Final and Submitted BLOGWARS list

Following the game on Tuesday - a couple of tweaks:

100 Command HQ with 2 Sniper Rifles and an autocannon, officer of the fleet.

105 Infantry HQ with 4 Grenade Launchers and a Chimera

255 3 x Lascannon equipped squads, plus a Commissar with power weapon

165 2 x Autocannon equipped squads plus a Commissar with power weapon

300 5 x Mortar Heavy Weapons Teams

155 Veterans with 3 x Melta and Chimera

85 Rough Riders x 8

120 Armoured Sentinels x 2 with autocannons

125 Devildog, Smoke, Heavy Flamer

125 Basilisk

215 Leman Russ Battle Tank, Lascannon and Pask

I've pulled the lascannon off the Armoured sentinels and gone for some autocannons. 2 extra lascannon shots are nice, but mobile autocannons are a greater threat to light tanks and APC's. I'm expecting a couple of Rhino/Chimelta rushes during the day and those Sentinels will be working their nuts off.

I have also dropped the smoke from the Sentinels - while essential on the hellhound variant, the Sentinels 'should' be moving and firing EVERY turn - making it a wasted 10pts. I've made two change to the command squad, I've dropped the flamer and a sniper and opted for another autocannon. Cheap at the price and it threatens everything. I've also taken that 30pts and invested in an officer of the fleet. -1 to enemy reserves is a must for my army and will force my opponent to consider what he puts in reserve with caution.

I am particularly concerned about flanking flamer tanks (looking at you - Blood Angels) and similar filth. Any chance to disrupt drop pod reserves, flankers is a must for a firebase army like mine.

The die is cast, speaking of which - some chessex dice are required!

BATREP Guard V DEldar: 750 miles to play 1750pts

He's quite scary in a purely EMO might cry on you kinda way...

I drove to Falkirk in Scotland for a job, I had an overnight and as serendipity would have it - it was the gaming night at the local GW store. Multi-win! I turned up with my 1750pts list and played against a very affable young ginger scot!

I was running my tournament list for blogwars, which may be up for some minor modifications post game...:

70 Command HQ with 3 Sniper Rifles and a flamer

105 Infantry HQ with 4 Grenade Launchers and a Chimera

255 3 x Lascannon equipped squads, plus a Commissar with power weapon

165 2 x Autocannon equipped squads plus a Commissar with power weapon

300 5 x Mortar Heavy Weapons Teams

155 Veterans with 3 x Melta and Chimera

85 Rough Riders x 8

150 Armoured Sentinels x 2 with lascannons and smokes

125 Devildog, Smoke, Heavy Flamer

125 Basilisk

215 Leman Russ Battle Tank, Lascannon and Pask

Total: 1750pts

The hansome young Scot called Scott (for want of his real name!) played DEldar and something along these lines:

Baron Samedi and 10 HobGoblins (where ARE the pumpkin bombs?)

Another 10 Hobgoblins

Another 10 Hobgoblins

Another 10 Hobgoblins

A band of 7 birdy things with 3 hobgoblin handlers

A jetbike squad of 5

Another Jetbike 'horde' of 8

3 Ravager (with the 3 darklances)

It was a very fluffy themed list with a wonderful look. It was also bloody fast.

It was a killpoint game with standard 12" deployment, he went first and deployed first.

I decided to get the whole lot on the board.

I stuck Pask, the Chimeltas, the GrenCommand and the Devildog in the centre and then twoblobs far left and far right. Six mortars hid behind Pask, while 2 more went far left and one and a Bassie went far right. The Command HQ went far left with the autocannons (and had very little influence because of this)...

First turn, he loses more guys to dangerous terrain than my shooting. Meanwhile he blows heavy flamers off all my tanks (boo) and immobilises the Chimeltas. Pask takes a drubbing, but fails to hurt anything in return. My mortars miss everything, but manage to mangle up a hobgoblin unit heading for my autocannon horde.

They hit Turn two (they are quite fast). Careful driving mean that the attacks are all thrown in close combat at tanks, with the beasties killing my Chimelta's ride and a hobgoblin horde on the right jumping the lascannons.

