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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Back to back Tournaments

So I am a sucker for 40k tournaments. In fact the only times I ever play are either teaching games or in tournaments. It is very rare for me to play a pick up game. Anyway, last weekend Merlyns (a local store in my area) hosted an 1850 point tournament. Merlyns is pretty much the most cutthroat store in the area so honestly I didn't really expect to go in to win. With that in mind I wrote up a list that would at least be fun for me to play with. I was expecting there to be a large number of Nid players there, unfortunately that was not the case. Any way here is the list I took:

HQ:
Eldrad
Farseer: spear, Runes of warding, runes of witnessing, spirit stones, doom, guide
Elite:
6 Harlequins: Troupe master w/ power weapon, shadowseer, 2 w/ kisses, 2 w/ fusion pistols
Troop:
10 Dire Avengers: Exarch w/ double catapults, blade storm
-Wave serpent: TL Scatterlasers, Shuricannon, spirit stones, star engines
20 Guardians: Missile Launcher, warlock W/ Embolden
Fast:
9 Spiders: Exarch W/ Double death spinners
Heavy:
3 Warwalkers, Double Scatterlasers
5 Reapers: Exarch W/ Crack shot, tempest launcher
-Wave Serpent : TL BL, Shuricannon, Star engines, spirit stones

The first thing that I would like to point out about this list is that it sucks ROYALLY. If you get paired up against Mech you are screwed. Sure Spiders and Walkers can take down a rhino like a champ, but they only get 1 chance before the enemy is on you. Problem is the enemy rarely comes at you with only 1 or 2 rhinos, and if it's a wave serpent I am up against I have no hope to take it down on turn one or two. Land raider? Heck no, with only fusion pistols, a brightlance and a missile launcher to take one down I'm helpless if I'm across the table from one. Like I said though, I was expecting to face a large number of Nids and this list rips them apart, I can handle Hordes with ease. And even a tyrannofex can't hold out against 50+ Str 6 shots.

So with all this in mind how did my tournament go? Horribly... like even worse than expected. Round one I was up against Fritz Style Saim Hann. The scenario was capture and control (we rolled for 3 objectives), deployment was dawn of war. And objectives were hot (They dealt D6 S5 AP- hits against each unit within 6" at the beginning of each player turn) With the sole battlepoint modifier being +1 BP for each turn you begin controlling at least one of these objectives. This was a rough match for me, three wave serpents w/ 1 unit of Avengers, and 2 units of dragons inside, two 7 strong units of Guardian jetbikes, 2 prisms and of course a seer counsel. He won the die roll and took turn 2. My dice decided that my opponent should win due to his superior build and I missed all 5 shots with my missile launcher and all three shots with my brightlance despite it being twinlinked. His tanks moved about at will and ripped me apart one thing at a time. Meanwhile I owned all his jetbikes and firedragons through my own means. My Walkers outflanked to perfect position to open up on his counsel, and didn't even cause one casualty. That's ok though, their objective was to put a very juicy target across the board from the rest of my army for his counsel to chase after... He fell for it hook line and sinker. I hate people like this who take net lists but don't even take the time to understand the underlying tactics of their armies. The war walkers barely posed a threat to his army and he could easily ignored them and blasted them down at will with his guardians of prisms or serpents from range. But no he took them out with his counsel putting his most valuable unit out of the game as they took the last two turns getting all the way across the board to my poor huddle of troops. For as horribly outclassed as I was in this game I actually ended up not losing too horribly, The game ended with him getting a minor victory due to me contesting two objectives and him holding the other with his avengers. He easily could have wiped the floor with me if he would have spent more time playing this army instead of just taking everything fritz said and running with it.

Second game I played against horde orks w/ lots of vehicles. I am very ashamed of this game. I should have won this hands down. My opponent had thraka and a big mek w/ KFF in a battlewagon with 7 (I think) Meganobs. He also had 2 units of 10 lootas and 2 trukks w/ 12 slugga boys each as well as 3 units of 20 slugga boys each. I should have obliterated this army. He won die roll and took first. Scenario was Annihilation w/ Pitched deployment. The scenario was modified with some weird blizzard rules, coherency was dropped to 1", Blast weapons were not modified by BS, EVERYTHING had a 5+ Cover (<- I can say with certainty this lost me the game, my opponent could make 5+ saves that would make a Daemon player VERY proud) Skimmers could only move 6" or they must take a Dangerous terrain test, and Dangerous terrain tests failed on a 1 or 2. Basically if I moved my serpents odds were that they were going to crash and burn, meanwhile my opponent had full mobility. Regardless of the Scenario I knew I could still pull out a victory. But between poor die rolls once again failing to even take down a trukk with my Brightlances/ Scatterlasers (all 9 of them)/ Missile launchers and my poor decisions when deploying (I always forget to use divination) He got to me with the boys and thraka turn two and I ended up losing to him giving up a massacre result. Talk about demoralizing. I should have wiped the floor with him easy. Oh well, this is what I get for bringing a crappy list and not having my head in the game. (I spent more time doing my Make-up and hair and picking out my outfit than I did preparing for this tournament. Behold the perils of embracing my girly side.)

