The Warhost Rides Again!

I said the Eldar would be hitting the tables again and boy did they this weekend at the Barn. I managed to get in three games with them. The first game was at 1850pts and the other two were 1500pt battles. The lists I was running were as follows:

1850
Farseer, Jetbike, Spirit Stones, Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing, Fortune, Guide
Farseer, Jetbike, Spirit Stones, Runes of Warding, Runes of Witnessing, Fortune, Guide, Singing Spear
9x Guardian Jetbikes, 3x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock with Singing Spear and Embolden
9x Guardian Jetbikes, 3x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock with Singing Spear and Embolden
5x Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent with Brightlances and Spirit Stones
5x Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent with Brightlances and Spirit Stones
5x Dire Avengers
5x Dire Avengers
Falcon with Scatter Lasers, Holo-Fields and Spirit Stones
Falcon with Scatter Lasers, Holo-Fields and Spirit Stones

1500
Farseer, Jetbike, Spirit Stones, Runes of Warding, Fortune, Guide
Farseer, Jetbike, Spirit Stones, Runes of Warding, Fortune, Guide
9x Guardian Jetbikes, 3x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock with Singing Spear and Embolden
9x Guardian Jetbikes, 3x Shuriken Cannons, Warlock with Singing Spear and Embolden
5x Fire Dragons plus Exarch with Dragons Breath Flamer and Crack Shot
5x Fire Dragons plus Exarch with Dragons Breath Flamer and Crack Shot
Falcon with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannons, Holo-Fields and Spirit Stones
Falcon with Scatter Lasers, Shuriken Cannons, Holo-Fields and Spirit Stones

The first game was the 1850 game against Reese and his Space Wolves. The game was Annihilation with Spearhead Deployment. Reese won the roll to go first and deployed aggressively with a Land Raider Redeemer full of a decked out Grey Hunters pack with Wolf Guard and Wolf Priest. He also had a Rhino with a Grey Hunter pack and Rune Priest. Between these behind a central ruin piece he had a Thunderwolf Lord with a pair of Thunderwolves as escort.  He set up some Long fangs in a ruin in his back corner. He also had a dreadnought drop podding in on turn one.
I deployed opposite with my vehicles in the back corner out of Long Fang range. The jetbikes were set up a bit more forward. I got to an early lead in this game when turn one when his dread failed to do any damage to one of the Fire Dragons Wave Serpents.  I managed to explode the Redeemer with one squad of Fire Dragons while the other squad got out of their ride to deal with the Dread. The Falcons failed to destroy the pod, but did knock off the storm bolter. Meanwhile One of the Jetbike squads took out the Rune Priests ride. The other squad took out a couple of the Grey Hunters that spilled out of the Redeemer. Turn two saw the Grey Hunters and Thunderwolves multi-assault the Fire Dragons and their Wave serpent. The Dragons were wiped out, but they only managed to shake (thanks to Spirit Stones) the Wave Serpent. My turn two saw me shuffle around some. The Fire Dragons dispatched of the Drop Pod while the rest of the army went to work on the Grey Hunters that killed the Fire Dragons.   When the dust settled there was one left along with the Wolf Priest, but they were not in range to do much next turn. His Thunderwolves, however just managed to get the distance they needed in order to take out the remaining Fire Dragons Wave Serpent. In my turn I finished off the Grey Hunter and Wolf Priest and started to go to work on the Thunderwolves, but some good invulnerable saves left all of them alive with only one wound done to each. In Reeses next turn he slit the Wolf Lord off from the Thunderwolves and sent him at one of my Jetbike squads. He wanted to go after the other Jetbike squad with the Thunderwolves as well, but some poor terrain rolls meant he had to go after the Fire Dragons instead. Some poor rolling for the thunderwolves meant that the Fire Dragons lived and managed to pass morale to stay locked in combat. Meanwhile the Rune Priest took a wound attempting Murderous Hurricane on the jetbike squad, but the Grey Hunters did kill two before the Wolf Lord charged in. I ended up losing 4 bike to the wolf lord, but managed to pass morale and stay locked in combat. In my turn the Farseer that wasn't locked in combat Furtuned up his squad and sent them turbo-boosting away while he moved out to try and rescue the Fire Dragons from the Thunderwolves. It was a risky move but with them in my lines it was time to go big or go home. Things kind of bogged down for a turn or two as we were locked in combat. The Grey Hunters managed to take out the last remaining Wave Serpent since I had forgotten to move it (doh!). In the end the Farseer managed to take out the Thunderwolves but the Fire Dragons were wiped out. The Wolf Lord killed off the rest of the Jetbikes and the Farseer he was in combat with, but he did it in his own turn freeing him up for me to shoot at. It took everything I had, but I just barely managed to take off the final two wounds on that toughs s.o.b. In the final turn I managed to cause enough casualties to the Rune Priests squad to cause a break test, and they failed. The game then ended meaning they were removed as casualties and I ended up winning this game 10-6. It was a really fun game, and with my early lead Reese did a good job of making a comeback and turning it into a nail biter of a game. The smart move for me would have been to just run away once I got a healthy lead, but I don't like to do that in friendly games. I'd rather fight it out and see what happens, it's more fun for both parties that way.

