Throne of Skulls - 2008 40 GT - My Story

[Zarahemna]

I guess this is the best place to put this thread. If it isn't then please move it if you have the power!

I have read the batte reports, fiddled with the lists and even painted some of the models but I have never entered a tournament before. I have wanted to ever since I started the hobby way back in 1754. I knew then that I was destined to take part in one of these renowned competitions. Well this year I have finally purchased my ticket. Its time to put on my power armour and kick some miniature behind!

Today I booked my ticket to the first heat in October. That means that my first question is this. Are any other members of this forum going to be at the first heat of the 40K TOSGT this year?

The next thing I need to do is explain why I have started this thread. You see, after I put the phone down and scribbled my confirmation number onto a piece of paper I realised that I have a whole lot of work to do before October. Which frankly just isn't that far away. I thought that a thread chronicling the mad rush to design, build, paint, playtest, adjust and then complete the winning army on time would be amusing at the least and absolutely amazing at the best.

I think that 5th is going to be a bit of a leveller. There are some new mechanics that might mean that I will stand more of a chance against those cronies who have been playing for years. Right now all I know is that I am going and that I am hugely excited at the prospect of what is ahead. I think my first job is to come up with a list.

Help and advice would be appreciated. May power armoured men rule the galaxy forever!

[Rikitikitavi]

First off, break some legs at the tournament!

Second:

Originally Posted by Zarahemna

I have wanted to ever since I started the hobby way back in 1754.

I couldn't resist.

[Zarahemna]

Thanks for noticing the date. I thought by putting something amusing in the first post I would at least get some guffaws from people. As it is I am 73 for 1 at the moment. Still, it is a start.

Since I made the first post I have been agonising over the army list. I have set myself tomorrow as a deadline as I am going to be hard pushed to get the army ready anyway. I have been thinking CSMs but I have some loyalist hankering going on too. I have a few nifty ideas up my sleeve which I may well post, then again I may not.

I have also been strategising. I have been running through the possible mission and deployment combinations, trying to work out what the best route to victory is going to be. I feel some relief that no-one else at the tournament will have played a 5th edition UK GT before but at the same time I know that this is my first time playing with the Big Boys.

I thought someone else would have been going to the UK 40K GT but no-one has said anything. Maybe they don't visit this part of the forum.

Anyways. I will be posting the list tomorrow. I wanted to post a scan of my tickets but they haven't, annoyingly, arrived yet. Still that's the way it goes eh?

My thanks to those of you who have taken a look. I know your interest has been kindled. I hope this thread develops the way I want it too. Especially when the modelling and painting is underway in earnest. I want to get the army on the table fast so that I can start getting some practice games in. I don't play 40k all that much so I am going to need all the exposure I can get.

IITWI!

[Zarahemna]

Every day for the last week I have been coming home from work with a feeling of anticipation, wondering if today will be the day when I come home to find my tickets on the floor waiting for me.

Nothing. Nothing has turned up, they should have been here in a day or two.

I call GW.

"Ah yes, sorry about that, we are actually sending them out on the 22nd, there was a little hitch with the printing."

Right.

I only have two models left on the "stick together" list. It's time to start the painting, which should be a bit easier after I nipped out to pick up some badab and devlan. I am looking forward to trying those out.

[LeeJerrum]

To be perfectly honest this isnt the best forum for GT discussion.

I'm going to heat 1 with marines so i'll see you there - i'll be wearing the black shirt with Jezlad on the back heading up with the rest of the Team Heresy guys.

I've done the last 3 UK GT's, not really looking forward to this one - 5th edition isn't an improvement imo. Thats for another thread though.

I'll do my best to offer advice where I can, i've see it all at the GT, laughed my way through the fisticuffs on table one at a heat last year "i'll see you outside!" haha class! Played mostly at the top end (W/L/D record of 17-6-7) I usually mess up on the last game of the day. Bored by then.

Looking forward to seeing your list mate .

[Zarahemna]

Ok, I played my first test game last night. Won. Barely.

It came down to a cover save in the end. I think I also realised that we hadn't been doing to wound allocation properly. I also learned that managing your opponent is as tough as managing his models. The guy I was playing seemed really keen on moving stuff pretty huge distances, his blast templates his huge numbers of people etc etc.

I am used to playing with a running dialogue for my opponent. Something like this.

"Okay, movement phase. I am going to move this Rhino. Ok, Now this Rhino, he's on a road so I can move an extra 6" since I am remaining on the road the whole distance so that's 18". Neither can shoot as they both moved 12".

and so on.

