40k day

Played some 40k today!
Marines and Marines vs the new Dark Angels, Orks and a Knight. Massive amounts of destruction on both sides. The new DA psychic powers seem pretty good.

After his Thunderfire cannon was destroyed, the Techmarine attempts to claim his vengeance on the Knight. He is not very successful.

Infinty Games Day

Hello!
Yesterday I made the trek up to Chiba to visit the wonderful Mr Fields hobby store. There were about 6 of us, 3 tables and players of varying skill levels.

Aleph vs Tohaa. Not pictured: Tohaa

More pics after the jump:

Infinity - First Batrep, ALEPH vs Nomads

Last week I finally played an actual proper game of Infinity!
Well, 150 points and everyone involved was very new, but still.

It was me and 2 friends. First game of the day was Aleph vs Nomads.
My Infinity terrain is still very much under construction but I think I managed to cobble together a decent table using a couple of Infinity style pieces, some 40k stuff and scatter terrain. Not good, but not bad.

The middle two buildings are from CNC Miniatures. More terrain to come soon!

Battle Report: Bu'Kuro Sept Tau vs Yme Loc Eldar

I rolled some dice today and also took some (poor quality) pictures. 2 (mostly) painted armies fighting it out over (mostly) painted terrain. That's what this game is all about!

We played 1750 using the Maelstrom mission cards. I really enjoy using that mission type. Very fun and dynamic and really changes the flow of 40k. I won't bother typing out army lists because this isn't really very in depth but I can if anyone is interested.

Broadsides survey the Eldar flank.

Longstrike takes a pot shot at the distant Wave Serpent but the Eldar shields prove effective

500pts Necrons vs Dark Eldar

Earlier this week I ran a short intro game of 40k for a friend who's just starting out.
My goal was to showcase a few different unit types and give a general feel for how things interact with other things.
Simple stuff but everything was painted so I took some pictures!

This pretty much sums up how the game went. The Dark Eldar get gunned down by the Necrons with very little robotic casualties in return.

Dark Eldar 3 games in

I managed to get a mighty 3 games in this week, to break in my new DE force. The good news is there was plenty of pain and despair inflicted. The bad news is that most of it was inflicted on me.

My army list was a bit of a hodge podge mix of things. Stuff I liked the look of from the miniature range (most of the first wave of releases), stuff I already owned (Harlequins, the forgeworld Pheonix Bomber) and a few things I wanted to try out (Lady Malys and a Haemonculus).
Here's what my 1500 list looked like.

-----------------------
Lady Malys

Haemonculus
(Agoniser)

9 Wychs
(Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

9 Wychs
(Razorflails, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)


10 Warriors
(Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Dark Lance)

6 Reavers
(2x Caltrops, 2 x Heat Lances)

Voidraven
(Flickerfield, 1 Shatter Missiles)

6 Harlequins
(Kisses, 2 fusion pistols, Shadowseer, Death Jester)

1494
-----------------------

First game was against craftworld Eldar, a guardian horde. With the exception of 3 warwalkers, everyone was on foot. This ended up being a fairly non dynamic battle, sadly. He was new to his army as well, so we both sort of kept our distance and slapped each other around a little before drawing with an objective each. I had set up for a bit of a first turn assault on his forces (using Malys' redeployment abilities), but got the initiative seized on me, which took the wind out of my sails a little. I did manage to run down a 15 man squad of guardians using only a single sybarite however, which was pretty entertaining.

Second game was up against Imperial Guard. A valk and a Vendetta, a bunch of Chimeras, a Manticore, a Deathstrike, and a single Russ. This time I think I made the mistake of heading in to a stand up fight, rather than engaging all of my forces against part of his. I really don't have the numbers to be able to commit a portion of it as a distraction. AV 12 was my bane this game, as it continues to be for my gaming career. Give me multiple Land Raiders over multiple Chimeras any day. I don't think I managed to crack open any of his transports. By the end of the game I had a single Reaver left (albeit the most bad-ass reaver in existence; throughout the game he survived numerous bolt and las shots, a straight up lascannon hit, and being set on fire numerous times). On the plus side however, I got the hang of a couple of tricks that will work for me in the future. One was using cover with my raiders. Whilst I was hit with a lot of fire power, I think I managed to claim a save from most of it (in which case I might be able to trim Flickerfields to free up some points in the future. Will need further investigation). The other was how to use my bikes. I deployed them behind cover out of sight of most of his army. First turn I moved forwards 12 to unleash my double heat lance on one of his fliers, before using my assault move to dodge back behind cover. Granted, the part of my plan that involved rolling more than a 2 with the hit dice apparently failed, but the movement part seemed solid. My Voidraven also got immobilised but still managed to nuke the russ and the manticore. I like the Voidraven. Maybe one day I'll get to drop the mine.

