Titan Tournament Final Round Recap

I played in the final round of the Titan Tournament at Ogres this weekend along with 11 of the best players from the area. I played in 3 out of the 4 qualifier events and placed top 3 in 2. That meant I had my choice of bringing Necrons with or without an ally, or Tau/Eldar because those were the armies I placed with previously. Since I had placed 1st when I used my Taudar I decided they were probably the best bet for the final round. The games were 1850 and here's what I was running:

HQ
Commander

• Command and Control Node 
• Puretide Engram Neurochip 
• Multi-Spectrum Sensor Suite 
• Onager Gauntlet 
• Neuroweb System jammer 

Ethereal

Farseer

• Jetbike
• Singing Spear 

Elites
Riptide

• Twin-Linked Fusion Gun 
• Ion Accelerator 
• Early Warning Overide 

Riptide

• Twin-Linked Fusion Gun 
• Ion Accelerator 
• Early Warning Overide

Riptide

• Twin-Linked Fusion Gun 
• Ion Accelerator 
• Early Warning Overide

Troops
3x Guardian Jetbikes
3x Guardian Jetbikes
6x Fire Warriors
6x Fire Warriors
6x Fire Warriors

Fast Attack
5x Warp Spiders

Heavy Support
3x Broadsides

• 3x Twin-Linked SMS 
• 3x Twin-Linked High-Yield Missile Pods 
• 6x Missile Drones

Wraithknight

Fortification
Aegis Defense Line

• Quad Cannon 

Total - 1848

My first game was against Necrons and was against a familiar opponent. Usually I find myself on the bad end of an ass whooping against this competitor. This time however, my dice were hot and I managed to pull out a 13-5 victory winning the primary (4x Objectives), tying the secondary (Kill the opposing Warlord), and getting 1 tertiary (First Blood). Highlights include my first shot from a Riptide taking out both of his Command Barges. Fire Warriors rolling 6 out of 6, 6's to hit a Nighscythe and take it out of the sky. Warp Spiders also did some work weakening one of his Overlords and dropping a Nightscythe at a critical point in the game as well as refusing to die to mass fire.

My second pairing was against Imperial Guard/Inquisition. Primary was Emperors Will (2 Objectives), Secondary was Table Quarters with a Dawn of War deployment. This was a very close game. He had a blob squad of 40 guys with a 4+ invulnerable and stubborn, which he marched directly for my objective. Had he chose to camp the blob on his objective I have no doubt that he would have won. Sadly for him, he chose not to. I focused all of my fire on his objective and cleared it by the last turn. I turbo boosted my jet bikes onto my own objective to contest his blob which had finally made it there, and sent my 2nd jet bike squad to take his objective for the win. Final score was 12-5. Highlights were jet bike shenanigans and the Wraithknight taking out an Executioner, Vanquisher, and 2 units of guardsman.

The final game was against Slaanesh CSMs/Imperial Guard. Primary was Victory Points (Had to be 185 points above your opponent to win), secondary 3x Objectives with a Vanguard deployment. This was another nail biter game that came down to the last turn. Just like the previous game, turbo boosting shenanigans from the jet bikes netted me the victory. I was above on Victory Points but not high enough, so we tied Primary. I still took secondary though as well as Last Laugh (Whoever kills the last unit). The game ended 11-6.

I was super pleased with my performance for the day. Though I won all my games, my overall point total wasn't enough for first place. I did take second though and walked away with a bunch of great prizes! I'm looking SO forward to getting the Aquila Strongpoint on the table and bolstering my other armies with the new additions. HOORAY!

Warmachine Bat Rep: Cygnar vs Retribution

Our Warmachine obsession continues this week with a 25 point Cygnar vs Retribution game. The store was so full of 40k players we weren't able to get one of the nice tables. That wouldn't deter us though. We set up on the only other table available. We called it "The Disc of Death".

My List (Cygnar):

Major Victoria Haley

• Ironclad 
• Squire 

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)

• Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team
Journeyman Warcaster

• Charger

Professor Victor Pendrake

Makers List (Retribution of Scyrah):

Garryth, Blade of Retribution

• Chimera 
• Griffon 
• Phoenix

Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 5 Grunts)

• Mage Hunter Commander 

Arcanist
Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios 

Yes, his list is 26 points. Yes, he needs to learn how to math.

He won the roll to go first and this is how he ended after his turn 1. Sadly for him he forgot to shoot his Mage Hunter Strike Force at my Arcane Tempest Gun Mages. A mistake he would certainly regret.

During my turn the Black 13th moved up and took out Narn with extreme prejudice before he could get to my Journeyman Warcaster. My Ironclad charged and killed a Mage Hunter and the Arcane Tempest Gun Mages moved up and killed the rest of the unit using Deadeye from Haley. The Professor shot at the Griffon and knocked it down while the Charger used it's special shots to nearly kill it.

His Chimera Charged my Charger and destroyed his hammer arm making it very difficult for me to ever kill it. His Griffon stood up. His Phoenix charged my Ironclad and just pooped all over his cheerios, lighting him on fire and Nearly Killing him. His Arcanist and Garryth moved up.

In my turn I foolishly charged the Chimera with my Journeyman Warcaster and did nothing. The Ironclad did some minor damage to the Phoenix. The Professor attempted to knock down the Griffon again and failed. The Arcane Tempest Gun Mages moved up to shoot at Garryth for the assassination victory, but I foolishly forgot to fire them. I also moved the Black 13th up to shoot Garryth but forgot to fire them as well. I'm still too caught up in the rules from 40k to remember to take all of my actions during my activation phase instead of moving everything, shooting, then assaulting. Sadly I missed my opportunity to win the game because of my poor memory.

