Friday, October 30, 2009

an OLD picture request!

Just sharing my old Possessed for a fellow gamer...

Sunday, September 20, 2009

World Wide Tournament - quick report

So the 40K Radio WWT wrapped up yesterday; 3 games in 1 day. The WCP Club organized the ONLY Canadian event - quite shocked about that. a) They are traditionally a FB club, and b) there are a hell of a lot of clubs across Canada!
Twelve players signed up - mostly locals, but Jeff Everitt made the 5 hour drive from Kelowna on Friday to play.
I took my usual Space Wolves army; Venerable Dreadnought, Wolf Priest, WG battle Leader, 58 Blood Claws, 6 Grey Hunters (bleh), Wolf Scouts and an Exterminator (I'm going to miss that...).

Game 1 (Punch In)
Jeff Everitt! Jeff bought Eldar, pretty much as that was all he had left after his house burnt down earlier this summer...
Well, this should be a fun game - a shooty army, vs an HtH army on what was a jungle table for all intents and purposes! Modified kill points were going to be bad for me - with 3 Hqs vs his one (which happened to be Eldrad) I was theoretically already 6 points behind.
I deployed aggressively, Jeff very defensively. Not much happened in turn 1 (no line of sight!), on turn 2 my scouts came in, and I decided to use them to tie up his best HtH unit, Striking Scorpions, hopefully for a couple of turns. They failed miserably in shooting, and managed to wiff with their power weapons just as spectacularly. They did weather most for the return hits and passed their leadership test.
With lots of dancing around terrain I really did not get to grips with his army; the only exception as when Jeff bought up a unit of fire dragons to take out my Ven Dread. They failed miserably to do anything in shooting, but each having a meltabomb they were able to take it down when I charged. That proved to be the turning point of the game.
Result:
Minor Loss for the Wolves (8 battle points gained)

Game 2 (Lost in the Ustream)
For this scenario I got to play a "new" player - Mark Wakeham, and his Necrons. Necrons seem quite popular in 5e, and they are a pretty solid army. Shame they are tough to get top painting scores on!
This scenario was a simple Capture and Control one, with a twist - you got bonus VPs for teleporting a unit, and a scenario point for doing if EVERY turn!
Predictably Mark castled his forces in one corner and kept the Monolith in reserve. He spent the next 4 turns backing up and shooting me... it was getting a bit boring! I did take out his Destroyer squad, but my Scouts failed to account for the Tomb Spider. Oh, I also tried teleporting a Blood Claws unit (of 12) close to his lines on the first turn. I lost them in a mishap! The Monolith came in turn 3, and by turn 5 had pushed my Grey Hunters off my objective. Not getting into combat until turn 5 really hurt me...
Result:
Major Loss for the Wolves (3 battle points gained)

Game 3 (That's a Wrap)
For this game I drew Adam Sarophim, who I have played MANY times in the past. However, I've never played against his Tau army, which he has been running for the past couple of years.
This was a straight up objectives battle. I won the roll, and let Adam set up. His army was pretty balanced, the only annoying unit was going to be the Sniper Drones. My counter deployment was quite good, but I knew, again, I was going to have to slog it across a killing field...
I managed to take out the Hammerhead quite early in the game, and then it just came down to the slog. Have a couple of units pinned over the first couple of turns was tough to deal with, but a few units got in Adam's face, making them priority targets. Once I did get into combat (turn 4) results were predictable. At the end of turn 5 we were holding two objectives each, with the middle one contested by Adam.
Sadly I did not get a turn 6 (how often have I lost games on turn 7?!). The game was at the tipping point and one more turn would have given it to me - my Exterminator would have wiped one unit off an objective, and a almost full strength Blood Claws unit with Wolf Priest was 8" away from another... I probably could have taken the middle if it had gone to turn 7!
Result:
Tied game - 10 battle points gained.

Summary:
Not my best showing, but still lots of fun! The terrain was a bit sparse/homogeneous for a HtH army.
So my Wolves are now in semi-retirement; once Codex: Flavor-of-the-Month is out next year I'll probably bring them back - in the mean time I'll be adding some Terminators, a Land Raider, and reworking my Blood Claw units to fit the new Codex: Space Wolves out in weeks!
Of course the Exterminator is out of the army (::tears::), but it will find a new home (and new armour/guns!) in my Guard Army. I'll most likely make it a character/command tank.