So round three I was just looking for a fun game and I was getting tired. So honestly I can't really remember the specifics beyond the scenario being two objectives and spearhead deployment. My opponent was also playing eldar with a very 4th edition list. 3 serpents with all the fixins and two falcons. Two warwalkers w/ starcannon and brightlance. (ewwwwww......) and two units of guardians inside two of the serpents w/ warlock and farseer/ eldrad each. Lost this game too. he had much better mobility than my and outflanked me with Scorpions to my base of guardians and reapers. He almost tabled me, I just had two walkers and a serpent at the end of the game. I would have tied due to shocking with my serpent turn 5 if the game would have ended.

So with that tournament behind me I am looking forward to this weekend up at one of my favorite stores to play at, Hobbytown. Hobbytown tournaments are much more laid back And put huge emphasis on Sportsmanship and painting. The painting scores usually leave me out of the running for best overall but I am usually in a pretty good position for best general/ sportsmanship. Anyway the hobbytown tournament is going to be 2k doubles without a modified force org chart. So basically my partner and I have 4 HQ choices, 12 Troop choices etc... The 4 compulsary troops is a very limiting factor. I'm really expecting high levels of mechanized opponents at this tournament although I'm not really too worried about abusive lists. The fight club will have a strong presence at this tournament and everyone knows that you don't bring an abusive list to a fight club event. (We put a very strong emphasis on sportsmanship and playing fair and having fun in the fight club)

Anyway Here is the the that Kayla (my roommate) and I will be playing this weekend.

Jenn: Chaos Marines
HQ:
Daemon prince of Nurgle, Wings, warptime.
Lord, Mark of Nurgle, Daemon Weapon
TROOP:
8 Plague Marines: 2 Meltas, Rhino
7 Plague Marines: 2 Plasma guns
12 Chaos Marines of Nurgle: Banner of Nurgle, Missile launcher, Flamer
Kayla: Chaos Daemons
HQ:
Herald of Tzeentch: We are Legion, Master of Sorcery, Bolt
Elite:
8 Flamers
Troops:
11 Horrors: Bolt, Changeling
7 Bloodletters
Heavy:
Prince of Tzeentch: Mark of Tzeentch, Bolt, Gaze, Instrument
Soul Grinder: phlegm

An explanation: You may notice a lack of Rhinos and a random unit of bloodletters in a pure Tzeentch list. Basically Kayla refuses to play with unpainted models so she only has one unit of horrors painted up My other choices were daemonettes and Bloodletters, I decided to go with the letters for the punch. Meanwhile I am a poor college kid so I've only been able to invest so much for my Chaos marines army, as such I am using black reach marines for my chaos marines (plus some of my chaos marines to fill the ranks) so that's what is up with the weird flamer/ missile launcher load out. I will be loading them up to be flamer chosens or havocs in the near future.

Anyway I know this list is far from perfect, but one of my goals is not resorting to a power gaming list for my victories. I am fully capable of winning games while running with units that are sub-par. Just don't let my first tournament report fool you.







Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Some fun tactics and underused units

I kind of have a thing for Nurgle Marines lately and I have been slowly working on building up an army of my own. I fully intend my Nurgle marines to be my primary tournament army and as such I am building the army up with units that are less often used but offer unique tactical options. One thing I should note is that in my area Sportsmanship is the most important aspect of the game, we are not super competitive around here and we focus on having fun before smashing face. So two units I have fallen in love with lately are Havocs and Nurgle Bikers.

