DAWG Bone Yard

Announcing: Tales of Battle

2009-01-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Tired of a magazine where their army lists are crap, tactics are total BS, and the army reports are contrived. Well, so am I.

Which is why I'm announcing the launch of a brand new Magazine, Tales of Battle.

This is Not another e-zine that will put out 2-3 issues and die out.

This is a real bi-monthly magazine that will be published and delivered into your hands for perusing.

Tales of Battle will be covering Independent Grand Tournaments and bring you pictures of great looking armies, tales of great battles and tactics you can take to the tabletop the next day.

The main feature, called Table One, will be a recreation of the round 5 battle on the top table of the GT. Would you want to miss a Jordan Braun vs Todd Thacker matchup, or The Bowman vs Touradj (the Dark General)? Not just a brief description, but a blow by blow description, with pictures, army lists, diagrams, comments from the players and more.

ToB will also include a full breakdown of my favorite army at the tournament along with an interview with the owner. Why he took what he did, how does it play, what are its strengths and weaknesses along with his painting and modeling tips.

There will be a whole lot more, so go check out http://www.talesofbattle.com/ for more details and how you can order your copy.

I expect for the first issue to hit the streets on March 31st and will be covering the Lone Wolf GT. With a price of only $5 (and that covers s&h and taxes) its less than a cost of one miniature.

I hope you guys can get behind this and help get this project off the ground.

Ben The Rat

Whats going on?

2008-12-11T09:15:00.000-08:00

Thanks for all the kind words over the length of the blog, but it is going to slide by the wayside.

I have a new project in mind that is very exciting and will take up most of my free time. I am getting everything ready for it, to be ready by Jan-Feb next year.

I'll make an announcement here as well as on most of the lists. So keep an eye out for that. Don't want to say too much for now, but lets just hint that it could make a huge splash in the Warhammer world. I sure hope so anyway.

As for some of the questions:
@David, yes, I was planning on it if the timing was right. When is the Bayou?

For the guy who wanted to post my battle report on your website, go ahead as long as you credit it to me and put a link back to my blog.

Thanks again guys, its been fun.

Until next time...

Centaurs of Cath-Tong BR part 2

2008-10-09T10:41:00.000-07:00

When we left off my generals unit had just been dual charged but held their ground and we were in this situation for the start of turn 4.

Turn 4a: The centaurs needed to do some quick damage. Both Knight units on the far right charge the minotaurs at the bottom of the hill.
And the marauder fast cav charge the chariot in the flank. (the one fighting my general's unit.

The 2 fleeing marauder centaurs rallied and ran over by one of the Level 2 shamans.
In magic, I cast my Nurgle spell at one of the Beastigors in combat, as that is the only guy I can see. (In retrospect, I don't think that is legal as the spell does not mention that you can cast this into combat.) Don't remember if he took a guy out or dispelled it.
I then cast flickering fire at the chariot with my wizard. He attempted to dispel and failed. I rolled and got 5 hits, but then when I went to roll strength, I got a '2'. So 5 str 3 hits. Managed 2-3 wounds, but he saved them all.

The 2 centaurs threw their axes at the beast shaman, but both missed.

In combat, the centaur knights again failed to wound the spawn and expanded getting out of the LOS of the waiting minotaurs.

I then did the double knights on the minotaurs, and with the 32 attacks I generated, the entire minotaur unit was destroyed. I then overran with both. The hero's unit with banner of fury plowed into the minotaurs at the edge of the table, but the other knight came up about 2 inches short of hitting the back side of the beastigor unit.

In the big combat, the knights with general and wizard, killed off 6 beastigors, but failed to wound the chariot. His beastigors cannot swing back, and the chariot manages to kill a single marauder centaur.
I win combat by a bunch, and the beastigors flee and are cut down by the knights behind them.
But the chariot, needing insane courage, gets it. Ugghhh!!!
So my genera's unit turn to face the chariot.

And we end up with this setup at the end of my turn 4.

Turn 4b: The beastmen, knew they had to do something quick.
The beastherd charges the flank of the marauders in combat with the chariot.
The 2 shamans charge the 2 marauders.
The spawn charges the rear of the knights fighting the first spawn.
His last chariot spins around for next turn.
And his Minotaurs spin around to face the flank of my knights.
In magic, he frenzies his herd.

In combat we do the spawn combat first. My only hope is to do enough wounds to kill both spawn. So I split up my attacks and actually do no wounds!! He does none as well.
We then do the Minotaur combat. With my 32 attacks of strength 4 to 7, I again wipe out the entire minotaur unit and run off the board.

He then has his 2 shamans beat up on my 2 marauders with their braystaffs, killing both and overrunning, but did not go off the board.

Finally, in the big combat, again we got into a challenge, but his Foe-render could not get past my general's armor, and I struck him down even doing an overkill wound.
But his Gors were able to kill off all 4 marauder centaurs!! I was only able to put a couple wounds on the chariot, and he wins combat by 2.
So needing a 6, or the insane courage special rule of the banner, and I roll and '11', and the knights, general and nurgle shaman turn and flee. Both units pursue and the chariot catches them.

Leaving us with this situation:

Note that the knights at the far top right are actually off the board.

Turn 5a: This is easy, knights charge into the frenzied herd.
Other knights move back on the table and hope to get in charge range of the last chariot.

Turned my wizard around and tried to cast flickering fire into the minotaurs and he used his last dispel scroll.

In combat, I killed off the spawn in front of me. Leaving the one behind, with 2 wounds on it.
The knights slaughtered the frenzied herd fairly well, but enough ungors had spear attacks and drug a knight down. I still won by a lot and broke them, running them down and capturing their standard.
But then in the overrun I only go 8" and came up 1" short of hitting the chariot.
Sorry, picture here was corrupted and lost.

Turn 5b: Minotaurs into the flank of the knights.
Chariot into the front of the knights.
2nd chariot spins around for a turn 6 charge.
2 shamans drop in behind my other knights and blast them with double strength 6 magic missiles and kill 2.

In combat, the minotaurs quickly hacked down 3 knights with their attacks, and I failed all 3 armor saves.
This gave me only 1 knight to attack the spawn, and I do 2 wounds to it and kill it.
So I lose combat by 2, and need a 6 to hold, and I make it!!

The chariot hits my 4 Centaur knights and does 2 wounds, but I do 3 wounds back to the chariot and win combat. I don't outnumber him, but he still needs a good number to hold, and he makes it.

Turn 6a: I attempt to charge the last chariot with my Fury knights, but am a couple inches short.
My shaman spins and moves towards his shamans and attempts to cast his spell, but it is dispelled.

In combat, My knight on his minotaurs swings first. With his 2 attacks and steed attack, I get 3 hits and 3 wounds and kill a minotaur!!! Then with his 6 str 6 attacks back, he fails to get a single hit.
So I win 4 (3 W + banner) to 2 (flank, US). He needs a 6 to hold, fails and I run him down!!!

My other knights easily kill off the chariot they were fighting. But are stuck there.

Turn 6b: There is only 1 charge as the chariot smacks into the flank of my 2 knights.
His hounds race up to control the ancient stone.
And his shamans move to get in range of my Fury knights.

In magic he gets off both magic missiles again, but in a bout of insane armor rolling, he only kills 2 and fails to wound my hero.

In combat, 3 impact hits plus the 4 attacks from the chariot equal zero wounds on my knights!!! My knight then does 2 wounds back, breaks the chariot and runs it down!!

Leaving us with this final setup:

In total 11 models left on the board. 2 shamans and 3 hounds for him. 4 knights from 3 units, 1 wounded sorcerer, and 1 uninjured exalted hero.
The hounds claimed the historic monument, and no one else was large enough to claim or contest a table quarter.
Both general's were gone, mine scattered in the overrun, his sucked up into the warp.
I still had 2 banners (the cheese markers) from running down 2 herds. I lost one that the 2 marauders were carrying. And was unable to capture the beastigor one.
My general's unit lost their banner to the herd, but then they were broken by the other knights.

When all the vp were added up, I was ahead by around 370 victory points, giving me the minor, hard fought win.

I'll take it. Trevor is always an outstanding opponent and runs his army with expert skill. Only sheer luck of armor saves, whiffage of attacks and a lucky break test, won this game for me.

I'll definetely have to sharpen my skills with this army before I run it to a GT.

Hope you enjoyed it, feel free to leave comments.

Until next time...

Centaurs of Cath-Tong BR part 1

2008-10-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

The Centaurs of Cath-Tong grew tired of the wilderness, the cold of the chaos wastes. They dreamed of grass fields to run in. Orm'ete grew weary of the endless battles the chaos gods forced them to fight in. It was time for a change. He laughed for a minute at that thought of that word. It was Tzeentch who had "blessed" him months earlier. Changed him and his clan from marauders and warriors to centaurs. He had blessed him with his mark that gave him extraordinary speed but at what costs. The females of his clan soon discovered, any male children were born as centaurs and the mother never survived. The women fled, and now Orm'ete's clan must capture slaves to maintain his clan. He was sure Tzeentch and Slaanesh found the whole situation amusing.

So Orm'ete gathered his clan of centaurs, and headed South. That was the only direction you could go from Cath-Tong. So far into the chaos wastes you could smell the warpstone in the very air you breathed. Their final destination was unknown. But stories of the green fields of the Empire, and plentiful amount of women sounded appealing. And so the herd of Centaurs with younglings and slave women in tow, they headed towards warmer climates and one day peace.

But the gods of chaos do not let one leave their direct control so easily. They had barely started to start their journey when Slaanesh ordered one of its beastial armies to drive them back to Cath-Tong.

****************************

Army setup and lists. Its easiest to see the first picture here:
As always click on a picture to enlarge it.

This picture shows the main part of the battle field after I moved for turn 1. I won the right to choose and due to his heavy magic I decided it was best to go first.

Battlefield: The circle of stones was an Ancient Idol that counted as difficult and whoever controlled it at the end of the battle got 100 vp.
On the bottom center is a small hill.
Center top is a graveyard. We simply counted the entire area as Difficult terrain.
On the right bottom is a wood, and right top is another hill.

Deployment: Mine was fairly simple. Left flank had 2 marauder units with Light armor, Flails and Throwing axes. I also put my Tzeentch Lvl 1 sorcerer with 2 dispel scrolls. Behind them was a unit of chaos knights.

In the Center I put 2 units of marauders with spears, shields and throwing spears and behind them 5 chaos knights, Rapture banner, my exalted hero/general with mark of Tzeentch, collar of khorne and blade of putrification. Next him also rode my Nurgle Sorcerer level 1 with the infernal puppet.

On the right I put 2 more marauder horsemen units with Light armor, flails and throwing axes. (you can only see one, and the corner of the other.
Behind them, not in pic are 2 units of chaos knights. One basic and one with the banner of fury and a Nurgle Exalted hero with flail, bronze armor, Blasphemous amulet and the favor of the gods.

The beastmen in front of me were from left to right:
Beastherd 6 gors, 12 ungors full command
Behind them two spawn of slaanesh.
5 chaos hounds
Behind them 3 Minotaurs of slaanesh, gr.weapons.
Another beastherd 6/12, FC.
Behind them 3 beast chariots undivided.
Another unit of chaos hounds.
Behind them were 12 Slaangors, great weapons, and in the unit were:
Level 4 shaman with staff of Darkoth, crown of thorns, Mark of Slaanesh, d.scroll and power stone.
Level 2 shaman with braystaff, d.scroll, power stone
Level 2 shaman the same.
He then put down another beast herd, 6/12, FC.
Behind them 2 more units of 3 Minotaurs of slaanesh, gr.weapons.
Finally on the far right was another unit of hounds not shown.

Turn 1a: I raced everything up, some further than others. In magic he dispelled both my spells and everything was out of range for shooting.

Turn 1b: His only charge was his hounds in the center into my marauders in the middle with spears. I decided to stand and shoot, killing none and they made contact.
The rest of his army moved up or positioned.

In magic he casts frenzy on his hounds, which I dispel. He then casts freeze/no attack on my marauders. Not wanting them to stand there I decided to burn a scroll. Bad mistake that I'd regret later.

As it turned out the hounds whiffed their attacks, the marauders killed 3 and the hounds missed their break test and they got away.
here is a pic before the start of my turn 2:

Here you can more clearly see the units on the far right end of the battlefield.

Turn 2a: I charged the chaos knights at the chaos hounds on the far right and they fled off the board.
My 2 marauder units on the right double charged his herd over there, and everyone else moved up, trying to set up some next turn charges.
Here is a pic after movement:

Magic was shut down, shooting resulted in a total of 1 hound being killed on the far left flank.
Combat had me kill off several Gors and ungors while he killed 3 marauders.
He lost combat by 1 or 2, broke and the unit of 2 chased him down and captured the standard. But stopped right in front of his 2 chariots.

Turn 2b: He has several charges this turn, sending all 3 chariots into different marauder horse units. One on the left side of the graveyard, 2 on the right.
The far left beastherd did a surprise charge into the flank of my marauders in front of my knights on the left. They held, but all 3 fled from the chariot charges.
He inches up a bit more, but not much.

In magic He casts his 12" magic missile at my marauders on the right in front of the unit with the banner of fury, killing only 1. And taking that unit out of range for the rest of their MM's.
He then casts for my Str 7 character to attack his unit with his 5 attacks. He rolls rediculous, so I burn my last scroll.
He then casts titillating delusions on my general's unit in the middle of the field. I forgot completely about my MR(2) but still threw 4 dice at it and rolled snake eyes, so they were affected.

In combat, the herd easily kills off the marauders and they flee into the graveyard an into the waiting blades of the other beastherd. They ones in combat, restrain pursuit.

Here is the picture at the end of his turn 2:

The beads represent where my unit has to head towards. Ugghhh!!

Turn 3a: Time to get things moving.
Knight unit on left charges the beast herd. Marauders on right with 4 guys left charge one of the chariots to prevent them double killing me.
Everthing rallies and moves back to guard flanks, and irritate people.
Knights on the right wheel around and get up on the hill.
Tzeentch wizard leaves the confines of his unit to keep from getting tied up into hand to hand.
My general's unit can march and does a huge wheel to move towards the mark. Leaving my flank wide open for the chariot. I do get a flash of brilliance and move my general to the left flank. So the chariot alone can only do 2 wounds max and auto-losses combat.

Magic, Tzeentch wizard miscasts and rolls a 7, Strength 2 hit, and he rolls a '6' and I take a wound. Uggh.
Nurgle wizard does nothing.
Shooting kills one more hound on the left and they panic and run.

Here is the situation after movement:

In combat my knights easily slaughter the lowly beast herds, and run them down capturing their banner. But leaving their flank open for his spawn.
My Marauders did 2 str 3 wounds and a str 5 wound to his chariot. He fails all 3 saves, breaks but gets away. I use my master horsemen rule to re-roll my pursuit and run him down.
Leading us to this situation:

Things are looking good for the Centaurs now, but battles are like a river, always flowing and changing. This battle would prove to be no different.

Turn 3b: Revenge shall be mine.
Charge!!! Spawn closest to the knights move up and into my marauders. They stand and shoot and do a wound.
2nd spawn moves into my knights.
Chariot charges the horsemen next to the graveyard, and they only run a few inches and are run down. If not for the Will of the Gods, the Tzeentch wizard would have run off as well.
Chariot passes its fear test and slams into my general in the flank.
Herd in the graveyard charge the flank of the marauders. (I hold, if I flee I run off the board.)
Minotaurs right behind the hill charge the small group of 2 horsemen to get them out of the way, they flee.

In movement he pulls his 3 shamans out of his beastigors and moves them up.
Minotaurs on left move up, Minos on right move back.
Hounds that were fleeing on far left, rally and stay in the corner for the rest of the battle.

In magic, he casts frenzy on the beastigors, I let it go.
He then casts freeze spell on my general's unit. I'm thinking of letting it go, and we are talking about it when he realizes its a remains in play. So asks if I'd let him switch that to the wild call spell instead to charge the Beastigors into my general's unit.
I'm the nice guy and let him switch the spell, as what he rolled was enough to cast either. I try to dispel it with my 4 dice and again fail. And the beastigors run on in.

Finally, his Slaanesh Level 4 Lord casts Freeze on my General's unit. All I have are my 2 MR dice to deal with it. Not good. He rolls his casting dice and gets a miscast!! Oh, I so needed that.

He then rolls on the miscast table and rolls a 5. (result, I get to cast a spell.)
Hmmm, so I use my Infernal Puppet. I roll a 3 on a d3. This allows me to modify the roll on the miscast chart by up to that number. So I can move it upwards to 6, 7 or 8, or move it down to 4, 3 or 2. I change it to 2.

The heavens open and the very claw of Tzeentch reaches down from the sky above. A booming voice bellows out, "How dare you try to stop the combat we have been waiting to see." And with that, the slaanesh lord was ripped from the battlefield, nothing but a small crater, where the shaman once stood.

On combat, the spawn kills 2 marauder horsemen and the flee off the board.
The other spawn does nothing to my knights who also cannot wound the spawn, but we turn to face the spawn.
The beastherd kills 1 of the horsemen, and they fail their break test and run off the board.
Finally in the large combat, the slaanigor champion challenges and my Lord accepts.
With his multiple frenzied attacks with his great weapon he sneaks 2 wounds in. I fail both armor saves. Finally my 5+ ward save, and I make one. Whew, so my general is wounded. I slay the champion back, but the gods scoff at such an easy challenge.
"You must slay a character."
Orm'ete screams back that the cowardly wizards won't come fight me.

The chariot kills one knight with its impact hits and the Beastigors slay another.
My attacks are extremely weak and I only manage to kill 2 beastigors back.

So losing by 2, I need a 6 to hold. I also have the Rapture banner so any doubles or any '1' on either dice is auto pass.
I roll a '4' and I'm safe for one turn.

So with half the game gone by, the battle has been bloody and looking to get worse. I still have all 4 knight units, both heroes, both wizards and 2 units of horsemen left.
Meanwhile he is down to just his 2 level 2's, his minotaurs, 2 chariots, 2 spawn and a herd. Can it be enough?

Only time will tell.

This ends part 1 of this chaotic battle. Stay tuned for part II and the climatic exciting end.

Until next time...

Warriors of Chaos

2008-10-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

I have gotten my greedy little hands on the Warriors of Chaos book early. And have written up my chaos centaur list. With a bunch of changes. NO longer the Twins of Khorne, I had to make some changes, add in a couple wizards for a bit of spell protection and ended up dropping 10 models out of the army.

GW so re-wrote the chaos fluff, and badly. Throwing any considerations for last editions fluff right out the window.

So example my Exalted Hero has the mark of Tzeentch, wears the collar of Khorne, uses the glaive of putrification (Nurgle weapon) and rides in the unit with the Rapturous banner of Slaanesh. And this is supposed to be considered fluffy?? ;)

Anyway, I had my first battle with them last night and had a great game, against a good friend. Took lots of pictures, and will be posting a battle report this week.

So come check it out.

Until next time...

Debate over

2008-09-15T09:49:00.000-07:00

Well, I think I've done all the reading on Evolution vs ID that I want to, and I'm not sure anyone changed their minds at all.

I still believe in ID, and actually after some of the reading, believe its been proven.

Evolution is still there and IMO, part of the ID.

And while I do believe the odds that a monkey might sit down and randomly hit a bunch of keys and type out the next great novel, (because these are the kind of odds we are talking about.) is next to impossible. Given 500 million years, it might happen.

But to then turn around and do a 2nd novel right after the first.

The odds, there are just to astronomical to be a "well it could happen." No, it can't. Not without something guiding and controlling it.

Anyway, moving onto to other topics. Lets get back to some warhammer and painting.

Until next time...

Evolution vs Intelligent Design

2008-09-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Alex has started a debate with me in another thread. I thought I'd pull it up front so anyone can feel free to chime in.

The question before us is Evolution vs Intelligent Design.
Did People evolve slowly and naturally from our Earths start 4.5 billion years ago, or was there something else giving it a lending hand?

ID (Intelligent Design) means whatever you want it to mean. Whether it be God, Allah, Aliens, Zeus or the Spaghetti Monster from the depths.

Since this is really a huge, huge debate, we may have to break it into several posts.

rules:
1. No name calling, or slighting (ie. Watching too much Fox, or too much public education, or watching too much sci-fi)
2. No calling anyone a liar.
3. If you want to dispute something, some proof must be given. If we get to a point where neither person cedes the point, we can agree to disagree.
4. Be polite, this is a debate, not politics.
5. If you wish to disagree with someone, please read their post in full, instead of assuming what you think they said.
6. Try to keep the posts, within reason.

Since its my blog, I'll start.
Instead of jumping right into Darwin's Theory of Evolution, he seemed to have skipped some 4 billion years worth of history. So lets start there.
**************
4.5 Billion years ago, after our Earth was formed from some Big Bang as is the popular theory now, it was a big mess.
But no one ever seems to explain what kicked off the Big Bang to begin with.
Lets skip that for now, but it is a huge hole, as big bangs, don't just happen.

So once here, this big mess of particles is swirling around in a pool and forming into our Earth as it cools down. Then somewhere out of this primordial mush, life appears. Suddenly, inexplicably and without warning. Only 500 million years into its cooling, all of the sudden there was life. And not 1, but 2 forms of life. Both single cell, both completely unique.

We have a pretty good idea of what was in the primordial mush. What elements, what the temperature was, pressure, etc.. And yet, after over 100 years of testing, and experimenting, we have yet to be able to reproduce the creation of life, that just spontaneously erupted.

we now jump forward 3.5 billion years. So only 530 million years ago. We have 3.5 billion years of single cell organisms living, and dieing out.
Then like magic, BAM! within a 5-10 million year span, as soon as oxygen was available we have what has become known as the Cambriam Explosion. In that time all major groups of complex animal life subgroupings within the animal kingdom appeared in large numbers. Not just 1 or 5 or 10, but 26 animal phyla appeared. Sponges, trilobites, molusks, etc..
This was huge and widespread.
There are no in between fossils at all to suggest life went from single cell to mutli-cell at all. Not One, in over 130 years of trying to find them.

Now lets jump another 400 million years to only 110 million years ago when flowering plants, simply appeared on the Earth. No major upheaval, nothing like them previous in any known fossil record. Totally different from every form of life previously on the planet, and yet they covered the Earth. No evidence of Evolution at all.
Even Darwin himself admitted they were "an abominable mystery."

The fact is, most life has shown up on this planet, fully formed and developed, lives approximately a million years and dies off.

Does evolution in micro stages happen? Yes. A beak changes, weight is put on, or lost. Size increases or gets smaller. But major changes on the Macro-Evolutionary scale, simply do not exist. Feel free to give any examples you feel dispute this.

It is easy enough to dismiss a few missing-links, between species. The pre-hominid to the human, or whatever. But every single species that has ever existed. There are no fossil records, that link any pre-ancestor, to some later species.

So Intelligent design suggests that life went along for a while, and then was given some sort of jump-start that crammed 100 million years into 1 or 2 million. Or life was dumped on the planet.

I look forward to hearing your response. Sorry this got a bit long winded.
And yes, I do study science Alex.

This is not philosophy, this is science.

Great Monday Morning

2008-09-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to complain about this fine Monday.

1. The biggest of the weekend was the Cowboys kicking some Brown's butt with an easy 28-10 win that looked like it could have been a lot worse. Looks like it is shaping up to be a great year for the Boys.

2. The latest Gallup polls show McCain/Palin ahead with a double digit lead!! of 10 points on the "My Muslim Religion" suicide plan of Obama and that other guy. (I know its Biden, but how many avg people in the street know that?)

3. Its funny to watch Obama try and slide himself more to the center now. I thought about joining the military (yea for about 1 second.), I might not raise taxes, maybe life starts earlier than 6 weeks after the baby is delivered... ;)
Give me a break Obama.

I have 3 words that now describe Obama and the liberal left: TOTAL PANIC MODE!!

4. And watched a very silly movie this weekend, "Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo." Very silly and parts of it were just crap (seriously) some very sick humor in there. But the ending was decent and there was a good message in the movie. (At least it was what I got out of it.) When George W said, you don't have to like the government to believe in your country.
That made the movie watchable and likable to me. Though I warn you, way too much sick humor, and gross you out moments for most people. We almost turned it off a couple times. It was that bad. But once you get past the KKK scene, the rest isn't that bad. I give the movie a 2 out of 5 stars. But did like the message at the end.

Well until next time...

Lies, Lies and more Lies

2008-09-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

Obama and his supporters are whining about the unfair treatment and how McCain and Palin are bashing them unfairly.

Shall we walk down memory lane and look at all the lies that nObama and his staff, blogs he supports, and the main stream liberal media have spread.

1. That Palin has no experience. That being a mayor just isn't enough. Failed to somehow forget she was governess for 2 years. And still has more than Obama.

2. That Palin and Gulliani(sp?) were degrading community service. Nope, sorry, they were just pointing out, that doesn't qualify you for public service.

3. That Palin was part of the independent separatist party in Alaska. Nope, sorry turned out to be a lie.

4. That Palin's son Trig wasn't really hers but her daughters. Huh!! Your kidding right. What a lie and a smear.

5. That the reverend they listened to for 20 years wasn't really a race hating bigot.

6. That they would never support rev.Wright. Of course they did for 20 years until tapes of his sermons hit the street.

7. That Obama has no real affiliation with the terrorist Ayers. Even though they are neighbors, worked on this community project together as co-leaders, that Ayers hosted the fund raiser that kicked off Obama's political career, and who Obama defended until people realized what a whacko people saw him as.

8. That Obama feels families should be off limits, even though there are blogs, that he supports, out there posting unspeakable things about Palin's family. Everything from their oldest daughter is a whore, to her son is gay, to smears on the youngest daughter. Totally outrageous, despicable stuff.

9. That the Obama's love this country. They hate it, and everything it stands for. They are racist, they started and run a recruiting group for a race based indoctrinated militia, that he wants to become nationwide.

And all you can do is complain that Gov. Palin took government money to help her state and wants to stop this practice.

Give me a break.

until next time...

Palin will you marry me?

2008-09-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

I know she is married, as am I, but OMG, surely we can get past those trivialities. I did some research on Sarah Palin last Friday when McCain picked her to be his VP.

I liked her then, thought it was a brilliant pick and last nights speech wrapped it up for me. She is so awesome, I expect her to be the next president after whoever wins this election.

She has the media and the left wingnut liberals in a tizzy as their heads are spinning around. They can't figure out what to do with this Barracuda from the North.

She clinched it for me last night. I'm not sure McCain can do better. I am so looking forward to seeing her in National politics for many years to come.

As one reviewer said:
"She was put on this earth to do two things: kill caribou and kick ass.
She is all out of caribou."

Until next time...

History Will Be Made!!

2008-08-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

This coming January either a Black man will be sworn in as President or a Woman will be sworn in as Vice President!!

I have been fairly luke warm on McCain up till now. His policies on immigration, gun control, global warming and several other issues had me back peddling and wondering how the hell he ever got the Republican nomination.

Then Obamasiah gives his acceptance speech, all the media hailed him and were ready to have the coronation next week.

Then McCain drops this bombshell and goes and names Palin, the governor of Alaska, and a woman his VP choice. WOW!! is all I have to say.

She is a staunch no BS conservative. She does have a thing for global warming, but isn't a spend a Trillion dollars to do nothing kind, including threatening to sue W for naming polar bears endangered.

She is a former runner up to Miss Alaska, is a lifetime NRA member, hunts, fishes, loves outdoor sports, has 5 kids, and is everything McCain is not.

This was a Fantastic choice and the timing couldn't have been better. I can't wait for the debates now. I think McCain can hammer Obama, as long as he doesn't get the questions ahead of time. And I got the feeling Palin is going to destroy Biden. She is supposed to be good. REAL GOOD!!

Finally, something to get excited about with the Republican ticket.

Until next time...

1st Centaur Chaos Knight

2008-08-16T22:40:00.001-07:00

Tonight I finished up the first Centaur chaos knight for the new warriors of chaos book. As I will be running my Centaur army as chaos marauders and knights.

So here you go.

This is a shot of the left flank. I think the tatoo on the left back haunches came out well.

This is a front shot, and came out a bit bright from the flash.

And finally the right side.

Would love to hear some comments on him.

Until next time...

More Warriors of Chaos Goodness

2008-08-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

Or would that be Evilness??

Anyway more gleaned out of the ether of the web.

1. Confirmed marks:
Khorne = Frenzy
Nurgle = Cloud of flies (anyone in combat -1 WS, anyone shooting at them -1 BS).
Slaanesh = ItP, and characters get ASF.
Tzeentch = +1 ward save (so 6+ if you had none?) and +1 to cast if you are a wizard.

2. Any unit in army may re-roll PANIC checks.

3. Definite on the War Alter. Works similar to the Cauldron of blood. And can give a unit a roll on the chaos gifts chart per turn. It is a chariot type model.

4. Chaos Knights are base strength 4. But come standard with a sword of might, so str 5 magical. You can replace their magic sword with a lance for str 6 goodness, but lose the str 5 and magic. Cost around 40 points each. Compare that to 45 points each for chosen knights now, that are the same except these have magic weapons.

5. Marauder horsemen, Giants and Ogres may be marked.

6. Ogres have Chaos armor. Not sure if it comes standard, or you buy it.

7. Characters may have 50 points of Chaos gifts on top of their 50/100 points of magic items.

8. Gaze of the Gods Table:
Roll when Character wins a challenge (does NOT include beating champions. damn)
Character kills a large target. (I like that)
Troll regenerates 2 or more wounds.
Chosen at the beginning of the game.
War Alter 1 unit per turn to roll.

Roll 2d6:
2 = become stupid. (ok, a bad one, but not horrible and trolls laugh.)
7 = Nothing
11 = Cause Feer (read this once so not positive.)
12 = roll again twice.

3-6 and 8-10 give different benefits including stat increases.

9. Looks like the only way to have the monster horde is to take the Troll King special character. So I'm guessing trolls become core there.

10. No marauder hero as previously rumored. Thought it was too good to be true.

11. Forsaken: Move 6. Attacks D3 + 1!! Cost around 16-17 points.

12. Chosen are WS 6.

Well, there is a dozen new rumors for now. They are looking good. I'm starting to get pumped about getting my centaur army painted up now. Can't wait to get my hand on the books.

Oh yea, to go ahead and make it an even 13.

13. Spearhead release on Oct 18th.

Until next time...

Wars, Rumors and Rumors of Warriors

2008-08-07T09:10:00.000-07:00

With the new Warriors of Chaos book coming out in November, rumors are rampant and spread around all over the net. I'm trying to compile them with some effort and bring them to you here in one post, or several. ;)

I'm very excited about this new list for 1 huge reason, they are bringing Marauder horsemen back into Core for the list, after moving them to special for the WD list. (what a crock that was.)

So my centaurs will be moving back into the realms of chaos, unless the point costs is just too prohibitive.

So without further ado...

