CGL Quarterly Tournament Results

My gaming group ran a tournament this weekend. It was a nice way to shake off the rust after not having been able to play for about 6 weeks. I think I might need to shake off a little bit more of the rust though, since I went 0-3.

Look out, sir! Behind you!

I've been slowly evolving my list over the course of my games to try and make the most competitive Wolf list I can. Moreso than with any other army have I wanted to run a little bit of everything. With Daemons, it was easy, I wasn't interested in running any Nurgle or most Khorne stuff. Space Wolves just have too many damn options. But here's what I brought to the tournament:

HQ:
    Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf (215 pts)
            Melta Bombs, Frost Axe, Storm Shield and 1 Fenrisian Wolf attachment
    Rune Priest in Power Armour- Warlord (120 pts)
            Runic Armour, Psyker Level 1 w/ Codex Powers; Jaws of the World Wolf and Living Lightning 
Troops:
    9 Grey Hunters in Drop Pod (195 pts)
            1 Plasma gun, 1 w/ Mark of the Wulfen
    10 Grey Hunters in Drop Pod (220 pts)
            Wolf Standard; 1 Plasma gun, 1 w/ Mark of the Wulfen
    10 Grey Hunters Pack in Drop Pod (175 pts)
            1 Meltagun
    10 Grey Hunters (160 pts)
            Wolf Standard, 1 Plasma gun 
Elite:
    Dreadnought (125 pts)
            Twin-Linked Autocannons
Heavy:
    6 Long Fangs (130 pts)
            1 Squad Leader, 2 Heavy Bolters, 3 Missile Launchers
    6 Long Fangs Pack (125 pts)
            1 Squad Leader, 3 Heavy Bolters, 2 Missile Launchers
Fast Attack:
    8 Fenrisian Wolves (64 pts)
    3 Thunderwolf Cavalry (220 pts)
            1 w/ Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield, 2 Melta Bombs

    Aegis Defense Line with Quad Gun (100 pts)

The Games:

Nick- Tyranids
Mission: Objectives

I'm always up for killing a little Xenos, so this was immediately going to be a fun matchup. However, he had 5 Monstrous Creatures and the Doom so it was looking like an uphill battle from the start. I was not wrong. He took two Tervigons which spawned a huge amount of Termagants first turn, but I killed plenty of the pests quickly. Then they both got stopped up early in the game, which helped.

But between them, two flying hive tyrants, and the Trygon, there wasn't much I could do. Too many giant scaries and not enough firepower to go around. Then, you know, the Doom flops down and my Long Fangs are suddenly gone. We took the full time allotted, 2 1/2 hours, and it was a slow grind the whole way.

I managed to hold onto one objective for dear life, and that was the only VPs I scored all day.

Result: Massacred.

Just as an aside, his army was lovely. The tan bodies with red carapaces is a great combination and it was very well executed. They're in the picture above.

Historicon 2013

This weekend the huge wargaming convention Historicon went on in Fredericksburg, VA, which it just so happens, is practically in my backyard. How could I not go? I don't particularly fancy historical wargaming, but I did want to see what all the hubbub was about.

Hubs and I originally planned to make a weekend of it, but plans rather dissolved after we discovered our "guests". We've been officially cleared of visitors (yay!), so I almost skipped it to put my house back together and because I knew I couldn't go for the full day. I ended up deciding (with a little cajoling from Hubs) that a half day would be worth the trip.

Despite losing one hour to traffic, I am so very glad I went! Right off the bat, the event is just huge. And no more than five minutes after we got there, we ran into our good friend Richard. We ended up spending most of our time exploring the event together.

A pirate game, played across 3 giant tables.

The sheer amount of new things to investigate was startling. As I said, I'm not into historicals, but that doesn't mean they still aren't fun to watch people play. It does mean that pretty much everything was news to me. By the end of the day, I think I had whiplash from trying to see everything.

The longer I was there, though, the more it became apparent that I have little-to-no interest in any games at 15mm or less. While they might be enjoyable systems to play, I'm simply not interested in painting anything that small. That's probably for the best, the last thing I need is to get sucked into another game (but I did anyway).

