Ok, so I finished off the Pioneer squad. I finished fixing the Sergeants for the three squads I have finished.
Right now we have the following finished.
Garrison Squad. 8 marines with varying weapons, either axes or chain swords plus bolt pistol. 2 guys with real meltaguns. 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. The Sergeant has the head that I have denoted into being the veteran helmet. These guys were pictured before on the blog.
Construction Squad. 8 marines with bolt pistol and hammer. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 Duncan brand kitbash that I need to do a tutorial on). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol, as the above Sergeant he has the veteran helmet. No pictures yet, will get those up ASAP.
Pioneer Squad. 8 marines with axes and bolt pistols. 2 guys with meltaguns (1 real, 1 kitbash). 1 Sergeant with powerfist and bolt pistol. Again, veteran helmet, and still no pictures.
Now, I have gone through all my bits boxes, I scrounged, I scavenged, and I finagled my way into finding enough bolt pistols, kitbashed meltas, powerfist, heads, backpacks, and torso's to do up a total of 7 more marines. Sadly, doing this will use the last of the heads I have from Maxmini so I'm going to have to order more before I can continue building. Now, if I pull the heads from the two built devastators, I can bump the squad up to 9, including the Sergeant. Only one problem. No legs. Not a single set unless I crack open my last box of tactical marines to steal their legs, which I will probably do.
But I won't have any devastators built, except two without heads. Now, I've got a different weapon batch for this squad, the Chaos Warrior/Chaos Marauder swords to go with their bolt pistols. Which gives each squad built so far individual appearances. One with cloaks, one axes, one hammers, one swords. Sure the sword squad will only have 9 marines (if I pull the heads off the Devs), but I won't have any of the Devs built.
I also won't have any characters built in the style of the army at all, which I really need to do. Also, all the marines so far have the regular, shitty style shoulder pads which I hate. Also, the majority of pieces in each squad are imperial, with insignia shaved away. Sure they look heresy, and sure the backpacks, heads, and weapons look damned good, but that's about all.
What I really need to do is put together the Forge World stuff and magnetize them with the 10 spare backpacks I'll have left over after doing whatever it is that I end up doing with the Devs/Sword squad.
I guess I better lay out a plan for the next little bit.
#1. More heads and backpacks from Maxmini. Either I've got three fully completed squads and two Dev squads fully complete (I've got two spare of the Veteran helmets, but not enough missile launchers), or I have three fully completed squads and one nearly complete. I figure I'll bulk it out to 6 squads of 10, just in case I ever field them, say... in Ard Boyz or something. So, just on the assumption that I'm going with the Devs being complete... I need 27 heads for the three squads, minus the 10 for the Forge World guys, and 3 total of the veteran helmets. Which still leaves me without having completed a single character figure. I guess I better figure to finish off the third squad of Devs also. Even if I just bump the Devs up to 6 people in total (if I ever feel like playing as Space Wolves, or as a just in case for the rumored Chaos Legion codex next year) and don't go with a single body after these... I'm going to need...26 heads. Truthfully... I may as well grab 40 heads of the regular heads, so I can build more special weapons as needed (I have plenty of Plasma Guns laying about), also that way I can bump the Devs up with a few spare bodies. Vet heads however, I only need 4 of. Better push that to 20 of those heads, so I can do a swap in when I start making characters and so I can make more Termies. Though I may want to get different heads on them just for differentiation. Backpacks... crap on a stick. I need nearly 50 more.
#2. Legs. Better buy more. Ditto with some meltaguns, the kitbash works, but I prefer real meltaguns.
#3. Hand weapons/bolt pistols. Yep, gonna needs some of those. Just for the one final squad, that's 10 bolt pistols, and 10 of some kind of weapon. Maybe I'll go with chainswords for those guys, I dunno yet. Must ponder.
#4. More missile launchers. I may have enough to finish the one squad of Devs if I go that route. But that still leaves me either 8 or 10 short. Better get that corrected.
#5. Shoulder pads. Ugh, I really hope that Maxmini gets those new pads released soon, I wanna buy them and cut the shitty pads I have now off my guys. At a ballpark if I only go with one shoulder per guy, that's still nearly 100 pads, and if I go with two pads per guy, as I want to... that's probably 200 pads. Lemme see here... 50 guys in the troops section, 15 in the Devs, misc in the characters/spares... call it ballpark 150 in reality. So, just on the safe side... 160-170.