First off is the Spearhead box set to be released in late October.
It is suppose to contain:
The Warriors of Chaos Army Book
5 Marauder horsemen
5 Chaos Knights
10 Warhounds
10 Chosen (these would be foot warriors)
6 new character models

The army is supposed to look like this:
Core:
Warriors
Marauders
Marauder Horsemen (!!!WHOOOHOOO!!!)
Chaos Hounds

Special:
Chosen Warriors
Chaos Knights
Warrior Chariots
Dragon Ogres
Chaos Trolls
Chaos Ogres
Forsaken

Rare:
Chaos Spawn
Chaos Giant
Hellcannon
Shaggoth
Chaos War Alter (Possibly)

Army rules:
1. No more undivided mark. Instead all units may re-roll failed psych tests.

2. No more chosen knights.

3. Chaos Warriors: M4 WS5 BS4 S4 T4 W1 I5 A2 Ld8 Chaos Armor (4+) 15 pts
+1 point for a shield.

4. There is a gifts table, that the chosen and characters roll on. Low is bad, med good, high, very good.

5. Each time a character wins a challenge they get another gift.

6. There is a Troll King special character.

7. You can build an all monster list.

8. Chaos Knights are just incredible. WS 5 or 6, Str 5, T4, chaos armor, barded steed and shield for 1+ save. Equipment upgrade for +1 str (morningstar?) or some new special weapon, no lances. 2 Attacks each. So basically the old chosen.

9. Mark of Khorne will give frenzy.

10. Mark of Tzeentch may give +1 level. So heroes can be level 3, Lord level 5. (very much a rumor, unconfirmed.)

11. In one of the magic lists, maybe Tzeentch, is a MM that is strength 2d6. So 2-12. And if you roll 11 or 12, it simply destroys the unit!! Uhmm, I have seen this in 2 places and both places called foul. I'll have to see this to believe it.

12. The pic for the marauder horsemen
shows them in Light armor and shields. And yet are still supposed to be fast cav. So armor 4+ fast cav?? Or is this a take a shield and lose your fast cav ability. I hope not. I'd love my horsemen to have 4+ save and be fast cav. Come to pappa.

13. The Chaos Trolls are supposed to be just broken. One unconfirmed rumor says for every 2 regeneration rolls they make, they gain a gift. See 4 above.

14. Marauder horsemen are now supposed to be str 4. So imagine throwing axes at strength 5, and with flails, strength 6!! Oh yea!!

Well thats it for now, I know I'm forgetting a few things. I'll keep you posted as I find out more.

Until next time...

Some Hillbilly pics

2008-08-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics from my games at the Hillbilly.
As always, click on the picture to enlarge them.

This pic was game 1 vs Ben Nietzel and his great looking Dark Elves. The white fig in the middle was cousin Ruby.

Here is the left flank as Dark Riders, witches and a chariot race across the board.

This is the left flank at the end of the game. The cold one knights had crushed Ratspawn and his body guard. But I still had a lot of Rat Ogres left on the board.

And here is the cneter with my herd, hounds and spawn. The spawn is holding onto Ruby. The shadow warriors tried a latch ditch effort to capture her, but failed.

Here is my 2nd battle vs Ty on the mushroom board. He fought his Orcs and goblins hard but in the end, I pulled out the minor victory. Mainly because that lone Rat Ogre on the far bottom left lived.

Not much on the left flank at the end. My herd by a lone fanatic and his Black Orcs that took a 3 unit charge and wiped them all out.

Onto game 3 vs Todd Thacker and his Fall Wood Elfs. Great looking army that kick
ed my butt pretty good. You can see my whole right flank is gone.

I held most of the left flank, but with holding 2 more quarters and a banner, he was able to pull out the victory.

Then Sunday morning came and I pretty much forgot the camera. Didn't take a shot of my great game with Andonti and his Lizardmen but did get a pre-battle pic from Shane and his Lizardmen here.

Well hope you enjoyed the battle pics.

Until next time...

Dark Knight some Spoilers

2008-08-01T11:13:00.000-07:00

To get off politics and back into things that are a bit more important. I got out to see the new Batman movie, Dark Knight last night.

I know I'm a bit late on it, as it's been out 2 weeks now. Problem was the wife didn't really want to see it, so my son and I went.

WOW!!! that was just awesome.

Christian Bale puts on another very worthy effort as the dark knight himself and did it well.

But my hat has got to go off to Heath Ledger. I figured all the "talk" was due to his death before the movie opened. But it is not. I think he did a better job than Jack for the Joker. It was just incredible. I don't know how else to say it. They writing for his character was top notch. The magic trick, the story of how he was scarred. The bank robbery, the hospital scene, the fights with batman, the chase scene with the police prisoner truck, the social experiment at the end, wow, just wow!! I just want my phone call. ;)

Aaron Eckhart as the DA Harvey Dent / 2-Face, was a very strong performance. And the makeup for 2-face was the best I have ever seen before. The camera angles were just top notch and the flashing away instead of showing his face, making you want to see it even more. Great direction.

Great supporting cast of Michael Caine Morngan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and the list goes on.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, did a fair job stepping in for Katie Holmes, but on closeups you could see the lines on her face, and just didn't come off as the beautiful Rachel brought up in the first story. She did do a fair job with the acting though.

Did have one huge problem with the movie. SPOILER ALERT!!!

Who the hell didn't bother to search the engine rooms of the Ferries before they left?? Huh?? And from what I could see, you couldn't miss the bombs.

Besides that one big hole in the movie, which is big enough to drive a Mac truck through, the rest of the movie was solid, and thought the story was top notch, even if a bit convoluted.

It is a full 2 1/2 hours and felt like they could have left the Harvey 2-Face story for the next movie. But I guess they didn't think he could hold a whole movie on his own. Or they wanted to complete the story to the point where batman really is a full on wanted criminal for murder.

I definetely give it 3 thumbs up. I'm sure the Joker has a couple extra laying around. So if you haven't seen it yet, and are a Batman fan, get off your butt and go. It is dark, the way batman and the dark knight should be done.

The next one should be really good. Rumors have Johnny Depp as the Riddler, Angelina Jolie as Catwoman or Philip Seymour Hoffman for the Penquin. Would love any of those.

Until next time...

Who is making race an issue??

2008-07-31T10:41:00.000-07:00

While McCain and the GOP has not once mentioned race, and is probably afraid to mention it, old Hope-Change himself isn't afraid to put words in McCain's mouth for him.

“We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid. They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”

-Senator Obama June 21, 2008

And then yesterday:

“What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

-Senator Obama July 30, 2008

Then they have the audacity to come out today and say that the statement had nothing to do with race.

Huh!!!??? Do they just think we are idiots or what?

He is trying to make McCain into a racist, period. And eventually, if you don't vote for Obama, you might as well wear a label that says racist.

Hey, if he won't make racist comments, we will make them for him. What the hell? Most people won't know the difference anyway.

Its not the color of his skin that bothers me, its his attitude towards the color of my skin. And his attitude towards everyone in the US. Like we are a bunch of idiots.

Oh yea, not to mention his socialist dogma he wants to force on us.

Until next time...

HopeChange Quote of the Day

2008-07-29T11:23:00.000-07:00

“On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.”

-Senator Obama May 26, 2008

Hmmm, how can you see fallen heroes in the audience??

Are we noticing a pattern yet? This guy is a MORON!!

Until next time...

HopeChange Quote of the Day

2008-07-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

“This past, uhh, this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to, uhh, call for divestment from Iran…”

-Senator Obama, July 22, 2008

Nice, but only problem is Obama isn't on the Senate Banking Committee.

I guess if you spend your entire Senate term running for president, you don't have time for trivialities like which committee's you are on.

Until next time...

HopeChange Quote of the Day

2008-07-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

"It is wonderful to be back in Oregon. Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

-Senator Obama, May 8, 2008

57 states huh??

Obamessiah Facts of the Day:

Obama has been a Senator for 2 1/2 years now, since Jan '05.
Before that, state Legislator for a few years and before that college.
This guy has a big bag of nothing. Lets look at his accomplishments while in the US Senate.

Number of legislation passed by the Senate that he has sponsored: 0

He has missed more votes than any other Senator in the same time frame.

Obama has been rated as the most liberal-left Senator in the United States. Even more liberal than Feinstein, Boxer, Kennedy, etc... These guys are so far out there, its ridiculous. And the man who wants to lead this country is even further liberal than *** ALL ***, let me repeat that, *** ALL *** of them!!!

Wake up America.

Until next time...

Quote of the Day

2008-07-24T08:39:00.000-07:00

"Let me be absolutely clear, Israel is a strong friend of Israel's."

-Sen. Barack Obama, July 22, 2008

You think??

Until next time...

13 Cow Rats tourny report

2008-07-23T09:51:00.000-07:00

So at the Hillbilly this last weekend I ran my Cow Rats Skaven team into the tournament. There were only 10 players so, that was a bit of a disappointment. But what it did mean was the players there were serious blood bowl players (is that an oxymoron) who really knew how to play.

The guy running it, did a fantastic job setting up the boards, providing dice, templates, free pizza and free beer. Even with all of us drinking, we didn't empty the cooler. I had way more than my share of the blood bowl drink of choice.

My team consisted of 4 Gutter runners, Thrower, 2 Storm Vermin and 6 Line rats.
I also took 2 re-rolls and one fan.

Game 1: Vs Brad. Brad also ran a Skaven team, not a lot different than mine. 3 GR's, 2 SV, 2 throwers, 5 linerats, 2 fans and 3 re-rolls.

We rolled and I got the fan base on my side and the kick-off.
We got the ball and scored in turn 2 for a 1-0 lead. I could tell Brad was a very experienced player that wasn't use to being scored on so quick. He got the ball and bashed it down the field. My guys started dropping left and right. He got a lot more knockdowns and that turned into more injuries and more deaths and knockouts.

I was seriously out-manned and couldn't get to his ball carrier. So he scurried around near the goal line and managed a turn 8 score.

I got several knocked out players back and had knocked out a couple of his, so the numbers were closer to even again. I kicked off the 2nd half, and a fan threw a rock, knocking out one of his storm vermin. This helped a lot and he had a hard time moving the ball down. I ended up knocking it loose and we scrambled around back and forth. Looked like he was going to score late, but tripped and dropped the ball. I picked it up, looked like I was going to score, but did the same. Then time ended.

Draw 1-1.

Game 2 vs Jeremy with Humans. Jeremy had a great looking team and all he really wanted to do was bash some players. ;-)
We got 2 free skills for this game and I took Leader on my thrower to get the extra re-roll and strip ball on one of my runners.

Strip ball is just unreal as you get to knock the ball loose all the time.
I kicked off to the humans who started bashing and fouling right away. Move the ball? what the hell for. We are just here to bash you.
His team was a thrower, 3 blitzers, 7 linemen and an Ogre. He quickly realized the Ogre wasn't as good as he thought when I reminded him of his Bonehead rule. Oops. Jeremy was a great sport and we laughed and talked smack the whole game.

Here we are lined up. His thrower on the far left has the ball, while I have 2 runners next to him.

And here is Jeremy. He got my favorite opponent vote as he was just a blast to play.
He struggled moving the ball as my guys were just swarming him.
Finally I grabbed the ball for a turn 8 TD and a 1-0 lead at halftime.

here we are setting up for the 2nd half kickoff.

And then this pic is 2 turns later after I've spiked the ball in the endzone for a 2-0 lead.
Things really got wild when I surrounded his Ogre later and dragged him down. Now this is what blood bowl is all about.

Win 3-0

Game 3 vs Matt and another human team. They were almost identical except he had a catcher instead of a lineman. Matt was another excellent player who really knew his stuff.
I got the kickoff and in fine Cow Rat fashion we took it down for a turn 2 1-0 lead.
Matt got the ball and was forcing his way down. I stripped the ball and was about to score again when I dropped a 2+ pass. So he grabbed it and ran down score.

I got the ball back and again the efficiency of the Cow Rats again proved itself with a late half TD to go into the half 2-1.

The 2nd half didn't go as well, as I burned through all 3 re-rolls in my first 3 turns and Matt managed a 2nd half score making it 2-2 with very little time left.

I got the kickoff and he kicked it out of bounds. I gave it to a gutter runner and the cheers of the fans gave me another re-roll. I desperately needed it as well.
I blocked open a hole and ran the runner down 11 squares and was only 2 from the endzone.
Matt had one chance to stop him and ran 2 players down their, the 2nd blitzed and failed to knock me down.
About then the director wants us to wrap it up. Matt is more than a sportsman and suggests I try to score. Needing only a 2+ (that is re-rollable) to dodge and run into the endzone, I make it we call it a game.

Win 3-2

So when they came time to do the awards, he was giving away the 2 custom built pitches and a painted Orc team. As well as a couple bags of dice, 2 cheerleaders and a painting trophy.

So he calls out best overall and he calls my name. He hands me this plaque.

And I get my choice of prizes. I take this pitch:

I got to play my 2nd game on this custom built field and it is so great. My 3rd game was on the other custom field, but I definetely liked this one better.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

Ratspawns Last Run

2008-07-22T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'll try and do a lot more in-depth battle reports later but here is a
brief overview of probably the best GT I have attended in memory.

I'm not sure how it could have been much better. I think back and
thought, well if I had just won a couple more games, or pulled a draw
out of the loss, and then I think. Well then I would have gotten
screwed in the next round pairing and lost. So I'm very pleased with
how things worked out.

Friday, we get a bit of a late start in the Pope-Mobile loaded for
bear carrying most of the DAWGS as well as the LAWGS. We made great
time as I was the only one who wouldn't go over 85, and they called me
slow.

We unloaded our gear in the game hall and I met Paul V. for the first
time. We have talked on-line for years, so that was a real thrill. I
think I met everyone I wanted to this weekend except TDG.

One of Pauls friends Camerron (I may have the name wrong there, sorry
if I did.) A really great kid who pulled out a "soft" Orc and Goblin
army. But he played it to the max.
I really don't remember a lot about this one, as that was way too many
beers ago. But I do remember laughing a lot. Having 3 miscasts in
the game and fighting to an almost dead draw. I might have been up by
100 points or so. An outstanding practice game to get started off with.

I then went out to find my "friends", who had left without me. I got
directions from my other "friend" Greg on how to find them, and I find
myself on a dark street with nothing but parking garages, ally ways,
drug addicts and hookers. After hiding my wallet, switching to my
ninja outfit, and taking the safety off my Mac-10, I felt better and
after about 20 mins found a lighted street.
Got directions to a restaurant that would be open from a security
guard and decided to head back to the room. Ran into my friends, who
still had not found a place to eat, so we all turned around, went to
Union street and had a hell of a good time.

Saturday morning first game was against Ben Nietzel from the Direwolf
list. I've seen Ben post a lot, so it was great to finally put a face
to the name, and actually play a game. His Dark Elf list was
extremely comp friendly and looked great on the table top.
Ben, I have those pics, let me know if you want them.
It was grab Ruby, and she was in the middle of a swamp. So I set up a
herd to go get her.
Highlights included the terror bomb that made the herd holding ruby to
let her go and run right into his warrior unit and get wiped out. I
was winning the right flank pretty easily. And the far left flank.
But his general and cold one riders slammed into some hounds about
10-11" in front of Ratspawn's unit. I needed him to make short
overrun, but it was not to be as he overran 12-13" and hit Ratspawn.
A couple rounds of combat later and Ratspawn went down as well as the
whole unit. I was lucky to have a unit of 4 Minotaurs outrun some
Dark riders who charged them in the rear and rally on 6. So I pulled
out a draw and was thankful. With the objective, I got 13.

Round 2 was against a great young man Ty Williams. I've played Ty in
my local League and beat him badly. Ty had a fantastic Orc and Goblin
army that should have given me no problems at all. But Ty would not
go down so easily this time. He fought hard.
Highlights included when his pump wagon came up 1/2" short of hitting
a herd. So my herd was able to charge him.
I got a beast cower on another chariot, this caused his left (my
right) flank to crumble and I took out his 2 warmachines over there.
Furies ate the other warmachines.
I charged his black orcs with minotaurs, furies and chaos hounds, only
to lose by around 84 and everything popped or fled. This was after
the goblin hero exploded wiping out 2 units of mine and doing nothing
to him.
And it finally came down to a 4 minotaur unit charging his general's
unit. I charged, killed a bunch and he whiffed. I won combat and he
made his test. Next round he goes off killing 3 of the 4 minotaurs.
His boar doing the last wound on the 3rd one. This left my last
minotaur who fled, but he missed the goblins behind him running right
by them. He rallies on turn 6 to save me 92 vp. If he doesn't do
that last wound, I'm cut down by the goblins. When we add it up, I'm
up by 380 vp. That 90 points would have made it a draw.
Ty was a fantastic opponent, that will get better as he plays more.
I also got the objective, so 18 points to be at 31 after 2 rounds.

Round 3: Vs The Todd Thacker. I'd met Todd before but had never
played him. I knew he was good, but was hoping to give him a good
game. Todd brought out a hard but fair wood elf list. I know its
hard because I've looked at building something like this myself.
Turn 1 I get off dark hand on his highborn alter and do 2 wounds to
him, he is later killed by a minotaur.
But turn 2, he gets off a wild rider charge and wipes out my herd with
2 wizards. So much for magic dominance.
I get a flank charge on his glade riders with my furies, if he breaks
there, things are looking good, but he holds and dryads poor in.
After that it was just Todd picking me apart with dryads and
wardancers and I was spinning in circles trying not to get
slaughtered. When the spinning stopped and we called it a game, Todd
had the objective and the win.
Todd was a fantastic opponent that played his army to the max.
Nothing wrong with that. His was the hardest army I had to face the
whole weekend, and I thank many gods and Roy for that.

Saturday Night Blood Bowl: I played in the 3 round BB tourney
Saturday night. Hmmmm, Free Pizza, Free Beer, Free to play. sounds
like a combination that I cannot pass up. I entered my Skaven team of
4 Gutter runners, 2 storm vermin, a thrower and 6 linerats.
Game 1: vs Skaven: very tough hard fought game 1-1 tie. Brad was a
serious player, that was very tactical and thoughtful. It was still a
great game.
Game 2: vs Jeremy and his Humans who love to foul. I had a blast in
this game, laughed the whole way through as he kicked my ass beating
my players up, while I continued to run circles around him and win
3-0. Jeremy got my fav opponent vote.
Game 3: vs another human player and a great tactical chess match. Wow
was this one great. Matt pushed me right to the limit and then was a
great sport when time was called to let me try and score, which I did
and took the 3-2 win.

So 2-0-1 for the Blood Bowl. No one went 3-0. And only 1 other
2-0-1, and that was Brad, my round 1 opponent. Soft scores pushed me
up for Best Overall winning me a Waaagh plaque and a great looking
blood bowl pitch.

Sunday, I am dead tired as I drank way too much but then couldn't
sleep as I was too pumped up from the win. Sat down across from
Andoni and his 2nd Gen Slaan. My first reaction was still, great its
not VC or Daemons. My 2nd reaction was great, 2nd gen. But he had no
bsb, banner of fear, krox, steg, terradons, no skink priest, WTF?? He
had 3 saurus blocks, 3 skinks, salamanders. That was about it.

We had to capture the outhouse. We went round and round, as this game
looked like an easy win for him as I couldn't roll above a 2 to save
my life for turns 1-3. Minotaurs charge skinks and bounce off. 2
Tuskigor chariots charge a saurus block and bounce off. etc...
Add on his magic that I couldn't stop and I was dieing off way too quick.

Luckily things changed in turn 4 or so, and all the sudden his 2nd gen
was failing to cast with double 1's. My minotaurs traded in their
rubber weapons for real ones. And I crushed a saurus block, got the
salamanders, all the skinks, captured table qtrs, and did a turn 6 fly
over with the furies to contest a table qtr and grab the outhouse for
a very lucky 350 point win with the objective. 18 points. For a
total of 54 points.

Finally round 5 had me against the biggest punk there, Shane Knapp.

Well my dice continued their high rolling streak as I failed a
re-rollable Ld 9 panic test on my general. And if it wasn't for the
only insane courage I rolled for the whole tournament he would have
won in turn 2. No doubt about it.

Luckily I held on and tried to just bring it back for a draw. And
that was all I could get out of it. The only whole units I had left
were Ratspawn and company and 1 herd that was 1 model above half.
Everything else was dead or decimated. When we added it up, I was up
by 50-100 points or something, and I was thankful for that.

Shane and I laughed through the whole game, and it was such a
fantastic end to a weekend that had already been more than enough to
make it a great weekend.

Shane did get my fav opponent vote, but I would have liked to given
out at least 3 and the other 2 were so close.

So overall I finished with 64 battle points out of 90. Horrible for
me with a 2-1-2 record. At least only 1 loss.

Then during the awards Roy calls out my name for 3rd best overall.
How the hell does that happen?? That made no sense. But I ran up
grabbed it and got out of town before he figured out what happened.
So Roy, don't bother to call and ask me to return it. It aint
happenen. ;)

We all piled in the pope-mobil for the long drive back to DFW. My
head and prizes barely fit in the van. But everyone had a great time.
One of the Dawgs was pretty disappointed after going 4-0-1 and
getting nothing for his efforts. Sometimes things work out that way.
With 160 players, I'm still very interested in the final standings.

Sorry this got so long. I'm going to try and do a play by play with
diagrams and pics later. but wanted to get the weekend report out
there.

It was such a pleasure to meet all the new faces to go with the old
names. And see all the old friends again.

Until next time...

More Blood Bowl Team Pics

2008-07-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

As promised, while packing up my Blood bowl team last night, I broke out the camera and took some quick pics.

Hope you enjoy.

First up, the Gutter runners.

And then the other side.

Next up is my thrower Eldo with his 2 main blockers DeMarcus and G.Ellis.

And hopefully a view I rarely see, their backsides.

And finally the grunts of the team, the linerats and our coach 'Ben'

And their back sides. Can you pick out the coach?

I'm really proud of the team, and I'll be taking it to the Hillbilly tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Until next time...

4 Movies 2 days

2008-07-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was quite the weekend for watching movies.

Saturday morning was my son's school social day and we went to the movies to see Wall-E.
Then during dinner we sat down and watched my son's Netflix movie, then our movie, then Sunday night we watched another.

Sunday's movie: "Back to the Future" was a real treat. I had not seen it in years. My oldest brought over the whole DVD collection so we popped in the first. It is easily Michael J. Fox best movie he ever made. It is a solid movie that almost anyone would enjoy. If you haven't seen it lately, pull it out.

My son's Netflix movie was definetely an oldie. "The Apple Dumpling Gang" with Don Knotts, Tim Conway and Bill Billingsly. Wow, I haven't seen this since I was a kid. And it still had me laughing throughout the whole movie. If your kids are running out of movies to rent, I highly recommend this oldie for a wholesome movie the whole family can enjoy.

Our movie was Clint Eastwood's "Flags of our Fathers". This movie takes you behind the scenes of what happened to the not so famous Marines that raised (or should I say re-raised) the US Flag over Iwo-Jima in WWII. It was definetely nothing like the wife or I were expecting. While it is about a battle, only about 1/3 of the movie is a war movie. It gives you some real insight into the thoughts, feelings, and problems, our young men experience when they go to war.
And to me every man who puts on the uniform and goes to war is a hero. Doesn't matter what they did when they were there.
Well worth the 2 hours, and of course with Clint Eastwood Producing and Directing it, it was top notch quality.

Finally, Saturday morning with Wall-E. 45 minutes with no dialog to start the movie. I thought there was no way it would keep the attention of my son or his friends from school. (All of them with some form of mental disability.) Or myself for that matter. But if that was 45 mins, I'm the president. That time flew by so fast, it was unreal. You really start to care for this little robot and everything he has done and accomplished in the 700 years he has been on Earth trying to clean it up, and barely made a dent.
I disagree with Cogill on the humans. I think they were a very necessary part of the movie. And the captains desire to bring them home, when he could have easily gone back to his hover chair and liquid diet that definetely puts the pounds on.
I also disagree with people who say we could never end up like those people. Or didn't like the way they portrayed people. Just look at many of our youth today. Now imagine 700 years of this.

Anyway, Every child coming out of the movie had a smile on their face, and loved the movie. And I expect it to be another Pixar classic, maybe not on the same level as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc, but up there with The Incredibles, and Cars.

So 4 movies this weekend, and I loved everyone of them.

Until next time...

Fantastic Independence Day Weekend

2008-07-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

The weekend started off with my 2 sons coming home. We spent some time talking with them and then cooked burgers out on the grill.

Then as is our family tradition, we popped in Independence Day the movie with Will Smith, Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum. I love this movie, and while its not top of the line material it is an easy and fun 2 hours.

Afterwards, my son and I broke out blood bowl and played a half. My Skaven faced off against his Lizardmen and I won the toss. By turn 2 I was up 1-0 and by turn 4 it was 2-0. Things went against me to prevent a 3-0 run-up by half-time and I still could have scored on turn 7 if not for a double 1's throw and then a turn 8 score if not for a 1 to pick up the ball. Oh well, we called it at half with me up 2-0.

Saturday had us packing up the car and heading into Ft.Worth to my brothers house. At least 30 people there, in a large family reunion with lots of food, burgers and hotdogs, swimming and lots of laughing.

After eating and swimming, we broke out Junta. And if you have never played Junta you have missed something. Me, my son and 3 nephews battled it out for who would be El Presidente and who could assassinate who before they got all their money in their Swiss bank accounts. My son pulled off a last turn massive deposit that pulled him the win. I actually did pretty poorly and came in 4th. :(

Saturday night after watching Pan's Labyrinth, a Spanish movie that was ok. My oldest son loved it. Didn't do a lot for me. Derek and I broke out the game Titan. Another fabulous throwback board game. We went around for a few hours building up our forces, and Derek caught be by surprise attacking my Titan. I was sure I was safe and didn't worry about things much as I had 2 minotaurs, an angel and a warlock with the Titan. But some good dice rolling on his part and soon I was down to my Titan and 1 minotaur against a lion and guardian.

My minotaur was almost dead, and if he died, my Titan would surely fall soon as well. So I took the chance, protected my minotaur and threw my titan into the melee. I killed off his guardian and then missed killing his lion by 1 wound. This came back to haunt me as the lion was able to do enough wounds to kill my Titan and give Derek the game.

Sunday, we laid around and didn't do a lot of anything. Played on the computer and then cooked Fajitas out on the grill.
We played Disney Scene It, one of my youngest son's favorite games. He crunched us all being able to name Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Little Mermaid from 1 picture each for the win.

Afterwards we broke out Robo-Rally. Another fantastic board game where you are a robot and you program your robot 5 moves in advance each turn. The robots are in a race. My oldest Andrew and I shot out to the lead when Derek got pushed off the board by yours truly and he had to start over. I touched the #1 flag first and was headed to #2 with Andrew close on my heels.
With a set of bad cards, Andrew passed me up but barely as we both went through the teleporter and were about to touch the flag. Andrew did a outstanding move, spinning to face me and forcing me back through the teleporter with a special gun. This forced me off into a pit and I had to go back to the first flag.

Meanwhile, Derek and my wife had both touched flag 1 and so I was in last place. Andrew touched flag 2 and was heading for the finish line, way out in front and looked impossible to catch.

Derek took a ton of damage from my wife's robot and soon had to power down to repair itself and my wife was 2nd to the #2 flag, but couldn't quite get the flag. I was right behind her and managed to pass her and started heading for the finish line.

Andrew got caught up on some conveyor belts with crushers and got caught on the wrong side of them. Unable to get across, he lost valuable time trying to position himself. The wife touched the flag #2 and was trying to catch me.

I caught up to Andrew and when it looked like it would be a photo finish, Andrew messed up and got caught in a crusher that sent him back almost to the #2 flag. I was able to cruise in for an easy win.

Andrew packed up to head home and my wife, Derek and I broke out the Clue DVD game. Similar to the old clue game with several new twists. First there are 4 categories to solve instead of 3. Who, where, what and when. An inspector on the DVD helps you along with some clues and some cards don't get dealt out. Taking a secret passage is no longer such an automatic thing either as it can help or hurt you.

In the end, I solved the mystery first to wrap up a fantastic weekend of good gaming, good fun, good food, family and relaxation.

I hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did. Now just 10 more days till the countdown of the biggest game weekend of the year with the Hillbilly road trip.

Until next time...

INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!

2008-07-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

With the 4th of July tomorrow, I want to wish all my readers a great Independence Day. And even if your not in the US, look at tomorrow as a day that changed the course of the modern world.

The US has changed history in many ways, and most of them for the good.

The NRCC blog has started a thread on why you are proud of your country. And I thought what a great idea.

I am proud of the United States of America, because at no time in history, has one country, done so much, spent so much and helped so many, for so little.

Name another world power in the history of our world, that would send troops to stamp out oppression, only to turn around and go home and not ask for a dime.

Name another country that has sent so many troops into harms way, to free people of hunger and poverty, to pull them out when the job was done and say, glad we could help. Call on us again if needed.

Name another country who spends SSSOOOOO much money on so many countries, and all we ask is that they don't hate us so much.

We are a proud nation, that puts up with so much BS from flies and pests that we could crush with the flick of our wrists if we wanted to, and yet we do not.

We are a country that gives hope, ideas, prosperity and freedom to more people in the history of the world, than any other country ever sought to do.

That is why I am proud of my country. I've served her, I lover her and I support her and our president.

If you read this, please add a comment on why you are proud of your country.

Have a great holiday weekend. I'll be barbecuing all 3 days of the weekend.

Until next time...

13 Cow Rats vs Clan Blackstone: 2nd Half

2008-07-02T07:59:00.000-07:00

The excitement in the crowd was buzzing as the Skaven and Dwarfs lined up for the 2nd half kick. The cheering was so intense it got both sides really pumped up.

The kick was short, and the dwarfs moved up forming a huge front at the Line of Scrimmage. A runner grabbed the ball and was ready to follow the line.

The Rats tried to run around the flanks, but the stubbornness of Clan Blackstone paid off and the blitzer at the end of the line refused to go down making a turn 1 blitz impossible. The Rats were able to put 2 players on the runner with the ball. Forcing a dodge.

The Dwarfs blasted through the center, knocking down skaven left and right. The ball runner dodged out of the coverage and ran into the middle of this pack of muscle and armor.

The Cow Rats had to bust up this cage of death and threw themselves into it, pushing and shoving. They manage to push the runner to the edge of the cage, and dwarfs are tied up everywhere.

The dwarfs again knock the rats back, but unable to move the cage, the runner feels safe and sprints for the end zone.

Again, he underestimates the speed of the gutter runners even when knocked down. They catch him just yards from the endzone and with a long blitz they knock the runner down, grab the ball and sprint into the endzone.

But here the rats coach underestimated the speed of the stunty ones. A slayer and blitzer were able to get down to Crayton holding the ball and with a full blast, sent him reeling into the stands and to the same fate as his brothers who got knocked in the stands.

A mighty heave from the crowd sent the ball into the left side bleachers and then another heave sent the ball all the way back into Blackstone's half of the field. A couple more knocked out linemen and Ellis-Rat and the Cow-rats were down to 5 players left on the field. Blackstone still had 11. He managed to get a blitzer back to the ball and pick it up.

The rats spent the reprieve trying to untangle themselves from the dwarfs who outnumbered them badly. But a bad dodge by DeMarcus (the only remaining Storm Vermin) had the dwarfs off and running. The Dwarfs again surrounded the last few rats and tried to beat them down. The Cow Rats star thrower Romo is knocked out of the game, leaving only 4 rats on the pitch. DeMarcus(SV), Eldo(GR), The Barbarian(GR) and one linerat.

