EPIC! Battle Report – Horus Heresy Skirmish

PeteB went and pickedup the bargain set of Space Marine 1st Edition about a month ago now. Following his ‘epic’ purchase we decided to have a battle. I thought I had more pictures but it seems I didn’t take as many as I first thought. Really we were just struggling to come to terms with the rules as I also had the 2nd edition rule set and Pete had the current Epic Armageddon ones. Having looked at the new rules one thing jumped out at me – the fact you have to roll off to see if your unit actually follows through on it’s orders [am I wrong in this?] I hate that dynamic so we went with 2nd edition and mixed in some of the stuff we liked from 1st.

I got to roll out some of my old Ultramarines and PeteB had his force of traitors ;). I really need the 2nd Edition Warlord Titan datasheet, so if anyone has it or a link to it I’d appreciate it. Instead we used the Adeptus Titanicus rules that make it incredibly difficult to kill with non-titan units. Anyway, this was our set up at the beginning of the game, we put down orders and PeteB won the initiative and moved first.

And we suddenly realised that putting everything on Charge orders was quite an issue as some of our faster units – bikes, speeders etc. were suddenly on the other side of the board. 2nd edition rules I think stated you couldn’t fire either, compared with 1st edition where it was at a -1 modifier. Therefore I tried to position to capitalise on the next turn, making sure I’d got everything in place to rain fire down on the traitorous scum.

I did manage to get into assault with his Dreadnoughts though [robot proxies] and killed a few.

My Dark Angel allies – Ravenwing and Land Raiders, together with my Ultramarine Predators and Dreadnoughts tried to outflank the Land Raiders on the hill.

My Tarantula battery set up on the hill but I’d bigged them up too much before the game and the next turn they were assaulted and wiped out. My Titan spent most of the game untouched, firing with impunity but not doing a whole lot of damage. 2nd edition doesn’t state you get +1 to hit on First fire orders, it’s only advantage being you ‘fire first’! Given most to hit rolls are on 5+ I’m not sure we liked this. When only a third of your hits do anything it can be a pretty unrewarding experience.

Sadly this is the last pic and so much happened after this. I tried to blow up buildings but again 2nd edition works by only barrage being able to damage them. My Thunderhawk came on, managed to do practically nothing and then put itself in a position in PeteB’s deployment zone where it was just riddled with fire and shot out of the sky. Pete also created a Land Raider sandwich attack – my four Land Raiders in the centre of the board [three by the time this event took place] were assaulted by 2 units of three Rhinos with a higher Close Assault Factor the Raiders easily dispatched the first Rhino but the second Rhino gets an additional d6 as a secondary attacker and he was able to ram the Raiders into oblivion.

Once again it was getting late and we called it a night. I’m not even sure who won, we didn’t even bother to work up which units had broken [and therefore we gain their VPs] and to be honest I didn’t care. This was a game full of fun, attack and counter attack, periods were nothing seemed to happen and then suddenly entire units were vaporised. The great thing was there was no emotional attachment to the forces, these aren’t my nids I’ve been using for years so it didn’t matter if I won or lost it was the ‘cinematic’ journey along the way.

We had a 40k battle the next time we met up, as that was in preparation for Blog Wars but I look forward to our next Epic confrontation. We still need to iron out some of the rules we want to play with, being happy with a system that works for us. I think if we have the correct edition datasheets for Warlords, Reavers and Warhounds that would help too. I was devastated with their rules in 2nd edition, they became so much easier to kill but if we play them like Adeptus Titanicus rules they’re overpowered so that has to change.

Following on from my battle I wanted to paint up a Reaver Titan for PeteB to use in battles. I wanted to do a red one with all brass fittings [very Khorne] I started with a Red Oxide primer and then blacked in all the metal areas.

Shoulder pads, missile launcher, and head are all pinned to be secure. I’ve tried to do a similar metal effect as on my drop pod [do you remember that? G.O.D. that’s so long ago now and still so unfinished!] Anyway, I’ll add some more highlights and then probably a ‘devlan mud’ wash and then work on the red bits. I can’t decide to go basic highlights on the red or try and do a mottled blotchy pattern of highlights…

‘nids part 108 – Scratchbuilt Tyranid Capillary Towers pt3.

And I’ve iced the cake! At this stage I’m running out of grout from the pot that served to cover my Bastion. It probably could have covered all of the towers but I wanted to get some extra just in case.
 

