Bike working again!

Pulled the plug and cleaned them like Pat, Dave and Kevin all mentioned as a "good idea"… She fired right up and I got to take the bike out for a brief ride around the neighborhood a bit… Only killed it a few times :-)… It's really been a long time since I've ridden a bike outside of a parking lot, but it felt great… Rear tire has a bit of a leak and I'll want to put a radio/MP3 player on the bike… Speakers are there, and I'm guessing that even the 10 miles or so to campus will be a bit more interesting with music and the like… I'll have to figure out the whole Campus parking thing, but looking forward to riding directly to my office this summer…

:-) Tired...

Yeah, not a lot to post at the moment...  Or rather not a lot of energy to post at the moment.  New job has me running around a LOT...   Lifted tonight, worked a bit on the bike and some ancient rifles (1916 Lee-Enfield, my first rifle in my collection...)....  But overall, just exhausted I think...

 Did get in the first game of our tournament last evening against a Grey Knight/Wolf team with our Deathwing/Wolf Terminator force...  Went 7 turns and we drew...  I think I screwed up forgetting just HOW much firepower GK termis throw downrange...  Should have cost us the game, but we ended up doing OK...  The Paladins were impressive and I will definitely be fielding a unit of them I think...  The Deathwing held out a LOT longer than expected on the one objective, and I think it illustrates just how much trouble GK termis will end up having against the TH/SS Terminator squads out there.  One area the vanilla Marines come out WAY ahead in the codex I think.  And our Rune Priest was able to block a LOT of the GK powers over the course of the game...  Points out the glaring weakness some forces that lack a psychic defense of any kind will have to overcome...  I think it hurts my Deathwing more than most, though clearly not nearly so much as Chaos/IG/BT armies that have NO defense option really...

:-)  Yeah, kind of brain dead here...  More later...

New job…

Well, I've finally moved into the new job I was trying to get over the last few years… It was kind of rushed at the end after a LONG drawn out procedure of silliness to get there. I've been promoted to a "zone manager", and I have people working for me again. Of course, no raise, so it's another "Lateral promotion" like when I made Corporal back when I played Army. More stuff to do than I've had to do in recent years, and I've spent a LOT of this week running around between buildings… More tired now than I've been in a while too. Kind of odd, I wasn't really counting on the manager title, I really just wanted to move jobs, but this sort of fits my longer term goals… Not sure where I'm going to land, but having left the aircraft, only one way to go now :-) … Looks like I give up the "Tardis" office eventually, but that's ok I guess…

 

Still trying to figure out what will get the bike back to running correctly… Got the title, license and insurance all taken care of, just need to get it started again…, The gumout I dumped in the gas tank apparently broke free a LOT of stuff that clogged up the fuel line apparently… So, valuable lesson there somewhere… Probably the lesson should be "If it is currently working, don't fuck with it"… Really looking forward to getting back on the road with the "new" bike…

 

On the gaming front, the tournament will be run over the next two Mondays, and I still haven't figured out which army I'll be using… Dark Angels with Terminator Overload is the more straightforward and competitive one… Not really a whole lot of thought, really optimized ultra-elite force that wins a LOT of games… The Grey Knights are more of a "fun" choice… I'll throw together some lists and see what looks right…

 

And now the rest of them… :-) Part 2

Mkay, so the rest of the armies I actually play:

 

Dark Angels: Well, I play them as Deathwing, the lads are painted up in the ancient Legion colors, probably do them as Consecrators once I get better at free handing the symbol… Originally they started as a random squad I had painted up from WAY back… Actually from the RT era, so Legion colors, pre-"Green DA" and "Bone White Deathwing"… Magnetizing the mess of Terminators I inherited, so it will be a bunch of TH/SS and LC armed Terminators with the one Cyclone/squad… For 235 points, it is awesome. Fearless, scoring Terminators with 2+/3++ saves loaded out as Assault Terminators but with the nice Cyclone… The only army I cannot easily take down is a Horde of light Infantry… Small, ultra elite force just doesn't throw out enough fire or pain in HtH to take down so many bodies… Against a lot of other things, the boatload of Str 8 shots coming from lots of places makes running "MSU" or a light Mech force a real challenge against the DW… I also especially like the Deep Strike option of "Deathwing Assault"… I MAY strike in with up to half of my reserved DW squads, but I do not HAVE to do so… Gives me the option of reacting to someone who goes all reserve against me…

