So the past 2 weekends I've attended 2 separate events, neither of them in Cork but hey, you can't have everything. First things first however and it's time to talk about NWG's event, NWG 2011. This story begins on a the Friday, with a car full of guys off to the east. Wexford in particular. Seeing as 2 of us had never been to Gorey before, we thought it counted as "discovering Ireland" so we listened to this song, on repeat, for 3 hours up, and 3 hours back.
We genuinely still don't know the words, not one of us. In the car were Chris "I like Grappling" Icke, a SkibbWargamer who would be using my broken Space Wolves for the weekend, "Prod" Rob Gleasure, a square-baser from Cark, like and Craig "Craig" Murphy, a judge and all around user of Microsoft Excel and myself.
As previously stated in my last blog post I was rocking the Necrons for the weekend and upon our eventual arrival at the CORRECT hotel (thanks a lot, Rob) was happy to see someone else using "glance on 6" shenanigans. The army belonged to John "Scarab Lord" Stowe but on the Friday night Paul "Packers Suck" Quigley was behind the wheel. It was a straight swap with the two lads switching lists and having it out like a pile of heroes. Paul's list being venoms, ravagers, wychs and those forgeworld thingies. You know the ones, with the guns and stuff. John brought 30 scarabs, 2 tombstalkers(forgeworld monstrous creatures) and a monolith. Quigley wasn't feeling the 'crons and lost. Nothing to do with the Necrons I'm sure. At this point I was informed that Cian, SWG's president, was unable to make it to Wexford. This was doubly unfortunate as he was in possession of the monolith I was to use. The good people of NWG were kind enough to let me proxy(legends). However, with my WYSISYG and painting scores out the window my plan of finishing all my painting that night changed.
To this.
So then it was time to drink many whiskeys and catch up with all the guys I hadn't seen in a while. Milling around I started watching some of the challenge matches taking place. There was a very awkward moment when I saw Jay "Godless-Mimicry" Mckeown. I had to pretend like I wasn't avoiding him when he came over to say hi. It's really hard to talk to people after they catch you blatantly cheating in a game. Curse whoever told him at Moocon my Death Company didn't have fleet. Don't worry though, I totally passed it off as an accident.
Am..... they also get back up on a 4+
We came to a bit of an "understanding" by ways of if we were to play that weekend, all of his Razorbacks had the fleet special rule. I'm really glad we didn't play that weekend so I can pretend like I would have let him do that. Those who know me well know I would never do anything for fun that would sacrifice winning because I'm a Necron playing, win at all costs, fleeting, cheating expletive. So after imbibing many Jim Beams, beers and some lovely, lovely whiskey from John Stowe I was in flying form. Myself and Chris were holding up the SkibbWargamers tradition of never going to bed on the Friday of a Convention able to see correctly without squinting. By this point Rob had gone off to play with some of the fantasy boys into the wilds of Gorey town. This was a shame as I was hoping to use NWG(which started as a squarebase only event) to ingratiate myself with those not as lucky as myself and who, through no fault of their own, aren't cool enough to play pew pew lazers.
Pew pew
Now I'm not saying I was without fantasy players to shout at. Derek "Jarvis" Mitchell and Nigel "Brooklyn" Kavanagh were there as well as Colin "You want terrain? Yeah, cool, whatever. Bandon" Cullinane and Mark "Nic Cage" Keaveny who both decided to play fantasy for some mad reason. So after the shouting and drinking we struck off for a place to sleep. Nigel was mental, wait, I mean nice enough to let about, at a rough estimate, 800 gamers sleep in his house. So it was a walk to the other end of Gorey for us. On the way we stopped off a pizza place. Now I'm no engineer but if I were a pizza place and I sold a ridiculous sized pizza, I would at least make the doors big enough to accommodate someone leaving with said pizza. Would I still have bought the 30 inch pizza had I thought about the logistics more? ..... probably.
So there I was, essentially trapped in a pizza place, with a pizza so big that a Stormraven couldn't turboboost across it. After handing out pizza to all the lads I was finally free of my Italian, doughy prison and it was off to Nigel's for more beer. Upon arrival I realised I had ingested far too much alcohol to work out how to use an airbed with a built in pump on my own. Queue a half three in the morning call to my girlfriend that took way longer than it needed to. Armed with the knowledge of how to properly use the air bed, knowledge acquired from a confused and sleepy girlfriend I duly borrowed an electric pump off Jarvis and pumped the the thing in about a minute.
Do not use in event of drinking.
Saturday morning was ........ fun. Luckily I had the presence of mind on Friday while in Tesco to stock up on multi-packs of Lucozade. I'm a genius. Off to the hotel we go, via a centra where I bought a whole pile of ice cream because hey, who said ice cream can't be for breakfast. Upon arrival at the hotel I was met with two things, one good and one bad. The good was the live projector feed of the Ireland Australia rugby match(wheeeeeeew we won) and the bad thing was seeing all the people who traveled down in the morning. Screw you guys and your not having hangovers. Sake. Two of these people were Warheads Peter "Arms Dealer" Scott and Tristram "Food poisoning" Hills. It was nice seeing the guys and we had time for a good catch up as everyone was very lackluster about starting as the match was pretty class. This also gave myself and John Stowe time to construct a fantastic monolith for me to use for the weekend. The sheer amount of minutes and masking tape that went into it's constructing was believable and left me with the eventual winner of "best alternative model".
That's right. It's okay to be impressed.
