Gamestart - A Time of Legends

Schedule for the day

The guys and me decided to get out and attempt another tournament, this time a 1750 event using ITC Champions ruleset. Zach and the GREX team did a great job of putting us in an awesome location - Suntec City Convention Centre. This was held in conjunction with Gamestart Asia. I love the fact that the ceiling was high, allowing noise to dissipate and made it very easy to communicate with your partner. 

I managed to complete my 1750 list and it looked like this:

Battalion (Blood Angels)

Mephiston

Lemartes

Scouts with shotguns and bolt pistols x4, Sergeant with chainsword

Scouts with shotguns and bolt pistols x4, Sergeant with chainsword

Scouts with shotguns and bolt pistols x4, Sergeant with chainsword

Death Company with boltgun and chainsword x4, with boltgun and power sword, with boltgun and power axe

Stormraven with hurricane bolters

Supreme Command (Adeptus Custodes)

+open the vaults (-1CP)

Shield Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike with Auric Aquilis and Radiant Mantle

Shield Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike with Eagle's Eye

Shield Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike

Supreme Command (Blood Angels)

+Armoury of Baal (-1CP)

Slamguinus: Captain with Death Visions of Sanguinus, jump pack, storm shield, Angel's Wing, thunder hammer

Slamcaptain: Captain with jump pack, storm shield, thunder hammer

Slamcaptain: Captain with jump pack, storm shield, thunder hammer

I may work on another post going through the road to Gamestart. 

Scenario 1: Crucible of Champions

Using the BCP App, my first draw was Nico! He is one of the few people that has always shared similar painting values and we were also keen to do an airbrush session for the guys at T&D before he moved back to France. We both laughed when we were paired up as I have always wanted to play with him. Nico has a really nicely painted army. I think we both laughed when we managed to play to pair up for the first time. 

Side note, I love the BCP app, updating on the fly and real time.It minimizes errors too so please use this app if you're an organizer! 

I chose the following Secondaries:

Mark for Death - Destroyers x2, Immortals, Warriors

Kingslayer - one of his characters

Ground Control 

He chose:

Mark for Death - Death Company, Warlord Shield Captain, Slamguinus, Mephiston

Kingslayer - Lemartes

Headhunter

Both of us laying out our beautifully painted armies!

I loaded the Stormraven with my 6 DC while Slamguinus and Lemartes went into DeepStrike. 

And rammed it straight done the main lines

I sent the Shieldcaptains to the right hoping to wipe out the Necron Warrior unit

Unfortunately I forgot how hard Necrons were to kill.

Under the cover of my Scouts, the SlamCaptains advanced

Necron shooting was nasty, disabling my Stormraven, unleashing the DC into his lines. 

Hugging the terrain piece, I was able to hide them from the bulk of his army. The DC survived and the Slamcaptain managed to destroy a unit of Destroyers (badhumchi).

Turn 3 

By turn 3, I was able to collapse the right flank, folding into his character. Unfortunately for me, he managed to scurry away on 1 wound!

The Shield Captains kept rolling up the right flank

The amazing thing about my list was that it had few models, allowing me to move through each turn very quickly. We managed to get to Turn 5.

Tallying the scores we both managed to tie each other!
Primary: 14 Ray, 11 Nico
Secondary: 6 Ray, 9 Nico
Total: 20-20

Best part of this game was that we both had really nicely painted armies and man, that made such an awesome game. Also, Nico is an amazing and generous player, often helping me when I made mistakes. I hope Nico comes back to Singapore for work!

More to come as I split the day into a few other posts. Stay tuned!

Road to STGCC - Army Prep

One of the best parts when getting ready for a tournament is the prep up to it. I enjoy it mainly because a dateline usually forces me to complete parts of my army that I have been putting away for months, sometimes years. Having played a few games now, I was prepared to commit to the painting table. 

Sanguinary Guard all primed and magnetized. In the back you can spy the 2 Thunderhammer Death Company Marines too

Using Astorath's wings I cobbled together my own Slamguinus from parts I had in my bits box.

I wanted the actual Smash Captain to use a cooler set of wings because he was after all using Angel's Wings, the Chapter Relic. Scouting around for a nice set, I found Astorath lying at the bottom of my box of semi painted models. Like a strange sign, when I picked Astorath up, the backpack slid off!

