Battle for Salvation Recap

First, I wanted to recap on the BFS then do some short battle reports. I'll be going a bit more in-depth with Stephen in Episode 89.

First, as to the tournament, I thought it was excellent. Bob told me a few times that they had had a couple of hiccups here and there, but as a participant, I didn't notice any of it. The only potential place I noticed a hiccup was that the time table would be a little off here and there, but honestly, I would only notice that just in passing.

The event was great. It was well run. Prize support was spot on. The location was awesome. It was plenty big, near easy access food (a mall food court even!). We actually drove in both Saturday and Sunday as we were staying with Dan (from Ten Inch template) whilst there. The drive wasn't bad either day.

The BFS, in my opinion, was very low stress/key, and it's exactly what you want in a good GT. It was simple to follow and straight forward. I know that some tables around me had some rules disputes, and from what I could tell, they were all resolved with a more than adequate amount of discussion and thought.

The only quibble I can offer to help them improve was on the terrain issue about the center piece not being area as well as the open hills. I think that most players were confused, one way or another, about the terrain announcement. Really, though, I only had the discussion once throughout the day about resolving any confusion.

Note that I am a fairly laid back guy when it comes to events. So, that's where my opinion comes from.

On to games...

Here's the list I settled on. I did take the 2nd Land Raider, even though it hurt my soul, but I made it useful in some occasions. I was glad it got some use before it rots on my shelves, but I will definitely be dropping it in the future.

HQ:

"The Unshakeable Will/The Manslayer" Coteaz - 100

"Smiley, Vanquisher of Armies" The Librarian - 170 (Shrouding, MoT, Warp Rift, Quicksilver)

Elites:

3 x Ven Dreads + Psybolts + Autocannons - (195 ea.)

Troops:

4 x 3 x Warrior Acolytes + Bolters - (66 ea.)

Psybacks + Searchlights

7 x DCA - 105

7 x DCA - 120

1 x Banisher

Heavy:

1 x Dreadnought + Psybolts + Autocannons - 135

2 x Land Raider Redeemers + Psybolts + Multi-Melta - 260

Total: 1999

So, list notes.

For starters, I didn't remember my LRR's even had Psybolts until round 5. A funny story actually. I also forgot I took searchlights. Lastly, the Banisher was really a d-bag move. In retrospect, I would have felt really bad had I played a demon player, and he will be coming out of this list.

Otherwise, the Dread + DCA combo continues to be devastating to many lists. Having now gone through the GT, I will be reverting back to my older style list though with more shooting and a few more DCAs.

Let me go ahead and apologize to my Round 1 opponent whose name I don't recall. :(

Short Battle Reports:

Round 1, and I drew a Space Wolf player playing what I would call the traditional Razorspam Wolves. His list looked something like:

HQ:

Rune Priest

Thunder Lord with Axe + Warrior Born and the trimmings

Elites:

2 x Scout Squads w/ Melta

Wolf Guard to split out

Troops:

5ish or so 5 melta hunters with Backs (mostly las/plas some tl las)

Fast:

Fenrisian screen for the Thunder Lord

Heavy:

3 x Long Fangs with missiles

Right away, going into this, you have to understand I have had about 3 hours of sleep. I'm feeling extremely nauseated and am not looking for the rest of the day. My demeanor is okay, and my opponent was funny. I'm only stating this because I actually felt bad because I was so sluggish he would tell me jokes that would take me entire seconds to process and get. All I want to say is I hope I didn't come off as unfriendly, but the reality was, I felt like I was moving in slow motion. :P

Anyways, this guy had a great stock SW list. He played it to the best of his ability. It was a giant shooting match. As I expected when I took the damnable Land Raiders, I lost one right away. The second got immobilized on Turn 2. Go Land Raiders! Already I'm mad at myself for taking them. :) This will change over time though.

My opponent got first, and we basically traded shots throughout the game. His Wolf scouts both completely whiffed on the turn they came on and gave up free KPs to me via my DCA who were now stuck in the backfield thanks to their ride getting smashed. I slowly started winning the shooting war as I whittled down Long Fangs and killed Razors. Late game, his Wolf Lord made a valiant attempt to come back field but was cut down by DCA. The game wore on, and I eventually just won the attrition war on KPs.

Round 2: Mike Sommerville (SP?)

Anything but Mech Guard... Anything but Mech Guard! DOH... :)

I faced Mike before at NoVA 2010. This was a rematch and we both were playing different armies. Right out of the gate, this was the most fun game of 40K I have played in a long, long time. This was an epic, knockdown, drag out, war which was the proverbial "just a couple dice rolls" from having gone either direction.

His list approximate:

HQ:
CCS plasma I think

Chimera

Elites:

None?

Troops:

One platoon squad in chimeras with meltas

Several melta vets in chimeras

Fast:

2 x Vendettas

1 x Valk (yes really!)

Heavy:

2 x Manticores

1 x LRD

As you can guess with my list, my goal, knock out the Manticores and Vendettas. As this was objectives, I figured if I could do that and still have enough army last to fight, I could just hold back and take objectives. I got first turn! This could happen.

I shot and he cover saved all but one damage result. All I did was stun the LRD. Not looking good for the home team! I had not rushed forward with the LRR (a huge mistake) but instead tried to find cover for shrouding on my movement. I had just moved the Dreads into position to try and space out from Manticore fire and shake/kill vendettas. His Turn, Smiley's LRR goes down to a Manticore, I lose a Dread to melta vets in the Valk, and another dread to the Vendettas. I lose a gun off a Razor. I’m thinking, this isn’t going well!

Decided that I’ve pretty much lost the alpha strike war and that the game is over, in my turn, I just risk it and drive my final LRR up over the middle terrain, and deposit The Manslayer out the front door to assault the LRD. My Dreads take down one Vendetta and one Valk. My LRR takes a crack shot at a Manticore and kills it with the Multi-Melta. I did a lot of damage here, but unless he whiffs horribly, it won’t be enough.

Then, he whiffs horribly. I forgot to mention he had reserved most of his Chimeras which was smart. Had they have come on Coteaz would have been greased as with my other Raider. He failed every reserve roll, and his shooting was entirely ineffective. The game was back on.

Turn 3, the LRR rolls up to his other manticore and small chimera wall. The girls jump out, Coteaz walks over and rejoins, the LRR takes out a Chimera, they will assault into another to kill it. Smiley and his remaining girls take out the small vet squad that was in the Valk and consolidate into cover near an objective. I start moving units to mid to take objectives and the long walk (we were playing Spearhead) commences with my remaining Dreads moving across the board towards another objective. My dread gets another crazy, crack shot off and takes the gun of the remaining Manticore. The Other Vendetta is gone.

His reserve come on. The LRR, Coteaz, and the girls all get cooked. Smiley get shots down to just his lonesome. He starts racing elements forward to be able to contest.

The next few turns are all about position and me trying to use my remaining fire power to stop him from getting into my quarters. The game is foremost quarters, and I need to tie him on this. I get some lucky immobilizes in from both his dice and mine to slow the advance enough to keep my quarters. Now, it becomes about objectives.

It comes to this, he holds one Objective after Smiley bites it finally. I hold one objective in my quarter. He then takes another in his corner. Now, he need to contest the one on my side of the board away from my deployment and mid, at which I have scoring units on both. He will contest the left most with a normal Infantry Platoon that has walked over under fire. He will contest mid with Chimera full of melta vets.

First, I try to get a Dread over to assault the infantry platoon. He whiffs his difficult and won’t make it. I then try to tank shock with a Razor, but he passes his LD test. I then shoot him to force a morale check which he will pass. I explode the Chimera in mid, killing some Vets, but he passes LD. And lastly, I try to assault the remaining vets with my Acolytes there for a glimmer of hope to miraculously win, but he cuts them done. Mike thusly holds 2 to my 1 and takes the win. At this point in the game, neither of us have very much left and it was a very back and forth game. Excellent fun!

Game 3: Alex Fennel’s Deathwing

Game 3 I played against Alex Fennel. He brought his Deathwing.

Approx:

HQ:

Belial

Troops:

6 x Terminators w/ Cyclones + 1 x LC (apothecary squad in there too)

Fast:

1 x Land Speeder

6 x Bikes w/ 2 x Melta + Attack Bike w/ MM

As you can imagine, this was a horrific match-up for Alex. To make it worse, his dice to hit/wound were absolutely abysmal. As to game play, it was very straight forward. I got first turn. I shot him up a little and moved my LRRs forward He had reserved his bikes and Land Speeder (smart move as he knew I would just them right away to get rid of the melta). He fired back with abysmal dice. Turn 2, I whittled some more Termies down, drove up, hopped out, and multi-assaulted Terminators with DCA. It was a slaughter. I did eventually lose some DCA as he put more Terminators into Coteaz’s fight, but Smiley’s girls chopped through Belials Command Squad and another Squad with relative ease. His reserve failed him. They finally came on when he had very little left. We played one more turn where he lost even more Terminators in a horrific roll in a fist fight with 2 Dreads, and I shot up some bikes. We called it as the game was not going to go anywhere in later turns.

Alex is known for being great to play with. He’s a tricky guy too being able to reach deep into a bag of 40K rule shenanigans to pull off great moves. Always a blast to play with and learn from.

Game 4: Jawaballs Blood Angels

So, my next opponent is the famous Chris Dubuque otherwise known as Jawaballs.

Approx:

HQ:
Mephy

Sanguinor

Elites:

Few sang priests

5 x Terminators with Claws/Shields + Land Raider Crusader

Chappy

Troops:

2 x 10 Assault Squads w/ Meltas

2 x Scout Squads, one with snipers and other for CC.

