Daemons Painting Update - Tournament Thoughts

This weekend was the Millennium invitational, an event held at Millennium Games every December.  It is a great event, with the participants qualifying through the normal tournaments at Millennium Games over the year and all the prize support being on the house.  Normally I play my Da Boyz GT army at the event, but this year I did not attend Da Boyz and changed things up with a Highlander style list.  I had intended to bring these fellows...

...unfortunately they did not make the cut.

Millennium Invitational - 1850 Test Run

The Thanksgiving holiday gave me the rare opportunity to both test the list I was planning to run at the Millennium invitational and to play a casual 40k game without the intensity and time constraints of a tournament game.  This is actually the first non-tournament game of 40k I have played since June - it is a bit strange to play 40k in a casual setting.

For this game I had the chance to face up against a Slaanesh themed CSM army - with some very cool conversions, Noise Marines and a pair of Maulerfiends.

Da Boyz GT Photos

The Da Boyz GT was held this past weekend at the Bristol Harbor Inn located in the scenic Finger Lakes region of Western NY. As always, their events draw in a large crowd with some of the top players from around the US and Canada. With over a 100 players for 40k and around 60 for Fantasy, it was a great weekend for gaming, drinking, seeing old friends, and making new ones. So let's cut to the chase and show off some pictures I took during the weekend.

Chaos Wasteland

The Da Boyz GT is almost upon us and I have been very busy these past few weeks finishing up my latest terrain project for the GT. Each year the Da Boyz encourages attendees to bring their own tables to the GT so that there is a large variety of unique and stunning terrain and as an added bonus they have even turned it into a contest where the players get to vote on their top 3 favorite tables and prizes are awarded to the top three selected. Each year I try to create a new table or theme to bring along and share with the community. Last year was my Tyranid/Jungle table, which got a lot of positive feedback from attendees. This year I decided to go the route of a blasted chaotic landscape. So let's take a look at the latest project.

The end of a relationship?

The past few weeks have been pretty crazy in my life and I feel I need to share all of this with you. I've been blogging for a little over a year and a half with you and because I feel that I have some kind of connection with you readers I feel that I can unload this burden with you. Lately I've started straying from the love of my life. For over the past 10 years, through thick and thin I have always stuck by my love but recently I've started to get that feeling that we no longer connect. Over the past couple of years she has become more and more closed up and doesn't want to share her thoughts with me. Now she rarely talks to me, except when she wants me to spend my money on her. To add further insult she will say one thing in one instant and then on the drop of a dime she invalidates her previous comments and says something completely different. It's like your first love in high school, where you think that this is the one that you will love for the rest of your life and that nothing will tear you apart. But like all things, people change over time and one day you realize that the person you thought you knew is no longer that person.

Recently, a friend of mine introduced me to someone else, someone who offered me a different perspective on life and has given me a new outlook. At first it was just a quick and casual introduction but I quickly found myself looking her up and wanting to spend more time with her. I've been making excuses to stay out after work and on the occasional weekend just to be with her. Is this the one whom I was meant to be or is she really just an escape, an excuse, to strike back at my true love for shutting me out?

hyv3mynd - Breaking the Blogging Silence

Before I get into the meat of this post, I need to give thanks.  Thanks to those readers who've continued to stop by and give us some page views and comments this year.  We don't advertise or make money on page clicks, but for my fellow authors, seeing traffic and getting comments is one of the few rewarding things about blogging.  I also need to thank my fellow club-mates and authors for continuing to write and post in my absence this year.

Beef and Wing Brawl Recap

This past weekend the Beef and Wing gaming club held their first annual Beef and Wing Brawl in Buffalo NY. The format for the event was 1250 points played over 4 rounds. Forge World and 30k armies were allowed. Lords of War, Apocalypse, and Escalation were not allowed. All games were played on 4x4 tables due to the lower point levels and each table was comprised of custom terrain. The event was held in a banquet hall at a indoor Golfing Range complex complete with a full bar and restaurant and as part of the entry fee the Beef and Wing club included free pizza and wings and an open bar for 2 hours. So how did the first time event fare? Read below to find out more.

Beef and Wing Brawl - Impressions

This Saturday the Beef and Wing gaming club held their inaugural Beef and Wing brawl (i.e. GT - Beef and Wing Brawl Site) The tournament ran at 1250 points with 2 list 'components' allowed (for example a Battle Forged Daemon detachment with CSM allies) and was played on a 4'x4' board.

