Oct 31, 2013

When you run out of glue...

So I got my hands on a Wraithknight. The base has to be something special right? So I had just built a Daemon Prince and had some extra bits left over... and then I ran out of glue. Ahwell. A good start at least!

My gang of big guys is starting to look pretty nice... but I do hope the rumours about new Greater Daemons is true... my Keeper of Secrets is starting to look very small in this company...

Oct 24, 2013

2v2: Necrons and Blood Angels vs Imperial (Traitor) Guard and Black Legion

So, time for some 2v2 action! Not much thinking went into my list, I basically just wanted to try out the Black Legion supplement. So I went for Chosen troops, going elite all around. Even adding some extra Power weapons, hoping to get them into the assault and take advantage of those 2A base and also getting a chance to use the Dark Vengeance models as they look... And for that reason I also brought Rhinos to ride around in. And after that there wasn't much points to play around with! So I decided to continue the expensive theme and added a Daemon Prince and Decimator...

Knowing I'm playing together with IG I'm counting on them to bring anti-air and manpower... I'll try to go against the Blood Angels myself, trying to take advantage of my Hatred that I had to pay for anyway. We'll see how it goes, but with such a compact force it should be easy to concentrate the attack at least...


Lists


Black Legion

HQ
Chaos Lord - Gift of Mutation, Veterans of the Long War, Sigil of Corruption, Melta Bombs, Spineshiver Sword
Daemon Prince - Daemon of Slaanesh, Wings, Mastery Level 3, Spell Familiar, Gift of Mutation

Troops
7 Chosen - Veterans of the Long War, 2 Meltaguns, Pair of Lightning Claws, Champion w- Power Axe
+Rhino - Havoc Launcher, Dirge Caster
7 Chosen - Veterans of the Long War, 2 Meltaguns, Power Axe, Champion w- Power Maul
+Rhino - Havoc Launcher, Dirge Caster 
5 Chaos Space Marines - Veterans of the Long War, Plasma Gun
+Rhino - Havoc Launcher, Dirge Caster 

Elites
Decimator - Butcher Cannon, Siege Claw and Heavy Flamer


IG

HQ 
Company command squad - Regimental standard, Vox caster, 2 flamers, Carapace armour 

Troops 
10 Veterans - 2 plasma
+Chimera
10 Veterans - 2 plasma
+Chimer
Platoon Command squad - Vox caster, Platoon standard, 2 flamers 
10 Guardsmen - 1 Flamer 
10 Guardsmen - 1 Flamer 
10 Guardsmen
6 Special weapons squad - 3 Flamers 
6 Special weapons squad - 3 Flamers 

Fast Attack 
Vendetta 

Heavy Support
Leman Russ - camo netting 
Leman Russ - camo netting 

Fortifications 
Aegis Defence Line + Quad Gun


BA
Dante
Sanguinary Guard - Deathmasks, Chapter Banner
5 Death Company
10 Assault Marines
2 Baal Predators

N
Overlord
Royal Court - 2 Lords
5 Immortals
6 Warriors
Nightscythe
7 Warriors
Nightscythe
3 Wraiths 
8 Scarabs
Annihilation Barge


Pre

Emperor's Will, Hammer and Anvil. Both scoring Warlords. Move Through Cover (Ruins) + Fear. Iron Arm, Puppet Master, Slaanesh nerf. No gift for Lord, Crusader for DP.
Won roll off to chose sides. Lost to go first, but they gave us first turn to be able to counter deploy. Didn't steal. Night Fight turn 1. Baals scouted forward. Sanguinary Guard+Dante started in reserve.

Sanguinary Guard in reserve. Our Objective among the IG-blob, theirs in the bunker at the top left.


CSM + IG T1

Sorry for switching sides...

Objective turned out to be sabotaged.
Moved forward with Rhinos + Chimeras, supported by Decimator. One Rhino took the other flank... and immobilised itself on the terrain. Iron Arm'd Daemon Prince flew up and cast Puppet Master on one of the Baals, flaming some Scarabs. Inefficient IG-shooting due to Night Fight.


BA + N T1

Objective turned out to be sabotaged as well.
Baals continued forwards. Scarabs and Wraiths followed on the same flank. The other flank had Assault Marines and Death Company move up towards the Rhinos, preparing for a charge once the Chosen got out. Immortals and Overlord followed behind them.
Annihilation Barge and Immortals tried their luck against the Daemon Prince, but he just shrugged it off.


