Not feeling as fresh as you think you should? Check this out.

The Zgames 2000 point 40K tournament was fun. I didn't do as well as I hoped to in the games, but ended coming in 3rd overall anyways and managed to take home Best Painted (which was really special, since it was a player's-choice award -- each participant voted for their favorite army).

The first game was one where we started with only 500 points of our force deployed, and the rest would come in on turn 3. I played against Mark Burkhart's (spelling?) Dark Angels, and things started out pretty well. I deployed in good spots, had some luck taking out his force.. unfortunately, I royally screwed myself on my turn-three deployment of my remaining 1500 points. Got myself stuck in a corner, and had to go through a nasty bottleneck to get out. I could have just stayed back and traded lascannon shots, but that would have been pretty boring.

The second game was against Roger's Imperial Guard, and it was the most one-sided game I've ever seen. Roger's luck was bad and my force was well suited to dealing with his army. The game was pretty much over by the end of the 3rd turn. We quit at the end of the 4th turn, with his force reduced to one Chimera. I lost half-a-dozen marines and one bike.

The third game was against Ryan's Orks. I couldn't do much of anything against them. I couldn't roll more than a 2 on my glance rolls, and his funky ork armor disregarded those. His humongous command squad slaughtered 3 tactical squads and my Devastators. He rolled a 6 on a glance of my Land Raider Crusader . The only brightspots were eventually blowing up his big warmachine/truck-thingie, and my Terminators and countercharging tacs taking out a big bunch of boyz.

# posted by Andy : 10:12 AM

Here's what I decided to go with.. a mobile, shooty force. I was tempted to go with the "assaulty force" or the "huge troop wonder force" that I posted a few days ago, but decided that they were both too inflexible for tournament play. I'll try them out sometime, but in regular games.

Regarding painting, I managed to get my new models painted up to a very basic standard. They are recognizable, but plain -- no chest eagles, eyes, decals, etc. Zina did my Terminators up beautifully. I managed to airbrush the new rhino to an ok (but plain) level. All in all, not bad.

Zgames First Anniversary Party was fun, had some cake and soda... chatted a bit.. browsed around. Very pleasant.

Well, I finally got the batrep from Mike & my not-so-recent Take & Hold game. Check it out.

Turned out the most time-consuming part was remembering how Dreamweaver handles framesets ;-) Zina typed in John's notes for me (Thanks, Zee!), and Fireworks handled all the graphics work. QED.

Neuhausplatz 200NC, "look ma, no case" ummmmmmm.. wow....

I really like this list too. Nice assault punch to it, might take those who are used to my usual shooty Imperial Fists by surprise..

2000 Pts - Imperial Fists Army

1 Force Commander (HQ) @ 105 Pts
Power Weapon (x1); Storm Bolter
Terminator Armour [25]

4 Terminator Assault Squad (Elites) @ 210 Pts
2 Lightning Claws (x3); Thunder Hm. & Storm Sh. (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [42] Pts
Power Weapon; Storm Bolter
#Terminator Armour [0]

1 Land Raider 'Crusader' (Heavy Support) @ 258 Pts
2 'Hurricane' Bolters; Linked Assault Cannon; Multi-Melta
#Extra Armour [0]
Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Veteran Squad (Elites) @ 410 Pts
Terminator Honours; Bolt Pistol & CCWep. (x5); Bolter (x3); Meltagun (x1);
Frag Grenades

1 Veteran Sergeant @ [81] Pts
Frag Grenades; Plasma Pistol (x1); Power Weapon (x1)
Melta Bombs [5]
Master Crafted Weapon [15]

1 Rhino APC @ [58] Pts
Storm Bolter
Extra Armour [5]
Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 228 Pts
Bolter (x7); Missile Launcher (x1); Meltagun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

1 Rhino APC @ [58] Pts
Storm Bolter
Extra Armour [5]
Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

2 Bike Squad (Fast Attack) @ 155 Pts
Twin Bolter; Bolt Pistol (x2)

1 Attack Bike @ [50] Pts
Twin Bolter & 2 Bolt P.; Heavy Bolter

1 Sergeant @ [35] Pts
Twin Bolter; Bolt Pistol

6 Devastator Squad (Heavy Support) @ 215 Pts
Bolter (x2); Missile Launcher (x2); Plasma Cannon (x2)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

