40K Friday - A Complete Lack of Focus

 Besides the Orks that I mentioned last time a few other armies have crept on the painting table. Fortunately I have two! One of them is covered with Orks (still) while the other is a bit of a grab bag right now with Blood Angels, Tyranids, Crimson Fists, and World Eaters piling up in various stages of "painted" as I try to get a unit here and a unit there done regardless of army. 

The whole 'Nid army is still a work in progress. It's supposed to be my Official New Army for 10th Edition and I've made decent progress but it is not complete. Most of it is Leviathan set stuff + some big monsters + genestealers and I have spent most of my efforts on building and basecoating the big monsters part but the 'stealers are pretty much there as well. Playable, certainly, but not "finished" at all. Work will continue for a while but "finished in 2024" is still possible.

The Crimson Fists are a perpetual project and as long as new marine stuff is being made they will never be completed. I realized I never actually built intercessors for them so getting more Primaris units into the mix for my core marine army has been another effort this year. This is very much a unit here, unit there, kind of effort not a mass upgrade or rebuild.

The Blood Angels ... it's not that I deliberately start a big upgrade program with them but sometimes I run across a painted unit that would fit my army well so i kind of have to get it. Then it goes into the rebasing queue to make it match the rest of the force and, well, it does add to the backlog somewhat. I have been holding to a new standard though - avoid the "almost done" state. If something comes in and all it needs is for me to touch it up, redo the base, and clearcoat it, then it moves to the front of the line. So after the bikes earlier this year there are now some assault squads and a redemptor making their way through the process. These will be off the painting table and in the cabinet soon - and hopefully on the game table sometime soon after that.

The World Eaters have been a work in progress for some time now. I have managed to paint a lot of them - talking about berzerkers here - but they are not quite finished so they are still lingering around the table. I need to take a weekend and focus in on them to push them over the finish line but it hasn't happened yet. Soon!

So that's where things stand for now. In addition to these the Custodes codex came out but I managed to resist adding anything new. The Tau codex came out as well and ... I did not. More on that later.

40K Friday - Heavy Intercessors

 

I started off this year working on Tyranids and World Eaters - so much backlog! - but lately the focus has been on getting all the marine units I've accumulated the last few years built and primed. I have occasional flare-ups of "it's stupid to have units sitting around on sprues in an un-useable form when I could at least put them together for a potential test drive" and this is the latest outbreak of that sentiment.

With the new terminators built - more on that in another post - I wanted to get to work on another squad that I consider a signature unit for my Crimson Fists army: Heavy Intercessors. Over the last few editions of the game the Fists have been portrayed as bolter specialists and that suits me fine for my core marine force. This edition is not hitting that as hard but theming them around "lots of bolt guns" is still perfectly thematic in my eyes. So, as you can imagine, adding a big squad of bulky, heavy, bigger bolter marines in  Gravis armor has been an important goal for a while now. Also, I just like then way they look. I've had the miniatures for some time but it was time to get them out of the box and into some kind of usable form.

One nice change with this edition is that it has rid us of the "3 slightly different gun profiles" situation we had before with several marine units from intercessor types to hellblasters. Now it's just one profile that incorporates the best of all three variants. The sprues still have all of the options so you can make them look however you want. I went with the drum magazine look for these.

This is not a unit with a lot of options compared to a Tactical Squad or other older marine units. The only decision is whether to include a heavy bolter at 1/5 troopers and since it is an upgrade in every way over their normal gun and upgrade points are n longer an issue it is a no-brainer. Unlike intercessor squads there is no option to give the sergeant a melee weapon of any kind so it's 8 guys with Heavy Bolt Rifles and 2 with Heavy Bolters, all with a "Close Combat Weapon" for melee. 

One note here - the mold lines on this kit are very noticeable as they are in some very prominent places like right up the front of the otherwise smooth legs, right up the front of the guns, right along the front/back division of the helmets ... GW is usually better at hiding these, especially on newer kits, but I kept finding more as I was putting them together. Other than that it's a solid kit.

So it's a big block of marines with decent range (30"), Strength 5, AP -1 2-shot guns + a pair of heavy bolters, all at Toughness 6 with 3 wounds. They are considered Battleline so they are OC2 which means they can hold and objective just fine. They do fall into the terminator niche a bit just with more range,  less melee potential, and no deep strike so they are a bit more specialized. They are also almost half the points cost per marine so I definitely think there is a place for them. At only 40 points more than a 10-man normal Intercessor squad I am somewhat tempted to pick up more of these but I should probably get them on the table first.

Are they Meta? Probably not but when building armies I am more concerned about what fits into the theme and the approach than I am what is this month's hot unit. 

As far as what's next in the construction zone, well, a lot of my units are built but my new-style Sternguard are not and they are another Crimson Fists-associated squad so they are due to join up soon.

40K Friday: Terminators

 

Short and sweet this week: I'm working on the new style terminator marines. I acquired some in the Leviathan set and I picked up a couple of the full multi-part boxes. This is probably overkill but I really wanted to be able to field a 10-man squad with all weapon options for my Crimson Fists and to do that I needed extra bodies because I didn't feel like magnetizing these.

Also the Leviathan single-pose squad only comes with the sword option for the sergeant and termies can now take fists on their sergeants - at last! - and being the Crimson Fists I pretty much put power fists on all of my sergeants - tac squads, intercessor squads, assault squads ... wherever it is allowed that's what they have. This means one helmeted sarge and one un-helmeted sarge to allow for two 5-man units or one 10-man unit as needed. 

So that is the primary objective.

