Lordly Lore?

So... As Gamecon nears my confidence in winning a golden ticket is beginning to wane, this is my last opportunity and frankly I'm not sure how well this is gonna go down. I went 1-2 in my last tournament, my first loss was decisive and lost entirely at the hands of my poor decision making. The second game began with my level 4 sorceress miscasting turn one... Then again on turn 2. Followed by me failing every single fear test for the remainder of the game. Needless to say luck wasn't on my side that game. Of course I know there were things I could have done differently to minimize how much these poor rolls would have affected me but I am far from skilled enough to have been able to recognize them at the time. My last game involved me rolling hellshriek as one of my spells (all enemies withini 18" make a panic test) against a goblin army... Yeah... Not my most earned victory.

So here I am less than three weeks away from Gamecon with a ton of painting to do and no decisive list put together. I am however attached to the idea of my sorceress Lord being mounted on a chariot. As such I currently have her set up with the following build:

Dayana, lvl 4 Sorceress Lord of Death
-Terrifying Mask of EEE!!! (Causes Terror, no inspiring presence)
-Diabolic splendour (Enemies at -1 leadership when taking fear or terror tests caused by Dayana)
-Talisman of Preservation (4+ ward save)

To go along with that my BSB will be equipped with the doom totem (Enemies with the totem in line of sight get -1 leadership)

Now for an explanation: In a perfect world one of my four spells would be Doom and Darkness, the idea behind this is that Dayana will cast D&D on an enemy unit that will be in her charge range next turn. This makes it so the enemy MUST dispel the D&D next turn or odds are that their unit is going to flee off the table by taking a Terror test at -5 Ld. Alternatively, against an enemy such as Dwarves with nothing better to do during the magic phase than dispel D&D I would set up a concerted Charge with Dayana and the Warrior block leading the enemy most likely at WS1 for the remainder of the battle (allowing for some heavy rainbow steamrolling). Of course against armies Immune to psychology these tactics won't work.


So lets take a moment to analyze our other tools shall we?

Spirit Leech: Mind war fantasy style. Honestly I'm not entirely fond of this spell. While it is capable of sniping off an enemy leader of a lower leadership army with ease, odds are I won't have any problem dealing with them anyway. I would like this a lot more if the leadership test were taken on modified leadership values instead.

Aspect of the Dreadknight: This spell suffers in the similar way that Doom and darkness does in that it is considerably less effective against enemies who don't do much casting. The fear is still useful when wanting to charge an enemy with just the rainbow steamroller. Of course this is just a 4+ spell and easily one worth just throwing a spare dice at for the off chance 3+ cast.

The Caress of Laniph: I like this spell alot against dwarves. It is great at sniping away those nasty runelords that are actively shutting down my magic phase. The great part is that this spell is relatively cheap being cast on a 6+ short range (another 3+ cast on a single dice for my level 4) It's great for punishing dwarf players for using up their dispel dice too early.

Soulblight: This is a nice spell to cast on a charging turn in order to soften up a unit for my marauders or Steamroller to shred and its flexible enough to be cast on two seperate units in case of a concerted charge. Otherwise it's not the most important spell for me to get off because most of the time I will just wipe out anything I charge anyway, but it's nice to have against more stubborn enemies.

The Fate of Bjuna: Like Caress only nastier. 2d6 wounds -enemies toughness  wounding on a 2+. Yes please Say good bye to your Runelord. (Can you tell the vast majority of my games have been against dwarf lists boasting massive amounts of anti-magic?) This is the kind of stuff that leads Dwarf players in this area to take anti-magic, if I get this off once against a runelord I will most likely wreck a dwarf army in the coming magic phases... If only i can get past the 5 spellbreaker runes...

Purple Sun: Think about this on a chariot for a moment. Roll it up to the flank of a Dwarven gunline, Channel it and shoot it sideways across their army rolling 6 dice for the cast. Odds are there will be a lot less Dwarves on the table. Sure pass that initiative test if you can.

My good friend, and WFB mentor Chris has been helping build my game to be the best it can be, as such the one army I know to fear most is the Dwarf army (his main army) I've been having him build the strongest tournament lists and the nastiest lists he can to play against me in order for me to learn where my weaknesses lie. As such the only real matchup I am prepared for is against Dwarves. This is where you all come in. I need help realizing my weaknesses point out where my thinking is wrong tear me down so I can see what I need to fix in my army in order to make it as competitive as possible for Gamecon. I've got all sorts of experience against dwarves, but what should I learn to fear of Vampires, Daemons, Elves and the like? What do I need to keep an eye out for? Anyway thats all I have for today I fear I'm just talking gibberish now... No more late night drunken blog posts I swear.

A Quick note on progress

Just figured I would make a quick note on the second page I have added to the blog. (Look for the link entitled progress towards the top of the page) This is my progress page, I will be using it  to keep a running tally on the progress each unit and model has made towards completion using fancy rainbow colors for added visual effect! I will not be making posts to this page, just updating the list as I see fit, so don't worry you don't need to check the progress page in order to keep up with that I am doing unless you want to see where I stand. I will still be posting pics of my army and all of my posts here on the front page to keep it simple and clean. Let me know what you think about this new little addition to my blog, and let me know if there are any changes or features you would like to see implemented. Also I give you full permission to give me shit for any incomplete models, it's good for me and I need a lot of pushing.

Did you miss me?

So it's been a long time, my life has definitely been traveling a strange path the last few months and I let blogging fall to the wayside. One of the main reasons I haven't been posting much is because of strange and interesting relationship stuff and a lame attempt at school. For one I am no longer in a polyamorous relationship, and in the break up a lot of my hobby stuff and models got jumbled up. I went back to school but ended up failing a class because I am also working full time again, so once again school is set to the wayside. But perhaps the most important reason why I have been away is because I am once again in contact with my ex from about 21 months ago, and with her comes this little guy:
This is Jasper, my ex's son. He turned one on December 20th this year and he is the cutest damn thing I have ever laid eyes on. I've been gettin in as much time with the little one as I have been able to over the last month or so and enjoying every moment of it.

Now of course I haven't let my hobbies fall to the wayside, I've been trying to play Fantasy every chance I get and I even have some painted models! I figured I'd show a few pics of what I've been up to:I've spent some time at T&M cards meeting some other Gamer girls (this one's name is Jenn, imagine that) of course we are playing magic so as you can see I have that stellar attitude to go with my Frankenfurter hair.
I've put some work into the Warshrines for my chaos army, These are a fun if not pain in the ass project. This picture was taken during an all nighter the night before my most recent fantasy tournament. The TO, my good friend Bob Kelley, told me that he is enforcing Wysiwyg and that while models didn't have to be painted they at least had to be complete... so... an all nighter was in order.
Why yes those are Skaven on 40k bases. From the moment I saw the Clanrat box I knew that I wanted to use clanrats as lesser daemons of nurgle. I built these little fellows in the day leading up to my most recent 40k tournament, I ran a list including 40+ daemons, two princes, and a greater Daemon for maximum ratty goodness (the rat ogres were converted for my daemon princes and greater daemon)
At the 40k tournament I met a man with a beautiful 40k army, I just had to take some pics and share them with the world. Gotta love female guard.
I had a brief relationship with and introduced yet another Unicorn into the world. My now friend Rachel is the latest unicorn to grace the web and while she is still learning she is very excited about her nid army, Welcome Rachel! Once she gets started up I will be posting pics of her Nid army and record her progress as I can.
Of course I found my true love in the past couple of months too! His name is Jose, last name Cuervo. He keeps me company in my quest to become the hottest unicorn I can become. Right now I am working on becoming a member of the D20 girls project, basically a company that hires booth babes that are actually intelligent and knowledgeable about the product they are selling. I met the Idaho manager yesterday and I hope to have my interview soon(I live closer to the Idaho manager then the Washington one)
Last but not least I have been spending a lot of time with my fellow 40k players and good friends Michelle and Joe. There is just something great about having fellow hobbyists that you are close to and people that can help keep you focused and prepared for upcoming tournaments. These two are going to be the ones responsible for keeping me on track for Gamecon. I will get my golden ticket and I will see you in Vegas, that is my goal and I am going to need support to get there.

