Chicago Games Day 2007

So I made the trek out to Chicago Games Day today, The first one I'd been to and overall a decent experience. I am glad I made the last minute decision to play in the 400 pt Combat Patrol although 9:30 am was a bit too early as I'll explain later. Getting there was breeze for me as the Rosemont Convention Center is about a quick 20-25 min drive with zero traffic on a Saturday morning

I arrived quite early- about 30 mins before my event started and a hour before they let everyone else who wasn't staff or playing combat patrol in. Grand Tournament folk had already started in a separate section by that point and were well under way. I had a few moments to take some pics before the crowds arrived, so I'll go over some them next. my photos aren't up to my usual standard, but hey -it was early.

One of the several Apocalypse Battlefields they had set up GW was pushing Apoc BIG TIME, it looks pretty cool although the massive amount of models needed is certain going to put off all the but most hardcore players. They are releasing several huge sets, cases and extras all to go with the Apocalypse release.

New Baneblades, nuff said...Warseers pics from yesterday are alot better.



The new Chaos models rule, I wish I had pic of the sprues, or the painted
parts diagram..but those pics didnt come out.

An awesome Chaos heavy flyer on an Apocalypse board, obviously some flyers made the Apoc rules cut. I also saw the 40K scale A.I, planes which are plenty cool. I wonder if they were made for Apoc because I dont see the interest if not, the demo I saw looked like guys playing a wargame with planes in a parking lot, weird.


Apocalypse Demo, run by none other than Jeff Walichs from the Oak Park GW. One of the cool rules I noticed was a fixed deployment followed by a fast deployment which lets reposition a number units anywhere on the Battlefield after the deployment of initial forces. The templates seen elsewhere are awesome especially the clover template for orbital bombardment and Thunderhawk Gunships..the damage output from the clover template is sick.

The IG trenchsystem...


Some Might Empires Tiles, There wasnt much new fantasy
stuff about, New Wizards, Flagellants, being the exception.


COMBAT PATROL

So I was pretty beat this morning when I arrived for the event, reason being my 8 month old daughter decided last night was a "great" night to stay up all night, so I was on like 3 hours sleep. When I showed and signed in for the tourney, I popped open my figure case I present the required copy of my Army list. After which I managed to somehow not snap closed the lid to my figure case properly, as I walked away from the table, all my models spilled out onto the concrete floors, sending arms, guns and bits flying...about 7 of my 19 models were pretty busted up. Pissed -I scooped my stuff up and spent about 20 mins re-gluing parts leaving less time to get around an photograph..I can only chalk this up to carelessness and lack of sleep, lesson learned. Once the tourney started I put it out of my mind and moved on-

Scenarios where based on winning battle points earned from strategic objectives.

My army List, HQ- Captain- PW, Plasma Pistol,- Troop- 2 Squads of 6, each with Plasma and Missile Launcher, 1 squad of 6 with bolters.

Game 1- Capture the Flag VS Tyranids (Dan)

Dan's list was mean 3 Warriors with lots of upgrades,10 Genestealers, 8 gargolyes. With his speed I new I facing an uphill fight. Again, early not reading the rules properly I stupidly placed my flag too far away from my own guys, which was bad. He used his Gargoyles to grab his own flag and move it to where I couldn't get it. leaving two of my squads to exchange fire with the Warriors and thier twin linked weapons, While my other headed toward my flag along with his Stealers. While I got a couple of lucky missile hits-My squad with my HQ ended up falling back over difficult terrain putting them out of the action..I took down 4 or 5 Stealers before getting ripped to shreds in CC and they 3rd squad went down to Warrior fire...Killed 4 or 5 Stealers and put 1 wound on one of the warriors, while took over 10 causalities game over...Battle Point earned 1






Game 2- "Poker" VS Space Wolves ( John)
Space Wolves were 2 squads one with 10, one with 6, lots of upgrades, power weapons and a Razorback w/ TL las Cannon.

