Tournament: Battleforge Games 5-10-08

It was time again for another 'eavy tournament up at Battleforge this weekend. Something like 12-14 people showed up with all the cheese they could carry; big bugs, mceldar, double lash chaos, and triple monolith necrons were all in full rapelicious effect. I waded into them with my inquisitorial army, earned a single win and went back home to the drawing board. Third exorcist here I come. The retributors will be broken down to make a third sister squad. I'm also ditching the Callidus for good. Maybe I just don't use her right but she never seems to last past a single round of combat, c'tan tech or no. Last month somebody requested more pictures of the other armies in battle, so here's a few:

Jhag's Mechanized Guard



Sean's Tyranids vs. Travis's Orks



Robert's Chaos



Thomas's Chaos



Frank's Ultramarines vs. Aventine's Eldar

Game 1 - Necrons

Primary Objective: Victory points
Secondary Objective: Destroy an enemy vehicle or monstrous creature
Tertiary Objective: Kill an enemy independent character
Bonus Point: Have a friendly unit in your deployment zone

I drew Jay's triple 'lith list for the first round. I destroyed all of the immortals and two of the monoliths but the bulk of the force made it close enough to my lines to bring the megagauss storm to bear. I accomplished the secondary objective, Jay got the first and second objective, and we both earned a bonus point.

Game 2 - Chaos

Primary Mission: Table quarters
Secondary Mission: Victory Points
Tertiary Mission: Have fewer scoring units than your opponent at the end of the game
Bonus Points: Have a unit in the enemy deployment zone

After like a year or two of missing each other at plenty of tournaments, Thomas and I finally faced off. For this tournament he was fielding two flying demon princes with lash, two noise marines in rhinos, a thousand sons squad in a rhino, a berzerker squad in a land raider, and two obliterators. He got first turn and moved up with his transports and demon princes. One fried himself a wound right off the bat with a failed perils test, and the other couldn't see to lash anyone. I wrecked all three of his rhinos through their smoke launchers, killed several passengers, and pinned them all. He managed to lash and assault a guard and retributor squad but all my heavy weapon fire wiped out one of his units after another and he conceded. I achieved the primary and secondary missions, with a bonus point, and he got the tertiary objective.

Game 3 - Chaos

Primary Mission: Victory points
Secondary Mission: Table quarters
Tertiary Mission: Get a selected friendly unit into the enemy deployment zone
Bonus Point: Don't Remember

Robert definitely made up for our last game and totally wrecked my shit with his two walking lash sorcerers, 32 thousand sons, and nine obliterators. I might have done a bit better by first placing a sacrificial unit near the table center (in order to push his forces back 18") and deploy the rest far back in my own hidey hole. As it was he was able to start lashing me right off the bat and plasma and inferno bolts ate me up a squad at a time. I conceded sometime in the fourth round.

Tournament: Battleforge Games 4-12-08

There were 20 people up at the BFG hobby tournament on Saturday and a wide variety of armies, including necrons, eldar, tau, orks, nids, DIY and Ultra marines, both pre- and post-heresy thousand sons, and mechanized guard. There were three interesting missions that built upon each other and had each player pick a unit to be the “unsung heroes” that could earn points by surviving each game and accomplishing certain objectives. I took my current 2k wolves list, with one of my hunter units (the one with the big banner model, led by the battle leader) being my heroes:

Venerable Dreadnought – assault cannon, heavy flamer, extra armor, smoke launchers
Drop Pod

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – bolt pistol, frost blade, wolf pelt, frag grenades

Rune Priest – frost blade, runic staff, wolf pelt, chooser of the slain, frag grenades

6 Wolf Scouts – 2 plasma pistols, meltagun, 2 power weapons, frag grenades
Wolf Guard Leader – bolt pistol, power fist, wolf tooth necklace

2 x 9 Grey Hunters – meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 6 bolters, 2 power fists
Rhino – extra armor, smoke launchers

9 Blood Claws – flamer, 2 power fists
Wolf Guard Leader – bolt pistol, power fist, wolf pelt, wolf tooth necklace

3 Attack Bikes - heavy bolters

2 x Land Speeder – multimelta, heavy flamer

2 x Predator Annihilator – heavy bolter sponsons, extra armor

I had a good start with full points in the first round but lost my other two games by large margins. Zach’s Mech IG won first place, Chris’ pre-heresy Thousand Sons won second, and Brad’s Orks won third place. I won best painted and grabbed yet another vyper for my Saim Hann.

Game 1 – Chaos Space Marines

Primary mission: Take and Hold (victory points)
Secondary mission: More units in your opponent’s DZ
Tertiary mission: More units in your own DZ
Bonus points: destroy all opponent’s HQs, have your unsung heroes survive the game

My first opponent was also named Mike, a real nice guy who was coming back to the hobby after a long hiatus. He had a mixed force, consisting of a jump pack tzeentch sorcerer, a tzeentch demon prince, a couple of large marine squads with a missile launcher or a lascannon, three chosen squads with four plasma guns each, a defiler, a vindicator, and a lascannon predator. He set them up in a line along his deployment edge, while I mostly butted my rhinos and fast attack units up behind the center terrain piece with my predators anchored on both ends. This was the only game where I was able to effectively set up the castle and concentrate tactic I’ve been working on with this army. The rhinos and terrain screened out the worst of his firepower while the infantry took cover and poured short range fire into anything that came near the center. The wolf scouts came in and disrupted several of his rear units. Late in the game, his sorcerer and demon prince jumped into a grey hunter squad, but were unable to inflict much damage and eventually fell to frost blade and power fist attacks. I accomplished all three objectives and got both bonus points.

Game 2 – Tau

Primary mission: Control the most terrain pieces
Secondary mission: Cleanse (victory points)
Tertiary mission: destroy the most enemy scoring units
Bonus points: have your unsung heroes survive, have your unsung heroes end in the enemy deployment zone, and destroy all opponents units that started the game on the field

Jorge was playing a well-mixed tau list with a battlesuit HQ, another two or three battlesuits, four or five fire warrior squads, a big kroot squad, a pathfinder squad, a stealth suit team, six vespids, a hammerhead, a broadside with shield drones, and two sniper drone teams. The mission also had the “escalation” rule in effect, so most of his army started on the board, while I only had my two characters on foot hiding terrified behind terrain waiting for the rest of my forces to arrive. My bikes, dreadnought, predators, scouts, grey hunters, and landspeeders all came in the second turn, but since they had to start at the table edges, they were unable to make much of a dent in anything but the kroot, and I slowly lost units to scalding fire from pulse rifles and railguns. I also wasted the scouts attacking a much cheaper fire warriors unit, who broke immediately and left them stranded in the middle of his formation to die quickly the next turn. The blood claws didn’t come in until the sixth turn and by then the game was pretty well decided. He accomplished all three objectives while I did none, although my unsung heroes did survive the game.

Game 3 – Space Marines

Primary mission: Seek and Destroy (victory points)
Secondary mission: Secure the artifact
Tertiary mission: Secure and Control
Bonus points: have your unsung heroes survive, have your unsung heroes control the artifact, kill your opponents unsung heroes

Brian was my third opponent, and he had his usual DIY marine chapter list with two jump HQs, two double-AC terminator squads, two small tac squads, two big assault marine squads, a dev squad with missile launchers and a lascannon, and a whirlwind. I went first, moving up my rhinos to form a wall in front of the artifact objective. The few early shots I took at one of his tac squads didn’t do much. On his turn, he wrecked both grey hunter rhinos with smoke and exploded the blood claws’ rhino (without smoke) hiding behind them. He also destroyed one of my predators. So for my second turn, all my squads were down three or four marines and pinned in place. We played a couple more turns but I honestly don’t remember what all happened, other than his assault squads inflicting heavy damage to my infantry and his terminators shredding everything else with their assault cannons. I was just too bold moving my vehicles right in front of his mass shooty bits, plus he was rolling very well while I was not. Basically it just got worse and worse until I gave up. Needless to say, he accomplished all three objectives while the wolves changed their diapers and headed back to the Fang.

