NWG Series, Part Two - The list

Welcome back to the NWG Series, time for part two.

Last time I hinted at something involving drop pods and left a few of my mad scrawlings up on the blog for your viewing pleasure.

I suppose it’s time to explain the some of my schemes, I’m going to be entering the 40K tournament, which has a 1650pts limit and rewards you for playing with new toys, conversions and the like.

I’ve opted to bring a list that involves drop pods, 9 of them.

Heres a quick list run down:

Dark Angels

Librarian, level 1 (Divination)

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Tactical Squad, Melta, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Melta, 3x Combi-Melta, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod

Veteran Squad, Plasma, 3x Combi-Plasma, Drop Pod

Space Wolves

Rune Priest, Jaws, Hurricane

Rune Priest, Jaws, Lightning

6 Wolf Guard, 2x Combi-Melta, 3x Combi-Flamer, 1xTerminator w/ H.Flamer, Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod

8 Grey Hunters, Melta, Banner, Drop Pod

So as you can see I’m going to be needing:

9 Drop Pods

6 Melta Guns

2 Plasma Guns

5 Combi-Meltas

6 Combi-Plasmas

3 Combi-Flamers

1 Terminator

3 Libbys/Priests

6 Sgts

26 Marines

Pretty much all of this needs to be built and painted from nothing, I think I have about 20 Marines, 3 Special weapons undercoated and 1 Libby/Priest model actually painted.

1 model out of 64 completed!

It's a few boxes.

The most daunting thing is likely the 9 Pods, as they’ve a lot of different bits, I’ve spent the last week cleaning them up.

These are the large components

Thanks very much to Ian of Mad Eye Miniatures / The HobbyShack for getting these toys to me in such short order, what a gent, ply him with your business!

Now how am I going to get 9 pods painted? Well I’m going to cheat of course, using Army Painter sprays to take care of the grunt work of base coating both exteriors and interiors.

 

All the rest of the sprues

 

Obligatory crotch shot of just some of the plastic bits.

Progress overall has been slow but I have most of my materials now and I’m working on getting things moving, I’m sure once I get into the swing of things we should see more solid progress and a bit more dedication on my part.

Until next time!

Lots of Rubbish

                                

NWG Series, the beginning.

It’s been ages since I updated the blog because I've been busy playing toys and going on holiday and generally being busy with things that aren't writing walls of text about toy soldiers.

So since the last time I've gone ahead and actually placed in two tournaments, the first being Skibbcon, which is a team based event centered around getting really drunk and maybe playing toys, this event I won with my team mate Matt. It used three lists that were determined randomly prior to each game and the players were also switched about – Lists for this event are here, we went with bikes, all the bikes.

The second was a solo affair, Brocon, this was based in the University of Limerick and was the hottest tournament in the history of being really hot and sweaty, it really was warm. I took along Sisters of Battle with a fairly comedic list including 3 units of 3 Penitent Engines as well as some Space Wolves in Drop Pods. I finished up in 3rd place and secured my place as the best Sisters of Battle player in Ireland. List can be found here.

The next Tournament that is coming up is NWG, its more about the toys, modeling and painting. The games happen but aren't super competitive. The event will be using 1650 points of 40k and encourages displays, themes and using things that you haven’t before. It’s a great thing to motivate people to paint toys and try different things, also spend lots of money on more toys.

In my genius, or possibly madness, I've decided to have a totally new army with its own display board and a bunch of other stuff that I probably don’t have time for. I won’t spoil everything just yet but leave you with my concept sketches and try and update the blog once a week with my progress, welcome to the NWG series.

I’ll give you a hint, it involves Drop Pods!

Musings on 6th Edition - List building

Just to preface this article I've been sitting on it for some amount of time because I simply haven’t had the time to finalise it.

I've also been busy doing lots of other bits and pieces, including a quick foray into Dreadball as well as taking the Dark Angels out for a spin and sorting out my CGK:LRL (Comedy Grey Knights : Land Raider List) for the 3^rd Shack Attack in the Hobby Shack, Wicklow

I was reading an article over at Imperius Dominatus, here:

http://www.imperiusdominatus.com/2013/03/discussion-unit-counters.html

And it was talking about how there are ‘hard’ counters to certain units, plasma for sanguinary guard, for example.

