Siegeworld Apocalypse Event, ITC 40K Tournament, and Age of Sigmar Tournament

Siegeworld Productions and the Gateway Gamers Club have joined forces to bring you Siegeworld 2016! This event will be will be held the weekend of Aug 27th and 28th at the North County Recreational Center (link).

We are looking to grow Siegeworld, so starting in 2016 in addition to the Apocalypse battle, there will be a 40K ITC Tournament and an Age of Sigmar Tournament.

Siegeworld 2016 will be a 2 day event. Players have the option of participating in Siegeworld for 2 days or they can participate in the 40K ITC event and have the option of joining Siegeworld on day 2.

In the past Siegeworld has been known for massive games of floorhammer. Now Siegeworld is coming up to the tables! Yes, the battlefields of Siegeworld will be played on table tops. Siegeworld 2016 will be broken up into 2 to 3 battle fields. There will be the main battle table and 1-2 satellite battle tables. The main battle table will host the central battle. Here is where Battalions of Tanks, whole Chapters of Marines, and numerous Titans will clash for supremacy. The 1-2 satellite battle tables will play host to smaller engagements to gain control of either a long range artillery installation or an orbital defense relay.

More information and ticket purchasing info can be found here: http://gateway-gamers.com/index.html

This event is hosted by the Gateway Gamers who were previously responsible for running all of the 40K and Warhammer Fantasy events at Diecon. They're a great bunch of guys who know what they are doing. 

I'm ridiculously excited for this. This is the one time a year I get to play an Apocalypse game. My five Imperial Knights and all of my various Space Marines are ready for action. And of course I'll be playing in the 40k ITC Tournament. If you're free this weekend, please come out and join in one of the events. IT"S GONNA BE AWESOME!!!

Adepticon and the 2016 Warhammer Championships

My first Adepticon is in the bag. It was a fantastic experience and I can't wait to do it again. Between the Lonely Havocs and the Gateway Gamers, our area group managed to take home a few awards and earn some top ranks.



Gateway Gamers team of Avery Windau, Jeff Berdar, Doug James, and Mike Horner took a 10th place finish overall in the Team Tournament as well as one of them winning a top player award in the Badab War Narrative Campaign. Congrats to the Gateway Gamers!

Our very own Squoze took home top honors for painting in the Necromunda event. Good job Squoze!

As for me and the 40k Championship, here's the recap:

My List:

Gladius Strike Force (Faction: White Scars)
Battle Demi-Company
HQ
Kor'sarro Khan - Moondrakkan
Elites
5x Space Marine Command Squad - Apothecary, Bikes, Grav-Guns
Razorback
Troops
5x Tactical Squad - Grav-Gun, Combi-Grav
Razorback
5x Tactical Squad - Grav-Gun, Combi-Grav
Razorback
5x Tactical Squad - Grav-Gun, Combi-Grav

Razorback
Fast Attack
3x Space Marine Bikes - 2x Grav-Guns
Heavy Support
5x Devastators - 2x Grav-Cannons and Grav-Amps
Rhino - Dozer Blade

Battle Demi-Company
HQ
Chaplain - Space Marine Bike, Hunters Eye
Elites

5x Space Marine Command Squad - 5x Melta-Guns

Drop Pod
Troops
5x Tactical Squad - Grav-Cannon and Grav-Amp
Rhino
5x Tactical Squad - Melta-Gun, Combi-Melta
Drop Pod
5x Tactical Squad - Melta-Gun, Combi-Melta
Drop Pod
Fast Attack
3x Space Marine Bikes - 2x Grav-Guns
Heavy Support
5x Devastators - 2x Grav-Cannons and Grav-Amps
Rhino - Dozer Blade

10th Company Task ForceTroops

5x Scouts - Sniper Rifle
5x Scouts - Sniper Rifle
5x Scouts

Game 1: Space Wolves (Kyle Chapin)

Deployment: Vanguard
Mission 1: King of the Hill (Cumulative Points by being within 12" of the center of the table)
Mission 2: Emperor's Will

Werewolves and dudes riding bears. Scary stuff. He won all the rolls, chose his side, and decided to deploy and go first. He was using the Deathpack formation from the new Start Collecting Space Wolves box. It basically allowed any unit within 12" of his Wolf Lord to run and charge. Which essentially set him up for a turn one charge with fleet. I deployed back to what I thought would put him just out of range. Turn one he dropped his pod right on my front line and blew up an empty Razorback giving him first blood. His 3 units of Thunder Bears all moved up along with the Landraider containing Wulfen. Unfortunately for me, he rolled really well for his run rolls and was in range for charges with his HQ unit and the Wulfen. As luck would have it, he failed both fleet charges needing something like 9" for both.

