An Old Enemy

I have some bloodletter pictures coming, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from this weeks game. I got to play against Art, my old nemesis and former roommate. Art and I have played in some games together in the last few years, but it's always been some odd two-on-one deal or a three-way free-for-all. This was the first time we were able to go mano-a-mano in something like three years.

This game had four objectives so Art deployed in the center near three of them. I was hoping to surround him, but not a single unit from my second wave showed up until turn three. That gave him plenty of time to waste my first wave.


My screamers made a line for his hellhound when they finally showed up, but it would be too little, too late. Art slaughtered me to the daemon.

Meanwhile, on the adjacent table, Nick was playing his old nemesis and former roommate, Anton. They were both practicing for the Adepticon Championships.

I was able to capture this heroic moment. Right after I took this picture, Nick had to take seven saves from from the Kroot attack. He made 6 of them! Impressive rolling. Too bad it wasn't enough to save the marine.

It's that time of year again

Time to help the gaming group get their Adepticon team tournament list ready. I haven't play the tournament since way back in 2006, but the people with whom I play do the team tournament every year. So every year for months leading up to Adepticon, I play a lot of team games.

Last night I allied with Chad's Imperial Guard. To celebrate the fact that I completed a second squad, my 1000 pts represented a "pure" Thousand Sons force: Two units of Sons, one unit of lesser summoned daemons, a spawn, and a chaos sorcerer HQ.

Nick and Eric both played Dark Angels (technically, Nick played Angels of Absolution).

Here are some picks plus a short recap:Here's the board set-up. The mission was from the team tournament primer. Dawn of War deployment with a modified Command and Control objective (We team had two objectives in their deployment zones).

Chad's Varrian 10th holding an objective with my Sorcerer. Note: it's not that my sorcerer isn't painted, he's using his powers to conceal himself.

Corrcal's squad disembarks...

... and Rohm Dutts squad takes a demolisher shell to the face.

Some of Nick's troops skulking around the backfield.

More skulking.

By far the most heroic moment of the game. Chad's HQ takes on three terminators at the peak of this ruin. Truly a contest for the ages.

In the end, the angels would be victorious; breaking Nick's non-winning streak, but continuing mine.

I try to learn something with every game I play in hopes that I can improve my playing skill. My biggest mistake in this game was that I worried way too much about Eric's Vindicator on the left flank. I sent Corrcal's quad (a.k.a. Squad #1), to shoot a bolt of change at it. If I had instead spent that turn motoring over to the right flank (which was getting hammered by Nick and Eric's double-wing combo), I probably would have had a better chance of turning the tide of the game.

One tactic that Eric employed to my annoyance was going to ground whenever I rapid-fired my AP3 bolters at him. An odd move for a marine player, but one that kept his troops on the objective.

More Battle Photos

I've been getting in the habit of taking pictures of the games I play every other Monday. I really don't like writing battle reports, but I do like looking at pictures.

Anyway, here are some photos of last Monday's "Nerd Night."

I played against Eric and his Imperial Fists (formally the Highland Lions). It was an exciting Command and Control game that came down to a very close draw. I guess it was so exciting that I forgot to take any pictures except for the one above and this one...
...of my Tzeentch Herald facing of against a land speeder (which was downed the next turn).

Since our game was pretty short, I took some pictures of the game happening on the table next to me:

It was a battle between Nick's Angels of Absolution and Chad's Varrian 10th Imperial Guard.

Enjoy.

Not a Battle Report

I took some pictures of the game I played against Nick on Monday and wanted to share. So this is not a battle report, just pictures of a battle. Enjoy...

The setup.

This was a Command and control game, and I think I put too many units on his objective(upper right in the picture), and not enough on mine (not pictured, but to the lower left).


The most aesthetically pleasing close combat of the game. His tactical squad against the only fully painted unit in my army.

I'm proud of these screamers. They took a full tactical squad worth of rapid fire right in the "face" and only lost one member.


My favorite point in the game, when I smoked two dreadnaught on one turn (and by smoked I mean destroyed).

In the end, the game was a draw. A real blast of a game.

Here's a bonus shot:
For those of you that follow Nick's blog, you've seen the terrain he's recently finished. Still, I didn't appreciate the enormity of the rock spire until I saw it in person. I hope this picture shows that. In the foreground are Eric's new Crimson Fists.