I wanted to apply this in a more general sense and look at soft counters to certain trends that are apparent in 6^th edition and slot this into my meta, which is the Irish 40k scene.

I then want to apply this to list building for my armies, I’m looking to have a Take All Comers (from here on it’ll be known as TAC) list built up.

There are a few army types that we can start to look at before getting into the actual units that make up armies as these types have a fairly standard composition.

The Horde Army

This is commonly seen as a big pile of Ork Boyz or huge swarms of Tyranids with the idea of numbers being the key to victory; this is generally countered by template Weaponry, Flamers and Blasts, the larger the better.

Tarpits These are a sort of subset of horde forces, using either numerous or very tough models to hold up something that could cause a lot of damage to the rest of your force. It’s not so much something you need to build your list for but more of a tactical element when playing.

A ‘Mech’ force

An army that consists of Vehicles generally with troops inside. This is less prevalent in 6^th Ed than it was in 5^th with the ability for lower strength weaponry to glance a vehicle to death. To counter it one needs to bring decent strength ranged firepower, Strength 8 and above ideally.

Flyers

Flyers are now becoming pretty popular in 6^th Ed, with Cron Air being a big player as well as Guard planes and Helldrakes. Dealing with them really requires some Skyfire so an Aegis Line and Quad gun is starting to become a pretty standard piece of kit in most lists. The new Codicies also include Flakk Missile Launchers and the new Daemon Book has a Skyfire Autocannon. Armies without access to these can try with Twin-linking (prescience) and Volume of fire to try and cause some damage.

Edit: The Tau Codex is now out and Brings the option to sling Interceptor and Skyfire onto all of the Battlesuits including Broadsides and the Riptide.

Terminators or Equivalent (TEQ)

This covers all the folks packing a 2+ Armour Save on the field e.g: Terminators. The hardest counter to this is anything AP2, Plasma tends to be the favourite due to weight of fire, a Lascannon is AP 2 but gets 1 shot, Plasma gives 2 at 12” or you have the cannon with a small blast. Another option is a demo charge but they tend to only really show up in the hands of Vets or Marbo. Another tactic for TEQ is just to force saves, volume of wounds onto models.

Marines or Equivalent (MEQ)

This is what most of the 40k Armies are based around, warriors in Power Armour toting a 3+ save, they can be handed by any AP3 weapons although there aren’t too many dedicated commonly found versions. Again, with the TEQ, volume of fire and forcing saves will sort you out.

AV14

Armour Value 14 and to a lesser Eextent 13 can be problematic if there’s nothing to take care of it, looking at the below, even if we are packing a Lascannon the chance of scoring a penetrating hit is slim.

Weapon Str	Glance	Pen
0-7	n/a	n/a
8	6	n/a
9	5	6
10	4	5

The best bet is a Str10 weapon or anything with the Melta or Armourbane special rule which usually gives Str 8 with 2D6 Armour Pen and even with Average Rolling you are only just getting a Pen.

High Toughness Units or Monstrous Creatures

This includes models starting at toughness 6 and going up to 10, a Str4 weapons only wound T6 on a 6+ and can’t even hurt T8, again High strength weaponry is required to take care of these beasties, I’m looking at you Monstrous Nid’s, (Greater) Deamon (Princes), Dread Knights and most recently Riptides. The latter of the two who are 2+/5++. Poisoned weapons/Fleshbane is a good choice here but unless you’re Dark Eldar there isn’t all that much available.

An Assault Death Star

Death Stars tend to come in the form of a big melee blob loaded up with special characters, a load of wargear and some super nasty combination of other things. Some Examples are; a big Unit of Nob Bikers with Klaws, Loganwing Space Wolves with mixed and matched Terminators and power fists, Some combination of nasty Necron things that never die. Sometimes these units will fall into the TEQ category and can be dealt with, mostly, with Plasma and other AP 1/2 although they usually have some sort of invulnerable save or a mutli-wound Eternal Warrior component. Volume of fire or “more guns!” is always an option.

