Phew.
It's been a busy week for me here in media-land. Haven't had much time for Toy soldiers, if I'm honest.
With no new updates on the army, I am starting to worry I might not get it done - as I now have seven weeks to get it all done! Still, I've booked a full week off in October to paint, so as long as I can get it all built by the last week of October, I should be fine. Fine.... yes, fine I tell you.
In the mean time, I'd just like to share a couple of things with you:
1st: - Invincible Pole Fighters
Now, some of you may be unaware of the classic of Chinese cinema that is the Shaw brothers amazing movie "Invincible Pole Fighters".
Well, have a look:
Why am I bringing this up?
Well, today I came across an excellent article entitled "Spear vs. Tank". Could a Pikeman destroy a tank as often happens in Civilisation Four? Well, maybe the average Pikeman, no...but an invincible pole fighter?
Of course.
2nd: -
The awesome game that is Hordes of the Things - HOTT - is now free to download!
It's one of the best games I've ever played. A great little system, perfect for very quick games. It's cool because you can do pretty much any period army you want - you haven't lived until you've seen Space Nazis fighting WW1 brits, for example. In that particular game, Biggles shot down a nazi UFO, and a MkV tank crushed a platoon of werewolves - amazing.
It's a lovely excuse to do a cool army you've always wanted to do, but knew you could never find an opponent for...e.g. Napoleonic, Roman, Gods of Rock, Somalian warlords... whatever.
You can download it here for free - http://www.wrg.me.uk/HISTORY/HOTT2.pdf
Have fun guys,
PS: Page 23 (missing) can be downloaded here - http://www.wrg.me.uk/
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Steel Legion Assault Corps - Test game one
Right,
so, now that my army is largely built, I played my first test game.
The drop on Tau Sept World "Cemia"
I trotted down to GW Kingston, and looked for a game - a charming Tau player offered his army up to be the first game I played.If I'm honest, this isn't going to be much of a battle report - it wasn't much of a battle, as my opponent conceded at the start of his third turn.
What happened was I deployed first, and got the first turn. My opponent deployed his army - a hammerhead, a squad of broadsides, two squads of crisis suits, two units of fire warriors and a squad of pathfinders - in a ruin opposite me. He left 20 kroot and 3 crisis suits off the board.
I used my 24" scout move to move straight ahead, closing on him. He didn't manage to steal the initiative. I then moved everything forward, deployed 50 odd guardsmen at point blank range, and let fly with an army-wide, four orders barrage.
This killed most of the army - the broadsides, most of the crisis suits, all of the infantry, both of the tanks. After that it was just mopping up, really.
It taught me a few things though:
1.) Valkyries are big. Not just big, HUGE. It was a struggle to deploy six on a 6"x4" board. It was a struggle to keep them squadroned near terrain. You can probably exploit this with terrain if you're playing against a Valkyrie army.
2.) The guard are horribly vulnerable once out the Valks. I mean, I knew this anyway, but it's still shocking to see 130 pts squads all die to one flamer shot.
3.) If your opponent starts with units off the board he's making a mistake. If you're using reserves, go all or nothing. All off board denies the valk player the alpha strike; nothing off board gives you the forces to counterpunch. The way the Valkyrie army wins is by isolating parts of the enemy and destroying them in detail.
Next week: More soldiers.
so, now that my army is largely built, I played my first test game.
The drop on Tau Sept World "Cemia"
I trotted down to GW Kingston, and looked for a game - a charming Tau player offered his army up to be the first game I played.If I'm honest, this isn't going to be much of a battle report - it wasn't much of a battle, as my opponent conceded at the start of his third turn.
What happened was I deployed first, and got the first turn. My opponent deployed his army - a hammerhead, a squad of broadsides, two squads of crisis suits, two units of fire warriors and a squad of pathfinders - in a ruin opposite me. He left 20 kroot and 3 crisis suits off the board.
I used my 24" scout move to move straight ahead, closing on him. He didn't manage to steal the initiative. I then moved everything forward, deployed 50 odd guardsmen at point blank range, and let fly with an army-wide, four orders barrage.
This killed most of the army - the broadsides, most of the crisis suits, all of the infantry, both of the tanks. After that it was just mopping up, really.
It taught me a few things though:
1.) Valkyries are big. Not just big, HUGE. It was a struggle to deploy six on a 6"x4" board. It was a struggle to keep them squadroned near terrain. You can probably exploit this with terrain if you're playing against a Valkyrie army.
2.) The guard are horribly vulnerable once out the Valks. I mean, I knew this anyway, but it's still shocking to see 130 pts squads all die to one flamer shot.
3.) If your opponent starts with units off the board he's making a mistake. If you're using reserves, go all or nothing. All off board denies the valk player the alpha strike; nothing off board gives you the forces to counterpunch. The way the Valkyrie army wins is by isolating parts of the enemy and destroying them in detail.
Next week: More soldiers.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Steel Legion Assault Corps: Progress & Transportation
Hi all,
just a quick post to A.) show you the work thus far on the air transport and B.) the work thus far on being able to transport the air transport...
Progress:
I've now built six (!) Valkyries. The are lovely models, but very, very big.
Above: Ride of the Valkyries, is an optional but recommended music choice.
To finish them, I need to mount them on car aerials, base them, and then work out the best way to apply the natural metal scheme I want - but step by step tutorials on all of that later.
For now, I just want to deal with the thorny issue of transport.
Lots of people struggle to transport their Valkyries from place to place - my solution is the humble 50 Litre plastic storage box.
Observe.
3 go in, layer of foam, 3 more go in, voila. Easy to transport flying things!
As long as you leave the stands removable, you can probably fit 8 into one of these. With the addition of a humble strap, you have a tough, durable case. Hurrah!
Next week - the first test game!
just a quick post to A.) show you the work thus far on the air transport and B.) the work thus far on being able to transport the air transport...
Progress:
I've now built six (!) Valkyries. The are lovely models, but very, very big.
Above: Ride of the Valkyries, is an optional but recommended music choice.
To finish them, I need to mount them on car aerials, base them, and then work out the best way to apply the natural metal scheme I want - but step by step tutorials on all of that later.
For now, I just want to deal with the thorny issue of transport.
Lots of people struggle to transport their Valkyries from place to place - my solution is the humble 50 Litre plastic storage box.
Observe.
3 go in, layer of foam, 3 more go in, voila. Easy to transport flying things!
As long as you leave the stands removable, you can probably fit 8 into one of these. With the addition of a humble strap, you have a tough, durable case. Hurrah!
Next week - the first test game!
Wednesday 1 September 2010
The promised pictures of the beautiful Ultramarines
Hi all,
as promised, those beautiful Ultras:
Ah ha, that's a joke. In Eastern Europe, football hooligans are referred to as "Ultras"; the picture above is actually the "fans" of a Serbian football team burning down their own stadium in protest at missing a free kick.
No, in all seriousness, here's the pictures I promised last week of the inspiring, lovely, Ultramarine army:
Gorgeous. And even though the owner lost, at no point did he set fire to anything. A true gent.
as promised, those beautiful Ultras:
Ah ha, that's a joke. In Eastern Europe, football hooligans are referred to as "Ultras"; the picture above is actually the "fans" of a Serbian football team burning down their own stadium in protest at missing a free kick.
No, in all seriousness, here's the pictures I promised last week of the inspiring, lovely, Ultramarine army:
Gorgeous. And even though the owner lost, at no point did he set fire to anything. A true gent.
Wednesday 25 August 2010
The GT2010 - The Fun Games
Right,
very, very quick report here.
Game 3 was Dawn of War, with Capture & Control - (rolling on the board turn one, with two objectives).
When the other chap got his army out its case, I was stunned. Not because it was outrageously cheap as an army list - in fact, it was a pretty standard Vulkan based marine list - but because it was one of the most beautiful armies I have ever seen. I will put up some pictures of the real thing soonish, but suffice to say, it was like playing a game against the marines from the video below.
They were stunning - every marine painted to Demon winning standard. The chap playing them was lovely. We had a great game, very close, coming down to the last dice roll to determine whether it was a draw or a win for me.
I was the lucky one - not just because I won the dice roll (Killing Vulkan's at the end of the game, giving me one objective to none). I was lucky because this game reminded me what going to tournaments is all about - playing great games against people you'd otherwise never meet, and seeing other people's beautiful toy soldiers.
Game 4 - one the morning of day 2 - was Dawn of War (rolling on the board) with Seize Ground (lots of objectives).
I was playing against a slighty worrying looking guy - 6'6", muscular, covered in tattoos and piercings, with a mohawk. Being a slightly chubby stylish London media type, I wasn't intimidated (I've been in real wars and everything, you know) but I didn't really know what to expect.
His army was 25 Space Sharks Terminators - using the Deathwing list. Essentially, he teleported in (bing!) and I ruthelessly, ruthlessly gunned them down, outmanoeuvring him totally, killing every model he had while not losing a single man.
Twas a black day for the Space Sharks, obviously. Still, we had an awesome time. I;ve seen him posting on a couple of forums, saying that my game was the best game he had all day, because although I gave him a thorough pasting, we both had a laugh, thoroughly enjoyed it, and created a narrative to the game.
This game had some particular moments I'll always remember - from killing a Space Marine Chapter Master with a single Battlecannon round ("Load AP for this one, Jenkins") to being able to say "Now I'm going to destroy you in a staggering display of military professionalism" - then moving every unit in my army 12", disembarking every troop unit, contesting all five objectives, and issuing four successful orders to kill the entire opposing army, to which my opponent replied "Why aren't all Imperial Guard regiments like yours?"
Why indeed?:)
very, very quick report here.
Game 3 was Dawn of War, with Capture & Control - (rolling on the board turn one, with two objectives).
When the other chap got his army out its case, I was stunned. Not because it was outrageously cheap as an army list - in fact, it was a pretty standard Vulkan based marine list - but because it was one of the most beautiful armies I have ever seen. I will put up some pictures of the real thing soonish, but suffice to say, it was like playing a game against the marines from the video below.
They were stunning - every marine painted to Demon winning standard. The chap playing them was lovely. We had a great game, very close, coming down to the last dice roll to determine whether it was a draw or a win for me.
I was the lucky one - not just because I won the dice roll (Killing Vulkan's at the end of the game, giving me one objective to none). I was lucky because this game reminded me what going to tournaments is all about - playing great games against people you'd otherwise never meet, and seeing other people's beautiful toy soldiers.
Game 4 - one the morning of day 2 - was Dawn of War (rolling on the board) with Seize Ground (lots of objectives).
I was playing against a slighty worrying looking guy - 6'6", muscular, covered in tattoos and piercings, with a mohawk. Being a slightly chubby stylish London media type, I wasn't intimidated (I've been in real wars and everything, you know) but I didn't really know what to expect.
His army was 25 Space Sharks Terminators - using the Deathwing list. Essentially, he teleported in (bing!) and I ruthelessly, ruthlessly gunned them down, outmanoeuvring him totally, killing every model he had while not losing a single man.
