Tour of duty. Throne of Skulls Tournament 2/18/12

This past weekend I attended a Throne of Skulls 1250 points tournament at the local Games Workshop. Again my Genstealer Cult/Imperial Guard army were pressed into service as they are the only current army that is painted and based to a tournament level. Here is what I brought:


HQ
Company Command Squad (50) Officer of the Fleet (30), Bodyguard x2 (30), Regimental Standard (15), Grenade Launcher x2 (10)
135pts

ELITES
Sly Marbo
65pts

Psyker Battle Squad x10
110pts

TROOPS
Platoon Command Squad (30) Grenade Launcher x2 (10) Bolt Gun for Commander (2)
42pts
Infantry Squad (50) Plasma Gun (15)
65pts
Infantry Squad (50) Plasma Gun (15)
65pts
Platoon Command Squad (30) Grenade Launcher x2 (10) Bolt Gun for Commander (2)
42pts
Infantry Squad (50) Plasma Gun (15)
65pts
Infantry Squad (50) Plasma Gun (15)
65pts
Special Weapons Squad (35) Flamer x2 (10) Demo Charge (20)
65pts
Special Weapons Squad (35) Flamer x2 (10) Demo Charge (20)
65pts
Heavy Weapons Squad (60) Lascannons x3 (45)
105pts
Heavy Weapons Squad (60) Lascannons x3 (45)
105pts
Heavy Weapons Squad (60) Missile Launcher x3 (30)
90pts
Heavy Weapons Squad (60) Missile Launcher x3 (30)
90pts
Heavy Weapons Squad (60) Autocannons x3 (15)
75pts

1249/1250pts

Looking over the list I imagine most of you are asking "hey where are the tanks?!" quite rightly so you will see I don't run vehicles for 3 reasons.. 1) I don't own army 2) city fighting/light infantry theme 3) I hate transporting vehicles. With that said the second question that may pop up is "why not have heavy weapons INSIDE of squads?". Being a relatively new guard player (my cult used to run the Lost and Damned list from the Eye of Terror codex), it didn't make much sense for me to mix weapon fire.

After all why always keep a static position while one weapon fires at a tank having the rest of your fire patter off uselessly? So far in all the games I have played my Heavy Weapons Teams seem to survive the most, I can deploy them deep behind swathes of infantry. Not many opponents are used to guard advancing towards the enemy unless they are in a vehicle and even then its a rare occasion. I send masses of infantry to tie up or narrow an enemy's plans for movement.

With that said I will move on to quick summaries and thoughts of my games, note that lists are roughly off the top of my head.

Game 1: Nestor's Dark Angels
Sammael in land speeder
Landspeeder w/ assault cannon and heavy bolter
Landspeeder w/ typhoon missile launcher and heavy bolter
Ravenwing Bikes x3 w/ flamer, sergeant w/ power weapon
Ravenwing Bikes x3 w/ melta, sergeant w/ power weapon
Deathwing Terminators x6? w/ assault cannon
Tactical Marines x10 in Rhino (which he split into combat squad)

The mission involved Kill Points not exactly my favorite as I tend to play high Kill Point armies. But c'est la vie I attempted to at least trim 2 Kill Points by combining two infantry units and let them screen my army as Dark Angels won the roll to go first.

Highlights:
-After being shot at and assaulted one of the 20 man blobs managed to pull down all of the bikers in combat!
-Failing to take out an immobile/weaponless land speeder, getting three penetrating hits followed by two shaken results and a stunned result!

-Only failing 1 morale check all game! May not seem like a lot but when you are guard you wouldn't exactly call your leadership stat that dependable.

-It was a tense close fought game though I had no real answer to the terminators without hoping that the psykers getting a lucky roll and wiping them out, I felt I could of tied to the game as his marine units were quite low on models and taking the speeder out would of made it a possible tie.

Result: Loss 7? vs 4? With about 500 points left alive on my side and easily 50% of Nestor's army (points wise) being alive at the end.

