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Well, I’ll be going to Las Vegas this week for a Taekwondo tournament. I left messages on a couple of forums that I'm on, letting people know that I’d be in Vegas and I wanted to play some 40k. I didn’t get many responses, but Killdrath, from the Millenium Gate Forum did respond and said he was interested. We then conversed a bit by email and organized some things. I decided that I really needed to travel light, which let my Tyranid swarm and my Dark Eldar Air Force off the hook. That means it’s up to my Deathwing list to seize the day for me. So begins the Sergeant Pepper’s Vegas Tour. I just finished an Army Overdrive where I began my Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Warband concept. Since I knew I would be pressed for time, I didn’t convert any of them right off, leaving them as basic Terminators. I chose the Doom Eagles Paint scheme (Boltgun Metal as the base color, with Snot Green and Blood Red on details, and Bleached bone on the skulls and crux terminati.) I'm not yet sure if I’ll be converting every single terminator, or if I’ll just do the character models, so I tried to choose a scheme that would be bright and colorful and hopefully wouldn’t contrast too much with my eventually somewhat garish leaders (John, Paul, George and Ringo, don’t ya know.) That way I can play them at all times, instead of having to wait as I painstakingly convert each piece. This gives me the chance to keep playing with them and continually improve my tactics with them. At the moment I'm using a Terminator Sergeant to stand in for John (My Master of the Deathwing) since there are only a couple of differences (+1 Initiative, +1 Wound, +2 Attacks). George and Ringo are my other two Sergeants, and each of the three commands 4 Deathwing Terminators. Out of 3 boxes of Terminators, I somehow got 4 Heavy Flamers. I'm not sure how that worked, and I'm not real excited about the flamers, but they’re what I have right now, so George and Ringo’s squads each will have two members with Heavy Flamers. All the other non-Sergeants have the standard Powerfist and Stormbolter. Although others have recommended Lightning Claws and Thunderhammers, I like the Stormbolter/Powerfist combo because it lets me shoot as well as kill things in close combat. As someone pointed out to me, there are a number of things that Terminators aren’t in a hurry to get up close and personal with, such as Howling Banshees or Ork Slugga Boyz, among others. With Stormbolters, I can move to better positions (at least assuring me of the charge bonus) and rake them with firepower before they hit my lines. I picked up a few blisters that will be nice additions for my army, but they are currently unassembled or unpainted. I have a Deathwing Terminator Interrogator Chaplain that will eventually be Paul. I also have a Terminator Sergeant (not sure what to do with him yet, but we’ll see) and a Terminator with an Assault Cannon and Powerfist and a Wolf Guard Terminator that may become an Apothecary. We’ll see. I'm going to bring these and some modeling stuff with me and try to put them together so that my force will be a little bit larger for Las Vegas. So, here are my plans for Vegas: Assuming that I don’t get to finish up any of these extra models, I’ll just have 3 squads of Terminators. John will get the command squad with 4 Terminators with Stormbolters and Powerfists to back up his Master of the Deathwing reputation. Each of the others will have two Terminators with Storm Bolters and Powerfists and two Terminators with Heavy Flamers and Powerfists to back them up. That comes to 793pts. That’s a fairly small game, but I can live with that. If I can finish up the blisters the way I want to, I’ll have a little bit more. I’ll be able to add Paul (another 95pts as an Interrogator Chaplain in Terminator Armor with Storm Bolter and Crozius Arcanum and Rosarius) and I can replace two of the regular Terminators in John’s squad with an Apothecary (who will detach from the command squad and join George’s squad later) and the Assault Cannon/Powerfist guy. The two regulars will join George’s squad, beefing it up to 7 (8 after the Apothecary joins) and making it my lead squad to absorb some casualties on the way in. If I'm doing my math right, that should take me a little over 1000pts (1007, to be exact) Alternately, if I can’t make the Apothecary work, I can drop the command squad down to a regular squad, letting me use the spare Terminator sergeant figure and have two unassigned HQs and 3 squads of Terminators. That would bring me to 1029pts, but I’d rather have the Apothecary. (rerolling a missed armor save is very handy when you are Deathwing. When you do get unlucky and roll a one, you get a second chance!) So, all in all, how do I think I’ll do in Las Vegas? I don’t know. I'm pretty smart and I generally use my armies very effectively, tactically speaking, but on the other hand, I'm new to the army, it doesn’t play like anything I’ve got experience with, and, so I'm told, Deathwing is a very difficult army to win with (probably something to do with that limited mobility and the fact that you are always wildly outnumbered, so any small amount of bad luck will really mess with you.) I think I’ll do okay. I’d like to win a game or two, if possible, but I really expect I’ll have a fun time more than anything else. I get a chance to meet someone I’ve only known online before and I get a chance to see and experience new gamers and new armies. I might even try to work up some batreps, we’ll see. Well, I'm off to Vegas with my Fab Four, so I’ll see everyone next week! Same Warp-Time, Same Warp-Channel! 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