Blog Wars 7 - Feedback Discussion

Normally this post would be covering my games at Blog Wars 7 but since I didn't participate I'll use this as an opportunity to respond to some of the feedback from the comments section of the previous post. I was pleased to see some excellent discussion going on, that's exactly what I want from people so I can work out how to improve things for BW8. Please keep the comments coming either on here or by e-mail.

Missions & Scoring
As I said in the previous post, it seems the first two missions work pretty well. Obviously Cleanse the Xenos is particularly favourable for shooty armies but hopefully the objective missions level the playing field somewhat. I think it's important to have at least one mission without objectives not just for variety but also to give people a straightforward first game without too much thinking! The blood points system seemed to work well from my end at least and hopefully it wasn't a headache for you guys.

Personally, I loved going around the tables during the last two missions and seeing the armies smashing together in the middle of the board but it'd be great to hear more from you guys about how well the objective missions worked.

It seems from the comments that most people like the idea of the final mission being 6 turns with no scoring on game turn one. This makes sense to me as it minimises the advantage of going first and makes the game longer (since some had found it was over too quickly). I've also had a suggestion that a score sheet for this round would be helpful as a reminder to keep track of the points during the game. This is easily accomplished so I'll be implementing it assuming the mission doesn't change.

Please bear in mind that as I play more games of 7th edition the missions might evolve slightly. I'm keen to avoid changing things too much though so that people can start to get used to the Blog Wars format and plan their lists accordingly. Did people think the scoring system was straightforward? I know there were some minor issues but I'll take steps to minimise those.

Terrain
There were comments that the terrain was too sparse on the tables. I have to say that walking around I tend to agree. I have very little input into the scenery set up as I'm usually busy getting everything else set up. I'm not blaming Matt and Jamie though as I know they can struggle to get it all laid out in time before people arrive. There's plenty more scenery available at the venue though so we'll make a conscious effort to have more laid out. That being said I think it's important to have some more open tables. Not all battles are fought on city streets and it gets monotonous to play with the same ruins on every table.

Assuming the last mission stays the same I think it's important to consider terrain placement in relation to where the objectives will end up but this is something I can address fairly easily.

The Painting Competition
This is a tricky one. I know that this time around some people intentionally avoided voting for armies they'd seen win before either at BW or elsewhere. I can understand this but at the same time, best painted should be just that rather than "best painted that I haven't seen before". That creates one of two situations. Either people up their game to try and top the winning armies or they give in as they don't think they can compete. Obviously the former is preferable and I'd like to avoid the latter.

That being said, I think the BW regulars are fairly self policing in that they try and vote for something different. As has been pointed out, there were still some people playing their games whilst others were already voting on the best armies. This meant some armies may not have received the votes they deserved. Time is always tight but perhaps only opening the voting after all games have finished is possible.

I'd like to expand the painting competition and I think Best Conversion is a good idea to showcase that side of the hobby. Often I find the army that wins best painted is actually the best converted rather than the best technically skilled paint job. The conversions in one army can distract the eye away from another army that actually has a better paint job so giving a separate category should help. I may also include a Best Theme prize but I'm conscious that there'll be considerable overlap and there's only so much time for judging and voting. 

I like the idea of a showcase. This would allow the past winners to show off their armies without being eligible for votes (unless they've made significant changes) and it also works well for commission paintjobs. Potentially it will cause confusion if people aren't clear on who they can vote for. This can be addressed easily by having clearer labels for armies.

Conclusion
The consensus seems to be that there doesn't need to be many drastic changes but rather some tweaks here and there. I'd like to keep the debate going though so please comment below to give me more feedback to work with. Nothing is set in stone for BW8 yet so I'm open to suggestions on every aspect. I'll need to explore how to incorporate 7th edition so any thoughts on that are welcome too.

Blog Wars 7 Painting Competition (pic heavy)

I say this every time but the standard of painting was particularly high this time around. There were several armies that I'd have been happy to see win the best army and plenty of characters that could've taken that prize. As a reminder there's two prizes up for grabs, Best Painted Army and Best Painted Special Character. Yet again we managed to avoid a situation where the same person won both!!

Of the field of 38 players, 33 of them voted which is fantastic as it's nice to see people supporting the hobby side of the event too. It's also a better turn out than a general election.

