40k 6th: The Pile In Problem

Ok, Here's the situation. 3 Tyranids all armed with Lash Whips, Get assaulted by 6 Bikers.

Here is the starting postion. 3 bikers in base contact,3 bikers within 2 inches,

Here's a normal pile in, the 3 not in base bikers move to base contact. Do they do it at I4 or I1.  Do all the bikers attack at I1?

I will start doing assaults this way then. The 3 not in base bikers cannot make it into base with the Tyranids now, so they will now get to strike at I4/

ATC

Heading to the ATC the American Team Championship. The really last 40k 5th Tournament.

Fantasy Lives

Got an exception treat today, got to play part of  a game of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. Had a really good time. Maybe can fuel a renaissance of WFB and find other players here in Chattanooga.

Defiler 3

I've assembled and done the base work on the Defiler as shown below. The majority of the conversion work will be to the external metal plates.

Here is a side by side shot of the front view. One of my main concerns for 'counts as' models is size. I want to reasonibly get the size the same. I think the height is close enough to count that as a success. The base of the Dreadknight is very close to the spread of the legs on the actual defiler so width is fine.

This shot reveals the one flaw, Depth is not the same. The back set of legs are 1 1/2 inches beyond the back of the base. Though honestly this only affects Blast Marker weapons who scatter.

This top view is a little more skew than it should be, Overall I am happy and don't expect any flak for taking this to friendly games or even any tournaments. It's height and width will let all the Missile launching, razorback hiding, Autocannon weilding players to shoot it just fine.

Defiler 2

Since Blogger being a pain, I've had to break up this post more than I wanted to. I went ahead and went overboard on the magnet's and did the upper arms as well. For rules this is going to be a defiler with 4 Close Combat Weapons and a Battle Cannon. I'm counting the 2 claws and the arms themselves as weapons. Here's a pic of the Defiler totall disarmed.

I'll so some side by sides to compare model size between this and a normal defiler to see what feedback I get.

Delifer Conversion

Last month I attended a very nice little tournament at Organized Play in Knoxviller, TN. I had a lto fo fun and walked away with Best Sportsmanship and a shiny new Grey Knight DreadKnight. Here is the story of how it got corrupted to Chaos.

This is a dry assembly picture. Not much has been done to the kit yet.

You may observe the claws instead of the hand from the normal kit. In my mind Chaos pretty much always has claws or some sort of sharp bits. The claws were made from the old Imperial Guard Bullbozer. Here they are shown cut apart.

Here you can see the claws glued together and the magnets I installed inside the wrist and to the claw itself. This will allow me to portray 'Weapon Destroyed' results very easily. I simply pull off the claw. Both arms have been modified this way.

Since a lot of people are kinda picky about vehicle destroyed markers I decided to just make it so I could destroy the defiler without removing it from the table. Here you can see 2 magnets installed in the waist section.

And the corresponding magnets in the upper section. I can now remove the top half of the model and just leave the base and legs standing on the battlefield to represent it being destroyed.

Sad

It's been 1 year since a tornado touched down just under a mile from my house. My wife was pregnant with twins before the storm hit. The ultrasound after the tornado had no more heartbeats. Now a year later and despite spending hundreds of $$$ from our savings we still havn't managed to get pregnant again. Add into it how insensitive people are and life is $hitty right now. Why do people insist on talking about babies and pregnanices around a woman who has lost 3 babies in the past 1 1/2 years? And these are your coworkers who KNOW what has happened.

Round 2

The second mission was a flash back to the 'good ole days' of 40k.

Objectives -
Primary - Table Quarters
Secondary - Kill points

Twist - Any infantry unit can hold a quarters, thats right not just troops

Deployment - I held everything in reserve while my opponent deployed as follows from my point of view left to right

Crusader - loaded with Cortez and 10 Grey Knights, Chimera in a tower (and yes I mean it was a 5 in tall tower with a platform on top and he deployed the chimera on it, Empty normal Landraider, 2nd tower with a Chimera on top of it, empty land raider, and then last chimera on a huge pile of rocks.

I rolled a 6 to seize as I wanted to start shooting vehicles before they started spreading out like roaches to cover the board. But was stopped by Cortez's Spy network.

Looking at my opponents army, he only had 4 troop  choices, 6 vehicles. I decided I just wanted to bottle him up on his side of the board, if I could stop the land raiders. since they can still contest quarters.