This was the coolest of the three scenarios. we picked poker chips before the game each with number underneath you kept secret. Deploying the chips like flags on the map. We each tried to grab either our own chip or our opponents in order to get the most points. Both my chips were "0" points so I went after my opponents...He immediately went after one of his own so I knew it had to be decent while I feinted going after one of mine. Typical stuff here Marines shooting at each other..I did get shredded when I got in to CC with The Space Wolves, they can pack alot of power weapons in one squad and have 3+ attacks each..ouch. after turn 4, We needed to roll to see if the game continued passed the 4th turn, since my opponent john was rolling hot and I wanted the game to continue, I suggest he roll. He said "sure" and rolls a "2" Doh!, the only continued on a 4,5,or 6 so game over. My opponents scoring chip was worth 4 points while his second chip ( that my second squad was about to grab turn 5) "-2" As it turned out I was lucky I didn't actually get it as I would have put me a -2 Battle Point for the tourney. As it turned out I got one Battlepoint for number models left on the table, Overall causalities between sides where close..I lost one full squad in the Close Combat but I shot up but his ten man squad good. End result- Space Wolves win!



Game 3 Vs Space Marines ( Alex)

Alex was a young guy (12-14 or something) I think he was there with his dad who was also playing. Alex had a Tornado Speeder, an Assault Squad and 2 Squads of Marines. He had alot of Illegal models in the WYSIWYG depart for his list ( some guys were "space wolves", some were"dark angels, etc) But all units were playing as vanilla marines like myself... example- lots of his guys had a Bolter in one hand and Pistol in the other which doesn't fly with a vanilla list, even with the "true grit" trait I believe that only works for Close Combat. Any way I just let him play the way he wanted which was fine. This scenario was wacked, The premise was you had to make a leadership check (9) before every phase before you acted and if you failed you lost your turn from that phase onward. IF you failed the check got harder each time (8,7,6, etc). The fluff behind this was you were hearing voices on a "ghost planet" and your guys freaked out easily. Bad scenario.

Anyway, this poor kid was not making the leadership rolls and the scenario was creaming him. He wanted to have a shoot out with me but had heavy bolters in two squads and he kept moving so that he barely got to use them. Basically I blew up the Speeder and shot it out with him, I gave him alot of extra shots (with his wacky WYSIWYG) but I was scoring lots of missile and plasma hits. I lost 4 guys, he had 4 guys left...I picked up 4 Battle points here so I finished with 6 battle points beating a young kid in a wacky scenario..lame. I finished in the bottom three...I needed to really pick up points in scenario # 2- I just drew crappy chips worth "0" points, the luck of the draw.

Conclusions-

This is was pretty cool, I will definitely play in this again if they run at Adepticon and I can fit it in. This would be a great tourney to run with friends in a casual environment. couple of notes- Vehicles where about useless with the tight terrain, except for bikes, the guy who won went 3-0 with Orks and had a bunch of bikes. Speed was key, my move "6" Marines with "move or fire" weapons was not the way to go.I should have brought my 200 pt squad of Assault Marines. Fast, mobile units rule. IF i did this again casually I'd proxy all my Ultramarines with a Blood Angels list...so my Troops could be Assault Marines and bring a Dev Squad-that would rock. One thing in retrospect that kind of sucked was not having information on the Scenarios ahead of time was a major drag..as there was too much information to process in the 1or 2 mins before the game started. Every scenario had multiple conditions, objects and Terrain on each table a different rules. As a result we screwed up alot, example in my 1st game it was supposed to be "Night Fight" rules which would have help tremendous vs his 36" Vemon cannon's range.
Anyway my sugggestion would be posting 6 scenarios online and then using three on site. That would have at least given us an opportunity to study what we were in for, while still maintaining a surprise element.