The second Game  was the first of two games against Jeff and his Grey Knights. Jeff runs a tough list with Coteaz, a Librarian, 4 psyflemen Dreadnoughts and a whole bunch of warrior acolytes and Death Cult Assasins in Razorbacks and a Storm Raven. For this game we rolled up Annihilation with Spearhead Deployment. Jeff won the roll to go first and after seeing his deployment I decided to reserve everything. During his first two turns he moved up around the central ruin (we played on the same table as Reese and I did.) In turn two I got in both jetbike squads but neither of the Falcons (which were carrying the Fire Dragons) I turbo-boosted in both squads, but in retrospect I didn't need to as he didn't have a whole lot of shooting that could deny me armor saves anyway. His third turn shooting saw one of my squads lose their warlock and one wound to the farseer due to Mindstrike missiles while the rest of the armies combined shooting took out almost about half the squad. They passed morale though and it was onto my turn three. I got in both squads of Fire Dragons in the Falcons. They move on while the Jetbike squads fortune and guided up. The Falcons came on near the dreadnoughts and the Fire Dragons got out and exploded one while the other squad only stunned another (three pens, but three ones on the damage table!) One Falcon managed to shake the Venerable Dreadnought while the other stunned the Storm Raven. Meanwhile the Jetbikes immobilized one Razorback and destroyed another one. In Jeff's turn four he didn't make a single fortitude check. His venerable got some bad terrain rolls and ended up coming just a bit short of assaulting one of the Fire Dragon squads. The other mobile Dreadnought did manage to kill a few Fire Dragons from the other squad in shooting and then assaulted them, but I managed to get a lucky hit with a melta-bomb and wrecked it before it could even swing. After that we just called it because at this point his remaining dreads were sitting ducks to the my Fire Dragons and he didn't have the speed to catch my jetbikes and assault them and with fortune up and running the Heavy Bolters were never gonna get the job done. We instead decided to reset and play again.

The third game Finally saw a different mission. We got Seize Ground with four objectives, but it once again was Spearhead Deployment. Jeff again won the roll to go first and took it. I again elected to reserve everything. This time I only got in one jetbike squad on turn two and didn't get any other squad till turn 4 when the rest of my army showed up. Unfortunately this game Jeff was on fire and when he shot at my Falcons he managed to roll a 6 and a 4 on the damage table. This wrecked one since it had gone flat out when it arrive and the other one was immobilized way out of position to do anything, especially since he also managed to take off both of the turret weapons. I also misjudged the assault range of a squad of DCA plus characters in the Storm Raven by less than one inch allowing them to assault the jetbike squad that arrived turn two (yes they were still alive at that point against all odds!) I was hurt and definitely playing from behind at this point, but I fought on knowing that with my speed I still wasn't out of the fight for the objectives. If it had been Kill points it would have been over, but I still had the turn five objective grab open to me. So on turn 5 I did just that. I shuffled stuff around so that I controlled one objective and contested two others. He controlled one at that point so if it ended it would've been a draw. It didn't end though and so on to turn 6 we went. This turn saw the Fire Dragons wiped out and the objective they were contesting was claimed by some DCA. The combat between the DCA and the jetbikes finally ended as they wiped out the Farseer. In my turn 6 though I was able to spread out the remaining jetbike squad enough to control two objectives after clearing off a warrior acolyte who was contesting it. The Farseer moved up to once again contest the central objective. I needed the game to end and I would've won 2-1, but it went on to turn 7. We decided to call it there as even if I didn't end up being tabled there was no way I was going to have enough models left to even attempt to draw the game.