But the dwarfs again underestimated the resolve and speed of the runners. The two of them untangled themselves from the pack of dwarfs surrounding them and clotheslined the blitzer with the ball, and he went down. Barbarian picked up the ball and ran for all he was worth back to midfield.

The dwarfs do their best to start coming back for the ball. Precious time was ticking off. A slayer blasts into the runner and pushed him further away from the goal line, but then knocked him down and the ball bounced free. It laid on the pitch daring the slayer to attempt it. The dwarf coach screamed to the slayer not to try it. He had one last ditch play set up. And with 2 dwarfs around the ball, things looked like he would have a chance.

Then Eldo makes an amazing 3 dodges to get through a haggle of dwarfs to lend an assist to DeMarcus who stands up and blitzes the lineman near the ball, knocking him down into the ball causing it to squirt out to a more accessible spot. So the Barbarian leaps up, dodges away, jumps back into the group of dwarfs snagging the ball, dodges out again, then sprints down the field.

THE RAT FANS GO WILD!!! It was an impossible play that Ben called and it worked.
The camera's flashed as they caught the Barbarian looking back over his shoulder at the defeated dwarfs.

Click on Picture to Enlarge. The Runner on the far left has the ball after he spirited it away from the gaggle of bodies in the middle. You can see there are only 4 skaven left on the field. You only see 10 dwarfs in the picture, there is one dwarf not shown on the right down by the goal line hoping for a last turn desperation hail mary.

The dwarfs have only one chance to get to the runner. A blitzer can make it down to him at a full sprint, but can't lay the block down. But a slayer has one shot, but he has to dodge away from DeMarcus first. Other Stunty lineman beat up on the last poor linerat sending him to the showers as well, leaving only 3 Cow Rats on the field of play.

The Slayer decides to go for it. The Blackstone crowd stands as one, ready to urge him on. He turns from his block on the storm vermin and tries to doge out, but the rat swings his tail just catching his ankle. The slayer starts to stumble and fall. But the crowd screams and yells. The slayer pushes himself up before he goes down, trying to get it everything he has, but the grass gives way under the force and he falls face down in the mud. And any hope of the Dwarf comeback slipped away with him.

The Barbarian skips off into the end zone for a 2-0 lead and with only a minute left on the clock, Blackstone just lets the clock run out while the rats storm the pitch in celebration. Warpbrew flowed freely and red meat, mainly from many of the spectators, was devoured in mass.

Clan Blackstone honored their oath and withdrew from the caverns and tunnels in question and the spread of the Skaven hordes continued.

Until next time...

13 Cow Rats vs Clan Blackstone

2008-07-01T09:12:00.001-07:00

The Dwarfs had agreed on the terms of the peace settlement. The underground caves in question would be the final prize. Instead of having a deadly and costly war over the caves, a blood bowl game would decide the fate.

The Skaven sent none other than their up and coming star coach Ben The Rat leading his team with star thrower Romo-Rat. Other stars on the team included Eldo-Owens-Rat, Marion the Barbarion-Rat, Crayton-Rat and Newman-Rat.
Their big hitters were Ellis-Rat and DeMarcus-Rat, along with several less well known line rats, but including their latest addition, Packrat-Jones, who was given the coveted number 13.

Running out onto the field on the stunty side was clan Blackstone. No numbers or names, just armor. From head to toe, they seemed to walking tin cans. The Cow Rats were able to pick out a couple runners and troll slayers who had a bit less armor. A couple blitzers were wearing Nike's and the rest were just Line-dwarfs, ready to take the field.

The attendance for the momentous game numbered over 150,000 cheering fans, with only a few more dwarfs there than rats. Could the larger number give the stunties the advantage? We would soon see. The Cow Rats won the toss and clan Blackstone lined up for the kick.

The gun sounded, but instead of kicking the ball, both teams just charged at each other and began to beat on each other. The benches cleared, fans came down from the stands, and the fans broke out into a large fight. Only the Umpire, a large and very frightening Chaos Lord, was able to eventually settle things down and get the teams lined up again and the fans off the pitch. Dead bodies were hauled out of the stands, except for the ones the skaven were snacking on.

Meanwhile, the clock was reset and the kickoff landed in the middle of the field.
The skaven did a sweep left, with Newman and Barbarian sprinting to the other side of the field, until Eldo dropped the ball.
The Dwarfs were still too enraged from the riot and just pummeled on the poor linerats pretty much forgetting about the ball.

This lack of concentration cost Blackstone as Romo-Rat picked up the ball, ran forward and lofted it into the waiting arms of the Barbarian sitting all alone in the endzone.

So the Cow Rats took a very fast 1-0 lead that had the dwarfs spinning their heads around. The camera crews hadn't even gotten setup in position.
Coach Ben the Rat gathered the team around for a quick pep talk and sent them back onto the pitch.

The Skaven tried a dirty onside kick, and everyone was paying attention to the short kick, no one noticed the Skaven fan hurling a rock that caught one of the dwarf runners in the side of the head and knocked him out.
The ball took a bad bounce and the dwarf lineman wanted no part of the ball and it bounced onto Kosier-Rats hands. The linerat quickly tried to tuck the ball under his tunic, but the Ref would have no part of that and awarded the ball to the dwarfs.

A line was formed and rats began to drop. The skaven tried to block, but got tied up into a big scrum. The Dwarf runner got impatient and made a break for the goal line. He was sprinting as fast as his stunty legs would carry him. But he forgot about the speed of the gutter runners. He was quickly surrounded, but refused to go down. Holding the ball.

Unable to run, more dwarfs came to his aid, but were unable to block him free.

Click on picture to enlarge. Note the Red shirted runner has the ball.

More rats begin to fall but with the aid of DeMarcus-Rat, the Cow Rats were able to push the runner to the sideline and into the crowd. The crowds were ruthless and his screams could be heard for miles.

The Dwarfs followed suit pushing Newman rat into the crowd where the dwarf fans took their revenge out on the poor gutter runner.
Eldo had a chance for a quick score before the half, but again, dropped the ball.

But the dwarfs were unable to get the ball and Eldo managed to run it downfield but couldn't get to the goal line before the gun went off heading into half-time.

The medics went to work on the dwarf runner that was knocked out and the 2 linemen that were knocked out and all were able to return. That couldn't be said for the Blackstone runner, gutter runner and linemen that were knocked in the stands. Their bodies were never fully recovered.

So halftime has the Cow-Rats up 1-0 over Clan Blackstone. But with Blackstone receiving the kickoff after halftime anything can happen.

Until next time...

Blood Bowl Team Finished!!

2008-06-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I managed to finish painting all 14 players of my blood bowl team ready for the Hillbilly tournament in just 3 weeks time.

I'm really getting psyched out for it. Thought I had taken pictures of more of them, but only got a couple. I'll try and take more.

Here is my Thrower Romo and star of the Cow Rats:

Click on the picture to enlarge it.

And here is a pic of Romo with his 4 star Gutter Runners. These guys steal the show in every game. And as long as I have a couple on the field, there is no where I cannot score from.

I did meet up with Eric and Matt on Sunday for a relaxing day of Blood Bowl. Eric with his Dwarfs and Matt playing Humans.

I'll try and give you some breakdowns on those games later and a couple pics I took during the classic Skaven vs Dwarf matchup.

Until next time...

Blood Bowl game

2008-06-24T09:29:00.000-07:00

I did get in a game of blood bowl on line. It was good because it was an Orc team and I expect to see a lot of orc teams at the tournament in July.

We both had new teams.
Mine was my standard 4 gutter runners, a thrower, 2 storm vermin and 5 linemen.
On line I add 2 re-rolls and a FF of 6. But in the tourny, I'm going 3 re-rolls.

His team was fairly basic troll, 1 goblin, 2 throwers, two blitzers and six linemen(orcs).

He won the toss and elected to let me go first. So turn one, I sprint some guys out, I move around, block a couple guys. He goes and blocks some, nothing big.
Turn 2, I run up, hand off, run up, pass, run in for a TD. 1-0.

So I kick off out of bounds and he gives it to a blitzer, he makes some blocks, and runs his ball carrier down completely unprotected. (???)

So I knock him down, with a blitz. Run a GR down the sideline, pick up the ball run over and make a short pass, run down and hand it off to the GR downfield.

All he can do is blitz with his troll onto my guarding GR and stand next to my ball carrier. He hurts a linerat, and thats about it. So I use my Storm Vermin to knock his blitzer out of bounds and then my ball carrier scampers in for an easy score. 2-0.

turn 4, I kick off and he manages to knock out a couple linerats. So I have 9 players left on the field to his 11. He grabs the ball with his goblin in the backfield. I didn't think I could get a 2 dice blitz on him, but it turns out I could have. So screw up on my part.
I do get 2 GR's on him though.

He dodges out with his goblin and hands off to one of his throwers. He sets up a nice wall to make it tough for me to get at him.
On my turn 6 I blitz one blocker out of the way and get a Storm vermin and 2 runners on his ball carrier.
On his turn he knocks on GR off and knocks one out of bounds, so I'm down to 8 players. But trying to block his thrower who is on the sidelines, he puts his goblin right in front of him. This was a mistake.

So on my turn 7 I knock the goblin into the only free space next to the carrier, then blitz and put his carrier into the stands. The ball lands in my backfield and I'm able to run some players back to pick it up and put 2 runners spread out on his side of the field.

He surrounds one, but on the other he blitzes his Troll and even with 3 dice only gets a pushback, leaving the runner standing.
So turn 8, risking the agility 1 troll interception, I run up and throw over the troll to my runner. I catch it with ease and dodge out and down field for an easy score. 3-0

2nd Half.
I kick off and get a great bounce on the kick as it lands 2 squares from mid field on one flank. I get blitz, block one guy out and surround where the ball will land. It bounces right into a gutter runners hands and my opponent about explodes.

He does manage to knock him down on his turn 1 but it bounces right into another players hands. A couple blocks later he get the double skull and his turn ends. I block out the couple players around me, run up and hand off to a closer runner. With a good GFI roll I make the TD for a turn 1 TD and a 4-0 lead.

On turn 2 I kick off and it is on one flank middle of is half of the field. He runs a couple players over to the ball and then starts blocking. He fails a block before he can pick up the ball.
His Troll was hanging out, so I surround and knock the troll out. Put some players right on the ball but screwed up when I could have picked it up.

On his turn 3, he picks up the ball and makes some blocks. But doesn't follow up on one in his field. Which was a huge mistake.
On my turn 3, I run over and blitz the ball carrier, knock him down, and the ball bounces over 3 players before landing in my throwers hands only 6 squares from the TD and only the goblin touching him. And I haven't moved him yet.
So I push the goblin back and my Thrower Romo runs into the endzone for a turn 3 5-0 lead!!

the rest of the game involved him picking up the ball and surrounding the carrier with 8 orcs. I tried to break the cage but it was going no where fast. So I surrounded the Troll who had come back and fouled him, knocking him out of the game again.

Great game for my rats, as I had the orcs running in circles. It really gave me a chance to spread my formations and try a bunch of things. The final score was 5-0.

This sunday I'm playing 2 live games against some other players. An Orc, Human and Dwarf team will be there to test my Skaven. Should be fun.

Until next time...

And then there were four...

2008-06-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Last Friday one of the 2 kittens didn't come home. It was Speed Racer, who we just called Speedy.

She was the better behaved of the 2 and was my wifes favorite. As you can imagine she has taken it pretty hard and refuses to accept that something got her.

She was a great mouser and was always bringing stuff up from the woods for her mom and sister to then play with. She brought up everything from mice half her size to big lizards and snakes.

I spent part of Friday evening searching the back woods, and there was no sign of her. It is possible she is still out there running around hunting and eating what she catches, but with the number of coyotes, bobcats and feral cats in that area of the woods, my guess is, she was the hunted and not the hunter Friday.

Tiger, her sister, and Suzy, her mom, seemed to just mope around all weekend. Suzy went out Friday night for a long time, and all I could think was that she was looking for her baby, and also her favorite of the 2 kittens. But came back after a couple hours, looking sad.

So this is my way of putting her behind me and moving on. I feel sorry for Tiger now, as she loved playing with her sister, but was never as adventurous as her, especially after one evening where something chased her up a very tall tree and she was up there for several hours, until we found her and helped her down.

I hope and pray Speedy is still out there catching her mice, or some little girl found her after she got lost and couldn't find her way home. Someone who will love her and take care of her.

She was a gray striped with a couple of soft yellow spots and no tail. And as soft a fur as any I have ever petted.

Sorry for a depressing post on Monday.

Until next time...

Painting Progress

2008-06-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

With the Hillbilly now only 4 weeks away and a scheduled practice game set up for 9 days from now, I am trying to get my Blood Bowl team painted up.

The team is 14 models, (even though I'm only using 12 in my games) I figured I'd paint all 14 or would never get around to painting the final 2.

I have the following completed.

1 Thrower: Painting Done, needs flock, coating and static grass
2 Storm Vermin: Painting Done, needs flock, coating and static grass
4 Gutter Runners: Painting Done, needs flock, coating and static grass
7 Linemen: Working on painting now.

So over half way finished with them. My goal was to have them done by next Sunday, but don't think that is going to happen. But I'm not planning on putting in near the detail I put in on the 7 star players. So it might get it done.

Until next time...

Game time

2008-06-19T07:13:00.000-07:00

Things on my end have been slow as far as gaming goes.

I've been playing some Never Winter Nights. With my new computer it is really great. Graphics are top notch and the speed between loads is just super sweet.

I've played a bit of blood bowl on line, but about 1-2 games a weekend. Still having fun with it.

I'm also still having fun with the Goal Line Blitz. I created a Defensive End speed pass rusher. Was guaranteed a starting job, only to be bumped after game one for a guy 10 levels higher than me. Oh well, still having a good time, and my wide out is still tearing up the field as one of the leagues top receivers and got his first TD of the season last game. A 30 yarder!!

On the paint table is still my blood bowl team. I have the 4 gutter runners finished, and am about 95% finished with my thrower and 2 storm vermin. That only leaves my 5 linemen to paint up. I wanted to be finished by the 28th for their trial run on the 29th. So I need to get hot on them. I'm about 4-5 days behind my original schedule to get them done.

I'm starting to get excited about the Hillbilly. I'll be bringing my Chaos Beast List with Ratspawn for his final farewell tour. With the new Daemons and VC power ramp up books, I'm not sure I stand much of a chance, but we shall see.
I'll also be bringing the Skaven Blood Bowl team. Should be a fun weekend.

Until next time...

Global Warming Scam

2008-06-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Update II: Corrected the original link. The bottom one is a shorter version, with no references or charts. The one in the update, has references and charts.

UPDATE:
Looks like they moved the article. Found his full posts, here.

A bit long winded, but well worth the read.

Check out this article.

Until next time.

W. a great President?

2008-06-12T07:03:00.000-07:00

I have always liked George W. But people blast him for a lot of things:

Being stupid?? The man has an IQ of 125, a degree from Yale and was a fighter pilot, geez, how many of you can boast that resume.

Lying about WMD's in Iraq. Personally who cares, we got rid of that Psycho there and took the fight to the Middle East outside the Mountains of Pakistan where it is tough to track these radicals.

Torturing people. I don't think water boarding is torture actually. Nor is sleep deprivation or lack of privacy. Torture is something the other guys do when they take a drill to your hand, or a rip your eye out, or cut off your head, or burn you while you are still alive. Last time I looked, we haven't decapitated anyone. Do you think the terrorists make sure our captives get food, water, a Bible and movies. Geez, Gitmo is like a resort to these idiots after living in a cave.

Taking away our Rights. OK??? Personally I haven't had any rights taken away. If they want to eavesdrop on my conversation overseas to a known terrorist. Personally I'm ok with that.

Killing over 4000 soldiers. Well, that is a tough one. I served in the military, my son is in the military, my dad served in the military. Occasionally we are asked to serve and give the ultimate sacrifice. But let us take this a bit in perspective. We have been in this war for over 6 years now. I believe we invaded Afghanistan in 2002. And only 4000 deaths. That may seem like a lot, but in past wars, we would lose that many good men in 1 day. This has been one of the least bloodied wars of all time, and its being fought in 2 countries. And I thank god that one of them is not the US of A.

So that only leaves the economy. Sadly, this is where W has failed, since he thinks more like a liberal than a conservative on these issues. Massive spending, bigger government, etc, etc... But actually the economy was doing fine until the Democrats took over both the house and senate. Hmmmm???

Anyway, it seems I am not the only to think this way. Ann Coulter happens to agree with me. Or maybe I agree with her. Either way, she says it much more elegantly than I do. Go check it out.

Until next time...

A Long Time Ago...

2008-06-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

Those immortal words, will live forever in the 6 Star Wars movies. The wife and I and son, finished #6 The Return of the Jedi last night.

While there are parts of all 6 that people can complain about, or parts they don't like, it is still the best series of 6 movies ever to be put together.

Lord of the Rings was greatness, but Jackson had some fantastic books to work off of. Star Wars, was just the genius in one man's mind. Genius, just sheer genius.

First time I have ever sat down and watched episode I through episode VI. Found a few inconsistencies. But like I said, who cares.

Loved all 6 and will probably try and make it an annual event. Need to get them all on DVD now.

Fav moment of episode VI? There were many, the banter between Luke and the Emperor is good. Real good. Han Solo in the briefing room, and the apology accepted by Vader after the Captain loses the Falcon.

What are your favorite Star Wars moments?

Until next time...

A guy like that should just shut his face

2008-06-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite actor/directors of all time, Clint Eastwood did an interview recently and that is what he had to say about Spike Lee.

The guy is almost 80 and I bet he could whip Spike's butt. Man I love Clint.

Anyway, you can find the full interview here.

Enjoy an old Icon, he is worth it.

So you have to ask yourself: Do I feel lucky? Well do you punk?

Until next time...

Taking a break from Warhammer

2008-06-06T08:02:00.000-07:00

With the Ard Boyz finally out of the way, I am taking a break from my favorite miniatures game for a while. I still have the Hillbilly lined up in July and then nothing until Feb '09. I'll be taking my Ratspawn Doombull Beast army to the Hillbilly so I won't need to do anything to get it ready.

So what am I going to do with myself until then you ask?

First, I've started painting again. I'm trying to spend at least 30 mins to an hour painting every night when I get home. Right now on the painting desk is my Skaven blood bowl team I'm taking to the Hillbilly.

As soon as that is done, I'm going to put in a real effort to try and finish up the Centaurs to be used as a wood elf list for the LoneWolf GT next February. Some alterations to the marauders with hand axes will need to be made switching them to bows. The spears on the old centigors will be fine as glade riders have both spears and bows. So I'll just mix them up.

Need to convert 2 of the marauders to be shamans. Make them stand out. Need to think about that those.

I've also been playing some Never Winter Nights again. If you still play, I play on a server called Hlontar, with a character Nejah. In addition, I play some blood bowl on line at a site called Fumbbl, where you can play for free under coach name Bully_Ben.

I also have been waiting patiently for WAR (Warhammer online) to come out. I asked for the CE version for fathers day, but things aren't looking good for that to happen.

For viewing lately, Tim has really gotten into Star Wars. So we pulled out all 6 and started at Episode I and watched I, II and III this week. We finished up with III Revenge of the Sith last night and I loved it. Of the newer episodes it is my favorite. Watching Anakin turn evil is great and the scene where his cloak covers half his face, and his one eye is yellow, is just evil incarnate.
When it was over, we spent 30 mins yelling "NOOOO!!!" every once in a while. (What Darth Vader says when he finds out he killed Padme. )

Anyway, so we have episodes 4,5 and 6 lined up to watch next week. Should be good fun.

Until next time...

Ard Boyz DAWGS Sweep

2008-06-05T10:57:00.000-07:00

Super congrats to the 3 winners of the Ard boyz Saturday.

1st Eric Smelley with Dwarfs
2nd David Caldwell with Empire
3rd Greg Harris with Dwarfs

I ended up a lowly 4th place.

Game 1: My Skaven faced a rather soft Dwarf army with a ton of hand
gunners and crossbowmen, but they really never stood a chance. He
didn't have the anvil. So it was me shooting his big units to crap
while my blocks of slaves and clanrats raced across and wiped out his
shooters.

He did hit my bell with a cannon shot, on turn 5 (last turn) and
destroyed it. But then I hit his general and broke him and ran him down.

When we added it up, I was up by right at 2000. Needed 2100 for a
massacre. So major victory. that 100 points would haunt me later.

20-4

game 2 vs Eric and Thorek. God how I hate that guy.
Eric's army wasn't designed for hand to hand. It is a shooting army.
So we lined up and shot at each other. Felt a lot like 40K.
His miners came on, then used the anvil to charge some jezzails who
fled off the table. This left the miners flank open for a clanrat
charge, bad for the miners.

the Bell gets the 9-10 twice and all 7-8 warmachines are destroyed.
But not before he took out one of my warp cannons. Another cannon
blew itself up.

One tunnel team popped up to tie up some of the gun crews and the 2nd
team never showed, misfire. The one to tie up thorek. Ugghhh!! I
was well ahead, but decided to go for more points and push some units,
but I didn't send enough and then Thorek gets hot in the last 2 turns
with master wrath and rune, hitting 3 units each turn, doing no less
than 9 wounds. Panicked several units or took some below half and
dropped me by 700-800 points in the last two turns.

this brought it back to a draw barely. Ughhh!!

Draw 12-11.

so the standings are:
Me: 32
Eric: 30
Greg: 29

Since I couldn't play Eric again, I fight Greg.

Another Dwarf army with thorek. :( 3 games, 3 dwarfs, man that gets old.

Gregs army was a non-shooting army. With only a unit of hand gunners
and 2 warmachines, I knew I had my work cut out for me.

Things went well early on as I took out the cannon turn 1. Turn 2
though my tunnel teams neither show up to get to thorek. His miners
show up, but instead of going for my general's unit, he goes for a
unit of globadiers and jezzails. wipes both of them out, but is just
short of a cannon on the overrun.

finally the tunnel team shows up, charges the anvil and kills the guy
that allows him to re-roll misfires. This hurts him, but in the end,
did very little. My runners broke after losing 2 guys and he never
missed a ring. My 2nd team deviated off the table, barely.

Greg played a great game and forced my hand into a bad charge. But I
felt the other option was just as bad. Then not sure if it was the
heat or just tired from the long day and no supper. We got a bit
snippy with each other. Our passion for the game sure comes through.
I'm glad neither of us holds a grudge. In the future Greg, I promise
to be more careful with my movements, and tape measure.

I was up early on, but a flank charge into my bell unit spelled
instant doom as the bell was destroyed, and the general and grey seer
and BSB all fled. I screwed up here badly. I had just a few guys go
off the board after jumping over the slaves, but I forgot to roll for
casualties. when the bell was destroyed I suffer d6 str4 hits with no
saves on the unit. 3-4 die there and I may have saved the unit and
900-1000 vp that jumped off the table right there. UGGHHH!! Oh well.

I was sure Greg had the minor victory at least. But in the end, I was
actually up by 200 vp. But still a draw. And the bonus points were
all tied to the objective which was kill the enemy general. Since he
killed me (or rather I ran off the board), he got all 4 bonus points
and I got none.

so draw 10-14

So a major victory and 2 winning draws, gives me 42 points.
Greg ends up with 43. But Eric and David both pull off massacres in
the final games and leapfrog both of us giving them 1st and 2nd.

Congrats to all of you, Good luck and kick butt in Chicago.

As for me, I probably wasn't going to Chicago for the Finals anyway, and that now clinches it. I'm glad, this hero hammer was more than I could take. 6 games, 5 vs dwarfs 4 with Thorek. The non-Dwarf game had the OK special character as well.

Next for me is the Hillbilly in July. Need to get my Skaven Blood Bowl team painted and ready to go. I'll be taking my Ratspawn Beast list as the Daemons will be allowed, and I'll take my Furies for the final time.

Until next time...

Indiana Jones part IV: SPOILERS

2008-05-27T13:31:00.000-07:00

Got out to see the Crystal skull this last weekend and thought I'd give my own 2 cents review of the movie.

About the only thing you can compare this to is the other Indiana Jones movies. And in so doing, my favorites are still the original and the Last Crusade. The Crystal skull then beats out the Temple of Doom.

But thats not to say it is a bad movie, it just had a lot to live up to.

The movie uses the same basic blue print it always has. An action scene, a quick trip back to the college (missing from #2) and then back on the trail again. Does this guy actually ever teach?

Anyway, Marion's son Mutt shows up and tells him of his old buddy and mother who needed his help. They fight off some more bad guys and hop on the first flight to South America.
Indy hunts down and finds the crystal skull and is promptly caught by the Russians.

They do a long car chase/fight scene with some of the usual Indiana Jones style and end up hitting some huge ant beds after some nifty fighting by both Indiana and Mutt.

As everyone rushes for the river to avoid the ant swarms, Indy and company are in a boat, while the Russians are swimming.

Jones makes it into the lost city, still no gold, and then on into the sacred temple. Meanwhile, the traitor from earlier, betrays them again and the half drowned Russians follow them.

Finally, they make it to the final chamber where the Crystal skull was missing. This must have only been of the original 13 who came and helped the Mayans.

So the Russians pop in and the evil chick wants all the knowledge of the universe. She wasn't willing to look into the Crystal skull, but asks for it in the chamber with 13?? Well she gets what she asked for and to thank the people who restored them, the aliens sucked them all up into their inter-dimensional ship and left with them. Of course the heroes made it out alive.

There were a few logic problems with the movie. But it did have some very good flash backs to the originals. A quick shot of the Arc, the snake phobia came into play again. It explained what happened to Indy and Marion years ago and it ties it up neatly afterwards.
The fact that Mutt is Indies son, should really come as no surprise to anyone. I guessed it as soon as they announced Marion would be returning with a son.

I also liked the final scene when Mutt picks up Indy's trademark hat and almost puts it on...

I thought the acting was top notch, even if the story was lacking. My biggest problem, was that in the past Indy movies, the artifacts he found were all what history/mythology had them as being. But this, one, I've never read anything about the Crystal skulls being anything near a alien skull. And none of the Crystal skulls are shaped the way this one was. So they kind of went off in a completely different direction than the real Mayan/Aztec mythology.

Overall, it comes down to one simple question. Did you enjoy the other Indiana Jones movies? If you did, you will enjoy this one as well. Harrison Ford is definetely showing his age but no one could have ever played Indy better than Ford. So much for that long life the Holy Grail gave him. ;)

Until next time...

Run Rat Run!!

2008-05-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

Last night I remembered why I loved playing Skaven in Blood Bowl.

After a series of ties and losses, I went back to the basics and started another rookie Skaven team. It didn't take long for an undead player to challenge me. They just love to play Skaven.

I accpeted the challenge and we lined up. I got the ball first, but after doing a bit of running around, my thrower promptly dropped the ball when he tried to pick it up.
DOH!!

He of course beat up a couple guys and surrounded the ball.
I did a good job of knocking a couple his guys away from the ball, ran in with a gutter runner, picked it up, ran out, passed it to another runner, who took it to the end zone.

I then kicked it off to him, and was able to blitz. I had my guys all around the ball, only to see it take bad bounce after bad bounce, landing in his guys hands and away from me.
I did manage to knock it out of his hands but was unable to pick it up myself. Then on turn 7, I had 2 guys on him forcing him to block with his guy, or dodge to get away. I forgot he had frenzy and used that to prevent a dodge, and ran down field, and got a turn 8 TD.

I kicked off to him in the 2nd half and pinned him deep. But his fans, sensing my teams greater skill and speed, tied up the ref, freeing up his team to foul away. I was already short about 4 players, and so I couldn't actually risk having one of my guys thrown out.

He fouls and another player out. He then has a bad block and I rush several players down the field. A couple turns later, I knock the ball out of the werewolfs paws, a runner grabs it and scoots into the endzone for a 2-1 lead.

Another deep kick and he goes back to pick it up. He is now short of time and I have the lead. He continues to foul every turn and I'm down to about 5 players on the field. I get a double 1's on a dodge with my first player and lose my turn basically.
He moves the ball up, fouls again.
I then roll double skulls with my first player and lose another turn. I think, ok, another tie.

He moves the ball up some more, but is still 1 square from being able to put it in the endzone.

Next turn, dice turn around, and I'm able to run 4 of my 5 players out in front of the ball carrier, scattered around. My 5th player stands up, but is in the middle of a mess of his guys.

I figure he will plow the road with his superior numbers and push the ball carrier down the sideline. Instead he runs him into the middle of the field, but does have him close enough to make the TD with a 'go for it'.

I work it out in my head and can get a single dice blitz on him, as he stopped his werewolf right by my guy, who is now prone, in the middle of his guys. I had to run a couple players through some mess to tie up any assists, and then I blitz and get the POW!! Werewolf down and the ball bounces backwards towards midfield and behind the lines!!

His turn 8 he pushes some players forward with some really smooth blocking schemes. He gets a wight to within scoring range. But it will still require the werewolf, to get up, dodge, pick up the ball, throw it and catch it. Then run it in for the TD.

Well the werewolf failed the dodge, and I took my win to the bank.
No player was seriously injured and I won a hefty $90K purse to bring in another backup player.

Sweet, sweet win.

Until next time...

Big Bang and back to Narnia

2008-05-20T10:22:00.000-07:00

Have to say I really enjoyed the season finale of The Big Bang Theory last night.

Leonard finally caught Penny right after a breakup and asked her out.
Both parties were very hesitant about the date. I think because both are afraid that if it doesn't work out their friendship would also be lost.

Leonard went for broke with a somewhat forced and awkward kiss and Penny decided it was worth the risk. Unfortunately, that is where the show cut off. I felt this so could have used an hour long finale. Oh well.

Also noticed there was not a single commercial for it during the 6 o'clock news or wheel of fortune. There were a ton of commercials pushing the following shows that I don't watch. So the question is, did CBS feel like the Big Bang didn't need advertising because its rating are already good, or has CBS already written the show off? Damn, I hope they bring it back.

As for Narnia, all I can say is WOW!! If you liked the first one, you will like this one. It is easily as good. Tons of action. Tons of special characters, Centaurs, minotaurs, etc... The story was simple enough, and they didn't bog it down with a bunch of crap that they easily could have.
The white witch return was a nice piece I liked. (I haven't actually read the books.) And how they win the battle at the end, was really cool. I don't want to give it away, but I was not expecting that.
The action and fighting, was really well done and nicely choreographed.

There was really only 1 part I felt was way to "huh?" at the very end and it was minor. See if you can figure it out.

But I do highly recommend going. It is worth it.

Next up, Indiana Jones. Oh yea!!

Until next time...

Whats been on my TV?

2008-05-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

With the writers strike screwing up my Spring TV shows, and my favs of Chuck, Heroes and Pushing Daisies all regulated to next Fall, there just has not been a lot on.

I did start watching a very funny new sitcom on Monday nights called The Big Bang Theory. The story revolves around 2 brilliant nerds, Leonard and Sheldon, in an apartment, 2 friends who are also nerds, Howard and Rajesh, and a very hot blond, Penny, who moves in across the hall.

