Brain dead, but still moving...

Actually left work a bit early today...  Been feeling craptastic for a while now, but figured that throwing up on someone's PC while working on it would be counterproductive.  Took the bike out for a bit of a spin, but not much...  Just pretty brain dead...  Trying to straighten out a few random thoughts, but nothing seems to be working on that end...

Thinking that the ancient Falcon I have for my Eldar will become the base hull for "more" of them...  Cast in plaster or resin... That or some other scratch build sort of thing, I have access to some neat printers at work that apparently can do the cardstock printing pre-cut with patterns...  I'll give that a shot I guess...

My Wolf Combi weapons are coming along in Green Stuff (need to pick some more up soon I guess) and my "Steampunk IG" project is rotating off of "hold" status...  Building a Space 1889 Airship for them to use as Valkyries/Vendettas...  Not an original idea I confess, getting the idea/inspiration from http://22ndpraetorian.blogspot.com/2010/08/air-mobile-praetorian-style.html ...  Check it out, it is a REALLY nicely done build for the lads...

Exhausted ranting :-)

Trying to wrap my head around some things, and I am thinking that I had what to me at least is a minor epiphany,,,  The more recent 40K things that I feel are "overpowered" or "broken" seem to universally be things that break the design rules.  Now, an example of this is the Grey Knight's Falchions...  They are functionally identical to every other Marine (well, not Wolves, but...) Lightning Claws, but they do not have the major disadvantage of the LC.  The Knights' swords still allow their user to wield them and retain the Storm Bolter for a good shooting attack.  So, it is "like" the basic thing but "just better".  It is a pattern that I am seeing over and over in the "top tier" armies.  Not sure if it is an intentional thing like Rackham did with Confrontation 3.5 in an effort to prepare the way for the next major edition to "fix the problems" in the game or if it just the way that codex creep works there...  Kind of why I am a bit concerned about my Eldar getting rewritten, I want a fun but NOT overpowered force.  Something a bit different for me because I feel that pretty much all of the other armies I play are top tier, and so I have to be a bit careful not to fall into the min/max trap and get bored :-)  So, something for me to think about while I am painting my toys... Getting to the point I can field a WYSIWYG and fully painted force for several of my armies....  Eldar now getting close, need to get some more Falcon hulls though...  The ancient Armorcast hull looks nice and I do think it would be a unique force to bring out...

The "less often used" Eldar stuff actually did quite well last night...  Dark Reapers, if they can set up in say, a building and shoot at things not in cover can really take a toll on whatever they happen to be across the table from.  The Exarch with the Tempest Launcher and Crack Shot is amazing.  Re-rolling to wound and no cover save on an AP 3 weapon usually means just no saves for his 2 blast templates. Mind, they DID die horribly to HtH when the last few of a Homogaunt swarm hit them...  I do kind of miss the old Exarch with the good HtH weapon options as well, and I have to admit that for the point cost, making the Reaper Launchers either Assault Weapons or giving them a second (or third) shot type option would be REALLY nice in the next edition :-)...  Pathfinders did actually wipe out the last of the 'Gaunts in HtH to hold their objective, the Swooping Hawks survived due to there being no shooting so not sure it was a good test...  Still, jumping around and throwing out 16 STR 3 shots at 24" range, some of which can cause pinning from a small unit is nice...  Just not so sure they'll last against say, an IG army with AP 4 firepower to spare.  Scorpions killed the enemy Psycher/anti-armor (forget their name...  I see it as recovering Eldar DNA) before getting destroyed by a swarm of Stealers...  They were "OK", but did what had to be done to win the game.  Drawing the uber CC element which also happened to be a Troop section away from one of my weakly held objectives kept it from being a draw.  There was no way his swarms would have made the trek across the large kill zone in the center of the table to contest/dislodge my fire base over there, so I would have held one to his one.

I do have to get away from setting up a "fire base" like that with so mobile an army as the Eldar...  I had the Dire Avengers, Eldrad, Wave Serpent, Wraith Lord, and a Fire Dragon Squad set up in a corner supported by my Spiders jumping around...  Fire Dragons (Exarch w/ Crack Shot for the all important "oops, I rolled a 1" to wound protection and "no cover save for you") did almost nothing as most of them died to the Genestealer Brood Lord, but the Exarch and one survived breaking from HtH to shoot him in the face and take the remaining wound away wiping the brood off the table as they fled...  Spiders survived a round of HtH against a strung out swarm of Gaunts to break away and allow the fire base to open up...  Really only did so well because I seized init...  I didn't realize just how fast the Gaunts really can run in a turn.  And I need to bring more "Troops" to hold objectives...

