Cowcon 2011 Report

So I headed back up to Rockhampton to catch up with friends and get in some games in the event that I used to run.  I had decided to take my Sisters as they took up less room in the car than the large Eldar case and so would be easier to transport along with a my desert table as the Pig Pen had to make another appearance (a 12" by 12" fenced off area filled with Ork boars that counts as dangerous terrain.  The boars accounted for an immobilised Rhino and Landraider along with two terminators in one game a few years ago).  Wonna picked me up from my parent's place on Friday night to help setup, but the old time dance went longer than expected and it was 11:30pm before we even started setting out the tables, leaving me to crawl into bed at 1:30am on the Saturday.  To help make sure things went smoothly, Wonna picked me up at 6:30am to head over to the hall and get ready for the day with last minute preparations.  The bugger had got himself a coffee on the way but it wasn't until midway through my first game that I finally got some caffiene into my sleep deprived body.

Game 1 versus Collin Donaldson, Eldar, Annihilation, Pitched Battle
Farseer
2x 10 Dire Avengers in Wave Serpents
5 Wraithguard in Wave Serpent
2x Fire Prisms

I've played Collin a few times, both at the club and at other tournaments.  I won the roll for first turn and deployed fairly standardly, but I made the first of many mistakes that game and forgot to blob my IG platoon together for less kill points.  On turn two I forgot to disembark two units with meltaguns to shoot at tanks before beginning the shooting.  I then forgot to charge an immobilised Fire Prism on turn three with my Seraphim.  That caffiene hit couldn't kick in fast enough for me apparently, and I lost narrowly 5 kill points to his 6.  I did however manage to pick up three out of four bonus points for table quarters and was 2.5VP's away from grabbing the fourth.  Gained: 9 BP's

Game 2 versus Callan Reah, Eldar, Milk the Cows (3 objectives, you get 1 point for each objective that you hold uncontested at the end of your turn from turn two onwards), Spearhead
Karandras
Autarch with wings
3x 10 Striking Scoprions
2x 5 Rangers
2x 5 Pathfinders
2 War Walkers
3 War Walkers

I again setup first and deployed aggressively to the fore, hoping to get onto the objectives and clear them off with flamers early on.  Callan then surprised me but outflanking his entire army except for the Autarch who deepstruck instead.  I pushed up and used the time wisely to run units into positions and bring my Exorcists into a protective circle near the central objective.  I made my guesses of ranges well and left my rhino transports just outside his charge range.

My Canoness ran interference until his units became bunched up and my Rhinos deposited flame weilding Sisters who removed Striking Scorpions aided by Divine Guidance with a vengance.

I did make the mistake of focusing too much on the primary objective and failed to get most of the secondary objectives, but instead won overwhelmingly with 12 tokens to 0.  Gained: 17BP's

Game 3 versus Luke Williams, Space Marines, Escape Capsule (Dawn of War, single objective that arrives near the centreline at the end of turn 2 or 3.  The person with the most VP's of scoring units within 6" wins with scaling for draw, minor and major wins.)
Chaplain Cassius
5 Assault Terminators (4 TH/SS 1 LC's)
Land Raider
Techmarine with Thunderfire Cannon
2x 10 Tactical Marines (PF, Lascannon, Plasmagun) in Rhinos
10 Scouts with Telion (Sniper Rifles)
Vindicator
Triple Las Pred with Chronus

Luke deployed first and put down his Techmarine with thunderfire, and the scout squad up in buildings.  I deployed my blobbed infantry squads and platoon command in building and attached my Canoness to cause havoc if an opportunity arose early on.  Luke's thunderfire cannon fired when the sun rose on the bunched up guardsmen and in one round killed about 2/3rds of the unit, Ouch.  In return an Exorcist popped out from behind a building and smashed the techmarine and his cannon into scrap metal.  I used my Exorcists on each flank to strike at his side armour on the Vindicator and Predator and quickly removed them from the game.  Luke's terminators were quickly dispatched by a combined charge or my Canoness and her Celsetian Retinue and the Seraphim, but after the Seraphim hit and ran away to engage other targets.  Chaplain Cassius soloed the Celestians for about three rounds of HtH before finally losing his last wound.  The objective crashed down on the side of the table where I only had one BSS squad and Luke jammed both of his tactical squads onto the objective via lucky deployment.  At the end of turn five I was looking down the barrel of a minor loss or at best a draw, but turn six and seven saw my other units bounce across the pig pen (safely) to the objective and my Jump Canoness and the remaining Celestians cleared the marines from the area.  Gained 19 BP's

