Post Homecon

I had a fantastic weekend of gaming in Wellington.

Firstly I had 2 very entertaining games of 40K vs Ryan and his GKs while I playtested a couple variations of my hybrid GK/Coteaz list. A highlight was in the first game both our Dreadknights getting into assault with each other and with similtaneous rolls taking each other out via their force weapons. I also started putting a GK Brotherhood champion in with the mixed DCA/Crusader squad. Rerolls to hit in that squad is very nasty and the Brotherhood champ is great for picking off IC's and MC's.

On Saturday I made my way to Pete Dunn's house with transport kindly provided by Ryan(he wanted to see if WHFB was for him) and had two awesome days of Fantasy games.

I may not have placed overly high up the ranks(I came 8/10) but I won half my games! I got to play against some very good opponents Tim, Tom, Neil, Peter, Pete and Ben with some very nice armies and talk about the game system and various army books with people who know what they're talking about.. most of the time.

However after even the first days games I felt that the WoC are not for me, they are a very good army with plenty of variety but the march across the board and hit stuff style of play just didn't entertain me enough. So after skimming the Ogre book, reading the Tomb King book in between England beating up Argentina Saturday night and a few more chats on Sunday with the lads I think I'm going to try Orcs and Goblins next.

They are the army I originally played with when I started Fantasy many many years ago with a school friend who had gotten the old box set with the High Elves and Goblins and large cardboard stand ins for Grom the Paunch on his Chariot and the Griffon. They have a balanced up to date book, they have an extensive model range I can have a lot of fun with, they have monsters(yay) and if your game plan falls apart just blame the stupid animosity rules and keep on laughing. I have quite a large collection of the greenskins dumped into boxes so with a bit of sorting and care I may be able to get something up and running...or fleeing as is most likely!

So a big thank you to Pete for the invite, use of his Chaos models and his fantastic hospitality in his home. I may not have 100% settled on a fantasy army yet but at least I'm eliminating some and narrowing the options.

Homecon Chaos take 2?!

Ok so after Jack's advice and thinking a litle bit more about what I'd like the army to do I have come up with the following, comments please as usual

Sorcerer Lord, L4, Infernal Puppet, Talisman of Preservation, Stream of Corruption 370

Exalted Hero, Tzeentch, BSB, Shield, Ironcurse Icon 155
Exalted Hero, Tzeentch, Disc, Charmed Shield 5, Book of Secrets, 3rd Eye of Tzeentch, Talis of Prot, Biting Blade 215

20 Chaos Warriors, Tzeentch, FC, Shields, Standard of Discipline 385
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, Flails 200
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, GW 200
5 Chaos Hounds 30

6 Chaos Trolls
5 Chaos Knights, Khorne, Muso 240

Warshrine 130
Hellcannon 205

Total 2400

Keeps a mobile disc riding character to steal spells but has a better stat line so can threaten the rare lines more.

The warshrine will augment a unit where it needs too and the 6 trolls will indeed be more effective.

Got rid of the collar of Khorne as it did offend the fluff enthusiast in me! Tjough I am now missing the dispel scroll which can always be an bonus in games!

Chaos for Homecon me thinks

Well Homecon next weekend will help me decide if I'm going to invest in Warriors of Chaos as my main fantasy army.

The host Pete is kindly letting me borrow his models for the two days and I will bring a few along to supplement what I need.

Hopefully I will like them enough to get stuck into them with the paint as I don't have a fully painted army for fantasy. Personally its sucks big time considering how I usually clean up in the presentation category in 40K.

So heres my thoughts for a list which should function well and has a little bit of everything I'd like to buy and paint up.

Sorcerer Lord, L4, Infernal Puppet, Charmed Shield, Stream of Corruption Talisman of Preservation (shadow magic) 375

Sorcerer, L2, Tzeentch, Disc, Talisman of Prot, Third Eye, Dispel Scroll 225
Exalted Champ, Tzeentch, BSB, Collar of Khorne, Enchanted Shield 185

24 Chaos Warriors, Tzeentch, Shields, FC, Standard of Discipline 449
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, Flails 200
30 Marauders, Khorne, FC, GW 200
5 Chaos Hounds 30
5 Chaos Hounds 30
5 Marauder Horsemen, Slaanesh, Muso, L Armour, Spears, Throwing Spears 96

3 Chaos Trolls
5 Chaos Knights, Khorne, muso, standard, Banner of Eternal Flame 270

Hellcannon 205
Total 2400

Everything should perform some role in most games, the trolls are a personal want as I'd love to get the plastic River Trolls and have some fun. The second Mage is so I can make a cool conversion I have in mind and the rest is what I see tearing through a dead forest leaking shadows and darkness from their skin. When I actually paint up a test model it'l make sense.

CTA '11

With the weekend been and gone team 'Primarch' as we called ourselves did very very well in the 40k at Call to Arms '11 in Wellington.

I played my Eldar list which I have not really changed since Masters last year so it was dual Night Spinner harassment and super clowns all the way as usual. I played Ryan Lister first, in hindsight we should have redrawn but we always have fun. So after I had given him a good beating on Friday afternoon in a practice game he retaliated with psychotrope grenades doing a number on my Avatar and Harlequins(both times getting reduced to 1 attack and hit automatically!!!) and pretty soundly winning.

