Tanks!

I like tanks and it is one of the reason that I had started to pick up Imperial Guard way back in the day. Today I am playing the IG and I have a couple of tanks and after a few games I have realized that I need to take a better looks at what the IG have to offer in the various tanks they can field. Normally I run with a standard Leman Russ and a Exterminator as well as a Chimera for my Veterans. Now I have had a very high success rate with my Chimera typically by dropping the vets off in the center of the board and then play havok in my opponents back line, its a very good way to get your opponent to spend a turn or two ignoring your Leman Russ. It is pretty difficult to take aim on the battle tanks when you are being tank shocked by a transport. So my Chimera isn't so much of an issue, I run with a turreted Heavy Bolter and a Hull Heavy Flamer and most of my problems go away. My problem though sits with the Battle Tanks.

So like I said, I run with a standard and an Exterminator variant Leman Russ. Both do their jobs well when they hit and when they don't they are so so. I believe I am getting my monies worth with both tanks but I have started wondering if there was a better variant that I could use.

Now I use my Standard for a tank hunter and run a Hull Lascannon and sponson Heavy Bolters which gives me two anti-armor weapons and some close support. I will tell you right here and now that my main issue has been armor penetration and as of two games ago I had forgotten that I get to roll two dice to penetrate and pick the highest (this is what happens when you don't write down the important stuff). In my mind this tank is probably the best all around of the variants to take but I need a tank hunter because I just want a tank hunter which give me a couple of options. I can take the Vanquisher which gives me much better penetration and in theory this is damn good 50% of the time because that is how often I am going to hit. Now I only typically hit about 50% of the time with the pie plate as well but I have also scatter so bad on at least two occasions that I have hit my own guys. There is also the Executioner, 3 tea cups means I can hit up to 3 times but the penetration is worse and it is more expensive. If I am expecting a large number of lighter vehicles this may be the way to go. And lastly there is the Annihilator and yes I do own a copy of the Imperial Armor that contains this variant. Gone is the ordnance but we get Twin-Linked! So I guess I will be trying these three out and seeing how they play. I have already taken the Executioner once but it never really had a chance to engage the enemy, though I did evaporate a couple of Tau Stealth Suits with it. I was thinking of running a Vanquisher in the next battle that I am sure I will see tanks and maybe the Executioner if not.
 
Conversely I use my Exterminator for anti-infantry and anti-light armor. I know I probably just go with two standard Leman Russ and be done with it but what fun is that? First off I am not sure the Punisher is worth 30 more points in order to get 20 shots that even IG can save against. I guess if I was going to play against an opponent with a ton of infantry this would be great but my opponents are all typically medium to heavy infantry that use transports. Then there is the Eradicator, not sure I like this either but i will probably give it a try since it ignores cover and that is always handy since we run loads of scenery. So I am pretty sure the Punisher is out for my needs but I may just have to give the Eradicator a try.

So if you are still with me than you probably came to the realization that this was all just a way for me to put on paper my thoughts on the subject and help me come to a couple of decisions on what my buddies may be seeing from me in the next couple of games. Hopefully I will be seeing a game tonight and tomorrow but then I have never been that lucky.

Not how I wanted it to be...

So I had two weeks off from work but it seemed more like I was still at it. Between cleaning for guest, cooking meals, and doing stuff for Christmas I sort of missed a good portion of being on vacation. Fortunately I did get something out of it, I walked away with the Kill Team and Cypher dataslates, a Chimera, a Sentinel, and a Valkyrie. We only had one game and it lasted three turns before we had to call it for reasons of Family. We have a brand new gaming table that I hope to get some pictures of sometime soon and I have been working on a piece of scenery to add to the scenery that I have yet to finish. I kind of decided to wait until I get a compressor to finish most of it. Hopefully we will get a pretty good game in pretty soon. I would like to actually use some of my new stuff.

Oh as a note, the Vendetta will take out a Wraith Lord pretty quickly so I was happy that my daughter bought it for me.

I am back and I found a Datslate

So the last 2 weeks were a bit rough. The holidays are here and I seemed to have more work than necessary both at work and at home. I also finally received the new laptop and I think I have it configured that way I want it so hopefully I will be able to get more posting done, but this isn't why I am here.

Today is about Dataslates since I had a chance to take a look at both the Tau and Eldar slates. I don't care so much about the formations them selves but for the rules that allow you to take them. So from what I take away from this the dataslate formations work like this.

They are a specific detachment from the Codex they are listed as. The Tau Firebase Support Cadre is a Detachment from Codex: Tau.

They are an Allied Detachment that does not use up you Allied Detachment Option. So if you can ally with do then you can take the Tau Firebase Support Cadre but still take another Allied Detachment.

You can take any number of these Dataslate Formations. So if you want to take 2 tau Firebase Support Cadres then go ahead. One Tau and then some Eldar Ghost Warriors, go ahead. Oh and you still get your Allied Detachment if you wish.

Thus far though I don't really see a reason to take the current dataslate formations unless you are already going to take the models to begin with. I can see Austin pulling out the Tau formation when playing me since I tend to run a bit heavy on the Armor. George doesn't have a reason to take the Eldar formation at all since he runs Iyanden and gets to take Wraithblades and such as scoring units. I am very interested in the dataslate for Cyper though since I have fielded my Dark Angels as Fallen in the past.