Game 4 versus Dan Corkran, Grey Knights, Pitched Battle, 5 Objectives
Librarian
5 Paladins built for wound abuse
3x 5 Grey Knights (Thunderhammer and Psycannon) in Las/Plas Razorbacks
5 Grey Knights (Thunderhammer and Psycannon) in Psybolt Heavy Bolter Razorback
3x Dreadnoughts with twin linked Autocannons and Psybolt ammo

Before I left at the end of Day one, Wonna already had the draw up for day two which would see me face off against Dan Corkran.  Dan and I have played a few times at the local club but this would be the first time I would face him in a tournament.  He was fielding a tough Grey Knights army that I knew I would struggle to beat, and on top of that Dan had played my sisters before and lost against them.  His ability to analyze his losses and learn from them is pretty good so I decided I needed a plan to help me through the first game tomorrow.
Plan A: Get Dan drunk at the dinner that night.
This plan failed miserably when I found out that Dan wasn't going out and had head to bed by 9:30pm.

Plan B: Play differently.
I figured if I played in a manner different to how I normally would, I might through Dan off, which sounds simple, but is hard to do when you have mech sisters which really only play one way.  I decided that there was no way that I could smash Dan's army so I opted instead to play for the Minor Win/Loss or a draw.  I would advance and grab nearby objectives, and then stop and hold them staying just off the objectives so that I could move up and ambush incoming units.  Better than Plan A at least.

Dan of course won the roll for sides and stole the side with the best cover for his Razorbacks and Dreads which left me little cover for my tanks.  I made things worse by deploying one of my Exorcists right out on a flank and it proved to be just out of range and immobilised itself on the first piece of terrain it touched.  Dan's shooting knocked out two transports on the first turn so the sisters advanced on foot running between the limmited cover towards the objectives.  I beat Dan to three of the objectives (one near my deployment zone) and settled in to hold off the wave of firepower that began to knock me off it.  Thankfully my Jump Canoness held him up by assaulting units in his back lines, but I again forgot to give the Celestian invulnerable saves and most of them were killed by Plasma fire.  My Canoness went down when she failed her Ld test to get an invun save and was buried under power weapon attacks.  The game flowed back and forth around his back field, but his Paladins sat just outside my rapidfire range and tried to shoot my sisters off the objective.  I think Plan B worked as I would normally have pushed forward agressively and Dan wasted precious time before pushing up to contest after he realised I wasn't moving.  At the end of turn 5 I held 3 objectives to his two, but in turn 6 he contested two of the objectives whilst holding his two with only 1 and 2 Grey knights huddles out of site of my units.  A very close game that was great to play against a very skilled player.  Gained: 6 BP's

Game 5 versus Adam Bullmore, Nurgle Chaos Space Marines, Annihilation, Spearhead
Nurgle Sorcerer
Deamon Prince with Warptime and Wings
2x 7 Plague Marines (powerfist and two meltaguns) in a Rhino
7 Plague Marines (powerfist and two plasmaguns) in a Rhino
Vindicator
2x Defilers