Twas a black day for the Space Sharks, obviously. Still, we had an awesome time. I;ve seen him posting on a couple of forums, saying that my game was the best game he had all day, because although I gave him a thorough pasting, we both had a laugh, thoroughly enjoyed it, and created a narrative to the game.
This game had some particular moments I'll always remember - from killing a Space Marine Chapter Master with a single Battlecannon round ("Load AP for this one, Jenkins") to being able to say "Now I'm going to destroy you in a staggering display of military professionalism" - then moving every unit in my army 12", disembarking every troop unit, contesting all five objectives, and issuing four successful orders to kill the entire opposing army, to which my opponent replied "Why aren't all Imperial Guard regiments like yours?"
Why indeed?:)
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Steel Legion Airborne List & work in progress...
Just to take a break from the reminiscences of last year's GT, and confirm that things are actually moving ahead with the Assault Corps army for this year's GT.
This is what I've got mostly stuck together thus far:
10 Veteran Guardsmen, who look exactly as I want them to (i.e. like science fiction bad-asses with rocket packs & shotguns)and 3 planes. Ahem. Those of you who are familiar with the world of the Imperial Guard will realise that I have lots to do. However, thus far, this army has been either in my head, or played with using either:
a.) Proxy models (usually epic models in my case!)
or
b.) Borrowing models from other people.
Both have their drawbacks. For example, it is more fun to run around the room with your plane going "Vrooooooom....Nyoowwwwww....zapzapzap" if it is bigger than your thumbnail. Equally, if I drop my models, I'm angry with myself, rather than having to construct some scenario where the cat broke the Valkyrie. No, really, it did.
My army list, following the year or so of proxy/borrowing experiments, is:
HQ
A command HQ with 4 meltaguns & an Astropath
A command HQ with 4 flamethrowers & a Powerfist
Troops
Veteran squad with 3 meltaguns & an Autocannon
Veteran squad with 3 flamers, demolitions & an Autocannon
Veterans squad with 3 meltaguns & an Autocannon
Veterans squad with 3 flamers, demolitions & an Autocannon
Fast Attack
2 Valkyries with Rocket Pods
2 Vendettas with heavy bolters
2 Vendettas with heavy bolters
Comments on the list are welcome, by the way.
The way I've played it thus far is as a finesse army; hitting where & when I choose. Of course, it has its drawbacks - in particular, I have lost the army to 3 autocannons in one test game - but I think it's lots of fun to use, and lots of fun to play against.
The particularly contentious things are:
The Autocannons - I find these useful for playing armies (especially assault armies) with lots of transports. Once you've demobilised them, then they are much easier to deal with, as you can isolate & destroy bits. It also gives a unit that's been left holding an objective, or has survived being shot down, something to do for the rest of the game.
The Heavy bolters on the Vendettas - It's points for flexibility again. In playtests, I found a meltagun heavy list struggled against hordes. I also found the Vendettas a little poor against armies with 150+ models. The cheap addition of the heavy bolters gives them a valid dual role.
The Astropath - He makes staying off board more viable, but
I'm totally open to suggestions - finding a way to fit marbo in would be nice.
In modelling & painting terms, this list means I have to:
Build 3 more planes.
Once I've done this, I can start playtesting the list at GW Kingston, as I have plenty of guard to segue in for as-yet unconverted veterans.
Convert 40 more Guardsmen.
Convert a cool looking astropath - levitating or with a rocket pack? Hmmmm...
Paint 6 planes - I'm going for a colour scheme like this:
Natural metal with yellow wings and black engines. My guess is, done well, it will look great. Done badly, not so much. I guess we'll see...
Paint 50 Guardsmen.
The plan is to do the rocket packs black with silver blades, to link in with the planes, and base them on mesh - fits in with the background, links them colour-wise with the planes, and I have always wanted an army on mesh bases ever since I saw Francis Ellyard's terminators for Space Hulk - about the time I had the idea for the all jump-pack army, in fact....
The basic guard will tie in with my normal Steel legion army - Black metal areas (e.g. helmets) green coats & brown detail. Hopefully, it will all look amazing, but I'll have to do a couple of test models first.
This all has to be done by the 10th of November. In short...there's a lot to do.
This is what I've got mostly stuck together thus far:
10 Veteran Guardsmen, who look exactly as I want them to (i.e. like science fiction bad-asses with rocket packs & shotguns)and 3 planes. Ahem. Those of you who are familiar with the world of the Imperial Guard will realise that I have lots to do. However, thus far, this army has been either in my head, or played with using either:
a.) Proxy models (usually epic models in my case!)
or
b.) Borrowing models from other people.
Both have their drawbacks. For example, it is more fun to run around the room with your plane going "Vrooooooom....Nyoowwwwww....zapzapzap" if it is bigger than your thumbnail. Equally, if I drop my models, I'm angry with myself, rather than having to construct some scenario where the cat broke the Valkyrie. No, really, it did.
My army list, following the year or so of proxy/borrowing experiments, is:
HQ
A command HQ with 4 meltaguns & an Astropath
A command HQ with 4 flamethrowers & a Powerfist
Troops
Veteran squad with 3 meltaguns & an Autocannon
Veteran squad with 3 flamers, demolitions & an Autocannon
Veterans squad with 3 meltaguns & an Autocannon
Veterans squad with 3 flamers, demolitions & an Autocannon
Fast Attack
2 Valkyries with Rocket Pods
2 Vendettas with heavy bolters
2 Vendettas with heavy bolters
Comments on the list are welcome, by the way.
The way I've played it thus far is as a finesse army; hitting where & when I choose. Of course, it has its drawbacks - in particular, I have lost the army to 3 autocannons in one test game - but I think it's lots of fun to use, and lots of fun to play against.
The particularly contentious things are:
The Autocannons - I find these useful for playing armies (especially assault armies) with lots of transports. Once you've demobilised them, then they are much easier to deal with, as you can isolate & destroy bits. It also gives a unit that's been left holding an objective, or has survived being shot down, something to do for the rest of the game.
The Heavy bolters on the Vendettas - It's points for flexibility again. In playtests, I found a meltagun heavy list struggled against hordes. I also found the Vendettas a little poor against armies with 150+ models. The cheap addition of the heavy bolters gives them a valid dual role.
The Astropath - He makes staying off board more viable, but
I'm totally open to suggestions - finding a way to fit marbo in would be nice.
In modelling & painting terms, this list means I have to:
Build 3 more planes.
Once I've done this, I can start playtesting the list at GW Kingston, as I have plenty of guard to segue in for as-yet unconverted veterans.
Convert 40 more Guardsmen.
Convert a cool looking astropath - levitating or with a rocket pack? Hmmmm...
Paint 6 planes - I'm going for a colour scheme like this:
Natural metal with yellow wings and black engines. My guess is, done well, it will look great. Done badly, not so much. I guess we'll see...
Paint 50 Guardsmen.
The plan is to do the rocket packs black with silver blades, to link in with the planes, and base them on mesh - fits in with the background, links them colour-wise with the planes, and I have always wanted an army on mesh bases ever since I saw Francis Ellyard's terminators for Space Hulk - about the time I had the idea for the all jump-pack army, in fact....
The basic guard will tie in with my normal Steel legion army - Black metal areas (e.g. helmets) green coats & brown detail. Hopefully, it will all look amazing, but I'll have to do a couple of test models first.
This all has to be done by the 10th of November. In short...there's a lot to do.
Wednesday 11 August 2010
UKGT 2010 final - Report from the Steel Legion perspective - Part Three - The horror of the Netlist
Hi all,
so...where were we. Ah yes, I'd just been destroyed in the most comprehensive way it is possible to be destroyed in a game of 40k. The only way I could have lost more badly would have been for my opponent to actually steal my girlfriend during turn 5.
So, the tournament being tabbed, I dropped waaaay down to the bottom table. Down there, swimming around in the juice at the bottom of the bin, I expected to find someone fairly rubbish - hopefully someone with no intent to win - a "fluff gamer", or someone who had qualified by painting alone, who didn't actually know the rules. But sadly, this being the UKGT final, I encountered an army made entirely of cheese.
No, not actually made out of cheese (Sadly). But it might as well have been. I've written on my loathing of dual-lash armies before, at the GT heats:-
I was slightly horrified in this game. The other player put his army on the table, and it was...well, it was pretty ridiculous. He had two giant horrible Lovecraftian winged tentacle monsters with mind control powers, 30 or so immortal superhuman killing machines in powered armour, and several giant Terminator 2 style things that could turn into practically any gun they wanted, and a couple of tanks firing nuclear demolition shells.
This army, is to say the least, ridiculously badass. Also, it's totally lacking in any kind of coherent theme, just a collection of models that have one thing in common - they are really mean.
It was this army, again. Oh, it was slightly different - it was nicely painted, and he had Predators instead of Vindicators. But still the mainstays - 2 lash princes, 6 Obliterators, marines in rhinos to score.
But...the player using it had a lot of class. He'd bothered with linking it all together into a coherent theme, even painting all the Obliterators to match the general scheme. I didn't take pics of them (for fear of the techno virus destroying my camera), but they were nicely modelled - he'd unified the weapons on them, so for example, one was turning into 15 assault cannons, one was turning into all flamers...
It looked really nice. As we chatted, he explained to me that he really liked Chaos marines, and wanted to bring a competitive army of them - he felt you couldn't really do a competitive Slaanesh list without lash.
I do have a certain sympathy with him - by this point, for the first time ever, the bar grumbles were about Guard rather than anything else. Almost every game I played started with the question "Sigh. How many Vendettas?" - hardly a good sign for the ongoing popularity of Guard. In particular, one chap with an eight Valkyrie list was being excoriated for having "won" the first game by preventing his opponent from deploying on the board by blocking the table edge off with Valkyries.
The way this works is his opponent put everything in reserve, anticipating getting the first shots on the Valkyries. He countered this by deploying as far forward as he could, then scouting 24", then turning his flyers end on to block the entire board edge. Effective, but hardly sporting.
There were 20 or so guard lists there, and mine was the only one relying on a mix of Chimeras and Russes - which I felt was very odd indeed, as it's generally agreed to be one of the stronger builds going.
I didn't have a great feeling going into this game - it was pitched battle (the dullest setup type) with annilation (a perennial weakness of my 17 KP army) as the victory condition. I think he looked at my army and expected it to be a hideous death-fest for him. As it was, we both had a fun game, where my essential plan was to castle the tanks, AV14 hulls out front, and his essential plan was to melt everything I had with sound cannons firing pure hero metal, turned all the way up to 11.
It shook out to a draw; I killed his 5 tanks, and both of the demon princes, but his infantry stayed alive. Shooting from Obliterators in cover gradually wore down my tanks, and I lost a couple of Russes, a trio of chimeras, and a couple of squads who were mind controlled into running into the Demon's dribbling sticky maws.
Wait, they were very firmly Slaanesh demon princes. Correct that last sentence to "Orifices". Ewww.
