Home Away From Home

God damn, this thing was a bitch to put together, even without any of the detailing on it yet.  I did an extremely messy job, but I'm hoping against hope that Mike won't wuss out with this whole, "I'm sick, waaaa," thing he's been pulling for the past two days and will come over on Thursday for a game, so I rushed to get it together tonight.

The Kindness of Strangers

This post is epic, featuring an epic amount of win.  You have been warned.  Also, I'll only use "epic" one more time (erm...after that one) and I promise it won't be in conjunction with "win."  A few months ago Head Rush posted that he had a bunch of old 40k stuff stored at his parents' house that he hadn't touched in years and offered it up.  I pounced, and he said that the next time he visited them he'd box it up and ship it my way.  That time was Friday the 6th, which of course was the day before we left for vacation.  So now I present to you the kindness of strangers...who wouldn't even allow me to pay for shipping!

An epic box.

With a kind note!

A box within a box?!

That's a lot of swag.  How did he know that I've been trying to play FFVII (for the first time) on my PS3 since, oh, about this time last year?  Excuses...dwindling...

Holy shit.

Wretched gretchin.

Orks is best at fightin', killin', and dyin'!  Uh...waitaminute...

Boss, I've lost me arm!!

A Falcon!  I think?  And 2 Swooping Hawks, one slightly painted.

Uh oh, Dark Eldar.  Mike, wipe your chin.

Who the fuck needs fake metal zombies when you've got the real thing!  Some sort of undead WFB guys?

Trees!  Now I can stop stealing my 3-year-old's trees from his dinosaur playset.

Some skull totem doohickeys.

What the fuck, horse?

Cheatsheets!  Outdated ones, but cool nonetheless.

Blood Bowl?  One of the shield-marker things (2x3 in the top-right) has a spiked football on the reverse side.

Battlefleet Gothic!

Terrain tidbits.  Very handy.

Game aids and a random SM attack bike.

Oh wait, I forgot the 2 Ork vehicles.  A War Trukk and an Orky-ized attack bike?

The Emperor protects.  I said, out loud and to myself, "Fucking sweet, a Terminator!" when I dug him up.  I think the dude with the mohawk is a Space Wolf character, but I have no clue who.

Better shot of all the SMs.  You can't really see it, but the left-most guy in the middle squad has a ridiculously huge missile launcher of some sort, I love it.

Hello, my pretties.

Hmmm...could convert those guys to Blood Ravens (w00 DoW!) without much work.

Some random SMs.  See how much larger the ML is on the left-hand guy vs. the right?

The back-right guy is holding two chainsword handles.  I found one of the blades, but not the other.  There are a couple power fists hidden away there in the back.

The paint jobs on theses guys is pretty damn nice.

No base for the Land Speeder, but I've got so many clear Tau bases I can wrangle something.

Attack bike!  Rawr.

There's Sand in My Suit

Guys on the left were from Sun, guys on the right are from yesterday (Tues).  Hoping I can get the last 2 (I use 6-Tau FW teams) basecoated sometime this week, and then I'll just have the white topcoats to go.

Working Vacation

Amazing when you can get done when your 3-year-old takes a 3+ hour nap due to sand, sun, and surf:

Two more Fire Warriors basecoated:

And now it's time to put the 7-month-old down for his morning nap.

End of an Escalation

The escalation league ended on Sunday-ish the 1st.  There still hasn't been any sort of "hey guys, thanks for playing, and the winner is..." e-mail/announcement.  Though I guess that might've been posted to the store's Facebook page, but fuck if I'm going to logon to Facebook just to check it.  Since, you know, I didn't win anyhow.

At any rate, on Weds the 28th I played the same Ork player as I'd played at 750 points.  So far my entire 40k career consists of playing Mike a shit-ton of times and this Ork player twice, and that's it.  It was a 1250 point game, and my cadre came in at 1249 points.  His army was something like:

• Slugga Boyz w/ Nob & Warboss
• Slugga Boyz (this unit was fucking 'uge)
• Buggy of some sort
• Zapgun (I think? some kind of heavy weapon emplacement) with some Grots manning it
• Loota Boyz
• Burna Boyz (maybe 2 squads of these?)
• maybe some 'Ard Boyz?

We rolled Annihilation and promptly said, "Fuck that," partially because he'd just played a 2+ hour annihilation game against the IG player, partially because I'm bored of annihilation, and partially because the last game we played together was annihilation.  So we rolled again for Seize Ground w/ 3 total objectives and Dawn of War.  This is all going to be from my perspective on the table, of course, from left to right.

The left third of the table had low-walled area-terrain walls against both his and my edges facing toward each other, a low hill midway between my edge and table-center, with a forest at the center; an objective was placed in the middle of the forest.  The middle third of the table had a series of barricades against my edge, a low building in the center with a cupola that contained an objective, and another low-but-long building against his table edge.  Just right-of-center, firmly in my table half but not against my edge, was a fortified building with a single entrance (facing the left short table edge) that contained the third objective.  The right third of the table contained a larger ruin (a Basilica Administratum, maybe?) on my half and another building of some sort in his half.

