Batrep SM vs IMPGUARD.... Chairman vs Chairman!

I apologize for a lack of blogging lately, but Big Kev's been a busy lad! Heres a battle report from last weeks club night, and its a special one! My opponent this week is the incredibly awesome Byron who is the chairman for the Crow Valley Crusaders who are based in Cwmbran. We fancied a nice big battle so 3000pts were decided and army lists made! I had no idea what Byron was going to take, he'd mentioned a lot of armies so I decided to just take what I fanced and be versatile. He did however mention a Caestus Assault Ram.... He then went on to tell me the rules and I have to be honest, I was concerned!  The day of the battle came and I discovered an Imperial Guard force with Dark Angels allies. This was going to be brutal! Deployment below!

I set up first, eager to get a round of shooting in before the Guard could send a barrage my way. Sternguard dropped down toting combi meltas, and managed to blow up 2 Leman Russ tanks. First blood and some of the enemy firepower gone, relief! I managed to take out one Chimera but that was my first turn. Byron punised my sternguard and wiped them out with some veteran firepower who had disembarked from a nearby chimera. The Executioners spat death and 5 tactical marines (who were the only ones they could see) died, the ruins they sheltered in failing to save them Elsewhere however I was relatively unharmed.

My reserves failed to come on although I was able to do a little more damage the the IG tanks, although nothing blowing up I did cause some hullpoints here and there. I did manage to blow one chimera up however when the vindicator aimed its demolisher cannon at it, but out popped more veterans! Byrons reserves came on, a Valkyrie and... gulp... the Assault Ram! Bryon rammed my Land Raider for a ST10 hit and getting to roll 2 dice picking the highest... but luckily for me he rolled two fours... just a glance! The meltashot did fry a couple of my devastators though, ouch! 

Turn three sees my flyers come into play, the twin linked multi melta on my stormraven blowing up the Assault Ram... no wait, it missed! Even twinlinked I failed to hit the DA flyer, although the storm talon did roll three penetrations against the valkyie... and Bryon chose to evade and made all three Jink saves! At least it would be snap firing next turn!  Byron then got out his Deathwing, 10 strong with a Chaplain and assaulted my Land Raider wrecking it with their ThunderHammers. We had a problem arise here as we didn't know if the unit inside the LR was destroying or trapped, as it doesn't really specify in the rules. Byron had set up his termies to encircle the tank and covering all the doors, but because the vehicle hadn't exploded it didn't say if the unit inside were destroyed or not. We ruled that if the vehicle wasn't blown up they would be fine if they could escape the tank in a future turn. 

In my turn I managed to finish off the two executioners and whittle the termies down so I could escape the Leman Russ wreck in the following turn. 6 Termies killed by pretty much my entire army! Byron then charged headlong at my dreadnought with the Terminators and Chaplain and destroying it, following up into my tactical squad that was supporting it. After the Dread had killed one and overwatch another, only two were left and not many tanks. The Assault Ram hurtles into my dreadnought who had previously killed the veterans from the blown up chimera, blowing the dread up where it joins the wrecked vindicator, melta holes covering its chassis.

The tactical squad manage to hold on against the Chaplain and last Termie and cause two wounds, just about finishing off the Deathwing and leaving the chaplain on one wound. At this point with closing time approaching myself and Byron call it a game, I'd managed to pull off a win mainly due to Byron not having the best of luck when it came to dice rolls. Score wise I have no idea what it was, but Byron had little left whereas I still had a decent amount on the table. If Byrons dice had been a little kinder I can see the game being really close, probably me getting a loss! It was a great game though and Byron was a great opponent. Hopefully he'll want a rematch sometime and try to get his revenge!

In other wargaming news I do have a little side project as I step into the world of Fantasy... I shan't tell you what army yet but you may be able to hear some gutteral braying in the distance.... This weeks club game is against the Elf boy himseld Alun, 2.5k pts and I'm using ALL of my Tau... should be interesting as I think he's using the new Eldar codex. Report up in the week, but thats all for now!

