40K UK GT - Day 2

Day 1 was in the bag and I was feeling pretty positive about my performances in day 1. I could put the defeat in game 1 down to a bad match-up, game 2 went pretty well against a list which is strong in the meta at the moment and game 3 started well and but for some foul dice when the Doom landed, it could have gone quite differently. All to play for today then …

Game 4 vs Necrons; Vanguard Strike deployment, playing The Emperor’s Will

Nemesor Zandrekh
Vanguard Obyron
Destroyer Lord – Weave, Scythe, MS Scarabs
Warriors (5) - Nightscythe
Warriors (7) - Nightscythe
Scarabs (7)
Scarabs (7)
Spyders (3) – Gloom Prism
Spyders (3) – Gloom Prism
Monolith

WTF was I thinking?

 OK, not a great start to the day, a list I could really struggle against if I make any mistakes and boy do I make some mistakes. First off I win the roll-off and elect to go second, this gives him the opportunity to spawn more scarabs before I get a chance to stop him, secondly I infiltrate my scouts close enough to his lines that he can spawn scarabs, charge them and sling-shot into my lines before I can really bring enough firepower to bear on him.

*FACE-PALM*

In my first turn I attempt to make amends by dropping my Sternguard in to take out his Spyder unit with Obyron in it. Sadly I forgot that he could bring in units from reserve with my own reserves so he placed his Monolith directly between my Sternguard and the Spyder unit and rolls a “hit” in a space exactly big enough for the Monolith. To make matters worse, 6 Sternguard Combi-Melta shots take a single hull point off the Monolith.

Ahhhhh, balls!

As far as I was concerned it was game over from this point. I played it out to the end and wasn’t tabled but I only managed to pick up the single tournament point for not conceding. Not a good start to the day!

0-6 Loss (NONE / 1st, WL, LB)

Game 5 vs Necrons; Deployment Hammer and Anvil playing Kill Points

Forgeworld Overlord
Destroyer Lord – Weave, Scythe
Cryptek – Harbinger of Despair - Veil
Warriors (10)
Warriors (10)
Immortals (5) – Gauss
Destroyers (5) – Gauss Cannon
Destroyers (3) – Heavy Gauss Cannon
Wraiths (3)
Pylon
Spyder
Annihilation Barge

More Necrons! What have I done to deserve this? At least looking at it, the list didn’t look too optimised so I felt like I had a glimmer of hope in this one. I knew I’d have to castle up somewhat otherwise his uber-lord and jumpy Cryptek unit would be able to cause some havoc in my backfield.

And now 'm in amongst the Best Painted armies of the Tournament.

I took first turn hoping to get first blood and take his barge out of the game and possibly remove the wraiths too. This would mean I could focus everything on the Lord’s unit when it veiled at me. I dropped one unit of Sternguard towards his backlines to take out the Barge and the other on my side of midfield in rapidfire range of his wraith unit. The unit aiming at the Barge utterly failed, not even managing to inflict a single hullpoint. The other unit was more successful, killing 2 of the 3 Wraiths. Night Fight meant that I had nothing else in range so I couldn’t finish off the unit unfortunately.

In his turn he comfortably took out a Drop Pod for First Blood with his Destroyer Lord and then he veiled his Lord unit behind my castled up units and this is where the game took place for the next 4 turns. The reinforced Ruin which my unites were castled up in gave me enough protection to survive the initial salvo relatively unscathed and I was able to bombard him with the Thunderfire canon before I charged him with the scout unit in an attempt to slow his progress through my ranks. For the most part this worked but after dealing with his Wraith and Destroyer Lord I brought my Centurions back to help out as that Lord was proving to be a bit of a nightmare.

I managed to remove the unit at the top of turn 4 but the combat had dragged me well back into my own deployment zone and had given my opponent a 1 Kill Point lead. My opponent had astutely moved everything in his army right to the back of this deployment zone so I needed a couple more turns to get units into range. Sadly the dice brought an end to the game on turn 5 and my shitty run continued. I‘d be close to the bottom now, surely I’d be in for a nice game against a non-competitive list … we’ll I was at least half right.

6-7 Loss (WL / 1st)

Game 6 vs Chaos Space Marines; Dawn of War playing The Scouring

Chaos Lord – Mark of Nurgle, Bike, Black Mace, Sigil, Gift of Mutation
Typhus
Plague Zombies (27)
Plague Zombies (27)
Plague Marines (5) – 2x Plasma gun
Spawn (5) – Mark of Nurgle
Heldrake – Baleflamer
Heldrake – Baleflamer
Havocs (5) – 4x Autocannon
Obliterators (2) – Mark of Nurgle

FML! Right, that’s it. I’m going home, I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed this morning. I’m not the sort of person who gets depressed about a game of toy soldiers but I have to admit I was feeling pretty sore at his point and to see two Heldrakes across the board from me did nothing to raise my spirits. Fortunately my opponent was a very nice bloke with a very cool themed Nurgle army so I figured I’d just let the dice decide how this was going to end.

I got to go second and positioned the majority of my army in position to annihilate his Spawn/Bike Lord unit as soon as possible, everything would be slogging across the board nice and slowly. And so it was that by the end of turn 2 his unit and Warlord were no more! Score 1st Blood and Warlord!

Awesome looking Nurgle Spawn.

Typhus’s unit was quite happy way over on my right flank owning one objective and making another one looking a not terribly attractive option. On my left flank the other unit of Zombies and the Plague Marines were looking a bit threatening and the first Heldrake had just turned up. Fortunately I had no juicy targets on the board, unfortunately I only managed to knock a couple of hull points off.

I managed to kick myself in the balls on this turn by deciding to effectively throw away my scouts for no discernable reason; charging half into Typhus’s unit and putting the other half on the opposite side of the board! At least it made him bring his Plague Marines back to deal with them, keeping them away from my planned drop-site for my Tactical Squad. On the up-side I finished off the wounded Heldrake.

I decided I had nothing to take on Typhus and a ton of Zombies so I threw what I had left down my left flank in an effort to whittle down the Zombies and take out the Plague Marines. Long story short, it didn’t work, his other Heldrake managed to stay off long enough that I had had to deploy my marines to hold objectives at the end of turn 4 in order to cover enough objectives to secure the win. Fortunately he had to fly the Heldrake off the board at the ned of Turn 5 and I was on enough objectives to have a 3 point lead.

Unfortunately the game went onto Turn 6 and the Heldrake returned wiping one squad off an objective, the Plague Marines and Zombies cleared out another, leaving me with just the 4 pointer and handing me my 5th and final loss of the weekend.

4-7 Loss (WL / 1st, LB, WL)

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)

Silver & Gold and Other Army Lists

The 40kUK Podcast are currently instigating a hobby event called “Age of Armies”, you can find out more about it here. But suffice to say it’s an army building challenge requiring you to build and paint a new army over the course of the year with a view to bringing it to a tournament at the end of the year, possibly the Autumn Throne of Skulls.

I’ve always wanted to do one of these events but they’ve always seemed to fall at times that weren’t convenient for one reason or another but this time, I’ve just finished my Tyranids, my Marines are just expanding into 6^th edition and my Orks may never surface again ... so I quite fancy doing something new. The premise is that you acquire the equivalent of £50 worth of models for your army each month which is pretty achievable I think but what I really like about this is the intention for everyone involved to attend a tournament together at the end of the challenge. This sounds like a lot of fun.

