Burning Fantasy

Despite the title this article is not about a raunchy romance novel but rather the firey hate one man shows for Games Workshop after the controversial release of their brand-new flagship game, Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. In what might be a gruesome and terrifying scene for some, YouTube user Tremendous027 recently uploaded video of himself spraying down his Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves collection with lighter fluid and setting them ablaze. Was it stupid? Was it justified? Let's dive right into the drama and address some things I've seen in his YouTube comments, which are now disabled, and in comments all over Facebook and various forums. I'll preface this by saying I'll just ignore the dumb, racist, and/or troll-bait comments that don't deserve a mention, but otherwise here we go:

40k Gaming Etiquette

Many other blogs and forums have made similar posts, but I'm here with Dave's edition of HOW TO 40K CORRECTLY!

Finally! The Dave HAS COME BACK!

Okay this time I'm really back with a few updates on everything that's been going on.

Another Chance

So now that I've completed my first two days of work, I have a better idea of what things are going to be like.

It's October Already???

For some reason it still seems like it's only August-ish to me. I haven't really accomplished much in the last few months so time should be slowing down for me right? Well, it's definitely not! With Halloween in less than four weeks and Thanksgiving next month, it's time to start considering holiday plans.

Updates

Yes, this is one of those "post just to post" posts. I haven't been able to get a whole lot of painting/building/hobbying done lately due to real life stuff (two kids, wife, job stuff, etc), but I'm going to lay out the projects I'm working on and their progress so far. This also lets me know where I stand (and it's a quick-reference I can check on my phone lol, as my blog is enabled for web browsing now).

Blood Angels:
I started work on a 2,000 point list via my club's 40k Escalation League, and I believe I posted the contents a few months ago. There's 4 Las/Plas Razorbacks, 4 Predators, and a Stormraven in it. Sure, the list is not original, unique, or inspiring, but it surely is competitive and has won me many games (including scoring a SUPER CLOSE draw against the guy who won my store's Feast of Blades tournament). At the moment I have three Razorbacks and 15 Assault Marines primed bright red, and I've started painting black on the details of one of the Marines as a test model. Unfortunately, I still need roughly 8 Plasmaguns so I can convert the turret of the Razorbacks, and I need to do a LOT of work on my regular Predators as the sponsons have broken off tons of times over the years. Also, when I primed my Razorbacks red, there was a bit of shrinking and wrinkling of the paint in certain areas, apparently due to a chemical reaction between this new Army Painter primer and some old GW red primer. Isn't that awesome? Now I have to sand off that garbage and re-prime the spots. I'll post WIP pics later.

Tyranids:
I was in the process of painting up my bugs for Tacticon and GenghisCon, and since then my bugs have been horribly mistreated. I've played a TON of games with them, and unfortunately I don't have foam to store them in so they bounce around in cardboard trays and a tackle-box. Someday I'll purchase a shit-ton of foam from Battlefoam to store them in, and it'll be sweet. Until then I think I'm just going to have to be super-careful with them. Anyways, as I said a few posts back I've been really interested in using alternate units including Lictors, so I think I might work on building (and painting) a 2,000 point Tyranid list that doesn't really include the normal copy-paste stuff. I think I'll have a LOT more fun with it, and hey, if I win some games with them then that's even better. :)

Dark Elves:
They are still in-progress, don't worry! I have 40 Corsairs, 24 Crossbowmen, 10 Black Guard, a Hydra, a Supreme Sorceress, a Dreadlord, a Master, and a sorceress built. All I have left to do is roughly 30 more Corsairs, 12 more Crossbowmen (though I'm going to have 6 of them made as unit fillers because I actually don't have 6 more), 10 more Black Guard, another Hydra, and a Cauldron of Blood. I'm easily over half-way there, and my wife is making things WAY easier by cleaning everything ahead of time by de-spruing the models and bits and shaving off the plastic and metal flash. Fairly soon, I'll have 3k of Dark Elves fully built and ready for some kick-ass battles.

Cygnar:
Unfortunately my FLGS hasn't got in ANY of my preliminary Cygnar stuff (tokens, faction deck, etc), so I'm kind of stalled-out on them. Once the job situation gets figured out, I'll be able to start picking up little things here and there from other stores, but for now I'm waiting to use my store credit on the stuff I ordered, if it ever comes in. :(

So, stay tuned, I'll have pics of my WIP models up soon. Life is kickin me in the ass right now, and time is a very valuable asset at the moment.

