BOLS and Faiet212 MIA

Just a quick one to spread the word.

In case you're in the dark over the sudden disappearance of BOLS and Faiet212 you can find out more over at Blood Claw who, as far as I'm aware has the scoop!

Troubling times.

Armageddon It!

I've decided to take the plunge and organise a club campaign. I've coerced five others to join in with me, giving us six players in total to recreate the first war of Armageddon.

The first war of Armageddon, for those not in the know, was the conflict between the defending Imperial forces and the marauding Khorne Legions, led by Angry Ron, the Daemon Primarch of the World Eaters. In our game, we have the following forces:

Squat Guard (me)
IG / Terminator Marines ( John H)
Eldar (Graham W)

Khorne Daemons & CSMs (Andy)
Orks (Daryl)
Necrons (Duncs)

The campaign will be every man for himself - a six-way fight for control of Hive-City Anthrand, an Imperial manufactorum to the east of Armageddon Prime, the main continental land-mass on the planet. Floating above the planet is the warp-twisted Space-Hulk classified as the Abominous, from which the forces of Chaos have descended.  

We join the action in the early stages of the war. The six armies are spread over the plains surrounding the Hive-City, and also engaged in skirmishes aboard the space-hulk Abominous. The theatre of war is divided up into jungle areas, desert, rough land, a space-port and of course the Hive-City itself. Scenery and terrain will be selected according to the area being contested - for example, jungle battles will be fought on densely-packed forest boards, whilst desert battles feature great expanses of open ground with only the occasional patch of low cover to hide the warring armies. Control of the Space-Hulk will be determined by a series of engagements to be fought in a Zone Mortalis board.

The six players begin the campaign by taking turns selecting territories. In this way, players can choose the boards whose terrain best suits their style of play and the strengths of their army. Then, the war will be divided into a series of campaign rounds, each comprising one game per player. In each round, the players will have the opportunity to challenge one other opponent for control of one of their territories.

Will you go all-out to lay claim to the Hive-City immediately?

Or will you build slowly, strategically claiming control of the space-port and Space-Hulk, using the special rules these territories provide you to claim victory in the long war?

In the War for Armageddon, only one thing is for sure. The road to Hive-City Anthrand will be long, and littered with the broken armies of all but one victorious warlord!

Best 40K Cosplay Ever!!

Just a little insomnia fueled blog post here to update you on my Helldrake progress and to share a pretty amazing piece of Cosplay I just spotted via Kotaku.

OMG!!!

Firstly this has to be the best attempt at a Terminator suit I've ever seen and extra props go out to Roses & Boltshells for keeping it Imperial Fists! Love it! Check out the Kotaku article (there's a video of the suit in action too) or visit Roses & Boltshells on their Facebook site.

The burning question.

I had a great game against Grazer yesterday at Warhammer World. Dave (Smokey D) was also there having a great time playing  a 200pts Kill Team campaign, but I'm sure he'll want to talk about that himself!

I lost my game, but it was an interesting test of my daemons. This time I played a 80/20 Tzeentch/Khorne list to try some combinations out. I won to go first, so I plonked my army down ready to do fly all the big stuff 24" and everything else between 12"-18". As we had rolled Hammer & Anvil this would have put my right in Grazer's face ready to do some big monstrous creature punching of his tanks.

However, he stole the initiative and so he proceeded to hurl ordnance and a mass of Str 5-7 weaponry at me. I lost a Soul Grinder and took a collection of wounds but most of my big stuff stayed in the air through my 'magic' dice. He had vendettas in reserve which scared me more.

On my turn I got a lot closer to him and fired a reasonable amount of (mostly psychic) shooting at him. I took at least one chimera down, but more importantly I would be within range for next turn. Also, my troops started to deep strike now and were in good positions.

Turn 2 was a turning point for me. Most of Grazer's shooting was ineffective although a couple of my big dudes were down to one wound now. This helped even out the battle somewhat, and over the next few turns I started to work my way through his tanks and infantry. I took his vendettas down on turn 5/6 if I remember right.

I didn't however win though. I grabbed the relic on turn 4, but he hauled up a Chimera and unloaded a squad which overwhelmed the 3 horrors defending. On turn 6 I blasted them off it again, leaving the relic undefended. In fact at the end of turn 6 Grazer had a solitary Storm-Trooper Squat left, I had about 10 troops, some flamers, an immobilised Soul Grinder and a Tzeentch chariot remaining.