Final Thoughts-

Despite the gallery wide screams of "Waaaaaaagh" before every turn of the mega battle..this was pretty interesting..I do it again..I just have to say however that FORGE WORLD deserves the big middle finger for not bringing enough product. They were also really understaffed for an event like this, which is pathetic. I waited in line for Forge World for close to an HOUR. complete bullshit -on top of that..they had no stipulations on how many of an item anyone could buy, AND they opened the store privately to GT people the day before. So all the exclusive games days minis where sold out by like 10:30 am (well the Imperial T-bolt pilot anyway) because they were allowing people to buy mass quantities...( I heard people where buying 7-10) anyway that sucked. SO I waited in line...(you could not find out what was sold out until you waited in line because the three people working were too busy to answer any questions) when I finally was able to order 3 of the 5 things I wanted were sold out. My buy list was 2 Sets of Rhino Armor, the Imperial Thunderbolt Pilot and 2 Empire Cannon emplacements. They only had the Rhino armor. I ask the guy "Ok -I get the pilot- but you're sold out of the empire cannon emplacement??, how freaking popular is that????,"" Well we only bought 12, and when we opened the store for the GT people ,two guys bought them all" he tells me "well you can pay for it now and we will ship it for free when we get back"...yeah right!!! they are writing down mail orders on little scraps of paper at Games Day, like thats not going to get screwed up, both times I have bought stuff from Forge World through normal channels there was a problem both times... No thanks, at least I got my armor.

PS- I forgot about Swag-

I did get some good swag- 3 metal models- an IG commissar, a direct only space marine captain and a cool orc with the $45 ticket..other costs- $11 to park...I still put down about $120 bucks total with the FW stuff but the swag models are worth a few bucks so I figure I got out of there at around $100 out the door..not too bad.

Thousand Sons, The Revenge

Scott's Thousands Sons return to Macragge to avenge their last loss, and they did so in spades,
The Ultramarines, 3rd company where totally wiped out, while the Chaos forces took minimal losses. We both took notes so this report is from both perspectives " White Dwarf" style


This was a 700 pt game Mission was "Take and Hold", revolving around the wreckage of a crashed Imperial lander Below is the deployment diagram:



Army Lists

Thousand Sons

HQ

Chaos lieutenant Sorcerer - Derg Corra Amnon (156 pts)

· Mark of Tzeentch

· Power Weapon

· CCW

· Bolt of Change

· Familiar

· Wind of Chaos

· Demonic flight

Troops

Thousand Sons Squad 1 (271 pts)

· 8 Rubric Marines + Free Aspiring Champion - Corracol Serrano

· Power Weapon

· Thrall

· Familiar

· Doombolt

· Wind of Chaos

Thousand Sons Squad 2 (271 pts)

· 8 Rubric Marines + Free Aspiring Champion - Rohm Dutt

· Power Weapon

· Thrall

· Familiar

· Doombolt

· Wind of Chaos

Ultramarines (695 pts)


HQ

Captain Brother Septimius

Power Weapon
Plasma Pistol
Iron Halo

Troops

Alpha Squad-
Sgt Brother Tiberius
9 Marines
Plasma Gun
Missile Launcher

Rhino Transport

Beta Squad
Sgt Brother Octavian
9 Marines
Plasma Gun
Missile Launcher

Fast Attack

Assault Squad
Sgt Brother Cato
-Terminator honors
-Power Fist
-Combat Shield
5 marines
Plasma Gun
Flamer


Deployment (Scott)

Take and Hold is absolutely my favorite scenario. Once a unit of Rubrics gets in the center of the board, there is almost no dislodging them.
Since both my Rubric units are basically the same, I deployed one on the left flank and one on the right. I positioned my HQ behind squad #2 on the left.
I knew that John’s Assault Squad was going to cause a lot of problems for me, so I made them target priority #1.

Deployment (John)

I wanted to get my Assault Squad into CC with Scott's 1st ASAP, my eagerness cost me bigtime.
basically the plan was to get the Assault squad engaged, Alpha Squad gets objective while Beta provided range support..nice plan, zero execution.


The Ultramarines won initiative and decided to go 1st.


Turn 1 -Ultramarines (John)

Movement-
Rhino pulls up toward the lander clear its stormbolter clear shots on Scotts second squad.
Alpha Squad with my Commander attached moves up near the transport using it as cover against the open squad
Beta Squad stays put and will fire a Krak missile a scott's second squad.
Assault Marines deployed behind a hill fly over the hill into the open toward scotts 1st squad.
(this was very dumb, I will regret this later and need to learn how to use these guy properly)

Shooting-
Rhino fires at squad two, causing 1 wound which scott saves.
Beta Squad- fires Krak Missle at scotts second squad. it misses

Turn 1 -Thousand Sons- (Scott)

I knew that I’d have to start getting a move on if I was going to get to the center of the board, so I made Slow and Purposeful (S&P) rolls for both units. I wanted to have squad 1 hang back since John’s assault marines where heading toward me on the right flank. I was afraid that I’d be plagued with bad S&P rolls so I figured just move them up. I also moved my Sorcerer from behind unit #2 toward the right flank for support.