3rd game I went up against a (mostly) mechanised Tau force. 3 Hammerheads (2 with rail guns, 1 with an ion cannon), 2 Devilfish fire warrior squads, 2 on foot fire warrior squads, and a big pack of outflanking kroot. Oh, there was a commander and squad of suits in reserve as well but they didn't show up till the last turn, by which time I was mostly out for the count. The jetbikes did tons better this game. I kept them turbo boosting throughout most of it, decapitating a whole squad of fire warriors in one pass. You know that must have looked awesome on the battlefield. I kept the Voidraven in reserve again, which I think is a solid tactic. It protects the thing from unwarranted enemy attentions, plus I can bring it where it can do the most damage. My main foe this time was my horrible anti-armour. I think someone must have forgotten to change the batteries in the lances before the battle, because I failed to do anything more than a stun result to any of the vehicles.

Ok, enough rambling about that. I've made a few tweaks based on what worked and what didn't. I've added in more manoeuvrability, and more lances. I've dropped the Haemonculus, too. The free pain token is nice, no doubt about that, but I think the lack of fleet hurts when I'm trying to get my wyches into the fight.

This is what my new 1500 looks like.

-----------------------
Archon
(Shadowfield, Agoniser)

Succubus
(Agoniser)

9 Wychs
(Hydra Gauntlets, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

9 Wychs
(Razorflails, Hekatrix with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Splinter Cannon, Sybarite with Agoniser)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

10 Warriors
(Blaster, Dark Lance)
Raider
(Flickerfield)

6 Reavers
(2x Caltrops, 2 x Heat Lances)

Voidraven
(Flickerfield, 2 Shatter Missiles)

Ravager
(Flickerfield)

1496
-----------------------
As I said, more speed and more lances, which should help get the foe out of their transports, and get my wyches into the foe. I've also changed up the HQ a little. A fighty character with each squad should, I hope, give them the extra punch they need when I go up against more close combat orientated forces. I ripped through Guardsmen and Fire Warriors in close combat, but I suspect those Flesh Tearers that I sometimes fight may give me more of a fight. We shall see.


I'm mostly done with my epic quest of glueing grey plastic together, so hopefully I should be able to get some more painting posts up soon!

Post Apocalyptic Pictures

Well, the last reactor has gone nuclear, the last plasma gun has cooled, and the last chainsword has been dislodged from the last head.
Had a great day yesterday, and our little 40k game was certainly apocalyptic.
Most importantly, my Phoenix got to shoot something (killed a mighty 8 chaos marines before we had to call time) and my Shadowsword got to kill something (mostly our own guardsmen when it exploded), so I was pleased!
Here are a few photos I took:

Overview of the Imperial side's forces all unpacked. You can see, from closest to furthest away, my Iron Hands, Raven Guard, a chunk of the Imperial Guard armour, the bastions, more Guard tanks, Tau, and right at the back are the Blood Angels.


We also had a few members of the Ultramarine first company.


Last but not least, Operation: Human Shield


Spies were sent to scout the enemy's forces, but only this blurry picture made it back to us


Both sides line up ready for the carnage


Things start badly for the Imperium. Orks and Chaos advance as our left flank vanishes under the initial fire storms. Our right flank remains smug under a shield generator. We also start the battle long trend of welcoming lovely chaps wearing terminator armour to view the rear armour of all our tanks. They are quite insistent that we show it to them, as they stroke their melta guns and cackle to themselves.


That's Wazdakka in the red, and that's a Vortex Grenade he's just thrown at us.

The battlefield clears out a bit after the middle stompa goes nuclear


Robo-Lysander and a sternguard squad, moments before they are mobbed by orks. When we finished the game at the end of turn 3, Lysander was still surrounded by baddies, swinging his thunderhammer at them.

Other highlights that I failed to get pictures of include:
Our disruptor beacon working like a champ and sending Abaddon, 5 terminators, several squads of obliterators and 2 demon princes off to the wrong side of the battlefield.
Alistair's colonel furiously punching an obliterator to death with his power fist before consolidating calmly into a bunker.
A combined outflanking force of Kroot and Grey Knights pouncing on a large group of Necrons.

