ClassicHammer 1250

There was a 1250 Point Tournament at Game Wizard on Saturday, and since I'd just (mostly) finished up this new ThunderLord, I decided to bring my Space Wolves. It was listed as being a "ClassicHammer" event, but I couldn't find the specific Rules for that anywhere (because my Google-Fu was weak. They popped right up when I looked just now :P ), so I decided to just go with a single Faction CAD with no FW, figuring that should suffice:

251  -  Wolf Lord, TW, Wolf Claw, PowerFist, 2 FenWolves, Armour of Russ
236  -  Wolf Lord, TW, Runic Armour, Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, 2 FenWolves
140  -  5 Blood Claws, Flamer, Razorback, Assault Cannon
140  -  5 Blood Claws, Flamer, Razorback, Assault Cannon
160  -  3 TWC, Storm Shield, PowerFist
160  -  3 TWC, Storm Shield, PowerFist
160  -  3 TWC, Storm Shield, PowerFist

 The key point that I missed through not having the Rules on hand was that only Troops (and not even their Dedicated Transports) are Scoring. That hurt. Especially since we were running ITC Missions, which have a pseudo-Maelstrom component that frequently needs your Scoring Units doing things every Turn.

Wanted to show off the basing a little more here

Game 1 is basically not even worth discussing in any kind of detail. He had 22 ScatBikes, 6 D-Cannon, and a Farseer on a Jetbike. No one else had anything that could stand up to that kind of firepower, and he ended up handily winning the whole Tournament. His list is one of the big reasons they're changing some things up for the next time they do ClassicHammer. Partly changing the Maelstrom requirements and some other things (like Linebreaker) from "Scoring Unit" to "Unit". Possibly some other things. Frankly, I don't think they're going to fix the problem unless they're willing to outright change or ban a few things.

I tried out the black background for my light box. It's nice for these, but way too glossy.

Game 2 was a completely different story. It was against a Dark Eldar Player who I've played before, and had a really good Game with (he's the dude giving a thumbs up here, while I'm on the ice table behind getting my face kicked in by the Eldar), and this one was similar. The Mission this time was The Scouring, which meant in ClassicHammer that our Fast Attack Units were Scoring, making it a very different Game. A very brutal one, too, we both ended up absolutely mauling each other (I think I had 2 Blood Claws, 1 wounded ThunderWolf, and a damaged Razorback at the end, while he had something like 7 Warriors in 4 separate Units and a SkyWeaver). If I'd managed to kill one more Warrior in my last Charge, I would have had a crushing victory, but as it was, that last dude contested one of the 3 Point Objectives, giving Sheldon the victory on Scouring thanks to the points for killing off my ThunderWolves, while I squeaked out a win on the Maelstrom, and then eked out an overall win by having that one ThunderWolf in his DZ for Linebreaker.

Game 3 was kind of weird. I think the guy was the Ringer, but he might have just been someone that somebody loaned an Army to and brought along. Regardless, his Army was a mess of Proxied Night Lords Bikers being played as White Scars. He was really out of practice and way behind the times on his Rules. My buddy Nathaniel had played him earlier and said he was kind of on edge the whole time because he couldn't keep track of the Proxies. Ended up not really being an issue in this Game, partly because of his dice, and partly because, once I lose one TWC, the Units with Lords in become almost immune to Grav, thanks to the FenWolves taking the Majority Armour Save to 6+ and then having to get through a Storm Shield. But mostly because he had to get close to do anything, being mostly 12-18" Firepower, and that doesn't end well when you're up against ThunderWolves. I had all his Troops cleared out by the bottom of Turn 2, and then just threw all my remaining TWC into his Command Squad DeathStar to keep them tied up while my Blood Claws ran around and grabbed Objectives.

Hello, lunch!

I ended up tying for 6th out of 20, which feels pretty good given how poorly suited my Army was for the format. I also got a lot of nice comments on my Army's appearance, which was really great. Speaking of which, shout-out to Thor for tips on the snow effect. I used Blue Horror to tint the glue mix instead of white (perhaps a little too much, it came through rather more strongly than I expected), but it's otherwise pretty much as he described. I also used GF9 Snow Effect instead of Woodland Scenics. It's basically the same, but comes in a much smaller container, and after going over about half my SW with that, I'm pretty much out, so I've got a big tub of the WS stuff on the way.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Frequently Howled Questions

GW has the Draft SW FAQ up, and tho it's got some issues still, I'm really pretty pleased with it.