So in the end I went 2-1 on the weekend against two very strong Codex's. I had a blast playing the Eldar again and can't wait to get them on the tables for some more games soon! Those jetbike squads with the Farseer attached was money in the bank! 9 guides str6 shots just tears transport vehicles to shreds and against infantry it just torrents them down. The Fire Dragons went nuts in two of the three games, but got stranded out of position in the thrid. The army has teeth and survivability and is a ton of fun to play!

We'll see how it works next weekend when we are starting to plan out a big multi-player mega battle. That should be fun and I'll make sure to get lots of pics of that one ;)

Send in the Clowns: Death Jester

As I said in my last post I got a Harlequin Shadowseer and Death Jester with my prize money. Well I have finished painting the Death Jester and thought I would share some pics with ya'll. So without further ado...

I still have to do the base and clear coat him, but otherwise he is done.

That's all for today!

Great Lakes Team Tournament After Action Report

This weekend Gamers Sanctuary in Flint hosted the Great Lakes Team Tournament. This was modeled after the Adepticon team tournament format with 4 players per team and each game having the teams be split up into two, two man coalitions. I had thought about mobile blogging the event, but as usual I got wrapped up in the games and forgot all about blogging entirely. I even forgot to take any pictures beyond the picture of our team army.

My teammates were Jeff, Kyle and James. For our team we had a combined force of Grey Knights and Knights of Blood. With both armies being drawn from Matt Ward codices and both having the word knight in them we settled on the team name 'The Knights of Ward'. Jeff and Kyle both have Grey Knight armies of there own whilst Jim borrowed my models for his list.

The general format for the tournament was based on the team tournament at Adepticon, but the way they did the pairings was very different. In each round the teams were assigned to two tables and then were allowed to determine their own pairings, with the restriction that you couldn't repeat the pairings. Additinally your coalition was not necessarily playing against the same team as the other coalition in your team. This was ok, but did end up with some oddness in that Jeff ended up playing against Bill Kim in back to back games. I don't know if there were any other such instances of this happening in the tournament, but it certainly was a possibility. If they host another tournament of this style in the future that may be something to look into.

I am not going to go too in depth on the games as it was a whirlwind of a day and the details are pretty foggy in my head. But I will do a quick rundown. I also feel terrible as I am terrible with names and I forgot to keep any of the army lists or any other papers from the tournament. Anyways...

Game one saw Jeff and I paired up against pair that included Bill Kim. Their team was running all Blood Angels. The mission was the 'secret objectives' mission from the primer pack and was very similar to the first mission of Adepticon. I did not like this mission at Adepticon and I didn't like it here either. This was a pretty close game and I thought we had a good shot up to about the middle of the game, but unfortunately Jeff's DCA couldn't avoid moving through terrain when making some assaults and their lack of grenades and some bad invulnerable saves saw them wiped without doing hardly any damage. That was probably the big turning point in the game. Our objective was to control more center objectives and theirs was to control both deployment zone objectives. Try as we might we came up short on ours and failed to contest either of their objectives giving them a pretty strong win. Jeff's Librarian was a beast in this game though and the frustration became evident as he shut down power after power. I think they only got off one psychic power all game long and that was a Blood Lance shot that was out of hood range and failed to roll the distance necessary to reach its intended target.

Game two saw Kyle and I paired up against a combined Space Wolves and Imperial Guard coalition. This game used table quarters as the primary objective with the caveat that at the beginning of each player turn starting on turn two you would score how many quarters were controlled and add them up over the course of the game. The secondary was kill points. Kyle and I won the roll to go first and things started off ok. My army did absolutely nothing, but Kyle managed to do some damage. Again in this mission the first 3-4 turns seemed to go pretty well, but in late game I couldn't seem to make an armor save to save my life. Kyle didn't have much better luck in the late game either and our opponents were able to make all the right moves to overtake us on combined table quarter points and win out on kill points as well.
Side note, Our other coalition was Jeff and James and this was the game where Jeff faced Bill Kim for the second game in a row. However in this game things went much better for them and they pulled off a pretty decisive win. :)