I'm going to skip ahead now, to game 5. By this point, I was on a high, having totally stamped on my opponents in rounds 3 & 4 (Apologies to fans of suspense - I'll deal with them next week, before unveiling my mighty work on the new army). What did I come up against?
Well, it was an army entirely made out of cheese.
Well, not quite. It was another dual-lash chaos army, but this one was played by a man with a considerably lower reserve of class than the previous gentleman. The gentleman lurked in the centre of this awful ven diagram:
The army was hideous. Hideous. And not in the game. It was just ugly.
He had two demon princes - one painted Khorne, one painted nurgle. By two different people. He then added to this an iron warriors landraider (painted by a third person), six of the horrid old obliterators (the 3rd ed ones) and three squads of "Plague marines with meltaguns".
Well, AOBR marines sprayed/drybrushed/dipped in dulux masonry paint. Green masonry paint. Their meltaguns were crudely stuck on tau fusion guns. They were painted by a fourth individual - maybe our man himself.
He was the worst sort of tournament player. The sort you read about on the interweb as the typical attendee. In fact, he represents a tiny minority of players - tournaments are fun, and attempts to "fluff them up" (as represented by the current GT ruleset I dislike) aren't going to stop him.
Anyway, we played the game, and disaster struck early for him. He ran his plaguemarines out in the open to get close to an objective. He knew it was safe to move them out of cover because he was out of all of my guns 48" range.
It rolls round to my turn, and I fire two battlecannons at them. He points out, somewhat smugly, that his marines are out of range. I point out battlecannons have a 72" range. Rulebooks are consulted. I am correct. Ha.
The plaguemarines go up in a burst of filthy masonry paint, leaving one alive. He begins to loudly complain about my "cheesy army". Brilliant. The game - Spearhead (quarters) with capture & control (2 objectives) is often thought of as the "draw" mission. It worked out that way for us, with his immobilised Land Raider cover his objective, with one plaguemarine inside it.
He wasn't even that good a player; frequently making tactical mistakes and so on. The only reason I didn't win was because a couple of my chimeras immobilised themselves on the way to his objective. Ah well, it happens.
That's the real problem with netlists like nobz bikers or dual lash - they provide a crutch for WAAC types to think they're good at the game. Of course, it all comes crumbling down when you play against someone who know's what he's doing. The other problem is that 3 out of my 12 GT games in this season were against slightly dull samey armies - armies I probably wouldn't have chosen to play 3 times, if I'm honest.
Anyway - what did I learn?
1.) Don't judge a book by its cover. A guy with a netlist that looks awesome can be a great player and a great hobbyist. Equally, he can be a tool.
2.) Battlecannons having a 72" range is still awesome.
3.) Guard are a "totally broken army" according to some netlist players...
so...where were we. Ah yes, I'd just been destroyed in the most comprehensive way it is possible to be destroyed in a game of 40k. The only way I could have lost more badly would have been for my opponent to actually steal my girlfriend during turn 5.
So, the tournament being tabbed, I dropped waaaay down to the bottom table. Down there, swimming around in the juice at the bottom of the bin, I expected to find someone fairly rubbish - hopefully someone with no intent to win - a "fluff gamer", or someone who had qualified by painting alone, who didn't actually know the rules. But sadly, this being the UKGT final, I encountered an army made entirely of cheese.
No, not actually made out of cheese (Sadly). But it might as well have been. I've written on my loathing of dual-lash armies before, at the GT heats:-
I was slightly horrified in this game. The other player put his army on the table, and it was...well, it was pretty ridiculous. He had two giant horrible Lovecraftian winged tentacle monsters with mind control powers, 30 or so immortal superhuman killing machines in powered armour, and several giant Terminator 2 style things that could turn into practically any gun they wanted, and a couple of tanks firing nuclear demolition shells.
This army, is to say the least, ridiculously badass. Also, it's totally lacking in any kind of coherent theme, just a collection of models that have one thing in common - they are really mean.
It was this army, again. Oh, it was slightly different - it was nicely painted, and he had Predators instead of Vindicators. But still the mainstays - 2 lash princes, 6 Obliterators, marines in rhinos to score.
But...the player using it had a lot of class. He'd bothered with linking it all together into a coherent theme, even painting all the Obliterators to match the general scheme. I didn't take pics of them (for fear of the techno virus destroying my camera), but they were nicely modelled - he'd unified the weapons on them, so for example, one was turning into 15 assault cannons, one was turning into all flamers...
It looked really nice. As we chatted, he explained to me that he really liked Chaos marines, and wanted to bring a competitive army of them - he felt you couldn't really do a competitive Slaanesh list without lash.
I do have a certain sympathy with him - by this point, for the first time ever, the bar grumbles were about Guard rather than anything else. Almost every game I played started with the question "Sigh. How many Vendettas?" - hardly a good sign for the ongoing popularity of Guard. In particular, one chap with an eight Valkyrie list was being excoriated for having "won" the first game by preventing his opponent from deploying on the board by blocking the table edge off with Valkyries.
The way this works is his opponent put everything in reserve, anticipating getting the first shots on the Valkyries. He countered this by deploying as far forward as he could, then scouting 24", then turning his flyers end on to block the entire board edge. Effective, but hardly sporting.
There were 20 or so guard lists there, and mine was the only one relying on a mix of Chimeras and Russes - which I felt was very odd indeed, as it's generally agreed to be one of the stronger builds going.
I didn't have a great feeling going into this game - it was pitched battle (the dullest setup type) with annilation (a perennial weakness of my 17 KP army) as the victory condition. I think he looked at my army and expected it to be a hideous death-fest for him. As it was, we both had a fun game, where my essential plan was to castle the tanks, AV14 hulls out front, and his essential plan was to melt everything I had with sound cannons firing pure hero metal, turned all the way up to 11.
It shook out to a draw; I killed his 5 tanks, and both of the demon princes, but his infantry stayed alive. Shooting from Obliterators in cover gradually wore down my tanks, and I lost a couple of Russes, a trio of chimeras, and a couple of squads who were mind controlled into running into the Demon's dribbling sticky maws.
Wait, they were very firmly Slaanesh demon princes. Correct that last sentence to "Orifices". Ewww.
I'm going to skip ahead now, to game 5. By this point, I was on a high, having totally stamped on my opponents in rounds 3 & 4 (Apologies to fans of suspense - I'll deal with them next week, before unveiling my mighty work on the new army). What did I come up against?
Well, it was an army entirely made out of cheese.
Well, not quite. It was another dual-lash chaos army, but this one was played by a man with a considerably lower reserve of class than the previous gentleman. The gentleman lurked in the centre of this awful ven diagram:
The army was hideous. Hideous. And not in the game. It was just ugly.
He had two demon princes - one painted Khorne, one painted nurgle. By two different people. He then added to this an iron warriors landraider (painted by a third person), six of the horrid old obliterators (the 3rd ed ones) and three squads of "Plague marines with meltaguns".
Well, AOBR marines sprayed/drybrushed/dipped in dulux masonry paint. Green masonry paint. Their meltaguns were crudely stuck on tau fusion guns. They were painted by a fourth individual - maybe our man himself.
He was the worst sort of tournament player. The sort you read about on the interweb as the typical attendee. In fact, he represents a tiny minority of players - tournaments are fun, and attempts to "fluff them up" (as represented by the current GT ruleset I dislike) aren't going to stop him.
Anyway, we played the game, and disaster struck early for him. He ran his plaguemarines out in the open to get close to an objective. He knew it was safe to move them out of cover because he was out of all of my guns 48" range.
It rolls round to my turn, and I fire two battlecannons at them. He points out, somewhat smugly, that his marines are out of range. I point out battlecannons have a 72" range. Rulebooks are consulted. I am correct. Ha.
The plaguemarines go up in a burst of filthy masonry paint, leaving one alive. He begins to loudly complain about my "cheesy army". Brilliant. The game - Spearhead (quarters) with capture & control (2 objectives) is often thought of as the "draw" mission. It worked out that way for us, with his immobilised Land Raider cover his objective, with one plaguemarine inside it.
He wasn't even that good a player; frequently making tactical mistakes and so on. The only reason I didn't win was because a couple of my chimeras immobilised themselves on the way to his objective. Ah well, it happens.
That's the real problem with netlists like nobz bikers or dual lash - they provide a crutch for WAAC types to think they're good at the game. Of course, it all comes crumbling down when you play against someone who know's what he's doing. The other problem is that 3 out of my 12 GT games in this season were against slightly dull samey armies - armies I probably wouldn't have chosen to play 3 times, if I'm honest.
Anyway - what did I learn?
1.) Don't judge a book by its cover. A guy with a netlist that looks awesome can be a great player and a great hobbyist. Equally, he can be a tool.
2.) Battlecannons having a 72" range is still awesome.
3.) Guard are a "totally broken army" according to some netlist players...
Wednesday 4 August 2010
UKGT 2010 final - Report from the Steel Legion perspective - Part Two
So, there I was, just wandering around the hall on March the 13th 2010, wondering to myself why very few people were playing Tyranids. I was full to the brim with free coffee and doughnuts, and ready for my first game.
Game One - Where are the Demonhunters when you need them?
First game, I pulled a game against a Demons of Chaos army. In background terms this is a pretty bad matchup for my army; generally, even if Guardsmen win against Demons, they are executed afterwards to prevent word of the horrors of the warp getting out. Instead, it's usually left to specialist psychically shielded Demonhunters to do the business...but I suppose they were off polishing their Golden Armour or something.
Above: Andrew Taylor's beautiful Demonhunters army. Possibly so beautiful because they leave the hard work of hunting Demons to the Guard?:)
In actuality, looking at our comparative lists, I was pretty confident of winning (...and thus being executed afterwards). He had a Lord of Change, a Demon Prince, a (very pretty) Herald on a chariot, 2 units of 6 fiends, 2 units of 5 plaguebearers & one unit of 6 Bloodcrushers.
Above: The Herald, my pretties...
Compared to my ten tanks and sixty-five guard, I wasn't worried at all. Being all too aware of the damage 60-odd 36" range shots from multilasers, heavy bolters and heavy stubbers can do to any army, I wasn't too worried about one made of 41 relatively squishy wounds behind invulnerable saves, which comes at you piecemeal and can only really do damage in combat.
The mission type was Capture and Control (multiple objectives), on a Spearhead (Quarters) deployment. Now, at this point, in my test games, I hadn't lost a game with multiple objectives in months - it's one of the real strengths of a list with 6 scoring units in transports.
He picked the half of his army with the two units of fiends, the herald, the Lord of Change, and the Bloodcrushers. In what was soon to be a trend, he got the half he wanted on the random demon half-army roll. He also won the setup roll, meaning I had to set up first, thus effectively losing a turn, as demons somewhat rudely will always turn up late:)
I put the battletanks quite far forward, moving them at full speed - I was thinking the weren't going to be much help in this game (can't autokill anything, everything has invun saves), so was driving them forwards on a tangent from the rest of the army. I was hoping things would bunch to assault them, drawing them a.) into better positions to flame/battlecannon and b.) further from objectives. Everything else hung back, sticking to hull down positions - largely provided by the advancing Leman Russes.
