Tournament Report - Fluffaggedon 40K

This is the first year in the last 6 that I've only hosted a single tournament. I decided to pass the baton onto Matt to run events in a similar style to Blog Wars but with his own personal touch. Hopefully going forward I'll run Double Trouble in Spring/Summer and Matt will continue to run Fluffageddon in Autumn/Winter. Anyway, this was the inaugural Fluffageddon and Matt opted to use our FLGS as the venue. That meant barely even a 10 minute journey for me which was a refreshing change!

Fluffageddon was run at 1,500 pts with a few bits of comp including no superheavies, only two units could be duplicated and generally a couple of tweaks to discourage filth. I came up with the following:

1,498pts of Space Wolves
Wolf Lord (thunderwolf, runic armour, storm shield, wolf claw)
4 WG Terminators (two combi-melta, two combi-plasma, claw each)
2x 10 Grey Hunters (WG leader with fist, two meltas) in Rhino
5 Blood Claws
Stormwolf (meltas)
4 TWC (three TH/SS, one vanilla)

I'd originally intended to have a venerable dread in a pod as part of my list but didn't get him done in time so opted for the terminators instead. Not convinced it made much difference really.

Game One vs. Tau (Nick Thrower)

Maelstrom on Vanguard deployment and a tough test for my opening game. I've watched Nick's Tau army grow over the last year or so (or longer?) on his blog and it was great to see them in the (plastic) flesh. He had a combination of a Hunter Cadre and Optimised Stealth Cadre. Didn't fancy my changes of slogging it across the field but knew that was my best option to get stuck into combat. Definitely couldn't outshoot him.

I had a massive amount of luck early on as my TWC didn't take a single wound from half of Nick's army shooting them. Must've been 10 or so 3+ saves if not more. The rest of his army could only wreck a rhino too. He was forced to commit a couple of stealth teams to objectives too which left them vulnerable. My TWC managed a turn one charge. The lord split off and killed the stealth team whilst the rest of the squad killed some fire warriors. Both ended up out of combat though.

Nick's shooting started to get more devastating as the breachers piled out of the devilfish and vaporised an entire grey hunter unit. The other grey hunters couldn't finish them off either so met a similar fate with help from the ghostkeel and stealth team. Brutal. Elsewhere the TWC met a wall of drones (funny to be on the receiving end of that tactic) and the lord ended up having to hug an objective thanks to the cards I drew. Fortunately for me I was continually drawing the ones on my side of the table but unfortunately for Nick so was he.

When the dust settled there was very little left on the table with the TWC taking down the ghostkeel before meeting their demise to a wall of fire. The lord swept the drones and then weathered the storm briefly before succumbing. The flyer did very little did at least help dispatch some of the suits. Meanwhile the terminators came in, killed a suit and then got wiped out. At the end of turn 5 (and the end of the game) I'd just got some blood claws and the flyer left and Nick had a handful of fire warriors and some damaged tanks. The final score of 16-5 in my favour said more about the cards we'd drawn than anything else. It was a shame really because the game had dramatically swung throughout and felt like it was much closer.

Game Two vs. Eldar (Danny Evison)
I'd played against Danny's Eldar at Double Trouble but was pleased that there were no Forge World units this time. Didn't help me much as there was still some ranged (full strength) D from the platforms, plenty of scatbikes, a wave serpent full of d-scythe toting wraithguard, two squads of warp spiders and some dark reapers who'd brought their own bunker to the party. Not great when you're playing objectives either and I have little if any ranged fire to take down the bikers and prevent them grabbing tokens at the end.

I went first and had little choice but to send my TWC headlong into their doom. I'd toyed with holding them back but they'd have just been whittled down before getting their. My only hope was that a couple of them survived. They did not. I lost a rhino too leaving the grey hunters inside right in the open and in front of plenty of firepower.

Still, I thought, two squads of grey hunters with 5 melta shots between them and no cover for the wraithguard. Should kill them right? Throw in the newly arrived flyer too and it's almost a dead cert? Apparently not. I didn't hit with three of the melta shots and despite scoring an ungodly number of sixes on the bolter fire the wraithguard's armour held. That meant just two died to the meltas. I dropped a blast on them from the helfrost cannon but despite hitting two of them I failed to wound with both hits! The rest of the flyer's firepower was sent into the back of the wave serpent. Worth a shot in the rear armour whilst I have the chance right? Nope. Penetrated with a melta and a lascannon but both Jink saves were passed. Consolation prize of terminators deep striking in and killing some bikes? Nope. Probably my worst ever turn of 40K right there.

That basically sealed the game. My grey hunters were quickly eliminated. The flyer held on long enough to send the blood claws to their deaths but the tabling was completed after four turns with Danny on every single objective. Not my most enjoyable game but not really Danny's fault.

Game Three vs. Orks (Ian Connolly)

Despite Ian coming along to several Blog Wars over the years we've never actually played. I'd been admiring his Orks in the lunch break so was pleased to get a game against them. I fricking love Orks too but was a little surprised to find an incredibly shooty mob. Lots of lootas, grots manning a quad gun behind a defence line, two lots of buggies, a Gorkanaut (disguised as an Imperial Knight), tankbustas in a trukk and two Meks (one KFF, one SAG).

Well, Ian's first turn was a new one on me. I lost both rhinos to Ork shooting! Granted I was pretty stupid in my deployment. Didn't even think about refused flank and really should've. Not to mention checking line of sight to the lootas! Fail. Still, if I can get stuck in with my TWC it should be a bloodbath. Hadn't really banked on the Gorkanaut charging in and swiping down a couple of them. The tankbustas didn't help either, stopping me directing hammer attacks at the walker. Fortunately some grey hunters wandered into the combat and their wolf guard smashed the Gorkanaut's face in with his power fist. Good lad! That left the KFF Mek without any transportation but we'll get to him later.

