Sternguard and Terminators Update!

So its been a wee while since I've shown you much progress with my Evandalists, but this past week or so I've been busy on these beauties. I've always fancied Sternguard, the thought of the elite Marines from the 1st company still armed with power armour and (special ammo issued) boltguns made an evocative image and was something I needed. I scoured what I had, and trawled through Ebay. I had decided that as the Sergeant torso was reasonably distinctive with its high collar, ten of these were added to the shopping list. What else? Phobos pattern boltguns! I picked up 9 of these, and also a Ferrox pattern bolter for the sarge to make him stand out a bit more. Also added were parts from a command squad I bought at the Cwmbran GW and plenty of veteran shoulder pads!

 The colour scheme is much the same as my main army, although a few new things were done. With the Veteran pads I did them silver, and when painting the armour after everything was basecoated, I covered the entire model except the face with nuln oil. I wanted a bit of a dirty grimy look to them, and I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out. So much so that I may revisit other squads and repeat this technique!

Heres two of the Sternguard, as you can see I went for a black skin tone with two of the guys and then a more white tone with the others. I think the black skin tones came out well, and I shall be doing some more! 

Heres the Sergeant with a Powerfist, armed to take out the trickier things these guys may come across that their ammo may not hurt. How I use these guys I don't know, either as a nice defensive unit using the Kraken bolts, or drop pod them down to take out power armoured enemies. I look forward to fielding them though!

Ah Terminators! I've bought 5 ranged Terminators before, but they were the Assault on Black Reach ones and posing them isn't much of an option. I got myself a box of these at Firestorm Games in Cardiff and looked forward to fixing them up.

I posed the Assault Cannon Termie to look like he's balancing against the recoil, and I think its worked ok. Its so nice to have chainfists at last!

Two of the regular Termies. You'll note that I've not done the Chapter badge on these or the Sternguard, this will come when I've practiced it a little more! 

I'm quite happy with how the Sarge's face has come out. I love using Khemri Brown as a base, washing it and then adding little amounts of white 2-3 times to build up the highlights. 

Lastly is my other regular armed Termie, and I've posed this guy twisting as if reacting to a new threat. Needless to say its my favourite one, seeing such a bulky guy in a more dynamic pose is why I wanted to build some of these guys for myself! 

So there we go, some progress to show how the Chapter are growing. I'm still planning on getting some pics of the entire army set up, so eyes peeled for when I pluck up the courage to try and organise this. Don't forget, I'm having a giveaway to celebrate 20k views on my blog, so click here for details! I've got a couple of well known people in the world of gaming entering, so fingers crossed we should have a great gallery. So whats stopping you gettng a self portrait of yourself and your favourite miniature?

Best of Three.

So last Thursday, myself and the Mighty Mogan Power Ranger went down to one of our favoured playing spots, Firestorm Games in Cardiff. We figured we'd go early, get a few games then some food. We weren't wrong! We got ourselves through 3 really good games, different points and lists each time, then managed to (easily to be honest) force a foot long sub down our mouths in a nice warm day in Cardiff. So... onto the games!

I completely forgot to take a picture of the second game, but we had a draw. I managed to kill enough of Morg's Grey Hunters from one objective so the survivors were more than 3 inches away... but barely!

The first game however ended too soon for me to be able to pull a draw or win back, if I'd been able too! We had 3 objectives and Morg captured on whereas the other two were either contested or not even looked at! I took 8 Lascannon shots at Morg's Vindicator and every single one failed to penetrate. My luck seems to be consistently bad! Morg's Wolf Scouts did try to blow a Rhino up when they arrived behind my lines but he failed to hit. Bane of the Meltagun! 

The third game we played was Capture the Relic, which was located in a trench. We kept the terrain to a minimum, which in turn made this bloody! My vindicator inflicted a lot of pain, and Morg's psychic powers threw my army into disarray. After my Tactical Squad which had both my Chapter Master and Chaplain were terrorised, they fell back, only for one of Njal Stormcallers special rules to make them fall back again! This took them out of the picture. I couldn't capture the relic, but I had killed Morgan's Warlord, got first blood, and thanks to my Legion of the Damned and Stormtalon occupied his deployment zone. The Stormtalon also managed to kill the Grey Hunters who held the relic, forcing it to be dropped. Game win to me! Makes a change I can tell ya! So the day ended with us both having a win, draw, loss, and belly full of Subway. 

