+ MEQ SMEQ: MOAR FIGHTING +

The sisters got a break last night as some upstart Ultramarines stepped up to the plate in their place. Previous to this game I had run my Noise Fleet against his orks in BFG, and had met with success after powering almost the entirety of my fleet across his prows, locked on and lances blazing for great devastation. Would Evil Team have a repeat performance in 28mm GrimDark??

Anarchonquistadores vs Ultramarines [1000]

I took a 98% painted force (only the pfister unpainted), which unfortunately meant I had no rhinos, so was back in 4th edition:

Lord - MoT, powerfist, combi-flamer
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plas, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon
6 1k Sons - AS w/ doombolt
Oblit

He brought the expanded version of his AoBR marines:

Librarian - terminator armor
5 Terminators - assault cannon
10 Tactical - missile launcher, meltagun, powerfist; rhino
10 Tactical - missile launcher, flamer, homer
5 Scouts - bp + ccw, homer
5 Assault - flamer, power weapon, melta bombs

Game: 2 objectives, pitched battle

The table was essentially a large ruin center-left, and two smaller ruins to the right of center, one in each of our zones. Some woods in the corners and such as well. I placed an objective in the southern edge of the ruin, and he put one in the northeast corner. So we'd be fighting in the ruin then ...

Chaos won The Roll and I took it, putting flamer CSM + lord ready to push into the ruin and claim my objective, with the shooty CSM in the ruin to the right to provide some ranged support on the second objective and intercept his various deepstrikers. The oblit hung out with them on the flank, and the 1k Sons limbered up for a speed-hobble onto the second objective. In response Ultras deployed the rhino with 10 tactical pointed at the ruin, combat squaded the other unit and deployed flamer half in the wood northwest corner and missile half behind the rhino, and the scouts infiltrated into the wood southwest behind the main ruin and in my DZ. Termies & assaulters were in orbit.

I'll note now that it's silly I don't bring along my camera and snap at least a deployment shot, especially as I'm playing with so many painted things of late. Bah.

ONE
Flamer CSM push up into the main ruin and nab an objective, 1k Sons hoof it for the second objective, shooty CSM move to the edge of their ruin closer to the action and the oblit walks to get a shot on the rhino. With all the running he forgot to take it.

Ultras respond with a similarly quiet turn. Scouts sneak a little closer through the woods, flamer marines mobilize for the ruin (they've got a bit of walking to do though), and the rhino boosts to pull up alongside the ruin section with the second objective. This exposes his missile marines, who slam the flamer CSM with a frag that does nothing.

TWO
Chaos smells blood! The evil termies teleport down and go for the missile marines, scattering a hearty 7" but staying easily within plasma range. The Sons, joined by the fistlord, stumble up through the ruins and near the rhino, knowing they'll be rapid fired and/or charged next turn unless somebody can pin that thing. To that end the autocannon (glances off the 'bolter), CSM lascannon (cover saved) and oblit (missed) all fail to open it up. The termies follow that up by only killing 2 marines despite 5 hits, but the squad breaks and leaves the table.

So do the blue boys! The assault marines drop down but scatter onto the flamer CSM, returning to orbit with a 6 mishap. The scouts stay where they are, the flamer marines continue moving into position and the rhino drives 6" into the ruin proper and dumps its marines to give the Sons + Lord hell. A rapid firing later and 2 robots drop, as well as the sorcerer, who catches a boltround in the fancy hat. The marines have driven into chaos' teeth though, so revenge will be swift.

THREE
Realizing they should get moving if they're going to get to that second objective, the shooty CSM mobilize and start running. Oblit takes a walk (but effectively has 0 targets now, ruins blocking LoS), and the fistlord takes control of the 1k Sons (MoT ftw!) and gets ready to hurt the blue lapdogs. With a dozen plus rounds from the flamer CSM, Mr. Fister and friends reduce the tacticals to 3 models, which are assaulted my the Sons and all killed by the lord. Elsewhere, the terminators run back into the game, chasing for the five Ultras with flamer ...

The assault marines continue to cower in their thunderhawk, but the librarian + terminators hit the table, homering in off of the flamer marines and close to the second objective. With the help of the flamer marines they down the remaining Sons and leave the fistlord on his own, but thoroughly undaunted. Neither scouts nor rhino move.

