Overpriced miniatures

Wow, apparently it's been even longer than I thought since the last time I posted anything here! Too busy painting up a storm of Planetfall mini's, I guess. Planetfall painting really deserves it's own post, which I suppose I will get to soon, but here's a teaser from the Spartan Games forums.   As has been the case with my Firestorm Relthoza, I'm using an unusual technique with the Planetfall ones as well. Metallics, then a purple or blue shade over that. I like how they're coming out. Anyway, how to reconstruct Adepticon? It's been too long for clear memories, but I remember I placed in the middle of the pack. One of my two lists had a squadron of Ba'Kash heavy cruisers as well as a squadron of Relthoza heavies, and that list won both of its games. The other list was a "Wing Nuts" list with as many SRS as I could squeeze in. I think it was two carriers, normal cruisers, and some carrier frigates, That list lost both of its games, but the s...

"Experiment" number 2 was double carriers. Two Relthoza carriers, loaded with 6 fighters and 2 interceptors each, form the backbone and heavy hitters of the list. A squad of carrier frigates with 4 bombers makes up the "oh shit, where did they come from?" component of the list, while regular workhorses are represented by one squad each of drone frigates, Relthoza light cruisers, and Ba'Kash cruisers with weapon shielding. We played a modified Recover Resources, mission 1 from the Schaumburg Prime Offensive primer. I like this version far better than the standard one as picking up the objective is less random, and you have to hang onto it while trying to steal any from your opponent. Still not a mission that my dice like very much, but it wasn't as bad as some other attempts at it I have tried. The intention of this list was that the two carriers would hang back, hiding under their cloaks and granting each other Stealth through the Systems Network, and fl...

The Road to Schaumburg With the Schaumburg Prime Offensive, Adepticon's Firestorm Armada tournament, coming up, I will be playing 900 point games about as often as I can get away with it. At 900 points, I have quite a few choices of fleet, even once I know that it's going to be Relthoza, probably with a squadron of Ba'Kash allies. My first attempt ran the following list: 1 battleship with extra PD and extra wings, but no other upgrades. 1 carrier, no upgrades. 3 cruisers, no upgrades.. 4 Drone frigates. 4 Nidus frigates. 3 Ba'Kash cruisers, no upgrades. As you can see, the list is extremely spartan (pun only about half intentional), but it does manage to squeeze in 6 activations. My opponent, one of the best in my local area, ran a list of Sorylians consisting of: 1 dreadnought with a single escort and a flight of interceptors. 4 regular cruisers. 2 squads of 5 frigates, I think. Only 4 activations, but each one packs quite a punch! The mission was Amb...

Somewhere in the void (or upstairs at Battlefront Games, depending on your level of imagination), the outskirts of a Relthozan patrol fleet and a Terran one encounter each other. Both sides called for the rest of their respective fleets and tried to stay alive until they arrived. The mission was Escalating Engagement, which I had never played before. It's a corner deployment, with basic "kill everything" rules, except that at least 1/3 of your points must be in outflank reserve, including all Tier 1 models. Since my Relthoza patrol fleets tend to run kind of top heavy, that was a bit of a concern. For this engagement, I went with maximum Short Ranged Spacecraft (SRS), where every squadron was carrying at least three. My admiral was my classic battleship, upgraded with extra SRS wings (six bombers), two extra point defense, increased assault points, and corrosive primary weapons. I also had a carrier with corrosive, five bombers, and three interceptors. Tier two consis...

I got to play this game a couple of times last night. While we're still not up to pulling out all the stops, I got a few turns in of an 850 point game that included terrain,wings / SRS, and the battle log. TAC cards and actually having time to finish the game are next! Things I learned: Massed Corrosive is effective, although it's still possible for an enemy cruiser to make all three 4+ repair rolls when it by all rights should have died! Stealth fields and cloaks make parking at the board edge an effective way of staying alive, if a rather boring one. Also, there's no point in hiding behind Impeding terrain while you do this. Don't spread out the cruisers so much that the two on the edges can't link PD with each other. I found a rules ambiguity that the forums were unable to answer definitively. A squadron in reserve can enter via "Flanking Maneouvre" (blasted British spelling!), but it's not clear whether it gets to activate the turn it arr...

My rulebook (and free battlestation) arrived recently for Firestorm Armada 2.0. I have not had the opportunity to play a game of it yet, but I've spent some quality time with the rulebook. A few things have been taken out, or at least removed as a default rule for all ships, but the majority of the changes have been for greater depth and complexity. Here are some of the more noteworthy changes. More weapon types. This is the big one, as a lot has changed. Previously, all weapons had 8 inch range bands, and they were either torpedoes or not. Now, you have Primary (no bonuses), Beam (reroll ones at close range), Scatter (no penalty for firing at small targets), Kinetic (two choices on the critical hit table), and Nuclear (damages nearby ships if a critical it is scored on the target). Range band increments are 8, 10, or 12 inches, depending on the weapon type. And that's just the direct weapons! Indirect weapons include Torpedoes (basically unchanged), Mines (can now link fi...

As usual I didn't take notes at the time, but I had a good game of 40k last Friday at Battlefront. The mission was Big Guns Never Tire on the diagonal deployment. My opponent had a fairly well-rounded list of one Maulerfiend, one ranged version of the Maulerfiend (whatever that's called), one Helldrake, a Land Raider filled with Possessed Space Marines, a champion of some kind with the Black Mace and some truly nasty close combat abilities, and a couple of squads of Noise Marines. His warlord was basically the Chaos version of the Techmarine. My list included two foot-slogging squads of fire warriors, a third one in a devilfish, my old friend Longstrike in an ionhead, a Skyray, a sniper team of one marksman and 5 drones, Aun'Shi the Ethereal, and a Sunshark bomber. Crisis suits and markerlights consisted of two squads: an HQ with missile pods, and burst cannons, and an Elite squad of plasma rifles and fusion blasters. Both of them had 4 marker drones and 2 shield drones. ...