Saturday Salvo: Xwing, Chaos vs Imperum Marines

So the weekend is here, and I've got a nice chunky post for you all. I took a visit down to Cwmbran a couple of days ago, met up with one of the fine men of the Crow Valley Crusaders who sold me a Vindicator and Land Raider Redeemer for a very nice sum. They've both been undercoated and will be worked on in the next couple of weeks! While there I popped into GW, and got to watch a good game of 40k between Tau and an Imperial Fists and Aurora Chapter force. The Tau's gunline proved too much and the Riptide caused a lot of damage. Great fun to watch though. I also picked these guys up, and combined them with parts from the new Tactical Squad and Sternguard box sets.

Grav-guns ahoy! Two Grav-guns and a Combi-grav, should prove deadly and as they're so quick they can quickly advance and pour deadly fire into the most heavily armoured infantry the enemy can muster... or big buggers like Riptides, Greater Daemons and Wraithknights... after playing Alun a couple of weeks ago and decimating his Bloodthirster with them I needed to purchase! Also, my Chapter Master is pretty much done too so thought I'd take a better pic of him. 

I'm still not 100% on the flames but happy enough to not redo this guy anytime soon, as he looks good on the tabletop and thats what matters for me! When my greenstuff skills get much better I may go back then and redo the sword but for now I'm sure he'll get plenty of kills. 

Also got some better pics of my Skaven inspired Chaos Marine, who I've now based. Doesn't look too bad if I may say so myself, so will probably get a squad done to see how they look combined. Plus with the amount of conversion ideas I'm getting a small force may slowly come!

Last Monday at club I also got to have a quick game of X-wing, so heres some pictures! Jason has become a big fan of this game and has most of the ships, but we kept things simple for my first game. 60pts each would mean about 3 ships for me and about double for Jase. 

I took a prototype pilot A-wing, which proved really useful even though I didn't expect much. It took some hullpoints off a tie fighter in the first turn and proved difficult for the tiefighters to lock onto because of its speed. I lost an Xwing but was able to take all the tiefighters out with the A and Xwings. 

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the game, and the second guessing of movement and what abilities to use. Do you focus to survive or lock on to try and take the enemy down, or use a special ability to shake someone following you? So nice having only two phases, moving and shooting. Means theres less to forget!

Next time I'll try the Imperial forces, see what its like having all those tiefighters to control! Perhaps see if I can try a larger game too, as this only took about 45 minutes! Ideal for having a series of quick games, switching sides or even linking them together. 

The models are also really cool, well painted and look really good on the table. Jase also had the cool gaming mat you can see in the pictures, and with the size only being 3x3 you can easily fit it onto most dining tables, which means gaming is easier to come by! Can't be a bad thing at all! 

So coming up soon will hopefully be painted bikers, Redeemer and Vindicator. Hopefully I'll do a few more Chaos Marines too using Skaven and Beastmen bits, just to see what I can come up with. We'll be having an alldayer in the middle of December so I cannot wait to get some gaming done then, see what we can come up with!

Space Marine Codex Batrep

So after the huge brutal but fun game of Apocalypse on Sunday, Andrew, who'd been unable to play challanged me to a game the following night against his Death Guard. This mean I'd be facing lots of toughenss 5, a maulerfiend, and the Defiler he'd been ovingly painting up over the last month or so! With the new Codex, I fancied trying a different Chapter Tactics, so while looking at my models and seeing my bikes, I plumped for the White Scars. The benefits of this is Hammer of Wrath attacks are ST 5 from bikers, Hit and Run and auto-passing difficult terrain tests. 1500 points each, and this was my rough list.

Captain, bike, artificer armour, storm shield, power axe.

Chaplain, bike

Bike squad, 5 bikers with meltagun, flamer, attack bike with multimelta

5 man tactical squad with lascannon

10 man tactical squad with vet sarge, powerfist and a meltagun in a rhino

10 man assault squad

5 vanguard with powerfist

predator with lascannons

dreadnought with plasma cannon

5 devastators with missile launchers

Legion of the damned with power axe and multimelta.

Deployment!

Mission was capture the relic, and we had the narrow deployment type. This basically turned the 6x4 table into a 4x4 which meant death guard would be more concentrated... ouch! I won the roll off to go first... so deployed as seen as above. As you can see on the image at the bottom underneath Andrews army is a dice roll of a six. Yes, Initiative seized!