3,000 points - Dark Elves

I've been putting together my Dark Elf models, and making sure I have a WYSIWYG 3,000 point army (I just randomly have the urge to play a larger force than 2,250). So far, here's the list I've been thinking about running (and I plan on play-testing it this weekend if I can get everything built):

2,996 points - Dark Elves - Lore of Shadow

LORDS
Dreadlord (General, Crimson Death, Armor of Darkness, Pendant of Kaeleth, The Other Trickster's Shard)

HEROES
Sorceress (Level 2, Talisman of Preservation)
Sorceress (Level 2, Null Talisman (3), Ironcurse Icon)
Death Hag (BSB, Cauldron of Blood)

CORE
Assassin (Touch of Death, Dark Venom)
14x Repeater Crossbowmen (Musician)
14x Repeater Crossbowmen (Musician)
14x Repeater Crossbowmen (Musician)
20x Corsairs (Extra Hand Weapons, Command)
30x Corsairs (Extra Hand Weapons, Command, Sea Serpent Standard)

SPECIAL
20x Blackguard (Command, Banner of Murder)
5x Cold One Knights (Command)
5x Cold One Knights (Command)

RARE
War Hydra
War Hydra

GW's newest Price Increases

So, according to this article on Bell of Lost Souls, Games Workshop is introducing it's ever-popular annual price increase across their product line (miniatures AND books).

The ones that really caught my eye are:

• 40k Starter Set: $100
• Battleforces: $110
• Specialist Games Rulebooks $50
• New Fantasy Hardcover Army Books: $41
• Space Marine Predator: $50
• Space Marine Whirlwind: $50
• 10 Ork Boyz $30
• 10 IG Cadian Shock Troops $30
• 3 Tyranid Warriors $42
• Tryanid Carnifex $50
• 12 Tyranid Termagaunts $30
• 12 Tyranid Hormagaunts $30
• 10 Dark Eldar Warriors $30
• 10 Dark Eldar Wyches $30

Just amazing. I'm...really at a loss for words.

The only thing I have to say is being echoed infinitely across the internet:

SCREW YOU GAMES WORKSHOP

Blog-In-Progress

Well, that con was AWESOME!

I didn't do so well (37th out of 70), but I had a lot of fun and I was lucky enough to get a game in with the guy who won the tournament (Andy Shellenbarger, an Ork player believe it or not) as one of my five games. Overall, I'd say that if my con experiences keep continuing in this fashion, I might just have to spread my wings and hit up other major cons like Adepticon or even Wargames Con.

In the mean time, my LGS's Fantasy Escalation League has started playing games at 1,000 points, and my list was quite successful!

I ran the following....

GenghisCon starts TOMORROW

With everyone in panic mode for the con (or at least that's the vibe I'm feeling at my LGS), I'm really excited to see all of the events and games that will be going on this weekend! Genghis is supposedly larger than Tacticon, and this year I've got my Digital Camera (10MP, 5x Zoom) and my new Samsung Epic 4G Galaxy S phone (5x Zoom, 720p video capable) to help me document the whole thing! No more crappy cell phone pics (with "crappy" being a descriptor of the phone)!

Also, for those that actually read my blog, Fort Collins War Party has the 40k missions up for this weekend's Rogue Trader Tournament, so make sure you visit their site and familiarize yourself with the scenarios!

In other news, I've been working on my 1,000 point Dark Elves roster for my club's Fantasy Escalation League, and I think I've got something truly nasty.

• Sorceress (General, Level 2, Seal of Ghrond, Power Stone, Lore of Shadow)
• 10x Blackguard with command
• 21x Corsairs with command (extra hand weapons, ranked 7-wide)
• 12x Repeater Crossbowmen (ranked 6-wide)
• 12x Repeater Crossbowmen (ranked 6-wide)
• War Hydra

I definitely don't have any dirty tricks to pull off, but I do have some solid units here. Not sure where to stick the sorceress either but that is the whole point of the League, to learn as I go.

And finally, my part one order for my Blood Angels came in, so I went ahead and ordered part two which consists of:

• 12x boxes of Death Company (for 30 walking assault marines, 20 more jump marines, and 10 vanguard)
• 2x boxes of Sanguinary Guard (can be used for assault squad sergeants, and I'll have enough of them to run that hot new Apoc datasheet)
• 3 "Sanguinary Priests" from GW's site
• A pack of Meltaguns
• The Sanguinor

I'm pumped with all of the GW stuff I've got to work on, but I've also got the Feast of Blades tournament to run/attend on the 5th of March.

This spring is going to be CRAZY!