With whatever is left I intend to build out a squad for the Black Templars who are my next big marine-army project. I should have two sergeants with swords (thematic for the Templars) and a pair of extra assault cannons so that's where it will start. Longer term flamers are going to be a big part of my Templar force so I will likely add that option as well once I dig in.

40K Friday - Leviathan Work

 

I should really be working on completely finishing up the rest of the Necrons but sometimes the new and shiny takes precedence. I've started digging in to the Leviathan marines with the Balistus dreads going first (see above) because they are fairly simple to build being a simplified starter set type and also because dreadnoughts are cool. Two of those will be joining the Crimson Fists and one will go to the Black Templars most likely. The Fists are my "everything" army while the Templars are more melee focused but they do get some shooty units too. I have a couple of Redemptors set aside for them and a Brutalis but why not add an all-guns unit into the mix too? Someone has to provide all those Crusader squads with some covering fire, right?

The Terminators will also be going to the Fists - I have several squads already and the newer, bigger, types will just be additional squads for them. 

As for the rest right now I think one pyroblaster squad will join the Fists and one will go to the Templars. The Sternguard will mainly go to the Fists as well as they don't really fit my Templars. The Fists will also get one of each of the new characters and the others will likely go to the Templars - outside of the Terminator Librarian of course. He may join my Blood Angels. 

And that's really the breakdown right now - with way too many power armor armies I have to focus in at any given time so the new stuff goes into the Crimson Fists "let's get them brought up to snuff with a bunch of the new stuff" improvement program while the Black Templars await their turn (next) and the Blood Angels may be waiting for their own codex release for a big update. 

Lastly, my Imperial Fists army is all-terminators with some bikes (originally built as a Deathwing force many years ago) so I've just picked up some dreadnoughts to add to them and I am looking forward to that 1st Company Strike Force formation coming in the new codex. There will be no Primaris units added to this one - just more terminators perhaps down the road.

Also on a "new codex and it's inherent changes" note I of course finished painting a bike squad and a landspeeder squadron earlier this year, both of which now appear to be going to Legends. Ah well ...

From Leviathan that leaves the Tyranids and having gathered up quite the Nid army and the Codex and the cards it's a fairly big hill to climb. You have to start somewhere and getting them all built would at least let me play the army some to try it out. I'm probably going to start with the big monsters to run a crusher stampede as I can get that done faster. More to come there for sure.

40K Friday - Pre-10th Edition Roundup

 

The updates keep coming:

• Faction Rules
• Leaders are joining units again
• Vehicle rules are a little different
• Weapons have some changes

I have to say so far I remain cautiously optimistic. It does feel like concerns about the 8th/9th edition rules have been heard and are being addressed. I'm sure it won't be perfect but it feels like a move in the right direction. Shooting out of a rhino is a real throwback as is moving back to characters in units. People are worried about the faction rules eliminating a lot of flavor but I suspect many of the bigger subfactions will become separate factions on their own. 

Looking forward to the edition change I decided to focus in on a few of my armies. I say this because one of my long-term issues is that I tend to jump around between them picking up a unit here and a unit there, something for Orks one week then something for Marines the next and then something for Chaos after that and then a lot of it sits around half done for years. So I have unit X, and it's probably built so it's technically playable, but it's at best primed or basecoated. Over time I will build up a sizable group of mostly-painted or "almost done" units for a given army and it's damned annoying even though I'm doing it to myself. This can happen even when I pick up a model that is technically painted because I usually need to do some touch ups and work on the bases to make them fit into my existing army.

I'm sure there's room in there for another landspeeder and another predator ... and maybe another redemptor ...

I go through bursts of finishing up these half-completed units every so often and right now I'm working through my Crimson Fists backlog of "blue but not yet completed" miniatures which has a lot of things that were built and basecoated in a prior decade but never finished. This week I managed to close out a Gravis Captain (the fat one from Dark Imperium), a land speeder I originally got in the 3rd edition starter set (yes, it took me around 25 years to get it from "on sprue" to "done" and no that is not a record for me), and a squadron of 5 bikes which I have wanted to do for a long time but had not. 

With those actually finished I now have some Fast Attack options to choose from which has always been a back burner kind of thing in my marine armies. I did something similar a few years back with Elites when I added a couple of Terminator squads and a bunch of dreadnoughts to expand my choices there. A trio of attack bikes is in progress now along with a third landspeeder to finish out the speed options. I'm also close to completing an old MKII Predator to complete my Predator trio for this army. 

It feels like I'm making real progress on reducing the pile of shame here so naturally I had to go and complicate things by deciding it was time to add in some real primaris options too. Right now there are intercessors, assault intercessors, heavy intercessors, aggressors, another captain and a pair of lieutenants either newly arrived or on the way and I already had a repulsor, some inceptors, some hellblasters, and a captain and a chaplain waiting for an opportunity to join up so that's going to be a significant project for the next month. I originally chose the Fists because they were a much simpler paint scheme to do after doing Howling Griffons for my old RT/2E army. I'm going to force myself to remember that and burn through some intercessor squads now instead of letting them gather dust on the to-do pile. More to come on that. 

Of course I'm not just focusing on one army - that would be too easy. I've picked up a few Death Guard units recently and I'm slowly working on making them into a real army and not just a collection of interesting parts. I've finally added some of the newer plastic plague marines to the force after resisting the temptation as I want to build some melee squads and they have a lot of options there. I'm also getting the terminators and vehicles sorted out and figuring out how I want to paint them all in hopes of looking like a somewhat cohesive force. 

I also added some options to my Grey Knights force - like an actual metal Draigo! - but the main focus there has been painting up the rhinos/razorbacks/land raider/dreadnoughts to get their vehicles sorted out as well. Not as big of a project but still important to "finish" the force.

