Monday 30 August 2010

What are you in it for!


I was originally going to do a post on my slow progress on a Night Lords army, but I then thought, showing off a Forge World Dread, and a Vindicator, both unpainted would be a little boring. So I will save that until I get some paint on them, but for now, I wanted to find out what you are in the hobby for. A lot of Blogs have asked this, but I want to look more in depth than just for the painting, or gaming, etc.


Firstly, I am in this hobby because I really enjoy the fluff, all the stories which I can immerse myself into and forget about my boring job and mediocre life. I enjoy building the models, though I can rarely transfer my thoughts into good looking models. The painting side, I find it hard to concentrate with as I have a Mathematical and very un-artistic mind. This means, (although I always lose) I enjoy writing a decent army list, and working out the probabilities and plans of attack and defence. But the reason I enjoy this hobby the most is because it's a chance to unwind from work, and chill out with a few mates and have a laugh. We always have something to talk about, and often compare ideas to make our armies and conversions that much better.


So, I put to you, why do you enjoy this hobby, we all know no-one is just into it because they enjoy painting. You can paint anywhere, on a canvass, or any number of other models available. So what brings the painters to this particular hobby, and not just the painters, everyone. Why do gamers chose this game, there are plenty more and a lot that play easier and smoother.

Saturday 28 August 2010

40K and beyond

Hi all,

Angryman here.  How many of you 40K faithful play the other games set in the 40K universe?

the gang warfare skirmish game set in the underhives of the planet Necromunda


this is where the imperial navy, the traitor fleets, eldar battlefleets etc clash in the depth of space.

We used to play a lot of necromunda but now we are moving into Battlefleet Gothic, its quite a good same so far ( we've only played one game).  I just finished a scratch built space station made from 40K vehicle spares and now im moving onto a space hulk.

So do you play anything else set in the 40K universe? if so please share your thoughts.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Britcon 2010 the aftermath

Hi all Angryman here,

Its been 2 weeks since Britcon, I've been a bit busy with one thing or another so I'm only just getting round to publishing my results.  All the games are based on a 32 - 0 scoring system (with a sliding scale)

There were 16 players that entered.  Out of that there were 5 Tyranid armies, 2 Imperial Guard armies, 3 Space Wolf armies, 2 Slannesh Daemon armies, 1 Ork army, 1 Chaos Space Marine army, 1 Sisters of Battle army and a Dark Eldar army.

My first opponent was Iain (for some reason I kept calling him Neil, must have been the booze).  He used a Space Wolf army.  The game was a variation on kill points, I won the game 20 - 12
A lot of the force was in transports

His Thunderwolf cavalry looked so good I had to include a picture of them

My next opponent was another Tyranid Player, Ross.  He had a similar list to mine.  The game was capture and control.  I won the game 32 - 0

He set his force up around his objective

The scratch built Mysetic Spore was too good not to show

My next opponent was Josh, he brought a mechanised Imperial Guard army.  This mission was objectives (5 of them).  I lost 32 - 0.  My only consoling grace was that Josh went on to finish 1st at Britcon


Most of the units started in transports

My next opponent was Martin, he brought. a Tyranid army.  The mission was a variation on objectives )5 of them).  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of his army.  I blame it on the booze.  After a 7 turn game it ended up a draw 16 - 16

My next opponent was called Robert.  He brought a Dark Eldar army along, i was quite nervous because i had only ever played Dark Eldar twice before and the amount of dark lances scared the crap out of me.  The misson was called Slave Raid (from the battle missions book).  I won 24 - 8


His 2 light blue raiders contained his 2 large assault units

My last opponent was called Micheal, he brought Chaos Space Marines.  The mission was one I've never played before, I think it was out of the battle missions book, I cant remember it properly, it was to capture 3 objectives and you played length ways across the board.  I won the game 32 - 0

His army represented all 4 powers and started off in transports

I really liked his daemon prince so I had to show it.

After 2 days and a night, 6 games and a lot of alcohol I finished 4th - I missed out on 3rd by 4 points!!!!  Oh well there is always next year to bring home a trophy!

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Ork Warboss

Just a quick post.

My orks are finally getting fielded again -- & with some colour this time. Anybody got any good name suggestions for my warboss ???

Thursday 19 August 2010

Post-Britcon 2010

Afternoon all,

It's extremely quiet today, so I thought I'd use the time to post up my results and cover the aftermath of Britcon 2010. It's taken a fair bit of energy to actually get around to writing this up and I've not got my trusty notebook with me, so a lot of it will be from memory and what I can work out on the Results page of the BHGS website.

Round 1 - Space Wolves
So after a fair bit of family issues on the Friday night, combined with doing practically nothing all day, we headed off to the venue and got our gaming mode kicked in. I got paired up with a bloke called Tim who was sporting a Space Wolf army based heavily on Drop Pods and other Deep Striking Units.

The mission was Kill Points, with a twist that Elites and HQs were worth 2 Kill Points.