I already knew who my first round was against. It was Necron versus Necron. Myself versus John Stowe. Looks like he had helped to build what would be his undoing muhahahahahahaha. I have many reasons for challanging John: 1) Who does he think he is playing Necrons? They're mine, leave them alone. Go play with your Wolves or Templars, leave the broken lists to the professionals. 2) I owe him one after the crap he pulled at Skibbcon 2 with the Whiskey(that report will come, eventually) and 3) he's a massive bunny so I expected a big leap after caning him because, you know, it's not like he ever wins. There was a big flaw in my plan, he was playing Necrons, they're broken. The rulespack said that this was meant to be spearhead killpoints but due to some technical difficulties we were told to roll as in the rule book. Guess what we rolled? Spearhead, killpoints. This was a very enjoyable game, as all my games against Mr. Stowe, for many reasons. Here are just a few: All of the deep striking Monoliths, all of the time. Table service. Deepstrike mishaping Tomb Stalkers. Table service. The Deceiver fluffing all his attacks in a big way. Table service. Everything getting back up on a 4, not to mention all the glancing on sixes going on. Table service and last but not least scarabs are badass. We were chatting and having the craic so much we had to end the game on turn 5 even after cutting into our lunch time. Game was a straight 15 - 5 win to Mr. Stowe.
Broken
Chris managed to meet his nemesis list, venom spam being driven by Mr. Dark Eldar himself, Paul Quigley. He first foray into tournament Wolves ended at the wrong end of a 20 - nil. With 2 losses the SWG were ready for round 2. Nowhere to go but up, or you know, continue at a consistent level of bad. My second game had me up against fellow munsterite Daniel "Hive-dar" Cassidy from Limerick CITAY(which I will note is an actual city unlike some places. I'm talking about towns like Skibbereen or Kilkenny). Daniel's main draw to NWG2011 was his ability to roll out his Forgeworld for the event. He had Hornets, Wasps, Bees, Grasshoppers and every other insect you can think of. Fortunately for me we were playing the one objective each game, he had only one troop actually able to hold an objective, wraithguard, the rest being veichles. Unfortunately for me, they were wraithguard, hanging out with Eldrad, hiding behind a massive bit of LOS blocking terrain. Class.
The Deciever decided to make up for sucking in the previous game and ran across the board to murder some scoring troops. He weathered all, and I mean ALL of the fire from Daniel's army with 4 wounds intact and dove head first into a big pool of Wraithguard. He must have gotten overly confident because after killing a whole wraithguard he had four saves to make after some pretty on fire dice from Daniel. It's okay though. I have 4 wounds left and would need to fail all 4 of these saves to die. Oh wait.... he's dead. It's okay though, because a dead C'tan blows up so I could hopefully wipe them out here. Nope. None of them died. Class.
YOU SUCK!
In the end I was able to deepstrike my monolith onto his objective, dropping a lord and his unit next to it as well and end up winning 14 - 6. On the note of Gypsying, a big shout out goes to Philip "Gypsy King" Johnston for being a legend and bringing Kroot Mercenaries to NWG2011. Chris managed to get himself a 20 nil in his second game. Stupid broken Space Wolves.
Game 3 had myself paired up against Patrick "11ft tall Bloodthirster" O Donnell. He gets the name for the fantastic model he used to show his greater Daemon. He was using an amazing Chaos army with Forgeworld and Beserkers. Patrick told me about how he was giving up on 40k for a while as he started into college this year, it's unfortunate as he's a great guy to play. I did feel bad as straight away it was apparent my dice were on fire, and not in the "someone was stupid enough to give Eoin petrol" way. His gorefeaster went down to a single squad of destroyers, my monolith immobilized his Landraider straight out of the gate. As well as me killing his defiler and immoblising his impaler walker thing(not it's actual name). He did take it really well but with the dice as they were there was nothing he could do. The game ended in a 16 - 4 win to me. Chris, funnily enough ended up playing his dad, Frank and his renegade guard list.
Putting the "Greater" in Greater Summoned Daemon
So that was the end of all the games on the Saturday and it was more beer and then off to Gorey town. It was obvious that I was drunk as I was totally okay with going to get pizza even after my 30 inch escapade the night before. It was a very nice dinner with some nice company. By nice company, I mean the place was too full so 5 of us had to eat separately from everyone else. Managed to dodge all the nerds, score! After this we headed off to the pub. On the way we had a little game of street American football. I had to act like I was really crap so that the other guys wouldn't feel bad. It was embarrassing for them but hey, what'll you do?
I'm basically a drunk Tom Brady.
The rest of my night was spent trying to work out my fantasy list with Rob. I don't want to say too much right now but I will say one thing: Full Command. After the pub it was back home to bed. Sleepy times and games the next day. Although I was not looking forward to Sunday as I would be unable to drink. Terrible times. So it turns out that my fourth game was against Peter Scott. Peter plays the ever popular Lash-Oblits, Chaos list. We were playing pitched battle, one objective each. I managed to get first turn and Peter set up his Landraiders in the relative open, his Daemon Prince in reserve and 2 Termies squads and one pile of Oblits deep-striking. First thing my monolith does is drop a blast on Land raider one. Boom! Dead Landraider. God, I love my monolith. The rest of my guns unloaded into land raider 2. If you are not aware, Necrons GLANCE ON SIXES! Leaving Landraider number 2 with no weapons and stunned.
