Alamo GT Day Two

When day two was starting up I had high hopes that my dice luck would turn around...  I think for the most part it did.

Round 4 - Chaos Space Marines
Primary:  Big Guns: 2 Objectives (opponents deployment zone is the objective)
Secondary:  Kill all heavy support units or units with armor if no HS are included

I finally get to play against some dragons!  Trent was playing a nurgle based list with a biker lord, a squad of nurgle bikes, a small squad of plague marines, a ton of cultists, a maulerfiend, 2 las cannon predators, and 2 dragons.

Turn 1, he just moved his forces forward toward my lines.  Unfortunately for me, he was able to take out the Icarus with his las predators and thus cripple the primary weapon against the dragons.  Oh well.  During my turn, my primary concern was taking out the mauler fiend as it was really the only major threat to the bastion that was holding my lines.  I dropped in around and was able to take it down fairly easily.  I was also able to take down one of the las preds by dropping behind it.  Trent tried to deploy his cultists so I wouldn't have space to drop in behind his lines, but I was able to find a small spot just large enough for Belial's squad.

Turn two one dragon came in and I was able to vector lock it with interceptor from the missiles.  Trent assaulted what he could with the bikes and took some more shots at the tourmies, killing a few.  Las cannons from the remaining pred was able to take out one of the speeders.  I was able to shake the predator during my turn and wipe out a small squad of cultists.  I was able to keep other squads of cultists gone to ground for improved cover so they couldn't shoot me next turn.  The vindicare was sniping out a plague marine each turn as well.  The highlight of the game was the biker lord winning a challenge against my terminator sergeant and becoming a demon prince!  I was also able to win combat with a single cyclone terminator and force about 27 cultists to run off the board.  I was also able to wipe out the bikers with a second squad of termies during my turn.

Trent was fairly underwater at this point.  The vindicare was able to survive a 4 hit vector strike and he did not have much left that could fire after that.  He assaulted a squad of termies with his shiny new demon prince.  During my turn, I was able to wound the prince a bunch and get him down to 1 wound, leaving only a cyclone left in the fight though.

In the end, Trent was able to get enough troops (including 2 remaining members of a 35 man cultist squad) back into his own deployment zone to contest what I'd moved into it forcing a draw on the primary.  He was never able to get any troops into mine.  He was never able to touch the Bastion, so I wont secondary.  90 cultists is a tough nut to crack.  12 points to 8.  Great game, fairly close right up to the end.  

ROUND 5 - Space Wolves
Primary:  Kill Points
Secondary:  Kill 4 chosen units out of elites,  fa, and/or heavys (or HQs to fill out slots)
Tertiary: Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Line Breaker

For the final round of the tournament, I was up against Crazy Red Praetorian from Austin and as such I knew we'd have a good game.  He was running a Wolf Lord on a thunderwolf, a Rune Priest on a bike, a squad of 3 thundwolf cav with shields, a Wolf Priest on foot, a big squad of dudes with double plasma pistols in a pod, 2 squads of grey hunters in pods, and a small squad of wolf guard in a razorback.  In this particular case, the dice definitely went my way.  I was able to snipe out his rune priest turn 1 with a turbo-penetrator round.  the rest of my shooting was able to take out all of the other dogs as well.   Combined shooting from podding in units, including the crazy plasma pistol unit was able to wipe out Belial and his unit, but I was able to Icarus snipe his Wolf Priest with interceptor.

CRP never really recovered from losing all the wolves and I as able to slowly whittle him down and by the end of the game everything was dead save for 2 drop pods.  20-5 to the Deathwing.

As always, Alamo was a good time.  I ended up 2-2-1, but was able to take home 2nd best painted.  As I expected (and predicted) at the start of the event, the final table was Jwolf playing Tau and Minus67 playing Tau.  Jwolf was able to pull it out by getting the alpha strike again and crippling Minus' broadsides on turn 1.  Here are some other images I snapped.

My thoughts exactly, Bullymike

Alamo 40k GT Day One Report

Day one of the Alamo GT is over and all in all it was a great time as usual.  Had three games that were for the most part, very fun as 40k goes.

ROUND 1 - Blood Angels and IG
Primary:  5 Objectives
Secondary: Table Quarters w/ Scoring Units

The first match of the game I was paired up against Aaron and his nice looking blood angel army.  One of the other big reasons I come did enjoy playing in big tournaments in my hay day was being able to play against completely painted armies so it was nice to do that again.  He was running Dante with a squad of Sanguinary guard and a priest, a tac squad with a plasma cannon, a storm raven, and a furioso in a pod with some sort of gun (I cant remember which).  His allies were Straken with a small squad of some sort, harker with a squad of vets I think it was, an aegis with a quad gun, and 3 basilisks.  I'm really quite thankful they were basilisks and not medusas...

