Baltimore Gamesday 2009 - Post 1 (Ace of Cakes, Previews)

For those of you who watch the Food Network, you will recognize the following face (Duff from Ace of Cakes)! Duff came to Games Day this year to make a Squig Cake for Mythic Entertainment. I have to say that as I am home thinking through the day, this has to be the largest register of cool points I saw!



Now, along with meeting Duff and getting a picture of that incredible cake, I also snapped a whole load of other pictures. For the first post, I will start with some of the "sneak peaks" that were on display. Nothing really new here, but take a look anyway.

First we have a close-up of the new Space Marine character - Vulkan - who is expected out with Planetstrike.


And a look at what is supposed to be Kosorro Khan.


I do love the iron-clad dreadnought model.




And here is something for those Ork lovers out there. This is a work in progress Forge World Supa-Kannon to mount on a battlewagon. I imagine this would work for a Kill-Kannon as well.


We got to look at some new Galadhirm swordsmen on foot




And some of the new Galadhirm cavalry. I did not realize I had snapped a picture of the command unit until I was editing my pictures tonight, so I missed a shot of the banner.












And with the Perry's, some other models (not sure which are new and which old). Overall there looks to be some empire stuff below. My snaps of the new Empire Swordsmen were blurred, so not posted.






Overall I did not see anything here that I had not seen before. Most of this has already been announced on GW's own email announcements with pictures. I also was unable to locate the planet-strike book so could not take a look or get any pictures.

That's all for tonight. I will get some more pictures up in the following posts and also give a recap of my thoughts on Gamesday 2009.

***NEWS FLASH*** Eldar suffer crushing defeat!

Ouch. That's the result of my recent game at GW Sterling Friday evening. Simply put, ouch.

Lets start at the beginning with the list. Friday evening I headed out to my local GW (GW Sugarland) and was able to grab a game with one of the regulars. He plays Space Marines (the emperors finest). Mission was annihilation and set-up was the one with 12 inches per side (normal set-up).

I brought @1750:
HQ
Autarch (Mandiblasters, WJG, Power Weapon, Fusion Gun)
Farseer (Doom, Guide, Runes of Warding, Spirit Stones, Witchblade)

Elite
9x Banshees
w/ Banshee Exarch (Mirror Swords, Warshout)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL SCan)
3x Wraithguard

Troops
9x Dire Avengers
w/ Dire Avenger Exarch (Bladestorm, Defend, 2x Avenger SC)
w/ Wave Serpent (Spirit Stones, SCan, TL Missile Launcher)
9x Dire Avengers
w/ Dire Avenger Exarch (Bladestorm, Defend, Power Weapon, Shimmershield)
5x Pathfinders

Fast
9x Warpspiders
w/ Warp Spider Exarch (Withdraw, Powerblades, 2x Deathspinner)

Heavy
1x Falcon (Holo-field, Spirit Stones, Missile Launcher, SCan)


The list I played against was basically:
2 units of Bikes (with attack bikes)
1 unit of Bikes (with attack bike) and melta weapons
Scout Squad with Tellion (Special Character) and a heavy bolter with special rounds
1 Veteran squad (sternguard?) in a Razorback
3 Thunderfire Cannons

So here is where the comedy of errors began. First, I roll and get choice for first or second turn. I choose to let him set-up first and go first. He sets up his entire army on the table, thunderfire cannons in 3 ruins at the rear of his board. Each of these building are "reinforced ruins", providing a bonus cover save.

I then choose to keep the following in reserve:
Spiders + Autarch - deep striking
Falcon
Serpent + Banshees
Serpent + Dire Avengers + Farseer

I deploy the wraithguard half in one of the 2 ruins on my side of the board, the Dire Avengers in the other, and the pathfinders on the second floor of the central ruin (where the wraithguard were). At this point I choose to not try and seize initiative.

Yes, I imagine many of you are cringing right now.

So, first turn his thunderfire cannons wipe out the pathfinders, drop the wraithguard to 2, and drop the dire avengers to 2 (exarch still alive). I move forward with the wraithguard and try and shoot with the dire-avengers. It is at this point I realize that a DA Exarch with Power weapon and shimmershield does not have a gun to shoot with. Fail. Strangely I am still fairly confident I can recover a bad start.

