Friday, March 29, 2013

Star Wars Minatures: X-Wing Battle Report



God damn I love this game! Fantasy Flight Games surely has a hit on their hands with this one. You know its gonna be huge when stores cant keep the ships in stock and Fantasy Flight can't make the ships fast enough to keep up with demand.

We managed to get in a game recently. Here's a little recap and thoughts about the lists and game:



Rebels (Capnmoe) Total Squad Points: 100

Pilot: Biggs Darklighter
X-Wing (25)
Upgrades:
R2-F2 (3) Stealth (3)

Pilot: Wedge Antilles
X-Wing (29)
Upgrades:
Swarm Tactics (2)

Pilot: Prototype Pilot 1
A-Wing (17)
Upgrades:
Cluster Missiles (4)

Pilot: Prototype Pilot 2
A-Wing (17)
Upgrades:
No upgrades Selected

Imperials (Makers) Total Squad Points: 100

Pilot: "Howlrunner"
Tie Fighter (18)
Upgrades:
Swarm Tactics (2)

Pilot: Darth Vader
Tie Advanced x1 (29)
Upgrades:
Expert Handling (2)

Pilot: Academy Pilot 1
Tie Fighter (12)
Upgrades:
No Upgrades Selected

Pilot: Academy Pilot 2
Tie Fighter (12)
Upgrades:
No Upgrades Selected

Pilot: Academy Pilot 3
Upgrades:
No Upgrades Selected

Pilot: Obsidian Squadron Pilot 1
Tie Fighter (13)
Upgrades:
No Upgrades Selected



Turn one opened up with Imperials flying straight forward into the asteroid field in tight formation at speed 5 with Vader following closely behind at straight 4. I deployed the rebels tight around Biggs and in a way that would let me either fly around the asteroids or turn in and engage if I needed to. I knew that by the end of turn 2 he would have to break formation after flying into the asteroid field so I decided to turn in and engage. First round saw no shooting. 2nd round we met in the middle. He shot at my ships but had to target Biggs who was rocking 4 agility dice. At one point he was tossing 6 agility dice as he was targeted at range 3 and through an asteroid. I must say I thought the combo worked amazing. He never managed to damage me this round where as Wedge pulled off a 3 hits on Howlrunner that went unsaved. I probably could have done even more damage if I would have remembered to use my actions on my A-wings. Despite my poor memory with my actions, First blood went to the Rebels and it was major kill removing Howlrunner's re-roll buff from the Imperials. From there it started to go down hill for the poor rebels though.


Biggs went down over the coarse of the next round or 2 while I managed to take out only 1 Academy pilot. By the end of the game the rebels were only able to take out the Obsidian pilot while Wedge fell shortly after Biggs and my Cluster Missile A-wing shortly after him. With 1 A-wing vs. Vader and 2 Academy pilots I decided to call it a day and Hyper out of the system. All in all it was a good game but the combined weight of massed ships was just to much for the smaller Rebel force to handle in the end. It doesn't help that I am still learning the nuances of staying in formation and remembering to use actions and what not. Vader using Expert Handling to shed my target lock from the A-wing with the Cluster Missiles was clutch. If I had been thinking, I never would have even attempted to use them on Vader and instead went for the easy kill on and Academy pilot. Can't wait to play another game.


Monday, March 11, 2013

Baroness Sathonyx?





I was going through my bitz box recently and was inspired to put a Baron Sathonyx conversion together for my Dark Eldar. This is the product of that endeavor. Though, as the final model ended up with tits, I will have to call her Baroness Sathonyx. It was made almost entirely of parts from the Raider and Reaver sprues. There area some parts from the Necron Canoptek Spyders kit as well, but only a couple. In the end I was really very pleased with the way it turned out. Let me know what you think.

40k Daemons: Furies coming back?


So random lunch time thought for the day...3 Units of 20 Slaanesh Furies with a Slaanesh Herald with Loci Beguilement.

All have Fleet, and are Rending. 126 attacks on the charge and you're re-rolling the hits.

If only they weren't metal, and didn't cost $30.00 for 5 of them. I don't want to have to pay over $350.00 for 1/4 of my army.

Thoughts?

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Chaos Bikers and Heldrakes are The New Black, But I'm Sure You Already Knew That



It's that time again. The 5 week league at the local game store is about to start back up.  It's going to be based on the Crusade of Fire campaign and I'm wicked stoked. This time out I'm bringing the current scourge of the 40k world. Chaos bikers and Heldrakes. Nurgle bikes are amazeballs right now. The point cost is low and the advantages are high. T6, 12" move, Hammer of Wrath, 4-5+ Jink save, what's not to love. I'm bringing 5 with 2x meltas and sticking my Nurgle Lord on a bike with a Burning Brand of Skalathrax for some S4 AP3 Torrent shenanigans. Heldrakes are very rapey right now dolling out the bad touch with S7 AP3 vector strikes that ignore cover as well as the S6 AP3 flamer of super killstruction. I shall bring 2. 