In conclusion you need the following to build a TAC list:

• Templates
• AP 2 or Lots of guns
• Ranged Str 8
• SkyFire
• AP3 or Lots of guns
• Melta/Armourbane
• Fleshbane/Posion

Lots of guns

I'd love to hear anyones thoughts on this, add a comment and tell me how wrong I am.

Warpcon Rulespack and Missons

With Warpcon this coming weekend I wanted to take a look at the missions in the rules pack to just get my head round what’s needed to actually attempt to win some games.

I often find myself losing sight of the victory conditions and just wading in looking for as much death and destruction as possible. Whilst this is great, if you’re going to table someone, even then that doesn't guarantee a full win of 20-0.

The pack is pretty standard for the 40K Irish tournament scene with one exception, the introduction of a new rule, Nemesis.

Nemesis

The unit or independent character that achieves the first blood objective becomes the Nemesis, If the Nemesis is Removed as a casualty by the end of the game it is worth 1 VP to your opponent, If First Blood was Achieved, but not by a unit or character, then choose a unit, in your army and on the table, at random, to become the Nemesis.

Now I spoke at length about the First Blood rule being critical in 6th edition here. 

With the introduction of this rule I think it really shakes things up and makes “core 6 th ed list building” not quite the same from my Point of view anyway. The emphasis on hiding squishy things is replaced by the idea of taking FB with something that is hardy and can hide out somewhere, but that’s a discussion for another time if this rule becomes more prevalent.

Anyway, on to the missions for the tournament:

Just to note the secondary for all of the Missions are:

Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Nemesis, Linebreaker. – These grant a VP each.

And VPs gained with the Warlord Personal Trait "Legendary Fighter" if rolled

The Secondary’s are calculated with +/- based on number of VPs each player earned.

Game one:

VANGUARD STRIKE deployment

Primary Objectives: Crusade (5 objectives) One objective is placed in the centre of each table quarter and one in the centre of the table.

This is what the table should look like, the triangles can flip sides but you will have 1 objective centrally with 3 roughly down the middle of no man’s land.

This is a pretty straightforward game to play, making sure you have three scoring units that are on objectives at game end, a fair bit of this will come down to deploying correctly and manoeuvring into position to take and hold.

Game Two

DAWN OFWAR Deployment

Primary Objectives: Purge the Alien

Artists Impression

This mission is all about minimising casualties and maximising kills, it’s your standard Kill Points affair with not much to really think about.

Game Three:

HAMMER AND ANVIL deployment

Primary Objective: Big Guns Never Tire (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) Placed 12 inches apart and 12 inches from the board edge along the centre of the board between the two deployment zones.

Big Guns Never Tire means that your Heavy Support choices count for a VP when they are killed, this means that either I need to have 2 of 3 objectives and lose my Colossuseseseses OR them not die and I still get 2.

So two objectives need to be secured to take this one, with the Hammer and Anvil deployment it means that the Big guns can hide away at the back and still provide fire support.

Game Four:

DAWN OF WAR deployment

Primary Objective: The Relic

The Relic is an odd mission, the need to be swift to go and grab the thing is important, so is being able to shoot anything that can get near it as well. This will likely end up as a huge scrum in the middle, the main issue will be nippy armies that can infiltrate or zip onto it in the first turn and start running before I have a chance to close the distance.

Game Five:

VANGUARD STRIKE deployment

Primary Objective: The Scouring (3 Objectives worth 3 VPs each) One placed in the centre of the board and the others 18 inches either side, along a diagonal line through the centre of the board, between the two deployment zones

The Scouring makes all fast attack scoring and worth 1 VP when they are killed, problem with the Vendettas is that they are too high up on flying bases to score. The table will also be different depending on the opponent, as you can see form the diagram, it could end up with 1 objective in each deployment (red blobs) or with three up the middle (blue blobs). This could make a huge difference as this is the final game and favours fast armies with the potential to zoom onto objectives and have them captured quickly.

Overall the rulespack looks like it will work well with plenty of scoring troops, something that I have recommended before in 6th ed.

