2016 and 2017 Years in Review

The last two years were busy to say the least.  I'm going to blame all the other stuff on why I didn't write anything about my gaming those years.  It's not that I didn't get a chance to play games or be involved in the gaming communities in town, just didn't have time to write or reflect about it.

Here's a brief run down of what occured

• Started an Esports club at NVSS.
• Even competed in the High School Starleague
• Penny and I played the Pokemon TCG competitively and regularly placed in the top 8 at our local events.
• Once she could read better, the decks we played got more complicated and we started buying singles and building meta/net decks.
• Finally reached Gold rank in League of Legends in Season 6 (2016)
• And got the shiny gold border for all of Season 7 (2017)
• Sadly I didn't play much ranked in Season 7 and ended up in Silver again.
• More board games!
• Got into cooperative board games big time.

Warhammer 40k - 7th edition Allies

A friend of mine (@beahealthygeek) tweeted this out earlier

A First Look at the New Warhammer 40K 7th Edition Allies Chart http://t.co/UpW5sIaS1z
— Sweetman (@beahealthygeek) May 21, 2014

and it actually got me a little excited for the game again (my interest in 40k has waned a lot over the past few years but some releases have changed that).  The biggest thing is that all Imperial Armies are now considered battle brothers.  Imperial armies encompass basically all Space Marine chapters, Imperial Guard forces and Inquisition forces.

Why is this important?  Well I've always wanted to do a joint Dark Angels and Space Wolves army as the two marine chapters have so much rich history with each other.  Despite what current Wolf and Angels players say now, I am a firm believer that their rivalry is one of mutual respect and not one of malice or hatred.

This new alliance matrix means this pipe dream army of mine can actually come true without having a significant disadvantage in the actual game (the non-scoring Troops from 6th are a big hindrance I think). To be honest I'm not sure if I will add anything to my collection but things like this will encourage me to try and pick up the hobby again.

Now to decide what Space Wolf units will go best with my Deathwing forces.

Warhammer 40k - FLGS 40k League!

Finally, a Warhammer 40k event going on at one of the FLGS in town.  Only took a few months.  Regardless, I am going to try and attend as it is an escalating league.

For those unfamiliar with an escalation league, it basically takes place over a period of X weeks and every week or two the points value of the games goes up.  This particular league will be done over 2 week intervals.  The first 2 weeks will be 600 point games (with a 50 point bonus if your army is painted!), the next 2 weeks will be 1200 point games (with a 100 point painting bonus) and the last 2 weeks will be 1800 points (with a 150 point painting bonus).  It will give me a reason to finish painting my unpainted Deathwing squads.

Now on to the first army list I plan on using!

Warhammer 40k - Imperial Knights

Since Orktoberfest 2013 I've been away from the Warhammer hobby but this model has made me want to maybe buy something from Games Workshop.  Mind you it's not so I can use it in a game as many wargamers in the area have moved away from the Warhammer universe.  The model brings back so many nostalgic memories of playing Epic: Titan Legions back in the 1990s.

A friend and I had split the Titan Legions box.  He got the Orks I got the Knights and Imperator Titan.  Lots of fun moving those guys around and playing on a massive scale compared to regular 40k.  We always thought it would be cool to see those models in 40k scale but that would require a lot of work (or money if you bought the old Armorcast models) so the giant walkers were just a pipe dream.

The release of this



has brought back a lot of the feelings of what made me get into this hobby in the first place:  the cool background and imagery of humanity standing against the tide of xenos.  For a moment I forgot all the money related issues surrounding my lack of enjoyment of the hobby and remembered all the cool stuff I liked about it.

I have no idea what the rules are for this thing but from what I've read it appears to be really expensive in game (~400 points) and can be used by any Imperial army.  It also appears to be a super heavy so might require the Escalation book.  That aside the kit's value isn't that bad from a $/points perspective compared to some other kits (I'm looking at you Imperial Guardsman).

Will I go and buy this kit or not?  Probably not any time soon.  After all it is $170 CDN and I could buy a lot more stuff with that (both hobby and non-hobby related), but this is the first thing that has come out from GW since last year's Dark Angels release (I still haven't bought the new Dark Angels codex) that has me wanting to buy from them and that's quite a change considering last year I was all but ready to give up on the company.

Warhammer - New Tournament Format?

I'm in the final stages of preparing for this years Orktoberfest and it just dawned on me that I really ought to change the format.  Not so much in the actual rules of the game, but in how people select their army lists.

