Chaos Lives! Chaos Lord and Hellbrute updates

Its not very often the forces of Chaos get a dedicated post on Death By Die... but today they have found their way in. At our gaming club, the Gwent Reavers we chatted about the expense of the hobby and perhaps if we had a small collection of 40k things here people could at least try before they buy. Thinking further about it, I realised that I had a small Chaos force. Very small. But its something. With the Assassinorum boxed set giving me 15 cultists, a Chaos Lord and 3 Chaos Marines along with the the 6 beastly based Chaos Marines I modelled a while ago, it was a start. I'd also won a Hellbrute a couple of years ago in a little competition held by friend Adam, where he gave it away on his old Nurgles Command video. 

Out came the glue and paint! What you see below are what I've done so far, along with other things its not much but the Chaos Lord looks pretty good and I'm happy with the colour scheme. Its Thunderhawk Blue highlighted with Lothern blue, which I'd previously used on my Millenium Falcon(more of that soon).

 I'm especially happy with how his cloak came out, I think the green tones look nice and compliment the blue pretty well.

 And heres the Hellbrute! Same colour scheme, and I went with a very brown skin as it would work against the blue by being a little warmer in colour and the pipes, exhausts and bones would contrast the browns too. Note the added Imperial Fist helmet, which, somehow innocently, is Bams chosen army... coincidences heh?

Mikes also brought over his Tzeetch Thousand Sons army over for me to scavange from, a lot of work needs to be done on some of the models but the Chaos Terminators and Lord look very usable, as well as a few other bits. Its coming along slowly! Some of the models won't look that great but if it means the club has an army then its all good. 

Now a little chat about the new Chaos Terrain for Age of Sigmar. To make up the whole thing its £600+. Wowsers, thats a lot of pennies! It does look spectacular though, and I think some of the smaller packages are pretty good too in terms of visuality. I did wonder how it would look for other Chaos forces though....

And I'm really digging it in blue! I've changed the saturation in photoshop to what Tzeentch and Nurgle fortresses may look and I think the blue one stands out really well. I think perhaps some Tomb Kings accessories would help give it a more Tzeentch flavour, and for nurgle lots of ooze, lots of browns on there too. Be interesting to see how people paint theirs when its released.

Theres also rumours of a september release for a new Chaos Codex for 40k, along with a new Daemon Engine. What could it be? Who knows, a Chaos sized Knight titan would be good thats not Forge World, but I'm expecting something a little different. Who knows! What do you think will be new in the Chaos Codex?

The Evandalists. Video and Pictures

Welcome all to an update on my Evandalists, They're out and ready to be inspected! Below is a Vlog update on Youtube and further down are some pictures of units from my army. Over the next two or three months I'm looking to update my army background too, so keep an eye out for that!

Batrep Evandalists vs Imperial Guard

So Sunday I get a message from Alun, my Elven nemesis. "So, I'll be at club tomorrow. You want a game? If so, state the points!"

"1850! Or 2350! Choose!" I reply. 

"2350! A rather random amount!" Alun settles. 

I wasn't sure what force Alun was taking, so I went for something I thought was adaptable. My force looked like this...

Captain on bike, artificer armour and power weapon, bikers and attack bike

Chaplain, with termies in land raider

2 tactical squads

dreadnought with twin linked heavy flamer and heavy flamer in drop pod

whirlwind

Telion and scouts

dreadnought with plasma cannon

Missile launcher armed devastators

Storm talon

Aluns force was roughly....

4 Leman Russ tanks, one with Pask

4 chimeras with veterans, company command, and comissar lord

squad of veterans with aegis defence line and quad cannon 

valkyrie with veterans

Deployemtn shown above, and Aluns reserves and tank contents below

I go first, and immediately bring down the dread in drop pod ready to toast me some guard. My main force advances along the left flank while everything else gets into postion to fire. I take out two chimeras with heavy firepower, and kill some of the veterans inside them too. The dreadnoughts flamers are unleashed and every guardsmen becomes a hot tasty snack! That quad cannon  wont be shooting my storm talon next turn! Having no cover or armour saves is amazing, Alun upgraded his guardsmen to veterans with carapace armour, so heavy flamers are the way to go. 