#6. Vehicles/Dreads. Contemptor pattern dreads are fairly obvious. The Rhino's I can go with the ones I have and just add bling, or I could go all nuts and order Forge World Doors. I also should grab a Land Raider or two for my guys.
All that on top of painting. Fucks sake, this is going to be expensive as shit. But, I knew that when I started this project, and for the first time in a long while, I am going to follow it through when it comes to building this army in the way that I want to.
After all that... painting. Which I truly hate to do. I'm going to need more paint and shit.
Thank god for the new house I'm getting, at least I'll have a dedicated hobby room/man cave to build this stuff in.
For now... sleep.
Iron Within, Iron Without.
A rambling, halting attempt at creating a preheresy Iron Warriors army for Warhammer 40k.
Showing posts with label Space Marines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Space Marines. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Finished Squad #2 and the problem of Squad #3.
Got squad #2 put together. Sadly, doing so used all the hammers I had save for 2. Also, I ran out of meltaguns when I finished squad #1. So... since all of Squad #2 has hammers except for the two flamers (which truthfully I will only rarely ever use), and the Sergeant who has a powerfist, I think I need to make two more marines for that squad, and I probably should get around to making an extra guy or two for squad #1. Also, the squad #3, which was supposed to be nearly identical to squad #2 will now not be identical, because I am out of hammers.
So, I think since I have a lot of regular swords from the Chaos Warriors box, I will use those. I also have a number of axes left over, and if needed, I can start popping those onto the guys for Squad 3, that way we have some type of variety. Squad 4 will probably end up with chain weapons. Squad 5 will be the Forgeworld non assault squad, armed with... I don't know yet, probably a mix of weapons. Squad 6 will be the Forgeworld assault guys, with magnetized backpacks so that they can pull duty as jumpers as needed. Axes, Hammers, Cloaks, Swords. That's pretty much the delineation for the squads planned.
Sadly, I also ran out of cloaks for squad #1 when I finished squad #1 so I can't put together two flamer guys that would be able to go with squad #1. Which isn't that big of a loss honestly, as I said, rarely ever do I use a flamer when a meltagun is an option. But, in going through my stuff that I have to put these guys together, another slight issue came to light. Sure I have torsos, not the ones that I want, and honestly not enough that will work for me, but I have some, I also have lots of backpacks and heads, which is awesome. What do I not have?
Lots of bolt pistols. Lots of arms that can be sliced and repositioned to hold some hand weapons, and most important of all, legs. In fact, I think I have somewhere around 4 legs left. Total. Which yes, that will give me a start on putting together the next squad, but uh... that sucks, because it means I probably won't get the guys all assembled for this squad before I go back to work on Tuesday. (I had 5 days off, tomorrow is day #4. Yes, it was glorious, and my god, did I ever need the break.)
So, on the to do list...
#1. Acquire meltaguns. 5 squads. 2 meltaguns per squad, that's 10 meltaguns needed. At the current rate on the interwebz, I am looking at something like... hell, I dunno, anywhere between 30 and 60 bucks before delivery.
#2. Acquire legs, because honestly, while the one image I saw a while back of a marine made out of shoulder pads and nothing else was cool, I don't wanna go that route. Just to complete the next squad, I need at least 10 legs. That makes the 4 legs I have left become 2 for Squad 2's meltaguns, and 12 for Squad 3. Now, I could go out and buy just 10 tactical marine legs from the Battlewagon Bitz or somewhere like that, or I can get legs that look good. Besides, the 10 tactical legs are either $16 just for those, of $20 depending on the legs, and they are all bland and boring. I want spice, I want awesome, and those legs do not need to apply. Which probably puts me with either Chaos Marine legs, or Khornate Berzerker legs. Both of which need just a bit of work to make them nearly perfect. The Khornate ones need the Khorne symbol carved off, which isn't exactly hard, but the regular Chaos marine legs need to have those fucking chaos stars shaved away. Which is a pain in my nuts to do. So... fuck those legs, more than likely going to go with the Khornate legs. $8 for 6 legs, which makes it $16 for 12. Not quite a $1.20 per leg, but not a bad price at that. That is what I will most likely go with.