The big question though, is what army should I do? I’ve been really tempted to do a Chaos Marines (Khorne) Primary with Ork Allies army because I have always loved the Chaos Marines from a fluff perspective and it would give my Orks a focus again. However I pretty much have all the Ork models I’d need painted up so that’s probably a no-go from the point of view of this challenge.

The list I’d considered at 1850pts was:

Battle Brothers - Game 4

Climbing a great height may lead to a rapid descent

After a rather spectacular Day 1 where we'd picked up pretty much maximum VPs, we were feeling unusually confident about Day 2. We felt we had a fairly effective list and that we were playing it well. However we also knew that the dice had been kind to us and that sort of luck is not something that tends to stick with either of us for long.

So it was with cautious optimism that I reviewed the army list handed to me by our very friendly opponents. Nothing immediately jumped out at me as being particularly threatening except possibly the Helldrake, but surely we could handle that right?

"Khan!!!!"
Chaos Marines x10 Lascannon and Melta gun
Chaos Marines x10 2x Plasma gun
Chaos Marines x10 2x Plasma gun
Hemonculus
Kabalite Warriors x10, Blaster, Raider w. Splinter Racks
Kabalite Warriors x10, Dark Lance, Raider w. Splinter Racks
Ravager

3 objectives with Hammer & Anvil Deployment

The Week That Was ...

I'm in a glass case of emotion!

26^th October – 1^st November

Chaos Win

Looks like I may have done well to avoid playing Mick’s Chaos list last week because I was roundly spanked by Gav’s Chaos Marines/Daemons list this Thursday. In fairness the list is something we’re working on together for the Battle Brothers tournament in January so Gav cannot be held wholly responsible for the giant slice of gorgonzola that he served up to me and, but for some poor dice and poor decision-making, I could have done a lot better. Before I spout off about the game here’s an overview of the lists:

1500pts - Purge the Alien/Vanguard

Marines/Daemons:

Huron

Great Unclean One of Nurgle

Flamers of Tzeentch (5)

2x Chaos Space Marine Squad (14) 2x Plasma, 1 Sgt w. Lightning Claw

Pink Horrors (5) w. The Changeling

Helldrake w. Baelflamer

Screamers of Tzeentch (5)

Obliterators (2) MoN

Tyranids

Prime w. 2x Boneswords & Deathspitter

2x Hive Guard (3)

2x Termagant (10)

2x Tervigon Crushing Claws, Cluster Spines, Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs, three 6^th ed Powers

Raveners (5) Rending Claws

Carnifex Brood (2) 2x TL Devourers each

I went second but due to Huron’s Trait I was basically deploying blind as Gav rolled a 3 for his number of units able to infiltrate. I set up a fairly balanced front but with the ‘fex/Prime unit  on my left flank in cover but within reach of his Oblits, and the Raveners dead centre. I also held both units of Termagants in reserve. Gav infiltrated his two large Marine Squads in cover to my right with Huron’s unit more towards the centre.

The first turn began with Gav getting his preferred wave so down came the Screamers, right in front of my Raveners, and the Flamers, right between my Carnifexes and a unit of Hive Guard. The Screamers turbo-boosted over my Raveners causing about 3 wounds and the Flamers took two wounds off the Prime and one off a Carnifex. Could have been worse! In my first turn I poured the Carnifexes into the flamers reducing them to two models and the two Cluster Spines and Hive Guard into the Screamers, reducing them to two models as well.

Poor decision #1 I did not spawn any ‘gants because this is a VP scenario and I did not want to contribute more VPs to the pool. However if I’d had the units available I’d have been able to mop up the remaining models in each unit giving me 2 VPs for the kills and an extra one for first blood. The ‘gants would have been in a relatively safe position and able to react to the next wave of Daemons to drop.

Poor decision #2 I charged the remaining Flamers with my ‘fex/Prime unit. The overwatch fire caused 3 wounds killing off the wounded Carnifex and the resulting combat only succeeded in killing 2 of the remaining 3 Flamers. This was largely caused by my decision not to shoot the remaining Flamers with the nearest unit of Hive Guard though as they could probably have finished them off!

Poor decision #3 Charging Huron’s unit with my Raveners, through cover, at a distance of 9”. Obviously this was unsuccessful and the overwatch fire took the unit down to 3 models. Not good!

Sure enough Gav got the Great Unclean One and the Horrors next, blocking the progress of my ‘fex/Prime unit with the big fella and putting the Horrors in my backfield to give me another reason to think twice before advancing on his juicy units of Marines. His shooting was effective, finishing off the Raveners in the middle and taking a wound off the Tervigon on the extreme right flank. My shooting phase, however, was much more productive ... for Gav! I chose to spawn two units of ‘gants this time and one of the units in reserve came on, from here on in I think the rest of the turn can be summed up as follows:

Poor decision #4 I chose to shoot at the Pink Horrors! Sure enough the unit of Termagants failed their leadership and shot at the recently spawned unit of ‘gants killing a couple of models. Then (less stupidly – but no less unsuccessfully) my Tervigon failed his leadership test and plonked his pie-plate on top of the depleted ‘gant unit finishing them off.

Poor decision #5 After charging the Great Unclean One (who was Enfeebled I might add) with a bunch of poisoned ‘gants I also piled in my Carnifex and Prime. If I’d rolled better this would have been fine but as it was I got stuck in combat for another 2 player turns eventually losing the Prime to a challenge and everything else along the way. Only taking the Great Unclean One with me thanks to a Warp Speed buffed Tervigon charging in a turn later.

The rest of the game was rather academic since I lost all three secondary conditions and was behind on VPs even without those. I definitely could have played it better but at least I’m seeing what I’ve done wrong and hopefully I can correct this in the future.

I’m not putting it all down to my mistakes either, Gav played a blinder (clearly still sore about Space Hulk the previous week), but I think that if I’d kept my wits about be and not been quite such a knuckle-head I could have given him a bit more of a game!

If I could do it all again I would have spawned ‘gants in turn 1 and not allowed the Daemons in my back-field slow my advance. Also I should have just tar-pitted the Great Unclean One with poisoned ‘gants, they would have killed him eventually and I think my Monstrous Creatures would have had a good chance at wiping the Marine squads if they’d been able to get there!

I think that playing Tyranids, more than any army I’ve used before, requires you to have a rock solid plan going into a game and a number of factors (some of which may be out of your control) can quickly wreck that plan making recovering anything from the game very hard work. Not to mention that if you plan poorly or make silly mistakes during the game, any chance of being competitive can very quickly go out of the window. This is undoubtedly a lesson that applies to all armies and it’s a testament to my lack of success at tournaments that I have not been able to learn this lesson to date. Perhaps my experiences with Tyranids will make a better player out of me!

And in other news

Overpowered units. When 6^th was brand spanking new, everyone was asking, “How are you going to deal with Flyers?”. I think that in most situations (even though this question still pops up more often than not) my answer is, “I’m just going to ignore them”. Admittedly it’s going to be very hard to ignore multiple Vendettas when playing a Monstrous Creature-heavy list, but in that case I will try to force them to Hover to make the most out of their Lascannons and at that point I need to be in position to jump on them with something killy! Perhaps this is a naive position but I’m going to drop shooting capability from my next test list and see how it goes.