Thanks to Dan Miner for putting on the event!


edit - haha , I forgot - I won Best Painted...

Friday, September 18, 2009

World Wide (ish) Tournament

I'm off playing games tomorrow!
The local guys at WCP have organized a 40K tournament as part of the 40K Radio World Wide event. Sadly only 11 (yes ELEVEN) groups world-wide managed to organize anything. Quiet disappointing really...
I'll give you an update tomorrow evening (doubt I'll win the $1000 of product prize!), I'm having one last event with the "old" Space Wolves - and in particular my Leman Russ Exterminator.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Bloody hell, he's been painting!

Obviously having a "resolution" is quite motivating!

The Malanthrope:
Old One Eye:

Saturday, September 5, 2009

New (school) Year's resolution

As the more observant among you may have noticed, I've not been posting much recently!

The new job, whilst fantastic (and fantastically well paid) is all consuming when it comes to my time. Hence the lack of project completion, actually the lack of project starts...

So a Resolution:

"I, Jason Dyer, of relatively sound body, and completely lacking in a mind, do hereby promise (::cough cough::) that I will complete the following projects, in order, before starting on anything new":

- Tyranids - Old One Eye Scratch build, Forgeworld Malanthrope (dipping to match the rest of my 7000 pts of 'nids)
- Grey Knights - ~4000 pts of GKs and GKTs (quick painting method and dipping!)
- 17 Assassins - 6x Callidus, 6x Vindicare, 5x Eversor
- War of the Ring - complete basing my Uruk-hai, 2 Trolls, 2 trays of scouts, characters, captains and 12 Warg Riders.
- Space Hulk - paint and convert Terminators to match my Deathwatch Space Marine Army, paint genestealers to match my horde.
- 12 regular genestealers

Wish me luck, and watch me burn!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Back from....

... Winnipeg, and the "dead" I guess.
Has it really been 10 weeks since my last post? Well, like any act of neglect I'm going to be making it up to you!

If has been a crazy summer so far, the new job has been all consuming, even though I'm officially only working 2 days per week until August. My parents are visiting from the UK and have been dealing with Landing as Canadian Residents, and frankly I've enjoyed being a slug-butt!

After missing out on the Vancouver Astromomi-Con, I was able to attend the Winnipeg version this past weekend. Lots of fun was had.
I'll get started on the batreps from the weekend asap.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

All Quiet on the West[ern] Front (Coast)

Post AdeptiCon I have been busy with a number of things:
  • writing up the [bloody] BatReps!
  • rebuilding the army courtesy of United Airlines' "wasn't it fun to build the first time!" program
  • working on the first 1500 points of my Isengard force for War of the Ring
  • I've had to pull out of Astronomi-Con Vancouver - family scheduling commitments - which is a sad thing for me to do as it is one the of the highlights of the gaming calender north of the border.
  • I've also been interviewing for a new job - I've actually had FIVE interviews for the position! This started on the last day of AdeptiCon when the recruiting company flew me home. My last interview is in a couple of hours...
I'll get back to model making this weekend, and if I get the new job, I'll be buying myself a SWEET gift from Forgeworld!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Post AdeptiCon - Part 3

Day 3... getting tough to keep going...

Warhammer 40k Championships.

Game 1
Opponent - Jon "yakface" Regul - Tau.
Mission - Annihilation; Primary - Annihilation, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Eliminate Troops.

OK... so I get one of the best rules "lawyers", and he is playing Tau. So I won't be cheating... hehehe.
The best shooting army in the game, vs. my HtH beasts. Oh, this was going to hurt!

I let Jon set up first - I want to see where he was going (I guessed either way I was screwed, but at least this way I could maybe counter some of his deployment. I could always seize the first turn.
I failed to take the first turn... Jon quickly dispatched two Penitent Engines.
Turn 2 saw my Arcoflagellents and remaining Engines moving up. I had to try to get something into HtH as quickly as possible...
The Tau ventured forward and I committed my celestians to the battle - they had to be capable of doing something!
Not much it seems... other than attracting a LOT of Tau fire power and dieing...
Turn 4 would finally see some combat (yes, all my other HtH units had been wiped out...).
Yes! Lost combat to 5 Firewarriors - TWICE.... bloody hell... Eventually she beat the warriors, but succumbed to the waiting circle of Kroot.
Mercifully the game would end on turn 5... I think I had one Inquisitor left - he hid all game.