Pictured: Peter's Second Landraider
This was a nice, hungover game. My monolith immobilized itself about 4 inches from his objective...... which was fun. That would have made my job a whole lot easier. My lord and his squad deep-striked(deep-struck?) near his objective and got charged by a large plauge marine squad. The survived 3 rounds of combat, until in the final round they failed a leadership nine test and were sweeping advanced. Bringing the game to a straight 10 - 10 draw. A bit unlucky for me but being fair to Peter, had the game ended in turn 5 he would have won, if it ended at turn 6 it would have been a draw. Peter's a really good player, who knows his list really well, I think his main mistake was underestimating the damage my army could do to his Landraiders from such distance. Stupid Broken Necron.
The fifth and final game of the weekend had me up against Frank O Donnell's beautiful, and I emphasise the beautiful part, Defenders of Vraks list. Frank was my opponent in round three's father and I saw the resemblance straight away. He was a pleasure to play. It did help that he already had an intimate knowledge of the Necron Codex thanks to his relationship to Ralph "Nightbringer" Risk. Frank's forgeworld army had loads of fantastic things that I'd never seen before. Immobile gun batteries. Units with random leadership(D6 + 4) and psykers that turn into daemons on a perils. Fantastic stuff altogether. It was Dawn of War, killpoints and with a bit of luck I managed to grab first turn. This was a big deal for me as all of his guns would have to move on, losing him a turn of shooting(Guard - Shooting = Fun times for Necrons). All that luck became moot when Frank seized the initiative....... stupid Guard. All his guns moved on and those who could shoot, shot at the Deciever(who was deployed 24 inches up the board) doing no damage. My turn 1 the Deciever advanced towards Frank's army and made a heavy weapons team take a 25% casulty test. This was my first experience of random leadership. Frank rolled a 3 to make their leadership 7. He then rolled an 8 to make them run off the board. Result!
Big girls.
Turn 2 and every gun in Franks army shoots at my C'tan bringing him down to a single wound and got finally taken out by a hunter killer missile from the outflanking sentinels from all the way across the board took him out. It was pretty awesome. The game went on for 5 turns but Frank just had way too many killpoints and my army is pretty mobile so it could avoid all his guns. Game ended as a 15 - 5 to me. Had a brilliant time playing Frank, his army is awesome and he's a great guy to play.
After game 5, I had 3 wins, 1 draw and a loss. Pretty good going for the "broken" Necrons. John Stowe managed to best me with 4 wins and a loss(at least my loss was to Necron). All in all the Necrons managed to rock NWG and prove that we don't even need a new codex(this is a joke, we really need a new codex). Jan "WAAAAAAAAAAGH" Karnowski managed to win the event with his 400 orks, Paul Quigley came second with his Dark Eldar and in third place Peter Scott. Tristram managed to grab "Best General" and I even got a prize thanks to the love of my life, Donal "Pinball Wizard" Carroll. Thanks babe. I'm pretty sure some prizes were given out to the fantasy boys for something but I drifted off at the first mention of "Level 4".
Look, I just like special characters.
NWG2011 was a fantastic event and my congratulations and thanks go to Nigel and Derek for hosting us, Darragh "I play 1850pts" Cullen for running the 40k event, Craig and all the lads for working all those spreadsheets. Also big thanks to my opponents John, Daniel, Patrick, Peter and Frank for the great games. Also to everyone else who attended and helped me have a brilliant time(and that's the most important thing, my enjoyment) Paul, Tristram, Rob, Phil, Jay, Jason to name just a few.
Myself and two of my club mates are setting off for Wexford the week after next for NWG 2011. It's Chris "Wanna Grapple" Icke, Cian "2 Thrilldren" O'Mahony and myself piling into the Fun Wagon(named for Dave "Now I have a blog" Coleman) and tearing road to North Wexford.
FUNWAGON!
NWG 2011 is a tournament held by the North Wexford Gamers(the people who brought you w-ired) in Gorey. The 40k side of things is a 2000pt, Forgeworld friendly, 5 round tournament running on the Saturday and Sunday with pick up games catered for on the Friday night.
I must say I am very excited about the weekend. Also, I'm bringing the Necrons out of retirement for this one. Time to glance on 6 like a boss.
My 2000pt list is: HQ
The Deceiver
Lord w/ Resurrection Orb + Veil of Darkness Troops
3 x 10 Necron Warriors Fast
3 x 3 Necron Destroyers Heavy
1 x Monolith
2 x 2 Necron Heavy Destroyers
1985 points
If I'm honest, it's my 1750pt list WITH A MONOLITH. The main strategic reason I picked this list is not because of the armies I'm likely to face. It's not about adding survivability to contend with the higher points cost. Not to counteract any Forgeworld I might encounter. It's because I have a monolith that I got as a present. Also, they're class.
I'm also after spreading the Space Wolf love by lending my army to Chris for the weekend so he can get a taste of how stupidly good they are. Clue: Really, really, stupidly good. 290 point Thunderwolf lord? Yes please.
Direct Quote: "Rarr rarr rarr, wolves"
Newly titled Chapter Master of SkibbWargamers, Cian is playing his cards very close to his chest and not giving out too much info about his list at this early stage.
Now I don't have this all my toys painted(or even assembled) so it's a dash to the finish line to have this all ready for NWG. On that note NWG has a very interesting paint scoring system(inspired by NOVA, I believe). It involves a mix of some subjective points and some straightforward non-subjective points for a total of 30 out of 130 points. This is a change from the norm and some people might have concerns that it's a very heavy weighting to put on soft scores. However, it's the exact same amount of points awarded by most tournaments; except NWG does not give points for pre submission of army lists. Instead it has all the soft scores for painting and converting. Personally I would much rather someone got points for putting effort into an army and not for having the bare minimum required(of which I was a frequent offender) and emailing a list a week early.