Now the overpowered unit label seems to have been applied to those troublesome Screamers and Flamers from the Chaos Daemons Codex and I have to say that they certainly do worry me, particularly as I’m probably not going to be carrying any significant shooting in the next few test lists. However if you play a list with a suitable amount of shooting in it, and as this is 6^th ed you really ought to be able to shoot, I can’t see these units being unmanageable. If you put fire-power into them they will crumble and then what has the list got? Probably some very poor scoring units with low survivability and a Monstrous Creature or two, this should be manageable. If a game is balanced you should not be able to win easily, it should be tough, it should be a challenge. And I really don’t qualify 27 Screamers and 27 Flamers as an “I Win Button”.

Let’s hear your thoughts, I’m sure you all have some!

Flyers in sixth

So to start this blog post I utter a disclaimer I have only played 2 games of sixth so this isn't a post of the informed it is a post of someone looking to be informed.

When sixth was introduced there was a lot of worry in the blogging world including from myself that fliers were going to be game breaking for those who have access to them because suddenly they were so hard to kill.

Over the last week I have been working on a chaos list that looks lke this

Lord
Black Mace
Gift of Mutation
Bike

Sorcerer with terminator armour
Mastery level 3
Tzeetch

2 lots of 25 cultists with two flamers

2 lots of 10 Chaos Space marines with melta guns

6 bikers
2 melta guns

a block of 10 terminators
4 power swords
4 power axes
2 power fists
2 autocannons

1 heldrake

Now I know that the Heldrake isn't a popular model but personally I like it however is there a point to it? With the baleflame it is good at killing MEQ without a doubt but as a an anti flyer does it cut it? How many flyers are we seeing in lists? Is it only really guard who are seeing them in numbers and if that is the case then is the Helldrake actually going to be able to deal with them?

Looking for peoples opinions on the list and the Helldrake as always

A new army for a new edition

2 more sleeps to go (unless of course you head to Warhammer world for the midnight opening, what do they think this is Call of Duty?)

So with 2 days to go a challenge has been set by Dan our resident campaign man at the first company veterans.

Many of the Veterans will be starting a Tale of 4 gamers style challenge which is being used to get more of us having a new army.

I've said many times on here that I would like to start a new army, I've toyed with the idea of Necrons, Traitor Guard and Grey Knights but I haven't finished anything.

My painting this year as with my blogging and my gaming has really ground to a halt. Wedding planning and extra work has put a stop to that sort of thing so Dan's challenge is exactly what I need.

The plan is to paint 200-300 points each month to build up to a 1750 point army with the idea suggested that at the end of it the group attends a tournament together.

You get a three points for completing your monthly painting oath (building, basing and painting), there is a bonus point for the person with the best painted models, there is a point for completing a game and each month there is a bonus task, these range from putting together fluff to building a diorama.

What army to pick then?
The rumourville is already churning over the inclusion of Chaos Space marines in the box set and for that reason I think I will be going with them.

I've always said my gaming is strongly influenced by my reading and throughout the Horus Heresy I have found the Renegades to be far more interesting than the Loyalists the only problem is I don't find the codex colourful enough to want to build an army so it’s a risk going for them.


Are they going to get the new codex that has been promised? Is it going to be legions rather than warbands? And if so what legion to go for?

The legion that has stood out for me in the Heresy has been the Word Bearers but the baron already has dibbs on them, do I go Word Bearer to Word Bearer with him or look for someone else?

Certainly needs thinking about.


So are you planning a new army for the new edition or just adapting what you have?

Look forward to seeing replies.

Thursday Thoughts

(think of it as a late Monday Musings)

Rumour Control - Percentages

I know this much is... True

We don't do rumours on this site, mainly because other people do it much better. However, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the rumours regarding 6th edition that are circulating around and to see how they might affect us. A lot of them seem to be wishing for a return to 2nd ed. Ah, 2nd ed where a 2000 point army was about 4 squads of Marines and it still took about 6 hours to play a game. It's true, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

One of the things we used to have back then and is rumoured to be making a return is percentages instead of the FOC. Now, Warhammer Fantasy Battle already uses this system but what would it mean to 40K? Well, frankly for Space Wolves it would be awesome. Assuming that missions remain broadly similar and you need troops to capture objectives, it would do away with one of the main drawbacks of the Wolves, namely that you can only take 6 scoring units. The other thing that we'd see would be more Long Fangs (and to think, Graham already calls them Cheese Fangs) Let's look at the numbers - in a 1750 point list, 3 units of 6 Long Fangs with 5 Rocket Launchers comes to 24%. So, we can fire 15 Rockets at 6 targets. Or we could have 4 units of 4 Long Fangs with 3 Rocket Launchers and a unit of 3 Long Fangs with 2 Rocket Launchers. This comes to just over 24%. Okay, so we've lost 1 Rocket shot but we can now fire at 10 targets!

I'm not a huge fan of returning to percentages to be honest, I think the FOC works pretty well especially with the characters that swap around slots. It would be interesting if they built on this in 6th edition and had characters that allowed a bit more development with regard to the FOC. Rumours are the Chaos Legion codex may have something like this where you can take an Iron Warriors Captain and get an extra Heavy Support choice for the loss of a Fast Attack one for example.

We can rebuild him

So, as you might have noticed, still no pictures of completed Thunderwolves. Turns out my finger was slightly more broken that initially thought. It is getting better though, so hopefully some more modelling pics next week...

94 Not Out

I'm sure all bloggers have been through this before - slowly watching your Followers total move towards the magical three digits. Then you realise that BoLS has more than 2,000 and you realise that world domination is still a long way away...

Anyone else starting to get excited about the impending 6th Ed? Or is anyone worried that GW will balls it up? Has anyone seen any beautiful new TWC anywhere? And is there anything specific that our 94 loyal followers would like to see? Let us know below the line...

Tuesday Thoughts

(think of it as a late Monday Musings)

Thunderwolves

As you can see, I've put together my first Thunderwolf. Before I add the rider I think it's wise to do some thinking about the actual use for the unit. Now, I've seen Thunderwolves used in many different guises since the codex came out - there's the super rock unit of Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf accompanied by 5 of his buddies down to the solo Thunderwolf as a counter-attacking threat. I think that the first option suffers from the same problems as any rock - it's a lot of eggs in one basket. As Mick found out, in some games they'll kick arse and take names and in others they will do very little. I'm also not totally convinced by the solo T-Wolves. Yes, they can easily claim cover behind a Rhino and there are definitely going to be handy against MSU armies in combat.

So, where now for me? I'm thinking of a unit of 3 initially. This feels like a good balance between the two options above and also because there are 3 in the box. It should be easy enough to claim cover with 3 but they are also going to pack a bit of a punch in combat. Thunderwolf units can get very expensive very quickly and I want a unit that on one hand I won't want to throwaway but on the other hand one that I can afford to lose without it making a huge dent in my battleplan...

