Kill Team Tournament

So this past weekend my local gaming club, Red Steel Preston, had their first 40K tournament at their new home in Harlequins games store in Preston (after our previous home, Worthy Gaming, closed down).

They decided to hold a Kill Team tournament using the most recent rules from GW; so 200pts, 0-2 Troops/0-1 Elite/0-1 Fast Attack, no more than 3W allowed and no Flyers. Extra VPs were awarded for bringing cake and terrain (nice touch).

It was my first Kill Team game so I had no idea what to take, but had the option of Nids and CSMs. After poring over the codexes, I had narrowed it down to either a squad of Chosen in a Rhino or Tyranid Warriors with a Hive Guard. The Chosen & Rhino were initially appealing given how versatile they are when tooled up, but you really don’t get much for 200pts…something like a Havok Launcher on the Rhino (which is a great buy IMO) and an Autocannon and Plasma on the Chosen…hardly the deadliest of units…

Instead I went with the gribblies; three Tyranid Warriors with Lashwhip, Bonesword and Deathspitters and a Hive Guard. The Leader got Eternal Warrior (to help with annoying S8 insta-gib), a second Warrior took Shrouded and the Hive Guard took Preferred Enemy (v.useful when hitting on 3’s and wounding on 2’s). Only having 4 models with a 4+ save didn’t seem great, but that is 11 wounds and 11 shots per turn (with Split Fire, that’s darn good). A few test-games before the event were hit and miss, with me either winning big or getting tabled…eek.

On the day we had 12 entrants with a range of different Kill Teams; a few 5/6 man CSM/Marine squads, some Warp Spiders,  a god-evil DE Venom and shooty death squad (more on that later…), a few teams of about a dozen (IG vets, scouts etc) and two ‘teams’ of about 25 (IG and Kroot).

As with practice, my games were hit and miss…winning one game without much trouble and getting tabled in the next…then tabling my next opponent and losing the one after. Some of the results came down to the pairings; 4 models against 26 Kroot did not go well, but against half a dozen MEQ I was breaking face.

The other big impact on the day was how bad my rolling was compared to a few opponents… For example, one game was lost after the 3 Warriors ganged up on a Dark Angel with a Storm Shield; for about 8 turns of combat I consistently only wounded with one or two of my 12 attacks, whilst he saved them all and ground down the rest of my team with a Power Sword. Another game almost ended in a loss after a CSM Champion managed to make every single FNP roll for 4 turns against my entire team…

The tournament was eventually won by the Dark Elder player who took the Venom with 5 guys inside. That measly team was putting out 2 Blasters and about 27 shots per turn, whilst protected by Night Shields (?), jinks and an invulnerable save. The guy didn’t lose a model the entire game – apparently the most damage done was someone glanced the Venom. It was just moving around and hammering model after model with dozens of shots until they died. In my game I managed to get 1 shot off (I didn’t realise weapon range was reduced until halfway though) and may have stood a chance if I could pop the Venom...which passed its inv. and went on to table me. Sad times.

Despite the inconsistent games, I still managed to place 4^th overall and 2^nd in the painting competition – so overall, a pretty good day!

The6thdegree at Blog Wars 4

So myself and LordHalfpenny have returned back to our normal lives after weeks (ok...less than an hour in my case) of preparation for Blog Wars 4.

Yet again, Alex from From The Fang, held a great tournament – with many of the participants now being regulars and I recognised a lot faces (although I‘m admittedly, really bad with names).

My Iron Warriors are nowhere near ready for playing yet, so I took my ‘Nids (list here). I’ve got to admit, that through no real fault of their own, I have gone off them a bit; they really need a complete overhaul painting-wise, I am now focused on the Iron Warriors and these were a bit of an unwelcome distraction and after looking at some of the lists, a lot of folks were taking advantage of allies and the overall competitiveness seemed to have increased – something ‘Nids don’t get to do.

Despite this, I rolled up bright (read cold and dark) and early, just a little exhausted after a late night and untimely drive down south. I found my table and waited for my first opponent to turn up:

Game 1: Necrons

I’ve only played Necrons once and it went well, so I was (stupidly) optimistic...until I read the name on my opponents shirt...Dave Symcox...of the 40KUK podcast and the England ETC team. Oh well, that’ll be the first game lost.

