Nope: With Battle Summaries

Yeah, so about that "getting the command squad done and maybe some other stuff".
Status: FAIL!

Didn't even get close. Got super distracted with the Orange Box. I bought it for TF2, but got hooked on the Half life 2 series. I can rally only roll in TF2 on Thursdays (due to noise and availability) and have only had one such unclaimed Thursday. HL2 is much quieter as fay as my noise making and easy to start and stop.

As I was saying, I didn't start a land speeder, didn't partially assemble a rhino and didn't finish the command squad (still got 2 of the 5 left - but a good start on the remainder). Once Colin leaves, I can get started on finishing 1000 points of dark angels.... and move onto some Warmachine.

In the meantime, Colin and I have played a couple of games. We've so far got one game of 40K and one game of Warmachine. This post may be long, but I'm going to discuss the battles:

Warhammer 40K - Dark Angels vs. Dark Angels - 1000 pts

A really fun experience. I hadn't played 40K since junior high (during 2nd edition). The game has really improved. Everything was streamlined and made a hell of a lot more sense than I remembered it making.

So, zee battle: Even though we were both rockin' the same Chapter, Colin and I had radically different armies. I went with a mechanized battle company force (lots of APC mounted footsloggers and a speeder) and he fielded his Ravenwing force (15 bikes of various types and a couple of speeders).

The battle went fairly quickly and fairly evenly. I had a hard time damaging his extra toughness guys, but had a a good selection of heavy weapons I could bring to bear on him. He had all kinds of mobility and lots of meltas as well, but I had some close combat punch.

Despite lower fire density, Colin out-shot almost every turn - my squads were getting chewed up quite quickly. Sameal (spelling?) was also a super quick plasma cannon-sized headache. Things started swinging back when my command squad engaged his flanking bike unit in melee. Man did that suck for him. 6 bikes gone to my company master and two surviving command squaders. The company master took out 4 by himself on the charge. That was pretty much when both of us decided to stop messing around with shooting and get stuck in. His remaining bike squad slaughterd one of my squads and Sameal started the process of chewing through my other squad. This would actually prove to be his undoing as her got bogged down and my company master, fresh from the bike massacre got stuck in and killed Sameal as well. Colins last turn saw him melta the previously undefeated company master into dust.

End result: Draw. I had more victory points (due to every vehicle I had managing to survive the game intact - super lucky), but the margin was very slim and had we gone a 5th turn his remaining squad and attack bike would have likely shot me to death. Tons of fun though.


Warmachine - Khador vs. Protectorate - 500 pts.

Another good time. Lots of beer involved.

Colin (protectorate) had been rockin' a 'Jack heavy force with Amon lately and decided to keep on keepin' on with it. I decided to use Irusk and some Iron Fang pikemen - largely because I guessed which caster Colin was gonna use.

The game went well, a little bit of rules lawyering on my part (sorry - but you DO need LOS to charge), but pretty good. Colin mispicked his force a bit, I mispicked mine to a lesser degree - but misplayed. All in all a very sloppy game for me. 'Course, I hadn't played in 5 months so I'm just happy I put up a fight.

Colin expected me to roll with Sorscha so his troops were aimed at her high-speed shenanigans. I dipped waaaay to heavily into ranged attacks (I always forget about safe passage). I also sacrificed my Pikemen by getting them stuck in to0 early. One of my mortars got stock in the middle of no-where and my all-star singing and dancing sniper team was almost totally ineffective. Not to mention the total uselessness of my lone warjack (who would later meet his fate at the hands of some crazed knights). Luckily, the Ironfangs did some damage before they got waxed. On a happier note, one of my mortars did some good work when it inexplicably managed to kill a couple of Exemplars with the bond of brotherhood up.

On Colin's end, he had a large number of good jacks and some great synergy, but not a lot of back up plans. He also subbed out an arcnode at the last minute. He played a pretty good game. His only real mistake was using the focus off of a wrack in the middle of his guys and misjudging its capacity to cause death. It went up in a holy explosion that took out what was left of a Choir, his reclaimer and a Dervish's arm. Luck-wise, his feat turn was less than steller and a crucial miss on a chain attack cost him an important charge.

At the end, I was down to a pair of mortars (only one anywhere near a useful place) Irusk and a pair of increasingly useless mercs. I won in the end thanks to some boosted magic attacks on Amon and a failed tough roll. I won, but only beacuse Amon sucks. Not really a savory or deserved victory. I played like shit and got lucky. But such is Warmachine.