Battle Report: 500 Point Angry Marines vs. Imperial Guard

Hey folks! 

My first foray back into battle reports in 8th edition starts with a friendly game against a friendly local.  I'm learning 8th edition and am not ready for tournaments with my super fluffy pure Space Marine (Angry Marines Counts as Ultramarines).  

Hulksmash braved the wrath of the internet to help me put together a low model count, pure space marine army list, which you can find here!  

I haven't come up with a fun name for my army yet; from Ghazgkhull's Harem to my Darklight Storm to the Garden of Silence and their horrifically effective close combat with their 3rd edition codex in 5th edition, so I'll take any suggestions.  The lore for these guys,  Techpriest-Captain Tempernius Irascus and the 3rd Company "FURY OF THE EMPRAH" Angry Marines is here.  I should hold a contest to who can come up with the best name.

Anyway, PREPARE FOR GLORY!  Bring your savage comments, I'm new to 8th, still learning the rules, and this is for you all to point out all the stuff I did wrong so I can git gud.

8th Edition and ANGRY MARINES

Fine 40k players, its been an age.  Seven years to be precise.  I haven't played Warhammer 40k since my career high of winning Best Sportsman at the Nova Open in 2011 - the crowning achievement of my Warhammer career. 

I poked around in 6th edition, but the game was too confusing; too many armies, too many allies, Necrons allying with Orks, needing to buy 6 Ork books to even figure out how to build an army...nah.

And here we are again.  Colleagues of mine at work have been pestering me to get back into the game, and I've dipped my feet in.  Sadly, my armies are gone.  Models, armies, bits, battlefoam, GW cases....everything is gone, and I have virtually nothing to show for any of it so we're starting from scratch!  I'm hopefully understandably upset.  Very upset.  One might even say..ANGRY!!

I'd originally planned on recreating a full on Drukhari army and learning to play with my favorite army, but after a 113 minute phone conversation with Hulksmash, where we caught up on frappacinos, wives, kids, armies, and who likes balls in their mouth more (its still up for debate, since I ate some fine sake-infused plums this evening), I realized that this blog isn't "They Shall Know Fear" because we hate space marines.  When I first looked at 8th edition, my first thought was, "Gotta pick one of the Xenos races."  Looking at tournament reports, its Eldar.  Dark Eldar.  The Dead versions of them.  Some other stuff...but my once weak and pitiful Dark Eldar are near the top of the food chain now, and the armies I loathe - Space Marines - whom I loathed because 9/10 tournament games were destined to be rinse and repeat netlists of Space Wolves, Grey Knights, and Blood Angels - are no longer on the top of the food chain. 

Matt Ward must have been fired or have discovered Hentai, because the Space Marine codex is not masturbatory material this time around.  Then it struck me!  I didn't hate Space Marines, I hated flavor of the month armies...and since Space Marines are out of favor, and I love playing the underpowered underdog, I need to play Space Marines!!

Specifically, I need to play some very angry, vengeful space marines.

I need some maximum carnage, angry marines.  Assault cannons are too simple.  Not when an angry marine can carry those.  Dual wielding assault cannons.  With chainblades on them just in case the opportunity to cut down a flier shows up. 

Hulksmash has given me an initial army list, I've started sourcing the models, Mrs. Dash has stocked up on paints and paintbrushes, and we're getting ready to go to war.

ORKS and WTF GHAZGHKULL!?!

     The very first thing I did upon deciding to jump back into the hobby was to purchase the new Ork Codex.  Bear in mind that I'm still hazy on post-5th Edition rules, so correct me where I'm wrong, but let's jump into this particular rant.

7th Edition, First Impressions

I went up to my FLGS today to do some re-learning of Warhammer 40k, and perused my shiny new Ork Codex!   Keep in mind that I skipped 6th edition, so I'm really drawing parallels between 5th Edition and 7th Edition.  Observations and questions below, and PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GANDALF correct anything I've misunderstood.

A Dash of Ork

Greetings one and all!

While I haven't picked up a model or played a game since 2012 in the prime of 5th Edition, I haven't forgotten about the hobby.  To the contrary, I put down models and the competitive aspect of Warhammer to immerse myself in the universe.  I own every Horus Heresy novel from the Black Library, quite a few Omnibuses...I've always enjoyed reading Codices, but this deep immersion into the 31st Millenium has been quite nice.

