40K School League heats

The team from my school club entered the first set of heats at GW Newbury against two other teams (both from another school) and have qualified for the Regionals at Warhammer World in March.  The lads were delighted of course, as was I.

The result was extremely close, but we emerged victorious by 61.5 to 61 points.  It all came down to the sportsmanship point I made sure one of my team was awarded for pointing out that his opponent's warlord could not claim an objective on his own before the game ended, giving him the chance to move a scoring unit closer.  Our margin of victory would have been slightly bigger otherwise, as the game was then a draw, instead of a victory for us.

We lost points on the painting scores, as most of our team are relatively new to the hobby and did not, for example, have the six objectives needed to gain points for markers.  (When does any game need 12 markers anyway?)  I will make sure we do better on this score in March.

We had 2 Yr 7s (aka first years), a Yr8 and a Yr9. Our opponents were fielding kids from Yr10-11.  Even so, we got a 9-1-2 gaming record, against 7 wins from the second-placed team.

Our team played Chaos, DA (both mainly from Dark Vengeance, although there was a land raider), GK and Tau (the cheesiest army with 2 riptides).

We are hoping to enter another team for more heats in February.

I just need to ask my Head now if he is happy to pay for a minibus again to get us to Nottingham.

Howling Griffons bikers

My latest project is just about finished.  It's a squad of 5 bikers with a Power Fist and 2 Meltaguns.  The Meltaguns were spare parts from my Centurions and are mounted on the front wheel, a bit like the FW Legion Outriders.

My original idea was to give my Master of the Forge some protection, but I'm now planning a biker Captain as well to make them troops.  A mounted Command Squad with an Apothecary and Storm Shields is also very tempting due to its survivability,  if expensive.

At the moment I can't quite decide on what chapter to do any more bikers.  Whilst Storm Lords allies would look good with my Griffons, and are White Scars successors, a homebrew chapter would be useful.  I could choose any doctrine I needed and so this would be more flexible.  For now I may well just stick with my Griffons and just get a couple of decent bike squads, probably with more grav weapons to hunt MCs.

My Games Day UK 2013

First thing to say is that GW ran no games at Games Day. There were Warhammer-related card and computer games to try, but not the core games. In downsizing from the NEC to the NIA (still in Birmingham) the participation games and make-and-takes have gone. Well over half the floor area of the main arena was taken up by sales.  To be fair, that is where most people headed first into some still fairly lengthy queues. Probably quicker than last year though.

Forge World had a few new models on show. Ferrus had been announced before, but Lorgar was also in the cabinets. I was most impressed with the new Assault pod, which also caused a bit of a stir.

I resisted the temptation of buying Ferrus, but did go for the new Iron Hands Contemptor.  I did want to get the IH Legion squad, but they had sold out by the time I got through the queue.  There was a big display board of the Iron Hands vs Emperor's Children and Iron Warriors, which was very well done.

Both the Armies on Parade and Golden Demon competitions were held in the sports hall downstairs. As always, looking at the best models there takes a lot of luck and patience amid the crowds.  I am still convinced that my parade board was better than many of the store winners. The overall parade winner featured a running waterfall and surprised many people. I would also like to see the Golden Demon winners close up too.

The highlight of the day for me was chatting to Robin Cruddace again. He is a fellow Howling Griffons player and we discussed our armies.  He even signed my Space Marines codex with a nice note for me. I am a fan!

Armies on Parade 2013 Howling Griffons

It was finally time for GW Newbury's annual competition today.  My board came fourth in a very close race.

Unfortunately,  I couldn't get any of the new models ready in time.  After spending so long on the armour, I should also have been a little more careful with the unit markings, which ended up a bit messy.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Well done to George, who won with his Iron Warriors.

My first thoughts on Space Marines 2013 codex

I grabbed my book as soon as GW Newbury opened this morning.  I also picked up a Tactical Squad and some Centurions and will try to add some new models to my Devastator Company for Armies on Parade next week.  I still have most of the scenery and the Storm Eagle to finish painting.  Both sets of sprues look vey good, although I will need a quiet few minutes to build the Centurions.

A couple of rules points I have noticed so far:

Asssult Squad sergeants can no longer take a Storm Shield, so I will either have to count mine as a Combat Shield or play them as the much cheaper elite-slot Vanguard Vetetans instead, until I get the new models.

The Centurions are Slow and Purposeful, so can't overwatch.  Not sure about using them with Grav-Cannons now, which only have 24" Salvo 3/5 range.  A shortish range defensive infantry unit that can't overwatch seems a handicap.

My recent 600pt list for Invasion now comes to 570 points, so is 5% cheaper.  A special weapon and another marine are the obvious additions and will still fit in the Razorback.  Of course I will also work out some brand new lists too!

Finally for now, I'm a little disappointed I have only found a couple of worn Howling Griffons references so far in the codex, especially when Robin Cruddace is  HG player.  I had hoped for more.

Space Marines Battle Company (and new Space Marines incoming)

Having been working on my Howling Griffons all summer I now have enough figures to field a full company.  Not only that, I can either field a standard Battle Company (6 Tacticals, 2 Assault and 2 Devastator) or a full Devastator Company (10 Devastator).