My money's on this guy to win
With the paint requirements in mind I have an army to colour in. I am not a fast painter. When I started off doing 1 model every couple of hours. I am so bad at painting that my inability to paint my own figures for a tournament in Athlone set the dominoes falling. It caused a series of events that culminated in Tadhg crashing Caolán's car. However I am improving. Improving enough to have it all finished for Gorey? ........... possibly. I am repainting the army in a new scheme. Blue and purple. I have a couple of models finished 100% but I won't be putting pictures up yet. I hope to have a picture of the army as it's presented for painting evaluation during my post NWG blog entry. I'm all about the showmanship.
Pictured: Me
Now if there is one thing I love, it's smack talk. I personally think it adds a bit of flavour to proceedings and boy, NWG is flavoursome. The fora are a fluster with talk of who is bringing the filth, who's taking advantage of the Forgeworld allowance and on the fantasy side of things, something something wizards something.
Also something called "The Rod of Power"
Challenges. Another thing I love about NWG. You can issue a challenge for a game on the Friday or (if ye are not in the same club) for round one. This is where the challenge between myself and John Stowe comes in. The first leg of the challenge takes place in the vicinity of a deck of cards and some whiskey. It is because of some very underhanded dealings on his part for Skibbcon. He knows what he did. For shame John. For Shame!
It's not one of my Blog posts without a picture of alcohol
The second leg of challenge is the first game of the tournament. Necron v Necron. I have also pledged that no matter the scenario, I will be deep striking my monolith and it will be aimed at his guys. I'm coming for you John. My and my flying box of death.
OF DEATH!
So that's it from me at the moment. I will try and take pictures and notes over the weekend but hey, I'll probably get drunk and be thrown out anyway. By for now.
So I wanted to do a review of my weekend in Limerick in July at Bro-Con and here it is:
Bro-Con was a 1750pt, 2 Day, Warhammer 40k, Ranking tournament held from the 15th to the 17th of July in University of Limerick. It was run by Mr. Jay "Square Base" McKeown.
Despite being 3 hours from Skibbereen there was going to be a large SWG contingent at Bro-Con, 5 in all. Caolán and Tadhg bringing Blood Angels, Chris with Chaos Marines and Cian and myself bringing Space Wolves. This was my first tournament using my bought for 150euro on the internet Space Wolf army and I was intrigued as to how it would go.
Space Wolves: Good at everything
My list was: Rune Priest w/ tempest wrath & jaws + chooser of the slain Rune Priest w/ murderous hurricane& stormcaller + chooser of the slain + wolf tooth necklace + melta bombs 2 x 5 scouts w/meltagun 4 wolf guard - (2 x combi melta + wolf claw + melta bombs) & (2 x combi melta + powerfist) 2 x 8 grey hunters w/ melta + mark of the wulfen + wolf standard + rhino w/dozer blades 2 x 5 grey hunters w/flamer 6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher 6 long fangs w/ 2 lascannon + 3 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades 6 long fangs w/ 5 missile launcher w/ las plas razorback w/dozerblades
Seeing as I was leaving from Cork, I threw Caolán, Ivan "Nudie" Sheehan and Dave "He'll get a proper nickname in inverted commas when he's older" Coleman into my car an off we took towards Limerick.
There are some people who maintain that on arrival to Limerick I consumed too much alcohol, made a fool of myself and was asked to leave the student bar in UL, twice. These people.... are completely correct. Now I can make excuses about how the vodka I drank was possessed by a demon(I'm sure at least Caolán can back me up on this) but I'm just going to move on to the next morning.
Rachmaninoff Vodka: Seems legit
So I awoke Saturday morning reasonably refreshed, must have had something to do with my earlier than intended bed time, and struck off to UL with the lads. After various handshakes and apologies it all kicked off and it was on to game 1.
Game 1 vs Norn Iron Etc Captain & Northern Waster Jonny "Bitz Box Guard" Fisher
So straight out the gate I'm put up against the army my Necron's despised. It was basically an auto lose. But hey, I didn't bring my Necrons this time. I brought retarded Space Wolves. We were playing multi objective Dawn of War. I won first turn. Then something I'm not at all used to happened. He reserved, everything.
Now a man I mentioned in a previous article, Alan, can tell you. I don't really understand how this works. We were playing on the Sunday morning of Skibbcon when it took 10 minutes of explaining to show that after my 1st turn came his 1st turn. He was adamant after my 1st turn came my 2nd turn. I was mightily confused. But I digress. Jonny was playing:
Command squad Psyker battle squad 3 x Vendettas 2 w/ guys 2 x 2 Hydras 1 Manticore 1 Big blob squad with Autocannon More chimeras full of guys
We both had a lot of guns
So he reserved everything. I used the extra turns to better position my Long Fangs. We shot at each other. We shot at each other. We shot at each other. We shot at each other some more. I moved stuff up to take objectives. We were told to play no more turns due to time. At the end of my turn 6 I had 3 objectives and Jonny had none. Unfortunately for me things swung in his favour when I failed some crucial saves at 3 different points of the map and the game ended in a Draw 11 - 9 to him.
