Santa Khorne

Happy Xmas everyone! I know you're more likely to be enjoying a quiet/frantic evening/night of relaxing/wrapping/prepping before a busy Christmas Day but I don't think I've shown much of the skull love here. I picked up a Khorne Daemon army up from a fellow club member after he was downsizing (I mean downsizing in a loose term) and while most was painted already (and I'll probably go over a bit) there was some fresh there to go on with. Including a Khorne Herald from the Skull Cannon kit. I fancied an alternative one on foot so stuck him on a suitable base and painted him up quite a while ago!

I was working on Mazarall the Butcher too, but having been broken into, losing all my miniatures and then regaining them the motivation to game and paint had become almost non existent. More in that in a different post though! With my motivation coming back I'm gonna slap some paint on these brutal looking Bloodcrushers soon!

Rumours abound that after Xmas we'll be seeing a Codex Daemons book coming for 40k so I shall finish rebasing the army (Most of it was on the old fantasy square bases) and then getting more painted to go with the book. Surprisingly theres not an awful lot of Chaos forces at the Gwent Reavers although our resident Blood Angels player, aptly surnamed Angel, has painted up some very disgusting Nurgle Death Guard (which I'll have to grab some pics of some time along with other peoples armies to show off on here) so some Daemon support for him would be well appreciated I'm sure. Never used Daemons in 40k before but it will be interesting to see how they play in the new edition. I can get Mazarall finished and use him as a counts as Skarbrand plus I have a Blood Thirster who needs re-attaching to his base (Not looking forward to that) and some other units to get upto standard. 

2018 is looking to be a busy year hobby wise and I can't wait to get stuck into all the projects I've been putting off. Blood Bowl, Necromunda, Warhmmer 40000 and perhaps another attempt into the realms of Age of Sigmar. Then the heaving under all the board games and rpg's that will be out I'll want to get stuck into too! 

Expect a couple more posts before the new year, hopefully I'll have some progress to show on the Escher, finish the Goliaths off and get some terrain done too for 40k and Necromunda. Beast mode will be initiated! First though, the pickings of roasted Tzeentch, seductive Slaanesh stuffing but certainly avoiding those Nurgle sprouts! 

Merry Xmas for tomorrow all!

Codex Inquisitor and Batrep vs Daemons

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

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

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

So onto the MAIN EVENT OF THE EVENING!!! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day of 40k. November style!

So another hugely satisfying day of 40k gaming for us at The Tredegar Reavers, 2 large games of 40k went on and Huws Pirate game made a splash too. This post however, is dedicated to the game I participated in, a nice chunky game of 40k.

We had two opposing sides, Imperium versus Chaos. The sides were;

Me/Big Kev - Evandalists Space Marines and Tau allies

Bam - His mysterious Space Marines

Iain - Space Wolves

Carl Grey Knights.

Louis - Alpha Legion and Traitor Guard

Chris - Khorne Bezerkers and Death Guard

Alun - Daemons of too many varieties! 

 It was amazing to finally see most of my army out on the board, although some of it was not used. I think we had between 18-20k in points total, and thankfully it wasn't as slow moving as the Apocalypse game we played at Warhammer World.... mainly because we didn't have 16 players in one game! For the mission we adapted two missions from the rulebook to meet the size of the game. We had 6 objectives, but also victory points could be gained as in Purge the Alien. This meant we had a lot of tactical choices to make when capturing objectives... especially when Alun suggested a special rule.... In addition to him deploying daemons in the normal way, if a Chaos unit held an objective for a turn he could bring his units in within 12" of it. This made holding the two objectives in our deployment zone a huge priority, and also the two in dead mans land would need to be kept clear. We felt we had a good gun line and so wanted to hold back and then surge forth in the closing couple of turns to claim the open two objectives.

We won the roll for deployment and went first. This is our Deployment below!

Grey Knights and Space Wolves held the right Flank, myself and Bam held the centre and then both me and Iain held the left too. The chaos forces deployed and prompty stole the initiative, even though Alun and his Daemons didn't want too! As a lot of the Chaos forces were off the board, we escaped only losing a couple of models and no victory points lost, we had a chance at the bonus of first blood... which was then captured as a Nurgle Land Raider was blown up. Good start! We managed to get a few more kills and that ended the first turn.

Turn two, and the Daemons turn up... Ouch! Them having to deepstrike basically meant kill them asap or be charged by a close combat elite force. In our deployment zone we found blood letters, lesser daemons, Slaaneshi riders, warp talons, and a Great Unclean One. Louis' Valkyrie made an appearence too... but I'd chatted to Bam when making our forces and had contingencies for this! We had taken two Bastions, Bams had a Quadgun and mine had the Icarus Lascannon. Manning mine however, was Telion(or at least my Squat Sniper, not decided on a name yet!). This meant I had a 96" range st9 sniper! The Valkyrie flew on and was promptly blown up by Bams Quadgun... I didn't even get to fire! Only two crew survived, one Veteran and a Comissar Lord. 

