100 Wins!!!!!!

Yep, its a milestone!  Some people can do that level of play in a year (or less). For me it took a bit over 3 years. I think I'll celebrate by painting up some new models!  After all, I've been playing Space marines related games since about 1992, and I have lead and plastic models from that time-frame (and earlier).

Maelstrom Mission #2 - 1650 Points
Opfor:  Sons of Eos (Iron Hands)

something like:

Chapter Master, Relic combi-bolter, terminator armor
Epistolary Librarian, FS (biomancy)
Bike squad, 5, 2xPG
Tactical terminator squad, 6, heavy flamer
Tactical squad, 10, flamer, power fist, rhino, ML
Tactical squad, 10, plasma gun, ML
Devastator squad, ML, 2xPC, MM, Razorback, HKM, TLLC
Dreadnought, TLLC, DCCW, SB
Dreadnought, AC, HF, Drop pod w/ deathwind
Stormtalon, TLAC, SHM

In this mission, each player starts with a single tactical objective card, and after the first turn, a player draws cards up to the number of objectives he controls at that moment.  Our terrain was a ruined urban areas - several large areas of ruins.  In the center of the table was the wreck of an Aquilla Lander.  We were going to use the wrecked lander as mysterious terrain right out of the book.

We placed the numbered objectives on the table, neither of us placed any inside a deployment zone.  I won the roll to choose deployment, and chose the side with three objectives closest to my zone.  My opponent would deploy first and decided to go second.  What?  Well, he was hoping to see where my two first drop pods would go, and then react to it with his pod and Chapter Master/Terminators in reserves.

Well, it did not go well for him.  My game mindset was to control all the objectives I could as a means of point gain and point denial, and it worked very well.

My opponent deployed loosely along his deployment zone, and all I deployed was my two demi-dev squads and their rhinos.  His deployment (from left to right) was bikers - gap - rhino/tacs - tacs/libby / razor/devs - dread. I did not know he'd choose to go econd when I deployed, so my devs were deployed out of sight in ruins.

Turn 1 - Ultramarines Devastator Tactic
I dropped Teletiggy/sternguard/pod adjacent to the bikers, and a tactical squad/pod adjacent to the wrecked aquilla.  My (now relentless) devs moved forward in the ruins to firing positions.  My rhinos moved to be adjacent to objectives,  The Aquilla was disclosed to contain archeotech, and became an objective to hold at game's end.  At that moment, I was controlling 4 of the 6 objectives.  In shooting, I employed Tiggy's warlord trait and killed off all bu the biker sergeant, and stunned the Iron Hand's only Rhino.  The card I'd drawn was D3 points for killing the opponent's warlord.  Tiggy's spells that worked were just stealth and force.

In return, the Opfor's dreadnought/drop pod chose a careful / safe location on my right along the table centerline.  After some tactical discussion (the game was in part practice for the Standish Standoff event), my opponent dismounted his tacticals from their rhino to help shoot up my squad in the center, the other tacticals and librarian moved to support, the devs dismounted, and in firing, my center tactical squad lost some marines and broke, running away from the center tactical objective.  He then spent some firepower to wreck one of my Rhinos for first blood!  My opponent's spells boosted the save of his now dismounted tactical squad to a 4+FNP.

Score: 0-1.  Objectives controlled: 3-1.

Turn 2 - Ultramarines Tactical Tactic
Reserves that came in included my other tactical/pod squad, Stormtalon, and HF/MM landspeeder squadron.  I dropped the new pod squad in ruins near his dreadnought.  On my right, I tried to move my rhino forward a bit into ruins and became immobilized! On my left, I was to eliminate his last biker (shriek), and spent considerable firepower on his dismounted tactical squad, while my diminished tactical squad rallied and again went back to the center objective.  In shooting, I worked over his dismounted tacticals, but they passed morale.  With his bikers gone, I now had him bottled up in his deployment area.  I also immobilized his dreadnought.  I may have scored a point or two on tactical cards.

In response, the Chapter Master, terminator, and stormtalon came in from reserves BUT the Chapter master/terminators tried to deep strike in on my right flank...and they deviated off the table and back into on-going reserves!  He moved around a bit with a concept of attempting an assault on  my Sternguard, attempt to clear me off the center, and an attempt to work my second tactical squad up to reduce it's effectiveness.  In shooting, I got pummeled off the center objective again, my other tactical squad list its MM gunner, and my demi-dev squad on my left took casualties from the storm talon, broke, and nearly ran off the board!