I went to my local £1 shop but they were’ all out of the tubs of grout, but Home & Bargain had a tube of grout for 89p. I ended up using that exclusively on the three remaining towers purely for the perceived ease of application – piping it in place. It’s actually a nightmare to squeeze out of the tube but it all got done.

I had a plastic knife to smooth things over, a spoon or sculpting tool would work equally well.

   

The second set of towers after they’ve been ‘piped’

   

Even with some water to smooth things over we’re still going to need to sand these babies down. The first 3 took about 10-15 minutes each and then these three probably another 15 minutes per tower. We’ll say it’s another 1.5 hours of work taking us to 8 hours 20 minutes construction time so far.

And here’s where the sanding begins. I have an old Black & Decker Quattro – a 4in1 drill, electric screwdriver, jigsaw and sander. I bought it with my first ever Christmas bonus but at some point it broke only ever running anti-clockwise – thus rendering the drill and the ability to tighten screws impossible. The sander works fine though so I dug it out to speed things up. It seems that 4 or 5 years of inactivity has cleared the problem though!

Anyway, these 3 were sanded until the batteries ran down, another 10 minutes each of smoothing, with help of some sanding pads too. it doesn’t have to be perfect but so long as there aren’t any sharp ridges this finish is sufficient.

The next three were sanded both with my Quattro and the Dremel-alike. I was covered head to toe in grouting powder, not sure it speeded things up  but I definitely ended up with a smoother finish, especially after a quick sand with my sanding pads.

Another rough estimate for time, about 45-50 minutes taking us to 9 hours 40, which looks like a long time but honestly hasn’t felt like it so far. I’ve got the chitin plates next. I’ve got myself 5 packets of Milliput but I think I’m going to go DAS air drying clay. I certainly want to try at least one tower in clay alone. I don’t think these have to be as durable as the Bastion, they are only terrain pieces after all so clay should be fine.

Additionally the mixing of the Milliput can take just as long as sculpting so I think this may speed up the process. The only other difference I can see is that the Milliput plates on the Bastion are smoother than the two DAS clay ones, only by a fraction. They’re all getting painted though so it shouldn’t matter.

Tyranid Capillary Towers | part 1. | part 2. |

‘nids part 107 – Scratchbuilt Tyranid Capillary Towers pt2.

Mojo is beginning to flow now, I’m actually pushing myself to do bits that I know are tedious. I know that once they’re complete it will be a clear route to progress that will actually be worth looking at for you, the avid viewer.

 This update is just padding – literally. I needed to pad out the insides of the Chitin plates. I suppose I could have just used clay but that would have made the towers heavier, would have taken longer to dry and cost a bit more. I used strips of damp tissue paper and a judicious coating of PVA. This was layered and squished until I’d filled out the cavity behind the pop bottle plastic and the foam spine.

   

The PVA still took a few days to dry properly. Alternatively you could use tin foil and hot melt-glue but having experienced the hot melt glue melting the pop bottle plastic last time I wasn’t about to see my chitin plates melt.

   

An alternative solution would be some other type of all purpose adhesive but I’m comfortable with tissue paper and PVA, it’s cheap and does the job

  

The next step will be to add some form of spikes down the inside of the spine. In the Bastion I used Spinefists to match up [a bit] with the old Forgeworld Capillary Towers but this time I wanted to use freely available bits [and I was also short of Spinefists]. I’d been thinking of what plastic spikes I could use, cocktail sticks immediately sprang to mind and then the wife was re-hanging some curtains and she had a bag of curtain hooks – 30 for about 60p – perfect.

Each hook was cut down to a spike [save the bits you never know what they may be useful for].

I masking taped the spine edge and inserted the first spine 30mm up from the base and every other spine 20mm thereafter [or near enough]. There’s going to be a crater on the base so you need that extra 10mm on the first spine. Each was then PVA’d, it doesn’t have to be super secure as further sculpting materials will be added so make them stronger.

   

And there’s 3 of them ready to start the icing – next up will be tile adhesive and grout.

Once again this whole process is based on the process of construction for the Bastion. There’s nothing new here technique-wise but it is useful to reacquaint myself with the skills and process. I’ve got another rough estimate of how much time this all took. Unfortunately the numbers aren’t to hand but I’ll update them later.

We’re on 5 hours so far, the PVA padding took a further hour and a half and the talon spikes were just another 20 minutes. So we’re around 6 hours 50, give or take.

