Warhammer World Invasion

This half-term has seen Warhammer World inviting various GW stores for some inter-store competition, which they have called Invasion.  It is basically a 40K 600pt doubles tournament.  (See my first post for a similar event in April.)

GW Newbury went with a good crowd on Monday, along with Reading, Oxford and Swindon.

The day started terribly for me at 5.30 am with a flat tyre on the car, but I just made it to the store for the bus.

I had had a chat with my partner Chris about his Eldar force the day before, and we discussed our options a little more on the coach.  I had considered taking my Howling Griffons, but decided against them, as I hadn't had much success with them yet, and my Assault Terminators were less than half done.  Chaos was another option, using my old Lost and the Damned army from Eye of Terror for Bezerkers and Cultists.  However, I don't have a decent Khorne Lord and I figured there would be a plethora of Chaos armies there with lots of the shiny new models.  Also, with points being awarded for cohesion between the two armies, it would be an unlikely / unholy alliance.  Eventually I decided on taking my small Space Wolves force.  I played a trial game on Sunday, using two units of Grey Hunters with plasma guns and pistols, a Razorback with lascannons and a small unit of Swiftclaw bikers and a biker Wolf Lord.  They won on objectives in the trial game, but on the coach I decided to downgrade the HQ to a Wolf Guard Battle Leader and to swap the Razorback for a Drop Pod.

Chris had been up late getting some paint on his figures the night before, so arrived at the store even later than me!  He took a Farseer, a unit of Dire Avengers, some Guardians with a Warlock and a unit of Dark Reapers.

Our first opponents were a Space Wolves / Ork combo with lots of biker orks, two units of Grey Hunters in Rhinos and a Runepriest.  In every game, I used the Drop Pod aggressively and put it in the opposition deployment zone and in this game my Grey Hunters shot up the Lootas and made them run off the board, giving us First Blood.  However, my bikes failed their charge on the Ork bikers, which proved costly.  If the game had finished a couple of minutes earlier we would have won, but in the last few minutes the remains of my drop pod hunters were shot off one objective and their rhinos deposited their passengers onto two high-value objectives, giving them a 7-2 win.

The second game was against Grey Knights and Guard.  On the first turn a Demolisher shot took out most of my bikers and my warlord, giving them three VPs straight away from one model!  Again I put my Drop Pod down in harm's way, right in front of a Vindicare Assassin, which then seemed to have a a charmed life.  It made numerous 4+ invulnerable saves on its last wound and eventually beat off my Grey Hunters after a couple of rounds of drawn combat.  A combination of the Deathwind launcher and Eldar shooting killed off the Rough Riders (very nicely-painted Death Korps models) and the power-armoured GKs, but we never recovered from the early setback, and were only one wound away from being tabled by the end of the game.

Having had two losses, we hoped for better fortune in the final game, against more Space Wolves and more Guard from the Reading store!  There were plenty of Chaos armies there, but we hadn't met any of them!  This force included a fun Commissar on a Segway!

We finally managed to get the first turn in a game, but only by seizing the initiative.  Again the Drop Pod went down behind their Medusa, but we just couldn't kill it off.  This wasn't helped my my repeated rolling a 1s with my plasma weapons.  During the day I got snake-eyes twice when rapid-firing my plasma guns!  Of course, I also then failed the 3+ armour save each time.  I even got Chris to roll for me instead, and of course he also rolled a 1!!  We did have a bit of luck managing to hit their Vendetta with a snapshot from my multimelta Attack Bike, but then only managed to remove one of the twin-linked lascannons.  Chris' Dark Reapers had given us First Blood by sending their Thunderwolves running and his Runes of Warding also nullified and finally killed off their Runepriest.

I was just a little too sporting for us to win this game.  With two minutes to go they suggested and I agreed to a draw, as we were tied on VPs and had had three turns each.  Had we continued my remaining Grey Hunter could have got close enough to contest their three-point objective and we would have also had Linebreaker.  I just hadn't thought of suggesting this in game one and was a little taken aback by the suggestion.  This was only my second ever tournament, so I guess I'll know better next time.

Overall, GW Reading emerged victorious, so well done to them.  After the success in April, I won't tell you where Newbury came out of the four stores competing, but we were disappointed.  This was despite Quinn's team winning every game by taking two identical armies of Tervigons and Doom of Malan'tai, which basically swamped their enemies with Termagants.

The coach back was slightly delayed by another vehicular mishap, when someone reversed into our parked coach just before we were due to get on.

We had a fun day out and I have certainly learnt quite a bit for future competitions like this.  In particular, being a bit more decisive about my list and getting some practice games with my partner would be very useful.

Chaos codex is here!

I picked up the new book at GW Newbury.  I have yet to study it in detail, but a few things were particularly interesting.

