Gearing up for the Team Tournament in 2 weeks...

So, I'll be partnered with one of the GK players for the Tournament...  Looking like I'll be bringing my Eldar.  A bit of a surprise how well they are doing within the limits of the Team Environment.  Helpful that a single Farseer can completely shut down the Psychic powers on the other side of the table...  Mind, I was playing Eldrad, so the best wizard in play...  The Wraithguard with Fortune are annoyingly difficult to kill and almost impossible to shift off of an objective...  The War Walkers were OK, a LOT of shots but not a lot of damage really...  Pathfinders were sacrificed.  They probably won us the game by drawing off so much of the other army to deal with the super ninja snipers appearing on a flank...  Wound up not really doing much other than threaten the objective and put a wound on Castellon Crowe...  And I know they wound up lasting a LOT longer than they should have against Necrons and GK...

Major changes?  Putting the 2 real heavy weapons on the Wraithlord, remembering the Monstrous Creature rules...  That thing with the move through cover, dual flame throwers and Str 10 attacks?  Was a beast, killed off an entire Necron squad with attached character in a single turn between flames and assault.  Cleared one of our two objectives and saved the game...

Debating bringing Eldrad or a Wraithseer from IA 11...

Will be getting one of the Cynwall Nova in a trade for the model:

 The Seer with a normal Farseer would provide buffs to my other Wraiths, and is pretty brutal himself.  The Seer can also run with a D-cannon.  That army would also have an Artillery piece, a D-Cannon...  No War Walkers in that list, but just a small number of insanely tough pieces...  T6 Wraithguard with re-roll-able saves and potential FnP?  Good luck prying them off an objective...  Oh, and YOUR cover saves are at -1...

Odd one, how to most people feel about IA units in the 40K games?

Blogs disappearing...

  Wow, so the arguably most popular and pro-GW rumor site that a lot of folks used to visit has been taken down by GW asserting DCMA claims...  Seems an odd way to grow your fan base and increase sales, but what would I know.  So a fair number of folks are talking about boycott or the like...  Will I?  Not exactly... To be fair, I haven't really been buying all that much over the last few years...  Though thinking back, between the Rulebook and the Codexes at their current price point along with a few boxes of minis I'd guess it is several hundred dollars...  Not a huge amount by any means, but...  Guess this is just one more data point or straw to keep in mind when considering what TO purchase in the future.  I'm going to buy the rumored Eldar Codex when/if it hits in June, but...  The books going to $50 each and hitting every other month has already mostly priced me out of the "gotta have them all" mindset.  $50 for poorly edited and not really all that well done work, looking at the Dark Angels from a player's perspective?  No, burned me once, I'm going to be more cautious going forward.  Might even be a good time to stand back and see what plays out for the next 6-9 months.  As of right now, the game itself is spinning pretty far out of balance with a VERY few overpowered armies making the game almost pointless to play competitively..  I'm not exactly lacking for army choices, just that the game itself seems to be broken.  The Tau seem like a step in the right direction, but they missed a HUGE chance to address the balance issues with their "Death From the Skies" book...  But laziness struck, and it was 95% simply reprinted materiel and it was "Direct Only" meaning they were essentially cutting the LGS out...  Not a good idea as a manufacturer, but again just an Engineer, not a sales type...  The math seems fairly obvious though, more places selling more of your product would seem to equal more profit...

The last time a fair number of us locally got tired of the GW silliness we picked up Warmachine.  For several years that was a staple game at our local game store, but it died out about the time the 2nd edition of the game came out...  Again, locally.  Might be time to revisit that.  Rumors of Confrontation coming back were hot and heavy a while back, but seem fairly quiet these days...  Another of the odd but locally popular games...

Seeing X-Wing here and heard it was pretty good...  And the fact that Dave can't keep it on his shelves tells me that it is likely to be another good one...   Guessing I'll be picking up some of them.  At the VERY worst, I'll have more Rebel fighters patrolling my desk here at the office...  Right next to the big Warhammer class Mech (BT) and Wolfen from Confrontation...  Yeah, the Werewolf figs decked out in my Clan's kilts do get a few odd looks here and there, but whatever...

New FAQ rulings...

