Imperial Knight 5/5 and an Imperial Knight Commission

One year to the date of making my first Imperial Knight post, I finally finished the army. This is the fifth and final Knight, the Cerastus Knight Acheron. Of course I say that now, but god knows they'll release another cool Knight down the line and I'll probably grab one of those as well. There's an ITC style tournament this weekend and I can't tell you how excited I am to try this guy out. I was motivated to finish this guy up mostly because I was also doing my first commission paint job on an Imperial Knight Errant/Paladin. I figured I'd paint them up along side each other since I'd be doing a lot of similar things on each. This was the first of what I hope becomes many more commissions. The project went smoothly and I'm looking forward to helping more people get their armies painted. If you have any interest in a commission please feel free to contact me at capnmoe2002@yahoo.com.

Here's a few work in progress pics.

X-wing: New League as Wave 7 Hits the Shelves

Last week as wave 7 for X-wing hit the store shelves, a new league began at Fantasy Books and Games. This wave would see the introduction of 2 bombers, the K-wing and the Tie Punisher, as well as 2 ships for the new Scum faction, the Kihraxz Fighter and the YV-666. I picked up the K-wing and the Kihraxz. This league I'm looking to run Scum only and the K-wing has some fantastic upgrade cards that should help. The Khiraxz is the Scums version of the X-wing with some slight tweaks. 

The league itself will take place every other Thursday starting 9-2-15 and ending 10-14-15. There's some great prizes this time around and everyone who participates gets an alt art "Recon Specialist" card.  

I decided I wanted to get the Khiraxz on the table in the first week for nostalgic purposes. When I used to play Star Wars Galaxies, I flew this ship often. I knew I wanted to try and step outside of my comfort zone for this league as well. I wanted to try an elite 3 ship list as opposed to the "Tanky" high shield/hull point lists I normally run. I also wanted to try and find better builds for a few of the Scum ships that hadn't preformed very well for me in the past. So with that in mind I decided to try:

   

   

With only 3 ships on the board, I tried to gear most of my upgrades towards keeping my ships alive. This was definitely a "Glass Cannon" list compared to what I'm used to running. 

Game 1

My opponent's Squad as Best I Can Remember:

Blue Squadron B-wing

Blue Squadron B-wing

Gold Squadron Y-wing - Ion Cannon Turret

Warden Squadron K-wing - Cluster Mines, Ion Bombs, Advanced Slam, Extra Munitions 

This game started out strong but really went no where. I was unable to focus on any single ship after my initial pass. Each of them had 8+ hull points so it was difficult to take them down. Guri hit a couple of the new cluster mines in turn 3 and got vaped. Once she went down it felt like a lot of the wind came out of my sails. I did however fly the ships pretty well, and to my surprise the M3-A was the only ship to survive. I lost this one pretty handily. The best I managed to do was get the K-wing to 2 hull points and burn a few shields off of some of the others.

Game 2

My opponent's Squad as Best I Can Remember:

Binayre Pirate Z-95 

Binayre Pirate Z-95 - Feedback Array

Binayre Pirate Z-95 - Feedback Array

Binayre Pirate Z-95 - Feedback Array

Binayre Pirate Z-95 - Feedback Array

Drea Renthal Y-wing - Flechette Torpedoes, Ion Cannon Turret, R4-B11

Man this was a cool list. I have often wanted to try this with Z-95's. Drea seemed to be geared to control a ship and then have the Z-95's rip it apart with feedback. I faired a bit better in this game. I managed to take out 2 or 3 of the Z-95's and put a hurting on Drea. Unfortunately it wasn't enough and by the end of the game the M3-A was the only shipped still flying for me. I lost this game too.

After all that, I do plan on fielding the M3-A in more games. It was surprisingly survivable and did some work with its Heavy Laser Cannon. Graz did all right and while Glitterstim is a solid card, I wasn't overly impressed by it. I'm still not sold on the Starviper or any of its pilots. The ship seems over costed and doesn't really know what roll it wants to fill on the battlefield. It's not a jouster and it doesn't arc dodge well. What is its purpose? Next week I plan on mixing in some of the gear from the K-wing expansion. I'm going to stick to a 3 ship build, but up the shield/hull points up quite a bit. I'm really excited to try out the new "Twin Laser Turret" and the "Extra Munitions" cards. I was never really sold on missles/torpedoes/bombs before, but with addition of Extra Munitions you get a ton of value out of the cards. Here's the list:

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

Welcome to the Thunderdome

The Thunderdome cometh! I finally finished painting up my Thunderwolf Cavalry this weekend. I'm super excited to get these guys on the table. I'll be using the Company of the Great Wolf Detachment which allows you to bring 1 HQ and 2 Elites base.

