Considerably geekier than thou

Is it wrong that I gained a decent amount of glee in the look on the GW manager's face when I asnwered his standard series of greeting questions?
"So what are you working on?"

"Deathwing"
"Ravenwing"
"Sons of Malice"
"Midwar British"
"Late war Fallschirmjager"

*rabbit in headlights*

As an aside, and probably of more, if repeated, relevence... In GW Gloucester they had a display of their new fangled 'Fine cast' examples, glued together.
He said that he hadn't seen any miscasts in his purchases, I should have asked how many returns he'd had.
Anyway, these examples were covered in mould lines. Granted, many of them were surface joins, but some of them were those annoying shifted mould type, where you have to work hard to join the sides together without buggering the detail.

These are supposed to be brand new moulds! They're already wearing out. Doesn't bode well in my mind for the near future.

Hodge Podge (not as healthy as porridge)...

As you may have noticed my posting, whilst always haphazard, has taken a further dive in frequency. No excuses, stuff happens... Yu'know?

Anyway, todays thing is spurred on by Warpstone's question: What should be in a Sons of Malice army?

Rather than an extended comment on Wot I Did, I thought I'd do a bit here, show the space wolves version I sent to Crusade, and so on. My quick answer is whatever the hell you want! I'm turning the Sons of Malice into the Ultimate Marine Army: any configuration, any unit, any codex.

While this may rub some people on t'internet at the moment, I'm of the opinion (and agreed with by everyone I've talked to or played at The Club) that as long as it's WYSIWYG, with a bit of modelling imagination on my part, I can justify almost any army configuration with minimum application of the Fluff Crowbar. For example; my Kathal's Hunt that I took to Cut'n'Thrust's Crusade tournament at the end of January:

It's a Space Wolves codex army, led by Logan Grimnar's soul twin Kathal, the current Chapter Master of the Sons of Malice. Their recruiting grounds were a barbaric backwater planet where life is hard, and the men are a little... Canabalistic.

I say 'were' because some self important numpty decided people shouldn't eat each other, exiled the Sons of Malice and genocided the planet. As hopefully you can see, the army is adopting the buddy system, each unit having a CML terminator armoured buddy. Tactically sound for any chapter!

The guys with the trophy racks are Nori and Dori, the Doomed (it's in The Labyrinth - look it up) and are honoured guys who made it through the trial - hard enough to take anything on their Lonesome.

Also in the book, you'll find giant gribblies that are mutated (space radiation, warp, whatever) failures in the Trial, and with a little electroprod application, I'm sure you could get them to carry other Doomed into battle. With this in mind Balin and Dwalin are mounted on things that aren't Thunderwolves, but beasts that are of similar size and suitably nasty. In my opinion, thats about as ridiculous as Space Marines riding giant wolves. I mean - come on!

I've also painted 5 objectives that you probably can't see too well. Sons of Malice go around Hunting (see what I did there?) slaves for a later grizzly feast. So we've got a Kroot, Ultramarine (first and last time I'll ever paint one), Firewarrior, Ork, and random chaossy dude I had nocking around, all in chains awaiting their fate.

Unfortunatly I haven't got pictures of the Blood Angles version, but as you may have noticed, most of the marines are of the assault variety and have magnetised backpacks. Yes, thats alot of magnets! So all the marines go back to the thunderhawk (no, I'm not going to buy one) and change into their jump packs. The terminators can dump their various chainfists and cyclones, and pick up a thunderhammer and stormshield (again, magnets). Then all we need is some veterans/honourguard, so I've used raptors to represent the best of the best flying dudes.

For the Chaos version (in planning), I can use all the marines (as they're all armed with boltgun, bolt pistol and chainsword, right?), terminators and raptors. For the HQ I can go terminator lord, jump pack sorcerer (they're just the same as Librarians and Rune priests in the end), or with Princes... Now on one hand this is an idea I'm particularly proud of.

In my opinion, Sons of Malice are all about Black Vs White, Good Vs Bad, and they're sitting right in the middle, no grey, just survival. So their Princes or 'avatars' of this can be seen (by me anyway) as:

Now, the only downside as miniatures is that they're not GW! Damn you GW! But I think they're awesome mini's, and will be able to use them in friendly games at least. Oh, and I was weak.

Aaaanyway, what I'm getting at here is that I'm building a Space Marine army that with the addition of unique units (thunderwolves, veterans JPs, Deamon princes) and the liberal application of magnets, can be legally and reasonably fluffily played with.

A marine, after all, is a marine. A rhino is a rhino, and a terminator is a terminator. Until they do a Codex: Sons of Malice, I can play them as I see fit. Now I've just got to win some games!

Better late than never? BT Vs SW 1500

Apologies dude (you know who you are...), but I'm finally putting up the battle report from January, as best as I can remember it.

Rightio, random pick up game, 1500 vs Black Templars, and this was supposed to be a practise game (for me anyway) for the painful experience of the Crusade tournament. Less said about that the better...

