Crucible 6.5 - Kings of War Doubles Tournament

Whoa boy, Crucible 6.5 has come and gone and I have to say that I had a blast just as expected.  I really think that staying on-site really did help a ton as it let me focus on the games and just having fun instead of having to drive back and forth.  It also afforded me the opportunity to partake in delicious beer without worrying about having to drive anywhere.

I had the opportunity to participate in the Kings of War Doubles tournament on Friday with my buddy John from Titusville.  He took his Brotherhood list and I took my Herd army.  Combined we were team Brotherherd!


We ended up playing 3 games throughout the day and had a blast.  I definitely got a chance to better see what some other armies offer and how to better play my list.  Here is the 1000 point list I took:

Regiment - Tribal Longhorns (Brew of Haste)
Horde - Guardian Brutes (Blessing of the Gods)
Troop - Beast Pack*
Troop - Beast Pack*
Horde - Stampede* (Brew of Sharpness)
Hero - Shaman (Heal 5, Banner of the Griffin)

The Herd - 1000 points

 

Tribal Longhorns

 

Guardian Brutes

 

Stampede

I actually finished up my Shaman and the Regiment of Longhorns before the event.  Other than adding some flock to the bases, my stuff was done in advance of the tournament.  But hey, that means I finished painting a unit for Kings of War.  October hobby goal check!

I don't pretend that these guys are painted super well but they look good enough on the tabletop.  I was mostly pleased with them.

Game 1 - Jamie and Rocky

In game 1 we faced off against Jamie and Rocky with their Kingdoms of Men and Undead unholy alliance.  I forget the name of the scenarios but this one was the one where we had to have the most number of units on the opponent's half of the table at the end of the game.

My Herd swept across the right side of the board and met Rocky's hordes of undead.  I got lucky on some key nerve checks and by the end I had routed all of Rocky's army save for the necromancer.  John on the other side held Jamie mostly in check and executed some brilliant flank maneuvers on Jamie's cavalry that allowed us to reform and set up other potential late game charges (which were unnecessary).

So in the end we won.  1-0 baby!

Game 2 - Jacob and Chris

Unfortunately I guess I missed on taking a picture of this matchup.  Jacob and Chris were playing Abyssals and Goblins.  Their list was very well tuned and their generalship showed in the game.  The objective was to get to the three objective markers on the center of the table and take them to your board edge.  In the end, the speed and fury of their army proved too much and instead of focusing on one flank and the center, John and I spread out too thin and never had enough hitting power to break enough units.  The Stampede and John's Knights did an admirable job but not enough.  We lost this game but had a blast.  I finally found out how truly deadly flyers and shamblers can be in the right position.  1-1 but still having fun!

Game 3 - Bruce and Cody

Game 3 was against Bruce's Roman Legions (pictured) and Cody's Ogres.  By this point we were just playing for 2nd and 3rd place and just let it rip.  With plenty of pathfinder and all the trees in the middle, I thought I would have an easy chance making charges and breaking the center.  Sadly Romans have *OUTSTANDING* nerve values and I did roll poorly.  We duked it out back and forth (the scenario was to have the most number of units within 9" of the center).  In the end though, Bruce and Cody were able to clean up everything but one or two units but they had the center.

So at the end of the day we were 1-2 but it felt as if with a bit of luck we could've just as easily been 3-0 or even 2-0-1.  I had a blast and this definitely got me wanting to work on my KoW army a bit more.

Spoils of War!

We ended up getting the Counter Charger award because we finished strictly in the middle of the pack for the day.  I have to admit that I do not know about the Counter Charge podcast but am really looking forward to tuning in after hearing great things about him.

I did play more games during Crucible, namely in the Narrative event for Warhammer 40K.  But that is for another post...

Army Display

Here are a few of the other armies I saw.  I thought I had taken more pictures but for now, here you go!

Jamie's German Themed Kingdoms of Men Army

Cody's Dwarf Army

The Furious Shivs

The Furious Shivs

 - A Slaaneshi Alpha Legion Warband

The story of the Furious Shivs is legend in the Crucible Sector.  It begins with Alpharius and the Alpha Legion...not ever fully trusting any other Legion, the original members of the Furious Shivs were tasked with infiltrating the Emperor's Children to better understand the nature of their chaotic transformation.  A small company of just over 200 men (led by Brother Captain Mer'kar) joined the Emperor's Children as they battled the White Scars in the Crucible Sector during the Horus Heresy.  Masters of disguise and deception, Mer'kar claimed that he and his men were novitiates that had just been sent to reinforce the 5th Company of Emperor's Children.