Score: 3-1 or so.  Objectives controlled: 3-1.

Turn 3 - Ultramarines Assault Tactic
My second landspeeder unit came in from reserves (Typhoons).  I moved the first (short range speeders) around some ruins and towards the center.  I rally my devs on the left and move them back on the objective.  I stretch the sternguard and Tiggy out in a conga line from the upper left objective towards his dismounted tacticals and prepare to charge them.  In shooting I get a lucky shot on his Jinking stormtalon and bring it down (for a point).  I successfully assault his tacticals, and also explode his razorback and wreck BOTH of his dreads. The assault garners me another point,  I'm still holding the first card, waiting for his warlord.

My opponent is on the ropes.  He deep strikes his master/termies up into the upper left, to grab an objective.  Again he shoots me off the center objective, and explodes my two HF/MM landspeeders. I loose a few sternguard and tiggy takes a wound.

Score: 5-1 or so. Objectives controlled: 3-1.

Turn 4 - Ultramarines Press Forward!
I look to push forward.  In shooting, I take down his dev squad, and that is really about it.

My opponent decides he needs to take down Tiggy.  He moves whatever he has left towards Tiggy and the sternguard.  Soften them up with shooting, and then charges in first with the Master / termies, and also with his remaining tactical squad and librarian!  At I4 - Tiggy swings his S6AP4 beater stick around (with force on!) in a challenge with the Master!  3 hits!  3 wounds! A armor save is failed!  The FNP is failed!  OMG!  The Master is down!  In response, however, his tacticals, libby, and termies kill off the sternguard, and the last of the sternguard drops at I1 to power fists, leaving Tiggy to get pummeled by the 5 remaining unaved power fist wounds!  Both of us lose our warlords, but I get 3 point and he gets 1 for the effort!  My opponent consolidates towards the table center.

Score: 8-2 or so. Objectives controlled: 3-1.

Turn 5 - It Goes Quick
Tiggy is gone. The turn goes quick.  I move forward to the objective in the upper right.  I shoot up his survivors.

We decide to call the game.
Score: 9-3.  Objectives controlled: 4-1. Ultramarine WIN!!!!

Really, the best moment of the game was the epic challenge between the "Clan Raukan" Chapter Master and Tigurius,  Of all the luck, my opponent rolled that single "1" and the failed FNP save, to lose his warlord, and later, having the overflow wounds from the termies-vs-sternguard beat down then take down Tigurius!  It was a crazy game moment that made the evening.

Overall, since the game, I've been tweaking the list I plan to keep as the core for my entry in the Standish Standoff.  I don't think the two HF/MM speeders are dong it for me from a resiliency standpoint, and I'm swapping them out for a AC/LC predator to try that out for a bit.  Also, after three games, TeleTiggy has not really proven to be better than PyroTiggy, so I may have to head backwards on that.  I mean, of all bad luck, TeleTiggy has only been able to get invisibility once after three sets of games!  Crazy!  Somehow I keep rolling up hallucination, which really just has not been that fun to play. Maybe the thing is that if I'm fighting a horde opponent, use PryTiggy, If fighting someone with a pile of artillery or knights go with TeleTiggy and hope for the best?  We'll See!

Iron Hands Help? Getting Rusty...

I played a low-pressure game at the FLGS last week using (because I'm lazy) the same list I'd used in the last games of the 40K League.  My opponent was a fairly new player, and he wanted a 1500 point game (about his 5 game ever).  He has started to develop a Iron-Hands based chapter of Space Marines, called the Sons of Eos.

His list for the night was basically this:

Librarian Epistolary (level 2), TDA, Force Staff, Storm Bolter, Biomancy
10 marines, FL, ML, Rhino
10 marines, PG, ML
5 Tactical Terminators, AC
Landraider, 2xTLLC, TLHB
Stormtalon, TLAC, SHMs
Dreadnought, TLLC, DCCW/SB
Dreadnought, AC, DCCW/HF, Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher
5 Scouts, 4SR, 1 ML



Overall, I won the game 11-6, but that was not the important part.  I was, however, as foreshadowed in a prior blog post, using TeleTiggy rather than his evil twin PyroTiggy.   I had rolled up Invisibility, Shrouding, Dominate, plus the primaris Shriek, and of course force. It was sort of fun as a difference from PyroTiggy, especially when Tiggy and the Sternguard were being assaulted (first by a terminator survivor) and later by the Epistolary and a tactical squad), while invisible and shrouded.