I would pay for my mistakes this turn as the Phoenix would use Combustion to kill the Ironclad and a few Gun Mages. The Chimera smashed the Journeyman Warcaster in to goo rendering the Charger inert. The Griffon moved up to confront the Professor. Garryth and The archaist moved back toward the ruins

The only thing I could do was retreat with Haley towards my board edge. The Black 13th moved to take shots on Garryth doing some damage but failing to kill him. The remaning Arcane Tempest Gun Mages took shots but failed.

His Phoenix would kill the the remaining Gun Mages and a combination of shots from Garryth himself and the Chimera charging would take out the Black 13th.

At this point I only had Haley and her Squire left so I tried to make a suicide assassination run on his caster only to fail killing him by, I think, 3 HP's. After that he charged Haley with Garryth and easily chopped her into bits.

The number one lesson we learned about this game was to ALWAYS remember to shoot your guys. It would have been a very different game had he remembered to shoot at me with his Mage Hunters turn 1 or if I had remembered to fire my Gun Mages and Black 13th on turn 2.  All in all, a great and fun game. Can't wait to play my next.

Warhammer 40k: NURGLE!

Last week at the LGS I ran into a few friends of mine playing some Daemons vs Chaos Space Marines.

Some people from r/Warhammer may know him as Squoze, the Herald of Nurgle

He also have a blog over at The Lonely Havocs.

He was running full Nurgle as always and I had to get a few pics to share as I really appreciate his skill and creativity when it comes to customization.

Enjoy!

And my all time favorite of his...

Lord Bjorn and Baby Carlos, the one man Wolfpack of Nurgle.

Warmachine Progress Update 6

I now I have a fully painted 35 point Cygnar army with the option for two Warcasters. I finished pCaine this weekend along with my first unit, The Black 13th. Only three more units and one solo to finish before I have the full 50 point army complete. 

Warmachine/Hordes: Learning the Game

Capnmoe Typing:

Makers and I got our second game of Warmachine in last night. We played 15 points and our main focus was learning how units function. Turns out, it is way different from the way Warhammer 40k units function. 

There's no need to maintain unit coherency beyond staying in the unit leaders command range, which for us was 9". And unit members don't all need to fire on the same target. 

We also learned about AOE cloud/terrain/lingering AOE damage effects. 

You can see those in the picture below represented by the metal rings.

My 15 point list was:

eHaley
Ironclad
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Charger
The Black 13th

Sadly I lost (I lost our first game as well) but it was a fun loss. I have a tendency to just run my units forward and run them into, or shoot at the first possible thing they can reach when learning a new game. Not always the best tactic but it makes for a good learning experience.

I'm really loving the game so far. Next week I think we're going to expand to 25 points and rely less on our teacher, Ryan. Speaking of Ryan I have a bat rep I'll be posting soon of my Cygnar vs his Legion of Everblight.

Makers Typing:
So I almost tabled Capnmoe last night.
It was great.

At 15 points I ran the following list:

Kaelyssa
Phoenix
Narn
Arcanist
6 man Mage Hunter Strike Force with Commander Upgrade

The first game we played I used Garryth who is more of an Assassin type Warcaster, or HQ for the Warhammer people. Kaelyssa is more of a buff/debuff type.

I'm not sure which one I like more so far, but both have their advantages.

So far I am enjoying the game alot. It seems to be faster paced and a lot more about strategy and planning ahead. For example, last night I used my Phoenix to see his Warjack on fire, then used Kaelyssa to immobilize it for a turn, causing him to take alot of damage on it. Then by using Narn (a "smaller" Garryth type character) I was able to kill his Journeyman Warcaster to all but remove his other one from the game as well thanks to a well placed Rift from Kaelyssa.

I also enjoy how the units work. You can spread them out to a great distance and each one acts independently, almost the same as 40k 2nd Edition, which tends to give each model more of a personalized feel, rather than just being one normal guy.

We are still learning and I think last night was just a rare occurence as Capnmoe's dice were extremely cold, and my Phoenix just kept recharging 5-6 shield points a turn.

Hopefully I can get in a good amount of painting this weekend on my guys and post some shots up next week.

Looking forward to next weeks game!

Warmachine: The Switch? Only time will tell.

Thought I'd post a pic of Cap'n Moe's Cygnar Warcaster  Haley from last weeks game.

I took a bunch more but apparently I'm a moron and all my other pics came out all fuzzy. Go figure.

I am also making the leap into Warmachine and I must say it's a refreshing change.

Simple, balanced, and extremely enjoyable.

I chose to go with Retribution of Scryah after a lot of thinking and so far I am really enjoying them.

I've also decided  that since most of my 40k armies are very dark and kind of depressing looking 

(example: Iron Hands, Daemons, Farsight Enclave, etc...) my Retribution Army is going to be bright pink.

Hopefully I'll have some pics up on Friday.

I'm also not sure if anyone is really interested in Warmachine, but if so, please let us know and we can go more in depth about it from the perspective of guys learning coming from 40k to Warmachine.

I'm not really sure yet if this will be a permanent switch from 40k, but I am taking a serious break from it.

Too much, too fast with no updates or FAQs. Personally I feel 40k is becoming completely cookie cutter.

Currently Warhammer is not balanced and GW shows no hints of resolving it anytime soon.

Maybe that will change but I'll believe it when I see it.

If I do play 40k it will be most likely complete fluff based or just to use models that I haven't used in awhile.

Warmachine Progress Update 5

I finished my two heavy Warjacks this week. The first is the Centurion and the second is the Ironclad. I'm not a big fan of the stump on the Ironclad scenic base. I may do some more work on it. Tonight Makers and I are gonna play our first game. I'm stoked.