We played on a heavy jungle themed table, with lots of big LOS blocking objects. This was the first time I've played against Space Wolves with my Orks and I really struggled with killing off the units. I could weaken them, just not manage to finish it off.

Idiot Moment of the Game: Deff Rolla on a Dreadnaught and it getting blown up, whilst forgetting I did 2D6 if he attempts to Death or Glory.

All in all, was a good game and a really sound bloke to play against, just a rough game for the Orks. It ended up 13 - 9 on Kill Points, in favour of the Space Wolves.

Result: 0 Points*
* On reflection, the points may be incorrect since the first round was Umpire-less due to an emergency issue. I was happy to play it as this though, so were unable to clarify between results sheet standings and the rulespack standings.

Round 2 - Dark Eldar
I was REALLY looking forward to playing against the Dark Eldar, but unfortunately, I had mega problems on Saturday morning with my car. Ended up having to walk about 2 miles after dropping it off at the Garage before I could find the nearest source of public transport.

Thankfully, the guy I was due to play was really good about the situation and offered to call it a draw. With the frame of mind I was in, I was happy to get 0 points. It is a shame, since I can only ever remember playing against Dark Eldar once in what feels so long ago, it was a previous life.

Result: 16 Points.

Round 3 - Tyranids
So, after putting up with Angryman's Tyranid army every other week or so, I come up against a pretty similar looking list against one of the 5 Tyranid armies present at Britcon.

This list focused around Tyrant with Guard, Tervigons, Hive Guard, Doom, Trygon and Zoanthropes. So, the usual... We played a 5 Objective mission, with a massive Canal down the middle which split the board in 2, counting as Difficult Terrain, which immediately left me on the back foot.


In all, I just couldn't deal with the units coming in from reserve, on top of crossing over the Canal to get to the 3 objectives there. 4 Objectives held by the Tyranids, 1 they couldn't capture. I only managed to even hang on from being tabled from Turn 5, was because of some awesome LD rolling from a shoota Boyz squad beind harassed by the Doom.

Result: 0 Points

Round 4 - Imperial Guard
By this time, I'd slipped down the rankings away from the people who'd had a win and a loss and started playing some people who'd lost a few in a row. I was playing a guy called Richie, who had come down with the Space Wolf player from Game 1.

In his list he had a Valkyrie, Ogryns, Mortars and a few Leman Russes. Something a bit similar to my usual Imperial Guard army lists. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but it was a really, really nicely painted force. Always something good to see on a Guard army.

The mission was 5 Objectives (again) but with a twist from the Battle Missions book, where buildings were rolled for to see if they were burning (dangerous terrain) or smoking (block LOS and +1 Cover save to units inside).

The Guard seemed to thunder on and shifted the Orks from holding most of the objectives, managing to whittle it down to the Guard holding 1 objective and the Orks holding 2. It was a really fun game, and glad we managed to get 7 turns of chaotic and ridiculous action in there.

Result: 20 points.

Game 5 - Slaanesh Daemons
I'd played against an extremely similar list on the Monday prior to Britcon. Keeper of Secrets, Herald on a Chariot, Herald on a Mount, Daemonettes, Fiends, big Seeker units, a Daemon Prince and 2 Soul Grinders.


The mission was a really interesting twist. For every unit destroyed by shooting (if you were within 18") you got a Slave token, along with if you WON an assault, plus a bonus one if you destroyed the Enemy. HQ units were worth D6 slave tokens.

I managed to pick off most units, thanks a lot to the Burna wagon going insane on Daemonette and Seeker units, but then slipped from a 32-0 winning position by sending Killa Kans into assault with a Soul Grinder. The Grinder kept doing 1 minor damage result on the Kans, meaning 1 Slave token. SO in all, I lost about 4 or 5 tokens just to this, before I could get anything near to help out.

Result: 24 Points.

Round 6 - Space Wolves (Wolf Harder!)
Considering I'd never played against Space Wolves with my Ork list, I ended up playing them twice within the space of a Weekend. This time the list was more heavy hitting than deep-striking orientated. It included dreaded Thundewolves (although really well painted), Wolf Guard in a Raider, 3 Grey Hunter Packs and a Long Fang missile launcher pack.


The mission was based off the Impacable Advance mission in the Battle Missions book. The twist being we played left to right on the board, so my footsloggers were having to a loooooong way to get to his home objective. Each unit was allowed to plant a flag, then move off and only other troops could remove that flag, with 3 objectives across the length of the middle of the board.

It was a really hard fought game, where I managed to forget you could Cap a Flag and then move on. It took the combined weight of a 20ish boy Slugga Mob (post-charge) and a charging Nob Biker unit with Warboss, to finally kill off the Thunderwolves, shifting them from the middle objective.

The Warbikers then zoomed off to destroy the Long Fangs holding my opponent's base, whilst any and all Ork infantry secured my home objective.

3 Points to me for capturing my opponents base, 1 point for holding my own, and 2 points to him for capturing the middle objective.

Result: 24 points.

