Wednesday 22 February 2012

Monday Night Gaming!

Yeah you know its here, the latest edition of Monday Night Gaming from Tredegar Wargames Club. This week we had 3 battles, one fatasy, and 2 40k fights. We also had a few people painting away too which was good to see!

The first game was Morgan's Empire army against Iain's Dwarfs. I didnt get to see any of this and unfortunately have no pictures, but Morgans army apparantly took a beating. Good to see the Dwarfs, and a possible future choice of mine win.

Next up we had Jordans Necrons and Carls Grey Knights team up against Andrews Death Guard and newcomer Chris' Space Marines, they may have been chaos mind I'm unsure! From what I've been told the Death Guard and SM's took more of the casualties but ultimately claimed victory by having more objectives. Will look forward to seeing how Chris develops and what army he plumps for, early thoughts were World Eaters.... Yikes!



And so heres my battle against Alun, 9th place winner in the Five Dragons Tourney at Warhammer World. I'd built my army to face his Grey Knights, so heres a rough list of what I took...

Captain w/ relic blade and storm shield, 5 assault termies in a land raider, chaplain and 5 vanguard with jump packs, power weapons and storm shields, vindicator, land speeder, 5 scout snipers, 3 tactical squads, and 5 devastators with 2 plasma cannons. Then Alun announced on the night he'd brought Imperial Guard. More Yikes! If I could have changed my list then Vanguard out and a regular ten man assault squad in, possibly a predator with anti infantry. As it was I played with the list I had as you never know what who you fight and cant always plan for battle, a challange!

We decided we wanted a game with a good basic narrative, so Alun said he wanted to do a last stand sort of fight and try to get his HQ to survive the battle. We kept it simple by having kill points but getting bonus points for killing each others HQ's.


Face off! Vindicator for the most part hit the Leman Russ and kept stunning it, but didnt do any serious trouble. A leman russ not shooting is good for me tho!


The Imperial Guard defend their heretic female commissar, some deamon whore of Slaanesh no doubt!




Land Speeder is wiped out, and the vanguard move in and utterly destroy a large squad. They in turn get slaughtered next turn from the combined fire of 3 Leman Russ tanks and various small arms fire. They took a pounding! Unluckily for Alun he cause several casualties on his own side from scattering battle cannon shots. I laughed though!


My dreadnaught didnt do too badly, doing some damage to two tanks and the terminators did well immobilising one tank, taking down some storm troopers and then in the final turn destroying another Leman Russ. Good innings! Both of our HQ's had been butchered and it looked close.... a quick tot up of the kill points and I'd edged uit 11-7, phew! Fantastic game though, thinking of organising some more narrative games like this in the future.

We've got a trip to Warhammer World in April coming up so planning is going on for that. We're looking at doing an apocalypse game, Chaos vs Imperial, and ideas are floating around as to what the battle is about. Should be an absolute corker though and I cant wait to see my (hopefully mostly) painted army on the stunning tables there. Cant wait!

Friday 17 February 2012

Monday Night Gaming! 13.2.12 edition

So I'm a few days late this week, oops! Been a busy week though so just one of them things. This week my game was a 2x2 battle with 1000pts per player. I teamed up with my usual adversary Jase, to take on Morgan and Alun. So my Evandalists with Blood Angels, versus Space Wolves and Grey Knights. Ouch! Also being played was a Slaanesh Marine army versus Imperial Guard and some sculpting tips being shown.


Heres Andrew showing his wisdom of the art of sculpting to the young Bam. Bam's currently working on some Legion of the Damned, no small undertaking as its his first ever attempt at doing anything in the hobby and he's gone for a force that will largely need to be converted. Mad fool! He's been using tomb king parts to add bones, and wanted to know how to sculpt fire effects, so Andrew duly showed. I'll get some pics of Bams first squad when he's finished, for a beginner they're looking pretty good!


I don't know the score for this battle between Owain's Chaos force and Louis' Imperial Guard, but I was told that the chaos filth had a battering and there wasn't much left of them! Those Rough Riders look awesome fair dues, seems they played awesome too!

So here goes mine and Jason's chance to take on a couple of tournement players. 2000pts per side, SM+BA vs SW+GK. Going into the game me and Jason had come up with a plan. I'd set up a firebase and Jase would keep his Blood Angels amongst my guys to provide a brutal counter attacking force when the other side were close enough. Only problem? We totally forgot about it.

We had 5 objectives to capture, and a Dawn of War deployment. This messed us up completely as our heads began to think of objectives. Jase can't capture any as the only troops he had were Death Company and DC Dreadnought, and my force was built to be fairly static.

Deploymet saw my force group together to bring firepower to bear, but Jase too the other side of the table. Mistake made from the off and we were'nt to recover!