Khorne to the Curb

Battle report time! I was up against Chaos again this week, but in the form of Chris' Khorne Bezerkers. Last time we played it was fairly close, and fielding the new Helldrake this promised to be a difficult affair! I did however have a couple of new tricks up my sleeve..

In my last game against Louis, I borrowed a drop pod off Bam, and it worked ok considering the scatter was well off. So I decided to treat myself to one... along with a second Storm Talon! Chris had bantered that his Helldrake would 'bend the Storm Talon over' so when I showed Chris the two of them I mentioned he'd be having a threesome. His look was priceless! Just had to make sure my dice would do me justice... Yoinks!

2000 points, Crusade, and Dawn of War deployment.

Looking at Chris' force, the Daemon Prince and Helldrake scared me. Daemon Princes can be taken down by mass bolter fire, but I'd planned on using rhino's so would either have to disembark to take care of it and then be left open to attack or counter it with my termies and captain. The Helldrake I could take care of, however I knew even in one turn of it being alive its Baleflamer could do a lot of damage. The Bezerkers themselves were Chris' weakness as these were his only two troops choices, so taking these out would stop him from capturing objectives. Kharn was in one of these units, but I'd taken plasma cannons to take infantry and rhinos out. My dreadnought in drop pod would disrupt part of the enemy battle line, and rhino's wait for the right time to surge forward and capture objectives late in the game. 

This was deployment, and on the first turn my Land Raider was immobilised. This meant the termies had to come out and look to assault asap. My Rhino on the left flank was blown up and I lost three marines from the explosion, so they took position up on the left most objective. The Daemon Prince came down but I couldn't ground him to charge, so had to try and charge some bezerkers whose rhino I had managed to wreck. Failed! I then got charged by the DP and Khorne Bezerkers, pain! I managed to take out half the bezerkers and took two wounds off the DP but lost my captain and termies. 

The helldrake came on, and as predicted, its baleflamer did pain. Wiped out my devastators with plasma cannons, and also a tactical member from a nearby squad. Just over 200 points killed in one fell swoop! Luckily, my Storm Talons came on (surprisingly reliably) and the first shots with an assault cannon took it down, almost blowing a Khorne Rhino up. Payback! I couldn't have this surviving too long, it would slaughter my troops! 

Wrecking both of Chris' rhinos meant exposing his troops, and the unit with Kharn was heavily fired at. I managed to Kharn out with a couple of Krak missiles by a Storm Talon and whittle the squad down over two turns. The other Bezerkers moved back to hold the objective, and after Chris had wrecked my Rhino I advanced carefully firing as much as I could.  The Vindicator took out 7 of the 9 marines, but the two survivors held fast as I tried to blow the Vindicator up. Going into hovering mode, the Storm Talon unleashed its firepower and tore the vindicator apart.

The game ended 10-2, but going into turn 5 Chris lead 5-4, and it was a hugely close game. Chris' lack of troops meant destroying two units stopped him from capturing objecives, whereas I took three tactical squads and broke one up into combat squads, giving me 4 scoring units which was well worth doing. The predator didn't do a whole lot, managed a couple of hull points on one Rhino, and took a couple of Bezerkers down. What it did best though was attract enemy heavy firepower, surviving 4 shots from a demolisher cannon and numurous lascannon shots from an obliterator. 85pts well worth it! The Storm Talons worked a treat, although I'll rarely use both again in this sized battle. The Termies and Captain stopped the Daemon Prince from running rampage, who was promptly gunned down by a disembarked Tactical Squad. I love boltguns! 

Great game in all, close til the end and Chris is really starting to get the hang of his army. He does need to be a little mroe aggressive, but thats something that will come with experience. 

Now, a quick word about projects! In less than two weeks we have the all dayer, and I've got about 6k of Evandalists I want to field but some work to do first. I've got two chaplains to build/convert, the biker and a running one, I've just got my ratling sniper to convert into a Squat to use as Telion (will explain more when I cover this) plus a limited edition Boarding Captain that I swapped the Games Day BA Captain for. I've got an old school jump pack I may use for him and the chaplain, and it looks amazing on him, so we shall see!