I'm currently getting some buildings painted up, plus I have a new squad to paint up... more details in a couple of days... but it would appear I have ALLIES!!!!

Blood of the Martyrs

So Thursday night myself, Morgan, and Alun, took a trip to Firestorm in Cardiff. Its a wee shop with a huge selection of games and mini's for sale, and a nice big room out the back for playing games on. If you've read my blog you'll already have seen some of the awesome terrain they have there! Seeing as there were 3 of us, we looked for a mission to do.

Morgan suggest Blood of the Martyrs, which is in the back of the 6th rulebook and has the special rules for the Tau attack on an Imperial outpost. Myself and Alun would have 4500 points to Morgans 3000. Narratively we think Space Wolves with Eldar allies is a bit naughty, so instructed by Castellen Crowe Alun's Grey Knights and Imperial Guard (Crowe was the only GK bar a dreadnought!) and my Space Marines we would oust these traitors from a holy Imperial Cathedral!

Well... try.......

Morg set up and spread his units around. The more ground we had to cover to longer it would take to wipe him off the board. Varying degrees of success were available but we HAD to wipe him off the board in 7 turns. Or we would fail. We had only a little room to set up on but most of our units were either to deep strike or in Transports. Due to my bad luck on Monday I decided not to outflank Khan and some of my other units and go for a more direct approach and deploy at the start.

Deployment! Left flank was less threatening to us so we concentrated more on the right where Eldrad and his seer council were, plus a Wolflord on Thunderwolf and his flock of dogs were. Head on attack! 

So we would get the first turn unless Morgan rolled a 6. Six. Alun points out that Castellan Crowe would force Morgan to re-roll this thankfully, we need the first turn! What did he roll? SIX. Jammy bugger! Morg uses this to his advantage by advancing with some of his harder to kill units to act as a roadblock and slow us down. Edlrad moves forward as does a land raider, a large unit of blood claws, and the Wolf Lord. 

I move my Land Raider up and the termies disembark to assault Eldrad. Shotting isn't too effective, couple of warlocks die, but not a lot else. My Termies with Chaplain then roll poor for the assault and fail to get into contact with the Eldar, meaning I'd be assaulted next turn with Eldrads choice of psychic attacks to beleagre me!

Turn 2, and Morg's wolf scouts come into play. And promptly blow up Alun's Land Raider.  Khan attacks Edlrad after the survival of one Terminator and 5 bikers die leaving Khan and a terminator to fight on. They're both killed soon after. *sigh!*

The games room.

Disembarking my tactical squads I blow up a rhino that has zoomed forward... and find theres nothing in there. Bugger! I really should remember to find out whats inside a transport in case they're empty, silly Kev. This then leaves us to attack by the Wold Lord and his wolves, who can move through cover. Fast little puppies! 

I roill for reserves, with four units to bring on probability wise thats 3 units. How many come on? One. Land Speeder strikes down near Morg's Land Raider but fails to blow it up, although it does penetrate with the multimelta thus taking the heavy bolters and a hull point off the machine. My vindicator manages to kill some of Morgs big Bloow Claw unit, and Alun's imperial guard are able to whittle Eldrad down. 

My Termies finally make it onto the board and leave just this guy of the Long Fangs.  Legion of the Damned and Storm Talon fail their rolls to come on. Bad Luck continues! Around about Turn four and myself and Alun are now hopeing to make this loss look respectable, we've taken a beating and not had much luck, surely these are not Sons of Russ but Luna Wolves using some fiendish disguise?

My termies are taken out by a mass of shooting, which means my hope of using them and the Legion of the Damned to attack the rear of Morg's army over. The problem I had from Monday's game was not having enough attacking at the same time, and it happened again. Perhaps I shouldn't bring things on from reserve so much, or at least not use them too much as part of my plan if I can't rely on them? We shall see!

So the Storm Talon eventually arrives, along with the Damned and are able to do some damage but it looks like it may be too little too late.The storm talon takes a couple of grey hunters down, but the Damned are badly mauled by gunfire and only four remain. They make it into combat and last two turns but are eventually killed.

Castellan Crowe and the Wolf Lord meet after the Space Wolves warlord brutally takes out a few of our units, and then kills Crowe Crowe however manages to get one last attack in and kills the Wolf Lord, and thank the Emperor! He may have rampaged through the Imperial Guard lines with ease. A Grey Hunter squad succumbs to a lot of firepower, and it looks like me and Alun have an outside chance of pulling this off!