Currently (and in previous years) I opted for a fairly large points value for the area (2500 points for Warhammer Fantasy and 2000 points for Warhammer 40k prior to the double FOC rule).  That might have limited the number of people who wanted to participate as a lot of them thought it was a bad thing to have so many points.n

One of the chief arguments was that making army lists was a no-brainer as you could take anything you wanted.  I never saw this as a bad thing because it meant that you had an answer to whatever anyone brought and it was up to you to deploy that answer in the proper way.  Most people in the area prefer smaller points values (around 1500) so they have to think carefully what they put in their list.  Most arguments against this points value (and I agree with these people) is that the smaller points values tend to favor certain armies/lists and if you aren't prepared for it, those lists just steam roller you.

A good example of this was the dual-lash chaos list from a few years back.  At 1500 points it was nigh-impossible to beat if someone wasn't prepared for it.  Similarly triple raider lists at that points values were hard to deal with unless you specifically tailored your list to fight it.  Now if you aren't prepared for that kind of game, those lists would just steam roller everyone at a tournament.

So to solve this problem, for next year's event I might opt for a smaller points value with 2 flexible detachments.  For example in Warhammer 40k I would play 1500 point games with a 1000 point core detachment and a 500 point flexible detachment.  The core detachment would contain the required 1 HQ and 2 Troops and then the player would have 2 flexible detachments of 500 points.  The idea being that you would have the option to switch your flexible detachment based on your opponent.  So maybe one flexible detachment would contain lots of melta/plasma to combat monstrous creature spam while the other contained massed templates to fight hordes.

I'd have to figure out away of how the players choose which detachment to use against each other without giving either player a huge advantage.  Like using an anti-monstrous creature detachment against a Tyranid player only to have them switch all their monstrous creatures out for hordes.  Might have to tie it in to the deployment roll (i.e. player who deploys first chooses his detachment first) or the player's placement in the tournament (i.e. player who has a higher ranking in the competition chooses his detachment first).  Alternatively it could just be blind pick and both players reveal their choice prior to deployment.  Could create a Sicilian argument which could be fun.

Doing it this way is similar to how Warmahordes tournament players have two lists or how Magic: The Gathering tournament decks have sideboards.  This would allow people to fight against cheese lists with their own list and will make list building more involved as opposed to just cramming as many monstrous creatures into 1500 points as possible (or in my case Terminators).  I haven't read of any other Warhammer tournament that does this but I've been out of the loop as far as checking on the big events goes.

One of the sponsors to Orktoberfest is wanting to put on some smaller in-store events so I might try to convince him to let me run this style of tournament for one or more of those events as a test run for next year.

Warhammer 40k - My Deathwing assault again!

Excuse the pun but I finally broke out my Deathwing for a game last night against an old hobby friend.  I need to get as much practice as I can for Orktoberfest 2013.  Not because I'm playing but because I need to be up on the rules more than the players.  Being the organizer I am also the rules lawyer and dispute mediator among the competitors.

Anyways, I was playing 1000 points (mostly because all the big tables were being used at the place we played at and we got stuck with a smaller table) with the following list:

• Belial - Sword of Secrets, Storm Bolter
• 5 man Deathwing Squad - Assault Cannon, 1 Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, 1 pair of Lightning Claws, 1 Chainfist
• 5 man Deathwing Squad - Cyclone Missile launcher, 1 Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, 1 Chainfist
• 3 man Ravenwing Attack Squadron - 2 meltaguns, Attack Bike with multi-melta
• Ravenwing Land Speeder - Typhoon Missile Launcher, Heavy Bolter
• Ravenwing Land Speeder - Typhoon Missile Launcher, Heavy Flamer

My opponent brought out his Tyranids and had the following list

• Swarmlord - 4 biomancy powers (Endurance, Quickening, Hemorrhage and Life Leech)
• 2 Tyrant Guard
• 3 Hive Guard
• 30 Hormagaunts
• 30 Termagants in a mycetic spore with the dual shot S4 guns.

I had a big advantage on the table as I a was able to score the deployment zone that had a clear view of a large open field in the centre of the table and I had him deploy first.  The quickest way to get to my forces was through the open field and I was able to just blast his big guys away with the krak missiles and clean up the bugs with my bolters.  If he opted to go through the cover it would have taken longer I think and even with his termagant spore attack, the Deathwing terminator armor just shrugged it off.  Admittedly, I find Deathwing armies to be rather overpowered in small point matches.