And lose it I did! Dave brought Oberon, a shed-load of Wraiths, some Croissants and shooty-tank things (maybe I shouldn’t have been so confident against Necrons...). The mission was objectives and I set up to be able to jump on three in the middle straight away and go from there. Then the Wraiths hit and tied up my army for most of the game (a 3++ and W2 really annoys monstrous creatures). The definite low-point, other than having the worst rolling of any game I’ve ever played, was Swarmlord getting Mindshackled and beating himself to death for three turns. I was tabled by turn 5 – but Dave was a great opponent and it was useful watching someone play who knew exactly what they were doing. I also think I might be in an interview in the next 40KUK podcast – so keep your ears open.

Game 2: Squats (Imperial Guard)

This game was against Grazers Squat army that I’d been hearing about since the last Blog Wars – and it was awesome! Grazer quite rightly won the best painted army award. The game on the other hand didn’t go in Grazers favour and despite being initially worried by his 5 tanks that spewed out high strength/low AP large-blasts and it being the first game of Relic I had played – things went really well for me.

The Swarmlord managed to grab the Relic by turn 2 and his psychically-buffed unit was able to hold it for the rest of the game. The Flyrant worked perfectly; picking apart the armoured contingent, as my Gants, Tervigons and Dakkafexes marched up to the Squat front-lines and proceeded to eat their face. I managed to only lose the 30-odd Gants I spawned as meat shields and a Hive Guard brood – the rest of the army was still alive by the end of the game on turn 5.

Grazer was a great opponent and the game was hugely fun and cinematic as the little Squats bunkered down behind their Aegis Defence Line as the hordes swarmed in.

Game 3: Space Wolves

This was the final (and most fun) game of the tournament for me – against The Damn Dice’s Bennet Morley. Bennet was rocking Njal, a unit of of Long Fangs and a ton of squads in Drop Pods with an Aegis Defence Line. The game was Kill Points and in an effort to reduce the number of easy points, Bennet decided to carry out the very fluffy and noble tactic or hiding all his units in a blob, defended by the Aegis and waiting, whilst dropping empty Pods in the far corners of the table...lol. Alex the TO (a long-time Space Wolf player) confirmed that this was in fact, a tried and tested Space Wolf technique that had won many a battle on Fenris.

The game went as you would expect – the ‘Nids plodding forward taking their hits and losing a few Kill Points (about 9), until finally in turn 4, they hit the front lines and overran the cowering space puppies! The next two turns was a nail biting back and forth of me trying to catch up with the kill points and Bennet minimising losses and praying for the end of the game. Those last turns were frantic as I wiped out whole squads in his deployment zone – to realise that his Drop Pods were in my deployment – negating Linebreaker VPs. The final turn came down to Swarmlord and Njal face-to-face...obviously Njal died before he even knew what was happening, scoring me 3 VPs and taking me in the lead! With only a couple of Marines and a Rune Priest left, there was no way for the Space Wolves to catch up...was there? Oh yes – an against-all-odds Jaws of the World Wolf, which wiped a Dakkafex and Tervigon off the board and pushing Bennet ahead for the win by 1 VP!

At the end of the day I ended up in the mid-table, with 1-0-0...so at least I’ve been consistent across all the Blog Wars events. Congrats to LordHalfpenny, who finally took the shrinkwrap off his Daemons and impressively placed in the top 10!

Nids List for Blog Wars 4

A big thanks to Siph and Grazer for helping me make up my mind on what to take to Blog Wars 4.

Here we have it:

HQ

Tyrant   (Paroxysm, Leech Life, Devourers, Wings) 245pts

Swarmlord (2 Tyrant Guard with Lash Whips) 410pts

Troops

Tervigon (Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacks) 210pts

Tervigon (Catalyst, Onslaught, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacks) 210pts

20 Termagants 100pts

19 Termagants 95pts     

Elite

2 Hive Guard 100pts

2 Hive Guard 100pts

Heavy

Carnifex (2 T/L Devourers) 190pts

Carnifex (2 T/L Devourers) 190pts

Total      1850

Fingers crossed it will do alright; it is certainly not the scariest thing in the world, but I am relatively familiar with it and it requires no new models or painting.

I went with the Dakkafexes in the end over Trygons because they offer more anti-infantry - which strangely is something I have had problems with before. They will also lend a helping hand to the Hive Guard at popping light mech and any pesky flyers that might show up.

I’ll post the results after the event.

Wish me luck!