Tyranid Capillary Towers | part 1. |

Blog Wars 6 1850pt battle report – nids vs Dark Eldar/Eldar allies – game 3

With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one of our mast hated foe, Dark Eldar or Eldar. Daniel Russel brought both with a scary mix of Reaver jetbikes, ]OK not much poison but you know I hate cluster caltrops] Eldar Shadow Spinner and 4 flyers – a Crimson Hunter, a Void Raven and 2 Razorwings. My son took a lot of the pictures so bare with some of the more eclectic shots he takes, not necessarily of the action but they’re usually quite cool pictures though.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Enfeeble Enfeeble Smite Endurance Life Leech Warp Speed Life Leech Smite Doom of Malan’tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• Crusade
• Dawn of War
• I think I lost deployment and went second.
• Warlord Trait – Tenactiy – FnP with 3″ of an objective

The tournament was running late at this stage so the game time was reduced by 15 minutes, so no pressure then. Daniel set up with his Reavers next to his objective and his Shadow Weavers occupying three storeys of the nearby ruins.

I swooped the Flyrant forwards but still within cover from the ruins.

My Tervigon remained in the ruins, he’s actually on the ground floor so he could not be barraged by the Shadow Weavers who’d put 2 wounds on the Mawloc because of this. I’m trying to think now should he be able to claim being on the ground floor if he can’t physically fit. Obviously MCs can just barge through any ruins and leave it standing but something makes me second guess this now and I can’t find the rules to say whether I can/can’t. Anyway, he’s got the objective and spawns 13, which head toward my other objective. 

The Flyrant swooping through the ruins.

Hive Guard and Biovores hunker down next to the Tervigon in the ruins out of Barrage from the Shadow Weavers..

On comes the Crimson Hunter with the Reavers moving forwards in the background. 

I think this is the Void Raven and everything put the hurt on the Flyrant in the ruins – so I’d played him conservatively game 1 and this is what happens when I play him aggressive and he’s giving me the +1 to reserves!

He takes a hit, then falls out of the sky, he’s taken either 1 or 2 wounds at this point and then he’s swept by these Reavers who cheekily revel in the gore-soaked battlements of my own Bastion.

As they pass the Flyrant they slash him with their blades and caltrops killing him outright – First Blood and Slay the Warlord.

My 13 gaunts are heading for my 2nd objective [a Skyfire Nexus]

But their advance is obliterated by a Shadow Weaver barrage!

I move the Biovores towards the Bastion.

The Reavers continue to posture atop my own Fortification

One of the Devgaunt pods arrive in Daniels backfield to face the three Wracks holding his objective. 

The Wracks did not survive the Devourer fire, even going to ground.

My other Flyrant Deep Strike Swooped behind the Void Raven… 

and shredded it with Devourer fire. 

The Doom arrived in the background and was able to take some life from the Haemonculous and the Shadow Weaver gunners.

The Doom now had the objective. Apparently Duke Silacus tried to engage him in combat at some point but failed abysmally which I think eventually meant he was killed by the Doom’s Spirit Leech.

I though the Flyrant was safe but didn’t realise the Crimson Hunter had Vector Dancer which meant it was suddenly facing down the king of the skies.

Unsurprisingly the Flyrant did not survive the encounter.

More Reavers arrived but positioned to shoot the Doom without having their life leeched from their bodies. He suffered a few wounds, he may even have been reduced down to 1 under the intense shooting but he managed to survive another turn.

With my Hive Commander Tyrant gone my vanilla Tervigon could no longer outflank which ended up handy as it meant this turn it could move to secure my objective alongside the 13 gaunts my CC Tervigon had spawned out on this turn

Biovores head for the Bastion which is now free of Reavers.

The Reavers had been shot by everything nearby and fled. Daniel pointed out an FAQ anomaly that they can still turbo-boost in their turn and as such are never likely to move off the table. I didn’t quite follow but time was running out so I went with it and I’ll return the debate at the end of the report. Whatever shooting I had done at this stage was being marred by my inability to process my roll-to-hit and then roll-to-wound routines. My earlier clumsiness was being replaced by senior moments of having in my head the four ‘to-hit’ rolls from my Stinger Salvo where in fact the ‘to wound’ rolls from some blast weapon. Luckily Daniel kept me on track. You’ll also notice a lack of Devgaunts controlling the objective there, not sure what got them, but I think 2 or 3 survived but bolted and where heading for my table edge.

My Mawloc popped up to little or no effect.

The 2 Razorwings arrived.

And some more Reavers.

Razorwings moved to engage my vanilla Tervigon.

Reavers screamed across the backfield.

The Doom was now on 9 wounds having sucked the life from some more Dark Eldar and presumably the Haemonculous and the Duke but he was now in the sights of the Crimson Hunter.