Alun fires back, and doesn't cause a lot of death... the dread dies, as I expected when placed in front of two lema russ tanks, and I lose a couple of tacitcal marines and bikers.

Turn two was more quiet for me, I advanced into positions to charge with termies and bikers but both were just out of range of what I rolled. I wanted to blow up the chimera but shooting didn't work and wasn't able to assault either so had to leave it! 

Sly Marbo... deadly little bugger he is! Kills 7 tactical squad members, then assaults them the turn after and finishes them off. There was a hilarious moment when I tried to kill him with some scout fire and a plasma cannon plus those two tactical marines and was unable too, I mentioned that I'l probably roll a 6 in overwatch then a one to wound. What happened? EXACTLY that! Amazing sequence!

After a quiet turn three my chaplain assault one squad while my termies did a disorganised charge on two of the leman russ tanks. I lost my bonus for charging but managed to blow them both up, while my chaplain duelled with the veteran sarge and failed to kill him!

The Bikers were able to sweep around the left  and despite losing a couple more of their number got into

with the Commissar Lord and his squad. It took two turns but I was able to kill them just as the command squad charge in, and the game ended with this combat still happening. 

The final scoure was 11-7 I believe, although had it gone on for another turn I think I may have been on my way to tabling Alun. Had a great laugh, good to face the elf boy again! I think the dreadnought with flamers works amazingly well against anything not in power armour, especially against troops in cover. Bikers performed well, their jink saves helping them to keep enough numbers wise to get into combat and be able to still take out a unit or two, and the termies blowing up two Leman Russ tanks was awesome! The storm talon, which I failed to mention didn't do much, hence why I forgot about him! I was disappointed with the Chaplain but he's done well before so I forgive him. Biggest disappointment was the missile launchers, they didn't do an awful lot. I've had a couple of games with them and they've done ok before, but even after blowing up a couple of chimeras in the first turn they failed to do anything! 

We had some Battlefleet gothic happen at club, looks like a great game fair dues, would love to have a go sometime and I've always wanted to incorporate this and epic into a campaign.

We have another all dayer this sunday, and this time theres a few of us having a day playing blood bowl! I'll probably be taking my humans, and I have a nice idea for a team ready to roll out that may involve me painting a star player to use as another model.... we shall see though! Expect much blood bowl to be mentioned in my next post among the other games that take place on sunday!

Blood Angels vs Space Marines BatRep 2000pts

So being a little late this week at club we pretty much got right into the game. I took a fairly different list this week. This is a rough list...

Captain on Bike, + 5 bikers and attack bike

Chaplain leading a tactical squad

2 other tactical squads, one in rhino

3 dreadnoughts, one in drop pod

2 dev squads, one all missile launchers and one all plasma cannons

storm talon with typhoon missile launcher

Mikes Blood Angels list is roughly...

Dante and 5 sanguinary guard

8 assault marines

10 death company in rhino

tactical squad

devastator squad, 2 plasma 2 lascannon

baal and autocannon predators

dreadnought

stormraven with 5 assault terminators

Mike won the roll off to deploy and go first, then I set up. I went for a static left flank and centre, and the right would advance aiming to take out the dakka pred. Otherwise we'd see what happened!

First turn, no first blood but a couple of models killed either way. I glanced the baal and DC rhino twice each but couldn't get the first blood, but if I could weather the second turn of incoming fire I could pick one of those off to get a vital bonus point!

Mikes storm raven comes in and adds fire against the bikes and devs but fails to really do anything. Mikes assault squad manages to make an 11" assault into my central tactical squad, and a combat erupts! In my turn, I'm able to destroy the Baal and the DC rhino. First Blood!

