Into the fire: a Warhammer 40,000 Tournament

Greetings fellow hobbyists or anyone who simply felt like reading my ramblings.

Its Sunday the 17th of April and I've just returned my Imperial Knight army to their cabinet after another enjoyable tournament (and at Nathaniel’s urging, as he "missed my big models" not being in the cabinet yesterday).

Anyway, where to begin...

Into the Fire is an 1850 point, three round, Warhammer 40,000 tournament, which was held at the Sanctuary Gaming Centre in Sutton in Ashfield, in the UK.

I'd paid to enter it well in advance, knowing that the tournaments at Sanctuary are gaining in popularity and generally places can get full quite quickly. If you pay a month in advance, it's a really decent price (£8.00 rather than £15.00 on the day).

Looking at the list of tournament goers, it was quite clear this event was going to be quite a hard one to take part it. There were some really good players planning to attend, so there was no doubt in my mind that there were going to be some hard armies for my own Imperial knights to face.

Then the rules pack became available and it became clear that all the missions were going to be objective based... This kinda puts my army to a disadvantage, as it is comprised of five models. (Five big heavily armed walking mini-titans of joy... but yes only five models.) Now you may be thinking that at this point I was thinking "That's not fair!"... But I think I can be honest and say it was more of a "Oh *%@t, this is gonna be a challenge!”

So I started thinking about my army list, wondering if I should change it? Should I take less knights so I could fit in allied troops, or fit in assassins or someone with psychic abilities? Should I change the formation I use from the Baronial Court, to a Household Detachment and lose a better invulnerable save and gain the ability for my entire army to secure objectives? Decisions, Decisions...

In the end, I chose to stick with the Baronial Court formation, as I would still gain the benefit of the superior 3+ invulnerable save and let’s face it, five big walking heavily armed knights can do a lot of damage. The only change I ended up making was swapping out a Knight Warden for a Knight Paladin, losing a strength 6, twelve shot Avenger Gatling Cannon and gaining a strength 8, two shot, large blast, Rapid Fire Battle Cannon instead.

So how did the tournament go? Some of you may be asking...

Game 1 - Imperial Knights VS Tyranids and Genestealer Cult allies
Mission - Crusade (Eternal War) - 5 objectives.
Deployment - Dawn of War

My opponent Chris had a rather good list, made of a mix of a Tyranid gargantuan creature, two flying hive tryants, genestealer cult units and so on. Overall I felt reasonably confident at the start of the game, until Chris rolled for his Psychic powers and gained invisibility for both his psykers. This would make it harder for my knights to both shoot and attack some of his units. In the end the game was very hard fought, but unfortunately due to randomness of the dice, it did not all go my way and the game was a loss for me after four turns.


Game 2 - Imperial Knights VS Ultramarines Space Marines.
Mission - The Emperors Relic (Combination of The Relic and Emperors Will missions) - 3 Objectives
Deployment - Hammer and Anvil

My next opponent, Michael, had a rather cool force of Ultramarine Space Marines, running with a Gladius formation I believe. He had an Ironclad Dreadnought, a standard lascannon / missile dreadnought, a land raider Redeemer, Vindicator, two devastator squads with lascannon and missile launchers, storm talon, a terminator squad with a terminator Librarian and tactical squads and assault squads.

Michael fought valiantly, succeeding in bringing down one of my knights, but by the end of turn five, I'd succeed in taking all three objectives, had claimed First Strike, Slay the Warlord and Line Breaker. Leading to an 18-0 win for me.


Game 3 - Imperial Knights VS White Scars Space Marines.
Mission - The Scouring
Deployment - Vanguard Strike

My opponent Andy was running with a White Scars Decurion formation, meaning I was facing a huge number of free razor back tanks as well as multiple squads with grav and melta weapons. This was a hard fought match. I succeeded in claiming First Strike and two additional points for destroying his fast attack units.

Andy succeeded in bringing down two of my knights and damaging all the others. He really gave me a run for my money. It was a highly tactical game, when we finished turn five, we both held six points worth of objectives. So I'd managed to win due to having claimed the earlier victory points, so in the end a win 9 - 6 in my favour. Stomps served me very well in this game.

Concluding thoughts

Well, it was a hard fought tournament, loads of fun as usual and the opponents I faced were all very good and I enjoyed all my games. As usual the tournament was well organised. I placed twelfth overall out of thirty, so I'm quite pleased with my performance as a whole.

For those interested in the overall standings, here they are.

More importantly, it again gives me a target to beat in the future at the next Warhammer 40,000 tournament at Sanctuary. If you are interested it is the Warhammer 40,000: Spoils of War tournament on the 18th of June 2016.

Thanks for reading.

Hobby Update.

So it's my first post in a while... Where to begin...

Painting. 

