My new direction

I have been looking for another game to supliment my tabletop gaming. 40k is fun but I have been playing it exclusively for almost 5 years now. So I decided that I will give this a try.



Firestorm Armada, a (relatively) new game from the young guys over at Spartan Games. I did some research on what game to switch to and thisa one seemed to have great reviews. I ordered the rulebook from them on sunday last week and it got here late afternoon today friday. SO far from what I have seen skiming through it the game is streamlined in such a way that a 40ker like me will love it.
This is the only game in space I have seen where I can pick up 30 dice at a time and roll them for attacks. (the ork in me is smileing)
I dont know what faction Im going to choose yet but they include the templates and "cut out fleets" for you to try a few games with.
So Im gonna go bury myself in a new ruleset.
If you need me Ill be in the "office"

is cover useless?

"Yeah I can see your terminator."
"what how?"
"I can see his face through this ruin through the window in that building and over those bushes"
"Jesus H Christ you cant be serious!"
"Yep I am and the rules say that I can shoot you"

That was the scene in one of my last games of 40k. Right before I had an entire squad of terminators wiped from a single demolisher shell. It looks like the overlords of 40k have decided that there is no such thing as cover in 40k. My squad had just deep stroked in and there was 2 ruined buildings and a modular piece of woods between them and the tank.
Well after I got down to a models eye view It appeared that he was right. In a shot that I compare to threading a needle with a howitzer. he rolled a hit and therefore I did not even get the cover save since the gurus at GW have decreed that the blast is coming from the center of the template. (that I was gleefully reminded of as the Imperial player rolled to wound)

This leaves me with one question. What has become of this game?

In a world where you have to have terrain consisting of six inch high walls to claim cover from or just accept that you can be blasted by any weapon the enemy has at any time regardless of how probable the shot may be. I just don't get it.
No wonder the guard is a top tier team. With unhindered lines of sight and weapons that have me taking my army off the board in hundred point chunks I can see that I will never have a chance of beating them in this version of the game. Unless I take the equally cheesy codexes and just appear right next to them with a melta gun or 3. (blood angels I'm looking at you)

Now not all cover is useless I understand. There is still those patches of bushes that my initiative 7 dark eldar arcon cant seem to untangle himself from until he gets beat on by a initiative 2 Necron warrior. (another real story from the front) and the single stick that if you hug it tight enough you get an amazing 50% chance of survival. But I digress.

I miss the old cover rules GW please for 40k MVI please bring them back, my chapter master is tired of me loosing the entire first company every time I take the field.

2011 ETC qualifiers

So I have been over at the bell of lost souls and have seen that they have posted an ad hoc article and qualifying requirements for the ETC teams representing america.
Now I don't know if I am in the small percentage of players that dont exactly have hundreds or thousands of dollars laying around to make the trips to these events but c'mon.
I live in SW Florida and I love 40k. Im not saying that I am up there in the ranks of the best 40k players in america but I hold my own, and I know there are members of their playing circles that the guys at my FLGS that can play at their level or higher. One of their contributers and ETC veteran Darkwyn and I started 40k together and regularly played against each other when he was a prisoner of this great state that I live in. Now I havent played with him since he moved out to texas but if you are reading this Darkwyn (who am I kidding?) you need to come back here to reconnect with your 40k roots. I swear we have calmed down and there have not been any firearms on the tables since 2002 I swear. Well loaded that is.
What I am trying to say is that you cant judge the best of the gaming community by having the qualifiers so few and far away from each other. The closest to me is texas over 1000 miles away. Im sorry that I do not have the job or personal life that allows me to dump a few hundred bucks into a flight over there just so I can have a chance to play in their tournoment to have the opportunity to go to switzerland and play for america this fine country that I love. (remember to vote tomorrow kids)
This is turning into a rant quuick I see well let me turn it back.
What I am trying to say is that you cant find the best in 40k from 4 tournoments. You cant really find the best player in a game that is so dependant on dice rolls either. I suggest that if you really want to find the best players in america you have to make a BCS style poll with FLGS owners or tournoment organizers calling in scores and rankings. Give each of the different type of events a different percentage in the standing making a gamesday or convention worth more than a local tourney but make it country wide.
Actualy on second thought...
Another way to go is to just go round up the guys with the finacial backing to go over there then open up the list createing to american players so we can all feel like we have contributed.

Well thats my 2 cents and in my small secluded corner of the interwebz that and a buck oh five will get you a cheeseburger.

Is this the last hurah?

Hey everyone in the blogosphere that actualy reads my rantings.

I have an issue.

I have been running the local 40k tourney for the last hmm about 8 months now. The issue is that I cannot get any turn out. At the beginning it was great every month I had a dozen armies dukeing it out on the boards. Now though the attendance is so low that I am almost thinking about scrapping the thing all together.

History of attendance (as far back as I can remember)

April 15
May 12
June 14
July 9
august 7

skipped October because it was oversaturation for the tourneys that has caused people not to show up because "if I miss it there will be one next month"

Now I am having one on Saturay and I have recived no replys on our forum and no one I talk to says they are going to come.

What can I do besides break into their homes and put a bolt pistol to their heads?

The dice gods are bitter...

Yesterday I made it to the store a bit later than I was wanting but there were a few guys there playing so I jumped in on a game. Played against Faust from http://redbullspacemarine.blogspot.com/ I of course being a glutton for punishment played my dark eldar using the "classic" codex.

1000 pts
Blood angels.
2 Storm ravens w/typhoon missiles
2 5 man assault squads
2 librarians w/ jump packs


Dark Eldar
Archon w/ puninsher /tormentor helm/ shadow field
5 incubus
Raider
3 10 man raider squads w/ darklance and blaster
2 10 man warrior squads w/ 2 darklances
5 scourges w/ 4 dark lances

Now list building wise it seems that with 18 s8 lance weapons on the board that this should be a cake walk....

He wins the roll and decides to go second.
It is kill points and spearhead deployment.
There is sufficient cover on the board so I deploy everything.
the warrior squads in buildings with large fields of fire and the scourges in ruins with the thinking of jumping them to the back of the board to hit anything hiding back there.
The raiders went up front and center since I had the first turn I would be able to zip them around and give him a false sense of knowing where they were going to be.

So turn one he left everything in reserve so I zipped around the board. getting cover saves in case he came in some how. The scourges jumped to the back of the board then ran a little further almost there.
Turn 2 I zipped even more I had a dark eldar raider almost every foot on the board so wherever he came in he would be looking down the barrel of a dark lance.

Finally on his turn 2 they came in. Both the storm ravens in the back corner of the board out of range of one of my warrior squads and the scourges. He turbo boosted on and fired his typhoon missiles with the machine spirit. HE either missed or the speed of the raiders saved them. I let a evil smile come over my face because the next turn he was mine.

Turn 3 i jumped the scourges so they will have line of sight and be in range next turn. I ran the skimmers to that side of the board. I ran the archon up to one of the storm ravens and hoped him out. I also jumped out a raider squad for the added firepower. I couldn't hurt the raven in assault but was trying to bait him into getting out of the raven if it was still alive next turn.