Right, he had something like:

Emperors Champ
Dread
Venerable Dread
3 biggish crusader squads
1 smaller crusader squad in a 'tactical' formation.

I had a stripped down version of my tournement army:

Logan
Rune Priest
2 Termy lone wolves
2 TWC with PF SS
1 Long fang squad with 4 ML
10 wolfguard inc 2 Cyclone termys
2 x 5 wolfguard inc cyclone termy

Deployment (smile, you're on camera!)



Since I can't remember the turns at this point, we'll go for the less organised story format I'm famous for (in my own head)!

Ok, end of the first turn, everyone more of less charges in an unorganised mess on my side, and he shifts his Dreads and hitty squads to meet me in the centre - he takes pot shots with his squad on the hill (heavy bolter I think) and dreads.



His shooting manages to knock a couple of wounds off the TWC in the centre- I thought 3++ was good?! Logan and his big squad is moving straight down the centre. Rune Priest and his 5 men are taking the long way round and heading for the dread lurking behind the woods on the left.
I stupdily charge the remaining TWC into the full crusader squad - preferred enemy hurts! Logan and squad follow - this turns into 10 of mine versus 20 of his... Guess who wins when the templars reroll to hit?!



The long fangs sit in their corner taking pot shots and successfully not being a threat... Big combat in the centre draws in everyone within reach. By the way, you probably didn't notice them, but there's a 5 man squad in the far right taking whatever shots they can... in the end my saviours!



Behind the jungle in the left third, the dreadnought keeps being shaken into submission, behind the rocks in the right third, the second dread is mostly 'armless, but feeling left out.

The keen eyed my notice an ommision in the next picture. I killed on of the guys in the rocks near his board edge, he failed his test and they ran! One of the disadvantages of BT (pass and they run forward after 1 wound, fail and they run backwards!).



They combat in the middle is drawing to a close - I move the remaining lone wolf to the left to try and do something about that damned dread behind the jungle.



With the Templars finally wiping out the wolves in the middle, their survivers make a beeline for the squad on the right. My rune squad decide to chill behind the jungle on the left.



The survivers charge into the healthy rested wolfguard squad on the right
and blood insues! Note the mostly 'armless dread sneeking around behind the rocks.
Note the dread sitting behind the jungle on the left behind repeatedly hit by a grumpy lonely guy with a chainfist... Failing to do anything repeatedly.



If I remember rightly, I had two guys left on the right who consolidated back to claim the objective they'd been loitering by all game.

Close of play - his crusader squad claims the objective in his left corner, I claim the objective in the jungle (dread was a touch out of contest range), and his sneeky 'armless dread is no more than an eight of an inch outside of contest range behind the rocks on the far right.

I forgot so many special rules, it's not funny, but it was a pleasure to play, and I have to say that trying to kill lots of marinez is not easy!

Revelations - are these the end times?!

And lo, Games Workshop hath thrown all Dark Angels players the Holy Frickin Bone.

New Dark Angels FAQ.

3++ Storm Shields!*

Heavy 2 cyclones!*

Heavy 2 Typhoons!*

Arguably worse apothecary rules!

Definetly worse smoke rules!

BS4 POTMS!

Wow - I found out about this Sunday morning, and I'd already sent in my Crusades list on Saturday night. Oh well, I'll finish painting up the 2000pts Sons of Malice, then back to updating the Dark Angels!

If you're not a DA player, you have no idea how big a boost the Deathwing have just recieved!

WE'RE BACK BABY!

* And the second best part - all at C:DA prices, making them in some cases cheaper the C:SM!

Bang on!

Had the pleasure of playing Chaos space marines last night at 1750. This wasn't his usual army, and wasn't tournament optimised, and it was still a close thing:

Chaos Lord terminator, combiplasma, lightning claw
2 Chaos Dreadnoughts TL Heavy Bolters
8 CSM (with Lord in LR)
10 CSM + Rhino
10 CSM
Landraider
Vindicator
3 Oblits.

Power fists, icons and special weapons to taste, with extra armour up the wazoo. Working it out on army builder it only comes in at 1670... Either I was struggling through the second half against an undersized army, or I'm forgetting something!

Annihilation mission and Spearhead deployment. I rolled to go first and set up with the Thunderwolves and Lone Wolves at the front, long fangs on either corner, and the 3 squads in the centre.

Three sentence summary: the 4 big scary killing machines killed quite a bit before dying, and most of all did the scary thing very well! The rest of the army seemed to underperform a bit, rockets went flying, living lightning sparked, and Logan Grimnar stood scratching his... Ruff most of the game. I think if I'd been less gung ho with my two small wolf guard squads, and more aggressive with the Big Man's squad, I would have had a better result than 8 -7 to me.

After that, I felt alot more comfortable with this army - it feels like it's within my grasp to master to a sufficient level. Guess I'd better send in the army list for Crusade then!