The last night I played against a different player - who ALSO had Iron hands:

Chapter master on Bike, all the Clan Raukan Relics he could carry
6+ Bikers, double plasma
Ironclad Dreadnought (melta, flamer, siege drills), Pod w/ deathwind)
5 Scouts (shotguns, combigrav, MB), Landspeeder Storm w/ MM
5 Scouts (shotguns, combigrav, MB), Landspeeder Storm w/ MM
Techmarine, Thunderfire Cannon
Knight, Thermal Cannon

I won this game as well (about 14-9 if we'd completed the last turn).  Teletiggy rolled up some horrendous spells this time (Hallucinate, Terrify, Dominate, nothing great - no invisibility or shrouding, and he periled on Turn 5 but survived).  

Screw all that, what I wanted to focus on was - do you have any advice for novice iron hands players?  I thought it odd the first player wanted to use a librarian (out of character for iron Hands?), but what is the cornerstone or focus for Iron Hands?  The second player was a bit more polished but I think he had too many points in the Knight and Chapter Master.  Ps...this time I largely ignored the Knight, focusing instead on the Chapter master and bike buddies, before switching attention over to his scouts. Since the first game - I found that in the Clan Raukan book there is a Librarian force weapon relic I wish I had access to as an Ultramarine!

For your homework or pondering - I'm drawing on the two primary sources here - the Space Marines Codex (of course), and the Clan Raukan book seems to be a must.  And then there are two really good favorite sources for further knowledge I'd recommend -

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/forum/195-iron-hands/

and

http://imperatorguides.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/7-days-of-glory-iron-hands.html

What are your thoughts?  Do you have a favorite Iron Hands list?

Maine 40K League Performance

OK, minor confession.  I was not documenting any battle reports for the past 60 days or so because I was playing in the first ever state-wide Warhammer 40K League and I did not want to be giving out any pointers or information that might have given my opponents better intel and make it easier for them to stomp on my Third Company Ultramarines.

This was an interesting event, and I look forward to the next season.  It is something you might be able to do in your own state.

For you organizers out there - in a nutshell - one of our local TOs (Thor at Creative Twilight) was asked to set up a state-wide league, and I think he was very successful .  Thor created a league website and facebook page, and then sent out notices on various forums for 40K in Maine that you could join the league as simply as signing up, giving plenty of time for this FREE event. All you needed to disclose was your email address and what store you wanted to play at.  He ended up with a final pool of 32 players, which were then divided into 5 groups based on their store preference.  I was assigned into the Halo Stars (division), and divisional play consisted of 6 games.  The top 2 leaders for each Division were then invited to go to The Complex, a games store in Scarborough (Pine Point), Maine, for a three game championship event to crown the Maine 40K league Champion.  Of the players 10 invited to the championship round, 8 drove in from around the state to play in the final games.

For all of my games, IIRR, we played new 7th Edition Maelstrom missions.  All of the games were played at 1500 points (the recommended level) except for one of my first (which I lost, in part not being prepared to play at a large limit). The players could play whenever and wherever they wanted, and win/loss/draw was reported and confirmed electronically to the league website.  Players agreed between themselves what missions and points to play at for the Divisional games.

In the Divisional games, I came out as 3 wins and 3 loses, which (being a tough pool!) actually qualified me to move up.

Overall, I played nearly the same list for each divisional game (although we were allowed to do whatever we wanted, including even changing points or armies). I modified that list just a bit for the championship round:

Librarian Tigurius (PyroTiggy)
Sternguard Squad (9, 2 MG, 4 CMG, MB), Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher
Tactical Squad (10, MG, CPG, MM, MB), Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher
Tactical Squad (10, MG, CPG, MM, MB), Drop Pod, Deathwind Launcher
Devastator Squad (5, 3 ML), Rhino w SB
Devastator Squad (5, 2 PC), Rhino w SB
Landspeeder Typhoon Squadron (2, HB/TML)
StormTalon (1, TLAC, SHM)

The Divisional games had given me some pretty good practice with the list, even though I most often forgot to use the Ultramarines Chapter Tactics or Tiggy's warlord trait to my best advantage.  In some games I had issues with remembering the psychic phase.  Eventually the games helped to get us all better at the flow of 7th Edition.  

