... in which I am defeated by the holiday weekend, and I prepare for a tournament this upcoming weekend.

I was right to throw in the towel. Power for us came back on shortly after it went out, but some of the other outlaying areas of Lansing are still without power, and not due to be restored until Thursday.

I found myself getting sloppy toward the end anyway. My normal attention to detail got really distorted when painting 20+ miniatures in a sitting.

The biggest lesson I can take away from this is enjoy what you are doing. It doesn't pay to rush, and it also doesn't do you any good to sit on tons of minis either.

So here's some photos of what I've done:

Forgive the quality, I had to take the pictures with my phone, as my camera was left in the car. I will take better close ups this upcoming week, now that I can put this behind me and get back to what this blog is about: Gaming.

So, this upcoming weekend is OST's tourney out at Fowlerville. Click HERE for details.

I have settled on running my Necrons for the 1850. I'm going to keep it simple, and focus on refining my tactics, seeing as Necrons are not exactly a competitive army.

Here's my list:

10 Necron Warriors

10 Necron Warriors

5 Immortals
Necron Lord
-Veil of Darkness
-Resurrection Orb

2 Heavy Destroyers

5 Pariahs

2 Monoliths

The Nightbringer

Here's the skinny on my strategy:

Keep everyone behind the monoliths.
Keep the Warriors in reserve, and hopefully keep them off the board as long as possible. I know I'm losing some firepower, but I refuse to be phased out. 
The Lord and his bodyguard of Immortals use the Veil of Darkness to warp around the board, hitting weak units in the rear or flank.
The Nightbringer is pretty self explanatory... Keep him behind the monolith to get him close and then let the carnage begin.
The 2 Heavy Destroyers lay down supporting fire, focusing on tanks and snipers. Run the Pariahs behind the Monoliths until they are close enough to use those Warscythes of theirs like can openers.

Hopefully by the time the monoliths collide into the opposing army is when the warriors would flood out of the portals. And, if anyone gets dinged a little too hard, pull them thru the monolith to keep the numbers up.

I'm planning on trying out the list at out FLGS tomorrow night, hopefully against OST, Vogrin, or anyone else in the DFG crew. I'll post results and pics after.

Two Battle Reports for the price of one!

Despite it being a busy post-holiday week, I did manage to find time to squeak out to the hobby store to get in a game. Surprisingly, I was able to get in two, as I brought both my Armies with me, and people were out playing WFB as well.

We will start with 40K, as that was the first game I got in of the night.
My Necron Force at 1850:
2 Units of 12 Warriors
Monolith
Tomb Stalker
Tomb Spider
The Nightbringer
6 Pariahs
Lord (Destroyer Body, Res Orb, Phylactery, Gaze of Flame) with a unit of 5 Immortals

 My opponents force (as well as I know it...)
Chaos Marines
1 Unit of Bikes with a Chaos Sorcerer
4 Terminators
2 Rhinos
1 Vindicator

 Turn 1 did NOT go well for me at all. I had lost first turn, so the Chaos Marines sped in on their bikes and started laying into the Warriors and the Las Cannoning the Nightbringer. The Nightbringer took a wound and the warriors suffered a few casualties. Thankfully, my Lord w/Res Orb was right there, so I did get my WBB. My Pariahs took some heat from the Terminators and Rhino, but no wounds. The Vindicator fired on the Monolith, with no effect. On my turn 1, My warriors, Lord, and Immortals opened fire on the bike squad, peeling off only one. My Monolith fired on the Vindicator, glancing it. The Nightbringer fired on the rhino, destroying a twin linked bolter. The Tomb Stalker and Tomb Spider fired on the bike squad, then assaulted.
Here's where it got painful. The Chaos Sorcerer had the best initiative, and got to strike first. He landed only 1 wound on the tomb stalker, but that was all he needed, as he was equipped with a Force weapon. He used his psychic power and inflicted the rest of the wound on the Tomb Stalker, taking it down. The Tomb Spider wasn't able to do anything, and was forced to take 5 fearless tests after I failed the leadership roll... So much for those two units....

 The bike squad continued its sweep into my warriors, annihilating one whole squad. The las cannons kept pounding the Nightbringer, and the Pariahs had their hands full on the other side of the Monolith.

 When the bike squad got closer to the bulk of my force, his champion summoned a greater Daemon... At least THIS time I had the Nightbringer. As you can see from the pic, the Daemon and the Sorcerer broke off to attack the Nightbringer, while the rest of the squad slams into the second unit of Warriors.

