Slowly but surely!

I'm finally on holidays.

I've set myself a massive painting queue so far, the top of which are some Shining Spears and an Autarch on Jetbike with Laser Lance.

Instead of going with the red of my Saim Hann, I think I'll break it up with dark blue bikes, along the lines of the Night Lords. Probably have a red stripe or a Black / Bright blue stripe, that remains to be seen.

Either way, a continuous stream of updates should now proceed as I have plenty of hobby to photograph.

In other news I have dropped my Seer Council from my 1750pt list and replaced it with Shining Spears + Autarch, followed by a footseer casting Fortune from a Falcon.

I lose out on Destructors and WS5, but I have I5 and S6 PW attacks with Withdraw.

Hobby plan for July

Hey guys,

Sorry for no update earlier in the week, I'm in the middle of exams and I've got a cold. Not a good mix, let me tell you.

Regardless, I've been planning on what hobby I plan to do during my time off from Uni. The list is somewhat substantial and includes practically everything left to paint in my 1750 Lords of Terra list.

This includes;

1 Farseer on Jetbike
1 Wave Serpent with TL Cannons
1 6 man squad of Fire Dragons
1 5 Man squad of Dire Avengers
5 Objectives
2 Warlocks on bike
6 Guardian Jetbikes

Not too much, but I can definitely see this taking some time throughout July. I definitely plan to take the time to make sure everything will, as usual, challenge myself as a painter to achieve the best results.

I'm also considering taking Shining Spears over a Seer Council, and throwing in an Autarch. PWs with withdraw, they still have the saves of a Seer Council with Fortune, except that when the Farseer is fortuning them, he can't turbo boost. I'm considering, that if I make this change I'll be taking the Farseer on foot, and stick him in a DAVU Falcon and see how that goes.

Now I've just got to figure what to drop in exchange for the points, as the Autarch is an extra hundred points 30 odd points over the difference provided by dropping the seer council. He adds a lot to their effectiveness however.

Expanding my Blogroll

So guys, as you can see I've recently stepped into the larger blog network. I'm asking if anyone would like to see their blog included in my blogroll, please leave your blog URL and name in a comment at the end of this post. I'd also appreciate if you could include this blog into your blogroll too.

Cheers.

10K point Apocalypse Game, Eldar + Guard + 'Crons vs Emperor's Children

I had the great pleasure to play in a 10k Apocalypse game the other day.

I had ~5700 points of Eldar, paired up with another fellow who was fielding 2.5k ea of Crons and Guard.

Our opponent was fielding 10000 points on his own, of Followers of She who Thirsts. It was fantastic.

I was running a real fluffy Saim Hann list, Mech Eldar and Jetseer, with a small contingent of extras / outriders.

Our table size was 12x6ft. ie 3 normal tables.

Unfortunately of all the days for my Camera to not work, it chose that day, so unfortunately there are no pictures :(.

The Strategic Assets we chose were Blind Barrage and Recon. The Chaos Strategic Assets were Flank March and Disruptor Beacon.

The formations I took were;
The new WD Saim Hann Doom Serpent Squadron, giving me a S D hit, Infiltrate on some Prisms and Vypers and Stealth.
Wind Rider Host - giving Flank March and Strategic Redeployment
Aspect Assault Wave - S7 Energy fields baby!

The only non formation units I took were some Shining Spears, Dark Reapers, Harlequins, Falcon and Rangers. Though they were all explained fluffily except for the Spears and Falcon, which really needed no explanation. The Harlequins were there to combat the great enemy, Rangers being eyes for the Saim Hann Warhost and the Dark Reapers had been maneuvered into advantageous positions.

We started at 8, giving us an hour for deployment and finished at 5. 8 Hours of nonstop carnage. It took roughly an hour a turn, and up until turn 4 it was an extremely close game with kills being matched for kills, squad by squad in an never ending dance of counter attacks, assaults and revenge.

The Chaos force was divided into two 'wings' - Mechanized and Deep striking units in one - Daemons, Raptors, a small Nightlord Contingent. The other was a ton of Noise Marines and Havocs that didn't have Transports purchased for them.

The Necrons and Guard were a mix of Tanks for the Guard, Russ, Chimeras and Valks. The Necrons was Destroyer and Lords, backed by 3 Monoliths.

As I mentioned, the game was absolute carnage, turn 3 and 4, once everything was on the table was an absolute shit storm.

It ended turn 4, with strategic redeployment and some dickery 'Cron teleporting 3:1 objectives. Victory for the Saim Hann!

So; long story short, what would I do differently next time?

Not play Apocalypse in a store, just because playing to a time limit definitely limits the potential factor for fun.

Highly Mobile Armies are a must, just considering the vast distances that may need to be crossed.

Definitely play somewhere you can crash for the night if playing a larger game, to get the full potential of the game.

House rules and objectives (such as +1 shots to units within 48) can make the game that much more ridiculous.

Definitely next time I'll be playing around the 6k mark a side I think though.