Conclusion
9th Place overall. Not as good as I was expecting based on later year, but I got nilled twice, so it went pretty well and I didn't show up for a game. Behind Sanguinius by 4pts who had some really good results early on.

Again, it's made me need a break from playing Orks and 40k for a while, so I think I'll focus on building up my Squats and painting my Imperial Guard for the next month or so! Really enjoyed it (aside from the Car stress) and played some good, fun and action-packed games. I had more fun being in the bottom half of the table.

Top 6 was made up of Imperial Guard 1st and then Tyranid armies 2nd through 6th... so yeah... go figure. Either way, was good fun and it's made me think that maybe next year, I should actually think about a list, rather than go "That list did OK last year, let's do this, do that and leave it as it is!".

You can find the full results table HERE

Well done to those who won, and roll on Britcon 2011!

SB.

Wednesday 18 August 2010

MAWS Members: A call to arms!

Good morning all,

Reading through the Blog-o-sphere I came across a blog called Galaxy In Flames who are producing a lot of home-made rulesets, fandexes and so on.

Basically, they are after some help with play-testing their Killzone Ruleset. Similar in principle to Kill Teams and Necromunda. I've emailed and offered to help with any thing ruleswise and offered playtesting service against other MAWS members.

The enquiry for help can be found here. and the Killzone ruleset here 

Have a read through and see if you're interested in playing and we can then arrange a game at some point, as well as ideas for Scenarios, Campaigns and Experience systems.

Peace,
SB

Tuesday 17 August 2010

[Orks] Response to "Why Orks Suck"

Hey all,

I've spent the past 2 days recovering from Britcon, so expect a (very hashed together) report coming soon. However, this morning while flicking through the Blogs I was following, I came across a post on Imperial Life forwarding and responding to a post on Yes The Truth Hurts called "Why Orks Suck".

So I thought I'd offer my opinion on the matter, purely from my own point of view and go from there. Here goes. You can see the original post here: Link

1) No melta weapons to knock out tanks.

Personally, this is a Non-Issue. Yeah, Vehicles are a bit more reliable, so the AP1 and (if you're close enough) 2D6 Pen helps. But not every army needs (or wants) Melta Guns.

In terms of knocking out Tanks, Tankbustas are, as the name suggests, extremely decent. Yeah, so only 1/3 will hit, and they're S8. But Tankbusta bombs in assault FTW.

2) No S9 weapons to knock out tanks.

As above. To me, S9 is only even an issue for dealing Land Raiders, Monoliths and other Battlewagons. For these, the only option is to get up close and personal. The way Orks should do anyway.
3) BS is exceedingly low, and even 'good shots' only hit 50% of the time.

They're Orks, that's the point. They're not Elite crack-shot Snipers. Make up for it with weight of fire, especially since the Interwebz says Shootas are awesome. So clearly, every army should be made up of them. This is why I go Big Shootas in my Mobs and leave the Tankbusting to be done in Assault.
4) The Trukk. When you build a vehicle that is worse by far than any other vehicle in the game, you've really hit a high note. What's wrong with the Trukk? It's open-topped, leaves no wreck when destroyed, does random 'ha ha funny' things when blown up, has AV10, BS2, a single non-linked weapon, and upgrades that can make the vehicle cost 2x it's normal value--and it still sucks!

I wouldn't say it's far worse than other vehicles in the game. Don't bother with the upgrades, except maybe Red Paint. It's a delivery method, same way as I see a Drop Pod.

Even the "ha ha funny" things can be helpful. In one game I remember, the Trukk someone was waiting to launch forward blew up, went towards enemy  battle lines, did well not to lose any in the explosion (still needing 5s to wound) and was then in line to move up, assault and take an objective late on in the game.

As for open topped, I don't understand why this is even an issue to debate? I wouldn't change the fact it's open-topped, I love the fact the Orks can assault out of it. If they couldn't it'd be turd.
5) Mono-build. Let's see now. You bring a Big Mek with a Kustom Force Field, or two. Maybe you bring a Warboss to give yourself a semi-reliable troop unit.

This is being judged based on the strength of HQ units and what they do. For me, there's a few Ork builds out there:
- Mek with KFF. Dreds as troops with Shoota Boyz, Killa Kans and Artillery.
- Ghazgkull with 4 Battlewagons full of Shootas
- Wazdakka (admittely very over priced) giving you an all bike option.
- Warboss and Grotsnik, to make an uber scoring Nob unit backed up by whatever you want.

Personally, the Warboss comes before the Big Mek in terms of priorities for me. But, that's personal preference.

6) With the exception of Lootas, Warbuggies, Deff Koptas, Kans, and Kannons...there is nothing remotely reliable in the Ork army for killing tanks or MC's at range.

That's still a fair bit of stuff listed there. 5 Units that are spread from Elites, Fast and Heavy. Also, Warbuggies mounting Rokkit Launchas are still only 24". Same as a unit of Tankbustas, so I'd consider chucking them into the midst. Thats 6, 2 from 3 different Force org slots.
7) Forced to CC. When you can deliver a whole mess of attacks, but hit like a girl and take hits like a girl, people aren't afraid of you. They line themselves up out in the open, and trade you units. Given it usually takes 2-3 Ork Trukk units to destroy one solid defender, you have serious issues.

