Photobucket Updates

Click on the link to the right to see the current updates to my Photobucket account. I added some Tau and my Necromantic Blood Bowl team to the albums.

Orcs vs Skaven (Second Quarter League Game)

I met up with Adam last night to take on his Skaven for the first game of my second quarter. Adam is a new player to Blood Bowl and with time he will pick up tricks and such to lead him to being a better player and wins.

Skaven are both a bitch to play against and with. Low armor makes them hard to survive but also their speed and agility are deadly if used right.

Meet the coach for the Skaven! "

Squeek there's the ball!" is the name of his team.

I had a bit of luck tonight on some turnovers on Adam's part that really helped me score 3 solid touchdowns including one on the 8th turn in the second half. He did take advantage of the inducements and made good use of the Bloodweiser Girls and a backup Apothocary that was worth his weight in gold saving two of his team from injury and in the game.

My game style was the standard ork method, beat on the what I could get near and score when I could to control the clock. It worked well enough and the intimidation factor of the orks helps. I did also help give him some good advice and some ways to look at his team as he plays. I hope he took home a good learning experience.

One of the amusing things was that a Blitzer that scored ones and inflicted 3 casualties also managed to walk away with MVP racking up 14 Star Player Points!

I told him my past two league seasons was dismal and last year I won one game I think.

Here is some pics of the game:

Adam, the big cheese!

Early part of the first half, just got the ball. Adam tossed the spiked ball card on me!

Carnage towards the end of the drive as we go downfield!

Second quarter! The kickoff result allowed me to reposition my models. To the line! It was like a WAAAAAGGHHH was called by the coach!

#7 spikes the ball in the end zone!

Orks win 3-0!!!!



I did manage to also make 80k from the gates thanks to a reroll and having the +1 FAME. That fattened up my treasurey to 110k now. I also managed to pick up skills for my other two Blitzers, I tried to mix it up some with Frenzy and Dauntless this time as I will be taking on Nurgle next and Chaos Ogres soon enough among other big toughs. I also gained my thrid point of Fame! Wooo!



Two Games at Colisum of Comics

While I was working in Orlando for a few days, I had the pleasure of playing two games with Thomas at the new location for Colisum of Comics. Due to schedule conflicts I have not made it over to the store in almost a year aside from last month's visit while my wife and I was enjoying a few days of respite in Orlando during the lovely rainey seasaon.

Grey Knights Grand Master

We played two games in all, I brought my Word Bearers that played in the GW elimination tournament at the grand opening event with a few slight changes.

Demon Prince, wings, lash. Sorcerer with Lash. 3 squads with 2 plasma guns in two, 2 melta guns in another. A single power weapon and two power fists with a pair of two Obliterators rounding out the list.

He had Crowe, 3 units of Grey Knights, Storm Raven and Dreadnought.

Our first game was a simple game of capture and control. We each placed an objective in our side of the table with a 12" pitched batttle deployment. I put both Oblits on each end with two squads to push towards his objective and one to hold mine.

This was just a brutal game as it played out. We both had some amazing luck and some really terrible luck at points. Towards the end, it was only 3 Oblits left for me, he had a Storm Raven and 2-3 Grey Knights surviving. Due to a bad tatical choice, Thomas did not go directly for the objective hoping to play it safe. After we talked about his choice, he tried to run only to get a 1! Oh how close it was! Ending in a draw all to the fate of the dice!

Magnets hold his dread on to the Raven.

Deployment

Grey Knigths Raven

Take cover!

The dance begins!

ATTACK!

The Grey Knights find themself in the thick of fighting!

The Stormraven dishes out sweet revenge.

Desperate battle with faith with the Icon Bearer!

Oblits vs Dread!

Second game less exciting to be honest. We had Dawn of War deployment with Kill Points. I kept my list and Thomas adjusted his some to allow for Drago, some Paladins, the Raven and two squads of Grey Knights.

This game was over after the 2nd round. He charged the Raven forward, dropped Drago and the Paladins off, I beat them up after taking a loss of a Demon Prince and a squad but managed to blow up the Raven as it was fallling back, wacked Drago and his two Paladin Bodyguards. After I picked another terminator from another 3 man squad Thomas hid most of his stuff and the game ended again on a 1 after turn 5. I took the win with one more kill point in my corner. We almost had a draw until I realised that the Sorcerer was I6 and Drago was I5, so he wasn't able to wipe out the remaining Chaos Marines in the end.

Our second table.

Stormraven drops the kids off.

