Games Day 2010 – Golden Daemon

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On the drive home Thursday, I had the unpleasant realization that Games Day was two days off, one of which was going to be spent… prepping for Games Day.  Basically, that I had Thursday night to finish whatever I was going to enter into the Golden Daemon.

That meant the Bonebreaker I’d had hopes for, but had tabled (thanks to uselessness in 8th), wasn’t going to happen.

I was also quite certain that this was going to be the last Games Day in Baltimore (and therefore the Golden Daemon I’d be able to enter), so there was no reason not to enter into as many categories as possible.

In the end, I painted up the banner on the Doomwheel and that was it.  Everything else was entered as-is.

My entries (just re-posting pics, here, not taking new ones; hence the lack of Doomwheel banner for now):

Warhammer 40K Single Miniature: Dark Angels Librarian

Mostly wanted to see how well he’d do, as I’d painted him in about half a day before the first Rapid Fire.

Warhammer 40K Squad:  Bloodless Bloodletters

Why not, right?  I knew these guys weren’t going anywhere, because they’re modeled… imperfectly.  The seam between face and cranium is one of those things you don’t know to watch for until it’s way too late.  Still, they’re the most unique squad I have.

Folks had commented on them: people I didn’t know would know about my Daemons mentioned that they knew I’d done my whole army this way.  That was kinda neat.

Warhammer 40K Vehicle: Dark Angels Venerable Dreadnought

Mostly because I was trying to hit as many categories as possible.  If I’d realized he’d be a vehicle and not a monster, I’d have submitted one of my Daemon Princes, as well.  No worries, though.

Warhammer Single Figure: Skaven Warlord

Yeah, this guy.  I’d been seriously considering doing my Warlock Engineer, but he came out the other side of rebasing for the worse, and my wife convinced me that this guy was much cooler.

She was right: he made First Cut and, I was told, was extremely close to actually winning an award.  Hot-damn.

Warhammer Monster: Doomwheel

This guy was a no-brainer, but he needed a banner.  That’s what ate my Thursday.  I’ll post pics later.

This was, to understate, a Doomwheel-heavy competition.  Mine was one of three.

It was also one of two to make First Cut.  Boo-yeah.

Lord of the Rings Single Miniature: Haradrim Troll

I’d planned on entering this fellow last year… but made the mistake of looking at Dave Taylor’s blog the morning of the event.  That’s a great way to make yourself feel like an incompetent modeler.  This year, I just went with it.

Misunderstood how things worked in the late afternoon: all of my stuff was still in the cases, and I thought that meant all of it had made the cut (hence the ecstatic FB posts & Tweets).  This was not the case.  Rather, only two models (the Warlord and Doomwheel) made first cut.  Although this means four entries didn’t; I’m okay with that… it means First Cut means a lot more.  Being one of ~5 models means a lot more than being one of ~25.

Overall, I’m quite happy with my performance and satisfied with myself.  I can continue being insufferable as a first-place loser in the Golden Daemon for another year!

Rapid Fire – Games Day 2010

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It bears repeating that the Iron Fist League will be running Rapid Fire for both 40K and Fantasy at Games Day this year.

The format is, at its heart, the same as the Rapid Fire tournament Matt H and I run every year at Game Vault: play small games, fast.  It’s a good format for Games Day, because you can play as many games as you feel like… and no more.

Composition rules (which aren’t exactly on the GW website, beyond “500/800”) are:

Warhammer 40,000

  • Max 500pts from a current, published GW codex
  • Force Org: 0-1 HQ, 1+ Troops, 0-1 Elite, 0-1 Fast, 0-1 Heavy Support
  • Max 250pts on any single unit
  • Max 100pts on any single model
  • No 2+ Saves
  • No Model with more than 2 wounds

Warhammer Fantasy

  • Max 800 pts from a current published GW Army Book
  • All GW FAQ/Errata applicable to the chosen GW Army Book are in use.
  • Army must have a character model (Lord or Hero) acting as its General *
  • Army is subject to the following additional composition limits: (0-25% Lords, 0-25% Heroes, 0-25% Rares, 0-50% Specials, 25%-100% Core, 2+ non-character units)

* Tomb Kings may use a Liche Priest as both the Heirophant and General.