Game 2 vs Warhead's Brian "You should Google his moniker" McKensie
You'd think after a losing draw my next game would be much easier. Ha! Nope. I get the play the eventual 3rd place finisher Brian "BristolScale7" and his purifier spam. The game was Spearhead/Killpoints and thankfully, like all spam armies, Brian's army was kill point heavy. It consisted of(best as I can recall):
Crowe(makes purifiers scoring) 3 x purifiers squads in S6 razorbacks 3 x purifier squads in rhinos 3 x psybolt dreads
Grey Knight Dreadnought with both weapons destroyed
He won the roll off and chose to go first. Putting me in a corner with little terrain. I decided to reserve everything except Long fangs, who I would use to out range the Grey knights. Also I placed the rune priests in the small squads to facilitate easy hiding.
Long story short, my guns shot at his before he was in range. Then my guy guys came in from all sides and Brian couldn't roll a 6 to rend to save his life. If there is anything I can relate to it's not being able to roll sixes when you need them(stupid Gauss weapons).
Game was a 15 - 5 win to me.
Game 3 vs DGG's Ciaran "My toys are nicer than yours" Bolger
This guy. This guy makes me feel bad for my lack-lustre hobbying. What can I say about him? Well his toys are fantastic. I had heard stories about his Ork truck that transforms into Optimus Prime before seeing it at Warpcon. True to form he arrive with Grey Knights modelled out of Orks. Absolutely beautiful. Also, out of the 3 games that day he had managed to be put up against 3 members of SkibbWargamers. Lucky guy, eh?
He was playing: Draigo 10 Paladins w/ ALL THE UPGRADES 10 Terminatros w/ ALL THE UPGRADES Stormraven Vindicare
Draigo is a grandmaster so he gave everyone re roll ones to wound.
Paladins... damn. Looks like I have to spam him with solid shot missiles and hope he fails some 2+ armour saves. Game was Pitched battle 1 objective each.
This game was amazing fun. Ciaran is a great guy to play. His army, outside of looking fantastic is just plain cool. 23 models. Each one a complete badass. When your grenade carrying, psycannon wielding, psychic terminators are the weakest unit in your army..... well. The game went to turn 7 with one unit hold an objective and me throwing EVERY other thing in my army at his meat grinders of troops. It came down to a scout squad, down to two models and one paladin on a wound punching each other on my objective.Class.
15 - 5 win to me.
End of Day 1
Thanks to some negotiations made by our PRO Caolán, I was allowed back into the student bar after some apologising to staff. We set up here for the night. We had some food. Drank some beers and hung out with some good people. The craic was had and after the auction Dan "True Story" Ahern now owns ALL of the things. All of them.
Game 4 vs WAC's Mike "That's not Blick, it's really dark blue" Foreman
1st game of the next day and it was another Grey Knights army. Strange how I played 3 of them over the weekend and none of them alike. This army was commanded by Mike Foreman, WAC's token Sud Afrikan.
Mike was nice enough to agree to a photograph before the game
I had played him when he was using Grey Knights before, but that list was terminator heavy. His list for Brocon was:
Coteaz Grandmaster 5 man Strike Squad w/ Psycannon in S6 razorback Jokaros and Multi-melta Servitors in a chimera for coteaz A badass henchmen warband w/ Death Cult Assassins, Banishers, Crusaders, Mystic and extra wounds. All in a Land Raider Redeemer with the Grandmaster to benefit from his Rad Grenades and Hammerhand. 2 (scoring thanks to the Grand Master) Psybolt Dreads 5(scoring thanks to the Grand Master) Paladins
Game was pitched battle 3 objectives. He went first and killed a razorback. In my turn I drove a rhino forward and smoked while my Long Fangs killed all the mech except the Chimera. All of his shooting was ineffective against the rhino which was a turning point of the game as the henchmen could not assault the contents. They charged and killed the rhino and I lost 3 Grey Hunters by being unable to disembark. All of my guns shot the warband and they died. Leaving the Grandmaster on his lonesome to get lascannoned.
After that the Paladins dropped, they took two casualties and ran away. It was not Mike's game.
It ended 18 - 2 to me.
Game 5 vs Warhead's Alec "Next venom, same target" Cornelius
This game started pretty badly. I was playing Venom spam, the bane of Long Fangs. On Dawn of war, the bane of Long Fangs. Going second, again the bane of walking Long Fangs. Anyways, it was game 5 and I was on table 3. Playing an old foe of mine. Not that we'd ever played 40k against each other, it's just we engaged in a heated game of "Red or Black" at SkibbCon 2.0 and he took me to school. Time to get even.
Our battle at SkibbCon was so epic, it spawned a gameshow
Alec's list was: The Baron A homunculus 8 x venoms w/ dual splinter cannon 3 w/ 4 trueborn + 4 blasters and 5 with some variation of troop with blasters Big squad of hellions 3 x ravagers
There was no LOS blocking terrain on the board, it was all forests, yay. He deployed the BAron and the Hellions. Everything is rolling on 1st turn.
I deployed a rhino w/ 9 guys and a rune priest(the one with tempest wrath.) on the left side of my board. Everything coming on first turn except the scouts who where OBELing, the 2 min squads(one with rune priest/stormcaller)
His turn everything boosts on except the ravagers which try and blow up my rhino. Too far away to see with night fighting.
My turn I drive on my razorbacks full of Long Fangs on the left hand corner of the table creating a box that the long fangs got out into. Thus negating LOS. My rhino cast tempest wrath and drove a little forward and right to block more LOS. My other rhino came on from the board edge about half way between both short table sides. Everything popped smoke.