Though most Alpha Legion members do not commit to any one deity, Mer'kar and his company were indoctrinated into the worship of Slaanesh.  Being fully committed to the mission at hand, Mer'kar and his lieutenants took the blood oaths and began open worship of He Who Thirsts.  Many battles were fought during the Heresy but ultimately it came to an inglorious end.  With Horus being slain by the Emperor, most of the Traitor Legions, including the Emperor's Children, made a full retreat into the Eye of Terror.  It is at this point that Mer'kar saw an opportunity to fill the power vacuum left on the edge of the Crucible Sector.

Throughout most of the war, Mer'kar and his men had operated as an individual cell with only intermittent communication with Alpharius and the rest of the legion.  When news reached Mer'kar about Alpharius' demise at the hands of Rogal Dorn, Mer'kar decided that he would lead his battle brothers to glory and seek power for himself.  Mer'kar dubbed his warband the Furious Shivs and begun the pursuit of artifacts and weapons that would allow him to gain the strength necessary to obliterate the Loyalist scum.  Gaining favor for Slaanesh would afford him opportunities to commune with beings of the Warp and gain knowledge about where such power could be gained.

Evolution of a Warband

While 202 men originally set out to ghost the Emperor's Children at the beginning of the Heresy, only 116 of the original battle brothers remained.  The passing of time has seen some afflicted with the Obliterator virus while dabbling with warp weaponry.  Others committed more fully to the pursuit of ecstasy (magnified as followers of Slaanesh) and chose to walk the path of a Noise Marine.  Still, other battle brothers have simply stayed true to their original training as Alpha Legion and maintained their Legion tactics and training.

Needing to bolster their ranks, Mer'kar and his First Lieutenant Jorvo have tested other renegade marines and allowed only the best to join their ranks.  While they do employ the use of cultists and other more brutish berzerker marine types, the Furious Shivs only ever have 202 true members to represent and honor the original cell.

Having fought for Slaanesh for nearly 10 millenia and winning countless battles along the way, Mer'kar was shown the location of the Knife of Eternity.  A simple weapon, it had been crafted using the shards of Eldar soul stones and was an item highly coveted by the Dark Prince.  In the year 666 of the 38th Millennium, Mer'kar led his warband into the Covictus system and after subduing the local militia, captured the relic in the name of Slaanesh.  His reward for obtaining such a glorious prize was his ascendance into full daemon-hood as a Daemon Prince of Slaanesh.  Despite the jealousy that many of his subordinates felt at that moment, they had no choice but to submit and continue following Mer'kar.  His Lieutenant Jorvo ascended to the position of Chaos Lord and became the outward face for the Warband when dealing with other traitors and aliens alike.

Librarius of the Dagger

The Librarius for the Furious Shevs has always maintained a keen attachment to the Warp.  Even as Loyalists, Epistolary Dorb and his fellow Librarians would dabble and experiment on the people of conquered planets after the Crusade had departed.  This did not changed in their shift to Chaos...if anything has been turned up a notch.  Mer'kar always favored the Council of the Dagger and it is common to have a sorcerer accompany him on every mission.  Their past experimentation with the Warp on living entities has allowed them to perfect methods of enhancing the performance of the warband.  Mer'kar and the other Sorcerers favor using the Warp to increase the speed and strength of his soldiers rather than manifesting lightning or other more physical weapons.

The Hunger for More

Though the warband has fought together for a long time, there is always a need to advance  whenever possible.  When the Furious Shivs were still in their infancy, infighting cost them multiple victories as a result of jealousy and backstabbing foiling the proper execution of battle plans.  It didn't take Mer'kar long to realize he needed to quash these actions if he wanted the warband to survive long after the events of the Horus Heresy.  Though his chaotic heart relished in the violence, Mer'kar was able to instill into his soldiers a discipline not so dissimilar to the notion of "honor among thieves".  The tool he used as an outlet was simple:  whenever there was a matter in question where one Aspiring Champion thought glory or some other trophy had been wrongfully taken, he could challenge the opponent to a Battle of the Shivs.  It was a simple combat where the two would face off in no armor using only a simple bone shiv as a weapon.  The first to inflict 6 cuts on his opponent would be declared the victor and would claim the spoils as his own.

Simple and brutal, it has proven an effective way to retain some semblance of order.  Lemen, Aspiring Champion and squad leader of the Dissonance (First Squad of Noise Marines) has the most victories in the Battle of Shivs.