Then crucially when dice rolling the spiel continues.

OK, my lesser daemons are attacking your dire avengers, you go first as you have the initiative. ... Ok, I can attack back with five, they have x attacks each plus y for charging. so that's z attacks needing 4's to hit. rolls dice. Okay five hit, 3's to wound, nice! okay that's five armour saves."

I thought this was typical but my opponent did two things that made me uncomfortable. First of all he would just quickly roll some dice, no spiel, no explanation, nothing, just some frantic dice rolling. A couple of times I pointed out that he simply had too many dice but that was only when I knew myself how many he was meant to be rolling. The first time he would say anything would be when he would say. "Right, that's three dead and four more armour saves."

I didn't like that at all. Is this common?

The second thing was that he had about 35 of his own bright green dice. He used them all and would gather up the number needed and roll them casually across the table. Nine times out of ten he was rolling in the midst of dice already on the table. I couldn't tell which ones he had just rolled! This was really frustrating and he just wouldn't stop doing it.

Is this common too? What do people do? I kept picking his dice up and point to clear spaces where he could roll but he liked to roll just in front of himself, quickly and with no explanation of what he was doing.

Other than that the game was a lot of fun. I got to test my units and see what worked and what didn't. I am aware that this is only one game so I can't base too much off of it but I think it was a good start. Oooh. A Battle Report. I have never written one of those, I will give it a go.

Battle Number One:

The Opponent: Eldar

I didn't see his army list so I will simply recount what units he had.

Dire Avengers 8 with Exarch with power which removed one attack from all attacking enemies.
Howling Banshees 6 with Exarch
Pathfinders 6 with rifles
Harlequins 6 or 7 no characters (I think)
Eldrad
Falcon with Prism Cannon
6 Dark Reapers with Exarch with quick shot and no cover save powers.
Falcon with 6 Firedragons with Exarch.

Forgive me if my knowledge of the Eldar is pretty patchy. I have never collected Eldar so I don't know my way around them very well. Some of the unit sizes may be within one or two of the actual amount.

My Army

10 CSM Rhino, IoCG, 2x MG
10 CSM Rhino, IoCG PG and ML
9 Chosen 3 x Flamer, PG and AC with fist, IoCG
11 Raptors, AC with fist and 2 Flamers, IoS
Lash Sorceror with Jump Pack
Greater Daemon
12 Lesser demons
6 lesser demons

OK. We rolled capture and control and deployed in a spear head. I managed to steal the initiative but this was largely wasted as he then re-deployed four units via Eldrad. I had deployed the chosen about 12 inches away from his rather packed behind cover so things weren't that bad. He left his tanks at the back and piled everything else together on the small forest that held his objective. I placed my objective the required 24" away on a hill with the dismounted ML squad on top of it. The rest I put as close to the corner as possible with the chosen infiltrating in front of his army behind some ruins. The empty Rhino went in front while the loaded Rhino went on my left, (the outside of the table) to rush forwards and then flank attack him.

CSM Turn One:

As I had seized the initiative I went first. The chosen advanced towards the woods which were about 12" infront of them. The empty Rhino rolled up next to the ruins giving cover saves to about half of my army. My packed Rhino flanked by heading up my side of the table and popping smoke. The raptors jumped up behind the Rhino ready to dive into combat in the next turn.

In the shooting phase I Lashed his pathfinders and formed them into a neat flamer template shape. I then hit all of them three times with the three flamers in the chosen squad. They all bit the dust. This was a bit of a highlight for me as I felt like it was going to be a cakewalk. I was wrong. The real warning was the whole rolling three dice and adding them together for the psycic test. That was painful and I only cast lash once in the whole game. If I could do it again I would have tried harder for line of sight to the harlies or or banshees.

The chosen couldn't then charge anyone as the unit they had shot were all dead. So they just stood there. raptors were out of sight so they were ok and the Rhinos had moved too far to shoot.

The ML failed to hit the Flacon I fired at so my first turn ended with some glamour as the pathfinders were gone, but that was small consolation after this first turn.

Elder Turn One:

Briefer this time

His Banshees and Harlies charged my chosen. six died. I was expecting more but I made a hell of a lot of power saves and his rolling was less than spectacular. I knocked out a couple in reply and then needed the re roll to pass my morale check.

The reapers took out three Raptors despite their cover saves. The falcon with the Fire Dragons moved about 15" and dropped off the squad who promptly immobilised my loaded Rhino. The smoke stopping all but one penetrating hit.