So here is where the clouds parted, light from the heavens shined down and spotlighted my dice, angelic music played, and the booming voice of the dice god bellowed "*FAIL!"*

I had 12 dark lances and a blaster pointed at the storm ravens. Fired everything. Purple beams of death tracing fire from all corners of the board. I was braced for the screaming and wailing of innocents. But in the end I had rolled an amazing number of ones and twos. even the shots that got through became ones on the damage chart. WOW

His turn. He decided to turbo boost again and drop the marines out halfway with decent of angels. SO now I have 12 marines in my face. excellent right where i wanted them. He shoots me and kills one incubus and 3 warriors. Ill take those losses. The storm ravens fire and either miss or I save against it.

My turn top of 4 now. I bring another raider squad to where the fighting is going to be and deploy them behind the existing warriors. The scourges and even the warriors in the ruins on the far side of the table now have range and line of sight to the storm ravens. Ok last turn was a fluke this one hes going to be boarded. I fire an amazing amount of splinter shots with the warriors at one fo the squads of 6 I kill everything buthe librarian. So now I have exactly 2 dark lances and 2 blasters for him. FIRE FIRE FIRE.... wait I rolled ones and 2s for every shot.... damn. Oh well the archon is going to chew the other squad then jump on this guy. They charge in. The archon swipes away and kills 3 marines. not bad but not great. Then the money makers the incubus. 3 attacks a piece. 12 dice rolled. 12 hits. finally something is going my way. 12 dice to wound... 0 wounds. I slump back into my chair as I see all the 1s 2s and 3s staring at me mocking me and I can hear a little voice in my head. "that's what you get for even thinking about playing dark eldar again" his attacks back and he kills 2 of the incubus with chain swords by me rolling ones and twos and then his powerfist made damn sure that he won the combat. LD9 and I only lost by 1 well with the way the dice have been going ..... nope I failed. My uber unit is running off of the board with no way to regroup.
Oh and all of the dark lances whiffed again.

His turn 4
Moved the storm ravens 12 inches and moved the remaining marines to them and grouped them into one squad. His fire. twin linked plasma cannon utterly vaporized one squad. the typhoons from both of them destroyed a raider a piece. The marines didn't kill anything.
My turn 5
I fire everything. I kill the last of the marines off and the 2 librarians with random small arms fire. Fire all the dark lances again. I actually kill one of the storm ravens. It took every dark lance to do it but I did it.

Lets see the math on that one.
3 turns of firing almost every dark lance

That's 18 X 3 = 54
54 shots at BS4 = 36 hits

36 hits at strength 8 and armor 12 = 12 penetrating hits and 6 glances

out of those it should have been at least 6 dead storm ravens as a immobilized result would have dropped it when it was zipping around.

His turn 5

He killed another raider and made the last of my 4 remaining warriors out of the squad in his face run

Roll the dice Game is over he wins by 2 kill points.
Yep that is the kind of game I had yesterday.

Well that it for my first DE battle report hope you all are inspired.... well maybe not inspired. Just go give your dice a pep talk and maybe they wont fail you as much as mine have.

Where has all the time gone?

Hey everybody out there that has accidentally clicked a link and been redirected to this seemingly abandoned blog of a fat guy who plays with toy soldiers. Whats up this is the fat guy here. You all thought I was dead didn't you?

Well I wasn't I was just lost in the unemployment purgatory for a good long while and couldn't bring myself to blog about gaming because I wasn't gaming near as much. But that is all gong to change because I have landed a great job that I am going to strive to be great at, and also do some gaming.

So what has happened since I left?....

Dark Eldar...
I am absolutely going to resurrect my dark eldar army due to the new codex. I have been patiently waiting for the new book for so long I have forgot how to play them. I shelved the army back in 2002 when I heard rumblings of a new codex and they haven't been touched since. I actually forgot I had them.
I had a 750 pt game against some space wolves on saturday and was soundly thrashed and laughed off the table. Its gonna take some time to shake the cobwebs off but I will eventually remember that AV10 skimmers have no business out in the open.

Another one of the guys in our gaming group has decided to start a blog of his own documenting his new chapter and his quest for a sponsorship from RED BULL



Go check his stuff out. I'm gonna hound him to put more pictures up because his stuff looks really good once it is all done.

Pictures yeah. good news I have got rid of that craptastic camera I was using so soon we can expect some decent photos from me.

Blood angels....
Yeah I shelved this idea as I realised there are exactly %82 of power armored armies at my local store so I have decided not to contribute to that.

Deathwing....
Has grown to an amazing size. I have the ENTIRE deathwing, more even. I have over 100 terminators now. realizing this I am going to be trading/selling some of them off to get back to a logical number of tactical dreadnought suits. I also need to cut back because every time I loose a game I set the chapter back about 1000 years.

Battletech...
I have started playing battletech. AHHHGH! *dodges rotten fruit* Yeah I know this is a 40k blog but dammit I like it, and I have started building my own mechs. The whole having no job and nothing but time on my hands has lead to some strange situations. I bought a tube of super glue and a bag of jumbo craft sticks. about 2 weeks and a liter of blood later I have battle mechs made out of wood. Ill post pics soon I guess.

ORKS....
Always workin on da boyz. They are never done.

Job...
I got'z me one and it'z a good 'un.

Personal life....
*Censored by the inquisitorial bureau of we don't give a damn*

and that's about that. long story short. I am back! and brimming with bad ideas and maybe one or two good ones. Now I'm gonna go dive into my bitz box.

Until next time.
FITZ

Recent goings on

So its been a while huh. Well all kinds of stuff has been going on around here. I have decided to skip out on the convention mostly because I have lost my job. So its not an expense I can afford right now. im sure it will be great and alot of the local group are going so I wish them luck.
The escalation leauge is starting up on tuesday and I dont even have a hard set of rules yet. This system I have come up with has been blasted and broken by the local players so Im revanping again. If you are going to participate in the leauge expect a full write up on the rules by this weekend.
Oh and I dont have the internet at my house yet, so Im writing this on a friends computer and it will continue this way for the forseeable future. Sorry guys Im frustrated about this too.
On a positive note in the last local tourniment we had I was voted best hobbiest and had the player choice army with my deathwing. So at last after 10 years of gaming my skills have finaly gotten up there. At least in the local scene.

Well thats it for now guys till next time

FITZ

After action report

................
................
..........really?

yeah I went to ard boys....
I got a bye and I played 2 games...
and I was demolished in both...
I dont want to talk about it...
.... sigh.

Ok moving on
We will bw having our escalation leauge starting on june 8th, Rules are as follows for the first block untill the jump to 750.

* 500 pts
* 1 compulsary troop
* nothing with more than 2 wounds
* no 2+ save
* no combined armor value over 33 (adding all armor values)



The first session will be more of a meet and greet and get the logistics finalized to see how many we get. Feel free if you have your forces with you there will be people on hand to assist you if you dont know the rules.

