Wot was that? ::shank::

Hey, everybody. Sorry I've insanely busy with life and work. But I have had a chance lately to do some projects. I took a quick break to play in a doubles 40K tourney. My buddy and I ended up winning for the second year in a row. His sisters, my Tau. Crazy fun times.

Our last game was with a team of two ork players. One of the best games I've had of 40K in a while. It inspired me to get back into 40K a little, but don't worry. Fantasy is still getting the majority of my time. Recently, I've been working on my Wood Elves and my Beastmen at the same time. They're looking pretty mean at each other across my desk. It got me thinking of some good ambush units in the 40K world. I usually run my Kroot like that but Snikrot has it down pat. Hence my for fun project:

This bad boy is about two hours of good work from done. I love painting green skin. I'll update again when I got him finished. Snikrot was also the test model for my new airbrush. Just wait till I get it on Mork's Teeth.

For the Beastmen front, I've been looking at Chariots. They're an iconic piece of the army and make for an intimidating line if you drop 5 or 6 core choices like that, so I've been working them up. 

The chariot is finished but I need to work up the boars and the base, but a good start.

Expect another painting update and some cool Wood Elf tricks up next. They might not be popular but they will still hand you teeth at the end of the day. Stay tuned.

NoVA Open Report

Hey hey, everyone. A bit late coming off of the weekend of the Open, but here's the rundown of my experience. I went in with my Lizardmen ready for an uphill fight. I wanted to win at least half my games on Saturday, but depending on my draws, I was ready to be fed a steady diet of my own teeth all day.

Here's the gist of what I brought:
Slann - Lore of Life, Cupped Hands, BSB - Banner of Eternal Flame, Loremaster (I forget the real name of the Discipline), Becalming Cognition, Magic Resistance (3)

Skink Priest - Level 2, Cloak of Feather, Plaque of Topek

Skink Chief - Ancient Steggadon, Steggadon War-Spear

Core choices were 2 x Saurus Blocks of 20 with full command, 22 skinks with banner and muso. along with 2 kroxigors, and a small 10 man skink unit with blowpipes

Specials looked like 17 temple guard with full command, razor standard and the mask of EEE! on the champ, 3 Terradons, 6 chameleon skinks. I only took 2 sallys for rares.

I felt pretty confident with my list, because I had been testing it a lot. Worked in some solid blocks with annoying units while trying not to do a lot of repeats.

Game 1 - Chaos Demons: First time I had played against demons in the new edition. If someone told you that Demons got nerfed in the new edition, someone lied to you. The guy brought a pretty balanced list, which I was glad about. The Masque - definitely the MVP. I had a chance to charge her in the first turn with my steggadon. 2D6+1 impact hits would have settled that out-right, but I whiffed the charge. Needed a 6 to make it, rolled a 3 (nice going, Jeff-Rey). From there on, I could not make a leadership test to save my life. Chain panics and the Masque making thing complicated doomed me. Overall though, I had a great time playing against my opponent, Josh. He had a gorgeous jungle themed army, and we were both in the right mood for the first game. Result: Loss

Game 2 - Wood Elves: I was looking forward to this match, because not only did I just transfer from Woodies to Lizardmen but my opponent also brought strips of steak for each of his matches. Best Hangover fix: Warhammer and steak. I challenge you to find a better one. The game was pretty back and forth for a while. The Wood Elf movement phase is just as impressive as it was before. The climax of the game was when I flank charged a 38 block of archers with three heroes in it. If I could crack it, it'd be game over. My temple guard did what they could. All three heroes make-way, fend me off, then re-set for the next attack. Moving at the speed of "elf" is no joke. They might be a little stringy, but when they squeak something like 13 attacks through, best give respect. He also showed me a really crazy way of equipping an eagle riding lord with Eternal Guard stance, maybe a post for a later date cause that guy can hold it down. Result: Loss

Game 3 - Orcs and Goblins: This was one of the weirder match-types: Fortitude Points. If you hit 3 or lower, game over immediately. You count your banners, BSB, and the general counts as 2. I had about 6, my opponent had 9. The winner was determined by who had the best ratio at the end. This was the first time against a Savage Orc boy list. There wasn't too much to comment on this one except that went the TG's pick on a weaker unit while they have the regen spell up, its not even funny. I managed to get my Skink Priest behind a unit and pushed it almost into the TG's with Wind Blast. Wind Blast is a really underrated spell. Getting units out of position is a great advantage. I broke Grimgor Ironhide's unit twice with some combo charges and both times he got away. I ended up winning by chewing up his night goblin unit which had a BSB (2 points) and 2 more of his Savage Boys. By the end, I had 5 of 6 remaining, he had 5 of 9. Result: Win