As you can also imagine here, horrific match-up for Jawaballs. We both recognize that right away. He can’t stay away from me because I have a heavy amount of shooting. If he pulls forward, my DCA will eat him. He spends a turn or so just plinking at me knowing that charging will be fruitless, and finally he just say, “hell with it, let’s do this!” and charges. He can’t win at range. So, when the blood and gore settles, Smiley and his girls are Dead, but Coteaz and his girls rule the day. It was a glorious massacre, and we called the game after all the combat finished. Jawaballs was very personable and fun to play with. Bad match-up is bad match-up. The Emperor himself couldn’t have won that one I don’t think.

Game 5: Ryan’s Grey Knights

I had played Ryan before at BFS 2010 at my final game there in the Bronze Bracket. He’s a personable guy to play with, and given some critical dice fail in this game, his ability to not start cursing loudly should be applauded!

Approx:

HQ:

Coteaz

OXI + Rad

Elites:

3 x 5 Purifiers + Psybacks + 2x Psy

Troops:

10 x Terminators + 2 x Psy

5 x 5 Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters + psybacks

Heavy:

3 x Dreads w/ Autos

So, Ryan set up mid board as it was Dawn. The primary was KP. At face value, my Dreads beat his Dreads, and if I can take down his Dreads, I’ve basically got open season on easy Razorback KPs. Also, if his Psycannons do not stop my Land Raiders, my DCA will mostly likely just roll over him.

So, it goes like this. He shoots all his Psy at my Land Raiders. They epically whiff. My LRRs drive forward, disgorge DCA and chop up the Terminators, a Purg Squad, Coteaz, and the OXI. From there, it’s basically all over but the crying. We do some more shooting but my DCA and LRRs are pretty much unstoppable wrecking machines as he whiffs a couple more times with Psycannons. Eventually, I have enough KPs that there is no coming back and we call the game.

Game 6: Eric with White Scars

This was against Eric from the White Scars blog. Two things. First, I’m extremely excited to finally get to see one of these White Scars guys in action. I have been wanting to see how they do well with this army because honestly, I don’t get it. Second, I am now absolutely destroyed. I have had no sleep in two days and am literally spacing out as we are playing this game. I actually owe Eric several apologies because I was so spaced out, I was actually frustrating him by forgetting things, doing idiotic things, and a host of other problems. As an example, at one point I specifically remember, he had to about bash me over the head explaining why if I took saves on DCA that I couldn’t kill the Banisher, and it literally took me like half a minute to understand what he was trying to tell me. It did not reflect well on me, and I apologize. I drank a copious amount of coffee after this game because I knew that I couldn’t continue like that. :P I also inadvertently started a rules discussion which I will talk about in a second when all I wanted to do was confirm that I could use the same rule because it was a genius move by Eric.

Approx:

HQ:

Bike Captain + Claws

Pedro

Elite
5 x TH/SS terminators + LRR + Multi Melta

2 x 5 Stern Guard w/ Combi Meltas + Lascanons + Rhinos

Troops:

3 x Bike squads w/ 1 x Melta + Attack Bikes w/ MM

1 x Combat scouts

Heavy:

2 x thunder fires

So, I get first turn. I plink some shooting at him and destroy a Thunder fire and kill a couple Sternguard forcing a morale check. I pull up with my LRRs, flanking the middle LoS blocker as I have been doing in most games, blow smoke, and prepare to Shroud.

Eric pulls up with Bikes, takes down a Dread. At this point, in my stupor, I start thinking about moving Coteaz + Girls away from center to chase down some bikes and scouts he had infiltrated. I’m thinking that maybe I got assault range on those Bikes. I test the move and eyeball the assault range. After a painfully long time, the gears in my brain finally stop turning, I realize it’s a dumb move, reset, and then decide on a better course of action. My thought was, I got 2 Raiders, he’s got 1. If I risk it, don’t blow a dangerous test, and take down his LRR with my Multi-meltas, I’ll probably eat some return fire, lose a Raider myself, but then be able to assault with DCA and lay down the hammer blow to kill all his terminators and bike command. This is basically what happens, and we get embroiled in a big battle in center involving the Terminators, his bike command, a few bikes, and my DCA. The battle lasts for many rounds, but the DCA eventually come out on top. Some more shooting takes place in the meantime, and eventually he gets worn down in attrition. We call the game as proceeding after that wasn’t going to net any new developments.

The inadvertent rules discussion was around his LRR that exploded. His interpretation of the rules was that his Terminators could be placed such that only the smallest fraction of his base would be where the LRR was. We always played that you had to be inside, as completely as possible, the resultant crater. I thought this idea of his was awesome because that meant you could easily get out of terrain for an assault, beautiful for my DCA. So, I checked the rule book, and it looked like he was right. A judge was nearby, and I wanted to confirm it in the FAQs so I just asked to see the FAQs. What a dumb move that was. The judge then wanted to get involved in the discussion, but I had no interest in arguing it. (It was entirely irrelevant to the outcome of the game.) But now, being an idiot, I had just created a rules discussion where none existed. /facepalm. We kept played while judges discussed (because I really didn’t care what they said the answer was for this game).

Anyways, after all that, forgetting a lot Fortitude rolls, a morale check, and Eric having to beat me over the head to explain why my Banisher wouldn’t die if he didn’t take a wound (/facepalm), I needed some coffee BAD. I also want to get another game in with Eric sometime so he doesn’t think I’m a complete idiot. ( Just partial would be fine! )

Game 7: Mike Brandt’s Guard

Anything but Mech Guard… anything but Mech Guard… DOH!

For starters, I am still amazed today at how Mike can manipulate a game of 40K with so much forethought after having played 7 games with little sleep. The only thing keeping me going this game is coffee because I am totally wasted.

Approx:

HQ:

Straken + CCS w/ Melta, Astro, Med Pak, Chimera

Elites:

Marbo

Troops:

Big Al’s Platoon, all Chimera’ed up, with Melta

5 x Melta Vets in Chimeras

Fast:

3 x Vendettas

It’s funny because I think Mike said I was a bad match-up for him. I’m of the exact opposite opinion because I think he is a bad match-up for me. My experiences versus Guard with my list so far are a total mixed bag. The more 12 armor on the board, the harder the game, and this list is completely spammed out on 12 armor. The reason for this is that it’s not easy for my Dreads to reliably stop 12 armor with a Cover Save. I actually do better in most cases versus Guard that carry more points into different kinds of Vehicles. Mike’s list just has piles and piles of sacrificial melta guns that he could hurl at Dreads and my LRRs where I trying to plink shots off of Chimeras to stop it.

He’s looking at this like, WTF Dread-Spam + Side Shots with Razors. So, it’s easy to, I think, see why would we think that about each other.

Any event, I got first turn. Mike surprises me by not putting his Vendettas in reserve. I realize that those are the only thing he’s got to kill my Dreads with so long as I stay away from suicide melta and the edges of the board (to avoid Big Al). So, Turn 1, I resist the urge to scream forward with my LRRs just to die to a fusillade of melta vets and hold them back. Instead, I just want to position myself near mid-board to contest/hold and get ready for later pushes to more objectives. I really give myself terrible odds of winning this game given that he has 8 mech-ed up scoring units to contest and hold with. I start plinking Vendettas and shake 2, wreck 1.

His turn, he moves up with Chimeras around some terrain. One gets stuck. He flat outs his Vendettas again. I plink at them again, shaking one and wrecking one.

At this point, I have to give credit to Eric because I was discussing my woes versus fighting this mech Guard army prior. Eric said one thing that stuck in my mind and that was “shoot the lead Chimera”. If you can immobilize or wreck it, that will force those behind it to get all clogged up and need to roll for terrain. So, my 2 psybacks that I had kept in reserve come on and immobilize the front Chimera. This forces lots of terrain rolls through the game and causes him to have to move around it. Good advice!

At this point, he suicides 2 melta vet squads on my LRRs. One goes down, the other lives miraculously. Thus begins the tale of Coteaz The Manslayer. Not wanting to risk my DCA to being shot up, I just hop Coteaz out to deal with one squad of suicide vets. He does so mercilessly. Smiley’s DCA, being the LRR that bit it, get out and clean up the other melta vets and then consolidate onto the hill mid. I will just leave them there to control the objective. Smiley gets on board the other LRR and moves up slightly still pushing slowly towards an objective but staying in shrouding range of the DCA on the hill.

Big Al comes in much to my relief. Board center is getting crowded. :P He comes in on my left to threaten my Psybacks and take the objective. I figure this objective is basically lost, but I can contain Big Al there with my Dreads. Now, what I want to do is focus on KPs. I figure, all I have to do is hold my right objective, contest mid, and take his left most objective, which he is only threatening with 10 melta vets on foot, and I got this. I actually think I got this won pretty handily at this point because he has no suicide melta vets left to come get my second LRR, and I will be in charge range of those aforementioned melta vets on my next turn to mop up and claim the objective. The reason why I think this is because I think one of his Chimeras is immobilized that apparently isn’t. This Chimera comes over on his turn and disgorges more suicide melta vets. Mike whiffs epically for a 2^nd time, but does one glance. He rolls the “6” to destroy it. Super lucky both for me and him depending on you look at it. Lucky for me he whiffed. Lucky for him he still squeezed in the destroy. If that had not of happened, the game would have been basically over right there. Coteaz, angered at the disruption gets out of the LRR and starts playing Croquet with Guardsmen in this new squad.

So, I still have this 10 man squad near the back objective. I try to shoot it up a little to get it to fall off the board, but he passes. My Dreads are just slowly moving and plinking towards my left most threating to contest that objective. My real goal is just to hold up Big Al in that corner and keep them out of mid. This would force Straken + whatever was left to come mid and keep them out of my other objectives. Again, I want to tie objectives and win KPs which Coteaz is single-handedly winning for me.