Tune in tomorrow for a monumental update.

Third Edition Chaos Retirement Party!

A couple weeks ago, I took a trip over to my friend Art's house to play a game of 40K. We actually met before hand to Games Workshop Oak Park so I could pick up a copy of the new Chaos Codex.

In some ways, I considered the game that followed a retirement party of sorts for the 3rd edition Chaos Codex (and good riddance!). I purposefully wrote a list that used as much 3rd edition stuff as possible. My list looked something like this:

HQ - Sorcerer Lord (Mark of Tzeentch, Disc, CCW, PW, Demonic Aura, Personal Icon, Familiar, Bolt of Change, Twisting Path)

Troops - two 9-man squads of Thousand Sons (Free Aspiring Champion and Icon, Champion armed with PW, familiar, Doom Bolt, Bolt of Change, and two Thralls)

-Two 9-man units of Demons (5 flamers and 4 horrors)

Heavy - Defiler with consecrating warp fire and mutated hull

Fast - 5-man unit of screamers

I unfortunately don't have Art's list nor did I take very good notes. what follows is pictures and a brief synopses of the game.


Here's a picture of the board set up:

We played secure and control with 5 loot counters. Since we were using such a 8x4 table for a 1200 point game, most of the loot counters ended up in our respective deployment zones. There was plenty of room to keep them 12" apart without having to go into the middle of the board.

I deployed most of my force(the defiler, and both units of sons) in the large ruins closest to my right flank. I deployed my HQ on my far left. I was hoping to use him to go tank hunting w/ Bolt of Change.

Pretty quickly, I realized two mistakes. Since I had tried to cram three units into one building, I had created a great target for Art's Basilisk, Leman Russ, and Hellhound. Also, as strong as my lord was, he was basically all alone on the left flank.

In the first turn, my HQ destroyed a lone Sentinel, but then was wiped out by a direct hit from the Russ. TheBasilisk then destroyed half of one of my son squads.

The rest of the game was very back and forth. My screamers performed very well for what will probably be their last outing. I used them to charge one of his large squads from behind. The guard broke and fled, but since the screamers were behind and flamers/horrors were in the front, they were wiped out.

I also have to commend Art's supreme commander. He was brave enough to charge a unit of flamers and caused enough wounds to force an instability test, sending the rest of the unit back to the warp.

In the end, Art held three objectives and contested one, while I only contested one. Good game over all.

Here are some more pictures:

Above is the only picture of my own forces I managed to take. my two units spent most of the game sheltered in this building against Basilisk shots.

Art's Command squad in their post-battle prayer meeting.

Chicago GT Report

Te results from the Chicago Grand Tournaments have been posted. My friend Anton was nice enough to write this extensive report of his games. I would have published this earlier, but I somehow overlooked it. Sorry.

Anton plays a fierce Tau force and he placed in the top 25%. Here's his report on the action:

I didn't take any pictures, but I can give you a brief battle-report of my games:


Game 1: Iron Warriors
mission: Annihilate

12 Terminators, 3 Predators, a Defiler, and some other random ickyness. Only 2 6 man marine squads for troops. I stuck him on sportsmanship for that, but only one notch, and I told him about it.
Overall, I was worried about this being my first game, and having never beaten iron warriors, I thought I was headed for the bottom of the barrel. However, I did a good job of limiting his fire-lanes, I refused flank the hell out of him, so only 1 or 2 tanks had shots in a turn, and while I didn't manage to destroy many of the preds (only immobilized one), I did make short work of the 12 man termi squad and they ran off the board after being taken below half. He didn't spread out well, and I used my mobility to my advantage.

Result: Minor Victory that should have been major because I forgot i got points for my scoring units left.



Game 2: Crusade Marines (various chapters, actually written up that way and well painted, not just thrown together)
Mission: Objective markers

Really friendly. I sat down and his wife was there, and I thought I was playing her for a second. Probably the most easy going and chatty of my opponents. Very basic set up. Lots of 6 man las-plas, 2 dreads, 2 speeders. Very nicely painted. Hadn't played 4th edition much, and I mopped him up. By turn 4 he was off the board except for one dread, and a squad of marines. Did a very good job of using a squad to claim 2 objectives. Tricky. In the end, he didn't have enough scoring units left to claim a victory. I used fish of fury which upset him a bit. I demoralized him completely after that, and after sinking 48 pulse rifle shots into his terminators, he was all but done. The rest was pretty much mopping up. He played a good game though, and his wife and him were very interested in the game and discussed tactics and armies with me the entire game. She was just starting a sisters army and since I am doing the same we were talking penitent engines, repentia, and seraphim all game. It was actually her suggestion that got me to take the engine against scott last monday (so you can blame her for the cheating!)