As generally happens at these sorts of things, the vendor booths tend to get you in trouble. I managed to walk away with just 4 minis (all for under $20), a personal best I think. Richard and Hubs got in a bit deeper. At the Warlord vendor booth, they were running demos of Bolt Action, which they've talked about getting into more than once. They joined in on of the demo games. I really do love when companies run demos for you.

Reaper Bones: Soft Giants

Amidst the chaos lately, one nice thing that happened is our Reaper Bones Kickstarter goodies arrived. Hubs went in on the Vampire level plus a bunch of the extra things. On top of that, I added all of the 8 Giants offered and a Mister Bones (because, shoot, he was $1).

Overall, I'm very impressed with the detail of the sculpts. Before the Kickstarter happened, we'd gotten a few of their Bones, but none were as detailed as these Giants. I wasn't too sure how all that detail would look in the Bones plastic. They're not as crisp as a resin or metal model would be, but for 75-80% of the price, who'd complain?

I'd say that all told, the Bones plastics are about 90% as nice as the metal ones. For the price, it really can't be beat, especially as other miniature lines continue rising in price. Just as an example, you can look at their Bones Minotaur ($3.49) vs the Metal Original ($16.99). Not quite as nice, but really close.

Of course, as soon as I opened the box, I wanted to get working on these straight away. But with all my hobby items packed up (still, sadly), I had to go out and purchase glue and another hobby knife. For under $10, though, it was worth it to get some hobbying done (and have a little time with my mind off other things).

However, I wasn't thrilled that scraping mold lines, in the traditional sense, is basically impossible. You have to gently shave them, scraping will get you no where due to the soft nature of the plastic. This plastic is also very unforgiving, one little misstep with the knife and your model can lose his nose, a finger, some hair, or other delicate bits. It's more difficult to accidentally decapitate a model made of harder plastic.

Somewhat disappointing, too, was that the swords and other extraneous bits were seriously bent out of shape. Now, I understand that it's 100 degrees outside, and was probably 150 in the delivery truck, but this was a real pain in the butt to fix. Several of their bases were also warped, to the point that they wouldn't stand upright. Of the 8 giants, 7 needed repositioning.

Uhh, miss? I think something's wrong with your spear.

For resin models I've repositioned, it was just a quick matter of heating up some water. This plastic, though, responded very poorly to that treatment. They need to be in the hot water for much longer, and (especially the swords) took several times to get them to the desired position. Eventually, they were "close enough" and I gave up after about 30 minutes of fussing with them. They're better but still not great.

In summary, though, the Bones line has a lot of good minis for great prices. While the softness of the plastic has a few disadvantages, it will be great for those that are really into conversions. I can't imagine anything easier to do conversions with than this plastic.

I picked up the giants to play some of Reaper's miniatures game Warlord. Hopefully sometime in the near future I'll be able to give it a whirl. But my time until NOVA is ticking down, so we'll see how much progress I make on my wolves in the coming days.

The State of My Hobbying

In addition to the increased work hours and going back to school full time, an unexpected, dreadful thing has happened. We got bedbugs. I don't know where the buggers came from, how long they've been here, or when they'll be gone for good. It's been two weeks so far since we received confirmation, and at best, we won't be able to get back to life as usual for another week, quite possibly longer.

This whole affair has been quite the grim rollercoaster.

Among other things, this means that I can't do any hobbying. Why's that? Well, this is what bedbugs do to your life:

It's not pretty.

That is all of our hobby stuff. Minis. Paints. Brushes. Cases. Gaming Aids. Books. All of it, bagged up and piled in the middle of the hobby room. Our bedroom, kitchen, and living room are in similar disarray. And it all has to stay this way until we are re-inspected and cleared of bugs.

Unsurprisingly, this is really throwing a wrench into my tournament preparation. NOVA Open is 54 days away. Best case scenario (if we're cleared on Tuesday), I'll have 50 days to finish my army. It's going to be rough, but doable. If we aren't cleared, I'm not quite sure what happens next (other than tearing out my hair). But I'll cross that bridge if we come to it.

Please, please do yourself a favor when you travel and check your hotel beds for bedbugs. You do not want these suckers coming home with you.