FOUR
Time for fighting! The fistlord throws himself into the flamer marine combat squad, the evil termies slam into their blue counterparts, and the flamer CSM pounce on the rhino parked in front of them and threatening to contest objectives. (Shooty CSM power for the second objective and start mounting the steps to the ruins, while the oblit takes a walk and does a lot of nothing.) The flamer CSM strike first, raining krak down upon the blue rhino and detonating its fuel tanks, losing three (!!!) marines in the explosion. The fistlord follows that up by brushing off the tacticals' attaks and killing the four marines that were left (1 had died somehow, maybe obliterated), massacring a strong 6" back into the flamer CSM squad. The termies faired less awesomely, losing 2 for the price of 1 termi (should have put it on the libby, but didn't for some reason), but held.

Assault marines return to the field, dropping and sticking near the shooty CSM but failing to flamer or bolt pistol any of them down. The scouts move up to the windows of the center ruin and make faces at the chaos marines ... And the Ultra terminator sarge chops down the chainfister before he can strike.

FIVE
With the clock running out, the chaos boys up the aggression factor to end this thing. The fistlord solos again and hurls himself through the windows of the ruin, ignoring the attaks of the weakling scouts but only downing a couple, and they hold. The flamer CSM, still smoking from the rhino explosion, descend upon the assault marines and flame, shoot and bludgeon them to death, consolidating back onto their objective. And the shooty CSM, with strong move and assault rolls, boost through the ruins near the central objective and tackle the librarian + 3 terminators (1 having been sniped by the oblit as the CSM closed in). Combat leaves the libby with just 1 terminator bodyguard, for perhaps a dead traitor marine.

Just a little grinding this turn. The fistlord slaps away scout combat knives and then cleans the squad up, massacring back through the ruins of the ruin and headed for that librarian ... Who turns it on for once and kills two CSM. The CSM are able to drag the last terminator down, but lose by 1 and hold.

SIX
Carnage continues, with just 1 Ultra left on the board. The fistlord slams into the librarian, who reacts faster and stabs his force sword into the traitor general. Tzeentch smiles on his blood-soaked champion and saves the wound, and the fistlord returns the favor by instant deathing the loyalist.

CHAOS WIN

A fun game, with a 1000 point list I quite like. The lack of mobility would certainly have hurt in a multi-objective game or against a faster or more ranged army, but this "A Taste of Tizz" list definitely got the job done. I suppose 1k Sons surviving to turn 3 was actually better than usual too :P A+ to the fistlord though, cleaned out 3 of 4 scoring units essentially by himself!

Building: Nurglings
Painting: Oblit 2?

+ MORE SISTER SLAPPING! +

Laid the smack down on those gluttons for punishment Sisters yesterday, in a game in which my dice were notably quite kind overall, with not too many crazy things happening either way. Just lots and lots of 3+ to hit & wound ftw ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1500]

I actually ran my pure undivided list, which I'd like to make my go to 1500 point list for random pick up games, as it has models I like and the undivided theme is really satisfying (to me anyway):

Lord - MoU, daemon weapon, bike, melta bombs, icon
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasma, 2 powerfists, 1 chainfist
10 CSM - IoCU, 2 meltaguns, AC w/ powerfist; rhino w/ armor
9 CSM - IoCU, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer; rhino w/ armor
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon, melta bombs
10 Demons
6 Havoks - IoCU, 3 missile launchers
Oblit
Oblit

He brought a pretty solid 1500 pointer, but again with some fun units that it's nice to see used (at all, but especially @ 1.5k):

Cannoness - MC eviscerator, jump pack, mantle, litanies, book
5 Dominions - 4 stormbolters, VSS w/ power weapon, meltas; priest w/ power weapon, meltas; immolator w/ MM, armor, smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ armor, smoke
10 Sisters - meltagun, heavy flamer, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino w/ armor, smoke
15 Sisters - meltagun, flamer, VSS w/ eviscerator
5 Seraphim - 2 inferno pistols, VSS w/ power weapon, meltas?
Exorcist - smoke
Penitent

Game: KP, Table Quarters

He went first, but partially due to his penitent raging fast right through the enormous ruin that dominated the center of the table, he decided to engage my cluster of forces board center instead of I guess picking a flank and cracking it. I was able to bring a withering amount of firepower and then combat attaks into play, as he had moved within my boys' reach and would not be able to escape. He conceded turn 4 or so, with the jump canny, the exorcist and 2 fleeing seraphim left, along with a couple immobilized vehicles.