Shining Spears vs Banshees

Recently I was able to use both Spears and Shees in a game for the first time in a very long time for the shees, and first time ever for the Spears.

In a nut shell, colour me impressed with spears and Autarch, though the Autarch is crazy on his own with it. With Withdraw he really shines.

Spears while expensive, compared to banshees without doom, they are utterly insane. Shees with Doom will cut swathes through any unit too. It is hard to say which is better / preferable as they both fulfill a similar / the same role, just differently.

On one hand, the shees have the model count and the sheer # of PW attacks. They also have Fleet and are generally mounted for added protection. Their threat range is slightly dependent and slower than the spears however. They are also more susceptible to shooting attacks due to their lower toughness once they are outside of their transport.

Spears on the other hand have a massive threat range, are slightly less susceptible to shooting as the turn they aren't moving into assault have a 3+ cover save, or are out of LOS. They can essentially be the same as a small squad of Marines.

Spears also have great synergy with a tarpit unit like the Seer council with Withdraw, being able to withdraw and move behind cover and charge again. The Shees however can remain in combat but suffer from the lack of Doom, relying on the Executioner to give the guaranteed wounds.

Being S3 is the major letdown for the Banshees, while the Shining Spears need to be constantly charging to be of any use.

That said, both of them together running behind a Seer Council, oh boy. Cut swathes through MEQs.

2500 Game 2/6/2010, Saim Hann VS Iron Warriors

So I had a friendly game today against a friend who I haven't had the pleasure of playing before. It was 2500 points. I'll get a copy of his list tomorrow when I see him again.

I ran with some new things since I had the points to spare - namely 10 'shees and Exarch with executioner, Shining Spears + Exarch w/ Withdraw + Autarch.

I was really surprised and flabbergasted at the 'killy' of the banshees and spears.

I took serious casualties on them during their first assaults due to them completely annihilating whatever they charged and being left open to a turn of shooting and counter charging. Regardless they made their points back, if only just.

The game played was Capture and Control, Spearhead deployment. The game unfortunately ended in a Draw - With both of us having troops his objective, and I only had the Elites to contest my own objective.

It came down to VPs, and the difference was <10% too.

All in all it was a very close game throughout the six turns it went over. Turn for turn, kills were matched point wise via counter assaults and shooting.

Apologies for no Battle report, I have a bad memory, I can only remember movements :(.

What did I learn from this game? Don't ever under-estimate a units potential, especially one which is your own.

What else did I learn? Written and video references work a treat for battle reporting. I should fine a venue which allows for Video captures :d

My list was;

Farseer
Runes of Warding
Runes of Witnessing
Spirit Stones
Fortune
Doom
Eldar Jetbike

Warlocks
5 x Warlocks
3 x Destructor
1 x Enhance
1 x Embolden
Eldar Jetbikes
(Seer council)

Autarch
Laser Lance
Eldar Jetbike
Mandiblasters
(Attached to the Shining Spears)

Shining Spears
Exarch
Withdraw

Banshee Squad
10 Banshees
Exarch
Executioner

Wave Serpent
TL Shuriken Cannons
Spirit Stones

Fire Dragons
6 Fire Dragons


Wave Serpent
TL Missile Launchers
Shuriken Cannon
Spirit Stones

Fire Dragons
6 Fire Dragons


Wave Serpent
TL Missile Launchers
Shuriken Cannon
Spirit Stones

Guardian Jetbike Squadron
6 Guardian Jetbikes
2 Shuriken Cannons

Guardian Jetbike Squadron
6 Guardian Jetbikes
2 Shuriken Cannons

Guardian Jetbike Squadron
6 Guardian Jetbikes
2 Shuriken Cannons

Dire Avengers
5 Dire Avengers

Falcon
Missile Launcher
Holo-fields
Stones

Fire Prism

Fire Prism

WIP; New Farseer / Autarch on Bike 2

Here are the pics of the completed Farseer / Autarch on Bike.

Pretty happy with the way it came out, given me a lot of insight for the next one, if I do one. Most notably, more tools! What I wouldn't have done for a protractor, steel ruler and some kind of model spirit level.

All in all I'm rather pleased with it. One of the shuriken catapults is not in line with its counterpart, but not noticeably when the canopy is on.

At the bottom are two pictures of my current Farseer on bike. I've got to get a different camera, even with shots being in-focus either detail is missed or it ends up slightly blurry.

Games this week.

So far this week, I have myself lined up for 2500 on Wednesday, 1750 Thursday and 10,000 on Friday.

Packed week.

Since it is at a GW, I don't think I can take pictures, but I'll do my best to provide pretty illustrations of some variety.

This will be a good opportunity to get some Battle Reporting practice in, so yeah - stay tuned. I know I've got a terrible memory, so I'll be writing things down for even more accurate goodness!

In other news the Autarch Farseer is progressing nicely, almost finished, some sanding to do. I'll probably paint him as the last model in my 1750 list for Lords however, just as I have other things to paint, and I have one to already done.