Road to Adepticon - Part II

In the first part of my 'Road to Adepticon' segment I laid out my 5-step process for preparing for any a national tournament.  In that post I successfully completed the first phase which included some list crafting as well as purchasing my ticket.  I also laid out a plan to successfully get everything painted and prepared for the big event.  So in this post, I'll go over my progress, both the good news and the bad news, I'll lay out a revised list, and I'll mention a few of the test games that I've had in recent weeks.

8th Edition Vampire Counts - Preview Assessment

As everyone has likely seen, Games Workshop posted the new Vampire Counts book and models this weekend for preorder.  Now, what some people fail to see is that many of these units also have their statline and special rules (names, not descriptions) posted on Games Workshop's website too.  This allows the Warhammer Fantasy savvy people to perform a little bit of an early analysis.  Now, these assessments are of course incomplete since they lack any point costs.  Point cost can cause a model with an amazing statline and seemingly great special rules to never be used.

So what I want to do here is to piece together the evidence and present the best picture possible for as many of the new Vampire Count units as possible.  I will be ignoring characters since too many variables exist with them such as Magic Items, variable special rules, etc.  So definitely no special characters and likely only a cursory glance, if any, at normal characters.

Malifaux Warband - Rasputina

Roughly a year and a half ago I decided to give Malifaux a try.  For a long while I pondered which faction and crew I would play first.  After bouncing back and forth for awhile I finally settled on the Arcanists faction and, due to my love of all things cold and frigid, I signed up as an ardent Decemberist by choosing Rasputina for my first crew.  In addition to the starter box I picked up a hoarcat pride, a decemberist acolyte, and an essence of power.  Over the course of the last year I haven't played nearly as often as I'd have liked, but so far, my Rasputina crew remains undefeated in the dozen or so games I've played so far.

Roughly half of my games have pitted me up against Leviticus and then I've played against Lady Justice, Ramos, and McMourning.  So far I've experienced one close game versus Leviticus and then Ramos definately gave me a run for my money.  Over time I've adapted to Rasputina's playstyle and I'm notorious for creating so many ice pillars that I'm often accused of trying to recreate the Parthenon in ice.  Lately I've had a great urge to play more Malifaux since it is a very quick game, plays smoothly, and has relatively little cost if you stick with one or two crews.  Since it uses no dice, I also find the game a great palette cleanser for games such as Warhammer Fantasy, 40k, and Warmahordes.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is to discuss my Rasputina crew,  my experiences with the game in general, what I'd like to add, and in general gives me a moment to discuss Malifaux on this blog which is something I've wanted to do for awhile.

So without further ado, follow the link to my first ever Malifaux post!

Road to Adepticon: Part 1 - Assembling the List(s)

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm giving up the competitive Warhammer 40k scene for at least a year.  Over the last year I've played a great amount more Warhammer Fantasy and I decided that during my self-imposed 40k sabbatical that I'd try my hand at competitive Fantasy.  Why?  Well, honestly I feel I'm just better at Fantasy than I am 40k.  Let's take a quick look at my 40k tournament scores over the last decade.  For local tournaments I've never placed higher than 3rd place, except when I've entered a few team tournaments and then I've placed two or three times, only one of which was a 1st place slot.  Comparatively, for Fantasy I rarely play in a local tournament where I don't place in the top three.  On the national scene I've never played Fantasy, but I played in the GW GT at Chicago for three years and then Adepticon Championships for another two years plus two years for the team tournament.  The highest I've ever placed?  At my 1st GT I placed 58th place out of around 180 people.  I didn't even come close to winning any of the prize support though.  So, at the end of the day, why not try my hand at Fantasy?  I can't really be much worse and honestly- I have more fun playing Fantasy against strangers.

I'm Baaaaack!

+1 impact hit for scythed wheels?

So I'm finally back after a myriad of health issues, family issues, and adapting to my new work & school schedule.  To give everyone a brief idea as to what has prevented me from posting here, since my last post (dated 7/25/2011) I've seen three family members have serious health episodes where they either ended up in the hospital with life threatening maladies or were diagnosed with possibly terminal illnesses.  I myself have been in and out of the doctor office with a number of health issues like gout (which keeps coming back).  I've had a number of small crisis situations at work to deal with, trained 8 new employees, and developed and taught a class at work.  All the while I've been going to class and working on my double masters program (MS in Anthropology and Geography).  So yeah, I've had little time for hobbies other than the occasional Team Fortress game or watching Big Bang Theory.  In fact, I've painted exactly two miniatures since that post.

Anyway, enough with the excuses.  What's on tap?  Well, In the past 3 1/2 months I've missed a number of big gaming releases and I still owe everyone a few articles from before.  Plus I'll add in some quick rundowns of games I've played since my last actual content post. So here is a quick breakdown of what to expect going forward;

Triarch Stalker

Necrons - Just released this weekend and I bought the book last night.  I love it.  I really want to make an army of these guys, but unfortunately they go in the queue somewhere behind Dark Eldar.  I plan a couple posts to discuss the new book, the new feel of the army, and especially the new units and models.