#3. Torso's. Yeah, the ones with the Imperial eagle and winged skull are great for space marines. This is preheresy, the Imperial Eagle was not allowed to be worn yet, that was for special units as a decoration. So, once again we have to back to getting different torso's. Now, what I have been doing so far is taking whatever torso I have and shaving off whatever logo existed there at first. The ones that worked best for me were the Assault Marine torso's, as those required a lot less work and looked better. But I ran out of those. I have lots of torso's with Blood Angels or Space Wolves regalia on them, but that's a lot of effort that I can better use elsewhere, and I could trade those bits or use them later. I've looked at a lot of torso's so far, both from GW and from the various other people online. Truthfully? The best looking torso for what I am working on is really the Berzerker body set. Sure all of them have the Khornate icon that's gotta go, but they all also have decent bits of fiddlery on them that look nice. 8 of those? $4. May as well grab two of them since I need enough for at least 1 squad.
#4. Shoulder pads. Damn this part sucks. Now, I've got the guys I already made, and I kinda wish I had held off on making them because of two reasons. #1, Maxmini is in two months time, making Preheresy power armor shoulder pads. #2, I found a site online that will do up custom pads with whatever design I want on them for about $1.25 per shoulder pad after a $25 set up fee. Now, that's still almost a hundred bucks for 60 total shoulder pads if I go with the custom ones. Or about $70 if I go with Maxmini if I like their pads depending on their price. Also, I'm going to have to pop off 20 shoulder pads (or 40) on the two completed squads. Personally, I'm thinking I'll hold off on the shoulder pads for now until I see what Maxmini has to offer. They haven't failed me yet, so I think I can wait just a bit.
#5. Weapons/bolt pistols/meltaguns. Now, hand weapons, I can get piecemeal from friends who are doing stuff with chaos warriors. Bolt pistols however... those I need to get. Nope, not going for the Berzerkers on this as their pistols are fucking ugly and huge when compared to the rest. 5 Chaos Bolt pistols are $3.5, and Assault marine pistols are $4.50 for 5. I'll probably go with a mix, which comes out to $8 for 10 total. Meltaguns however... well I talked about them earlier, $5-9 per meltagun is the average.
So, let's see here... Ignoring the shoulder pads for right now... $46 to put together squad #3. Considering that a base tactical squad from GW costs $37.50 right now, or a squad of 5 assault marines for $33.00 that price isn't to bad. Less than $10 more than a vanilla tactical squad, and that's counting two meltaguns. The only thing it doesn't count is shoulder pads, which I will deal with later.
That said... I guess I better find about $50 for this squad.
Guess I won't be getting them done tomorrow.
So, I think since I have a lot of regular swords from the Chaos Warriors box, I will use those. I also have a number of axes left over, and if needed, I can start popping those onto the guys for Squad 3, that way we have some type of variety. Squad 4 will probably end up with chain weapons. Squad 5 will be the Forgeworld non assault squad, armed with... I don't know yet, probably a mix of weapons. Squad 6 will be the Forgeworld assault guys, with magnetized backpacks so that they can pull duty as jumpers as needed. Axes, Hammers, Cloaks, Swords. That's pretty much the delineation for the squads planned.
Sadly, I also ran out of cloaks for squad #1 when I finished squad #1 so I can't put together two flamer guys that would be able to go with squad #1. Which isn't that big of a loss honestly, as I said, rarely ever do I use a flamer when a meltagun is an option. But, in going through my stuff that I have to put these guys together, another slight issue came to light. Sure I have torsos, not the ones that I want, and honestly not enough that will work for me, but I have some, I also have lots of backpacks and heads, which is awesome. What do I not have?
Lots of bolt pistols. Lots of arms that can be sliced and repositioned to hold some hand weapons, and most important of all, legs. In fact, I think I have somewhere around 4 legs left. Total. Which yes, that will give me a start on putting together the next squad, but uh... that sucks, because it means I probably won't get the guys all assembled for this squad before I go back to work on Tuesday. (I had 5 days off, tomorrow is day #4. Yes, it was glorious, and my god, did I ever need the break.)
So, on the to do list...
