Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Weekend Tourney Wrapup

This past Saturday there was a 2000pt tourney at my FLGS. I had not played for quite some time because of work and classes. So Friday night I drove to play a chaos player from our FLGS at his house.

The game Friday was a great warm up. We had rolled and got DOW and 2 Objectives. Ugh I hate DOW because of how slow the good portion of my army is. I lost the roll and was forced to play first. There was an objective near mid field and another deep into his deployment zone. He was playing a lash list with 2 squads of oblits and a defi. There was one large 10 man termi squad and 2 3 man melta termi squads. Then 2 basic squads of chaos with icons. I placed my 30 man squads in the middle and on the left flank. The one on the left was to fight after his objective. Everything else would come on turn one. I move up my blobs and run them forward. Everything comes on and runs moving as fast as I can. My stormboyz move 22 inches that turn. His turn one he walks on oblits, defi, and the 10 man termi squad onto his objective. My middle boyz mob gets lashed and brought down to 12 models. Everything else was fine. My turn two ghaz pops his Wagaah and the 30 man blob gets into combat with his large termi squad and so does my stormboyz moving another 22 inches this turn. My 12 man squad goes and kills some oblits and my nobz get out of the trukk leaving ghaz and kills his lash sorc rhino. It explodes and pins the squad. Over the next few turn my nobz tar pit and kill off his right flank including the defi. My stormboyz and boyz eventually die in close combat due to a counter charge by some basic chaos marines. Ghaz quickly mops up that combat solo. The kans and my lootas never really do anything and I table my opponent by my turn 5. My gretchin are also holding the objectives at this time.

Now onto tourney time! Game one was vs Ig mech. The objective was to capture and walk off the board with objectives. Spearhead deployment and objectives in the center of each quad and board center, so 5 total. I won the roll and went first. He scouted both valk and a vet quad onto the 3 objectives and then it was my turn to move. I blew up the chimera in the center and pinned the unit. On the right the valk was fine and I boosted Ghaz and my storm boyz over as fast as I could. On the left I moved and ran a large linked squad to the objective with support from a kan squad. In the center I moved and ran a large boyz mob linked to the table edge and rolled a 6 for run. This put me on top of the objective. A grot squad grabbed and ran off the board with my objective. My opponent failed to run off the board on his turn with the two scouted units. My turn two consisted of wiping off the units carrying the objectives and grabbing and taking the middle off the board. He shot and did very little his turn two. My turn three I grabbed and ran the two side objectives off the board. I got a massacre and a quick win. Took about an hour.

Game 2 was modified kill points. I spread out across the middle of the board and went first. I was playing against a mech Spacewolves with termis. Turn one was all out movement. My opponent castled himself in a corner. His shooting resulted in a wrecked trukk and a few wounds on my nobz and one on ghaz. He was in striking range on turn two so I popped my Wagaah and let ghaz and knobz multi charge termis, dreads, njal, and a land raider while my stormboyz wiped out the longfangs. One group of kans also made it into combat with the land raider due to a large run roll on turn one and him moving forward a few inches. My lootas also managed to stop a rhino during the shooting phase. Ghaz and friends wiped the land raider and the venerable dread and killed a few out of the termi squad with no wounds taken. My opponent forfeit the game on his turn two with most of his army crippled. A win in 45 min...I was hoping for a good day of gaming.

Game 3 I finally got to play another ork player! It was 6 objectives and 3 would activate on turns 2, 4, and 6. I was forced to go first and I played very defensively. I set up so that my units could react to his assaults. I quickly wrecked his looted wagons with boom guns with my lootas. I took almost no casualties waiting for him to get close. On turn two he began to charge me. I tied him up in combat and began to sweep the board with my stormboyz and nobz. My 30 man squads took a beating from his charges but that was the plan from the start. In the end ghaz caught his nobz in the open and popped his Wagaah and charged in killing 4 and taking no wounds. They were quickly dispatched. In the end I had lost about 60 orks and all of my kans. But in return killed everything of his except 3 truks. I held the objectives and went on to win this game and finally got to play a full game!

I won the tourney overall and had a great day. I am holding onto my winnings and I will unload them all at one time. I might just have to buy 6+ drop pods and give them to my day and laugh at him.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Math hammer and YOU!

