Friday, September 30, 2011

Ok, so the pics won't follow.

Stupid camera. Stupid picture box. Stupid Duncan.

No pictures tonight, hopefully eventually we can have some posted that aren't so blurry that you can't read or see anything. Until then, work on the Iron Warriors continues.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Sergeants

Got three of the new Sergeants for the Iron Warriors built over the past two nights. Sadly, I haven't had a lot of time for building, let alone painting. But two power fist sarges and a power weapon sarge did get completed, which is a start. Hopefully I can get a few more built tonight and over the next few days.

Pictures, hopefully will follow tonight.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Local 1750 Tourney at the Battleforge.

So, over at the other Gaming Store that I play at (not the Rusty Scabbard), the Battleforge, I'm part of a Warhammer 40k league that holds monthly tournaments. The league got set up some time back in May of 2011 I believe and the first tournament being held in June. So far, it's been a blast!

We've had 4 events, with this past Saturday marking the 4th.

Our first tournament was 2500 points, and I ended up in a tie for 1st place with Mike Hoskins. Our second tournament was 1500, where I pulled down 3rd, and last month we fought with 2250 and I pulled down 4th. Each month we've had around 20 players or so, and with the awe inspiring terrain and tables hosted by Mike (Owner of Battleforge, not Hoskins) and set up by Tim (the guy who runs the place) the events have truly been incredible.

This past Saturday was the latest event, and while we didn't have 20 players this time, we had a lot of fun. 1750 points, started at noon, and promised to be fun. Now, with my Imperial Guard, I have a core 1000 point list that I use as the basis for building a list. At 1750 I just scaled it up a bit and went with one of my standard builds.

CHQ, 2 flamers.
Platoon HQ, 2 flamers.
2 Line squads, grenade lanchers.
2 Autocannon squads.
2 Veteran Squads, triple melta.
2 Vendetta for the Vet Squads to ride around in.
2 Squadrons of paired Leman Russ Battle Tanks.
1 Squadron of paired Leman Russ Demolishers.

There you have it folks, Duncan's average 1750 list.

My first game was against a player new to 40k, and new to the Imperial Guard. Now, I know we were all new at one time, and while I tried to help my opponent through the game and show him his errors and coached him on some moves that would put me on the wrong foot, it didn't quite work out to well and we called the game at the end of Turn 3. There wasn't really a point to continuing, he had 1 Ogryn, and a Al'Raheem left. Not Al'Raheem's platoon, or command squad, Al'Raheem, all on his own.

My buddy James was using his bare bones list of Space Wolves and playing on the table beside me. Fun note, the table he was playing on was named Kendall Holler. Another table was named Wooten Moor. That was a very kind nod of the head from Tim towards James and myself, and made both of us rather happy.

James was fighting one of the regulars at the store, who also played Space Wolves. And the two of them fought to a draw, a very hard fought draw, but a draw non the less.

Round two, I fought space wolves (noticing a theme?), and pulled out the massacre on a very hilly table. Vince, my opponent in that game, and I had a long talk during the game and after. See, there's a large contingent of players at Battleforge who aren't into list optimization, and build lists more designed for fluff and because they like the way things look and play.

More power to them! Playing that way is exactly what I love about this game! That said, I also love Tanks, the Leman Russ especially, and because hey, I'm a tread head at heart, I use them. Sure they aren't the most point effective, and the interwebs scoffs at them, but I love em and will never stop using them. But Vince was wondering about why we build our lists as pared down as we do, how we come up with some of the stuff we do in games, and what makes our crew so vicious on the table.

No, we aren't WAAC players, but we play as hard as we can, and we have been playing as hard as possible against one another for a long time. And as everyone knows, if you continue playing against tougher caliber of opponents, you will start becoming a better player yourself. And Vince was wanting some tips and tricks, so I happily obliged him. Hopefully he an I can get together this coming weekend and play a game or two and see how some of the ideas I gave him worked out.

Full points again for me, and James got full points against his opponent's Gray Knights.

Round 3? You guessed it. James and I faced off in another of the endless series of Duncan's IG vs James' Wolves.

It was hard, it was very hard. It ended on turn 5, and oh god, am I glad it did. If we had 1 more turn it would have ended up with James massacring me. As it was, we pulled the bare bones of a Draw because of the scenario rules, and I maintained my hold on First place. James managed second place, and there was a 3 way tie for third.

With my winnings I picked up Scibor's Scifi Archangel, and bought myself Scibor's Templar SF Knight #2.

I think the Templar knight, once properly cleaned of crosses, will make a marvelous Iron Warrior warsmith.