 The Nightbringer was able to cut right thru the Daemon and the Sorcerer. (Yay C'Tan!) And the bike squad started taking casualties from all the fire it took. I pulled the Warriors thru the Monolith to get them out of hand to hand with the bikes.

 More Daemons were summoned, and the bikes swooped around to assault the Lord and Immortals. By this time I am really nervous, as my Phase out number is looming. On my turn, I pulled the Lord & Immortals thru the Monolith to get them out of Hand to Hand. At least this way they could open fire the bikes. 2 out of my 3 warriors fell, and if I lost one one more, I would phase out. 5 of my Pariahs fell to a good artillery hit, and the lone one began to move in with the rest of my force.

 My Warriors were able to get back up, staving off the phase out for another turn. Unfortunately, I forgot to move the Nightbringer, and he was just outside of assault range on the bikes. So, he stood there, chesse in the wind, and fell beneath the repeated Las Cannon fire........

The group of Lesser Daemons kept on the Warriors, and dropped the last 3, which was enough to make me phase out.


Sorry if this one read kinda funny, lots was going on all at the same time, and I really felt on the ropes after my Tomb Stalker got gutted back on turn 1. The bike unit with the Mark of Nurgle was a total pain. Looking at my own army, I felt that if I would have deployed slightly different, I would have fared way better. I should have swapped the unit of Pariahs and the Tomb Stalker. The Tomb Stalker would have fared better against the Terminators and Rhino, as it would have been able to shrug off most of the hits, and its multiple wounds most likely would have let it get in close enough to do some damage. The Pariahs would have been the Ace in the hole against the Sorcerer, being a Psychic abomination, soulless, and all equipped with Warscythes. Those bikes would have fell faster underneath the warscythes... Oh well, you learn from your mistakes. All in all, a fantastic game against Tony's Chaos Marines.


FOR BRETTONIA!!!!

My next game pitted my Brettonians against a swarm of Skaven. Now, this was not Mr. O's skaven, so it wasn't grudge match round 2, but I feel I fought a bit harder this time. This was a 1500 point game.

My Force:

Lord-Mounted on Hippogriff, w/Armor of Agilulf (Grants WS 10), Lance of Artois (+2 S & Killing Blow) and a Luck Stone (Re-Roll one failed Armor save).

16 Archers

Damsel of the Lany, Lvl 2, Lore of Life

6 Grail Knights w/ Wailing Banner (Unit Causes Terror)

9 Knights of the Realm wBanner of Chalons (Units may NOT use Stand and Fire when this unit charges it.)

9 Knights Errant w/ Banner of War (+1 Combat Resolution)

Paladin Battle Standard Bearer w/Sword of Strife (+2 Attacks) and Seed of Regrowth. (6+ Regeneration).

My Opponent:
3 Units of 20 Clan rats
5 Rat Ogres & Packmaster
3 Warlocks
3Warpfire Cannons

 As normal with my Bretonnians, they spent the first turn in Prayer, to get the blessing of the Lady. The Skaven advanced. Warp Lightning and Warp Fire started to rain in on the Knights, dropping a few of the Knights Errant.
Turn 2, saw the Lord advance, the Grail Knights fail a long-shot charge against the Rat Ogres, and the Knights of the Realm and Knights Errant advance.

 Unfortunately for my Knights, the Skaven then charged. Nothing takes the wind out of a Bretonnian Army's sails like denying them their charge. The Knights of the Realm held their own, however, the inexperienced Knights Errant took enough losses to break. They fled off of the board after failing to reform.
The Lord was uncontested on the Flank of the Skaven, and he launched a devestating charge on the Rat Ogre unit. After the unit suffering 5 wounds to my 0, they broke, and were cut down by the Lord.

 The Grail Knights hit the flank of the Unit of Clan Rats that was engaged with the Knights of the Realm. Being caught between the two units of Knights, the frenzied rats were cut down.
The Archers lobbed volley after volley at the warp fire cannons, as they were damaging the knights severely. One cannon went down.
The left most unit of clan rats then charged the rear of the Grail Knights, with the Lord following shortly behind, charging their rear. The Lord challenged the Skaven Warlord, and they went toe-to-toe.

The Knights of the Realm broke free and charged the second warp fire thrower, crushing it with their charge. The Lord fell in his challenge, but the Hippogriff kept fighting in his place.