1 Whirlwind Battery (Heavy Support) @ 75 Pts
Multirocket Launcher

Models in Army: 61


Total Army Cost: 1998

I've been thinking about a different approach to army comp for the 2000 point tourney at Zgames. Check this out:

2000 Pts - Imperial Fists Army

1 Force Commander (HQ) @ 105 Pts
Power Weapon (x1); Storm Bolter
Terminator Armour [25]

4 Terminator Assault Squad (Elites) @ 210 Pts
2 Lightning Claws (x3); Thunder Hm. & Storm Sh. (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [42] Pts
Power Weapon; Storm Bolter
#Terminator Armour [0]

1 Land Raider 'Crusader' (Heavy Support) @ 255 Pts
2 'Hurricane' Bolters; Linked Assault Cannon; Multi-Melta
#Extra Armour [0]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 264 Pts
Bolter (x7); Missile Launcher (x1); Flamer (x1)

1 Veteran Sergeant @ [55] Pts
Bolt Pistol (x1); Power Fist (x1)

1 Rhino APC @ [58] Pts
Storm Bolter
Extra Armour [5]
Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 273 Pts
Bolter (x7); Missile Launcher (x1); Meltagun (x1)

1 Veteran Sergeant @ [60] Pts
Plasma Pistol (x1); Power Weapon (x1)

1 Rhino APC @ [58] Pts
Storm Bolter
Extra Armour [5]
Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

7 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 135 Pts
Bolter (x5); Heavy Bolter (x1); Meltagun (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

7 Scout Squad (Troops) @ 139 Pts
Bolter (x2); Sniper Rifle (x4); Heavy Bolter (x1)

1 Sergeant @ [13] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

5 Devastator Squad (Heavy Support) @ 200 Pts
Bolter (x1); Missile Launcher (x2); Plasma Cannon (x2)

1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

1 Whirlwind Battery (Heavy Support) @ 75 Pts
Multirocket Launcher

Models in Army: 72
Total Army Cost: 1998

That's a big bunch of Space Marines...

Power Play is a cool article talking about ultra-low power wireless networks.

BBC News | EUROPE | Sex doll fan mistaken for murderer. What more can I say?

I really don't know if I'm going to get my Marines finished in time for the 2000 point 40K tournament at Zgames.

Currently, I have to paint:
1 Rhino
3 Terminators
11 Marines with Bolters
1 Marine with Missile Launcher
1 Skull for the Landraider Crusader

Between now and Saturday, I have:
Tonight, which will be me going to Sears to buy a new 'fridge and watching NYPD Blue
Tomorrow night, which is TV (Amazing Race)
Thursday night, which is my big TV night (Survivor, CSI, ER)
Friday night, which is D&D night

...not a formula for painting success. Looks like my army will be more than a little unpainted.

STAR WARS: Endor Holocaust is one of those sites... you know, the ones that prove that Star Wars fans have far too much time on their collective hands. Now that's not to say it isn't interesting, or even amusing (on that "takes itself so seriously it is comical" level) just that it is.. well... just check it out.

GAAAH! I'm SICK of painting space marines!!! I just broke 2 figures while HOLDING THEM!!! GAAAAAAAAA!

I
Q U I T

Remember the all-Lego version of the Camelot scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Like me, I'm sure you said to yourself, "That was great, but what I really want are Lego versions of notable Bible Stories.. and I want them done with a disrespectful attitude!" Well, we have to wait no longer! The Brick Testament is now available. I particularly enjoyed this one.

ChainmailNews.com - The Original Source for all your Chainmail Needs! is a pretty cool Chainmail site I stumbled across.

Wow! Blogger's archiving feature now (kinda) works for me! Old blogs are in the Archives.