Anyway that is all I have for right now, I dont want to blow my load when it comes to ideas for things to write about. I just wanted to make a post and say that I have been once again been inspired to write and I am thankful that Brent has guided as many of you as he has my way. I love to hear from anyone interested in reading what I write and I pretty much do this for the Comments so anything I get is super appreciated, let me know what you like and what you dont and what you want to see! I will do my best to bring you things you actually want to read about.

Thanks for reading and look forward to more from me in the coming days I'm back baby and I have a lot I want to talk about!

Getting fluffy again

So last time I got fluffy I think I went a little too far off the deep end and a little too deep into the minutia...

Today I am going to go over the individual components of my army and take a moment to explain a little bit the back story of each unit.

Presently my Chaos army, the Spectrum Host, consists of: the spectrum entourage, Blanche's eyes, and the spectrum heralds

The entourage is Blanche, Dayana, and Mahalia's personal retinue of the cults finest warriors. Each and every warrior is a devout follower of the cult of Queens, and as such has been marked for greatness by Tzeentch.

Leading the entourage is the queens themselves as well as the nameless one, a champion who has been chosen to march at the head of the entourage as the bearer of the cult's icon.

Also, the eve before each procession one of the warriors is chosen to join Mahalia and Dayana in their chambers for the night. The following day this warrior carries the blasted standard to negotiations, this magical icon protects the entire procession at the cost of a little bit of the bearers soul with each impact, this warrior is marked for an eternity of suffering at the side of Slaanesh for the honor of being the chosen bearer of the blasted standard for one day.

The spectrum entourage marches not to war but to negotiation. As the cult grows in power they need bodies for sacrifice and population as well as resources for their ever expanding industries. As such the queens personally lead the entourage to ever more abroad areas in order to negotiation a surrender and the protection of these foreign nations in exchange for resources and slaves. More often than not their offers are less than generous and their negotiations are declined. It is in this situation that the entourage turns to martial means to get what they desire.

Each of the three queens are skilled warriors in their own right:
Blanche is highly skilled in hand to hand combat, she has many magical weapons in her possession and has the magical means to turn a battle in her favor. More often than not she marches to battle geared to protect Dayana with her many magical peices of equipment, but it is not uncommon for her to go with her spells prepared ready to do battle by more magical means.

Blanche is an extremely skilled devout of Tzeentch, she has harnessed two of the great changer's discs and forced them to her will, creating two portals into the warp directly connecting to Tzeentch's realm. It is through these portals, dubbed her "Eye's" that she feeds images of her battle directly to Tzeentch claiming a degree of his attention and demanding gifts and protection for her entourage. If any other god's attention were claimed this way they would most likely strike down Blanche for her hubris, Tzeentch however finds it amusing, and grants Blanche her gifts, for now at least.

Unlike the mother, Dayana and Mahalia have been marked by Slaanesh for their acts of violence and hedonism. They are less concerned with the goals of the cult overall and really are just looking for more toys to play with. Dayana is an extremely accomplished sorceress knowing much of the lores of both Slaanesh and Shadows, Mahalia however is considerably less powerful, she studies the lore of Death and has been granted some minor powers by slaanesh.

The Heralds of the host ride ahead in order to declare the arrival of the entourage, the men are messengers and little more, Blanche relies on them mainly as a distraction, although she leads them to believe that they serve a much greater purpose.

Something a little less Theoreticaltastic

So I haven't gotten so much as a comment on my SvT series, which makes me assume that it's only a subject that interests me... As such Im gonna take a break for a little while..

Anyway there is a 32 player two-day 40k tournament this weekend at the gamers haven and I figured I'd bring my Chaos marines and see how they fare. Gamers Haven is Legion of the damned HQ, and as such I will be bringing a much more balanced and fun list for the tournament. Anyway this is what I'm thinking for this weekend:

Chaos Marines 2000 points:

HQ: 450
Daemon Prince of Nurgle: 175
Wings, Warptime

Daemon Prince of Nurgle: 175
Wings, Warptime

Greater Daemon: 100

TROOPS: 1192
7 Plague marines: 261
-2x Melta, Champion W/ power fist, Personal Icon, Rhino

7 Plague marines: 271
-2x Plasma, Champion W/ power fist, Personal Icon, Rhino

6 Chaos Marines: 140
Champion, Rhino, Flamer, Icon of chaos glory

15 Lesser Daemons: 195

13 Lesser Daemons: 169

13 lesser Daemons: 169

Fast: 255
5 Nurgle bikers: 255
Champion w/ melta bombs, Banner of nurgle, 2x melta

Heavy: 75
Obliterator 75

So what's up with this army?

From the time of the release of the new clanrat kit I have wanted to use clanrats as lesser daemons for my nurgle army. They actually work pretty well, their small size accounts for the loss of survivability compared to a plaguebearer. (I refuse to field a toughness 4 plaguebearer) Also I originally wanted to go with a rat theme for the army. Well after picking up two IoBs worth of Skaven I finally have the models to make it happen.

As such I am fielding as many rats as I can justify, in this case 44. (41 clanrats and 3 rat ogres)

The idea of the army is to get up close in your opponents face with an all out rush turn one. drop the Daemon bomb on the opponent, and pull the marines out to race for objectives as the daemons keep the opponent occupied.

Bikes are there for an emergency champion/ banner/ harassment/ my pure love for nurgle bikers. Not to mention anti-tank, which I am in serious need of with this list (also figured if I'm going with a deep strike themed list, might as well have an obliterator to back things up.

What I'm really going for with this army is the surprise factor. Nothing like going from facing down three rhinos to facing down 60 infantry models all up in your business, I just like the oh shit factor personally.

Realistically this isnt meant to be an entirely competitive list, I'm just going to play and have some fun, I'll let you know how it goes later.

Let me know what you think: Genious? Epic? Epic Fail? WTF unicorn?

Interlude: SvT Pt:2.5: Going at the right time

I don't have time to write a full Soft Vs. Tight article today, I do however have time for an interlude on a rules tool that I find very important: Structured timing windows.

Magic: the gathering Has a very strict order in which player turns are resolved, the turn follows an order something like this

Beginning of turn
Untap Step
Upkeep Step
Draw Step
Precombat Main phase
Combat:
-Beginning of combat
-Declare attackers
-Declare blockers
-Resolve damage
Postcombat main phase
End step
-Cleanup phase
-end of turn

every action, ability, and spell can be performed at a very specific phase some, like instants can be used at any phase in which you get priority. (most phases) Others, like creatures, enchantments and sorceries can only be used during one of the main phases.

A similar system for 40k and fantasy would clear up the rules a bit and enable new design space for special rules and wargear. I have created a mock up to give you an example of what such a system would look like (Examples of abilities that would occur during each phase are in parenthesis):

Upkeep step:
-Beginning of turn (Eldar Psychic powers)
-Reserves phase (Roll for reserves, decide which models are coming on and the means which they are coming on, roll for table edges etc...)
-Pre-movement action phase (place reserves on the table via preferred means, movement psychic powers)
Movement Step
-Compulsory movement (Spawn movement)
-Primary movement (All regular movement)
-Special movement (Turbo-boosting)
-Movement action phase (psychic powers performed before shooting)
Shooting Step
-Compulsory shooting phase (Termaguants lurking shooting, crazed dreads)
-Primary shooting phase (regular shooting)
-Run phase (running)
-Shooting action phase (Using non shooting psychic powers that occur during shooting phase)
Assault Step
-Charge phase (declare charges, move chargers)
-Countercharge phase
--Compulsory countercharge subphase (perform charge response)
--Primary countercharge subphase (Countercharge USR)
-Pre-initiative combat phase (Banshees attack on charge)
-initiative resolution phase
--Specific initiative resolution (10-1) subphases (regular attacks)
-combat results phase (declare winners of assault, pile in, flee from combat, run down)
-post combat movement phase
-post combat action phase (Tau second jump)

Thats all I have for now join me next time.

Soft vs Tight pt.2: Making it tighter

So previously I compared soft rules systems to tight rules systems. I figured today I would go a little bit more in depth and talk about what changes we would see if Wfb/ 40k were to shift more towards this system of rules.