When the smoke cleared on the battle field (No turn 6...) Only the unit of clan rats that run off the Knights Errant were unhurt, and the bulk of the clan rat unit was destroyed by the Knights.

We figured out the Kill points, he had 4 of his 10 units left. So, 6 Kill points for me.
I had only lost 2 units, but my lord as well, so a total of 3 Kill points for him.

 Overall, a fantastic game against Matt's Skaven. Though a decisive Bretonnian victory, I have to give Matt mad props for this battle. It was only his 3rd game of WFB, and he did exactly what he needed to do to nerf a Bretonnian Army, take away their charge. Leaving his flank open to the Lord was his undoing... I think he thought his unit of Rat Ogres would have fared better against him, but the Lord is a beast.

I look forward to seeing how this Skaven army progresses, as he builds up his army to higher point value games, it will get a lot nastier with the swarm increasing in size.

Well, that wraps it up. My last blog post of the year. Probably my last battle report for a while too, as the new semester starts up and life will be thrown into chaos. Don't fret tho, the blog will continue, as I plan on focusing more on painting and modeling for a while. I have quite the backlog of mini's to paint, terrain to build, and armies to ponder.

See you all next year!

... in which I discuss an underused unit, the Pariah.

Why do Necron Players not use the Pariah? Why don't people fear the Pariah as much as the Immortal?

I didn't manage to get a game in last night, but I was able to watch SeerKarandras take down the other Necron player at the shop. Now, he normally runs the Destroyer list, but last time we talked we threw around a few ideas and both came to the same conclusion. We need to utilize the Pariah. 

The Pariah itself is a pretty solid unit. It is not a Necron, so it does NOT get WBB. WS/BS 4, S/T 5,1 Wound, 1 attack, Leadership 10, 3+ save. The only stat I'm not happy with is initiative 3. They are equipped with a warscythe w/built in gauss blaster. Warscythe: No saves of ANY sort allowed, 2d6+Str for Armor Penetraion. Gauss Blaster: 24" Str 5 Ap 4 Assault 2. Special Abilities: Soulless: Enemy units within 12" are now leadership 7, unless normally lower. Psychic Abomination: Any Psyker within 6" must take a leadership test or fall back along with any squad they are leading. If they fail the Ld test, they only hit the Pariah on a 6. Fearless. All for 36 points a model.

Both LittleD and I came up with dramtically different lists, but still had the same concept core to them. Against SeerK's Eldar, he fielded 2 Monoliths, 2 Lords, 2 squads of Warriors, 2 Squads of Flayed Ones, and a squad of  Pariahs. The Pariahs definately had an effect on the Eldar. Sure, they don't have WBB, but they are just as tough as any other Necron unit. He had the Pariahs in the middle of the field, close enough to the Eldar that the Soulless ability (You have leadership 7, good day sir!) kicked in. They never got close enough to Eldrad to mess with him as a Psyker, but the Leadership reduction was enough. He closed the distance with his lords (both with Gaze of Flame. [-1 leadership that stacks w/any other penalties]) and Flayed Ones. Now, the Eldar had leadership 6, because of the combo of the two, and the Flayed Ones force a leadership test for terrifying visage. (If you fail, you only hit flayed ones on a 6.) This made it really ugly for the squad of aspect warriors that they assaulted. Obviously, they lost the assault, and broke... Unfortunately, they beat the Initiative test, so they ran... But the Flayed ones were able to give chase and keep harassing the squad. Very Effective strategy.

SeerK ended up crushing the Necrons, Dark Reapers launching crack missles into the Pariahs put an end to them pretty quick.

My idea for Pariahs initially had a great basis, but sadly wouldn't work. I wanted a Lord w/Warscythe and a veil of darkness to move them around. I figured, teleport in, use the gauss blaster, then assault with the Warscythes the next turn. Give any vehicles and or terminators a REALLY bad day. Sadly, Pariahs are not NECRONS.... meaning, no Veil of Darkness for them... Sad Panda. It wasn't a total loss though, as the Warscythe strategy w/Gaze of Flame and a Nightbringer nearby... I think that would cause some chaos. We shall see. I'm throwing together a list that would utilize this, and collecting the pieces... Perhaps by my next game I'll be able to test it.

Battle Report 12.15.10

LOL, I don't get it. Page views are WAAAAYYYYY up, but yet not many people leave comments or follow the blog. Either way, I am grateful for the traffic.

On to the battle report!

Ouch.

Chaos Daemons are a bunch of nasties.

