New additions and Giveaway!

So Death From The Skies has arrived rather quietly from Games Workshop's side of things, although we've known it was coming for a couple of weeks. I'm incredibly intrigued about the rules for flyers, and of course being a Codex Space Marine player I'm rather excited about the Stormraven being available for my Evandalists. Which is why...

I've got one for myself! Many thanks to Nurgle Command for his heads up that on the Hobbycraft Facebook page you can get yourself a 25% off voucher, so I indulged in this lot=] 

I've had a flick through the painting tanks book, and theres some great tips in there I'm looking forward to trying. I grabbed myself and Bam some spray, he wanted some white for his Orks, the Temple of Skulls and some woods to add some variety to our gaming tables at club, and of course, the Stormraven. Working out the price I paid just £31 for it instead of the hefty £50 at GW, amazing! Cracking deal fair play so head over there now as the offer lasts until the 24th I believe. Special thanks to my lady for taking me to pick these up!

The giveaway winner will be announced on the 26th of February, I've had some great entries so far so please keep them coming! Photos of you and your favourite miniature from any game or system to be emailed to vandalworks@hotmail.com

£20 GW voucher to be won so get on it!

Evandalists vs Chaos Batrep

So here we go again! 1600 point battle report me vs Chris. We've had several games now, so we sort of knew what to expect. I haven't lost to Chris yet 1v1, but you never know when that streak will break.

My rough list was Landraider with Chaplain, assault termies, shooty termies, sternguard with combimeltas in a drop prod, vindicator, two tactical squads and a storm talon. Chris had Chaos lord with termies in a landraider, chaos marines in a rhino, bezerkers in a rhino, helldrake, vindicator and an obliterator. Fairly similar forces then! We rolled for mission and got Purge the Alien. Victory points ahoy! 

Chris won the roll to set up and deployed his two rhinos fairly centrally, obliterator on a high up building, landraider to my right and vindicator on the left. I avoided the vindicator, and set up everyone more or less on my right flank. I failed to seize the inititive but did not mind.

Chris advances with his tanks, and the vindicator speeds over to get into range of something, which may take it a turn or two. His shooting fails to do anything, except the obliterator hones in on my vindicator, and blows it to pieces with a lascannon shot. First blood to Chris! 

I quickly strike back however, as the drop pod sternguard arrive near the chaos land raider, and my own land raider swivels into action to pin down the advancing rhinos. The sternguard score 4 hits on the land raider, glances with one and two penetrations with the others. One stunned and one explosion. Great start! That'll slow his chaos lord down, either he'll have to take out the sternguard or leave them harass them from behind as he slowly advances. The landraider takes aim at the two rhinos, and both follow suit of the land raider. Two rhinos blown up and the traitors no long have any transport. Never have I had such an efficient first turn! I kill a couple from the chaos marine squad with some bolter and plasma cannon shots and that closes the first turn. 

The helldrake comes on, and swoops in towards my tactical squad. I know where this is going.... The Chaos lord and termies spy the sternguard and advance towards them, guns aimed and chainfists whirring. The helldrake blasts a torrent of daemonfire into the building where my tactical squad are and kills 8 of them in one foul blast. Those things are horrid! The Termies take down one of the sternguard and the ensuing assault slaughters the rest. "They earned their points!" I scream as I shake my fist at the chaos scum! 

In my turn I disgorge the chaplain and termies and get ready to asasult the last of the chaos marines, but the storm talon fails to show up. Shooting is a little ineffective this turn, but the Chaos marines are wiped out in combat, although I lose one termie to overwatch. Chris turn and he charges in with his bezerkers and chaos lord. Now, I fancied my chances here as the chaos lord only had two guys with him, and there were only about 6 bezerkers left. After both units fired I only suffered 3 wounds. All needed invulnerable saves, of which I should have saved two. Yep you guessed it, I failed all three. I now felt I was buggered! The bezerkers charged first, and so I challanged their champion with my chaplain who dispatched the khorne fed bumpkin with his crozius. The lone termie however couldnt manage the shee number of attacks and died. 

My turn now, and I advance my shooty termies to take aim at the obliterator. The landraider moves again, but no storm talon! As all of Chris' troops are in combat I have little shooting other than to try and blow up his vindicator with my landraider. Whuch he does! I then fire the 5 termies at the obliterator, and miss with every single assault cannon shot. I score two measly wounds and mutter to myself wishing for some luck. Chris rolls to save the wounds and gets the snake eyes! Obliterator dead. Phew! The mistake I made here though in advancing the termies they would now be in range to be assaulted by the winners of the combat against my chaplain, who of course loses because of so many attacks. 