Welcome to a kind of amalgamation post that was written in various places over various weeks!

I've mentioned previously my work on the "counts as" blood angels.
Well, while this originally started as "make an Emperor's Children army using the BA codex", it's slowly turned into "make a new army using the BA codex that just so happens to share a bunch of miniatures with my EC".
So, I worked up the background in the previous post. If I have a lose alliance of chaos baddy types, each with his own style/tactics but likely to send allies and such to help the others, well, that seems like justification enough to run different codex lists but with the same basic troopers and vehicles showing up.

Anyway, I'm putting together the forces of Nam'Tar, the Fleshcrafter, mad doctor and warped genetic scientist. I'll be using the blood angels book, with sanguinary priests as his gene-priest apprentices, and death company as the weird mutant hybrids he creates. Nam'Tar himself will be a librarian, or maybe mephiston, depending on how many combat drugs he pumps into himself!

Here's the first draft of my list:

Nam'Tar, the Fleshcrafter
(Librarian, Jump Pack, Blood Lance and Unleash Rage powers)

Gene Priest
(1 Sanguinary Priest, Jump Pack, Power Weapon)

Tactical Squad
(10 Marines, Meltagun, Missile Launcher, Power Fist, Rhino)

Assault Squad
(10 Marines, 2 Flamers, Fist)

Assault Squad
(10 Marines, 2 Meltas, Power Sword)

Batch 001
(8 Death Company, 2 with Power Weapons, 2 with Power Fists, in a rhino)

Baal

Vindicator

1500 exactly

I tried it out for the first time tonight. Here's what critics had to say about the battle. Wait, no, it's just me again.

Played my first game with the BA codex against Necrons. Annihilation/Dawn of War. I went second and held everything in reserve. My 2 assault squads (with Librarian and Priest attached) would deep strike, my Baal would outflank, and the 2 rhinos and vindicator would rely on being fast to get them into the action.
All of the Necrons were in play when my forces began arriving, with 2 large units of warriors in the back right of the field, the monolith smashing down in the centre, and the various destroyers kind of hovering about the middle. I decided to focus my attack via the left flank, hopefully cutting down the small destroyer units first for easy kill points (well, easier than wading through hordes of warriors at least).
The rest of my forces that arrived a little later (Death Company and Vindicator) moved up the right flank as the remains of my initial attack wheeled around the monolith, forming a pincer movement against the warrior blocks.
The main brunt of my attack had been halted by a Destroyer Lord charging the Assault Squad with Priest, tying them up long enough to pop my bubble of Furious Charge/Feel No Pain, but I still did pretty well, the game ending with a draw, 5 KP each.
Here are some things I learnt from the game:

1) Blood Lance wasn't as good as I thought, but it'd probably be better against non-Necrons.

2) Unleash Rage (gives the librarian and the unit he's with Preferred enemy, i.e. can re-roll misses) is excellent!

3) Death Company are great. They ripped through everything they got into combat with, and feel no pain kept them alive throughout it all. I had wondered if 8 was too many, but I think it's enough that I can lose 1 or 2 and still be able to eat up most anything I charge.

4) Vindicator, as is usual for the thing, turned up late and didn't kill much. I still love it though!

5) This army is fast. Most of my army started on the left side of the battle, but I pretty comfortable made it to the opposite corner to dish out some slaaneshi fury.

6) Tactical Squad kind of sucked. I brought them on in the wrong place, so they spent most of the game driving around the board (really fast) not doing much. Tempting to swap them out for a 3rd assault squad, but I think the bolters would be pretty useful against CC heavy armies. I also don't want to specialise too much. We'll see.

Right, enough of all that jabbering. Picture time!

Started work on my Vindicator, finally!



Also a work in progress shot of Nam'Tar himself. He's actually just about ready for paint right now, but no pictures just yet.


His arms. The chainsword/narthecium is imposing enough to work as a force weapon, I hope. I also worked up a needle pistol.


Did I post any pictures here of my colour scheme for these guys? No? Here we go. Not too sure about the black being highlighted up to purple, I may just go back to straight grey.


Finally, a Gene-Priest. I've added a kind of robe/skirt of flayed skin around his legs using greenstuff since this picture.