All slow on the painting front.

It has happened yet again.
I find myself trying to find the will to paint my old school Dark Eldar army.

I have been slowly stripping them for the better part of a month, without any real progress due to a lack of interest and available time.
But that is all going to change!
Cancon is but seven months away and this year I am hoping to place in the top ten, which will beat this years result of 15th place overall.

I intend to have a well presented army, including display board and custom objective markers.
To this end I have decided to set the following targets.

July
Strip, clean and convert the army.

August
Paint Vehicles

September
Paint Infantry

October
Paint Characters

November
Base army and make objective markers

December
Make display board.

January
Fine tune my list and pain any addition units I may need due to FAQ's or meta changes.

So that is the plan as it stands.

I have no doubt that this order will change, as it always does. But now I have a plan and a goal.

Cheers Lupus.

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.

The Flame Wolves are going to Cancon 2018

Well it has happened, my lovely wife has agreed to send me away for the weekend in January to play with my lead and plastic marines at that Gaming paradise of Cancon.

An fine gent that I played last time at Cancon, I have forgotten his name but the good memories of that game remain.

The above picture gives an indication of how many gamer's of different ilk go to this event. So what does this decision mean for me?

Well honestly, this means that my next five months of free time will be used either playing 40 K or painting my 40 K army. And by painting, I mean to a standard that I shall not be ashamed to play with it.

This is not a bad thing, as all the armies that I have painted in the past have all been to play in a tournament. I need this push, as I have been struggling to put brush to miniature for some time now.

With this in mind, I will be setting myself monthly painting targets, and will need to ensure I complete them in order to have my force battle ready.

But painting is not the only requirement that I will need to ensure I complete. I will need to enter some events prior to Jan next year to ensure that my gaming standards and skills are up to snuff.

To add another dimension to it, all of this must be accomplished on a Uni students budget both in Time and Money.

Regardless of my intentions however, I know I will be doing more hobby in December whilst on Uni holidays, then I will in any of the months preceding it.

Cheers
Firelupus

Cancon the final wash up.

With all the battle reports up, such as they are, i decided to look at my army composition and see how i felt my Elves as a whole faired.
So how did i do?
4 wins and 4 loses.
73 battle points and placed equal 100th position out of 120 entrants.
If my army was completely painted I would have finished equal 66th position, so a lot can be said for attending a tournament with a fully painted and based army.

How did i find that my list performed, well here are my thoughts on the matter.

Lv4 Life weaver- Corinath

• Lore of life is worth the comp hit you take in swedish comp. Whilst it did not always perform as i would have expected , i found that it gave my opponents something to think about in every magic phase , be it flesh to stone, dwellers below or even shield of thorns.
• The magic item load out of my general could have been better

BSB

• This guy is a must have, the re-rolls to ld tests was worth it, factor in the hail of doom arrow and i found him to be effective, although i am not completely happy with his loadout i will continue to tinker

Branch wraith

• To be honest, i think i will play without her for a while, the additional channel and her perfomance in game seven were handy, but not really worth the investment.
• perhaps in a tree list she would be amazing with a few of her sisters to help out. I also feel that I defaulted to using her defensively on spell choice when i could be better served otherwise.
• I feel that her points in another offensive unit would have been of better use.

Lv1 Beast singer

• This girl had the theory behind her, but i found the lore of beasts not as good for this army as i expected it to be , in truth i had not play tested a lv1, but I did playtest a level 2.
• If i keep a second spell caster in my list i will probably change the lore to shadow/ metals or heavens.
• The fireball ring was okay, but i found it not as good with beasts as say metal or light would have been.

Shadow dancer

• He worked well, but I think his loadout needs to be changed to a potion of strength, as it would add high strength attacks to him.

Glade riders

• Excellent, will continue to find a place for them, maybe upgrade their arrows to something hagbane maybe?

Glade guard

• Who can argue with trueflight arrows they bring the pain and i don't mind taking the comp hit for them.

Wild wood rangers

• 28 may be about three too many, may consider reducing them to 25, but will add the banner of swiftness in the future to lend more speed to the unit as the flaming banner was wasted this time around.

Wild riders

• 140 points of pure destruction, if they are not shot to death first, an awesome unit.

Treeman

• Love this guy, always performs his roll well, and as a stubborn anvil does as advertised.

Giant eagles

• wish I could have three units, may add some Warhawk riders or an Eagle noble.

Way watchers.

• My unit of 6 is sometimes overlooked, but always performed their roll well.