Some Old-School Carnifexes

Hi all – back to stripping/re-purposing some of my 'Nids, here we have a pair of old Carnifexes.

The first is a 2^nd Ed Screamer Killer (AKA Mr. Huggy) that I picked up on eBay for about £5.00 a few years back. I used to have one of these models when I used to play in 2^nd Ed – so I had to get one again.

I originally converted it to be a Dakka-Fex and you might see it cropping up in a few older pics from Blog Wars 1, but since getting a newer Dakka-Fex which looks way better IMO, I thought I would pull it apart and build.paint it up as intended.

 

 

 

 

 

The second Carnifex here is a 4^th Ed (??? Please correct me if I’m wrong – I wasn’t playing in 4^th Ed) model which was another eBay steal and had some horrible Scything Talons and a rather useless Venom Cannon. Not exactly an optimal loadout.... Seeing as I wasn’t a fan, this one got stripped and took the dakka-arms from the older Carnifex. It probably wont get much play – but hey, a spare Dakkafex is never a bad thing.

 

 

 

 

 

‘Nid DakkaFex - Tyranid Carnifex

Whilst Pornstarjedi and Siph have been having fun at Gamesday, somebody has to work... This is one of my favourite units in the‘Nid army – the DakkaFex has all the benefits of being a Carnifex and has 12 twin-linked S6 shots. Great for thinning out pesky marines or glancing light armour to death. With the current lack of Skyfire available to ‘Nids, the DakkaFex is probably also our best option for taking down flyers.

 

 

Despite having bought three Carnifex kits for various Tervigon and Tyrannofex conversions in the past, this is first time I’ve ever actually built one as it was intended... (darn good job too, great painting fella. I remember BlogWars 1 when two of these smashed my Relictors with 24TL shots!! - Siph)

Worthy Games Store Opening

This weekend marked the opening of Preston's first FLGS (that I know of) – Worthy Games. Worthy Painting are a commission-painting service, who have opened the store and made the top floors of the building into their studios.

There has been tons of build up on the Red Steel Preston FBpage (Red Steel Preston is the local gaming club that has been started and is based from the store) for the past few months and me and GreyLamb went down to the opening to check it out and pick up some new toys we had pre-ordered.

First impressions of the store were really good; it is big, bright and had tons of stock in from all the main wargaming systems, as well as a few I’d never heard of. There were also loads of miniature displays around the shop, all painted up by Worthy Painting.

I could literally feel my wallet tense up as I browsed. GreyLamb ran to a nearby bank to remortgage his house and ended up leaving with too much stuff to carry.

There were four 4x4 Realms of Battle boards set up in the store with displays or intro games and a painting bar where folks were putting together their newly acquired Dark Vengeance and Drop Zone Commander starter kits.

Upstairs is the gaming area and in the main room there were three full sized Realms of Battle tables and a side room with another table (there will probably be room for another table in each in future).

It was pretty rammed, but not many people actually brought anything to play (a problem we didn’t have), so we grabbed a table and started with a 20pt game of Warmachine.

I brought my Khador and GreyLamb had his Menoth and everything was going nicely in my favour, with my Man O’Wars and Beast ’09 ripping through the Menoth Jacks. It looked like it was going to be a certain win to me, when in true Warmachine style GreyLamb managed to roast my Warcaster with a pair of flamethrowers through a gap in terrain that I had missed.

After a bit more retail therapy we went to some demonstrations from the creator of Relics, who showed us the awesome minis (painted by Worthy I think), talked us through the rules and showed us a test game. Relics looked pretty fun; players take it in turns to use/activate a single unit each (similar to Dreadfleet) and combat is resolved by throwing a load of dice and hoping for doubles.

 

The creator of Drop Zone Commander was also in the store and spent the entire day talking to folks about the game and signing rulebooks. GreyLamb bought a DZC started kit and the mini’s are pretty awesome...no idea how the game works though...

We finished off the day with an “interesting” game of 40K; we couldn’t find anyone with an army to join in a doubles game, so instead of having the same Nids vs Paladins game we normally have, we mixed things up a bit with some Horde mode. 1250pts of fully tooled up Paladins, Draigo, an Apothecary and a Rifleman Dread started in the middle of the board and each turn 300pt waves of Nids entered and we saw how long it would take for the GKs to die. About 10 turns apparently...and they took somewhere in the region of 99 Gants, 2 Tervigons, 20 Genestealers, 3 Zoanthropes and a Tyranid Prime with them. Nasty! By the end of the game we had a little crowd around us, cheering as brood after brood of Gants threw themselves against the Paladins (although I’m not sure exactly who they were cheering for...).