But I lost on points in the end, a good game though and I'm really starting to get a handle on my army now.

I discussed with Grazer the possibility of a house rule on my Burning Chariot of Tzeentch. If you search the interwebz, you'll know all about the controversy surrounding the heavy weapons on the rider. It means you can't move and fire. Normally as a fast skimmer it would be able to fire 12" and fire both weapons, but I think the intention is that it can move 12" and fire ONE weapon. Until this is FAQ'ed I'm going to suggest that we play it where it can move 6" and fire ONE weapon or move flat-out and fire none. This seems a reasonable compromise between RAW and RAI.

Other than that, I'm loving Kairos. He (it?!) isn't as powerful as before, but he's a LOT more fun to play!

AoA Khorne List – 1st Play-Test

Grazer offered to give me a game this Thursday and was happy for me to proxy my little heart out to try out a Khorne CSM/Daemons list I’d been thinking about for the Age of Armies project. So, I’ll just dive straight into the list (and the proxies!):

Chaos Space Marines (Primary)

HQ
Chaos Lord (Mark of Khorne, Axe of Blind Fury, Juggernaught) (Carnifex)

TROOP
Khorne Bezerkers (x8 w. Rhino) (Assault Marines & Rhino)
Khorne Bezerkers (x8 w. Rhino) (Assault Marines & Rhino)
Cultists (x15, Sgt w. Shotgun) (Grazer’s own Squats!)

FAST ATTACK
Helldrake (Baleflamer) (Winged Hive Tyrant)
Helldrake (Baleflamer) (Winged Hive Tyrant)
Chaos Spawn (x5, Mark of Khorne) (Raveners)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Maulerfiend (Tervigon)

Chaos Daemons (Ally)

HQ
Bloodthirster (Swarmlord)

TROOP
Bloodletters (x10) (Genestealers)

FAST ATTACK
Flesh Hounds (x8) (Various 40mm Nids)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Soul Grinder (Trygon)

Day Two of 'In The Veiled Region' Campaign

Following my review of the first day of games at Animosity's 'In The Veiled Region' campaign, stand by for day number two...

 

Game 4 – 2000pts - The Relic

 

In my first game on Sunday I faced a veritable Tyranid horde, featuring a Mawloc, Tyranid Prime, a flying Tyrant, 2 Hive Guard, 2 Venomthropes, 2 Zoenthropes, forty Hormagants, five Raveners, 20 Devourer-Termagants and five Warriors.

 

The mission was The Relic. I won the set-up and deployed defensively, but with my two units of Storm Troopers infiltrating forward. My opponent then seized the initiative and pushed forward, with his Raveners closing the gap very quickly! His swarm of Gants 'n' Gaunts also moved up, hugging cover which bunched them up. I took the opportunity to drop Manticore and Colossus shells down on the tightly-packed infantry, killing a fair proportion of his scoring troops in one go. The Chimeras opened up, raining down multiple strength 5 and 6 fire on his Tyranid Warriors, Hive Guard and Hormagaunts. I also used Psychic Shriek from my Primaris Psyker to strip wounds off the closing Raveners. 

 

Happy that I had the horde well in my sights, I was surprised - and not a little shocked - when the Mawloc came burrowing up - right beside my ordnance tanks! The Mawloc caused a glancing hit on one of the Colossus as it arrived, and I knew that it would make short work of the tanks on it's next turn, once it was able to attack in close assault. So, what could I do about it?

 

 

 

Unfortunately, not a lot! The ordnace tanks were backed right up against a building, and the rest of my army - significantly the Chimeras and their mid-strength shooting - were over the other side of the board, with no way of getting there. So I had to resign my self to losing a tank; however, it meant I could concentrate on finishing off the troops, which were already thinned out and were the only models capable of claiming the relic. After my third round of shooting, I'd just about done it - my opponent was down to only two scoring models left - a couple of Tyranid Warriors - whilst I was at almost full strength (I'd only lost the Manticore and the Storm Troopers). Once again, my opponent graciously threw in the towel, so it was victory for the Squats!   
Game 4 result: WIN

Game 5 – 2000pts - 2 Objectives

This was to be my baptism of fire to the Animosity house-rule - everyone has to play a game on the Forest Moon of Endor! As all Star Wars fans know, those cute lil' Ewoks can be vicious critters, and so it proved in this game.

