January Over!

HOBBY OBJECTIVE UPDATE

So we are at the end of the First Month, and my hobby objectives received both a boost, and a massive hit this month. My Wife and Daughter have been away for the past 3 weeks, which has given me the opportunity to try and play catch-up as the SVA Organisers threw us the curve ball that we could bring up to FIVE different lists to their Campaign weekend this year! (FIVE!)

(In Fact, you can just about see in some of the corner of the shots of my grot tanks, and some of the upcoming Tyranid pictures Confirmation that when the Wife’s away, the Geek will play!)

Naturally, I am instantly inclined to want to do all of them differently, however, this does mean that my 2000 Point army objective has… grown somewhat! So a Big Thanks to LukoDakka, as without the assistance of his Airbrush I would have been knackered!

I am now fairly confident of getting done on time, but it will still be a tight squeeze, but I’ll get some progress up next week to show you all how it’s going (and to see my take on the Harpy and the Tervigon!)

GAMING OBJECTIVE UPDATE

Well, the fact that I currently have a permanent game table set up on my Dining room and the fact that I’ve wanted to keep myself busy has meant that I have pretty much *NAILED* my 40k Non-Tournament objectives already!
(and I even got a game of Fantasy in too!)

This Month I’ve played… (In No particular Order)
(and almost exclusively with exact, or rough variants of the Following List)

HQ - Hive Tyrant, Wings/Hive Commander/Old Adversary
Troop 1 – 30 x Termagants
Troop 2 – Tervigon, Glands/Sacs
Troop 3 – 15 x Genestealers, Sacs/Broodlord
Elite 1 – 3 x Hive Guard
Elite 2 – 3 x Zoanthrope
Fast 1 – 20 x Gargoyles, Glands/Sacs
Fast 2 – Harpy
Heavy 1 - Mawloc

Tyranids vs Black Templar. – 1750 Campaign
Against an always Tough opponent I was already about 150 points down in this game (due to campaign rules we are running) so it was going to be tough, but I thought I’d have a realistic chance at survival with the possibility of a sneaky win. Not-A-Chance. The Big Kahuna played a clever game, setting up as far away as possible and tailoring his list (only slightly) with lots of Big and little bug shooting. Getting into combat was hardly fun either as his army wide preferred enemy can be a big deciding factor!
GAME LOST

Tyranids vs Imperial Guard – 3500 (ish) Casual
A Casual non-campaign game that finished at 3am (ON A SCHOOL NIGHT?!) I’m not sure we got to decide a winner, but it was bloody and brutal, massive outflanking blob squads of Guard traded blows with Stealers and MC’s alike whilst Chimera’s attempted to dodge a hail of Zoanthrope and Hive Guard fire. In the end, we had to call it quits and head to bed, but it was great fun (and a real lesson that foot Guard can be very nasty!)

GAME DRAWN?

Tyranids vs Blood Angels – 1750 Campaign
A Campaign Game against LukoDakka, and one of those rare, fabulous games where the result is always in doubt and never certain right up until the end. Danté is still a beast and I yet again failed to nail him, that said I was very pleased with the performance of a lot of my bugs in this game, sadly with the exception of the Mawloc, who looks like he has such great potential on paper, but has let me down this month a little. Don’t get me wrong, he is great, and if he burrows underneath something (especially with the amount of Hits I’ve been getting recently!) he can cause some serious damage, HOWEVER, I believe he may suffer from ‘Vindicator Syndrome’ Great on paper, but if you take one, take multiple copies as one doesn’t necessarily cut the mustard.
GAME LOST

Tyranids vs Dark Eldar – 1750 Campaign
A Sly and accomplished Archon who had an extra 250 points on me… it was sheer Butchery. I got stomped flat claiming only 3 Kill points in the entire game as I was mercilessly gunned down and outmanoeuvred.
GAME LOST

