Cabin Fever Wrap Up!

Hey All! Moros here!

I apologize for the lack of updating as of late, I've been crazy busy getting ready for the 2011 Cabin Fever Tournament and shoveling snow!

Well my first tournament was an experience that's for sure! It was really great to hang out with some fellow gamers for the weekend and throw down the dice. I personally want to thank Rich for running the event and to our own Todd Roy for whippin' up my favorite part of the weekend, the food! Thanks for all the hard work and for being willing to serve instead of play. It is much appreciated!

There was some really good competition out. There were showings from Dark Eldar, Eldar, Sisters of Battle, a few Tyranids, an ork, and a lot of Chaos Space Marines. I got to play my first game against Imperial Guard ever and it was against a good buddy Ross Famous. But believe it or not, there wasn't a single Blood Angel OR Space Wolf player at the entire tournament! I was amazed, I figured that was all I would see.

Lancashire's favored son Brother Cornelius represented well! He amazingly went 4 and 1 and managed to pull out 3rd place overall and best space marine general with his Dark Angels army! Way to go! For your first tournament that is amazing!

I however didn't fare so well. Not to be surprised my Thousand Sons themed list was an abysmal failure! I knew from designing the force that I just wouldn't have enough troops to be able to play the objectives of the matches. The real quandary is that if I take enough troops to play objectives - first of all they still can't play objectives cause they aren't really a threat, and second I would lose all the support elements of my army because of the massively overpriced nature of my chosen theme. So, not matter how the cookie crumbled, I was pretty much screwed. So I decided to, in true Chaos fashion, error on the side of killing :)

I stuck with the 3 defilers and the land raider with terminators in support of my 2 thousand son squads with Ahriman. Pretty much the least competitive list ever. I honestly expected to get tabled ever game. But I was surprised how much I did hold my own in pretty much all but one of the games (Ross is a jerk! :P) When it came to the actual fighting and playing portion of the matches I did very well, I for all purposes tabled 3 players (2 of them had a handful of models left and one was tabled 3x over). Which is really surprising to me. I thought sure I would be cowering in a corner the entire weekend under a merciless barrage of guns and assaults and just blown off the board by turn 3. So in that regards I did better than I thought I would which is nice!

But, as I sadly realized... this tournament had nothing to do with actually fighting the enemy. It was pretty much all about objectives objectives objectives and mission shenanigans netting you undeserved points. For instance, getting 500 points for NOT bringing a heavy support choice to a mission changed my draw to a loss. So, I take a risk and bring heavy support choices and am punished for it if I lose a single one whereas my opponent automatically gets 500 points for taking NO risk at all by not fielding any. Honestly, with the newer armies you don't need heavy support options at all, your troops can handle the roll pretty well in most cases. It is a flaw in the mission imo and should be looked at. But hey, that's how it was and that is fine!

I did play against two Nurgle Themed armies that spammed Plague Marines all over the place! It was a blast to play against the other chaos codexs and I did very well vs them gaining my only wins of the tournament. I went 2 and 3 for the weekend taking losses to Imperial Guard (Ross!), Steel Thunder Mike's Orks, and the loss to the Space Marines that didn't take a heavy support.


I might be shelving my Chaos Space Marines until they get an update tho, they are just completely inefficient vs any of the newer armies. Especially with my theme. Probably will only be seeing them in a non-competitive nature from now on.

Overall I had a blast playing in the tournament and glad I went. I may not be going to a tournament in the future that is based on point totals tho. I was really put off by the system and felt like it rewards those in "the know" and punishes new players or people that want to do something different. A straight win/loss tournament is something I would like to try next to see how it varies.

-- Here are some Pics from the weekend --

Fighting against the Death Guard in game 5! I still can't get the stink off!

Ross Famous' Imperial Guard command squad holding a fortified position!

1850 Dark Angels Cabin Fever List Ready to Deploy

Brother c here...