I’m missing some turns in here somewhere, but basically, it rolls on to turn 5. All game, Mike surprises me with his crafty plans in all kinds of weird ways that I’m still amazed by. (Especially being as tired as I am I can’t even imagine it). First, he stretches his one melta vet squad out from his corner to mid to claim both objectives. He kills the DCA off the hill with Multi-laser fire and Straken moves in to threaten. He uses Chimeras to block up the corner Al is in to keep my Dreads out from contesting. He tank shocks his Chimera onto my back objective. We roll to end. If it ends here, Mike handily wins on objectives.

It goes on. I needed this extra turn badly. Having this extra turn meant that I could shore up the win for 6 and 7 and reclaim lost ground by Mike’s big push. (Half of which I didn’t even see coming. Mike has an uncanny grasp of movement and situational awareness. It’s very impressive.) So, one Dread moves into contesting range of Big Al’s objective. This is a long shot for me, but I have just a ton of faith in my Ven Dreads to blow off melta shots and keep on kicking. They won’t let me down! I come rolling up with a Razor to contest mid now, but I have a problem. They will just melta it away with Straken’s squad on the Vet squad’s one melta in range if I don’t stop it. So, after much thinking, I send a Ven Dread into the maw of the beast that is Straken. I know my Ven Dread can do it. They never let me down! I need to tie up Strake to prevent his meltas from killing my Razor and hopefully survive the single melta shot. Meantime, my remaining dread is hauling tail towards mid to throw more bodies into contesting. My Ven Dread gets immobilized by Straken but holds the line. I love my Ven Dreads!

Coteaz, still raging, now goes after the Vet squad near the other objective. He pounces on them like an animal and cuts them down. I figure I got this objective easy now till my charging DCA + MoT whiff and don’t kill the contesting chimera. They do stun it though, and I figure I got this on his turn anyways.

Now, Mike is in trouble. Mid is contested. He’s likely going to lose his Chimera, and I got a Ven Dread sitting on Big Al’s objective. He’s now likely going to lose objectives and even if he pulls a tie, lose on KPs. He needs a lot of things to go his way. He starts off by throwing the kitchen sink at my Ven Dread contesting the objective in the corner. My Ven Dread gets immobilized but he holds true! I love my Ven Dreads! He resorts to assaulting with Marbo and melta bombs, but the Ven Dread still holds. He then puts fire into the contesting Razor in mid but doesn’t quite kill it. Straken still does not kill the other Ven Dread, taking off an arm. Coteaz finishes off his next meal, and I get a huge consolidate of 6 inches. It occurs to me that with a that + move + a good difficult terrain assault move, Coteaz could potentially assault into the Vets that are strung out to hold mid and his corner. If it goes to Turn 7, that will be the nail in the coffin. Smiley and the girls take down the Chimera and control the objective.

At this point, they call time. Now, if the game ends, I win on objectives, 2 to 1. The problem is, we never got a time call when it was approaching last turn. In other words, we never got a “last turn” call at the start. So, neither Mike nor I knew the game was about to end. I did not want to end the game like that because it would basically have robbed Mike of the opportunity of an epic comeback. They agreed to let us continue if we both wanted it, and Mike rolled off to move onto Turn 7.

Coteaz rampages up to Board center, makes his assault roll, and snags the Vet Squad dragging them into the Death Maw that is The Manslayer (who is now walking through 40 guardsmen this game if you are keeping count). My other Ven fends off Marbo for another round, while my other Ven there assaults into Big Al’s squad hoping to take him down and contest. Mike is making a game of it yet again (he sees so much of the board it’s scary to me :P) by taking pot shots at my back objective with Chimeras trying to wipe off my Acolytes there. But they survive it.

His turn, comes. Marbo still can’t kill the Ven Dread. Straken polishes off his Ven Dread plus another I forgot to mention I had assault in. Coteaz polishes off the final vet squad. The game ends 2 objectives to 0.

Watching Brandt play really is awesome. You have to struggle just to stay on par with the angles that he comes at you with, with that list. Recommend lots of coffee if you are going into a game against him just so you can try and keep up.

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights Article #2

Red Herrings

As I said in the previous article, there are a ton of Red Herrings in the Grey Knight dex that for most armies only serve as a distraction. This does not hold true for certain armies like Orks, Tyranids, Demons, and sometimes Dark Eldar. However, for the mass of Space Marine variant players out there, here’s the list of Red Herrings.

Force Weapons – The fact of the matter is that Strike Squads are weak in Assault. Purifiers are substantially better. The bottom line is, they have Power Weapons and that is what most Marines care about. They are also Strength 5 Power Weapons. This is somewhat concerning to many MEQ players because you want to avoid assault, but how hard is that to do, really? Since Grey Knights die just like any other Marine, you can soften them up substantially before they get to you, and then, they aren’t so bad when they lack attacks. Grey Knights players, just in general, do not build their list around those Force Weapons, even the I6 ones. It’s a consideration, certainly, but not a place where they truly derive power.

Grenades – Once again, just like the Force Weapons, this is an assault based element of the Grey Knights. Grenades for Grey Knights just make already existing Death Stars even more of a Death Star. Usually it’s overkill. This may frustrate you immeasurably with your own Death Star units, but the real power is that Grey Knights are just exceptional at defeating Death Stars, grenades or no. Once again, it’s time to rethink those hammer lists.

Grand Strategy – This is the ability a Grand Master uses to make certain units outflank, scout, score, or what have you. Although you could potentially be tricky with this, you could also roll a 1 and only get to manipulate one unit. More often than not, the GK player is using Grand Strategy only because he took the GM for Grenades OR because he took Draigo/Mordrak. They don’t build their lists around this ability because it’s not very reliable.

Shrouding/Sanctuary – Shrouding is a big issue for some players. However, as a Grey Knight player who uses a Librarian, the upgrade from a 4+ to a 3+ isn’t that substantial. It’s Fortitude (see the 3+ save I get from Fortitude + Cover already) that really pays the bills. You can also hood me or as a Puppy player, Rune Priest me which has to be THE most annoying thing to fight against. The fact is, quit trying to out Mech me with your Marines. You can’t. What you need to be focusing on is denying me cover, not worrying about Shrouding. Or just shutting down Psychic powers. Sanctuary, although annoying, is not usually a game changer. It is if you rely on big Death Stars, which I’ve already told you to stop running.

Warp Quake – Yes, this can be a game changer versus Drop Pod armies, DDMs, Demons, and DoA lists. If the GK player gets first turn. If he doesn’t fail the roll or perils at an inopportune time. Warp Quake is somewhat of a safety blanket for some GK builds. However, with experience, I know that over the course of a game, its usefulness obviously wanes. If your desired army will rely very heavily on Deep Striking, you need to consider its effects, especially if you are slow. (Looking at your Fatecrusher builds). Otherwise, just plan accordingly.

All of the Red Herrings have a commonality in unreliability. Force Weapons aren’t that reliable if you aren’t getting the assault or if you need to Hammerhand. (Or just roll bad!) Grenades are generally overkill and only truly needed against certain units. Warp Quake is only good if you are a heavy deep striker.

Also, some of these, like I said, are bigger deals to certain armies. Warp Quake is certainly a much bigger deal for Demons. Force Weapons are much bigger deal for Tyranids. Sanctuary is much bigger deal for Orks. I will mention these bits for certain armies when I talk about them specifically. For now, let’s move on to the 4 basic types of GK lists.

4 Basic GK List Archetypes

There are 4 basic variations on the Grey Knights list types for one to consider. Ideally, your thoughts on how to best use your army to defeat Grey Knights will address at least some aspects of each of these 4 lists. Three of these lists leverage the power of the GK dex as I described in the last article in one form or another. You should be able to see how some of those elements apply to each of these generic list types.

It’s important to know the archetypes because this will give you a foundation for consideration when looking at how to build your own list. Rather than sitting around going, “THEY COULD BRING ANYTHING!”, you can use these archetypes to help direct your thinking.

Grey Knight MSU

For lack of a better way to describe it, the Grey Knight MSU build places many small Strike Squads, Purifiers, or both generally into Rhinos and/or Psybacks. These lists are also usually backed up in the Heavy Support section by Psybolt Dreadnoughts. Headquarter selections may vary greatly from Librarians, to Grand Masters, to Coteaz, and of course, Crowe. Librarians bring Shrouding and Psychic Defense. Grand Masters can bring Grenades and the Grand Strategy ability to add some scouting, scoring, or outflanking shenanigans. Coteaz bring the sieze reroll and sometimes bring the ability to pack the Troop choice with some cheap acolytes or possibly a Death Cult squad. He also bring Sanctuary and the “I’ve Been Expecting You” rule. Lastly, Crowe allows the MSU Grey Knight builder to use his Purifiers as Troop choices.

Lastly, these MSU squads will generally be equipped with a Demon Hammer and Psycannons.

The typical list looks like this:

HQ:

Crowe, Coteaz, Librarian, or GM

Elites:

2-3 x 5 Purifiers w/ 2 x Psycannons, Demon Hammer + Rhino or Psyback

1-2 Venerable Psybolt Dreads

Troops:

5-6 5 Strike Squads w/ Psycannon, Demon Hammer + Psyback

(Potentially Purifiers here if taking Crowe)

Heavy:

2-3 Psybolt Dreads

The intent of this list is to clearly exercise several of the true Grey Knight strengths listed previously. It packs in Vehicles, maximizing Fortitude and general GK mech dominance, Psybolt Dreads, Duality, and of course, a plethora of anti-tank capability in Hammers and Psycannons.