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 4-06-08

There were 11 of us up at DL on Sunday, including a couple of new younger faces I didn't recognize but mostly regulars. There was a great mix of armies present: Eldar, Ultramarines, Orks, Dark Angels, Demonhunters, Chaos, Tyranids, my own Witch Hunters, and maybe one more race I'm forgetting. A few were tightly tuned, others not as much. I had a great time and got to play three interesting games against cool people. I played pretty much the same army as last time, minus one guard infantry squad, the inquisitor and retinue, and all of my precious assassins. As it turned out, I didn't miss them all that much, since all three opponents were more about shooting than horde or assault. I had a strong terrain advantage for at least the first two games, as almost all the tables basically consisted of two rows of cover separated by a 20" no-man's land. Great for me, since I was usually able to set up with good lines of fire and screen my exorcists from anti-tank, but maybe a little boring. I slipped up and forgot to hit and run with the Seras at a crucial moment in the last game, but otherwise I was able to remember and apply the sisters' rules and tricksies fairly well. First place went to Nick and his Storm Reaver space marines, second place went to Brendan and his Dark Angels, and I took third place. I picked up a box of dire avengers that will round out my 2k Saim Hann army. More on that tomorrow.

Game 1 - Eldar - Seek and Destroy

I played against Marshall in the last DL tournament, and come to think of it we played annihilation that time, too. For this game he had an avatar, a couple 3-man jetbike squads, a squad of guardians in a wave serpent, 5 or 6 fire dragons, 5 or 6 rangers, 5 warp spiders, a vyper with a scatter laser, two kitted-out falcons with scatter lasers, and a wraithlord. I rolled to go first and immediately took down the wraithlord with the exorcists and lascannons, as well as a ranger or two with the retributors. I may have wounded the avatar once too. He advanced with his mobile elements, shooting up guard or sister squads with his skimmers and their passengers, but my return fire usually cut the attackers down quickly. I just tried to shake or stun the skimmers first in every shooting phase and put any remaining guns into his infantry, until the vyper and falcons were all he had left. The avatar wasn't able to get within shooting range before I fried him with lascannon fire. My exorcists did really well, thanks to me rolling at sixes for the missile count at least twice. I tried to advance the seraphim and canoness, stopping briefly to wipe out the warp spiders and fire dragons that had dropped in front of my gunline, but the seraphim had to make too many saves and actually had to regroup with the spirit of the emperor before hiding for the rest of the game. The canoness, however, made it all the way across the table to light into some jetbikes and wipe them out in close combat. Witch Hunters win, crushing victory.

Game 2 - Chaos Space Marines

I also played Brandon's chaos army at the last tournament. This time he had a cool-looking betentacled tzeentch demon prince, a deep-striking squad of 6 terminators, a dreadnought, two squads of 10 marines with rhino transports, three obliterators, and a defiler. We both set up our firing lines in hard cover, with the exception of his demon prince, who came flying over on my left flank towards one of my exorcists and a guard platoon command squad. He took three wounds along the way, and managed to destroy the exorcist's main (only) gun, but lascannons finished him off before he could do any more damage. A lucky break for me, as his wind of chaos and warptime would have probably rolled up my line. Slowly but surely I picked the rest of his forces off, destroying everything but the defiler and a few marines (IIRC). I had two units near the center, giving me enough points to win by a large margin. Witch Hunters win, victorious slaughter.

Game 3 - Dark Angels

Brendan had a dark angels force consisting of Belial and a bodyguard of terminators, the landspeeder master of the Ravenwing, a veteran squad in a rhino, three more assault cannon/multimelta landspeeders, two or three attack bikes, and a couple squads of bikers. We went into the third round playing at table 2, which had somewhat of an awkward set up for me. He more or less went for a refused flank with his fast units, though it was really the big piece of terrain in my right corner that allowed him to post up next to my forces with his speeders and attack bikes and avoid the rest of my shooters. It probably would have gone a lot worse for me but he was a little hesitant in the early turns and I was able to drop a few units piecemeal before he made his main attack. Once that happened, though, it was only a matter of time for the troops on my right side. He did pop an exorcist first turn, though my second one survived to do plenty of damage on its own as well as drive into his deployment zone for recon points. My seraphim traipsed up on my left side, falling back once only to regroup and continue the assault. Belial and a few assault terminators eventually wiped them out, but only after suffering significant losses themselves. It was a very interesting game, and together with the near-disaster in the second match, I really need to work on a way to prevent fast units from flanking me so hard. I have a few tactics I'm going to try the next time I use the coed gunline. The game ended in a draw.

For next Saturday's hobby tournament at BFG, however, it's going to be the Wolftime. Hopefully I can get them all painted by then.

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 3-22-08

The Scourge of Zugarramurdi did very well on Saturday at the 2000 pt tournament at Dragon's Lair. Not one, but two recalcitrant chapters of space marines, as well as a sinister Eldar warhost were all judged guilty of heresy and made to submit to righteous excoriation in His name. Not all of the prisoners survived their penitence. I came in second place out of 12 people and got to play three interesting games against friendly opponents. My witch hunters have served me well, creating entertaining games and reliably earning solid or crushing victories, helping me to fly below the radar and ease into second or third at several tournaments now.

Game 1 - Ultramarines - Secure and Control

Lundy had a nicely painted ultramarines force consisting mostly of min lasplas squads with an assault squad led by a chaplain, two melta squads in heavy bolter razorbacks, assault terminators led by a chaplain in a land raider crusader, and a couple standard dreadnoughts. We rolled for three loot counters and I got to place two of them in my own deployment zone. He hadn't played against Witch Hunters before, which might explain why he charged the crusader forward in the first turn towards the same flank as the exorcists. They promptly lit the big guy up like the fourth of July, exploding the tank, pinning the terms, and scattering flamey wreckage into the nearby marine squad. They all survived the flak but were later whittled down by the exorcists and guard lascannons. I had deployed the assassins behind the center piece of cover, and he sent the two razorback squads in after them. The eversor was melted before he could do a thing, but the death cultists wiped out one squad and killed four more marines in the second. The dreadnoughts strode forward out of cover, and though I brought one down fairly quickly with a missile barrage, the second one survived to the fifth and final turn and nearly claimed a second objective after his assault marines had pushed my forces off the hill in the middle of my deployment. My Canoness and Seraphim had valiantly counter-attacked and defended the position for as long as possible, but powerfists will be powerfists and eventually they were destroyed. Both of us ended up claiming a single objective but with the witch hunters ahead by 400 or so victory points. Witch Hunters win, solid victory.

Game 2 - Eldar - Seek and Destroy

Marshall was a nice guy playing with a mixed eldar force consisting of an avatar, farseer, 10 guardians and a scatter laser (?), 10 harlequins, 10 dire avengers in a wave serpent, 6 rangers, 6 fire dragons, 6 warp spiders, 2 falcons, and a wraithlord. I think it was his first game against a witch hunters list too. I actually thought I was doing much worse this entire game than I actually was. He managed to wipe out a few guard squads and seriously deplete the retributors with shooting from the falcons, wraithlord. The warp spiders and fire dragons both jumped at my front line and got vaporized after singe rounds of shooting. I let the harlequins and scorpions get to the closest edge of the center terrain piece before springing the canoness, assassins, and seraphim at them, completely wiping them out suffering minimal casualties in return. The canoness in particular performed very well, shrugging off the mightiest attacks with her 2+ invulnerable on innumerable occasions. I finally destroyed the blasted Wraithlord (!) after two or three rounds of heavy shooting, earned a ton of points back from my surviving forces, and won by a decent margin. Witch Hunters win, crushing victory.

Game 3 - Space Marines - Take and Hold

Brian, I kicked your ass in this game! Only kidding. I had several lucky breaks that saved me a lot of work and helped me to win in the long run. He was running a jump commander, jump chaplain, two large assault squads, two terminator squads with assault cannons, several small tac squads with missile launchers, and a small dev squad with missile launchers and a lascannon. I set up my guard across the field from his shooty squads, with the retributors and a sister squad nearby to help out with leadership. When the assault squad led by the chaplain and commander crossed the battlefield towards the center, the retributors killed just four of them with divine guidanced heavy bolter fire and they broke off the table... totally tragic. I set up the eversor on the right side of his deployment, but he got first turn and assaulted him with jump pack squad. Somehow he survived like 20 attacks including a powerfist and actually won combat. Unfortunately he wasn't so lucky in the subsequent turn and exploded on his attackers to no effect. His terminators moved up out of cover toward the middle and the exorcists shot the shit out of them. Unfortunately the assault cannon termies survived and the exorcist in the cover on my right was rended into early retirement. The death cultists jumped down and finished off one terminator squad, while the other climbed atop the building and were eventually destroyed by the canoness and seraphim. His missile batteries wiped out my entire left side minus the exorcist with a never-ending frag barrage. On my right, his surviving assault marine squad made a dent in a sisters squad before being finished off by the canoness and a death cultist. The seraphim claimed the center and earned back their points. Witch Hunters win, solid victory.

