Saturday Salvo: Xwing, Chaos vs Imperum Marines

So the weekend is here, and I've got a nice chunky post for you all. I took a visit down to Cwmbran a couple of days ago, met up with one of the fine men of the Crow Valley Crusaders who sold me a Vindicator and Land Raider Redeemer for a very nice sum. They've both been undercoated and will be worked on in the next couple of weeks! While there I popped into GW, and got to watch a good game of 40k between Tau and an Imperial Fists and Aurora Chapter force. The Tau's gunline proved too much and the Riptide caused a lot of damage. Great fun to watch though. I also picked these guys up, and combined them with parts from the new Tactical Squad and Sternguard box sets.

Grav-guns ahoy! Two Grav-guns and a Combi-grav, should prove deadly and as they're so quick they can quickly advance and pour deadly fire into the most heavily armoured infantry the enemy can muster... or big buggers like Riptides, Greater Daemons and Wraithknights... after playing Alun a couple of weeks ago and decimating his Bloodthirster with them I needed to purchase! Also, my Chapter Master is pretty much done too so thought I'd take a better pic of him. 

I'm still not 100% on the flames but happy enough to not redo this guy anytime soon, as he looks good on the tabletop and thats what matters for me! When my greenstuff skills get much better I may go back then and redo the sword but for now I'm sure he'll get plenty of kills. 

Also got some better pics of my Skaven inspired Chaos Marine, who I've now based. Doesn't look too bad if I may say so myself, so will probably get a squad done to see how they look combined. Plus with the amount of conversion ideas I'm getting a small force may slowly come!

Last Monday at club I also got to have a quick game of X-wing, so heres some pictures! Jason has become a big fan of this game and has most of the ships, but we kept things simple for my first game. 60pts each would mean about 3 ships for me and about double for Jase. 

I took a prototype pilot A-wing, which proved really useful even though I didn't expect much. It took some hullpoints off a tie fighter in the first turn and proved difficult for the tiefighters to lock onto because of its speed. I lost an Xwing but was able to take all the tiefighters out with the A and Xwings. 

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the game, and the second guessing of movement and what abilities to use. Do you focus to survive or lock on to try and take the enemy down, or use a special ability to shake someone following you? So nice having only two phases, moving and shooting. Means theres less to forget!

Next time I'll try the Imperial forces, see what its like having all those tiefighters to control! Perhaps see if I can try a larger game too, as this only took about 45 minutes! Ideal for having a series of quick games, switching sides or even linking them together. 

The models are also really cool, well painted and look really good on the table. Jase also had the cool gaming mat you can see in the pictures, and with the size only being 3x3 you can easily fit it onto most dining tables, which means gaming is easier to come by! Can't be a bad thing at all! 

So coming up soon will hopefully be painted bikers, Redeemer and Vindicator. Hopefully I'll do a few more Chaos Marines too using Skaven and Beastmen bits, just to see what I can come up with. We'll be having an alldayer in the middle of December so I cannot wait to get some gaming done then, see what we can come up with!

Rats and Bolt Pistols.

So far, my hobbying in 40k has been all Space Marines and Tau. Well the other day, I fancied cutting some plastic up and making something more... well grotty and dirty. So this, is what I came up with

Yep, we've got a Chaos Skaven Marine! Although the obvious direction would be Nurgle, I'll be keeping undivided as worshipping one God doesn't interest me. Will this be the start of something bigger? Quite possibly, as I've got some ideas for other units. I've always fancied doing some beastmen based Chaos Marines too, so a feral wild warband could be due. Rat Ogre Obliterators come to mind and making weapons is always good fun, plus it'll make me learn how to use green stuff a lot more too. 

At some point on the weekend I'll have a larger post coming with a small game of X-wing to report on, and some recent purchases. Cheers for reading and any thoughts please share=]

Codex Inquisitor and Batrep vs Daemons

Can it truly be? Has the Kev of Immense Size managed to prise his filthy paws from writing up business stuff and off the black smooth plastic of the Xbox 360 controller? Yes he bloody has! Things have been a little hectic lately, and when I've had free time its either been spent on the streets of Los Santos or attempting to get a life's dream off the ground and into full blown mode. Before I get into a battle report though, a few things first! 

A Better World opened up in Merthyr Tydfil (althought better known locally as Mordor Tydfil) in the last couple of weeks and is an amazing little gaming/comic book shop. Paul, the guy behind it all is also hoping to come to club soon to get into gaming, and we're only too happy to help. If you're in South Wales go visit!

This is also coming out in a little over a week, but why am I bothered about it? Well, conversion possibilities for a start! We've all seen in Blanchitsu the focus on Inquisitor style warbands (which I still think is some sort of marketing strategy for a possible Inquisitor boxed game) and I'm incredibly tempted to get this to be able to add Inquisitors and hopefully assassins into my Krohmus Guard.