Above all else have fun

Fitz

Going quiet for a while

Hey guys, all 3 of you.
Im here to warn you that I will be out of the blogosphere for a few days because I have moved and the place I ended up does not have internet access. (I moved 3 miles down the road and I loose it..../sigh) So yeah short one here and im going to ard boys tomorrow and I plan on getting lots of crappy pictures and battle reports ready for you guys. Laters

Fitz

Ard boyz comith

*deep breath*
*exhale*
Ok last year I participated in ard boys and won the preliminaries and was not able to compete in the next round because of sheduleing conflicts and it being almost 700 miles away last year. This year I am taking the deathwing. 5I have been looking at the missions and all the internet hype over this weeks ard boyz. I am almost floored by it. Let me start with the missions as we all have to live with these and half of you get bored before you get to the end of my posts anyways.
Scenario 1
dis land is our land ladz
This mission is 5 objectives with a funky apocolypse style set up. Table halfs from corner to corner. Ok I can live with that, but, I have one questions as I have seen conflicting answers across the community. Do we deploy objectives or are they pre set in 4 corners and the center? Other than that a fine scenario based in 5th edition. You will have to blast alot of boyz on this to get the massacre.

Scenario 2
Grindin' meat
Makes me feel like its 1999 again. Old fasioned 3rd edition staight up victory points. This could be good for the deathwing. We are rock solid but if an enemy concentrates they can take chunks out real fast.

Scenario 3
Kill da fast ones
This is the stick in the mud of the whole tournoment. Kill points with a biased twist. Now I am running a minimal amount of vehicles so I should like this scenario. I do, but I dont think it is exactly fair to the mechanized lists or the lists that are taking alot of vehicles with them. I could have taken raven wing and then everything in my army would be worth 3 kill points. I was entirely in favor of the mechanized movement in 40k because it brough more of a real world twist to it. But whatever GW giving out this mission to semi punish mech and then a message that there is going to be a price increase. If I wasnt so hooked Id look elsewhere for my fix.

Ok on to the lists that I have been seeing for this shindig. Wow, I hope that the stuff the guys are putting out online these last few days are a joke. I mean I am seeing 2 troop choices. tactical squads in blood angel armies. Space wolfs with no long fangs. Nid hordes (meaning like 300+ models) and the leaf blowers. Is that all that there is out there? I was mildly concerned that I was bringing the ceathwing and thought that I was going to get steam rolled at this party. With what Ive seen on everyones "ready to go" posts I cant wait to bring down the hammer on these people. Im not going to post my list as I want it to remain mostly a suprise but I have had to put terminators in the elite slots there are so many of them.

So Im ready to go. Feeling good about this one and hopefully I will roll on through the preliminaries and make it to chicago. I might just go this year, make a road trip.

FITZ

Feeling below average this week.

Well another week and my camera went belly up again. So no oictures sorry guys. Well the big story this week is on wendsday i went in for emergency oral sergery to fix my wisadom tooth that was just kicking my ass. That was a barrel of fun.
So enough of that. On tuesday in excruciating pain I decided to play a few games. 2 2500 pt ones to prepare for ard boys. Both ended were hard fought, both ended in ties. So i got to see what a few land raiders can do. Here was my list.

Belial
apthicary
standard

Librarian in terminator armor

5 5man deathwing squads 4 assault cannons and 4 chain fists

3 land speeders

3 ravenwing with 2 meltas a powerfist and a attack bike with a multo melta

2 land raiders 1 crusader 1 godhammer

So Im gonna have to make some changes to that. Then I did a 1500 pt gamer against the tau. I used 2 terminator squads, 2 land raiders, and ravenwing squad. Me and the Tau lost all of our troopp choices so wee went into a forced tie.
Then I went home felt like I got hit by a mac truck in the mouth and went to the dentist the next day.
Now that i have completed my deathwing I have come to the cross raods of another army and have decided on chaos deamons. I have already been doing alot of deep striking and decided to go all the way.
I chose the forces of Slaneesh to be my focus. I lve the fact that they are so fast and the number of attacks. The only down side is no power weapons only rending and the low strength. So I have run some dice rolling experiments.
If I have 12 deamonettes attacking space marines. (the usual suspects)
they get (on the charge)
48 attacks
24 hits
8 wounds
4 of those rending

So I set about rolling dice. I rolled 48 dice 8 times and got an average.
hit total 180
hit average 22.5
wound total 61
wound average 7.6
rend total 31
rend average 3.875

so that goes to show you im rolling a little under average this week. So we are looking at a good thing with a 2 turn combat at least from the deamonettes on your average tactical squad. 3 If you roll like me. Thus allowing you to be stuck in combat in your enemys turn to avoid fire then breakout and jack them again next turn. So those will work for me.
Oh and the heralds of Slaneesh on chariots. 5 wounds 6 attacks and 7 initative!!!! Ill take it.

Till next time same heretic time, same heretic channel.

FITZ

So much to do so little time

Alright guys I'm sorry its been a while and I apologize for the forthcoming wall of text.
I have got a house so everything that was up in the air is finally settling back down with that. I have moved a whole 1 mile..... seems kind of pointless doesn't it. Well that's enough of that.

This week has been huge for me gaming wise. My friend Todd and fellow Dark Angel has decided to sell his deathwing and I was there to et them from him. With these beautiful models there has been some armor support brought to the wing. Now I'm up over 4000pts of terminators and supporting troops. The rebaseing has begun and I think I'm gonna leave them in their color scheme since they are the parent chapter and I can use them as the elites in my army after I fill out the troops with my terminators. *grin* 9 squads of terminators.
Before that this week though I played in a 12155pt semi Apocalypse grand gameapaloza! Actually it started as a 4000pt game and grew whenever someone entered the store before we started. It was deathwing, blood angels, chaos deamons, and a vulkan vanilla chapter against a vanilla chapter and imperial guard.
Wow... We were concerned about time so both teams had their captains running hurry up on everyone and we blurred the lines on the phases a little for time concerns. But in all we got done in 4 hours. There was so much death and destruction. My team of course lost. I'm not saying it was me or my teammates that lost it for us. Even though there were some greater deamons on the board that mulled around for 4 turns not in close combat and I was forced to hold objectives with assault marines and sanguary guard because no one else apparently saw them there. But yeah we lost. I'm not disappointed in my boys showing because their kills in this game were as follows.
3 leman russ variants 3 Bassalisks, 2 tactical squads, 4 imperial guard squads, 2 sentinels, 2 Rhinos, 2 Preadators, 1 vindicator, most of a squad of terminators, 2 dreadnoughts, and a thunderfire cannon.
We had it towards the end but of course it went to turn 7. I have discovered that the deathwing peak at about 5, can hold on for 6 and get tabled at 7. It was the same here. I was down to 3 terminators at the end. It happens. (too much)
Back to the acquisitions for this week. Todd is a great guy and a ton of fun to play against. The only reason he is selling his guys is because he needs money. Now I have been sworn to secrecy about what he has done but yeah he does need it. So I bought the boys. It was Belial w/ thunderhammer, 15 terminators w/ assorted weapons, a land raider, a land raider crusader, a drop pod and 2 dreadnaughts, a fire support with lascannon missile launcher and a classic assault cannon close combat weapon one.
The paint job on all the figures is excellent and I have to give props to Alex the painter but I have already rebased the models to fit in with my army and I'm looking into painting a little damage into the raiders. They look like thay have just rolled off the line.
I have also got my order in from GW and after fretting over it for a few days I received all 15 of my melta guns. I'm so happy that GW did the free shipping in April. It was cheaper to buy 3 than it was for 2 and shipping. So the rearming of the bikes has begun as well.
I have met some of the newer players that are going to be a part of the league this summer. They are enthusiastic and ready to take the first steps to glory with their chosen forces. Like Ive said before if you are in the ft. myers Florida area and want to get in on a escalation league we are going to start on june the 8th. There will be rules and schedule posted on the stores website www.2d10.com.
Also (I told you it was going to be long today) I don't know how I let this happen. 'Ard Boys is in 2 weeks and I didn't even realise it. What happened I thought It wasn't for like another 6 months this cant be rig... wait its may... man I need to pay attention. So Ive been working on a 2500 pt list for Ard boys over the last... 12 hours and here is the first draft.
HQ Belial
Apothicary
Standard bearer
HQ Librarian
Terminator armor and combi melta
Troops 5 dethwing terminators
Thunderhammers
Troops 5 dethwing terminators
lightning claws
Troops 5 dethwing terminators
assault cannon chain fist
Troops 5 dethwing terminators
assault cannon chain fist
Troops 5 dethwing terminators
assault cannon chain fist
Fast Raven wing squadron
2x melta guns a powerfist and a attack bike with a multi melta
Fast Landspeeder squadron
2 land speeders w/ multi meltas
Fast Land speeder squadron
1 land speeder w/ multi melta
Heavy Land raider
Heavy Land raider crusader