This will be the first time I've brought out my Chaos Space Marines for a league since I started playing at the game store around 2 years ago. I've been working on getting new units to bolster what I already had, and replace some of the units GW turned into sad sacks of dog shit or over costed pantywaists. Rhinos and Defilers anyone. The league calls for 3 lists all at 2000 points. A regular list and a Planetstrike attack and defender list. Here's what will likely be my regular and attacker list:

HQ
Chaos Biker Lord – 160 Points
  • Bike +20
  • Aura of Dark Glory +15
  • Burning Brand of Skalathrax +30
  • Power Axe +15
  • Mark of Nugle +15
Elites
5x Chaos Terminators – 228 Points (Deep Strike)
  • (Champion) Combi-Melta/ Chain Fist +17
  • Combi-Melta/ Power Fist +12
  • Combi-Plasma/ Power Axe +5
  • Combi-Plasma/ Power Axe +5
  • Reaper Autocannon/ Power Fist +32
Troops
8x Plague Marines – 212 Points
  • 2x Melta Gun +20
8x Plague Marines – 222 Points
  • 2x Plasma Guns +30
8x Plague Marines – 222 Points
  • 2x Plasma Guns +30
10x Cultists – 50 Points
10x Cultists – 50 Points

Fast Attack
Heldrake – 170 Points
  • Baleflamer
Heldrake – 170 Points
  • Baleflamer
5x Chaos Bikers – 160 Points
  • Melta Gun +10
  • Melta Gun +10
  • Mark of Nurgle +18
Heavy Support
3x Obliterator – 228 Point
  • Mark of Nurgle +18
5x Chaos Havocs – 125 Points
  • 2x Missile Launchers +30
  • 2x Auto-Cannons +20

So there you have it folks. Let me know if you think I'm being overly cheesy or if it's the perfect amount of Gouda. I'll post up my Planestrike Defense list and an update on how the league is going soon. Hopefully my counterpart and I can get some bat reps up here before to long, and if you're really lucky I'll squeeze in some of the new X-wing Miniatures game shit too. Keep on keepin on people.

40K: Daemons. Nerfed or Buffed?



Since the first rumors started coming out about the new Daemons, everything looked and sounded as though the entire codex was being nerfed into oblivion. But after reading the codex a few dozen times, I'm not so sure that is the case.

The problem I think is that a lot of things changed.
People fear change.

Since the release of the White Dwarf update for daemons and screamers, everyone was excited about the possibility of running flamers/screamers list and just dominating their opponents over and over and over...which, lets all be honest, isn't going to win you many friends at your local gaming store...so when the new codex was released and the flamers and screamers were "nerfed," the majority of the first articles I started reading were geared toward desperately looking for that new "OP Unit." (I'm in the group that thinks it's the Nurgle Soul Grinder)

I believe that this codex was brought to be on par with everything else. It's not overpowered, but it's not crap either. It's still only a few days from the release, so everyone is working out what they feel is going to be a competitive list.

I'm choosing to wait to purchase some new models until i have a better grasp on what's good and what's bad. (I do keep hearing that flesh hounds are better than people think, but I'm not a Khorne type of guy) So I've been trying to make out a list with what models I currently have until further play testing has been completed.

HQ
Lord of Change - Psyker (2), 2 x Greater Rewards - 270
Great Unclean On - Psyker (2), 2 x Greater Rewards - 255

Troops
Plague Bearers of Nurgle (10) - 90
Plague Bearers of Nurgle (10) - 90
Pink Horrors (11) - 99
Pink Horrors (11) - 99

Elites
Flamers of Tzeentch (6) - 138
Flamers of Tzeentch (6) - 138

Fast Attack
Screamers (6) - 150

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince - Deamon of Tzeentch, Flight, Warp Forged Armor, 1 Greater reward, Psyker (2) - 300
Daemon Prince - Deamon of Tzeentch, Flight, Warp Forged Armor, 1 Greater reward, Psyker (2) - 300

Fortification
Aegis Defense Line - Comm Relay - 70

Total = 1999

The goal here is to be rolling all psyker powers on Biomancy, with the Greater Rewards as compliments.

The only downside here is redundancy. The princes already have the 3+ save in this build, so on a reward roll of 6 we would just take the Warpblade or Bale Sword.  But on a 2,3, 4 or 5, our unit gets a lot of staying power for only 20 points.

The best option is to roll for powers first, then the rewards.

GUO obviously benefits the most from Warlord traits in this list.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a game in this weekend or next, to see how it works out. I plan to start getting some BatReps posted as well, on a consistent basis with my findings.