My list has a potential 8 scoring units, although none of them particularly resilient, they are guardsmen after  ll. These can of course be reduced to bigger more resilient blobs and a lot of my games are going to be decided at deployment most likely. For anyone curious the list is here.

Regardless of what happens, this is one of, if not the biggest Wargames events in Ireland every year and also a great craic for all involved. I just hope that my social obligations do not end up with me under performing due to alcohol related performance reduction.

One man really knows about Gin.

Hopefully I’ll see some people there who read the blog, if anyone actually does, I’ll be on the bottom tables getting smashed mostly, I imagine, but it’s all about having fun. And when I fail to do well, it’s the taking part that counts!

Dark Angels? Bandwagon, yes.

Now this is me, jumping on a Band Wagon, big style.

It's not a Wagon but it's for a band! (I'm off to see Maiden at Donnington this year)

After having a leaf through a Codex t'other day and seeing how pretty it is and talking to Caolán over at Skibb Wargamers I decided that I would, in my head, imagine myself a list.

Now the lovely thing about Dark Angels has always been the Death/Raven Wing aspect of things and has always appealed to me. Now I've got some Terminators already, some from Space Hulk and some I got assembled and painted to be allied Blood Angels

Libby has a Storm Shield and a Bolter, suck it.

I also have a load of old school Terminators, in a vat of Dettol somewhere, I'm talking Mk 1 Space Hulk Old, they can be augmented with Shields and hammers, was thinking these.

Picture from http://gardenninjastudios.blogspot.ie/

So anyway, I came up with a little list that uses some Terminators and some zippy bikes. 

+ HQ + (215pts)
* Azrael, Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angles, Keeper of the Truth (215pts)

+ Troops+ (795pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

* Deathwing Terminator Squad (265pts)
* Deathwing Terminator Sgt
Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* Deathwing Terminator Special Weapon
Cyclone Missile Launcher & Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield
* 3x Deathwing Terminators
Storm Bolter and Power Sword, 2x Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

+ Fast Attack + (420pts)
* Ravenwing Black Knights (210pts)
* 4x Black Knights
1x Ravenwing Grenade Launcher
* Ravenwing Huntmaster
Corvus Hammer

* Ravenwing Black Knights (210pts)
* 4x Black Knights
1x Ravenwing Grenade Launcher
* Ravenwing Huntmaster
Corvus Hammer

Imperial Guard 5th Ed (2009) (Allied Detachment) Selections:

+ HQ + (50pts)* Company Command Squad (50pts)

+ Troops + (240pts)
* Infantry Platoon (240pts)
* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Infantry Squad
Lascannon

* Platoon Command Squad

+ Fast Attack + (130pts)* Vendetta Gunship Squadron (130pts)
* Vendetta
2 Twin-linked Lascannons


Now I would need to buy a few bits, and a big box of Bikes, but it looks like a fun list, now to order a metal Azrael before they f(uck)inecast him up.

A straw house with wolves at the door. They'll Huff and Puff.

It's been a while since I've updated anything. I've been lazy also playing Warmachine and by generally not been building many models.

Now 6th Ed is in full swing things are hotting up. And I am now trying to get my stuff together for Warpcon 2013.

My three 6th Ed tourneys have been rough.

One (Moocon 7) was a 6 Leman Russ list that did okay, I had a lot of pie plates. I was doing great until Deamons (Donal Caroll) in the final round (table 3), they are bent.

All the Leman Russ!

 The second (Gaelcon, one hell of a 4 day weekend) was a Guard blob with Ork Bikers,  that did well too, until the final round (table 3) oh and did I mention it was Deamons and played by Donal and yes, bent.

Bikes n' Boyz

The 3rd (Moocon 8) was basically my 5th Ed list. And it turns out Mech,  doesn't work... It wasn't Deamons this time I just got done, Necrons hard counter AV 12.

Mech looks great, but it isn't 

The things that I have noticed from Gaelcon and games against others in 6th Ed is that:

• 6th Ed is about scoring, you need to be able to take and hold objectives quickly and reliably.
• Armour is a lot weaker, glances will kill you.
• Strength 6/7 is now king, you can glance and glance and glance with all the guns and the armour is gone.
• First Blood is currently so heavily weighted that getting it can near guarantee you a win on secondary.
• Blobs are back, infantry is once again a force that is what you need and from a purely Guard perspective it hits a lot of these points.

