TMI: Double Dip

Work forgot to schedule me this week, or some system error, or whatever, the result? I was "given" the weekend off. Not good for the wallet, but did allow me to get in two full days of gaming. Three games plus Deathwatch/Dark Heresy, a pretty good haul for a weekend. How did the games go? Read on to find out.

Game one was versus Troy, again playing Zoraida. He took Zoraida with Tarot Reading, Hex Bag, and Animal Shape, Bad Juju with Eternal Fiend and Fears Given Form, Swamp Mother with Hexed Among You, two Waldegeists, and three Gupps. I took Tara with Knowledge of Eternity and Obliteration Symbiote, Taelor with Tally Sheet, Bishop with Scramble, Hans, Student of Conflict, and two Void Wretches. We flipped Squatter's Rights, with a scheme pool of Sand, Breakthrough, Make Them Suffer, Assassinate, and Frame for Murder. Not a good pool facing Zoraida, though I was thinking that Frame For Murder was killed by opposing leader, but any Henchman would work as well, meaning that Juju could do the deed. Still, the Doll did the killing, so wouldn't have helped. I moved Taelor up the middle, where she grabbed a squatter's and dropped a sand. I should have activated her first on turn two, but went with Tara, so Taelor got dolled, and killed. Bishop grabbed my second Squatter's and dropped another marker for Line in the Sand. Turn three saw little action, Hans knocked Eternal Fiend off of Juju, but since he never died, it didn't matter. The Fear's Given Form upgrade would have been a better choice, since it eventually killed Tara. On turn four, Hans targets a Wretch locked in combat with a Gupp and a Waldegeist and manages to kill the Waldegeist and the Wretch. I wasn't able to cheat the attack or defense to where it would stop the hit, so he died. Tara manages to take Bad Juju down to one wound, but Black Jokers and can't finish him off. Turn five was a bad turn. My hand was useless, using my only two high cards to save Tara versus Juju, then activate Tara and flip crap versus Fear and she dies. Student moves to try and block a scheme drop, which was likely a bad choice since in the end it meant he got three for Make Them Suffer AND for Breakthrough anyway. Hans can't really do anything with Wk 3, so he finishes Bad Juju. Damn game went onto turn six, so Troy was able to kill the Student and clean up all of my scheme markers leaving me just three points for Squatter's on turn two through four, while he grabbed three through six plus full Breakthrough and Make Them Suffer. It was a three to ten loss for me. Them damn Neverborn always seem to give me a rough day.


I was supposed to play Nabors at 40K, but he seemed to be dodging the bullet again, so as it got later and I still wanted 40K, I roped Shane into a game. He brought his nine Vendetta list against my dual Heldrake Chosen Night Lords list. He had first turn and didn't do a lot, immobilizing a single Rhino. I jumped my Daemon Princes over towards the only two units he had on the board. On turn two everything came on and he straight slaughtered my Black Mace Daemon Prince. On my turn, all my stuff also came on. Dirty over active Cultists. I sent my Heldrakes over, barbecuing his scouts and doing some damage to his command squad. My Daemon Prince then jumped into his mini-blob with the Dark Angel Librarian, and stayed there pretty much the rest of the game. He continued to rain hate on my poor Rhinos, who took it like it was their job. Cause it was. Me newly released Chosen preceded to do minor damage to his Vendettas, but keep him on his toes. Shane challenged me with his plethora of unit champions, which I accepted, cause I had to, and why not. I managed to finish off his scouts, though I couldn't get him to fail a break test anywhere for the first four turns. I used my Heldrakes to kill his scouts and most of his command squad, save the nigh invincible Commander. The Chosen continued to dwindle while the Cultists hid under a pyramid. On turn five, I have his unit to far from the King of the Hill objective with a Chosen on it, a Chosen on the three point Scouring Objective, the Cultists on the two pointer, and my Warlord in his deployment, having just finished off his Warlord. On turn sic he manages to kill one of my Heldrakes, though he double ones against one of my lone Chosen, leaving him to continue to claim an objective, while a nearby Guard Vet runs screaming past(at 3" per turn, he was fast). I manage to send the other Vet squad packing, leaving the center objective owned by my other lone Chosen. Cultists still sit in the back. On turn seven, both of my lone Chosen finally go down and I also lose a Heldrake. The Cultists only lose to men, however, and continue to hold their objective. In the end, it is a minor win on Scouring, a draw on King of the Hill, Warlord for both of us, and First Blood to him. A 12-9 win for me, and more mid table obscurity. Just where I like to be, so I am happy with the result. A great game. We ran to time on turn five, so tournament wise, it would have been much more in my favor, but it was a casual game, so there was talking and what not, so it may have made all seven turns, anyway. I took Tzeentch on my Daemon Princes, and I am still not sure that was a good idea. They aren't hard to keep alive, if I can get them locked in and protected by combat. Maybe that 3+ cover save is still the way to go, especially since I was fighting Lascannons on flyers, which is not the most Meta of lists. I would still have to worry about Wave Serpents, which ignore cover and kill me on number of shots, which makes the 3+ armor with rerolling ones batter. I guess I just need to find a Eldar player who can spam some stuffs at me.