All in all, the Eldar did well enough...  Hawks I think stay on the shelf still though.  They might surprise a Mech army with Haywire Grenades, but the fact that they evaporate to the first thing that looks at them...  Real shame, they were among my favorite ancient models to actually play, and these days they are just so bad and overpriced that I feel like I am being silly to even consider fielding them...Reapers and Dragons go back into rotation.  War Walkers will I think be something I keep (didn't use them last night, I KNOW they are good), just need to determine the weapon loadout...  The traditional Bright Lance/Scatter Laser (OK, it was "Las Cannon/Scatter Laser" in the ancient times) might be good against Marine forces, especially if I keep them near Eldrad for a Guide...  Dual Scatter Lasers for the 8 STR 6 shots each though...  That works well against a LOT of things...  Just not Terminators.  Wraith Lord, even the Seer is going to be a harder one to take I think.  Just too much Mech/anti Mech in the local play group.  Just have to decide on what "Troops" to start fielding...  Probably a few min squads of Dire Avengers in Serpents as scoring light tanks...  Maybe an Autarch to play the Reserve game, especially in Kill Point missions...  Things off the table most of the game are less likely to die :-)  Just have to GET to the table at some point...

IA 11....

Well, on my initial read through of the book...  Well, I do think that the next edition's Eldar are being revealed a bit at a time.  BS 4 seems to be a running theme.  FAST.  The DE move fast and fire everything looks like it goes army wide...  The D-Cannon looks like it gets deadly again, and they start to bring out more low AP weapons...

Which brings me to what I am thinking might well be at least a slightly broken thing...  Corsair list gives them Troops that are AMAZING...  The current codex has a LOT of Troop choices, but by and large they are all mediocre at best.  The Corsair squad, maxxed out at 10 with all the good options comes to 175.  Jet Packs giving the Tau (well, "rulebook", but the Tau are the only ones who have it) move/shoot/move with Relentless... The squad would have 2 Fusion Guns (Melta Guns) and 2 Eldar Missile Launchers...  The basic troops have Assault 2 weapons with 24" range, so a crapton of Str 3 shots on a highly mobile platform...  Just concerned that it is getting cheap to throw out a bunch of really good shots in terms of high Str and low AP without much of a disadvantage...  And they can deep strike, shoot and move to scatter...  Might be a bit too good for ~200 points...  Mind, no clue whatever if the Eldar will get the same options as the Corsairs, but since that's where the tech originated...

Warp Hunter

Mkay, so I think I may have found one of the somewhat overpowered things in the IA2 book...  The Warp Hunter really is quite powerful, probably too powerful.  Fast skimmer for the 12" move, 36" ranged Barrage weapon OR (and I think this is the broken part) the Aether Rift which uses the flamer template placed within 6" of the gun, and the teardrop no closer to the gun than the narrow end.  And both fire modes are AP 2, wounding on a 2+ (ID on a 6)...  Template weapons negating cover saves means that I can bring it in from reserve or going fast and hit something REALLY hard.  Now, the template has no roll to hit, allows no cover save or armor save...  Mind, I can still roll 1's, but should the unit be say, doomed...  So, say goodbye to a whole lot of "Rock" units...

And against vehicles, the roll of 3-4 for a glance and 5-6 for a penetrating hit...  Combined with the template or large blast?  Well, parking lots are in trouble...  Go in a "V" formation with Serpents loaded out with Fire Dragons and watch the look of "Oh Shit" just creep onto the player putting the parking lot strategy into effect...

Yeah, still no "I kill hordes" really...  I guess the massed S6 shooting I can throw down will be what I can use to deal with the horde effect...

The Eldar next week...

Not sure who I'll be playing next week, but doing a bit of painting, etc...  Thinking of fielding:

Eldrad
Scorpions (Exarch w/ sabers, Shadowstrike and Stalker)
Pathfinders
Dire Avengers (8+ Exarch w/Bladestorm in Serpent)
My ancient Vampire class DN (EML/Scatter Laser)
Dark Reapers (Exarch w/ EML/Fast Shot or Tempest/Crack Shot)
Swooping Hawks (Exarch w/ Skyleap and one of the neat weapons)
+ ?

The Farseer kitted out the way I'd use them would be over 150 points, and Eldrad comes to 210 for a version far better in every aspect I think...  So, sadly, seems almost a no brainer for me, unless for whatever reason I am fielding 2 cheap Farseers just for the extra bodies I guess...

The rest?  Well, breaking out some of the REALLY rarely seen things just to give them a shot...  Might surprise some of the lads...  More likely to make a neat multi colored mist as they explode from anything more powerful than harsh language :-)  But might be fun all around...

Conventional Wisdom?

