No Missions, no Strategy cards, no upgrades and no skills - just Titans and Legio formations
Oliver took Axiom formation with:
Warlord Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher and two Volcano Cannons
Reaver Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher, Volcano Cannon and Lasblaster
Reaver Titan with Carapace Twin Turbo Laser, Gatling Blaster and Melta Cannon
Warhound with Vulcan Mega-bolter and Twin Turbo Laser
Warhound with Plasma Gun and Twin Turbo Laser
My force took the Corsair formation with:
Warlord Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher and Sunfury Plasma Cannon and Volcano Cannon
Warlord Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher and Sunfury Plasma Cannon and Volcano Cannon
Reaver Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher and LasBlaster and Volcano Cannon
Reaver Titan with Carapace Apocalypse Launcher and LasBlaster and Volcano Cannon
Battle field for the battle - plenty of blocking terrain with a number of fire lanes, some movement would be required.
Battle begins:
Gryphonicus Warhounds full stride down the table field to outflank the Tritonis Reaver
Meanwhile a Tritonis full strides on the opposite flank, elsewhere Titans line up to exchange fire - got to love the look of the 'Beatle Back Warlord'
First casualty of the game a Gryphonicus Reaver is targeted by my Warlord stripping off it's shields, then a Tritonis Reaver hit the Reaver with its Volcano cannon hitting the legs for 2 critical hits, I then targeted the Lasblaster at the legs and caused two more critical hits - destroying the Gryphonicus Reaver
The Gryphonicus Wahounds chase after the Reaver which using it's Corsair ability walks sideways into cover
As the battle continues, the Reaver closes the range to use it's Melta Cannon, managing to take down the shields of the lead Warlord Titan and caused a number of hits on it's leg
In the next turn the Reaver was targeted by both the Tritonis Warlords - in a spectacular roll of dice Oliver manages to roll five '1's for his shield saves!!
Now with no protection the Volcano cannon hit it's legs for critical damage then the Sunfury Plasma fires on maximal fire targeting the leg resulting in it's destruction
At this point we had played out all the turns - victory to the Legio Tritonis though both Reaver Titans where without shields and running 'Red' on the Reactors with mounting damage on their body area.
Lots of learnings for Oliver - next time we will include missions as the 'training' continues.
]]>
Busy town square
Heated debate on the veranda, while the Hag the gate
Business as usual outside the Tavern
Nice evening as mercenaries view the streets
No one expects the Witch Hunters
Are you interested in some thing for the weekend?
King Pin discusses the plan with his henchmen
Down in the market square, music and entertainment
While Poetry from above, while some scheming is a foot
One Day event over three games using first three missions from the Martian Civil War campaign book.
Game 1 - The Crucible of War : Hammer and Anvil
Game 2 - The Heart of Battle : Dawn of War
Game 3 - Sudden Strike : Search and Destroy
Tables layouts
Game 1 - Word Bearers
First game - three objectives along the centre line, quite an imposing line up by the Word Bearers.
I deploy four Despoiler Squads on two of the objectives while also attacking from the rear
The Inceptor reaction phase the Word Bearers Lascannon Squad targets the Kharybdis destroying it, which manages to kill 7 of the Rampager squad as I roll very badly for my armour saves.
In response Angron charges the Land Raider destroying it, revealing Erebus and his companions.
Unfortunately the game got very busy with death and destruction everywhere - so I failed to take any photo's till the end - where the Word Bearers were in the lead, a desperate last chance charge by Angron would enable me to draw the game - 10" charge needed...unfortunately I only got 9" and failed, as it was the Overwatch shooting from the Word Bearer squad managed to kill Angron as I again roll badly on my 2+ armour save!
Win for the Word Bearers
Game 2 - Blood Angels
Just one objective on the table in the center, the Blood Angel player only had three units on table as he was doing the Day of Revelations Rite of War, so just a Scorpius, Leviathan and a Scout Squad on table
So on my turn I dropped in the Drop Pod Assault, Kharybdis landed on target, so I surrounded the Scouts (and objective) with my drop pods, while Kharn and his Rampagers got ready to charge the Scouts.
One of my Leviathans disembarked within 12" of the Scorpius
While Angron and another Leviathan deployed near the Blood Angel Leviathan
My shooting failed to destroy the Scorpius even though I managed 2 penetrating hits (rolled 1's for damage), while Angron ripped open the Leviathan and Kharn cut his way through the Scouts.
So, not a first turn win, the Blood Angels arrived but could not target the Objective and had to fight their way through my cordon of Despoilers and Drop Pods.
We only got as far as end of Turn 2 before time was called, the Blood Angel player had managed to score 3pts for holding the objective in his first turn, while I had held it for the 2nd turn but I had scored a kill in the 1st turn and 1st Round plus had more surviving units at the end of the game
Win for the World Eaters.
Game 3 - Dark Mechanicum
Wow, I was glad to face the Mechanicum as I'm building a force at present, good to see how they play.
Excited to see how I could deal with the Brass Scorpion!!
The Mechanicum get the first turn and advance their units to take as many objectives as possible (though can not score them on turn 1)
The World Eaters deploy to the battlefield, dropping in front and behind the Mechanicum lines.
Again the Kharybdis is also targeted by the Interceptor reaction - destroying it and actually killing more of the Mechanicum than World Eatrers.
Angron deploys 1" away from the Brass Scorpion, charges and obliterates the monstrous creature causing an explosion 30" wide!!
After that, plenty of destruction from Angron as he goes the rampage through every Robot he could find, while the Despoilers pile into the Thallax troops who being Stubborn on Ld 7 stayed to the last model under the weight of frenzied Marines - Below one Thallax survived till end of Turn 4 but finally died.
End of game - just One Thallax remains on the table surrounded by World Eaters.
Win to the World Eaters
Result - Second place with First place taken by the Word Bearer player
Great way to get the World Eaters on the table, Angron is a beast, does take a long time to do the drop pod deployment but it speeds up very quickly with all the death and destruction.
Like the way the new missions play as they are focused on taking Objectives than just killing units, plus only lasting 4 turns requires you to engage from the start than sitting back and shooting.
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Army List – Worldeaters
450pts LoW – Angron
175pts HQ1 – Kharn The Bloody
130pts HQ2 – Legion Centurion, Primus Medicae, Power Axe, Melta Bombs
245pts Elite1 – Rampager Squad (10)
155pts Troop1 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
155pts Troop2 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
155pts Troop3 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
155pts Troop4 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
155pts Troop5 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
155pts Troop6 – Legion Despoiler Squad (10), Drop Pod, Artificer Armour, Melta Bomb
115pts Fast 1 – Legion Dreadclaw Drop Pod
115pts Fast 2 – Legion Dreadclaw Drop Pod
290pts Heavy1 – Legion Leviathan Dreadnought Talon (1), Phosphex discharger
290pts Heavy2 – Legion Leviathan Dreadnought Talon (1), Phosphex discharger
235pts Heavy3 – Legion Kharybdis Assault Claw
===
2,975pts
Battle field was 'Dawn of War' playing 'Strike and Fade' Mission from 'The Siege of Cthonia' campaign book
In this mission there is only One Objective placed in the centre of the table and scattered D6+6" in random location.
This objective can be scored in each players turn by a scoring unit for Victory Points equal to the current turn, if scored it is then scattered D6+2" to a new location and so on.
There are also Secondary Objectives:
- Slay the Warlord (1pt +1pt if Warlord is a Primarch)
- Giant Killer (2pts for a Super-heavy, Knight or Titan)
- Last Man Standing (1pt to player with most units surviving at end)
- Break Their Ranks (1pt if enemy unit removed in Active players First turn, +1pt if it was an Elite choice)
- First Strike (1pt if an enemy unit is removed in the First Game Turn, +1 if it was an Elite or HQ choice)
Game lasts for Four Turns
I win the Initiative and decide to be second player - Oliver takes the side nearest to the objective.
Ultramarine deployment - from left to right - Predator Tank, Support Squad (10) with Volkite Culverins plus Centurion Master of Signals, Contemptor Dreadnought, Veteran Marine Squad (10) with Rhino Transport, Archeron Knight Lancer, Veteran Marine Squad (10) with Land Raider Proteus, Fulmentarus Terminator Squad (5), Leviathan Dreadnought, Tartarus Terminator Squad (10) with Legion Apothecary and Terminator Praetor.
From the left side
Turn 1 Ultramarines - Oliver advances and takes the Objective for 1 VP - Objective moves to the left in between the towers.
Turn 1 Worldeaters - Drop pod assault starts, Kharybdis places first as close to the Objective as possible and does not scatter, I then roll for Disorder and roll a '2' - all good, the rest of Pods and Dreadclaw's deploy, Heat Blast does no damage.
Then all the troops and Leviathan's deploy.
The Ultramarines intercept Kharn and the Rampagers using the Fulmentarus Terminator Plasma Missiles killing 2 Rampagers and causing 1 wound on Kharn.
Leviathan takes advantage of dropping behind the Knight
The other Leviathan appears behind the Ultramarine Leviathan
Lots of squads of Despoilers deploy out of their Drop Pods
Angron disembarks from the Kharybdis and walks round the Tower - ready to assault the Praetor and Terminators
Bit of a gap in photos as in the assault phase - all hell breaks out....
Angron challenges the Praetor, Terminator Sergeant and the Apothecary causing 9 Murderous Strike wounds killing all three characters, the Terminators cause 2 wounds on Angron and lose by 7 and are run down.
Meanwhile, Kharn and the Rampager Squad disorder charge the Fulmentarus Terminators and Veteran Marines, killing 3 Terminators and 7 Veterans, winning the fight but the Ultramarines manage to out-run Kharn (rolled a '1' to their '6')
I score 'Slay the Warlord' + 'Break their Ranks' (with the Terminators) + 'First Strike' (for Terminators & Praetor) +3 VP
As I did not take the Objective this turn - it does not move.
Turn 2 Ultramarines - Knight charges the remaining Rampagers as destroys them, Support Marines wipe out a full squad of Despoilers with their Volkites.
Angron is targeted by the Ultramarine Leviathan causing 3 wounds, Angron uses the Worldeater special reaction and charges the Leviathan and destroys it easily.
Turn 2 Worldeaters - Angron moves to wards the Land Raider and charges it and destroys it.
While Kharn takes out the remaining Veteran Marine.
One of the Despoiler Squads takes the Objective for 2VP, it scatters 5" further into the mass of Despoiler Squads - no way the Ultramarines can take it back now.
Note: the Kharybdis and Dreadclaws all take off to make space for the Despoiler Squads to close on the remaining Ultramarines.
So many Despoiler Squads with a lack of opponents to charge!
Worldeater Leviathan charges the Ultramarine Contemptor - ends in mutual destruction due to so many 'Brutal' hits.
Forgot to take any photos of Turns 3 & 4 - main events
Knight charges Angron but GoreFather & Gorechid cut straight through the Knight with ease.
Despoiler Squads pick up the Objective two more times for +3 & +4 VP
Final result 15 v 1 points to the Worldeaters.
Interesting mission, the increasing VP for the objective can really escalate and really puts the focus on having enough Scoring Units which the Worldeaters have maxed out with 6 x Despoiler Squads, while Angron \ Kharn \ Rampagers \ Leviathans do all the heavy lifting.
Looking forward to taking this force to TTR tournament :)
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So many miniatures that I've painted up and only shared in Facebook/Messenger/WhatsApp.
About time I put something on the Blog.
Over a year ago, I signed up for a Kickstarter from a company called Kings Games for a range called 'Dunkeldorf'
Consisting of fantasy towns folk Dunkeldorf – 28mm Fantasy Townsfolk Miniatures
Looked interesting, so I signed up for a batch of 10 miniatures.
Lovely sculpts - so much detail, no flash or mould lines - I set to painting them up
Ghartek "Geldmann" the Imperial Banker
Erna Hilgendorf the Astronomer
I enjoyed painting these up so much - did take a while to complete these, even with using GW Contrast and Army Painter Speed Paints, as I did these over a white spray undercoat than my current go-to of Slap Chop (Black undercoat and Grey\White dry brush)
Then a while later Kings Games came out with another Kickstarter 'The House of Serpents' which won't deliver till later this year. It had spiked my interest in doing some more of their models, so I purchased a few to paint up while I await on delivery of the House of Serpents.
Got the models, undercoated and Slap Chopped them - then got side tracked painting up my 3000pts Horus Heresy Worldeater Space Marines army (will have to do another blog on that one) and an Old World Warhammer 2000pts Night Goblin Army (another blog I think).
Finally got back to doing the Dunkeldorf models last month and finished the first batch of 18 miniatures 2 weeks ago (start of August 2024)
These models went through a lot more stages of painting than I previously did:
- Black Undercoat
- Grey dry brush highlight
- White dry brush highlight
- Base coat colours using mixture of GW Contrast, Army Painter Speed paints, Green World Stuff Dipping Inks
- Some shading with Adrax Earth Shade or Nuln Oil
- Couple of coats of Satin Varnish
- Coating of Villainy Ink -Goon's Grime followed by a reductive removal with cotton buds (enamel paints whereas previous paints were Acrylic)
- Couple of coats of Matt Varnish
- Finally mount on Cobblestone bases
Marik "The Shank"
Gaerhart Scheeman the Gong Farmer
Next, just finished this last week while on holiday break - another 17 miniatures completed.
Sorry lighting not so good as I tried doing it upstairs than in the living room.
Erhardt Reichenbach the Nobleman
Florian the Courtesan
Gunther Hinkel, Barber-Surgeon
No Idea?
If you are still with me - have another 18 Miniatures on the painting table to complete, they might get bumped back a month as I have some other projects in progress.
Cheers.
]]>I added to the army with the new plastic box set and vehicles plus models from our players streamlining their collections.
Had started painting a few years before Covid but was not happy with my efforts nor with the new edition of WH40K rules.
Though there was a couple of squads of Battle Sisters that I had commissioned a friend of mine to paint up in the style of the Order of the Bloody Rose.
Decided that it was a shame the army was not complete and table top ready, so asked my friend if he was interested in a large commission job to paint the rest of the army to the same level.
Took a good few months - finally got the models back and so decided to take some photos of them (still struggling to get the correct lighting when using the Digital camera, not so bad with my latest phone).