Primarily, this type of list relies mostly on Duality with a special emphasis on destroying AV 10 – 11 Mech.

This type of list forgoes the strength of being able to take down Death Stars. It doesn’t have much a counter-attack element. Indeed, this list, overall, is decently weak in Assault save for Purifiers heavy lists which may be armed with Halbreds. Still, Halbreds aren’t much of a threat to models with a 3++. Also, in assault, they have no real defense versus a “Horde”, once again unless it’s Purifiers with Cleansing Flame.

Grey Knight Death Stars

Very similar to a lot of Blood Angel builds you might see, Grey Knights have the ability to pack in some Death Stars into Storm Ravens and Land Raiders to come at you. These lists will attempt to generally leverage Librarians, Grenades, Assassins, Purifiers, Dreads, and potentially Terminators. The good news here is that if you are already quite adept at fighting against these kinds of Blood Angel lists, these are functionally the same thing.

Typical List:

HQ:

Librarian (Shrouding, MoT, etc.), Inquisitor w/ Nades, GM w/ Nades, Coteaz, Crowe, Draigo

Elites:

Large Death Cult Squads + Crusaders (maybe troop choice with Coteaz)

1-2 Venerable Dreads w/ Multi Melta + Fist (storm ravens)

1-2 Techmarines w/ Grenades

Troops:

1-4 Small Henchmen Squads for Scoring, Possible Psybacks w/ Coteaz

Possible Death Cult units w/ Coteaz

1-2 Squads of Purifiers as Death Stars w/ Crowe

1-2 Squads of Paladins w/ Draigo as HQ

Fast:

1-2 Storm Ravens (transport Death stars)

Heavy:

1-2 Land Raiders

Psybolt Dreads

The large variation in list types here depends on the type of Death Star the GK player wants to use. Some like Death Cultists with Crusaders. Some like big Purifier squads. Some like Paladin squads or Terminators. They use Grenades on Techmarines, Xenos Inquisitors, or GMs, to bolster their Death Stars.

Basically, the kind of list eschews most of the actual strengths of GKs in favor of just running the plain old rock list that a lot of other codices can do just as well. It adds GK flavor by sprinkling some cheap troops, some Psybolt Dreads, etc. Basically, though, it has the same strengths and weaknesses of any Death Star/Rock List backed up by some ranged shooting.

Nothing really special to consider here above and beyond what you should already be considering in how to deal with rock lists.

To be continued

Defeating the Beast: Fighting Grey Knights

I wanted to start a new series of articles on “how to defeat _____”, and I figured I would start with Grey Knights since that seems to be the talk of the town given how prolific they seem to be.

I’ve already read a few articles on other sites already talking about the best way to defeat Grey Knights. Quite possibly, the common theme and impetus for those articles has been that those authors are tired of hearing whining about “OP Grey Knights!’ and how all the band wagon jumpers are moving to Grey Knights. The theme of some of those articles has been thus, and I think that this detracts somewhat from the conversation as a whole. In fact, Grey Knights ARE a very powerful codex, arguably better than even Space Wolves, and I think that the first step in a discussion about defeating Grey Knights at large is to accept that this is a power codex in the grand scheme. Not only is it highly competitive, it also has a lot of easy to use builds which fit the “every man” of 40K. Further, the Grey Knight codex has a LOT of builds which fit the competitive bill. This means that any discussion pointed at “defeating Grey Knights” needs to also take into consideration all the potential kinds of Grey Knights you might see.

One thing I do want to clear up right here and now, though, is that the Grey Knights dex is not “OP”, “broken”, etc. The Grey Knights dex, in my opinion, is the example of what ALL codices should look like. Extremely viable. Many, many competitive builds, a decent amount of which should be easy to play and accessible by the “every man”. Fun to play. Interesting to think about.

As to the cries of “OP” or “everyone I know is quitting because they can’t stand the Grey Knights!”, these individuals should have already processed this when Demons came out, Orks after that, IG after that, Space Wolves after that, and what I’m sure will be Necrons or Chaos Legions after this. Stop whining about how good the GK dex is and let’s start discussing what you can do to compete with it. (And for Pete’s sake, don’t be that guy who says he only plays for “fun or fluff” and then complains when he can’t win games against a top tier dex. This is counter-productive and will only put you in the wrong mind set.)

On to the discussion.

Grey Knight List Potential and Power

Intelligence is critical to almost any plan. The more you know, the better prepared you will be. To me, it’s useful to first analyze where Grey Knights are actually drawing their power from so that we can understand the best ways to apply that knowledge in taking them down. Also, this part of the discussion is critical because Grey Knights have access to a lot of different, effective builds. So, how to best defeat a Grey Knight army, as I will talk about next, is best defined as how to analyze how your list will do against the varying types of GK builds.

The first key here is to firmly analyze where Grey Knight builds, in general, draw their power. The answer is not “Strike Squads with flippin’ Force Weapons!” or “Festooned with Grenades!” It’s a good bit deeper than that. One thing that makes the GK dex interesting to analyze is the amount of Red Herrings in the dex which serve to distract from where the real power in the dex lies. It is exactly things like Force Weapons and Psyko-brokes that detract from real power and provide a “smoke and mirrors” concept which serves to crush you by forcing you to focus on things that don’t really matter.

It’s things like, “OMG FORCE WEAPONS!” which serve to distract you. It’s almost like, “LOOK AT THE BIRDY!”, while the Dreads, for example, are the things that are actually doing all the damage. So, let’s take a look at where the majority of GK lists actually draw their greatest strengths.

The Psybolt Dreadnought with Autocannons

For many mech players, this unit takes the cake. Recognize that the Psybolt Dread actually puts out more anti-tank fire on average than a 5 man Long Fang pack. The reason is the twin-linking. A Dreadnought has an 89% chance to hit with each shot. A Long Fang as a 66% chance. Using poor man’s statistics, that means 5 Long Fangs hit 3.33 times. (Incidentally, if you are a Space Wolf player, this is why your 5 man squads always seem to always only hit with 3 missiles.) A Psybolt Dreadnought hits with 3.56 shots. Now, this is poor man’s statistics, but the point should be getting across.

Think of it this way. Each Psybolt Dreadnought in a GK army is equivalent to a 5 man Long Fang Pack.

If the GK player brings 6 Dreads, that’s like fighting a Space Wolf player with 6 Long Fang packs. Ouch!

The next thing to realize is that when a Psybolt Dread can reliably put down 4 S8 shots, against AV 10-11 vehicles, he doesn’t care about your cover saves. He will penetrate the vehicle 1-2 times in most cases, regardless of your 4+ save.

Simply put, the morale of this story is, you are a player who likes to run spammy style AV 10-11 (here’s looking at you Deldar, Razor Spam, Rhino Rushers), you need to plan right away for how you will shut the Dreads down and FAST.

Fortitude

It’s more than just annoying as an opponent of Grey Knights. Hey Dark Eldar players, you know how annoying that Flickerfield can be right? Well, look at it this way, every Grey Knight vehicle comes equipped with one. Don’t think so? Mathematically, by effectively ignoring 33% of the damage table, GKs basically receive the equivalent of a 5+ save versus the entire damage chart. And, yes, just like a Flickerfield, this applies to all damage results: CC, shooting, rams, and on.

But wait, there’s more! It’s BETTER than a Flickerfield because unlike a Flickerfield, the GK player gets to take his cover save in addition to his 5+ save. That means, when shooting at a GK vehicle in cover, that vehicle effectively has a 3+ save. (No, I’m not kidding. It really is a 3+ save). Now, factor in shrouding for extra giggles!

To make it worse, GKs barely pay any points for this ability.

So, what does this mean at the end of the day? Well, you could “rage” about it as being ridiculous, and it really kind of is, or, you can integrate this into your plan. First and foremost, this means that GK vehicles are hard to shut down, especially stopping them from shooting.

So, if you are going to play against lists of GK which bring a ton of vehicles, you need to bring some tools you might not have normally brought. Either you pack in a lot more anti-vehicle shots, OR, pack in a lot more AP 1. AP 1 almost negates the Fortitude bonus. Also, you need to consider how you could attack those vehicles while denying them cover saves. Or, could you pack in psychic defense to help shut this down?

It also means that Grey Knights are as good at mech lists as Imperial Guard.

Ranged Anti-Vehicle Fire

Grey Knights are unparalleled in their Ranged Anti-Vehicle Fire as it currently stands in 40K. Bet you thought that was Guard, didn’t you? It could be if I defined “ranged” as any shooting attack. When I say “ranged”, I mean anything 18 inches and higher. Psybolt Dreads, Psybolt Razorbacks, and Psycannons mean that GKs can pack an anti-AV 10-11 shot in EVERY. SINGLE. UNIT. Guard have BS 3 Chimeras with Multi-lasers. GKs have twin-linked Psybolt Razorbacks. No contest.

Unless the GK players are shooting at Guard. Funny how that works?

Save for the occasional rending off a Psycannon and the Psybolt Dreads, GKs really don’t bring a lot to the table that is really effective versus AV 12+ vehicles….. which Mech Guard carry en masse.

What does this mean? This means that in the world of GKs, you need a real plan of what to do with your masses of Razorbacks and Rhinos. Razorspam at face value simply won’t work versus GKs who can sorely outshoot you. Rhino Rushing only works if you can entice the GK player to shoot at something other than Rhinos.

A GK army can easily disable/destroy 5-8 AV 10-11 vehicles IN COVER, a turn depending on what’s in their list, and that’s WITHOUT considering Psycannon units.