Infantry blobs are:

• Scoring
• Str 7-9  Autocannons/Lascannons
• Hard to kill in a turn (first blood)
• Not armour

Now what do they lack? Melee strength?  That can be overcome by volume of hits.

Shooting ability? This can be augmented by including Autocannons and something 6th Ed has brought to the fore, psykers, most specifically allied ones.

Which brings me on to what this is all about, the inclusion of pets, allies, puppies. Space Wolves.

The divination powers are perfect to bolster what is statically average guardsmen and make them better. Who has divination? Rune Priests,  2 of them at 100pts each.

Lacking an assault unit? Have some Grey Hunters.

I'm going to hopefully exploring this alliance over the coming weeks as well as talking about a fair few other things. My 40K passion is back with a vengeance and I want to get stuff done and who knows, maybe win something aside from best painted although I think those were prizes for "painted" not necessarily "best".

MooFool Game 1 – Orks

The first game of the Tourney and I was ready to go, maybe a bit drunk still from the previous night, but I was certainly pretty tired but up for it!

Game Details

Pitched Battle deployment

Primary Objective: Seize Ground (5 objectives to be captured. One objective is placed in the centre of each table quarter and one in the centre of the table.)

Secondary Objective: Annihilation: For this mission both players starts with 3 Battle points each. For every killpoint more than his opponent a player has at the end of the game, the player adds one BP, and his opponent subtracts one BP, up to a maximum of +3 / -3 BPs.

The list of my erstwhile opponent ( Anthony) looked a bit like this:

Disclaimer, this might not be 100% right.

Warboss on Bike, Power Klaw

Big Mek with KFF

5 Nobz and a Painboy on Bikes, with wound shenanigan diversification including two Klaws.

18 Shoota Boyz 1w/ Big Shoota, Nob with PK and Bosspole

18 Shoota Boyz 1w/ Big Shoota, Nob with PK and Bosspole

18 Shoota Boyz 1w/ Big Shoota, Nob with PK and Bosspole

Battlewagon with Deff Rolla, 2 Big Shootas, Red Paint Job, Armor Plates, Stikkbomb Launcher and Grot Riggers

Battlewagon with Deff Rolla, 2 Big Shootas, Red Paint Job, Armor Plates, Stikkbomb Launcher and Grot Riggers

Battlewagon with Deff Rolla, 2 Big Shootas, Red Paint Job, Armor Plates, Stikkbomb Launcher and Grot Riggers

8 Lootas

8 Lootas

I won the Roll off and opted for first turn and deployment. As always Marbo and the Banewolf went into reserve. I hid the Manticores behind a Building with the Hydras and Lascannons on the Same Flank. The Melta Vets and CCS Sat in front of the Hydras, ready to move out if required but also leaving the CCS in place to issue orders to the HWTs. The Autocannon team held the centre in some cover with a good field of fire. The far right saw the Infantry squad with Autocannon forming a conga line out to the objective with the mounted squad just right of the central terrain.The two Vendettas deployed in the middle area of the table for turbo boosts and the Scout saves, should I be seized.

Right Side

Left Side

The Orks deployed opposite me, with three wagons spaced out for KFF coverage, the Lootas were in cover, and the Bikers in between two of the Wagons with the Boss behind.

Ork Deployment

Turn 1 – Imperial Guard

Scout Move: I boosted one Vendetta to the left to join the rest of my flank, the other went right to get some angles on the Battlewagon sides.

My first turn didn’t really require any repositioning and I opened up with my firepower. A few Lootas died to mixed small fire. They key firing came from the Manticores, after some lucky rolls including a Hit on the scatter and some triple cluster missiles the Bikers were looking at a quantity of wounds. With the weapon being Strength 10, any failed saves were death for the bikers. They had just the 4+ save from the passive smoke cloud, I had managed to inflict at least two wounds on each member of the squad and Warboss. The end result was excellent, with only 3 of the bikers remaining on the field.

The resulting Leadership test, even with a Bosspole Reroll wasn’t sufficient and the bikes promptly fled off the board.