Arjac Rockfist and The Void Claws, Touring the Galaxy Now!

We've got confirmation that the stat bonuses from ThunderWolf Mounts are applied before any multipliers or anything, the Pelt of Balewolf will make Fearless MCs and Beasts actually take the Fear Test, confirmation that you can Charge with Counter-Charge even after Disembarking from a non-Assault Transport and/or arriving from Reserves, IronWolves can actually take Lone Wolves and Wolf Scouts, and, perhaps most importantly, both versions of the Iron Priest are still valid, allowing for fun all-mounted Lists with the Company of the Great Wolf Detachment.

Fetch!

There are a few that are kind of downers. Confirmation that the Armour of Asvald Stormwrack doesn't replace Weapons like normal Terminator Armour, and is thus overpriced garbage. Wulfen Units that started the Turn in a Transport don't count for purposes of the Curse of the Wulfen, so Podding them in is no longer nearly as cool. Then there are a couple of weird ones regarding the Run+Charge Rules from the DeathPack/Wulfen and Joined ICs. They say that the Unit can still benefit from them as long as the IC doesn't, and you don't break Coherency, but if the Unit Runs, every Model is considered to have Run, even if they don't actually move, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to work out.

Now with 20-40% More Murderin'

My favorite part, tho, isn't official, but a Recommended House Rule updating SW, GK, and BA Dreads to bring them in line with the SM and DA versions. It applies to all Dreads, including the Characters, bringing Murderface up to a potential 12 Attacks on the Charge! The really big deal is for SW Axe/Shield Dreads and BA Furiosos, tho, who desperately need the help from the extra Attacks.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

#TBT Chaos Autocannon

Back in the previous millennium, when I was just getting into 40K, the store I went to had a display cabinet which contained, among other cool things, a Chaos Marine with this awesome Autocannon. After an amount of asking around and trying to figure out that seems utterly ridiculous in these days of SOLegends, I finally found out that it was OOP, and had been for a while. Over the years, I managed to pick up a few of the Missile Launchers and, for some reason, a bunch of the Heavy Conversion Beamers from the same Sprue, but never the Autocannon.

Then a week or so ago, while I was searching around trying to figure out if another Autocannon I thought I remembered had actually been a thing, I ran across an eBay post that had several of them available, and finally, almost 20 years after I saw that first one, have four of them!

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!

Kytan Reborn

No gift of exile in my fate
I'll get no amnesty
You can't control my destiny
There is no habitual need
Proclaim my death, to end my wrath
It takes more than one try
Indulge your ineffective curse
I will never die

 I was hoping to get this up before Mike put up my Better Know a Blogger interview, but it's been stupidly hot and muggy here the last couple of days, and, well, pretty much nothing requiring more effort or focus than sitting in front of the fan and drinking water happened :P

Anyhow, I managed to more or less rescue my Kytan from its partial melting, and started in on painting it.

These next shots, from the rear, give a good look at what happened. I straightened the left leg back out again with some boiling water, but left the right warped, as it let me break apart the hip joints and get the whole thing together in a slightly better pose. Plus, being warped is par for the course for a Daemon Engine, right?

This bit really reminds me of some of the fluff descriptions of possessed people in 40K, walking on ruined legs that shouldn't be able to support their weight, still standing because the sheer force of the Daemon's will is overriding the laws of physics.

And a couple of shots of it magged over into Chaos Knight Errant mode.

I realized afterward that I really should have done some of the red first in areas that are harder to reach without messing up the trim and would have been protected from the 1" brush, particularly on the right shoulder and the smaller round plates just inside of the shoulder guards. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

This is my basic start to pretty much all of my Khornate Models. Grab a Bigass Brush™, lay down a very heavy coat of Warplock Bronze, and then an only slightly lighter overbrushing of Brass Scorpion. Gives a really nice effect for very little effort, especially once I touch up the areas that aren't going to be brass.

Y'all have a good one now, y'hear!