2 - 3 Trukk units is the problem. You're still only 12 Boyz strong and a Marine unit can smack you off the face of the table before you even get a sniff. Now 20 - 30 Boyz charging in can roll a ton of dice, along with any shooting on the way in.
Yes, S3 basic is pitiful, but it's just something you need to work around as an assault army.

8) Dependence on cover. Hey, everyone has flamers. And Orks don't get move through cover. Ass.

Neither do Guard Platoons on foot. Flamers are just something to accept. Same way I can shift a unit of Eldar Rangers with a well placed Flamer, or some heavy weapon Guardsmen squads in cover. Even Tyranids get shafted by Flamers, with their Move through Cover.

9) Fearless. If you decide to bring a big unit of Troop Orks along, anyone that can out CC you (so, that's EVERY dedicated CC unit in the entire game) will annihilate you in short order. Worse, because you are so ungainly--it's possible to pull off multi-charges and instead of crippling one Ork unit--you can easily destroy two Ork units.

It still goes down to the dice. "Everyone dedicated CC unit in the entire game" can take out an Ork unit, but still goes down to rolling dice. On the flip side, I could charge in a big Ork mob and take out someone's big Thunderwolf Cav unit. I've weathered a charge off 4 Thunderwolves along with a Wolf Guard Battle Leader, leaving 13 Boyz from a 30 Mob, still standing, being Fearless and getting their attacks back. Killing 2 full Thunderwolves off.

Personally, I'd rather them not be Fearless. As combined with crap armour saves, it means you're basically taking another X amount of models off the table straight away.
10) Special characters that suck. Yes, you have the majority of them. Even decade old Grey Knight and Dark Eldar special characters look better and perform better than yours do.

Wouldn't say they suck, just that they cost a bit much.

Wazdakka offers some good options, since you could combine him with a Warboss and get 5 Troop Warbikers, along with a big unit of Nob Bikers as the core of your army.
Ghazgkull is pretty good, although again, suffers from over-costing. He's a force to be reckoned with if someone uses him well.

Grotsnik also fills a hole for your Mega Nobz, but again, you pay the cost for this.

11) Troops have a stupid 10 to 1 ratio for special weapons, because obviously the way EVERYONE ran their army before...with 3 weapons, a Nob, and 6 bullet catchers...was far too powerful.

I think this was more of a design choice to make people want to be taking more models, meaning bigger units. 5 Man Las-Plas was rife at the time and GW were aiming to move away from these multiple small units and put the emphasis for the Orks on big stuff.
12) When your old Codex is FAR more competitive than your new Codex, you should seriously ask GW what the hell happened. Besides wasting designer time on War of the Rings and Apocalypse, that is. Chaos, Eldar, and the Orks all thank you for these excellent games nobody plays. Just how are those sales doing, GW? Up in the UK, down dramatically everywhere else? That's not a good thing, fyi.

I have to say, before the 4th Ed Codex I never saw an Ork army in a tournament I went to, and it was an asbolute rarity to see one on a table somewhere.

Let alone if you look at where Orks placed in some tournaments compared to how they place now. They've just been shelved a bit by Imperial Guard by Numbers being rife, along with other "Meta-Game" builds.
13) Lack of survivability. Orks in Trukks can run forward and annoy people while in cover, but they can't actually survive if people focus on getting them out of it. Sure sure, you can go to ground and get a 3+ cover save against my Bolters, making you statistically as awesome as Marines. Which everyone can kill. But I digress. So what happens when the tactical squads charge into you in support of their Thunder Shield terminators instead of shooting at you? Oh yeah, you lose all of your Orks.

The same can be said of most units though. If someone wants your unit dead, they will try everything they can to make it so. Again, no major focus on the Orks as the same applies to pretty much any army. On the flip side, if I have my Nob Bikers charged by say, a ton of Gaunts that I just can't thin out, then chuck a Boyz unit into assault, there's no issue. The Gaunts are gone.

Again, if someone wants your unit dead, they will try everything possible to make it so. Same for Guard, Eldar and lil' Tyranids.
14) Back to the mono-build thing...virtually all Ork armies end up looking the same, because the Codex has clear 'this is better than anything else' units within it. Lootas, Nobs, Warbuggies, Kans...toss in some Trukks and KFF to try and annoy the enemy to death, and there you go--the build itself isn't terrible, but when every Ork army builds the same, plays the same, well...everyone knows how to beat it. You can be fucking awesome with them, and scrub01 will still kick your ass with a better Codex and a lower amount of skill, because Orks cannot surprise anyone. Just like Necrons, Chaos Demons, Chaos Space Marines, Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos, and soon--Eldar. The latter at least have a sharp blade, where everyone else is bringing their butter knife to the gunfight and wondering what happened. Eldar can still shiv you, but without a Codex refresh or a complete and utter change back to 4th edition rules--their days are numbered.

