First of the Seventh

And on the Seventh Edition, the High Lords did get it so right. At least thats my thoughts after the first game 7th edition 40k I've had. For the first game, myself and the Alun took a trip to the Crow Valley Crusaders to face an Imperial Guard/Dark Angels army commanded by Byron and Gareth. Alun took his Dark Eldar, where I took mainly Imperial Guard with some Space Marines. 2k each, and we used the new mission set in the rulebook to see what our objectives were. Contact Lost was rolled up, and six objectives were placed.Vague report ahead as this was played a week ago!

Having to capture objectives to gain new tactical mission cards to gain those all important victory points works insanely well and creates a really fluid game as each army are racing around to capture or at least contest objectives to get those lovely cards. What this does is challange the player to be ready to adapt during the heat of battle, as it should be. This brings so many new decisions and options that I can't wait to play more of the new missions. 

 Myself and Alun went first, Aluns Dark Eldar racing across the field to capture an objective in front of the opponents battleline. Aluns shooting was pretty dire, and mine wasn't too effective either. The return fire did some damage but we were able to weather it.

After the 1st turn we had control of a couple of the objectives, although our enemis had got the upper hand acheiving a couple early on and getting first blood. Sometimes the objective cards will be kind, sometimes not so much! They vary from capturing certain numbered objectives to killing certain units or making them run off the board. As the game went on both sides built up points in this way, and it seems a really good way to play a game.

Aluns Dark Eldar faced off against a lot of Byrons army, and highlights include a Vanquisher rolling a six to try and blow the DE flyer out of the sky, but only stunning it, and Aluns Wyches being abysmal at using Haywire grenades and leaving the Wyverns unmolested. 

I had a lot of the Dark Angels to take on, and was able to keep them mostly at bay. His bikes where slowly whittled down before they took out most of my Tactical Squad and a Rhino, and even stripped a hull point off my vendetta.  I slowly advanced down the right flank and the Banewolf took out some DA devastators before being stunned and stopping me from doing much else with it!

I then had to contend with Deathwing, which the Executioner did beautifully, killing most of them. Using an Enginseer was great too, adding some survivability to a Leman Russ but also POTMS the Russ to fire its weapons at one thing then the battle cannon at another, very useful! Combat erupted between the DE and Byrons Guard over the objective, and it was brutal. The DE were shot up and unable to cope up with the numbers the Guard flung in. Then we got to fire at the Guard and almost wiped them out, but there were soooo many tanks left!

As we got to the end of the game we totaled up the vp's and me and Alun had pinched it 11-8, such a close game!  The psychic phase was a bit of fun too, I had taken 2 primaris psykers and also Tigurius just to see how it went, and pretty much got 1 or 2 powers off each turn, much less than I expected but its a much more fun experience than just rolling under your leadership and trying to remember which phase each power should be cast. I think it makes psyker heavy armies a little less scary to face, especially those tricksy eldar! Whether the Daemons will be over powered is another thing, but I actually like the idea of a warp rift spewing forth daemons and trying to take them on! 

The star of the show however has to be the objectives. I can see some games being really difficult if you draw cards that are hard to acheive, but challanges should be accepted and relished on the tabletop. I'm already looking forward to my second game, this time against my partner in crime and his Dark Eldar! Scares me a little, as they're fast moving so I know he'll be able to capture a lot of the objectives so I will have to concentrate fire well! 

As for the Astra Militarum, heres the vehicles I have so far! The chimera on the left isn't in the best shape but it does the job for now. I'm not gluing weapons on yet as I want the ability to switch between options to see what works well, and against different opponents I can choose the nastiest combos! I've got some infantry to get done too and need to add more. Some heavy weapon squads would be nice too!

Expect posts to pick back up a little more soon, the route to self employment is about to pick up huge soon, so I'll be very quiet for a few weeks but hopefully I'll have more time to post and do some batreps. Getting a couple of tables also means more games as theres room at the studio to do so! Huge thanks to Byron and Gareth for the game, always a pleasure lads. I've not played near enough games of 7th so this will get remedied soon. More thoughts on 7th edition to come soon, and also possibly a post on much I'm swooning over the new Ork Flashgitz. THEY'RE GODDAMN NOICE!

