Trying new things

Hello all,
Yesterday I attended a tournament at my LGS that was a one day event of three games of 1666 pts that was limited to one special detachment, and we played maelstrom missions.
This special detachment was this.

Melton Meltdown Detachment

Compulsory:
1 HQ.
3 Troops.
1 Elites.
1 Fast Attack or 1 Heavy Support.

Optional:
1 HQ.
2 Troops.
3 Elites.
2 Fast Attack.
2 Heavy Support.
1 Fortification.
1 Flyers.
Dedicated transports as normal.

Restrictions:
All units must be from the same Faction.
Command Benefits: +1 Command Point.

After playing nothing but 2000 points and with these restrictions, I found it hard but challenging to get my head around what to take.

In the end I tried this army out.

IL-Kaithe the only true Craftworld worth taking.

Craftworld Tactic Alaitoc
Farseer- guide, doom

6x warlock conclave- quicken / restrain, protect / jinx 

3 x 5 rangers

20 guardian defenders with 2 shuriken cannon teams

5 x wraithguard with wraith cannon

2 x 6 reapers with exarch having a tempest launcher

2 x wave serpents with shuriken cannons, spirit stones and vectored engines

1 falcon with bright lance, shuriken cannon and pulse laser.

Here are some of my thoughts on why I used these units. First I wanted to add some -3 to -4 rend firepower to my list, my reapers are awesome, but sometimes their -2 rend is not enough to punch through the enemy armour.

So with this in mind, I added a falcon to my list to try out the pulsar and a bright lance. I further added a unit of wraithguard with wraith cannon again to add some punch to my army.

I further felt I needed two rune of battle powers for my army, so I added in the warlock conclave, and expecting them to take some fire I made them 6 strong.

In attendance on the day was the following armies. My Eldar and one of each of the following Deamons, Ad Mech, Dark Angels, Custodes, Death Watch, Iron Hands, Tau,  Black Templar and one withdraw for reasons.(would have been an Imperial guard amy)

With these thoughts on army design and against this diverse lot of armieshow did the list perform?

Round One.

I had a bye round one due to Imperial Guard player needing to withdraw. This happens at any tournament when the real life concerns of players need to take precedent. This gave me plenty of time to watch games and look at items I wanted to purchase in the future.

Round Two.

My opponent failed to roll first turn and then seized against me. Sigh my going second continues.
I played against a Dark Angels Azrael plasma castle list. It is not often that I am outgunned but this time I was, Azrael's 4++ bubble was enough to blunt my firepower.. I lost this game 15 to 13 vp. The game ended with only the Farseer and one reaper being left alive.

Round Three

Going into the final round and I played the Iron hands all comers list.
Again I went second after failing to seize. This was a fairly close game until turn three when I did some damage with my wraithguard that he could not come back from.


List reflection.

So how did my list go?

Well I was right to include the bright lance, I was wrong to include the falcon perhaps, I may revisit it at a later date, but for now i found it O.k. The warlock conclave was a big points sink 180 points for two powers. I would have been better to run just a spirit seer and spend the 135 points on more firepower for the list.

Likewise the falcon was lacking offensive power for its points. The bright lance was great as was the pulse laser, but there is bound to be better ways to include them. At this stage I am not sure what though.

With these two singular thoughts I have found my list to include  350 points of fat. I will look in the future to streamlining this.

I already have idea's on where to take this list and I will wait for the next LGS 1666 point event to try them out.

Stay tuned.

Cheers
Firelupus

Cancon is over for another year.

The Australian long weekend has come and gone, and with it Cancon's 40th anniversary. I have attended Cancon before, but this is my first time playing 40 there.

My son is now old enough to allow for my attendance at this great three day event, as such on the Thursday before Australia day my mates and I travelled up to Canberra from Victoria. Some of us used cars others aeroplanes but we all arrived safe and sound.

This year I competed in the 40K ITC Championships with some mates from my local gaming group, The Death Touch Dojo. This was the first time that the team year made the trip. It was comprised of  Leigh, Matthew, Tim and I, with a few others unable to attend due to family commitments. (Maybe next year we will have a stronger presence)

We started our adventure that is the three day, eight game 40K ITC Championships.

*Disclaimer*- All my battles were so hard fought that I neglected to get any photos after game 1. As such I will be using stock images, for the most part.

Over the course of the weekend there were highs, lows and of course a lot of laughs, great games and good conversation.

