Defeat From Victory and Hobby Update

Quite a bit to talk about here, and all over the hobby map really.

I got in a pair of games and both were disappointing in very different ways.

The first game was disappointing because I got my butt kicked...  My opponent outplayed me, and I just failed too many saves, so by the end of turn 3 there wasn't much reason to go on.

Game two was much more entertaining and thought provoking, so I'll bore you with the details.

At Ease Games in San Diego = Awesome for gaming

I was playing a table quarters game with a spearhead deployment against Chaos Daemons.  My opponent failed to get his preferred wave.  He's played at least five games with the current army, and has yet to get the wave he wanted.  I had to go first, so I put up Tempests Wrath and waited.  My opponent's Soul Grinder came in and promptly immobilized itself behind a giant wall of containers.  I took a wound on Logan to some shooting, but got a couple favorable scatters too.  Because of that, I managed to get into three combats with his Horror squads.  It really couldn't have gone better to start off.  When his reserves started coming in, I was still locked in combat so I took little shooting, meanwhile I was working on killing his scoring units.  The problem arose when they simply wouldn't die.  My Thunderwolf couldn't get through the Horrors fast enough and missed out on a shot at a Herald.  I had to send in a Lone Wolf to help, but one model held them up for multiple turns.  A squad of Terminators couldn't finish a squad of Horrors in two turns, so when my next turn  came around they were still locked in combat.  This cost me a shot at wiping out the Plaguebearers too, and a Fiend squad got off a counter-charge and wiped my guys out.  My Dreadnought also got in against a unit of Horrors.  Round after round, he couldn't get past their invulnerable save. I have a new respect for the Horror's ability to tar pit units.  After turns one through three, I was convinced I was head for a win.  Turn four, a draw was the worst I could do.  Turn five, I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  One of my squads climbed down from safety to try and save their brothers-in-arms.  If I could have saved them, I might have won.  Instead, I cost myself a pair of units and the game.

Did I accidentally grab my Nerf Hammer?

In the postgame, my opponent admitted that he had thought about calling the game early, but his perseverance ended up rewarding him.  Statistically, I wouldn't have blamed him.  If things had gone closer to the mean, I'm pretty confident I would have been able to eliminate his scoring units which was my main focus from the time he dropped in.  Just one less save in some cases and it would have been a very different game.  In addition, I am still struck by my big, fat lack of mobility.  It got exposed badly in game one, where I couldn't catch any of the heralds.  In game two, it wasn't quite as bad, but as the game wore on, squads got more and more isolated, which made it much easier for the Fiends to pick them off.  Additionally, my army relies on their quality of attacks, which got exposed by the Daemons' invulnerable saves.  I need to include at least one element that can bring a higher number of attacks to bear.  I have an Amazon gift card and I've put a box of Death Company (to use as Skyclaws) into my shopping cart and taken it out twice now because I am trying to stay committed to finishing more of what I have. 

Speaking of which,  I'm making good progress on my Drop Pod.  Better than I have on any of the previous ones as a matter of fact.  Just about everything has its basic colors on it, including the interior which is the biggest hassle.  I've gotten to the stage where I'm going side-by-side and doing the final coats of red to smooth it out, the detail work, and the clean up.  I'll hit it with a quick wash and then I'll be playing with a fully painted army most of the time.  I suppose it took long enough, but I've enjoyed the process for the most part.

I haven't made any headway on what I had thought to work on as a side project.  My menhir remains in the state that it was.  I suppose this is due to my inability to generate any excitement about painting large areas of white.  Please.  Does anyone have any tips?  No matter what I do, I can't get a nice, even coat.

Wrapping up a few other tidbits, I had the chance to join a pair of leagues in the last two weeks.  I've passed on both of them at this point.  It may seem weird since I set joining a league as one of the things to do this year, and since I definitely would have been forced to plug into the local scene, but I'm just kind of not feeling it right now.  I'm planning on doing some other stuff and I want those evenings free.  Of course, that means it might be harder to get games in, but I'd like to play them on my terms for now. 

What I have done is start GM-ing something of an RPG campaign with some of the guys back east.  We're not really using any written system.  It's just the two of them running around a Space Hulk in something similar to a choose your own adventure.  Of course, those books sometimes went awry.  Fun times.

Last but not least, my compressor has finally arrived!  I hope to give airbrushing a try in the coming week.

Hobby Accomplishments
-Finished Drop Pod 2!  Made good progress on Drop Pod 3!
-Played 2 games. 
-Started an RPG with friends.

Hobby Goals
-Well, what the heck.  Finish Drop Pod 3 by next Saturday.
-Airbrush something.  Anything really.
-Figure out how to paint white so it looks smooth and flat.  Please help!