CSM + IG T2
Another Rhino immobilised itself on terrain... so I decided to get out and shoot instead. Supported by Havoc Launchers. Half of the Assault Marines died, and one Death Company. Decimator tried to charge Assault Marines, but failed. Daemon Prince Puppet Master'd Annihilation Barge and killed a Assault Marine, then the DP charged it and caused it to shoot Snap Shots next turn and more importantly got rid of Living Metal.
On the other flank the Vendetta came on. Combined shooting with the Leman Russes killed the front Baal. Chosen got out of their Immobilised Rhino and melta'd the other Baal. First and Second Blood, no surprises there! Those Baals are too scary to keep around for much longer!


BA + N T2


One Night Scythe came in, and the Sanguinary Guard. Dante found a tiny spot behind the huge IG-blob which was just enough to Deep Strike into. Lots of Guardsmen died to the inferno pistols.
Assault Marines charged normal CSM and Death Company charged Chosen with Lord (who got shot at by the Nightscythe first, killing a couple). My CSM Champion won the Challenge, but the fight was a stalemate. My Lord had nothing to Challenge and I thought his Power Weapon would cut through the unit... but instead he just killed one. But the Lightning Claws and finally Power Axe took care of the remaining three (but not without loosing 3 Chosen in the process).
Wraiths charged Chosen on the other side. Lots of attacks from the Chosen who piled in and was thus not affected by the coils... and amazingly killed two of the wounded Wraiths off. The remaining Wraith being Fearless stayed in combat however.
The Necron Overlord and his retinue of Immortals decided to charge the Daemon Prince. Turned out to be a bad move. I passed MSS, killed three Immortals and the rest fled... and try to run away from I9+D6+D3 (for Crusader). The Overlord also failed to come back - so Slay the Warlord!


CSM + IG T3


The one remaining Chosen with the Lord and the Decimator went to help the CSM locked in combat with the Assault Marines... the Lord killed all four with his 6 extra attacks for Daemon Weapon. That's more like it. Suddenly it was very empty on this side of the board and the Chimeras drove up to capture the enemy objective.
The IG used First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire! against Dante of course... killed all but Dante and one Sanguinary Guard. One Rhino managed to repair itself, the other failed. The third one killed off another base of Scarabs (48" range is nice!). The Vendetta killed the Annihilation Barge in front of the Daemon Prince, stealing my glory.
The lone Wraith held another round against the Chosen, but took some wounds.


BA + N T3


The second Nightscyhte came on, and it decided to take a route on the far side of their own objective planning to come back in a later turn.
The other Nightscyhte moved up towards our Objective and let out their Warriors who took a Hull Point off one of the Leman Russes.
Dante and his buddy in a daring move jumped over the large IG blob, aiming for the combined Command Squad... wanting to atleast take an enemy Warlord with him. And at this point we also realised we had forgot about Dantes ability to nerf an enemy character... and since the IG Commander was the only one who hadn't been in any fights yet it had to be him. The charge was successful, but the last Sanguinary Guard fell to Overwatch. In an attempt to limit Dante he was challenged by the Commander... in retrospect it'd been smarter to use the Sergeant that was also around... but that wouldn't have been as epic. Of course Dante cut him down. The squad failed morale... but Company Banner saved them with the re-roll.
...and the Scarabs charged a Leman Russ... exploding it easy. Which killed enough Guardsmen to cause a morale test... which he failed. Despite the re-roll. Gah! Some 30 Guardsmen ran off the table... because of 4 bases of Scarabs. Unbelievable. 
The Chosen killed off the last Wraith.


CSM + IG T4



At this point the Scarabs somehow held the Quadgun... So the Daemon Prince used Puppet Master on the Nightscythe and killed the Quadgun. The Arc killed a couple of Guardsmen as well as Scarabs... Of course we blame it on the Necrons. It was their guns after all. Flamers took care of all but one base of Scarabs.
In the middle I was a bit at loss at what to do with my stuff, so they simply decided to move towards the closer objective which was in the enemy deployment zone. Being well aware of the fact that the newly arrived Nightscythe could easily drop off troops anywhere on the board... Speaking of which, something shot it (I don't remember what, I think the Decimator?) and Locked it's Velocity.
The Vendetta flew off the board as it didn't have any targets. Dante killed two Guardsmen... who failed their Leadership... and then passed on the re-roll again.


BA + N T4

The Velocity locked Nightscythe flew off the board, the other one turned around to start shooting at the stuff at their home objective.
The lone scarab charged the Leman Russ... caused two glances which was enough to Wreck it... of course. No explosion this time at least.
Warriors shot at Chosen, killing all but three who failed their morale... Dante killed another two Guardsmen, who failed morale and passed on re-roll...


