Test 1...

Today was the first day I took out my Chaos (space wolves) army for a "test drive". All I gotta say is OMG!!! This first game with my Space Wolves was definitely a surprise for me, I knew that the list was going to do well but I expected to tie or lose until I got the hang of the list.

What I didn't count on was how forgiving the army was. My first game I played a very good Black Templar player who has been using his army for years now and is a very accomplished player.

I actually played him during a tournament last year and he soundly beat my Thousand sons army with the same army. I deliberately held my "hammer" unit of the 3 thunder lords and their dog retinue on the right side of the table away from his sword brethren terminator squad in a landraider whom he deployed on his right side. I threw them a bone by letting them munch on my blood claws squad which he charged and killed all but one of them. I then assaulted them with my venerable dread after shooting them up with a squad of grey hunters. My Dread actually ended up holding up the squad until turn 5 which effectively took them out of the game until my lords could get over to that side. My 2 mistakes was deploying my 2 long fangs squads with for all of their trouble only killed 1 rhino and maybe 6 neophytes. They really didn't contribute much to the game as by killing the landraider the game would have been easier for me. My second was a missed assault with my dogs and my lords by failing a roll to assault 3 squads at once having him in return assault me.

This action killed all of my dogs thus giving him a kill point and possibly could have lost 1 or 2 of my lords, thank goodness for 2+ saves as my opponent put about 15 wounds on my lords, wounding 2 of them. After these mistakes though my 3 lords accounted for 48 dead marines including the emperors champion and his marshal. I hope to have more of the army painted before next Saturday in time for the tourney, at least I dont have to have the whole army done by then as the tourney organizer just wants the armies to be WYSIWYG... Pics are of my 3 Thunders lords about 40% done.

Back to Chaos...

Last Saturday was the last week for my planetary empires campaign and wow was it full of surprises... Overall with almost 13 titles our local Eldar player took it beating out both a blood angels and space wolf player for the top spot, maybe their is something to this idea that its the player that makes the list and not the list that makes the player.

The missions varied as well and not all objective based so these wins were not easy. Of the 8 players I thought that it would come down between the Blood angel, the Space Wolf, or the Chaos player who plays a solid Slaaneshi themed list and who in fact tied the eldar player who besides the tie went undefeated. I unfortunately wasn't able to play as yet again all of the players showed up. No pick up games either as all the tables were being used.
Oh well, this week began with me concentrating on getting back to my Chaos/Space Wolves army and actually finishing my first 20 Grey Hunters/Chaos space marines. Now I need to concentrate on my 15 man Bloodclaws squad, my 2 Long Fangs squads, and my 4 HQ's which I already started on.

I have a 2000 pt tourney that I might be a part of and I would love to take this army, but we shall see as I would like to have more of it done before I take it for a test drive. Pics are of my Finished Chaos marine/Grey Hunters (just got to do the trim around the bases). Let me know what you think...

For the Emperor???!!

Okay so yeah I'm back to playing my Black Templars/Sisters army. One of my fellow players who is playing in my planetary empires campaign is using his Black Templar Drop pod army and just seeing these zealous guys in action made me feel like pulling out my army again. The funny thing is I started this blog to talk about painting my Sisters as an ally of my Black Templar's which I actually got done with except the immolater and the Rhino. I do have several more sisters but not enough to start a dedicated army. For now, I will keep them as allies to my black templars, maybe in time I will have enough to do small point 1000pt games.

The latest rumor is that they will get a PDF. codex like the blood angels did which I would welcome, just hope they finally release some plastic sisters as well. This last Saturday I played 2 games with them getting a tie against a heavy mech IG army who had 4 leman russ tanks, this game I lost due to making 2 key mistakes, 1 having one of my troop squads running off an objective to kill a vanquisher tank as I didn't want it to kill my landraider crusader. I should have kept them their and thus won the game 3-2. My other one was a terrible "noobie" mistake, since my immolater was immobilized, I decided to jump my Dominion squad into the landraider crusader as my Sword Brethren had already jumped out of it and killed 3 squads and a tank.

My Dominion squad and my Cannoness jumped into the crusader and leaped out in front of my opponents veteran squad who was claiming an objective and with 4 flamers, killed all but one of the vets, the problem came as I also fired my cannoness' bolt pistol and my sister superior's bolter thus I couldnt assault after even though they had come out of a landraider, that one vet cost me the game. The other game was just an absolute slaughter, it was a game against a straight marine player complete with Calgar. My emperors champ actually put 3 wounds on him and ended up killing him in the next assault phase, wow the best my champ has done. I did have 2 5 man assault squads hold up one of my 20 man squads for almost 3 turns as my opponent was rolling absolutely fantastic. He was making all kinds of saves until my champ got a hold of the squad and just started killing them with his black sword. This Saturday will be the last week of my campaign, a 2000pts battle for all the marbles and yes my black templars will be making another appearance as a ringer if someone decides not to show... If they all show well then it will be time for some more fun pick up games. Pics are of my Sisters squads with my "Cannoness"; the Emperor's Champ is from GW, I will post pics of my Black Templars in another post..I keep promising myself that I will continue to work on my chaos army again, or course when that will happen is anybody's guess... Geez I really need to focus...

Plantery Empires...

This weekend is the 2nd round of my Planetary Empires Campaign. I asked the GW manager if he would allow me to run a Plantary Empires campaign several weeks ago and he loved the idea. I purchased the tile set about a year ago and have only got to use it once since then, a campaign in which I tried to do a team based one failed miserably as I had a huge issue with getting 12 players to "show up" to play. I decided to run this one without some of the complications in team games and opened it up to 8 players who will fight it out in a 4 week campaign. I modified the rules as well, basically the rules for the buildings I kept the same such as getting a USR for each command bunker for a unit, 50 additional points for each manufactorum, etc. I did create some specific scenarios however kept them pretty simple as to not confuse the players or myself.

The Map is just great for keeping track of wins and losses and inspires players to try their best at winning as with each loss, they lose one of their precious tiles. The games have been surprising with the supposed "good" players losing to the mediocre players in some games and supposed top codex's losing to non competitive ones. All in all the campaign has been fun to run and I can't wait to start another one, I will just make it a point to play in the next one as in this one everybody is showing up to play with no chance to play the "ringer" unlike the last time I ran it. The next time will also have more of a theme, Imperium vs. Chaos/Xenos or something like that. We shall see..