The deployment was short table edges, but it was modified to be a 24"x36" square in opposite corners rather than the entire table edge.  I deployed my Bastion with Coteaz and the Servitors at the front of my lines, the vindicator running the icarus, the missile launchers were just anyplace they could get a good vantage point over the entire field, and the speeders were taking cover behind the bastion.

The dreadnaught dropped in turn 1 and my intercepting guns annihilated it...  I dropped in and made positions around the aegis to give plenty of targets.  The dice were quite kind to me and I was able to roll pretty average or slightly above.  The only thing that I ever had trouble with was his deathstar that dropped in my back lines behind my bastion, hidden just barely from the las cannon by his drop pod.  I was hoping to be able to take out his damn priest before he gave the squad FNP.  I did not know that line of sight was important when intercepting.  I was thinking that it was more "as they were dropping" rather than after they were already down.  Oh well.  A lucky single wound from the basilisks took out the vindicare (maybe I do wish they were medusas...  no probably still not), even through my 2+ cover.

The Sang. Guard were able to take out pretty much my entire back lines save for the bastion and the guys inside, who were nasty.  I was finally able to get the squad down to just Dante and the Priest by the end of the game, who were no longer really threats to the mission objectives.

I was able to kill ever model save for the priest and Dante who were finally able to take out the servitors and Coteaz by lobbing grenades into the building.  They just hit behind the bastion afterwords.  It was a great game that really started to turn my way in the second half.  19 out of 20 points for the Deathwing.

ROUND 2: Eldar
Primary: 3 Objectives
Secondary: Cant remember

Game two, everything really REALLY started going to hell...

I was up against John with a reasonable list, but with enough firepower that I was not completely unconcerned.  I wasn't that worried though.  He had a farseer, an avatar, a squad of rangers, 2 squads of dire avengers in wave serpents, a squad of fire dragons in a wave serpent, a squad of war walkers (of course), a squad of warp spiders, and the bad ass Forge World D-cannon take who's name escapes me.  In hind sight, I probably would have used the terminators a little differently, but that might be clouded by what happened in the game...

For an example, I went first and got Presience and Perfect Timing on my rolls for Coteaz...  Sounds great!  No cover saves for the rangers?!  NICE!..  yeah, not so nice.  Roll to cast presience... 2, 1, 1...  Well, that sucks, but at least it still goes off...  Roll for Perfect Timing... 1, 1, 1... yeah, first blood goes to the Eldar due to my shitty dice.  It never really improved after that.  The first turn, a good 40-50% of my dice were 1s.  All my missiles, the las cannon, the missile launchers, all that shooting did in total two hull points to one of the tanks, that's it.  Dire avengers hop out and bladestorm one squad, 10 wounds, all 5 terminators die...  yeah, the whole turn and most of the game was like that.  For some reason, I made almost all of my invulns all game, so why not assault the Avatar!  Sadly, he only lasted a couple of turns before my termies killed him...  Yay, at least I got slay the warlord.  All of those termies died next turn.

The only thing good that happened for me the entire game was the vindicare intercepting the spiders and las-sniping out the exarch.  5 out of 20 for the Deathwing...  ouch.

ROUND 3: Space Wolves
Primary:  Kill Points
Secondary:  Slay the Warlord, First Blood

Still reeling a little from the annihilation during game 2, I had high hopes.  Sadly, I don't remember my opponents name, but he was running 2 squads of grey hunters with a bunch of plasma, a squad of long fangs with an assortment of guns, an aegis with a quad gun, a squad of dogs, a wolflord on a dog, and a squad of wolf guard termies in a drop pod.

My tactics in this game were sound and I was able to strand his termies on the wrong side of the board, and his dogs far enough on one flank that if I could just roll some friggin average dice I could wipe out most if not all of the grey hunters before the big guys were even involved in the fight...  Yeah, no such luck.  I'd say my dice improved from 50% ones, to about 1:3.  Still nowhere near good enough.  It was  a pretty close fight at first and I was able to take out the long fangs early, but it went downhill from there, 4" failed charge... 3" failed charge... and FAR too many 1s for armor saves and there was nothing I could really do...  The game was closer for sure than game 2, but still nowhere near close at all.  I can definitely say that vindicare is quite dirty running that las cannon though, ouch.  Another 5 out of 20 for the Deathwing.

Double-checking the Alamo

It's been a very busy month for me with Alamo, War Games Con, and a few other things going on all at the same time, but I was finally able to finish my army.  I had to change it up significantly after the FAQ was released and messed up my plans. I had to douche it up just a tiny bit...  not too much though.