CSM + IG T5

We consolidated on the enemy objective... but forgot to disembark the IG Veterans... so could've been bad had the game ended here.
Chosen regrouped, shot at Warriors and killed one. IG Flamers went up and finished off those troublesome Scarabs. Vendetta came in and shot down the Nightscythe that was still on the board.
Dante killed another two Guardsmen and... yeah, you guessed it. They pass on re-roll.


BA + N T5



Nightscythe comes back on and drops Warriors on top of their own objective. They unload Rapid Fire Gauss on the Chosen, kills him and puts a wound on the Lord. The Nightscythe kills all but one CSM from the squad behind.
Dante kills two Guardsmen and they pass their morale on the first attempt this time! Woot!

The game continues, luckily for us - since the fail to unload Veterans could've cost us dearly here.


CSM + IG T6

Daemon Prince Puppet Masters the Nightscythe and kills 2 Warriors and 3 IG Veterans who had just unloaded (again we blame the Necrons of course!). The Vendetta comes on and shoots down the other Nightscyhte... who crashes on top of the objective killing a couple of IG as well as Warriors. The Veterans unload their Rapid Fire and kills the rest of the Warriors and Lord... who doesn't pass his Everliving save.
Chosen on the other side of the board moves up and shoots Warriors and drops another one. Flamers tries to grab the objective.
Dante kills another two Guardsmen... and finally they fail their morale and gets swept. Dante consolidates towards the objective... remember, he's Scoring thanks to Warlord trait.


BA + N T6

Dante jumps over the Flamers to grab the Objective, the Necron Warriors shoot the Flamers off the board.

The Objective on the CSM+IG side

The Objective on the BA+N side



At this point we have one objective each, Linebreaker, and one Slay the Warlord each. CSM+IG also has First Blood. Does the game end? It does not.


CSM + IG T7

Vendetta goes down into hover mode and shoots it's three Lascannons at Dante... But his Iron Halo saves it like a boss.
I decide to charge the Chosen into the Necron Warriors, judging their chances to kill them and consolidate close enough to contest Dantes objective larger than trying to roll a 6 on Difficult (and Dangerous) Terrain (the Leman Russ wreck) and then run... and it would've worked nicely if it wasn't for Champion of Chaos forcing me to Challenge the Lord... I still win the Challenge despite Mind Shackle Scarabs (and is turned into a Spawn for the trouble) but all those high S AP4 (Power Maul) attacks that could've chewed up the entire squad is wasted... ahwell.


BA + N T7

The only thing that happens here is the one remaining Chosen locked in combat with 4 Necron Warriors... now... had my Champion not been turned into a Spawn... Anyhow. My guy kills a Warriors and takes no wounds, but the Warriors stay. Last turn, the game ends!

CSM + IG win with First Blood! 6-5 (One Objective, Linebreaker, Slay the Warlord)


Lessons learnt

Champion of Chaos is getting really frustrating to be honest. So close to screwing us over! All though we had the advantage anyway, it's still such a frustrating rule.
Anyhow, this was a game of two faces. We totally dominated the first half of the game, which I guess has a lot to do with the fact that our opponents had quite a significant part of their forces in reserve. Our plan to run up on mainly one flank worked out really well also - as they spread out their stuff pretty much. When we saw this we should probably have pulled back at least one of the Chimeras with Veterans to the other side I think. As it were we completely overwhelmed my flank. Turns out Chosen are pretty tough dudes. They're still very expensive though, so I wouldn't call them competitive. But given the right targets (Space Marines! Hatred is very nice to have) they'll chew through most stuff in combat. They really have a lot of attacks so even without special weapons they're deadly.
My Daemon Prince rolled absolutely perfectly for Powers. Couldn't have asked for better really. Iron Arm made him safe all game and Puppet Master gave him some range so he was part of the battle all the time despite being far from the action in the second half of the game. Also fun to have an excuse for killing my allies...
I was kind of occupied on my side of the board... but in the future make sure Scarabs die if you have armour. Do not let them cross the board... ever. I thought it'd be enough to whittle them down a bit... but they have so many attacks per base it doesn't really matter. You have to kill them all. Four bases almost turned the game...
Also, I need to be more careful in the deployment. Since I helped with setting up the IG troopers, and I was eager to start the game I put them up quickly. Didn't cross my mind that we had Dante on the other side with no-scatter-Deep-strike. Don't leave a hole behind your lines. That move combined with the lucky Scarabs made this game a lot closer than it should've been after that start.
Also, I see why Nightscyhtes are considered so damn good. Having Troops appear out of nowhere is really powerful. Make sure to anticipate your opponent when playing against them. Move where you think he will drop his Troops. Don't try to chase after him. Be prepared.
I also quite enjoyed having Havoc Launchers on the Rhinos. Really nice to just chip away at stuff when you all ready have the Rhinos anyway. Really nice upgrade! Sadly the Dirge Casters had no impact what so ever in this game... but ohwell.