What happens next roughly is chris assaults my other termies, and wipes them out and then gets into combat with my tactical squad who manage to kill two in overwatch and through close combat. They are then butchered! The heldrake comes back on, and vector strikes termies just as the lord assaults them but I save. I then shoot at the heldrake with the LATE stormtalon, cause 3 hullpoints. And chris saves one keeping the flyer alive! The land raider takes aim, manages to hit, and BOOM! Chris saves the penetration! Ah bugger. I wanted to kill that flappy thing! My landraider does manage to take a shot at Chris' chaos lord, and wounds him once. If he fails, it would be a draw. If he makes the save, Chris wins 9-7. Chris rolls the die....

And I shake Chris' hand and congratulate him on beating me. Its been a long time coming but he thoroughly deserved it! We both had fun and had some really odd dice rolls, where it was either a pretty bad fail or really good dice. I'll get you next time!

Don't forget people that I'm having a giveaway, you can find details here. I'll be announcing the winner on the 26th of February, so send me your pictures by then! I've had some good ones in so far, including one or two well known faces in the community! Add yours to have a chance of winning a £20 Hames Workshop voucher!

Sternguard and Terminators Update!

So its been a wee while since I've shown you much progress with my Evandalists, but this past week or so I've been busy on these beauties. I've always fancied Sternguard, the thought of the elite Marines from the 1st company still armed with power armour and (special ammo issued) boltguns made an evocative image and was something I needed. I scoured what I had, and trawled through Ebay. I had decided that as the Sergeant torso was reasonably distinctive with its high collar, ten of these were added to the shopping list. What else? Phobos pattern boltguns! I picked up 9 of these, and also a Ferrox pattern bolter for the sarge to make him stand out a bit more. Also added were parts from a command squad I bought at the Cwmbran GW and plenty of veteran shoulder pads!

 The colour scheme is much the same as my main army, although a few new things were done. With the Veteran pads I did them silver, and when painting the armour after everything was basecoated, I covered the entire model except the face with nuln oil. I wanted a bit of a dirty grimy look to them, and I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out. So much so that I may revisit other squads and repeat this technique!

Heres two of the Sternguard, as you can see I went for a black skin tone with two of the guys and then a more white tone with the others. I think the black skin tones came out well, and I shall be doing some more! 

Heres the Sergeant with a Powerfist, armed to take out the trickier things these guys may come across that their ammo may not hurt. How I use these guys I don't know, either as a nice defensive unit using the Kraken bolts, or drop pod them down to take out power armoured enemies. I look forward to fielding them though!

Ah Terminators! I've bought 5 ranged Terminators before, but they were the Assault on Black Reach ones and posing them isn't much of an option. I got myself a box of these at Firestorm Games in Cardiff and looked forward to fixing them up.

I posed the Assault Cannon Termie to look like he's balancing against the recoil, and I think its worked ok. Its so nice to have chainfists at last!

Two of the regular Termies. You'll note that I've not done the Chapter badge on these or the Sternguard, this will come when I've practiced it a little more! 

I'm quite happy with how the Sarge's face has come out. I love using Khemri Brown as a base, washing it and then adding little amounts of white 2-3 times to build up the highlights. 

Lastly is my other regular armed Termie, and I've posed this guy twisting as if reacting to a new threat. Needless to say its my favourite one, seeing such a bulky guy in a more dynamic pose is why I wanted to build some of these guys for myself! 

So there we go, some progress to show how the Chapter are growing. I'm still planning on getting some pics of the entire army set up, so eyes peeled for when I pluck up the courage to try and organise this. Don't forget, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate 20k views on my blog, so click here for details! I've got a couple of well known people in the world of gaming entering, so fingers crossed we should have a great gallery. So whats stopping you gettng a self portrait of yourself and your favourite miniature?

Warhammer 20k: Giveaway!

20k. 20,000. That, my friends and readers is how many views I've had to my blog in just over a year, and I feel pretty chuffed with that! Hopefully my blog will continue to grow, as I intend to expand what I cover, and include news and more club goings on from the Tredegar Reavers. But how to celebrate this milestone? Well, I feel like a giveaway! 

