A gem from goatboy

Alright I hate doing this so much. (tearing things from the pages of BOLS) but lets face it as far as 40k on the Internet, that's a large part of it. But today Goatboy came out with a post that tried to justify his new "counts as" Spacewolf chaos army.
The post wasn't written very well and halfway through it turned into him trying to justify the army to himself mostly. The comment section was a great read. (the comments over there are always good. Never on the topic but good to read.)

First video battle report

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnGMlOaMOCI&feature=player_embedded#


Alright as promised here is our first battle report.

Also we now have a group on facebook. If you want to keep up to date with all the happenings with Guerrilla Games just go here.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Guerrilla-Gaming/189310054421412

A tribute

I saw an article on BOLS earlier in the week talking about Outriders, the now legendary tabletop gurus or games-workshop. In it the author spoke about his fond memories of his local outrider and the impact they had had on the local gaming. I have to admit reading this got me a little teary eyed for the good old days. So i have decided to tell the story of the legendary Outrider John.

Back in the early days of the 2000s I walked into Omniverse hobbies in Ft. Myers for the first time. There I saw a man jumping up and down whooping with his arms over his head. "What is going on here?" I asked myself. Immediately wondering what could have a grown man acting this way i went over to the table they were playing on. There I saw what looked like a version of the russian army taking on something called 'corn berzerkers?' I must have looked a little lost because immediately the man I saw making the commotion earlier looked over at me and said. "stick around this is going to be a good one."So I pulled up a chair and watched as the red armored dudes assaulted up a hill held by the russians and all the while this guy was screaming 'Blood for the Blood god!'

After the game was over and all the 'corn berzerkers' were standing in a pile or twisted steel and broken bodies the guy started to talk to me. I was a little shy as I had never been here before and didn't know anyone.

"Hi I'm John, you play 40k?"
"nope but I think I am going to."
"Let me tell you about it."

That's all it took. John talked with me for hours about the fluff and history of the 41st millenium. He spoke with a passion I have rarely seen since. He loved this game. He even went out to his car and brought back in all of his different armies to show how each was different and explained their back story.
He had his bitz box there and I didn't realise what he had until many years later. In there he had a full armorcast reaver titan in parts just sitting on the top. (Who does that?)

After that day I went back home and told all my friends about John and Omniverse hobbies. From that point on he took us under his wing and taught us how to paint, how to play, and how to win. He guided our growth in the hobby that he loved, not for money, or competitiveness, he did it because he wanted to see the hobby grow and mature in us.

I never forgot the last game I played with him. My imperial guard against his chaos. It was a blood bath and I had lost 90% of my army but when the smoke cleared I still had one commissar with a single wound left holding onto the one objective in the middle of the board. I had finally beat the master. He wasn't bitter about the loss. He was happy for me and shook my hand and said "now you are ready, go forth and conquer." The next week I left for college and when I came back Outrider John was gone. The Outrider program had been scrapped and Omniverse hobbies had moved to a new building.

I never saw that man again.

So Outrider John I don't know where you are or what army you are playing but this one is for you my friend.

*SALUTE*

When it all goes wrong...

Played a game last night against nurgle and his excellent quality imperial guard army with my standard list i have been working with. I lost, and it wasn't that I lost it was why I lost that is driving me absolutely crazy.

It was capture and control. I set up first and went first. Set up my 3 ravagers on my objective hugging cover in case he stole the initiative. All the raiders and the jetbikes on one flank ready to zoom in and start the killing. He started all of his straight leg infantry on the board with a couple of missile teams, squads with autocannons, vets with demo charges, and both command teams, holding his 3 leman russ and a whole platoon in chimeras off the board. He covered most of his board edge.
The came started incredibly well for me with a reaver squad turbo boosting over a missile squad and wiping it, another squad beaten down by the other reavers and all my raiders moving to pounce next turn. The ravagers moved forward into more cover and started sniping at a squad because there was no armor on the board.

He sot at me a bit and didn't do much as far as damage goes. Well nothing notable at least.

Turn 2 Leilith and all the wyches get out and start going on a killing spree. His flank was shot to hell with all the splinter weapons and after that turn there was little left except a lieutenant in combat with lelith and one squad of reavers and a single melta gunner.

