The Damned Codex?

Tonights proving to be fruitful for us 40k fans... The Imperial Knight and now a Legion of the Damned Codex? I'm very excited about this! Just knowing more about them is awesome, but if theres more options in the too? *dribbles*

Legion Damned again, and Batrep!

Welcome back for another batrep and update! This weeks battle report had me and Bam both using marines, my Evandalists and Bams Silver Skulls, versus Ryans Space Wolves and Aluns Eldar. 1k each player and capture the Relic!

We won deployment and first turn and took full advantage. Bams Chapter Master got outflank, and so went into reserve along with the razorback he and his honourguard were in. My Librarian's trait meant if he'd get a bonus point for every enemy warlord killed in a challange. We'll see how that went haha. 

First turn, the librarian comes down with five sternguard in a drop pod. Not where I wanted, but I did then see a possibly chance of first blood and even warlord. Aluns dire avengers and farseer were right at the back of his deployment zone, and I managed to kill four or five and force a morale check. Much to my surprise and Aluns dismay, they ran straight off the board! 2 kill points in one bold move, first blood and warlord! Elsewhere not much happened apart from killing a few of Ryans plasma cannon toting long fangs. They still hurt us though! 

They, in alliance with Aluns dark reapers took out one of Bams combat squads and two of my missile launcher devs. Bams army was hit badly and he lost more troops, but he still had 2 dreads and a combat squad left and his warlord off the table. Ryan than charged into me with his space wolf terminators. Who did I spy in there but Ragnar Blackmane. Do I challange and try to get the bonus point?

You damn right! Ragnar causes a wound, but I'm unable to wound him back. My sternguard are wiped out and no casualties for ryan, luckily the libby stays in the fight. Next turn, Bams Chapter Master comes into play, where the razorback gets damaged but they disembark and are charged by some howling banshees. Who are not eqiupped to take out armour save 2+! They're butchered, and Bam moves into the neaby building to do more killing. Meanwhile, ragnar strikes at my librarian, but I save all wounds. I hit back twice, wounding once. Ragnar takes his armour save, and fails! I then make a leadership test, pass, and the Space Wolf leader is dead! 2 bonus points for me! This puts is in a good position, it'd be hard to lose but draw could still be on the cards.

Bams chapter master and honour guard kill some grey hunters and rangers in the next couple of turns, demolishing their left flank. Then a fire prism shows up and kills Bams unit, ouch! My vindicator kills all but one grey hunter in the centre, limiting the troops units they have to capture the objective hopefully helping us win. 

Little else happens, I make 5 4+ saves with three scouts to keep them on the relic (even though they die next turn haha) and Alun failed another LD10 morale check thanks to some well placed frag missiles.

At the end noone has the objective but we win 4-2, as both of our warlords died. A cracking game though, Bam showed he was a little rusty as he hasn't played for a while but still did well considering how shot up he got. Ryan is still learning 6th edition but he too did well. All in all a good game!

Onwards! For the upcoming Apocalypse game, I'd fancied the Legion of the Damned Apocalypse formation. Didn't think I'd afford to get any though, so imagine my surprise when a guy called Alex turns up at our club with some stuff for sale, among them 5 damned legionaires! I get them for a great price, then the next day I look on ebay and am able to get another 5 saving a few bucks off the normal price, all in metal too matching my other squad! So today, I built them all. Then I decided to undercoat them too.

And then I painted them! All done in just one day, probably about 5 hours work give or take a little. So another unit of the Damned and I'm now able to take them as a formation, awesome! Can't wait to see all twenty drop in and cause havoc!

So thats all for now, I've got a course to go on for a few days so I doubt I'll get much done, but this weekend we'll have our first apocalypse game and a practice for the biggy in september!

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!

The Dice Hurt Me.

Warning:

If your stomach is easily churned at the mention of bad dice rolling, please do not continue reading. This may cause a rift in reality and the warp inside threaten to pull you in. If you are used to such stories, like myself, read on.

Sorry about the amateur dramatics, but I've happened upon some seriously bad dice again! It was hilarious though. Myself and Louis played a 2k game in a Capture the Relic battle, Hammer and Anvil deployment. Louis was looking to christen the Chaos Codex properly, and I wanted to foil his plans! Looking at Louis'' list, I was pleased to see so many cultists as I'd taken a dreadnought with two heavy flamers to take these out. I also took Vulkan, which made both the heavy flamers twin linked. A Landspeeder with two twin linked multi meltas to deep strike next to the dread and its drop pod(which had a locator beacon) would help make these units arrive safely and in the thick of action. At least that was the plan! I also took 5 termies to support these in a forward role while my other unit of termies in a landraider followed up with a tactical squad following behind to capture the relic. The large unit of termies Louis had and the obliterators scared me, as did the forgefiend and maulerfiend (Louis wanted to try both these out, and seeing as one looked so lovely I let him proxy a flying base as the other).