The game was played out on a forest table, packed with trees and a low hill in one corner. Having won the roll to pick board edges, I immediately picked the side with the hill and placed my Aegis Line atop it, thus giving my ordnance some much-needed line-of-sight over the sea of trees and foliage.

Across the table from me, the Dark Eldar were split in their deployment, with a Raider and a Venom to my right, and two Venoms, some jetbikes and a small infantry unit of Scourges to my left. Needless to say, all were hugging cover! In reserve were three flyers - two smaller craft and one big ‘un, which I've just looked up; apparently they were Nightwings and a Void Raven (I think).
 

The mission was to claim to objectives, one in either deployment zone. When the game started, I promptly started blastin'. I immediately wrecked the Raider and started to strip hull points off the Venoms, though I was caught out when I found out what flicker fields and night fields do - my guns were down by 6" on their range, and of course there were cover saves galore. None the less, after two turns I had wrecked most of the Dark Eldar war-machines. Even when the enemy flyers arrived, my Vendettas were up to the contest, and managed  to down them in a couple more turns.

All was going well. And then the Ewoks struck...

The Animosity guys have a set of special campaign house-rules, which determines the effects of the death-world (aka Endor) on which we were fighting. It harks back to the forest fight at the end of Return of the Jedi when the Ewoks fight back against the evil Storm Troopers. In our game, the Ewoks decided to fight back against both armies equally indiscrimately, causing 2D6 Strength 3 AP- hits on every unit on the table! This wiped out about twenty models in total; I was mostly unaffected as all but one Veterans squad were still embarked in their Chimeras. My opponent, however, was less lucky - he was already down to only one or two models in four different units, and the Ewoks did a sterling job in wiping all of them of the table. So whilst he only lost about half-a-dozen models, he actually saw four units removed from play.

By turn four, it was all over. The Dark Eldar were down to about three Warriors, so we decided to call it a day. Victory number four of the weekend put me on equal standing with Dave McGurdy at the top of the campaign standings!

Game 5 result: WIN

Game 6 - THE FINAL!
2000pts - The Scouring (6 Variable-VP Objectives) + Additional 3 VP Objective

So, this was it. The final game of the weekend saw Dave and I paired together for a climactic last battle to decide the overall winner of the weekend, whilst the other guys played a five-way city fight against each other.

Dave was using Chaos Space Marines, and his list included 2 Heldrakes, 2 Chaos Marine squads with meltas and an attached Lord each, 2 Dreadnoughts with Autocannons, a Defiler, 2 x 20 cultists and 2 x 2 Obliterators.

We decided to play the Scouring, as it was the only mission we hadn't played that weekend so far. The campaign Games-Master (Geordie Scott) also gave us an extra 3 VP objective to fight for. So, there were seven objectives in total. I set up in my usual formation - ordnance tanks behind their Aegis Line, and the Chimeras partially obscured behind whatever cover they could find - in this case, a series of trenches and some low-level ruins. Dave set up in the opposite corner (we rolled Vanguard deployment), with all his models apart from the Rhino-mounted Marine squads hiding in some battlements.

I started first, and began to pound Dave's forces. Unfortunately, my ordnance guns were less effective against 3+ power armour than they had been against the relatively lighter armour of the Dark Eldar, Orks and Tyranids, and so my first round of shooting only resulted in one dead Obliterator.

Dave's turn one was similarly unspectactular. He pushed his two squads of Marines, mounted in their Rhinos, aggressively forward, clearing hoping to disembark on turn 2 to use the squads' meltas to wreak havoc on my Manticore and Colossus'. He then began shooting with his Dreadnoughts, Defiler and Obliterators, however he only caused minimal damage.

It was my turn two where my fortune began to fade. I had two Chimeras, laden with plasma-totin' Veterans, safely tucked behind some low ruins. Dave has wisely deployed far away from them, so I had to move these units to bring them into the game. Unfortunately, both immobilised themselves as they tried to drive through difficult terrain! This led to my two most effective infantry units being stranded far away from any objectives - or enemies! On a more positive note, both my Storm Trooper units arrived from deepstrike directly behind Dave's two Rhinos. The Storm Troopers were carrying Meltas, and so made short work of one Rhino, but alas the second remained intact.