Based, and primed, here are the Golds that I used to paint the Sanguinary Guard

I use the Vallejo Model Air range because shooting metallic golds through an airbrush meant amazingly smooth colors.

Starting with Gold, Bright Brass and then a final highlight of Polished Gold

I had a few Primaris Marines lying around and some extra white, so I zenithal highlight these models too

Now to let the models dry

Detailing! Some hate it but I love it the most. Brings such a strong pop to the models and them alive.

The wings took me a lot of time to get proper.

Some additional Scouts to help put more of my stuff in Reserves

We are slowly getting there

Based and ready to rock and roll! 

I did not add too much to my existing army but these were a blast to paint. I forgot how much I do love painting. I do have to find a better way to base these fellas. Regan was kind enough to pass me a few metal shells but I did not have enough time to add them. Maybe the next time I polish the models up I will attach them to the bases. 

Road to STGCC - Actual 2v2 Practice

Managed to get organize a game with Wai Liong who runs Here Be Geeks. We originally planned to do a fully painted batrep but because I need some practice for the upcoming tournament, I asked if he was open to teaming up with me to play against Patrick and Keith. Unfortunately since most of us were still firming up our lists majority of our armies were not fully painted up. 

Almost firmed up list

1000 points of Blood Angels in a Battalion.
Slamguinus with Angel's Wing, Thunderhammer, StormShield
Smash Captain with THSS
Death Company x 10 with Thunderhammer and Power Fist
Sanguinary Guard x 5 all with Power Fists
Scouts with Shotguns x 5
Scouts with Shotguns x 5
Scouts with Sniper Rifles x 5
Sicaran Tank with Autocannons and Heavy Bolters

This was basically the list I intended to bring to STGCC with maybe slight modification. The plan again was to send Slamguinus against the biggest threat and take it down.

In this game I was playing to get myself acquainted with my list.

Deployment - it's amazing when all the minis are painted to such high quality

I have to point out that Wai Liong is not only an amazing painter but also great at converting. His favourite seem to be mecha or large robots.

Dark Mechanicus - most of his models are lovingly crafted, some merging parts from Forgeworld making the model expensive!

Deployment

Keith and Pat brought Chaos with Nids. Pat brought the same list he played against me previously so I prewarned Wai Liong of the speed of Pat's Nids. Unfortunately some miscalculation later, Pat's Genestealer made it into combat.

These are some amazing models! Those Genestealer look angry! 

Chaos and Nids sure seem to move very quickly! 

Turn 1

I had little choice but to send in my Death Company to attempt to remove that pesky Dreadclaw only to have it limp away on one wound. On the flip side, I somehow managed to save an ungodly number of 6+ FNP on the Death Company due to some mortal wounds coming my way.

Our gun line was totally overwhelmed

In a bid to protect Keith's Daemon Prince, Pat wrapped his Gants around it

Though I still did manage to charge Slamguinus in

We were almost tabled at this stage so Wail Liong and I both called the game. It was amazing to see the painted armies though! Wai Liong and I will be doing a Blog Challenge after Orktober so stay tuned!

Unfortunately I didn't really learn too much about my army in this game. It was way too skewed but still it was important for me to get used to deep strike timings, model placement, strategems and army wide rules. 

Road to STGCC - Game 2: Team Practice

Jason and I clearly needed some practice so we found some time after discussing how our two armies should work in tandem with each other. The STGCC tournament was 2 players fighting 2 players, basically meaning that our armies had to work as 1.

Discussing this with Jason, my team mate, we were both quite certain that there will be a shift in the meta as more people bring out Imperial Knights, Castellan Knights etc. My Slamguinus was very suitable to take it down. This is how you can create the guy. 

Jason is then responsible for clearing chaff and bringing the Objective Holders. So we broke out our armies and headed out to GREX Queensway for our Team Practice. We played the ITC rulepack. 

Deployment and Turn 1 

I managed to get turn 1 so advanced the Death Company up to attempt the charge but failed!

Charge!!

A very short lived game with me quickly losing to Jason. While we did not manage to actually test our lists, our plan was to get accustomed to our armies. The key take away from this game was that my role in our team was to go for the big heavy hitters such as Imperial Knights and Characters.

