Saturday, May 22, 2010

Valhallan Ice Warriors

Well since I dont post a lot on my blog Drew suggested just to make my posts on his blog. This past weekend I finally started painting up my Valhallans. I went for a simple grey color scheme that I think works well with the snow on the bases. It really gives the model that feel of being from an ice world. Here are some pics of the first squad I painted. Leave some feedback for me.


-Mikey H








Wednesday, May 19, 2010

'Ard Boyz 2010 qualifiers: Game 3

For the final game we had to play an Annihilation Scenario with modified KP mission that gave extra KP if a certain unit can move more than 6" in a given phase. I had to again face one of my team members (it is inevitable...) but Hoj had a much stronger list though the modified KP meant it was going to be an uphill struggle for him. He had:

Demon Prince w/ wings, mark of slannesh and lash of submission
Demon Prince w/ wings, mark of slannesh and lash of submission
Generic Greater Demon

Khorne Berzerkers x10 in land raider
Plague Marines 5x7? w/ melta guns
Obliterators 2x3

Chosen x5 w/ melta gun x4
Chosen x5 w/ plasma gun x4

I'm not quite sure what else may have been in the army but I did fear all those plasma cannon shots going my way from those obliterators. Even with a piece of LOS blocking terrain in the dead center eventually one of us would have to peek around to get anywhere or get ambushed.

The game turned into a real shoot em up game, though Hoj was pretty tired at this point and made a few errors. Like not finishing off squads when they were down to one or two members. Me retreating them and hiding them behind LOS blocking terrain also helped.

At this point of the evening Hoj was pretty tired and was convinced that he would be out if the running so played a bit sloppy and demoralized. So anytime one of my units was in danger of being wiped out I would run them away so that he couldn't get any KP for them. Though the game lasted until the very last turn mainly due to me not having very far range weaponry and firing dozens of missiles at his obliterators hoping they fail their 2+ save. Eventually it worked and I tabled Hoj and moved enough of my units to get all the bonus points.

Post game:
After the game I wandered about to see the main table that pitted my friend Jon versus a friendly player using Leafblower guard. Unfortunately for the guard player he was playing a scenario that was heavily weighed against him, though at a glance it seemed regardless of scenario he would of had a really rough time winning against Jon killa kan wall with horde of orks...

When it came down for placement I was surprised to learn that I was actually vaulted into 2nd place thanks to Jon beating his opponent handily. My strategy for the the tournament seemed to work better than intended, I was shooting for third but got second! The way I figured it as long as you you don't massacre your opponent first round you will not be paired against the "hardest" lists of the tournament. Sure this is all based purely on luck some might say but in this case it completely worked! lets hope that luck keeps up as I cruise into the semi-finals!

Monday, May 17, 2010

'Ard Boyz 2010 qualifiers: Game 1

The first game of the day I fought against a fellow named Stuart, who brought along his blood angel army sporting a lot of 3rd edition miniatures which is always a plus in my book! He brought along:

Reclusiarch w/ jump pack (leads death company)

Furioso Dreadnought

Tactical Squad x10 w/ melta gun and plasma cannon in rhino
Tactical Squad x10 w/ melta gun and missile launcher in rhino
Assault Squad x10 w/ jump packs, melta gun, vet sarge w/ power weapon
Assault Squad x10 w/ jump packs, melta gun, vet sarge w/ thunder hammer
Death Company x13 w/ thunder hammer jump packs
Death Company Dreadnought

Baal Predator w/ pintle mounted storm bolter
Land Speeder w/ typhoon missile launcher
Land Speeder w/ Multi-melta and assault cannon

Vindicator
Vindicator
Whirldwind

The mission was Seize Ground with 5 objectives, bonus battle points for: killing the most scoring units, killing more of the opponent's HQ, killing highest point unit and having more scoring units in your opponents deployment zone.

Deployment:
His
Left Flank: assault squad, land speeder (melta/cannon) and tactical squad in rhino
Center: death company, two vindicators, baal predator, land speeder (typhoon) and furioso dreadnought
Right Flank: assault squad and death company dreadnought

deep into his deployment was an objective guarded by a whirlwind and tactical squad with rhino.

My deployment was fairly simple all my grey hunters went as far back as possible to avoid combat by the second turn. My long fangs hugged board edges to get excellent fields of fire regardless of turn.

