Monday, February 22, 2010

My Broadside Bash report

So I drive out to LA for the Broadside Bash after work on a Thursday, and I have all Friday to kill.



So I call up Somnicide and Shep and schedule a couple of games on the Westside of LA. I want to thank them for playing me with such short notice, because I have not played since the Wild West Shootout, I needed the practice. Also I saw from his batreps that Shep was starting Tyranids, and I wanted to take the new 'Nids out for a test drive. After getting in a couple of games against them, it is on to the Bash. Looking back on it, I will play 7 games over the weekend, so I am getting my money's worth out of this trip!



Somnicide vs. Blackmoor batrep

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/280382.page



I played in the Broadside Bash last year and I hated it, and I swore that I would not be coming back, but with the introduction of Vegas qualifying, and it is in my home town, I thought I would try them again.



It did go much smoother this time around. The hotel still did not have a parking lot, and I had to pay $11 a day on parking, but a lot of other things that made it a bad tournament were changed around. Last year they were doing construction on in the penthouse, and we were squished in a small room downstairs, but this time the penthouse was opened up and we had a great view of the Airport and the ocean, plus we had some room to breathe. Also the rounds were listed as 2 ½ hours, and last year it seemed like they shorted us some time, but this time it seemed like we had a full round.







Here are a few of this year's complaints:



Scoring system

What I did not like is the scoring system. I know the Pacific Marauders, and I know that they are very much into the painting and modeling aspect of the hobby, but I did not know that the scoring system was going to be that much dependant of soft scores. Battle points were only 39% of the score!!! It might be less than that because Massacres were 18 points; Major wins were 15 Minor wins were 13 with ties being 12 points and losses at 8. So no matter how bad you get crushed,

you still get 8 points, and there is almost no difference between a tie and a minor win. Dave Fay who came in 3rd place and won nothing had a good post below where he said that he ended up with 2 Massacres, 1 Major and 2 Minors for a total of 77, Brad who won Best General ended up with 3 Massacres and 2 draws for 78 points. Dave did much better that Brad did, but because of the crazy battle point system that rewards a draw almost as much as a minor win (and minor wins where not easy to get) Brad beat Dave by 1 point.



Terrain

They had thematic tables with always looks nice, but it made for uneven game play. They had jungle tables with no LOS blocking terrain, and city tables where there was no way to draw LOS.



Missions

I complained about these before the event, and they were able to change them a little. First off they did not have any Kill Point missions. Love them, or hate them, they are part of the game, and besides, just how many objective missions do you want to play? I lobbied them and Reesus helped out to get them to create one KP/Victory Point mission. The other thing was no Dawn of War deployments. This does not sound that bad, but know that your army always starts on the board, and you can exploit that. I could start with a wall of canifexes with scything talons, and I know I can just run them at you knowing that the would not be held in reserve.



Tables

The tables where at knee height and I am 6'5" and bending over for 5 games is not a whole lot of fun. I do not know if this can be helped, because the hotel uses stage parts for them, and I do not know if this can be changed.



So overall not too bad, hopefully they can fix what the problems they had this year, and make it better for next year. The big part of what they need to change is the scoring. All of the subjective soft scores are bad. Not only that, but Warhammer 40k is mostly a game, and to have the game aspect of it to be such a non-factor of who wins is not very good.



My initial reaction when I read the scoring was that I should work on my pre-heresy Thousand Sons. They would score high on Painting/Theme and that would go a long way to help me win. I will work on them over the summer, so next year I will be in great shape for the Broadside Bash. (Although I always perform poorly when my opponents score me on sports/comp). I must be quite a jerk to play!!!). The mistake I make though was not to play my chaos. It comps better because it is a MEQ army, and it is painted much better.







Saturday, February 20, 2010

Thousand Son update


I have not forgotten them but I am waiting for it to get above 100 degrees outside before I get to work on them.


 

The last of my temple bases just came in to the Warstore from when I ordered them on Thanksgiving, so they should be here soon. I like the temple bases from MAS because those look good for the fall of Prospero.