Also in my second turn, my bikers advance even further and fire all their melta weapons at the dakka predator, and promptly blow it up. Another victory point! 

Ouch! As you can see in the following pic, the assault termies come out of the Storm Raven and slam into my tacitcal squad... this won't last much longer! The Tactical squad makes it to my turn with just a sarge and chaplain left, but then they can hold on no longer. I start losing more too, with my dread dying in the centre of the field.

My storm talon comes on and shoots at the devs. I manage to kill 2, but they hold firm. As I mentioned the assault squad and termies butcher my chaplain and tactical squad and consolidate towards my left flank. My bikers advanced again however and melta spoke death to the dreadnought, melting it to slag. For their efforts however Dante is finally able to enter play and charges them with his sanguinary guard. My captain challanges Dante who accepts, and a very close fight erupts between the two Space Marines heroes! The bikers however are unable to hurt the sanguinary guard and all bikes are killed after two turns of combat.

 Last turn heroics needed! At this point neither of us knew the points, so we kept fighting and decided to count up after the battle ended. Mikes 3 assault troops leapt into my left most tactical squad, but overwatch took one out and then I killed another without a loss. The sarge retreated, and Mike was able to save himself a point as his last terminator charged in. In my previous turn I'd shot at his termies with a lot of firepower and killed four... So close! The termie however misses with all but on attack... then rolls a one to wound! I failed to penetrate his armour however until my dreadnought stomps in and deals the fatal blow. Termies killed! 

I'd manage to whittle down the death company slowly but there was a couple left, so a vp denied. Dante and my captain was a close fought fight however, and the game ended with them still fighting. Captain Torgeaz had 2 wounds left, whereas Dante had one. Turn 5 was the last however, and we counted up victory points.

Counting up the points I'd won 7-6, first blood proving crucial! We knew it was a close game as we were playing, but that was incredible, I really like not knowing until after the battle and it proved an entertaining affair. Heck of a game fair dues, Mikes getting to know his army fairly well.

Elswhere at club a game of Gorkamorka went on, but I have no idea what happened apart from hearing much laughter from the table... must have been a good time!

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!

YES! Club Night Games!

And so the second Club night for Sixth edition, and I find myself playing against one of the clubs better gamers. And I still haven't won. I'll go through my army list first. 

Chaplain, 5 Assault Termies, ALL Thunder Hammers, in a Land Raider. 

10 Legion of the Damned

2 Tactical Squads in Rhinos. 

10 Devastators with two Missile Launchers and two Plasma Cannons

Storm Talon

LandSpeeder with Multimelta and Assault Cannon

Dreadnought with Plasma Cannon

Vindicator

The Chaplain and Termies against Chaos Marines were to hold back and protect or be an attacking piece. LOTD do what they do best, hold the enemy up and contest objectives. Tactical squads to get objectives or add firepower, boltguns are lethal! Devasators to pick on troops or armour, depending on what Louis takes. Vindicator, well, you know how good these are! The Storm Talon would enter from reservesa and zoom to deal with anything it wanted, and the Land Speeder will deep strike and attack the heaviest armour the enemy can muster head on with assault cannon and multi melta.

Deployment! We get the crusade mission and four objectives to fight over, 2 in or near our deployment zones. I go first, and set up centrally and close to the right side objective. Louis places a dreadnought close to threaten my lines and so becomes a priority. The rest of his troops are further back.

Game On!

So the first turn and I manage to destroy the dread that threatens my right flank, the tactical squad sent many thanks! Most of my troops just get into better lines of fire, getting close to an army thats better in assault is silly to be fair! Louis sends a rhino speeding up, which I blow up in the second turn to reveal.... 4 terminators and a Chaos Lord. OUCH!! More fire decimates the retinue until only the lord is left who ducks into cover and then assaults out and destroys my vindicator. Bugger him! 

