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Flavor of the Month

I think every gamer nerd, regardless of gender, is familiar with the cycles of games. What was killer cheeseball one edition gets hit with the nerfbat in the next, all in the name of "balance" (and really, in the name of profit, because nothing ever actually balances except the gamemakers' checkbooks when you spend more money to buy whatever'll keep you winning.) We've talked a little on this blog before about making themey lists instead of cheesy lists, making characters instead of powergaming, that sort of thing... the idea that some armies/classes/specs/colors/whatever are more powerful than others is pretty standard, right?

I got into 40k about...oh... early 2004? Something like that. And I didn't really build my own army until the Witch Hunters codex came out in that summer, and I became a decent player during that fall after the 4th edition rulebook came out. I was a newbie to the geek world at the time, and although I understood that some armies were cheesier than others (or beardier...do people still say beardy? We used to say beardy.) I didn't understand that this could change at the drop of a hat. A combination of MtG, WoW, 40k, and D&D taught me this. 

Fun With Tyranids: Devilpods

I was thinking to myself what could I do to make War Dolls weird or quirky, or in general fun or something.  Well I thought about me and my Tyranids, as well as the various different units and tactic combos that I have used in the past.  Most of them I have tried on the idea of a friend of mine, but regardless they are fun ideas and quirky things you can do with Tyranids.  So here begins our first episode of Fun with Tyranids.

FUN WITH TYRANIDS: DEVILPODS

Yeah, I know, it is a bit melodramatic, but hey, I am just having fun here so let us dive on in.

The official "Welcome" post!

I want to send a big welcome and thank you to Jill and Beth who have signed on recently and who've both been helping with the revival of the War Dolls. They've both had some great ideas so expect to see more of us soon!

I have to give a shout out to Rachel who's never given up on us. Thanks Doll!

Cami/HurricaneGirl

Queen of the Nerds

So, I don't know how many people followed that reality show on TBS, King of the Nerds - hilarious, btw, if you can watch it you should - but if you're unfamiliar with it, here's the premise: 11 nerds locked together in a house called "Nerdvana" compete to prove which of them is the biggest nerd and has earned the right to sit atop the Throne of Games.

Pretty standard reality series, right?

But here's the oddity. As the game progressed, one by one, the male nerds were eliminated, but the females were untouched. In fact, of the final five, four were female. And the final three? All women. So, yeah, the first King of the Nerds, at least according to reality TV, was a queen.

I'll Get You Yet, Nurgle!

I may be a newcomer to the gaming community, but I have been overwhelmed by how accepting and welcoming everyone is. I have learned a lot of different games from Magic to Warhammer to Pathfinder, and have loved every minute of it. (By the way, don’t let my inexperience fool you – I learn quickly.)

My latest endeavor has been a campaign for Warhammer 40k. I’m currently running Battle Sisters, but I am in the process of switching to Tau. Close combat scares the crap out of me, so my basic strategy is kill everything in sight before it can get across the board and in close-combat range of my army, which I hear is the way of the Tau. (Plus, I think the Tau will look great in the hot pink and black color scheme I have in mind for their armor.)

Getting back to her roots...

I was recently approached by one of the folks from my LGS and invited to a (3.5) D&D campaign that would be starting in a few months. The group is currently playing another system (World of Darkness) and I was invited to sit in on the end of that but I detest vampires, sparkly or no. Nevertheless they are role and not 'roll' players so I'll be giving them a shot.

Enter the dilemma! What should I play? I have been running D&D games for so long, that I wasn't even sure any more. I've played a lot of characters in ancient history, and made plenty more as NPCs, but haven't had one of my very own to hug and squeeze and .. yeah you get the idea.

Photos-as foretold

Photos I took with the new phone on a blog written on the new phone. Call it a test.

Wave 1 in the back, Wave 2 up front. Retributors happened somewhere in Wave 1.

Just rocked the dozer blade recently. Pretty proud of the weathering.

Sister Superior hanging out. I forgot to basecoat that Immolator door.

40k - Sisters Project continues.

Doll by A6A7 on DeviantArt

The Sisters Project has been back in swing for a few weeks now and chugging along hard core. I have set a goal to have a 2K point force ready for the Atlanta Series Feb 24th tournament.

I've played in the last two events and done fair enough all things considered. Favorite Opponent in the first and (tied for) Best Painted in the second. I played my Chaos Marines the first tourney as the new codex had just come out and rushed to paint them all. In the second tournament I switched to my Eldar for reasons and since they were 95% painted it didn't take much to finish them. Sadly, I don't think I got any photos of them. You'll have to be appeased with some beautiful art I found in the intertubes.

Flyer Wave in March Rumours

So rumour has it that in March we are getting a few new fliers, and I am really looking forward to this as my army seems to be getting one.  So here is the list:

Tau:
Some new thing for them, meant as an anti-flier I have heard

Dark Eldar:
All rumours point to the voidraven

Eldar:
Something totally new, which I am totally excited for.

