Endless Fantasy Tactics

When I was at Strangeway Games this past weekend, I did notice this game advertised while I was there.  It evidently had a successful Kickstarter back in 2012 with a follow up in 2014 (2015?) for an expansion.

The game seems to have a JRPG/Final Fantasy Tactics feel to it.  I liked how simple things looked.  The game takes place on 1" grids so you have the option to build using their laser cut MDF products or just use a dry erase map like those used in D&D.

I admit that everything about this game intrigues me...however I know I'm already balls deep into quite a few other games/gaming systems.  But the models seem like they'd be relatively easy to paint.  From what little I've seen on YouTube the game also plays well.

At the moment the only thing holding me back is that I'd want to buy a starter set (currently $54.95) and a Rulebook (pictured above, $49.99 MSRP).  Evidently the starter set does come with a "reader's digest" version of the rules but doesn't come with stats for other creatures/soldiers.  You need the main rulebook for that.  The starter set also comes with 4 figurines (only 2 of which kinda interest me, the knight and the dark adept).  The main thing that attracts me about the starter set though is that it also comes with some of the laser cut MDF that you use for building up the "board" (a $29.95 value).

So considering that most of the miniatures cost $9.95, that means I'm getting 1.5 "free" miniatures and the rules when I buy the starter set.  Hrmmm, I guess it also seems like I get an item deck set.

For now, I will attempt to resist temptation.  This gives me a good reason to go into Strangeway Games and try it out myself!

Anybody have any experience with the game?

Iron Hands on the Mind

A while back I had been exchanging some e-mails with my buddy LaMonte about sticking to one army for the near future in 40K.  This would allow me to focus on painting the models up and getting better with one army.  I suppose that was some time during football season because between now and then the Imperium has gotten quite a few updates along the way culminating in the Fall of Cadia book.  I think this book gives Imperial players much more options than the Agents of the Imperium book had given us.

One nice thing is that this does allow me to still focus on my Space Marines while still building up some Mechanicum, Imperial Guard, and other Imperial sources.  Shoot, I may finally build up and paint one of my Imperial Knights!

That said, my Iron Hands are going to be the way to go.  As you may have noticed, my Iron Hands aren't the traditional black and silver.  I opted to go with a burnt orange (I'll admit in large part because of my alma mater).  I had started painting up some Dark Angels in burnt orange before and in general it lets me do something different.  I found the black and silver to be very sharp but also very plain.  I didn't want to paint another green army to confuse with my Salamanders.  It just made sense!

I need to flesh out the fluff for my chapter.  I also need to come up with a good name for the chapter as well.  I know I had come up with quite a few names in the past.  I'll have to think about things a bit more and decide soon.

Hrmmm, here are a few things I've fleshed out:

Location: Subsector Strellia
Home Planet:  Moros

Chapter Name:  The Fire Guard, an Iron Hands Successor Chapter

Before I moved I had started running a campaign for some former coworkers.  While I had to hastily finish, I think I will use it as inspiration for the development of my chapter.

Fire Guard Tactical Marine (Basic)

Today I exchanged an e-mail with my buddy LaMonte where we talked a little about the tournament this past Saturday.  One thing he had asked was how I would potentially flesh out my 1000 point list into an 1850 point list.

Almost immediately I started thinking of ways to parlay it into what was my old BeakyCon list.  But this list would be different.  I think I wanted it to be a bit more fun to play.  Have a few more options.  I know that min-maxing is the way to go to win tournaments.  But I'm hoping I can get more utility out of this list.  Here's my first cut:

Fist of Medusa (Iron Hands Formation)
Core - Battle Demi Company
HQ - Captain (Cataphractii Terminator Armor, Gorgon's Chain, Lightning Claw, Power Fist) - 185 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, 30 year anniversary Marine, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Flamer, Rhino) - 110 points
Fast Attack - Attack Bike - 40 points
Heavy - Centurion Devastators (5x Grav Cannons, Omniscope) - 410 points