3 Thunderwolf Cavalry, 2 Storm Shields, Power Fist

comes to 235 points. That seems really expensive when you consider that 5 Thunder Hammer/Storm Shield Terminators are only 200 points. However, the T-Wolves are a lot more mobile. So, the plan is that these guys will be replacing some of my Wolf Guard. Unfortunately, I have a badly bruised finger from being landed on by a Running Back at the weekend so I don't think I'll be able to finish the models this week...

Whaddya Need?

I've been thinking a lot about some of the rumours that are flying around the internets regarding rumours for the next 40K Codex and I started thinking, who would I like to see done next. Yes, we'd all like to see a better Tyranid codex but that isn't going to happen any time soon so what would we like to see? The rumours seem to point to Dark Angels or Chaos Legions, although Tau and Eldar are mentioned as outside possibilities. Following the last errata, Dark Angels are actually a pretty good army and while it would be nice to see an update I don't really think they need one right now. Personally, I think there are already too many shooty armies out there so that sees Tau off my radar. Eldar are an interesting one. I would quite like to see them being redone as their unit speciality makes them a pretty unique army on the tabletop. However, I have to admit that I'd much rather see a "big book of Chaos" The good guys have had it their way too long, it's time for the bad guys to shine.

Now, when I say "big book of Chaos", I mean, Chaos Legions, Renegades and Daemons all in the same book so that you can pick and choose. This means that you can run your all Daemon list, your all Bezerker army or anything inbetween. I had an idea of a recently renegade army that was in collusion with Daemons because they thought that they were visions of the God Emperor. So, they wouldn't fight with Cult units because they don't realise that they're actually turning evil yet.

Unfortunately, this book won't happen as there is no way that GW would release one book when they can release three and because it would be almost impossible to balance properly.

So, does anybody have any tips for using Thunderwolves? And if you could have any codex released next, which one would it be and why?

Know No Fear - The first ever review???

Well as my first proper post for Claws and Fists I thought I would review Know No Fear, the latest Horus Heresy book.  I picked this up at the Throne of Skulls Tournament which I didn’t attend but Andy and Mick did.  As I live about 10 minutes walk away I thought I’d go down, cheerlead for a bit (not that they needed it as you can see from the previous posts) and pick up the book.  By 3pm I was about 280 pages in.  I finished it off after the Ice Hockey game that evening (Nottingham Panthers 6 - Coventry Blaze 1).  As possibly one of the first people in the world to finish I thought I would honour that fact by reviewing it.  Just a quick warning this review will contain spoilers so consider yourself fairly warned – this particularly goes out to you Mick….

Still reading? Ok….

First of all this book is an action epic.  It grabbed my attention and did not let go of it.  Not only did it grab my attention but it made me reflect on the Horus Heresy series as a whole now that we are 19 books in and Dan Abnett manages to weave the works of the other Heresy novels into this seamlessly (Samus is here!)

Bit of background first Know No Fear is set in the opening years of the Heresy in particular the pre-emptive attack by the Word Bearers on the largest of the Loyalist Legions the Ultramarines, at Calth.  The Istvaan V massacre has been a fairly recent event but most importantly, due to Horus’ cryptic orders, the XIII Legion and its Primarch Robute Guilliman are unaware of this.  The book itself however covers the best part of 25 years… I’ll leave you to ponder that

The first part of the book is set before the Ultramarines even open fire on the Word Bearers and is split between Space and Planetside through multiple viewpoints and this works well.  You see through Guillimans perspective, a Contemptor-Dreadnought, multiple Ultramarines including a Sergeant marked for censure (Loving the touches on this Mr Abnett), and these show insight into the workings of the XIII Legion and its allies.  It also shows why the Ultramarines are one of, possibly the greatest Legion in the Imperium.  

Theoretical.  

Practical.

Now I will admit although I am a bit of a Space Marine fanboy I’ve never really liked the Ultramarines.  They’ve just always seemed a bit boring to me.  The Ultramarine books by Graham McNeil were great namely because for the first 4 books Uriel Ventris didn’t operate like the traditional view of an Ultramarine and then the mystery about the Newborn and large-scale warfare of the latest one distracted me from the hidebound way of the codex.  When I heard that Dan Abnett was writing Know No Fear, although I really like his work; Gaunts Ghosts, Ravenor, Eisenhorn, Legion, Horus Rising, Brothers of the Snake (think his 40k books are mostly covered there… Where’s my Bequin novels Dan!!!), I was a bit apprehensive because I was a bit disappointed with Prospero Burns.  To me Graham McNeil was the master of the boys in blue and Abnett seemed to go slightly off track with his depiction of the Space Wolves, although again on reflection is does make the Wolves better than Vikings in Space.  If any of those august individuals happen to read this let me say now an unreservedly I now owe you an apology for this apprehension.

I will be making a 2^nd Founding Ultramarines Chapter at some point and using Calth as a reason why.  Most importantly because Abnett made me like Guilliman and that dear reader is impressive... 

When I read this novel it immediately occurred to me not only do I know what happens I know some specifics after it.  The Age of Darkness collection has a book which is set after Calth and this occurred to me before I even brought it.  Guilliman is Holmes-esque in his attention to detail and Dan has made the book so elegant that you can almost see the thoughts whirring behind him (Maybe I’ve been watching too much Sherlock but it does seem like that to me).  It also continues to build up Guilliman as the Emperors true successor and as the architect of the Imperium and not just as the man who wrote the Codex Astartes.  Abnett does this with great aplomb and continues to build on groundwork laid out by Aaron Debenski-Bowden in First Heretic, Aurellian and Savage Weapons and McNeil in Rules of Engagement (Imperium Secundus anyone) while opening up new threads which I hope other Heresy Authors will pick up and run with.  If you’re reading this ADB where have you guys sent Angron then!  I imagine Butchers Nails will tell us…

It was always a curiosity to me how the Word Bearers managed to ambush the Ultramarines as it has been established in the fluff for a long time that they did.  The Ultramarines were supposed to be led by arguably the greatest military mind in the Imperium yet they were ambushed and almost wiped out within 24 hours Guilliman and his Legion manage to turn it around and turn a massacre no-win scenario into a stalemate which allows the Imperium to eventually endure and recover from the wounds received in the Heresy. 

Highlights of particular note for me were as follows and I will try to leave them semi-cryptic:

• Raptorus Rex (Fire Hawks starfort????)
• A unexpected cameo appearance from someone in Legion (The wording of this is in itself is a subtle clue, serious kudos if you pick up on it or correct me if its wrong)
• So he refuses my call for a ceasefire but I tell him to go and screw himself, he calls immediately.
• Samus is here!
• Vacuum? I don’t need a helmet, I’m a mother-funking Primarch, Bastard!
• Oll Persson = Ollanius Pious - smart money?
• Kor Phaeron - Darth Sidious
• Why Ultramarine Veteran Sergeants have red helmets

As a conclusion this novel does now finally put a close on the prequels to the Heresy.  Its been a long journey but now we can get onto the road to the Siege of the Emperors Palace.   I think this has been coming for a while but it really does put Dan Abnett back on top of the pile of Black Library Authors.  A few years ago there was a joke going around that there was going to be a knife fight for the Siege of Terra between Abnett and McNeil in the Warhammer World carpark.  I think ADB can obviously be added into the fray now but I don’t want Dan to write it, I want him to write the aftermath and Guillimans ascendancy.

