Midlife crisis reboot.

Ok, so terrible,  lazy blogger is terrible. And lazy. It is safe to say my track record in keeping this blog updated is less than stellar.  In fact, the only thing thats worse at the moment is my painting progress.

But no more. Here, as they say, is where I make my stand. This time it will be different. Shit will get done.

The list of models that need to be painted is many and varied, covering a number of systems.

Blood Bowl: 
1 human team, undercoated. 1 Mawar (Skaven) team, en route from Spain? Italy? Arrival date unknown.

Malifaux:
Dark Debts crew, undercoated, with 1 color on each of the 5 models so far,

Flames of War:
A dozen infantry stands, undercoated with 1 color applied so far. (Anyone else seeing a pattern here?). 1 Tiger tank, partially assembled, 1 box of Panzer IIIs (3 models), unassembled.

Necromunda:
1 Enforcer Squad, converted from Mantic Corporation Marines, partially assembled.

Warmachine:
Unit of Blackbanes Ghost Raiders, a unit of Revenant Crew, Darraghe Wrathe, Goreshade the Bastard with Deathwalker and Saxon Orrik, all undercoated. Thr most important of these is Saxon, as I need him for Ides in March. The Ghost Raiders are probably also in this category,  as there is a good chance they will make my offlist. I also have 2 units of Bane Riders  on pre-order from Defiant,  due to arrive some time in February,  one unit of which are also planned for my offlist.

So there we have it, a veritable mountain of plastic and lead. Lets se what sort of dent I can make it before Christmas.

Till next time, get off my lawn.

Wolfcry - Day 1: X-Wing

Last weekend saw the running of the first "Wolfcry" event, a new event on the calendar, catering to both the traditional 2 day events (40K and FOW) and a pair of 1 day events (X-Wing and Warmachine/Hordes)

Saturday saw 8 of us blast out of the hanger decks and into the cold void of space to do battle in the X-Wing event.

After writing multiple lists for both factions, I finally came to the conclusion that I had no idea what made a competitive tournament list and should probably stop over thinking things. Going with a gut feeling that there would be a lot of the larger ships in play and a desire to try out the Firespray, I came up with the following:

Tempest Squadron Pilot (25)
TIE Advanced (21), Cluster Missiles (4)

Turr Phennir (28)
TIE Interceptor (25), Push the Limit (3)

Krassis Trelix (47)
Firespray-31 (36), Cluster Missiles (4), Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

With Cluster Missiles allowing me to make 2 3-dice attacks on a target in a single turn, the idea was to try and overwhelm any larger ships I came across with sheer weight of fire early and take them out of the game, before mopping up the leftovers. 

Turns out all but 7/8 players were packing big ships and 5 of those 7 were running Firesprays. (1 guy was running 2!) The two players with Falcons were running variants on the "Han Shoots First" netlist.

Game 1: Ian Kenderdine

Ian was running a Bounty Hunter, Darth Vader, Night Beast and an Academy Pilot. We spent the first few turns chipping off shields here and there, my missiles being largely ineffective and both of us rolling bonkers defense dice.

Krassis decides he has somewhere better to be.

Then I made my first colossal mistake of the day: I somehow managed to fly my Firespray right off the board. With the loss of so much firepower, the rest of my fleet was quickly surrounded and destroyed.

Turr Phennir is surrounded and destroyed.

 

Game 1 result: Loss 100-0

 

Game 2: Regan O'Malley

In addition to running the event, Regan was also flying a "Han Shoots First" list. Basically Han Solo tooled up the wazoo with a couple of Rookie Xwings to mop up what ever Han doesn't kill by himself.

 The two forces line up against each other.

 

My Tie Advanced died early, without getting its missiles off, but the Firesprays missiles stripped the Falcons shields and had Han running for safer ground.

 

The Firespray strips the Falcons shields as the TA dies a quick and painless death.

 

Unfortunately, Turr Phennir couldn't stand up to the combined firepower of two Xwings and Krassis found himself surrounded and destroyed

 

The Xwings finish of Krassis, while Han hides in a corner.

 

Game 2 result: Loss 100-0

 

Game 3: John McLeish.

Johns a friend from the Hamilton Warmachine scene and it was good to see him come up for something a little different. His list was: Bounty Hunter, Tie Interceptor, Dark Curse and Backstabber.

 

This game,, both the Firespray and TA managed to get their missiles off against Johns Bounty Hunter, stripping his shields and reducing his hull to almost nothing. In response, the Bounty Hunter dropped his seismic charge, stripping a shield off both of the Ties, before getting finished off by Krassis.

 

The Bounty Hunters parting shot.

 Turr Phennir and the TA combined to finish off one of the Tie Fighters, while the Firesprays Heavy Laser Cannon accounted for the other

Backstabber meets his end.

 



 Turr Phennir then turned his sights on the less experienced Tie Interceptor as it tried to escape, bringing it down in a perfectly delivered hail of laser fire.

Turr Phennir dispatches his opposite with ease.

Game 3 result: Win 100-0

 

Game 4: Paul Monk

Gmae four saw me come up against Monkey and his ultra fluffy Obsidian Squadron tie swarm. This list had taken down a Han Shoots First list in round one, so I was a little worried. Paul list was: Howlrunner, Night Beast, Winged Gundark? and 4 Obsidian Squadron pilots.

The swarm advanced en-masse, with an un-named pilot getting one-shotted at range by the heavy laser cannon. As the fight degenerated into an unordered free-for-all, Paul had problems avoiding asteroids, which severely hampered his ability to co-ordinate his attacks.

