Dark Eldar and some updates

So Dark Eldar is coming..

The metagame right now is basically Space Wolves, IG, a few Eldar lists here and there, some Orks and Blood Angels.  Now I don't know how to say this without just saying this, but it looks like that Dark Eldar are going to shit all over MEQ.  For BA, I can see us taking the standard 3/3 Baal/ACLC Pred to counter the threat of long range triple Dark Lances on the move, and Space Wolf players just shoot RBs all day.  3x groups of 6 Long Fangs with 5x ML and 3x RBs with TLLCs is going to crap all over DE vehicles.  That and the fact that Rune Priests with Living Lightning will have a field day with Split Fire.  Never, ever, ever go MSU and 5-man bodies.  You're too easily destroyed by Dark Eldar and that only fuels their combat drugs.

The only problem I'm seeing here is the DE close combat.  They get Harlequins and Wyches are going to rape some face when they get in close combat.    Marines, even Blood Angels and Space Wolves who are some of the most powerful CC armies right now, can't really hold up to DE CC.  Yes, we get FNP and 3+ AS as Blood Angels, but with enough wounds, rending and combat drugs, things are looking bad for you.  You know what that means right?  Shoot the shit out for their AV-craptastic, open-top vehicles and murder everything with rapid fire Bolters.  I would rather get out of my vehicles and shoot everything to death to minimize on CC death later than getting into CC with Dark Eldar.  NEVER, get into CC with Dark Eldar and expect good things.


Space Wolves will probably have to RB spam or go home.  Not like those sorry excuse of a wolf player doesn't do that already, but we'll definitely be seeing a lot more of those Lascannons.  You know.. those 48" S9 AP2 weapons that you never, ever see because this metagame is currently rampant with transports and melta weapons.  To back track a little bit, I find that Space Wolf players spamming RBs to victory an taking max units of Long Fangs and playing straight up gunline plain out suck.  Not that the list sucks, or the power of the list sucks, but the players playing the list suck.  What kind of Space Wolf player are you playing a gunline?  Eat some meat, drink some ale and punch something with your fists like a real man.  Leave the shooting up to the Iron Hands or something;  Space Wolves belong in combat.

This is why I suggest taking a more balanced approach.  Max some Long Fangs, take some RBs, but don't go overboard and do nothing but shoot.  Bring some RPs with Murderous Hurricane and take a good amount of Grey Hunters to rapid fire those Wynches and Warriors down before they can do serious damage.  For Blood Angels, don't bother with Mephiston since Poison makes his T6 a lot less scary.  Go with a cheap HQ and maximize on MEQ bodies to soak up damage and minimize chances of getting wiped out.  Remember:  Getting wiped out is a very bad thing when fighting the new Dark Eldar.  They get all stimmed up on drugs and destroy you even more the next round.

Oh, and I'm still playing the hell out of League and Legends.  Why are people so bad at this game?  I'm seeing Lv.20+s suck ass, feed and then leave every game.  I'm only Lv.13 and have been playing this game for a week and half and I'm miles better.

Article: Do or Die Scenarios are Bad

Here's a teaser of an article I wrote recently for Bell of Lost Souls:

Warmachine is a game where if you play carelessly with your warcaster, you can lose the game immediately.  When I read battle reports from other players, I shake my head every time I read the dreaded "do or die" scenario.  What does this scenario mean?  It means that if you don't do something big this turn, you will lose the game.  It's literally do or die.  This is exactly the type of scenario that you should avoid.

Recently, I read a battle report where someone got himself in close proximity to pButcher.  He was trying to pull off a kill on pButcher but when all things failed, he figured his warcaster should go try!  Now I don't know about you guys, but I can't fathom why you would ever get anywhere near a MAT9 Reach POW16 Weapon Master.  To make matters worse, you're not running eEiryss and the Butcher is camping focus with Iron Flesh on himself.  For those of you that are not familiar with Warmachine, pButcher is a slaughterhouse on two legs.  He's the size of most armies' light 'jacks and his melee swings as strong as most heavies.  Under no circumstance you should ever be near him unless you're prepared.  If you're running a melee beast warcaster yourself, you still might want to invest in another strategy since going up against Butcher with camped focus and buffs is going to be tough.  If you're ranged or a spellcaster and you're going for it, you're doing it wrong.