Grey Knights hide.

The epic battle begins!

SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!

Look Thomas up if your in the Orlando area and challenge Tomdogg on the Colisum of Comics board for a game. He's a great guy to play against and I hope he learned alot from our games.

Book Review: Sabbat Worlds

Just finished the Sabbat Worlds collection that features Dan Abnett and other writers such as Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Graham McNeill, Sandy Mitchell and more….

Overall I have to give this book 4 out of 5 Imperial Eagles overall. The quality was very good throughout with perhaps one exception or two that I will go into later.

Stories:

Apostle’s Creed (Graham McNeill): This picks up on the wings of Double Eagle about the Imperial Navy fliers of the Apostle’s and gives another great story into the life and times of the elite of the Imperial flyers in an epic story that opens the book really well.

The Headstone and the Hammerstone Kings (Matthew Farrer): This was the worst of the book. Matthew Farrer wrote the Enforcer book series which is well written but also very dry. Many people that I have talked to about books have commented the same that the quality is there but not the flavor to keep your attention. This was even more so as the story unfolds in the book telling of how Chaos attempts to revive some ancient war machines that sit in an Adeptus Mechanius junkyard. I had to put down the book several times, tell myself there are better stories afterwards that will redeem this book. Some people may have a different slant to this story as to the quality but I found it lacking.

Regicide (Aaron Dembski-Bowden): A top notch story here and fought hard against Apostle’s Creed as my favorite in a tie. The story is about Slydo and his final moments before his death told by one of his sergeants. Aaron Dembski-Bowden has always produced top notch work and this story did not disappoint.

The Iron Star (Dan Abnett): This was a short story that was given to those that attended the 2008 Games Day UK and reprinted now for everyone to enjoy about Gaunts Ghosts. Thanks for making us suffer there GW just because we live in the US! This was not Dan’s best; it was still good and a bit different from his other stories. Yet, this is also what Dan Abnett is known for is changing up his style to give you a different flavor in each book/story he writes. I really appreciate this and find this is the #1 reason why he is a top notch writer.

Cell (Nik Vincent): This story features the resistance on a small world that features a priest that tries to hold on to his faith on an occupied world held by Chaos. This was a good story, not great but told a good tale that presented an excellent point of view of the resistance on occupied world.

Blueblood (Nick Kyme): This brings the Volpone regiment back into the light with a story of the Major after he is split off to another theatre away from Gaunt and the Ghosts. For those that may recall they had a love/hate relationship that carried on in the series that was in my opinion one of the best regimental rivals and interactions they ever had. Nick put a nice twist in this story making it an enjoyable reed and held to the character of the Volpone “blueblood” attitude throughout the story.

Of Their Lives in the Ruins of Their Cities (Dan Abnett): Dan does it again with a different style of book that opens into a story of Gaunt’s early days with the Tanith. He really shows how Gaunt bonded with them and teases many things we already know after reading his books over the years. This story also wins the longest title in the book but is fitting for the story.

Overall, this was a great book to read and I would advise anyone to read it. Be prepared for the second story and you may find Iron Star a bit tough as it isn’t one of Dan’s best, but still a story of quality and bearing to the saga.

October 15th Tournament at Armada

Took a trip over to Armada to try another tournament at their store. This round was a simple 1k point tournament. I always tend to favor smaller tournaments as the games tend to play faster and are more strategic as you have to manage your elements as well a there is no room for waste in a list.

Game 1 vs Lee (Dark Eldar)

As it always happens without fail I always end up playing either Lee or Chris if I am at a tournament with one or the other. The TO said it was all up to a D20 as we had 10 players, guess it didn’t like me much! HAH! This happens often during first round in many cases. Once at one GT we was matched not once, but twice in our first two games out of 5!

Lee’s: Homunculus, 2 small units of Wracks with the Liquifier, 2 small unit of wytches and 1 unit of Trueborn in Venoms with the extra venom cannon. Toss in three Ravangers (may have been two). Some of the Venoms may have been Raiders.

Deployment: Table Quarters

Objectives: Kill Points, Table Quarters, Get an HQ to the Center Table Objective.

This was a tough game all the way around. I only have numbers on my side, Lee has speed on his and range, so we can see where this game is going. I won the dice off, deployed my army. I hoped to move up and get lucky with some rocket shots and intimidate him back enough that Snikrot and the Trukk could slip in and inflict some damage on turn 2 or 3.