I’ll be working the IFL tables… probably the Fantasy ones, but that’s not a lock.  Stop by and say hello if you’re going to be there.  Or, better yet, bring an army and get a couple of quite games in!

New Approach to Skaven

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It’s been a little bit since I last posted what I was running Skaven-wise.  This is, without a doubt, just as well… it can’t be terribly interesting to folks.  This is doubly true as week-to-week, I just make small changes here and there.

I’ve shifted my army a little more dramatically than usual, though, and figure it’d be nice to think out-loud about it.  This is a slight update to the list I ran last week.  So, here goes:

Lords
Warlord – General, Sword of Swift Slaying, Enchanted Shield, Foul Pendant, Poisoned Attacks
Grey Seer – Dispel Scroll, Talisman of Protection, Skalm

Heroes
Chieftain – BSB, Armor of Silvered Steel, Shield
Warlock Engineer – Lvl 2, Doomrocket, Warp Energy Condenser

Core
Clanrats x29 – Shields, Full Command, Poisoned Wind Mortar
Slaves x30 – Shields, Champion, Musician
Slaves x29 – Shields, Champion, Musician
Stormvermin x29 – Full Command, Poisoned Wind Mortar

Special
Gutter Runners x5 – Slings, Poisoned Attacks
Rat Ogres x6 – Champion
– Packmasters x4
Rat Ogres x6 – Champion
– Packmasters x4

Rare
Doomwheel
Plagueclaw Catapult
Warp-Lightning Cannon

So, what’s going on here? A few things:

For starters, I’m going very character-heavy. All of my dudes are pretty thoroughly kitted out.  I’ve never really done this.  We’ll have to see if this holds up over a couple of games.

  • The Warlord is kitted out to be somewhat hard to kill, with a 3+/5+, and should be relatively dangerous in combat with the ASF + Poisoned Attacks.  Last week, I ran him with the Ogre Blade and a Potion of Toughness: I think (I’m not caffeinated enough for the math) that he’ll be more dangerous with ASF (his I7 giving him rerolls against most things) and poison than with S6.  Also, the potion didn’t really seem to make a huge difference last week… and I needed points elsewhere.
  • Between Rhellion and Charlie hard-selling the Grey Seer, I’ve decided to try running him.  He was a champ last week, for sure.  He’s got the Dispel Scroll, because he’s the only guy with room for it, the 4+ Ward Save (because, at 240 points before items, he needs as good a save as he can get) and, because it seems prudent, Skalm.  This might be a mistake, and it’s certainly easy enough to move those 50 points somewhere else…. but it made a difference last week.  If I think of each wound on this sucker as being worth 80 points (1/3rd of his cost), it’s steal.
  • The BSB is no longer toting the Stormbanner.  I’ve moved that to the Stormvermin.  This lets me give him some magic armor to make him more survivable: a 2+/6+ has got to be more useful than a 4+/6+, you know?
  • Down to the one Engineer.  I could easily see myself dropping him to a Lvl 1… but for now I’m sticking with the Lvl 2.  I’m kind of stuck with his options, because they’re both too good not to take.

The inclusion of the Seer means I have to drop Something.  240 points don’t grow on trees.  So: I dropped a block of Clanrats.  I’m a little skeeved to only be running two blocks of significant troops (I don’t count Slaves as significant), but I’ve got to see how it works out before I decide I hate it.

Gutter Runners are in, they’ve been champs for me.  Just five dude but a whole lot of poisoned slingin’.

Rat Ogres are still there: I’ve bumped them up to 4 Packmasters each.  What’s that?  Only six Ogres, but 4 Packmasters?  I got this from the interview with Charlie.

The rule says “A pack consists of 1 Packmaster and 2 Rat Ogres.  Any number of Rat Ogres can be added to the unit.  Packmasters can be added, but no more than 1 per every 2 Rat Ogres.”  The 1:2 ratio applies to additional Packmasters, not total Packmasters (which is what I’d originally thought).  This is supported by the Skaven FAQ, which says:

Q. Can I take a unit consisting of 2 Rat Ogres and 2 Packmasters
when I pick an army? (p104)
A. Yes.

Anyway, I like this, as it makes it a little harder to eliminate Packmasters from the unit and, more importantly, makes the unit look better.  It looks lop-sided with just three Packmasters: two behind the middle Rat Ogre and then one hanging out to either side.