More new Necron shots. Here's the new Lords/Gods/Whatever

Also, GW is posting a new Necron wallpaper each week for the next eight weeks. This week's is here. So, how do I know they are doing one a week for the next eight weeks, you ask? The truly curious would go ahead and edit the URL I just linked to, and maybe change the 'necrons1-1024.jpg' to say 'necrons2-1024.jpg' then to maybe 'necrons3-1024.jpg' etc etc until reaching the end of the series at number eight. Or maybe I just have a time machine. You make the call...

Necron night. Necron rumors at GW.

Mageknight & Marvel Superheroes... Lord of the Rings... Chainmail... and now Warmachine. It seems as though skirmish miniature wargames are the latest thing.

Necron Monolith Alert! Ummm, cool. Wonder if I can trade that Codex: Dark Eldar I just bought in for Codex: Necron...?

Man, has it really been 4 days since I updated this thing? Guess so...

I've been up to my eyeballs in the household, what with Zee being back east and me on constant kid patrol. I've managed to put together another couple of city tiles. They aren't quite finished yet, just need a bit of detail work. I tried to do a burned-out brownstone, but kinda missed the color a bit. It still looks ok, but not what I wanted. I think next time I'll try to get the brickwork finish on the outside. I also did a annihilated office building, with all the rooms laid out...and with all but the bottom couple of inches blown off. To complete the effect, I did a bunch of road segments too. /me wants to play Cityfight now.

Picked up Codex:Dark Eldar today, so I guess it is official: my next army will be of the Evil & Fragile Variety.

>whew< I am now officially 40k'd out. Two great games on Friday, followed by another great game Saturday, followed by the big multiplayer battle today at Zgames makes me ready to take a break... for a day or two, tops ;-)

Saturday's game vs Mike's Tyranids was yet another nail-biter. We played a take-and-hold, where I was the defender. Mike did a great job forcing me out of the objective, but I got pretty lucky with some key morale rolls (breaking and falling back when I needed to, making it when I needed to) and I ended up having enough firepower left to finish him off. John took pictures and wrote up a batrep which I need to post.

Today's megabattle at ZGames was fun. It was a 12 player (6 per side) rescue scenario, Space Marines (6 different chapters!) vs a ragtag collection of Eldar, Orcs, Tau and chaos-tainted Imperial Guard. We Marines found the objective on the first turn, but the Rhino that found it ended up immobilized (stinkin' difficult terrain rolls!). Since the token *couldn't* be passed off to another unit until the holding unit was destroyed, it just sat there while the enemies converged. We couldn't hold that flank, so a Wraithlord was able to come in and pop the rhino, swipe the token and fall back. My Imperial Fist guys did pretty well (away from the main token-action), shooting the railgun off a Hammerhead, killing a bunch of Guard in assault, sweeping into a bunch of Tau (and getting shot to Hell during) and eventually getting eaten by Genestealers. I ended up fighting 5 different armies in one battle: Tau, Imperial Guard, Eldar, Harlequins and Tyranids. Pretty cool!

I took my new WarpGate terrain piece over to ZGames and gave it to the store. We used it in the megabattle, and it looked good. Now I must make a replacement for my terrain collection.

Well, guess what? Index Astartes does have an article on my boys.

Quite the past couple of days. No blogging mostly because I've been run into the ground... Zina is visiting family for the next week, and I'm on long-term kid patrol. Regardless, I'm back on the blog.

John and I played two really great 2000 point 40K Sabotage games today, they were probably the two most enjoyable games I've ever played. In the first, I was the attacker. I struggled to get close to the objective, but finally managed to get my Terminators adjacent to the WarpGate. Two of the Terminators concentrated on planting the explosives, while the others defended them. The Eldar assault was vicious, but the Terminators held. The explosives were set. Just as the Terminators were preparing to destroy the WarpGate, it activated and reinforcements from the Craftworld warped in (i.e. the variable-length game ended on the roll of a 2).