Adeptus Sororistas Showcase
Order of the Bloody Rose
Full collection of the Adeptus Sororitas
The Armour - Immolators and Exorcist Tanks
The Characters - 2 Canoness, Repentia Superior, Dialogus, Hospitaller and Imagifier
To be finished - Celestine and two Geminae Superia
Exorcists
Immolators
Repressors
Retributor Squads
Battle Sister Squads
Celestian Squad
More Battle Sisters
Sisters Repentia
Canoness
Dialogus
Simulacrum Imperialis
Imagifier
Hospitaller
Cherubs
Seraphim Squad
Finally have a lot of miniatures painted to show-off.
Firstly, we started a Necromunda Campaign at our local store, I decided to use my Slave Ogryn gang that I painted up last year but never got to use. The Gang has done very well winning more than I loses. We are coming up to a season break before we head out into the Ash Wastes.
Here are some photos of the gang and it's latest vehicle purchase - A Chronos Ironcrawler transport
Next I picked up a new Malifaux crew Jedza the Seeker and the Alternative Lady Justice crew 'Dia De Los Muertos'
Dia de los Muertos Crew painted
Jedza Crew
Finally - picked up earlier this year a special deal on Stargrave miniatures, decided to paint a few which then turned into a full blown painting frenzy as I got into my 'Slap Chop' mojo (love this method, gives models a grim dark feel)
If you got this far down the Blog then 'Thank You' for viewing - I hope you enjoyed the photos.
Will hopefully post more soon...
I arranged for my Mum and Daughter a visit to the London Science Museum which was showing a Sci-Fi Exhibition.
Time to get my Geek On...
In the main building -greeted by a Dalek
Before you enter - not sure if there is a movie reference here?
Name the movie?
Yep - The Fifth Element, love that film
Then a number of Cargo containers with interesting contents
Then there was three Space Suits - only one is a real suit actually used by NASA
The original Enterprise NCC-1701
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Alien
Another Dalek
Not Sure about this exhibit (forgot to take a photo of the info sign)
Where Sci-Fi meets Reality - soon to be released device that does what a Medical Tricorder could do - amazing
One of my favourite authors - Simon Stalenhag who produced 'Tales From The Loop'
That's all I took photos of, just under 2 hours to walk around and look at as well as some interactive exhibits.
Well worth the visit
Live long and prosper :)
]]>This weekend just gone - I attended the MeG TOIL Tournament organised by the superb Will at the wonderful Boards & Swords Shop in Derby.
After deploying, realised that the Caliphal out flank could appear on my right side on turn 1!
And as the only units I could see were on the left flank decided to advance across the table.
Forgot to take any photos of this game as was concentrating far to hard on what was happening
Terrain rolled up - secure right flank of Forests and two scrub on the board edge.
Nothing to stop my cavalry charging in
One thing to note: I deployed two units of Thematic on the right flank as I could see a direct line to the enemy camp which would need to deploy something to stop me - so down goes a Superior unit of Cavalry.
So I decided to place my two Superior Tagmata on the table edge - so how is this going to work!
In my first turn the two Thematic turn 180 round and double move in a Wheel, second turn they again double move to my left to bolster the end of the line, while the Tagmata then advance to fill the space.
This would only work if I got good cards!!!
Turn 1 - my Legendary gets 3 White and 2 Green cards, while the Competent got a Black to 2 Greens - Phew, I can upgrade one of these Greens to Yellow with the General - that was a bit close for comfort.
As can be seen the rest of the game went to plan - two initial charges kill 3 bases each off the Breton Milites cavalry - soon to be dead Milities!
Had to throw my Thematics into combat to stool the flanking Bretons, manage to take down the Average unit but will lose to the Superior Cavalry.
Does by me time to engage and destroy rest of the Bretons - this time a unit of Superior Nobles are brought down to 3 bases after my 'Charge Only Bow' do 2 wounds before charge combat.
Which leads onto the destruction of the final two units of Average Milites on the left & right of the stoic Nobles in the middle
Again - terrain just as I like it, open and not impeding my charges :)
All lined up and ready to go - not a single card required for the charge - Tally Ho!
Just realised that the two White Dice I should have replaced with Skull dice (doh!)
These 3.5 bases of damage was enough to seal the doom for the Ostrogoth Cavalry who fought on valiantly but in the end succumbed to me being able to roll wounds on every melee combat on Greens & Whites, while Ian could only roll mostly blanks (it happens)
Final Results - a respectable 10th place having only won two games.
Lots of Byzantine armies just above me - will be interesting to see how their armies put together compared to mine?
So still a wide variety of armies can be selected over the whole 3000BCE - 1550CE timeframe.
Last year I took my Tuareg Africa all Camel army, this year I decided to take an All Cavalry army from the Later Nikephorian Byzantine list (circa 1059CE), this was my 3rd outing with the army over the past 12 months with varying success and failure.
Here is what I took:
After having tried using a force with 9 TUGs and 3 Command, finding the 4 base TUGs invariable being destroyed every game after taking a few hits. I decided to only take the Kataphraktoi in a unit of 4, the rest in 6's.
This squeezed my points as I still wanted to use a Legendary CinC, so decided to not only go with a 7 TUG army but only have 2 Generals (9 cards)!
Having settled on this being my entry, then listened to the last MeG Podcast where their was a discussion on why we don't see that many 7 TUG armies at tournaments.
Hm, could their be a very good reason why that is so?
Let's see how I managed to win the 'Peaked too Soon' award at the Tournament...
Game 1 - Keith Spedding with Sui
Mixed army of Infantry, crossbows and Cataphract cavalry - looked like a very strong list with 12 TUGs.
First roll of the game my Legendary General rolls a Strategic Intercept, then I win terrain and go for Plains and manage to keep it down to 'Featureless' but a coastal flank.
Keith got to place a single piece of Rocky Ground that I promptly removed on a 6!
Picture after deployment
After seeing some of his Infantry go down, realised his Cataphracts would be on my left flank so lined up my Superior cavalry to hit that end.
Some Skilled Horse Archers, 1 Superior Cataphract and 2 Average Cataphracts - that should give me 4 out of 6 TUGs to break him.
So off I steam sweeping off to the left flank, leaving my Kataphractoi to hold up the rest of the Sui force.
Keith goes into reverse, but can't delay my charge too long.
Skilled Horse Archers are destroyed as the rest of my attack is lined up. There is a sneaky Skilled Crossbowmen unit looking to shoot me up from behind, so angle up one of my Charging Lancers to have go at them.
Bang, the fight is on, with a lovely flank charge on the Superior Cataphracts, smash and the they are gone, into follow-on charge, bang goes another on and then multiple KaB tests take out the rest (including a dead General).
By now I had lost my Kataphractoi and Keith was bringing over support, so I need some quick re-organising to stop showing my rear.
Game resulted in my forces fighting three combats, of which two of my units were a wound from breaking (Superior Tagmata and Average Normans) - we ended up with mutual destruction of Norman Knights and Horse Archers getting me the Triumph over the Sui (Keith just short on getting his final unit of Cataphracts into the combat)
Win 15-6 to the Later Nikephorian Byzantines - great game and close with me 1 TUG away from breaking.
Game 2 - Robert Hutton with Chola Empire
Indians with 13 TUGS (need to kill 7 units) of which 3 were TUGs of Elephants (one was Superior), my army doesn't like Elephants (last tournament I became horse meat from an Elephant charge)
Again I managed to get a Strategic Intercept and won the Terrain choice and went for Coastal.
Rob managed to pull the terrain up into 'Normal' but I kept it away from being a secure flank. With three pieces of Rocky Ground that I managed to push to corners of the table.
Rob managed to out-scout me even on 2 cards being Red (he had managed to get PBS cards of 3 Reds, 3 Yellow, 1 Green and 1 White) vs my 2 Yellows.
So I decided to start my army on my base line dead centre waiting to see where the dreaded Elephants would appear.
Good news for me, I think a mistake from Rob as all the Elephants were on his Left Flank.
Lovely army and very wide, guess I'm going left again as far away as I can from the Elephants.
Things got very busy very quickly as I double moved over to hit the Infantry as hard as I could.
So unfortunately no photo's till the end of the game.
My Cavalry has managed to smash through 4 units of Swordsmen, 2 units of Archers and finally a unit of Superior Spearmen (centre of photo) but lost the Average Normans to the Elephants (someone had to slow down the Elephants and the surprisingly last 5 combats!) and two units of Thematic Cavalry from a flank charge of the Spearmen.
Must admit I nearly lost the game in the final combats as I had a unit of 2 Kataphractoi fighting the Archers first being hit on a Black dice - luckily Rob rolled a blank which I did first before my Superior Normans won against against the Spearmen - I could have lost 10-15!
Win 15-6 to the Later Nikephorian Byzantines - always a pleasure to play Rob, one day his Elephants will get me.
So by the end of the first day I was on 30pts - looking good, best that I had ever done in MeG tournaments (I've normally lost one of these games by now)
Game 3 - Robin Spence with Mongol Conquest
Now this is a bit of a grudge match, the last two times we have played his army choice had all the bonuses and should smash my army (example being his Normans vs my Bretons, he was up on all the combats but all his dice came up blank while I would roll wounds or worse Skulls).
In this game he is up 9 vs 7 TUGs, had loads of Skilled Shooters and a number of Superior but 4 base Cavalry.
Game started with Robin winning the Attacker\Defender roll and selecting to be Defender so that we would fight in the Plains which I managed to make have a secure coastal line but no other scenery.
Robin out-scouted me, so I decided no point messing about and started placing my force as far forward next to the coast 2 bases deep, realised by the time I placed the Kataphractoi 1 base deep that Robin would still be able to outflank my line.
So as Attacker I went as fast as I could towards his lines, by second turn we were charging.
I took some wounds due to the Skilled Bow and got to some of the Horse archers after they skirmished.
Then reset and go again, after catching some of the Mongols I had broke through his lines and rushing one of my Tagmata cavalry into the Mongol Camp and taken down both average Horse Archers and one of the Mongol units, 4 TUGs down.
Unfortunately by this time I had lost both my Thematic Cavalry and the Kataphractoi being charged in the rear.
It finally came down two combats between with my Average Normans vs Superior Mongols and my Superior Normans vs another Superior Mongol unit - both combats went to Robin as all I could roll was blanks and 'S' results in melee combat.
Robin finally has his revenge.
Lost 8 v 15 for the Later Nikephorian Byzantines
Game 4 - Pete Entwistle with his Qin
Final game, managed to be the Attacker again and got the Coastal terrain but Pete managed to move the terrain level up to 'Normal'. I did manage to move two pieces of scenery into corners but the central Corn Field stayed put.
I was out-scout by the Qin, so started putting my cavalry down on the opposite side from the coastline, then watched Pete place 5 TUGs of Infantry mixed Polearm & Crossbows opposite - not looking good for me.
My first turn, I drew some really bad cards for both Generals, I decided it might be best to try moving to my left. Pete surprised me by advancing his whole line double time towards me, suddenly looked like I was not going to be able to run away and regroup on the left.
So I bit the bullet and advanced into the wall of Chinese.
First round of shooting from the crossbows managed to roll numerous white dice and get more wounds than blanks on his shooting, not a good start, then in the charge and melee phase Pete's dice were hot, rolling wounds everywhere while I could only roll blanks.
Soon I lost a TUG of Average Thematic, then KaB on next Thematic unit breaks them, then the Average Normans break on a KaB and even the Superior Normans and Tagmata fall to the multiple KaB tests.
Suddenly, I have 5 TUGs broken and game over!!!
Lost 0 v 15 for the Later Nikephorian Byzantines
Leaves me on 38pts at the end of the tournament, how low the great have fallen.
Did win me the 'Peaked to Soon' award.
Still a great Tournament, great venue, well organised and four wonderful opponents.
Let's see what the Later Nikephorian Byzantines can do at TOIL Early Medieval Age in March this year?
It was a match up between Oliver's Sons of Horus verses my Loyalist Thousand Sons at 3000pts.
Being Loyalist meant I could not take any of the Thousand Sons special characters, so no Primarch Magnus or Ahriman. Meanwhile Oliver took both Ezekyle Abaddon and Maloghurst The Twisted (in which he decided to take Maloghurst as the warlord to give a unit of Tartaros Terminaters 'Line')
We rolled up Mission 5 - Tide of Carnage and Deployment 3 - Search and Destroy, so only scoring units can hold the three zones to win victory points; plus secondary objectives of Slay the Warlord and Last Man Standing.
I managed to win deployment and going first, so decided to drop a 20 man Tactical Squad on the air landing platform with my Legion Praetor (Warlord), while a 2nd squad of Tactical Marines deployed as far as possible away from Oliver's lines to contest the 'No Mans Land' zone supported by a Contemptor Dreadnought.
Finally I placed my other Contemptor and a Leviathan Dreadnought centrally in cover.
As I had taken the Rite of War: The Guard of the Crimson King - I placed the rest of my force in deep strike, this consisting of a Legion Chaplain with a 10 strong Cataphractii Terminators, a Legion Centurion with a 5 man Sekhmet Terminator Cabal and two more 5 man Sekhmet Terminator Cabal's.
In reply, Oliver deployed a 15 man Tactical Squad deep in his zone along with a 10 man Flamer Support Squad in Rhino. To one side he placed Magoghurst and his Tartaros bodyguard to hold the central zone. All supported by 2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts armed with Gravis Lascannon's and 2 Predator Tanks with Lascannon sponsons.
Meanwhile he placed Abaddon and his Justaerin Terminators, 2 sqauds of Assault Marines and a 10 man support squad of Plasma Guns with attached Legion Warmonger Consul in deep strike.
So looks like a bit of 'Cat and Mouse' on who get's there deep strikes first?
Oliver rolled for Seize but failed, while I rolled for Night Fight and succeeded (didn't want all those Lascannons taking me too quickly)
Turn 1
With no deepstrikes and nothing in range, we both moved to better positions.
Thousand Sons Tactical and Dreadnought move into 'no mans land'
Sons of Horus consolidate their position
Turn 2
The Thousands Sons fail to get their reserves and night fight ends. Only one option, move Dreadnoughts closer to try and get some first hits on the Sons of Horus.
All I managed was one hull point off a Predator :(Meanwhile the Sons of Horus succeed in their reserve roll and drop down between my two Tactical Squads with his Plasma Gun Squad, unfortunately the scatter sends them within 1" of my squads so I decide to deploy them in front of my flanking squad to move his other deployments further away from my home zone.
