Painting update - Ultramarines!

Hey all,

Not up to much hobby wise - having to work evenings and Saturday has really put a dampener on things.

BUT I have managed to do the odd bit of paining to keep me engaged.

WHFB painting is on hold until I have a better idea of what 9th has in store. On that, I had a 2600pt game the other day: Empire vs the Undead...basically Grave Guard VC + a Lich priest lvl4 and casket with 4 of the Morghiest things. This game was unusual in that we both had infantry (Graveguard and Ghouls + 3 units of zombies vs  my 40 Halberds and archers WHO ENGAGED IN COMBAT) supporting our hammers (Morghiest, VC blender lord vs Demis, Karl Franz bus). Kinda took me back to pre Elfpocolypse 8th...the golden years! The game involved manoeuvring infantry into place, getting the charge off (weird I know)...and a bit of good 'ol fashioned Static Combat Res. Best part was Karl Franz + bus avoiding Grave Guard + Blender Vamp all game!

Needless to say it was a resounding victory for the Good Guys. The Undead menace was held back (again) and plenty a-zombie was hacked and pecked to death and Ghul Maraz was wielded in anger smiting a Wight King. All it cost was a regiment of Halberds (squished and blended), 2 captasus who had their souls removed Raiders of the Ark styles and and engineer or 2 who valiantly manned their Helblasters before sacrificing themselves to delay the hordes...I'm sure the Empire will recover.

Painting!

I have been busy starting an Ultramarine force. (check out my super budget on the fly "too lazy to set it up properly = spend more effort DIYing it" light box)

Actual Tigerus

The Auto Include Eternal Warrior Chapter Master on bike with Thunder Hammer of Goodness

Tubturian unit #1

Main body Armypainter Blue spray, Thunderhawk blue dry brush with Lothern Blue edging. Red is Mephiston Red, Nuln Oil wash, Mephiston Red. Gold is hashut copper, Druchii violet, shining gold.

I havn't decided what to do with the basing...ideas appreciated.

On the table: 5 Bikers: combi Grav, 2xGrav. 1 Attack Bike: Multimelta. 1 Guy on bike with cloak and sword...not sure what he will be...all bought for $50 thanks 2nd hand table in LGS.

Theory behind army

The theory behind army is that in current 40k one needs to maximise multishot, high strength stuff. This may be a bit "duh", but recent books have really emphasised this due to monstrous creatures becoming more common. Traditional marine shooting has emphasised 1 really good shot (ie add extra guns = usually twinlink) which is great vs tanks...but not great vs monstrous creatures. Sadly, the only real marine answer to this is grav - hence going to be running 2x3 grav/hurricane bolter tubturians, 2x5 grav bikers. This gives enough bolter shooting to deal with hordes, and lots of counters to scary stuff. Add in Tigerus, chapter master, and the Blood Angel formation to give the tubs droppods = awesome :D...then add an Imperial knight because they are cool = army done...in about 1 year. Thanks Glen for the list idea :D

However in the meantime I'll be getting Scouts and Landspeeder storms to allow me to play smaller games (1200pts). Grav + scouts = fun right?

Painting Update Seahelm and Dragon!

The wife was taking pics of boring stuff with her fancy camera. 1 Hot chocolate later and a couple of my latest models made it into the lightbox and the pics converted into a format my crappy computer understands with free software!

Fluff

Before the End Times started I was getting a lot of stick for not really engaging with the "Fluff". So I went out of my way to find something I liked about the High Elves other than "they have dragons" (...and army wide ASF). Earlier I had (kinda) themed my high elves around the idea of Saxon shield wall (using Whitelions)...but meta changes and all that (+ new book) kinda ended that.

Anywho...after much reading of the Army book (or "cannon" as fandom's refer to these things) I actually kinda liked the idea of the SeaGuard...guardians of Ulthuan...+ naval stuff (who doesn't like ships???).

+ it helps that the seaguard models are very pretty (and not always useless in the game...)

Anywho

Seahelm BSB

Very, very nice model to put together and paint. I was a little worried about the banner, but conveniently a dab of glue on the edge of the helmet = 2 contact points. Having moved to Melbourne I had to restart my paint collection so this is painted entirely with the "new" paints. This does mean he is a billion times brighter than the rest of my collection, but meh - it looks pretty :) I still dont own any water effects stuff so I need to finish the gems (and probably paint in the eyes...) but I'm happy with the result so far for "table top" quality.