My Legion of the Damned come on, and even after the re-roll scatter off the board. Louis gets to place them in a crater right in front of his battleline. They roll bad and do little damage. In Louis' turn they get fired at.... 5 wounds, and I fail ALL of them. I start to feel this will be another loss! In good news however the tactical squad near the Chaos Lord disembark and take two of the Traitor's wounds from him, and then the storm bolter from the rhino finishes him off. Score! The Land Speeder deepstrikes down in front of the Chaos Land Raider and turns it to molten slag, Multi-melta doing the damage. This is huge as Huron Blackheart's retinue now have to do some footslogging. The Raptors come into play and prove a nuisance as they take a hull point from my Land Raider, but the Storm Talon proves annoying and is only hit once. 

The Land Raider then pounces upon Blackhearts retinue and unleashes the Chaplain and Termies. Battle is met! Huron challanges the Chaplain and I accept, and cause one wound after dodging the attacks of the heretic. The Terminators are brutal and kill the opposing Terminators, and close the net around a now panicked Huron. Two remaining Raptors try to save him by assaulting the terminators as the Tyrant Clasps the Chaplains chest and takes him out of the battle, just as the Thunder Hammers rise and fall upon his head, shattering the Tyrant's skull. The Raptors soon fall and the terminators continue to rampage through the chaos lines. The Storm Talon is eventually taken down, but the Chaos forces are beaten, 17 - 10 Victory Points! First game won of sixth edition!

Breaking in the Storm Talon!

So Mondays game was against the Blood Angels of Mike. I was up against Assault Termies in Stormraven, 5 assault troops with jump packs and accompanied by a captain and jump pack, 9 terminators, predator, devastators, a tactical squad, and two dreads. Myself, land raider with assault termies and chaplain, 2 tactical squads with rhino's, 2 scout sniper squads, dread, vindicator, predator, legion od the damned, and the brand new storm talon.

Capture and Control, and we placed our objectives in opposite corners of the battlefield. Land Raider, and tactical squad to try and capture the opponents, while the scouts, dread and vindicator held mine. Everything else, reserve! 

My vindicator advanced and managed to destroy the one dreadnoughts assault cannon, which meant I could target faster elements while he trundled towards me. The land raider and rhino advanced the full 12" to close the gap. I managed to knock a few devastators off but my Land Raider was then immobilised, meaning my termies would have to trek a wee bit. They managed to get into combat with the other dread, but when Mikes terminators got involved w had a long drawn out combat, eventually wiping my guys out. Mikes dread was left immobilised and only one of his terminators left. Not bad by my guys!

My predator arrives, and manages to immobilise Mikes Rhino, but my vindicator misses. Then Mikes assault guys deep strike down amongst my lines, yikes! During the next turn the vindicator wipes out the assault troops and the Legion of the Damned turn up and manage to wipe out the captain with a well placed meltagun shot. Phew!

Storm Raven arrives! Shoots over, immobilises my vindicator, and dumps down the assault terminators on my objective... nasty! They wipe out the first scout squad and look to threaten the second who still hold the objective, but the Damned marines are able to make it into combat and after 3 rounds of combat whittle down the termies until none are left. Phew!

On the other flank, my other tactical squad arrives and advances up to support the other tactical squad whose rhino had been blown up. They are able to assault Mikes tactical squad who hold the objective after the second TS whittle them down with rapid fire. The Storm Talon was able to kill one terminator, and used its supersonic move to contest the objective in case turn 5 was the last. In turn 6 it too poured fire into the tactical squad. The first tactical squad was then able to assault the remnants and take the second objective. Game won! Close mind, but the Storm Talon is fully bloodied. It may not have killed an awful lot, but its supersonic move could have potentially won me the game and its shooting then helped to wipe the Blood Angels out. Score!

