Hunt the Fallen.... Write the Scenarios

So, I have more or less finished my Blood Angel army. I'll still be plugging away on tac squads and devestator squads to fill out the entire Third Company, but for now I'm switching gears and start back up on my Dark Angel Deathwing. I've been playing the crap out of them at the shop lately as most of you probably know.  I wanted to play something that was completely different from my Blood Angels and these bad boys fit the bill!  Tough as nails and with awesome fluff, the Deathwing hunt the "Fallen Dark Angels" that are secret to the rest of the Imperium of Mankind.  The best part? An entire army of terminator armor that isn't painted boltgun metal!

I have also been working on writing some new missions for the shop's tournaments.  We have been play testing one of them pretty heavily lately.  This is the mission.  I am really happy with it overall, and am satisfied with it enough that this version will be used at the tournament this Sunday!

Dawn Raid

In the minutes just before the sun crests the horizon of this God(-Emperor)-forsaken world you have been fighting over, your commander orders you to attempt a raid on your opponent’s forces. Your mission is simple: Destroy or kill any enemy forces that you can and retrieve any intelligence on their forces that you can.  Your commander believes that a decisive blow will tip the scales in this long war of attrition!

Missions
Primary (15pts) – Kill ‘em All!: This Objective is a Modified Kill Point mission. Due to your commander’s emphasis on weakening your adversary’s larger war effort, destroying “Troops” choices and “Heavy Support” choices are worth 2 Kill Points. Everything else is worth 1 Kill Point.

Secondary (10pts) – Head Of The Snake: Modified Capture and Control.  Each player has one objective as a “Forward Base,” using Capture and Control from the Warhammer 40k Rulebook. In addition,  your Opponent nominates one of his own Independent Characters or HQ choices to be his force’s commander. Eliminating this HQ is another objective.  If you tie the capture and control objective, but eliminate your opponent’s HQ without losing your own, you get the points for this mission.

Tertiary (5pts) – Capturing Enemy Intel:  Each HQ that was nominated to be an objective is holding sensitive information that would cripple their force’s larger war effort if it were to be discovered.  Your nearest non-vehicle unit closest to his enemy HQ when it dies is tasked with A) picking up the intel and then B) delivering it off the board safely to your starting long board edge before the end of the game. Either player accomplishes A while the other does not gets the points for this objective. The same goes for B. You tie this objective if you are both on the same step.  The intel may be picked up by the next closest friendly non-vehicle unit if the original unit is destroyed in the process.

Quaternary (+1pt) – Preserving Your Forces: You get one point for each “Troops” choice still alive and not fleeing at the end of the battle.

All objectives are completely impassable. They cannot be moved upon by anything whatsoever, no exceptions.

* If a mission is tied or neither player achieve it, with the exception of the quaternary, then both players split the points for that mission rounding up.

Deployment
Spearhead, Night Fight for the first round.

Game Length
Standard game length or time, whichever comes first.
Special Rules
Infiltrate, scout, deep strike, reserves, outflank, seize the initiative, night fight

* NOTE: If you table your opponent then you may use the remaining turns, if there are any left, to achieve the missions.

We are expecting a big crowd for the tournament this Sunday.  I can't wait to see everyone there!

This blog post is brought to you be the letter WAAAAAAAAGH! and tournament updates.

So, I've embraced my new role as Bangor's resident player-organizer for all things 40k. It is nice to have free reign over how the local events will run and what sort of missions we will be playing.  To that efect, I have started the initial process of writing and play testing a new set of missions in the same theme as those missions we have been using for the last few month's worth of events. None of my missions are out of their beta testing stage.  However, I will be vigorously play-testing over the next few weeks in hopes of having them hammered out in time for "Grudge March" on March 4th. "Grudge March," for those of you haven't heard, is going to allow the first round of the tournament to be a grudge match round.  You are welcome to call out any other player at the event and play them in round one.  The other person may refuse, but they will be ridiculed by the rest of us profusely (jokingly)!!  This won't be a feature we employ at event tournament going forward, but we may bring it back from time to time if it is popular. Don't miss your chance to call out that one guy you have really wanted to get a game in against and utterly destroy him! 

Going forward, Please if it is at all possible, type out our army lists and have a few copies with you the day of the event.  Last month we had some issues with poor handwriting and missing army lists and I can not allow that to happen any more.  Thank you all for understanding and complying with my request.