In terms of rares, I still love my Doomwheel, and the Cannon’s performed quite well for me.  The Catapult is back, as I’ve got 100 extra points and I’m giving it a second chance.  I could take a second cannon, but lack the model, or a third block of slaves, but painting another 30 slaves would probably kill me.  So, second chance.

Anyway, I’m going to get in a few games with this style of list and we’ll see how I feel about it in a couple of weeks.  This week sees the real kick-off of the IFL’s 8th Edition League, so there should be a lot of gaming.

NoVA Open-ish

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As promised, I hit the NoVA Open Friday afternoon to help set up and meet folks.

I got there a bit after 2PM; just as everyone was taking a break and waiting for another truck full of tables. Excellent timing! So, I hung out with Bill for a bit while everyone checked in and had lunch, venting about the state of gaming stores in our area.

Setup chugged along both quickly and smoothly.  Finally got to spy the new IFL Banners, which are swank.  We’ll definitely have them on display this weekend at Games Day.

After some drinks and dinner, there was some open gaming, and I managed to get a game in.  My scheduled opponent was a no-show, so I ended up playing Dominick R. (who was from either Alexandria, VA or Orlanda, FL; I was a little confused on that point).  I snapped a picture of him but, as he looks like I just punched his mother in the baby-maker, I imagine he’d rather I didn’t post it.

I was running my Khornate Daemons:

HQ
Bloodthirster – Blessings, Instrument, Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Blessings, Instrument, Unholy Might

Elites
Bloodcrusher x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument
Bloodcrusher x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Flight, Unholy Might
Daemon Prince – Flight, Unholy Might
Daemon Prince – Flight, Unholy Might

I didn’t get a copy of Dominick’s list but the more memorable aspects of it included:

HQ
Company Command Squad – Officer of the Fleet, Medi-pack, Plasmagun x3
– Chimera – Heavy Flamer
Inquisitor w/ Mystics
– Chimera – Heavy Flamer

Troops
Infantry Platoon
– All in Chimerae

Fast Attack
Valkyrie
Valkyrie
Valkyrie

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Battle Tank
Manticore
Manticore

So, fully mechanized + Mystics.  Let’s go ahead and call that an extremely poor match up.  Because it was a friendly game, though, he decided to take it a little easy on me and keep everything in reserves.

His dice kind of hated him… and so did my dice.  Before we really resolved the bottom of Turn 5, he conceded the game… but very little had actually been pulled off the table.  He’d dropped one ‘Thirster, nearly dropped the second, and whittled down one of my units of ‘Crushers to next-to-nothing.  I’d popped the LRBT, a Manticore and a Chimera… and was about to get the second Manticore, another Chimera, the Command Squad and maybe another two Chimerae (I say maybe because it was with Bloodletters, who don’t pop armor quite as well as Monstrous Creatures).

It was a good game: I had a really good time, and I think Dominick did, too.

Got a lot of really positive comments about my army from folks walking by, which is something that’s always welcome.  If I’d had foresight, I’d have printed off some Warpstone Pile business cards: there were a lot of questions about how I did this or that and a URL to the walkthrough would have helped back up my descriptions.

I also chatted a lot with the 11th Company; both at the table and then later for a brief recording.  They’re Good People.

A most excellent time.

Although I had to miss the actual event, of course, I’d planned on stopping by on Sunday to maybe get in some more open gaming and watch the finals.  Too much fun was had at the wedding, though, and all I wanted to do Sunday morning was sit on my butt in front of the TV.  A call into Doug that confirmed that most of the break-down had been taken care of let me do that guilt-free.

Although I’ve heard very little about the actual tournament, it sounds like it was quite successful.  I’m looking forward to it next year!

Painting Progress – 20100811

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Although we went out of town for the top half of my week’s vacation, I got to spend the bottom half of the week at home, in the man cave, doing hobby stuff.

