StillCon '11 Wrap Up

Alrighty, so the Fantasy tournament at StillCon was a pretty cool time. My first impression was "Wow this is much smaller than I was expecting." I guess I didn't notice, or they edited it on their website, but the max for the Fantasy tourney was only 15 people. However, there were all of 7 of us (5 competitors, 1 TO, 1 judge). Evidently it was a better turn out than last year (2 people), so hey maybe next year there will be another 300% growth in players.

There were only 3 tables set up (talking to the TO before hand, he knew it was going to be a small turn out), all of them set up pretty similarly. One peice about 6" in from each corner with 1 big/medium sized piece dead-center, or 2 smaller ones dead-center.

Being that we only had 5 people there signed up, the TO and judge took alternating turns to play the TO's army so someone wouldn't have a complete bye. I don't know if they received max points playing the "bye" army, as I was one of two that did not play him. What I do know is that he took a fantastically painted Skaven army, and ended up going 2-1 on the day, oops!

The army breakdown was 2 Skaven, 2 Lizardmen, 1 Dark Elf, and 1 Chaos ****ing Dwarf army. What?!?!?! I'd thought Chaos Dwarves were the stuff of legends, myths you hear about, tales sown far and wide across the 7 internets to scare Fantasy players. When was the last time you could say you heard of a tournament where Chaos Dwarves made up 16.67% of the damn thing? Never, that's when.

I ended up taking 2nd place, going 2-1-0 with a major loss, major victory, and massacre. Played against Dark Elves (Meeting Engagement), Chaos Dwarves (Dawn Attack), and Lizardmen (Blood and Glory) respectively. I think I did pretty well all things considered. The Dark Elf player ended up winning the entire thing, and pretty much sat back on his board edge and shot me until I got to him. There were 3 things I wish I had done in that game:

1. Placed my Chameleons better, one group managed to take his Sorc down to 1 wound late in the game. Had I killed her, I may have been able to pull out a win. I ended up losing like 460-175 VP. As it was, he pretty much deployed in groups and protected his vulnerable targets. I ended up shooting at his forward most group of Crossbowmen. I should have placed them on the flank of his Black Guard so he'd have to waste a turn reforming if he wanted to try to charge me. Or tried to blow up his Shades.

2. Charged/Flamed/Whatever'd his small unit of shades, would have given me some extra points.

3. Been more patient. I kept pressing the issue with Throne of Vines, and he kept dispelling it. In what proved to be my biggest mistake, I finally got Throne off with Irresistible Force, but had already used my Cupped Hands. Had it not IF'ed, he had little to no dispel dice, and I had like 5 left to use on a Regrowth on a unit of 12 Saurus I had just that turn charged his ~12-15 Black Guard with. So my IF roll came up Power Drain, FML. So my Saurus proceed to get cut down, and I give up a 250 point block (+victory points for banners etc.). Had it gone on another turn or two I had that Black Guard squad in combat again, had wiped 1 of 2 Hydras, and was probably going to sweep that entire flank. I also didn't cast Dwellers as much as I should have (once maybe?), especially when you consider he used his dispel scroll on something turn 1.

I did end up learning from my loss and I exceeded my expectations, can't ask for a whole lot more than that can you?

Now it's time to go prime some Lizardmen before the OKC Thunder game tonight!

Down but Not Out

Apologies for the lack of posts since, well, forever. Nursing school owns me.

Fortunately, I am going to be able to make it to StillCon 2011.

The thing that sucks is that I will only be able to make it for one day this year, instead of two like I planned. I will be playing in the 2000 point WHFB tournament on Sunday, and will miss the 40k tournament Saturday. Having done a couple tournaments now, I know what to expect. The rub is that I've been playing Fantasy for all of 3 months with just under a dozen games under my belt (never playing any other mission than the standard 12" deployment). That and I'm not super solid on the rules like in 40k. Oh and I've played against or watched games with approximately 9 of the 14 armies.