He suddenly discovers that charging my hordes is 'bad' as the commissar and dudes on the left lose 12 men to his charge, kill 5 and then shrug it off. He hits and runs rather than sticks. The Veterans and everyone else (including one mortar squad) denudes Baron von Munchhausen of his hobo's and kills all but one birdie swarm. The Basalisk fails to kill anything (again!), but the lascannon horde bite back and chew up their first Ravager.

The Autocannon horde run off and club some jet-bikers to death on mass and then rally to shoot down a surviving Hobgoblin denying a victory point. Pask takes turn after turn of nasty shooting, survives (although a turret destroyed result turns him from a Leman Russ to a Marder II tankhunter), the devildog also kills no-one both soaks up turn after turn of shots. The rough riders killed a single jetbiker.

Overall score 9-2 to me.

The DEldar were a deliciously fluffy list and great fun to fight. They weren't particularly dirty and paid the 'Tau' price once the scatter dice started hitting. That said, I rolled atrociously for the first half of the game and really felt on the back foot until the DEldar 'bounced'... If he'd come after my mortar teams though ... that's like 'free' blood tokens and then this 'easy win' would have been another matter.

Top night though, cheers GW Falkirk.

Layer up! Suneokun's budget approach to big foam boxes...

A Really Useful Box ... does exactly what it says on the tin.

It's a running joke at the club that Suneokun's approach to miniature transport is about varnish more than carry cases. I don't believe in forking out £100's for what effectively is a foam box. They're not efficient for home storage, it takes a hour to extract all your mini's. However, with one eye on the tournament in June "BLOGWARS" ... I'm thinking of upgrading from my current budget storage method - a posh paper bag.

So here's Suneokun's outline on house to transport mini's on a budget.

STEP ONE: Purchase Plasti-kote Clear enamel spray paint

Unlike gloss varnishes, this spray goes on thick and fast ... it's never distorted on me and it's both utterley shiny AND utterley indestructable. The enamel sets hard like a clear bullet proof jacket and has never ever scratched on me. To do a quick 'bullshit' test, I pulled a guardsman and took my nail and firmly scratched the surface. I got below the paint after the 7-8 scratch ... on plastic - that's pretty good.

STEP TWO: Purchase Army Painter Dullcote

Now you can choose to leave your little men shiny - it looks great on Nids, Tau, Marines and others. It really pops. However if you prefer 'true-colour' (and it sucks for photos) get some 'Armypainter matt varnish' or "Dullcote'. Now this is a spray to spray carefully ... don't stick it to them like the Plasti-cote or you might get misting and other nasty effects (note the advantage of the plasti-cote!) Now you've got double layered toughened glass mother-humping miniatures.

STEP THREE: Purchase a Really Useful Box
Rymans have released a fantastic range of 'really useful boxes' and they well are. I was like a kid in a candy store trying to think through my useful box and what would fit in it. My BLOGWARS list (1750pts) fits neatly inside a 9L (Blue - classy!) box with a in built pencil tray (that holds all my dudes) for £8.49. It's awesome.

It's a bit pedantic, but the pencil tray has also allowed me to split my squads into the different trays ... allowing for easy extraction ... that reminds me - I must number the trays (only kidding - but not!)

They are also available at Argos and elsewhere.

Conclusion

So that's it ... nothing fancy. But I just spent £20.09 and my case is smaller and more convenient than yours, plus my models can fall off buildings (and even tables) and I don't cry... it's the way forward. Additionally, I don't need a 'display table' on top of my carry box, as this simple solution does both - and I can quickly decant the dead back into their units.

GW ... Doomed?!?

MONEYMONEYMONeymoneymoneymoneymoneym........ oh f**k!

Watched this the other day:

Business Nightmares with Evan Davis.

It charted the demise of Gerald Ratner's Empire, the iphone4 curfuffle, Hoover's demise in the UK and other embaressing stories. Learn from the past GW...

There comes a moment when GW need to understand that they need to run a leaner and more efficient organisation. Their current approach smacks of a utility company. The oil prices increase, so petrol prices increase, the oil prices decrease, so petrol prices increase...

I'm concerned that for such a large but fragile company, they are playing with fire. The inherent value of the GW brand is in the time, investment and effort placed in it by it's customers. GW is worth something because we believe it is.

