Lots of pics of last Mondays 4 player 40k

Last Monday we played a 2v2 game of 40k. 2 Blood Angels players vs a Marine and Nid player. We setup in a weird quarters situation with our ally in our opposite corner and our opponent either side of us.

It made for a fun and weird game.

Game 5 of the Alaris Dream campaign - Imotekh Lives Again!

Last nights game was the penultimate game of the club campaign. Due to issues with numbers on the Imperial side 2 of our games had to be changed to 3000 points Imperial vs 2x 1500 point bad guys. I was allied with Orks against 3000 points of Blood Angels.

My list was:

Imotekh, Destuction Cryptek with Gaze of Flame and chronometron cryptek attached to 20 warriors

Overlord with warscythe in Command Barge

2x 8 warriors with 2x Destruction crypteks in 2x Ghost Arks

4x Wraiths, 3 with Whip coils

Ork list was:

Warboss with Power Klaw

3x 30 boyz squads with a nob with power klaw and boss pole

10x burna boyz

6x deffkoptas with rokkits

Blood Angels (2x force orgs):

2x captains with lightning claws

1x sanguinary priest

1x furioso dread with blood talons in drop pod

3x scout squads

2x land raiders

2x vindicators

2x stormravens

1x predator with autocannon and lascannons

1x baal predator with the burny flame template thing

1x big assault squad

The game itself was an objective game with 5 objectives on the table. We were meant to play with a weird rule that meant all infantry (including jump infanty and bikes) would come back on as reserves. We canned this rule because our game was taking forever anyway and this would have made it insane.

Deployment was table quarters on a normal 6' x 4' table. This made it very hard to deploy 3000 points on either side. My deployment being squished to the side of our quarter effectively meant I was kept out of the game. The Orks filled a lot of our deployment and the Blood Angels were struggling for space too, too many orks and too many large BA vehicles.

Before the game started we all had ambushes to do as per the previous games in the campaign. I rapid fired 20 warriors into a land raider hoping to immobilise it. I got 5 glancing hits! I then failed to get anything higher than a stunned, even with the chronometron reroll on one of them! GAH! The orks managed to kill a vindicator with their ambush and the blood angels killed one of my wraiths, Mark really hates my wraiths XD

Once the game got started it was a very long and slow game. I'll just go over the highlights.

The orks moved towards the enemy as orks are wont to do. The Blood Angels mostly held back. I tried to get round to the enemy but we only got 4 turns in so I never really got there.

Imotekhs lightning killed a stormraven and immobilised a land raider.

The drop podding dreadnought slaughtered a squad of 30 orks but didn't do much else.

Imotekhs squad got charged in the last turn by a squad of 5 marines, because I had a crytpek with Gaze of Flame he didn't get a charge bonus so I only took 10 attacks which killed one warrior, I then hit back and did nothing. For the first time ever my warriors actually passed the morale check and stayed in combat, I just wish I had a power weapon in the squad somewhere.

I don't really think anything else spectacular happened. It was mostly a game of kill the orks or be killed by them.

My Necrons were pretty much ignored all game, which meant I still had 3 troops by the end to claim objectives. I had one ghost ark on an objective, one which I believe had an objective but there was a difference of opionions on it and one squad of 20 warriors on an objective but in the last turn they were charged which pulled them away from it. The Blood angels held one objective too. The objectives were worth d666 points each, I got 400 ish and the Blood angels got 100 ish, so we effectively won anyway. I only got 2 kill points in the end and I haven't a clue what the other 2 got but it was certainly much more than me.

We finished at 2300 and I still had an hour drive to get home :'( sooo tired today!

Apologies for the funny coloured and sometimes fuzzy pics. We were in a dark corner of the room and my cheapo camera had difficulties with it.

 

Game 2 of the club campaign

I forgot my camera so no pics today.

Last night was an awesome, fun and truly bizarre game. I'll try to describe it as best I can. First off, I was a bit hyper from a crazy drive to make sure I got to the club as quickly as possible as I finished work later than normal. I got held up by an accident on the A1 and my car ran out of fuel near the club due to a dodgy fuel guage. I made it there half an hour late buzzing from adrenaline and having not eaten much. I dread to think how annoying I was last night.