This is subject to change since I made it in a panic knowing I only had 2 weeks to make and test a list. Hmm I'm only going to get one day to test this... Well next weeks post will be full because Ill rope everyone into a game or 3. Since I'm going into this one blind a dumb I don't expect to do much but last year in Kentucky I placed in the final round before Chicago with tyranids so I have high hopes that I will be able to make something work.
Bolter beach is also approaching fast and it is just over the horizon at the beginning of June. So in the next 5 weeks I have 3 tournaments and one overnight stay in Sarasota. One of these days I'm gonna have to get a job that pays in this hobby so I can write off all of this travel.
So this ends another long winded post of mine. One of these days I'm gonna figure out how to stop typing this much, but until then.

Fitz

Archangels, speeders and a tourney

Hey guys its me again here in my little slice of heaven southwest Florida.
Ok now that I have all you locals rolling on the floor laughing its time for
*cue deep echoey voice*
"STUFF I DID THIS WEEK!"
So its been a little busy around here. Ive noticed that somewhere in every ones blog there is a post about moving. It is like a rule you start a blog and all of a sudden out of nowhere its time to move. Well it looks like I'm gonna be following the trend since the house has been sold in record time and I have to get my big ass out by the 15th of may. Don't worry I'm not going to far still staying around here somewhere.

So back to 40k. I finally got my full orders in from the shop. The other 2 land speeders I ordered about 3 weeks ago and the sanguary guard ,box,. It has been so long since I ordered theses (the day after the codex was released) that I had given up hope in seeing them this month. Well I got em' and oh damn was I happy. Now I had the opportunity to use some of the DA bits on them and since it seems to be my mission to piss off Tim the DA player around here I made them into a unit of "Archangels" for my *Dark Angel "counts as Blood Angel until we can get a codex that's worth a damn" successor chapter the Guardians of the Covenant*. Whoo that's a mouth full. now I have taken about 2 dozen pictures and I have discovered that I am a cheap ass and need a new camera but Ill post what I got.






Oh and hers some shots of the land speeders and all of their uniform glory.




We had the monthly 40k tournament and again this week I was not able to attend. Stupid work. I stopped in there this morning on the way and hung out for about a half hour to check and see what the guys were bringing to the tables. All in all it was a good turn out and if I had remembered to put my deathwing in the car I bet I would have come down withe the 24 hour flu this morning.
As I sat there at work trying to explain what email was to an old lady I kept thinking "I could be fighting glorious battles instead of doing this job that sucks my soul away and gets me a little closer to eating a bullet everyday."

But such is life and I have to be responsible and all that especially if I am going to buy another deathwing army (whatchu talk'in bout Fitz?) Yeah that's right Ive lost it I'm buying another deathwing army from a good friend Todd. Now I know i don't really need another deathewing army. I told Todd I would rather him not sell his army but if he feels like he must I will buy them and when he gets the itch to play again I can say "I have a army to sell right here"

Ok enough! I promised myself I was going to start shortening these things up.... We can all dream right?

FITZ

This week in 40k

Hey guys its been a while but I have been playing allot lately.
First I want to start by saying that the space marine land speeder kit is by far the most finicky, delicate, and hardest to put together of all the SM kits in 40k. I have to bend plastic to make it fit. I have pegs that aren't there because the molder used .00001oz to little of plastic. And trying to put tabbards on them was ridiculously hard and after it is assembled you wont see them at all. *sigh* oh well when the rest of my order comes in Ill have to put together 2 more.
On to this weeks gaming. I played a few games this week. On Tuesday I had a 2200 (weird number right) game with Adam and his space marines. Now he loves to sternguard melta spam Belial and his squad to death. This game saw Belial get his revenge.
It was a seize ground scenario and he started with a Rhino and one squad sitting about mid field. I of course started with everything in reserve. On my turn one I hit with 4 squads using the deathwing assault and proceeded to scatter every which way but where I wanted to go. Belial and his squad actually landed on the rhino. Oops time for a mishap. So I roll a 4 and Adam proceeds to place him in the back corner of the board edge. Looks like hes hoofing it from here. I blast the rhino with 3 assault cannons and all I could do is shake it.
So his turn and most of his army arrives from his board edge or via drop pod. He has 2 vindicators that proceed to pummel my squads and gets Vulcan and his melta squad of death to land around one of my squads. He decides to combat squad them nd only fires 5 meltas at the librarian and apothicary squad. After some force berrier apothicary ignores and some crazy invulnerable saves he kills one of them. Then as the game progressed for their trouble the sternguard and vulcan are raped by the librarian and the squad the broke off is eventually ran down by Belial and his squad moving from the board edge "thought I was gone huh, RAWR!"
Ends up a win for the Dwing.
Wednesday saw the forces of chaos fighting a objective game at 1750 pts. The chaos player was a quiet guy and I don't remember his name. (I'm horrible with names.) He had a land raider with a chosen squad 2 rhinos with thousand sons and a 10 man 4 lascannon dev squad. The only thing I took away f rom this game is to STAY AWAY FROM THOUSAND SONS!!!! Each squad had a sorceror and he dropped my librarian in short order so I had to dea with 2 winds of chaos a turn. Not good for the guys in the massive hulking armor that apparently doesn't like to work. It was a loss for me at the end of the game I had 2 terminators and 2 immobilized dreadnoughts.
Oh well ya win some ya loose some.
Me and Ben (ork player) have made changes to my list and I have had 3 bikes that started life as chaos bikers in the 90s then were made into nob bikes as soon as the ork codex came out have been thrown into the simple green and will emerge as raven wing, hopefully.
Until next time, Same fitz time same fitz channel.