Having said that I still think I will do well, though not as well as I did last year in 40k. I believe in setting realistic goals, and hopefully surprising the hell out of myself. The goal this year is to win one of the three games. Totally do-able.

I have play tested this army and it has done well. The only thing that was disappointing to me was how Light performed for me. I'm sure most of it is user error and not being 100% solid on all the mechanics. It's something I intend to try again sometime. That said, Life is incredibly easy to use, completely point-and-click. Let's do it:

Lords

Slann

General, BSB, Standard of Discipline, Cupped Hands of the Old Ones, Focus of Mystery (Life), The Becalming Cognition, Focused Rumination

Core

3 blocks of 20 Saurus Warriors

Full Command

Special

Temple Guard x 20

Full Command, Banner of Eternal Flame

2 groups of 5 Chameleon Skinks

Rare

2 sets of 2 Salamanders

1 with 1 extra handler (to be placed on the flank with the most targets as an added insurance policy)

Total: 2000 Points on the nose.

Honestly, I'd love to include a Skink Priest on an Engine of the Gods, but at 2000 points it's kinda hard to squeeze in without dropping a block of Saurus (leaving me 3 groups that can fight with any sort of staying power). That and I won't be getting that model in from my FLGS until tomorrow at the earliest.

I have sort of tweaked it a bit, originally I loved the idea of have the Temple Guard block having a Razor Standard (-3 to opponents armor save) paired with Light to give me a Flaming Magic missile.

Initiative 10/ASF to eliminate those cringe-inducing re-rollable hits from High Elves and turn the Lizzie's weakness into a strength? Check.

Can deal with heavily armored/deathstar blocks? Check.

Flaming magic missile for the super lame Hydras/other Regen or Flammable creature? Check.

Seems like a match made in heaven, and probably is in point values over 2000 points or for people who know what the hell they're doing. Unfortunately the Banner costs 35 more points (2 Temple Guard, though not a big deal - I know) and the Razor Standard was also a bit overkill. Strength 5 is street sweeping whatever it's hitting anyway, and my Temple Guard have yet to come across something they couldn't at least have enough staying power to not get through a game.

The 2 small groups of Chameleons give me the flexibility of one maxed unit of 10, while being able to take out multiple targets if necessary. The Chameleon Brave is not worth the 6 points for 1 point better BS.

Anyways I've droned on for entirely too long, but I would be remiss without plugging Dethron's regular "column" Friday Night Internet Fight, every Friday. It's hilarious (and a good blog too!). Give it a read.

First Tournament Battle Reports Pt. 1

Game 1: So my first tournament game ever I played a guy who used Ultramarines. It was his first tournament as well and we had to wait til 15 minutes in before he had returned from his hotel room to get his list and then he only had one for the judges so it had to be copied. It was awful! I don't want to bash the guy but there's something to be said for knowing what stats your weapons are without having to look EVERY turn. He also felt the need to use his laser pointer to check his models LoS all the time. Other than that he was a pleasant follow to play against. He ran a Termie Librarian with Smite and Vortex had a TWLas Razor, 1 10 man tac, 1 5 man tac, a Vindi with 2 storm bolters, a Dread in a drop pod with meltas, a 5 man scout squad (missiles and lascannons), a devistator squad (with Missles and lascannons too) and a group of termies with 4 PFists and a sgt with a Psword.

I have the scenario list in front of me and it was Capture and Control (aka 2 objectives) & Spearhead. I placed mine in a ruin close to my table edge with a rhino full of Plague marines, a DP, and 2 Oblits. He placed his in a ruin as close to the 12" dead zone as possible surrounded by scouts with his 10 man tac about 6" away from the objective. My Vindi, 2 rhinos, and a DP are lined up side by side to roll into him as fast as possible (these are also not even 12" from my objective ruin) with a lone Oblit in a ruin as close as I could get him to a balcony. Turn one comes and his drop pod with Dread comes in and takes a shot at one of my rhinos (due to scattering too far from the Vindi) and his termies come in and shoot at my vindi getting nothing. Takes some pot shots at rhinos and such and gets nothing. I fly my Prince and take out 3 of 5 termies and wipe them out on sweeping advance. My Obliterators blow up his Dread. and my Vindi blows his Vindi's cannon off. He immobilizes my Vindi and one rhino still staying back and shooting. I rush my lone unscathed right into his loose blob and they get blown out of their rhino and eventually wiped out later.