Tournament: Ninja Pirates 3-16-08

Last Sunday I went up to Ninja Pirates for a 2000 point rules of engagement tournament. There was an unusually small turnout, only 6 players, perhaps due to the big blowout in the corresponding event thread on the Austin forum, but more likely resulting from the games taking place on the last day of spring break. I don’t think many of the usual players at NP read the forum that much anyway. I actually wrote out a long entry about the argument but abandoned it after I realized I didn’t really give a shit about a few different people not getting along for whatever reason. It was a predictable flare-up in a community somewhat segregated by differing opinions on the competitive aspect of the game (there might be some old bad blood involved in the mix too). I don’t think it says anything bad about the Austin scene; in fact I think it’s a good thing that new players are more likely to find a sympathetic peer group with the different viewpoints represented, a few inevitable episodes of threadrage notwithstanding.

Aaanyway, after trading for another whirlwind missile rack to make my second exorcist, I decided to take a new variation on my old witch hunters/inducted guard list (see previous entry). The tournament sort of fell apart before the third round when a couple of the players took off for one reason or another, and my own two games were a little sloppy and somewhat anticlimactic. The main liability of my list is mobility. I have plenty of anti-horde and anti-armor shooting and a decent assault wing, but besides the seraphim, the only scoring units I have that can move 12" are the exorcists, and they aren’t really made to drive around and grab objectives. I could drop the cultists for a couple of rhinos for the 2 sister squads, but it would make the gunline less effective by moving their leadership-bracing books of St. Lucius away. In both of Sunday’s games I was pretty rusty with the acts of faith; hopefully after a few more warmups I’ll be back in the swing of things with the coeds.

Game 1 – Eldar

Aims drew "firebase" for her mission, requiring her to capture any two objectives on the board, and I drew "foothold," meaning I had to capture both of the enemy objectives. As I’ve already mentioned, mobility is not a strong point of this army and so I was already at a disadvantage from the start as we had both placed one objective each deep in our own deployment zones (the big triangle-shaped setups). I deployed my assassins far forward, which turned out to be a good distraction for her assault units (banshees, harlequins), but I made the mistake of anchoring the sister squads heavy on my right side rather than my left. The retributors were never able to bring their heavy bolters to bear, and after the single sister squad on the left was taken out, my guardsmen were left to fend for their own. The seraphim and canoness eventually repelled the banshees and harlequins, but the seraphim were brought below scoring and broken before they could try to contest Amy’s home objective. One fire prism was destroyed by exorcist and lascannon fire, but the second grav tank zipped around to take my distant objective. Since I had second turn, I contested it with a sister squad, and I would have taken one of her objectives in my 6th turn with the surviving retributors and tied up the game, but the time ran out and we didn’t have time to finish. Eldar wins, 1-0.

Game 2 – Armored Company

I was paired off against Jay going into the second round. He had an armored company list featuring a hellhound, a vanquisher, an exterminator, 3 or 4 standard russes, 2 basilisks, and a demonhunter inquisitor with a retinue and a land raider. He drew "rescue" for his mission (not great for an all-tank army) and I rolled for "firebase." I got first turn and things went downhill for him quickly. I was able to destroy a leman russ and a land raider right off the bat, and with all my lascannons and melta-missiles I was able to keep the same killing pace for pretty much the entire game. With no chance of victory, he started to kinda fuck around at the end, which led to a scenario in which the eversor exploded a leman russ vanquisher and a hellhound in a single turn with death or glory meltabomb attacks. Spectacular! The explosions even killed the death cultist hanging around behind him, but the eversor himself was untouched. Witch Hunters win, 2-0.

Game 3 – Clay’s Barber

My third opponent, Clay, went to get a haircut. I supposedly got a bye win, and I might have even gotten third place overall, but who knows?

Tournament - Battleforge Games 3-08-08

Battleforge set a record for attendance on Saturday - 20 people showed up more or less on time, and the store manager managed to keep things rolling very efficiently with plenty of tables and three interesting scenarios. As you may or may not know, the 2008 Battleforge 40k season features 'Eavy tournaments on the odd-numbered months, where almost anything goes and players are encouraged to bring the hardest army they can muster. The even months are Hobby ('Obby?) tournaments where painting and army composition count more towards your final score. You can find Battleforge's ruleset and judging criteria for the two different versions here (link opens a word document). For my part, I had the pleasure of facing off against friendly opponents wielding three distinctly different space marine forces, and I came away with two big wins with a big loss in the middle. Here's some more photos of the event. Nick won 1st with his mixed eldar army, Chris won 2nd with his mechanized eldar, and Robert won 3rd with his Thousand Sons.

Game 1 - Space Marines

Deployment: Table quarters
Primary objective: Table quarters
Secondary objective: Kill enemy HQ with your own HQ surviving the game
Tertiary objective: Suicide squad destroyed before the end of the game
Bonus points: Keep 3 scoring units alive, control more uncontested terrain pieces

My first opponent was Brian, who had a chaplain and commander leading a large assault squad, two squads of terminators with assault cannons, a second assault squad, a couple of small tac squads with heavy and special weapons, a devastator squad with rocket launchers and a lascannon, and a whirlwind. Other than the assault cannons on the terminators, I wasn't worried about most of the marines. The only things fast enough to really circle me and shoot were the assault squads, and they had to get up close in order to do it. Genestealers led the charge with carnifexes providing fire support, and soon both terminator squads and both assault squads had been eaten. By the fifth turn, I had only lost less than half of my forces, and I was deep in his table quarter with the hive tyrant and a big stealer squad. Together they chewing up the rest of his army, right down to the whirlwind, while the rest of my units stayed back to capture quarters and terrain pieces. Tyranids: 19/22 points. Space Marines: 3 points.

Game 2 - Space Marines

Primary objective: Victory points
Secondary objective: Recon
Tertiary objective: Destroy the opponent's most expensive unit
Bonus points: Control more table quarters, keep highest point unit alive

I had seen Josiah around at plenty of the Thor's Hammer tournaments last year but never played against him. He had a pretty low-tech commander, a chaplain and a big command squad with three power fists in a land raider crusader, two or three small plas/plascan tac squads, two or three small rocket launcher/lascannon dev squads, and five land speeder tornadoes. His assault cannons and heavy bolters had just totally eradicated Jay's tyranid army in the first round, and our lists were fairly similar. And with so many tables up and running in the store, terrain was very light, so I knew it was probably going to be an uphill battle. I set up the majority of my forces on my left side in an effort to consolidate away from any short range fire and have at least a few of my assault units reach the other side alive and win back some VPs. Of course, it was not to be. As expected, the land speeders and crusaders flanked me on the right with utter impunity (even though I maimed or wrecked several of the speeders), and the command squad charged and smeared in assault everything his gunline hadn't already shot down. The only survivor was the hive tyrant, who slowly crossed the vast desert between our deployments and wrecked shop on several squads to little overall effect. I'm not sure what I could have done differently to affect a different outcome, short of hiding everyone, and there just wasn't much terrain to hide a horde behind anyway. Maybe I'll try some sort of defensive strategy the next time I find myself against a mobile shooty force (eldar, tau), but I'm not exactly holding out much hope. Space Marines: 22/22. Tyranids: 0/22.

Game 3 - Space Marines

Primary Objective: Annihilation
Secondary Objective: Defeat the most units in assault or sweeping advances
Tertiary Objective: No friendly units in your own deployment zone
Bonus points: Most units in enemy deployment zone, I don't remember the other one.