Painting has always been one of the most enjoyable things about my hobby, but for quite a while I've struggled to get my head back in to my "painting mindset". I'm now taking some steps forwards with this by doing little bits on three different painting projects, a Heresy era Terminator Praetor, a Vindicare Assassin and my Imperial Knights. I'm also reading a lot of hobby blogs at the moment, looking at what my fellow hobbyists are painting or making is very interesting and in turn helps inspire me.

Step by Step: How to paint the Gamesday 2011 Skaven Warlord Miniature

Greetings one and all.

It's been several months since I've last posted something up on the blog, much to my dismay life has got in the way. (Hey that rhymes). 

But I've just this evening, managed to write up my next tutorial based on my past painting exploits.

The tutorial is based on a miniature that I painted for my best friends favourite Warhammer Fantasy player, Jobie.

The miniature in question was the Gamesday 2011 Skaven Warlord Miniature and was destined to be a birthday present that a Skaven obsessive would love and take great pleasure unleashing against his opponents (or at least this was my aim). 

Step by Step: How to paint a wrecked or blown up Land Raider - Part 1

Since “Rolling Thunder 2011", I have imagined, developed, constructed and been steadily working on painting my wrecked and blown up Grey Knight Land Raiders.
My previous tutorial was a detailed guide to building and constructing the wrecked and blown up Land Raiders, so it seems sensible to follow up with a “How to paint them”  tutorial now.

Here is the first part of how to paint the wrecked and blown up Land Raider. It’ll take two tutorials, because there are numerous stages and elements to be painted, not to mention they’re not actually finished yet….

Step by Step: Painting Crystal Objective Markers.

This tutorial is a step by step guide to painting crystal objective markers, you can quite easily change the colours in any way you wish to suit yourself or tie in with your own army and can quite easily utilise the techniques used for painting crystals to paint crystal weapons on "Necrons" or "Power weapons" for various Warhammer 40,000 armies.

A selection of paint brushes, an airbrush (not essential), black undercoat (spray paint or airbrush paint), a selection of Citadel Colour, plus Foundation paints plus Washes (mentioned at each stage of the tutorial), plenty of clean water, and a lamp with daylight bulb for painting and patience.

I actually took part in a Warhammer 40,000 Tournament last weekend!

I’ve been an avid hobbyist, in particular, mainly as a miniature painter for a long, long time. But didn't really get into tournament gaming as such, until 2010. I spent the next year or so going to various events. But things change in the real world, so last year, after the birth of my son, I took a bit of a step back from gaming and became more of a collector, maker and painter once more. However now that my son is a toddling fourteen month old, it is now possible for me to go and take part in tournaments and events again.

The remainder of this post is all about the event I attended last weekend at “The Sanctuary Gaming Centre” in Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, on the 15th of December.

First post: Ramblings of a Hobbyist…

One of the things I enjoy most about being a “Hobbyist” is that I don't just have one hobby, I have many. I have in the past and still do flit from hobby to hobby, each one feeding my imagination in some way, providing me with enjoyment and nurturing my creative side.
I've been a hobbyist for a long time. In fact, since I was a little kid in my opinion, when I first picked up a pencil and started exploring my creative side by drawing my collection of Lego knights defending their castle from and defeating the evil black knights in battle, or drawing fighter jets and other fascinating military images inspired by my first ambition of joining the military, (an ambition that changed, as ambitions sometimes do.)
Or spending hours reading sci-fi, fantasy, action, mystery and military books. Where I'd be imagining myself as the hero in the story, defeating the bad guy and saving the day. Art and reading were, my first real interests and were soon joined by an avid interest in computer games, table top wargaming, other art forms like Photography, graphics, animation and later a different sort of art form, the martial arts.
This blog is in essence aimed as a further means of enjoying my hobbies, in particular, table top wargaming; by sharing with other hobbyists and anyone else interested in my ramblings, what I'm up to. Whether it's making miniatures, taking part in games and tournaments, writing tutorials or just reading the latest sci-fi and fantasy novel that takes my interest.

My aim is to post something on here, as regularly as real life allows me to, so thank you for reading and until the next time...

Step by Step: How to make a “Wrecked or Blown up” Land Raider.

One of the things I enjoy most about Warhammer 40,000, table top wargaming in general and being a “Hobbyist” is that it’s fun and that I get crazy ideas because of it! 

Sometimes these ideas are triggered by my own imagination and creativeness, others by a games awesome fluff and background. The latest army theme that I’m using to create an army, my next unneeded (but wanted) purchase or something that just plain pops into my head as an experiment to be undertaken.

In the case of this article, the original idea was inspired by a random thought that I had during a game with my Grey Knights army at the “Rolling Thunder” tournament a few years back. When one of my Land Raider Redeemers had suffered a large amount of damage and been blown up, my opponent and I used dice to mark out where the Land Raider had been. I thought, “It’d look way cooler if I’d a wrecked and blown up Land Raider to place on the table instead!”

Thus I became rather obsessed with this idea; and since then I’ve created both a wrecked and blown up Land Raider to use during my games. I thought I’d share with my fellow hobbyists how I actually created them, so that anyone who wished to, could create their own.