My two pods both came in and did work. My command squad with 5 meltas took out all but 1 of the Wulfen and my Tactical squad immobilized and stunned the Landraider taking it down to 2 hull points. My bike Command Squad charged his Grey Hunters killing all but one. Shots from Devastators, Razorbacks, and Bikes would kill one of his Thunder Bear squads. He had broken a Rune Priest off of his HQ unit to take out some Scouts I had infiltrated behind his army. He clearly didn't get the memo that Scouts are the shit. They would take him down in a hail of gunfire.

In his turn 2 he would fail a 4" fleet charge with his HQ unit and the last of the Wulfen died on overwatch. After that it was really just a clean up game for me. I ended up table him on turn 4 getting a full 30 points.

Game 2: Eldar

Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission 1: Divide to Conquer (Two 12" radius cumulative scoring areas. One for each player. Controlling or contesting the other players gives more points.)
Mission 2: Double Kill Points

My second opponent of the day brought something very similar to the list that won the Las Vegas Open in February. 45 Warp Spiders with scatter bike support. The one notable difference was the lack of a Wraithknight. I won the roll to choose sides and he won the roll to choose who deployed and went first. He chose to have me go first. I set up and he decided to null deploy. The game started and I moved half of my force onto his objective and half onto mine. During his first turn he dropped his pod onto my objective with a Tactical Squad and Librarian. Their shooting killed 1 bike. Turn 2 hit and I jumped up 5 points for being on both objectives. I wiped out the pod, Tactical Marines, and the Librarian netting me 6 more points. His turn 2, all except three of his Warp Spider squads came on. He managed to take out some bikes and some Razorbacks this turn. We would go on trading units back and forth heavily for the rest of the game.

Sadly for him, only a hand full of his units were objective secured while nearly all of mine were. I was smart enough to target those units first and wipe them off the board. This meant that I was usually scoring 6 points a turn on objectives alone since he couldn't contest them. While he got a ton of kill points I managed to do the same. In the end I also won this game with a perfect 30 points.

Game 3: Khorne Daemonkin (Kelsey Haley)

Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Mission 1: Meat Grinder
Mission 2: Crusade

Let me just start by saying Kelsey Haley is an awesome guy. We started the game with him pouring us a couple shots of some pretty stellar scotch and it wasn't the last one we had. Kelsey was running 8 Maulerfiends and a Brass Scorpion in the Hellforged Hunting Pack formation. Good times. I felt like I had met Kelsey before. It wasn't until the end of the game when I realized that I've watched Kelsey in a few battle reports on the Long War Youtube channel.

Kelsey won the roll to choose sides and to deploy/go first. In his first turn he moved everything forward. Shots from the Brass Scorpion took out a unit of bikes. My turn one, the 5 melta gun Command Squad and a melta/combi melta Tactical Squad came in near the Brass Scorpion. I basically fired everything I could into the Brass Scorpion this round and blew it up. It had to happen asap or it was gonna mulch me.

In his turn 2 he assaulted with all of his Maulerfiends. One of them blew up to a lucky melta gun overwatch. I think another would get immobilized by a grav-gun on the charge. Lucky stuff for me. The others all made their targets. If I recall correctly, he destroyed a Rhino, Razorback, a unit of Scouts, and Tactical Squad. One tactical squad survived an assault and hit and ran out. In my turn I either immobilized or blew up all but 2 of his Maulerfiends. Knowing that he couldn't pull out a win with only 2, he conceded the game. Another perfect score of 30.

At this point I'm thinking, "Holy shit! I may actually make top 16 at my first Adepticon."

Game 4: Chaos Daemons (Nick Nanavati)

Deployment: Dawn of War
Mission 1: Cumulative Objectives (Each objective was worth 2 points if you were on it at the start of your turn, starting round 2.)
Mission 2: Crusade

Nick was running a Daemons CAD and the Burning Skyhost from the War Zone Fenris book. It consisted of 9 units of Screamers and 1 Herald on a Disc. From what I can remember, his CAD had Fateweaver, Nurglings, and 2 Heralds on Discs. I'm fairly certain there were a couple other units as well but at the moment I can't recall. He also had an Imperial Bunker with a Comms Relay. His Screamer star was pretty standard. Grimoire, Invis, unkillable, etc. I won the roll to choose sides and Nick won the roll to deploy first and choose who went first. We both placed objectives in a small triangle in the opposite corners of our deployment zones. He castled up in the corner with all of his objectives. He surround his Heralds to ensure I wouldn't be able to kill any. I deployed half of my army on my objectives and the other half directly across from him. I reserved all of my bikes including my command squad. I chose not to scout because I felt that it would just be feeding him units. Screamers poo on light transports in assault. He ended up giving me first turn and the game started.