The Road to STGCC - Game 1 vs Patrick

So Jason and I decided to team up for the Singapore Comic Convention which took place this September at Marina Bay Sands.

Patrick agreed to get me back into the game so I broke out my old army to try it against him. If you guys still remember, this was what it looked like from the last 3v3 that Zim, Mark and I went to.

The army that helped our team clinch Runner Up in the last 3v3

At this point, I was super rusty with rules and 40k in general. This would be a battle to wake me up. Our game was hosted at Battle Quarters.

Our host decided to decorate the table FULL OF TERRAIN! I had a great laugh mainly because it favoured a close combat army. Guess what Pat brought to the table that day? An army full of Genestealers.

Like a Son of Sanguinus, I soldiered on.

Deployment

 I chose to deploy the Death Company up front, hoping to take Turn 1 and charge him using Forlorn Fury the strategem. Unfortunately I didn't manage to secure the first turn, allowing Pat to move up his Genestealers enmasse.

Hormagaunts as meat shields

Bottom of Turn 2

By the bottom of Turn 2, I had little left. Pat destroyed the Death Co, killing off most of my hard hitters and forced the bulk of my tanks into a corner. We called it at Turn 3 I think.

The list needed work so I went back to tune it.

I really liked Slamguinus, the Smash Captain so I added another into my list. I dropped my Razorbacks in favor of Sanguinary Guard. I also dropped Lemartes to allow me to bring in the SG.

Stay tuned as I bring more bite sized posts for the STGCC journey that Jason and I went through. 

1000 Points of Blood Angles

After signing up for the 2v2 and 3v3 tournaments a couple of months back with the guys from this blog, I knew I had to work on the army to get it ready. Blood Angels would work best with a strong close combat element due to their Chapter Tactics of +1 to Wound on the turn they charge, get charge or make Heroic Intervention.

With this in mind, I started of by creating a list with a ton of Death Company.

Death Company in progress

Unfortunately I was not aware that Bolters were actuallybetter than Bolt Pistols in this edition, at least for the Death Company so I went and glued on their arms! I usually magnetize their melee arm and never once thought that the Pistols would be less useful. Hindsight....

Extracted some jump packs from other box sets

Testing all the weapon combinations for the Death Company - these were magnetized so I had to check polarity as well

Managed to get a game in with Marshall to test out the list

I then realised that my list could not make the cut. It was a paper thin army getting shot to bits was way too easy. I had to trim down the Death Company to make room for some guns. After watching how Marshall expertly used his Hellblasters, I ordered a box of them. It was also at this time that Jason suggested that I do the Slamguinus build and I was desperate to make this list work.

Broke out the old faithful-Sicaran

I went on to play a few more games and as the time trickled away, I decided to bite the bullet and power ahead with my list.

This then forced me to break out the airbrush and work quickly to complete the models.

The few more models I had to complete in time

Slamguinus in the middle of paint works

Through some of the games, I realised that I could upgrade the Death Co to Power Weapons so I hacked off some of the built arms for magnetization.

The fun of building a competitive list is that it encourages you to find optimal builds. While doing that, I still have my limits, such as I can't see my BA ever ganging up with Dark Eldar for example.

Just one of the completed Death Co

An afternoon of Scouts

This brush proved to be a fantastic buy for $8

I paint in batches of 5 as I use a lot of wet paints. This allowed drying time and consistency between models

More hacking and modelling as I added to the Death Co

One of the lists that I came up with had a Librarians with a jump pack

The 2018 FAQ then hit! My list was no longer viable! I could no longer hide the bulk of my army in the skies waiting to drop as the Power Levels cannot exceed those on the ground.

This led to me shrinking the Death Co, adding more tanks in the form of Razorbacks and creating a sold anchor. It also altered my playstyle forcing me to consider using more ground based tactics instead of depending on just Deep Strike. Oddly, this meant I was improving as a player.

Reaching the end stages, I was looking for Scout decals and managed to find them on the Primaris decal sheet

Glossed the shoulder pads in preparation for the decals. Flock on too! 

My fully magnetized Slamguinus

Now for the whole crew

After a couple of weeks of work, the 1000 point army was ready. 

This is the army I took to both the 2v2 and 3v3 events - oddly enough with very different results! Same army, quite a large pool of players but wow, the results stumped me. Feel free to go compare and give me your thoughts on why I won or lost.