In the shooting phase, unit 1 opened up on the assault marines, causing 6 wounds. John saved all but one. I didn’t think that was good enough, so I sacrificed the thrall and shot Doombolt again, taking one more down. A Bolt of Change from my sorcerer claimed one more. This was enough to make the unit fall back. Ha! I wasn’t going to be charged next turn.

KIA - Assault Marines 3
Rhino Transport immobilized

Turn 2 Ultramarines (John)

Movement-
Rhino- immobilized..chooses to fire rather than self repair
Alpha Squad- Holds and Fires into advancing Ksons
Beta Squad Holds and Fires at Scott Second Squad
Assault Squad - Holds stays in cover.

Shooting-
Rhino- Fires stormbolter- misses
Alpha Squad- 8 shots, including Krak Missile and Plasma Gun land 4 wounds on scotts 1st squad
he makes all his saves.
Beta Squad- fires a Krak and second squad- misses.

Turn 2 Thousand Sons- (Scott)

This turn’s moves were basically me moving all my units forward. Unit #2 got a crappy 2” for their S&P roll. That was still not enough for me to target John’s unit hanging back on his right flank.

Shooting wasn’t as impressive as the last turn. I managed to cause only one casualty on the unit containing John’s leader. Unit #2 Stunned the rhino but kept it’s eyes on that unit far off in the wastes.

KIA- Marines Beta squad 1 marine

Turn 3 Ultramarines (John)

Movement-
Rhino- immobilized..chooses to fire rather than self repair
Alpha Squad- Holds and Fires into advancing Ksons
Beta Squad Holds and Fires at Scott Second Squad
Assault Squads- flies towards scotts advancing squad

Shooting-
Rhino- misses
Assault Squad- fires pistols miss and flamer causes 1 wound.
Alpha Squad- lands 5 wounds, plasma gun kills one wounded Chaos Marine, scott saves the rest
Beta Squad- another Krak missile misses, I did not land one the whole game.

Assault-
Critical error...my distance to charge is short by 1 inch!!!. my guys are now sitting ducks, lesson learned here.


Turn 3- Thousand Sons (Scott)

Wow, my sorcerers must have cast some kind of hex on John’s Plasma and krak missiles. I truly am blessed of Tzeentch.

Anyway, More slow moving. I position my Sorcerer HQ right in front of John’s unit w/ his HQ and let rip with Wind of Chaos. Four marines were consumed by the dread fire of Tzeentch!

Unit one eliminated the last remnants of John’s assault unit and I breath a sigh of relief.

My HQ then charged the recently decimated unit of Ultramarines and cut down three more!

KIA- Casualites- Scott crushes me..wipes out my assault squad...his uber sorceror lord advances on me casting winds of change killing 5 marines in Alpha squad, then he assaults landing 3 power weapon blows in Close Combat Beta squad also takes a casualtie- I lose 11 men of my 27 men this turn - Brutal

Turn 4 Ultramarines (John)

Movement-
Rhino- immobilized..chooses to fire rather than self repair
HQ/ Squad 1- in close combat
Beta Squad- holds and fires

Shooting-
Rhino- fires misses
Beta Squad- entire squads blasts Scotts second squad with rapid fire bolters, plasma gun and krak missile
I roll a 13 attacks, Scott's Ksons scoff- my plasma comes up 1 with a gets hot, I fail the save and die, my Krak misses again and all the bolter shots on come out to 1 wound on one soldier after saves.
Assault

HQ/ Alpha Squad Close Combat- land 1 wound on his sorceror lord

Turn 4 Thousand Sons (Scott)
(Scotts notes stop here, these are from mine)

His Sorceror lord is a close combat machine, as he and my HQ were simaltaneous, both commanders kill each other. I move my remaining 3 marines in Alpha Squad up to assault the advance 1st Kson squad who out number me more than 3-1, another glacing hit stuns the Rhino crew, losing them their next turn

Turn 5 Ultramarines (John)

Movement
Rhino- immobilized/ Crew Stunned
Alpha Squad- Shoots then Assaults
Beta Sqaud- advances and fires

Shooting/ Assault-
Alpha -I can't make out my notes here but either my Sgt's pistol or the assault lands some wounds
I kill one Chaos Marine here.