Next Heresy Book review I imagine will be our favourite most dysfunctional family.....

The Primarchs!

Smokey D

Doubles - Day 1

The C&F Boys

Firstly, two apologies; I'm rubbish with names so I can't remember the names of anyone we played apart from Dave and Steve and I took no photos at all during the tournament. Sorry about that. So, I'm going to do a three part review of the weekend and then hopefully Andy will do a post as well. Here's the list we took, so without further ado...

Game 1 vs Orks & Imperial Guard

They had one huge unit of Nob Bikerz (all unique, natch) and a little unit of Grotz in the Ork half and a Manticore, Marbo, CCS, two units of Veterans, two Vendettas and some Scout Sentinals. We won the Attacker/Defender roll off and chose to attack. This meant that they only got to deploy one of their forces while we got to deploy both of ours. The spacing meant that we couldn't get a 1st turn charge off but by turn 2, we had our two big mobz and the Stormboyz in against the Nobz. If we had won this combat we would probably have won the game.

Unfortunately, we did no damage at all shooting on the way in, one of our Klaws ended up going on the Warboss rather than the squad where we needed him and our regular attacks did the square root of nothing. By the end of turn 3, all three units had been destroyed and our hopes rested on our Grotz killing half a dozen Nob Bikerz to win the game.

The only mistake we really made was forgetting that Trukks are Fast vehicles so Ghaz could have been travelling 19" per turn which might have gotten him somewhere near the big combat with a Waaarrrgh. As it was, the Trukk got blown up around midtable and he didn't have much impact.

Game 2 vs Dark Eldar & Dark Eldar

Andy and I deployed in opposite corners while our opponents did likewise while the Objectives formed a cross in the middle of the board. They went first and managed to blow up Ghaz's Trukk in Turn 1 which should have left him out of the game completely. Fortunately, they then kept feeding him units to kill. We Waaarrrghed when we charged into the first unit of Incubi. They then made the huge mistake of charging the second unit into Ghaz while he was still invulnerable. With Ghaz and his Nobz rampaging through everything they touched, Andy's Boyz went reasonably unmolested and claimed three Objectives.

Game 3 vs Orks & Chaos Space Marines

Another unique mission in which the defenders start their entire army within 6" of the centre line, then the attackers go first but the defenders fall back to the centre and automatically regroup. Being a kill point mission, this means that you have to wipe a unit out if you're attacking, none of this letting them run away nonsense. Our opponents won the roll off to decide attacker/defender and chose to defend. With the set up, this meant that we were going to get a first turn charge off. By the end of our turn 1, we had killed two Rhinos, two Trukks, a Battlewagon and 11/12 Boyz from one of the Trukks. We pulled off multi-assaults against the stationery vehicles and with 5KP in the bag it was nearly all over then.

We spent the rest of the game finishing off the Orks and staying away from the Plague Marines and Obliterators (even though I did keep imploring Andy to run over the PMs with one of his Battlewagons!) Afterwards, I felt pretty bad for our opponents as they must have realised half way through our first movement phase that we were going to get all of our nasty Power Klaws into their vehicles.


So, day 1 finished with two big wins and one big defeat. However, we'd not been doing very well on the Secondary Missions (mainly because we both kept getting the kill a unit of 10 or more models in one turn of shooting) so we were probably going to start day 2 somewhere around halfway...

Die die die!

(it's German for The the the)

We managed to win our third game against Orks and Chaos Space Marines. They gave away the first turn and we got five kill points, and after that they were always struggling.

Blog Wars – Mephiston and Me

As I'm sure you're reading all over the interwebs at the moment a little tournament called Blog Wars took place a couple of weekends ago in the beautiful heart of the East Midlands, Mansfield. Maelstrom Games to be exact, a venue fast becoming the choice for discerning Tournament Organisers all over the country despite the fact it's less than 30 minutes away from Games Workshop's own Warhammer World!

As you will have seen in previous posts on this very blog, the Claws and Fists crew were very much in attendance, even Darren managed to drag himself out of bed, on next to no notice, to cover for a last minute cancellation.

Anyway, as the title of this post implies this is going about my three games and my chosen Special Character (a requirement for the Tournament), Mephiston. Meph hasn't really let me down before but I was nervous about choosing him for this one as I feel his effectiveness has been hurt by the new Grey Knight 'dex and he's always less effective against armies with psychic defence. Also he's not much of a force multiplier, I accept that he's a Death-Star unit all on his own, but I think you get better bang for your buck from someone who makes the whole army, or at least sections of it, better.

In a probably unnecessary relay to start the morning, I drive to Gav's place who gives me a lift to Graham's house and Graham gives us both a lift up to Maelstrom … besides anything else at least we all get to chat and get into tournament mode in the car on the way up. Once we arrive the usual coffee, browse through Mick's copy of “The People” and complaining that 9am on a Sunday is too early to be concentrating on anything ensues before we head upstairs to find our tables for game 1.

Who should I see across the table from me, none other than the one army I was really hoping not to have to face, despite the fact I really like the paint scheme, it's Bully from Sons of Sanguinius's fabulous and deadly Deathwing army! I've got a fair bit of anti-2+ weaponry but not a single invulnerable save in the entire army so I new I could make him roll a lot of invulnerable saves but would be unlikely to survive the counter attack!

Bully's done a fantastic blow by blow account here so I won't go into details but I'll just talk about my tactics and where it all went wrong. The mission was Capture and Control with Spearhead deployment, my first mistake was to place my objective too far forward so he could easily march his army across to it. What I tried to do was to feed him units to slow him down. My first gambit was with my Furioso Dread but he got splattered (very unluckily) in the first round of combat to the loss of only a couple of Terminators!

That was a bit of a failure so next I resorted to sacrificing Razorbacks while positioning my jumpers and Sanguinary Guard for a counter-attack, unfortunately he was easily able to despatch my transports in his shooting phase with CMLs and then charge the squishy squad inside and consolidate closer to my lines. So rather than slow him down I actually accelerated his progress across the board! Bummer!

My Plasma-backs were ineffective with Bully casually rolling 3++'s when required so it was down to Meph and the Sanguinary Guard to get into the mix. They did not disappoint on the charge vaporising Belial and his Command Squad for the loss of two Guard. However, as predicted on the counter charge by the next squad they were soundly beaten with only Mephiston left, and with only one wound remaining he failed his leadership test and ran away. There was little else to put up resistance to the tank-like advance of the Deathwing and the game ended in a tabling and 2-0 defeat for the Yellow Blood Angels.

Bully was a great opponent, really good to play against and fun to chat to, I look forward to facing off against him again in the future, though not the Deathwing!

Game 2 was against Scott (a friend of From the Fang) and his Chaos Space Marines. He was rocking Abaddon with 4 Chaos Terminators, a winged Daemon Prince with Warptime, a unit of Berzerkers in a Rhino, a unit of Thousand Sons in a Rhino, a unit of Chaos Space Marines in a Rhino, a Deflier, 2 Obliterators and a unit of Havocs with Missile Launchers and a Lascannon. The mission was Annihilation with Dawn of War deployment and I won the roll-off to go first.