"Space Wolf" the Game

As in Video Game and not our loved table top miniature game that we so love to play. If you haven't heard yet then this is news to you, yes they are making a video game featuring the Spaces Wolves. I am not here to talk about what has already been revealed about the game so much as well the hell is the game mechanics. Yes I have never heard of a "Turn Based Tactical CCG" before so when I saw that I pulled a "Huh!?!?!" with a confused expression. This was followed by intrigue since I am a huge fan of Turn Based Tactical and Strategy" based games, Warhammer 40k is one if you weren't sure. I have also been known to play the occasional CCG so to have the two combined peaked my interest to say the least. Unfortunately I had know idea how the two would be combined so I did a little research (actually I hit up PCGamer to see if they had an article, which they did). The article didn't really tell me much but it did link to the youtube video and there was this.


"Card Hunter is a free-to-play tactical card game that you can play right now. It's great: beautifully blending turn-based tactical planning with the randomised element of card games. Your deck is tied to the armour and weapons you equip, which makes it an instantly understandable process if - like me - you've never really clicked with CCGs. And the upside is that the random card draws force you to adapt and plan encounters based on the hand you're dealt."


 So i clicked on that link! played a bit of the single player campaign and I seem to be addicted to it at least for the time. If you are like me and had no idea what Space Marine may be like and may possibly be interested in picking up the game when it is released then by all means go try out Card Hunter.

Weekend Battle - Blood Angels vs Eldar - 1000 points

This weekend saw a battle between a heavy assault build of Blood Angels vs a Iyanden Craftworld Eldar build. I would love to say this was a great game because it had the potential, but the Dice Gods had other plans. Scott had a horrible run on bad luck with the dice while George had a normal session. Tactically the game had everything you would want from to players that have a clue about whats going on and the flow was there, but the one sided dice ruined the entertainment value by quiet a bit.

The game was a "The Emperor's Will" mission on a "Vanguard Strike" Battlefield. The terrain was basically the same for both sides with hills, 1 ruin and then a line of forest in the center field. I placed the objective there. Deployment with as usual with half of the Blood Angels in reserves and all of the Iyanden on the field. Now I don't have the list used but hopefully the guys will post them in the comment section at some point.The Game ended 3 points to 2 in the favor of Iyanden in Turn 5 with the Blood Angels giving up the game due to only having 4 models on the field and nothing that could remove a Wraithlord from the objective.

Last Friday's Battle - IG w/ Dark Angels vs Eldar. No vehicles!

So George and myself had our selves a friendly little battle last Friday. The battle was between Georges Iyanden Eldar and my Imperial Guard w/ Dark Angel allies. The set the battle at 1000 points and had Crusader as the Mission on a Dawn of War Battlefield, No Night Fighting occurred and the game ended at the end of turn 4 beginning of turn 5. So nothing special thus far but George wanted to figure out what he needed to fill out his Infantry so we played a game with no vehicles or more specifically, no figures that have the Hull Point stat.

This isn't really and issue for me since I am used to running heavy infantry with both my IG and my Dark Angels but George had some issues. George brought 2 10 man units of Guardians but only has 1 support platform. He also brought 2 5 man Dire Avenger squads, a 3 man bike squad, a Pathfinder squad w/ Illic (sorry I am not going to bother looking up the correct spelling but I know i spelt it wrong), and a unit of Wraithblades with Power Axes and Shields. All in all this should have been an OK force to take, except if wasn't.

I pretty much took my norm for the IG with the Company Command w/ MoO, my Platoon and a Vet squad then added a DA librarian, Deathwing, a Devastator squad, and 2 units of Sniper scouts. Both scouts infiltrated onto objectives and every thing else advanced at about 4" a turn except the Command squad, Devastators and librarian. The eldar for all their movement pretty much got mowed down as they came into LoS as they came into view of 2 or more units or fell to the MoO (who rolled great for everything and only missed completely on 1 or 2 turns).

The truth is I knew George was trying out stuff and I gave him the nastiest list I could so he could really test what he had. I had little hope of him winning but I knew there was always the chance that he had something that I didn't know about. I was very surprised by the survivability of his Wraithblades and if I hadn't killed his Spiritseer early on that unit probably would have walked through the center of my firing line. I took a unit of Deathwing to counter these guys but with that Spiritseer I think he could have taken them. As is I ended a very long assault with only one Deathwing terminator to my name.

The game ended at the beginning of turn 5 with George giving up. Having a unit of Pathfinders and 2 Dire Avengers wasn't going to be enough to claim 2 objectives while I still had a full unit of Scouts, 2 command squads and a Devastator squad as well as a half strength infantry squad with a flamer. I also would have still had a full turn of shooting to go. Hopefully George figured out what he needs to do with his infantry and maybe we can try this again once he makes his changes. I enjoyed the game and I learned a couple of things from it as well.

Hey Kids, Lets Play 40K!

 I thought this was pretty funny

Deployment 101 – Against Tau @ 3++

Very informative article over on 3++ about deployment.

Deployment 101 – Against Tau @ 3++

Battle Blood Angels versus Imperial Guard

So Scott and myself had a friendly 1000 point game last Friday and for the last couple of weeks I have been trying to get him to field an Assault list for his Blood Angels. Well Friday he did so and in turn one wiped out 20 of my 56 guys in turn one before I any any chance at all to do anything. The then proceeded to systematically pick what was left of my army apart. At the end of turn 6 I had 6 figs on the board, my Company Commander and the Unit of Dark Angel Scouts that I took as allies. I wasn't disappointed with the game since when the first Drop Pod hit I knew I was getting what I had asked for and it worked wonders against my static line.

