Orks Vs Adepta Sororitas

 Welcome! Myself and Bam got to play a game of 9th on the weekend so thought I'd post a little overview of it. We forgot a tonne of rules We aimed for 1000 points but ended up at 950 as Bam wasn't sure what else to use.

 We pulled out a mission from the Open War pack that said we had to go for obejectives and scored point for each objective we held at the end of our turns, and from the second turn we had to roll a d6 and remove that number objective. Being knobs we totally forgot that one. Should have kept it even more simple!

Heres deployment!

Basic army lists had Bam with the following:
2 units of Trukk Boyz, one had a warboss inside
2 units of 6 Bikers
20 grots
10 Stormboyz

I had:
2 Canoness
3 Battle Sisters Squads 2x 10 and one 9 Sister strong
Exorcist
Penitent Engine
Hospitaller
5 Repentia w/Superior
5 Seraphim

 I moved forward a little to get three onjectives, and whittled a couple of stormboyz down and took the one biker mob down by two bikes from the exorcists. Bam charged his stormboyz forward, I did overwatch and killed a couple more until just five remained. I could weather this attack!


Bam caused 11 wounds, here was my saving roll on a 3+....

I still roll pretty crap power armour saves then it seems! I did switch one fail out for a miracle dice to save three Sisters in total however....I failed the morale check and then proceeded to have the last few run away. Not good!

The Canoness armed with Benificence killed the Stormboys in revenge and I sent the Repentia forward into a trukk with seraphim closing behind to back up.

Meanwhile my centre started to crumble, Bikers came in and started to whittle down my squad of Sisters before the Penitent Engine swept in and... well did very little. My other Canoness and Hospitaller charged in to try and deal with them but wounding on 5's isn't good!  

 

Meanwhile Bam was feeling dejected after the Exorcist killed four bikers from his other squad so charged a trukk into the safety of combat for the central objective,



That kept the Sisters there tied up while the Warboss smashed the Pentient Engine with ease and the boys took the rest of the Sisters Squad down that was stuck against the Bikers.

 

 Everywhere else the Sisters fell until the battlefield belonged to the Orks. Repentia failed to blow up the trukk so the Boyz came out and wiped them out before the Seraphim managed to take several of the boyz down before they too were brought down. It was a bit of a blood bath! I did manage to kill some of the boyz in the middle with the Canoness but I failed too many armour saves to keep her going. 

If theres one thing we learned in this battle its that we need to remember things, perhaps make a cheat sheet of abilities but also mission objectives, because we forgot so much. I was Bloody Rose and forgot all my abilities, Bams Goffs remembered the '6's generate extra hits' and that was huge for him, turning average dice rolls into 'technically I made em all' rolls. I need to look at the rules for combat too, as allocating wounds and what can kill what we just played to what we felt made sense so I think before the next game watch some 'how to play' videos online!

We had fun though and thats the main, we're gonna try get a battle in every month if possible as we also play D&D and have a session in the next couple of weeks I'm getting prepped. We wanna try get some Necromunda in too at some point but its another ruleset to learn so sticking with 40k first seems to make sense. Bam's looking to add more Boyz to his force to have a couple of blobs, Sisters wise I'm unsure what I'll add as I want to get these painted first. I'm intrigued with the Sisters in big suits of armour, so will probably wait until then and if I don't fancy them another squad of Sisters and some Retributers might be in order, possibly another 5 Seraphim too as I liked their mobility. It doesn't help I have a few other things I want to do too, including a couple of kitbashed transports for other armies! 

 Coming up I'm going to talk about some homebrew D&D I've worked on, a secretive faction that are part of the Lords Alliance in the Forgotten Realms.... the Jaegers of Zielen. As as I was writing this an NPC miniature from Heroforge arrived so it has to happen!

 

What Sororitas and Ork tactics do you have? Wheres a good place to learn 40k rules and have you any youtube recommendations? Thanks for reading folks!

 

 

Space Marine Tracked Bike Conversion and 40k Battle!

So a little while since I last blogged, and with good real life reasons too that I shan't bore you with... but lets hope I can get into a bit more of a routine again soon! Today I show off my latest addition to the Krohmus Guard Chapter, a tracked bike conversion!

When I saw the Kataphron Servitor kit, I'll have to crudely admit, I had a boner. So many ideas flew into my mind and I hastily saved up some money to get a box. Ideas involve widening for a dreadnought, thunderfire cannon battery and also, a bike conversion. My Chaplain on bike conversion consisted of using a Ravenwing bike from the Dark Vengeance set, so I searched my bits to see what I had left. I found the bodies of two bikes, but no handlebars. Straight on ebay to order some! Looking at the Kataphron kit I made the tracks and noticed that turned around, the bike looked like it would fit on there with not too much filling needed. The saw came out and I cut the bike at an angle, and then glued it onto the tracks. On the bottom I cut a little sprue just to add some support to the join. With the handle bars arriving I could then add the arm to see how it looked.

