Raindog's Winter Rampage 2014

So as I mentioned last time (I think), the league ends with a small tournament. It is called Raindog's Rampage. It is typically a 1500pt tourney with four games, each one being a different scenario. This year however, the game type was the same, a straight battle, but you had a checklist of 51?ish items that could happen in the game. Things like Miscast Twice in one turn, Run down an opponent's unit, roll a 12 for winds of magic, etc.

We had used a similar setup in one of our league weeks if you recall. I liked it. It was quite fun to try to get certain items on the list. And of course, you could not get all items on the list.

Painted armies are not required, but they do grant you bonus points and of course put you in the running for best painted. So instead of my undead legions, I brought my dwarf army. I had to paint up a BSB for it, but was able to do that the night before. Turned out pretty well (pics to be added later).

In order to get some more points, I went with a runelord with Anvil. Pretty big points sink, but it gave me the chance to get points from the Magic phase of the checklist. I then had a BSB, unit of longbeards, thunderers, quarrelers, a grudge thrower, and a flame cannon.

No battle reports, just quick run downs:

Game 1 vs orcs with Grimgor. I actually challenged the owner of this list since I had never played him before and I thought dwarfs vs orcs had to happen. It was a good back and forth game. He got hand of gork off twice, putting his units in threatening areas right off the bat. I was able to shoot one down enough before it charged that my unit held, and then was able to countercharge. Then grimgor's unit appeared behind my lines, and while I shot it a bit, it charged right into my runelord. Thankfully, my runelord was quite tough and able to hold out a few rounds until the longbeards could countercharge. My RL did fall finally though to twin hits from doomdivers. Major win though.

Game 2 vs new deamon legions list (nurgle mostly). This was the worst game of warhammer I have ever had. I simply could not hurt his units and just sat there for the whole game, rolling dice, and removing my models. I personally thought that the list was a bit over the top for the event. If I had brought three cannons, I might have hurt his GD or DP before they hit my lines. That sort of RPS match up just isn't fun at all. My mood was quite dark after this game.

Game 3 vs chaos warriors. This game was a little better than the last, as I had a few early turns to do something, plus actually hurt some of his units. However, eventually his big stuff got in and that was that. Also, T6 chariots?? Yeah, cuz chaos needs even tougher stuff. My hatred for chaos reached a new high at the end of this game.

Game 4 vs chaos warriors. Really? three chaos armies? well basically half of the lists were the new chaos legions in one form or another from the ET book. This one though was not unbeatable as we were now in the bottom bracket fighting for last place. The game actually was going well until I took a risk and failed horribly. I tried to make a 7" charge with my dwarf unit, and failed on snake-eyes. Thus my only infantry block was facing his rear and flank to two chaos units, both well within charge range. And that was the end of that game.

Despite the horrible mood I had sunk to, I somehow managed to get two favorite opponent votes and dueled it out for the award with three other players. My Runesmith fell once more. Apparently no one who plays chaos uses infantry characters anymore, just monster types. also, I did not come in last place to win the wooden spoon award. That went to a Dogs of War player.

So basically, I've sworn off fighting chaos armies. I just don't own anything to take on that level of cheese and BS. ;)

However, it did reinvigorate my desire to work on my dwarf army more and touch up some units and paint some new ones. So that is good. All in all, I love the new Dwarf book. I thought it added just the right amount of touches to make it fun. Unfortunately, GW's raging hardon for chaos continues to push that army well above what I own. Oh well.

Fantasy League - the End

Well, I lasted for like half of it...which is pretty good for me. Plus, I even painted some models...not the amount I had hoped for...but still, anything is better than nothing. So what happened? Well the league ended last night officially. And, I did not show up for a game again. There are lots of reasons, but the big two were that it was 30 degrees outside, and there is little heat in the clubhouse, and, well....there was no chance for me to win the league. One of the members just really blew everyone else out of the water with the shear amount of points he had won. Not that winning was huge for me, but had I been in the running, it would have brought me to the table.

Now all that is left is the Rampage event to top it off. Now I am signed up for that, and I will be going. I just won't have a fully painted army for the event unless I switch to Dwarves or Wood Elves.

Another big reason for my slide in the Fantasy League, was the news of a 40K league starting up in January. This drew my interest for several reasons. I have recently acquired several starter armies for 40K. And a league is perfect for pulling one or more of those out. This will be my first foray into 7th edition. It will also be my first time trying out allies. Due to some rash of impulsive behavior from me lately, I bought a Tempestus set of models, and then grabbed a screaming deal on some Tau. Now a while back, I had gotten some space wolves due to the awesome starter deal. So here I am, sitting with three excellent starting forces. Now the Tempestus is the smallest of the bunch. I can squeeze out 1K from them, but that is it. And, they are completely NIB and need lots of assembly (which I kind of hate). The space wolves are in the same boat. I haven't figured out how many points I have in them yet, but due to the fact that I still have other SM units that can cross over from my salamander army, I'm sure I could toss down 1K+ easy.

That leaves the Tau. These are already assembled, and bare. They need a little love, but not that much to be honest. Plus, thanks to Bolter and Chainsword, I have already gotten a paint scheme worked out.

Not bad huh? Well I like it. Someone pointed out to me it was a bit Soviet Union, but thought that just added even more coolness to it. In fact, I painted up a test model this weekend. Wasn't too hard and I thought it looked good. These guys can hit the 1K easy and gives me a little room to grow. Plus, due to black Friday, I was able to snag that big crisis suit thingy for these guys.

So yeah, the Tau has pretty much stolen my hobby interest. I will do my best to record some of the games from the Rampage and share them on there, and then show my progress with my Tau as I prepare for the 40K league.

Till next time.