Best Army Runners Up
This category was a closely fought affair with the winner scoring 7 votes and two players tied for second with 6 votes each. The first being Ben Greaves, playing in his first Blog War, with his tank heavy Astra Militarum army featuring Pask Ben's army has a beautiful weathered look to it with fantastic attention to detail.

The other player tied at 2nd was Dave Weston with his Tyranids. Dave's Tyranids have won numerous awards including Best Army at BW6 where he won despite them being presented on a red plastic tray. This time Dave had gone to town on his diorama as you can see in the pictures. I feel a little guilty that he put that extra effort in only to come second!

In fourth place with 4 votes was Martin Waine (another newcomer) with his Space Wolves featuring Canis and a whole host of wolves around him.

Best Army Winner
The winning army was Chris Benstead's stunning Iron Warriors army which features some excellent conversions, third party models and a well executed paint scheme that makes them really look gritty. Chris is one of only three people who've been to all seven Blog Wars events and he's always performed well in the painting competition winning Best Special Character twice and now also two awards for Best Army. I should point out that these awards were not all for the Iron Warriors, as in previous events Chris brought his equally beautifully painted Tyranids with Swarmlord. He also came second at BW5 meaning he's probably taken more prizes from me than anyone else!! I wonder why he keeps coming.....

Anyway here's some shots of his army but for more pictures and details of his conversions please head over to Weemen.

 

Best Special Character Runners Up
This category was even closer with the winner scoring 6 votes, two players tied for second on 5 votes and a three way tie for fourth at 3 votes each. Martin Waine featured here again with his Canis Wolfborn tied with Michael Towers Sanguinius (counts as Mephiston). The three way tie for fourth was between Nathaniel Gibbs' Draigo (resplendent in gold). Chris Benstead's Abaddon and Dave Weston's Deathleaper.

Best Special Character Winner
The winning character came from Jamie Jackson's army. He was fielding Iron Hands (who lack a Special Character) so he dreamed up a Chapter Master on a bike conversion that would act as his SC. This is no ordinary Chapter Master though as, in typical Iron Hands fashion, he's actually more machine than man! For more information on the conversion and more shots of Jamie's army head over to his blog, Index Astartes. The rest of the army is beautifully painted and features some excellent conversion including a full track land raider and modified attack bike.

Honorable Mention
Despite forgetting that I'd said there'd be a TO's choice award at BW7 I wanted to mention one army that caught my eye. The first of which is Ian Connolly's pirate themed Dark Eldar army with some beautiful conversions and the best army list I've read in a long time. Instead of Power from Pain they gain Power from Rum as alcohol numbs their pain, makes them want to fight and then eventually makes them fearless (literally). The one and only time I had a Best Theme prize it was Ian who won it and I'm certain he'd win this time if I'd have kept it up.

Thanks to everyone for putting the effort in to make some cinematic looking battles. Sorry to anyone I haven't mentioned here. I look forward to seeing what people produce for BW8.

Blog Wars 7 - The Aftermath

The seventh (!) installment of Blog Wars was held at the NWGC in Stockport yesterday. Despite being the seventh blog war the tournament was the last one of 6th edition 40K. I'm still waiting until I've played more games of 7th edition before I make any decisions about what will happen at BW8. I've some ideas of what I want to do but I don't want to commit to anything until I've played more games.

Anyway, there was a Blog Wars record of 38 players in attendance yesterday. I want to start by thanking everyone who came along for making it such an enjoyable day. The atmosphere was a friendly one which is always my intention. When new players come in you never know how what to expect but everyone seemed to play in the spirit of the event. There are still three players who've been to every single Blog Wars with no sign of any of them missing one any time soon. Maybe they'll get entry to the 10th one for free if it gets that far.

I've often thought about expanding the event as it becomes more popular but I'm keen to keep numbers relatively low so that we can keep the close-knit atmosphere. I hope this is the one thing that brings people back time and time again. That being said I may extend it to 50 players if the demand is there in November for BW8.

Here are this year's final results. I ducked out this time so we have a new champion in the form of Gary Percival who played White Scars. Gary was on table two in the final game and scored a whopping 29/33 points to leapfrog Matt who struggled to score enough in the final game to hold onto first place. As ever these results will be added to the archive.