The HLC tears a hole in the advancing wall of Ties

 

 

The sheer output of dice from the Cluster Missile spreads were too much, even for Ties to avoid and with return fire hampered by ship collisions the ties quickly dropped one by one.

 

One almighty cluster-fuck in the middle of the table results in all three ties dying for no losses on my part.

 

 

Pauls defence dice, were, to be fair, complete pants and it seemed that everytime I pulled the trigger this game, a Tie Fighter died.

 

Game 4 result: Win 100-0

 

So a 2 win 2 loss record for the day, wasn't too bad. Certainly better than I expected going into the day and a metric crapload of fun was had. Which is the main idea anyway. Congrats to Dave Lewy for winning the event and thanks to Regan for running it.

 

Now I wait and look forward to the Wave 3 releases. Can't wait to get me some of those Tie Bombers.



Blood Bowl Colour Theory.

One of the most vexing questions new gamers face is "How do I pick a colour scheme?" For some armies like Space Marines this is generally pretty easy. For things like Blood Bowl teams, not always so.

Ask any of the "good" painters and they will generally give you a lecture on contrasting and complimentary colours, complete with colour wheels and mixing charts. While this is all very well and good, it can confuse new painters and still confuses me (and I've been doing this for 20 years).

I have a much easier way: professional sports teams. Pro sports teams (and even the likes of your local soccer team) have their uniforms and colour schemes designed by professional designers. People who know all that convoluted colour theory stuff already. This gives you a huge head start. You may pick your favourite/local team or you may just pick a team whos colours you like.

People who know me know I have a thing for painting my Blood Bowl teams in NRL team colours, usually including a horrible pun on the original teams name to boot. My dwarfs for instance, are painted orange and black and named the Western Mountain Tigers. My Undead Halfings: painted blue and white, named the Can't-be-Buried Bulldogs. Purple and Bone Chaos: the Hellborn Storm.

The Tigers front row.



 

And this theory doesn't just apply to BB teams. It can be applied to any forces colour scheme, in pretty much any system. So next time you're stuck for a colour scheme, just flick through your Sky Sport channels, I guarantee, you'll have one in no time.

 







Back on the Brush

So i've kind of lost my painting mojo lately. After speed painting a second Harrower for Ides of March, I haven't touched a brush since. Part of it is probably a lack of new models. lthough I did pick up a pair of Ripjaws and Darraghe Wraithe recently (mainly to bump a Defiant order up to free shipping), I haven't really felt the urge to paint them, probably because I'm not working on any lists that contain them at the moment.

I do however, feel the urge to paint again, so the million peso question becomes - what to paint???

Looking through the unpainted crap that I actually care about and may actually paint (or use) at some point, I have decided to start with my half finished Dark Elf Blood Bowl team. Made from a combination of Dark Eldar Warrior and Witch bitz (like every other Dark Elf team made in the last 2 years), this team should look quite striking on the pitch in their metallic green and bone white uniforms.



 Cue standard crappy photo

 

Of course, whether they ever see the pitch is a whole other question. For one thing, the ABBF seems to have gone down the crapper now that Christian has gone away. Also, I can't play elves of any type for quids. I've tried a couple of times on FUMBBL and failed spectacularly, but you know what they say "God loves a trier".

 

Till next time.....





Ides of March - the most fun I've had at school.

OK, so apparently I am "teh suk" when it comes to this regular blog thing. I will endeavour to try harder.

With that out of the way..........

Ides of March was held last week and in my opinion, was a great success, acheiving everything it set out to do in its first year. Dave did a great job of running it and from a players point of view, seemed to go off without a hitch. Everyone seemed like they were having a great time, with many tense games, as well as the usual smattering of one-sided walloping and a decent amount of  "OMFG!! I can't believe that worked" moments throughout the weekend.

My lists for the weekend were:

Goreshade the Cursed
   Kraken
Bane Lord Tartarus
Max Bane Thralls + UA
Min  Bane Thralls + UA
Withershadow Combine
Necrotech + Scrap Thrall
6 Scrap Thralls

Master Necrotech Mortenebra
Deathjack
Harrower
Harrower
Slayer
Slayer
2 Necrotechs
2 Warwitch Sirens
3 Scrap Thralls.


Overall, I went 4-3 for the weekend, including winning my grudge match against Scott. This is the first time I have actually finished an event with positive numbers and I learned a couple of new things about myself and my playstyle.

1: I need to focus less of caster kills, especially against Hordes armies. 2 out of my three losses came with my Mortenebra list because I became obsessed with the turn 2 "Deathjack bullet", both times achieving nothing except to cost me Deathjack for no gain. After coming to this realisation at the end of day 1 (which I ended 1-3), I adjusted my game plan for day two, coming to my next epiphany...

2: I like playing attrition games. It may just be the warhammer player in me showing through but I do. I like the grind. I think this is why I enjoy the eShade list so much.  And it tends to be one of the more effective tactics vs Hordes and thier filthy, cheating transfer mechanics.

3: Bane Spam is horrible, well for my opponent at least. I quite enjoy it and plan on taking the Banes+Kraken list a lot more at 42 and above.

Once again, I want to give mad props to Dave for getting Ides off the ground and I'm looking foward to next year. Next event for me was supposed to be Cityguards Equinox event but it has now been cancelled (a seperate rant for another day) so next major event will be the Teams event at Nicon in Napier. See you there.