I had a horrid time at a local tournament a week gone Sunday. The tournament itself was run amazingly by Harry of Mackem Productions and he did a great job putting it together, but my not having played much 40k this year whilst I concentrated on 30k has seen me fall out of step with the local meta.
I took my friendly fluffy Iyanden army, which I won’t lie, has two lots of Wraithguard, a Hemlock Wraithfighter and a Wraithknight. But one of those Wraithguard are footslogging, and the Wraithknight is armed with a Suncannon, so it’s not that scary.
But what I had, including D weapons was so far out of line with what I came up against. My first game, against another Eldar army, lasted three turns, my Wraithknight coming off in turn one as it got shot to death by a Heavy Wraithcannon Wraithknight, and I simply removed other units in single swoops as Fire Dragons and Scatter Laser Jetbikes killed off my units one by one systematically.
My second game was a lot more fun, I played against my friend James, the eventually wooden spoon “winner” and we had a very good evenly balanced game which saw us mostly wipe each other’s armies out evenhandly. We ended up drawing, but had the game gone on another turn, his Imperial Knight would have made mince meat of my Wraithknight.
My third game saw me take on Chaos Daemons, this game lasted a lot longer, but with a Daemonic Incursion detachment with a Warpflame Host of 7 Flamers it was a really tough list. I did alright against his Chaos Space Marine allies, but I couldn’t touch the Daemons, and a Daemon Prince charging into combat against Dire Avengers is just hard to watch.
My last game saw me take on Eldar again and at this point I just lost the will to play, another Wraithknight, more Fire Dragons in an Aspect Host and plenty of Windriders with Scatter Lasers. Put it this way, I was scooping up units away with a dustpan metaphorically and only managed to kill three Jet Bikes all game with my Hemlock.
After the tournament I feel like a broken man when it comes to 40k, I am just that far behind in the meta, I don’t know what to do to catch up. I like fluffy armies and taking the most powerful broken units, well it’s something you won’t really see me do. But I have to do something, i don’t mean it like as in I want an army that will curb-stomp all others, I just want one that can stand on its own and get me mid table finishes at tournaments.
People keep saying I should go back to my drop pod Space Wolves list and play it as Blackmanes for the free drop pods, or throw in some Wulfen or Thunderwolf Cavalry, but that would to me, feel like the first steps on the road to power gaming.
Anyway it’s something to think about I guess.
What I am Modelling
Trying to get back my hobby mojo, I am going to be playing some Kill Team at the club, so I am building two 200pts kill teams, a Millitarium Tempestus one and a Blood Angels one.
The Millitarium Tempestus one consists of five Tempestus Scions, with a Hot Shot Volley Gun, Plasma Gun and a Tempestor with a Bolt Pistol and Chainsword, and accompanied by a Taurox Prime with Missile Launcher and Autocannons.
The Blood Angels kill team is the example squad from the Kill Team booklet, I have added a Blood Angels upgrade sprue to give the Space Marine kit just enough Blood Angels stuff to make it cool. It’s my first time using the new Space Marine kit, I haven’t had to buy a Space Marine kit for some years and I have to say it’s pretty good as kits go.
I have also built a Blood Angels Terminator Librarian, well it came packaged as a Deathwatch Terminator Librarian, but they were the same price and this came with a Deathwatch Upgrade Sprue I can add to the bitz box.
What I am Reading
I finished Praetorian of Dorn, and I have to say wow, what an ending! It’s a brave book, changing something somprbipusly fundamental about the fluff, it kept me reading right until the end.
I also read Ahriman:Exile by John French and I also really enjoyed that book, it was quite interesting to see Ahriman on the back foot, not sure of himself or his direction, but I very much enjoyed the book and have no moved on to the short story collection Ahriman: Exodus which so far is a little slow going, but I expect it will pick up.
What I am Playing
Got three games of Kill Team in the other night using the Millitarium Tempestus. The first game I played against Tyranids, with three Tyranid Warriors and six Genestealers, and that game went quite well, he deployed quite spread out which allowed me to keep my team together hopping in and out of the Taurox taking out the nids one by one.
The second game was a total whitewash, as five Ravenwing Black Knights shot me to death with Plasma.
The third game was against 15 Dark Angels scouts, who as well as infiltrating made a scout move and were able to bring down a heavy rain of fire on me, lasted three turns, but my Scions couldn’t cope with the fire, and the individual scouts charging the Taurox with Krak grenades made short work of that.
Overall I am enjoying Kill Team it’s a lot of fun and we are talking about having a Kill Team campaign at the club, which I am looking forward to a lot.
What I am Backing
There is just 48 hours to get in on Dungeon Fantasy, a good old fashioned dungeon delivering RPG, powered by GURPs from Steve Jackson Games. They have a great team writing it and the game box which is rather large ships from the EU at a rather reasonable $20, which is much better than what was originally proposed.
At the $70 level, which I am in on, you get the box containing the 5 books which make up the set, cardboard figures, dice and a map plus a GM screen with pre-generated characters. It’s pretty decent value in my opinion, and I have also bolted on a copy of How to Gurps GM in print and a print copy of the Companion which will contain the three Dungeon Fantasy PDF extras unlocked as part of the campaign.
So if RPGs are your thing, give it a look, and don’t worry if you can’t back it, there is zero in terms of Kickstarter Exclusives as its all about getting it to retail, and thus what you can back for will be in your FLGS next year.
What I am Spending
With the split between Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games happening, I went into panic mode and have bought a few things I was holding off buying until I had the space/money. The prices on them was skyrocketing and I couldn’t afford to hold back anymore.
I picked up a copy of Forbidden Stars, a game I have wanted for a long while but been reluctant to buy because I am not sure Megan or Lindsay would be interested in it as it’s quite a heavy game and set in the 40k universe.
I also got the expansions for Relic, Nemesis and The Halls of Terra, they haven’t arrived yet as they are having to come from the Republic of Ireland, but I am currently worrying about how they will fit on the shelves, I might have to put their components in the core game box.
While I was at it, I decided to pick up a copy of Lost Patrol that was going for a song On eBay, I remember the original game, but back the. It was Dark Angels in the jungle, not Blood Angels.
And it’s not technically money I spent, but I did swap a few rare Munchkin cards for a copy of Warhammer Quest Silver Tower from a dude who runs an FLGS in Glasgow, the cards were free for me from my time as an MIB, and obviously the guy running the store would have paid trade price for the game, so it’s not as big a value swap as it seems on the surface.
I also sold my Abaddon and Loken set, I had it from when I originally looked into Heresy and was planning a Sons of Horus army, well that is until the Ultramarines tempted me to the ways of the XIIIth. Anyway the money I made from that ended up getting spent to buy an Infiltration Cadre, so along with that Tau Strike Team from Kill Team, I guess a Tau army is on the distant horizon.