Result - Primary - loss, Secondary - loss, Tertiary - ... loss! ZERO points gained.
Ouch.... Jon was a lot of fun to play; just the wrong match up for me and mine!

Game 2
Opponent - Jason Bentley -Space Marines
Mission - Unplanned Assault; Primary - unknown, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Eliminate HQs.

I like this mission - we find out on turn 4 what we are fighting for Table Quarters, Seize Ground (terrain), or Field of Battle.

The marines set up first.
The rest of the army was destined to come on on turn 1...
I countered with one unit and transport.
Turn 1 saw some inconsequential shotting from the marines (plus turn 1 was a night fight), and then I bought my army on.
So did you notice it? Yep, he forgot to bring his army on during his first turn. OMFG!
To be honest I have no idea what this means in rules terms, but I did not want to even contemplate asking the judges, just in case they came up with "destroyed!".
We decided that they should now come on as Reserves. Of course, this could potentially doom his game plan as I out numbered him for most of the game.
He did manage to get a Vindicator and Devastator Squad on in turn 2.
My Penitent Engines had rushed forward and after dealing with one of the tactical squads, they were engaged by the other, in the woods. This battle would last for the majority of the game.
My Immolator moved up to the woods, to track down anything that wanted to come near the combat - and promptly immobilized itself...
Turn 4 was good to the Marines... the Landraider arrived! An attack bike showed up, but I killed it off with 2 storm bolter shots from an Arbite Rhino!!
My Arco's went after the Vindicator (which has been pummeling the Sisters Repentia in the woods), and the Repentia finally Raged and ran towards the Landraider.
Turn 5, and the final unit of marines shows up - jump troops! The assault terminator squad, with Cassius, jumps out of the Landraider and heads towards my Celestians and Palantine.
The Sisters Repentia get stuck into the Landraider and wreck it (woot!), the Celestians stand up to the terminators (Spirit of the Martyr, and Preferred Enemy really do help!)
Turn 6 I had to try to deal with the jump pack troops that were going to deny me my right table quarter, but that was not going to work out.
The Repentia came over to help deal with the terminators, but in the end Cassius survived, denying me both the tertiary objective and one of my table quarters!
Result - Primary - tie, Secondary - tie, Tertiary - tie. Plus all 3 Tactical Bonuses. 20 points gained.
Hard fought game. I'm not sure how different it would have been if the marines had come on on turn one like they were supposed to. But that is part of the game - you have to remember which units are coming on how, and when. I really should check the rule on that mistake.

Game 3
Opponent - Chuck Bethea - Daemons of Chaos (Nurgle).
Mission - Capture and Control; Primary - Objective Markers, Secondary - VPs, Tertiary - Control the Table.

Ah, daemons - so much fun! Chuck had one of the nicest Nurgle armies I've ever seen, and his painting score reflected this.

Chuck let me deploy first... I use my turn 1 to spread out a bit.
The Tallyman, a Soul Grinder, some plague bearers and two winged daemon Princes drop in...
Epidemius backs off from my penitent Engines...
My Repentia charged up the middle (with some nice Holy Rage rolls), and wiped out the unit of plague bearers. They'd need that cover to survive shooting from the Soul Grinder...
Didn't help much! But at least I failed my moral check and got to charge.
The DP went after my two Engines, that combat would last a couple of turns more...
Turn 3 saw some Plague Bearers come in behind my lines, so I needed to deal with them ASAP, and my other two engines went toe-to-slime with the Greater Daemon - eventually beating him down.
Turn 3 saw more Plague bearers come in, and need to be dealt with. As well as the Soul Grinder going over to help out the Greater Daemon.
Turn 4 - I wanted Epidemius dead! I threw in my Battle Sister squad... the Penitent Engines finally went down, it would have been nice if they could have lasted one more round...
Turn 5 saw some ongoing combats...
Turn 6 did not resolve much...
Game end.

Result - Primary - win, Secondary - tie, Tertiary - tie. Plus one Tactical Bonus.13 points gained.
A good hard fought game! This is the first time I've done well against daemons in a regular game - I think my extra-choppy units were well worth the points.

Here are the results. Not so great - I really stunk on the quiz, and I'm betting I lost a sportsmanship point from game 2, when I did not allow him to just walk on after messing up his turn one deployment (yeah, like I'm going to give up an immediate assault, on his terms!).