Penny believes neighbors should be friendly and quickly makes herself at home with the nerds, even though her normal company is super hot chicks and hulk Hogan wannabe's.

Leonard so wants to date Penny but can't get the courage to ask her out. Penny seems to like Leonard as well, and I think 95% of the watching audience wants to see these 2 date at some point later on.

Sheldon is the super genius who graduated college at 16 and has no sense of social etiquette. He is also a pompous ass.

Howard is mainly creepy. He is a mechanical engineer who still lives with his mom. His main goal in life is to try and get laid. Without giving up his nerdy life.

Rajesh, I love. The foreigner who cannot speak to girls unless he is drunk. But is the only one of the 4 to get lucky so far on the show. I think he is a computer engineer and really does a great job.

The writers of the show started slow, as I don't think they knew where to take the show, or how far to push it. Originally they started out with Penny as the "really dumb blonde" but have pushed past that and now she is more normal and is trying to help the "boys" assimilate into real life. But I still have to love that line, "I'm a vegetarian. Oh, except for steak. I love a great steak." Hahaha. Gotta love that.

Anyway, great writing and excellent acting make for a good little sitcom. I think it is limited in where the show can go. There are only so many nerd stereotypes you can make fun of. Still waiting on the D&D one, but I'm sure it will come.
But if you get the chance check it out, Monday nights at 7 on CBS.

On Fridays, I am trying to get through the Battle Star Gallactica series. If this wasn't the final season, I think I would have stopped watching it. They have long since gone past any battles between the Cylons and the Humans. Its now Cylon killing Cylon and Humans fighting Humans.
Way too much religion, way too much soap opera crap for me. They have been promising to reveal the final Cylon for the last 5 weeks and still haven't done it. But it does look like it is going to be Starbuck. Whoohoo, big surprise. Making the chief and the XO cylons was a surprise though. But then it seems like some stuff didn't make any sense.

They tortured the XO while on New Caprica, why not shut him down and download the data. Of course they probably didn't know he was a Cylon. This whole bit of the 5 unknown Cylons is a bit weird. I wouldn't be surprised at this point, if the entire fleet was nothing but Cylons, in some big experiment to find Earth.

I have to say at this point, I am only watching to finish it off. There are several questions I'd like to see answered. But if I jumped in the middle of this, I'd stop watching it. It has sunk badly.

Well Until next time...

Final Four

2008-05-13T14:05:00.001-07:00

The MAWL held its final four last weekend and we had a total of 9 people show up and that was including myself. I had 6 tables set up and ready to go, and 2 more ready to go up if there were enough players, but with such a small turn out, we only used 4 of them.

So I have to admit I was pretty disappointed in the event. It didn't keep us from having a good time though.

The Doubles tournament did a quick switch to a 600-750 point round robin tournament with some really cool twists on it.

Eric Smelley went on to dominate it winning all 3 games, and using his loot to buy half the items at the Hogs Head thrift store.
It was really tight for 2nd-4th and Mike Bauer got a one point win over Eric Langford, who had a 1 point win over David Caldwell.

The final four pitted Edgar and his Emporer Dragon High Elfs against Aaron and his new book Vampire Counts who were considered the favorites going in.

But the surprise Null Stone came into play and the High Elves buried the Vamps.

The other Semi-final round pitted Justin and his Slaanesh Daemonic Legions against Jesse and his Orcs and Goblins:

The Daemons were too much for Jesse and his Orcs and goblins couldn't pass a fear test.

So Jesse was stuck playing against Vampires and more fear tests in the next round and fared no better, giving Aaron the Consolation 3rd place.

In the Finals that left Justin and his chick daemons against Edgar and his dragon led elves. This game went back and forth with a Dragon Prince unit blowing through both of the Daemon Princes. At the end of turn 6 we added up the points and the High Elves were only ahead by 296 points. Not enough for the win.

So they went to a turn 7. You only had to win by 200 now. Justin was able to break and run down a unit of white lions and capture their banner, but Edgar was able to destroy a unit of Pleasure Seekers. This gave the High Elves a 300 point win.

1st Place: Edgar Betancourt
2nd Place: Justin Gibbs
3rd Place: Aaron Chapman

Lore Master: Eric Smelley
Best Sportsman: Billy Van Osten

Chosen of his god: Eric Smelley
Hogs Head Tavern Winner: Mike Bauer

There were a ton of door prizes and everyone walked out with something. Some people with more than 1. There was also plenty of pizza, cookies, popcorn, sodas, bottled water and good times to be had by all there.

Until next time...

Brutal wins 2nd game

2008-05-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

After a close loss on Saturday, Brutal broke out with a dominating 16-0 win this morning.

My wide receiver Eldorado had 5 catches for 45.5 yards and a Touchdown.

The TD was so sweet as I just blew past the corner back and the Quarterback hit me in stride for a 10 yard score. The strong safety had a shot at me, but a quick spin move and I trotted in for six and a sweet celebration dance.

Made the Top Performers board for the 4th time and the 2nd time in a row.

So Brutal is now 2-3, and in a 6 way tie for 8th place. The last playoff position. Still have some tough games to play. But we look like we are on the right track, having won 2 of our last 3 games.

Until next time...

Brutal Wins!!

2008-05-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Well after starting the League 0-2, we finally pull off a 14-3 win.

I have to say it is a bit bitter sweet.

In our game 1 loss 3-10, I had 4 balls thrown my way and I dropped all 4!! Ugghh.. I was still useful returning 9 punts for a ton of yards.

Our game 2 we were blown out 21-0, but in this game, it was not my fault as I caught 6 passes for 40+ yards. And had 3 punt returns for a ton of yards. Only our kick returner had more yards than me. And only because he was a running back and got 4 kick returns.

In this game, I not only caught no passes, I didn't even have any thrown in my direction. I was open a lot, but with a run pass ration that was 80% run, we only had 16 passes. They were playing a soft pass cover and our running game took off for the first time this season and we won 14-3.
I did handle kick return duties but only had 2 for around 60 yards. Giving us great field position at midfield with both kick returns.

By the way, my guy is a wide receiver named Eldorado Owens. He is a speedster and is the #1 wide out. Now if we could just be a bit more consistent with him.

Until next time...

A different kind of Fantasy Football

2008-04-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

If you like football, but don't have a lot of time to get involved in a fantasy football league. Or don't want to drop the $100 to join a league. This could be for you.

I wasn't a big fan of fantasy football but found something new this year.

It is called Goal Line Blitz. You create your own player, QB, WR, etc.. and join up with a team. You build his stats, do his training. It all only takes a few minutes.

You sign a contract with a team and a computer sim plays it out. You earn xp and gain levels and get better. Not sure where it is going, its still really new, in Beta and totally FREE!!

If you want to read more go here:
http://goallineblitz.com

If you want to sign up go here,
so I get reference points.

Before you build a character let me know. My team still has a few slots left, that are currently filled by cpu players. CB, FB, etc..

I built a strong fast Wide receiver. We shall see how he does. Season starts this Saturday.

Have fun.

Until next time...

The last Ride of the Twins of Khorne

2008-04-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

As the twins rode out onto the final battlefield, the brothers looked at each other. One raised his head to the skies. Khorne, I know I failed in gathering the orbs as you requested, but I tried.

A flame of red light sprang from the chaos waste above and the brother fell to the ground gasping. His twin felt the pain as well and ran to his brothers aid but had to turn his eyes when his brothers sword shattered into a thousand pieces.

Laying upon the ground his brother looked up. We are lost. Khorne has forsaken and abandoned us. The twin helped his brother up. No. But if this be the end then let us make it such an end as to be worthy in song. Look, the Ogres are gathering. We need to meet them, are you up for the challenge my brother.

He looked weak and beaten. He pulled out his old backup sword that had not been used in years. Aye, my brother I am. But you must lead our troops today. And let us show Khorne what he has discarded and cry in remorse.

******************************

The last league game, I fought Billy and his Ogre Kingdoms. Billy is a really great guy and I loved his army.

From left to right he had Yhettes, leadbelchers and gnoblars, bulls, bucher, 5 bulls with tyrant, hunter with 2 sabers, 6 bulls, 3 bulls with butcher, 20 gnoblars and a slave giant. In the woods on the right he also had some trappers.

My army was the same as always. Left to right marauders, knights behind, centigors, Dogs of war fast cav with knights and hero w/rending blade behind, marauders, marauders, knights w/fallen hero behind. Lost his sword of might and suffered -1 to all his stats. Centigors, Dogs of war fast cav on the bridge, marauders and knights on the far edge across the river.

He won the right to go first but opted to let me go.

Turn 1 was pretty uneventful as I rushed forward.
He then rushed forward as well. He cast panic on one marauder unit and I let it go through to clear a lane for my knights to charge.

Centigors on the right had moved into the woods. The trappers were going to charge but failed their animosity check and squabbled instead.

Turn 2 turned out to be well, incredible. Lets start with on the right the centigors and dogs of war cav both failing their terror check and fleeing. But on the left the marauders made a leadership 5 terror test and the Dogs of war made a terror test.

With the giant now unimpeded I charged my hero and knights into the giant. I charged my Dogs of war into his general's unit, bravely. Centigors on the left into the gnoblars on the hill. And my general with rending blade into his unit of 3 bulls.

I moved marauders in front of his unit of 6 bulls. And one in front of but angled to his yhettes. I moved the marauders on the far right and knights through the ford in the river and in front of his gnoblars.

I do the centigor combat first. I only manage to kill 4 gnoblars with 6 str 5 and 6 str 4 attacks hitting on 3's. He does none back but wins by 1. I of course break and run which panics the marauders by the yhettes and they are destroyed. The centigors get away.

I do his general's combat next and he kills my dogs of war to a man. I fight his slave giant next. And after my scorned hero whiffs as well as my horses, the knights come through with 2 wounds. He swings his chain and with 6 hits, and 6 wounds, I manage 3 armor saves and my scorned hero makes his ward save. So we win by 1 and the giant holds.

Finally, my general's unit and with the rending sword it was a forgone conclusion. We obliterate the Ogre bulls. But everyone around makes the panic check. The butcher, the gnoblars. But then his Tyrant and 5 bulls fail!! They turn and run right down their battle line forcing panic checks in every unit. They all make it except the 3 bulls behind the giant. The Tyrant and unit and now fleeing 3 bulls all run into my marauders on the far end and are cut down.
This panics the gnoblars on the right and the trappers who flee and never rally.

My knights overrun into his Butcher on the left.

Billy is shaking his head. Wow, what a turn of events. So his turn 2, he charges his yhettes into my knights on the left, wipes them out on the overrun and suffers only a single wound having killed 3 knights on the charge.
His 6 Bulls charge my marauders who flee. His gnoblars charge the fleeing centigors bu they are out of range. His Hunter and sabers charge into the combat with my hero with rending sword.
His flankers come on and move up behind my knights by the river.
He blasts away, but fails to do a single wound!!

In other combats, the hero and knights put another 2 wounds on the giant. He does pick up and grabs my scorned hero and stuffs him into a bag, then grabs a knight and stuffs him into a bag as well. The combat ends up a draw since my hero only has 1 wound because of the curse.

My general makes quick work of his hunter and when the smoke has cleared I don't lose a single knight. His butcher had done 3 wounds and I saved all 3. The butcher and last saber broke and were both run down.

My turn 3 I failed to rally either centigors. The one on the left was still on the board. The one on the right when and had drinks with the trappers. All the marauders rallied.

My knights with hero turn around ready for the leadbelchers to shoot them.
The knights on the right turn around to face the leadbelchers on the other side of the river across the ford.

The knight fighting the giant only manages a single wound. And when the chain whirled again the unit was destroyed.

His turn 3. Leadbelchers on the right charge into the knights. The 2nd leadbelchers on the left, moved up to shoot my heroes unit. Does 2 misfires, kills one of itself, and only manages 1 wound on my knights. Panic and flee actually past my knights.

Yhettes and gnoblars close in on centigors. Giant and bulls with butcher move into the middle.
In combat, the leadbelchers fail to do a single wound and the knights hack them down. Break them and then run them down.

My turn 4. The centigors rally and pivot to face the Yhettes.
I move my knights up behind his bulls and butcher. I surround the giant with marauders and dogs of war bowmen. Only needing 1 wound to finish him off, he drops like yesterday's news.

His turn 4: He charges the bulls at some marauders who flee, leaving his rear facing my knights.
His yhettes and gnoblars charge my centigors. The centigors hold and make their fear test. And the gnoblars are 1/2" short. Still the yhettes come in and kill off 3.
Then the centigors do 3 wounds killing off a yhette after getting 5 hits out of 6 attacks. The Yhette's lose to my musician and flee off the board.

He did cast regeneration on his big bull unit. I let it go to give his butcher a 2nd wound.

My turn 5. I charge my knights into his bulls. I turn my centigors around and throw at the gnoblars but fail to kill any. I move my marauders around ready for a turn 6 slaughter.

I go to dispel the regeneration and fail to do it. Ugghh!!
His champ is in the rear rank and challenges. I accept and only hit twice, wound 1 time but it does 3 wounds and kills him. Then we remember the regeneration and he rolls it and makes it. He then whiffs his attacks on my hero.

My other 4 knights then promptly do 6 more wounds to him. He promptly regenerates 5 of the 6!!! Wow!! Luckily all my axe throwing had him down 2 wounds already and a bull drops. The last bull with its 4 attacks does nothing.

So with 1 wound, rear and banner beats his size and banner. He breaks and is run down.

Finally his turn 5, he charges his gnoblars into my centigors who stand and shoot. Getting 2 hits, I kill 2 breaking a rank. He does no wounds and I do 3 back. I win by 2 and the gnoblars are broken and run down.

That left no models on the board for Billy's Ogres at all. Here is his dead pile with what he thought of the battle.

Actually, Billy was a fantastic sport and we laughed through the entire game. Playing it out to the last model is tough to do. Billy picked up one of my favorite opponent votes for the league.

*********************************
The hero of khorne turned around. His 4 legs allowing him to sprint across the field quickly. Where is my brother he screamed. The marauders claimed he had been last seen being grabbed by the giant.

He called over several of his fellow centaurs and together they rollled the monstrosity of a beast over. There in his bag, he saw movement. He cut him out and the 2 centaurs staggered out.

How did the battle turn out my brother?

It was a glorious day as not a single Ogre or gnoblar made it off the field of battle alive. And not one skull will be offered up to Khorne. May he rot in his chaos waste.

Then without khorne, what do we do?

I'm not sure, lets check out and see if Nurgle is looking for some heroes.

Sounds good to me.

And with the other centaurs in tow, they rode into the sunset.

*************************
With the upcoming change in the chaos mortals list, it will make this list practically unplayable. Khorne knights are losing frenzy for hatred and no longer producing a dispel dice. This would leave my army extremely vulnerable to magic and panic.

So I will have to revamp it completely and decide what to do with it when the new book comes out at the end of the year.

I hope you enjoyed the battle report.

Until next time...

Yea we take Credit Cards or Check

2008-04-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

I kid you not, this is a conversation I just got off the phone with.

Phone rings....
Me: Hello

Them: Yes, this is XXX company calling to do the appraisal on your house. Our appraiser will be calling you to set up an appointment soon.

Me: Sounds great.

Them: The cost will be XX dollars, you can pay with check or credit card over the phone.

Me: Great, I can pay with the credit card now. Do you take discover?

Them: No, only Visa or Mastercard.

Me: Thats cool, I have my visa here.

Them: That will be an extra 12 dollars.

Me: What? Ok, never mind, I'll just give him a check when he comes.

Them: Oh, we would prefer a money order.

Me: What? Didn't you just say you'd take a check?

Them: Well, I guess we can, but we will have to hold off on the report till the check clears.

Me: Geez! So you will take a check but don't trust it. If you don't want to take checks or credit cards don't. If you really want money order only, then say we need a money order.

Them: Well I'm sorry sir.

Me: I don't like the way you do business, but I'll deal with it. Bye.

************

No kidding. If you don't want to take credit cards or checks, then don't give people that option. It is so frustrating. I wanted to reach through the phone and slap her. Or at least stamp a permanent L on her forehead.

Give me a break.

Until next time...

How many 5 year olds can you take in a fight?

2008-04-10T12:05:00.000-07:00

For me, if they were frothing at the mouth maniacs, I can take:

28

Thats right, 28 of those bad kids. What about you?

Catching up

2008-04-09T14:11:00.000-07:00

Again, it's been a long time since I posted. Lots of stuff going on and I've been so busy at work I'm having a hard time finding time to post. Here are some of the highlights lately.

1. My son Derek is on 2 weeks leave. He went to see his mom but will be back Friday for about 10 days.

2. A week from Saturday the 2 of us are going to go play in the Ard Boyz tournament. 3500 of Warhammer goodness, should be a lot of fun. Really don't expect to do that well with my army, but I'm just going to have a good time.

3. Baseball has started up. My favorite sport to play has cranked up. I am an Asst. Coach to my son's team and we have already had a couple practices and our first game. Tim managed a weak hit his first time up and had to really run to beat it out at first. But the 2nd at bat he got all of it and it flew into the outfield and rolled to the fence. I was very pleased. Game ended on a homerun by one of our new players. He was so excited. I met him and his father through the bowling league, they are really good people.
We are supposed to have practice today, but it looks like we will be rained out.

4. Bowling wrapped up for Tim who got a season high 72 points and a strike to finish the year off on a strong game. I was very happy for him.

5. On a sad note, one of my sons friends from bowling suffered a stroke and is in the hospital. John is 25 years old and is having a hard time understanding what is happening to him. They are keeping him on a respirator to help with his oxygen levels and in turn have to keep him sedated to keep from ripping the respirator off. He is a really great young man and our prayers are with him.

6. Back to happier news, I'm having a good time playing Blood Bowl on line. A lot of fun, and got my first tournament win with a 2-0 win that could have easily been 3-0. Looking forward to the next round against another Skaven team with identical players. He has an extra skill, but shouldn't play that big a factor. I hope.

7. I bought a skaven blood bowl team and got an extra players I wasn't expecting. So I'm really happy with that. Got 13 players instead of 12, including an extra Gutter runner that I almost went out and bought as I plan on running 4 at the Hillbilly. The basic set usually only comes with 3. Now I just have to strip the old paint off of one and paint them up. Thinking of Dark Green.

8. My Warhammer league is finally wrapping up. I have 1 more game this Sunday. It may be the last run of the Twins of Khorne in their current format. I only have a 33% chance to become the chosen of my god, which was the whole campaign idea for the League. But I'm going to go for it anyway.

9. As I mentioned, this may be the last time they run as they are now is because of the army book change that I wasn't expecting so soon. Looks like they are moving chaos knights into special. I only have 4 of them, but was running 2 centigor units that were special as well. Since I won't be able to take them at all, I'll have to convert them to marauder fast cav.

So my army will probably be: 6 marauder fast cav, 4 chaos knights and 2 DoW fast cav.
Should be an interesting line up. Will have to see how it works out.
Hearing other rumors good and bad.
Good: The chaos knights will get chaos armor giving them a 1+ armor save. Sweet.
The chosen will be cheaper. So I might take one unit as chosen. Sweet.
The marks are getting a lot cheaper. Sweet.

Bad: They are changing khorne from frenzy to hatred. While not horrible, not good either.
Khorne knights will no longer generate DD. OUCH!!! This is really bad if it happens. I'll end up having to put in a wizard scroll caddy if they do that. I really hope not.

10. And finally, I am all set for my Final Four coming on May 4th. Should be a really good time. Besides the Final four for the League, which I'm not a part of for the first time since the Mawl was created, I am going to run a mini-doubles tournament that is going to be a blast. I hope. ;)

Well, that is it for now.
I'll try and start posting more regularly and more focused in the future.

Until next time...

Warhammer League Game

2008-04-01T09:01:00.000-07:00

I played my Warhammer league game on Saturday. Played a really great guy Jesse and his Orcs and Goblins. And what I realized playing the game, is I am just so burned out on Warhammer. I really didn't care if I won or lost.

I had a good time playing, rolling the dice and cheering for Jesse were great. The scenario involved trying to grab eggs from an enormous dragon, that continually caused Terror. I tried to get an egg but kept fleeing away and never did get one.

Then I had to deal with Jesse's army.

Game down to a couple things.
1. One doom diver catapult was ridiculously bad, misfiring in all but its last shot, where it hit dead on to my general's unit knocking it in half.

2. His Block Orc regiment, pulling out a great charge with the combination of the waagh banner, the waagh and his normal charge. It wiped out 2 units of knights and one of my heroes.

3. I had his general's unit lined up for a last minute double charge, he rolls a 6 and waaghs his way out of the flank and was able to turn around so both my general and 2 knights along with 3 centigors were all on his front.

4. Bottom of turn 6, Centigors go frenzy, combined with my General and 2 knights we charge his general's unit. His General challenges. I Accept with my general and get 5 str 5 attacks with no armor saves. Needing 4+ to hit and 4+ to wound, it wouldn't be easy. I get 3 hits, but only 2 wounds. Oh yea, my horse gets to attack. It hits, it wounds. He gets a 3+ armor save, and makes it!! So he gets his 7 str 8 attacks back. He also needs 4+ to hit, and gets 4 hits. I have a 6+ armor save and make one. I have a 5+ ward save as well. Need 2 of 3 to stay alive, and I only get 1. So my general dies while his lives.
While this hurts as it gives him 300 more victory points, I can still pull it out if I break his unit.

The Centigors and Knights kill off 7 goblins to win combat by 3. So he needs a 6 or less on 2d6 to stay and he gets it.

So with only a few hundred points left on the table, Jesse easily got the win.

Only 1 League game left against an old friend Billy. I'll be glad with this year is over.

I am looking forward to the Cheesfest 3500 point Ard Boyz that Derek and I will be playing in on the 19th.

And I'm looking forward to my doubles tournament to be held with the final four. That should be a lot of fun.

Finally, I'm really looking forward to the Hillbilly. But not so much for the Warhammer but for the Blood Bowl tournament and hanging with good friends and the road trip to Memphis.

Until next time...

Blood Bowl tournament

2008-03-28T13:53:00.001-07:00

Well for those of you who know me, I am not one to play games without getting competitive. And sure enough it didn't take me long to get into a tournament in my online forum.

Its a starting tournament, where every coach must have a rating of 150 or lower. You start with 150.

I am playing my first opponent, hopefully tonight. I have 10 days to get the game in. I'll be playing against his speedy Lizardman team with 4 saurus and 7 skinks. Should be a fun game. I've played against Lizardmen once already so I know a little how to deal with them.

I'll post a report after the game.

Until next time...

Chaos Dwarfs, my 2nd team

2008-03-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

When I first signed up on Fumbbl, I decided I would play 2 teams. One fast and quick and one bashy.

The fast and quick one was an easy choice with Skaven. The speed 9 gutterrunners that I love have worked wonders for me. I started out with a draw and have gone 5/1/1 with them since the start.

I picked the big hats, the whacky dwarfs who have gone to the dark side for my bashy team. I love the chaos dwarf blockers who come with block, tackle (to stop those dodge guys), and their armor of 9. Add in the Minotaur or troll, Bull Centaurs and a bunch of cheap goblins and you have a heck of a team. Or so I thought.

My first build I got greedy, went after the Minotaur, 2 bulls, and then barely had enough to field 4 chaos dwarfs, only 2 re-rolls and no apothecary.

After and 0-2 start, losing to both a 2nd game Lizardman player and a dwarf player. Both of them pretty sound stompings. I had my minotaur killed, a dwarf killed, still didn't have an apothecary, was replacing dead guys with hobgoblins, and could barely field 9 guys for my next match.
With a rating of 98, I could continue the uphill battle to try and bring this team back, but decided it was best to scrap that experiment and so into the retire heap went Hashut's Big Hats.

Out of that experiment comes the new and improved Big Hats for Big Heads. With new uniforms and a new coaching philosophy. Instead of going with big guys I went small instead. I took my max number of 6 chaos dwarfs, 1 Bull Centaur and 4 Hobgoblins. 3 Rerolls and a FF of 8.

I ran them onto the field last night against the only other Academy team playing, goblins. This was a really bad matchup for my opponent, 2 trolls and 11 goblins.
My Chaos Dwarfs chewed them up and spat them out.

I lost the toss and kicked off to him. This led to a quick touchdown for me. Another kick off another touchdown.
The only time the ball was on my half of the field was when he kicked to me in the 2nd half. And even then it was never more than 4 squares from the LOS.

Since his team was rated higher than mine by 11 points I got a free bonus. I rolled up Ironman and so my Bull Centaur could not be hurt this game!! Double sweet.

I only got 1 player hurt in the game and that was a hobgoblin who rolled a skull + both knockdown on a goblin with the ball. I could have re-rolled it, but I figured getting the ball out of his hands was more important and took the hit. It actually knocked both of us out, Dave the hobgoblin just KO'd while the goblin was seriously injured.
Dave missed the rest of the game, but with his early touchdown, that injury and the MVP award, he is proudly sporting the block skill that will prevent the knockdown next time.

And my Bull Centaur, Little Feet, took in the other 2 touchdowns and picked up +1 MA. Very sweet, was looking to give him block to be an excellent blitzer, but figure he can get that next. I couldn't pass up a move 10 str 4 guy. Once he gets block and break tackle, he will be great.

Final stats were TDs: 3-0, Inj: 4-0; FF +1 to no change.
Money: 50K to 80K. How the heck does he get more money here when we had the same Fans going in? Oh well, enough for an apothecary.
So the new CD's are 1-0 and I hope to get a lot more games with them soon.

Until Next time...

Blood Bowl

2008-03-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

This is my latest hobby that I am really enjoying. I have found a site on line to play. http://fumbbl.com/

I can go there, build any team I want to and play whenever I like. The program is very interactive and friendly to use. There are literally hundreds of players signed up and dozens to play at any time.

I'm still a bit new to the game, so am still learning all the neat concepts, tactics and rules. But I'm having a good time with it.

For those who don't know what blood bowl is, let me try and sum it up. It is a board game to play football/rugby with fantasy creatures found in the warhammer world. The rules and game are produced by Games Workshop who also produces the miniatures for them.

I started a Skaven team, what else, and have actually done really well with it. My first team, I ended up with a draw, but had made the mistake of not buying myself enough fans to start with. Didn't realize until later that you may not buy more fans, you have to earn them. So ended up scrapping that team and creating a new skaven team with a fan factor of 8 and is now up to 10. I am now 5-1 with this team. The only loss coming to a Kemri team that just plain beat the crap out of my team. I had no one who could stand up to their 4 strength 5 mummies. At one point in the 2nd half after his 2nd score, he put 11 players on the field and I only had 4. I had started with around 13, so had had 9 knocked out of the game and unable to return.

Since then I purchased a Rat Ogre to add to the team to give it some more muscle. I also got dauntless for one of my gutter runners. This allows him to match strength for strength with anyone on the field. Add in a storm vermin with guard and I'm feeling ok about my chances now.

Was playing an Orc player last night and was matching him bash for bash. And into the 2nd half I still had players sitting in reserves. Usually by that time, I'm down to 8 or 9 players and that is when I really start to feel the pain coming and start taking serious injuries. Unfortunately, I was in the lead 1-0 and the socket connection dropped out. We tried all 5 servers at that point and I could not connect with any of them.

He had the ball and was driving, and because of a blunder, I didn't think I could stop him. But he still had half the length of the field to go. So I still had a pretty decent chance of stopping him or depending on time, getting the ball back with enough time to score again.

My 2nd team is a chaos dwarf team. This thing has been a disaster since I started it. Its actually rated worse now than when I started it. I have had 2 players killed a chaos dwarf and my minotaur. I am 0-2 with it, and am getting very frustrated with it. Though in the last game, I had a great chance to stop him from scoring in the 2nd half to take the 2-1 lead, but he makes an agility 2 dodge and ties up my bull centaur to prevent me from doing it.

So now my plan is to scrap the team and start over. Otherwise my next game I'm playing with just 9 players as 2 more are sidelined with injuries. Its just not worth it and time to move forward with a restart. I think I'll start with my Chaos dwarfs, and more re-rolls.

I'll keep you updated on my teams.

Until next time...

Son is Home and new Joy

2008-03-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

After 6 months in Iraq my son came home from Iraq on Saturday. We were at the airport to meet him and it was a real sight. About 30 or so people gathered for the home coming in this small town terminal. But it was all smiles and teary eyes.

This is not to say it went without incident. Friday at 5:30 my son calls and left a message saying he was in Baltimore. This was supposed to be our cue that he would be in town in about 5 hours. I didn't get home till 6 and my wife was running around like the house was on fire. She had already packed a bag and wanted to know what I wanted to bring.

I quickly make a hotel reservation, finish packing, load the car and were ready to back out by 7PM. Flight was supposed to land at 10 PM, and it is a 3 hour drive there from our house. When something occurred to me.

You know I don't think they would have time to catch the connection into DFW to make it home tonight.
So Marilyn suggests, why don't we try calling the caller ID number.
We do and its my son's air force buddy. He tells us, no, they are in Baltimore and will be coming in tomorrow.

Well we were relieved we didn't have to drive 3 hours tonight and drop an extra $100. I quickly call the hotel and cancel the reservation. They do it even though its after 6 PM as it has been less than an hour since I made it. Tim is really upset as he wanted to see his brother. So we have to take him out to eat dinner.

And when we get to our hotel on Saturday the hotel manager was just out of the service and gave us a huge discount (read as 35% off) our room. WOW!!
We had a great visit with our son and made it home Sunday.

Yesterday I drove back down and got him, so he is home with us now through Easter.

My son has always had an interest in the game Blood Bowl. And with their being a blood bowl tournament at the Hillbilly this year, I figure now is a good time to get back into it.
I've downloaded the latest rules and read them, and signed up to an online forum that allows you to play over the internet. Got in my first game Tuesday night with a very good Dark Elf player who helped me through the steps of using the online game.

I did pretty well after I fell behind 1-0. I managed to even take the lead 2-1 but gave up a last turn touchdown to get a tie 2-2. It was then that I found out my team had a major flaw. Nothing to do with the team, but the league stuff. I didn't give myself enough fans, and didn't make much money. As it turns out the online game still plays 4th edition, which is very unforgiving to players with low fan factor.

So I had to scrap the team and rebuild it and I upped my fans from 3 to 8. I'm looking forward to playing with it.

It is a Skaven team (what else) with 3 gutter runners, 2 storm vermin and 6 linemen. It is built strictly for speed.

As a change of pace I am looking at a chaos dwarf team as well with 2 bull centaurs, a few chaos dwarfs and some cheap hobgoblins. This would be my bruiser team.

I'm looking forward to playing a lot more and hoping to have a good time.

Until next time...

GT critique, a look back

2008-03-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

I know its been a while since I posted last, but you know how real life can be.

And I wanted to wait a bit before posting a critique of myself from the GT.
When you win overall, its easy to say Wow, good enough, but I think there is always room for improvement.

So if you look at my overall score I got a 223.
Sports: 64, Battle: 83, Appearance: 66, JR: 10

First my projections:
Sports: 65, I got a 64. I was hoping to draw the fav player vote from one of my opponents but failed to get any. You can't control it, so you do what you can.
I got a 64 last year, and a 61 the year before. (1 bad game, 1 fav game). At least I went 2 straight years without a bad game vote.