It gets down to turn 4 or so and we have 30 min left and I haul my Plague Marines from the immobilized rhino with a daemon prince flying close by gunning for that objective since mine is completely safe due to the vast distance. I am fortunately able to move my DP 12 and assault 6 to contesting his objective and assaulting with my plague marines the turn later since his 10 man tac squad had moved to get better shooting lanes and ended the game 2-0. I scored 17 for controlling both objectives and +1 for destroying his highest point cost unit. He scored 3 with the same bonus. Final 18-4.

StillCon Results and Breakdown

Wow, so first let me say I had a TON of fun at my first tournament. Met some interesting new folks, saw some pretty sweet armys, and even saw 2 new guys from my local gaming store. The 3 of us who played (there were 2 others at the tourney who didn't play as one came with me and the other was GMing some D&D) it was our first tournament. Alas I did not win best newbie (damn painting scores!), but a fellow from our store did so I was definitely happy for him. The field we played in was a strange one but there were only 18 players (out of a max of 20 slots) and one guy had to leave after the first round to drive 6 hours to Nebraska to pick up his mom or mother-in-law who had broken down, ouch.

Here's the breakdown of the armies represented:

Blood Angels (PDF) -1

Chaos Daemons -1
Chaos Space Marines (including your's truly) -3 (and I might add the other 2 played Slaanesh lists without Lash DP's)

Dark Angels -1 (this was sadly played by the unfortunate guy who had to leave early)
Imperial Guard -1
Space Marines (Vanilla) -5
Space Wolves -1
Tau -2
Tyranids -3

Initial reactions? I was shocked to see no Orks or Eldar. I was also surprized to see that:
A. Tau made up ~10% of the tournament
B. Someone had actually brought Dark Angels
C. There was only 1 IG player

Granted this is a local tournament and there were only 18 players.

My goal, being my first tournament, was to finish better than last place in terms of both Overall and Generalship. Tomorrow I'll post my general reps and some shoddy pictures taken with my iPhone.

How'd I do? Well my first match I scored 18/20 (Massacre) against some Ultramarines>
My 2nd match I scored 19/20 (Massacre) against PDF Blood Angels (which weren't supposed to be let in as they were only doing bound Dexes but whatev's)

Great right? So in the 3rd and final round I ended up playing on Table 1 to determine (hopefully!) 1st in Best General against a pretty hard Tyranids list. Unfortunately I lost 7-14 on Battle Points but I placed 4th on Best General! The fellow who beat me didn't win the prize but when we looked at the Excel spreadsheet for the points he had the most Battle Points so we're not sure how he didn't win Best General. The point spread from 1st to 4th was all of I think 5 points. There were some crazy lists out there and I definitely lucked out with not being matched against a few folks but I ran a solid list in my opinion (http://legionsandchaos.blogspot.com/2010/02/stillcon-list.html)

StillCon Tomorrow

So I've gotten everything done with the tournament cept painting the 2nd daemon prince (but he's got 3 colors on him!) and I will be finishing painting my last Obliterator in the next hour oh yeah and I didn't paint any of my plague marines as I was told that the only painting requirement was priming. I hope to have pic's and I will try to give a decent battle report on my 3 games sometime before Monday.

So far out of all the advice I have currently been given the best have been:
1. Don't leave your models unattended
2. Play the mission
3. Don't be afraid to get a ref

Wish me luck!

Scrubtastic Newbie Advice and Other Things

If you don't like the weather in Oklahoma, just wait about 5 minutes. Yesterday started out 70 degrees and sunny, ended rainy and somewhere in the 50's. Today (the last Saturday of Spring Break) it's in the 30's and SNOWING. We had/have a Blizzard warning.