Seahelm Dragon

I was a little suspect about this conversion. I've always liked the Black Dragon and for this "theme" approach it works as it has a nautical feel to it. What I wasn't sure about was the use of a dragon for the seaguard (theme)...then I remembered the one off game that no one bought...Dreadfleet...

...yup that's some dragon's with a fleet = legit for fluff.

I do plan to re-do the basing to look like it is perched on a rock in the sea...but I'll leave that for another time!

Cancon 2015: broken broken Skycutters

Hey

Long time no post. Long weekend in Australia for comfortably racist/patriotic day = epic road trip up to Canberra for Cancon. 3 days of Warhammer goodness in a massive events centre with hundreds of fellow nerds in 30+ degree heat and no air con.

Tried to think up a witty pun but I couldn't...this is the closest I got

...con

Anywho:

120 players Swedish comp needing to score between 12-16 with 15pts per 0.1 of difference to the "softer" list.

My Epic 15.3 High Elves

Prince: Stardragon, Heavy Armour, shield, Dragonhelm, Talisman of Preservation, Warriorbane
Mage lvl2: Ring of Fury, Shrieking Sword, Sceptre of Stability
Noble BSB: Dragon Armour, Shield of 4+ parry, Sword of Anti Heroes
Noble: ASF/AP Eagle, Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Starlance, potion of foolhardiness
27 Seaguard: FC - shields
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
6 Reavers: spears and bows, champ
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Skycutter: Eagle Claw Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
Repeater Bolt Thrower
5 Sisters of Averlorn
Eagle: AP
Eagle: AP

So for the astute amongst you I have themed the list around the Seaguard...defending the shores of the (now sunken) Ulthuan. Now days I don't even know how to fluff justify. This is what happens when I attempt to get involved and caught up in the fluff...BAD THINGS.

For the first time in AGES I actually got in quite a few practice games in with the list before the event. During the practice games I played the list the opposite of how I designed it to play. This may sound crazy, but I wrote the list to win 12-8, but I needed to test it's ability to win 16-4+, which meant understanding the limitations of aggressive combat orientated play.

The Event

Now I'm not going to bore you with "and then I rolled a 6" style battle reports, but I'll give a run down of how I felt the event went for me and stuff.

First of all the tables. 60 tables = I can understand having no cloths over the wood (bouncy dice all the time!) but having this on tables...

Yup...that's printed cardboard for terrain...

For an event I was lead to believe was THE premier Aussie tournament was a little bit of a downer. Maybe Fields of Blood events have spoiled my expectations, but I 100% believe that this hobby is a visual one, so stuff like this is a little disappointing...with nothing to add about TLOS implications! But at the end of the day given the "competitive" nature of events I am grateful there was ample terrain on the tables to allow for tactical deployment etc.

But other than that niggle the event was super well run...if not dominated by Kiros one-up-man-ship What was interesting was that both players had to present to the TO table together at the end of the game to get scores entered. This made things efficient, but if I actually wanted to sports hit someone (and not simply because my opponent had the gall to buy, assemble, paint, submit, and bring a dwarf list to an event as I usually do) it would have been a little awkward...

My games

Game one: vs Hellebron Dark Elves Dawn Attack
Hellebron did not make combat. My speed gave me a very important edge as I was unaffected by the deployment. Stardragon killed 2 RBTs. Final Trans killed my BSB. Mage spent 5 turns as a frog. Won the shooting battle and with that 12-8

Game two: vs Warriors of Chaos Battleline
Usual sort of list. I won the shooting war, because Hellcannon kept rampaging. My opponent was a little new to the game so didn't really know how to handle double flee. Final Trans killed by mage. Stardragon and Eagle Noble tag-teamed a block of Tzeentch warriors, the BSB and then a Chimera. for a 16-4

Game 3: Ogres - meeting Engagement.
I had 1 chariot off the board, he had 2 units of 3 guts and his kitty. T1 I took off 1 unit of 6 leadbelchers. T2 the other unit died. Stardragon took out 5 Maneaters and 1 of the gut units whilst using big LoS blocking hill in middle to dodge the ironblaster 14-6

Game 4: OnG - Battleline
End of t2 the game looked like this:

I just avoided the blocks and killed everything else with shooting. Stardragon ate a Rock lobba and t6 killed 13 Orc Big Uns with his breath weapon for lolz, Eagle noble killed a bolt thrower and the doom diver. Foot of Gork killed 5 Seaguard and sniped by BSB with a failed LOS! OnG MVP was a Boar chariot on 1 wound that survived 2 turns of my shooting and magic, casually charged my seaguard and sniped my mage before an eagle charged into break and run it down. 12-8