And with time running out I had about 3 minutes to do my turn, not enough to do everything I needed but in the far right another trio of Wracks had turned up but my last Devgaunt Brood also arrived and would have mown them down in the same fashion as their retreating siblings and captured the objective so we called that one mine. The Doom still had the objective above and linebreaker, the other objective to the right of those ruins could have been unclaimed unless a bike squad had it.. My CC Tervigon was still holding the objective next to the ruins having never moved all game. The only problem was a unit of Reavers who had contested the Skyfire Nexus next to the Bastion and trees. With time called I quickly threw four dice for the Tervigon’s assault on them but it was just 1s and 2s so it wouldn’t have killed the 2 or 3 remaining bikers. I still had some Termagants to Assault and there were probably shooting that could have taken them beforehand but we called it contested and I had 

Therefore I had 3 objectives for 15VPs, plus the 2 secondary VPs. Daniel may have been without any objectives, unless he had the one on the other side of the ruins from the Doom but I think he had all three secondary VPs so it could have ended up 17-3 or 17-8 I’m not sure, either way a win for me. We had quite a nice analysis afterwards about what could have been. Daniel had a lot still on the board I couldn’t deal with – Razorwings and Reavers zipping about with impunity. Another turn – those 15 lost minutes and it could have been very different with most all of the objectives being contested/secured by Daniel but the last turn went by so fast I couldn’t believe I was left with just 3 minutes when I was sure when I looked and saw Daniel start his turn with 17 minutes to go that 14 minutes hadn’t gone by. It’s funny how time plays tricks on you.

OK, so two rules issues that came up during play that I didn’t have time to deal with given the shortened game:

Shooting on fall back: Daniel was of the belief that you shoot at full BS during fall back moves. This was my gaunts falling back and I was convinced they shoot as snap fires but he insisted. It is in fact only as snap shot fire. [pg 30 BRB]

Turbo boost on fall back: Like I said above I’m not sure what this rule was but Daniel mentioned it to Alex, the event organiser who seemed to be in agreement. I think the gist of it is that units on fall back can choose to run instead of shooting [though why you would do this…] but Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 24″ and Eldar/Dark Eldar Jet Bikes get to turbo boost 36″. Now he mentioned it hadn’t been FAQ’d that somehow even if it was falling back you could then Turbo Boost in the opposite direction to remain on the board. If this is the case and anyone knows what this issue is please explain as I can’t find the usual hotly contest RAW Vs RAI debate on the usual forums. 

My look at the rules suggests that [in bold] on page 30 ‘the only moves they can make in subsequent phases are Fall Back moves until they regroup’ and subsequently a Fall Back move is described as each model in the unit moves directly towards their own table edge by the shortest possible route. So I would understand it to be that the movement in the shooting phase [should you be foolish enough to make one] is still a ‘fall back’ move, because that’s the only type of move you can make when you’re falling back, and therefore it should be in the direction of your own table edge and with a 36″ turbo boost that’s likely to be off the table. I don’t see how that allows you to boost in the opposite direction but if anyone knows the issue please let me know.

Regardless of this and the ramifications on what would/could have been it makes no difference to me, I’m putting it down to an aberration of the warp 🙂 . Daniel was an absolute gent and together with Phil and Adam capped a great day. 3 competitive but more importantly fun games. I had some challenges and even the horror of facing Dark Eldar, usually my nemesis was replaced with an extremely civilized and equal match up. So thanks to all I played against, see you next Blog Wars

Incidentally, this didn’t come up in the game but I was reading about Barrages and how they affect levels on page 100. The assumption I always had was that if you targeted the 1st story of a ruin and a barrage deviates off the ruin and there are models on the ground but none on level 1 then the ground floor figures are unharmed – NOT SO. It says:

“If a blast of large blast weapon scatters, it can still only hit models on the level targeted, though this may be the corresponding level of a nearby ruin. If there is no corresponding level, it instead hits the highest level under the template and can only wound models on that level. If the blast marker scatter to non-ruin, or open terrain, resolve as normal.”

So, resolve as normal. No dodging the barrages, when it’s raining death from above, just because it missed the first floor window originally targeted!

Daniel’s army list

Courtesy of 40k War Zone: Tyranid Rumour Watch: Tyranid Pictures Emerge!!!

40k War Zone: Tyranid Rumour Watch: Tyranid Pictures Emerge!!!: Check out these beauties!!!

