Jordan VS Garth: FIGHT!!

    As the drop pod doors opened, Azreal and his command squad stepped into madness.  Directly before them was a monstrous beast, flesh and metal fused together with dark sorceries, spewing fire and death off in the distance.

    Azreal’s command squad didn’t need to be told what to do and leveled their melta guns at the beast.  A sudden eruption bathed everything nearby in fire and through the fire came the response of the enemy.  2 hulking figures, no longer resembling anything natural, covered in eyes, tentacles, appendages, and bulging muscles raced towards them manoeuvring over the rubble and wreckage without issue.  From all directions came bolter rounds and solid rounds dropping Zeirael, and just before the 2 daemonspawn of chaos hit their lines a feeling of dread fell over Azreal’s mind.  So powerful was the feeling that it took everything in his power just to defend himself as the creatures slammed into his squad tearing Lucius to pieces.

    As the icy feeling on his soul release it’s grip, he was further dismayed as the spawn disappeared before his eyes and Brontes was torn down next to him, beyond the help of the apothecary.  Despite not being able to see his foe, his wild swings managed to find their mark.

    Before he could recover from the assault of the daemonspawn, Azreal is swarmed by cultists and traitor space marines and he knew that he would not break their lines in time.  He would have to settle knowing that he at least crippled the army by destroying the gun behemoth.

Lets set this up right off the get go.  Garth chose Run and Gun Recon for his mission, and I chose Cut the Head off the Snake for mine, and we both chose Slaughter and Withstand for faction points.  Garth had his core plus 2 full tac squads in drop pods and a scout squad.  I had my core plus another chosen squad in a rhino, 2 spawn, 2 oblits, and the forgefiend.

I knew that Garth would have to come to me to win so my plan from the start was to castle up in a corner using all the models I had to take up as much space as possible so he couldn’t drop in and nuke my Forgefiend turn 1.  Garth deployed his scouts in a ruin in the centre of his deployment zone.

Turn 1 I shuffled around a bit…

…and now everything looks like this

Garth drops in his 2 tac squads on his side of the table, combat squadding them to picking up resource points but throwing my game plan right out the window.  I am now going to have to go get him, breaking up my battle line and give Azreal room to drop in.  There is some shooting and stuff but not a whole lot happens.

I make a bold move turn 2 and move up to make an assault on one of the combat squads.  I am also able to multi assault and get the drop pod, in doing this I am hoping to get the extra kill point, and not kill all the marines so I can finish them off in Garth’s turn and not get shot at.  I issue the challenge and win giving be a victory point, but drop pod explodes and kills my powerfist.  Well dammit.

One of my oblits comes in and drops in behind his scouts and leaves 2 alive.

Garth does exactly what I was afraid of and drops Azreal and his 3 Meltagun toting command squad next to the Forgefiend blowing him to smithereens.

I FAIL to kill all the marines I assaulted turn 2 and will now be stuck in combat during my turn 3…FUCK!!  Some other stuff happens.

Turn 3 starts off with a fantastic set of psychic powers.  I cast Hallucination and got the result where the target unit can’t do anything, and I had cast that one on Azreal and his command squad.  Then I set up my cultists and a unit of chosen move to shoot the shit out of the command squad and dropped 2, the spawn drag down another in assault.  I also get a plasma cannon shot off on to his other combat squad and get his second hero.  I know I’ll have to keep Azreal busy, or kill him, if I want to win this game because Garth really only has 2 units left that can get into my deployment zone. 

Garth grinds on in the combat phase with Azreal and plinks a couple wounds off elsewhere with some shooting.  He is also booking it for a resource marker that I placed on the top floor of a building that’s just outside my deployment zone.  I figured he might go for it because he was talking about how he wanted to get a roll on the magical chart.  So I guess I kinda got some inside info, I like to think it’s due to good intel and scouting.

For the last couple turns I manage to mob Azreal with cultists and my remaining chosen just long enough to keep him out of my deployment zone.

Garth collects the rooftop resource marker  making that 4 and I manage to wipe out the scouts with a powerful Psychic Scream

After the dust settles, Garth manages to collect 18 resource points and 8 Faction points.

I earn 9 resource points and match Garth’s 8 Faction points, but I also manage the win.

All in all a good game, as always, against Garth.  I play him often and notice how much of a better player he is every time I play him.  Looking at the lists, he easily could have beat me if he had decided to be more aggressive in getting his units into my deployment zone.  Because I had turtled in a corner, he should have overwhelmed the other corner in my deployment zone and shot the crap out of me.  However, he decided to collect the resources and picked up a ton, easily enough to get him his roll on the legendary traits tables.

