GW Newbury Tale of Gamers - time to start Orks

A week is a long time in this hobby.  For once I am not talking about the latest releases, although there must be plenty of mileage in the stormtrooper ice-cream van.

Back on topic, Matt wanted suggestions last weekend for instore events and I mentioned the classic White Dwarf series of a Tale of Four Gamers, which were always favourites of mine. I am not sure how many times they ran this with the different GW systems, but a 40K version sticks in my mind.

Having requested six players on Tuesday, we now have ten confirmed and raring to go.  For my choice of army I considered Tyranids, which no one else had chosen.   However, the underwhelming reception to the codex and the lack of potential to ally with any other army finally put me off.  With most people opting for power-armour of some sort, Orks were another untaken race, which I have decided to go with.  We already have quite a few Orks in the shed from when my son dabbled with 40k a few years back.  This includes all of the Black Reach figures painted very basically, as well as some Stormboyz, Lootas and a Battlewagon.  They are always a fun army, but what clinched it was the rumoured new codex out in June, along with whispers of Orks in an imminent new starter box for 40k.

Each month for six months there will be a challenge for the players to complete.  Officially, we aren't starting until 3rd May, but many of us are getting underway already.  In the first month we need 1 HQ and 1 Troop choice completed worth 250 points.  We will be marked on assembly, painting and basing.  My first Orks will be a Warboss and a unit of Nobz.  Having made my first box of Nobz, I decided to convert a Warboss also from a Nob, rather than ordering in a Finecast one, as there were none in the shop.  Hopefully there will be some new plastic characters out soon.

My next task will be to write a proper 250pt list before I build the next box and the Painboy I got today.

40k School League Regional Finals at Warhammer World

Having qualified from the local heats for the second year running, I took our team of four with a couple of reserves up to Nottingham on Thursday. A day off school to play toy soldiers- what could be better?  I was pleased our Head not only agreed to us going, but also stumped up the cost of a minibus and driver.

A couple of the older lads went last year, so knew their way around Warhammer World, but the younger ones were impressed with the rhino outside, the gaming hall and the display models upstairs.

Our team's 600 pt armies were inspected after we arrived.  As we were all prepared with equipment and I had made enough objective markers for 6 each and also made sure all the figures had at least 3 colours, we got most of the army points.  We lost a couple for the bases, as some were textured but not painted or were just painted.  Apparently unpainted sand does not count. I think it is a ploy to sell more textured paint, so I duly obliged and told the kids to get started, just to scrape together another point or two.

We had a Tau player, who had 2 Riptides, a Cadre Fireblade and some Fire Warriors. Another was using Dark Angels from the starter box with a Land Raider. The third had added a Vindicator to his starter Chaos models and the last army was Grey Knights including Coteaz and Henchmen as troops.  They played 4x40-minute games each.

Teachers were supposed to stand back and let the players play.  This sounds straightforward, but I found it hard not to say anything if they were completely ignoring objectives and merrily blasting away! Some members of school staff got told off by the GW bods for interfering, including me when I was answering a rules question one of the other team had asked me.  I was trying to be impartial and helpful...  Honestly!  One or two teachers were being a bit too competitive though.

As for the team, they did well in the first two games before lunch, with an even 3 wins, 2 draws and 3 losses.  Most of them were playing with objectives in mind, or at least starting to.

The afternoon was not as pretty.  Of the 30 teams there, they drew the eventual winners and the team that finished third, who were using some very good lists.  The winning team for example had Eldar with 2 Wave Serpents, Necrons with a flyer, Tau with a single Riptide and a nasty Daemon list, including the Portalglyph.  Although we lost every game in the afternoon, our Tau player was unlucky on the last game of Purge the Alien.  He was one assault marine away from tabling his opponent in combat with his Riptide on 3 wounds when the game ended.

The obligatory quiz, before results were announced, was just for fun and was an enjoyable way to end the day especially the 'say what you see' round.  The pictures of a neck and Rupert Grint were hilarious.

With our collapse in the second half we came 26th, so the boys were all disappointed with the overall results. It was a shame that only 3 teams progressed to the National Finals.  It seems mainly the power-gamers will be there, but I hope my boys, some of whom are only really just starting the hobby, aren't put off and are inspired by this visit.

Beating an Imperial Knight

My Howling Griffons played in a quick 1000 point game against George's new Imperial Knight tonight. He was using it allied to his FW Sons of Horus army, using the Chaos codex. We knew this combo was not official, but it was just a trial game.

The rest of his army was 3x10-man squads with 2 plasma guns each and a terminator sorceror, all of which he had also just finished assembling.

I reasoned that if he was using a super-heavy, I would use my Stormwing formation, along with a 10-man tac squad, a 5-man tac, 5 sniper scouts, a rifleman dread and a basic librarian.

We played Big Guns with 5 objectives on a 4'x4' board. I got to place 3 objectives and also deployed and went first. Even so I did very little first turn, as I just hid in my deployment zone out of range or sight of his units.

George advanced his units first turn, but the Knight couldn't see the tactical marines and failed to kill any scouts either, as they went to ground for a 2+ save with their cloaks.

Luckily my formation turned up turn 2, so I put the Raven in front of the Knight and the two talons either side.  Of course the Ion Shield went up facing towards the Raven. I knew the Stormtalons weren't facing it with their Skyhammers, but fortunately their assault cannons can fire 360°. The Ion Shield saved him from the multi-melta but the assault cannons took off 3 HPs.

George's outflanking squad from his warlord trait then arrived on the scouts' side of the board and also started trying to shoot the young marines off their objective.  Again the 2+ cover made the snipers hard to shift.  He also backed off the Knight, so I couldn't get all 3 flyers shooting armour 12.

Turn 3 I unloaded my dread and meltagun combat squad from the Raven and then hovered all the flyers circling the Knight to make sure I could use all their weapons.  In the end this proved to be overkill.  The Ion Shield went up towards the Raven and one Talon, but the meltas, autocannons and the other Talon accounted for its last 3 HPs.  First blood to me, although I did get worried the apocalyptic blast would catch the hovering flyers, but they were quite safe.

At that point we both had two objectives and linebreaker, but my first blood meant I was 8-7 ahead.  We called it there, as our time had run out and George couldn't really do much against my flyers, beyond some lucky plasma shots.

Knights can't touch flyers with armour 11 or more unless they hover, so really need protection with some anti-air allies and a more balanced army to guard their flanks and rear from multiple threats.

It was very satisfying to kill off the Knight, but it did feel a bit like playing rock-paper-scissors.