Iron Within, Iron Without.

Semifinals results

Well, I've been back from the semi's for a week now, I guess I should post the results.

We played at Games2d4 in Indianapolis. I took Third place, and yes, I am overjoyed at my placing. Especially since going into round 3 I was somewhere around 7th.

First off, of the five of us that went there, I'm the only one who placed highly. James and his Space Wolves took 7th, after being #2 going into round two. He pulled off two massacres and then got massacred by a Wolf Guard army with 39 missile launchers. Yep, that's right, 39 missile launchers. I doubt I could have beaten 39 missile launchers either, in fact, to be utterly honest, I know I couldn't.

Jack got massacred by that same space wolf player in round 1, got a draw and got massacred a second time. Not Jack's best day, but it happens as we all know. Out of 40 players, he pulled down 32nd.

Betty pulled 12th after getting a draw the first round, a minor win the second game, and a draw in round 3. With what was honestly, a crappy list. Honestly, I didn't expect him to do much other than get mauled by everyone he played. Which proves something I've told Betty for a while, his list building sucks, but his playing almost makes up for it.

Mike got 19th. His first round he pulled a major loss, followed by a minor win, and a draw. Sadly, the TO ruled against the INAT faq that Mike's army relies on, and turned his first game from a minor win to a major loss. But, them's the apples, and while Mike was upset at first, he got over it and soldiered on. After all was said and done, Mike understood where the TO was coming from, and wasn't unhappy. So, it worked out in the end.

My game... Let me preface this by saying the following. I fought three VERY hard opponents who knew their lists, who knew how to use their strengths and how to minimize their weaknesses. I honestly think that at any time in those games it could have gone either way no matter what.

My first game was against Steve Bradford and his Blood Angels. Now, somewhere I have a copy of his list... I think. I honestly don't know right off the bat if I do anymore or not. But, I do remember the gist of it.

Mephiston riding solo. 10 Assault Termies, 5 with claws, 5 with hammers and shields. 2 Priests, and 5 tactical squads. Two squads had lascannons, one squad had a missile launcher, one had a heavy plasma cannon, and the last had a multimelta. He also had two Rhino's and two Land Raiders.

I got first turn and hammered the hell out of his line as hard and as fast as I could. By the end of turn 3 I had fragged Mephiston thanks to a chimera of Melta vets doing a drive by, a lucky autocannon hit, and a vendetta with a grudge. By the end of turn 5 it was a pile of brutality on both sides. I had 1 vendetta left, 1 chimera, my autocannons, and all of my Leman Russ's. I got a major victory over him and found myself 50 points shy of getting a massacre. All he had left was two marines from two different tactical squads and a single land raider. Damned hard game, and a very thoughtful opponent who knew exactly how to fight it. He ended up getting 6th place after pulling two massacre victories in the games after ours.

My second game was against an army I dreaded facing. Variant leafblower IG with a very skilled general. Brice Blair was his name, and just like me, he had three Vendetta. Unlike me however, he had two command squads with plasma and melta, 6 packs of vets in chimeras, a psychic battle squad, a manticore, two colossus, and two medusa. His army put my gray plastic to shame and was beautifully painted and masterfully generalled. Honestly, I think the only saving grace I had in that game was turn 1 and being able to fire first.

I scouted my Vendetta, he scouted his Vendetta to cover mine and be able to neutralize them in his first turn of shooting. Turn one saw my Vendetta each target his artillery. Only his Colossus were able to fire on his first turn, as my Vendetta's had destroyed the gun from one Medusa, and shaken the second, and had both shaken and immobilized his Manticore. Thankfully, my Autocannons shook two of his Vendetta so I was able to keep mine around for a few more turns.

By the end of the game the table looked like a scrap yard. I had 1 vet squad left, without their chimera of course, and 1 line squad left, obviously they were allowed to keep their chimera. I had one vendetta, and five leman russ remaining as well. My saving grace was actually the scrapyard of all the vehicles around the center objective and some careful maneuvering on my vehicles actually allowed me to block him from running a few squads onto the objective to contest my victory. I got a major victory by the skin of my teeth, and very skinned they were.

I have played Imperial Guard for nearly ten years, I have fought against many other IG players both locally and at tournaments. I play against James Wooten and his IG very frequently and have both won and lost against him. Never have I fought someone as tenacious with his guard, or as lucky with his cover saves as Brice. I would go up against Brice any day of the year and feel lucky to get a win, and would be happy to take a loss against him. He was a true class act and one of the most skilled players I have ever had the honor to face. Brice ended up taking 8th place after pulling out a minor win in his third game, at least, I believe it was a minor win. His first game was a major win with 1 bonus point.

