So Arc happened

So how much do you love gaming? I love it enough it enough to get out of bed early on the weekend to cross town to attend the biggest 40K event (in Melbourne, anyway).

Before this weekend I have had exactly one game of 8th edition 40K. Not a great apprenticeship I know, but I figured at 12 or pages of rules, well, how hard can it be?

Pretty hard, it turns out. I took a 5th ed war band to an 8th ed gun fight. While I had six fun games, I had my arse handed to me every which way but winning. My opponents were all great. There were some very cool armies on show too. There are a fair few pictures on Instagram using #arc40K if you want to check some out.

Here is day one. Imagine ugly detail of poor chaos deployment, ineffective shooting, failing to reach close combat and forgetting to use special rules and upgrades, and you get the general idea.

Game 2: Nurgle

Game 3: Nids

Game 1: Custodes

Day two – rinse and repeat:

Game 4: Imperial Fists

Game 5: Guard

Game 6: Nids (Hive Fleet Krakon)

I did have fun, but one thing really bugged me about the current rules. Basic tactics just don’t seem to matter. Flanking is pointless, terrain doesn’t matter. And the command bubble type powers seemed to combine with big units to see every game end up as two, then one, big blob. Even so (and even while getting thrashed), I still laughed and shouted along with the rest of the participants. It was 40K after all, and it is nothing if not boisterous.

I’ve had my fill of the grim-dark for now.  I’m content to leave those that enjoy 40K to roll their buckets of dice. There is a game for everyone out there. Maybe we’ll play one together sometime soon.

cheers.
D.

The Eidolon Rides To War

Can you hear the susurrous of brushes and crazed muttering of gamers as they prepare for a convention?

Arc40K, Melbourne’s longest running 40K tournament is this weekend, so I’m sure lots of folk are madly putting the finishing touches on their armies. Well, I’m ready, but given I only had part of one model to paint, this isn’t so surprising. It was, however, a model that has languished for years unfinished. Fear my Helldrake, it is finally ready to fly over the the grimdark battlefields of the far future!

A bit of mobility and firepower for my Wordbearer coven, most of which I think may have already appeared on this blog over the years. They’re getting on a bit, but I’m reasonably happy with them and it will be fun to have on the table again.

The Eidolon himself: warlord in terminator armour

Terminator champion, “I don’t need armour”.

Cultists, because why wouldn’t you bring a knife to a far-future gun fight?

Dark Apostle conversion

Dreadnought hell-thingy, tooled up for shooting

Plus the daemonettes I shared last-time. Lot’s of them.

Maybe I’ll see you across a table.

Happy gaming.

The road to Arc40K

Arcanacon is convention dear to my heart. Arc40K is an institution on the Melbourne 40K calendar, and deservedly so. It is only a fortnight away and with lists due soon I headed to the shed and pulled out some models. The decision on which one to take was easy, the only current codex I own is the Chaos Space Marine one. Job done.

Arc has always been a full hobby weekend: painting, sports and games, so most people bring some fiction and otherwise go the extra mile to really make their armies drip with theme. Here is my modest effort, background for a Word Bearer coven.

The Eidolon Speaks:

Do you want to live to ever?

Strive to shed the pathetic meat-sacks that bind your souls.

Shrive yourself with bolter and flame.

Strive to Glory on a tide of blood to honour our Dark Lords.

Pave the way to daemonhood with the eviscerated remnants
of the pathetic followers of the rotting corpse-emperor.

Well, do you?

[
The incensed filled landing bay of the deep-space transport filled with raised voices and the crashing of metal as fists beat time on shining armour. Lines of sigil-tattooed marines filed into the waiting landing craft, which roared to life and exited for the short drop the world below.

The Eidolon smiled as he felt the stirrings in his viscera and in the air around him from the pressure on reality as his allies from the warp pushed on the world-membrane, eager to enter this realm and taste blood once more.

The Eidolon smiled.

Soon.

Who wants to live forever?

The Eidolon.