Dashofpepper: Still Alive, Updates, and Necron Rantings

Hey folks!

I’ve been incommunicado for a couple months now. I had back surgery near the end of the year – an old injury suffered while playing Army Rugby at West Point has been continually spiraling downward over the last decade, to the point where I could hardly walk, and every game of 40k played hunched over a table left me a debilitated mess (which had no small influence on my decision to booze it up as a measure of pain control).

I can walk again! I can’t lift anything heavier than 15 pounds for the next couple months, so my retinue of Imperial Titans converted into heavy duty cyber-stompas is going to have to collect dust a bit more. I joke; I don’t particularly like Apocalypse games.

Sportsmanship: The Dashofpepper Story

Hey folks! I wrote something on Dakka that I thought I would bring here. A poster is having some sportsmanship troubles for "winning too much" and it struck a chord.

Here's the thread if you care to follow, but I'll post his question and my response.

Dracos writes:
There seems to be an inverse correlation between my sportsmanship score and my battle performance during a tourny. When I started out, I lost many games and got top sports scores. Now that I am winning most/all my games I seem to get a low sportsmanship score. I don't feel like my demeanor has changed during the game, but perhaps its something I'm not noticing. No one has said anything that they found objectionable, so I don't know what exactly it is. For all you guys who tend to win locally, how do you keep your sportsmanship score up while laying down a beating?


*laughing* OP, welcome to my life.

I'm probably going to regret everything I'm about to type, but....it is what it is. I'm going to give you a little backstory in hopes that you can relate - but this is what's happened to me, how it happened, and what I've done to overcome it. I win pretty consistently, both at the local and national level. I've suffered from poor sportsmanship scores at a few events, and some of those have been scandalous in their circles.

Rantings on Dark Eldar: Continuing the Xenos Surge

Hey folks! 

I always forget to write this at the end of articles, so up front it goes:  As always, we appreciate you clicking on ads!  Hulksmash tells me that your efforts might actually pay for our Adepticon Team Tournament next year.  I presume he’s talking about the entry fees, not plane tickets and lodgings and stuff – but anything that helps is help appreciated. J

The purpose of this article is to address what I see as some “myths” about Dark Eldar perpetrating the internet, often advanced by “listened-to” parties about Dark Eldar – things I find irritating, incorrect, unsubstantiated, or a mixture of all three.  I also intend to browbeat army-building techniques and advance my own agenda for how to formulate a cohesive army.  As always, advice I give is flavored with my competitive nature, so apply as needed. 

The Draw of Xenos

Hey folks!

For those of you who read Black Library books, when is the last time you got to the end, and the Xenos won? Never you say? That’s what I thought. And I don’t mean pyrrhic victories or temporary advantages over the forces of the Imperium, I mean a full-on, all the humies are dead, we claim this world, the end. Ghazghkull may have had his way with Armageddon, but he still got driven off the planet by Yarrick. The Necrons in “Fall of Damnos” are virtually limitless, and Necron In-fighting causes them from winning. Where’s the novel written from the perspective of a Tyranid hive ship? Or the novella? One that contains something of the unstoppable force they’re floating across the galaxy with? Humanity doesn’t stand a chance in staying the dominant race in the galaxy, yet every book is an Imperium victory.

Dash of Ranting: Nova Invitational Against Stelek

Good day fine peoples of the 40k universe.

Hulksmash keeps me on a leash here (in jest at least, because I don’t flip out often). Then again, not being on Dakka and far away from stupid people probably helps me contain my fury.

At any rate, I wrote a bit about my game against Stelek in my Nova Invitational Review. I hadn't thought about it since, until today when someone linked me his battle report if we can even call it that.

Having read it, I'm truly affronted. Appreciative of his commentators that are affronted on my behalf at his sniping, but still affronted myself. So I thought I would address a few things.

First, I'm not writing this as a reply on YTTH because I'm not a member, don't want to have to subscribe to post something, and Stelek has a nasty habit of deleting things I've posted there in the past - the only posts I've made there being on nuances of DE and Ork gameplay.

Oopsies!