The Grand Strategery showed up in force to support the Beef and Wingers in their event - and because it looked like an awesome event.  Overall this was an awesome event, and I want to highlight what made it so great and why it is a must attend for me next year.

Desert Ruins Terrain

This coming Saturday (October 4th) will be the first ever Beef and Wing Brawl being held in Buffalo NY. (I do believe that there is still openings available and I do believe that walk-ins are welcomed as well. Check their site for full details.) As I've wrote about in past postings, these are a great group of guys who have really made strides in promoting the gaming community in the Buffalo area. When they first brought up the idea of putting on an event in Buffalo I quickly offered to bring any terrain I had plus I'd be willing to make more. So over the course of the past month or so while I was working on the swamp terrain I have also been working on two tables worth of new terrain for the event and you are about to see the results of the Desert Ruins terrain. I'll be showing all of the pieces at once rather than the piece by piece sections like I have in the past so that I can devote next weeks post to the results of the Brawl. So let's take a look at what I came up with for the Desert Ruins.

Swamp Terrain - The Silent Watcher

Here is the latest addition to my swamp board terrain. Like I did with the pillars in last week's blog post I wanted to try my hand at creating the look and feel of the environment slowly reclaiming man made structures. If you google search jungle ruins more than likely you will come across a picture of some ruins with trees growing on top of the structure and like with the pillars I wanted to make a tree growing on top of a giant skull structure. So let take a look at how I created this piece.

Swamp Board Terrain - The 3 Pillars

I have completed another piece of terrain to go along with the swamp board theme and I've aptly named it the 3 pillars because, well it has 3 pillars on it. Rather than go into details of how I made the pillars I'll refer anyone who may have missed the post where I created a piece called the Sentinel. You can see how I made the pillar here. This is a much larger piece than the last ones and I've incorporated a tree which has its roots growing out and over the ruins, much like you see in images of temple ruins in Southeast Asia. Recently I purchased some Hirst Arts molds to create blocks and tiles to make it easier and quicker to knock out terrain pieces rather than making the blocks by hand. In this project I've started to incorporate some of those blocks into my terrain. So lets take a look at how I created the 3 Pillars.

Crossroads GT Recap

This past weekend was the Crossroads GT held in Elmira NY. With just over 100 people in attendance it was a fun, two day event for playing Warhammer Fantasy battles. I played 5 great games and all of my opponents were fun and engaging people. I took many pictures over the weekend but before I get into that I just want to give a shout out as to why this is one of my favorite events. The atmosphere at this event is simply amazing. There are a wide variety of well painted armies in attendance but more importantly its the players that set the mood for the weekend. Everyone just seems to get along and have fun, regardless of how the games are going for them or what armies they are matched up  against.

Throwback Thursday and Upcoming GTs

In my last post on Throwback Thursday - Gaming Style I touched upon my roots with role playing and how it kick started my interest in gaming. This week I want to touch upon another game that had a huge impact on my gaming during my teenage years, however it wasn't a board game or a role playing game, it was a computer game. Back in either 1986 or 87 I purchased my first computer, an Atari 800XL and one of there very first games I picked up for it was OGRE. Now I know that this game originally started as one of Steve Jackson's Pocket Games but up to that point I had only heard of OGRE and CarWars but had not been able to find a copy of either game or play them. I remember seeing the cover of the box, was intrigued and quickly bought it.

Swamp Board Larger Terrain Pieces

The Gateway and Sentinel

I finished up the next two pieces of terrain for the swamp board. These two pieces are the largest built for the board to date but by no means the largest I am building. Earlier pieces of terrain I created fell under the category of either simple ruins or area terrain but these next pieces (and future ones) will have a specific look and feel for the board so I decided to name them accordingly. So let's take a look at the steps I used in creating these ruins.

Beef and Wing Brawl Preparation

This year marks the inaugural Beef and Wing Brawl held in Buffalo New York.  True to the nature of the club, the event has a strong emphasis on painting and sportsmanship with the games themselves following a narrative style campaign (30/30/40 breakdown).  I am not sure if spaces are still available, but it looks to be an awesome event - if you have a chance to make it down I would recommend doing so. (link to their site http://www.beefandwing.com/ )

Beef and Winger in their natural environment

Keeping the soft scores in mind - and the two hour open bar after the first round of the tournament - I need an army that will be fun, competitive, painted and does well with respect to composition/sportsmanship rules.

