Blog Wars 5 - Abdicating the Throne

It's true.. Blog Wars 5 is rolling around the corner and I am going to have to skip it.

After attending the first FOUR tournaments and WINNING ALL FOUR of them I will have to walk away with my head bowed in shame...

I am also depriving someone the opportunity to take my Crown, to sit upon the Iron Throne after rightfully smashing the shit out of all opponents in their way!

But I will be back, I will want my Blog Wars Crown back, I will want to retake the Iron Throne (there is no Iron Throne at Blog Wars.. I'm kinda just throwing around 'king of the mountain' imagery...)

Blog Wars 5 will be an amazing event and from the look of it, it will be the biggest yet in terms of participation - it s up in Stockport at the Gaming Centre there and for me, that's just too far to drive from Cambridge for a one day event.

I am disappointed not to be going, but I will be back on the trail for Blog Wars glory in the Fall, after being blooded and gaining more experience at the ETC in Serbia - having represented my country at toy soldiers - I'll be eager to reclaim my Crown!

There are still some tickets left for BW5 in Stockport on the 22nd June

Check out the LINKIE here (well, left of 'here'...preceding 'here'? However you want to say it..)


Oh and Alex... I want an actual BW Crown for the prize in Fall/Winter please mate.
I'm being a diva and not coming back unless there is one!
Or an AXE!
Or a sword... hammer...mace.. shield?...dagger? pencil sharpener?

Blog Wars 4 . Bat Reps...

So it was full of Gusto I breezed in to my second Blog Wars with my tourney untested new marine creation, I was hopeful as in play testing the "tool kit" army seemed to be working well and had yet to be trounced (which is not the same as "not lost" :P )

Anyway this was the list I took. The inclusion of Chronus was due to the mission pack making special characters score or give away extra vps but you HAD to take one. Either way a scoring predator that could then cheekily throw the character from the wreckage to go and hide in a squad seemed a good bet. The fact he then gave me immune to stunned and shaken and bs5 was just icing on the cake:

Libby - Gate and Null Zone
10 Sternguard in a pod
Iron Clad with 2 hunter killers in pod

10 tacs with the holy trinity of melta in pod
10 tac with missile, plasma and assault cannon razorback
10 sniper scouts with Telion
Aegis with Las

Storm talon with cyclone
Vindicator
Thunder Fire
Dakka Pred with Chronus

Let's see how I got on then..

The Voice - Being a Hobby Butterfly,Space Marines and my Blog Wars list!

So, yea, my name is Gary Percival and I have a problem. I'm a hobby butterfly.

6th is really doing my noodle in, so many things viable, so many codex's now a possible, i'm having trouble settling on what I want to use for the 2013 season. Nids, Crons, Blood Angels...all have piqued my interest.

But i've decided, for sure...vanilla marines. Done.

Why?

Frankly because you get more bang for your buck, once you have a core you can turn a generic space marine army in to wolfs, blood angels, dark angels etc, and to be honest with a little one on the way I don't know when I will be able to afford another army. So this will be added to for a while to create new types of army's.

So what am I planning for the 2013 season?

Well I want something balanced, something with lots of options (as trying to predict the meta at any given tournie is a nightmare) something where I don't really care  too much what I'm facing. I want strong scoring that also but also built to do the secondary missions as they are so so important now.

So this is the core - and it has a fair bit of melta purely as wraiths seem to be turning up at the moment  - but these can easily be switched out to add a new key unit or option if some new star rises..

Librarian, terminator armor and combi melta, force axe, null zone and gate- 135

10 stern guard - 250
pod - 35

Iron clad, 2 hunter killers, melta and heavy flamer - 165
pod - 35

10 sniper scouts, telion - 190
aegis line with lascannon - 85

10 marines, plasma gun, missile launcher-180

10 marines, melta, multi melta, combi melta - 185
pod -35

storm talon with assault cannon and cyclone - 155
2 multi melta attack bikes - 100

thunderfire cannon - 100
vindicator -115
whirlwind - 85

So why do I think its good? Well combat tactics is amazing, null zone is ace at getting those daemons and wraiths. My first blood potential is strong and vanguard should be easy. Ive got fast attack and heavy's plus up to 6 scoring units for objective missions. There is something there for every job and multiple attack vectors for what ever army I face.

Combat tactics really keeps my warlord alive and cant be under estimated and the "fade and fire" warfare style really is a valid tactic - falling back from where the enemy makes a strong push and then use the new rally rules to then surround and pulverize....it makes me happy :)

There is SO much this army can do well (rather than one or two things really well like most army's) that I cant even list all the tactics Ive been using. It really rewards thinking a turn or two ahead and being familiar with MY army rather than prescribed internet tactics. (In a vain way I think part of what I'm going for is eeking out a niche for myself "that marine player that seems to always do well" rather than "that guy that won with 18 wraiths...again...yawn")

Some changes may be just taking the libby down to just bare bones and getting some combi meltas in the sternguard - but vengeance rounds and null zone seem to be nobbling wraiths just fine. I'm also tempted to take some scouts bikes with a melta bomb and power axe too instead of the attack bike's and the libby's terminator armor. This potentially can allow me to gate a tactical squad in, drop the stern guard and iron clad in too and then charge the scout bikes in too on turn one (if going second)- really aggressive, which I like. The scout bikes with t5 really can tie up certain units in combat, which then should reduce the incoming flak for the other three units.