I think Hulksmash may have jumped the gun on me - a 1/3 - 1/2 finished in-depth reply to the ridiculousness over at YTTH and Stelek's wishful thinking about our game was in the works. I saved it as a draft, and woke up this morning to find it published in it's unfinished state.

I deleted it; sorry if you commented on it and feel miffed to find it gone! It'll be back when it's finished. Bold, unyielding, blunt, and no-holds-barred.

Also, I use the word "shitpickle" at least twice.

Need a DE conversion idea!

Hey folks!

Scores from the Nova Open are filtering in. I finished 4th in the competitive bracket, and 33rd Overall. Much of that “overall” ranking was due to receiving 43% of available painting points, which stunned me. My army has never looked as good as it does now, and I was fully expecting to be 70-85% of points.

The two major “paint” categories were “Best Painted model” and “best converted model.” While everything in my army is definitely tabletop quality (with my ravagers being on the lower end due to recoat touchups and magnetic issues), I don’t have anything that really stands out as an exceptional painted model or an exceptional converted model. All of my beasts are converted…but they are functional conversions. Necron scarabs in the DE color scheme with bladed wings attached, LOTR Wargs with Tyranid scything talons attached for khymerae….

Dash at the Nova Open: Tournament Review

Hey folks!

I just got back home from the Nova Open...I am one tired mofo. This blog post is for my thoughts on the tournament.

Venue:
The Whiskey Challenge, Invitational, and Nova Open were all at the Hyatt in D.C. There was a convenient shuttle from the airport to the hotel and check-in was easy. In terms of the tournament area, it was quite spacious and the hotel kept water coolers and cups available constantly. In terms of the hotel....it left quite something to be desired, and I hope Mike will pick a different hotel (like the Holiday Inn across the street) next year. Rooms had open shower stalls - no doors or curtains, just a half-glass panel, so that when you showered, water splashed out into the bathroom, and exiting the shower was deadly unless you put a towel down on the floor (there were no bath mats). On top of that, the shower-heads were awful. They were top-down "rain only" shower-heads, which is my least favorite shower mode. Rooms didn't have free internet, which is something I expect from any hotel I stay in, and at $10 per day for internet that was slower than dial-up, web-pages would time-out trying to load. My wife and I did watch "X-Men: First Class" Sunday night for the low-price of $17 on T.V. with a strict warning that there was no preview period, no refunds, and if we accidentally changed the channel, experienced a power-outage, or turned the T.V. off, we were out of luck. Room service was $37 for a small, undercooked poor quality steak and a glass of water, and the hotel nickel and dimed patrons EVERYWHERE. No microwaves in the room, no fridge either. The lights in our bathroom were shorted out, and kept flickering in and out, maintenance never made it up to replace them....

'Ard Boyz Semi-Finals aka: Screw this shit!

The last couple years have seen a definitive decline of the quality of ‘Ard Boyz, which was had a tenuous claim to any sort of quality in the first place. Prize support has gone down and down, while costs have gone up and up.

Hosting locations are fewer, the missions…while never very good or balanced have gotten worse…and now we don’t even get them on the traditional ‘Ard Boyz stationary. Talk about a dump.

I elected to participate in the preliminary round of ‘Ard Boyz solely to get a bit of practice in before the Nova Open. Attending ‘Ard Boyz required a 2.5 hour drive to my nearest store…and having acquired my pass to the semi-finals, I look to my accumulated experience and seriously wonder if I should even contemplate going.

Dark Eldar for the Nova Events!

Hey folks!

The Nova Invitational and the Nova Open approach, and with army lists coming due, I decided it was time to think about what to do. The Nova Invitational is a one day, 5 round event at 1750 points, followed by two more days of the Nova Open at 2,000 points.

My traditional Dark Eldar army doesn’t much change – my 2,000 point army roughly looks like this:

HQ: Baron Sathonyx
HQ: Haemonculi
Troop1-5: 5x Warriors, Blaster, Dual Splinter Cannon Venom
Troop6: 9x Wyches, Haywire Grenades, Raider
Elite1-3: 4x Trueborn with blasters, Dual Splinter Cannon Venom
Fast: Beast Unit
Heavy 1-3: Ravagers

'Ard Boyz for Dashofpepper

Hey folks!