Next, I filled in the joins and chose a weapon for the rider, who I wanted to be a captain/chapter master/Korsarro Khan model. While chatting to Bam, he mentioned he had a halberd from a GK set, and it seemed a good idea. Halberd taken! I had a scarred head from the sternguard kit left over with some nice shoulder pads, and the job was done!

Heres how he looked before paint, think the weapon works well!

View from the top, showing the bits I added to make an engine of sorts, mainly to cover the hole where the servitor body would be. 

This is the model based, I decided to put him on a base instead of standing freely, just thought it would fit the rest of my army more doing so. 

And here he is almost finished! I'm pretty chuffed with how he looks, and am now wondering whether to should make some attack bikes in a similar manner. I probably wont, but the previous ideas will likely happen, with the dreadnought being an Ironclad seeing as I don't have one yet!

The new addition was also built and painted in time to face Alun, who had come back from graduating at university! And also with a much larger collection of Imperial Guard... uh oh! 

Heres how things looked after deployment. We both had 3000pts of troops, I'd taken a battle company with a first company formation of three squads of terminators, two shooting units and one assault, and also three drop pods, three rhinos all being free because of the battle company. Always nice! In total, using the Ultramarins tactics, this gave me 2 Devastator Tactics, 2 Assault Tactics and 4 Tactical Doctrines to use. They proved rather useful too! 

 My main concerns about Aluns army was the two basilisks on my right flank, their range could cover the whole table and do a lot of damage, the Wyverns on the right were able to mush up troops if allowed, and the maount of heavy weapons teams controlling the centre. Pask in a Vanquisher wasn't a nice sight either! The plan was to strike as a space marine should, hard and fast!

Aluns first turn was a mix, I don't think he did as much damage as he'd have liked but two rhinos were destroyed or immobilised, my large biker unit was damaged quite a bit, and his assassin took a couple of my devastators out in the central bunker. It definitely hurt! Time to strike hard!

And then I drew objectives and the plan changed.... I had picked up the objective where if I controlled every objective I could gain S3+3 vps. This was too tempting.... Its a really hard card to acheive and I felt compelled even though it meant changing my plan. My predators moved up to get control of a central objective, as did my smaller biker unit who were just in 3" to claim. Next, my first two drop pods thundered down and landed well next to the objectives Alun had, and I was able to take his units off and claim them. Job done! I ended up with 8 vps on my first turn, but I wasn't able to target the units I wanted to go for and would now have to weather a very violent storm!

My bikers were soon depleted as was my newly built captain, but they did take a lot of attention away from other units. All rhinos were now destroyed, with 8 tactical marines sneaking up the left flank to support my scouts. Aluns Callidus assassin broke into the bastion controlled by my devs and tore into them, although one combat phase saw a stalemate as he failed to wound, bonus! A massive unit of conscripts entered my left flank, 50 I think in total with commissar and priest who were partly to blame for my lack of bikers. A couple of my predators were damaged by basilisk shots, ractical squad on my right advanced into a lot of fire and only a few survived the wyvern barrage. I was hurt badly, but did have some help on the way. 

Two of my terminator units came down, the thunder hammer unit in amongst the tanks on my left flank and a shooty one in Aluns deployment to threaten the centre and regain an objective. My third drop pod came in to support the thunder hammer terminators and shoot up a guard unit that had recently come on from Aluns table edge. One of my favourite moments was putting a flamer template onto Aluns Conscripts, giving me 20 hits. Beautiful! I also charged into combat with them, and  a long drawn out combat erupted between the large amount of conscripts and my remaining tactical marines on that flank. The young guardsmen eventually taking down the marines but they were held up for several combat phases doing so.

As the battle went on, more of my army was taken apart. at one point it looked like I might get tabled, especially after Aluns one wyvern took a shot at my central terminator unit, caused 0 wounds, to which I rolled 5 ones. I'm not even surprised at trolls like that anymore! My other terminator squad came down however with the librarian and was able to take out Aluns Warlord, and I managed to get at least one VP every turn, with Alun catching up with me as the game went on. Chronus' predator was taken out, and the remaining one was wrecked. They'd survived well but I didn't get enough damage out of them, although they had helped me to get the vps at the start by advancing onto the central most objective. My snipers, with BS4 now still missed a lot, but they did quieten a couple of Aluns heavy weapons teams throughtout the game. 

