What Next?

Well, ran through a League and Tournament with my Consecrator's Deathwing contingent ending with a Tournament win and placing fairly well in the League… Was REALLY trying not to let my more competitive nature take over and just win there as well. The main reason I started up my DA Legion force was to get away from the "more competitive" armies almost all of my other armies became after the current run of codices. So, naturally, right after I start building it, GW releases a FAQ that instantly brings the DA right up to a "Very Competitive" level… Only army I have that is not in my opinion overpowered at the moment is my Grey Knights detachment, and they're the next codex… Detachment I say because I have probably 15-20 Terminators, most of them the older RT ones that we could bring in as allies if we felt it necessary to blow a metric crapton of points on a single 5 man squad to go with maybe 10-15 Power Armored Knights… And being the last gamer to move out of several shared "gamer" houses, I wound up inheriting a LOT of random crap, including these lads… Not really playable at the moment, but next month… From the looks of things, they're going to be on the higher end of the "power" scale… Not unbeatable by any means, but REALLY powerful. 'course, I could be wrong…

 

My Dark Angels are being painted as Consecrators I guess, not sure if I am going to actually paint the Consecrators symbol or just use the RT era/DA Legion markings… They're REALLY quite powerful, but they do struggle against horde forces primarily. Not much else can stand against them. Now, my "Horde" definition includes the standard IG or Ork Infantry hordes as well as Vehicle swarms like the DE and… Well, pretty much the DE I guess, maybe IG or Sisters but not as much so I think. Not many other forces can bring a combination of so many of low AP and high volume shooting attacks against my small force in a mess of vehicles that can on occasion simply ignore my AT missiles. In any case, busy converting and painting the lads up in the basic colors, will worry about the Legion/Chapter marking later… Reminds me, I have to get more magnets from Dave…

 

So, my current project(s) are going to be:

 

1. Getting pictures of the various C&R weapons for Mr. Woolsey so that I can get that trade off… Maggie isn't thrilled, but since I'm willing to give up a crapton of my old rifles and pistols for an old motorcycle, she's "mostly ok" with it… 'course, it's been 20 years since I owned a bike, this time I'll even own it legally… In any case, it's an older "cruiser" type bike… Not exactly what I had in mind (an early 80's Honda Silverwing would have been perfect), but the price is right and my options here are somewhat limited…
   
2. MK I Land Raider conversion to a Spartan class raider… It's annoying to me how nice my old Spartan looks, not sure I'll be able to replicate that after 20+ years, but this time I'll have it magnetized in hopes of running it at next year's Adepticon either in a team tournament or just on my own… I think that a team consisting of DA, GK, BA and "other Marines" would be pretty hard to beat if it is put together right…
   
3. Related to that, I have a few Jet Bikes or similar things to convert over for a Sammael (or whoever I choose to be the Master of the Ravenwing)… I like the idea of bringing just Troops out there, and he unlocks the Ravenwing as Troops for the DA like Belial does for the Deathwing… So, a bunch of Scouting, Teleport Homer equipped bikes being the advance force for Teleporting Deathwing, half of whom I CAN bring down on turn one… Yes, please… Death to Mech lists, and the annoying Hordes I can just play "keep away" from sniping with bikes as light Cavalry and my Deathwing as Heavy Infantry sitting in cover (hopefully) and slowly retreating, firing as they do so…

Just a random WIP :-)