Just a few:

So, the DA Power Field no longer works while embarked on a vehicle...  Really, GW?  So, just one of the effects for embarked things does not work, but ALL THE REST DO?  Yeah, it was a cheap and easy way to get a 4++ for things close to the Land Raider...  But is that worst than the Ork cover saves, etc.?  I know, consistency is really asking too much from GW, but...   I guess it was just too easy for folks to build an army with a few Land Raiders and bikes flanking them...  Something to keep the bikes alive amid the Heldrake swarms is probably too much to ask for...

The Necron lightning storm effect Imoptep (or whatever the name is) gets for fucking FREE now affects fliers and Flying Monstrous Creatures.  But the Wolves storm and every other "Affects EVERYTHING" thing does not...

Really, just consistency in the rulings is all I am looking for...  

Eldar next?

So, bored with most of my other stuff, and trying to come up with something to fit into the saddle bags of the bike...  So, Eldar it is...

Either:
Eldrad
Wraithguard (10, Spiritseer)
Pathfinders (5)
War Walkers (3, Scatter lasers)
Wraithlord (flamers, Shur Cannon or Sword)

Or:
Farseer
Wraithseer (D Cannon)
Wraithguard (10, Spiritseer)
Pathfinders (5)
Wraithlord (EML)
Support Weapon (D Cannon)

So, one has the uber wizard, the rock unit and a few walkers, etc...  Small army, but hard to kill...  War Walkers throw out a LOT of shots, Guide is possible...  As is Doom...  Second one is similar, the Wraithseer makes the Wraiths REALLY annoying with FnP, Fleet, etc...  And a few D-Cannons are never really bad...  So, 20 or so models, and I think other than Demons I could team up pretty well with most of the other players...  Both could be pretty good at low numbers of objectives with the ability to hold in place pretty darn well, and kill points are easy with such low numbers...  OTOH, any army that can throw out a LOT of fire, well...  :-)  At least it'll be a short game...

Been quiet for a bit... Next?

Well, got the new motorcycle...  That killed a bit of time and spare money :-) ...  Selling the old Silverwing, so anyone looking for a solid old light cruiser lmk...  Been cycling through my armies too, just nothing keeping my interest long with 1000 point team games.  Well, to be fair I doubt even at the 1850 level there will be much interesting to me...

Brought out my Crimson Fists last week.  We ended up losing a close game despite playing the demon cannon of khorne as Star 8 AP3, no cover...  It is AP 5.  We lost pretty much the whole DA Ravenwing portion of the army to that piece before finally killing it.  That and the random table of doom they roll on every turn...  Didn't see a single bad result from that, mostly gave them better invulnerable saves, and hitting EVERY enemy unit on a 6 for d6 "you're dead" hits...  We had a Lot of units, so...  Sixes will come up...  Was still a fun game, just a bit frustrating knowing that with a few good rolls on their part, what we brought and did really did not matter.

So, this league I have played Flesh Tearer, Dark Angels, Wolves and Crimson Fists...  May play Eldar next week :-) ...  Do not think I can firthe Praetorians on the new bike...

So, on to another Army, Crimson fists for a change of pace?

Wolves are doing "OK", and I may well use them next week.  I DO like the Wolf Priest mit Jaeger saga, and Wolf Scouts I think will also do well enough to justify their being fielded...  Will still get murdered by aircraft though...  Might even stop raining by then so I can ride my bike out...

Looking at breaking out my old Crimson Fist force:

Pedro Kantor
Scout Squad (5, shotguns, Heavy Bolter)
Scout Squad (10, cloaks, 9 snipers, Heavy Bolter)
Sternguard (10, 2 Heavy Flamers, 6 Combi Melta, 2 Combi Plasma, SGT w/LC, Drop Pod)
Thunderfire Cannon
and ?

Thinking Land Speeder Storm for the Shotgun squad and maybe an Attack Bike?  I could drop the one Scout Squad to 5 men and take a Vindicator or the like I guess...  Liking the ability to drive forward and drop the big Str 10 AP 1 Ord template...  Might come in handy for 125 points...  Still have 55 points, not sure what non useless thing I can get...