I deployed first in an agressive posture, hoping to knock out his Defilers early and then dominate the game by picking off his tanks and out manuevoring him.  Unfortunately Adam positioned roughly the same so I knew things would get messy early on.  I remembered to blob my guardsmen this time though :)  I decided to switch things up and shift my forces to the right to bring him off balance, unfortunately my Exorcists decided to play a slow waltz or something and only rolled one's and two's for their shots most of the game.  I did however manage to bottle neck him around some central spires as he struggled to get around one of his Defilers.  I shot and charged units as they came through the gaps, staving off the bulk of his forces whilst conserving mine.  Combats dragged on however and my faith pool ran down quickly, especially once he turned one of my Canonesses into a giant bunny spawn (pictured above).  I just managed to finish of his units in the nick of time with only one faith point and my Jump Canoness on one wound and the Seraphim all but wiped out.  My lead however had been maintained and finished on 11KP's to 5KP's for a major victory.  Gained 18BP's

I slowly packed up my gear as I was chatting to a few of the Townsville guys, discussing various things and the awards started whilst I was still away putting my miniatures in their cases.  I had just walked over to the rest of the group when Wonna called out my name for second place.  What? Huh?  I thought I was going to be near the top but I certainly didn't think I was going to place after suffering two losses and only getting a smattering of bonus points.  I also got a Black Library book for bringing along my table of terrain so I was very happy when I finally got home on sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately the late nights and days of thinkings had taken their toll and I've gotten a bit of a cough which was very painful on the flight back to Brisbane.

Other shots from the weekend:

All in all, a great weekend with good mates and lots of laughs all round.  Next year Cowcon is expecting to increase the limit from 40 to 50 players which will cement it in as one of the largest events in Queensland with only Quarter Master and Orktoberfest currently larger.

Eltnot.

COWCON 2010 Player Packs

Below are the Player Packs for Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Fantasy respectively:

Warhammer 40,000 Player Pack

Warhammer Fantasy Player Pack

Eltnot

COWCON 2010 Beta 40k Player Pack

Link Provided for the Beta copy of the Player Pack:

PLAYER PACK

Following changes made:
Updated typo in date of tournament.
Made painting scoring clearer.
Modified Mission Four.
Formally added in result for completely wiping out your opponent.

Eltnot.

Plastic Crack

Well last Friday, a large heavy box turned up for me at work. Upon opening I found it to be filled with goodies and packed with love and care by Adam from Alpha Hobbies in Brisbane. Enough ramblings, here's some of the stuff you can win at this year's COWCON:

Eltnot

COWCON 2009 Player Pack

I have finished testing and the Player Pack is now available.

Player Pack

You can find further information on the RSGA forums

Eltnot.

COWCON 2009 Beta Player Pack

The Beta Player Pack is finally available. It took me a while to define some of the soft scores in a manageable manner that wouldn't dissappoint too many people.

Beta Player Pack

I got my first 500 points of Chaos Mortals finished and am underway on the next installment. I'll take some photos when I can find the time and setup my camera decently.

I haven't quite received all of the Iyanden Eldar yet but rest assured, when I do there will be pics of those also.

Eltnot.

It's been a while since I updated this, but you should see some regular posting coming soon.

First bit of news is that COWCON 2009 is booked in for the 17-18th of October. The player pack is mostly complete and should be out soon for some beta testing. The tournament will once again be 1750 points Warhammer 40,000 and run out of the YWCA Hall.

Secondly my Sisters of Battle have had a bit more work done to them and now meet the minimum three colours. Unfortunately I won't be able to do much with them for the next few months though as a short project has come up. Which leads me to the third point:

I've just joined in a Tale of Four Gamers for Warhammer Fantasy. Player will be required to paint 500 points each month for three months and play a couple of games. I've dusted off my Warriors of Chaos for this so will be posting some updates and pics soonish. So far I've only done undercoating but I'm hoping to get a unit of Chaos Knights finished by next weekend.

Recently I purchased a friend's Iyanden Eldar army, and should be taking delivery of it by the end of the month. This will go nicely with my Iyanden pirate army that I'm slowly accumulating models for. As a result of this, I'm now looking to sell my Tau army, all 3500 points of it. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

Lastly, I've really started to lose faith in GW. The slowness at which codices/army books are released and their lack of errata has led me to look for another game system. I still intend to play GW games, but will be spending very little on new stuff apart from finishing off my current armies. As a result of this, I picked up a copy of the Flames of War 2.0 Rulebook off Ebay which should I get my grubby hands on in the coming week. At this point I won't yet be collecting any FoW but will have a look through the rules and chat with a couple of other club member to decide on an army and time period to collect.