Throwback Thursday - Gamer Style

 Or how it all started for grubnards....

Recently I was moving some boxes around in my basement and as I was going through them I found some old books and games that I still have in my possession from 30 some odd years ago. Like many of you out there, my lifestyle of gaming goes way back to my early teenage years. I was born in 1970 and growing up in the mid to late 70's really didn't have much to offer us kids, in terms of gaming, other than established board games like Monopoly, Stratego, Battleship, and of course Hungry Hungry Hippos. In my pre-teens and early teens I was captivated by anything Sci-fi or Fantasy. My favorite books at the time was the Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, the Dune series, and of course Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Alien/Aliens rebooted the whole science fiction genre for a new generation. We used to visit a local book store in a nearby town that carried a huge selection of books, art supplies and gaming material. The book store was in a college town and that was probably the only reason they carried anything to do with gaming. Whenever I would visit the store I would spend some time looking over the novels but I always seemed to find my way wandering over to the gaming section and looking at all of the cool looking RPG game boxes, book covers, and miniatures.

Swamp Board Area Terrain

 Realistic Area Terrain

In my last post I had created some simple ruins to use as area terrain, obstacles, and areas of cover. As a continuation of that theme I have finished up working on areas of vegetation, fallen logs, and large boulders that infantry sized models can hide behind for cover and also add to the overall aesthetic of the board. So lets look at the steps involved in creating the areas of vegetation terrain.

Parkhammer Grudge Match: Daemons v Eldar/GK

Like a good wine, good stories only improve with age.  This story is not so old as to have gone stale, but it is also not so new as to be considered breaking news.  A few weeks ago, I had a chance to play my first (and only this far) game of 7th edition.  Similar to 6th edition, that game was with Hyv3 and we both constructed 1250 point highlander armies.  The core construction tenet for highlander is straightforward: There can only be one (of each unit).  We also placed the additional stipulation that the armies must be painted and played on a smaller 4x4 board.

To keep it interesting, and put something on the line - since Hyv3 and I somehow have never faced off in tournament play - was a central crystal based terrain piece from Hyv3 for me or an LED wiring job from me for him.

ParkHammer 2014 Recap

ParkHammer 2014 was held last weekend in Watkins Glen State Park and it went great. The weather was perfect and plenty of people showed up for the day with a ton of food, beverages, and of course, plenty of delicious chocolate courtesy of hvy3mynd.

Swamp Terrain - Simple Ruins

Now the that bulk of the playing surface is finished I have started working on the modular terrain pieces that will inhabit the playing field. Since I will be working on multiple projects at the same time I figured it would be easier to document and create the step-by-step instructions for each theme rather than throw a whole slew of different projects into on post. So in this series I wanted to create a "simple" set of ruins. What I mean by that is that these will be just a series of small walls that may have once been a part of a wall or a series of small structures that have fallen apart over time and suffered the ravages of time. So without making you wait anymore, let's see how I went about creating the simple ruins.

Park Hammer 2014

That's right, the 3rd Annual ParkHammer kicks off this weekend at Watkins Glen State Park. This event was started three years ago by our good friend Chris (aka Crispy) as a way for all of us in the Western NY region to get together for a day of cooking out, hiking the gorge, and of course, gaming.

Swamp Board - Base Complete!

As the title says, I pretty much have finished with the base board of the project with the exception of adding the water. (That will come once all of the flock finishes drying) So at this point I think it's safe to say that I can now move onto the stage of building out the modular terrain pieces that will be going on top of the board and provide cover and obstacles for the armies. So let's take a look at the final steps for creating the base of the board.

High Chaplain Erebus

Back at the beginning of the year a friend of mine gave me the Forgeworld models of Erebus and Kor Phaeron for helping him with his Eldar bike bases. I was kind of hesitant on doing anything with the models since I've never worked with Forgeworld resin before and to be honest... I was afraid that I would mess up such a gorgeous model. After staring at it for a few months I decided to give it a try. Cleaning and washing the model was a breeze and since the model had so much detail I decided to paint each piece separately before gluing the model together. Well, here is how it turned. out...

