Tomb Kings terrain / filler

With Blood in the Sun coming up, I have a few more things to finish up. The first and most important is my last horde movement tray for the Plague Monks. I need it for my army to be complete. But, next up is my terrain piece for the Terrain Contest at BITS. I picked up an Arcane Ruins set from GW with the intention of not only making a matching piece of terrain for my Tomb Kings army, but also use the smaller pieces as unit fillers throughout. So lets have a look. I need to get this thing painted soon, so hopefully I will have updated pictures or WIP pics soon:

Smaller and without a "base" I would normally put on my terrain pieces. I am hoping this makes the piece easier to fit onto different themed tables.

And here are the pieces I really like. 2 Necro Knights with ruin pieces. One is burrowing under and coming up from under a pillar. A Khemrian Warsphynx climbing over a ruin piece. 3 Skeletons on pillar pieces as inner unit fillers. And finally just a ruined pillar I could use as a filler somewhere if I choose.

Year 1: 8th Edition Tournaments

Blood in the Sun is my next tournament, and will mark the 1 year anniversary of Warhammer 8th Edition. The new edition has treated me well with 10 tournaments, and 5 tournament victories! I truly believe the new edition is the best one I have played (I have played during 3 editions). In the next year I really want to ramp up my Warhammer travels and tournament attendance. I already have 3 planned for July, including Blood in the Sun which will be my very first 2-day GT. So lets look at last year.

2010 Ard Boyz Prelims, 3-0 (1st Place)
2010 Ard Boyz Semis, 2-0-1 (3rd Place)
2010 Ard Boyz Finals, 2-1 (3rd Place)
GLWL Fall Classic, 3-0 (1st Place)
Adepticon Primer, 3-0 (1st Place)
Adepticon Big Brawl, 2-1 (22nd Place)
Adepticon Fantasy Championships, 3-1 (23rd Place)
GLWL Season End Tournament, 3-0 (1st Place)
2011 Ard Boys Prelims, 3-0 (1st Place)
2011 Ard Boyz Semis, 2-1 (5th Place)

To check out upcoming tournaments, I have found the Ohiohammer website to be FANTASTIC. They have a Calendar of events. I am hoping to make it to as many as possible as the year progresses! Next GT after BITS I am hoping to attend is Core Competency in Chicago at the GW Bunker.

See you on the battlefield!

More BITS prep vs WoC

I have claimed in the past that Warriors are a good match up for me to face with my Skaven. This weekend my claim was definitely put to the test. I had a quality game vs a Warriors of Chaos opponent up at the Hampton Village (Rochester) GW Hobby Center. His list was a definite "Chosen Star" list. 2 weeks from Blood in the Sun, I needed to crank out the practice games vs some tough lists!

Chosen Star:
L4 Tzeentch, power die familiar
L2 Death, spell familiar
BSB, banner of rage
18 Warriors of Tzeentch, hw/sh
50 Marauders of Khorne, flails
38 Chosen of Tzeentch, halberds, terror banner
Warshrine of Tzeentch

The scenario was Blood and Glory. We decided breaking your opponent first would yield 500 additional victory points. As expected, the Chosen were pretty much set up in the middle of the board with the Marauders and pushed forward. I set up my Monks opposite of the Marauders, and all the Slaves opposite of the Chosen. I spent the first 2 turns maneuvering the Slaves to keep the Chosen busy for as long as possible. The Chosen rolled +1 Toughness for their starting ability.

After his Marauders moved up, I attempted to charge first turn and failed. My Abom advanced on his Tzeentch Warriors in the building, not liking the level 2 Death Mage looming over my entire army. Second turn the Marauders charged into the Plague Monks, and the Chosen went into the first Slave speed bump. Not sure why, but this just bought me some more time. The Death mage cast a small Purple Sun towards my Hell Pit that misfired and killed a couple Warriors before scattering away.

Activating the Plague Banner, the Plague Monks took a lot of damage but still won the overall combat by an impressive 11 combat resolution. They ran down the Marauder horde and opened up the flank. The Hell Pit Abomination smashed through the Tzeenth Warriors and forced them to flee from the building. The Slaves did a good job of not losing enough to lose Steadfast, so they stuck around.

I thought things were going pretty well at this point, until the next turn when my opponent rolled the dreaded 11 on his Chosen roll, then modified it to be a 12 for a 3+ ward save with Stubborn. My Plague Furnace broke the War Shrine in combat and failed to catch it, but it ran through the now rallied Tzeenth Warriors... causing them to flee off the board. I eventual did catch and destroy it, all the while the unkillable Chosen with the L4 Tz caster and BSB inside were grinding through rats.

I fed all of my slaves to the unit and maneuvered my Storm Vermin around the rear of the Chosen. Not to charge, but for my Grey Seers and BSB to bail out on my turn 5, and then align my remaining 'heroic' Clan Rats in front of the Chosen. They held out until the end of the game, and the giant Chosen point sink was all that remained (it cost 817 points without the characters!).