Not so sure the scaling down of their head crest works but I like the posability and those funny little two fingered front arms – very alien, even if they’re less practical for supporting the ‘gun beast’ than the metal/finecast originals.

Of course the big deal is the alternate weapon choice which looks suitably weird, again not convinced of those ‘butt stocks’ on the back of the Impaler Cannons, why?

Blog Wars 6 1850pt battle report – nids vs nids – game 2

With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one and probably no surprise to face a second. Phil Waghorn from Armoured Sentinel brought a slightly more original list than almost everyone else. Foot slogging Hive Tyrants and Dakka-fexes, only one Tervigon and a Mawloc and a couple of Hive Guard.

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Endurance Endurance Endurance Endurance Life Leech Life Leech Warp Speed Iron Arm Doom of Malan’tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• The Emperor’s Relic – 3 VPs one in each deployment zone, the other in the board centre, your own worth 5pts and the other two worth 10pts each [you didn’t have to pick up the middle one]
• Vanguard Strike
• I think I won deployment but went second, lost the initiative.
• Warlord Trait – No night fighting

My objective is with the Biovores in the wood, the ‘Relic’ objective is in the centre of the board just the other side of the Bastion.

I set up this time with both Flyrants on the board with plenty of decent LoS blocking terrain.

Hive Tyrant with Stranglethorn Cannon! Phil would come to regret taking that choice a number of times.

Phil had only the one Tervigon but two Dakkafexes and Hive Tyrants with Armored shell – 2+ saves!

Phil’s Tervigon was a ‘proto-Tervigon’ kitbash from a Carnifex like my own vanilla Tervigon. He’d gone down the green stuff egg sac route compared to my own foil balls and PVA’d tissue paper.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what’s gone on here. This must be Phil’s turn 2 where the Mawloc arrived and killed a bunch of my spawned gaunts who had captured the Relic objective. The Tervigon behind had used Gate of Infinity in it’s first turn but had deviated 11″ back the way it had come from, much to our amusement. He still got a good 12″ away from starting position and I think we decided it could still spawn gaunts on arrival. A contentious point maybe but we’re both nid players so why not? Anyway I think that’s why my Flyrant is in that position having swooped over the Bastion and shot the Termagants that were later replaced by the burrowing Mawloc

My turn 2 looks like everything came on. The Dakkafex has taken a wound, either thanks to the Mawloc of the Devgaunts. The Doom also gets into range of four units. I do recall at some point Phil’s Hive Guard rolled to hit and got two 1’s but with Old Adversary they got to re-roll 1’s and promptly got two 1’s!

My Warlord Flyrant manages to vector strike one of the Hive Guard and shoots up the Devgaunts, my other Flyrant vector strikes the Dakkafex and even with Endurance it’s down to just one wound, probably thanks to the Doom too. Meanwhile I bundle as many gaunts as I can onto the Mawloc

They swam all over the beast, not sure if they do any damage but it might have done.

My own Mawlocgets into combat with the other Dakkafex who is also reduced to 1 wound.

As my Warlord Flyrant is no longer in the picture I can only assume he succumbed to Devourer fire from the Devgaunts and Dakkatyrant. The Hive Guard comes down from his cover to escape the Doom who is reduced to 2 wounds.

My gaunts and the Mawloc are locked in combat, although he doesn’t appear in any further pictures. I think it may have died, just too many gaunts swarming over it and Phil’s rolling was comically bad.

My Flyrant jumped into combat with the Dakka-tyrant but not before I stripped a wound off it and another wound from the Devgaunts. In retaliation the Dakkatyrant managed a wound on me in overwatch. I had 3 wounds left to Phil’s 2. They flailed at each other an both ended up on 1 wound, lets face it these two behemoth’s were just going to trash each other to death.

Deathleaper had been ineffectively popping up like Fenella the Kettle Witch throughout the game and it now had the chance to win it. Phil had managed to clear a brood of just four gaunts from my wall of flesh protecting the Relic objective. Deathleaper appeared in the ruins beside it and had to run to contest, anything but a 1… yep it was not meant to be.