Belial, Thunder Hammer & Stormshield
5x Terminators, 4x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 4x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 2x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Plasma Cannon, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 3x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Plasma Cannon, Chainfist
2x Land Speeder, Typhoon Missile Launcher
2x Hyperios Air Defense Battery
Imperial Bastion, Icarus Las Cannon

Inquisitor Coteaz
3x Inquisitorial Servitors, Heavy Bolter
Vindicare Assassin

The Vindicare will run the Las Cannon on top of the Bastion and Coteaz with his Servitors will hang out inside shooting heavy bolters at everything.  The terminators will do what terminators do best and the Speeders can dish out a surprising amount of fire into large units.  I played a game with 3 of them at 2000 points and they were quite good.

I plan to post a bunch of pictures of my army and the rest of Alamo as time allows. 

The End of the Line

Having been involved via BoLS with the most recent clusterfSck that is Games Workshop, the last shred of loyalty I have to them is extinct.  I have a few things I still want to pick up for my Dark Angels, not to mention a good portion of my Sons of Horus Heresy army, but after that I will be putting an end to my Games Workshop purchases.  I will not be renewing my digital White Dwarf subscription and I will not be picking up any other codexes (except for Dark Angels probably).  I've grown very weary of them as a company and now that the industry is bursting with examples of great companies and great games, I'm sending my support elsewhere.

How To: Basilisk to Medusa to Basilisk Conversion

Here's a quick Basilisk-to-Medusa conversion I used for my Pre-Heresy Luna Wolves army.  It was based on this picture at Dakka.  Unlike the Dakka version I had no spare Storm Sword barrel.  Seems like a pricey bit to use for this, so I substituted in a small piece of PVC which I cut down to about 3/4", de-burred and sanded smooth.  Here's really all you need:

The Basilisk gun, the smoke stack from the Manufactorum, the case from Valkyrie multiple rocket pod, the bit of PVC and some very thin plasticard.

First hack up the Basilisk barrel.  You'll need to cut off the long part of the barrel and remove the section that is connected to the upper support.  Also cut off the top of the smoke stack, smooth it out and attach it to the rocket pod and PVC tub.  When completed, it should look like this:

Now just assemble the Basilisk cannon back-half with the new barrel.  You'll probably have to remove some material below the upper holder so you can get a snug fit.  In the end, the upper tube will be resting on the section of PVC.

Now comes the tricky part.  Cut a strip plasticard long enough to fit around the barrel of the Basilisk you cut off in the step above.  You're going to make a sleeve that fits inside the smoke stack and around the barrel.  Dry fit it a few times until you get the diameter and reveal (how much card is sticking out of the smoke stack) just right.  You'll probably have to clean up the cut end of the Basilisk barrel to get a good fit.

Once everything is satisfactory, slather the inside of the smoke stack with glue and cram the plasticard and barrel in there.  Try to line up the seam with the bottom, so it is less obvious.  I wrapped a small rubber band around the plasticard to help it keep a cylindrical shape.  Try not to get glue on the Basilisk barrel so it can be easily removed later.

If you end up with a small open seam like I did on this one, you can add a small strip of plasticard and file it down later.  The armor shield will have to be cut and trimmed to fit around the PVC, but once it is complete it should all go together just like the Basilisk.

That's it; pretty simple if you have all the pieces.  The best part is that this can be a Medusa or a Basilisk by adding the long barrel.  Medusas are great in one-on-one Heresy games, but you'll probably want to break out the Basilisk for Apocalypse games because of the better range.

Remember the AlamoGT!

Adepticon 2013 is over and it's time to set my sights on what is likely the only "large" tournament I will be playing in for the foreseeable future.  The Alamo 40k GT is exactly what I look for in a tournament really.  Even better this year as they are allowing Forge World units!!

I look forward to Alamo every year and this year is no different, even with my general distaste for the current 40k competitive environment.  I'm going in a little different direction this year with my army list.  With the prevalence of Helldrakes and Night Scythes, I decided to load up a bit on anti-flyer weaponry.  I still left myself with a pretty good list I think though...

Venántium Draco

Belial, Thunder Hammer & Stormshield
5x Terminators, 4x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 4x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 4x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Cyclone Missile Launcher, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 3x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Plasma Cannon, Chainfist
5x Terminators, 3x Thunder Hammer & Stormshield, Plasma Cannon, Chainfist
2x Hyperios Air Defense Battery
2x Hyperios Air Defense Battery
5x Scout Squad, 5x Sniper Rifle, Camo Cloaks
Imperial Bastion, Quad-gun

I've been looking forward to using Termies with plasma for a while now and it will be fun to paint.  I'll be building up my Bastion to be pretty sweet I hope.  I've got a little less than a month to get everything ready and at least one other project to tackle before then.  I'm hoping to have that done in the next week though.

Adepticon: From The Floor Day 3

Didn't get a chance to make an update yesterday, but I was able to get more photos.  Adepticon is running strong and I've been checking out everything there is to see.