I'm not claiming to be some uber-competition winner, but the last builds I saw do well were 4 Battlewagons with a KFF Mek and Thraka, then a Meganob heavy army with Stormboyz and then my own Ork horde backed up by the Burna Wagon of Doom.

I don't use Lootas, Buggies or Trukks and still do pretty alright in things. Likewise a lot of the other people I've seen play Orks and do a lot better than me, don't always use those armies. Maybe it's a difference with the tournament scene or "Meta-Game" in the UK?

15) Lack of Terminators. Meganobs are pathetic. Even when you waste a HQ on boosting them with Mad Dok (who costs you a Nob unit as a troop, and usually the game) they still get their asses stomped because hey guess what? 5+ invulnerable saves on go-last terminator units is seriously shitty.

Lack of Terminators really isn't an Issue. Guard don't have Terminators (forget Allies), Eldar don't have Terminators, Necrons don't have 2+ armour save models, nor do Dark Eldar or other such armies.

Meganobz can be decent, although the lack of even buying the Cyborks or Painboy costs them for the Mad Dok, also robbing you of a HW choice. Stick em in a Wagon with a Warboss and pick your targets well.

And surely the argument of a 5+ inv on "go-last Terminators" is only even an issue nowadays because of the TH/SS combo that seems to be everywhere? Why not complain the Orks don't get their own Equivalent of Storm Shields. Like a Waaagh Shield.

16) In short, Orks suck because they can't reliably kill mech. They have 6+ saves, and heavy flamers kill ALL of them. Every single unit, dead. Meltaguns get delivered, and your vehicles, shoddy as they are, get blown to bits. That Battlewagon kit is a nightmare--you can't cover it, you can't stop side shots, and it's a big piece of shit until it RAMS you. Hey, isn't that clearly listed as a last-gasp tactic in the rulebook? Ah, that's the primary tactic. Right, here's the shelf you lot of green shitbags. Have fun watching my real armies get played, because you suck ass.

So basically, because an army can't "reliably kill mech", have low saves and heavy flamers do a lot of damage, they're canned?

The "reliably kill" statement is a bit redundant in a game that rolls dice. Even with your 3 Twin Linked Vendetta Lascannons of Doom, you can still miss or not destroy them. Deal with it.

Melta blow up your vehicle? You now at least know they're in assault range to hit them back. Accept it and charge in.
17) Did I mention Ork fearless rule is horrible, and is the easiest way to destroy Orks? Followed closely by their non-fearless LD7? When CC armies (I'm looking at you, Blood Angels) can wipe out your whole fucking army in the time it takes to get to you...well, your CC army probably sucks big cow balls.

Non-fealess LD7 only when below 8 models, admittedly, not a big deal at all, but still. If you're taking LDs on LD7 or less, then expect to be getting wiped out. It's as straight as that. Same way Gaunts outside of Synapse range or crapy Guardsmen get bum-rushed.

The main point of this debate seems to stem from the fact that Orks don't do Mech as well as Guard, nor do they have the reliability of a 3+ 4's across the board Spehs Mareeens, or the special weapons other armies have access to.

Oh well, if someone wants to play Orks, let them play Orks. Chuck 100 Boyz across the table at the opponent, watch as your Trukks explode and fly across the board or grin and bear it when a Heavy flamer batters your Boyz.

I've had plenty of times where I've felt absolutely Evil when I land the Burna Wagon within range of a decent target ("OUCH! 100+ hits on the unit????" said the Tyranids), so I can only accept the same can happen to me.

If you want an army that does Mech, has a top armour save, access to Meltas, can reliably survive Combat and gives you Terminators that have a better than 5+ save - play Codex: Space Marines and realise Orks are different. Comparing them is like comparing a Xbox 360 to a PS3. One might sound better on paper, one might look really nice, but it all boils down to personal preference and using them properly.

I'm not intending on starting an Interwebz flame-war here between Blog sites, I just thought I'd post my thoughts on the matter as a infrequent tournament playing Ork player, who is part of a gaming club. I get pasted a lot, but I also beat the snot out of a lot of other armies. It depends entirely on what mood I'm in, how the dice roll and how enjoyable the game is as a whole.

Peace,
SB.

Friday 13 August 2010

[Britcon] Waaaagh! Nobrot! Ready for some Krumpin!

Hey all,

Since the other Britcon players have posted on here, whilst getting everything of mine ready, I thought I'd give a showcase of the army I'm taking an using. So here goes:

Big Mek Rorshark and his Burna Boyz
Warboss Nobrot and his Nob Bikerz
Slugga Boyz Mob 1
Slugga Boy Mob 2
Shoota Boyz
Da Grotz
Deff Dred
Battlewagon
Killa Kanz
Objective Markers
So hopefully everyone will enjoy it and maybe someone from MAWS can come home with some silverware! Not banking on myself, I'm more interested in going for best army, on the strength of some conversions and a bit of sympathy for painting over 100 Orks!