Turn 1 – Orks

All three of the Battlewagons rolled forward. The Lootas opened up and managed to immobilize my Right Vendetta. They other squad fired off some shots but failed to make any real impact.

Turn 2 – Imperial Guard

Once again I was static and decided that I would continue to shoot, I managed to immobilize two of the Battlewagons and shake another. I killed 6 of the Lootas on the left, the Lootas on the right survived unscathed.

Turn 2 – Orks

The battlewagons, immobile, attempted repairs, the Shaken Wagon rolled forward. The Lootas continued to shoot, managing to Wreck the Chimera of a squad of Vets and take out the Lascannon team.

Turn 3 – Imperial Guard

Marbo and the Banewolf show up. Marbo pops up in cover just next to the KFF Wagon. The Banewolf Rolls on heading directly towards the Wagons. The Vets disembark from the ruined Chimera and head into cover. Shooting results in one Battlewagon exploding, causing a few casualties. Marbo takes this opportunity to chuck a demo charge into the recently disembarked Orks which whiffs badly, but the Manticore manages to pick up a chunk of the boyz and other shooting sees the mob whittled down to 6. The Lootas on the right take some Damage, enough to make them break, they go a huge distance and end up very close to the table edge.

Dice show a BW Crater

Turn 3 – Orks

The Broken Lootas decide that they want to live to fight another day and flee. The Big Mek scarpers into the nearby wagon which unleashes a volley of shootas (big and small) into the Vets, they survive the firestorm. The six Orks head towards the Bane Wolf, ready to cause some pain. The immobilized wagon at the back has the riggers come through for it and starts working again, but can’t move that turn. The mob of 6 Orks charge into the Banewolf, they manage to immobilize and shake it.

Turn 4 – Imperial Guard

Marbo heads towards the Orks next to the Bane wolf, the troops squad in the Chimera head for the central objective to claim it. The Vets hit the Battlewagon with full Melta power, making it explode, the Boyz inside take a few casualties from this, the Manticores then have a go, wiping out the squad. The Wagon to the rear gets wrecked by the Lascannons on the Vendetta and the boyz pile out, the second Manticore makes short work of most of them. Marbo charges into the Nob who is engaged with the Banewolf and puts him down.

Just before Marbo goes in!

Turn 4 – Orks

The big Mek waddles towards the Vendetta whilst the last squad of boyz attempt to get away from the stricken wagon. In combat the Mek fails to hurt the Vendetta.

Turn 5 – Imperial Guard

The Big Mek takes a few Meltas to the Face and the Hydras/Multi Lasers and Vendettas finish off the remaining boyz.

Turn 5 – Orks

With no greenskins on the board the game ends.

Objective held all game.

Victory to the Imperial guard!

Having no opposition I win the primary, I also killed all his army and took few casualties so I win the secondary, my Battle points also give me a full tabling resulting in a 20-0.

Overall the game was won for me with my Alpha strike, the death and fleeing of the bikes put me in such a strong position early on, especially with no Warboss and pesky Klaws. The immobilize results on the battlewagons were great too, I didn’t end up feeling the pointy end of any Deff Rollas.

The only problem being with a full tabling and a 20-0 in the first round, I end up on table 2 for the next game, meaning I’ll be meeting someone who also went 20-0. That someone happened to be Merv with his “Tranny Marines” Sisters of Battle, more on that in a day or two.

MooFool

So I've just finished a weekend of Wargaming, the blog has been silent for sometime as I was made to clear away my dedicated workspace, apparently people sometimes want to eat of the kitchen table...

I was attending an 1850pts tournament, right here on my doorstep in Cork City. It was great, five games over two days. Being the prepared and incredibly lazy person that I am, I opted to bring along my tried and tested (and still in the same case) Guard from Warpcon, this list can be found here.

Overall I finished in 9th place of about 24 or so.

Table 1 in the final round, as you can tell, I wasn't playing there.

Heres a quick breakdown of the games:

Game 1 - Orks
Pitched Battle deployment

Primary Objective: Seize Ground (5 objectives to be captured. One objective is placed in the centre of each table quarter and one in the centre of the table.)