Going to try and get some more games in before the event.  Despite not buying any Games Workshop related items, pushing around their army men is still fun.

Warhammer 40k - Deathwing Terminators & Orktoberfest 2013

So my birthday came and went and I got a pleasant surprise from my sister (who happens to live on the other side of the country).  She was kind enough to send a box of Deathwing Terminators in her care package to our parents (who live in the same city as me) and I picked it up while having dinner at their place.

Haven't quite gotten a chance to open it up and start building but quite excited as I've been wanting them for a while now but between the price and GW's business practices have been totally put off.  Getting the box was also great as I had just gotten into talks with the folks who run NPC-Con and we decided to run both NPC-Con 2013 and Orktoberfest 2013 at the same venue.  This does a bunch of things for both parties.  We can share the cost of the venue, share sponsors and share players.  Win-win for everyone involved.  The only thing is I might have to cap the participants for Orktoberfest due to space limitations but that's ok as I've never hit the maximum of 32 in the past 3 years.  Always around 20-24 which is just right for the venue that NPC-Con is using.

Unfortunately though, with GW's recent behaviour towards Faeit212 and BoLS, not sure if I want to promote 40k as the system for Orktoberfest 2013.  Seriously considering switching to Warmachine/Hordes as there are a lot of those players in northern BC.  The only thing stopping me is that I don't play that system and I don't want to shell out a bunch of money to start playing that system.

Sometimes I HATE Games Workshop

The Dark Angels up for advance order on the Games Workshop page and with it the realization that I will probably no longer support the company that produces them with the same gusto as I have before.  Now I won't go out and say that I won't buy any of their overpriced goods (those Deathwing models are too awesome looking to not buy at least one box, just not sure when) but their prices have really driven me to consider where I spend my hobby money a lot more carefully.

When I was in high school my mom always said that my money was spent long before I actually earn it (and back in those days any money I made was hobby money) and even now after being married for almost a decade my wife says the same thing (and even though I make more money now than in high school, my disposable hobby money is about the same if not slightly higher due to other expenses).  One of the worst parts of being older is that my hobby time is a lot more valuable and as such my hobby money too.  I can't just spend it willy-nilly on a $70 box set of 5 figures when I could put that money to good use elsewhere for a lot more value.

Thoughts on the New Dark Angels

Like most Dark Angels players I've been waiting quite a while for an update to our late 4th edition codex (or was it an early 5th codex?).  Most of the rumours I've been reading are from Faeit 212 and to be honest I'm looking forward to what's in store for the Emperor's 1st legion.

The new Deathwing box is what has me most excited.  If the new Deathwing terminator box is similar to the Wolf Guard terminator or Grey Knight terminator box it's going to mean a lot of extra bits which I can use to customize my spare Dark Vengeance terminators and maybe even the marines and bikes too.

Seeing as I play mostly Deathwing the rest of the new kits don't matter to me as much but I am looking forward to maybe picking up the new Ravenwing flyer and maybe one of those freaky looking land speeders for completion's sake.  I will probably stay away from the new character models though as I have my own Belial which I have been using for years and I've custom made a Sammael on an attack-quad to represent his jet bike form.

Definately looking forward to the complete rules on the Deathwing and the Deathwing Knights.  From what has been rumoured the Knights are quite a force to be reckoned with.  Hopefully they aren't too expensive in game to make them unfieldable, would be a shame considering the models look pretty darn cool although I would replace the hooded heads with full helmets; probably a Grey Knight helmet as I have a bunch of those from when I made Belial's command squad.

Some people are worried the Deathwing will lose their Fearless but I think the new Inner Circle rule will give them Fearless (as all Inner Circle in previous editions were Fearless) and possibly something else (probably wargear related or a chapter specific rule that affects Inner Circle and non-Inner Circle units).  Really curious to see what kind of Chapter Tactics rule the Dark Angels get and if the normal marines get anything nifty.  Mind you, since the Dark Angels are just like any other marine chapter aside from their 1st and 2nd companies, I don't think I'd mind if the regular tactical, assault and devestator marines don't get anything special.  After all, it's the Deathwing (and the characters who are part of the Deathwing) and Ravenwing that make the Dark Angels unique.

Anyways, looks like my hobby money will be spent once January hits.

Entering my First 6th Edition 40k Tournament

This weekend I've decided to go to a 6th edition tournament being held in a town about an hour away.  Haven't played much 6th edition yet but from what I have played, the Deathwing are pretty darn strong.  No need to fear power weapons anymore, land raiders are resilient enough to deliver cargo and typhoon speeders went from awesome to something better than awesome.