Anyway I digress and I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Finally my Blog Wars 4 list - moded a little due to the special nature of the missions. Can you guess the sneaky plan? - But bear in mind its also for a bit of fun :)

Libby, null zone, gate, force axe - 100

10 stern guard - 250
pod - 35

Iron clad, 2 hunter killers, melta, chainfist- 155
pod - 35

10 sniper scouts, telion - 190
aegis line with lascannon - 85

10 marines, plasma gun, missile launcher-180
Razorback - twin assault cannon - 75

10 marines, melta, multi melta, combi melta - 185
pod -35

storm talon with assault cannon and cyclone - 155


thunderfire cannon - 100
vindicator -115
Predator, heavy bolter sponsons, Chronus - 155


Oh and check the points for me :P

Gary

SONS Blog War Results

I am going to assume something has happened to Venerable, he's either got lost or been abducted by 40K bloggers, or got some wedding shite to do.

Either which way I'll fill in the masses (ok, 1 person ...)

Blog Wars 3 has just come and gone, and once again SONS had a few representatives going. Venerable, two time defending champ, Atreides who always puts up good results, and the ever improving (now just beastly) Steve, AKA Bringer of Death. They used, respectively, Necrons, Imperial Guard and Grey Knights.

We'll start at the top - Venerable.

He won it. Again. Less said the better.

Steve, AKA Bringer of Death got 3rd place, who is starting to pick up some serious traction with results.

Atreides put up a nice and steady 8th place, who is probably one of the more consistent players in 40K around, no matter the tournament, he rarely finds himself out of Top 10.

All in all its another strong showing for SONS, taking 2 of the top 3 and putting all 3 inside the top 10 of the 26 man event.

Hopefully the next event will be under 6th edition, and sees a different winner, but from SONS, I mean we still have to keep the crown!

Well done to everyone involved, but a massive shout out and thanks to From the Fang and Alex for running the event again, it gets smoother every time (and the 1st was still fantastic) and in a game where support and events get yanked all the time, its great that more and more players take it upon themselves to run events.

Visit their From the Fang Blog, if you haven't already, here:

http://fromthefang.blogspot.co.uk/

Side; Running Events

Events in 40K, while time consuming and require some thought and set up, are not as tricky as you would think, many of the tournament organisers themselves even having enough time to take part themselves.

In the UK we do have various locations on offer, especially Warhammer World or Maelstrom (ironically enough both are very close to each other) to just hire for the day. While really it isn't something you should do for profit, you will find that entry fee should cover hiring and prize support.

As for running the event, the structure exists there, from missions to spreadsheets to help you calculate match ups in subsequent rounds. One thing about the game, unlike say a Magic The Gathering, is there is next to no need for actual judges, just a few on site people to help rule altercations.

If 6th Edition is good (fingers crossed) I might well look to run a SONS event (possibly with a league structure). I've run cups and even ELO based leagues before, and they are always fun and worth the squeeze.

Hopefully there are others out there like Alex that are willing to just put up events, even if its a the local game store for 10 or 12 people, to bigger 20 to 30 people events at venues. Not everything needs to be a Grand Tournament!

Not Going to Blog Wars ... BUT: Sisters!

I'll leave the self righteous and probably horribly boring spiel about 40K and me for another time, all you need to know for this post is that I am the only SON not attending Blog Wars (and that Killswitch loser!) This means a couple of things, one, Venerable is absolutely assuredly not going to have to play me to a draw on Dawn of War Kill Points and potentially ruin his tournament (or watch as me winning the game comes down to better than 50% dice rolling and blowing it). Secondly it means I've not been working or tuning lists, but I thought it might be a fun to look at what I might have played, had models, paint and availability not been an issue.

In this post, I am looking at what probably, barring model availability, would have been my first or second choice. The Sisters of Battle. When I returned from my last hiatus, this was the army I picked up, now on my second hiatus, this is the army, along with one other, that I am hoping gets a significant power boost via 6th Edition rules:

The Sisters of Battle !!

Olive Branch to Blog Wars

For the first Blog Wars I was going to take SW until I realised that no one was taking DE and at that point in time there was some consternation about whether or not they could actually hang.

I felt they certainly could hang and took a tough list which did exceptionally well for me and won the tournament.

For Blog Wars 2 I took my Necrons as the new hotness and to show what they could do, I was the only Necron player there as well if I remember rightly.

I've made a name not just for winning the tournie, but surely also for taking under represented or new armies.

By taking my Necrons I am in some ways going against the spirit of the event. They are established as a tough and legitimately competitive army. Like Alex over at From the Fang says, half the field is taking stuff they wouldn't dream of taking to a hardcore event.. then there is me.. I am taking that sort of thing..

For a moment, let's forget the GK players, the IG players, the BA players and the DE players that are all attending.. especially Atreides... all of whom make up the majority of the tournament.. there are currently 2 Necron players.

Soon to be one.

If the Blog Wars community wants, I will run an army that is not currently being represented at Blog Wars.