The game ended and I think the final score was 18-13 to me. No doubt if the game went on longer it would have been even closer, and I think Alun can claim a moral victory with how much damage he did to my army! 

So some thoughts about the Battle Company.

Free transports are a nice touch, and its making me want to mount everything in a drop pod. 

Tactical Doctines are definitely a good thing, being able to reroll so many bolter gun shots really helped, especially when I remembered to use them! 

As good as the battle company was however, you may get just as much efficiency from choosing other units that are more specialised over rerolls, say taking sternguard for example with their ammo over usual bolt guns. It was nice though that taking a battle company with less of the specialised units played to the fluff of Space Marines, being versatile and stick in the fight even if it looks grim. 

Predator squadrons are ok, although I forgot tank hunters. Oops! Like I mentioned I reduced their effectiveness after going for the big scoring objective on the first turn, which meant moving them forward but I think it was worth it. Three of them firing at an enemy tank squadron would have done a lot more damage  I'm sure! 

Basilisks get a bad rep, I don't see people use them much at all but I've always been intrigued with them and Aluns did pretty well, taking out several bikers, damaging my predators leaving them stunned or shaken and just being a terror! 

All in all a great game, and it was just nice to use a battle companies worth of marines in a regular, if larger than normal game of 40k. We're hoping to get a little campaign together, and we've also got a couple of new members who enjoy 40k so expect more battle reports in the future hopefully featuring orks and Iron Warriors. Plus we've got a small Chaos Force going in club that I'll slowly be painting, and I've just bought a Marauder bobmer thats in a roughed up condition that I'll making into terrain... so lots to come soon!

8k Batrep and Assassins Progress

Well hello there! Welcome to another Death By Die post, this time an update on the assassins from the Execution Force boxed game and a battle report! 

Heres how the assassins are looking so far, still some details to get done but they're almost there! 

Below is the Vindicare assassin, like I said some neatning up is needed but you get the general idea on how they'll look. I've yet to play the game but used this game in the following battlereport and he did well.

Heres the Eversor assassin, I wasn't sure whether to go for the traditional bone skull or go dark grey with the rest of the body suit, but thought the bone would stand out more. Can imagine an unsuspecting target seeing the skull floating int he air several feet away from him, only for it to zoom forward, claw lunging for their face and skull laughing like Skeletor! 

So the batrep was a doubles game, myself and Shaun with his Imperial Fists against a Death Guard/Khorne combo with Rhys and Chris. Chris also had his newly converted Khorne Knight with him, yikes! 2l points per army, so 8k in total! I used White Scars tactics, factoring I'd get close to whatever was coming at me and boltering/grav'ing my enemies to death. Then against Chaos I wondered if this was a good idea as they're better in combat! We dployed first, and I took the right while Shaun set up on the left, both of us sharing the middle.

The enemy answered with Chris' Knight deploying against Shaun, whose army consisted of mainly bolters, and my bikers found themselves against 10 Nurgle terminators with not only a Chaos Lord (represented by Mortarion) but Typhus too. Their central consisted of a strong force of Chaos Marines with 2 units of havocs with autocannons and some weapons platforms. I scouted forward and in the first turn took 7-8 terminators out due to a few bolt guns fiding the weak points in the armour and the gravs crumpling away the millenia old terminator armour. The Weapon platforms were destroyed before they could fire, and Shauns Honour Guard unit reupted from their Krohmus Guard borrowed Redeemer to leap into assault with infiltrating chaos marines, who were cut down by the verterans in yellow.

The second turn saw the Knight beocming a threat as it charged forward... but not quite far enough to attack Shauns lines. A chaos vindicator was finished off from a combined strike of my deepstriking dreadnought and some Imperial Fists supporting fire. Typhus, the Chaos lord and remaining terminators lurched forward, a plague wind killing a couple of my bikers who responded with more bolter/grav fire and then Khan (at least my version of him) charging in. Khan however took 2 wounds with Khan unable to wound the mighty Chaos general. The terminators were finished off however and the white scars retreated via their hit and run ability. 

With the Chaos Knight almost on Shaun a lot of fire was poured into it. Most of Shauns shooting proved ineffectual but my two lascannon armed predators were able to take a few hull points off, my storm talon adding to the weight of fire. IT was not enough however... and it stepped forward into the Honour Guard. 