Took two turns to get my 2xplasmacannon devastator squad into position, meaning the squad of grey knights ooposite advanced unmolested by plasma. Not good. Jase had confidently said after reading the GK codex that they had very little chance of harming our dreadnoughts in close combat. Jases Dread charged in and was blown up in 2 turns of assault. Oops. Mistake 2!

Our opponents, enjoying their fortune of having idiotic adversaries!


My Master of the Forge had some success immobilising Morgans venerable dread, unfortunately it was still pointing at the incoming death company. And killed several.

Jasons dread about to be destroyed, mine unable to reach the combat until the next turn. Then it got shot and was also immobilised.

The death company, although only 3 strong did manage to wipe out a unit of grey hunters thanks in the large part to Lemartes, who was butal. Just not brutal enough to take on the rest of the SW's.

My dread got charged, but had more success than Jason's dread. I believe it lasted a whole 3 turns and took a lot of damage, losing both its arms and being stunned or shaken a couple of times too. I personally think they GK's were confused by the checks and thought it some sort of visual riddle.


This is the last pic I remembered to take. The final turn and my dreadnought was gone, the predator was to be destroyed by SW scouts with melta weapons, Astoroth and Draigo went head to head, and the BA hero lost, although Draigo was reuduced to one wound with some help from my Dreadnought. Land speeder was blown apart, but my infantry was largely untouched. It was also however not in a position to prove effective. I took out many of Morgans Long Fangs but we caused little else damage and were beat. And beaten well! We didn't stick to our plan and were misinformed of what would work and lost as a result. Next time, I shall not listen to Jason!

Morgan and Alun, the next day competed in the 5 Dragons tournement in Warhammer World. People from the Welsh Games Workshop stores entered the doubles tourney, with 60 teams vying to win top place and enter the annals of history. I'm incredibly proud to be able to share that Morgan and Alun finished an incredible 9th out of 60, thus making me feel a whole lot better about losing so badly against them! Next year I'm hoping to have a go there, fingers crossed I'll be much improved too!

Plans afoot at the club also for another trip to Warhammer World and fight an apocalypse game. There may be some people playing fantasy too, but I'll be playing 40k as IU've been working on my Evandalists specially for this occasion! I cannot wait to see how they look on the stunning boards in WW, and know I'll use a lot of battery power taking pictures! We'll be sorting out soon who is going, how many points to take and I'll also try and come up with some sort of narrative, maybe playing a few games before we go to let each side try and gain some benefits in the big battle.

For now though thats it, Adios!

Saturday 11 February 2012

Mon.. No, Different Night Gaming!

Thats right, gaming on a day that ISN'T a Monday! As you'll see from the following pics I've finally got my board at home ready to play, theres not an awful amount of room but we got 4 people around it and played a 2000pts a side game on it, and it seemed ok. Maybe it won't be the same for horde armies but for SM's and Eldar it worked.

The sides that fought were 2000pts of Space Marines commanded by myself and Bam versus Jason's Eldar and Ben's Space Marines borrowed from Jase. Bens hoping to get some Necron models done soon, should be good.


So heres deployment, me and Bam set up first then Jase and Ben. Let them come is probably my best tactic so deployment took this on board. Predator was set up so it had a choice of targets, armed with anti-infantry weapons, and the Scouts were set up next to them to again get a good view of the table. I set up a combat squad on the right on the ruins with a plasma cannon, to oppose any space marines coming down that flank. Command Squad was set up here too, along with the other combat squad to support or intercept anything coming along with the devastator styled dreadnought. My assault troops and Chaplain were set up behind the scouts to do a similar role. Bam set up Terminators on the left flank and a full tactical squad, ably supported by a dread. Then Our opponents set up! My main concern was the Avatar, and the amount of marines coming down the right. Targets!


So end of turn one, and you can see that the squad of marines on the top right are gone. Plasma cannon took 3 out then the Predator finished them off. Not much else to speak of as much of the enemy ran during shooting.


Ok, so Jase got his Eldrad and council into combat with a tactical squad, and did a lot of damage. The squad ran and luckily stopped just short of the table edge. Bams Dread having its close combat weapon blown off shot at and assaulted the 5 man assault squad then duly got charged by avatar, dread and fire dragons. The Avatar blew our dread up resulting in a 6" explosion with killed two fire dragons leaving just one left... Not too bad a death! My chaplain and assault squad readied for the charge and completely wiped out what was left of Eldrads unit. VPs!


Assault squad and Chaplain about to charge


Bams Legion of the Damned come into play and get charged in a death or glory move by Bens Captain and accompanying squad. The Captain proves hard to kill even for the LOD so I charge in my command squad and my combat squad charges whats left of a shot up black templar squad. My assault squad now on the left had just consolidated after helping our Terminators finish off the Howling Banshees after the opposing Terminators ran having lost the combat. I consolidated back 2"... which didn't prove enough!