Andrew pushed forward with most of his units, large unit of cultists with sorceror, maulerfiend, decimator and some of the death guard. Shooting casualties were light although I'd left my lascannon as the nearest model in the 5 man squad so he died. 

I sent all units forward, bikes shot at the cultists ripping many apart but failed the charge. Assault squad moved into the centre ready to get stuck into the centre and the vanguard swung across to the left flank to charge the maulerfiend and try to cripple it with kraks and a powerfist. 

The missiles and pred failed to do much, and this was followed by the Vanguard unable to damage the maulerfiend but only lost one of their number. 

Andrews death guard advance once more, my bikers get charged but my assault squad move into the cultists. I lose the challange between the sorceror and my sarge as expected but kill off the cultists to gain first blood. I destroy a weapon and immobilse the decimator, but andrew claims he'll roll for both to be fixed in his next turn due to its ability. 

He rolls the dice, and gets the results he needs! Decimator mobile again and now storms in to finish off my vanguard. The bikers and captain have trouble wounding the death guard, T5 proving hard to break especially with FNP, but andrews plague knives are poisoned and he does whittle my bikers down... then I remember hit and run! Typical ha! Meanwhile my tactical squad jump out of the rhino and get into contact with the relic. 

The decimator finally meets its end, and I take off the last hull point. The Legion of the Damned lower their multi melta at the maulerfiend and take that out too, which is a huge help as we both desperately fight for the Relic! He takes out my tactical squad with the Relic by shooting them with heavy bolter toting havocs and plasma guns, but I'm able to get the last four of my 5 man squad onto it. 

This is what was left at the end of turn 6, which was the end of the game. Andrews unharmed Havocs were also left, as was 4 missile launcher devs and predator in my deployment game... but this had been intensely brutal! Legion of the damned had got stuck in to try and tip the balance but were too late to save my chaplain, and while my captain didn't suffer a wound he didn't kill an awful lot either as Andrews rolls to save for armour or FNP were amazing! So the game finished... who won?

Well we'd both got into contact with the relic, so no points for anyone there. No Linebreaker, and no Warlord... so it was down to the First Blood point I had earned by killing the cultists that won me the game. I do however use the term 'won' very loosely, it was that close! It was also incredibly fun, Andrew is always a great opponent and its great to play him after such a long time. 

So what do I think of the new codex?

Well, when I remembered hit and run it helped a lot, if you can get some good resilient units into combat, then hit and run you can pour firepower into the enemy unit before getting stuck back in and stopping them returning fire. If I'd have remembered I could have had another turn to shoot the maulerfiend which would have helped a lot. I also forgot Hammer of Wrath quite often, so this had very little effect. Auto passing terrain checks was good though when I did remember hit and run as I could rush back into cover and then leap back out without worrying about armour saves. 

It'll be interesting to try some of the other chapter tactics too, Iron Hands and Imperial Fists tactics seemingly pretty useful, as is the Ultramarines one. I've got another game or two on friday so I'll see what lists I come up with.

How are you guys finding the new Codex?

Death of a New Era.

Well welcome, to Death By Die! Formally the Evandalists, but now with a new title to show how much more encompassing this blog is, or at the very least will be! Its coming up to two years of this blog being a breathing creature, and today it comes to adulthood with an almighty roar. Not on that, but in the coming weeks my Space Marine Chapter will also be renamed, but that is yet to be decided upon. As my army comes up close to the battle company level it seems like a good time to do so. The Evandalists, as they've been known as, was always a stand in name until I'd thought of something better. Only problem was, I'd forgotten to think of something! So keep an eye out for that.

First of all I need to pass on a huge thanks to Ieuan from Sons of Isis, the guy is a true Hero and deserves some Terminator honours for this tribute!

Last tuesday was my birthday, and Ieuan made me this especially, hes a classy lad fair play, hit his blog up to see his lovely looking army and purple hands!

Next up two weeks ago I took part in the first Apoc game using the new updated 6th edition rules, and had a hell of a blast. Theres a bit of narrative to sort out yet but the pictures are ready, so a post on this will happen fairly soon! All you need to know whoever was just how immense the game was.

There was 24k points in total, and had my marines teamed with Morgans Space Wolves vs the evil duo of Adam and Alun with their Nurgle Marines and Daemons with Traitor Guard. Cracking game and some good moments... more on that in the next week though! 

Next up that I need to tell you about, is this bad boy! Drop Zone is coming out as a boxed game, and I'm incredibly tempted if I can find the money aside from GTAV and the new Marines codex! 