Stay on target, stay on target...!

One Farmer Geddon point for the movie...

Do you know, I think I'm about there! I've got to do the bases, but due to the messiness of sand and sloshing, I'll be finishing these at home sometime this weekend I think. I'll slap up final photo's as and when.

So briefly, I added boltgun metal to the raised parts of the Rocket launchers*, painted the casings of the boltgun and chainsword black, and gave the chest skull and honour ribbons a quick wash of devlin mud. Bob's your Uncle, Fannie's your aunt.

I'm trying to get this army up and running as quickly as possible, so I'm cutting some corners, skipping some details. For example, I'm just painting the chest eagles foundation red and stopping there. I'll hopefully go back and 'finish' these at a later date.**

Interestingly enough I'm due to have a game of Fantasy tonight, my gobbo's vs... I really should keep a record of the people I play and their forum names, cos I've got a sneaky feeling it's the same guy I played a month or so ago, pretty much a mirror match!

* I don't like calling them Missile launchers due to the regularity that I 'Miss'. Call it an Orky mentallity if you must, except I don't think an ork can use words like Mentallity.

**Awww, who am I kidding? I'll be way too busy on all the other crap I've got to paint!

Mr WIPpy, one two miss a few...

Heh, I'm getting good at the dodgy post titles!

Onwards with the seemingly endless how-to... While not working, moping, procastinating etc, I am actually getting on with the rest of the army. I've almost finished the first assault squad. Pics will magically arrive when I've done it.

Ok, now for the missing steps. Below is the result of the black highlighting.

What do you mean you can't tell?! I've mixed up a couple of batches of really dark grey and quite dark grey based on mixing Codex grey and black. I've got a feeling it's too subtle, but I tried highlighting with codex grey and washing it back, and I just didn't like it.

So these are what happens where you block paint Number 1 (the really dark) and line highlight the edges with Number 2 (the just dark). Then a good slosh of Badass black over it.
To be honest I'm still not convinced, but it's good for now, and if I find a better method/colour level, it'll be easy enough to add to what's already down.

Next, I'm still not decided on the weapons colour - I'm tempted by boltgun metal:

Other idea's I've played with are mid grey (kind of goes against the black OR white scheme), dark red (I want it as a really small counter point, and I'm already painting the chest details red) or black white quartered (am I mad, that'd be hell!).

What do you think?

Next, just because I had time, I've finished of his shouting head (Sons of Malice actually battle in silence - I'll say he's just taked a glancing shot to the cod piece) and started the seals.

So, what do you think about the weapons (bolt pistols, chainswords, missile launchers)?

Farmer Geddon's Armageddon

Last Thursday I got the second game in with the BA flavoured Sons of Malice.*


Oh, what a different game this was...





I used exactly the same list as the previous week, and I was facing a perfectly modern Crimson Fists...

Librarian

3 Min tactical squads in Las/Plas razorbacks

5 TH/SS Terminators in Landraider Redeemer

2 Vindicators

1 Landspeeder Typhoon

1 Landspeeder MM/HF

No pictures I'm afraid - it was a bit of rush getting a pick up game at all, and I hadn't had a chance to paint much, and to be honest, I'd rather not chronicle being tabled that closely!

Table quarters deployment, 2 objectives.

He went first, deployed in a loosely defensive way, knowing I was going to try a mass deepstrike.

I deployed the Devo squad in ruins quite close to his quarter (Mistake 1**).

1st turn he shot up the Devo's killing a couple of grunts - nothing too bad.

I tried shooting on the vindicators, yes, I'd need 6's to do anything meaninful, but missing 3 out of the four shotd REALLY didn't help. Good start eh?!

2nd turn, he charges the LR forward and deposits the terminators in front ready to charge. All vehicles pop smoke. Charges, wipes out the whole squad.

I drop in Honour guard, Vanguard, 1 combat squaded 10 man, and the 5 man. one of the melta combat squads deviates into terrain, sprain their ankles and start running... flashforward: This squad keeps running due to running right past half his army, rallys on turn 4, only to be shot out of cover.

The honour guard immobilise the LRR - woop dee doo, then get wiped out by the terminators.
The vanguard charge the rear of a razorback and do jack, get wiped out by subsequent shooting.

The combat squad that actually landed on their feet shake one vindicator, then twiddle their thumbs. Finally charging the other vindicator blowing it up. Woot!

The flamer squad land, then wonder what the hell they're going to do, try charging the razorback holding his objective, fail to do anything, then they're wiped out by shooting.

The Librarian's 10 man squad deem to arrive, lining up for a Blood lance shot potentially hitting 3 vehicles***. 1 blows up, one gets stunned. His librarian then gets all emo, and Avengers half the squad away. Crap!

The following combat was really the only fun to be had, my Libby killed his Libby, the rest of his squad takes me down to just the Librarian. Next turn I cast Sang Sword, he swings, he kills a dude. Following combat phase (quickly now, my Librarian is the last model on the field), roll for Sang Sword again, and blam, his head explodes from demons tickling his eyeballs or somesuch.

