40kaddict Terrain Competition

You should have noticed I’ve added a totaliser on the navigation bar to the right. If you recall, thanks to the furious clicking of my readers over the last 4.5 years I finally got to cash in my first £60 of Google AdSense money. I then revealed the next £60 would form the basis of a prize fund for a competition. I honestly expected it would take a similar length of time before I’d have to give an update on ‘where your money is at’ but it seems that I’ve been quite lucky over the past 4 months and already we’re 20% there. I’ve had a look at the dashboard to try and work out what’s going on and it’s all CPCs and RPMs – way above my head. I was particularly lucky though as I had 3 clicks on an advert that was worth 42p a click, when the majority of my adverts are between 2-10p but alongside other clicks that put £3.68 in the prize pot in just one month

I have to admit that despite all this 'trying to give something back' I am feeling a sense of discomfort as well as excitement, I don’t know, maybe I'm just overthinking. I have covered the 'dirty' topic of monetising your blog but even though I felt comfortable with the decision to only go down the AdSense route and this time all of the proceeds [and I will add to that fund if necessary] will go to a lucky competition winner. So I’m hoping the transparency will help alleviate this feeling and I think the key next step is to set up the rules of the competition, perhaps you want to start early to get some entries in place? If people see there is a competition, what the criteria is and see the fund building it will make this the fun community payback event I wanted it to be.

As a reminder here's what I had planned for the competition:

The initial plan of how to win the prize will be based on a picture competition with the only criteria being that it must feature an item freely available from this very blog – STC templates, Print & Play buildings, even just the wound counters [although the picture will have to be pretty darn good to secure a prize using just the wound markers]. The choice will be yours.

Therefore you could build one of my STCs straight out of the downloads, or even amend it, remix the template like Fenrisian Studios did, take a picture and that's your entry. Alternatively there's the Print & Play templates, but as they're relatively simple to do the picture best be all kinds of awesome - perhaps you fill an entire gaming club with my templates, or manage to get a table populated at a big tournament with my terrain [with links back to the templates] - now thats worth serious kudos. The chance to be creative in how you approach the task is up to you so it's not solely down to someone's hobby skills or photographic skills, so everyone can take part.

Now I'm not sure how I'll judge this just yet, I may want to solicit the help of the readers, allow them to vote somehow but reserve the right to make the final decision. We'll iron this part out as the fund grows but please do offer suggestions on how this could be managed. As to the prize, this was my initial thought

The next £60 in adsense revenue I will put towards another Imperial Knight [alongside my own money to make up the difference]. I will even offer to paint the Knight at no extra cost. But of course whoever wins the competition can choose an alternative model of equivalent value or for me not to paint it should they wish, it will be up to the winner.

I'm a little hesitant about the painting side of it now as that borders on commision painting and I really don't want the added pressure of having to deliver something for someone else. Also, by not painting it I can ensure the winner gets their model this side of the 41st millenium because, as you know, I really don't paint that fast. So, again I'll seek advice from readers if that's something I should offer. But this will definitely be an international competition so anyone can enter, I certainly wouldn't want those guys in Syria who've clicked my adverts feeling left out of the competition. We'll work out the details of how the winner will get their prize if it's abroad but it will definitely require a photo of you looking suitably impressed and shocked at the win, so everyone knows the comp was real [I trust that's OK].

Ultimately there are a number of reasons for this competition:

• I want to give back something to the community after I was able to get an Imperial Knight from my AdSense revenue
• I want to generate renewed interest in my FREE terrain templates and markers/gaiming aids
• I'm genuinely excited to see how creative people can be to win the prize
• I want to de-stigmatise AdSense clicking, so other hobby bloggers can feel comfortable monetising their blog without too much inconvenience to their readers - its a click on an advert created by their browsing habits, that's no hardship

Hopefully its clear there are some genuine altruistic reasons for me doing this and conversely there are some definite benefits to me and the blog too. But I believe that the benefit to me - 'more web traffic for the STC page', for instance, is offset by more people accessing and building the FREE terrain templates and markers. This in turn makes the effort I invested in them more worthwhile because it's enhancing their hobby at minimal cost [aside from materials]. There's nothing more disheartening than me putting effort into these templates if no one actually uses them. I'm trying to make the hobby easier to get into and although I know the fun that can be had from building terrain I also understand for some, it's the last thing they want to do when they have a whole army to paint/build/buy. But feel free to let me know what you think, once I've had more feedback and we're reaching another milestone in the prize fund I'll pin down the full details of the competition so everyone is happy about what's expected. And also let me know if you're keen to take part, how you might approach it etc.

Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Grey Knights

As I finished up my second game I nipped over to see Otty and how he'd faired and his opponent was a really nice guy called Tobias who'd travelled with his friend Hendrik for Germany just for this event! Not only that there'd been an airline strike and their flight had deposited them at Heathrow, London, instead of Manchester airport! So, huge credit for our German colleagues who travelled all this way to game.

Their armies were spectacular though and it transpired that both Hendrik and Tobias use the services of Den of Imagination, hence why they didn't enter them in the painting competition. Tobias's Grey Knights were at the level 4 [of 6] quality and I was really interested in the process, timescales etc. Not because I envisage a time when I can take on commission painting, just genuine interest how you go about the process.

The highly amusing thing you've already no doubt cottoned onto was that as the tables were revealed we discovered that Tobias and I had been drawn against one another and actually I think Otty faced Hendrik [who I believe already follows the blog so hi Hendrik!]

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant 1 Winged tyrant 2 Zoanthrope Tervigon Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Warp Blast The Horror Warp Blast The Horror Catalyst Psychic Scream The Horror Broodlord Dominion The Horror

So a shedload of Horror for some essentially fearless Knights!

The low down:

• Into The Maelstrom - like Maelstrom missions but with Blog Wars mission cards and VPs
• Warlord Trait - Warlord and three units get Infiltrate [useful allowing me to dominate objectives]
• Night fighting first turn, lost deployment, went second and failed to steal the initiative.

Maelstrom games are always difficult to report on so please bear with me on this. Tobias set up with a Dread Knight in the trees top right, securing and objective and the Land Raider holding the middle one and a Dreadnought behind the ruins holding the third. I had one under the Skyshield [obviously] on the left in the native village and one in the rocks in the middle of the board. Infiltrators helped me secure these three and give me a launching points for the left and middle objectives.

Tobias rolls 16, 34 and 12:

• Secure objective 6 for 2VPs
• 2VPs if you hold 3 objectives at the end of your turn
• Secure objective 2 for 2VPs

He's already holding 3 objectives so without moving he can get 2 points and one of those is objective 6 too which my gaunts are holding, so that's 2 points pretty much in the bag and another 2 potentially. But first these guys materialise next to me.

Followed by their big brother

Then these guys.

And another group, but they mishap onto my Genestealers and I get to place them anywhere on the board. My initial thought is in the far right where they can do no harm [or good] but then I think why not be sporting so I position them on this rooftop. They're 6" from the ground, they can still participate if Tobias wants them, it's just less mean spirited. No doubt I'd live to regret this.

Another unit lands behind the terminators in the location the mishap squad intended to occupy [lucky they deviated ;) ] These units then rip into the gaunts and manage to shoot them off the objective.

Which allows the Dread Knight to capture it. There was a really cool moment at some point where we were trying to work some rules/objective thing out. Obviously Tobias had a German translation of the rulebook and I did mention the German for 4 which pleased Tobias no end and he asked if I knew German and with hardly any hesitation responded "eine kleine" so we couldn't help ourselves laughing at it. He was certainly happier with my rudimentary attempts at his language than any of the French were when I was in Paris [just saying]. The Genestealers also got a bit of a roasting.

My turn and I get: 31, 25 and 23

• 1VP if you're behind enemy lines, 2VP if three scoring units are behind
• 1VP if you kill your opponents hero
• 1VP if I kill a flyer or flying monstrous creature

So, no objectives, linebreaker points but nothing that can do it this turn and still be scoring, a Storm Raven due any minute but what are the chances I can down it with S6 Devourers? So my only option is the hero. I pump all my weaponry into the squad of Terminators holding objective 6 which includes 'Stern' his character [that may be his German name, not sure]. I manage to get lucky and wipe out the entire squad, get First Strike and my 'Blog Warrior' VP. Sadly I didn't realise until about half an hour later that the spot prize for this game was Blog Warrior and I probably would have won it but by then it had been claimed :(

The remaining tyranids focused on the Terminators in the rocks. The Carnifex did some real damage, shooting them down to two Knights.