As expected the Tyrants killed each other in a massive display of monstrous stag like posturing. I think the Hive Guard may well have been killed too, probably the Doom what with the Hive Tyrant no longer able to provide Leadership. Thus I eventually secured the objective which gave me all 3 – 25 VPs and I think I had all 3 secondary objectives. Sadly, Phil only had Slay the Warlord and I think linebreaker for 2VPs

In fairness Phil came with a pretty non-standard tournament list, a huge amount of dakka [and when I’d seen the list beforehand online I had sweated on what to do if we were matched up] but not as mobile as my force. He was also beset by some atrocious dice rolls, usually at he most crucial points in the game. I was laughing hysterically at some points, I hope that didn’t come across as poor sportsmanlike but they were so typically bad at just the wrong moment you couldn’t help but laugh. Like I said this was a pure joy to play, I hope it was on the other side of the fence for Phil. The scoreline doesn’t do the game justice, it seemed like a completely one sided affair, it wasn’t it was just a last minute objective steal and secure on my part. I’m not sure if Phil could have recovered if there’d been another turn, what with the Doom still prowling his back field, but he did as well as he could with the dice rolls provided.

Phil’s army list

Blog Wars 6 1850pt battle report – nids vs nids – game 1

With a high percentage of nid players, 6 out of 34, it was no surprise for me to face at least one and a similar list to my own [pic at the end of the post]. Adam Robinson managed to beat me at my own game with Mycetic Spores and 18 Devgaunts per pod and with Ymgarls instead of my fortification, Biovores, Hive Guard and Mawloc. He also lulled me into a false sense of security by admitting this was only his 11th game with nids – I smiled inside, pride before a fall?

Psychic Powers Winged Tyrant HQ Winged Tyrant Tervigon CC TR Tervigon Plain Tr Endurance Enfeeble Life Leech Endurance Enfeeble Warp Speed Warp Speed Haemorrhage Doom of Malan’tai  Psychic Shriek

The low down:

• Purge the Alien
• Hammer and Anvil
• I think I lost  deployment but was promoted to go first.
• Warlord Trait – Master of Ambush [acute senses 😦 ]

This is the end of my first turn, I’d swooped the flyrant off to right in the hope of flanking in later turns. I realised that with only one piece of area terrain in my table half that’s where the ymgarls were going to turn up so I positioned my Tervigons to cover the terrain. With hindsight it wasn’t enough, I should have spawned and covered the terrain but I was deluding myself that I was 14kp to Adam’s 12kp, which was irrelevant as the VP’s were based on actual points of units destroyed so I could have spawned to prevent the Ymgarls turning up and gaining me their VPs

Having made my conservative move Adam opted to be aggressive.

Moving everything forward getting his flyrants into range of my front Tervigon and getting 5 wounds on the beast. My response was to swoop my Flyrant off round the flank, taking cover from the Bastion in the centre. Everything else came on from reserve except my second Flyrant.

  

In total I managed to put 2 wounds on the Iron Armed Tervigon and 1 wound on the other one [Axehead]. Overall I think my shooting was pretty ineffective I think I was starting to feel like I may have made a tactical error at this point.

Adam was able to fit almost all the Ymgarls in the terrain, I think losing only 2 miniatures.

Adam’s Doom appeared smack bang in the roofless Imperial Church.

18 Devgaunts began to disembark from the Mycetic Spore

And were joined by their two Flyant overlords, yeah at this point I knew Id messed up. If I’d taken the advantage in turn 1 and attacked, with both my flyrants on the board I might have killed one or perhaps two of Adam’s Flyrants while they were still on the ground. He may well have set up differently but I really should have siezed the opportunity. However that flyrant is my Hive Commander specialist so I do tend to be a little cautious with him to protect my deep strike bonus to guarantee it’s success.

Shooting phase and the Doom sucks life

And my Hive Guard roll on their leadership…

Yeah, Ben, Liam, Otty, PeteB I know what that feels like!

The Doom engorged on 10 wounds, first blood to Adam.

Devgaunts set up to target my Flyrant – 54 shots, enough for one grounding test at least.

Ultimately the Flyrant was killed, not sure how many of the foes arrayed against him took part in his demise but he was toast and another bundle of VPs and Slay the Warlord to Adam.

My Vanilla Tervigon fell to the Ymgarls but my CC Tervigon smashed a good few for the loss of 1 wound.

My Mawloc took four wounds thanks to poisoned attacks from the Termagants, while my Doom was assaulted by Axehead, more fool him.

Axehead paid the price for his temerity in my turn, losing his remaining wounds.

And being sucked dry to strengthen my Doom. My second Flyrant landed to the right of these ruins but I’m not sure he did enough to bring down any opposing FMCs.

My Tervigon spawned to hold up the Ymgarls , he took another wound but killed the two Ymgarls he was in combat with, you’ll notice a new spore pod has just landed next to him though, another 18 Devgaunts in my back yard!

My Devgaunts had passed their instinctive behaviour test, retreated into Adam’s DZ and let fly on the opposing gaunts. I managed to wipe out the unit but then Adam spawned the magic 15 to replace them!