Frank was playing a fairly typical Frank list with an interesting exception: a small bike squad. He had a jump libby with fury of the ancients, a commander on foot accompanied by a tank-hunting 2-lascannon command squad, an assault-oriented scout squad, several small las/plas tac squads, two assault squads, three bikes with two flamers, and a rocket launcher/heavy bolter dev squad. I have a pretty even record against Frank, but we always have very interesting games and I was glad to be able to finish out the day facing his ultramarines. I deployed in a strong flank again on my left side, and just tried to move the stealer squads across the field as fast as possible. While I was consistently coming up with fives and sixes for fleet and armor saves, he was not doing nearly as well and his anti-infantry guns weren't able to cut the stealers down quick enough to keep them at bay. Two of the squads made it into assault with the scout and tac squad in the trees on his right, and the bikers and assault squad he sent out to try and slow the rest of the army down were eventually overcome themselves. The core of his forces in the center took casualties here and there from my sniperfex shooting, returning fire with mixed results against my bigger bugs, while the libby and his other assault squad circled around my right. I kept a stealer squad hanging back, and when they were in assault range I charged and wiped them out after a couple of turns with more excellent rending rolls. I did make one big mistake at the end that nearly cost me the game - I left the remnants of my very effective flying warriors standing dopily out in the open and they were quickly cut down by his heavy fire. The stealers in the trees on the left finished off their opponents and jumped out into the devastator squad in the center. He tried to fight them off with the remainder of his command and tac squads, but the 6th turn ended with the fighters still engaged in assault. Tyranids: 22/22 points. Space Marines: 0/22 points.

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 2-23-08

In the two or three days preceding Saturday's standard 2k tourney at Dragon's Lair, I made and applied my own decals to my Space Wolves using one of the Great Company emblems listed on the annulus in the codex, specifically that of Engir Krakendoom - the Sea Wolf. So I'm ditching my old fluff and reincarnating the army as Hakr Varghoss's Crushing Wave.

Wolf Guard Battle Leader Hakr Varghoss is next in line to assume the mantle of Wolf Lord in Engir Krakendoom's Great Company. "Sea Wolf" recruits originate from a single, barely habitable island called Ublyn. Perpetually besieged by the devastating waves and terrible monsters of the Fenrisian ocean, the natives of Ublyn pride themselves on the hard-won bounty of their unusual fishery: juvenile kraken. Their immaturity notwithstanding, these savage beasts can smash a hunting ship to pieces in the blink of an eye, and must be taken from several angles at once. Krakendoom's kin often use a brazen frontal assault to entangle their foes before pinning them in with drop pod assaults on the flanks and rear lines.

Wolf Priest - frag grenades, wolf pelt, healing balms, plasma pistol

Rune Priest - frag grenades, wolf pelt, chooser of the slain, runic staff, frost blade

WGBL - terminator armor, pair lightning claws, wolf pelt
4 WGBG - terminator armor, 2 bolter-plasma guns, 2 assault cannons, 3 power weapons, 1 power fist
Drop Pod

6 Wolf Scouts - 2 power weapons, 2 plasma pistols, 1 meltagun, frag grenades

9 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 7 bolters, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

9 Grey Hunters - 2 power fists, 7 bolters, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader - power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

8 Blood Claws - 2 power fists, 1 flamer

Land Speeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

Land Speeder - multimelta, heavy flamer

2 Attack Bikes - heavy bolters

Land Raider - extra armor, smoke launchers

Besides the new emblems, I switched out the wolf guard battle leader riding with the blood claws for a wolf priest with balms and a plasma pistol, and ditched the master-crafted upgrades on the wolf guard assault cannons and the rune priest's belt of russ. Generally as tournaments go, I know what to expect at Ninja Pirates, and I know what to expect at Battleforge, but Dragon's Lair is always a mixed bag and I never can predict what kind of a competition it will be. Of the 8 people that showed up, it was about half veterans, half new or returning from an extended 40k hiatus, and the factions represented consisted of 4 Eldar, 1 Chaos, 2 vanilla/Ultramarines, 1 Dark Angels, and 1 Space Wolves. I got to play against three very friendly players, and once again the Space Wolves did well against power-armored foes but horrible against Eldar. I went 2-1 but didn't place.

Game 1 - Space Marines

Mike's marines detachment, called for the time being the Emperor's Lost Children, consisted of a flying chaplain with a small command squad, a commander with a large command squad on foot, both command squads including company champions and apothecaries, a lascannon venerable dreadnought, two 6-man tac squads with bolters in heavy bolter razorbacks, a 6-man scout squad with sniper rifles and a missile launcher, a 10-man tactical squad with bolters, a 6-man assault squad, and a devastator squad with 4 rocket launchers. I think all his marines had counter-attack and true grit. The mission was Recon. I set up my full land raider on my far left side and my bikes and land speeders on my far right. He deployed his forces in a straight line with the devastators and dreadnought covering the middle, the commander and small tac squads advancing on his left, and the chaplain and assault squads doing the same on his right. Taking first turn, he moved his jump pack units forward, and I was able to pull off a first turn charge with the land raider's passengers. It might have been nice if they had actually made an impact on their victims; the chaplain and his command unit suffered maybe one casualty, and my wolf priest and another one or two blood claws were were killed in return. It would take another two turns for the wolves' power fists to finally finish off their opponents, but only after the Rune Priest had also fallen. The blood claws jumped in the still mobile land raider and peeled off to get into his deployment zone. The first grey hunters drop pod came in near the middle and they immediately starting shooting up the large tactical squad nearby, with the return fire bringing both squads below scoring. The terminator pod came in nearby as well and after crippling the dreadnought with assault cannon shots to his posterior, helped the grey hunters finish off the large tactical squad as well as the devastator squad. The wolf scouts jumped from his left side table edge into the rear of the large command squad. I was just trying to tie them up a bit and prevent them from reaching my lines, but they dealt less casualties than expected and were quickly wiped out by the counter-attack. In the end I had the land raider, blood claws, a grey hunter squad, and the terminators in my deployment zone, compared to his command squad and small tactical squad. Space Wolves win, victorious slaughter.

Game 2 - Eldar

Nick was playing his Eldar army on Saturday rather than his usual Black Templars, and as both of us got the only slaughters in the first round, we were paired up in the second round with Seek and Destroy as our mission. His army was (approximately) Eldrad Ulthran, an Avatar, 5 or 6 fire dragons, 6 harlequins, 5 wraithguard with a warlock in a wave serpent, 10 dire avengers, 30 guardians with 3 bright lances, a viper with 2 shuriken cannons, 2 falcons, and 5 dark reapers with an exarch. Definitely not the most overpowered Eldar force possible, but still strong enough to quickly make utter mincemeat out of the Space Wolves. It didn’t help that Nick is a very able commander or that my horrible dice luck really got rolling, as it were, in the second round. I couldn’t roll over a 3 to save my life and suffered at least 2 overheat casualties, maybe 3. The land raider was destroyed first turn without having moved an inch, and though I had started the blood claws and priests on foot behind a nearby bunker, they were quickly dealt with by falcon, dire avenger, and fire dragon shooting. I veered around his right side with my land speeders to try and inflict some nominal casualties with their heavy flamers, but guardians and wraithguard jumped out and brought them down just by looking at them. When my terminators’ drop pod came in, one of them promptly killed himself with a plasma overheat, and even with 8 assault cannon shots the squad only killed a single dark reaper. The wolf scouts emerged from Nick’s table edge to finish them off, but the Avatar rebuked them for their folly. The 4 surviving terminators were wiped out by huge volleys of fire from the assorted guardian squads and grav tanks standing nearby, and that was that for the Wolves’ rear guard attack. The grey hunters both came in at the same time in the middle on my right, one squad wiping out the fire dragons with plasma and bolter fire, while the other tried to shoot up back of a nearby falcon but only succeeded in shaking it. Both squads were destroyed in the next Eldar turn and the Space Wolves essentially phased out (lolz). Later I heard Nick say my tactics had been sound, but I’m not so sure about this. I think tactically I might have been better off getting a lower margin of victory in the first round so I wouldn’t have been paired up against him at all! He’s a nice guy and I think he felt a little bad for having our game play out so one-sidedly, but it was no big deal. Once I saw the composition of his army, I pretty much knew what was coming (we both did), and the only thing that irritated me during the game was the two or three spectators (not tournament participants) that walked up on several occasions to ask really superb and tactful questions such as “wow, where’s all the space wolves?” Once again, I feel the need to put spectators on notice: if you walk up to a random game (especially between people who are strangers to you) and see that one side is losing tremendously, you can safely assume both players are quite aware of how the game is going and they don’t need any on-the-scene cub reporting, so pretty please just hush.