His turn he gets the platoon in. 4 Chimeras armed with heavy flamers and multi-lasers.

Were gonna focus on the retarded from here.

So his Chimeras came in. he put 2 on the flank where all the action was happening and the other 2 on the left flank to make a run for the objective on my side of the board. Ha I have 3 ravagers over there he wont make it I have him dead to rights! So on my turn I do some terrain hopping and fire 2 ravagers at his command squads chimera. stun stun and weapon destroyed. Hmm not to good but Ill take it. The other Ravager fired at the Chimera trying to be sneaky in the back. With smoke he made his cover saves. Hmm no problem.

Next turn he gets his leamen russes in. Fires trying to kill my infantry with one and takes a shot with the other at the ravagers. Battle cannon deviated and hit both the ravager in the rear of the pack. Saved by cover. The lascannon shot zipped off into space somewhere.

My turn I see what the issue is and its the chimera I have to stop that so I pop over hills and fire all 9 barrels at it. ZAP ZAP ZAP! The tank is unscathed... freaking dice. Oh well it has allot of board to cover.

His turn he drops a ravager with a lucky shot. Oh well.

My turn 6 more barrels at the chimera. ZAP ZAP!.... nothing. WTH...

His turn more maneuvering and his russes focus on the warriors and wyches that are running around completely stoned on souls at this point. He fires the chimera at the ravagers and whiffs.

My turn I move the ravagers 12" and sit on both sides of the objective. (They are gonna have to blow me off of here to get it. ZAP ZAP!... NOTHING! AGAIN!!!

His turn he moves the chimera up and jumps the troops out. He knows the odds are stacked against him. He fires a multi laser at one. WHAT! it went down! seriously! *grumble* Well he cant take the last one out he has no anti tank with that squad. He charges it. "I have krak grenades and a melta bomb on the Sargent" he says. Well that's fine it takes a 6 to hit me, what are the odds. 9 kraks no hits. Whew. he wont roll a... *whimper*... he did crap. he planted a melta bomb. Well that's ok tanks are resilient in 5th. penetrating hit. no surprise there. (at this point he has rolled 3 6s in a row so he hit me for S20) Ok I roll a 5++. Failed. damn.. it happens. then he rolls on the chart and... ANOTHER FREAKING 6!!!! Come on! The blast goes out and claims one guardsman.

So at this point its a tie because I still hold the one in his zone with 2 squads and he has mine. My maneuverability is gone after almost all the raiders are burning hulks on the ground. roll to see if we continue. Of course we do.

then on his turn 3 battle cannons the 1 remaining master of the ordnance and every weapon he had that could reach out and touch me fired on those 2 squads. I have cover feel no pain and fearless on them. He put just enough that with the last multi laser he dropped my last wych. Freaking loss.

After the game he said that he knew that he was going to lose after turn 1 and all the crap that I killed of his. Then the dice gods parted the clouds, a ray of light came down from the heavens and I heard a booming voice. "WE HATE YOU FITZ". It was the most lopsided loss in the history of my 40k career.

I don't mind losing if I was outplayed, if my tactics were wrong, if i put too much faith in one squad or vehicle, but to lose like this.... there is just no lesson from it. I cant fix my mistakes because I didnt see any that I made.


The dice purge has already begun.....

Speedy marines?

I played a game last night with Kadesworld off of Guerrilla Gaming yesterday and we did a VBR with his actual video camera so once that is up I will edit and have the link here.


It was kill points with pitched battle. I lost 12-4. Oh how the dice gods were bitter at me. I had whole turns where the massive damage potential of my army did nothing.... Well you will see when the video gets posted.

Lessons learned.
* Reserve if the blood angels are going first. You cant run from their fast firepower.
* Jetbikes don't give raiders a cover save.
* I need a way to deal with feel no pain more effectively. There is so much of it floating around now.
* Don't rely on the 5++ for transports because (like in this game) you wont make as many as you need to.

That's all for now until the video gets posted then I'll link to it from here.

The MSU paradox

I have been on the Internet allot lately looking at other sites and blogs about Dark Eldar and I have seen a strange trend.

Why so many small units?

Warrior squads of 5 men. Trueborn squads of 3. Wracks and Grotesques with only 3 models? I dont get it.