Result: Victorious slaughter



Game 3: Tau
Mission: board center

I was kind of excited to be playing another Tau player. Much different build than my list. 4 static firewarrior squads, 12 each (but no marker drones), sniper drones, a hammerhead, 2 squads of three crisis suits w/ pods and plasma, a pair of broadsides. He placed the broadsides to one side with a good field of vision. I knew I'd have to sink a hell of a lot of firepower into them to drop them, so I ignored them completely. Limiting their shots as best I could and focusing on everything else. I think that basically won me the game. I infiltrated the Kroot into the woods in the center, but they got picked apart fairly early. I had much more firepower to bring to bear on everything else. We both rolled HORRIBLY this game. More ones and twos than I've ever seen... But it was horrible on both ends... I was able to use my dropped skimmers as cover to advance my suits in the backline. It was kind of an accident, but I couldn't have asked for a better strategy. He dropped one of mine, and I dropped one of his fish, and I used them to block line of sight from his broadsides and other suits and advanced on one side and used my firepower (which wasn't superior at all in this game), and picked apart the firewarriors in cover. The suits were tricky. I only managed to kill one squad, after catching them out in the open and frying them with railgun shots. I deepstruck my drones and almost managed to kill his ethereal with them. Had I done that, I think I would have gotten a major or maybe a slaughter. Only caused one wound on the little bugger though. He tankshocked my broadside off the board... That sucked... but it was kind of funny. I have never seen anyone else use tankshock in a tournament setting, but it's not a bad strategy/technique. Certainly worked for him. I was the only player who beat him, and I think he ended up being the highest scoring tau player, so this was a proud moment for my army.

Result: Minor Victory (I had a lot of stuff in the center at the end of the game, he had nothing).



Game 4: Ultramarines eq.
Mission: Table quarters

At first, I couldn't figure out where the hell all his points were at... he had 3 squads of 6 w/ las-plas, and 2 devastator squads, one attack bike squad, one w/ missile launchers, and one with heavy bolters. I scared him into setting up his HB devastators behind cover. He had two beefed up librarians w/ retinue, and uber powers... It was a bit ridiculous. I made the mistake of not realizing that one was still scoring, and that cost me a major victory... I thought the missile launcher devs would be much more brutal, but I ended up almost ignoring them, and it paid off.

He hid the attack bikes behind cover, and I knew I'd have to do something about it. I deepstruck my commander and managed to kill one, but not the other. I thought i was fucked and he'd get a last turn grab (I took first turn because i had too much in LOS of his lascannons), but I managed to vaporize it with a hammerhead railgun shot on turn 4 when I flanked him. I also vaporized one of the librarians with a railgun when he got too close to my broadside. The broadside took a ridiculous amount of fire, and he had a vendetta against it, which probably cost him the game in a way. He all but ignored my hammerheads for the more lightly armored devilfish and the broadside. They took maybe 2 or 3 shots all game, and were free to flank the less manned side of his board. I picked apart the closest las-plas squads, and got myself into a great shooting position. He sent the terminators into each quarter, and they got chewed up on both sides. He was a weird superstitious guy and had all his dice set to sixes and in nice rows. He also over-measured a lot, but all in all, neither the superstition nor the long moves helped. I only managed to get a minor victory because I thought his other terminator squad was below scoring and didn't sink enough fire into them on the last 2 turns.

Result: Minor Victory



Game 5: Undivided Marines
Mission: Recon

I went into this game a bit cocky, I'll admit. Recon? I thought I had it in the bag. My mobility had won me at least 2 of my games so far, and I didn't think this was going to be a problem. Boy was I wrong. The guy was the Las Vegas GT winner, and it showed. He played an excellent game, lined up like 10 lascannon shots so that I couldn't hide (it was one of those shitty lava boards), and managed to drop my 2 hammerheads by turn 3. At that point, the game was effectively over. He caught my refused flank, and matched it with a ton of marines. I took first turn and tried to pull a switch and move to the other flank, that was almost empty except for a squad of havocs. Had I been able to pull it off, I think I would have had the game, but he just had way too much firepower to bring to bear on me. Stunned my 1st hammerhead on his first turn, immobilized on the 2nd, and destroyed it on the 3rd. My shooting was abysmal the first turn. I dropped one marine I think. I should have deepstruck all my suits... But I figured he'd have to come to me... He did, but by that point, I had almost nothing left on the board.