Anyways, the tournament is 1500 points and I've decided to take the following list

Belial - Claws
Deathwing Squad 1 - Apothecary, 3 TH & SS, Heavy Flamer
Deathwing Squad 2 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, 1 Pair of Lightning Claws, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad 3 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad 4 - 1 TH & SS, 1 Chainfist, Cyclone
Land Raider Crusader
Ravenwing Typhoon Speeder
Ravenwing Typhoon Speeder

Went with 4 squads this time rather than 3 as I found 3 scoring units was not enough for objective based missions in the last 1500pt tournament.  Mind you the only army that gave me trouble last time was a Grey Knight army that got into close combat.  That same army wouldn't hurt so much as their nemesis weapons aren't AP2.

Maybe I should drop one of my Deathwing squads for another land raider?  Two squads in raiders and 1 squad using Deathwing Assault could make for some nifty rapid deployment strategies.  Super easy to pack as well.  Although there is a really good player attending with Necrons so vehicles won't be that great against him (and who knows how many other Necron players might be present).  Still, having to deal with 20 scoring terminators will be tough for any army to deal with at 1500 points.

Tournament Results

Store tournament was this past weekend and I took the list from my previous post to it.

Escaped with a 2-1-1 record.  EDIT:  Apparently this was good enough for 2nd place (out of 8) after taking soft scores into account.  Either that shows the intense level of competition in that no one escaped with a perfect record, or the soft scores factored in quite predominantly.

Game 1 vs Necrons - Win
- First time playing Necrons in an annihilation mission.  The player didn't take a super-nasty list so I was able to pull out a win.  He seemed surprised that my terminator squads could weather two squads worth of firepower.  I told him after the game that he should dedicate twice that if he wants to bring down a terminator squad with regular anti-infantry guns (I did the math once and it requires a ridiculous amount of wounds to reliably kill a squad of terminators in one round of shooting)

Game 2 vs Grey Knights - Loss
- First time playing Grey Knights.  It was Capture & Control and I think the only reason I lost was his grand master and grey knight terminators were able to assault my Deathwing.  I grounded their ride, but they were still close enough.  Those 4 guys tore through all 15 of my terminators without too much trouble (initiative S6 power weapons and the grand master with a 2+ ward save really sucked).  By the time I killed them I had no troops left.  His shooting took down the land speeders so couldn't contest in my last turn.

Game 3 vs. Daemons - Draw
- First time playing Daemons.  Sieze Ground with 4 objectives.  12 blood crushers, blood thirster and 3 soul grinders.  My shooting was enough to nullify the blood thirster and soul grinders but those blood crushers annihilated my terminators (made the mistake of disembarking from the land raider a turn too early).  Forced a draw by killing all of his horrors and contesting the one objective from the one horror I couldn't kill.

Game 4 vs. Chaos - Win
- Nothing really of note, his vehicles were rendered useless for the most part by my shooting.  He had a vindicator that was pretty ineffective and a land raider of berserkers that spent 2 turns shooting at my land raider.  His rhinos and the squishy squads inside were his downfall.  Easy KPs for my rockets and terminators.

Next 40k tournament should be in July and I think I'll bring a more competitive list.  The lists that were present were much more competitive than I expected (probably because everyone was from out of town).  Time to go and paint some more terminators.

1500pt Dark Angels

Looking over the models I have, this is the list I plan on taking to the first of these monthly tournaments that the FLGS is hosting later this month.  Keep in mind that the goal of the tournament is to introduce new players to tournament game play.  They aren't meant to be super competitive WAAC type games (though inevitably I will make it that way against whomever I play simply because I like a good competition)

HQ
Belial - Lightning Claws

Troops
Deathwing Squad 1 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist, 1 pair of Lightning Claws, Apothecary
Deathwing Squad 2 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist,
Deathwing Squad 3 - Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield, Cyclone, Chainfist, 

Fast Attack
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-melta, typhoon missiles
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-melta, typhoon missiles

Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader
Predator - Twin-lascannon turret, pintle storm bolter
Predator - Twin-lascannon turret, pintle storm bolter

Seems kind of hard at 1500 points, lots of armor, lots of missiles, lots of powerfists and who is going to suspect 15 terminators?  Mind you if I run up against melta/plasma/power weapon spam I'm screwed.  Could be worse, I could have taken 5 squads of hammernators with cyclones I suppose (thankfully for the opposition I don't have that many painted hammernators.... yet).