I won the roll off and elected to have him deploy first.  Since it was Dawn of War (up to 2 troops and 1 HQ) he placed the buggy right at the 24 inch mark as close to dead center as terrain would allow and his second Slugga squad ready to move up on the central building that contained the objective.  I deployed one of my shas'els in between the objective-holding fortified building and the ruins, a Fire Warrior squad amongst the barricades, and a Devilfish with embarked FW squad to the left of the barricades, in front of the area-terrain wall but behind the hill that overlooked the woods.  The only unit I reserved were my Kroot.

I seized the initiative and the game was afoot!  Or ahoof, in the case of Tau.

(Despite my noting it during deployment, we both forgot about the 1st-turn night fighting rules once the game actually started.)

Turn 1

I moved my XV88 Broadsides up into the barricades, adjacent to the FW squad.  On both the left and right far flanks I deployed one Sniper Drone Team each.  My Hammerhead came out on the right, near the pre-deployed shas'el, with a heavily-obstructed view of the Sluggas that were poised to walk right up to an objective.  My second shas'el came on left-center, looking at the buggy and in support of the Devilfish.  I dropped one XV8 team each center-left and center-right.  The Hammerhead fired a blast of submunitions at the 2 or 3 Sluggas he could see, and it scattered more fully onto the squad; they had cover, however, and casualties were very light.  The deployed FW team did the same, for similarly negligible results, and I have no recollection what my various XV8s (shas'els and the two teams of shas'uis) did; I would assume they fired at the buggy, but if they did they either missed or failed to cause any damage whatsoever.  The Sniper Drone Teams both ran to get into position; the left team headed for the hill overlooking the woods and the right team made it up into the second floor of the ruins.

Again from left to right.  His Zapgun hunkered behind the wall on the far side of the forest, some kind of tank or another rolled up just to the right of them, and continuing to the right a green tide of holy-shit-that's-a-lot-of-models poured onto the field, anchored on the far right by a squadron of Deff Koptas.  The Burnas moved left-of-center, skirting the forest, the Lootas hung out in a building giving them decent LOS over most of the field, and there were just guys, guys, and more guys.  The Sluggas I'd taken under fire returned the favor, and a S8 rokkit launcha made it through my Broadsides' 2+ armor save and blew one straight to hell.  The others failed their morale test and fled right off the board.

This, fellow generals, is why the Advanced Stabilization System is a good idea.  They would've gotten at least 1 round of shooting had they been equipped with it.  Instead, 148 points' worth of heavy support choices ran onto the field just long enough for a third of them to die, and then ran right back off.  I immediately declared, "That's it, the game's over.  I lost."

He protested out of politeness, then proceeded to scoot his buggy forward against my barricade, disembark his Warboss + squad, and charge into my FWs and rip them to shreds (of course).  He consolidated toward my Hammerhead and the shas'el.

Turn 2

My Kroot fail to arrive.  The left SDT move + run onto the hill, ready to lay down covering fire next turn.  The Hammerhead backs up away from the Warboss and pals, then takes a long-range potshot at the looted whatever that's diagonally across most of the length of the board and behind cover and blows it to hell.  Well, that's something gone right, anyhow, though no wounds were caused by the detonation.  My shas'el tries to whittle down the Warboss' numbers without much success while the XV8 team puts a wound onto one of the Koptas.  The right SDT makes its markerlight shot against the Sluggas camping out on the objective and scores a few hits, but coversaves prevent any wounds.  The Devilfish creeps around, looking for an angle on the Sluggas and trying not to get my only currently-fielded unit of troops killed.  The right shas'el and XV8 team use their assault move to get as far as they can from the Warboss, moving around behind the right-most ruin (where the SDT is on the 2nd floor).

His Burnas move up and his Zapgun does a thing that grants him a S10 shot while killing a crewmember but fails to get a clear shot through the trees at my Devilfish, which passes a cover save.  There's lots of mildly effective shooting (including him recanting declaring my left SDT as his target after I explained that it had a stealth field that would require a "can you even see it?" check...which I let slide in the spirit of friendliness, or maybe it was my resignation at having already lost in turn 1 with the death of my Broadsides).  The Warboss' gang assaults my Hammerhead, I think courtesy of his WAAAAAGH!, and rips off the railgun as well as stunlocking it in place.

Turn 3

Things aren't looking any better as my Kroot decide to continue loitering about like lazy bums.  My left-center shas'el and XV8 team work over the Burnas as best they can (which isn't very well) and the Devilfish in the same general area beats a hasty retreat to stay safe.  Both SDT teams take a few shots here and there, causing some hits and taking a few wounds. My poor dumb Hammerhead sits around with stars orbiting its ocular sensors and my shas'els and XV8 teams try to whittle down both the Warboss' band and the Deff Koptas while maneuvering with their assault-jumps to try and stay out of charge range of anyone.

A squad of some sort or another move into the forest and claim the objective there.  His shooting phase amounts to the death of the left-center shas'el and one of the XV8s in the team on the same side, but the other Crisis suit holds.  The Warboss' squad assaults my Hammerhead again, ripping off one of the burst cannons and then immobilizing it.  (To add insult to injury, when I removed the flying base the nub snapped off inside the model.)  They then consolidate toward my shas'el, who's been scooting back around to get between the building and the right-most table edge to avoid getting trapped in melee.