The Paladin

A nod to the Paladin builds out there. Paladins are NOT your traditional rock style unit. People want to classify them as such, but they simply aren’t. Why?

Traditional rock units generally sorely lack in the shooting department. Think about it. Assault Terminators. Tyranid Death Stars. Thunder Wolf Cav.

Paladins can pack in storm bolters and 4 Psycannons which always shoot in “heavy” mode. On top of that, they can also fight pretty well in assault. They are not your traditional rock unit and should not be treated as such.

Make some considerations about what your list might do if you run into a 10 man block of Paladins. How will you mitigate them? Ignore them? Kill them?

Anti-Hammer/Counter-Assault

I know, hammer lists are fun. Nothing says fun more than charging 3 Thunder Lords across the board and wrecking face!

Well, actually there is something more fun than that. Counter-charging with a 100 points worth of Death Cult Assassins and a stupid tech marine with Psyko-brokes and kill all 3 Wolf Lords before they get to swing!

Grey Knights EXCEL at destroying Hammer Units. Access to Force Weapons, Hammerhand, Initiative 6, Psyko-brokes, Death Cult Assassins, and other things mean that if Grey Knights have a need to lay down a serious pimp hand, they can get it done. Worse. They can get it done on the cheap.

Likewise, Grey Knights excel at Counter-Assaults. Like Guard, most GK lists are happy to sit back and shoot, letting you get close, and then laying out aforementioned pimp hand. Guard have a pimp hand too, but it is not nearly as strong.

Save for some exceptions which I will discuss in another article, it’s really time to start reconsidering those Hammer lists.

The Purifier/Duality

The last real power of the Grey Knight dex (that I can think of at the moment anyways) is the duality of every unit, best show-cased by the Purifier.

What is Duality? Duality is just a word used to describe a unit’s ability to be both Anti-Armor and Anti-Infantry. Even the lowly Strike Squad can bring a Demon Hammer and a Psycannon to the party while also packing lots of shots with Storm Bolters. Even the Psybolt Razorback can handily take down AV 10-11 vehicles while adding 2-3 reliable wounds to the anti-infantry party.

The Purifier (and even the Paladin) exemplify this kind of Duality. Indeed, the Purifier is probably THE SWISS ARMY KNIFE of the 40K. He can bring Psycannons and Hammers for anti-tank. He brings 2 Attack S 5 Force Weapons. He brings Cleansing Flame for killing hordes. He brings Storm Bolters for anti-infantry. What else do you need?

So, lists which contain a lot of “Grey Knight” units bring a lot of duality to the party. The Grey Knights do not have a straight forward weakness. Their weakness is in their point cost

Conclusion

That’s enough for one huge article. I purposefully did not mention: Psyko-brokes, Warp Quake, Librarians, Grand Masters, and other things which are commonly mentioned. I’ll explain why in another article.

A Little Psychology: Your Poker Face

Just a little thought on some above the table tactics that work very well but aren't underhanded in nature. Your Poker Face.

Don't let them see you sweat. When you start getting agitated, irate, a little red faced, flustered, blubbering, insolent, a little more quiet than usual, etc., I can tell, as your opponent, that I've got you on the ropes.

Now, you might think, "of course I know when I got someone on the ropes! It should be obvious by looking at the board!"

Have you ever finished that game where you though, "holy cow I was losing so badly and then all of a sudden my opponent did some things that caused me to win!" You turn around and ask the opponent and he says, "man, I was losing the whole time. Knew I couldn't win it so started moving some things around."

So, who was really losing the whole time? You or him?

When people feel like they are in a bad position, they tend to react a little more off center than usual. Heard of "flight or fight"? Well, it's not quite that primal, but when people feel like they are not doing well, they tend to make more mistakes, overlook things, and more importantly, give away tells. What's a tell? A tell is when you inadvertently give away information such as signals that you think you are doing poorly or losing.

There's a few things I can do with the potential knowledge that my opponent doesn't think he's doing well.

First, I'll become a little less risk adverse. I know that my opponent thinks that things are not going well and so will react a little more erratically, possibly missing key elements, possibly making bad decisions... you know... the kinds of things that make taking risks pay off!

Second, it also tells me that if I tighten the screws, I might be able to break his will and make him give up. Maybe I'll focus a little more effort on killing more units, giving the appearance of an oncoming tabling, and he'll just throw in the towel! Secretly, I can wipe the sweat off my forehead going, "IF ONLY HE HAD STAYED IN IT... WHEW!!!"

Third, I also know that my opponent's behavior is also about to become a lot more risky. He's much more likely to go for broke when he thinks he has no options left. You can use this knowledge to help you predict what he might do on the next turn.

So, what's the 40K Poker Face look like? The #1 key is to not let bad situations play on you. Lose your Land Raider on Turn 1? Respond with "On to turn 2!" instead of "oh, man, that screwed me bad! I hate my dice." Lose a critical combat? "Okay, on to this combat over here" instead of "oh man, I got screwed. I'm going to lose!"

Other tips.

No, the fake sportsmanship thing doesn't work on someone with half a brain for social skills. When you play off the "I'm acting super nice!!!!!", I can tell. If you can't tell, learn to tell. This is even better for you because your opponent will have a super hard time keeping up the charade when he thinks things aren't going his way. It's much better to be cool and calm.

Likewise, no, I'm not fooled by the "oh man I'm screwed .... (but secretly I'm not I just want you to make a mistake thinking I'm going to give up!) ....". You shouldn't be either.

Think either of the last 2 scenarios don't happen? I haven't been to a tournament yet where I haven't had at least one opponent actively try to engage in psychological warfare across the table top either feigning ignorance, acting overly zealous, feigning a loss, bullying for rules, etc.

It happens. So, use it to your advantage.

Tyranids Aren't That Bad vs. Grey Knights

When the Grey Knights dex came out, many of us thought that one of the biggest losers were the Tyranids. We already know that Tyranids got hammered hard by the Dark Eldar release, and let's be honest, it's widely considered the most under-powered dex in 5th Edition. However, I wouldn't necessarily throw my Nids out the door at the moment because, after watching a lot of the Grey Knight lists flesh out, Nids really aren't that bad of a match-up.

Before I even start talking about the match-up and talking about what I now see as some misconceptions about the match-up, I want to quickly address the Dark Eldar. Dark Eldar completely maul Tyranids in a competitive scene. It isn't hard to figure out why with all the poison shooting and AP 2 shooting from dark light weaponry. For this reason, if you are a Tyranid player, you may have packed up your models a while back. However, things are actually looking up ever so briefly because Dark Eldar get mauled by Grey Knights. Why? Grey Knights can pour on a ridiculous amount of S6, S7, and S8 shooting which annihilates Dark Eldar vehicles. Indeed, most GK lists I see pack a weapon capable of shredding a Dark Eldar vehicle in EVERY, SINGLE, SQUAD. Heck, even mass Storm Bolter shooting can stun lock them.

What I'm saying then is that the Dark Eldar presence on the tournament scene is going to drop like a rock. (It already has in a lot of areas).

The Tyranid Match-up:

Just like everyone else, when the GK dex came out I was saying, "welp, that's it for Tyranids. Right after the Dark Eldar, too. It's over!" Why?

• Initiative 6 Force Weapons - Insta-gib monstrous creatures before they even get to swing!
• Mass Anti-Infantry Shooting - Storm Bolters, Incinerators, Psybacks, oh my!
• Mass Mid-Strength Shooting - Pours out wounds on Monstrous Creatures.
• Cleansing Flame - Deserves a mention all by itself.

So, having been playing with the new GK dex since its launch, a lot of things have changed. I've also had the opportunity now to play against some good Nid players and see how wildly different the reality of this match-up is than it looks on paper.

Yes, You Will Have to be Good with Your Army

So, no. You aren't going to be able to do well with your Nids versus GKs if you don't have a solid army or solid skills with your army. This is true of any army.

The Misconceptions

To begin, many of the biggest potential match-up issues are taken care already not by Tyranids but by the Grey Knights need to play against other armies. Grey Knights lists basically look like either Henchmen/Purifier spammy kinds of lists with Psybolt Dreads as back-up and lots of Psybacks. There will also be a smattering of Psycannons with the Purifier style lists and likewise, Death Cultists littered about in Henchmen style lists.

Grey Knights need all kinds of anti-vehicle shooting, just like Nids, to be competitive against things like Razor Spam and Mech Guard.

Thus, even with Purifier Spam, what you will start to see are small, MSU squads of Purifiers, potentially with a Demon Hammer, a couple psycannons, and usually in a Rhino or Psyback.

The first, promising, misconception is that Grey Knight shooting will shred Tyranids. It certainly will kill its fair share of Genestealers and Gaunts, but only at 24 inch range. Dreads and Psybacks can certainly do some damage to, but with cover saves, it doesn't amount to really more than Guard can do.

However, you know what Grey Knights can't really kill at range? Monstrous Creatures. Toughness 6, combined with a 3+ save, combined with Feel No Pain is a nightmare for GK shooting. For example, I usually carry 5 Psybolt Dreads in my list. Shooting at a Tervigon w/ FnP, I will average about 2.5 wounds. That's not promising for me at all, especially if you have 2-3 of the buggers backed up by some things like Trygons. I can't shoot through that before you get to me. Not even close!

The second misconception is that Grey Knights will blow you off the board. GKs can't kill monstrous creatures at any range because they lack AP 2 weaponry. So, they can shoot at your gribblies, but that can't do both. When Tervigons make gribblies as fast as I can kill them, I don't like my prospects when shooting at Nids.

