Multi-Topic Blitz!!

I have quite a bit to catch up on, so...

Games Workshop Oak Park

I have to say, I really enjoyed my time at the Oak Park GW store. Jeff, the manager, has way exceeded my expectations. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and was eager to please. I was happy to see that once his red shirts (low-ranking store employees) realized that me and my friends were veteran players, they backed off the hard sell.

My only point of contention was when one of the red shirts shouted out, "Who's going to Games Day this year? It's the Super Bowl, World Series, and Stanley Cup of Gaming."

To which I replied, "Isn't that Adepticon."

He was nice enough to not argue with me.

Battle of the Blogs II: The Revenge

This weekend, my Thousand Sons and the Ultramarines of Plastic Legions clashed on the battlefield. John wrote an awesome battle report on his blog so head over there. It's got pictures and everything.

The last turn was a classic moment. Something like this:

Me: "Ok, I just have to roll these two bolter saves and the game is a draw.." Rolls... Snake Eyes! Whaa-wha-whaaaaa...

Congrats to John on the win... Wait, I mean, I will have my revenge servant of the false emperor!!

Chaos Rumours

These have been covered ad-nausea on both Warseer and Adeptus Windy City, so I won't re-hash them here.

Since most of the rumors have been pretty much confirmed, I'd rather like to address how the changes will affect my army.

First off, I see no point is having any demons now. I love my flamers as they are, but if I lose doombolt, I don't really see the point. Maybe I'll paint up those horrors and use them as generic demons.

This might be a blessing in disguise. I've been really agonizing on how to paint my demons. The screamers I've done so far look like bad enough that I've considered stripping them! I never strip miniatures. Up until this debacle, I didn't believe in stripping. Now that the new codex won't even have screamers, I'm not going to bother painting or stripping them.

I've started a second unit of Thousand Sons. I'm hoping to have them primed by next week. I figure this is one unit that's probably not changing much.

My two defilers are up in the air at this moment. If I have the option to sacrifice my two secondary weapons for close combat weapons, I'm going to do it. However that means I'll have to do some kind of converting to my defilers. I really, really hope they DON'T release a new defiler kit. As crappy as the present one is, I have one sitting in a box unbuilt. If a new and better one comes out, I'll be lamenting the fact that I'm sitting on an old cheesy one.

One thing that I'm happy to hear is the Dreadnoughts are going to be Elite choices now. I'm thinking that I'll fill up on those.


Games Day

I'm on the fence as to whether or not I will be attending Games Day. I'd like to enter Golden Demon, but I'd rather spend $40 on forge world stuff. In fact, I might just give $40 to someone who's going and have them buy me a set of Thousand Sons Rhino doors.

In that vein, if anyone wants to sponsor me...

Games Workshop Oak Park Grand Opening 6/21/07

I had a great time last night. I'll write more about it later, but I wanted to throw up these photos really quick...

New Store

Who's going to the Grand Opening of the Oak Park Games Workshop Store? Heck, yeah, I am! If you go, and I don't already know you, say hi. I'll be the guy handing out the Citizen Nick Hobby Center business cards.

Also, I'm several weeks into my campaign and IOU battle reports and pictures. I've already apologized at my other blog for being a blogging bum, so I'm not saying it again. Regardless, there will be both pictures, battle reports, and a review of the new store coming soon.

Battle of the Blogs Report

As I mentioned in my last post, I played John over at Plastic Legions this weekend. Art was kind enough to provide the space to play.

In our first game, I used a new 300 point list from the one I played last time. The major changes being that fact that I bought a thrall and bought Gift of Chaos instead of Doombolt. So basically I had one full 9 man unit of Sons and a 4 demon strong screamer unit.

He had three Ultra Marine tactical squads. The thing that worried me the most was his plasma guns in two of the units.

Honestly, we didn't take any notes, so I don't have much to give in the way of details. Basically, he wiped out my screamers before they could take out anything. I failed all three gift of chaos rolls I attempted to make. Most of the game came down to working out the combat result of close-combat between my one Thousand Sons unit and two of his tactical units.

Fortunately, the dice favored me and I managed to wipe out one of his squads. It was more expensive than my unit of screamers, so I won by about 50 VPs. Not bad for a 300 pt game.

In the second game, John allied with Art's Demon hunter army. John had the same list as before and Art brought along two Chimeras of storm troopers, and DH dreadnought, and a unit of Grey Knight Terminators.

My list was a little odd as it was basically everything that I owned that could be put down on the table. Basically everything that was glued to a base. My list was something like:

HQ
Lord on Disc, Bolt of Change, personal icon, and Demonic Aura.