So onto the MAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING!!! 

In the red, blue, purple, black and white corner is the KROHMUS GUARD! In the... well, very odd entity of warp thats all over the shop, the EVIL DAEMONS OF ALUN THE ELF-RUFFIAN!!! Bit of a big game too, as we're both using 3000 points, yes, THREE THOUSAND! points playing the Big Guns Never Tire on a Vanguard deployment.

Alun won the dice roll and wanted me to set up and go first. I didn't have much terrain, so using the Techmarine with the thunderfire cannon I boosted the only ruins in my deployment zone and formed a strong firebase there with Devs, TF Cannon, Tactical Squad and the Scorpius Relic Whirlwind (proxying the normal WW as one, wanted to try it out) among these simple ruins. The Bikes set up on the dz edge, and the Vindicator covered my left flank.

Alun responded with plaguebearers on his objective, blood letter units in the centre, bloodthirster and juggernauts on my left flank. On my right flank behind a building was a Keeper of Secrets and a Daemon Prince. Finally Alun placed a soulgrinder in the middle. Ouch! Nightfighting for first turn!

Looking to get First Blood I bring a DP down and shred a bunch of bloodletters, but its not enough. Theres not a lot to happen due to nightfighting but I do take a hullpoint off the soulgrinder and stun it and also take a wound off the keeper of secrets. Finally the vindicator launchers a shell into the three juggernauts and kills two outright. Score! Aluns forces move up and he conjures some despicable spells upon himself, but thats about it for his first turn. Well, he does pretty much destroy my tactical squad with his Daemon Prince but thats to be expected! 

In my next turn I launch more fire into the Daemonnic lines. Daemon Prince loses a couple of wounds, the BloodThirster is taken down to just two wounds by the gravguns on the bikers who then charge in, lose two of their number but finish him off. The Vindicator kills several of a bloodletter unit, the whirlwind finishes off the Soulgrinder after I rolled four hits, two sixes to penetrate then blowing it up with Alun failing his Invulnerable save. That thing scared me so to see it die was awesome! My Chapter Master and Daemon Prince do battle, I forget orbital bombardment AGAIN but do kill the beast even though I lose two wounds. Aluns reinforcements begin to appear, materialising all over to support his army. 

The Lord of Change appears, and starts using its trickery. Luckily it cannot move and will be targeted next turn! Bloodletters spill into my second tactical squad in drop pod on the left flank, and I have 4 left. I do manage to whittle them down though so I may have a change. The last juggernaut exacts revenge against the vindicator by wrecking it and some daemonettes run onto the objective in the central position after appearing nearby. My response, as so often is, SHOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!

My biker captain charges into the last couple of bloodletters and instead of using the power axe I use his base initiative attacks to try and kill them... and he does! Last three members are saved. The other bikes spin around to kill th last juggernaut, and do so, the grav gun taking its toll on the red beast. Daemonettes and Terminators clash, with the daughters of Slaanesh gaining the upper hand. My Chapter Master wanders into the combat that now includes a keeper of secrets but is mortally wounded. The last termie breaks from combat and runs back 10". The Keeper of Secrets then attracts not handsome egotistical men or beautiful women, but bullets and laser beams. He soons slumps to the ground and disappears.

More Daemons appear but each is met with controlled bursts of assault cannon fire, frag missiles and bolter rounds as they're all cut down. Bikers move onto the central objevtive, giving me two while I'm able to finish off the plaguebearers thanks to the Thunderfire Cannon, two storm talons and the last three marines of the left flank drop pod unit. Theres another Daemon prince appearence who is brought down by two overwatching Krakmissiles, and the lone termie is able to deal with another lone daemonette in a slow combat. Horrors are dismantled by the Legion of the Damned, Whirlwind and tactical squad on my ruins and the battlefiel finally grows quiet. 

The Krohmus Guard have wiped the Daemons from the battlefield. I'd somehow tabled Alun! Score wise its about 10-2, which clearly deserves a fistpump! No doubt what won it for me was target choice, making sure I brought down what was most lethal like the juggernauts, bloodthirster and Keeper of Secrets key targets. The Keeper of Secrets took a beating too, starting with an extra wound and having FnP made it a machine! The Whirlwind performed awesomely well, D3+1 shots if not moving was devastating, especially ST8ap3 blasts! The Thunderfire caused a lot of damage, as did my faith in boltguns. It was nice to have my dice perform reasonably well too, Aluns wasn't bad but mine were just much better! I'm sure there were plenty more moments that had us both laughing but my memory is horrific lately.

At club Jase has got himself X-wing so I'm hoping to try that out soon, otherwise I'll see what new conquests the Krohmus Guard can claim for the Imperium!