I move up, nothing happens (he has the fields that reduces my range by 6”), so I have 18” rockets now! Ugh! Let’s see, that puts me in charge range now. *sigh* I had tried split my forces to try to grab some quarters and that is when disaster struck.

He swooped in with most of his army and plowed down one unit of 30 Orks to nothing between shooting and assult. Poof! Already down a unit just like that.

Turn 2 reserve rolls brings in a Trukk but no Snikrot. They drive where he had a Raider or Venom sitting and a unit of Wracks hanging out inside. I manage to make the transport immobile and stunned, he jumps the Wracks out, hits me with a template and charges me. Poof! The Truck takes some shots and is shaken. A few orks die in the shooting phase.

Then the game kept going downhill. I made a bad decision to try to shoot his Ravangers instead of one of his small units for a kill. The scenery intimidated my choice against his infantry units as I felt I would not get the best benefit if I could down one of the big guns. In retrospect it was a totally stupid thing to do and I should have went after something closer and easier.

Turn 3 Snikrot and the Warboss slipped in. They plowed into the Wracks and Raider and made a few kills, then it was over again in the blink of an eye as we moved to turn 4. Lee shot down Snikrot and his boyz along with the Warboss as well as the Trukk exploding to a lance strike.

It was easy to call the game as time was slipping to a close. I could only hold one table quarter with a single scoring unit, he could very easy zoom over contest mine or at least claim more than I could take, without a HQ choice the center objective was impossible and he had kill points in the bag. So, I slapped a big zero on my sheet.

Meet Lee the Evil Dark Eldar

The Dark Eldar consolidate their position.

The Orks swarm the center to block the center objective.

The dead pile so far.

Game 2 vs Ken (Ringer  List: Deathwing)

He had: Crusader, Belial, Chaplain in Terminator armor, 2 squads with one cyclone and one heavy flamer in the other. He also had the usual banner and apothecary in the command unit.

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Objectives: Kill Points, Tactical Markers (objectives) x3 and get more scoring units into your opponent's deployment zone.

I won the roll, deployed. Both ork units piled into cover. I held the Trukk and Snikrot in reserve. He deployed the Land Raider with the characters and command terminator unit inside.

First turn was nothing, I moved up, ran. He zooms the Crusader forward after he deep strikes his Terminators off to the side. He pops smoke.

My turn two, I move up, shoot and kill a terminator. I got neither of my reserves in.

His turn, the Crusader moves slightly and lights up my boyz, cover helps. The terminators shoot the other unit. I take a few losses.

Turn 3 brings Snikrot in near the Crusader and the Trukk in full tilt towards it as well. I the Trukk Boyz jump out, made a good fleet roll and plowed into the Land Raider. The warboss was able to pop the Land Raider on a 5. I was near enough to all the doors and thus forced an emergency disembark to the back side. I managed to kill 3 terminators this time in shooting as more guns was in range in the other squad.

His Turn 3 was fairly quick and shot the Trukk with the cyclone squad (and blew the trukk up) and the other squad was pinned and the Crusader a smoking wreck.

My turn 4 was to charge the Terminators by the Crusader after shooting them with the Trukk Boyz and Snikrot. I take a loss in combat and run, he consolidates.  I manage to remove his last terminator on the other side. I did manage to kill the Chaplain with the Nob from the Trukk crew and took another terminator (may have been two) in the exchange.

He charges me on turn 4, I rally. The Warboss, Snikrot and a few Kommandos fight a desperate battle all are wiped out but they manage to wipe out everyone but Belial.

As the last turn is up and time is about up, the orks slip up and claim another objective. The Trukk Boyz continue to run as they are below half. Belial hit and retreated.

Meet Ken, the Dark Angel Chapter Master

Ken's Deployment

Ork Deployment

Orks swarm the building for cover.

Game 3 vs  Matt (Blood Angels)

He had a Storm Raven, Dread with Blood Talons, Assult Squad with two flamers and a power weapon, Tactical squad with missile launcher and some other assult weapon. A Librarian led the assult squad and he had a Baal Predator with heavy bolters on the side.

Deployment: Pitched Battle

Objectives: Kill Points, 5 Objectives and One Marked Unit for Termination (must destroy to acheive goal)

I won the dice off, deployed the two boyz mobz and held everything else in reserve. He put everything out and he tried to seize.

First turn, I move up into cover and run. Quick first turn for me. He advances, shoots a few orks down.