A combination of Bams Predator Executioner and Iains Plasma Long fangs wiped out the darmons threatening the right flank, while a Tactical squad belonging to Bam took out the Warp Talons. My own Plasma devastators and Tau fire warriors wiped out the bloodletters, and then firepower from 4 dreadnoughts managed leave the Great Unclean One with two wounds left, and my Snipers fire were able to finish it off. Not even Nurgle likes the toxins of the Imperium! 

Battle was soon met in the middle as the Grey Knights advanced and were soon caught up in a long protracted combat with the Chaos forces on the right flank. Chaos Champions were killed, and Abbadon and Draigo battled it out for a few turns of combat until Draigo eventually fell. 

 

Turn three saw the chaos forces advancing ever closer,  looking to capture the middle objectives so their daemon allies could safely join battle closer to our lines. They pushed up the flanks, while we kept the centre line of cultists and daemons at bay with concentrated fire.

Louis' forgefiend proved effective, not so much in how much damaged it did, but how much we aimed at it to try and silence its deadly weapons. We failed in this!

Louis' maulerfiend, aka 'Buster' did some damage too, earning its weight in points back by quite a bit! I believe Bam took it out later in the game with a well aimed hunter killer missile. Phew!

Chris and Carl duel with the dice as Khorne meets Grey Knights. 

As the Chaos forces advanced, myself and Bam began our distraction tactic. Several of my Tau units, Legion of the Damned and a Drop Pod carrying a heavy flamer toting dread, and a couple of Bams units deepstriked onto the rear of the Chaos lines. Several of the dangerous chaos units had to turn back and deal with this new threat, giving our main line much more time to deal with the impending threats!

More daemons are found among our lines, including a Blood Thirster, two units of blood letters, while a gaggle of Greater Daemons advance up our left flank and take on the Space Wolves and two of my Tactical squads, including one Kairos Fatewaever. His ability of re-rolling failed armour and invun saves proved huge for the daemons, as they stubbornly refused to die as they killed our forces! 

Being unble to wipe out the bloodletter units and Blood Thirster at our rear they charged into the Grey Hunters holding our rear most objective. We had a healthy lead at this point, but if the daemons could capture this objective and a couple of the others they would close the gap sinificantly. After the assault just 2 grey hunters remained, and we would struggle to kill these. 

In the centre of the battlefield, battle was met between my Chapter Master, Chaplain and terminators and Kharn and his retinue of Bezerkers. One Bezerker and an untouched Kharn were left standing, and I lost three terminators after the first round of combat. My chapter master, Vincent Eniko was unable to catch Kharn off his guard, but then Orneus Gyozo stepped in with an almighty punch of his power fist that could have been the Emperors fist himself and crushed the mighty Traitors helmut. With the blow, one of the Imperiums biggest threats fell to the ground and my newly made chaplains first kill couldn't have been any bigger! The unit got back into the Land Raider and surged forth to claim an objective, Vincent Eniko being a scoring unit due to his Warlord Trait.

Iains wolf lord on thunderwolf was stuck in combat with this beast for a few turns! The decimator eventually ran the warrior down, crushing the wolf beneath its armoured feet and knocking the life out of the wolf.

In the closing moments, combined fire from 2 devastator squads, fire warriors, and a tactical squad managed to kill a blood letter squad that were standing before Second Company Captain Erasmus Torgeaz and his Bike riding squad. The stormed into the combat, impact hits killing the last couple of blood letters in combat with the grey hunters and my Captain challanged the Avatar of War. The Blood Thirster greedily accepted and struck at Torgeaz with daemonic speed, two hits getting through the Iron Halo. Bloodied and battered, Erasmus delivered furious blows that must have matched the visceral brutality of the Blood Thirster itself and took its last couple of wounds off him. A huge kill for Torgeaz, and objetive rescued!

So a great game, and I'm sure the other guys had some great moments too, due to my age I only remember mine though! Ha. The gamed ended 49 points to the Imperium and 32 to Chaos. A glorius victory and many honours earned. Orneus Gyozo, Erasmus Torgeaz and my Snipers being my own personal men of the battle. 

I'll do another post soon fleeting over the other two games that were played, one of which contain 2 biotitans, a harridan and an Eldar titan. It looked cracking fair play and was an incredibly close game! I'll be asking the guys for their moments to bring to you, along with some pictures of the pirates game Huw put on that some of the guys played.

