Retrospective: Cold Wars WAB Tournament, 11-12 March 2011 (Intro)

The Northeastern Warhammer Ancients community has started to splinter somewhat with the arrival of the new 2nd edition of the ruleset – some long-time members of the community have been unhappy with the changes to the rules, while others have taken to the new rules with few complaints.  This 2011 Cold Wars was an opportunity for the two ‘sides’ to reach a sort of working compromise on the issue – those favoring the 1e rules (as well as those looking for a change of pace) flocked to the English Civil War tournament, while the remaining few who showed up at this low-turnout event played in the fully 100% anachronistic, not-at-all historically accurate Ancients/Medievals combined tournament.

Of course, before the shenanigans on Saturday (12 March), there was the traditional evening doubles tournament to start off the festivities.  Unlike in previous years, I already had a partner for the doubles in advance – fellow Warmonger Ancients gamer (and fellow prenomen) Ken P, fielding his Arthurian Saxon army.

Retrospective: 6-8 August 2010 Counteroffensive VII (Intro)

You can also read coverage of this event at the Jungle, from the perspective of Sho-T (Pat) and Justiciar (Bryan):

  

I had been very excited about this particular counteroffensive event, and put together no less than four (!) army lists for the event, based on any number of crazy 40K army ideas that have been percolating over the years.  The Usual Suspects had agreed on 1750 point army lists, and so I brought along:

(A) A Space Marine Dreadnought Bash.

(B) A Slann (space lizard!) army list, using Tau rules.

(C) A classic-miniature Tyranid Warrior list.

(D) My "Swinging Sixties" Sisters of Battle list.

Retrospective: Warmonger Charity WAB Tournament: 29 January 2011 (Intro)

The third annual Warmonger Charity tournament to benefit the American Cancer Society, organized by our local Warhammer Ancients fanatic and condottiero John Bianchi, was held on 29 January 2010.  One could also think of it as another fine excuse for me to field my (mostly finished) Nubian historical army, and to play a version of Warhammer Fantasy that actually doesn’t suck most mightily (and which is within a reasonable price-range for a full army), all whilst introducing myself to an anachronistic array of historical opponent from virtually every period of human history.

The Nubians are the third of my WAB armies, and by far the most random, relying as they do almost entirely on the hitting power of elephants, which are unpredictable creatures even at the best of times.  When things work, they tend to work great.  When they don’t, it’s either a brutal loss (for me) or a long, slow, grinding tie game (also fairly common).  And because the elephants are so not maneuverable at all, I can easily lose a game in the deployment phase.  Still, practice makes permanents, and the more practice I get with the Nubians, the better I (hopefully) can be with them.

8-9 July 2010 Historicon Warhammer Ancients Tournaments (Intro)

This review of my games at Historicon 2010 will be somewhat different than normal.  Instead of writing individual battle reports for all my games, I’ll do a more general overview of my results, and what I learned while playing.  I’m doing this for two reasons:

(a) I was playing a completely new army list, and completely new army, using unit types I’ve never fielded before in Ancients games.  As a result, I don’t know that a detailed analysis provided by me would be terribly useful.

(b) I have enormous difficulty writing up battle reports for games that I didn’t much enjoy.  This is not to say that I had no fun at all, but let’s just say that one person cheated, one person was a bully, one person was both, and one other surprisingly lacking in social graces.  This meant that the games with the several other gamers I played with were somewhat overshadowed as a result, although I did have good fun with several quality opponents.

22 May 2010 “Planet Urr-Ass” Warmonger 40K Tournament (Intro)

Having been looking forward to a ‘local’ tournament (Big Apple) at my ‘home’ club (the Warmongers) for a number of months now, I tweaked my existing Sisters of Battle lists, and put together an 1850-point force for the patently silly “Defense of Planet Urr-Ass” tournament.  This variant keeps the ‘core’ of nine Immolators, filled with meltas, flamers, and an Inquisitor Lord (with more meltas!), adds a few extra flamers, and includes a little long-range supporting fire in the form of nine IG Autocannon teams (in various units).  It’s a pretty nasty ‘all-comers’ list, or at least intended to be, and gives me a ton of Objective-holding units, as well as some long-range vehicle-busting firepower to support my primary focus of heavy close-range firepower.