Six point Five or Seventh.

News broke yesterday, with images leaked from a future White Dwarf that the rumours were true. A new 40k rulebook is coming. Whether this means its an update or 7th has come early, I don't think it matters. Updated rules are there, and this is what we know so far. 

"The FoC chart is still in the new 40k edition and if you follow it you have what is known as a "Battle Forged" army. It awards (unlisted) bonuses for using the FoC.You can also take a unbound army, these allow you to take whatever you want from your collection and toss out the FoC (while still adhering to unit size and heeding the relationships described in the new Allies Matrix.

Another thing is objective cards, so the objectives of the game can change each turn. The deck will be 36 cards.

There is also a physic phase confirmed now. A pool of warp charge dice is created at the start of the psychic phase, equal to 1d6 + mastery lvl of psychers. You can use as many dice as you like, but increase risk of perils of the warp (which is now a table you roll on.) Enemy psychers can draw on warp charge pool to Deny the Witch and nulify powers.
Also Eternal warrior missions still exist but in addition there are 6 new Maelstrom of War Missions.

Additional information that a Battle Forged list can take as many detachments as they wish, and still get bonus's.. The Unbound lists, is very much whatever you want to throw in to do a battle, and you get to choose which you want to play, and your opponent can do the same."

There are also rumours of a Daemonology psychic table to choose powers from, but I'll leave that alone until I know more.

Psychic phase makes a return. For anyone who played 2nd edition, you'll remember the psychic phase. Here, cards were drawn and then used to fuel powers, much like in fantasy in those days. 40k then proceeded to go a different route, where psykers were used a little less and the way powers were used differed until where we are today. Now however, it'll be through using a pool of dice, again, like how Fantasy does things. When 6th edition came out, I remarked to a few people, and likely on here too that some of the changes made me think about 2nd ed. It seems this is happening again. As long as the psychic phase is streamlined but with enough depth to be interesting it'll be a nice addition.

Now the big topic. If your knickers have been twisted, you may not want to read further.

I absolutely love this move GW has made in that there are now battle forged and unbound lists. Battle Forged will be an army using the FOC, much like we know it today. Unbound, will be taking a list with no restrictions whatsoever. Sound familiar? Its like a small scale apocalypse game. Now, while many will cry foul at this and see people be rude with making OP lists, think about this.

Mamy times in White Dwarfs, in various columns over the years some of the luminaries of GW have always mentioned about adapting the rules as you see fit. You spend money on the rules, you can modify them. They've even encouraged people to make their own scenarios and themed armies, this going back as far as I can remember being in the hobby, which is 1994 (ish). What they've basically done, is instead of trying to encourage people to do this things, is made it 'legal' to do this. People are afraid of rules, 'they're written down so I can't break them or change them to have more fun with'. Why can't you? If you and your gaming group all get on well, speak to them about adapting things and changing it up, make scenarios where armies can take 8 heavy support slots but no fast attacks. Whats stopping you? Absolutely nothing now, thats for sure.

Many people see the competitive side of our hobby, and think thats all there is to it. I've always been a fan of mixing things up, one of my favourite battles was against Alun where we made a scenario up that I had to split my force into two and surround his Guard army who was harbouring a traitor commander. Did it favour one of us to win? Possibly, but I think Alun would agree that it was a great match and we both really enjoyed the little stories from it. My vanguard being gunned down by his infantry, blowing up a line of his tanks with terminators, a frantic last dash to catch his commander and bring him down for justice... I still remember them now! With the ability to make unbound lists we could go back and used much more themed armies. Perhaps Alun has nothing but tanks, and they're all waiting for orders. I can only take limited infantry and have to stealthily make my way in and take them by surprise using only a couple of sternguard squads perhaps. Its this freedom that will make 40 even more fun than it is, and I'm currently loving the game!