First of all, let's talk about how rules are distributed. Under their current system rulebooks are updated irregularly about 5 or so years apart. These updates are more often than not complete overhauls of the entire game system. One major requirement to these updates is that the rule book needs to be completely backwards compatible with every present army book/ codex. Note that this means the current ruleset that an army is using, not the books released during the previous edition of the rules. This is the primary restricting factor moving forward towards using a tight system.

In order to remedy this problem a few steps need to be taken to ensure that the rules update be smooth and that nobody loses the ability to play their army in the process.

The first step would be to shift away from the present system where each book is more of a large scale pet project for individuals. When you have a different person writing each rulebook/ army book/ codex the rules tend to be inconsistent and you very much rely on the common law rule. (relying on previous rulings to dictate standards for future potential interpretation of the rule) The alternative would be to move into working on the books as an entire cohesive team instead of the individuals.

This would unfortunately cause some undesirable side effects. Using a group writing system individual releases would be expedited, however there would only be one project going at any one time. Under this system the model sculptors would be put under a stricter time constraint and you wouldn't be able to have one or two sculptors working on an entire range. This system would result in more sculptors working on the range at any given time which in turn would result in less uniform models.

Another drawback to this system would be that mould production and manufacturing costs would be front loaded as you would need to order moulds and other manufacturing supplies and have them arrive and produce in a smaller time frame. This would drive up the price of supplying the first wave of models and result in a sharper decline of mould usage over time due to moving on to new projects in clumps as apposed to a steady supply.

(I apologize if the last paragraph came out a little fuzzy, I'm writing this in haste)

To summarize:
A group production effort would result in more cohesive rules that would function better across the entire line of rulesets...
However,
The cost of production would rise (A price change most likely to be passed on to consumers)
The model range will be less uniform.

You might notice that the benefit is outnumbered by the cost. This means that in order for GW to enact this change there will need to be major changes to the companies priorities, they will also need to maintain assets to the appropriate degree over the production period in order to account for the accordion like costs over production periods.

Imagine that GW does decide to take this path. How would the more cohesive team rules writing lead to a tighter rules system?

The answer lies in developing a more common lingo amongst books. For example, the number of USRs would increase in order facilitate this change. Also the wording of rules will need to become more concise and specific. Meaning that specific words will need to have very prescribed meaning across all books. An example of this would be using 'Melee to hit' as a universal way of saying "rolling to hit in close combat" this would have to have a shared meaning across all books without exception. Going further in this example the wording on scything talons would be "A tyranid model with one set of scything talons may re-roll 1s on melee to hit. If the model has two sets of scything talons the model may then re-roll any miss on melee to hit. This more concise vocabulary would undoubtedly clean up the rules system and help avoid corner cases. Of course with any change there will be a drawback. With this new system the rules will have a less organic feel and inevitably there will be phrases that are technically grammatically incorrect in the English language. WotC has excepted this for their rules set and even consider the wording of their rules to be an entirely different language with different grammatical rules.

So how would GW go about putting these changes into effect?

First of all GW would need to update each and every last codex to the new edition prior to it's release. These updates would need to use the common lingo. Of course in a perfect world the codex and ruleset would be released simultaneously in order to prevent lag and open up the potential of each book to work with the new rules.

Anyway that is all I have for today, join me in the final chapter of this series where I will talk about what kind of an effect this rules change would have on the consumer level and how tournaments would be affected.

Soft Vs Tight Pt.1

So this is something I've been meaning to write about for the longest time but haven't gotten around to doing it until today. I've got an hour to blow in the computer lab and no pics to show or codexi to reference so I have no choice but to just jump into it.

The topic is of course tight rules systems vs. soft rules systems.

So for those not in the know, I have some vocabulary for you: (Since this is my blog I'm using my definition so deal with it)

Vocab
Soft rules system: A soft rules system is one in which there is always a little interpretation involved. The rules writers don't go through the trouble of tying up every loose end and possible interpretation of the rule. This system works well for miniature games such as Warhammer40k because it allows modelers a bit of freedom to work with. When you models do not have to have specific parameters in order to be tournament legal you have a bit more freedom in how you want to represent your army.

Tight rules system: A tight rules system is very hard and fast and leaves next to no room for interpretation. Every corner case has an answer and there is no such thing as 'rolling for it' or other means for determining who is right when rules dispute eventually occurs. This kind of rules system requires much more maintenance and the occasional errata in order to keep working but ultimately is better suited for games designed for tournament play. With a tight rules system someone is always right in a dispute and you never walk away feeling cheated because your interpretation of the rules was deemed wrong by the hand of fate.

The errata problem
One thing I see a lot of amongst the separate gaming communities is a misunderstanding of the advantages and disadvantages of each individual system. Often I see people cite that old magic cards often need errata because of the tight rules system and the frequency in which it is updated. This is slightly true but not entirely. Only twice in the history of Magic: The Gathering has there been a need for mass errata to older cards. First for the 6th edition rules update (When M:tG went from a soft rules system to a tight one) and once again (to a much smaller scale mind you) for the 2010 rules update (which strangely enough happened in '09).

There have been many other minor changes to cards throughout magic's history, but that is only due to shifts in design philosophy within Wizards of the Coast.

The primary reason for these changes, though, is that Wizards has deemed that no card will ever become completely unusable and that all cards will always be able to be played. If a tight rules system were applied to a rotating system (as apposed to the static one that M:tG has in place) then this problem would be much less of an issue.

FAQS
Another problem we see in the two rules systems is a need for FAQs. It is often the case that questions will arise when certain rules clash. In a soft rules system, often there won't be an easily discernible answer and players will then be at the mercy of the TO as to the proper interpretation of the rule until an official FAQ is released clearing up the question. Tight rules systems also often need FAQs, although it is more often the case that the correct answer is available to the public via the rule book and ultimately can be determined with a jaunt through the rules. In this case FAQs are provided to expedite rules arguments and prevent players from needing to parse through a 600 page rules document.

Unfortunately that is all the time I have for today, join me next time when I look further into this topic. And of course comments are always encouraged, in fact I demand them. Feed the unicorn, she needs mental sustenance.

It's all coming together

A while back I posted that I was setting myself on a a strict (for me) painting regime. It was a simple plan, one rank a week. Well you know what? I failed, miserably. Since setting myself on the goal I have painted a grand total of... No models. Apparently, taking business law is not conducive to miniature painting. But all is not lost! For despite my sheer laziness, progress is still being made (just not by me)

My basement as become a wasteland of half empty sprues and partially built army as Deanna's (my girlfriend) Daemon army, and Andy (My boyfriend) brings together his Beastmen herd.

They both got paid friday and decided to go shopping while I was sleeping. I wake up to see a Beastmen battleforce, 20 bestigors, two beastmen characters (don't know much about the army he says they are the dark omen and the one eye) in Andy's portion of the table. Meanwhile Deanna is working away on a second box of Daemonettes, two boxes of bloodcrushers, a box of horrors complete with changeling. Her fateweaver sits untouched as she complains that for some reason our glue isn't working, she has to hold the model forever to get anything to stick and when it finally does it glues to her finger and when she sets it down she just tears the part right off...

Ahh fledgling modelers, how amusing.

Apparently she also has Skulltaker on order as well.

I did end up wasting my weekend at Magic tournaments, winning the midnight pre-release at T&M cards, and placing in the top 10 at the much much bigger full-day prerelease at Gamer's Haven (Prizes only paid down to 8th unfortunately.)

So at least there is progress somewhere.

Also, a quick note because I find it amusing: My economics class is skate. I swear anyone who plays any MMO with any kind of regularity could pass ECON 100. And wargames help too, what with opportunity cost and the like.

So now I can play WoW or 40k and claim to be studying.

Take that people who think video games rot your brains!

Bad Karma and busy schedule

Apparently I have failed once again. When I signed up for the classes I am taking this semester, it didn't really dawn on me how much work they were gonna entail. I mean seriously, who would think that business law was going to be a heavy load class? Much less accounting and economics.