You can find the rest here.

League of Legends

You guys are probably wondering what the hell have I been doing lately.  Well, I'm playing League of Legends and trying not to suck at it.  I mean, I don't really suck at it.. I'm just trying to get wtf gosu pro.  It's a little different than DotA for those who's played it, and the RPG elements of it makes it something really unique.  The biggest thing for me is that it's a new game with a lot of new things for me to learn, and I dig that kind of stuff.

I'm currently experimenting with ranged carries since that's what I enjoyed playing back in DotA.  My favorites right now is Miss Fortune, Ashe and Annie.  I haven't really gotten a foothold on Annie yet.. and I'm going to try playing with Ryze today.  For those who are unfamiliar with the game, my characters can be broken up into 3 categories.  Miss Fortune, is a character who is ranged, does physical damage and is considered a carry.  A carry is basically any character who can make a lot of money (therefore getting uber items) and have deal enough damage to rape the other team.  Annie, for example, is a ranged, spellcaster carry.

I play carries because I like blowing things up for big damage and dominating people.  Tanks, healers and support classes need not apply.

PS - This game is free to play.

My Tier2 Rahn list

Cygnar is a great faction and I love playing with them, but sometimes you just need something different!  That's why I chose Retribution as my second army.  Nobody around here really plays them, no one understands them and the rarity of the faction is what really appealed to me.  Just because no one really plays them (there's like 5 Cygnar players here) doesn't mean they're bad.  In fact, I find Retribution to be one of the trickiest factions to play against.  They have strong shooting in the form of Invictors and MHSF, powerful melee thanks to Sentinels and Halberdiers, and ridiculous manipulation in the form of Battle Mages (mittens).


I actually picked up Adeptis Rahn before I knew what he could do.  Maybe it's just my natural affinity for randomly picking competitive casters (like how I started Cygnar with eCaine), but I really liked the fact that he's portrayed as one of the most powerful spellcasters in the world.  As most of you know, one of the reasons I picked up High Elves was because of Teclis.  Thankfully, Rahn isn't as ridiculous as Teclis, but in some ways, he can be just as bad.

Here's my current army list for Retribution.  It's Tier2 Rahn and it's geared towards maximizing Feat turn while maintaining two heavy 'jacks.

Points: 35
Adeptis Rahn Shyeel (*6pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Discordia (10pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (7pts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard (2pts)
Arcanist (0pts)
House Shyeel Magister (2pts)

The Phoenix is pretty much a given considering how he's an arc node in heavy armor stats.  With Phoenix Shield, the ability to heal and ARM18 w/ DEF12, he's one of the best arc nodes in the game.  Don't even think you can swarm him with infantry and tie him up, his *Attack Combustion makes sure everything within 2" of him takes POW12 Continuous Fire hits.  Throw in the fact he also has a P+S17 Reach weapon that automatically lights things on fire when he hits and you've got yourself a real winner.

The newest edition to my army list is the Discordia.  He's the newest edition to the Retribution warhost and he's got some insanely impressive abilities.  The stats for him is basically a Manticore +1 MAT/RAT and 2x P+S16 Open Fists.  His ranged weapon is what really sells this 'jack.. considering how Retribution has a overwhelming weakness to stealth and infantry hordes.  The Discordia comes with a RNG10 POW14 Magical spray.  That is just amazing.  His other abilities include being bonded to Rahn, has an Imprint: Kinetic Field that allows him to spend a focus to make this model and other friendly models within 3" of it gain +2 ARM vs. ranged attacks and not suffer blast damage.  Throw on Rahn's Force Field and have him stand next to some Halberdiers in Shield Wall and things get quite ridiculous.

As for the rest of my list, I get a free Arcanist because of Rahn's T2 bonus and I fill in the rest with Halberdiers and Battle Mages.  Two squads of Battle Mages to capitalize on Feat turn and the Magister just because I can.  Believe it or not, but I love the Magister's Combo-Smite.  Being able to charge in with MAT7 and knock something on its ass is just great.  As for the Halberdiers, I think they're absolutely amazing.  Great stats all around and the fastest Shield Wall in the game because of Reform gives me extreme flexibility.  ARM20 vs. ranged attacks with Discordia's Kinetic Field up is just demoralizing to armies like Cygnar.