Obviously all the new 40K codices will be hardback now and around the £30 mark, à la Fantasy.  It is a decent quality and full-colour, but at the price maybe it should be a few more than just over 100 pages?

What is a boost for chaos player is that the marks of chaos now grant more than a single stat increase, but also give some of the new special rules in the Sixth Edition rulebook.

As far as the Troops choices go, of course there are now the cannon fodder, sorry Cultists.  However, the basic Chaos Marines now have to choose between bolter + pistol or pistol + weapon, so have to focus more on their rôle in advance.  Also, Plague / Noise Marines etc are now Elites choices, unless you take a Lord (or Sorceror for Tzeentch) with the same mark.

The Heldrake model has attracted a lot of attention at Games Day and in WD, but it is also worth noting that Havocs can now take flakk missiles too.

Still no chaos drop pods...?

Quinn has asked me to be part of the Newbury team again for a return to Warhammer World in October half-term, for a 600pts doubles tournament.  I need to decide between my Howling Griffons, Guard or the shiny new Chaos.  I have a feeling there will be a lot of Chaos armies again!

Armies on Parade - Howling Griffons

Having spent most of my hobby time over the last few weeks working on my Howling Griffons, it was finally time for the Armies on Parade Competition at GW Newbury.

As I didn't have enough of the Bretonnian transfers I had used before for the whole army, I decided to hand-paint a rough black griffon for the shoulder pads, which looked OK - at a distance anyway.  My Assault Squad therefore stayed in the case, as they had white half griffon transfers and they had also been 'ardcoated, and so were glossier than the rest of the army.

Overall I came 3rd (out of 4) in the competition.  The scenery pieces and the quartered scheme got quite a few favourable comments, as did the interactive narrative of the rising Necron and the Command Squad, but I think I had neglected the board itself.  It was a bit bare in places and needed a bit more interesting stuff going on.

Quinn is keen for people to start planning boards for next year, so I will think about that at some stage.  I also await the rules for next year's store visit to Warhammer World, to see where my Howling Griffons go next.

Griffon Scenery

I've been a bit quiet for the past couple of weeks, mainly due to Olympic fever.  I even took my son up to Old Trafford to see a couple of games.

Anyway, I have been doing some work on some pieces of scenery.  One of them is a couple of moonscape craters with various Necron bits bursting out of the ground.  The main piece though is a Griffon statue based on the Fantasy Deathclaw model and a Sanctum Imperialis.

It is still WIP, but I'm quite pleased with how it is turning out, especially the claw grasping the top corner.  In game, it would count as Imperial Statuary

Howling Griffons 1250 vs Grey Knights

My army has grown enough that I played 1250 pts against Quinn's Grey Knights last night.  It wasn't pretty and I'm starting to wonder when we will be seeing their first victory at GW.  They have done well at a couple of smaller games at the school club, but these rarely get played to conclusion, so I can't really count those wins.

I have now added an Ironclad, a Rhino and a Devastator Squad, as well as enough marines for two full Tactical Squads.  Most are virtually finished, although 6 marines and the Rhino have only had a basecoat.

We rolled The Relic mission, but to be honest I struggled to get anywhere near it and was pushed back as the GK dominated.  His Vindicare Assassin was lucky to survive a snapshot from my Missile Launcher in the Rhino, but then went on to wreck my vehicles in short order.  Quinn does not like GK Terminators at all, but his two big squads of Interceptors proved far too manoeuvrable for me to deal with, and they put out a lot of shots too.

Quinn kept failing Ld tests on psychic powers and even towards the end when I tried to tank shock one of the Interceptors units, who were behind my lines.  However, with them falling back towards their own table edge, rather than the closest edge, which was just inches away, this proved rather pointless.

I did have a little luck with a few snapshots and managed to kill one squad of Interceptors, but not enough to trouble Quinn unduly.

The army still needs work to make it even vaguely competitive at the moment, but I have had a few positive comments about how they are looking.

Howling Griffons Predator

The Predator is very nearly done.  I just need to decide two things - what colour to do the lights and what to do about unit transfers.

I didn't fancy doing a quartered scheme on a vehicle, but I'm quite pleased with the two-coloured effect.  I have now started a Rhino, and am debating whether to stick with the same colours or reverse them, with a red body and yellow doors etc.

As I now have some time off, I have also got started with an Ironclad and some Devastators, if only to give me more choice of heavy weapons.

Chariot Challenges Counter

OK, so I should have ignored the chariot and just assaulted the Overlord.  Challenges cannot be issued from a chariot, so the Mindschackle Scarabs would have targetted a random model from my unit in base contact, rather than having a choice of one.  Hammer of Wrath from the chariot could be a problem, as it gets those hits whenever it charges and it can't be locked in combat as a vehicle.

Something like an Ironclad would be good in that combat, as it could ignore the Hammer of Wrath and can't be Mindshackled, but it would probably end up getting glanced to death before it could get in a charge.