Beta Squad- Bolters fire, I cause a wound here to the other squad maybe

Turn 5- Thousand Sons (Scott)
(again my notes)
Rhino, unstuns shoots misses. Alpha Squad wiped out
Beta takes casualties, there are only 3 marines left total.

Turn 6- Ultramarines (John)

Pathetically my last three fire into the brick wall of scotts units, no wounds.
My last three guys flee for the drop ship- ( we call it a game)

Wow, some my worst dice to date, I could barely do a thing and failed alot of saves.
The highlight of game for me was the commanders taking each other out in a brutal close combat.I personally cant wait for the new Chaos Codex, while AP3 bolters sounds like hell, facing troops with only 1 wound will be nice change in dynamic, great game Scott...your revenge was served warm and cold and with a shovel!. Quote of the day, from Scott after my 6th miss with a Krak missile- "Stop calling it a missile, call it a rocket as missile has the word MISS in it". so true my friend. Next time- the Ultramarines counter attack.

Photos
The Ultramarine's pre- deployment


Thousand Sons Squad 1 Ready for battle


Ultramarines- deployment


Thousand Sons, Squad 2, Deployment


Turn 3, where my assault marines misjudged the
charge distance


Turn 4, Commander Showdown

Alpha Squads last stand.

4 X 8 Gaming Table

I really wanted to build a nice table after seeing all the great ones out at Adepticon earlier this year and the few peoples homes I've been to. My 1st 4x4 I did late last year does the job, and matches the terrain I built for it but since I actually layed the texture right on the plywood, its not changing without a major overhaul, and my carpentry was pretty half assed as I did it out of miscellaneous scrap lumber on the fly. For this one I made plans to do it right.

This is 4 x 8 sheet of 3/4" plywood framed on top of 2x4's and 1 x4 's, its rock solid and using an old picnic table I have for legs I can make it perfectly level without the hassle of leveling prebuilt legs. The reason it looks like a pool table is that I used a bunch of 6" floor base left over from my upstairs house rehab as a bumper it was the perfect size to come up about 3/4 of an inch above the top of the plywood. I set a piece of 1/2" foamcore in the "pocket" leaving a 1/4 inch above that exposed. This keeps the foamcore in place- nice and tight without glue and it is easily removable, it also keep things like dice from rolling off the table which is nice. Given this setup I can swap out any foamcore top I want to create, or people can bring their own over and we could just drop it right in.

The play surface was spray painted black, then I used spray craft glue ( super 77) to hold down a dusting of fine sand. Then I used 4 different colors of spray paint to create the mottled battlefield surface. This is setup for Warhammer fantasy so I am concurrently working on a bunch of terrain for this., I'm sure I will tweak the paintjob a bit a time goes on as while you can't really see it these photos but its got a nice texture that will take well to drybrushing. Anyway as it stands I am quite happy with this so far and wanted to show it off.

New Stuff.

The holiday in the middle of the week gave me some extra time off and led to getting a bunch of stuff finished. Here is my Assault Marine Sergeant sitting a top one of the new Citadel Hills. Which I finished up as the 1st piece of terrain for my 4 X 8 Fantasy Table.

City Fight!!

My Ultramarines took two serious losses this weekend, two great games on an awesome looking table. While I misplaced my notes on the blow by blow-the photos tells tale. Games where 500 points and had primary and secondary objectives. My Ultramarines force consisted of two tactical squads, a rhino transport and an assault squad.