On turn three, the game swung dramatically in Dave's favour when his Helldrakes arrived. These two flying monstrosities are terrifying, equally able to deal death to both tanks and infantry. Each turn, the Helldrakes zoomed around my backfield, stripping hull-points from my tanks and killing swathes of infantry. For some reason my Vendettas were unable to put a dent in either of the Chaos flyers, and so my fate was sealed. Try as I might to concentrate on whittling down Dave's scoring troops, I had to divert precious firepower to try and take down the Helldrakes - and there lay the reason for my downfall. If I had concentrated everything on the Helldrakes for a turn - Chimeras snap-firing, plasma-vets, even the heavy bolters from the ordnance tanks - then I may have managed to down them. As it was, I didn't, and so Dave had the luxury of burning me off the table.

In the end, the game finished with a 12-6 victory to the forces of Chaos, and Dave rightfully took the top spot for the weekend. It was his clever use of cover for his Dreadnoughts, Obliterators and Defiler, and the impressive firepower of the Helldrakes, which won the day.
Game 6 result: LOSS
 

The Campaign Winner, Dave McGurdy

 

 Weekend Summary

 

All in all, I had a great time! The group of lads were very friendly and welcoming, and all our games were played in a spirit of fun. The narrative that underpinned the games was also good fun, and helped to put our disparate games into a common context. I can strongly recommend anyone looking for a slightly different wargaming experience to try a narrative campaign - and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

 

 

Allies

So, I've been thinking of alterations to my daemons list having suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Grazer's squats - in fact it was almost exactly like the scene from Enemy at the Gates when the Soviet conscripts run towards the Nazi guns and get mowed down almost to a man.

By the end of turn 1 I'd lost my Lord of Change and most of my screamers. My Daemon Prince had come crashing to the ground but had around half its wounds remaining though. Everything else including my Burning Chariot of Tzeentch was out of range and likely to get blasted to pieces by the massed armour facing them. My soul grinder was a shining beacon of hope due to most of Grazer's weaponry being fairly low strength and it put up a valiant effort but was ultimately fruitless.

Here is my list:

HQ - Lord of Change w/2 x greater rewards
HQ - Tzeentch Daemon Prince w/daemonic flight, Psyker level 2, staff of change, 2 x greater rewards
TR - 16 Horrors
TR - 16 Horrors
EL - 9 Flamers
FA - 3 Screamers
FA - 3 Screamers
HVY - Burning Chariot of Tzeentch
HVY - Soul Grinder

I know what the 'internet' reckons are good and bad units but it's an army that feels cohesive if a little lacking in punch. I've had some thoughts about changes to this:

1. Run some heralds of Tzeentch, probably on discs (I love the models). These can run with the Horrors of leap forward with the Flamers as required.
2. Give the Horrors icons and deep strike a good chunk of the army. A little like daemons of old. With almost everything having some shooting ability, it's not a bad strategy.
3. This was admittedly a 1500 point list and I prefer to play around 1750/1850. At this point I would have another Soul Grinder and some more screamers. This would help.
4. I've ran pair of Soul Grinders in the past with the S10/AP1 shot. Normally one of them would successfully hit and do some damage against AV11/AV12. With the updated codex this is more viable as it means moving and firing the Harvester Cannon and Warp Gaze. With fleet not being what it once was this isn't a bad idea.
5. Run a mixed god list. Not very likely...

Allies

Another option is allies. Daemons can ally as follows:

1. CSM - fluffy and practical. Top choice really. I like the idea of a Tzeentch Sorcerer Lord summoning daemons with cultists playing a large part.
2. Eldar - now this doesn't make a great deal of sense, BUT I do have around 3K points of Eldar.
3. IG - Hmm, chaos renegades anyone? I like this one, some nice modelling potential.
4. Orks - Again, I have a large Ork army. This sort of makes sense, the Orks will ally with anyone if there is potential for krumpin' sum 'eadz.
5. Tau - Not an obvious combination, but there is some new Tau models out VERY soon. Also a great looking army and big guns will work well with the daemons.

I'm going to try and play Eldar and Orks as allies first and see where it leads me.

Any thoughts?

Day One Review of ‘In The Veiled Region’ Campaign

It’s the end of day two of the ‘Veiled Region’campaign organised by the Animosity crew. I have to say that all of my hopes were well-founded – it was a great weekend, very entertaining and played in a friendly atmosphere!