I did my usual DoW deployment, 2 razorbacks 7” on and Mephiston was placed in cover a little further up the board and Scott did a similar thing with his 'zerker and 1k Sons Rhinos and Daemon Prince. He chose to deep strike The Oblits and Abaddon and his unit of Terminators and I think this really hurt him because Abaddon and co. did not appear until turn 4!

This was one of those games where luck was on my side, I made few mistakes and those I did make were not punished. For example I played Mephiston too high up the board too soon and allowed him to get assaulted by the Daemon Prince, however Meph managed to take out the Daemon Prince for the loss of only a couple of wounds. Though let's not get too excited about Meph's performance here as he got punked shortly afterwards by the Obliterators.

With Abaddon off the table for most of the game I was able to focus down the rest of his units relatively comfortably. In fact by the time The Despoiler decided to join the party, Scott had only a few Chaos Marines and Havocs on the board and both were about to be wiped out. The great thing about this was that I could pretty much fire every unit left in my army at the Terminators cutting them down to a more manageable size. I intentionally did not charge them as Abaddon on his own could easily have taken out any of my units in a single turn and I did not want to give him the chance to get through more units than necessary. In fact I positioned my Sanguinary Guard away from the rest of my army to ensure I got as much firepower into the Terminators while drawing him away from the fight.

Scott took the bait and charged and wiped out the Sanguinary Guard but only Abaddon was left standing and he could not stand up to the combined fire-power of the rest of my army for another turn and fell under a hail of fire from all sides ending the game in decisive fashion, a tabling to the Yellow Blood Angels.

Two games down and I was 1-1. Game three saw a familiar face and his horde of mean greenies across the table from me, TheBaron himself. Uh oh, I've not beaten Darren's Orks yet and he's pretty damn good with them, it was nice to be able to relax a bit though, for me it's a different game playing against friends even in a tournament. The Mission was Seize Ground with Pitched Battle deployment and I gave Darren first turn.

The board was not what I'd call ideal, a big landing pad slap bang in the middle blocking LoS to a good potion of the board with other pieces of high terrain giving me only narrow fire lanes at about the half way mark across the board. Never-the less I set up to take as much advantage of the fire-lanes as I could and to protect my more fragile units from his Lootas on turn 1.

As usual Darren used his Kommandos, Storm Boyz and Deffkopta to split my forces and draw attention away from the main fight and objectives and even though I can see this happening, they are not the sort of units you can just ignore as they will mess up your lines if not properly dealt with. While the terrain meant I couldn't leverage what shooting I had, it also meant he could not advance a wide front across the board which limited his ability to get bodies into combat. This was particularly useful in keeping his Meganobs out of the early combats.

Speaking of the Meganobs, they were one of the key units of the game, around turn 3 or 4 I decided that I needed to take them out so I put Mephiston in the firing line as he was closest and best equipped. All went to plan, de-meching them and placing them within Meph's charge range however, when he really needed it he failed to get his S10 power off and could only kill two of the four. He paid dearly for this and was mashed in the return strikes from the surviving Meganobs.

The Sanguinary Guard finished them off later to keep one objective free. In his backfield Darren had strung out his grots to cover two objectives. It was on my right flank where the battle would be won and the Warboss was turning the tide in Darren's favour. I had little I could put against him to free up the key objective and behind him and his 'ard Boyz Darren had another large unit of Boyz ready to counter any assault I could muster. The last charge of my Assault squads was soundly beaten back and the game was over 3-1 in favour of the Orks.

As always it was a good game against Darren and I froze early on when I should have been moving decisively to engage further up the board but I was too obsessed with not getting charged. This meant I had too much ground to cover later in the game. I was outplayed again but I think I got more out of this game than either of the previous two, it was also closer (in my mind anyway).

To sum up the day, it was a lot of fun. The atmosphere was very different from other tournaments I've attended before, more laid-back and social but I guess that was the intention all along. The Special Characters angle was great, I love using Special Characters in my list and even though Meph let me down pretty consistently in all of the games I would be up for a similar format next time. The Sanguinary Guard were excellent in all of my games, because they are fragile they need support and proper application but they are pretty much universally devastating on the charge!

Overall I finished 15th out of 26 players which I'm actually a little disappointed with, I know it's not like me to say that but I seem to be stuck at mid-table in all of the tournies I've competed at since last September. I think Gav's got the right idea in just sticking with one list to get really good at it and perhaps that's what I need to start consistently threatening the top 25% of the field in future tournaments. Not so much back to the drawing board but a focus on consistency in the future, I guess we'll see how it goes.

Some Good Men Go To War

(cos it's like last week's Doctor Who...)

Firstly, I'd like to join the crescendo of voices thanking Alex for organising last week's Blog Wars tournament. It was a brilliant day and I really wish I could have played (put it this way, if I'm still in the country for the next one, I'm definitely entering)

Anyway, without further ado, let's get onto the pictures. I didn't catch everyone's names so apologies for that...


Wazdakka prepares to lead his biker Boyz against Graham's Orks:

"Erm, of course my Mephiston knows Null Zone" - Andy prepares to face off against Bully's Deathwing:

Space Wolves don't surf! Mick's Long Fangs draw a bead on a Vendetta (the Valkyries came on later...):

Ragnar risks becoming a squig as Alex faces off against Darren and Old Zogwort:

"I think I left the oven on" - Mephiston decides he has somewhere better to be:

Onto the Game 2 pics...

Learning his lesson from the first game, Mephiston hides:

Graham's Defiler also hides but he can still see those nasty Grey Knights:

It's Annihilation and Mick faces an army with only 3 Kill Points make up of 2 wound Terminators:

Darren's Orks take on Blood Angels - and these Angels can fly:

Bjorn gets stuck in:

KHARN!:

Andy's Blood Angels jump into action:

An Ork and Blood Angel bloodbath:

Arena Of Death on tour. Matt's Draigo takes on Calgar:

(Draigo wins)

Game 3...

Andy's Blood Angels prepare to be assaulted by Darren's Deffkopta:

Mick takes the fight to the fishmen:

A Grey Hunter's eye view of those Crisis Suits:

In the perfect end to Graham's weekend, Kharn gets killed by Rough Riders:

The final Claws and Fists tally:

P 12 W 4 D 1 L 7

A few thoughts on the performance of the C&F guys...

Mick - Space Wolves

Mick really needed to be more aggresive in game 1 against the IG. He was unlucky to imobilse a Rhino early on but there should have been two Rhinos trying to grab his opponents Objective. Then, he left the squad inside the Rhino and only tried to contest with his two Speeders which were easily shot down. Game 2 was a tough match up - a Kill Point game against an army with only 3 Kill Points. He was unlucky though, as Bjorn was half and inch short of a potential game winning charge and then the game ended on turn 5. Having said that, Mick finished the game with a lot of his army still in one piece, again evidence of a lack of aggression especially against an opponent he had to table to win. Game 3 was nip & tuck but it would have been really harsh if Mick had finished the tournament without a win.

