40K these days...

The state of the game…  Yeah, sounds pretentious J…  Now, this is all just my opinion as always, and mostly just based on my experiences and the armies I play.  I am getting the feeling that the game is becoming less and less balanced.  I’d be a bit hesitant to say that certain codices are “broken” or bad for the game, but Grey Knights would be one that I’d say brings it REALLY close.  An entire army loaded out with Power Weapons, Str 8 vs Str 7 for Autocannons and their Psycannons everywhere…  Before the GK’s, the Blood Angels have Rhino Hulls that are just better than everyone else’s…  It seems more and more like an engine that is getting itself further and further out of balance as it runs longer.  I think that there really are “first tier”, “second tier” and “others”… 

First tier I have as: Wolves, BA, GK, and IG…  Of course, only certain “builds” are really the powerful ones, even these armies have subpar units…  It’s kind of annoying on some levels as those are 4 of the armies I play, and I’m REALLY trying hard not to play the “Uber” lists…  Not sure if I could come up with anything other than “I think this is true” to back up my opinion of course.  Well, that and of course I have an excellent record with the above armies.  It is difficult to come up with better lists than some of the “hard” lists I CAN field with a first tier army…  Especially if the army on the other side of the table is not itself a first tier army…  Can still be beaten of course, but the odds are stacked against it…

I enjoy playing Eldar, but with so few viable options, it is an exercise in futility against a well-built “modern” army.  The stuff in IA2 does bring good things to the army, and it is looking like the new IA book (http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/New_Stuff/IMPERIAL-ARMOUR-VOLUME-ELEVEN-THE-DOOM-OF-MYMEARA.html) seems like it does bring a LOT of things that could do a lot to bring the Eldar up to more modern standards…

So, Eldar and Dark Angels (Deathwing or Dual Wing) are my “second tier” armies…  Extremely limited builds, very narrow focus, and not viable outside of that…

Outside of the ones I actually play, I can’t really say where a lot of armies end up…  Tau were hard to beat prior to BA and to an extent Wolves, and now I think they simply cannot compete with the GK or Necron lists…  Orks have their swarms and walkers which are also a bit of a swarm…  They can compete in a somewhat limited fashion against all but the GK I think…  DE are good if built right, but not sure if they are first tier…  Sisters are “eh” these days…

Looking forward to 6^th edition and I am hoping the IA stuff livens up the scene a bit…

IA/next army...

So, what army next J…  I guess I’ll keep painting my Wolves for the moment because I am moving along quite nicely there and honestly I’m actually enjoying it at the moment.  Back to conversion work I guess as my Wolf Guard need their Combi-weapons…  Thankfully it looks like the stuff I picked up at the Gopher will allow me to make a few here and there with Green stuff…  And then I’ll have to magnetize Terminators…

So, I guess I’ll be bringing it up for the local gaming group…  Wanting to include IA (Imperial Armour) rules in our 40K games…  The new editions have been rewritten and split up to indicate if they are 40K or not…  And the IA 2 book does seem to indicate that they are completely legal for GW events, so we’ll have to be sure everyone actually knows what the rules and options ARE…  There are some pretty neat things in the books, and honestly I am looking forward to some new things hitting the tables…

Post Christmas fun...

Picked up the Imperial Armour Apocalypse Second Edition this evening…  Sometimes the Gopher gets in some really interesting things on consignment.  Read over it, guessing I already knew most of the things there but I do think that they are doing it right these days…  Now, they do print that the things labeled “40K” are legal to play in “official” 40K events, and it does look like they’ve fixed all of the more obvious broken things…  Like for instance the Lucius class Drop Pod is NOT legal for Blood Angel Marines J…  Have to admit that was one I WAS planning on putting into a team tournament force… 

Cranked up the bike today, didn’t take her out, but it was REALLY nice turning the engine over.  Maybe this week I’ll still be able to get in a ride or two before I really have to put her up for the year.

Christmas was pretty fun, had Matt and Kaitlyn up from Ft Cambpell along with the wee girls.  Pretty mellow…  Wound up making a normal lasagna for Christmas eve and then a seafood lasagna for Christmas… 

Mkay, pretty much done for the night J  Off to Peoria tomorrow for Christmas with my parents…  At least the girls will probably have fun…

Now what?