Game 4 - Lizardmen: Its a cold-blooded grudge match, people. We both had really similar builds with only slight variations. He brought two steggs, I had one; I brought a Level 2 priest, he didn't have one; he brought more chameleons and I had my TG's. My opponent had a really interesting build for his Slann but also had Becalming Cognition, so neither of us were banking on getting the double 6's to cast. That actually kept things really close, until I got Comet of Cassandora off. It took 3 or 4 turns to come down and made a total mess of the board. The game ended with his ghost Slann locked in combat with two other units chopping away uselessly. Great match, its interesting to see the difference in play styles with similar armies. Result: Win

So I hit my goal of going 2 & 2 for the weekend. since I lost two games I got my name in the random raffle, and ended up with some ChessEX Dice. The real highlight was during the award ceremony for me:

I was awarded the "Heart of Gold" for Sportsmanship in Fantasy. My mind is still blown. No joke, its extremely humbling to get something like that in a competitive situation. All the guys I played were great opponents and the Fantasy community there was fantastic (pun intended) to pick people's brains. Playing at that level, you learn a lot very quickly from very experienced people. I told myself that I was going to take a break from Fantasy after the Open, but coming off the weekend, I'm already neck deep into my new project.

If any the guys from the NoVA Open see this, you guys put together a tight tournament that was a blast to be a part of. To the players, everyone had a great attitude for the whole day and I think I heard people laughing at least once at every table. Thanks for the weekend and the games. Until next time, keep rolling high.

Painted Lizards

Finally! Found some time to get some pictures up on here. Ok, a quick brief on the style of lizards I've put together, because I know on a few, people might jump on me. It has to do with the background (fluff alert) for the army.

The way I see the Lizardmen as servants of the Old Ones is to get people in-line. Specifically, demons. So with some of the models, I've tried to set them up with a demonic influence from exposure. My lizards have a tradition of taking demonic mounts and finding ways to break them for their own use. I have an Old Blood riding a Juggernaut and my Terradon riders on Screamers (more on those guys later. painting in progress).

Without further to do, let's get to some Core units. First up, the Saurus Warriors.

I wanted to get away from the traditional blue/green guys, so I went red on 'em.
I haven't gotten the entire unit done yet, but here's a group shot of them in progress.

The light is washing them out a little bit and my camera is actually a camera phone. Sorry, my real digital camera is in pieces.

Next up, the Skink/Kroxigor unit!

A lot of people dump on the mixed unit. But they actually have a decent bit of heartiness and surprising fighting power. Since there's a Parry-Save now, the 6+ actually will catch people off guard. I do have real Kroxigors but those trolls are too good to pass up. I mean, look at how the one reaches over the front rank.

My most well known Skink so far has got to be Jeff-Rey upon his noble mount, Gary.

Jeff-Rey started out as a handler for Razordons until he managed to kill a Chaos Knight by himself. That's a hard worker if I ever saw one. Here's a better look at the howdah.

The Slann is always a central piece for any lizardmen army. Mine has a bit of a different way of moving around.

Once I have it based, it will gel a little better. Everything still needs some touch up but I'll update these guys as they get more finished. Right now, I'm focusing on getting done what I can before the NoVA Open this weekend. If you're going, let me know. Its local for me (which is awesome) and I'm hoping to give it a good shot on Saturday. Let me know what you think of these guys, but remember, my camera sucks. Catch ya laters. 

Temple Guard, or Where the Hell is My Shield?

Fantasy is definitely my game. I started out 40K style, but the past is where its at. My most recent army has been the Lizardmen, which are almost done with my habit of building armies. The first box of models I got for them were the Temple Guard. I love these guys. They look great, have cool weapons, and can be taken to almost be impossible to get off the board. I even did custom bases for them (I hate basing, by the way).

The ideal way to run a block of these fancy lads is to stick a Slann in there. With the new changes on line of sight for magic missiles and direct damage, he should be able to float up and fire even if he's in combat. This also makes the unit Stubborn on a 9. Cold-blooded will keep most lizards in place but on a Ld of 9, they aren't going anywhere. 

There are two other ways of making this unit stick: make the Slann the BSB, or throw in Chakax. The Slann BSB just makes that Stubborn 9 extra safe. Chakax is a pricey hero at 335 points but he makes the unit Unbreakable. Plus he's a challenge machine. Even assassins have to reveal themselves early and would strike last against him. Anything High Elf related is going to get chewed up because he's WS 5 with 4 attacks. His great weapon makes him strike at STR 7 and gets to re-roll the first round if he misses you.