Going into the third game I was actually rather worried. I knew that my scores were not anywhere near the top. I thought that perhaps, with luck, I could eek my way into 3rd of 4th if a lot of the top tables had hard games, and considering the victory conditions in the final mission, that seemed almost a certainty. But, looking at it, I was utterly convinced that I had to pull out a massacre for there to be any chance of moving into the top.

And then I drew Edge Tomlinson. Now, let me say this about Edge, I've never met the guy before, and damnit, I wish I had. Hands down, Edge gave me the most fun game of 40k I have had in a long time. He brought vanilla marines, a termie Librarian, ten assault termies, 5 with claw, 5 with shield, 5 tac squads in rhino's, 3 melta attack bikes, and 5 dakka dreads. I knew that with 5 dakka dreads, no matter what vehicle he saw, he was going to rip it apart unless it was one of my Russ's.

I drew first turn, and after we both deployed and I made my scout moves, I kept my first turn. And with Spearhead, there was no chance of doing anything other than shooting like mad, and hoping that the termies didn't manage to get in amongst my guard before I at least had a chance to thin the herd. And my dice were on fire. By the end of the first turn I had immobilized or destroyed three of his Rhino's, and blocked his entire line of advance in it's tracks. Then his termies gated into charge range of my gun line. Then they deviated seven inches right back where they had come from, and that changed the game in my favor. By the end of the third turn the few remaining termies were hiding amongst a set of ruins with a tactical squad, and all but one of the rhino's were dead, along with all of the attack bikes. I had 8 kill points, he had 1, but he held all but two pieces of terrain, and all three of my vendettas were immobilised by his dakka dreads.

And then we rolled kill points for our victory conditions. At that point, all I had to do was continue and build on my lead as hard as I could while trying to deny him as many points as I could. It was not easy. On turn four he went from 1 kill point to 5, and I was still at 8. Turn five however fixed my major worry. I toasted his librarian, his last termie, one tac squad, and a dakka dread. He in exchange broke my platoon HQ, and a special weapons squad. At the end of the game it all boiled down to him hunkering down behind as much terrain as he could, while I did the same as we both blazed away.

Let me say it again, Edge was the most fun opponent I played against that day, and I especially appreciated the fact that both of us decided to take a break after the end of turn two and go for a smoke. A great opponent, a fun guy to play, and as I already said, the most fun opponent I have played against in a tournament setting, or casual setting in a long time. Everything he said was followed by a laugh, he was relaxed and having fun no matter what happened, and I cannot say enough about how cool he was.

Edge pulled a minor win in his first game, and a massacre in his second game. Our game however ended up with a massacre in my favor, and with me getting a 23 point win. He pulled 14th out of 40 players.,I pulled 19 points in my first game. I snagged 18 points in my second which at the end of the day left me with 60 points. I was thinking at the end of my game that I had a shot at fourth, but then I started finding out how many massacres were in play on the top tables.

The top table, which should have included James against the guy in first, instead included the guy in first against the guy in 4th when they matched up double massacres vs double massacres. The guy in first going into round three ended up taking first at the end with 72 points. The guy who James fought and got massacred by ended up pulling second with 69 points. I heard those point totals, and my heart sank. I was 9 points behind the guy in 2nd place, the only chance I had to place in the top three was is none of the other guys ahead of me pulled out a massacre.

And none of them did. In fact, not only was my 60 points good enough for third, but if I had only eeked out a major win against Edge, or even a minor win against him, I would still have been able to pull down third.

All in all, a damned good day for me, and while not the best showing for the five members of Team Scabbard, it was a good day. The first year I played Ard Boys, I went to the semi finals. I pulled down 25th out of 30 players that year. The second year I played, again I went to the semi finals, that year I managed to pull down 5th, while my buddy mike pulled down third and then decided not to go to the finals, the guy in first didn't go either, and I could have gone but didn't know in time. This year marks my third year playing the Ard Boys tournament, and at the semi's I took third, and yes, I intend to go to the finals.

That is, if they ever post the locations, and there is one with a less than 10 hour drive. Maybe I will do well, maybe I won't. I don't care, I'll have gone to the finals and done my best.

Wish me luck.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Ard Boyz.

Well, Saturday is Ard Boys. I'm part of a group of local players who are all headed to the same location. Games to Die for in Indianapolis is where the five of us are headed. Yes, five. Two of our group took first place at different game stores because that is where they were when the first round happened. So, yeah, five players from the Scabbard are all headed to Round 2.