Anyway, on to the game. It was a 3v3 game for random objectives. We had to search buildings instead of shooting and on a d6 roll of a 6 there was an objective. Also to make things way more crazy there was a set of tunnels underground accessible via buildings in the main table. These tunnels were represented with space hulk terrain on another table. The rooms in the tunnels were also possible objectives. We also had restictions to our force org, we can only have 1 elite/fast/heavy/hq if we take 2 troops, 2 if we take 3 troops or 3 if we take 4 troops. In this game each player only had 750 points, so the restrictions were quite limiting. We also had restrictions on max wounds, MCs, saves and vehicle armour.

On my side (the bad guys), I had necrons led by imotekh, 20 warriors, cryptek with chronometron and 5 wraiths with whip coils. Dale had orks, 90 boyz and a warboss. Jon had nurgley chaos marines and some plague bearers.

On the enemy side the corpse gods followers had: Blood angels led by Dante, lots of jump pack stuff and space wolves with erm wolfy stuff and long fangs.

Imotekh messed up the game quite a bit. We stole the initiative because of him and he made it night fight for the first 3 turns meaning we barely got shot at all. His lightning was a bit pants, killing only 7 or 8 marines I think.

The whole game revolved around trying to get guys into the tunnels and our armies moving towards the middle of the table. Two objectives were found and held by our side in the tunnels and one was found and held by the space doggies. My necrons fared alright, I lost 2 wraiths and a handful of warriors. My wraiths killed a captain and a squad of honour guard barely taking a scratch from them. The orks died in droves, kind of what orks do though. The nurgle forces did well holding 2 objectives and killing Dante.

The blood angels died in droves too but the space wolves did well, killing loads of orks.

So in the end the bad guys won. Dante now can't come back for the rest of the campaign (yay). Imotekh survived to fight another day. It was an amazing game. Haven't had this much fun playing 40k for a while. Congrats to the Guardians of Tyr for organizing it. Thanks Ian and Barrie.

I hope this wasn't too rambling or incoherent. I'm knackered and relying on my iPhone to autocorrect and hopefully make this all make sense lol.

200 point kill teams testing

In preparation for a kill team tournament being held by Guardians of Tyr at Wargames Workshop my club held a kill teams night to test various lists. I took 6 lists so that I could pick one at random on a D6, in the end i got to use 3 of the lists. The specific rules and restrictions for the game can be found here here.

My 6 lists were:

 Blood Angels - 10 x Death company

Blood Angels - 6 man assault squad with 1 melta and Landspeeder with multimelta and heavy flamer (I was going to paint up the landspeeder if it worked well)

Necrons - 5 x warriors and 9 x scarabs

Necrons - 4 x wraiths with whipcoils

Necrons - 5 x wraiths with particle casters

Orks - 8 x warbikerz

In my first game I used 4 wraiths with whip coils against a necron force with 2 wraiths with whip coils and 5 deathmarks. I basically hid behind terrain until I was in charge range then went in and killed everything. They were awesome and probably the best list of the 6. 

Second game I got to use the assault marines and landspeeder against a plague marine list. I won this game too but only down to silly dice rolling. I basically ended up with a melta marine that I'd given FnP to stuck in combat with 4 plague marines and neither side would take a wound. Many many turns down the line I killed one of the plague marines, then another died due to the fearless save, this tipped the balance and forced the opponent to start taking leadership tests to stay in the game. It was a pretty weird game, marines vs marines in combat with no special weapons around just takes absolutely forever!

Third and final game I used the warriors and scarabs list against CSM chosen. I found out afterwards that I'd misread the rules and should have reduced the scarabs to 2 wounds. I lost anyway regardless, bases of scarabs in combat just sucked really and the warriors didn't really do much either.

I've used the warbikers and death company in kill teams games in the past and found the bikers to be a bit mediocre and the death company to be awesome but a good player can beat them if they play well. The problem with the death company is they are predictable and can be baited (or kited) but having relentless, furious charge and fearless is crazy powered in these games.

I was a good few games and I have some ideas for the tournament in Feb but I'll keep them to myself for now.

1500 point local tournament

Every 2 or 3 weeks my local wargames shop (Wargames Workshop) holds a 40k tournament of some kind. Today it was a 1500 point tournament and I was using my 1500 point balanced BA list. The tournaments are small events, the most people I've seen at one was 20 and that was a doubles event. Usually there's only between 6 and 10 players. Today there was 8. The day is split up into 3 battles and opponents are chosen at random before each game and nobody plays the same player twice.