Then the MCs, the remaining Children of Cryptus AND Deathleaper charged the Knights but I think they were dead with Hammer of Wrath before even the Spawn or the Lictor could do anything!

This did give me a nice consolidation move. Now I did realise after the assault that I'd missed that lone Genestealer at the back. He'd been hidden by the Flyrant in Tobias's shooting and so I'd started taking majority toughness of 5 on the brood earlier than I should. When I spotted this I just decided to treat him as a casualty and didn't move him for the remainder of the game. Lastly I discarded the flyer objective with the score 4:2.

Tobias rolls: 26, 31 and still has 12

• 1VP to kill an MC or Vehicle
• 1VP if you're behind enemy lines, 2VP if three scoring units are behind
• Secure objective 2 for 2VPs

Storm Raven arrives, he does some shooting at the Flyrants, can't see if it took wounds but I'm sure it  jinked and I know those kindly repositioned Grey Knights on the rooftop shot somebody, either this turn or in the first turn! It looks like one of the Carnifex fell victim at least so that was a VP for Big Game Hunter.

One of the Dreadknights jumped over to the remaining Carnifex, squashed him flat and consolidated onto the objective. Tobias was also behind enemy lines so scored 2 VPs and discarded objective 2 as he felt it was unobtainable [not sure which one it was].

I had 31 still, and rolled 13 and 24

• 1VP if you're behind enemy lines, 2VP if three scoring units are behind 
• Secure objective 3 for 2VPs
• 1VP if you kill an enemy character this turn

My Mawloc turned up and for once I was able to use him effectively, I got him to deep strike perfectly thanks to Deathleaper. He hits the Dreadknight but doesn't wound, he pops back down and then up again wounding him once. Here's where ordinarily I'd have said well that's it but then I realised that he's positioned within the blast [and can be within 1" of a model] so because the oval base can fit on one edge you can still deploy so long as the blast just clipped the other model. So I 'get' that he's less likely to mishap now, but they're still pretty pants. Anyways, I manage to secure objective 3 for the 2VPs I also shoot a character, not sure if it's one of the guys in the unit atop the ruined building but they fail a morale check and spectacularly run 12" back to their board edge. I'll just forge a narrative here that the Brainleech worms riddled the roof and they literally fell through two storeys before they dusted themselves off and headed for safety! Alternatively I may have managed to kill a Dreadknight because I know we discussed them being Characters.

Tobias rolls: 32, 13 and 11

• 1VP if you kill a unit in the shooting phase, 2VP if you kill three
• Secure objective 3 for 2VPs
• Secure objective 1 for 2VPs

Tobias was able to get objective 1 and discarded objective 3 as I was clearly ensconced on it [think it was the skyshield] and he'd have no chance to capture it.

I had 31 still, and rolled 16 and 22

• 1VP if you're behind enemy lines, 2VP if three scoring units are behind 
• Secure objective 6 for 2VPs
• 1VP if you kill a psyker

Tobias is on 8VPs and one secondary at this stage, I'm keeping track of the score but I've not worked out what I need to do to win, lose or draw. All I focus on are the missions in my hand and the clock running down. The Flyrants swoop onto the roof of the building, I think the killed the remainder of the squad below which gets me the psyker VP, objective 6 is the one by the native village in my DZ so I easily recapture that and somehow I manage to get a model into Tobias's deployment zone netting me both Linebreaker and my 'behind enemy lines' victory point.