So what ya guys think?  I'm loving this list.

BR: 35pt Siege vs. eGaspy

The battle begins with a map with a fair share of terrain.  This battle highlights the importance of utilizing knockdown and positioning so Breach turn can inflict the most damage.  By destroying and severely crippling my opponent's warjacks, I can stay ahead in the attrition game and deliver game-winning results.  The guy with the last warjack is always ahead.

My list looks like this:

Points: 35

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane (*5pts)

* Defender (9pts)

* Defender (9pts)

* Ol' Rowdy (9pts)

* Squire (2pts)

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)

Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1pts)

Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

His list looked like this:

Points: 35

Lich Lord Asphyxious (*6pts)

* Nightwretch (4pts)

* Reaper (7pts)

* Seether (9pts)

* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)

Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)

The Withershadow Combine (5pts)

Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)

Cryx Turn #1

He runs his entire army and covers his advance with clouds of goo.  For those of you who don't know, eGaspy has a spell called Caustic Mist.. which he can cast to block LoS to a lot of targets as long as he stacks them next to eachother.  His Reaper sat behind some concealment forest and his Seether sat right behind the Reaper with the WSC sitting close to both.  For Warmachine newcomers, this is the dirty strategy of Dark Industries:  If he manges to gets a hold of any of my jacks with the Harpoon, he can damage it enough for the WSC to turn him into another Seether or something.  His Bane Knights run up my left flank and Bane Lord floats around the right side of the board.  The Nightwrench also hugs the woods with the Reaper for some arc node coverage.

Cygnar Turn #1

On my turn, I moved both Defenders up with 2 focus each.  I put a foxhole on them and hold off on moving Siege any further.  Arlan boosts Ol'Rowdy and he Imprints for Grudge just in case he gets pulled.  Since the mists were up on every location except for one opening to his Seether, I positioned my Defenders and made magic happen.  The Defenders open fire for boosted attack and damage rolls.  Concentrated fire puts serious damage on the 1 and 6 boxes causing the Seether to lose one of his arms.  Eiryss aims and shoots the Nightwrench for Disruption and I'm happy with that.  B13 moves up and attempts to Snipe the Knights on my left flank but only manages to kill one.  The Stormsmith runs up the left flank and the turn ends.

Cryx Turn #2

On his turn, he puts 3 focus on the Reaper, 3 on the Seether and that's it.  I know exactly what he's going to try to do.  Or not!  Instead of harpooning my Ol'Rowdy, he harpoons one of the Defenders out of the Foxhole!  He rolls insanely high and beats the DEF16 requirement and drags one of my Defenders to his doom.  After some serious damage from the Reaper and the Seether that charged in, I'm left with no Cortex Hammer and boxes everywhere.  The moment of truth came with the Seether Chain Attacked with Grab & Smash and I resisted the throw!  Now I'm stuck in there with a half-ass Defender and no targets of opportunity.  The rest of his army runs up close and is now in charge range of my army.

Cygnar Turn #2

Siege is the master of making big turns and that's exactly what he did this game.  I'm not going to take any credit for Siege's masterful execution of tactics and strategy, but in short, this is what he did:  Siege starts by dropping Foxhole, putting 2 focus on the safe Defender, 1 focus on the one stuck in combat and 2 on Ol'Rowdy.  That gives him 2 more for himself since he ate some Squire.  Strangewayes moves up and tries to Evasive the Defender locked in combat but he's just short of range.  No problem, Ol'Rowdy decides he's going to single-handily turn this shitstorm around.  He charges in 8" towards the Seether and Skarlock Thrall and smashes his hammer into the ground.  He boosts to hit the Seether, watches as the Skarlock falls on his ass and knocks down my own Defender.  I use Grudge on Ol'Rowdy and then end his activation.  Reinholdt reloads Siege and the time for action is now.  With a clear line of sight to the Reaper and the KD Seether, Siege walks up and covers most of the Cryx army with Breach.  He starts off and ground pounds 4 Bane Knights into ash and before setting up his 2nd shot.  His next shot hits the Reaper in the face with a boosted attack and damage roll for 16 boxes of damage.  The force of the impact immediately destroys the Harpoon and the movement of the Reaper 'jack.  Seeing the Seether on his ass, the Defender hits his DEF5 target easily and boosts for massive damage.  A total of 19 points of damage is scored and the Seether vanishes from this world.  With no melee weapon and no chance of survival, the Defender takes a chance and moves out of combat with the Reaper.  The Reaper strikes him down easily with the Free Strike and now stands to face Ol'Rowdy alone.  Eiryss moves up and takes a chance with her bow at the now breached Tartarus, hits and rolls laughable damage.  The B13 goes to town with Mage Storm and Brutal Shots and puts down a bunch more Bane Knights.  The Stormsmith epic fails with a 12/8 on his skill check.

