The Mandulian Chapel: Starting Off on the Right Foot

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Starting Off on the Right Foot

January has turned out to be pretty solid for me on the gaming front so far this month. In past years, with the unpredictable weather typical of upstate NY, I'd spend the cold and dreary days of winter huddled over my painting table trying to stay warm. Even the monthly tournaments in past January's were a hit or miss with me. Already this year mother nature has hit us with a polar vortex (sounds like a #6 spell from fantasy) and on/off lake effect snow from Lake Erie but after 2 weeks into the new year I've managed to get a string of pick and tournament games from across a variety of gaming systems, which hopefully is a trend that I'll continue throughout this year. While I am still getting in some games of 40k, what really has got me excited was the chance to play some games of Warhammer Fantasy and X-Wing.

Warhammer Fantasy

This coming weekend I'll be playing in a 3 round fantasy tournament in Buffalo. For those of you not familiar with the Western NY gaming scene, Fantasy events have all but dried up around here over the past 4-5 years. A couple of stores in Syracuse still run some tournaments but these events are rarely advertised in the Rochester/Buffalo area plus it's about 1 and 1/2 hour drive to Syracuse from Rochester. Two Kings Gaming in Buffalo (formerly known as Jester's Cap) is now under new ownership and the store owners are looking at revitalizing the gaming scene in Buffalo, which is exciting for me as I live within a 45 minute drive from their store. So fellow club member, Sinistermind, and myself had a couple of practice games to get reacquainted with the Fantasy rule set (I think I got a total of 4 games of fantasy in all of 2013).

In our first game I played my Orcs n' Goblins while Sinistermind used my Warriors of Chaos. Suffice to say he kicked my green butt all over the board. In our second game I played with the Warriors of Chaos while he played with the Orcs n' Goblins. This game was much closer up until the end, Sinistermind walked away with another win. While I lost both games it was fun to get back into pushing square bases around.

My daemon prince (lower right) took a bolt thrower to the knee!

For this weekend's event I plan on running the following list:

Lords
Daemon Prince - 475
Level 3 Wizard, Daemon of Nurgle, Chaos Armor, Daemonic Flight
Magic Items: Dragonhelm
Chaos Mutations/Powers: Scaled Skin, Soulfeeder, Chaos Familiar

Heros
Exalted Hero - 205
Battle Standard Bearer, Mark of Nurgle
Magic Items: Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation
Chaos Mutations: Burning Body

Chaos Sorcerer - 210
Mark of Nurgle, Level 2 Wizard
Magic Items: Dispell Scroll, Glittering Scales
Chaos Mutations: Hideous Visage

Core
20 Chaos Warriors - 430
Full Command, Shields, Halberds, Mark of Nurgle

18 Chaos Warriors - 336
Full Command, Mark of Nurgle, Shields, Hand Weapons

30 Marauders - 260
Musician, Standard Bearer, Shields, Light Armor

5 War Hounds - 30

5 War Hounds - 30

Special

Chaos Warshrine - 125

Chaos Knights - 245
Standard Bearer, Musician, Mark of Nurgle, Ensorcelled Weapons

Myself, Sinistermind, a bunch of the guys from Beef N' Wing (a gaming club in Buffalo), and probably others will be attending the event on Saturday so it should be a pretty good turnout. I'll post results in my next blog along with some images.

X-Wing Fever

This month I was also able to get in a game of X-Wing as well. This is a game that is absolutely a blast to play and requires very little investment to play. My kids got me Slave 1 for my birthday and I managed to pick up an A-Wing, B-Wing, and a couple of TIE-Interceptors recently as well. I played Sinistermind in a 100pt game two weeks ago and I tried out my Fire spray as I battled Sinistermind's rebel scum.

He ran the following:
Wedge with R2-D2
Han and Chewie in a kitted out Falcon

I ran with the following:
Darth Vader with Swarm Tactic and Cluster Missiles
2 Academy pilots
Fire spray with Ion Cannons and disruption bomb

I knew it would be futile to try and damage both ships so I focused exclusively on Wedge and was able to pick him off after 3-4 turns. By then he was able to knock out one of my Academy pilots and put some wounds on the Fire spray. As the game wore on the Falcon was able to take down my remaining pilot and the Fire spray unit it was Vader vs Han. In the end, Han knocked Vader out of the game with only 4 hull points left on the Falcon.

This was my first time facing the falcon and I really underestimated the re-rolling abilities of Han, that and coupled with the fact that the Falcon has a 360 degree firing arc. We also played the Ion cannon incorrectly (we thought that large ships got rid of the ion token at the end of each round, not realizing that the 1 token stays on the ship unit the second one hits). I don't think this would have made a huge difference but at least we know for future games. I have another X-Wing gamed lined up on Friday with another friend of mine. I'll let you know how that game went next week.

My collection of rebel forces.

and my collection of imperial forces.

Warhammer 40k

On the 40k front, I was able to attend the monthly event at Millennium games. This event was a 1000 point list with no allies allowed and the only fortification allowed was an aegis line. There would be 4 rounds played on a 4x4 table.

Since the Be'Lakor dataslate was released I've been itching to give him a try so I figured I would run him in my list.

Be'Lakor leading the cultists

My list for the event looked like:

Be'Lakor
8 Marines - 1 plasma gun, VoLW
Rhino
18 Cultists
Heldrake - Baleflamer
3 Obliterators - MoN, VoLW

This was definiately an "All the eggs in one basket" kind of list and suffice it to say I ended up with 1 win, 1 Draw, and 2 losses. I think that Be'Lakor has serious potential, he is just not meant for small scale games. In all four games Be'Lakor died to massed shooting and I think he will really shine in a Daemons or Daemons allies list where he has the potential to gain the Grimoire for a 2++ save. Below are some pics of the event.