It was night fight so he was jinking for 3+'s re-rolling 1's which is tough to kill, especially on 2 wound models. I would have had to eat through 8 Screamers before getting to the Heralds. I decided that I would just ignore that unit and make an attempt at killing Fateweaver. Both pods came in contesting 2 of his objectives. I poured every shot I could get in to Fateweaver. Sadly, I couldn't finish him off and left him alive with 2 wounds. I also killed 1 Screamer and 2 Nurglings. Having brought a ton of Grav weaponry to counter Eldar, really backfired on me in this round. They only wounded on 6's since daemons have no armor saves. Sad times. In his turn one he took half of the Screamers and lined them up down the entire left side of the board. If my outflank reserves came in on that side they would die immediately from the inability to come on 1" away from any of his models. I definitely didn't see that one coming. It was a fantastic play. Fateweaver flew forward killing a marine with vector strike. His Screamer star powered up and became unkillable. He used it to multi-assault a drop pod and a unit of Tactical Marines killing both.

At the start of turn two I grabbed 6 points for holding 3 objectives. I attempted to drop another pod on one of his objectives but scattered off. The 2 units of the bikes came in. One would die to his screamer wall and the other came in on the opposite edge. Shooting would see me drop another wound from Fateweaver and kill a couple Screamers. Fateweaver attempted to kill some Rhinos with psyker powers and failed. His turn 2 he grabbed 2 points for objectives. He attempted to deep strike in a unit of Nurglings, misshaped, rolled a 1, and lost them to the warp. He attempted to bring in the second unit in the same place and misshaped again. This time I got to place them and I put them in his back corner where he deployed. He assaulted and killed both pods as well as a unit of Tactical Marines.

Turn 3 I grabbed another 6 points. My Bike Command Squad and HQ's came in on my side of the board avoiding the Screamer wall. I killed a few screamers and tried to kill Fatewaver but the slippery bastard refused to die. He grabbed 6 points for objectives at the start of his turn. Fateweaver flew off the board. The Screamer star summoned more Screamers. Now that all of my units were on the board the Screamer wall decided to join the game. The screamers all made a bum rush towards my transports. He managed to surround 2 in assaults this turn killing them and the guys inside since they couldn't disembark while the vehicle was surrounded.

The next two turns were pretty much the exact same thing. I new after turn 3 that my only chance of winning was for the game to end on turn 5. At that point I held 2 objectives and he held 4. Had the game ended It would have been almost a tie. Sadly, it didn't go down that way. Turn 6 happened and it was the nail in the coffin. Screamers finally munched up all of the units I had on any objectives. Crusade objectives were worth 5 points at the end of the game and having all six shot him up 30 points. In the end I got 0 points and he got the perfect 30.

I finished 28th/190ish players which put me in the top 15%. Not bad for one of the biggest grand tournaments in the country and my first large scale event. The only thing that stopped me from making it to the top was getting paired with Nick for my 4th and final game of the day. Nick Nanavati has won Adepticon 3 years and been in the top 10 for the past 6. He was an incredibly difficult opponent and great to play against. It was a great game. I'll chalk that up as a win in my book.

Hobby Update: Adepticon Space Marines are Ready to Roll

Thank the maker I'm finally done painting this army! I knew in January when I decided that I was going to build and paint an entire Space Marine Battle Company for Adepticon, that it would be pretty tough to pull off. Hell, I even added in the extra task of creating a display board. Even though I died a little inside from the incessant grind of batch painting, I think I still managed to achieve a quality product that should score well in the painting category. I know that those extra points can be a huge boost to your score. It was my painting score at DieCon this year that pushed me to 2nd place overall. Hopefully, it will be just as helpful for me at Adepticon.

Hobby Update: Scouts/Display Board

Scouts are done. They went way easier than I expected. I also finished up my display board. It's all starting to come together. Now I just need to paint up 45 Space Marines by March 30th and I'll be good to go for Adepticon. I only hope they go as smoothly and quickly as the Scouts did.

Emperor's Children Rhinos/Razorbacks

Things are progressing smoothly on the Adepticon painting front. I just put the last bit of work into the Rhinos/Razorbacks. These bad boys turned out fantastic. They don't have the sponge work/weathering that my drop pods have but I chalk that up to the drop pods having to do an orbital insertion.

