Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Projects…

So… I guess I'm on to rebuilding some of the ancient toys for a more modern version of 40K. The Grey Knights I have are a mix of things from the very early 90's I think… Maybe late 80's, I can't remember, there was "a bit" of alcohol consumed over the years and that whole Army thing in there somewhere…. I remember the squad of five of them costing a LOT…1200 points since I'm looking at the Compilation :-) The Heroes were up to 600 points on their own, but insanely powerful… The new lads are powerful, but few… And they are nowhere near the obscene level of power seen in the RT era… Still, it will be fun fielding 3 full armies of RT era stuff with my Wolves (lead original Assault troops everywhere), Consecrators with the plastic "Beakie" marines and Terminators, though not all of them being the old ones… And my Grey Knights now with their mix of the ancient lads alongside the newish metal ones… I'll probably get some of the new plastic ones soon, but right now with money being tight and me really just starting to strip and repaint the Power Armored lads, I think it will have to wait.


 

Assembling the Dreadknight now, it is a really nice kit. Coming together nicely, but I'm moving slowly as I really want to magnetize the weapon options on it… Not completely sure how that will work out, and I'm seeing good uses for all 3 of the heavy weapons… Not so much for the Daemon hammer, the Sword is a "maybe", but 25 points for re-rolling at Str 6 and losing an attack? "Eh" is the best I can say here…


 

Getting ready to start selling off a few of my nicer firearms, so anyone out there looking for a nice FN-49, Lugar, Hakim, etc… Probably half a dozen handguns and a bunch of rifles up, going to be getting that elusive motorcycle… Just ask, I may well have one… Loads of ammo and accessories as well :-), I know Maggie is happy seeing some of the firearms leaving, perhaps not so thrilled about the bike, but… The bike will be a whole hell of a lot cheaper to commute to work and zip about town… That and it has been a LONG time since I had one, and I do kind of miss that…

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

First win!

Well, Loq and I got or first solid victory…


 

She brought Her Templars:

EC

Terminator Squad w/ 2 CML and Tank Hunter

Large squad of CCW/Pistol Marines

2 Line Squads, 1 ML, 1 Las Cannon

Vindicator


 

I brought the list I played last week, more or less..

Librarian

10 man Terminator squad w/ 2 Psycannon, Banner

DN w/ 2 TLAC and Psybolt ammo

Dreadknight w/ Teleporter and Heavy Inferno


 

Facing IG/Eldar with (from memory, so probably not accurate)

Seer Council on Jetbikes

Autarch on Jetbike

3 Squads of Jetbike Guardians w/ 2 Shuriken Cannon/squad

2 of the Hellhound variants with the Multi Meltas, forget the name…

3 Leman Russ Demolishers with LC and Plasma Sponsons


 

Setup was Spearhead, kill points… They had turn one, so after they set up, I set up my Terminator squad w/ Librarian in cover strung out along our front… Her line squads set up in cover along with the Tank Hunter Terminators… The poor HtH squad set up in the open, and they died early on, but they bought the rest of the army time, absorbing a LOT of fire allowing my Terminators the opportunity to set themselves up in cover at the center of the board… From here, over the course of 4 turns, their Psycannon accounted for a number of vehicle kills while the Librarian was finally able, on turn 4 to defeat the Farseer and prevent the Fortune power… The Seer Council got stuck in HtH with one of the Line Squads, they held and the Terminators she had with Power Fists came in to swat them out of existence. The Dreadknight jumped about and killed a few things, despite whiffing against one of the Hellhound… Still impressed, though I think I will have to run the Heavy Psycannon to test them…


 

I think that I will have to run the Knights at 1500 or 1850 to get a true feel for the army… 1000 is just too small to really field much. My DA force was much better at this level I think… I think if I end up going to the team tournament at Adepticon next year, it will be my Consecrators that hit the field…

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Another week :-)

Well, it is looking like I'll be moving offices and jobs… 'course, I'll still be in a basement at first… Just a bigger building I guess. We'll see, there is still time for the plan to transition over to a "Gone To Hell" plan. I've been hesitant to mention anything because there were too many things that could go wrong, especially if certain "interested" parties got wind of it :-) Negotiations continue, long since out of my hands or control, but things look like they are going quite well for me at least. Not everything I had hoped for, but far better than I had feared. I surprised a whole lot of folks be being simple, direct and right out in the open once I made my move… Actually, I think the move itself shocked a lot of folks, but that's OK too. I would rather people underestimate me, it makes beating them a lot easier. Not many people know just how many languages I speak/understand, how quick my reflexes are or how strong I really am :-)… Same thing at work, I have a lot of random seeming skills and certifications, etc… People forget I can really do a lot more than fix laptops and the like. That's OK, I can do that too, just that when I get bored bad things happen…


 

Gaming tomorrow I hope :-) Not 100% sure what to bring, but it will be mostly or all Grey Knights… The Librarian, I think is a very powerful choice… I think the Brotherhood Champion will be a very rude shock to some folks here. The Dread Knight I really want to field again, I think it has a lot of potential, especially in our local scene… I do look forward to crashing it into a blob and seeing how much havoc it causes… The Terminators are solid, I am looking forward to testing the Purifiers. Stripping and starting to paint the messy old school PA Knights I have, will likely be picking up another box of the new ones to mix and match to make a whole mess of PA troops. I think the Strike Squads are going to be key to the way the army plays out… Preventing deep strikers is going to be huge. I see the Knights having a sweet spot 18-30" away, and they will play to dare the opponent to come in and fight HtH against troops all armed with Force Weapons (Power Weapons in almost all cases, I don't see the "Force" part being activated all that often) and some really devastating powers in CC… Grenades and Psychics are both going to be huge, but with such a small force, I'll still have to play cautious and be aware that I can always just lose by rolling poorly… We'll see how they play out, I think I am going to enjoy the challenge…