Scoring
In case you're wondering the reason the results aren't a whole number is that in the first round I use old school Blood Points as a scoring mechanism. These are then converted into tournament points but I leave the decimal place there to help me distinguish between closely matched scores. All victories are based on TP total (Primary VPs + Secondary VPs) and in the first game Gary only won his game by 0.2 TP!! I think it's great to be able to see just how decisive (or not) a victory is rather than just having a straight win/loss/draw up on the board.

I think the scoring system worked pretty well. There didn't seem to be any major issues that people came to me with but as ever I'm open to suggestions for improvements. I'll talk about the missions themselves shortly but the scoring system seemed to give a pretty good representation of what happened in the games. There was one game in round two that was won 2-1 where neither player controlled an objective and it came down to secondary VPs.

If you look at the bright green column of total points won (TW), you can see that 12/13th and 16/17th appear to be tied with and the goal difference (GD) between VPs scored and VPs lost appears the wrong way around. In actual fact Dave Weston scored 54.03 to Thomas Carr's 54.0 and Ken Morley scored 48.42 to Tom Brown's 48.38. That's incredibly close!

The Missions
I think the first mission works pretty well in that two armies basically try to smash each other in. I think it's a good way to start the day and having that round before lunch gives plenty of time for players to add up the points without it making the next round start late. The mission definitely favours some armies over others but I hope the others balance this out a little.

The second mission is interesting as your opponent's objective is worth more to you than your own. In one game this resulted in a 25-15 scoreline with neither player holding their own objective but one of them having control of the centre. As I say, there was also a game where no-one controlled anything! I think this mission prevents the boring games that Emperor's Will and Relic can sometimes create.

The final mission is a new one for Blog Wars. Control Freak has three central objectives that give a point up at the end of each player turn. For the most part I think people enjoyed playing a different kind of mission. When I decided to run this I didn't realise 7th edition would contain something similar in the form of Maelstrom of War but I'll be looking at those tactical objectives for inspiration to improve Control Freak. There were some players who commented that this game was over too quickly and that sometimes their opponent built up an unassailable lead leaving them as spectators.

I think this could be addressed by increasing the turn limit from 5 to 6 and preventing any points from being scored in the first game turn. That should go some way to preventing the person going first from having an advantage. This mission was a test of something different to try and break up the monotony of the rulebook missions so I'm keen for everyone to give me as much feedback as possible to help improve it.

I made it very clear this time that tabling doesn't give full VPs and I think for the most part people played with this in mind. There were a couple of very quick tablings where the winner didn't score full points but that's the idea. I was also aware of a couple of games where the guy doing the tabling was stalling for more points which isn't ideal but hopefully players can keep to the spirit of the competition and keep this to a minimum.

The End of 6th Edition
This was the last Blog Wars of 6th edition and I have to say for the most part it's been a good run. There's no doubt that there's some dirty combinations that can be created with the allies system but most of the players at BW seem to have kept their lists in the spirit of the event.

As I've said, I'll be trying to play plenty of games of 7th edition over the next few months so that BW8 will offer the best 7th edition experience possible. I will, of course, be blogging about it and I'll want your feedback on how BW8 adapts to the changes in the game.

Your Feedback
Blog Wars only works if I'm running an event that people actually want to attend. For that reason I rely on getting a good deal of feedback from the people who come along. This is especially important for the new guys so please get in touch with your impressions of the event (good or bad) so that I can make it better next time around.

Finally, I again want to thank everyone for coming along and the staff at the NWGC for their continued support of this event. I hope to see all of you again at BW8 in November. Keep an eye out for details of that.

Armies at Blog Wars 7 - The Obligatory Pie Chart Post

It's that time of (half) year again, the army lists are all in and with the exception of a couple of queries they're all good to go. Please check your emails (and junk folders) to see if I've picked up any issues with your list but otherwise if you haven't heard from me please go ahead and assume your list is fine. As usual I've updated the BW7 page with details of who's bringing what race (I'm calling them that until we start using 7th ed at Blog Wars and I have to start saying "Factions"). Of course, information in this form is of little use to you and tricky to digest (pie pun) so I think it's only right that I throw some pie charts your way.

Before tackling the latest pie charts help yourself to a slice of tasty BW6 pies and if you're still peckish some crusty BW5 pies. Back in November there was a meaty dose of Tyranids on display along with fairly equal portions of CSM, Eldar, Wolves and Tau.