For starters, I got the ball rolling on some new terrain; I’m working towards building an underground themed board to match the new basing scheme I’m using with my Skaven (see this post for an example).  No real pictures for this, yet, since I’ve just got one piece of terrain (a cave pool) done up, and I think I might have used too much Water Effects on it. : /

I spent the bulk of my time churning through a box of Clanrats.  Before ducking out, I’d decided (as so many other folks have) to do my Clanrats with the armored bodies and my Skavenslaves with the unarmored bodies.  Across three days, I’d painted up the whole box (well, 19 of them, since I’d painted up one as a test model when the kit first came out).  I’m extremely happy with how they came out… less so with the pictures.  Apologies in advance if I decide I’m disgusted enough with these to re-take and re-post them.

First, the Slaves:

Then, the Clanrats:

Obviously, I still need to paint the banner.  Not sure when I’m going to do that: I’ve been so stopped up on those things, I decided to push on and do more models instead of fuss around with the banner.

I also did a little re-basing.  I’m going to have to do a lot of that before I’m done.  One of my Plague Mortars got dropped a few weeks ago, so he was a good candidate.  Also, I decided to go ahead and do my Warlock Engineer.

Random Topics

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Now that I’m back from vacation, I’ve got a few random things to flush out of my head in hopes of making way for a return to more regular posting:

Although I won’t be able to participate in the NoVA Open, I will be helping set up (and will possibly be helping break down).  That also means I’ll be kicking around the activities on Friday evening.  I’ll have my Khornate Daemons with me, and will have a hunger for carnage.

The Iron Fist League doing Rapid Fire at Games Day again.  I probably should give this it’s own, full post, but in case I don’t… better to touch on it here or not at all.

It’s an adaptation of the format we’ve used at Game Vault for two years, jiggered to make it easier to build lists without much prep.  500 point games; as many as you feel like playing.  No commitment to spend your day stuck in games… just the opportunity to play some quick games and break up your day.

We’ve dragged our heels a bit on getting the rules out: the 40K army construction rules are unchanged from last year, but with the new edition of Fantasy, we’ve hemmed and hawed about construction rules for that quite a bit.  It looks like those have mostly cleared up, though.

It was an immense success last year, and I hope it’ll be one again this year.  Make sure to stop by and say hi and maybe get a game or two in!

I’m extremely disappointed with the Cypher‘s treatment of Hell Dorado at Gen Con.  Malifaux and Hell Dorado fill very much the same sort of niche, and Cypher (in my opinion) really needed to launch Hell Dorado at Gen Con this year to get back on people’s radar.

That they didn’t have the rulebook ready killed it, I think.  We’ve known that it’s been translated for a very, very long time (the translator is active on RPG.net’s OGO board), so there’s really no excuse.    That the game wasn’t launched at Gen Con means that Malifaux will continue to pick up steam and not really leave much room for Hell Dorado.

Heck, at this point, the best thing Cypher could probably do is wait for Malifaux to run it’s course and, in a couple of years, take advantage of all the folks who’ve grown disillusioned with the overcomplicated mess Malifaux is doomed to evolve into (as Malifaux took advantage of all the folks who’d grown disillusioned with the overcomplicated mess Warmachine had evolved into).

Speaking of Malifaux, while I haven’t been doing much with it since 8th came out, I had planned on picking up the new book and gremlin stuff.

Then I took a look at the Ophelia spoilers and it pretty much killed any enthusiasm I’ve had for the game.    It’s just so much crap to learn and memorize.  I don’t think I want to get stuck in a cycle of having to learn 18 billion new rules every year (see above comment about an evolution into overcomplicated mess).  Too much to have to keep up with.

I mentioned on my Twitter (something I think I’m going to try to use a bit more) that I might be done with hobby podcasts.

I’d only started listening to them because my friends had started one of their own, and I figured I owed it to them to show them a little support.   That lead into listening to a few other podcasts, specifically The 11th Company and Dice Like Thunder.

DLT cheesed me off when they started talking tough about soft scores in tournaments.  Besides being Wrong, when you’re not involved in tournaments, you don’t get to speak authoritatively about what works and what doesn’t work with tournaments.  You literally don’t know what you’re talking about.  That, followed by “tactical advice” based on misunderstandings of the rules was enough to convince me my time could be better spent.

The 11th Company’s interview segments are, I think, extremely interesting, but the codex countdown stuff doesn’t work for me.  And, for some reason, I’ve been having a really hard time keeping up with it.