The list I set off with to vanquish my opponents with is the Valiant warhost of Bahaleth from Craftworld IL-Kaithe.

So here it is.

Brigade Detachment:  Craftworld Trait – Alaitoc 

-HQ-

Bahaleth - Autarch with Swooping Hawk Wings 

Shuriken pistol, banshee mask, power sword, force Shield 

Shimmerplume of Achillrial  Puritanical Leader

Farseer

Singing spear,shuriken pistol

Farseer 

Witch Blade, shuriken pistol, Shiftshroud of Alanssair 

Warlock

Shuriken pistol, witchblade

  

-TROOPS-

3 units of 5 Rangers

ranger long rifle and shuriken pistol

10 Dire Avengers including exarch

9 x shuriken catapults, plasma grenades, shimmer shield, power glaive.

2 units of 5 Dire Avengers including exarch

shuriken catapults, plasma grenades 

-ELITE-

3 units of 5 Striking Scorpions including exarch

Mandiblasters, shuriken pistol, plasma grenades, Scorpion chainsword, Biting Blade

-FAST ATTACK-

5 Warp Spiders including exarch

Death spinner, twin deathspinner and powerblades

2 units of 5 Swooping Hawks including exarch

Lasblasters and Hawk talon

-HEAVY SUPPORT-

2 units of 10 Dark Reapers including exarch 

Reaper launcher 

Warwalker Squadron 

1 x Warwalker with 2 x Starcannons 

Supreme Command Detachment  Craftworld Trait – Alaitoc 

-HQ-

3 Spirit Seers

shuriken pistol and witchstaff

My Army on Tea tray ready for battle.

Day Zero

We arrived in Canberra on Thursday afternoon, and decided to have a quick look at Epic during setup.

In the Fitzroy before tables had terrain.

Main buildings of Cancon

A pretty table with this mountain on it.

Day One

Captain bunny dropped me off at the Fitzroy pavilion and proceeded on to the board games and vendor stalls for a day of mad spending. ( Captain Bunny earned his title due to his wife booking a manual hire car, and he had not driven a manual in a very long time)

Captains face when he saw the car was a manual.

Game 1, Sisters of Battle against Eleanor 

I lost the roll for initiative and was given second.
This was a tough first game, but what a way to start.
Eleanor was a canny general and knew her army well. She had played ITC in America and really knows the system in depth, I hope to play against her next year.
Eleanor used her Celestine to maximum advantage and I only managed to kill the Gemina.
These are the only pictures that I took of any of my games.

After turn 1.

My counterattack begins.

During deployment, to deny my deep strikers.

We only managed to get three turns completed before we ran out of time.
I won this game 14/13

Game 2, Alaitoc mirror match against Mitchel

I lost the roll for initiative and was given second.
Mitchel also was running a brigade of Eldar and we both had a lot of the same units and tricks in our army.

Mitchel was just returning to 40K since early 6th ed so he was getting used to the new rules etc. We had a fun game.

I won this game 17/7

Game Three. Brett and his Knights.

I lost the roll for initiative and was given second.

During practise for the event, I knew that my list struggled with anymore than two knights, I had a practise game versus four knights and got trounced.
So going into this game against Magnus and three chaos knights I knew that I was behind the eight ball.
I lost the roll for initiative and was given second. I started strong and killed a knight first turn and Magnus by turn three, but by then that damage was done.

My army had no teeth left to it.
I lost this game 31/18.

It is worth mentioning that Rick was an awesome player and he had some laughs. The game ended with his two remaining knights sitting on objectives and my last unit which were scorpions hiding in a ruins basement.

So at the end of Day One I had won two games and lost my third. I was ranked 57th out of 128.

Day Two

Day two started started with another early start, although memo to self ensure the place I stay next year has aircon. By day two Captain Bunny had got the feel for the rental and he was back to just being a normal driver.

Game Four, Josh and his Sisters of Battle

Again I went second, which seemed to be the theme for the weekend with all my games I went second.
This again was a very close game and Josh was a challenging opponent. I cannot remember exactly what was sin his army except it was very similar to my first game. Celestine, Exorcists and lots of infantry.

I  won  this game 15/14.

Game Five. Jonny, Big bobby G and his Ultramarines

This game was a close battle, My reapers started working on killing his tanks and dread, whilst my infantry keept working on his marines. Eventually I destroyed his armour, Jonny was a tenacious opponent and really made me work for the win.