Still hungry for more? Here's BW7's tasty goodness:

Primary Detachments

Although present at BW6, Chaos Daemons are a much bigger part of Blog Wars 7. Not suprisingly Tau are still very popular but perhaps what is surprising is that there aren't many Eldar armies. This becomes even more significant when you notice that there's actually quite a few Blood Angels players on board (4 to be precise).

The pleasing thing for me is that there's still a huge variety of different armies represented which I hope makes for a more interesting tournamet for you guys. The odds are actually against you meeting the same race twice and it's incredibly unlikely you'll meet the same one in all three of your games. I often find that makes a big difference to my enjoyment of a tournament. If I'm playing Necrons in every game then I get pretty mardy! Incidentally there's only one Necron player this time which has been the trend since BW5.

You'd expect there to be a decent number of Imperia... Astra Militarum players and indeed there's a decent chunk of them. This gets more interesting when we get to the Special Characters but worth noting here too. I'm extremely sad that in the last four Blog Wars we've only had a single Ork player. Hopefully that's about to change with the new codex but I won't hold my breath. On the other hand I'm happy to see that Space Wolves are still well represented (as this used to be a Space Wolves blog). Hopefully we'll see a new codex for them soon too.

Allied Detachments

The first thing to note here is that the number of people taking allies has increased fairly dramatically. At the first Blog Wars of 6th edition (BW4) there was very little uptake of the allies system. This has steadily increased to the point we're at now with over a third of the armies including allies of some kind. Of course some of these are Inquisition and Dataslates and there's only a single Tyranid list this time but still I think it's fairly solid increase.

I make little secret of the fact that I'm not a huge fan of allies but it does make for more variety in the lists I suppose. There's a big chunk of SM allies here, especially when you take the Stormwings into account. There's a formation in one of the other armies which isn't included here (as it's the same race as the primary) but there isn't much uptake on the formations front.

No other really stands out as a popular choice for allies but for the most part at least the allies used are Battle Brothers with the primary detachment. Interesting when you consider a lot of these combinations won't be as useful in 7th edition.

Special Characters
Finally, my favourite part of Blog Wars, the special characters. For those not aware, each army MUST include one in their primary detachment so there's guaranteed to be plenty of them in attendance. Some armies have taken more than one too. Coteaz proves to be a popular choice again (helped by the Inquistion codex of course) but Knight Commander Pask is the most popular with all four AM armies including him. Expect to see a lot of Leman Russ tanks this time!!

Happily though there's 29 different characters represented across the 38 lists (yes, there's been two dropouts). There's some characters I've never seen in play before like the Changeling, Ku'gath, Skarbrand and Masque from the Daemons lists. Kheradruakh is even making an appearance!

Conclusion
I have high hopes for this Blog War. There's a great mix of armies in attendance and a nice combination of veterans and new players to build the atmosphere. This is the first one I'm intentionally not playing in so I'm insanely jealous of you all getting to roll dice together. I will, of course, stand in if there's an odd number so I'll be posting up my backup list for you all to see in the coming days. I'll also be showing you what you'll be able to win both for the spot prizes and the raffle so stay tuned for that.

BW6 saw the biggest attendance yet (32) and as it stands at the moment we'll smash that with 38 players at Blog Wars 7. As ever, I'm hoping it'll be the best yet. If nothing else I hope it goes a bit more smoothly than last time!! One thing's for sure the raffle prizes are bigger than ever!!

Blog Wars 7 - A Different Kind of Tournament (Part 3)

As promised this final post, in this increasingly self congratulatory series, will cover points and prizes. I know a lot of this stuff is repetition from last time I wrote about scoring etc but bear with me and hopefully it'll clear up the actually very simple scoring system for those who are going to attend and for anyone else who might be interested. Blog Wars 7 has now sold out but I'm still taking names for reserves just in case, let me know if you're interested. Anyway, here goes.

