Next Army and Fixed Photos

So first, I fixed the photos of my last post, so please go look if you wanted to see some close ups of the armies and table tops.

Second, while I was at Exterminatus I was thinking of what army I wanted to begin to gather and paint next. Well, I am not quite done with my necrons but I have a playable army that works well for my style. So I thought that if I found something that I was interested in, then I could begin on it at a much more leisurely pace and then paint the necs at the same time at a better pace.

So the army's that I have been thinking are, some kind of space marine chapter, most likely one of my own creation, a ork klan, or a tau empire. But I am unsure, and I didn't see anything at the tourney that made me interested in buy the starter kit or one of the small model boxes. I did think about buying black reach, which would have given me models for two of the three, and thus I could just slowly build any kind of army I wanted at my own pace. I may still do that, but with our vacation coming up, I don't think I will be spending any hobby money, unless there is just some kind of great deal on eBay.

So what do you think? How did you arrive at your second army choice? Was it playing something new or playing something similar to your first army?

Exterminatus 09 Coverage 2.0 (With Better Photos!)

Here it is folks, my coverage of the 2009 Exterminatus tournament.

I enjoyed the tourny, but I think a Necron army is just not up to the battle as all the other armies are. I did make a few people fear my Necrons though, and won a battle with them. So on to the coverage.

Matt and drove a 4 hour drive up, we made excellent time, getting to Chattanooga in 3 hours. Well Cleveland is only 20 minutes away, we had left early so as to get around the traffic, but we still hit some Friday traffic. It took an hour to travel those last 20 minutes. Kinda sucked.

So we get to the hotel, and talked to some guys who were playing (we assumed, they asked about our armies.) Well on Friday night we had a doubles tournament, 2000pt total, one HQ per army with any kind of composition between the two, and each person gets 1000 pts. Our first game was against some very awesome guys, we ended up going out for beers with them and some others the next night. I can only remember one of the two guys name and thats Jason, I think the other guy was Rich or Rick, but I could be and am probably totally wrong. So they played a mix force of Red Scorpions and Ultramarines. It was a good game, and I believe it came out as a draw. Necrons got hit hard and heavy right off the start, it sucked, but the game was still awesome, great opponents.

So we then went on to game 2, well game two sucked ass because it was a biker nob army, that was basically one of the guys army, split into two. I mean come the fuck on, this is a friendly doubles tournament hosted by Shane, the Dicehead Games store owner. The only reason the game is being held is they know people will be arriving on Friday, so it gives them some fun before the tourny on Saturday. So I wasn't pleased, neither was Matt. We weren't too quiet in our displeasure. Well as we finish up the 3rd round (with us losing,) this fucking chowder head comes up and says "I don't mean to be a dick but you lost the game before you ever started, here's what you did wrong..." Well I am a pretty polite guy, ask Matt, generally when I am doing something job related, I won't fly off the handle or yell at people like some at my work. So I didn't say anything other than thanks.

On to game 3, it was a single army again split into two for the doubles tourny. So I mentioned earlier about talking to some people at the hotel. Well our third opponent was these two people. Well we were about half and half for the game on a win or loss until the 4th round I believe (Matt may know more specifics, I forgot and here is why.) So the guy shoots a demolisher cannon at Matts Belial squad. There is only 3 termies and Belial in the squad. He rolls scatter, which scatters 4" after a BS adjustment. So its a 5" template, its scatters 4" . So using math, from the center of the template to the edge is 2.5" which meas subtracting 4" you get 1.5" away from the nearest model. Just to show you how pissed off I was, I made a freaking picture.

Well there ya go, its away from Belial. Well this guy wants to argue that it can still hit one of the guys. After 4 minutes I just said fuck it, it was 1:00 am, I wanted to get something to eat and go to bed, we had to sign in for the tourney at 9:00am. So we ended up with a loss I think.

So the next day one of the guys we played in the first round, his opponent never shows up, and the guys we played in the last game, they never show up, so putting two and two together, I think Matt and I made them quit the tourny. I show proof of this, because they had rented a room at the hotel we were staying, and why would you do that for a silly doubles and not the actual GT.

Okay, sorry for the ranting, but it has been on my mind since that weekend, and I needed to vent. Here is the tourney. First, some pictures of Matt's and my army.

My Soulless Awakened.

And Matt's Emperors Archangels.

So my first game was on the dead dog table. It is called so because of the terrain, which looks alot like the skeleton of a dog (closer to a lizard but who cares.) I played a chaos army with Khorn. It was a good battle, and ended in a draw. I made him fear my ability to roll 6's and glance on his vehicles. As you can see, he had a lot of templates. Those sucked for the most part, but I was able to stay behind cover and then come in behind him for the hits that mattered.

