Friday, October 25, 2013

The Harvester of Souls and Relaxation

Today is the eve of The Harvester of Souls.  This is one of two annual Grand Tournaments in my area, and I am slightly anxious but also relaxed.  The sister GT of The Harvester is The Storm of Silence, which happens in the spring each year, and is way more competitive than The Harvester.

Scores for The Harvester are split evenly as 1/3 for Appearance, 1/3 for Battle Points, and 1/3 Sportsmanship.  There are also random prize drawings and a Player's Favorite army award.  That's the award I want to secure this year.  So I'm anxiously gearing up for this challenge.

The relaxation comes from the fact that the Khuster's Cav project is now finished.  I've had this project on the table for almost a full year now.  It would have been a full year as of 11/3/13.  But I came in under that, when I put the final touches on the army as of Monday, 10/21/13.

In looking back, I've spent a ton of time, money, and energy on this project.  I was originally going to sell it, but after a few exciting days of seeing the bikes come together, I've fallen in love with the army, and look forward to it sitting in my game room, reminding me why I continue in this hobby.

I head out for the Harvester at 5:30am tomorrow, to help set up tables and terrain, and the dice roll at 9am sharp.  We wrap up the games at about 5:00pm on Sunday, and when the event is done, I look forward to some much deserved chinese food and working casually on some terrain for a bit.

Now I'm off to do some last minute details (lists, packing, notes, etc) to get ready.  Wish me luck!

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Pre-Harvester Game

I finished the army last night around 11pm.  I'm dog tired, but ready and chomping at the bit to get to The Harvester this weekend.  I need to run to the store this week and get some more ink to print off my Army List, but here's what I am bringing, and what I tested out last Saturday against another Harvester list, run by my buddy Jase (who was also the winner of our Feast of Blades qualifier, but couldn't attend the event.)  I don't have the list he brought to the table, but I do remember her had a nightspinner, two fire prisms, I believe 3 or 4 wave serpents with troops, 3 squads of jetbikes, and a flyer.  Eldar are pretty tough.  But we'll get to that soon enough.  (heh, that rhymed)  For now, here's my list:

Khuster's Cav  1850 points
Space Marines (White Scar Chapter Tactics)
HQ - Chapter Master Khuster w/SM bike, Artificer armor, and Primarch's Wrath
TR - Bike Squad of 6, with 2 meltaguns, meltabombs, and attack bike with Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad of 6, with 2 meltaguns, meltabombs, and attack bike with Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad of 6, with 2 meltaguns, meltabombs, and attack bike with Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad of 6, with 2 meltaguns, meltabombs, and attack bike with Multimelta
TR - Bike Squad of 6, with 2 meltaguns, meltabombs, and attack bike with Multimelta
TR - Scout Squad of 10, with camo cloaks, sniper rifles, meltabombs, and missile launcher with Flakk missiles
FT - Land Speeder Squadron of 3, with Multimeltas and Typhoon missile launchers
HV - Predator with Heavy bolter side sponsons
FR - Aegis Defence Line with Quad Gun

This is what I brought to the table on Saturday against Jase's new eldar army.  It was Big Guns Never Tire, with 3 objectives, and Vanguard deployment.  I still have trouble putting all of my army on my side of the board, and this causes a lot of observers and opponents to utter "that's a lot of bikes".  Music to my ears.  Jase did make a comment on how template weapons will ruin my day if I go second, and I agree.  Packing the entire army onto the board leaves little room between models, and an IG army with artillery will probably win if they go first.  Having said that, Jase decided not to seize the initiative, and I went first.

I will say this about WS bikes:  Cover saves rock.  Jase stuck his vehicles in the far corner, and reserved his jetbikes and flyer.  So I had to spend the first couple of turns turbo boosting to get into range.  Of course, Khuster needs no such maneuver, and used his Orbital Bombardment in turn 1 to hit the far corner.  Goodbye Nightspinner.  Gotta love that special rule for Chapter Masters, just another reason to take them over Khan with White Scars.

The next two turns were going well for me, the cover saves of 3+ helped stave off a lot of hits, but his saves were also amazing.  Turn 3, my speeders Deep Striked in and had a mishap.  The result was that Jase got to deploy them, and so they ended up in the back corner of my deployment, instead of in the face of his wave serpents.  That was the turning point in the game.  Without the firepower to target the wave serpents, his troops almost eradicated my bikes, and when the game ended, only two more of his vehicles were destroyed.  Even so, I only lost by two points.

While the bikes have an advantage of being able to get to where I need them, I also have the ability to more or less out run most units, and that's a big advantage as well.  Also, his eldar flyer fell to my TL bolters on the bikes (since he took out my ML with Flakk and Quad Gun in the first two turns).

All in all a fun game, and next time I face his army, it will be a lot closer.  My great take away from this game was the fact I wasn't tabled on turn 4, like I was often with the DA list and as 5th ed Space Marines.

Now onto The Harvester!!!

Friday, October 18, 2013

Escalation League Final!

Here are the final pics of my army, turned in last night.  9 of us completed the project, but I failed to snag any of the random prizes.  Oh well, I still have a shiny new army!













This has been a fun project, but now it's time for the final push on my Khuster's Cav before the grand tourney and reveal on the 26th!

Monday, October 7, 2013

Escalation League #5

I finished the last model of the "Shinecron" army.  Now, to be honest, when I walked into the store to get my last 250 points, I had no idea what I wanted to add.  Fortunately for me, they had a single model I could bump to 250, just sitting there on the shelf.  Here's the latest addition to the army!


Up next, the entire army display shot!  (When I get back from vacation next week, that is)

Friday, October 4, 2013

Keepin' On

Not much new here right now, just doing prep work and finishing touches to my army for The Harvester of Souls GT on the 26th & 27th.  I will be trying my hand at homemade washes later this weekend though.  I'll post about that when I get to making them ;)