The Old Enemy: SM vs CSM Batrep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Crusade of Fire... I Have It!

I made a post about the upcoming Crusade of Fire campaign book, and how I was tempted to get it. Well, I'm very happy to say I've obtained a copy two days before release! I've had a flick through, and I'm pretty impressed thus far. Theres several pages of backstory, of which I'm yet to read but the basic structure is set in a part of space that no-one has been able to access... until now. A Crusade has been sent to reclaim it yet as they enter local space... Chaos and Xenos are there too. Intriguing!

As you can see, the cover is pretty darn nice. Nice to see a Hellbrute depicted in a pose that isn't like the model... Hopefully a boxed poseable version of him soon!

Each commander gets to pick an overall 'Grand Warlord', and these traits give you campaign points. There are Servants of Ruin, the Chaos forces, Crusade of Fire, Imperium, and then the Prophets of War which represent the Xenos can choose which table to pick, Campaign points can be granted for killing or capturing enemy HQ's, capturing objectives and so on depending on which trait you roll.

I had to take a quick snap of these, Kevin Chin's Imperial Fists are sublime. The guy has 9 dreadnoughts and two full boarding marine squads, totally suiting the Imperial Fists! 

Also included are rules for dogfighting with flyers, and they seem interesting. Whether I'll get to use them I'm unsure as not many flyers are at club, so we shall see. From what I've seen though they could be a good bit of fun. 

Speaking of fun...

The Arena of Death is a place to save your captured commanders and characters. If you win, you can escape. If you lose, then you're probably dead! As you can see from the above picture, you get bonuses for attacking from the side or rear, and you also get bonuses via 'Roar of the Crowd' tokens which you earn from how well you do. There are also some cards to photocopy and print which give you certain actions to use. It looks like a heck of a laugh and I'm hoping to rope some of the guys at club into having a go and maybe doing a videoblog on it. We shall see!

Many people may look at the book and wonder "why couldn't this have been in White Dwarf?" Well, it may have been possible and it wouldn't surprise me if they had thought of releasing it in this way initially. It works really well though as a book, although the £25 price point may put some off. If you're into campaigns and want something designed for 40k, this could well be for you. Seeing the participants armies is great, I could look at others armies all day! They go through the different games, add rules for fighting in Daemon worlds, for me its worth the money. If you're not a campaign person, then this probably won't be for you. For me though its a good little pick up. Lets hope people at the club can be persuaded to get involved!

Golden Daemon: Retro 2

Welcome to part two of my fresh series looking at some of the older Golden Daemon winners. This post is dedicated to war in all its glory... the Battle Scene. The battle scene should capture a moment in the heat of battle, comprise of interaction between the models and still be of an incredibly high standard.

This first look is at Matthew Parkes Gold entry which also won him the fabled Slayer Sword in 1995. What strkes me with this is how bright and well presented the piece is. The orky wooden outpost looks fatastic, the grots going about their business and the Runtherd starting to shout through a megaphone to get the attention. The Ork being shot by a lasgun shot still looks fantastic to this day, and is a lesson in interactivity. The other little details too, the rag over the missile launcher, little mushrooms dotted about and the grot revealing his derriere on the splattacannon all add to the overall scene that certainly helped it win the Slayer Sword.

This next piece was by Chris Blair in 1996, and depicts a scene froma gang war on Necromunda. Whats nice about this is the Technology versus Nature theme, with the Spyers and the Ratskins fighting it out for survival in the dumps.  The first thing that struck me was the size of the piece, and helps show that Necromunda is played on more than just one level. The models, from what my eyes see, have had little conversion work done, but still interact well. The little bits on the floor look great, especially the sewage coming from the old tank and help convey how gritty and grimy the underhive is, and is highly deserving of its first place.

The third and final piece I've chosen is this little beauty. Nigal Carman decided to depict the chaotic brawling of a Gorkamorka scrap, and promptly took away first place. Its jam packed with models and vehicles, even a deffkopta is flying in on the action. Like the the second entry, this represents what Gorkamorka was all about. Orks fighting, riding around in trukks, looking for scrap and generally being insane. The base is another example of theming, with a really awesome looking 'Gorkamorka' title and the scrap pattern around the rest of the base really sets the piece off and shows the character of the orks really well. 