What did I bring?

• Demonhunter Inquisitor Lord with Tarot, Psychic Hood, and BP+CCW, with retinue of 2 Mystics and 3 Meltagun Veterans
• Canoness with Book, Eviscerator, and Bolt Pistol, with one unit of Celestians (see next)
• 4x 5 Celestians (including 2 Meltaguns, and Krinophora with BP+CCW)
• 2x 5 Dominions (including 4 Flamers, and Krinophora with Brazier & BP)
• 2x 5 Adeptus (Stormtroopers with Shotguns, including 2 Meltaguns)
• 9x Immolators with Smoke Launchers (6 are dedicated transports)
• 1x 5 Inducted Infantry Platoon Command (2 Snipers, Autocannon team)
• 2x 10 Inducted Infantry Squad (Autocannon team)
• 2x 3 Heavy Weapons Team (3x Autocannon teams)

24 April 2010 FrAG (Frederick Area Gamers) Tournament (Intro)

The fine gentlemen of the Frederick Area Gamers were putting together another small-scale tournament in Glen Burnie, Maryland, and having had a long series of very positive tournament experiences with the Maryland crews, I was looking forward to another geat series of games.  Based on feedback from their tournament the previous month (in March), the FrAG guys chose to lower the points value for this tournament slightly, to 1850 points, to keep games moving a little faster.  Although I had done remarkably little work on my Slann (Tau Empire proxy) army in the months since I had used it last, I decided this was a fine time to debut the Slightly Modified And Updated (with Kroot!) army list.

The most significant changes this list sees at 1850 points are as follows: I have traded out 44 Fire Warriors (and several upgrades), for a Hammerhead, for Missile-Pod/Plasma-Rifle combinations on the Crisis Suits, and for two mid-sized units of Kroot with Hounds.  In other words, this means a moderate downgrade in S5 firepower (albeit from very static units), in exchange for more high-strength firepower and more effective screen/sacrificial units.  It also meant that I would be using the converted Chronopia Lizardmen models that got me interested in creating a 40K Slann army in the first place – but I just hadn’t found a good use for Kroot in 4th edition, and hadn’t gotten around to trying them in a 5th edition game yet.  Now was the chance to see what they could do!

What did I bring?

• Third Servant (Shas’el) with Missile Pod, Plasma, Multi, Target-Lock, Blacksun Filter, and Target Array.
• 2x 3-suit Rangers (Crisis Suits) with Missile Pod, Plasma, and Multi-tracker.
  
• 2x 8-model Braves (Fire Warriors), with Ld8 upgrade
• 2x 10-model Slann Warrior-Philosophers (Kroot), plus 4 Hounds each unit
• 2x 8-model Scouts (Pathfinders), with Ld8 upgrade, in Transports with D-Pod, Flechette, and Multi
  
• 2x 2-model Hornsuits (Broadsides) with Target Array, plus one model with Blacksun and 2 Shield Drones
• Quasar-class Stonecruiser (Hammerhead) with Railgun, Smart Missiles, D-Pod, Target Lock, and Multi

27 March 2010 FrAG (Frederick Area Gamers) Tournament (Intro)

The 3167th is a “Revenant” regiment, nominally part of a Necromundan founding (and indeed, the largest single portion of the regiment is the several platoons of Underhive gangers that still makes up its infantry core), but consisting of orphaned squads and platoons from dozens of different, nearly annihilated Imperial Guard units.  As a result, the regiment is a constantly changing hodge-podge of traditions, uniforms, equipment, and units, but nevertheless an effective fighting unit due to the experience of the battle-hardened survivors that make up its highly diverse ranks.