Cryx Turn #3

With his army in shambles, the Iron Lich is confused.  He is too far away to pop feat and kill Siege, but he is in range to try and kill the Defender.  Too bad the way I moved my B13 put them as meat shields in front of my Defender so that he can't possibly be melee'd my reach targets.  He decides not to pop his Feat but instead puts 3 focus on the Reaper in a futile attempt to kill my Ol'Rowdy.  With the Seether wrecked in front of his WMC, they cowardly sit behind cover and hit my Ol'Rowdy with magical attacks.  I get hit by one of them for 4 damage while the others bounce off my ARM20.  The Reaper comes up to me and smacks me for some damage.  I smack back with Grudge but roll low for damage so only a few boxes gets filled.  In total, I take something like 9 damage on various locations so nothing critical happens there.  Tartersauce charges Eiyriss and turns her into a Thrall.  The Lich moves behind his WSC and throws up some more mists; one of which lands on Ryan and my Defender and ends his turn.

Cygnar Turn #3

I put 2 focus on my Defender and keep 5 for myself.  Yum Squire.  Arlan moves up and PB's Ol'Rowdy for a Focus and the fireworks begin.  I move Ol'Rowdy into the left flank of his Reaper and tremor everything within 2".  I catch his Reaper and his Nightwrench (who ran there last round) and I spend a focus to bash the Reaper's face with another attack.  The Reaper is now a smoldering ruin.  My B13 cleans house again with Lynch Black Pennying Ryan out of reach of a Bane Knight and Ryan shoots up two more after that.  Watts shoots and misses, but that's fine.  My Defender now has LoS to the Iron Lich's medium size base, aims, boots and scores a hit with a boosted damage roll.  After 12 points of damage is logged on the caster, Siege makes his move.  He moves, Explosivos himself, boosts to hit and hits the Iron Lich in the face.  He boosts for damage and that's enough for the game.  Otherwise, the next shot and the AOE3 would of probably did considerable damage to the WSC near his caster.

Cygnar Wins!

BR: 35pt eHaley vs. pGoreshade

The battle begins with a map with a fair share of terrain.  This battle highlights the importance of Haley's spells in combination with her Feat.  When used correctly, her feat can utterly cripple the opposing army and essentially give Haley's army another turn.  Her two win conditions in this list is the Defender and the Stormclad so both must be protected to make the win happen.

My list looks like this:

Points: 35
Major Victoria Haley (*5pts)
* Thorn (8pts)
* Defender (9pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
* Squire (2pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team (4pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)

His list looked like this:

Points: 35
Goreshade the Bastard (*6pts)
* Cankerworm (5pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Bane Thrall Officer & Standard (3pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)

Cygnar Turn #1

I deploy the Defender behind a wrecked house so he has a nice position to shoot up some 'jacks if the situation arises.  The Stormblades runs next to the Defender as protection and the Stormclad comes up towards its flank.  My B13 babysits my right flank with Thorn and Arlan and the Squire sits comfortably next to eHaley behind the rest of the frontline.

Cryx Turn #1

His deployment didn't have Cankerworm or the Deathjack advance deploy, so I thought that was really odd. What makes it more odd was that he didn't cast Shadowmancer on his first turn but instead camps focus after running with his entire army.  The Thralls are on my right side directly facing my B13 and the Deathjack, his Cankerworm (behind the DJ) and the Withershadow are on the left.  The Machine Wraith is also on my left flank.