My assault Squad failed to get into combat, and were then shot up by the Chaos Marines they were about to target and lef tme with my Captain wounded and one assault marine left. My Dreadnought was destroyed by Chris' Terminators who then pursued the Knight to back it up, but the Havocs entrenched on an objectiv were left with just he champion from the Fists suppressing fire. My bikers lined up the Chaos Lord and finished him off as my main unit revved around the landing pad to charge the unit that had initially been the target of my assault marines, wiping them out to a man. More Havocs were butchered, some by my captain and remaining assault marine others by the storm talon. 

Thats a lot of firepower for a chaos lord to withstand! 

The honour guard clinged on for life against the onslaught of the Knight, the captain unable to dent the machine with his power fist. The Chaos left flank had crumbled though, and Krohmus Guard were flooding over to support the Imperial Fists. 

With just a couple of the honour guard left along with their captain, my jump pack captain and shauns contemptor rushed in to aid the fists. The contemptor failed to dent the great machine, who aimed his attacks at the Imperial Fists commander who barely avoided the blow. As my woundeed captain was about to land a blow with his mighty thunder hammer the Chaos Knight staggered back the Fists Captain punching a great hole in the machines knee setting off a chain reaction of explosions. Then this happened.

Extreme pie plate moment! My captain was killed in the resultant ecxplosion, where everyone else survived... typical! haha. The Fists captain had finally delivered the blow he'd been unable too, and finished the machine off. 

I forget the final score but myself and Shaun had won by a good margin, and the field was ours. It was so good to have a nice sizeable game of 40k again though, its shown me how much I've missed playing the game. Fingers crossed at club we'll be able to get a club Chaos army, and when Aluns back I'm gonna see if he fancies doing a campaign or something. See how it goes anyways!

Now, IU couldn't leave without having a couple of pictures of Chris' Knight.

Apart from using some spare Chaos bits I think he said the head was taken from the new Bloodthirster model, and it fits it incredibly well. Such an evil looking beast!

Even though I did a lot of damage to it it took a hell of a beating to destroy, and it makes me fancy a Knight of my own to suppoert my Marines. Maybe in the future we'll see a Krohmus Guard Knight!

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!

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!

GW 40k Gaming

So this Friday just gone, myself and Alun travelled down to our most local GW store in Cwmbran, which is still half hour away! I had planned to play store manager Etienne, all round nice guy and we'd been bantering for a while about who was going to win. 

Firstly though I had to take a picture of this. One of the guys painting to my left, a gentleman by the name of Shaun Beckett, was working on a contemptor in Imperial Fists colours, and while chatting he'd mentioned he'd finished one already and took it out... and I was blown away! Not only my most wanted fit if I get a contemptor of dual Kheres pattern assault cannons but nicely painted too. I'll definately be keeping an eye out for more of his miniatures when I visit the store!

So onto the game. 1500 points and 4 objectives in a modified version of the scouring. I was facing Necrons, and I should have been more fearful of this than I was! I took an assault based army using the white scars tactics again.

Early going, I moved up to the right with my bikes but failed a fairly long assault attempt. My jump packs did charge the wraiths however and in two combat turns I'd killed them... relief! Then all of a sudden Etiennes necron troops teleported away from my bikes and threatened the four point objective... I didn't know they could do that! Anyway, bitter fighting took place, my captain tried to take on a necron lord, I did wound but mindshackle scarabs made him wound himself and eventually killing himself. For 15 points they're horrible, its hard to believe a Necron player not taking them. My assault marines were brought down by another warrior squad with Obyron and a cryptek and I just didn't have enough to budge them away. 

If the game ended on turn 5 however I would have sneaked a win just by contesting and positioning units, but I ended up losing 12-3 I think... ouch! Those necrons have so many special rules, the death ray on the necron flyer is insane too, and they're just hard to keep down. Especially with 2 special characters and some more in the warriors and immortals... very cheesy! 

I still enjoyed it though, and I've learnt a little more about necrons. After the game myself and Alun played a 1000 pt game of Relic. Alun, who'd just built up his harlequins took eldar, and I used Marines again.

This game ended 1-1, I went after the objective straight away and managed to get it back towards my deployment zone but the rhino carrying it was blown apart and the lone tactical squad member carrying it was shredded by dire avenger fire. I did get first blood however, when my bikes and captain blew up the fire prism. Aluns point from slay the warlord after I rolled three ones on 6 saves. Eugh! Just wasn't my day dice rolling wise but thats how it rolls sometimes... heh. 

Next up are using the new Sternguard box for a new chapter master and possibly some honour guard, when I can get a vanguard boxed set too. I've got some ideas with what to equip the new chapter master model, so keep an eye out for some WIP pictures in the next couple of weeks.