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