Maybe its just me being a ancient gamer nostalgic for 40k back in the Jurassic period but I don't like squads so small. I feel they lack punch and can either be easily ignored or in most cases swatted out of the sky for an easy kill point or 2.

Another thing is if I take small squads in a 2k point game I start to run out of FOC slots and I have to stack up on the pretty (sometimes useless) wargear. I believe the best piece of wargear to buy a soldier is another soldier standing next to him. This way I have the ability to put out more firepower, take more hits, and god forbid that one of my warrior squads get blown out of a transport and assaulted I might just have a chance to pin the enemy squad there so one of my wrecking crew squads can come in and support; thus saving a kill point and letting the warriors get to cover, high ground, an objective and still support the army from there.

BOLS has a VBR up with Darkwynn as the Dark Eldar taking on goatboy and his orks. A list like Goatboy's I would salivate over. My army has the firepower and assault capabilities to pop those boyz and the survivability (with numbers and unit selection) to take fire better than he did.
Now I'm not saying Darkwynn dosent know what he is doing. Not by a long shot. I knew Darkwynn way back in the day when he was playing eldar across the table from my chaos cultist army a decade ago. He spanked me back then (but come on I was playing cultists on a 17 year olds budget). I'm just commenting on his unit selection. I just didn't get it. He still won and great for him but he didn't embody the lightning fast nuke that the Dark Eldar can be.

Hmm since no one reads this blog let me go ahead and say this. (maybe it will raise my interwebz hitz)

I challenge the BOLS team.
Me and the guys from Guerrilla gaming challenge you to come over to our side of the gulf and game with us for a weekend. We can make it a no holds barred 40k cage match and see who walks out triumphant!

Making deamons Viable

So I have a friend at the FLGS that plays deamons. The cold hard truth is that he sucks with them. So after going over his list and seeing what we could do to help him with it some of us have come up with a few ideas.

Heres mine.

So I sat down with that damned book for an hour and came up with this, its not mono god but I think it has a chance to pop tanks and still ahve alot of deamonettes on friggin speed



HQ Keeper of secrets
HQ Masque
HQ herald of tzeench Chariot Bolt of tzeench
T 15 Deamonettes
T 15 Deamonettes
T 15 Deamonettes
T 10 Deamonettes
T 5 horrors Bolt of tzeench
T 5 horrors Bolt of tzeench
F 3 Screamers
F 3 Screamers
F 10 Deamonettes on Steeds
E 3 Flamers Bolt of tzeench
E 3 Flamers Bolt of tzeench
E 3 Flamers Bolt of tzeench

Primary wave will have 8 units
Keeper of secrets
Masque
3x 15 squads of deamonettes
Deamonettes on steeds
2x3 screamers
Secondary will ahve 7 units
Herald of tzeench
2x5 horrors
3x3 flamers
10 deamonetters for clean up/ reinforce where needed

Primary wave will get to the table and mostly try and hide in terrain. Secondary wave will come in and the primary will move in.

Secondary will use their ranges attacks. Mostly the s8 ap1 bolts to open tanks and transports. Screamers will assault heavy stuff since they are armed with melta bombs. Masque will dance up to 3 squads closer if they need to be or get them out of cover and then the deamonettes will go in doing their thing. squad of 15 has 60 rending attacks on the charge and unless they are 3++ terminators they wont live through that. Then the deamonettes massacre move into the wrecked vehicles or terrain for cover saves from the enemys shooting.



The shooty squads even have alot of lower strenght shots for killing infantry if there arent enough boxes on the board. Its not a perfect plan and I would love to have more reliable shooting in it but they are deamons what do you expect.

So I like this list. I might have even found my next army.... maybe... probably not.

Blowing up Death Stars

We've all seen the recent FAQs and I like them since my other army are the Deathwing it also brings up an interesting conundrum, how to death with enemy "Death Stars".

In a recent game I played with Kadesworld and his blood angels (were gonna have the VBR up later i swear) I ran into a death star unit. Specifically 5 terminators with a Chaplin and Corbulo. I blew them out of their storm raven and then thinking I had a squishy target on the board i decided that 3 squads of warriors were gonna blow them off the board. 60+ wounds and 3 turns later boy was I wrong. The unit survived to the end of the game.