Not sure if I can effectively say that "conventional wisdom" is silly or not WRT 40K...  I've spent the better part of the last few years trying to play and win with a lot of the "sub-optimal" units/armies in 40K.  Some have been a success, in fact I have actually won a lot more often than I have lost.  Now, a fair amount of that is playing in a "small pond" with a fairly limited pool of opponents, but I do think a lot of it was really a combination of surprise and unfamiliarity with so many things that no one in their right mind would choose.  Saying that, there are still a lot of things that "conventional wisdom" is completely correct about in most situations...  :-)  My opinion only per usual...  My Swooping Hawks and Banshees in the Eldar army are still by and large "highly situational" in the case of the Banshees and  "Let's Wait For Next Edition" on the Hawks...  Thinking a lot more about my Eldar force as you'd guess, playing them in the current Gopher league...  Pathfinders are a solid choice, but fragile.  Guardians are not very good and fragile...  Dire Avengers or Guardians in Serpents seem to be the only one worth taking in a modern play environment.  The Wraith Guard are too expensive in general... Effective, yes...  But a "bit" expensive...

For the bulk of the folks there I'll be playing more "fun" lists and seeing how I can make them work....  My Scorpions with the Chain Saber Exarch flanking works out to be a really good flanking unit...  If they actually show up on a side with the enemy close that is....  Otherwise it's a LONG walk for the 150+ point unit...  The Biting blade seems the "let's get Mech armies" to me, and if it were rending or better Power, I'd say it was really good...  I seem to get a bunch of S7 hits that Marines laugh off with him.  But since I converted one of the lads to the Saber variant I've been running that to decent effect...  Tears through IG and even gets a fair number of wounds against T4 things with the re-rolls to mitigate my poor dice :-)  I don't HAVE enough Falcon type hulls to effectively run the standard "Mechdar" force, but I can do a close enough one I guess...  Just don't think it will be too effective against a well built IG or GK/Wolf "we shoot things" force.  Against that, I'll be relying on flankers and reserves to try to bring me closer to even...  Every advantage I can eke out of the force to try to come close to even odds. Pretty sad commentary that I have to rely completely on luck, "focused list building" and good generalship to even feel like I'm in an even fight with a well built "top tier" list.  To be expected I guess, and one aspect where the conventional wisdom is pretty well right on.  To fight the expected "focused build" IG in the league I'll be having to play the reserve game, hope my lads can roll in, shoot something down/up and maybe even survive the counter fire...  Not a game I'm likely to win or even have fun playing I think.  But sadly, I do think I have at least a shot of making it a hard game iff I build specifically for the expected opposition and they oblige by showing up pretty much as expected :-)...  So, to  restate this: To win, I'd need to min-max a custom force against his, he must field exactly what I'm expecting and I'll need to get lucky on the reserve rolls and with my shooting :-)  Yeah, he's a good player and so I'll likely lose or at best make it a bloody draw as my lads get destroyed...  Same thing happens against Mike, but at least we're both usually quite bloody at the end and it is an enjoyable game

Made the most obnoxious "Rock" or "Anvil" unit I could in the army for last night's game.

Eldrad (210)
Wraithguard (Full unit, w/ Spirit Seer/conceal/Spear) (399)
Wraith Seer (Scatter Laser) (205)

So, LOTS of points, but it gives me a T6, Fearless, Re-rollable save, FNP scoring unit I can march across the field and/or camp objectives with.  Yes, better than half of my army at 1500 points and against some forces it may never do anything but die slowly (I'd hope)...  OTOH, if the game revolves around the other side having to come dig me out...  Well, good luck.  Wraith Guns being in the "I Don't Care" class of weapon I really like to field should make even tooled out Paladins think twice about coming over to assault me.  Mind, I ended up playing to a draw against a good Necron force mostly due to several silly mistakes on my part to compound some bad dice for reserves/flankers...  Should have put the damn Pathfinders up on the second level of the building to make them immune to the Scarabs.  Should have been a bit more cautious with the Spiders and War Walkers, but at that point I really needed to blunt the Scarab's fast moving offensive to keep them away from my "home base" objective being held by a few Pathfinders or encircling my Anvil unit.  On the other hand, I should have realized once I killed one of his 3 Heavy Destroyers I could and SHOULD have moved my Wraith Seer out aggressively to dare his Scarabs to engage...  At that point his Spiders were really the only thing that could effectively hurt him, and he easily over-matched them unless all 6 hit him at once...  If I had moved him even one turn earlier he would have tied up the Scarabs and likely destroyed them in a turn or two, but in any case I would not have been drawn off of the 2 (!!!) objectives they were holding in the center of the field :-)  Still, it was a really fun game getting me more used to playing against the new Necrons...  Guessing it will be Tyranids next week...

Eldar on the move...

:-)  Not sure what direction to go with for the league...  But a bit bored with some of the more overpowered forces so Wolves and Grey Knights are definitely taking a breather...  The Dark Angels are powerful but REALLY limited in terms of viable armies, and a LOT less fun to actually play after a while...  IG are also potentially really too powerful coupled with the fact that they require WAY too may models...  Trying to get fully painted armies to the field, and even after watching Zulu again I doubt I could keep that level of interest in painting my Light Rifle Company...  Yeah, the bulk have a "base coat", but still...