Tyranids vs Dark Eldar – 1750 Casual
The Same general as above along with another Dark Eldar General, this game was closer, though I ultimately frustratingly had too much distance to cover, and failed to realise that Dawn of War is really *really* bad for a Tyranid list with a decent shooting loadout, and that perhaps the better option would have been to start completely off the board all rolling in on turn 1. (though even then, it’s still bad news against the dextrous Dark Eldar as they have enough long range weaponry to hurt your MC’s at distance, and Nail you with poison when you close)
GAME LOST

Tyranids vs Dark Eldar – 1500 Casual
Yes, Yes, I am a sucker for punishment! This game was closer than the previous 2 against Dark Eldar, and resulted ultimately in me running out of Troops in order to claim or contest an objective. I could possibly have still snuck a draw as the Mawloc had gone under on turn 5, but alas, there was no turn 6! Still a good game and against an opponent I don’t play against with particular frequency!
GAME LOST

Tyranids vs Necrons – 1750 Campaign
Ahh…. My first game against Doc’s mindless Horde!
Lesson number 1 : If you attack a Necron Unit.. KILL IT DEAD!
Lesson Number 2: Don’t split up your Tyranids! Focus fire, support each other, and overwhelm the enemy!
In the end this game was a draw, though potentially a losing draw from my perspective as I feel I was on the back foot and was finding the surviving Monolith (One lost to deep-strike) was proving to be a proper pain in the derriere!

GAME DRAWN

The annoying thing is that I knew Lesson 2 well beforehand, I just got carried away, a good learning experience though, and I think Necrons may turn out to be an incredibly tough opponent for many armies in the future.

Tyranids Vs Orks – 1750 Campaign
My Nids Vs Big Boss Bludtoof’s Orks, and he had 150 extra points!
I set up incredibly defensively (Learning my lesson from the Necron Game) and my Shooters were star’s in this game. The Hive Guard took a truck per turn, as did the Zoanthropes (When they weren’t instant killing Boss Bludtoof himself! In the end defense turned to attack as the Nids swarmed forward once the majority of the Boyz were transportless and carnage ensued. A Solid Victory, and Boss Bludtoof’s Bug Blindspot continues! (apparently, he has never beaten Nids…. And this may be an interesting topic to discuss in the future, our army blind-spots!)

GAME WON!



Finally, I got my first Fantasy game in as well!

Beastmen vs The Flower of Brettonia – 2000 – Casual
A Second game with Big Boss Bludtoof, this time Fantasy!

I used most of my Beastmen COlleciton for this, which involved some Minotaurs, a Great Bray Shaman, 2 other Bray Shaman’s, a borrowed Gorebull, and then a block each of Ungor, Gor and Bestigor.

It was a learning experience for both of us, but I knew it was going to be funny when the first turn the frenzied Minotaurs declared their mandatory charge against the Pegasus Knights (I was forced to as they were in range) and then, lo and behold, Mister Double 6 Turned up to the party and it all got messy from there! (Minotaurs who get themselves on a roll are N.A.S.T.Y.!)

There’s nothing much else left to say here really apart from what a lot of fun, I think I love Beastmen, their magic, and their almost complete lack of Armour, and I’m going to enjoy getting all those other Fantasy games in over the course of the Next 11 Months!

Finally, and as a Last aside, I also picked up a book the month Called "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline.

You will like this book if....

1) You are a Geek

2) You spent some of your Childhood in the 80's

3) You Like Playing Old School Computer Games

4) You like Roleplay

5) You Like playing MMO's

and if, perchance, you like ALL of those things (Hi!) then this book may just about be the best book you've ever read :)

and Finally, a Teaser of some things to come!

(In this picture you can see some of my Video tastes, an under-construction Harpy, an unpainted Tervigon Conversion, the hand of an Imperial Guard General, and the rest of my collection of Tyranids lovingly arranged on the table... )

...and I've got to be done by Mid-March you say!?

Hypa Out.