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!

Too Stealthy for some and BatRep

So, an update at last! Been over a week, but a busy one. Not so much hobby wise, although partly so. As we're getting the club through the transition we've had a couple of setbacks, regarding GCN status. A little more time and money and we'll be applying soon, score!

But for now... Remember these guys?

What the... where did they go?

Ah! There they are, bloody stealth suits! Anyways... remember these? Well, I wanted to get another three for a full unit, and I had recently spoken to Jacob who sells some models at the club occasionally. I asked him what Tau stuff he had, and he mentioned a few stealth suits, and a hammerhead somewhere. The hammerhead failed to materialise unfortunately, but the stealthsuits were there.

A few he said! 9 will do nicely, and all for the princely sum of £15. He also gave me some drones and a bag of Tau weapons, score! So, in two hours while listening to the Thousand Sons audio book, I basecoated all 9 of em! Thats progress methinks. Still a lot more to do, and with all the lines the highlighting really takes a little while to get done, but its worth it. I also picked this guy and the other two Dark Vengeance bikers off Jacob...

But why you may ask? And you'd be right too. Am I doing some Ravenwing? Well... No. Never been a fan of Dark Angels, but this model... I see potential! I'm gonna have a crack at converting him into a Chaplain on a bike. I'm unsure about how to add a crozius, so will be looking at that and I was also given a helmet from the venerable dreadnought off Bam, along with the pictured Dreadnought Plasma Cannon. More score! Plenty of things to get cracking on with, I've already taken the iconography off that I don't want on the bike so its ready for chopping. Do I take the arm off and go for a talon-like powerfist? Or go with a custom crozius? Options...

Also I got my first game in a couple of weeks! Being Chairman at the club does mean that playing happens a little less, but its something I'm fine about. This week I play Alun, who visited back from university. I made an allround army, mainly of stuff I fancied taking. Rough list...

captain and 5 marines on bikes, 5 cc termies in land raider, 2 tactical squads, scout snipers, vindicator, predator, and my chaplain dread. Alun took 4-5 units of storm troopers, a unit of GK termies, Coteaz and another character, whose name eludes me. And to top it off, 3, yes THREE.... Vindicare assassins. Ouchen! 

Big Guns Never Tire and Hammer and Anvil!

Against a lot of infantry, my predator would not do an awful lot, as it was equipped with lascannons. It was to hold back and add fire against a unit I was targetting while claiming an objective. Bikes, TS, and dread on the right, LR and TS on the left, then Vindicator and SSnipers in a central role. Alun stole the first turn, and almost wiped out the snipers and telion. Assassin took out the vindicator, but luckily my LR survived... for now! All of his units had storm bolters, but did little as most were out of range, missed, or failed to wound. Predator fired at the termies, 3 hits, NO wounds. Yes, 3 ones. ARGH! However, the dreads plasma cannon scattered and went from hitting one to 4. 3 dead GK termies! 

 

So may land raider and predator are blown up, scouts finally wiped out, but I carry on looking to claim objectives. Termies deepstrike down behind the enemy, and do damage to a unit holding an objective in aluns deployment zone. Bikes charge forward into the termies but do little damage, and are all butchered after two turns. Not good, but I do like using them! Assault termies wipe out a character and a unit. then move centrally to threaten objectives. Plasma cannons take their toll on Aluns infantry, although his assassins are hard to wound. 

We went all the way to seven turns, and it was really close. While I killed a lot of infantry, Aluns Assassins had blown up two of my heavy support vehicles (which give bonus points in this objective), had first blood and warlord. I, had one objective, and killed his warlord. As we went into the last turn I needed to deny him an objective and capture it myself to win. And.... it didn't happen. His last couple of terminators managed to survive and hold the objective while I couldn't get him off. So close! Final points were 5-7 to Alun, a really good game fair play! Good to see him and his elvish looks back at the club, although hopefully he wont be back too soon... HA! 

We've got our next all dayer confirmed too, November 11th! If you'd like to come let me know in the comments or take a look at the Tredegar Reavers website, as we'll post news when we know more. 

Adios for now, hopefully 9 finished stealth suits by the weeks end, which will make two full squads of 6! Now I just need path finders for some markerlight goodness!