Whether or not this will apply in tourneys I don't know, and if it is then everyone still has the same 'restrictions' so its all still fair game. This is a bold but move by GW in its key franchise game, but I believe its a good one. Some miniatures will be hurt by this, units that don't do that well may see sales drop even more but other units may make more money due to being able to use many of them.

Its certainly an interesting time for 40k fans, and there'll be a lot more information coming soon as to what rules will be brought in, changed, and kept the same. 

New Tyranid Codex Thoughts and Batrep

So the new Tyranid Codex has been released, and there is much talk floating around the internet about the book and from what I've encountered its pretty negative. I've never used the Nids before, and only ever played against them once with the old Tau codex and got hammered. With the release our Tyranid player Jacob offered me to a game, and choosing my Krohmus Guard I duly accepted. First of all, thoughts on the Codex pregame.

Jacob mentioned that a fair whack of the codex had been copied and pasted from the previous dex. This is unfortunate, but it is a nicely put together book regardless and I'm sure if you're a newcomer to gribblies, you'll enjoy the book immensely.

Rules wise its hard to offer much as I don't have much experience with them. I've always felt that things with a toughness and wounds beats out armour, as its incredibly hard to kill them on one turn unlike vehicles where you can penetrate and explode them. Many of the big nasties in the nid book are toughness 5-6 with 5-6 wounds, thats a lot of firepower to down these beasts. To me, a mix of big and small nids would be the most appealing army, perhaps not competitively but just for fun. Lots of little guys being goaded forward by synapse seems like a great image, tearing their way towards an unfortunate gunline where they either get shot down or overwhelm the defenders. 

As always, the art is fantastic and this piece with the nids taking on orks really caught my eye. The map of tendrils attacking areas of space was nice too and theres plenty of eye candy in the book. 

 So onto the battle then. We'd decided to do 1500 points, and not having any idea what Jacob was taking I went for a list designed to dent them early on and hopefully deal out enough firepower to slowly mow the numbers down as they advanced. My list was:

Barebones librarian, 2 tactical squads, one in a drop pod, dreadnought with TL heavy flamer and heavy flamer in a drop pod, predator with AC and HB's, 8xdevastators with 4 missile launchers, 10 scouts with rifles, missile launcher and telion, 5 bikers with two gravguns and combi grav and ten legion of the damned with flamer and heavy flamer. 

The basic thought was to use the bikers to pick on something big and take it out in one go, with some supporting fire if needed. The dread would come down and torch a big unit of gaunts that are closest to my main block of troops and the legion of the damned would either act as a screen coming down near my main force or deepstrile behind to try and distract and cause as much damage as possible. 

I deployed and Jacob set up his force. 3 Tervigons, 3 Zoanthropes, about 80-90 termagaunts, an exocrine, and deathleaper stood across from me or were in reserves. 

 First turn and the Dread droppods near a huge guant unit and torches a good 12-15 of them, but the nearby Tervigon charges in and damages the dread. I was lucky not to lose it in one turn as Jacob had two pens but didn't get to explode it. The bikers revved forward and unleashed a torrent of gravfire at the right most tervigon, killing the beast. My scouts targeted the Zoanthrope to the right, a krak missile finding its mark and instant killing the xenos. I managed to take a couple of wounds off the exocrine but it regenerated back up to 5. The nids rushed forward, gaunts mainly running forward to close ground to get ready to attack. One tervigon however rolled a double to spawn and would be unable to create anymore, whereas the other created 9 guants.

Tactical squad in drop pod deployed to the west, hoping to pile in some firepower using the Tactical Doctrine. The firepower tore apart guants but 9 still stood and charged the tactical squad in return. The bikers redployed and unleashed more graviton firepower, this time at the exocrine. Fairly poor dice rolling only took two wounds off, although the scouts managed to take another two off leaving it on just one wound. The predator fired and failed to do anything. The only thing left that could do anything was a lascannon toting tactical marine. I unleashed the shot, hit, but rolled a one to wound. Dammit! The Exocrine regenned two wounds to take it back up to 3, and blew up a few of my devastators, cover saving them from all being wiped out. The main Tervigon finished off my dreadnought and stormed alongside the gaunts assaulting my tactical marines. It managed to kill one marine after Jacob rolled badly but I did no damage back, mainly through a power that took my WS and BS down to just 1! I did kill a couple of gaunts and lost another marine. 