3167th Necromunda “Revenants” (2000 pts)

• Company Commander with Fleet Officer, Standard, 2 Bodyguards
• 2x Platoon Command with 2 Meltas, each in Chimera with turret Heavy Flamer
• 6x IG Infantry squads (3 per platoon) – 3xMissile, 2xLascannon, 1xAutocannon
• 4x Autocannon Heavy Weapon Squads
• x3 Scout Sentinels with Autocannon (in squadron)
• Hellhound
• Exterminator with three Heavy Bolters and Pask
• 2x Executioner with Plasma sponsons and hull Lascannon

What did I bring?
After having fielded a basically unpainted Sisters of Battle army in two successive tournaments, I decided to change things up for this FrAG tournament.  It’s much nicer for opponents to face a fully painted army, after all.  My initial thought was to field a re-worked Slann (proxy Tau Empire) army list, with fewer Fire Warriors and with some converted Kroot and Piranhas making up the extra points, but I ran into a problem: I just didn’t have the desire to finish the painting in time.  Oh well.

Fortunately, I have several fully painted armies, including over 6,000 points of fully painted Imperial Guardsmen – I’ve been playing Warhammer 40K for a  looooong time, and Imperial Guard has been my army of choice for many years.  So I dug around my collection and threw together a list that (a) had all the autocannons I owned, shoe-horned into it, (b) was infantry heavy, and yet still (c) easy enough to transport and set-up without worrying too much about finding enough cover for every model.

20 February 2010 Inner Circle High Stakes Jamboree and Pancake Breakfast (Intro)

What did I bring?
The Inner Circle Gaming Club was putting together something they called a “Pancake Breakfast Tournament” at Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD.  With a name like that I knew I was going to have to go and check out what was happening, and with 2000 points to put together a 40K army, it was going to be a few nights of modeling just to put together the units I thought I would like to field.

Taking a page from YTTH, the following is a variation of the Sisters of Battle “Immolator Spam” list I had used at the previous Inner Circle tournament.  At the time, I had noticed several things about the army I had been using that made me want to upgrade its capabilities:

Retrospective: 17 July 2009 Historicon WAB Medievals (Intro)

Events had conspired to make it impossible for me to attend the annual historical miniature gamer geekfest known as Historicon for several years, and I had been itching to get back into Warhammer Ancient Battles for a while. I had also been putting the ‘finishing touches’ on an army of Medieval Burgundy for over half-a-dozen years, and this looked like the perfect opportunity to finally finish painting the last few units of my force.

Medieval Burgundy was, at the height of its power in the 1400’s AD, basically the northeastern part of what is now France (Bourgogne and Alsace-Lorraine), plus most of Belgium, Luxemburg, and the Netherlands (and a sliver of what is now the western part of Germany). It was in effect a powerful independent nation that came into regular conflict with France (to whom it was technically a vassal), and even allied with England against France during the Hundred Years’ War.

Warmonger Charity WAB Tournament: 30 January 2010 (Intro)

Organized by local Warhammer Ancients fanatic and condottiero John Bianchi, and run by Warmonger Club President-for-Life Jim Keleher himself, the Warmonger Charity tournament on 30 January 2010 was the second annual tournament, and put together to benefit the American Cancer Society. It was also an excuse for historical WAB gamers to travel to New York City and gather for a day at the Compleat Strategist basement – on what turned out to be one of the coldest days of the winter. With a beautiful array of armies from almost every period in the WAB game, this was going to be an entertaining series of ahistorical battles.

Although I’ve many grandiose plans, I’ve currently only two WAB armies, and by far prefer my Burgundians to my Dacians – thus it was my Burgundians that showed up that day. It’s an army list that I’ve had a good deal of practice with, and was I was feeling fairly confident about how they would do that day.

Retrospective: 1 August 2009 Counteroffensive VI (Intro)

After having missed the previous two of the Millenium Gate forum’s Counteroffensive events at Dream Wizards in Maryland, I was really looking forward to making it to the 2009 event. Unlike previous years, I brought only one army list, but in an astounding change-of-pace, that army was (mostly!) painted – my “Slann” themed Tau Empire list.

In this retrospective, I look at some of the opponents I faced, and some of the lessons I learned, playing with the Tau Empire rules in 5th edition.

What did I bring?
I played several 1500 point games, and one 2000-point game. My 2000-point army list can be found here, but for 1500 points I simply removed one Hammerhead, one unit of Fire Warriors, and one unit of Broadsides. I also made room for Flechette Dischargers on the Devilfish for my first game against Kenton, by removing several Leadership upgrades to my Troops choices.

