Sunday, February 27, 2011

Tournament... Failure

I was unable to place in the top 4 in the qualifier tournament today. I went 2W-1L-1D, which I'm not really pleased with at all. I made mistakes against an experienced Tau player and it cost me the game during the 3rd round. Drew against Witch Hunters, and won vs IG and Daemons. Everyone brought their A-game and A-lists, and there were a lot of really tough pairings straight off the bat.

It sucks to not advance onward, but at least I have learned a little bit about fielding a mech list. Perhaps it was too ambitious to run a tank heavy list with little practice beforehand, and perhaps I would have been better off using Lamenters who have a 1st and 3rd record in the 2 tournaments they've been used in.

Onto individual unit performance...

The librarian was pretty good overall, the shield of sanguinius is incredibly sub-par (I can't roll those 5 up covers for jack) but the blood lance has been surprisingly effective. Pretty much the only good rolling I did all day was with the blood lance (I know I know, poor dice can't take all the blame).

Land Raider Redeemer is always a solid unit for me and proved to be definitely worth it. The flamestorms are always a hit or miss, some games I wont fire them and others I'll wipe a squad clean off the table... but the strength of using it as an AV14 command bunker is priceless.

Vindicators straight up SUCKED until round 4. Sure, they had some really bad luck in the first three games but I was not pleased with their performance at all. Will I get rid of them? Probably not, I still like having the demolisher cannons at my disposal. Like the redeemer they're usually hit or miss, just today they were definitely more of a miss. Some weekends they have been really nasty though. Problem is, reliability is key for tournament play- so does the random nature of the vindicator give it any merit in a tourney list?

Baal Preds were reliable, and usually always are. They aren't amazing by any means, but they are definitely solid choices. Their sheer volume of shots and versatility makes them hard to suck even when I'm not rolling so hot. I am certainly interested in getting a 3rd asscan baal for my Dragons for higher pt games.

Rhino and tac squad were pretty mediocre, but how good could they have been? Lascannon out the top hatch was a bad plan, and next go-around I won't take a heavy weapon in the squad or just opt for the free missile launcher. I do however think the 12" move - unload - double tap of the boltgun is more useful over even a free ML, and I need to trick my sergeants with either a bolter or combi-melta instead of their bolt pistols (hangovers from 4th ed when you got the +1 A bonus).

Lastly I had a single las-auto pred. It fared alright. I don't recall it going above and beyond in any games, but it's got some decent firepower and at least it's mobile (and AV13) unlike the devastator team I was previously fielding.

Did some touchups to the army before I brought it in today, and hopefully I'll get some pics up sometime of the new and improved Dragons. Even though today was a lackluster showing, I won't be shelving them for future tourneys by any means. The army could use a little more refinement to get up to competitive 5th standards, but I definitely have some strengths going on and I like playing a varied tank force in contrast to my other armies.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Librarian

Finished my "Blood Dragons" Librarian for the upcoming 1500 pt tournament...




More to come

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Blood Dragons are GO



Here it is, the army I'll be using in an upcoming 1500 pt tournament. First time ever I've used a completely mechanized list. Well, it's not really mech - more like 2 tac squads and tank spam.

I think one of the real hidden jems of BA is not only are Baal preds excellent units but they're fast attack slots (got the pair of vindis when the new codex dropped and the baals were no longer heavies). This means BA players can field 3x nice AV13 heavies on top of whatever baals are in the force, and of course land raiders are dedicated transports now too. If someone told me that an army like this would be LEGAL just three years ago I would have thought they were insane. But this is now the meta of 5th edition, and codexes have gotten alot stronger. At least BA aren't the worst culprit when it comes to heavy tank spam (cough guard).

The Predator with auto/las and Rhino are recent additions to the force, along with that single unpainted dude up front. That's my Librarian I got from Hurricane James, a local space wolves player and tourney winner. Lets see how well he does against this AV13 steel wall!



More to come!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

INCOMING: 1500 pt qualifier tournament

So the store in my area is hosting a 1500 pt qualifier tournament in conjunction with 3 other stores in the region. The top 4 players of this 16 person event will advance to a 16 person regional final tournament. Effectively it's a 64 person event, so it's pretty serious and I'll be needing to bring my A-game, and A-list.


This means no-go on the Lamenters. They've had their glory in the last 2 tournaments placing 1st and 3rd but I feel that they won't cut it against the best players from the other stores if I do end up advancing in the qualifier.

My Dark Eldar aren't nearly battle-ready, Guard & Eldar are at home in NY and Grey Knights are shelved until the new codex drops.

I have been itching to get my Blood Dragons on the table again. They've really been collecting dust since I last used them in November-ish. I got some new models today, (one of which is a super duper awesome forgeworld librarian given to me by the champion Hurricane James) which I will be adding to my Dragons force in order to 'WAAC-it-up.

Army plans for the 1500 event is as follows:
(1) HQ - stock Librarian, w/ Shield of Sang and something else, not sure what yet. Blood Lance maybe?
(0) ELITES- none
(2) TROOPS -  10 man tactical squad w/ powerfist and meltagun, inside a land raider redeemer with a MM upgrade.
- another 10 man tactical squad, w/ lascannon and meltagun, inside a rhino.
(2) FAST - 2x baal predators, both with assault cannons and heavy bolter sponsons.
(3) HEAVY - 2x vindicators, and a predator with autocannon /las sponsons.

So on the table will be a land raider redeemer, a rhino, 2 vindicators, 2 baal predators, and a regular predator. First ever parking-lot / mech list I've made :P



Assault squad would be the better option in the LRR but I don't have the models. Oh well, I think this is a hard hitting and durable list anyway.