Third, the Force Weapons. There are a couple issues here for consideration. First, most GK squads, unless they contain an IC, can't both Hammerhand and Force Weapon. This means that those I6 Halbreds, need 6's to wound MCs. Second, most GK squads, unless they contain an IC, are LD 9 or less. Shadow in the Warp is a beast for a GK player! Trust me on this one. So, even if they do get a wound, which they can with a Demon Hammer certainly, they have less than a 45% chance for the force weapon to even go off. So, time to change your strategies around how you use your MCs and overlapping Shadows. Cleansing Flame a problem? Shadows is a great answer to this problem. Likely, those Purifiers only get one shot at it because of this next reason....

Numer 4, Grey Knights bring nothing to the table versus Gribblies than normal marines. Genestealers and Gaunts dominate Marines in HtH. Do you care about their force weapons? Not really. Your saved already sucked! Grey Knights don't have a lot of attacks, and their save is only a 3+. Furious charging, poison gaunts will dominate in that fight, point to point. Not to mention, devil gaunts can seriously rake GK units over the coals.

This leaves us with the Death Cultists. So long as you make them charge through cover, you win.

Do Grenade toting assault units still hurt, a lot? Indeed. Just like having to deal with a pack of 10 TH/SS terminators, as a Nid player, you will have to use your tools and guile to shoot, tie up, assault, or what have you, these types of units. Things haven't changed for you at all in this department.

The point of all of this is, Nids are not a bad match-up for Grey Knights. They are what I would call, an even match-up. It's going to be all about who out plays the other guy, and that's exactly where you want to be.

NoVA Battle Reports: Game 5

So, I wisely decide to go to bed Saturday night rather than trying to stay up to late. I still didn't get enough sleep, but I was way better off rolling in on Sunday than I was on Saturday morning.

I was thinking coming into Day 2 that I would be in one of the upper 3/1 brackets. I figured I would have a hard day but a good chance at winning my bracket. However, that wasn't what the cards had in store for me. Rather than being in a 3/1 bracket, they had me bumped up into the 4/0 "Tournament Ace" bracket. Doh! This would mean that rather than, in my opinion, playing against my peers I would be playing against a whole group of guys who are better than me. Oh well! At least when your expectations are low, there isn't a whole lot of pressure. This helped me out a good bit in Game #1. Whereas my opponent had full expectations of being able to take home the 8-0 prize and win it all, my expectations were to lose all 4 of my Day 2 games. So, I wasn't really sweating (for the game that is... more on this later) at all.

Good thing too because they have placed me as the last seed in the 4/0 bracket. This meant that I was paired up against the #1 seed coming into Day #2, Nick (yermom) (http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/). Nick is the guy who had just won the NoVA Invitational on Friday, and he is a known killer on the GT circuit.

Let's up the ante for me and put us on Table #1. Cool! So, now I get to have my ass handed to me LIVE using my OWN recording equipment.

So, on to the game.

I didn't have to look at Nick's list because I already knew what it was from following his BLOG. It was kind of humorous to me that I had had a lot of considerations about running a list similar to his. I knew that my list could stand up to his in terms of fire power, but it was a big ??? for me as to if I could he would simply outlast me given all the Marine bodies. This was going to come down to me outnumbering him with Dreads and more useful Dreads, Venerables, at that. I also knew right away that this was going to be a slug fest ala Rocky IV where we just beat the crap out of each other and see who is left standing.

Nick's list is this:

HQ:

Coteaz

Inquisitor ????

Elite:

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

5 x Purifiers + Hammer + 2 x Psycannons

Rhino

Troops:

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

5 x Strike Squad + Hammer + Psycannon

Psyback

Heavy:

3 x Psybolt Dreads

So, basically, if you want to see what was going on, you can go to our UStream channel and watch the game. This will breakdown how I felt about the game.

First things first, I rolled and got first turn. I was pretty pleased by that and set up. My army has a good bit more alpha strike potential than his thanks to extra Dreads and monkies, but not really to much more. I did recognize right away though that aside from his Dreads, his major threat to my army would be his Psycannons. The idea I would go for then would be to keep most of my stuff out of range of his on Turn 1. I would keep some there to give him something to shoot at rather than blitzing forward into mid. This would cause him to take another turn of movement for the "blitz", or even better, if I could somehow hold him near his quarter and turn his vehicles into parking lot hell hole or wreckage which might slow him down for advancing into quarters.

The missions objective was quarters.

Nick uses the terrain to his advantage and deployed mostly out of LoS or in cover to mitigate my alpha strike. Then, he stole the Initiative from me.

Two things to say about that. First, Nick was way more happy about it than I was sad about it. I had already resigned myself to doing poorly in this game. So, losing first turn didn't phase me to much mentally. Second, I had also deployed myself in such a fashion by being back from him and mostly in cover in case he did seize. So, it wasn't that big of a deal. This would also give me last turn, and in a quarters game, that's not a terrible thing.

I promptly lost a couple Razorbacks, and he moved up. I returned fire, and he lost a couple Rhinos. He did end up shooting at my right elements as I had deployed semi-center. This kept him back for an additional turn. This would prove useful to me later. The next thing he did was bring out his Dreads to shoot me.

I have already learned by this point in the tournament that Ven Dreads >>>>>>>> Regular Dreads. The reason is that my Ven Dreads will gladly trade fusillades with "normie" Dreads. Mine will outlast them more often than not. So, right away, I decided I would step into the line of fire and chance getting hit by his Dreads and Psycannons with my Vens to take his Dreads down. It paid off and I got 2/3 of his Dreads.

So, what I thought was very unfortunate, Coteaz and my DCA were sort of pinned in behind my own lines for fear of getting killed. I thought I wouldn't get to use them that game because they were in front of his whole army. However, I needed to make the prospect of him driving up and using that center large hill as a fire base as "risky" as possible to keep him from controlling all the quarters. I therefore brought up my Purgation and Smiley's girls. This would take a couple of turns.

The next thing that happened is we traded a few more shots. However, you will see in the video that I was slowly getting the better of the vehicle destruction rampage because of my Ven Dreads. Thank you Ven Dreads! Eventually, by the end of the game, all his vehicles had turned into the bone yard I was hoping for. However, so did mine!

The game takes a turn in my favor when he finally mounts the hill in the middle to open up on my Librarian's chimera to kill the Assassins in it. He also assaults with his no disembarked squads into my Ven Dread on the right.

The game turns because he rolls very poorly against the Chimera. The Libby and DCA live to fight on. I can then assault into chunks of his GKs to kill them. Even though my DCA will go at I1, so will he thanks to Smiley's Psykouts. And, honestly, I don't care if a lose a DCA or 2 to wipe out GK squads. Meanwhile, his boys get tied up with my Ven Dread. This opens up a window of opportunity for Coteaz and his girls to rush in and fight now that they don't need grenades. He wiffs pretty badly on some critical cleansing flame rolls, and then, the DCA eat his remaining purgation.

The Coteaz and his girls will claim another strike squad before it's over. Past this point though, I still got fire power to lob into his strike squads to make them fail saves. Eventually they go down.

The nail biter though was he did manage to charge one of my Ven Dreads and kill it with a hammer justicar and his Coteaz. This then allowed him to break out of a combat I was certain I could hold him in and charge 2 more dreads and kill them too! I thought for sure he had just tied quarters there, but i still held my quarter by just a handful of points and by moving another Ven into the quarter.

What a blood bath this game was!

In the end, I won on Quarters.

In retrospect, I think that this game was a 50/50 match-up for either of us. It did answer my curiosity about if a cheaper henchmen list with a little more fire power could outlast a GK heavy list. That's the main reason I settled on not taking GKs. At the end of the day, I feel like they are generally over-costed. If you stay in vehicles and out of LoS, their Storm Bolters provide them no advantages. Thus, you can mitigate a lot of what makes them 20 point models. If all they have then are Psycannons to threaten you, that's not much of a threat to a Dread, or anything for that matter. Unless they rend, it's just an Autocannon!

However, I think we could play that game again and again, and a different winner would come out each time. Different damage results, a few armor saves one way or another, different decisions on charges, etc. could have swung that game in many different directions.

Either way, I was definitely pleased and ready to retire from 40k.

Did Blackmoor show us how to best game NoVA?

http://blackmoors40k.blogspot.com/

My favorite list that I saw at NoVA this year was definitely Blackmoor’s. His list was the “smartest” list I saw at the event.

So, you are probably thinking, “his list doesn’t look like a list you would endorse.” Even if you aren’t, it certainly doesn’t. I’m not a fan of Paladins, expensive hammers, the low model count, and a host of other things about it. However, none of those things are why I like his list so much. I like it because I think it shows how the NoVA Open format can be gamed, and I think Blackmoor is genius for figuring it out.

Let’s also go ahead and throw out there that even if you think this list is bad… and you’d be wrong just like me… he was on the final table with it, and yours truly got beat by it… on camera none the less. So, shows what we know!

Gaming the NoVA System:

So, if you don’t know by now, I’m a pretty big NoVA format fan boi. Not without reason, though, as most fan bois are. What I am a fan of NoVA for is not really its format so much as that it represents a “thinking tournament”. What I mean by that is NoVA, in my opinion, was the first advertised and national event that shows how a tournament can be run by truly putting thought into the format. No more completely outrageous GW White Dwarf Missions. No more 3 round battle point event for 90 players which have no clear winners. No more “crazy” terrain. No more thoughtless rulings. No more favoring one part of the hobby over any other part. It’s not necessarily the NoVA format exactly that I am such a fan of. It’s the idea of the NoVA and what it represents that I am a fan of.

And along those lines, NoVA missions themselves represent a lot of thought being put into a format that attempts to be as evaluative as possible and doing so by providing the fairest method of evaluation for all armies in 40K. The real genius behind Blackmoor’s list, though, is that it is specially designed to game the NoVA system, and it does so beautifully.