#1. Acquire meltaguns. 5 squads. 2 meltaguns per squad, that's 10 meltaguns needed. At the current rate on the interwebz, I am looking at something like... hell, I dunno, anywhere between 30 and 60 bucks before delivery.
#2. Acquire legs, because honestly, while the one image I saw a while back of a marine made out of shoulder pads and nothing else was cool, I don't wanna go that route. Just to complete the next squad, I need at least 10 legs. That makes the 4 legs I have left become 2 for Squad 2's meltaguns, and 12 for Squad 3. Now, I could go out and buy just 10 tactical marine legs from the Battlewagon Bitz or somewhere like that, or I can get legs that look good. Besides, the 10 tactical legs are either $16 just for those, of $20 depending on the legs, and they are all bland and boring. I want spice, I want awesome, and those legs do not need to apply. Which probably puts me with either Chaos Marine legs, or Khornate Berzerker legs. Both of which need just a bit of work to make them nearly perfect. The Khornate ones need the Khorne symbol carved off, which isn't exactly hard, but the regular Chaos marine legs need to have those fucking chaos stars shaved away. Which is a pain in my nuts to do. So... fuck those legs, more than likely going to go with the Khornate legs. $8 for 6 legs, which makes it $16 for 12. Not quite a $1.20 per leg, but not a bad price at that. That is what I will most likely go with.
#3. Torso's. Yeah, the ones with the Imperial eagle and winged skull are great for space marines. This is preheresy, the Imperial Eagle was not allowed to be worn yet, that was for special units as a decoration. So, once again we have to back to getting different torso's. Now, what I have been doing so far is taking whatever torso I have and shaving off whatever logo existed there at first. The ones that worked best for me were the Assault Marine torso's, as those required a lot less work and looked better. But I ran out of those. I have lots of torso's with Blood Angels or Space Wolves regalia on them, but that's a lot of effort that I can better use elsewhere, and I could trade those bits or use them later. I've looked at a lot of torso's so far, both from GW and from the various other people online. Truthfully? The best looking torso for what I am working on is really the Berzerker body set. Sure all of them have the Khornate icon that's gotta go, but they all also have decent bits of fiddlery on them that look nice. 8 of those? $4. May as well grab two of them since I need enough for at least 1 squad.
#4. Shoulder pads. Damn this part sucks. Now, I've got the guys I already made, and I kinda wish I had held off on making them because of two reasons. #1, Maxmini is in two months time, making Preheresy power armor shoulder pads. #2, I found a site online that will do up custom pads with whatever design I want on them for about $1.25 per shoulder pad after a $25 set up fee. Now, that's still almost a hundred bucks for 60 total shoulder pads if I go with the custom ones. Or about $70 if I go with Maxmini if I like their pads depending on their price. Also, I'm going to have to pop off 20 shoulder pads (or 40) on the two completed squads. Personally, I'm thinking I'll hold off on the shoulder pads for now until I see what Maxmini has to offer. They haven't failed me yet, so I think I can wait just a bit.
#5. Weapons/bolt pistols/meltaguns. Now, hand weapons, I can get piecemeal from friends who are doing stuff with chaos warriors. Bolt pistols however... those I need to get. Nope, not going for the Berzerkers on this as their pistols are fucking ugly and huge when compared to the rest. 5 Chaos Bolt pistols are $3.5, and Assault marine pistols are $4.50 for 5. I'll probably go with a mix, which comes out to $8 for 10 total. Meltaguns however... well I talked about them earlier, $5-9 per meltagun is the average.
So, let's see here... Ignoring the shoulder pads for right now... $46 to put together squad #3. Considering that a base tactical squad from GW costs $37.50 right now, or a squad of 5 assault marines for $33.00 that price isn't to bad. Less than $10 more than a vanilla tactical squad, and that's counting two meltaguns. The only thing it doesn't count is shoulder pads, which I will deal with later.
That said... I guess I better find about $50 for this squad.
Guess I won't be getting them done tomorrow.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Built part of the first assault squad today
For the time being however, tomorrow will be a slow workload, I'm headed to the bank to do up paperwork for buying a house, so bloggery and working on mini's may be a bit lax for a while.
Pictures follow.
Monday, September 26, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)