Tyranid:
There are two schools of though on this one.
1) There is only going to be a single model kit, the Harpy
2) There is going to be a dual kit, the harpy, and something else that will be antiflier.

There is also a lot of hope that the harpy will get a rules update so it doesn't suck so hard.  To be honest, even if the rules didn't change and I was stuck with the sucky harpy, dont care.  I want that kit, its a unit I have wanted to have a model for and play around with it for fun.  So I am super hoping it will be a dual kit, but I will be happy either way.  Also will be cool to get my brother a flier for his eldar, which are starting to look really good.  Red Dire Avengers, who knew?

-ERW

Tyranids in 6th ed Tournaments

Just wanted to talk about a tournament I went to this weekend, in which I did far better than I had thought I would.

Game 1- vs Necrons with wraithstar, 3 fliers and annihilation barges, immortals in 2 of fliers, and 2 destroyer lords. I won by 3 victory points

Game 2- vs Necrons with 2 destroyer lords, scarabs, 4 spiders, and 4 fliers full of immortals. This list destroyed me the whole game, it was a really tough game

Game 3- vs drop pod space wolf list, and a landraider. He ended up getting 1 victory point to my 8, I kind of felt bad, because once I took out njal, my psychic shriek spam just ripped him to shreds.

Game 4- vs my friend's necron list, 3 ghost arks with 9 warriors in each, 3 annihilation barges, 2 wraithstars with destroyer lords each, and one squad tesla immortals. In the beginning I was doing fine, then the last two turns it turned around and the necrons just ripped me apart. I ended up getting 0 victory points to his 8, it was rough, fun game still, but rough. This friend of mine, I have always had trouble taking on this list, so its one of those hurdles I hope to overcome some day.

Game 5- vs Tau with space wolf allies, 2 hammer heads, shaso squad, 2 broadsides, crisis suit squad, 3 squads firewarriors 1 devilfish, 2 rhinos with greyguard (one mark of the wolfen) and a rune priest with JoWW. This one was back and fourth the whole time, and we ended up tying the game 5 to 5. The whole game we were just going back and fourth really hurting each other, was a really fun and intense game.



My list: Flyrant with 2 TL devourers, Troop tervigon with adrenals and toxins, 10 devilgants, 20 toxin hormies, 2 squads 3 warriors with deathspitters and a barbed strangler, doom in a pod (MVP hands down), 3 zoeys in a pod (ran shriek the whole time), 3 hive guard, dakkafex, trygon with adrenals


Overall I did fairly well, better than I thought I would have, and got 22 out of 35 in the listings. Not amazing no, but considering how people think of tyranids these days I think I did rather well. I really did very well in 2 games, had a fun but even game, then 2 really bad ones. I had a lot of fun though and it was a great tournament. I wanna tweak my list to make it better for future ones, and will probably change up deployments a bit.

Has anyone else had experience with tournaments and bugs in 6th?

-ERW

First 6th ed win! (40K)

Played a learning game with another new person. Despite me trying to assist him with placement (Do you REALLY want to put Sicarius there?, You should shoot that at this, etc) I still managed to pull a win.

Star of the show (other than me) was the Mace swinging Party Prince Cacophonus. He'll be signing autographs in the lobby.

Daemon Prince, Black Mace, Wings, of Slannesh, Psy level 1 (Primaris power), Power Armor.

So hanging out in the back, the Prince was surprised to find a drop pod plummeting to earth (despite my discouraging such actions, as I KNEW what the response would be). The Sternguard and Sicarius hopped out and flung Vengance rounds all over creation. The prince hopped over the Predator, charged in and pointed at Sicarius while roaring an incoherent challenge. Sicarius, hesitant, drew his sword, readying his deadliest strike but was immediately smashed repeatedly in the skull before he knew what was going on. The Daemon contained in the mace, tasting blood immediately drew in his life force and the life force of a nearby Terminator marine. Cacophonus smashed a few Sternguard heads in and then the remaining Terminators rushed in, but the sergeant leapt to the forefront. The Prince called him out too, and split open the ancient Terminator armor as if it were paper. The marine's blood sprayed everywhere. Again the Daemon within shifted within the warp, and the remaining two Terminators fell over dead. Meanwhile the remaining Sternguard were stomped to death by an angry Helbrute.

So I say the Prince + Mace is a VERY awesome combo. Granted my learner didn't understand what the implications of placing his drop pod there were, but I did offer him to pick it up and advise him it would be very bad. He insisted and I got a full on test of the Black (mace) Prince. Ever the gambler am I, and betting on the long odds won me a battlefield of empty Termie armor and all I had to do was challenge two champions.

Sadly Lucius has yet to make combat in any of my games thusfar. I think I'm playing him too far afield? The vehicle rules have me a little scared to rush in. Next time, Lucius, next time.