Not only do you get everything you need, but the price is £60 rrp. How good is that?!! Well theres better... My good friend Adam who runs Putrid Painting, has it up on his site for a very nice £50, I'm not even kidding! We'll be getting a copy to try out at club and seeing what its like when its released at the end of September. 

So what else can you guys be expecting with this new name? Well the post I made about the Iyanden Craftworld from a scanned White Dwarf seemed popular, so I'll do this a little more often. I'll also be projecting my thoughts upon new releases, adding my own ideas etc. I'm also hoping to bring to you a new game thats being developed and sculpted by a new member to our club who lives just over the mountain, but that deserves its very own post. For now though I'll let all that and the new name sink in... 

Death By Die.

Necrons vs Tau/Space Wolves

Greetings all, another game for my Tau, this time I'm allied with Morgan and his Space Wolves to take on the Necron threat commanded by Alun! Alun had 2000pts to play with whereas myself and Morgan split that in half for 1000pts each. We won the dice roll to set up so went first, Hammer and Anvil Deployment and The Relic was the objective... could be tough!

Night fighting was enforced in the first and second turns, meaning not a lot of damage could be dealt by either force. I forgot to take Blacksun Filters!

Morgans Thunderwolves were charged and weakened by Aluns Wraiths. Just as the Thunderwolf cavalry thought they had won a Necron flyer came on and decimated the unit. Meanwhile Morgans Grey Hunters advanced to control the Relic and bring it back, my Firewarriors staying back to cover their return. As dawn began more ranged damage was done. 

Alun deepstriked a 10 strong unit of Necron Deathmarks with their single beady eyed heads locked on my Riptide who dealt out destruction with his Ion Accelerator. They aimed and rapid fired into the huge Tau tech and left it on one wound remained. The Riptide returned fire, decimating 7 of them even though two stood back up. The Firewarriors in the centre then rapidfired under the guidence of the Fireblade and fell them, 36 shots tearing through the mechanical creatures. 

A bloody battle erupted for the Relic as the Grey Hunters were assaulted on all sides. Scarabs kept them in place so Imotckh and a unit of warriors with another Necron Lord could get stuck in. Both sides piled models in, and there wasn't many left. As the Necron flyer zoomed in to use its deadly death ray my broadside calmly took aim and blew it up with a well aimed shot from its heavy Railgun.

The game ended on Turn 6 with both sides vying for control, but me and Morgan had won 

by claiming first blood and I thin Warlord also. So close! We did have more numbers left at the end of the game and if it went to a Turn 7 I would have been able to claim the objective, 2 firewarriors almost in range to claim!

Also being played was another game of 40k, newcomer Paul had a force of Eldar from yesteryear and wanted to be inducted back into the game, so he teamed up with Louis and his Imperial Guard and they versed Andrew and his DeathGuard and Jordan and his Tyranids.

I have nothing in the way of details I'm afraid, you'll have to make to with pictures!

Bam inspects the carnage being wrought by both sides, wishing his space marines could join in and blow them all up!

Huw was here too with No Quarter... heres what he had to say about it!

"The three players each had a group of three figures each and had no special orders other than to go into the port of New Blaina and do what they liked. New blaina is abit of a lawless frontier town with five taverns three brothels no church and thats the nice partof town.

theres no law and no government even though its nominally a British posession so order is traditionally kept by a party of sailors and marines from whatever ships are in port."

"Ash chose to go looking for trouble in a locals bar and ended up in a knifefight, Carl tried to break it up with his sailors but some heavily armed locals persuaded him to move along. after settling the argument by killing the locals ash headed towardsthe main square.

Pete headed for the biggest tavern and got into a conversation with the owner finding out thsat a navy message boat had left 20,000 in sacks in the jail and that Mad Gerald, a local weirdo who keeps crocodiles as pets knew how a way of getting in. Picking up a local drunk to act as aligator bait he headed for geralds cottage...."

"Meanwhile mike had been stopped by carl who wanted to search his bottom for drugs, an angry crowd gathered and instead he done a scarper letting mike go.

Alun went to the nasty bit of town and decided-in broad daylight, to do a bit of housebreaking, which brought carl running to make an easy collar.