Dark Angels are ready for deployment.. 2 days till the tournament..


just letting everyone know there is a slew of postings coming, Moros and i have been real busy getting our forces ready for Cabin Fever. Here is mine... let's hope the recent updates to the DA FAQ helps..

full battle reports, photos, writeups, opionions, analysis, blah blah blah, coming next week of the tourney.

for now.. be sure to check out our Facebook page for updates on schedules and our member 1k tourney on Feb. 12th.

-Brother C

Death By Chainswords!!

I have finally concocted a new list that I am dying to try out. It seems pretty good, my only worry is no one havin a 2K list for me to play against. I took an immediate liking to the Death Company when I started playing 40k. They are literally awesome with but a few flaws. My first Death Company themed list went down in flames, but i took the advice of a close friend and made a few changes. I'm pretty sure that 45 (on the charge) weapon skill 5, strength 5 (on the charge),initiative 5 (on the charge) power weapon attacks that re-roll all failed to hit AND to wound will do some damage. So here it is.

HQ: Astorath the Grim-220

Death Company Tycho-175


Elites: Terminator Assault Squad-200
+5x Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield-25

Furioso Dreadnaught-125
+Frag Cannon & Blood Talons-free
+Magna Grapple-15
+Heavy Flamer-10


Troops:15 Man Death Company Squad-300
+15x Power Swords-225
+Drop Pod-35
+Death Company Tycho

15 Man Death Company Squad-300
+15x Jump Packs-225
+Astorath the Grim


Heavy Support: Vindicator-145

TOTAL: 2000

DA vs. CSM 1850 battle report.

Dark Angels vs. CSM (thousand sons)

Spearhead – Capture and Control

<--sorry no pics yet - Moros is too busy hoarding them and 'doesn't have enough time' to update blog/picasa' (that's right!) -->

Thousand Sons win the roll and elect to go second. Dark Angels keep everything in reserve.

Dark Angels place objective in his far corner. Tsons place in their corner – close to center. Both are out in the open.

Tsons deploy in typical castle formation rhinos in front, defilers behind, land raider on the flank and one dread on the opposite side of board to prevent a flank attack.

Turn 1.

The entire Tson castle formation moves closer to my objective. Dread moves up towards DA table edge.

Turn 2.

The entire Tson castle formation moves closer to my objective. Dread moves up towards DA table edge.


DA gets Land Raider full of Brother Adso (Belial) and friends, 2x land speeders and a TL las razorback with 5man tact + flamer. Speeders turbo up and behind a large terrain piece in the center of the board. Trying to stall his advance on my objective, plus he has to deal with them in his turn or I’m well within range of double tap on the MMs.

Termies get out of LR and assault cannon explodes the rhino transport filled with a squad of Tsons and Ahriman. They lose 4 in the explosion. I’m able to stun the other rhino through the smoke.

Turn 3.

Everything again moves forward and into my territory. He opens up with battle cannons into Adso’s squad, killing one but more importantly immobilizing my LR. (sigh). He manages to shake and blow off the MM on the closest speeder, after putting everything into it, including getting his second troop squad out of his rhino to try to glance it to death. (it moved flat out so all is needed is an immobilized result and it will be wrecked)

DA gets heavy bolter razorback, dread, 2x preds and the remaining term squad in. second speeder zips over to try to get a MM shot at their LR, risky since he is now in range of being assaulted by the defilers, but its doing its job just harassing my opponent’s advance. Termies walk on and shoot at his Tsons, killing half of them. Speeder wiffs at his LR, shaken speeder fires heavy flamer into tson squad killing a few. Adso and friends open up on ahriman and troop company and kill a few. All of the DA anti armor shooting is failing to pen and rolling 1s on the vehicle damage chart (that’s right.. 5 1s in a row on the vehicle damage chart – while my opponent has everything possessed – sigh again).

Turn 4-5.

Tson LR moves up and termies get out and rapid fire combi-plasma my term squad down. (gg can’t make 1 5+ invuln). LR immobilizes my dread. Ahriman and crew hide behind a large piece of terrain in the middle. My speeder eats a ton of fire but I end up losing both this round, one of which to a heavy flamer. But it got revenge when it exploded and took out another 2 tsons. (funny how that actually equals about the same pointage) He also immobilized my heavy bolter razorback.