Scoring
I've never been content to simply run the rulebook missions and play out a win/draw/loss tournament. For me this plain doesn't work as a means of scoring. What you end up with is a bunch of guys on the same W/D/L ratio who don't really know who's winning. Of course, these kinds of tournaments usually have some way of separating those players who've all won 3 out of 3 games. In 5th edition this usually took the form of what was at the time called Victory Points but is now often referred to as Blood Points to avoid confusion (or create more, I'm not sure). Essentially, the overall winner will be the one who decimated his opponents but still also managed to grab a couple of objectives along the way. What it actually comes down to is the guy who tables everyone wins the event.

Now obviously, on paper that sounds pretty reasonable. Wipe all three of your opponents from the table and you ought to be beating the guy who won his games despite losing more of his army than his opponents did. Makes sense. Well, for me at least, not quite. You see the thing that keeps most of us coming back to this game despite numerous apparent attempts by GW to put us off is that there's some depth to it. Why bother with scenarios/missions if you can just ignore them and table your opponent? Those objectives were vital to the mission and you've all but ignored them. The kind of list that does it tends to be pretty boring for both operator and victim too.

Enter 6th edition style Victory Points. Now we've got a way of understanding how well you play the mission. All but one of the rulebook missions awards these new VPs for controlling one or more objectives. Determining the winner is simple then, the guy with the most VPs wins. Blog Wars goes a bit further by increasing the values of these objectives but the point is the same. By recording these directly in each round we can easily see who's scored the most. Even better if we record your opponent's VPs to see just how convincing those victories were. Trouble is, the ugly issue of tabling hasn't been dealt with. Totally annihilate your opponent and you'll still score max VPs. Well strictly speaking and, in fact, RAW that isn't the case. The rulebook states on page 122:

"If one player concedes the battle, or his entire army is wiped out, the game ends and a crushing victory goes to his opponent. Likewise, if at the end of any game turn, one player has no models on the battlefield, his opponent automatically wins."

In case you wondered what a "crushing victory" is, the paragraph above defines it by saying:

"Indeed, if the winner has twice the Victory Points of his opponent, it can be considered a crushing victory!"

That could mean you scored 2 VPs to your opponent's single VP. So then, you win the game then but nowhere (that I can see at least) does the rulebook state that tabling gives maximum VPs. This is something the tournament scene seems to have collectively decided should be the case. Well, as the title of the post says, Blog Wars is different. As you might've read after the controversy of BW6, tabling does not give maximum VPs in the objective missions at Blog Wars. Obviously, in the first mission where you're supposed to try and wipe out your opponent, doing so will give you maximum VPs though.

Now, this isn't a perfect solution. It can lead to a situation where a player deliberately keeps his opponent's units alive so he can get onto the objectives or else encourages a player to throw the game when faced with insurmountable odds. Neither situation appeals to me but I can only trust in the sportmanship of the participants that this kind of thing will be kept to a minimum.

The tabling rules when combined with the tweaked scenarios should hopefully encourage people to approach their list building differently. It's no good having an awesome deathstar if you can't hold the objectives in Control Freak but you'll need more than just tough troops to claim your opponent's objective in Emperor's Relic. I want people to have to think beyond building a list that simply vaporises enemies and grabs the objectives after turn 5.

Will it work though? Unfortunately there's only one way to find out! Perhaps this all sounds a bit naive and I'll be proved wrong by a handful of players who still bring the top tier lists and win. Better to try something different though than keep on flogging the same system that simply doesn't work and expect it to fix itself.

If you're coming to BW7 please take some time to read through the scenarios and scoring section of the event details. Now is the time to ask questions!

Prizes
All this talk about points means I've really got to talk about prizes. The tournament itself will keep the same prize format as at Blog Wars 6:

1st Place: Certificate & £25 Element Games voucher
2nd Place: Certificate & £15 Element Games voucher
3rd Place: Certificate & £10 Element Games voucher
Last Place: Certificate, £5 Element Games voucher & Limited Edition Wooden Spoon!
Best Painted Army: Certificate & £15 Element Games voucher
Best Painted Special Character: Certificate & £10 Element Games voucher

Remember, these figures are effectively increased by the discount available in-store on the day (see Element Games for discounts on individual items). In addition, I'm pleased to announce that Den of Imagination have been kind enough to sponsor the event so there'll be additional prizes for the tournament winners. Here's a shot of what they'll be providing:

1st place - Box of Necron Canoptek Wraiths, DoI dice bag with 20 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

2nd place - DoI dice bag with 10 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

3rd place - DoI dice bag with 5 DoI dice and a DoI badge.

