Tanks and pew pew and stuff

In the grimdark future of the 41st millenium...

I got the chance to try out the Armoured Battlegroup I had mentioned in the previous post against, of all things, the new Eldar. Some salient points of the scrap:

1. John's Eldar list was a reasonably TAC list. Jetbike squadrons for scoring, accompanied by Warlocks, so stupidly fast scoring units with, insane cover saves. i.e. An extremely hard army to kill.
2. Since it was TAC, it was loaded out mostly with Starcannons. Quite meaningless against my list, so I let him switch 'em all out for Bright Lances.
3. My army was half painted and mostly proxies. As we know, the dice gods do not look fairly upon such silliness. This is also why I didn't record any pics of the scrap. Too ugly to look at!

So how did it go? Honestly, I think I suffered some cripplingly bad luck throughout, most notably one Commisar Tank getting immobilized on terrain in the 1st turn, effectively depriving me of 3 BS4 Heavy Bolters. Given how much I needed those to hurt his scoring units, that was quite a blow. Bad reserve rolls delayed my Vendettas and a Command Tank. And holy hell, John's dice were hot rolling for his cover saves...

All in all, this was a game in which the dice really screwed me over. Still, the list was great fun. BS4 Exterminators with heavy bolter sponsons are awesome! As such, I like this list, I shall try it out a few more times and construct it.

Meanwhile, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

I've been trying out a fun 100pt list using the Imperials which I like to call Top Gun...

Tie Advanced with Darth Vader, Engine Upgrade, Push the limit and Concussion Missiles
Tie Interceptor with Soontir Fel, Push the limit and Shield Upgrade
Tie Interceptor with Toor Fenirr and Veteran Instincts

Yah. 3 skill 9 fighters, all of which are insanely maneuverable. Against a standard Rebel 3-fighter list, I surmised it would be ludicrously hard for the Rebel player to manage to both get one of these guys in their sights AND shoot it down before taking a horrible amount of firepower first. So I hurled this list against the great equalizer, the Millenium Falcon. Well, Han Solo with Chewbacca and a gunner as copilots, at any rate. This combination makes a mockery of any attempts to outmaneuver it. 2 salvos would quite likely take down one my meager 3 fighters, and the remaining 2 simply wouldn't have the firepower necessary to kill Solo in time before getting picked apart themselves.

The conclusion is: while Top Gun is in concept great fun to use, Solo ruins it for everyone. I just don't think it's possible or even fun to try and take on Solo with a gunner with this list.

That having been said, I took on the list that murdered my poor Top Gun list using a more traditional list:

Tie Interceptor with Soontir Fel and Push the limit
Tie Fighter with Howlrunner and Swarm Tactics
Tie Fighter with Obsidian Squadron Pilot
Tie Fighter with Obsidian Squadron Pilot
Tie Fighter with Academy Pilot
Tie Fighter with Academy Pilot

Nuked Solo and the 2 X-Wing Rookie Pilots flying with him in pretty short order. I'm now satisfied that the Millenium Falcon is far from broken, but I really, really don't like the way its turret and the obscene number of rerolls to shoot so easily renders highly skilled pilots in excellent machines utterly useless...

Deathwing woe!

DAMMIT GW!

Seriously, I thought I had a pretty good thing going with my dear old Deathwing... This is the list I'd been fielding for the past few months. It's great fun (if absurdly stressful when those squads of Terminators come teleporting in...) and has held its own against some excellent armies. Now, during a scrap against David's Ravenwing, I learnt that Deathwing Sergeants aren't allowed to take Storm Shields and Thunder Hammers!

Blast and damnation... As it is, I've got 3 lovingly crafted Sergeants with hammers and shields. Guess they're going to have to be proxies for plain old Storm Bolter and Power Sword sergeants until GW does something to rectify this lunacy...

In the meantime, there's plenty else to keep me occupied. Things like my trusty Necrons and Blood Angels. And the Black Legion, of course. So many lists to try... so little time...

On the X-Wing front, oh man, I really couldn't resist expanding my fleets. It's an awesome game, with an excellent balance of luck, skill and Star Wars coolness. If I had to name one big gripe about this game, it's that Darth Vader isn't more killy. I mean, come on! It's Vader!

How am I supposed to fit the Millenium Falcon in there, eh?

 And that's it from me. Haven't been doing batreps for a while, alas. Been kinda busy on several fronts. Anyways, here's a shot of what's on the workbench now, besides the usual pile of models to paint, of course...

Yep... Frickin' Deathwing Sgts... Coz if there's anything I hate more than a FAQ that hurts my armies, it's going to war without WYSIWYG models...

Seduced by the Dark Side!

I found myself standing in Border's the other day, staring at a shelf very well-stocked with Fantasy Flight's X-Wing miniatures game.

I saw a couple of games in progress, saw a few battle reports, read the rulebook, and figured: Why not? I loved the X-Wing flight sim games as a kid. So, after a quick calculation, I realized that there's a lot of mileage to be gotten out of pretty few models. In fact, for not even half the cost of that Tau army I've been mulling over, I can get the X-Wing Core set and 6 more fighters (which makes a 100pt squadron for the Empire and Rebels). That's about MYR600 or so saved, not to mention some insane amount of time and effort in assembling and painting, which, truth be told, is better spent on finishing off the paintjobs of my existing armies.

At the time of writing, I have 4 solild 40k armies: Blood Angels, Necrons, Chaos Marines and Deathwing. On top of that, I've allied contingents of Imperial Guard and Grey Knights. I do NOT need another army. What I could use, however, is a nice, quick game with a low model count and a nice, intuitive mechanic that captures the cut and thrust of dogfighting in the Star Wars universe.

So, I've thus far had 2 games of X-Wing at 60pts, playing once each as Empire and Rebels, and I have to say, I'm hooked. By this time next week, I should have 2 TIE Fighters, a TIE Interceptor and a TIE Advanced for the Imperials; and 2 X-Wings and a Y-Wing for the Rebels.

I am pleased, and I totally recommend this game for anyone who wants a good, engaging Star Wars game that's quick to pick up and quick to play. Is it more fun than 40k? Not even close. But if you've got about 45 mins to an hour and, like me, you get no pleasure out of games of 40k of less than 1,750 pts, then I can think of few things better than X-Wing.

Addendum: By the way, f*** the Tau. My interest in acquiring new armies for 40k is hereby at an end. Unless, of course, I drop an existing army and make room in my life for another. Not bloody likely...