And the pending carnage will bring his plans one step closer.
]

see you in the grimdark

It’s blogging but not as we know it

As I suspected, work and family really got in the way of my hobby mojo this winter. I have been blogging, just not here. During the footy season, and my wife and I have been recording the ups and downs of the Fitzroy Youth Girls. Great fun, but not relevant to gaming.

I have been getting some gaming and painting done, but I’ve been posting to instagram (using the handle @dave2718). I like instagram, the ease of posting straight from your phone is a very attractive. As a mainly a visual platform I find instagram crosses borders and language more than other social media, so I find myself in a wider and more diverse circle than on other platforms. However, just using the phone often means the photos are a bit dodgy. The phone camera is OK, but shots taken without due care for lighting or a bit of hand-held shake are just not as good in general.

The many groups on FaceBook can also be engaging but can feel a bit too transient.
Most blog posts are a bit more thought out compared to FB, and I like that.

With Bolt Action version 2 on the way and Konflikt ’47 just released and Arcanacon not that far away (by my slow painting pace), there is plenty of hobby in the pipeline.

So, here’s hoping to a bit more blogging, painting and playing in the near future.

 

Arc40K report: part two

Onto day two of Arc40K 2016. Some thoughts on day one can be found here.

The Players Awaken Crusade with Dawn of War deployment. The mission special rule was Traitor: each side nominates in secret one enemy unit as a traitor. The traitor is not revealed until after the game ends and is otherwise unaffected during play. At the end of this game the traitor is revealed and counts as an objective secured unit for your side.

This was a neat idea that meant that wins might turn into a draw, or worse, and added a nice layer to the game.

I played Sean with a rock hard Nurgle Daemon list and copped a 20-5 loss. They don’t come bigger than that. I just couldn’t deal enough damage into regenerating, toughness 6 (and more) beasts to make any headway.

Strike for the Heart. The only mission not from the book, but they kept it pretty simple. Dawn of War deployment and you chose one of two objectives, which was kept secret until the end of the game: kill points or more scoring units within 6″ of centre of table.

With all my units scoring and facing a Deathwing army, I selected to dominate the table centre. Not surprisingly, my opponent Shaun went for kill points.

Devastors try desperately to keep Deathwing terminators out of the building

Deathwing Knights also arrive

Despite a cheeky last stand by Brother Captain Varus and his rhino, I lost 20-5. Did I mention that the Deathwing also bought an Imperial Knight. It stomped. A lot.

The final mission was kill points with a hammer and anvil set-up. Modest twist was that the kill points escalated so units destroyed later in the game were worth more than those early.

I faced off against Jessie with a bunch of space wolf terminators in landraiders.

Initially I found it hard to crack open his landraiders, and a poor initial set-up left me finding it hard to concentrate fire. The Librarius Conclave were still telling each other stories about killing Tyranids to do anything useful, but a veteran sergeant did deliver a power fist to Jessie’s captain, so the game wasn’t a complete right-off.

Jessie got his first win for the tournament and I got tabled in a 20-6 loss, for a final tally of 5 losses and a draw to finish 115th!

So back to the Arc drawing board. I have 12 months to sort out an actual game plan.

Photos are starting to surface, check out Arc40K on FaceBook and also this flikr account by dirkpawlik.

Despite the sorry tale on the tabletop, Arcanacon rocked. Congratulations to the winners and thank-you to my opponents – good winners, all of you – and see you next year.

A fez of the heart! An Arc40K report

I enjoy Arc40K. The granddaddy of Melbourne tournaments ran for the 19th time over the weekend with two firsts: the first time in February, and at a new venue The House of War in Ringwood.  Dan and team do a great job running this tournament. They run about dealing with broken software, overheated venue, and round draws, so players can have six fabulous games. A big thumbs up for all your work. (I helped run Arc for a while; it is no easy thing and takes way more than just the weekend itself.)