So the first turn, drop pod comes on and scatters away from the chaos army. First mistake, should have aimed for a cultist squad and let it scatter to the outside of it. I then moved up the Raider and the tactical squad following my plan, while the other squads shot.I managed to kill a few cultists, who I found out were actually zombies due to Typhus being used (Huron Blackheart model) so they had feel no pain, which made them a little more resilient. The heavy flamers of the dread managed to singe a few more but was nowhere near as many as I would have loved to see burning. I think I managed a glancing hit on both the fiends, but no pens.

Louis also moved his force foward, then blew my dreadnought up with his obliterators. My drop pod survived, and I was able to bring in the land speeder and termies. The storm talon failed to show up even though my warlord trait allowed me to roll reserves... Bugger! The Land speeder landed next to the maulerfiend and the termies just behind. Raider and Tactial squad moved up again. At this point I wish I'd been more aggressive with the land raider, but ah well. The land speeder hit with both shots (reroll needed for one) and then only glanced the maulfiend. This meant the landspeeder would die without really doing anything... oh well! I shot the termies at the zombies in front of them... with only 3 storm bolter and 2 assault cannon shots I think I killed 2... not good enough! 

As you can now see, Louis wiped these out in his turn. No damaged cause by either and they die! They did soak up a lot of the enemy firepower however so I then advanced and made a bit of a gamble...

If the land raider could survive or at least take all of Louis' firepower, and have Vulkan and the Thunder Hammer termies survive they would be in a good strong position to take on anything, however only one terminator survived the tide of multi meltas, ectoplasma shots(although the forge fiend finished itself off by overheating ha) and everything else Louis could muster. Not my day! The Storm Talon showed up and missed with two frag missiles and killed 2 cultists with its assault cannons, and the other 2 tactical squads did kill a few more trying to prevent the capture of the relic by than chaos hands. My tactical squad in the centre took on 2 assaults by the chaos, one squad of chaos marines and then by a chaos lord and terminators, and survived more than one round of combat! BARELY!!! 

This is how the table looked at the end of the game. I lost 6-0, and swore at my dice more than I'd care to admit! The maulerfiend tore a building up at the end and killed four marines inside through the ensuing rubble which was a great thing to watch, and possibly the highlight of the game. It was a good laugh fair play, I just wish my dice would behave! Next time you chaos scum, NEXT TIME!!!! 

Also last night Huw set up his pirates game which is starting to look really special, and I think all the members at the club are feeling quite honoured to have Huw bring it and let us try. I'm yet to have a go, but hoping to in a few weeks.

I've left this pictures large so you can zoom in and see the details, as all of these are scratchbuilt by Huw, although one of the ships may be Mikes.

 

I believe Huw is hoping to put a demonstration game on at a wargaming convention in Penarth, so we're hoping to be in attendence for that, myself armed with my camera! 

The all dayer approaches fast too, and I've been getting some painting done. I've now got four tactical squads based, and in varying degrees of painted-ness. I managed to get another five asaault squad members basevoated up taking me upto 15, with another five to build. I also picked up another tactical squad, possibly as a fifth TS or to bulk out my devastator squad to 10 men and have a few guys left over, maybe as a command squad. Tau wise I've got another Hammerhead and a Devilfish after getting a couple of bargains so I'll try to crack on with those too! 

Day of 40K.

Thats right, a day. we opened the doors at 10am, and were able to get started by mid-day. We thought about this for a wee while, so I was able to organise to have the hall we play in for a full day for a pretty good price. Let the onslaught proceed! 

We had two teams, Imperial, and non Imperial. On the Imperial side was Morgan and his Space Wolves, Aaron and his Blood Angels, Jamie with his Grey Knights, and myself with my Evdandalists and new allies the Tau. Chaos gods had spoken into the minds of Louis, Mike and Owain, Bam fielded his Legion of the Damned army with the evil ones, and Alun and his Necrons also stood to invade the Emperors world.

First of all we played two games. Owain, Mike and Louis vs Morgan and Aaron, whereas myself and Jamie took on Bam and Alun.

The Imperium lost both opening games, not a good start! We'd decided also to make a note of player points, and after the first game Bam had taken the lead and I was not far behind. Not bad considering a loss! Jamie's Grey Knights failed to make much impact and lack of numbers proved decisive. I still had some troops left and had my Termies killed Bams Captain and Dread or I could have finished off his tactical squad holding a vital objective, I could have stolen the game. Moral victory, not just for that but my Predator gained revenge against Aluns Doomsday Ark by blowing it out of the sky, YES! 

Onto the next round, and to make it interesting we all had to nominate who was playing on what table. We had three, so that meant the Chaos team would have two duos and a single, whereas we had one tandem and two single players. After thinking about how they may plan their attack, I calculated that Owain and Mike would play together, Louis and bam would tema up, and Alun would be on his lonesome. And I was right. I took on Owain and Mike, Aaron and Jamie took on Louis and Bam, and Morgan and Alun continued their storied rivalry.

