Blood Bowl 2010 season - Hashut's Hammers

rookie Chaos Dwarf team:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-3 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (210k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)

4x team re-rolls (280k)

Fan Factor: 1 (10k)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 11 players

EDIT TO ADD:
variant #1:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-3 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (210k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)
-1 Minotaur (150k)

2x team re-rolls (140k)

Fan Factor: 0 (-)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 12 players

variant #2:
-6 Hobgoblins (240k)
-2 Chaos Dwarf Blockers (140k)
-2 Bull Centaurs (260k)
-1 Minotaur (150k)

3x team re-rolls (210k)

Fan Factor: 0 (-)

Total: 1,000,000 gold pieces, 11 players

I can quit anytime I want: aka Alt-itis, the Hidden Killer

(EDIT: have fairly radically changed all 3 lists after a bit of browsing at Advanced Tau Tactica)

TAU v1: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Elites: Stealth Team x5
-upgrade one to Team Leader w/ Fusion Blaster, Bonding Knife, Hardwired: Targeting Lock, Drone Controller, 1x Gun Drone
177pts

TAU v2: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Troops: 10x Kroot Carnivores
70pts

Elites: Stealth Team x3
-upgrade one to Team Leader w/ Fusion Blaster, Bonding Knife, Hardwired: Targeting Lock
107pts

TAU v3: 400pts
Troops: 12x Fire Warrior Team
-upgrade one to Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, EMP Grenades
-Devilfish APC w/ Disruption Pod
223pts

Elites: 3x Crisis Suits
-2x suits w/ TL-Missile Pods/Flamer
-Shas'ui w/ Bonding Knife, Hardwired Multitracker, Hardwired Target Lock
--suit w/ TL-Flamers, Missile Pod
and EITHER:Hardwired Drone Controller, shield drone x1
OR Failsafe Detonator
177pts

The first demo night!

Lists here - in case I forget/lose them I can look them up on my phone tomorrow:

ORKS REDUX REDUX, 399pts
Troops: Slugga Boyz x 12
-upgrade one boy to Nob
--w/ Bosspole, Power Klaw
-mounted in Trukk
147 pts

Troops: Slugga Boyz x 12
-upgrade one boy to Nob
--w/ Bosspole, Power Klaw
-mounted in Trukk
147pts

Fast Attack: Deffkoptas x 2
-both w/ TL-rokkit launchas
-one with Bigbomm
105pts

vs

Scouting elements of the Recusant 113th, 395pts:

Veteran Squad #1 170pts
-Meltaguns x3, Vox-caster
-mounted in Chimera w/ Dozer Blade

Veteran Squad #2 185pts
-3x Plasma guns, Vox-caster
-mounted in Chimera w/ Dozer Blade

1x Scout Sentinel w/ Autocannon 40pts

War Without End League: the Recusant 113th gets it in the neck

For a few minutes there I was worried I was going to get tabled, but in the end my Traitor Guard did better than I thought they would have, and held on until the bitter end when Chris Genest's Deathwing list snatched the only objective out of 4 on the board by burning the remnants of one of my Veteran squads off of it with an extreme-range, non-scattering plasma cannon shot from his sleepy Venerable Dreadnought (who almost snoozed through the whole game, only arriving on turn 4).

But lets not put the cart before the horse. We rolled the Seize and Hold mission and the 'Dawn of War' deployment style, and Chris wisely chose to go second and keep his HQ and 2 Troops units (Belial and two squads of Deathwing Terminators) in reserve for a Deathwing Assault in turn 1. So deprived of anything to shoot at, my two Chimeras full of Veterans popped smoke and loitered near my edge of the board, while my command squad went to ground in the second floor of a ruin near my right-hand corner.

Chris then teleported his two squads of Terminators in close to my board edge, using the Assault Cannon-armed squad to hose down that ruined building, killing 3 members of my command squad and wounding my Commander.

I got fairly lucky on my reserve rolls for turn two, getting my Autocannon-armed chicken walkers, my explosive-lance armed Rough Riders, and a Penal Legion unit that I wound up criminally underusing by hiding behind a wall and only firing once in the game (NB: if you're going to have a cheap scoring unit, you need to either score with the damned thing or fling it into combat, not have it sit on its collective thumb all game). At this point I got a real taste for just how ludicrously survivable Terminators can be. Shoot 'em with whatever you want - either they get their 2+ armor save or their 5+ invulnerable save. Plus Chris was running a (wonderfully converted!) Terminator Apothecary, which means one that I could have killed with a lucky autocannon shot got to ignore that wound instead. Also, whatever I should be doing with my Rough Riders, slamming them into a CC-tooled Terminator unit probably isn't it. Maybe throwing them at the shooty squad would have been the better choice. As it was, they all got slashed to bits by Belial and the other Lightning Claw-armed members of termie unit #1. Grr...

Chris's only other unit in reserve, the Dread, failed to arrive this turn. So he made hay instead by pranging one of my Chimeras and killing like half the dudes inside in the resultant explosion (at some point his CC Termies did the same thing to my other Chimera, but I'm a bit uncertain as to whether it was this turn or the next one).