Now, it's common knowledge that I am a 40k n00b, and that I don't know a lot about the opposing armies. My game this day taught me a lot though. Daemons are a nasty bunch to deal with, and for once, I feel that my loss was not an error of my mistaken tactics, but more that I faced a superior army with a general that knows how to use them. I had to use some proxy pieces in this battle, as I wanted to run my revamped army list, but I had not had enough time & money to buy the units I needed.

 Turn 1 left the Necrons setting up to an empty board. Now, I had lost initiative, and seeing as his army was teleporting in, I thought it would have been pointless to try and seize initiative.
I put my army in a good spread, warriors out front with the Monolith right behind, and the Lords and their units flanking the monolith.
A unit of Pink Horrors dropped in across the table, right in a blast crater. Two units of Plague Bearers dropped next, across the board from my Monolith.
The Pink Horrors then opened up on my squad of Warriors, 45 shots tearing into them. Many went down, but after my WBB roll, only 2 actually fell.

 My retaliation fire dropped a few PH's, and my Warriors moved in a little to help get their full assault fire next turn. My Lord grabbed his unit of Immortals and Veil of Darkness'ed over to the flank of the PH.
Turn 2 saw 2 Daemon Princes drop onto the table, using the standard bearers in the PH and PB units to come in spot on. Juggernauts of Khorne popped in, and a unit of flamers right to my flank. The Juggernauts assaulted my Necron Lord/Immortal unit, dropping 7 of my 8 Immortals. The Daemon Prince with the axe assaulted my warrior unit, while the flamers opened up on the Tomb Spider. The PH's kept their fire up, landing another 45 shots into my Warriors.

 I had planned on pulling my Immortal/Lord combo thru the Monolith, but discovered too late that they must be within 18"... My bad. 4 Immortals got back up, and the Lord VoD'd out to the rear of the PH's. Instead, I pulled my Monolith around and started Particle Whipping the Daemon Prince. The Unit of Pariahs sliced right thru the flamers (Yay Warscythes!)  Now, he had a named Character in with his Unit of Juggernauts that had broken off and moved towards the main force of my army. My Tomb Spider assaulted him, more keeping him tied up than actually harming him.

My reserves are where it began to get disappointing. My Flayed ones failed their reserve roll (Again!), but my Tomb Stalker made it, so it was able to Deep Strike right up by the PH's and Juggernauts. I had the TS fire on the PH's taking a few more of them out, seeing as I can't assault when I deep strike, unlike the Daemons. My Warriors were falling left and right underneath the assault from the Daemon Prince, and their assault back did nothing more than make more fall. The instant death dealt to them by the Prince just wasn't helpful.

 After the Pariahs and 2nd Lord finished off the flamers, they consolidated in around the Named Character. He was about to have a really bad turn 3 with 6 Warscythes coming for him.

Sadly, however, turn 3 never came for me. The Daemon prince wiped out the last of my Warrior squad, and the PH's dropped my second unit of Warriors, dropping me to phase out.

 A pretty resounding defeat by the Daemons for the Necrons. Like I said, however, I think I was outclassed here, and didn't make any tactical mistakes. He totally ignored my Tomb Stalker, Monolith, and Pariahs. He went straight for the phase out, cutting down my warriors with extreme prejudice. With instant death and/or power weapons, my WBB was never even a factor. This is why I don't care if they get rid of that rule. There are so many ways around it, it has never done more than have a smidgen of warriors get back up over the course of me running this army. It's been useful, but not game deciding like everyone makes it out to be. There are just too many 2x strength, powered, and other types of weapons that denies the WBB roll.

What I took away from this battle:
-Protect the Necrons! Phase out sucks, so I should barricade some Warriors aside so that Phase out isn't an issue.
-Warscythes rule!
-Should have brought the Nightbringer. If anyone sould have stepped to a Daemon Prince, it would be a C'Tan.
-The Monolith my be nigh on impossible for the opposing army to destroy, and I should use that to my advantage. Instead of holding it back, I should have put it right out and particle whipped the snot out of his troops, even though it was damaging the prince every turn, it was only dealing one would a turn, when it could have been wiping squads out.

Well, time to revamp the list for a trip out to Evolution tonight. I hope to report a victory this time!

...in which I discuss 40K ideas, and review a local store.