Mkay, so where to go from here…  Pretty sure I have the Wolves all worked out.  I can min max the hell out of them and throw a BUNCH of heavy weapons out on the table…  The army then is not nearly so much fun to play though in my opinion.  Also, if the dice themselves are against you as they were for me last week J…  Normally it would have at least been a slugfest, and to an extent it was, but Dawn of War and SO MANY 1’s and 2’s on the dice were rolled for me J…  Honestly I just had to laugh it off, and that in and of itself made the game a LOT more enjoyable for me, just seeing how unlucky I could possible get…  Sadly, even with the luck factor and the DoW silliness weighing against me, I still nearly pulled out a tie, so I feel the Wolves are a few more powerful army than I had originally given them credit for.  If you build them “right” I guess.  Next week I break out a “fun” force with Logan leading out his lads…  I think I’ve run out of opponents though, so guessing it’ll just be against whoever happens to be around.  Kind of scary actually, and if Dave and I build our “Team” armies “right” next tournament we wander off to, I can see us doing fairly well…

Not sure I’ll be able to play New Year’s Eve tournament with some friends of my wife’s coming into town…  We’ll see, I’d like to get away and play a bit, but who knows really…  And given the choice of playing for the day and annoying the wife J…  Well, I’ll just play the next week I guess…

Other than that, just Christmas preparations going on…  More cleaning out some ancient boxes and the like from the basement of doom, found some more interesting ancient toys, both gaming and firearm type…  Now to clean them off J… I think I want to lay out my armies to get pics of the “whole lot”…  Just to see how many exactly I really have here…  Interesting to see, and a “real” reason involving insurance since I’d really have no clue what was lost should the house disappear today…

Looking forward to 6th ed...

If for no other reason than perhaps the "Dawn of War" mission can just go away...  Not sure how best to say just how fucking much I hate that mission...  :-)  Yes, subtle I know...  But what the fuck were they thinking making such a stupidly unbalanced mission that gets played 1/3 of the time... Of course, it could be just my bitterness about the fact it really screws over almost all of the armies I play.  HtH hordes just dominate because they start half way across the field, and the other side has a "very limited" set of deployment options...  And of course the game starts off completely screwing any Infantry based force...  Mech, not AS much, but even then, turn one is almost always a wash...

Back to power munching ibuprofen here...  Don't think I broke my tailbone, but it is a possibility I guess...  At least I can say "My broke ass" :-)  Yeah, tomorrow looks like a LONG day...

Nothing fun here this weekend...

Pretty sure I’m going to get myself killed in some random and what should have been completely harmless fashion…  Last night I wound up stepping through the stair in the garage headed into the house with groceries, etc…  Wound up on the ground, fortunately all those years getting thrown around in Aikido/Ju Jitsu seem to have stuck with me as nothing TOO bad seems to have happened.  Of course, while I was laying on the concrete I couldn’t help but think that this would be how I wind up getting killed after all of the amazingly stupid stuff I’ve done over the years…  Been shot a few times, stabbed, hit with cars, dropped out of various aircraft and none of that did me in J…  But watch out for those broken stairs…  Ibuprofen is my friend, mostly because I lost my ass all those years ago playing poker and lack some important padding J…

Not sure what is going on with the kids from the local High School…  I spent a few years in a line combat unit, and we didn’t take losses at anything like the level these kids are.  Lost another one Thursday out here, and he was a friend of the family…  Good kid, damn shame.  Not really looking forward to the wake, his sister was really close with Maggie and the kids (classmates with Kaitlyn) and she was over here all the time during their HS years…  I cannot even begin to imagine what she is going through as she was quite close to her older brother.A lot of my friends from way back when are dead, but by and large doing what we were doing, not really a surprise I think…  Different situation altogether here, and completely outside of my area of experience…

Bye week I guess...

Well, I took the bye with the odd number of players last week.  So, maybe an 1850 game or a 1500 against a mellower opponent…  I’ll probably have a “fun” list with Logan, his Guard and the Land Raider (Spartan Class) I made all those years ago…  The “serious” list will be loads of heavy weapon spam backed up by a decent HtH and my Scouts running a flank or two…

Getting a bit more serious about painting, getting more and more of the lads painted up…  So, I’ll actually have a fully painted Wolf force again after all of these years…  Waiting a bit on 6^th Edition I think, there are so many things in the Wolf codex specifically that really make no sense whatever, or are massively overcosted.  No clue of course what changes will come in, but guessing I have a LOT of choices given the sheer number of things in the basement.

Cleaning and fixing some ancient firearms here, might be getting rid of some J…  Also trying to get myself back onto the workout routine… 

It's looking like Maggie will have friends in for New Years, still hoping to escape for the 40K tournament, but we'll see I guess... 

So, how far along the darker path do I go...

So, on to the league…  Limited choices for who to play next, and so likely to run against the min/maxxed IG list now or at 1850…  This being the last week at 1500, frankly I’d rather just get it over with now J…  Playing IG as well, there is just so much they can bring to the table with that extra 350 points that it starts to get a bit silly really…  So, in thinking about what I’ll be bringing, I find myself building more and more “efficient” lists.  It’s not really that I’m concerned they’ll work as intended; I think they’ll work too well.  And it does let that “somewhat more competitive side” of me out to play…  And that whole power gamer spiral is really hard to get back into the bottle when it gets released… 

Rune Priest (Living Lightning, whatever, rides in Rhino with a GH squad)