Appearance: 70, I got a 66. Last years was a 65 and all I changed was putting my heroes up on a hill. But that 1 point was enough. I knew 70 was really stretching it. But last year they seem to have given out more 70s. I know the judge changed up his score sheet some. The top army went from 77 to a 73. Heck even Jim Bailey only got a 70. So I will not complain about a 66. Probably about right.

JR: 10, got 10. good. No one scored more or less than 10.

Battle: 88, I got an 83. Last year I got a 78. So an improvement of 5 points. The highest anyone got was an 84. I did throw that 1 objective away after it was handed to me. That cost me the 4 points that would have put me to 87. But those 4 extra points in round 3 would have left me with different round 4 and 5 opponents. So I may not have gotten the 20 and then 19 I did for those last 2 rounds.
Everything worked out great. But I really needed to hold onto those 4 points.
In game 1 I also only had to kill the Tomb Prince, and I had my chance. I do that, and I win the game and get the objective. But then the entire next 4 rounds are different.
Now in round 5, I forgot to overrun my shaman in turn 5 that would have taken him off the board and to safety. So I should have gotten the full 20. Leaving me at 84 out of the 88 projected.

Overall. 2 years ago I got 10th, last year 7th and this year 1st. So I am of course extremely pleased with my outcome. But these same scores last year would have only gotten me 2nd best general, as I'd lose in the 3 way tie for 2nd/3rd overall and end up in 5th overall instead of 7th. But with painting going down a bit, may explain it.

Things I could have done better:
Game 1: played more aggressive. I sat back way too long. Been smarter attacking the Tomb Prince. With just a hair bit of forethought, I could have killed him, gotten the win and the objective. So cost me 12 points there.

Game 2: I cleaned the table of wood elves, so I'm pretty happy with that game.

Game 3: I played this game pretty well. I fled with some dogs that I shouldn't have. And then when I had the game won and the objective in hand I threw my ranger into combat where I knew he had a good chance to die.
Cost me 4 points there.

Game 4: I baited the khorne knights badly. Should have gotten the flank charge on them, instead it became a front charge that helped him. Other than that I don't think I did anything wrong. David almost won the game if I had broken when I lost by 3. But to be honest I shouldn't have lost that combat to begin with. So the dice gods just averaged things out is all.

Game 5. John just totally outplayed me. I set up bad, I played badly, I rolled poorly and when John had the win in hand, he snatched defeat out of the very jaws of Victory. I ended up with the win, that had I been thinking would have been 20 instead of 19. But that is sometimes how games go. In particular, I should have split my 2 herds up to keep his 2 daemons from going after both together.

Anyway, there are no complaints here. Ratspawn and company did what I haven't been able to do for some time. I'll be using the same army in the Hillbilly come July for his farewell tour. Then I'll be retiring Ratspawn. At least for a couple years.

Until next time...

Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 4

2008-03-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

So this led me to game 5. 64 points put me in a 8 way tie (or maybe 10) for 3rd place. 2 players had 72 points going into round 5. I looked at the postings and it was John Bailey with Daemonic Legions Slaanesh.

An underrated army, IMO. Very fast, deadly and can be super tough. With everything moving 10 or 20, it was going to be tough to corral him in.

John and I have been friends for several years, talking at almost every GT, having a beer together, etc... but never played. So I was looking forward to the game.

Right next to us was Rick Thompson fighting John's brother Jim. I was placed on table 4. John's army looked like:

Daemon Prince w/Soul Hunger, blade of ether (I laughed), spell breaker, Lvl 4
Exaleted Daemon w/Blade of Ether (again laughed), Lvl 1
Both marked with Slaanesh

10 Daemonettes, mus
10 Daemonettes, mus
10 Daemonettes, mus
7 Mounted Daemonettes
7 Mounted Daemonettes
6 Mounted Daemonettes
2 Chariots of Slaanesh

A great army, with a good theme. It wasn't painted yet, but you could tell already its going to look great when its finished.

We had a couple woods on the table, 1 hill a ruined building and some small walls.
Don't take these pics too seriously, I made mistakes making them, and the terrain isn't to scale. But should give you an idea of how the game played out.

His turn 1 he moves everything up. With IF he gets off Titilating delusions on my generals unit to move to his right.
He had his Prince in the Center and Exalted on the right. After I tricked him by not putting any herds over on the right, he flew the exalted to the left.

Ratspawn Turn 1b: With no charges my left most herd promptly fails their unruly and sprints into the building. I move my spawn in there as well.
I figure the furies will be pretty useless in this game, but two of my objectives is have more points in his deployment than him, and capture more table quarters, so I decide to play 75 points short and have the furies just handle those duties.

The picture is already screwed up, I forgot I didn't move the hounds in front of my DB to keep me from moving very far. And my spawn on the right moved like 3".

Daemons turn 2: He could have charged his exalted into the herd in the building but held off. He did charge the daemonettes into my hounds on the right side. The hounds flee and don't run very far and get in the way of things, of course.

The 2 flanking daemonette rider units pull back. everyone else moves up.

Ratspawn turn 2b: Well, time to get aggressive. Minotaurs and 2 chariots charge into Daemonettes. My hope is that one chariot is on flank and will overrun into his chariot, other chariot will overrun into riders on far right.

Well both chariots were in the front, and no matter how we worked it, 1 unit was going to be left out. So I decided to have both chariots slam in and have the minotaurs hold back.

The herd in the ruins promptly fails its terror test and runs away. 2nd herd with 2 shamans fails its unruly and runs up into the ruins. Geez!!
The spawn flies through the ruins, like 15" and hits the flank of the daemonettes.

In combat the spawn kills 1 daemonette, no wounds by him.
On the right we plow through them killing 7 or 8, the others pop and the left chariot hits the flank of the daemonette riders, the other one falls short of hitting.

This picture is fairly accurate as to how things were. If it has a skull on it, it means it is dead and no longer there. I leave the unit there so you can get a feel for how things worked out.

Daemons Turn 3: John knew he had to do something. I had bears anger on one of my shamans in the herd in the ruins. But what I didn't realize was his Princess could draw line of sight to 1 model. So both Exalted and Princess into herd. I knew I would get slaughtered here and lose the banner as well. So after much moaning, I fled with the herd and 2 shamans!! Ugghhh!! One of the hardest things I've ever done.

The herd obviously cannot flee far enough and the exalted catches them. The minotaurs make a panic check. We both agree the minotaurs are too close to the wall for the daemons to land there and simply overfly them.

On the left, the riders charge the hounds who flee. My plan was the hounds run about 10" and the riders catch them and have to stop at the wall. Well the hounds had other ideas and run like 15". So its a failed charge and the riders stop short keeping the minotaurs in their front flank.

On the right the riders and chariot charge the 3 minotaurs who flee and get away.

In combat the daemonettes fail to wound the spawn who kills another couple daemonettes.
The chariot slams into the daemonettes and kills a bunch. After the roll a single rider is left. bad news for that chariot.

In magic he used his magic missile to kill off the far left side hounds.

Ratspawn turn 3b: I have you now!! (or so I think)
4 Minotaurs into riders.
2 hound units into daemonettes
Ratspawn and company into flank of daemonettes
3 Minotaurs into chariot
chariot into lone rider.

I rally my herd and reform them so they are not in Line of sight of the Princess.
The spawn moves over to them.

The left hounds make their Ld 9 fear test and plow into the Daemonettes. Now for the hounds in front of ratspawn. Needing a 9. I roll a 10. Ratpspawn fails his charge!!

The minotaurs have to wheel more than I thought to avoid the chariot and end up with a failed charge on his right chariot as well.

In combat, the chariot crushes the last rider and overruns.
The hounds lose 3 of their guys, break and runs past the minotaurs. (forgot to show that.)
The spawn killed 1 or 2 daemonettes.

Now the big combat on the left. I charge in. His mounts strike first and with 6 attacks get 3 poison hits!! Killing a mino out right. Then get another hit and another wound. So 4 wounds on 6 attacks!! So I only get 9 attacks back. Should get 4 wounds, I get 3. The then saves all 3!!! NOOOO!!! Then his daemonettes promptly do 2 more wounds and kill off a 2nd minotaur. The other 2 have had enough break and he runs them down.
I put a skull on my spawn, but I think he lives through this phase and is killed in the next turn.

Daemons turn 4:
The riders feeling a bit relieved charge at my minotaurs with the chariot. If I flee off the board I have a decent shot of still having the riders in my charge arc. But they only flee 4", don't get off the board by 1/2" and the riders catch them going off the board and the chariot moves its full 20" and to safety. Ugghhh!!

After doing no wounds to the spawn in 3 or 4 rounds of combat they do 3 in one and kill it off.

The 2nd chariot charges my chariot. If I flee I'll run through my own minotaurs and his chariot will hit the minotaurs. So I take the charge, the chariot is crushed and his chariot overruns just enough to get out of my charge arc by 1/2". Things at this point couldn't get worse.

The daemonettes charge my minotaurs. They manage only a couple wounds and the minotaurs slaughter them some daemonettes and pop them. Finally something goes right.

His exalted flew up to help with the spawn. The Princess flew to the board edge. And decided the best way to catch the herd and my wizard was to frenzy the unit. Which he did.

Ratspawn turn 4b: Things are looking bleak and even the prospect of pulling a draw are becoming fleeting.

The frenzy kills off 3 ungors. This isn't so bad as it opens a patch for the spawn to get through. Spawn and herd charge the Princess.

Minotaurs in the middle charge the daemonettes in the flank.

Everything else moves aorund in hopes that I might stand a chance to actually catch something. Silly me.

The minotaurs come in, slay some daemonettes and win combat, but they hold easily.

In the big combat he challenges and my shaman more than happily steps to the rear of the herd. So the big bad Princess puts all 5 attacks on the spawn. 4 hit. Re-rolls the miss and misses again. Then needing 4+ to wound, only 2 wounds. So he actually rolled average, I can't believe it. I can't touch him but with banner, numbers and musician I win by 1.

Of course I let out with the "don't pop" and sure enough. Down drops the 11 and his Daemon Princess worth 580 points + 100 points for his general just got handed to me on a silver platter.

In the excitement/stun of the moment, depending on which side of the table you stood, I forgot completely about overrunning. I only remembered today when writing up the report. I not only can I must overrun the herd and the spawn can as well. If both of those run off the board... Oh well.

Daemons turn 5: John is in a state of shock. He had this game in the palm of his hand. Heck, all he really had to do was go fly away and let the game end. He was easily up by 300. But one of his objectives was kill my shamans and take my banners. So he was going after those precious battle points. Now it had slapped him in the face. He is thinking is actually down at the point. But if he had stepped back, he is actually slightly ahead or a draw at worse.

But he feels he needs to make up the points. Exalted into the minotaurs fighting his daemonettes.
His riders charge the herd. Since I'm frenzy (I should have run off last turn and not be here) but instead have to take it.

His other guys show me what it means to move 10" all the time.

In combat, the exalted kills a minotaur and I kills some daemonettes.
His riders kill some gors and I do 3 wounds back. I'm thinking I might actually win this when he makes all 3 ward saves again!! This unit has taken 6 wounds and made every single ward save on 5+. I autobreak and am run down. He slams into the spawn, who also shouldn't be there.

Ratspawn turn 5b: I charge with Ratspawn, but its about 13" away and is a failed charge.
I move the rest of my guys so he has no charges.
In combat his exalted takes my minotaurs down to 2 guys, 1 of the minotaurs has 2 wounds on him. I wipe out the daemonettes.
The riders easily kill off the spawn.

Daemons turn 6: With no charges he moves his guys to prevent a turn 6 charge by me.

Then came the combat. With 4 attacks needed 3+ to hit and 3+ to wound, the Exalted rolls 4 1's to hit. I can't believe it. He fails to kill my guy with a single wound left. This gives me 6 strength 6 attacks back. I manage 3 wounds and he makes 2 of his ward saves. So he has only a single wound left.

Ratspawn Turn 6b: End of the game.

with no clear charges, I turn the minotaurs around and move them into the top right table quarter. I try to move the hounds to the bottom left, but as it turn out I can't get there.

so now it is down to the final combat. He gets 4 attacks, he swing and gets 4 hits!!
He could do it here. With 4 wounds he can wipe out the whole unit and prevent an attack back. With a single wound he knocks me down to just 1 minotaur.

He rolls his 4 to wound rolls and does not get a single wound. All 4 were 1's and 2's. I can't believe my eyes. Reprieved again.

with 6 attacks I get 5 hits and 3 wounds. He rolls his dice. A 6, A 5, ...... and a 2. He dies!!! I can't believe it. 335 points just went.

I'm starting to shake. Could I have actually pulled this off. We look at the bonus points first. I own the top left, and the top right. The bottom right is contested. I almost give him the bottom left when I think to measure for my minotaurs and they are in. Bottom left contested. Add in his general and I am +300. He has the one banner and is at +100.

We add up the points and I'm up by around 230. Add in the 200 and I win by 430 or so. A minor victory, but enough. I managed to pull 3 of my 4 objectives, the last one was keep my least expensive character alive. That was the final shaman he killed. If I'd run off the board like I was supposed to I would have gotten the 200. No way he would have gotten him.

So win 19 points. Final for 5 games: 83 points

Everyone around us is drawing. Table 1 with Jon and Jordan, draw. Jon with 83 points, Jordan with 82. Joe comes up, he also has 83. Then Jeff Grejada walks up with 84. Rick and Jim Bailey had fought to a draw. One last big game between Trev and Chris, both beastmen friends, it ends up a draw.

I'm feeling good. But really thinking 2nd general. That 1 point I play over in my head. Maybe I managed to pull a sports vote to put me up. I know its going to be close.

I pack up and put away my stuff. Come back up and take a seat. We go through some hand outs, I get an Orc general box. Sweet.

After approximately 18 hours and 34 mins we FINALLY begin the awards.
Painting awards, friends win stuff, nothing for me. Not surprising. I try but I'm not that good yet.
Finally they get to the good stuff. Best general. I'm feeling it.
3rd, Jordan. Sweet, I know I beat him, so I'm feeling really good.
2nd, Joe. Ok, now we are into the 83's. I'm thinking Jeff or best general now and I pull a 2nd or 3rd overall.
1st place Jon. Ok, a bit of a surprise there. That must mean Jeff pulled the best overall. I must have gotten 2nd overall. Or maybe 3rd. Or maybe someone tanked my sports and I get nothing. Oh that would suck.

They give out some lousy best army awards and sportsmanship. Some friends win these, but I could care less. ;) Really, I was very happy for all of them. Trev, Roy, Eric, etc...

Finally onto best overall.

3rd best overall, Jim Bailey. Wow, that came out of nowhere. His painting always puts him in the running, but now I'm feeling really nervous.

2nd best overall goes to... here it comes, I know it... Brian Ching. What?? No way, I got skunked. Nothing for me. I'm really happy for Brian. He is one of the most fantastic players you'll ever want to play against. But at this point I'm thinking Jeff for overall.

My friend points to me and says "you got it, good job". I shake my head. I don't think so.

And first place overall goes to.... Ben Burns. I cannot believe I heard my name. I have not won an overall at a GT in 4 years. This was truly a moment for me to savor and enjoy. But all I could do was run up there as fast as I could before they changed their minds and realize what a mistake they made.

As it turns out Jeff got a sports ding that kept him from Best general. He wasn't close enough for overall.
Later looking at the scores, I won by a single point. I won 3 objective points, most points in his deployment, most table quarters and kill his most expensive unit. It took all 3 as a tie with Brian and he probably wins the tiebreaker.

3 points separated the top 6 players and only 6 points for the top 10. I got a wonderful trophy:

The Limited edition $90 rulebook in the leather case, still in the shrink wrap.

Well, its no longer in the shrink wrap. But more importantly, I had a fantastic time hanging out with friends, playing the game and hobby I love, with an army that I loved building and painting.

I am going to run Ratspawn through the Hillbilly as its victory lap, but then Ratspawn will move into a retirement home, happy, healthy and victorious.

If you've managed to make it this far, thanks. I hope you enjoyed it.

Final thought: Luck. The planets, gods and stars, all aligned to give me this win, as my play had very little to do with it.

Thanks to all my opponents, Lex, Brent, Justin, David and John. You guys were the best.

Until next time...

Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 3

2008-03-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

Next up was round 3. One of the toughest rounds as everyone is tired from the strain and stress of 2 tournament games already.

I am matched up against Justin Robbins and his Tomb King list. (from memory)
Tomb king, destoyer, 4+ ward
Tomb Prince, d.scroll
Lich Priest hierophant on steed, 4+ ward
Lich Priest, jar, d.scroll

2 big blocks of skeleton warriors
block of skeleton archers
2 groups of 3 chariots
2 scorpions
Giant
Skull catapult with foe skulls
3 carrion

I think thats it, but I could be wrong. Justin's list was the only one I didn't get a copy to keep.

Justin looked distracted and tired throughout the whole game, not sure why. Several times I actually had to bring his attention back to our game. I had played Justin about 3 months ago in a small tournament where I wiped out his army with Ratspawn. So maybe he was figuring he didn't stand a chance, not sure.

The scenario was the Lone Ranger. One of our most expensive models in a unit of 3 became the lone ranger. He would run around shoot people and could get into combat. He was immune to fear, and was stubborn 10. But only 2 wounds and a 5+ ward.
He had a BS of 9 and a repeater pistol. The objective was to keep him alive and have done more wounds with him than the other guys lone range. You didn't have to take a lone ranger.

Justin did, so lost a chariot. I did, and lost a minotaur out of Ratspawns unit.

first turn nothing much happens, but at the end of turn 2 I charge his catapult with my furies and am 1/2" short of getting there. So they end up short, but I charge my spawn and minotaurs into his carrion, wiping them out and setting me up perfect for his chariots who have some hounds in front of them being annoying.

I charge 3 minotaurs into his unit of 2 chariots. I do 2 wounds and he does 3 wounds back and wins combat!! I manage to hold and kill off the chariots the next round.

His Tomb king kills my spawn and then overruns into my hounds. I should have taken the charge, but I flee and they run 16" and right into my field of charges on the right side.
His giant charges some hounds who also flee around 15" and right in front of my minotaurs about to charge the chariots on the left side.

He drops a rock that lands right in front of ratspawn, getting a partial on him and another Minotaur. With only 4 Mino's in the unit I get no Look out Sir. He rolls for the partials and misses with both. Whew.

Big turn 3 as minotaurs charge his giant and kill him over 2 rounds of combat. Chariot hits a scorpion and wipes it out. Minotaurs try to charge the chariots, but the stupid hounds rally on a 5. :| The furies take out the catapult.

On the right side, the hounds rally also and force a failed charge from 4 minotaurs on the archer block with LP in it.

He then charges the 4 minotaurs with his Tomb Prince and Heirophant in a skeleton warrior block. I flee the charge. This lines him up perfect for Ratspawn and company to go after the heirophant.

On my next turn I charge ratspawn into the heirophant. Then to tie up his generals unit I do something stupid. I charge a chariot and the Lone Ranger into his tomb king unit. We manage to do 5 wounds, but he still wins, and the chariot auto-breaks. The Lone Ranger holds on stubborn 10, but now he is tied up.

I do a triple charge hounds, furies and chariot into his unit of 3 chariots. Hounds and chariot both make their fear checks and I get the triple charge off and kill off all 3.

Ratspawn then manages 3 wounds on his heirophant who promptly makes all 3 4+ ward saves. I manage like 2 wounds on the skeletons and I lose a minotaur back. I break. First time this Gt. I roll my flee, 3 inches!!! OMG!! I'm going to lose Ratspawn.
He pursues 2 inches!!! Is this even possible, I get away and live!! WOW!!

On his turn he charges but I flee and hope over a hound and the 4 minotaurs who had just fled. So he has a failed charge. His general hops over and kills my lone ranger so I cannot get the objective. He also charged his lone ranger into my unit of 2 minotaurs that had killed his 2 chariots. He killed 1 minotaurs, but I then killed him.

His magic is starting to get through as I'm out of scrolls. So I move my herd up hoping his LP and archers would charge it. 4 minotaurs flank the block with the TP and heirophant. I wipe out almost half the skeletons before he stops crumbling.

On his turn he takes the bait and charges the archers in. I make my fear test and put 2 shamans on his LP. He gets an amazing 3 wounds on gors, needing 4+ to hit and 5+ to wound with 5 attacks. Odds were he would get 1. I do only 1 wound to his LP on top of that, but kill a couple skellies. Win on size and he loses another skeleton.

He manages to magic his TK unit into the minotaurs and his TP moved over there but after all the killing only won by 2. Ratspawn had just rallied, so I needed a 7 and got it.
On my turn I charge Ratspawn into his heirophant again and my 2nd herd into the flank of the same unit. Justin concedes at this point.

It was a very tactical game that could have gone a few ways. But he was about to lose his TP, heirophant and 2nd lich priest. He knew his generals unit wasn't going to come back from that.

Win 16 points. Total for 3 games, 44 points.

Saturday night went out for burgers and beers with Trev, Chris and Chuck. After some good laughs we decide to do a 2v2 battle. So Ratspawn and company hook up with Chris' Khorne Beastmen to fight Trev's Beastmen and Chucks 'always cast with IF' high elf list.

We didn't get to finish this titanic battle, but we had fun for 3 turns. It was wild. No less than 6 and as many as 8 spells were cast with IF. We had a chariot flee well over 30" smashing through 5-6 units including high elves and beastmen before destroying itself in the woods. We saw what happens when minotaurs throw themselves on HE spears, its not pretty. But a herd charges a lion chariot, whips up on it and forces it to flee.

All in all good fun. We called it a draw as they were turning out the lights on us. Party poopers.

Round 4 had me matched up against David Norvell and his Khorne Beasts. David and I played 2 weeks ago, but both of us with different armies. This would be a rematch David was planning to win.

khorne Beasts:
Warlord Mark of Khorne, Hellfire sword, talisman of protection, enchanted shield, hvy armor
Wargor BSB with mark of khorne, armor of damnation, sword of might.
Beastherd 8 Gors, 10 ungors, full command
Beastherd 8 Gors, 6 ungors, foe render, mus
Beastherd 8 gors, 6 ungors, foe render, mus
4 units of 5 chaos hounds
3 tuskigor chariots
5 chaos knights chosen, mark of khorne, standard of never lose frenzy, musician
5 furies
4 Minotaurs, great weapons, mark of khorne
4 minotaurs, great weapons, mark of khorne
3 Dragon Ogres

This was one hard hitting army.

He goes first and pushes up the hounds, rest of the army moves up conservatively. On the right side there is a large ruins area and his general is in his big herd there.
Knights, minotaurs and chariots in the middle, dragon ogres on the far right.

We set up an oil well and can attack or defend. I decide to defend he is going to attack. He gets one from move at the beginning of one of his turns, but never takes it. He has to kill all my characters. All I have to do is have more units around my oil well at the end. It also gives me +1 Combat res within 6" of it.

On my turn, some hounds charge hounds in the middle. I whiff and he breaks me over running into some minotaurs. I move my hounds up to draw some frenzied charges.

His knights and chariot take the bait. The hounds flee and get away jumping over ratspawn. The chariot hits a spawn, destroys it and overruns into Ratspawn.
The knights fail their charge but don't move enough to offer up their flank.

He fails his unruly test and comes up right behind my right side herd by my oilwell.
On the left side his Dragon Ogres and Minotaurs charge a hound unit that fails its Ld 5 test but holds. Is wiped out and the Dragon Ogres overrun the minotaurs cannot.

On my turn my herd charges his herd, that just ambushed, breaks it and restrains thinking he will run off. He runs 3" and stops 1/2" from the board edge.

I charge 4 minotaurs at the Chaos knights. I whiff badly and only kill 2. He does around 7 wounds, breaks them runs them down but stops when he hits his chariot.
The chariot kills a minotaur in Ratspawns unit but is beaten. It flees and I run into the knights with Ratspawns unit.

On the left I charge minotaurs and a chariot into both the Dragon ogres and 4 Minotaurs. He flees with the dragon ogres and gets away.
I then use my spawn to chase the dragon ogres to within 1" of the board edge.

The minotaurs of khorne are beaten and run down by the chariot and 3 minotaurs.

On his turn chariot into my chariot that flees and is caught. Minotaurs and chariot into my furies.
His general is still kind of dancing around on the right flank facing off with 3 minotaurs. I'm a bit surprised with the hellfire sword he isn't pushing this.

His chariot and Minotaurs hit the furies, but only manage 2 kills as I finally make some ward saves. I do a wound to a minotaur and I only lose by 2. I roll a 5 and only 1 fury pops. Leaving me 2 in combat. SWEET!!

Ratspawn and company then manage with 11 str 6 attacks, about half needing 3+ to hit and 2+ to wound, only 3 wounds. He then saves 2 of those. So with 6 attacks he hits with 5 and does 5 wounds!!!
So 5 wounds and banner = 6 to my 1 wound, banner and unit strength. He wins by 3. I roll the dice and needing a 6, I roll a 7. Then I remember we are right by the oil well and I get +1 combat res for that. This means I hold and don't break!!!

This is huge. If he breaks me here I die as his furies are just a couple inches behind me. Otherwise David wins the game right there.

I've gotten confused here as something is out of order. I do know the next round I killed off the 2 knights. I then charged into some hounds who fled and I was able to hit the chariot that was in combat with the furies.

Destroying the chariot, the minotaurs in combat with the furies lost combat and fled. The fury and ratspawn chase and ratspawn runs into another chariot while the fury flies past it.

On his turn the recently rallied Dragon Ogres charge my spawn, kill it and overrun into the lone fury.
And Ratspawn destroys the chariot.

Then on my turn Ratspawn charges the Dragon Ogres along with a chariot in the flank of the DO's. This wipes them out.

Wind of death took care of the 2nd herd. So all he had left at this point was his BSB by himself on the left. And on the right his general in his biggest herd who still had not fought a combat.

David concedes at that point. It was a huge 4th round win that really came down to me making that break check on 7 due to the oil well. Without that he destroys ratspawn, and all the rest of that, minotaurs 2 chariots and dragon ogres live to kill off my stuff. It was a real game changer.

David is a fantastic player and a great sport who I know will probably beat me the next time we meet.

Win 20 points. Total for 4 games: 64 battle points

Coming soon Part 4 the finals.

Until next time...

Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 2

2008-03-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning had me facing off against Lex Simon and his Tomb Kings. Lex is a good friend and we have played a few times in the past. But since he moved to Austin about 2 years ago we haven't faced off and it was great to get the chance to match tactics with one of the best TK players I know.

Lex TK list:
Tomb king, destroyer, collar
Prince in a chariot of fire, flail
Lich priest jar, cloak, heirophant
Lich priest, 2xd.scrolls

10 skeletons w/bows
10 skeletons w/bows
24 Tomb guard with reform banner, full command, TK
5 light skeleton horsemen w/bows
5 light skeleton horsemen w/bows
3 chariots
3 chariots
3 Carrion
2 scorpions
Bone giant
Skull catapult with skulls of the foe

The scenario was the Cowboys Curse. Our general is smitten by some tart. Every turn you pick a different curse to lay on your opponent's general. And it is cumulatively worse. You can dump the tart at any time to rid the curse, but then you cannot get the objective.
to get the objective you must live with the curse and end up with more banners captured and owned, than your opponent.

The curses were: (pick 1 for each turn, may not repeat yourself)
-(turn #) to any combat res his general is a part of.
-(turn #) to power dice and add them to your dispel pool.
-(turn #) to the characters strength
-(turn #) from any casting roll your general uses, including bound spells
-(turn #) off the generals ld
-(turn #) off any 1 dice roll made by the opponent. Can force a miscast.

Each curse only lasts during your opponents turn. But can be a real pain in the butt. It got in my head more than I wanted it to. The Ld, strength and combat res were really worrying me.

So this caused me to be a lot more hesitant than I normally am. He got to go first and turn 1 kills a minotaur in my general's unit. I then have to make a Ld 8 panic test and fail. If it wasn't for the undivided which I passed, I'd been running off the board turn 1 of the first game. Wouldn't that suck.

I lined up my furies to take out the catapult, but on turn 2 it blew itself up. So I threw the furies at some archers and they promptly popped.
A herd failed 2 unruly checks in a row and then passed their fear test to charge into chariots with the tomb prince. This combat goes for 3 rounds, sees some fast cav charge in the flank. I then try to charge some minotaurs in and miss it by 1/4".
I finally whiff my rolls and the herd breaks losing its banner. With only a wounded Prince and 2 of the fast cav left.

The other 3 chariots charge 4 minotaurs, manage to kill 2. I kill a chariot back but break and run getting away. I rally, he charges with the 2 and blows the impact hits and I destroy the chariots.

On the left flank, three minotaurs are trying to get lined up to charge the giant and who has been hobbled by beasts cower. But it backfires. The giant gets on their flank and is magically charged in. But he whiffs and only gets 1 wound on the first set of attacks. Then gets a 2nd on the unstoppable assault. Killing my end Mino and winning combat by 3. Needing a 5 to hold, they do. The next round he only does 2 wounds again, and I do 2 wounds back. He wins by 1 because of the flank and again I hold.

In the middle his prince charges some minotaurs who fled. So I charge his chariot with a spawn and hold him. Over 2 rounds of combat he only does 1 wound to my spawn and I destroy the chariot out from under the prince. So on my turn 5 my 3 minotaurs charge in but only 2 can get on the prince instead of 3. I whiff all the attacks and only win by 1. So he loses his 2nd wound but doesn't die.

He had flown his heirophant over to make sure he could get that giant charge off which exposed her. I got IF dark hand of death on her, and poof. But no crumbling.

Game ends. Ran out of time at the bottom of 5. Lex never designated who had claimed the banner that had been captured. The 2 fast cav were gone, but the prince lived. We rolled for it and the prince had it. After we added up points, I was up by around 250. That banner cost me the win and the objective. I tried to sweet talk Lex into giving it to me, but he would have none of it. Great game Lex, I look forward to our next one.

So 8 point draw in a very well fought tough battle.

Game 2 verse Brent Collins and his Wood Elves:
Lvl 4 mage with stave and 2 d.scrolls
Lvl 2 mage with HoDA
Wardancer hero with Lamenations of dispair. A one shot bound item
wood elf noble BSB with Oaken armor

10 Glade Guard
10 Glade Guard
8 Dryads w/champ
8 Dryads w/champ
8 Dryads w/champ
3 Treekin
19 Eternal guard w/full command
5 Wardancers
6 Wardancers
Treeman

Brent is an excellent opponent who was a lot of fun to play, but Brent, you need to really practice with the army a lot. I think he had a lot of new things in the army that he wasn't use to playing with.

1. He never used his Treemans spell singing
2. He never used the one shot bound item he had, or the Hail of Doom Arrow.
3. when I charged his Eternal guard with BSB I asked if there was a champ and he said no, so I challenged and the BSB stepped up.
4. When I killed the BSB, I don't think he made his regeneration rolls? I may be wrong there, but I don't remember it.
5. He had my generals unit in a horrible spot, and charged the front with his eternal guard. I was expecting the wardancers with hero in the flank, and it never came. I killed the BSB, so the unit wasn't stubborn and broke them running them down.
6. He finally did charge my general's unit with a unit of wardancers and decided to go with the 4+ ward dance??? He only manages 2 wounds and I manage 2 back and I win, break him and overrun into the ongoing Treeman battle and cut down the treeman same turn.
7. In turn 6 I decide to go for the total destruction of his army and charge a chariot and Ratspawns unit into the Hero and wardancer unit. He goes with the +1 attack dance??? The chariot kills every last wardancer except the hero. The hero in a challenge with Ratspawn never gets a swing off.