Adam’s Devgaunts set up to take down the Tervigon.

All his other gaunts positioned to torrent the Doom out of his 6″ bubble of death.

Both Adam’s Flyrants jumped into combat with my Bastion and blew it to pieces, killing the Biovores inside and doing more damage to themselves and the Devgaunts than I’d done so far.

My Flyrant vector struck one Flyrant killing him and them shot the other one.

Unfortunately this put him with range of the Doom as it emerged from the Church… 

 

yes, again!

The Tervigon was thankfully out of range of the Doom, but not the massed Devourers which managed to wound 3 times.

And these were my saving throws!

Leaving my entire DZ empty and overrun by an alien Hive Fleet

As time was called Adam had killed 1660 points worth of models to my 1021, which if I’m honest was more than I thought. I think I still had the Doom and most of the Spore Pods in place but other than that I was overwhelmed. I totally believe I threw this away in turn one, with such a similar force I surrendered the advantage of going first by not attacking. I also failed to prevent the Ymgarls arriving by saturating the only area terrain with models so they couldn’t arrive, that would have been 276pts dead instantly without shots fired or saves being made! Still, onto the next game…

Adam’s army list

Terrain is everything – ‘Tis the season to pick up your trees

A couple of years ago I picked up a bag of model trees from Dobbies, our local garden centre [and craft shop]. They only have them in the run up to Christmas as they’re for making your own Christmas scene with miniature revelers and holiday nik-naks.

Now I haven’t had chance to go this year but I’m betting they’re back in stock and just thought I’d remind folk about them. The set I got was 21 pieces from a company called Lemax for £13 which I think is good value. Clearly there’s at least two that are just a bit too big, they’re the same size as my 40k outpost that got bigger! but great line of sight blockers for a Trygon!

Of course they weren’t going to fit with my table so I decided to paint them – undercoating them all in Red Oxide primer and then repainting them in shades of yellow.

And here’s the finished result:

Blog Wars 6 – result

Saturday was great at Blog Wars 6, Alex put on a great event, probably one of the friendliest and relaxed tournament atmosphere I’ve been to. That didn’t stop me getting my usual nerves or clumsiness but it did mean a lot of fun was had. Ultimately I came 4th out of 32 which wasn’t bad considering I lost my first game quite foolishly. I also won best painted army, as you can see from the poor scan of my framed (!) winning certificate, I also came runner up in the best painted character.

With my winnings I treated my Dark Angels to one of these as it was only 30p more:

Big question is how do I paint it:

1. Dark Angels Green
2. Ferron Proxima red
3. Matt Black Honored Imperium Verdigris Copper
4. Combination of 2 for the walls and 3 for the metal reinforcements

Anyway, I’ll post some [less than comprehensive] battle reports when I get chance but first game was against Tyranids, which was a similar list to my own but in the hands of Adam who had only 10 games under his belt. I threw that one away somehow – too many conservative approaches to current games when I should have gone uber aggresive, he did and won.

Second game was against, erm, ‘nids and Phil from Armoured Sentinel. This was the most fun I’ve had gaming in a long time. There were some absolutely hilarious moments and Phil was a real sport even when things started going comically wrong for him. It may not have been as much fun for him on the receiving end, the 25:1 score line implies he was practically tabled but there was a lot of give and take, I just ended up in objective scoring positions.

Last game was against ‘nid… killers – Dark Eldar with Eldar allies. Daniel’s army was heavy on the Reavers and light on poisoned weapons but again I made a tactical error in the first turn and spent a lot of time trying to catch up. Somehow I was able to be in objective scoring positions as the time ran out, we were 15 minutes shorter to try and get finished on time. I didn’t get my full turn but if we’d have had the extra 15 minutes I may well have lost in turn 5, swings and roundabouts.

I’ll get the reports done asap, thanks to everyone I played. Incidentally PeteB managed to fill in for a ‘no show’ and came 26th. He was hoping for the wooden spoon at one stage but managed win one, fortunately/unfortunately depending on how much he wanted the wooden spoon and £5 booby voucher!

Blog Wars 6 prep

I should be hip deep in gaming right about now, hopefully my back will be able to take another day leaning over the table. Anyway it’s Blog Wars 6 today, I’ll be there with my son and PeteB and his son. PeteB didn’t think he’d manage a complete list in time so wasn’t able to enter but he’s there to soak up the ambience and have some quality time with his son. I on the other hand am forcing mine to engage with something other than digital content, although not so successfully as he’ll no doubt be taking a Nintendo DS and probably his iPad. Still the two boys get on well and they’re taking some board games too, so there’s hope.