Andy - Blood Angels

I'm not really sure what to say about Andy's game 1. He got tabled by a Deathwing list and there's no advice I can give since I came very close to being tabled by a similar list at the last Open War (all I had left of 1750 points was an imobilised Rhino) Similarly, I can't offer any critique for game 2 as he tabled his opponent. Game 3 was against a very canny operator but Andy failed to leverage his speed advantage late on. As Andy started what would be his last turn, he was 4-1 down. A Boyz squad held one Objective, 2 Mega-Nobz another and a squad of Grotz was stretched across 2 more. Andy's Sanguinary Guard dealt with the Nobz but a failed Tank Shock left the Boyz in place. What he should have done is driven his Razorback 18", jumped out and shot at the Grotz. Yes, it would have been a long shot to kill enough to force a Leadership test and then for them to fail twice  but it was probably better than trying to Tank Shock through a Power Klaw armed Warboss.

Darren - Orks

Firstly some Robin Smith-esque man-love. The way Darren uses his "throwaway" units (Storm Boyz and Kommandos) to tie up and distract enemy scoring units is a joy to watch. Game 1, he needed a bit of luck to defeat Alex but having weathered a Ragnar Blackmane charge, it would be churlish to begrudge such luck. Game 2, he was almost too Orky. Playing against an army with very little long range shooting, he let himself get sucked in. Some might argue that if the Kommandos had turned up on the correct flank things would have been different but that's the risk you take with outflanking. Game 3 against another Blood Angel player could have been closer but his Warboss stopped a final turn attempted Tank Shock.

Graham - Chaos Space Marines

For some, this tournament can be summed up with how their special characters did. For Mick, Bjorn kicked arse and took names in the game he won and was 125mm away from winning game 2. For Andy, Mephiston ran away in game 1 but did much better in game 2. Now I was (un)fortunate enough to witness then demise of Kharn in games 1 & 3 for Graham. Game 1 heU was run over by an Ork Deffrolla and game 3 he was killed by some Rough Riders! Game 1, Graham suffered a similar fate to Mick in that he got nowhere near his opponent's Objective but, he was unlucky not to hold his own as bloody battle erupted all around it. Game 2 was always going to be a tough match-up against an army that was shootier, more mobile and more resilient. The game was close for the first three turns but then the Grey Knights accelerated away. Razorbacks full of small squads normally equals Kill Points a-plenty but Graham really lacked the long range fire power to take advantage. Game 3 and Kharn's Land Raider got punked early and Graham struggled to get anywhere near the IG gunline. This was one of those games where you really need to think about how to cross the board and it would possibly have been advantageous to Deep Strike the Obliterators and/or the Terminators.

I calls it as I sees it. Did you play against any of the C&F guys? What did they do well and what should they have done differently? If you did play against them, why haven't they added you to our blog roll?

Kharn-al Desires

So on Sunday it's the Blog Wars tournament, and I have returned to my old friends the Chaos Space Marines. My list features the unique character KHARN (got to be shouted) who I have used once before. My full list is:

HQ1 - KHARN
HQ2 - Slaanesh Sorcerer with Lash, Wind of Chaos & a Familiar

EL - 4 x Terminators (2 x power weapons, 2 x chain fists)

TR - 8 x Berzerkers (including Champion with power weapon)
TR - 8 x Berzerkers (including Cgampion with power weapon)

HVY1 - Defiler
HVY2 - 3 x Obliterators
HVY3 - Predator with Daemonic Possession and Lascannon Sponsons

APC1 - Rhino with daemonic possession
APC2 - Rhino with daemonic possession
APC3 - Land Raider with Daemonic possession

Blog-War Ensemble

Hi all,

After returning from a great week on holiday in Cornwall (variously eating, surfing, drinking and falling off cliffs into the sea), I have returned home and immediately booked myself onto the Blog Wars Tournament.

I will be bringing along my now-trusty Chaos Space Marines tournament force, which has already had two outings at Maelstrom tourneys already. My quandary is now, which character to bring along. I vary rarely use named characters, so I need to get to work reading my CSM codex, and I'll post my final army list here next weekend, so watch this space!

Blood Reaver - The review

I will try and keep it spoiler free!

Before I start I know that on writing this I am starting to drift into Aaron Dembski-Bowden (ABD) fan boy territory but his recent writings have been that good I'm willing to accept it. Soul Hunter was good, First Heretic was better and Blood Reaver doesn't fail to deliver.

ADB again picks up the tale of Talos Prophet of the Night Lords legion or what is left of it as they continue to pursue a victory in a war that many have now given up on. The book sees them take the fight to the Imperium looking for that oh so important commodity gene seed however hard times have befallen the once proud eighth legion and they seek assistance from the Blood Reaver himself, the Tyrant of Badab. This leads them getting caught up in one of his schemes and plots against the Imperium. There is also an interesting side plaot involving Talos' slaves and general life aboard the ship which shows another side to the seedy under belly of the 40k universe. Other than that I don't want to go into the story any more, you can read it instead I'll tell you what I loved about it.

What ADB does better than anyone I think is he gives you an inner turmoil as a reader as to who you are meant to be rooting for. Regular readers will know that I am a pure Imperium player, good guys for the win but what ADB shows you and this is a key feature of Grim Dark, is that there are no good guys. Talos as I see it is as 'good' a character as you get in 40K, he fights for his Primarch, he believes that (some) evil should be punished and he protects the people who serve him and his chapter but he has the harsh reality of a setting that is imperfect. Talos constantly harks back to a simpler time when all of his brothers served as he did under their perfect father while his brothers treat this memory with scorn because they know that this never existed.

ADB manages to give a sense of realism to his characters and this brings me back to what he said to me last year when he questioned my review of Prospero Burns. He certainly creates a less characturesque (is that even a real word?) view of the 40K universe. What drives the characters is far more real rather than just 'DEATH TO THE EMPEROR' or 'DEATH TO THE ENEMIES OF THE EMPEROR'. His characters love and desire and this does add in a grown up factor to the story.

As with all his books there wasn't a lot that I didn't like bar the last battle scene which was perhaps a little quick. I also would have liked a bit more Huron but again you can't have everything in life. My other major gripe is the hints at what the next book will be about, is it too much of a give away to point to Eldar seeing as they are mentioned so often? Come on, I hate spoilers when you know that the next one is so far away.

Over the last year ADB has firmly become my favourite Black Library author even if Battle for the Fang has overtaken First Heretic as my favourite book. Hope you enjoy reading this one as much as I did when it finally comes out in shops.

Tales of an AWOL Gamer

So, it's been a while! I guess I ought to explain my absence from both the blog and the WHW gaming hall. My girlfriend's dad has been ill, and we've been spending time with him in Bristol while we could; unfortunately he died a couple of weeks ago, which meant more time away. Couple to that more working trips to Aberdeen and some forthcoming gigs (both on a Thursday) and it all means my opportunities for gaming have been limited, to say the least! Since I've not been able to play at WHW or post here on the world's premier blog-site, I've had to content myself with planning some new armies, and tinkering with my existing forces too. Firstly, my Chaos Marines - this is a working army, so only needed a small modification. I've bought more fantasy Ogres, for conversion into Obliterators, meaning I should soon be able to field three units of three if I fancy it!
Next, my Squats. Believe it or not, they are nearly finished! Problem is, you're never gonna see 'em - at WHW or any GW store, at least. Our gaming club is having a crack-down on non-GW models, which renders every single tank in my army redundant. So, I'm building my own sci-fi hanger-themed wargames table for some home battles, and I'm intending to start playing at Maelstrom on Tuesdays and/or weekends too in order to get some use out of my new army.
Next, I'm putting together a cheap'n'cheerful Heresy-Era World Eaters army. The design criteria here is that this 1,500pt force must be compact enough to fit in a single A4 box-file in order to fit in my suitcase ready to travel to Aberdeen with me! During my last trip north-of-the-border, I played two games at GW Aberdeen, and I must say what a friendly and welcoming bunch they are. These away-games have transformed rather dull work-trips into something a bit more satrisfying. The composition of this army isn't decided yet, but will be based around some vintage Space Marine Scouts (from the early-90's 'Tyranid Attack' game), plus a load of second-hand Space Marines and Rhinos won off ebay this weekend. The army will be a 'counts-as' Blood Angels list, using Berzerkers instead of Death Company and Kharn replacing Astorath.
My other ideas include dragon-riding Exodite Eldar and an Epic Space Marine force. I will of course chart my progress on this blog!