For some reason my opponent did nothing his 1st turn, did not move, just stood still.

My turn- deep struck in 3 Squads, without difficulties, Belial  and command Squad went in on the right side near the Chimera on the rock, one squad in the center of the table, their job was to remain in the center and move to whatever quarter I needed them in the last turn, and 2nd Term Assault Squad and LIbrarian on left flank, targetting left most Chimera, Also acting as bait for Grey Knights squad.

My shooting, Cyclones FTW, left Chimera in tower destroyed, middle Chimera immobolised, Right Chimera, shaken.

Instead of turn by turn blows here's a highlights reel:

Cortez and Grey Knights try and use the casting +1 Str twice and assaulting my Librarian and his squad. Bloody combat results, Librarian ends up force weaponing Cortez to death, but in the end Librarian and all 5 terms die leaving 5 grey knight alive.

Left Chimera was destroyed, the 3 guardsmen inside, jump down tower, take the Grey Knights Land raider and move into my near left quadrant.

My center term Squad, destroys center Chimera, that 3 man guard squad, jumps into center land raider and fearing my chain fist moves and attempts to claim my near right quadrant.

Belial and squad destroy right Chimera and ( surprise) 3 IG run into right Land raider, which stays in far right quadrant.

Turn 5 my last squad of terms auto matically comes in. I put them in the Far left quadrant, right next to the 5 surviving Grey Knights, Cyclone and Storm bolters later, 2 dead, 11 on Ld test, 10 on fallback distance and game ends. There was going to be an argument on how far a vehicle needed to be into a table quarter to claim it in my near right quadrant because a land raider had just the thickness of 1 tread into that quadrant, maybe, I was going to call the judege over to measure and call it, I've always gone with majority placement to determine which quarter a model is in. BUT this was all moot because I broke the Grey Knights and he had no units in the far Left Quarter.

Also, he had only killed my Librarian and the squad he joined, while I had killed 3 chimeras and Cortex, 4-2 kill points my favor. Major Victory for me.

Round 2

Second round saw me paired up against Grey Knights.

Cortez

10x Grey Knights - had Hammerhand

3 - henchmen  - Chimera
3 - henchmen Chimera
3 - henchmen Chimera

2 Landraider - twin lascannon, heavy bolter
1 Land Raider Crusader

Part 2 - 3/31/12 OP Tournament

My last squad arrives, vents a pair of Krak missiles at the Rhino with Librarian and resutl of immobolised.

His army then vaporises this last squad.

Turn 6

Belials Squad makes it into Missile range, shoots kills a few Grey Hunters before game end, Major Victory to my opponent

Tournament 3/31/12

I wanted to attend the Maul in the Maul last weekend, but real life prevented me from attending so instead yesterday I traveled to Knoxville to attend a Warhammer 40,000 tournament at Organized Play.
http://www.nickromanos.com/testop/

Rules:
1500 points
3 different missions each with Primary and Secondary objectives.

My Army List

II Legion (Deathwing Rules)

Belial - Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shield

Librarian - Term Armour, Force Weapon, Combi Melta

Deathwing Squad Upgraded with Apotecary, 5x Thunder Hammers/ Storm Shield, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad -Sgt Thunder Hammer Storm Shield, 2 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield,  2x Lighting Claw, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad - Sgt with Chain Fist, 4x Powerfist Storm Bolter, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad - Sgt with Thunder Hammer Storm Shield, 4 Powerfist/Storm bolters, Cyclone
Deathwing Squad - Sgt with Thunder Hammer Storm Shield, 4 Powerfist/Storm bolters, Cyclone

Total 1500 points on the nose.

First Battle - Space Wolves ( unlike Dicehead no one the whole tournament wanted a copy of my army list and didn't really offer theres so I don't have exact army lists)

Space Wolf List

Rune Priest - Living lighting

4 Wolfguard all with power fist and combi melta distributed into Grey Hunter Squads
Arjack (SP - guy who throws Str 10 thunder hammers)

4-6 marine Grey Hunter Squads - Power fist, meltagun, Banner in each
1-5 marine Grey Hunter squad - Power fist, meltagun

3 Rhinos

2x Long Fang Squads - mainly Missile Launchers, 2 lascannons, 1 Multimelta in there.

Vindicator

Mission - Major - Victory points person with most at end wins this
Mino - Kill enemy commander who is worth 2x points.
Deployment - 12 inches in from board edge.



