Free Play, I get to play "Opfor"

An old friend wants to test out a "Tournament" list so I'll be taking as "spoiler" list...

1850 Crimson Fists w/ Eldar allies

Pedro Kantor
Sternguard (10, 4 Combi Plasma, 4 Combi Melta, HF, SGT w/LC/CM Drop Pod)
Sternguard (10, 4 Combi Plasma, 4 Combi Melta, HF, SGT w/LC/CM Drop Pod)
Scout Squad (10, 9 snipers, ML, cloaks)
Scout Squad (10, 9 shotguns, HB)
Thunderfire Cannon

Farseer
Pathfinders (5)
Wraithlord (ML, Scatter Laser)


Still 200 or so points to go...  But potentially 9 scoring units, complete denial of enemy Psyker powers...  REALLY rapid assault.  Easiest way to fill the points would be change the Farseer for Eldrad and bring something like a Land Speeder with MM/HF...  Have to think about it, I think I'd rather play something like a Vindicator...  Have to think about it...

The more I think about it in the long run I think I'll be running either the Storm Raven or a Storm Talon...  Though the changes to the "Escort" rule there make it "less useful" to escort something like say, Scouts...  The Raven or the Talon will be dedicated Air Superiority I think, the Raven really does that fairly well, as long as I am not completely overwhelmed by 5+ fliers...  2-3 it can handle I think...

Tournament Sat...

So, looking like I am playing Eldar this weekend...  The basic part of the army is Wraithguard Maxxed out with the Spirit Seer to make them Troops.  The second Troop is a squad of Pathfinders.  Beyond that...  Well, at least one Wraithlord.  the choice beyond that is either the Wraith Seer from IA 11 or Eldrad.  I am leaning towards Eldrad as it gives complete"magic" control, punishing the enemy for daring to use spells and able to cast three a turn while casting one twice if needed...  Not sure the War Walkers are worth 60 points each these days at AV 10 and 2 hull points...  8 shots at S 6?  Not horrible I guess...  But T8 on the Wraithlord?  Other than the Dark  Eldar Not many armies can easily deal with them...  100-150 points, I tend to use 2 heavy weapons to go with the 2 flamers....  Star 10 MC for the AP 2 makes them a threat to anything in HtH...  Kind of...  2 attacks base, so not killing much..

The FnP on the Wraithguard was amusing...  But ultimately I think not needed.  If I had marched them up the field it might have been, but hiding in cover, not so much...

Still no real answers to fliers and Necrons in general, so thinking we will lose that matchup...

All in all, looking forward to the new book...

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...