General Update

GenghisCon 2011 is less than two weeks away, so I have ramped up the amount of models I'm painting daily to ensure my 1850 pt Tyranid list gets finished before the tournament. I won't be changing my list all that much from the Tacticon version, but the good news is that my playtest games have gone fairly well.

Also, I have made part one of the final purchase of stuff for my Blood Angels, and here's what's on it's way:

• 2 Stormravens
• 2 Furioso Dreadnought kits
• 2 Razorbacks
• 3 Baal Predators
• Lemartes
• Astorath the Grim

I already have two Furiosos and two Baal Predators, but what this order will allow me to do is field six predators (three regular and three Baal) and be able to switch between Furiosos, Furioso Librarians, and Death Company Dreads. How I'm going to make the Dreadnought parts interchangeable is another story...

And now on to Fantasy. My club has been successfully running 500 point games of Fantasy for our Escalation League over the last few weeks. While several people (including myself) have yet to paint their minis, we have at least had regular attendance. The week after the con, we are upping the points level to 1,000, and we are also introducing Magic without the 6th-level spells (for now). I learned a lot playing against a Lizardmen player who was running Temple Guard and Sauruses, and I plan to have more of a tooled-up force to be able to combat builds like that.

In other news, I made FIVE MORE YouTube videos a few weeks ago so make sure you check them out at www.youtube.com/sonsofsanguinius.

Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for update pictures of my Tyranids!

The Dark Elves are coming!

So I've begun construction on the army (and am working on it as I'm typing this), though initially I am building up to a 500 point level as my club is going to start an Escalation League after the new year.

Here's the list I'll be using:

497 Points
Core
22x Corsairs with Extra Hand Weapon (Musician, Standard Bearer, Sea Serpent Standard)
12x Repeater Crossbowmen

Hero
Master (Extra Hand Weapon, Heavy Armor, Sea Dragon Cloak, Pearl of Infinite Bleakness)

So, I'll attach the Master to the Corsairs, and use the Repeater Crossbowmen to mitigate any flanking nonsense or soften up a big block of troops before they make it to my Corsairs. By having the Pearl and the Frenzy banner, my Corsairs will have one extra attack AND will be immune to psychology. I think this makes up for the fact that I'm only bringing 35 models to a 500 point game, but hey, it could be worse. The Corsairs wills strike at Initiative 5 and since I'm ranking them up 7-wide, they'll have 25 WS4 S3 attacks plus 4 WS6 S4 attacks from the Master (at Initiative 7), all re-rolling failed rolls to hit in the first round of combat (thanks Eternal Hatred).

On a side note, I didn't include a Reaver in the Corsair unit because I knew I was going to attach the Master, and honestly I can't justify spending 10 points for one attack when there's a character already in the unit.

So, we'll see how it goes, and I'll be sure to post updates soon.

It's an Army!

So I've made the plunge! I have finally purchased my Warhammer Fantasy army of choice, the Dark Elves! Here's what I purchased:

• Dark Elves Army Book
• GW's customizable Movement Trays
• Dark Elf Battalion
• 20 Corsairs
• 16 Repeater Crossbow Warriors
• 12 Spear & Shield Warriors
• 5 Cold One Knights
• 10 Corsairs
• 16 Repeater Crossbow Warriors
• 5 Cold One Knights
• Dreadlord
• Sorceress on a Cold One
• Hydra
• Lokhir

Also, next Friday I plan on purchasing the following:

• 40 Corsairs
• 20 Blackguard (with command)
• Cauldron of Blood
• Assassin
• Dreadlord on Cold One
• Hydra

Also, I'm putting together a Fantasy "escalation" style league at my local game store. I'm hoping I'll get between 4 to 6 participants so we can end up with a couple of people who will have fully painted Fantasy armies in a couple months time!

More to come, including pictures of the Fantasy emo Elves in progress...

A little bit of everything...

Wow, just looking back at the blog posts I've made over the last few months, I've really dropped the ball on updating this thing. I started covering Fantasy 8th Edition and the games I was going to be playing while learning the new system, and I was going to have hobby store reviews after the Collectormania incident. Also, since then, I have played in two tournaments and another event at a convention AND I hosted and played in a local tournament.

I guess I have a bit to put into this blog, and I'll start by giving my opinions on the Dark Elves AND coverage of the convention I went to.