Anyway, I nipped round to PeteB’s the other night for a practice game, I’ve another Space Marine report to write up and I wasn’t fussed about ‘prepping’ per se but we haven’t played a big 1850pt battle and he’d just painted his boards red to go with my terrain so why not? Anyway, we tried to play the game to the 2.5 hour time limit and eventually I realised taking pics wasn’t going to help with that so this is no battle report because I stop after the top of turn 2 [coincidentally when the ship hits the fan 😉 ], which is a shame as the game was a doozy. I’ll do a bit of a lead in though but it makes me realise the upcoming reports may be thin and lacking in pics. The last thing I need is not to finish a game because I was taking pics.

Anyway we played one of the scenarios – Emperor’s Relic/Vanguard Strike – three objectives, one each at 5VPs and a 10VP objective in the centre of the board – like the Relic but you don’t have to pick it up. After the last game against PeteB’s eldar I was a bit worried and then to see two Wraith Lords, a Wraith Knight, Wrath Guard and an Avatar, this was scary stuff.

Thankfully I had a lot of terrain to hide behind and pretty much all the psychic powers I needed to get the job done.

PeteB had first turn but I’d made it difficult for him to get any shooting in so he advanced.

I spawned out on the CC Tervigon, it’s gaunts getting round the Bastion and running into the outpost in front.  I also spawned a dozen or so with the plain Tervigon to secure my objective.

My gaunts nice and secure in their outpost.

PeteB headed further into the centre and secured the Tau objective marker.

The Wraith Knight jumped over onto my flank – so jump troops take a dangerous terrain test if they land in difficult terrain but Monstrous Creatures are immune to dangerous terrain tests – oh well, lets just go wherever the hell we want then!

And so with one shot with his Distortion weapon insta-killed my plain [still spawning] Tervigon. I failed the FnP [which I later found out you don’t get with insta-kill] and failed my 5+ cover save and he was ripped apart 6 wounds and all! I thought this was going to go so bad from there.

What followed was quiet a battle though. I stopped taking pics and then all my reserves arrived. The Doom was taken down to 2 wounds through the Quad Guns interceptor but sucked the life from four units and PeteB’s Leadership rolls were appalling, although his invul saves weren’t too bad to mitigate the problem. My Spore pod bomb worked super effective and I was able to take out quite a lot, probably doing more damage than PeteB had done in his turn.

In retaliation the Doom was targeted and his one save failed leading him to be insta-killed on 10 wounds! Eventually the Avatar was killed but my Devgaunts behind the Eldar Defence line were slaughtered. The Wraithknight was also destroyed, with I think 3 turns of assault from one of my Flyrants. Eventually the game hinged on a Wraithlord with 1 wound contesting the central objective. Warp Spiders contesting my objective [with no way to shift them in the time remaining] and my Warlord Flyrant just alongside the Matt Black Honored Imperium statute. I swooped him across the board to kill the Guardians behind the Defence Line, tried to kill them but they went to ground and only two died, saving their objective. I tried to kill the Wraithlord with my two remaining Hive Guard and they failed. The game was lost, PeteB had won

As soon as the Flyrant had fired I’d realised my fatal mistake, I’d chosen the wrong target – a 24″ swoop to engage fortified Guardians or a 12″ jump to engage the Wraithlord. Realising the error we played out what would have happened, the Flyrant would have shot and it wounded just once [one 6 out 11 dice? I’d already had that off 14 and 15, my rolling was well below the odds in some circumstances] but he failed the save and would have died, even so I could have got into assault and would have most likely died, leaving my dev and spawned gaunts to capture the objective.

I have to say, even though I lost, I was amazed how close I came and if only I’d made the right call [thanks pressure] I could have stolen it. Ultimately it did put some faith back into my list. I was terrified at what the Eldar could do from our last game [I mean Dark Eldar fear] and I saw some new tricks that didn’t make me any happier but I still think I’ve got a list than can perform even when something goes drastically wrong. Ultimately I need to be playing quick and decisive and having fun so lets hope that’s what’s happening right now. With mainly Space Wolves, Eldar and Nids I can look forward to the sort of things PeteB has plus Wave Serpents, or Long Fangs and their Priests opening up cracks in the earth 😦 or face my own medicine against the Doom – which is always am interesting challenge on who knows how to play the codex better. Or, it could be none of the above, I’ll let you know.