So expect to hear more from me soon.

Eltnot.

Been kinda busy...

It's been a while since I last updated this, so I'll quickly run through what I've been up to, and what I'm working on.

Firstly, Cowcon 2008 was a blast. I placed 10th out of 23 players with my Witch Hunters overall.

Game 1: Massacre Loss vs fester's Pirate Orks.
Had a great game, but luck wasn't with me, nor was the rather full table of terrain. At the end of the game, I had no models left, for just under 1000pts worth of dead orks. This game was the second largest points difference of the tournament (and won me the "Try harder son" award).

Game 2: Major Victory (or Victorious Slaughter, I can't remember) vs Doug William's Dark Eldar.
Had a great opponent that whilst they were shaky on their rules, was still a lot of fun. Had a wonderfully painted army.

Game 3: Major Victory (or Victorious Slaughter, I can't remember) vs Rebecca Stear's Marines/Sisters
We got to see a sisters vs sisters rumble, as well as a Space Marine Sergeant with a power fist, chase an Immolator for four turns without ever doing anything to it. Once again a lot of fun and another well painted army.

Game 4: Draw vs Martin Frost's Eldar
The table we played on made it impossible for me to move a vehicle without taking dangerous terrain rolls. Needless to say, my sisters had to footslog it across the board. Eeked out a draw against a great opponent.

Game 5: Minor Loss vs Alex Rick's Dark Eldar
Got too overconfident and got jumped by unit after unit as they came out of the webportals. Still had fun tank shocking anything I could with Rhinos.

Photos from the event can be found HERE.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at Cowcon 2009.

Secondly, I've been absent due to my brother getting married up in Carins, so I headed up there for a week and a half. Had a nice relaxing break and a great wedding.

So now I'm back in Rocky with a couple of projects ahead of me. The main one of these being to get my sister's finished off, hopefully for a 2000 point tournament in Mackay in early November. The other project, and the one that is currently taking up all of my time is writing a small campaign, ending in a pair of Apocalypse battles for Rockhampton Wargamers Guild. Expect to see some teasers for that shortly.

~ Eltnot.

I'm pulling my finger out, and getting all the stuff ready for COWCON 2008. I've already accepted that I won't get my Witch Hunters to a finished standard, but I still have some goals. I'm aiming to have my three basic colours on each model, including some highlighting on the blue to actually make it visible on the models. I also would like to get all of the models based (to my finished basing standard) if I can. Below is a list of where I'm at, and what I have still to do.


Canoness
- Undercoated and needing Jump Pack

Palantine
- Undercoated
Celestians
- First coat of Grey
Immolator
- Undercoated (except for Turret)

Death Cult Assassins
- Undercoated

Inquisitor and Retinue
- Undercoated

Battle Sister Squad 1
- Meeting three colours except for blue highlights and backpacks
Rhino
- Undercoated and almost finished with three colours (needing tracks)

Battle Sister Squad 2
- First coat of Grey
Rhino
- Undercoated

Infantry Platoon
- Being assembled

Seraphim
- First coat of Grey

Immolator
- Undercoated (except for Turret)

Exorcist
- Mostly assembled

Exorcist
- Partially assembled

Jungle Terrain
- Finish painting trees (1/3 done)
- Finish bases (mostly final drybrushing and paint pollups)

Desert Terrain
- Put together two buildings and glue the rest together, paint and add detail
- Paint and Sand Rock Spires
- Paint and base Pig Pen

-Eltnot

Cowcon 2008

Changes have been made to the mathematical system recently, after some player feedback, so be sure to check out the changes.

The Cowcon 2008 Player Pack is now available for download.

Player Pack

The missions are almost identical to the ones from the CP tournament but modified for larger games.

Feedback welcome.

Eltnot.