In case you aren't familiar with them they're a Polish company who provide a miniature painting service. Their commissions are tiered so that you can choose the right combination of finish and cost for you. Head over to their website for more examples of their work but here's a shot of some Imperial Fists and also a Chaos centurion conversion they produced which they call a Khorne Gore Engine!

As any veteran will tell you though, the main event is the raffle. Everyone is automatically included in the raffle simply by buying an event ticket. As I've already revealed the top prize will be an Imperial Knight but I won't be revealing the other prizes until closer to the event. All I will say is that with imminent release of 7th edition the prizes will likely be related to that. Rest assured that with such a large number of tickets sold there'll be even better than ever!

Incidentally, it's worth considering placing an order with Element Games to pick up on the day. Whilst they offer free postage on orders over £80 it's still a great idea to place an order for collection on the day to save faffing around waiting for delivery or paying extra for it. Of course their store will be open during BW7 but by putting in an order you can be sure they've got what you need in stock. With the next edition of 40K out soon Blog Wars 7 will be a good opportunity to pick up the new stuff at a discount.

Battle Report - Big Stuff Game (Tau/IK vs. Eldar/GK - 1,850pts)

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I don't like to cast judgement on any new units until I've had a game or two with or against it. Obviously you get a fair idea from reading the rules but often there are things that you haven't considered when considering the unit in a vacuum. Anyway, the unit in question for this battle report was the Imperial Knight. Since I haven't persuaded myself to buy one yet I was borrowing Jamie's (head over to his blog to read more about it).

Whilst we want to test the Imperial Knight in tournament like conditions we couldn't resist the opportunity to field a ton of big units. Here's a group shot of the big guys in question (I quite like how Matt's wraithknights look like their posing for the photo!):


Anyway, my list was essentially the same as in Monday's batrep but with one less fire warrior unit and a few upgrades on the suits etc. Matt's list featured the same two wraithknights but this time they were joined by an avatar and a dreadknight along with some extra wave serpents and dark reapers.

Battle Report

We'd be playing a 3 objective Crusade on Dawn of War. Matt would be taking the first turn but just in case he castled up his forces in the centre of the board. Of course with Coteaz involved I failed to seize. Matt's dreadknight advanced towards one of my riptides whilst incinerating some pathfinders on the way. The rest of the army focussed on the Imperial Knight stripping away half of it's hull points before it'd even moved. Elsewhere more pathfinders died but neither ran denying Matt First Blood. Thanks to some poor target prioritisation on my part I failed to get it either. I managed to wound both the dreadknight and one of the wraithknights but neither fell. All the Imperial Knight managed to achieve was a single wound on the wraithknight but he was advancing towards his foe hoping to get stuck into combat.

It wouldn't get much of an opportunity though. The wraithknights fired at it bringing it down to a single HP before charging in. One of them took the remaining HP with Hammer of Wrath and that was that. Bit of a damp squib but that's how it goes sometimes. The resultant explosion took a wound each from the wraithknights but it was hardly making it worth the 375pts! I managed to get some revenge by downing the dreadknight but one of my riptides followed shortly afterwards. At this point I was feeling very much on the back foot. The firepower from the avatar on the lascannon and all those wave serpents was simply too much for my Tau. Shadowsun and her team weren't even able to down a wraithknight when they arrived which didn't help matters. Especially not when it made her pay by killing her in combat (again!).

The other wraithknight had a couple of rounds of combat with my remaining riptide but once that fell I was all but defeated. There was a brief highlight for me though. A squad of outflanking kroot were able to down a wave serpent by glancing it to death with rear armour shots but it was too little too late. With both wraithknights free to smash what they liked the game was lost. I couldn't kill off Matt's troops and mine were soon gone. We played it through to the end and my inevitable tabling.

Conclusion
It's a shame to have lost this one. Before I saw Matt's army I felt pretty confident having managed to squeeze a knight into an already strong Tau list. Once I'd seen Matt's list though I knew I'd struggle, especially without First Turn. The result felt pretty much decided from the start which is a shame since one-sided games are rarely fun for either player.