Keep tuned for more details, not just on my stuff but also some of the club members who I'm bugging to send WIP piccies of their mini's.

Too Stealthy for some and BatRep

So, an update at last! Been over a week, but a busy one. Not so much hobby wise, although partly so. As we're getting the club through the transition we've had a couple of setbacks, regarding GCN status. A little more time and money and we'll be applying soon, score!

But for now... Remember these guys?

What the... where did they go?

Ah! There they are, bloody stealth suits! Anyways... remember these? Well, I wanted to get another three for a full unit, and I had recently spoken to Jacob who sells some models at the club occasionally. I asked him what Tau stuff he had, and he mentioned a few stealth suits, and a hammerhead somewhere. The hammerhead failed to materialise unfortunately, but the stealthsuits were there.

A few he said! 9 will do nicely, and all for the princely sum of £15. He also gave me some drones and a bag of Tau weapons, score! So, in two hours while listening to the Thousand Sons audio book, I basecoated all 9 of em! Thats progress methinks. Still a lot more to do, and with all the lines the highlighting really takes a little while to get done, but its worth it. I also picked this guy and the other two Dark Vengeance bikers off Jacob...

But why you may ask? And you'd be right too. Am I doing some Ravenwing? Well... No. Never been a fan of Dark Angels, but this model... I see potential! I'm gonna have a crack at converting him into a Chaplain on a bike. I'm unsure about how to add a crozius, so will be looking at that and I was also given a helmet from the venerable dreadnought off Bam, along with the pictured Dreadnought Plasma Cannon. More score! Plenty of things to get cracking on with, I've already taken the iconography off that I don't want on the bike so its ready for chopping. Do I take the arm off and go for a talon-like powerfist? Or go with a custom crozius? Options...

Also I got my first game in a couple of weeks! Being Chairman at the club does mean that playing happens a little less, but its something I'm fine about. This week I play Alun, who visited back from university. I made an allround army, mainly of stuff I fancied taking. Rough list...

captain and 5 marines on bikes, 5 cc termies in land raider, 2 tactical squads, scout snipers, vindicator, predator, and my chaplain dread. Alun took 4-5 units of storm troopers, a unit of GK termies, Coteaz and another character, whose name eludes me. And to top it off, 3, yes THREE.... Vindicare assassins. Ouchen! 

Big Guns Never Tire and Hammer and Anvil!

Against a lot of infantry, my predator would not do an awful lot, as it was equipped with lascannons. It was to hold back and add fire against a unit I was targetting while claiming an objective. Bikes, TS, and dread on the right, LR and TS on the left, then Vindicator and SSnipers in a central role. Alun stole the first turn, and almost wiped out the snipers and telion. Assassin took out the vindicator, but luckily my LR survived... for now! All of his units had storm bolters, but did little as most were out of range, missed, or failed to wound. Predator fired at the termies, 3 hits, NO wounds. Yes, 3 ones. ARGH! However, the dreads plasma cannon scattered and went from hitting one to 4. 3 dead GK termies! 

 

So may land raider and predator are blown up, scouts finally wiped out, but I carry on looking to claim objectives. Termies deepstrike down behind the enemy, and do damage to a unit holding an objective in aluns deployment zone. Bikes charge forward into the termies but do little damage, and are all butchered after two turns. Not good, but I do like using them! Assault termies wipe out a character and a unit. then move centrally to threaten objectives. Plasma cannons take their toll on Aluns infantry, although his assassins are hard to wound. 

We went all the way to seven turns, and it was really close. While I killed a lot of infantry, Aluns Assassins had blown up two of my heavy support vehicles (which give bonus points in this objective), had first blood and warlord. I, had one objective, and killed his warlord. As we went into the last turn I needed to deny him an objective and capture it myself to win. And.... it didn't happen. His last couple of terminators managed to survive and hold the objective while I couldn't get him off. So close! Final points were 5-7 to Alun, a really good game fair play! Good to see him and his elvish looks back at the club, although hopefully he wont be back too soon... HA! 