The prize shall be a nice fresh £20 Games Workshop voucher, something to go towards that new vehicle you've promised yourself or a box of troops to add to your forces.  But whats that did you say? "How do I enter Kev? How can I please your gaming appetite and gain this favour you large beast?" 

Well, thats a good question! Anyone who already follows me will be automatically entered. Also, anyone who follows my blog in the next two weeks will also be entered,  However, there is another way to gain extra chances... and heres how.

By combining my two loves, photography and Wargaming, I want you to take a self portrait of you and your fave mini. You don't have to have a great quality camera, use your phone if you'd like! Not only will you get extra entries, but I'll post your image on my blog in a feature, along with a link so all my followers will see your blog or page. Its a good way to share the love and feature what some of you guys do! To enter just send me an email to vandalworks@hotmail.com and you'll get a few extra chances to win the voucher.

Heres my example!

So what are you guys waiting for? Thanks again everyone and good luck!

Batrep and Sneak Peek

 So first of all I'd like to apologise about the following batrep as it may be a wee all over all the place, as thats pretty much how the battle happened. We all had 700 points, and decided to play a 3x3 game. I believe the mission was Crusade, with 5 objectives. Teams were....

Louis and Imperial Guard, Corey and Space Marines, Mike with Chaos Space Marines.

Myself, Bam and Carl all with Space Marines.

Corey, our youngest member is still getting to grips with the rules so Carl wrote his list and his own, even though he'd never played Space Marines. This led to much confusion later on! Not only this but we were late starting and had to finish a wee earlier than usual, so only four rushed turns were made. It was terrible in terms of gaming, but the weird thing is we all seemed to really enjoy the game somehow! 

I can't recall the forces, so I'll just talk about what I remember as I go through the battle. Wish me luck!

We won deployment and opted to go first, so myself and Bam took the left and centre positions, and Carl took the right with his scout bikers. He'd taken no troops, just three three-man units of scout bikers, a Librarian and a Chaplain. Corey then set up opposite Carl, his termies would deepstrike but he set up his 5 man tactical squad with plasma cannon in the buildings with his Captain and Dreadnought just outside. Yes, 5 man tactical squads cannot take special or heavy weapons. Mike set his Chaos forces up in a central position and Louis took their right flank, facing myself and Bam with his Chimera and Demolisher.

I'll try to remember to main parts of the early stages.... I surged up the flank with my assault squad lead by my captain with jump pack and  thunderhammer, Bam pushed up centrally with his land raider and termies and Carl pushed forward with all his bikers. My drop pod crashed to the ground and a tactical squad pushed out, meltagun aimed at the demolisher but missed. Oops! The demolisher then killed 8 of my tactical marines, who were finished off next turn. My assault squad then charged the chimera in the next turn, and wrecked it forcing the IG veterans to come disembark. Bam advanced more to get into a position to charge with termies and chaplain and Carl charged into typhus with his bikes. Not a good move! 2 units of bikers went in and 2 units of bikers died.

 Louis' demolisher took aim at my assault squad and managed to kill 4, thanks to cover I didn't lose more! Mikes Chaos Marine squad advanced into the ruins to hold an objective, and managed to take 2 hull points off my drop pod. As far as I'm aware Corey advanced with his dread and killed Carls Librarian in combat. Carl thought SM librarians were like GK librarians, and they're not. Splattered Psyker!

My captain and assault squad wiped out the veteran squad in combat and then charged the demolisher taking that out too. The drop pod survived, as the chaos marines who were shooting at it were charged by Bams termies who butcherd them all and cleared the objective. Louis' vendetta came on and dropped a unit off on an objective where Carl had deployed, killing the chaplain and claiming it. We made a last gasp attempt to kill Coreys (who had to leave by now) 5 man tactical marines so the other side had one objective to sneak a win but it was not to be, and we lost on turn 4. Another turn may have made a little difference, but who knows. 

The game suffered from a lot of confusion and a lack of time to play properly, but it was still entertaining and we all laughed throughout. We're going to keep playing some smaller games of doubles and fingers crossed, on our next all dayer play a little doubles tourney! More on that when we've got a better idea as to what is happening. 

Also worth a mention, I should be going to Hammerhead Games Convention with Huw on Feb 10th, near Nottingham. If any of you are going let me know and say hello!

As for the sneak peek I mentioned, this is what I've recently purchased...