Auxiliary - Honored Ancients
Elite - Ironclad Dreadnought - 135 points

Auxiliary - Raptor Wing
Fast Attack - Storm Talon (Skyhammer Missiles) - 115 points
Fast Attack - Storm Talon (Skyhammer Missiles) - 115 points
Fast Attack - Land Speeder  - 45 points

Inquisitorial Detachment

HQ - Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Toby (Mastery Level 1, Force Sword, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades) - 85 points

HQ - Coteaz - 100 points

Allies - Iron Hands

HQ - Librarian (Force Axe, Auspex) - 70 points

Troop - Scouts x5 - 55 points
Fast Attack - Lucius Pattern Drop Pod - 50 points
Heavy - Thunderfire Cannon - 100 points

List Thoughts

So that puts me at 1845 points (I had to double check points costs as I whipped this list up based off memory).  I guess the approach is still generally similar to what I did before.

My Centurion Devastator squad went up to a 5 man unit to be able to really put the hurt on something.  It is possible that 4 Centurions is the right number.  I opted to give the Sergeant an Omniscope to allow me to Split Fire elsewhere as needed.  In most cases, 25 Grav shots is overkill (especially when potentially having Prescience and Grav Amps).  But unless I can come up with a better way to spend 80 points, I'll stick with a full unit.  Both my Inquisitors will be joining the Centurions per the norm and allow me to roll for Divination (Toby) and Telepathy (Coteaz).  The Captain will join the unit and provide a better beat stick melee threat.  He can do AP3 or AP2 attacks as needed and with a 2+ armor save, 4++ Invulnerable save (re-rolling 1's due to Cataphractii armor), and a 4+ native FNP, I'm sitting pretty.

I decided to ally in Iron Hands to provide me with some more support units.  The Librarian opens up access to Biomancy and all the Space Marine powers.  I'm only going to get 1 roll on the table but I didn't want to put too much focus on the Psyker phase.  Most Daemons, Grey Knights, and Eldar will have enough dice to shut this down if they want.

All three of my Tactical Squads will gain mobility by having Rhino's.  I stuck with a cheap Attack Bike for late game objective grabbing.  I also was able to get a single ObSec Scout Squad.  I could easily give them all Sniper Rifles but may opt to give them a CCW and a Pistol to threaten close combat.  They are still Marines with a 4+ armor save.  Plus it gives me a guaranteed Outflanking unit.

I upgraded my regular Dreadnought into an Ironclad Dreadnought as the Iron Hands allies give me the option to bring a Lucius Pattern Drop Pod.  This creates an immediate threat that my opponent must address.  Additionally, it gives me a place to hide the Dreadnought on Turn 1.

I know that I already have an auxiliary choice but brought the Raptor Wing formation to shore up some AA weaknesses.  They may not win me the game but provide some options against other vehicle flyers.

Lastly, I picked up a Thunderfire Cannon that allows me to deal with horde units and potentially snipe out characters/weapons that are causing me problems.  The added benefit of bolstering one unit of terrain is just the cherry on top.

All in all, it is a more well rounded list.  Weaknesses are still pretty obvious.  My Centurion "death star" unit does not have a good Hit and Run option and could get bogged down in close combat.  I had thought about bringing in St. Celestine but that is very limiting.  I also don't have a guaranteed FNP (so I'm "stuck" at 5+) and don't have an Invulnerable Save.  My Centurions also suffer from lack of mobility unless I'm willing to risk Santic Daemonology  (or if I try to get the Space Marine teleport power).

I also don't have a great way of dealing with Super Heavies.  I guess Grav Centurions can eventually make a dent but otherwise I just have a couple of Melta Guns that need to be within 6" to be effective.

Still...the list seems a bit fun and has a lot of answers (even if they are few).  Already I begin to think that by removing 1 Centurion I can upgrade my Librarian to ML2 and put him in Terminator Armor (50 points).  But that doesn't gain me too much outside of an additional roll on the Psyker spell charts.  Maybe a Rifleman Dread?  That's 120 points and while they aren't what they used to be, they do offer me poor man's AA and a good way of taking out light vehicles.  Or I could change the Attack Bike into an Assault Squad only...wait...nevermind.  I can't take Melta Guns on regular Attack Marines.  I guess I could just upgrade my Attack Bike to have a Multi-Melta too.