Potential changes

• My army was very static with usually the Wildwood rangers acting as late game counter attack unit.
• As predicted i struggle with high toughness high armour save units eg the stank from game three, and the Doomwheel in Game 8. 
• I felt that I lacked another fast unit that could bring the pain, so i will be looking at a redesign, maybe a wardancer unit as well for some more fun.

Anyway that is how my army went , for myself i had a blast, but i think next time i will fly up, the drive up from Victoria was okay as we were fresh, but the drive back was a drag as we were not fresh at all.

Cheers

Lupus.

Cancon Day 3 , game 8- There were Rats , rats lots of bloody rats, on the board.

Game 8- Robert Hughs aka Rojo (Wargamerau)
Last game of the tournament and Rojo and his amazing hair was looking a little worse for wear, an excellent opponent and his figure that he painted in pastels looked great, the rest of his amazing army was borrowed. but it as well look good, i cannot wait to see his finished ratmen next time we meet.

Skaven
The Mission was Battle Line
Last game of a three day tournament and with only 30 minutes of lunch we were on the tail end of a great event, and i am glad to have played Rojo and great way to end a great event.

His List was 16.6 counting as 16 swedish
Lord Skrolk

Plague Priest
Lv2, Flail, Ironcurse icon, Obsidian Lodestone

Warlock Engineer
Lv1, Warp energy condensor, doom rocket

Warlock Engineer
Lv2, dispel scroll, warstone tokens

34 clanrats
full command, shields, poisoned wind mortar

20 slaves
muso and spears

34 stormvermin
full command , razor standard, poisoned wind mortar

8 gutter runners
slings

8 gutter runners
handweapons and snares

8 poisoned wind globadiers

34 plague monks
full command, plague banner

Doom wheel

Plagueclaw catapult.

Rojo and his magic hair ready to go.

The skaven at deployment on the right flank.

The doom wheel that refused to die.

Skaven center.

My glade riders appear behind the plague monks and have their eye on the catapult.

My center depleted by the plague claw stand ready to repel the rats.

Eagles flanking.

The lovely looking plague claw catapult, that cause a lot of elven death.

End of turn 6, fleeing clanrats behind the tower.

Depleted slaves in front of the tower.

The doom wheel that i just could not kill, with one wound left.

His spells- Plague and more Plague, I cannot remember them at all.

My spells

Lifeweaver:- Awakening the wood, throne of vines, shield of thorns and Dwellers below

Beastsinger:- Wildform

Branchwraith:- Earthblood

Highlights

• I was able to reduce the horde of storm vermin with missiles and magic and finally in CC with my Wild wood rangers.
• My treeman and a unit of wild riders ground  the plague monks off the table
• My glade riders ambushed on and took care of his plague catapult 
• At the end of the game only the doom wheel and slaves were left.

Result 14-6 Win to me.

This was a great way to end the event, and i look forward to meeting these excellent people hopefully again next year.

Cheers Lupus.

Cancon Day 3 Game 7 The Lizards come.

So onto the first game of the day three.

Game 7- Josh Byrne
Lizardmen

The Mission was Battle for the Pass
Josh is a 40k player who's mates and he decided to try thier hand at fantasy a couple of months ago, dont let that fool you though he had a firm grasp of the rules and is an excellent general, and to be honest his lizardmen were painted really nicely.

Josh fielded this army.

Slann
Lv4 - High Magic, Harmonic Convergence, Focus of Mystery, Channeling Staff, BSB, Swiftness

Scar Vet Halberd, Glittering Scales
Scar Vet Halberd, Light Armour, Dragonhelm, Ironcurse Icon

4 units of 12 Skink Skirmishers
Javelins & Sheilds

2 units of 30Saurus Warriors
Full Command

34 Temple Guard
Full command

Stegadon
Sharpend Horns

Josh ready to deploy.

My Wood Elves deployed and ready to go.

The Saurus behind the skink screens at deployment.

Turn 2 the Lizards continue to advance.

Turn 2, my great eagle about to die.

Josh looking intently at his skinks.

Just before the battle lines meet, in turn 4.

His spells- All of the high magic ones i believe.

My spells

Lifeweaver:- Awakening the wood, flesh to stone, throne of vines and Dwellers below

Beastsinger:- Wildform

Branchwraith:- Earthblood

Highlights

• Josh deployed all his characters into the temple guard.
• This game was a bloody affair , and the lizards did very very well, but for one wound on a steg my wild wood rangers would have survived the combat and threatened his saurus block, but the lost combat broke and ran.
• I cleaned up his skink screen effectively, thank you true flight arrows.
• I forgot to dispel fiery convocation in my turns which accounted for the death of my singer and her glade guard body guard
• Josh rolled total power every time it mattered, which reduced his slann to level zero mage level however by turn 4.
• Dwellers accounted for the slann mage and a goodly number of temple guard.
• In the last turn i decided to attempt to turn a draw to a win, but it backfire and became a loss instead.

