Saturday, August 4, 2012

How it plays in 6th: Dark Eldar

DARK ELDAR aka "Khaine dammit this codex is the tits!"

Guns-check
Swords-check
Vehicles-check
Wargear-check
Bondage babes-checkcheckcheckcheck!

Never in your life has a codex made you so awesome in comparison to your fellow gamers!  From it's beautiful cover to it's army rules that say, "Screw you, I'm a Codex!", this tome emenates manliness on every page.

IF YOU READ THIS BOOK YOU WILL GROW A BEARD!  GUARANTEED!  I DID!

This was the book that broke GW.   When it came off the press each person in the company had a collective aneurysm from the rules masterpeice from which they had blessed humanity, and gave up entirely.

I know what you're asking yourself.  "Am I man enough to play a faction from such a flawless codex?"  The short answer is no.  I tried to be.  I grew my beard to unreasonable lengths, trimmed my fingernails with a belt sander, ate nothing but lumber for 6 straight days, and knocked a polar bear unconscious.  The codex chuckled at my failed attempt at manliness, and became so soaked with testosterone that the cover actually fell off after weakening the binding glue.

PLAYING A 2000 POINT GAME WITH THIS CODEX IS BETTER THAN YOUR LAST 4 ROMANTIC ENCOUNTERS....COMBINED!

Look at you, you don't even know what to do with yourself right now.  Well, take a deep masculine breath, and pick up the phone.  Once the word is out, every woman on the planet will be looking for Dark Eldar players, and you'll be SOL.  Call GW mail order...quick!

" $@#& YOU!  There are 3 things I want in a guy: Tall, Handsome, and plays Dark Eldar!"-every woman since
November 2010


Reasons to buy this codex:

1.  Apples


any questions?




*another act of comedy plagiarism by deadshane

Monday, July 30, 2012

CATACHANS!

6th is great.
Flyers are Broken.
Aegis gunlines for Air defense.
Grey Knights still overpowered.
Blahblahblahblah......!

Let us not forget the mightiest and most feared fighters in the 40k universe.  No not Paladins, not Nob Bikers, not Thunderwolves.

The Catachan Devil, the jungle fighter of the Imperial Guard. 

We're not going to rehash here why they are the mightiest warriors in Warhammer...this is already known.  However, there are some skills, abilities and facts about Catachan Jungle fighters that are a bit less well known.  I just thought I would post a few of them here.

A Catachan sneaking up on you is actually just being courteous enough to not make your last few minutes as grief stricken, urine stained, and terrifying as they could be.

Even a mark of chaos isn't as dark as the shiner you get from a catachan's kiss.

On predator homeworlds there's a pyramid where once every hunderd years Catachans send their youths to hunt them.

Catachans are the reason that Furiens and Mandalore aren't in 40k.

Catachan Devils can sneak up on the eye of Sauron in broad daylight across an open field wearing flourescents ponchos.

Catachans are the reason there are no Wood-Eldar tribes in 40k.

Catachan women use 'morning after' pills as prenatal vitamins when pregnant with Catachan children.

While not actually magical, a Catachan blade is so sharp it can kill a spirit host or banshee.

If bit by a Catachan you won't actually become a Catachan(that's an old wive's tale)

C'tan is actually Hiveganger slang for a Catachan.

It's true. Catachans sell their surplus 'swords' to the Callidus temple to make a little extra during the holidays.

An unarmed Catachan can disarm a Catcus with two moves. A Devil can do it in one and use the Cactus's momentum against it.

Catachans often visit the Emperor to see how he's holding up without mentioning the fact that he was beat up by a sissy-girl. They really do care as is obvious by the flowers and cards that the Adeptus Custodes clean up after them.

I heard that once a week a Catachan looks death square in the eyes and every time has let death walk away.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Catachans..

Catachans are so strong they can slam revolving doors.

Catachans don't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.

-A man stopped a Catachan Officer on the street and asked him how many Tyarnids he has killed. Unamused,the officer raised one eyebrow with such force that the man disintegrated.

Catachan lieutenants can instant-kill Nagash while playing hero-clix at a movie theater showing Aliens vs. Predator 2 (It will anger you that bad at how it sucks.)