The Twins

Oreh and Ireh are twin brothers and head up the "regular" Chaos Space Marine legionnaires whenever they enter battle.  Preferring longer range engagements, the brothers are responsible for organizing the squads and choosing champions whenever they go out on missions.  Many times in the past it has seemed that one of the brothers had been fatally injured only to miraculously recover from their wounds after coming in contact with the other brother. 

It is thought that Alpharius and Omegon themselves bestowed upon them a gift or latent Psyker ability that allowed them to share a life force.  Oreh and Ireh work perfectly in concert on the battlefield and have a stranglehold on the Chaos Space Marine element of the warband.  This extends to squads of Chosen, Havocs, and Raptors.

Presence in the Crucible Sector

Having attained daemonhood, it seemed that Mer'kar would be content to sit on his laurels and have his Warband go out and strike at the Imperium, wreaking havoc where ever they were weakest.  But being a Veteran of the Long War compelled Mer'kar to push for more and to one day strike out at the corpse god himself!  With that in mind he again began communing with some of the older denizens of the warp and came to find out about an artifact of great power in the Crucible Sector.  The Vibora Morada was an idol that had been broken in millennia past.  It was shattered into 6 different pieces and the pieces were dispersed to different planets.  Though the Greater Daemon of Slaanesh was purposely vague about what it did, finding all the pieces and fusing them back together would give the wielder a greater control of the Warp in the Crucible Sector.

With images of the site of each of the fragments, Mer'kar and the Furious Shevs set out to recover the fragments to gain dominance in the Crucible Sector.

Crucible 6.5

Well shoot, this kinda got away from me.  6 months.  I guess in that time I did not get much of any of my gaming goals in.  Work is going to ramp up again so I don't see that improving.  Still, gonna try!

This weekend Crucible 6.5 is happening in Orlando/Kissimmee, FL.  Normally Crucible is a Spring event but the organizers are taking a whack at a fall event to see how attendance does.  I guess from there they will settle on a date.

In any case, at the moment I'm slated to participate in the Kings of War doubles event on Friday and then the Narrative event for 40K on Saturday and Sunday.  I haven't played nearly enough of 8th edition to wade into the competitive 40K GT, so I stuck with the narrative stuff.

For the KoW Doubles I'm playing The Herd and partnering up with my buddy John and his Brotherhood army.  For 40K I'm playing as a Slaaneshi themed Alpha Legion army.  I came up with a fluff bit for my Alpha Legion army that I'll be posting shortly.  Hoping to have a blast.  This time I'm staying on-site so it will be easier to just stick around the hotel and not have to drive around Orlando.

Charging up my tablet as well just in case I want to try and catch my Longhorns try to beat the dreaded purple wizard and his K-State Wildcats.  Should be a fun weekend!

Hobby Goals - April

Better late than never?  Quick and dirty, lets get to it!

Yearly Goals - April

1.  Get 4 games of Warhammer 40K/Age of Sigmar/Kings of War/Frostgrave/other miniature game per month.

This was a success.  I was able to get in some games at the beginning of the month at Crucible and then followed it up with a small tournament over at Strangeway Games in the middle of the month.  The rumblings of 8th edition were starting even then with GW's presentation at Adepticon.  I meant to do a tournament over at Dogs of War as well but had to adult.  :(

2.  Paint 1 unit (Warhammer 40K/AoS/KoW) or 1 war band (Frostgrave) per month.

After having done so much in March, I definitely slowed down in April.  I was able to at least assemble and convert quite a few things.  Worked on my dwarfs for Age of Sigmar (changing them from square to round bases) and primed them to boot.  But the big success was painting an Apothecary, two thieves, and some tokens for Frostgrave.  With that I feel I did accomplish my goals to an extent.  I was even able to paint a forge, a book case, and a couple of small buildings for use in Kings of War.

3.  Attend 1 tournament every 3 months (helps with #1).

I was able to attend the tournament at Strangeway Games but that was it.

4.  Post 1 blog post per week.

Yet another big fail.  I started posting well at the beginning of April and then work plus hobby time sidelined most everything else.  Still, I feel I've been able to make some headway on making terrain and prepping stuff for Frostgrave in anticipation of teaching my buddy Sanjay how to play.

Look Ahead

8th edition looming has a lot of my 40K stuff on hold.  I am trying to keep up with rumors but by in large I am focusing my attention elsewhere.  I'm building up my Frostgrave warband and am working on extra minis so I can sit and teach Sanjay about the game.  I'm also slowly working on Age of Sigmar minis (dwarfs).  The Kharadron Overlords are really appealing but other than a unit and their army book, I'm trying to hold off on doing much else.