Now when most people think of havocs they think of a heavy weapons team that sits back and shoots from afar. What I have in mind is a unit of five havocs in a rhino with 4 flamers. I am currently in the process of building this unit but the strategy I have decided on using with them is a bit of what I call Tank herding. With nids making their way to the tournament scene an anti-horde unit is much needed in my army. My army is designed to be purposely outnumbered and so the flamer unit will be a boon. So what I do with these guys is keep them inside their rhino and work on getting them in position for a tank shock. So the plan is to tank shock a unit and herd them into one big mass on the forward left or right of the rhino in such a way that my havocs will be able to deploy and open fire on the massed unit getting as many hits as possible. It shouldn't be too hard at all to score upwards of 30+ hits this way on a 10-20 man unit. The main thing that drew me to this particular unit for this job (as apposed to chosen who could pull this same strategy off just as effectively) is that they are relatively cheap and very good at what they do. for 130 points you have a serious threat that is not only mobile but easily under appreciated by the enemy. They are very easy for the enemy to skim over when they are examining your list especially if they have never seen the unit used this way. I've yet to put it to the test but I will most certainly give you some battle reports with it once I get to it.

So another unit I have a lot of fun with is Nurgle bikers. They are expensive I admit, but they are the whole reason I started playing Chaos marines in the first place, there is just something about a super fast super tough unit that draws me in. So the first thing I would like to point out about these guys is that there is no good weapon to use on them. I figured I would run down a list of weapons and how many shots it would take to cause just one unsaved wound.

Lasgun: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ Armor)=18 hits (6 to wound)= 36 shots (4+ to hit)
Bolter: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ Armor)=18 hits (6 to wound)= 27 shots (3+ to hit)
Heavy Bolter: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ Armor)=9 hits (5+ to wound)= 13-14 [13.5]shots (3+ to hit)
Scatterlaser: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ Armor)=6 hits (4+ to wound)= 12 shots (4+ to hit)
Starcannnon: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ cover)=6 hits (4+ to wound)= 12 shots (4+ to hit)
Starcannnon: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ cover)=6 hits (4+ to wound)= 9 shots (3+ to hit)
Plasma: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ cover)=4-5 [4.5] hits (3+ to wound)= 6-7 [6.75] shots (3+ to hit)
Melta: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ cover)=3-4 [3.6]hits (2+ to wound)= 5-6 [5.4]shots (3+ to hit)
Lascannon: 1Kill=3 wounds (3+ cover)=3-4 [3.6]hits (2+ to wound)= 5-6 [5.4]shots (3+ to hit)

Looking at this list it would appear that the best option on the list would be a plasma gun (due to the ability to double tap) but even then it is going to take the commitment of 3-4 plasma guns to shoot down just one biker. But what that does for you is keep shots off of your Daemon princes and rhinos or whatever high priority units you have heading towards the enemy. You also want the opponent firing their lascannnons and meltas at this unit and away from your landraiders and predators and what have you.

Long story short, you equip this unit with high threat weapons (I go for either melta or plasma) something you know is going to draw the opponent's attention and turbo-boost right at what your target is (monstrous creatures, vehicles something important) while you move your primary threats into position. It is a lose lose lose situation for the opponent. Either the opponent commits too much fire at the unit drawing fire away from your main force, or the opponent ignores them for the juicier target then loses whatever your target is, or the opponent assaults the unit and gets tarpitted for the rest of the game. Just whatever you do do not put the unit in assault range of power fist/ thunder hammer units that is just bad generalship.

The most important thing about this unit is it's high mobility, it makes a great tarpit and an excellent back field hunter. It's distraction and late game contesting. It just does everything despite it's high cost. Sure you are going to blow more on this unit then you would a land raider but for this level of flexibility it is worth the cost.

That's all I have for now come back later for more fun unit tactics and remember, while winning is certainly fun it's not everything. Try a unit out that you wouldn't normally take. you'd be surprised at what you could do with it if you just think outside the box.

Mawloc WIP days 1 and 2

I figured I would kick off my 40k related posts with a look into what I am currently working on. I'm going to begin with my Mawloc conversion. So I had two goals with this conversion from the get go. First of all I wanted to represent a mawloc that is in the process of emerging from the ground putting the focus on the extended maw. Second I wanted to make this as cost effective as possible. I ended up getting extra mileage out of my two Trygon kits and I will have parts with which to build two trygons and a mawloc if I so choose. Although I am considering using the parts for the second trygon on conversions, perhaps a Tervigon or maybe a harpy. Anyway the first pic...

