW Yonge & Lawrence to try and squeeze in a game of Blood Bowl for the NBBL league. Christian and Chris' game went into OT so I thought I was out of luck but fortunately for me we were able to borrow a board/templates and I played a game vs. Christian at the Gabby's next door. It's been too long to remember much of the game, but some highlights were; Christian causing 6 casualties, a mummy making an interception, Christian's thrower Ramos failing spectacularly and the match resulted in a 1-1 tie, with us too tired to go to OT.

Then Sunday I headed back up for the "league day". Unfortunately for me - a combination of forgetting DST and my printer sucking caused me to be about 15 minutes late - and only 5 people showed up, which meant I once again was forced to wait for an opponent - that opponent ending up being Christian again (the elf guy wussed out) and Christian smoking my hurting team 3-1. It was close, and I think I jumped the gun to score my tying touchdown - I should've let him continue to try and knock down my wight who was camped between a zombie and a skeleton one square away from his endzone. As a result Christian had two turns to tie the game, which became 3 turns when we had a riot invade the pitch.

After a couple games of ass kicking, a couple games of asses kicked. Hopefully I can turn this around with a couple games this week.

NBBL - kickoff smash jam match report

The first match report put up by the commish of the NBBL is up. Looks like the other leaders are the Altdorf Renegades and the Cothique Flacons, both also having 2 league wins. Here's the blurb for my matches;

The season opener between the Proctors of Pestilence and the Torne Bane Flaming Ears was a truly one sided affair with the Flaming Ears inflicting a half a dozen casualties on the Proctors and managing to score four touchdowns in-between the beatings for a 4-0 shutout.

Match two in Ghrond again saw the Troll Country Turbos in action; this time against the undead Torne Bane Flaming Ears. A close game to be sure, but the Flaming Ears squeaked by with a 1-0 win.

I might swing by GW Yonge & Lawrence (GW-YL) on Friday to try and get a third match in for week one.

Here's the full report since I can't link the facebook page.
The Smash Jam was a great success with eight games played in the harsh cold of Naggarond. Thanks to everyone who came out and played, I hope you had fun.

The first match to get underway took place in the city of Clar Karond between the Altdorf Renegades and the Warmachines of Nuln. The ancient rivalry between these two great cities of the Empire was not forgotten by the players on either team. But it was the dwarf Renegades who would win the match, soundly beating the humans from Nuln in a 2-0 thrashing.

A pair of matches was held in Ghrond under the baleful gaze of the Druchii Sorceresses. Match one saw the Cothique Flacons take on the Troll Country Turbos. While the Turbos inflicted heavy casualties on the Pro Elves, the Falcons’ superior passing game prevailed for a 2-1 overtime victory.Match two in Ghrond again saw the Troll Country Turbos in action; this time against the undead Torne Bane Flaming Ears. A close game to be sure, but the Flaming Ears squeaked by with a 1-0 win.

Naggarond was suitably the host for several games. Malekith was most pleased by the carnage on the pitch as there were several deaths, maiming and smashed limbs.The season opener between the Proctors of Pestilence and the Torne Bane Flaming Ears was a truly one sided affair with the Flaming Ears inflicting a half a dozen casualties on the Proctors and managing to score four touchdowns in-between the beatings for a 4-0 shutout.The Varnheim Valkyries took on the Transylvania Trash for a 2-0 win.The third match in the capitol city was between the Warmachines of Nuln and the Transylvania Trash. A special field was set up for this one with spikes and other implements of pain, much to delight of the crowd on hand. The Warmachines newest player Leopold Woldmar managed to impale one of the Trash’s vampires and turn the undead in real-dead. The final result was a 3-1 win for the Warmachines.

Moving to Hag Graef the Cothique Flacons took on the Proctors of Pestilence. The Pro Elves once again used their skill at the passing game to defeat the proctors 3-2.

One more game was fought at a mystery location between the Altdorf Renegades and the Valkyries. We are not sure where the match took place because they didn’t write it down…However, we do know that the Renegades won 2-0.

That’s all for the Super Sunday Smash Jam report. Join us next week for another rundown of the day’s matches

Naggaroth Blood Bowl League

Today was the kickoff event for a new blood bowl league (NBBL) running out of GW Yonge & Lawrence. It seems extremely promising as Christian the guy running it was really organized and I'm hoping this builds a solid following.

Showed up early with Mike and grabbed some tims while we waited. Even though we randomly rolled dice, Mike and I ended up playing each other first. We ended up playing in Naggarond - which meant fouls, chainsaws and crowd casualties would give SPP.

Early in the game things were kind of stalled, with my ghouls hanging back as we traded ineffective blows - then I was forced to run the ghouls up the left side where I'd been able to make some movement. That's when things started falling apart on Mikes rotters, it seemed I was penetrating armour every time, and causing a lot of casualties (5 in total this game, including 2 deaths - decay can really burn you). I got my two ghouls down to his end-zone and kept his team knocked down so I got a couple extra turns of stomping in, then finally scored on turn 7 (giving me two chances before the next half to get my knocked out zombie back).
Second half Mike could only field 8 guys to my 10. I kicked off 3 times to him and each time he had trouble holding the ball and I quickly got my ghouls up to cause problems, forced a turnover and scored, the ghouls racking up the SPP.

Second game was against Chris and his orc team. He only had a few guys painted so I had a bonus 9 to my fan factor temporarily for this game, first time I ever managed to have 2 FAME.
I won the dice-off for sides and picked receive again. The orcs being much tougher than rotters I could not penetrate armour if my life depended on it. Chris blitzed the ball and got it within 5 squares of my endzone with his blitzer, but two of my ghouls knocked him down and tried to protect the ball. Luck was with me though as my ghoul managed to dodge in, grab the ball, dodge out, swing wide and hit a perfect long pass to my wight, who caught it with a tackle zone on him and blitzed his way down-field to score. Second half became a total scrum on the right side, I managed to cause a single casualty. Our game ended a little early as the store closed.

I'll take it! Two games and two wins. I brought my camera but didn't take any pictures - they have a sweet custom board made - I'll make sure to get some pics next time.