Terrain is still the focus.  I am building some trees and a few towers but am mostly waiting on some terrain I ordered from Urban Matz for Frostgrave.  It should be enough to cover a 3x3 play area.  I am needing to complete some gantries and walk ways...but can use more terrain.  I do have the ruins of Osgiliath to work on.  They come with some neat statues too to help add flavor to the games.

Crucible 6 Doubles Tournament

So on the first full day of Crucible (Friday), I opted to play in a double tournament for Warhammer 40K.  I had been in touch with some of the TO's about it and was paired up with a dude from Orlando named Michael.  I think I mentioned in the past that we took our time reaching a consensus on what to play.  Initially we were going to go with Imperials (I was looking at a soft Iron Hands death star).  We then started discussing Chaos Space Marines but every list we came up with had deficiencies and would depend on some form of summoning to get more units on the table.

Ultimately we settled on Tyranids.  I had hesitated since Michael was fielding them for the GT.  But he came up with a pretty solid list that we both fielded:

Tyranid Combined Arms Detachment (925 points)

HQ - Hive Tyrant (Wings, 2x TL Devourers w/ Brainleech Worms) - 230 points
HQ - Hive Tyrant (Wings, 2x TL Devourers w/ Brainleech Worms) - 230 points

Troop - 30x Termagants (TL Spinefists x30) - 120 points
Troop - Tervigon (Cluster Spines) - 200 points

Elite - Venomthrope - 45 points
Elite - Zoanthrope - 50 points
Elite - Zoanthrope - 50 points

If the list seems familiar it is because it is the basis of what I'm wanting to field to the tournament this weekend.  So we had to take 310 points worth of Troops and were restricted to CAD's (though ForgeWorld units were fair game).  Ultimately we had the ability to generate more ObSec units via the Tervigon, we knew that Grav would be limited, and we had 18 warp charges between the two of us (and plenty of Synapse).

Game 1 - White Scars/Sisters of Battle

Our first game we faced off against a combo of SoB and White Scars.  We were able to choose our primary mission and opted for Kill Points as both of our armies had 18 a piece and we had the tougher units to deal with.  The secondary objectives were a selection of Maelstrom objectives similar to ITC where we would choose two a turn.

Initially we pushed up hard and though that we could crush them by virtue of shot saturation.  Unfortunately some bad rolls put us behind the eight ball in the first two rounds but as the game wore on our army actually increased in strength.  We lost three of our four Flyrants by Turn 2 but despite that were able to put a hurt on their army.  This was one of the first times I'd ever faced St. Celestine with the new rules.  One of the most memorable moments was when she and her Gemena Superiora (sp?) charged a unit of Gaunts and ended up actually *LOSING* combat.

In the end we pulled out an 11-10 win.  We would've been able to win the Maelstrom mission but we had one turn where we bet we could eliminate 3 units instead of just 2.  A single scout was able to survive the attacks of 10 gaunts and a Tervigon and spoil our victory.  Had we gotten the 3 points that round, we would've handily won that objective.  Still, it was a great game and had a blast learning a bit more on how to better control my bugs.

None can withstand the Great Devourer!

Game 2 - Tyranid and Tyranid

So we knew after the tournament started that there was a mirror Tyranid list participating.  We figured we would never have to face them...right?!?!

hah...well so much for that thought.  Their list was almost identical to ours.  The main difference is they sacrificed their Brain Bugs in favor of Biovores.  In general that could prove to be troublesome as Biovores just eat up enemy infantry.   We had the initial advantage in Warp Charges but that quickly dwindled as they had second turn and were able to push into our lines and start eliminating Flyrants and Zoanthropes alike.  The main mission was table quarters and the secondary mission was still the same as before (modified Maelstrom).

By turn three there had been a mass amount of carnage but the main difference was that our team had both of our Warlords and their team had lost both.  They had been hampered by the lack Synapse.  Originally they thought that their teammates could provide Synapse to their ally but the rules clearly stated that no benefits (or penalties) would transfer between armies.

The game went back and forth but once our swarms had dug in, it was hard to eliminate everything.  We played to Turn 5 and rolled a 2 for the game to end.  When we summed up the points we had gotten to a perfect tie.  9 points to each side.  We tied the primary.  We tied the secondary.  We had the same amount of tertiary points.

I learned more about Flyrant manipulation in this game and managed to clean up some rules regarding the Psyker phase and how Flying Monstrous Creatures work (i.e. evidently I don't have Skyfire when I'm Gliding, just when Swooping).

So at this point we were 1-0-1.  We had played a close first game and an even closer second game.  One definite difference maker is that both Michael's Tervigon and my own bottled up with doubles on Turn 1 (first time that ever happened to me).  Unfortunately, our opponents didn't bottle up until Turn 5 so that definitely gave them the advantage in terms of number of units.