 

That and I have to remember to play the mission, not just try to kill the enemy… Staying on target is even more important with a small force like the Deathwing…

 

Fleshtearers: Mkay, this was my 3^rd edition "I'm just proving a point" army… I only used it in really competitive tournaments and against other "highly optimized" forces… Or if the other player annoyed me enough to just make me want to wipe him off of the field in the most brutal and efficient fashion I could. So, it was a lot of line squads in rhinos, Scouts doing their thing, devastator squad maybe… Attack bikes usually were point fillers, but were really good… Oh, and the cc Dreads… the army was led by a Chaplain w/jump pack to take advantage of the free Death Company… Got some small random number free, then you rolled with each squad, 4+ sends a guy to the DC IIRC, and on a 6 you sent 2? Note, if you sent the Vet SGT, he got a Power Weapon or Fist free as well… So you'd see a LOT of "naked" Vet SGTs out on the field to take advantage of this… I usually at least put SOMETHING on mine since 4+ is still just a 50/50 shot… But then you'd get the "Rage" rules, which could move you forward before your actual move followed by your normal move, then their rhinos got some additional "supercharged engine" that got me more move… So it was something like d6 + 6 (or 12?) + d6 for movement on a rhino… made turn 1 Assaults likely… And with the bad Assault rules, you consolidated into the next squad in line… The worst I remember doing was against some kid that annoyed me in a tournament… I wiped out the bulk of his army by the end of turn 2 by just crashing a lot in on turn one before he got to move his "Osama Bin Laden" themed Tallern army… He made it to annoy and anger his opponent. It worked, but when I do get angry, that cold anger is the worst for the people around me, I usually think much clearer about the most efficient way to kill the things annoying me… Pretty sure he chipmunked my "sportsmanship" score, but since this was just after GW removed the "Best General" from the categories, I wasn't really in the running for anything…

Anyway :-)… I broke them out when I happened across the ancient GW cases full of them that I packed away in the basement after I burned out on the "competitive tournament" stuff back in the 3^rd edition… So, another complete army that was lost in the warp/basement for a number of years there. Not painted great, "3 color minimum" was the standard, and that's what they were… but painted as Fleshtearers, with a LOT of the correct shoulder pads, etc… I broke them out using the PDF codex, and it actually worked fairly well… jump troops as "Troops" was a good thing, and the army did fairly well for me until the 5^th Ed codex came out… So, if you play hyper aggressive berserker types in character and bring say…. Loads of really good jump troops to deep strike into the enemy forces… Well, a LOT of the local players REALLY were not ready for that. Vanguard Vets that can assault out of deep strike riding in on a homing beacon or just trusting their "Decent of Angels" special rule (only 1d6" deviation) following in the first wave of DNs in drop pods… it is VERY quick and extremely decisive. Not subtle, and since I also like to use my Death Company who are still technically troops, with the disadvantage of never being able to score I tend to win mostly by simply wiping the enemy off of the field… Unfortunately, that is the usual outcome… jump army with Feel no Pain, loads of Power Weapon/Fists backed by DNs with the "Claws of Eternal Chopping" (Blood Talons… Silly and stupidly powerful against say, Marine armies) and all of their Rhino hulls being Fast…

 

Fast Rhino hulls are the other major build I see out there, the BA Predators are all just better than any other Predators out there, and the Baal class scouts… Flank attacking Fast Predators… Razorbacks that can roll 12" and fire their main weapon, and the one time the Las/Plas Razor can move 6" and fire both of its weapons making for a LOT of firepower going downrange… And the Assault squads get Razors for almost nothing giving up their jump packs so they are a REALLY cheap option to run a MSU type army… I've just always had a bit of a problem with GW's mysterious belief that the "Red Ones Go Faster" transferring from the Orks to the BA armies… It's a powerful thing, and I think it makes the BA codex just a bit overpowered since it affects ALL Rhino hulls with no real disadvantage to balance it…

 

So, basically, a fun army concept, but moving toward the upper end of the current power spiral really… Some armies it cannot handle well, others it simply crushes… Making 40k a bit like an elaborate game of rock/paper/scissors…