In any case, any thoughts on the list?

Warhammer 40K Tournament at Strangeway Games

This past weekend (January 28th, 2017) I had the opportunity to participate in a Warhammer 40K tournament over at Strangeway Games.  I honestly didn't even know there was much of anything over at Satellite Beach but I noticed a few of my friends on Facebook post interest in the store for Age of Sigmar.  I had every intent on going to that AoS tournament but Papa Nurgle had other plans for me that day.  Instead, I noticed that they had another tournament the following weekend for 40K and immediately I began to prep.  On the day of, I almost didn't make it on time but it seems quite a few other people were running a bit late too.  It was clearly meant to be!

The rules were pretty straight forward:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1135293766588196/

1000 point tournament, CAD or Formation only, no unbound lists, Forgeworld rules not labelled experimental are allowed. $10 Entry Fee, 3 rounds, bring 5 copies of your list (1 for each opponent, 1 for yourself, 1 for the store/TO). Painting will be judged and included in tournament points.

I had every intention of having everything 100% painted...and then my birthday week happened along with OT at work.  Needless to say, I did have just about all I needed for my list and even tried to put some paint on almost all the models.  I knew going in I wouldn't win best painted but had hoped that I would get 3 good games to ease back into 40K.  I mean it was 1000 points, definitely nothing stressful.  I opted to stick to Iron Hands (as I knew how to play with Battle Demi Company and the Fist of Medusa in particular).  I didn't want to go too over the top with the list but wanted something that would keep me in most games.  Here's the list:

Fist of Medusa (Iron Hands Formation)
Core - Battle Demi Company
HQ - Chaplain (Auspex) - 95 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, 30 year anniversary Marine, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Melta Gun, Rhino) - 115 points
Troop - Tactical Marines x5 (Flamer) - 75 points
Fast Attack - Attack Bike - 40 points
Heavy - Centurion Devastators (3x Grav Cannons) - 240 points

Auxiliary - Honored Ancients
Elite - Dreadnought w/ Drop Pod - 135 points

Allies - Inquisition

HQ - Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Toby (Mastery Level 1, Force Sword, Rad Grenades, Psychotroke Grenades) - 85 points

HQ - Coteaz - 100 points

1000 points on the dot!  In general both the Inquisitors would join the Chaplain and the Centurions and form a mini Toughness 5, multi-wound "death star" of sorts.  I'd be "fearless" due to the Chaplain, would get to knock off some cover saves with the Auspex, 5+ FNP from the Fist of Medusa detachment, and would get blessings from the Inquisitors.

3 warp charges weren't a lot but I made the most of them.  Inquisitor Toby would roll on Divination for whatever plus Prescience and Coteaz would get 2 rolls on Telepathy to hopefully get Invisibility but mostly to have Psychic Shriek.

Flyers would most likely wreck this list.  No sooner had I arrived at Strangeway Games that I noticed one guy had a list with something like 5 or 6 Vendettas.  Luckily for me, I was never matched up against him!

The Games

Game 1 - Tau Empire (Anthony)

My first game was against Anthony, a guy I had met previously and played against at an old game store that has since closed.  I hadn't seen him in over a year.  He brought a mostly infantry based Tau list with Kroot, Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Crisis Suits, and a mini stealth suit death star unit with Commander Farsight.

Per the picture above, most of his army was in the big cathedral in the middle.  It was a Maelstrom Mission out of the rulebook where we had an escalating number of Tactical Objective cards.  My Grav Centurions proved to be too much for the Farsight unit to survive, especially with the Psyker support from the Inquisitors.  Prescience went a long way to helping me whittle down the units.  Ultimately I kept him boxed in the Cathedral while I managed to secure 4 of the objectives for most of the game.  Of note, I also seized the initiative on a 6 on the re-roll due to Coteaz's special rule (a common theme throughout the tournament).  I believe I ended up winning 8-2 (he claimed one tactical objective card and had first blood).  With that, I had gained a "Major Victory" and got a win for the day.  Already I was happy to exceed my expectations and not go 0-3.