Hope you enjoyed these, I shall return once again with some more examples of Golden Daemon goodness!

Slayer Sword Winner Speaks.

When news filtered through that Karol Rudyk, winner of this years UK Golden Daemon Slayer Sword, was selling his prize on ebay, a lot of different reactions flooded the internet. Some people were saddened, some indifferent, some hateful, some seemed to understand and said they would do the same if in Karol's shoes. The sword itself sold for $600 on Ebay (approx £375). I decided to look into this and was able to ask the man himself. 

"I tell you why I sold the sword. 6 years ago when I saw the Slayer Sword for first time it looked like this:

This was a beautifull, fully-functional weapon. And this was my dream to win this sword. You should know also I am sword collector and I have several unique swords like:
 

Glamdring museum collection.
Atlantean sword of albion from Connan movie .
Anduril limited edition,
Full-functional japanese katana.

And the next should be the Slayer Sword.

But when I saw the actual version of the Slayer Sword this was a sad time. This sword not look good even on wall. This is a shame that GW give the best artist so cheap shit. My sword look like ship Chinese version. They give me it in a box (shipping from China) and it looks very bed. Blade is a piece of sheet metal and you can see traces of the blade grinder.

So when I saw this I do not want this in my collection. Maybe in future I will try to buy old version. I talked about it with GW manager, but they prizes are more and more low -quality. So big company and so cheap prize. This is sad.

I hope now you understand my reasons. I don't need many but this sword does not fit my exclusive colection.

Regards,
Karol"

Does this change anyone's opinion? I understand with him, trying to win an esteemed prize not only for your painting abilities but for your collection, and after all the hard work it doesn't live up to expectations.

Thank you to Karol who took the time to get back to me, you can see much more of his work here on his facebook page.

Golden Daemon: Retro

I got into the hobby in 1994, a few months before my 14th birthday. My future brother in law introduced me to Space Crusade, and then onto Blood Bowl. I picked up issue 174 of White Dwarf and haven't looked back since. 3 months later I had my first encounter with Golden Daemon. I still remember now eagerly looking through the magazine at what Blood Bowl material it had, and there it was. This.

Roy Scorers 'Hell Fire' Dreadnought. This blew me away like very little else. The paint job screamed out at me pure awesomeness, and I've never forgotten that model since. Today, I looked up online and discovered an image of it along with a few other influential models that I had not forgotten about. I still love the way this Dread looks. The black to red blend, the bright orange highlights, I still think this paint job is ageless, and is testament to how good it is.

Another model from the same White Dwarf, Neil Thomason's Rune Priest won first in the 40k single miniature category. I had seen a little of the Space Wolves, and they held much appeal to me as a chapter. This, made that appeal much more stronger! 

This Dire Avenger Exarch was also by Neil Thomason but won 1st at the 1995 Golden Daemon. The thing that struck me, was the banner and how different it was. Its a very moody peice, and looking back it reminds me of how the Eldar fought the Necrons, like the female character thinking back to those times in a very evocative way. Whether the Necron/Eldar history was developed then I'm unsure, but its a cracking model.

What Roy Scorer's Dread did for me and Space Marines, Ben Jefferson's Wraithlord (although I think then it was a Dreadnought) made me look at the Eldar in a new way. I still love this paint job and it jumps out at me just as much as it did back then. 

Looking back, the models that I loved back then haven't aged much at all today. This isn't far off 20 years ago, which speaks volumes for just how well these guys have done. I'll be doing more of these in the future, not just some of the older models but perhaps some of the more recent ones too. Til next time!

Slayer Sword... for sale?

But theres only one. This years Slayer Sword winner has put the esteemed prized up for sale here on ebay.

Is this acceptable? Does it de-value the prize at all? Hopefully the artist himself will speak out and tell us why he is selling the Slayer Sword.

Games Day 2012: In Pictures

 So Games Day Uk 2012 has come and gone. There were some amazing things to see up there, and instead of waffling on about them all, I'll let these pictures say it all. 

 Thanks to Jason for taking us up, and good to meet Ieuan at last! Hope you enjoy the Dwarf team man=]