The games ends his turn 5, nary a black and white dude on the pitch.

Umm, I'm at a bit of a loss here. The tools I had failed me (I know, a bad craftsmen), and in some cases I justs didn't have the tools I needed. I'd even bought new dice for the occasion, and showed that rolling ones and two's is actually an innate skill I posses. Seriously!

I'm going to go look back at seeing if I can make sure that both 'thpecial' squads have at least one powerfist. Also wondering if dropping and relying on Meltaguns to can-open is really a valid idea. It probably is, it just didn't work out too well for me this time.

* I don't think I have a thing for Bruce Willis?
** I think this is was the first mistake, and as bad as the second.
*** The only other major mistake, Landing them all together in a big KILLME squad.

Last Man Standing

Last thursday my magna marines AKA Sons of Malice AKA Blood Angels got their first outing on the battlefield, 1500 points, Kill points, quarters deployment. I didn't take any photo's I'm afraid, partly due to the exitement of the first outing, partly due to the very unpainted nature of my dudes...

My oponent was Imperial Guard, and as per every other time I've faced them this edition ( i.e 3?) I was shocked just how much you can fit into 1500!

CCS, astropath, naked chimera
2 X Vet squad, missile, 2 plasma
2 Infantry platoons, all with missile launchers, flamers, Chimera
Sludgehound (Banewolf, that I now dislike with a passion)
Vendetta
Valkery

8 Chimera chasis and 2 flyby's... This was nasty.

I took

Librarian, jump
Honour guard, 3 meltas, jump
2 X 10 man Jumpers with 2 meltas and PF serg
1 X 5 man jumpers with flamer and PW serg
5 Vanguard Vets with mixed weaponry
10 Devestators with 4 ML
2 Sang priests, one camped with the deve squad, 1 dropped with none librarian unit.

He deployed and went first, reserving flyers and banewolf. I deployed devestator squad in the open (uh oh) and sang priest. First turn he chipped a couple of ablative wounds off the deve's, I killed a chimera.
His second turn was a repeat, and in mine most of my squads come in, all combat squaded, all dropping within melta range of the rear of his Chimeras. Nothing scatters more than 2 inches (woohoo!). In fast forward... the turns get blurry...
I kill most of his chimeras, 1 is alive at the end. His flybys come in turn 2, my final squad (honour guard comes in turn 3, kills vendetta, his banewolf comes in turn 3 kills my honour guard. Ouch!

Deve's kill valk, and most of the contents on next turn. I kill myself alot due to being too close to exploding chimera's, and he kills my squads down to 2 or 3 members with pure lasgun blindingness. I think, hey, 2 marines can take on 7 or 8 guards? Surely? Bah! Major fail on all combat counts. Come to turn 5, I've got one dude, left. Just a dude. Singular. He's out in the open. He thinks its a great idea to go and bat a measly lonesome guard sergeant around the head. Fails.

We roll, turn 6 goes on! He rolls for attacks, bounce, I roll kill!

Now he's still got a bunch of guns, the nastiest of which belong to the vehicle now dubbed sludge wolf. Plus enough guns to get past marine armoour.

We roll, game ends! I win on kill points, 10 or 11 to 9. Yes its close!

...

What he should have done... His shooting was largely unfocussed, I don't think he concentrated fire enough to take out whole squads of only 5. His choice of reserves were reasonable - if he'd left the banewolf on, it would have been target number one, but if it had survived, it would have rampaged. Same with the flyboys, I think.

My mistakes... I think I failed to account for my ability to roll ones and twos for... Everything!
I should have probably kept the squads at 10 men - they wouldn't have been able to split fire, but I think they would have maintained more combat effectiveness. I also dropped the honour guard out in the middle of nowhere, basically panicing about the 3 twin linked lascannons on the vendetta. That resulted in the sludgewolf killing them in one hit. This may have been a mistake, or it may have been providence that took it out of danger range.

I've also got to study the wound allocation, deep strike, Descent of Angels and vehicle damage rules alot more closely. I think I would have more, and he would have had less... But there you go!

Nice chap, good mech army, with a bit to learn about target priority. He said himself that he was a serious fantasy player, and 40k was his 'fun'. Hopefully I'll get a whole assault squad painted for thursday, and get another battle in (with pics this time!).

Badass!

Ok, time for the next in my exclusive range of luxery painting how-to's...

As discussed, slap a second coat of skull white on the quarters; it should be fairly white at this point but by no means perfect. I'll tell you that these guys have been in action and their armour's covered in lots of small marks and scratches... I'll be thinking I'm lazy and want to get these guys on the table as soon as my honour will let me!

