Battle Summary on 26th Oct 2012

It been quite some time since I last updated my blog and I guess it's that time again to refresh the blog itself. Many of you knows I am very much into Warmachine/Hordes and I am enjoying even though it's a completely different mechanism compare to 40k.

As much as I would like my battle report as complete as my other gaming mates are, I must apologize for the missing of photos. So I guess I'll just summarize the games I have rather than creating a standard write up plus photo, sorry !

26 Oct is a good day as it's a public holiday for Malaysians and most importantly, I get to play as much as I want for the whole afternoon ! I had total of 4 games on the afternoon itself with my pMorghoul list. For the benefit of everyone, my 35 pts list is as below,

pMorghoul
Titan Gladiator
Bronzeback
Molik Karn
max Gatormen
Taskmaster
min beast handler

1st Game vs Jun Nyet (Scryah)

Ah my first encounter vs Scryah... I dont see many people playing this faction and the only thing I know about them is they are an elite faction, where every unit/solo are capable of killing caster by themself, yikes !! Let's start with his list, 

Kaelyssa
Mage Hunter
Sentinel + UA
Assasin x2
Jack (forgotten its name)
Eiryss

Hopefully I got his list 80% correct. When he fielded his army, I was shocked, there are like 20+ infantries on the table !! Never had I fought so many infantries before, not to mention I always have problem handling infantries with my list. To the game, Jun Nyet won the roll and start the game by putting his Sentinel in front while mage hunter staying behind. I decided to avoid his Sentinels with my beast and sent in the gatormen to hold the sentinels as long as they can. At the end, I think my strategy works as I managed to breach his mage hunter gunline and kill Kael with BB.

What I have learnt in this game,

1. I can actually trample through all his small based models instead of flanking him with beast, which I learnt from Alan later.

2. Keep more furies when my own caster is at the front line. You never know when shit will happen like facing caster like Kael who can take your fury upon hitting you and use it to boost his damage. Morghoul was left with less than 5 hp on the turn he attempt to assassinate me due to I only have 2 furies on myself. No chance of transferring my damage, a very close one.

2nd Game & 3rd Game vs Alan (Troll) 

Alan's 2nd Game list,

eDoomshaper
Bomber
Earthborn
Rok
War Wagon

Alan's 3rd Game list,

Borka + keg
Rok
War Wagon
Bouncer
Fennblade + UA
Chronicler

Both games on SR 2012 scenario and on 7 minutes timer. I am new to both elements and massacred (expected!) by Alan's troll. But thanks to him, I'm more clear and understood the rules further, and of course, a glimpse on trolls, too.

What I have learnt,

1. Placement, placement, and placement. After 5 to 6 games, I am still having trouble with my placement where I tend to block my own beast's charging lane. I seriously need to improve this.

2. I need to always make sure my beasts are within my warlock's command range. Nothing is worse than moving a beast totally out of warlock's command range and ended up seeing him unable to be forced to complete his job and die for nothing.

3. When you are unsure or cant figure out how overpowered a unit/rules are, read the stat card as there is no auto win unit in this game.

4th Game vs Cheng (Khador) 

Cheng's list,

pButcher
Manhunter
Destroyer
Berzerker
Juggernaut
Drakhun
Jack marshal which can boost jack

This time around Cheng fielded up a very jack heavy list. Pretty different from what I have seen with WM faction thus far. Cheng this time was holding back with his destroyer pot shooting over my BB while his jacks chilling at the back getting ready to counter attack. Seeing I have no way to counter his range, I have no choice but to play to his game. I sent in Gatormen as tarpit and let beasts beat down 2 of his jack + Drakhun and quickly abuse + rush + enraged on MK to assassinate Butcher before he can kill my beasts.

What I have learnt,

1. I need to protect my beasts better. My BB was killed before reaching into fights by manhunter charging and 2 turns destroyers shooting.
2. Need to time my feat better. I pop feat on my turn 2 when I was expecting Cheng's jack charge into my gatormen. Come on, I was popping feat to rescue my tarpit who are suppose to die ?! What the hell am I thinking. Even Cheng agreed at the end of the game that my feat timing wasnt very effective.

Alright, that's pretty much sum up the day itself. Thanks for reading and I promised next battle report will have photos !!

Chaos Space Marine Army for Sell

I have noticed myself has lost the motivation to play CSM after a year with them and I felt that I need a 2nd army to motivate me to play 40k again. And due to the lack of space in my room, I decided to sell them off to make space if someone interested on them. I havent really make up my mind on how much I want to sell them but feel free to put in your offer if you are interested on them.