Game 3 – Chaos

* photo censored by the Inquisition *

Brandon had a big unmarked Chaos force, with some great dreadnought and terminator conversions. Our mission was Take and Hold, with the terrain being mostly mixed woods and ruins, with an especially large rectangular ruin piece in the center (if you've played at Dragon's Lair, you probably know the one to which I'm referring - the overgrown courtyard with the fallen statues). He had a terminator lord with a chainfist, a small terminator retinue with a heavy flamer and a couple more chainfists, a small squad of chaos raptors with a meltagun and a flamer, a dread with a plasma cannon and missile launcher, another dread with a twin-linked lascannon, two squads of 10 chaos marines with a meltagun each in rhinos, one of them led by a powerfist champion, a squad of 10 chaos marines with a missile launcher and plasma gun, a 8-man havoc squad with heavy bolters, a defiler, and 2 obliterators. We both set up the core of our forces hiding behind the big ruin piece, ready to jump out and start wading through the difficult terrain into what promised to be a big fight for the center. Still, he had a much larger line than me, so his heavy bolter havocs, the tac squad on foot, one of the dreadnoughts, and the defiler all spread out wide on either side of the ruin. The first turn consisted of both of us moving up slightly with few casualties on either side. I managed to wound both obliterators with the land raider’s lascannons but he made their invulnerable saves. Luckily his return fire wasn’t able to penetrate the big tank’s armor and I had another turn to shoot, this time bringing both of the hulking monstrosities down. One of my landspeeders went long to try and bring down the defiler, but missed with its multimelta, and the defiler responded by destroying the skimmer with its reaper autocannons. Later he popped around a corner and threw a battle cannon shell into a mass of my troopers, luckily only killing two grey hunters with the blast. The Land Raider responded by zapping it dead with a twin-linked lascannon shot. I tried to shoot up his tac squad on my far left with my attack bikes, but they were reduced by half by the return fire and I pulled the survivor back to chill out for a while. My scouts charged in from his deployment edge and attacked the havoc squad, killing 6 of them before the raptors counter-attacked and wiped them out. I dropped the terminators into the center ruins, their opening assault cannon volley shredding his lascannon dreadnought, and then moved the blood claws up nearby to back them up if necessary. One grey hunter drop pod landed right behind the center ruins, and the other landed late on my far left side, but as it was they were both too far away from the enemy forces to make much of an impact. Both of his rhinos full of chaos marines were approaching along one of the big ruin’s sides, so I sent my surviving landspeeder over to try and knock one out. I managed to destroy one of them with a multimelta shot, and the riders were entangled. Casting storm caller on my blood claws and priests, I charged them in and routed the pinned marines in assault. Back in the center, both of our terminator squads stood for a turn and tried to stare each other down. I moved mine forward and opened fire with the assault cannons and combi-plasma shots but couldn’t manage to inflict too much damage. In the following turn he shot down three of my five terminators with a ton of low AP shots before assaulting them with his own terminators squad. Bad move - since my squad went first, the last 3 traitor termies were cut to pieces by the battle leader’s counter-attacking lightning claws, and his own IC whiffed with all five chainfist attacks. He broke from combat, never to be heard from again. We had started the game a little late, so we only got to the end of the fourth turn before time ran out. I had my blood claws and one grey hunter squad occupying the center, and he had his raptors and one of the chaos marine squads contesting it. I ended up winning by around 205 victory points, just barely avoiding a draw. Space Wolves win, solid victory. Brandon was a nice guy and I hope he starts playing regularly around town. I think there were a few rule nuances he wasn't quite aware of and I hated to "spring" them on him, having been in that position many times myself.

For the next few Wolves games I'm probably going to switch back to the battle leader instead of the wolf priest (he never made that much of a difference to warrant the extra points), switch out the plasma guns on the grey hunters for meltaguns and add a second plasma pistol to each, and experiment using a predator annihilator with heavy bolter sponsons instead of the attack bikes. Not that I need another reason to have one besides the pure pleasure of painting a tank, I hear higher armored vehicles might be getting a power bump soon, and I thought I might try to get used to the movement and shooting tactics involved with a second one in the army. I was thinking in time I might even get a second annihilator and sub it in for the land raider in the 2k list, giving the blood claws a rhino instead. It would add another scoring unit and separate my main anti-tank from my assault troop transportation, even if it was at the expense of some durability and general badassitude.

Tournament: Ninja Pirates 2-17-08

Having hastily finished my two landspeeders over a few evenings last week, I was eager to see if my new Space Wolves list was any kind of improvement over the last. For the points of the vindicator and swapping out the attack bikes' multimeltas for heavy bolters, I added the two skimmers and made the Wolf Guard terminator assault cannons master-crafted. I knew it would be tough going in, being on the bad side of the numbers game, but I've heard that sometimes you have to tame the beast before you let it out of its cage. That in mind, I boxed up the Brothers of the Blood Sea: Extreme Puppy Rescue edition, and with a couple of wolves as my objective markers, headed up to Ninja Pirates... and got a fucking speeding ticket on the way there! Blast the joyless Arbites and their accursed speed traps. That wouldn't have happened if I had been in a cult limo.

Game 1 - Tyranids

This was the first of three games against opponents I'd seen at Ninja Pirates tourneys for months but never actually played before. Cricket had over 100 models in his bug army, with an amped up flying CC hive tyrant (scything talons, toxic miasma, implant attack, toxin sacs, warp field, god knows what else), three squads of three warriors with twin-linked deathspitters, two squads of 12 genestealers with flesh hooks and maybe talons, a big squad of fleshborer gaunts, a big squad of spine fist gaunts, two 10-man squads of hormagaunts, a sniperfex and two dakkafexes with five wounds each. We both rolled Rescue for our mission. Unfortunately (idiotically), I had placed one of my objectives fairly close to his deployment zone and he was able to claim it with gaunts in the second turn. The land raider pulled forward and unloaded the blood claws and HQ into the center temple, hoping to make a stand with them and maybe rescue his objective marker located on the other side. Gaunts and warriors lit them up and over half of the blood claws died in one turn, leaving the survivors to fight off the subsequent gaunt and hormagaunt assault on their own. The Land Raider itself was immobilized early by a venom cannon shot, and then destroyed in the subsequent turn. The land speeders split up after one of them was shaken by a Hive Tyrant assault, the functioning one heading across the board to burn up some genestealers, only succeeding in killing three or four. The scouts arrived and charged into the remaining stealers, taking them down to three, then two, then one, before finally finishing off the last just by dogpiling him. Even in their great numbers, the gaunts were a breeze once I could get them out of synapse, but they proved a frustrating tarpit capable of slowing and diluting one of my baddest units for a fucklong time. I also underestimated the power of those goddamned deathspitters; he had what semeed like a continuous supply of the twin-linked S6 blast templates, and they were all over me as soon as the drop pod doors opened. Try as I might I only killed one of the three squads of those bitches. Along with some seriously poor armor save rolls they brought my numbers down the most, followed by the dakkafexes and the hive tyrant. I made two major mistakes: I basically gave away one of my grey hunter squads by isolating them in the middle when I should have consolidated my attack on the right, and later I forgot to move my attack bikes around the third or fourth turn and the hive tyrant's implant attack wiped them out before they could even blink. The big bug spent the entire game flying back and forth between his deployment and my own, swatting at land speeders and assaulting foot units with thorough impunity. The land speeders were eventually destroyed, but they lasted quite a while and overall I was very impressed with their debut performance. The Rune Priest had a good game as well, whittling down around 10 or 15 gaunts by himself over three turns after all his fellows had been killed. I finally managed to rescue one of his objectives with the Terminators after they blew away the heavy fex guarding it, but couldn't hold one of my own to accomplish my second mission. Tyranids win, 2-1.