Two of the Razorback turrets are magnetized to run either lascannons or assault cannons.

And two of the Razorbacks can also be run as Rhinos. I totally forgot to add the stormbolters to the Rhinos in the back of this picture. Rest assured they do exist and magnetize next to the hatch just like the Rhino in the middle front. From here I move on to the 11 Scouts.

Hobby Update: Bikes, Adepticon Practice, and 30K

The bikes are done. Well, the bikes I need for my Battle Company are done. I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last 4 Ravenwing Command Squad bikers. At least they are base coated and ready to be washed when I get back around to finishing them.

As you can tell from the first pic, I've already moved on to the 7 Rhino/Razorbacks that make up the next portion of my Battle Company. After getting the Betrayal at Calth box set for Christmas, I decided to make my Space Marines army into Pre-Heresy Emperor's Children. That way I can use it for both systems. Luckily a lot of the Dark Angles iconography is similar to the Emperor's Children theme. I figure if I keep the colors consistent then the armies mixture of models will still mesh well. The rest of the month will be spent working on these vehicles and the last 5 man unit of Scouts I need for the 10th Company portion of my Gladius.

 I got in 2 practice games this weekend against Bill Keys and his Tau. Forgetting that I had hit and run nearly cost me the first game. I couldn't get any shots into his Stormsurges because he kept assaulting me. By the end I still managed to eek out the win with only 2 Vehicles left on the board. Had it gone to turn 6 I would have gotten tabled. The second game he was not so lucky. I dick punched him hard this game and he conceded by turn 4. The Adepticon missions are odd. They are similar to Warmachine in that there's a large area that you have to contest or hold to gain cumulative points over the coarse of the game. Fortunately for armies like Battle Company which are almost 100% Objective Secured, this plays to their advantage. Looking forward to more practice with the army this Thursday. 

Hobby Update: Bikes for Space Marine Battle Company/Super Friends

So, I finally decided that White Scars Battle Company will be my Adepticon army. It was a tough choice considering how much I'm going to have to get painted over the next couple months. I had a ton of bikes already but they were all kitted out to be Dark Angels for my Super Friends army. I needed to convert the Apothecary to run with either Plasma Talons or Bolters and I needed to convert a model to use as Kor'Sarro Khan. Above is the result of the Khan conversion. His sword and banner are magnetized so I can use him as a sergeant for my Dark Angels army as well. I will be the first to admit that my Apothecary's gun conversions are not my best work. It's really just magnets glued to the end of the guns. Sadly for now, I have no other solutions. The ends of the guns are just too small to conceal the magnets themselves. Later on down the line I may just glue them until after Adepticon or get some smaller magnets. 

I only need 11 of the 20 bikes I own for the list I plan on taking, but I figure if I don't paint them all now, I never will. My goal is to have these finished by the end of the day Sunday. I can't wait to get these guys completed. They are starting to crush my soul a little bit. Then I will move on to the 7 Rhino/Razorbacks and 10 Scouts. I'm giving myself the entire month of February to finish them. Then for March I'll be painting up 40-50 Marines. I was feeling super productive this weekend and got a jump on both of those. I got the purple airbrush work done on most of the vehicles and the Marines. GO ME!!!

Hobby Update/ITC Tournament Recap: Drop Pods

Annnnnnnnd the drop pods are complete. I tried a few new techniques on these that I had never attempted before. I wanted the pods to combine my smooth clean style with a slightly weathered style. In the end I think I pulled it off. The only thing I may do at some point is paint some kind of computer display on the spheres in the center of the harnesses. For the time being though, I think they are fine the way they are.

I also got to play in an ITC style tournament this past weekend at Rarity Games. Having played a handful of games with it now, I decided to bring my AdMech War Convocation.

Game 1 was against an Eldar/Space Wolves/Space Marines list. It had everything you would expect to find from those armies: Wraithknight, Scatt Bikes, Thunderwolves, and Grav Centurions in a pod. After taking a devastating alpha strike on turn one, I was left with only a handful of units on the board and Thunderwolves and Centurions in my face. My Grav Destroyers, Knight Crusader, and Vanguard did some epic work in my turn to shift the balance back in my favor heavily. I wiped out the Wraithknight, his Centurions, and unit of Scatt Bikes in my turn. After that, it seemed the wind was totally taken out of his sails. AdMech win 11-2.