It should be pretty awesome, not quite sure about it all just yet, but at the very least it will be fun for all involved.

That said, I'm rolling with my Guard, not got the Iron Warriors anywhere close to completed since my work on them has stalled out due to not having the Bits I ordered yet to complete the first few squads. Which sucks, and pisses me right the fuck off.

But, not to worry, I've rolled with the same or similar style guard army for so long now, that I know how it works fairly well. I am thinking of fiddling a bit of variety into the army that will be a mild difference from my norm, but it should increase my firepower significantly. Looks like we will have to see how it goes. Hopefully I can place somewhere in the top three, but I'm willing to accept whatever placement I get. However, I REALLY want to take one of the prizes this year, if only for the chance to go on to round 3 and kick ass on the national level.

Regardless of how it works out, I plan to enjoy the shit out of myself.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Iron Within, Iron Without.

I'm going to use this blog in an attempt to detail my journey into creating a Pre Heresy Iron Warriors Army for 40k. Now, I already own an Imperial Guard Army, and a Blood Angels army, and I owned an Iron Warriors army many many years ago, which sadly through mischance, hazard, and theft has gone missing. Much like my original Blood Angel army has.

But that aside, I still love the Iron Warriors, even if the current Chaos Codex sucks a gigantic bag of donkey cock.

So, Iron Warriors it will be. Now, I have some forge world stuff,  (20 MkII Assault Marines, and a 5 man squad of MkII regular marines) so as that armor style is older, and more in line with the Iron Warriors being one of the original legions, I think I'll be using them as the primary stylistic basis for the army. I'm also starting out with 10 assault terminators, which I ordered heads and shoulder pads for from MaxMini. So, with the idea of using the current Blood Angels codex (Because screw the current Marine Codex), I'm going to set up my Iron Warriors in the following format.

My HQ will obviously be a warsmith of some kind, what type of warsmith, I do not yet know. I do know I won't be using a psycher, because I don't really care for them to very much. I think that instead I'll either roll with a reclusiarch as the HQ, or a Terminator captain of some kind. I may roll with Tycho, as his army wide boost is a nice bump as opposed to the rest of the special characters.

Elites, probably not to many Sanguinary Priests to be honest, while their ability is nice, it doesn't really fit to well with the idea for the Iron Warriors. I will however use a few of them, but probably not nearly as many as I normally would for my Blood Angels. I'm thinking the Terminators and possibly a chaplain will be the primary focus of my Elites. The chaplain can be the junior warsmith, or something along those lines. Possibly the Warsmith's Equerry.

Troops however is the rub. While the Iron Warriors are known for massive embankments of traps and fortifications, that doesn't really work to very well for 40k. I admit that I could go with a tech marine in the elite slot for the bolter defenses bit, and is admittedly something to think about, right now I'm just not quite sure about it. I am certain however that I want the Iron Warriors to be a line breaker company. Which will mean lots of assault squads, probably in vehicles, backed up by heavy firepower. Probably 4 full strength assault squads in Rhino's, and possibly 2 tactical squads if I get around to them.

That sets the HQ, Elite, and Troops sections up, at least, it gives me an outline with which to work. From there I have a need of actual firepower, and the only real way to get that is either in a vehicle (which is fine with me), or with Devastators. Personally I love vehicles, but for this situation I think I'll be going with the Devs. Probably going to magnetize them at least somewhat, and primarily I think I'll be going with Lascannons and Missile Launchers.

Fast attack however, I am uncertain about. The Vanguard are a possibility, but I don't really want to do more jump packers, and because of that I may well just opt out of those guys utterly. Land speeders are nice, and I will probably end up with a few of them in the end, but for now... no. Bikes however, those are a distinct possibility, as are Baal Predators (With suitable Iron Warriors alterations of course).

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce you to the first two of the Iron Warriors I have managed to slap together, without paint so far of course.

Two of the terminators I have. One dual lightning claws, one thunder hammer and storm shield. And because we are going pre heresy, there won't be an actual thunder hammer, how about instead a thunder mace, and rather than the current style for the storm shield, I'll be converting Chaos Warrior shields for these guys. So... Thunder Mace and Shield, and Lightning claw.

Yes, the termies are converted, I used different heads, the maxmini shoulder pads, and bulked their legs up a lot to make up some of the difference so that they actually look larger and more imposing. Forgive the horrible lighting in the pictures, I'll try taking better ones eventually. I'll also include a horrible picture of the idea I had for doing a Sanguinary Priest in termie armor for these guys, as I may end up using them together eventually, like I said, for right now, I'm not quite certain and will figure it out eventually.