 

Dave Taylor did a few pre-heresy Emperor's Children:

http://davetaylorminiatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/bitten-off-more-than-i-can-chew.html

The pre-heresy EC though look very different than the others because they were the only ones that wore the aquilla. Also the look of the Thousand Sons is very unique, but he had one interesting thing in his rhinos. I am going to convert my rhinos too even though I have several of the old rhinos, I like the clean lines of the new rhinos. I am going to do what he did, but I am going to add a curved exhaust vents, and some screen-like texture in the front and rear panels. I might buy the chapterhouse pre-heresy rhino kit just for those.


 

I posted a poll on Dakka to see what makes for a better pre-heresy land raider

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/280142.page

There is something that I find interesting about the old land raider, maybe beause I have never owned one. I might try to modernize the old model.


 

Oh, and one last note: I am taking golden demon winner Chris Borer's painting class at Adepticon. I need to ask him how to paint red and gold.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Broadside Bash!


I will have my battle reports up by the end of the weekend. They take some work, and I don't have much time.


 

In other news, at Adepticon I wanted to play Eldar in the Gladiator, and Chaos in the Championships, but I only have room for one army and so I am going with Eldar.


 

I will play Chaos at the So. Cal Slaughter though!

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Adepticon 2010


Here is my schedule for Adepticon 2010:

Thursday's Schedule

I plan on getting to the hotel around 6:00pm. I will socialize with people and perhaps help them set up.

I want to try to sneak in to the 40k Tactics Boot Camp Level 1 on Thursday from 8:00pm to 9:30pm. The 2 instructors are Shawn Kemp and Jay Woodcock. I don't think I ever played Shawn before, but I beat Jay in Baltimore GT in 2007. I will not say anything, I just want to sit in the back of the room.

Friday

Adepticon Gladiator 9:00 am to 10:00 pm. I am not a big fan of the Gladiator, but nothing else is going on then.

Then from 10:00 pm to 12:00 am I am taking Chris Borer's seminar "Stepping up your game: Painting to a Competition Level". I have always wanted to take a seminar (normally I am playing in tournaments, but this year they have a few seminars after the games). My painting scores are in the middle of the road, and that is one aspect of the hobby I really want to improve on. Especially when I have a project like the Pre-Heresy Thousand Son's coming up.

Saturday

Set up our Team Tournament army and check in at 7:00 am. Then go with my fellow Dakka Dakka 1 teammates to breakfast. This is the first time we will all be together since last year, and the first time we discuss strategy and tactics for an army that we have never played before. Then we play from 9:00 am to 9:30 pm. Then it is off to the swap shop and try to see if I can get a deal on some stuff. Then I hope dinner with the tournament regulars.


 

Sunday

Time for the Adepticon Championships from 7:00 am to 4:30 pm. Then I just signed up for the poker tournament from 9:00 pm to ?


 

Monday

I hope to go to one last breakfast with the boys, then a flight at noon to take me home.


 

That is a lot of stuff this time. I am normally wiped out by Saturday night, and Sunday is like the Bataan Death March. I am very happy that I am not rushing out of there to get to a plane on Sunday night like I normally do, and I can take my time and leave Monday.


 

One of my big problems is that my normal schedule is that I go to bed late, and sleep in (I am typing this at 3:12 am), so when I go to Adepticon, not only do I have to wake up very, very early, but with the time zone difference means that I am really jet lagged. Last year I did not socialize much because I was so tired, I just went to my room, but I could not fall asleep because it was too early.


 

This year I will try a couple of things. I need to exercise a bit to get in shape for a 4-day, 11 game marathon, and I will try to go to bed early and wake up early so my internal clock will be on Adepticon time.