The only podcast I’ve kept up with is, understandably, The Gamer’s Lounge… and I turned that sucker off on the drive into work yesterday.  I expect Jay to occasionally wade in the Sea of Unreasonableness, but Bill really went off the deep end over the Throne of Skulls thing.  After the third or fourth, “Really?  Oh, come on,” that would never be heard, I decided it was too much annoyance for a Monday morning commute.


It’s possible that this is just a bad aspect of the meta-hobby for me to “participate” in.  “Participate” gets the scare quotes, because it (listening to podcasts, at least) is really a passive activity: just sitting there, listening to some dude spout off about whatever.  If I agree with them, I gain nothing… because I already agree with them.  If I disagree, nothing happens.  They just keep talking…  I think I’m too opinionated to for this.

So, some time off.  Maybe I’ll come back to them.  Maybe not.

I think that’s all the kruft rattling around in my head for now.  I’ll have to get a painting progress post up soonish, since I spent a good chunk of my vacation painting Skaven.  I also should do some rumination about Golden Daemon: I’ll be putting some things in, but I don’t expect any of it to go particularly far this year.

Painting Progress – 20100729

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I’ve knocked out a couple of Skaven Rare choices over the past few days.  Both of them, strangely, repaints… something I’ve sworn I wouldn’t do very often.  (Why repaint something you’ve already painted?)

I was pretty stoked about the wood effect I managed on the Warlord, and I’d had a 20% painted Doomwheel sitting in bits on my desk.  Last Sunday, I got the bug to put the wood and steel effect into use on it.  Shockingly, I was able to finish almost the whole thing in a day, wrapping it up the following afternoon.

It’s not all the way done, I suppose.  I’ve still got the banner to do.. but I’m having a great deal of frustration with those at the moment.  So, I’m leaving those where they are.  I’ll deal with them later.

This weekend, I got the notion that repainting the Warp Lightning Cannon I’d previously painted wouldn’t be too hard.  I banged out most of it in the day.  The only thing that really kept it from being “done” until today was the crew.

I think it came out looking really good.

I did something a little different with the Warpstone.  I think it ultimately looks better, but it’s not quite as striking at arm-length, which is unfortunate.

I did the usual Snot Green -> Goblin Green -> Golden Yellow.  Then I went a bit farther and threw in some Sunburst Yellow. before washing it with Thraka Green.  Then I washed it with a thin coat of Leviathan Purple on an impulse.  I think it made the green richer… but less vibrant.

I’d been half-considering what I was going to do for a Plagueclaw Catapult.  I’d run one last week (with an old Screaming Bell as a stand-in).  I haven’t been particularly het up to convert one up because 1) I need to focus on painting and 2) I’m not sure I like the unit (it was particularly disappointing in this week’s game), but the question of “how” had certainly been rattling around in my head.

Then, it occurred to me: Zvezda.  I’d ordered a Zvezda Siege Machines kit a long while back to use the ballista in my Harad army; it’d come with a catapult that I’d never bothered taking off the sprue.  So, I took it off the sprue.  Then I tarted it up a little bit with some Skaven bits.

Not going to win any awards or anything, but it’ll do.  It’s better than a proxy, at least.

Also, it was extremely cheap: ~$15 for a ballista and a catapult (plus some barricades).  That’s a deal and a half, even if it’s not perfect.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m very excited about painting Skaven, now.  I love the new basing scheme (rocky vs. swampy grass), and the colors of everything this side of the flesh are perfect (and I’m perversely stuck on the Bronzed Flesh).  Time to start plugging everything into a spreadsheet and planning on knocking this stuff out.  Also: grinding Clanrats.

Battlefoam! W00t!

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Came home to a pretty large box: my Battlefoam came in the mail!

Originally, I’d been looking at shoving all of my Daemons into foam… but Casey was able to convince me that that was wasteful.  I’ve got a great transport solution for everything except for the Soul Grinders and Bloodthirsters… why spend several hundred dollars to fix what ain’t broke when I could focus on what is?

So, I e-mailed Battle foam the shapes and asked them if they thought fitting everything into a single tray would be feasible.  After a bit (Origins happened shortly after my e-mail), they responded that three of the four shapes would definitely work… but that they wouldn’t know if they could do all four without actually trying to do it.