In the end I had half my army left and he didn't have a model on the board. Even his general who was hiding in the woods died from a drain life spell on the bottom of turn 6.

For me it was a really fun game that allowed me to relax and get into the flow of the GT. You really need that first win to get you feeling good about yourself. And this game did it.

Brent was a great sport, several times he would make mistakes, like not moving his wizard out of the rain so he could cast or move a unit so he could treesing the woods. I was more than happy to let him do this, but he wouldn't. I almost even insisted but Brent wouldn't. He wanted to make himself learn from his mistakes.

So it ended up being an easy win, but a really really great game. Brent got my favorite opponent vote.

Win 20 points. Total through round 2: 28 Battle points.

Coming soon Part 3.

Until next time...

Lone Wolf 6 GT, 2008 Part 1

2008-03-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

I attended the Lone Wolf this last weekend and it was a blast. It started with me taking off early Friday from work. I got home and threw in 300 to watch while I finished up some stuff around the house. This really got me pumped up and in the mood for some serious gaming.

I got up to the Game hall about 3 in the afternoon and helped with the final setup. I had planned a 'Ard Boyz practice game but that fell through, so I started quickly looking for alternatives.

While sitting around I start talking with a new face, Chris. A really nice guy who plays beastmen as well. As it turns out we are both part of the Herdstone message boards. He is from Albuquerque and is friends with Marcus Martin a long time acquittance of mine. So we decided to throw down for some Friday night practice.

My list was basically the same one I ran last year.

Ratspawn the Reincarnated.
Doombull undivided with Heavy Armor, shield, sword of might
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, Staff of Darkoth, D.scroll
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, braystaff, d.scroll
Lvl 2 Beast shaman, und, braystaff, d.scroll

5 Minotaurs und, great weapons, banner
4 Minotaurs und, great weapons
4 Minotaurs und, great weapons
3 Minotaurs und, great weapons
3 Minotaurs und, great weapons
5 Chaos warhounds
5 Chaos warhounds
5 Chaos warhounds
2 Tuskigor chariots
2 Beast Herds, 7 gors, 6 ungors, full command
5 Furies
2 Chaos spawn of slaanesh

Chris' Army was a Beast Khorne list. I don't remember everything it had, but from memory:
Wargor of Khorne,
2 exalted heroes on steeds, undivided
3 units of minotaurs of khorne, 1 with great weapons, 1 without.
4 Beast herds.
some chaos hounds
2 beast chariots
8 furies
14 Beastigors mark of khorne, warbanner

This game actually went pretty quick, as I threw a few spells early on, and nothing on less than a 13. So his herds and furies were suffering early on.
Then I got off 2 charges that were right at 12" with my minotaurs on his and took out 2 units.
His khorngors killed a spawn and overran hoping to get out of charge arc of ratspawn, but he was about 1/4" too short, and I was able to see their flank. I killed 3, and with flank, outnumber, banner, he lost his frenzy, autobroke losing the khorngors, his general and a banner. That pretty much summed up the game.

Chris and I hung out the rest of the weekend and he is a great guy. I can't wait to meet up with him at future tournaments.

I then met with David Long in a 2nd warmup game Friday night. David and I have really become pretty good friends since he beat me 2 years ago at the Lone Wolf. He beat me again at the Boyou last year, and we met again last Lonewolf when I scored my first victory against him. We were both wondering if we would meet for the 4th time in 4 GTs. It turned out not to be so, but the warmup game was a lot of fun.

His army:
Dwarf Lord on shield bearers with 1+ re-rollable saves, some other stuff
Couple of thanes, and a runesmith with 3 d.scrolls. 1 of the thanes was a BSB I think.

2 20 man hammerer units with commands, rune standards.
unit of warriors
unit of longbeards
10 crossbowmen
2 bolt throwers, str 7
grudge thrower, volley gun

He setup in the middle, had his runesmith in some woods by itself.
then warmachine between each unit.

crossbowmen on left then warriors, then longbeards with bsb, hammers with lord, hammers with thane. BTs were on the outsides, grudge thrower and volley gun in the middle.

He didn't have any hills, which made it easy for me to shield my chariots from his bolt throwers.

I won the roll off and decided to go first. I rush forward with everything. Magic has me wipe out 5 or so crossbowmen and a few hammerers.
It was his turn and he moves the far right hammerers up.

He then promptly misfires with the grudge thrower. He rolls a 3 so it wouldn't be able to shoot till turn 3. He decides to re-roll it and gets the 1 its gone.
He then promptly misfires the volley gun and it explodes. OMG!! I am laughing my ass off at this point. As is David and everyone hanging around watching.

His bolt throwers all manage to miss or bounce off and his crossbowmen are useless.

On my turn, I throw my furies into the flank of his remaining crossbowmen who flee off the table. EitW has me hit the bolt thrower.
I move hounds up to block everything, move everything else up. Magic kills a couple dwarfs. Spawn heads into the woods to go after runesmith.

In combat, my furies whiff, he kills 2, and I pop. Uh oh, that was bad.

On his turn he charges with the warriors at my hounds. This was setup to open up their flank, but when my hounds flee, the chariot is now exposed to the bolt thrower.
On the right flank, the hammers charge and the hounds flee.

He runs his runesmith out of the woods back towards his board edge.

He shoots his bolt thrower at my chariot and hits, but then rolls a 1 to wound.
His other BT misses.
This is just getting sad.

In the next turn, I charge my chariot into the bolt thrower, charge 2 units of minotaurs at the warriors.
triple charge the right flank hammerers with 2 minotaur units and a chariot, killing every single hammerer. The thane autobroke and ran towards his bolt thrower, I had 1 unit of minotaurs pursue and catch him and hit the bolt thrower as well.

the chariot failed to kill 2 of the left side bolt thrower crew, so they stood there. Then the minotaurs wiped out the warriors who failed their insane courage and wiped them out. resulting overrun hit the combat with the chariot and bolt thrower.

This left just his general's unit and the long beards. The bolt throwers are soon destroyed in the next round of combat.

On my next turn I charged in a chariot, 4 minotaurs and 5 hounds on the flank to break his 2 remaining ranks. I only kill 1 hammerer in all of that. 1 minotaur had to attack the lord. While all the others sat around on their horns, this one was actually awake. I get 3 hits and 3 wounds!! So his 1+ becomes a 4+ re-rollable save and he ends up missing 2 of them. I still lose combat by a ton as they kill 4 hounds and a minotaur. everything breaks. The lone hound is long gone, and the dwarfs are able to run down both my fleeing minotaurs and my chariot!!

He still has nothing to charge, so he spins around to face my general's unit.
Then on my turn he forces Ratspawn and minotaurs to charge his unit. So I do so. My herd with 2 shaman was about 7" away from the hammerers and failed their unruly roll and ran into the rear of the hammerers.

He doesn't challenge and neither do I. He has the banner of double unit strength, so I need to get his unit below half and kill his general. Otherwise he is immune to fear and will be a stubborn 10 to break. And his long beards are ready to flank charge Ratspawns unit with the BSB if I am still there. All my other units are facing the wrong direction to protect my flank.

I decide to just kill as many hammerers as I can to make sure I win combat, then we will worry about the other stuff later. The Dwarf Lord only has 1 wound left on him, so I just put 1 minotaur on him. I get 3 hits, and 3 wounds again!!
He then fails all 3 armor saves at 4+. On his re-roll though he makes the first, the second...and fails the 3rd. The Dwarf Lord dies.

So now I just have to get his number down to 8 to get them below my unit strength of 18. My herd in the rear manages to kill 4!!! Fantastic. Then even though ratspawn whiffs and only kills 2, the rest of the minotaurs chip in and kill off 5-6 more and drop him down to 6 or 7 guys. They auto-break and Ratspawn is able to pursue out of the charge range of the long beards.

We shook hands at that point and my record with Mr. Long is now at an even 2-2. But I'm sure we will be playing much more in the future.

This ends part 1 of my Lone Wolf 2008 experience. Coming next, Part 2, Saturday Morning and the real tournament games.

Until next time...

WOW!!! GT Best Overall!!!

2008-03-02T18:32:00.000-08:00

It has been almost 4 years since my first GT Best Overall. Today I got my 2nd. They are precious things, that only a few players have more than 1. But it seems like every 4 years, the stars and planet align and I walk away with one of the big boys.

In 1999 I got Best General at the Direwolf GT.
In 2004 I got Best Overall at the Dallas Battle for the Lone Star GT
And now in 2008, the Lonewolf GT.

This is by far the best, most quality loaded GT I have ever done this well in. Really big name players were up and down the tables. I couldn't turn around without running into a GT vet with a Best General or Overall award to their name. With 86 (yea, 86!!) players it was a very tough row to how.

I'm not sure of my final scores on anything. As soon as they gave me the awards, I beat feet for the door before they realized their mistake. I had hopes, but was really expecting a 2nd or 3rd General or Overall. When they went through the Best general awards, and then had called out the 3rd best general, I was sitting on pins and needles. I knew there was one other player who had not received an award yet who had one more battle point than I did. So I was silently praying they called out his name for 2nd overall.

Then they announced 2nd overall and it was neither me nor him. I was a bit stunned. Only one award left and 2 of us with really top battle scores empty handed. My friend looked over and said congrats. I quickly told him to hold off. I wasn't so certain.

Then it came, best overall. Me. I was stunned, happy, thrilled, all the above. Hours and hours of work, assembling, cleaning, converting, painting and playing an army. It starts out as a small seed of an idea. In this case, extra models I had laying around. And with very minor tweaks, this army was built straight up from that. About the only big change I had was to drop a pretty useless hero and a massive sword for my general to add in a 3rd wizard. Which in most games came in very handy. But the models themselves didn't change.

My Ratspawn the Reincarnated army was a labor of love. It is the first real army I lay out and am proud of. It never won any painting or players choice awards, but it did come close several times.
It has won me the following awards:
3rd Best General, Lone Wolf GT 2007
3rd place MAWL League 2006
1st Place MAWL League 2007
Best Overall Desert Classic 2007
Best Overall Lone Wolf GT 2008

And 3, top 10 finishes out of 3 GT's. That is a big feat right there.

I am going to bring it to Memphis in the Hillbilly in July, and then it will be packed away into retirement, at least for a while. I am almost sad that my run with Ratspawn is coming to an end.

I'll try and do some full battle reports later and a review of all my scores once they are posted.

So, until next time... This is one very happy camper.

Time for a Grand Tournament!!

2008-02-29T07:03:00.000-08:00

It is that time again. The Lone Wolf GT finally cranks up today. I'm taking off work at 11:30 and heading home.

From there, I'll do some stuff around the house and head up to the GT around 2-2:30 to help setup.

I am bringing the same Doombull led Chaos Beast Undivided army I did last year. It always gets high praise for its painting and modifications I've done to it. Even did a minor amount of sculpting on it.

My goals this year:
Battle: Go 4-0-1 and capture 4 of the objectives. So 88 out of a possible 100 battle points. I've never done that well with this army but I figure I am due.

Sportsmanship: Get all good games and 1 favorite opponent vote. for 65 points. Lofty but doable.

Painting: I got a 65 out of 80 last year, and with basically the same army, but with hopefully a slight upgrade to my presentation I am hoping for a 70 this year. Not sure if this is doable, but we will see.

JR Points, I always get the 10, you are silly not to get that.

This would give me a grand total of 233 points. Which would have won Overall last year, edging out Rick Thompson's 232 point finish.

So my goal this year is no less than having a great time, score a trophy in something, either painting, general or overall and to finish higher than my 7th place finish from last year.

I have pretty lofty goals. Last year was my best chance to win, and I blew that. Now with the new High Elf book out, I could be looking at trouble there. No other armies bother me that much. There will be a ton of great GT winners there as usual, so it will be a tough row to how.

Well I'll let you know how I did Monday. Wish me luck.

Until next time...

Centaur Archer, up close and personal

2008-02-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

As always, you can click on the pictures to make them larger. But I doubt my painting can stand up to that kind of scrutiny. This is the model I'm going to enter into the painting competition.

Comments are certainly welcome.

Pic 1:

Pic 2:

Pic 3:

Pic 4:

Well let me know what you think. Good or Bad.

Until next time...

Painting Diary

2008-02-26T07:43:00.000-08:00

Late last night I finished painting my first centaur. It was one of the Archer models, and I have to say, I think he came out better than I have ever had a model come out before.

I used several new techniques in painting this model including, lining, blending and glazing. All of which I have never attempted on this level before.

I also finally decided on what colors to make the base. I found an online discussion about basing and there was one really interesting comment one guy made. So I used his suggestion and so far it looks pretty good.

Started with the primed white base. I then painted the sides black, and black washed the rocks and sand. I then used a dark green heavy dry brush over the black rocks and sand. Then a medium green, then a light green, then a yellow green. With light and lighter dry brushing. Compared the stark contrast of the black, it definetely looks different.

I then did some last second touch ups, one last layer of glaze on the skin, a bit of wash on the arrows and bow, then down to the garage for the dull cote. I definetely recommend Testor's for this. They have the best dull coat spray there is.
This morning I took a good look at the model and I'm very happy with the outcome.

Tonight I'll put some static grass on it, and get some pics to post tomorrow.

I've decided to enter this model in the Lone Wolfs small model painting competition.
Lone Wolf is only 4 days away and counting. Wish me luck.

Until next time...

BR: Twins of Khorne Vs Righteous Fury Part Deaux

2008-02-22T12:29:00.000-08:00

Things were looking good at this point. My general holding after only getting 2 wounds on the champion was huge. 5 attacks, 3+ to hit and 2+ to wound with no save should have been 3 wounds at least. So now I had lost my frenzy.

Turn 4a: The Glorious Twins of Khorne
So we start off by rolling to see if the Monastery runs out and it does. So I had 1 roll on it and it failed.
I then roll to see if my flankers come on and they DO!!! Finally.

The Centigors after going frenzy drunk last turn, roll a '6' again and go frenzy again. They slam into the flank of the knights of the realm fighting my general.

My knights in the middle have to charge something, and the only clear charge is the Grail regalia. Stubborn 8 is nasty, but I figure I can wrack up a bunch of kills.
The marauders charge the trebuchet as well.

My hero rallies. My marauders move to block the BSB unit from charging my knights. The only way it works will be to take the charge which will redirect them behind my unit.

In combat, the trebuchet crew is wiped out. The Centigors and general + knights wipe out the rest of the knights of the realm. This leaves only the regalia combat.

I do all my attacks and with a 6+ armor and 5+ ward vs knights and 5+ armor and 6+ ward vs the chaos steeds, I end up with 6 wounds. He gets his champs attacks back, but only does 1 wound and I save. He has a stubborn 8. If he fails this, the game is over. He passes.

Then in what turns out to be the biggest combat of the game, my Dogs of war cannot kill that last peasent horseman and he makes his break test again!!

Here is the board after my turn 4.

Down to just 3 lances and the regalia, and he can't get to my knights for a couple turns, I'm feeling pretty good. At this point he has only killed about 390 points of troops + the 240 the phoenix killed. I've killed easily more than that and have 2 banners.

Turn 4b: The wicked Brets:
Without a lot left to do the generals unit charges the flank of my Dogs of war. His BSB lance charges the marauder fast cav in front of them. The last lance turns around and moves up several inches.

With no magic or shooting we go straight to hand to hand. His general wipes out both Dogs of war and the unit promptly overruns 4". The BSB knights wipe out the marauders and I needed them to overrun about 10" and they go 7". so they can see the back side of my knights.

In the Regalia combat, I only manage to kill 2!! How the hell does that happen. Hitting on 3+ and wounding on 2+ or 3+, how do I do only 2 kills. I lose combat, but hold. If I break, I'm dead. I lose my frenzy.

Turn 5a: Twins of Khorne: Things are still looking ok. I run my newly arrived knights up did get into charge range. But here I screw up. I should have pushed them the full 14" instead only moving them 7-8", I left Blake an opening.

The smarter move would have been to turn around and run for a corner.
I turn around the rest of my units.

In combat, again I kill 2 monks. He has not done a wound, but I lose by 3. I fail my break test and flee right into the BSB's unit and am wiped out. Here Blake screws up as it would have cost him nothing to pursue and capture the standard, but he doesn't do it.

Turn 5b: With no more threats on this side, he turns both knights to face the lone knight unit and runs that stupid fast cav guy in front of my knights. DOH!!

Turn 6a: The only charge I can make and I'm forced to is at that lone fast cav guy that had made 2 6+ armor saves and failed to break in 4 rounds of combat. As I charge he flees and I'm forced to catch him and move my full 14" coming up 2" short of his general's unit.

I run my marauders in front of the BSB unit, ready to sacrifice them to keep the knights from being flanked. I should have written off the knights and saved the marauders.

I did count up the monks and found out I was 2 away from getting half points for them. So 5 axes into them yields 2 wounds and 140 points.

I move my Centigors down to capture the table quarter with the graveyard.

Turn 6b: Brets last charge.

Generals unit into knights. BSB into marauders. He totally wipes out both units. The last knight with banner by a horse and I roll a '1' for his armor save. UGGHHH!! But he would have still needed insane courage to get stand. And he has the tapestry banner so each banner captured is double points.

We count up the points and its 560 points in his favor. 640 of it in that last turn.
240 for the knights
100 for the marauders
200 for the banner
100 for the table quarter

If I simply turn that unit around and go hide, I have a draw.
If those flankers come on one turn earlier I think I win.
If I kill that dogs of war fast cav, I think its a draw.
If I run my marauders to the flank of the monks and kill 2, I save their 100 points and contest the qtr for 100.

If I had pushed my knights up 14", then there is no way they get out of the charge range of the knights when they are forced to charge. Not sure it helps, but it couldn't have hurt.

Over all, this game could have really gone either way. Blake played a fantastic tactical game and handcuffing myself with a unit and hero going after the phoenix and then flanking the knights was a big mistake. One or the other was probably ok, but not both.

The phoenix should have died, but it wasn't ridiculous. That fast cav guy should have died, and while a bit lucky, was not ridiculous. I had a few lucky rolls as well. Overall, I thought it balanced out.

Well, the 2nd loss pretty much drops me out of the playoffs, barring some total meltdown of a couple players. So now to grab that dragon egg and still be chosen of Khorne!!

Hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

BR: Twins of Khorne Vs Righteous Fury

2008-02-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of playing Blake and his Bretonians again. I met Blake in the Lone Wolf last year where his one vote gave 3rd players choice to Aaron's Vampire Counts army and his defeat of me in round 5 gave him Best General and me 3rd best general.

Blake is an excellent player who knows his tactics very well. I knew it would be a tough match-up. Since he was the home player he would have 2300 points. Since I failed the scenario 4 objective I was -100 points, so only had 2150 points.

This scenario involved a Phoenix. The object was to grab a phoenix egg. Not an easy task. In the 8 or so games already reported, only 1 egg had been grabbed. I knew it would be tough, but I wrote the scenario, and the eggs were vital for becoming a "chosen" in round 8. So I decided for better or worse, I'd grab an egg.
I devoted 1 knight unit and one hero to the task.

Then I for some reason decided to try my resource flankers, and sent another knight unit around to be my flankers. This had the cumulative affect of fighting his 2300 points with less than 1500 points.

My army looked like:
Exalted hero of Khorne on chaos steed, shield, Great Fang, Troll hide
Exalted hero of khorne on chaos steed, enchanted shield, rending sword, dragon wand

4 units of 5 chaos knights, standard, mus
4 units of 5 marauder horsemen, flails, mus
2 units of 6 centigors, LA, sh, spears, mus
1 unit of 5 DoW fast cav, bows, shields

His army:
General with lance of always hit.
BSB
Pegasus hero w/virtue to never be outnumbered

9 knights of the realm, full command
9 knights of the realm, fc
8 KotR, fc
8 KotR, fc
5 Grail knights, fc
Trubechet
5 Fast cav w/bows,spears, mus
3 pegasus knights, champion
22 Grail Retinue with full command

Turn 1a: Twins of Khorne: He prayed and so I decided to go first. My Centigors didn't drink so everyone moves up.
I throw 10 axes at the phoenix, do a couple wounds but he makes everyone of his ward saves.

Turn 1b: Evil Bretonians: He charges his Grail knights into my Centigors. I figure he will destroy them, but if he holds, I have a nice flank from my general and knights and if he does overrun I have a flank from my 2nd centigors. So I hold.

The rest of his army moves up. In shooting, his trebuchet deviates just enough to glance a knight and kill him. A knight I would sorely need later.

In combat, his grail knights only manage to kill 3 centigors. With my attacks I kill a grail knight. The centigors break. This causes the marauders in front of my general to panic and run. The centigors get away from the 4" pursuing grail knights but run into the knights of the realm and cause my 2nd centigors to panic and flee almost to the table edge.

Here is the setup after turn 1:

and the other half of the board:

From the first picture, my right to left you have:
pegasus knights by the graveyard and wall. Then a unit of 9 Knights.
Grail knights in the woods, then 9 more knights. Next to them are 8 knights with the general and the BSB with knights.
On my side you can see the fleeing centigors. The other centigors have already been wiped out.
Then my general with knights of khorne. They have the monastery on them, so gain a 5+ ward save. Then you can see a unit of marauders in front of his fast cav and the fleeing marauders behind them.

From the 2nd picture you can see his Pegasus hero behind the BSB unit. Trebuchet on the hill and then Grail retinue. On the hill is the phoenix in his nest.
On my side, you can see knights on the hill. They have stable so move 8". In front of them are my Dogs of war fast cav. Then 2 marauder units by the phoenix. And finally a unit of knights with hero in front of the phoenix.

Turn 2a: The glorious and good Twins of Khorne: I had a choice to take on the Knights of the realm or go for the grail knights. Grail knights it is. I feared the KotR would flee, leaving me setup for his general's unit to charge me.
And while I wanted to put a wound on the phoenix first, I decided not to wait any longer and charged in.

I rolled for my monastery and it stays on for this turn. Sweet. I roll for my flankers to come on, nope.

The fleeing marauders failed to rally but only go about 5 inches and stay on the table. But the centigors, who are right on the table edge rally. Whew!!

Shooting doesn't do anything, so onto combat.
My general's unit totally wipes out the grail knights. The Great fang counting for 3 of them. So my general's unit overruns and rolls 17". This will hit his knight unit in the flank. But then we remember his panic checks, and the knights I'm about to hit panic and flee. But the ones I want to flee closer to the middle hold strong.

Since he fled from the panic and not the charge I don't get to wheel that way, and instead run 17" into no where land.

Since the phoenix nest counts as an obstacle, I lost all my charge bonuses. Since my hero and phoenix had the same initiative, he let my hero go first. 5 swings gave me 4 hits and 3 wounds. He saves 2 of them. But the rending blade goes off. 2 wounds, damn, was hoping for 3.
The phoenix then gets pissed and kills off 2 knights. My last 2 knights attack and get in 2 wounds. He makes one of the ward saves. So he is down to only 1 wound left. Uggh, if I'd rolled 3 wounds on the rending sword, the egg would already be mine.

Turn 2b: The misguided Brets: His far right KotR charge some marauders who flee and are run down. His fast cav charge my dogs of war fast cav. His pegasus knights charge my centigors. I stand and shoot and he is just out of range so he stops just in front of my centigors. I do a wound on the stand and shoot.

his hero on pegasus charges a unit of marauders who flee and he is just short of hitting the next marauders.

His fleeing knights rally and turn to face my generals' knights flank.

Shooting does nothing and onto combat.
His fast cav takes down 2 of my DoW fast cav. But with their 6 attacks back kill 3 of the fast cav. I win by 2 and he rolls insane courage to stay.

The phoenix combat is another matter. I do a wound with my hero and he makes his ward save. His phoenix does 2 wounds but I make both saves. I then do a wound with my knights and he makes the ward. Uggghhh!!

Turn 3a: The Glorious Twins of Khorne: I roll for the Monastery and again it stays with me. Good, I will need it. But again my flankers fail to come on.

My centigors are drunk, and the mad mean kind. They go frenzy and swear to avenge their brothers. They charge into the pegasus knights who take it.

My khorne knights on the hill can charge either the hero on pegasus or the BSB unit. I opt for the lone pegasus hero along with a unit of marauders. He opts to flee. Since we have the same unit strength he rolls and flees from the marauders. This is really bad for him and my marauders catch him and get between his BSB and Grail retinue unit. More importantly my knights continue to face the front of his knights.

Both my fleeing marauders rally. One can't move, but the other can and runs back in front of his BSB unit. Throwing their axes they kill a knight and take out a rank.
My generals unit has no option but to turn around and face the full unit of knights of the realm.

Here is a pic before we get into combat:

In combat, the Centigors kill all but 1 pegasus knight and he kills 1 centigor back. He breaks and I run him down. With a decent overrun, they are in a great position to counter charge his Knights of the realm, if my general can hold.

The fast cav combat, we each kill one, and again the lone fast cav holds with insane courage.

Finally the phoenix combat. I do another wound to him, and again he makes his ward save. The phoenix then adds another knight to his pile of copses. And my last knight fails to wound. Its a drawn combat. But I cannot lose my last knight. The hero cannot pick up an egg by himself.

Turn 3b: The easily duped Brets: The knights on the far right charge into my generals unit. The knights on my side of the board charge my marauders who flee of the board. He moves his knights around to get more angled towards the phoenix.
He moves up his grail regalia.

In combat I fail to kill the last fast cav as he makes his 6+ armor save, and he does a wound, but I save it. He then rolls a 3 to hold. Geez!!

In the phoenix combat, my hero again wounds the big evil bird twice, and he makes both ward saves!!! NOO!!!!! he then promptly eats my last knight leaving the hero alone. I lose combat, and fail my insane courage and flee the nasty bird. That one hurt.

In the big combat, the knights charge in and the champion challenges. My hero gladly accepts and after brushing aside the one lance that hit his chaos armor, he killed the lowly champ twice over. His knights do manage to kill a knight with me failing the only monastery roll I had. I lose combat by 1, so lose my frenzy, but roll a 7 and hold. Whew!! That was huge.

This ends part 1 of this climatic battle. Coming soon part II.
Will those stupid flankers ever decide to show up?
Will anyone be able to get a phoenix egg?
Will that lone fast cav bring about my doom?

All thes questions and more will be answered soon.

Until next time...

Obama your mama

2008-02-21T19:41:00.000-08:00

My Niece unfortunately did not surprise me when she said she liked Obama. Many of the youth in America do like him. He talks nice, he looks good. Hell, he probably even smells sweet.

But I see nothing of substance underneath. Not that I like any of the candidates. But Obama??

Have we really come to this in America?

He says he offers Hope and Change. But the only change I hear him talking about is Universal Health Care and surrender to the terrorists. Thats it. He says more jobs, he says better opportunity, but everyone says that. Where is the plan? Well I guess there will be plenty to rebuild our cities after they are destroyed.

Lets talk about Health Care first. Is there a place for our government to help? Yes. On the very low poor end and on the very high expensive end of health care. But for me and 90% of Americans, we want our health care to stay exactly as it is.

If I get sick, I can pick up the phone, make an appointment, have the doctor call me when they are ready for me in about 30 mins to an hour. I drive 10 mins to the doctor and see them within 10 more mins. So in 2 hours, I've seen my doctor and gotten whatever care I need for $15.

For major cases like Cancer, right now, you can see an Oncologist and start treatments within weeks. In "so called" great places with government health care, like Canada, you can end up waiting 6 months or more.

Medium cases, like say a kidney stone. There are 4-5 machines to treat kidney stones in the Dallas area alone. If you get a stone, see your doctor, he can have you treated within the week. And if its really bad, the same day. In Canada where they have 3, yes 3, machines for the entire country. One in Vancouver, one in Toronto and one in Halifax. There is a 6 month waiting list.

And lets not even get started on how good the care is, or lack thereof, or the fact there is no malpractice suits at all. I've had doctors tell me straight out. By September I've made all I can make in Canada, so I move to Florida to treat patients from October to December, or take a 3 month vacation. Oh yea, and taxes are 40-50% of your pay check to pay for this wonderful care.

And then there is the military. Being ex-military myself and my son being in the Air Force and in Iraq, what do you think this man, and I use that term loosely, is going to do if elected.
1. We will immediately pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ok, not that bad, we have made a lot of progress in the last 6 months and in 12 months time it may be stable enough that when we leave things will stay stable. Then again, the terrorists may be counting on Obama to win and may just be laying low until we pull out.

2. He will begin to downsize the military to save money. Projects for military contracts will get cut, jobs will be lost. Ships won't be built. New tanks, planes, weapons, etc... will all be downsized, along with the jobs that build them. Reenlistment incentives will be dropped, so people in the military will get out when their time is up. Quotas will be lowered, a backlog to get into the military will fill up. All of these people will flood the job market that is already saturated. Many of them high school kids who are having to wait to get into the military, or can't get in now because they will raise the standards.
But all the low income jobs are filled with illegal aliens. Even though they won't be able to get the Amnesty bill through, he just won't enforce the laws like Bush and they will continue to stay and suck up all the jobs working below minimum wage and in bad conditions. Unemployment will sky rocket and the economy, already tittering on the age of a recession will plummet into one.

3. Without us in Afghanistan and Iraq anymore, Al-queda and the other Islamo terrorists will plan their next big attack on America. Knowing they have 4 years where we will not retaliate. They will kick back and realize they survived the hard 8 years with someone willing to fight them. But now back to the good times they had with Clinton. They will attack, and attack and attack. Cities will be destroyed, our military will be hit hard. And Obama will claim he is retaliating, but sending a missile into some desert tent like Clinton did. They will laugh at us once again. And we will be helpless to stop them.

So besides destroying our military, our health care, our economy, my paycheck with higher taxes, our pride and doing nothing to get rid of the illegal aliens in our country. What has he promised? What plans does he have? Because I've heard lots of talk of healing our soul (from a politician, yea right) and hope and change.

But in the end its a politician with no experience (beyond doing drugs), no military experience (oh yea, Clinton was great there) and no future for America.

While I don't like McCain either, at least he won't turn our military salute into what the French use in every war.

Until next time...

Long Weekend

2008-02-19T13:38:00.000-08:00

Due to presidents day, my son was home from school, while the spousal unit had to work. So I stayed home giving me a 3 day weekend.

I played warhammer, watched movies, and played some more warhammer. 3 Games of Warhammer in one weekend. With the exception of tournaments, I rarely do this.

For movies, a wide range of Underdog, a fun little kids movie that stayed pretty true to the original cartoon. Was neat as the original cartoon was on the DVD as well. Talk about damage one superdog can cause, wow!!
It also included 2 viewings of Hairspray. This movie was my wife's selection and I was wary. Especially when it starts out with a musical number called 'Hello Balitmore'. But when it includes lines like:
"There is the flasher that lives next door,
And the drunk passed out on the barroom floor."