That is gonna be the basis of this tactica is killing the enemy rock units. With the new FAQ out were gonna see allot more terminators with storm shields getting feel no pain. Seeing that it is a holiday and I have nothing better to do I went out to the truck in the rain and grabbed my dice for some actual number combat instead of math hammer. so that's enough set up lets get into it.

First up.
Warrior spam from raiders.



4 squads of warriors rapid firing

80 shots
52 hits
re-roll for splinter racks (never leave home without them kids)
18 more hits

70 hits total
36 wounds

30 saves
3 FNP saves

So that was more fire than 2 loota squads and we still only killed 3 terminators. Who next turn will assault one or 3 of the raiders spilling their squishy contents all over the ground to be beat sticked to death.

ok so now lets try wyches



10 Wyches get out and do what they do best

Shooting
10 shots poisoned
6 hits
3 wounds
3 saves

Assaulting (were gonna give them the +1 S drug too)
Wyches go first
Agoniser
5 attacks
4 hits
2 wounds
1 kill (3++ is a bitch)

Hydra knives
14 attacks (rolled high)
9 hits
4 wounds
4 saves

rest of the squad
21 attacks
14 hits
6 wounds
3 saves
2 fnp saves

Terminators attack
Belial
4 attacks
3 hits
3 wounds
2 dodge saves

Chaplin
3hits
2 wounds
1 dodge

Rest of squad
15 attacks (banner)
10 hits
10 wounds
3 failed dodge

Wyches loose by 4
leadership roll of 4 wyches stick

next turn the terminators kill the rest because they are swinging at I1 because of the hammers.

Ok not to bad we tied them up and tar pitted them but we didn't get any kill points and now they are off to go smack something else.

Time to bring out the hammer
Incubi



10 incubi

Incubi Master
3 hits
0 wounds :(

Incubi
27 attacks
13 hits
4 wounds
2 murderous assault attacks 2 hits
1 wound

2 failed 3++ saves

Belial 3 hits
3 wounds

Chaplin
3 hits
2 wounds

Terminators
6 hits
6 wounds

Well there goes the whole squad. Not very effective if you ask me....

So what else do we have... Ahh Beasts
(playing the part of the razor wings will be ripper swarms, Vassel hasn't updated the models yet)


Using the razor wing packs because I love em. ( i know there shouldn't be bias in testing but this is my blog get over it)

Razor wings and impressive 60 attacks
33 hits
7 wounds
+ 4 rending wounds
3 unsaved wounds

Beast masters
15 attacks
9 hits
4 wounds
4 saves

Terminators
all together 10 wounds meaning 10 models dead

leadership failed because we are at a -7 they run off the board :( boo...

So.. how do we take care of a deathwing unit you are asking. Well there is only one way to do it consistently I see.



IGNORE THEM! You are playing the fastest army in the history of the game. When you blow them out of their transport of they deep strike onto the board they have given you the complete advantage. At 6" a turn they will NEVER catch you unless you let them. If you find yourselves in a position where you have to take them out, after you have sufficiently de-meched the rest of the army turn your dark lances on them. I promise you they will feel it. Apothecary or not.

That's just my two cents on that subject. Feel free to cheer boo or throw rotten fruit just remember I have night shields on and they wont go quite as far as you think they will.

OMG bad ideas....

Quick post.
I have a great idea for a chaos deamon army.

gue/great stuff

green paint

googley eyes....

Im just gonna let you stew about this one.

First Battle report "with pictures... kinda"

So I just got the updates to my Vassel program. While Ive never played a game on Vassel i have used it for play testing and now for battle reports. So without further ado here it is. Mostly from memory so some of the unit options and distances are fudged for my crap estimations.

I played a 2000 pt game against Will and his Boom brigade yesterday. He plays a custom vanilla marine chapter and his list went something like this.

