247: Necrons vs Space Marines and Eldar

Not only do we have a new contributor here on the blog, but he's roped me into a bit of a local league/tournament kind of thing.  You can read about it on the Astronomican forum.

I got my first game of the tournament in against none other than ColonelFazackerley (CF) and his absolutely brilliantly painted Iron Knights (Space Marines) and Eldar.  You can see the full battle report for CF on the forum here:  CF batrep.  I thought I'd repost it here, and give my take on the game.

We were playing Forge The Narrative missions, this one being modified Kill Points as a primary, Linebreaker as a secondary, The Relic as a tertiary, and Hammer and Anvil deployment

The Setup
We were both nice and aggressive, getting right up to the lines ready to go at it.

  

215: Blog Wars 5 - Game 3

Game 3, Emperor's Will, Dawn of War deployment

Robert Gorst:  Space Wolves

Logan with 5 wolf guard in Terminator Armour all in a Crusader

2 Rune Priests, one with Jaws and Lightning, the other with rulebook powers (Prescience I think)

Wolf Priest

2 units of 10 Grey Hunters

6 Long Fangs with missile launchers

Vindicator

We set up objectives opposite corners, mine in the bottom right, his in the top left from my point of view.  I was mostly castled around my own objective, with the Immortals out on the other flank somewhat as bait, he spread evenly across his side of the board, with Logan and co. in Land Raider opposite my objective, and the vindicator central.  I stole the initiative thanks to Imotekh, and first order of business was to get rid of the Vindicator, which I was able to do with a number of glances from Warriors in a Barge.  

214: Blog Wars 5 - Game 2

Game 2, The scouring, Hammer and Anvil deployment

Daniel Lane:  Orks

Gazghul with 5 Nobs with all the trimmings in a Truck

10 Boys as standard in a Truck

Mekboy with KFF

2 units of 30 Boys

Looted-Wagon with Boomgun

2 units of 10 Lootas

Objectives were setup about as evenly as possible across the board, with 5 points in my deployment, 5 points around my opponents deployment, and 5 points in the middle.

Of course I couldn't steal the initiative against orks, and lost the roll to go first (only time in the weekend too), so was in trouble.  As expected, the two trucks were on my lines (despite deploying about as far back as I could) immediately.

Here they come...

213: Blog Wars 5 - Game 1

Game 1, Purge the Alien, Vanguard deployment

Matt Greenwood: Grey Knights with Eldar allies

Coteaz

Strike Squad

2 Dreadknights

Spiritseer

2 Wraithguard units in Waveserpents

Wraithknight

OUCH!

212: Blog Wars 5, the aftermath and painting competition

Well, Blog Wars 5 has been and gone, and I'm "happy" to report that I managed a credible 3rd (from last :D).  Yep, from 10th in the first Blog Wars, to mid table at Blog Wars 4, to 3 from the bottom, I'm on a roll and I'm sure that wooden spoon will be mine in November at Blog Wars 6.  No matter though, as it was a great day, I had 3 fantastic opponents, and 3 great games.  Blog Wars has also moved to a new venue, the North West Gaming Centre, a part of Marauder Gaming, and in my opinion this is a great move.  Its easier to get to, a nicer room, had better and much more varied terrain, a better discount on product for attendees, and really great staff who were a pleasure to talk to and obviously very passionate about what they do and building a community of gamers in their area.  I hope that in future we'll be staying at the same location for Blog Wars.

I'll be posting up battle reports later on, but for now I'd like to show you some of the awesomely modelled and painted armies that were present on the day.  It was fantastic to see so many well painted armies on the tabletop, and some brilliantly creative forces too.
(where I was able, I've added links to the appropriate blogs, if I've missed yours let me know and I'll get it added in)

Matt Greenwood's gorgeous Eldar and Grey Knight force.
I was "lucky" enough to play these in my first game,
and see them up close, fantastic.

211: Off to Blog Wars 5

This weekend, I'll be attending Blog Wars 5, so I'm posting up my list for anyone who might be going to get a look at and be ready for.  Blog Wars is 1850pts, and a Special Character is required for your primary force.  Your special character counts as a scoring unit in the games, and gives up an extra Kill Point when he dies, so is pretty important.  I hadn't read those bits of the rules pack last time I went, so thought I was being really clever that time taking Trazyn the Infinite, as he counts as scoring.  Of course when I did read the pack, it made my choice a little less useful.