Lost in the warp...

Well, its been a few weeks since I have posted here... Real life has kind of kicked me in the pants and kept me away from posting.  I've been working on a commission paint job for some Daemons, revising/restarting my Dark Angel Deathwing since the new rumors surfaced saying that they may have a new codex on the way, and we had a tournament at 3 Geek last Sunday.... Oh would you actually like to hear about how the tournament went?  Why didn't you say so?

Last Sunday, which happened to be Super Sunday, we had 8 players at the shop.  Some new faces, some old friends that had been gone far too long, and a steady diet of our core player base were in attendance! I used missions similar to the ones that I used at SnowCon, which have been getting rave reviews so far.  We used the normal three round format and played 1850 points. Unfortunately I was the 8th player to keep the numbers even, so I didn't get to take any pictures this time.

Round one I played my good Friend Alex "Swab" Shapiro, who doesn't get up to game at the shop very often anymore, so seeing him was a lot of fun!  He brought a pretty solid Black Templar list, that just requires a little more fine tuning before it really becomes a terror on the table.  I took my standard Stormraven, Assault marine, Sanguinor-led Blood Angel list to the tournament because I had it on hand and I was hoping that I would not have to play.  The Sanguinor was really my MVP here, he ate three squads by himself!  My Stormraven went into reserves since I did not get to go first, and it decided to stay out of the game until turn five, of course!  The final score of the game was not as close as it really was, I ended up taking a 32-2 win.  Tough loss for Swab, but the beauty of the points scale we use at the shop is that losing game one isn't always the worst thing in the world.... you have time to come back fast!

Round Two saw me squaring off against Will and his Dark Eldar who have been the terror of the shop tournaments lately.  This match was a tale of two halves, and the end result was a rare occasion for me, and not in a good way!  I was wrecking him after the first two turns.  I had destroyed all but one of his vehicles that started on the board, and wiped out two full squads on top of that... but on turn three all of his reserves arrived and turned the tide in a hurry!  To sum up this painful last few turns... I went from having lost one model after turn 2, to being tabled by turn 5.... Sometimes the dice gods are unkind, but congrats to Will for tabling me in a tournament for the first time in years!  Will ended up winning the overall event again, with another crushing victory over another Blood Angel player, Tony, in round three, by the way.

My Round Three was against Warren, who brought his White Scar marine army to the tournament for a change.  Usually he plays Grey Knights as many of you know, but his first army was the Scars!  It was cool to see them back on the table and updated a bit.  The highlight of the day for me was when his Techmarine's servitor tried to shoot my stormraven with his plasma cannon, scattered off my bird and onto his rhino, rolled to hit and penetrated it, and then blew it up, and killed one of his own marines in the ensuing explosion!  Another close game between Warren and myself, but I came out on top and managed to take third place overall... another testament to the points system that we have adopted at the shop, one bad loss doesn't necessarily sink you!

I had an absolute blast running and playing in this event, and I can not wait until next month!  I'm hoping we get a teams tournament going at the shop soon.  There is a signup sheet going at the front counter for both a singles and a doubles tournament... so please go in and sign up ;)

Until next time... the next update will come a lot sooner than this one did, I promise!

SnowCon 2012 40k Tournament: A Review

Well, the event went off with only a few hitches along the way.  I want to say thank you to everyone who participated, helped set up, ran for coffee, food, or anything else myself or any of the players needed. It became evident to me that in the process of organizing the event that a 40k tournament is way more than just throwing dice and moving little plastic men around the table. In some ways, that becomes the least important part of the event, at least from the Organizer's perspective.

We started just after 10 AM as one of my players was running late, but we finished almost an hour before my self-imposed 6 PM deadline. We had Ten players who showed up, with many new faces! I was happy to have the new guys, but at the same time, I wished more of the regular tournament attendees could have made it, too.  I'd have liked to have them see what I have planned for the future in the Bangor 40k scene.  The one thing I did not expect was how hard it is to keep ten guys focused and close at hand after each round. I gave 20-30 minutes for lunch after round one, but even I got back a few minutes late!