This lunchtime's paint session rewarded me with a layer of Badass black. For some reason the pot I've got is alot lighter and a bit browner than the first pot I bought. Great consistancy there GDubs. I think I've got the balance right - you need to slap on enough to go in every crease, crook and cranny, and then take off any puddles sitting on raised areas. I tried watering it down but then there's not enough definition. So if for some reason you're actually following this for tips - ummm... Give it a go any see what I mean?

I don't like using the flash, but it really shows you where the ink's sitting.

Black and White

As promised*, here's my slightly dodgy how to paint Sons of Malice with an even dodgyer method!

First of all, paint it black:

Yes, all of it. I've started getting cosy with Vallejo Game colour black. Smells really wierd, but it goes on beautifully!

Second, paint half of it skull white - it looks really nasty. Top left, bottom right white. The bottom white section carries over the belt - it just seems to balance it better with the back pack.

As a side note, the two guys on the right are over paints of a small SM army I picked up for a bargain. They form most of the Dev squad, and half of the assault marines.

Back on target... There will be a second coat of white coming tomorrow. But now, back to work!

* Now I've got four followers *waves* I've actually got to follow up on the blithely made promises!

Magna Marines - Ho!

Ok, so I've talked about my Sons of Malice, and about my willingness, ney, eagerness, to jump on the bandwagon of Space Wolves/ Blood Angels.

So, without further ado, I present the army lists, shared models (pending a magnestised weapon/backback/jumppack swap) are in italics:

Blood Angel flavoured Sons of Malice:

1000pts:

Librarian
Assault Squad, 2 meltas, PF sergeant
Assault Squad, 2 meltas, PF sergeant
Vanguard vet squad, lightning claw, 3 storm shields
Sanguinary priest, JP, meltabombs
Sanguinary priest, JP,

1500pts: add

5 Assault Squad, flamer, power weapon
Honour guard, 3 meltas, lighning claw
Full devastator Squad, 4 missile launchers
Swap 1 sang priest to walking with storm bolter,
Add lighning claws to the other sang priest.

2000pts: add

Vanguard vet squad, lightning claw, 3 storm shields
Terminater assault squad, 4 THSS, 1TLC

Space Wolf flavoured Sons of Malice:

1000pts: (not really feasable?)

Logan Grimnar
5 wolf guard, 1 in terminator armour with cyclone & chainfist
5 wolf guard, 1 in terminator armour with cyclone & PF
5 wolf guard, 1 in terminator armour with cyclone & PF
Lone wolf in terminator armour, chainfist stormshield
Lone wolf in terminator armour, chainfist stormshield
Devastator Squad, 4 missile launchers

1500pts: add

Rune Priest in terminator armour
5 wolf guard, 1 in terminator armour with cyclone & chainfist, joins another squad to make 10 man.
Thunderwolf cav, SS, PF
Thunderwolf cav, SS, PF

2000pts: add

Thunderwolf cav, SS, PF
Lone wolf in terminator armour, chainfist stormshield
Devastator Squad, 4 missile launchers
5 wolf guard, 1 in terminator armour with cyclone & PF

I would like it italisise the honour guard and vanguard, but I've had to use the 10 raptors I've got hanging around, and they don't really look right jumping around without jumppacks!

In total, the number of models is managable, the extras on both army flavours will give me some flexability either way (more assault terminators, more devestators, more melta).
And, as you've guessed, everything is magnetised, so both flavours fit into one standard GW case. All I've got to do is figure out something suitably... Morally ambiguous for the thunderwolf stand-ins. As I paint and model I'll put up pics. Black and white are supposed to be hard to paint... And damn they are! But from a distance, the couple of test dudes I've done look reasonable.

Spoils of War Rectification part 3

Finally I'd like to show some random pictures, share some random thoughts, and make some random excuses.... Sorry for the quality of the photos; by this time I was pretty tired and had the shakes!

During the lunch of the Sunday, if you wanted to have a go at the painting prize (I gracefully declined, as my Tau in its current speed painted state will not win anything), you had to leave your army out for everyone to see and vote.

This is the full might of the guard army I played in Game 1; a fantastic demonstration of force. He later told me that he'd painted another of the guard armies present... Man, he must love painting grunts!

From Spoils of war 2010

I liked this army for it's simplicity and quality of paint job. Everything fitted together, the army as a whole looked quality.

From Spoils of war 2010

One of the two Necron players who entered the painting; it was great to see something other than boltgun metal! Well painted and great use of colours.

From Spoils of war 2010

I almost cried when I saw all the Dark Angels vets painted up in Thousand Sons colours... But then I had to admit that this army is painted to a very high standard, and the robes really fit well.

From Spoils of war 2010

All you need is dedication! Death Korps of Krieg, well painted with lots of mud really adding to this season's 'Siege Look'. Again, everything cam together to make an excellent looking army.

From Spoils of war 2010

The only Eldar to enter; it was nice to see some bright colours well applied. Individually the details were lacking, but standing back, with the high quality of basing, this army was lovely.