The point of the game though was to test out the Imperial Knight. Despite what you might think (since they aren't permitted at BW7) I was really expecting much from it. Of course it's tough for some armies to kill but against others it'll die just as quick as most vehicles. Matt's list had a disgusting amount of high strength fire power. Those S10 shots from the wraithknights are perfect for bringing it down. Once in combat their I5 and S10 makes them probably the best way of downing one. It's a shame that one of them kicked in the shin (Hammer of Wrath) before it got to strike. I'd have loved to smash up a couple of wraithknights before it fell.

I initially thought that the Paladin was the better of the two variants since the rapid fire battle cannon would be great against massed MEQ infantry. I'm now leaning towards the Errant though. The 36" large blast melta seems far better now I think about it. I don't actually know what made me think the Paladin would be superior actually. With so many wave serpents around (and I'm sure a lot of Leman Russes after the AM book) having the melta makes it that much more potent. This is especially true when you consider it'll be those vehicles that create the biggest problem for both it and the army it fights alongside.

The Imperial Knight may have died pretty easily in this game but I can still envision it cutting swathes through various other armies. I suppose, like anything else, there'll be a rock-paper-scissors kind of thing. For some armies it'll be no problem and others it'll be their worse nightmare. I think the key is that, like any big model, it proves a huge distraction for your opponent. They can't simply ignore it which means the rest of your list gets a bit of a breather. Pack the list out with mech and your opponent's presumably limited anti-tank weaponry will be left with a choice. Kill the knight and spare the rest or vice versa.

Our last game of the day was a somewhat fluffier affair (to my relief). I'll be writing that up on Friday night so be sure to come back after the weekend to see how the Inquisition fare against an Ork horde led by a warboss with a dark secret.

Battle Report - Tau vs. Eldar/AM (1,850pts)

In the run up to Blog Wars Matt and I always try to get a few games in with the scenarios to ensure there's no final tweaks that are needed. Last Sunday we played through Emperor's Relic with my BW6 Tau list taking on Matt's combination of Eldar and Guard (I just can't call them Astra Militarum). Matt's list was something along the lines of:

Karandras

18 Guardians (with wave serpent but not in it)

5 Dire Avengers (in wave serpent)

Two wraithknights with heavy wraithcannons
2 Leman Russ Eradicators (I think, the ones with the plasma cannons)
Coteaz
Warrior Acolytes
10 Veterans

Since this was Blog Wars 7 practice we'd be playing Emperor's Relic which is Vanguard deployment with a central objective with 10 VPs to either side and an objective each. Your home objective is worth 5 VP whilst your opponent's objective is worth 15 VP to you.

Battle Report

I got the first turn and made light work of one of the wraithknights with a combination of crisis missile team and riptides. That's a heck of a start! Meanwhile Karandras had infiltrated on my flank so I began to send my devilfish in his direction. Matt's first turn was focussed on taking out my pathfinders with two of the squads being killed off an the third reduced in number.

Shadowsun arrived at this point but couldn't risk deepstriking so close to the leman russes and opted to target the wave serpents. I rolled a hit which would've actually allowed me to hit the AM tanks but hindsight is always 20:20. Anyway, Shadowsun shot one of her fusion blasters at the empty wave serpent whilst the rest of her team focussed on the occupied one. The empty one passed its Jink save but the other blew up with fire from the rest of my army killing all but one of the dire avengers in the crater. Meanwhile the fire warriors piled out of their transports to hit Karandras and his guardians. Fortunately for me the warlock had failed his Conceal power so they'd only benefit from Karandras' stealth. This allowed me to wipe the entire squad out including Karandras giving me Slay the Warlord thanks to the Kroot who'd arrived behind them. In the meantime the rest of my army focussed on the wraithknights apart from one of the riptides who attempted to use his ordnance blast to down a leman russ but failed. This left the wraithknight alive and close to Shadowsun.

Matt began his second turn with Coteaz attempting to cast Prescience and Forewarning on the Leman Russes. Somehow he managed to double-six both rolls meaning not only did the powers fail but he also left Coteaz on a single wound! This was of little consolation to Shadowsun though who found herself smacked down by the wraithlord. She'd have been fine if she'd not be caught in a Sweeping Advance as on her own she'd have been able to use Our Weapons Are Useless (since the crisis suits had been killed). She was caught though giving Matt Slay the Warlord too. Her death certainly saved either the leman russes or wraithknight next turn.