Add that to my work schedule and the fact that at any given point the most sleep I can get in a stretch is 4 hours... And you have a recipe for a very tired Jenn who is very burnt out and has no time for painting, and no inclination to spend any more time on the computer then she has to.

But alas there is a silver lining! Apparently there are these things called weekends where you don't have to actually do anything that day... Unfortunately I don't get those. What I do get is two days a week where I don't have school but still work and 2 days a week where I don't have work but still have school.

It is on those days that I can actually bring myself to get on the computer and type out some stuff that maybe if I'm lucky 13 people (at current count) will read. I will hope that I get comments, be slightly disappointed that I don't then go back to school where I get to enjoy being stared at all day by the majority of the people I walk by. (I like to pretend they stare at me cause I'm hot, not because I am very obviously a unicorn with NES print backpack and all... the two very prominent hickeys that my boyfriend and girlfriend decided to give me simultaneously doesn't help either... Woe is me.)

But you did not come here to hear me (read me) complain about school. You came to hear about some 40k/WFB goodness... and some of that I have.

First of all, I picked up a 1500 pt Skaven army at my local gamers haven for only about $90. That was pretty cool. I am very happy that the IoB comes with ~750 points and can be quite a bit more too. So now I have a for fun army that I will be using to teach my boyfriend and girlfriend how to play fantasy with. While we were there my boyfriend picked up a beastmen battleforce, two boxes of bestigors, and the beastmen army book. My girlfriend got her first box of daemonettes and inherited my old chaos daemons army book. The seeds have been planted.

I plan at some point to teach them both how to play tonight, playing a 500 point game my skaven vs his beastmen. Should be interesting.

Btw in case your confused: I am currently in a poly amorous relationship with both a boyfriend and a girlfriend. It's like getting the best of both worlds. Yes they know about eachother, yes we are all nerds. She comes from a background of RTS games and Magic cards. He comes from a background of MMOs and D&D. There's not a doubt in my mind she will one day achieve the rank of unicorn, as she does have all the prerequisites.

In 40k news I brought my Chaos marines to the merlyns tournament and had a lot of fun... I did not however, do very well.

Round one I played against the always awesome Jason and his guard blob list.

The mission was annhilation with dawn of war and Large blast template vortex grenade that will not dissipate.

That's right, once you throw it that baby will be floating across the table all game wreaking havoc.

I got the turn one assault lashing one of his blobs into my Khorne berserkers and Chaos lord, I was just out of range to get the prince in as well though. The assault went as planned and I wiped out upwards of 20 models to his... one. I have learned to hate commisars with an undying hatred this game. Stubborn guardsmen are a pain. it took the remaining three turns to finish the squad and I ended up having to reinforce the assault with a unit of plague marines.

He lit my army up a little bit with his twin basilisks and manticore... but through creative use of cover I took minimal casualties.

Turn two My nurgle bikers shot forward and dropped the vortex grenade right on top of his command squad, killing 7 of his guys outright.

This is where I accrued enough bad Karma to officially screw myself for the remainder of the tournament.

I then proceeded to LASH his huge as blob of 40 into the grenade... That is about the cheesiest thing I could possibly think of. Of course fate agreed with me and nerfed my roll to only 4, only killing 6 guardsmen of the blob.

dissapointed I then assaulted the blob with my prince and plague marines, while my bikes assaulted straken & Co.

I put straken down to one wound and finished off the rest of his unit before he did some awesome rolling and took out all of my bikes. I wiped out most of the guardsmen and he made up for my bad luck by failing is stubborn test twice and running for it, my prince cleaned up afterwords.

Turn 2 ended with just his tanks and mortar team on the table with two minimized squads of his in reserves. I am pretty much almost completely at full strength (minus the bikes).

Thats when the grenade decided it didn't like me. It proceeded to eat my army and I eventually get tabled as anything I had that got close to the tanks gets sucked up.

The remaining of the tournament involved lots of paying for my bad karma and losing horribly to Space wolves and guard.

Anyway I've overstayed my welcome in the school computer lab, expect more from me... eventually.

The road to Vegas

That's it. I've become quite determined that I am going to win Gamecon and go to vegas. I've been doing my best to really step up my game and I am actually painting models on a schedule for once

Right now my ideal time frame will be 1 rank (5 models) a week. That may not seem like much but when every cloak takes 4 hours... and every model in your army has said cloak... That's going to be a lot for me. Also, I will be going back to school fresh from academic suspension (I swear I will pass English one day!) so I will be putting a lot of focus on my studies. I do however have an hour between two of my classes that I will be stuck at the school... Maybe I will be able to get some painting done during that time.

My goal begins today. I've got 3 models painted for the first rank of my warriors squad and I have until Sunday to finish the other two. I am going to put a bit more focus on the front rank as every single model is a character and I want to make sure I put my best work forward.

Also, this upcoming sunday I have a 1500 pt 40k tournament. Word is getting spread around that the TO would like us to bring our most abusive lists and that this will be an 'ard boys style tournament.

I'm thinking I'm going to bring my Chaos Marines for this go around here's the list I have in mind:

HQ: 275
Lash Prince w/ wings: 145

Chaos Lord: 130
-Mark of Khorne, Pair of lightning claws

Troops: 801
8 Plague Marines: 279
-Champ w/ pfist, 2x melta, Rhino

7 Plague Marines: 266
-Champ w/ pfist, 2x Plasma, Rhino

9 Khorne Berserkers: 189

Fast: 255
5 Chaos bikers:
-2 Melta guns, Nurgle banner, Champ w/ M-bombs

Heavy:245
Land Raider: 235
-Extra armor

It's a pretty straight forward list, although I would have preferred to change the plasma guns in the second plague marines to melta. Basic in your face Chaos using the LR to deliver berserkers and Lord to the front lines with the plague marines going where they need to do what they do. The nurgle bikers are the distraction/ anvil unit running up front and drawing attention to themselves (And hopefully taking down a tank) while the rest of the army gets in position. Prince is of couse in there for the fluff, it's not like he's very good at board control or anything.

Note: Yes I do know lash princes have fallen out of favor, I actually quite enjoy playing with them however and they are still pretty good at what they do.

Also keep in mind that the Merlyn's metagame is very Nid heavy and more often than not I end up playing at table one against Jason's blob Guard. So prince is still very much an effective unit.

Looking for an ego shot

So I've yet to lose a game with my warriors of chaos list. Yesterday it was pretty close though. I asked the local fantasy guru to build the hardest list he could and gave him full access to my list in order to allow him to beat me down the best he could. I need to be able to find my armies weaknesses so I can shore them up. Anyway I played with a little bit of an experimental list. It is as follows:
2k Points

Lords: 400
lvl 4 Sorceress lord: 400
Skull of Katam, terrifying mask of EEE!, Diabolic splendour, Necrotic phylactery, Dragon helm

Heroes: 500
Battle standard bearer: 230Doom totem, soporific musk

lvl 2 sorceress of death:145
Power familiar

lvl 2 sorceress of death:135
Spell familiar
Core: 800
28 Chaos warriors with shields: 510
-Mark of Tzeentch, blasted standard, champion

15 Marauder horsemen W/ flails, javelins, light armour: 290
-Mark of Tzeentch, full command
Rare: 300
2x Tzeentch warshrines: 150 ea

I didn't think to copy his list down but he brought a very anti-magic heavy dwarf list with 2 special bolt throwers of some variety, a regular bolt thrower, an organ gun, and a cannon. There was a small block of some form of scouts that deployed behind my army and a big block of some form of baddassery holding his character that was nullifying my magic (kept stealing one of my dice a turn and had 2 dispel items and other cool goodies) as well as a block of hand gunners chilling next to his death star.

Mission was the one that is played long ways and terrain was sparse, he's a quick mock up of deployment:
I want to start by pointing out that I really need to work on practicing using my marauders well. I deployed them wrong and took a goofy unit size.

Anyway Chris went first and proceeded to light up the top shrine with his stealthy shooty unit and his cannon and a bolt thrower. Miraculously he was able to do two wounds to it (only because of the bolt thrower's D3 wounds rule. the other two bolt throwers killed enough horsemen to force a panic test and they fled off the table turn one (He used the far bolt throwers causing them to flee right off the edge.

