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| by Danny Internets | August 4th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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So Mike Brandt of the NOVA Open emailed me the other day and asked if I’d be up for participating in the Celebrity Deathmatch event on the Friday before the tournament. Seeing as I don’t normally travel to play 40k and the biggest notch on my belt is winning an ‘Ard Boyz Semi-finals, I’m not really sure I qualify as a 40k celebrity, but who am I to turn down a game of 40k? At the very least I’ll get to test myself against someone who talks a big game, and maybe even brings it.
In this case, it’s the latter.
My opponent will be Hulksmash of Dakka Dakka, a player well-known for destroying people on the West Coast with his Space Wolves and a sensible guy to boot. We’ve had some disagreements on how tournaments should be run, but that’s really the limit of my interaction with him.
Objections to the importance of tournament/hobby event records notwithstanding, his past performance, army list, and comments about 40k lead me to believe the knows how to play the game and that this will be a tough match. What will I be facing? Like in any tournament setting, it could be anything. But my Google-fu is strong and I never go unprepared. Hulk did well at the Broadside Bash out in California earlier this year with the following 2000-point army, so I suspect he’ll bring something similar:
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| by Danny Internets | July 27th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Word on the street (and by street I mean Yes the Truth Hurts) is that the NOVA Open is, by popular demand, adding on a SECOND extension to the 40k side of the tournament. Originally intended for 64 players, the event was boosted to accommodate 80 several weeks ago and is now expanding to a maximum of 96 participants. As the crème de la crème of competitive 40k, this is not an opportunity to miss.
For those who don’t know, the NOVA Open is a two-day, bracket-style tournament that features 7 games, the final 3 of which are only for those who remain undefeated at the end of the first day (correction: those who go 3-1 also advance to Day 2). The victory conditions are designed to explicitly prevent ties and ensure that the winner always advances, with the grand champion being the only person to remain undefeated once the dust settles.
If you’re interested in more than just the crude synopsis above, you can continue reading here.
It looks like the site’s page hasn’t been updated to reflect the new spots, so it might be a good idea to send the tournament organizer (Mike Brandt) an email before buying a ticket. The event initially sold out over two months before the date so these will probably go quickly as well. Get ‘em while they’re hot.
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 27th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Is that they aren’t always nice.
Or rather, the high-value returns tend to not be as good as the low-value returns.
Confused yet? Lets make sense of it!
First, lets take a look at what happens when you make a save. The two obvious solutions are either passing the save and nothing happens, or failing the save and losing the unit. We have two possible returns here, but they aren’t equal. If we get our good return, then we get to survive, but there’s no bonus beyond that. (You could make a case that the return is that you get to keep their offensive power, but you haven’t actually gained anything.) If you fail, the unit is gone forever, no second chances.
This dichotomy isn’t a big deal if you’re dealing with a massive horde unit, as you rely on having a massive number of cheap wounds as your defense. A bad roll isn’t going to matter much. However, as your save gets lower and your unit gets more and more expensive, this difference matters more and more.
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| by Danny Internets | July 24th, 2010 - 11:49 am
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The 2010 Warhammer 40,000 ‘Ard Boyz Finals were held this past Saturday, July 17th, at three locations distributed throughout the US to accommodate players from around the country. The West coast saw players duke it out in the LA Bunker. In the Midwest, qualifying finalists did battle at the Chicago Battle Bunker, as in previous years. And in the East, asses were kicked and names were taken at Showcase Comics in Media, PA. The top three players from 362 different stores hosting the Preliminaries qualified to compete for huge prizes at the 42 Semi-Finals tournament locations. These 1086 players were pared down to a mere 126 invited to attend the above mentioned Finals. Of these 126, 3 were crowned champion this past weekend.
Turn-out nation-wide looks better than the last couple of years thanks to the decision to host the event at multiple locations. However, it appears that two of the events still struggled to bring in players. I chose not to attend for a variety of personal reasons, not the least of which was pressure from my wife regarding planning our upcoming (belated) wedding reception. Being burnt out on not just 2500 points but 40k in general, I didn’t even fight it. However, I imagine that the decision not to award prizes at the Finals (especially odd considering the unbelievably awesome prizes given at the Semi-Finals) turned away many, even those who could have made a day trip out of the event. All in all there was a 66% turn-out rate with 83 of 126 finalists attending one of the three events.
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 20th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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It’s something I’ve always had a hard time trying to quantify. I’ve been making lists for a long time, and it’s become sort of instinctive for me: this element needs fire support, this one needs melee protection. It’s always better, however, to know the logic behind your thoughts. Knowing your thought processes and yourself is essential to growing as a 40k player. (Not to mention as a person!)
To understand what makes a unit good in a given list we need to understand two things: what strategy is, and what a force multiplier is.