On the first turn, he deepstriked in - putting the tanks forward meant he was quite far (20" or so) from my Chimeras - what were going to win me the game. This is what things looked like on turn one:
Things didn't look like this for long, as he fired two bolts of change (ST 8 AP1 shots)... and destroyed both of my Leman Russes. One on the side armour, hull down, one on the front armour, hull down. I was a little taken aback, it's fair to say. Still, I wasn't really expecting the Russes to do much in this game (I was basically going to sacrifice them), but losing 300 odd points like that is always a bit jarring.
Subsequently, on my turn, I returned fire with the Chimeras & Guardsmen, while moving forwards at full speed with the demolisher, tank shocking the bloodcrushers. I also moved command sections into positions where they could flame fiends/bloodcrushers who assaulted the demolisher. I fired 7 Multilasers, 4 heavy bolters, 7 Heavy Stubbers, 4 Lascannons and 4 Plasma guns at the Bloodcrushers.
I figured, 10 wounds, a 3+ save... how bad can it be? I regularly kill fully formed units of marines with full volleys of fire from my army.
I did a wound. Just one.
The odds against that are literally thousands to one, but I was genuinely surprised that the Bloodcrushers could pull the Nobz bikers wound allocation trick; even without my appalling rolls, and the "barred from Vegas"-esque saves my opponent rolled, it would have been a mistake to fire at them in the first place. I should really have destroyed the fiends.
On his second turn, he rolled amazingly well on reserves (at 5+ because of the fleetmaster) and deepstriked in all the rest of the army. Wow, so now the navy AND the Demon hunters had let us down. Bad. He then proceeded to fire his three bolts of change... destroying three hull down Chimeras. In one of the blasts I lost nine guardsmen to the Chimera explosion. By this point, the lovely chap playing the demons was almost apologetic for how well he was rolling. On my third turn, I fired seven Chimeras at the fiends...and did a wound. Again, terrible, terrible rolls.
He assaulted the Demolisher with the Bloodcrushers (Hitting on 6s, Penetrating on 6s) and destroyed it. Things were not going well, it's fair to say. I was starting to see what those "Perils of the warp" the inquisitors were always going on about were all about.
I hit on a plan. All I had to do was to wipe out his scoring units (10 Plaguebearers) and then the worst I could do was a draw. After a few scrappy turns, where my luck and his luck returned to average, I tried to gun down all the plaguebearers, as fiends and bloodcrushers ran rampant though my army. I was basically able to slow them down by "feeding" them a unit a turn, and spreading out with the units that still had transports.
I managed to kill 4 plaguebearers with shooting. Hardly impressive. I was left in a position on tun 6 where I could get a draw; all I had to do was kill the 5 wound, WS2, T3, 5+ save Herald who was contesting an objective, then use a massacre move to mean the Bloodcrushers could only kill one unit, and I'd be fine. I could even win if a command section with two meltaguns and two flamers could kill 5 plaguebearers in cover.
So, I moved in the Chimera with the command section, leaving the command section inside so they would have more chance of contesting the objective if they didn't kill the plaguebearers (as the local fiends would be less likely to kill them AND their Chimera) and positioned my remaining 20 guardsmen to assault the herald. I decided to assault him rather than shoot him because I felt while 40 Lasgun shots were unlikely to do the 5 wounds required, the extra wounds from the combat result would probably do it.
I started my shooting phase by saying "I'll fire this command section at the plaguebearers". My opponent replied,
"You can't - you just moved that Chimera 12". He was absolutely right. Here I was at the GT, and I'd just made a really, really, really stupid error. It is probably the stupidest mistake I've made in like eight years of tournament gaming. Still, it was going to be fine. He was unlikely to kill the Chimera AND the command section, so all I had to do was kill one herald and I'd be fine.
20 Guardsmen charge, going first. 42 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 4s, saving on either 4s or 5s (I forget which). Even assuming it's saving on 4s, on average I'd do 6 or 7 wounds. I hit with about 15 attacks, wounded with about 5, and he made all his saves. He fought back, killed one guardsman - both squads broke and ran, and the herald ran them both down.
Free from combat, he bolt of changes the Chimera, which explodes. My Colonel dies a messy death to fiends. Even in this game, I was speechless. I had done 5 wounds in the game, and lost literally everything I had in six turns. It's the worst defeat I have ever had in warhammer 40,000; I think it's one of maybe three times I've been tabled in a game.
As for the result of the game, I suppose I basically saved the Inquisition some bullets in shooting my Guardsmen. In fact, it's possible the beautifully painted Traitor Guard below (one of the best army nominees) had the right idea when it comes to Chaos...
In short, all praise the Dark Gods! And their ludicrous dice rolls!
Lessons Learned: Chimeras, right? They can't move 12" and still fire from inside. That is so last edition.
You'd think I'd know that, and clearly, I do, but the truth is, in this game, I was grasping at straws so much after two turns I wasn't thinking clearly and just ended up playing on autopilot. That's what leads to mistakes. I had 45 minutes left on the clock, on turn 6, with 25 infantry and one tank left.
My opponent would not have minded me having a proper think. I had managed to claw my way back into the game after an appalling start. To be fair, even without the mistake, I probably would still have lost, but it was still galling. Even, maybe even especially at moments of high emotion, it's best to sit back, take a deep breath and think every move through.
After the game, I took my opponent to the bar, and bought him a pint. He was a great guy, and I had a superb game, even though I lost as badly as you can possibly lose. He was almost embarrassed at how lucky he'd been - but still, I do think another mistake I made was to underestimate him and his army.
I looked at it on paper, and I didn't really appreciate just how devastating things like fiends were against infantry (or how fragile they were); I had no idea how the wound allocation & bloodcrushers trick worked. I'd certainly have more respect for a demon army now - but more importantly, I've actually played against it.
To prep for a tournament, this year I'm going to try to get games against all (or most) of the competitive armies; I'd rather not be surprised and drubbed again...
Game One - Where are the Demonhunters when you need them?
First game, I pulled a game against a Demons of Chaos army. In background terms this is a pretty bad matchup for my army; generally, even if Guardsmen win against Demons, they are executed afterwards to prevent word of the horrors of the warp getting out. Instead, it's usually left to specialist psychically shielded Demonhunters to do the business...but I suppose they were off polishing their Golden Armour or something.
Above: Andrew Taylor's beautiful Demonhunters army. Possibly so beautiful because they leave the hard work of hunting Demons to the Guard?:)
In actuality, looking at our comparative lists, I was pretty confident of winning (...and thus being executed afterwards). He had a Lord of Change, a Demon Prince, a (very pretty) Herald on a chariot, 2 units of 6 fiends, 2 units of 5 plaguebearers & one unit of 6 Bloodcrushers.
Above: The Herald, my pretties...
Compared to my ten tanks and sixty-five guard, I wasn't worried at all. Being all too aware of the damage 60-odd 36" range shots from multilasers, heavy bolters and heavy stubbers can do to any army, I wasn't too worried about one made of 41 relatively squishy wounds behind invulnerable saves, which comes at you piecemeal and can only really do damage in combat.
The mission type was Capture and Control (multiple objectives), on a Spearhead (Quarters) deployment. Now, at this point, in my test games, I hadn't lost a game with multiple objectives in months - it's one of the real strengths of a list with 6 scoring units in transports.
He picked the half of his army with the two units of fiends, the herald, the Lord of Change, and the Bloodcrushers. In what was soon to be a trend, he got the half he wanted on the random demon half-army roll. He also won the setup roll, meaning I had to set up first, thus effectively losing a turn, as demons somewhat rudely will always turn up late:)
I put the battletanks quite far forward, moving them at full speed - I was thinking the weren't going to be much help in this game (can't autokill anything, everything has invun saves), so was driving them forwards on a tangent from the rest of the army. I was hoping things would bunch to assault them, drawing them a.) into better positions to flame/battlecannon and b.) further from objectives. Everything else hung back, sticking to hull down positions - largely provided by the advancing Leman Russes.
On the first turn, he deepstriked in - putting the tanks forward meant he was quite far (20" or so) from my Chimeras - what were going to win me the game. This is what things looked like on turn one:
Things didn't look like this for long, as he fired two bolts of change (ST 8 AP1 shots)... and destroyed both of my Leman Russes. One on the side armour, hull down, one on the front armour, hull down. I was a little taken aback, it's fair to say. Still, I wasn't really expecting the Russes to do much in this game (I was basically going to sacrifice them), but losing 300 odd points like that is always a bit jarring.
Subsequently, on my turn, I returned fire with the Chimeras & Guardsmen, while moving forwards at full speed with the demolisher, tank shocking the bloodcrushers. I also moved command sections into positions where they could flame fiends/bloodcrushers who assaulted the demolisher. I fired 7 Multilasers, 4 heavy bolters, 7 Heavy Stubbers, 4 Lascannons and 4 Plasma guns at the Bloodcrushers.
I figured, 10 wounds, a 3+ save... how bad can it be? I regularly kill fully formed units of marines with full volleys of fire from my army.
I did a wound. Just one.
The odds against that are literally thousands to one, but I was genuinely surprised that the Bloodcrushers could pull the Nobz bikers wound allocation trick; even without my appalling rolls, and the "barred from Vegas"-esque saves my opponent rolled, it would have been a mistake to fire at them in the first place. I should really have destroyed the fiends.
On his second turn, he rolled amazingly well on reserves (at 5+ because of the fleetmaster) and deepstriked in all the rest of the army. Wow, so now the navy AND the Demon hunters had let us down. Bad. He then proceeded to fire his three bolts of change... destroying three hull down Chimeras. In one of the blasts I lost nine guardsmen to the Chimera explosion. By this point, the lovely chap playing the demons was almost apologetic for how well he was rolling. On my third turn, I fired seven Chimeras at the fiends...and did a wound. Again, terrible, terrible rolls.
He assaulted the Demolisher with the Bloodcrushers (Hitting on 6s, Penetrating on 6s) and destroyed it. Things were not going well, it's fair to say. I was starting to see what those "Perils of the warp" the inquisitors were always going on about were all about.
I hit on a plan. All I had to do was to wipe out his scoring units (10 Plaguebearers) and then the worst I could do was a draw. After a few scrappy turns, where my luck and his luck returned to average, I tried to gun down all the plaguebearers, as fiends and bloodcrushers ran rampant though my army. I was basically able to slow them down by "feeding" them a unit a turn, and spreading out with the units that still had transports.
I managed to kill 4 plaguebearers with shooting. Hardly impressive. I was left in a position on tun 6 where I could get a draw; all I had to do was kill the 5 wound, WS2, T3, 5+ save Herald who was contesting an objective, then use a massacre move to mean the Bloodcrushers could only kill one unit, and I'd be fine. I could even win if a command section with two meltaguns and two flamers could kill 5 plaguebearers in cover.