The next 5 turns were painful as i slowly made my way across the long battlefield being shot to pieces. Turn 2 my warshrine assaulted the organ gunner and had it flee (Killing it). Turn 4 He successfully downed the top warshrine with tons and tons of war machine shooting and ended up killing 17 warriors by the time I made it to him. I ended up failing the first two charge attempts with my big block. (Thanks to the item that slows your charges) He dispelled all of my spells except three. One was just a leadership lowering spell (which he proceeded to dispel during his next magic phase), the other two were pit of Shades, the first one I got off to take out the cannon turn 4 the second to take out 13 of whatever his big block was turn 5.

Finally turn 6 I got the charge on his bolt thrower and hand gunners. and blew them off the table (The warriors had +1 Sv and +1 A from the shrines)

The game ended in a draw with him scoring 340 victory points to the 335 I scored. If the game had gone longer my warriors would have charged into his big block and desroyed it while my shrine went in for the flank/ rear.

Long story short, I have finally not won a game with my list, I was playing a scenario that was very bad for my army, against a foe that was prepared for most of what I had brought to the table. It was fun for me and I look forward to finally getting a whole piece of humble pie and not just a little taste.

Jenn is a twisted fluffy bunny

So I was struck by inspiration (read finally got off my ass and painted something) today and I figured I would share it with you all. I've been spending a bit of time coming up for a backstory for my warriors of Chaos and this is the first installment into the fluff.

Reminder: I failed english 101... Twice... My writing skills aren't amazing so if bad storytelling is a turn off for you feel free to skip this one.

Anyway I would like to introduce my Army General: Dayana, The Queen of Terror.

(Yes I know, bad photoshopping and all I'm too lazy to do a really good job.)

Ruleswise Dayana is a lvl 4 sorceror lord of shadow with the blood of Tzeentch and Terrifying mask of EEE! (best named piece of equipment ever... other than the other tricksters shard that is)

Now for a little fluff...

In the seas off the northern coast of Naggaroth there is an island inhabited by a small chaos cult. The cult consists of the followers of the three queens of change. The most revered of the queens is Dayana, Queen of Terror. Unlike the other queens, Dayana was not born by a traditional pregnancy. Her birth was the result of a terrible ritual in which the greatest warrior of the tribe was flayed alive and kept alive and conscious magically for two weeks remaining. on the 13th day the winds of magic shifted ending the warrior's life and beginning Dayana's. She was born precisely at the peak of the shadow time (In the north there is a brief approximately month long period where the sun stays below the horizon) and for the first weeks of her life she knew nothing but shadows and darkness. Since her birth she has had an affinity for darkness and shadow magic. Growing up the other tribesmen feared her for she marked a change in the political structure of the tribe. Shortly after her birth, Blanche, the priestess who performed the ritual took power and became the new leader and queen of the tribe. Blanche raised Dayana as an overprotective mother figure, kiling all who displeased Dayana and setting their homes on fire. As time went on the tribe slowly came to refer to the queen as the queen of destruction and the princess as the little terror. Upon dawn of her 21st year Dayana was declared by Blanche to be the second queen of the evermore populous tribe. Eventually through magic and various brainwashing techniques, Blanche and Dayana became loved by the entire tribe from then forward being known as the cult of the Queens. Dayana, touched by slaanesh in her teens, grew to have a fetish for inflicting pain. It wasn't uncommon for her to select the most beautiful members of her cult (male and female) and force them to become her slaves. She took pleasure in binding her chosen and torturing them while she pleasured them. One day, during her 26th year of life she chose a beautiful girl of the age of 17 to be her next toy. Unlike her other chosen this girl, by the name of Mahalia, accepted her fate and did not struggle or even let out a cry as Dayana tortured her. Finally Dayana grew bored and left the girl for days tied up in her dungeon. Forgetting the girl Dayana proceeded to chose a young man next for her games. As she took him into her dungeon she realized that the girl had somehow escaped. Figuring she had fled Dayana proceeded with the fun until out of no where Mahalia appeared with a Knife, slitting the young man's throat and proceeding to overpower Dayana, binding and proceeding to torture her. As Dayana felt true pain for the first time she realized that the act of inflicting pain was not nearly as pleasure filling as the act of receiving it. As she cried for more she began to appreciate the beauty that Mahalia held. Finally Mahalia relented and Dayana declared her love for the young girl. Stricken by the turn events Mahalia agreed to free Dayana in exchange for Dayana staying Blanche's wrath. (Surely Blanche would have destroyed the young girl for what she had done to Dayana) As time went on the two women became twisted lovers and proceeded to marry. Blanche, seeing Dayana's love for Mahalia allowed Mahalia to become the third and final queen of the cult. As time went on Mahalia became to be known as the Queen of Pain, taking up Dayana's role as the torturemaster.

Anyway that is it for now... I hope you all enjoyed this look into my twisted little imagination world, I'll be posting more as I get more models painted up.

Oh and just cause I feel like posting the pics here are some finished shots of Dayana: (Yes I'll leave the corny photoshopping out...)







I apologize for the blurry pictures, My camera is my phone and that's the best I can afford right now, it actually takes better pictures in the hands of someone who's life isn't sustained only by caffeine (Read: Shakes a lot)

Having Withdrawals

So the last two weeks have been very 40k/ WFB light. I've been trying to get a game of fantasy in desperately but as I have been pretty busy and my store is an hour drive away it's not exactly easy to randomly pop in and hope to find a game.

I have however been thinking about Fantasy a lot and I am working on finalizing a list for Gamecon Spokane 2011 so I can get started working on the painting and modeling that go along with it. Right now I am really liking this following list...

2250

562 max for heroes or lords

Lords: 560
Lvl 4 Sorceress Lord of Shadow: 325
-Blood of Tzeentch, Terrifying mask of EEE!

Chaos Queen(Lord):235
-Soporific Musk, Biting Blade

Heroes: 521
Exalted Hero: 215
-Battle standard, Doom Totem, Shield

Exalted Heroin of Tzeentch: 145
-Book of Secrets, Lore of Shadow, Dispel scroll

Lvl 2 Sorceror of Nurgle:161
-Talisman of Preservation, Barded steed

Core:628
28 Chaos Warriors w/ Shields: 498
-Standard Bearer, Blasted standard

5 Marauder Horsemen: 65

5 Marauder Horsemen: 65

Special:240
5 Knights: 240
-Mark of Tzeentch, Standard bearer

Rare: 300
Tzeentch Warshrine: 150
Tzeentch Warshrine: 150

So the Idea of this list is fairly straight forward, I put the Sorceress, Queen, exalted Hero and BSB in the front rank of the big block of Warriors to act as a death star. The unit Causes all enemies with a line of sight to it -1 to their leadership, it also causes Terror and all units fleeing from the block rolls 3d6 and ignores the highest. The lore of Shadows sorceress and Hero are there to soften up any target enemy units and make my Warriors Str 8. The nurgle sorcerer is there to provide crowd control and insta-kill any deathstar units my opponent might have with the Withering/ curse of the leper combo. The Marauder horsemen and knights are there for counter charge/ war machine hunting. Finally the Warshrines are there for buffing the block, protecting it from counter charges and tarpitting.

I'm often told to drop down to one warshrine and I am not entirely keen on that idea. They are incredibly good at being a tarpit unit and the buff they provide the Chaos Warriors is huge. I figured I'd do some mathhammer to prove my point..