Anyhow, really fun with a 2v2 game for a change. They have some different dynamics, and weird situations. Hopefully more of those in the future!

Oct 11, 2013

A bit of a showcase

Long time no post... again. And no game this time! I'm actually soon at 400 painted models (model no 400 will be a Daemon Prince, it's work in progress). So I thought this would be a good time to put some pictures on some of my own favourite models online. Hope you enjoy!

Let's start with my Chaos Lord since CSM is my main army. I painted this guy before Dark Vengeance was released... and had chosen turquoise as my complementary colour for my Black Legion before that... and to my surprise GW did the same thing! Bah! Stealing my originality! :P

Let's go on with some more CSM stuff.

My first attempt at lightning effects. This Berzerker Champion rarely sees battle... but at least his sword looks shiny!

One night when I couldn't sleep I made this one... out of paper and various bits. It's even magnetised, since when I made it your "mark" was decided by the banner so I thought I could make different ones! Then the new codex hit and nothing more came of that... :P

Because freehand shoulder pads and Daemonic weapons are fun.

 
Much like my Berzerker Champion Khârn doesn't get to fight much... but I love the model. Hard to believe it was sculpted over 20 years ago. I tried to make his skin quite red, as if his blood is boiling. Quite happy with the result.

I totally love this model. But everything is metal on him, which makes him a bit tricky to paint. I tried to use various different tones on all the metal bits to have some variety at least... and the blue wash didn't turn out well at all on picture... but ah well.

On to some Daemon perhaps?

This is probably my favourite GW model of all time. I just love the head and horns of it. It was so easy to paint really, because the sculpt is so good you could kind of do pretty much anything...

I wish they would re-make these ones in plastic... best Daemon-troops by far! I only have ten of these old sculpts, so I took the time to make the Slaanesh-symbol on their loinclothes to add some extra detail.

Picked this model up from Coolminiornot just because I liked it. Then I started playing Daemons, and thought this would be a very good Herald of Slaanesh... I decided to make her more purple than my other Slaanesh-stuff because I wanted her to stand out a bit more, even if the large base does that. 

Now, let's look at some random models I've painted over the years...

When I started this hobby some ten years ago I played Fantasy (6:th edition). After the starter box I went for a Night Goblin army (I have some 150 of the little buggers. Undefeated too!). This was my first really big model as well as conversion. Perhaps not up to the same standard I can do today, but I still really like it. I even sculpted the shield myself!

Even if I started the hobby ten years ago I've not been active for all that time... I actually had a break for seven years. This is the second model I painted after the break (the first one was a random Goblin I had laying around). Such an awesome pose. I also had a very limited palette back then as all my paints had dried out, so did a lot of colour mixing here. I really like the cold blue tone the cape got for example.

And this was the third model after the break... Heinrich has always been one of my favourite Fantasy models. So when I got back to painting he had to be one of the models I made. I tried to make his skin look really old, while his coat should be fleshy and fresh. Pleased with the effect!

Wood Elves has always been one of the coolest looking armies in my opinion (looking forwards to the new models that are on the horizon according to the rumours!. This one I spend a lot of time with the face and hair. The lips are even red, and the eyes are blue. Probably one of the best faces I've ever painted.

 Another elf, and another of my better faces! Went for very natural colours for this one, and for contrast I made him albino.

I like painting green. I mean, I have all those Goblins, so I have some practice at it... this one I took extra care to make him look battle damaged. I like how the paint looks chipped away and old on the shoulder pads.

Snikrot is one of the coolest Orks around. Made an experiment with the skin tone here... it's some five or six layers, starting with brown and gradually mixing in more and more green. He looks way more leathery than my other Orks, and considering his age, that's appropriate!

And finally, another Champion of Chaos. Loved this model when it came, painted it some 8 years later. Again, as a Champion of Khorne he's constantly angry and boiling blood... so a red skin tone felt right.


So, there you have it! Some of my favourite models I've painted over the years! Hope you liked! Stay tuned for model number 400... taking my time with it, hoping it'll really stand out...