We then rolled onto Deathwatch/Dark Heresy, where I was kind of content to let out rope and see who would hang themselves. Both Khordal, who was still first, since we never remember to take Oaths, and Wraith took a bit of a back seat, waiting to see what the others did. Khordal took a very "the ends justify the means" approach, after I searched the Deathwatch book for how, exactly, the Deathwatch deals with general aliens, and I get a looking for threats feel from it. Wraith chose to sit back and watch Troy's new character, who is from her syndicate, but doesn't know its hers. The rest of the entourage was supposed to be working on disguises for our upcoming infiltration. I call them team distraction. I am pretty sure Wraith's ability to disappear in a crowd is going to come in very handy when they get themselves all killed. Beyond that, it was fun watching them deal with sub par conditions on a small smuggler ship. I am pretty sure Arsenic is going to accuse somebody of something and blow his cover, Task is going to go off Techpriestish style, while Chad almost refuses to even try to disguise himself. Nabors should do fine, if I can get him to let go of his formal armor. Troy is doing a fair job, while not really knowing his place, as I have set him in a awkward situation. Whatever the outcome, I foresee Wraith continuing on, while some of the others may get new characters... again. I seem to be doing something wrong.


I did say this was a two day battle report-a-thon. So, not having work on Sunday, I decided to make the most of my new found freedom, while not dwelling on how broke it is going to make me, and headed down to Longmont for some games and a painting competition put on by their new(couple months) local Henchman. I can easily say that they have a great group of guys, and I am definitely planning to be back. They have a tournament coming up in January or February, I hope to take some of the guys down with me and definitely will play myself. Definitely.(Cause I definitely did NOT use 'definitely' enough in that sentence. Definitely)(OK, stop it) Anyway, the game.

I was late to the party, but games hadn't really started. This meant it was easy to find an opponent, but we got the make shift board instead of the made for Malifaux boards. Ah, well. I must say they did look awesome, though, putting my to a bit of shame. The guy I played was named David. He was playing Rasputina with December's Pawn, Shattered Heart, and Arcane Resevoir, Snowstorm with Frenzied Storm, Joss with Warding Rune, Oxford Mage with Doom Ward, and another Oxford Mage with Blood Ward. I had Tara with Knowledge of Eternity and Obliteration Symbiote, Taelor with Tally Sheet and Scramble, Desolation Engine with Oath Keeper, and three Void Wretches. I think I had meant to grab Oath Keeper on Taelor instead of Scramble, but as we started turn one I noticed she had two Tally Sheets on her and scrambled myself to replace the second one and made the mistake, costing me a stone. Our strategy was Turf War, and he took Bodyguard on the Oxford Mage with Blood Ward and Frame for Murder on Joss, I took revealed A Line in the Sand and Bodyguard on Taelor. Having never faced Tara before, I did lay out roughly what I was going to do with the Desolation Engine when I put it away on my first activation. So, he knew what was coming when the Desolation Engine came out and charged Snowstorm and got into combat with Joss at the end of turn one. I had tried to bury Snowstorm, but he flat refused, kinda forcing me to charge him and not Joss. The Engine hist Snowstorm a couple of times, but with armor 2, didn't do much. He used his fast attack to smack Joss and I'm pretty sure I forgot my Melee Expert attack. He also was in range to hit Snowstorm, Joss, and both Mages with his pulse, wounding Joss and a Mage. Decent since I seldom get to do more damage than I take, and mostly use it to draw out cards from their hand. On turn two I surprised him by going ahead and activating Tara, instead of the obviously soon to die Desolation Engine. I promptly buried the Engine, giving it fast, brought back out, ready to charge again, and tried and failed to bury Snowstorm again. Then as my chain activation, promptly charged the DE back in and killed Snowstorm, who didn't have his armor up anymore, and am able to bring out an Abomination. I then remembered my Melee Expert, popped my pules, and smacked Joss twice. Joss has had enough and deletes the Engine, but I now have three Abominations, get the Engine out is still a possibility. My Abominations move around, shutting down 0's and removing suits, but to no avail. The mages don't have any suits and Rasputina is able to move out and kill one of the Abominations. I am now pretty sure the Engine is coming back, and, just to let you know, I was right. My Abominations continue to move around trying to block, Taelor comes in and kills Joss, which gave him Frame for Murder, but dies before the turn ends, ending my Bodyguard. On turn four I manage to kill the last Mage, which is also his Bodyguard, meaning he can't get Turf War or any more Body Guard points. He calls it mid turn, though I do play out what my turn would have been, with Wretches dropping markers, and Tara using her second activation to drop the fourth. In the end it is Tara, three loose Wretchs, and an Abomination near Rasputine, which is all he had. I would have likely gotten another point for Turf War, but it didn't matter. In the end I got Turf War on two, three, and four, plus Bodyguard on two and full A Line in the Sand. He came away with Frame for Murder and turns two and three on Bodyguard. It was an 8-5 game for me. He had pulled ahead early, snagging Frame for Murder and keeping his Mage towards the back. I was able to hold the board center, however, and keep his crew pushed back, using the DE and the Taelor to force him to fight by his zone. I think the heavy hitter that early really threw him and he wasn't able to recover. A few more games and he will just see it coming and react accordingly. So, I had better not play him with it again until the tournament.

After that we headed over to a Mexican food place that was good and cheap, so I am a little jealous, especially since we passed another place along the way, with a diner in the parking lot and a Subway across the street. They seem pretty set for food, which really makes that shit service Taco Johns we get look worse. Like I said, I will be back, and likely before the tournament. I need to assess their better players after all.
To finish off I thought I would drop in some shots of the painting competition.

The tie for first place.

Third place's Rasputina proxy. This is the guy I played, the whole crew looks awesome.

The rest of us. My Steampunk Dorothy and Hooded Rider hang out with Gremlins in the back
I didn't get any shots of the young bloods, but there were a couple of them there as well. A good showing and an awesome event and store. And as a side note two or three Gremlin players there today, so I can finally get some games in against them. I am stoked.