Not mine but "Goals"

Finally the other focus area is my Black Templars. I've had a lot of built and basecoated stuff for them for a few years now, enough to play some games, but not much is really "done". I really like their updated crusader squad sprues and some of the other chapter-specific bling that's available for them so I picked up some more of those sets as well and have plans for a couple of big footslogger squads to try something different. 

Anyway there's a Friday brain dump on the 40K situation. Lots of power armor to paint - more next week!

40K Friday Late Edition - Imperial Adventures with 9th Edition 40K

 

Time to start catching up! We have been playing 9th edition here, pretty much since it came out. I've mentioned it but haven't done any battle reports but I'll think about posting some up in the future. For now I thought I would talk about some of the armies I've tried out so far.

Adeptus Astartes

For my first battle I took my ancient Howling Griffons out for their 9th edition of the game.  They've seen action in every version of the game so far - the record continues! I consider them at least semi-retired as I haven't added anything to them in years though I do occasionally contemplate doing a big new primaris update for them. The paint scheme is just a lot more work so that usually pushes me back from that idea. Anyway I took them against Blaster Eldar army and though I lost we had a good time figuring out the new objective system and all of the tweaks. "Edition bleed" is definitely a problem at this point but more games will help. 

Then I decided continuity at some level would help so I took the Crimson Fists out for a couple of games. In one of them I took a ridiculous Maximum Dreadnoughts list with a master techmarine with the "keeper of the ancients" trait from Psychic Awakening (these games were all before the 9th ed, marine codex release) and I lost again but it was a lot of fun to run 7 dreadnoughts in one fight. Now of course with the new codex this list would be that much more viable so it will probably show up again soon.

Warriors of Titan

After that I decided to bring the Grey Knights into 9th and took them against Blaster's Eldar yet again and let me tell you ... they are a ridiculously complex army to run. I was struggling for a while to keep track of all of the variables with them. Marines are fairly straightforward - each unit has a purpose but is fairly flexible so you can adapt in-game, there are a few important stratagems, and the chaplain litanies and psychic powers are mostly a bonus you work in where you can.

GKs though ... first off every unit has a weakened Smite + one power, but of course you can only use the normal powers once per turn. So the first part of the trick is allocating powers to your units based on what you think will be useful or important during the game. The second part is in-game knowing when and where to use each one - if I can only Gate of Infinity one unit across the board but I can see three units and situations where it would make sense ... it's easy to feel like you made a mistake as their psychic powers are crucial to their units. Making your Paladin squads +1 to save is a big deal. Jumping a Dreadknight from over there to over here to shoot up something and prep a charge is important. Psychic Awakening made things better in one way as now there are two separate disciplines to spread out in your army but it also made the decision making that much more complex. It was a lot of fun to out-psych the Eldar army for a change, but that didn't save me. 

Then there are the stratagems that are also crucial to making the army work, and some of them are significantly influenced by the Tides mechanic introduced in PA ... there is a lot to learn in playing a Grey Knights army effectively. With a typical marine army I would say most of what you need to know is on the datasheet and as I mentioned everything else is situational and a bonus. With these guys I felt like the datasheet was only one part of it. For example:

• If I'm running my Fists and I have a terminator squad in deep strike I know what it can do. The main point of decision is when and where to drop them in. Once they land they're going to shoot stuff and possibly charge. I will know what the doctrine is, so I'll know if they get the extra -1 AP. The only other decision to make there is that I might spend a CP to use Fury of the First to improve their shooting. 
• With GK Terminators I need to consider the same basics of when and where but I also need to decide if I want to change the Tide to the-one-that-makes-psy-weapons-stronger, then if I do I need to play the stratagem that makes all their storm bolters psy weapons for the turn, then I need to use their psychic power to give them a better save for a turn or maybe not if I'm going to drop them in behind some terrain and have an also-teleporting-in Librarian use Astral Aim so they can shoot through that terrain, but if I do that then the venerable dreadnought that was using it last turn will have to move to where he can see something instead of staying hidden. It's just a lot more complicated and you could potentially have decisions like that with every unit on every turn. 

I think the Grey Knights, more than any other army I have played, seriously benefit from playing them over and over to "see the synergies" and just know what they can do in any given situation. After two games I decided to work  more on building/painting/finishing the army since I had a touch of experience at least to inform my decisions. 

The Hammer of the Emperor

I then decided to try out Imperial guard. I have a lot of tanks and a little infantry and ... well, Blaster's Saim Hann force is damn strong against tanks. Lots of bright lances, a fair number of starcannons, some shining spears, a Crimson Hunter Exarch, and fire dragons in falcons ... it went pretty quickly in both games I played in with the guard. I took 3 Plasma Russes, 3 BC Russes, an Exterminator, a Command Punisher and a Command Demolisher, plus I also had two Manticores ... it didn't matter. I only have a limited number of infantry so I couldn't do a ton of screen and still hold objectives. I had 3 infantry squads and then a Chimera with 3 Ogryn and a priest - again because that's stuff I have - and it was blown open and everyone inside was dead on turn 2. We went big in this one at 3000 points and I did manage to kill his Wraithknight but it took so much firepower to drop it before it started wrecking my tanks that his bikes were all over me before I could do much of anything. I think the guard strats are on the weak side and I am admittedly new to using the army but it felt like I was fighting up hill in both games. 

Also ... "Expert crafters". If you've played Eldar in the last year or so you are probably familiar with this choose-your-own-craftworld trait because it's the one EVERYONE takes. One re-roll to hit, one re-roll to wound ... on every unit ... every turn ...