Game 2: Ronnie's Tyranids
Hive Tyrant w/ wings and tl devourers
Genestealers 2x5
Carnifexes x3 w/ tl devourerers
Mawloc? w/ tl devourers

With a 12 inch deployment and 5 objectives on the board going first I felt good as guard tend to do better when it comes to multiple objectives. I knew that the Devourers would murder a unit at a time so I had to play the feeding game and hope that I could do enough wounds taking full advantage that Tyranids have not been bio-engineered to have the equivalent of frag grenades.

Highlights:
-Hive Tyrant attempting to cast power Perils of the Warp a wound off, assaulted my platoon command. Only manages to kill one model, I follow up by actually getting through his armor and causing a wound. Due to Regimental Standard won combat, no retreat stripped another wound off of him. If that wasn't bad enough for 3-4 rounds of combat the Platoon Command held the Tyrant up at one point the Commander even rolling double refractor field saves!

-Mawloc assaulting two survivors from a platoon command squad through a building, he only had one wound died to 2 attacks from the survivors.

-My high AP weapons failed to do any real damage to his army, yet the humble lasgun and even a few stray close combat attacks did more damage to his army!

-Autocannons failing to hit once with 6 shots at a lone genestealer holding an objective! drat!

The result was a tie and I was quite happy though had the auto cannons HIT there would of been a good chance that I could of walked away with the win. At the end of the game he had a Tyrant with 2 wounds (he gained 1 back with spirit leech?) and a lone genestealer. I believe we ended the game on turn 5, had the game gone on another turn I would of gotten the game regardless since he would not be able to contest/kill off all my units on objectives.

Game 3: Space Marines
Shrike
Assault Marines x10 sergeant w/ power fist
Scouts 2x5 w/ sniper rifles
Predator x2 w/ heavy bolter sponsons and autocannon turret
Dreadnought x2 w/ multi melta

Again the mission was 4-5 objectives, deployment was quarters, I won the initiative the only exception was that my opponent could only get 5 turns in so we entered a gentlemen's agreement that it would cap out at 5 turns. This is both a good and bad thing since I did not have to wonder if I had to gamble on the game going on, that and I was started to get tired and wanted to head home as soon as possible.

I have played this opponent before whose name escapes me at the moment, friendly guy that doesn't mind thinking competitively so my favorite type of opponent. Though he did not have many scoring troops he did have a lot of armor... and despite having many heavy weapons I have little to no luck taking down vehicles for good...

Highlights:
-After Shrike and assault marines anhiliated a squad, good thing my good old "mop up team" AKA Special Weapons Squad came to clean up the Assault Marines with a demo charge.

-My heavy weapons cannot get through armor, despite twin linking via orders etc he either made every cover save OR I kept stunning/shaking his vehicles. I only managed to destroy a rhino and immobilize a dread despite firing heavy weapons at vehicles EVERY turn!

-Sly Marbo let me down threw a perfect demo charge at his two units of scouts that were bunched up... Rolled TOO high for scatter only managed to kill two of the scouts before they all unleashed bolt pistols at point blank range.

-Opponent needing a 3+ on a fleet roll to get another objective and managing to roll a one. Mid way through his turn there was nothing either of us could do to really change the outcome of a draw once that happened.

Lessons Learned:
-Of all the games played I saw that my guardsmen were lucky to pass most of their leadership checks. Off the top of my head all tournament I failed maybe two morale checks and ran. This could be because I failed some orders and got some "bad dice" out of the way or the Regimental Standard allowing re-rolls when needed.

-Using infantry to herd enemy models, simply move up and surround the enemy, with ten models you can cover a lot of ground and most enemies can ONLY deal with them during shooting/assault.

-For enemies that have jump packs or other movement tricks simply have another unit not too far behind so they have no safe place to "land". Dictating where and how an enemy moves I have learned to be a great benefit to guard where I can just keep tossing bodies in the way.

