Chicago Field Report, part 1

You know what's lame - not posting for a while and then starting a new post and lingering on that fact.  I mean shit, man...  everyone already knows.  It's ins;t new information.  Plus, It might happen again.  Look guy, I know it ain't called 'low hanging fruit' 'cuz it's hard to pick but... shit... try not to pick it.

Soooooo...   dammit.  IknowIhaven'tbeenpostinginawhileandsoherewego.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post - What the hell have I been up to?

Lemme see....  I guess I'll break it up into manageable chunks over time.



Today's topic:  Warhams and fun times

I went back home to the midwest over the summer to visit family and friends.  Some very solid, feel good times were had.

• My dad not only knows a restaurant that serves 32 oz steaks (not on the menu), but is quite good at convincing me to eat them against my better judgement.  Though in fairness, my judgement concerning steak isn't all that good.  It was not a tough sell is what I'm saying.  Though its been a while since I could pack that much food away and still function.  Laying down helps.
• Caught up with a bunch of my old buddies in Springfield and went out drinking.  This has many sub points and went about as well as it usual does.
• Did you know there's such a thing as Mountain Dew flavored vodka?  I sure didn't.  And holy shit is it terrible.  It's even worse when your chasing straight shots with actual Mountain Dew.
• Smart: We took a cab to the bars.  Stupid:  I, apparently, am bad at identifying the gender of cab drivers
• Fun fact: My home town has two gay bars, which is one more than I usually get dragged to when I go drinking with these guys.  And one more than I knew existed there.
• I got made fun of by a transvestite at the talent show one of the bars was running.  Pretty awesome actually.  And for the record, if anyone asks you, kittens have 26 teeth.
• I got wicked hammered for almost no money. 
• I got a great chance to visit Lo's game store in CU.  You can read about it here.  To sum up:  it was pretty fuckin' rad.
• Even more rad (sorry, Lo) was the fact that I got to see Dethtron and Hoagy's band, Crusader, live for the first time.  And since I wore a black t-shirt and helped the band unload, I snuck my way into a free ticket and half price booze.  This picture sums it up:

Most relevant to the type of blog I've got going on here is the game-stravaganza that Dethtron hosted in his Super Game Basement 3000.  

EPIC BATTLES!
Colin, as official herald of my visit to the mere mortals of Chicago, managed to round up the usual suspects - Joe, Hoagy and Even for something like 8 hours of gaming.  It was an awesome, beer swilling time.  We played some FoW the night before (I'll get to that in another post) and a whole shit-ton of 40k. Which means that my space-elven friends hit the table for some 'real' combat (and acquitted themselves nicely, I might add).  No Vassal this time around!

As an added bit of coolness, the trip really served to motivate me to get my army fully painted.  Which I did - mostly...  look, ok.... (sigh) there was a slight proxy.

Right... er... it's been a while since I actually played these games, so the bat reps are mostly going to be the few pictures I took and some impressions I have from the games.

Game 1:  vs. Black Templars (Hoagy)
Hoagy is a gentleman in all things that he does and is an absolutely delightful human being.  We rolled up kill points with standard deployment.  It's pretty much all images at this point, so click on them to enhugify them.

1) Hoagy getting ready - Also, almost the exact moment where we narrowly avoided having the wheels come off.  Kids, always discuss points values BEFORE you make lists. BTW, his dreadnought is amazeballs.

2) Initial Deployment:  Observe the semi-refused flank action and all of my dudes on the sidelines hoping they never have to get out of their transports.  Also of note - this is Black Templars vs. Ulthwe Eldar.  As far as games go, there are none more black.

3)  Fire Dragons.  These did a metric crap-ton of damage all day and everyone hated them. The squad you can just barely see in the ruins had the honor of being one of the first squads of mine to ever survive a whole game while managing to do their job at the same time.  Not so much the guys out in the open though. 

4) The last turns.  I think this was either the last turn or the penultimate turn.  There are actually quite a few BT guys alive (just absolutely none of his metal boxes)- they're just hiding in the ruins.  In keeping with a theme, that dreadnought didn't last much longer.



Lasting Impressions:  First off, a truly fun game.  Made all the better by the fact that Hoagy is as cool as a cucumber when things aren't going his way in the game.  He kept apologizing for his behavior, but he always had to point out why.  Except for the time he thew a die (and believe me, it had it coming) I can't remember anything untoward in his demeanor.  And that, ladies and gentleman is why Hoagy is a class act.  I mean really, I've come a loooong way from the days when I played Warmachine in the grips of a rules lawyering, red rage most of the time, but I got nothing on this guy.

Now, it look like Hoagy took a drubbing, and to be fair he was for most of the game, but I really can't give anywhere near all the credit to my generalship.  Having an opponent who has never seen or played against Eldar before confers a certain kind of advantage.  Namely, that his target priority was off as a result  of everything looking the exact, goddamn same and not being familiar with any of the shenanigans that a good Eldar army is based on - wall of str 6 shots, cheap-o melta guys, Eldrad, Wave "of bullshit" Serpents and the  like.  Now, Hoagy knows his army and once I ran out of tanks to shoot at, Hoagy immediately picked up on on the fact that my army has problems shooting high toughness targets out of hard cover.  If we had been playing objectives, he would have been in it to win it.

Here are some Frequently Asked Questions about this game:

Q:  Is it true that Hoagy accidentally tried to eat a building mid game?
A:  Yes.

Q:  What's the deal with all those extra craters in the last picture?  Where'd they come from?
A:  Good eye.  As it turned out, exactly one vehicle that was destroyed didn't explode.

Q:  Man, that crazy blue building is awesome!  Who painted it?
A:  Hoagy

Q:  You certainly have nice things to say about Hoagy.  Do you have a man-crush on him?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Is it true that you always seem to need to take a huge dump in the middle of games?
A:  Yes.  It's my secret plan to give me some time to plan out the next turns.  And if you don't believe that, I have to thank everyone for being patient.

Ok, that's it!  Stay tuned for part two where I go over the game I had with Evan and why it's important to keep your eye on objectives.