SB

Britcon 2010 - The night before

This is my first effort at a non club or 'big' tourney and not sure how it will go. We will see !!! Few restrictions in the rules packs altered my list from what I would have preferred.

Finally posting the completed army after practically spending all week non stop painting the whole army. Not best idea for a tourney I know.

I decided to roll out a 'pure' Slaanesh list, named The Cabal of Broken Dreams, consisting of :

HQ
Keeper of Secrets
Herald of Slaanesh on Chariot
Troops
 
Daemonettes of Slaanesh (x4 units of 7 with chaos instrument -- 3 get the chop)
Elites
Fiends of Slaanesh (x2 units of 6)
Fast Attack
Seekers of Slaanesh (x2 units of 10)

Heavy Support
'Bash Brothers/sisters' (x2 Soul Grinders with phlegm)
Daemon Prince of Slaanesh
Objectives
3 warp gates
If I was serious about this tourney & bulked up on the daemonette squads & taken another 2 units, but I like my converted cold one models. A few of the units have upgrades, but I am not listing them here. Decided to go to Britcon purely to give me a kick up the bum to get some stuff painted, seein as I probably have probably 25000 points of 40k models, made up from various different armies, but only a fraction of it painted and an Emperors Children Army still to put together. Get bored easily & like to have a lot of choice in all my armies ---- But that's for a different post !!

Thursday 12 August 2010

The night before

Hi all,

Amgryman here with a very quick post.  Its the night before Britcon, everyone is busy double checking everything they need to take BUT you suddenly realise that the first game is on a friday night and there will be a cheap bar.  Im torn, confused, all I can think is


To drink or not to drink, that is the question

What would you guys do? all comments welcome.

Tuesday 10 August 2010

[Battle Report] Orks v Slaanesh Daemons

Morning all,

Last night was (pretty likely) the last practice game I'd have before Britcon. I went up against Sanguinus' Chaos Daemons, running a pure Slaanesh force. Now Pre-Game, I'd worried about this army, due to the speed it can get around the board and assault units from a large distance.

Last week, Col.Straken's Eldar had a tough game against them, so I was up for whatever was coming my way. We played a 5 objective mission using the Spearhead deployment. 2 Objectives were in (or extremely close) to my chosen deployment corner. First turn went to the Orks.


Turn 1 - Orks
The Orks press up the field, spacing out the large Boyz mobs to try and force the Daemons to deepstrike further into the corners of the board. The Mek in a Battlewagon kept closeby to his Boyz mobs, Deff Dred and the Killa Kans, sheltering them under his forcefield. Whilst the Nob Bikers and Warboss zoomed off to reach the outer objectives.

Turn 1 - Daemons
The Chaos Gods weren't please with the pre-game sacrifice Sanguinius made, giving him his "un-chosen" side of the army, which consisted of 10 Seekers, 2 units of 6 Fiends, 2 units of 10 Daemonettes and a Herald on a Chariot. They all managed to deepstrike successfully on the table, with the Herald moving in close to Shoota Boyz on a home objective, shooting them with her Daemonic Gaze and successfully wounding 1. First blood to the Daemons!


Turn 2 - Orks
My Grots remained lurking offfield in reserve, whilst the rest of the Orks pressed forwards. The Slugga mobs pressed either side of a central building to aim for an objective each, while the Nob Bikers moved to target a small Daemonette squad that had showed up next to the objective they were aiming for. The Burna wagon stayed central in order to flame through a doorway onto a Daemonette squad inside the building.

The Bikers managed to whittle down their Daemonettes to 2 remaining members, the Shoot Boyz knocked 2 wounds off the Herald on Chariot and the Burna Wagon took out the Daemonette squad inside the building.

Turn 2 - Daemons
Another smaller Daemonette squad showed up on the board from reserve, backed up by a Slaanesh Daemon Prince adding to the number of bodies on the table. The Seekers and Fiends moved to combat a Slugga Mob and the Burna Wagon respectively. Whilst the Herald shot her Daemonic Gaze at the Shoota Boyz again, killing another and then charging into combat.

Thanks to a lot of rending, the Fiends exploded the Burna Wagon, killing 7 Burnas in the resulting explosion (Ouch!) and losing 1 of their number in return. The Seekers were unable to fare much better against the Boyz mob, managing to kill 13 from their salvo of attacks, but getting wiped out in return, allowing the Boyz a consolidation move forwards. The Herald on Chariot charged into the Boyz and was killed off, after she killed 3 Boyz.

The Daemon prince killed a few Boyz with Breath of Chaos on the way in but lost a wound through combat, whilst the Orks passed their no Retreat wounds.

Turn 3 - Orks
The Orks swarmed forwards again aiming for the Daemonette squads that were appearing, looking to see them off to prevent the Daemons capturing objectives. The Deff Dread and Shoota Boyz tag teamed to wipe out a unit of Daemonettes and the Burna Boyz with Mek took out the Fiends who had destroyed their taxi.

The Nob Bikers and the Boyz mob behind them reduced the Daemonette squad nearest them to their final remaining member.