The Game:
Turns: 1-2
First and second turn his fire did a few casualties here and there I believe on squad of grey hunters went down pretty quickly. First turn the rune priest cast "Jaws of the World Wolf" catching five models including his Reclusiarch... in an unexpected turn of events ALL of the models caught died! I followed up by virtually obliterating the rest of the death company via 14 missiles of the long fangs and random bolter fire so only two survived.

Turns: 3-4
The last two survivors of the death company get assault by my grey hunters including the wolf guard with thunder hammer. Amazingly one is still left alive in a dragging combat when the furioso dreadnought decides to join in, thankfully I thought ahead of time and led the thunder hammer wielding wolf guard on the edge of combat expecting a dreadnought to join in. Though I took a few casualties I knocked out the dread and stayed in combat versus the lone thunder hammer wielding death company who was having trouble hitting.

My blood claws with attached wolf priest managed to chew through his tactical unit on the charge and when they were eventually charged by the assault marines they polished them off also! After neutralizing any threat on my left flank they advanced jumping from cover to cover.

An assault squad and dreadnought jumped onto one of my depleted grey hunter packs near an objective mauling them with a handful of casualties. At this point some of my units were barely holding on and a lucky round of shooting could of changed things easily.

By the end of turn four I believe I managed to knock out both vindicators and shot down a weaponless land speeder that was trying to contest and objective.


Turn: 5

Both forces are looking worse for wear so he starts by driving his baal predator onto an objective and backs it with the surviving dreadnought. He strings a tactical squad across two objectives in his deployment with a typhoon land speeder for good measure. Ineffectual fire from the baal predator ends his shooting without much effect.

He jumps an assault squad onto a depleted grey hunter squad, counter attack does me proud though and cause I more casualties than they can dish out. With "no retreat" tacking on another wound or two against the assault marines.

A time warning starts my turn and I know this will be the last gasp to make or break the game so I set about my business. So far it's one objective a piece so I had to get lucky in order to win. I wasn't thinking straight and took a gamble ran up my double melta gun grey hunters to the baal predator and hoped my scouts (with combi melta/melta gun) could deal with the dread giving me another objective.

Things worked out on on this turn though I did manage to nuke the baal predator despite shooting at the rear of the dreadnought either the scouts shots missed or didn't roll high enough! Which means I wasted a perfectly good scoring unit for nothing.

Luck decided otherwise, for all the bad rolls versus the dread the rest of my grey hunters walloped the assault marines and made the lone survivor head for the hills. Thankfully for me I failed to catch him leaving me free to consolidate back onto one of my home objectives!

Thanks to my blood claws barely being within one of his objectives it was 2-1 in my favor and I garnered myself a victory with 2 bonus points killing his highest unit (death company) and killing the most scoring units (only his tactical squad in his deployment survived scoring wise).

Post Game Thoughts:

It was a very close run game and it was down to the final roll, I have to say Stuart was a great opponent and a great sport. We didn't have any rules quarrels and ew both had our moments of good and bad luck. With that being said my first turn "Jaws of the World Wolf" caused way more damage than I thought I was going to get. I assumed that I would tag a model or two, but when he failed his chaplains initiative test with a 6 my jaw dropped. Followed by 5,5,6 and 6 for the four death company unlucky enough to be right behind him I honestly couldn't think of anything better.

I knew that if the death company approached my lines with anything near full strength they would tie up units until their buddies arrived. With that in mind I focused most of my fire on them and slowly backed away buying me a few turns to organize my units and focus on his piece meal.

If I had to do anything differently I should of used one of my scout units to knock out his whirlwind (in deployment) and hide behind it's wreck out of LOS from the tactical squad to thin out their number. Also I should of run with the blood claws one turn instead of trying to knock out the land speeder. It would of ensured that I would of reached combat and at the end of the game I would of been 2-0 objectives in my favor.