Luckily Oliver manages not to be disordered and drops the rest of his units to hit me hard
The poor surrounded Tactical Squad manages to roll a 11 for pinning check, so my other squad has to go for the interceptor Reaction as they do pass successfully - they manage to kill 9 out of 10 Assault Marines as the Shred re-roll works really well on their Asphyx Bolters.The rest of the Sons of Horus shooting was pretty poor especially with 20 Plasma gun shots and the Bolt Pistols, I ended up only losing 7 Marines and passed my morale test. The following combat, Oliver kills only 3 marines for the loss of 2 back, Thousand Sons having a Legion Vexilla win it becomes a draw
Whereas the Justaerin vs the Contemptor goes their way for the loss of one Terminator.
Else where the combined shooting from two Contemptors and two Preadators take down the Leviathan Dreadnought.
Turn 3
Again the Thousand Sons fail to get their reserves (seems to be a recurring theme in my games with deep strike).
So not much shooting, some lucky wounds on the Justaerin takes down another model, while the Contemptor fails to kill the Predator as Oliver Evades and negates both penetrating hits.
In the Assault phase, the combat between the remaining Thousand Sons Tactical Squad and the Sons of Horus Assault Squad takes a surprising turn, with the Thousand Sons winning by 1 (2 wounds each but I have a Vexilla), Oliver fails his morale and runs 11" away.
The Sons of Horus manage to rally the Assault Marines, meanwhile Abaddon and the rest move towards my Base to remove me.
This time Oliver's shooting is on target and kills all of the Tactical Squad.Meanwhile all the shooting over at the Thousand Sons Contemptor manages three wounds, but my return fire on the Predator causes two penetrating hits and it goes bang.
Abaddon and Justaerin are within charge distance but are having to assault through the ruined building so at -2, unfortunately they fail by 1 on the dice roll, as more of an insult my Thousand Sons suns overwatch and kill another Justaerin Terminator.Turn 4
Finally my reserves arrive as I don't have to roll a dice, I weigh up my options - support my base and take on Abaddon but enable Oliver to control the central zone with Maloghurst or go for it and hit his defensive line.
Yep - lets go for it, I place my Chaplain and Terminators first right in front of the Sons of Horus Tactical Squad, roll scatter and end up 9" away but not too far away to stop me conga lining my squad all the way back to his Tactical Squad.
For once I manage not to disrupt the rest of my deep strike and manage to place all my units surrounding the Sons of Horus
With only my shooting against Abaddon to do, I manage again to kill another Terminator, the force is looking a bit smaller now but still has lots of killing potential.
In the Assault phase things predictably did not go the Sons of Horus way with an exploding Rhino leaving only 4 Flamer marines alive in the crater, the Tactical Squad cut down to a man and poor Maloghurst having to take 6 hits from Chainfists while his bodyguard all die - resulting in Maloghurst the Dead.
So at the current standing, I had managed to drop the Sons of Horus down to just one scoring unit of 7 Assault Marines in No Mans Land (5vp), while I had a 20 Tactical Marines in my deployment zone plus I had Slay the Warlord and Last Man Standing (9 v 8 units) for 3+1+1 = 5vp
Sons Of Horus turn, the Flamers failed to would any Terminators, the 2 Contemptors failed to kill the Thousand Sons Contemptor taking it down to a single wound.
The Plasma Guns killed 2 Marines while the shooting from the Justaerin killed another, I decided to return fire on the Justaerin, my Praetor used is Corvidae arcana to shoot his Disintegrator Pistol, passed his psychic test, hit with his shoot and wounded, I selected Abaddon who had to pass his Invulnerable save, Oliver rolls a 3 and down goes Abaddon. Meanwhile the rest of the unit rolled numerous dice with Shred due to Asphix Bolters, this resulting in the Justaerin being reduced to just 3 Terminators who can charge into combat.
In the overwatch phase, my Praetor kills another Justaerin with his Disintegrator Pistol, while the Squad kills another with Asphyx shells. A single Justaerin makes it into combat.
My Tactical Marines push forward around the Justaerin and manage to cause a number of wounds which it fails one, the Justaerin kills two back with the final blow coming from my Praetor killing the Justaerin.
I consolidate forward off the platform ready for next turn.
I now move forward into the 'No Mans Land' to contest the zone held by the Sons of Horus Assault Squad and have line of sight of them in the shooting phase (can only see 3 models but that's enough to force a morale test).
I shoot and manage to cause 11 wounds, Oliver tanks 5 of them on his Artificer armoured Sergeant but fails 2 of the remaining 6 and has to take a test - rolling 8 (if only the Sergeant had survived!) and they run off the table.
On the other side, we assume that the Flamer squad and Contemptor would die due to excessive amount of Chainfists in my Terminator Squads during assault phase.
This left just the Plasma Squad and Legion Warmonger to deal with the Praetor and Tactical Squad
If Oliver destroyed these then I would only win by 1pt 'Last Man Standing'Unfortunately, the return fire from these 15 Marines with Asphyx Bolters killed all 9 Plasma Marines (horrible save rolls from Oliver, even Artificer Sergeant went down on first save), though they did kill 7 Thousand Sons.
With Praetor leadership I held.
Legion Warmonger then had to charge, killed one Marine and then cut down by the Praetor.
End result - Win for the Thousand Sons, 7 v 0
I think the game came down to how well the Deep Strikes worked, Oliver's scattered and I pushed him further away from my lines than he wanted to be. While mine did scatter 9" but by conga lining the Terminators I got back into the position I was looking for.
Will be considering making the 2nd Legion Centurion into a 'Master of Signals' to get re-roll on reserves as he could sit with Tactical Squad instead of the Praetor.
One side of the game that has become much simpler is the Psychics, much more streamlined and every unit with powers gets to do something than just being a psychic battery for the Uber leader.
Had Biomancy on the Sekhmet and Chaplain which was used in turn 4 to make my Terminators +1 Strength & Toughness, which negated the Sons of Horus -1 Strength on enemy chargers. Also had the Pyrae Arcana which gave them Hammer of Wrath (2) which added a few more wound saves to be made.
My Praetor had Telekinesis in which Telekine Dome was useful when shot at by the Plasma Guns, really should of kept all my models within 8" especially the Leviathan as they could have survived the initial fire coming in on turn 2.
Finally my Legion Centurion had Telepathy, used Telepathic Fugue to stop the Tactical Squad shooting overwatch, the 15 man Tactical Squad could of forced a pinning test, chance of failing my Chaplain Ld10 pinning test?
So it feels that Psychics are ok and add a little flavour to the Thousand Sons than being abusive like v1.0
As always, a pleasure playing at Oliver's and I like the way his Sons of Horus are shaping up.
Always]]>
I have also learnt a lot about how to paint especially with the various contrast and speed paints but also the techniques that I had previously struggled with like blending and highlighting; even had some attempts at doing zenithal undercoating plus first efforts with using an airbrush on some models.
Reviewing my posts in the past two years, I had managed to paint 496 models in 2020, beat that in 2021 with 852 models painted, finally back down to 445 models in 2022; seems that work, life and gaming got in the way this year - which is probably good as it means I actually got a lot of the models down on the table top and played games :)
Here are two photos of what I painted in the 1st and 2nd half of 2022
1st Half
2nd Half
A very varied mix of models from different games and themes:Adeptus Titanicus - 20 Knights
BattleTech - 30 Dranconis Combine & 20 Clan Jade Falcon
Judge Dredd - 14 Judges & 8 Blok Gangers
Necromunda - 5 Goliaths & 9 Squat Prospectors
Marvel Crisis Protocol - 7 X-men, 2 Brotherhood, 3 Sentinals & 3 other characters
Star Wars Legion - 8 Wookies, 2 Fluttergnast flyers, 10 Mandolarian Super Commandoes, 8 Black Sun Enforcers, 2 Swoop Bikes and a Speeder Truck
30K Imperial Fists Legion - 85 Infantry, 3 Artillery and Primarch Rogal Dorn
30K Alpha Legion - 104 Infantry, 4 Vehicles and Primarch Alpharius
WH40K - 12 Schaeffer's Last Chancers
Final Fantasy - 4 Characters
Historical - 18 Norse Warrior Women
Fantasy - 24 Adventurers & Guardsmen
Disc World - 17 Characters
Fimir - 15 Fimir warriors and characters
Other - 1 Minion, 1 Halfling and a Saurian Trooper
And finally a few pictures of the lot
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Four games over two days at the fantastic venue of Boards & Swords in Derby.
I have challenged myself with learning how to use an all-cavalry army over the last year, previous outing was for Britcon with my Nikephorian Byzantines who ended up having a rough time of it.
This time back with my Later Sarmatian force of Charging Lancers led by a Legendary General, 9 TUGs, 3 SUGs so a break point of 5. With a strong PBS of 8 and scouting of 5 - let's see how many times I can get an intercept on an empty table?
Game 1 - Lee Sanders with an Early Imperial Roman army
So straight away Lee rolls a Skull while I roll a Shatter, he goes for being the Defender so that he can get some scenery down (my only terrain being Plains)
PBS - I manage to draw 4 Blacks and 4 White cards, so terrain ended up Dense with a secure Mountain flank, Plantation and rough ground. Giving Lee a perfect strongpoint to defend in (top of photo)
I did win the out scouting by 70% so knew where he would be!
I decided to not take on the Roman head on but look to flank them on the left
All did not go well as I ended up with a lot of Black\White cards, so ended up moving slowly forward and to the left.
Seems Lee had all the good cards as his Romans start double moving to close with me.
After a number of turns and a good 2.5 hours of gaming, I had lost 4 TUGs and 2 SUGs to the onslaught of Romans - just one final unit of my cavalry got caught before they could round the corner of the central rough ground for me to be broken.
Win for the Romans 15 v 0
NOTE: Lee went on to win the tournament with four victories total 60pts
Game 2 - Jamie Meyers with Macedonian Successors
Again, beaten on the first dice roll, so Jamie decided to be the Defender in Standard terrain, I decided to use all my good cards to pull the terrain down as low as possible but still with a secure rough flank.
Jamie managed to get a Village on his base line and a gentle hill just in front of his deployment zone
I was outscouted by 20%, so deployed my skirmishing horse on my far-left flank and as I anticipated Jamie filled the zone between the Village and his secure flank with his forces.
So, I placed all my army over on the left flank with three units of 4 Charging Lancers in outflanking (my right) with a Competent General, bit of a risk as it reduced my breakpoint down to 3! Ouch
Game progressed with my skirmishing command racing up to the village to spend a number of turns shooting the lone Hoplites defending it (managed to actually destroy them through bow fire).
While the rest of my force trotted forward to entice the Pike blocks to come off the hill, then spend three turns retreating while I waited for my outflank to turn up - managed to get 1 Red card but failed to get the second.
Due to Jamie unfortunately failing to get enough good cards, his line of troops got a bit disjointed, this gave me the opportunity to move a unit of Lancers around his flank and charge in the following round.
After rolling 4 red dice (Superior vs Average, charging lancers in the flank) and getting 3 skulls and a 1 wound plus the damage from the front with Legendary General in front rank - down went the first Pike block and into the next.
Even with his supporting units moving up to help and flank one of my units, I was 4 TUGs up vs 1 fled SUG.
Final nail in the coffin was the reserve Hoplites being charged in the front and rear and breaking on the charge...
Win 15 v 1
Game 3 - Hammy with Lowland Thracians
Overall, did not look like a good match-up for Hammy, with charging lancers I would be up across the board against his infantry and cavalry.
Time to get lots of scenery on the table - again I lost the roll with Hammy being defender and going for Standard terrain. I again spent all my best cards (even red cards) to drop the scenery down as low as possible so that we ended up with no secure flank and one piece of rough ground on each side of the board - Hammy was going to have his forces sitting out in the open
Plus, I out scouted Hammy by 70%
I placed all my forces down on my right flank with the view of wheeling round and hitting his centre without risking my left flank
So, most of that worked the way I wanted, except Hammy managed to move two cavalry units down his right flank with some very good cards. I had to commit my three smaller units of cavalry to holding them off as long as they could while my main force hit hard in the centre.
With some overconfident movement after the skirmishing horse and Unskilled Bow charging lancers rolled 4 white and 1 green dice getting 5 hits and reducing the Thracian cavalry down to 3 bases, I left myself with an open flank (misjudged how far 3 UD charge was) - I lost the unit of cavalry and it's supporting 2 Skirmishing horse.
Meanwhile in the centre the cavalry did a block retreat from combat and charged in again - breaking 2 Average Warbands, 1 Superior Warband and the Superior Cavalry, putting me 1 TUG away from breaking the Thracians.
In breaking the centre, I now had a unit of Charging Lancers within 3UD of the camp and in they went - 3 Red and 3 White dice came up 3 Skulls and 1 would - game over
Win 15 - 8
Game 4 - Robin Spence with Later Sarmatian
In the past few years, myself and Robin have faced each other, I have come out winning even when all the odds were on Robin having the better chance.
This time it was my all-cavalry army vs his cavalry army with Quadi Warband infantry.
Again, I lose the roll off and Robin goes for attacking, forcing me to have a poor camp on table (easy kill).
Good news, the scenery being plains ends up being very open, no secure flank but the three pieces of scenery taken up Robin 'rough terrain' all end up on the left flank.
I out scout Robin by 70% and so he deploys his mass of cavalry facing towards my right flank.
With the Quadi Allies holding the left amongst the rough terrain
I decide not to deploy in the predicted right flank, so instead place all my skirmishers on the left in the rough ground and angle the cavalry line in front of my camp
Game on - Robin re-aligns his formations and moved towards me, I barely move (I've got a fist full of Blacks & Whites).
Robin continues a slow advance - seems we both ended up with loads of black & white cards.
Finally, we are within 3UD of each other, time to charge and in we went.
It turns out that I've ended up with more Superior bases than Robin giving me the advantage, I also send my Legendary General into the mix.
After the Melee fight - having rolled for ~26 combats, I had managed to at least roll 12+ Skulls while Robin managed a few wounds.
I even survived sending in a 4-base unit of Lancers against 6 of Robins, lost 2 bases and then retreated out of combat and not dying to the KaB test to then next turn charge in and stop Robin from flanking me!!!
The next round of combat would see 4 of Robins unit's rout for the loss of 2 of mine, with 2 of his Generals also dead (so many KaB tests).