Secondary Objective: Annihilation: For this mission both players starts with 3 Battle points each. For every killpoint more than his opponent a player has at the end of the game, the player adds one BP, and his opponent subtracts one BP, up to a maximum of +3 / -3 BPs.

Result - Primary: Victory  Secondary: Victory

Game 2 - Sisters of Battle
Dawn of War deployment

Primary Objective:: Capture and Control

Secondary Objective: Seize Ground: (4 Counters)
Each player will place 2 counters, one for Seize Ground and a second for Capture and Control which will also count towards the Seize Ground objectives

Result -  Primary:  Loss Secondary: Loss

Game 3 - Space Wolves
Spearhead deployment: place a marker in the centre of the board for the duration of the game

Primary Objective: CLEANSE: - capture the most quarters.

Secondary Objective: Annihilation: For this mission both players starts with 3 Battle points each. For every killpoint more than his opponent a player has at the end of the game, the player adds one BP, and his opponent subtracts one BP, up to a maximum of +3 / -3 BPs.

Result - Primary: Draw    Secondary: Loss

Game 4 - Space Wolves

Pitched battle deployment

Primary Objective: Annihilation: For this mission both players starts with 4 Battle points each.
For every killpoint more than his opponent a player has at the end of the game, the player adds one BP, and his opponent subtracts one BP, up to a maximum of +4 / -4 BPs

Secondary Objective: Seize Ground: (3 counters)
One Counter is in the centre of the table. The other 2 Counters are 24" from player's table edge and 6" from the short table edges.

Result - Primary: Victory  Secondary: Victory 

Game 5 - Grey Knights
Spearhead deployment

Primary Objective: Seize Ground: (3 fixed counters)
To be placed as follows after deployment zones have been chosen but before Capture and control counters have been placed: one objective is in the centre of the table. The other 2 objectives are in the centre of each unoccupied table quarters

Secondary Objective: Capture and Control.

Result - Primary: Victory  Secondary: Victory 

Sorry about that guy, right there,

Overall I had a cracking weekend and some great games, I'll be writing each one up as I get round to it and looking at each of them, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I'll be trying to update as often as possible with the games, and include the lists, if I can get them off people. 

I also intend on kick starting the Orks to get them in some sort of state of readiness, I just have to decide on the direction I want to take them, and to get more kit from Belgium.

I did manage to get a bunch of stuff when my folks came over, you can see it here!

After all this hard gaming I decided that Burgers were required, so feast upon the deliciousness!

Important sustenance

Warpcon Game 4 - Eldar

Spearhead deployment

Primary Objective: Seize Ground (5 objectives to be captured. One objective is placed in the center of each table quarter and one in the center of the table.)
Secondary Objective: Annihilation  

Day 2 of Warpcon started a bit later than Day 1 and after having a bit of a rest I was ready to go.

Still smarting from my defeat yesterday I resolved to play tactically and try to grab a win. My opponent was playing Eldar, this certainly made a difference from the Power Armour that I’d faced so far.

The list, as far as I could remember was:

Eldrad

2 Fire Dragon Squads in Falcons

2 Squads Dire Avengers

2 Squads Guardians, with Starcannons

Wraithlord

2 Fire Prisms

There might have been more infantry, not sure.

I won the roll and chose to deploy first. Due to the nature of the mission, there were a number of objectives that needed to be secured so I deployed giving my Chimeras good paths to reach the objectives as well as engage fast moving targets if necessary and usual Marbo and the Banewolf were in reserve.

The Eldar force opted to reserve completely.

Imperial Guard Turn 1: I move forward knowing that there’s nothing for me to do other than get into position.

Eldar Turn 1: Nothing Happens.

Home Quarter.

Imperial Guard Turn 2: I move forward again securing all objectives aside from the one in the Eldar table quarter.

Eldar Turn 2: One Falcon with Fire Dragons turns up as well as one Squad of Dire Avengers, the Falcon moves flat out up my left flank and the Dire Avengers walk on and run towards the objective.