The remaining fire warriors hopped back in the transports to try and survive long enough to grab some objectives. More Kroot arrived but Coteaz informed them that he'd been expecting them and eight of the ten were gunned down as they walked on the field.

I eventually managed to kill off the other wraithknight but not before one of the riptides had bought it. I'd failed miserably on a couple of occasions to kill the tanks so they rolled in and opened up on the riptides. Matt realised at this point that he'd been forgetting to fire their lascannons which probably would've resulted in the death of the riptides a turn or two sooner.

A combination of fire warriors and drones managed to finish off some acolytes and Coteaz who broke off to try and kill the Ethereal's squad. The game ended soon after at the top of T5 with me controlling my own objective whilst Matt's veterans held his. Neither of us could keep the central one. With all three secondaries I'd scored 8 of the possible 33 available VPs.

Conclusion
Had I focussed on the wraithknights on the second turn instead of worrying about Karandras I'd have probably saved Shadowsun and the game would've been over far sooner. Still the game felt pretty one-sided at the start with me killing a wraithknight straight off. Well at first it did anyway. With me exposing the fire warriors early I lacked anti-infantry firepower late on to deal with the veterans. The kroot were stupid to arrive in range of Coteaz but I simply forgot despite Matt having reminded me once that he had that rule.

Still, it was great that the game ended up pretty close towards the end. Matt was in a position where he might've taken the central objective himself were it not for my drones getting lucky. Obviously I was pleased to win the game but the main thing to take away from this battle was how well this mission works. You've got to have some way of getting to your opponent's objective if you want to score well. Even though I killed off a good chunk of Matt's army I only scored 8/33 points. You've got to push for the objectives sooner to clear them or have some way of getting to them earlier to claim them. It's certainly an improvement on both Relic (which normally comes down to First Blood) and Emperor's Will (which usually involves holding your own objective and again comes down to First Blood).

Having the objectives worth more points makes the secondaries fairly inconsequential. Sure you can both just hold on to your own objectives but then the winner will only be scoring 8 VPs. As you know I'm a big fan of quantifying victories. I don't like straight W/D/L but prefer to know just how significant a victory (or indeed loss) actually was.

We got three games in so there's another couple of reports to come. The next one involved a few big guys....

Blog Wars 7 - SOLD OUT!

Just a quick post tonight to say that Blog Wars 7 has officially sold out! Assuming everyone turns up this will be the biggest attendance at a Blog War ever! I've also opened up three spots for reserves. If you'd like to be added to the list then simply email me with the Contact Me link on the right. It'd be great if I could get some local guys to jump in to the reserve slots as then I'd be able to cope with one or two drop outs on the day. There's usually at least one drop out in the last few weeks before the event so it's worth getting your name on the reserve list. I've toyed with the idea of opening up some more places but I think 40 is a decent amount. Too few people and it's hard to avoid duplicate matchups but too many and the close-knit atmosphere is lost. Perhaps I'll look at it again for BW8 if it proves as popular.

There's a huge chunk of people coming from a nearby gaming club but still, I'm pleased to see that despite the issues of Blog Wars 6, there are still folks who want to come along! It's also interesting to see that people don't seem too put off by me not permitting Escalation, Forge World or Imperial Knights. There's a great mix of people this time around. There's plenty of veterans including Matt, Graham and Chris who'll have been to all 7! There are also about 15 new guys who've heard about the event through friends. It promises to be a great atmosphere and with large numbers I'm pretty happy with my decision not to play this time. It should allow me to focus on the organisation and make it run smoothly. Well, pretty happy, I'm still a little sad that I don't get to throw some dice with people who are becoming friends rather than just entrants in my tournament.

I'll be getting in touch with everyone on the list in the next week or so. I'll remind you all about the list deadline and send out a PDF of the rules pack too. Please take time to read everything. I know there'll still be some who don't so I'll explain everything as clearly as I can on the day but it's easier to answer queries in advance than trying to sort them last minute. Likewise for any general rules queries (remember BW7 will use 6th edition regardless of what gets released in a couple of weeks).

There'll be the usual build up posts including the ever-popular pie charts giving a break down of the armies (once I've had the lists) and of course, the prizes! Remember the top raffle prize this time around is an Imperial Knight which, all being well, will be allowed in BW8. That should give the winner enough time to get it painted!