So shooting at the Warshrines:
-Str 3 shots: 72 shots = 36 hit (hitting on a 4+)s = 6 wounds (wounds on 6+) = 3 failed armor Saves (4+ armor) = 1 wound (3+ward) (288 Str 3 shots to kill)
-Str 4 shots: 54 shots (hitting on a 4+) = 27 hits = 4.5 wounds (wounds on a 6+) = 3 failed armor saves (5+ armor) = 1 Wound (3+ ward) (216 Str 4 shots to kill)
-Bolt thrower: 14.4 shots (hitting on a 4+) = 7.2 hits = 3.6 wounds (wounds on a 6+) = 3 failed armor saves (6+ armor) = 1-3 Wounds (3+ ward) (28.8-42.2 Bolt thrower shots to kill)
-Cannon/ Stone thrower: 3.6 hits = 3 wounds (5+ armor) = 1-6 Wounds (3+ ward) (3.6-14.4 Cannon hits to kill)

And in Close combat:
-Str 3 Ws <=5: 72 attacks = 36 hits (hitting on a 4+) = 6 wounds (wounds on 6+) = 3 failed armor Saves (4+ armor) = 1 wound (3+ward) (288 attacks to kill)
-Str 4 Ws <=5: 54 attacks = 27 hits (Hitting on a 4+) = 4.5 wounds (wounds on a 6+) = 3 failed armor saves (5+ armor) = 1 Wound (3+ ward) (216 Str 4 attacks to kill)

I think you get the point, odds are I'm not taking any wounds with my Warshrines unless they are hitting with str 5+.

The strength of this list is that it is giving up very little victory points over the course of the game (usually only knights, marauder horsemen and the nurgle sorceror in most games.) It's primary weakness is magic, but between a lvl 4 sorceror to dispel and a dispel scroll I've got some defense. On top of that there is a 26.04% chance that the block will gain a 3+ ward save against magic on turn one from the warshrine, (45.3% chance by turn 2, 66.5% by turn 3) Alternatively I can bump some stats in order to weaken the blow of spells that wound based off of stat tests.

Anyway that's it for today, let me know what you think. Poke as many holes in this as you'd like.

The best layed plans of mice and Jenn

So I had two blogs planned out for this week. The first one was that I was going to write up a report on this weekend's tournament at Merlyn's. The second was one that I have been planning on writing for a very long time: A comparison on the advantages and disadvantages on hard and soft rules systems. Well it's Wednesday night and I have yet to even start on either. I'm past the point now where I can remember enough details about the Merlyn's tournament to give a decent report, and I don't have nearly enough time to write the other one.

So I'm just gonna go ahead and cop out and give you a quick report on my performance at the Merlyn's tournament and some things I observed there...

First of all my list:

HQ:

Farseer: Runes of warding, Runes of witnessing, spirit stones, doom fortune guide
Eldrad
8 warlocks: 1 W/ embolden & spear, 7 W/ Destructor: 278
-Serpent: TL scatterlaser, Shuriken cannon, Spirit stones, Star engines

Elite

5 Harlies, 2 w/ kiss, 2 w/ fusion pistol, shadowseer: 148

Troops
10 Avengers: Exarch, double shuriken catapults, bladestorm
-Serpent: Bright lances, shuriken cannon, Spirit stones, Star engine

10 Guardians: Brightlance

Fast

9 Warp spiders: Exarch, add. death spinner

Heavy
2 War-walkers: 4 scatterlasers: 120

2 War-walkers: 4 scatterlasers: 120

The concept behind this list was that I was going to put out as much str 6 firepower on the field as possible while controlling the table with my seer council. The Seer council has a dread reputation at Merlyn's as most people who play there read Fritz and the other eldar player also runs one as well.

Game 1 was a hybrid capture and control/ Kill points mission. My opponent was playing a Marines list taking the Special character that gives his units stubborn. He focused on taking out my troops early and turtling up on his objective, expecting me to not be able to take it. I let him send half his army at my Gaurdians while I shot the Avengers, council, and harlies at his objective. My walkers outflanked for distraction taking his 10 man squad of terminators out of the action. He had troops inside his land raider sitting on his objective in a ruin thinking that would stave me off. Harlies popped the land raider with ease before I opened fire with the council to wipe the objective clean. Unfortunately the Avengers were caught in an assault and ended up fleeing after taking just one casualty, I was unable to get them rallied and on to the objective in time and they ended the game just 5 inches away. The game ended up being a minor victory for me because I won on kill points

Game two was against Zack and his nids. He ran a tervigon, mawloc, Trygon prime, Trygon and a Flyrant. This is the game that I designed the list for, unforunately my dice decided to even the playing field. We were playing a mission where whenever a unit died you placed an objective wherever the last model was when it died. This meant that the Tervigon was high priority cause he would be putting out objectives like it's no one's business and he will definitely have more scoring units then I. What I didn't realize was that his Tervigon broke on turn one so I really shouldn't have focused on it. I let his tyrant get an assault because of that, which was where the game went south for me. I countercharged the tyrant with the council but it took them three turns to bring it down and that was enough time for him to wrest control of the game. He had me down to just a single spider and three models of the council before the game ended, I took out all but one of his scoring units so he needed to table me for anything better than a minor victory, as it was I survived to turn 7 and kept the minor loss instead.

Game three was against Nick and his Eldar warhost featuring 2 serpent, 2 falcons, a 10 man council led by farseer and a 10 man scorpion squad led by eldrad. He had two units of guardians that he held in reserves. I deployed castled in a corner with line of sight blocking terrain covering me from half his army. Turn one he closed me in rushing the falcons to my left flank as the serpents and their deadly cargo move up directly in front of my army. This game involved a lot of maneuvering and a lot of bad rolling as I was unable to bring down either of his serpents despite opening fire on both of them from the rear with both spiders and walkers. He made a huge play mistake by Seizing the initiative with his council as he rolled them up next to the serpent mine was in, blasted my serpent to smithereens then being caught there as my council takes retribution and unloads 7 destructors on the now doomed council. This was a major turning point in the game and I honestly believe that if he hadn't left himself open like that he would have won the game. As it was I won by enough of a margin to take 3rd place in the tournament. Of course, Jason won the tournament with his foot gaurd, I regret not being able to play him because his army would be a great matchup for me.

Jason always scores higher than me at every tournament we play in and one day it is my goal to win a tournament that he participated in. He's kind of my rival like that.

Walking the walk

So today I set to work building my fourth war walker for my Eldar army. I decided to run 4 in my list today for the tournament at merlyns and so I finally got around to building the one that's been laying around my house for the last two years. One thing I want to point out for the record: I absolutely hate the basic warwalker model. (I'm beginning to see that I may be a bit of a model snob... first the horse now the war walker...) My previous iterations I had magnetized the guns to the leg support frame in order to slim down the profile a bit. Just the other day I had seen another modification I liked and I decided to give this one a go because I didn't have time to deal with the magnification. (Also I had stolen the scatterlaser out of this kit for one of my other war walkers last year) So I ended up stealing some Wave serpent scatter lasers and building them into the Carapace of the armour. I really like the way this looks, to me it definitely makes it look a bit more sturdy and less like Obama, the big eared monkey war robot of doom.
One thing I did that I wasn't so sure of at the time was remove the stabilizers and leg armor. They didn't really fit well with the weapons where they were so I needed to either remove them or increase the height of the model by a fair amount. I think I made the right choice. I do plan on going over and retrofitting the Monkey ears into leg armor though, maybe builking up the legs themselves as well...

Anyway that's all the time I have for today, I've got to go get ready for said tournament, wish me luck, I'll post my revised list when I write up the report later. Also I've been meaning to write an article comparing 40k's loose rule system to M:tg's tight one so look forward to seeing that in the future.

Welcome to the Gunshow

I have a 40k tournament this weekend that I need to get ready for. It's at Merlyn's so Im not worried about painting, as such I'm thinking about breaking my eldar out for the event.

It's been a while since I've played them and I want to get some Use out of my Seer council... The points limit is 1850 so this is what I think I am gonna bring:

1848 pts:

HQ: 813
Farseer: Runes of warding, Runes of witnessing, spirit stones, Doom, Fortune, Guide: 175
Eldrad: 210
8 Warlocks: 1 W/ Embolden & Spear, 7 W/ Destructor: 278
-Serpent: Scatterlasers, Shuriken cannon, Spirit stones, Star Engines: 150

Troop: 640
10 Avengers: Exarch, double shuriken catapults, bladestorm: 152
-Wave Serpent: Bright lances, shuriken Cannon, spirit stones, star engines: 170

11 Gaurdians: Scatterlaser: 103

10 Gaurdians: Scatterlaser: 95

5 Pathfinders: 120

Fast:215
9 Warp spiders: Exarch, double death spinner: 215

Heavy: 180
3 War-walkers: 6 Scatterlasers: 180


This is a very meta-game specific list. Tyranids are very popular at Merlyn's and I will face them at least for 1 round, if I am doing well I most likely will have to face them twice. If I end up winning my first two games, odds are I will be facing Jason and his foot Gaurd. His list is very tough and I am going to need lots and lots of instant death shots to take him out. You might notice that my army can put out 62 str 6 shots a turn. That should be enough to push through any of his shenanigans that he pulls with his guard.

