My first game of 6th ed with a psychic phase...

...seriously, that's what it felt like. Color me unimpressed, though I suppose the transition from one edition to the next will be quite easy even though I still don't want to have to buy an $85 rule book 2 years too early. Meh.

Neither of us had the Maelstrom cards so we just plays a standard mission, big guns never tire, 1500 points, Eldar/Exodites vs. Necrons. Whilst I lost, I fared better than I predicted as my army has serious problems with heavy armor (and I for the most part ignored the vehicles). That said the charging forward wave of Wraiths escorted by a Destroyer Lord ran head long into the 'Bladestorm sweet spot' with devastating results. By my opponent's guesstimate, I gunned down about 500 points or so of Wraiths in the first turn! The Lord and a few more wraiths died soon after...

The Eldar apparently don't like croissants...

What a novel concept! Tell me Necron players: How many of these 'worthless' sprues have you thrown out over the years?

After my Dragon Knights (Wraithguard with D-Scyths) came on from reserve and annihilated the rampaging horde of Scarabs, the Necron army decided that they really didn't like them and the whole Necron army attacked the squad and wiped them out!

About the only other real highlight was a Guardian Squad's missile launcher gunner deciding he had skyfire. The ML rolled nothing but 6's to hit and penetrate the flying croissants for 2 turns (before being pie plated by the Monolith). The results were one stunned/ignored but still lost a hull point, and the other jinking to safety. Which is about as good as any actual skyfiring unit I've ever had has managed to do in a game thus far...

All in all, it was a fun game even though (as stated above) I was completely unimpressed by the new edition.

Iyanden joins the fray...

o/

Sorry for the lousy photo, but we're currently experiencing 'technical difficulties' at home, and I only had time for a quick iPhone pic. :-/

A few weeks back I purchased this Wraithlord on ebay for a mere $10, shipping included! Nicely painted and converted, I can only assume its abysmally low price (it was a 'buy it now' type auction) was due to being an old metal model. Yeah whatever, it looks pretty damned good to me! Especially the custom base where its standing on a space marine dreadnought's front carapace (also made of metal) and holding one of said dreadnought's CCWs in one hand!

Whilst I was going to paint my Harlequins to match it (initially), I decided against that as they really ought to be a rainbow of colors. That, and due to their continual failure to really accomplish ANYTHING on the table top, they're rather low on my painting priority list. So once more perusing ebay I won another surprisingly cheap auction (the regular bidding type this time) of 14 Dire Avengers. Going along with 'teh interwebz' apparent dislike of metal minis, I got them for a mere $20 (most of which was shipping costs from Canada)!

What do 5 new plastic ones cost, $30-something? ($35, I just checked) 'New' is a relative term as they are compared to these models, though they were 10 for the same approximate price before being repackaged into a 'new' thinner box…

Several of the models are actually Guardians and not Dire Avengers, but no matter as the high crested helms easily fit the Avenger aesthetic. One will be used as an Iyanden Autarch, three will join my Eldar Corsairs to serve as my Corsair Prince's Bladesworn (more on them in a future post), and the remaining 10 will serve as Iyanden Dire Avengers.

As you can see, I've already painted two. The female 'Guardian-turned-Dire Avenger' will serve as the squad's Exarch. She doesn't have any weaponry other than the standard Avenger Shuriken cat (btw she can't have that pistol, not that it really serves any useful purpose). Dire Avengers (counter attack aside) really aren't kitted out for close combat anyhow, kinda like a SM Tac. squad. That said, she will have the 'Disarming Strike' Exarch power as it seems like an oh-so-appropriate 'the Eldar say: Fuck You Mon'keigh' type of maneuver.

Basically Disarming Strike works like this: in a challenge, prior to blows being struck, the Exarch and her opponent each roll a D6 (the Exarch adding a +1 if her WS is higher than her opponent's) and if the Exarch's total is higher, she turns one of the enemy's weapons into a CCW for that turn. True, she can still be killed by a CCW, but a SM Sgt. getting his powerfist 'switched off' for a turn is certainly an amusing prospect!

lol, anyways, ll told my little Iyanden contingent clocks in at 380 points, and cost a mere $30, which as stated above is the less than a box of 5 plastic Dire Avengers. They also give my Eldar army its first and only Heavy Support choice, they bring my troops alloment up to 6(!) units, and the army itself up to 1500 points w/o the need to ally with the Eldar Corsairs. I plan to give them their battlefield debut this weekend where they will no doubt die horribly as new models so often do...

And game night EXPLODES...

...in ATTENDANCE!!!!

lol, WOW! There were damned near, if not over 30 people at this past weekend's game night. Not only that, Hobbytown's outdoor RC track had an equal number of people out racing at night! The owners stopped by and were grinning like idiots at the turnout! I've not seen gaming turnouts like this since I lived in Florida, mainly as Orlando has a much more substantial gamer population than rural north eastern Tennessee.

Games played were:

At least one game of 6th ed 40k (possibly 2, not sure what the guys at one table were playing).
1 massive 6 (or maybe 8) player 7th ed 40k game!
2 tables of Warmahordes
1 table playing Euro-style board games
1 table playing  Infinity
and (my) table playing Classic Battletech. In hindsight we ought to have taken photos as we had a brutal, point blank slugfest involving a Fafnir and 2 Hunchbacks (none of which survived the game). I won ultimately. :-D

Here's a few pics from the night:

People everywhere!