His shooting managed to explode one of the razorbacks leaving LOS to one of the squads and killing the pack leader. Being the only squad they could see all 8 venoms shot at that squad. I could not believe it when they only took one casualty. Alec was looking quite exasperated until the Long fang squad thought how unfair they were being, failed their moral test and ran off the board. Way to survive guys!
With the initial turn over with I was able to unleash missile and lascannon hell on his venoms. While scouts killed ravagers and my squads got into the middle to multi assault the contents of dead venoms, and venoms themselves. I killed an exorbitant amount of killpoints and the game ended a 15 - 5 win to me.
So with 4 wins - 1 draw - 0 losses - I ended up in fourth place. Just a point shy of Brian McKensie in third place. I had a thoroughly enjoyable convention. I want to thank Jay, for a great event and all of my opponents for the great games. Also my congratulations go out to Caolán becuase his place at Bro-Con earned him the "Best Blood Angels" General Badge.
Now I have to wait until NWG before my next convention and I think it's about time the old reliable, broken, glance on a 6 Necrons made a return. Because playing with Space Wolves, it's like cheating.
Until next time: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEW
I was recently in attendance of Wargames Association Corks (WAC) annual event "Astronomicon" held in University College Cork.
Due to the event being primarily a fun weekends gaming, yet featuring some of the best local gamers, I was quick to sign up, but with a twist. I took the opportunity to take an Imperial Guard army that Dave Chambers was nice enough to lend me.
Not only are the models beautifully painted but Dave is one of the unsung heroes of the local scene, for when he isn't ensuring that friends can borrow either his Guard or his equally beautifully painted Space Marines, he will be playing the "by" list in either 40K or Fantasy (in which he also has several gorgeous armies) or helping to organise the event.
List was as follows:
Company Command Squad: 4 Plasma, Astropath, Bodyguard, Chimera, H. Flamer
Company Command Squad: 4 Plasma
10 Vets, 3 Melta, Chimera, H. Flamer
10 Vets, 3 Melta, Chimera, H. Flamer
10 Vets, 3 Melta
10 Vets, 3 Melta
3 Valkyries
2 Hydra
2 Hydra
Leman Russ Executioner
Game 1 was against Colin and his standard Codex Marines list using Daves other beautifully painted toys. This list has 3 Drop pods. I got first turn, he reserved, I moved around my Vendettas so as to boost back in turn 2 and get saves for my Vendetta's, block most line of sight to my army and prevent him from dropping too close to my list. Seems sensible right?
His turn one two pods came in and I realised I was obviously still drunk for having made such a school boy error. Cue to the loss of a squad of hydras and 2 Vendetta's. His Ironclad bagging the former and his combat squaded Sternguard the latter. This led to an uphill battle from here on in but I managed to get the draw with VP's making it an 11-9 in his favour.
Game 2 was against Hugh and his Templars. I got first turn and deployed aggressively.He decided to reserve all but a 5 man squad who camped on his objective. I killed them and then everything that came on as it came on till I ran out of rounds. Had I played a turn six I would have tabled him. He did 0 to me but was left with a wounded Marshal and a Land Raider so I got a 19-1.
Game 3 was against Merv and the first of his Space Wolves lists ( he played a second list on the Sunday, the one that he submitted to the ETC). He got first turn and I deployed in cover, using my Valks to soak up as much of the firepower as I could by scouting them into his face.
Cue me failing every cover save and armour save from exploding tanks I was called on to take and I was pretty much doomed from turn one. I clawed back some points by baging a few Razorbacks and Long Fang squads but not enough to matter. I had a draw in turn 5 but it wasn't to be and by the end of turn six he had me beat.
Had the game ended in turn 5 I could have got another 11-9 but the extra round and my having exposed myself to get the draw resulted in an 18-2 to him.
Game 4 was against Little Dave and his double storm raven and Descent of Angels Blood Angels list.
I got first turn and deployed surrounded by terrain, spaced out so as to make his DoA hard even on one D6" scatter. As described earlier, I Scout moved and set up my Vendetta's so as to move them back and provide more cover for his arrival from turn 2.
This worked quite well. He got two troops and a squad of HG in on turn two. One of the squads Deep Struck onto my models and went back into reserve with a lucky 6. The remaining troops and HG landed in plain sight of my Executioner and decided to run out of template formation rather than shoot down something. My plasma squads disembarked and combined fire left him 2 marines from the HG. His Ravens turned up in turn 3 and I bagged them both using orders to make him re-roll the cover saves. I finished off the remaining HG who had killed one of my CCSquads.
Meph and one Dread shot into a Chimera hoping to bring out the contents but did so only in the assault phase, leaving me ready to pummel them with all of my fire power, while the other Dread charged the vets that had killed his Raven. He killed 1 Vet; they held. His other squad also arrived taking out a Chimera on the other side of the board that had been heading for his objective lest Meph survive and contest mine.I proceded to shoot everything and Meph made a stupid amount of cover saves only to move onto my objective. Daves remaining squad moved back to snag his objective as the time was running out. Game ended before anything else could happen.
One more turn and I could have wiped Meph but prob not all of his marines so it would have been a draw, as it was I got a 13-7, killing Meph would have made it higher but I was happy enough.
Game 5 I played Merv again with his ETC list.
He got first turn in Dawn of War. I rolled on most stuff in turn 1 with a Valk and a Vet squad and a CCSquad staying in reserve to deal with his scouts. I deployed two empty Chimeras so as to use their Searchlights to pop a few tanks as I rolled on.
