Nova Invitational Nids - 1st Try

Well as you know from my article on Thursday I'm going to be running Tyranids in the Nova Invitational as well as the Open. I figured I'd share the first of my thoughts with you guys on what I'm thinking of running for the Invitational.

The Invitational is a little weird in that first off I never play 1750. Add into it that 1750 is weird since I can't seem to find a happy balance between T6 and small gribblies. That being said here is my first attempt. It has the advantage of including my Parasite which would double as my "Converted" model for the painting score.

Nova Invitational & Open: My Mind is Made Up!

So I generally don't do this but balance in 40k is apparently one of my touch points for my hobby. I was at work yesterday and came across this in my blog reading:

http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2011/08/is-it-time-to-worry-yet.html

Long story short it's a bit of a rant about the state of 40k and how imbalanced it is. It highlights Tyranids as one of the poorest codexes of 5th edition outside of the New Sisters WD book that isn't even out yet. It also claims there is a single workable army list which is beyond false. But since the whole article is pretty much predicated upon a single guys local meta and his personal experiences it's easy enough to dismiss. That said it helped me reach a conclusion.

FANTASY!!!!

As you guys can tell this is pretty much a 40k blog. I'm like 40k and I'm pretty good at it. I feel like with 40k I've got an outlook on portions of the game that can make people think at the very least.

That said my second favorite (maybe tied for favorite) Warhammer Fantasy army is about to get it's newest codex release. OGRES!!!!!

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?

Damn You Yermom! 2k Nids for Nova

First off, sorry! Work has been crazy and I've barely had time to type a thing. Hopefully I'm a little more consistant again.

So that bastard Nick (Yermom) put up a post the other day on Nids and the possibility of bringing them to Nova. You can find it here: http://thebrownpaintbrush.blogspot.com/2011/07/tyranids-are-retuning-to-nova.html

Anyway this made me start thinking. I'm playing in what is likely to be a very intense and draining ( in a good way) tournament on Friday with the Nova Invitational. So my initial reaction was just to bring my trusted Space Wolves for the big 2-day event as they are so on auto-pilot that I actually have more time to think about things that come out of left field with them and otherwise they'll require much, much less thinking than some of the lists I've been toying with. Enter Nick. I've officially offered to bring my Nids if he does. Why? Because it'll be a grand time. Last year Nick and I both played daemons and finished 3-1 on day one but his massacres got him into day two where my squeeks weren't enough. It'd be interesting to see if we could do better with Nids.

BA Sternguard List

Ok, so I'm willing to admit I have a problem......I was reading a post on Dakka regarding the viability of a Sternguard list and I simply couldn't help myself. So at first I was playing with a standard SM list in Army Builder but I couldn't get something I really wanted. I could make the Sternguard score and get some decent support to the list but I just couldn't make one I was happy with. Then I had a thought!

"Blood Angels have Sternguard too"

Well that could be fun so this is what I came up with as a rough draft (this is not my Nova Army):

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.

Nova Invitational/Open Update

Well as most of you know I’m a bit of a loon for armies. I have a tendency to jump back, forth, and across the spectrum all based on whims of what might be fun or randomly sounds good. I’ve basically got the attention span of a gnat inside of our hobby which can be a good thing (tons of painted armies and stuff) but can also be a bad thing (never quite practice enough with a given list). However for the Nova Invitational I’m trying very, very hard to settle in on a single army and I think I finally found one that fits all my criteria for the event.

Blog Update!

Sorry guys about the lack of posting lately. Dash is a little burnt out so that's knocked him a bit and for me...well....

This happened:

Between this and work I'm kinda on hiatus this week. It's 900pgs of awesome that I've been waiting for for a decade now (yeah, Feast of Crows doesn't count cause it didn't have Tyrion, Jon, or Daeny!) so I'm gonna be a bit busy. Add in the fact that work got a little crazy and you won't see that batrep till the weekend or early next week along with some other articles I'll start working on when I finish. Lot's of stuff regarding Nova and the Invitational :)

All Terminator Lists Part 2: Wolfwing

We’re now onto the second portion of the three part article on all Terminator armies. I chose to do Wolf Guard second since I was toying last night with the list for the Invitational (yes, the Invitational is 1,750 and the articles are based around 2k, sue me) and so it’s fresh in my mind. Plus I wanted to close out the series with GK’s J

Anywho, onto the article.

The second of the three armies that can take an all terminator army is Space Wolves. In fact, if you remember, until the FAQ came out for DA’s most people playing Deathwing and slightly shifted to play Wolfwing as it provided a better and more competitive Terminator army. So let’s look first at some of the differences between Wolfwing and Deathwing as they currently stand.

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.

All Terminator Lists Part 1: Deathwing

Well as you’ve obviously noticed I played an all Terminator list this last weekend at the Bugeater GT in Omaha. I went 5-1 and am now an EXPERT on all Terminator armies, including ones I’ve never played! J

Now my list had a lot of cool factor to it. I have to say that shoving 35 Terminators down the throat of your opponents is a blast! That being said there are some inherent weaknesses in these types of lists. Originally I was going to cover some thoughts on the weaknesses of all Terminator lists, their strengths, and some points to focus on when building a list for all terminator forces. On second thought I think I’m going to refocus the article into a series covering the 3 armies allowed to take termies as troops and include their strengths, weaknesses, differences, building techniques, and how to capitalize on their strengths.

1st Company Goes to War! - Bugeater Game 5

So this weekend I headed down to the Bugeater GT in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a great event and here are two quick links: 

My Review of the GT: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/tournament-review-bugeater-2011.html

Rules Packet for the GT: http://gt.bugeatergames.com/40kMissions_FinalPacket.pdf

So I ran my newest painted army. My Deathwing which had:

Belial

Upgraded DW Squad w/Apoth, Banner, 4xTH&SS, 1 LC, Cyclone

3xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 5xTH&SS

1xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 4xTH&SS, 1 LC

2xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 2xChainfist, 2xPowerfist, 1xPower Sword

1,500pt All Foot GK Lists (RTT Next Weekend)

I'm taking a quick break from my batreps since it's the weekend and they just seem like a ton of work right now so I thought I'd share the idea of an army I might run at 1,500 next weekend. I'm kinda in love with non-mech lists right now for some reason so this is going to be a GK all-foot list.

1st Company Goes to War! - Bugeater Game 4

So this weekend I headed down to the Bugeater GT in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a great event and here are two quick links: 

My Review of the GT: http://hulksmash-homeplace.blogspot.com/2011/06/tournament-review-bugeater-2011.html

Rules Packet for the GT: http://gt.bugeatergames.com/40kMissions_FinalPacket.pdf

So I ran my newest painted army. My Deathwing which had:

Belial

Upgraded DW Squad w/Apoth, Banner, 4xTH&SS, 1 LC, Cyclone

3xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 5xTH&SS

1xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 4xTH&SS, 1 LC

2xDW Squad w/Cyclone, 2xChainfist, 2xPowerfist, 1xPower Sword