The other Boyz mob went after the final remaining Daemonette squad, thinning them down to 4 remaining members.

Turn 3 - Daemons
Now the heavy hitters finally started to show up. 2 Soul Grinders, a Keeper of Secrets and another Seeker squad. Unfortunately, the Keeper of Secrets and 1 of the Soul Grinders ended up being misplaced by a bad scatter, so were put in a car corner of the battlefield.

However, these guys showing up started to swing the battle. The Soul Grinders maw weapon claiming 2 Nob Bikers. The remaining Daemonettes fled for cover in an attempt to hold the objectives.

Turn 4 - Orks
We were running out of time for our alloted practice time limit, so we decided to end it once turn 4 was complete.

One Ork mob was stuck in combat with the Daemon Prince, the Nob Bikers finished off the final daemonette in the unit near them, and the second Ork mob moved up and called a Waaagh in order to reach the only remaining Daemonettes on the table, wiping them out in assault after losing 4 of their number. The Daemon Prince took out another 4 Boyz in his assault, but went down to his last remaining wound after some good Power Klaw hits.

Turn 4 - Daemons
With no Daemonettes left, the remaining Slaanesh Daemons just went to try and kill off whatever they could. One Soul Grinder trying to reach the Ork Boyz camped holding the only objective that was captured, but was inches out of range.

The remaining Soul Grinder attempted to splat the Nob Bikers, with 1 Biker failing his cover save and being removed via instant death.

The Seekers charged into the Nob Bikers, killing off 1 Nob Biker and causing some messy wound allocation on another 2, including the Warboss, but losing 4 in retalation, resulting in a drawn combat.

Final Result
Orks 1 - Daemons 0

Conclusion
Had it gone on for another turn, I'm sure the Daemons could have started to race across the board and wipe things off the objectives, when their big stuff finally showed up. My gameplan when the first turn kicked off was the aim for the Daemonettes and wipe them off the table, meaning the only option for the Daemons was either to table me, or result in a draw.

It was a tough game anyway, the worrying thing was that most of the things needed 5s or 6s to wound or glance, but with rending, I was always being denied the chances.

Tough game and good preparation for an upcoming tournament. After hearing a lot about the way the Slaanesh Daemon army was going to play, I was worried prior to the game, and I still am, considering had the game been played out in full.

If the other half of the army had showed up first turn, rather than what did, it would have been a different story.

Cheers all,
SB.

Monday 9 August 2010

Forgetfulness in Wargaming

Hi Everybody (Hi Dr. Nick!)

As I was packing my bag up last night, ready for Britcon next weekend, I started thinking about what bits and bobs I needed to take with me, after I'd got the obvious rulebook, codex, figures and so on.

Image Courtesy of: TerraFormTheMoon.com

So over the weekend, as I'm packing, I remember a situation arose a while ago during a game vs Angryman's Tyranids where he had forgotten that one of his Tervigons had cast Feel No Pain on one of his units. At this time, he was just getting to grips with the new Tyranid codex, and I was still as clueless as ever, I just nodded and agreed with what he had said.

So then I thought - What else do I commonly forget during games? And how do I rectify this?

Must-Remember Rules
We're all guilty of doing this at some point "OH noes! I forgot those guys always have a Cover save!" or something along those lines.

Back when I was playing Warhammer Fantasy, I used to print off and bring a "Cheat Sheet" with me to games. This would have bits and bobs on it that I would always forget during games, like remembering that Blessing of the Lady is a 6+ Ward Save, which units can and can't have it, etc.

Markers on Units
Sometimes, with the amount of shooting that's going on in a game of 40k, I find myself forgetting what I have and haven't shot with.

My old system would be to place a dice next to the unit, but I would find myself forgetting in games why the dice was there, picking it up and then rolling it. Then asking whoever I was playing "Have I shot with those guys?".

An idea I had was just to buy a set of dice that are a specific colour and only use those as "Shot" markers. But then I had the brainwave last night to make a set of markers to put next to the unit to remember. All I'm intending on doing is getting some spare Square WHFB bases (so they're easily distinguished) gluing some old weapons onto it, and putting them next to the units that have shot.

It's simple, but it should be enough to jog my memory after a busy day of gaming at a tournament.

Gaming Utensils
There's always one person at a tournament, that when you play them, they've lost their tape measure. I've got no issues with borrowing things to people, I just find 1 tape measure gets left lying around the tables and time gets wasted trying to find it. Bringing a spare tape measure and dice always helps speed the process up.

Combi-Weapons
Admittedly, I rarely use these, but in my current list I'm running my Warboss with a Kombi-Skorcha and I find it's more to help my opponent. I'm intending on magnetising a Skorcha to the Warboss, which can then be removed once the weapon has been fired.

Or failing that, gluing a flamer to a base and moving this around with the Warboss. (Depending on time before Saturday!)

"What does that do again?"
The most common one for me, especially since I've been using my Imperial Guard army recently is the effect of Psychic Powers or Orders. Rather than continually skip to an from pages in the Codex, I'm going to start printing out an "Order Reference Sheet" and making some tokens that I can place next to the units that have recieved orders.