DA gets remaining TL las razorback. DA focus fires everything at the chaos terms and drops the squad. Tact squad gets of a heavy bolter razorback and begins to move in on the objective. Adso’s squad also continues to move toward it as well. A lot of wiffs on the armor shooting again, but he is losing troops left and right. He is down to just a handful left combined out of two squads.

Turn 4-5.

Tsons move in for the contest on my objective. Dread, pred, and las razorback try to defend. Pred takes an enormous amount of fire and ends up just being 2x weapon destroyed, immbolized, and stunned. Tsons are within contest range. CSM dread moves up and assaults the tacts and termies. Tacts wiff on grenades, dread takes out a term, and then gets punked by a powerfist. DA consolidates and moves to capture, but a defiler blocks the way. Adso had broken off last round and was heading towards the remaining troop hiding behind terrain(all he had was 1 lonely sorc left from his squad). Ahriman finishes off the tacts trying to control his objective.

DA pours lots of fire into the contesting rhino on his objective but to no avail. Everything wiffed. terms assault cannon down the defending defiler. Adso attacks the sorc, who makes 4, 4+ invuln saves and then manages to force weapon down the master of the deathwing. Consolidates towards his objective.

And.. that’s where the game ended. We decided to call it a draw. (even if the game could have gone on longer) I was going to smoke ahriman and sorc this round and capture his objective and the defiler and rhino were going to capture mine.

Some key things here again were my land raider and heavy bolter razorback being immobilized on turn 2 really hurt, as I had to run across the table on foot. Tasty pickings for an opponent loaded to the gills with battle cannons and havocs. The speeders were great, delaying and threatening the early turns, allowing me to get my forces in order. Adso (Belial) got punked by the sorc.. not much I can really do about that. I can’t assume he’s going to make 3, 4++ saves on me like that. All in all I’m pretty pleased with how my army fought; I think it was the right choice to sub out my plasma/apoth command squad for the assault cannons, speeders, and ven dread.

3++ DA

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yeah..

there was some good news and some potential bad news today from GW.

they released an updated DA FAQ and it has made some ammendments to the codex in which many of the newer marine-type armys skills/abillities have finally migrated to the DA codex.

I'm talking things such as..

3++ invuln save on my storm shields

the CORRECT power of the machine spirit

Heavy 2 cyclones

Barrage on the whirlwind (select weapon at time of FIRE not at beginning of game)

and FNP apothecaries.

SAD FACE :( they also gave us the new smoke rules.. no more cover saves stacking with all pens are now glances.

so.. what's the bad news..??

I noticed that GW did not update many of the older codexes such as Necrons... why is this? My guess is, is because they are rumored to be receiving a new dex in the upcoming year, no sense to release a detailed FAQ while you can correct any issues with a new release ... meaning... DA wont' be getting a new dex anytime soon. GW decided to give them a little boost.. making them semi-competitive (up for debate) until they can get a new dex. I like the effort here. I've been whining for awhile why they didn't just do this, it seemed so easy to just alter without changing any dynamics of how the army plays.

Cheers to you GW!

WIP - Dark Angels Apothecary

Brother C here,

so what did you do on your christmas break?

well, I have been diligently getting my army painted for Cabin Fever. More posts on that upcoming. I've managed to finish painting all my rhino chases and now I'm up to my land raider. I have also been on the look out to purchase apothecary bitz so I can convert one of my tacts for my command squad apothecary.

sadly, everyone has been sold out for weeks if not months... so.. I decided to make my own version of what I think a DA apothecary may have looked like back on Caliban.

I have taken parts from the ravenwing battleforce kit, Dreadnought heavy flamer bit, the imperial strong point kit and modified legos.

It's still rough obviously since it's not painted and I had to hack up some of the previous paint job to fit the pieces where I wanted them.

comments? suggestions? flames?