It makes a Crimson Hunter ridiculous as it's only firing 3 shots anyway. Falcon with a pulse laser + bright lance? Same thing. The on bright lance in a backfield Guardian Squad? Yep, he's going to re-roll. Wraithlord's bright lance? Him too. He took a D-cannon battery in some fights and of course they look like all-stars with these kinds of re-rolls. And if you miss or fail to wound with two shots from something important you have the normal CP re-roll available. Doom means at least one unit per turn is going to be a punching bag where everything gets to re-roll wounds too.

I even took custom regiment traits in the second game. One lets lets you repair your tanks each turn and the other let me re-roll the number of shots for all those tanks and artillery. It helped a little but not enough. I'm sure Guard would perform better with repeated play but I would need to add quite a bit to my unit options to really improve them. Bullgryn are a big unit right now and I have none. I only have one Chimera and only 3-4 squads of infantry and suspect at least Chimeras would help keep those guys alive longer. I took one Tempestus squad and some assassins in the second fight and I think they definitely have contributions to make  - figuring them out and getting better at using the orders here and there would certainly help. 

One example of the challenges here: the Vindicare assassin was up high in a ruin and sniped a jetbike warlock - yes! The very next turn he gets charged by the jetbike Autarch and he's done for the fight. He didn't die that first fight phase, but he can't beat an autarch in melee - even with his pistol -  and he can't get away because Bike Autarch is faster. Plus the Shining Spears were busy wiping out the infantry squads in the rest of the ruin so he wasn't going to live long anyway. 

So yes I did have a lot of fun shuffling through the Imperial deck these last few months but I did lose a lot while learning a lot and I learned to hate Expert Crafters.

40K Tuesday - Crimson Fists 8th Edition Prep

With 8th edition about a month away and the radical changes it seems to be bringing I am scrambling to get some of the armies updated/expanded/finished. I'm making this post to mark where the army is right now and what I am thinking as I work on it - partly to force myself to think through it as I put it down and partly as a historical document so a year from now I can come back and either  rejoice in my amazing foresight or wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Today: The Crimson Fists

I haven't posted about these guys in a long time - looks like 3 years! I may have only fielded them one time since then too, so they've been idle a lot. That will be changing soon! Current force:

• HQ: Chapter Master Pedro Kantor, various chaplians, librarians, and captains (usually in a Razorback)
• Troops: 3 Tactical squads in Rhinos
• Elites: Dreadnought
• Fast Attack: Land Speeder
• Heavy Support: 3x Predator tanks, Vindicator, Whirlwind

OK that's the finished stuff. 

In the backlog and adopted from the Dark Angels division shutdown:

• 3-4 Dreadnoughts
• 5-15 Terminators
• 3 Land Speeder typhoons
• 10 Sternguard marines
• Missile Launcher Devastators, Plasma Cannon Devastators, Heavy Bolter Devastators
• 3 Attack Bikes
• A 5-man Assault squad
• 2x 5-man Scout squads
• A ten-man Tac squad
• 3x Drop Pods
• Land Raider Crusader

Some of these are more "done" than others and many are put-together enough to use in a battle but they are not finished yet.

Let's talk army approach here. My wish is for this to be a mechanized army where nobody walks but the dreadnoughts. The basic theory is that it's an armored column of space marines. They advance to contact, spread out, and call in drop pod support. The idea is to crush the enemy between the two elements.  The Rhinos and tanks are the core with the scouts and bikes doing recon as the speeders patrol around the column and the dreadnoughts are a walking close escort.

Structure-wise 3 full tac squads and two scout squads is 5 troop units. The new extra squad needs a ride of some kind - probably a Razorback - and presto! Six troop elements! That means I have the core for a really big force.

I already have all of this stuff, so what else did I need to pick up?

• I grabbed more sternguard. I will have 20 altogether and I am planning for them to take two of the three drop pods. I'm not sure just yet how I will divide them up. I may have 5 of them escort Kantor in the Razorback or that might be a Command squad. Regardless that gives me 2-4 squads of them to field. 
• I picked up multi-meltas for the attack bikes. I'm thinking about magnetizing these to have both the MM and Heavy Bolter options.

That's really it. I didn't need much to finish out the "acquisitions phase" for this army. For the future I'd like to add another Razorback or two, another Vindicator or two, and a flyer.

If you read the other post this week about the Iron Warriors you may notice some similarities.  That's not entirely by accident. I like tanks and vehicles so I tend to pick them up for whatever army. My thinking here is that the core of both forces is similar - Rhinos, Predators, grunt marines, and dreadnoughts. The IW's have that plus the "Chaos Stuff - Daemon princes, Spawn, Possessed, etc. The Fists will have Sternguard, Drop Pods, Speeders, and Scouts. So while the core is the same, the "Extra" is different for both. Hopefully I can learn about those core elements using either army. 

I am really looking forward to getting these guys back in to action. More to come!

40K Friday - Return to Tranicos: Against the Stompa!

Back in early 2013 I came up with a loose background for what I thought would be an ongoing series of 40K games. As it turned out we played a few and then it fizzled out. The two I did write up are here and here. The idea was to do an escalation-type series of battles with more points each week to give us time (and incentive) to get stuff painted. It didn't stick and so we have just been playing one-off battles for the last year and a half.

The new edition of the rules stirred things back up for us, and the new Ork Codex added to the frenzy. Apprentice Red decided that he needed a Stompa since they are now in the codex so he ordered one and built it over two days. Then of course he needed to try it out. It just so happened that I had a day off from work and Apprentice Blaster was around too so on a rainy Thursday we returned to the disputed planet of Tranicos where the Crimson Fists are trying to reclaim what was once theirs. Clearly the campaign has had mixed results at best as some ork has had enough time to build a stompa, but it's time to fix that problem.