There are a lot of things I like about tournaments: guaranteed games, painted and often inspirational armies, catching up with friends and meeting new ones. Tournaments can also be hard work. Multiple games over the week-end, negotiating different rule interpretation during the competition. Arcanacon brings all this, plus more, including that special fug that only 120+ sweaty gamers bring on a sunny summer day.

In some ways this was perhaps my worst Arc ever. Having got my army together, managing some last minute (for me) painting, and wrestled with the Community Comp system, I got to the table and discovered that I’m out of step with the current approach to 40K here in Melbourne. Too much beer and forging the narrative on my gaming days have left me exposed like a n00b at the table. I had a couple of close losses and draw on the first day, and on Sunday three comprehensive losses. At least packing up didn’t take long.

Don’t get me wrong. The failure was mine and congratulations to my opponents who stuck to their plans, knew what their army could do and generally out generaled me.
I’m living the 5th edition dream in a 7th edition world.

I took Strike Force Varus. Perhaps there was some karmic backwash from naming my Captain after one of the biggest disasters in Roman military history (and there are some doozies to choose from).

There were lot of nice armies on show. Almost everyone had something of interest: nice highlights, a unique conversion or unusual list combination.

Keith Law Eldar

Keith Law Eldar

Chaos by Peter Rees

Check out Arc40K on FaceBook for photos from other gamers. I always seem to promptly forget my resolution to take more photos at these events.

The missions were good. Each one was basically straight from the book with one special rule added. Not much to remember, which is a plus, but often enough to deliver a twist.

Get Your Fix was Big Guns Never Tire, using Hammer and Anvil deployment. The special rule replaced mysterious objectives with new table and a twist where the function might move from turn to turn.

I was competitive until turn 3, but just couldn’t hang on and my hopes of draw faded as a daemon prince gorged on my command unit leaving the centre of the table to the enemy. Jeremy got a 5-19 win to start the tournament with his nice looking Khorne Daemonkin.

Lessons for me: read the special abilities for your formations more than 5 minutes before the game starts and read the mission sheet!

We could be heroes was a Crusade with Vanguard Strike. Mission special rules was some random rules added to our generals. Neither of us rolled rules that were relevant to our list and did not affect the game.

I faced a drop pod heavy Salamander list run by Lachlan. With just three objectives the game became crowded very quickly.  I got to the objectives in numbers but twin-linked flamers and a grav heavy vet squad took their toll on my army. The game ended with two objectives held by the Salamanders, and just one from me. A 6-16 loss, but I did get the satisfaction of seeing Vulcan go down under a hail of bolter shells.

The Touch Emperor’s Will with Vanguard Strike. The special rule was that we had to nominate just three units to be objective secured. So much for the formation bonus for my army 😦

Pav fielded Tyranids and we duked it out to a 12-11 draw. This was my best result for the tournament, and the difference was totally down to my Librarius Conclave. This was their moment: taking out the hive tyrant and a hive crone, both in the psychic phase.

So ended day one. I’ll save day two for another post, if anyone can be bothered to continue with this tale of woe.

 

Walking in Slaneesh’s Shadow

The Apostate found the Sorcerer’s commitment to a single Chaos deity somewhat distasteful, but the Word Bearer needed him. The Slaneeshi adept had promised to teach the Word Bearer some of his warp knowledge and in return the Dark Apostle has for the moment bound his war band to walk in the shadow of Slaneesh.

Thank-you for the comments on my earlier post. I’ve had a look at the codex, the Arc players pack and my miniatures. A few tweaks and I think I’ll go to Arc 2015 with:

The Apostate, dark apostle with the black mace & a gift of mutation
The Cult of Pain, 14 cultists, flamer
The Cult of Light, 15 marines, icon vengeance, plasma pistol; asp champ with power sword
The Elect, 5 chosen, asp champ with lightening claws, 4 flamers, veterans of the long war; rhino with a dirge castor
Justified Vengeance Vindicator with siege shield

Nimrod the Untamed, sorcerer (level 1 psyker, discipline of slaneesh); mark of slaneesh
Cult of Noise, 9 Noise Marines, 5 sonic blasters, close combat weapons, icon of excess
Exquisite Fury, Land Raider with twin-linked lascannons

I don’t need armour. I have sun-glasses

The marines are to take or defend an objective. The cultists absorb damage while the dark apostle swings the black mace. The noise marines throw out shots with no cover saves and the sorcerer gives them buffs depending the power drawn. The land raider and vindicator deal with big or scary stuff.  The chosen will keep things simple with a 3 word slogan: “Kill, Maim, Burn!”