My first game was against a mechanised Eldar player. He had guardian squads in falcons, 3 fire prisms and a squad of warp spiders, his HQ was a farseer. The mission for the game was hidden objectives. There were 5 objectives on the board, each numbered, we roll 2 dice secretly and the store owner (Carl) records the numbers so there's no cheating, what we roll is our objectives. i.e. roll a 2 and a 5 and you go for those numbers, 6s are rerolled.
My opponent chose to keep his entire army in reserve, I deployed with my shooty stuff in the trenches that criss crossed the board and my assaulty stuff ready to head up the board but hiding behind LOS blocking cover. On his turn 2 only 2 of his vehicles came on, they shot and didn't do anything, I promptly killed one of them in my turn. Turn 3 he got some more stuff on and I killed 3 more of his vehicles. Turn 4 the rest of his stuff came on, his warp spiders mishapped and I deployed them right in front of my assault squad. By this point Mephiston and librarian dread were in the middle of his crowded army unharmed with dead stuff around them, so far I had lost just a single marine. My opponent conceded, so I won with 13 to 0 kill points and 6 tournament points. His shooting just wasn't hurting anything, the dice gods weren't on his side today.

My 2nd game was against Sisters of Battle. My opponent was someone I've played against a few times in the shop and I think it tends to be 50/50 as to who's going to win. Today he was fielding mech sisters with Celestine and Jacob and some assassin stuff. Objectives were hidden bases, one each and an objective in the middle. I messed up royally in this game by over-stretching my force. my assault elements went ahead forgetting that up close and shooty is what sisters do best. My assault squad got annihilated by rending heavy flamers and then the assassins with Jacob. Mephiston and Celestine killed each other being both initiative 7. That left my shooty stuff to fight a loosing battle. My shooty stuff didn't die but I wasn't holding any objectives and we ran out of turns. I lost but I took some sisters down with me and the saint didn't get back up the whole game after being splattered by Mephiston.

3rd game was the worst. A heavily mechanised BA player :( His army consisted of 3 assault squads in razorbacks, 3 Baal preds with assault cannons, 3 Vindicators and Mephiston. It was a kill points game and I didn't stand a chance. I got 3 kill points and he got 8. The Mephistons killed each other, one with a force weapon instant death and one with sheer weight of wounds. This game pretty much sucked balls but at least I can claim moral high ground for having a more fluffy BA army and having a fully painted army. It was a tournament after all so I should expect this sort of army.

All in all a fun day with a good mix of players ranging from WAAC to casual. maybe my Dreadnought army I'm planning will change things but I can't hold any objectives with it.........

1500 pt semi competitive army - i.e. what I'm using at the moment

My current 1500 point list for my Blood Angels is a semi competitive list I've written to fit around using my Sanguinius model and have a reasonably balanced army. No spam here! There is no unit repetition at all, its not because I particularly dislike spamming, its just that I find it a bit boring to play with.

                                                        Don't forget to fist bump the Necrons after the battle....

To cut to the chase, my list is this:

HQ - Mephiston

HQ - Captain with jump pack and 2x lightning claws

T - Assault squad, 10 men, 1 power fist and 2 meltas

T - Tactical squad, 10 men, 1 power fist, 1 melta and 1 missile launcher

         - Dedicated Rhino

E - 1 Sanguinary priest with jump pack and power weapon

E - Furioso Librarian Dreadnought with Wings of Sanguinius and Might of Heroes

H - Devastator Squad, 10 men, 4 missile launchers

H - Dreadnought with 2 twin linked autocannons

It comes out at 1475 points I could probably cut 2 of the devastators to buy another rhino but that means painting a rhino and having a weird squad size.

                                                          Yes those are rogue trader devastators :O

The basis of the list is to deploy with the Rhino empty and Mephiston gets in it first turn. He then hurtles towards the enemy as fast as possible in the Rhino and pops smoke. With him so close to the enemy and relatively well protected the opponent should be forced into aiming most of if not all of his guns at the rhino and meph, leaving my assault squad and libby dreadnought to make it up the battlefield and leaving my shooty units untouched. Then I carry on with my normal tactic which is just hit it till it stops moving.