203: Throne of Skulls - The Games

I'm afraid I got absolutely no pictures at Throne of Skulls the week before last, so I can't show you the games or my opponents armies.  I've tried to record brief summaries of the games more for my own records, and as an exercise in retrospection to see what I did right, wrong, and where I could have improved.

I want to start out by saying a very big thank you to all 5 of my opponents, each one was a fantastic person to play against, and I certainly enjoyed having them as opponents and I hope that they all enjoyed the games equally.  They were all very good players and every game was a good stretch for me and at no point was any of the games a walkover.

In the outlines below, all the description of placement is from the point of view of my table edge, I've done my best to give my opponents army lists, but any mistakes are mine from my memory, not from my opponents.  You can see my list in the post from last week.

202: Throne of Skulls - Result!

Well last weekend I attended GW's Throne of Skulls up at Warhammer World with my Necrons, and I still can't quite believe it but I came away not only with a Sportsmanship Award (joint with 8 others all of whom had 3 of their 5 opponents vote them favourite opponent), but also managed to bring home Best Necron General (thanks to those same sportsmanship awards).

201: Throne of Skulls

This weekend I'm off to Throne of Skulls at Warhammer World.  This'll be my first Games Workshop run tournament, so it'll be a new experience if nothing else.  I've read all the hype and hate that goes along with this but I'm going to try and keep as open a mind as possible and just enjoy it for what it seems to be, an excuse to play 5 games over 2 days.

Blog Wars 4: Game 3 report

Game 3:  vs.  John Holland (MC Tic Tac from Blood Claw)

Mission:  Kill points with Dawn of War ("normal") deployment.

John was rocking Death Wing (5 squads with assorted load-outs), Belial, a blob of guard allies with a commissar and a Bastion.  A lot of 2+ armour that I didn't really have anything to deal with other than weight of fire, I was going to be in trouble.  I was also starting to tire by this stage (I'd done the classic and been up till the wee small hours the night before finishing my army) so I may not have been on the top of my game - sorry to John if I came across badly at all.  I also completely forgot photos for this game so I'm afraid this'll be all text.

Blog Wars 4: Game 2 report

Game 2:  vs.  Keith Duncan (no blog apparently)

Mission:  Relic with short edge deployment

Keith had a bit of a monster in his list, an 1100 point Lord (Trazyn the Infinite) and "Royal Court of Doom!" with a Cryptek with each of the available staffs, and 4 or 5 Lords (I can't quite remember) all with Warscythes, 2+/3++ saves, Mindshackle Scarabs and some Res Orbs.  The rest of the force was almost incidental compared to that with a couple of Warrior squads, a unit of Tesla Immortals, some Wraiths and an Ann Barge.

Having thought a little about my game 1, I tried to fix most of the issues I'd had in that last game with some better results in this game.  We both set up pretty aggressively towards the Relic spread across the whole width of the board so as much stuff could be forward as possible.

Blog Wars 4: Game 1 report.

A quick aside, voting continues for The Fallen Princes Badab Deathwatch competition, go take a look at all the entries, and place your vote for the one you think is the best (especially if that happens to be mine: no. 2).  VOTE HERE :)

Game 1:  vs. Andy Humprhis (Ven from Sons of Sanguinius)

Mission:  5 objectives with diagonal deployment.

Andy is the reigning Blog Wars champ having won all three preceding Blog Wars so going into this game I knew I was in for a hiding.  That didn't really help me though as I pretty much managed to psyche myself out of the game before it had already begun.  Andy is a great guy though and despite him tabling me in a pretty much one sided game, it was never dull, boring or in any way not fun.  I gave him a bit of a run and dragged things out to the 6th turn so it wasn't the worst result in the world.

4 years old yesterday

Iron Legion is 4!

I can't quite believe that its been that long since I started blogging about my modelling and painting.  It also means its been a little over 4 years since I returned to the Games Workshop hobby.  Its probably the sole plus to the time I spent living and working in Northern Finland.

In those 4 years I've managed to publish 184 posts, produce a Space Wolf, Necron and Skaven army, and I've also got parts of a Guard and second Marine force in the works.  The blog has had over 36,500 views and is currently getting over 1000 views a month.  All things considered, I'm really pretty pleased with that.

As this posts, I should be extremely busy painting the last few models for Blog Wars 4 (picture to the right is a clicky-link) which is this weekend.  Can't wait to get there and game with a whole swathe of UK bloggers, the first event was a brilliant day and I'm sure this one will be just as good if not better.  I'll be taking a bucket load of pictures, and will try and post reports from each of the games which should keep the blog going till well after Christmas.