So to start us off I have actually gotten around and done some work on my models, just in the nick of time as I have ~7 days before my first tournament. Unfortunately I ran out of spray to prime my models, but I'm not procrastinating for once! While I wait for GW to mail me my black spray I've been working on the bottom half of my Daemon Prince (Done), I finished assembling all models except Obliterators and the Daemon Prince.

This brings us to something I plan on making a sort of column for this blog for beginners from beginners. Scrubtastic Newbie Advice, I dredge through the trenches of the interwebs so you don't have to.

Pinning?!?
I recently pinned my first models the other day and found a wonderful post on Dakkadakka (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/239928.page). Since I was pinning Melta guns to my Plague Marines (in various poses), I used process #2, which is about 1/3 of the way down the page. I am also planning on possibly using method 1 on my Daemon Prince's wings if I don't soley use green stuff.

Green Stuff, A God Send

So I've read a fair amount on green stuff and for a completely inept painter/modeler such as myself this product is fantastic. It takes a little bit to get the epoxy and hardener to mix thoroughly and the consistency is slightly thicker than silly putty but it works wonders. I used mine to join a Powerfist to a Plague Champion in a way that wasn't going to work with the way the plastic on the fist was. Left mine on the window sill so that it would cure faster and worked like a dream.

I also used washes for the first time today, but that post is for another day. At Tuesday's Warhammer Night, I was unmercifully abused by a mech Eldar list. It was my first time playing against Eldar so I completely expected not to go out with a W. Part was the mission we played (Dark Eldar's Feigned Retreat). I figured I should try out some of the Battle Missions since there is a possibility that some may be at the tournament. Another factor of my downfall was I had absolutely no idea what my target priority was. Of course having 9 out of 10 shots from my Obliterators was about as much help as having the Demolisher Cannon blown off my Vindicator turn 2. When we called it at the top of turn 4 I had 2 kill points to his 5.

My next game was against one of our group's 2 I.G. players, we rolled for the mission with 2 Objectives and Dawn of War. I lose the roll for first, and because of the infernal rule that I have to start 18" from him, I start about 6" off my own board edge. Great. We both placed our objectives in ruins on the same side of our respective deployment zones. I castle up a Plague marine squad with a Winged Nurgle Warptime DP in a ruined building with my objective and toss my other Rhino by the other end of the board.

Being that I am the lowly new guy and he's returning after having taken all of 4th edition off we both think we have to roll for the rest of our deployment to come on, so until turn 5 when a vet tells us we're doing it wrong we keep rolling for things only to both be disappointed by horrible rolls. This also lead to me trying to deep strike my 2 Oblit squad to the flank of one of his tanks only to have them scatter off and mishap into destroyed. Yay! I also (incorrectly) tried something similar with my 2nd DP only to have fire amass into him as I forgot you cannot move or assault after having Deep Struck. Doh! The game ends a tie with my base force tearing apart anything that gets near and him more or less chaining my 3rd Plague marine force while my Possessed Vindi advancing and whittling away his force claiming his Objective. I have to say the Vindi won MVP. The second to last turn the vindicator takes 3 or 4 1's and 2's. The last turn my opponent said screw it and threw everything he had at the Vindicator (8 or so glaces and pens) only to come up with all 1's and 2's.

Our FLGS owner, we'll call him Brad, also apparently had a horrid night of rolling and at one point stormed over to the trash can and violently threw all his dice away. He confessed to throwing them away "so no one would take the stupid cursed dice and use them against me."

To Do

Paint Rhinos
Paint Plague Marines (waiting on Primer)
Paint/Assemble Daemon Prince (waiting on Primer)
Paint/Assemble 2 Obliterators (waiting on Primer)

To Do List

Well since I went out of town for 4 days this week I didn't get anything done and have approximately 19 days left until my first tournament. In order or priority

Finish building and painting 2 squads of Plague Marines (and pin Meltas)
Finish painting and assembling Daemon Prince (pin/greenstuff wings too)
Finish painting 3 Obliterators
Prime and paint 2 Rhinos

Things I've actually done? Built 2 Rhinos, a Vindicator, Painted a 3rd Rhino (done months ago), partially assembled Obliterators, cleaned Plague Marines, Assembled first squad of Plague Marines, and pinned meltas on one squad.