The NoVA format consists of 3 mission types:

Kill Points: This is a standard kill point game, but to win, you must lead in kill points by at least 3.

Objectives: This is a standard seize ground mission with 5 objectives all evenly spaced in quarters and he center of the board.

Quarters: In this mission, the goal is to hold table quarters, and to do so, you need more Victory Points in the quarter at the end of the game. The caveat this year, though, and this is huge, is that Troop choices count for full points even if they are below half strength.

Further, only one objective is the primary for a game. All other objectives become tie breakers down to just a straight victory point.

Lastly, and this is very important, NoVA put some seriously awesome work into its terrain this year, and the product of that was a LOT of LoS blocking terrain for infantry models.

So, how does Blackmoor’s list almost perfectly game this format?

First, lack of kill points. His list only has 8. 3 are fairly easy to get being Dreadnoughts. The others, not so much. The reason? Given the amount of LoS blocking terrain, it’s very easy to hide infantry. Extremely, even. So, if he had to, he could very easily hide his weaker strike squad, shunt the interceptor squad somewhere safe, and last but not least, ever tried killing 10 Paladins at range with cover and shrouding? Combine this with Draigo’s psychic communion ability and reserve denial, not to mention Draigo’s ability to also just hide behind terrain, and you have a beast of a KP denial list.

Second, and this is critical, the “full point troops” in quarters. One thing to note right away is that Blackmoor has three massively expensive units in his list. The first, Paladins topping in close to 800 points. The second, a 10 man interceptor squad. Third, Draigo. The next thing to note is that Draigo’s grand strategy ability means he can nominate d3 units to become troops. Then, Draigo already makes the Paladins troops. With a roll of a 5 or 6, Blackmoor could actually make all but one Dreadnought in his list and his HQ, troop choices. Combine that with the same issue of being able to easily hide infantry models, and what you have is a genius recipe for quarter claiming. Well, you finally managed to kill 8 of my Paladins? Shame. Guess I’ll just walk them out of LoS behind this hill and still have an 800 point scoring unit in the quarter. Dang, that quarter looks kind of empty. Shunt my one remaining Interceptor and now I have nearly 300 points of troops in that quarter conveniently out of LoS. The thing is, you can argue that perhaps you need to be more aggressive to combat this, but there is only physically so far most armies can move in a game of 40K to try and catch up to something. Then, when you combine reserve denial with this strategy, it’s awesome. You can’t push to far into any quarter because you don’t know where you might need to end up holding quarters.

And after all, he’s probably going to auto-win on Kill Points anyways. So, he’d be more than happy to tie.

Third, the objectives mission is definitely his weakest mission. However, he can combat squad at will to make more scoring units, combined with Grand Strategy. His goal here is not to win but to tie the objectives. If he can do that, he’ll nail you on Quarters and Kill Points.

Lastly, there is the propensity to be able to withdraw to win. Because of the above strategies, his army comes built in with the basic strategy to be able to withdraw on the field to deny you the ability to kill him. His optimal range is 24 inches at all times. Since the most efficient way to kill units is usually assault, he can withdraw to avoid it. After all, in most cases, he only needs one model left in the unit to win the game. And of course, let’s not forget the psychological aspect of that list…. The aspect that tells most people “this list looks bad, I should under-estimate it”.

That’s why it’s my favorite list of the event. He establishes what most of us wish we could do, a solid thought process on how to best tackle the format rather than just another army.

NoVA Battle Reports: Games 3 - 4

I came into game 3 with 2 very strong finishes. One thing I've noticed thus far as well is that my list doesn't give up Victory Points very easily. A big part of this is because my list is such an "msu" monstrosity that nothing is really worth much. The only thing that has many points in it are my Ven Dreads, which very rarely die, and my Librarian. This has meant that my victories thus far look a lot more lopsided on paper than they really were. The reason I'm saying this is because this is going to help me get into the 4-0 bracket on Day 2.

Round 3

I was actually playing on the table next to my round 3 opponent during round 2. When I was eyeballing his army, I was thinking, "man, I hope I don't draw that guy because I'm going to be in trouble." Well, I drew him. As an aside, I think that from now on, I will not wish to "not draw" any particular person anymore because this tournament seems to prove that this thinking guarantees that I will play that person next.

Here's my Round 3 opponents "basic" list from memory:

HQ:

Coteaz - 100

Elites:

2 x Ven Dreads w/ TLACs

Troops:

3 squads of Death Cultists and Crusaders. Maybe some other stuff.

Fast:

3 x Storm Chickens

Heavy:

3 x Dreads w/ TLACs

The reason why I am afraid of this list is because it sort of out shoots me. Worse, we are fixing to play Kill Points. And to make it even worse, he gets first turn. I'm thinking my tournament ends right here.

Here's what I think he's going to do. He'll turbo-boost the chickens up. I'll come on the board and try to take them down. He'll fly in with multi-meltas and get clear shots on my normal dreads to take them out. Then, he'll tie up my Ven Dreads with his Assassin squads. Then, he'll rack up kill points on my Razors with his Ven Dreads. GGWTFPWNED.

He didn't do any of these things. What actually happened was he took a look at my list, and he was thinking that I would outshoot him. I think he psyched himself out. He did come forward with the Storm Chickens. I blew one up on my Turn 1. Then, he ran away to hide.

I was slack jawed at this point. I really wasn't sure what to make of it. So, I pulled my entire army up behind some terrain, started using shrouding to get a 3+ cover save, and we started trading shots with our Dreads. I won the shoot out. He came forward near the last turn to claim objectives, I shot down the Storm Chickens, and I won the game on Kill Points. It was very fast. We were probably done in an hour.

It was definitely an interesting, psychological game. I think with more practice with his list, if he had seen what I saw, i think he should have stomped me. Next time I will not be so lucky against this opponent, me thinks.

Round 4

This round I drew a very soft spoken but extremely skilled GK player. Turns out, this is the guy who will end up on Table #2 in the 4-0 bracket. By definition, that means I lose this game. But oh so barely.

His list approximation was this:

HQ:

Libby

Coteaz

Elites:

1 x Ven Dread w/ Multi Melta + Flamer Fist

Troops:

2 x Acolyte squads, one with trip melta, one trip flamers.

2 x Large squads of Death Cultists and Crusaders

1 x 5 man Strike squad w/ Psycannons

A few psybacks

Fast:

Storm Chicken

Heavy:

2 x Dreads w/ TLACs

Land Raider Crusader

I'll admit, coming into this game, I was over-confident. I did not recognize my opponent from anywhere, and I do not like his list. Boy, was I in for a shocker. Having now met and played with the guy, he's awesome to play with. Real laid back. He's very, very good as his finishing shows. He plays very smartly.

Game starts with him giving me first turn. This my first surprise. Not really sure what I was in for, I set up my army in a pattern to defend against reserves, using my Razors for cover, blowing smoke etc. I managed to immobilize his LRC, which he did deploy in cover, on Turn 1 which really helped my game.

His whole army come on in Turn 2 save for the LRC + Assassins/Libby he already had on the board. He came in my extreme flank/corner. He flew the storm chicken straight up and immobilize one of my Dreads facing the wrong way. Otherwise, he didn't do much.

My turn, I took out the Storm Chicken, but it took most of my Dreads to do it. Luck of the dice. I didn't get the explode result I wanted, and his DCA unit/Coteaz + the Ven Dread bailed out. On his turn, I got the witness how awesome the concept of that Ven Dread actually is. In fact, I want to run them in my list now. They really are brutal coming out of a storm raven. Really, his Ven Dread didn't do that much other than contest an objective (which did win him the game in a way), but it was the fact that I had nothing to really deal with it. I could have rerouted Smiley and the girls to MoT him down, but I needed them in board center to claim.

We go through a couple more turns of shooting each other up. His DCA unit gets held up by one of my Ven Dreads. The game is definitely starting to unfold in my favor as I shoot up his Dreads, his Strike Squad gets mauled, etc. I lose my DCA to his flamer acolytes that are with Coteaz, and my other pack are on the mid objective. A long Razorback has traversed the whole board to claim a corner objective.

We get to the fated turn 5. At this point in the game, I'm definitely winning. Indeed, to seal the deal, I need to only make a few simple moves and it's over. Then, through a calamity of dice rolling, the game slips by me. Here's how it works.

First, to seal the deal, if I can cook his DCA squad that is with his Libby, he won't have enough troop choices to tie me on objectives. This is easy since my Purgation squad is definitely within range. All they have to do is drive over, bail out, and roast them. They go to move, and I get immobilized in terrain. They don't make it.

Now sweat, I have a Razorback still in range to contest one objective his acolytes are on. All I need to do is make it, and I still got smoke launchers. He makes it. All he has to do now is survive a few BS 3 melta guns under smoke. It's not the best situation, but favorable odds. He won't survive as on his turn all 3 melta guns hit.

Before that, I still have Coteaz to contest. However, he dies to a pummeling by the LRC which rends on him, twice, and then I roll snake eyes to save. :(

Still, we got this, so long as it goes to Turn 6, I can handily extract him from mid and win.

He rolls and the game ends on 5.

I lose. When looking at the stat sheet, you see how close we are. The closeness of this game combined with my 3 big wins, is what will propel me into the 4-0 bracket on the next day.

NoVA Battle Reports Intro and Game 1-2

Sorry guys, but I didn't take any pictures. Honestly, I had enough on my mind trying to worry about the camera rig, playing, and making sure Kelly was having a good time that I decided not to worry about it.