Should be competitive enough yet not cheesy enough to dissuade new tournament players.  I originally planned to run with two land raiders, but figured that would be over the top; and it doesn't help the second land raider isn't fully painted.  The second land raider is a scratch built model and I am in the process of adding rivets and details to it (it is painted except for the minor details).

Tournament News

Popped into one of the FLGS in town last week and found out they are planning on hosting small monthly tournaments in addition to their larger Remembrance Day Challenge and Spring Fantasy tournament.  It appears tournament attendance has been low so they are trying to get more interest in tournaments by hosting smaller and friendlier events.

I whole heartedly approve of this.  Mind you I only really care about this because the more people that are interested in tournaments means the more people who might be interested in attending Orctoberfest in October.

For my part I'm going to try and attend as many of these tournaments as possible so I can push Orctoberfest 2012 and hopefully get a few more people than I have the past two years.  I keep hearing that it is an absolute blast to play in and everyone would love to attend but the numbers just don't show it.  Mind you I think I picked a bad weekend for Orktoberfest 2011 (Canadian Thanksgiving weekend) and I changed the format from Fantasy in 2010 to 40k in 2011.  Orctoberfest 2012 will be Fantasy again so that might affect numbers.  Still, I am hoping that I get more fantasy players this year than in 2010.

First tournament is a 1500 point 40k tournament.  Although I did sell some of my Deathwing (the black reach half) I still have enough painted models to bring a decently competitive force.  I probably should hold back as the tournaments are meant to bring in new tournament players, but what good are new tourament players if they don't play to win or can't stomach losing?  Anyways, got about 2 weeks to think about the army I will bring to this first tournament.

In a galaxy far, far away...

Oh my it has been a while since I last posted anything.  Not much to say other than been busy with stuff outside of wargaming.

Some friends and I got into Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Reminded me of my old World of Warcraft days only back then I didn't play with any of my friends, but had a nice guild that kept me in until teacher school got too time consuming.  Never got back into the whole MMORPG since then.  Being a teacher takes up a lot of time outside of school surprisingly.

When Old Republic was released, things changed.  Being a fan of the Star Wars universe made it easy for me to decide to try it.  Thankfully my friends played and we now have regular gaming nights which is nice.  So that, I suppose, is where most of my free gaming time has gone.

For those curious I play on the Master Gnost-Dural server on both sides.  My friends and I started a guild on the Imperial side under the name Imperial Medical Service.  All the characters so far are doctors (mine is bounty hunter named Dr'akagi, cookie for those who know who I named her after, lol).  I have to wonder if anyone notices the connection.  Republic side we aren't nearly as organized my main is a Jedi Sentinel named Paro'cena.  I've got alts of all the classes as well but they are really just crafting bots for the most part.

On the tabletop gaming side of things, I haven't really done much.  I sold off some of my Deathwing (the black reach squads and the land raider) as I wanted to finance a new fantasy army a few months.  Unfortunately I haven't seen anything that I would like to play in Fantasy.  I have a bunch of miscellaneous fantasy models and I was thinking of building a Dogs of War army but they seem kind of underpowered.  That is until I saw the fan based 8th edition Dogs of War book (Regiments of Reknown here).  What surprised me about this book was that Adepticon adopted it for their tournament so it must be fairly well balanced.  I'm going to look at it over the next couple of weeks and see if I can make a competitive army with it without breaking the bank.

Oh yeah, one last thing before I sign out.  Orctoberfest 2012 will be Fantasy this year.  Hopefully I can get enough people to break even or make a profit (profit meaning more prizes for everyone!)

Stomach flu sucks & Mantic Games armies

D&D adventure this weekend was cancelled due to me (the DM) catching my daughter Penny's stomach flu (which I probably gave her because I work at a school and who knows what crazy things the students have).

Oh well. Got around to making a new figure for our Goliath ranger, Sergeant Enforcer, and did some shopping around on the Reaper Miniatures website for some random hero figures for a future dwarf army I am planning. I need an army for next year's Orctoberfest as I sold off my old Bretonnians (I kept the newer models) and thus don't have a 2500 point army anymore.

What sucks is that I can't get to 2500 points with my Bretonnian army without shelling out an obscene amount of money. Even if I go all cavalry I need to buy some 2 or 3 boxes of knights which will run over $100 but then I have no archer or men-at-arms support and everything else is taken up by characters. To get the proper support I'd need to shell out another $100 just for some 200 points of archers and/or men-at-arms.