The strength of the strategy is that it's tricky (and potentially profitable) to put a price tag on belief ... just ask Rome. As Gerald Ratner found out, all you need is one 'crap' comment and the whole house of cards falls around your head.

Imperial Guard, Orks and Tyranids have been the epoch of an established, commited and well funded gamer since pre 5th Edition release. Ironically, the only release I'm excited about coming up is the Tau release BECAUSE I already have a Tau army. I'll spend £50 on some new toys and have a blast rebuilding my army and reading new fluff.

Is that what GW want? The prices are too high for the old guard to do more than 'cherry pick' and too huge for the noobs to swallow? So what's the plan?

GW creaks of market leader arrogance, over employing, overpaid, over confident and over the hill ... meanwhile efficient orgs like Hordes, Warmachine, Malifaux, Cutlass and Infinity are able to demonstrate their value and ease of accessibility compared to 40k.

And don't give me gaff about 'quality' or 'the finest' ... All of above lines have actually got NICER models than yours GW for the same or less. And don't pimp your rules/fluff as the be all - Your rules 'vary' shall we say, and anyone with BOTH Black Libary Bliss and Forgeworld Imperial Armour Shite Writing in the canon needs some serious Quality Control addressingshipness innit (line taken from IA6 - the shafting of the english language)!

WhiteDwarf is now just a marketing mag, where it used to be a funny and useful resource (and half the price) ... independent stores, forums and blogs online is where it's at and it's leaving GW flagging. Even before this price hike I'd noticed a significant rise in posts on 'other games' ... Hordes and Warmachine have been doing well on Bells. But Icunoblog (I can never spell it) is pimping Malifaux, myself and others have found Infinity a delight and I'm getting into cutlass...

The gravy train's plowed into toffee ...
When's GW gonna smell the coffee ...
When its far far too late ...
and love's turned to hate.

The beggining of the end?

Peace out ... LOLz.

Combating Real life (TM)

It's a REALLIFE (TM) Hot-Dog ... oh but that's just so hilarious ... who would have thought of that ... SHOOT ME NOW!

Real Life (TM) ... annoying how it gets in the way, isn't it. Work has gone supremely bonkers for this week and last week and with a holiday looming (coming down your end again Drax!) in mid June ... I'm struggling to find room between all the fence painting DIY, table building, IT supporting, car booting, cocktail shaking oh and yeah ... quoting, supplying, servicing, installing and commissioning at work.

My family's gotta fit somewhere in all that mix as well ... but a challenge is a challenge. To recap, I'm under obligation to spruce up my Guardsmen ready for BlogWars on the 5th June.

• I spent a fortune (a whole £8) in the local stationary store on an awesome army box with built in pen tray (which fits all my dudes above my tanks ...FTW!)
• I've converted Pask with multi-pistol blasting action ... but my 2YO son broke him ... 1 night to finish him and his tank.
• I've based all the normal dudes ... some touching up is required ... 1 night.
• Basing all the Heavy weapons teams ... 1 night.
• Sexing up the HWTs... 1 night.
• converting the tanks ... bombs on the Basilisk, etc etc... 2 nights.
• Sexing up the tanks ... 2 nights.

So that's eight nights work to get together ... if I can find the energy, I effective have 14 days to do this in.

So the objective this week ... tart up the boys, finish Pask and convert the tanks.

Calling all treadheads...

Just a quick post to explain where my life is fast dissapearing to ... only kidding! As relayed to you all before - I work at home, and away from an office I don't have to spend precious minutes talking to people I detest (sorry ... 'work' with) about their weekend/personal hygene/latest conquest/investment failures etc... as such this leaves more than enough time to have a go at cool things on the tinterweb.

The rule of playing games online for the home-worker is simple. You want something really really good that only lasts for 5-10 minutes. 15 tops. Anything over this is an immersive game and a real no, no.

Now don't get me wrong, part of the joy of running your own company is that sometimes you've 'earnt' that time. Big sale, tough week work ... we all leech downtime - but as a self-employed that little box in the back of your head is gonna start ticking...

Where's this going ... well online games can be short and sweet, or they can be ongoing addictive things.

This, ladies and gentlemanishly people is an absolute gem though - World of Tanks.