-Need more practice with Sanctioned Psykers... though I do have to chalk a lot of it to bad dice. I would say I easily botched 50% of the tests to cast Soulstorm though I never periled. On the positive side they never went below half even when they managed to get off their powers.

Unfortunately I was not able to snap any mid game pictures as my opponents turns were quite short and I had to move/deal with a lot of models on my side. I did manage to snap a few photos during the last game's deployment though.







With the tournament done for now and the Guard being relatively complete for now minus a few odds and ends for units it is time to focus on my Dark Eldar and other projects. I am slowly getting models painted up and churned out to bring about more battle reports filled with painted miniatures. Stay tuned everyone!

The life of a sell sword..

I promised I would put up a few pictures of my Warmachine army up a while back and I am back to make good on that promise. Here are the first three miniatures I painted for Warmachine, they are from Mercenary faction.

Always a fan of those who work for coin and the ability to "mix" units if I decided to play another faction Mercs seemed an easy choice to get into the game. Here is a group shot of the three.


Magnus- AKA Ash from Evil Dead one of my fave all time movies was an easy choice to pick up... that did not directly translate to how easy/hard it was to play with the warcaster for a newbie though. But hey style points are more important to me! Magnus rarely does any heavy lifting in the army but his "resourceful" ability is amazing to buff any jacks he runs.




Renegade- If you want something assassinated at range or want to lay a world of hurt on enemies nothing says lovin' like an obliterator bomb dropping on you. Great range to begin with Magnus usually casts "Snipe" just so the Renegade can aim his weapon. The most notable moment to my Renegades long list of kills was shooting into combat at my own Halberdier in combat with Deneghra just to kill Denny with the blast!





Nomad- Known in my group as "Captain America" as most times it is his shield that causes the most damage. The Nomad is a pretty cheap jack for a heavy with some great hitting power and armor, though it doesn't have any special abilities or weapons like other jacks. You can't ask for a better jack at the points especially for Mercs.

A very first!

Well everyone had a pretty good gaming weekend our group recorded our first YouTube/video battle report pitting my Genestealer Cult/Imperial Guard versus Mike's Grey Knights. We are currently experimenting with how to put everything together so feedback, comments and criticisms are always welcome.

We here at The Wasted Warrior are hoping to amp up our updates as well as quality so let me know what you guys are looking for! Without further delay here is the YouTube link:



Also this weekend is another mini-tournament at the local Games Workshop I am painting/converting like a maniac to bring up the cult to 1250 points. Quite a task when running an all infantry company.. color me a masochist! Wish me luck and more updates hopefully this week!

The second wave.

Hello there everyone! I am back as promised and I am glad to say that I have actually been quite busy working on some models. Looks like both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k are in full swing of course 40k being more common than fantasy but that is nothing out of the norm.

Since the last update I have gone to a small 1k tourney at the local Games Workshop, I took my Genestealer Cult/Guard army though i didn't do great all of my games were quite fun and very close. I have never really played guard so it was quite a learning experience, I have never been a shooting fan but I really like how an infantry horde of guard work.

I have also managed to finish a second squad of Wyches for my Dark Eldar who have also seen quite a few games in the last couple of weeks, mainly at the 1k level of points. Ever the fan of close combat my Wych cult themed army has seen some reasonable success even against the dreaded Grey Knights!

Nothing too fancy a few subtle conversions and bits pulled off of Helions and Reavers mixed in with whatever I thought would fit the aesthetic of the model.I have painted any "special" weapons in the units a neon green color which makes identifying them a lot easier on the table top without a big fuss.

Here is a picture of two models I am about finished with for my Genestealer Cult/Guard army.



No real conversion just an old Necromunda Pyromaniac model who will fill the role of sergeant in a unit. Accompanied by an old guard standard bearer model from the 80s, I use this model as a regimental standard when I have the points. Otherwise he is regulated to the duty of a veteran guardsman guarding the company command.

As you may have noticed yes I do like both purple and blue on a lot of my miniatures, they are just colors i'm quite partial to. Though I do have a bunch of other miniatures that do not have any of those colors. Tomorrow I may have time to take pictures of other work I have completed. Though I am no great painter I love painting models and paint anything within arms reach when I am on the computer passing time.