The second time around, I was defending. I messed up on deployment a bit and allowed two units of Eldar (Howling Banshees and Blooded Guardians) to swoop in and begin planting explosives on the WarpGate. Fortunately, I got lucky on my reserves roll and subsequent shooting phase and took out both units -- Banshees via shooting, and Blooded Guardians in assault. The rest of the game was me advancing forces to hold off the Eldar, which I did. Stephen stopped by during the second game, maybe I'll blame his for distracting me ;-)

It is a bit ironic -- I think I should have won the first game and lost the second, but it ended up switched. I think I played a more solid game first time around. In the second game, I made a bunch of mistakes but didn't suffer too badly for them (such is the life of a Space Marine player, it seems. Mistakes are seldom punished severely)

We used my new WarpGate terrain piece as the objective, and it really looks cool. It's my best piece of terrain yet.

I'm falling asleep as I write this. Tomorrow I'll write more about Chrysos, Chainmail, etc. Must sleep now....

New Vindicator
New Whirlwind

I was on the fence about the new Rhino... until I saw the new Forgeworld models. Now, I am a believer ;-)

/me wants the new models...

I played John's Ulthwe Eldar in a 2000 point Patrol game Saturday. Man, did I get crushed. He's added a couple of Wave Serpents, and the additional mobility really made the difference for him... well, that and the fact that my HVY choices didn't arrive until the middle of the game... and that he blew up my Land Raider Crusader immediately... and that his stinkin' Rangers sniped the hell out of my Terminators... and... and... waaaaaah! ;-)

I'm working on a new terrain project too, something I've never done before. Something cool and unusual (in that I've never seen one in person, though you do see them periodically in White Dwarf [great pun, eh?! "periodically in White Dwarf" I kill me.] battle reports). So far, the project is looking exactly like I want it to. I've had to buy a few little bits and pieces to get the look I want, and had to exercise my creativity a bit more. I'll post some pix if I can talk Mike into bringing his digital camera this weekend -- should be done by then... Any guesses?

Blogger has been acting weird lately, thus the lack of postings. Thought I'd mention it in case anyone actually reads this stuff... Y'never know, it could happen...

Well now... I'm not sure how to say it.. I guess I should just come out and say it then, eh? Spit it out and all that? Ok, here it comes...

The new Necron plastics look goofy.

There. Happy?

More Necron rumors up at Portent. I think they are gonna be cool, though the "phase blades" that ignore armor completely (including invulnerable saves!) are going to be gross. And yes, I know the Callidus Assassin has one of those but they aren't a base unit in the army list y'know...

The Necron hype has started.

So which army can be the loudest, color wise? Orcs? Naaah, just green. Imperial Fist Space Marines? Close, those pretty little yellow dudes... Heh, we all know it's the Keeblers! Our Eldar friends ('specially the Harlequin variety) are the loudest little buggers in the 40K universe. Wanna see how colorful they can get? Check this out -- you can color a Guardian in about a billion different ways. Fun.

I've finished planning out my army for the 2000 Point Tourney at ZGames later this month. Voila!

2000 Pts - Imperial Fists Army

1 Force Commander (HQ) @ 105 Pts
Power Weapon (x1); Storm Bolter
Terminator Armour [25]

6 Terminator Assault Squad (Elites) @ 299 Pts
2 Lightning Claws (x3); Thunder Hm. & Storm Sh. (x1); Chain F. & Storm B.
(x1); Power F. & Storm B. (x1)
==>1 Sergeant @ [42] Pts
Power Weapon; Storm Bolter; #Terminator Armour [0]

1 Land Raider 'Crusader' (Heavy Support) @ 255 Pts
2 'Hurricane' Bolters; Linked Assault Cannon; Multi-Melta; #Extra Armour [0]

1 Dreadnought (Elites) @ 138 Pts
Front Armour: 12; Side Armour: 12; Rear Armour: 10; Dread. CC Weapon; Heavy Flamer; Twin Lascannon; Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 249 Pts
Bolter (x8); Flamer (x1)
==>1 Veteran Sergeant @ [50] Pts
Bolt Pistol (x1); Power Weapon (x1); Melta Bombs [5]
==>1 Rhino APC @ [58] Pts
Storm Bolter; Extra Armour [5]; Smoke Launchers [3]

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)
==>1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 171 Pts
Bolter (x7); Lascannon (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)
==>1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