Friday, April 8, 2011

Back to gaming stuff :-)

Mkay, still in the 1000 point league, thinking about running the following:

1000 GK

Brotherhood Champion         100

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor            25

    Plasma Syphon            10

    Rad grenades            15

Warband

    Jokaero                35

    2 * Warrior (C arm, SB)        22

Chimera            55

Terminators (Psycannon)        225

Purifiers (2*Psycannon, 3 Halberds)    146

    Rhino                40

Dreadknight (Tele,Incinerator, HPsy)    265


 

2 more Purifiers (w/ Halbs) and 10 more points somewhere? Or flesh out the Inq's band… Plan is to run the Champion, the Inquisitor and the Terminator squad in the Chimera. The Purifiers roll in the Rhino.. DK has the teleporter too, so basically, the Inq warband just sits back and cheers them on while the armored spearhead moves upfield. When the lads get out of their rides, hopefully they're close enough to the enemy lines… The Plasma Syphon making ALL plasma within 12" shoot at BS 1 might protect the Terminators and Purifiers a bit… The Rad Grenades making the enemy -1T should help clear out HtH a bit, and the Purifiers are an unholy terror to hordes, like the IG… 'course, I'll have to keep any Plasma my partner has away from the front a bit :- )


 

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Grumbles from the Dark…

Well, things are getting a bit darker here…


 

State is looking to dump the Health Alliance contract… Since the health benefits are one of the few things left keeping a lot of us at the University, seems a bad decision to a lot of us down here in Champaign, but what would we know of such things…


 

Got another mail from el Presidente of the University letting us know that we'll be getting the same level of funding this year from the State as last year, and that is the best case scenario. State is already talking about reducing funding levels for this year… Of course, that doesn't even begin to get to the $470 million that the State owes the University from last year… So, despite no pay increases since 2008… Well, we can hope that we don't repeat last years pay cuts…


 

Motorcycle trade is looking like it isn't going to happen… Big part of the blame being mine for not getting good pictures out there quickly, but to be honest my heart really isn't in to this trade much at this point… So, anyone out there (Dave :-) ) know of any decent lower end "cruiser" type bikes like the Honda Silverwing, Rebel, etc… I'll probably end up selling ot trading off a few of the nicer weapons like the Lugar and FN-49 to finance it… I do have quite a few nice ones to let go for this particular cause… It's been 20+ years since last I owned a bike, would rather start with something more "beginner friendly" and fuel efficient…


 

Grey Knights :-) well, coming along slowly… Several Psycannon troopers stripped/primed and ready for painting… Librarian (ancient Inquisitor in Terminator Armor) getting magnetized and painted… He'll serve in my Consecrators army as well… There's not really been as much time this week to get down there and work on stuff, but really wanting to get my LRC up and running, should be amusing running it against people who weren't even born when I first assembled the tank…

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Yeah, too many toys :-)

Just doing a bit of random conversion work in the basement… Gearing up to make a few Twin Linked Autocannon arms for my Dreadnaughts, continuing to work on the Spartan class Land Raider Crusader for my Consecrators… And I came to the conclusion that I have WAY too many Terminator suits here… In my Consecrators alone I have something like 40, so perhaps not quite the whole first company for them. My Wolves have maybe 10 ancient suits, my Fleshtearers about the same, a mix of the original lead RT era suits and some modern plastics… And now my Grey Knights… Another mix of the ancient RT suits and some of the 3rd ed era stuff…. But all told another 15 or so that I've found so far… I'll probably end up picking up at least one box of them and another box of the powered armored lads as well finances permitting :-) Right now I'm stripping and repainting a handful I do already have… I'll have to break a few Rhino hulls out of deep storage as well now that they can actually use them… I'll have to get some random pics of the basement o' doom up soon… Finally getting more of it cleared, still finding surprising "stuff" here and there…

First battle with the new Codex…


 


 

So, just a quick battle report of sorts… Partners league, but my partner was under the weather, so I paired up with Greg's Eldar Jetbike army against the Chaos/Necron team I played last week. Given the combo of our armies, it was a fairly unfair matchup for them really… The Eldar runes, the Aegis and then the Librarian's Hood meant the Chaos powers were simply not going to happen. All in all, I'd say the big Terminator squad and the Dreadknight were the stars, accounting for a LOT of the kills during the fight.


 

Librarian    150

    Sanctuary, Might of Titan 10


 

Termi Squad     400

    2xpsycannon    50

    Psybolt ammo    20

Nemisis DK    130

    Incinirator,    30

    Teleporter    75

DN    2xTLAC, Psy ammo    135


 

Rough draft of the list… Biggest mistake I made was forgetting the Hammerhand/Might of Titan once I got the lads into HtH… I was thinking that the Str 4 power weapon would be enough after I forgot to cast the bloody power… :-) Yeah, I was wrong of course… But the Dreadknight was really quite impressive, accounting for a full squad of Nurgle Bikers and a Necron Monolith. The Teleporter was REALLY helpful, and since the Knight would otherwise be walking… Unlike a Wraithlord, the heavy weapons are really not the main reason to bring it I think… The Nemisis Fists were impressive on their own really… Looking forward to more playtests…