The great issue is that unit is a ton of points. It usually ends up in the neighborhood of 1200 points with all your Lord, half your Hero, and a good chunk of Special choices. The worst part is the shields on the TG's only apply outside of combat. I hate that. Weapons that require two-hands means he just drops the shield as soon as combat starts. Sure a 3+ against shooting is nice, but most times you need the better save in combat rather than the shooting phase. Shooting is usually -1 or -2 to armor, which on 4+ Saurus warrior could be trouble but its not terrible. With TG's, I'd rather have the 4+ against shooting and 3+ in combat, and here's why:

The typical Saurus Warrior is around 12 points (depending on whether spears are taken). They got a 4+ armor and the parry save (a 6+ ward) in close combat. Temple Guard are 16 points, but only get a 4+ in close combat with no parry save. Weapon skill a little higher, and the bonus from the halberd. Those extra points get sunk into the special passive abilities with the Slann. Both units are equally tough, strong, fast, and same number of attacks. The TG's upgrades are really expensive after you start adding in enough to make them work. Without support, a 4+ armor elite unit isn't going to decimate other elite units. They'll stick but with a lot of your points into that unit, it's hard to get those linebreakers in the list too. 

So a 20 block of Saurus with full command is at least 100 points cheaper than an effective TG block. That extra 100 points is a skink unit or a terradon squad waiting in the wings. 

With Lizardmen being hearty and elite, you gotta find ways to save points. I'm going to have a few test games with the solo Slann. Next up, I'm going to run through the new lores with the hypnotoad. 

8th and the Open

NoVA Open is going down on August 14th. I ran across the announcement by accident on whiskey40k's blog a while back. Now, I'm by no means the ultimate tournament player. What's great about tournament play is the level of play you are working at. I love playing the garbage games in the shop and just fooling around with a crazy list where winning isn't the goal. The big part of what I like about WFB is the insane happenings that go on the battlefield. The win is nice, but if you lose because two of your own comets came down and wiped out half the board including most of your stuff? That's awesome.

Tournament play has its place. When there's something on the line, it can bring out the best and the worst in people. The best being a fun game with a competitive army where you get to see two players really show that they know how to play. The worst is a mix between people who don't know what they are doing, and people who get insane with rule-lawyering and suck the fun out of the game. Unfortunately, with the new edition, I think there's going to be a fair lot of both of those types. New rules means

The NoVA Open is going to be 8th Edition. I've been trying to get as many games in as possible so I can really learn the rules and tricks you can pull with the system. Part of the barrier to get into the new edition is to forget a lot of the implied rules from 7th. Like the charging system, ordering of charges, skirmisher units, etc. Everything is different. I got 6 games in over the long weekend at the local shop and a few more last weekend. I played my lizards and my opponent played skaven. We used the new book at 2000-2500 points. Here's a run down of what we gleaned from the new system:

Fat Christ, are they quick! Games that would normally take 2 to 3 hours to complete for 7th edition zip by in about an hour and a half. If you run with the new special terrain, it takes a little longer but not by much. Units might be bigger but with magic and your own units being bigger, models will fly off the board.

Gotcha now! Charges are 2D6 plus movement. Slow units just got fast, and fast units got insane. Plus depending on how you choose your charge reactions can make a big difference in who's getting down run by what.

Reach out and touch someone. Combat and charging are still huge aspects of the game, but you really have to find a way to get at someone before they're on top of you. Magic and shooting are the two easiest ways. Even though you don't even really need a caster in 8th to protect yourself, its really hard to say "no" to the new magic lores. Without balance, armies fall apart quickly.

Oh the humanity! There's a lot of ways to die in the new edition. Your well-painted, favorite unit can, and will be, trashed in more than one game. Units get more attacks, magic just being sick, even the terrain wants you dead.

All in all, I've been pleased with the changes with 8th. I didn't think that it would revamp everything like it has. I love to see old models come out again now that their useful. Its also bringing in a new flock of players into the Fantasy side of the shop. New players means new tactics. That's another great thing about tournament level play: you get to see stuff go down that you might not have ever thought of running. I think the Open is really going to help me amp my game as well as crash course into the deeper parts of the new book.

Now all I have to do is paint up the massive number of models I'll need for the Open. Awesome.

Late to 8th

The clock has run out and the book is ready. 8th edition is ready for pre-order. The price: manageable. Sure it's a bit on the expensive side, but really, you're only getting one. That is until the next edition. Personally, I want the gamer's edition with the bag. Because the only thing I was missing from my hobby of playing with toys was a purse. And, yes, I am getting one.