So the other Necron player in the area that I know loves to go heavy on the Necron Destoryers to basically out flank and riddle his opponents with gauss fire. It is pretty effective, as I have been on the recieving end of that fire myself. I also hear it's a really popular tactic, so that makes me want to steer clear of using it. I like to be more innovative with my armies, and definitely make my opponent second guess his tactics against me.

So, after much thought, I've come up with an army list I'd like to try.




It may or may not be a new idea, but tactically I think it will catch a lot of local players off guard. It will be a while before I can field this army, mostly due to having to buy a lot of these pieces yet. Here's the concept:

2 Units of 12 Warriors
2 Monoliths
2 Units with Necron Lords
        - One Unit 5 Pariahs, and a Necron Lord with a Warscythe, Veil of Darkness, and a Destroyer Body
        - One Unit 6 Immortals and a Necron Lord with a Staff of Light, Veil of Darkness and a Res Orb.
1 Necron Tomb Stalker

When I originally did this list, I had some Heavy Destroyers in place of the Tomb Stalker, but I'm jonesing to try that unit out, so as long as my opponent is cool with Forge World, I'm running it!

The tactics are fairly simple. Use the two Monoliths to block line of sight to my lords and their units, and face the portals away from my opponent. If any of my units get into trouble, I pull them thru. With the Lords, last game I used the Veil of darkness/Immortal concept to move and shoot, and it worked really well. I want to use that same idea for the Pariahs. Now, I do not think I can assault on the turn I teleport, but teleporting them behind enemy lines for them to fire will still be effective. Any psychers on the field will have a really bad day. The gauss flayers will wreak their own havoc, and next turn having 6 warscythes in assault range will easily tear down any heavy artillery or Terminators. Warscythes do not allow saves of any kind, including invulnerable, and when they strike a vehicle they roll 2d6+str for their pen. Add to this mix 48 shots a round from my 2 squads of warriors, 2 particle whips from the monoliths, and a Tomb stalker running wild... I think it will be pretty gruesome.

So, SeerKarandras sealed my fate with the Imperial Guard. He gave me three boxes of Greatcoat troopers. These are not "GW" models in anyway, but they do look almost identical to the Death Korp of Kreig models. 52 troops are already in the works.

The kits are really neat, as they come with enough spare parts to completely trick out and mod other mini's. After looking at some of the heavy weapons teams, I am confident I can just buy the basic GW ones, and cut off the heads and swap them for some of the spares I have. Vehicles are the same, I'll just have to adjust the paint scheme. Aquillas and Iron Crosses. Of course, I'll probably splurge on the forgeworld command group and a Gorgon... but we shall see....


On to the store review!!!
21st Century Comics and Games
515 E Grand River
East Lansing, Mi 48823
http://21stcenturycomics.com/

Alright, I'll admit it. I'm, a little biased here. This is one of my favorite stores in Michigan. They have a wide selection of games, GW product, Reaper Mini's, and comics. They also have Battletech Mini's (One of only two stores in the entire state of Michigan that I've found!), and hobby supplies. They carry not only the Gale Force 9 stuff, but Woodland scenics as well. The staff is really cool, and if they don't have what you're looking for in stock, they will order it. They also have a used RPG section, so you can buy RPG books cheap, or sell the ones you are no longer using. Plenty of gaming space too.

The 2 big advantages here are the customer loyalty program and the Battletech pods.
-For the customer loyalty program, you get a stamp on your card for every $20 you spend. On anything. After 10 stamps, you get a 20% discount on your next purchase. Their stuff does run MSRP, but if you are like me, you will pick up a few odds and ends here and there (comics, brushes, paints,books, RPG aids, etc.) , and accumulate your stamps quickly. I turn around and then do a massive purchase (usually of GW stuff) at 20% off. So cool.
- Battletech pods. Yeah. Exactly the same as the ones at Virtual World. A huge cockpit that you climb into, strap in, and are immersed in a full simulation of a mech battle. They have 4 pods, so it's always a great way to spend an afternoon with some friends.

Now the draw back. And it's a doozie. The only reason this place is not my FLGS and my store of choice is that it is right across the street from Michigan State University's campus. You have to pay for parking, and that can get expensive, especially on days that their are big football or basketball games. The traffic that also comes with the sports is pretty heinous too, so I steer clear of East Lansing on those days whenever possible.

Still, the store itself is pretty damn awesome. It's not their fault MSU is a Big 10 school.

5 Stars

 

 

Till next time.....

When I will hopefully have another battle report, and maybe even an evaluation of the Tomb Stalker's capabilities!