Next turn had me turning ready to charge the rear and flank of one of Robins 4 strong cavalry, but it was not to be as again in combat I manage to roll another 2 Skulls on Green dice for the break.
Win 15 - 4
In the end I had managed to win 3 & lose 1 game with a score of 45pts.
Really good result for me, think I'm getting the hang of this game.
Then I was really surprised to hear that I had managed to land 3rd place in the tournament :)
First for next weekend - a Horus Heresy tournament at Tabletop Republic
Finished my 3000pts of Alpha Legion
Consisting of:
- Primarch Alpharius
- Legion Centurion Vigilator
- Legion Centuion Saboteur
- Legion Terminator Cataphractii Squad
- 2 x Legion Tactical Squads
- 3 x Legion Tactical Support Squads (Melta Gun, Plasma Gun, Volkite Caliver)
- 2 x Headhunter Squads
- Legion Heavy Support Squad (Volkite Culverin)
For the following weekend, I have entered the Star Wars Legion Tournament at Tabletop with a Wookie list
Finally - a group game of BattleTech at Battlefield Hobbies of Jade Falcon vs Ghost Bear of 20 Mechs per side (4 Lances of 5 Mechs)
We decided to take 1500pts of forces each - double team split across Traitors vs Loyalists.
Traitors
Adrian - Sons Of Horus, led by Ezekyle Abaddon
Philip - Alpha Legion, led by a Praetor
Loyalists
Karl - Blood Angels, led by Dominus
Andy - Imperial Fists, led by Fafnir Rann
Karl brought his recently painted Blood Angels, while I supplied the Sons of Horus and Imperial Fists, while using my newly painted Alpha Legion.
Mission rolled up was Tide of Carnage with deployment Vanguard Strike
​​​​​Battlefield and Deployment - Traitors won the roll for deploying first
In deployment, the Sons of Horus left Abaddon and Justaerin Terminators in deepstrike, meanwhile the Imperial Fists left Fafnir Rann and Phalanx Warders in deepstrike.
Loyalist deployment
Traitor deployment
Turn One
The Loyalists managed to steal the initiative - Blood Angel Spartan moves to fire on the Alpha Legion Rhino (with Headhunters inside), I used the advance reaction to move the Rhino closer to the table edge and provide it with a cover save from the Spartan Tank.
The Blood Angel Tactical Squad attempts to charge the rhino but with -2 due to charging out of terrain and the -2 due to being Alpha Legion, they fail to make the charge.
Meanwhile the Imperial Fists advanced and dismounted the Support Squad of Meltaguns and Blood Angel Assault Marines jumped over the ruins - the Sons of Horus Spartan reacted by retreating out of half range of the meltaguns.
In the assault phase the Assault Squad makes the charge and with numerous melta bombs destroy the Spartan, all but one Sons of Horus Tactical Squad survive but are pinned :(
In retaliation, the Alpha Legion Plasma Gun Support Squad dismount and fire their guns at short range, supported with additional snap firing Sons of Horus - they manage to kill all the Assault marines plus Dominus
Turn 2 - missed taking a photo, Imperial fists manage to deepstrike Fafnir and Phalanx Warders scattering close to the Sons of Horus troops which enabled the Alpha Legion to intercept with the Plasma Gun support squad managing to kill half the Warders (but losing half their squad to 'Gets Hot'.
The remainder of the Squad and Fafnir assault the Sons of Horus, unfortunately a fist full of low dice rolls and even Fafnir fails to kill a model (the -1 Strength when assaulting Sons made a big difference)
Ongoing combats and finally Fafnir finds himself on his own surrounded.
Then finally the Sons of Horus managed to find the weak spot in Fafnir's armour and he goes down, too late to be rescued by the Support Squad.
Meanwhile Abaddon and Justaerin Terminators having deepstriked next to a unit of Blood Angel Meltaguns and failing to make a 1" charge (rolled double 1 and with -2 for charging though terrain)
In the end Abaddon on his own managed to not only kill the Support Squad but also rout a 20 man Imperial Fist Tactical Squad but also survived 40+ hits from overwatch and not die (which I always managed to do when I used him)
At the end of turn 5 - the Blood Angels had no scoring units left in their deployment zone while the Blood Angels had to move the Spartan into 'No Mans land' to contest the Sons of Horus Tactical Squad. Meanwhile the Alpha Legion Tactical Squad holds the Traitor deployment zone (3 vps).
While the Loyalists lost both Dominus and Fafnir, while the Traitors lost the Alpha Legion Praetor.
And finally the Loyalists had more surviving units for 'Last Man Standing'.
Final Score: 5 v 2 to the Traitors
Version 2 rules seemed very smooth, only had to look up a few things (mostly movement distances and new weapon stats).
Reactions really do add a new dimension to the game; Intercept and Overwatch at full ballistic strength is very brutal.
Also the reduction in Leadership value caused four units to flee the table (and fail four rally attempts).
Looking forward to playing Horus Heresy v2.0 again.
]]>I decided to take my Late Nikephorian Byzantine 'All' Cavalry list that I enjoyed using last year in a themed event. Slight change as I decided not use any 'Horse Archers' this time.
Game 1 - vs Anglo-Irish army
Scenery ended up with a secure left flank of rough ground while I managed to remove anything appearing in the centre or right flank.
Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the battlefield setup, so here we are after my first move as I charged my cavalry towards the right flank to take on just one side of the long line of troops.
Unfortunately for me the enemy Longbow units were able to intercept my attack and cause horrendous casualties to the cavalry (just like at Agincourt).
I pushed through and did manage to take out three units before my army was broken.
Loss 5-15 pts
Game 2 - vs Classical Greek army
The scenery ended up on a coastal region with the left flank covered, while all but a village appeared on the right flank (I had placed it on my far right corner so that the Greek troops could not use it, but my opponent managed to move it across into my deployment zone)
Having out scouted the Greeks by 70%, I found a long line of Long Spear troops in front of me. So I decided to place my cavalry next to and in the village with the view to rush the right flank where the Greek cavalry had mustered.
Things looked good until my opponent managed to pull out a number of superb turns of his Long Spears that then threatened the flank of my cavalry charge - things suddenly went horribly bad for me as the spearmen smashed the cavalry to pieces
Loss 0-15 pts
Game 3 - vs Galatian army
Scenery ended up with a secure left flank of rough ground and more rough ground and a wood on the right flank, this left a big open space in the centre for my cavalry to charge down the Galatian infantry.
I managed to advance extremely fast on the left flank hitting the enemy cavalry and supporting troops, I managed to pull off a retreat and re-charge in on the Galatians, units started breaking and soon multiple KaB tests resulted in the Galatians breaking
Win 15-2
Game 4 - vs Middle Sassinad Persians
Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures for this game, the battle field ended up very open with just some rough ground in the centre of my deployment zone.
Again I managed to out-scout the Persians by just 20% but this did enable me to see how the Persians where going to form up.
So I amassed my Cavalry on the far left flank opposite the non Cataphract cavalry, which I charged down and destroyed, while my smaller units of cavalry quickly advanced off towards the left away from the Elephant unit and the lone Byzantine Cataphract unit faced off four units of Persians.
Unfortunately we ran out of time for an incomplete game.
Win 9-4 pts
Game 5 - vs Late Imperial Roman army
Final game of the event, I unfortunately failed to determine the scenery and my opponent managed to get lots of scenery of three forests and two woods - giving him a perfect zone in which to defend.
So it was up to me to go charging in on this fortified zone.
After some careful movement I was ready to charge in, did manage to cause a good number of hits, then block retreated and went back in again.
Unfortunately the Romans had been hiding his Exceptional Praetorian Guard in the Forest and was able to come in on my flank.
Units starting breaking everywhere, but before we could get to a conclusion time was called - so incomplete game
Loss 6-8 pts (was just a couple minutes away from breaking the Roman Cataphracts for a draw)
End result of the Tournament had me in 19th place out of 22.
Still it was a great event and really consider going again.
Lessons learned:
- Cavalry need to keep well away from Longbowmen
- Think about using PBS cards to influence battlefield map location than for out scouting
- Watch your flanks, sometimes better to face the enemy than trying for the charge
First off - Judge Dredd reinforcements
The rest of the Judges - Specialists, Starter box set models and Judge Anderson on Lawmaster
Mechanismo MkIIa
Med Judge
Psi-Judge
Tek Judge
Judge wearing rad cloak
Street Judge with Widowmaker 2000
Necromunda - Mercator Sanguis Slaver Entourage and Goliath 'Zerker
Unfortunately they were phased out of Warhammer in later editions.
Back in the day I did buy a Fimir model, long lost over the decades and various house moves :(
Then while browsing 3D printed models came across the following website
Fomorian Archives - Krakon Games
So much like Fimir that I had to buy some.
Since undercoating them, they have been a slow burn for me to paint up - but finally I have succeeded.
Not sure when I will get to use them in a game?
Could be used as a warband in 'Saga - Age of Magic' or as alternative for Ogres or Minotaurs?
- FoW - German 10.5cm Artillery Battery for my DAK force for MidWar tournament at Tabletop Republic
- Fantasy - More 3D printed Guardsmen to add to previous one painted with Army Builder Speedpaints
Worked out a great trick to work around the Speedpaint re-activation - give them a quick coat of Matt Varnish which seals the paint in then apply additional coats over the top
Themed event called 'Footsloggers' where the army could only include 'Infantry' or 'Artillery' troop types.
After deliberating over which army to take (had considered Aztec, Spartacus Slave Revolt or HYW English), I decided to take the Later Swiss army as it had never touched the table top since I bought it fours years ago on eBay.
Bold choice for me as I'm more use to playing cavalry heavy armies with a good size of TUGs, this was totally the opposite - only 5 TUGs (very low break point on 3 compared to the more usual 5 or 6) with three big professional Pike units, 2 full size Halberdier units, 2 skirmishing crossbowmen and 1 of of Handgunners.
Led by a Talented General with another Talented and Competent sub-generals.
Turns out Steve was attending the event with his Swiss army which had some interesting differences to take note of.
First game - faced Medieval Free Company, which managed to get the battlefield set on the coast with a couple of Vineyards protecting his flanks. I messed up my deployment as opponent deployed everything in this valley with two units of light artillery.
After a few turns of re-organising my troops - glad of my drilled professional troops and my opponent not leaving his deployment zone, I was soon facing the right direction and surged forwards (surprising how fast 'Fleet of Foot' Swiss are!).
The fighting was brutal with my right flank Pikes & Halberdiers breaking the line and causing multiple casualties in the backline.
Lost 1 unit of Halberdiers but managed to kill the 5 TUGs before getting to his camp.
Win 15-2
Second game - faced Later Swiss, now to see how a Swiss army should be used
Managed to keep a nice open area in front of the army bordered by Forests, even out-scouted opponent by 80%, though didn't really help much as the army was deployed nice and compact in the open area.
I mistakenly placed two of my skirmishers in front of the Pike to get some shooting off (didn't work), realised that Steve's army was wider than mine and that he could move slightly to get better combat match ups.
Two interesting developments:
1 - Steve had placed his Handgunners in between two Pike blocks, this allowed him to fire into unengaged file of my Pike causing additional wounds each turn.
2 - Mis-calculated that when he moved forward and shifted his 4 wide Halberdiers could not fit past a Forest - caused the unit to take longer in getting into the fight, this did then enable them to move round my flank and hit me hard for the win.
I also found that my pike were suffering more in the melee phase as his were Protected and mine Unprotected which put him 1 up on combat factors.
Managed to take down a Pike and Halberdier unit for some points before my camp was sacked.
Loss 4-15
Game 3 - facing Later Franks, lots of Devastating charge warbands from one side of the table to the other, Swiss as always outnumbered. So managed to get a coast to protect one flank, while Forested Hills and Woods covered the far side.
Decided to only take on one part of the line next to the coast line, being the attacker I went first and 'Fleet of Foot' right up into the enemy lines. Kind of surprised Jeremy as this blocked his ability to move round my flank as he could not double move. I was also helped with this as Jeremy had pulled about 2/3rds of his command discs as Black & White which really did not enable him to do anything clever with Tribal troops (at this point I really was enjoying the flexibility of Drilled troops)
Next turn I moved up so that we would get only the charges that I wanted to happen, then it was crunch time, we were mostly on green v green dice in the charge phase - where Jeremy wanted S for Shatter while I would get Shove - unfortunately neither of us managed to roll any and handed out a few wounds each - pretty unimpressive display.
Then it all started to unravel in the melee phase as I was up across the board, with Shove's making it worse - the barbarians started loosing bases everywhere.
A few more melee phases later and the first Frank unit fled, the pursuit into the next warband went horrible bad for Jeremy and resulted in a dead general and another unit destroyed.
We then had a cascade of KAB tests on surround units where I managed to roll so many Skulls making wounded unit now become broken causing even more tests with another dead General....
By the time we had run out of KAB test to roll five units had fled the battlefield and broken the Frank army.
Win 15-2 (had lost a Halberdier unit
Forgot to take a photo - so this is after my opening moves - whoosh Double move of nearly my whole army
Game Four - facing Southern Mapuche which I had never seen before, turns out opponent could fit 17 TUGs into the list (no skirmishers) making his breakpoint 9 vs my 3!!! but then he had nothing above Average and over half the army was unprotected.
Turns out for once I was going to be attacked in my Mountains, which ended up having a secure flank, while a number of Tall fields covered other areas.
I was not sure what to do so deployed centrally and waited to see how the mass of enemy would do?
Initial short move across the mountain on the right flank while a double move on the left flank and hold in the centre - now I see what his plan is - I spring into action and send the Pike blocks 'fleet of foot' straight up the centre to see if I can smash through before his 'Tribal' troops can turn and face me.
All starts good as the Pike smash through two units of Archers, then start eating into the Long Spearmen behind.
Unfortunately at this point, even being up on all the melee fights I can't seem to roll any damage while Roger on White\Black dice keeps rolling a wound.
I only break through with one Pike unit but Roger runs short and leaves my Pike being charged in the rear, meanwhile the other Pike unit has also been charged in the rear, even turning round to face the enemy - the chipping off of wounds on 'Whites' continues and they both break - finally the third Pike block is flanked charged and looses the last would and breaks - hard fight and did manage to take down 5 enemy TUGs with two more one wound from breaking.