We had a great day and I think Worthy were really happy with the turnout. If you are ever in the area, I would suggest you check it out or head over to the Red Steel Preston club nights on a Monday.

All pictures were taken by Andrew May on the day (I forgot to take any and they wouldn’t have been as good as his anyway).

Here is a video of the day from JoeyBerry.

Check out Red Steel Preston on their website here.

Repainted Tervigon

Hi guys – back to my repainting theme; one of the worst offenders in my army was the first Tervigon conversion that I made and painted. I really can’t even stand to look at this any more and it lives hidden in a box unless I ever desperately need a third Tervigon.

To be honest, until the official Tervigon models were released, I was actually pretty happy with the model itself; it seemed to be about the right size (it’s about double the size of a Carnifex), but new ones just blow it out of the water.

At some point into the hobby though, I realised that the paintjob was hideous and it was either bin or redo – and as much as I would like another GW Tervigon, I’m not made of money...

 

 

The first thing I did was strip off all the paint with a bath in Fairy Power Spray. It cleaned up nicely and I then looked at how I would re-model it. As I said above – I was relatively happy with the size, but it needed a large oval base. Comparing it to the size of a GW Tervigon, it was also too small to be used in tournaments without me feeling a little guilty and getting a size advantage. So rather than change the model itself, I decided to make a bit of a scenic base to increase its size.

After having a couple of 6^th Ed games with Tervigons, I have got to say – Smash is awesome with Crushing Claws! For about 25pts, the Tervigon gets an extra D3+1 attacks (off the top of my head I think...) which apply after its base attacks have been halved. That means that on the charge, a Tervigon can have between 5 and 7 S10 AP2 (re-rolling penetration) attacks. Goodbye Land Raider! So it obviously had to have a pair...

I thought it would also be nice to use some spares from another Tyrannofex/Tervigon kit and give it a little baby....*aaahhhhhh*...

I then gave it the now -standard paint scheme and I’m pretty happy with the results; especially compared to the original.

Another ‘Nid Flyrant

Have you ever had a model that you were really enthusiastic about, but never managed to make any momentum on and ended up being an absolute chore? That’s what this guy was for me...

I originally decided to build a Flyrant about 2 years ago when I bought my first Tyrant model (still metal back then...) and one of the torso pieces were missing. GW were great and immediately gave me a replacement kit no questions asked and let me keep the original one. I then managed to pick up the missing piece off a bitz store for about £3 – so win!

Although in 5^th Ed Flyrants were prone to being shot to hell Turn 1, I always liked the idea of having one, so I picked up some WFB Dragon wings to make a simple conversion.

I then decided to completely repose the model as if it were just landing and was flaring its wings. I cut apart all of the leg joints and changed the angles of the shoulders with GS, but I could never get it how I wanted and the sheer weight of the model kept breaking the pinned joints. I quickly gave up and remodelled it based on a standing position which annoyingly looks exactly like the stock model. Oh well.

It got armed with a pair of Scything Talons and a single pair of Devourers primarily because I didn’t have the extra set of Devourers to make it a Dakka-Flyrant. Ironically enough, after a few games proxying weapons with my FW Flyrant, this is actually my favourite configuration; the Devourers give 6 S6 Twin-Linked shots (re-rolls to-hit) and Vector Strike or psychic Witchfire count as my secondary shooting attacks. The Scything Talons allow for re-rolling 1’s to-hit in combat. With all those re-rolls and the fact the Flyrant is often away from the rest of the army, it makes the need for the Old Adversary upgrade (grants the Flyrant and units within 6 inches Preferred Enemy) redundant and saves me 25pts!

The thing then sat in my “back-up WIP box” for around 18 months waiting to be painted until 6^th Ed came out and I had loads of fun playing my FW Flyrant.

Painting seemed to take forever and the model weighs a ton, but needs to be held at weird angles so you can paint everything. I would constantly paint one colour and then go off and work on something else...I think I’ve been painting it for about 6 months now... and to top it off, the Purity Seal frosted slightly around the top of the model (luckily most of it was covered by a gloss varnish on the talons).

Overall I'm really not a fan of the model, but I'm hoping to pick up one of the new Tyrant/Flyrant kits to magnetise and make a better job of it.