I took the hint and decided it was my best chance, anyway.  After a bit of fiddling, they got back to me: success!  All four fit!

I might snag a PACK Plus to shove this thing in when they’re released.  We’ll see.

IFL 3rd Quarter RTT & AAR

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Saturday, I ran the 3rd Quarter IFL RTT.

It was a 40K Tournament, using much of the NoVA Open structure, with the intent of giving our members an opportunity to get a feel for the format.  16 people made it out which, given the bracketing format, was perfect.  As we’re about as local as it gets, Mike Brandt came by and helped make sure everything went smoothly.

Casey Campbell‘s Tyranids and Jeff Payne’s Space Hogs (Space Wolves) went undefeated.  Doug McNaron’s World Eaters won the Player’s Choice award.

Scores and pairings can be found here.

A bit of a rambling AAR follows:

  • The format worked well.  I’ve run a bit hot and cold on it over the past several months, but it undeniably ran quite smoothly.

    In terms of matching and the hard side of things, the tournament practically ran itself.

  • Concerns about the bracketing approach frustrating some players with early losses weren’t unfounded.  Several players were (vocally) upset about being matched up against known stronger players.  Before the tournament started, they “knew” that they didn’t have a chance of winning the event.

    That can’t really be helped.  And, fundamentally, it wouldn’t be any different with a Swiss-style tournament save that the “you must be undefeated” expectation is explicit, rather than implicit.

    Ultimately, we had three players drop out of the tournament. One left due to frustration over two rough games, another having to leave in the name of spousal appeasement.  These two players coordinated their departure, to ensure it wouldn’t impact the tournament.

  • The third departure had nothing (and everything) to do with frustration. Chris Shriner: at the top table in the third round, playing for one of the two “Undefeated Player” slots was called into work two-thirds of the way through the game.
  •  The soft score side of things was a disaster, in my opinion.  That’s entirely my fault.

    For me, it’s essential to have a soft score component to a tournament.  I think they’re an important part of the hobby and, therefore, they need to be an important part of tournament.

    Unfortunately, because I’d been waiting for an indication of how the NoVA Open was going to handle Appearance and Sportsmanship awards, I put off announcing any system until it was too late.  (If you’re going to use an objective Appearance checklist, you need to advertise what it is with sufficient time to let participants try to adhere to it.)  That meant I had to fall back on the “Player’s Choice” approach we used at the last 40K IFL RTT: rank every other player.  Weight those ranks.  Whoever’s ranked highest wins an award.

    I can’t complain too much about this approach: I’ve won that award, but the approach is, overall, slapdash and doesn’t value enough what I consider to be important.

    Furthermore, I 1) didn’t allow for enough time for people to look at the other armies and 2) wasn’t successfully able to get people to leave them out on display.

    Because Game Parlor keeps poor hours (11AM to 9PM), and the NoVA Open format allows for two hour, fifteen minute rounds, time was tight, so I only scheduled a 30 minute lunch break.  When all was said and done, I should and could have stretched that out to an hour.  We were packed up and done before 8:30 (closer to 8), so an extra 30 minutes wouldn’t have hurt us.

    Yelling, “Don’t put your armies away before lunch” wouldn’t have hurt, either.

    I’m dissatisfied enough with how the soft stuff came out that I feel like I need to apologize to everyone for it.

  • Interesting thing: Mike Gatewood made an unhappy comment about how Doug always wins Best Appearance / Player’s Choice / etc.  Suggesting that it was a bad thing that one person consistently wins the same award time and time again with the same army.  In some ways, that’s fair.

    But really, I’m completely okay with that.  If you’re tired of seeing someone win “Prettiest Army” again and again: step up.  Make an army that looks better than his, and bring it out.  If one player has an auto-win for that, it’s certainly not their fault: it’s the community’s.

  • It looks like most everyone who made it out had a good time.  That’s very important to me.

WHFB 8th FAQ

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GW’s FAQ’d  the Warhammer 8th core rulebook.

This is magnificent.  This is precisely how I want a gaming company to handle things.  Nothing’s going to be perfect, but when you find something wrong: fix it.