This didn't work out though with his rolling boxcars twice to see my chimera's and stunning both. My stuff came on and got killed. I just could not stand up to the firepower of 3 LF squads and 9 TLLC Razbacks. 19-1 to Merv. Less said the better.
So what did I learn? Chimera's get in the way of shooting. Using this to your advantage is a key to blocking the already slow mobility of the Guard. Side armour shots against Armour 10 mean that even a plasma will get through and if you blow up a transport the chances are he is loosing 5/10 Vets minimum and they can easily be pinned.
Vendetta's are cool and all but can be taken down fairly easily by combined firepower. Remember that they are not Storm Ravens and are susceptible to Melta and have weak rear armour. If you can take away the save they go down easy.
Hydra's are simply awesome. Tricks of the trade are hiding one so that both get cover saves, be careful of that. Also as a squadron they get to fire smoke once, as each one does it separately and the unit counts as obscured. Once you have silenced them, move on.
If they are not shooting they are useless and chances are there are other things to take care of. While the executioner is seriously threatening, it tends to miss, a lot. I mean I averaged about 2 in 5 on target each time I shot it.
This list was not optimised. I went with stuff I thought was good and left out stuff like Manticores, Platoons and other staples that I thought were superfluous. I was wrong. Simple things like lining up 25 marines in an "L" shape in your back field prevent Wolf Scouts "Operating Behind Enemy Lines" and other suck infiltrators, The Manticore will Instant Kill big characters and take down tanks that your lads will not be in a position to deal with.
I have to doff my hat to lads who get this army to work how I have seen it play against me over the years. I honestly didn't think that it was as complicated as it is. It is not Point and Shoot. I am sure it can become that way after playing it for a few years, but it is not as forgiving as I had thought.
Interestingly it is not as boring to play with as I had thought either. This does not mean however that I think it is the best Army in the game or that those who use it well are the best Generals. They are not. Because put simply, if you loose, you loose badly regardless of who you are. Marines can claw back a win out of a loss better than anyone provided they have the right man at the tiller and someone who knows his toys.
Playing guard also increases your awareness of Target priority too. You must identify and deal with a threat much quicker than with other armies, simply because if they get too close they are all of a sudden hitting side armour and able to get flamers into range and charge your tanks/infantry. Good experience, not likely to do it again for a long time.
Having just completed Skibbcon 2.0, I thought it might be a good idea to give a run down of our first foray into holding a tournament.
It all began at Warpcon 2010 with Caolán "Slim" Gibbons. Caolán had been thinking about holding an event in Skibbereen for a while and used Warpcon as somewhere he could guage interest. Somewhere between the drinking on the Friday and the drinking on the Saturday, or as some would call it, the "tournament" he had spread the word about our con.
This picture makes my liver hurt
The tournament had the following format: All-inclusive weekend. Bed and Breakfast for 2 nights in the venue. Quiz organised for the saturday. 5 games to be played over the weekend. 3 on the Saturday, 2 on the Sunday. 1750 pt armies. All standard rulebook missions with standard deployments. We were also implementing the, new at the time, +/- 5 bonus/malus table which was a big success.
So in the end we had 18 people playing and Caolán doing the judging/admin. There was a pretty ranged breakdown of armies.
Space Marines: 6 Eldar: 3 Chaos Space Marines: 3 Orks: 2 Tyranids: 1 Tau: 1 Necrons: 1 Imperial Guard: 1
So..... turns out lots of people have Space Marines. Genuine shock and awe.
Things kicked off on the Friday night with everyone arriving and meeting each other and having a couple of beers. The evening continued with lots of chat and some more beer. Poker was played (big well done to Eoin McManus) and more beer consumed. Everyone was in bed reasonably early, like 2 or 3am.
Beer: It was consumed
Cut to the next morning and 19 people shambling towards the breakfast rolls, ready outside. There was many a sore head and the direct sunlight was not helping matters. Due to the relaxed nature of the event and the fact we had all the time in the world, the first game started at around 10 or 11ish. I ended up playing Ivan "Nudie MacTubbs" Sheehan. I didn't really know Ivan before SkibbCon but I can say now that we're very good friends. He was playing an all bike list with double command squads. I was playing my Deciever, destroyers, lord with a veil of darkness list. The game ended with a win to me and Ivan to forever label Necrons as "broken". What can I say, they glance on 6's.
The event seemed to be going better for some as Chris found out when his Nurgle Chaos Marines met Tristram's leafblower Guard. Game 1 was over and onto game 2. I was against Burkhardt's fantastically painted Eldar army. I mean those harlequins were painted so well that I didn't even mind when I misinterpreted the "Rending" rule and the Deciever died a horrible death. Highlight for me was when all of my Destroyers joined into one huge Super Blob of 8 and murdered the Avatar. This game, I think(it was over a year ago), ended in a draw.
For me, the end of game 2 meant a run into town to buy supplies. As the sun was shining, we had decided to have a barbecue. I must thank Eoin McManus for being so understanding and for waiting. His Vulkan Marines wiped my entire army in turn 7 but it was a fantastic game.
Now came my shining moment of the weekend. I was trying to open a bag of sausages to get ready for barbecue and had myself an accident. 3 stitches worth of an accident. I wasn't worried though because we had a medical student in the hostel and he could probably help. You know, if we could find him. Cue a phonecall to my mother, my sister driving me to SouthDoc and a nice big bandage on my finger. Thanks Tristram, thanks very much.