Looks like I got my work cut out for me. Wish me luck!

Also wanted to plug http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/ his contest top 10 had some really awesome artwork. My 2 favorites are the one with the skull wreath and the bloody hand print (which is now my computer's desktop). Great models on there too but I'm sure most know of his blog already.

StillCon List

So I think I have decided the final list I'm going to run in the 1.5k tourney. This is part motivated by the models I have (or recently bought) and part motivated by the fact that as of late I've found my force crippled as opponents would just focus fire my Oblits down and whittle me down from range.

HQ
2 Winged Nurgle Warptime DPs

Troops
3 squads of 7 Plague Marines with 2 meltas, champ w/ a PFist and dedicated rhinos.

Heavy
1 squad of 2 Obliterators

1 squad of 1 Obliterator

1 Daemonically Possessed Vindicator w/ Combi-plasma (because I can't afford 3 more points for the Havoc Launcher)

It's a pretty simple list, I don't expect to win anything. What I do expect is that this particular force will make my opponents have to choose wisely what their target priority is. Recently my problem has been that I get crippled without any ranged support, the Vindi is a good distraction unit allowing my Oblits to live longer, my Daemon Princes extra time to maneuver into place, and/or give me another firing platform if they don't go for the bait and take out Oblits instead.

First Tourney/Wall of Text

So at last week's Warhammer Night I played against the new Nids and got tabled by a 1500 list that put Bone Swords and Wings on everything he could. I wanted to weep at the thought that there was nothing my plague marines could do as I promptly got tabled (for the first time ever) at the end of turn 4.

My second game was against a Ruff Rider IG list which was honestly a lot of fun to play against. He used an executioner and let me be the first to say that that thing is aptly named. That damned tank was brutal MURDER. Where we had decided to end it I won 1-0 but had it gone on it would have been either a tie or (more likely) a loss.

I didn't play this weeks Warhammer Night because I was spraying a couple models and didn't want to scrap together a 2k point list. I did get a chance to use my google machine and look up the only convention in Oklahoma where there is a 40k tournament. It's in that dreaded backwater known as Stillwater. The name of the Convention is StillCon, which is in its 2nd year. According to the website "We are a community of gaming guys and gals who want to keep the gaming convention, formerly known as Steelcon, going in Stillwater, Oklahoma." I did some research, asked the organizers some questions (found out it was a 1.5k tourney instead of what was advertised as 2k) and got promptly signed up. It's 20 people and there will be $150 worth of 40k GW product going as prizes. It's a Rogue Trader Tourney which doesn't mean a whole lot to me as this is my first tournament ever. It's march 26-28 with the 40k tourney on Saturday the 27th. It's only $20 for pre-registration for the whole weekend (even though I'm only going for the 40k). They will have Magic, Legend of the 5 Rings, 40k, and miniature painting competitions. They will also have open games of Munchkin, Panels, open RPG games like D&D, and samurai movies going on that weekend. In the incredibly vain hope that someone out there other than yours truly reads this you should check it out and offer me some advice.

http://stillcon.com

In other random news, I picked up "A Thousand Sons" and read the preface by Ahriman and thought "Damn that's good!" But before I begin it I want to finish reading "The Inquisition War" omnibus which I am only a few chapters in on the second book. It's good so far, lots of twists. As far as my favorite Heresy books go, Legion is definitely number one. The first three are great, I'm a Black Legion player and I definitely enjoyed them. Eisenstein was good but I kinda got bored with it but it definitely gave (for the most part) a lot of good closure. Fulgrim was good but a bit of a long read and started to get me uninterested when it wasn't talking about the Primarchs.

I'll be browsing the other blogs and BoLS and such for advice on my first tournament. And of course working feverishly on painting and constructing my models (got my melta bits for my PM's today!) Hopefully I get everything done in time!