Turn 3, I brought my second HQ - a Primaris Psyker (reskinned as a Chaos Sorcerer in my Traitor Guard theme) and the lovely, lovely Leman Russ. Whatever else I've decided, I think the main thing I've learned is that my next 250 points are going for a 2nd Leman Russ and 55 points of who the hell cares, because the LR is gold. If I'd been smarter and deployed it further off to one side or another I could have really capitalized on it; even so I think it accounted for all but 2 of the 9 Termie kills I got in this game. It did much better than the sorcerer, who promptly rolled boxcars on his Psychic test and ate his own brain rather than dropping some lightning on the shooty Termie squad like I'd hoped. Still, between the lone survivor of my command Lascannon team and the rapidly backpedaling survivors of the plasmagunner Vetsquad, I think I got two Termie kills on the shooter group. Meanwhile, the CC Termies with Belial started soaking up Leman Russ fire. I'm a bit hazy on who died when, but I know that by their assault next phase this unit was down to 3 or 4 men instead of the 6 it started with.

So lets move on to that. In a really smart move, Chris launched this unit into contact with my Sentinels - which meant that since the Sentinels were walkers, he was locked in combat, and therefore untargetable by the thundering guns of my LR. Curse the craftiness of the Deathwing! Plus he was able to aim his charge so one of his Thunder Hammer termies was knocking on the sides of my LR. Fortunately he never got through the armor on the Leman Russ. One of the Sentinels went boom, but who cared. At this point I'd have been happier if he'd killed all 3 immediately, since I'd have had an extra turn to shoot him up.

We were starting to run out of actual real-world gaming time by this point, so I'm a bit hazier on what happened and when. Suffice it to say that my other two Sentinels got Luke Skywalkered to death, the LR pounded his CC Termies down to just one, and Chris ran his shooty Termies towards the midfield objective. His Dread showed up and cranked a shot at my LR that bounced off the armor; this was clearly just a ranging shot however, as the next (and final) turn he wasted 6 of my 7 Veterans off their objective, leaving one guy armed only with a lasgun and harsh language to try and fend off the Master of the Deathwing. That didn't happen, and while his other squad didn't make it to their objective due to a mediocre 'run' roll, Chris's destruction of my Veteran unit was enough to claim the one and only objective anyone held at the (slightly early) game's end.

Scattered highlights from the game for me include the moment when Chris saved against two meltagun hits from the dwindling remnants of my melta-Vet squad, but lost a terminator to their buddy and his lasgun (aka 'flashlight). I also can look back now and see a few things I should have done differently, as well as a few things I just plain old forgot about (ie using any of my Company Commander's 'Orders' to bolster my shooting). Still, it was a fun game all in all; Chris was a friendly and helpful opponent, who was able to put up with my slight unfamiliarity with the rules and helped me to remember stuff that slipped my mind. So a loss, but a good game; and that's what it's all about anyway, right?

"The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera."

-T.S. Eliot, "Four Quarters: Burnt Norton"

But Chimeras are Imperial Guard vehicles, I hear you say. But Eliot didn't write anything about Rhinos (so far as I know), and this was the only time I could recall that he uses the word 'lament.'

Anyway. Thanks to insomnia, enjoy a few Lamenters Space Marine CP lists, built from the new Blood Angel Codex

No.1: Jump-pack Assault, 400pts ("Let us go then, you and I"))
Troops:
Assault Squad #1: 5-strong (155)
-1x flamer
-sgt has Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield

Assault Squad #2: 10-strong (245)
-1x meltagun, 1x Plasma Pistol
-Sgt has Power Weapon, Inferno Pistol

nb: can split squad #2 with 'Combat Squads' rule for 3 scoring units

No.2: Tacsquad/Jump-pack Assault combo, 400pts ("Grishkin is nice: her Russian eye")
Troops:
Assault Squad #1: 5-strong (155)
-1x flamer
-sgt has Thunder Hammer, Storm Shield

Tac Squad #1: 10-strong (245)
-1x flamer, 1x missile launcher
-sgt has Power Fist
-mounted in Rhino

nb: can split tacsquad with 'Combat Squad' rule for 3 scoring units also

No.3: Razorback Assault ("Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees")
HQ: Sanguinary Priests x2 (100)
-attach one to each Assault Squad

Troops:
Assault Squad Alpha: 5-strong (150)
-1x flamer
-sgt has Power Fist
-swap Jump Packs for Razorback with Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters

Assault Squad Beta: 5-strong (150)
-1x flamer
-sgt has Power Fist
-swap Jump Packs for Razorback with Twin-Linked Heavy Bolters

Lists #1 and #2 are actually kinda tempting, as they share one squad, and the tacsquad from list #2 can be built (almost) entirely out of the raft of starter set marines I have floating around the garage. List #3 would be fun to run, and I'd love to see if the Furious Charge and Feel No Pain from the Sanguinary Priests would make up for the tiny squad sizes. But it would be the most hassle to build, and while I think I could get plenty of use out of the other three component squads that make up lists #1 and #2 at higher point levels, I'm not as sure about any of the stuff for list #3.