Loss 10-15 (still a good score)
Great weekend - 2 wins and 2 losses but more crucially 44 victory points, turns out I made joint 6th place out of 17 players.
I'll definitely consider using the Swiss again.
First up - Addition to my Imperial Fists Legion for Horus Heresy - HQ Character Fafnir Rann
Next up - Some more Judge Dread miniatures from the box set - Bloc Gangers
Finally - Some Saga Female Viking Valkyries
Had these in my collection partially painted since before Lockdown - finally finished
Now have only 5 Mounted Female Huscarls to paint up....hopefully soon
Firstly, on ten 3D printed models that I picked up for £2 each from BattlefieldHobbies
Then we have the first batch of Discworld Miniatures - The 'Watch' - eight Guards from the books
Really enjoying these paints, easy to apply, cover well.
Still will be looking to use to supplement the colour range from Contrast paints.
One thing to be aware - it takes a while for the speed paints to dry enough ready for another colour over the top - I've been leaving them for 24 months and had no real issues.
]]>On one side was Sons of Horus (Oliver) and Emperors Children (Chris) versus Word Bearers (Max) and Ruinstorm Daemons (Phil).
Oliver had setup the table and so was time to determine mission and deployment - Mission was Dominion while the deployment map was Ambush!
Rolling for initiative, the Word Bearers and Ruinstorm Daemons won and decided to deploy first in the centre zone, leaving the Sons of Horus and Emperors Children to take the two short ends.
With deployment finished, Horus rolls for seizing the initiative and after a re-roll succeeds.
Led by Horus - can Lorgar and his infernal allies breakout of the ambush?
View from Horus end of the table, looking at Lorgar in his Spartan
From the other end - Archeron Knight and a Shadowsword super heavy, on this end three Warp Rifts appear
Initial turn Fulgrim drops down next to Lorgar
In the Daemon turn, the foul hordes exit the warp rifts. Straight away the winged Greater Daemons and Shrikes fly out and vector strike the Knight, four swipes later each either glancing or penetrating its side armour (including two explosions) - the Knight detonates over the Word Bearer Terminators killing them all.
Meanwhile Lorgar reverses away from Horus, unfortunately the Spartan gets immobilized on the wreak of a Rhino, so Lorgar, Praetor and two 20 man units of Word Bearers decide to surround the Emperor Childrens Anvilus Drop pod.
Shooting on the Anvilus, it is wrecked and Fulgrim has to sacrifice his bodyguard to escape the wreck
Horus finally makes it into combat and takes on Lorgar from challenging Fulgrim - who will win this fight?
Daemons continue to rampage across the battlefield, finally managing to claim an objective.
Eidolon takes on a Nurgle Behemoth, which slowly chomps through his bodyguard
The Ruinstorm Daemons rampage through the defenders on the far side of the battlefield.
In a big surprise - Lorgar takes down Horus, seems the combination of psychic powers - Forewarning / Sanctuary and Precognition was too much for the Warmaster.
After this I forgot to take any more photo's, Lorgar went on to take down Fulgrim by the end of the game.
Man of the match - Lorgar defeating two of his brothers.
Final Score was 14 v 12
Even though we had only taken 5 vp for objectives while Horus\Fulgrim took 12 vp
The loss of two Warlords and four Lords of War and 'Attrition' provided 9 vp.
Oliver has been busy painting up a Sons of Horus army to 4000pts size, unfortunately I had not progressed that well with my Imperial Fists army:(
So we had to cut the game down to 3000pts, which meant Oliver dropped Horus the Warmaster and a 5 man Justerian Terminator Squad with Land Raider transport - next time I'll be prepared.
Therefore with the lack of painted troops I had to combine the Imperial Fists with my Iron Hands as a Shattered Legion formation (restrictions being you have to take a HQ for each faction used) plus some Imperialis Auxilia Ally formation to complete the points.
Table Setup
We rolled up Mission 5 - Tide of Carnage and Ambush deployment map.
I won the dice roll and decided to be the Attacker and deploy on the two short table edges, putting the Sons of Horus in the centre. It would seem the Traitor forces thinking they had cornered the shattered legion forces were out smarted and the tables turned on them...
On one end I deployed all my Iron Hands - Forge Lord Centurion, Tactical Squad with Apothecary, 2 Contemptor Dreadnoughts and a Leviathan Siege Dreadnought, supported by an Imperialis Auxilia Command Squad and Ogryn Brute Squad.
On the opposite side I placed my Mastodon Super Heavy Transport containing the Imperial Fist Centurion, Tactical Squad with Apothecary and 5 man Terminator Squad, one Quad Support Gun, plus an Imperialis Auxilia Squad and 5 team Lascannon Support squad.
Meanwhile Oliver deployed facing my Iron Hands most of his force consisting of Abaddon and a 10 man Justerian Terminator Squad, 2 x Reaver Squads, 2 x Lascannon sponson Predators and two Twin Lascannon Mortis Contemptor Dreadnoughts. Behind that line he had 2 Quad Launchers and Maloghurst as his Warlord.
In reserve, Anvilus Drop pod with 10 man Flamer Squad and a 10 man Destroyer Squad with special character HQ (not sure who he was?)
Mastodon wondering if it will get to shoot something?
Turn 1
I moved my Iron Hands back as much as I could and opened up on the Justerian Terminators as I could not see the Reaver Squads, adding in the two Contemptors and the Leviathan - I managed to kill 5 of the Terminators.
The Sons of Horus managed to drop the Anvilus in just before the edge of the table, then Oliver fired his first shot with one of his Contemptors at my Leviathan, penetrating with me failing its invulnerable save and then Oliver rolling a 6 for the damage -bang the Leviathn exploded with maximum size and strength rolled taking out a number of his Flamer squad and a few wounds on my Ogryns.
Second shot of the game Oliver fires his Justerian Multi-melta at my Contemptor, I fail my save and again Olly rolls a 6 - bang another explosion.
In the assault phase, Oliver rolls above average and manages to get both Reaver Squads into combat, flurry of close combat rolls and Olliver has managed to kill 2 more models than I have, I promptly fail my Leadership test even with a reroll with Vexilla! and Olly sweeps the Iron Fists from the table.
So Far looking good for the Sons of Horus
Turn 2
My Ogryn Brute squad decided to get some revenge on the Flamer Squad, their small brains not realising the wall of fire coming their way (I thought Boarding Shields would give you a better save than 6+?)
They emerged and squashed the beakies dead
Meanwhile from the other side the Mastodon found itself within range of the Sons of Horus, hitting and destroying a Predator and a Contemptor from the rear with it's Magma Cannon, while it's sponson lascannon penetrates the rear of the other Contemptor destroying it with a damage roll of 6. Off screen - the Sons of Horus Quad Batteries where destroyed by combined Lascannons and Shatter shells fire leaving Maloghust on his own!
Plus the remaining Iron Hands Contemptor engages the Reaver Squads who lose a couple of troopers
In the Sons of Horus turn, the Justerian Terminators move forward to engage the Orgyns and score the Primary deployment zone. Meanwhile the Anvilus jets away and the Destructor Squad fails to arrive.
Turn 3
The Imperial Fists offload from the Mastodon, the Terminator squad out front to try and engage the remaining Sons of Horus assets, while the Tactical Squad exits the rear to hunt down Maloghust.
In the shooting phase the Auxilia Lascannon Squad hits Maloghust 3 times and he fails his cover save and dies.
The Mastodon fires on the Predator and takes off it's last hull point, while the Iron Hands Contemptor kills some more Reaver troops who then fail their leadership and flee the table.
The Sons of Horus fail to get their reserves again, the Terminators wipe out the Ogryns while Abaddon moves to take on the Iron Hand Comtemptor charges it and kills it.
Turn 4
At this point we determine that wherever Oliver's reserves land, he can only ever score 2 of the three zones, while I have enough units (especially as the Mastodon counts as a scoring unit) to capture all three zones.
I have also scored 'Slay the Warlord' and 'Last Man Standing' (as Oliver would have 5 surviving units while I have 7 surviving units) - so the minimum result will be 0 v 5 to the Shattered Legion.
Great to have finally get a game in - need to really get on with my Imperial Fists army.
]]>For the game we pulled 'Major Offensive' deployment, 'Intercept The Transmission' objective and 'Clear Conditions'.
Table set
Plenty of scenery split between the desert township and the Imperial Outpost
Just off screen Chris has two BARC Speeders, otherwise three squads of Clone troopers, while I placed the Persuader ready to roll into the village
Scoring round, the Separatists sit on two objectives while the Republic only have one
Turn three - Lots of shooting, Separatists seem to have come out better as both BARC Speeders and two Clone squads are destroyed (there is one stand on the objective but not for long)
Turn Four scoring round both Obiwan and Yoda advance to claim the objective but unfortunately I have three Troop leaders within scoring range - 4 v 2 to the Separatists
Turn Five - Obiwan gets round the side of the Persuader Droid Tank and inflicts 4 point of damage.
Turn Six - I fail to kill the Clone Troopers holding Chris's objective even with shooting from the AAT Tank, Persuader and the Spider Droid.
This leaves Chris holding two double point objectives while I have only one.
Final score is 6 v 6 - a draw
Great game - Think I will drop the AAT Tank for a second Persuader Tank
]]>
This time I was back with my Legio Tritonis @2000pts consisting of 3 Warlord Titans and a Reaver Titan using Corsair Maniple (loaded out with 6 Volcano Cannons and Tritonis Radioactive Warheads in the Missile Launchers)
Meanwhile Jim had gone back to running his Warmaster Titan (not the Iconoclast) with 2 Reavers and a Warhound Titan.
Using the Open Engine War cards we randomly picked the various cards (having not shuffled in the last games cards - so no Thick Smog)
Deployment Map - Fortified Positions - 10"x24" rectangle in opposite quarters.
Primary Objective - Conquest - get into each others deployment zone 5vp within 18", 15vp within 12", 25vp if within 6" and bonus 5vp if no enemy units within 12" of your board edge
Planetary Effects - Toxic World - Any Titan that has suffered critical damage needs to roll a dice on '6' they suffer an additional point of critical damage
Battlefield Effects - Geysers - player who lost initiative places and scatters a 5" template, any shooting through the template is at -2 to hit
Table setup and Deployment
As can be seen Jim leads with his Warmaster Titan in the center, followed by his two Reavers while the Warhound is on flank duty. For me I place the Reaver on the near flank followed by the two Warlord Titans with double Volcano cannons and Missile Launchers while the final Warlord with Paired Lasblasters and two Plasma Cannons angles to cover the flank.
Turn One
Jim goes full stride with every Titan in response I place the middle two titans on First Fire orders, then fail my order on the Reaver (also First Fire) - seeing Jim's Titans go full speed especially the Warmaster - I decided that I needed to soften him up before he could get within 16" and start deleting my Warlords.
My First Fire managed excessive number of hits on Jim's Warmaster but he managed to save all but one hit from all my shots (reduced due to placement of a concealment bombardment)
Turn Two
Now that the Concealment bombardment was gone, I dropped my Stygian Veil stratagem in the path of the Warmaster, whereas his shooting was reduced - all my Titans could now see him in the open and he was not so lucky second time round losing all his shields and suffering double critical's to both the Legs and Body.
Meanwhile my third Warlord started firing on the Warhound sneaking in for the 25vp score, I ripped off all his shields but only managed to destroy one of his plasma guns - it survives for now. Meanwhile Jim is struggling to make any real damage except removing all the shields from the Reaver.
Damage to the Warmaster's legs makes it stumble to the right - could I get some side shots on him with First Fire?
Turn Three
Luckily for Jim he gets to go first and does emergence repairs and gets all his shields up on the Warmaster.
So I decide to ignore him knowing he forgo shooting to be able to move and face the right way. I settle in for First Fire - again failing on the Reaver!!
But that's fine my shooting deletes his Preceps Senoires Reaver Titan from combined firing from two Warlords. Meanwhile the Twin Melta Cannon Reaver has all his shields removed by missile fire but I scatter with the two Volcano Cannons - My Reaver does manage to get a hit on it's body with a Volcano Cannon so is now structurally compromised and Toxic gases cause an additional crit hit.
To keep his Warhound alive, Jim moves him behind the tall building giving me no line of sight - if only I had been able to get off Split fire order!
Turn Four
I've got initiative and place the Reaver on Emergence Repairs as it is running very hot having used its Volcano Cannons and rolling two double plasma last turn!
Meanwhile I manage two First Fires and finally a Split Fire on the Warlords - in the shooting phase I knock out the Melta Reaver and also destroy the Building with the Paired Lasblasters to be able to see the Warhound in the open and go maximal with the Sunfury Cannons and light up the Warhound.
Just the Warmaster left to shoot, Jim off loads into my Reaver and in a copy of his previous show of Shields I go 'Shields to Max' and manage to roll 2+ for every hit done (but do push the Reaver into the RED)
Jim rolls for Turn 5 and we get another turn.
Turn Five
Warlords go for First Fire hoping do some damage before Jim kills something (as he has initiative), I move the Reaver to get flank shots (also get him out of arc of the Warmaster).
Jim survives the first fire with only losing his shields. He then launchers everything - even all 12 Revelator Missiles and manages to blast away my Warlords legs from under him.
In revenge, knowing his Warmaster's legs are his weak spot, I target them with all my Missiles (Reaver and Warlord) and manage to do the two critical hits to kill him - sadly no big explosion :(
So time to count up victory points - neither Jim or I have scored the Primary Objective (not a chance in Hell that I could), if the Warmaster had survived he would have scored 5vp
So Secondary Missions - Jim had defend a building in his deployment zone which I had no clue on which gave him 10vp.
I had Secure Ground in which I had to have more Scale in two quarters than Jim (written down before the game started - I selected both base line quarters so got 5vps, if I had three Quarters then I would gain an addition 5vps
We then realised that the game was not over, so I rolled the turn dice and got a 3 (if I had rolled a 5+ game over), I was a boosted more away from Jim's Quarter, but needed to drop my plasma from red and fix some Reactor Damage (on 2nd Crit) - so succeeding in an Emergency Repair order and rolling modified 2 x 6 and a 5 (fixing the two crits and one heat)
I rolled my reactor dice for boosted movement and got only one heat and stomped forward for the extra 5vps.
So even though all the enemy titans where stopped and destroyed, it's still a draw 10 v 10
Great game - I think Jim was very unlucky in a few dice rolls, it could so easily have been his win.