Game 5: Woodies - Blood and Glory
Basically I got first turn and took out a unit of Gladeguard. Seaguard hid in combat vs a Treeman with a late game saving charge from Eagle noble and Stardragon to sneak the points. He cleaned out my easy points while I killed anything that got near me (scouts). Probably my favourite game of the event. 10-10

Game 6 Dark Elves - Battleline
This list had a dragon, manticore and only 2 units of Xbows...yet somehow his shooting was more effective than mine! Seaguard died to riderless dragon in front and manticore in rear. RBTs were useless. Skycutter charge finished off the dragon a turn too late. Stardragon and Eagle noble ate a unit of coldones, the BSB, a unit of 30 corsairs (Failed terror test with run down BOOM!), and cleaned out a unit of 30 Executioners. Somewhere in between the Eagle noble managed to also get a unit of xbows for a 16-4

Game 7 VC - Battle for the Pass
Zombie dragon? 2 Vargulfs??, Undead Orc themed? Won best painted for the 2nd year in a row = This game had it all going for it. His terrorgiest pops his nose out...DEAD to shooting. Sisters casually flee a vargulf charge...seaguard bunker fails a re-roll ldship 9 panic test and run 11 inches off the board t3? yeah...game went from "I have this for a cheeky 11-9/12-8 to "how do I not lose this big" fast. Stardragon and Eagle noble killed a unit of doggies and a unit of zombies in their break through to safely. Rest of army (2 RBTs, 12 reavers, 3 skycutters, 2 eagles) managed to kill 2 fell bats and do 3 wounds to a vargulf in their noble sacrifice to keep my dragon alive...yeah expected better boys! lose 5-15

Game 8 Woodies - Battleline
Beautiful Halfling woodie army. Got my best sports vote. He got first turn and killed my reavers. In response I kill 1 wildrider from each of his 2 units BOOM! Yeah. Trueflight FTW in this game. Eagle noble in a moment of super lazy completely unforced error kinda way casually took the sisters in the rear (BEHAVE), held with no wound taken, turned around, won combat and ran them down...yeah. Stardragon was 3 turns short of surviving the entire event when 2 skewed magic phases in a row = 4d6 searing doom total to take him out followed by 40 trueflight shots to kill the prince. I could have held him back, but I needed to press his army back to stop the trueflight wrecking me (more than it did). Skycutters did  their only triple charge into 6 wildriders and wiped them out with impact hits. Seaguard won a combat rear charging the other unit! Mage firey convocated 6 glade riders and killed them all! Losing General - lose 8-12

Overall result:

I ended up on 92 Battle points...8 short of my goal. Vs ETC opponents (game 5 and 7) I held my own = nice and encouraging. Only getting 13pts on the final day really hurt. Overall I ended up 31st out of 120 players. getting my goal of 100 battle points would have been good for 15th, so I wasn't that far out of the race given first place was dirty Kiros on 119.

The Shirts Off Crew I travelled up with all placed in top 50 with 2 top 10 placings and a 2nd best painted award too. Not bad for 6 hungover nerds in singlets!

Bringing the Hobby back

Long time no post!

What I've been doing:

In between settling in, starting a new job, etc I've been getting beaten again and again by the locals. My High Elves tend to crumble bottom turn 6 swinging a comfortable win into a big loss. oh wells.

Bringing the hobby back:

The most exciting thing recently is that now I have a job (yay!) and got paid for the first time in 3 months, I've been able to get my hobby back. In fact I EVEN HAVE A PROJECT...putting together a Seaguard themed list for Cancon.

I've bought all the kits needed, and over Xmas started painting it all up.

Le Eagles:

Very Exciting - the LOTR eagles all painted up!

For as long as I've had a High Elf army my eagles have been IoB griffons with the riders all chopped off and green stuffed up. This has worked nicely as it has allowed me to use the IoB griffon rider as a noble mounted on an Eagle...or if I actually use an Griffon = I have an option when the rider dies first.

HOWEVER...with the current Seaguard theme = I will have 3 (yes 3) Skycutters who are pulled by eagles = will look silly if my "eagles" are actually griffons + since Cancon is a Swedish comp event there is a high chance someone will actually use a griffon = I dont want to cause confusion (WYSIWYG and all that).