Result  12- 8 against me , so another loss.

Cancon Day 2 game 6

This was the last game on day 2 and i was beginning to feel it a bit, enter my second mirror match of the event.

Game 6- Alex Rynel

Wood elves Swedish 15.3

The Mission was Battle Line

His list is as follows.

Spellweaver (310pts)

dispell scrowl, Elven Steed, lore heavens, Level 4 talisman of preservation 

Glade Captain (152pts )

BSB, bow of loren, hail of doom arrow, shield

Shadowdancer (120pts)

potion of strength

  

10x Glade Guard (160pts)

hagbane tips, musician 

10x Glade Guard (160pts)

10x hagbane tips,musician

20x Eternal Guard (285pts)

shields, full command, standard of dicipline

10x Deepwood scouts (160pts)

hagbane tips 

7x Sisters of the Thorn (197pts)

Standard bearer/w gleaming pennant

6x Wild Riders (168pts)

shields

6x Wild Riders (168pts)

shields

3x warhawk riders (135pts)

Treeman (225pts)

8x waywatchers ( 160pts)

His spells- Cannot remember  any except his chain lightning was very effective.
My spells
Lifeweaver:- flesh to stone, throne of vines, shield of thorns and Dwellers below
Beastsinger:- Wildform

Branchwraith:- Earthblood

Alex looking happy at the start of the game.

Alex castled up on the right flank

First turn the castle sorties out to attack my woodies.

All my dice and a better picture of the summer elves.

Alex's scouts and Treeman holding his left flank, with dead sisters in the background.

Finally a picture of my army.

It has been nearly two months since this game , but these are the highlights.

• Gleaming pennant saved the sisters and the heavens weaver from a (boxcars)double 6  12 on a panic check , and instead turned it into a (snake eyes) double one on turn 3, i think that little 5 pt item is going to become a staple of my list as i have seen it prove its worth twice now at this tournament for my opponents.
• Sisters of the thorn proved hard to kill, but i got them in the end turn 5 or 6.

• It was basically a game of move and counter move with shooting and magic to the fore, both of our infantry blocks saw no real action during the game.

Final battle points

7-13 , and another loss to me.

Cheers

Lupus.

Cancon Day 2 and Game 5 - A gent was played 'best sports was gained'

Comming into game five after the drubbing Viv had given me I was in good spirits after picking up some bargains during my lunch break.

Game 5- Karl Anderson
Orcs and Goblins
The Mission was Blood and Glory,
With a fortitude of five I expected to give up the bonus points very quickly, but my plan was to focus on breaking the Orc army as well to mitigate some of the bonus victory points.

Karl's army Swedish comp  15

Orc great shaman
lv3 - earthing rod, ruby ring and talisman of presevation

Orc Shaman
lv1- feedback scroll

NG Bigboss bsb
Great weapon , talisman of endurance

NG Bigboss
Great weapon, obsdidan lodestone

NG Bigboss
great weapon, dragonbane gem

18 savage orc big uns
with additional handweapons full command

 40 NG
shields, spears, full command, netters and 2 fanatics

2 units of 5 goblin wolf boyzs
shields spears and muso

18 black orcs
shields full command, standard of discipline

2 goblin wolf chariots

2 orc chariots

2 units of 2 snotlings

Goblin rock lobber

2 snotling pump wagons

2 doom divers

2 mangler squigs


His spells- i cannot remember but he did not roll foot of gork, this i remember quite clearly.
My spells
Lifeweaver:- flesh to stone, throne of vines and Dwellers below
Beastsinger:- Wildform
Branchwraith:- Earthblood

We both deployed deep and after a turn or two we decided to make a game of it, as both of us were inclined to sit back and shoot and magic the other, i got lucky that Karl did not roll up foot of gork, but this gent was able to provide a great game and it is no wonder that he won best sports for the event.

Karl and his army deployed and ready to go.

My center and left flank after turn 1.

My right flank after Turn 1.

After turn 1, the game became so much fun that i clear forgot to take regular photo's, in the end  neither of us broke during the game and I was able to use dwellers and  bow shot  to destroy the savage orcs off the board.

One of the highlights was my glade riders having a brain fart came on behind the night goblins, and bam- fanatics made short work of them.

Mangler squigs mangled and in the end I won this game  12-8, but on an enjoyment scale this was one of the best overall.


Cheers
Lupus