Only Catachan women give birth to real men. This is because the Catchan infants are inherently stealthy beyong regular humans and a regular woman may not even know she's given birth until several months later when the infant, due to his inexperience, leaves a food cabinet open (he'll outgrow this tendency before he can walk)
P.S.- Catachan infants will walk when they're in the emperor dam mood and should never be coddled (it is a sign of weakness and comprimises your role as it's parent)
FYI- When Catachan skywalker met Obi-wan kenobi he quickly made him a number two Kenobi by slapping him with the blunt side of his Catachan fang(knife).
Catchans can kill two stones, a tyrranid horde, several orc boyz, and a chaos sorcerer with one bird.

In an ancient archaeotech facility, adaptus mechanus archaeologists discovered the origin of the high gothic word "victim." Loosly translated it means "one who encounters a Catchan"

Catchans can play russian roulette with a fully charged laspistol and win.

Most human children play kick the can, Catchan children play kick the keg.
The Catachan male is so powerful that should he mate all female models under a 3" template must save vs. pregnancy

When a Catachan hits a warcatser he starts to focus real quick...on what the Catachan was saying before he hit him.

The only thing hotter than a heavy flamer is a Catachan. The only thing hotter than a Catachan is probably already extinct.

Catachans don't recieve renlistment bonuses because the adeptus munitorum knows that because of their work ethic they won't quit until the jobs done. They've only renlisted once and that was when the squats ran off at the mouth.

Alot of Catachans are already dead because of arguments they've had with each other. Unfortunately, death can't find them and is afraid to try.

The world of Catachan doesn't spin. It forces the universe to move around it. It's moon always tells it when it'll be behind it for failure to do so would result in it being smacked into a comet.

It would only take 2 Catachans to hold the Persians up at Thermapolyae. It would probably only take one but the other would be necessary to substantiate his story later.

Commissars often ask a Catachan for permission to execute them for a crime. Catachans will normally say 'yes' since death is merely an inconvenience to them. Catachans have death-leave to recover during this period of inactivity.

Nurgle is nothing more than an alliance formed from the venereal diseases that couldn't take root in the Catachan body.

Slaanesh is a combination of the colors they've chased out of their wardrobes.
In the Catachan regiments there are only two formations. One before the war and the victory speech right after. carry on, son!
...........................
This post made possible by Vipertongue and other Atlantis comics alumni.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

A note on scoring at the NOVA GT









Nothing that hasn't been said before, but this is just something I've been thinking about today.



Something about the Win/Loss over the MoV scoring has always resonated with me.I just read MVB's take on the subject and it really cemented my opinion about this format.Sort of long, but if you've got an opinion on the subject, you need to read it...or you don't have a valid opinion IMHO.






I really liked his points about how NFL is win/loss over MoV, and I also liked the examples he put down like this one...
Table 1 - Player A (highly skilled) barely beats randomly paired opponent Player B (also highly skilled)



Table 2 - Player C (highly skilled) annihilates randomly paired opponent Player D (his first tournament 40k game ever)






Should player c's victory actually be worth more than player A's? I just don't understand how people can not consider this an actually superior way to decide who's best during a tournament...unless you're just looking for easier avenues to victory.I understand that MoV gives one a better chance to "Win" a tournament, and that it's harder to actually go Undefeated, but I really dislike that some peeps are dismissing the tournament b/c of the scoring procedures. The problem with that is twofold.



1. It's kind of pussying out. ("It's too hard to go undefeated")



2. It's not very much in the spirit of the game. ("if I cannot win I'm not going")



I know that I'm not going undefeated this year. I'm not going to win the whole thing. (I gave up that pipe dream long ago...of winning a GT)I absolutely think that Nova Scoring procedures are the best "Tournament" scoring however, and I look forward to seeing how much further up the ladder I can get this year.

Monday, March 26, 2012

CATCH-22 or "At What Price Victory?"

Everyone loves to win.
Not all armies are fun to win with.
Some armies can be fun even to lose with.

That's basically the focus of this article. Maybe I'm crazy but this is the sort of thing that comes to me on long car/plane trips on the way to play in a tournement...like this weekend.

It was a 1750 RTT up toward Fredricksburg at a little store called "Game Vault". Nice location, good showing, prize support, a well executed RTT. I actually wanted to practice an abbreviated version of my ATC list for the Grey Knights. Anyway, on my 2 hour drive from Chesapeake VA, a thought occured to me. I actually really dislike the Grey Knight codex. It's powerful, and it has some combo's that are just wrong. Some combo's allow players to overcome situations that would/should lose them the game. Some other combo's are designed for winning games possibly at the cost of the other players fun.