So, I moved in the Chimera with the command section, leaving the command section inside so they would have more chance of contesting the objective if they didn't kill the plaguebearers (as the local fiends would be less likely to kill them AND their Chimera) and positioned my remaining 20 guardsmen to assault the herald. I decided to assault him rather than shoot him because I felt while 40 Lasgun shots were unlikely to do the 5 wounds required, the extra wounds from the combat result would probably do it.
I started my shooting phase by saying "I'll fire this command section at the plaguebearers". My opponent replied,
"You can't - you just moved that Chimera 12". He was absolutely right. Here I was at the GT, and I'd just made a really, really, really stupid error. It is probably the stupidest mistake I've made in like eight years of tournament gaming. Still, it was going to be fine. He was unlikely to kill the Chimera AND the command section, so all I had to do was kill one herald and I'd be fine.
20 Guardsmen charge, going first. 42 attacks, hitting on 3s, wounding on 4s, saving on either 4s or 5s (I forget which). Even assuming it's saving on 4s, on average I'd do 6 or 7 wounds. I hit with about 15 attacks, wounded with about 5, and he made all his saves. He fought back, killed one guardsman - both squads broke and ran, and the herald ran them both down.
Free from combat, he bolt of changes the Chimera, which explodes. My Colonel dies a messy death to fiends. Even in this game, I was speechless. I had done 5 wounds in the game, and lost literally everything I had in six turns. It's the worst defeat I have ever had in warhammer 40,000; I think it's one of maybe three times I've been tabled in a game.
As for the result of the game, I suppose I basically saved the Inquisition some bullets in shooting my Guardsmen. In fact, it's possible the beautifully painted Traitor Guard below (one of the best army nominees) had the right idea when it comes to Chaos...
In short, all praise the Dark Gods! And their ludicrous dice rolls!
Lessons Learned: Chimeras, right? They can't move 12" and still fire from inside. That is so last edition.
You'd think I'd know that, and clearly, I do, but the truth is, in this game, I was grasping at straws so much after two turns I wasn't thinking clearly and just ended up playing on autopilot. That's what leads to mistakes. I had 45 minutes left on the clock, on turn 6, with 25 infantry and one tank left.
My opponent would not have minded me having a proper think. I had managed to claw my way back into the game after an appalling start. To be fair, even without the mistake, I probably would still have lost, but it was still galling. Even, maybe even especially at moments of high emotion, it's best to sit back, take a deep breath and think every move through.
After the game, I took my opponent to the bar, and bought him a pint. He was a great guy, and I had a superb game, even though I lost as badly as you can possibly lose. He was almost embarrassed at how lucky he'd been - but still, I do think another mistake I made was to underestimate him and his army.
I looked at it on paper, and I didn't really appreciate just how devastating things like fiends were against infantry (or how fragile they were); I had no idea how the wound allocation & bloodcrushers trick worked. I'd certainly have more respect for a demon army now - but more importantly, I've actually played against it.
To prep for a tournament, this year I'm going to try to get games against all (or most) of the competitive armies; I'd rather not be surprised and drubbed again...
Wednesday 28 July 2010
UKGT 2010 final - Report from the Steel Legion perspective - Part One.
As as a report, this is *months* late, but hopefully it should prove at least vaguely illuminating...And what's a blog without a little reflective navel gazing?
Oh, and there'll be pictures of tanks!
The Armies
I had considered doing an army very like the one I am planning on taking this year - one full of the three Vs - Vendettas, Veterans & Valkyries. I decided against it, and stuck with my beloved mechanised infantry. Wandering around the tables, I saw that a.) there were far more guard players than usual and b.) Valkyries & Vendettas were everywhere.
It was at this point I realised that guard had transmogrified from an army your opponent would smirk about to an army your opponent would complain about. Still, looking up close with my hardened Guard player's eye, I wasn't very impressed by lots of these armies... for example, several had 7, 8 or 9 flyers. No matter how many lists I've written, I can't really fit that many in to a coherent 1500pt list.
Still, lots of them were beautifully painted, like this traitor Guard army:
Other than all the Guard, there were some of the tournament standards - Lash Prince Chaos, Ork Battlewagon list, Nobz Bikers - the usual. Of course, plenty of decent, fair sensible armies played by nice people too! The big surprise for me was the lack of Tyranid lists - there were only two in the final. My guess is, the lack of a model for a Tervigon probably stopped them appearing, as they are a pretty key feature of any competitive Tyranid build....
Anyway, my army was pretty different from the other guard builds there. No veterans, no vendettas. Here it is:
Steel legion army list
Hq
Colonel, 2 meltas, 2 flamers, Officer of the Fleet
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Troops
Red platoon
Hq 4 flamers
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Blue platoon
Hq 4 flamers
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Heavy Support
Russ Demolisher with lascannon 180
Russ with lascannon 165
Russ with heavy flamer 150
Anyway, more on the games in the next couple of days as it's late and I'm tired!
Oh, and there'll be pictures of tanks!
The Armies
I had considered doing an army very like the one I am planning on taking this year - one full of the three Vs - Vendettas, Veterans & Valkyries. I decided against it, and stuck with my beloved mechanised infantry. Wandering around the tables, I saw that a.) there were far more guard players than usual and b.) Valkyries & Vendettas were everywhere.
It was at this point I realised that guard had transmogrified from an army your opponent would smirk about to an army your opponent would complain about. Still, looking up close with my hardened Guard player's eye, I wasn't very impressed by lots of these armies... for example, several had 7, 8 or 9 flyers. No matter how many lists I've written, I can't really fit that many in to a coherent 1500pt list.
Still, lots of them were beautifully painted, like this traitor Guard army:
Other than all the Guard, there were some of the tournament standards - Lash Prince Chaos, Ork Battlewagon list, Nobz Bikers - the usual. Of course, plenty of decent, fair sensible armies played by nice people too! The big surprise for me was the lack of Tyranid lists - there were only two in the final. My guess is, the lack of a model for a Tervigon probably stopped them appearing, as they are a pretty key feature of any competitive Tyranid build....
Anyway, my army was pretty different from the other guard builds there. No veterans, no vendettas. Here it is:
Steel legion army list
Hq
Colonel, 2 meltas, 2 flamers, Officer of the Fleet
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Troops
Red platoon
Hq 4 flamers
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Blue platoon
Hq 4 flamers
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy flamer
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Squad with lascannon & plasma gun
Chimera with multilaser, heavy stubber, heavy bolter
Heavy Support
Russ Demolisher with lascannon 180
Russ with lascannon 165
Russ with heavy flamer 150
Anyway, more on the games in the next couple of days as it's late and I'm tired!
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Throne of Skulls/UK GT - why I'm going
The Games Workshop Grand Tournament has changed this year, drastically.
The responses from tournament players have varied from the fairly reasonable "This is as far from a competitive event I have ever seen in my life"( typified by this post to the outraged "This whole thing reeks of thirty-one flavors of bullshit" nerd-rage best exemplified by this amusingly swearing filled hate-rant.
Now, my disapproval leans more to the reasoned complaint than to the drinking-from-a-bottle-of-meths-in-a-piss-stained-raincoat lunatic ranting from our American chums.
For a long time, I've sat across the atlantic, wondering how US gamers put up with the awful dog show aspects of the tournament scene over there. There are far more points available for army "composition", for painting and for "being a nice guy" than there are for actually, you know, playing the game.
It's nice in theory - but it leads to all kinds of awful distortions of the game. For example, people paying professionals to paint their armies to guarantee painting scores, people deliberately swapping "most sporting player" for points, and the way in which army composition being "fair" or not is entirely subjective.
For example, at the last GT, my army looked like this:
You might notice, there's quite a few tanks. More tanks than my opponent had men.
Still, totally in-keeping with the background of my army (Steel Legion, remember). Nicely painted. But is it nicely painted enough? Is it "fair" enough to pass composition scores? Is it "fair" enough that people will not think I'm using a "cheesy" army?
I actually had a brilliant game against that Space Wolf player, but I totally destroyed him. Would he give me "best opposing army"?
Is it "fairer" than this army?:
Some people don't like tank armies. Some people think Vendettas are undercosted. Some people just hate playing against Imperial Guard. You can be perceived as a cheat just because of internet gossip or what that specific tournament environment is like. For example, this year, literally, the first question I was asked when I told my opponent what army I was playing was "how many Vendettas"?
For the record, I was the top guard player. I didn't take a cheesy or min-maxed list - I beat all the people with 7,8,9 flyers. But there's a chance I would be marked down just for playing guard. Or marked up for playing non-flying guard.
It's all subjective. And it's all judged by other players. Which creates a huge problem. What is meant to encourage fun encourages a nasty, bloodthirsty competitiveness that exists outside the game. You get to anonymously attack other people's army choices, painting skills - all the rest of it.
Suffice to say, soft scores, handed out by other players, are a bad idea.
The big changes are not just the addition of these "soft scores" - which I dislike more than anything- but other bad things include:
Random pairing
Every round is random - I really enjoyed the tabbing & score system, which meant you played against equally skilled opponents. This creates a bad situation for both hardcore tournament players like me, and for the more fluff oriented gamer.
Hardened players like me want to go up against the best lists with the best players. No guarantee of that. Equally, the fluffmasters prefer it when they don't have to play against hardcore out-to-win types every round.
The point is, it used to be, you could only lose the GT on day one. So on day two, the games down at the bottom tables were a good laugh. People relaxed, just had fun. Left the sweating on dice rolls to the people on the top tables.
If you don't think this is a bad idea, imagine if Wimbledon matches (or the Oxford IV!) were randomly tabbed. You can easily end up with immensely distorted results.
In the picture below, you can see my guard just about to destroy a lovely Ultramarine army -
This result only came about as a result of both my opponent & I losing our first games badly. I did beat him, and pop back up (finishing 35th overall), but the point was, the game felt fair. We were matching players on equal points - there's far more chance of having a string of fun games against equally skilled opponents with similar armies this way, than having it random.
Segregated Scoring
You don't just "win" or "lose" overall anymore. Overall tournament victory is determined by an arcane calculation based on how many of your army there are at the tournament. This (might) be a good way to aggregate a league, but it's not a good way to assess victory in a short competitive gaming event.
Why? It takes away from the meaning of achievements. Who cares if you were the best Black Templars player if you were the only one who turned up? Equally, how do you explain the scoring system that made you the best Space Marines player? What does having the biggest "margin of victory" mean?
The new moves to race based rewards are (I think)an attempt to make more people "winners" - but the truth is, the previous system made far more people feel like they'd achieved something that day. Why? Well...
Dropped Final
If you finished in the top 45, you got to go to a free final held in the spring, which had an amazing standard of gaming. It meant that 1/3rd of people left very happy - they had got a tangible result for being pretty good.
Dropped 6th game
It used to be £55 for 6 games. Now, they are cutting it down to 3 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday. I have never need more time in a 1500 pt 40k game in a tournament. It just doesn't take two and a half hours to play.
I understand that some people complained it was hard for them to finish at 5pm on a Sunday and get home at a reasonable time. TO be honest, if this brings an influx of scottish/southeastern players, I'll be surprised.