Second turn, negative on any reserves! I advance up, shoot down a few assult marines in the open. He moves up, the assult squad piles into the Ork Mob after he shoots down several and the flamer eats a few. Orks take a few more losses due to fearless. His Dread disembarks from the Raven and kills a few Orks, he fails a terrain check to assult. Those Talons made me VERY nervous!

Third turn, Trukk arrives and Snikrot shows in the rear. The Kommandos setup to go after the Baal, the boyz near the Dread fall back deeper inside the building and up a level. The Trukk boyz manage to pull the remaining marines off the boyz and slipped back into cover. Baal gets wacked by the Kommandos.

His third turn blew up the truck, another set of bad terrain checks with the Dread. The Raven blew up the Trukk and shot a few more boyz.. He dumped the Tatical squad out and ran towards the objective in the center.

The last turn, the tactical squad was shot up and assaulted by the Trukk Boyz and the  remaining mob. The Dread had taken a missile shot the turn prior and was immobile. At this point we decided to call the game, even if he took the center objective I had two objectives, killed his targeted HQ choice and had more scoring on the table than he did.

Meet Matt Blood Angel Commander

Blood Angel Deployment

Snikrot and company took out the Baal.

Fight for the Center objective at the end.

Some bad terrain checks saved these orks from those deadly Blood Talons!

I took 4^th place, not bad placing out of the entire tournament.  Oddly, all three armies I played today two had Dark in the title and two had Angels in the title. Hah!

GW October 22nd Grand Opening

On Saturday, October 22^nd, we set out from the Tampa area to invade the Games Workshop grand opening event the store was holding.

Outside shot.

At first we had five people going and with luck will have it. One of my friends had to work and another opted not to go after he said he would. Oh well! Andrew, Lee and I met in Brandon and drove about 2 hours to Orlando to play in their 1500 point elimination tournament.

Upon arrival the store was packed! I mean wall to wall gamers and their wives, girlfriends or parents in tow.  The store itself was a standard GW store, the new metal tables with the GW Realm of Battle Boards on top of each table. The store is staffed by only one employee at this time and GW sent out a special guest from the Memphis HQ to assist, teach painting and help judge the painting scores of the armies. The store was well stocked and was fairly easy to get to.

The tables, light on scenery!

The throng of people packing the store.

There was some special merchandise on sale such as book covers, dice bags and flags that they advertised on their website. I considered a flag for 40k but by the end of the day they were sold out of them. No huge loss, I did receive one of the special Terminator Patches that are only at the store on the grand opening that they gave to each player in the event.

Flags and dice bags on display.

Terminator Patch

Here is my 1500 point list from memory: Sorcerer and Demon Prince with Wings both have the mark to allow them to take Lash. 3 squads of Chaos Marines of ten with two plasma guns and a Champion with a power fist, a 5 man Chosen squad with 4 plasma guns and 1 melta gun and 5 Obliterators in a group of 2 and 3 each.

My first game was against a Grey Knights player that was a very cool guy. He ran out of glue the night before and had to use blue tack to hold some models together and he had not event started to paint his army yet. The games were all kill points and 12” deployment on 3x4 tables. I won the dice off, setup, he setup his army.

His list was Crowe, 2 Storm Ravens with the usual multi-melta and twin-linked lascannons. Two Rhinos and two Dreadnoughts with psyammo with TL Autocannons (pair) and 4 units of 5 Grey Knights with 2 Psycannons and halberds for the others.

He failed to seize and it was game on! I moved up. Ran some into cover with a few units and the Oblits knocked one Raven down making it immobile and the other was blown apart killing a few. I dragged the squad forward. At this point he was down his fastest flyers and the game went back and forth with close kill points. His bread winners were the psycannons and the psyrifleman racking up the kill points. He had Crowe by himself and ran out into the open and was promptly gacked by plasma guns and bolters. By the end of the game he only had a single immobile Storm Raven, one squad hidden in a Rhino and I think that was all. May have missed something else but if another unit was alive was the single guy.

The Grey Knight Grand Master

Deployment

First turn.

Dead pile about turn 3,

There was a dread there!

Top die is my kill point total,

Chaos advances on the Grey Knights.

You don't see me!

Total up towards the end.

Out of my choice I lost the Chosen, one unit of Oblits and one Troop choice along with the poor Demon Prince that got toasted on turn 1 by psycannon shots. Taking the win and moving up into round 2. My next match was against a Blood Angels player.