Some great news too, we made enough money from the day that we shall soon be sending off our GCN application and the insurance money, so huge boost for the club! Makes me a very proud Chairman. We're now going to look at another all dayer over the Xmas period, as our club night falls on Xmas and New Years eve... so no club for 2 weeks? NO WAY!!! All dayer needed it seems! Andrew mentioned about perhaps doing a fast paced tournement style day, which I think would be cracking! So we'll get some planning done soon and see what we can do. All in all, a great day and some cracking moments for my Evandalists... expect not only another post on the day but also a video with some footage in and also I may do a little story based from the viewpoint of my Evandalists. For now though....

Fair well!

More 6th Gaming

So more gaming was had Thursday night, myself, Morgan, Owain and Alun from the club went to Firestorm Games in Cardiff. A great little shop and a nice big gaming room behind where you pay a few bucks to play for as long as you want, and they don't shut til 11pm. YES!

Myself and Alun had a 2500 points game, Evandalists vs Daemons and IG allies. The board we played on was really nice as you can see, although a future apology for the bad quality pictures as I was using my compact camera and its a bit dark in there. As befitting a gaming room!

I forget which mission we played, but it was very akin to capture and control from 5th edition. I set up, then Alun deployed his IG allies. 2 Leman Russ tanks and a squad of penal legion guard with a commissar. Then the Daemons came, and things went bad!

My three tactical squads, assault squad with chaplain, master of the forge, and ten man niper squad of scouts were all butchered. TTwo dreadnoughts and a vindicator all blown up with penetrating hits and rolls of sixes. My deployment zone was left pretty much empty! Kairos Fateweaver, a Bloodthirster, a Daemon Prince, and a large unit of Bloodletters and I'm not surprised either! Thinking my deployment zone was lost I outflanked my Captain with termies in a land raider and escorted by a stormtalon in to attack Aluns deployment zone. The Legion of the Damned teleported in and annihilated the troops holding Aluns objective. Game on! Alun's other Daemons came into play, a daemone prince now faced my Damned and a another large unit of bloodletters stood in front of my termies. In they went!

My captain was charged by a bloodthirster and of the four saves I needed to make I failed one, damn! Termies butchered the bloodletters, but the termies were then charged by the bloodthirster, Karios and the daemon prince and were killed. The Legion of the Damned killed the other daemon prince in combat, and the storm talon made frag missiles look impressive. 

The large bloodletter unit that had materialised in my deployment zone had about 14 models left, and the stormtalon swooped around and unleashed its typhoon missile launcher. Two frags detonated and there were only 4 left... wowser! The assault cannon fired, four hits.... 2's to wound.... 4 ONES!!!! ARGH!!! Hilarious moment though! Next turn the stormtalon again unleashed frags and the bloodletters were destroyed. I lost the game by a couple of points but had denied the enemy of either objective... Moral victory! Only the Land Raider and one legion of the damned trooper survived. 

What a fantastic game though, plenty of memorable moments like the assault cannon, being able to roll plenty of sixes to hit ALuns Flying monstrous creatures, and everything dying. Sixth edition is definately shaping up to be something special!

Club Night!

Welcome to another post about the gaming exploits of Tredegar Wargames Club! Last night we had a few games going on. Bam, Owain, and Louis played some Gorkamorka, Alun and Morgan had a couple games of 40k, and we also had Andrew teaching a new lad the basics of 40k. 

I myself took a night off to annoy people with the camera, which is almost as much fun as playing a game. Picture time!

Alun and Owain having a deep and meaningful conversaion about how many squigs it takes to blow up trukk. "One is neva enuff"

Gorkamorka in full swing. Bam did loads of damage, but so did Louis and his stikkbomb throwing ork. Owains gang on the other hand took plenty of scrap. 

Monstrous creatures abound! Or unbound? Daemons versus Edlar, an Avatar, two Wraithlords, 2 deamon princes and some greater deamons. Ouch! Bit of a bloody affair, and a revenge match was being fought as I left.

Grots uze fink deyz iz orks. Too'pid runtz

 

Caroline pleasing the dice gods with a statue.

Alun explaining to Morgan what he's going to do to him. 

Morgan as it was happening. 

One of Andrews nurgle termies, more on these in a few weeks where I hope to be showcasing his army!

Venerable Mike soothes his addiction for breweries by making a Dwarven one for fantasy.

Bugman likes!

Corrupting the young to the ways of 40k! They were going to play the Black Reach book, but no rules for Orks could be found so it was two Space Marine armies. Note the gap plugging. 

Next week myself and Jordan will be playing against Alun and his Daemons, although I believe he will be using some Chaos marines too in a apocalypse rules game. Jordans taking Grey Knights, and I'll be using the Evandalists. Should be a good one!