I should have covered myself better and not allowed Azreal room to drop in my lines, that cost me my forgefiend and 175 points that only saw 2 turns.

Thanks for the game Garth, a good time was had by all.

Happy gaming.

40KEGGER 6 Registration Now Open

 

May 24 and 25, 2014

Winnipeg, MB, Canada

 

 

 

 

If you would like to be part of this event, send an email to Greg@40kegger.com and request to be placed on the mailing list. You will be sent an email with registration details.

Full Event Info available on our website.

Misfits of 40k: Episode 9

DREADNOUGHTS!!

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be talking about the walking behemoth sarcophagi that contains the nearly deceased body of a space marine.  Sounds cool right?  Then why are they so crappy?!?

Now to be a little more specific, I’m not talking about Venerable Dreadnoughts, or Iron Clad, or Furioso, or anything like that.  I mean a regular, plain, old, run-of-the-mill Dreadnought.

Now there are 2 armies that can run a basic Dreadnought and they are similar in many ways, but there differences make them uniquely capable of different things.

Lets start things off on a high note, a Dreadnought can be built to deal with absolutely any situation, whether you need him to take out massed light infantry, heavy infantry, vehicles, fliers, or monstrous creatures.  

Your basic Dreadnought costs 100pts stock no matter which codex he is bought from.  For that you get a Mulitmelta and power fist and a stormbolter or combi-bolter on a S6, A2, AV 12-12-10, walker chassis.  So as a stock item, it’s main use would be to take out vehicles or buildings at close to medium range.  However, as I mentioned above you can equip this bad boy to do anything.

The close combat Dreadnought is done best by the Chaos version, mainly due to it’s ability to buy additional close combat weapons like the Thunder Hammer and Power Scourge.  The Power Scourge being a fancy item available only to the Chaos Dreadnought is a combat weapon that puts a –D3 penalty to WS to all models in base contact with it.  There is a downside to the Chaos Dreadnought, the Crazed rule.  This forces a roll on a chart any time the Dreadnought takes damage.  On a 1, he can’t move but must shoot all his weapons twice at the unit that damaged him OR the closest enemy unit.  On a 6 he can’t shoot and must attempt to assault the unit that damaged him OR run towards it.  There are 2 big alarms that go off when considering a combat dread; first you only get 2 attacks base and second is that almost any unit is capable of killing it.  Hell a squad of guardsmen with Krak grenades will kill it in 3 rounds of combat with Krak grenades.  Which makes him more useful at smashing elite units that can't smash back.

On the opposite spectrum, both the Chaos and the Imperial Dreadnoughts can pull off a pretty good “shooty” fire base.  The gun upgrades for each are mostly the same with the exception of the Imperial Dreadnought being able to take an assault cannon and a second twin-linked autocannon.  The more “popular” shooty builds are the lascannon missile launcher combo for ranged anti tank, the plasmacannon missile launcher for anti infantry and light tank, and the dual twin-linked autocannons for anti almost everything.  The glaring problem with this one is that those same guardsmen in the previous example will kill it without losing as many models.  This is because the Dreadnought does not have a Power fist and does not ignore armour saves.  The Chaos Dreadnought has an additional drawback in that it may be forced to charge something.

So, what do we do with this thing?  Well, I think the best course would be to keep it cheap.  Generally, you can build each one of them as a multipurpose tool by simply giving them a heavy flamer upgrade.  Now they can pop tanks, kill hordes, and still work the assault phase.  A jack of all trades master of none.

For the Chaos Dreadnoughts specifically, you can go the way of combat, giving him an additional power fist and a heavy flamer, or to upgrade one of the close combat arms to a power scourge, each one running 110 total.  You have to remember though, that he can be “tar pitted” fairly easily and is a big enough threat to be targeted early and killed easily.

The Imperial Dreadnought can’t take a second power fist so the pure combat option is out unless you take an ironclad or something, but he can take the double autocannon.  This makes him pretty damn popular as a support fire base.  Since he has a 48” range he is a threat from almost anywhere on the table and has enough power to be a threat to just about anything but the toughest units.  Another bonus is that the autocannons are twin-linked which doubles his odds of scoring a hit against a flier.

Hmmm, well this episode doesn’t seem as funny as it is informative.  I’ll try to fix that for next time.

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t tell Garth that Dreadnoughts suck, he has like 20 of them.

Happy Gaming!