• HQ: “Fourth Servant” Shas’el with Missile, Airburst, Flamer, Target Lock, Multi
• Elite: 3x “Ranger” Crisis Suits with Twin-Missile and Flamer
• Elite: same
  
  
• Troop: 12x “Brave” Fire Warriors with Shas’ui (Ld8) upgrade
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
  
  
• Fast: 8x “Scout” Pathfinders with Shas’ui (Ld8) and Bonding upgrades, in Devilfish transport with D-Pods
• Fast: same
  
  
• Heavy: 2x “Hornsuit” Broadsides with Target Arrays, 1x T-lock, and 2 Shield Drones

12 December 2009 Inner Circle Holiday Beatdown (Intro)

What did I bring?
I’ve had a large number of Sisters of Battle models (and vehicles) for some years now; back during the 4th edition days, I used them as a primarily foot-slogging force chock-full of Faith Points (see that old-school list at The Jungle). With the advent of 5e, the foot-slogging armies are no longer as viable, and after spending most of a year focusing primarily on my Slann-themed Tau army, I was ready for a change of pace. And boy, is this list below ever a change of pace!

• HQ: Inquisitor Lord with Psychic Hood, Hammer of Witches, Liber Heresius, BP/CCW; retinue of Veteran + Melta (x2) and Chirurgeon
• HQ: Palatine with Book of St. Lucius, BP/CCW; retinue of 5 Celestians with 2 Meltas; Immolator with Smoke
  
  
• Elite: 5 Celestians with 2 Meltas in an Immolator with Smoke
• Elite: same
• Elite: same
  
  
• Troop: 10 Battles with Veteran with Book of St. Lucius, Heavy Flamer, Melta, in Rhino with Smoke
• Troop: same
  
  
• Fast: 5 Dominions with 2 Flamers in an Immolator with Smoke
• Fast: same
• Fast: same
  
  
• Heavy: Immolator with Smoke
• Heavy: same
• Heavy: same

This 1850 point list concept comes courtesy of YTTH, and is based primarily around the concept of spamming as many Immolators as possible: 10 in this list, with two Rhinos as well. It has literally no long-range firepower (the longest-range weapon in the army is a bolter), and requires that you get really up-close and personal in order to function, as I discovered over the course of the tournament. However, what it does have, it has in spades – a ton of really cheap units and transports that are effectively interchangeable (and to some extent, disposable), a ton of S5 flamer templates, a lot of speed, and now with 5e, units that can “hop-scotch” from vehicle to vehicle as needed.

And, because I really got to despise psychic powers whilst playing with Tau army lists, this list is about as anti-psychic-power as you can make: a Psychic Hood on a Ld10 Inquisitor that can cover the whole table (as opposed to the new 24” Marine version), plus Hammer of the Witches psychic power, plus the inherent 5+ Sororitas save against psychic powers. That and the heavy mechanization pretty much shuts down most psychic silliness before it can even start.

But this was all theory-hammer, because I’d never played with this list, or this configuration, before. With enough models and miniatures to pull it off, however, I put together conversions in my spare time, primed the vehicles (and some of the models that needed it) the night before, and me and my grey-primer-colored army was ready to roll.

7 November 2009 Woodbridge NJ Tournament (Intro)

What did I bring?
I brought 1850 points of my “Slann”-themed Tau Empire army again – lots of little Tau models and suits, with lizard heads and other modest conversions here and there.

• HQ: “Fourth Servant” Shas’el with Missile, Airburst, Flamer, Target Lock, Multi
  
  
• Elite: 3x “Ranger” Crisis Suits with Twin-Missile and Flamer
• Elite: same
  
  
• Troop: 12x “Brave” Fire Warriors with Shas’ui (Ld8) upgrade and Bonding
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
  
  
• Fast: 8x “Scout” Pathfinders with Shas’ui (Ld8) and Bonding upgrades, in Devilfish transport with D-Pods
• Fast: same
  
  
• Heavy: 2x “Hornsuit” Broadsides with Target Arrays, 1x T-lock, and 2 Shield Drones
• Heavy: same

For this tournament, I had pretty much finished painting the army list I had been putting together for some years now. I’ve a few ideas (and models) to further expand my list, but what is here works pretty well in most games – enough firepower to stop (and clean up against) most opponents. The Pathfinders not only make the heavier units more accurate, but provide transports to give some of the scoring Troops choices more mobility. That said, this is probably the last time I field the Slann in this particular configuration, as it’s clear that there are certain inefficiencies in the force above that can’t be fixed without a rather significant redesign of the army list.

