Saturday, April 30, 2011

[RPG] 2 Weeks

Half a month. A fortnight. 2 weeks. 14 days.

That's all it takes (sometimes) for something beautiful, expressive, touching and evocative to be born.

In my experience, the quickly born-but amazingly deep works, ideas, concepts and stories are the ones that you have no control over. They take off like a freight train and just keep going until they arrive at their destination- usually your brain all "explodey" with possibility and change.

Some of these monsters take longer and some are shorter. Some are characters, while others are settings, or scenes, or maybe even adventures for those at your maniacal mercy.

I love the fast and furious ideas-how burning they are while they work their way through your head, and how real they are when they are finally birthed.

I'm not ready to share mine - it's a brilliant and sexy concept, but I don't know how to use it yet.

What kind of speed freak ideas do you have that you're willing to share? Where did the idea start? How did you process it while it burned you up? What do you like the most about it?

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

[40K] SW/SW vs BT/GK

We're almost done with our team league, and this game we played the Space Wolves +Chaos (counts as) Space Wolf guys (but he didn't use his pretty Chaos guys this time)

This team had been playing Terminators and Thunderwolves, but they made a change to their list, anticipating that they would play a different team. We also made a change- my partner didn't bring Terminators for the first time in 2 leagues!

We brought a TINY list as far as bodies go. Something like:

Brotherhood Champion
Xenos Inquisitor
Purifier Squad (2 Psycannon, 3 Halb)
Vindicaire Assassin
Rhino
Strike Squad (Psycannon)
Razorback (TLLC)
Dreadknight (Teleporter, H Incinirator)
Dreadnaught (Ass Cannon, TLAC, Psy)

and my list was even smaller. Really. Here's what I brought:

And 2 Land Raiders.  That's it.


The other guys had 6 drop pods full of Long Fangs- some with melta and some with las. 4 Land Speeders, Missile launchers, all kinds of long range firepower. They had bodies all over the place, probably outnumbering us 2-1 if not more.

We got pitched battle, sieze ground- but if we had gotten Annihilation I probably would have asked for the one allowable re-roll. They just had that many bodies. My partner did not seem worried at all- but I didn't see a way to get through all their guys. [He showed me.]

We deployed in cover, with the Land Raiders lining up along side the objective, and my Terminators elevated in a ruin on the far left corner. The Dreadnaught and DreadKnight escorted our rides on the field. We shot at the Land Speeders and a small fire support squad, destroying 3 Speeders and killing a couple missile launcher guys.

Their turn 2 brought on 4 of the pods. The special psychic ability provided by the DN that kept them 12" away from our forces REALLY helped- but they still came in to assault us. One squad landed right behind my Terminators, and the other just outside our 12" bubble. Another came in more towards the middle of the field, trying to block us a lane to their objective and wanting to kill our Land Raiders. The last came in kind of on the side of our column of mech, hoping to dump fire along the side arcs.


Purifiers on the objective, DreadKnight killing guys in front and on the side. Land Raiders distracting.
Turn 3 my Terminators assaulted the Long Fangs that popped out of the pod and sent them running. The rest of the turn was spent shooting at any melta or las on the board and taking out heavy hitting targets.

Their pod full of melta failed to arrive, and the other scattered to the board edge, which resulted in us being able to place it. We put it so that the guys inside had at least 3 feet to move before they could get to any action, and the DreadKnight continued to destroy the troops set against him.

Turn 4 was a lot of harassing fire on both sides.if I remember right. I know their Melta drop pod failed to arrive. We sent a Rhino to the other side to get rid of the last of the melta.

Turn 5, The Rhino we sent over towards their side of the board got busted open and the guys inside came out to do some damage to the troops hidden in cover at the manufactoium type thing. They break the Wolf Squad right up and begin the slow escort off the board. I continued to provide fire support with my CML Termies and the Land Raiders.  Their last drop pod fails to come on AGAIN. At this point, the other guys decide to concede, as they don't see any way to even get a draw.




What I learned: My guys make really good body guards, and maybe a mech heavy list isn't so bad, if it is done right.  Cover matters and using my mech to defend something big and important CAN work if there's either enough of it or enough support.

What I need to work on: Thinking long term. My partner knew just by LOOKING at the board that the worst we could do was a draw. I had no concept of how he came to that conclusion.

About my opponents: Man, they were fun! One player is new to SpaceWolves, and the other was trying a non-Terminator list for the first time in a while. They tried something new, which was a challenge- and they were super good sports. They teased me a lot about being the best bodyguard in the league, which is honestly kind of true. I provide distraction so my partner can get things done.

It was a fun game and I am really looking forward to next week when I get to play my buddy who is also just getting back in after many years of being on the sidelines.