It's free, you get shunted into balanced games where you'll (firstly) die a lot and then you'll start upgrading you tank (XP and money) with research and guns. All the tanks are WW2 and the battlegrounds are SWEEEET. Each game last maximum of 15 minutes and I usually die 5-10 minutes in (although I once was the last one left by hiding in a bush!)...



I've got a T2 (which is shite, but has a big gun) at the moment and I'm working towards a Sherman - sweet!

Come and find Suneokun at World of Tanks.

LIST: Wacky Tyranid List!

Ok, so this is a little outside the box, but bare with me...

90 Prime, 2x Boneswords
90 Prime, 2x Boneswords
110 Venomthrope x 2
150 HiveGuard x 3
150 HiveGuard x 3
195 Tervigon (AG and TS), Catalyst
195 Tervigon (AG and TS), Catalyst
50 Gaunts x 10
50 Gaunts x 10
90 Rippers x 9
60 Spore Mines x 6
60 Spore Mines x 6
60 Spore Mines x 6
135 Biovore x 3
135 Biovore x 3
135 Biovore x 3

18 Spore Mine Clusters get deployed before your opponent regardless of who goes first ... this gives you the opportunity to completely mess with their deployment in Dawn of War as they cannot set up within 18" of you. So you can potentially force them towards you or off the board entirely. In Spearhead, your spores can form a distraction within the ranks, or a cover save for your approaching troops. This also gives you ploys for dealing with reserves by parking near the edge.

After this the Biovores will hit anything in the open with S4 pinning big blasts... which can quickly add up. Misses are MORE SPORE MINES floating about.

The Primes escort the Hive Guard Forward, pumped with FNP from the Tervigons and gaining a 5+ from the Venomthropes... The tervigons mass produce while the barrage continues.

It's not pretty, it probably wouldn't work - but it would be more chaotic than anything i've ever seen!

"Why do you bring baggage to my Apoc game - fool!"

If you have a scan down my Batrep history, you'll see a bunch of posts for some big-ass APOC games. Now I'm a pretty sound guy to have on your team for Apocalypse. After all, I'm a fairly solid macro tactician, I like a giggle and I'm usually laughing too hard at what my stupid Guardsmen/Tau/Chaos Smurfs are doing today.

So we had a small APOC game (6k a side) set up for Sunday. Mark has considerately put together the concept of using spearhead formations in combination with the standard list to 'limit' the amount of overpowered shite on the board. We could all take 1 superheavy. We could all take tankhunters and stuff like that ... it was a very solid idea and worth stealing people.

Now we'd made the mistake of playing on a Sunday which is like open season down the club. This means that POPLAR (not his real name) turns up ... which is cool, and we quickly work at accomodating him.

He's on my side with Foot Eldar, to compliment Marks Mech Eldar and my mixed Guard. So Mark and I strip out 500pts each from our lists and the Chaosmarines we're facing get a Warhound Titan - standard stuff.

No problem. We've all agreed the deployment, we win deployment and I discuss with Mark and we opt to go first (they steal initiative with a DEldar 4+)...

POPLAR - A background

I've had lots of chats with 'poplar' before and he seems like a sound guy. He's got his hangups, a mite pedantic and with the tension to go for a condensending tone - but overall, he's good. He knows his WW2 stuff inside out, and as a fairly keen WW2 anorak I really enjoyed chatting with him before, I've even played alongside him and he was fine before - I mean he's not like a barrel of laughs and he tends to pick every fight rather than just the one's he's right about - but that's ok. Something happened on the way to the gamestore on Sunday though ... and I'm struggling to forgive it.

...And then...

Then the sighs begin. Before we've even started the game, Pat's sighing. He's complaining that he's gonna get nuked on turn one because his footdar are in the open. (Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight - what did he expect?!? The irony being that the DEldar/Berserker quite happily massacred all the Elder in close combat ... and hence why they hit my lines with FNP!)

He's complaining that I'm pointing out that he can't put his footdar down where he wants because our (Mark and My) tanks are in the way, and so he has to put them in the 'non' deployment zone - which he can't... He's complaining about, well everything...

In short, he's being a douche. I now intimately know what that word means.