MVP of the Match - Coteaz.  Arguably I could've given this to my Dreadnought for holding strong for nearly 3 turns but Coteaz and Psychic Shriek ensured that Farsight and her crew went down early.  I seized the initiative due to his special re-roll and I even got to use his infamous "I've Been Expecting You" rule.

Game 2 - Deathguard Chaos Space Marines (Rew)

My next game came against Rew, a guy I had previously met and played against over at Dogs of War.  Normally I'd see him field Imperial Guard but the new Traitor Legions book was too hard to pass up for him.  It was a virtual mirror match as he had brought his Deathguard warband detachment that gave him re-rolls for FNP of 1 and he had roughly the same amount of bodies on the field as I had.

We played The Scouring from the regular book missions and set up with the normal deployment.  Again, my opponent deployed first and I managed to seize the initiative on him with another 6 on a re-roll.  If you'll notice in the picture, he had castled up behind a building on the upper left hand corner of the board where he couldn't get a Rhino through.  I immediately dropped the Dreadnought in the Drop Pod in front of all the Rhinos to make him have to shoot through and blow up both units to have any chance of leaving the area.  Unfortunately for him, it wasn't until Turn 4 that he managed to finally destroy both the Dreadnought and the Drop Pod and by then I had control of the rest of the board.

He deployed his Terminators and Sorcerer out on the ledge to avoid Coteaz's "I've Been Expecting You" rule.  Instead of deep striking, he'd try approaching me on foot.  Unfortunately I infiltrated my mini "death star" unit 18" away from him and walked them up first turn and unloaded Grav Cannon and Hurricane Bolter shots galore.  By the end of the shooting phase, the squad and the sorcerer were gone.

After that I did advance my Centurions towards the remaining Deathguard marines but there was little they could do to not get shot up as I advanced and kept him boxed in.  At the end of 5 turns, I had captured all but 1 objective and had scored an 11-0 victory.

MVP of the Match - Dreadnought.  This guy served the Emperor well and while he did eventually die after 4 turns, he tied up Rew's bikes for nearly 4 turns and kept the bulk of his army in the same spot while I moved to control the rest of the board.  Again, Inquisitor Toby kept it icey and provided some clutch Prescience buffs.

Game 3 - Dark Eldar/Harlequins (Colby)

Wow.  So 2 games in, 2 "Major Victories" against my opponents.  Some of it was definitely luck.  Some of it was the perfect use of rules given to me (Infiltrate, re-rolling the seize roll, Feel No Pain across the board).  I sat at the top table and was about to play a guy that had driven up from Vero Beach.

He had a combination of a Dark Eldar CAD (Archon with 3 Grotesques in a Raider, 2 units of Kabalite Warriors with a Blaster in a Venom) and a Harlequin formation that let him re-roll jink rolls for his bike units (2 wound dudes that seemed to play like Eldar Scat bikes) and a bigger Eldar Vyper looking vehicle with a Haywire blaster.

The mission was The Relic out of the rule book.  I knew if I did not grab the relic in the first turn, he could easily move up bikes and block any chance at getting the Relic.  The game would go to secondary objectives where I'd potentially lose to First Blood and Line Breaker (he had a fast, hard hitting, and mobile army).  As in all my other games, my opponent deployed first and I went second and seized on him. Again, I gained the warlord trait to give me Infiltrate and I deployed 18" away from his Grotesque squad in a Raider and 6" away from the Relic.  First turn I walked up with my Centurion squad and grabbed the relic.  My opponent knew that it was pretty much game at that point.  I was fine with sacrificing every other unit at this point.  If I could destroy the Grotesques, I would be fine as he'd have to focus everything on trying to taking out my Centurions.  He did have poison weaponry in spades.  But Coteaz got what I had wanted all day.