Just throwing up a few pictures of a random work in progress… In the ancient times, I bought my first Land Raiders in 88 or 89… It was the original MK I that came 2 in a box… Neat, but since they were 750 points EACH, it wasn't really practical to actually field them… Ever, really… By second edition I actually COULD field them in games other than what would have been "Apocalypse" games. We played some stupid big games back then at my buddies houses, usually a whole weekend… 40K (RT) did NOT scale well above a few squads per sides if you were wanting a quick game. Anyway, I converted one over to a Spartan class Land Raider. Back then the White Dwarf magazine actually had things like this that actually helped the gamers, it had templates to make Whirlwinds, Vindicators and the like out of the Rhinos. And this was a conversion using parts of a Rhino and the whole LR to make a larger Raider that could actually carry a squad of Terminators. And I have always liked the Terminator armor, and have a BUNCH of them nowadays with my Deathwing army and all those other armies I have… Grey Knights, Wolves, and Fleshtearers all have at least a squad or two's worth of them. The Deathwing on the other hand has something like 40 of them so far… So, to that end, I'll be converting my second LR over to a Spartan class and magnetizing the weapon loadouts so I can use it as an ancient Land Raider Crusader in my army… Hopefully it will work out ok… Pics to follow if I can get Word and Blogger to play nicely that is…

Pics from the tournament...

From the Armored Gopher Tournament 19 Feb 2011...

From my first game against the IG :-) Initiative seized, Deathwing dropped in to say "Hi"...  Game ended before they could all be killed, I'd like to think the Teleporters extracted the lads...

This was against Mike's chaos force...  First shot was of my Ravenwing just before they died :-)

Yes, found the camera too... 

Getting into playing "strange" lists...  I figure that some of the things not normally seen on the field like Techmarines, Whirlwinds, etc...  The DNs are solid, and I think that I might field at least a pair of them...  It'll be interesting at least, but will probably lose.  Not a problem, the best lessons I think come from analyzing a defeat.  Wins do not tell you as much I think...

Tournament…

Well, we had our store's league tournament… Played:

 

Belial (TH/SS)

4 Deathwing squads (2 TH/SS, 1 LC, CML w/SP/PF, SB/PF), one w/Apothecary

Land Speeder Typhoon

Ravenwing Squadron (2 Melta, Attack bike w/MM)

DN (TLAC)

 

We played "Rules of Engagement" stuff, so weird missions…

Game one against a good IG Blob/Mech mix. I wound up seizing imitative, with Deathwing assault and my own deployment I was able to pretty thoroughly wreck a flank, deep strike another squad on one of his objectives (mission was to get BtB with objective during movement, and spend the Assault phase blowing it up)… Later my flanking Ravenwing zipped in and got the second one. The sheer number of missiles the army throws downrange makes life hell for a Mech army. So, wound up winning that one on the tiebreaker of kill points as we both ended up achieving our primary and secondary objectives (mine was hold one of my own objectives, and Deathwing in cover are REALLY hard to dig out)…

 

Second game was against Mike's new Chaos army… My mission involved "recovering information" from one of his objective points… Have to spend the whole Movement phase in contact with the point, then that's it… Secondary objective was hold one of my own points. Took a chance, moved the Ravenwing into BtB with his in my Scout move, miscalculated and his Daemon Prince was able to reach me on the first turn… Oops. Well, long story short the Deathwing were able to kill off pretty much everything in HtH or my shooting it with missiles… So, another one where we both got our objectives (his was "Assassinate", he killed Belial with a Daemon Prince before it was hammered out of existence), but I got more kill points so the win…

 

Third game was against an Iron Hands (Salamanders)… Pretty good list, excellent player… It came down to him missing my Speeder, and the Speeder killing the LRC. Vulkan and his TH/SS squad had to get out and walk. We both saw how many 1's we could roll as we each lost a Terminator squad or so to random normally saved shots… A Deathwing squad met Vulkan and his much reduced escort, and was victorious. So, once again Deathwing sitting on objectives in cover win it out…

 

Last game was against a very large IG blob army… My mission was "Annihilation", basically I had to take ALL of his units to less than 50% starting strength… Yeah, not going to happen in a timed game, or frankly with Deathwing. Prevented him from his mission, so won the tournament on win/loss record… Will post pics in a few days, think I left my camera at the store though…

Another week…

    