Preparing for the oncoming enemy swarm...all that tasty biomass!

My Tervigon was too slow at munching on my opponent's Gaunts

Game 3 - The Unholy Alliance...Iron Warriors and Iron Hands

 

One thing I had not anticipated was playing a list where both armies cherry picked the best out of an armies that would normally be "Come the Apocalypse" partners.  Nothing stopped us from doing this and our opponents took full advantage!

The Iron Hands list was not unlike one I would've fielded only he opted to bring a shooty death star (Grav Guns plus Storm Shields) and found the points to field St. Celestine.  The Iron Warriors list had two Sicaran tanks as well as multiple units of Oblits to field.

With this being our last game, both of us had to win objectives as our Primary mission.  With no Psyker defense to speak of, we figured that our Flyrants would have a field day against them.  That definitely could've been the case...if I didn't lose one of my Flyrants on Turn 2 to a Perils of the Warp.  I cast a Warp Blast on one of the Sicarans and failed to hit.  I rolled a 1 on the table and proceeded to roll an 11 on the Leadership test.  Game over.  Still, the Nids fought back hard to try and neutralize our opponents.  Unfortunately losing the Flyrant really limited our offensive capability and the Iron Hands death star hit our back field and took out units one by one.

Again we gambled with a Maelstrom mission of needing to take out three units in one turn but we failed to take the last hull point off a Sicaran tank to succeed in that mission.  At that point the game got out of hand and while I still had a multitude of Gaunts, there isn't a whole lot they can do against Marines and Obliterators.

Our lines were over run...but we wouldn't give up without a fight!

So we ended the day at 1-1-1.  We finished in the top half of the tournament but were well out of contention for any awards.  I did learn quite a bit about the Tyranid army and better ways of deploying in 7th edition.  Perhaps it matters less given that 8th edition is around the corner.

But still it was good to field the army.  Michael was a really outstanding general and often I found myself consulting with him for advice on what to do when presented multiple options.

I did like how his Nids were all red and bone color while mine were blue and bone color.  His were painted far superior to mine...but I could happyily say that all of our units were fully painted!

I had originally thought that the doubles tournament was a really fluffy event meant for throwing some dice and drinking some beer.  But it proved to be far more competitive than I had anticipated.  The winning lists were fielding a combination of summoning Daemons and renegades.  They received perfect scores in every round.

I'll be ready when Crucible 6.5 comes around!

Crucible 6 General Thoughts

So these last few weeks (particularly the weekends) have been busy.  Travel to NYC.  Crucible.  This was the first weekend where I didn't have anything other than the normal OT to do at work.  It afforded me the time to get a trial game in of Shadow War Armageddon with my buddy Sanjay.

I have started painting a bit more.  Mostly focusing on my Kings of War stuff but already I feel the allure of wanting to prep a specific team for the new Necromunda game.  I guess I'll write about that some other time.  But yes, Crucible 6 came and went.  It happened at the Park Inn by Radisson in Kissimmee, FL.

It was a smorgasbord of gaming of all types ranging from all things GW, Kings of War, WarmaHordes, Bolt Action, Guild Ball, and a ton of board games.  The Firelock Games folks were there to demo Blood and Plunder as well!

I need to get better at taking pictures of events but you can go to the Facebook page for the Crucible folks if you want more pictures of the area.  I ended up staying one night at the Park Inn (I had reserved my timeshare up in Orlando), and thought it was good for the price.  It isn't a super fancy hotel but I didn't expect it to be.  But the convention rate definitely made it attractive as an option.

I was very happy to find out that the guys are switching the dates for future Crucible events from the spring to the fall.  This year we'll get a Crucible 6.5 in October.  It works out great as it takes the slot Feast of Blades used to occupy.  Though I do wonder if the newly announced SoCal Open put on by Frontline Gaming will cause similar issues to what Adepticon caused.

So I myself participated in the Friday doubles tournament and then got to at least play in 3 of the 5 matches for the narrative play on Saturday and Sunday.  The doubles tournament was far more competitive than I thought it would be but I guess I will anticipate it a bit better in the future.  The narrative was a ton of fun and while I was never able to field my 1850 point list (the whole reason for wanting to play Necrons), the army performed well.  I'll do a couple of writeups for both of the events in the future.  I'll include a few pictures I took of my games while at the convention.

The tables were great.  I loved all the terrain and would highly recommend the narrative to anybody wanting to have good fun while throwing some dice.