Low model count army, and the bulk of the actual Troops are just regular Scouts...  Too many things these days taking away the cover save, so might go "poorly", but might actually work...  OTOH, Scoring Sternguard can be brutal dropping in on someone and combat squadding...

Game play issues, long random post :-)

Mkay, kind of just killing time before next meeting, so...

Wondering if I am missing something, but there seems to be some things that just do not make sense to me...

Comparing Chaos to Loyalist Terminators.  Chaos has by default the "Combi Bolter", so twin linked bolter.  Loyalists have the "Storm Bolter".  Combi Bolter, looking at the math, I get one shot at >12" to 24" range that hits something like 90% of the time (8/9).  Storm Bolter for out to 24" range has the Assault 2, so 2 shots at the usual BS 4.  Been a while since I took Statistics or Math, but I'm thinking the odds of at least one hit are (1 - [1/3*1/3]) or 8/9...  The same odds for a single hit from the Combi Bolter...  Getting TWO hits, your odds are somewhat worse, so 4/9?  The Loyalist weapon is slightly better for that range bracket, but within 12" range when the Combi Bolter fires twice with twin linking?  The Chaos version is clearly superior at the shorter range bracket, and enough so that I would question why I would want to ever run a Storm Bolter over a Combi Bolter.  Mind, the reality is both are pretty crap weapons in the grander scheme, but on a Terminator at least I do have to question why I would go away from the working version to one that may be slightly better at longer range, but clearly worse where the bulk of my shooting actually occurs?  Started thinking about this looking at my Wolves where I CAN get a bunch of Combi weapons, though not a Combi Bolter.  For balance I can see why GW would not change the SB rules given the Grey Knights and the huge mass of them they could field on "non Terminator" models...  Would I pay a few more points to swap CB for SB?  Maybe...  I DO think it should have been a default option, to allow the Loyalists to keep the CB over the SB if they want...

Keeping on the Terminator weapons, I've previously gone over how I feel about the once mighty Assault Cannon...  Currently, 4 shots is nice, but needing a 6 on the to wound/armor penetration roll to do much of anything makes it "less useful" as far as I am concerned.  Str 6 AP 4 just doesn't cut it these days especially given the 24" range and the Rending shots are still just AP 4, and so less likely to actually destroy a Vehicle rolling on the chart vs. taking hull points...  And since I'm looking for 6's a lot of the time anyway to do anything to Vehicles...  Needs a range boost, Str boost and something helping with Vehicles...  Until then, I cannot see paying an additional 30 points and giving up the (admittedly crap) Storm Bolter for the "gee, I hope I roll lots of 6's" weapon.  In general the new Assault Cannon compares unfavorably to the "older" Reaper class Autocannon.  Once again, fewer shots, but in this case higher Str and 50% greater range?  Yes, loses Rending, so cannot ever actually touch AV 14...  OK.  But I think I'd rather be able to ping lighter armor more regularly...  And of course the extra range would be really nice...

Cyclone took a hit as well, though it is still useful.  AP 3 makes the Krak missiles less useful for taking down vehicles, but they still actually kill Marines, so...  Not TOO bad, but when compared to some of the more modern choices, it is simply overpriced.  But this and the Heavy Flamer are the ones that seem close enough to actually use...

Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield...  With the game going away from HtH, not nearly so useful I think.  Giving up all shooting attacks is bad, but the 3++ and "I Don't Care" weapon...  Worth 45 points on a Terminator.  Worth 63?  No.  Wolves get to customize the hell out of their Terminators, but we do have to pay a really heavy cost to do so.  Lightning Claws are 48 points on either Terminator or Powered Armor...  Yeah, the LC are slightly better than "Vanilla" ones, but all of the LC took a pretty serious hit in the age of AP on powered weapons...  NOT so bad a hit as the "Power Maul" of course...  AP 4 on a Powered Weapon?  Tre' Craptastic.  AND the fact that all of my Chaplain types are stuck with it?  Why?  Why would I field a standard weapon incapable of actually punching through Powered Armor?  Yes, Str 6 so it is not complete crap, but really?  Playing a lot with Wolf Priests in my force and finding them losing combats because they cannot ignore 3+ armor...

:-)  Mkay, mostly unfocused free riffs there, but a start I think...