Carl took him to the nasty little jail house and slung him inside where the only thing to sit on were some big sacks full of shiny silver coins, after stuffing their pockets Aluns mob found the back wall was falling down which they were abble to hack thru with their swords and guns which carls coppers had failed to take off them. meanwhile Petes crowd nicked a horse and carriage picked up some whores and headed for the jail shouting loudly that the jail was full of british silver and anyone helping stom it would get a share"

"Long story short: everyone run for the jail, carl split his force in half to stop mike who had nicked a rowing boat and was trying to rob his battleship and even tho he shot dead all ashleys gang didnt have the men to hold off the mob. Carl scarpered handing the navy payroll over to the pirates and setting himself up for a court-martial next time around. Alun who had sided with carl to defend the cash got nowt but pete said he could come with him, mikes gang got shot to shit (again) and he rowed off on his todd, Ash's one surviving character took his share of the silver and booked into the third floor of the whorehouse and is probly there to this day. The End."

So there we go! 

Special Guest BatRep!

Welcome all to another battle report, this time against a special guest! If you enjoy the evil odour of the Great Unclean one, painting Chaos Space Marines in a mucky green scheme, and your best friends are a bunch of flies, you will know Nurgle Command from his blog and also his youtube channel. He's also known as Adam, and is one of the nicest guys you'll meet, especially being as he is a fellow Transformers fan!

We initially decided to play 1500, but Adam mentioned he wanted to fit a defiler in so we upped the points. More models, more fun! We rolled off for mission and got Crusade, with 4 objectives. I won first turn, but then Adam stole the initiative! Damn! Deployment in the following pictures.

Check out Adams Forgefiend, how disgustingly good is this? Adams army was a treat to look at and the battlefield looked great with two painted armies on. More of this please!

 So the first turn, Adam advanced with his force, with his defiler taking the only shot, kiling two Space Marines and making the other 3 members of the unit to run. Ouch! Knowing this would be a threat if not taken care of I tasked my combi melta toting sternguard to try and take this out and in true form they were upto the task.

I think my shooting elsewhere was pretty lacking, and caused no other damage. Killing the Defiler did however get me first blood, good start!

The Death Guard silently advance once more, the Forgefiend targetting my vindicator and taking a hullpoint off, also stopping it from moving and shooting next turn. The Deathshroud shoot at the sternguard and gun down two with their combi-bolters, but luckily Typhus' physic test was failed and saved them from certain doom for a turn.

Both of Adams plague zombies meet an end too, one in combat against two combat squads, and the other to a lot of shooting to clear them off the leftmost objective.

The Death Guard sorcerer deep strikes down next to my rearmost tactical squad, threatening my objective. If I could not get through his terminator armour I would be in serious trouble next turn when he assaults... and assault he does! Having to challange my Sergeant, I decline so I can at least try and overwhelm him The sorcerer goes first, hits, but fails to wound! After shooting him and getting him down to one wound I need to cause one more to strike him down... and I barely manage it! I get two wounds and Adam fails one of the armour saves. 

My Thunder Hammer terminators storm out of my Landraider and assault the forgefiend, wrecking it easily. They then consolidate over towards the hellbrute in an effort to clear the objective of the vile Nurgle followers.

Adam charges the hellbrute into the terminators, and with help from a weakening psychic attack which takes my guys down to ST and T 3, the combat spills into my turn where I finally get enough penetrations to wreck it. Then comes Typhus! He and his Deathshroud bodyguard swarm into my Termies, Typhus challanging my Chaplain, Orneus Gyozo. Gyozo strikes Typhus with his power fist, making the Nurgle leader stagger back for a second but then he sweeps his sythe and kills my chaplain outright. Warlord point to Adam! Both of our terminator squads take each other out, leading the dangerous Typhus free to contest the nearby objective and sluaghter the combat squad nearby. I tried to pour firepower into him but he just would not die! 

A couple of vindicator shots onto the Plague Marines holding the objective in Adams deployment zone. Over the course of the two turns however one plague marine survives and holds the objective. Yet another nurgle follower that will not die! 

Elsewhere I'm able to capture the middle objective and still control my own in my deployment zone.

The game ends and I've won 7-4. Fair play to Adam, he kept going even though his dice rolls were terrible, its not often I feel sorry for a Traitor! He is a great opponent though, and has already asked for a rematch in the near future to claim glory for Papa Nurgle. Any time, any place!  Go check out Adams blog and youtube, linked in the intro for more about his Deathguard, they really are a treat to look at and he's an entertaining fellow on youtube!

One other thing, I'll be announcing the winner of my giveaway tonight, I've had some great pictures and new followers and you'll all be in the draw, so eyes peeled!

Review: Death From The Skies

So my copy of Death From the Skies has arrived, and what follows are my thoughts. Theres been a fair bit of controversy around this by it being Direct Only, so lets see exactly how much it matters.