 

Grey Knights: Ah, the last one I think… Still have a bunch of random other figures, but not really enough to field any other armies (so, only 6)… Well, the book just came out, but I've had a few squads of GKs as the ancient Terminator squads since RT… They were REALLY expensive, but could be insanely powerful as a squad of lvl 4 psychers in Terminator armor with Force weapons and the strange one shot Storm Bolter built into their FW… They've changed a bit since then… "Lost and the Damned" (I think) had them as psychic blanks, largely immune to warp/psycher powers, then they became part of the 3^rd ed "Demonhunters" codex… I picked up more models here and there over the years, but I primarily still just use them for the Terminators, but I'm starting to see the usefulness of the Powered Armor (PA) lads… Fun to play, but not as powerful at the lower point levels as most of my other ones… I think they will really come into their own over 1500 points… Even 1500 is a bit tight, but it could be that I just want to bring too much out there…

 

So, hoping I can get the bike all set up, hoping to be riding to work next week…

Long rambling post about the armies I play… Part 1…

Mkay, so the most annoying armies I actually play… In no particular order… And since this is going WAY long I'll break it up… Yes, I play a lot of armies…

 

Eldar: I've had the most success with what I called my "Mobile Castle"… The army consists of:

Eldrad

Squad of Wraith Guard maxxed w/ Spirit Seer (Singing spear, conceal)

Wraith Lord(s) with heavy weapons

Avatar

And probably Scorpions and/or Harlequins

Basically, cover saves and armor re-rollable, sit on objectives and just outlast the other guy… Harlies run to the front, giving cover saves to the Guard while being tough to shoot at themselves via their seer. The Wraith Guard give cover saves to the Avatar, though he really does not need it with the 4++… But he in turn gives cover to the Wraith Lords a cover save since they lack an Inv save…

Neat, and different than the standard "Mechdar" that most successful Eldar players use… I like to use Pathfinders, Aspects, etc… Usually I like to try different "neglected" elements of the book to see if I can make them work… Some like Scorpions, War Walkers (Scatter lasers for everyone) and a few others work well… Some like the Banshees and Swooping Hawks "not so much so"…

Imperial Guard… Ah, my old Praetorians… Well, I usually play:

Company Command Squad with Master of Ordinance, Las Cannon team, a few GL's and usually some assorted other bodies… Camo Cloaks or Carapace armor if I can fit in the points.. Medic and Standard have also hit the field a lot for me…

 

Infantry Platoon with:

Platoon Command Squad, usually I run either 4 GL's for mobile fire support or 4 flamers to ride in the Vendetta for "flames of obnoxiousness" with them being a scoring unit riding..

 

Platoon consisting of 3 squads, each with the SGT's power weapon, GL or Melta and Missile Launcher or Autocannon and a Commissar w/power weapon

Heavy Weapon Teams… I have a metric crapton of Missile Launchers, so I like to field a few HWTs… Without a Lord Commissar they are a bit difficult to give orders to, but…

Usually a Mech Vet squad in Chimera w/ Melta and I like Demo and sometimes the Carapace armor… Mobile scoring, rapid reaction force to melt things that come close…

Vendetta/Valkyrie… Hmm, I can have the best skimmer in the game so far? And it carries troops? Magnetized mine for the TL Las cannon and Missile pod swap… Honestly though I think I've always fielded it as the Vendetta and the 3 TLLC pods…

Then… Well, I like Hydras (with the Heavy Stubber being my standard addition to all Chimera hulls) for 85 points, the Artillery rocks, Basilisk is the "safe" choice, but I've run most of them by now… Have to admit the MLRS (Manticore?) is one I have not tried, but likely will… Leman Russ? I really kind of like the bog standard ones more than the rest, seldom it doesn't have a good target for its fire…

 

Sentinels… Ah, one of the non-standard things I bring a LOT of the time… I like the Scout version to flank and really just go forth and cause havoc… Sometimes they actually win me games, but seldom do they fail to at the least pay for themselves… And it's amusing seeing my ancient "Death Chicken" models hit the table…

 

Ogres… Points permitting, I really like them as a linebacker unit. Sit back and tie up anything rushing at the Thin Red Line keeping the enemy from my vehicles. Again, the Lord Commissar makes them really difficult to remove, though the Grey Knights will I think simply destroy them while barely breaking stride…