I won by a solid 620 points or so and felt confident that my game plan vs such a unit worked out to my own satisfaction. All I lost in the mass carnage were 2 Slave units and a Warlock Engineer. Looking back the only thing I would have charged was having the Engineer hop out of his unit early to be an additional speed bump for the Chosen. I didn't post any real magic updates, as it was a nonfactor for almost the entire game. Also, neither of us broke from the scenario rules.

Games this week.

This week has been pretty busy with Warhammer and Warhammer 40k action, as it was my first week back from vacation. First up we had 2 Fantasy games on Tuesday night at Pandemonium. I brought the Skaven and the Tomb Kings out to learn a little about the TK's and hopefully get some practice with the Skaven before Blood in the Sun.

Game 1 I decided to try out a few new models and the Tomb Kings rather than the Skaven against Ramon's Lizardmen at 2400 points. He brought what I consider to be a pretty standard list with a couple interesting units I don't see as often. Life Slaan, temple guard, 3 smallish saurus blocks, 2 skink/krox blocks, 2 units of salamanders. I brought a character light list. Hierophant, Prince, 40 warriors, 20 archers, 3 chariots, 30 tomb guard, 3 stalkers, 3 knights, hierotitan (proxy), casket, and a screaming skull catapult.

The game went well for me as I pretty much had magic dominance. The casket's +d3 dice and the titan's +d3 to cast is pretty great. The Necropolis Knights performed well and ground out an entire unit of Saurus. So well in fact that I am currently taking apart my 3 other Stalkers to make into Knights. The Tomb Guard were the MVP. I ran 30 in horde formation with Halberds, and they walked through 2 units of Saurus and a unit of Skink / Krox. They are so expensive, but they really perform. I think I got 2-4 spells off almost every turn, usually attempting 6 (with bound items). In the end, all that was left was the Slaan and his TG.

Next up I faced mi_whplayers and his Tomb Kings with my Skaven. We dropped down to 2200 to give Brian some practice for Buckeye Battles which is the same weekend as BITS. His list was a lot like what I like in my first Tomb King list, but without the Knights and Stalkers.

Starting the game, I won the first turn and took a shot at the big Sphynx, and sniped it for 4 wounds. He returned by unloading his spell boosted archers and his catapults at the Plague Furnace, killing it in the first turn. While I was worried at this point so early in the game, my Hell Pit was straight away from his Tomb Guard and King. I spent the next turn magic/shooting and weakening this unit in order to hit it hard the next turn. My Grey Seer was able to Skitterleap and take out a catapult and the casket second turn, but then was left out in the open. Luckily I made it a point and was able to stop smiting next turn, so the 30 archers that turned to shoot the lone Seer were unable to kill him. On my third turn I smashed my HPA into the Tomb Guard, killed them and the King, and overran into the Hierophant and his bunker... ending the game early.

On Thursday I played in the final game of the Pandemonium / 40K Fight Club League. I made it through to the finals after the 4 game preliminary round and 2 game playoff. In the end I lost a brutal game to a tough mechanized Steel Legion IG list, where my dice refused to be any help all game. We played the Chaos mission from the Battle Missions book where all area terrain blocks all line of sight, and the terrain is either dangerous terrain, or adds +1 to cover saves. I had all of the dangerous terrain on my side of the board, and lost a LOT of wounds to DT moving forward. Congrats on 40k Armageddon on the league win.

Back to the BITS practice this weekend. I am going to hit GW to look for 2400 point games and work on my BITS terrain. Blood in the Sun is in 2 weeks!

Preparing for a Warhammer Tournament

Blood in the Sun is less than a month away, and I am busy preparing for my first GT of the Summer. BITS will have 50 players, as well as 5 games over 2 days, so I can expect to face a variety of opponents as well as a variety of armies. Every army other than Ogre Kingdoms will be represented, according to sign-ups. So how do you prepare for an 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy tournament like this with so many variables? Well lets take a look at what you need in a successful Warhammer tournament army.

Back from vacation

I am back from my NYC vacation, and have less than a month before the big event of my Summer schedule: Blood in the Sun! So far Blood in the Sun is totally sold out with a 6 person waiting list. Almost every army will be represented at the tournament (no Ogres) and it looks like I will be one of only 2 Skaven players in the field. There will even be Chaos Dwarfs and Dogs of War. Where are all the Skaven players if the internet says they are the best / cheesiest 8th edition army? Hmmmmm?