17 October 2009 FRAGtoberfest Tournament (Intro)

Mike (aka St. Omerville) of the Frederick Area Gamers had invited a bunch of the denizens of the Millenium Gate forums down to Maryland for the weekend, for a 4-game, 2000 point 40K tournament at the Glen Burnie Battle Bunker. What follows is a short series of entries about the games that I played.

What did I bring?
I brought my “Slann”-themed Tau Empire army – lots of little Tau models and suits, with lizard heads and other modest conversions here and there. The fluff itself comes from the original Rogue Trader (40K v1.0) book, way back in the day, and the army was inspired by a conversation I had years ago with Wandering1 (aka The Tactical Parrot) from the forums.

• HQ: “Fourth Servant” Shas’el with Missile, Airburst, Flamer, Target Lock, Multi
  
  
• Elite: 3x “Ranger” Crisis Suits with Twin-Missile and Flamer
• Elite: same
  
  
• Troop: 12x “Brave” Fire Warriors with Shas’ui (Ld8) upgrade
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
• Troop: same
  
  
• Fast: 8x “Scout” Pathfinders with Shas’ui (Ld8) and Bonding upgrades
  In Devilfish transport with D-Pods
• Fast: same
  
  
• Heavy: 2x “Hornsuit” Broadsides with Target Arrays, 1x T-lock, and 2 Shield Drones
• Heavy: same
• Heavy: “Stoneship” Hammerhead with Railgun, D-Pod, Multitracker, and Target lock

This is essentially the finished version of my list, at 2000 points (the addition of the Hammerhead is the main difference between this and the 1850 point list). There will undoubtedly be some more tweaking and refitting of units, but the overall dimensions of the army are pretty much established, as are the core models and corresponding conversions. I’ve enough models (and points) to field an Apocalypse list of 3000 points if necessary, but some of the units (Stealthsuits, for example) are currently “in storage”, as the 5th edition rules are not very kind to them.

Warmonger Club 40K Tournament (19 Sept 2009): Overview

I brought my 1850 point Slann army (basically, converted Lizardmen-esque Tau Empire list), with the following configuration: 7 Crisis Suits (all with Missile Pod and Flamer), 2x2 Broadsides with Shield Drones, 5x12 Fire Warriors with Ld8, 2x8 Pathfinders with Fish

I learned a number of things in this tournament: first, that my Slann (Tau) list does exactly what I designed it to do: sacrifice throwaway units to keep opponents away from my gunline, and shred enemies quite handily. Second, that the 5th edition rules no longer allow me to do that and win the game. I nearly tabled two opponents, and still ended up losing because of objectives, and the lack-of-resilience of my Troops units. Plus, using my Troops as sacrificial throwaways didn’t help…

It looks like the Slann (Tau) will have to rather dramatically retool. I think I’ll be doing this as a long-term project over the next year or so, given the different time commitments I have, but having been pointed in several directions, I find that I’m convinced by the army construction advice given by Stelek at http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com

In short, to modify my existing philosophy somewhat, by relying more heavily on Elites and Heavies, and shifting the sizable chunk of Troops points to more effective sacrificial units (Kroot), and to aim to table or near-table opponents and simply nab objectives in the late game with minimal-sized Fire Warrior units who are lurking in Reserve at the start of the game (they would load into a Devilfish when they first show up).

In the meantime, I went 0-1-2 in the tournament (1 tie, 2 losses), and have some incentive to finish painting the list – at long last, after literally years – because I’m planning to attend another tournament in November ’09. I think I’ll play the same list there that I did here, and try out some table-top adjustments rather than army-list adjustments. I expect to get massacred, but it’ll continue to be a learning experience!