SG2 Laser Cutting - Local Laser Cut Bases and Terrain

Hi Everyone,

Byron here, most of you know me, but just in case you are wondering who is hijacking the blog today, I am a long time 40k and other miniatures game player.  Over time I have gotten tired of paying high shipping prices for mdf and plywood gaming supplies, such as wooden bases for historical games, buildings, movement trays, and even acrylic tokens and templates.  So I recently purchased a laser cutter of my own to produce my own bases, buildings and more.  I also had the idea to produce common items for local players at lower cost than we could order them for, and without shipping, handling, and duty.

Anyway, with Greg and JP's permission, I am posting a quick preview of some of my new items (with more to come) and some prices for comment or order.  Also listed last is an example of an item I will be donating as a prize for the upcoming 40kegger tournament.

Walls

You can always use walls in a game to provide some hard cover.  These are made up to be European style so that they can be used for historical or sci-fi games.  They are 24mm high.  Don’t forget though that since the base of the wall is counted in that and 3mm high (like most figure bases) the walls themselves are about 21mm high compared to a figure.  Figures are shown to show real life size.

The short walls are 75mm (about 3” long) and the long walls are 150mm (about 6” long).  The bricks are recessed about 1/2 a mm to make picking them out when painting easy, or you could just leave as is.

 

Individual walls with be $3 per short section or $6 per long section OR packages will be sold as 10 short walls or 5 long walls for $24. 

I am working on a third set with gates and end posts as well, but that will come later.

There are 16 different short wall patterns and 8 different long wall patterns, and each wall is made up by putting 2 designs back to back, to there are LOTS of variations.

Shipping Containers - Large Crates

I always liked the idea of fighting in a shipping yard with tons of crates and boxes piled all over.  However, due to the cost of getting enough I had to resort to card stock ones in the past.  Normally Shipping containers in the right scale run between $12us and $20us each.  So with the idea of keeping cutting time and costs down, these are what I came up with for shipping containers.  They assemble easily and are solid as hell!  Way more sturdy and heavy then even I thought they would be.

Figures added to one of the pictures to show scale, but they are 5 1/8” long x 2 1/2” wide x 2 1/8” tall.

Came up that I need $8 each but if you are ordering more, I can do 6 for $45 for a little savings.  Which is way less than the others out there by quite a bit.  I know they are a little plainer than some, but they are solid and stack nice.  Also the top, side and end walls are reversible so you can put the pattern facing in if you wanted a flat surface to paint your own logos.

Tokens and Templates

The first job I was requested to do with the laser was some custom tokens for a friend that is going to a tournament for a game called Ronin that simulates samurai combat.  These tokens are 20mm round, cut from plywood.  As long as you supply the graphic layed out in a vector format I can cut custom tokens in any size or shape.  These were 20mm rounds in plywood for $5 for 10 (formatted graphic provides), the same in acrylic would be $8 for 10.

Also shown here are some samples in acrylic of a range marker for the X-Wing miniatures game and some sample tokens for 40k vehicle hits.

Bases

I know that the 40k community does not use a whole lot of wooden bases, but they are really common for most other miniature games.  I will be making and stocking all common sizes of wooden bases in 3mm plywood, or 3mm MDF on order.  I can also create any custom size you want.

Examples of prices are: 100x 25mm round or square = $10, 25x 40mm round = $5, 25x 50mm round = $6

For many other games different shapes are used such as squares, ovals, pills, or hexes, all of which can be done in any size.

Dice Tower

This was just a fun project to see what I could do, but has proven popular with everyone I have showed it to.  Tired of dice all over the table, getting into all the terrain, or rolling into and chipping your miniatures, this is the answer.

It is a dice tower with 4 angled "rollers" in it that you simply drop your dice in the top and they fall into the tray below suitably randomized.  Better yet, unlike most dice towers out there, this one is two pieces and folds up for easy transport.

I am selling them for $25 cut plain from 3mm plywood or $35 with any custom logo you want on it.  The logo shown in the sample here is for my Thursday night gaming group that I have played with for over 10 years. If there are groups of players that want the same logo, I can do them at $30 each with logo as long as there are 5 or more ordered.

PRIZE SUPPORT / SPONSORSHIP: This is the item that I will be donating to 40kegger as prize support for the event, and it will be custom engraved with the 40kegger logo.

Orders / Comments

If anyone is interested in any of the above items, or having any custom work done, please feel free to contact me at: sg2creations@gmail.com.  I will be setting up a website soon as well, and will share that when complete.