Le Eagle Noble:

Not the greatest pic, but here we have Gwaihir in all his failcast glory with one of the skycutter crew crudely blue tac'ed on top (if someone can suggest a more effect option that makes transport and the like easier I'm all ears).

Inspiration was the Wood Elf noble on an eagle model for those in the know, but obviously more seaguard-like.

So that's me for the moment.

On the painting tray at the moment (dont have a table anymore) is the 3 skycutters, seahelm bsb, seahelm trident guy for the seahelm riding a black dragon boom!

It's the little things

Hi All,

Thursday night is Warhammer night here in Brunswick and I rocked up with my High Elves and found myself in a pick up game with Empire that looked like THIS:

Karl Franz with the Ghul Maraz
BSB
13 Reiksguard knights with swiftness banner posse
10 Archers bunkering 2 lvl2 light mages
Luminark
Hurricanum
...and oh yeah...SIXTY HALBERDS WITH 6 ARCHERS IN A DETACHMENT

So no artillery, no 1+as brigade...no shooting of any note.

In response I unpacked my 2000pts of Elfy goodness

Lvl4 metal, book of hoeth
SeaHelm BSB: Reavorbow, shield of 4+ parry
2x10 Silverhelms: FC - shields
28 Whitelions: FC - Banner of World Dragon
5 Shadow Warriors
Frostie
3x1 RBT
Eagle

An interesting match up. The light mages rolled phas, speed of light, net, and timewarp. I rolled up searing doom, glittering robes, enchanted blades and final trans.

We deployed;

Hopefully our respective tactics are rather clear. Empire looking to own the middle...I'm looking to encircle.

Anywho the Empire stumble up carefully. I let through Timewarp on the Halberds.

I then have my turn and make my fatal mistake (pic is beginning of Empire t2 checking the mistake)

First what I did right:
- I reformed the whitelions into "Seahelm abuse" formation.
- Knights and Frostie a pushing the flanks
- Shadow Warriors push into the archer detachment to stop them getting annoying

What I did wrong:
- didn't factor in 16 inch halberd march (not a biggie)
- Eagle should have blocked the knight bus BECAUSE
- Frostie was lazily placed and scrapped into the LOS of Karl Franz
- silverhelms on my right a little too close/under appreciated luminark charge

Obviously the eagle/frostie thing is an either place frostie better, OR place it better AND block with eagle (ie frostie with more view of the centre of the board).

So magic phase...6 dice monkey Final Trans and blow up the Reiksknight and kill Karl Franz! Shooting phase kills a few more knights and we call it. I WIN!

However we play on pretending Karl Franz avoided the final trans...and this is where all my mistakes kick in..

1) luminark charges silverhelms...queue all game hold up to allow Karl and the posse to clean them out
2) hurricanum charges eagle (holds), silverhelms flank in but fail to kill it...cannot overrun as this would mean rear charging karl franz for certain death...instead hurricanum flees TOWARDS the halberd combat.
3) frostie flees karl charge and is removed from the game as it gets out of position and cannot get back to help before dying.
3) not really mistake, but a consequence of losing 3 levels the lvl2's gain magic dominance and the halberds spend the rest of the game with ws10, i10, -1 to hit...Whitelions died horribly and didnt risk combat reform as I had no chance to use them offensively :(

So there you are!

Always check your LOS archs, always check your next turn threats, and try not to turn your lvl4 into a lvl1 t1!

New post, new country...

hey hey hey,

not a big update, but big news.

FIRST; fixed the Frosties!

Trip to hardware store, cheap hacksaw, cheap garden hooks...combine the 2, add drilled base and drilled frostie =

Frostie just balances on top...lean it slightly forward and it sits in that position. Not the prettiest fix, but it works and is game functional (ie the frostie can be easily removed!)

SECOND: CRACKS CALL

So the uber monster list was great fun. I got pulled apart by more serious lists, but I did smash face a few times! Worst part was losing a frostie (twice) to a flank charge from gyro, breaking and getting run down (4 attacks sucks). Even worse part was losing Blood and Glory t1 to a similar sneaky gyro move allowing my annointed to get picked off from a line of monsters :( Best part - smashing Glen's Quadruple scream list when my frostie saved 8 from 11 scream wounds and then smashed up the bus and crumbled the evil undead.