Invisibility.

Turn 1 my squad was invisible.  Still Colby charged his Grots into the squad and faced -1 Toughness and rolled a 2 for my Psychotroke Grenades.  I auto-hit him (already almost a given as I had Invisibility).  He could only hit at most 1 time with each guy.  He was forced to fall back after the combat.  I finished off his Grotesques and it was only a matter of time before the game ended with me holding the Relic.  Even then, I had gotten First Blood and my Chaplain was sitting safely in the squad of Centurions.  Final score 5-1.

MVP of the Match - Coteaz.  This guy allowed me to seize.  Gave me Invisibility.  That ensured I would not lose.

So all in all I finished 3-0 and won some store credit for winning the tournament.  I bought my Triumvirate of the Imperium set with the Belasarius Cawl (sp?), St. Celestine, and the female Inquisitor from the recent Fall of Cadia book.  I had a great time playing all 3 games.  I would say that I definitely had luck on my side as I successfully got the rolls and warlord traits I needed when I needed them.  I also always had just enough rolls to force armor saves, morale checks, and made enough It Will Not Die or Feel No Pain rolls to keep my units up.

I think the owner of Strangeway Games (Skip) is great and I really applaud him for having built up the community there.  I really enjoyed playing there and look forward to returning for other games in the future (not only 40K).  Winning was definitely nice as I hadn't played since some time after BeakyCon last year and I didn't think I would do nearly as well as I did.

Hrmmmm...so far so good on my goals.  I got 3 games in and I managed to play in a tournament.  I know my yearly goals haven't kicked off yet but it doesn't hurt to get started early.  I was really impressed with how well the Centurions performed.  Lack of mobility definitely hurt me, but in most games they still had a decent threat range to at the very least cause my opponent to dedicate fire to them or avoid them.  When I originally started thinking of the tournament MVP for my list, I had decided it was Inquisitor Toby...but his superior (Inquisitor Coteaz) definitely was the game changer.  I can't depend on seizing every game (in fact, most games I'm content to go 2nd and figure out the objective situation).  But in this case it allowed me to apply early pressure and never let up.

In general, there is a lot of utility with my 2 Inquisitors.  This is definitely a list I'd like to flesh out a bit more.  I do like my Command Squad death star and all it offers, but the Centurions give me some more firepower outside of close combat.  Chaplain Royceefus performed well.  He got some great Warlord traits and provided a good source of +1 to FNP all the while making sure my main squad never fled the battle field.

"Come at me bro..."

Well That Was Quite Some Time...

Hrmmm, two posts in a row when I apologize and write about how long it has been between posts.  No good!  I was listening to some random podcast a week or so ago and someone mentioned that it was always a bad idea to try and dive into new year's resolutions after new years day.  I guess they mentioned a myriad of reasons why it was potentially a doomed venture but stated that it was better to aim for your birthday or really any other month of the year to get started.  I guess I'm going to try and use my recent birthday as a spring board.  Unofficially I'll "start" my resolutions come February, but I'm already undertaking quite a few of them semi-successfully.

That said...

Here are some of my resolutions pertaining to the hobby for 2017 February and on:

1.  Get 4 games of Warhammer 40K/Age of Sigmar/Kings of War/Frostgrave/other miniature game per month.
2.  Paint 1 unit (Warhammer 40K/AoS/KoW) or 1 war band (Frostgrave) per month.
3.  Attend 1 tournament every 3 months (helps with #1).
4.  Post 1 blog post per week.

Pretty simple eh?  The way I see it I should be able to do the stuff above at the very least.  Yeah, the bar was set pretty low but I guess it is only to help me feel more accomplished.  Gotta start somewhere, right?!

Luckily I'm already well on my way to painting up my Centurion Squad for Warhammer 40K and my Brute (i.e. Minotaur) squad for Kings of War.  I also attended a tournament at a local game store this past Saturday where I got 3 great games in.  Here's hoping I can continue to make good progress on everything else!