 

So in the last turn I managed to score 4 VPs and a secondary VP. We tot up the scores and I've just managed to snatch a win, 11:9! It was such a close game and I had such a great time, it felt like an honour to be able to play this guy who'd travelled so far just to play games. As we finished there were a load of fireworks outside, belated Guy Fawkes celebrations which Tobias asked about, which was an interesting discussion to explain. It was a real cultural exchange and as I packed up I tried even a little more of my rusty German which both Hendrik and Tobias helped me with. Not that I'll ever need to describe how a washing machine wrecked my jeans but it had been part of my GCSE German exam and I'm still repeating it incorrectly. They tried to help me say it right after about 24 years, I couldn't get it, but we had a lot of fun trying.

I can honestly say this was the best Blog Wars ever. I felt privileged to be apart of it. I had a great night out with the guys, they all won awards I had three great games, met some really nice people, both on and off the gaming table and at the end of the day I went home without even looking where I placed. I mean obviously I was on one of the bottom tables so I knew it wasn't going to be great but it honestly didn't even cross my mind to check and I think that says it all. Although Blog Wars is dead, I hope the spirit of Blog Wars lives on in Alex's next venture because it's my kind of tournament.

Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Dark Eldar/Eldar

Game 2 and I'm facing Kyle McSweeney and his Dark Eldar/Eldar. Now we know how good Eldar can be and I'm 50:50 with their darker kin, having suffered at the hands of Liam and my first tabling ever at Throne of Skulls but pulling it back to win objective missions at Blog Wars 6 and the Scythe and Teacup tournament. These were 6th Edition games and Codices so there's a lot of change to overcome.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant 1 Winged tyrant 2 Zoanthrope Tervigon Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught Catalyst Warp Blast The Horror Psychic Scream Onslaught Paroxysm Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Emperor's relic - 3 objectives - 5VPs for your own, 10VPs for the middle one and 15VPs if you capture your opponents objective - Vanguard Strike
• Warlord Trait - Warlord and 3 units infiltrate
• Not sure about night fighting, looks like I went first but pretty sure I lost deployment. 

We spent a significant amount of time deploying, my Warlord trait made Kyle debate long and hard over positioning and once he'd got everything just right I then had to think long and hard too because his deployment was so good it made my trait more of a hindrance. I also knew he had a DE Archon who could confer deep-strike on a unit and he was doing just that to Wraithguard with D-Weapon flamers and Prince Yriel so I'd deployed in the star fromation again to help mitigate his arrival.

I was able to swoop my flyrants forward I must have killed the unit of Dark Eldar in this ruin, despite going to ground as I'm sure I got First Strike. I even put a wound on the Wraithknight!

My Carnifex had contibuted to the Dark Eldar First strike but the Stealers and Deathleaper remained skulking in the ruins to hold onto the 10pt objective.

While my Tervigon and gaunts [spawned out on 16] secured my own 5pt objective underneath the skyshield, which Kyle had immidiately predicted would be my tactic as soon as he saw the fortification. It does make me equally happy that someone is aware of it's effectiveness and disappointed they're working out a counter attack.

Kyle was able to put a couple of wounds on the Carnifex but no First Strike.

My turn 2 and both my reserves arrive. The Mawloc appears inside the ruined factory, the Tyrannocyte deviates but the Rippers get out and hide from the remaining Dark Eldar and jetbikes. Not much happens, I do some shooting and feel quite proud of myself as this seems relatively painless and dare-I-say-it 'easy'!

Oh $hit, yeah. Why had I forgotten about the four Venoms, and two Ravagers and the deep striking Wraithguard?! Wraithgouard arrive spot on, all clustered perfectly on the roof of the building next to the Skyshield. Why had I not thought to deploy something there?

Kyle d-templates everything he can, desparate to kill the Venomthrope. It's 'key' to his plan apparently but the flamer just can't do it. Plenty of Gaunts get obliterated but it was the many splinter shots from the Venoms that eventually cut through his spore cloud to kill him outright. Now I'm reliant on the 4+ invul save to keep me alive.

I try swarming the Wraithguard but 'wall of fire' roasts the gaunts and what I have left of them can't breach the Wraithguard Toughness to force a saving throw.

The Tervigon backs up, trying to keep as far away from the D-weapons as possible. The spawned gaunts cluster round the objective underneath hoping to hold onto it.