Part 1 - Dark Elves in 8th Edition Fantasy

 So far, I've thoroughly enjoyed running the Dark Elves. Though I was proxying with D&D miniatures at the time (hadn't picked any actual models up yet), I was able to learn a lot about how the army operates and learned their strengths and weaknesses pretty quickly, both in combat and in unit efficiency. I discovered I really liked Corsairs, and a close second would be Wyches. I'm not a fan of Reaper Bolt Throwers, regular Dark Elves, Cold One Riders, and Har Ganeth Executioners. In my opinion, the book really supports an "in-your-face" assault-oriented play style (with hints at competent defensive play as well), and Corsairs, Wyches, Hydras, Blackguard, and Cauldrons really epitomize this motif.

Here's a list I've been running at the 2,250 point level:

LORDS
Dreadlord (Whip of Agony, Armor of Darkness, Pendant of Khaeleth, The Other Trickster's Shard)

HEROES 
Death Hag (Cauldron of Blood, Battle Standard Bearer)
Sorceress (Level 2, Power Stone, Seal of Ghrond)

CORE 
30x Corsairs (Command)
25x Corsairs (Command, Sea Serpent Standard)
16x Repeater Crossbowmen
16x Repeater Crossbowmen

SPECIAL 
20x Blackguard (Musician, Standard Bearer)
War Hydra
War Hydra

Now, I found that while I have only 8 "units" on the table, each one hit like a sack of bricks! The Cauldron of Blood really is the catalyst that holds the army together, as its ability to grant either a 5+ Ward Save, +1 Attack, or Killing Blow is invaluable (when used at the right time). Honestly, having an army that hits first (Initiative 5) with re-rolls to hit in the first round of combat (Eternal Hatred) is awesome. Then, giving that army special abilities like Frenzy (from the Sea Serpent Standard) and Killing Blow (from the Cauldron) backed up by a Sorceress who is reducing characteristics by using the Lore of Shadow, is awesome.

I will be picking up my Dark Elves in February, and it will be the first army where I will force myself to paint a unit before I can use it. I'll go one unit at a time until I can field small forces (and continue playtesting and learning) and then before I know it I'll have my 2,250 point list ready to go to tournaments!

Part 2 - Tacticon 2010 Coverage 

Apologies, as unfortunately my sweet Digital Camera was being repaired during the event, so most pictures were taken using my phone (which admittedly does have a 3MP, 10x zoom Camera).

Click HERE to read Day 1

Click HERE to read Day 2

Click HERE to read Day 3

Enjoy!

And my Fantasy army of choice will be...

When I first decided I was going to play Fantasy (at the end of 7th), I thought Tomb Kings were going to be a really cool army. I looked at their army book and the models and ended up not liking them at all (I mean seriously, what the heck is up with the "Chiquita Banana" Tomb Giant?). Later, the Beastmen got a new army book and yet again my interest in Fantasy was sparked. They got a whole new line of stunning miniatures but again, after looking at the army book I was disappointed with the number of units (Ungors, Gors, Bestigors, Centigors, Minotaurs, and the Pumbagors and that's it).

And now, with the release of 8th Edition, my interest has yet again peaked with Dark Elves (after seeing several pictures of the army on one hobbyist's site). Some of the factors that helped me decide which army to play were:

• The actual sculpts of the models
• The number of units and options available to that army
• Was this army going to be the "Tau" of Fantasy

Now sure, it's plainly obvious that Dark Elves are a nasty, and even top-tier army, but I didn't know that when I made my original decision. They fulfilled all of the requirements I had, plain and simple. They look sweet, there are enough different builds to be nearly in the double digits, and they're at least competent.

I plan on picking some up soon, and I will keep a progress report going on them as this will be the first army I plan on buying then painting unit by unit!

Hobby Store Review - Collectormania, Parker, CO

Today I decided to do something I haven't ever done before, and that's walk into another local game store on their 40k night and see how they did things (and maybe even get a game in). I visited Collectormania on Parker and Cottonwood in Parker.

When I walked into the store, I was greeted with a brief "hello" by an employee who was sorting comics into boxes. I noticed a four-player game of 40k and a two-player game of 8th edition fantasy in progress, with several other people painting and modeling.

I approached the 40k table and noticed the teams were Tau and Ultramarines/Blood Angels vs Dark Angels and Space Wolves (apparently one player was using two different space marine forces). The game seemed quite intense, as there were three land raiders on the table, over 15 terminators, The Sanguinor, an HQ Crisis Suit with bodyguards, and Azrael all in the same 24" space of ruined buildings and rubble. I stood by and watched, then as the game was wrapping up I asked if people were going to stick around for more games. One of the players explained that two of the four players were going home but that the other guy and himself would be staying for more games. He asked what army I was playing, and I explained "Blood Angels", and he let out a sigh and moan of discontent and then proceeded to explain that he was done playing 40k for the evening. As some of the other players in the game sat down to play Magic the Gathering, one of the players complained that if tonight was a 40k night, why weren't all those people breaking out their armies and playing me? He was confused since he said if he didn't have to leave that he would have played me or anyone else that was staying.