CHAOS WIN

More unit-by-unit for evil team:

Biker Lord - In all the games were this guy has faced sisters he's been instrumental in causing his own death through 1's and being a solo-charging idiot. This time I attached him to the shooty CSM squad (bikers can attach to infantry, right? Just move slow?) and lent bolt rounds, until the unit slammed 10 sisters and the demofist exploded 4 of them with a conservative 2 rolled for his angry gauntlet. So ... he didn't kill himself and got to punch somebody!

Termies - Dropped early, threw plasma into 10 sisters (no SotM) and killed 2 girls + 1 terminator on overheat. Another powerfist dropped to a meltagun, and the chainfister decapitated an eviscerator VSS as she likewise gutted him. So 3 girls for 150 points? Eh, suppose I could have hung back a bit instead of dropping up the guts.

Melta CSM - Rhino was exorcised first turn, but as the game went down center table that mattered less. Melta'd the penitent and stunned the immolator before game was called.

Flamer CSM - Thanks to their rhino smashing through the central ruin and surviving return fire, these boys got up and stuck in damn fast. Flamed and mauled the foot sister squad, then weathered an impressive round of guided dominion fire before holding the combined charge of dominions + priest + jump canny. With the help of the demons counter-charging next turn, they would kill the unit and priest, getting ready to pummel the canny into submission had the game continued.

Shooty CSM - Failed to drop the AV11 penitent (rolled 4 10's for auto & plasma pens), took some damage from rapid firing girls, then combined with the biker lord to kill those 10 sisters.

Demons - As above, helped the flamer CSM trash the dominions.

Havoks - Continued to be idiots. Deployed hard left flank to throw krak through the sister motorpool, but triple krak couldn't get through a cover-saving rhino first turn. Second turn threw 3 more into a rhino in the open, but couldn't manage the 3+ needed. Seraphim predictably came down to harass them and killed the meatshield marines, so the havoks hit them with 2 of 3 frag templates - 0 died from 10 hits. Lame.

Oblits - One detonated a rhino he was 3" from, the other slapped a plasma template on the seraphim after the frags failed, and killed 3 of 5, sending them running. Works for me.

I'm contemplating putting the defiler back in to replace the lackluster havoks. My defiler usually gets 1 shot, scores a hit, obliterates a unit utterly, then is killed in return. With the havoks, I get to have more undivided marines on the table, and they're technically harder to kill. Just, also idiots, and the defiler can at least fight in combat a bit. I suppose I would probably reserve the defiler every game, unless I were going first and had a hot shot first turn.

Other news, not playing in that tournament after all. A good friend is up from Richmond, so we'll be shooting pool, seeing horror movies and maybe playing fantasy instead!

Painting: Oblit
Building: N/A

+ INCOMING TOURNAMENT +

Took a week off of 40k last week to get some fantasy games in with my Warriors of Tzeentch - marginal victory vs undivided warriors, close draw vs brets (and wow are brets unreal with those wards + CR that they have going on). Pretty sure I'll be using my Wednesday night gaming this week to paint obliterator #2 ... because Saturday is a local team tourney! Two 1250 points armies team up for three 4-player, 2500 point bashfests in one day. I really am looking forward to it, and looking forward to playing it fast and keeping it light - I figure me and my sisters buddy will run up against at least one disgusting WAAC team, but so be it.

My half of the 2500:

Chaos Lord - MoT, deathscreamer, melta bombs
3 Terminators - IoCU, 3 combi-plasma, 2 powerfists, AC w/ chainfist
10 CSM - IoCU, lascannon, flamer, AC w/ powerfist, combi-flamer
10 CSM - IoCU, autocannon, plasma gun, AC w/ power weapon, melta bombs
6 Noise Marines - blastmaster, icon
13 Lesser Demons
Obliterator
Obliterator
-----------
1249 / 8 KP

We decided we should go 100% painted, which means no transports for me, but I really like the list. Lot of plasma going on too, which should help out with at least the deathguard army I know will be there (teamed up with Tau!) ... Our armies should look pretty cool on the table too, with my dark dark dark marines plus his white armored nuns.