I think this list will go OK, provided I don’t face too much air, too much armour or too many monstrous creatures. I mean, what can go wrong?  Some extra bodies in the noise marines will make them more survivable. The loss of the second cultist squad will ultimately just save kill points as the squad not with the apostle would have been rubbish anyway. The other change is the sorcerer leaving his terminator armour at home. This way I get more noise marines in the land raider and otherwise fits the rest of the theme a little better. The sorcerer is still the only model yet to be completed.

I think the paragraph of fiction frames the army nicely. A Word Bearers coven allied with some Noise Marines for nefarious deeds. Lots of cultists and not too many toys offsets the vindicator and larger squads. I’ve taken a really tough weapon in the black mace but put in the hands of a dark apostle rather than a lord. The list may be on the light side, but apart from no helldrake I think is OK (it’s 1348 points, just under the 1350 arc limit).

For sale: one helldrake; still in shrink-wrap.

D.

Arcanacon Ahoy!

Army lists for Arcanacon are due in a couple of weeks so it’s time to start thinking about what to take. Before Christmas I was all set to take Ultramarines. The list doesn’t need any work, I know the kit and it is a balanced combined-arms force.

So, in a near re-run of last year, I’m going to take Chaos.

I’ve drawn up a new list with three design constraints in mind. I want to:
– use an Arc bound list
– paint a minimum of models
– minimise upgrades

By using Arc bound I get an extra 10 points and I need all the help I can get.

Minimum upgrades is because I inevitably get to the end of a game and find I’ve been playing with a self-imposed handicap by ignoring up to 100 points of goodies. This is not a good look. So WYSIWYG and not too many extras to remember will help make things cruisy. This can be particularly important on day 2, especially if the weather is hot.

Draft list for The Coven Malleus

The Apostate found the Sorcerer’s commitment to a single Chaos deity somewhat distasteful, but the Word Bearer needed him for the moment. The Slaneeshi sorcerer had promised to teach the Word Bearer some of his warp knowledge and in return the Dark Apostle has for the moment bound his war band to walk the path of excess.

Sorcerer level 1 psyker with mark of Slaneesh (terminator armour)
I’ve been enjoying the psychic phase and a psyker will be a bit of fun

Dark Apostle with the black mace
basically a delivery mechanism for the black mace

Two squads of 10 cultists, each with a flamer
for objectives but mostly to soak up damage around the DA

7 Noise Marines; three sonic blasters; icon of excess
flavour, because I haven’t used them for a while

15 Chaos Space Marines; icon of vengeance; champ with power sword
these guys will be hard to get off an objective

5 Chosen; aspiring champ with lightening claws; 4 flamers; veterans of the long war;
rhino with dirge caster
this squad is very effective with its toasty goodness and a bit of choppy-chop

Landraider with twin-linked las
for the NM and Sorcerer to ride about in

Vindicator with siege shield
S10 AP2 pie plate; don’t leave home without one

The sorcerer is the only model I need to paint. This is a plus.  No daemonettes, but given the slap allies recieve in comp I’ve tried to keep the Slaneesh vibe by using the noise marines.  There are two things I don’t like about this list. I’ve made the Sorcerer the warlord so the noise marines become a troops choice; this feels cheesy. The other is no fast attack. The chosen in a rhino will fill this role but it detracts from a more balanced org structure.

Discuss.

A WATT Public Service Announcement

Found down the back of  the couch over at wargamerau, Arcanacon 2005:

As Morsla suggested, I’m sure everyone has hardly aged a day 😉

Message ends