Doubles Review...

Well I was meaning to get this up sooner. But I've been crazy busy this week to say the least...but finally here it is! It wont be a detailed account of all the games but a general over view, highlights and thoughts. So lets jump right in with:

The List


1 x Daemon Prince with Wings and Lash
1 x Great Unclean One with Instrument and Cloud of Flies

5 x Chosen with 3 x Melta Guns, 2 x Flamers in a Rhino with a Combi-Melta
4 x Fiends
3 x Flamers

10 x CSM with Power Fist, Lascannon, Plasma Gun, IoCG in a Rhino
5 x Plague Bearers
5 x Plague Bearers

8 x Flesh Hounds
5 x Seekers

1 x Oblit
1 x Oblit

Now as you can see it doesn't look terribly broken, and this was part of its strenght, people underestimated the elements combining to be greater that the sum of its parts. Normally if you think Daemons and Chaos, you think Lash Prince 4-6 Oblits, 12+ Fiends/Crushers, 5 Plague Marines, 5 Plague Bearers and not much else..so we took the Prince, and the Oblits as a distraction.

The general plan was for the Obliterators and las-cannon squad to de-mech what they could turn one and two, while the Prince took the brunt of the incoming fire and made the opponents set up and play differently. This was the psychological effect we wanted and achieved in pretty much all of our games. The real power in the list were the Daemons. The Hounds, Seekers and Fiends could drop outside of Rapid Fire range and then usually get a charge off in the next turn, the Flamers just ate a couple of squads and then died generally but were one of the best units we had.

The Games

We had a really good time over the weekend, and all the people we played against were great opponents who we'd never played against before which was good.

Game 1:

The first game was against a double foot marine list with two objectives. The enemy made the mistake here of bunching up with most of their units, and not using heroic intervention on their Vanguards. On top of this the list they were using is what our list plays best against. This resulted in us tabling them to net 1500 Vps

Highlight: the Flamers dropping in to get 17 hits on bunched up Sternguard...to cause only 4 wounds...

Game 2:

This was the only game we lost, down to something that became a common theme for the weekend, it ended on turn 5. We were against Orks and DE in a kill point mission. Their army had 3 Deff Dreads, a large mob of Boys and a KFF along with some Blood Brides and Warriors in Raiders and 2 units of Reavers. The game started with me having to explain to the opponent that you roll once on the drug table and apply it to the whole army, not roll for each unit...not a great start. The game ended after an unlucky combat which saw 10 CSMs charge 5 DE Warriors...and the Warriors won! The game ended on turn 5 with the oponents having a single DE warrior, an immobile raider and an immobile Deff dread left, we had the GUO and an Obliterator bearing down on them but the dice gods are fickle...

Highlight: The Prince lashing the Ork Boyz mob and spreading them out so that the Fiends on the other side of the board could charge one end, and the prince the other keeping the Nob and Klaw out of combat and stuck bridging the gap as it couldnt move up and pile in!

Game 3:

Game 3 was a multiple objective game against Foot Marines and BAs in Rhinos with some Scouts in Storms. Suffice to say our army rolled over them and netted us another 1500 Vps with Hounds tearing down speeders and the like..

Highlight: Chris having pin-point accuracy to tell me where to place the Prince so that he could last a squad at 23" away but leaving the Librarian just out with his hood of nerf...

Game 4:

Game 4 was against Wolves and Sisters in a kill point mission. The thing that won this game for us is that we held the Oblits in reserve to deep strike and the Chosen to outflank. Our opponents bunched up in one corner only for our reserves to show up in turn to in the right place. The Chosen in their rhino came on and blew up a rhino with a Rune Priest in only for them to be pinned, this then stopped the Sisters Immolator and Exorcist from moving anywhere. They focussed their fire on the the Daemon Prince and Obliterator which left the Flamers free to eat some Long Fangs and Sisters in one turn! The game ended on turn 5 again with the Cannoness stuck in combat with the GUO with no faith points...another 1300 Vps for the loss of 3 kill points!

Highlight: The Flamers were very impressive, but just the army in general played perfectly this game.

Game 5:

Back to the top tables...this time against Wolves and Guard, in a multi objective game. Some good shooting on the opponents side took out the Prince and Chosen early on, but it left them out of position and away from the objectives. If they'd have played differently the could have rolled over us to be honest but they just focused on the wrong things. The game ended again on turn 5 with the opponents only having 5 Guardsmen and an immobile Basilisk, we'd lost the Seekers, Chosen and Prince...with everything else ready to strike.

Highlight: The GUO eating a Land Raider, 9 Wolf Guard, 6 Grey Hunters a Rune Priest and a handful of Guardsmen

Game 6:

Last game of the weekend and on Table 3 against Eldar and Dark Eldar. An unlucky morale tests on our opponents part saw us in a strong possition early on and we capitalised on this, coupled with the Prince making some good Inv saves in combat with the Archon to finish him off in turn 3! The game ended again in turn 5 with us on one objective and moving to the other. We'd lost the Seekers and the GUO, the enemy had a Farseer, 1 Dire Avenger and a wounded Wraithlord left.

Highlight: The Daemon princed being charged in Turn one, but holding out with some lucky inv saves to kill the Archon in turn 3....roll enough dice and a one will turn up eventually...

Over all a good weekend. We came 4th due to table one drawing and someone on table two winning...any other result would have seen Chris and I come 2nd or 3rd...we did however win the Bloodthirster award with around 8200 Vps over the weekend out of a possible 9000!..the reason we didn't get the full 9000 was due in a large part to the dice gods ending all our games on turn 5! However, when you factor in that the Daemons don't do much in turn one appart from the Flamers thats a total of 24 Turns to kill stuff (about 330 Vps per turn)!

Final Thoughts

It wasn't until about a week later that I realised why we did so well. It wasn't that we took an over the top list, we didnt, we took a mix of Daemons from all the Gods, on top of that I don't play Chaos Marines and Chris doesn't play Daemons so its not like we knew the armies inside and out.

We do however know the rules, and other armies well enough to priorities targets and offer fake threats. On top of this, and ultimately the main reason was communication. Every move we made, and decision we came to was communicated so that we could support each others units to maximise their strenghts and limit their weaknesses. Other players did this to a degree but Chris and I played with 1 x 1500pt army, not 2 x 750pt forces put together.

TheBaron out!

I rolled: 6 (4/2)