+ PA for Great Victory! +

Since I don't want to work any more tonight, you get to hear about my latest 40k rampage! I was back in PA this weekend and followed up a fantasy tagteam - 2250 vamps + my 2000 nurgley-eshin vs 4250 warriors of chaos (we won, fellblade exploded Archaon in the final turn >:D) - with a tasty rematch ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Blood Angels [2000] - This would be the second battle against these guys, the first having gone pretty horribly for my dudes as the dice completely abandoned us (and I didn't put enough pressure on the death co), so vengeance was on everybody's mind. He had tweaked things a bit: jump chappy + 10 jump death company, 2x 10 assaulters w/ combat shield fist, 5 tacticals w/ plasmagun + fist in rhino, 5 assault termies in crusader, 10 devastators w/ 3 missile launchers, baal pred.

Game was 4 objectives, pitched battle deployment, he won The Roll and took it. He deployed devs in the tallest building on the board, baal in a ruin my far right, crusader center, death co / assaulters / assaulters spread across his frontline, rhino hiding for late game objective grab. I countered with dreads to the faaaar flanks, everybody else packed in and around a ruin and hill, with the defiler snuggled behind it and troops in easy reach of the 2 objectives on my side.

Blood Angels 1
The jumppackers all rushed forward, as did the crusader. Devs, baal, roboto-crusader guns did nothing that mattered. Great run rolls (6,4,6) put the assaulty marines right in my grill!

Chaos 1
Left dread (plasma) fire frenzied ... with no targets at all. Right stomped towards the baal across from him, 1k Sons mobilized to stand in front of their assault marines, everybody else locked and loaded. Defiler led it off by killing 8(!) death co in one blast, the blastmaster pinned the central assault marines, my two lascannons immobilized the crusader, and the 1k Sons tzapped 7 of 10 assault marines. I think my shooty CSM + deathscreamer splashed off the remaining death co + chappy, and the havoks triple-kraked the baal, stunning it.

The 1k Sons shuffled into the assault marine remnants and did painfully nothing, saving the wound from the fist.

Blood Angels 2
Things weren't looking so hot any more for the Bloody Angels of Blood. The termies got out of their ride and ran into my guns, and the death co remnants hoped forward hoping to assault into the shooty bunker ... but would fall short of the 5-6" they needed to make it. Devs immobilized the defiler and the crusader's assault cannon blew off his bcannon, making for a very sad demon engine.

In combat the 1k Sons fluffed again, losing a robot to the fist.

Chaos 2
Right dread blood raged towards the 1k Son / assault marine combat, and meanwhile everybody came down to play: terminators icon'd in and lined up the assault termies, and the girls icon'd down to take on the pinned assault marines. The biker lord moved up to assist the girls. The fisty CSM squad moved up to cook the termies, and the left dread lined up a plasma cannon shot on the 2 death co + chappy, which scattered off to land on nobody. The blastmaster likewise scattered off harmlessly, in a pretty packed area too! But the deathscreamer & friends opened up and managed to cook the death co off, leaving the chappy to eat a triple-krak from the havoks and fail his rosarius - BOOM, UPPERBODY-SHOT! The assault termies felt some heat too, losing 2 to combi-plasma, but didn't care about 2x flamers + some pistols.

Happy time would prove to be over though. The dread charged in and killed 1 assault marine with his 4 S10 attaks, managed to negate the fist out of his base, the 1k Sons failed as they do and the combat continued. In the middle the biker lord hammered into the assault marines, rolled the absolute least attaks he can manage without hurting himself (2 = only 6 total), and failed to wound with S5 (1,1,2,2,1 out of 5 hits). The girls hammered in 24 attaks for a total 2 dead marines. In return the fist popped the biker lord's head (ANGER) and a couple girls died. 4 or so held on. The fisty CSM charged the 3 assault termies (2 claw, 1 hammer) and lost a few marines for 1-2 enemy termies.

Blood Angels 3
Feeling no need to move, the loyalists opened fire. The devs began picking on my noise marines, the baal did likewise (heavy bolters only), and the crusader no doubt shot a lot of guns at the shooty CSM.

Combat time again. My dread pasted the marines and freed the 1k Sons up (sorc + 3 robots) at last. Irritatingly 1 lived against the assault marines in the center, protecting them from AP3 vengeance in my turn. And the assault termies were cleaned out, leaving just 3 members of the fisty CSM squad to consolidate to the objective right nearby.

Chaos 3
Left dread stomped and drew a bead on the devs in their building, right dread stomped for the baal's side armor, the 1k Sons moved for the right objective on his side of the board, the deathscreamer thought about mobilizing to help the demonette but decided to keep the bunker intact, and my terminators saw their opening to eat a land raider ... Shooting was largely template fire into the devs, which scattered off or was largely cover-saved. The baal absorbed a bunch of kraks, from the dread over there as well.

The terminators charged his immobilized crusader and the chainfist detonated it with ease. Which left a big open space in the board now. Oh, the demonette died.

Blood Angels 4
The rhino squad finally mobilized, driving for the objective the Sons were shuffling toward, and popping smoke. The assault marines hoped over onto the right objective on my side, peppering the fisty CSM remnants and killing 1 of the 3. The devs continued kraking the noise marines, reducing them to just 2 models (blastmaster / sonic blaster). The baal tickled the 1k Sons, downing a bot.