Cygnar Turn #2

Haley Temporal Accelerates the Defender after allocating 2 focus to it.  She also puts one of Thorn and sits comfortably after casting TA on the Defender.  I don't want to be hasty and run my army up further than I should.. and I definitely don't want to carelessly lose my only arc node.  My B13 Fire Beacons the Thralls on the right side, Watts misses his shot and Ryan hits 3 Bane Thralls with her Mage Storm.  I roll to kill all 3 but he makes all 3 Tough rolls.  The Defender moves up a little bit after seeing Haley's control area and takes 2 shots at the Deathjack. The first shot misses and the second shot does abysmal damage after boosting so nothing really happens.  That's fine, we'll pretend the DJ had Shadowmancer on.  I kindly remind my opponent and he facepalms in disbelief.  The Stormblades advance cautiously, judging my distance very carefully.

Cryx Turn #2

The DJ moves up some more and is on my doorstep - definitely within charging range of almost everything important next turn.  The Cankerworm sits behind him; waiting for the right opportunity to strike.  The WSC is still floating around behind the Canker and the Machine Wraith moves pretty close to the DJ.  The Bane Thralls run up again and this time, they're literally face to face with most of my B13 and Thorn.  Goreshade moves up as well and casts Mage Blight but Haley's out of range to be effected.  Tartarsauce is also waiting to pounce on some units should they dig through the wall of Tough Bane Thralls.

Cygnar Turn #3

This is a big turn for me.  The Stormclad receives 3 focus from Haley after she eats the Squire and the Defender gets allocated 2.  Arlan moves up and PB's Thorn as he charges into a Bane Thrall and it sits there after making a Tough roll.  It doesn't matter because his true intention was to be revealed shortly.    Haley moves around with her 18" of control range thanks to the Squire and pops her Feat.  The entire Cryx army is now in effect of Temporal Shift.  Her next move is to cast TK through Thorn on the DJ which makes him turn around and block the Cankerworm.  Thorn's Affinity with Haley allows him to Arc Node as if not in combat and his Reaction Drive moved him around slightly to the right of the Bane Thrall.  The B13 moves up and Watts headshots Thorn's Bane Thrall with Black Penny and Ryan Mage Storms again, tagging 4 of the Thralls.  They make 3 Tough rolls.  I rage for a good 5 minutes.  After Lynch shoots another one dead, my Stormblades charged to rest of the Thralls and put a good amount of them down.  Out of the 6 that got charged, only 2 made their Tough rolls.  The Defender charges in at the Deathjack that had his back turned and put serious damage on his cortex and movement.  My Stormclad activates with full focus and charges 5+2 bonded+3+Reach and runs his Generator Blade through the DJ's spine.  I roll pretty high and he dies in one hit.  The lightning arc does nothing.

Cryx Turn #3

Cryx has a sad.  His entire army is slowed by Haley's Feat and they can't really do much to retaliate.  I choose the Pistol Wraith to go first since the map was cluttered with units in combat or out of range so it didn't get to kill that much.  The Bane Thralls went next and they chopped down some SBs but then just sat there.  Tartar was out of range to do anything so he just moved.  The Cankerworm was out of melee range so he just ran away.  Goreshade went next and moved slightly away from the Stormclad and cast Mage Blight again.  The focus he put on his Cankerworm was for nothing.  Everything else felt like time stood still.. which is the beauty of eHaley's feat.

Cygnar Turn #4

I put 4 focus on the Stormclad (since he's bonded) and kept 5 for myself.  The B13 shot down a good amount of Bane Thralls and the Stormblades did their job as well.  An opening lane was made for the Stormclad to Goreshade except for a lone Bane Thrall.  Arlan gives Thorn another Focus and Thorn charges into the Thrall, felling him instantly.  He then Reaction Drives back out of the charge lane after arcing Haley's TK and TA onto the Stormclad.  The Stormclad activates next and charges through rough terrain for 2+3+7+3+Reach into Goreshades face and boosts to hit.  He hits, puts serious damage on the Goreshade and arcs lightning into his undead lover, killing her instantly.  The Stormclad moves so fast with Temporal Acceleration that another hit comes right after the first, boosts for both and Goreshade flops over.

Cygnar Wins!

BR: 35pt eCaine vs. eVlad

The battle begins with a map with a fair share of terrain.  This battle highlights the importance of target priority over the ambition of caster kill.  Sometimes the quickest way to victory is not the shortest path.  By killing key targets and destroying your opponent's ability to maximize his turns, the game can be yours without the need of assassination!