The first thing you notice that makes this different to the other releases in the 40k collection so far, is that its softback. Yes, the book bends! This matters little but it did catch me by surprise

Theres not an awful lot in here in relation to artwork, although it is nice to see this Helldrake illustration in a larger format than it is in the Chaos Codex. We already know this book is a compendium, so don't expect anything original.  The photography is pretty good too, some nice compositions and angles but again, I don't see much original.

So when the Stormtalon and Ork jets were released, there was an article in WD featuring a Necron, Ork and Space Marine campaign. Thats here again, although it feels a little larger and not having that WD to had is hard to compare. If you havent seen this already you'll enjoy the read however. What follows this are 4 new missions that take flyers into mind. Theres some nice ideas here including a couple of different deployment zones that I'll look forward to trying out. One mission, 'Scramble!', has the defender nominate 3 landing spaces or 3 skyshield landing pads where 3 flyers are given for no points cost, and these are grounded.You launch these flyers depending on the roll of a 6 or more, by adding the turn that you are on. The attacker gets D3 VP's bonus for each of these that are destroyed. Sounds like a great laugh, and reminds me of a battle report from a few years ago between a drop-podding Black Templars army and an Ork army that was set after the Armageddon campaign in WD.

So the missions are a great little addition. The rules for dogfighting are also included from Crusade of Fire, and should be a good laugh if you have a number of flyers to try them out. While there are no new flyers in here, it does mean that now my Space Marine chapter can take Stormravens.

This is a good feature, and having bought one several days ago I'm looking forward to putting it together and using it on the field. The only difference I can tell so far between the vanilla SM's and the BA's Stormravens is that the missiles vary a little. While both are ST8, the BA's are ap1. The Codex Marines are ap2, but are concussive. Minor difference, but it seems like a useful weapon. Stormtalons are now 10 points cheaper than they were originally, which is a good thing as they were'nt used that often, even though I love using them! The book also features the rules for the other flyers currently in the game, its just a pity they couldn't fit a new one or two into the book. 

Overall thoughts then.... Is the book worth £20? This all depends on how much of the material you already own. If you don't have the WD with the rules for the StormTalon and Ork jets in then you get the rules for these plus a story revolving around three armies and their flyers. If you already have these, you're paying £20 for slight changes that lets be honest, shouldn't cost that much. Why they couldn't put this update into a WD or on a PDF on the GW website I'm unsure, but it would have been a nice gesture to try and balance the feeling a lot of people have against Games Workshop. The GW online store has some bundles where you can buy multiples of flyers, but these offer no savings over buying them individually. Why not do these bundles and throw the book in for free? Come on GW, give the customer something back! 

Its a nice little book that will add to your games if you're an avid pilot in the skies of 40k, but you will feel its overpriced for what it gives you.

New additions and Giveaway!

So Death From The Skies has arrived rather quietly from Games Workshop's side of things, although we've known it was coming for a couple of weeks. I'm incredibly intrigued about the rules for flyers, and of course being a Codex Space Marine player I'm rather excited about the Stormraven being available for my Evandalists. Which is why...

I've got one for myself! Many thanks to Nurgle Command for his heads up that on the Hobbycraft Facebook page you can get yourself a 25% off voucher, so I indulged in this lot=] 

I've had a flick through the painting tanks book, and theres some great tips in there I'm looking forward to trying. I grabbed myself and Bam some spray, he wanted some white for his Orks, the Temple of Skulls and some woods to add some variety to our gaming tables at club, and of course, the Stormraven. Working out the price I paid just £31 for it instead of the hefty £50 at GW, amazing! Cracking deal fair play so head over there now as the offer lasts until the 24th I believe. Special thanks to my lady for taking me to pick these up!

The giveaway winner will be announced on the 26th of February, I've had some great entries so far so please keep them coming! Photos of you and your favourite miniature from any game or system to be emailed to vandalworks@hotmail.com

£20 GW voucher to be won so get on it!

Deathshroud Revealed

So Forge Worlds little bit of fun has finally been revealed.... and its just what we all thought.

The Deathshroud.

I believe these are the elite of the Deathguard, bodyguard of Mortarion, which could mean the Primarchy will be available soon too. Exciting times!  Here are a few of the images released by Forge World

I think they look pretty awesome, really want to see someone make a Typhus conversion using one of these as a base as I think theres the potential there for an amazing model.

What are your thoughts? Impressed? Disappointed?