This was what was left at the end of the game. The Black Templars sergeant and my seargent had an epic duel lasting 2 turns, with my guy just getting the edge. The LOD charged at the avatar along with my command squad, and eventually killed the best after it had killed all of the Damned marines. Phew! The assault marines had been charged by a dreadnought that was half an inch in range, and I thought they were doomed. I had nothing to scratch the behemoth and would be staring at it waiting for it to kill me until bams last terminators could come down from their own terminator duel to save me. The Dread (unluckily for Ben) kept failing to hit my marines and then only managed to kill one of the two terminators when they finally set in. The last Terminator proved just as bad and this combat ended as it started!

So all that was left on Jason and Bens side were 5 scouts and a dread, whereas we had 3 scouts, my captain, and the heroic sarge, my long range dread, predator, one terminator and 10 assault marines and chaplain. KP's was 10-5 I think, We'd won well!

Looking forward to facing some Necrons and also mine and Jasons game against Morgan and Alun on monday. Should be a good un!

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Monday Night Gaming!

And welcome to another edition of Monday Night Gaming from Tredegar Wargames Club! We've started seeing Warhammer being played more, and rumours abound that Mordheim is being explored once again... who dares venture into the depths of this damned city? Fools. ALL OF EM!!!

Ahem.

First up Mike and Louis played WFB, with Chaos taking on Tomb Kings.

From what I understand it was a pretty close game but Louis' Chaos warband took the win with the chosen chewing through the undead. Or now dead.

Next up Morgan, who sports the rather manly beard and an Empire army took on Owain, the Redbranch (whose blog is here http://anotherfinemess-wargamesandmigraines.blogspot.com/) and his Chaos army.

This battlefield look awesome fair dues, Love the buildings!


The Empire successfully defeated the Chaos warband here, and after I'd left a game of Mordheim was played, which Morgan, duly won. 2 wins in a row, luck surely?


So next up was my game. Originally we had a 2000pts BA force commanded by Jason and Mike against 1000pts of my Evandalists and 1000pts of Carls Grey Knights, unfortunately Carl couldn't make it so we managed rope Bam into using his only 10 space marines as a proper Legion of the Damned squad, and a dreadnought to command. Pts were rearranged to 1500pts a side and battle commenced!

This was shortly after turn one, as you can see my force hardly advanced apart from the 3 dreads. Predator shot some marines up, heavy bolters proved effective through weight of fire but the autcannon was a disappointment. We had three objectives, the barrels you can see middle right of this picture, one in the ruins, and one on the far left flank near the enemies deployment.


My Master of the Forge, who managed to kill almost a tactical squad worth of marines in the first two turns shooting his conversion beamer over the 42" to get the ST10 ap1 effect of the weapon. Score!





Jasons Death Company are brutal. Lemartes, is even more brutal. They took one of my combat squads apart but after running another combat squad from them and moving my predator between them and the death company they had to advance towards the far flank. Score! My Land Speeder proved more effective, as I think I'm getting used to how to use it better. Combined fire from that, 5 scouts and 4 tactical marines managed to butcher a Terminator squad through firepower. Score More!



Furioso dreadnoughts have Fleet. I did not know this! Jase's dread flew across the board into my long range dread and duly blew it apart in two turns of combat. Whats more important though, is that mine, without a close combat weapon, immobilised the Furioso. Very proud! A multimelta from my combat squad that captured the objective finished it off in turn 6-7. Second time that multimelta has destroyed Jasons dreadnought as we played a little warmup game in my house before we left. Bams LOD were awesome, taking out 5 terminators, 1 captain, and 4 tactical marines at a loss of only 5 of their own. More reason to save and get my squad of ten sorted! We won capturing two objectives with one uncontested, and only Lemartes left on the field for the enemy. Good win and good start for Bam! Mike had some unlucky dice rolls though bless him, next time I battle him a closer battle shall be had=]

We had some WW2 battling going on too tonight, I have no idea how the game plays but when I've got a night off and these guys are here I'll be having more of a browse.


Andrews Land Raider conversion continues apace, and is looking sick. Absolutely loving the bell across the hull, can just imagine it slowly moving forward tolling away as the death guard follow it. Sure to scare any Imperial Guardsman!


Scythes. Probably one of the most iconic weapons that are so underused in 40k! Good to see one being sported here.

So thats Monday Night Gaming for this week, next week myself and Jason are in the deep end as we team up to play Morgan and Alun as they gear up for the 5 Dragons Tourney the day after. Should be a cracker!