My only complaint was his ridiculous lords... on bikes (T5), 4 wounds, 2+ save, 4+ invul. Immune to insta-kill, and feel no pain on every wound... This was the only game I felt completely outplayed though, and he timed everything well. He didn't make a single mistake, and played a great game against me. He got a slaughter out of me, for my only loss of the tournament. He played super fair, and got a deserved victory out of me. I should have deep struck my suits, and not tried to refuse flank him... He was by far the best player I played all weekend, and caught everything I was doing and countered it well. I was going to dock him for the lords, but he played such a stand up and honest game that I gave him the 10 for sportsmanship anyways. At one point he was arguing with me about something that was going to help me (Attacking skimmers that haven't moved, I still think he should have been able to hit them automatically, but he insisted he needed 6's), and it was nice to play someone who wasn't trying to get something over on you (I know we've all had our share of those games). By turn three I was fighting for a minor loss... but didn't manage to hold on.

Result: Slaughtered


I had a great time at the GT this year. The games were spaced well apart, giving you a break and not making you feel rushed. My main complaint was some of the uber-powered characters, and really unbalanced lists I played. You couldn't score them anywhere but sportsmanship, and I felt bad docking someone on that if they played a fair game. Also, they need to do away with the shitty lava boards... terrible.

I did much better than expected. I wanted to be in the top 25%, and I think I made that easily. I'm not 100% sure though, because of my slaughter the last game. We'll see when the results are posted.

Thanks for the report, Anton.

Nick Baran had this to say about his Grand Tournament experience:

I was 2 people's favorite opponent. That's the only reward I get out of those stats. I got an average painting score with the army they have directly linked on the GW site to their "What we are looking for" painting examples. I feel slightly hurt.

Also, the tournament winner, Bill Kim, has started his own Blog. Check it out.

Campaign Report

As I've mentioned previously, I've been involved in a campaign for a month or two now. So far, my army, "The Eye of Prophesy", is undefeated.

Below is a re-cap of my first four games. Note that we are doing an escalation from game to game. You may notice that some of the armies I describe aren't legal under standard 40k force organization. We started at 300 points, so there are rules dictating what we can take.

Game One - vs. Aaron's Imperial Guard (The Tarsus 88th)

This took place on one of the city-fight nodes on the campaign map. Since we had just stated the campaign, we weren't really ready for COD rules. We used lots of buildings but no stratagems. The game was a take and hold.

Aaron had three Imperial Guard Veteran Squads and I had one full squad of Thousand Sons and a unit of screamers.

Early in game, Aaron made the mistake of leaving one of his squads out in the open. I made them fall off the board just from shooting. The screamers showed up pretty quickly but didn't do much. Aaron shot them down pretty quickly. Fortunately, this caused one of plasma gunners to overheat and die. In fact, I think three of the plasma guns he had in his force died do to overheats.

Once I got in the center of the board, there was no dislodging me. I just blazed away with my bolters and brought his other two squads below scoring.

Game two - vs. Aaron (again)

This time Aaron attacked me at a node that grants me a free thrall when I fight a battle on it. He was able to afford more scary guns (Missile launchers) this time around and I had an extra screamer.

He was a lot smarter about placing his units this time and I was a lot smarter about my screamer's fall back move.

This one was Recon, if I recall. This one was a lot closer, but the end result was the same.


Game three - vs. Anton's sisters of Battle (Order of the Amethyst Shroud)

As a Space Wolves player, I played against Sisters of Battle a lot, so I was keen to test my new army against them. Anton took two small sisters squads and a stormtrooper squad in a chimera. He also had a heavy hitter in the form of a Callidus assassin.

Now, I've played sisters before, but never an assassin. I had no clue about the flamer template weapon that works on leadership. WTF!?!

Needless to say, I had my Thousand Sons packed pretty tightly when she showed up. I lost both my thralls and about three marines.