I won this game 20/18

Game 6. Jack and his Ynarri 

So final game of Day two and I was paired with a lad called Jack.
He was running the Yncarne with a lot of Harlequin support. As he was running an assault army, I castled up in a corner and had him run to me , his army was very very quick, it was a bloodbath on both sides, but I managed to Table him.

I won 29 /19.

At the end of day two with 5 wins and 1 loss I was ranked 11th and feeling good.

Day Three

Day three started with my army being paired against Josh and his Tau army.

Game Seven Josh and Tau

Josh is a seasoned general and knew exactly how to use his army. This was an enjoyable game, and Josh showed his mettle when at one point I asked for some time to think, like a gent he gave me a moment and went and had a smoke, so I could plan out how to deal with his suits and shield drones. 

I managed to reduce his drones from 38 to 15 by games end, I would love to play Josh and this list again, as it was very challenging and he was a gent to play against.

The final score was I lost this game 33/8.

So the final game of Day three and of Cancon, saw my army matched against a no infantry Deathguard army of Will.

Game Eight Will, Morty and a lot of disgusting resilience.

A no infantry death guard list.

So with this final game started, Will and I had an out and out slugging match with his army and mine.

Highlights of this game was Morty in my lines in turn 1, and killing some units, by troops fell back in good order and proceeded to shoot Morty down. We then engaged in a ranged fire battle with some sneaky scorpions keeping his tanks engaged in combat and not shooting for a few turns.
The highlights for me was when Will used a stratagem to explode a plague drone in my lines and inflict the final wounds on three units. Making 6 disgusting resilience rolls for a plague burst crawler, needing only to fail three for it be destroyed and instead he rolled six 6's. I had to shake his hand for that.

But in the end I reduced his army down to just one crawler remaining before we ran out of time.

My final victory was 27 / 20

Results

With this last battle completed my final placing was 15th out of 128th, this was my best placing at a major event to date.
My Dojo teammates consisting of Leigh, Tim and Matt finished 2nd, 12th  and 78th.

As a result our team, The Death Touch Dojo secured the Best Team Award for the event.
This was an awesome result. I wish I had been there to see it, but I had a plane to catch. Which was delayed by an hour, so I could have stayed. Sigh.

The Lads grabbing the first place for the Team award. I however was at the airport waiting on a delayed flight. Sigh.

I highly recommend attending Cancon for a weekend of gaming, regardless of the games system you play. It is a great weekend, and I will be going again.

A big shout out to the TO's for the event, they did an amazing job, before, after and during and would and will attend their events again in the future.

Thanks for reading, my usual ramble.
Lupus.

Adding some punch with Land style.

Hello all,

After all the work over the last couple of weeks getting my marines ready to paint. I decided my army could do with some punch. This was actually fairly easy to decide, whilst putting together my marines, I found a kit that I forgot that I had.

Enter the Landraider.
It is missing some parts, probably used for other projects, notably the engine panel and front ramp. The engine panel is not a major deal as the doors will be closed, but I will need to make a custom door for the front, and I will be giving my green stuff skills a shot with this  and see what happens.

Missing the Internal engine panel, and the front assault ramp pictured..

The above photo is from James Wappel's awesome blog Here, a talented painter, and one that I actively follow, I highly recommend that if you haven't yet, check out his Blog, you will not be sorry that you did.

So after that plug, here is the current state of my Land Raider.

Side panels assembled

Sections cleaned and ready for assembly.

I have all the components to make all three variants and at this stage i will not be gluing them in, I am awaiting an order of magnets, so that I can do all three.


Cheers
Lupus

Becoming battle worthy

Over the last two weeks, I have concentrated my hobby time and efforts in getting my army of wolves battle ready, or in my case paint ready.

This meant assembling my marines, some models that I have had since 2nd edition days.

So here is what I have been doing with my hobby time.

Devastator Sarg, 2nd ed figure. Empire banner topper as Cherub.

Dreadnought with forgeworld assault cannon, and custom heavy flamer.

Close up of my heavy flamer

Close up of assault cannon

Kitbashed Chaplain

5 Bolter marines

6 bolter marines, 2nd ed metal and plastic hybrids

2 sargeants with combi weapons and 1 bolter marine

Dev sergeant again 2nd ed. And cherub.

4 missile launcher devs

So there we go. Nothing really special, but the bones of my army is now ready to base coat.