The list I took to the NoVA GT this year was as follows:

HQ:

"Smiley" The Librarian - 165 (Shrouding, MoT, Warp Rift)

"The Unshakeable Will" Coteaz - 100 (who died a lot btw :P)

Elites:

3 x Ven Dreads w/ 2 x TLACs + Psybolts

Troops:

5 x Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters - 121

Joker

Psyback + Searchlights

5 x Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters - 121

Joker

Psyback + Searchlights

5 x Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters - 120

Joker

Psyback

4 x Acolytes w/ Storm Bolters - 113

Joker

Psyback

5 x Death Cult Assassins - 125

Psyback

5 x Death Cult Assassins - 130

Chimera w/ HF

Heavy:

2 x Dreads w/ 2 x TLACs + Psybolts

5 x Purgation Squad w/ 4 x Incinerators - 150

Psyback

So, thoughts on the list after having been done.

Death cultists were as good and ridiculous as always. I learned throughout the tourney to get more and more aggressive with them, finally realizing that even assaulting into cover usually worked out in my favor as well.

The Dreads, for whatever reason, were a HUGE psychological factor for most of my opponents. It is a lot of fire power, and they would really psych out a lot of opponents throughout the 8 games.

Overall, the list was very good for the meta. Several of my games were won by my list, not me.

The "joker" squads were so-so but definitely an upgrade over my melta-lytes. The addition of the extra lascannons seemed to add more fuel to the psychology fire the Dreads would start.

The Purgation squad was great. I was glad that I had added them to the list in most games. They provided a "stock" answer to a lot of problems and an awesome suicide unit. (When they didn't get immobilized in a razorback /facepalm) On that note, I will be finding points for a Dozerblade. :)

Game #1:

I played against an inexperienced Ork player who had a great looking Battlewagon/Kan list. He hadn't been playing 40K for long, but I thought he was doing very well with rules for being such a short timer. I stopped the game at several points throughout to give him pointers and show him how to get the most out of his list. Not due to me by any means, but I also think he pretty good overall by the end. Most importantly, he was a great guy and fun to play with.

His list from memory was:

HQ:

Big Mek + KFF

Warboss + Klaw + Pole + Cybork + 'Eavy Armor

Elites:

10 x Nobz (with all kinds of wound allocation and pain boy)

Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + 4 x Rokkits

Troops:

10 x Nobz (with all kinds of wound allocation and pain boy)

Battlewagon + Deff Rolla + 4 x Rokkits

10ish Boyz + Nob w/ Klaw

????

Heavy:

3 x Kanz w/ Rokkits

3 x Kanz w/ Rokkits

Battlewagon w/ Zap gun, Ard Case, Kill Kannon, Deff Rolla

As you may know from listening to the Podcast, Orks were my army for over a year. So, I know, very well, the inner workings of Battlewagon Orks. As such, with my opponent being new and playing an army I am very familiar with, he was seriously disadvantaged here. One of his BWs actually immobilized on terrain in Turn #1 (yes, even after reroll), and that was pretty much ball game right there. This forced his Nobz to get out and hoof it, which got them shot up and mauled by Death Cultists. This forced his other Nobz to try and bail them out, which got them mauled by Death Cultists. Lastly, the Kanz were shot up by Dreads and eventually, also mauled by Death Cultists.

His other BW carrier also got immobilized by a Dread. At that point, the game was over, but we finished it up by giving him a turn to Deff Rolla through a lot of my stuff with his last wagon which hilariously killed Smiley, his assassins, Coteaz's ride, and more assassins. :)

This was a very strong finish for me which would come into play much later in the day.

Game #2:

Funny story here. So, they posted lists, and I took a table with a listener who was playing SoB. I though, COOL! I haven't played SoB in years! Then, they announced the pairings were wrong, and that we would be rematched. So..... I moved tables, sat down, and what do you know? Another SoB player! Another great game. Plays out of Florida and might be now coming our event in November! Another key point here is that he kept referring to his "girls", and this caught on with me and was how I kept referring to my Death Cultists for the rest of the event.

From memory:

HQ:

Canonness w/ Combi-Melta, 2+ Save

Canonness w/ 2+ Save, Eviscerator (probably more)

(Celests?) x 5 w/ Melta (probably not right :P)

Elites:

Celsts w/ Melta in Immolators

Celsts w/ Melta in Immolators

Troops:

10 x SoB w/ Rhino (melta/flamers?)

10 x SoB w/ Rhino (melta/flamers?)

10 x SoB w/ Rhino (melta/flamers?)

(maybe more)

Elites:

(maybe more with immolators?)

Heavy:

3 x Exorcists

Forgive my horrible memory! :)

To start, I got a quick refresher on all the Acts of Faith. Even better, my opponent had been playing the list for a while and knew when to use all of his acts appropriately. This is a big deal for Sister players, and i was thankful that he was on top of things.

We had some banter throughout about the new Dex. He wasn't looking forward to it. Neither am I. However, as a plus, he got to see how the new Death Cult Assassins will work out. :) You can't go wrong there!

So, my overall strategy here is, of course, "stop the exorcists!" I got turn 1. I started shooting Dreads at them. The one thing that really railed my opponent this game was that his cover saves were very much, below average. This meant that, although I wasn't really "killing" his exorcists, what I was doing was stun locking them. By doing this, this meant that he could not fire back at my Dreads or vehicles at range. This then freed me up to focus down most of his transports at a safe distance, which is bad for the "girls".

When an Exorcist finally did get to shoot.... he'd roll a 1 and proceed to miss. :(

So, my Dreads wen't basically unmolested the whole game, and since we were playing Quarters, this meant that I could be those big, spendy Ven Dreads into quarters to claim them. This taught me a valuable lesson about those Ven Dreads being excellent Quarter claimers which I would use throughout the event.

Lacking long range firepower and having his transports shut down early put my opponent in a pickle. Wisely, he then started using the high amount of LoS blocking terrain to get the "girls" into good positions for taking quarters and fighting back. Eventually, though, the fire power in my list started to add up, and I was able to finally push in with the Incinerators and Assassins to assault and take down high point targets.

The game thusly ended with me having a presence in all the quarters to threaten him.

Great guy, and I really wanted to play that game again where he had at least average dice on cover saves. I think things could have been much different if he had a chance with those Exorcists to put some punch down on my Dreads.

Game Plan

Not sure if anyone else does this or just me, especially everyone out there who follows the blogosphere pretty regularly, but with 3 days to go until NoVA, I find myself trying to match up my list versus those posted by other BLOGGERs.

I think one of the funny things about this kind of obsession is that you always assume the other guy who built that list actually knows how to use it well. That's rarely the case! (Speaking from personal experience here.)

The good news is, I haven't seen a list yet where I feel like I would get destroyed by it. So, I feel okay so far as long as my dice don't go to crap like last year. I'm still hoping to get destroyed by a Dark Eldar player as well so someone can show how this army doesn't fail at life! :)

I'm still sweating how I'm going to fight Guard well, and it's really bothering me about dropping that 6th Dread because of it. Those incinerators on that Purgation squad though really army money at taking out certain threats to my list. Not to mention, they are now a big part of my ability wrestle for mid-board.

Turns out that I'm not really liking the Jokearo, at least so far, but I'm probably stuck with it not with only 3 days to go. One thing I'm really hoping for here is that I don't regret not having the melta acolytes en masse for taking on Guard. Part of my original strategy was to drive forward in a big Razor wall vs. Guard and just suicide my melta vets to kill their Chimera walls. I won't be able to do that anymore!

So, my other big concern here are equally spammy GK lists. I guess we'll see if my theory about Strike Squads being not worth their points hold true in that kind of fight. The advantage here will be to me, though, with Dreads as I'll have 5 and he'll likely only have 3. Now, if I can just land that poor sucker who wants to let his Dreads shoot over his Razors so I can do the same but with a Shrouding librarian!

Anyone else obsess like this a few days before?

Just a thought for today

So, it's been rolling around in my head about the potential level of frustration of going to a tournament and not performing well, consistently, is exactly how I feel after putting hours into painting my army and it still looking like crap. Doesn't matter how much time or thought I put into it, it doesn't get any better.

Point? Not one at the moment other than making me glad right now we are running tier competition on our 2nd day in November.

Ard Boyz Bust

So, turns out that GW didn't see fit to place a Round 2 'Ard Boyz store anywhere in North or South Carolina. The closest store to us will be in Atlanta, 6 hours away.

Now, I don't know about you guys, but if Atlanta is the closest store for us, and I know that it's the closest store for anyone in Georgia, South Carolina, and probably northern Florida, how many people are going to have to go to that single store?

3 rounds. Battle points. A horde of people. Sounds like it's worth a 6 hour car trip to me. /facepalm.

Not a happy camper.

NoVA Team Tournament Thunder Dome

We talk about this in Episode 81.

Stephen and I want to participate in the Team Tournament on Friday at the NoVA. However, we are going to be short a man. And, we want to know if anyone out there wants to be our 3rd.

We have no intention of taking this team tournament overly seriously. So, if you are looking to win this thing, we're probably not the team for you, not to mention it's Stephen and I... so your team mates aren't exactly awesome to begin with.

Anyways, assuming that more than 1 person wants to be our 3rd team mate, we are thinking about something fun to do to determine the 3rd team mate rather than just a random decision making process.

This will probably devolve into a 40k rendition of the Thunder Dome during the Whiskey Challenge on Thursday. I'm working on the rules for that now.

If you are interested in goofing off for a few minutes on Thursday and in potentially playing with us as a 3rd during the team tournament on Friday, please let me know either in this thread or via e-mail. I want to judge any interest that may exist in doing something like that.

If there isn't any interest, we'll do something else. (assuming anyone even wants to be our 3rd in the team tournament )