Roster Tie-Break
I work in PR & publishing - I write in my spare time. I have no problem with the tie-breaker being on army roster (I'm already planning my Valkyrie Crash Safety brochure & Ork-Imperial phrasebook), I can see how some people who just want gaming will despise it.
Equally, it's unbelievably subjective. The judges just decide who of the tied scores wins. A coin toss would probably be fairer, or a judgement on quality of painting would probably be fairer.
Conclusions
Under the previous system, we had as credible a tournament scene as 40k could have - power paired rounds, no subjective painting or sportsmanship scores, and a final where you had to qualify in the top 45 of a tournament to even get in the door.
That final - the one with the 150 other people who were guaranteed to know how to play the game - was free to attend.
So, you got a great prize for showing up and playing your best in the heats - you were guaranteed to get six games against great opponents. That was certainly my experience of it. Winning the whole thing brought as much kudos as anything with Toy Soldiers in it; equally, the only way to qualify for the tourney other than gaming score was by having one of the 5 best painted armies at a heat.
The 15 best painted tickets usually meant the standard of the armies in the best army nominations was phenomenal. Incidentally, this year, at the final, 9 of the 15 best painters had qualified on gaming score AND painting, just in case you thought they were automatically "easy" games.
How is the new system a better celebration of the hobby? I suspect the quality of the armies will be worse, the quality of the games will be worse, and we all get less game for our money.
But, I'll still be going.
Why?
Much as I like non-GW events (like Vanguard & Spoils of War, the brilliant tournament organised by my Brizzle chums - buy tickets now!) I find they draw from a narrower pool of Gamers - for example, I look down the lists of gamers and find I know about 1/3rd of them.
It is very much Bristol's gaming community's big day out. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the GT I've played people from all over Europe, from all over the country. Nothing has the same pull and the same variety of gamers and armies.
Equally, they don't have the same "feel".
There is something to be said from playing in the big gaming hall in Nottingham - from winning best army at an event where the pics go on the GW website - from the deeply varied group the GT attracts.
Also, at the end of the day, it is still a good value for money event. All the food is included; all of the terrain and scenery is lovely. £27 a day is not a great deal for that sort of thing. There are cheaper options available, yes, but if I was worried about money I probably wouldn't play GW games.
Ultimately, I'm going to give it a try - despite my reservations, maybe it'll be great. Maybe it'll be terrible. But at least I'll be able to say authoritatively one way or another.
Also, I'll be able to add weight to my complaints if it *is* bad. Staying away, in my opinion, isn't really going to cut it. If the GT (something I really enjoy) is being damaged, then I want to fight to save it, not acquiesce and say, "Ah, I'll just go to Mayhem/Vanquish".
The responses from tournament players have varied from the fairly reasonable "This is as far from a competitive event I have ever seen in my life"( typified by this post to the outraged "This whole thing reeks of thirty-one flavors of bullshit" nerd-rage best exemplified by this amusingly swearing filled hate-rant.
Now, my disapproval leans more to the reasoned complaint than to the drinking-from-a-bottle-of-meths-in-a-piss-stained-raincoat lunatic ranting from our American chums.
For a long time, I've sat across the atlantic, wondering how US gamers put up with the awful dog show aspects of the tournament scene over there. There are far more points available for army "composition", for painting and for "being a nice guy" than there are for actually, you know, playing the game.
It's nice in theory - but it leads to all kinds of awful distortions of the game. For example, people paying professionals to paint their armies to guarantee painting scores, people deliberately swapping "most sporting player" for points, and the way in which army composition being "fair" or not is entirely subjective.
For example, at the last GT, my army looked like this:
You might notice, there's quite a few tanks. More tanks than my opponent had men.
Still, totally in-keeping with the background of my army (Steel Legion, remember). Nicely painted. But is it nicely painted enough? Is it "fair" enough to pass composition scores? Is it "fair" enough that people will not think I'm using a "cheesy" army?
I actually had a brilliant game against that Space Wolf player, but I totally destroyed him. Would he give me "best opposing army"?
Is it "fairer" than this army?:
Some people don't like tank armies. Some people think Vendettas are undercosted. Some people just hate playing against Imperial Guard. You can be perceived as a cheat just because of internet gossip or what that specific tournament environment is like. For example, this year, literally, the first question I was asked when I told my opponent what army I was playing was "how many Vendettas"?
For the record, I was the top guard player. I didn't take a cheesy or min-maxed list - I beat all the people with 7,8,9 flyers. But there's a chance I would be marked down just for playing guard. Or marked up for playing non-flying guard.
It's all subjective. And it's all judged by other players. Which creates a huge problem. What is meant to encourage fun encourages a nasty, bloodthirsty competitiveness that exists outside the game. You get to anonymously attack other people's army choices, painting skills - all the rest of it.
Suffice to say, soft scores, handed out by other players, are a bad idea.
The big changes are not just the addition of these "soft scores" - which I dislike more than anything- but other bad things include:
Random pairing
Every round is random - I really enjoyed the tabbing & score system, which meant you played against equally skilled opponents. This creates a bad situation for both hardcore tournament players like me, and for the more fluff oriented gamer.
Hardened players like me want to go up against the best lists with the best players. No guarantee of that. Equally, the fluffmasters prefer it when they don't have to play against hardcore out-to-win types every round.
The point is, it used to be, you could only lose the GT on day one. So on day two, the games down at the bottom tables were a good laugh. People relaxed, just had fun. Left the sweating on dice rolls to the people on the top tables.
If you don't think this is a bad idea, imagine if Wimbledon matches (or the Oxford IV!) were randomly tabbed. You can easily end up with immensely distorted results.
In the picture below, you can see my guard just about to destroy a lovely Ultramarine army -
This result only came about as a result of both my opponent & I losing our first games badly. I did beat him, and pop back up (finishing 35th overall), but the point was, the game felt fair. We were matching players on equal points - there's far more chance of having a string of fun games against equally skilled opponents with similar armies this way, than having it random.
Segregated Scoring
You don't just "win" or "lose" overall anymore. Overall tournament victory is determined by an arcane calculation based on how many of your army there are at the tournament. This (might) be a good way to aggregate a league, but it's not a good way to assess victory in a short competitive gaming event.
Why? It takes away from the meaning of achievements. Who cares if you were the best Black Templars player if you were the only one who turned up? Equally, how do you explain the scoring system that made you the best Space Marines player? What does having the biggest "margin of victory" mean?
The new moves to race based rewards are (I think)an attempt to make more people "winners" - but the truth is, the previous system made far more people feel like they'd achieved something that day. Why? Well...
Dropped Final
If you finished in the top 45, you got to go to a free final held in the spring, which had an amazing standard of gaming. It meant that 1/3rd of people left very happy - they had got a tangible result for being pretty good.
Dropped 6th game
It used to be £55 for 6 games. Now, they are cutting it down to 3 games Saturday, 2 games Sunday. I have never need more time in a 1500 pt 40k game in a tournament. It just doesn't take two and a half hours to play.
I understand that some people complained it was hard for them to finish at 5pm on a Sunday and get home at a reasonable time. TO be honest, if this brings an influx of scottish/southeastern players, I'll be surprised.
Roster Tie-Break
I work in PR & publishing - I write in my spare time. I have no problem with the tie-breaker being on army roster (I'm already planning my Valkyrie Crash Safety brochure & Ork-Imperial phrasebook), I can see how some people who just want gaming will despise it.
Equally, it's unbelievably subjective. The judges just decide who of the tied scores wins. A coin toss would probably be fairer, or a judgement on quality of painting would probably be fairer.
Conclusions
Under the previous system, we had as credible a tournament scene as 40k could have - power paired rounds, no subjective painting or sportsmanship scores, and a final where you had to qualify in the top 45 of a tournament to even get in the door.
That final - the one with the 150 other people who were guaranteed to know how to play the game - was free to attend.
So, you got a great prize for showing up and playing your best in the heats - you were guaranteed to get six games against great opponents. That was certainly my experience of it. Winning the whole thing brought as much kudos as anything with Toy Soldiers in it; equally, the only way to qualify for the tourney other than gaming score was by having one of the 5 best painted armies at a heat.
The 15 best painted tickets usually meant the standard of the armies in the best army nominations was phenomenal. Incidentally, this year, at the final, 9 of the 15 best painters had qualified on gaming score AND painting, just in case you thought they were automatically "easy" games.
How is the new system a better celebration of the hobby? I suspect the quality of the armies will be worse, the quality of the games will be worse, and we all get less game for our money.
But, I'll still be going.
Why?
Much as I like non-GW events (like Vanguard & Spoils of War, the brilliant tournament organised by my Brizzle chums - buy tickets now!) I find they draw from a narrower pool of Gamers - for example, I look down the lists of gamers and find I know about 1/3rd of them.
It is very much Bristol's gaming community's big day out. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the GT I've played people from all over Europe, from all over the country. Nothing has the same pull and the same variety of gamers and armies.
Equally, they don't have the same "feel".
There is something to be said from playing in the big gaming hall in Nottingham - from winning best army at an event where the pics go on the GW website - from the deeply varied group the GT attracts.
Also, at the end of the day, it is still a good value for money event. All the food is included; all of the terrain and scenery is lovely. £27 a day is not a great deal for that sort of thing. There are cheaper options available, yes, but if I was worried about money I probably wouldn't play GW games.
Ultimately, I'm going to give it a try - despite my reservations, maybe it'll be great. Maybe it'll be terrible. But at least I'll be able to say authoritatively one way or another.
Also, I'll be able to add weight to my complaints if it *is* bad. Staying away, in my opinion, isn't really going to cut it. If the GT (something I really enjoy) is being damaged, then I want to fight to save it, not acquiesce and say, "Ah, I'll just go to Mayhem/Vanquish".
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Rocket Boots are my Inspiration
Hey all,
things here at the ATB are all pretty quiet - the army is slowly progressing.
However, I bought my GT ticket on Monday, so it is all going on (I'll write up my feelings on the new GT format soon Nic, don't worry). So, the clock is ticking, it's all go - in short, woop woop!
That's all very well Willard, but you still haven't told us why you're doing a Guard Army with Jump-Packs?
I've always wanted to do a guard army with Jump-Packs - ever since I saw this piece of art:
It was in the Rogue trader compendium back when I was about 11 - back in the golden age of every guard army dying instantly to literally everything, and eventually being cleaned up by your mum or eaten by your dog. The biggest enemy of the Imperial Guard at the time was indifference.
I do wonder about what happens to all of the Imperial Guardsmen who get bought by 11 year olds. Or people with the attention span of twelve year olds, like Adam Evan-Jones or Jeff McDeath. (Adam, if you're reading this, honestly, I think you're great - but my god man, finish an army!)
Most of them stay on the sprue, eventually being binned. Maybe they get used as decoration on the base of the inevitable Chaos marine army that comes along a couple of years later. Whatever happens, it's not a good life. Maybe they go to a better place - probably Ebay to a bloke in Texas, in this day and age.