Evandalists vs Half Deathwing Company

Yep, HALF, of the Deathwing. I think it was about 2650 ish points, so Mark could fit in as many terminators as he could. And Belial. I didn't know what to expect in this game so I went with a little bit of plasma, 2 Termie squads in Land Raiders, one with Chaplain and one with Captain, 3 tactical squads, Khan and a bike squad, and vindicator and dreadnought. Capture and Control time! Deployment, I kept many units off so I could react to my opponents actions. The vindicator, dreadnought and devastators with plasma cannons started as these could do a lot of damage. Although they only killed about 5 terminators in total!

Then my units make an appearence. The Land Raiders come on and unleash my terminators who do well against their DW counterparts, and Khan and a tacitcal squad come on from the far side to assault the DW objective. 

I was able to take control and kept the pressure on Mark by being able to choose what to assault after weakening with plasma shots. In turn 5 I got control of my objective and by the end of turn 6 I had full control of the DW post too. 

It was an enjoyable game against an army I had no idea how to play, but my tactics going in seemed to work reasonably well. Terminators are good, but perhaps not good enough. The Dark Angels codex is a little old now, and it seems like a good time for GW to bring a new version out. Will they? Who knows. Playing against them it felt a little dated and a tad underpowered. Mark did well with what he had but some of the limitations were a little harsh. A win for me and another enjoyable game=]

Gaming Update!

So I've been a wee slack with actual games lately, but theres this and another couple of updates due to come in the next day or so. This game however was from Monday night, and played against Andrew's Death Guard.

I recently found out two things that helped me choose my force. Vindicators can move 6" and shoot, and Legion of the Damned are relentless. Score. Taking both! 1800 pts a side! My basic list was Chaplain, termies, land raider, vindicator, two tactical squads in rhino's, devastator squad with 2 plasma cannon, dread, and a land speeder.

It was an objective based game so only two troops for four objectives, was going to make it tough against the hard to shift DG, but my opponent also only had two troops choices too so this was about grabbing one or two and contesting the rest!

First couple of turns, and to be fair the whole game went well for me. If it was kill points it would have been a slaughter! Our vindicators were pretty useless, although mine did finish off a DG squad later in the game. I was able to pretty much kill all of Andrews Termies, and there were 19 plus Typhus, who I also killed. My Land Speeder deep striked close to his land raider and took that out in one turn, which was lovely to see! My Legion of the Damned also showed up and caused a nuisance to his havocs and the aforementioned DG squad.

This game however, was not all about killing. My one TS were able to capture an objective, but my other weakened squad were just unable to hold one of the other objectives which Andrew did claim... so we ended with a draw when the game ended on turn 5. Damn! 

Had the game lasted one more turn I'd have got a win as I had enough there within range to contest the DG's objective, including my Land Raider. But it was not to be. I am however claiming it as a huge moral win as I killed quite a lot of Andrews troops and one of the Imperiums most hated advesaries, Typhus!

It was a great game though and we both enjoyed it immensely. I've only played Andrew twice, and both games now have been objective based and both games a draw! We shall be battling again, and we're both sat next to each other on our club table, Andrew just above me. I will take his spot by beating him!

Special Post for Geek Pride Day

Its Geek Pride Day didn't you know? And to show it, two of my geek-loves come together as Optimus Prime helps finish off a Dreadnought. He loves my red, blue and purple colour scheme.

Club Showcase part 4

So here is the final part (for now) of Tredegar Wargames Club showcase. My Chapter Master, Vincent Enniko, joins the great work of Jason. Jason's reknowned for being a tad slow when it comes to painting, but the results speak for themselves! 

 Vincent Enniko. Chapter Master of the Evandlists by myself

 Ultramrines Dreadnought by Jason

 Dire Avenger by Jason

 Death Company by Jason

 Death Company Sergeant by Jason

Death Company by Jason

Previous Showcase posts; Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

I'm hoping to get another one in a couple of weeks done, as one of our members has an amazing looking Death Guard army, so expect to see this at some point.