I won deployment and set up knowing that a good opening round of shooting would be a great start and put the Chaos side on the back foot. As Mike and Owain deployment Bam and Louis cheered as they stole the initiative. Unlucky! Owain rolled to steal it in our game... and promptly rolled a six. No! I'd set up quite aggressively too, with a couple of units fairly open.

 The first turn saw my Hammerhead nearly being destroyed by a Defiler, luckily I made the cover save. Mikes Dread was in range with its multimelta, hit, penetrated and then blew it up. That was painful! My Hammerhead failed to hit anything all game until the final turn, despite only needing to roll 3+. It was fianlly able to kill Owains Slaanesh dreadnought and deny him a point for having a unit in my deployment zone. My Land Raider was able to destroy the Defiler and deliver my Captain and Termies onto Mikes objective, where my Warlord roll to make my Captain a scoring unit would prove vital. The Stealth team were able to cause some pain to Owains troops, slowly whittling down his units. My Storm Talon killed Lucious the (not so) Eternal with a couple of Krak Missile shots and also managed to kill more of Owains squad to deny them another objective, although he was able to get his other unit on there. After the first turn I felt like I was going to lose, but managed to wrest control and get a vital win. Elsewhere, Aaron and Jamie were pounded, losing to the vile duo of Bam and Louis. Morgan and Alun fought out a stalemate, each side unable to capture the relic. Final game!

This was on a bigger board, 8x4. 3x3 and 2k points each. Me, Jamie and Morgan versus Louis, Alun and Bam. Vitaly we got the first turn, although Night Fighting was in effect.

 

Due to time constraints, we were only able to get in three turns each, and that was 3 hours of game time! We had played for 12 hours, and every hour was packed with fun. This was still plenty of time for plenty of blood to be shed. Jamie managed to get himself some better luck in this game and got us our first kill points. First Blood by taking out the Doomsday Ark, great start to the game! My vindicator survived 4 glances by getting a 6+ cover save due to nightfighting by rolling two sixes, cue me fist pumping. Morgans drop pod troops and blood claws were embroiled in long combats that swung either way, although Logan Grimnar killed himself after mind control scarabs infiltrated the old mans mind and made him smack his own head. Should have retired! My storm talon killed bams predator and a necron flyer, I also took out a big necron warrior squad and chaos squad with my captain and termies, and my firewarriors took out a last raptor and finished off a couple of terminators that were Fabius Biles bodyguard. We also lost a lot of units, 2 Land Raiders, my Hammerhead, and several squads all died in the name of the Emperor. However, it was not in vain! After the third turn we had more victory points, although overall from the other games we were down by several. After much totalling up we had discovered that I had the most points of any player, YES! Not sure how but it was nice to see that I've got back to winning ways, especially against such good opposition. 

I know there are many other tales of heroism and luck, sneakyness and straight out jamminess, but my memory barely remembers my own stories let alone other peoples. I'm very happy with how my Tau have integrated with my Space Marines and look forward to perhaps one day fielding and all Tau force. 

Onwards!

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!

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!

6th Underway!

And here we are. 6th edition is in full swing, FAQ's granted by the Emperor, and much tenderness for those d6's to give us the rolls we desire. And never get. At Tredegar Wargames Club we decided to celebrate by playing a series of games in a row, so everyone could see the rules being played and take it all in. I think it worked too. The general consensus is that they're a much better ruleset, the added depth a god-send and allies are allowing people to mix up their army lists.

Of course, I got to play too. I tried a small game with my nephew just to go through the basics so I could see some changes and my Nephew could see how it all worked. He beat me. Ha.Onto the main ame we played at the club, it was me and Josh, my nephew, against the old adversaries Bam and Jason. We used my Space Marine Evandalists, Bam used his Legion of the Damned, and Jase wheeled out the Eldar.

We played the Big Guns Never Tire mission which meant Heavy Support could capture objectives, of which there were three. A few things were forgot in this game, night fighting, gettinga 6+ save or Dispel against Psykers, which would have been useful going against a Farseer, and the way in which Fleet works. I forgot that you can no longer run and charge in the same turn, which Jase did and that helped them to win the game. But a fun game no doubt! Hull Points make so much more sense now, and I like how the missions work .

I also played another game against Bam, and again I lost. We did remember night fighting though! Another few things we forgot in this game too, I outflanked my chaplain and his 10 man assault squad, which allowed me to blow up Bams predator. In Bams turn, his 5 vanguard and captain assaulted my jump pack unit out of their razorback, which isn't allowed anymore. This was huge as my guys were wiped out, but it did prove to make the game more interesting! It was a really close game and I couldnt get enough wounds on bams squad that were contesting my objective to shift them. Ho hum!

Finally one of my Legion of the Damned... had a quick go at some atmospheric lighting and it doesn't look too bad... although it does show how bad my painting is!