Swamp Board - Painting has begun

As stated in the title I have been spending the last two weeks painting up the surface of the swamp table. I also started to add debris and plant growth to the bottom of the waterway so that when the water effects have been poured in you will be able to see pieces of trees, rubble, and plant life. So let's take a look at the progress so far.

6th ed Memorial - Millennium May @ 2k - Rnd 2/3

A new edition has dropped, and I want to look into what this means for Daemons.  First I plan finish my final tournament of 6th edition before starting into that analysis.  I know everyone is eager to see Daemonology in action, but from a core rules standpoint there has not been much change between 6th and 7th edition (bear with me on the psychic phase part).

My draw in Round 1 against Koszka (Round 1 here) meant I was actually paired down for round 2 - we were the only ones who drew in spite of the mission type.  My round 2 opponent, Nogle, brought with him a Spartan and a pile of Lascannons too.

Millennium May @ 2k - Rnd 1

I had an opportunity to head out to the Millennium tournament this month.  Given the surprise release - comparatively speaking - of 7th edition, it turns out this will be the final 6th edition tournament at Millennium.   I understand many people have not liked the new aspects of 6th, but I have really enjoyed this edition.  This comes from someone who played an assault army in a shooting edition - according to conventional wisdom at least.   I wanted to stay consistent for this tournament and I ended up changing my list, once again, at the last minute.

The changes are minor compared to the army I described in previous posts, but they really transform the nature of the list.

Swamp Board Update

The past two weeks have been pretty busy with Spring coming around to New York but I was able to squeeze in some time to work on my swamp board. I learned an important lesson while working on the next phase and that is not to compromise your projects by using cheaper materials. If you remember in my last post I left off with me gluing the plastic tiles to the board. Well, I ran out of my glue so I ran to a local hardware store instead of Home Depot and the only wood glue they had on the shelf was Elmer's wood glue. I have always used Tite-Bond in all of my previous projects (and have always had great success with it) but I didn't want to hold off on my progress so I picked up the Elmers. Sure enough, after I finished gluing all 400+ tiles, some of them started to pop off as I was wiping away the excess sand. So I tossed the rest of the Elmer's away and made another trip to pick up some more tite-bond.  So let's see where I am with the project right now.

Et tu Brute?

It might be the change in weather, or it might be that I started running/hitting the gym again but Spring has somehow resulted in more motivation to paint, build army lists and generally be more productive.  The past two weeks, I took the time to work on one of the 3 Helbrutes that I need completed as part of the list I plan to bring with me to the next Millennium tournament.

I have a few new elements in this list - and I have found these incremental changes really help a lot when it comes to pushing me to complete painting projects.

Born on the Bayou

I've made more progress on the swamp board over the past week. While I am getting a lot of things done on the board, the pace may seem a little slow since so much of the time is spent letting glue dry between applications. But fear not, things are progressing and starting to take shape. So without dragging this out, let's take a look at what I was able to accomplish this past week.

Quick Daemon Thoughts

I had the chance to grab a game this weekend at the local Millennium tournament and being there whet my appetite to get back into playing some more 40k games.  I am going to try to get out at least one or two nights before next month's tournament to practice/relax a bit.  Somehow, it seems like Spring leaves me with more energy than Winter when it comes to around the house and 40k.

The tournament at Millennium though is unique - and requires some more painting - in that it is 2000 points and up to 3 Forge World units with no Super Heavies, Gargantuans or D Weapons allowed.

Swamp Board - A Genesis

A couple of weeks ago I announced that my first terrain project for 2014 was to be a swamp themed board. Well, the weather has started to cooperate in Western NY so I started work on the board. The idea behind this board is that I want to create a realistic looking lowlands/swamp that fits a 6x4 table surface but will have modular pieces so that even though the overall shape and layout of the board will always be the same, the modular pieces should have enough variety so that the board as unlimited potential for layouts. So let's see what I got done last week.

Balance of Power - 1 Casual, 1 Tournament List

This week the world's eyes - well the Warhammer 40k world's eyes - was on Adepticon.  It was great to see a few Daemons among the top finishers for the tournament.  It was sad to see that none of the lists were particularly inspired.  For the most part they took minimum troops, maximum flying monstrous creatures.  Before discussing army lists, a quick observation.