So what you have here is an above shot of the mawloc after day one of conversion. I have established the basic shape that I am going to build the model around. I've got the plastic mouth components in place although I still have much work left to do.
Here is a side shot of the model at the same point. I used a plastic cap from a bottle of Eyeglass cleaner as the basis of the neck. You can also get a better view of the framework for the ground that will be exploding up around the mawloc in the final product.
Here is the final shot of the model taken on day one. So things I need to work on from here are sculpting on the neck, making the ground from green stuff and hanging it on the frame, and modeling in the head crest.

I would like to take this moment to note some things for your information. First of all this is my first foray into a project this big, before this the extent of my greenstuff experience involved modeling infection on my plague marines. I think I could have chosen my steps better and I jumped into this thing with reckless abandon. I wish I would have set up the ground frame work after fully sculpting the head itself. Also I wish I hadn't attached the head to the base as early as I did, the sculpting on the neck did not turn out as well as I would have hoped and I would have had a much easier time working on it if I didn't have to dodge around the base.

So a week later I picked the mawloc up and put some more work into it, here are some pics from the end of day 2.
Here we are focusing on showing some detail of the neck sculpting. It also shows the assembled head crest. I apologize for the poor lighting, I do most of my modeling in the wee hours of the morning and I have roommates that I attempt to not wake up so good lighting is sometimes hard to come by.
Here is a picture taken from the angle of the lower Jaw. It shows some under neck detail as well as a decent view of the sand coming up around the Mawloc.The final image from day 2 is an upper view of the mawloc showing the inner mouth with some more detail sculpted in. I've filled in the gaps and actually made it look somewhat like a mouth. This image also gives you an idea of the inner workings of the sand. I have never tried anything like this and so I have very little experience making a realistic splash effect, however I like to think that the splash is well textured enough to make it appear to be natural.

So going forward I still have a a fair bit of work ahead of me. My primary concern is making the model fair in Tlos. I have considered a few options but I'm thinking having a marine that is being launched into the air is perhaps my best choice. I can just say if you can draw sight to the marine then you can shoot the mawloc. That way I don't get cries of cheese all around when I play with this model.

Anyway I would love to hear some feedback and suggestions on this model and I look forward to posting more of my conversions at a future date.

Until then, thanks for reading!
-Jenn

Welcome to the next Jenneration

Hello! And welcome to my blog. My name is Jennifer. I usually go by Jenn or Jenny. I'm not exactly well known in the community and I failed english 101... Twice, however I am not a pushover when it comes to 40k. I have ideas and I want to share them. Ultimately, I hope this blog becomes a future home of inspiration and insight for my fellow 40k players.

So let's start from the beginning. Yes I am a gamer girl. At least by my definition. There are those out there who believe that I do not qualify for that title, and you know what? That is fine by me, everyone has their own personal views on matters and it is not my place to tell people what to believe.

I do not fit the expected mould of your average female 40k player. First of all I am horrible at painting and definitely look at it as a chore, most of my models are grey and green still and will probly stay that way.

Second I was not introduced into this game by a boyfriend or whatever. As a matter of fact I am a lesbian. Might as well get this out there early so there is no debate.

I got into the game through the owner of my FLGS, I had been playing magic for years and was looking for new games, that was when I was introduced to 40k. I was naturally drawn to nids first, mainly because I played Zerg primarily in starcraft.

So let me explain my priorities when it comes to 40k. I am a gamer above all. I spend a lot of my time thinking about the game and I pass my day at work mathhammering like a fiend. Secondary I am a modeler. I have fallen in love with working with green stuff and creating unique models. I am by no means an expert but I enjoy what I do and get good responses to my work and that is all that matters. Third in importance is fluff and finally painting.

As you can see I deviate a bit from what you expect from a female 40k player. And actually there is ever more to it than that. You see I am a transsexual woman. I was born with a male body, but mentally I have always been female. Now I live life as a woman and am in the process of becoming legally a woman.

That may be a little unsettling for some of my potential readers, but you know what? I have a unique perspective on this game and hopefully I will be able to put out some content that others will enjoy.

All the nitty gritty about me aside I love this game. As it stands I have 4 40k armies and a single wfb army. I play Nids, Necrons, Eldar, and Chaos marines. Lately I have been playing (and winning) with my necrons mostly although I am putting tons of work into my Chaos and nids on a daily basis.

So yeah that's a little about me. Feel free to ask any questions that you may come up with. I love answering things and I look forward to making some posts soon.