Anyway, I was 11. Chubby, useless at sport. Loud. Basically, the same as I am now, but with less money and worse dress sense. Yes, that is possible. On both counts. One wet afternoon in Maidstone, I turned over my pocket money to the greasy bikers who ran GW Maidstone and bought the 40k compendium. Sitting on the bus home, I realised how awesome rocket pack guardsmen were. They had rocket packs! And pistols! Pewpew!
So, I really wanted an army entirely composed of guys with rocket packs. This was possibly just because I was sitting on a bus in south kent in the nineties, with the roof leaking, and thought rocketing home would have been cool.
But after that hour long bus journey plan, it just never you know, happened. This was in the days before mailorder, before ebay, so you had to actually get a shop which had jump-packs in stock to buy them. Finding Imperial Guard was hard enough, let alone rare bits. It was like being metal-eating hunter-gatherer. I'd have starved - I used to buy most of my figures in a branch of Athena - a shop best known for pictures of tennis players scratching their arse.
It was also hard to do an army like that back then. Soon after I had a chat with our local rules lawyer, who pointed out I needed a mountain of other models before I could take even one squad of Rocketeers. I was thwarted. The army lived only in my dreams for an hour, on the bus, then vanished. I forgot about it.
Until a year or so later, when Battle for Armageddon came out. I've waxed lyrical before about how much I love the game. But, the game had one unit that stood out for me. A whole Army Corps of Assault troops! Their stats were 8/1/1...and they took 4 turns to build....making them totally rubbish. But they had style. I never forgot them, kept thinking of ways I could do them.
So... I guess doing this army is all about me making something I really wanted as a little boy come true. Cute, huh?
Anyway, melancholy musing aside, this week, it's all about the choices I'm making for individual weapons.
Democharges
I've never really liked any of the GW democharge models. I want my charges to be interesting, huge and varied. I tried a bunch of ideas based on models of real explosives - from circular magnetic mines, to German Gebalte-Landungs (basically, seven stick greandes tied together), but nothing was working. Ultimately, I was watching "The Thing", and it came back to me - why not try the classic bundle of dynamite?
Below is my first go at a democharge - a little rough around the edges, but it does the job, I think.
Feedback from Nerds welcome! And yes, in honour of the Kurt Russell character, this model is totally called Macready - such a shame you can't have a flamer AND a democharge...
Other guns
As for other equipment, I want a real mix of weapons in every squad, let alone across the army. I've been very influenced by the idea of "every space marine is a hero" that Dan Abnett wrote in "Iron Snakes", which has influenced loads of the models that Smithy, Andrew and Nicola have made over the last couple of years.
It's also a reaction to other Imperial Guard players. With the introduction of the latest guard codex, you see far more veterans than you do ordinary guardsmen. Sadly, most of these "veterans" are just Cadians straight out of the box. I'm determined that if I am going to use veterans, they will at least look the part.
I've got a mix of weapons below:
Submachine gun -
Big Revolver -
Break Barrel Shotgun -
I'm particularly happy with the way this guy turned out - I had to do a lot of cutting and filing and sculpting to get him the way he looks. I especially like the way the shoulderpads (from a Superheavy tank commander, no less!) mark him out as very, very experienced.
I'm pretty determined now to try to have a different gun for everyone who can have one... Damn all this work I'm making for myself.
Right, must dash, tis late... Soon, I'll write up what I think about the changes to the GT format, post my list for commentary, and start showing you Valkyries - colour scheme inspired by:
things here at the ATB are all pretty quiet - the army is slowly progressing.
However, I bought my GT ticket on Monday, so it is all going on (I'll write up my feelings on the new GT format soon Nic, don't worry). So, the clock is ticking, it's all go - in short, woop woop!
That's all very well Willard, but you still haven't told us why you're doing a Guard Army with Jump-Packs?
I've always wanted to do a guard army with Jump-Packs - ever since I saw this piece of art:
It was in the Rogue trader compendium back when I was about 11 - back in the golden age of every guard army dying instantly to literally everything, and eventually being cleaned up by your mum or eaten by your dog. The biggest enemy of the Imperial Guard at the time was indifference.
I do wonder about what happens to all of the Imperial Guardsmen who get bought by 11 year olds. Or people with the attention span of twelve year olds, like Adam Evan-Jones or Jeff McDeath. (Adam, if you're reading this, honestly, I think you're great - but my god man, finish an army!)
Most of them stay on the sprue, eventually being binned. Maybe they get used as decoration on the base of the inevitable Chaos marine army that comes along a couple of years later. Whatever happens, it's not a good life. Maybe they go to a better place - probably Ebay to a bloke in Texas, in this day and age.
Anyway, I was 11. Chubby, useless at sport. Loud. Basically, the same as I am now, but with less money and worse dress sense. Yes, that is possible. On both counts. One wet afternoon in Maidstone, I turned over my pocket money to the greasy bikers who ran GW Maidstone and bought the 40k compendium. Sitting on the bus home, I realised how awesome rocket pack guardsmen were. They had rocket packs! And pistols! Pewpew!
So, I really wanted an army entirely composed of guys with rocket packs. This was possibly just because I was sitting on a bus in south kent in the nineties, with the roof leaking, and thought rocketing home would have been cool.
But after that hour long bus journey plan, it just never you know, happened. This was in the days before mailorder, before ebay, so you had to actually get a shop which had jump-packs in stock to buy them. Finding Imperial Guard was hard enough, let alone rare bits. It was like being metal-eating hunter-gatherer. I'd have starved - I used to buy most of my figures in a branch of Athena - a shop best known for pictures of tennis players scratching their arse.
It was also hard to do an army like that back then. Soon after I had a chat with our local rules lawyer, who pointed out I needed a mountain of other models before I could take even one squad of Rocketeers. I was thwarted. The army lived only in my dreams for an hour, on the bus, then vanished. I forgot about it.
Until a year or so later, when Battle for Armageddon came out. I've waxed lyrical before about how much I love the game. But, the game had one unit that stood out for me. A whole Army Corps of Assault troops! Their stats were 8/1/1...and they took 4 turns to build....making them totally rubbish. But they had style. I never forgot them, kept thinking of ways I could do them.
So... I guess doing this army is all about me making something I really wanted as a little boy come true. Cute, huh?
Anyway, melancholy musing aside, this week, it's all about the choices I'm making for individual weapons.
Democharges
I've never really liked any of the GW democharge models. I want my charges to be interesting, huge and varied. I tried a bunch of ideas based on models of real explosives - from circular magnetic mines, to German Gebalte-Landungs (basically, seven stick greandes tied together), but nothing was working. Ultimately, I was watching "The Thing", and it came back to me - why not try the classic bundle of dynamite?
Below is my first go at a democharge - a little rough around the edges, but it does the job, I think.
Feedback from Nerds welcome! And yes, in honour of the Kurt Russell character, this model is totally called Macready - such a shame you can't have a flamer AND a democharge...
Other guns
As for other equipment, I want a real mix of weapons in every squad, let alone across the army. I've been very influenced by the idea of "every space marine is a hero" that Dan Abnett wrote in "Iron Snakes", which has influenced loads of the models that Smithy, Andrew and Nicola have made over the last couple of years.
It's also a reaction to other Imperial Guard players. With the introduction of the latest guard codex, you see far more veterans than you do ordinary guardsmen. Sadly, most of these "veterans" are just Cadians straight out of the box. I'm determined that if I am going to use veterans, they will at least look the part.
I've got a mix of weapons below:
Submachine gun -
Big Revolver -
Break Barrel Shotgun -
I'm particularly happy with the way this guy turned out - I had to do a lot of cutting and filing and sculpting to get him the way he looks. I especially like the way the shoulderpads (from a Superheavy tank commander, no less!) mark him out as very, very experienced.
I'm pretty determined now to try to have a different gun for everyone who can have one... Damn all this work I'm making for myself.
Right, must dash, tis late... Soon, I'll write up what I think about the changes to the GT format, post my list for commentary, and start showing you Valkyries - colour scheme inspired by:
Friday 9 July 2010
A day in the life - Art Concept.
Hi all,
the project continues apace. Not much time to blog right now, but here's my concept art order to my old chum Bob Shaw, of Sprung Chicken Productions. Check him out here.
Hey bobbins,
As promised, here's my art brief (sorry it's coming from the iPhone, haven't had five minutes to myself in a couple of days)
Basically, I want a concept art piece, which will go up on my blog, and will appear on assorted bits & pieces I do for the UK GT this year...
What I want is something like this:
A proper concept piece, in other words.
The regiment I want you to do a piece for is called the Armageddon assault corps. There's some grainy pictures of some concept models here:
Basically, draw me one! I've included some background below, which will help you visualise these guys. I'll pay you £X, plus you'll have a neat concept piece. I'll ask for more if it's good!
Brief Concept:
Guard Hardened Veterans with Jet Packs, jumping out of planes on to hive spires.
Basic Background:
The Assault Corps is a part of the Armageddon Steel Legion, an Imperial Guard regiment raised on the highly toxic hive world which gives them their name.
The Steel legion are highly mechanised, and much better equipped regiment than most other regiments of the guard.
Their signature equipment is their box respirator gas masks, big dust goggles & ww2 german paratrooper helmets, 3/4r length coats, which conceal their body armour.
They look sort of like this:
http://www.battleforarmageddon.com/?p=10
But with turbine powered rocket packs like this:
http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=49
Deeper background
The assault Corps was originally founded with one idea mind - capturing the spires of rebel hive cities. Hives are vast sprawling super cities, with Walls 100s of feet high - designed to keep out invaders, but also roaming mutants and bandits who haunt the planetary ash deserts.
Hives are often seething with discontent: in the long history of Armageddon, hives have been seized from within many times- by insidious psychic aliens, charismatic demagogues and scheming nobles.
The key to taking any hive is the void shield controls, which usually reside in the tallest spires. Take the shield down, and the hive is vulnerable to bombardment from aircraft & artillery. Usually the threat of such action is enough to quell the rebellious populace.
Taking a hive without taking down the shield is a nightmare. Huge gates, shielded by spacecraft level energy fields must be broken down. Usually, this leads to a resort to spaceborne weapons, such as nova cannons or mass drivers, or arcane machines controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, such as siege titans or the terrifying sonic annihilators mounted on Ordinatii.
In addition to the crippling damage these weapons do to the infrastructure of the rebel hive, the favours of the fleet or the mechanicus do not come for free, and having to resort to inflicting such damage (and admitting a hive has rebelled successfully) will often be enough for the high lords of terra to order the death of the planetary overlord.
With this in mind, following the freak riots of m41.636, the assault corps was formed. The assault Corp are equipped with voss pattern turbine flight packs, which enable them to leap from aircraft on to spire towers, or even leap from building to building, window to window, smashing their way in.
Not for these guardsmen the refinement of long range gunplay - spirefights are tough and close range. The weapons of choice are the shotgun, the submachine gun, the boot, the knife.
Environmental protection is vital - even at the top of the hive, atmospheric pollution is deadly to unprotected humans. Indeed, many rebellious hives have been conquered without a shot fired by the assault corps, troopers smashing through giant viewports, showering traitor commanders with shards of glass before the rolling clouds of poison finish them off.