The most interesting 'innovation' of the tournament for a Daemon player was the inclusion of 9x Fiends by Bill Kim.  Kim is a veteran Daemon player, and it makes sense that he would bring them to both quash psychic powers with -1 ld within 12" of each Fiend and eliminate the Hit and Run shenanigans that so many armies seem to rely on.  I started taking a similar load out for Fiends in December - I had experimented with 2 smaller units, but the truth is you need the whole grouping of 9 to be effective.  I have also started running a Slaanesh herald on Seeker mount to get them into those backfield psykers through outflanking.  Grabbing a lesser gift also enable the Witstealer sword - which pairs well with the Fiends initiative reduction.

40k Team Event - Game 2

... or how I learned to hate space marine bikes and Grav-guns. Last week I typed up a battle report on our first game at the Millennium 40k Team Event. If you missed it, you can read it here. In the second game we would be paired up against Smitty and Evan, of Beef n' Wing, a gaming club out of Buffalo NY. Both of them are participating in the Adepticon Team Event and used this event to practice their armies. If you attended Adepticon last year you probably saw their army in the team event. Beef n' wing has been building up a large 30k army over the past couple of years painted up in the Emperor's Children theme and this year they are continuing that theme.

Balance of Power - Helbrutes, Casual Hints

Everything seems to take twice as long when you have children - especially when one is 3 weeks old.  I had intended to followup quickly with a casual army list - but instead I put off that post for two reasons: 1 Sleep Deprivation, 2: The Helbrute data slate was coming out.  I want to hit on the dataslate this week and follow on with my new list.  I am actually having a lot of trouble pushing away from old habits to throw down a ton of wounds and bring some real diversity.

A minimum value for how much trouble 2 children cause.  Synergistic effects expected.

Look at the flowers grubnards.

... or how my games went last week at the Millennium Games team event.

For those of you who watched the Walking Dead on Sunday, you will get the reference of the title and a pretty good idea of how our games went last weekend. For those who haven't seen it yet don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything but I do highly recommend that anyone who is a fan of the show to watch it. Two weekends ago I attended the team event at the Millennium Games month tournament. Once again I teamed up with my good friend and fellow club member sinistermind to wage war with our xeno's tag team of Tau and Eldar.

Terrain Board 2014

Every year I devote a part of my hobby year to creating a new themed terrain board. In 2011 it was my Train Yard board, in 2012 it was my Ancient Ruins board and last year I created my Tyranid/Jungle board. So this year I had a few ideas such as an Eldar/Winter themed board, Swamp Ruins board, or to continue on with my necron board. Well, after looking around on google images I finally made my decision to go with the Swamp Ruins board. Why go with this theme? Well, after working on the Tyranid terrain I was impressed with how detailed the terrain pieces looked and I especially liked the water effects pools I added to the pieces so I wanted to explore, experiment, and expand with working on that theme. So let's take a look at what I have planned.

Balance of Power

The last few months for 40k have been transformative and they just so happen to correspond with me taking a short break from the hobby.  I say the hobby because since December - actually early January - I have not painted, played, made lists or really browsed the new rumors or releases.  My motivation was two-fold.  Coming of of Da Boyz and the intense painting schedule to get ready I was pretty tired and had neglected some other obligations.  Second, I had a chance to play a casual game for the first time in months in early January.  The pickup pitted myself allied with a Space Marine player against Grey Knights and Imperial Guard.

That game inspired me to take a break from playing.

March Team Tournament and Painting Update

This coming weekend I will be attending the Adepticon format team tournament being held at Millennium Games in Rochester NY. Millennium run this event each year the month before Adepticon so that any players who are going to the big event can get in some practice games with their teams. This past week I was also feeling sick so I missed some days of work and a big game of 40k over the weekend but it did give me time to finish up some of my painting projects. So let's take a look at my list for the upcoming weekend and my recent painting projects that I was able to finish up this past week.

Online Gaming Aids

One thing I have been a fan of lately is utilizing and taking advantage of all of the wonderful and snazzy software, programs, and cheat sheets that people are creating to make our games easier to play. Without a doubt, the latest incarnation of Warhammer 40k has become so layered with rules that trying to play a game without taking notes, or using markers has become cumbersome. On the whole, I tend to support my local game store and buy gaming supplements where possible such as psychic/magic cards but many times GW only makes a limited run on these items and once they are gone you are out of luck. This is especially true for army/race specific magic cards from Games Workshop. I only play Orcs n’ Goblins and Warriors of Chaos, which utilize magic lores other than what is in the main rulebook. So what is a gamer to do in cases where he or she does not want to hunt down a limited run item on ebay or spend hours shuffling through books to make lists or even make a nice looking battle report? Glad you asked because I want to show you a few programs that are free to use or download and have made my gaming experience so much easier. 