Phobos pattern bolters and 10 Sergeant torsos to make a Sternguard unit. I've always fancied having a unit, the special ammunition makes them a very versatile unit and whether sat back using the kraken bolts to lay down fire or drop podded in and taking out power armour with the plasma ammo they'll be used lots! I've also got 10 veteran shoulder pads with the terminator honours on, and a Ferrox parrtern bolter for the sarge. Hopefully some wip shots on the weekend, maybe before!

The Old Enemy: SM vs CSM Batrep

A coalition of Chaos forces invade another Imperial world. In the Emporers name, we shall send them packing! 

Myself and Bam teamed up to play Louis and Chris, Space Marines vs Chaos Space Marines. 1500 points each, so a decent game size too. Unsure of exact forces... so heres a quick rundown

Myself and Bam: 2 Land Raiders with termies, I had a chaplain, and Bam used Lysander. 5 tactical squads in total, vindicator, 2 storm talons.

Louis and Chris: Typhus, 70 plague zombies (yikes) chaos lord in termie armour and termie retinue in a land raider, daemon prince, khorne bezerkers, another 10 termies in two squads, maulerfiend and forgefiend, couple of obliterators and chaos lord on juggernaut. Mission? Scouring! 

We set the game up, and placed objectives. We then deployed and revealed. We had a 4,3, and a 2 in our half, so that went into the plan of letting the Chaos forces come to us and try to whittle them down and then lay a smackdown on anything that comes close.

First of all, the dice gods were with us. Bam shot his land raider at the chaos counterpart, one lascannon, six for penetration, and then a 5 resulting in an explosion. No cover save possible. Boom!!!! Took out 4 zombies from the two squads either side too and a termie from within! I whittled more of the zombies down with plasma cannon and heavy bolter fire, and that was pretty much our first turn. The Chaos team did little, advancing and getting into position the main objective for them thus far. 

I knew I'd roll good dice too when every single unit I had in reserve came into play.... including both... yes BOTH, storm talons. I positioned one on the right flank to threaten the fiends combo, and the other zoomed towards the Daemon Prince in the middle of the Chaos forces. We pretty much stayed put, just little adjustments here and there for line of sight. My first storm talon did nothing bar a hull point on the maulerfiend. Shame, they were ready to threaten a couple of Bams units. The other Storm Talon? Well, thats another story.... It opened fire on the Daemon Prince, two assault cannon shots wounded the creature and Chris failed both armour saves. Good start! I fired the krak missiles in tandem, and chris rolled for its invulnerables. Another two fails! Daemon Prince DEAD! Ha take that Chaos filth! More whittling of the zombies, with one unit down to 14 by this point. 

The Chaos forces struck on our right flank, blowing a rhino up and exposing one of Bams tactical squads. Nearby Chaos marines took a couple of that squad out, and it looked like Bam was in trouble. 

During movement however, Lou brought down his two Terminator units. The first came down, scattered onto to some terrain and the result on the mishap table was that Bam could put them down. Furthest corner! The other Termie squad came down almost on target, and gave us a new threat as they tore open the vindicator with combi meltas.  

We now made small advances, getting ready to be in position to punish any more advances the chaos forces made. My Storm Talons danced in the air, immobilising the Maulerfiend and the other taking out another 8 zombies. Still they came! The centre of our deployment was looking dangerous, so a combination of 2 tactical squads took out a few of the terminators and bezerkers that were upon us. 

 Below, the zombies come with Typhus in support. This could be trouble!

 

Turn four, and it turns out its the last as closing time is encroaching. Bam rushes headlong into the zombies, Lysander challenging Typhus to a duel. The Maulerfiend is finished off, and the threat in our centre is dealt with. Chris' termies are also destroyed including his Chaos Lord, not giving my now disembarked termies and chaplain a chance to get stuck in. Just as lysander and the termies hurl themselves at the zombies, my storm talon unleashes another payload and kills another 8 of their number, assault cannon rounds ripping zombies apart and frag missiles exploding amongst them. The Terminators then kill another handful, as Lysander and Typhus come toe to toe. Typhus scores 4 out of eight hits, Bam rolls and equals with four out of four. One wound gets through on Lysander, but Typhus is crushed by the First of Dorn.