If you are going, looking forward to seeing you there.

If you aren't going, keep checking back for the after-action reports, and I'll even try and post stuff up on the Twitters which you can see on the right (#bwars4).

Cheers, Andy

On the painting desk (22/11)

I don't have a major update on things today, I'm too busy getting things prepared for Blog Wars 4.  GO LOOK HERE for my plans for the tournament, list and if you want a list/gaming the following day.

It turns out that my Necron army wasn't quite as finished as I seem to remember it being, in fact almost every model needs work to get it to a finished standard ready for the tournament.  YIKES!  I've got a lot on my hands, so I'm trying to fit in every minute of painting I can to get things done.  You can see my paint-station below and all that's on there isn't even everything that I need to do to get ready.

The problem is, I just want to be painting these guys you can see in the background...

Those MkIV marines are just so good looking, and I'm loving my new marines so much at the moment as a project as a whole.  That also reminds me I owe completed pictures of the MkII marines with full battle damage and weathering applied.  I'll see if I can get them photographed with a decent camera next week before the tournament.

Cheers, Andy.

Blog Wars 4, Lifts to Mansfield, and Sunday at Warhammer World

I'm going to Blog Wars 4, are you?  Seriously, I made it to the first and have missed the last two due to other commitments so I'm really excited to be heading back to Blog Wars for my second time.  Alex, From the Fang, runs a fantastic tournament, it'll be full 6th Edition, and you have to take a Special Character in your force.  Its a relaxed tournament (although there are those that take it seriously, looking at you Ven ;) and a whole heap of fun.

I'll be driving up on the Friday, and returning on the Sunday, I'll be hiring a car so if anyone around the Oxford/London/West Midlands area needs a lift they should let me know as I'd be happy to car share for the weekend.

I'd also like to see if anyone is interested in a day at Warhammer World on the Sunday, if there's interest then I'll book us some tables to use the good ones with designed scenery, I'll even try and come up with some scenarios based on the armies if people want.  You can check the tables available at WHW here.

Battlescribe

First post while I'm away, I may not be able to respond to comments till I return on the 23rd September.

For anyone out there looking for an army list builder, I'd highly recommend you take a look at Battlescribe.  Its a great little bit of kit, built on Java so it is completely platform independent (unlike pretty much every other army list builder which are limited either to Windows, or Windows and Mac), very easy to use, and Jon Taylor does a fantastic job of both maintaining and updating the software.  There is even a mobile version of the editor so that you can keep and edit army lists on your tablet/phone for ease of use down at the gaming table.  It'll also output army lists in various formats for taking to tournaments.

One Force commander

Here he is, on my way North last week I was able to stop off at Warhammer World and pick this guy up along with one other nice addition to my force (more on that later).  He'll be the commander of my force, initially I'll be using him as Korvydae from IA8, but as with pretty much everything in this force, he's magnetised so I can always switch out his weapons and use him as a regular commander, or even other things.

BlogWars Game 3

Third and Final round of BlogWars and after my defeat in game 2, I'm on table 7 and facing Ian (Ginge from Need More Tanks) with his winter themed Speedfreak Orks.

The final mission was the setup that was left over, so we were playing Seize Ground (with everyone having 5 objectives) and Pitched Battle setup.  We had 3 objectives spread around the centre of the battle field, one that was in the centre of my board edge (the lovely santa-claus in the pic to the left), and one that was to the upper-right of the board (my point of view) in front of a large tower.

BlogWars Game 2

So with my win in the first round, VPs meant that I was on table 4 for round 2 of BlogWars and it turned out I was facing up with a now much more familiar opponent, Andy (Atreides from Sons of Sanguinius) who I met the day before at Warhammer World.  We managed a game that day which you can see here.

The random selection meant that round 2 was Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment, and I just knew that Andy would be out for revenge after the previous day ;).  You can find my list here, and Andy's list was in his own words a Straken Hybrid.

BlogWars Army Showcase

As you might expect, for a tournament of bloggers, BlogWars had some gorgeously painted armies, in fact I can only think of one that was the 3 colours minimum (and then only just about that, hey Ven ;).  Dalinair and FromTheFang have both posted their pictures, and I know Atreides had his SLR so will have great pics, but I thought I'd post up my pics for anyone who'd like to see them.

You can see a poor mosaic of my force up there on the left, and as I put up the other armies I have pics of (and sorry if I missed your army) I'll do my best to give a link to the appropriate blog.