Game three saw James and I paired up and we were fully prepared to put the 'Brothers in Arms'  rule to full use. As a side note I love this rule in team games! This game saw us paired off against another Grey Knights/Blood Angels combo. This was a very close game and was definitely the most fun game of the day for me. the mission had each coalition place two objective in their own deployment zone more than 12" from any table edge (Dawn of War Deployment) and you got two battle points for each of your own objectives you held and 6 for each of your opponents you held. The secondary was kill points. You could also elect to make one of non-independent character, non-vehicle unit scoring. James made his terminators scoring, but after confirming with the TO that the Death Company could not take advantage of this rule I decided to 'pocket' my Command Counter.   We both rolled our Land Raiders on up the middle of the board with the Razorback Flanking to either side. Though the Land Raiders started in the middle they both ended up running rampant all over the table. James' Raider delivered the Terminators into combat with a Strike Squad and Coteaz on one of their objectives and wiped them out. Those terminators camped that objective the rest of the game, but the Librarian got back in the Land Raider and swung over to rescue one of my assault squads that had lost it's ride. My Land Raider dumped out the Death Co who annihilated a full 10 man strike squad before getting multi-assaulted by another 10 man assault squad and a 5 man interceptor squad. They did take down a few of them, but that many force weapons were just too much for them to handle and they did fall to the Grey Knight scum. The Land Raider however went on to finish off what was left of the Interceptors and tank shocked into the strike squad to contest that objective. It also rescued one of James' assault squads. The final move of the game saw James' Land Raider tank shock a scout squad off the board allowing me to take that objective of theirs. In the end we held both of their objectives while they managed to hold one of ours. In kill points they did manage to play to a tie. This was a really fun game that exemplified why I love team battles.

In the end we ended up taking 3rd place (out of 4). For our efforts we got $5 each in store credit and every team got a free board game. We ended up with this gem here. It's apparently a board game version of a 1st person shooter video game. Kinda sounds fun actually! Gonna have to give this a try some night out at the barn.

Ooh, Gold edition!

Also I ended up winning another $20 in store credit for the 'best painted' award. This is my second time out to Gamers Sanctuary and my second best painted award. I guess they like my stuff out there ;) I used that to pick up a Harlequin Death Jester and Shadow Seer.

Swag is Good!

 And finally as is my custom I picked up some dice. I like to always try to buy some dice whenever I go to a tournament. I am a dice-head and it fulfills my desire to 'pay where you play' So heres the dice I got on this particular day.

And they better roll well!

In the end I had a great day and can't wait for the next time I get to head out there for some more games with those guys!

Knights of Blood for Team Tournament

So this weekend I will be attending an Adepticon style team tournament at Gamers Sanctuary in Flint, MI. For this event my team will be using a combination of Knights of Blood (Blood Angels) and Grey Knights. I'll be providing the models for both Knigths of Blood lists while the Grey Knight players will be providing their own models. Pictured above is the combined might of the Knights of Blood.

The list I will be using is
Rechlusiarch
7 man Death Company with 2x power fists, 2x power weapons, 1x infernus pistol and 3x bolters in a Land Raider with Multi-melta and extra armor
2x 5 man Assault squads with a melta gun in Razorbacks with Dozer blades and Twin-linked Lascannons.

The other list has:
Librarian in Terminator Armor with Storm Shield and Unleash Rage and Shield of Sanguinius
Sanguinary Priest
Terminator assault squad with 3x Thunder Hammer/Storm Shields and 2x Twin Lightning Claws in a Land Raider Crusader with Multi-melta and extra armor
1x 5 man assault squad with a flamer in a Razorback with Twin-linked Lascannons
1x 5 man assault squad in a Razorback with Twin-linked Lascannons.

I've been very busy trying to get all of this together and painted in time for the tournament. A great deal of it I already had done, of course, but I there was a decent list of models that I didn't have ready.

Almost all of the assault squads needed some work, ranging from a few finishing touches on some of them all the way to needing to be assembled for others. I also needed to paint up the turret for one of their Razorbacks.
I also needed to paint up the Librarian and the Sanguinary Priest.
Finally I had to convert the sponsons on the Land Raider from Flamestorm Cannons to the Hurricane Bolters and paint the whole thing up. It's been a busy time of painting, but I got it all done just in time. (I am going to see Megadeth and Rob Zombie tomorrow so I wouldn't have been able to paint then if it had been necessary)

Anyways, I'm really looking forward to this event as I am a big fan of team games. It's also gonna be the final game for the Knights of Blood for the Duration of 5th edition. After that until the release of 6th (at least) I'll be bringing the Eldar back out onto the tables. As I've said before I miss playing them and it's time to do something about it!


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