Eldrad is finally fallen thanks to the Guard storm troopers who pour fire unrelentlessly at the Farseer and his Warlocks. They've taken a tremendous amount of abuse and it was good to see them die. Sky Claws are also taken down after they dispatched a Callidus assasin, thanks in part to the Guard firepower and my Stormtalon's frag missiles, which killed 4 of their number. The vindicator taken down 5 grey hunters and theres only two left, but theres another squad that are still fairly strong, along with a unit of pathfinders with their 2+ coversave... ARGH!

The defenders take refuge in the cathedral.

So whats left of our forces line up to try and vanquish the enemy. The Imperial Guard manage to take out 5 scouts, but two still survive. This shooting comes from two Storm Tropper units, a GK dread, and two Chimeras. I try to take out the Space Wolves, but the cover saves prove too much. In the end, 2 Eldar are left and 5 Space Wolves survive. We fail.

We didn't fail at having an awesome game though.There were a lot of cool moments in this game, although my memory is failing to remember a few as I was concentrating on my army and taking pictures, but hopefully Morg and Alun will remind me and I can edit some more in. I remember a lot of bad dice rolls again, fingers crossed I'm due for some luck soon! I just remembered the vindicare that took 7 rounds of shooting before finally dying by the pathfinders! Its a really good mission to play though, and I recommend it to anyone. I still have some elements of my force I need to learn to use, Khan and the bikes, the Termies I've been using by deepstriking so I may try deploying these at the start, plus I realised I took no plasma weaponry, which would have helped enormously. 

Next time Space Wolf scum!!!! *shakes fist*

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!

Space Marines vs Eldar

Two games here, Both against Morgan and his Eldar. The first game was objectives, and the second was an almighty Planetstrike mission, with me defending and Morgan's Eldar attacking. So first of all, objectives! There were five objectives, and I was joined in this game by Bam and his Legion of the Damned who had 1500 points whereas I had 2000. This of course, gave Morgan 3500 points to play with. Ouch! The game itself was a few weeks ago, so some details are now lost to the inner depths of my memory. Perhaps an Inquisition probe would help.

Deployment I kept a lot of my forces off the table, with a view to bring them on later. Korsarro Khan, (who will be renamed so I can use him) was off so outflank was an option I made the most of. Bam lost his(mine really heh) Land Raider in the first turn when Morgan remembered about a falcon when his elbow nudged it, and promptly blew it up. Ouch!

 

The game continued as we were always on the backfoot, however Khan came on, wounded the avatar a couple of times, broke off, took out the death reapers and Eldar scouts, and then helped to rout a Dire Avenger unit that held an objective. This left one objective with anyone to have a chance of holding, I had 3 terminators and a tactical squad to try and take out Morgans other dire avenger squad to claim the last squad. The Eldar went first, focussing their attacks on my Termies. They wounded three times and I failed two basic armour saves! That was a nuisance as 3 termies or even two would have killed 2 at least, as it stood I killed one. The tactical squad then failed to do much damage and only killed 2, so I won the combat by one. One leadership test to keep the objective contested and make it a draw... and Morgan passed it. It would have been a huge steal as we barely had anything left, but we were a tad unlucky at the end. Oh well, amazing game and a hell of a laugh!

The second game was me defending a planetstrike vs the Eldar once again. In the first turn I lost my Land Raider (occurring theme) and a dreadnought, and one of the two Bastions. 

I continued to lose units to Morgans eldar, his avatar tore through another 2 dreadnoughts and he looked to be overwhelming my forces. I did not fancy my chances!

Then the tide turned! Khan came on and was able to munch through a couple of units, although again, the biker squad with him didn't last long. Banshees, fire dragons and dire avengers all dying before his wrath! My terminators and chaplain used an escape hatch to assault Eldrad and his large warlock squad, and managed to wipe them out after a few combats. My sternguard (legion of the damned mini's were used) defended the destroyed bastion by killing the other fire dragon squads and kept hold of the remains.

I managed to pinch the game and kill all the Eldar close enough to get the intact bastion to keep it from the xenos race. Score! Terminators with Thunderhammers are hard to kill, and I think I prefer to use these than lightening claws from now on, especially with a chaplain! Another fast and highly enjoyable game against Morgan, and another turnaround!