Turn 2, thunderfire cannons complete the job of clearing the eldar from the board. I bring in my spiders, and both wave serpents. Falcon sits around for another turn. I burn the Serpents 24 inches onto the board, tank shocking one bike squad. Bike Squad makes 2 leadership tests and moves out of the way. Spiders deep-strike behind a ruin on his side of the board and take out one of the thunderfire cannons. Excellent!

Turn 3, the only squad with range on the spiders are the scouts in the ruin above the dead thunderfire cannon. Scouts unload into my nicely packed deep-struck formation with their special heavy bolter round. I cringe, but only 2 spiders fall. Tellion whiffs. At this point he opens up with las-cannons and plasma guns on the 2 serpents. Both serpents are penetrated, both fail their save, both explode (on a 6) with a 6 inch range, the second one wipes the dire avenger squad down to the Farseer + Exarch + 2 DA. Now the bike squad opens up on the banshees, leaving 1 banshee sitting in the crater. I now realize I am not going to make a good showing on this game.

Suffice it to say that I did not actually kill another unit before being wiped off the board in turn 4. That's right, I was tabled before the end of Turn 4.

Record: 1-2-0

After-Thoughts
The Army
I am not uncomfortable with this list, and will continue to play around with it. I am fairly certain the following list is what worked against me:

1. I should have chosen to deploy and go first. With 3 Thunderfire Canons and bikes I needed to get on the board and move early.
   
2. My dice really hated me in this game. This happens, and I need to work on my strategy a bit more to off-set these types of games.
3. I really need to play more games. I need to learn 5th edition better and re-learn my own army. I am still losing by making decisions that are either un-informed or badly informed.

I enjoy playing, and my opponent was a gentleman about the game.

Saturday is/was Baltimore Gamesday 2009. Pictures and coverage will be up soon.

Small Update

Its been a bit since I posted last, shorter than the previous breaks but definitely longer than I had hoped. I have some pictures that were missing from the previous post, along with a quick snap of my workspace.

First, the missing pictures:

Eldar Jet-Bikes







Wave Serpent #2 (borrowing weapons from WS #1)



And my workspace.



As you can see, if you look closely, I have stacked up my next couple projects. The Queue on my left will show that my painting queue is empty, but the building queue has backed up. I need to assemble my Shrieker Jet Bikes (Eldar Jetbike with Shuri-Cannons). Along with this I am going to put together my small (5 man + Exarch) Fire Dragon squad. I added a Farseer to the stack, as I have an idea for the base conversion and I want to field an actual Farseer model (instead of my Bonesinger).

Gamesday Baltimore is tomorrow and I will be headed up for the day. I am dissapointed as I was hoping to bring some cash with me in the hopes of grabbing some deals (if they are similar to last year). Unfortuneatly, my car had other ideas and the bulk of my recent bonus went to fixing it up. Its never fun to hear your wallet cry as you pay the cashier at an auto-shop. I am still hopeful I can scrounge together some smaller fun-money to pick up a few things.
Lastly on the tray is an Autarch on Jetbike model. I am not sure yet if I will assemble him as an Autarch or do some mod's to make him a Farseer on Jetbike.

On other fronts, I am looking to the future and some of my other hobby projects on the horizon. I have 2 major projects in different stages of preparation.
Project 1: High Elf Fantasy Army
Project 2: War of the Ring army (either Misty Mountains or Elves)

Regarding Project 1, I have a large box in my closet waiting for me to complete my Eldar project. The Defenders of Ulthuan set was purchased around Christmas time (my present to myself with help from my lovely wife!), and I have augmented that with some small bits from here and there. I ahve added 15 White Lions (incl. Command), along with 5 Dragon Princes (incl. Command). Overall this should make a very solid 3K plus army.

Project 2: I am going back and forth on what I will want to play for WotR. I have a Balrog which I painted up at the begining of my Eldar project. I painted him as the cracked skin is similar to the Eldar Forge World Avatar, and I wanted to try out my paint scheme. Now I have a game I am interested in that he could add to. In addition, I have had some additional ideas for substitutes for some of the over-expensive Misty Mountain models which would allow me to expand my force fairly quickly. This makes me lean toward the Misty Mountain list.

On the other hand, I love the LoTR Galadhrim models. I am considering using some of these in my High-Elf WHFB army, but also lean toward purchasing and building an armored Galadhrim army for WotR. I will probably see where everything sits when I get down to starting my WotR project.