What worked...um I was super mobile I guess and when I successfully rolled to hit, I smashed face
What didn't work: annointed is not choppy enough to beat face, but choppy enough to kill a unit champ = very vulnerable to challenges. No BSB sucked (lost last game vs Peter W's Vamps due to a failed ldship 8 test that left my general stranded in challenge with a vamplord minus the frostie who was there to beat up the black knights - he later rallied and cleaned them out and put the vamplord on 1 wound, but still!), and Dragon Mages are cool in fluff, but useless on paper and on the table. Seriously: don't even bother. There is NOTHING redeeming about them. For the cost I could have sneaked in 2+as BOWD BSB on horse, lvl2 with scroll and ring, and tweaked the core to have a massive bus of Silverhelms.

HOWEVER:

I did win the Jockey race!

Here is my Jockey "Dragon Tucker" (behave) winning:

I don't really know what my secret was...I took a lucky horseshoe (basically a free life if someone tries to gank you), a free re-roll item (great for all the crucial rolls on the fences), and an extra d6 movement OUO item (for the extra speed). I was the only one who sung "Sexual healing" at the Slaanesh wall for a shot at free health in return for giving up a turn of movement (instead of humping the wall as most people ended up getting...err "stuck" doing). This meant that once I shot out ahead (pro tip -don't stop to hurt people!) I could weather the attacks from those far enough behind to still be able to use the Nurgle wall benefit. 

Thank's Neil for a fantastic event with food, accommodation and Munch-kin.

40K stuff: Cities of Death campaign

As part of my tour-de-warhammer I played a round of Wrythhold's 40K cities of death campaign. I took Salamanders (obviously). Comp was 1000pts, no fliers or LOW/Imperial knights (unless the required tiles on the map were held), max 1 HQ, Elite, Fast, Heavy, min 1 troop.

I took:
Vulkan: command squad: 4 meltas, apocothary, droppod
Ironclad: H. flamer, Melta, assault launchers
2x5 Marines: Combi-melta, melta
2x5 Marines: Combi-melta, flamer
5 Scouts: Bolters, melta bombs, landspeeder storm - multimelta

So lots of objective capturing stuff (using 7th ed objective capture rules)

Editor's note: it was a mistake to take assault launchers on Ironclad over Combi Melta on the Scout sergeant. Always give scout sergeant melta bombs and combi melta for tank/building hunting fun :D

I was up against Glen's Nightlords Chaos Marines army. 7 objectives on the table. I won the roll for sides, but Glen seized initiative and promptly blew up the main centre building objective and my Ironclad (who I thought was hidden...found out the hard way Obliterators can move and shoot...). In return my command squad and Vulkan dropped down and along with some support shooting deleted the terminators. I made a huge mistake when doing this. I placed Vulkan to shoot his flamer, but I instead should have placed him to tank the 10 chaos tac marines with 2 plasma guns that I had aggressively placed to attack t2 (once terminators were toast). Instead his bolters magically became ap3 and gunned down the command squad along with Vulcan...I also learned what "torrent" means when his Jump pack commander burninated a few too many marines with his ap3 flamer! I got lucky as he failed the follow up charge, I shot out his raptor buddies, and murdersword face failed his charge AGAIN and got gunned down. In the end I was 1 hull point away from winning the game as my storm died t6 to some lucky snap shooting giving up the objective it was holding over the obliterators...and to make things worse Vulkan then died in the campaign! Oh well. Ryan who I was subbing in for is taking the narrative to heart and is changing the commander to a Master of the Forge (please note the very extending left field joke in that for all you 40k 6th ed BRB readers) and is looking to run a list heavy on the attack bikes and plasma cannons...

BIGGEST NEWS: I'm now in Oz

So yes, I now live in Melbourne. I managed to pack my High Elves (well most of them). I've signed up for Cancon in January (2400pts Swedish...must score between 10 and 16) and "Blood and Glory" in November (2000pts 5 game event with no comp, but TO subjective comp score). Should be fun and before Cancon and NZTC I have a wee bit of hobby to do as well, so once Ryan ships over my paints (hint hint), I'll be able to get started on that to give yous some hobby update posts as well!

Other than that there is Thursday night gaming at Shirts Off Warhammer (5 mins tram up the road boom!) for battle reports and stuff.

Crack's Call!!!! (and update on hobby life)

Yo!

LOOOOOONG time no post. Life has caught up with me. Big news is that as of 9 October I will be living in Melbourne, and the Pittsburgh Penguins 2014/2015 season will start with a win over the Ducks and a fight between Getzlaf and Downie (finger's crossed - gotta keep the animosity going).