Here is a short run down of what happened.

BA Turn 1: Drop Pod lands 3 inch in front of my Leman Russ and Furioso deploys and promptly puts a Heavy Flamer and Meltagun on my Exterminator. 4 Guardsmen gone, 1 Hull Point off the Ex. Whirlwind fires and takes out 8 Guardsmen from another unit and they flee from the board.

IG Turn 1: Bust, I fire a Battle Cannon and scatter causing 1 Hull Point to the Ex.

BA & IG Turn 2: Was  uneventful.

BA Turn 3: Assault Troops land wipe out must of my Command Squad

IG Turn 3: I put some damage on the Furioso, Rhino and Baal.

BA Turn 4: Terminators and Librarian in a Drop Pod decide to say hello to my front line. The Rhino drops off a Tactical Squad. My Leman Russ takes a hull point from something. At this point I am just trying to see the end of turn 5 with the Objectives I have.

IG Turn 4: Did some damage to the Tactical Squad but the dice gods were hating on me pretty badly by this point or maybe they just really liked Scott.

BA Turn 5: more Devastation. I am down to a Platoon Command Squad, DA Scout Squad, a Lord Commissar, a Dark Angel Librarian, and my Company Commander (minus the squad).

IG Turn 5: I finally kill the Furioso (though I may be a turn off on this because I think this was the turn Scott's Terminators destroy my Leman Russ. Anyways they are both dead by this point.)

BA Turn 6: I now have a unit of DA Scouts and a Company Commander, due mostly to Terminators with Storm Bolters and a Heavy Flamer.

IG Turn 6: We flip the objective counters and for me to tie I would have needed a 4 point Objective and I 1, assuming Scott flip a 2 and a 3 for his objectives.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Well at least I had fun even if it was an uphill battle that I truly had no way of winning. Sorry for the crappy report but since I am two reports behind and wont be able to do anything until my new laptop shows up at the beginning of December I decided not to give my self yet more work.


Now if everything goes as planned and it didn't last week we may be playing a 1000 point Eldar vs. IG non-vehicle Crusader/Dawn of War match this coming Friday.

Codex Inquisition

So there are some confusing rumors going around. Firstly we were told (via rumor) that this was going to be a Allied Supplement so all our Imperial Army can take an Inquisitor as an Allied Detachment. OK fine I can deal with that not an issue. This is pretty much standard now for GW and these kinds of books and it doesn't change the way the core system works. I would still get the book and would still have Eisenhorn in my IG army. Now the rumor is that you can replace your mandatory 1 HQ with an Inquisitor. Wow now that isn't what I expected from GW. Of course this is how the Inquisition actually works but it was a bit of a surprised for me since I never actually expected them to go there. So after the shock of that rumor wore off I got to thinking, would I actually replace my Company Command Squad for an Inquisitor. It didn't take long for me to come up with an answer, HELL NO! Unless this codex gives me something better than the Company Commands Orders which I doubt it will then I will have to relegate Eisenhorn to a secondary HQ slot. Now this is all currently based on a RUMOR so as all the rumor sites like to say I am going to take the whole thing with a grain of salt, but it is interesting how some of these rumors change the way you look at stuff.

Observer POV: Chaos Space Marines vs. Tau - 500 Points

So Austin received his first win, the second win for Tau in 8 games. I do believe that the fact that the Mission was Purge the Alien played a large part in this game since Austin probably didn't move more than 24" total with his army and never really left his deployment zone. The Final tally I believe was 4 to 2 (maybe 3 I need to go back and see if Dreese made Line Breaker or not). either way that is a win for the fish.

The game was mostly Dreese walking into the Tau fire and not having much luck with his saves. It also hurt quiet a bit that the Sorcerer never actually hit with his power. In truth he only passed his Psychic test once and even that was a Peril. The Dice Gods were not of Dreese's side for this game.

The whole thing reminded me of a dog biting at a snapping turtle where the turtle would occasionally pop it's head out to take a bite at the dog while the dog just took it. Eventually the dog gives up due to all the bites and the turtle goes on its way. That is how this game played out. Austin turtles in the back and took bites at Dreese as he moved into position to do something useful which never really panned out. Sure he got some bites in but it wasn't enough to get the points.

I saw nothing wrong with Austins list though I would have liked to see him to be a little more aggressive at the start just in case Dreese got a couple of shoots into him and caused a route. Dreese while having an OK list needs some sort of support in order to fight against shooting armies. Having to walk into a firing line was murder on him.

The game was at least entertaining to watch and I had a good time sitting on the side lines. Since I usually run as the arbiter for any game I don't play this was a refreshing change.

Upcoming Battle: Chaos Space Marines vs Tau - 500 Points

So we have come full circle and are now back to the postponed CSM vs Tau battle that had been slated for the end of September/ beginning of October. I waited till now just to make sure the game was actually going to happen. Well it was verified not long ago and here we are posting about it.

Mission - Purge the Aliens
Battlefield - Vanguard Strike
Night Fight - 1st Turn

This is a pretty straight forward battle and we expect it to be bloody.

He is the list that will be taken by Dreese

HQ1 - Sorcerer w/ the Mark of Tzeentch, Veteran of the Long War and Aura of Dark Glory

E1 - 5x Chosen w/ the Mark of Tzeentch, Veteran of the Long War, 1x Power Weapon, and 1x Power Fist

E2 - Hellbrute w/ Heavy Flamer

T1 - 10x Cultist w/ Autoguns and 1x Heavy Stubber. Champion w/ Shotgun

T2 - 10x Cultist w/ 1x Flamer

This is the same list that he took against me a month or so ago and it has the potential to hurt someone. I definitely under estimated its destructive power in our game so I will be interested I seeing how it fairs in this match.