The best games may have been the Championship round games!

Game 1 - (Table 4) - Vs Necrons.  Maelstron Mission #1

My opponent had a pretty interesting list consisting of a Lord, C'Tan, Sniper Necrons, Small barge, Barge, Destroyers, heavy necrons, and regular necrons.

He deployed forst and went first.

This game went horribly wrong for me from the start, and turned into an uphill battle.

On turn 1, PyroTiggy and the Sternguard drop in the board center near the C'Tan, looking to take it out on the first turn and maybe get some wounds on other nearby Necron units that had moved up.  I have some great Pyro spells - it is looking good.  First Psychic phase of the game - Tiggy rolls up enough dice for me to try to do all 5 spells...I choose the first spell - the one that gives him a 4++ invulnerable and essentially prescience for the rest of the phase.  Then I roll 66 - 1 - 56 - 4 - 55.  Get it?  Perils. Removed from game if not passing a leadership check.  Failing Leadership.  Taking down 4 sternguard with him.  Sternguard break and run. OMG!  The 5 remaining sternguard are running away.  In snapshooting, I get a single wound on the C'Tan.  In the Necron player turn the C'Tan kills off the Sternguard. We played the full time limit, but my opponent was a bit slow, so we only completed 4 turns in 2.25 hours...I ended up with a draw at 9 maelstrom points for the effort.  At the end, I was still looking good, and if the game had continued with time I'd have won the game. Card wise, I was able to draw just 10 cards in 4 turns.  Blech!

I was tied for last place in points.

Game 2 - (Table 4) - vs Demons of Khorne. Maelstrom Mission #2

My opponent was playing an all-Khorne demon army, led by a Bloodthirster.  He had the Hounds (and character), Skulltaker, large swarms of bloodletters, bloodcrushers, heralds, and a soul grinder.  Overall, his army is meant to get into close combat as fast as possible.  I realized I have no idea what to expect from these guys!

My opponent deploys first and goes first.  He moves towards my deployed units.  PyroTiggy and the Sternguard try to drop in on his flank, but deviate towards the table center, between his Khorne dogs and Thirsters.  The Tactical pod drops in next to his soul grinder.  PyroTiggy casts the 4+ cover save spell on the Sternguard, casts force, and then lets go with a few flame spells (some are denied).  Tiggy gets a perils check from the collar of khorne and takes just a wound.  I kill off the Dogs for first blood. My opponent has to remove a bunch of bloodletters and the soul grinder explodes.  On turn 2, he assaults Tiggy/Sternguard and the tactical squad, eliminating the tactical squad and sternguard.  Tiggy lasts another round of combat or two with his 4++ before  he is swept away.  In the mean time, I'm getting points from tactical cards and wrecking/eliminating all of his un-engaged units.  Those drop pods kept on working.

At the end of Turn 5, my opponent is swept clean of the table, and we ask what to do (we are playing for total points for the day - I have 30 minutes left!). We roll for the game to continue to turn 6.  Chaos winds blow, and my opponent is able to drop a demon unit (horrors) onto the table center! The fight continues a bit longer and we end at the end of Turn 6, I win 25 to 3. In this game I scored on 13 cards.

Game 3 - (Table 1) - vs White Scars / Grey Knights.  Maelstrom Mission #5.

My opponent is a player from my own FLGS, and is a very tough competitor.  He has won his two prior games and unbeknownst to me run up a point gap in the field from some high point victories.  He has a White Scars chapter master with hammer on a bike, a white scars biker unit, two full tactical squads with drop pods (to combat squad), Stormtalon, Hunter(!!!), Grey Knight Terminator Librarian, Nemesis dreadknight, and a unit of Grey Knight terminators with halberds and fists.

When we place objectives, I look to spread them as wide as I can.

I have to deploy first and go first.  Tiggy and sternguard drop in the back corner to get the bikers and successfully eliminate them (the Chapter master was deployed separately).  My first tactical pod drops in and does little.  The tacticals and eventually sternguard/Tiggy are eliminated by the end of turn 2. BUT they did the job of delaying the enemy advance towards the table center!  The enemy drop pods arrive onto my backfield - on turn 2 and in the center.  I eliminate the backfield tactical combat squad halves, and on turn 3 eliminate their pod.  I then wipe out the tacticals and Hunter.  I stay about 3-4 points ahead of my opponent the entire game. At the end, my Stormtalon is jinking around chased by two missiles!