My list looks like this:

Points: 35
Captain Allister Caine  (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy  (9pts)
* Squire  (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)  (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer  (2pts)
* * Hunter  (6pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team  (4pts)
Rangers  (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes  (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution  (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator  (1pts)


His list looked like this:

Points: 35
Vladimir Tzepesci, the Dark Champion (*5pts)
* Beast-09 (11pts)
* Drago (8pts)
* War dog (1pts)
Great Bears of Gallowswood (5pts)
Man-o-war Demolition Corps (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (4pts)
Widowmaker Marksman (2pts)

Cygnar Turn #1
The game started out with me casting True Shot on Caine and moving into the woods across from his deployment zone.  Everyone else moved up a bit; most notably the Rangers + eEiryss in the woods, the B13 getting Prowl and the Hunter sitting in front near Caine.  Everyone is ready to go.

Khador Turn #1
On his turn, he threw down Assail on Drago, Hand of Fate on the squad of Widowmakers and Transference on the Demo troops and moved his entire army up.  The Widowmakers go into the building to try to shoot at the Hunter and only inflict 3 damage boxes on him.  Since everything else was stealth or prowl, there was no further shooting from him.  The Bears ran up the flank on the broad's edge on the left side and that was it for his turn.

Cygnar Turn #2
On my turn, I ran a Ranger into 5" of his Widowmakers, moved Caine up a little bit and shot away with Reinholdt's reload and a bite from the Squire.  Caine takes down all the Widowmakers; including the Marksman and Gate Crashes back into safety.  The Hunter aims and shoots with a Runed Snipe and boosts damage for 9 boxes on Drago's right arm.  Arlan had Power Boosted him earlier.  The B13 remain a healthy distance away from the Bears and shoots them from 14" with Snipe.  I do deadly damage to one of the Bears but he just shrugs it off with Tough.

Khador Turn #2
Khador now moves his army up further and is pretty much in range of charges next turn with the help of eVlad's feat.  He, however, did not pop his Feat thinking he still had another turn.  He puts Hand of Fate on the Demos and runs his Great Bears even further.  The entire red army is on my door step.

Cygnar Turn #3
Make it or break it, here I go.  Rangers run into place, Caine reloads, eats the Squire and gets ready to go to town.  He positions himself in rough terrain, surrounded by many of his own troops so no charges with reach weapons can reach him.  He then starts the fireworks by pumping round after round into the marked Demos in front of him and Drago with Overkill in full effect.  After 10 shots go by, 3 of the Demos are dead and Drago is missing both of his arms.  The last 2 Demos have a guy left with 1 box after some bad rolling on my part.  The B13 lights up the Great Bears with Brutal shots and he manages to make 2 more Tough rolls before going down.  After 4 shots of Brutal, Volkov stands alone, but bloodthirsty with rage and violence.  My Hunter gets his aiming bonus again and shoots at Drago with a boosted ranged attack (from Arlan's PB) and the ATGM UA's Critical Brutal.  He fails to crit and fails to do any real damage.  My ATGM shoot at the rest of the Demos and at Volkov but fails to do anything.  Ol'Rowdy gets bored and runs towards the flank of the remaining Demos and sits there for next turn.  Eiryss moves in range of Drago and disrupts him for 1 damage.  The turn passes to Khador.

Khador Turn #3
Things are looking grim for Khador.  Drago gets antsy and runs into Ol'Rowdy hoping to tie him up in combat.  eVlad pops his Feat on the Demos and comes closer to Ol'Rowdy preparing to counter-charge him next turn.  Volkov, the last Great Bear, runs into the B13 and murders Ryan but fails to kill anyone else.  The Demos charge into my ATGM and slay 4 of them.  The Beast-09 charges my Hunter and attempts to hack his face off, but ends up rolling pitifully for damage and only boxes his sword arm.  The turn ends.

Cygnar Turn #4
I make my CMD check on the ATGM and the game continues.  I PB with Arlan onto my Hunter and the Hunter parries his way out of combat, dodging all of Beast-09s attacks.  He then proceeds to do a whopping 11 damage on Beast-09 and he gets back in combat with him.  Eiryss moves further away and disrupts Beast-09.  The rest of the ATGM attempt to damage the Demos but fails horribly even with 2 Critical Brutals hitting (thanks to eVlad's feat).  Lynch and Watts finish Volkov and Caine finishes the rest of the Demos with reload, squire, Ranger's marking and boosting for damage rolls.  He Gate Crashes away.. far far away from Beast-09.  Ol'Rowdy pummels Drago into the ground and Vlad looks at him with disdain.