Think I need to go back to Legio Astorum - get some moving on instead of all this First Fire lark...
]]>
Can the Loyalists hold ground against the unending waves of Traitor forces.
With 4000pts each, we ended up with three Primarchs on the table - Sangiunius, Konrad Curze and Magnus the Red plus Valdor himself leading the Custodes.
Mission was Domination and Vanguard Strike deployment
Five objectives across the 102"x48" table
Deployment
Traitors First - from the left flank with the bulk of the Night Lords, Thousand Sons holding the middle and a smaller force of Night Lords on the right flank
Loyalist Second - intermixed Custodes and Blood Angels with close on 1900pts of models held in reserve by the Custodes!
Then we have a couple of squads of Night Lords infiltrating
Start of game goes to the Loyalists as JamesM had taken an Onslaught army list - but then again the Loyalists knew we were coming so not a big surprise.
Blood Angel Comtemptor and Land speeders range on the Night Lords
Sanguinius and his Dawn Breakers advance between the Hab Blocks
Suicide Squad of Blood Angel Legion Terminators deep strike to destroy the Thousand Sons Land Raider
Meanwhile Magnus and his six units of Sekhmet Terminators watch as the Loyalists close the range (or not)
So far away for the Night Lords - at least they are holding an objective
View down the Avenue between Sanctum ruins
Where will the fit happen?
Thousand Sons advance (well as quickly as Cataphract Armour will allow you to)
Blood Angel reserves - in comes a Fire Raptor looking for targets
Moments before the charge...
Loyalists have claimed the central objective - for now
After some brutal fire power from the Traitors - Sanguinius and a few Dawn Breakers make it to combat
Meanwhile initial clash in the centre between the two sides
Oh Hello - what do we prefer to fight - A Primarch or some Custodes?
Traitor reinforcements as first of the Thousand Sons Fire Raptors arrive
And here is the second - eyeing up the Blood Angel Assault Squad with its Avenger Cannon
Still the fight in the middle continues, Magnus brings up fresh troops to hopefully sway the fight
Blood Angels Storm Eagle delivers a squad of Legion Terminators and a Praetor to neutralize a unit of Thousand Son Legion Terminators
Wow - incoming, Custodes Orion Transport, Curze looks up and wonder what's inside?
Murder in the streets, Custodes looking for targets
Fire Raptor advances looking for targets
Magnus lines up his Sekhmet Terminators ready to face who ever is in that Orion Ship
But wait a minute - I need to finish my psychic phase - anyone else want to join in? No just me then - Blam Blam Blam - oh some more dead Blood Angels
Here they come - the best of the best of Custodes led by Valdor
Can they banish the Thousands from the Sanctom
The fight is on - Magnus challenges Valdor to single combat
Meanwhile on the flank the Loyalists look to clean up the few Night Lords hanging around
Thud - Valdor is no longer as a Biomancy fuelled Magnus smacks him with a number of Strength 10 hits
What! It's all over, the Thousand Sons survive many killing hits and vanquish the Custodes
Even the Orion Ship is taken down by a Fire Raptor from behind!
The Loyalists managed to leave the battlefield with just three Adeptus Custode Warriors.
Result:
Loyalists 6 Domination VPs
Traitors 9 Domination VPs +1 for Attrition +1 for Orion Super Heavy +1 for Sanguinius +2 Slay the Warlord, for 14 VPs
I am now banned from using my Thousand Sons, due to the Sekhmet having 2+/3+ saves and 24 levels of Psychic power which is near impossible to stop (though they did manage to 'deny the witch' at least 6 times.
By the end of the game I had lost 18 Sekhmet Terminators (out of 30), 10 Legion Terminators and a Land Raider, while Magnus, the Praetor and the Librarian had all also lost a wound each.
NOTE: JamesM had most of his force still alive at the end of the game, Konrad Curze had not even suffered a single wound.
]]>
Table set up - some line of sight blocking scenery and ruins (old Epic scenery) but still plenty of avenues to advance and draw line of sight (I won't be able to hide all my Knight Banners.
We then drew cards from the 'Open Wars' set
Deployment Map - 'A Chance Engagement' - restricted our deployment to being in the corners 12" x 8"
Primary Objectives - 'Acquisition' - One objective each placed no more than 12" from the centre, worth 15VP if held/carried by a Unit at the end of the game; otherwise 7VP if not carried but unit within 6" and no enemy in 6"
Planetary Effects - 'Industrial World' - Increase the strength and dice of Flamestorm weapons by 1 (Jim had a double Flamestorm Warhound in his force)
Battlefield Effects - 'Thick Smog' - Attacks made against a target by a unit that is further away than twice the targets scale in inches automatically miss.
This last one really was a tough one for Jim's force as he would need to be within 10" to target my Acastus Knights (scale 5), 8" to target my Cerastus Knights (scale 4), 6" to target my Questoris Knights (scale 3) and 4" to target my Armiger Knights (scale 2) - While I would be able to target his Warhounds at 12" (scale 6) and his Iconoclast at 24" (scale 12).
But then again I would need to get close if I wanted to melee assault his titans (those Cerastus Knights need to get into melee).
Deployment
Jim places his Iconoclast on his right flank, while the maniple of 4 Warhounds go on the other flank, I split my Lances across the two zones, placing my Cerastus Knight Lance on the left flank and the Questoris Knight Lance on the right.
Turn One and Two
Jim manages to get full stride orders off on both units and closes the distance between us, while I manage to fail my first order and just had to move normally
After the Iconoclast completed its combat full stride (with boosted distance, so having moved 14"), this allowed my Arcastus Knights with Conversion Beamers to shoot him now he had moved within 24" - managed to only drop 2 shields as Jim pushed for 'reroll 1s on shields'
Turn Three
Jim manages to win initiative and moves round ready to engage (though I feel Jim messed up with the Iconoclast as he stands it too near the tall spire)
Not much shooting as Jim was still too far out, my shooting was more successful as I had range, with shots from the Arcastus Magma Lascannons and missiles stripping shields from the two lead Warhounds then some small damage from the rest of the Questoris Knights (I messed up should have fired the Questoris Knights first to strip shields)
Turn Four
I again failed to get any orders off (so no charges), but did manage to walk all my Knights into combat with all four Warhounds. unfortunately for Jim his Iconoclast was still navigating the Spire building.
Many attacks later and three of the four Warhounds were destroyed, unfortunately the scattering of the Conversion Beamers and Magma Cannons did more damage to me than Jim's attackes
Then Jim rolls a 10 on the dice and the game was over.
With the destroyed Warhounds, Jim had lost hold of his objective but had both his Iconoclast and remaining Warhound within 6" of it but unfortunately I had a Cerastus Knight also within 6"
Meanwhile since turn two I had grabbed my objective with a unit of Armigers and ran as fast as I could away from the enemy, even after losing two Armigers to a Barrage Stratagem I still held it for 15VPs
Meanwhile I had a Secondary Objective of 'Hold the Line' which required me to stop Jim getting within 24" of my board edge for another 10VP
Whereas Jim had 'Cut off the Head' in which he had to kill all Banners in my Seneschal's Lance (I still had a Questoris and a Meagra Banner left.
Just to add to more hurt to Jim's force I had taken a Tertiary Objective of 'Decapitating Strike' - if you kill the Princeps Seniores you gain VPs equal to half it's scale - which was one of the Warhounds I had destroyed.
Giving me 28 v 0 score
I think two things contributed greatly to the win - One the 'Thick Smog' which dramatically reduced Jim's shooting, secondly the Iconoclast struggled to get into combat (I had played 'Interference' which stopped the Iconoclast doing an extra 7" move)
]]>Plus after two weeks in my new job in Paddington Office, found myself 'working from home'.
Found myself with extra time in the evenings and weekends, so decided to spend time painting up some of my models - In 2020 I managed to paint up 496 Miniatures
This year, it seems that I have outdone myself with completing 852 Miniatures (216 being rebased and touched up paint schemes)
Tally of Models by type:
Ancients - Art De La Guerre (ADLG)
38 bases of Spartacus Slave Army
24 bases of Medieval Polish Army
Ancients - Mortem Et Gloriam (MEG)
8 bases of Spartacus Gladiators
39 bases of Midanite Arabs
6 Japanese Buildings
Flames of War (FoW) - Hungarian Mid War
19 Tanks
8 Guns
34 Infantry bases
Fantasy
Halfling Army - 102 Infantry, 4 Cavalry, 4 Beasts and 1 War machine
Vampire Counts Army - 120 Infantry, 9 Characters and 1 Zombie Dragon
Kragnos
Adeptus Titanicus - Legio Tritonis
3 Warlord Titans, 2 Reaver Titans and 1 Warmaster Titan
Star Wars Legion
Separatists - 1 Tank, 27 Droids, 2 Characters
Clone Army - 4 Vehicles, 46 Troopers and 9 Characters
Rebels - 80 Troopers and 6 Characters
Empire - 1 Probe Droid and 1 Character
12 Jedi Warriors
3 Jawas and Sandcrawler
2 Mandalorian, 2 Grugo and IG Droid
Necromunda
Esher Gang - 36 miniatures
Slave Ogryns - 12 miniatures
Beastman Bounty Hunter
Badgers and Burrows - 67 miniatures
Marvel Universe - 37 miniatures
DC Universe - 19 miniatures
Judge Dredd - 2 Judges plus Lawmaster and 5 Bots
Miscellaneous
6 Conan the Barbarian miniatures
6 D&D (TV Series) miniatures
8 Princess Brides miniatures
6 Hitch Hikers of the Galaxy miniatures
6 Battlestar Galactica miniatures
Alice with Bunny & Zombie Alice
Fimir Hero, Fimir Sorcerer and Familiar
Elven Sorcerer
Cyborg Assassin
3 Halfling Soldiers (super sized)
Frodo and Samwise Hobbits
Photo Gallery
Always thought they would be interesting to paint than play the game - so bit the bullet and bought two packs: Judge Dredd and the Mega-City Robots.
This last weekend decided it was time to paint them up, so over Saturday and Sunday I undercoated them and painted them - Voila
Judge Dredd - I am the Law
Mega-City Robots
DemoBot
WarBot
UtilBot
SecBot
UtilBot
Judge Dredd
On Lawmaster
As it has been a while since the game was played and I didn't take notes during the game, this will be just a lot of photos of the game in play:)
Game ended on the 4th turn as shop was closing, end score was 93 - 68 to the Loyalists.
For my part Traitor Lego Tritonis only lost the Warmaster Titan for 15pts and destroyed 28pts of Loyalist forces (2 Reaver Titans and 2 Banners of Questoris Knights)
I decided to use my trusty British Churchills in Italy list which had done well in previous tournaments at Battlefield Hobbies.
Event was 3 games using the standard missions - Free-for-All, Dust Up and Encounter (not using any of the more complicated deployment rules)
Game 1 - drawn against a Finnish Army made up of two commands, one Infantry and one Stug Tanks playing Free For All.
So army was spread cross the table holding both objectives, I had placed the majority of my force on the right flank, so opponent deployed his Stug force opposite
Churchills with M10 Achilles backed up by 2 25 PDR guns
Game started slow with neither of us causing many casualties (except for me gunning down Finnish Infantry), all looked good until my opponent decided to rush all his infantry at me to shoot as many Panzerfausts as he could, needing 6's to hit I thought I'd be Ok.
Then his dice went hot, 5 out of 8 Panzerfaust rockets hit and bailed my tanks, then again needing either 5 or 6's to hit his Stug's fired and 10 out 16 shots hit - in return I could only roll 1's or 2's for saves, suddenly my CinC Churchill, both Churchill Squadrons and the two Sherman Tank Squadrons were either destroyed or bailed out!!!
Leaving his Infantry to charge in and capture the tank crews
At the end of the turn I had only one active core tank unit (single Sherman tank) left.
Game Over - Lost 1 - 8 could not believe my eyes!
Game 2 - drawn against Stu and his SS PanzerKompanie in Dust Up
In this game we start in opposite quarters, knowing that Stu had 4 PakFront 88 Guns that could cover large areas of the table, I chose the corner I though I could get plenty of blocking scenery in the way
View from Stu's setup - me hiding from the 88's, in reserve was a Panther Squad and Panzer IV squad.
Game started slow waiting for reserves to arrive, as soon as Stu's Tanks arrived I started angling M10 Achilles and Sherman Fireflies to knock out the Panthers while the rest of the guns aimed at the Panzer IV.
My Reserves managed to hide behind woods and fields making Stu need 6's to hit which his PaK's managed not to roll.
As Game started to get to the end of time, I was one move away from attacking his weakly defended objective (having killed the two defending 88's with artillery fire) and Stu nowhere near his objectives as I had too many guns covering the advance.
Result Draw 3 - 3
Game 3 - drawn against John Randall's Finnish army with a Tank Company with a mix of supporting troops in Encounter.
John's forces were strung out across the table, while mine where more to the left flank as John had placed one of the objectives he need to take in the middle of the long table side - reason: he had a large group of Finnish Infantry in the centre with an idea of jumping from one building to the next to win.
Forgot to take a photo of setup, so below is picture near the end of the game
From the start I was able to get line of sight on all John's deployed tanks and started blowing them up, his reserves arrived on his left flank miles away from the main battle.
He did manage to destroy two Churchill Squadrons, but I managed to knock him down to one squadron of tanks and break him
As to his Infantry attack, they managed to get within 10" of the objective but had spent 6 turns pinned in the central buildings surrounded by my tanks.
Win 7 - 2 to me
At the end of the day, both myself and Stu had ended up on 11 victory points but I had killed far more units over the three games and so got 3rd place:)
Decided to join an ADLG ancients tournament than the usual FoW event - the theme was Feudal Age so instead of taking lots of Medium Knights, Spearmen and Longbowmen like most European armies of the period, I decided to try my hand with a Mongol Empire army of pure horse archers - see if I could shoot my enemy down while evading the Knights...
Game 1 - against Feudal Hungarians, my first venture into Eastern Europe did not have any Knights just plenty of Heavy Cavalry and Spearmen
Terrain fell good, big open expance on my left flank, while right had a Gulley and two fields but still space to travel down the flank.