Anyways the hour is quite late and I should be heading to sleep soon hopefully better pictures or more coming shortly!

Return to the motherland..

Hello everyone and thanks for tuning in lately as I may have said in earlier posts the Games Workshop bug has bitten in my core gaming group. In the past two weeks I have actually played 2 games of Warhammer Fantasy and 6 games of 40k. Mind you I have not touched either game in almost two years! All games were great fun to play especially when I wasn't facing anything over the top list wise just a few casual gamers.

It had my thinking that 1k battles of 40k were quite tactical making armies take the bare essentials with one or two things for fun. Where as in fantasy I have to find a way to magnetize my Dark Elves, I still have not faced a proper "horde" unit to test against my some what MSU (multiple small unit) style that was so popular for Dark Elves pre-8th edition.

I have also been very busy painting up a storm of models lately though the picture is quite late here is a Wych unit I painted up for my Wych Cult 1k army:

I am quite happy how these models turn out, the only real pain was gluing them onto the base. With such a small contact point with the base it was a little hard at first to get them to stay on till I learned a little trick. As always my armies tend to wander into the purple/blue color palette as they are my favorite two colors.

Don't worry guys I have not given up on my strong skirmish roots, in fact I am thinking up of a list for a Brood army for the game Dark Age. Infinity is also going to get some attention as soon as I strip my current Yu Jing army and repaint them (I have a bad habit of doing that...) yet again! Till then folks!

The bore of court life...

Sitting on his throne of trophies Goethe sighed as he drank the last of his wine, here he was in his own keep surrounded by his court of sleeping concubines and retainers. Surrounded by wealth and success should of been more fulfilling but Goethe found civilian life even if it was a high born position menial at best. The tricks and schemes of the royal court were but a child's game compared to the raids on villages the heat of battle and the glory of riches won over blood and sweat.

As he looked down into his cup he saw the last few ruby red drops of wine almost the color of blood. Or has it been that long that he has forgotten what blood even looks like... he deftly grabbed his dagger pristine as reflective as a mirror and stared at it as if in a hypnotic daze. He stabbed the dagger into his palm and laughed as the blood gushed onto his blade. "Now that is what a blade SHOULD look like!" he said to no one in particular and looked at the blade no longer pristine but covered in his own blood. It all became clear to him in an instant he shot up out of his throne and shouted "prepare the fleet! we sail!". One of his retainers stood up as if to question his authority but before a word left his lips Goethe threw his dagger at quicksilver speed into the elf who hit the floor screaming. With a smile Goethe declared loudly "HE will lead the assault! Strap him onto the hull of the ship and make sure he is still alive when you do it!".

Without question his guards jumped up and grabbed the dark elf from the floor dragging his body away to carry out their master's orders. It was all falling into place now, no more political scheming and avoiding an assassin's blade. This mundane existence was over Goethe belonged on the seas raiding and pillaging feeding his vain glory for more. Goethe was on his way to lead his armies back to war against the lesser species. Goethe was alive again.

Well it's been quite some time hasn't it? Recently it seems a bug has been going around.. the Games Workshop bug. It seems out of nowhere a bunch of like minded individuals want to start playing both 40k and Warhammer Fantasy. I had always enjoyed playing Fantasy and just when 8th edition hit my group stopped playing any Games Workshop game and we started playing other skirmish games.

I'm not complaining the others games are a lot of fun but sometimes you just want to play on a platoon/massive army level with a bunch of random strangers. So with that said I am bringing back both my Fantasy army and I am starting/finishing my Dark Eldar army for 40k.

With Fantasy my dark elves can easily hit 2500 with the addition of a handful of troops that need to be painted. While my Dark Eldar I had 1000 points roughly assembled into a themed Wych Cult list. I hope to flesh out all of the cults up to 1k and just pick and choose units when I need them.