The one matchup I am really worried about is Nick's Eldar. It's essentially the mirror match, the difference is that he has two more Grav-tanks in his army (unfortunately I only own 2) of course brightlances aren't exactly a good weapon to take against wave serpents so I'm hopefully I will be able to knock down is tanks via my torrent of fire.

Anyway I just figured I would put this out there, I will hopefully be able to take lots of pics and provide you with some battle reports. I've finally got some video capabilities so I might make a couple vids from the tournament. If you want to hear a voice more annoying then Brent's get ready, it's gonna be fun.

Too much winning.

So I have been playing around with my Warriors of Chaos a little more and I had a game this week against Jason's tomb kings.

I played my same list just adding the favor of the gods on my Sorceress to test it out (he was having trouble cutting his list down to 1500 so we settled as 1506.)
You'll never guess what happened? I once again wiped the floor with my opponent. (literally, we played on his living room floor) It was a really casual game and I didn't bother taking pics. I'm actually getting frustrated with my list because I want to know how to beat it and no one seems to be able to. I need to lose some games so I can see what works against my army so I don't end up getting raped in a tournament as someone finally figures it out. I want to be prepared for the worst case scenario, and until I know what that is, I won't be ready for it.

Oh and for those who were wondering Jason is kinda the 40k Champ around here. He wins most 40k tournaments in the area, he rocked ard boys at gamers haven and won Gamecon this year.Above is a picture of him facing down a triple stormraven list round 2 at spocon this year. (You can see me all the way down at the other end of the table leaning across to place my monolith. This was pretty much the closest picture of myself I was able to find from spocon this year. At least the closest picture that didn't involve me being inebriated, but I don't really want to share that one, lol.

Anyway I just figured I would make a quickie so I didn't let my blog sit Idle. I'd also like to take a moment to see what everyone would like to see more of here, I never really know if something I post will have a positive response or not, I want some feedback =D

Ramping it up

So after my success at this weekend's fantasy tournament I have been looking at expanding upon the themes of the army as I bring it up to 2000 and then 2500. I don't plan on going any farther than that primarily because I am quite fond of smaller points limit games. Ideally I don't want to go above 2000 but from what I've been hearing 2500 is the new standard and so I want to be prepared in case a tournament comes up which will require me to take it to that points level.

Anyway this is what I am looking at for the 2000 points level:

Lord
Sorceror lord of Tzeentch
-Mark of Tzeentch, talisman of endurance, Blood of Tzeentch, Favour of the gods.
Hero:
Sorceror of Slaanesh
-Mark of Slaanesh, chaos steed, talisman of preservation, dispel scroll, Dragonhelm
Core:
10 Marauder horsemen
-Mark of tzeentch, Light armor, Throwing spears
30 Chaos warriors
-Shields, Mark of Tzeentch, full command, blasted standard
Special:
10 Chaos Knights
-Mark of Tzeentch
Rare:
Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: 150
Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: 150

Taking the list up to 2000 points I made a few changes.

The first change I made was a little trick I learned from the warriors of chaos FAQ. By giving my sorceror of Tzeentch the favor of the gods I made the warrior block that much better when it comes to rolling on the eye of the gods table. Now I get to change the results I roll by one when I am granted rolls by the warshrines for the units. This is something I would have killed for in the tournament this weekend as I kept rolling 8s and 7s, magic resistance 3 is nice and all but when I'm playing against an army without magic it might as well be an eye is closed result. being able to bump it up to a 9 to make my warriors leadership 9 would definitely be better and changing those rolls of 7s (nothing happens) to granting my warriors a 2+ armor save would be very awesome. The best part is that I get all of this for the low low LOW price of 5 points. What can your army do for 5 points?

Next I buffed my slaanesh sorceror up a bit. I gave him a 1+ armor save with the dragonhelm (another cheap upgrade, 10 pts) and gave my army some much needed magic defense in the form of a dispel scroll. I'm not going to be so vulnerable to spells that can wipe out my warriors in one fell swoop anymore.

the third change I made was combining the marauder horsemen into one unit and making them a lot more useful for something other than bad bait. now they are vastly more survivable (going from having a 17% chance of surviving a str 3 wound to a roughly 44% chance. Now they won't be mowed down by archers as they shoot forward to run interference. The are going to be much more better suited at harassing long range units now. Also I gave them throwing spears to give them a little bit more use as I found many occasions where I would have been able to do some damage with them in shooting if I hadn't dropped the spears for the original list.

Finally perhaps the biggest change I made was adding a unit of 10 Chaos knights.
The knights bring some serious hitting power to the mix dealing 15 str 5 and 5 str 4 hits in close combat. The nice thing is that they continue to have this hitting power even in protracted combats and are not limited to just being badasses on the charge. They serve as both a hammer and an Anvil unit and are most certainly worth their points. The best part is that if the opponent decides to focus their efforts on the knights that will allow the warriors some immunity as they cross the table to blow away whatever they charge into on the other side.

They do have one glaring weakness though that I am very much aware of. They are vulnerable to warmachines. since they only have a 1+6++ warmachine shots serve as a huge risk to the unit. The problem is that they are the obvious choice of target for the warmachines. It is obvious that any other unit (besides the marauders) in my army is most likely going to survive a stone thrower shot to the face, the knight most likely will not. I'm not sure if I'm being too worried about this but I do know that it could be a serious problem for the unit.

So that is where I am sitting right now for 2000 points, When I get a chance I will write up my 2500 point list and see what you all have to think about that.

My first Fantasy Tournament is in the books.

Today was my first ever fantasy tournament and I had a great time. I went in this tournament not expecting to win any games and just wanting to learn as much as I can about the game. So I'm going to take you through all three of my games and tell you abou what happened what I played and what I learned. I'll have some pictures too when I get to them.
My list for reminders:
Lord:
Jenn, Chaos Unicorn Sorceress Queen of Tzeentch (Why yes, I do have a fancy title, thanks for noticing)
-Mark of Tzeentch, talisman of endurance, Blood of Tzeentch
Hero:Jenn's Bitch, Sorceror of Slaanesh (cause he's kinky)
-Mark of Slaanesh, chaos steed, talisman of preservation
Core:
5 Marauder horsemen
5 Marauder horsemen
30 Chaos warriors (or 'that fucking unit' as it became to be known during the tournament)-Shields, Mark of Tzeentch, full command, blasted standard (<-Worth it's weight in gold) Rare: Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: 150 Chaos Warshrine of Tzeentch: 150 So, Game 1 was against a really cool guy named brad. I was very lucky to play against him first round because I had to ask a lot of questions and he even let me take back a few mistakes I made which was really a great way to start my second game of wfb 8th edition I've ever played (never did get another practice game in before this weekend). He was playing High elves and was kind enough to let me get a copy of his list: Heroes: Mage: sigil of asuryan, lvl2, talisman of protection Noble: Battle standard, armor of caledor, great weapon Core: 35 spearmen w/ full command 10 archers 10 archers Special: 16 Silver Helms w/ full command 11 Sword masters w/ full command Turn 1 started kinda iffy, he finished deploying first and ended up getting first turn. I forgot my vanguard moves with my cavalry. What a great way to start a tournament. (I apologize ahead of time for lack of pictures, I have a bad habit to forget to take them while I am playing.) He did some moving around with his units and got his archers in range with one of my marauder units. he opened up on them, killing three. They then panicked and ran, causing Jenn's Bitch, one of the shrines,and 'that fucking unit' to take panic tests. 'that fucking unit' failed theirs. Being only 6 inches from the board edge I hit despair 5 minutes into the game. I was just about to move them when Brad asks 'don't you get a re-roll?' I was so relieved when i went on to end of passing said re-roll, that would have been bad if my 825 point unit decided to walk off the field before I even had a chance to move it.