Khador Turn #4
Beast-09 advances and threshers a good amount of my army.  He kills Arlan, a Ranger, a ATGM, the Hunter and almost gets the Squire but misses.  With the Hunter dead, Ol'Rowdy far away and no more Feat, I have nothing that can reliably kill Beast-09.  Vlad charges Ol'Rowdy with reach and full focus and wails on him for a crap ton of damage.  Ol'Rowdy survives with half of his boxes left with his main weapon and cortex still in play.

Cygnar Turn #5
I run everyone away from Beast-09's reach and Reinholdt and a Ranger dies because of free strikes.  The Rangers surround eVlad and the B13 moves into a more advantageous position.  Ol'Rowdy gets 3 focus and he walks over to Vlad and pummels his dog first.  He then buys another attack, boosts and puts 11 damage on Vlad.  My next hit misses and Vlad's not knocked down.  My kill shot came in with Caine getting into range and realizing that I need to hit a DEF21 Vlad thanks to Might of Kings and the fact I'm in combat with Ol'Rowdy.  With my Ranger's help and a boosted RAT shot, I meet the 10s requirement to hit him and boost damage for the game.

Cygnar Wins!

Tried some hardcore

Well, not really too hardcore.  We played 35pts eCaine vs. Kaelyssa with 5 minute turns for a standard caster kill game.  Since we played on our lunch break and this is our first time trying out the stress of "hardcore", we wanted to see what it was like.

Man.. it really IS hardcore.  On my first turn, this is what I did:

1. Squire gives Caine a focus.
2. Reinholdt reloaded Caine.
3. Rangers ran to give Caine the +2 bonus on Eiryss and a Sniper.
4. I casted Trueshot on Caine, killed both with normal shots and then magic bullet the MHSF guy next to Eiryss.  Caine GCs back to safety.
5. Time - My turn ends.

WHAT?!  I was so shocked that that happened.  Maybe I'm getting old or something, but I barely did anything before turn was up.  I literally still had an entire army to move around and position myself.  In short, I wasn't able to shoot with my Hunter, run with Ol'Rowdy or move my ATGM into a more favorable location.

You know that saying "time flies when you're having fun?"  At the end of the game (Ol'Rowdy smashed Kaelyssa's face in), we decided that playing 5 minute turns was a bit too much.  Since we only have an hour lunch, we decided on 7 minute turns next game!  By my 2nd turn, I got used to how fast the turns ran but it still didn't help us in the most important aspect of all:  tactics.  A lot of mistakes were made and once Kaelyssa was exposed in range of Ol'Rowdy because of the mental pressure, I knew the game was over.

I am now officially impressed by the skill and precision it takes to play "hardcore", but I think I'll play something a little more casual.  Like they say.. "I'm getting too old for this shit."

NEW High Elf Minis pics!!!

Oh man, oh man!  Looks like my wallet is going to hate me in October!

The amount of detail on these bad boys is seriously bad-ass!  Those Dragon Princes look amazing.. especially for the actual Dragon masks the horses are wearing.  The White Lions are much more dynamic and the Phoenix Guard are downright scary.  Bring it on!

Oh, who is that in the first pic?  That's Althran Stormrider of course!  He's one of our 2 metal blisters that we're supposed to be getting.

CLICK ON THESE FOR A BIGGER PICTURE!

You can pre-order your stuff here:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=12600014a

Defender or Hunter?

Here's another one of my army lists based on eCaine.  Unlike my other army list, this one uses a Hunter instead of a Defender.  With the extra points, Caine can take the B13 - which is a great toolbox unit plus the fact they do quite a bit of damage.