Don't worry everybody this doesn't mean that I am JUST going back to playing these two game systems I will still play: Warmachine/Hordes, Dark Age, Pulp City, Infinity, AE WWII, Secrets of the Third Reich, AE Bounty, Hell Dorado etc. It will just mean during the week I will most likely be playing a GW game and on the weekends the skirmish games.

In other news my group is thinking about recording our gaming sessions and making battle reports to put up on YouTube. So hopefully we can bring our group to that next level of gaming. Till then folks! stay tuned!

Santiago Ortega Overview and Tactics

The eldest of the Ortega clan Santiago is a hot headed gunslinger who would rather shoot first then shoot some more rather than ask questions. Though the other members of his family may specialize in all forms of combat be it dueling, sniping or demolition. Santiago prefers to end all arguments with a bullet or two from his trusty peacebringers. Despite his hot headed nature no Guild agent will argue with Santiago's method of getting results.

When first looking at Santiago's stat line you notice his abilities almost make him identical to the Convict Gunslinger. Though initially he may seem "worse" due to his lower starting Cb of 5 and his average stats for a 7ss character his abilities make him a frightening proposition for your enemies to face.

Abilities:

Bulletproof 1:

This ability means that whenever Santiago takes damage from a ranged strike (gun icon) he gains armor 1, which reduces the damage by one to a minimum of one damage. Though this particular ability may not pop up as often unless you are facing another Guild player, any ability which mitigates damage is worth looking into.

Companion (Family):

The Companion ability allows models with the same key word (in this case Family) to activate simultaneously if they are within 6" of each other. Mind you that you can "chain" the Companion ability off other models so not everyone has to be within that initial 6". So if you space out your Family members you can cover a wide area to cover all your bases, it should also be noted that you DO NOT need line of sight to activate this ability.

If there are any groupings of models that can alpha strike it is the Ortega family, all of their members (minus the Latigos) can chain companion and activate all at once or in small strike force. This ability is extremely useful because it will allow you to activate two or more models on your activation before your enemy can react. This can lead to a lot of dead models quickly, the trick is not to overextend yourself and use this ability wisely. Otherwise you will be out activated and eliminated without a proper response.

Hard to Kill:

As long as Santiago has 2 or more wounds he cannot be killed by damage, instead it would reduce him to 1 wound and must be damaged again to die. It is important to note if Santiago takes wounds either by a spell or ability Hard to Kill will NOT activate and save his life. Also if he is "killed" via an effect Hard to Kill will also not help.

With that said this ability is great if your opponent does not have the resources to land an extra strike against Santiago. That one extra turn to live or that one extra activation it will cause your opponent to lose is always a life saver either to the rest of your models or for Santiago himself.

"Is That All You Got?!":

While Santiago is at 4 or less his wounds his Peacebringer strikes gain +2cb and an additional damage flip. This is the sole reason why some Guild players will purposely damage their own Santiago in order to get this massive bonus.

This is one of the abilities that makes Santiago different from the Convict Gunslinger, making him not only more accurate but also jumping up his damage potential. Along with "Wade In" this ability encourages a player to use Santiago aggressively and into the thickest of fights.

Stubborn:

Whenever Santiago is targeted by a duel and he is the defender he automatically gets +2 Wp, which is interesting because it does not state ONLY in duels that use his Wp. Now this may seem like something trivial but you never know when you may need this.

If an opponent manages to get past Santiago's boosted 8 Wp it usually means they had to burn a high card to even compete. Since most Wp duels tend to be spells that means they will have to "play their hand" before you decide if you will cheat high or not.

Weapon, Peacebringer: Paired.

Not much to say here Santiago's weapons of choice are paired and come with a decent damage spread without applying any triggers.

Actions:

Wade In:

While Santiago has 4 or less wounds remaining he gets an extra walk action in his activation. This is another effect that encourages Santiago to stay wounded during a battle, giving him an extra walk makes him extremely mobile as he gets into position.