Curiously, despite their absence from this side of the table, I can only describe this mess as: Chaos!!!

Skylar has either (1) fallen asleep during the enemy's movement phase, (2) Is weeping at his losses, or (3) is sexting with his girlfriend. (I'm betting its #3...lol.)

More pics of this oh so pretty army!

Infinity. Hoss beat the snot out of the 2 guys he was teaching. BAD HOSS!!! That's no way to get them to play again!!!

Its so nice to see a married couple working out their differences via a game of Warmahordes!

Not to mention their kids playing nearby, turning gaming Warmahordes into quality family time!

The Trophies of Judgement

o/

Amongst a multitude of half started/finished projects, I managed to finish at least one model here recently: my 30k Night Lords Vigilator in Scout armor (aka: Mk I Thunder Armor).

Note the pasty white skin typical of a native born Nostroman...or Neverness. lol!

The Night Lords Legion specific rules have the option of giving an independent character the 'Trophies of Judgement' for +5 Points. These give the character the Fear USR and are represented by grisly trophies of vanquished foes adorning their armor. In this case, the trophies are represented by a Salamanders Space Marines' skull (shoulda turned that around in hindsight) mounted on a spike, along with his victim's helmet, and pack adorned with a cloak of Firedrake scales (meaning he was probably a Salamander of significant rank).

On an unrelated and sad note, this model was bestowed with one of the highest honors a miniature can have: it was washed with the last dregs of my Devlin Mud supply.

:-(

Sorry, we took the weekend off.

Thus, no geekery was had. That said, we've been having a good visit with my Dad and Stepmother, and of course my Grandparents. Aside from doing some stuff around my grandparents' house for them, we went for a hike at Grayson Highlands state park in VA. Here's a few pics:

The namesake of the 'waterfall trail' on which we hiked.

Not all of the trail was nice and level as above (yes this is the trail, adjacent to the waterfall above in fact). That said, this near vertical mess was easier to traverse than it looks.

My GF and I in the obligatory selfie.

KILL TEAM!!!

o/

With family in town we'll not be making it to the FLGS for some gaming this weekend. That said, Jim, free of his murderous schedule of attending college and working 2 jobs for the evening, came over for dinner and a test run of Kill Team. My GF and I were running Tau vs. Jim's Blood Angels-turned-Black...erm, Red Templars as he forgot his BA codex. We had the Headhunters scenario, but lacking a turn counter, the scenario went out the window instead turning into a battle to the death!

Jim, concentrating on recalling rules he's either not used in a year, or simply not ever used at all.

The Fem Fa'Tau's Commander, in obvious good spirits at the battle's start!

The advancing Tau forces consisted of a 50/50 mix of Kroot and drones. The Kroot were chaffing at the Tau's insistence of having the drones in command (experimental AI's...grumble, grumble...).

Red ones die fasta?

Checking for line of sight, ya gotta leave it to Jim as he has all the cool toys!

Not satisfied with the flashlight, he switches to the laser pointer...

The horde advances cautiously...

Target sighted! Though it seems that no amount of Kroot rifle fire could fell that bastard!

A 'shield' drone suicidally charges into the enemy (with predictable results).

Leaving the wreckage behind, the marines advance looking for more targets.

And outflanking marine with a flamer (soon to be named 'Barbeque') roasts a Kroot!

Following Jim's lead, we decided to leave the bodies where they fell.

A Kroot down's the enemy leader. At this point the enemy was 'broken' and LD tests soon took a heavy toll amongst the enemy's ranks!

The Kroot sniper is downed shortly thereafter.

Despite 4 Kroot rapid firing into the fucker, he wouldn't die and instead toasted two more Kroot. The result was a now 'broken' Tau force. LD tests inflicted horrendous losses amongst the Tau forces, luckily the 'Leader Drone' rolled Zealot making it fearless.

The two lone gunmen who refuse to die or run away...

With all of the remaining Kroot fleeing the field (bloody mercenaries) and a few drones following suit, the Leader Drone charges the last two Marines!!!

Eventually, the drone was felled, but it managed to go about 2 full turns in HTH before dying!

 In the end, Jim won with his two surviving marines. Much fun was had during our 1st kill team mission (even though we ignored the mission half way thru). Good food, good company, and good times, can't ask for any more than that can you?

...and the terrain just keeps on coming!

o/

Just another quick shoutout to Patrick at our FLGS: Hobbytown USA who just keeps cranking out some awesome terrain for us to play on! Last night we walked in, started chatting with the gang and---OOH! New table! lol. Here are a few pics:

We (my GF & I) got to play on this table with Rob Saturdy night. I was running an Eldar Corsair allied contingent whilst she was running my Exodites. It was her first run at using Eldar and she really liked the mobility vs. her Tau, but the psychic powers really threw her for a loop. Given that the 7th ed psychic rules are very different, its probably best to just teach her those rules from the outset (even though I'm not too impressed with what I've seen with 7th ed thus far). Regardless, Rob threw in the towel in turn six, as Typhus wading thru anything he came in contact with was the only thing working for his plague marines.

Left to right: Me, Rob, Billy, Rosco, Scott and Joah.

Also, in a both unexpected and unplanned event, a bunch of the old crowd from when I moved to TN some 15ish years ago all showed up and we took a coupe of group photos, as who knows how long it'll be before we're all in the same place again...