Space Marines or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Astartes, Part 1: Start at the top

As requested by a fellow player in a tournament, I've decided to give my first army a good examination. Now it is true that I have something of a love-hate relationship with the boys in blue. My first and biggest army is my 2nd Company of Ultramarines and I will always keep them in a special place on the gaming shelf, but as more 5th edition books come out I've been more and more disapointed with their codex. It's not that theirs is particularly bad, more that those that have come after are just so much better. Space Wolves and Blood Angels can do almost everything the Space Marines do, only better and cheaper points-wise. Having said that, I do think Marines still have a few things going for them and I think they deserve a closer look. Besides, this is my soapbox and since you chose to come here, you might s well read what I have to say.  Fair warning...this will be long, but I think worth the read.

Quick update

As the logo might hint, I am now a member of the House of Paincakes blogging community. What does this mean? Well, aside from the recognition of my unlimited awesomness hopefully it means that the 13 followers I currently have may have some company. It's not that I don't appreciate you few but faithful it's just that I like big parties better.

My next hobby community goal is to get a guest spot on a webcast but I'm not sure how likely that one is seeing there isn't a single one from anywhere in the tri-state area. I think TEW are the closest and they're way out in the Chicago-land area. Still as a long-term goal it's fun to think of...any takers?

Tournament Report

This past Saturday I went to a tournament at the local store and had a blast. I did OK all things considered, but got a few compliments on my painting and won a prize, so who's complaining.

I brought my standard Chaos Marine Nurgle list which is 2 winged princes with warptime, 3 squads of 7 Plague Marines with double melta guns and a Champ with a fist in a Rhino with Havoc Launcher, 5 Terminators with 2 combi-meltas, 2 chainfists, one with twin lightning claws, one with a Heavy Flamer and one bare. All of them were upgraded to Champions because I had 50 points to spare. I also had 3 Oblits and a Defiler. The tournament was 1850.


My first opponent was...12? maybe? He brought Ultramarines, 2nd company complete with Sicarius. It was a foot-slogging list with a few dreads, a command squad, 2 combat-squadded Tac squads and a mixed weapon Dev squad. The deployment was Spearhead and there were 5 objectives. I'd like to think I was nice to this kid, I was forgiving when he forgot a few things and I helped him out a bit, though I refused to say anything when he was unsure on tactics. As his opponent, I just didn't feel right saying anything even if I was sure what he should do and what I'd want him to do. In the end I held 3 objectives and my Termies had cleared him off the only one he had. I didn't want to destroy the kid, but he had about 6 models left at the end while I had lost my princes, one Rhino and 3 termies. I got his vote for favorite opponent, so I guess he had fun. I did help him, but I made it a point to not treat him like some kid playing with toys but a fellow gamer...an equal. I hope he appreciated it and learned something and I hope he'll be back.

At this point there were 4 players that had annihilated their opponent and being one of them, I ended up playing my buddy Alex of My Dice Suck. He had a primarily Khorne list...as is his usual, but he brought some Plague Marines and a Lord with Bloodfeeder for a change. He had Berzerkers in a land raider with the lord, a rhino of Berzerkers, a Khorne prince, 2 squads of Oblits and a Rhino of chosen with 5 melta guns and an Icon of Chaos Glory. It was the "roll dice and tie" mission and dawn of war, but with a twist. Your opponent's objective was more valuable then your own. This was just painful. It started fun with a turn 1 charge between his prince and one of mine. I brought my other one in for support to kill his off. Here we are 8 minutes into the game and we have a 3 Demon Prince slug-fest. Things went downhill from here. I couldn't hit anything with my shooting while his was effective, popping two rhinos in one turn. He had his Plague marines parked on his objective so I threw 2 rhinos toward it...one of which was destroyed at this point. One Prince was gunned down while the other ended up getting charged bt the berzerkers and lord. He rolled a ton of attacks at me and I left him with one wound as he stood over my demonic corpse. He got back in and ran the raider to my objective, parking on the wreck of my rhino while his oblits finished the squad off there. Mind you all the oblits on the board didn't really follow the "slow" part of their movement as we were both rolling high on their movement. On the other flank, the chosen came in and got my last Rhino. I assaulted them with the plague marines and watched them slowly die. I had a shot at evening out this flank with my termies...who promptly scattered off the board and died in a deep-strike mishap. The game ended when my last model died a horrible death.

The third game was against another Space Marine player. He had Kantor, 10 shooty termies with 2 cyclones, 2 tac squads in Rhinos, a 5 man Sternguard squad with 2 lascannons, 3 attack bikes and 2 autocannon preds with lascannon sponsons. It was pitched battle and kill points. I split my force as I often do with one Rhino and Prince going right and the other two Rhinos and prince left. My oblits ended up in a vary tall building giving them fields of fire across the table and my Defiler was inside a building getting cover. He was spread across the field, keeping all his squads together and attaching Kantor to the Termies. I siezed the initiative after deploying conservatively while his depolyment was to capitalize on his first turn. I blasted an attack bike apart with my battle cannon and the other two ran off the board. We swapped Rhinos on the Right and I slowly killed everything on that flank over the next few turns. Teh Termies came in on my third turn, meaning for once I actually was able to use my Icons. They always come in turn 2 and I don't have an Icon anywhere helpful. On my Right, I moved around a large building and started doing damage while the termies moved to deal with the stronger assault. The Right Prince assaulted the Termies, hoping to kill Kantor before he gets annihiliated by 10 power fists, but I only put 2 wounds on him. This blob took a few casualties but was largely intact by game's end. I ended up winning by a kill point, but we finished on Turn 5 with lots of time left so we played it to 7 anyway for fun. I had to win this game to ensure Alex got 2nd place after a bad run in with a much hated IG player.

I ended up in 4th place, but all 3 of my opponents voted me as favorite opponent (their equivalent of sportsmanship) so I used my winnings to snag some Greatswords and move one step closer to completing my Empire army.