As I'm saving all the devs for Armies on Parade, I took the Battle Company formation to GW Newbury for an all-day Apocalypse game yesterday.  It was a long day but great fun.  The result was a very close 19-20 loss for my side, which was the only downer.  My partner had a Leman Russ company and one super-heavy.  Our opponents had Wolves, Eldar and Tau and 5 super-heavies.  As new players arrived during the afternoon we were allowed to recycle units to keep things balanced.  One plucky marine was all that survived from my original deployment to the end.  He will be getting a promotion soon!

Of course, as a Space Marine player, I'm also looking forward to getting my hands on the new codex.  The Tactical and Sternguard sprues look particularly promising.  I'm even impressed with the Vanguards and all their plastic Thunder Hammers.  However, as I've spent the last few weeks assembling and painting all that power armour, I'm not planning on painting much more in the near future. I may get a Stalker for my Armies on Parade board, but I already have to finish painting the board, scenery and a Storm Eagle (which has taken me a good few days just to assemble...!)

Warhammer World Invasion August 2013

Last Monday was my latest trip to Nottingham with the GW Newbury team, in a 600-pt doubles tournament against six other local stores (Reading, Swindon, Oxford, Aylesbury, High Wycombe and Maidenhead).

I took my Howling Griffons, with 5 Sniper Scouts, minimal Tactical Squad with TLAC Razorback, Master of the Forge on a bike with a conversion beamer, basic Predator and a Stormtalon with Skyhammer.  My team-mate was one of the boys from the store and his Eldar.  He took a Farseer, two units of Rangers, 5 Dark Reapers and two sets of Vaul's Weapons Batteries.

We had a practice game on Saturday against Matt, who basically took the two Dark Vengeance armies together.  Although we thrashed him with the strength of our shooting, I was under no illusions that the armies on the day would be a lot tougher.

Our first game was Scouring with Hammer and Anvil deployment against Orks and Tau.  The Tau had a Commander with a load of gun drones, a mob of Kroot snipers, another Suit, a unit of Fire Warriors, a Piranha and a Sky Ray.  The Orks had a Warboss, two mobs of Boyz, a Deffkopta, a Trukk and a Battlewagon with Deffrolla.  I was worried about the Sky Ray, but in the end the game ended up beingvery slow and we only got to the end of Turn 3 in 90 minutes, in which my Storm Talon never showed up!

We managed to get first blood on the Trukk, but the Invasion tables now have more terrain than previously, so we found ourselves with poor LoS quite often.

We were getting frustrated at the time things were taking and so made a costly mistake as the game was about to end.  We knew the Farseer's psychic power (I forget the name) could fly him 48" across the board for Linebreaker, and this succeeded, although he did have to survive a melta shot from a suit.  Had we moved him to contest the four point objective in the centre, we could have won.  Instead we lost 7-9.

The game after lunch proved to be much better, for us anyway!  This time we were playing Crusade on Dawn of War against Guard and Wolves.  The Wolves had a Rune Priest with the obligatory Jaws and Living Lightning, some Wolf Guard, a Melta-Dread in a Drop Pod and a couple of units of Grey Hunters.  The Guard had a Company Command Squad, two units of Veterans, a Chimera and a Hellhound.

All 3 games we played started with Night Fighting, but I used my Searchlight to illuminate the Hellhound, which the conversion beamer then blew up from across the board (see picture below).  The blast also caught the Chimera, which exploded as well, killing half a squad of Veterans inside it and 3 Grey Hunters next to it.  Not a bad start!

On their first turn the Dreanought came down near the Heavy Weapons, but its Multi-Melta did very little  before it was immobilised (apparently for the second game in a row) and then destroyed.  Again my Stormtalon had declined to turn up on Turn 2, but their Vendetta came on and targetted my Master of the Forge, as they had decided they did not like him.  Despite all the Lascannons, his Jink saved rescued him and he survived on one wound.  Hooray for Toughness 5!  We then managed to hit the Vendetta, putting it into locked velocity, before my Stormtalon finally joined the battle Turn 4 in the rear arc of the Vendetta and blew it up.  It too suffered locked velocity from the Veterans with an Autocannon on a Skyfire objective, although it was still able to pound their infantry afterwards.  This was a fun game against sporting opponents, who got back into the match after a dreadful start for them, although we still had a comfortable 9-4 victory.

The last game was Purge the Alien with Vanguard deployment against Tau and GK.  We faced another Commander plus drones, more Kroot and Fire Warriors, a Riptide and 3 Piranhas, as well as Coatez and 3 HB Servitors in a Chimera, a Rifleman Dread, Purifiers and some Crusaders with Dealt Cult Assassins.  We got first blood again by blowing up the Chimera, but that was about the only success.  We just couldn't kill off Coatez, the Dread or the Piranhas.  Again we were under time pressure, as the game was reduced to just an hour, as things were over-running and coaches from the other stores needed to leave.  Had we focussed fire more, we might have had more success, but it was not a pretty 9-3 loss.

It was a fun day out and with 1 win and 2 losses we came 43/68 (results here), but I really must learn to play for objectives, as this was the second time the four point objective has been crucial for me.

Apart from my spectacular shot in the second game, another highlight for me was arranging a Stormtalon fly-past with Dave's (GW Reading manager) Brazen Claw flyer.

I look forward to the new Space Marine codex, as I am keen to improve my recent record at these tournaments!