HQ:

Abaddon the Despoiler (painted)
Kharn the Betrayer (painted)
Sorceror (painted)
Nurgle Daemon Prince (heavily converted and painted beautifully)
Slaanesh Daemon Prince (converted by myself using Deceiver)


Troops:
16x Berzerkers (two skull with fist, painted)
8x Plague Marines (two meltaguns, champ with fist)
1x Rhino in Nurgle theme (painted)
1x Rhino in WE theme (comes with Forge World door and painted above average)
1x Rhino (base coated in black)


F. Attack:
3x Chaos Bikers (base coated in black)


H. Support:

Defiler (painted beautifully, some part need repair though)
Chaos Land Raider (base coated in black)
3x Obliterators (painted)
3x Obliterators (converted by Wong via Chaos Termies, base coated in black)
4x Havocs with Autocannon, one of them come with CL backpack which act as IoCG (painted)
1x Havocs with Lascannon (base coated in black, one leg is replaced by a daemon arm)

Legend:

"painted" - When I said so, the model is painted by me. I'm not a good painter be frank, so the model painted by me is in acceptable condition.

"painted blah blah blah" - As per the description, these are not done by me.


I will try to post up some pictures, if that is the interest of anyone. I will gradually update this post as well as I have bunch of marine with special weapon (meltaguns and plasmaguns). I'll give my 40k fellow a month to offer me before I throw them on eBay.

Reporting to Fantasy

With the launching of Fantasy 8th Edition rules, I have jump into the bandwagon of playing fantasy. After playing a few games with the new rules, I noticed there's quite a significant difference between the 40k and fantasy rules,

1) Close combat are much more rewarding. There are quite a number of penalty will be incurred on the shooters in fantasy which somehow protect your unit overall. And with a couple of special close combat rules such as pursue off the table and pursue into another unit somehow prolong the survivability of the unit.

2) Maneuvering your unit is longer an easy task. In fact, maneuvering your unit is one of the most important aspect in fantasy which can proved the difference between a veteran and a freshman. Maneuvering is complicated at first sight, but once you have mastered it, your army strength shall folded twice.

3) Army are well balance. With most army sharing the same magic lore and I believe the codex of each army are better written too, compare to 40k, many have already calls that this edition is the most balance edition ever. I'm playing Bret right now, a very old yet compact codex, but still prove to be able to put up a fight.

4) Hordes rules !! With the Hordes & Steadfast rule in place, I can foresee most armies will play their cheapest unit block. I expect people to tend to throw in a few big block (30+ models per block) on the table. Phew, that's sure a lot of dices to roll.

5) Plan ahead in your next turn. 40k is simple when it comes to planning as you move, shoot and assault all on your turn. You can just plan what you want to do that particular turn and execute your plan in one turn. However, that is different from fantasy as you need to assault on the first phase of your movement turn, which forced you think what your opponent will do should you do this and that in this turn as you might out of charging distance (there is a certain risk when charging out of your movement range, treat it you always charge through difficult terrain in 40k). It's kinda tricky when comes to planning in fantasy compare to 40k, but it sure proved critical when it comes to tournament level.


That's what I have learned thus far after a few games of fantasy. I might be wrong as I only have a handful of game and yet to face any other army other than DE and Bret. Feel free to drop your comment.

A Relook into Khornate

The 1st phase of the league is coming to an end. I'm more than happy on the result I have managed to achieved in the league table thus far. While waiting for the league finale, I have suddenly redevelop my old interest in Khorne army again. I always have a special favor towards Khorne since the day I get to know Warhammer 40k and play zerkers heavy army on my first day on TT. However, I have abandon them (sadly) due to I found that I have reached a bottleneck where I could not lead my beloved zerker into competitive scene.

After a year, I felt that I have get the hang of 40k rules than I was first introduced to this game, and I have improved overall as a player in the sense of tactic and strategy (hopefully I'm right on this!). I'm ready to look into a full khornate army again.

Here's the list that I initially drafted,

World Eaters Again v2

Abaddon

7 men Chosen, 3x melta, 2x pf, rhino

8 men PSM

20 men berzerkers, champ, pf

5 men CSM, IoCG, rhino

8 men Havocs, 4x autocannon, IoCG

1 Land Raider, EA


Yes you read it right, the 20 zerkers squad are footslogging !! Cant believe in a mech heavy meta games nowadays some marine are still travel by foot eh ?? The doctrine is simple, abby ride in LR with 8 PSM to absorb firepower while zerkers following tightly behind the LR to gain cover save. The rest are pretty much self explained. The only problem I foresee is that I might suffer against 2x LRs army as I initially plan to throw in 2 obliterators but unfortunately dont have enough points to do so. Well... I'll play test this fun list this weekend and we'll see how.

Hopefully this time around I can play them cunning and right.

PS. I was always wondering what happened if Khorne start to "think" cunningly, Fear the Khorne ?? xD

Analysis on Tyranids FAQ

I believe everyone are excited about this (and probably I can hear some nids players moaning). So, today I'm going to do a small analysis on the effect of Nids FAQ had on the current nids players.