Points: 35
Captain Allister Caine  (*5pts)
* Ol' Rowdy  (9pts)
* Squire  (2pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)  (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer  (2pts)
* * Hunter  (6pts)
Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team  (4pts)
Rangers  (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes  (2pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution  (3pts)
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator  (1pts)

So I guess the question is:  Defender or Hunter?  The Hunter allows me to make AP attacks vs. Medium-Large base models (halve their armor) and can do the same damage to those models as the Defender.  Add in some Runeshots from the marshaled ATGM UA and you've got the same amount of tricks as the Defender.  The downside to that is that against small base models, the Hunter only does 8 damage vs. the Defender's whopping POW15.  On the plus side though, the Hunter has AD, Pathfinder, RAT7 and DEF14.  Since it can move freely in terrain, it's basically floating around DEF16 and is an excellent harassment tool.

The Defender, on the other hand, has more damage boxes, more armor and a RNG16 POW15 cannon that shoots at RAT6.  He also has a MAT7 Cortex Hammer that can hit for a respectable PS16 and does 1 point of Cortex damage with each hit.  Since he does equal damage all around with his cannon, he can reach out and slap vulnerable warcasters/warlocks for a shit ton of damage.  The 16" range also allows the Defender to aim at most targets for an effective RAT8.

The big thing to note about these two is cost.  At 6 points vs. the Defender's 9, taking the Hunter gives me the B13 or A&H vs. the Defender + Stormsmith.  So far, I've been having good success with the Defender, but I guess I have to play around to see what's good and what's not.

Your most hated enemy

Over my years of wargaming, I've played against many many types of armies, players and individual playstyles.  I can always look back into my past experiences and pin-point which armies I find the most heinous.  Truth be told:  My most hated enemy is also the enemy that I enjoy fighting most.  I'm not sure why that is.. maybe because I like the challenge or maybe because I'm completely deranged.  I find the hardest and most frustrating match-ups to be my favorite fights because it constantly challenges me to get better.

Sometimes though.. you'll play against a certain army that you vow you'll never play again.  I'm talking about the ridiculous PD spamming Daemon armies of 7th Ed. Fantasy or the dread Iron Warriors army of blow your shit back when CSM actually had a real codex.  I played against the Daemons with my Dwarfs and High Elves and every game was a wrist-cutting experience of frustration.  My poor Grey Knights had the worst of it.. since they were the first army I ever bought from GW and most of my forces were footsloggers.  Needless to say, I have a bitter disdain for these armies ever since.


For me, I have a deep, vengeful hatred against these armies:

Chaos Space Marines
Not only because I play Space Marines and I think it's fluffy -- but for all my Grey Knights that died valiantly so I can learn to play the game.  Needless to say, watching my units get shot to shit while under the effects of Lash wasn't the most awesome thing either (in 4th).  To this day, if I had a choice to fight any army in 40K, I will always elect to fight against CSM.  Not just one variant, but all variants.  Those cheating Iron Warriors ruined it for you all!

Wood Elves
My most hated enemy in Fantasy is actually Wood Elves.  I had a guy at my old club that played a mass tree army before HE got their new book and it was insanely frustrating to play against.  It didn't help that I was just starting off with HE and WE were at their prime.  He then played a bunch of sissy shooting lists that had to do with shooting from cover and then running away everytime I got near him.  I just find that type of playstyle to be extremely cowardly.. even for Elven standards.

Protectorate of Menoth
I hate overly zealous religious fanatics to begin with.. add in some crazy denial mechanics and Menoth becomes one of those armies I just love to kill.  To further expand on why the Menoth game is annoying; one of the guys on the Cygnar forums said it best..

Me: "I'll shoot that guy"
Him: "Immune to ranged attacks"
Me: "How about those Sisters?"
Him:"Def 17, you can try it if you want to..."
Me: "I'll Dominate that 'jack"
Him: "It's immune to magic right now"
Me: "I'll do Arcane Inferno on those grouped-up Zealots"
Him: "I popped their mini-feat last turn so they're indestructible this round"
Me: "I'll attack that Repenter with Pendrake's Bola"
Him: "It's immune to knockdown due to the Covenant"
Me: "Uh, dammit, I'll shoot the Avatar with my Defender"
Him: "Arm 21, so you do a total of 2 damage"
Me: "Well, um, I'll charge it with my Lancer and knock out the - "
Him: "Avatar has no cortex to be damaged"
Me: "I'll use Harlan and shoot all your guys with upkeep sp-"
Him: "None of these effects are from upkeeps"

Me:


































Welp, what about you guys?  Which armies make you rage the most?