Over the next hour, the store seemed to empty out and people started settling into card games or painting/building new models. I resorted to Plan B which was playing Amy in a 2,000 point game of 40k (Blood Angels vs Necrons), which went amazingly in my favor by the way.

The players at this store a very tight-knit group of players that refused to play newcomers because they owned an army that recently got a codex (even though I don't run a traditional Blood Angels list and I have been playing with this army since 1996 so I'm not a codex-jumper). This is called being "elitest" and basically just rude.

Here is my rating of this store on a scale of 0-5 stars:

Attention to the customer: 4/5 (they set up a table for me as I was waiting for the 4-player game to finish)
Quantity of Product: 4/5 (they had a lot of the best of each product line in stock, which made my home store look bad)
Player Base: 0/5 (Apparently one of them is a thief but not wanting to play someone because they say two words is just retarded)
Quality of Terrain: 2/5 (unfinished Cities of Death buildings, welcome mat cut-outs for "difficult terrain")
Store Hours: 3/5 (Their store closed early at 9pm though they let us play until 9:30 to finish our game since the employee on duty was deep in a 4-player Magic game)

Total score: 13/25

Stay tuned, as I will be attending the 40k night at several other hobby shops in Colorado to see what other Games Workshop enthusiasts are doing and how other stores compare to my home store (which will be the last review).

Continuing coverage of Fantasy 8th Edition

So Amy and I have been getting in a couple of small games with the new rules and I have to say it's a blast!

We ran the following lists:

Empire:
16 Handgunners
18 Spearmen (with musician and standard bearer)
1 Great Cannon
1 General of the Empire on a Warhorse
1 Battle Wizard (level 1, Lore of Fire, added on after our last game)

Orcs:
16 Arrer Boyz
18 Boyz (with musician and standard bearer)
1 Orc Boar Chariot
1 Orc Warboss on a Boar
1 Orc Shaman (level 1, added on after our last game)

The game went really well for the Orcs, as in the Empire's first turn their cannon exploded! Their wizard got off a spell that cast a cage of fire around the regular Boyz, but it was dispelled in the second turn when it was cast again. The Orcs got off successful charges against the Empire Handgunners and Spearmen, and the Shaman even got to cast Gork's Warpath though Gork only stomped once then moved on to other things.

At the end of the day, the Empire were tabled and the Orcs had only lost a handful of models.

Next time I think we'll introduce the cool new terrain rules!

Warhammer Fantasy 8th Edition

So today I tried a small game of Warhammer Fantasy using the new 8th Edition rules. My wife and I used the minis found in the 6th Edition starter set (Orcs and Empire) and after using Army Builder to tally up the points we found that the two forces were exactly 415 points. The Orcs got a Warboss on a Boar, a Boar-Boy Chariot, 16 Arrer Boyz, and 16 Orc Boyz with a single hand weapon, while the Empire got a General of the Empire on a Warhorse, a Great Cannon, 16 Handgunners, and 16 Spearmen. Both forces had one musician and one standard bearer.

We had picked up the new template set, the new counter set, and the battle magic cards, but only ended up using the counters. They helped tremendously in keeping us aware of all the things that were going on.

Now, this wasn't my first game of Fantasy. I have played two games of 7th Edition, but something just drew me in to Fantasy and I can't quite put my finger on it. When I heard Fantasy was getting a new edition this summer, I decided to hold off on buying into the game until the new rules came out, and I have done precisely that. And since I have no idea what I'm doing yet, I can proudly say I didn't start 8th Edition because of any rules rumors as I'd be clueless as to what they meant.

And back to the game I played tonight, it was quite a lot of fun. My wife left the Warboss all alone and did not attach him to either of the Boyz units, which ended up winning her the game. It flew down my flanks and charged my great cannon, demolishing it, and then chose to overrun into some handgunners in their flank. Brilliant.

I am excited to play more Fantasy and I think that so far I'm liking the new rules. Stay tuned for more!

Finally did it

I noticed several other 40k players I know had blogs, so I figured I'd go ahead and make one too. I'm mostly going to use this to display projects I'm working on for 40k, Lord of the Rings, and possibly Fantasy, as well discuss army lists, rules, conventions, and tournaments. I'll probably even cover some video games, magazine articles, and a ton of other random stuff. After all, that's what a blog is for, right?

For now, check out my YouTube channel here. (Sons of Sanguinius)