4 Scout Squad (Troops) @ 80 Pts
Bolter (x3); Heavy Bolter (x1)
==>1 Sergeant @ [13] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

4 Scout Squad (Troops) @ 85 Pts
Sniper Rifle (x4)
==>1 Sergeant @ [13] Pts
Bolt Pistol & CCWep.

2 Bike Squad (Fast Attack) @ 171 Pts
Twin Bolter; Meltagun (x1); Plasma Gun (x1)
==>1 Attack Bike @ [50] Pts
Twin Bolter & 2 Bolt P.; Heavy Bolter
==>1 Sergeant @ [35] Pts
Twin Bolter; Bolt Pistol

1 Whirlwind Battery (Heavy Support) @ 75 Pts
Multirocket Launcher

5 Devastator Squad (Heavy Support) @ 200 Pts
Bolter (x1); Missile Launcher (x2); Plasma Cannon (x2)
==>1 Sergeant @ [15] Pts
Bolter

Models in Army: 62
Total Army Cost: 1999

I just need to pick up two new Terminator models (Storm Bolter & Powerfist, and Storm Bolter and Chainfist) and paint 'em up and I'll be ready to go. I'm hoping to try it out this weekend against John's Eldar force. It looks perfect as-is, so I'm sure there will be no need for tuning ;-)

Thinking of doing a blog of your own (like me!) but just intimidated to death by the whole template/layout thing? Just do what I did, and visit BlogSkins! So easy, so cool, and the price is right. I decided on the Chameleon skin. Isn't it grand? *You* get to choose the colors. Democracy is a powerful thing, those Athenians were visionairies.

I've been thinking more about how I'm going to do my home gaming table. I definitely want the 4'x6' play surface, and Home Depot has fiberboard sheets in 4'x8' for about twenty bucks (they are the same table-top boards they have at ZGames). I've also decided to forego the flocked sheet (about $50!!!), and will just use a sheet of green felt ($10). All that is left is some kind of support structure. I'll probably end up using folding sawhorses -- this thing needs to be as storeable as possible. Total bill will be about $50. Not too bad.

I stopped by Fred Meyer (Fisher's Landing) today, and was bummed to find out that they are dropping their whole wood & supplies section. They used to sell these great 12" square MDF tiles that I use for city terrain bases. No more. I better get over to the Chkalov store and stock up in case they drop them too. I need 20 more for a full Cityfight table, though I guess a full 4'x6' would be a bit big for Cityfight (??)

On the pure 40K side, I spent some time working on 2000 point army lists for the upcoming ZGames tourney. Gotta buy more Terminators :-) I'm sooooo looking forward to my LRC delivering a good sized Terminator Assault Squad into someone's delicate underbelly. Mmmmmmmmmm, Tactical Dreadnought Armor.

In the vein of yesterday's "maybe someone could use these tiny RC cars to drive a Rhino around the game table", how about a working Gauss Gun for our Necron friends? Now, before you get all excited about molecular-disruption death-rays I should tell you that this link tells you how to build a small, working REAL WORLD Gauss Gun rather than GW's rather warped view of one. Anyways, I can see building some version of this thing that is small enough to mount on a vehicle... Line up on that squad of Devastators and rain down ball-bearing death from afar. At least you'd know for sure if you actually had line of fire...

I was going to provide a link to a funny Larry Leadhead comic, but unfortunately I ran into two problems: 1) The older and funnier strips are no longer on the archive page, and 2) the site is all done with frames, making any sort of deep-linking impossible. Sucks. Anyways, the strip is usually at least a bit funny so check it out...

Hiho. I never intended for this blog to become a genero-vanity-publishing site wherein I'd blather on about this-and-that, but I'm afraid this is just too tempting. The smallest RC car in the world, evidently becoming quite the fad in Japan (like, what hasn't been a fad in Japan?). Pretty cool, I wonder if the little motor has enough torque to haul around a Rhino? Just build a rhino chassis around the little car... cool! Driving a Rhino around the tabletop by RC! Tank shocking would be awesome! Just bowl right on through the mass of enemy troops! Wheeeeeee!