FITZ

Ive become a fallen angel

Well... (that's a deep subject isn't it)
Ive finally been kicked out of the imperium and called Excomunie by my mother chapter the Dark angels.
After my dismal display in the games on Tuesday getting tables in pretty much the 1st turn of the game. (in a 1850pt game I lost about 1000 pts he didn't kill more because the rest had not arrived via deep strike yet, the rest of the game was along those same lines so 35 of the empors finest laid low and only got 2 kill points /sigh) The resident Dark angel Tim has said that he cannot replace those losses so fast and that I have set both our chapters back by 1000 years. So I am no longer getting loaner terminator suits while mine are being repaired...
So that means my Defenders of the covenant are now homeless and are adrift in the galaxy. Hey wait a second the blood angels seem to be recruiting lately.
When I broke out the blood angels codex at the store Tim saw what I was doing and immediately started jumping up and down pointing screaming heretic at the top of his lungs (I love my store because this isn't out of the ordinary)
Now instead of just being cut off by my mother chapter I have been classified as one of the fallen chapters in our local fluff. So I have no qualms about making a blood angel army and painting them up in my defenders of the covenant scheme. *evil grin*
Soooo Ive decided to go all in on the blood angels list I have been rolling around in my head for the last week. I know the book my be classified as broken by some but in the words of the Commissar "That book is full of GLORY!"
Where the lion loses the angel wins

FITZ

40k escalation leauge at 2d10 games

So after the backlash on the interwebz from adepticon and other conventions this year, with the possibility of cheating and cheesy lists and comp scores that were rediculus I have decided to hit the cosmic reset button in my gaming group.
I am in the process of setting up a new player/escaltion leauge with the new crop of gamers gettting out of school in the coming weeks and our veterans that havent played in forever in mind.
Ive ran tournoments and large games as the game master but never a leauge. So this is going to be a new experience for me as well and as much as I want to im gonna have to force myself to stick to the logistics and not participate directly since I will have prize support and trophies. It would look beardy of me to win my own contests.
Well its tuesday tomorrow and I hope to get all of this approved with the store owners and can come up with a snazzy name and hopefully a hard start date.
If you guys have any suggestions or comments please leave them here or email me directly any help is greatly appreciated.

FITZ

Am I playing the right angels?

So another day of 40k. Well actually it wasn't. I got to the store at about 3 and sat around till 9. Didn't play a game. Dave was there with his space wolves. He has never [played a game before and making his army list me and a few of the other guys helped him out and we just sat around talking tactics for about 3 hours and never rolled.

It was fun though I'm always for getting people into the hobby and am there to answer any and all questions about it.

After he had to go me and Nurgle sat down and I was complaining about the blood angel codex some more as we all have for the last month. He of course took the side of the blood angels as he is the constant antagonist to any argument.

After a 2 hour ranting session and going through the codex unit by unit and comparing it to other marine codex and noting the discrepancies I started to write a list. I play dark angels deathwing because I like the challenge and I had the opportunity to paint all the men to the best of my ability and not be rushed with a hundred guys on my "to paint" list.

I thought the deathwing was the ultimate elite against the horde army, I was wrong. I have created a list for the blood angels with such an amazing elitist feel that I pre-oredered some of it today. I'm not going to post the list because it was created after me and nurgle were both hoarse, had headaches, and I had not slept in 2 days. That is the type of 40k nirvana I was in when creating it and You cant appreciate it until you reach that point.

So go bash your head against the wall and sit down with a codex for about 6 hours and you might come up with an amazing list like we did.

This reminded me of another marathon strategy session me and another friend James undertook. We stood in the parking lot of the game store till 3 in the morning after we got kicked out at 10 trying to come up with a way for his american flames of war army in mid war to kill geman tigers. The next day me and him placed 1 and 2 in the flames of war tournoment.

So go read your codex. Then read it again. Then read it backwards. Then make a list. Then throw it out. then read the codex one more time and you might come up with a game changeing radical idea and it might just make the difference.

FITZ

Slow at work

Hey everyone its slow at work tonight and I have had some hobby stuff I wanted to talk about so here I am.

First things first I don't remember if I had posted about this previously but I was able to get some of the micron pens finally. The day that I played Dak in the flames of war game the shop closed early so I decided to pop in a art store on my way home. I felt so dumb when I was walking down the pen Isle and say the exact pens that I was scouring the interweb for. Here they are in a place I pass everyday. So feeling ashamed that I chose the Internet over my local area I bought a .005 black a.01 blue and the brush for both colors. OMG the brushes are amazing. Black ink in a pen form that goes on with a brush applicator that I have yet to screw up. It has changed my habits in painting immensely. If you get the chance I suggest buying at least 10 of them since they are sepia's gift to hobbiests.

So the deathwing is complete, at least the ones I have purchased. I have a half dozen old school termies given to me in a vat of simple green at the house and I might have to buy another box of them to get the exact list that I want but for now I have over 2000 pts of deathwing all painted up in the guardians of the covinent colrs and ready to smash face.

In other news one of the guys here was cleaning out his desk to move chairs and he has a ton of bitz. (We are all gamers here) and he gave me about 5 lbs of dark elves bitz. Hmm the dark eldar codex is not to far away and I have about 30 warriors in my bitz box at home not put together yet. Since Im out of terminators I think Ill start on those. I also demanded Rob give me his howling griffons to paint lest I go crazy with nothing so Ill get to them as well. And I get to see Rob field a painted army.

Oh well just got a call back to work!

FITZ

Absolute ork-ocide

So i played a few games on Tuesday with the deathwing. all losses. Still learning, but the main event was a 1850 pt beat fest I played against nurgles imperial guard and my green tide orks.

It was a list I play strictly for fun and there is a new guy that wants to make an ork army and see them in action so we decided to have a last stand type scenario for the guard.

My list was warboss
10 Nobz w/ painboy
weirdboy
15 lootas
5x 30 boys w/ nobs and power claws
30 grotz

His list was

Valkyrie
vendetta
leman russ generic
leman russ demolisher
3 veteran squads
2 infantry platoons
master of ordnance
alot of other lasgun toting guys

here it is after the first turn (I forgot to take a picture of set up)

I also apologise to everyone in the room as my fly was way open when the picture was taken, good looking out Dirk.

I got the first turn and ran forward with the bulk of the force. Blasted a squad with the lootas and hid the grotz in the ruins that held the objective in my deployment.

He moved 2 squads forward in a picket line formation and blasted me with 3 templates. The guy watching the battle summed up the ork horde army the best. "I know he killed 15 orks but I cant tell where."

Well the horde waaaghed the next turn and I was in combat across the front. What was left of 4 mobs and the warboss with the nobs crashed into his lines. The picket line worked and the mobs blasting the center were stopped 6 inches from the main imperial force staring down their barrels at them. The Valkyrie and vendetta failed to show up and his tanks and hundreds of lasgn shots later the nobs are gone but the warboss soldiered on alone. And the two other mobs in the center started to run since he got them to 7 and 8 models respectively and of course they booked it.

Turn 3 I charged the warboss directly into his center horde of guardsmen. (hey if your gonna go out go out with a bang) and the mobs on the flanks pushed into his center. The warboss thrashed around alot but only got one wound on the squad and he wounded the warboss in turn so the combat drew. The squads on the flanks ground to a halt when the difficult terrain tripped up both of the mobs. In his turn I got to see his special action squads in action... the demo charges. Of course they didn't deviate and bang the two flank mobs were cut down. No big deal I said I have tow mobs behind them.

Then 4 fraking difficult terrain stopped the reinforcements from doing anything except blasting at them with sluggas. The warboss thrashed around again and didn't kill enough to get them to run. His command squad charged into the combat but whiffed. Then the vendetta and Valkyrie showed up. Blasted the hell out of the mob on my left flank and the 2 imperial squads blasted the ones on my right. The mob was able to get into cover near the objective and hug it for dear life.