After that excitement during his turn mine was quite boring as I just did some marching forward.

Turns 2&3 were pretty dull for both of us as well, there was a lot of shuffling around and jockeying for position the marauders ended up rallying and making their way towards a backfield objective. the second unit got fired at as well but made their panic test.

Turn 4 is where the game started to get exciting. He begins his turn by charging 'that fucking unit' with his cavalry and getting the flank charge with one of his units of archers. He manages a grand total of 2 casualties on my end. I end up killing enough of each of his units that he loses by 4. He goes on to fail both break tests. The warriors pursue the silver helms, failing to catch them. While the archers run through his unit of spearmen, causing the spearmen to panic and break. My turn 4 begins with me charging the silver helms with my warriors, catching them and cutting them down. I charge the archers with one of my warshrines causing them to flee further. The other warshrine gets in position to flank charge the spearmen next turn.

Turn 5, Brad is able to rally his fleeing archers but the spearmen run off the table. I set 'that fucking unit' up to charge the building where his other unit of archers is while one shrine assaults the recently rallied archers. In magic I kill his unit of master swordsmen with Jenn by forcing them to attack themselves (great weapons are nasty). The shrine kills all but one of the archers but he manages insane courage so the battle rages on.

turn 6 was cleanup, 'that fucking unit' charges and obliterates the unit of archers in the building while my shrine kills the last archer. Game over Jenn tables her opponent in her first tournament game of fantasy (2nd game ever in case you forgot) Here is some of the carnage
I didn't get nearly as good of notes from the second game. I played Kurt and his Bretonians. it was an interesting game, 'that fucking unit' did it's thing again and just wouldn't die from a double charge, it took a unit of marauders getting a rear charge on his unit of Pegasus knights which had flank charged 'that fucking unit' in order to finally push the combat into a victory for me. My shrines did some hard core eating through his men at arms and knights errant. The game ended up going to time with me scoring around 800 victory points to his... 0. I didn't lose a single model. Also if the game would have gone further his big powerful bad ass knights (which contained his general) and his men at arms would have ran off the table while 'that fucking unit' would have moved in to take out his trebuchet and archers (there was no way they would have been able to deal enough wounds to keep 20 warriors from eating them alive). with the 800 point lead I end up getting yet another massacre with full points. This totally put me in a good mood when I realized that I most likely was going to win the tournament. I had 40 points going into round three where the average around the room was low to mid 20s with only one player in the 30s. His name is Taber, and we played round three at table 1.

He had a nasty Empire army led by a level 4 sorceror of Death in a huge blob of dudes with Halberds. He also had some sort of rocket launcher, a cannon, a unit of 30 greatswords, and a 20 man hoard of hand gunners.

Turn one he casts a boosted Purple sun and I barely fail to dispel. It proceeds to go 30 inches straight through 'that fucking unit'. He ends up killing 7 warriors AND Jenn turn one before I even have a chance to do anything. The game is pretty uneventful as he shoots everything he has at 'that fucking unit'. The number one thing I learned from this tournament is that 'that fucking unit' just does not take wounds from shooting. After weathering 3 turns of shooting and sorcery at toughness three I might add (due to one of the spells of death) I still had 17 models crashing into his blob. I deal a massive amount of wounds turn after turn winning combat only to have the unit be unbreakable. Finally I dispel whatever spell it is that is making them unbreakable and proceed to run them down. Meanwhile my warshrines make their way around to the back of the table and one gets a charge on the rear of his greatswords. I'm able to do enough wounds to tie combat a few turns until Jenn's bitch finally gets a spasms through wiping out most of the unit then allowing the shrine to overrun the swords. The game ends with him throwing models and me with a huge grin on my face. Yet another massacre (all I lost was Jenn and a unit of marauders) All he had left on the table was the hand gunners.

I end up winning the whole damn tournament with three massacres under my belt (57 points out of a possible 60)

My third round opponent somehow ends up taking second place despite only getting 4 points in that last round. I must say he was a very very bad sport. between throwing models and getting an attitude with me when I misunderstood a rule. I don't know why but I always have sportsmanship problems at hobby town. Which is weird because most of the guys there are pretty cool. This guy was pretty much a dick. Throughout the tournament he kept referring to me as 'he' which is the fastest way to get on my bad side. Nothing pisses me off more than the utter lack of disrespect a person shows when they pull that shit. Yes, I have tiny boobs, a muscular build and a deep voice, but I am a woman and when someone pulls that shit I have no respect for them. I have the strongest temper in the world due to having to deal with a lot of shit on a daily basis, but at one point I almost snapped and chewed him out, which is saying a ton when it comes to me.

I ended up winning enough to pay for a copy of the BRB (So excited, it's so heavy and thick, I would love to throw it at Taber...) I have $5 store credit left over with which to make due. Not a bad day (outside of annoying dicks) all things considered. I am definitely looking forward to getting more into the game now.

A quick note, I am exhausted and have to work in three hours and need a nap so I don't have time to attach all of the images, I will however add them in at a later point (I took about 40 to choose from)

The eyes of Tzeentch

I wanted to take a different route with my warshrines for my Tzeentch army. I was inspired by a character from M:tg that I am fond of named Emrakul, the Aeons torn. Emrakul just has a very tzeentchy feel to her and I just like the big floating jellyfish aesthetic. I didn't want to straight up copy Emrakul either, and my original idea would be to just have floating eyes seeing as the warshrine represents a means for the gods to look in on the battle and to draw their attention to my warriors. So anyway without any further ado this is where the first one stands...
Above is a rear shot of the model, I am going to be painting and modeling the top of the disk as a giant eye with an icon of Tzeentch as the pupil.

The model does have a potential of 11 attacks in close combat so I figured many tentacles to represent that might be a good idea. I am kind of regretting the idea of including the head on there and I am most likely going to remove it for the final product. So pretty much from here I will be adding more tentacles and texture to the disk, while removing the head and perhaps hang some banners and/or chains from the outer edge of the disk. (the Eldar wraithlord kit has some awesome banners I want to use for this). So anyway what do you guys think? Is it looking good so far? Horrible idea? Is it Tzeentchy enough for the Tzeentch club?

Up way past my bedtime

So it' three in the afternoon and for some reason I just drank an extra-large Baja Blast from Taco Bell. Doesn't sound like that bad of an idea until you take into account that I have been up since 9 o'clock last night and I have to get up again at 9 tonight. Sleep is necessary for those under the same regimen of medication as I and 6 hours probly isn't gonna cut it.

Not that that matters because I am up on my computer posting to my blog anyways because frankly... I just had a mountain dew that is going to destroy my metabolism.

Long story short I'm way past my bed time and I took some time to check out the new Isle of Blood minis on the GW website... And I must say.. I am disappointed. Don't get me wrong, The Skaven are gorgeous, and most of the elves are beautiful too. (that griffin almost makes me not want to hate High Elves) The problem is the horses.



It's just... Wrong.

I grew up in the boondocks, I've spent a lot of time around horses and I have a pretty good idea what they should look like. This is not it. That thing's legs should snap like twigs. It's rear is waaay too small and it's neck and front are likewise. This model is just... Bad. I dunno, maybe I'm just picky but still... Look at this for comparison.


I've grown up around horses and that's actually one of the main pulls toward fantasy that I've had. Honestly I've always hated dealing with them... But I think they are pretty (yes reminder... I am a girl) So it bugs me when it is so horribly wrong.

And I could understand if you said 'These are elvish horses, they are supposed to be different and skinny and frail looking' And you know what, I would buy that (but not the model, you can keep the model its ugly) The thing is you could do soooo much better than what they did, even with the limited moulding process that comes from making a box set like this.

Anyway I'm tired and cranky, I'm gonna go play with my Marauder horses (now those are fantastic models, I am proud to have them in my army, not like those sissy physically improbable poor excuses for equestrians that come in the box set.)

Look forward to pics of my Warshrine conversions coming soon. I've got the concept down pat... it's just time to get to the execution. So tune in hopefully tomorrow for your first glimpse at the eyes of Tzeentch.