The end of the game comes prematurely, and points wise we're level pegging. However, had another turn been played, we almost certainly would have jumped into a lead. My Chaplain was a scoring unit thanks to his Warlord trait and just one movement phase from a 3pt objective, a tactical squad near a 4pt objective, and lysander and his unit almost overrunning into the Chaos deployment for another bonus point. We had killed the two Warlords, and while our right flank was up in the air the left was incredibly well secured.

In all a great game, we had some amazing dice rolls, even me(!) but it was still close up until the fourth turn where we surely would have won the battle in the name of the Emperor. We had great fun and we're hoping to do a lot more doubles games, even toying with the idea of a one day tourney at club in a doubles format. Should be fun.

In other news, I picked up something new today... a camcorder! Its a nice little cam, easy to move around, unlike filming on my DSLR, and doesnt need to be focussed manually! Can't wait to start doing some video battle reports and general updates and posts with videos. Til then!

The New Year

So 2013 has arrived, and after a busy couple of weeks I've finally been able to get some time to do a retrospective post and a look ahead to the new year. Firstly, as club was shut over the holidays a few of the guys came over where we spent the day playing Blood Bowl, eating pizza and krispy kremes, and introducing the lads to Rare Exports. I won two of my games with my humans, but lost to Morgan who simply had the better dice rolls. I couldn't get any of his players off the pitch! I did manage wins against Aluns humans and Owains Dark Elves though, plenty of winnings and I managed to dig out the old Special Play cards that added an extra bit of fun to the game.

 So looking back over the past year, and its been huge for myself personally. Not only at the tail end of 2011 did I find a wargaming group with a great bunch of guys I now call friends, but I became Chairman, helped to rebrand the club and we became members of the GCN, which is an honour. This means we'll be advertised on their website, and invited to events such as Hammerhead which is in February, which a few of us may be at! 

The biggest part of wargaming calender was most certainly the release of Warhammer 40,000 6th edition. There were so many rumours, people burning effigies in the streets, others creating new statues to the gods to earn favour, all in the hope or disbelief of what they heard were in the new rules. Well, the rules came out, and they've been pretty sublime. They have added new tactical decisions, reasons to take new units and mix things up, generally just so much better than I could have hoped for.  We've played many games since its release and I think every game has been enjoyable whether its a comfortable win, horrible loss, or a tight game.

Something else of note for me in 2012, was being able to play in Warhammer World in Nottingham. Playing apocalypse was tiring, exciting, tedious, amazing, such a mix of emotions as you play, and the await while your opponents play their turn. With each turn taking around an hour it was hard at times but the amount of stories and events that happened in just one game more than made up for this. Highlights for me was my Legion of the Damned taking over 120 shots from various weapons before 'dying', my Chapter Master Vincent Eniko taking on Imotekh the Stormlord and utterly destroying him, and just seeing my force set up on the Battle for Fort Pain board with everyone elses armies. It was astounding! Anothing highlight was meeting James and his wife. James is a great guy and we chat regularly on Facebook about life, gaming, jerky and much more. It really is a highlight of the hobby that through its social interaction new friends can be made.

So 2012 was a great year, but what for 2013? Well, what you see above is a box of Skaven Gutter Runners. I've long had an affinity for the ratmen, and as they were my first team, I've decided to have a go at converting a whole team from scratch as a slowburn project... that could become a crazed fast convert-a-thon as I hurriedly claw and sratch my way to make a team to compete! 

Another aspect is that I've heard from someone within GW, that as Warhammer Fantasy Battle is 30 years old this year, there 'could' be some sort of surprise release in the summer involving perhaps a campaign book or even a boxed set... intriguing! Intriguing enough that I may just start collecting a Fantasy army for the first time. Skaven are obviously an option, but Beastmen are the leading temptation so far. I love the feral and brutal look of them, so may skip my hooves down to my local store to pick up a box or two. I'm also intrigued that the new Tau codex is possibly around the corner... this could influence whether my attempt to get into WFB will actually happen!

Club wise we're just looking to improve what we have in terms of terrain and tables, get more exposure and hopefully more members. More members means more income, and more income means more things for the club. Hopefully Hammerhead will happen for us and we'll get some interest from that, and also Huws Pirate game keeps developing nicely, could turn into a treat!

Blog wise, I'll be here blogging all the latest from myself and the clubs activities, wargaming news and rumours and hopefully a few more videos here and there. I'd also like to see who is interested in meeting up at Games Day 2013, as I'm intending on going again. For now though, I shall wish you all a farewell and I hope your new year is a great one.