Troops
9 sons, AC with Gift of Chaos and a Thrall in a Rhino

5 Flamers/ 4 Horrors (unit 1)

5 Flamers/ 4 Horrors (Unit 2)

Fast Attack
5 Screamers

Heavy
Defiler w/ CWF and Mutated Hull


An odd Army list to be sure. It weighed in at about 1,100 Pts.

Again, no one was taking notes, but it went down something like this. We rolled up Recon on the scenario chart. My first turn was really lucky and I immobilized Art's lead Chimera with my Defiler.

Amazingly, on my second turn one unit of flamers/horrors and my screamers showed up. This was good in the fact that I had a lot of stuff coming in early, but bad in the fact that the only Icon on the board was my Lord's personal icon. Both units showed up on target. The terrain that my lord was hiding in got very crowded.

My lord was taking a lot of shots from Art's Dreadnought, so I dropped him back behind a ruined building. The problem being that the next turn my final unit of demons showed up and very nearly scattered off the board.

The first unit of Flamers did a lot of damage to the Ultra Marines, but the screamers where mostly ineffective. They quickly got wiped out, but thanks to the Grey Knight Dreadnought's demonic infestation, they were quickly back.

The Defiler did little after the first turn besides kill a couple of Ultra Marines with it's Reaper Autocannon.

The luckiest part of my game was the fact that Art's Grey Knight Terminators never showed up. He rolled 1s for their deep strike rolls turns 3, 4, and 5.

We called the game at turn 5 since I had taken out quite a bit of their stuff an had lost almost nothing. Plus, if the terminators did show up on turn 6, they couldn't do anything but shoot.

So in the end I racked up two victories for the Thousand Sons in one day. They certainly weren't pretty as I spent a lot of time just remembering the rules specific to my army.

Here are a couple of pictures I snapped at the end of the battle to make this a little more exciting.


No,there were no Space wolves in the battle. John and Art let my use my SW Rhino as a stand in. I know, Thousand Sons in a Space Wolves Rhino... Terrible.


I award Troop of the match to these guys... for never showing up. Seriously, if they had shown up in a timely manner, I'd have been screwed.


That's not camera blur, it's demonic instability.


Thanks to John for two good games and thanks to Art for providing his awesome terrain and board.

Big Thousand Sons Update

I've actaully been sitting on these pictures for a little while. As you can see, my first squad of Thousand Sons is complete appart from basing. I plan to do that this weekend.

Below are some close shots of my thousand sons aspiring champion.





I'm not a big fan of decals so I freehand painted both the Thousand Sons badge and this symbol of Tzeentch.







In other news, this weekend I plan to take on Old Coast from Plastic Legions! That's right, it's a battle of the blogs! Which Blog will triumph!

Report to follow...

Slow Escalation Campaign Rules

A lot of people have been asking me about these, so I figured I'd post them here. Below are the rules for the campaign I'll be taking part in next month. These come courtesy of Nick Barren, so if you like them, show your appreciating by visiting his website and buying some stuff.

Slow Escalation Campaign Rules
Below are the required limitations for playing a slow escalation campaign. These will help allow for more balanced games. Play all games on 4' x 4' boards (Note: We're also experimenting with some 3'x3' and 2'x4' boards on really small games).

Starting Forces:
- 300 Point scouting forces. Troops, Elites, and Fast Attack ONLY
- Vehicles with a combined armor score of 32 or less.
- No models with more than 2 wounds.
- No Invulnerable saves.
- No ordnance weapons.
- Forces may halve minimum squad sizes.
- No 2+ saves.

Escalation Modifications:
400 Points: Models with 3 wounds or less allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 33 or less allowed.

550 Points: HQ Allowed. 2+ Saves Allowed. No more halved squads allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 34 or less allowed.

750 Points: Heavy Support allowed. Vehicles with a combined armor score of 35 or less allowed. HQ Required.

1000 Points: Models with more than 3 wounds allowed. All vehicles armor values allowed. Ordnance weapons allowed. Invulnerable saves allowed.

Note: When a force exceeds an Escalation threshold, it now operates under those rules. The lesser forces they fight, however, do not.

Fleeing the Table
You may voluntarily cut your losses and flee the battle if it is going poorly. You may only do so after you’ve sustained 50% of your total models in casualties.

Accumulating Points
Earn D6 points for every 50 points of your earned Victory Points rounded down. Earn 2D6 points for winning the battle. Earn D6 points for a draw.

Maximum Disparity
To prevent a continually victorious army from becoming invincibly large a maximum disparity will be established based upon the points bracket the campaign is in. This will also force the escalation of even those armies that continuously lose.

-750 points - Maximum disparity 25 points
750-1000 points - Maximum disparity 50 points
1000+ points - Maximum disparity 100 points

Ask and You Shall Receive

Per the request from Old Coast (see comments two post down).