Austin have a new line up for his Tau, hoping that a transport may help him out. From what I can tell this is going to be what he fields.

HQ1 - Cadre Fireblade w/ Shield Drone

E1 - 2x Crisis Suits w/ Missile Pod and Plasma Rifle

T1 & T2 - 6x Fire Warriors w/ Sahs'ui and Shield Drone

T3 - 7 Fire Warriors and Devilfish w/ Twin-Lingked Smart Missile System and 2x Seeker Missiles

I am not sure what to say about the list other than it has potential. I have seen Austin go into battles with similar and then lose because of bad luck. So I am going to hold judgement until I actually see him play.


I went in to this battle backing Dreese for the win without knowing the Mission since he almost stole the game from me when we ran Relic, but this is Purge the Alien and Austin won't have to make an Objective grab and can comfortably sit back and shoot across the field. I believe the mission favors Austin. Dreese is going to have to work a little bit harder to walk away with a win.

Space Marine Scouts

After reading this article I went back and started looking through Space Marine list on the internet and was surprised by how many list did not include Scouts. Personally I have almost always taken at least one squad of scouts even if it was just for sniper support or advance deployment (I love starting the game on an Objective). Now while the article was not completely news to me it did shed some light on alternative ways to use them. So for anyone that may be interested I an providing the link to the article over on Bell of Lost Souls. Enjoy


Editorial: You Should Be Taking Space Marines Scouts

Escalation and the Lords of War

So it looks like I may at some point be able to dust of at least one of my Baneblades. With the latest rumors for the Escalation expansion the Imperial Guard will get to take a single Baneblade or Shadowsword. Since I have both and tend to play a balanced army list I would probably settler for the Bane though I do own a Shadowsword as well. Here is the latest news from Faeit 212

Escalation and the Lords of War

Codex Inquisition

I will tell you right now that I was only slightly interested in the upcoming Codex Inquisition. Since it is basically just an ally codex and with the fact that I never did get any models that will be represented in the codex with the exception of a couple of priest. I couldn't really see picking the codex up without some sort of incentive. I had thought about getting it for the lore but seeing that I am broke most of the time it really was pretty far off on the list of wants. Then they did this.

Being a huge fan of Dan Abnett and the Eisenhorn series, this brought the codex back to the top of my want list. To have the chance to field Eisenhorn in my Imperial Guard army was just to much for me to push the codex away. So once I can scrounge up the money and of course assuming they actually release a fig for him I am hoping to pick this up. Fortunately until this happens, the codex can slowly slide back down to a more comfortable place.

Come the Zombie Apocalypse!

Codex Inquisition @ Faeit 212

Well this definitely explains the lack of Inquisitors with the Adepta Sororitas. I always thought the Hereticus were missing in the WD edition of their codex glad to see them back. The question then is are they taken as allies or as part of the army? Follow the link for the article.


Codex Inquisition @ Faeit 212

Tau Codex Review: Kroot @ 3++

This is a pretty good article on the Kroot and since our Tau player for some reason has a issue with the naked bird people I figured I would re-post it here so that he could read it for himself. I have been trying to explain to him that the Kroot can fill some gaps in his list that he is currently having issue with. So here it is.

Tau Codex Review: Kroot @ 3++

Eldar POV: Eldar vs. Tau w/ Blood Angel Allies

The confusion of others leave me happy. In this case, I was going for points, basically the win. The objective for me was in pushing the enemy army to the objectives with fewer points.  It helped that they stayed away from the trees where the high point count objective were and simply my weakest side. I used the cover provided by trees and ruins to assist in protecting the weakest side of my force. It also helped that the Tau troops and 2 Blood Marine armored units clogged up in the middle of their table edge making movement to the side they needed to be on next to impossible.  

Once I took out the tank on the high point side and cut the one troop unit in half with the explosion caused by the destruction, that side was mine. All I had to do was hold it and concentrate my forces on the opposite side. That all happened on the first turn which I started. It also set their mindset as it really ruined their communication.  Note to other players, play against a team who have familial ties.  Its fun to watch when they start blaming one another for inevitable results.
 
Anyways, this all worked well as my Fire Prism, Vyper and 2 Wraithlords drew much of the ire from the enormous firepower of the Tau and Blood Angels. The fact the they took it well is what surprised me.  I lost the Fire Prism but it took three rounds for that to happen.  Once again, the Fireprism is an awesome weapon, only its useless.  The odds of hitting are minimal.  The awesomeness comes in by the sheer amount of wrath it draws from the enemy.  Its like a freaken magnet and the fact is,  it was cheaper than the waveserpent and the two wraitlords.  

The first tactical error I made came from the deployment of my wave serpent from reserves on turn 2.  The intention was to use it to cut the table in half and get to the enemy table edge on that turn and flank a troop unit.  The problem that I immediately saw with this strategy, but after deployment, was that my rear end would be left wide open for a half of a troop unit of Tau.  Their firepower, though not strong since they were reduced, is massive at close range and I did not want to make that move.  I hated to do it but I had to flank them on the far side of the table from where I entered.  This made the Wave Serpent useless for a round and susceptible to attack.  Ultimately the battle showed this to be a good choice, but also questionable as well.