Next I played Jared Odom(ithink) with a mobile Kosarro Khan bike list. He had just been defeated by Cody's Dark Eldar in round 1 and to get me next was a bit rough as he had only played the list for the first time that day! The Eldar pretty much wiped him off the board with a combined charge of Harlequins and an Avatar causing a record 29 wounds on his bike command squad - 19 of which were invulnerable saves only.

The third game of the day was against Peter Rundlett and his Dark Angels with Belial at the helm. We had a very entertaining game exchanging fire throughout the early turns as the meteor objective came down not far from the centre. I forced Belial and his scoring terminator companion off the crater in the last turns with a combined dual wave serpent tank shock and mass focused fire giving me a big win at the end of the day.

Sunday morning had me play PJ Smith and his motley Ork horde. I can never beat the green tide at tournaments try as I might. After removing an awful lot of Ork models off the board I could not manage to kill 3 seemingly invulnerable Orks contesting the centre of the board in a burning building. These Orks were the remnants of a mob who had spent 11 rounds of assault phases with the Avatar and had not bloody run away even after the Avatar kill their warboss in 1 go! The Avatar rolling like a n00b didn't help and after grabbing/contesting what quarters I could PJ snuck a 1 point lead winning the game.

Last game of the event had me across from Carson and his Mephiston Blood Angel list. After some initial rule discussions and clarifications we got under way (you cannot put Mephiston in a command squad he is not an IC). Carson almost completely null deployed against me in a 3 objective game and I swiftly suppressed what elements arrived each turn. The Harlequins camped the Alpha objective and 1 shotted the BA Assault squad which jumped onto the board. The Avatar had no close combat, content to patrol between 2 objectives throwing his Wailing Doom at things. The 2 units of Assualt terminators gave me pause but some Doom aided focus fire had them worn down. Mephiston fell prey to Runes of Warding losing 3 wounds to perils while mass fire got the last 2. I ended with my farseer solo charing his remaining incomplete tactical squad to pull them off their objective. This with plenty of Eldar left on the table gave me a big win to end the competition on.

Wil used a Blood Angel build he came up with last weekend! As the Sisters are still a work in progress. He used two Assault squads in discounted Landraiders, a stormraven carrying a Reclusiarch lead Death Company and Death Company dread, 10 sniper and ML scouts and a ML devastator squad. Bit of a straight forward smash you in the face build and it worked a charm for him. I believ he only lost 1 game! The competitive beast which was nerfed by the Tyranid codex returned for his last tourney in NZ before he heads to Canada.

Cody and his Dark Eldar were on a roll with 4 wins and a draw! Lords in Sydney was obviously a good experience for him and he learnt some lessons which showed. The army itself also looked great on the tables, if I do say myself ;D Cody had some tough opponents but he focused on the missions and kicked some arse!

Ryan after giving me a slap in round 1 went on to also only have 1 'donut'(no point) defeat and his foot slogging Grey Knights went on to multiple victories. I will have to get a rundown on his games and had little tim e to before I headed home.

With this fine performance from the team where did this leave us? Well, Ryan took the best Sportsman medal and came 5th overall! Will got the bronze medal with 3rd, I scored both best painted and 2nd overall medals and Cody rocked it with gold for 1st place! We won 'em all!! I also was presented with an award for best presented for the whole event, thats out of all the game systems in play at Call to Arms this year.

I must say results aside I thoroughly enjoyed myself, Hagen did a wonderful job as TO even if every game he came and told my opponents to destroy my Nightspinners for bonus TO points! It was awesome talking to Wes Barclay as usual, still not facing up against him, I'll grudge match next time. We came up with some very cool ideas for some future projects and conversions including a campaign weekend which was met with some enthusiasm by those included... watch this space... What a great send off for Wil with the group he plays with taking all the top spots, he'll have to berate us and keep us mean from afar.

Fantasy Decisions

With the choice to abandon the High Elven race for the time being I have been trying to make up my mind what WHFB army to get stuck into next.

I have looked through most of the army books and model ranges and came down to the following..

Vampire Counts - the army I have played the most over the years leading up to the end of 6th ed, after that my gaming group focused more and more on 40k so fantasy got shelved for all of 7th until the glorious 8th ed came out. I have a Von Carstien army with units of skeletons, zombies and small support units but all those are now fairly unappealing in 8th. The release of the new Terrorgiest has got me pretty enthused again and I have worked up a ghoul/strigoi themed list which I think would work well but it will mean starting over from scratch with the undead.

Ogres - never really liked them until I saw the new models incoming! The Stonetusk monstrosity alone is awesome for pure size and the new firebreather and executioner models are a credit to GW. There are a few Ogres in boxes in the gaming room belonging to a mate so I could procure them to start with.