From Spoils of war 2010

This is the army belonging to one of the club council members; you know when people say the pictures don't do something justice? This guy took a theme and ran with it throughout the army and it looks fantastic.

From Spoils of war 2010

I don't think I've ever seen a traitor guard army IRL before this, but damn, this one is brilliant; judicious use of spikey bits, great graffiti on the vehicles, and the converted baneblade really show alot of effort and skill.

From Spoils of war 2010

I believe these nids belong to the store owner in Bristol Vanguard's new venue. This is a case of a well thought out colour scheme, applied across alot of bugs really can look good.

From Spoils of war 2010

And finally the actual winner of the painting contest. 1 careful lady owner, huge amounts of detail, real precision painting on all the suits and vehicles. I just wish I'd managed to get better photos!

From Spoils of war 2010

And here are a few amusing snaps...

Through the combined wishing of the Praetorian platoon, the Bainblade started to fly...

From Spoils of war 2010

"Mum? Sorry, can't talk right now, kind of busy..."

From Spoils of war 2010

These were by the same guy who crushed me on game 3, he worked out that each of these fella's cost him well over £10 each... They do look really cool though!

From Spoils of war 2010

Man, sometimes you've just got to brace yourself and charge!

From Spoils of war 2010

And thats all my coverage for Spoils of War 3 (2010). I enjoyed myself immensly!

The extra twists to the missions and army structure added some extra flavour; all of my opponents were great to play against (even the ones who left me wheeping into my army case); and it's definetly something I'll try to attend next year.

Something I noticed that will affect the way I look at the event in the future, that dispite it being a fun and friendly tournament, quite a few people brought full on, hold no punches lists. Fluffy? Maybe, but definetly near the competative edge.

I'm hoping to attend their 'real' tournament next April, so we'll see what changes are brought by a true competative scene.

Spoils of War Rectification part 2e

Ok, home stretch, more 40k played in 2 days than the last 20 months!

Game 5 - 2000pts

Everyone on the team did well last turn, so I chose the same table as last time, it offered good cover and line of site. I sit down, wondering who was going to step up... And its Nids! Standard deplyment, 3 objectives.

Ok, I'm thinking, I reckon I should have enough tools to kill lots of small nids, and make a dent in the bigguns... I was quite impressed just how much bugflesh you can fit into 2000!

Something like...

Trygon Prime
2 Mawlocks
1 Tervigon
20 Gargoyles
10 Genestealers with broodlord
3 Hive Guard
Several Raveners
6 Warriors
1 Venomthrope
A bunch of Termagants to start.
2 Zoanthropes

Impressed... Shocked.... Worried!

I'm only going to show the 1 of 2 pictures I remembered to take of the game:



This is at the end, where he claims 1 objective, and contests the one on the left.

He didn't kill that much, and I killed bugger all. It was largely inifective shooting at everything that had a cover save! Tervigon gives Gargoyles FNP from catalyst (really annoying) combined with 5+ cover from venomthrope (very annoying), they in turn give most of the small bugs cover saves, while the big bugs passed all their 3+/5+(venomthrope).

If I'd remembered to move the crisis squad on the right hand side, then I may have been able to contest there?

Gaaaah!

Nice guy, obviously knew exactly what to do to make the army stay alive in all the right places.

And finished.

Spoils of War Rectification part 2d

Ok, I've had a weeks break from writing batreps, and its almost 3 weeks since the event, but I think I remember enough to set out the outlines.

Game 4, Sunday morning.

This round we got to choose our tables and opponents. Our eyes met across the crowded room, and I knew that I wanted to play Space marines. Plain, vanilla space marines.

Roll up Jose (sorry to the other guys who's names I can't remember!), 1500 points of Crimson fists. I set up and went first on this killpoints mission...



Ummm... Target number 1 the landradier methinks?! In my first turn I take out the landraider and rhino. Potshots all round after that, failling to do much of any significance.
His turn 1, struggles to move the termies forward as fast as possible, fluffs the run roll. Moves the vinidicator forward towards the my mobile wing, shot scatters off (phew!) He takes out out a piranha, even with the disruption pods.
My next turn. Target number 1 eliminated, target number 2 (*twitch* thunderhammer stormshield termies) eliminated, only remaining member the chaplain... In other news, I blow his rhino on the left, and skoot the remaining piranha for a side melta shot, detroying it.
This is the beginning of his turn 2:




Does well to land the pod very close, and out jumps your friendly neighborhood Dread, who fails to hit anything. Walking dread takes out the final piranha, and he proceeds to land a pie plate on my forward kroot squad from the deathwind launcher on the pod... Ouch!



I think he calls quits on turn 4 after I remove his near tac squad, and immobilise and disarm his drop dread. I win 7-1!

He didn't have a great dice game, but even so, this flavour of Tau just eats up that kind of army!

Nice guy, hard matchup for him.