Cheers Lupus.

Another two games under my belt, and another two losses.

I had an opportunity today to play another couple of 1500 point games today, this time against Leigh.

 I did enjoy today's two games, they were very good games, with laughs and luck on both sides.

My list I fielded for both games was as follows

Battalion of Dorn's Wolves

HQ
Brother Captain Firelupus
Master crafted boltgun, power sword

Librarian
Force axe bolt pistol

Elite
Apothecary

Company Champion

Dreadnought, 2 x twin linked auto-cannons.

9 Vanguard Veterans with jump packs
Sergeant- Thunder hammer storm shield
2 vets- twin lightning claws
3 vets - chain swords and bolt pistols
1 vet - storm shield and plasma pistol
1 vet - power sword and storm shield
1 vet power axe and storm shield.

5 Stern guard
with special issue boltguns.

Troops
9 scouts
sergeant- chain sword boltpistol
4 scouts - combat blade and bolt pistol
4 scouts- shotgun

5 Scouts
sergeant- chain sword boltpistol
3 scouts - boltgun and bolt pistol
1 scout - Heavy Bolter

5 Tactical Marines
sergeant- chain sword boltpistol
3 marines - boltgun and bolt pistol
1 marine - Heavy Bolter

Fast Attack
5 assault marines with jump packs
sergeant- power sword boltpistol
3 marines - chainsword and bolt pistol
1 marine - flamer.

Heavy Support
Disco Predator
Twin lascannon and two lascannons.

5 Devastator marines
sergeant- chain sword bolter
4 marines - missile launchers
1 cherub. - nil

Game 1. Questor Traitoris
Mission : Eternal War Secure and Control.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
Detachments: Super heavy detachment
List: 3 Renegade knights with a mixture of weapons.

Three of these bad bad boys.

The game was quick, I learned a lot in this game and I even managed to almost destroy one of these fellas in close combat with my Vanguard Veterans.

Game 2. Typhus and his Death Guard

Mission : Eternal War Secure and Control.
Deployment: Dawn of War.
Detachments: Battalion and Super heavy auxiliary detachment
List:
Typhus

The man, the myth, the host of the destroyer hive.

Plague caster
7 plague marines with 2 blight launchers
20 pox walkers
20 pox walkers
2 Foetid Bloat drones
1 Renegade knight

In this game , my vanguard veterans forgot to bring the batteries for their power weapons, with not scoring a single wound, and only 3 attacks actually hitting the death guard squad in close combat.

I very nearly took down the Renegade Knight and these two games both showed gaps in my list.
My rifleman dread, disco predator and devastators all scored multiple hits on the Knight, but was unable to bring it down, before it did what it does and smeared the units.

List Improvements

No, I am not going to run Ultramarines chapter, but will instead start putting together my centurions to bring their firepower to the table.

I am going to retire the members of the 8th and 10th company's from my list for a while, instead I will replace them with bikers and tactical squads from the 6th company instead and see how the list develops. I have not played enough games , against enough opponents to make any definite decisions about anything.
What I do know is I need more manoeuvre elements to my army, it is too static for my liking.

Anyway that is enough rambling from me.
Cheers
Firelupus

Another outing, another learning experience.

Good news, I have another game under my belt for 40K, this time with 75 power worth of Dorn's Wolves.
The list I used was a Battalion Detachment

HQ
Librarian
Power axe, combi-plasma

Tech marine
power axe, plasma pistol.

Elite
Dreadnought
2 x twin autocannons

Dreadnought
2 x twin autocannons

Apothecary

2 honour guard
Relic blades

Troops
10 Scouts
sarg- plasma pistol, pistol
4 with shotguns
5 with combat blades and bolt pistols.

5 tactical marines
sarg- combi plasma, power sword
3 with bolters
1 with heavy bolter

5 tactical marines
sarg- combi plasma, power sword
3 with bolters
1 with missile launchers

Fast Attack
5 Assault marines with jump packs
Sarg- plasma pistol, power sword, combat shield
3 with chainswords, bolt pistols
1 with flamer

Heavy Support
5 Devastator marines
Sarg - combi plasma and cherub
4 with missile launchers

Stalker
2 x Icarus autocannons, hunterkiller missile, storm bolter

Whirlwind
Castellan launcher, hunterkiller missile, storm bolter

So in this list, I was trying to go against the conventional wisdom, that you cannot out shoot the Tau. But with these types of lessons, I like to learn them myself. In a game of Empire V(28mm Napoleonic wars), I once charged a battalion of 16 Prussian conscripts into the teeth of a battery of six French 12 pounders, to see why it was bad. Here is a hint it was bad.