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting experience. As you probably know, I'm a big fan of efficiency. I'm a systems engineer, process engineer, industrial engineer...different parts of the military and civilian world call it different things, but it all boils down to efficiency. That includes my hobby. All my hobbies in fact. When I'm at home, I'm often playing 2-3 video games at the same time on my computer (Flash games at Kongregate type of thing), while watching a movie with my wife.

But that's tangential to this: Hulksmash and I don't always agree on everything, but we have always agreed that Dark Eldar don't belong in 2,500 points. And yet...here I sit with a 2,500 point Dark Eldar list in hand, regretting having made it, and knowing that I'm going to be miserable playing it because of it's inherent inefficiencies, but with no better alternative. I had four choices:

Dashofpepper Strategeries: On Changing Point Levels

One of the great things about co-authoring with Hulksmash is that we bring such different perspectives to the table on so many issues. This particular issue is something we’ve chatted about from time to time, and our opinions differ.

In short, if I pick an army…take Orks for example, my 1500, 1750, 1850, 2000, and 2500 lists all follow the same theme. I might even call them modular. If I want to bump from 1850 to 2000, I can add another unit of XXX. If I need to drop from 1850 to 1500, I can cut a unit of YYY. I play Battlewagon Orks led by Ghazghkull Thraka – and at every point level…that theme is readily apparent - a solid army core of my theme with modular additions and subtractions based on point level.

Hulksmash on the other hand subscribes to the theory that an army’s playstyle changes at point levels. Tyranids at 1500 are different than Tyranids at 2000. To some extent, I agree…my Necron theme works at 2,000 points – but I can’t keep the theme below 2,000 points, so I would have to change it. So I don’t play Necrons below 2,000 points. =p

Return of the Professional 40k Gamer!

Hey folks!

Having been catapulted back into the #1 ranked position, I wanted to take this opportunity to shamelessly soapbox the rigorous daily routines that all the elite gamers engage in. In my last article and routine outline, I talked about unit flash cards, drills, META-honing, internet searches, multi-table simultaneous gaming…

In this article, I wanted to explain the true secret behind a successful gamer: I call it the “Futuristic Action Gaming Simulation.” The key to success with any unit on the tabletop is to truly understand what it is like to BE that unit. How can you truly understand the potency of a Space Marine if you’ve never stood in the shoes of a genetically engineered super-human with massive weaponry? How can you truly understand the terror that a Dark Eldar wych can inspire if you’ve never stripped almost naked and tortured someone to death? Or of a chaos marine if you’ve never mutilated yourself and engaged in every excess imaginable?

SONAR! Submarine Detected!

Submarining in Warhammer 40k is an interesting concept. Just as a submarine can cruise below the surface, surfacing to destroy a target – a submarine in Warhammer 40k is someone who cruises through the middle/upper layer of the pack without surfacing at the top until the end.

Since my 40k career began, I’ve discarded this idea – I prefer to win big or lose big. And ultimately, almost every GT experience I’ve ever had has been identical: I start off strong, get to the top early, and the rest of my games are fending off whomever has the closest number of battlepoints / strongest wins. Every massacre pits me against another player who’s doing as well as I am. In the end, I’ve either defended myself against all the other top performers, or I didn’t.

Wargamescon: Get Your Game Face On!

Howdy howdy!

I haven't posted anything in a while; I'd be interested to know if other folks feel the same, but it is a cyclical hobby for me. Play too much and I get burned out for a while, which is where I am now.

So here I sit the day before leaving for WargamesCon, and I haven't touched my army since the last GT I went to. I can't even rightly say that I'm excited about this weekend - is that strange?

In the meantime, a fleet of new venoms are desperately hoping to be finished by tomorrow morning, and the two boxes of warriors haven't been opened. I plan on redoing my warriors since the current ones are a large part of why my paint scores continue to be mediocre.

Given the general lack of enthusiasm at the moment, I don't plan on doing battle reports this weekend - seven games, and the battle reports take longer than the games do. If I lose a game (or multiples) I may make an attempt to recreate it via vassal, but to be honest - I've done enough battle reports with my Dark Eldar that you could plug any random army in against me and expect me to do roughly the same thing, which makes writing them an exercise in small variety to a singular theme.

Wish me luck, say hello if you see me, and hopefully the cyclical hobby antipathy doesn't affect my game face.