Of course, until the shields are down, the assault corps are without support. Thus, the will tend to be armed to the teeth. The average trooper will be festooned with guns, pistols, bullets.
He will carry grenades of all types - smoke, frag, krak - even rare explosives like plasma or melta charges, or atomic demolition charges.
The prevalence of explosives is explained by the nature of the spirefights. If the assault Corps cannot get where they are going - through Walls, blast doors & bulkheads, they are dead.
Thus, many troopers will eschew the normal mix of revolvers, smgs & shotguns for esoteric breaching weapons - meltaguns, phasefield generators, eviscerators & telekinetic mountain blitzers.
Of course, occasionally the corps will have to fight at range - for example, requiring cover from their vendetta gun-ships during an assault. If their aircraft cannot support them, picked marksmen among the troopers employ a variety of super high powered sniper weapons, such as the voss pattern slug rifle. In emergencies, such as when confronted by armoured vehicles like dreadnoughts or large beasts like cyberogryns, the marksmen can use special rounds made from imbatainium, which can punch holes in all but the thickest armour, and shatter even an ambull's skull like a ripe melon.
Veterans who survive full tours in the corps often carry rare and esoteric personal equipment common to hive nobles - even incredibly rare or xenos devices like hrud fusils, tau digital rocket rippers or barghesi hyperviolent smashfists.
Culture
The assault corps is an elite force, with high standards of combat efficiency required for entry. Most recruits have already completed careers in the PDF or Steel Legion.
The violent, close combat nature of the work frequently attracts former hive gangers. Even guardsmen from high hab zone families will adopt gang tattoos, markings & traditions, which have become as much a part of the regimental identity as flags or uniforms in other, more regular formations.
Indeed, many of the assault corp's officers are rough & ready former gang leaders, as ready to swap a tale about running drugs like brilliance or squab as they are to offer tactical advice.
That's as far as I've got thus far - new updates soon!
the project continues apace. Not much time to blog right now, but here's my concept art order to my old chum Bob Shaw, of Sprung Chicken Productions. Check him out here.
Hey bobbins,
As promised, here's my art brief (sorry it's coming from the iPhone, haven't had five minutes to myself in a couple of days)
Basically, I want a concept art piece, which will go up on my blog, and will appear on assorted bits & pieces I do for the UK GT this year...
What I want is something like this:
A proper concept piece, in other words.
The regiment I want you to do a piece for is called the Armageddon assault corps. There's some grainy pictures of some concept models here:
Basically, draw me one! I've included some background below, which will help you visualise these guys. I'll pay you £X, plus you'll have a neat concept piece. I'll ask for more if it's good!
Brief Concept:
Guard Hardened Veterans with Jet Packs, jumping out of planes on to hive spires.
Basic Background:
The Assault Corps is a part of the Armageddon Steel Legion, an Imperial Guard regiment raised on the highly toxic hive world which gives them their name.
The Steel legion are highly mechanised, and much better equipped regiment than most other regiments of the guard.
Their signature equipment is their box respirator gas masks, big dust goggles & ww2 german paratrooper helmets, 3/4r length coats, which conceal their body armour.
They look sort of like this:
http://www.battleforarmageddon.com/?p=10
But with turbine powered rocket packs like this:
http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=49
Deeper background
The assault Corps was originally founded with one idea mind - capturing the spires of rebel hive cities. Hives are vast sprawling super cities, with Walls 100s of feet high - designed to keep out invaders, but also roaming mutants and bandits who haunt the planetary ash deserts.
Hives are often seething with discontent: in the long history of Armageddon, hives have been seized from within many times- by insidious psychic aliens, charismatic demagogues and scheming nobles.
The key to taking any hive is the void shield controls, which usually reside in the tallest spires. Take the shield down, and the hive is vulnerable to bombardment from aircraft & artillery. Usually the threat of such action is enough to quell the rebellious populace.
Taking a hive without taking down the shield is a nightmare. Huge gates, shielded by spacecraft level energy fields must be broken down. Usually, this leads to a resort to spaceborne weapons, such as nova cannons or mass drivers, or arcane machines controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus, such as siege titans or the terrifying sonic annihilators mounted on Ordinatii.
In addition to the crippling damage these weapons do to the infrastructure of the rebel hive, the favours of the fleet or the mechanicus do not come for free, and having to resort to inflicting such damage (and admitting a hive has rebelled successfully) will often be enough for the high lords of terra to order the death of the planetary overlord.
With this in mind, following the freak riots of m41.636, the assault corps was formed. The assault Corp are equipped with voss pattern turbine flight packs, which enable them to leap from aircraft on to spire towers, or even leap from building to building, window to window, smashing their way in.
Not for these guardsmen the refinement of long range gunplay - spirefights are tough and close range. The weapons of choice are the shotgun, the submachine gun, the boot, the knife.
Environmental protection is vital - even at the top of the hive, atmospheric pollution is deadly to unprotected humans. Indeed, many rebellious hives have been conquered without a shot fired by the assault corps, troopers smashing through giant viewports, showering traitor commanders with shards of glass before the rolling clouds of poison finish them off.
Of course, until the shields are down, the assault corps are without support. Thus, the will tend to be armed to the teeth. The average trooper will be festooned with guns, pistols, bullets.
He will carry grenades of all types - smoke, frag, krak - even rare explosives like plasma or melta charges, or atomic demolition charges.
The prevalence of explosives is explained by the nature of the spirefights. If the assault Corps cannot get where they are going - through Walls, blast doors & bulkheads, they are dead.
Thus, many troopers will eschew the normal mix of revolvers, smgs & shotguns for esoteric breaching weapons - meltaguns, phasefield generators, eviscerators & telekinetic mountain blitzers.
Of course, occasionally the corps will have to fight at range - for example, requiring cover from their vendetta gun-ships during an assault. If their aircraft cannot support them, picked marksmen among the troopers employ a variety of super high powered sniper weapons, such as the voss pattern slug rifle. In emergencies, such as when confronted by armoured vehicles like dreadnoughts or large beasts like cyberogryns, the marksmen can use special rounds made from imbatainium, which can punch holes in all but the thickest armour, and shatter even an ambull's skull like a ripe melon.
Veterans who survive full tours in the corps often carry rare and esoteric personal equipment common to hive nobles - even incredibly rare or xenos devices like hrud fusils, tau digital rocket rippers or barghesi hyperviolent smashfists.
Culture
The assault corps is an elite force, with high standards of combat efficiency required for entry. Most recruits have already completed careers in the PDF or Steel Legion.
The violent, close combat nature of the work frequently attracts former hive gangers. Even guardsmen from high hab zone families will adopt gang tattoos, markings & traditions, which have become as much a part of the regimental identity as flags or uniforms in other, more regular formations.
Indeed, many of the assault corp's officers are rough & ready former gang leaders, as ready to swap a tale about running drugs like brilliance or squab as they are to offer tactical advice.
That's as far as I've got thus far - new updates soon!
Tuesday 29 June 2010
Steel Legion Motto: "The difficult we can do immediately; the impossible will take a half an hour"
As I said below, I've been around the houses with the Steel Legion.
I've had my current Guard army for over ten years. I'm always in the process of expanding it, tinkering with it, and I very rarely get to show off my models to my friends from my old gaming group. Part of the reason I'm doing the blog is to do that.
But - I want to do a new army this year.
Why?
Well, don't get me wrong, I still love my mechanised infantry. But after a full tournament season with them, I want to rest the mech competitively for a while and want a bit of a change - to grasp the new Guard Codex with both hands and push it to the limit. With Shotguns. And Rocket Packs.
I'm entering the GT again this year, having had an absolute blast at it in the previous season. I'm intending to do an all-new, all veteran, all Steel Legion, all airborne army.
My ridiculously ambitious goals are:
A best army nomination.
To be in with a shot at winning the GT.
This blog is going to log my attempts to get there. I'm going to put everything from tactics to modelling & painting updates on here.
In the long term, I'd like to turn the blog into a repository for all kinds of Steel Legion related articles, links to the original board games which inspired me, modelling articles by other players (especially Ork players - don't feel left out just because you're Green scum!) - in short, in a year, I'd like to look at my blog and have it look like this one.
Oh, but you haven't come here to hear me waffle, have you? You want to see pictures of model soldiers. Well, ok, here's a sneak peek:
See? I meant it about the rocket packs...
And the shotguns...
See you soon!
I've had my current Guard army for over ten years. I'm always in the process of expanding it, tinkering with it, and I very rarely get to show off my models to my friends from my old gaming group. Part of the reason I'm doing the blog is to do that.
But - I want to do a new army this year.
Why?
Well, don't get me wrong, I still love my mechanised infantry. But after a full tournament season with them, I want to rest the mech competitively for a while and want a bit of a change - to grasp the new Guard Codex with both hands and push it to the limit. With Shotguns. And Rocket Packs.
I'm entering the GT again this year, having had an absolute blast at it in the previous season. I'm intending to do an all-new, all veteran, all Steel Legion, all airborne army.
My ridiculously ambitious goals are:
A best army nomination.
To be in with a shot at winning the GT.
This blog is going to log my attempts to get there. I'm going to put everything from tactics to modelling & painting updates on here.
In the long term, I'd like to turn the blog into a repository for all kinds of Steel Legion related articles, links to the original board games which inspired me, modelling articles by other players (especially Ork players - don't feel left out just because you're Green scum!) - in short, in a year, I'd like to look at my blog and have it look like this one.
Oh, but you haven't come here to hear me waffle, have you? You want to see pictures of model soldiers. Well, ok, here's a sneak peek:
See? I meant it about the rocket packs...
And the shotguns...
See you soon!
Steel Legion for Life
Armageddon and I have a history. If there's a fictional place I know better than any other, it's not Middle Earth, or Castle Gormenghast, or the City of Rapture, or the town of Silent Hill, it's the Hives & Deserts of Armageddon.
I've been involved in defending it (in various incarnations) since 1992.
18 years, man and boy. That means, in two years time, I would have enough experience to be mustered out of the Imperial Guard, and given a pension. And probably bionic legs.
A year or so ago, in this blog post, I declared "I was always a big fan of the human defenders of the planet. At the start of the game, they have everything stacked against them; they are outnumbered, outgunned, and they live in a place which even the most dedicated tourist board would have trouble describing favourably..."
Well, that's a mantle I'd like to take on.
Welcome to the Office of the Armageddon Tourist board.
I've been involved in defending it (in various incarnations) since 1992.
18 years, man and boy. That means, in two years time, I would have enough experience to be mustered out of the Imperial Guard, and given a pension. And probably bionic legs.
A year or so ago, in this blog post, I declared "I was always a big fan of the human defenders of the planet. At the start of the game, they have everything stacked against them; they are outnumbered, outgunned, and they live in a place which even the most dedicated tourist board would have trouble describing favourably..."
Well, that's a mantle I'd like to take on.
Welcome to the Office of the Armageddon Tourist board.
Sunday 27 June 2010
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