Ogres - I'm sad I couldn't post about these guys.  I've never played Ogres before and I've only ever played against them once, but the transformation this army went through between it's previous book and the new one is truly a work of art.  They went from being an army of big guys with little feel or flavor and they were turned into a cohesive army with solid rules and amazingly deep, and usually comical, fluff.  Expect one of my usual breakdowns for Fantasy, but probably shortened due to my lack of experience using Ogres.

Warhammer 40k/Fantasy Rumor Mill - A lot of rumors have been floating around the internet about the new edition of 40k next year and the army book and codex schedules.  I'm planning an article on going over my thoughts on a lot of these subjects.

Blanche Necron Art

The Road to Adepticon 2012 - With any luck my work won't send me anywhere over Adepticon weekend (April 19th).  I'm planning on signing up my Skaven for the fantasy tournament and trying my hand at Fantasy for once given my track record.  I'm tired of getting my rear handed to me in competitive 40k games.  So follow my progress as I track through how I prepare a list, model the army, and make that army tournament-ready for Adepticon 2012.

Warmachine - Domination comes out soon and I'm both excited and disappointed.  I'm planning an article to go over they why about this one.  Also expect a couple articles discussing my first two or three Hordes games that I played (against Mercenaries).

Malifaux - The new terraclips terrain is out and so is twisted fates.  I still plan a couple articles discussing those items as well as my many games I played over the summer and why I'm forced into a Malifaux break.

Miscellaneous - I started playing a  little Magic: The Gathering again so I'll go over my thoughts about it's current state compared to when I last played around 1998ish.  Also I'll go over my current decks that have seen some use.

Follow-ups and broken promises returned - I still plan to write guides on creating a wet pallette and some painting tutorials.  I am also planning more Skaven articles such as an analysis of Weapon Teams.  Lastly, I plan to finally finish my Tomb king analysis with the list that I've been using (by way of proxy models since I'm waiting on new skeletons to be released).

So that's where I stand.  Welcome back to my little corner of the internet and check back every few days for some updates!

Back Soon...

I just wanted to apologize for my recent absence.  I've experienced a number of health issues lately that prevented me from readily accessing my computer.  I will be back on Wednesday and look forward to seeing several articles from me this week.  Here's a preview of what I plan on posting this week.

Skaven:  Weapon Teams and How to Use Them
This article will cover Skaven weapon teams.  I will explain the strengths and weaknesses of each team and also explain when to not buy a weapon team for a unit.  Lastly, for you non-skaven generals out there I will give some tips for dealing with these horribly random, yet frighteningly effective machines.

Malifaux:  Back to the Fray
I will give a break down of my recent games with Malifaux and go over some pointers on Rasputina and Collette.  Lastly, I will show off a few pictures of my crew and give some tips on writing up crews that cover all of the weaknesses while still maintaining a strong focus.

Hobby:  Making your own Wet Palette
This will be a short and sweet tutorial on making your own wet palette from common household items.  These wet palettes are cheap, disposable, and made with safe and readily available household products.  The only reason I haven't written this yet is due to my desire to take good step-by-step photos.

Tomb Kings Part 7:  Sample Lists and Tactics
I know I dropped the ball on this one.  I will get this out early next week perhaps.  I need a little more time to "perfect" a couple of the lists I will present in this article and I would really like to get some photos of the War Sphinx and/or Necrosphinx.

Lastly, I want to give a brief speech on supporting your local game store.  In the past 4 years I have seen my two favorite shops close their doors.  The first store went down due to GWs corporate restructuring, so that had little to do with people not supporting the store.  However, the 2nd store really went out of business due to two primary factors.  The first factor largely hinged on the fact that the owner was an idiot who would try and sell the tile on the floor if it hadn't been glued down.  However, the other reason is that people really didn't support the store.  I don't know how many times I heard people say they would buy it cheaper on E-Bay or order from an online store.  I find this practice ridiculous.  Especially when the brick and mortar shop offers discounts akin to the internet shops (20%).  So please, support your FLGS, even if the owner is an idiot.

Storm of Magic: Assembling the New Releases

By now everyone has read enough about Storm of Magic, the rules overviews, the reviews of the book, and seen the plethora of new models as well.  In my first post about Storm of Magic a few days ago, I mentioned picking up a Chimera, Cockatrice, Dreadfire Portal/Eternity Stair, and a Dark Elf Sorceress.  So let's take a look at those models and I'll break down my opinion of each, the ease of assembling those models, and some tips and tricks for getting them to stay together.

Storm of Magic: A More In-Depth Look and Review

A shot of the cover of the tome.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, Storm of Magic has arrived.  I was fortunate that my order arrived early and my FLGS started selling their stuff early as well.  As such, I managed to hunker down and thoroughly read the large tome between last night and today.  Now, I have NOT played a single game of Storm of Magic, but that will change later this week and I'll certainly keep everyone up to date with my thoughts and feelings on ow the game plays.  Until then though, this remains a theoretical discussion.  Nonetheless, today I hope to dig deeper then my little mini-review yesterday and provide a more in-depth look at the Storm of Magic expansion.  To start I'll describe the book, the different sections of the book such as rules, magic, and monsters, and finally give a little review of the overall product.