Enter Mantic Games. My god are those models cheap, good looking and so plentiful! One of their dwarf box sets which retails for around $100 is around 1500 points in GWs books. Then add some characters and runes and you've got close to 2000. A few more cheap box sets and it's easily 2500 for less than $150 or so. It also helps that I've got 3 28mm scale catapults that I can use for grudge throwers to help round out the army.

To help finance this new army I did have to sell some other things first though. Out went my AoBR Deathwing, my Deathwing Land Raider and some tactical squads I didn't use anymore (thankfully I made profit on those so I can replace the Deathwing stuff if I wanted to later). Once those make it to their destinations I'll place an order for a new Dwarf army. May not be GW but whatever, I can still play casually and at independant tournaments.

Lists for the Remembrance Day Challenge....

So regardless of my reservations about the tournament format, I'm still going to try and play. Hopefully my super themed army of terminators won't affect my army selection score too much. Considering everyone will outnumber me (aside from maybe Grey Knights) it shouldn't be too bad.

Unfortunately deciding on what to bring at 1850 is causing me a lot of problems. I have, however decided on at least the core. Regardless of what list I use it will at least contain the following:
HQ
Belial - Claws (maybe TH & SS if I can get the shield arm painted in time)

Troops
Deathwing Squad 1 - Apothecary, 1 TH & SS, 1 pair of Claws
Deathwing Squad 2 - 1 TH & SS, Cyclone, Chainfist
Deathwing Squad 3 - 1 TH & SS, Cyclone, Chainfist
Deathwing Squad 4 - Cyclone, Chainfist

Fast Attack
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Typhoon
Ravenwing Land Speeder - Multi-Melta, Typhoon

This brings the core part of my list to 1245 points. So I have 605 points to spend. Here are the best options available to me based on what is painted and/or easy to paint given the time I have (these are the best in my opinion at least)

14th Annual Remembrance Day Challenge

A tournament I can actually play in! The longest running 40k tournament in the region is coming back for its 14th iteration. I've played in this tournament every year I think except last year (Penny was born the week before) and when I was completing my 2 year Bachelor of Education.

Sadly, I generally don't do very well at these tournaments (somewhere in the upper half usually though) as I've only finished in the money once (I'm not counting my string of consecutive pop quiz wins) but they are still a blast. Admittedly I have reservations about playing in the tournament this year because of how I ran Orktoberfest (and Orctoberfest last year).

Orktoberfest 2011

Another year, another Orktoberfest.

Not as big a turnout as last year but fun nonetheless. Lots of prizes so everyone walked away with something. I will probably organize it again next year, but I'll need to do something to ensure I get more people attending. It would give me more money for prizes and will help grow the hobby more.

My new sportsmanship scoring worked better as I got a wider spread of scores this year. Also refined my Renaissance, Artistic, Honourable and Tactical rating formulas so the probability of a tie between the top players in each category should be practically non-existant.

Anyways pictures!

Orktoberfest 2011

'Ard Boyz semi-finals summary

Well the 2011 40k 'Ard Boyz semis are done. Not as good a showing as I would have liked placing 8th out of 10 people who showed up. Definately goes to show that practice is good. Still had lots of fun and even managed to get a door prize! (which will be added to the Orktoberfest prize pool as I don't actually need it).

Here's a brief summary (detailed reports hopefully later this week)

Game 1 vs. Razorspam Wolves w/ drop pods - Got Massacred
- Had a promising first turn as I siezed the initative and downed a bunch of razorbacks, but the retaliation crippled me way too much.

Game 2 vs. Orks - Major Loss
- Close game but lost my last few terminators in the last assault phase of the game.

Game 3 vs. Chaos Marines - Major victory
- Could have been a massacre for me but couldn't get passed the cover save of an obliterator who had gone to ground.

'Ard Boyz semi-finals scenarios up

They finally put up the 40k 'Ard Boyz semi-finals scenarios here. Seems a little better written than the prelims. They appear to be pushing armies with lots of scoring units but I suppose that's good for them as people will want to buy more models. One of the three scenarios require you to have a lot of scoring units and another may require you to have a lot of scoring units. For most armies though they can only muster 6 without some special rules like combat squads or imperial guard infantry platoons so they will have a hard time I think getting massacres.

Here are my thoughts on the scenarios with my army