More Squats

Mkay, looking over the codex (Thanks!), thinking that I will change a few things...

Bring out the "Boyz" as the Squats I have...  Call them "Shoota Boyz", so basically Assault 2 Bolter shots (18" range), bring out the max size for the 3 heavy weapons (though they are all "Assault" as well), so 3 Rockets in the squad...  Not going to hit often, but 26 x 2 for bolter shots gives me 52 shots, so "on average" I should get ~17 hits from that and one Rocket hit...  245 points, and I think it can actually kill of MEQs reliably...

I do wonder if running 20 of the shooters in a battlewagon would work well...  AV 14, open top, and with the 4+ cover save against shooting might be annoyingly difficult to deal with before I roll into range...  I'm thinking the "Death Roller" for 2 battle wagons would be a really good thing for the d6 Str 10 hits against anything I tank shock and an additional d6 if they decide to "Death or Glory"...  Just thinking that the 2 wagons rolling over most anything should put in some serious hurt...

Lootas (Thunderers for me) are amazing...  Each of them gets d3 48" range Autocannon shots?  Um, yes please...  OK, BS 2, and hey are random, but a unit of up to 15?  Yes, it would roll through the ammo, but not my problem :-)

It looks like this might be a fun way to go up against the Grey Knights, Necrons and min/maxxed other things that are set up to deal with GK...  This is just WAY different than most of the other things out there...  Something to take into the twilight of 5th ed...

Squats as Orks?

Ok, so I'm bored I guess...  And I just happen to have an ancient Squat army...  Wonder if this will be in any way effective:

Big Mek (Engineer) - Tools, Force Field, Power Fist
Warboss (Warlord) - Mega Armor, Cybork body, Attack Squig (Squat Terminator armor)
Mega Nobz (Squat Termis) - PF's, 2 Combi Rockets, 1 flamer
Truck to transport them all...

30 Slugga Boys, 3 w/ rockets and one Nob w/ PF
Lottas (10)
Lootas (5)

Killa Kan (RT era DN's) 3, w Mega Blasters
War Bikes (5 old bikes), one Nob w/ PF

Death Copters (? Dunno what to use, maybe old Imperial jetbikes) 5 w/ TL Rockets

So, loads of shooting...  Cover saves all over the place...  Probably swap the Truck for a Battle Wagon...  Plan is "subtle, like Jaegermonster" (Phil Foglio's "Girl Genius" ref :-))...  Lootas (Old Squat Thunderers) will set up behind the big mob of grunts, hopefully on a hill to just throw lead, hopefully lots of it...

Kans stay near the Wagon/Truck for the 4+ cover save and shoot/pry off anyone silly enough to assaul...  The Terminators (Exo Armor?) in the BW are in an assault vehicle, so they can drive up and open the can o whoop ass on something...  We can get Fleet for a turn, the Jet Bikes can flank, and even with BS 2, twin linked for 5 Krak missile shots to the side/rear of things might work out well...

War Bikes run a flank, throwing lots of shots, providing a cover save to themselves and things behind themselves...  These to be honest are probably the weakest link for me...  Not at all sure they fit frankly...

Probably not at all effective, but it throws LOTS of dice, and it is very different from the standard GK/anti GK I'm seeing these days...

Holy Land Raiders Batman!

WOW, $75 (ok, $74.25 + tax, so $80+ around here) retail for a Land Raider...  $90 for a Storm Raven?  Even Razorbacks/Vindicators, etc. are all up over $40/each...  I have 3 Land Raider hulls (2 are Spartan class MK I's though), so not a big deal about that really...  Kind of annoying about the Storm Raven, but having never particularly liked the look of the kit, I guess I continue on without one for the time being...  Kind of annoying, I like the rules, and new fliers coming out...  Maybe I'll pick up some...  But with the new bloody edition coming, I'll hold off purchases...

Sadly, the Orks are actually kind of interesting to me, but there is no (insert term to replace fucking here, I can't think of one at the moment :-)) way I am picking up something so insanely expensive...  I bet I could do a "shooty" Ork army...  Maybe I'll play my Squats as "Counts as Orks"...  I have bikes, trikes, troopers, even the ancient "Easter Egg" type Terminator armor equivalent they used to use...  Anyone have a used Codex out there I can look over?  :-)

Bike wise, looking at something bigger for eventual road trips...  Guess I start saving now.  Realized that I've never owned a new vehicle in my life, doubt my next bike will be it, but still something I guess to look forward to...  Eventually...  Probably getting a Harley Davidson, one of the bigger cruisers, though I do not have a particular brand loyality

Going to be selling off a few of my old firearms...  Mkay, probably most of them...  Probably keep the IBM manufactured M1 Carbine, my old sidearm (M1911A1), Garand and my '94 Winchester...  Beyond that, everything else can go...  Swedish Model 96 Mauser, Hakim, FN-49, Lugar, and assorted "other" weapons...  Know anyone looking, I'm sure I can work out a good deal :-)...

Out riding... Tournament Sat?

Looking like I might take the bike out for a longer ride Friday...  I think it is going to be a good day for it.  Just feeling the need to get away from a lot of this stuff around here for a bit...  An old friend of min calls it "wind therapy", me I'm not so much into therapy...  :-)  My ex would have called that in and of itself problematic, she was/is a Psychiatrist, good match since I've been called crazy a fair number of times, sometimes by mental health professionals...   But mostly just wanting to get out on the road...

Looking like Deathwing if I end up playing Sat...  Loads of Terminators, and a few Speeders...

Oh Dark?