Game 2 - Tau

Jason's got a unique-looking Tau army, with a lot of cool conversions, like the adapted predator turrets on the hammerheads, and the skull defiler heads on certain battlesuit units. He had three hammerheads, along with two squads of 6 fire warriors, a fusion gun piranha, two squads of battlesuits with rocket pods and plasma, two HQ battlesuits with a bodyguard each, also with rocket pods and plasma, 6 stealth suits with a fusion gun on the leader, and one devilfish transport. We rolled the big triangle deployment zones, and bridgehead for both our missions (capture one friendly and one enemy objective). I rolled to go first, and the bikes inflicted a couple of early casualties on the stealth suits before being utterly erased by plasma and rocket fire. I tried to flank heavy on my left with most of my units, except for one grey hunter pod which I sent to my right to attack his fire warriors and possibly capture one of his objectives in a big ruined building in his corner. Probably the low point of the game was losing the other grey hunter drop pod off of the board edge while trying to solidify my hold on the other ruined building where his second objective was located. Instead, the blood claws and terminators were left to hold it themselves, with the land speeders and scouts launching attacks in the immediate vicinity. The terminators managed to bring down a squad or two with their shooting, and the scouts toppled one battlesuit squad as well but got tied up for several turns in combat with the more senior tau HQ. Heavy fire from all the skimmers and battlesuits took a toll and eventually the land raider, one landspeeder, the blood claws and terminators were all destroyed. After wiping out two fire warrior squads in assault, the half-strength grey hunters hiding deep in his deployment zone couldn't get close enough to the objective they were trying to eventually capture. This was basically the same story as the first game with a slightly different flavor: shooty death for the Space Wolves, Tau wins, 2-0.

Game 3 - Chaos

Thor had a near pure Nurgle army, with a demon prince, Typhus, a greater demon, a squad of five or six nurgle terminators, two squads of 10 lesser demons, two big squads of plague marines, and two defilers. I rolled to get the rescue mission again, and he got firebase (probably the easiest mission - control any two objectives). He split his two plague marine squads, with one on each side hiding in cover, with the defilers in position on his left near his rear-most objective. He went first but luckily his ordnance ricocheted harmlessly off of my exposed land raider. I exploded one defiler and immobilized the other in the first turn with my land speeders, while the raider drove far forward and discharged the blood claws to "rescue" one of his objective markers. The scouts and both grey hunter packs emerged from reserve and attacked the plaguebearers hiding in the forest on his left side. The scouts were easily repelled, but T5 and feel no pain couldn't stand up to the combined power fist attacks of the grey hunters. The greater demon arrived and tried to fight off the hunters but was slayed by the rune priest and wolf guard battle leader. Eventually he made it across the table with the demon prince, Typhus, and a pack of demons to loiter on one of my objectives, but my land speeders, attack bikes, terminators, and land raider counterattacked and took care of them, securing me a win in objectives (2-0) as well as victory points.

The limitations of the Space Wolves list were quite evident in my first two games. I think it can hold up against other more compact MEQ armies, but it's much more difficult to use against mob or mechanized skimmer forces. I did make a few mistakes that hopefully I'll learn from in the future. I definitely preferred the 2 land speeders to the vindicator, and I think I'll stick with the melta/flamer armament rather than make them tornados. My main concern has to do with the land raider. It's so freakin expensive and fairly vulnerable considering all the high strength guns out there. I've considered a few other options, such as swapping in a predator annihilator or bringing the venerable dreadnought back in, but as the land raider grants both tough transport as well as decent anti-tank, I'm going to play a few more games with it and just try to improve my tactics.

Tournament: Battleforge Games 2-09-08

I played in the first Battleforge 40k Hobby Tournament last weekend and did pretty well without actually placing. I think I might have come in around 4th of 17 total players with two wins and a loss. It was a good mix, with plenty of marines (several pre-heresy armies), imperial guard, eldar, chaos, and even one ork army. There were only seven or so fully painted armies, not as many as I’d hoped to see, but maybe word will get around and more will show up next time. I brought the latest incarnation of my Space Wolves army, including two new scout models I had painted up over the last couple of evenings. As usual Brandon ran a great tournament, and I had three interesting games, probably rolling a little too well in each. Overall, the wolves performed a lot better than I had expected. The characters all did well in assault, except maybe in the third round due to user error, and the reserve elements usually managed to pour out some good shooting upon landing and survive long enough to earn their expensive asses back. The Land Raider shot and transported well, and the bikes knocked out some important targets on cue. The Vindicator got a few kills but wasn’t ever resilient enough for my taste. I’ll be dropping it for a couple of melta/flamer land speeders at the next tournament. Here’s the list I used:

Rune Priest – frost blade, runic staff, chooser of the slain, wolf pelt, frag grenades, belt of russ

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – frost blade, bolt pistol, wolf pelt, frag grenades

Wolf Guard Battle Leader – lightning claws, terminator armor, wolf pelt
Wolf Guard Bodyguard – 2 combiplasmas, 2 assault cannons, 3 power weapons, 1 power fist
Drop Pod

6 Wolf Scouts – meltagun, 2 plasma pistols, 2 power weapons, frag grenades

9 Grey Hunters – 7 bolters/ccw, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader – power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

9 Grey Hunters – 7 bolters/ccw, 1 plasma pistol/ccw, 1 plasma gun
Wolf Guard Leader – power fist, bolter, wolf pelt
Drop Pod

8 Blood Claws

2 Attack Bikes – multimeltas

Land Raider

Vindicator – power of the machine spirit, extra armor, smoke launchers

Game 1 – Pre-Heresy Emperor’s Children

For the first round I drew the bye and faced off against Brandon’s mean pink Chillens. I think this was the first game I’ve ever played against him when he wasn’t fielding his uber ass-can army. Saturday his force consisted of a jump-pack Epistolary with FotA and FoD, a jump-pack Master, a terminator squad in a drop pod, three 8-man las/plas tac squads with rhinos, a landspeeder with a multimelta, two dev squads with four lascannons and four heavy bolters, and a whirlwind. The primary objective was table quarters, and the secondary and tertiary were basically recon and assassinate. No victory points. He more or less played from a static gunline, laying in wait for my deep strikers and taking shots at my Land Raider as it tried to cross the battlefield. My scouts came in from his back right edge, pounced on one of his tac squads and proceeded to maul them unmercifully, making hella 4+ saves. Afterwards they segued into a second tac squad but were finally beat down. At the same time, my terminators dropped in behind the Master on his left side and opened up with assault cannons, killing him outright in the first blast. Secondary objective accomplished. Seeking revenge, his librarian came over to assist, handily breaking my terminator squad with fear of darkness, and escorted them away for a couple of turns. Run, little weenie wolves! When his own terminators dropped in nearby to finish them off, they got shot up themselves with combiplasmas for their trouble. Meanwhile, the blood claws and accompanying HQ badasses got pinned down for a couple of turns on my far left after he penetrated the Land Raider with his land speeder’s multimelta. Fortunately, the hit only destroyed one of the tank’s lascannons, and after the blood claws tackled the land speeder to the ground, they jumped back in the tank and continued their approach toward his right flank, avenging my dead scouts and taking care of the recon objective. On my own right side, the Vindicator was destroyed early on by his lascannon dev squad, but the attack bikes survived for quite a while and eventually reduced the librarian to a man-sized heap of melted slag. Since it was the bye, I automatically earned the primary objective (though I still accomplished it), and with the second and third objectives I went into the second round with full points. Space Wolves win.

Game 2 – Pre-Heresy Alpha Legion

My second game was on the ice board playing against Aventine's purple people eaters. The primary objective was to capture the hill terrain pieces, the secondary was field of battle with victory points dictating the winner, and the third was to destroy the enemy’s most expensive unit. To the best of my recollection, Chris had a command squad with two tank-hunting lascannons, a demonhunters inquisitor with the Emperor’s tarot and a psycannon, a vindicare assassin, a techmarine with a signum, a big cc-oriented veteran squad on foot, a small sniper/rocket scout squad, three melta/missile tactical squads, two melta/flamer landspeeders, and two predator destructors. The Rune Priest's chooser of the slain kept most of his infiltrators at bay, which was nice. He set up a big gun line with the veterans in the rear for the necessary counter-assault. I kept the Land Raider hanging out behind the hill on my right side, taking potshots across the field, and eventually knocked down a land speeder and a predator. The blood claws and rune priest occupied the hill there, staying deep enough in cover to be out of sight from his shooting. I was going to move up the raider and take the center at the end, but one of his tank hunters finally immobilized it in the fifth turn. Having had poor luck splitting the main army body before, I decided to concentrate on the left-side hill in his deployment zone and threw the rest of my army at it, wiping out the scouts, inquisitor, land speeder, one and a half tac squads, and most of a veteran squad, with about 50% casualties of my own in the process. However, at some point later I made the mistake of moving the surviving terminators to the edge of cover and they were finished off, costing me a ton of VPs for fairly little in return. He won the primary objective by holding his single hill and contesting both of mine by sidling up to them in the 6th turn with his land speeder and predator, perhaps a little cheesy, but I would have done the same thing in his place (and soon will with my own little jets!). I had killed or broken quite a bit of his army, but he had still earned more VPs from inflicting lighter casualties on my pricier units (something like 800 to my 600) and took the secondary objective as well. Killing off one of his tac squads did earn me the tertiary objective, so the final score was 17 to 3. One or both of us may have gotten some bonus points, too, but I don't remember. Alpha Legion wins.