The Legion of the Damned appear at the back of the Tyranid line engulfing some gaunts in prometheum, then get assault by a tervigon and later on two units of gaunts, one from reserve and one spawned by said Tervigon. True to legend, they sponge up a tremndous amount of attacks and I only lose three for the rest of the game. They take out a unit of gaunts, leave the other with just a couple of models and keep a Tervigon locked in combat. Distraction and spongeness complete!

The bikers got assailted by a huge unit of gaunts, and I lost two in the first turn of combat but managed to kill a few in return. The gaunts were having a lot of trouble wounding the T5 bikers though so I felt safe they'd survive. A drop pod stormbolter killed a last gaunt to get a kill point, and the exocrine was finally finished off before it could wipe out my devastators. They however had a huge unit of gaunts and deathleaper to worry about. I advanced my Librarian and tactical squad out of the ruins on the right to back up the other tactical squad. I'd gained Iron Arm for the libby and was confident he could deal some damage to even the bigger beasties.

Deathleaper and the gaunts assaulted my Devs and took them down to two models, while my bikers stood resolute and unharmable almost to the other unit of gaunts, but only managed to kill a few due to lack of attacks. The Tervigon to my right was unable to cause enough wounds to the tactical squad to wipe them out, and the game ended before my libby could test his strength against something juicy.

We ended the game and I was up about 8-2, I was close to losing a couple of units but I'd done enough damage to blunt the Tyranid attack... for now!

Jacobs overall thoughts on the army is that they've been nerded, and I can see what he means. However Jacob hasn't played very often and is a little rusty of the rules. I think diverting a tervigon away from the main advance to take care of my legion of the damned wasn't a good move, but I don't think he realised just how durable a unit they are. Taking out a tervigon and zoanthrope in the first turn was inlucky too, but now he knows how deadly Gravguns are and if he has the choice will take the first turn to try and deal with them. After he's had a few more games it'll be interesting to see if he still has the same view or not. Hopefully not and he'll have found his footing witht he army again and get back to his biomass collecting ways! 

From my perspective it was an enjoyable game, seeing a wave of gaunts and some bigger beasts across from me was unnerving, and I did wonder if my force would be any good. It proved to be fairly effective however with most of the units doing well. I look forward to more games against Jacob as he's always fun to play against, and when he gains some confidence I'm sure his tactical gribbliness will be hard to beat!

Codex Space Marines: Nerdgasm!

 So Codex Space Marines comes out tomorrow on the 8th of September... well being a lucky son of a Primarch I've got my copy today along with the Damnos Warzone book! I've had a nice little thumb through and can safely say this is the book us vanilla players have been after. Although 'vanilla' doesn't really describe the book with just how many Chapter Tactics and rules are in here.

 The covers for both are lovely, and as nice as the limited edition books are the cover for the standard edition is stunning in its own right. Many people have shown some disdain for the book costing £5 more than the other codex books, but when you consider theres an extra 70 or so pages in here, thats not too far off double, its a very worthy fiver to spend.

As usual, theres a nice amount of background in here, not just for the main Chapters but also the making of Space Marines, some of the successor chapters and some of the conflicts Space Marines have fought in over the milennia.

Obviously the founding chapters are the stars of the show, and its great to see them all have some limelight. From the Iron Hands to the Raven Guard, theres background for all and a little on their successor chapters IF they have any! One of my favourite images so far is of a Thunderhawk storming through enemy fire in Raven Guard colours, I didn't want to spoil it though so enjoy it yourselves when you get the codex!