Its hard to not like it. It had a decent plot, good acting, Michele Phifer just gets better and better. Add in a good lesson on discrimination that crosses racial lines and more than what you are use to seeing, some funny gag lines, Christopher Walken and John Travolta as a woman and you have yourself a pretty good movie.

For a fun evening the whole family will enjoy, its worth renting.

The Warhammer went well also. A win a loss and my league game. I'll do a BR on the league game another day.

But for now back to work.

until next time...

TMoblile you SUCK!!

2008-02-15T07:11:00.000-08:00

Rachel Lucas is always great about posting the obvious. This one touched my heart on many levels.

1. A 2 year old died.
2. A Navy man died.
3. T-Mobile were total pricks.
4. Others went out of their way to help when it wasn't necessary.

So go read the article here.

And then cancel your subscription to T-Mobile. What a bunch of A-holes.

Until next time...

To Paint or Not To Paint

2008-02-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

I face a horrible dilemma. I recently found out the new Hordes of Chaos army book will be out at the end of this year.

I was planning on finishing up my Centaur army, which uses that book, for my army list. My plan was, finish the army by the end of the year, so in 2009 I can run the Twins of Khorne Centaurs in the 2009 GT circuit, while I paint my Wood Elves to be used in 2010.

But with the book being released right at the end of the year, my concern is that my army will no long be valid. That changes to the army could make it obsolete and illegal. I may have to change out arms and weapons, move things around, rebuild the entire army from scratch, if that is even possible.

So my option is, go ahead and buy my wood elf/Native American Indian, Comanche tribe, army, build and paint it for 2009. Then after the book comes out, take a good hard look at my Centaurs for 2010 and what needs to be done.

But the 2nd problem is, the models I have identified for my Comanche army are redoing the horses for the army, as they felt they were too small. And the manufacturer thought they might be ready in March.

So do I push through with the Centaurs and hope for minimal changes in the book when it comes out at the end of the year?? If it isn't usable, I can alway run my Skaven, or even update my Vampire army and run it.

Or do I buy the Comanche's and paint them up for next year. And look at the book when it comes, and then decide how to proceed?

Choices, choices, choices. What shall I do?

Until next time...

Next Fall

2008-02-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

The writers strike is finally over. So what about our favorite shows. Just read an article on Yahoo here.

That says for many shows it will be another 6-8 weeks and for my favorite shows Heroes and Chuck it will probably be next Fall before we see another episode.

No word on my other favorite Pushing Daisies, so we will just have to wait and see.

So this spring it looks like Battle Star Galactica and the Sarah Conner Chronicles may be the best things on.

Chronicles was on again last night and it did not disappoint. Lots of good action. Lots of good scenes with Summer in them. 2 Terminators running around. An old ex-boyfriend of Sarah's come into the picture. And John's Uncle from the future falls into line. And where or where did the chess computer go??

Until next time...

Busy, busy, busy

2008-02-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have been just swamped at work and unable to get on here and add much.

I did want to talk about the movie we rented this weekend Stardust.

Guys, go out and rent this movie. Sit down and watch it with your girl. If you don't get lucky, then she really isn't in to you.

It is a great date movie. It has all the love story crap that girls love, while being still a great fantasy movie, with plenty of action. Robert DeNiro is fantastic in his role. As is Michelle Phifer. The main characters also do a very passable job. The best part of the movie is the story itself. The transformation of the characters. The realization how shallow, narrow minded and petty we are.

I went to the movies to see this and as soon as it was available we rented it. I am pretty sure it will end up in our permanent collection.

Again, put this on your Netflix list and set it up for Valentines day.

I also wanted to mention my golf game last Sunday before the Super bowl.
I have recently picked up some new/used clubs and tried them out for the first time. The irons are a set of Ben Hogans and the woods are a set of King Cobras.
Hole 1 I use the 5 wood/iron on the 170 yard hole and land on the green!! Now if that isn't good karma I don't know what is. I had hit it right some, but it hooked slightly left and right on. I 2 putt to get the par.
Hole 2 is about the same length, use the same club and damn if I don't land about 2 feet off the green.

I go on to be only 3 over after 6 holes!! I was on a serious roll getting 4 pars in that stretch. I got a bit tired and came down to Earth for the last 3 to finish at 9 over for the 9 holes. But I am very happy with the new clubs. They worked great. I can't wait to get out and try them again.

Finally politics. I just cannot believe that we haven't even had our primary yet and my top 2 choices have already dropped out of the field. Now it looks like McCain will walk away with the Republican nomination while Hillary and Obama will have to fight all the way to the Democratic convention to get a clear choice there.

McCain really needs to pick a conservative running mate. We will just have to wait and see. But unlike others on the blogosphere, I just cannot vote for Obama or Hillary. Obama is so liberal he makes Ted Kennedy look conservative. Never saw a war he wasn't afraid to run away from. Never saw a tax hike he didn't like and never saw a handout he wasn't willing to give.

And Hillary, just gives me the creeps. You guys think Bush hides things and abuses the Presidential power. OMG!! just wait till Shrillary gets in there. This lady is beyond contempt. If she doesn't have blood on her hands, she is one step from it. Have you ever really read what happened with the Whitewater stuff? She was so much more involved than Billy boy. Half of those people are in prison for a reason. And there are plenty of skeletons, really, not figuratively, to go around.

Vote how you like, but remember we do have young men and women overseas, in foreign countries, fighting for the freedoms and liberties we now so casually observe. Think about what you are doing to them when you vote.

Until next time...

Battle Report: Twins of Khorne vs Chaos Beasts Part II

2008-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

When I left off, the Beasts of chaos were well ahead and there magic was enough to get through about 1 spell a turn. He had miscast in turn 2, but the result was only that I could cast a spell. Its the only one any of my opponents get anymore. ;)

But his general now realized there was a threat to himself and still not a single Chaos knight had been killed yet. And as long as I had those, I still had all my dispel dice and a chance.

Turn 3a: Beasts of Chaos
His only charge is to send the chariot at my marauders that had just wounded his general.
He then on cue rallies both the Dragon Ogres and Beast herd. He could have charged my fleeing centigors but felt that would leave himself open for a flank charge from my chaos knights. So he pulled back slightly.
He flies his Exalted Daemon behind my knights.

Magic kills off a couple of centigors. That was it. No hand to hand so onto my turn 3 with this setup:

I measure for my frenzied charges and the only one in range is the knights into the flank of the chariot. The other chariot and minotaurs are just out of reach, as are the dragon ogres. :(

So of course the chariot flees the charge and runs 14" and barely hits my generals unit killing 2 knights while being destroyed himself. Not good.

But on the bright side, all 3 of my fleeing units rallied, which I desperately needed. I move my knights through the ruins, barely making it out. I figured I have to stop screwing around with my general and run him right up on the chosen knights. This is a huge risk, but I have to do something.
I get to move the one marauder unit who runs behind the Exalted daemon again and throws, but does nothing.

I back up my knights some to keep them out of range of the minotaurs and dragon ogres.

At the end of turn 3 this was the setup:

Note that the chariot with the yellow X on it, was destroyed when it hit the knights while it was fleeing.

Turn 4a: Now it was time for the beasts to get bold. Chariot into the flank of the knights. Chosen knights into the general's unit. He was looking at putting the minotaurs into their flank, but they had no LOS.
He does not charge the minotaurs into the Centigors. Might have been tough with the wall there, but I felt he should have.
The herd #3 also fails its unruly and is forced to charge the chaos knights on the left side.
His plans are starting to unravel now.
He maneuvers the minotaurs and Dragon Ogres around, again trying to stay out of my charge range. Here I think is a huge mistake. With 2 to 1 advantage, you take it.

Move the minotaurs in front and angle the Dragon ogres but stay out of range. My knights are forced to charge. Minotaurs flee. Dragon Ogres hit knights in the flank. Break them, overrun close to my general's unit.

He also runs his great bray shaman up by himself close to the wall to get off the Hunters spear on my centigors. In magic he does kill a few centigors dropping their number to 3 (mistake showing 4 later).

In combat, the chariot gets 7 impact hits but only manages to kill 1 knight. And with numbers and standard I win, but he holds. I make a mistake here, and turn my knights to face the chariot. My thinking his chariot will hold the next round as well.
His herd #3 totally whiffs on my knights getting 0 wounds and my knights rip them apart. After he fails his insane courage, I overrun into the big herd #1 and his wargor. His great bray shaman panics and runs.

In the big knights combat, with his 15 attacks, he only manages to kill 1. As he only got 3 hits and 2 wounds. I saved 1. My general then kills 1 and my knights kill 1. So I win combat by 1!! That is a huge turn around.

So things are really starting to take a turn in my favor.

Turn 4b: Twins of Khorne
Things are looking up here. The Centigors go frenzy. Needing to charge something I can hit the big minotaur unit or go for the fleeing bray shaman. I decide taking out the level 4 shaman is paramount. He only flees 6" and the centigors are able to run him down and get out of the charge arc of the minotaurs.
I decide the right flank needs to be fixed. I pull the hero out of the unit so we are 2 on 2 instead of 2 on 1.
I run my other marauder unit up to the Exalted daemon who didn't move last time. I had made my terror test from the other, so together I'm able to put 10 axe shots on him. With 4 wounds, he saves 2 with his ward. Then with the troll hide, he saves 1 more. So still alive but barely.

In combat my knights decide to avoid the wargor and just go for gors. I kill off 7 of the 8 including the champ. Leaving only the banner. His ungors and lone gor whiff. But the wargor stands strong and hits all 3 times and then wounds all 3 times. So needing a 5+ armor save, I make 2 of the 3. (forgot to delete one in the pic.) But even with 2 ranks, US, and banner, I win 8 to 5. Needing a 4 not to flee, he fails and is run down.

I wound the chariot, but he saves. He then whiffs his attacks on my knights and needing a 6 to stay, he fails and flees. I pursue but am now in a single file. He runs 9" and I run 10". So he doesn't hit the minotaurs, causes no panics and I fail to hit the minotaurs by 1". Ugghhh!! The worst possible outcome.

In the big knight combat, my general goes on fire hitting 4 times and wounding 3. He fails 2 of the saves. My knights then hit all 4 times and wound 3. He fails 1 and his chosen knights of tzeentch are now history.

And just like that, the game has completely changed. I look up and there is nothing but despair on my opponents face. The game that seemed so much in the bag after turn 3 all of the sudden has completely fallen apart.

Turn 5a: Beasts of Chaos
The beast general was now in full salvage mode. what can he get quick? He charges the minotaurs in. One on the knights one on the hero. He backs his Dragon Ogres up. And in a bid to save his general he flies the scared daemon over to the idol.

His magic is completely shut down. In combat the minotaurs kill the only knight in combat with them, but that was all. With US they win and I am no longer frenzied, the knights fail their insane courage and flee. They easily get away from even the blood greed filled minotaurs.

On my heroes combat, they swing away and get 3 hits. Then wound all 3 times. With his 0+ armor save now at 3+, he saves 2. But he is also wearing the same troll hide as the daemon and makes his 5+ regeneration roll. The hero really does poorly back only getting 1 wound, but with the rending sword it turned into 3 and a minotaur dropped. So the lone hero wins combat but the minotaurs hold.

Turn 5b: The Twins of Khorne
With no charges to delcare, the knights on the right back up for a possible turn 6 charge on the minotaurs if they are still around.
The knights rally.

I run the marauders around the minotaurs and throw axes at them. Killing 1 but he makes his panic check.
The centaurs, not needing a terror test as they failed one earlier, just move up around the corner and lob their str 5 axes at the Exalted daemon. With 3 hits and 2 wounds, it was too much and the horrid beast was sent back into the warp.

In combat, my hero gets 2 wounds that turns into 4. His minotaur gets 2 wounds back, but when my hero makes both armor saves, the minotaurs flee with the hero quickly overtaking them and claiming their skulls for khorne.

Turn 6a: Beasts of Chaos
The minotaurs charge the chaos knights who flee. And the dragon ogres back up.

No magic, no shooting no combat.

Turn 6b: Twins of Khorne
With the game in hand, there were no charges to be made. The knights fail to rally and I forget to use the idol to re-roll it.

The marauders run up behind the minotaurs for one last volley. The knights on the right move down to claim the table quarter.

I search the idol for the elusive key and it in fact eludes me and I am unable to accomplish the mission of finding the key. This will cost me severely in the next round of the league.

Before I throw my axes, my opponent graciously concedes.

Final thoughts: David was a great sport throughout the entire game. I on the other hand was a prick as usual when things went bad. Took me a turn or two to get over it. No rules arguments, but 2 iffy calls that we disagreed on.

One was the chariot. I wanted to measure a lot closer, as I thought it had a chance to miss my knights when it fled, but he had already picked it up, so we couldn't check for sure.
The 2nd was the minotaurs into the flank. It was close, but he conceded. Not sure if it was because of the chariot issue just 5 minutes before, or because he felt bad for me because I was getting stomped.

Either way, after those 2 I think I settled down, and started playing without any more issues. Except for my dice going insane hot in the combat phases. It was not uncommon for me to roll 5 dice and get 4 6's to hit.

The herd going unruly was a huge blow as it allowed the 1 unit of knights to roll those up. And then the great shaman fleeing right in front of frenzied centigors was just unlucky. And not sure if he moved the Exalted daemon up to try and search for the key in turn 6, but putting it right in range of my centigors with axes turned out to be his doom.

Overall, it turned out to be a really fun game and of course I felt like dog crap afterwards for getting mad at my dice after his turn 1.

I think it turned out to be a very intense game where both of us really wanted the win. And at the end of the game I just looked over at David and said, "What the hell happened?"

His lack of getting the Beast cowers spell really hurt as well as any real powerful spell for the fire lore. But 10 Power Dice and 1 bound item had a rough time against 8 Dispel Dice.

In the end, the armor and strength of the knights came through. And I need to remember as long as I have them, I stand a chance.
SKULLS FOR THE SKULL GOD!!

Hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

Battle Report: Twins of Khorne vs Chaos Beasts Part I

2008-02-05T08:38:00.000-08:00

I played my 4th League game Saturday morning. David and I are both Stoners (and not as in drugs, but for those who know what I'm talking about, hey.)
Like all my posts, click on the pictures to enlarge them.

We met at the Lonestar comics in Arlington and got right into it.
We rolled up 6 pieces of terrain. We ended up with 3 hills and dropped one for the Ancient Idol which is in the scenario.

The scenario involved trying to find a key carved into the idol. You had to have a unit stand close to the idol and do nothing for a whole turn. Then you could find it on a 4+. In addition, when you found the key you could find a magic ring on a 5+.
You got 50 vp for the key, and 50 for the ring. And any unit that found the key did not give up any vp for being under half.

My army was my typical Twins of Khorne with only a couple of exceptions.
I swapped out my no armor save sword for the d3 wounds and echanted shield.
And with my extra 50 points for being the home team I took the banner of rage.

Twins of Khorne
Exalted hero of khorne on chaos steed, shield, gaze of the gods, sword of might, wand of dragon slaying, general.
Exalted hero of khorne, on chaos steed, rending sword, enchanted shield, troll hide
4 units of 5 chaos knights of khorne with standard, mus. 1 with banner of rage.
4 units of 5 chaos marauder horsemen w/flails, throw axes, mus
2 units of 6 Centigors w/light armor, shield, spears, throw axes, mus
2 units of 5 Dogs of War fast cav w/bows, shields, mus

Davids Arkenrok's Ambushers
Exalted Daemon, undivided, unliving idol, soul hunger, troll hide, lvl 2 fire, general
Greater Bray shaman, power familiar, crown of horns. lvl 4, beast
Wargor, great weapon, armor of damnation
Beast herd #1, 8 gors, 10 ungors, full command
Beast herd #2, 6 gors, 6 ungors, foe render, mus
Beast herd #3, 6 gors, 6 ungors, mus
5 Warhounds
2 Tuskigor chariots
5 Chosen Chaos knights of Tzeentch, Banner of Wrath
5 Chaos furies
2 units of 4 Minotaurs
3 Dragon Ogres

here is the setup:

For terrain, on the left we had some ruins, and then 2 walls that made a V shape. A small hill next to the walls. In the center we had a small building with the statue on top. It is designated in the drawing with the giant. On the right we have a woods and then a hill up on the top right.

His deployment left to right was:
furies, herd #3, herd #1 with wargor and great shaman (green), minotaurs, 2 chariots, hounds, knights, with Exalted daemon behind them. Minotaurs, herd #2 and finally Dragon Ogres.

Mine left to right was: knights and marauders, centigors, knights and marauders, knights with general and marauders, centigors, DoW, marauders, knights with banner of rage and hero, Dogs of war.

I had the option to go first, but with no shooting on his part, I let him take the first turn. Probably a mistake.

Turn 1a: Beasts.
He moves his units up a bit but not much. Then in magic, he is casting and I am dispelling. Finally his exalted daemon casts Fireball on the chaos marauders in front of my generals unit. I'm not to worried about it as much as the burning head spell coming next. So I let it go. Big Mistake.

He rolls 6 hits on 1d6. Then needing 3+ to wound, he gets 5 wounds. Ok, wipes out the whole unit. No biggie, only 1 panic test needed on the Centigors. Needing an 8, they roll a 9.
They promptly rotate their unit directly right and flee 12". Well thats not so bad, except there is no place for them to stop and they flee right off the board. This causes panic checks in the marauders and both Dogs of war fast cav units. All but the last Dogs of war fast cav flee and right off the board.

There goes 440 points worth of troops lost on turn 1, and my entire right flank.

The red star is where the fireball hit. The yellow 'X's show which units were destroyed.

Turn 1b: Twins of Khorne
So this is what I had at the beginning of turn 1:

You can imagine how I felt. This was going to be a long game. And at the time I was thinking not very fun either. Boy was I wrong.

I decide at least go for the key before I lose everything. My army moves up. I shoot my Dogs of war at the Dragon Ogres and do a wound. I throw axes at the hounds killing 2. They flee through a chariot, but he makes his panic test.

Here is the setup at the end of turn 1. Somehow I didn't feel things had evened out.

Turn 2a: Beasts of Chaos
The furies charge my marauders who flee and go through my knights. The furies can hit the knights or stop right in front. 20" lands them right on the knights. So he charges the knights with the furies.
He charges herd #2 into my Dogs of War fast cav. After looking at it closely, I flee off the table.
His hounds fail to rally and run off the table.
He flies his Exalted Daemon behind my left flank.
moves everything around a bit, moves his chariots up.
He then gets off wolfs hunt and his chariot charges my marauders by the idol. I flee and run past the daemon.
In hand to hand the furies do nothing and are hacked down and destroyed.

Here is the setup at the end of turn 2a:

Turn 2b: Twins of Khorne
I start off with the centigors failing their terror test and fleeing. Knights on the left can just hit the herd #3 through the ruins. They charge, he flees and gets away.
On the right flank knights charge herd #2. He flees, but only runs 3". I catch him and was about to end up right in front of the Dragon Ogres. But his Dragon Ogres panic and run 10" away. Whew!!
I move my knights in the center up, and move my general to the flank in case the Exalted decides to charge in.
1 unit of marauders rallies and runs up to the daemon. The other fails but only flees 9" and stays just barely on the battlefied.
In shooting I get 3 hits and 3 wounds on the Exalted. He fails all his ward saves, but the league item troll hide gives him a 5+ regeneration roll. He makes 2 of them and saves the Exalted.

Here was the end of turn 2.

Things are still not looking good for the Twins of Khorne. But better than before. A couple of failed rallies and things could turn around. But still way behind.

Coming Soon Part II

Until next time...

The Super Bowl was Super Again

2008-02-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

I wasn't planning on tuning in to watch the super bowl, but I am always a sucker for the SB ads every year and as it turned out there was a hell of a game being played.

I hate the Giants as much as the next guy. Only teams I hate worse than them are the Redskins, Eagles, 49ers and now the Patriots. I routed for the Pats when they won their first superbowl 6-7 years ago. But now going for 4, with Belacheat as their coach, I can't stand it.

After the Cowboys QB coach gets a 5 game suspension for taking HGH to help his disease, and Belacheat gets a wrist slap for filming other teams. Now its coming out, he filmed the Rams walk through years ago before their first SB they won. Damn, how long has this guy been cheating.

I just had to laugh at him as he cried his way off the field before the game was even over. 18-1 but ohhhh, what a 1. They went from the best team ever in the history of the universe and in the last minute of the game, went to a laughing stock.

This game had nothing to do with the Giants winning, it was all about the Pats losing.

The game itself was also very exciting, as there was never more than a 4 point lead throughout any part of the game. And 3 4th qtr drives to take the lead.

After the giants score to take the final lead. The Pats get the ball back. 30 seconds left, 3 time outs and need to go 40 yards. So what do these idiots do. Try to throw the ball deep 4 straight times. He gets sacked once. They burned a timeout when the clock was stopped. They were in total panic mode as their perfect season slipped away.

All I have to say is: HAHA!! What a bunch of losers. And Belacheat leaving the field with still a second on the clock, even with the ref yelling at him, that there was time left and he needed to get back. What the hell kind of bad sport, does that on the worlds biggest stage in the world? A loser and a cheater.

I also enjoyed many of the commercials and thought many were really good. I loved the Cavemen, carrying the bud light on the wheel. "Wheel Sucks"
The Fed Ex with the giant pigeons was awesome.
As was the fire breather for bud light.

I have a lot of other stuff from the weekend to talk about. Movie Saturday night, Golf on Sunday, Warhammer with Battle report coming Saturday morning. Overall a great weekend. The super bowl was just the icing on the cake.

Until next time...

Death Frenzy, the perfect target

2008-02-01T12:55:00.000-08:00

The Death Frenzy spell in the Skaven spell list is kind of a 2 edged sword. The last thing you want is for all your skaven slaves or clanrats to go chasing after units just so they can get flanked.

I almost never want slaves to charge. EVER!! Unless it is a flank. I charge, you win, you pursue when I break. You are now lined up to charge my clanrats. Bad move.

So what are good targets for Death Frenzy in the Skaven army.

1. Rat Ogres. Rat Ogres are a good bet because they panic so easily. With no rank bonuses, and only Ld 5. Their handlers are usually killed pretty quick. Extra str 5 hits, are a real bonus and not having to worry about panic is a huge benefit.

2. Weapon Teams. While this may seem like a very strange place to put a frenzy spell, it is actually very good. Since the weapon team has the special ability that they never have to charge even if frenzy, they get to ignore that drawback. They become immune to panic and terror as well. The only drawback is they may not flee a charge.

3. Warp Lightning Cannons. Now these guys may be the perfect target for the Frenzy. Frenzy has 2 main drawbacks. A. You must charge if in range. Since the warp cannon cannot charge ever, then it gets to ignore this drawback. And B. You may not flee a charge. But again the Warp Cannon has a special rule that allows it to flee no matter what, even if it cannot. So in the Warp Lightning Cannon's case, the spell simply becomes an immune to panic and terror tests.

Until next time...

Zip Kicker, its the stuff

2008-02-01T07:47:00.000-08:00

Oh MY God!! This stuff is the bomb. How have I gone this long without ever finding out about this stuff.

Just about any super glue you use works. Just give it a small squirt of this and its instantly bonded.

This morning I was in a rush but wanted to glue some broken parts on 2 models.
I put a little glue on an arm and held it in place.

I laid him down so the arm could glue and went to work on a wing that broke off a model. The model and wing were both metal. Decided I better use the Zip Kicker. Put a drop of glue on the wing, held it in place and a small squirt and it was done. I could pick up the model by the wing and shake it. It was permanently sealed. Damn!!

I went back to the guy with the arm, arm still moving. Not dried. So a quick squirt and done. So I put a drop of glue on the gun arm, put it in place. A small squirt and done. Its like it had dried overnight in less than a second.

I just love this stuff. The only problem is it stinks to high heaven and is probably totally toxic and will give me cancer. But I'm willing to take that risk.

So if you get frustrated with super glue and putting models together. This is the stuff to get. Small silver can, black cap. Get it.

Until next time...

'Ard Boyz Tournament

2008-01-30T14:30:00.000-08:00

I didn't think I would ever play in another Games Workshop tournament again. But this latest one they are going to put on, has me a bit on the excited side.

I've gotten a bit tired of the standard 2K or 2250 point GTs that I attend. This is a 3 round tournament. The first being in April, the semi-finals will be held in May if you can come in the top 3 in the first round. And finally the Finals are in June in Chicago.

It is a 3500 point, no bars hold tournament. No paint scores, no comp scores, no sportsmanship. Its just general on general for bragging rights.

I think I am going to go all out for a cheesy a$$ Skaven army that is packed to the gills with ratling guns, magic, screaming bells, more magic, jezzails, more magic, warp lightning cannons and possibly throw in a bit more magic.

My current list I'm looking at is sporting 21 power dice!! For those not familiar with warhammer, my usual 2250 point list has only 6 power dice.

Sure some of it is bound to blow up, but what does not, should wreak some serious havoc on the enemy.

Until next time...

The Twins of Khorne 1st Tournament

2008-01-28T08:55:00.001-08:00

Yesterday finally arrived and My Chaos khorne knights were ready to rumble.
It was foggy as pea soup out for the drive to the store which made for a very cool mystery type feeling.

My army:
Exalted hero of khorne, chaos steed, shield, gaze of the gods, sword of might
Exalted hero of khorne, chaos steed, shield, great fang

4 x 5 Chaos knights of khorne, musc, st
4 x 5 Chaos Marauder horsemen w/flails, throw axes, mus
2 x 6 Centigors w/LA, Sh, spear, throw axes, mus
2 x 5 DoW fast cav w/bows, shields, mus

Game 1 I was paired against David Summar and his "gorgeous" wood elves. And I mean gorgeous. This guy can really paint. I had played David at our last small tournament and he had fought Ratspawn to a draw. We had a great game then and I was looking forward to the rematch.

His army was: (from memory)
General on Eagle with the no save 4 shot bow.
hero scout with HoDA
Lvl 1 spell singer with scrolls
branchwraith

2x 8 dryads
2x 7 wardancers w/champs
3 x 10 glade guard
7 scouts
5 wild riders, full command, warbanner
6 glade riders
3 Treekin
eagle

I won the roll to go first and shot across the board. Centigors held back searching for loot. The right one found 5 but the left one found a booby trap and lost a centigor.

He muddled around, then shot a bunch killing off some fast cav.
Turn 2 things started to change. Lots of charges. But the big one was one knight unit into his scouts who fled. This I was hoping would take me into his dryads and then an overrun into his general. As it turns out, I was 1/4" away from the dryads and it was a failed charge.
This 1/4 inch was unbelievably crucial later.
Centigors on the left hit his wardancers. I'm thinking ok, he does the 4+ ward dace. So I need 4+ to hit, 3+ wound and 4+ ward = 2 wounds. And he needs 3+ to hit, 5+ to wound and face a 4+ armor save.

so my dice decide no, they will whiff and I only manage 2 hits out of 10 attacks, but both of those wound. He then makes both ward saves. So with his attacks, he gets a bazillion hits but only manages 3 wounds. Then on 4+ I promptly fail all of them. The centigors break and run.

Next turn, 5 marauders charge 5 glade guard. They stand and shoot and only kill 1. I'm thinking ok I've got this. Oh no, as again I get only 1 hit and fail to wound with the flail. A horse does kill 1. But then the glade riders turn and kill 3 horsemen. The last one flees never to be seen again.

He has 7 wardancers charge my knights of khorne. He gets a single dryad on the flank. (but that gives him numbers and a flank). The Wardancers then proceed to kill 4 of my knights as their armor was obviously built by acme armor inc. I failed 4 of 5 armor saves on a 3+.

Finally in turn 5 my general with 4 chaos knights charge his 3 treekin. Tough buggers for sure. My general needs 3+ to hit, 3+ to wound, no saves for them. My knights need 3+ to hit and 4+ to wound. He then gets a 6+ and 5+ for saves.
My general gets 2 wounds off of 3 hits. And my knights get 2 wounds, he promptly saves both on his 6+ armor.
He then turns around and needing 4+ and 3+ gets 3 wounds. Needing a 4+ save, I fail all 3. So I lose by 1 and am outnumbered by fear causers my general flees right into 3 glade riders that I failed to kill earlier.

I shook Davids hand at that point. David went on to go 3-0 in the tournament and win best overall. And David also got my players choice vote for his army.

Game 2 verse Peter Hammel and his Orcs and Goblins
Lvl 4 goblin shaman w/ stuff
Lvl 2 goblin shaman w/stuff
2 Black orc heroes, 1 was the BSB with the mimic save item. The other had the +1 attack per hero nearby and was the general.

Big unit of Biguns
Big unit of Black orcs
3 units of night goblins w/ 5 fanatics total (2 on either flank, 1 in the middle.)
1 unit 5 wolf riders
1 unit of 5 spider riders
Catapult, Doom Diver, 2 Ballistas

In this scenario each player had a cow herd they had to get across the table. It was stupid and Ld 4. Goal was to get it into the enemy deployment zone. There were also 2 bulls in the middle of the board you wanted to kill.

Turn 1, he moves up some, releasing the single fanatic and killing 1 bull. then in magic his lvl 4 rolls a miscast on 4 dice blowing himself up.
I moved up and with my centigor throwing axes, killed the bull.

Turn 2 his lvl 2 mage casts a spell with 2 dice and miscasts killing himself as well.
Things went down hill for the greenskins from there. His highlight was when my Great Fang wielding hero was in a challenge with the BSB (so he had a 1+ armor save but my sword negated it.) And he managed to live as I hit 3 times and failed to wound. Later though my lord got in a challenge with him and I killed him.

In the end he only had his catapult crew left on the board and it was fleeing. And I managed to have my general shepard the cow herd into his deployment zone.

Game 3 vs Paul Coxe and his Tomb Kings
High lich priest w/stuff including jar
2x Lich priests w/2 scrolls and a staff of +1 casting.
tomb prince w/scorpion armor

big block skeletons w/prince
big block tomb guard w/raise dead banner
10 skeleton archers (that all 3 priests went into)
4 tomb swarms
2 screaming catpults
2 scorpions

He castled up on one side on his back board edge and was planning on shooting and magicking me to death.

Turn 1, he gets the spell off to let his catapult shoot. It misfires and blows up.
After that not a lot as I race across the board keeping him guessing on his range with his final catapult.

My centigors go frenzy. I charge my marauders into the tomb swarms to draw them off and then have the centigors hit the catapult. This would lead me into the flank of the archers with the priests. But my stupid marauders failed their fear test and the centigors hit the swarms instead.
I was talking about blowing through them and Paul laughed. He said there ain't no way. Well 18 attacks later needing 3+ and 2+ and I did 11 wounds!!! He does manage to kill 1 back but loses by a lot and crumbles. This allowed me to overrun into his catapult.

He then charges the centigors with the scorpion and kills 3. The last 2 break, and this panics off a unit of 5 marauders that were blocking my knight unit with hero from getting to the skeletons.

So in they go and it takes 2 rounds but the skeletons with prince are destroyed and I laugh at his feeble curse.

His ushabati with urgency charge my knights. Then with the striking spell kill off 2. Uggh!! Then in combat manage to kill another as I finally made some saving throws. My knights do 2 wounds and win by 1.