Game 3 - Chaos

* File Accidentally Deleted by Servodolt *

In holding with a now time-honored 40kology tradition, I forgot to get a photo of the third game against Joe's Slaanesh-themed chaos force. He had a demon prince with lash, a greater demon, a lord with lightning claws, a big squad of possessed, two squads of noise marines, another squad of chaos marines, a big squad of lesser demons, a big squad of raptors, and a multi-melta dreadnought. This game was a little weird, we hadn't played before and I don't know if our styles were exactly matched, but the mood was tense at times. I may have ticked him off earlier in the day when I interjected a question/comment on a rule usage in his second game after mis-eavesdropping. I don't appreciate it either when people butt into my tournament games, but it's hard sometimes when you think you hear something flagrant. With strangers, it's probably best to just keep your mouth shut if it's not your own game. Anyway, the primary objective was victory points, with extra points for table quarters, the possession of which also determining the winner of the tertiary objective. The secondary objective was "suicide squad," where we both nominated one suicide unit and could earn the objective if they were destroyed in the battle. I missed seeing his roll for the possessed squad's ability; he said later that it had come up power weapons, but it was of little consequence in the end. He set up the noise and standard marines on his right side, with the raptors and more noisemarines in the middle, and the possessed and dreadnought on his left. Going second, I rolled up his right side with my Raider, Vindicator, and bikes, deploying the HQs and blood claws halfway up the table. Unfortunately for me, I goofed and forgot to cast Stormcaller - it would have come in damn handy in the subsequent assault. He counter-attacked with the dreadnought, thankfully missing the Land Raider at close range with the multimelta, as well as the daemonettes, who charged into the blood claws and characters. In return, the attack bikes moved up and destroyed the dreadnought with melta fire. Just as my blood claws started to fight the lesser demons back, his possessed jumped into the fray and finished them all off, including both HQs. The Vindicator and Land Raider managed to survive long enough to kill the demon prince with some clutch shooting, but were eventually destroyed. Most of my reserves came in early. The scouts emerged from his deployment edge, shooting up some noise marines to good effect, and I brought the terminators and grey hunters in on the left side of the table to attack his two marine squads advancing over there. In the fourth turn, the greater demon emerged and destroyed my terminators before following up into my second squad of grey hunters, who had themselves just broken his big raptor squad off the table. After several rounds of intense combat, where chainsword and powerfist dueled artfully with whipped tail and spikey boob, the Keeper of Secrets and grey hunters wiped each other out. The first unit of grey hunters dealt heavy casualties on their targets, reducing two marine squads to a man and breaking one of them off of the board. Some especially poor rolling on his part in the last two turns shifted the game strongly in my favor, and I took the primary and tertiary objective by capturing two quarters to his one, as well as a couple of extra bonus points for my suicide squad surviving and (I think) getting a unit into his deployment zone. Neither of our suicide squads were destroyed, so noone got the secondary objective. Space Wolves win.

Tournament: Ninja Pirates 1-20-08

Ninja Pirates played host to a 2k Rules of Engagement tournament last Sunday. I took the newly inked nids and 2 objective markers. If you haven't played the RoE rules before, I definitely recommend giving it a try; a large variety of possible scenarios coupled with the freedom from having to tally up victory points at the end is the main attraction. The rules do take some tinkering to include in an effective tournament environment. The tournament organizer had changed up things a little bit, most drastically the way you capture objectives (you needed the most scoring units within 3" instead of simply the most models), and the all-or-nothing type missions were split into two possible points, but everything else was essentially the same. All in all it made for a very interesting set of games, with tactics playing a bigger role than the usual kill-or-be-killed smashups. Here was my list:

• 1 Hive Tyrant - toxin sacs, wings, 2 twin-linked devourers, warp field, enhanced senses


• 1 Carnifex - 2 twin-linked devourers, flesh hooks


• 6 x 8 Genestealers - extended carapace, scuttlers


• 5 Warriors - rending claws, scything talons, wings, adrenal glands (+1 I)


• 2 Carnifexes - venom cannon, barbed strangler, extended carapace, enhanced senses, bonded exoskeleton, flesh hooks

I got two wins and a draw, Jay got first place, and I lost the tie roll-off for "best general" (2nd place) to Cricket. Best army went to Frank's Ultramarines, speaking of whom...

Game 1 - Ultramarines

I've played against Frank more than a few times now (he goes by Capt tyranus on B&C), but I haven't actually beat him since the very first time we were matched up in the 2006 citywide. Shortly thereafter, he perfected his infantry gunline, and he's thrashed my guard and witch hunters on several occasions in the last couple of years. This time, however, the dice gods cooked up the perfect storm for him from the very beginning. First off, we drew a board with plenty of dense urban terrain, rolled for the small L-shaped deployment zones, and I got to choose the corner with the most cover. Then for missions, I drew "Unconventional Warfare," which by luck required me to defend my own two objectives (placed conveniently in or very near my deployment zone), while he drew "Assassinate," requiring him to footslog into a tyranid deployment zone (yikes), kill my HQ, and capture at least one of my objectives. I rolled to pick to go second, which was another big advantage in this case. He deployed his 80 or so marines at the edge of his "L" and began to move forward as quickly as possible, pausing to take shots at what he could see - mainly my carnifexes - while his flying Librarian knocked a few genestealers down every turn with Fury of the Ancients. At the same time, his big scout squad and assault marines picked their way through terrain and prepared to pounce on my objectives. For my part, I just waited for his inevitable attack and tried to use the barbed stranglers to take some of the shooting heat off my stealer broods (to little effect). In the last turn, two of his small las-plas squads, one assault squad, and the big scout squad moved to contest one of my objectives. I counter-attacked with the hive tyrant, my flying warriors, and a few genestealer stragglers. The hive tyrant and stealers managed to bring the scouts and one mini-tac squad below scoring, and then it was down to the warriors vs. the assault marines. After the first round of marine fists were unable to inflict much damage, I lucked out again and rolled 6 rending hits. With my two scoring units to his one the objective was mine! He also tried to contest my second objective with a lone assault squad, but I had too many genestealers covering that one as well and I took the win, 2-0.

Game 2 - Necrons

Jay had a very diverse and well-painted Necron force, including the Nightbringer, a destroyer lord, two warrior squads, an immortal squad, four destroyers, three wraiths, two heavy destroyers, two tomb spyders, and a monolith. I rolled the "Hold Out" mission, and he got "Firebase." He split his undead mess up into two main wings, with the star god, wraiths, and one tomb spyder holding his right side, the monolith and wraiths roughly in the middle, and everything else slightly to the left. I put my flying warriors and half my genestealer squads into objective denial mode, while the rest of the bugs concentrated on holding my own objective markers. The Monolith, wraiths, and Nightbringer solidly fought off my stealer offensive, while the rest of his force marched slowly forward to shoot up my right side and deny me the objective in no-man's-land. I tried to circle his far right flank with the warriors, but eventually the Nightbringer got in their way and I decided to charge in headlong. This time, the nightbringer was out of cover and the warriors got to go first, their rending claws luckily scoring just enough wounds to bring him down before he could retaliate. Now that's a trophy kill! On my right, I moved up the hive tyrant and several genestealer squads to assault his tight firing lines. The tyrant smashed into the front warrior squad, killing just enough of them to force a morale check, which they failed, and the big bug ran down the survivors with a sweeping advance. My genestealers ate up one of the tomb spyders and his accompanying scarab swarms, and then moved into combat with the immortals, killing a few of them before he teleported them away to safety with the monolith. It ended up a draw, with Jay and I each capturing both of our objectives.