HQ Lysander
HQ Pedro

Elites 9 sterguard in a drop pod

Troops 3x 10 marines w/ plasma cannon, melta gun, Sargent w/ p.fist in rhino

Heavy thunder fire cannon
Heavy Ironclad dreadnought in drop pod

Fast 9 Vanguard w/o jump packs w/ relic blade, p.fist, thuinderhammer in drop pod

My list

HQ Vect

Troops 4x 10 warriors w/ shredder, splinter cannon, raider w/ night shields flicker field and splinter racks

Troops 9 wyches Hydra gauntlet Raider w/ night shield, flicker field, enhanced aether sails.
Troops 10 wyches 2 Hydra gauntlet Hekatrix w/ agoniser Raider w/ night shield, flicker field, enhanced aether sails.

Heavy 3 Ravagers w/ FF,NS

Fast 2x 6 reaver jetbikes w/ 2 heat lances

So here is the deployment we rolled kill points with quartered deployments. He won the roll and decided to set up first. The building in his deployment was a 4 story monstrosity which he put the thunder fire cannon on the roof and reinforced its cover. I set up reactive to his mostly trying to get out of LOS of the cannon. I rolled a 1 for my combat drugs getting 3 dice for run moves. *bleh* But I had a secret Vect blessed the dice and I promptly rolled and seized the initiative.


Turn 1 moves was me trying to get out from behind the building with my raiders and my Ravagers swept to one side to take shots at the rhinos. 6 dark lances later and one rhino is exploded and all the marines were so surprised by this they were pinned in the wreckage. didn't kill any though.


No assaults from me this turn.

On his turn he came in strong with both the sternguard and vanguard led by Lysander and Pedro respectively. They opened fire on my poor jetbike squad destroying them utterly with all the special ammo and rerolling. Poor poor jetbikes. Thunderfire fired at one of the raiders but through cover and his gunner being cross eyed no damage was taken. Oh and all of his bolters were out of range. "remember your night shields kiddies"


alright now it got interesting, Vect came down from the building he was on and jumped out in prep to assault the sternguard. The other wych squad jumped out in front of our pinned friends and the raiders and ravagers fired into the building but the cover on the gun was too much for the dark lances to find their target.



The assault went perfect, well... almost. Vect directed all his attacks at lysander and he saved all but one. Killed a few sternguard with the wyches but their attacks back killed more wyches and I looked through the book. "Damnit Vect is fearless..." so after the squad was severely reduced we stuck in over there. The other Wyches killed all but the Sargent and he whiffed on his attacks. He failed morale and I caught him but he made his armor saves.


On the marine turn... no Iron clad. The vanguard saw the other squad of bikes behind them and went after them. Well there goes the other squad. I had even forgot to fire them in my enthusiasm to get to the assault phase. In the assault phase my Successful wyches killed the Sargent and consolidated into cover toward the rest of the marines. And vect and his wych group kept trying to beat on Lysanders group.


Dark eldar turn. I fired all the dark lances I had and blew up both drop pods. Everyone survived the blasts. Brought 2 raiders back to deal with Pedro and co. killing a few. Other raiders fired on marines in the building killing the marines on the ground floor.


Wyches in building assault the marines on the 2nd and 3rd floors. Vect and Lysander continue pounding. I get him down to 1 wound and Vect is hoping his shadow field keep saving because if it fails it will turn him into a pasty spot in the dirt.


On the marine turn The thuderfire cannon that has been missing or glanceing off of night shileds all day fires.... and continues its run of bad luck. The rhinos try a ram attack on 2 of the raiders. both just bang harmlessly off of the armor. Pedro and co. Fire at the clsest raider immobilizeing it and blowing off the dark lance.



In the assault phase Pedro assaults the raider blowing it up. 6 Warriors crawl from the wreakage ready to fight on. The wyches in the building continue to nom nom the marines in there. and it finaly happens. Vects field gives way and he is turned into a puddle. *damn* Lysander then takes a 5 inch massacre move toward the building.


Hmm I got something for them all... all of the raiders with warriors still in them move in and fire on Pedros squad. Make 26 armor saves Mr. Pedro. Yup thats what I thought. They all go down to splinter hell. Lysander thinking he had gotten away was vaporized by 6 dark lances. The tow raiders that had dropped off the wyches took pot shots at the thunderfire canon finaly destroying it.


Then the cluds parted and from the heavens came the iron clad. The drop pod hit and he popped out useing his heavy flamer and turning my warriors on foot into burning slag. The rhinos fired at the raiders to no effect and the thunderfire gunner charged into combat with the wyches in the building who killed off the last marine in the squad there.