Enter Alan: Hero among men
All was not lost! Thanks to the effort of Alan "who needs a pancreas?" Kenneally. Alan stepped up to the plate and bashed out enough food to feed 20 hungry nerds. Thanks Alan. That's not sarcastic thanks like Tristram got, actual thanks.
After all the food was consumed and it started to get dark out we decided to get cracking on the Quiz. There were 6 teams in total and you can tell the amount of organisation these teams had, as we had Team Caolán Sucks Balls 2, 3, and 4 but no Caolán Sucks Balls 1. Good job guys. Good job. After the quiz it was more drinking and to bed.
Sunday dawned in pretty much the same way as Saturday. Full of bleary eyes and headaches. Breakfast rolls consumed in silence and then the search for you partner for game 4. Turns out I was up against resident hero Alan. What followed was as close as I have come to a perfect draw. Two tired, hungover individuals squinting across a 6 x 4 at each other. Both making mistakes. Both failing entirely to capitalise on those mistakes. Game ended in a 10 - 10 draw with a difference of 11 points, I think, in vps. Drawing, like a boss.
Game 5 had me playing my club-mate Andrew Kirwan. Kirwan wasn't drinking at the weekend, wasn't staying in the hostel and missed game 3 because he had to work. What can I say? He obviously just hates fun. This game went very badly for me and I got a loss. With my win, my 2 draws and 2 losses I ended up around half way at 11th. Here are the end results for those interested.
1 Tristram Hills - Imperial Guard (The Warheads) 2 Burkhardt Flemer - Eldar (WAC) 3 Richard Flood - Tyranids (WAC) 4 Sylvan Lynn - Chaos Space Marines (SWG) 5 Cian O'Mahony Space Marines (SWG) 6 Colin Cullinane Orks (WAC) 7 Eoin McManus - Space Marines (WAC) 8 Andrew Kirwan - Space Marines (SWG) 9 Dave Chambers - Space Marines (WAC) 10 Donal Carroll - Eldar (WAC) 11 Eoin O'Mahony - Necrons (SWG) 12 Ivan Sheehan - Space Marines (WAC) 13 Derek Barry - Space Marines (WAC) 14 Alan Kineally - Eldar (WAC) 15 Fergus O'Shea - Chaos Space Marines (WAC) 16 Tadhg Murphy - Orks (SWG) 17 Chris Icke - Chaos Space Marines (SWG) 18 Pa O'Donovan - Tau (SWG)
SWG = SkibbWargamers, WAC = Wargaming Association Cork
Skibbcon 1, a success
So I must say that the weekend was a success. Tristram's Guard won out and he accuired himself a Horus Heresy board game. I have to say all of the Skibb Wargamers worked hard to get the inaugural Con off the ground and with the feedback we received we held an equally as successful Con in 2011 but there'll be a separate report on that.
SkibbWargamers was started in 2008 as a way for four nerds, (myself, Caolán, Pa and Martin) to hang out whilst playing board games and anything else involving dice and toy figures. At Pa's urging, we had returned to playing 40k, something we had abandoned before. Out in my garage one day, I showed 40k to Eoin(who most of ye know as the guy who's Marines get back up and glance on sixes; except when they pen), and he took to the game like a fish to water. Having taught Eoin the mechanics of the game, (except assualts) we decided his first game should be playing Tau at WarpconXIX. Warpcon was great craic, as usual, nerding it up, so 40k became a staple part of our nerd diet again.
Dice. Part of our diet.
After Warpcon I decided to start a 40k campaign to introduce both Eoin and Martin to 40k and to teach Caolán how Blast weapons worked in 5th ed.. Martin grew his hair, became asexual, and changed his name to Tadhg, (No, seriously, he went home to Poland and Tadhg joined about a week later). Caolán met Sylvan at an Other Realms gaming thing, and as he was the only person there who didn't know what Blizzard was, Sylvan felt talking to Caolán was reasonably safe. Thus our group became larger (and taller).
World of What? Never heard of it.
SWG's first full outing was the now infamous GT in Athlone. We had an absolute ball and many traditions were born, and some great stories, including: Eoin and Caolán getting horrendously drunk, Tadhg crashing Caolán's car, friendly rivalry with the Warheads, and hurling levels of abuse which shocked anyone who didn't know we're all friends, right okay?
Caolán's car.
In accordance with local by-laws, our ranks now include Chris, our token ginger, and Emma, Sylvan's wife and token woman. As most of our members live in Cork due to college, and I can only produce so many childern to swell our ranks, I have taken to recuiting Youngbloods as the next generation of SkibbWargamers and playing regularly in our local hangout, Russagh Mill.
Even kids like Space Marines.
Russagh Mill will be familiar to many of you as the location of our now yearly event, SkibbCon. For those of you who don't know, SkibbCon is a non-ranking, doubles event, held in June, in Russagh Mill Hostel, Skibbereen. It's a two-day event, and the money you pay covers accomodation, food, con-entry and prize support. It's popularity has grown to an extent that we now offer spectator tickets for those who come for the craic rather than the games, a source of great pride for us. For more information see up coming articles.
SkibbCon!
Now that we find our club name is known across the island, we run our own con and we have our own forum, we decided we needed a blog to further make our opinion, (which everyone is entitled to) known. As well as inflating our own egos, (mainly Eoin's), this blog will hopefully serve to promote and expand Ireland's gaming scene, which is growing from strength to strength, thanks to nerds all over Ireland and SkibbWargamers will do its part. So here it is, the SkibbWargamers blog, read and enjoy.
