Write a List or Build an Army?

So I spend a fair amount of time (probably too much!) on some of the internet forums out there checking out other people’s army lists, and occasionally submitting my own. I make suggestions, I tweak a few things here and there, but overall do I really help anyone win games? Do I help them have more fun? Do I make them better players? I don’t really know, but in truth I doubt it. I say this because I don’t really feel that any of the advice I have received in the past has really helped me all that much. I am not saying that none of it has, but if I had to put a percentage to it I would guess it would be less than 10% of the advice I have ever received on the ‘army list’ posts have ever truly helped me. Even in those instances it didn’t really make me a better player though. Usually it just drew my attention to a unit or a piece of wargear that I had previously overlooked. I still needed to figure out if that fit into my army and if so, how?

So what’s my point? Where am I going with this? What does it all mean? Well to answer that let me tell you a bit about how I started out in 40k…

Battle Report: 2700pts vs. Orks. part V

Ok, sorry about the delay but here it is, the final installment of the 2700pts Eldar vs. Orks battle report. Enjoy!

Crimson Fists you say?

So I am having a battle tomorrow against Marks Orks. To throw in a different twist though, I will be bustin' out the ol' Crimson Fists this time. I haven't played these guys since back in 3rd ed. so I have no idea how they perform on the table these days. I love the new (well new to me anyways!) codex and can't wait to see them in action. We'll be recording and I'll make a battle report for it (whenever I finish the last batrep for Eldar v. Orks 2700pts anyway!!!!)
In the meantime here are a few pics of some of the Fists.

Chaplain Jeremiah Rashad


Tactical Squad Rigor


Tactical Squad Rigor's Rhino Transport


Battle Brother Grimm

Battle Report: 2700pts vs. Orks. part IV

Okay, so here is part IV which covers Eldar turn 4. Quite a bit goes on here. Enjoy!

Battle Report: 2700pts vs. Orks. part III

Here is part III which shows Ork turn 4. Enjoy!

Battle Report: 2700pts vs. Orks. part II

So here is part II which covers Turn 3. Enjoy!

Battle Report: 2700pts vs. Orks. part I

To kick off the new year, and the new decade Mark and I had a 2700pt. mega-battle. His Orks and my Saim-Hann Eldar. This video covers mission type, deployment and turns 1 and 2. Enjoy!

My take on online video battle reports

So after perusing the internet for awhile now watching all the video battle reports I could find, I have come to the conclusion that they are all shit! If anyone reading this has posted VBR's themselves, don't be too offended it's not entirely your fault. Many of them have good video quality. Many are quite fun to watch too. The reason I say they are shit is that they fail to capture what playing the game is actually like. Some show the end of each turn with a list of what died, and for turns 5+ the die roll to see if the game continues. Others show some dice rolls for some of the more dramatic moments in the game. Some do both, but as I said before, none of them capture the true essence of the game. Even this is not always the posters fault. They may be playing in a game store where the game needs to move along for time constraints. Or where they may not be able to set up a camera to record all the action. Sometimes it's simply easy to forget to pick up the camera and record in the heat of battle. So, in my vanity, I have decided to see if I can do better. Each battle report will be longer than most and will therefore be broken down into more easily digestible (and quite frankly Youtube friendly) 10 minute or less clips. I have the first two clips ready and will be posting them next. I had these up before, but I have since gotten rid of the subtitles and have instead added a voice-over track describing the action. I hope this will allow the viewer to pay more attention to the video and spend less time reading. The third is almost ready and will be up shortly after. Unfortunately these do take a fair bit of effort on my part so it may take a few days to then produce the 4th video and so on. If you don't like that, than in the words of my good friend Geoff...
Your mother!

Video Battle Report coming soon!

So I had a battle this past weekend with my buddy Mark. My Saim-Hann vs. his Orks, 2700pts a side. I took a bunch of video clip with my new webcam and am currently working on editing them down into a series of Youtube friendly sized videos. It's taking some time but rest assured they will be up soon!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope your 2009 was as good or better than my own (which was pretty good) and may 2010 be even better!
To kick the new year off Mark and I will be having a 2750pt mega-battle on Saturday. Because of the holidays we haven't been able to play in a few weeks so we decided to really ramp it up an play a big one this time. I have got a webcam now that we'll be using to record the battle from an overhead view while using my digital camera to take close up action photos and videos. I am planning on releasing these in a multi-part video battle report so stay tuned!
Here is a tease as to what my army list will look like. It's only at 2500pts here so I have some additions and tweaks to make!

HQ:
Farseer, Jetbike, Runes of Warding, Fortune, Doom, Spirit Stone, Singing Spear
Farseer, Jetbike, Spirit Stones, Eldritch Storm, Guide, Singing Spear
Warlocks, Jetbikes, Destructor x3

Elites
Fire Dragons x6, (mounted in the Falcon)
Striking Scorpions x9 +Exarch with Scorpions Claw and Shadowstrike
Mounted in a Wave Serpent with Twin linked Brightlances

Troops:
Jetbike Squadron, x6 Jetbikes x2 Shuriken Cannon Upgrades
Jetbike Squadron, x6 Jetbikes x2 Shuriken Cannon Upgrades
Jetbike Squadron, x4 Jetbikes x1 Shuriken Cannon Upgrade
Dire Avengers, x9 +Exarch with Dual Shuriken Catapults and Bladestorm
Mounted in a Wave Serpent with Twin linked Brightlances

Fast Attack:
Shining Spears x4 +Exarch with Star Lance and Skilled Rider
Vyper Squadron, x2 Vypers with Brightlances
Vyper Squadron, x2 Vypers with Starcannons

Heavy Support:
2x Fire Prism Grav Tanks with Shuriken Cannon Upgrades
Falcon Grav Tank with Scatter Laser and Shuriken Cannon upgrade

I am going to try to get the Vyper Squadrons up to 3 each but I don't know if I'll have enough time to finish them. I am also probably going to add a few vehicle upgrades to the Grav Tanks (all of them) I really like to add as much survivability to them as possible. So whaddya think?