After that I realised that the ork train has come off the rails. So in good ork conscience i had to keep moving forward so the squad broke cover and assaulted a squad that had come to close.

Then after that they went back into hiding. The blast templates rained down and even though I went to ground couldn't hold onto the objective. It was turn 5 and he flew his vendetta with squad inside to contest the objective in my deployment zone. He rolled the dice and we went to 6.

The lootas after wiping a squad a turn saw a juicer target and blew the Valkyrie out of the sky! Whoo hoo one for the good guys. Then the squad inside got blasted by my grots and force to fall back. It was tied up 1 to 1. Then on his turn he blasted the lootas with a battle cannon and they promptly ran away. Such is life I suppose. He boosted with the Valkyrie and it was starring down the grots.


So I rolled the dice and it went to turn 7... figures. Well I called the game since I had only a gtotz mob with 3 templates 4 flamers and a dozen lasguns staring at them. But in ork tradition I WILL BE BACK FOR MORE LATERZ!!

Her is what was left of the guard at the end.


and the ork dead pile. That's right 177 dead orks...


A great game good fun and there was so much death I was joking that I was going to flock the table since nothing makes the grass grow like ork blood.

Well back to work for another week but I'm sure Ill have something to post before too long.

Laterz people.

Flames of war shenanagans!

Well another gaming day time for another post

Like i said in the previous post today was our friend Dak's birthday and since he is an avid flames of war player we decided that today would be a great day for a big game. We has a 3000pt battle with teams of 2. Running the Russians was my friend James and me and running the Germans was Dak and Rob. Now we have been playing this game for years ever since the first rulebook came out for the system but we haven't played in forever so we had to look up allot of the rules. Since it was a friendly game with no time limit other than the store closing we had great fun. I laughed so much the store owner had to come back and check out what the hell we were doing multiple times.

James brought his son Jake and so we were trying to keep the language pg-13 but we failed miserably. Every joke was concluded with "Now don't say that, ever"

So here are some craptastic pictures from the battle.

My 1500 pts of Russian infantry


Dak's 1500 pts of German infantry with entirely to many flack and machine guns... he knows how I play the Russians.


Rob's 1500 pts of German tanks. A panther company really an entire panther company... /facepalm

And James was running the Russian tank Battalion I forgot to get a shot of them but it was 7 t/34-85s, 3 ISU 122s, and 3 Joseph Stalins

So we deployed and fun was had by all. I got pictures of the board but we played on the back table and it hideously lit so you can see like 3 models and allot of darkness sorry guys. I'm gonna hang a light over that table one of these days.

The first turns were abysmal for the Russians with the Germans all going to ground except one team that for the entire game tried to entrench in concrete apparently and the panthers gunning down the entire Russian tank force in 3 turns. But that is ok the strengh of the Russians are the boots on the ground the infantry was still up and charging headfirst into the German lines.


Until this happened...

There were 43 stands of infantry there before the shooting phase started.

Dak rolled 12 dice, hit with 10, I fail 8, 3+ saves. Hmm that's not good. The tanks fired, he rolled 12 dice, hit with 10, I failed 7 saves. It happens. He shot with the anti aircraft guns, he rolled 12 dice, hit 10 times, I failed 9 saves... whats going on. He shot with his artillery, hit 10 times, I failed 10 saves. Wow the dice gods absolutely looked down from on high and said "we hate you fitz". Well after that the bad dice did not stop I failed both company morale checks that forces a battalion check and I promptly ran away screaming like a little girl. Such is life I guess.

I am still waiting for Kruchev to show up with vodka and a pistol after that one.

Great game though had lots of fun, it was Daks birthday after all so I hinted that I let him win. The store closed and we all went our separate ways, I think we got some of the guys in the store interested in it since there was lots of ooohing and ahhhhing over the minis. The picture does not do it justice but Daks germans are some of the prettiest models I have seen in any scale he has put allot of time into them so I guess thats why they rolled so good.

Oh well hopefully I can get back into my primary game 40k on Tuesday again and win one for the emporor.

Oh and on the subject of 40k I got to thumb through the store copy of the blood angels codex. I wont get into it since the internet id full of people talking about it but I could almost see the big WTF! forming over my head as I read it. If that thing is so broken now I cant wait to see what the Dark Eldar codex will look like. I have about 30 DE warriors still on the sprue in my bitz box. Maybe if the codex is nice and shiny I might start my Kabal back up again.

Ever had one of those days when you do something incredibly stupid but get out of it scott free. (not me in the picture btw)

I attribute that to

"I lived because god has a plan for me to go out doing something far more stupider than this"

Ive just been having one of those weeks.

On the 40k front nothing much to report this week. I got to the FLGS and sat around for about 5 hours waiting for someone to show up to game against. Finally at about 5 I got a game together then I called it early because I had blown enough time there and wasn't really feeling the game. Plus my GF called and she had made spaghetti and I was all about some good spaghetti.

Another gaming note I was so excited when i got home that my paint pens had arrived I tore open the packaging and got right to work.... what the... hey that doesn't look right...dammit. I Definitely need to do more research since the pens I got are far too large for what I want them to do so that package was actually full of disappointment and fail. Oh well off to the interwebz to shop for another set.

I got Sunday off for my friend Dak's (Desert Afrika Corps btw) birthday and we have scheduled a full day of flames of war so I can Finlay dust of mu Russian infantry horde and give them a spin. Its been forever since I played flames of war since when I went off to college it was rocking in this area and now that I'm back from up north none of the local stores carry it anymore. I guess it just dried up around here.

Oh well at least I can get the boys all boozed up and charge the enemies of the motherland once more!

Pictures of the Comrades and Nazis duking it out to come.

Total Immersion

This hobby recently has enveloped my life and i cant be more happier.

I recently moved back to Florida where my gaming group is. I was living in Kentucky and the only game store was an hour long drive away and I had not been gaming as much as Id like to. So now I'm back to my gaming roots with the routy bunch that have raised me into the gamer that I am. The bunch of us that are still around are the hard core gamers. The store I started my gaming carrier at was NOT a kid friendly place. In the first month I had dug dice out of the wall to add to my collection (I still have allot of them in one of my bags that I call Fitz's home for wayward dice) I had seen someone punched in the mouth for cheating and had seen miniatures run over with trucks when they were deemed too cowardly to serve anymore when they ran off the board.

So needless to say with that kind of gaming upbringing I was sore pressed to be thrilled with the "kid friendly" stores that I kept going to as I was exploring the frozen north.

So either way now im back home and loveing it. I work at a buisness that allows me to do busy work while im on the phones. So I have completed my entire deathwing while getting paid for it :). Also at work here we have played games of 40 useing pieces of ripped up paper as units and have even started a 40k rpg style thing useing the inhouse messageing system. (havent been caught yet) So Im just on here to gloat today that I love everything about this hobby and I get to do it about 6 days a week.
Whooooo!

Deathwing against the hordes

Another week another couple of games of 40k. I know I play on tuesdays and its now thursday... deal with it.

This week I face off against my Deathwings arch nemesis Adam and his Chaos deamon army. Also had the honor of faceing the Kommisar and his IG tourney army.

heres some shots of the Deamons.