 


 

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

My preliminary Adepticon Gladiator list


2250 Pts - Eldar Roster - Adepticon Gladiator 2010


 

HQ: Eldrad Ulthran

HQ: Avatar


 

Elite: 5 Fire Dragons

Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Missile Launchers


 

Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbike Squadron, Shuriken Cannon (x1)

Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear


 

Troops: 3 Guardian Jetbike Squadron, Shuriken Cannon (x1)

Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear


 

Troops: 10 Guardians w/Bright Lance

1 Wave Serpent w/ Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Missile Launchers


 

Troops: 10 Storm Guardians w/ Flamer (x2)

1 Warlock w/Destructor, Singing Spear

1 Wave Serpent w/Spirit Stones; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Bright Lances


 

Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper Squadron w/Scatter Laser; Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper Squadron w/Scatter Laser; Shuriken Cannon


 

Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper w/Bright Lance; TL Shuriken Catapults

1 Vyper w/Bright Lance; TL Shuriken Catapults


 

Fast Attack: Vyper Squadron

1 Vyper Squadron w/Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 Vyper Squadron w/Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon


 

Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser


 


 

Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser

1 War Walker w/Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser


 

Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron (3#, 120 Pts)

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon

1 War Walker w/ Shuriken Cannon; Shuriken Cannon


 

Total Roster Cost: 2248


 


 

Sill working on the details of my list. I need to kill things like Titans and those gigantic creatures An'ggorath and Hierophant. I need a lot of Strength 8, AP 2 weaponry, and right now I do not have enough. I need to be able to do 8 wounds to a toughness 8 creature with a 2+/4+ save, and 10 Wounds to a toughness 9, 2+/6+ save.


 

Wow, that is going to be hard. Not only that, but they are not affected by Doom.

What happened to my Pre-Heresy Thousand Sons?


From this thread

http://blackmoors40k.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-updated-tournament-schedule.html#comments

Age of Ego's asked: "What happened to the Heresy TS? You saving them for the Adepticon...or did you nail down a list yet? Any pics of the conversions?"


 

Well, a couple of things happened... I took a 2 month break, and now I am getting ready for the Broadside Bash.

This is what I have 2 weeks to paint:

16 Warp Spiders

3 War Walkers

2 Wraithlords

4 Jetbikes

Fix and repair 8 Harlequins


 

Then the next month for Adepticon:

4 Wave Serpents

Assemble and paint 9 vypers

Finish my other 6 War Walkers

I am lucky that my fellow teammates are going to do my Adepticon team tournament army this year and I can take this one off.


 

For the So Cal Slaughter and the next month after that I have to work on a few big bugs to round out my Tyranid army.


 

No painting for the 'Ard Boys *whew!*


 

I am playing my Eldar right now because I am enjoying them the most right now, and they give me the best chance for winning an invite to Vegas, and in Adepticon for the European Team tournament.


 

After that I will have time to work on an army. So there is a good chance that I will finally get to work on my Thousand Sons. I bought all of the bitz for them during all of the Thanksgiving sales, so they are ready to go when I clear up some time for them.


 

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

My Updated Tournament Schedule

It looks like I will be really busy this spring. Here are the events that I will be at:

The Broadside Bash

Los Angeles, CA

February 13th - 14th

http://www.broadsidebash.com/


Adepticon

Chicago, IL

March 26th-28th

http://www.adepticon.org/


Slaughter In Space 2

Ontario, CA

April 16th-18th

http://scgwl.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=583


'Ard Boyz Tournament

Mesa, AZ?

May 15th


Unknown if I will attend:

ConQuest Invasion

Los Angeles, CA

June 26th -27th

http://conquestgt.avalongamecon.com/LAInvasion.html

I have no idea about this convention because I have never heard of them before. Not only that, but they are the ones that put on the Seattle Tournament that did not go well. It would have been better if they had it on Memorial Day weekend instead of the week before. It is only $50 if I sign up before Feb 28th.


BoLSCon

Austin, TX

June 29th-1st

Austin, TX

http://www.bolscon.com/

The heat of Texas in July? Even though it does not seem that far from me here in AZ, it is far away. I am on the fence about it, and I need to see more info before I commit to going all the way out there.


So over all it seems like a busy spring for me with a major event every month. I hope to buy a house by April or May, and then I can take it easy in the soul crushing heat and stay indoors and work on a new army (either Nids, Space Wolves, Chaos, or Eldar).


The funny thing is that I have a full Space Wolf army and a Tyranid army and I want to play my old 4th edition Eldar. I just like them, and unlike the flavor of the month, they are not that common anymore, but I am glad to show up to prove people wrong if they think they can't compete.