The armies lined up facing each other on the left flank, meanwhile I sent my small scouting force of Light Cavalry down the right flank
The game consisted of me moving up and shooting and evading, unfortunately my first attempt to flee had me roll low on movement and my opponent rolling high allowing to catch me and destroy me. Suddenly he was up 8 breakpoints from my total of 22.
I fared better after that but still lost 22 vs 19 - just could not cause the final few hits in shooting
Game 2 - against Feudal English, travelling further west and finding an army with Knights, Spear and Longbows
Scenery fell again on the right flank with only a rough hill in opponents right flank which he ended up deploying some knights on.
We ended up deploying opposite on the left flank biggest issue for me in this game is that my opponent had won the initiative so was able to move first - in doing so reduced the distance I could fall back from evading before I ran out of battlefield, game started slowly as I shoot and evaded his force. Then the English Longbowmen started causing casualties on my right flank, Knights started getting casualties.
It finally came down to the last round where I was 2 away from breaking and he was 4 and it was my turn - failed all my rally rolls and failed to cause any casualties while opponent managed 2 more hits to win the game
Loss 22 v 21
Game 3 - against Communal Italian, so after being repulsed from England the Mongols travelled east through Italy and got waylaid, more Knights , Spearmen and Crossbowmen
Again the scenery fell to the right flank (pattern forming here), opponent got a coastal zone, a village and a field on his backline while I got a road and a field next to the coast
So again we deployed on the left flank, my opponent was very worried about breaking up his battle line with charging after my evading cavalry so only moved up slowly, this allowed me to rack up numerous hits which caused him to spend lots of time rallying troops not attacking.
Ended up a Win for me 16 v 23
Game 4 - against Berber army, so a little jaunt to North Africa to face an large army (30 bases!) of Javelin armed troops and Mediocre Spearmen plus a small contingent of Cavalry with Impact.
Again scenery fell to the right flank, with a coastal zone, march and a hill and field on my baseline
We lined up again on the left flank, while I placed two light cavalry to harass the light infantry in the marsh
Due to his lack of range with javelins except for the two Bowmen, I was able to outshoot him racking up hits across every stand.
He finally decided to charge me down as casualties were mounting, looking at the odds with my troops fresh and his wounded I decided to stand and fight, I took a few casualties but killed many more of his troops.
Finally chasing down the final few wounds required I won - 12 v 30
Game 5 - against Ghaznavids, on the way home to Mongolia to report to the Khan I was waylaid by a Heavy Cavalry Bow and Elephant army (an army I do like and own)
Now interestingly the scenery all fell to the right flank again - all placed bunched up next to the rough river, my opponent managed to move a rough hill and the marsh (blue circle) further to the middle of the table which drastically reduced the space in which I could advance my army and move.
Game started slowly as my opponent could not roll good dice for command and preferred to sit tight, we exchanged bow fire and it quickly became clear his Heavy Cavalry with protection was going to survive this exchange better than my unarmoured ones.
Finally my opponent got good dice and came rushing as me, killing a few but very much disrupting my lines, all I could do was rally and hang on.
On the final round the score was 21 vs 20 - I need 3 more points to his 1. My rallies all failed and so did all my shooting, while my opponent was able to cause the final wound he needed!
Lost 22 vs 20
So I'd managed to win 2 and lost 3 - realised that you can't reliably shoot down an enemy army, you need some combat punch
My final placing was 22nd out of 36 players - not bad for first tournament
NOTE: Turns out only my final opponent placed higher than me
Bought some Rabbits and some Hippo's to be printed at 28mm scale.
After a month (printer was in Canada), of which spent 2 weeks sitting in Heathrow airmail depot, I final had the package in my hands.
When I opened up the package I found the Rabbits to be a bit on the small side
Above shows the difference between my Badgers & Burrows collection, because of the size I decided to put them on 25mm bases than 30mm
Line up of all the seven models with various weapons.
Also bought the above Archer which did turn out to be the right scale.
Alongside the Bunnies, I also purchased a group of Hippo Soldiers - stated to be 32mm scale, they turned out to be the correct size to count as Large Creatures on 50mm bases
I think these will be very interesting models to paint, lots of detail, thinking something Napoleonic?
Think the guy realised the issue of scale and added one additional model for free
So lesson learned - be very careful when reviewing the scale of model options:)
So we decided that Andy should get his massive collection of Wings of Glory - World War One BI-planes and Bombers out for a four player game.
Unfortunately we could not rescue the colourful gaming mats that we would normally use, so the terrain was a uniform green expanse
On the German end, two bombing objectives protected by four AA gun emplacements
Also defended by 4 German Bi-planes (Adrian on the left while I commanded the two on the right)
In the far distance, Andy on the left with Bomber escorted by two fighters and Karl on the right with two fighters and strangely at the edge his Bomber!
Turn 1 - we all flew towards each other, think it will take at least another turn before all hell breaks loose...
Turn 2 - The Germans stay on course but the British and Italian Bombers seem to be angling towards each other!
Turn 3 - the fight starts with the German plane missing while the Italian plane does 1 damage and stops me turning right (as if I was going to fly off the table!!!)
NOTE: we decided to show all the damage cards to make it more informative for the blog to know what was happening.
On the other side a couple of planes exchange shots with Adrian's pilot taking a wound
Next phase, things heat up as Karl brings two planes on to my one - with me taking an engine hit which will cause me to 'stall' each turn (take at least one short movement card), meanwhile my shoots end up jamming my front machine gun.
On the other side the Germans fair worse with one plane hit and smoking
Next phase we barely miss each other (plastic base needs to overlap the stem to cause a collision damage)
The British fighters nearly get each others way
In the centre, two German planes look to take on the British Bomber but miss judge their speed and Adriams fighter ploughs into the Bomber causing 10 damage for none back
Turn 5 - the Italian Bomber manages to swerve away from the German fighter who happily keeps going straight forward
The British Bomber keeps going for their target while the German planes try to turn around to engage
With no German fighters in gun sight the Italian fighters loop round to get back in the fight
\Likewise the British fighters have nothing to fire at but are now close enough for the AA guns to attack them
I suddenly find out that the German bi-planes are not very quick at turning around, looks like it might take me a while....
though my other fighter has managed to loop round and has the British bomber squarely in its sights
Not a lot going on here as AA Gun and fighter exchange wide shoots
Half way point - time for a picture of the whole engagement
Currently the Germans have one plane on fire and another smoking, while the Allies are sitting pretty with two bombers lining up to hit one of the objectives
\Turn 6 - back to the fight, Allied \bombers get even closer to the target
Then the British bomber drops it's first payload and does 9 plus Big Bang result (which is an instant kill result) - the target needs to take 10 points of damage to be destroyed
Then it's time to change course (nearly colliding) to find the other objective.
Meanwhile I have two fighters who are a bit blinded due to all the flames and smoke
This leaves it all up to Adrian to save the day or not
Seems my German Pilots are in really bad situations which actually as both planes collide with each other and are destroyed!
The Allies pound one of the remaining AA guns
Clear run for the Italian Bomber
As the take down another AA Gun
Finally I get a reinforcement right behind the British Bomber, causing 2 damage and jamming his MG!
|Bang goes the last AA Gun
Who can stop the Allies now, as my plane gliders slowly behind as I frantically try to clear the MG jam
Then suddenly some good fortune for the Germans as Adrian flies one of his planes into the Italian bomber forcing it delay it's bombing run and I manage to get my last reserve plane on the table
Next phase my just arrived fighter fires on the British bomber pulling out a 'big bang' hit and down goes the Bomber
Time to chase the Italian Bomber as three German fighters get into formation
Next phase my Blue plane fires at the Italian Bomber and pulls a 'Big Bang' card - must have hit the bomb carriage and caused a chain explosion, just before the Italian fighter got his crosshairs on me and sniped me out for 6 damage
And with that one big bang - the game over
German Score = 5pts for each Bomber +5pts for surviving Objective +1pt for destroyed Allied plane = 16pts
Allied Score = 5pts for destroyed target and 5pts for 5 destroyed German planes = 10pts
NOTE: there was only 4 German planes left - so Allies could not beat the german score
Very enjoyable game.
]]>Four games over two days - how many times will I here 'I'm Spartacus' shouted...
Game 1 - facing Gallic Foederate Romans against Kurt Jewkes
Started off badly as he won the role to determine Invader or Defender and opted to Defend, I did win Territory and went with Standard and ended up with minimal scenery with me placing one wood on the left flank and a Wooded Hill in the centre.
Deployment Kurt went for a delayed right flank back on his base line and all his cavalry on the left.
I knew he was going for a left flank envelopment.
View from Spartacus eye line
Such a long open area to traverse!
Game went with me moving very slowly (bad movement cards on Spartacus), took him nearly 2 hours to finally get into combat, meanwhile on my right the 2nd in Command retreated back from the Cavalry wing and never actually hit anything.
Kurt seems reluctant to engage, then suddenly in the last 15 minutes we clashed... I had managed to kill two units of cavalry while Kurt killed 3 Skirmisher units
End result 6 v 5 win to Spartacus
Game 2 - facing Early Imperial Romans against Graham Klaka
I'd faced Graham at the London GT where is Romans had smashed through my Ottoman Turks rather easily, so I knew how hard this game was going to be, lets hope for some favourable scenery to cause the Romans trouble.
I managed to lose the dice off again and so defended in the Mountains, unfortunately Graham scouting was better than mine and he reduced it down to Normal scenery levels, I did manage to get a wooded hill in front of my troops but Graham was able to pull it closer to his lines than mine and the rest of the table ended up open except for a large wood on my left flank.
How can the Roman lines be longer than mine?
So I moved up as best I could to try and take the right hand Mountain at least, Unfortunately midway through the game my Generals failed to pull cards that would allow me to hold from charging - so across the line my warriors tried to devastatingly charge the roman lines, unfortunately the Slaves were ill equipped compared to the might of Rome and I started dying everywhere, the Allied German cavalry broke through my lines and broke my army with a rear charge - at least Spartacus survived
Ending in a Triumph for Graham 15 v 2 loss to me
Game 3 - facing Indo-Scythians against Mike Klaka
Epic fail to take starting photo's, so here is what the game looked like at the end
Final some good luck, managed to win to be the Invader and with Skulls so could intercept (choose where the Battle would be on the terrain map), Mike decided to go with Mountains and with me winning the scouting pushed the scenery to be Very Dense - Yay I think.
We ended up with both flanks being heavily wooded and Hilly while on Mike's edge he placed a large Village and a large area of rocky ground, finally I managed to place a Wooded Hill in a perfectly strategic location for me to advance to - this was to prove critical as I placed three units of Warriors higher up looking at his poor Cataphract cavalry opposite - neither one of us wanting to charge!!!
The last 15 minutes again proved critical as I managed to get a flank charge on Mike's 4 strong Elephant unit and smashed through them, will Spartacus managed to break a unit of Indian Spear & Archers. Meanwhile a single unit of Gallic Cavalry managed to hold up Mike's right hand flank troops for two hours but finally were run over.
End result 6 v 4 win to Spartacus, another turn and I could have killed 3 more units and broken Mike's army.
Need to work on my pace on the game - still a lot of rules I'm not 100% sure on.
Game 4 - facing Spartacus Slave Army against Will Denham (organiser of the tournament)
So to a chorus of 'I'm Spartacus' - we have a very even match up between two Slave Armies, both of us have a break point of 8 (Units to loose to be defeated), though I have 16 combat units vs Will's 15.
We both wanted lots of scenery and ended up Wooded Secure flank on my left and lots of Wooded hills, a village and Marsh on the left flank, some ruins and fields on Will's baseline and crucially a large Crop field in the centre.
Will placed his Spartacus on his right flank as did I - looks like they wont be facing each other. Will was surprised how wide my army was and it looked like I would be overlapping his forces (lets see if I can get some flank charges on), Will had left his 3 Poor Slaves behind his lines whereas I had thrown them up onto the main battle line.
As the Invader, I got to move first and quickly grabbed the two Wooded Hills to take the high ground, meanwhile Will made a concerted move on the right flank village.
Couple of hours later my command finally did not get the cards to hold the line on the Wooded hills and had to come charging down into the plains to fight, soon we were knee deep in gore as we tore pieces out of each others units, but critically I had sent a unit of Warriors from the left flank over to the right and managed to get a flank charge on Will's Gladiators that were already fighting one of my slave units, crunch they were gone, this let me carry forward towards the flank of his battle line - meanwhile a unit of poor slaves had chased off a unit of skirmishing slingers and could now turn round to see the other flank of Will's line.
Next turn crunch as my slaves smashed and destroyed all three units, leaving just one unit of Gladiators surrounded by blood thirsty slaves.
On the other flank Will's Slaves where taking down my left flank command of poor slaves, but not quickly enough - it would seem that I had destroyed 7 out of 8 of his units, while Will had only managed 5 out of 8 of mine.
Final turn - just two combats remaining in one, I needed a single wound while the other I needed 3, so I went with the prior and just managed to roll a hit - game over
Ended in a Triumph 15 v 10 to Spartacus (mine) - that was epic
End Results of the Tournament
I managed to place 18th (out of 28), best I've done in MeG - with 3 Wins as well
Not sure I'd take Spartacus Slave Army again, though it did teach me some lessons on how to play
A new interest came on the scene - Forgeworld had started producing Horus Heresy 30K models in resin and releasing rulebooks for the game, I decided it was time for me to paint a new Legion and decided on 'Sons of Horus' using the new Forgeworld models.
So many hours spent I finally had a 3000pts force ready for the coming tournaments and events.
Which had to have me leading the force with none other than Warmaster Horus
Plus Ezekial Abbaddon
Plus Loken as a Centurion Commander
Plus Apothecaries
Then we have the Troops - Space Marine Legion Squads (maxed out full 20 man units)
NOTE: Originally the models came on 25mm bases as the rules were based on 7th Edition 40K rules.
Later with the plastic box starter set they moved to 32mm bases - so instead of pulling the old bases off I bought load of 'C' clip bases to convert them to the new size.
Next we have the Elite Terminators
Taken from the new Horus Heresy boxed set, along with the Contemptor Dreadnoughts
Finally a pair of Spartan Tanks to transport all the troops into battle
So much fun I had painting these up, must admit now they could do with a touch up and more detail added - but at the time I felt very pleased with the results, my own take on the 'sea green' colour scheme for the Sons Of Horus.
Many victories were had against the lap dogs of the Emperor and occasional disagreement with some Traitor forces. Think they only ever lost one game against an Imperial Fists force.