Chapter Tactics are a huge addition in this book, and they really help add flavour to the Chapter you use. White Scars players in particular must be revving their bikes up in anticipation to getting ST5 hammer of Wrath attacks and hit and run, great combo!

For me however the biggest thing was points. I've often looked at other Marine Codex books and noticed how much cheaper other chapters get things for... well thats changed. 5 Devastators with 4 missile launchers used to cost me 150 points, but now its just 130! You lose the veteran sergeant but he is just ten points but the regular sarge still gets the signum. A tactical squad can cost as little as 140 points with no upgrades, and if you want the classic loadout of a veteran sarge, missile launcher and flamer its still 170 pts, the same as in the last edition of Codex Space Marines. Legion of the Damned, Predator equiipped with lascannons and several other units all getting some nice cuts in prices. 

Onto the Damnos Warzone book, and for anyone who doesn't know this is an apocalypse book for using Ultramarines and Necrons. It details the first Damnos war along with the Ultramarines return in an attempt to rid the Necron threat. Another hardback book, theres some nice background in here that gives a good sense of the battles fought and gives you some ideas into how you should fight them. Theres a few missions that look like great fun, new strategic assets and over 20 formations for the Space Marines and Necron forces... and it states that these can be used in any Apocalypse game will many people will be happy about!

The new formations have some old favourites and some new ones too. Centurions get a formation if you have 9+, the Vindicator Linebreaker Squadron makes a nice return plus theres rules for the Necron Pylon. One of the assets I'd love to use allows Marine units that come on from reserve to charge on the turn they arrive... awesome!

So in all both books have been totally worth the money to me. If you're not intot he Apocalypse scene you may not find much about Warzone Damnos to interest you, but the Space Marine Codex has been a book I'm having trouble putting down. I now have an 8000point apocalypse list to write for Sunday and I'm genuinely excited about it! Let me know what you guys think of the Codex and/or Damnos and post it in the comments!

(all images in this post are taken from Games Workshop print, and belong to them)

Campaign Day at Tredegar Reavers: Testing the New Tau!

And so the Tredegar Reavers put on their first campaign day: VYNDRA II. Jacob came up with the rules and scenarios, so much kudos to that man!

Armies were made from 2 x 500 forces, 1 HQ and 1 Troops unit compulsery. So my Evandalists were to be rolled out again for action! However, with a difference. Not by me! I myself was using the brand new Tau Codex, along with another person who came to play. My list looked roughly like this. 

Fireblade Cadre, 10 fire warriors, 6 firewarriors, 8 pathfinders, riptide, broadside, hammerhead, two crisis suits, and a 3 man stealth team. No drones or anything, everything was pretty basic but I just wanted to squeeze as much in to give everything a go. Leaning over winning was the main aim today!

As always, Huw was in attendance putting on a game of No Quarter with Mike, Aaron and Owain. Couple of pictures are included!

Myself and Jacob got to club nice and early to get things set up, and here are the four tables we used. There was another but it wasn't needed, so I've just included these!

My first game was against a Necron force. Part of Jacobs plan was that the first game most of your units would deepstrike even if not normally allowed, except if a vehicle in which it comes on from your table edge. A few of my units are ready to arrive, so I deep strike my Riptide fairly centrally. Scatters. Mishaps. Rolled a one. Cry. The model I'd put a lot of effort into getting some sort of painted shape was killed before it had rolled a dice! Ho hum, on with it! We had four objectives to control, so my opponent had oen unit of immortals on his, a tough test to budge! I had my 10 man unit of firewarrios and my Fireblade Cadre, on one of mine. Second turn, he brings down his Necron Lord and he scatters. Mishaps. ROLLS A ONE!!! DICE GODS WHYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!! Well, bonus for me but horrid for the Necron player! In the end I was able to get a Crisis suit to contest his objective while holding my own. Game finishes 4-2 to me, Tau victorious!

Some of the other fights, Space Marines vs Chaos

Eldar and Dark Eldar allies vs Chaos

This was the Necron Lord that mishapped, lovely looking beastie!