 

Tough army, but I think for me the most boring. Both painting and playing… Sometimes I get that nostalgic feeling, watch "Zulu" and break out the lads or get back to painting more of them… But with so many bodies in the old Light Rifle Company, all of them more or less identical? And a lot of my games involve me setting up, shooting and removing casualties or packing up at the end of the game… They are easily the most powerful army I play, at least the way I play them. Not to say unbeatable by any means, but barring a Dawn of War mission and a dedicated assault army on the other side… Well, I can't imagine it is fun for the folks on the other side of the table either…

 

Wolves

Ah, my first 40K army… They have changed a lot over the years. Of course, I still field the Spartan Class Land Raider I built back in 89 or 90 along with the mess of ancient lead "assault marines"… In 2^nd Edition they got pretty insane if you went down that path. Terminators armor equipped with Assault Cannons, Cyclone Missile Launchers and Storm Shields? Me, I used a bunch of Grey Hunters backed with my Blood Claws in Jump Packs and a Wolf Guard squad running in Power Armor and loads of special weapons… 3^rd edition became what we called "Hero Hammer", causing me to more or less pack up the Wolves until… Well, 5^th edition when Warmachine local stalled… I started using the 3^rd ed Codex and actually did quite well, once I leaned the new rules… Things like not being able to assault jumping out of a Rhino… Would have been bad for the lads if it were anything other than Dire Avengers over there, but even after getting shot to hell, the last 2 lads were able to win HtH and break the enemy… I think one died while escorting the squad off the field, but… In any case, I actually enjoyed the challenge using a badly outdated Codex against some of the more modern ones and actually did quite well in the local leagues and tournaments…

Then came the 5^th ed codex… Well, it is good. Damn powerful if you build the army right. Probably not a major surprise that the Wolves were really well represented in the Adepticon rankings, etc… But it is different as an Army than I remember them being or would like them to be at least… I do long for the days of having actual assault troops (probably jump packs) that do not suck. Stuck with WS/BS 3 and restrictions on when they can even fire? So, let me see if I am getting this correct, they are actually WORSE than IG Vets/Stormtroopers? Um, thanks… Yes, I believe that the Grey Hunters are the best basic Infantry in the game, and my armies are really based around them… Long Fangs for whatever reason got a serious discount on some of the best heavy weapons in the game, and so a lot of folks out there started taking 3 squads of Fangs loaded out with missile launchers as "it's the most efficient"… Maybe they're right, but to me that army is just boring and what happens when you go up against armies on either extreme from the Wolves? To explain this, Wolves are by and large a 3+ armor save force, smallish in number, etc… The extremes from that I would consider a horde of light, cheap troops like the IG and something like the Deathwing with all 2+ armor saves. But no one plays those armies, right? :-) Since I play one and play against the other… When the 5^th ed codex came out I was already running my Wolves in a "mostly Mech" format with razorbacks full of Hunters and DNs to support… This got cheaper and better with the new book. Not quite as stupidly powerful as the BA codex or as good as the GKs, but still it was a REALLY good build, really tough for a lot of folks to take on.

 

I'm also apparently weird in that I like to really tool out my Hunters with all of the options I can get like Mark of the Wulfen, Power Weapon/Fist, Plasma Pistol, Special weapon (Flamer is free, Melta is nice to have on the assault elements), etc… And a Wolf Guard is assigned to each squad for the leadership, extra Power/Frost weapon and likely a combi weapon of some sort… Yes, expensive, but when you care enough to send the very best… So, I'd been running the "MSU" before it really became known as that… Not really I think, I'm not trying to min/max with just enough bodies for the special/heavy weapons and Razors… I call it a "Combined Arms Army", not to be confused with the Soviet formation of the same name… Mech Infantry, Tank/DN support, some Artillery

 