The game starts and a mechanised assault attacks his guardians. It's DEldar and they were born to it. He starts folding (and wittering and whinging) and frankly getting on my wick. To make it worse he's contesting every law abiding assertion. I'm interjecting with appropriate one's like "Did you make that out of cover?", "You get a cover save." etc and he's just wringing his hands and making his own bad bad luck.

At this point we should have taken him aside and said 'put up or shut up' but we didn't because we're English...

And so it continues. My guard mortars and basilisks and everything have nearly nothing to shoot at because the Eldar are getting very slowly eaten by DEldar and WorldEaters and everything is in combat! I knock out his armour pretty much turn 1-2. Mark shuts down his heavy hitters and 'he' continues to die badly against warriors in raiders.

Anyhow. End story, we lose. But six hours of his constant complaining, bitching, whinging (I'm not rolling until they listen to me - no shit he said this!) and shouting has run me ragged. I would rather turn around and walk away - back to my kids and wife - than spend another 6 hours in the company of that douchebag.

He didn't even have the decency to apologise for acting like a complete grinch the entire 6 hours.

At one point I had the following bizarre conversation:

Him "They're gonna kill them and then consolidate - it's useless!"
ME "No, its great, cause then you just shoot them"
Him "NO, because they'll consolidate into them."
ME "##NAME##, it's FIFTH edition, they can't consolidate into combat with another of your units ... so it's good, yeah?!?"
Him "Oh..." returns to sulk-mode.

So, no I didn't enjoy my all day Sunday game, because of the behaviour of one guy who selfishly decided to bring all his home problems to the table well, just be miserable.

The positives...

That said, I did play 1750pts of my core army, which is going to go to Mansfield for the Blogwars and it performed admirably. Pask works, he missed his lascannon every turn, but the S9 Battlecannon is very nice. The 'clumps' worked well (although they lacked a good close combat edge ... but I was charged by Wytches, Incubi and Lesser Deamons in a single turn and they held it together. The Devildog is great... attracting lots of attention and threatening everything. I just need to work out what to do with my vets/platoon command and use them aggressively or reserve them.

But hey, this wasn't a real game...

The only question-marks were the lack of a close combat threat beyond roughriders ... and whether lascannons on the Sentinels are really worth it. After all - autocannons are awesome against rhinos ... but I think lascannons give me more targetting flexibility for punking heroes, obliterators and other things like that!

Guard might be able to exploit some options in Spearhead, but the combo of mechanised assault (three units first turn flank) AND sky storm (deep strike skimmers and assault off them) is just pure murder for the Dark Eldar... making them seriously powerful.

The mortars were awesome. The best APOC level purchase - The Stormsword was a revelation! A S10 AP1 pieplate that ignores cover. It killed absolutely everything - leaving 1's and 2's of a unit straggling along. We just couldn't kill them.

So all in all, my Sunday would have been a tighter game, a closer game and a funnier game without the addition of the 'on the day' guy. It would also have been an enjoyable game.

Grrrr....

What's your experience of playing alongside or against players like this... have you been caught in an APOC trap like this? Let me know...

Stylish Blogger ... who me?

Passing something forward is all about sharing the love. The 40k Blogosphere is a small and mettled place. My 'Darling' Drax has said some nice things about me and put me at the top of his list ... warm fuzzy glow time boys - look away! As such, part and parcel of the ole Viral spam is to pay the compliment forward and make sure everytone knows who's getting the love from Suneokun (yeah, like a damn dog humping your leg!)...

So first up the bio, Seven things about me:

1. I run my own company in very serious stuff.
2. I work very hard from home (and hence blogging is brilliant!).
3. I have two kids (2&3) and got married to their beautiful mother in a marquee last year.
4. I have an 1975 'lightweight' military landrover.
5. I drive 30k+ miles a year (clearly not in the antique landie ... that would be silly and somewhat pricey)
   
6. I studied International Relations (which is like advanced pub talk) at University - don't get me started on global politics!
7. I've been told that I am an amazing dancer (I have a lot of confidence on the dancefloor) ... I CAN salsa as well ... but can never remember the cool funky moves I''ve been taught.
   