Grubnards Painting Table

Or... My next phase of the hobby.

It feels good to finally get back to painting. As you know, the past few weeks I have been pretty busy with helping run the 40k event at the Running Gagg and playing a handful of X-Wing games. While all of this has been fun it has left very little time for me to do what I love most in the hobby… building and painting my minis. While taking a break from painting and co-running the event, I began to ponder on what direction I want to go with regards to my 40k armies.

Unleash the Dogs of War!

This past weekend was the Running Gagg at SUNY Geneseo and as I posted in last week's blog, I was co-running a large, bring and battle 40k event. The turnout was pretty good for having less than a month to plan and advertise the event. We had a total of 12 players attend the event so we decided to break the teams down into 3 players per side or 6 players to a table. The teams were based upon the armies present so we created the teams based upon fluff to help create a themed game for all players involved. Read more to find out about the event.

The Running Gagg 2014

I've been busy these past couple of weeks helping to put together an event that will be held this weekend at the Running Gagg. What is the Running Gagg you ask? The Running Gagg is a gaming club in SUNY Geneseo and every year they hold a gaming convention at the college. In the past years the host of the 40k tournament has run a 1850 point, three round tournament. While this format was fun for getting out and playing, it is pretty much typical of any event/tournament held at any game store across the country. So Paul (aka Golden Eagle) and myself decided to approach the TO and asked if he would be willing to allow us to run a different type of format and he graciously agreed to give it a try.

hyv3mynd vs the New Tyranid Codex

So here we are, a week after the newest tyranid codex release.  If you read this blog, chances are you read many blogs and discussion forums all dedicated to wh40k.  If this is the case, you've been exposed to hundreds of opinions, analysts, winging, praising, and soapboxing about the new book.  I've been silent about the topic on this blog and I don't want certain emotions and arguments to dominate the atmosphere, so this will be my one and only post on this topic.

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.

Custom Skimmer and Jet Bike Bases

Back towards the end of 3rd edition, when I bought my first  Tau Devil fish, I wasn't that far along into the hobby and did not know about conversions or making custom bases and such. Like most people, I assembled my model, painted it and then added sand and flock to the clear skimmer base and then I was ready to play with my new model. After a few games of playing with the devil fish, the tip of the clear plastic rod that inserts into the bottom of the skimmer snapped off inside of my devil fish. I  was forced to drill out the bottom of the skimmer base so that I could insert a new plastic rod but then that soon broke off as well. That's when I knew that I would have to come up with a better solution.

Building a Portalglyph

The Warhammer 40k Daemons of Chaos book has a unique item that you can take from the Exalted Rewards section called a portalglyph. Basically, once dropped on the board it allows the daemon player the potential to "summon" in new daemonic troop choices (i.e., bloodletters, daemonettes, plague bearers, or pink horrors) to the battle field. I liked the idea of using this piece of war gear but GW never made a model or issued a template for users to represent the portalglyph. Instead the codex/army book simply states to use a small blast template or something similarly sized. Well, I for one saw this as a challenge to make my own portalglyph instead of tossing a blast template on the table. So let's take a look at how I built my portalglyph.

DaCock at Millennium Invitational

Millennium Games

This is a follow up to my last post discussing the Eldar list I planned to bring to the Millennium Invitational.  If you are unfamiliar with the event, both Calypso2ts and Grubnards have posted a description along with some games.  Since that has been taken care of, I am going to jump straight into my games.

In case you forgot, or do not want to look it up, here is my list:

Farseer on Bike with the Shard of Anaris

Farseer on Bike

9 Eldar Jetbikes with 3 Shuriken Cannons

3 Eldar Jetbikes

3 Eldar Jetbikes

5 Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent with Holo-Field.