I then get a flank charge with another knight unit and wipe out the ushabati.

The final big combat he gets urgency off on his tomb guard who charge my general's unit. He manages to kill one with killing blow and I wipe out a bunch. But due to the scenario (where we have a chest) it prevents 2 extra crumbling for undead.

In the next round he challenges, and I kill his champ with my general but only did 3 wounds and he saves one of them.
Then my knights only manage 2 wounds and he saves both of those.
My horses do a wound and he saves that!!!

He doesn't do anything to me, but wins by 1. Outnumbered by fear causers, oh crap. This is the bottom of turn 6.

anyway, my generals unit also has the chest and makes me immune to fear and stubborn. So I get to ignore this and get a Ld 8 stubborn check that I make.

I also ended up getting the catapult, the skellie archers (but no lich priests) and both scorpions.

I ended up being ahead by 500 pionts or so for a minor victory. Paul got my favorite opponent vote as it is always a pleasure to play Paul.

Ended up going 2-1 in the 14 player tournament and in 4th place overall.

So for the first time the Twins have hit the tournament scene they didn't do bad. Their only loss was to the 3-0 overall winner. And if my general wins that combat with the treekin, and they break, this game is so different as it then leads me into his last archer unit and probably a draw at the worst. But you never know.

If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

Getting Inside Your Opponents Loop

2008-01-25T09:31:00.000-08:00

Bill Whittle wrote a very good essay recently, that I blogged about earlier this week, talking about an idea that was created by John Boyd. John Boyd was the man responsible for bringing our kill ratio of fighter pilots in Korea and Vietnam from 1:1 back up to 10:1. He then further expanded this idea into modern warfare. He studied everything from Sun Tzu to Patton. He studied an idea called Fingerspitzengefuhl or fingertip control and his first real break through was that a fighter jets best characteristic was agility. Not speed, or armor, or killing power, but the ability to change its energy state rapidly.

Bill goes onto write an excellent essay on how this idea is being used today to turn the tide in the war in Iraq. What I am going to attempt to do is explain how this idea can be implemented into the world of Warhammer and more specifically into the Wood Elf army.

Fighting a battle of Warhammer is not significantly different than fighting in a fighter jet. There are four steps everyone goes through:

1. Observe: Each general observes what the other is doing. Whether it is just how they are deploying their army. If they are taking care to how units are angled. How they moved on the first turn. What seems to be the critical area of your army the opponent is targeting?

2. Orient: You assess where your army is, where it is heading, how fast it will get there. Likewise where the other guy is heading and how fast he is getting there. From this you will build a mental image of how the battle will play out.

3. Decide: Now you must decide what to do. Are you in a good position to go on the offensive? Or do you see the battle slipping away and need to go on the defensive? Now you must decide what to do.

4. Act: Finally you act. This is when you put your choices into action by moving your units into combat, or to avoid combat. And here the physical skills of your troops will play out. But Boyd realized that there are 3 mental steps before the actual physical step. But more importantly he realized that the 3 mental steps were far, far more important.

So in the Game of Warhammer you Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. Then you do it all over again, and again. It is a loop and it has been termed, the OODA loop. Here is where Boyd made another breakthrough. It wasn’t necessarily the person who makes the best decisions; it’s the one who makes the fastest decisions.

Agility, Speed, Precision, Lethality, Fingertip control. Making a move, and then before your opponent can react, making another move. By the time your opponent re-orients himself, you have made another move. Now your opponent is so confused and afraid of making the wrong move he panics. But really at this point he has no good moves left. This is called getting inside his decision loop.

At this point you are probably saying, “This makes sense for a fighter pilot, but we are each playing a turn based game. How can I make faster decisions and moves when we each have the same amount of time? I can’t do anything until he finishes his turn?” I know this seems counter-intuitive at this point. So let me see if I can guide you through this to help you understand what I am grasping at.

A better example is chess. We each have pieces; we can each only move our pieces 1 at a time. We have to take turns. So why is a grandmaster able to beat even an expert player 9 times out of 10 and more often 10 of 10? It’s not so much his better understanding of the pieces. That is a very simple concept. It is about thinking ahead. I use to play chess and got to where I would routinely think 8 to 10 moves ahead, in a chess game. A grandmaster can sometimes look 15 or more moves ahead. When you are doing this, you can see what your opponent cannot. You can see possibilities that they cannot. You can make moves now that may seem meaningless to your opponent, and make perfect sense later. This is in essence getting inside his decision loop because later it is too late for him to respond to the trap you have laid.

Let’s take this same concept to Warhammer. If I plan out what I think is going to happen in the first 3 turns of the game. While my opponent is only thinking about what he is going to do right now, then I can see what my opponent cannot. I can act faster than he can. And I can get inside his decision loop. I can make him try to react to me, but if I am good enough at it, he will hesitate and not know how to react. Panic and fear will soon set in. He will hesitate and he will lose. Agility is the key to our army that makes this possible.

A wood elf army is the best, bar none, of being able to do what no other army can do. We can change tactics on a heartbeat. We can strike and jump out of the way to avoid the counter-strike. We can move the entire battle from one side of the field to the other. We can move where our opponent does not expect.

So here are some examples of how you can do this.

Glade Riders: Nothing says maneuverability like fast cavalry. Players no longer fall for the ‘flee and flank’ tactic. Sure some do, but I am finding more and more who won’t take the bait. So what do you do then? Fast cavalry are great in this situation as they are able to slip between battle lines and end up behind his units. Nothing makes a general panic more than having rank breakers behind his lines. Having an option after your opponent doesn’t take the bait is getting inside his loop. If he takes the bait great, but if not, he doesn’t know what is going to happen, you do. Don’t just sit in a static state, make things happen.

Wild Riders: This unit can epitomizes what I am talking about: agility, speed, precision, lethality. They can be threatening one flank and in a second, they can be on the other side threatening another flank.
Warhawk Riders and Eagles: Flying units. Enough said. They can go anywhere fast and be all over the field. Hit and run ability makes them able to be deadly and efficient.

Way Watchers: Even during deployment, you can go where they cannot. Setting up 2.5 inches in front of a unit in the woods. Deploy behind his lines. There is nothing like a woods or hill in his deployment zone that screams blind spot. These guys can go where your opponent does not expect scouts to go and you can be inside his decision loop before the game even starts.

Tree Singing, Calaingor’s Stave and Deepwood Sphere: Wood elves are the only army in the game that can literally move the earth. Being able to move woods around or enhance your ability to do it, is incredible. This also allows you to move units that are in the woods. So while he was expecting his units to be safe from the terror of the Treeman for another turn, he comes moving 10” into a woods, then surfing over with 2-3 treesinging spells, to not only get in range of terror next round but strangle root attacks right away. Now your opponent is in a panic to pull his general from one side of the board to the other. You are getting inside his loop.

Other Spells: Hidden Path, what he thought he would be able to shoot, now ignores his shots, and you are able to run right over that difficult ground he put the warmachine in.
Call of the Hunt and Wolf Hunt, both are great. Any spells that give your units extra movement are the best in the game. And allow you to go and do things, you were not expected to be.
Beast Cowers and Mistress of the Marsh, Only thing as good as giving your guys extra movement is preventing him from moving.

Moonstone of the Hidden Ways: As long as there are 2 woods on the board more than a foot apart, this may be the most powerful magic item in the game. The ability to completely pick up a unit and move him somewhere else is just incredible. Agility, quickness, seeing what your enemy does not, this is what it is all about.

So next time you setup for a battle. Play it out in your head. Know the outcome before you ever push a model or roll the dice. Plan those surprise moves like using the moonstone. Or the feint that will move half your army over to hit one flank. Don’t be afraid to try some things you never have before. One of the best parts of agility is that even if you make a mistake, you can often correct it before the enemy can take advantage of it.

Remember, Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. Be quick about it and get inside his decision loop.

Until next time...

Diverting with Skirmishers

2008-01-23T10:41:00.000-08:00

In my last article I wrote about how to divert units with fast cavalry. They work best because they get to flee further, then after they rally, they can still move and even shoot. Keeping the pressure on the enemy.

But skirmishers can even be used to divert units.
When using skirmishers they need to work with either a 2nd skirmish unit or some terrain. Any difficult terrain will do.

In my example I have here, I have a unit of glade guard archers on the hill. The Vampire count unit has a huge unit of 12 Black Knights with full command running across the board to kill them. Meanwhile the sneaky wood elf player also has a unit of 5 glade guard scouts hiding in the woods.

In the first diagram, the unit of Black knights have just moved up into charge range to wipe out the deadly archers on the next turn.

Lets assume for a minute this was his turn 1 move. Luckily the Wood elf player anticipated the forceful move of the Vampire player and countered with the scouts in the woods.
On the wood elf players turn, he runs the scouts out of the woods and in front of the Black knights. Note that only 2 models are required to be in front of the knights. One that needs to be the closest visible model. And a 2nd further away to block the knights from going around the skirmishers.

In my example, the model with the red dot stops 1 inch away and just off the corner of the huge unit of knights. The blue dot model is there to block the unit from being able to make a wheel and going right by the scouts.

Also, since I marched my scouts I cannot shoot with them. But since they are strength 3 bows shooting into 2+ armor, its not that big a deal. And it was more important to make sure they lived through the VC's first magic phase where a deadly Gaze of Nagash might have squashed this plan. Of course if he had moved within 8" of the skirmishers, your 5" move would not have been enough to get you into position. So staying closer can be important.

In addition, Vampire Counts have that very nasty Dance spell that lets them move units in the magic phase. Even if they don't get it as a spell many use the book as a bound item. This spell must be stopped. It is the best nastiest spell the VC have. And can easily counter this tactic. Always know, who has this spell or book and how many dice they have left.

Now in the Vampire Counts turn he has a couple options.
1. He can charge the scouts. This is really what we want him to do and expect.
2. He can try to slide over a couple inches and try to move up a couple inches. This is a really bad plan and if he does this, you are in great position. If he does this he is going to try and kill the scouts either with a banshee or magic. So you need to either have another unit ready to move up, or stop the magic.
3. The 3rd option is declare a charge on the archers on the hill. While this might seem silly, it is possible to do. His thinking is your blocking archer is not far enough over and he can wheel past you and charge up the hill and hit the end of the archer line. If he does this, I would stand and shoot. Here is the reasoning.
A. If you flee you are probably running off the board anyway.
B. You get in a free round of shooting. And odds are he will either not make the wheel around scouts, or the wheel takes him so far off line, he misses you or doesn't have the range to hit you.

In this case if he tries to wheel, while he makes it around the guy with the red dot, he does not make it around the blue dot.

So what happens next?
While I'd like to say this is a failed charge, it is in fact, Enemy in the Way and he can either stop 1" short, or declare a charge on your archers.
So assuming he declares a charge on the archers, you would move them back to where they originally were.

NOTE OF GOOD GAME PLAY: Whenever moving a unit that you are unsure about what is going to happen. Always mark where it was before hand.

After moving the unit back to the original location, draw a single line between the closest visible skirmisher and the center of his unit. Like this:

You can see I have the red stick going through the center of the knight unit and through my skirmisher. BTW, this is also what would have happened had the VC player chose to charge the scouts originally.

You roll your flee distance and with only 2d6" trying to beat his 14" charge can be a challenge. That is why terrain is desperately needed to slow him down. Without it, odds are he will catch you unless you roll 10" or more. In this case I rolled 8" and moved deep into the woods. Every model runs the exact same line parallel to the closest model. The one I had a red dot on.

The Black knight unit must wheel all the way around to face in the same direction and then can begin the rest of their charge. In this case after measuring and counting the affect of the terrain the scouts get away.

And the Black knights stop after moving 7". This leaves them in a horrible position facing right into the woods. On your turn you rally the scouts. And after he spends a full turn reforming to face the archers again, your scouts are right back into position as in diagram 2 above.

This all works out wonderfully, but what happens if there is no terrain in the right place. This can easily happen and often leads to sacrificing a unit. I know many players out there do not like this concept, but it is essential sometimes.

If we assume for a minute the woods in the diagram above was not there, or the unit was able to freely move through the woods, then the knights would have caught the scouts and destroyed them. The knights would now be sitting basically where the scouts are now.

While this is a shame, it is not all bad either. This 85 point unit has diverted this 340+ point unit off of its main target. This allows you to continue to work. In this example, the archers could begin moving to the left and up. The next turn the knights are going to have to reform anyway to begin to face the way they want. This gives you another turn to move the archers off the hill and out of Line of sight.

Or this is where a 2nd unit of scouts runs in front of the knights drawing them in a completely different direction, that by the time they get turned around, the game is over. And the primary target was never touched.

I have done this with 25 point Skaven night runner units. I have used skinks in this roll as well as Dogs of War duelists, gnoblar trappers and more. Almost every army except maybe dwarfs have a unit that can fill this roll.

If 2 units of 25 point skaven night runners can totally derail a 340 point freight train, it is well worth their sacrifice.

Until next time...

Damn Politics

2008-01-22T12:13:00.000-08:00

Well today without me ever getting to vote, my candidate for president withdrew. That just sucks.

The only guy who came close to having the same views on the issues as me, Fred Thompson, withdrew his name today from running. This really is a pain.

The rest of the liberals running as republicans are horrible. Well except for one. I don't see eye to eye with him on everything, but at least he isn't as liberal as Huckabee or McCain. Guess I'll be throwing my hat in for Romney now. I just hope he makes it Texas.

Until next time...

Its about Agility

2008-01-21T12:46:00.000-08:00

One thing I have been doing in my latest 2 armies is trying to improve my agility.

That may seem like a weird word when describing an army. But the idea is that it is not always about power. Its not always about blasting your opponents to smithereens. Many times its about you dictating the fight. Forcing when and where to fight on your terms, not on his.

Nothing does this better than skirmishers and fast cavalry.

But up until today, I had not put my finger on the word that best describes this tactic. But thanks to an essay put out by Bill Whittle, you can find it here.

And that word is agility.

Its a bit of a long read, but is definetely worth it.

Until next time...

The Art of Feign Flight

2008-01-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'll be trying to restart up my Weekly tactics lessons on Warhammer.

I recently had a person tell me they just did not understand how diverting worked.

Diverting units comes in many forms. Eagles are good at it. Small units of skirmishers. But nobody can beat the fast cav unit at pulling it off.

In my example I have a unit of 5 glade riders standing off a unit of 14 Swordmasters in a 7x2 formation.

After the SM's move up, I run a unit of 5 glade riders in front of them. Lets just assume for now my riders are shooting at some other target. But if they were targeting the Sword Masters it would be dwindling their numbers quickly.

Here is the starting setup:

The setup is very important. You must be close enough so that with a straight wheel, the enemy unit cannot get past you. But far enough to one flank so that if he charges you, he will have a large wheel to come after you giving you the best chance to escape.

If he can wheel past you, then there is a chance he will charge a different unit behind you. If there is no one nearby for him to charge, then you can be further back, as he cannot come within 1" of you while moving, unless he is charging.

If he does not wish to charge, he must turn, move sideways and then turn again. Gaining very little in the way of distance to his intended target.
And since he did not charge you, you will be free to move the cav right back into the same place. After 3-4 turns of him moving a total of 8" across the board, he might decide its best to charge you.

So now he decides to charge. The correct response is flee. This is also assuming he has no other units that can charge you.

In the new 7th edition rules, fleeing is much different and IMO, much cleaner than before. You pick the center point in each unit. Designated in this picture with red dots. Then draw a line between these points. This is the path of flight.

Next, you spin your unit to face in that direction and roll your dice. In my case I rolled an 8 on 3d6 and moved my unit 8". He has to wheel to align the unit with the direction of flight. This took him 3.5" and so only has 6.5" left to catch me. So he fails and only moves up 1.5".

Even a cavalry unit can be made to fail this way, you just have to get closer and more to the side. Forcing them to wheel a huge amount of distance.

The next step in the feigned flight is the rally. This is where units like skirmishers and eagles fall short. Fast Cav have the special rule that if they flee a charge and then rally on the next turn, they may move normally, including marching if no one is within 8" and even shoot.

The wood elf glade riders are Leadership of 8, so with the musician, they rally on a 9. I rolled an 8 and they are good to turn around. With a leadership of 9 to rally you have a good 83% chance to succeed and if your general is nearby, or in the case of a wood elfs, if a noble is in the unit, then you are rallying on a 10 and have a good 92% chance for success.

Here I have rallied, and moved right back into position in front of the SM's again.

And from this vantage point I am free to shoot them or again, shoot at another target. Maybe one I have not slowed down, and can concentrate fire on.

The best the SM's can do at this point is continue to pointlessly chase around this band of fleeing horse riders or to try and turn back towards their original target.

So they pull this move:

So this got them a few inches closer to their target, but then the glade riders once again move in front of them, continuing the onslaught of arrows and frustration.
And since they don't want to go further to the right, their only move would again be to charge the glade riders.

In this case a 126 point fast cav unit diverted and delayed the 220 point Sword master unit that would have torn up almost anything I could have thrown at it. This allowed me to:
1. Deal with his other units first before dealing with him.
2. Pepper him with arrows till I felt I could deal with him in hand to hand.
3. Avoid him for the entire battle if I wished.
4. Setup a nice flank charge on him after he was forced to wheel to come after me.

This works really well against other normal cavalry and ranked infantry. This does not work against:
1. Skirmishers
2. Fast Cavalry
3. Monsters
4. Flyers
5. chariots

It does not work on them for 2 reasons.
1. They can move around your blockade with no effort at all, barely slowing them down.
2. If they do charge you, they do not have to wheel. So your average flee distance of 9"-12" usually will not get you away from one of these units. Though it can be used to draw a chariot or monster off in one direction to either delay them, or open up a flank charge. But if that is your mission, I'd advise using cheaper units like small skirmishers and eagles as compared to expensive fast cav.

I hope this tactics page has been somewhat helpful to you.

Until next time...

Terminators Rock

2008-01-15T14:03:00.001-08:00

Well, I guess it doesn't matter if it's a movie or the new TV series, I love terminators.

Add in the most remarkable actress of Summer Glau and I'm glued. Thomas Dekker does an above average job as John Conner as a teenager and while I didn't care for Lena Headey as Sarah Conner, she is growing on me. I think the look from blond to brunette was the biggest reason. But she does a pretty good job of the overprotective, schyso mother that Sarah portrayed in Terminator 2.

The pace of the show is frantic and keeps you guessing as to what is going to happen next. Plenty of action and I love the way they are tying in strings from the first 2 movies. Enrique (from T-2) shows up in this latest episode and hooks up Sarah with his nephew for some fake ID stuff. Then when the girls find out he's a snitch, Summer has to kill him. Which pisses off Sarah, but as it turns out was the right thing to do. Enrique was about to give them up.

Is it me, or did Summer look not robotic when John first met her at school and is now very robotic and trying to learn the mannerisms.

I tell you what, it doesn't look like it will take long for John to hook up with Summer Terminator if she keeps wearing short skirts. And how is she going to keep that pretty face if she keeps going toe-to-toe with every terminator that shows up to kill John. So far they have kept the cuts to her temples and away from her face, but eventually someone's going to plant a right hook on that nose of her and split it wide open. Or she will take a bullet to the face protecting John.

Well, no matter what is in store, I'm looking forward to more episodes. In this down time when nothing else is on, it is a nice relief. Not sure what I'm going to do when Heroes cranks back up.

Until next time...

The Pain of it All

2008-01-14T13:34:00.000-08:00

I am just numb today after the Cowboy's loss yesterday to the Giants.

They just ripped out my heart and stomped on it with that lousy 2nd half performance they put on.

When they went up 14-7 right before half I said, "If we hold them here we've won. A field goal and its a game." Never thinking they had a shot for a TD.

As soon as that stupid idiot grabs the face mask and got the 15 yard penalty I said, "Ah #@$$%, that can turn the game right there."

And sure enough it did. They go in to score tying it at half time. I tried to pump myself up for the 2nd half, but in the back of my head was that little nag about how much that lifted that Giants team.

And sure enough, we march down and get a field goal and thats it for the game.

How many dropped passes? How many stupid, stupid, stupid penalties did we get. Almost none more important than that personal foul when a lineman hit Strahan when he was down. That turned a 1st down and getting us out of our end, to a 3rd and long. Crayton drops it and we punted to them setting up their go ahead winning TD.

If he just doesn't hit him, we get a first down, move on down the field and who knows what happens.

So 2 personal foul penalties changed the entire outcome of the game. Not to mention the completely bogus intentional grounding call against the Cowboys. That was just crap.

I did think the refs were trying to give it to the Giants. Not so much on what they called but on what they didn't. They were continually holding, grabbing and tackling our wide receivers and there were only a couple calls when it was really blatant.

But I also blame Jason Garret. That 4th down call I felt was bad. In addition to the 3 WR's in the end zone he should have had TO or Witten running across at the 10. Much easier throw into an area that was wide open. We still had plenty of time to spike the ball and get 3 shots into the end zone from the 10. I think he got impatient and Romo had no options.

Well, onto next year, but with a 13-3 season, I am highly disappointed. How the hell do you go 13-3 and not win your first playoff game. This is the first time in league history a #1 seed lost in this round since they started this format.

And now I'm left rooting for Greenbay. OMG!! My head might explode. Because the giants have no shot of beating the pats.

Go San Diego. I can root for LT at least. Maybe this is his year.

Until next time...

BR: Wood Elves vs Lizardmen

2008-01-11T09:24:00.000-08:00

Bear Claw crawled through the woods to get a better look at the daemons that had crept into their woods. His scouts had reported them, but he could not believe such things. The white man had come and taken their land and the great spirits saved them. But now where the hell had they been taken.

Green was the color of their skin. And Bear Claw could see the scales that rippled as they trudged along. Small fast ones carrying small spears. Bigger slow ones, larger than a man. But what were the huge daemons. They towered larger than a horse and tomahawks as big as a man. And beasts that crawled and spit fire, surely the spirits had not taken them to the underworld. But where?

He had let the enemy come and take his land before. Never again! He had sworn to his tribe. Never again will anyone come and take the fertile and plentiful woods that they held, kept sheltered from the rest of the world. No, this time, they die.

*** As you can tell the background for my wood elf army is a tribe of Comanches that were tired of having their land taken away and could see the future was written. So they prayed to the great spirits who lifted this tribe and placed them in this strange world. Plenty of woods and game to help them. The great spirit lives in their great Totem and joins them in battle. (The treeman) ****

Army lists: 2250 WE vs Lizardmen
Bear Claw: Wardancer Highborn with Blades of Lorec and Amber pendant
Eye of the Eagle: Nobel on steed with LA, Sh, Spear, Talon Bow and pagent of strikes
Screaming Thorn: Nobel with GW, LA, Sh, HoDA and HotH
Owl beard: Shaman lvl 1 w/2 x D.scrolls

10 Glade Guard, mus
10 Glade Guard, mus
8 Dryads
5 Glade riders, mus
5 Glade riders, mus
5 Wild riders, mus
5 Wild riders, mus
8 Wardancers, mus
8 Wardancers, mus
5 Waywatchers
The great Totem Spirit Treeman

His army was:
Old blood on foot, nike shoes (9" move) not sure what else
Scar Vet BSB on cold one
skink priest, 2x d.scrolls
skink priest, diadem

20 Saurus warriors, st, champ
9 Saurus warriors, standard
13 skinks w/blowpipes
13 skinks w/javelins & shields
13 skinks w/javelins and shields
7 Saurus cold one riders w/standard
3 Kroxigor
3 Kroxigor
3 Salamanders
7 chameleon skinks

Setup looked like this

Turn 1a: Bear Claw told his men to hold back. If these Green Daemons wanted to pass he would let them. But alas, these daemons had no interest in peace. It was his tribes land and food they wanted. Well he was not going to let it go without a fight.

The lizardmen surged forward almost in a straight line. The skinks on the far right shifting out of the way to give their shaman line of sight to the wild riders.
He called lightning out of the sky striking 4 of the wild riders on the far right flank but it was only strong enough to harm 2, and one was quick, jumping out of the way at the last second.
(he rolled an 8. I matched it with my 3 dice and also rolled an 8. But a 6-1-1, fails. He got 4 hits, 2 wounds and I made one 6+ ward.)

Water daemons came out of nowhere and attacked our brothers who had camouflaged themselves with branches. (my dryads). But luckily his had no clear shot because of the camouflage. (He only did single shots, even though double would give him 6+ to hit. He wanted more hits. He got 3 with 1 poison. Failed to wound with the 2 others. And I ward saved the 1.)

Here was the field after his turn:

Turn 1b: Bear Claw looked at the brave warrior laying on the ground. His horse running back to the village. He let out a war cry that resounded through the valley and his warriors sprinted forward.

The dryads charged the chameleon skinks who fled into the safety of the woods. :D
Everyone else moved up and then we showered a flow of arrows on them as they had never seen. Owl beard called upon the spirits of the trees who responded killing over half of the chameleon skinks.
Then with bow fire, we killed 4 of the left hand skinks. They flee and run through the salamanders who flee with them as well. But not before our trusty scouts took down 2 of the handlers.
We only managed to kill 2 skinks in the middle group. And Eagle Eye was able to put one arrow into the skink priest on the far right with the 2 scrolls.
(oh how he felt safe until I pulled out that Talon bow. Then the sprite went and missed rolling a 2. I also did not have a decent target with my HoDA which I really wanted to use. But couldn't see wasting it on skinks.)

Here is the battle after turn 1:

Turn 2a: The leader of the greenskins was not convinced his daemons could not handle this band of wild men. He charged out of his unit at Eagle Eye with the speed of a jaguar. Of course Eagle eye, while great with a bow, never learned to handle a tomahawk with much skill and fled from the fierce daemon.

Of his fleeing skinks, only the chameleons rallied. But neither rolled far enough to get off the board. Again, the rest of his forces move up.

His priests again tried to bring lightning down, this time on the scouts. But knowing the power of the heavens, Owl beard broke one of the bark runes, given him by the great totem.
Shooting did nothing. (in some unbelievable whiffage, he throws 11 javelins at my archers, and only hits 1 time on 4+. And then fails to wound with it. )

Turn 2b: Time to take it to him.
Bear Claw and his warriors charge into the huge daemons in front of them.
The scouts charged the fleeing skinks, who run away, but do not go off the battlefield and the scouts are just short of hitting the fire spitting beasts who were also running.
The wild riders on the left charge the chameleon skinks and the wild riders on the right charge the skinks on the right.

The Totem spirit moves out of the woods. Eagle Eye and his warriors, turn around and run back up the field.

(here I screwed up big time. I should have just charged the other wardancers into the flank of the Kroxigor, I had range barely. It was close enough that I wasn't sure. And I so wanted to use my Hail of Doom arrow. Oh well, live and learn.)

So here was the setup right after charges:

Owl Beard again called upon the forest spirits who attack the intruders in the center skink unit. Killing almost half of their numbers and causing them to run.

Next came Screaming Thorn and his arrow of doom. Does nothing. (I only got 7 hits on the Kroxigor, and 3 wounds. He makes all 3 5+ saves.)
My glade riders at least put an arrow into their thick scales.

The other glade riders spot the priest behind the rocks and a single arrow finds his heart, if he ever had one, dropping him.
(But Eagle Eye himself could not shoot, which I think is just bunk. Question, can the sprite still shoot?)

In combat, the wild riders on the left only killed 2 skinks and the last one runs. The wild riders overrun into the hulking kroxigor.

On the right the wild riders do much better killing 5 of the little buggers, I was actually worried about losing combat here. But he does none in return and the remaining ones break and run almost panicking their Leader.
But the Wild riders see the trap the daemon steeds have laid and do not chase.

Finally in the center, Bear Claw himself tears into the huge beasts almost killing one by himself. Bear Claws personal warriors jumped into a frenzy of tomahawks and knives finding the chinks in the daemons beasts. One warrior was thrown to the ground, his body broken, but not before 2 of the hulking slow beasts went down and the last was bleeding badly.

Bear Claw pursued, but the daemon got away. Instead the large block of daemons had their flank stuck out and they charged into that instead.

The daemons called for an all out retreat and Bear Claw let them run. The green ones knew now that this wood was protected, that this woods was revered. That this wood could not be invanded.

*************
I know he called the game a bit early, but it was late. Still he had a lot of his stuff running or in very bad shape. His big block was in serious trouble and while his general could either run off my glade riders or go kill my wild riders he couldn't do both.

His cav was in a bad spot at they couldn't decide what to do. I think their plan was to go for the treeman. But if he didn't kill him on the charge, he was in trouble.

Overall, I was very pleased with the outcome of the game and the way my army worked together.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time...

It's my Birthday...

2008-01-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

I want to apologize to my readers since I haven't been posting a lot lately. I've been a bit under the weather, and when I don't feel good, I find it hard to do little things, like keep my blog updated.

Hopefully, I'll get over this quickly and get back to my daily routine.

So yesterday was my Birthday. Not a ton of fun as I went to work for most of it. Spent an hour on the phone getting certified to refinance my mortgage from the company that already holds my mortgage. So let me get this straight. I have never missed a payment to you guys in 18 months. Never been late on a payment. My credit score is pushing the top off the max there can be, but I have to spend an hour on the phone with some idiot going through all my personal information, that you already have so I can make my payment lower than it was before.

GEEZ!!! Give me a break.

So after that, I went to the game store and picked up some flesh wash and black ink, that I was out of and went home.

Had a very nice dinner of Chicken Parmesan with some cheesecake for desert. And then went up and played some Warhammer online with my new wood elf list and kicked some butt.

Overall a very nice day except for the 1 hour on the phone with the loan idiot.

Hope to have some details on the battle soon.

Until next time...

The Lone Survivor

2008-01-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a book called the Lone Survivor. It is the true account story of Seal Team 10 in Afghanistan by Marcus Luttrell and ghost writer Patrick Robinson.

Marcus was a Navy Seal from Texas and was part of a 4 man team that went deep into the mountains in search of a Al-Queda leader. They were to spend several days to spot him and then kill him.

Instead, an off hand chance encounter with some goat herders had the men second guessing on what they should do. As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, definetely applied here. They let the peasants go, and even though they quickly moved to a new location, they had been discovered and were soon in for the fight of their lives.

Not since Leonidas and his band of Spartan, Thespians and Greeks stood against Xerxes was a force so outnumbered.

While in Greece some 2500 years ago, it was 5000 - 7000 against around 200,000 this was 4 against 140-200 Taliban lunatics.

In addition, Leonidas has the terrain on his side. A narrow pass that prevented them from flanked, these seals had no such luck. And the only way to prevent from being flanked and circled was to continue a downward battle by jumping off a series of successive cliffs.

Shot, battered, broken bones, and no where to go, these 4 brave men put up a battle that those Taliban will not soon forget. Their deadly accurate shooting accounted for over half the taliban fanatics, while RPG's and machine gun fire at them never ceased.

For every American this is a fantastic read. It is written in a story manner as if you are sitting around just chatting with Marcus.

These men deserve our greatest respect and admiration. I salute them.

Definitely pick this book up and give it a read. I am generally a slow reader, but knocked this book out in only a few days. You just cannot put it down. It is one of the best Non-fiction books I have ever read and should be on the required reading list in every High School in America.

Until next time....