In a highly intentional order is the following:

1. Anton @ The Anarchy of Anton: My partner in blogging crime in the Leicestershire area and a biblical painter with a busy life, too much free cash and a 'plastic crack' habit to shame all. Check him out. A sharer of my secret identity.
   
2. Ras (Ah Gul - obviously) @ The Deathworlders ... another convert to the crime of converting the world to All Infantry Guard sporting shed loads of mortars ... FTW. Spectacular painter and top bloke, he's writing better than some of those colonials out there - in his second language.
   
3. Sholto @ Incunablog: a surefire source of Tau and Malifaux goodness, he's also a bit of a charmer on the responses.
4. Old Shatter Hands at the Tau of War. Not only has he taught me more hands down about playing Tau, but he's also got into Infinity - good man! He writes a mean article and his blogs dead pretty.
5. A big shout out to Darkwing @ Arcadia Prime ... he's taken a bit of a backseat from 40k, but his is still one of the best back catalogues of 40k batreps and tactics out there.
6. Allie @ Hyperbole and a Half: Off the beaten track and totally surreal. This very attractive young woman writes frankly some of the funniest stories ... no 40k - but just genius. If it appeals and makes you laugh - log her, she's real value.
7. Graeme @ Graeme's Fantasy Book Review - has a reading life I envy. He holds one of the best back-catalogues of Black Library reviews around and I'm yet to be disspointed by his recommendations. I also won a book from one of his giveaways - yeah!
8. Danny Internets at Bald and Screaming, he writes really smart articles. He's popular enough, but I'm never dissapointed with his material. Top notch.
9. JabberJabber at Warpstone Flux, he's a really nice guy, but has a cunning plan ... he writes monthly armylist challenges - I've won a few and thoroughly enjoy the interesting ideas he comes up with. Great guy too.
10. Finally Adam @ Warhammer Tau, another guy who's gone into retirement until the new codex is released ... but a fab blog nonetheless.

Go check them out ... one and all!

Look what I found hiding on Titan!

OMMFG it's a Grey Knight APOC level Titan

Oh ... you could have some real fun with this mini... I'm thinking 2 Structure Points with three void shields, AV 13,13,12. D Weapon Sword and Vulcan Mega Bolter (with Psybolt Ammo) ... plus some funky Aegis ability and a teleport 'shunt'... Oooooo gooey sensation...


Clickity click on the SHEER AWESOMENESS!

1750pt BlogWars List ... the final flavour (?)

As 'The Fang' has reminded me... I have barely a month left to get my list together. My objectives in order of priority are as follows:

A) Have a kick ass list of all the stuff no-one ever takes - check!
B) Take a brush, inks and a whole lotta love to my old models and tart them up for BlogWars.
C) Kill lots of people with units and tactics they just did not expect.
D) Make unsmelly friends ... who needs more smelly ones??

With this in mind and a deadline ... I announce another challenge! Do it all in a month.

Should be ok.

Here's the skinny list:

70 Command HQ with 3 Sniper Rifles and a flamer
105 Infantry HQ with 4 Grenade Launchers and a Chimera
255 3 x Lascannon equipped squads, plus a Commissar with power weapon
165 2 x Autocannon equipped squads plus a Commissar with power weapon
300 5 x Mortar Heavy Weapons Teams
155 Veterans with 3 x Melta and Chimera
85 Rough Riders x 8
150 Armoured Sentinels x 2 with lascannons and smokes
125 Devildog, Smoke, Heavy Flamer
125 Basilisk
215 Leman Russ Battle Tank, Lascannon and Pask

Total: 1750pts

Tactics: this is my take on a modern foot list... this list is all about the mortars. It may look like its actually about antitank, but really they are just about getting everybody out of their rides. The antitank has the potential to glance/penetrate 7 armoured units a turn ... then its about the mortars putting the hurt on the opponent. Anything that gets close will need to deal with veterans, Roughriders and command HQ's. There's no 'Deathstar' unit on board, but that's not how I roll. The two armoured sentinels replace the 3 scouts ... but the additional durability AND the ability to step up and ward off close combat troops cannot be ignored.

So, now on with the painting - I got all the models out last night and carefully 'dullcoted' them to take off their trademark shininess. Inks to be picked up this weekend and then its on with the work. Wish me luck!?!