Game 1- VS Brian playing Tyranids / ( HQ- 3 Tyranid Warriors, Troop- 3 squads of 8 Genestealers )

My 1st time playing Tyranids, with exception of the Battle of Macragge missions, Brian was obviously a skilled player who knew how to use them on this table. Brian deployed his forces inside nearby buildings in order to initiate capture points on his 1st turn. I didn't deploy as wiselyand deployed as far back a possible in order to try to get postion for some ranged fire before I got swarmed. I also made the dumb move of thinking I would deep strike my assault marines on this crowded terrain. (Art's Grey Knights mojo from Memorial day weekend came back to haunt me, I didn't get them on the table until turn 5, too little too late.) I then second guessed myself and had a few difficult terrain rolls trying to capture a few buildings in the early turns, low rolls slowed me down, while Brian advanced like a wildfire. I did manage to get a good round of fire off and kill 4 genestealers from one squad in round 2. by the end of Round 2, one squad was swarmed by the Warriors and remaining Stealers while the others advanced on my Rhino, My second squad had no range or LoS and was screwing around in a building while my Assault Marines played cards on the Thunderhawk. By turn 4 my Rhino was popped like a tincan and my second squad had the Tyranid Warriors on them as well..dead soon after.
I actually spent the top of round 5 with No units on the table as everyone was dead and Assault Marines were still late to the party. Finally on the table , it was way too late. In end I manage to kill 8 genestealers totals and the cost of my whole force. I did hit the Warriors a few times but the saved all their wounds. Great game Brian, it taught me alot.


Turn 1, inital deployment, I went 2nd and see those slimy buggers on the move.

This squad managed to capture that building on the right, get position and take down 1/2 a squad of oncoming Genestealers. Their glory was shortlived.

Brian's Tyranids on the move looking to eat some Ultramarines, note the awesome water effect on this table.

Boom!!! Tyranid warriors thru the wall, into the building and into my squad this got ugly fast.

Genestealers add to the mix, these guys never knew what hit them.
After these guys were wiped out both units consoldiated and moved toward
my other squad, while more Genestealers popped my Rhino


My second squad meets it maker, ouch. My assault marines show up after this only to die in a similar manner although they managed killed a few Genestealers. This was total blow out for Brian he captured 6 buildings meeting the primary objective and only lost 8 units, I lost everybody 25 Marines, 1 Vehicle and Crew.


Game 2 Vs Dan playing Chaos Space Marines- (Troop- 3 Squads of Chaos Space Marines
Heavy- Chaos Havoc Squad (5))

A much better game for me that was neck and neck until turn 5 or so. The objective was to end game with a unit touching the Astropath figure (below photo center right) who was running around the board while we battled, the bummer for me was we kept rolling it running directly into Dan's troops. My secondary objective was to hold a table quarter which I had until I started rolling "1's like crazy the last two turns.

Deployment, my set up was fine, note Dans Havocs at the other end of the alley, I figured I could shoot missles at the havoc squad while only drawing fire on part of the squad, trying to occupy the Havocs while my other two squads went to work..good plan that work pretty well. I had Havocs down to 2 guys all from Missile fire. however Dan made all his morale checks so I couldn't get rid of them. Note my assault marines on the right and the Astropath on the otherside of the building..the Assault Marines went up and over, only to run smack into two of Dans Squads, my guys held and retreated but only off pot shots later getting pinned down in that building while the Astropath chased Dan around.

Looking down the Barrel of 2 Heavy Bolters and 2 Plasma Guns, not good.

Dan's guys advancing, notice the Astropath ( primary objective)
has already delivered himself to dan, this is the top of turn 3, I believe.

All I had to do was take these guys down in close combat and I could have secured my quarter for the secondary objective...I outnumbered him two to one here the problem was I started throwing "1's" here like crazy here. ( 4 at once for close combat wounds, OUCH) this forced my other squad to stay put firing Missle's ( missing) instead of blocking on of Dan other Squads advancing into this quarter from the right. My Rhino got popped by a plasma gun but became a wreck blocking LoS in key spot for me. My squad then got compromised, lost combat and I then failed my leadership and they ran 10" which was off the table! ouch. Despite the trainwreck outcome this was actually a really close game, Dan only had one scoring unit left on the table at the end of turn 6 but he completed the objective without issue. I again lost everyone. GG to Dan he played it smart.

These games were part of 3 round campaign, my campaign partner, Aaron was playing Imperial Guard in other room and had similiar luck. He was using alot of plasma guns and was rolling freakish numbers of "gets hot" failures, and blowing himself up. Unfortunately we never played the third round as several of us were prevented from returning the next day. Big thanks to Mike for hosting these games and Jason for designing the missions. look forward to playing on that table again.