The goal at this point was to unload the Wraithblades and SpiritSeer on the far table edge for a pincer move.  This initially appeared to be a bad idea as the Tau brought in reserves on that exact table edge and drilled the mess out of my unit.  At that point I knew they were a loss and this proved to be tactical error number two, though once again, I was able to recover.  
I felt they would be able to handle the firepower of the Tau. I found out that they simply cannot at close range unless something else absorbs those hits.  I moved them into HTH and though they won the battle with the Tau, it was costly in both time and point value in a troop unit that was lost in a highly objective based game.  That said, the fact that they did live for a time left me better poised to win the game on turn 5 since most of the enemy was on the low point side of the table.

On turn 5, my tactics proved out to be tried and true as I had the potential to walk away with between 8 and 10 points. Unbelievably though my Vyper wrecked out entering the ruins for the 4 point objective.  My jetbikes, full unit of 5, got taken out in a mass of Tau firepower from a pretty good distance and while in a ton of tree cover for worthless cover saves.  

Disheartened but still winning we went another round.  I wiped the last of their troops on the one objective they had with a Wraithlord loaded with flamers.  He did his job and flamed them to death.  The Waveserpent, advanced behind enemy lines and took on the last remaining troop unit available to the enemy.  

The remaining turn had them running for an objective and having to take down one of my other my wraithlords which was also my warlord which for some reason was ignored the entire game. They needed both to win.

They tied me up on the last round by advancing into a 2 point objective. But being unable to take down the wraithlord who got deny the witch +1 from his warlord trait which saved him from the Librarian.  

So once again.  My Eldar are good enough to win but dice gods hate me just enough to force balance into my world as my forces tie yet again.  

I mean seriously, at this point, I am hating jetbikes.  They cant take a hit on a small space and they are worthless in the way of offensive capabilities.  My Vyper and Waveserpent adds proved themselves worth the points.  My Wraithlords, are downright awesome and simply need to be considered walking tanks. I used them slightly improperly but this was my first battle with them so I live and learn. They will be great back line support. Finally, my Wraithblades. They are great in HTH, they are not so great at getting there. The idea of Waveserpent Wraitblade combo was key, and in a slightly different scenario, they would be awesome, and they will be seen again. All in all, I am happy with my force and feel that with some very slight adjustment on luck on turn 5, I would have annihilated the enemy in concern to points.



George

Arbiter POV: Eldar vs. Tau w/ Blood Angel Allies

Firstly, I am sorry that I don't haven't he battle report up as of yet. I kind of lost track of the camera. So hopefully I will be able to upload the pictures tomorrow and get the report out sometime this week.

Secondly, since I don't currently have the battle report up I decided to give a POV of the battle. I must say that for the entirety of the seven turn game I had no clue what so ever the two side were doing. I couldn't figure out if a battle plan was even thought up. It looked like there may have been something on turn two but if there was it completely fell apart by turn three. Not sure what was up with the Deployment but that may have been due to space restrictions. The table we are playing on currently is a bit undersized for 1000 point games. I am planning of fixing the issue over the next month so larger battles should be coming soon.We had our first turn 1 vehicle kill and that was mostly due to a pair of Bright Lances and a clear lane of fire.

It appeared that luck and reactionary movement was the name of the game and while the game was down to the last movement of the final turn before we knew who won it wasn't the most enjoyable game to watch. Lots and lots of shooting with nothing happening or single wound hits. Large amounts of static fire due to being boxed in. I think some of it was my fault as I got a bit carried away with the scenery. Next time I think I will try for something with a little more openness. Couple more clear fire lanes and maybe a way for vehicles to easily cross the field.

Battle: Eldar vs. Tau w/ Blood Angel Allies - Tau/Blood Angel List

So here is the list for the allied side of this battle. I am taking a new tank this time around just to change some things up. I don't actually have the model yet but I will in the near future. We are hoping to take the Eldar down without loosing to many units but then again neither of our armies have played against them before.

Tau (Primary attachment)

HQ - Cadre Fireblade w/ Shield Drone

Elite - 2 XV8 Crisis Team w/ Plasma Rifles, Missile Pod and 2 Shield Drones

T1 - 8 Fire Warriors w/ Pulse Rifles

       1 Shas'ui w/ Shield Drone

T2 - 8 Fire Warriors w/ Pulse Rifles

Fast Attack - 7 Pathfinders 3 w/ Ion Rifles

                    1 Recon Drone

Blood Angels (Allied detachment)

HQ - Librarian w/ The Blood Lance and Blood Boil

T1 - 5 Tactical Marines w/ Sergeant w/ Standard weapons

          Rhino w/ standard weapons

Fast Attack - Baal Predator w/ Twin-linked assault cannon

Heavy Support - Vindicator



I Want Some Ogryn!

It is true, I do want some Ogryn and I want to put them in a Chimera and on turn two have them pop out of said Chimera as close to my opponents front line and unload with their Ripper Guns. I do not care is they survive to see turn three since they will be what most Elite options are to me, a distraction. That is right, I use elites and for the most part all non-scoring troops as a way to distract my opponent from what is really important in most 6e missions, my scoring units.

So take 5 Ogryn add a Priest and place them in a Chimera with a hull mounted Heavy Flamer and send it on its way. You can also add a unit of veterans with flamers and such for support also in a Heavy Flamer Chimera. Not sure how effective it would be but I am pretty sure it will get someones attention. Which is the point of this whole thing to begin with.