GH Squads, min size, Melta (overpowered short range AT for 5 points) or Flamer (it is FREE) in Razorbacks…  I like the old Las Cannon/Twin Linked Plasma Gun turrets, but the TLLC or TLAC works).  It comes to 155/150 points for the light Tank and small but fairly effective squad.  Troops, and I’ll likely deploy out a WG to most of the squads to help a bit…  But you will notice no Plasma Pistol, no Mark of the Wolfen, No Power Weapon/Fist, etc…  Neat stuff, and as a “fluff” player I REALLY like having it on all of my squads, it is not efficient enough for competitive play.  Having ridden into battle in wee metal boxes, I cannot imagine the lads wouldn’t “find” that extra little bit of equipment ( you might be surprised just how much of that extra bit of "stuff" I "found") or that any commander…  Ok any Wolf commander who would have any sort of problem at all with his lads making themselves more effective on the field…

One GH squad in Rhino for the Priest’s ride if I go that route, else he deploys with Long Fangs…

Oh, and Long Fangs...  Loaded out with Missile Launchers, lots and lots of Missile Launchers for my AA duties and general “we shoot other little metal boxes” duties…  So, a unit of 5 Fangs with 4 Missile Launchers is the old 115 point “fill in the blank” unit level like my Scouts and DN’s, etc…  345 points for 12 Missiles shooting at potentially 6 different targets every turn, other than the “we’re not mobile” and “we have no real ablative bodies” problems, I am not seeing a down side…

So, looking at Armybuilder, I have 4 Razorback Squads and 3 Long Fang squads led out by the Rune Priest coming to just over 1000 points.  Likely bring out a Wolf Guard Squad to detail out among some of the other squads and the CML armed one to go in with the Fangs to provide more missile spam and a power weapon in Terminator armor in the unlikely event it comes to HtH…  And I’ll probably add a Scout squad to gamble on the ability to deal with Artillery that will likely sit back in the backfield…  And another 2-3 Razorbacks for the Fangs to provide some rolling cover/deployment aid in the event of “dawn of War” silliness…  Maybe.

So all together a stupid amount of long ranged heavy firepower should it come to a toe to toe slugfest…  Mine is generally more accurate and powerful while the IG has numbers and slightly better transports I think…  But not really the game I enjoy playing.  Too damn effective and not really all that much fun for me, so I can only imagine not much for the other side of the table.  It is one thing if it is a no holds barred environment like a major Tournament, but for a local league a bit much…  I guess we’ll see how annoyed I am Monday and go from there J…

Ah, sick kinder....

So, working from home today with a sick kinder :-)  Maggie is off working and I can actually get a fair amount done from here...  Fortunate it was today with only one meeting scheduled and that one is to be a Lync (teleconference, sort of) meeting....  Looks like things are getting ready to go on that front.  The cats are all a bit freaked out, especially Lugh and Thor...  Giant Maine Coons, Lugh considers Maurgen and I as "his" humans, and Thor is pretty well the "king" cat with their pack structure here...  Maybe teaching them to pack hunt was a bad thing :-)  But Zeke used to run a pretty tight pack, so it worked out well when he actually decided something had to be done...  Lugh and Thor are more or less competing for that "pack leader" role at times, but I am convinced that Lugh is mostly just asserting that Maurgen and I are in "his" territory, he does not like that Thor is a big attention monster and dad's slipper cat...  Thor, being the older one resents the young kitten where "dad attention" is concerned, but is perfectly fine with Lugh as the "Maurgen Guard"...  Now, Lugh is getting to be a bit larger than Thor, as the Coons grow for their first 5 years and Lugh is filling out nicely.  Never going to be a "show cat", he's very broad and muscular...  War cat more than show cat.  But for the one guarding my daughter, war cat works better I think....  Thor has the markings of the old Norwegian Forrest Cats or the Lynx really...  So, much more or a "Forest Hunter" than just "War Cat"... And Thor is laying on my right arm "helping me type" right now...

Gaming, a bit of painting, but just so much going on these days...   Trying to figure out what to do against a min/maxxed IG force....  Dunno, likely just my standard "rock" and we'll see...

1500 point level!

So, we're moving to 1500 points and I know that I am facing Necrons...  New codex, good player, so this should be interesting at least...

I'll probably field something like this:

Logan Grimmar
Wolf Priest (Saga of the Hunter, runs with the Terminators)
Rune Priest (Tempest Wrath? and maybe Jaws of the World Wolf or Lightning)
Wolf Guard (6 in Terminator armor, various combi weapons, Wolf Claws, one with CML)
Wolf Guard (3, various weapons mounted in Razorback)
2 Wolf Scout units (Melta, Plasma Pistols, etc...)
2 Long Fang Squads (ML's, HB's a Plasma Cannon or two...  One squad loaded into Razorback)

Light on Troops IMO...  But with a REALLY solid shooting core with some pretty decent HtH backing it up.  And then there is the 2 squads of Scouts lurking in the background...

Not sure about the Rune Priest, but looking at potentially loads of skimmers...  So, the 100 points maybe to add to Wolf Guard?