Over the past year or so a funny term seemed to be coined in the 40k community..the so called 'math hammer'. It is where you calculate on average what should happen. Theory crafting out lists based on using some math hammer skills is great for conceptual ideas. I use it all the time to figure out what should happen.

However, may people try to use it in a tourney setting to try and figure out exactly how and what you should do. This is just wrong. You can think all you want all day but in the end the two important things that you should have instead is your play experience/knowledge of past experiences and how your dice are rolling.

I almost never math hammer in games! I dont need to because it slows me down and I already know how I will do based on past games. In a timed tourney setting I dont have the time to spare to think. You should be actively reacting and moving without needing to math hammer. Another reason is math hammer may show an even result or a non favorable result and change your decision. You need to take risks to win and make the appropriate choices. Your opponent may be rolling bad and you can take advantage of that situation. Also your opponent might make a mistake if you went for it. You would never know that if you held back due to a poor math hammer result.

Before you start crunching numbers in your next game ask yourself "do I already know the outcome?" you can save so much time and fear not using math hammer in games.

~Ripped

Monday, February 14, 2011

News, Rumors, and Ranting...Ripped's thoughts of the day!

I wake up this morning and go to eat breakfast and get my morning fill of 40k news. Ming tells me about a 2+ invuln save upgrade to some new GK squads in their next dex. Other sites have spoiled some other spells and units. People bitch and complain online about new crazy things or amazing upgrades. Sure the new GK codex will have some crazy stuff but so has every other codex that has come out in 5th ed. None truly game breaking.
GW has done a great job with balance and point levels for most things. Sure you may have a 2+ invuln on some guys but I bet you they will be ~100 points for a basic guy and any special characters with it will probably be in the 300 point range and with how most of the recent changes have gone those chars will probably still be instant deathed.
Everything has a counter balance in the game. You can never say something is just op by their statline. Points and drawbacks are what really matter and nothing great is ever cheap.
On a side note if you have not seen the fuzzy pics of the new cybertron like suit for the GKs go find it! I am all for new cool models and things we havnt seen.
Just wait till things are actually printed before you pass judgment about if a codex is OP. More than likely it will be balanced or have counters. Any power gamer will find a way and adapt the the new cheese of the month that the net gamers will throw at them. Its like how I jumped onto the BA band wagon because of the internet chatter about how good they were. After their shine wore off they became just another good codex and not overpowered. I have had them for 8 months now and still have yet to finish them. I am still magnetizing models and I have started painting my first squad and finalizing the paint scheme.
Dont scream OP till the codex drops! Even then I bet you my orks will win out! hahah
~Ripped

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Ork Tactica: Death Koptas

This is one of my favorite new models from the last ork codex. Often overlooked these guys pack a punch. They can shoot, assault, and their mobility is second to none. Lets look at what we have:
TL Big shootas and upgraded to TL Rockets for 10 pts
Power Klaws for 25 pts
Big Bombs for some one time use large blast goodness
The koptas have 2 wounds and t4/5 so not to bad but a crappy save unless turbo boosted. They have scout so they can outflank and move before the game starts. This includes being able to turbo boost pre turn 1 so they will always have a cover save. You must stay 12 inches away from all enemies on your scout moves.
I don't run these guys in my lists until the higher point levels. They just cost so much that it is not worth it at lower points. I use them as a quick alpha striking squad and take out some big problem units quick. If you go first you can auto hit tanks with your klaws in combat and shred most tanks. Combo that with TL rockets these guys will open up the fast stuff so the squishy goodness inside can get charged by my main force. Then they can also deal with large blob squads via Big bombs. These one shot large blasts are dropped off on any unit you fly over. YOU CAN EVEN TURBO BOOST AND DROP THEM! That is just amazing. The most hardened of squads fall to the sheer fire power of the big bombs. I have killed 50 man IG squads in one swipe and even squads of termis. Just drop enough of them and over power them with numbers. The final use I have for these is charging into heavy wep squads on turn one ie Devs and Long Fangs. This will cut down on the shots my opponents have that can damage my kans and trucks.
Koptas almost never live through the game but at the same time they almost never suck. Every game they tend to make back their points and more. If your koptas make it out alive after alpha striking then either hide them or be orky and push them even further down your opponents throat.
Thanks for reading,
~Ripped
These elite jack if all trades squads do

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Sorry for the delay



not much to watch the game so just a quick clip of it.
look out for my next vid of 1250 pts where I lost at another local gamers house!