Turn 4, his (wounded) Chapter Master on Bike assaults my plasma cannon dev squad (occupying the second floor of a ruin).  I wound him!  He rolls a 1! OMG.

The game was full of ups and downs, and at the end (time called) we were a few points apart.

I won, 12 to 10.

Awards Ceremony
I finished the day with a draw and two wins!

In the awards, your game points for the day are tallied.  Overall, I came in 2nd place, just 4 points down from the Maine 40K League Winner! It was awesome!  Both of us play at the same FLGS (we were in different Divisions).

The games were all fun, and I like the format.  The Maelstrom points method of monitoring performance seemed to work out well, and it made every game important, and use of time management was very key.

Other players at the Championship round - Dark Elves (Beautiful army, very detailed, trophy for best painted), SpaceWolves (unbound! 5 dreadnoughts, 3 pods, 2 new SW flyers, and a new forgeworld landraider variant), a Space marines(Iron hands?)-knight allies list, and a Astra Militarum (IG)  Armored Company (Just the tanks, baby, just the tanks, plus a superheavy...).

So overall, in the league total for all 9 games, I ended up 5-3-1, which ain't too shabby.

PyroTiggy died in every Championship round game, but his performance was very important to my game record.  Overall, none of my units really earned MVP status.  They all played as a team, and they all did their jobs very well.  If I tweaked the list one more time, I'd be torn about either dropping the 3 MBs on sergeants and just adding a 4th ML to a dev squad, staying as-is, or replacing one of the units for something comparable but better.

All for now, yep, it is my first 40 Trophy...it's awesome!

Ming

Review of my 2013-2014 Gaming Year

For those of you who used to read my blog over the years here and back at B&C, I benchmark the start of the gaming year at August 15+/-, coinciding with what had been the HardBoyz tournament prelims.  The following is my W/D/L record for the past four years, nearly all as 3rd Company Ultramarines.  

2013-2014 Record for Third Company: 19 Wins 1 Draws 11 Losses
2012-2013 Record for Third Company: 21 wins 3 Draws 17 Losses
2011-2012 Record for Third Company: 18 Wins 7 Draws 15 Losses
2010-2011 Record for Third Company: 35 Wins 10 Draws 30 Losses

As last year's blog post, I have normalized each year to get a measure of improvement, giving a win 3 quality points, a draw as 2 quality points, and a loss as 1 quality point. The game year averages then become:

2013-2014 QPS = 2.258
2012-2013 QPs = 2.097
2011-2012 QPs = 2.075
2010-2011 QPs = 2.066

The first thing that really sticks out is that I'm average (Still a solid "2") and improving. Pretty much on average every game could have been a win or loss. Anyone reading my reports could come up with the same conclusion.  Most of my games can hinge over a single deciding point or set of dice results, which remains for me, pretty cool.  I'd rather have fun games than one-sided struggles.  

Another way to normalize the data is as percentages:

2013-2014 = 61% W; 3% D; 36% L
2012-2013 = 51% W; 7% D; 41% L
2011-2012 = 45% W; 18% D; 38% L
2010-2011 = 47% W; 13% D; 40% L

Of course, one other aspect of the numbers above is also apparent...I've been playing in fewer games (still)...in part because life is very busy these days, and also some of my improvement is that I'm seeing fewer games vs my overall lifelong gaming nemesis, RippedDragon, and more Wednesday night casual games than "3-game tournament days".      

One other aspect is that I'll soon hopefully get my 100th Win as 3rd Company (I'm actually at 95 wins at the moment). You may recall that RippedDragon achieved the 100th victory mark with his Orks over 2 years ago in 5th Edition...

One aspect of course that I'm enjoying is that in 7th Edition, most recently, my Ultramarines have proven to be really good with Maelstrom Missions, and the game sizes have been somewhat smaller (1500 to 1750 points in size).  Of course that is more of a qualitative observation than something I've collected data on. However, I did manage a win vs Orks this week...and that is a rare event...

Now that summer nears its close, I hope to see more games.  Tomorrow is the "Maine 40K League" finals, where I hope to catch up with old friends and maybe get three great games in.  We'll see about that!  Based on my numbers above...maybe I can pull out two solid wins from the three games and be in the top three players there...Wish me luck!