Stay tuned for carnage!

Painting: Oblit #2

+ NUN-BASHING KONTINUES +

Figured I'd finally toss up something about my game last Wednesday. Another throwdown with the Sisters, this time testing another of the GT missions, "Suicide Squad." If I can find a comp with Adobe Acrobat I'll post up the missions, I enjoyed the two more extreme ones we played so far ...

Anarchonquistadores vs Sisters [1850]

His list had solidified a bit more, but was essentially the same:

Cannoness - MC blessed weapon, book, auto-pass faith thing
Cannoness - MC eviscerator, jump pack, 2+ armor, mantle
Priest - melta bombs?
5 Dominions - 4 storm bolters, VSS w/ power weapon; immolator w/ MM
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino
10 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator; rhino
15 Sisters - heavy flamer, meltagun, VSS w/ eviscerator
6 Seraphim - 2x flamers, VSS w/ power weapon, melta bombs
6 Seraphim - 2x inferno pistols, VSS w/ melta bombs?
Exorcist
Penitent
Penitent

Deployment: Diagonals
Primary: Suicide Squad lives and enemy's dies (20) or both die (10)
Secondary: Most KP
Tertiary: More scoring units (or just units?) in the enemy zone at game end

Suicide Squad was a troop choice, and gained Fearless and 1 buff (+1 BS, WS, S, or relentless). He chose his big foot squad, which the foot cannoness joined, and I chose my shooty CSM squad, which the deathscreamer joined. We both chose +1BS for our squads (though relentless was tempting to get a walking autocannon, and more bolter/plasma range).

Sisters went first, and first turn nightfight probably only helped him out. Chaos retaliation was really ganked by my lads' inability to see through the gloom, though I had a LOT of fire all in range of the only target I needed to kill - the penitent storming towards my suicide squad! Everything failed, and the penitent would spend turns grinding the squad down to 3 CSM + the screamer, as all that krak + 1 melta bomb couldn't stop the 80-or-less point thing. It was only the timely intervention of an obliterator (who took 2 turns to stumble into a combat 8" away!) that crumped the engine. My suiciders spent the remaining turns running away from any sisters who might take them out - they ended the game with 2 marines + the screamer with 2 wounds.

At that point the Sisters didn't have too many options left, and were in fact tabled in turn 6. The flamer CSM in their rhino and slammed through some woods to get at the enemy suicide squad, summoning demons down turn 2 within assault range of the chicks. The demons would beat the nuns for a huge number of turns, eventually killing the squad and only being taken down by the cannoness and a countercharge by the dominions. It helped that the flamer CSM took out 7 sisters with their flamers before the demons charged ... though the CSM were in turn burnt to a single marine (who lived on at game end!) by 1 sister squad + the dominions with stormbolters. Also a nice touch was the oblit (who would crump the engine) tagging the exorcist across the board, through extreme cover, and one-shoting it turn 2. Nice job robot.

So beyond the mayhem of the crowded SW corner of the board, the NE corner saw the dreadtasm facing off against a rhino sister squad and the exorcist cannoness. Overall the dreads behaved fairly well, with 1 first turn fire frenzy shaking a dread and a blood rage later on being simply redundant (the dread was 2" from the sisters cowering in their rhino's crater). And then a humorous fire frenzy late game, when the two surviving dreads - both now missing their combat weapons and immobilized - having (literally in the end!) stomped a rhino, 10 sisters (1 with eviscerator) and the eviscerator canny into pulp, then flipped out and tried shooting each other point blanc. My trend of HUGE scatters continued though, and no more inter-dread violence occurred. (The other dread, by the by, was easily dispatched by the 2+ inv saving mantle clad canny earlier).

Anyway it came down to a

CHAOS WIN

with the primary and secondary, and I suppose an extra BP or two. Good game that really wasn't looking my way during the first few turns, but started to crumble as my dice heated up and his amazing rolls started to fade.

This week I'm playing some fantasy with my new warriors of tzeentch army, though there might be a 1500 pointer 40k match beforehand if I can get things moving early enough. Stay tuned.

Painting: N/A
Building: N/A
Priming: Warriors of Tzeentch!