The Venom's have other ideas, weight of fire pops the Tervigon, taking most if not all of the spawned gaunts with it. The other Termagant brood continues to claw ineffectively at Yriel's Wraithguard their numbers culled by the los sof their brood mother.

More Venom shots cut through the two Carnifex, leaving the last one with just one wound left.

Which is removed by the Wraithknight, who;d been singularly unimpressive for most of the game, either missing or failing to wound.

My Rippers were unceremoniously erased from existence also - double strength weapons insta-killing them one after another.

Wraithguard and gaunts continued to have it out but the Gaunts ultimately perished. The objective underneath the Skyshield was wide open now and he hard Venoms waiting to capitalise on it's exposure.

My Flyrants both swooped back to my Deployment Zone and I was able to riddle the Wraithguard with Brainleech Worms.

Yriel, the Archon and most of the Wraithguard died giving me Slay the Warlord [at least].

The Wraithknight jumped in to contest the centre objective, it was all falling apart now.

Venoms screamed across the battlefield heading for my objective.

Fitting with ease under the safe canopy of my own fortification!

The centre ruin became a fierce battle. I'd moved Deathleaper down but then the Ravagers got a bead on him through the window and insta-killed him. He'd been invisible stood on top of the ruin all game, as soon as he changed position he was toast. The children of Cryptus swarmed the Wraithknight putting another wound on him but getting stomped in the process. The Venom digorged it's Dark Eldar warriors who got savaged by Brainleech Worms, but not enough to lose the objective.

My Mawloc had popped in the Ruins second turn, burrowed back down and then deviated here to miss the venom.

 

Time ran out and Kyle had secured all the objectives and got Line Breaker and I'd managed lose everything except Slay the Warlord and First Strike! So a 31 to 2 loss. That sounds so painful but once again so much pain happened so quickly there really wasn;t enough time to feel miserable about it and Kyle was such a good player it wasn's depressing in any way. Really I only had myself to blame as I forgot he had most of his army off the table and went for his objective which put the Flyrants completely out of position, taking them too long to Swoop back to defend my own base. But this was his plan all along, to draw out the Flyrants and then attack my Skyshield with the Wraithguard - kudos to Kyle for planning and executing that plan to perfection. So 0 for 2, can I scratch a win in the final game

Blog Wars X 1850pt battle report - nids vs Space Wolves

First game up and it was NafNaf from Objective Secured and I can't tell you much of a thrill this was. Although Blog Wars is no longer primarily a competition for bloggers there are still a fair few that attend. But blogging in general can be a little disconnected, occassionally you will meet people who follow your blog but I often feel a little awkward socially, afterall I use share far more here than I probably would in a normal conversation but by that stage the reader will always know more about me. In this situation though we're both familiar with each other's blogs and we had plenty of time to chat and just enjoy a great game.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant 1 Winged tyrant 2 Zoanthrope Tervigon Dominion Dominion Dominion Dominion Onslaught Catalyst Warp Blast The Horror Psychic Scream Paroxysm Catalyst Broodlord Dominion The Horror

The low down:

• Purge the alien but based on the Blog Wars X rules - Unit Points for killed units, half points for half killed units which then translates to VPs - Hammer and Anvil
• Warlord Trait - +1 Seize the initiative and re-roll reserves
• Night fighting first turn, not sure on deployment I went second but Seized the Initiative by the looks of these pictures. 

So yeah, it looks like I stole the initiative, I don't even think I needed the +1 Warlord trait. That's always thrilling but equally uncomfortable as you're setting someone up to suffer quite badly [especially with two flyrants]. The Flyrants swooped forward and peppered the smallest unit of Thunderwolves with Brainleech Worms. The Storm Shields, high toughness and multi-wounds were not sufficient to stop them becoming worm-food though, securing me First Strike.

 As I knew Drop Pods were inbound I'd deployed in a star formation on the Skyshield - ensuring nothing could land on the pad and everywhere else was putting it further away from the centre of the pad or risking dangerous terrain. Hardly anything else moved except the Carnifex but I did spawn 12 gaunts to further disrupt incoming troops. Having loads of Warp Charge I had 2 points left over so decided to cast Dominion on the trailing Flyrant to keep the Carnifex in Synapse. I got doube 6, and then rolled 1 on the Perils! Luckily I passed the Leadership test, but I took a wound and fell out of the sky. My luck held a little further as Catalyst prevented any damage from the crash.

