Combat Patrol!!! This Weekend!!! Hurry, Hurry, Hurry and Step Right Up!! (Directly into the line of fire, if you're the Noob)

Nice long post title, eh?

If you couldn't figure it out from that, your friendly neighborhood Noob is playing a little CP this wekend. Several guys from my local 40K group, Adeptus North Texas, are getting together on Saturday and Sunday at one of our FLGS's, Xmax Games, to have a little Combat Patrol fun. Well, I don't know how much fun it will be for them as this little event was organized by yours Noob-ly so that I might be more prepared for my tournament debut at Astronomi-con.

In other Con news, I have been guaranteed by the organizers of Astronomi-con that I will indeed have fun. What they didn't mention was that while I'm having all this fun (oblivious to all the pain and suffering my opponents are going through as they gnash their collective teeth as they have to explain to me again, for the fifth time and we're only in Turn 2 (oh, dear Lord give me strength for a may just smite the Noob right here-and he's smiling again like a dementia patient-WHY WON'T HE JUST DIE ALREADY!!) that all men in a squad need to move as a squad, not just pell-mell like a jailbreak, and please, Noob, for the 10th time (and we're in Turn 3!! He has got to be the most absent minded noob I have ever seen! And is he CHEWING ON A TERMINATOR'S SWORD?? IS THAT MY TERMINATOR'S HEAD IN HIS MOUTH!?!?!?!?). That's what I'm sure the running internal dialog will be in my opponents' collective heads over June 19th and 20th.

Anyway, back to this weekend. I'm jumping in feet first into the deep end that is 40K with my very first official game with actual opponents (not the imaginary 40K games I have in my head where I win the US Grand Finals armed only with 2 Rhinos, 10 Tactical Marines, a broken Landspeeder, and two-fifths of the Legion of the Damned (5 man squad from "parts unknown"). The last part of the dream is technically, the most correct as I will be running a 5 man Legion of the Damned squad at Astronomi-con. Of course I'll be running more than 2 Rhinos, and in reality only one of my Landspeeders is missing a weapon. Oh, well, we'll have time to agonize over the army list for the Con plenty of times over the next couple of weeks.

In other Noob related news, the Venerable Dreadnaught (given the dazzling "embarrassment" paint job by yours truly, a paint job so bad that the brave, brave Space Marine who was being kept alive deep within the sarcophagus in the recesses of the Dreadnaught body actually used his powerfist to RIP OUT HIS OWN WIRES in an act of suicide rather than to spend another day wearing a paint job so bad even Orks made fun of him from a distance) has FINALLY been stripped and shipped.

We hope Matt from the Archangels Blog gives him the home (and paintjob) he deserves, so that brave Dreadnaught no longer feels suicide is the answer.

I'll follow up Monday with some Battle Reports on the Combat Patrol games. I'll be running up against 'Nids, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, and Grey Knights that I know of, so join me back here to see how that pool of enemies smited your friendly (and Noob run) local Ultramarine chapter....

Until then, keep watching the skies!! For the burning wreckage of my Drop Pods!!

Astro Additions??

So, my FLGS is having a pre-Astro sale: buy two GW boxes, get the third free. I'm thinking about adding a Vindicator plus another Devestator squad and a Close Combat Termie squad.

Or just adding 15 more Terminators, getting me closer to my Deathwing ideal...

Decisions, decisions....

The Noob Goes to Astronomi-con

Yes indeed, folks, the Noob is playing in Astronomi-con, June 19 - 20, right here in my neck of the woods, Dallas. Now, many of you may be asking: "Noob, have you ever even played one game of 40K? Are all your figures painted? And have you lost your mind??" Well, folks, my answers are no, no, and maybe.

For those of you not aware, Astronomi-con is a story driven tournament, with 6 games being played over 2 days. Army size is 1,500 points, and I'll be playing Ultramarines (although I'm seriously thinking about switching to Dark Angels, only not the Ravenwing, but the Deathwing. Something about a table full of Terminators makes me happy, but I don't think I want to try and strip and paint my current set of Termies, not to mention I'll have to clear it with the wife to buy, oh, 6 to 8 boxes of new Terminators to the tune of roughly $300 to $400).

Now for my dilemma: what 1,500 points should I put in the table? I want to play a very basic army so my learning curve is shorter. I don't want to worry about psykers and what-not. Here is what I have available (some still need to be painted. And built.) to me:

2 SM Captains
40 SM Tacticals
10 SM Terminators (This is basically 2 Assault on Black Reach sets)
2 Whirlwinds
2 Predators
1 Razorback
5 Rhinos (3 w/ Smoke Launchers)
5 Legion of the Damned (includes Flamer and Melta)
25 Assault SM's
3 Land Speeders (with Bolters)
3 Dreadnaughts (2 from the AoBR set, one with missile launcher, all have power claw/fist)
1 Devastator Squad (5 men)
1 Techmarine w/ Bolter
1 set, Marneus Calgar and Honour Guard
5 SM Bikes (w/ Bolters)
2 Attack Bikes (w/ Bolter)
1 Apothecary

All have pretty much the basic weapons, nothing out of the ordinary. I'm doing this for fun and to learn so there's no need to worry about winning. I want to go basic and have a good learning experience.

With that in mind, who has any 1,500 point ideas???

We Have a winner!

And this should have been announced, like a week and a half ago, but our winner was Matt from the Archangels blog!

Matt, send me your particulars at bradATthesatorigroup.com and you'll be the proud new owner of a stripped Venerable Dreadnaught!

Now, Matt, what will you be giving away at Archangels?

Thanks to everyone that entered.

Now I gotta' go strip that Dread....