The thought process of choosing an army... GrimDark

I love the idea of doing a Night Lord army, the colours, the fluff, the gameplay... I've delved further into my 'supplies' and dug out 9 CSM raptors to either mix in as ASM or make the Vanguard squad.

I'm facing a bit of anguish though.

I know that the future is Grimdark, I know that in the 40k universe everyones a bit depressed, as are the colours. I know that I can produce (at least at current skill levels) a reasonable dirty/brooding selection of army colours.

But is another dark army the way I want to go?

Eldar: Dark reds, greys and bone

Dark Angels: Bone, rich dark green, black with reds

Tau: Dark grey and purple.

With a Sons of Malice colour scheme, I can mix and match models across Codices a bit better, chaos bits will blend in better, and it will stand out, hopefully in an impressive way rather than a sore thumb.

Any idea's readers?

The thought process of choosing an army.,,

As you may have noticed, I attended a campaign/tournament weekend a few weeks ago - enjoyed it immensly, even though I got a measly 2-0-3 (in the British system).

I realised that I have to work hard to get anywhere with all of my armies!

• Dark Angels /Deathwing: outdated codex, 1/5 points disadvantage against all of the 'modern' codices. Still the coolest chapter. And I'm stubborn enough to stick with the 'proper' rules.


• Eldar: Still strongish, but you have to think. Now I don't have anything against thinking per se, but sometimes you want to sit back and kick ass - you know?


• Tau: I can see why they're good, and with some work/practice/a few more suits I can see it becoming my best army. But again, takes alot of skill to know how, where, and when to do everything. I'm not there yet.


• Orks and IG - neither are in a playable state and to be honest I can't afford the hardware* to make either feasable any time soon.

So, whats 'good' right now? What can I paint that will be effective, be slightly unusual, and come out of my embarrasingly large selection of boxes and bits?

Marines.

I have a bajillion of them (ok a few thousand points). I have 20+ jumpers, dozens of tacticals, bikes, and unbranded** terminators, all sitting in boxes, all wanting purpose. Now I was intending them to be Dark Angels, but having obtained a few battleforces worth of robed guys (best deal EVAR - £70+ worth of models for what, £40?), I can use the excess none robe grunts.

Then I came across the Generi-Marines. I wish I could remember which blog has them, but the excellent idea is to have a space marine army that can be turned into any SM codex (found it - For the Throne).

Choo choo!

Whats that, is that the Band Wagon I hear approaching?

Why yes, I have marines, I love the new wolves and bloody angel codices, and I lament the current state of the Dark Angels (they deserve capitalisation) but refuse to use them as any of the lesser chaptors***.

So, what chaptor/legion can I use? While the idea of grey marines is excellent, I've had to paint way too much of it on the Tau to face doing it on another army.

• Sons of malice/malaal. I love the fluff/lack thereof. I love the highly tenuous links to Malaal, the black sheep of the Chaos family. Black and white isn't too hard to paint. I can use everything as if they're still loyal/just gone bad.

• Night Lords. Ok, so I've just read Lord of the Night, but I liked them before, honest? They were the first chapter to use large scale jump packs, they work through creating fear and terror throughout the populace, they have friggin lightning flickering on their armour! They also (at least in some of the fluff) are averse to Choas. Given that the majority of the stuff I have is 'non-evil' I could call it Heresy age (Mark VII armour), mix in a few chaosy bits for the fear factor. Ah, the painting. I've done half a test mini, and the hard part will be adding some lightning that doesn't look like it was done at 4am by a caffeine addict. And making it look 'midnight blue'. And adding brass/brinze that matches. Ummm... It's nice that I'll have 2 green armies (gobbo's and DA), 1 red army(Eldar), 1 blue army (NL)? Vague batman correlations FTW!

• Pre-heresy Emperor's Children. Love the idea, have enough fluffy bits to make a couple of squads, but no more. By fluffy bits I mean beaky helmets and aquilla breast plates. I'm not usually a fluff monster, but I'd like to get it right. Maybe a killteam at a later date then.

• Homebru. All of the colours are taken, and I'd feel the need to create a small backround piece, names, fluff etc etc.


• Codex. I tried painting blood angels, and found that I just can't get a bright, true red. Either it goes orange or too grimdark - and that base is already covered by my eldar. I like the imagery of the space wolves, but it wouldn't look very wolfy without all the bits.






• Rainbow Warriors. Naa - just kidding. But come on, how many Rainbow marine armies have you seen?






• Deathwatch. Oooh... Now this is an interesting. Black, with just the shoulder pads in the chapter colours. Cool fluff, cool imagery (I like me some imagery). Vague possibility of a codex sometime in the next 5 years. Unfortunatly not known for hanging around in groups of more than 10. And not an army I can think would bend into the BA codex very eaily. Plus I was looking at the kit that GW makes (granted - it makes them look 'proper') and that would cost £30 per squad... No thanks. Again, something I'd love to do for a kill team.