This was Tau versus my Evandalists, commanded by Jason. He had some terrible luck, the Chaplain dying and after Jase rolled a one on the injury chart Jacob had concocted was dead for the entire campaign! Ouch!

No Quarter! in action, scurvy and crocodiles!

My next game against Chaos allies, this was a very close game. Chris' bezerkers came zooming down, I managed to blow one rhino up but out stomped Kharn who killed my broadside, but a railgun shot to the face soon stopped him. His other unit of bezerkers then failed to assault me twice and were wiped out by a combination of the new Tau rule 'Supporting Fire'. This helped give me enough sixes when shooting overwatch to make them just out of range of charging me the first time then finishing the squad off the second time. Score! The other Chaos had his Lord fly down the other flank and wiped out my Cadre and Firewarriors. Once again, a Railgun shot from across the board killed him.

My Riptide then tried to zoom foward, using the super charge I moved 17" forwards to close the gap with the Chaos objective. 7 bolt pistol shots, look at those to wound rolls! I made sure my dice saw that so they could see how to perform! The riptide only killed a couple, but it was worth a shot. In the closing moments of the game my hammerhead was able to blast apart just enough of the squad to cause them to run from the objective and off the table... thus making it a draw. Crazy game!

Some action on the Tyranid moon board.

More No Quarter, showing off the Island feature Huw had created.

Had to take a quick snap of this, the one Chaos players objective. What a beatiful piece of genius!

  
One of the Arena of Death matches. Being a Tau player I wasn't too bothered with this, but it was fun watching some of the other guys go at it. Moment of the Arena goes to Jason rolling a one when a fire warrior shot him for his armour save. Bad luck Jase!

Everyone had to hand in one model for the best painted award, we voted for the top three, then others voted for the top one. My Chaplain came second I believe!

Ah, my game against Alun will be a memorable one for my Tau! We were all given a special card at the beginning of the day which we could use in any game. Mine was "Was that a Lictor?" which meant I could move any one unit of my enemy 12" away from where they had been set up in  deployment. Seeing as Alun had taken an Aegis Defence Line and quadcannon I moved Yriel and his guardians out and shot them to ribbons, leaving Yriel on two wounds. My markerlights then removed the cover saves for the Eldar Rangers and Farseer who were then promptly shot at by everything in the second turn! Yriel slid around and took out my stealthsuits, and then charged the pathfinders. Overwatch from those alone took his last two wounds, result!

The enemy!

Aluns raider flew down the right, which I blew up, and then decimated the squad with fire from the Riptide. I then charged the squad and kept then held up for several turns while my army moved to capture the Relic and further themselves away. The Riptide fell, as it was incredibly hard to hit those pointy ears but the last two Dark Eldar died and Alun was wiped out. Victoy!

This was a scene as another Tau player tabled the Khorne Bezerkers, heres Kharn before he was obliterated.

This was the final game, and was a little bit different. HQ and any other unit had to go around chasing Relics, when one was controlled you had to roll a dice, if it was a 6 you'd win, otherwise it was replaced elsewhere on the table. A lot of city terrain was used for this! The only time I managed to get to one, I was able to roll the six and hold the main objective! Victory for the Greater Good.

And so the end comes, and we hold aloft our certificates. I was the owner of the Silver Throne, and, most pleasingly the best sportsmanship award too! The other Tau player won the overall campaign for scoring a shedload of victory points, best army and best mini, where as the Chaos player won the Arena of Death with his juicy Chaos Daemon Prince. Jason also won a certificate, for being the best roller of the 'one' on a D6, but could not be pictured due to having to leave early. As you can see, I'm the large ogre on the right.

So all in all a great day, we've raised a nice wee bit of money to go towards more scenary and got some good games of 40k in! First thoughts with the Tau, they're an incredible defensive army, supporting fire means anything coming close to you will suffer a few wounds from the amount of overwatch fire you can pour out. The Broadside didn't do much, but I had that mainly to take out flyers. The riptide performed well despite its terrible start, and the Fireblade Cadre's ability to add an extra shot to the fire warriors proved well worth his meagre 60pts. Unit of the day, Pathfinders. They are amazing and make the rest of the Tau so much better. Can't wait to play more games with them!