This was 3000 points per side, one of our bigger battles. Red fielded the Ork army (including one Stompa!) and Blaster and I combined his Space Wolves and my Crimson Fists at 1500 each.

The only annoying thing here is that I have been focused on my Chaos Space Marine force for 2014 trying to get it organized and painted up and as complete as any 40K army can be. I haven't looked at a loyalist marine codex in quite a while, yet that's what I was going to have to play to make any sense of this. I briefly considered deploying the Deathwing, but a) it's hard to make a DW army at 1500 that I like as part of a combined arms force and b)  I figured 20 terminators might get swallowed up too easily in a 3000 point ork army. The Crimson Fists made a lot more sense. My final force is below:

Crimson Fists1500 Pts  -   Space Marines:  Imperial Fists Army

1 Pedro Kantor (HQ) @ 185 Pts
     Warlord Trait: Iron Resolve; #Iron Halo; #Dorn's Arrow; Power Armour;Power Fist; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Warlord

1 Librarian (HQ) @ 90 Pts
     Infantry; (character); ATSKNF; Chapter Tactics; Independent Character;Psyker (Mastery Level 2); #Psychic Hood; Power Armour; Force Weapon; FragGrenades; Krak Grenades; Bolt Pistol

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 235 Pts
     Infantry; ATSKNF; Chapter Tactics; Combat Squads; Combat Squads; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x9); Bolter (x7); Multi-Melta; Flamer; Frag Grenades;Krak Grenades

     1 Veteran Sergeant @ [59] Pts
          (character); Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Fist (x1);Combi-Flamer (x1)

     1 Rhino @ [35] Pts
          Vehicle (Tank, Transport); Capacity: 10; Fire Points: 2; Access Points: 3; Repair; #Searchlight; #Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 210 Pts
     Infantry; ATSKNF; Chapter Tactics; Combat Squads; Combat Squads; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x9); Bolter (x7); Missile Launcher; Flamer; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Veteran Sergeant @ [29] Pts
          (character); Melta Bombs; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Rhino @ [35] Pts
          Vehicle (Tank, Transport); Capacity: 10; Fire Points: 2; Access Points: 3; Repair; #Searchlight; #Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter

9 Tactical Squad (Troops) @ 210 Pts
     Infantry; ATSKNF; Chapter Tactics; Combat Squads; Combat Squads; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x9); Bolter (x7); Missile Launcher; Flamer; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Veteran Sergeant @ [29] Pts
          (character); Melta Bombs; Bolt Pistol; Bolter; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Rhino @ [35] Pts
          Vehicle (Tank, Transport); Capacity: 10; Fire Points: 2; Access Points: 3; Repair; #Searchlight; #Smoke Launchers; Storm Bolter

1 Predator (Heavy Support) @ 115 Pts
     #Searchlight; #Smoke Launchers; 2 Sponson Lascannon; Turret Autocannon

1 Predator (Heavy Support) @ 140 Pts
     #Searchlight; #Smoke Launchers; 2 Sponson Lascannon; Turret TL Lascannons

5 Devastator Squad (Heavy Support) @ 144 Pts
     Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x5); Bolter (x1); Missile Launcher (x4); Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Space Marine Sergeant @ [14] Pts
          (character); #Signum; Bolt Pistol; Bolter; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

0 Land Speeder Squadron (Fast Attack) @ 170 Pts

     1 Land Speeder Typhoon @ [85] Pts
          Multi-Melta; Typhoon Missile Launcher

     1 Land Speeder Typhoon #1 @ [85] Pts
          Multi-Melta; Typhoon Missile Launcher

Models in Army: 45

Total Army Cost: 1499

Blaster took his usual core of 15 Blood Claws + Wolf Priest in a Land Raider Crusader, plus Long Fangs, plus a unit of Grey Hunters, some bikers, and a triple-lascanon predator. He also had a squad of Grey hunters and a Multi-Melta Dreadnought in drop pods. 

Red took the Stompa, a unit of 10 nob bikers (his other new favorite toy), 10 burnas in a trukk, 20 boys on foot with a big mek w/KFF, 20 more boys with a weirdboy (in the stompa), 10 nobs on foot with the warboss, a flyer, a big unit of deffkoptas, and 15 lootas with a mek with the Shokk Attack Gun. He went unbound for this one, our first experiment with that. I suspect he could have fit this into a normal set of force orgs but he went the other direction.

We ended up with lots of heavy stuff on the right side, less on the left. We all wanted to use the Maelstrom Missions so we went with the "hand of 3" type and started the game. Red had first turn.

Turn 1

On the left there was some movement, but not a lot of firing.

Our goal was to secure the bridge objective then head across to take the other objective in the woods. Between the Long Fangs, Predator, and speeders we had lots of firepower but only one tactical squad to maneuver so we were going to have to be cautious here. Red's foot nobs moved up to take the woods objective.

In the center the LRC moved up to block the truck and the foot boyz from coming between the storage tank and the river. This would drive them towards our heavier concentration on the right. That's pretty much what happened.

Pedro and the boys hang out in their rhinos as the fight begins

Over on the far right Blaster decided to bubble-wrap my rhinos with his bikes - actually I think he was just hugging the cover but it was funny. With the Stompa, and nob bikers rapidly advancing covered by the lootas this was going to get ugly quick. We had a lot of trouble sorting out who was going to move where on this side and it never really sorted out in the early turns.

Red managed to blow a side lascannon off of the wolf predator, and strip a hull point off of the fist predator. We blasted 3 hull points off of the stompa and that was about it for turn 1.