Game 3 - Eldar

The third and final game was against Ames and the "Grapes of Wrath" Eldar. Maugan Ra led her usual two squads of pathfinders, howling banshees in a wave serpent, harlequins, eight or so warp spiders, three war walkers, and two fire prisms. My mission was "Unconventional Warfare" again, while she had to capture both of her own. We had the big triangle deployment zones. I figured I'd be better off closing the distance with Eldar rather than try to hold back and defend, so I lined everyone up on my deployment edge and hauled ass out into no-man's-land. The stealers on my right got stung early by fire prism and pathfinder sniper fire, and so instead I sent the flying warriors and big gun fexes to take that objective instead. Everything else, including the hive tyrant and dakkafex, jumped out into the middle to assault the oncoming warp spiders, war walkers, harlequins and howling banshees, and to take the eldar objective in the middle. One squad got in early with the war walkers but were tied up and couldn't inflict any rending hits to damage them. It would take another two or three stealer squads to gang up and bring them down near the end of the game. The harlequins lost half their number to shooting from the hive tyrant, and the rest were wiped out by a rushing stealer squad, who followed up into cover and were assaulted in turn by the howling banshees. Despite the initiative advantage gained from their masks, the banshees were repelled and fell back off of the table. Same for the warp spiders, who tried to take on the dakkafex only to get swarmed by more stealers. After some good low AP shooting inflicted some early wounds, Maugan Ra finished off the hive tyrant, but he too was brought down by the rest of the swarm in the end. She used the fire prisms to harrass my big gun fexes for pretty much the whole game, almost bringing them both below scoring capacity; a pity they couldn't return the favor, but for their thrice-damned holofields. After I had wiped out everything but her grav tanks, we called it in the fifth turn, with me succesfully capturing my two objectives to her one. I only realized on the drive home that the scoring stealer squad that had been assaulting her fire prism on her own objective should have contested the marker, as I had second turn and they were all clustered in the same place. No big deal, I just need to take my time a little more with the wrap-up. Chalk it up to the end of a long day, not to mention I was coming down with a cold (sucks).

Tournament: Battleforge Games 1-08-08

Today I played in the first tournament of the 2008 season at Battleforge. They might not be able to update their webpage worth a crap (ha!) but they definitely run a decent tournament, with thought-provoking missions and great prize support. The only downside is that there's usually a shit ton of power armies, and the 'eavy version of their competitions, which will be run in odd months, promised to be more of the same. I decided to start the year off with a painted army, and I've been tinkering around with a new guard/allied WH inquisitor and eversor build, so I took the green machine out for a spin, deep into hostile territory...

Game 1 - Tau

My first game of the day was against Daniel and his Tau. The primary objective was field of battle (essentially alpha recon), with secondary points awarded for holding table quarters and killing an enemy HQ. He had a battlesuit leader, two squads of elite battlesuits, a big squad of kroot, two fire warrior squads in devilfish, a pathfinder squad in a devilfish, a piranha, a hammerhead, an ion head, and two broadsides. In addition to all the smart and seeker missiles fucking me up from behind hills, he was finding all sorts of janky lines of sight across the board with his railguns. I failed every obscured roll I tried, and eventually my armor was whittled down to a lone demolisher. I managed to tank shock the kroot squad and send them running for a few turns, theoretically giving my eversor assassin cover as he launched a one-man assault into some crowded ruins in his deployment zone. I say theoretically because goddamned tau pathfinders managed to force five armor saves on the eversor, somehow only wounding him once, while his own poorly-rolled return attacks managed to kill just one measly pathfinder. The galactic badass died the next turn after only dropping a couple more. Daniel earned a shitload of battle points and I earned none. The end. And yes, I'm pissy about this game!

Game 2 - Eldar

Chris is like my personal "boss monster" right now, and there will be much rejoicing when I finally defeat him (and I will!). Besides his posting on BOLS, he's started his own blog at crusadedude40k.blogspot.com. I'm pretty sure he was using the same mechanized eldar list as last time, and I knew it would be an uphill battle so I just tried to use the opportunity to learn more about what worked and what didn't against his grav-powered rolling pin. The main objective was take and hold, with additional points for destroying the enemy's most expensive unit, and more for having your own uberpricey bastard destroyed as well. I was only able to shake a single falcon before his attack wing was knocking at my left flank, shooting my infantry core up with scatter lasers and shuriken and dumping fire dragons and harlequins, all the units doing what they do best in horrible concert. For my part, I managed to basilisk one squad of fire dragons into oblivion, kill about half of one of the avenger squads, and destroy another avenger squad's wave serpent. On the last turn I finally managed to bring down his star engined falcon (his suicide unit) with a miracle missile from my very last surviving infantry squad. Other than that it was completely one sided and he wiped out everything I had. More ouchy!

Game 3 - Black Templars

My last game was against a newcomer who brought his mostly painted Black Templar army. The completed pieces, like the champion for example, were quite nice. The list itself seemed like a characteristic templar mix: an emperor's champion, a sword brethren squad led by a chaplain, a venerable dreadnought, four neophyte/crusader squads including one that was twenty strong, a lascannon razorback, a land raider crusader, and a lascannon predator. It was an interesting game, but we were both moving a little slowly and only got three full turns done before time was called. I learned a lot about that big ass LRC - specifically about the machine spirit, and how it can fire a weapon even if the vehicle moves over 6". I was able to glance it a few times with my big guns but overall my shooting was horrible and his advancing army took few casualties before slamming into my lines. I don't know how competitive BTs are overall, but I was definitely impressed by their special rules in our game, especially the one that allows them to move closer to you when they take any shooting casualties. For a space marine army, there was a ton of bodies on the field and the cheap neophytes absorb casualties for what seems like fucking ever! The sword brethren on the other hand never really had a chance to get into the game; I only ever saw them shoot their bolt pistols a few times. For fun I talked him through getting the most victory points he could in the last turn we played. Another sweep for the sheisse Tiefwalders! Get fucked imperial guard!

Tournament: Dragon's Lair 12-22-07

Saturday marked a long-awaited return to Dragon's Lair for a 2000 point tournament. Last month (or maybe October?) I was one of three people that showed up. It was a weird month then, though, and I figured the last hosted tourney of the year would draw more players to the store this time around. Eight folks in total played on Saturday, all familiar faces to me now, regulars from the Austin community. Kurt, the new Dragon's Lair 40k (maybe more?) coordinator, did a great job of running the games and we finished earlier than any other DL tournament I've attended before. I decided to take my latest tyranid list - basically switching out the lictor and psychic screams for a broodlord and a couple of extra genestealers. It worked alright I guess, maybe not as well as I'd have liked. After several tournaments at Ninja Pirates, I got to feeling pretty comfortable with the 1500 list, but I'm still clumsy with the 2000 point build. I never felt like the Broodlord was giving me anything a few more carapace scuttler stealers wouldn't, and they would move faster to boot. I didn't miss psychic scream, and the warp blasts never performed that spectacularly. I'm getting ever closer to dropping the zoanthropes entirely to fit in even more genestealers. I liked the flying warriors, very fast and lots of rending attacks for the price, but with the 5+ save they are pretty damn fragile and I haven't quite gotten the hang of using them in combination with my other units yet.

Game 1 - Eldar - Seek and Destroy

I knew beforehand Chris would be there with his sick McEldar army and I was fairly relieved to get our game over with in the first round. Chris is a very fun guy to play with, but it's hard not to get pre-demoralized fighting against his tournament eldar list. Extremely efficient and redundant: 2 doom/mind war farseers on jetbikes, 2 squads of 10 dire avengers in scatter laser wave serpents, a small squad of pathfinders, 2 squads of 5 fire dragons, a squad of 5 or so harlequins, 3 falcons with scatter lasers, shuriken cannons, holofields, spirit stones, and the Emperor knows what else. Things went about as I expected. He swears there's an art to it, but honestly it doesn't seem like he even needs to move his shit around that much, other than to just circle your units and apply assloads of doom and shuriken. I would think the odds are low you'll even shake more than one falcon a turn with a moderately shooty force, and with an assault army the odds must get even lower. I will admit that I was at a loss about the best way to deploy my forces and it probably shows in the photograph. I scored a couple of pyrrhic victories in the middle territory against some dire avengers, pathfinders, and half of one squad fire dragons, but eventually his falcons, dra