We've got our next all dayer confirmed too, November 11th! If you'd like to come let me know in the comments or take a look at the Tredegar Reavers website, as we'll post news when we know more. 

Adios for now, hopefully 9 finished stealth suits by the weeks end, which will make two full squads of 6! Now I just need path finders for some markerlight goodness!

Monday Night Gaming

And here we are once again, the day after a great battle has been fought. 

This week I had a 2500 point game versus Morgan and his Space Wolves, an army I hadn't yet fought. The Emporers Will was the missions, and deployment was Hammer and Anvil. We set terrain up previously and one wide edge was fairly empty... so when deployment was rolled I hoped to win. I didn't. All I had in my zone was two bastions (we used them as buildings but nothing more) and a hill. This could hurt! Morgan's zone was a lot more occupied, and would be hard to mount an attack. I deployed with most of my force held back. Taking Khorsarro Khan meant I could outflank, and by hell I'd need it with this deployment!

Morgan advanced and took a few shots, but killed nothing. I stayed where I was, and killed nothing. 

Turn one over! Turn two saw Morg bring on a unit of blood claws, a wolf guard in termie armour and a wolf priest in an outflank move, along with a unit of wolf scouts right next to the bastion I'd be using as my objective. This was nasty!

And nasty it proved to be. The tactical squad I had there killed a few wolf scouts but were torn apart by the big blood claw unit,  and the scouts were able to blow up the bastion, the 3 devastators left inside, and four of their own troops in the resulting blast. Myself and Morg found this to be hugely entertaining, as we'd only just discovered the seperate damage chart for buildings. Up it went taking loads with it, amazing!

Elsewhere my forces came on, but one tactical squad, Khan and the Storm Talon didn't show up. Land Raider with termies and Chaplain came on at Morgans rear, as did some regular Termies. The Legion of the Damned came on in front of Morgans Objective, which meant he had to choose between these and my termies which unit he attacked with his Wolf Lord. The Damned it was! There were too many attacks for the Damned to contain and were all brought to bay after 3 combat rounds. The Termies were able to kill the Eldar allies Morgan had taken, pathfinders and farseer and stayed on the objective. Morg then counterattacking brought his assault troops jumping over, who unleashed bolt pistols. I took 4 wounds, and failed THREE SAVES!!! Thats right, 3 ones showed up and I cried. This left one termie left and ten assault troops! Needless to say he died.

Khan, the tactical squad and the storm talon took until turn 4 to arrive, and it looked like it may be too late. My other termies were unable to have much affect on Morgs objective, but I threw the tactical squad up there to try and contest should the game end on turn 5. The Storm Talon and other devastator squad fired at the blood claws and were able to wipe them out after two rounds of shooting leaving Khan and his bikers to assault the wolf scouts and try to get the 6" or so they needed to claim my objective. If they did this, and the game ended, I'd have sneaked a win even though I'd lost much of my force. Morg had 2 points, first kill, and for having units in my deployment zone, where I only had one for having my units in Morg's zone. If I could claim the objective, I'd get a win. Khan attacked first, 4 dice and all I needed to roll were 3's. A one, and two two's sucked. But I did hit once. Anything but a one.... One. ARGH!!! C'mon bikers, do me proud. They killed one biker. The scout passed his leadership test and my bikers had failed miserably even though the odds were easily in their favour. Damn you dice gods!!!

Just to rub salt in my wounds, the game ended on turn 5. 2-1 to Morgan, a game that points wise, doesn't show just how much I lost! Morg still had half an army intact, whereas I had lost a lot of troops. I'm incredibly happy that I managed to get myself into a position to almost pull off a win however, as I really shouldn't have had a chance! Kudos to Morgan though, he played well. Very entertaining game and another loss in 6th edition, but I still think its much better than 5th. Just wanna get more games played!

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=]