PyroTiggy is Fun

First off, I've been really busy with trips, work, and other stuff going on.  So it has been a bunch of time.  The weird thing is, I have a couple of draft blog entries in the que, but just have not finished them.  On the fly, I thought I'd just push forward one of my favorite things for 7th Edition - the fact that if you choose all your librarian spells from one discipline, it can be fun!

So, my favorite Librarian is Tigurius.  He is a level 3 psycher, with OK stats, mediocre armor, and a plain old master crafted stick to smack opponents with.  But, imaging what happens when you play a game with his spells assigned!  He rolls for three spells and gets re-rolls for the spells you don't want.  Once in play, he shines, since you can reroll your failed spell rolls!  So, what does that mean in a practical sense?

PyroTiggy.

The ideal spell set includes (he gets 4 plus force):

Force (of course, its free with the stick, which is 2+S, concussive, soulblaze)
Flame Breath (primaris, template, S5AP4,assault, soulblaze)
#1 Fiery Form (yields a 4+ invulnerable to Tiggy, rerolls every failed to wound roll inflicted by other pyromancy powers).
#4 Sunburst Nova (9", 2D6, S4, AP5, ignores cover, soulblaze).
# 6 Molten Beam (12", S8, AP1 Meltabeam).

Alternate for #1 is #2 (Fireshield, 4+cover save plus 6" dangerous terrain bubble for the unit)
Alternate for #4 or#6 is #5 (Inferno, 24", large blast, S4AP5, ignores cover, soulblaze).

So, pretty much every power (except #3) is really really good!

Remember, in this edition, a psycher can use the powers on as many different targets as possible.

Assuming that PyroTiggy gets an average roll of 4, +3 for his level, you have 7 psychic dice.  So, in an ideal perfect turn, he could roll up all 4 spells plus force successfully...with an extra dice or so to give some extra support and make it happen!  Sweet!

Of course, my dice never let me actually get perfection.  I don't know how many times I've tried to roll up a #1, rerolled it, and got #3 or #2...not that I can complain for a #2.  I also don't know how many times I tried to get Tiggy in Nova range and failed that too.

I have a few more games playing PyroTiggy.  Then maybe on to TeleTiggy!

Playing in a tournament this weekend, wish me luck!

Pulling a Crazy Jervis

Remember the Book (and movie) the Hunt for Red October?  It brought into more common the term "pulling a crazy Ivan", to put a definition on something a submarine captain would do to shake up would-be pursuers.  It would possibly confuse or drive the opposing boat commander crazy, not knowing anything other than that a Crazy Ivan maneuver would occur at some point, and you never knew when.  The not knowing the intent or when it would occur would keep the situation tense and alert.

Well, now that we have 7th Edition 40K out, I can see one chapter of the rule book that certainly has Jervis Johnson's stamp on it.  And anytime we see something crazy happen in the 40K rules, I'd propose we call it a Crazy Jervis.  So...Reecius at Frontline - if you happen to read this blog...use that term in a podcast as a code that you have been here!

So what does this "crazy Jervis" consist of?  It is something that seems to be driving the blogosphere crazy concerning 40K - you know what it is!  Its everything stuffed between pages 116 and 122 of the rule book!  Every pod cast I listen to seems to be shocked and awed and puzzled over the maneuver.  Here is Jervis at his best...I've read his writings elsewhere and I'm personally not too surprised!  If you skim through this section you get the impression (as I keep hearing) that this section is a wreck - and tournament organizers (like Reecius) are going crazy trying to figure it out our interpret this section of the book to make some sort of sense of it all.

Lets go back to the sub hunt.  You may be overthinking the situation.

In reality - the MOST important sentence is in BOLD on page 116.  Players must agree to how they are going to select their armies, and if any restrictions apply to the number and type of models they can use.

If I was a tournament organizer...I'd read that sentence AGAIN.

Reecius.  NOVA Guys.  Local players at Crossroads! Guess what?  You can set the restrictions you want based on any definition you want. Stop overthinking!  The rest of the text in the section does set some boundaries...but it also foretell the future!  GW is predicting that their future books or supplements can contain force org variations - and they tell you the format that they will be presented in!