My plan has a problem though, the GW Ogryn figs are hideous. Yeah I hate the look of the figs. On top of that the things are $23 a pop and still metal. None of which I want to deal with so I needed an alternative, something cheaper, less ugly, and hopefully not weighing so much. So I started looking and since I didn't want Attila the Ogre and since I am lazy don't want to convert any thing to overly much I left the GW site for other options. That led me to what I found below.

So my plan was 5 Ogryn and the box above gives me 5 Ogrun that have guns similar to Rippers and are on the appropriate sized bases. They are also not hideous and could fit the roles nicely. The best part is that you get 5 for the price of only 3 Ogryn. I think I could live with that.

Upcoming Battle: Eldar vs. Tau w/ Blood Angel Allies - 1000 Points

This Fridays game will be between George's Eldar and Austin's Tau with Scott's Blood Angels as Allies. The Mission is The Scouring on a Dawn of War battlefield. I was actually hoping for a different battlefield but it was not to be. We will be using all the rules as per the Mission. So there is a chance of Night Fight and all the objectives are Mysterious.

It looks like Austin and Scott are going to split their points at 500 point a piece and Austin will be the Warlord. This should be very interesting to say the least and I am actually looking forward this game.I am hoping to get the Army List pretty soon so as soon as I get them I will post them.

Imperial Guard POV: Tau vs Imperial Guard

Let me start off by saying that this was a training game and I was being friendly. So since I was teaching and focusing more on what Austin was doing than remembering what I should have been doing I did forget some stuff. Namely that I could have rerolled the scatter on my griffon. On several occasions, especially in the first turn, it would have come in handy to re-roll the complete misses. I also should have left out the Master of Ordnance. Not that he didn't do his job, just that he would have been better against an army with more troops. Having wide open areas of table for him to scatter into made for a couple of complete misses. My only other complaint is that I screwed up on my deployment of the Chimera. I still believe I should have placed it on the other side of that hill in order to get a better line of movement past the ruins in the center of the board. Other than that i was pretty happy with what I did in this battle.

Battle Report: Tau vs. Imperial Guard - 500 point

This battle was all about Scott and myself teaching his son Austin how to play 40k more competitively, how to think strategically and how minimize making the little mistakes that can lose you the battle. First things first though, Austin did indeed change his list for the game as we expected. The list looked a little like this.

HQ1 - Cadre Fireblade w/ Shield Drone

E1 - 2x Crisis Suits w/ TW Missile Pods, Flamers, Stim Injectors

E2 - 3x Stealth Suits w/ Shas'vre

T1 -  6x Fire Warriors w/ Shas'ui and Shield Drone

T2 -  6x Fire Warriors w/ Shas'ui and Shield Drone

T3 -  6x Fire Warriors


There isn't really anything wrong with the list as far as I can tell other than the Crisis Suits, I would have dropped the flamers and Stim Injectors for Burst cannons but Austin wanted to try out the flamers so we went with it. I can say that the Flamers were only used once in the late game and while they successfully toasted some Imperial Guard they really were ineffective the rest of the game. He would do better taking them against assaulting armies such as his father's Blood Angels.

This is the battlefield we were playing on, as normal the white squares are what will be forest in the future (I am still trying to get trees). There were three objectives; they are straight down the center of the board. Austin took the right side of the table and won first deployment.

And here is his deployment. Actually this is his redeployment, seeing that we were using this as a training session for him we spent a pretty good amount of time talking about deployment. His original deployment had the Crisis Suits and center Fire Warriors swapped and in the open. After a short discussion he ended up with the deployment you see. Also he has his Stealth Suits in reserves.

Below is my deployment and shortly after I failed to seize the initiative and gave Austin is first turn I realized that I made a mistake. I guess that paying more attention to his deployment made me forget what I was supposed to be doing. So the nice pretty pink tank which happens to be my daughters almost finished Immolator just happens to play my Chimera for this game and it carries within it my Veteran Squad. I should have put it on the other side of that hill instead of squishing it in besides my command squad. This would have given me a better line to run through the middle of the board. The headless Leman Russ is acting as my Griffon.

Tau Turn 1 - Turn 1 saw the Tau move! Yeah it doesn't sound overly spectacular but one of the biggest problems that Austin has had with his Tau is sitting on the back line, taking 25% casualties in the shooting phase and then losing the entire unit to routing off the board. So to see him actually move in turn 1 is a great thing. We also see that he isn't bunching up and in the past his bunching up has lost him twice as many figs to blast markers than were necessary. For the most part he moves into a situation where he was only presented by return fire from one unit while still being able to fire. The exception was the unit at the bottom that we though should have moved more in line with the rocks but seeing that all shooting would be through Forest we let him go with what he decided.

After much Tau pulse fire and missiles, the Imperial Guard take only 2 casualties mostly because both of the Infantry units went to ground and I had some lucky cover saves.

The Crisis Suits then decide they didn't want to be fired upon and ducked behind cover. There they are hiding behind the rocks.

Imperial Guard Turn 1 - MY TURN! And the pink tank move forward and drops off some Veterans while my Platoon Command moves up from around the hill to get some shots at the top Fire Warrior squad through the forest. I spread my Company Command out a bit but don't move them in order to use my Master of Ordnance.

Here come my Veterans, just as a note they sucked this game.