Updating my resume yet again… Prepping for a few jobs I know are coming up, and having a few folks look it over… I'll be tailoring the resume to try to fit the job description, shouldn't be too hard. I've had more than a few jobs over the years, so I could put a LOT of random stuff on paper, at least what I could either remember or admit to… Yes, this is shaping up to be a bit more intensive than I anticipated, but I think it will be worth it…

 

On the gaming front, tournament this weekend… Biggest choice will be Whirlwind or just stick to the "standard" list as follows:

 

"The Number Shall Be Three…"

Belaziel (Belial) w/ TH/SS or LC

3 Deathwing squads with 2 TH/SS, 1 LC and Cyclone Missile Launcher in each, one of them with the Apothecary upgrade

3 Ravenwing Typhoons (MM/TML)

3 DNs, Mortis (2 TL AC), 2 others… All in gunboat configurations…

 

Whirlwind would be useful against one or two lists really… So probably a "no" for the tournament…

For the Tournament :-)

Well, gearing up for the Tournament next weekend… I think I've narrowed my choice down to one of two lists:

 

Belial (TH/SS or LC)

4 Deathwing Squads, 2 TH/SS, 1 LC and Cyclone Missile Launcher in each. One squad w/Apothecary

DN (TLAC or Plasma/ML)

Land Speeder Typhoon (MM/TML)

Ravenwing Squadron (Attack bike w/MM, 2 Melta)

 

 

Belial (TH/SS)

3 Deathwing Squads each w/ 2 TH/SS, LC, CML, etc…

3 DNs (TLACx2, Plasma/ML, ?)

3 Land Speeder Typhoons (Multi Melta, TML)

 

Well, the first one has 4 troops, the Ravenwing scout, flank and have teleport homers allowing me to deep strike in with no deviation. And the Deathwing have their "Deathwing Assault" rule allowing me to bring up to half of them in on turn one like the Drop Pod Assault, but I "May" bring up to half, I do NOT have to bring them in early. So, mobile(ish) and more troops allowing me to set up in cover and hold a bit longer…

 

Second one is more spamish, LOTS of heavy weapons (21 so far, plus whatever the last DN brings) each turn… So, I think it can take on pretty much whatever I face… Sadly I do actually have pretty much all of it ready to roll, either way really. This second list I think really wins more by killing lots of things than by playing for the objectives, etc… But still it might be the better one for a tournament… I could also change out one of the DNs for a Whirlwind and random upgrades all around…

 

I'll have to look at the Escalation scenarios a bit more to see which one looks like it works better…

Let’s try this again :-)

Bloody magnets are REALLY powerful… Trying to get too fancy I think with some of them since they are resisting my efforts to have the same pole face outward on either side of the bodies, especially some of the truly ancient lead RT Termis… There is a very real size difference there, but with my Consecrators it just feels right to use the ancient metals.

The lads did well at 1250 points, fielded:

Belial (TH/SS)

4 Deathwing squads each with a Cyclone Missile launcher, 2 TH/SS, 1 LC, one squad with the Medic

2 Typhoon Speeders with MM/TML

 

So, a crapton of Str 8 low(ish) AP shots… 14, 12 missiles and 2 Multi Melta… Not bad, especially at 1250 points. Not the most mobile, especially when I roll 1's and 2's for moving through difficult terrain and fail to assault almost every turn with one squad, but I could Deep Strike if I need to. I do REALLY prefer to do so in concert with a beacon like on the Ravenwing, but still, "Who Dares Wins". One of the things I'm really looking at for next year's Adepticon is whether they keep the allied beacons usable by all of the people on that side. Scouting bikes and attack bikes with built in beacons could be a huge advantage for some of the weird missions, especially with me fielding a bunch of Fearless Terminators who can very reliably just appear more or less anywhere on the field. Especially if my partner can back my play with heavy weapons and/or dedicated assault troops. Blood Angels, Wolves and the Dark Angles will all make excellent "team players" in the context of this type of tournament.