Turn 4

Finally my Kroot arrive on the field, but they outflank to the wrong side of the board.  I'd wanted them on the left, to move into the forest and get their 3+ cover save, but instead they come on the right.  I place them sort of centered on the short-edge, with the thought of moving them toward the central objective to contest/take it from the Sluggas hanging out there.  My Devilfish moves around to come at the forest-objective from the left table edge, trusting to the trees and its disruption pod to save it from the Zapgun, and puts a few ineffectual shots from its burst cannon and drones into the squad holding it.  The SDTs fire at their appropriate targets (left to woods, right to center) and my Kroot change tacks and come down to save the blue-skinned bacon of the shas'el being chased by the Warboss.  The surviving XV8 on the left fires at the heretofore ignored buggy (which hadn't even been shooting it's own gun) and wrecks it, while the other XV8 teams takes a Kopta or two.

The Kroot launch an assault, only getting 5 or 6 models out of 15 into range but denying the Warboss and his fellows the charge.  I take a few casualties, he takes a few wounds, and we remain locked in combat.

His shooting is largely ineffective; I don't have that many models on the field anymore, and those that are are either out of LOS, behind stealth fields, or in melee.  The Kroot pile-in and trade more blows with the Warboss and his pals, coming out on top again but the Orks hold it together.

Turn 5

Things aren't looking terribly pretty.

My Devilfish takes a chance and moves into the forest, taking and passing a dangerous terrain test, and unloads the embarked FW team just inside contesting range.  The FWs, in turn, unload 12 shots on the Sluggas, plus 3 from the Devilfish and 2 more from the Devilfish's drones.  The left SDT also hammers away at the same target, but they pass enough cover saves to stay put though they do take a pinning wound from either the DFish's drones or the SDT and fail the morale test, which leaves my FWs safe from being charged. My monat XV8 throws a few missiles into the squad holding the center objective and ducks into some cover, while my shas'el and the other XV8 team sweep up the Deff Koptas.  The Kroot chop at the Warboss in a bloodcrazed frenzy and manage to take down the few surviving Orks, immediately consolidating a paltry 2 inches toward the unclaimed center-right objective (in the fortified structure).

He shoots up a few Fire Warriors but they hold on.  My shas'el was exposed and takes a rokkit, but his drone selflessly commits cyber-seppuku and throws itself in the line of fire; the shock of it, though startles the shas'el into flight and he comes perilously close to the edge.

As the game stands I would lose if it ends now.  We're contesting the left objective, he holds the center objective, and the center-right objective is unclaimed.  With that weighing heavily on my mind I give a d6 a shake and throw it down.

Turn 6

We continue.

My Devilfish says "No Guts, No Glory" and tank shocks the ragged survivors of the Ork unit contesting the wooded objective, breaking them.  As they flee, the surviving gun drone moves up to flank the DFish and help block the Fire Warriors from the Burnas that are still skulking about.  The Kroot move + run toward the unclaimed objective, getting the leading edges of their formation up to the door; the unit as a whole can't embark into the building, though, and the placement of the actual objective means that they're further than 3" from it.  One of the SDTs misses all of its shots (first time that's happened all game) and the other fails to cause any wounds through the cover being provided to the Sluggas that are atop the central objective.  The shas'el regains his wits and moves up in support of the Kroot, while the XV8 monat and team move in towards the center objective from opposite sides; the monat reaches contestation range, but is perilously close to both the Sluggas and the Burnas.  The FWs have no range on anything and try to be real, real small in the face of the Zapgun and Lootas.

The Zapgun does its thing, coming up with a casualty-less S10 shot and blows up the Devilfish, which flings shrapnel into the FWs and causes a casualty.  The Lootas laugh uproariously and gun down the remaining FWs, leaving the objective unclaimed.  The Sluggas have no LOS to the monat XV8, and the Burnas have to take a difficult terrain test and only get 1 flamer in range.  He sprays wildly about, but anyone who's played against SMs knows that a 3+ armor save is annoying as all fuck.

There's a scoreless tableau, with two objectives unclaimed and one contested.  With a 1-4 ending the game, my opponent tosses a d6 which comes up 5.

Turn 7

Panting with exertion, wild-eyed, flush with possible impending victory, my Kroot all make it within 2" of the entrance to the fortified center-right objective and embark, popping up on the roof.  My shas'el and the 3 XV8s combine fire on the Burnas, wiping them away, and the XV8 team continues forward to help contest the objective.  If ever I regretted bringing 2 suboptimal choices in the pair of Sniper Drone Teams, this was not the time: both teams find their marks, plugging a few more holes in the Slugga boys contesting the center objective, who pass a morale check to maintain formation but then fail one and are pinned.

With the Slugga boys gone to ground and unable to take any actions this turn, the Lootas take a few desultory shots at the Kroot and miss them all while the Zapgun has no line of sight to any of my units.

The game ends with the manifest destiny of the Greater Good proving once again that blue > green.