Happy days - with this force done I felt the need to embark on a 2nd Heresy army, but who to choose....
]]>I decided that I'd like to be the Separatists (having spent the last two weeks building and painting a 800pt force and also used Republic at TableTop Republic Store event), this gave Karl a chance to build the might of the Clones led by Yoda.
I decided to have:
Commander - T-Series Command Droid
Operative - Cad Bane
Corp - 8 B1 Battle Droids with Sniper Rifle
Corp - 8 B1 Battle Droids with Sniper Rifle
Corp - 5 B2 Super Battle Droids
Specialists - 2 BX Series Droid with Sniper Rifle
Support - 2 STAP Riders
Support - 2 Droidekas
Heavy - AAT Tank
Karl had:
HQ - Yoda
Corp - 6 Phase 1 Clone Troopers with Z-6 Gun
Corp - 6 Phase 1 Clone Troopers with Z-6 Gun
Corp - 6 Phase 2 Clone Troopers with Mortar
Specialists - 5 ARC Troopers
Heavy - Saber-Class Tank
Mission was 'Recover the Supplies' with deployment 'Hemmed In' and Condition 'Limited Visibility
Sorry in advance, tried to take the photos of the game holding the Digital camera but ended up a little blurred compared to when I use the tripod.
Deployment - with one objective in the centre, Karl went for putting his two supply drops to the far right of his table edge, whereas I placed mine far closer to the centre objective.
Clearly Karl was going for hold his two and fight for the centre - while I concentrated on just the middle three with my trooper units being the only ones who can claim them
My Centre deployment two units of B1 Droids supported by the Tank and Cad Bane scouting out to grab the first objective
Karl's deployment zone forced his whole army into the centre
First turn we all advanced, with me having the larger number of activations it allowed me to see where his Saber Tank was going to go which was to follow his Clones going through the door way and shoot up my advancing STAP Riders, unfortunately this allowed my AAT Tank to advance and hit him the side at Range 2 (due to Limited Visibility condition) - this damage was going to hinder Karl in the long run
Turn Two and it was time to strike, Karl could not wait too long otherwise the Droids would grab the centre objective and retreat. So out came the Clones supported by Yoda while the ARC Troopers skimmed left and fired on the other B1 Droid unit - both units used 'Droid Popper Grenades' to great effect.
Unfortunately that allowed my AAT Tank to blow holes in his Saber Tank causing it to lose one action each turn, meanwhile Cad Bane having claimed the objective did some sneaky shots at the Clones along with the BX Sniper rifle and dropped them down to just the Unit Leader
On the far right, Karl managed to destroy both the STAP and Droidekas with very accurate shots securing his two objectives
Turn 3 - Karl took the initiative ordering Yoda to go all-out combat, jumping straight into the B1 Droids and killing 4 of them while using Force Wave to kill another 3 droids in the other unit.
I decided to withdraw the B1 droids in combat losing all but one model but this did then allow me to fire my B2 Super Battle Droids at him, 6 hits and 5 blank results on Red Save dice later (1in3 chance on the dice), Yoda was down and out!!
At this point I forgot to take any more pictures
In the end the ARC Troopers jumped over the wall and caused many wounds on the B2 Droids. While my AAT Tank destroyed the Saber Tank in their duel.
Final shots of the game came from Cad Bane who played a Command card which allowed him to fire twice in the round (normal rules you can only fire once), he managed to cause 8 wounds (2 with Pierce) on the ARC Troopers wiping them out.
Leaving me with the three centre objectives to the two held by Karl on the right flank.
Win to the Separatists.
Love Star Wars Legion but must admit we were both very rusty on the rules and forgot a lot of the special abilities on the cards - Still good fun hope to have more in games in the new year
]]>
But finally had the energy and inspiration to continue with the Anthropomorphic models.
First Up - the Gecko's
Used Instant 75 Corrupted Stamina (Green) to darken the areas been the scales, fingers and toes
Nazdreg Yellow on the arm and feet bangles plus the blocks on the Bows
Gore-Grunta Fur Contrast on the rope across the body and quiver
LSame on the spear armed Gecko's - used Nazdreg Yellow on their head dress
Next the Foxes
To keep them linked I painted the trousers and shirts the same for each model:
Aggaros Dunes contrast for the shirts and cloak, while the trousers were done in Skeleton Bone Contrast
Meanwhile I varied the Hoods, shirt tops and sash belt a different colour to represent different social castes in their society.
For the Spearmen it was Instant 75 Replenish Blue
Note: also painted all the metal parts GW Grey Knights Steel for a change than usual Leadbelcher or Iron Hand Steel
Next the Warriors and Assassins
Used a base of Instant 75 Spectral Wolf then darkened the recesses with Arcane Purple to give some depth
Finally the rural Fox folk, I went for a green
Starting with a coat of Instant 75 Belladonna Green then shadowed the recesses with Corrupted Green
Next will need to deepen the shadows on the cloaks and start working on the faces to give them some definition.
While walking round Salute, I came across a small stand with a banner 'Wyrd Games Miniatures' from USA, they were selling a new of metal miniatures for a new range and game called 'Malifaux'.
My attention was captured on a model 'Pandora Unboxed' which fitted exactly what I was looking for, so I bought it and painted it up but this time I spent a bit of time and effort doing a bit more than my normal
Adding shading, highlights and even a varnish (looking at it now probably would have been better to go with a matt version than the gloss one I used) plus grass tufts on the base!!!
Think this was the first time I'd actually spent hours and maybe a couple of weeks on just one model.
When I went to their website to see what other models they produced, I found that they had a whole skirmish level game on sale.
A number of other guys at the Beaconsfield club where also interested in it, so I decided to buy to starting crews.
- Arcanists with Rasputina
- Neverborn with Pandora
With such small sized crews (half a dozen models), I decided I would spend more effort on each model to make them look the best I could with my painting skill level (not just game ready)
So here is Rasputina and her December Crew
I attempted to get the feeling of winter into the look of the crew, getting the Ice Gamin and Ice Golem to look like they were made of ice, but also worked with using rocks and snow flock to get the bases to fit.
As to Pandora and her crew of Woes, I had a different challenge - how to make them scary.
Absolutely love the way Baby Kade and Candy came out, I spent so much time on such small models
Now I was hooked on a new game and found that I was interested in painting (in small numbers) to a new level of detail:)
]]>Got to TTR before registration and had a look round the nicely setup tables, themed and with enough scenery to make things interesting but not too difficult (only one table was actually taped up to the 3' x 6' play area which made judging being on the battlefield a bit difficult)
Ten gamers had signed up for the event but two dropped out at the last moment, not to bad eight attendees, mix of factions 3 Rebel armies, 3 Republic Clone armies and 2 Galactic Empire armies - no Separatist armies.
I was one of the Republic Clone armies, wanted to use it as I had spent the early part of Lock-down painting it up and had bought and painted up Yoda (the first two are from the new boxed set)
And all three together, the 3D printed version fits in perfectly
As to the rest of the army - 3 units of Phase 1 Clone Troopers, 1 unit of Arc Troopers, 1 BARC Speeder and 1 Saber Class Tank
As to the games
Round 1 - facing A Rebel List with the new transport and Speeder, what caught me out is how badass the new Operative Luke Skywalker is, tooled up he took on nearly all my force and wiped them out!
Even Yoda was just a minor speed bump to his rampage.
Sorry forgot to take any pictures - big loss to me (didn't need even count up the victory points)
Round 2 - facing another Rebel list with Operative Luke and Transport, started off good for me as I killed his sniper team and pathfinders in the first turn. Then Luke came charging across the table, I had one turn to stop him before he got to my lines, I shot everything I had at him but only managed two do 3 wounds, then he hit and took out Yoda with one swing of his light saber and then went to town on the rest of the Clones.
Unluckily we ran out of time for me to try and grab more objectives and I lost 2 v 1 victory points, so another loss to me
Round 3 - Galactic Empire led by Admiral Krennic and the Imperial Tank from Rogue One. Yay no Luke Skywalker to ruin my day. Game was played down the length of the table and my opponent castled up on the Outpost building.
Suited me fine and I finally got my act together and co-ordinated my attack and grabbed two objectives early then had some great shooting killing various imperial troops.
Then Yoda did a super jump onto the platform and killed his operative, while the BARC speeder on its last wound managed to contest the objective held by Krennic to give me another victory point, the score ended 3 v 1 for a Win to me :)
End of the tournament I managed to place 6th out of 8, great fun.
I definitely have a lot to learn about list building and synergies in Star Wars Legion, looking forward to more tournaments like this.
]]>Used Instant 75 Endurance Brown on the spear shafts and Bows
And on the weapons and arrow heads used Instant 75 Shadow Black
On the cloth skirts used GW Contrast Skeleton Horde
While on the Shields used GW Contrast Aggaros Dunes
After considering doing the Death Guard (could not come up with a suitable wash to give them their distinctive look), I decided to go for Worldeaters with their mix of white and blue colour scheme.
I raided my RTB01 collection of models, stripped them and undercoated in white primer and over the summer holidays painted up my Worldeaters under the command of Kharn.
Also used a number of original metal space marines that I had in my collection.
Looking at them now, I was still very basic in my painting efforts, tried black lining the armore joints, adding washes and painting on more detail, plus rudimentary basing detail.
I added more and more units to my growing Worldeater collection.
By the end of the run of campaign weekends - Forge World had started producing models for Horus Heresy and I was able to add a new version of Kharn to my collection.
This experience of 30K had instilled an interest in me to do more within this period and surprise - surprise
Forge World starting selling a whole range of new resin models for this period....
]]>Little bit concerned with attending such a large event (1000+ attendees) and as it turned out only a handful of people wearing masks - as if covid never existed!!
The main hall before the masses arrived - about 2/3rds of the tables where just for the WH40K tournament
Luckily us other games (Historical, Warmaster, KillTeams and Star Wars Legion) where situated on the mezzanine floor, just three tables deep
As to the MeG Open tournament, things did not go so good for me, managed 1 win and 4 losses - turns out my Ottoman Turks weren't that good at shooting and faired not much better in combat.
The only bright spot was a game against Early Republican Romans that could not hide behind their shields for the whole game.
Sorry not many pictures taken as I got so caught up in the games and a number of pics
May your dice roll skulls
So starting with undercoat of Grey Seer spray
I've add the first layer of base coat for the skin on the Gecko's (Instant 75 Belladonna Green and Contrast Plague Bearer Flesh) and the fur for the Kinsune Foxes (Instant 75 Frenzy Orange)
Some group photo's
]]>
A Teenage boy went into his local model shop and saw these new blister packs of models from a company called 'Citadel Miniatures'.
His grubby hands clutching tightly his first purchase of a 'Warrior of Chaos' and his first copy of 'White Dwarf', he broke open his Humbrol Enamel paints and dabbed on a few colours onto the mini
His thirst for more was awakened, next catch his eye was new genre of sci-fi - Space Marines, quick a Squad of these soldiers was built with copious amounts of glue and a frenzy of painting followed and what a marvel they were...
Looking back with older eyes, what was I thinking, hmm I wasn't it was what it was, as a group of teenagers in my gaming group were new to this activity and all our models were roughly painted, enough to get them on the kitchen table and have a game.
Years later, having gone off to University, found drink, girls and parties. Miniatures and painting took a backstage to life.
But never went far away, soon I was in employment and had a steady income and money to spend on more metal and plastic miniatures, more than I could ever paint in time to game with, still some models did get painted as much as I could quickly do.
Barely three colours and something on the base was all that was needed.
And so the collection grew with 'it will do' paint jobs at least now using Acrylic paints.
Chaos Space Marine of Khorne
Successor Space Marine Chapter
Imperial Guard Army
And so it continued for a decade or two.....
]]>Played Battleplan 'The Vice', James won the roll off and took the far right table side but deployed his formation back beyond the middle line
I decided to play my Gatekeeper up front to smash his shrine as soon as possible with its ability, with the rest of the army hanging back with the Objectives.
Turn one James moves up and only manages one model able to charge my Gatekeeper - which promptly squishes the beasty then follows up in my turn and destroys another unit of Khorne Warriors (but takes damage from their death throws)
Turn 2 - Objectives move inwards and we move forward to hold them, another unit of Khorne warriors take on the Gatekeeper and hurt him but are taken down to one single fearless model
SoB turn 2 - finds the Gatekeeper dropping a rock on the final Khorne Warrior and moving away as best he can as he has only 3 wounds (out of 35 left)
James again wins the initiative and sends his crazed warriors to kill off the Gatekeeper with ease.
SoB turn three sees the Krakeneater hunt down the vile creatures that killed his brother
Yet again James takes the initiative and sends his Blood Thrister in kill the Maneater unit, while moving up the rest of the army to claim the objectives on Turn 4, the Bloodthrister manages to kill one Maneater who fails on him for 1 wound, while the rest take a flew chunks out of him
SoB turn 4 sees the final Mega Gargant make it to combat plus hold the four objective (due to counting as 30 models to James's 2 models after combat, while the Krakeneater wades in and butchers another unit of Khorne warriors while the two maneaters finish off the Bloodthrister
Final I win the initiative and at this point we call the game, as I am holding the 4 objectives with the Mega Gargant and there is no way that James can realistically take 32 wounds off him with the models left to him with all the other damage my Krakeneater and Maneaters will do in the next fight phase - I'm up 9 VPs over James force
Sons of Behemoth are a hard army to crack, mission plays good for them as they can out hold the objectives compared to the smaller units the Blades of Khorne have.
Extremely good fun to finally play again and great to catch up with James after a long break.
Managed to work through a few more 3D printed Anthropomorphic miniatures plus a couple of Goliath Juves to support my Slave Ogryn Gang
Honey Badgers Militia Swordsmen
Raccoon Adventurers
Necromunda Goliath Juves
Halfling Militia Spearmen
Didn't realise when ordering that I'd selected 28mm scale prints would be so much bigger than the TTCombat 20mm scale Halflings!
Finally think I've worked out how to do eyes:)
]]>Gecko Warriors
Unfortunately the third model had lost it's tail:(
Then we have the Kitsume Foxes
Two with |Double handed Sword and three with dual daggers
Then we have a mixture of models
- Two City Guards with Spear and Shield
- One with Bow
- One with Staff
- finally one holding captured rabbit
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