With this Will conceded the game because he said he had run out of time. (I think it was that he realised that his iron clad was gonna get 12 dark lances next turn but w/e) We shook hands talked over his list and I made some suggestions for him. Will is a good guy he has been playing his marines for just over a year now and he is coming up in the tournament standings. Another quality W in the Dark Eldars colum.

So what do you all think about the new and improved "Vassal battle reps"?

ahh who am I kidding no one reads this blog anyways....

FITZ

Playing Dark Eldar

Yes its true I have given my heart over to the dark ones again. I have been waiting for this release for years as DE was my "second" army back in 1998 when I got into the hobby. I have been playing the new codex since it came out and I have learned allot through trial and error, my tactics baptized by fire, and getting all of my skimmers shot out of the air like daffy duck during hunting season.

So without further ado here are my "THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT PLAYING DARK ELDAR"

1. In higher point games don't take 2 Archons, take Vect, hes worth it.

2. Design each squad to do one thing and do it very well.

3. Dark Lances are not instant win.

4. We don't hold objectives.... we take the enemy's.

5. If I am not trying to kill something with every squad I have every turn then that becomes a liability.

6. never ever ever never ever ever stand still.

7. Take the vehicle upgrades, they are worth it.

8. If one of something is good, then three of something moving towards the same goal is even better.

9. Don't expect Wyches to kill everything in close combat.

10. If you are shooting from it you should never get out of the transports, ever.

These rules have helped me get better with my dark eldar and if anyone ever reads this blog hopefully it will help you too.

One of these days I'm gonna put up a battle report here for the world to see how my mind works but like my army my mind is going too fast during a game to focus on anything else but killing as much as possible.

OK I'm off to finish the 5 raiders I picked up this week so until next time. May your cup of souls run'eth over.

FITZ

Running tournaments.....

I know its been a while and Im not gong to bore you with why I havent been posting so onto it.

For the last umm... year I have been running the local 40k tourneys and as much as I bitch about it Ive been having a good time doing it. This all came about because the players who had been running the games in my exodus to the far frozen north I guess finaly had enough of it and couldnt take it anymore. So seeing as I didnt want the hobby to sstart slipping in the local area I took up the reigns and ran with it.

here is the story (names and facts changed to protect the innocent)

On a blisteringly hot day here in south florida I was painting the begining of my deathwing army and there came a knock on the door. Wipeing the sweat off of my face and unpeeling myself off of the leather chair I answered the door. There stood two men with arm loads of books notepads and a look of absolute fatigue.
"hi" I said
They said nothing as they entered my home and finding the first open space they dumped the material aon my kitchen table. Both of them went back to their car and brought in another armload of items and dumped them next to the frist pile.
One turned to me and said "Now Fitz are you sure you want to do this?"
"Ummm... yeah, sure." I said
The other one grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. "May the Emporor have mercy on your soul." and with that they both left and sped away.
I looked at the pile and saw that it was all the notes, record sheets, and scenerios they had used for running the tournaments.
I skimmed through the top layer and saw that this was the frame work for running a well oiled machine and I was excited that they would give this to me for my new undertakings. Then halfway through the stack of papers I started to notice some small doodleings and some of the sheets didnt make sense. Random calculations and some small stick figures. So I pressed on.
Further down the stack I saw some larger detailed drawings with some symblos I didnt quite recognise that hurt my eyes if they lingered to long. The writeing had taken on a manic and obsessive pace. Then as I reached the bottom of the pile I almost vometed as I reached the last notebook. It was drenched in human blood and scrawled across the cover was the words "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!!".
I opened the cover and all I can say is now I have been enlightened by their studies. I went into the shop the next week and well, the rest is history.

And that is how I got to where I am today. The two guys have come back to gaming and are going to be attending my team tournoment next month. When I asked them about where they went for so long they said something about wandering in the desert looking for their souls or something like that.

So its shameless plug time.

COme to my tournament in sunny Ft. Myers Florida. 2/19/2011 at 2D10 games. Check out the rules and leave a reply at the forum http://2d10games.com/forums/index.php?topic=2111.msg11490#new