Score: Orks 0, Marines 2 (first blood, #55 psych warfare (making a psych test)

Turn 2

 On the right: 

The nob warbikers come roaring in and kill a few more grey hunters. The deffkoptas move up. The foot boys and the trukk burnas swing around the storage tank hotly pursued by the LRC full of blood claws. 

The Lootas kill my predator, the stompa shoots up some stuff and it's generally unpleasant for us but manageable. Then we get to shoot and the nob warbikers take fire from all over the board - both remaining predators, the devastators, the grey hunters, the wolf bikers, and more. The Wolf bikers charge what's left, wiping them out - ten nob bikers dead by turn 2!

On the left: 

The foot nobz claim the objective and the ork fighta-bomma flies on.

Everything the orks have shoots at the pair of land speeders. One dies, but the second defies all attempts and lives on with a single hull point. The fight for the wooded objective is shaping up to be pretty nasty. The rhino moves up and deploys the squad while the speeder screams over to support.

Score: Orks 1 (#53 killing units, he almost had 3 of them for a D3 VP's), Marines 2 ( #31 Obj #1, 26 Obj #6 ) Totals = Orks 1- Marines 4

Turn 3

On the right: 

Everything moves up. The stompa is getting very close to our back objective in the woods and he has a lot of help on the way, plus the lootas are blasting stuff pretty handily. The fists are forced to deploy from their rhinos to ensure we don't lose this one, instead of zooming across the table to take one from the orks. It's a traffic jam in our backfield, despite ork efforts to help clear things up.

End of Ork Turn 3

Behind the storage tank the Crusader moves up and unleashes the blood claws on the foot boys with the KFF 

The poor wolf bikers, left out in the open after crushing their ork opponents, are gunned down mercilessly by the greenskins. In something of a repeat of last turn, the deffkoptas are targeted by multiple units, thinned,  then charged by the grey hunter squad and defeated. They flee back towards the ork backfield. The burna trukk is blown up and the surviving burnas spill out. 

In Orbit: 

Apprentice Blaster realizes he has two drop pods waiting to come on and manages to bring in the one full of grey hunters. Following the plan he drops them nearly on top of the Lootas. They emerge from the pod and with flamer and bolter do a number on the ork heavy weapons specialists. This solves a lot of problems.

The drop pod is borrowed from my old Howling Griffons army.
It's a relic from the time before, as in "the time before there was an official drop pod".
(End of Marine Turn 3) 

On the left

There's not a lot of movement.

The orks take a few more shots at the speeder and kill one tac marine. The ork plane drops a big bomb on bridge, killing two marines and causing them to flee the objective.

The stompa, seeing exposed marines, launches one of his big stupid rockets of doom and lands it perfectly - Str 8 AP 3, no cover save, large blast. Instead of nine marines I now have one. It is the one with the missile launcher, but he's no longer an objective-taking force - he's going to sit there and fire missiles as long as he can.

Massed fire has slowly cut the ork nobz down to the warboss and one nob. There aren't many bodies left over here.

Score: Orks 0, Marines 3 ( #56 Harness the warp (casting a power) Obj #1, 24 & 34 Obj #4 ) Totals = Orks 1- Marines 7

Turn 4
There is a general feeling that this is the headed for the finale. We've whittled the stompa down to about half of his hull points but the thing is right up on our main group of units right and something is going to have to give.

On the right:
The Stompa deploys his passenger boys mob (and weirdboy). shoots the grey hunters off the table, and moves to assault the Crimson Fists who are now in the wood.  This squad is lead by the librarian and has the multi-melta so I need it to live. Fortunately the librarian manged to cast invisibility on them on the previous turn. This helps keep them safe although the Stomp attack does not roll to hit and so does not care if you're invisible or not. The marines take a couple of casualties but hold.

(Unfortunately this means the stompa is locked in combat with them and we cannot shoot him! I'm sure there's a rule somewhere but we couldn't find it and what we did find had no special exception for super-heavy walkers  that keeps them from being locked up so that's how we played it. This was worrisome because in melee i have one sergeant with a powerfist that has a chance of hurting the thing and that's all. With no lascannon/missile launcher/multi-melta help he's probably not going down.)

The blood claws, having won their fight, load back up into the Crusader and rumble towards the main arena. The Grey Hunters blow away the remaining deffkoptas and take the ruins objective while their drop pod claims the hill objective which are both now free of orks.

On the left - things pretty much stay as-is. We did manage to gun down the warboss as he was all by his lonesome. Regardless, this fight will be decided on the right.

Score: Orks 1 ( #56 Harness the warp (casting a power), Marines 7 ( Slay the Warlord, #44 Ascendancy (control multiple objectives - gave us 2 points ) 52 blood and guts for killing a unit, 53 no prisoners for killing multiple units gave us 3) Totals = Orks 2- Marines 14

End of Ork Turn 5

Turn 5

The ork plane bombs my devastators but we only lose one.

The stompa pounds on the invisible marines some more, stomps a couple and they break! Hallelujah! They run back a bit but not far.

Pedro Kantor takes a charge (with 5 tac marines) from the boyz behind the stompa and wins the fight, barely - but the orks stay put. On the marine turn, Kanto's squad gets the invisibility.

The last drop pod slams down behind the Stompa and a dreadnought with a multi-melta steps out.

As the marine shooting phase begins the big target is the smoking stompa. He takes lascannon fire from the predator, and multi melta shots from the Crusader, the tac squad, and the dreadnought and explodes! Fortunately most of the blast goes upwards and only a few of the foot orks and the drop pod are hit.

End of the line for the Stompa and the rest of the ork army

We called it here as he had a couple of boyz a weirdboy, and a plane left on the table and was losing pretty badly in VP's.  It was a great game, we spent probably six hours playing it, and though Red felt a little bad he still had a lot of fun too.