CSM Turn Two:

This turn started well with all three demon units arriving. I dropped the Greater by the stricken Rhino, and both units of lesser by the woods ready to charge the assault units and dire avengers.

The greater took out the Falcon despite needing sixes to hit and the lesser demons were hammered by the avengers and banshees. The Eldar initiative meant that charging was small consolation. I lost all combats. The chosen fled and were cut down, the demons lost about a third of each unit and hung in there thanks to their invulnerable saves.

The empty Rhino tank shocked Eldrad, who jumped out of the way and broke the dark reapers, managing to avoid being immobilised at the same time. Those reapers are pesky varmints!

Turn Three:

At this point the game all fades into a blur. So I am going to do two things. 1 keep notes next time and 2 summarise what happened to each unit.


The melta CSMs shoot all but three fire dragons who shoot back at the rhino, blowing it up and killing themselves in the 6" explosion. What a way to die. They then dash back to my objective as the reapers first slaughter the ML team and then all but the last melta marine who wins me the game by making his final cover save against the reaper fire on Eldar turn six! Hurrah. This squad just never really got engaged enough and I think I need to commit them more intensely in future.

The GD charged the other falcon but fails to even hit it. The rest of the game is spent trying to get into charge range of an eldar unit. It never happens. At one point I missed charging Eldrad by 3 mm. Almost. But then again almost is so far away.

The two units of lesser demons got whittle down but did take out a lot of harlies, avengers and banshees in the process. In the end I had a lone lesser on the enemy objective but there were a bunch of reapers to so it was one to me and none to him.

The raptors took out Eldrad despite him taking out three of them with his singing spear 2s to wound thing. My sorceror on a single wound after failing two psychic tests charged the dire avengers, took them all out but got killed by the exarch who was also I6. I forgot to fire his pistol at the unit. Must remember to do that in future.

The empty Rhino tried to tank shock again but got immobilised and wasn't able to shoot any more Reapers due to some appalling dice rolling.

Conclusion:

In the end I had a greater demon, four raptors, a lesser demon and a single csm with an Icon of Chaos Glory. It was far too close for my liking against an opponent who wasn't so great really...

As always I would appreciate your thoughts...

[Zarahemna]

Today I came home from a week of camping in windy Norfolk. Yes I took the painting table with me and yes I was pleased to come back and find that my tournament pack had appeared on my doorstep.

It feels more official now.

I have been looking at some of the other threads concerning tournaments and I would love to get stuck into some conversions. At the moment though I think I am going to keep it simple and try to get the stuff I have built ready. If I finish faster than I expect to then I will go back and re-work some of the squads.

Of course if I get through then I will be able to look at making a different list just for the grand final in March 2009, which I might add is when my first child is due.

On another note, I think this may be better off in the projects folder, could someone shift it for me?

[Zarahemna]

Ok, I haven't included the transports but I have been able to get the base coat onto about 90% of the GT army. There a long way to go of course but it feels good to play practice games without that "legion of the sprayed" feeling...

Here goes,

I have taken pictures of groups of models rather than showing complete units.













That's the basic marines out of the way, here are the eleven Raptors, I'm still very unsure about this unit. Its a lot of points but it has been great in the practice games so far. Its a big relief in KP games as you have so much tied up in one unit and your opponent only gets one KP for taking it out...





Last but not least is my sorceror model. I am quite please with the way the base is working out. There is a servo skull tucked under the outcropping and I am going to add some other bits and pieces to the army bases if I have the time and the energy when the rest of the work is done.



The images are a little low in contrast as the light wasn't so great. I wanted to show my progress though so if anyone wants to chip in with their thoughts or if anyone else has ever painted an army in stages like this then please share your thoughts.

I'm always open to C & C.

[Zarahemna]

I couldn't help myself. I have spent so long basecoating that I forgot how good it feels to see a model with the highlighting done!

I worked on one of the Raptors last night and caved in. I whipped out the terracotta, put on a general highlight and then a fine detail highlight in orange. It was quick, easy and probably the first bit of work I have done in a month that made me feel that I would be going to Heat One with a painted army after all.

I am going to post the image at the start of this thread as well as here as a sort of sample of things to come image.

Watch this space¬

[Toastee]

Ah, the old pre GT rush to finish armies Never gets old. xD

I used to go to them, but haven't been able to the past couple of years, including this seasons.
Still, maybe next year for me...

Anywho mate, some nice work so far. Hope you get it all finished and ready in time. And good luck with the GT itself.