He had this: Land Raider, Storm Raven, Dread with Blood Talons, Tactical squad with flamer and missile launcher, assault squad with jump packs, Librarian with another assault squad with no packs in the Raven with melta guns. A unit of terminators with a heavy flamer rounded out the list. Again, I won the toss, took the best defensive side and setup. He placed most of his stuff on the table except the Jump packs and Terminators. I held the Chosen Back to flank. Facing a single Raven, Land Raider and a combat squad Tactical for deployment with the Raven holding the assault squad, Libby and Dread.

Game was ugly again kill points went back and forth for a short moment and then I managed to get a two point lead and hold it for the game. He made some bad tactical choices the Dread tore up one squad and then ripped into the Chosen that shot down the Raven on turn two with a blaze of glory. The Dreadnought lost and arm fell back behind the Land Raider to avoid giving up a kill point. I was surprised he didn’t try to go through cover to take out the Sorcerer that was planting melta bombs on the side of the immobile land raider. When we reached the end of our game the dice called it stop on turn 6 and I had a strong lead on kill points again. I was down just two Chaos Marine squads and the Chosen along with the Demon prince. He was down his HQ, one assault squad, two combat squads, and a storm raven making a close win towards the end. Another win to the third round with 4 final players. One other major downfall for my opponent was his reserve rolls; both arrived late in the game which allowed me free reign to bash his army.

The Blood Angels Captain.

Deployment

His deployment.

CHARGE!

Dammit! Hold still!

Near the end of the game.

Terminators and Assult Marines show.

Chaos stands against the Red Tide!

The last round was against tough bug list that my friend Andrew played first round and lost to with his Traitor IG list. Again it was kill points and 12” deployment.

He had for his list: Two big bugs that pooped out more gaunts, a Hive Tyrant with swords and one guard, two Hive guard with the STR 8 guns, two Zonathorpes in a pod, two flanking Genestealer units with a Broodlord to each and a small unit of Gaunts with guns with two Venomthropes with the gas cover power.

He won the dice but opted to give me the first turn.  We had full tables now so it was 6x4 now to work with! I hauled in 19” both ways! FLANK ME GENESTEALERS! YEAH!  By this time I am brain dead and tired of making it to the third game. Lee was facing off against a meched up Ultramarine army with his Orks. 

The game went really well for me at first, the big guys fell and things just worked in my favor. Then when I had the lead, I got greedy as Lee put it. I should have used lash to push the stealers away instead of shooting them. Twice I had very poor dice rolls that resulted in not enough kills to remove the unit. After the dice turned on me near the end and the tactical choice of pulling the Brood Lord in ended the game poorly for me with just the Lord and a pair of Oblits duking it out with a Genestealer Lord (with one wound), and a pair of Zonathropes. Nothing else was left. At the end it was painful. I got tabled by some bad dice in the end. Ugh!  I should have fallen back and used lash to push his stealers away and used the last Oblits to shoot him slowly apart.

Meet the Hive Mind!

Near the end of the game!

A battle to the finish!

Just prior. The Sorcerer was assulted.

The end of the game. This was just all that was left!

Lee mauled the Ultramarine player and faced off against the bug player in the end. At this point the Clay (the GW manager) said to roll the deployment and mission. They got the each place one objective and the pitched battle. Lee rolled over the bug player and crushed him with his Ork Horde; I don’t think he lost a single unit during the entire game. Mind you several was at half or below half but he had the win in the bag with the grots going to ground hidden behind the Lootas holding his Objective with the Warboss with Snikrot keeping the bugs away from theirs.

Here is Lee with the GW manager Clay with the other guy that won the Fantasy Tournament.  The Fantasy tournament was a poor turnout with just two players. In some ways I wished I would have packed together a Fantasy army to help out.

Lee with GW Manager Clay.

Clay with Lee and the Fantasy winner.

Congrats :
40k challenge: Lee Coleman!
Fantasy challenge: Horacio Rivas

Best painted army: Damian Adams

I felt pretty good about placing in the third round with eliminations and I can only blame the dice and myself for not facing off against Lee in the end. Lee was very disappointed and was looking forward to seeing how the dual lash would have worked. Granted he would have pasted the one Demon Prince with the Lootas quickly and moved on to maul the rest of the army with the boyz.

Here is some shots from the painting table that John (from Heavy Metal) was painting:

Amazing stuff!

Wow!

Crisp paint job!

A few new books when home with me to enjoy reading!

The store has tons of unused space that could expand into a small battle bunker (which would rock) or at least into a larger store with more tables. I figure that while I am working in Orlando over the next few weeks I will be dropping by to play a game or two after work.