My Psyfleman list is one such list. I built it to stop mech, stop people from getting to me, and shoot shoot shoot. It does all of these things quite well. It hums much better at 2000pts where I have all the tools to win any scenario, but at 1750 it's pretty wrong as well. I actually dislike playing it, but it wins games...so onto the tournament it goes.

Game 1 Daemons
Mission:Annihilation

I go first. I actually decide to go first against the Daemon and lose a turn of shooting. Why? So that I can get my Warp Quake up.
Warp Quake worked every turn. My enemy never got close enough to do damage to me. He killed a Chimera with a bolt of change and some troops with a couple of soulgrinder battlecannon shots. Coteaz and his henchmen ran off the board after a botched leadership check. Those were my casualties over the course of the game.
His casualties? Blown off of the table by turn 4.
Yawn...but hey! I won right? Yay for me.

Game 2 Space Wolf
Mission:Capture and Control/Spearhead

He places his objective in his far corner behind a building. I place mine probably 5 feet away from his.
Since I'm not using Interceptors...I'm thinking ahead of time that this will be a draw. My Psyflemen quickly show their superiority in shooting against his longfangs. Transports are destroyed/Immobilise b4 they can get into range....shooting is sustained for the entire game even though some of his troops eventually hunker down and guarantee the draw. The only close combat during the game was a unit of Hunters charged by a Venerable psyfleman to tarpit them and take them out as a threat to my objective. Dread and Hunters beat on each other for some 3 full game turns. 'yawn' again. Game result is a draw with me shooting some 1300 pts off the board with my opponent killing 4 chimera's and a few acolyte units. No more than 400 or so points. I could've easily won by using interceptors and taking the second turn against his army...but my list was a smaller list for this tournament with Strikes instead of Interceptors.

Game 3 Necrons (SVDM champion)
Mission: Seize Ground (4 obj)/Dawn of War

Hmmm....multiple objectives w/o Interceptors. After looking at his list...3 turns of nightfighting. Table is heavy LOS blocking terrain. I predict a loss.

Searchlights illuminate targets, but I decide to take out Douchecanoes first...both of them on turn 2 as they come screaming onto the board. (in retrospect I probably should've targeted the three units of wraiths) At any rate, my searchlights neutered night fight, but my poor target selection and his "on fire" armour saves began what was to be a downhill slide for my army. I was hanging on by my fingernails until turn 4 where my luck REALLY began to fail me. My opponent winds up winning with 3 objectives to none. Still, he only kills 1000 pts of my army where I kill some 800-900pts of his.
For myself, the game was boring from the get go. I knew what the result was going to be, and my tactical errors made it all the more evident along the way. I'm not vested in my list so don't really care what dies...now my possibility for victory is gone so..."Why am I playing?"

At the end of the day I win "Best Painted", take my prize, thank the organisers, say goodbye to my friends/new aquaintances, go outside to the truck, shrug, and begin my 2 hour drive home.

On my way home I revisit my thoughts about my army and the tournament thinking...this army sucks.
I win games all the time with it...most of the time they're blowouts. If not...the losses REALLY suck to agonise thru. It was that way with the daemon player, would've been that way with the Wolf player (if I'd had interceptors at 2000) and the loss against the Necron player was a total exercise in boredom and annoyance...no fun at all.

I found myself wishing I had brought my Dark Eldar. They move more, they're more dynamic, I have fun playing them, and it's a list that I've created, I think they're cool, and it actually takes effort to win with the paper airplanes. Even the losses are fun, because interesting things happen still, maybe with my Archon stomping everything...or poison shots ringing out bringing down huge beasts...it's just more fun to play the army....but it's not "built to win". It's built b/c it's what I want to play. What I enjoy playing out of the DE codex.

It's just so much more fun.

Grey Knights are boring to win with. When you lose...well...I built the army to win games so, when I lose, WTF is the point? The army sucks.

So, the moral of the story is this. Think about this situation when your new codex comes out and you start looking for avenues to victory before you begin to build. While you're looking at all the net-lists designed to win games be cautious.

Don't just bring the stuff that is the most point's efficient killing machines in the book. Bring stuff that's fun to play. Bring those archon courts because you like the sslyth models and love beating guardsman face with them. Bring Archon led Incubi because they do amazing things to marines on foot sometimes when they don't get shot out of the sky against Psyfleman players that Yawn across the board at you.

Build a list only to win....and it's boring. It lacks heart, soul, and you will not be vested in it.

Build a list with cool units in it, make your lord an Avatar of yourself. Find neat tactics and things to do and you'll find that you win the game....

...even when you lose