With the Wolves, I tend also to bring along a few of the "less often seen" heavy support choices… Vindicator and Whirlwind tanks… Very different vehicles, the vindi is just a rush at the enemy, usually in a "V" formation with Rasorbacks full of Hunters and simply overwhelm the local defenses and count on "Counter Charge" and some damn good Infantry to hold the objectives until time runs out… The WW is just there to deal with Eldar Pathfinders, Tau Scouts and annoying IG silliness with command squads hidden in a giant mass of bodies, HWT's in cover, etc… Pin chacks on the LD 7 of the HWT fails a fair number of times, to say nothing of the "just die" of the no cover save round against the scout types… A bit pricy, and against a straight Marine force mostly useless… But still, even there, throwing down a bunch of Str 5 (ORD) hits will sometimes actually do something…

HQ, the Rune Priest is awesome… Cheap, effective support, great selection of powers. Hard to beat for the points… Honestly I haven't much used the other ones… I tend to throw more points into Units than HQ models…

 

So, the way I play my Wolves is fairly "unsubtle", but it is fairly effective against most forces… Hordes, I can deploy from the Razors, rapid fire and dare them to come in and assault counting on my Counter Assault to keep my higher number of attacks… Others, loads of heavy/special/power weapons to throw out the wounds…

Just some random pictures of my new bike...

:-)  Just throwing out a few pictures of the new bike...  Just need to complete the title transfer/license the bike and make sure the Insurance is good through State Farm....

What’s next?

So… Team Tournament, not sure what will happen there, but we'll see what comes next… Joe will be running the next league, so it'll be interesting at least… Not sure where I go next, pretty sure I'll have my bike by then, so IG might be a "definite 'no'"… Even my Wolves tend to run with lots of bodies… Deathwing and Grey Knights then it is… Chatting with Mike last night, I do agree with him and think that most of us could easily get a 1750/1850 list and game in during the regular time slot, exceptions being perhaps new players and/or people playing Horde type armies… Especially if they keep their stuff spread out and move their toys very slowly… Even then, especially when playing against someone running a fast/compact list, the games tend to move along quickly…



So, Bin Laden is dead… Mkay. Not really a reason to celebrate as far as I'm concerned. Necessary, yes… And he was found in a large compound right next to Pakistani government installations… I'm sure they were "Shocked, simply shocked" to find him there… Kind of an "Untouchables" moment where Sean Connery's character lets "Dances with Gangsters" (Kevin Costner) know that of course everyone in Chicago knows where the booze is, but what are you going to do about it and are you willing to pay the price of doing something… Weird feeling, I knew people on the SEAL teams, 'course that was a while ago… The group of guys I used to go out shooting with included SEAL, Force Recon and Army snipers, along with the rest of us Grunts… I was about average in terms of shooting accuracy for the group, but that group was pretty far outside the "norm" for the human population… And my shooting tends to involve a lot more firing on the move or "combat shooting" than setting up and going for extreme accuracy at long distances… Besides, I can move quickly and quietly through pretty much any terrain, kind of scary for some of the folks around me, I know it annoys the hell out of my wife with me just appearing places… Longer range shooting was something I honestly picked up AFTER my combat deployments with my driver teaching me the finer points… He's still in, last I heard he was still a sniper, instructor mostly these days… "neat" skill to have I guess, but since I'm more of a "Ron White" hunter ("It's too damn early, too damn cold and I just don't want to go hunting"), the last time I actually "hunted" was during survival exercises when it was really necessary… These days, cows are easier to catch at Schnucks, Wal Mart or at the butcher's (Thanks Fay!)… But then we used to go to Garand competitions for a while back when some of us were living here in Illinois and hitting the 600m targets with a stock Garand pretty well showed who the "trained riflemen" were… One of my favorite Heinlein quotes was always:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

And over the course of my life I've certainly tried to prove my ability to do most of those things :-)…



Right, back to game stuff… More of my ancient Grey Knights are coming together, and some of my Deathwing lads will be re-purposed to GK terminators I think… Somehow I ended up with more than 40 Deathwatch lads, and there are still some on the sprues not as yet assembled… Still trying to get the TLAC arm for the DN to look "right" so that I can begin casting several… REALLY powerful unit that one is for 135 points, and I will want to field several I am sure… Still not 100% happy with my Purifier paint scheme, but I'll get at least one full squad's worth of them before deciding I guess… Really do not want just another metallic silver army just like all the other ones coming to the tables, and I REALLY want them to be different from my Wolves with their Grey/yellow trim from my RT days… So, setting up more stuff on the "to be painted" table, and I might even get it painted soonish…