I felt really good going into my second battle. I had been ready to quit after playing the nob bikers, thinking I was about to face alot of cheese. So the second battle was against Blood Ravens, very well painted. His dice were too. Yes, this guy bought dice off ebay, and then painted them to match his army. They ended up being loaded dice. It wasn't until the third game though that the judges brought this to my attention. They told me he was out of the tourny but would keep playing, and had bought new dice. According to the judges, they knew he wasn't that kind of player. WTF! If you are buying your dice off ebay, first they should be the color you want for your army so they shouldn't be painted, second you have to know they have been messed with some way, otherwise get them from a freaking gaming store. So I lost, hard. He never rolled a 1, and only rarely rolled a 6, but since his key unit was the termies with storm shields, (3+ invuln. save) I never wounded him. I lost in round 3.

Here is a pic of the table from round 2.

Round 3 saw me back on the dead dog table. This time against a daemon army. This guy was cool and ended up winning most favorite opponent. I had the game locked down in turn 3, but then his hell dogs got into me and due to the new sweeping advance rule I lost the 10 guys he killed, and the 10 guys he never even engaged plus a necron lord. Using what I had left, I demolished his daemons. We ran out of time, but had there been a round 5, I would have won. I had most of my long range weapons left and I had my killer unit of a destroyer lord with warscythe and 3 wraith. By the end of the tourny I made people fear that combo. I know some of you are saying "this is how you take that down" trust me, alot of people were talking over my shoulder and I still killed those bastards. I ended up loosing this round.

So day 1 was 1 tie and two losses, until they DQ'ed the one guy so that ended up being a win.

So while I was waiting on my third round, Matt was playing a sisters of battle army and I wandered over to watch. Well on the table next to us was a guy who was a little off his rocker. He threatened his opponent at one point and I am not even sure they completed their game. When it came time to grade his opponent for sportsmanship, this guy wandered off and like Gholum, he secretly wrote out his displeasure. They asked him not to come back

Day two, I was actually supposed to play crazed dude, but since he left I played Shane who subbed in. Shane had a guard army. I knew that out of all the armies, this one I needed to hit him hard and fast. Which i did. See all the armor in the photo, I blew up everything except one hell hound. I killed off 3 units of troop, and two groups of storm troopers. It was a great battle, and I won in round 5, and could have had a complete victory in round 6 but we ran out of time.

My last opponent was a Tyranid army. It was a grueling battle with me loosing due to phase out. I was upset by this because I wanted a win before I left. Matt and I talked about it, and the kid I played apparently gave his models some extra wounds. I ended up shaking the kids hand and then promptly ignored him.

So that was the end of the tourny. I ended up with 2 wins, 1 tie, and 2 losses. I will always take wraith, and everyone can suck it. I wish I had template weapons, but a monolith costs too much for one template. and I didn't take veil, which was a big time loss. I was glad I took the tomb spyder, just never engage him in combat, unless everyone is focused on something else. So that was that. I want to go to another, but I don't know when I could get off from work.

Oh and one last thing, I got an email from the guys hosting the event, it had the ranks. Lets just say I wasn't high on the list of 42 participants. Well number 13 on the list is the guy with the loaded dice. Guess he didn't get disqualified after all. Now that pisses me right off. I guess it pays to cheat, oh yeah and he got runner up for best painted.

Our Number is Legion

Exterminatus Here We Come; w/Pictures

So I have been working towards a goal, and I have finally finished. Here I present my tourney ready army with display board. I have also written out the army fluff.

The first picture is of my tomb spyder and a scarab swarm. I am super pleased with this guy, he is by far one of my top models.


Next is the destroyer lord. I decided on a different design, having him holding a resurrection orb. I took an extra destroyer hand, cut it at the elbow, wrist, and removed the fingers. I then glued everything backwards and there ya go. The hand you see in the foreground is the modified hand.

Here is a group shot of the lords. Those orbs are three times bigger, but look so much better.

Last, here is the display board. Its got the cut out portions for all the models, but 40 warriors is alot, so they have just one massive cut out.

Its a necron horde. I love it.

This top down view helps to show the army's true size. 64 models in total.

So Matt at Archangels and I are attending the Exterminatus this weekend in Cleveland Tn. It should be a blast, but I am actually looking more towards the doubles tourney on Friday night, which is hosted by a gaming store in the mall where the Exterminatus will be held. We plan on leaving with plenty of time to get through all the traffic.

I will post the fluff after the tourney, along with the results. Wish us luck.

Our Number is Legion