7 Warp Spiders.

Hemlock Wraithfighter

Wraithknight

Dark Reapers with Starswarm and Starshot Missiles in a Wave Serpent with Holo-Field

Night Spinner with Holo-field

I had issues throughout the day remembering my psychic powers. Since my powers were from the following disciplines; Divination, Telepathy, Runes of Fate, and Runes of Battle it was hard to keep track of which ones I had gotten.  On top of that, they had very different times when they could be used.  Some I had to cast them in beginning of the turn, the beginning of movement and shooting or during shooting. It was confusing and while I am used to casting blessings (beginning of the turn), the others were difficult to remember. I need to get more games in all the psychic powers and reread the psychic rules again. I not sure if it would of impacted the outcome of my games, but it would definitely make me more confident of my actions.

Game 1

Primary Mission: Kill PointsSecondary Mission: 3 Objectives. 1 in each deployment zone and 1 in the middle. The objective in your opponents end was worth 3 points, the 1 in the middle was worth 2 points, and the 1 in your end was worth 1 point.
Bonus Points: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker.

 

Round one is up and I playing David K. He is from nearby city of Buffalo. (it is about 1 ½ drive). He is part of the gaming group called Beef and Wing. I have never met or played David before, but I have heard good things about him. First I heard he was a good painter (very true) and  a good player. I always love playing a good player. I always seem to learn something from them. David sure did live up to his reputation.  I did wish this was game 2 so I could get at least one game under my belt with a new list before I played him. This was my only loss of the day. I would have at least tied David on the primary had I did not fail a leadership test (from the terrify psychic power) with my big jetbike squad on the last turn. In that unit I had the warlock, 5 bikes, and 2 farseers. They all ran on my turn and that was a deal breaker. I lost too many kill points on that one roll to recover from. It was a fun game. The one funny part of the game was David thinking long and hard why did I brought the hemlock wraith fighter. I think he thought I had some secret dirty plan with it. I just brought it because it looks cool. It did live up to its reputation though...It really sucks. It showed that throughout all my games.

Picture of Game 1

 

Another Picture of Game 1

 

Game 2

Primary Mission: Big Guns Never Tire
Secondary Mission: Victory Points (who kills the most total points of unit cost)
Bonus Points: Slay the Warlord, First Blood, Line Breaker
Deployment: Vanguard

Round two had me playing Chris. We were both playing Eldar armies. He was playing all Wave Serpents and Fire Prisms. Most of his points were tied up in 3 wave serpents with each 5 man squad of Wraith Guard. Our lists were very similar, but I had more long range anti-tank fire power. The dark reapers guided should be able to take a wave serpent down a turn. I also got the physic power fortune for my Farseer so it going to hard to take out my Jetbikes.  Since the primary mission was objectives I chose to go second. . So the first 2 turns we shot each other up and with nothing really happening. Our shooting was so bad that Chris did not get first blood until his second turn.  Things started to go better fro me in turn two after Warp Spiders, Jetbikes and Wraith Knight got close enough to do some damage and I was able to pull out a win this game

Picture of Game 2

Picture of Game 2

Game Three:

Primary Mission: The Scouring
Secondary Mission: The Relic
Bonus Points: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker
Deployment: Dawn of War.

The last game was against old school player Mike Nogle from Beef and Wing. He is old school because I played Mike back in the day when there when Games Workshops had Grand Tournaments. It was either late 90’s or early 2000’s. Either way it was early into third edition. He won that game, so every time I play him I work to avenge that loss.

                                   

Picture of Game 3

Mike was also playing Eldar with 2 Wraithknights and 2 Crimson Hunter. I told him I was playing Hemlock Wraithfighter and he laughed and asked “why in hell are you playing that piece of crap”. After that I knew we were going to have a great game. So Mike got Forewarning (4+ invaluable) and fortune (reroll saves) from his one Farser. That is going to make the Wraithknights harder to take down because of the extra protection.. I did not get fortune this game, but I did get Invisibility. I also won the rule roll to go first, but chose to go second since it was objective based mission. Sure enough it took all my shooting turns 1 and 2 (and assaulting it with my own Wraithnight) to take one down. The key factor in this game was using Invisibility on jetbikes. It was amazing. It was the only unit I had at the end of the game, but it was good enough to pull out a  win. 

Picture of Game 3

Well I went 2-1. It was a fun event. There was not much I would have done differently other then change of my army lists. Hemlock Wraithfighter did not make any unit run all day.  I also think if would got some practice games in before the event I would played better.