Strategy contrasts with the similar concept of tactics. Quite simply, a strategy is the overall battleplan, while tactics is the movement of individual units. The general idea of refusing the flank and concentrating your forces on one side of the board to roll up the enemies flank and take their initial objective while contesting the midfield ones is a strategy. It doesn’t account for the minutia of movement and engagement on anything but the broadest scale. The actual movements of models in that game is tactics.
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| by Danny Internets | July 15th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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So, the big awesome pile o’ loot arrived today at Comic Book Heaven, which the manager was kind enough to hold for me until I was able to pick it up after work.
All in all, I have to say that I’m really, really impressed with GW here. The pessimist in me half-expected to receive an armful of Ogryn and Ratling blister packs. But not only did they send me a metric ton of models, they sent me the good stuff. My wife couldn’t help laughing at me walking out of the store with boxes piled higher than my head with a grin plastered across my face.
All totaled it comes to almost exactly $1100 retail. And with absolutely no upgrades, the models add up to about 2750 points (250 points more than promised)! Trade Sales really went all out this year, far above and beyond the call of duty. If any of you guys read this: thank you!
So what did St. Celestine bring for x-mas this year? Check the shipping invoice here or read below:
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 14th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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Part 1 was yesterday, you should read it first.
So now, back to my original question: what makes a distraction unit good?
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The unit needs to be able to reliably perform its duties.
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The unit needs to be cheaper than whatever it’s trying to stop. (IE opportunity cost!)
Number one is pretty self-explanatory. If it doesn’t work reliably, it doesn’t have a place in a list.
Number two benefits from a little explanation. We are not just talking about the points cost of a unit here, we are talking about its utility to the army. Imagine this:
You are a general, and you have a mixed force under your command. You are going against an enemy and are at a disadvantage. You know the enemy is easily distracted, so you send out a force far away from the battlefield, to distract the enemy and lure some of them away. How much of your army do you send? Read the rest of this entry »
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| by Sir Biscuit | July 13th, 2010 - 8:30 am
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It’s not uncommonly heard. I’ve blown up more than my fair share of expensive units, only to have my opponent tell me that they were a distraction/all part of the plan/suicide unit. I smile and play along, sure guy, your 250 point Land Raider was a distraction. Whatever. It’s obviously ludicrous.
But then I got to thinking, what is a good distraction unit in 40k? What am I looking for when I talk about that nebulous support role? I needed a definition. The one I like best is also very simple:
“an obstacle to attention”
Aha! That’s a good one! The important thing to realize about this is what we mean by “attention”. We aren’t just talking about the opponents attention (though anything that can grab that is indeed a bonus). We’re talking about the attention of units. At it’s simplest level, this is putting a more durable unit in front of a less durable one to ensure survivability, in the way that Rhino’s are often found behind heavier tanks. More subtle players recognize the value of those same Rhino’s ability to function as a “moving wall” that can be used to block enemy line-of-sight. I’m sure most of us are aware that Land Speeders are excellent for zooming in front of enemy units and blocking assaults; this is the same idea. Anything that diverts an enemies function and mission is a “distraction” by our definition.
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| by Danny Internets | July 12th, 2010 - 10:58 am
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| by Danny Internets | July 10th, 2010 - 8:19 pm
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Does anyone really think the Tyranids codex is too strong? Apparently, someone at GW does.
Last week, the FAQ for the 5th edition Tyranids codex was finally released after five and a half months of waiting with bated breath. Credit should be given to whomever was responsible for selecting the questions in this FAQ because they touch on all of the contentious issues that gamers have been arguing over for almost half a year now. However, as usual, we have a large number of rules changes disguised as clarifications, many of which harm existing army builds and limit effective combinations in an already decidedly gimped codex.
It’s not that Tyranids armies are bad, but the codex is written in such a way that it puts severe limitations on the types of armies people can take if they wish to remain even remotely competitive. By paging through the book it becomes immediately clear that most of the premiere (and interesting) selections are crammed into the Elites section of the Force Organization Chart, a poor decision compounded by the poor options available in the Fast Attack section (Gargoyles being the notable exception). The competition over these three coveted spots is made all the more intense by simultaneously concentrating all effective firepower options (Hive Guard and Zoanthropes) here (except the Tyrannofex). This ultimately serves to undermine the greatest strength of the codex, which is the emphasis on synergy and lack of spammable units. Unfortunately, this synergy does not come without making painful sacrifices, many of which doom armies to failure.
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Email Danny Internets
Dashofpepper: In response to the question, “What will you do now?” I offer this insight into the skills...
Daemon-Archon Ren: My black/red dice are WAAC (ask Stelek) my army is not. Also, funi artykal
Green7: HAHAHAHAHAHA !!
Killswitch: Screw you and your british jokes D:<!
Killswitch: I don’t think his that lame lol ;)
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