Imperial Guard Turn 3: Marbo and the Banewolf turn up, I stick Marbo in cover next to the Dire Avengers and the Banewolf moves up to anchor my left flank. Marbo chucks his Demo Charge at the Dire Avengers and kills seven out of ten. Everything else that is in range and has line of sight shoots at the Falcon, destroying it and then reducing the Fire Dragons to 1 model. The Dire Avengers break and flee towards the edge of the table.

"Deployment" by turn 2 with objectives marked

Eldar Turn 3: The Dire Avengers flee off the Table. A trickle of Eldar forces move onto the Table, 1 Falcon with Fire Dragons, the Wraithlord. The Guardians with Eldrad and a Fire prism. The Eldar forces shoot at Marbo and manage to kill him. The lone Fire Dragon shoots at a Chimera and causes some damage but fails to destroy it.

Imperial Guard Turn 4: With some more Targets and objectives held by troops the main focus of the turn is shooting. The Lone Fire Dragon gets taken out, a Fire Prism also gets destroyed. The second Fire Dragon squad takes a lot of hits and the Manticores manage to get a triple rocket off on one squad of guardians causing many wounds and eliminating the squad. Eldrad also gets shot up and his squad soak most of the wounds. With the second Falcon having its rear armour exposed it takes a weapon destroyed result.

Eldar Turn 4: Another squad of Guardians turn up as does the Fire Prism with some Dire Avengers. The Fire Prism manages to blow a Chimera open that is sat on the main objective and a couple of guardsmen go down to the wraith lord. The vets sat on the furthest objective on the opposite table edge take a couple of wounds but do well making saves after getting pie plated.

Opponents Half objective

Imperial Guard Turn 5: There are plenty of targets available for shooting so there is a great fusillade of fire from all units, managing to take out Eldrad and what’s left of his squad. The 2^nd Fire prism gets finished off as does the Falcon. There isn’t much left on the field for the Eldar at this point.

Eldar Turn 5: The Wraithlord gets confused without a Farseer and doesn’t do anything; the last squad of Guardians arrive from reserve and head for the objective. The remaining squad of Dire Avengers goes to hide in some woods. When shooting the Fire Prism scatters and misses hitting the Vets who are hiding.

We roll for another turn, and get one...

Left flank, Anchored

Imperial Guard Turn 6: I continue to shoot, taking out the Dire Avengers, Guardians and Fire Prism, leaving just the Wraithlord standing.

Eldar Turn 6: The Wraithlord attempts some shooting, fails to make an impact.

Game ends with an astounding victory for the Imperial Guard.

The only remaining Eldar model is the Wraithlord, I’m sure another round of shooting would have dealt with him too.

Warpcon list.

So here's the list for Warpcon, 1850 points exactly, a big change from my proposed list  here:
http://tzarkahn40k.blogspot.com/2011/11/proposed-army-list-for-warpcon.html in November
and here:
http://tzarkahn40k.blogspot.com/2011/12/proposed-warpcon-list-provisional.html
on the 29th of December

HQ

Company Command Squad

4x Melta Guns @10pts

Chimera with Multi Laser and Hull Heavy Flamer

Troops 1

Veteran Squad

3x Melta Guns @10pts

Chimera with Multi Laser and Hull Heavy Flamer

Troops 2

Veteran Squad

3x Melta Guns @10pts

Chimera with Multi Laser and Hull Heavy Flamer

Troops 3

Infantry Platoon

Platoon Command Squad

4xFlamers @5pts

Chimera with Multi Laser and Hull Heavy Flamer

Infantry Squad

1x Melta Gun

Chimera with Multi Laser and Hull Heavy Flamer

Infantry Squad

1x Melta Gun

1x Autocannon

Lascannon Heavy Weapons Team

Autocannon Heavy Weapons Team

Elites

Guardsman Marbo

Fast Attack 1

Vendetta Gunship

Fast Attack 2

Vendetta Gunship

Fast Attack 3

Bane Wolf with Hull Heavy Flamer

Heavy Support 1

Hydra with Hull Heavy Bolter - Squadron

Additional Hydra with Hull Heavy Bolter

Heavy Support 2

Manticore with Hull Heavy Bolter

Heavy Support 3

Manticore with Hull Heavy Bolter