Parting Thoughts:

• The Stompa is extremely nasty. There's a reason it's 800 points. I think he would have been better off loading it up with his nobz foot mob instead of the boys. He could have moved up, dropped them out, then charged into the land raider and the hunters on the ruin objective to try and change things up. 
• He set his lootas up in the open and that was bad. Even then they were fine until the drop pod landed as we had bigger targets to worry about with the bikers and the big guy moving up on us. 
• You have to play to the cards. Red and Blaster are both learning this. We had two cards for objective #4 by Turn 3 and Blaster wanted to discard them as it was "too hard". We didn't, and  a turn later we scored both of them because we sent a unit after it. The cards are supposed to represent incoming orders and that's exactly how to play them - look at card, then do what it says on this turn, or set it up so you can achieve that goal next turn. It's not always going to be easy and it may cost you a unit, but that's how you win! There are no VP's for units left on the table sitting in safety at the end of the game. Red had cards for killing our leader (Pedro) and a psyker (my librarian) and he would have gotten Slay the Warlord as well and he was right there on them at the end of the game, he just ran out of time, so he was almost there.   

Hopefully we will get the chance to do another of these big battles before summer is over and schedules get complicated again.

40K Friday - The Tranicos Campaign Battle 2 - Recon In Force

Establishing a presence on the planet with the help of several brother marine chapters, the Crimson Fists begin their campaign of reclamation. In particular, one small band of Space Wolves helps hold the line against the green tide ...

This too was a 500 point battle to help get our campaign started. This time I was playing the Orks and Apprentice Blaster was playing the Space Wolves:



1 Warboss (HQ) @ 105 Pts
     'Eavy Armour; Cybork Body; Power Klaw; Shoota / Skorcha; Stikkbombz;
     Warlord

13 Ork Boyz (Troops) @ 124 Pts
     Slugga (x13); Choppa (x13)

     1 Nob @ [46] Pts
          'Eavy Armour; Power Klaw; Slugga

13 Ork Boyz (Troops) @ 78 Pts
     Slugga (x13); Choppa (x13)

1 Killa Kan (Heavy Support) @ 80 Pts
     Dreadnought CC Weapon; Big Shoota

     1 Killa Kan #2 @ [40] Pts
          Dreadnought CC Weapon; Big Shoota

1 Killa Kan (Heavy Support) @ 40 Pts
     Dreadnought CC Weapon; Skorcha

2 Big Gunz (Heavy Support) @ 72 Pts
     Lobba

     8 Grot Krew (Gretchin) @ [34] Pts

          1 Runtherd @ [10] Pts
               Grabba Stick; Slugga

Models in Army: 42


Total Army Cost: 499

Around 30 Orks, a couple of Kans, and some big indirect fire guns- I should be able to make something of that!

Blaster's forces consisted of a Grey Hunter squad, a small Blood Claw squad led by his wolflord, and some Long Fangs.

We played Scenario 2 - Purge the Alien. My Warlord trait was Master of the Vanguard, giving my Warboss and his boys an extra roll when running. I set up the two mobs of boyz and the kans on the center & right, aiming to take out his fangs and hunters. The lobbas were on the left in some cover. He set up the hunters in some woods on his left, the long fangs in a ruin in the center, then the blood claws on his right. Our backstory was that the Space Wolves were out on patrol and had tracked a party of Orks into a wooded area where things got hot:

Ork Turn 1 - The boyz run forward, the kans shoot and miss, the lobbas shoot and scatter all over, doing nothing!

Wolf Turn 1 - 3 out of 4 Fangs hit, killing 6 boyz

Ork Turn 2 - Boyz run forward, lobbas and kans continue to miss

Wolf Turn 2 - Grey hunters& fangs wipe out a boyz mob and put a wound on the warboss!

Ork Turn 3 - Boyz charge the long fangs, wipe them out, one kan charges the hunters then explodes when blown apart by krak grenades

Wolf Turn 3 - Hunters kill more boyz

Ork Turn 4 - Everybody runs, lobbas continue to miss

Wolf Turn 4 - Hunters shoot at back of the remaining kan, lay one hull point on it, Blood Claws move up

Ork Turn 5 - Kan shoots, boyz run

Wolf Turn 5 - The last Kan dies to bolters and plasma fire, Claws and Lord charge boyz and Boss, take them down in Assault

So the Wolves win 6 VP's to 1 - not a great showing by me. Attempting to charge a unit of Grey Hunters in cover with only half of my forces was a mistake, and taking lobbas in a small battle like this was probably a mistake too. I'm thinking buggies or more boyz instead of lobbas and kans would have been better choices. I can tell I have a learning curve to climb going back to small-point ork forces. Apprentice Blaster was happy with the way it went for him, as he should have been.

Next time we're bumping it up to 650 and we will play another one or two battles.

40K Friday - The Tranicos Campaign Battle 1 - Supply Drop!

The campaign begins! Thundwerhawk gunships drop units of Crimson Fist marines in locations all over the planet to assess the magnitude of the Ork problem. For one force things get complicated early as their follow-up supply drop is knocked off course by unexpected heavy fire from a hidden ork force. Annoyed but unafraid, Captain Banderas leads a team to locate and secure the supplies for his men...

Lining up before the battle

This was the kickoff for our year-long 40K campaign and it was a lot of fun.  This is an escalation campaign to give us all a reason to paint a little more and to ensure we play regular games.