The game against the deamons was a nail biter. It seemed like I forgot to consecrate the ammunition and he was just not failing inv saves. He got the corrct wave in and I had my shooty squads down. Assault cannon and storm bolter rounds seemed to just be absorbed into the squishy flesh of the rotten things. His Greater Deamon of Nurgle took 3 rounds of fire from 3 assault cannon squads and I still had to kill it in close combat with a power fist.

His second wave had 3 sould grinders (proxied by the deamon princes, not to scale I know but I made him up the points to 2k at the last second) A blood thirster and 2 squads of blood letters. Lemmie tell ya, blood letters are a terminators worst fracking nightmare. Thank got I was able to whittle them down with fire before chargeing them so they did not get their furious charge bonuses cause if 10 of those hits any marine squad terminator or not they are in for a world of hurt.

It came down to a draw of the 3 objective it was 1/1/1 all because his blood thirster is a massive CC beast. He was stuck in the middle of the slop from the turn he hit the ground. Looking back thats probably where half my army went. got it down to 1 wound and could not kill it.... oh well such is life.

Game 2 Was against the Kommisar and his "fishing with dynamite" Imperial guard.


Sorry for the crap tastic pictures Im still getting the hang of this cheap crap camera. A camera on my phone would have probably been better...


Not pictured are the 3 leman russ variants (Vanquisher w/Pask, executuioner and a stripped down vanillia russ 1 valkarie 1 vandetta and a rhino that had an identity chrisis and was standing in for a chimera and about 20 heavy weapon teams)

We rolled 5 objective and dawn of war. Now I screwed up here sinee I thought I was "required" to have 2 troops and a HQ on the board at the start. I should have RTFR (read the fracking rules) and deep struck everything.

He started the board with 2 sauads a lascannon team and his command team on. In turn 1 I shot the lascannon team blasting one gun off the board and my other 2 squads decided that they couldnt see anything.

He moved on with the rest of his army on turn 2. I decided that I was going to charge Belial and his squad of choppy choppy death into his other flank to deny him some of the objective but boy was I wrong. And I got in all the rest of my squads on turn 2. Now onto the main flub of the entire day.

Demo charges..... fracking demo charges......

I usualy run an ork army of the horde variety it has 207 models in 1850 pts. Since I wanted to keep my sanity and spare my back from hunching over a tbale all day at the tournoment I am building this army for (bolter beach indy tournoment BTW) I decided to go with the deathwing. Have I got some learning to do. Against my orks demo cahrges dont matter squat. Wow you killed 8 orks, ok, as I throw them into the rapidly expanding pile of dead orks I dont bat an eye over it. In this game however he had 3 demo charges. "He'll scatter on some of those" I said. Nope dead on. Three bulls eyes on my terminators heads all nice and bunched up from deep strikeing. Three charges 15 terminators dead. The emporor turned a blind eye to this one no inv saves for me today. To make it worse one of those squads was belials tooled up close combat squad. The apothicary was able to save Belial before he succuming to blast induced trauma but then the 3 meltas in the squad made sure he didnt make it back to the rock today.

So leason leared for the day STAY AWAY FROM THE DAMN VETERAN TEAMS!!!!

Ok the wing was in ruin after that. The bright note was that my contingency plan, the chaplin led assault termy squad was able to wipe all the infantry off the other side of the board. An assault cannon lighting up a vandetta and jumping out of the second story window the next turn to chainfist his valkary to death. (then he hit the ground and pask rewarded him with a vanquisher shell that I of course failed the save on.)

It was closer than it should have been at the end on turn 5 it was a solid draw with a possibility for a deathwing win if we measured the objectives. he rolled the dice and we went to 6. On 6 it was a draw with no possibility for a win for me. I rolled the dice and sure enough here comes turn 7. I got tabled. Well except a chaplin with 1 wound left screaming into his vox feed to get beamed out, close enough I say.

All in all it was a good day of 40k Im learning my lessons with the wing and my sensai on the mountain top Tim the king of the deathwing in the local ara granted me 5 AOBR terminators that are currently suffocateing in a vat of simple green. Its coming together and Ill have this army built, sculpted, and painted long before the tourney in june so I might just have a chance to win a game.

Final thought of the day. One of my buddies is building a necron army, he said this this and I just cant shake the idea....

WAAAAAGHOLITH

AVATAR = FAIL

Ok I know i said this was going to be a blog about 40k but I figure this movie that has been seen by everyone not in a 3rd world country is worth posting about here and if anyone ever reads this blog in the future im gonna get flamed for it but I dont care. So here it goes.

I decided to go watch avatar this friday because I havent seen it and if I was going to see it I wanted to see it in 3-d. So on the night alice in wonderland was opening i figured we can go and it wont be too crowded in our theater.

The movie is visualy stunning and details are amazing I think the art department should win an oscar for that definately because they poured their heart into it. BUT the acting, the script, the story were absolutely fail. missed the mark by a friggin mile. The only way I will ever watch this movie again is with the mute button on.

The movie opened with a guy explaining about space travel and being a soldier. I was actualy interested and could put up with the horrible writing because i figured none of the writers had any background in this but looking at the toys the humans had i was genualy enthusiastic at this point. Then it all went down hill. Naturaly occuring carbon fiber.... ok and the ore that was on the planet was called "unobtanium". i think James Cameron asked one of his grandchildren what they should call the metal all of this fighting was over...Ill drink the Koolaid.

The first time in the field and he sees the rhino, hammerhead, mac truck hybrid and Sigourney Weaver tells him not to shoot it I was thinking "love the creature then it wont crush you" (pfft...) then the whole run through the forrest being chased by the cougar-esk beast and of course bullets seem to bounce off that too, whats the best way to avoid being killed. Thats right jump off a cliff. And in the future i guess they have shunned GPS because they couldnt find him after that.

The second they explained what the avatar program was I lost interest because I could see the way the story was going to go from that moment on. Skip ahead about an hour into it and get to the part where he is trying to fit into their culture. I was waiting for a disney musical montage at any second.

The floating islands... I am a wow player and I felt like they were flying into Nagrand.

The flying creature was great in the action sequences. But watching it fly, I wouldnt call myself a biologist by any stretch of the imagination, but I am looking at these creatures thinking yeah they look cool but what caused it to evolve that way. is there a reason It has slits in its wings and whats with the downward faceing horn.

Ok skip ahead to where he finaly gets accepted into the tribe. The girl that was with him teaching him the ways of their people falls in love with him and they mate. Que disney movie montage and phil collins.

He talks with trees..... enough said.

Ok onto where I had the real problem and I was hopeing ther would be some real action, The battle sequences. Michelle Rodriguez leaves a mission and pulls away disreguarding an order when the blow up the big tree, and yet she is not in a cell she hasnt had her flight status revoked she runs away and no one seems to care. The tree falls over and yet there are no bodies impaled on the limbs no crushed natives it seems the only one who died was the girls father who then tells her she is going to protect the people. (thanks dad they have missles and flying machines and I get a bow that shoots sticks, Im all over it)

then they brake out of prison and while running away the cournal opens fire on them everyone is fine except the doctor. Who didnt see that coming. then instead of treating her for a gunshot wound they take her to the magical, talking, invasion of the body snatcher tree. it fails.