1. Cover Save from Mawloc and Malantai Special Rules

Rejoice now, finally GW has did some game balance to the game itself. You are now entitled cover save from Mawloc's Terror from the Deep (TftD) and Doom of Malantai's Spirit Leech attack. Does that mean it's a nerf to Malantai, I think not, this changes has however given a glimpse of hope to survive from its aura attack. So from now we can see more footslogging army hugging into an area terrain when they see the nids are fielding in Malantai. Same goes for Mawloc, but for me, I would prefer to hide in terrain instead of letting its special rules to kick in.


2. Deepstriking Mawloc

Now, you can have that beast Mawloc DS into a clear terrain, even if there are models on top of it. Normally you cant do so but Mawloc is an exception to this rule now, as per the FAQ. I foresee people might willing to play test it after the FAQ due to str6 Ap2 that can screw any unwary footslogging army is too good to be skipped (like Malantai). For those who play trygons, then I would expect them to switch to Mawloc as the points are cheaper and they share almost identical stats.


3. Shadow No Longer Affect Psyker in Transport

The major benefactor from this clarification would be Eldar which relies heavily on their psyker. Second would be SW as they also have some pretty cool psyhic power that could dealt a considerable damage towards the nids. I dont foresee any changes for other army as they generally lack of psykic power that could pose a threat to the nids.


4. Lash Whip & Initiative Modifier

Another changes that benefit the Eldar, and also Dark Eldar. With doom, banshee still possess a great threat with their power weapon against nids warrior and other MC that could gear whip. Dark Eldar shared the same thing due to their combat drug, but I doubt their chances in cc with warrior due to lack of capability to reroll.


5. Deepstrike with Wings Model

Icing on the sugar. Never like the idea of having a winged MC ds into the heat of battle, especially an MC with no invul save. With so many meltagun in today meta game, DS winged MC is more or less equivalent to dead MC.


The rest are pretty much rules clarification which I dont foresee could influence how it would change the way Nids player would have field and play. As a summary, GW has done a good job (cant believe I said this, but credit is given to where's it due) for doing such effort to clarify and balance out the game itself.

And the League Continues...

2 weeks past by, the league that I participated are full with bloody battles. I to, of course, not an exception.. Recorded a few wins and a loss. Although I grieved the loss and joyful over the unexpected won against the top ranked player, I have not forgotten to learn from the mistakes in every game. And I feel that I just have to share with everyone,


1. Never Underestimate Your Opponent List

It's easy to say than done.. I cant deny the fact that sometimes I underestimated my opponent due to the weird thing/combo in their list, especially the opponent himself is a new player. I strongly believe every player build their list to a certain of degree of competitive, and once you fall into their competitive element of their list, you will soon find out you are in deep trouble. We have heard alot of all this new "weird" lists lately, like foot slogging eldar, 130 footslogging orks, the return of Nidzilla etc which are deadly if you did not handle it correctly. So, proceed with caution, unless you know your opponent codex like the back of hand.


2. Never Overestimate Your List

Unless you are playing army size above 2k or 3k which allow you to basically filled everything from your codex, otherwise every list have their own weakness. Do not have the mentality of your list is the best or unbeatable, you never know when the lady of luck turn her back on you or your next opponent has just design a list just to nail you.


3. After the Game

Well.. what did you guys do after the game ?? Laughing at the funny moment that happened in the game just now ?? Or frustrated on the dice roll that screwed you big time ?? Well.. be honest, I did both of these before too. But now, I would quickly summarize what I have did well and what mistake I made while the game is still fresh in my mind and learn to it. It helps a lot to improve you as a player tactically. Of course, do not forgotten to shake and joke with your opponent.

First Week of the League

So the league has started. And I have managed to grab 2 wins from two respected hobbyists. What I'm going to share today is about pre-match preparation, preparation before the game started.

1. Know your opponent

I cant stress this enough to myself, make sure you know your opponent list, because that would seriously affect how you going to deploy your army. Even if the opponent is an old friend that you play week in and week out, still there is no harm to just throw in a quick question, "Same list, old pal ??" You have every right to know your opponent list prior the start of the game.


2. Analyze your opponent list

Getting the list is just the starter, make sure you read / analyze your opponent list, at least you need to know what unit threatening you the most. If you are unsure about something in the list, or any special rules that come with a special named character, I always make sure I ask my opponent to explain clearly to me. Other than that, when you look into your opponent list, you can roughly predict how your opponent will do to go against your list. For example, nobz bikers will most likely charge into your army asap, and you can pretty sure an IG leafblower will just dig in and blast you to the next kingdom come. Knowing this, you should start to prepare yourself on what you might face in a short while.


3. Relax and Play

Dont fret just because it's a league/tournament. Relax yourself and have fun. You will not play full to your standard if you are nervous. Just face the game itself and love your model like you used to.


League game is a long and ongoing tournament, make sure you are well prepared and you can definitely score a good spot in the league table. And no matter how well you play or how your dice abandon you at the critical moment, just remember this is still a game and make sure you have fun.