Thursday, February 25, 2010

Flight of the Eisenstein (Quick Review)

Just finished this while traveling for work.  Not a bad read at all and it was much different than I thought it would be.  Especially since I play a CSM army it was very cool to get some background on the Death Guard and get some more info about Mortorian and Typhion.    James Swallow isnt necessarily my favorite BL author but he did a good job with the entire story arch and tied it into the other books very well.  The ending was a little bit of a let down but I am sure the characters will be coming back for more in the upcoming stories.

Overall it was not the strongest in the series and was potentially the weakest I have read so far but it is still a solid book.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Book review: Galaxy in Flames by Ben Counter

I finished this book on my last trip but didnt get a chance to right up anything about it.  I had been reluctant to pick this book up since I havent been overly impressed with his short stories.  But I have to say I really enjoyed the book.  Not as much as the Abnett or McNeil books but overall it was a good read.  He has his own style and the story carried over nicely from the other 2 books with some good closure of storylines.  It is getting a little confusing with all the characters and since I read the books out of order by reading Fulgrim first I knew a little bit more about the Emperor's Children characters making it seem a little out of joint.  But it's a  very cool book and I probably should of read it first instead of skipping it to move on to Fulgrim.  I am debating on picking up The Flight of the Eisenstein but I haven't been too impressed with Swallow's short stories so I am not sure.  I cant wait for the new McNeil book and hopefully Abnett was start to feel better so that his 1ksons book can hit the stores as well.

Finally got in some games

I finally got a chance to play some games last night which was great.  We have had a lot of game days/nights fall through and I have been super flaky recently with the new job/3 kids keep me busy, so I havent been able to play much.

Luckily, Captn Dees was able to come over with his Drop Pod Templar list and we got to play 2 games.  I really like the Drop Pod dynamics since it gets the game going right away and there is no pussy footing around.



For the games I fielded my Plague marines army:
Nurgle Chaos Lord with PowerSword and Combi-Melta
DP with wings
2/ 7 man PLague marine squads with Champ-pfist and 2 meltas in rhinos
1 7 man Plague Marine Squad with champ-pfist and 2 meltas with Lord in:
1 Land Raider with Daemonic Possession
2/5 man chosen squads with 3 meltas in rhinos
2/2 oblit squads

The templar
Marshall with TH and SS
Chaplain with a psword (?) and a combi melta
Emperors champion
3 BT squads with their neophytes and normal SMs melta and pfist
1 BT squad with melta and pfist
2 Dreads with Mmeltas and pfists
3 Speeders with Hflamers and Mmeltas

all the dudes and dreads in Drop Pods which I think brings it to 6 pods total.  Seeing all those Pods can be intimidating but when I am playing my CSMs I dont really mind.

First game was 2 objectives and I choose to go second.  I decided to place everything in reserve and just roll out on him after he had dropped down.  I only got one PM squad to come out the first turn where as he got about 60% of his army out on turn 2.  I wussed it a bit by putting the PMs off on the side to engage the speeders which I am still debating and whether or not that was smart.  He proceeded to drop on the objectives and start to secure them right away.  Gradually the rest of my army came on and in typical CSM fashion they started to kick some can.  The game was pretty bloody but in the end he had one dude hanging on to my objective even tho I had whooped on 2 squads and a dread there.  So I lost but the army did ok.

Second game was kill points.  This gave me a pretty nice advantage since I had 14 KPs to his 20.  I decided to deploy this time in a little ring.  Maybe I should of bubble wrapped my tanks but I decided to just throw them out there with smoke.  On turn 2 when his pods started raining down he got 2 rhinos right off the bat.  My response was pretty effective with the killing of a squad, dread, 2 pods and I think a speeder.  I also engaged his Marshal with the DP, Lord and PMs right away.  I chundered a bit on the rolls but I felt like I was doing ok.  For the next couple of turns it was pretty back and forth and just as I started to really pull ahead I executed a stunning display of horrible rolling (once again).  Luckily I was able to eek out a victory but we called the game a little short because one of my little girls refused to go to bed and was making eyes for the templar.

Overall it was a lot of fun to get some games in and it reminded me that I miss playing quite a bit.  My kids arent 100% ready to have people playing minis in the next room but they are getting closer.  Maybe in a couple months we can give it another shot.  Unfortunately, I am going to miss the next tourney due to a tradeshow but thats ok since I would rather be employed and having a good time in SF.  I am hoping to do the upcoming doubles tourney at Game Kastle with  Soulcrusher's  IG army and I am very much looking forward to that.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Nurgle Chaos Lord

Did a little conversion this weekend using some left over CSM and Plague Marine parts.  I sculpted the cape out of some green stuff and got a great hairy effect by sticking it to some newspaper.  Its always nice when a mistake turns out to be pretty cool.  I also made the Combi-Melta with some left over melta parts from an Immolator.  Overall I am pretty happy with it but its doesn't look very Lordly.

Thinking Ard Boyz


I am seriously starting to consider doing Ard Boyz this year and want to start planning now.  The Bay Area the event is in May but I am still going to have to gather some minis to play and do a lot of painting/modeling to be ready.




Right now the list I am thinking of is:
HQ:
Typhus
Daemon Prince, Wings, MoS, Lash
Elites:
4 Terminators: 1 ChFt, 1 PF, 1 Hvy Flamer, 2 CombiMeltas, 1 Champ with PF and CombiMelta
Land Raider with Daemonic Possession
2/5 man Chosen Squads in Rhinos with 3 meltas
Troops
3/7 man Plague Marine Squads in Rhinos with 2 meltas and a champ with a PF
Heavy
2/3 Oblit Squads
1 Trilas Pred

2498 Points

I know that Typhus is a little fluffy but I think he would be fun to run and will theme well with the PMs.  I like this list at least on paper.  With 11 Lascannons (3 of them TLed) this could be a nice anti-mech list.  It wont match a IG list but it could kill some Chims and Rhinos pretty easily.  Also with the 2 Chosen squads and meltas all throughout the army it should have some nice hvy tank killing power.  I have no idea how it would match up against the new nids but with the flamers mixed in and Termies I should be able to put some hurt on them.

To make this happen I only need to buy Typhus which is pretty cool.  I already have another Rhino in pieces that I need to get together and paint as well as another that I started this weekend.  I will also need to finish the conversion of my Land Raider into a full-on Nurgle monster but thats about it.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Back from the travels

Got back from my trip late Friday and am still pretty exhausted.  Unfortunately this time I didnt get a chance to check out any gaming stores since I was super slammed the whole time.  Hopefully next trip I will be able to check out the mini gaming scene in Austin.  I am even tempted to load up my Army Transport some time if I know I will be there for a Thurs night again.

I have 2 rhinos waiting for me to work on this week so I might try and get that going.  But it looks like the new job is going to keep me pretty busy(which is a really good thing :))