Conclusion
So that's my bit of what I forget during games, or what I really need to keep reminding myself, so I don't waste the 2 hours of alloted tournament game time, when playing an opponent.

The aim is that for each army I want to produce some custom counters to remember the effects of certain things, like Guard Orders, Ork Kombi-Weapons, etc.

What do you guys find you forget during games, especially under the pressure of a tournament environment? Or after a night of extremely heavy drinking?

SB

Thursday 5 August 2010

Preparing For A Tournament?

Afternoon everyone,

With Britcon rapidly approaching, I'm starting to get geared up ready to go for it and I just thought I'd see how other people prepare in the run up for tournaments, and share a bit of info on what I go through to get ready.
This picture has nothing to do with the article... It's just cool.
Luckily, each time we go to tournaments, we play as a group of MAWS players and in the times we've been attending tournaments, I don't think we've been as a group of less than 3. It helps to know you've got mates playing alongside you... and it's also cheaper than everyone travelling separately!

So what steps do I personally go through in the run up to a tournament?

1. Read the Rulebook
It may sound silly, but I've been to tournaments in the past where I've not even played a game of 40k in months beforehand, let alone looked through the rulebook properly.

In the past few months I've played games and gone "Hows does that work again?", "Are you sure that's what it does?" and then the favourite... "Oh, I forgot that's how it works now...".

So for the past week or so I've been thumbing through the rulebook while sat around at home, or before going to bed, refreshing myself on the common things I forget about during games - such as vehicle movement distance, Grenades and charging in assaults.

2. Go through your Codex and Army List
Don't write your army list the night before the Tournament. This year I'm using a list I've been using practically for 14 months, because I've not had time to test out new ideas or variations, so I'm sticking with the familiar.

Likewise, examine the rules in your Codex, especially since you'll be (the majority of the time) playing new opponents, who may or may not have played against your army before. Personally, I'd also add to always make sure your opponent knows EXACTLY what the weapons, upgrades and units do, rather than midway through the game go "Did you not know Deff Rollas affect Vehicles now? What a shame..."

Also remember the holes in your army list. Last year I screwed up big time by spending 20pts on a Burna for my Ork Mek, not realising there were 15 others in his unit, and nothing capable of dealing with Walkers or big Characters. Lesson Learnt.

3. Organisation.
The weekend before, I like to get all my gear ready and packed up. There's nothing worse than rushing home from work the night before a Tournament, cramming all your rulebooks, codexes and dice into a bag with your models.

Likewise, sort out your transport and times in advance, allowing yourselves enough time to get a good night sleep, eat and take an ear bashing from the significant other.

4. Don't Stress
The final one is to simply calm down in the run up to the tournament, at the end of the day, it's an event about Toy Soldiers. Don't worry, enjoy yourself and have a good time with like minded people.

So then. What do you guys do in the run up to a tournament? Are you an organised type who likes to know everything and be well prepared? Or mostly just leave that to everyone else while you  have a few beers, write your list on a Napkin the night before and stay up all night playing Modern Warfare?

SB

Tuesday 3 August 2010

Team Fortress 40k Style!

Quick one from me guys...

I stumbled across this at work today and it appeals to me massively, being a 40k fan and having a big addiction to Team Fortress 2. Basically, one very kind individual has re-modelled the TF2 classes to their closest 40k Equivalent.



I think it's awesome. Just thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention. Ignore some things like the weapons clipping through skin, the fact the Sniper Scout still has the original character's head and so on - it's a personal project for someone at the end of the day.

Original article via: http://kotaku.com/5602173/in-the-future-there-is-only-team-fortress-2

Sunday 1 August 2010

Britcon 2010 - Angryman's Tyranids

Hi all,

Angryman here, August 13th sees the start of Britcon 2010.  Its a 6 game, 3 day, 2000 point tournament held every year in Manchester.  MAWS players have entered the 40K competition for the past 4 years.  Each year our final positions have been higher and higher, hopefully this year we can bring home a trophy for the club.

This year I'm taking my Tyranids.  I've showcased my Tyranid army on previous posts but I wanted to show you what I'm taking.

Hive Tyrant and 2 Tyrant Guard

Tyranid Prime and 4 Tyranid Warriors

The Doom of Malan'tai and a Mysetic Spore

3 Hive Guard

3 Zonathropes

2 Tervigons

two units of 14 Termagants

Carnifex
  
Trygon Prime

5 objective markers

The colour scheme I chose  was a variant of Hive Fleet Behemoths colours.  To protect the models and give them a slimy look I 'ardcoated the entire army and objective markers.

Last year I finished 4th, hopefully (with a lot of luck) this year will see Hive Fleet Tattybojangles finish at least 3rd.  There is always good competition at the event and the rules pack makes sure there are no 'internet lists'  or 'power lists'.  There is a link to the Britcon home page under MAWS links where you can see the rules for the various different wargames played there.