When the main guy goes after the big bird thing I was thinking here comes a cool action sequence. Nope it seems the graphics depatment were over budget and we have to assume the beast rolled over for him and accepted him as its master then he flys in looking like a epic hero out of ledgend and a guy who the ENTIRE tribe wanted to kill a few hours ago is brought back in and gets to lead the whole shebang. Oh and the "talk" he and the woman who is now leading the whole tribe, let me sum it up. Him "Im sowy" Her "Im sowy" Him "its ok i still love you" Her "I love you too" ......moving on.

Ok the big fight. After a very brave heart moment satalite images show thery are massing. Why wasnt there a target on that map? satilites and space ships and no one has a bomb that they can drop from orbit and finish this whole retarded sequence of events. Again the militarily minded have to drink the Koolaid. Oh the guy asks the tree for help but the help wont show up untill it is absoultely nessisary.

So on to the fight. The area messes with the computers and tracking on all the helicopters. Ok. Also they have no other weapons other than machine gunns and rockets that cant hit a damn thing. Ok. they land the ground troops in a battle that didnt need ground troops. O..o..ok. And for bombs thay are useing mining esplosives wrapped into neat pallets that they will push out the back. hmmmm..ok.

Well the tribes men attrack. in the air they grab the tails of the helicopters and smash them aginst the rocks. No one saw them coming and I guess they were to fast for the gunners to pull the triggers. On the ground it felt like the humans were substitutes for the star wars movie storm troopers. a.k.a. cant hit a damned thing. There were thousands of rounds being fired and you only saw 3 or 4 tribals falling off their horse like things. moving on.

The hero and his merry band fight and start loosing and then the magical tree helps them out by sending all the creatures in the forest to fight for them. Im really speachless about this I want to make a whitty remark but nothing rediculus enough comes to mind over this.

Ok skipping ahead some more and the cournal who aparnetly dosent realise he is on fire for a rather long time jumps in one of the powered suits and jumps from a crashing aircraft. On a gaming note I wished they made a scale appropreate figure for the suits cause they would be cool for some pre-heresy dreanaughts. Ok back to my rant. He jumps from a crashing transport. In a previous life I was an autobody mechanic so when he hit the ground I was waiting for buckleing steel and hydrolic fluid to spew out but it didnt and he walked off like notyhing happend just taking a stroll. Maybe it was made from "unobtanium"... whatever. The girl comes up on him and brakes his gun then he pulls a knife. Because you always equip your battle mechs with combat knives dont ya, I mean tau battle suits should have them becasue apparently they are better than a autocannon that got broke against some rocks earlier. Then he kills the girls mount and pins her against a tree. ok.. then the guy avatar shows up and procedes to get his ass beat by the cournal in his machine of coures this is after he failed to stab him repeatedly with various bladed objects and the cournal I guess dosent need to breathe... ever. untill he puts his mask on. Then the girl gets unpinned and shoots him. AND THERE WAS MUCH REJOYCEING!.

So they send the remaining humans back into space to go back to earth with their tails between their legs. Ok in the begining it said it took 5 years 9 months and a handfull of days to get to the planet from earth or wherever they were coming from. so in 11 years 4 months and a few days there will be a whole new set of humans coming back with bigger and better toys to destroy the tribals now that there is no doubt that the tribals are hostile. I hope someone brings the bombs so Avatar 2 will only be about 3 minutes long. The time it takes the bomb to free-fall from orbit and kill the magic trees.

Then the last scene the guy is hooked up to the body snatcher tree and he permanately becomes his avater the end.

I hope i have ruined the movie for you if you havent seen it I just saved you $10.

Again visualy stunning. I hope they win the oscar for best art in a movie this year and I am pumped that they will be useing the same technology in the upcoming Ultramarines move being written by Dan Abbnet this movie will make avater seem like the care bears movie compard to a snuff film if he is allowed to do it right and the movie house doing it dosent tell him to tone it down for a pg-13 rating. I swear if it comes out with anything less thana R rating I will be highly disappointed and I think anyone who has ever read a book by the black libraby, ever, will be too.

Wow this has turned into a wall of text hasnt it. Well pictures soon I promise. and construction and consription continues for the deathwing.

Tuesday night generals

In my last game at my FLGS I was playing against a friend of mine Chris. Hes mostly a fantasy player and it was his first game with his new 40k orks playing against my deathwing which I was also playing for the first time. All in all it was a fun game and good experience for both of us. I managed to squeak out a win in a kill point scenario, but more on that later.

But what got me was the many rules lawyers and armchair generals we had around the table. At any point we had about 3 ppl looking up rules and telling us where we were making mistakes. Now I know its a nessisary evil in a game where there is a new player and I still have 3rd edition deep in my memory always trying to get out but c'mon, go play and if you want to be a rules lawyer have your opponent sit there while you have your face buried in the rulebook.

On that note there are alot of what I like to call arm chair generals as well. (sometimes the two are one in the same.) These are the guys who have come in after work to pick up a box, paint, or just to hang out with the guys. There is one in particular that we all call "The Kommisar" and I wont get into him much here as I am designing a whole post about him. But they will sit down next to you and whisper tactics in your ear. Now I am a firm beliver against this because then it is not you playing your army. If you win useing there tactices, did you really win, did you learn anything, will you make the same discion in a tournomet setting?

Oh well rant over. back to the game. Yeah I just barely squeaked a win out 6 to 7 in favor of the deathwing. Highlighs of the game were Belial getting "gunned down" by a slugga mob after he lost his retinue in a assault. A good scatter on the deep stike letting a heavy flamer kill 15 boys that were ranked up. Killing both of his battle wagons in one turn by assaulting chainfists. Haveing to explain to the chapter master how I lost 3 terminators to an exploding battle wagon. (dicegods hate me). And a whole squad of termiantors still on the teleport deck screaming at the tech priest when the deep strike scatter sent then into a huge swirling melee in the middle of the board. "Im givvin er all i got cappin!" I think I set the chapter back 100 years today...

On a blog related note I bought a digital camera, a cheap one, so eventualy I will get battle reports going and post pics of my armies and some how tos on my extensive (if a little deranged) converting habits. The goal with the death wing is to not have one un modified model on the field.

Well hello there

Hi everybody in cyberspace amd welcome to my first blog post.
After many years in my hobby and seeing the hundreds of blogs on the subject Ive decided to throw my two cents in. First a little about me and the hobby that I love so much Warhammer 40k. I live in Ft.Myers Florida, home of sun palm trees and the occasional nid player.

I was a freshmen in highschool when a friend of mine brought little plastic men in armor in to paint in class. "Hey what are these cool things" I decided to ask. He explained to me what a space marine was and the imperium of man and its never ending quest for survival in a universe out to kill everyone. Needless to say the next day I was with him going down to the FLGS in the area.

Now here we are 12 years and 3 editions down the line and im still in love with the game. I have been a fluff player a tournoment player that old crabby player in the corner I have been the veteran and the noob all together. I have seen the rise (and the fall) of the tau empire and beaten back the hive fleets.

Now I find myself building yet another army for yet another tournoment and figured this was as good a time as any to get my voice heard. I called this blog the scenic route because I belive my brain works like an orks. It eventualy comes to the right conclusion it just takes the scenic route getting there.

Well thats enough for now after reading other blogs I guess people get wary of reading lines of text so Ill update hopefully once if not twice a week and get on here whenever I have one of those AHHAH monents but untill then talk with ya later.