I gave out three prizes: Best General, Best Overall, and Player's Choice. Each winner received $50 in store credit to the wonderful FLGS, 3 Geek Gaming.  Beyond that, my good friend Warren Falconer donated a box full of Warhammer novels and audio dramas to the cause for everyone who did not get a cash prize. The Winners were: Best General - Warren Falconer, Player's Choice - Tyler Emery, Best Overall - Tony Spero

I uploaded over 100 photos from the day to Facebook. If anyone can't find them there, please leave a message here and I will upload them somewhere more accessible.  My head is still spinning and I am sure I will have lots more to say about the event as time goes on, but for now, Thanks to SnowCon for having us, thanks to Brenden, "Thor," and the guys at Crossroads in Standish for creating and playtesting the missions we used, all of my players who came to play and made it all worth doing (and we will be doing it again... if any of you were impressed by this year's event, wait til next year!) and especially to Colin Mansfield who volunteered to help me transport and set up all of the tables and terrain to and from the shop. I could not have done it without his help, and I'm very much in his debt. He also agreed to be my "bye guy" so that should we have gotten an odd number of gamers, they had the option to play a friendly game with him rather than waiting around for two hours for their bye to be over.

More to come later!

Busy busy busy! We keep chugging along. (And a link to the missions I'll be using at SnowCon!)

I really do need to post more often, but I always seem to run out of time in the day before I get back to the blog.  I've been crossing the days off my calendar until SnowCon, enjoying this lovely fall weather we've been having in December and hoarding my loads of store credit that I received for Christmas.

For all of those of you who want to attend SnowCon, I'll have attached a link at the bottom for the potential missions I'm mulling over.  Check out the blog that goes along with it as well.  The guy who runs it is one of the devout gamers down at Crossroads in Standish.  I've played the crap out of his missions and love every one of them and I am sure you will as well!

Other than that, I have only painted one 28mm model in the last month, which was the Gamesday 2010 model for a friend for Christmas that you can see below. It was about 95% complete at the time of the photo.  After SnowCon, however, I'll be starting the commission work on a Daemon army for a friend.  Expect to see a plethora of pictures from that little endevour!

 Here is the link to the missions. Creative Twilight's mission list

Three Weeks Out: Don't Forget to Sign Up For SnowCon!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but it is that time of year when real life gets in the way of the important things like war gaming and blogging.  I just wanted to remind everyone that we're only a few weeks away from the big event.  The following is a copy of my event description and a link to SnowCon's site. My next post will be a little more info on the where I am getting my missions and some of the wonderful prizes that we have in store for those who attend! Have a fun and safe Christmas/Hanukkah/Festivus to everyone.

In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future there is only War.

This is a Warhammer 40k miniature tournament intended for anyone who is interested in a competitive, three round event. The points limit is set at 1500 points. You must bring your own army, codex, and other gaming implements.

While this is a competitive event, we are also aiming to make this event fun and enjoyable for everyone involved! We will have a prize for everyone who attends, not just those who do the best. We will be using new and exciting scenarios, as well. This promises to be the largest 40k event in the Greater Bangor Area in recent memory, We can’t wait to see you there!

Operation Shock and Awesome Update: The Terrain is Almost Complete!

As you can see in the picture, I set out all the terrain that I planned to use for SnowCon.  For those of your who don't know, the conventional wisdom on whether or not you have enough terrain for a table is to cram all the terrain you plan to use into one corner of the table. If you can fill a quarter of the table, you have sufficient terrain for your game.  I filled two tables completely with terrain.  Quick math tells me 8 table quarters equals 8 tables worth of terrain!  I made it!  Well, almost.  I still need some more trees for one table, but I will acquire them shortly from AC Moore.

For those of you who are particularly keen-eyed may notice that I tried to keep terrain in mind when I set it out.  I tried to keep city terrain with other city terrain, hills with forests, ect.  One of my pet peeves when laying out terrain is when someone sets down a bunch of urban buildings, then slaps down a forest and rocky hills all around them.  I understand that we don't have unlimited terrain, but it kind of ruins the "realism" factor when you're fighting over a city that was built in the middle of a bunch of rocky hills.  So, I am endeavoring to build tables for SnowCon that are both fun to play on, and visually "right."

Also, I want to say for the first time on my blog that my event at SnowCon is officially a go!  Please head on over to SnowCon's website, purchase a ticket, and sign up for my event and any other gaming that you'd like to do that weekend.  I will be putting up a more detailed post about it in the near future, but that is for another rant... until then!