The army has enough shooty and enough hitty to be able to cope with most threats relatively well. If I'm facing a harder combat opponent then I'll hold back with my assault units and shoot the enemy till its close, maybe keeping my assault marines in reserve to hit them in the rear. 

The reason for the captain with lightning claws in the army is due to most Grey Knights opponents I normally face have a lot of force halberds and I'm fed up with them always hitting first. The captain is base initiative 5 and with furious charge due to the sangiunary priest he'll hit on initiative 6,  so at least he'll be hitting simultaneously. Not the best answer to the problem I know but its better than nothing. Also Mephiston is initiative 7 and can hopefully nullify their force weapons and phychic tests with his hood.

With the Librarian Dreadnought I seem to be having a bit of a hit and miss experience. Either he does awesomely or for some unexplained reason he seems to get immobilised far too often for normal probability. I should really give him a psychic shooting attack but I like Might of Heroes too much. Ideally he'll charge a unit, kill one or two in my turn hopefully keeping the enemy in combat through their shooting phase and then in their assault phase he'll unleash Might of Heroes and pulverise a big chunk of the squad, the squad the looses it morale check and runs away. Freeing him up to assault his next target. Dreadnoughts with armour 13 that fly around and get an extra D3 attacks are awesome!!!

For the shootyness in my army the Devastators and rifleman dreadnought do pretty well. I prefer a full 10 man Devastator squad for the human shield factor, keeping my big guns shooting until all 6 of the ablative wounds are gone. If the bolters get to fire then its either a lucky bonus or its OMG why has the enemy got this close!?!

I rarely ever see Landraiders or even Predators in my games, usually just rhinos, so the S8 and S7 shots are more cost effective, I occasionally come across shooty dreadnoughts but I'll just charge them with Mephiston or the libby dread (if he gets there without immobilising).

Overall I think its a relatively well rounded list with hard hitting combat units backed up by some good guns.

Its also the most fun list I've played so far with my BA I think.

Apoligies for the funny coloured pics, bad lighting followed by bad photoshopping to try and fix it....

Sanguinius - counts as Mephiston

 

Sanguinius - Smiter of green daemon thingys

While browsing ebay aimlessly I came across a Scibor model that I just had to get. You can see the original here http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=1120

I saw him and immediately thought Sanguinius. So I sent off for him and he arrived a few days later. 

He was only 99% Sanguiniusy though. Instead of blood drop symbols on him the original model had fleur-de-lis symbology like the sisters of battle. So I made a few modifications to him. I removed all the Fleur-de-lis and replaced them as well as adding a giant iron halo which was weirdly enough knicked from a spare Saint Celestine model in my bits box. I added a couple of blood drops, a couple of purity seals and a skull thingy at the end of the chain dangling between his legs and greenstuffed the wings and halo to his back and voila.

Assembling him was relatively easy if you know how to pin things. I pinned all the resin parts. He comes in 5 separate parts; the main body, the base, wings, sword and daemon head and hand. The most awkward bit was the sword, the join is where the hand meets the winged hand guard and pinning it was quite fiddly and nerve racking. In the end I've left the sword unglued so I can detach it for transport, I really don't want to see such a fragile resin sword snap.

I tried to paint him as closely as I could to the GW artwork. I couldn't find the gold paint in my paint box so I ended up using Brazen Brass to paint the armour, which actually turned out better I think. Unfortunately Brazen Brass stopped being made a couple of years ago so my supply is slowly dwindling. If anyone wants to know the process I painted the armour:

• Base coat of Brazen Brass
• cover it with Devlan Mud
• highlight with Brazen Brass, then highlight again with Brazen Brass and Mithril Silver

Most of the painting was done using simple methods, usually just paint then devlan mud, the red robes and the sword probably had the most effort put into them using proper highlighting and the black bits on the sword took a while with a tiny brush and a steady hand.

In actual games I use him with the Mephiston rules and its much more impressive to see on the battlefield than the boring little Mephiston model (or the boring little conversion I was using as him). It somehow fits the statline and abilities much better I think, you don't want a little space marine with T6 S6 W5 wandering round. I should mention that the model is a fair bit taller than a standard marine, when I get round to it I'll take a photo for size comparison. He looks huge compared to my old rogue trader marines which I field in the same army.

All in all its a fabulous model from Scibors that was nice to build and paint, the only downside I think is the join on the sword.