My Colonel gave the "Get Back in the Fight" command to the closest Infantry Squad and the Autocannon destroyed the Shield Drone for the lower Fire Warrior squad. Both the Master of Ordnance and the Griffon fire across the table at the two Fire Warrior squads on the far side of the table and both scatter into the open areas. My Platoon command orders "First Rank, Second Rank" and the order is failed. Both the command and the infantry unit that went to ground shoot the hill hiding the furthest most Fire Warrior squad. My Chimera fired off its Multi-laser at the Fire Warriors at the close end of the table but they saved everything. So my turn was over and I was upset at the way my guys were shooting.

Tau Turn 2 - Austin didn't quite move as much as I had hoped going for a wait and see approach to taking the Objectives (moving on turn 4 or 5 to claim them). The crisis suits do pop out of cover again and the Fire Warriors on the close side head towards the next hill. All in all not a lot happens in the movement phase.

Shooting is a bit more interesting though. Pulse rounds and Missiles pound the hell out of my Veterans and see them running for the hills for the first of two times in this game. The Fire Warriors on the far table edge with the help of the Cadre Fireblade felt the need to kill two of my Guardsmen in the far infantry squad and the Crisis Suits return to their camp site for the rest of the turn. Not before putting two glances on my Chimera and sending my Daughter into a rage for nearly destroying her pink tank.

Imperial Guard Turn 2 - Movement was a short affair this turn. I moved my center infantry squad out of the way of the still fleeing veterans and I spread out my Command squad a bit more to see if I could get some shots around the terrain. It took an Order to get the Veterans to turn around and head back to the center of the board. My Chimera also decided to hop across the board in order to scare the Crisis Suits out of cover with its Heavy Flamer.

This was the only turn that my artillery was actually useful. Back across the field and the Fire Warriors crouching behind the building lost 4 of their fellows. Only took both the Master of Ordnance and the Griffon to do it (sigh - I just now remembered that I could have rerolled the Griffons hits). Unfortunately for me they stayed behind that building. The Chimera made a bunch of hits but either no wounds or a bunch of saves, but at least the Crisis Suits had to pull up camp next turn.

Tau Turn 3 - The Crisis Suits popped out of cover and on to the Chimera's Flank for a better chance of penetration with their missile pods.

The Fireblade lead Fire Warriors on the far side of the table moved into a better firing position.

And the Stealth Suits finally made an appearance and flanked my Griffon.

The Fire Warriors unleash a hail of pulse rounds and not an Imperial Guardsmen is left standing, not even going to ground helped me with this one. Tau gain First Blood! 12 Shots later with the Stealth Suits doesn't even see the paint scratched on my Griffon though. I am going to predict that those Stealth Suits are in for a bad day.

Imperial Guard Turn 3 (1 - 0): My Platoon Command moves into the forest to get line up a better shot on the Fire Warriors and to remove a possible cover save from the Forest. The Veterans move back into cover of the center ruins and take the objective once again and my Company Command turn to face the Stealth Suits. The Chimera finally takes the turn around the forest and rocks to get behind the fire warriors on the close table edge and then we unleash hell.

First up, combined fire from the Griffon's mortar and the Company command wipes out the Stealth Suits. My Chimera unleashes a torrent of flame into the back of the close edge Fire warrior team killing off 4 with the help of a single kill from the Multi-laser.

The First rank, Second rank order on my Platoon Command squad with supporting fire from the neighboring Infantry Squad sends the Fireblade Fire Warrior squad into a route.

Tau Turn 4 (1 - 7): The Tau are hurting at this point, with the loss of their commander who routed off the board at the beginning of this turn and two very under strength scoring units one the wings. The crisis suits head for the center objective and use their missile to finally glance the chimera to death (my Daughter was devastated and threw hatred at Austin for this). The close side Fire Warriors consolidate into cover but not much else happens.

Imperial Guard Turn 4 (1 - 4): Most of my units head toward the closest objective marker at this point. My Veterans try sneaking around the edge of the ruins in order to get their meltagun in LoS of the crisis suits.

The veterans are successful in dropping one of the Crisis Suits with the meltagun and combined fire from my Infantry squad and Company Command took out the close side Fire Warriors. The crisis suit passed its morale test.

Tau Turn 5 (1 - 4): The Tau only had a couple of shots in them from the remaining Fire Warriors but the sole surviving crisis suit finally got a chance to use that flamer and toasted two of my veterans. Being the cowardly troops that they were they once again fled.

Imperial Guard Turn 5 (1 - 4): I consolidated my Infantry squad on the center objective but failed to kill the Crisis suit. My Veterans were ordered to halt once again and did so without complaint. I could have moves my company command or griffon up to take the last objective but since i had already won I didn't see any reason to go any further and ended my turn.

Austin had a string of bad luck in the second half of the game that Scott and myself blame on him for making some comments that offended the Dice Gods. The fact that he lost his Stealth Suits in the first turn they showed up didn't help any and if they had survived he could have walked down my back line reaping guardsmen with very little I could do about it. The choice of Flamers on his Crisis Suits also didn't help him out much. In the end it really came down to the luck of the roll than anything. If he had rolled better in the mid to late game he could have easily taken the game.

Painting Vehicles: My Daughters Immolator - part 2

So if you remember a while back I started painting a pink tank for my Daughter. well these are the pictures from the first painting session that I did back then. Now I did find time to do a bit more painting over this last weekend and did a good bit of detail work which I am hoping to get some pictures of very soon.

So here it is in all of its pink. Yes that is an old model Immolator and it is indeed pink and black.

So far so good. There isn't really much to say other than it is mostly all base coating at this point. Thus far though my daughter seems happy with it.