:-)  Yes, 5:30 sure seems to come earlier these days...  Been getting up every day to hit the basement and get in a workout before showering and herding the kids off to school.  Elliptical machine, weights, getting closer to where I want to be in order to actually start running again, though to be honest I am still concerned about old injuries there.  Knee, shrapnel, back, etc...  For the most part they never really did heal.  In retrospect, I probably should have taken the medical out from the Army, but there was that whole "pride" thing...  I just sucked it up and convinced myself that I was "better enough".  Made it through Ranger school, so I was probably right, at least for a while...  After a while, well...  :-)  Good thing I was never really a professional level athlete, it would have been more obvious that I was never going to recover fully...  'course, that also defined a lot of what I later became, getting "no one gets left behind" reinforced and drilled into your head over and over really did not change much for me, just really amplified a lot of how I was already.  Also made me completely unsuitable for other work...  That whole silly Pack loyalty thing just doesn't translate well to people who do not have it themselves.  If it has to be explained, it is unlikely it will be understood...

:-)  Yeah, darker moods these days...  Not sure why, but just can't seem to shake it in a lasting way.  Work is stressful, money is tight, other random issues keep popping up. And it just keeps building.  Have our first "real" vacation in a decade or more coming up next month, hoping that does not turn out horribly.  We'll see.  Should be fine, but Florida in June is going to be a hot swamp...  Maggie hates it when I refer to FLA as a giant swamp, but...  Well, the last few times I went there, I was air dropped or drove through huge swaths of swamp...  Having that whole "Green Hell" experience really does color your perceptions a bit.

Gaming is just not happening much if at all these days either.  Just not really getting into the current 40K scene.  Not enough of a group for much else at the moment either, so per usual 40K is about it for miniatures gaming at the moment...  Maybe Warmachine/Hordes will come back, I don't know...  We had a REALLY solid group for a long time that just faded and dropped off...  Infinity and Confrontation are good possibilities as well but just not there yet.  And at this point knowing how many miniatures I have in the basement of doom, I can't really justify buying a lot more...  Sucks a bit, there are a LOT of things I'd like to pick up, but I have to keep that annoying "reality" in mind...  And the fact that I have shelves and a desk overflowing with random minis from dead games of course...

Not much going on in the painting/conversion thing recently...  Really just a holding pattern until I see what, if anything changes with the new edition.  I have a bunch of Scouts I'm working on...  I always use them with my Fleshtearers, but don't have much use for them in other Marine armies I play...  Wolf Scouts are different :-), and those I am further along with...  Those lads are in every Wolf army I play...  'course, it has been a long time since I played them...  Perhaps telling...

We'll have to look over the Team rules from Adepticon, looked like they allowed some silliness there, but since those rules are widely used at other tournaments...  One player taking a special character modifying the Force Org allowed all of their team to use the modified Force Org...  So, Logan Grimmar becomes a MUCH better possibility, making Wolf Guard "Troops" for the partners...  And if Dave and I end up going out to play again, I think we can coordinate the lists a LOT better...  I think his list was good, mine was the weaker (Deathwing)...  I also screwed up bringing fully painted and WYSIWYG stuff over the "mostly painted" but better stuff I could have brought...  Silly me following the published rules :-)  Ah well, lesson learned...

Moving on...

So, working out every morning...  Getting up early and hitting the basement for the home gym and elliptical...  Trying to work out a schedule where I push myself, but not TOO hard...  Hit it too hard the other day, and so Monday was a much lighter day on the machines...  On the other hand, I'm also using the stairs a LOT more at work, and between that and the machines I'm already getting back into some semblance of shape...  We'll see, I am almost doing 10 minute miles on the elliptical and it hasn't killed me yet...  Seems to work the best for my schedule getting it in first thing in the morning, hoping I can keep at it... I can see my face getting leaner, and I feel a lot better overall, no clue how much if any actual weight I am losing yet, but...  Cutting out a LOT of random "bad" stuff, not quite all the way over to the "paleo", but looking like that is where I am headed...  Seems to be working for a number of my friends, and I'm guessing I can do it again...  Saying "again" because when we did our survival silliness, we ate what we could...  So deer, rabbit, snake, basically whatever I could catch or kill and didn't move fast enough to avoid me/us...  Worked, I survived...  Did not enjoy it, I'm still a city boy when it comes down to it, or that's what my Amerindian friends would say :-)...  Still, for a white boy, I move through the woods quite well, quickly and quietly...  Scares the hell out of a lot of folks, they assume that I cannot move that quickly and that quietly, I have a habit of just appearing places where no one really expects me to be...

Kind of brings me back to 40K with my Wolf Scouts...  Guessing they'll be the unit I finish up and get fully WYSIWYG in the event we actually get into serious tournaments...  We'll see how well the Army Painter method works for painting the lads...  Now, not all GW minis, in fact most are not...  Old Warzone minis, that silly Scottish faction I plaed, Wolves banes...  And they make excellent Wolf Scouts.  Something to kill time until the 6th edition hits, probably this summer...

What shape?

So, time to get more serious about the diet and exercise program...  More and more of my friends are doing this, and even most of the lads at work...  :-)  So, good peer pressure I guess...  I'm not entirely sure how much I've lost so far, and to be honest I'm not looking for a number here.  I want to get back into the shape I was in when I considered myself to be in shape...  Basically when I was playing Army, or right when I got out...  Finding that movement is easier at a lower weight, and the pain from old injuries is not nearly so bad most of the time...  But stronger now than I have been in a very long time, and taking the stairs at work and the elliptical more often is getting me closer to being "in shape" enough to start running again I think...  Also, the motorcycle is much easier to control in higher winds when I am stronger...  Not something that really matters much with the truck of course, but...

I'm not sure I am ready to go all out like some of my friends and completely change my entire diet, going "paleo" with lots of meats, no carbs, processed stuff, etc...  But, I have cut back seriously on the "junk", no alcohol at all this year, and a lot more in the line of :healthy food...  We'll see I guess...