So off to the land of obsessive comp, slabs, and sunshine to rejoin my brothers in nerdom Shirts Off Warhammer Inc.

Call to Arms has been and gone.

I took a Daemon list to see how it would go. Over all it went well coming 6th and putting me over the projected threshold for Masters qualification (that I wont be able to attend). 2 big wins (20-0, 19-0), 2 small losses to Dark Elf avoidance lists (9-11, 8-12) and 1 small loss to usual bell Skaven (9-11). It was interesting to enter an event with a list I had had maybe 2 games with beforehand. It's the little things like knowing what a beast of Nurgle can do vs what etc etc that really swing it. I could have Drawn/won the game vs Greg's list if I was a bit more familiar with the art of DOC castling. Vs Jeff's Dark Elves (who won the event) I had him on the ropes for a comfortable win, but - not knowing the limitations of the list - a few simple mistakes and it swings the other way. Loss vs Skaven was time related. We only got in 4 rounds, and I knew this early on so push waaaay harder and faster than I probably needed to to get a result...and it ended up costing me with a bottom turn 4 big points swing against me. (rolling 4 1's to wound/kill the BSB didn't help either!)

Salamanders

Are all but finished...well as finished as they can be given my very limited time! I can field the following list all painted:

Vulkan

Command squad: Apocothary, 4 combi meltas - droppod

Ironclad: Hflamer, melta - droppod

Dreadnaught: Hflamer, multimelta

5 Tac Marines: combimelta, flamer - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: combimelta, flamer - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: Combimelta, melta - Razorback: stormbolter, Tlinked lascannon

5 Tac Marines: Combimelta, melta -  droppod

5 scouts: Combimelta, meltabombs, Bolters - Landspeeder Storm: Multimelta

Landspeeder Typhoon

Landspeeder Typhoon

3 Centurions: 3xGravcannons, 3xmissile launchers

1850

I have grand designs to up the number of Droppods and stuff to be more "meta", but as a starter list I'm happy (and it is themed!).

I'll do an army parade post next week once I have time to think.

Cracks Call

Is next weekend! 2000pts in Masterton. A bit of fun and something different. I have taken the following list:

Annointed of Asuryan: Frost Phoenix, Armour of Caledor

Dragon Mage lvl2: Dragon Armour, Enchanted Shield, Golden Crown, Ring of Fury, Warriorbane

15 Archers: Musician, Standard Bearer

13 Archers: Musician, Standard Bearer

5 Reavers: Spears and bows

5 Reavers: Spears and bows

5 Shadow Warriors

Frost Phoenix

Frost Phoenix

2000pts on the dot.

Annointed and one of his pet Phoenix

Dragon Mage will Pwn you

The totally not racist KKK Shadow Warriors

So the world's most unsubtle list of all time. I wanted to submit something that was a bit out of left field and not what I would usually use.

Fluffy?

There has been a bit of twitter chatter about fluffy lists. For me a list needs to:

• be competitive
• offer a challenge to your opponent
• have a clear direction
• cover any weakness as a result of the direction chosen

So to me a "Fluffy list" still needs to do the above. A non functioning list of "soft" choices isn't fluffy - it's bad list writing. 

My Pro tip for 2000pt list design is that it is almost the perfect points value to play at in that you have JUST ENOUGH points to get the toys in, but NOT QUITE ENOUGH to take them all and round the list off = lists have glaring weakness and either do 1 thing really well, or lots of things not quite so well as the could/should to be effective. I personally take the 1st approach. I went "how many monsters can I fit in given the armies available to me" (because monsters are fun) and then tried to flesh it out.

My list has some severe weaknesses regarding the scenarios, and some hard counters. Fluffy to me is looking to provide a functioning list without resorting to the "usual"...at 2000pts I could have easily gone lvl4 death book of hoeth, Frostie, RBTS, BOWD BSB, silverhelm bus and token infantry bunker for watchtower. Filth - but the usual filth with few to no weaknesses. My list is tough and I've never seen someone monstermash to this extent because the list is usually rounded off with better counters, more magic, and other compromises that give the list an all comers approach. 

Anywho looking over the other lists that are been taken I see plenty of red flags (poison cauldron Witch Elf horde, Dwarf artillery snoozefest parks, super scream list, double warplightning cannon bell and stormbanner skaven to name a few) so it should be interesting. 

I'll remember to take lots of photos and stuff for a battle report