The Lord split off again to start charging in behind the defence line and called in some help from the terminators. They took down a handful of lootas and made them run. Sadly, only 3 inches though which kept them on the table!! Meanwhile the remaining TWC charged down some buggies to finish them off. Not before they'd helped the lootas finish off the grey hunters though. The Ork flyer came in and helped destroy the other squad too with it's tellyporty blasta thingamajig.

The blood claws piled out of the stormwolf and helped the lord wade through the Ork lines finishing everything off. That just left the flyer and the KFF mek. With the Mek being worth his cost plus 100 bonus blood points for slay the warlord I decided to send my flyer after him instead of the Ork flyer. The first volley bounced off his KFF but I though I'd be fine. I only needed one S8 shot to get through and he'd be toast. Despite getting another turn to try, hitting three times and wounding three times, the sneaky Ork passed all three KFF saves and lived to fight another day!! Just goes to show how much luck is involved sometimes. Five 5++ saves is painful, especially when that was enough to give Ian a narrow victory. I'd killed 1,115pts to his 1,112pts but he got a 50pt First Blood bonus! Gutted. Still, a fun game and a great opponent.

Conclusion
It was great to see a lot of the Blog Wars faithful supporting Matt's new venture. It was frustrating that he was limited to 16 players as the Outpost didn't have their new venue ready in time. Apparently it'll be done early next year so I'll be watching closely for developments on that. I'm probably heading back to NWGC for Double Trouble 2 but need to confirm a date with them before I start posting about it.

Had two great games against some BW regulars which was a massive bonus. The game against Ian was definitely the best as it felt really close right until the end. My game with Nick was great but, despite being back and forth in terms of units killed, the Maelstrom deck really screwed him over. Frustrating when you're playing well but can't catch a break like that. My dice were insane though. Felt suitably guilty!

I look forward to another event next year. Hopefully in a bigger venue with slightly bigger numbers. Matt did an excellent job for the first time. Shame he couldn't join in but probably a blessing since it game him chance to play some Bloodbowl!

Speaking of which I got a sneaky half game in after the tournament which I won 2-0! I'm really excited about the launch of BB again. Matt and I are going halves on the new box. I'll take the humans and create the "Nuln Oilers" and Matt will grab the Orks. We don't exactly need the new set but the models are great and plastic counters etc are a nice touch. Have to say I didn't much like the new dice. Didn't feel they're as clear as the old ones. Everything else is gorgeous though. Will review the set when I get my hands on it.

Gaming Garage(TM) Conversion - Part 1

Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated! Well, let's face it. No one thought I was dead but it has been over 8 weeks since I last posted anything which is by far my longest dry spell. I'd love to tell you I've been working hard on my army and scenery projects but I haven't. I mostly blame the NFL but that's still no excuse for the fact that a dreadnought I started painting in early October still hasn't got three colours on it even! Anyway, depressing lack of hobby progress aside, I have some exciting DIY activities to report.

You may remember that I was planning on converting the back of my garage into a hobby space. My current gaming room will eventually become my son's proper bedroom when he moves out of the nursery so I'm being relegated to the garage. I'm not content with simply playing on the concrete floor with a heater trying to stave off frostbite! My Dad and I therefore set about converting the back of the garage into a proper room.

The idea is that from the front the garage will look unchanged. Particularly important for a) resale and b) hiding the fact that there's stuff in there. To decide how much space I had I simply opened up the garage door and decided to put up a partition wall just inside the point the door opened to. This will give me a few square metres of "garage" at the front for the lawn mower, bike, tools, etc. That leaves me a 3.5 x 2.5 m (ish) gaming and hobby space. Enough to get a 6' x 4' table in and just about be able to squeeze round it. Four people playing doubles every so often would be cosy but two should be fine. Thing is, I don't want a permanent table like I've currently got in my gaming room. It (obviously) takes up a big chunk of space and means the room can't be used for anything else. My Dad and I have come up with a cunning plan for this but I'll post some sketches up at some point to better explain it.

For now, let's take a look at my progress so far. As you can see from the picture above, I had a big pile of timber delivered last week so that we could get cracking on Saturday. Here's what the garage looked like to begin with.

As you can see there's plenty of crap in there but hopefully I'll get most of it cleared out soon. As a temporary measure we chucked everything outside to let us do the floor. With it all swept out it looked like this:

We started out with some plastic sheeting to prevent damp from rising up. Then we laid some 25 mm insulation around the edges. On top of this we placed some 4" x 2" timbers width ways:

We then screwed some more "four-be-twos" on top of this to create some joists for the flooring:

To make things cosy we put 4 inches of insulation between the joists:

We then screwed down some 18 mm plywood to create the floor. Looks pretty neat I think:

So this will be the room in the back of the garage. Doesn't look particularly big in the photos. Frankly, it isn't but it's about the same as I have now and I've managed with that for a few years now.

We then screwed another timber across the end of the floor and a further one to the roof trusses. Two more were screwed into the brickwork to create a frame. We then put some vertical timbers at 400 mm intervals to which we'll screw some plasterboard to create the partition wall:

As you can see, at this point we brought a lot of the crap back in because it had started to rain. Pretty pleased with this for a day's work anyway.

So, next up I need to take the vast majority of the crap out of the garage and to the local tip. What's staying needs to be organised into the residual bit of garage at the front. I'm then going to get some quotes for Velux windows on the back of the roof. Be good to have some natural light in there for painting.

Between now and the next time my Dad is over we'll have had all of the plasterboard delivered so we can start to make the walls but not before we've sorted all the electrics out. What do you think so far anyway?