Luckily, I was sort of prepared. I had given my Aspiring Champion a familiar. He had Doombolt and Gift of Chaos. When my turn rolled around, I quickly turned the assassin into a chaos spawn.

Later in the game, I managed to charge the spawn into the side of the chimera and immobilize it. Nice tasty victory points for me.

Game Four - vs Anton's Sisters (again)

At the end of game three, Anton astutely pointed out that I had broken the rules by including my invulnerable save demons. Oops! My bad.

For game four, I decided to not take any demons. This time around, I had a full unit of Thousand sons and a smaller one with just the Aspiring champion and three rubrics.

It was take and hold again. I really like this mission because if I get a full unit of rubrics in the center of the board, it will take a lot to dislodge them.

This time, Anton had a unit of seraphim and two units of sisters, both with heavy bolters. Despite the may times I've played against sisters, I had never fought against seraphim. I have to say, they were a surprising unit. Combined with some of the faith points mo-jo (as some say, faith points bullshit), they put some hurt on one of my units.

Again, the assassin showed up and did some serious damage, and then I promptly turned her into a spawn.

I turned the sister superior of the seraphim into a spawn, too, but as I only have one spawn model, she just disappeared.

This one was close, but I pulled it out in the end.


Here are a few pictures taken on campaign nights:


This is a map-based campaign, and this is the map.


Jason, Nick and Eric contemplate their moves.



Nick's Orks take to the field.



Anton's Witch Hunters and Mike's Eldar battle over "The Tower of Knowledge" (not pictured).

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.

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

First Blood!

Or should I say, "First Dust" since Thousand sons technically don't have blood.

Sorry, what I mean to say is that I played my first game with my thousand sons this week. I'm in an escalation campaign that will be starting in a couple weeks. We're going to be starting at 300 pts and earning more points as the weeks go on. Since I'm not sure how well the sons do at such low points cost, I wanted to get a practice game in.

For this low points cost, were allowed to halve the minimum squad requirement. This means I can take demon packs as small as two models. I ended up taking a full unit of Sons and a unit of four screamers. The Aspiring Champion had Doom Bolt, Demonic Strength, and Demonic Visage.

I played against my friend Eric who is starting a Space Marine Army. He had two Tactical squads, both with plasma guns and one assault squad with jump packs.

I won first turn, but figured since I'm going nowhere fast, I'll just let him go first and let him come to me. I gave him the first turn and he just moved his two tactical squads forward.

My first turn was great. I rolled a 5 for my Slow and Purposeful roll and moved into range of his closest tactical squad. I opened up with all bolters and the Doom Bolt. He failed four of his saves and fell back.

I was feeling pretty good at that point, but the rest of the game he saved against all my shooting and charged my by turn three. My screamers didn't show up until turn four and at that point they couldn't be much help.

Turn six ended with him still having one scoring unit but me having more wounds on the board. Since this was a practice game and we didn't have a scenario, we just called it a draw.

It was definitely a learning experience. I'm thinking that I need to write several lists depending who my opponent is. I think until I can afford two units, I'm going to buy myself a familiar for my Aspiring Champion and invest more points into another power. That way, he can be a lot more versatile on the field.

The campaign starts in two weeks, so I'll be sure to post results of my first battle soon after.

Finally!

No, I'm not done with that first squad of Thousand Sons. I'm saying "Finally!" to another monumental event. That event being the first game of Warhammer 40k that I've won in the last year. I know, it's shocking.

Here's the story. After spending a couple hours at Adepticon on Saturday the 31st, my friend Art invited Jason, my son Max, and me over for a game on his brand new gaming board. I had my Space Wolves and Jason had his Chaos marines (I think they're recent converts to Chaos as they didn't look very spiky to me).

Anyway, this isn't a full blown battle report as I didn't take notes. I just want it to be noted that I won a game.

After I won, Art asked me when the last time I won a game was. As it turns out, it was at Adepticon last year. So it was almost a year to the day of my last victory. Sad, I know.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the battle. Art's table and the terrain are pretty phenomenal.


Can't see much action in this picture, so just enjoy the view.
Just so you know, that's not a die on my rhino; it's smoke.
Although you can barely see him in this photo, my wolflord under the smokestacks on bike is about to get swamped by one of Jason's units .