So, in this section, the permutations under that bold sentence are endless.  If I wanted to play a game and my opponent agreed to NO POINT RESTRICTIONS, but required a HQ, 4 troops, and 4 heavies per side, we can decide to do that!  If we decide to play a game with 1500 points, one COD, and no allies or fortifications or formations or other CODs, we can do that!  If Reecius wants to hold an event that requires 1850 points, restrictions to certain Superheavy units, no fortifications, and two or fewer sources, he can do it!  No guilt, no issues!  Its all cool!

So why is this all getting people all crazy?  The most important thing to remember is that "agreement" between the players as to the format of the game is implied.

In my local gaming, I was asked about a format for an upcoming league match.  I asked for 1500 points, a primary detachment that met the COD requirement, and then was open to allies, formations, whatever, and my opponent agreed!  So in that regard, we have a valid game!  Of course I might have only a single COD of the Space Marine Faction, and he shows up with a AM COD, Knight, and inquisition allies, but, hey!  We set the requirements and then met them they way we wanted to!

Now, in Tournaments, where you have a TO who sets and organizes the event, in GW's format should set the parameters for the event in terms of point restrictions (or not), army list restrictions (or not), allowable source (or not), in advance, so a player can prepare for the event.  The rule set implies you can set the parameters any way you want.  It implies the attendee agrees to the parameters you set!

So is this all driving you crazy?  Yep, GW pulled a Crazy Jervis on  everyone with 7th Edition, and then they sailed off in the direction they have been sailing.  Instead of getting all nuts over that maneuver, you need to see it for what it is, adjust accordingly, and game on!

Am still looking to get a bunch of league games in this week.  All I ask is that if my opponents are going to want to do something we have not agreed to in advance, that they can sit and allow me to either change my army list to adjust reasonably to their parameters, or they change their list to some parameter more reasonable and agreeable to both.  Of course, the more hopeful thing would be for the neutral league organizer to set better parameters for us all to follow, but right now we are pretty much allowed to do whatever we want!  The rule is there are no rules?  Nope, go back to page 116....

All for now, going to be a busy week and I can't wait to see the new Ork codex!!!! Cant wait to see what the next Crazy Jervis will be.

...sonar to comm...we have a contact...wait...its...

3rd Company Experiencing 7th - Its a Tough Universe!

Captain Fabian and Chief Librarian Tigurius leaned forward towards each other, the tactical table between them.  Their faces were grim as they considered the facts before them.  Ever since being assigned to the Halo Stars region of space, all news was grim.  Overall, they remained optimistic.  Grimly optimistic. 

Yep, 7th edition is here and 3rd Company (and their support - the 555th Cadian Regiment), are adapting to the challenge.

3rd Company had been in a mere two game in 7th - way less than I'd hoped, but I'm trying to catch up with as many as 4 games coming in the next two weeks.  Maybe more if I'm lucky.  Right now, time is at a premium.

My first 7th Edition Game was at 1500 Points, my opponent brought a Knight and such. We beat ourselves to a pulp and at the end the game was a draw.  In this game I tried to kill of a Knight, and of course came up short.  I thought about the list and renewed on my education against the new "Super heavies" out there. I think we had played one of the "local" missions from Creative Twilight.

10 Days later we went at it again.  This time for points in a "State 40K League".  We got together on a Saturday morning.  It ended up as one of the longest 40K games I'd played in a while, caused by 7 turns and having to look up all sorts of rules changes.  But 3rd Company got the win, even though it was a very difficult time of it. My opponent got his first loss in the League.  This time we'd rolled up on the Eternal War missions - and randomly got the RELIC mission.  I think the final score was 3-1.  Neither of us had the relic at the end, as my two remaining troop models were hiding behind some terrain to seal the point for linebreaker, and all of my opponent's infantry models were eliminated.

I spent time this week working on a Stormtalon, some terrain for the home table, and toughing up some paint on some older models.  I tried a technique using blue painters tape to help do checkerboard patterns in vehicles, which worked pretty well.

Fathers day was pretty cool -  my youngest Son had sent me a Taurox kit AND the Space Marines x-box game!   Sweet!

Now for a last tip - because you guys know I also am into craft / microbrew beer sampling - try the APP for your phone called Untappd.  Details are at:

https://untappd.com/

It lets you keep track of what you drink, where to get great beers, what your friends have been tasting, and you can earn BADGES just for achieving certain drink tasting beering happy metrics!  Get it on your smartphone and give it a try!

Check back soon for hopefully MORE 40K goodness!