Hobby Foo

Hi Folks

Well its been a while, not sure why. As the weather has been very good lately I seem to have been spending a lot more time outdoors and riding my bike (trying to shift a bit of weight pre-wedding). Talking of weddings, that seems to be taking up some time too, especially the dancing lessons. So whats been happening?

I have recently competed in the Hemel club 40K tourney and had some good results. It was 1500 pts and I was using my Marines along with a Knight.

The first game was against Ricks Nids, it was unfortunate but I think his army was perfect for the Knight which pretty much chomped through everything. The Sternguard also took out a few of the big hitters with their poison rounds and it was a very one sided game. Nids don't really have an answer to the Knight apart from keeping it engaged in combat but I took out the horde units pretty early on.

The second game was against Lee's Marines with a Knight. The armies were pretty much a mirror and as you can imagine it was a close game with me winning 4-3. The Knights just walked around the board taking out units but in the final turn I managed to knock out his Knight and then grab one of the objectives for the win.

Third was the Imperial Guard fielded by Alex, he had an amazing round of shooting knocking off 5 of the Knights hit points and it was a bit brown trousers time for me. I managed to knock out all the threats with my Devs and Marines and the Knight did enough damage on his troops before being taken out to allow me to take the game on objectives. It looked more one sided that it actually was when the game finished and Alex gets the glory of being the first person to take my Knight out.

Jim's Eldar were next and I was worried about his mobility and the firepower of a few of his units that could take out the Knight pretty easy. If that happened I was easy meat. It was the home and away mission so I made a solid firebase on my end and then sent the Knight and couple of units after his. I managed to take out his tanks pretty quick and thought I was home and dry but then his Jet Bike mounted HQ guy flew in on my base and basically smashed me up. In the end I had Jim's objective but not my own but with First Blood as well I managed to scrape a win. The Knight was vanquished in this game as well.

In the final group game I had Keith's Tau to contend with. I was more worried about Tau I think than most of the other armies due to their high strength and accurate guns. In the first few turns his Riptide was ripping through my army and putting lots of damge onto my Troops choices. Of course my Knight was doing the same. I actually did something on purpose in this game that paid of really well, I sent one small squad of Sterguard to take out his Riptide. I hoped that Keith wouldn't see them as a threat and they managed to get within 24" and put on a couple of wounds with poision rounds. Keith then shot them and I managed a couple of cover saves and in the next turn they Sterguard managed to finish off the Riptide. After that the Knight munched most of the other stuff and I hung on for victory.

In the first knock game I played Joe and his Orks. Going second in this one worked really well, Joe spread his massive army out over the width of the table, so I castled up in one corner and basically blew him away. This put me through to the final.

In the Final I faced up against Rick and his Nids again, the first game was a slaughter for me but I knew that had nothing to do with Ricks ability or army, it was all about scenario and it would be again this time. The scenario presented us with 5 objectives and I knew I would struggle and early turns proved this as I just could not get Ricks flyers down and his Mawlocs ripped me a new one. As the game progressed I was starting to make inroads into his army and the Knight really played a big part, the only way I could win was to try and kill all his troops and Warlord and scrap the win, well it nearly worked. I managed to kill all the troops but just could not get his Warlord. In the end it was a draw, I had First Blood and Line Breaker. Rick had Kill The Warlord and Line Breaker. The tournament pack gave Kill The Warlord as first tie-breaker and so Rick walked away the champion. Rick is great player and plays his army very well, I think I was lucky the first time and I knew this game was going to be hard. I think I did well to get it to a draw myself but was always on the back foot with the scenario just like Rick was in our first game. Well there is always next year.

I really like this army, I think if I could change one thing I would drop the Las Razorback and try to get a couple of Drop pods in for the Sternguard. 

I am in two minds on the Knight, it can totally dominate a game and it can go down very quick. In the first game against the Nids they didn't really have anything that could take it out so it was always going to be hard for him to win (especially with the scenario). Maybe 7th will change things. I still love the model though and I would love to have an army of them just because it would look so awesome, but I wonder how much I would use them if they are just going to crush everything. I have been on the receiving end of some of those armies that are just going to kick your ass and its not a good game. There isn't much point in playing if the other person isn't going to enjoy it. i'll wait till 7th drops to see how that affects the game, but on the other hand four Knights would just look awesome so I might do it anyway. I think overall the balance is right but if the opponent doesn't have an answer to it then it can cause trouble.

Sternguard

I am using a full 10 man Sternguard unit in this army so I painted up a box of the new models as I didn't have any with Grav-Guns so it was a good excuse to get a box. Its a great kit, you get so many options and left over bits for other units which is awesome. I suspect I will get another box at some point so I have a unit of 10 that all look the same. The new ones have the cloth on the legs where the old ones don't and the OCD part of my brain wants them to all look similar.

Sternguard Squad

Kings Champion

I also took part in the Lord of the Rings Throne of Skulls event recently. It was always one of my favorite games and I haven't played it in a long time. The ToS events for 40K etc can be a bit competitive but LotRs isn't like that at all. I didn't do very well in the end but thats just the fact that I am out of practice, it was a really cool event and will defiantly go next year. I took the Dwarves this time just because it was well painted, I had to get a couple more models for it but otherwise just went with it as it was. I think next time I will go a bit more Hero heavy.

Optifex Directive

Also this month I have managed to get most of my Convergence of Cyriss done  for Warmachine, I have a couple of lists that I like so once I finish all the models for those two lists I will put them aside for a bit. The final model I need to paint for them is their Colossal which I picked up at Salute.

Modulator and Corollary

Enigma Foundry

I also picked up the new Ork walker the day it came out. Unusually for me it was straight out of the box and onto the painting table. You could assemble it as either a Morkanaut or a Gorkanaut. The Mork version is more tank busting but can have a Kustom Force Field. The Gorka is more your big smashing monster. I went with the Gorkanaut as I think its damage output is a lot better. Take a big Mek as a HQ and give him the Force Field and he can go inside to give it some protection.

The new Codex is out soon and there are some nice new units and models so that could interfere with my painting schedule for a while.

My backlog of models seems to be building up again, but its not a bad problem to have.

And finally - one of the kits I picked up at Salute was some of the new Malifaux plastics, I intend on playing the game at some point but the models are so nice I grabbed some just to paint for the time being. This was the first - A Rotten Belle.

Rotten Belle

Until next time...