Roxanne... you don't have to put on the Red Army

Soviet midwar lists at 1500; will be editing this post as I add new lists until I fall asleep....

Gvarrdeyski Tyazhelyy Tankovy Polk list #1 (aka the Bad Idea Express), 1485pts
HQ: 1x KV-1s (165)

Combat Companies:
-CC#1: 4x KV-1s (660)
-CC#2: 4x KV-1s (660)


Gvarrdeyski Tyazhelyy Tankovy Polk list #2 (slightly less ludicrous), 1500pts
HQ: 1x KV-1s (165)

Combat Companies:
-CC#1: 3x KV-1s (495)
-CC#2: 3x KV-1s (495)

Corps Support Companies
-CSC#1: Sapper Company, w/ 3x Sapper Platoons, Pioneer Supply horse-drawn wagon (345)

NB: or replace Sappers with:
-Strelkovy Battalion w/ 1 Rifle Platoon, 1 SMG Platoon, Komissar team, 1x Maksim HMG team, 2x Light Mortar teams (345)

Guards Tankovy Batalon, 1495pts
HQ: 1x T-34 obr 1941/42, w/ Tankodesantniki SMG team (110)

Combat Companies:
-CC#1: 5x T-34 obr 1941/42, w/ Tankodesantniki SMG teams on all (560)
-CC#2: 10x M3A1 Stuart (400)

Weapons Companies:
-WC#1: Tank-Rider Company w/ 2 Rifle/MG Platoons, 1 SMG Platoon, Komissar Team, 1x Maksim HMG team (455)

nb: drop the Stuarts to 9 (so I'm not buying an extra bag to only use 1); can add a 2nd Maksim HMG team to the Tank-Riders, pts will be the same

Guards Strelkovy Batalon (Red God of War themed, cheesy), 1500pts
HQ: Battalion HQ, w/ Company Command Rifle Team, 2iC Rifle Team, Battalion Komissar team, Anti-aircraft platoon (3x DShK AA MG on trucks) (95)

Combat Companies:
CC#1: Strelkovy Company w/ 1 Rifle Platoon, Komissar team, 2x Maksim HMG teams (200)
CC#2: Strelkovy Company w/ 1 Rifle Platoon, Komissar team, 2x Maksim HMG teams (200)

Corps Support Companies:
-CSC#1: Strelkovy Artillery Battery w/ 8x 76mm ZIS-3 and 4x 122mm obr 1938, Komissar team, observer rifle team, 2x anti-tank rifle teams, wagons & limbers, tractors (455)
-CSC#2: Reserve Heavy Artillery Battery w/ 8x 152mm obr 1943 hwzrs, observer rifle team, wagon and tractors (550)

Batalon Opocheniya (Militia Battalion, aka how much room do we have on the table anyway), 1480 and just silly
HQ: Battalion HQ, w Company Command Rifle Team, 2iC Rifle Team, Battalion Komissar team (25)

Combat Companies:
CC#1: Opolcheniya Company w/ 3x Rifle platoons, 4x Light Mortars, 3x PTRD anti-tank rifle teams, Komissar team (335)
CC#2: Opolcheniya Company w/ 3x Rifle platoons, 4x Light Mortars, 3x PTRD anti-tank rifle teams, Komissar team (335)
CC#3: Opolcheniya Machine-gun Company w/ 3 MG platoons, extra HMG per platoon, Komissar team (175)
CC#4: Opolcheniya Mortar Company w/ 2 Mortar platoons, Komissar team, observer rifle team (85)

Weapons Companies:
WC#1: Opolcheniya Heavy Mortar Company w/ 2 Mortar platoons, Komissar team, observer rifle team (90)
WC#2: Opolcheniya Anti-Tank Company w/ 6x 45mm obr 1937, Komissar team (110)
WC#3: Opolcheniya Anti-Tank Rifle Company w/ 3x Anti-Tank Rifle Platoons, Komissar team (160)
WC#4: Opolcheniya Artillery Battalion w/ 4x 76mm ZIS-3, 4x 76mm obr 1927, Komissar team, Observer Rifle team, horse-drawn wagons/limbers (165)

Hypermind 40k League - not dead yet

Actually a tiny little flurry of activity and renewed player interest this week/weekend, which was nice. At the same time, I need to get off my ass and do a lot of wargaming-related stuff:

1) finish assembling and start on painting the Recusant 113th, or at least the first 1000pts or so of them. I've been coming up with all sorts of keen stuff to paint on the sides of their tanks, which would of course necessitate getting said tanks, you know, built and painted.

2) get some primer on Hashut's Hammers, my Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team for this year's Bloodlust Football League, as mentioned on my buddy Britt's blog.

3) paint up my Sorylians for Firestorm: Armada

4) ditto my Ork and Chaos fleets for BFG, since that's ever so slowly moving forward at Hypermind as well

So what did I spend my free time doing tonight? Making up lists for the army I'm wanting to field in the Hypermind league, of course. Hooray for the Angels of Ecstasy. Now I just need a good recipe for a nice creepy pink paintjob....