We started with 500 points which is really really small for a 40K battle though it's not far off from what our Rogue Trader fights used to look like - well, mine anyway. The Apprentices weren't around back then. Anyway 500 points gave me this:


1 Captain Banderas (Space Marine Captain) @ 128 Pts
     #Iron Halo; Power Armour; Storm Bolter; Power Fist (x1); Frag Grenades;
     Krak Grenades; Warlord

9 Tac Squad Alpha (Tactical Squad) @ 175 Pts
     Combat Squads; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x9); Bolter (x7); Missile
     Launcher; Flamer; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Space Marine Sergeant @ [31] Pts
          Power Armour; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Melta Bombs

9 Tac Squad Beta (Tactical Squad) @ 195 Pts
     Combat Squads; Power Armour; Bolt Pistol (x9); Bolter (x7); Missile
     Launcher; Flamer; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades

     1 Space Marine Sergeant @ [51] Pts
          Power Armour; Frag Grenades; Krak Grenades; Power Fist

Models in Army: 21
Total Army Cost: 498


That's not a lot to work with, but with combat squadding it gives me two 5-man flamer/sgt squads for close up stuff and a pair of 5-man squads with a missile launcher to stay back and shoot things. Plus Captain Banderas of course. My Warlord trait was "Dust of a Thousand Worlds" which gave my captain and all friendlies within 12" the Move Thru Cover rule - very nice.

Starting positions

Apprentice Red's Evil Sunz mob consisted of a Big Mek and some boyz mounted in a battlewagon (that rusty vehicle in the upper part of the pic), two individual Big Gunz (Kannons) in the center of the board, and a dreadnought (which counted as Troops because of the Mek, which is a handy way to get nastier stuff into a low point game). The 'wagon had a kannon and a deffrolla, the dread had 2 DCCW's and 2 big shootas.

We played "Crusade" and ended up with 5 objectives. The red barrels in the pictures are the objectives, tying in nicely with the supply drop theme. They ended up roughly 2 on his side, 2 on my side, and one in the middle. I opted to set up second/move second and the fight was on!

Bottom of Turn 1 - Orks have moved, Marines have not

Turn 1 - The Orks move up, the wagon turns sideways for some reason, and there is a bunch of shooting that mostly misses (Orks!) and that which hits bounces off of the always reliable power armor. The marines close-squads advanced, one missile squad bounced a shot off the side of the wagon and the other missed the kannon battery completely.

Top of Turn 2

Dreadnought 11 o'clock!

Turn 2 - Ork shooting manages to kill the first marine - on turns 1 & 2 5 out of 6 blasts land on target over the marines and it finally catches up with them. The marine close-combat squad on the right moves up and then charges the battlewagon, smashing it with krak grenades and the sergeant's power fist! The explosion kills a few boyz but the marines are unscathed. First Blood to the marines!

Death of a Battlewagon

End of Turn 2

Ork Turn 3 - The boyz charge the Alpha close combat squad and Captain Banderas challenges the Big Mek to personal combat, which he accepts. The boyz wipe out the tac squad completely, while Banderas utterly destroys the Mek. Slay the Warlord! Leaping from the fray, the Captain moves away from the raging orks and prepares to gun them down with his brother marines.

This roll resulted in the deaths of 5 marines. Sometimes the armor just doesn't work.
(6 wounds from orks, armor saves are a 3+ ...)

Bottom of Turn 3

Marine Turn 3 - After the mixed results of the hand to hand assault above the marines descide to do what they are good at and blast the boyz into oblivion with rapid firing bolt guns and frag missiles. Feeling somewhat redeemed, the marines are in a strong position as the orks have no more scoring units.

Captain Banderas leads the firing to finish off the boyz

Turn 4 - The gretchin kannon battery realizes that the marine boss is standing out in the open all by himself, and they nail him with kannon fire, slaying him! To follow up the deff dredd charges into melee with missile squad Alpha (the last place they want to be) and pulps two of them. The marines do pretty much nothing this turn, stunned by the fall of Captain Banderas!

End of Turn 4

Turn 5 - The Orks manage to kill one more tac marine with a krak round and the dredd charges forward to try and push missile squad Beta off of the objective. close combat squad Beta continues to advance on the grot battery but the main action is elsewhere. The marine missile squads, knowing it's a close fight, manage to score two glancing hits on the dreadnought. With a roll the game continues to Turn 6 and the Orks still have a chance!

End of Turn 5

Turn 6 - The orks kill one more marine but the dredd fails his charge. In response, missile squad Alpha nails the lumbering xenos machine in the back with a krak missile, destroying it and the game is over.

The Ork dredd falls and the grots are about to die flaming death, bringing the fight to an end.

In the end the Crimson Fists held two objectives plus Slay the Warlord, First Blood, and Linebreaker. The orks had only Slay the Warlord, giving the Fists a 9-1 victory in this first battle.

Battle Notes: Red realized pretty quickly that he only had one scoring unit and that he had made a mistake with that choice. His only real chance was to steamroller me off of the objectives and losing the battlewagon, the boyz, and the mek in about one turn decided things right there. Low point battles can be very swingy and this one certainly was - exhibit A being my failed armor rolls in the Turn 3 assault. I also think that for the next low-point battle like this we may go with a 4X4 playing space instead of 6X4. This would also compress the terrain somewhat too.

Force Review:
Marines: Tac marines are stellar at this point level, being very customizable and having the option to split into 5-man units. Don't leave your Captain exposed!

Orks: Big meks are a nice cheap HQ choice but they are not that great at taking on other characters. Kannons are great, and Dredds are fine but it probably should have been in the middle where the big fight was going to happen instead of way off to the side. The ork shooting ended up divided among several targets  and he took 4 turns to get into hand to hand.

We had a lot of fun and at this size the fights do not take as long so we worked in a second battle the same day where I took the Ork side. More on that in Battle 2, coming soon.