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 Evandalists vs Imperial Guard

So Sunday I get a message from Alun, my Elven nemesis. "So, I'll be at club tomorrow. You want a game? If so, state the points!"

"1850! Or 2350! Choose!" I reply. 

"2350! A rather random amount!" Alun settles. 

I wasn't sure what force Alun was taking, so I went for something I thought was adaptable. My force looked like this...

Captain on bike, artificer armour and power weapon, bikers and attack bike

Chaplain, with termies in land raider

2 tactical squads

dreadnought with twin linked heavy flamer and heavy flamer in drop pod

whirlwind

Telion and scouts

dreadnought with plasma cannon

Missile launcher armed devastators

Storm talon

Aluns force was roughly....

4 Leman Russ tanks, one with Pask

4 chimeras with veterans, company command, and comissar lord

squad of veterans with aegis defence line and quad cannon 

valkyrie with veterans

Deployemtn shown above, and Aluns reserves and tank contents below

I go first, and immediately bring down the dread in drop pod ready to toast me some guard. My main force advances along the left flank while everything else gets into postion to fire. I take out two chimeras with heavy firepower, and kill some of the veterans inside them too. The dreadnoughts flamers are unleashed and every guardsmen becomes a hot tasty snack! That quad cannon  wont be shooting my storm talon next turn! Having no cover or armour saves is amazing, Alun upgraded his guardsmen to veterans with carapace armour, so heavy flamers are the way to go. 

Alun fires back, and doesn't cause a lot of death... the dread dies, as I expected when placed in front of two lema russ tanks, and I lose a couple of tacitcal marines and bikers.

Turn two was more quiet for me, I advanced into positions to charge with termies and bikers but both were just out of range of what I rolled. I wanted to blow up the chimera but shooting didn't work and wasn't able to assault either so had to leave it! 

Sly Marbo... deadly little bugger he is! Kills 7 tactical squad members, then assaults them the turn after and finishes them off. There was a hilarious moment when I tried to kill him with some scout fire and a plasma cannon plus those two tactical marines and was unable too, I mentioned that I'l probably roll a 6 in overwatch then a one to wound. What happened? EXACTLY that! Amazing sequence!

After a quiet turn three my chaplain assault one squad while my termies did a disorganised charge on two of the leman russ tanks. I lost my bonus for charging but managed to blow them both up, while my chaplain duelled with the veteran sarge and failed to kill him!

The Bikers were able to sweep around the left  and despite losing a couple more of their number got into

with the Commissar Lord and his squad. It took two turns but I was able to kill them just as the command squad charge in, and the game ended with this combat still happening. 

The final scoure was 11-7 I believe, although had it gone on for another turn I think I may have been on my way to tabling Alun. Had a great laugh, good to face the elf boy again! I think the dreadnought with flamers works amazingly well against anything not in power armour, especially against troops in cover. Bikers performed well, their jink saves helping them to keep enough numbers wise to get into combat and be able to still take out a unit or two, and the termies blowing up two Leman Russ tanks was awesome! The storm talon, which I failed to mention didn't do much, hence why I forgot about him! I was disappointed with the Chaplain but he's done well before so I forgive him. Biggest disappointment was the missile launchers, they didn't do an awful lot. I've had a couple of games with them and they've done ok before, but even after blowing up a couple of chimeras in the first turn they failed to do anything! 

We had some Battlefleet gothic happen at club, looks like a great game fair dues, would love to have a go sometime and I've always wanted to incorporate this and epic into a campaign.

We have another all dayer this sunday, and this time theres a few of us having a day playing blood bowl! I'll probably be taking my humans, and I have a nice idea for a team ready to roll out that may involve me painting a star player to use as another model.... we shall see though! Expect much blood bowl to be mentioned in my next post among the other games that take place on sunday!