Between now and then I am hoping to do minimal modeling so that I can really focus on getting practice games in, but I haven't seen much interest in GLWL members wanting to play games after the season ended. I am thinking I am going to have to travel up to the GW Hampton Village Hobby Center for games, as their store has mostly converted to Fantasy as their main game (or so I am told). Skaven-wise my list has been sent to Grant at BITS, and I have had my models finished for a while now. I need to paint a new horde formation movement tray for my Plague Monks and their Plague Furnace, but that is about it.

Tomb Kings wise, I am waiting until after BITS to really focus on them as my next army, even though they are mostly assembled. I am picking up a new Finecast Casket of Souls tomorrow at the 40K Fightclub League night, where I am in the League Finals against 40K Armageddon's Imperial Guard list with my Space Wolves. I am hoping to build more archers for my list and pick up more rare choices before the list is finished (Hiero and SCC). My list right now is going to be playtested with 2 options for special choices: construct heavy with snakes and sphynxes; or infantry heavy with LOTS of Tomb Guard. I will try both, and while constructs may be better I am heavily leaning towards liking the Tomb Guard.

There is my hobby update, hopefully some battle reports soon as I get ready for BITS!

40K at Gamelinks

Last weekend I participated in my first Warhammer 40,000 tournament in a LONG time at Gamelinks in Fowlerville, MI. I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed my games against 3 new opponents. As you can see, I was rusty to start off and played against an army I have never seen before twice, but in the end I felt like I still was competitive through the event.

My list was a Wolf Lord on TWC, 2 Rune Priests, 3 squads of Grey Hunters in drop pods, Scouts, Lone Wolf in terminator armor with a chainfist and storm shield, Wofl Guard with fists in squads, 3 TWC, and 1 squad of missile launcher Long Fangs.

Game 1 : Grey Knights

2 Dreadknights, 2 units of Troops with lots of Psycannons on foot, fast attack jump troops, and the Character with the Ghost Terminators attached along with a Librarian in terminator armor. The mission main objective was to control terrain pieces. I didn't know the rules for the Ghost Knight special character, so apparently he can deep strike turn 1 without scattering, and appeared right next to my Long Fangs. Next time I will know to definitely protect my units through deployment! This was what really hurt me early on, but I still was able to fight back. My TWC charged the fast attack jump troops, and the Lord hit, wounded, and killed on all 6 attacks. The TWC wiped the squad but took a few wounds. Their next assault, though weakened from shooting, the Lord again hit, wounded, and killed 6 on hit way to winning the combat but the squad fell back leaving my TWC to be finished off by shooting the next turn. That squad not being wiped, along with a last turn 30" jumping Dreadknight (wtf, lol) allowed my opponent to grasp 1 more terrain objective and win 30-1. I wasn't as close on the secondary objectives.

Game 2 : Grey Knights

A very different game than game 1. The mission objective was to hold table quarters as well as a point on the center of the board with an HQ as a secondary objective. The Grey Knights this time has Draigo, a squad of 10 Paladins (combat squaded), a squad of 5 Paladins, and 2 squads of fast attack jump troops. Things went poorly early for my opponent. I was able to Jaws the Banner Bearer in Draigo's squad first turn, though Draigo survived. Then I assaulted second turn with the TWC, broke Draigo and what was left of his unit and follow him off the board. Then the TWC were shot and assaulted by the next Paladin squad, and I broke them and ran them off the board as well! Things were well in hand from there as I controlled the board and all of the secondary objectives for a 33-0 win.

Game 3 : Space Wolves

My final game was against The Judge from Dark Future Games, and he brought a full drop pod Space Wolf list. 2 Rune Priests, 4 squads of Grey Hunters, and 2 Venerable Dreads. The game had 5 total objectives on the board, and I went first. I put most of the objectives towards one corner / half of the board so that I could focus everything in one area with my limited mobility. I had less reserves than my opponent, so the plan was to pick him off as he came in, if possible. It did end up working, even as my units took shots as the pods fell, they were the superior close combat force. My opponent and I both had Wulfen and Power Weapons in my squads, but he opted for larger squads and special weapons, or room for his terminator Rune Priests. I instead took Wolf Standards and Power Fist Wolf Guard, which made the difference in squad vs squad close up combat. That and the Thunder Wolves running everything down on one flank. I win 33-0 and have to wonder how the day would be different if I had read the Grey Knights Codex before game 1.

I had a great time overall. 40k is definitely not my strong suit, but I can still appreciate the game. I didn't take pictures of my games, but I do have some great shots of the beautiful armies on the day. have a look...

 Excellent Tzeentch Chariots

 Round 1 : Dreadknight

 Round 2 : "Green Knites" counts-as Grey Knights, lol

 Overall Winner : MEAN Daemons of Chaos

2 more great looking armies

Coming up soon will be Blood in the Sun preparation. The 2 day GT is July 9 / 10. Until then I will be taking a couple weeks off from hobbying as I am on vacation, but I will be back playtesting for BITS asap! Tomb Kings will also be back on the table AFTER BITS.