Marks List.
HQ
Shadow sun with drones
Ethereal with drones
Fireblade with drones

Elite
6 stealth team suits with drones and advanced targeting system
6 stealth team suits with drones and advanced targeting system
1 Ghostkeel with fusion collider , multitracker, shield generator

Troops
12 man strike team with mp turret drone
12 man strike team with mp turret drone
12 man strike team with mp turret drone

Fast Attack
5 path finders
3 with rail rifles
2 with markerlight, pulse carbine

5 path finders

3 with rail rifles
2 with markerlight, pulse carbine

Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Set Up: Spearhead Assault

Mark stole the Initiative and proceeded to slaughter my scout squad that was set up for a first turn charge against a strike team and a fire blade that was close to it.
I downed the ghost keel in my first turn, mainly in part due to Smite inflicting 5 mortal wounds.

In the end I called it on turn five with my techmarine, stalker and whirlwind was all that was left.

Victory points
Mark- 8vp (3 objectives, linebreaker and first blood)
Me- 0 vp

What have I learned.

1. Do not forget to fire my pistols when the enemy is one inch away.
2. Smite is a nice power, mortal wounds are good, when they work.
3. Against a fire power army like the Tau, 5 man marine squads do not last long.
4. Tau drones purchased with a character, after deployment count as separate units, which can be targeted and charged separately.
5. You cannot out shoot the TAU.
6. The Tech marine healed my dreads and tank well this game, but in a game with lots of movement, then perhaps i would mount him on a bike.
7. For 2 power honour guard are cheap, but by themselves they do not last long at all.
8. Remember what equipment your models have.
9. 75 power is fun, but a tad to large for a quick game during the night for me at the moment.

Having established that marines cannot out shoot the Tau, it is time to start putting more speed and assault elements into my lists. That is enough of a ramble for now, time to start working on a new 50 power list.

First Game of 8th Ed 40K for Dorn's Wolves

Excellent news June 17th has come and gone,  I got my little hands on the new rules and played my first game of the new edition against Mark.

Mark currently runs Tau, but is starting a Primaris marine army. The game we played was a quick one at 50 power.

The game took about two hours to play, with learning the new rules, and trying to unlearn the seventh ed rules, regardless of the score it was a fun game, with a lot of laughs on both sides.
, we played a No Mercy mission with a Dawn of war deployment.

My List was
Captain with relic blade.
Apothecary
Dreadnought, with twin lascannons and dreadnought weapon.
10 scouts, sergeant with combi plasma, 3 bolters, 1 missile launcher, 2 shotguns, 3 with combat blades.
5 sniper scouts, sniper rifle camo cloaks.
5 assault marines jump packs- sergeant with power fist, 1 flamer, the rest with standard load out.
1 disco predator, twin linked lascannon, 2 lascannons.
landspeeder storm. with multi melta.

Marks list was

ethereal
commander with 3 missile pods'
3 crisis suits with plasma rifle and missile pods +  2 drones
6 stealth team with 2 drones - as
5 pathfinders
2 units 12 man strike team with plasma rifles.with 2 drones which one is the heavy drone.


The battle lasted for 7 turns with mark having first turn, the game lasted for two hours, with learning the rules, and trying to unlearn the rules.

By the end of the game I had, my Captain with one wound left, and sniper scout sergeant. the captain would have died earlier in the battle if not for the Apothecary healing him up.

I had killed a unit of pathfinders, 1 unit of crisis suits and his commander for a total of 4 vp, with the commander dying in close combat on turn 7.

Mark killed my apothecary, disco pred, dreadnought, assault squad, scout squad, land speeder storm and first blood for a total of 8 vp.

Marks stealth team was his man of the match, was in my face, forcing me to try to destroy it, and stopped the death of his commander on turn one, as they were a closer target. The -1 to hit from camouflage field saved them more then a few times, with out this they would have been dead at least twice over.

So Mark won 8 to 4 on points, and now has a 3-0 winning streak against me.

I can honestly say , I really like the new edition, it is streamlined, play's well and is fun.


Looking forward to the new edition and a rematch with Mark on Thursday night.
Cheers
Lupus.