Survivors:
Whirldwind
Death Company Dreadnought
7-8 tactical marines

Rune Priest
Wolf Priest x2
Blood Claws 6/10
Grey Hunters 5/10
Grey Hunters 3/10
Grey hunters 6/10
Long Fangs 7/7
Long Fangs 3/7

'Ard Boyz 2010 qualifiers: Game 2

My second game was victory points and table quarters with spearhead deployment, good to see VP again in the game I have always preferred it to KP any day! My opponent was Cash one of our own crew regrettably he built a list using models he had at hand rather than what he wanted. This is what he brought to the table:

Chaplain w/ terminator armor and melta bombs (with death company)
Librarian w/ terminator armor (with terminators)

Assault Terminators x6 w/ lightning claws x4 thunder hammer/storm shields x2

Death company x21 w/ thunder hammer x2
Tactical Squad x10 w/ power fist and melta gun
Tactical Squad x10 w/ power first and melta gun
Tactical Squad x10 w/ plasma pistol, plasma gun and missile launcher
Tactical Squad x10 w/ plasma pistol, plasma gun and missile launcher
Assault Squad x10 w/ power weapon, melta gun x2, no jump packs

Dreadnought w/ tl lascannons and missile launcher
Dreadnought w/ tl lascannons and missile launcher
Predator Annihilator w/ tl lascannons and sponson lascannons

Terrain was a shelled out city with clear LOS through the center with a few pieces of scattered cover. A few buildings skirted the edges of the board blocking LOS for anything close enough to them.

Cash deployed his terminators and death company towards the center while all his infantry and dreadnoughts took solace in the cover of buildings. On my corner I just deployed my infantry in wide straight lines and set up a gun line waiting for the blood angels to come and get me. Had my long fangs on flanks to get some enfilade fire out behind lines of marines with my blood claws on a flank behind a building ready to advance on the side and pounce on isolated units.

The game went by pretty fast the death company spent the game eating missiles and random fire while approaching my line. Every time I felt the terminators were too close I would fall back and have other squads provide covering fire. Cash knew from the beginning that he would be outclassed but tried to see how much damage he could cause. But when all was said and done I earned a massacre result with two bonus points for holding two table quarters and contesting his quarter.

Post Game Thoughts:
There isn't much I would change as part of my battle plan seeing as I one so handily. thought I didn't report it a round of shooting made my long fangs almost fall off the table. Thankfully they had just enough room to regroup and keep on firing. But if I were to change anything it would be to be more aggressive on my right flank and chase the rest of the tactical marines out of the building to claim even more quarters.

Survivors:
Chaplain
Librarian
Assault Terminators 3/6?
Dreadnought?
Tactical Marines about 6-8? split into two squads I believe.

My whole army minus two wolf scout units, a grey hunter unit and an odd man or so in a few grey hunter squads.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

'Ard Boyz 2010 qualifiers: List

HQ
Wolf Priest w/ runic armor
Wolf Priest w/ jump pack and wolf tail talisman
Rune Priest w/ terminator armor
Rune Priest w/ beastslayer saga

TROOPS
Grey Hunters x10 w/ flamer x2, mark of the wulfen and wolf standard
Wolf Guard w/ frost blade

Grey Hunters x10 w/ meltagun x2
Wolf Guard w/ thunder hammer and storm bolter

Grey Hunters x10 w/ plasma gun x2 and plasma pistol
Wolf Guard w/ plasma pistol and frost blade

Grey Hunters x10 w/ flamer x2 power fist
Wolf Guard w/ terminator armor and power fist

Grey Hunters x10 w/ flamer x2
Wolf Guard w/ terminator armor and power fist


ELITES
Wolf Scouts x5 w/ melta gun and plasma pistol x2
Wolf Guard w/ plasma pistol

Wolf Scouts x5 w/ melta and plasma pistol x2
Wolf Guard w/ combi melta

FAST ATTACK
Blood Claws w/ jump packs and flamer
Wolf Guard w/ jump pack and power fist

HEAVY SUPPORT
Long Fangs x6 w/ missile launcher x5
Wolf Guard w/ terminator armor and cyclone missile launchers

Long Fangs x6 w/ missile launcher x5
Wolf Guard w/ terminator armor and cyclone missile launchers

The list i'm taking to 'ard boyz is a no frills list, it doesn't rely on gimmicks or broken combos, bending of rules or anything of that sort. It is a horde of counter attacking marines, being an ork player first I find this very pleasing to have a wave of infantry backed up by a good 3+ save.

My list lacks mobility for scoring units but in most cases I just send the scouts or jump packers to harass enemy objectives and make some last minute dashes to contest while firmly holding my own. Though I would love to get more than just flamers in most of my grey hunters I simply do not have any other special weapons for now. So I guess i'll just have to make do till I gain a few more special weapon marines.

In most of my games I have found that against most armies that don't rely all on shooting I can advance a bit and form a nice firing line. If an enemy engages I have more than enough stopping power to defeat them in assault.