Firstly, my list:

2,000pts – Squat Guard

HQ – Primaris Psyker

EL – Storm Troopers w/ 2 x Melta

EL – Storm Troopers w/ 2 x Melta

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour & 3 x Plasma Guns & Chimera

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour & 3 x Plasma Guns & Chimera

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour & 2 x Flamers & Chimera

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour & 1 x Flamer & Chimera (Heavy Flamers replace ML & HB)

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour & Chimera

TR – Vets w/ Carapace Armour

FA – Vendetta w/ Heavy Bolter sponsons

FA – Vendetta w/ Heavy Bolter sponsons

HVY – Manticore

HVY - Colossus

HVY - Colossus

FORT – Aegis Defense Line

Now, a recap of yesterday’s results. I will post the results of day two shortly...

Game 1 – 1000pts – 50% minimum flyers / jump infantry

 

In my first game I faced Matt who was using pre-heresy World Eaters. He had two Lightning fighters, a Whirlwind, ten assault Marines, a Land Speeder and a Contemptor Dreadnought. I was using two Vendettas, a Hydra, seven assault Marines, a Sanguinary priest and five Vanguard veterans (the latter three units allying in from the Blood Angels codex).

 

The game was quick and bloody! My Vendettas were very effective at targetting Matt's Lightning fighters, but it was Matt's Contemptor Dreadnought which proved the decisive unit. It's ability to pour out something like 9 or 10 shots per turn, either at my Marines (the 'poor bloody infantry') or at full BS at my flyers (if it stood still) was the game-changer. It was fun, but ultimately I lost as I couldn't effectively deal with the Contemptor before it dealt with me! 

Game 1 result: LOSS

 

Game 2 – 2000pts - 3 objectives

 

In this game I was using my full 2000pt list (see above). My opponent Mike was using heresy-era Emperor's Children. He had two Hellblade fighters, a Storm Eagle, Terminators in a Land Raider, some possessed Marines, Fabius Bile and twenty cultists.

I started the game with my ordnance tucked up behind the Aegis Defence Line, some infantry in the battlements of a building, and my Chimeras lined up in a row, ready to shoot. I made short work of the possessed Marines on turn one, and on turn two my Storm Troopers arrived, which I placed in front of Mike's Land Raider. I hoped to blow the thing up, but unfortunately I failed. However, by placing the two units of Storm Troopers in front of the Land Raider, Mike had to use his Terminators to assault this flimsy speed-bump before he could get stuck into the meat of my army.

 

 

Meanwhile, all our flyers arrived! The game hinged around them, and soon the game climaxed in a massive dogfight between my two Vendettas and Mike's Hellblades and Storm Eagle. My Vendettas had the firepower to take out Mike's flyers eventually, and the game was pretty much decided when Mike hovered his Storm Eagle to allow his twenty cultists to disembark. I unloaded my Chimeras massed strength six shooting into the Storm Eagle, which blew up, killing around half the cultists - and a few Guardsmen as well!   

 

Once the Storm Eagle had gone, my Vendettas finished off the Hellblades and my tanks wiped out the remains of Mike's army. It was another fun game, which ended in my first ever win via tabling an opponent. The omens were good! 

Game 2 result: WIN

 

Game 3 – 2000pts - Kill Points

 

Game three saw me paired against an Ork Killa-Kan list, which was beautifully painted and modelled. The Ork army comprised a Lifta-Droppa, a Flakk-Truck, a couple of Mega-Dreads, six Killa-Kans, a Dakka Jet, Wazdakka and some bikerz, and a unit of Trukkin' boyz.

 

The deciding factors in this game were the board and the set-up. The board was absolutely jam-packed with tall buildings (we nicknamed it Stalingrad) and our deployment was Vanguard Strike; that is, triangles. With the Ork army having to slowly trace it's way through the maze of buildings, my ordnance had a field day in raining down indirect shells on the poor Orks' prized war-machines. By the time the Orks were in range to shoot, I had decimated all but the Killa Kans, but not before the Lifta-Droppa had played merry hell with three of my Chimeras! He lited one up and dropped in on two others, causing a total of eight hull-points worth of damage. This wrote off one completely (it suffered 5 hull points) and reduced the other two to 1 point and 2 points left respectively.

 

My opponent graciously called the game after turn 4 (it was tea-time...), so it was the second win of the day for my all-conquering Squats!

Game 3 result: WIN