Extra Life - Play Games, Heal Kids

I am asking Jeff to post this in hopes of helping me raise more money for Extra Life.  

My local Children's Miracle Network Hospital treats thousands of children each year, regardless of their family's ability to pay. These kids are facing scary stuff like cancer, cystic fibrosis, and injuries from accidents to name just a few.

On November 2nd, 2013, I'll be participating in this huge worldwide celebration of the social impact of gamers of all kinds from video games to board games and tabletop RPG's! It's my sincere hope that you'll find it in your heart to support my efforts with a monthly pledge or one-time gift that will go directly to my hospital.

Your donation is tax-deductible and ALL PROCEEDS go to help kids.

Last year, Extra Life raised more than 2 million dollars to save kids, but in 2013 our goals, just like the needs of the kids we serve, are much, much higher. I can't do this without your help. Donating online is safe and easy! To make an online donation please click the "Support This Participant" button on this page from the link below. Thank you for caring for our kids!

As an added note, if I do get any donations from people who have read his blog, I will add Dawn of War/ Dawn of War 2 to the list of games I will be playing during the 25 hours.   

http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=46570

Forge World: The Ashen Circle

So if you haven't heard yet, the Ashen Circle are up for pre-order now. These guys and the up coming Lorgar figure are what pushed me over the edge when it came down to deciding whether I was going to finally pursue a Word Bearer army. Unfortunately it will be a while before I can actually start getting anything for them. See I have this horrible problem. I am broke. Yeah it sucks and the simple fact is that I need to buy or know someone that owns (and will let me borrow) the two Horus Heresy rule books just to see what i can take. Now i have read over the first book and it is pretty straight forward and has a load of nice stuff but all the first launch Word Bearer stuff is in the second book which was only just released.

So I will be picking up a couple of these guys at some point but for now I just get to sit here and look at the pretty pictures.

Upcoming Battle: Tau vs Imperial Guard - Tau list

So I am going to present Austin's list for this weekends training battle. Now I did give his father the list I was most likely going to use on Monday, whether or not Austin saw it or referenced it for this list is beyond me. I made only minor changes to the list I gave him and I must say I will be out numbering him by a substantial amount. So here is Austin's list

HQ1 - Cadre Fireblade w/ Shield Drone

E1 - 3x Crisis Team w/ 2x Twin Missile Pods, Burst Cannon, and Stim Injector, 1x Shas-ui with the same

E2 - 3x Stealth Team w/ Shas'vre

T1 - 6x Fire Warriors

T2 - 6x Fire Warriors w/ Shas'ui and Shield Drone


Well we cannot say he didn't bring some fire power but he is also limited on the scoring units. With this list he isn't going to be able to make any mistakes, needs to deploy properly and pretty much needs first shot. Sure he could win with this list but it is not going to be forgiving. Against a army like Space Marines I may think different but against IG I just think this list is going to be difficult to win with. I have been wrong in the past, I said that there was very little chance of my last IG build win and will I did lose it was a very close run. So we will sit down with him before the game and make sure this is what he wants to take and find out what the plan is. If he is happy with it we will let the battle decide if it was the correct choice. Personally I think he needs to get another unit of Fire Warriors on the field or take some Kroot as fodder.

Blood Angels POV: Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard

 

 

 

So walking into this battle I didn't think I was going to roll over the IG but I sure didn't expect to have my butt almost handed to me like I did in the first two rounds. The main issue I figured was due to my bad deployment on one side of the table while the other side was well hidden. This left one of my heavy hitting troops very exposed and losing them caused me a lot of issues.

 

Well losing the deployment toss didn't help to much either seeing how IG can pound the crap out of you in the first turn and leave you open mouthed thinking "WTF!".

 

 

After the first two rounds I was on the verge of giving up but then it slowly started coming back around my way. I ended up having a BIG lucky roll at the end which everyone was shocked over especially me.

 

All in all I think what I took was fine for what I was going up against. I do have to watch my deployment with my troops especially my heavy hitters. Next time I go up against his IG I will be taking a much different approach using Drop Pods and a Rhino to get across the field much faster.



Upcoming Battle: Tau vs Imperial Guard - Imperial Guard list

Here is my list for this Friday's game. While it still isn't exactly what I am looking for it is less restrictive than my previous list.

HQ1 - Company Command Squad w/ Missile Launcher and Master of Ordnance

Troop 1 - Platoon Command Squad w/ Flamer and 2x Infantry Squad with Flamer and Autocannon

Troop 2 - Veteran Squad w/ Meltagun and Flamer, Sergeant w/ Plasma Pistol. Chimera w/ Hull Heavy Flamer

Heavy Support 1 - Griffon w/ Hull Heavy Flamer

This is my test of the barrage rules. While I was going to take a Plasma Gun in the Company Command Squad I decided to go back to my Missile Launcher since the MoO cannot move and then use his Barrage. So in turn 1 I will probably move them away from the table edge and then see what happens. Of course the MoO and the Griffon are the Barrage test and i am hoping to get both LoS and non-LoS shots in just to figure out how bad the accuracy really is and to give my self an idea of how they will fall. You can read about it all you want but until you actually see it in battle it really is hard to judge.

Since this really is a training battle for Austin I will be trying out some tactics that I wouldn't normally try. Since this is technically only my second game with the Imperial Guard, I felt this was the best time to screw up if I am going to do so.

I do have a copy of the first draft list that Austin is going to take against me but we are still going over it and if all is well I will post it tomorrow when it will most likely be finalized. Failing that I will have it up Friday.