Here is my opponents Deployment, yes his entire army is stuck in this 1 corner. From left to right is Long Fangs with Arjack, 2 Grey Hunter squads, Long Fangs and far right Grey Hunters

Here is what he reserved ( on the left most rhino the Rune Priest is hiding, you can barely see his base)

To be quite honest, this was my first time playing Deathwing since 2nd ed 40k, I just unpacked the models and started coverting to be inline with the current rules about a month ago. With that said, I elected to Deathwing assault with all 5 units in reserve. This meant that 3 of the 5 arrive automatically on turn 1.

I won the roll off on starting the game 1st or 2nd and elected to give my opponent 1st turn making him deploy 1st.

Space Wolves did nothing turn on, was over in 20 seconds

II Legion turn 1.

3 units are coming in automatically from Deep Strike

Belial's Squad, 2nd Squad, 3rd Squad all voluntered to appear in front of the Space Wolves.

Belials Squad immediatly decided to mishap and appear in front of the Space Wolves ( small disagreement here, I though I had space, opponent argued no I didn't) Rolled on mishap table and opponent got to place Belials Squad any where on table.

So he places them Sqrt ( 4^2 + 6^2) feet away or the opposite corner of the table.

2nd Squad lands on target

3rd Squad - deviates 11 inches off table, dies to mishap.

So, 1/5 of my army is standing alone facing the majority of his, Only one thing to do, Shoot. I manage With the densely populated killing ground in front of me I elect to use 2x Frag Missiles, 8x Storm Bolter Shots and manage to kill 3 Long Fangs and 1 Grey Hunter. The Long Fangs then decide to roll an 11 for morale, followed by a 9 for running away and run off board.

Turn 2

Heres a quick shot of turn 2

Long story short, lost that Term Squad, while Belials Squad move 9 inches,

Turn 3-4

Well the game is pretty much lost for me at this point, but moral victories can be achieved. I got another Term Squad with attached Librarian to land near the Wolves, I shot, not doing much, Wolves advanced, Only 1 wolf Squad was able to charge, After the dust settled, Only my Cyclone was alive, But I'd won the combat and chased the Wolves away, He rolled 7 inches on fall back, I consolidated 5 so I could stay close enough for that squad not to rally, it fell back off table next turn.

Turn 5

Space Wolf has all army on table, in that corner, Rune Priest in back Rhino where I cannot, reach him,

Last Squad finally arrives,

Dusting off the Iron Warriors

Life recently has been a series of ups and downs. From losing my unemployment benefits for 3 weeks, to my college canceling my spring schedule, then the frantic race to get back in college it's been crazy. Now that I have gotten those issues worked out and I have an actual job offer in writing (that I accepted) I'm feeling a little better about life.
I started back playing FFXI again just to have a way to destress at the end of the day and let face it,  it's cheap. $13.95 a month for unlimted playing, endless stuff to do, it's really the cheapest entertainment you can find, and my wife started back playing also, so it's a nice activity we can do together.
BUT, as always, I hear the distant tolling of the Bells of Terra and the War Horns of Warhammer. I spent some time considering the Ork shooty list I outlined in my last post, but I just don't have the $$$ to really redo all my Orks to the level I want. Plus the internet is filling with the rumors of both a new edition of Warhammer 40k and a new Chaos Codex.
I started Chaos with the exhalted 2nd edition yellow codex of awesomeness. I loved that book and even took a Heresy themed Deathguard army to 9th place out of 120 players at one of the old Games Workshop Grand Tournaments. Some days I wish just to pop out the 'real' power of Chaos on the current 5th edition armies. give me Plague Wind, Blight grenades, Plasma missles and Sustained Fire Dice back >:D
Anyways, I sold that army off during my divorce from my ex-wife(may Nurgle send her his endless blessings)  But after reading Storm of Iron I built a new Iron Warriors army and had great sucess with them during 3rd Ed 40k. I used a line from either the book or codex, which specifically pointed out that Iron Warriors removed any mutated/twisted organic parts and replaced them with bionics. To me this opened up a great modeling opportunity. All my close combat troops have bionic arms. I changed Brother Artemis from GW's Inquisitor line into a mechanical demon prince and had a lot of fun with them. I'll try and post pictures in the next few days.
Anyways I went to the closest local games store for a nice 1000 point 40k tournament and took my Iron Warriors to play.

TO BE CONTINUED