Daemons of Chaos - On a couple of shelves in the gaming room sits a pretty big collection of Daemons in a fairly unloved state, sure they're painted well and can be assembled in numerous builds but Stu who owns the majority of the Daemons has abandoned them in 40k for his Blood Angels and is waiting like a child at Christmas for the new Necrons. He has used them in fantasy a bit but prefers the humour of the Orcs & Goblins and who can blame him. I own a few off Daemons to add to the mix including a FW Keeper of Secrets so could be a go...

...but I have made the sensible decision - if at all possible when talking about our toy soldiers! to get stuck into Warriors of Chaos. They tick a lot of boxes for me and the old pro and con list leans positively toward them.

I like heavily armoured infantry in fantasy settings, I played a paladin tank for years in World of Warcraft even if they were crap back in the day... and the basic Chaos Warrior is the only thing of its kind really. The variety of the army book is massive showing that I can personalize and theme lists many different ways. I can have big horde units of marauders, my blocks of chaos warriors, magic, knights and importantly big models like the new Ogre models I love to use as Chaos Ogres and the FW Greater Daemon would be a wicked Daemon Prince!

Also Cody acquired a massive amount of WoC models for a bargain price a little while ago from trademe and would love to move them off for an investment in Dark Elves. This means that while helping Cody get an army he actually really wants I have an awful lot of unpainted constructed models to start using straight away with several themes already floating about in my imagination.

So in the future I will be putting up a few ideas I have about a look for the army, nothing set right now but I will share soon enough. If anyone has any ideas on the look of an army I can make or any advice on unit builds and the like please do share

To CTA and Beyond...

The last couple days turned into something of an unplanned gaming weekend. Wil came to stay for a chill out weekend and with the reality of me finishing his Sisters to a satisfactory standard for Call to Arms being sweet 'F A' he started looking at alternative forces.

My gaming room is full of armies in various states of playability and having sat on a shelf for nearly a year unloved was Cody's Space Marine army is metallic purple with blue trim. Wil decided that combined with Stu's Death Company models he could pull out a decent Blood Angel list. This began a series of games which proved highly entertaining over the last two days.

He got to play against a quickly gathered Daemon army which I played for shits and giggles as well as Cody's experienced Dark Eldar list. Our numbers were also reinforced as Ryan from Wellington made his way up for a couple CTA practice games too.

Ryan played Cody and the Grey Knights null deploy tactic proved horrific for them as the Dark Eldar destroyed at range what ever arrived from reserve our tarpitted units with amazingly resilient Wyches. Later on Sunday Ryan played Stu who used a Daemon list to prove chapter 666's might against they're archnemesis. Lets just say the boys from the Imperium didn't do too well... though after an embarrassing loss for the Grey Knights it turns out remembering 'preferred enemy' would have made a massive difference!!!

In between all the impromptu 40K we got a game of Mansions of Madness in on Saturday night with myself in the role of Keeper. The bloodties scenario was won by the four Investigator players but I delighted in playing all manner of trauma cards on the poor quartet going so far as to have poor Ryan's character with a broken arm and leg and cowering in a crypt with 1 health left as the others braved the fire filled map to win the game and forcing Cody's tommy gun toting gangster into suicidal insanity. See doesn't that sound like fun?

Ryan and I also hashed out an Inquisitor list for me to use. CTA will probably be the last outing for the current Eldar build for a while having proved very successful and I want a new personal project to really go nuts on. I'll post the list in the next couple days.

In the meantime instead of painting dozens of Sisters of Battle in a frenzied state I just have to paint 3 missile launcher marines and Stu gets a custom painted Death Company Stormraven too!!!

A board game you say?

On an impulse I bought Mansions of Madness from Mightyape. I have wanted to get a decent 'board game' for a while but didn't want something too involved so that the women folk might not want to play too. I watched the youtube vid Mightypae had posted from Fantasy Flight Games and thought it sounded like fun.

It arrived Friday afternoon and four of us were playing it that night. The first game I admit was a little clunky as they tend to go in the initial play but other than a couple minor mistakes we got the hang of it pretty quick. I took the role of Keeper the GM equivalent whose goal it is to actually stop the investigators/players. My wife Ali, Stu/Tiros and his partner Jardine played the Investigators and even though neither side accomplished their goals it was bloody fun and left me wanting to play more.

Yesterday Ali and I had a couple more games alternating roles as Keeper and Investigator and worked out all the rules quite well though I think at least 2 investigator players makes for a better game.

The product itself is the usual high standard the FFG is known for. Very nice map tiles depict a variety of rooms, caves and garden areas which would also be very useful for a modern RPG. The miniatures themselves are pretty cool with the Investigators being a variety of characters from the 1920's and the monsters being Cthulu goodness or cultists and zombies. The rules are fairly easy to pick up and after utilising a dozen resealable plastic bags for the shite load of cards and tokens included I am very happy with my purchase.

Ali found on the FFG website an expansion which is interestingly print on demand so I may order that yet as I can see the game getting some mileage for sure.

I was however missing a zombie! Even though I can just grab one from the hundreds of prepainted D&D minis I have I will mention it to FFG in an email though I'm not too concerned of the outcome.

So if you want to play a very story driven board game full of investigation and creepy monsters go get a copy or for those who can come over and have a game ;) Hopefully means I wont always have to play Keeper as its not like I don't GM enough =P