I have even used this ability to attempt to "walk" out of combat after all if you fail it is a free effect. If you happen to succeed you can re-position Santiago to get a better fire lane, use Rapid Fire or Leadstorm.

Rapid Fire [Peacebringer]:

Discard a card and make three ranged strikes actions against a single target with your Peacebringers. Mind you this ability takes (2) actions to activate so you must either be in place before hand or have the target wander into range of your guns.

If you happen to have "Wade In" active you can simply make the free walk into range and proceed to send the target to the grave. With paired weapons there is not much that can escape Santiago's ranged strikes for long. On average you will get two very reliable hits on an enemy you may not even get to fire all three ranged strikes, but as long as you get rid of your target that is all that matters.

Triggers:

Critical Strike:

Whenever Santiago hits his target with his Peacebringers he gets an extra +1 Dg per Ram suited card in the total. Mind you that Santiago comes with a built in Rams suit on his Peacebringers so if he decides to use this trigger his minimum damage output is 3/4/6 on his weapon. If you actually manage to HIT with a Rams suited card the damage gets +2 making it a 4/5/7 damage flip.

Trigger Happy:

If you hit your enemy with a Masks suited card, after damaging your opponent automatically make a Peacebringer strike against the same model. This does not count as one of your ranged strikes so in essence it is a "free" attack. Also note that this ability can keep triggering as long as you hit with a Masks suited card.

One of my favorite triggers in the game the ability to continually whittle down your opponent even if it is minimum damage is nothing to scoff at. I will even purposely cheat "down" in order to make use of the Masks suited card for Trigger Happy to go off.

Spells:

Shrug Off:

End one effect or remove a counter that is not a wound or something carried by this model per Rams suit in the total. This is only 0 action available to Santiago in addition unless you are attempting to mill your deck of low cards that may be coming you need at least a 6+ of Rams in order for this spell to go off.

This ability doesn't get much use but it is one of the few spells that is exclusive to Guild/Family members. If Santiago becomes target of a negative spell effect this is a great way to scrub it off.

Just A Flesh Wound:

Needing at least an 8+ Rams suited card Santiago can make a healing flip, this spell is great when Santiago is facing imminent death. Or when he is down to 1 wound he can make a healing flip in order to have Hard to Kill be active again.

If i decide to use this ability it is usually when Santiago is heavily wounded, I make sure to take my free walk via Wade In. Make a strike (if I fear i may lose the benefits of Is that All You Got?!) then cast this spell to heal Santiago.

Leadstorm:

This spell takes 2 actions and at least an 10+ of any suit to go off, it is considered a Ranged Strike spell so you cannot cast this if Santiago is engaged in combat. When it is cast all models within a pulse of 6" must test against their defense against the total or take 4 damage.

Another good option to use your Wade In by getting into the middle of enemy lines (but not engaged in melee) unleash this spell and watch your enemy either burn his entire hand or watch his guys take damage. Note since this is indiscriminate if any of YOUR models are in range they will also get hurt by this attack.

But the best thing about this spell is that because it is considered a Pulse it can go through walls and it can also go infinitely upward. So if you have an enemy who thinks he is safe behind a building or in terrain he is wrong. Also because it does not specifically "target" a model they will not gain the benefit of cover nor will you be at a negative when casting this spell. Though you may still have to randomize when that Pulse hits combat with multiple models (haven't cleared this up yet).

With that my review of Santiago and his abilities are done, I always refer to him as a Convict Gunslinger Plus. His damage output is higher due to Critical Strike but he also has a few tricks that make him distinctive and worthwhile addition to the force. When I play with Santiago sometimes I even bring out the Convict Gunslinger for back up. Though they are fishing for the same suited cards when going for Trigger Happy. I noticed that I tend to cycle through my deck so quickly that they manage to pop up again in the same turn.

The only place that the Convict Gunslinger has Santiago beat is when engaged in melee, if Santiago has a weakness it is if an enemy locks him up in melee. With a measly 3cb on his Peacebringer Blade you do not want him getting stuck in combat with anything remotely good at melee.