The dice are pretty interesting but I think that they should have more per set. Think about it for a second: 8 dice in a bag. Infantry getting to attack in two ranks; shooting in two ranks; horde formations. You're going to need more than 8 dice per set of rolling. They look amazing but I really don't want to buy two sets to get 10 dice to attack. Bit of a nit-pick but can't be positive about everything.

I'm loving the style of the new templates. The whole range of extras has such a great look and feel to it. I'm digging the Engineer's Ranging set but I probably won't get it. 

The one really crazy thing I like from the post on the GW announcement is that airship. I have to admit: I'm a sucker for steampunk airships. I got my hands on a really old White Dwarf which has plans to make a giant bog monster with a howdah (one of my new favorite words) on its back. Might have to make that guy a project.  

So what am I going with for my first 8th edition army? I got Ogres, Wood Elves, and Skaven, all of which I'm really comfortable with, especially Skaven. But I think I'm going to have to go with the small Lizardmen army I got to building. The Lizards have become a bit of a project army for me. I have always hated basing, but through the magic of the Internet, got a few new tricks up my sleeve. 

Lizards now are crazy magical. Bow before the glory of the Hypo-toad! Comets, lightning bolts, and re-rolls. Lizardmen have the magic phase down. Its pretty easy to go this route and load up on Engines of the God and spam Burning Alignment. I'm not such a fan of the typical lists for an army. Throwing in the random unit that no one uses or fielding a different lord can really throw your opponent off. I want to get those units that people general think are weaker in the Lizardmen and prove you can be competitive with them. I'm already fielding skink-kroxigor cohort units, razordons, and a skink chief on a steggadon (not an ancient). 

Now, I want to field kroxigors, but they are actually really hard to get your hands on. I really like the look of the new trolls, especially since they're in plastic now. So, I've been working on making trolls into Kroxigors by painting them up with more of a scaly skin look to match the real kroxigor and skink look I'm going for.

The real kroxigor is hunting his fat, ugly cousin.

I love these models. I just recently picked up a set of real kroxigors but I'm still going to field my fat kroxies. They look great reaching over a rank of skinks by the way. I'll get a group photo of these chaps when I finish them up. 

The local GW has the new book and I got to see a bit of Tuesday, but other plans pulled me away. I did get to see a Dwarf charge of 12", which was freakin' amazing. Hopefully I'll the breakdown of the new combat rules this weekend. Until then, be seeing ya.

Ogres and Escalating

Warhammer 40K had kind of worn on and I wanted something different. Warhammer Fantasy filled that need of renewal perfectly. I wanted a quick army that could build fast and was straight forward as possible. Enter the Ogres.

Ogre Kingdoms are larger than man-sized people who live up in the mountains. Practically every unit has the 'Dogs of War' special rule. This means you can normally field an Ogre unit in any other army that has 'Dogs of War' as a rare unit. Ogres are all S4, T4 and have 3 Wounds a piece. And that's a core choice.

Also built into every Ogre is the Bull Charge. If an Ogre charges more than 6 inches (since its movement value is 6, they have a full charge range of 12 inches), each Ogre in contact gets an impact hit. Plus every Ogre in the second rank grant +1 S to the impact hit.

Big dudes, cool rules, lot's of wounds. So what's the draw back? They are very expensive points wise. A normal Ogre Bull is between 35-43 points depending on how you outfit them. So if you want two ranks of Ogres, you're pumping a lot of points into one unit. The other issue is survivability. Ogres are T4, yes, but have crazy low armor. Ironguts have Heavy Armor but wield great weapons so they have to balance. Their magic, while really funny sometimes, is usually pretty weak. All Gut Magic spells cast on a 3+ but that also means dispelling is usually pretty simple.

I'm still excited about seeing Ogres in 8th Edition. I loved my Ogres when I got started. With the rumors of an additional attack at the end of combat from larger models, the old Ogre list is starting to creep back into my mind. I can see it now: the 3x3 formation of Ogre Sized units running down small units and taking their lunch money. With the additional rumors of Ogre Sized models in the second rank getting up to 3 attacks instead of an additional 1, that's quickly becoming 3 Impact Hits at S6, 18 attacks at S4, and another possible 3 Stomping Attacks at S4. Start adding command and heroes to units like that and Ogres get a new lease on life.

I first started out in Fantasy with an escalation league with my Ogres. Escalation leagues are a fantastic way of starting a new army or even a whole new game system. So if you're thinking you want to get into Fantasy when the new edition comes out, try an Escalation league. If there's enough interest I'll post on how to run one effectively for Fantasy. And remember, a lot of GW's already have the new book. Some of them are even going to be running some demos of the new rules in the coming weeks. Ask them and see if they're hosting a preview night. Until then, stomp ya laters!