I'll be using 2x Wolf Guard battle Leaders, 2x Iron Priests, and a 3 man unit of Thunderwolf Cavalry. The plan is to pair them with either White Scars bikes or Ravenwing bikes. By taking the special detachment and pairing the independent characters with a bike Command Squad from either army, the unit will gain some crazy rules. Here are just a few off the top of my head:

Company of the Great Wolf Detachment will give all the cavalry WS5
The Characters will have Preferred Enemy in Challenges
Counter Attack
Scout
Feel No Pain from the Command Squads Apothecary
Skilled Rider
+1 to Strength on Hammer of Wraths
Hit and Run
All Grav or Plasma Gun shots from the bikers depending on faction
If Ravenwing add:
Stubborn
Reroll Failed Jinks

Needless to say, the death star should be extremely powerful and resilient. Finishing these guys means I can move on to the next part of my project. That means I need to assemble, paint, and convert 24 Dark Vengeance bikes, 2x drop pods, and few other Space Marine units that have been sitting next to my desk gathering dust. I have SO many models just sitting in boxes or bags right now that need attention and no time to get them done. Those include a Forge World Cerastus-Knight Acheron and the start of my Skitarii army. Thankfully, the rumor mill is saying the release schedule for 40k is gonna slow down until October when Tau will get an update. Guess I have until then to get my back log of models all finished up because I will undoubtedly want to expand my Tau when they come out lol.

New Video! A how to play Battle Report: DYSTOPIAN WARS!

Squoze Herald of Nurgle teaches Will the Fish Man how to play the awesome game Dystopian Wars!  Hope you like!

 

Warhammer 40k: DieCon Gateway Grand Tournament 2015 Results

Overall Winner Andy Ford's Amazing Eldar/Imperial Knight Army Converted to Appear as Necrons.

The final standings were as follows:

Overall Winner: Andy Ford (Eldar/Imperial Knights)

2nd Overall: Adam Warnecke a.k.a. Capnmoe (Eldar/Imperial Knights)

3rd Overall: (Tau/Tyranids)

Best General: Eric Darrais (Eldar)

Best Painted: Tobias (Space Marines/Imperial Knights)

Sportsmanship: Dustin Beck (Grey Knights)

Eldar and Imperial Knights ruled the day. There was even an Eldar list that had 5 Wraithknights. I must say, I expected that list to completely run away with the win. To my, and I would imagine many other's surprise, he was tabled in the first round and started the day with a 0. All of the top Eldar lists contained a Farseer, jet bikes, and a Wraithknight. While the odd man Tau/Tyranids list had 3 Riptides, 3 Skyrays, and 3 flying Hive Tyrants. All brutal lists to say the least.

Capnmoe was running his Eldar/Imperial Knights Combo

Bill Keys was running his Astra Militarum

Full lists and game summaries after the jump.

I am very excited for Wrath of Kings

Soooo, for my birthday last week I picked up Wrath of Kings.  I have been eyeballing this game since I saw the painted models at Adepticon last year.  Well, the time was right and I picked up the book and a House Nasier starter box....

DieCon and the Gateway Grand Tournament 2015

This weekend is DieCon and the 2015 Gateway Grand Tournament! The majority of my 40k year is spent preparing for this tournament alone. A list of events and tickets can found and purchased here http://www.diecon.com/Main/. For the past 2 years I've won the title of "Best General" at this event. Hopefully this year I can finally manage to grab Overall Winner. If you love gaming, this is the place to be this weekend. I know they are also hosting Zone Mortalis, a 40k Character battle Royale, Combat Patrol, an Apocalypse game, War Hammer Fantasy, as well as open play. They also run a huge amount of Warmachine/Hordes, X-wing, and just about any board game or RPG you can think of. This year I'm bringing out my Eldar/Imperial Knight combo. Everything is painted and ready to roll. Bill Keys will also be playing in the tournament with his Astra Militarum. Can the Lonely Havocs bring the noise again this year? Stay tuned for updates.