In any case, I'm playing Eldar.  Looking at Imperial Armour, I'm really liking what the Eldar get...  The Hornet is what the Viper really should be in the current ruleset.  The Warp Hunter is their version of the Marine Vindicator, and it is I think better in a lot of ways.  Might be a bit overpowered offensively, the "Inferno" template fire mode for the D-cannon combined with the 5" blast for the main fire mode...  Both modes are "D Cannon" for the rule, so 2+ to wound, 6 is ID and 2-4 for a  glance and 5+ for a penetrating hit....  Yeah, I'll still roll lots of 1's, but AP 2 and no cover save is really quite deadly against a whole lot of things....  The Hornet and Jaeger look powerful but really fragile.  The Wraithseer looks like a potentially "fun" option, but with so many choices being made for me by simply choosing the Wraithseer...  Need another HQ AND a unit of Wraithguard...  So, my "Eldar Castle" army would work, but that leaves so little for anything below 1850+...  Eldrad, full Wraithguard squad and the Wraithseer comes to 800+ points...  So, tough to take down in a kill point mission with the potential for a unit of Fearless T6 FNP Troops with re-rollable cover and armor saves... Good luck killing them quickly.  But it makes for a one trick army...  Good trick, but only one...

So, Pathfinders as Troops...  Not particularly resilient, but could be hard to catch if I run a flank with them...  So, one squad, maybe 2...  Storm Guardians maybe?  Dunno, I've never been a fan of throw away suicide troops, and the SG are just not really good at anything...  Jet bikers are amusing, but WAY fragile...  I know, a running theme for Eldar.  Dire Avengers are "eh" at best in my opinion, but I suppose running around in a Wave Serpent can get me a scoring light tank...  I'll field my usual Scorpions and I've dug up some ancient Dark Reapers...  Thinking they might be nice against all of the 3+ armor out on the field at the Gopher at least...  And I snagged a bunch of Fire Dragons to shore up my horde of Aspect Warriors...  For some reason I only ever had a few of them.  Painting a bit on the Banshees, but I doubt I'll field them...

Eh, it'll be interesting at least :-)

January, what next?

Well, I might break out one of the "several" ancient Eldar DN's I have to convert over to be a Wraithseer...  Horribly overpriced it would seem from first glance, but I do sort of wonder what I could do with one...  Rules are "OK", nothing really overpowering it seems, but might be a bit of a surprise hitting the modern tables at the Gopher...  So, Green Stuff and time...  Looks like I'll have a bit of time someday :-)

Glad my wife doesn't wander down to the basement much :-)...  My armies are taking up more of the space as I try to figure out what I actually have...  And I'll probably switch over to Eldar for the next league, so digging them up and fixing various broken things...  I now have 5 of the ancient "Ghost Warriors" to fill out my Wraith Guard...  Good enough for local stuff, but not sure if that would fly elsewhere...  Might, it IS a GW model and it is what the WG started out as...  So, my lads will come out of retirement yet again...  :-)  The Warp Hunter will be a bit of a shock for both turns it survives, but it will be fun I think...

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?

Anyone interested in getting in some small games?

http://agentlemansones.blogspot.com/2011/11/special-operations-killzone-giveaway.html

:-)  Might be something to throw down with between/before League games at the Gopher...  I've always been a fan of playtesting things, being fairly good at math/tactics, etc...  I can usually find the broken things/combos...

Waiting for my next meeting, at least there is coffee here, $.27 for unlimited refills (after you buy the "official" mug)...  Just guessing that the University is losing money on this where us IT geeks and the like are concerned, but it is really quite a nice little cafe setting to get a bit of work done outside of the office with the great Wi-Fi here as well...

Building Blocks...

So, the building blocks of the Wolf army I am fielding…  It seems that ~115 points is a key number here.  Wolf Scouts with Melta and either 2 Plasma Pistols or Power Weapons or a combo, though I’ve been finding the Pistols to be more useful…  This comes to 115 points.  My Dreadnaught with Assault Cannon or Multi Melta and the DN CCW w/ Heavy Flamer or the Twin Linked Auto-Cannon arm also comes in at 115.  Grey Hunters without their Razorback are 105 the way I run them…  The Wolf Priest and Rune Priest are both in the 110 or so range the way I run them…  So, building blocks.  Not intending a MSU setup really, just seems the way it works out when I build a Wolf list…

At the 1000 points I think I’ll be fielding the Scouts more than the DN, depending on who I end up facing…  The Melta/Plasma troops appearing in the flank or back side of the field are really quite powerful…  But still trying to it too much in the 1000 point lists I think…  1500 and above will be far more interesting…