 Thunderwolves surged forward.

 Drop Pods arrived, surrounding the grounded Flyrant and eyeing up the Carnifex.

 Huge amounts of firepower went into putting the Flyrant down, NafNaf getting First Strike in revenge.

 He was then able to kill the Carnifex too, securing a much better first turn than I'd had!

My turn and the Warlord Flyant banks right and swoops across and positions to Psychic Scream both Thunderwolves. My Spore Pod also arrives with the Rippers inside.

I spawn another 8 gaunts to take the place of the 12 who now charge down the Thunderwolves. They're backed up by the Carnifex

Ultimately they don't survive all the shooting involved.

The other Thunderwolves only take a single wound from Psychic Scream.

The last Drop Pod arrives and disgorges

No real reason for this shot, just wanted a model eye's [or should that be gaunt's ass] view

I think I may have cast Warp Blast on the Zoanthrope to try and blow up the Drop Pod but just managed a glancing hit!

So that was still gaining Linebreaker.

Nafnaf's turn and the Stormwolf arrives, targeting the Warlord Flyrant. He swooped and jinked but couldn't evade the hail of fire dying on that pitiful saving throw. Slay the Warlord to Nafnaf.

Thunderwolves charged the last Carnifex. I'd been extremely lucky with overwatch, the night before I witnessed 6 snapfire shots in one of Otty's overwatch. In one of mine I managed 9 after re-rolls and had had a 7 or 8 earlier that only transformed into one saving throw!

Sadly it wasn't enough and the Thunderwolves burst the Carnifex apart.

The other marines took on the spawned gaunts.

With the Thunderwolves out in the open the Children of Cryptus set their sights on new prey.

The swarmed the Thunderwolves killing most of them

My Mawloc had deviated into a position of little use so I burrowed it. Deathleaper tried to kill off the Grey Hunters in my deployment zone but was butchered due to his patheticsaving throw. Luckily the Termagants killed off the remainder.

Last turn, the Children of Cryptus killed the Thunderwolf, Rippers were 2" away from securing Linebreaker for me and a unit of 13 spawned gaunts also got killed and time was up.

 

I was feeling pretty confident at this point because I thought I still had a lot on the battlefield but forgot how expensive the Flyrants and Carnifex were. Ultimately I'd lost 1110pts of models, plus another 100pts for Deathleaper and Nafnaf got Slay the Warlord for the Flyrant, Linebreaker and First Strike. I'd managed to do 1070pts of damage, so it looked like a draw, until I added on the Deathleaper points and then realised I'd only got First Strike, been short of Line Breaker and Failed to kill his Warlord and SC who was with the Terminators! The most annoying thing about this was the Mawloc, having put him into ongoing reserve he was counted as a casualty - 140pts of losing me the game was his only contribution! So if I hadn't have done that I;d have scored 970, plus Deathleaper = 1070 and only the secondary VPs would have lost me the game! I should have just deep struck him in Nafnaf's deployment zone.

Additionally, if I hadn't cast Dominion on my Flyrant, which I only did as an afterthought because I had two spare warp charge, he'd have not died. It was a stupid thing to do, obviously hindsight is 20:20 but he'd have probably survived the next turn as he'd have been swooping and unlikely to be offed by the terminators.

I only say all this because despite losing [when have I ever won a kill points mission?] I know it was my mistakes that did me in and that makes me think I can always improve by not making these stupid errors. More importantly though it made the game incredibly close and excting and coupled with Nafnaf being a pleasure to face across the battlefield it was such a good start to the day. In fact snatching defeat from the jaws [of the world wolf] of victory actually made it more memorable. I will never forget those mistakes, I will always have this tale to tell, could I say the same if I'd passed Dominion? Unlikely. Would I be pleased if my Mawloc was still 'alive', possibly, I may not have made the connection to him contributing to an 'epic draw', but having been classed as a casualty I can definitely say he contributed to a close loss. A great start to the day, now who's next