Game 2 was against the new Orc list that was recently voted into the ITC. It gets the army a Stompa for roughly 60% of its normal point cost. This game was tough as hell. He had bikes and trukks in my face and a Stompa running straight at me. I managed to take down 6 of the Stompa's hull points before I lost everything else that could hurt it. At that point I charged in my Culexus Assassin! Amazingly he held the Stompa in close combat for 2 turns allowing me to tie on the Primary and Secondary missions. Sadly I still lost on Tertiary missions. AdMech Loss 0-2.

My final game was against Harlequins and Dark Eldar. The list had something like 12-14 AV10 skimmers. Full on MSU. The flamers on my Destroyers were the MVP's of this game. Flaming up to 3 open topped skimmers at a time and roaching all the guys inside. This was another AdMech victory 11-1.

In the end I managed to squeak out a second place victory. 

Hobby Update: Librarius Conclave

Last night I finished up my Librarius Conclave for my Super Friends army. The entire bike portion of the army is made up of conversions that used the Dark Vengeance bike set. It kept the cost of the army low but It meant that I would need to do a lot of converting to get the models geared the way I needed. Still totally worth it in my opinion, plus I like a good hobby challenge. I'm not the worlds greatest converter, but I think these guys turned out pretty good. The majority of the changes used Grey Knight bits to give them that psyker flair they needed. With these guys finished I'm going to move on to the 3 drop pods I need for my AdMech War Convocation/BA army. I need a break from painting bikes. Sadly I have 20 more I need to finish before the Super Friends army will be completed. I'll get to them...eventually.

Change of the Guard

Greetings Havocs!  I am working on some changes to my tournament list and thought I might share some of my progress.  Check out Capnmoe's post about DieCon from a month or so ago to see what my Guard looked like before.

Step 1: Good bye Shadowsword and Hello Cent Star!

The Shadowsword was a great addition to my tournament army as it gave me an answer to big things in the form of a ranged large blast D.  Ranged D has been nerfed.  The Superheavy rules also made this a somewhat risky choice as if it died it can take out large chunks of my army (and its a 500 point tank).  See the report of my game one at diecon for evidence.

In its place, Tigi has joined the guard and is bringing some Cents, Scouts, and a Drop pod.  So far, I have painted up the Cents.

Step 2: Take out a priest and add in the Inquisition

This accomplishes two things very nicely.  Number one it allows me to take Servo Skulls and with the addition of the new Space Marine (especially scouting bikes) to the mix of Death Star style builds out there I want to control where they are turn one. There is also usefulness gained in my Wyverns with the lesser scatter and the drop pod with the Cents is a little bit more accurate with the Servos.  It also gives me one more die in the psychic phase which brings me to the wonderful number of 5 dice per phase min (3 for Tigi, 1 for the Inquisitor, and 1-6 for the die roll). As long as Tigi has Invis (75% of games he will), I can throw 5 dice at the spell every turn.  Finally, the Inquisitor allows the squad he is in to go to ground while the Priest did not which leads me to...

Step 3: Aegis Defense Line

Place my Lascannon blob behind this (and the Wyverns as well) and suddenly I can go to ground for a 2+ cover and use an order to get back up the next shooting phase. Love it.

The working list I have at the moment is as follows:

AM Cad

No Slot
Commissar
Priest

HQ
CCS with Lascannon and Officer of the Fleet

Troops
Platoon
-PCS with 3 Flamers and Heavy Flamer (in Vendetta)
-3x Platoon Squads with Lascannon
-Saber Squad with 3 Sabers with Twin Linked Lascannons (joined by Commissar)
-Conscript Squad (47 Strong) (Led by Priest)
Veterans with 3 Melta Guns (in Valkyrie)

Fast Attack
Valkyrie
Vendetta

Heavy Support
Wyvern battery with 2x Wyvern

Fortification
Aegis Defense Line

Space Marine Allied Detachment

HQ
Tigi

Troops
Scouts

Fast Attack
Drop Pod

Heavy Support
Cent Squad with Grav, Omni Scope, and Sargent with Missile

Inquisition Allied Detachment

HQ
Ordo Xenos Inquisitor with Mastery Level 1 and 3x Servo Skulls

Space Marine Scouts

I finished my Space Marine Scouts which gives me a fully painted Space Marine allied detachment. I was pretty satisfied with the way these guys turned out. In my rush to get them finished i forgot to drill the gun barrels. I will definitely go back and do that before these guys hit the table. Now I need to decide what to paint next. I recently sold my Grey Knights and am looking to replace them with an Imperial Knight army. Chances are high that they will be the next things on my table.