The assault marines' charge easily saw off the fisty CSM squad, and the 5 marines consolidated into the trees right next to the objective.

Chaos 4
I had to agree, it would be time to grab some objectives. The shooty CSM squad mobilized out of their bunker for the left objective on my side, the deathscreamer broke off to deal with the assault marines, the Sons reached the objective on his side (in a half-ruined building) and the noise marines and termies moved to charge the assault marines if needed. A lot of fire later (Deathscreamer:6) and the assault marines were so many bits. The right dread also charged the stationary baal and wrecked its face in. Oh, and 3 krak + 1 lascannon did nothing to the smoked rhino.

Blood Angels 5
The rhino squad hoped out, ready to rapidfire the Sons off the objective ... and managed to knock them down to just 1 robot, the sorcerer catching a round in the chest. Devs shot something.

Chaos 5
Shooty CSM gained the left objective, noise marines held the right one, and the single automaton had his right one, though moved behind a wall so as not to be charged. The termies ran for the rhino squad if there was going to be another turn ... And fire rained into the devs, to limited effect.

Blood Angels 6!
Devs did something. My turns may have gotten mixed up somehow, cause the tactical squad didn't move or anything (he may have forgotten? Time was running out before he had to leave for a party).

Chaos 6!
The devs were torn into, burning them off the table. Just the tactical squad remained, but the spiky boys could only shrug and covet their 3 shiny objectives.

CHAOS WIN

Painting: NurgleySkaven 2000
Building: N/A

+ Back to the Future +

Grad school powers on, though while I've been able to get in a game every week or so and a tiny bit of modeling time, it's been 100% Fantasy. Besides the fluff 40k is really not doing anything for me, new SM codex or not (might be part of the problem in fact!). BUT I do love my spiky marines, and since I was back in PA a couple weeks back, it was time for a throwdown.

Anarchonquistadores vs PSU Space Marines [2000] - I took the standard 2k "Walkers & Biker" list. He had libby (terminator, fear, stormshield) w/ 7? terminators (2x asscans), jump chappy w/ 9-10 assault marines (fist, flamers), elite inquisitor w/ shooty retinue (plas, 2 heavy b's, sages), 5 tactical (las), 8 tactical (plas / plascan), 2 tornados, 2 dreads (1 las/ml, 1 asscan), 5 scouts (snipers, ml), 10 sisters.

Game rolled up as 2 Objectives, Quarters deployment. I won The Roll and took it, stranding him in a quarter with just a hill and a ruin (his objective there), while mine had a bigger ruin (my objective there) and a smattering of 5+ cover wrecked ship pieces. Shooty CSM + havoks bunkered down on my objective with the defiler hulking half behind the ruin, other stuff pushed as close to the center and left quarter as possible - apparently I thought I was going to walk over and take his objective? With so little terrain on his side his shooty INQ + las tacticals went in the objective bunker, the plasma tac on the hill, sisters to the front and assault marine / chappy deathstar behind the hill. Dreads flanking, termies striking, scouts infiltrated their krak near enough to make my defiler sweat.

I think I got first turn? Frankly things are pretty hazy with this game, so just the briefest of run downs. The scouts were hammered off the board by the shooty CSM + havoks (nothing much else to shoot when playing corner to corner), I lost the missile dread early to his twin-las dread, the girls came down turn 2 and assaulted his sisters, fluffing pretty badly. The biker lord had charged in to assist, rolled the 1 to punch himself in the face, and was eviscerated (S6+2 for that act of faith) for his troubles.

On the upside he had hoped his assault star behind the sisters and was praying on 4+ cover saves to save him, but no luck there. A blistering amount of fire from me left just the chappy standing, who would charge the remnants of the fisty CSM (punished by his plasma squad) and be fisted by the now-lone champ. In an epic throwdown his asscan dread was charged by my plasma dread, and drunkenly poor rolling by my evil dread resulted in him being pulped by the loyalist a couple rounds later. Then the big blue & white dread charged the noise marines ... only to have his combat arm krak'd off! 6 (to hit), 6 (to glance), 5 (to destroy a weapon) for the win! And with that he was good and stuck.

Special commendation here for the defiler, who hit 5 times in a row, relentlessly smashing the shooty elements on his objective across the table. This left him late game with the las dread angling for targets in my left quarter, 2 tactical marines claiming his objective and the INQ hiding underneath as well, the asscan dread locked in combat, and the terminators finally showing up automatically in Turn 5, dropping as near to my objective as they dared. The libby tried to fear of the darkness some spiky marines off the table, but IoCU kept everybody happy. Return fire cooked the terminator-star down to the libby + 4 termies? Which was then charged by the defiler who had fleeted over and the deathscreamer, resulting in dead terminators and the libby making a run for it. The defiler ran over and squished him in Turn 7.

End result went down to victory points, and I think I had pulled off a ...

CHAOS WIN

... though perhaps it was a draw after all?

All the same, was nice to get the boys out again, though 40k still isn't as exciting for me as fantasy right now. There's a 1500 40k tournament being hosted at my school in Nov and people expect me to show up (not too many 40kers in the area I suppose :P), so I just might, hardly-mobile CSM army and all.

Building: Nurgley Skaven 2250
Painting: Nurgley Skaven 2250?