Hmmm, I had talked myself into Night Lords, but to be honest writing all this down has added a few possibilities that I hadn't considered. Bah! Decisions decisions.... None Chaosy Night Lords it is then. No, Sons of Malaal! No, Night.... Oh crap. Two Face coin flip?

Dominus Nox!

* 6 inch thick armour, unfeasably large guns, tracks... Etc etc etc.

** Without any Deathwing symbology. Yes, I have a bunch of them sitting waiting to be stripped and repainted. Ah, Ebay, my friend.

*** It's a 3rd ed rule called Stubborn, at least half of DA players have it.

Spoils of War Rectification part 2c

A brief break followed game two where Team Epsilon (go the good guys!) consolled each other and apparently did quite well! Apart from me that is. Boo.

Game 3, I got to choose the table - I thought the ice world look was cool, some cover, plenty of shooty space. I sat down and a nice canadian chap joined me. From team Aquilla (Imperial Guard).

I chose normal deployment, he chose kill points. Cool I thought, we both suffer killpoint hemorraging right?

At 2000 points, he had 7 Chimeras, 2 LR battletanks, 9 Sentinels, a vendetta, and a boss squad with psycher and orbital barrage calling guy.

I'm not going to go into detail with this one. Because it hurts.

1) I made the mistake (not learned from game 1 against guard) that the trick is to take the fight to them. They were all outside of the transports, no cover, and I had the firewarriors and kroot to do a half decent amount of damage. I didn't do this of course.

2) I couldn't do diddly.
I miss.
I fail to wound.
I can't make a coversave or disruption pod save. I tried to buy new dice, but nobody would sell me any!


This is the second to last turn.

I shot some stuff, charged in with the kroot in an attempt to maybe do something. Lost 7 to 1 I think.

He was a great oponent, had a great attitude, the army had some great oldskool guard and he had obviously lavished some care.

We both agreed after the second turn that the dice gods were firmly on his side.

It was just one of those games, y'know?

Lesson learned - Guard are juicy and fragile, go beat them.

Spoils of War Rectification part 2b

Ok, after lunch* we had game two, 1500 points.


In the previous round team Epsilon (go the good guys!) didn't do that well, I headed towards a decent looking table with plenty of good lanes of fire while providing plenty of cover for jump-shoot-jump antics. It was an intact cityscape**.


His army was fairly hard, but I figured I could give it a good run:


Khorne Prince with wings
3x8 Khorne Bezerkers plus rhino's (havoc launchers)
2x2 Obliterators
And I think a 3 man terminator squad, but I'm not sure.


He chose table quarter deployment, I chose 3 objectives (the badly painted white and silver dudes in this game). I deployed standard bubblewrap, he hid everything where he could.

I think I went first, popped one rhino (the bezerkers hid) and imobilised another. And this is where the realisation dawned that I'd probably lose this game. The buildings count as vehicles, armour 12, with access points, shooting points and on half of them, roof hatches. I now hate buildings.
He'd placed to oblits on a building in his back corner, and when I tried to shoot them, I couldn't. Because they're in a building/vehicle. I could, and did blow up the building, but it took alot of shots which should have been shooting closer scary stuff. See the ruin in the first picture.


End of my turn 1 I think.


He jumped his scary prince a building closer, took some pot shots, killed a few kroot. Drove the rhino through the gap (see next picture). Hid the disembarked Bezerkers in a building.

Do I bother to shoot the buildings and try to get out the bezerkers, or shoot at the stuff I can see? That was a decision I had to make, and he took advantage of.

I blocked the Rhino scooting close with the piranhas (hate the model, love the function!) and blew it up. Couldn't get anything in to shoot the prince, and failed to appreciate the function of Wings.



End of my second turn I think.


Next turn he moves the prince into the convenient gap I left him behind the kroot and in front of the broadsides. Crap. He kills the piranhas, plus assorted shooting. To be honest on this board the obliterators didn't seem to do much. They were annoying, difficult to kill, and killed some stuff, but they're not great. He charges the Prince into the afformentioned broadsides and wipes them out in a roll. Never mind eh? Lesson learned. He also manages to charge one of the kroot squads with the closest squad, leaving one alive (he runs, and kills a bezerker shooting over his shoulder, neat!)


Turn 3 or 4?


The rest was a bit of a blur, I killed the deamon prince in one turn of shooting with whatever I had, moved the piranha drones for some blocking, didn't really manage much.

Basically at the call of time (turn 5 I think) he claimed two objectives with the bezerker squad at the back, stretched. I contest the closest one. I was so busy playing keep away that I forgot I had some speed to contest his objective, but it probably wouldn't have helped much.

He won, got a +1 on the special table condition, I got 0.

Nice guy, used the table well to his advantage. I was more annoyed with the table than him.

Lessons:
Don't play with buildings when you're a shooting army.
Remember your mobility
Things with wings can fly


* The catering and support people deserve more of a mention that a page note. The brownies were sooooooo good.

** Oh how I wish I paid more attention in class.