Motivation

Motivation is a fickle fickle Mistress, really hard to pin down, and it has always been my major issue when it comes to painting.  I don't really ever like doing anything alone, and painting is no exception, so sometimes when no one is here to paint with me, motivation to paint is very difficult for me.

Well my big motivator of late is that on October 20-21 there is a big tournament, grand tournament, going on in my area.  The tourney requires tournament level painting (which my scheme covers hands down), but the trick is painting all of my bugs.  I mean I buttered my bread by picking a horde list tyranid when I started playing but OMG do I have a lot of bugs.

List of shtuff I need to paint:

8 Hormagants
30 Fleshborer Termagants (maybe another 10 on top of that, not sure)
10 Devourer Termagants
6 Tyranid Warriors
Weapon arms for various Monstrous Creatures
                 4 Sets Twin Linked MC Devourers
                 1 Set Scything Talons
Doom of Malan'tai (finish sculpting the brain)
3 Hive Guard
2 Mycetic Spores

List of Shtuff I have finished:


Carnifex
Trygon
Hive Tyrant, with Wings
3 Zoanthropes




So yeah....UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-Rachel (aka ERW)

The Farseer has spoken. (40K)

I have had a vision. I dunno if other's have seen this or not.

I'm predicting the next codices released are:

Chaos Marines (duh)
Dark Angels
Eldar
Sisters of Battle
Tau

Yeah. Snort and laugh if you like.

If this holds true, I'm going to be a very busy girl for the next couple of years...

Doctor Who cosplay

I haven't had the opportunity to game recently (other than my first 6e massacre game), nor paint, nor do much but work and worry with moving. However I have carried my sketchbook pretty much everywhere.

Lately I've been very enamoured with some of the girls' Doctor Who costumes. (Uber nerd alert) I've gone and I've completed the preliminary design for my own 'ultimate' Doctor Who costume. I'm super excited about it as I've seen no one else with the same idea on the web, at least.

Unfortunately, due to the move my sewing machine is still packed away in storage, so making it by Dragoncon this year was out of the question for certain. Currently my goal will be for Dragoncon 2013. Should be plenty of time. Of course there will perhaps be a twelfth Doctor by then, but hopefully that won't be too much of a problem for me.

Sketches will follow eventually, especially after my drawing skills improve!  

Inifnity Review.

I have started trying to play a new game (Infinity).  There are exactly 2 other players locally, but we are attacting more players.

So the basics.  Infinity is a squad based tabletop combat game set in the dystopian future (blade runner, cyberpunk).  This is what first got me aside from the models looking fantastic.

I have played other skirmish games (Malifaux and Warmachine) but I find I do not care for the steampunk stuff, the Victorian era holds little interest for me.

So where was I, oh yea, Infinity, the rules are super solid, and available for free on the website www.infinitythegame.com  They also provide several other downloads and printouts to help you get going, free of charge.  

My 2 gaming friends are playing Yu Jing and Ariadna, I am playing Aleph (more human than human).   Super fun game, with lots you can do, and react to what the other player does. 

Sorry I have not been on in forever, super busy playing games!!!!

My first few 6th Edition Games

So I have had a few 6th edition games under my belt, and I have to say I am really liking things so far, a lot of new fun things to play around with.  The change to fleet hurt me a little bit, but overall the game is so much better, its like a new life has been breathed into it.  With mysterious objectives and terrain, the game is getting more interesting, and so far my games have been pretty cinematic.

My first game was myself on a team with my tyranid playing friend, and we were going against 3 non tyranids.  It was so cinematic, and the 5 of us just had a blast, it was so much fun to just watch the hive fleet nom face, mwahahahhaha.

Short post, but hey, I just wanted to liven things up.

Airbrush Pictures

Airbrush

So my airbrush is here and as soon as I get the converter so I can plug my compressor in I am going to be painting me some models, this is going to be awesome.

My Brother

So my brother got a whole bunch of miniatures with the christmas money my parents gave him, and get them all assembled to his great joy.  He picked eldar as his army, and is painting them in a My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic theme, basing specific model types after the characters in the show.  Its an awesome unique idea, and I cannot wait to see how people react to seeing this.  That is not why I am writing though.

We played a small game on our kitchen floor, using cans and egg cartons, as well as my primer cans, as terrain as we do not have terrain and a board just yet (That is to come hopefully soon).  The game was very interesting as I taught him the basics of the game, though it started out with my Hive Fleet (now named Hive Fleet Chrysallis at my brother's suggestion) destroying his Craftworld Equestria.  There was an odd turn of events though, as his guardians on his right flank turned the combat around, taking out the threats on that side as my Hive Fleet on the other flank was doing significant damage to him.  Once his right flank was free though he swooped around and the game ended with him tabling me.  He did very well, the game played out very interestingly, and needless to say I have my brother hooked on the game.

The best part of this all, it means I have someone in my apartment to play with even when I cannot go to the game shops to do tourneys.  This rocks.